Despite her best efforts, the cart kept bumping against the seats as she steered it down the aisle, the carton of orange juice constantly threatening to topple. Letting out a forced breath through her flaring nostrils, Tegan trundled into the middle of economy class, catching snippets of random conversations that bubbled above the constant hiss of the air conditioning.

Passing a particularly fragrant Italian couple, Tegan applied the foot break and handed a packet of nuts and a napkin to the red haired woman that sat staring quietly out at the clouds that blazed cinnamon in the setting sun. The woman, all freckles and springy curls, smiled sadly as she waved away Tegan's offerings and turned back to the dying day outside.

There was something in those green eyes that made Tegan feel both sad and oddly reassured at the same time. It was the same look her mother wore the first day Tegan left for school.

Doling out snacks and beverages to the remaining passengers, Tegan found her gaze constantly flickering back to the woman with the wild hair and drab green fatigues, trying to remember where she had seen her before, but the memory, if that was what it was, eluded her.

Tegan rolled the cart to the next row, grabbed another stash of napkins and nuts and found that there was only one passenger, by the aisle, looking up at her expectantly.

It was her- the other her, wearing a slinky snakeskin dress and bracelets of bleached bone. The woman sniffed at the crinkly packet of pretzels.

"Is this the best you can do?"

It swept up his arm, it's caress a light tingle that made his hair stand on end, every nerve aquiver, waiting to see where it would go next, the motion and the suspense simultaneously soothing and sensual. Turlough wanted it to go on forever.

THWACK!

The leather slapped across his chest, leaving a stinging welt that soaked into his bare chest, burning with red.

Turlough flinched, gasping for breath, pulling away from her, but the restraints refused to give, keeping him pinned to the platform that hung from the ceiling by gleaming, twisting chains.

"You're new," the husky voice whispered, each word dripping slowly and deliberately into his ears. "Not very impressive, but new just the same."

Turlough peered up at the other Tegan who leered over him, a black raven's feather shimmered in the torchlight of the dungeon, its trembling tip quivering dangerously just above his shoulder.

"You're inside my head," Turlough tried to say coolly, but aware that his voice quavered and squeaked.

"Am I?" Tegan stared around at the cobbled floors and flagstone walls that dripped with damp and mold. "Perhaps I am. Or perhaps," her voice viciously seductive once more, "this is exactly where you want me to be…"

Turlough felt himself shudder at the thought, the slight motion causing his skin to brush against the feather once more. He couldn't stop from groaning.

"I can see all that you are, Vislor Turlough, and all that you'll be." Tegan laughed. "Is that what you want me to say? You don't need me to say anything, you know exactly who and what you are."

Turlough struggled once more against his bonds as she leaned in closer.

Tegan grinned as he squirmed beneath her. "Or perhaps, you're torturing yourself because you hate the fact that you like what I've become?"

Turlough closed his eyes, willing himself to wake up. This was just too disturbing on so many levels.

Tegan stared at herself, at a loss for words. "Sorry?" was the best she could manage, the package of nuts dangling precariously from her limp fingers.

"This," the other Tegan said, gesturing around the airplane with a bored finger. "Is this the best you could do?"

Tegan felt the soothing white walls of the fuselage dim and darken as a stain of gray static began to pepper and dissolve around them. The passengers began to mutter and shout in alarm and numerous pronounced bonging sounds echoed in the air as a hundred Attendant buttons were stabbed; someone was trying to get her attention.

"I'll admit, it's a nice bolt hole," the other Tegan commented. "I used Uncle Hubie's farm, much warmer, more personal, but of course, with family, there was more fear for the Mara to pick at, to try to get at me… but this… this was the dream… the highlight, the career…" With two fingers she picked the packet of nuts out of Tegan's hand, holding it between them as if it were a dead fish. "The goal."

Tegan's jaw fell as the woman dropped the package to the floor where it was swallowed by the static. Outside, through the flurry of the white noise and voices, snippets of Tegan's panic attack slipped through the cracks, disapproval and disgust curdling in the gaping cavities, seeping their way through.

"So I'm asking…Was this really the best you can do?"