I'm a huge fan of Turlough! I just love his relationship with the Doctor. The slight mistrust, the attempts of the Doctor to try and help him become a better man... It's great stuff. Turlough is just unlike any companion the Doctor has ever had. Turlough fans enjoy this chapter! And please leave any comments or suggestions you have!

"We already know what happened, Doctor". Turlough's voice rose distantly from behind him. He rounded surprisingly fast on the young man.

"What do you mean?" he demanded. The look of subtle anger in Turlough's eyes was unsettling.

"These people were slaughtered", Turlough started certainly, "probably by people who were armed judging by the corpses". The Doctor and Nyssa stared back at him. "The group must have been around 8-10 people. The bodies are spread out, but not that spread out. My guess is that the men attacked from all sides, bottlenecking the townspeople. They'd need at least eight for that". The shock on The Doctor's face was evident. "Most of the bodies seem to have wounds from close combat weapons so that's good".

"Good?" the Doctor echoed in disbelief.

"No guns." The young Trion's eyes were like pale steel. They showed no sorrow, only anger and disgust.

The Doctor forced himself to calm down a bit as he gaped at Turlough. "And how exactly do you know all this". The Doctor's voice was a dangerous growl. He walked up and put his face as close to his friend's as he could. He would not tolerate any lies about this.

For once in Turlough's deceptive life, his eyes did not waver. Instead they deliberately held The Doctor's gaze. "I've seen battlefields before, Doctor. I know what they look like".

"Yes", The Doctor answered absently, "You know, Turlough, I think I believe you". He was surprised to find that to be the truth.

"Well, I can't lie all the time, can I?" the young man joked lamely.

The Doctor did not smile. "Although, you're wrong about one thing", the Doctor added, "This is not a battlefield".

Turlough blinked at him in confusion. "What do you mean?" he questioned.

Nyssa stepped forward, her eyes almost as steely as Turlough's. "Saying this is a battlefield would indicate that these people were soldiers", she explained.

"And they most definitely were not", The Doctor finished. "They are unarmed… They were innocents", he added grimly. Turlough looked away under The Doctor's gaze. After a moment, the Time Lord turned away. "Let's have a look around", he prompted. "Maybe we can find out who did this".

Nyssa nodded her consent and went to The Doctor's side as he moved up further up the street. Turlough remained where he was. "I'll go look this way", he announced and indicated down the opposite way.

The Doctor turned to him in surprise. "Turlough, I don't think it's a good idea to separate. Whoever did this could still be around".

Turlough rolled his eyes in exasperation. "There's no need to worry, Doctor! These corpses have been here for at least a couple of days and there's no sign of any other life here. Besides", he added as an afterthought, "They're hardly likely to stick around the sight of their crime for long are they?"

"We can't know that for sure!" Nyssa burst out. "For all we know, they could still be here seeking out the survivors or pillaging the remains".

"You're just being idiotic, Nyssa!" Turlough spat. "We'll cover far more ground this way!"

"That's enough!" The Doctor snapped angrily. "Go if you feel you must, Turlough. But make sure you meet back here in an hour, alright?" Turlough nodded stiffly before turning his back and walking away. The Doctor's eyes followed his retreating figure, etched with worry. He didn't like having to raise his voice, especially to his friends, but he couldn't allow them to be distracted by petty arguments in this place.

"Why did you let him go on his own, Doctor?" Nyssa sighed in annoyance.

"I know he seems young and foolish to you, Nyssa, but he is his own man and I learned a long while ago that trying to control him will only result in disappointment." The Doctor shook his head solemnly.

"He seems young because he is, Doctor", Nyssa challenged. "And he's your responsibility, is he not?"

"In a way", he answered vaguely. "But in another, more immediate way, there are more pressing things to concern ourselves with".

He did not look back as he pressed onwards down to street, determined to find out what had happened here.

()

Turlough walked aimlessly through the wreckage of the village, barely noticing the rest of his surroundings as his eyes flitted from one fallen body to the next. It wasn't often that Turlough found himself overly sympathetic for those he didn't know, but this time it was… different. Flashes of screaming and pain and smoke and blood filled the young man's head as he staggered around. It was too much to bear. He felt himself losing against his thoughts as they crashed down on him. It was happening again! He was there again! He squeezed his eyes shut. "Go away!" he begged.

He opened his eyes and he was no longer in the village. He was surrounded by hundreds of men and women. In each of their hands they held a blaster rifle. Turlough looked to his right in time to see the woman beside him fall as a bolt of energy hit her square in the chest. "GET DOWN!" he screamed as he flattened himself behind the barrier. The other soldiers complied as they heard the high-pitched whine overhead. The whine that they all knew too well.

The heavens descended on them in a fiery rage as the bomber swooped down and released it's load. The earth seemed to shatter around him as fire and pain became all he knew. The shrapnel from the explosion bit into his face and arms from all directions. Oh God Oh God please don't let me die. He thought over and over again as the world crashed around his ears. He did not know how long he lay like that. All he knew was that when he finally lifted his head, he was greeted by a horrific sight. The dead. The innumerable dead lay all around him. His soldiers looked up at the sky with an empty, never-ending gaze. Some bodies were unrecognizable. Curled up and burned beyond looking anything like a person.

Those that survived, the very few that survived, were beginning to pick themselves up. Staring at the death that lay strewn around them. Almost all of his troops, gone. With a terrified shout Turlough ripped himself from the memory. It was over. He tried to remind himself as he panted for breath. Over. With a shake of his head, he picked himself off the ground and turned back the way he had come.

()

Nyssa walked along the street, scanning the corpses in complete silence as she passed them. Occasionally, she would crouch down to examine a victim's injuries or to lie them in a more peaceful position. If she could, she would have given each of them a proper grave. But there were at least a fifty victims she estimated. There was no way the three of them could bury them all. Nyssa looked back periodically. The Doctor had lagged far behind her, wandering slowly through the massacre, seeming almost like he was in a trance. When Nyssa cast her gaze back again, she found the Doctor kneeled down next to the body of a small boy. As she observed, she noticed that his eyes were closed and he was leaning close to the child, unaware of any surroundings. The scientist stared awkwardly for a moment before she decided to go over to him. She padded up with soft, unobtrusive steps, dropping down next to the motionless Time Lord. She was careful not to interrupt his personal meditation, instead simply sitting there next to him. The Doctor's fingertips rested on the little boy's forehead.

Nyssa gazed at the child. It was hard to imagine him in life. She tried to picture him with colour in his cheeks, a joyful smile lighting up his face as he tore down the street surrounded by other children. But instead all that greeted her was a blank face and a small, stiff body. She could imagine no warmth in it's depths. The Doctor shifted next to her as he slowly and somewhat reluctantly came back to the world. His sad, blue eyes met Nyssa's. He offered her a weak smile. "I thought maybe I could catch an echo", he explained.

Nyssa suddenly understood the ritual she had observed. He had been trying to seek out the last sparks of memory in the dead mind. "Did you find anything?" she prompted gently.

The Doctor shook his head. "No", he said with a mixture of disappointment and bitterness. "There's nothing left".

The Time Lord's voice was low. It had been years since she'd travelled with him for any meaningful amount of time, but she still remembered that tone. That tone of cold, cold anger that surfaced in him very rarely. The anger that meant there was no escape. No redemption, not this time. The Cybermen, the Daleks, in her experience there were very few creatures that elicited such a response from him.

Nyssa was abruptly shaken from her thoughts as the Doctor's head shot up without warning. Her body flinched away from the unexpected movement as the Doctor rose to his feet with caution. "Doctor?", she questioned. He did not answer. Instead he stood as if frozen, staring intently at the entrance to one of the nearby huts. Nyssa followed his gaze with a mix of confusion and apprehension.

"Someone's in there".