Turlough's Tale

by genesssa

Set between "Terminus" and "Enlightenment" (with a hint of "The Sontaran Experiment") this novella is narrated by Turlough, who's still obligated to kill the Doctor (and nearly succeeds) or forfeit his own life to the Black Guardian. The Doctor tries to save both their lives. Can ghosts be involved? Ends on a cliffhanger that leads into TV episode "Enlightenment."

22. Chapter Twenty-Two

TURLOUGH'S TALE

Chapter Twenty-Two

Tegan jumps up. "I'll kill her!"

"You'll do no such thing!" I beat her to the door lever and block her. "The Doctor needs you. Go help him breathe!" As soon as she has returned to him and begun once more to hold the mask to his face, still aiming resentful glances at me, I open the door and step outside. The woman is still screaming, only now I can hear her and realize she is screaming,

"I got him! I got him!"

I knock the ax handle out of her hands and drag her into the TARDIS. "You got him all right! Look what you've done!"

She breaks free from my grasp and runs to the Doctor, shoving Alexandra aside and thwarting Tegan's attempt to stop her. "Look what they did to that poor man!" She picks up the Doctor's bruised arm so roughly that he groans. "Will he live?"

"No thanks to you if he does!" Tegan pushes the woman away.

"Most of them got away. It was for the torches, you know. They stole the torches. They didn't need to beat him like that. He was giving them the torches. They didn't need to beat him at all. But I got the leader. I got him."

It takes me a moment but I do eventually realize what she is saying so fast, so loudly, so breathlessly and with such violent gestures. I take her by the shoulders and help her stand up, and for the first time I get a close look at her face. She is so weathered by the cold that I can't tell whether she is 20 or 50, but her brown hair is spilling out of the hood of her fur coat and she has a shiner. "Show me," I demand. "Where is the one you got?"

Alexandra mutters "Stupid gangs," puts the harp down next to the Doctor, goes to where she left her bow and picks that up. "Show me too."

The weathered woman leads us into terrain we can't tell from any other terrain: snow, snow, snow, and the barest of tracks which she seems able to see even if we can't. To my surprise we soon come upon three open sheds, quite flimsy-looking, and three boys, teens from the look of it, huddling in one and tending to a fourth who's been beaten at least as badly as the Doctor has. He is unconscious and bloodied. The other sheds are empty. Unactivated long torches are scattered about in the snow. "See?" says the woman, proudly. "I got him."

"This is who attacked our friend?" I am astounded. "And you did this to him?"

"Yes!"

Alexandra approaches the frightened boys, who keep their eyes on the woman with the ax handle. "Let me see," she says, and they move aside so she can examine the unconscious boy. She looks up at me. "Can we get him back to the TARDIS?"

I am not the largest or strongest person in the universe but I can carry an unconscious teenager. As I gather him into my arms, Alexandra collects her torches. The ax woman shakes her stick at the boys and they cower. She turns and leads us back to the TARDIS.