The party's over.
"You've got to be joking." Tegan was floored.
"I should think most of the senior students in the Academy know about it." Keludar turned to face her, still smiling. She knew how little his smiles could mean.
"You pig."
"Yes."
"You lying, low-life, scum. You call this evolution? Millions of years, and you're playing the kind of prank any idiot half-grown boy on my world might?" Tegan loaded her voice with all the venom it could hold.
"Yes." Keludar looked back at her. He offered no denials; he did not turn away. He accepted her anger. He had the courage of his sins.
"'Yes'?" she mocked. "Is that all you have to say?"
"I apologize for my breach of your trust." The corner of his mouth curved up, wry and futile.
"Right. Not good enough, and you know it. Go away, Keludar. Just go." Tegan wrapped her arms around herself. She turned to the window and stared out at Gallifrey in winter. Was this the entropy that Thalia had warned her about? She could imagine a black nothingness spreading inside her.
- o - O - o -
Entropy, the end of worlds, happening because some Gallifreyan in late adolescence wagered he could score with her? That was her personal mess, not some world wrecking tragedy. It was farcical; it was a sex comedy movie plot. Great looking guy bets he can screw a girl sight unseen, meets her, falls for her, regrets the bet. She'd probably seen that movie and forgot it ten minutes after leaving the cinema.
The movie, of course, ended with the guy and girl falling madly in love anyway. Movies could afford to tie up the plot threads in a bow. What was a bow anyway but a knot: a knot to be dealt with in a life that went on past the end credits?
"Tegan?" A hand touched her back, and she whirled in rage, meaning to deliver a slap Keludar would feel for the next century.
The Doctor caught her arm in mid-flight. "What happened? Are you all right?" he demanded.
Anyone would say the Doctor wasn't as handsome as Keludar. He had hardly any eyebrows, his nose was kind of pointy, and his chin, frankly, was a little weak. However, this imperfect countenance was familiar and loved and the very sight Tegan most wanted to see. She flung herself at him and hid her face in his shoulder.
The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, and in that protective embrace, the black void inside Tegan shrank. "I am not crying!" she growled into his jacket. A bit of gold trim was scratching her forehead.
"That's good," the Doctor said carefully. "Do you have cause to cry?"
"Men." She lifted her head and glared at the man who held her. "I can't deal with men. I should have joined a convent."
"No, you shouldn't have," said the Doctor, with equal determination. "You belong out in the world, challenging all comers." He smiled at her and said teasingly, "Tegan Jovanka, the Indestructible Mouth On Legs."
Tegan surprised herself with a laugh. "I only wanted to have fun. Tonight, I mean. I wanted to dance, that's all."
"There are many Gallifreyans tonight who are glad your presence graced the festivities. Myself among them, of course."
"This dress… it is all right, isn't it?" Tegan looked for reassurance in the Doctor's face, and found it.
"Your dress is lovely and modest. Not only do you look beautiful tonight, Tegan, but also young and innocent. If men have found you attractive tonight, is that so awful? It is not one iota your fault that Gallifreyans aren't used to such feelings."
"I feel young. I've never liked that. People call you young to have an excuse to tell you what to do."
The Doctor's face took on a dearly familiar cast of exasperation. Tegan felt quite at home, despite the novelty of his embrace. They didn't speak. Into the lengthening silence rose the sound of dance music.
"Are they still dancing?"
"Yes. They're beginning to experiment," he said wryly.
"It sounds like dancing is going to be the latest craze on Gallifrey."
"That reminds me: I still owe you a dance, or have you done with dancing for the evening?"
"I think I have one more left in me."
"Brave heart, Tegan," he said approvingly. Their stance shifted, and they began to sway with the music. They were close enough together for Tegan to rest her head against the Doctor's shoulder. Gravitational attraction was not the only fundamental interaction taking place. Where scientists fail to model reality, the poets must step in.
The music stopped, and so did the Doctor. "Tegan?" He leaned back a little without releasing her, and looked down into her face.
In turn, she leaned back against the support of his arm and tilted her face up. "We are friends."
His eyebrows rose. "There was some doubt?"
"I knew we were friends in the way of being willing to risk our lives for each other. You've offered me comfort before. But it hasn't been so… physical. I mean, the touching, the closeness." In fact, their bodies were lightly pressed together nearly full length. Tegan might have blushed if she had not had other things on her mind. "Was it me? Because I was so distrustful, that kept us from getting on better?"
"That was part of it, Tegan, and I was also aloof," the Doctor said earnestly. "Life on the TARDIS is one of extraordinary circumstances. It was possible to avoid dealing with our differences. I suppose we could deal with them now, if you want to."
"Haven't we? That first dance felt like we settled a lot. Things have come right. That's how I feel, anyway." Tegan lowered her gaze to his chest. The dance was already a treasure locked away in her memories. She very nearly couldn't think of it for fear of spoiling the sense of wonder if contained. If the Doctor didn't feel the same way, she didn't want to see it in his face.
A name can be only a word, but sometimes a name is the keynote of one's being. "Tegan," the Doctor said, his fingers under her chin gently insisting she look up.
"Lord President? Turlough sent me to find you." It was Ambirren who called out. He paused a moment before adding, "Excuse me. He said you wanted to bring a halt to the festivities at this hour."
The Doctor had loosened his embrace as Ambirren spoke. His hands lightly held Tegan by the arms to steady her. "Certainly. Tegan?" He released her, only to offer his elbow.
"Right. Coming," she said, and took his arm. She felt like she'd suddenly woken up from a dream. Ambirren held the door for them, and they walked out into the hall. The murmur of voices died away quickly, leaving the music playing on alone. Then the voices started again. Tegan had never felt so looked at than while these Gallifreyans were taking care not to look. What was their problem?
She took her cue from the Doctor and stood by his side proudly unconcerned, trying to make her smile as unruffled as his while he thanked the guests and sent them home with his Presidential goodwill. She didn't see Keludar among the departing guests.
- o - O - o -
"Clean and preserve the dress," Tegan ordered the wardrobe, then yawned wide enough to hear her jaw pop. "God, what a night. Half dream, half nightmare."
"Those terms do not match any fabrics or textures on file."
"I'm not talking to you." Tegan submitted to the loving ministrations of her hygiene chamber and emerged clean, dry, and warm in her favorite scarlet dressing gown over a silk nighty. At least, it felt like silk. She planned to brush her hair a hundred strokes, and then go to bed. On a whim, she took her hairbrush and wandered out into the garden. Tegan found it hard to resist the decadent pleasure of the heated path that kept her warm in the middle of winter.
The lights of the Citadel reached far enough to warm the undersides of the clouds. She turned and looked up at the spires. Could someone look down from there into the garden? She didn't like the thought of that. Perhaps the force screen could be made opaque from the outside and transparent from the inside, like a two way mirror.
Way up there, in the highest Spire, Tegan had kissed Kel, and then dropped him like poison. She might have meant him no harm, but what could he know about kissing and sex and love? She'd stirred something inside him, and then left him to struggle alone. Gallifreyans practiced emotional detachment. They could love science and music and ideas, but loving people was too messy for them.
Now that her first flush of anger was past, Tegan felt sorry for Keludar. He'd been a bastard to make that bet then try to maneuver her towards sex, but he couldn't know the sharpness of the weapons he'd played with. She'd let herself be flattered by his attentions, because she was lonely and he was attractive.
Tegan at seventeen would have handled it all differently. Convinced of the power of her newly acquired womanhood, she would have happily seduced Keludar and had a go at the Doctor. At that age, sex had been the ultimate expression of power and freedom. By eighteen, she'd crashed into the harsh limits of that power. Now she was a wizened hag of four and twenty. The wounds were still tender, and she had not got any closer to making something of herself.
Tegan smacked the back of her hairbrush into her palm. It stung and she waved her hand in the cool air. There had to be something useful she could do here. If all she could do was rub the Doctor's shoulders when he'd got a headache from the weight of those relics, she'd do it. She was not a savage sex toy, no matter what some Gallifreyans were inclined to think.
She was not going to forgive Keludar just because she was lonely. If she did that, she might as well crawl into bed with him and have done with it.
Tegan went inside. She prepared a message to Professor Omicron through the special contact device, asking to see him. She had a few things to ask the old fellow. Her finger hesitated over the 'send' key. Maybe the Doctor would prefer she brought this to him? Really, she'd suffered no harm except for hurt feelings. Why shouldn't she ask questions? She couldn't force anyone to answer her. If she discovered anything of importance, she'd bring it to the Doctor's attention then.
Tegan sent the message and then crawled into her solitary bed. Under the covers, she rested in an island of warmth in the midst of a cold alien sea. The Doctor's embrace had been more comforting still. To dance with him had brought her beyond the need for comfort. The memory of it was not the sequence of steps, the music, or even the Doctor's touch. Such experiences could not be recreated: they were of the moment. Somewhere inside she was still dancing. She hoped she would never stop.
tbc