Summary: Set immediately at the end of "Arc of Infinity." Tegan has invited herself back onto the TARDIS…and judging by the Doctor's expression when she does so, he isn't entirely pleased. Seems like they have some new issues to thrash out…between the sheets.
A/N: Dedicated to warinbabylon, who encouraged me to finish this fic and continues to encourage me to write more whofic. You totally rock!
"I got the sack. So you're stuck with me, aren't you?"
Nyssa smiled. The Doctor looked…less than pleased. Tegan pretended not to notice his expression and waited for his verbal response. After a moment he replied: "So it seems."
Good. Then he wasn't going to keep her from reboarding the TARDIS, from resuming the life he'd basically shoved her away from when he'd abandoned her at Heathrow.
With a smug smile, Tegan took Nyssa's arm in hers and listened as her friend started to fill her in on what she'd missed during her brief absence.
oOo
Tegan took a deep breath as they entered the TARDIS. Strange how the old bucket had come to seem like home, when all she'd wanted to do the first time she found herself aboard was run as far away from it as possible. A lot had happened between then and now; surely the Doctor wasn't holding it against her that she'd been so angry and frightened the first time round? By the end she'd learned to enjoy the adventure, to love the challenges – not to mention the infrequent but incredibly satisfying sex the two of them shared.
Was that why he'd seemed so put out when she invited herself back into his life? Did he think she expected them to just take up where they'd left off?
Well, yes, if she were being completely honest, she did expect – or at least hope for – exactly that. To have adventures on alien worlds accompanied by the Doctor and Nyssa and whatever other strays they might pick up along the way, but also to find herself back in his bed whenever the mood struck him, or desire overpowered them both.
She bit her lip as she hefted her rucksack and travel bags, carrying them toward the interior door with Nyssa still chattering away by her side. Her cheeks turned pink as she remembered that Nyssa had known exactly what her two traveling companions were getting up to – and had been quite shocked by their intimacy.
At least, she'd let Tegan know how shocked she was. As far as the Earth woman knew, Nyssa had never said anything to the Doctor about it. Actually, she'd never said anything further to Tegan about it, either. Probably decided it was none of her business, Tegan surmised, although she'd never asked. Whether that was the case or not, the fact was that the younger woman hadn't brought the subject up once she'd gotten past the initial shock of seeing Tegan limping back to their shared quarters covered with love bites and carrying her knickers balled up in one hand after her first night with the Doctor.
Had she said something after Tegan left, made some comment? Or had the Doctor inadvertently found out that Nyssa knew, had that put him off having Tegan back? Was he embarrassed that he'd given in to his basest impulses with her?
No, Tegan decided as she glanced at Nyssa out of the corner of her eye. If the Doctor knew that Nyssa knew, her friend would have found some way to let her know, would have probably apologized for letting anything slip. All she was doing now was going on about the many adventures she and the Doctor had shared in Tegan's absence – and how much she, Tegan, had been missed.
What if it was just that the Doctor was no longer interested in resuming the physical intimacy they'd shared starting after Adric's death? Nyssa made it sound like she'd been separated from them for a lot longer than the month that had passed for her on Earth; had the Doctor reverted to type during that time, shut that part of himself off the way she knew he could – and had, for centuries?
As she reached that worrisome point in her interior musings, Nyssa stepped ahead of her in order to pull the door open while the Doctor lingered by the console, working the lever to close the exterior door and presumably entering the coordinates for the next destination.
"Tegan?" She craned her head over her shoulder, feet slowing to a stop as he called out to her as if in response to her thoughts. "A word before you settle in, if you don't mind?"
Tegan sighed and dropped her belongings to the floor with a thump while Nyssa hesitated, one hand on the latch, looking from Tegan to the Doctor and back again, her forehead creased in either worry or confusion, or both. Tegan recognized the tightness in the Doctor's voice, could see the subtle signs of tension in the set of his shoulders even as he tried to mask it with a sunny, nothing's-wrong-just-a-chat-between-friends smile meant solely for Nyssa's benefit.
"It's all right, Nyssa. Whatever he's about to lecture me on won't do any lasting damage, I'm sure." Tegan grinned and added, "Indestructible, remember?"
Nyssa shrugged and headed obediently for the TARDIS interior, looking not entirely convinced but appearing willing to do as she was asked in order to grant them a private moment.
Tegan waited until the door closed behind the younger woman before turning to face the Doctor, leaning against the wall since she felt the need for a defensive posture but wanted to at least project casualness; his quiet words had raised nothing but alarm bells. She put her arms behind her back and leaned against her crossed wrists, raising her chin, ready to take whatever he intended to throw at her now.
He'd dumped her off at Heathrow like so much unclaimed luggage, without bothering to check that she hadn't changed her mind. If he didn't want her back, that was too sodding bad.
She felt her temper flare as he simply stood there and studied her. How could he not have known she'd changed her mind, anyway? The bloody Time Lord was literally the best lover she'd ever had; what girl in her right mind wanted to leave that sort of thing behind her?
Unable to bear the silence a moment longer, she snapped: "Well? What is it?"
He frowned and tucked his hands into his trouser pockets, but not before she saw them tense as if about to curl into fists. Good. She'd much rather be on the offensive than the defensive any day of the week. Especially when it came to infuriating, know-it-all, incredibly sexy Time Lords.
"I had hoped that when you invited yourself back aboard you might be bringing a different attitude with you," he finally replied. "However, I suspect such a hope would be futile."
"You dumped me off," she reminded him. "I never said I wanted to leave."
"Didn't you?" He hadn't moved from behind the console, and she wondered if it was because he felt the need for physical distance between them or was simply due to him not wanting to make her feel threatened or intimidated. "I believe that was your primary goal. And," he pointed out, "we did agree that once the TARDIS made it to Heathrow on the proper day and time that it was…meant to happen."
Tegan felt her teeth grinding; meant to happen, really? Oh, she knew what he was talking about, how the TARDIS had kept deliberately landing them elsewhere because somehow the time machine was semi-sentient or telepathic or something, able to understand the Doctor's true desires versus his stated intentions, but no one had bothered to ask her opinion and now was the time for her voice it. Loud and clear, the way she always announced everything.
She dropped her arms to her side, stalking her way across the Console Room until she stood directly in front of the Doctor. Who didn't move an inch, simply looked down his nose at her glaring face. "Look, you," she said, jabbing a finger into his chest, knowing everything about her radiated belligerence and not caring one whit. "We had a good thing going, uncomplicated, a lot of fun – a stress reliever, didn't you call it once? And I kept my end of the bargain, didn't start acting like some stupid, lovesick git. But no, you had to go and dump me off at Heathrow first chance you got. If you were tired of sleeping with me, why didn't you just say so?"
He continued to gaze down at her, his expression unreadable, but she thought she detected a gleam of some undefined emotion in his blue eyes. "Is that what you thought, that I'd decided to end our sexual relationship by simply getting rid of you as soon as I could?"
Tegan nodded. "Yeah, that's pretty much how it felt," she bit out. "And now I've invited myself back, you're worried I want to start things up again. Well, if that's your problem, stop worrying. I promise not to throw myself at you the first chance I get. I can be just as uninvolved with your dangly bits as Nyssa is…" Her eyes narrowed as a possibility she hadn't wanted to consider popped up in her mind. And once in Tegan's mind, thoughts generally made their way immediately out of her mouth, this case being no different. "Unless that's the problem? You've taken up with Nyssa now, is that it?"
She was being deliberately nasty, but all the hurt feelings and the blow to her self-esteem his abandonment of her had caused came rushing up from where she'd tried to bury them. The loss of her job had been horrible, making her feel as if nothing in her life could possibly work out no matter how hard she tried. Only her cousin Colin's invitation to join him in Amsterdam had helped – and that, really, only because Omega had seen fit to intervene.
The Doctor looked affronted at her words, no doubt taking them at their face-value appearance of jealousy instead of looking deeper, the way Tegan secretly hoped he would. She didn't want to have to explain her feelings to him, she wanted him to just know, the way every woman since Eve wanted her man to just know, what was going on inside her mind.
And like every woman since Eve, she found herself deeply disappointed as he completely missed the point and zeroed in on the surface of what he'd been accused of. "Of course not," he said with an indignant huff. "You know very well Nyssa is like a…a younger sister to me, a student, or a daughter, if anything." He fell silent to frown at her and made his second mistake by adding in a cutting voice: "Besides, she's not really sexually mature yet. Trakenites live longer than Humans, so by my reckoning she won't be ready for anything like that for at least another year or two."
Her hand itched to slap his face, and she literally had to curl it into a fist and tuck it behind her back to stop herself from making the gesture. "Well," she said through clenched teeth, "if that's all that's stopping you, don't let me get in your way."
She turned around to grab her belongings, ready to open the TARDIS doors and haul ass back to Amsterdam, when the Doctor grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him again.
When he remained silent, simply studying her, Tegan opened her mouth to demand that he let her go…
…and found herself in the midst of a passionate embrace. The Doctor's mouth on hers, the Doctor's tongue sliding between her lips, the Doctor's hands on her hips, pulling her closely against his body…
Tegan moaned and responded to the kiss by throwing her arms around his neck, fingers tangling in his hair as she did her level best to minimize the ability of air molecules to travel between their bodies.
So much for her boasting about how uninvolved she could be with his dangly bits. Right now all she could think about was how much she wanted him, how she'd missed this – and how none of the men she'd been with before the Doctor, or the ones she'd shagged after he deserted her, none of them could even come close to pleasing her the way he did.
The way he was now, his hands firmly grasping her bum as he ground himself against her, his lips and tongue molding her mouth to his.
"Is this what you want, Tegan?" he demanded, his voice harsh as he pulled away from her. "Is this really why you came back?"
She stared up at him. "No," she said, trying for defiance but knowing how weak her protest sounded. "Of…of course not."
He raised an eyebrow and looked steadily at her until she relented with a pout. "Fine, yes, I was hoping…I mean, who could turn down the chance to see the Universe? I do want that, I did miss Nyssa, but yeah, this…it would be nice if we could…"
She felt herself blushing, just a bit, and hated herself for sounding so damned needy and pathetic.
The Doctor responded by kissing her again, pressing her firmly against the wall, his hands sliding up her sides to cup her breasts. She moaned into his mouth, turned her head aside to slip her tongue into his ear, to nip at his throat, only to meet resistance as he abruptly pulled away from her.
She opened her eyes – when had she closed them? – when he removed one hand from her body, watching from the corner of her eye as he fumbled something out of his pocket. What – ? Oh, sonic screwdriver. Why did he…
The Doctor held up the pocket-torch-sized piece of alien tech and aimed it at the interior door to the TARDIS. Oh, brilliant, a lock Nyssa couldn't open if she tried…and if the younger woman had a brain in her head, she'd stay far, far away from that door. Else she'd be getting an earful any second…
The Doctor's lips traveled to the lobe of Tegan's ear, his teeth nipping at it before moving down to where the fabric of her white lace shrug covered her shoulder. She moaned as his teeth scraped their way beneath the fabric, settling on the base of her throat as his tongue slipped between his lips to press against the marks he was leaving in her skin.
His hands were beneath the lightweight fabric of her shrug, fingers toying with the zip to her matching sleeveless top when he spoke. "How many?"
"Wh – what?" Tegan managed to gasp out as the fingers of one hand dipped down to the small of her back, gliding just beneath the waist of her culottes.
The Doctor's breath was warm on her neck, but not nearly as warm as his flesh against hers. "I said, how many? How many men?"
Tegan's brain was definitely not up to this conversation… "How many men, what?" she gasped out as he commenced nibbling on her shoulder, having pushed the fabric of her shrug down over her arm.
"How many men did you sleep with after I left you at Heathrow?"
Tegan pulled back, unsettled by his question and the intensity with which he asked it. "What do you care?" she managed to snap with some of her usual vinegar as she shoved her hands against his chest, desperately in need of physical distance if he was going to go all…what, macho?...on her. "You left me there, didn't even say a proper good-bye, took off without making sure it was what I wanted, so what bloody difference does it make how many men I slept with?"
He regarded her out of half-closed eyes, reaching up to stroke a finger along the side of her face, evoking a shiver as her own eyes closed in response. "Humor me."
Tegan snapped her eyes open again, watching him carefully as she tossed her head and responded with a defiant: "Three."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Three? In a month? Isn't that a bit…excessive?"
"Not when you're trying to forget someone," she ground out, her arms once again crossing her chest defensively.
The ghost of a smug smile crossed the Doctor's lips. "So you're saying it took three men to replace me, hmm? Is that it?" He reached out and eased her arms away from her body. She fought him half-heartedly, still annoyed by the question, but not so much that she wanted him to pull away again.
He held her against the wall, leaning down so that his head was nearly level with hers, his forehead barely brushing against hers as he asked: "So you had sex three times since you left…"
"Since you left me," she corrected him with a return of her irritation. "Dropped me off like you couldn't wait to be rid of me…"
"You never said you didn't want to go home," he reminded her as he ghosted his lips down the side of her face, settling against her neck as he pressed his body against hers again.
Tegan sighed. "Yeah, well I guess we can have that fight later." She flicked her tongue against his ear. "Anyway, I said I slept with three blokes, not that I had sex three times." She raised one foot off the floor and wrapped her leg around his. "More like seven times."
"And how was it?" he asked, his tone conversational, as if he were asking about the weather in Amsterdam instead of her intimate relationships with other men. Rabbits, would he want details next?
"Fine," she bit off as he returned to nibbling delicately at her neck, pressing his body slightly closer to hers, but not quite close enough to stop the air molecules the way they'd seemed to manage before. "Great. Fantastic. The best ever."
She felt him chuckle against her skin. "Really? The best ever? Seven times in a row?"
"All right, it was fine, it was nice, but it wasn't you, none of them even came close, is that what you really wanted to know?"
He pulled his head away again, regarding her out of those damned blue eyes, the ones she could lose herself in every time he caught and held her gaze. "Yes."
That was it; a simple "yes" and suddenly his urge for probing questions was replaced by a single-mindedness she more than appreciated as he pulled her shrug down over her arms and allowed it to drop to the floor. She kicked it to one side as he finally undid the zip to her top, then reached down to do the same to her culottes while she busied herself with removing his own annoying layers of clothing.
After they managed to rid themselves of the encumbrance of clothes, Tegan allowed her eyes to feast on his body. He was fit and lean and lovely, pale where the sun hadn't been allowed to touch him – everywhere but face and hands and throat – and she allowed her fingers to follow where her eyes had lingered. Shoulders. Chest. Stomach. Hips. Thighs. Cock.
She curled her fingers around his shaft, glorying in the feel of it. She'd honestly believed she would never find herself in this position again, that she'd never see the Doctor or feel his body against hers, his lips on hers, and here he was, gloriously real and hard and hot and ready for her.
Bloody Omega deserved a medal for this unexpected reunion, although she wasn't going to lose any sleep knowing he was dead – or probably dead. Whatever. She wouldn't miss him in either case.
But she had missed being on the TARDIS; she'd missed Nyssa's friendship but mostly she'd missed being with the Doctor. Like this. Naked, ready to shag each other's brains out. Those blue, blue eyes like molten gems, so hot she could practically feel them against her skin the way she could feel his fingers as he pressed them into her arms.
She opened her mouth for another kiss, gasping as he suddenly spun her so she faced the wall. He always wanted to take her from behind; would he bend her over the console next? She felt her mouth go dry at the thought, even as she continued to gasp and moan as his hands insinuated themselves between the wall and her breasts, as his tongue and lips and teeth marked the tender skin on the back of her neck. She felt the heat of his cock against her ass as he shifted one leg between hers, and reached back blindly to slide her hands up and down his thighs.
"Console?" she managed to moan, and like the superior mind he'd always been, the Doctor knew exactly what she meant. He grappled her over to it, groping blindly with one hand to manipulate a lever and press a rapid sequence onto a series of buttons and suddenly her breasts were pressed to the metallic surface, nipples aching with that wonderful burn she always felt when the Doctor proved himself to have just as savage an animal nature as any Human.
As if continuing to read her mind, she felt his teeth nipping at her shoulder again, hard enough to leave marks but not - quite - drawing blood. She reached back, blindly running her hand along his side, down to his hip, reveling in the awkward position and discomfort as she squeezed his arse, then pinched it for good measure.
He growled something unintelligible, then once again thrust his thigh between her legs, forcing her to widen her stance. She did so willingly, gasping out a moan of sheer sybaritic pleasure as she felt the hard press of his naked cock between her thighs.
He bent over her, insinuating one hand between the console and her breasts, squeezing almost cruelly as he pushed his way into her. She was already wet and ready for him, practically dripping with naked lust, a fact which he very much seemed to appreciate. He bent over her, so close she could feel his hot breath against her cheek, and she closed her eyes and moaned as he continued to thrust into her like a man possessed.
"Did you miss the TARDIS, Tegan, or did you miss this?" he hissed into her ear, pinching her nipple at the same time, twisting it so that she gasped with that pleasure/pain she hadn't felt since the last time they'd done something like this.
"I, I missed it all," she managed to gasp out, turning her head slightly so that their lips were only centimeters apart. She ignored the buttons and dials and thingamabobs pressing into her chest, her cheek, focusing only on the fierce, otherworldly blue of the one eye she could see. "I missed it all, all of it, I missed you-ahhhhhh!"
Her confession seemed to unleash the beast he'd barely been keeping in check; with a savage growl he captured her mouth for an awkward, delicious, brutal kiss. Then he pulled his face away, resting his body atop hers, holding her wrists clamped as tightly as if he feared she might try to free herself. Chance would be a fine thing, indeed! Tegan just closed her eyes and held on for the ride.
And what a ride it was. The Doctor continued to thrust into her like a man possessed, growling and biting, grunting and straining as if bringing her to orgasm was not only his immediate goal, but his life's mission. He did something with his fingers on her nipples whilst simultaneously twisting his hips in a manner that nearly caused her to jump out of her skin - and brought her screaming to her first orgasm.
Limp with release, she barely noticed when the Doctor abruptly pulled out of her, spinning her in his arms so that they were face to sweaty, reddened face, her lower back now resting on the consoles's edge. "Had enough?" he taunted her.
She jutted her chin up at him defiantly, stiffening knees that had gone all wobbly. "Well I know you haven't," she snapped, always ready to give tit for tat when it came to the Doctor. She deliberately let her eyes drift down to his still-erect cock. "What I'd really like right now is to…have a taste."
With that, she sunk to her knees, grinning at the Doctor's half-stifled oath - or was it a protest? Didn't matter. She wrinkled her nose at the taste of her own musk as she took the tip of his cock into her mouth, then ignored the sour tang and got to work reminding the Doctor exactly what he'd been missing during her absence.
She felt his hand on her head, fingers running through her short locks, and briefly regretted the impulsive haircut. Time to grow it back out again, Tegan my girl, if you want to enjoy some really good hair-pulling. Then she was too busy sucking as much of the Doctor's turgid length into her mouth as she could to bother with anything as inconsequential as thinking. Sucking, licking, massaging his balls with the fingers of one hand - all that took a great deal of concentration, after all! And listening as the Doctor grunted and called her name in strangled tones, knowing that she was the one with all the power in this moment despite his brusque treatment and the fury he clearly felt at once again allowing himself to utterly lose control with her…
His fingers clenched in a sudden spasm, then he yanked her head back, releasing his cock from her lips as she stared up at him. He was wild-eyed, his chest heaving as he took great, gasping breaths, then he dropped to his knees as suddenly as she had, pressing her back so that she lay on the cool TARDIS flooring, his head between her legs and his mouth on her quinny. Those lips, that tongue, oh the magic they could do! Within seconds she was squirming and gasping, fingers firmly grasping the sides of his head; within a minute she was calling out his name as a second orgasm tsunamied over her, leaving her breathless.
Before she could even begin to recover his body was atop hers, his cock inside her, filling her and moving with frantic speed, as if he were desperate to reach his own release. Tegan's lips curled with a self-satisfied smile that quickly morphed into an expression of shock as she realized she was heading for a third orgasm. Her fingers dug into his arms; his breath came hot and heavy, panting against her ear, and she closed her eyes and wrapped her legs around his waist, clinging for dear life as she strained for that unexpected peak.
They came together, both gasping for breath as they shuddered through their mutual crescendos. The Doctor rested atop her for a moment before rolling to his back and pulling her into his arms. "Well," he said after a few moments where they just stared at the TARDIS ceiling, "that was, erm, rather - that is to say…"
"Yeah," Tegan agreed. "It was." She paused. "So I'm thinking I should have my own room this go round, instead of sharing with Nyssa. What do you think?"
He turned and looked at her, his expression unreadable. Then he smiled, just a slight curve of the lips. "Yes, I rather think that would be for the best," he agreed. Then he kissed her, almost tenderly, and to her surprise, fell asleep still holding her in his arms.
It wasn't long before she joined him, her head comfortably pillowed on his chest, as she settled in for the best sleep she'd had in a month.