She pushed open the door to the console room. The jeans she wore and the sweatshirt felt so wonderful that she was hard pressed to take them off. Likewise, Peri had programmed a hot bath and a cheese steak sandwich almost the moment that the TARDIS was in the vortex. The Doctor had quietly and with some relief, donned his cricketing gear again. They had gone their separate ways for a day.
"There you are," she said, without fanfare and without heavy accent.
The Doctor straightened where he sat, napping, in a chair. She recognized it as a chair from the study. "Tegan, good morning."
"The light cycle just made it evening," she replied. "You've been asleep."
"Yes, well" he stated, quietly. "I was awake for a great deal of the last year, Tegan. Even a Time Lord has his limits. Evening, is it? Interesting. I suppose the old girl wouldn't mind if I retired to the study." He rose and began gently, almost lovingly, adjusting the temporal path and setting things for the night.
She leaned on the console, struck almost physically by its banality, its normality and how much she had missed it. Everything felt as though she had come so far and yet hadn't gone anywhere at all. "Docyour wound?"
His sigh told her more than his words. "Tegan, I've told you: It will heal extremely slowly. My nanities were pushed to their limits with my physical exertions. Now that I have time to rest"
"Pardon me if I worry about it," she responded tartly. "It wasn't that pretty to look at yesterday."
"Very well," he sighed, letting his head fall forward on his tired neck. "Will you give me peace if I allow you see to it?"
She lifted an eyebrow and he shook his head. "No, I know better than that. Very well."
**
"Well," she sighed, adjusting the regular bandage on his leg wound. "It is looking much better."
"As I said, Tegan," he replied, leaning forward to give her a frown. "If I'm allowed some rest this evening, it will be as good as new."
She sat back and let him roll down the leg of his trouser. His anger at her disbelief was so normal that she felt like laughing, but opted to simply climb to her feet. "I told you before my medical knowledge was lacking, but I can tell a bad wound when I see one, you know."
"Oh, I don't doubt it," he sighed and rose from the chair to find his coat. "Nowif I can find the book I was reading before we landed on Karn in the first place"
"Will it be the same again?" she asked, suddenly. The Doctor stopped, turned and looked at her. She could feel the weight of his stare on the top of her head and slowly lifted her eyes to meet his. The military bearing he still held slowly disintegrated and his shoulders slumped a little. Tegan watched as he breathed deeply as if he was drawing something from the air and then he shook his head.
"No, Tegan, it won't be the same again," he said, almost regretfully.
"I wasn't just talking about traveling, Doctor," she said, her voice matter-of-factly.
"I know."
The response wasn't what she expected, her mouth slightly open in shock. He continued, rushing forward, his hand waving to force the words out of his mouth. "Teganhow could it be the same?"
She shook her head. "So we'll whatare we going to go our separate ways? All of us? Peri, you and I? Doctor"
He lowered his head and sighed. She could see his eyebrows arched over his eyes. That usually bode poorly for her and usually came from agitation or interest. Steeling herself and rolling her sleeves above her elbows, she prepared for a fight. Instead, she saw him offer his arm, like a gentleman. "Tegan, please. You and I apparently need to have a talk and the console room" he looked around it and shook his head. "Is not the place to have it."
"Why bother?" she asked, throwing her hands wide. "If I'm to leave, I would rather it be sooner than later. I bloody well faced up to a lot more than getting dumped this last year"
"Dumped?"
"How else would you call opening the console room door leaving me behindlike Heathrow?"
He frowned and came towards her and reached out to hold her shoulders. "Tegan. The next time you will be left on Earth will be your decision. Now, please, come with me. Let's go somewhere comfortable. The cloisters, the study"
She opened her mouth to argue, but felt his hands tighten, his thumbs caressing her clavicle. "All right," she sighed. "All right."
**
The study was a better place she decided once they left the console room and he steered her towards it with his hand firmly at her back. She had only been there once and was still struck by the banality of it, the fact that it was indeed a normal room in the middle of his abnormal ship. He escorted her to the couch, sat her and retreated from the main room for a moment. She took the time to look about and realized that this was a very personal space of his.
When he came back in the room, she was perusing a book that had been on the arm of the couch. "You were looking for your copy of 'Time Machine'. It's here."
"Ah, thank you," he replied. "Tea?"
She shook her head. "You'll serve that to every planet in the system if we let you. Yes, I would love a cup."
"Earl Gray, of course. Chamomile would be wonderful, but I do believe we need our senses" he sighed and set down the cups on the small table in front of them.
"Just answer me one thing and I'll be happy," she responded, picking up her cup. "Will our travels change?"
He sighed. "Is that all I've had to answer all this time with you to avoid arguments? So easy." His smile was sudden but faded quickly as she didn't return the humor. "Yes, wellnothing works in a vacuum, you know. I've changed, grown in some ways, lessened in othersbut I have changed. You've matured-"
"Oh, thank you very much."
"I mean that as a compliment," he muttered with a sigh. "You've grown, matured, become very much your own woman and I'm quite sure that some of the things you've seen and experienced have also adversely effected you. And Peri, wellshe's grown up as well. We're different people. Of course our interactions, our lives, travels and so on will be different. They have to be different."
Tegan sighed and she felt a certain amount of anger and frustration building. "Rabbits! I wish we could go back"
"Do you? Would you want to forget your friends on Sylvana? If you could? Vidal? Trock? With everything good comes something badit seems"
Tegan shook her head tiredly. "No"
"No, Teganwe can't go back. What's happened has happened to us. To undo it would unravel the web of time. What's happened, what's said, what's done is over and history to us and will remain that way" he pressed, sipping at his tea quietly. "But I would like you both to remain"
"And I want to stay. For now," she added cheekily. She had felt a flash of something like guilt or heat through her veins when he had mentioned things that were said. A stray thought filled her mind before it disappeared under a wash of pain. "Said" she whispered quietly, disturbing only the surface of her tea.
"Yes," he replied. "Words are very powerful, Teganrather like swords, only when they are unsheathed and released, there's no way to draw them back."
She stopped breathing just as her lips touched the tea in her cup. Afraid to lift her eyes, she took a sip and lowered her hands from her face. "Like asking me what you did on the rampart," she chided.
"Ah, yes" he replied, lowering his cup as well. "Rather like what you said to me on the ship, Tegan."
She had to put the cup down before her numb fingers released it. Wordlessly, for once in her life, she supposed, she collapsed back into the soft nap of the couch. "You can't hold me to that," she finally blurted out as the minutes ticked by. It startled the Doctor from where he sat, his arms forward on his knees and his eyes staring in the middle distance. "You were injured and"
"You were worried, you were pressed to your limits" he replied, not glancing up at her. "I quite understand neither one of us was at our best, mentally, physically nor, I suppose, psychologically," he agreed. She sighed with a nod and wondered why she felt both elated with relief and pained as if her breath was stolen from her. She was just beginning to relax when he met her eyes. "Should I have my doubts that"
She tensed and closed her eyes. "Thatindeed. I always was a mouth on legs, Doc."
She heard his cup set down on the table and then the squeak from his sneakers as he rose and paced away from her. Hoping that seeing was believing that it was happening, she kept her eyes closed. His sigh alerted her that he was going to talk. "Yes" he cleared his throat.
"I did say it," she helped him, opening her eyes. "I'll do many things in my life, but deny something I've said is not one of them. Hell's Teeth, I need to think more. This word sword thing is only going to hurt me in this instance and"
"Quiet, Tegan" he pressed, turning around to look at her. She saw a new release of tension in his stance, the ease with which he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Is the basis of your feelings from our" he cleared his throat again. "Yes, our liaisons as it were?"
"The last time we had sex was well over a year ago," she laughed, her voice almost shrill in the room. "And we've only had it twice, Doc" With her smile suddenly becoming a frown, she sat forward. "Oh please tell me you're not blaming us sleeping together for"
The Doctor sighed.
"And don't you dare say that I'm interfering horribly," she warned.
"I'm saying nothing of the kind," he said. "The interfering has already occurred, there's nothing we can do about it now."
"You make it sound like spilled milk," she said tartly.
"It isn't," he twisted and glanced at her. "Tegan, interfering or not isn't what I'm worried about. Our liaisons are quitepleasurable, and I've enjoyed being close to you, knowing you like that" he muttered. He rubbed at his hair. "I'm to understand that it is often expected that the feelings are to be returned"
"Look, don't"
"I care for you," he rushed on, piling over top of her like a tank on a tree. "Very much." She braced herself for the 'but' to follow, but it never did. Watching him also showed her that he seemed to feel a weight lifted from his shoulders. "I do believe I've finally understood what was meant about emotional entanglements and interference, but of course, only after the fact."
"Doc"
"It's the best I can do, Tegan. I can't express them any better. There simply aren't words in Gallifreyan for them. And I'm stretching my education well beyond its limitsbut that's nothing I haven't done before" He gave her a smile, his sunny, devil-may-care-smile. "And I hoped that my present of the dress"
"Actually, that did tell me a fair bit," she admitted. "But added to the confusion. You are a very confusing man, Doc."
"Ah" he responded coming back to the couch. "That's something else, Tegan. You're forming an emotional entanglement with me, this methe one that's with you herebut Teganthere's moreI'm not just"
"I've seen you regenerate, I know," she reminded him.
"It's beyond that, Tegan. In me, in my head, my personalityI'm like a layerI can be peeled back"
She leaned forward. "You showed me what you're trying to say, you know. With the Joiba all that time ago, and on the ship before we freed your leg, I saw it in your eyes, there."
"Hmmm, that's interesting," he replied, frowning. "Showed you, did I?"
Tegan nodded.
"And it didn't send you scrabbling away? I am intrigued. The only equivalent to the human understanding is that of multiple personality disorder," he responded.
"I'm not exactly sane."
"Peas on a pod, then, is what you're trying to say?"
"I don't know what I'm trying to say, Doc," she whispered.
With a nod, he sat forward and wrapped his hand around hers. "I think a very long vacation for all three of us is due, Tegan. Restful, quietand we're not walking out of the TARDIS until we get there before you askand then, then you tell me what you're trying to say."
She nodded and smiled, taking up her tea again. Languid, liquid warmth was washing over her; she knew the evening would draw to a close and she would go to sleep in her own, solid, comfortable bed. There was some security in her now. And they would go on their vacation and there would be other conversations and maybe one or the both of them could figure out exactly what it was they were going to say.
Tegan smiled and squinted at him. "You told methe second timethat you didn't understand"
"I didn't then," he replied. "But I think I started to learn what I didn't understand the day I saw that transport taking off with you and Peri, Tegan. It'll be a long road"
"Oh great," she muttered. "School's in."
"Oh, Tegan, Tegan, Tegan," he admonished, good-naturedly. "Haven't you learned by now that the things that take the longest to learn are those things that are the most worth learning?"
She rolled her eyes, but as she relaxed back and he began to tell her of other stories, other times and she felt relaxation flooding her for the first time in over a year. I'll have to heal, she thought, and then maybe, Doc, I can help you with your lessons.