If you haven't guessed, the parts that are in italics are memories.
**
They stepped out into the corridor and she felt a familiar steel band arm slip around her waist.
"Peri," the Doctor stated, clearly and concisely. Tegan felt the attention he paid the words physically; her muscles tightened. "Please accompany Vidal to the ammunition store. Vidal, procure two laser guns and two fission vests. Tegan, accompany me, please."
Peri did as he requested, throwing a glance over her shoulder that reeked of sympathy for Tegan. Tegan, on her half, returned the glance with one that she hoped spoke of self-confidence. But no sooner did the Doctor lead her around the corner then she turned on him, whipping about to give him a frown.
"Not now, Tegan," he interjected, walking on, not sparing her a look.
"Don't you feel we're entitled to know where and what was going on?" she pressed.
The Doctor waved his hand to the side and she saw Trock step away from a door and salute him. He entered the room without a glance back. Tegan preceded him. The door slid shut behind them with a whoosh that had her hair curling about her shoulders, curling over them like an embrace. No sooner had the external world shut than the Doctor pulled on her arm to turn her.
"Yes, wellyou are, Tegan. You are," he pressed. "But you and Peri going to the surface of Karn is not acceptable. This is war."
Tegan frowned, crossing her arms over her chest. She hadn't realized how naked she had felt without the gun on her hip the last few days. "Hell's Teethwhat do you think Peri and I have been doing these last few months?"
The Doctor released her and turned, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Yes, I know you have been rather involved. Honestly, Tegan: do you really want to go down into the middle of a firefight?"
"Are you going down?" she asked, her mouth twisted in a frown.
"I do rather have to, Tegan," he barked, slipping his hands into his pockets. "It's not something I can choose not to do. In for a penny, in for a pound as they say."
"Then I don't have much of a choice either," she replied, leaning forward a little bit. "Has a year completely made you forget our adventures?"
"Our adventures never led to the middle of actual, very active wars, Tegan," he nearly shouted, twisting away from her to pace back to the door. "The Silurians don't count."
"No, oh no," she sighed. "No, it just bloody always felt as though you were walking into hell on Earth every time we walk out the TARDIS door."
His eyes widened and he nodded, apparently caught between interest and anger. She watched as he fumbled, his fingers catching in the lining of his trouser pockets. He couldn't get them out fast enough. With a growl, she turned and paced in the opposite direction. "You made the choice, Tegan."
"To stay with you!" She shouted in return, her accent hanging and harried on the vowel. "I might complain about the hell you take us into, Doc, but any sane person would."
"I suppose you do have a point there," he muttered. "The matter stands that I don't want you and Peri on the planet's surface. I want you to see reason."
"I want to help you."
"Do you think it would help me if you were down there, Tegan, hmm?"
"I'm not letting you go down there alone, Doc," she warned. "If I have to talk circles around Trock to let me have a place in your honor guard, I will. Peri and I can look out for ourselves."
"Tegan-"
"I'll not be argued out of this," she shook her head. "I've helped head up a Fighting Force for a year. If I can win against farmers and farm hand boys in arguing, I can guarantee I won't be argued out of this."
He sighed and lowered his head. "Tegan, would you just listen to me?"
"If you're going to go on about Peri and me staying on board-"
"You'll stay with me," he agreed. "Right by me. Tegan, this is a pivotal battle, a pivotal war in Gallifrey's history and its future. I can't worry about you and Peri, your safety, and still keep my mind on the battle."
"If you would just listen to me-"
"It's not like I have a choice not to, Tegan, you're shouting."
"And so are you!" She neared him, her hands in fists, clenched at her side. "Peri and I can fight. It's not something we'd choose to do now, but if you're going down and we can help to win- Blast it, Docyou need just as much looking after as you think we do."
He grunted and rubbed his head with a weary hand. "Do you think I want you harmed after being just reunited with you?"
"Do you think I want you harmed?"
His sigh told her everything she needed to know. She felt her shoulders releasing some of their tension, but she suddenly clenched her hands again as he turned away from her. His words at the voice comm surprised her, making her mind a jumble of disjointed thoughts. "Vidal? Please entertain Miss Peri. I shall be in my quarters for the next few hours. If I'm needed, please summon me."
"As you command, Supreme Coordinator."
Tegan blinked in confusion and shook her head. "Running from the conversation again? Pity. I'd yet wanted to discuss this profound sense of intervention you've developed"
"Oh, quite the opposite, I assure you, Tegan," he replied, his palm flat against the wall. He tapped at it with his fingers for a moment and then turned back around to her. His eyes staid her.
No words. None. His neck arched, his hair back, his eyes dark with passion. Liquid love, hot in her loins, heat of attention paid and attention given. Her hands falling from his hair, silky, to his shoulders, solid. There was no need for words. Silence spoke for them, silence punctuated and plundered by sighs, by moans, by whispers of colliding bodies. As her neck arched, as her head pushed deeper into the down of the pillow, she closed her eyes. "Open them, Tegan." His plea was quiet, but felt. She opened them to see his dark, deep, passionate eyes above her. "Your spark, you're my spark, Tegan" he whispered.
She swayed a little, offset by the onslaught of her memories.
"These are my quarters, Tegan. I'm not abandoning this conversation. And as for intervention, well" he sighed. "It appears that, against my best efforts, I have fallen into a profound conundrum of intervention."
"Your quarters?"
"Again, you appear to have fallen behind in the conversation, Tegan," he replied with a level of sarcasm that she knew was hallmarked his impish, darker humor. "Do keep up."
Tegan felt her face twitch with a smile that was tinged with agitation and affection. "Ah, there you are"
"Every man has his darker side; Supremo is mine," he stated.
"I don't like him much"
"I was under the impression that you were rather in awe of him."
"No, just that you're able to wear that bloody uniformblack looks good on you."
He leaned closer, his hands falling to his side. "Teganthe intervention"
She shook her head, raising her hand. She stopped it inches from his lips as if she wanted to touch them. "No. Don't. Let's just agree that if you go down, like good companions, Peri and I will go down with you. After all, you always do better with a captive audience don't you?"
"That's not what I'm"
She shook her head and he sighed agitatedly. "Tegan"
In her heart, she knew what she wanted to hear about what his discourse on intervention would be. It had been a year, though, and they words had never passed either of their lips. There was blessed little hope that now he would say what she hoped to hear. She wasn't even sure she could say what it was that she would have said a year previous. She was an older woman, a different woman. She knew what she wanted, and had grown passed just accepting what wasn't.
Tegan knew now, with a sinking feeling and yet an exhilarating rush, that she wanted to remain with the Doctor, away from the fighting and the wars, but only if he wanted her to be with him. She wanted nights like the one before they separated. She didn't want to accept less, and she was quite sure that the Doctor wasn't comfortable with more. She, now, wasn't sure he was capable of more depth of feeling. But at that moment, she didn't want to let him know, to show him her cards. She wanted to hold them fast and tight to her chest, selfishly hoarding them. After the war, after he was back, calm and so very English in his cricket outfit, when their arguments could be nothing more than the TARDIS missing a mark, then and only then, would she tell him. And he could make that decision
But then, right then, wasn't the time. "Something elsetalk about something else, please?"
He held out his hand after staring at her for a moment. "Help me to remember the better part of me for the evening? Tomorrow I'll have to be quite the general, but I can't be that to you."
"Thank bloody hell for that," she sighed with a hidden smile.
"Tegan, Tegan, Tegan," he mumbled. She laid her hand in his and he lifted her hand to his lips. "Have I ever told you that you drive me insane? You never give me an edge, do you?"
"I wouldn't be me if I did," she agreed. "Should I give you an edge?"
"No, no," he replied, turning her hand over to press his cold lips against her wrist. "On the contrary, Tegan; I've quite missed your input and driving sense this last year."
She curled her fingers slightly. "Doc?"
"Hmm?"
"I feel as though this conversation has changed direction," she muttered. It had, she knew it. The familiar sense of confusion at the diverted conversation invaded her mind. "I have a distinct feeling that you're talking about something"
He nodded, swallowing. "Come with me"
With wide open eyes, swirling with blue and gold, he turned and led her by her hand to a dark corner of his room. On a small table, in something that to her looked like a snow globe was a translucent, pulsing cube. He pulled off the top and put his hand on the cube. Through his other hand, she could feel the vibration. "What is it?" she whispered.
"Close your eyes," he offered. She did, squeezing them shut. The vibration grew and the hum surrounded them.
"Doctor?" she whispered, concerned.
"Just another moment, Tegan," he pressed. She felt a warm squeeze at her hand, reassuring her. After a few moments, the sound died down. Tegan felt a sense of the world coming right, something changing so dear and so near that it affected her instantaneously. She gripped his hand in near ecstasy.
She blinked her eyes open and saw the tall, familiar police box blue in front of her. "The TARDIS," she breathed.
His smile was like a warm friend. "Ah, yes, the TARDIS. She's been sitting in stasis for the year, here, by my reading chair." Tegan marveled at how his smile looked so familiar and yet so alien amidst his black uniform and regulation length hair cut. He released her hand and opened the door with his ever-present key. As they stepped into the console room, she realized: "It hasn't changed at all."
"Why should it?" he pressed, walking to the console. With a loving pat, he rubbed at its metallic surface. "She's still the same TARDIS, just rested, that's all."
Tegan sighed. She felt the familiar atmosphere around her, the white on white sterile beauty that was her home. "Why?"
"Bring you here?" the Doctor whispered. When she nodded, he lowered his eyes to the console. "I've been in here twice in the last year, Tegan. Once when I found out about you and Peri and the second time when I simply needed reminding of who I was and what I was doing."
She frowned and watched as both of his hands petted the console like he had petted her previously, lovingly. He continued: "I've brought you here because there is quite a large part of me that would wish to simply leave the pomp and circumstance, the uniform, the whole mess and run in the TARDIS."
Tegan squinted and opened her mouth, but he stilled her, walking around the console to put his hands on her shoulders. "You arriving here, Tegan, reminds me of other times, of other arguments, of other talks that we've had about death and murder and intervention. And quite frankly, I've suffered rather badly this past year because a person that I've relied on for helping my conscience along was missing."
"So you brought me in here to what? Show me the flip side of the penny so to speak?" she asked. "Doctor?"
"Should we leave?" he asked his eyes intense. "Tell me. Is it better for me to lose myself and see this done, or be true to what I firmly believe and have spent my life doing-"
"Doctor" she said. "Hell's Teeth, you don't leave me the easy questions do you? And an argument in ethics isn't something I'm good at."
"What would you tell me to do, then?" he pressed, an edge of agitation just below the surface of his voice, like broken glass in the sand of a beach.
She returned his stare, equal. "I'd tell you to stay. These men, these aliensthey all worship you and would follow you anywhere. I've seen that these last few days. I hate war, but I've had to do it. If you left, this would all fall apart. And you know it needs to be done"
"Yes, yes," he muttered. "But I want your complete support in this, if I'm to do it."
"If?"
"Taking you down there, having you by me, Tegan," he pressed, his fingers digging into her shoulders. "Leading this fight."
"It's too late to back out."
"You're missing the point."
"You're rather making a mess of the point, Doc," she argued. "It has to be done. It's right to do this. I'll be there with you to help you win this, finish this."
"You'll not run from me at the end of this?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"What?" she sputtered. "Docif I were to leave you again, it wouldn't be over thisthis thing we're involved in. And I'm coming with you, Doc, come hell or high water. I'm not staying in the TARDIS or on this ship. There's no argument to make."
He nodded, appeased by her answer. She winced at the pain she saw refracted out of his eyes. Frowning, she lifted her hand to brush at his cheek, warmly giving a gentle smile as he shut his eyes at her touch. "I won't run from you. Brave heart, Doc."
His lips curled in a small smile and his hand covered hers.
**
Awaking alone, wrapped in cool white sheets. The room quiet except for the gentle jazz that played everywhere and nowhere. Peace evident in the pain in her legs, in her back. Cotton flowing over her skin like water, like a running river. Awake, feeling alone, feeling achingly alone. Turning over, looking at the side of the bed to the Doctor. Dressed half in his trousers, sans shirt, cool and distant, concerned and sweetly lost, he stared back at her. Holding the sheet to her chest. "Doc?"
"Are you all right?" he asked, moving his fingers, held in praying peace away from his lips.
"As right as I can be."
He nodded, rubbing at his thighs. "I don't understand this, Tegan."
"Did you enjoy it?"
"Yes. It was quite enjoyable, more so in a bed than on a stone."
"Then don't philosophize about it," she offered, holding out her hand to him. "Come back to bed."
They left the TARDIS and walked to the bridge, hand in hand. She remembered that night fondly.