-------------

As he awoke, with the sheets sticking to him, Adric felt utterly alone. Nyssa and Tegan had one another to confide in, to talk to, to share with. Adric supposed he could talk to the Doctor, but whenever he tried, he felt like he was being fobbed off.

Adric realised that wet dreams were natural, that it was all part of growing up. But there were other things. He knew he couldn't really talk to the Doctor about this. He could just imagine the conversation:

Adric: 'Well, Doctor. It's these wet dreams, you know.'

The Doctor (blushing): 'Oh, yes. Perfectly normal, Adric. Nothing to worry about.'

Adric: 'But it's not what happens, so much. More the dreams themselves.'

And then he would have to tell him, wouldn't he.

But it would be hard to talk to the Doctor, really talk. Adric found it difficult to talk to anyone, properly. He could talk about things, but that wasn't really communicating. He could say that this mathematical concept led to this mathematical constant. Or that the size of the galaxy was so many light-years. He couldn't say how he felt. And what he felt was alone, afraid, ignored, inadequate, ugly and one million other things. They were all locked up inside him. He sometimes felt that he was just a stranger looking out at the cosmos, a person that no one really knew.

It was still early, but he got up and showered. Although the soap and warm water washed away the stickiness, it didn't make the ache in him go away.

==

In the console room the Doctor sat on a stool looking at the console, and not for the first time thought that he absolutely must get things tided up. But, he thought, was it the TARDIS that needed to be tided or him?

This regeneration was a difficult one. He was so emotional. So vulnerable. He couldn't remember ever being so... open to being hurt. And it happened all the time. Perhaps this regeneration wasn't working and it would only be a short one. He didn't know. The darkness in him, the baffle between what he knew was right and what was expedient was even more profound in this incarnation. He could feel things building up to a head. To a point where some hard decisions would have to be made. And it wasn't pleasant. Sometimes even the choices he had to make were unbearable. It was all getting so much harder. In his previous incarnation, it had all been a bit of a game. There was evil and it had to be fought, but it was like playing cops and robbers - until near the end. It was so easy - oh, the challenge and the danger and the near impossibility had still been there, but it was... well, livable. Now it wasn't. The burden and the responsibility were almost crushing. And if what was happening around him weren't enough, his mind was conspiring to play around with him, too. He certainly had done things that he regretted; made bad decisions, really even committed crimes. But now he couldn't press those back into the recesses of his mind. It was almost as though they had been waiting to assault him, and now they had a chance, they jumped out. He sighed.

Adric wandered into the wardrobe, rummaged and then stood for several minutes trying to make up his mind. Finally, he took a pair of olive green cord trousers, a white silk shirt that looked like a pirate could have worn it, and a multi-coloured but predominantly jade silk waistcoat. Finding shoes to go with his selection presented the next problem. He eventually settled on a pair of brown hiking boots with Rainbow-coloured laces and socks. It was time for a change, he felt. He left the wardrobe and ambled thoughtfully back to his room.

The Doctor had changed the location of his contemplation now. The cloister room exactly suited his feelings, and anyway it was quiet. He supposed there were problems with his lifestyle. He was surrounded by demands. The people who travelled with him, though he loved them... He stopped in the middle of that though. Loved them? Did he love them? It had taken ages to get used to Susan leaving, and the emptiness in his heart had been debilitating for a very long time. He wondered about it now. Did he really love them? Yes, he did. They were part of his family - even the difficult ones. However, they did take an enormous part of his solitude away, and that was difficult at times, because, In this regeneration at least, he needed peace and quiet to regroup his energies.

It was strange the way it had worked out, really. It seemed there was never really a gap between his friends - one might leave but there was always another. He had never really stopped to think about it before. There had been that time on Logopolis when he had talked to Adric, Nyssa and Tegan, when he told he had really never chosen the company he wanted to keep. It was all in the hands of, well, he didn't know. Nevertheless, they were all important to him. Some were dearer to him than others, but they all meant something to him.

The "family" he had now for example Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. All of them were so different. Tegan was so self-assured, so able. The encounter with the Mara had left her scored and trembling, but she was strong - someone who could keep them all together. Nyssa was a delight really, but perhaps a little too perfect. Although in this regeneration he was not as prone to pride, it still did rankle him a little that she was intellectually at a level near his. Adric was, well, he was Adric. Difficult to talk to, but brilliant. Emotional and hurt. He so much wanted company but was really unable to enjoy it. Still, given a few years he would probably grow out of it. He was young, and puberty still had him in a hormone soaked embrace. The Doctor wished he could talk to him, but he just couldn't. He realised that he was all too much like Adric, or had been once.

========

Even when it had been a youthful planet, Denion had been rather boring, and fairly ugly. If you liked rock formations then It was doubtless thrilling, but as there were only a couple of different sorts of rock it was bound to be a pretty short thrill. The inhabitants of Denion were unusual, in that they were enlightened, gentle and wise beings. The whole object of their culture was the pursuit of wisdom and peace. These Denions were quite like their planet - boring and ugly. Even they admitted they were ugly, and were actually quite proud of It QS this had been one of the spurs to becoming the enlightened race they now were (or had been).

Architecturally the planet was plain. It was built for the long haul - not for the short term. There was no sightseeing, only the thirst for wisdom and peace. No science to exploit. No minerals to take. No secret knowledge - the Denions were quite willing to share what they had with the rest of the Universe. But the rest of the Universe never came looking for what the Denions had, because all of the survey crews had looked at the planet, scanned it for minerals (negative), advanced technology (negative, negative), terraforming potential (negative, negative) and finally signs of life (negative, negative, negative) and then had whooshed off in their faster-than-light ships. So, Denion was a threat to no one. It was of advantage to no one (in the commonly accepted use of the word). It was just there.

It was there when the seventeenth survey paged, but shortly after, when the eighteenth survey scanned, It was no longer in its orbit.

When they noticed its absence the scientific community of the Universe did not lament, or even really wonder. They just deleted its name from the navigation computers, put a warning on the sub-ether radio about possible meteorite hazards in the area, and then forgot about it. Such is the universe. It turns its back on the most appalling Injustices - destruction of planets, cultures, lives -in the name of planetary sovereignty, and then goes on to hold conferences about the state of the galactic economy. This while whole races are starving, being terrorised and destroyed. Such is the universe.

No one was interested in the fact that the Master had taken the little planet of Denion as a very temporary base and had then thrown it away, destroying it utterly purely for the fun of it.

==========

Adric removed his clothes in his room, folding the smock and trousers he had been wearing carefully and putting them away. He took the gold star from the smock and put it on the waistcoat. For a moment, he stood looking at himself naked in the mirror. He decided that he didn't like what he saw, really. Not his image of a real man. For a start he was a bit chubby, and not nearly muscled enough. He had no hair on his chest. To top it all off, although he was fairly normal in that respect, he thought that the rest of his equipment was a profound disappointment.

He dressed quickly so that he didn't have to see himself any more. When he had finished, he looked in the mirror. The result was striking. He liked it. He liked it a lot. The only thing was that the trousers had obviously been made for a taller and stouter man. He rolled up the cuffs and set out in search of a belt.

======

The TARDIS was a comforting home. As he walked through them, the passageways lit with a warm light and behind him dimmed again. This, he remembered, was part of the Doctor's latest economy drive. Though the TARDIS power system was limitless, basically, the Doctor had decided that far too much energy was being used, so he had programmed the lighting system to be triggered by body heat. The TARDIS was a bit more intelligent than that, though. The light varied considerably. When someone was upset or tired, for example, it was always a comforting and calming shade. Adric strongly suspected that the TARDIS was sentient to a much greater degree than the Doctor said.

He pondered about his home. It was now how long? He couldn't quite remember. 'Thats the trouble with living in a time machine," he had heard the Doctor comment once. 'You tend to lose track of time.' Adric had a clock in his room that was programmed to Alzarian local time. It had taken him hours to work it out, but it was still easy to lose a day, week or month here and there.

=========

The wardrobe was as he left it, except for the Doctor who was sitting on the floor looking at, of all things, a kilt. Adric had known the Doctor to be interested in odd and offbeat things before, but a kilt? It seemed rather extreme. However, the kilt did have a very nice belt on it, with a dirk, which could be handy on occasion. The Doctor looked up at him and smiled wistfully.

'I'm having a rather introspective day, Adric. This was Jamie's. He travelled with me for a time. The sad thing, of course, is that now he won't even remember it - the Time Lords have suppressed his time with me in his memory. Interesting choice of clothes, by the way. The trousers need a belt, though. I did have a lot of belts, somewhere." He started to stand up, and then looked at the kilt. 'Have this one. It's silver. Jamie was very proud of it, some fierce Highland chieftain or other gave it to him.' He flashed a sheepish grin.

Adric took the belt and started to thread it through the loops of his trousers. 'Thanks, Doctor...' He trailed off. He didn't know where to start.

'Mmmm?' The Doctor put down the kilt and looked at Adric.

'I'm, well, I suppose, a bit out of sorts today.'

'Oh? I thought It was just me. Stand up on this.' He pointed towards a platform next to a dressmaker's dummy dressed In a Victorian frock. He opened the sewing machine next to the platform and got out some pins and started to neatly pin up the cuffs on Adric's trousers absently.

'I don't know. I just can't seem to do anything fight. I can't even think the right things. It all just seems messed up." He fumbled for the next thought as he fumbled for the press-stud and zip on his trousers. He took them off and passed them to the Doctor, who was threading the needle on the ancient treadle sewing machine.

'When I was young...' began the Doctor, Adric had to wait a few minutes then, while the Doctor expertly turned up the trousers. Adric reflected sadly on the fact that the Doctor seemed to be able to turn his hand to just about anything.

'I had this time, it lasted about, oh, years. Everything seemed insubstantial. It all lacked reality and truth - flavour, almost. I couldn't understand it at all. It seemed like I was a stranger just wandering through the world with no one even coming close to me. It was terrible.' The Doctor was packing up the cotton and pins and putting them in the drawer.

Adric pulled on the trousers and looked at the floor. 'Yeah. It is terrible.'

The Doctor looked at Adric: 'It does pass, Adric, it really does. You just have to keep going until then. The hard bit is believing. Your mind can play tricks on you, so that you end up not believing anything. I did.' The Doctor was looking intently at the dressmaker's dummy as though it would solve the mystery for him. Perhaps, Adric thought, he was remembering something.

Adric glanced at the Doctor, and ripped his eyes away when their gazes met. It was hard being close, and here they were.

The last time Adric could remember being close to another person was just before his foster-father had died. It had been a long drawn out death, with attempts to fight the disease that had invaded his body. Attempts that had left his foster-father torn apart. It had started as a little lump on his arm; but by the time that they had removed the lump the tumour had completed its dirty work and the secondaries were everywhere throughout his lymphatic system. Adric had never really accepted that his foster-father was sick, and when he died he shut a large part of himself away. He had decided he would never let himself be close again, so that he would never be hurt again. It wasn't that overt, of course. What he told himself was that he didn't need anyone. It was the same thing.

The death of his brother Varsh had merely confirmed that this was the best route to take. Inwardly, he was still torn apart from the loss of his only link to his real parents, dead in the fires.

The Doctor stretched out his hand and touched Adric on the shoulder. Both of them, hurt in a lot of ways, and forced by the hurt to keep away from everyone else were drawn together by the simple touch.

Adric trembled inwardly. He wanted to be close, to be friends. But it was so threatening. It would mean having to bare himself to other people. Would they like what they saw? The threat of rejection was a potent antagonist.

As if the TARDIS was trying to solve Adric's problem, the lights suddenly went out in the wardrobe and the cloister bell pealed.

The Doctor reached the console room first, quickly followed by Adric and then Nyssa. Tegan came in last, looking as though she had just woken up - which was entirely possible as it was still really the "early morning" In TARDIS time.

The Doctor was bending over the console, reading off a set of coordinates where it appeared they were, or were close to. 'Little planet they called Denion. I don't know much about it - mostly rocks, I think. It appears that a solar flare or something destroyed it.'

'Why was the cloister bell ringing, then?' Tegan asked, through sleepy eyes.

'Well, the TARDIS obviously thought we should know about it. Bit sentimental of her,' the Doctor replied, studying Nyssa, who was searching the computer database.

'Well, if it's nothing, then I think I'm going to have a shower and breakfast. Coming, Nyssa?' Tegan asked as she left the room.

'Yes. Nothing interesting about Denion. But there is something interesting about your clothes, Adric.' Nyssa said, looking at Adric.

The Doctor was still looking at one of the Instrument banks. 'They're very colourful, aren't they, Nyssa. I like them.'

'You would like them, Doctor. Look at your clothes sense!' Nyssa laughed as she left for breakfast,

As Adric crept out of the room to change his clothes, the Doctor looked up at him. 'I really do like them, Adric. Don't worry about Nyssa, she's only having fun.'

'No. I've changed my mind.' Adric murmured; his cheeks hot with embarrassment and hurt.

He was sick of being an outsider, sick of being teased, sick of being left out and of having his questions ignored. He wanted to go home.

The rocks and ionised plasma that were Denion held a secret for Adric. A secret that he wouldn't know about for a while, but which Intermeshed him with the Doctor, the Master and Denion again. Almost posthumously.

Adric didn't come to breakfast.