oOo
"So what are we supposed to be looking at?" Tegan's brow wrinkled as she reviewed what she assumed was some kind of stellar map projected in three dimensions above the TARDIS console. The room had been darkened, and the only light came from the tiny pinpricks of white light floating above their heads. She'd never seen the Console Room like this; under other circumstances, she'd probably find it enchanting.
"The complete history of time," the Doctor replied, spreading his arms dramatically before allowing them to fall back to his sides. "Laid out as a four-dimensional representation of a supra-dimensional object."
"Right. That's helpful." Tegan's tone implied otherwise. She turned her gaze on the man standing next to her. "So what are we supposed to be looking for?" she asked, varying her first question in the hopes of actually getting an answer she'd understand.
"This representation is the one taken from the last time the TARDIS dematerialized, two months ago." When he'd first come to Earth and discovered that Tegan's reasons for leaving him were as much physical as emotional.
"Right." Tegan nodded. Waiting.
He reached over, fiddled with a few levers, depressed several buttons, and a second projection sprang into being, overlaying the original. "This representation, on the other hand, is based on the TARDIS' extrapolations of where things ought to be now, after two month's subjective time have passed." The Doctor hesitated, not sure how technical he should get in his explanation: on the one hand, he didn't want to go completely over her head; on the other, he didn't want her to accuse him of treating her like, what was the phrase she'd used once? Like adim-witted pet. Of course, if she did feel that way, she'd let him know in no uncertain terms, so he decided to err on the side of simplicity.
While he dithered, Tegan tried to look as if she were actually following this, nodding her head and craning her neck for another look. All she saw was the original white pinpricks of light, now joined and frequently overlapped by red pinpricks of light. "OK," she said after a moment spent trying to think of anything other than the fact that she felt as if she were looking up at the lights on a gigantic, upside-down Christmas tree. "So that's what things look like now."
"That's what things are supposed to look like now, according to the TARDIS," he corrected her, hiding a smile at the doubtful expression on her face. He tapped another lever. "We can't get an accurate 'snapshot,' if you will, until I dematerialize the TARDIS and spend some time in the vortex."
Ah, so that was why he really wanted her with him. To give her the bad news. Tegan tried to hide her dismay, poorly, she suspected. "So you're leaving."
"Actually, it's just a short trip, and I was rather hoping you would come with me." The offer was made diffidently, almost shyly, and he watched anxiously for her reaction.
"Come with you?" Tegan was nonplussed; she obviously hadn't expected that particular offer.
He nodded, reaching to take her hand in his. Even after two months spent sharing the same bed, with neither party compelled to slip away in the night, such moments felt...awkward. He was never sure of her reaction. Not that she ever slapped his hand away, but he could sense her own awkwardness with this change in their relationship.
Not the sex; that had resumed comfortably, naturally, as if they'd never been apart. No, it was the sudden transparency of their relationship that unsettled him, and, if he was reading things correctly, her; something they'd shared in private was now open to the scrutiny of the world. Or at least the scrutiny of the Smith-Sullivan household. Again, not the sex, just the fact of the relationship itself. It felt odd, to be in a relationship in the first place, let alone one that an entire houseful of people felt free to comment on. Well, Sarah Jane did, at any rate. Lavinia and Harry were both much more circumspect. Or at least displayed better manners.
"How come you never used this before?" Tegan asked, sidestepping the question. He sensed the beginning of panic, manifesting as a rapid increase in her heartbeat, a slight but unmistakable tremor in her voice, the way she suddenly couldn't seem to look straight at him.
He gave her the time she needed get herself under control by answering her question before making her answer his. "I never needed to assess the status of the entire known universe before. In the past, I was always able to discover which immediate problem needed solving; I've never spent a great deal of time researching trouble spots and aiming my TARDIS at them. Although I suppose that's exactly what the White Guardian was doing all along," he added, disgruntled. He really had liked the idea of free will; damned if he'd give it up now!
Tegan had got the almost-panic under control. "So it's just a quick dematerialize and then we're back where we started from? The White Guardian isn't out there," she waved a hand vaguely in the air, "waiting to...to hijack you? Us?" she corrected herself. "Whisk the TARDIS off to wherever he says it was supposed to be going two months ago?"
The Doctor opened his mouth to unequivocally deny such a possibility, then found himself in the ludicrous position of not being able to do so. He closed his mouth and looked thoughtful instead. "I'd like very much to say 'nonsense!' right now..."
"But you can't," Tegan guessed. The tension had returned, the nuances of fight-or-flight manifesting themselves in the way she held her head, the way her hand clutched at his, the rapid increase of her heartbeat and breathing. "So what would we do, if something like that did happen?"
Again, he had no answer, and he said as much. Tegan was not satisfied. "I couldn't take the chance of not getting back to Lanie," she said flatly, in a "this discussion is over" tone of voice.
"We could always fix the problem and get back before she wakes up," he suggested, knowing very well how she would take that idea.
Right on cue, she glared at him, snatching her hand away. "Bugger that," she snapped. "I can't believe you'd even think I could abandon our daughter on the off-chance that we'll be back before her high school graduation."
"You're right; it's far too risky," the Doctor agreed, and not just to keep the argument from expanding, as it threatened to do. He offered another suggestion, although he had a feeling he knew exactly how she would react to it. "We could take her with us."
He could feel her glaring at him even if he couldn't see her face clearly. "Or not," he added, resigned to the fact that she was still resistant to the idea of taking Lanie onto the TARDIS. Never mind that Susan had practically grown up here and turned out just fine... "But the fact remains that I will have to risk it. There's really no other way to follow the out-of-sync threads in the temporal movement of the universe."
"Of course there isn't," Tegan muttered, not mollified in the least. However, she did let him take her hand once again, even moved a step closer, so their arms and shoulders brushed. He felt the tension in her body as her gaze returned to the points of illumination over their heads. "If you're absolutely certain there's no other way..."
He desperately wanted to give her the answer they both wanted to hear, but knew better than to try and minimize the dangers just for the sake of temporary peace of mind. "Absolutely. Short of visiting each and every world and time, which would not only be impractical and, if you'll pardon the phrase, time consuming, but would also result in dematerializing the TARDIS. Multiple times."
"Leading to the same risk of being hijacked by the White Guardian," Tegan concluded, her voice grudging. She turned to face him. "When? When do you want to do this?"
"As soon as possible. We don't know how much time we have before the White Guardian returns in the flesh, so to speak," he reminded her gently. "And I'd rather be proactive about this situation. The sooner things are mended, the sooner we can see what our personal future holds for us."
"Fine." The tone was still grudging, the tension still radiating from her body like an electrical charge. She turned so she was facing him, her face only partially illuminated by the sparkling lights above them. "Fine, then, off you go. But first..."
He felt the fingers of her free hand groping their way to his face, moving gently from chin to cheek as she tiptoed up enough to kiss him. He responded in kind, slipping an arm around her back to both support her and pull her closer, pressing her body fully against his. The fingers of their other hands were still entwined, and he felt her shiver as the kiss deepened. Arousal was still a matter of conscious decision for him, at least as far as the physical manifestations went, and he debated the wisdom of letting her feel how much she was affecting him before adopting a "to hell with it" attitude and letting his body do what it wanted.
Tegan gasped with surprised pleasure as she felt the sudden flush of heat, the rise of passion, and instinctively moved her hips closer, grinding them slightly against his. She felt his hand move from her waist to brush gently at her bottom, and pulled her other hand free of his in order to entwine both arms behind his neck and pull him closer, letting her lips part beneath his and giving herself completely to the moment.
oOo
Afterwards, lying entangled in each others arms, the Doctor was surprised to hear a muffled snort of laughter escape Tegan's lips. He raised himself up on one elbow in order to gaze down at her. "That's a new reaction."
That did it; she burst into full laughter at his affronted tone, lying helplessly on the floor, laughing even harder as his expression became even more confused. "I'm sorry!" she finally gasped, managing to sit up and almost smashing the top of her head into his nose in the process. That set off another gale of laughter, and he resigned himself to having to wait until she was able to control herself before he found out what exactly she found so funny.
She finally wound down, leaning her head against his chest and settling herself more comfortably on the tangle of clothes beneath them. "I'm sorry," she said again, tilting her head up for a kiss, which he grudgingly delivered. "It's just that, suddenly I flashed back to when I was first on the TARDIS, before we ever, you know."
She blushed, which he found charming and made him suddenly more inclined to forgive her the fit of giggles. As long as she continued with the so-far less than edifying explanation... "I used to think about you, about us, you know, doing this sort of thing long before I ever thought it possible." The blush deepened, and his annoyance evaporated completely as he realized she was offering him something more akin to a confession than an explanation. "And I just realized, this is sort of what I used to, um, imagine. Us, in the Console Room, doing exactly this."
He grinned down at her. "Exactly this?" he teased.
The giggles tried to make a comeback; Tegan kept them firmly in check, and wished she could do the same for red flush still staining her face and chest. "No, actually," she said, her voice a mixture of defiance and deviltry. "It was a lot more...acrobatic. And involved various interesting uses of the console as a backrest. Among other things. Avoiding all buttons and levers, of course." Honesty compelled her to add: "Mostly."
"Hmm." He fell silent, and Tegan, who had dropped her gaze, stole a glance up at him. He was contemplating the console with a speculative gleam in his eyes. Tegan gasped, smothering a laugh, then letting it out as he carefully arranged an innocent expression on his face.
"You wouldn't." It was a statement, but with just enough uncertainty to make it almost a question.
"Wouldn't I just..." Tegan gasped as the Doctor swooped her up easily in his arms. "Wouldn't I just..." he repeated, rising to his feet, and Tegan decided she should have started things with him loads earlier than she actually had. That was her last coherent thought for a long, lovely time.
oOo
Sarah Jane was just entering the kitchen when the Doctor and Tegan returned from their afternoon in the TARDIS. She very carefully refrained from commenting on the less than perfect state of Tegan's hair or the fact that the Doctor's celery was looking a bit...squashed. "Any luck?" she asked innocently, hiding a smile at the flustered look that crossed Tegan's face.
The Doctor,on the other hand, retained his composure admirably. He gazed at her with a cool stare. "I have to dematerialized the TARDIS to check on some things. Tegan and I were discussing whether or not she should accompany me."
"Discussing" usually meant "arguing" but Sarah Jane had the feeling they'd been up to something a little less...confrontational, at least part of the time. "What's the verdict?" was all she asked.
"I'm staying here. If the White Guardian decides to steal the Doctor away, one of us has to be here with Lanie." The humor of the situation, and Tegan's relaxed pose, ended with that statement, given in her patented "don't mess with me" tone of voice.
"Tegan, I doubt very much that is his intent," the Doctor said, with the air of someone patiently repeating something the other person already knew. "He said I had been granted a reprieve, which implies that he intends to return here at some point, rather than that he intends to simply snatch me away like a goblin abducting an infant..." That was the wrong thing to say, he knew it as soon as the words were out of his mouth, even before Tegan's stricken expression or Sarah Jane's abortive shake of the head. "Yes. Bad choice of words. But I still believe it's a risk I have to take, else we'll never be any closer to discovering what's really at stake."
"Come upstairs and kiss Lanie good-bye," was all Tegan said before marching out of the kitchen, her back radiating disapproval. The Doctor spared an apologetic glance for Sarah Jane, who waved him on with a rueful grin.
The Doctor nearly tangled with Harry, who chose that moment to enter the kitchen. "Sorry," he muttered before disappearing up the stairs two at a time. Harry stared after him, then continued into the kitchen, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. "What was that all about?" he asked his wife. Two months into marriage and he still smiled every time her thought about her in those terms.
"Domestic arrangements," was all Sarah Jane replied before tugging on her husband's necktie until he lowered his face for a most satisfactory kiss. "For some reason," she whispered when they eventually pulled apart, "I'm feeling very partial to some private time with my husband."
Harry had never been one to keep Sarah Jane from anything she wanted. Especially not when, miracles of miracles, it had turned out to be him. Beaming and still somewhat bemused, he took her hand and followed as she led him to their newly renovated flat on the third floor. Soundproofing, he reflected with what he suspected was an idiotic grin, had turned out to be a wiser investment than he'd originally believed.