oooOooo

Ace rolled her eyes as the Doctor fell silent. "So you kissed her and now you're going to stop just when it's getting good," she guessed.

"Why Ace, you make it sound as if I revel in keeping you in the dark as to the most intimate details of my personal life."

Ace frowned. When he put it that way, she felt like a tabloid reporter out for royal blood. Or at least compromising snaps.

He stood up, and Ace stifled an aggravated moan. Surely he wasn't going to just stop there--! But no, he was only pitching the remains of their breakfast into the disposal, popping the dishes into the device she'd always called a dishwasher, even though it apparently not only washed and dried whatever was put into it, but also magically replaced everything into the cupboards. Well, she'd never seen the Doctor put anything away, and she'd certainly never put anything away, but every time she reached for a dish she knew had been recently used, there it was, back where it belonged. Like magic. "More coffee?" More magic, that coffee pot; it never seemed to be empty, or cold, or to have turned the liquid within to molasses, as her mother's inevitably did back home when left on too long.

"Please." It was her third cup, one more than usual, but she didn't want to stop the Doctor's story. Not until she found out why and how Peri left. The TARDIS records had been very confusing on that issue. "So?" she prompted. "Then what?" It was turning into her favorite question, not to mention his favorite question to dodge. Oh, he always ended up answering it, but never with the stuff she really wanted to hear.

"Then we made love like a pair of otters in heat."

Not only did Ace sputter into her coffee, she dropped the whole cup, smashing it to pieces on the otherwise spotless tile floor.

The Doctor "tched" disapprovingly. "Really, Ace, how careless of you." But his eyes were twinkling, his lips twitching until the laughter could no longer be contained and he gave into it helplessly. "The look on your face!" he gasped after regaining a modicum of control. "Priceless!"

Ace glared at him. "That wasn't funny, Professor."

"It was what you wanted to hear, wasn't it?" The Doctor sobered immediately, except for the twinkle lingering in his eyes. Making a mental note that there were some truths she just wasn't ready for, in spite of her protests to the contrary, he rummaged under the sink for the dust-pan and brush. After handing them over to Ace, who knelt reluctantly and swept the whole mess up, he solicitously blotted up the remaining dampness. The TARDIS floor would clean itself fully later, when they were no longer cluttering up her kitchen.

After everything had been taken care of, Ace hesitated, one hand on the back her seat. "If you didn't want to talk about it any more, all you had to do was say so."

The Doctor had not only returned to his own seat, he'd poured himself a cup of tea. "Don't pout, Ace, you know I was just teasing you. If you want to hear the rest, sit down and listen. But if you walk out now," he added warningly, "that'll be it for this one, no matter how much you pester me."

Ace sat back down immediately, waving away the Doctor's offer for another cup of coffee. "I think I've just proven how much I don't need one right now, Professor," was her wry observation. She plunked her elbows down on the table and rested her chin in her hands. "I'm listening."

"It was a very volatile relationship," he admitted. "Even touchier than the one I had with Tegan."

"None of them seem to have been all tea and kippers," she shot back, still sulky over his teasing answer.

The Doctor arched an eyebrow, and made a mental note to tone down any future poking of fun. He had to remind himself how young she was, not just because she was human and therefore terminally short-lived, but also that she was still a teenager, as she'd pointed out to him recently. Still immature even by her species' terms. And thus sensitive to being made fun of, even though she'd cheerfully skewer him, as she'd demonstrated on more than one occasion. "No, I suppose not," was all he said, in a mild tone that rebuked her more sharply than if he'd barked at her.

Ace flushed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to come off as such a snot."

The Doctor nodded, settling back more comfortably in his chair. "We all have our moments, Peri and I perhaps more than others. I seemed to feel things more intensely in that particular incarnation, and poor Peri took the brunt of it. In spite of our, er, physical relationship, and the odd moment of peace, we didn't really start to get along better and make something of our relationship until the end. When, of course, it was too late."

"Was that the whole trial thing?" Ace was extremely interested in hearing his take on that particular mess; there was virtually nothing about it in the TARDIS files. Peri, even though a child of the electronic age, had kept no computer files of her own at all. Even Mel, meticulous as she had been recording people's comings and goings, had merely noted that there was "conflicting information" as to how Peri had really left the TARDIS.

"Yes, the 'trial thing,'" the Doctor repeated distastefully, although whether it was her choice of words or the trial itself that he was reacting to, Ace wasn't sure. "I have never been manipulated like that, not even by the White Guardian or the Celestial Intervention Agency." Ah, anger at the memory, then. "The fact that I spent a great deal of the time with amnesia because they pulled me out of my time stream didn't help matters at all. Especially when they showed me 'proof' that Peri had died."

Ace leaned back in her chair with a "whoof" of shock. "Died?"

He nodded, his expression savage, and Ace hoped he never looked at her like that. "Supposedly she'd died. Because of me. But no, in comes the Master, of all people, to assure me that she'd actually gone off to become a warrior queen."

"Just leaving you in the dust?" Ace was incredulous. Peri'd seemed flighty, but not cruel. "Or were you already done, like with Romana?"

"We most certainly were not done," the Doctor refuted with an emphatic shake of his head. "Not by a long shot."

"So which was it, then? Was she dead or did she leave you and marry some other chap?" Ace was still confused.

The Doctor didn't help by suddenly smiling, nor did his next word shed any light. "Neither."