A/N: Tegan spends time in Martusan's bed, but just to be clear: she has no company in it. Oh, and the Doctor shows up.

The fur throw from Martusan's bed reminded Tegan of golden stars in a sable sky. It was currently wrapped around (a clothed) Tegan. She was sipping a heated drink that stung her tongue with the trace of something alcoholic. She was considering faking a shiver for a while longer to get a second cup of it, but her head was already fuzzy and her nose was stuffed up. Fine time to catch a cold. Being on the run drained vitality: it was not merely the exertion but the awareness that you were being hunted.

The Time Lord had an apartment down here, 'to be close to his work.' Tegan thought he liked being ruler of his own underground domain. Martusan showed them the recording of their pogo-stick escape through the Panopticon. It was damned funny, Tegan had to admit, especially the way her voice squeaked when they bounced up.

He switched from the recording to show them the current view of the Panopticon. Time Lords may not need much sleep, but public areas tended to be empty late at night. Right now, though, the Panopticon was quite busy. There were certainly more than the usual number of guards about.

Tegan was too tired to show much reaction, but Keludar's tension was impossible to miss, though he was civil to Lord Martusan. He kept a wary eye on the Time Lord, especially when Martusan was near Tegan. Personally, she thought she could handle whatever Martusan tried, but perhaps Keludar was suspicious of some ploy she couldn't anticipate. When she'd first met Keludar, he'd been a sleekly groomed fellow who didn't look as if he knew what it was to perspire. Now his hair was tousled and his eyes red-rimmed. She couldn't blame him if the stress was getting to him.

Martusan asked no questions. His patient mien suggested he was prepared to wait indefinitely for them to speak on their own behalf. Tegan couldn't help but remember what he'd said about prolonging the sex act. Perhaps in his own way, he was enjoying their unfulfilled anticipation.

His contact point signaled a message. Martusan left them alone in the chamber to answer.

Keludar knelt by Tegan's chair so that they could talk softly together. "Are you able to move on? I thought about leaving you with him, but he's up to something. That he asks so little means he knows too much."

"Where can we go? We're nowhere near the outer ring of the Citadel here. Do you think we can get to Andred's area of authority before the Capitol Guard finds us?"

He shook his head. For the first time, Tegan saw years in his face; felt that he was indeed decades older. "The odds are very much against it, but I see no other chance."

Martusan came back. Standing at the doorway, he looked them over with his suave smile. "I'm afraid I shall have to assist your decision making process." He slipped off his green robe and stood in pale yellow shirt and grey trousers. Without the concealing robe, they could see he was holding something familiar in his hand.

"I challenge you, Keludar: you are an inadequate champion who has failed his charge time and again." He tossed a toog stick at Tegan's feet. "I will take up this cause in your place if I must prove my worthiness over your body. Fight or yield." Martusan's voice was calm without variance. Tegan stared at him disbelievingly.

Keludar picked up the stick and sprang to his feet. Tegan grabbed his arm. "No! What are you doing? I'm not letting him be my champion. I don't need a champion." She cast off the fur throw, untangled her rubbery legs, and sneezed so hard she fell back into her seat.

Both men startled at the explosion of sound, then immediately attacked each other. Tegan had a vague impression of violent motion, but her eyes were streaming and her throat was tightening. She huddled in her chair, trying to catch her breath.

The combatants reeled past her, rolled across the table, and onto the floor. Keludar cried out. Tegan threw herself out of the chair and staggered towards the contact point. She was going to call help and she didn't care who came. "Emergency, emergency," she wheezed. The panel did not light up, and she slapped at the activation control. Keludar cried out from the other room. An ominous silence followed.

"Emergency! Dammit." She coughed.

"I locked the panel before I started the fight," Martusan informed her politely.

Tegan whirled on him. "What the hell do you think you're doing? If this is seduction, stick it where the sun doesn't shine!" She coughed wetly, hoping she was too disgusting to touch. Not that she believed he intended rape. He was the sort to be confident of winning her over.

"I've already done what I wanted to do. Did you think I was lying? Obviously, you're in need of protection." Martusan took her by the arm and led her inexorably back towards the other room.

The visitor chime sounded. "Permitted!" he called.

Tegan wondered whom he was expecting. "Let go of me, you bastard." She tried to pull free. "I don't want your protection and you are not my champion."

"Will you accept me instead?" It was a woman's voice. Tegan turned towards it in recognition and Martusan let go of her in surprise.

Leela came in: knife in one hand and Tegan's boot in the other. She dropped the boot.

"Yes! Oh, Leela, I'm so glad to see you." She started to cross the room, but Martusan caught her by the arm again. He held his toog ready to fend off Leela.

Leela's eyes narrowed. "Where is Keludar?"

"Back here. He's hurt, I don't know how bad."

"If I may interrupt?" Martusan was over his surprise. "The Guard is coming to collect this fugitive. The Lady Tegan is in my care. You've no standing in this matter, madam."

"I'm standing here, and Tegan is my friend. She wants nothing of you. Do you think I will play your little game? I have a blade, not a stick, but I have honor. Where is yours?"

Keludar groaned from the other room. By the rattling of furniture, it sounded as though he were trying to pull himself up.

"Let me go!" Tegan snarled, trying to wrench free. Like her body, her anger was as weak as a kitten. Her chest felt tight and achy.

"She is injured. What have you done to her?" Leela advanced with the knife.

"She is ill. I have only offered her assistance, not harm." Martusan was frowning. Leela obviously had not read his script, in which he was the hero. She slipped past them. Martusan allowed it. By now, he was more holding Tegan upright than restraining her. He half-carried her as they followed Leela.

Leela knelt down next to Keludar and examined him. Keludar was aware enough to struggle away from the touch. "It is Leela. Do not move. You have a head wound." She looked up at them. "His skin is warm to the touch. He is also fevered."

Martusan picked the fur off the floor and wrapped it around Tegan. Tegan sneezed. The visitor chime sounded again.

"That should be the Guard," Martusan said. "If your care is for her, take her into the bedroom to rest. I'll call medical services." He pushed Tegan into Leela's arms, and the two women went into the bedroom.

Tegan was glad to be able to lie down. The soft fur soothed some of her physical misery.

Leela whispered, "Did he do something to you? Give you bad food or drink?"

There were voices in the other room, multiple new voices. "He gave me a drink, but Keludar didn't have anything. Leela, I was cold for a long time. That might be all it is."

"Lie still and rest. Do not fear. You have many friends." Leela stood by the door listening, knife in hand. Then she ducked away and pressed herself into a shadowy alcove.

The door opened. Tegan saw Commandant Maxil and Lady Litha looking in at her.

"What are you doing here?" Tegan rasped, with as much hostility as she could muster.

Litha tossed Tegan's red boot into the room. "You dropped this," she said with dry humor.

Maxil examined her with his usual expression of disdain. "Are you dying?" he inquired, without a hint of irony.

"No, but it's starting to look attractive." Tegan stifled a cough. "What are you going to do with Keludar?"

"My men are returning him to confinement. Medtechs have been called in to examine both of you. Are you merely curious or expressing a personal interest in his fate?"

"He's my friend." Tegan rubbed at her chest. Litha was watching her closely. Between the two of them, she felt like the main attraction at the zoo. "What is she doing here anyway? Is she your friend?"

Tegan had meant her words to have a nasty subtext, but perhaps she'd gone too far. Maxil didn't react visibly, but Lithasomralirdan's face contorted in open rage. She reasserted her emotional detachment discipline immediately, but Tegan hadn't imagined it. Maxil glanced at his companion, saw nothing unusual, and said indifferently to Tegan, "The Director assisted us by tracking the lift belt you were using. They have inbuilt locator beacons."

That was all Tegan needed to feel completely useless.

"Tegan!"

Litha glanced behind her, and turned away from the door. Turlough came in through the gap she made.

"What happened to you? Hell, what happened to Keludar?"

Maxil left them alone. No one had noticed Leela and she put a finger to her lips. Tegan briefly wondered why Martusan hadn't given her away, but she had more urgent things on her mind. "I've got some bloody awful cold all of a sudden, and Keludar fought Martusan. Have you spoken to the Doctor?" She struggled to sit up.

Turlough hurried over to the bed. "Don't! You look awful. Worse than you sound."

He was too late. As soon as Tegan was upright, she began coughing. When she pulled her hand away from her mouth, it was speckled with blood.

Turlough turned on his heel and went to the door. "Commandant, Lady Tegan requires emergency medical transport, now!"

"It will be here shortly. The detainee requires medical assistance as well." The indifference in Maxil's voice made Tegan shiver. If Maxil already thought of Keludar as a non-person, how big a step would it be to make him a non-alive person? She hoped there were too many witnesses here for him, or anyone else, to try something.

- o - O - o -

Float pallets were brought for both of them. Tegan shivered once she was out from under the fur. It wasn't that she was cold now: no, she was burning up. She had to lie there in front of all these strangers in her robe and bare feet, and felt terribly exposed. She was glad of Turlough's company. But where had Leela gone?

She was floated out of Martusan's quarters. This would be all over soon. Where was the Doctor? How was the Professor? When had she last had a pedicure? Her feet were probably filthy. Tegan sulked on her pallet and folded her arms defiantly over her chest. She gave Martusan the most malevolent glare she had the strength for, but his faint smile didn't alter a hair.

A float pallet was not supposed to transmit any motion to its cargo, but the when the entire group of people stopped in their tracks, the emotional jolt made up for the lack of physical shock.

"He's going to kill me." It took a second for the voice to register as Keludar's. He sounded half-dead and half out of his mind.

The Doctor had come.

No.

The Lord President had come, wearing the Sash of Rassilon over robes of white and gold, and on his blond head, the Matrix crown. This man didn't play cricket or pilot a rickety TARDIS from one disaster to another. The pleasant quality people had marked on in the past was missing from this face. There was no expression to replace it, but every Gallifreyan in the room bowed. The only exception was Keludar, struggling feebly to get off his pallet. He'd been strapped down.

The Lord President had a squad of the Presidential Guard with him. As a group, they looked like an army of angels had descended from Heaven to smite evildoers.

Maxil proved he had backbone. He came forward and saluted the Doctor.

"Report, Maxil."

"Academy student Keludar has been taken into custody. He and the Lady Tegan are suffering from a malady the nature of which has not yet been determined. I propose to detain Lord Martusan as a witness."

"It's just a cold," Tegan said, surprised into speaking up.

"Keludar has it too, Tegan," Turlough explained from beside her. "Gallifreyans don't get colds."

"I understand that Lady Lithasomralirdan has been of assistance in your search, Commandant?" When the Doctor looked at Lady Litha, everyone looked at her. She was standing by a container full of silvery-leafed bushes that bore both red and blue blooms. Ornamental plantings laid out with a mathematical precision and perfection of landscaping that put the gardens of Versailles to shame surrounded Martusan's quarters. It was the most green space Tegan had been in since coming to Gallifrey, and she regretted that Martusan was such a weasel.

Litha didn't wait for Maxil to answer. "Once I knew the fugitive was wearing a lift belt, I knew it would be easy to track him and I offered my resources to the service of the Guard."

"How civic minded. However, perhaps you might also have informed the Commandant that the lift belt in question is leaking toxic radiation?" He didn't raise his voice, or change his inflection, but the words sliced the air. Litha took a step back, only to bump into the planter. Tegan's recent training in mental defense let her realize that the Doctor's voice was backed by a kind of psychic force.

"Is it so? I would of course have informed the Commandant had I been aware of it. We are all being exposed at this moment and require anti-radiation treatment. That lift belts are obsolete technology does not excuse my oversight, Lord President. I apologize."

"Medtechs, treat everyone present for exposure to tau radiation." The Doctor did not acknowledge Litha's speech. Tegan took the pill that was offered her. Only Keludar resisted.

"He's trying to kill me," he kept insisting and turning his head away from the medtech's hand.

The Doctor strode forward. People melted out of his path and that of the two guards flanking him. "Do you have an injection treatment available?" he asked the medtech.

"No, Lord President."

Litha screamed in outrage. Tegan saw her wrestling with Leela, who had grabbed her arm and hand. The huntress had been hiding behind the flowering bush, and now red and blue petals rained about them both. "Doctor! She attempts to conceal her evil!"

During the distraction, the Doctor popped the pill into Keludar's mouth. He had to swallow or choke. "Young fool, take your medicine and you will live to regret your misdeeds. My word on it." There was amusement in his voice. Tegan could have cried with relief that the Doctor she knew was back; the feeling of tension in the air faded away.

"Take the Director into custody. Remove all instrumentality from her person, starting with what's in her hand."

Two of the white clad guards took charge of Litha. Once they had the device in her hand, Leela let go of the Time Lady and jumped lightly from the planter in a flurry of petals.

"Doctor, what the hell is going on?" Tegan felt better already. Her temperature had gone down. She was definitely chilly now, but no longer ached from the contrast between the heat of her body and the temperature of the air.

"I'll explain later, Tegan," the Doctor said calmly. "Rest now."

She groaned, sick of the phrase. Turlough patted her on the shoulder, but she heard him chuckling.

tbc