-----------
Tegan rose from the dressing table and turned to study the overall effect in the full length mirror. Satisfied, she picked up the chosen token from the table. In a waft of sharp perfume, a sibilant swish of green and gold cotton, chin up, she walked out to try the patience of destiny.
Nyssa watched from a deep armchair, her face full of misgivings. But she bit her lip and said nothing.
For several long seconds after Tegan flounced out, Nyssa did not move. Then she rose and went to the dressing table. An array of cosmetics were scattered over the table top. She reached out and picked up a lip stick. Shaking her head in bewilderment, she slumped into the chair, twiddling the lip stick in her fingers, regarding the shiny plastic tube thoughtfully.
'Oh, Tegan,' she lamented in a sorrowful whisper, 'Oh, Tegan? Why can you not leave it be?'
The sad reflection looked back at her from the glass. It had no answer. She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh, and rose from the chair, knowing her help was going to be needed, but not what use it might be.
--------------
The Doctor was in the rain room. He had been there for hours, slumped in one of the comfortable chairs, staring out at the gentle rain. The quiet melancholy of the room suited his mood. He always felt like this after a row with Tegan.
Why did she have to be so impossible? He felt a deep affection for her, more than just a sense of responsibility borne out of the fact that were it not for him, she would most likely be living a comfortable, safe life somewhere.
Of all the travelling companions who had shared his life, Tegan ranked third in his affections. Susan, of course, would always be first; he could not conceive of anyone being able to replace her in his hearts. But Nyssa pressed her close. It would be a bad day when Nyssa walked out of the TARDIS for the last time. That day would call for a Dalek invasion to be met head on. He made a note to mark down a few particularly nasty ones to keep in readiness for that day.
Of all those he had travelled with she had gotten deepest under his thick, protective hide of carefully cultivated distance. Her tragic plight and the way she held her head up scored deep furrows in his soul. And the aching loneliness of a psi sensitive left behind when her kind had gone to the dark, that he could do nothing to change, tormented him. And the way she held her head high, and refused to be crushed by the disaster that had wrecked her happiness, filled him with admiration and a quiet pride that she had graced his life and his TARDIS with her serene presence. The friendship she offered without obligation, he treasured. Yes, it would be a bad day when Nyssa walked away.
And then there was Tegan. Brash, impulsive, always ready for a lark, and the bravest of the brave because she was not at all courageous. But she soldiered on, doing her best. In a tight corner there was no "give" in her. She would stand firm. And kind - though she would not suffer fools gladly.
So: why did she have to be so impossible?
The Doctor stared into the rain and wondered how he would remember her - if he would remember her at all. He shook his head in sudden irritation. Of course he would remember Tegan, he could remember them - every one. Perhaps not all of them with total clarity? Well - he had been through five regenerations, but he did remember them.
The Doctor's blue eyes travelled around the comfortably sad room, thoughtful. Or would he only remember the room, the long pleasant hours they had spent here while she sketched and he watched, reading her mind in the change of expression in that beautiful face? Yes - he had to admit to himself, she was beautiful.
His spirits lifted at the remembrance of her face, the features stilled by concentration, the tip of a tongue showing between her red lips. He heard again the scratch, scratch of the charcoal on the rough paper. She loved to draw; and she had a real talent. Without that little badge of pride things between her and Nyssa might be so different.
The Doctor shifted uneasily. He was straying into dangerous territory. He sighed, gazing unseeing into the rain. What he needed was some action to occupy his mind. Perhaps a jaunt into the third age to thwart a Dalek invasion? That was a bad age for the Terrans; there would be a Dalek invasion going on somewhere during that period. It was a very turbulent time.
He dismissed the vision of Tegan's face with all its meandering, unknown and frightening by-ways. He began reviewing the history of the Third Age, seeking out one of the innumerable raids and battles for one that turned out, against all the odds, in a Terran victory. That was a sure sign of interference; his own personal signature, written on the stream of time.
A wry smile graced his lips. He never truly turned up "by accident" anywhere. He always seem to arrive where he was most needed. It took skill and planning; a thing like that could never be left to fate or Lady Luck.
Yes! That was it! Another adventure! He started to rise, then froze as he heard the door handle turn. The door opened. He did not look round, only one person opened a door like that. The expression on his face did not change, did not reflect the sinking in his hearts. He waited for her to speak. The inevitability of the confrontation oppressed him.
'Doctor?'
The Doctor sighed. He stood and turned to look at her. She stood just inside the door, looking afraid but resolute, wearing the green and gold frock. Because, the Doctor realised, in an unguarded moment of openness, he had confessed to her that he liked the way she looked in it.
He could not meet the relentless brown eyes that hunted him. Instead he watched her mouth, the enforced casualness of her smile. The sharp twang of the scent he had bought for her on a whim from a Paris salon grated in his nose. He had never liked it, but the impromptu gift had made her smile, a bright and dancing thing, not at all like the one he now studied so intently.
'Doctor?' She started to hold out something to him.
A long silence descended on the room. Outside the silver rain pattered, indifferent to the thickening despair collecting about the stillness within. There was movement at last. The Doctor half shook his head. A gesture of sad bewilderment. He found his voice. 'It's no use, Tegan. It isn't any use.' He watched, helpless, as the magical halo of hope suffusing Tegan dissipated, leaving her stranded, alone with her despair. The tiny sprig of green fell, forgotten, from her fingers. It landed without a sound on the carpet. Her hands balled into tight little fists; but they closed on only a handful of empty futurity. All the hope had sifted suddenly away, like the sands of time, between her straining fingers.
The Doctor could not stand to cause such pain. He started forward, hesitated, moved past Tegan, heading for the door. In his headlong flight, his left foot crushed the fresh stick of celery. Reaching the door, the Doctor paused, looked back at her over his left shoulder. He could not leave without trying to explain. He could not. He started to speak. 'Tegan. Tegan I -' But he fell silent, finding nothing to say that could be put into words.
Tegan did not move. The tone of his voice told her that all her very worst fears were true. In that moment she saw, with utter clarity, the long years of her life, a vast reach of loneliness, stretching away into a grey old age. An open grave stared back down the years at her, mocking her with its grim invitation to an equally empty oblivion.
The Doctor began again. 'Tegan. I'll be in the console room.' He fled then, pulling the door quietly to behind him.
It closed with a soft click. It was the most final sound Tegan had ever heard.
--------------
The Doctor moved around the console adjusting settings. He had to watch his fingers carefully. Their rebellion irritated him. They, for some reason he could not (or would not) fathom, kept fumbling over the keys. At last he gave a sigh and straightened, looked around himself at the console room.
What more could he want? The relationship he had with the TARDIS was deep, close and fundamentally satisfying - and yet? And yet...
He frowned, and stroked the edge of the console. He felt that thrill of - of what? Surely not desire? No! That was foolish. What then? Again his mind circled, unwilling, back to Tegan. What could there possibly be between them - other than affection? For Rassilon's sake! They were not of the same species, let alone from the same planet.
Ogrons were humanoids; but by Earth human standards they were ugly. Would she be able to feel the same way about one of them? Was Tegan's perception of beauty skin deep? He regarded his reflection in the mirrored surface of the view screen. Well. He was not an Ogron. He frowned again. This was silly. Beauty was definitely in the eye of the beholder.
But no! He reached out to the console. Beauty went deeper than that. What was it Tolkein had said: "handsome is as handsome does". With an effort he dragged his mind back to the matter in question. It was impossible. They were too far apart in experience, in physiology, in outlook and expectation - in everything. And he could not face watching the cruel tyrant of time breaking her slowly into a bent and withered old woman. He knew, instinctively that she would not be able to forgive him his witnessing of that. and at best Tegan had another seventy years.
And yet... He turned to the door, took a step, paused. And yet...
--------------
She just stood there for several long seconds, listening to the rain patter outside. There seemed no point in doing anything else.
Then, eyes bright with incipient tears, Tegan moved to the chair - his chair. She knelt before it. Her knees fitted awkwardly into the depressions left by his shoes. She lifted hands and stroked them along the arms in a fond caress. A thrill of pleasure ran through her at the residual power of his personality still lingering in the fabric. Bending to the seat she drew in his alien scent. Tenderly, she touched her lips to the cushion. It was still warm, alive with the remembrance of his body. Beyond the windows the incessant silver rain pattered.
Tegan began to cry, the tears ravaging the make up, done just for him with such painstaking care. An Ormalu clock ticked dispassionately, counting out precise packets of hopelessness, each as long as time himself, and exactly a second in duration. Tegan wept for the want of love, not because it was willfully denied her, but for the understanding that it was not.
The soft click of the door closing went unheard. So to did the rustle of silken robes, which paused as a slender, girlish hand reached down to pluck a crumpled stalk of celery from the carpet. A hand touched tegan's shoulder gently. 'Please, don't cry, Tegan,' Nyssa implored. 'Please don't cry.'
Tegan choked back her tears, raised her head. Her brown eyes shimmered amid the wreckage of her face. In a small, hopeless voice she asked: 'What am I to do, Nyssa? Oh - what am I to do?'
Nyssa slid an arm about her distraught friend, hugging her tight, seeking to ease her misery. 'I don't know,' she breathed, completely at a loss. 'I don't know, Tegan. I really don't know?'
----------
And yet... The Doctor paused halfway to the door. He looked around at the gleaming white walls, felt the attentive presence. And yet...
He turned, stepped back to the console. He held a hand out over the demat button, hesitated. Around him a pressure built up. He knew what it was - the assembling of a Blinovitch Limitation.
He studied the button under his hand. This was a nodal point in time. If he closed that contact, time would run in one direction - set and unchangeable. If he withheld his hand, it would flow in another, equally set and unchangeable.
In the Rain Room, he knew, Tegan. Around him, the hum of the TARDIS cocooned him.
His hand hovered over the button.
end