a/n - This is a follow-up to Comparative Xenobiology, but it should stand alone just fine as well. Takes place between Arc of Infinity and Snakedance, contains very vague references to the Big Finish Audio adventures set between Time Flight and Arc of Infinity and immediately after. It was somewhat inspired by a lovely drawing I saw on Tumblr a few months ago.
Midnight in the TARDIS Kitchen
When Tegan rejoined the TARDIS crew, she'd been a little miffed to discover that her side of the bedroom had been converted into a laboratory and her friends had moved all of her belongings to storage, lost God-knows-where in the bowels of the ship. Evidently what had only been a few months on her end had been years for the two of them, but it still felt a bit like she'd been forgotten. It didn't help that the Doctor hadn't exactly apologised for leaving her at Heathrow without so much as a goodbye either. Sure, she'd given him what for about taking her back there on multiple occasions, but that didn't mean she'd wanted to be abandoned on the tarmac like a lost piece of luggage. After everything they'd been through, he could've at least bothered to say something to her before leaving.
At least Nyssa had been happy to see her, though clearly they had a lot of catching up to do. They'd traded a few stories exploring Amsterdam while the Doctor dealt with clean up duty and the Time Lords back on his home planet, but Tegan had done most of the talking. Nyssa had listened sympathetically to her explanation of the series of events that had led her to cross paths with the pair of time travellers again, but hadn't had time to relay her own adventures, beyond what had happened on Gallifrey.
It was subtle, but she could see the difference the time apart had made in her friend. The change had been for the better, Tegan thought. The naïve young scientist had matured; she was more assertive now, more confident in her own abilities. This Nyssa had held the entire High Council of Gallifrey at gunpoint. (Tegan wished she'd gotten to see that.)
She knew what sort of trouble the Doctor regularly got himself into and couldn't begin to imagine what spending years with him, alone on the TARDIS must've been like. Though she'd long gotten over her initial irritation with the Time Lord, and decided he wasn't that bad for an alien kidnapper, the Doc had a tendency to come across as an over-eager school master sometimes, when he wasn't busy endangering their lives, getting them lost, or being a petulant grump. Admittedly, Nyssa was probably better equipped to deal with him than she; patience was not one of Tegan Jovanka's great strengths.
It was strange, seeing them together now; Tegan felt like she was intruding on a partnership. Nyssa and the Doctor had always seemed sort of on the same wavelength with one another when it came to sciencey things, but even the way she interacted with him had changed. They had a shared rhythm and teasing banter that they hadn't before. Watching them fly the TARDIS together made it all the more obvious.
If they'd been human, she might have even accused them of flirting. With Nyssa it would've been surprising enough, she was far too serious, but imagining the Doctor expressing any interest in someone beyond his typical curiosity was ridiculous. The last time she'd seen someone make an obvious pass at him had been hilarious; he'd woefully misunderstood the woman's intentions until Tegan had pointed it out to him, whereupon he'd coloured slightly and made an incredibly hasty exit from the conversation. (Honestly, the closest she'd ever seen the man come to flirtation had been with the Master, and Tegan most certainly DID NOT want to think about what that meant.)
That made it all the more shocking when, having woken alone in their shared bedroom and finding herself unable to get back to sleep, Tegan discovered Nyssa in the TARDIS kitchen, making tea, wearing nothing but tiny floral knickers and an over-sized cricket jumper that didn't belong to her.
"Nyssa!" Tegan gasped.
"Er... hello, Tegan," Nyssa looked startled to see her, but not as embarrassed as she might have expected. "I thought you'd gone to bed."
"What are you... that's..." Tegan was having difficulty forming the question. "You've got to be kidding me. ... Please tell me you two haven't been... playing Doctor while I've been away?!" she finally asked, her voice barely louder than a strained whisper.
"I'm not sure what you mean," Nyssa hedged, stirring her tea.
Before Tegan could reply that she knew damn well what she meant, they were interrupted by the Doctor entering the room wearing a relaxed smile on his face that she was certain she hadn't seen the likes of since that cricket match in the 1920s.
"Nyssa, have you seen my..." His voice trailed off as he found both of them standing there.
His blond hair was even more disheveled than normal, complexion flushed pink with recent exertion, and he was obviously in the midst of getting dressed; his half-buttoned shirt hung untucked over those absurd striped trousers he always wore, with his braces left swinging loose at his waist. The Doctor might as well have been carrying a sign that said "I've just been to bed with someone"; it was that obvious. He took one look at Tegan, then back at Nyssa, blushed furiously, and turned right around to leave the way he'd came, as quickly as possible.
Tegan stood in stunned silence, staring at the empty doorway for a moment before facing her friend again. Nyssa had leaned against the counter with her legs crossed primly, sipping at her mug of tea. She met Tegan's accusing stare with a shrug and a satisfied little quirk of her lips, as though she were endeavouring not to laugh. Lacking any plausible avenue for denial at this stage, she'd obviously decided, in that calm, rational way that was so very Nyssa, that the best approach to dealing with Tegan's impending outburst was to drop all pretense regarding the matter.
"Rabbits! You bloody well have!" she exclaimed. Nyssa didn't deny it. "But isn't he something like eight hundred years old... and you're..." Tegan gestured vaguely, as she didn't actually know precisely how old her friend was now. Old enough to be intimately familiar with the birds and the bees apparently.
"We're both consenting adults of our species, Tegan. Is it really such an alarming concept for you? Physical intimacy is a common practice among most humanoid beings throughout the universe, including your people as well, as I'm sure you know."
"Yes, but still... the Doctor?" she shook her head. "I never would have guessed he had it in him. That man wouldn't know what romance was if it bit him on the ass!"
Nyssa smiled at her. "We're just friends, Tegan."
Tegan shook her head. "You're sleeping with him, Nys; that's a bit more than friends in my book."
"We care about one another deeply, but that doesn't mean either of us have to desire anything more from our relationship than what we already have. Nothing is permanent, least of all, the Doctor." She sighed and looked down at the mug in her hands. "Someday, when the time is right, he and I will part ways. I would rather we did so as friends, rather than spend the rest of my life regretting what we might or might not have had together."
Suddenly feeling as though she'd overreacted, Tegan stepped closer to put her hand on her friend's arm. "If he's making you happy, I'm not going to tell you how to live your life, Nyssa. I'm just surprised, is all."
Nyssa chuckled. "I suppose I might've warned you, but with everything that's happened since you returned, I hadn't even thought about it."
"And I suppose this isn't exactly how you would've imagined telling me either," Tegan giggled at the absurdity of the situation.
She shook her head and laughed, messy brown curls shaking. "Hardly."
Later, Tegan found the Doctor - mercifully fully dressed, he must own more than one of those dratted jumpers - reading in the library. He startled when she cleared her throat and looked up at her apprehensively over his spectacles, expecting to be accosted for his behaviour.
"If you hurt her, I'll never forgive you," she said simply, folding her arms across her chest.
"That is the furthest from my intentions," he reassured her gravely. "Nyssa means a great deal to me; I would never let any harm befall her if it is within my power to prevent it."
"Are you in love with her?" she asked, pointedly.
The Doctor swallowed heavily but didn't reply to her query. The frightened look in his eyes gave her answer enough. Tegan gave a curt nod and turned to walk away. "I hope you know what you're doing, Doc," she said quietly and left him to his thoughts.
"So do I, Tegan, so do I," came his murmured reply, after she'd gone.