"He raped me." The words came out in a harsh rasp. "Happy now? He raped me, then told me I was free to go anywhere I wanted on the TARDIS. Anywhere it would let me, which was bloody few places, I can tell you that. There are more locked doors on this machine than in Bluebeard's castle."
Ace's horrified expression spoke volumes, but before she could utter any of the apologies that were brimming behind her lips, Tegan shook her head violently. "Don't. Don't say anything, don't tell me you're sorry." Her voice was harsh, the threat of tears clogging her throat. "The only one who owes me those words isn't here, and I wouldn't accept them from him even if the bastard were capable of saying them and meaning it."
She drew a ragged breath, the words spilling out of her as if she couldn't stop now that she'd started. "He left me locked up for months, just bringing me food and taunting me about the Doctor never coming to my rescue. Then suddenly he bursts into my room in the middle of the night and puts his filthy hands on my body, kissing me hard enough to bruise and leaving me bleeding when he was finished. The next day he acted as if nothing had happened. The only difference was he let me out of that cage. Like he knew he had nothing to fear from me," she finished, her voice barely a whisper, eyes wide with remembered horror and self-loathing.
"It's not your fault," Ace began clumsily, but Tegan rounded on her, her expression so fierce that Ace actually took a step backwards.
"I know that, but it doesn't make me feel any less dirty," Tegan spat out, clutching her arms to her chest in that familiar defensive motion. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears. "When he left, he kissed me on the forehead, gently, then smiled and walked out. I wanted to kill him."
"If I have my way, you'll get your chance," Ace replied grimly. "He's done damage to us all, and he's going to pay. One way or another." She hesitated. "My daughter's name, I call her Patience but you ought to know, it's really Susan. That's the one she's going to grow up with. The one she did grow up with." It was hardly penance, but she felt compelled to offer something to Tegan for her honesty. A painful truth for a painful truth.
Tegan turned toward her, frowning. "Susan? Not the one I met, surely? The Doctor's..." She stopped, but Ace finished the sentence for her.
"The Doctor's granddaughter, yes, that Susan." Her voice was level, but to Tegan's eyes her face aged a decade as she spoke. "The one who grows up with the Doctor's first self. Without her parents." She fell silent, holding Tegan's horrified gaze with her own. "So there's enough pain the Master's dealt to go around." Deliberately she crossed the corridor and reached into the room, quietly pulling the door closed. "And I will say I'm sorry. I had no right to interrogate you like that."
"It was bound to come out, sooner or later," the other woman replied, but listlessly, as if she'd spent all her emotions and had nothing left to give. "If only after we find the Master; it's just the sort of thing he'd love to taunt me about, to boast about. To shove in the Doctor's face." She pushed away from thewall with an abrupt movement andheaded down the corridor. "There's plenty of rooms with nothing in them but bedroom furniture. You and Kyris can take your pick. I'll be around, if you need me." Ace watched until she disappeared around the bend.
"Dorothy McShane, you can be a right bitch when you want to," she muttered to herself. Nursing her injured hand, she headed back for the Console Room and the comfort of Kyris' presence.
oOo
She found him, as expected, deep in thought beneath the console. Wires dangled, circuit boards were piled haphazardly, and she watched as he yanked out some other piece of unidentifiable machinery. "Can you put it all back?"
He looked up at her, unsurprised by her presence, dusted off his hands and jumped to his feet. "Don't need to," he pronounced, eyeing the pile with disgust. "It's all a dummy, a fake. Even this." He pointed to the anomalous piece of equipment attached beneath the console, the one he'd secretly pinned his hopes on. "Whatever powers this TARDIS, it isn't what normally powers a TARDIS. Nothing I've touched has had any affect on things one way or another."
"Great."
He glanced at her more closely, saw the bleeding knuckles and raised them to his lips for a kiss. When he lowered her hand, it was completely healed, but her eyes remained troubled. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Not here." Ace almost shuddered, but caught herself. "I can feel him here, mocking us. No wonder he left us in the Console Room, no wonder he didn't bother locking us up, if we can't get control of this bloody pile of scrap!" Her scowl grew, and Kyris pulled her into his arms for a hug that she returned almost to the point of strangling him.
"So where should we go? Where's Tegan?" he added, glancing around the room. "Is she all right?"
Ace suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I saw where he was keeping her," was her evasive non-answer. "Maybe you can figure something out from it, but I couldn't. Except it's not a place I'd like to stay for months on end." This time she allowed the shudder, couldn't stop it even if she tried, and Kyris' frown deepened. "Tegan said there were lots of rooms we could pick from to stay in. Since it appears we'll be here a while." There was defeat in her voice, something he'd never heard before. Not to this extent. He didn't like it.
"That sounds fine, as long as it doesn't turn out to be the one I stayed in last time I was a 'guest' of the Master," Kyris replied, trying for lightness but knowing his effort to be futile. Ace was in a black mood, blacker than when she'd left with Tegan, and he was almost afraid to find out why.
"Come on, then," was all she said, tugging at his arm and practically dragging him out of the Console Room.
Once the door closed behind them, a sound very much like a chuckle came from the area of the console. Untouched by anyone, the controls reset themselves, and the Time Rotor began to rise and fall as the TARDIS dematerialized. As Kyris had surmised, none of the usual equipment was powering its movement.