The end is nigh for this story, and for a certain character.
Tegan thought that Keludar was still confined. She wondered what the Doctor was going to do about him. She needed to speak up for him. If she wouldn't, who would? She sent a message to the Doctor and went back to the Professor's bedside to wait.
A hand on the shoulder gently nudged her awake. The Doctor called her name. "Tegan," he said, and she blinked her eyes open. Her neck was stiff. She'd curled up in the chair and fallen asleep in a rather cramped position.
Everyone else was there, and awake. They'd had to wake up the feeble human. She glared at them all impartially: men, Time Lords (or would-be), and Gallifreyans. Tegan yawned, arching her back and stretching her arms over her head. It became apparent by their attentive expressions that today's category of expletive was 'men.'
The Doctor took up a position by her chair. She looked up. He smiled at her and put his hand on the back of the chair. Tegan took a deep breath. There was no window, but the air filled with sunlight.
"Well, Professor?" Keludar stood on the far side of the bed. "I hope you don't feel the need to apologize again. The message you left was sufficient. I chose all that happened; I knew you had a hand in events. I knew there was intent behind your words that weighted their meaning."
"Quite right. You are no pawn of mine; I had no wish to move others, but to offer them motivating ideas. Unlike poor Borusa, I do not wish to live forever that I may manage the lives of others. I was Azanghrell, but I gave up my name for freedom. My biodata extract is concealed in the Matrix under the name 'Oedipus.'"
"What?" Tegan and Keludar chorused the word. Tegan added, "What is this with the Greek? Am I just hearing some form of Gallifreyan translated as Greek?"
The Doctor waved the explanation in the Professor's direction.
"Your ancient civilizations were visited by other worlds, among them the Gallifreyans. The Greek language actually functions quite well in translating Gallifreyan. There has been a borrowing of vocabulary in some cases. However, in the case of Oedipus, I refer to the legend with which you may be familiar. I found the binding of his fate by essential paradox to be a fascinating tale, with much personal resonance." The Professor cleared his throat. "Not including the part about killing his father and mating with his mother. Those concepts do not apply to Gallifrey."
"And what of this applies to me?" Keludar inquired, with a touch of his old mockery.
The Professor looked at the Doctor instead. "Lord President, my biodata extract will confirm my rank as a senior Time Lord. It is my privilege to nominate a Time Lord candidate, and I have chosen Keludar of the Patrexean Chapter."
"Heard and witnessed," said the Doctor. Tegan clapped her hands together gleefully.
Keludar looked stunned. "Professor, how can I accept? You would have never been endangered if you hadn't been trying to rescue me."
"Shh!" said the Doctor. "The hearing completely ignored why you needed to escape confinement and how it was done. It is better that their attention is not turned on you, the Professor, or Tegan."
"Keludar, I do this for Gallifrey," the Professor said sternly. Even frail, lying on his deathbed, he could summon the authority of a senior Time Lord. "I expect you to be worthy of this advancement. Remember that."
"You are no longer detained," the Doctor added, "You may return to your studies at the Academy. I will communicate the change in your status to them." He smiled at the Professor. "I've seen that file. I always wondered why a Time Lord would use that name. But it has a 'deceased' status assigned to it."
The Professor giggled. "It does but I don't, not quite."
"Professor!" Tegan protested.
The joke might have shocked Tegan, but Keludar laughed. "That joke never got old, but you did."
"I am glad we shared it again. Now go on, young Time Lord to be."
The Doctor escorted Keludar to the door and informed the waiting guard of the former detainee's new status.
Tegan sat stifling sniffles. The Professor was going to die, and it felt odd to grieve over the end of a ten thousand year old life. She'd grown fond of him over their brief but eventful acquaintance. The Doctor came back to her side and proffered a handkerchief. Tegan dabbed at her damp eyes.
"When we are done here, I ask that you summon a Matrix technician to me, President Doctor. I have never procrastinated in my life. Tegan, my dear, you may not weep for me. I regret the brevity of our acquaintance, but it was a given from my point of view. I am ready to die. But there is one favor the two of you could do me first, if you would."
"And what is that, Professor?" Tegan lifted her face from the handkerchief. She glanced at the Doctor, but he was also waiting, one eyebrow raised, to hear the request.
"I should like to see the two of you kiss. I know that I have done such things myself, but it was so very long ago. Those memories are obscure. I have wondered if Gallifrey could endure the renaissance of emotion. You have traveled farther along that path than I ever dared, Doctor. Of course, if it is too private an act, I will not intrude."
Tegan's first reaction had been to refuse. The humiliation of having her relationship with the Doctor debated in public over toog stick had not yet become obscured in her memory. It had been easier to forgive Kel when they were on the run together. Now the grudge stirred her temper. She twisted the handkerchief between her hands. The loneliness in the Professor's last words reached her. She looked up at the Doctor and found him regarding her seriously.
"If called upon to kiss you in front of the full Council of Time Lords, I would not deny you." His mouth was held straight, but Tegan was convinced that his eyes were smiling. She rose from the chair, offering her hand. The Doctor took it, his fingers twining into the embrace of hers. He drew her close; she cradled the point of his jaw; he clasped her waist. They kissed. Winter met spring, and came inevitably to thaw.
"I don't remember it being like that," the Professor said in a small voice.
Tegan stepped free of the Doctor's embrace. She leaned over the bed and kissed the Professor's dry, ancient cheek. "Yes, it was like that. I promise."
He blinked at her bemusedly. "I shan't argue. Thank you, my dear, that was more warming than a year of hot possets." He looked past her to the Doctor, and the Doctor claimed her hand again. "Yes, it's time to leave me. I wish to compose myself for this last transition. Farewell, my young friend."
"Goodbye, Professor." Tegan let the Doctor lead her out. She waited, taking little note of her surroundings, as the Doctor gave instructions for the Matrix Keeper himself to attend Lord Omicron's passing.
He came back and took her gently by the arm. "Brave heart, Tegan. Remember, more than ten thousand years old."
"I guess I can't really believe that in my heart. I can't think my way around it, it's too much."
"It seems a long time to me, as well. I shan't make it so far, and I'm actually relieved."
There was a guard attending the Doctor, walking a few paces behind them. Tegan only hesitated a moment before murmuring, "Judging by that kiss, there's life left in you yet."
"I trust you judge correctly," the Doctor said in his light, dry way. His fingers pressed a small caress on her arm.
- o - O - o -
Tegan didn't feel like doing much of anything for the next week. She felt drained of energy. A medtech examined her daily and encouraged her to take mild exercise. She spent a lot of time out in the garden. She wanted to know it like the back of her hand, so that finding the addition she wanted to make would be the same experience as fitting the piece of a jigsaw puzzle that makes sense of the pattern. Turlough visited her every day with the latest news.
"Keludar has become quite the big man on campus. The less he says about what happened during your big escape, the bigger the speculation gets. If he doesn't talk at all, he looks even better."
Tegan looked up from her sketchpad. "Yes, but he can't enjoy that."
Turlough chuckled. "He saves his barbs now and only lets loose with the best, and can be sure of a laugh. Apparently, nearly being killed in Time Lord politics is a straight route to popularity."
"Then we should be popular," Tegan said dismissively.
"Oh, but we are. My status has risen, but I am nothing compared to the mysterious and beautiful Tegan Jovanka, the Lord President's Lady." Turlough used the theatrical style that Tegan still found annoying, no matter that she liked Turlough now.
"They don't really call me that, do they?" Tegan's pencil point broke. She was using her materials from the TARDIS, and had to settle for a little plastic pencil sharpener. The sight of graphite and wood shavings on her fingers cheered her up. "Oh, I don't care what silly people say."
Turlough stretched out his long thin legs. He often wore robes because it gave him a little bulk, but Tegan could still make out the points of his knees. She wondered how old he really was, or if his race merely had a long adolescence. "That's what you are, close enough. And it's not only since you came to Gallifrey."
Tegan tried again to capture the interesting, spiky shape of the needles of a Gallifreyan evergreen shrub. "What, you mean the sweet way we shouted at each other all the time?"
"More like the way he would touch you without thinking about it. Don't look so surprised–well, maybe you were trying too hard to be as prickly as that shrub to see it." He'd started out with a grin in his voice, but it suddenly vanished. "Remember, I came on board planning to kill the Doctor. I'm glad to say now that I was a poor assassin, but I did study him for weaknesses. He was obviously fond of Nyssa, and he obviously clashed with you, but even so, he touched you more."
"I cannot believe we are having this conversation." Tegan started packing up her art supplies."
"Maybe, but you heard me out, all the same." Now the smirk was back. Tegan dove for a handful of snow, but when she looked up, armed and ready, the smirk had prudently retreated, taking Turlough with it.
- o - O - o -
The interior spaces of the Citadel were on timers that simulated day and night cycles. One day, night came early. They shorted the daylight by ten thousand odd Gallifreyan seconds, one for every year of the Professor's long life.
The Doctor had been extremely busy in the aftermath of the Litha problem. He had checked in with her once a day, dutifully, and that's all she saw of him. But today, he invited her to his apartment and they sat playing chess with the monitor showing a view of the darkened Panopticon.
"You became very fond of him in a short time."
"Yes. The whole Citadel seemed less vast and ominous, knowing Professor Omicron was sneaking about, giggling to himself and having the time of his lives. Now I know there are a lot of dark, empty places to be lost in." Tegan lifted her chin. "Fortunately, I'm used to that after traveling with you."
"Glad to have been of some use! He left you property. His will was split between you and Keludar."
"What?" Tegan bleated.
"He had to put off dying for two days in order to help the accountants properly document it all. He didn't own anything under the name Azanghrell. Speaking of Azanghrell–"
"Wait! Property?"
"Yes, some of it physical, some of it intellectual. For instance, you are now the owner of the rights to 'Omicron's Guide To Postulated Coordinates,' and 'The Galactigraphy of Imaginary Numbers.' The latter is a respected scientific work, by the way."
"Uh-huh," said Tegan, her mind still spinning.
"He left Keludar his Matrix access key. I really should have confiscated it. I'm sure it's been… creatively modified. Oh, yes, Azanghrell. He's gone."
"He's dead, too?"
"No, or at least, not to anyone's knowledge. He's vacated that apartment. Apparently he had a personal transmat device. Was he really that… huge?"
"Like an over-inflated tire. If he moved too abruptly he started turning red as if he were about to–"
The Doctor cut her short hastily, "Thank you, I get the idea. Might it have been some sort of deception?"
"I didn't spot anything fake, but only his hands and face were really visible. Did the council try to call him as a witness?"
"Yes, and they sent a medtech to check on his radiation exposure." He made a move in the chess game. "Professor Omicron told me that Azanghrell was also engaged in sociological research. They consulted each other, without ever meeting in person. Maxil told me that Azanghrell had commented on his monographs. Sociology is also Maxil's field."
"I guess that makes sense for a cop." Tegan bit her lower lip and considered the board. The Doctor played with a handicap, but usually that only made it easy to see that he was about to win, no matter what she did. "What are you going to do with Lady Litha? And what was she up to, anyway? She seemed to be taking it personally if it was all about politics."
The Doctor sighed. "Yes, she did. We may never know her personal motivations, Tegan. The real mistake she was caught in was trying to conceal the commands she made to the remote control of the lift belt. The commands themselves only indicate the possibility that she attempted to murder Keludar. If deliberate, it was a brilliant improvisation–"
"If deliberate? She was certainly fast enough to realize they'd made her look bad! Doctor, she stood there while we were dying from radiation poisoning. That's pretty cold."
The Doctor cleared his throat. "So did I, Tegan. I knew that you were at risk, but I concealed the information, hoping to entrap Litha into revealing her complicity. At that, it was Leela who caught her, not me. I'm afraid the evidence is not conclusive and Litha will not be charged with any crime. However, she has resigned her position as Director of Celestial Harmonics. After all, if not guilty of attempted murder, she was certainly responsible, willfully or not, for the release of toxic radiation. That's exactly the sort of accident the Director is in charge of preventing."
"Doctor, the duel… the toog stick fight. Why did you bring up the possibility of my memories being erased? I know you said you wouldn't let it happen, and I believe you, but why? I was terrified, you know. I would have lost years of my life."
He lowered his eyes, the spiky lashes making him look like a scolded schoolboy. It wasn't fair for a being so old to look so young and vulnerable. "It was done before to companions of mine. The Time Lords caught up with me during my first regeneration. I was sentenced to lose the rest of that regeneration and to exile on Earth. The memories of our travels together were excised from the minds of my companions, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot. All our adventures, all the brave things they did, the pain they suffered, it was stolen from them, a wrong I can never right. A wrong done them by the Time Lords, in their arrogance." His voice shook with emotion. "I wanted all those witnesses to know the cost of our assumption of privilege. Yes, we must protect the Web of Time, but that does not mean we have the right to cavalierly remake the lives of other beings."
The Doctor met her gaze again, his eyes wet. "Some might say I do exactly that by letting them travel with me. Is that, true, Tegan? Adric was not the first to die. I transported a girl named Vicki from your future to ancient Troy and left her there, at her request. I preserved Nyssa's life when she should have died with her world. As for you, the fabric of your life was torn apart at the hour of our meeting; you've risked death repeatedly and had your mind interfered with more times than anyone should have to bear. Why did you want to come with me in Amsterdam?"
Tegan got out of her chair and went to him. She crouched by his chair and put her hand on his knee. "I never told you how I got sacked, did I?" He shook his head. "I thought flying all over the world would be exciting. I'd be able to go new places, meet new people, and do things I'd never done before. What did I do? Waited on grumpy passengers, saw the inside of a lot of hotel rooms, and hardly had time to nap and shower before I had to get back on a plane and go home again. By the fourth time I had my bum pinched, I couldn't keep my temper. I let him have a piece of my mind, I let the pilot have a piece, and then I served it up to the airline management." She grinned at him; he laughed and swept her up into his lap.
"Ah, Tegan, you take my breath away. So you came back because I don't pinch you?"
"Those words never passed my lips. I came back, because I realized I didn't know when I had it good. Yes, it was dangerous, and there've been times when I complained and wished myself home, but Doctor… you gave me a chance to become something bigger than I ever imagined for myself. I knew what it would be like, and I came back. I didn't come back for your beautiful blue eyes, either. I came back for me. That's why I rushed on board and didn't dare ask permission. I was afraid you'd say no, after all the trouble you went to getting me back to Heathrow. I'm sick of Heathrow and I never want to go there again."
"I feel the same way," he chuckled. His arms tightened around her and she rested her cheek on his shoulder. The monitor came back into view: the Panopticon lay still silent and dark. "Tegan, what about staying on Gallifrey? You came back for our travels on the TARDIS." He'd noticed her glance at the screen.
"I wanted to travel and see new places. Here's a whole new world. I'll stay as long as you don't mind having a tourist around."
"I like having you here."
They sat quietly together. Tegan hadn't expected this to feel so easy and natural. It was one thing to play to feelings of sexual attraction, but she didn't have the heart for exploring that right now. She was going to miss the Professor's company and the kindness he'd always shown her. Right now, though, the Doctor was content to hold her, and she was content to be held, while night came early.
tbc