Author's Note: "Whoever named this place Befuddle Hall knew his business! I am certainly befuddled." - from 'Little Nemo In Slumberland' by Winsor McKay.

The blare of an alarm jarred Tegan awake. She sat up, shoving at the furs. The Doctor was still lying on top of them, and showed no reaction to the loud noise.

"Shut it off! What the hell's going on?" she inquired of the air.

"Message priority Omicron. Eyes only."

"Omicron? I'll kill him," she complained, stumbling out of bed. She activated the message screen. It had been programmed to display her messages in English, and now said, 'GO OUT TO GARDEN IMMEDIATELY.' The letters glowed under her incredulous gaze, and then winked out.

She could always ignore the message. Of course, she'd have to ignore it immediately. There was no time to think about it. Tegan pulled her dressing gown tighter around her and hurried out to the garden. The path before the door was clear of snow and warm underfoot, but only extended a couple of steps.

"Tegan!" a voice called, urgent but faint.

"Professor?" She looked around and saw nothing but snow-shrouded shapes.

"Up here!"

Tegan looked up, turning around to face the Citadel. Ten meters over her head, Professor Omicron's head stuck out of a gap in the wall. She startled back.

"Hell's teeth, Professor! What are you doing up there?"

"You didn't answer my message! I had to come see you."

"What do you mean? I got the message, it just came."

"I sent one earlier. That's not important. Tegan, can you get to the President? Keludar is in danger."

"The Doctor's in a healing trance. Why should anyone hurt Keludar? He's just a student."

"There's no time to explain, and no time to rouse him from the trance–" He broke off. She couldn't see what was happening in the dim light. "I had to send the priority alert in the clear. They're searching for me now. Can you get out without the guard seeing you?"

"No, but if you can wait a minute, I'll come to you there. Is there room?"

"Yes, but how–"

Tegan didn't pause to explain. She ran back in, pulled on her red boots, and got the lift belt out of the wardrobe. She'd never given it back to Keludar. She came out again and called up, "I've got a lift belt. I can climb up to you."

She took a couple of steps back, ran at the wall below the Professor's position, and jumped up at the last minute. There were crevices in the wall and she managed first to cling, then to haul herself up. Her initial momentum helped her. The Professor urged her on, and finally lowered his stole to pull her up the rest of the way.

"Very clever and resourceful, young lady. Now, we'd better get out of here. I'll never be able to use this route again. They're sure to find it. Security here is much more stringent than in the areas I usually frequent."

"What's this about Keludar?"

"Not now; when we're safe."

She had hold of his stole, and he practically towed her down the cramped passages. The lift belt was still active and her feet barely touched the floor. Like Little Nemo in Slumberland, she was off on another adventure, wearing nightclothes, and not entirely sure she was awake.

- o - O - o -

Tegan was soon lost in the maze of unmarked passages. The Professor kept charging off in unexpected directions. He would pause, make use of a gadget, and then hurry on. Finally, he came to a stop, and consulted at length with a gadget. "There, I've thrown off pursuit. Thank you for coming, Tegan. I wasn't sure you'd still care about Keludar. Did you not receive the other message?"

"Would it have been from Environmental Services? There was a message I didn't pick up. I thought…well, not important. Tell me what's going on."

"First, is the President badly injured?"

"Not according to him. I'd expect the Doctor to say he's not as bad off as he is, but he can still move. He's definitely got some bad bruises and maybe some cracked ribs. He said he'd have his hygiene chamber perform a basic medical scan."

"That's good, but not of much help to us. He should be awake by morning. Tegan, I was hoping to get you to intercede with him. I should have made that first message more urgent. Now Keludar may suffer for my desire to remain hidden."

"Didn't he get taken off to jail?"

Professor Omicron shook his head. "Not quite. He was confined, a status that means he's awaiting the President's pleasure. He should be not be harmed, and even offered medical treatment. It's a polite detainment, say."

Tegan stared at him. "So what's the emergency?"

The Professor's head sunk down between his shoulders. One doesn't often see a ten thousand year old Lord of Time looking sheepish, but that's the only label Tegan had for the sight. "That fight may have been personally distressing for you, but it was also political theatre. Emotional detachment is necessary, but it can be taken to extremes. The President was willing to fight to protect you. That is praiseworthy. However, if Keludar dies tonight, while the President is incommunicado–" he paused and looked at Tegan.

"It will look like he had him killed. But they can't just kill him, can they? Whoever it is, they couldn't reach him while he's confined. There must be guards if he's under arrest, however polite."

"Let us speak as we move." The Professor moved on, Tegan trailing close behind him. "You did just see me break through Presidential security, no? Of course, I'm unusually skilled, but crimes on Gallifrey are usually more sophisticated and involve political maneuverings that put one into a position to dictate policy. Most Gallifreyans don't care about other worlds. They don't even think of them. Intellectually, they know of them, but only Gallifrey is real to them."

Tegan nodded. "I've been treated like that. Not unkindly, only unreal."

"Keludar and the Doctor changed that. They made you significant. Those who watched understood that the laws of Gallifrey would crush you. You aren't a statistic in a database; you are a living person who would suffer irreparable damage for no fault of your own. Even when the law is just, justice comes at a cost. Gallifrey is an ethical world, her citizens brought up to respect the rule of law. Without compassion, that rule is tyranny."

"But Keludar--someone wants to kill him to blacken the Doctor's reputation, to make him look like a tyrant?"

"To make him look unhinged by emotion: unfit to govern. It's a character assassination, if you will."

"Yeah, for the Doctor, but Keludar will be dead. What can we do? Isn't there anyway we can protect him until the Doctor wakes up?"

"I can't retrieve him from under the guards' noses as I did with you. That area is actually built with security in mind. I had not planned to involve you directly, but perhaps… perhaps…"

Tegan knew the look of a Time Lord who'd thought of a cunning plan.

- o - O - o -

"I have come to see my champion, fallen in my cause."

The guard on duty gaped first at Tegan, then at the ancient Time Lord behind her.

"I am the Lady Tegan's counselor. Do not hinder our errand on pain of infamy."

The guard recovered and activated a communicator. "Sir, the detainee has visitors." Tegan and the Professor couldn't hear the other end of the conversation. "Yes, sir, the Lady Tegan and… and…"

"Lord Azhangrell."

"Lord Azhangrell. Lord Azhangrell, yes, sir." After a moment, the guard switched off the communicator. "You are cleared to enter." He touched a control and a wall panel slid aside. The door behind it had an unusual design: it irised open from the center.

Tegan went through without hesitation. The door irised shut; before them, another panel slid aside. Keludar appeared as Tegan entered, from another room of the small apartment. The Professor stayed behind. The panel slid shut again.

"Tegan, what are you doing here?" He stared at her in unflattering astonishment. His patrician nose was slightly swollen.

"I came to make sure you're all right and no one is mistreating you. Have your injuries been tended?"

"I don't need a Doctor," he said in a ghost of his usual wit.

"I've learned a few things about your challenge ritual. Since you are my champion, I have a responsibility to see to your care. It was wrong of the Lord President to force me to leave with him." Tegan hoped she had the words right. She wasn't quite lying.

Keludar frowned. "You don't owe me anything, Tegan. I tricked you. I saw how angry and frightened you were, but I did what I decided to do anyway. You should hate me now."

"I'll thank you not to tell me how I should feel. It's ridiculous coming from a Gallifreyan anyway," she snorted.

He raised an eyebrow. "Very well. You came to check on me. I'm fine. Go back to your friend. I don't need anything." Keludar moved past her and reached for the communicator on the wall by the door.

Tegan lunged for his arm and restrained it with both hands. He stared at her as if she'd run barking mad. "Maybe I need something," she argued.

"Tegan, what are you doing?" He glanced down. "What are you wearing?" he said in an entirely changed voice, proving himself wholly male.

Tegan looked down too. Her robe was gaping open. Her nightgown had ribbon bows tied down the front, and was quite modest, with the bows tied. A couple of the ribbons had given way under the exigencies of running down corridors with a Time Lord. She let go of his arm hastily, scooted in front of the communicator, and pulled her robe shut again. "That's not important."

"You came straight from him, didn't you?" Keludar's face went stony. "What do you want from me?"

"All right. I came here while the Doctor is in his healing trance because I thought you might be able to help me get a warning out. He knows about the Omicron conspiracy. He's going to question you with the mind probe."

"Omicron? Why should the President waste his time on that dotty old lastgen? So, the paranoia is setting in. He'll be going old Borusa's route–or perhaps Morbius' route." Keludar smiled unpleasantly and reached out to the tie of her robe, flipping it with his fingers.

"Not the old man. The students. He makes a wonderful cover for all sorts of plots, doesn't he?" Tegan put a sly note in her voice.

"For pranks," he said dismissively. "The senior class couldn't conspire their way out of a room of mirrors. The faculty, on the other hand–you know Borusa isn't the first President to have taught at the Academy."

"Of course you'd say that. You know you're being monitored, don't you? You're playing for an audience." She listened for sounds coming the door. Where was her cue?

Keludar laughed. "That makes two of us. I'm sure every guard who can manage it is watching the monitor feed, hoping the savage alien female will have her way with me. Which we both know is not why you're here. So what's the real reason, Tegan?"

The door trembled. The Professor's muffled voice shouted, "Let me out!"

Keludar blinked. "Rabbits," said Tegan exasperatedly, and to Keludar's continued confusion. She turned around and activated the communicator. "Guard? There's something wrong with the door. My counselor is trapped and I need to get out of here. The Lord President is expecting me to return within the hour."

#"I've called Maintenance, my lady. It will be sorted out shortly."#

Tegan sighed and pounded on the door. "They're working on it!" she shouted back. She faced Keludar again. "So this is a confinement room, right? There's a bit of human poetry about stone walls not making a prison. Looks like a jail cell to me."

"Yes, it is." Keludar no longer looked bewildered. He was frowning. The mighty brain of a senior Academy student was at work behind his sapphire blue eyes.

"What do you think the Doctor will do with you?"

"I don't much care," he said brusquely.

"Why do you dislike him so much? Looking back… it's plain you didn't like him before you met me."

"He breaks the rules and gets away with it. Every law seems to have an exception just for him. Not many Gallifreyans know very much about the Doctor. He left the planet; he's insane; they don't care. Even now that he's President, they think it's all right because the High Council supports him." There was indifference in his voice as if he spoke of something he'd cared about once, but no longer.

Tegan leaned against the door. "You care."

"I wonder what makes him so different from Koschei. Not that Koschei deserves my defence."

"Or wants it. He's an evil, callous, murdering, arrogant, self-aggrandizing bastard…I should have stopped at evil. He is that, deliberately." Tegan stopped, remembering the blood in Keludar's veins. "I'm sorry."

"Why be sorry for the truth? I shall leave you await rescue, lady." Keludar turned away.

"No, wait!" Tegan caught his wrist. "You go when I say you can go," she said, improvising wildly.

Keludar said wryly, "I've failed as your champion, lady. There is no other service I may do you." He glanced fleetingly at the neck of her robe, then tugged his arm free.

Tegan flung herself at Keludar, locked her wrists behind his neck, and kissed him.

tbc