Turlough, Turlough (SWF edit)

Chapter 2: Five brings one and finds another one

The TARDIS sped through the vortex, the Doctor allowing her to be reckless, to fly too far and to places too forbidden. Apart from an uncomfortable sojourn to Gallifrey, it had been Earth, Earth, Earth lately, and she wanted to go somewhere new.

She felt the tug of a nexus. Not the whirlpool of a super-nexus like Humanian Earth - just a dip in spacetime, tugged out of shape by an instance or two of the stress on its fabric that was time travel. She edged closer, interested. It was nowhere she'd been before, but there was a taste of herself on the time winds.

Well, that meant she was destined to visit this place later. She could wait. She wanted to go somewhere unique. The TARDIS changed direction and headed away from the little nexus. Inside her, the Doctor was checking every panel of her console, giving her all his attention, trying to fathom her foibles. The poor, sweet fool.

Then three Sontaran spheres streaked by, speeding out of control from the far future. She was caught in their wake, and, protesting, was dragged towards their destination. The Doctor was suddenly frantic, trying to stabilise her flight, to free her.

They snapped back towards the future. She snarled at them as they whipped past again and dragged her the other way. Peh. When would the Sontarans stop experimenting with time travel? They had no idea what they were doing. And the Doctor was letting that awful ginger boy touch all her most powerful controls.

Then, with horror, she saw the little nexus blossoming into an ungodly huge pit in the vortex, the telltale of some huge time disturbance event. In moments they were caught up in its influence. She knew she couldn't survive such a tempest. Any further towards the future and escape would be impossible.

But the Doctor was at her helm, and he would save her. Marshaling all her energy, he brought her level with the Sontaran spheres and, inverting her temporal shields for the briefest moment, bounced all of them back through time. When they arrived at the center of the nexus, it was the little one of the past, the one that did not mean a death scattered on the winds of the vortex.

She materialised with as much annoyance as relief, and relished the thought of her Doctor showing those Sontarans a thing or two.

"Have we landed safely? Are we out of danger?"

Turlough ignored her on purpose, scanning down the rows of controls and pecking a key here and there. The Doctor ignored her completely by accident, checking one reading against another and back again, brushing by Turlough each time, in that way that made her frown bitterly.

"Are we-"

"Indeed we are, Tegan, but I suspect our Sontaran friends are rather worse off," the Doctor answered briskly, and even glanced at her.

"They can't have survived, can they?" Turlough wondered.

"Sontarans are nothing if not durable," he mused, frowning at a readout. "I wouldn't put it past them."

Tegan sighed. "So we're going to go looking for them, I suppose."

The Doctor straightened up, beaming. "What a splendid idea."

The Doctor strode down the wide city streets, his eyes glued to the little grid of LEDs that passed for a screen on the device he'd whipped up. It was up to Tegan and Turlough to keep him out of traffic - thankfully there was very little of that.

"We've gone down this way twice now, Doctor," Tegan complained. "Are you sure that thing's working properly?"

"Of course it is, Tegan." He stopped at the corner and slowly turned completely around. Tegan's hand went to her hip. He smiled at her encouragingly. "Just have to compensate for all this interference. This city's power grid isn't terribly well shielded, apparently."

"It's Orthonas," Turlough said quietly.

The Doctor looked at him, puzzled.

"The city. It's Orthonas." He shifted his feet, looking decidedly uncomfortable. "This is my home."

They hadn't a scrap of the local money, but the girl at the news cafe had taken a battered Federated Republic note and brought them a pot of very hot and almost decent spiced tea. Tegan sipped at hers, watching Turlough poke at the public touchscreen on the next table. He was looking to see if there were any news reports about crashing UFOs. The Doctor was completely absorbed in his tracking device, which he had just pulled half apart, tiny components scattered on the table.

"How long is it since you've been home, Turlough?" Tegan wondered.

He paused but didn't look up, his hand hovering over the display. "I'm not sure. The styles have certainly changed." The date on the corner of the screen was a good long while after his exile. Hopefully no one would be looking for him. He didn't want to think about it.

"Well, watch out he doesn't leave you here. We landed at Heathrow once and the Doctor and Nyssa saw the cops, panicked and took off without me. Didn't even try to come back!"

He scowled over at her. "What? That doesn't sound like the Doctor."

Tegan shot back a very sour look. "You wouldn't have thought so, would you?"

Turlough shrugged and sighed, turning back to his computer screen. "Now I see why you were so annoyed when he insisted that you wanted to go home."

"I think he did that because he was afraid of you wanting to go home."

Turlough made a face without looking up. "That's silly."

Fine then, Tegan decided, she'd leave him to it. She looked at her own screen, poked it experimentally. Half a cup of tea later, she'd successfully entered a search for Turlough.

If only the TARDIS was this user-friendly! The headings came up: War history. War crimes. Trials. Politics. Extradition. Exile. Apartheid. She glanced up at Turlough, at the Doctor. They weren't paying her the slightest attention. Was Turlough a common name here? She tapped 'exile.'

Headings with photos scrolled by; a whole family's worth of cold-eyed redheads and a few dark, beautiful women. She blinked at all the young faces amongst the adults, wondering just how long Turlough had been alone at that school.

And then she saw Turlough's face, looking defiantly up at his photographers. She stared for a long moment. He looked... slightly older. Her eyes flashed to Turlough again, still absorbed in his own search.

She tapped the photograph.

"Doctor..." she said, a little too quietly, slid out of her seat and went to the Time Lord's side. "Doctor. You should look at this."

"Hmm? What is it, Tegan?"

"It's Turlough," she said under her breath, with another glance at him. "He's already here."

"Hmm... What?" He put down the gutted device. "What did you say?"

"Look for yourself," she said, pointing to her screen. He leaned over and glanced at it, frowned, and reached out a long hand to clear the display. She scowled. "Hey!"

"How much of that did you read?" he demanded.

"Hardly any of it! What on Earth's the-"

But the Doctor had crossed to the other side and was peering over the young man's shoulder. "Turlough... You'd best stop browsing."

Turlough looked up, felt the Doctor's breath on his face he was standing so close. "Is there a problem?"

The Doctor's arm slipped past him to clear his table as well. "There is. This is your future, Turlough. In this time, you've already returned." His eyes were glittering strangely.

Turlough chewed this over for a few moments, wondering why the news made his skin prickle. "There's another me here."

"Yes."

"I see."

"It's best if you go back to the TARDIS immediately. It's very dangerous to learn too much about one's own future."

Turlough looked at him with frank incredulity. "Doctor, a few weeks ago I was introduced to you several centuries before you met me."

The Doctor looked a bit fretful. "That was different. There were extenuating circumstances. And in any case, a Time Lord's memory treads carefully where such events are concerned."

"What bollocks!"

"Turlough, maybe he's right," Tegan suggested. She'd seen the consequences of a past and present Brigadier's meeting. "I'll go back with you..."

"I don't need an escort. I'll go back on my own," he hissed, storming out of the little cafe, throwing the door shut behind him, only to have it bounce on a puff of air and settle noiselessly closed.

The cafe girl blinked at them in slight worry. Apparently her mum had been right about subversives flying off the handle a lot. "Is everything all right, sir, miss?"

Tegan's eyes were narrowed. "That boy! I'm sorry, Doctor, I'll go after him."

"No, Tegan..." he caught her shoulder, squeezed it reassuringly. "He'll be all right. We should probably just give him some space."

"I wonder why he'll leave..."

It was exactly what the Doctor didn't want to hear. "Why? What does it matter why? No one stays, you know, Tegan. No one stays forever."

His face fell very slowly as he realised Tegan was crying in perfect silence, her lips pressed hard together. He fretted internally as two big tears broke free and spilled down her face. Uncertainly, he stepped closer, putting his arm around her shoulders. "Now, let's see if we can't find those Sontarans, hm?"

She ducked out of his comforting gesture and ran straight out the door, leaving him staring after her like a lost dog.

Turlough had been worried at first that his anachronistic uniform would attract unwanted attention, but decided the best thing to do would be what the Doctor does - walk like he owned the place. And it worked.

His nerves were steady, his will driving him on, right up till the moment he touched the battered blue shell of the TARDIS. He slumped against it, laughing, his heart pounding. He still knew that feeling. This was his TARDIS, the one with his Doctor in it.

Well. Not right now though. He smiled, reaching for his key.

Turlough didn't look up as the doors swung open. "I don't need any company, Tegan."

"I'm not Tegan."

It was his own voice.

Turlough stared at himself in something like panic. He was much older, wearing a ranking fleet officer's uniform. It was frighteningly like looking at the pale distant memory of his father. "What are you doing here?"

"It's all right, calm down," he reassured himself. "Has the Doctor come looking for Tegan yet?"

"What?"

"No? Right." He glanced around the room in quick thought, stepped forward and turned on the scanner. The mouth of a slightly lonely alley came into sharp resolution as it slid open.

Turlough marched right up to himself and turned it back off. "What are you doing here?" he repeated.

"Oh, for fuck's sake! Don't be so suspicious. Is it the uniform?"

"Frankly, yes."

"I'm from the future. A lot has changed."

"Admittedly I haven't been here long, but I didn't get the impression it had changed that much."

"What? Oh! No - I'm not the Turlough from this time."

"What?"

"Look, can we have the scanner back on please?" He punched the control again.

"Not from this time? You're saying there are three of me here?"

"If only I'd thought to collect Hippo, we could be singing Barbershop. Have you still got your boater?"

"All right, I believe you now. Let's not mention Hippo again."

"Right. The Doctor's coming any minute. You've got to set him onto Tegan's trail. Send him to the quads on the east end of Larontaine."

"Larontaine? But that's miles-"

"It's where Tegan's gone to find you. Number one hundred fifty-one. You can tell him it's where you used to live, anything, I don't care, but get him there. You got that?"

"And where will you be?"

"Hiding. In your room. You'll have to fetch me once he's gone."

"To what end is all this subterfuge? If you don't mind telling me."

The older Turlough grinned, and all by itself that set the younger at a mischievous ease. He knew his own face well, and that particular smile meant nothing but deviously good things.

He wondered what he was in for.

A transport cart hummed through the air, maybe twenty meters up. It skimmed past rows of vehicles in various states of decay, towards the wisp of smoke where the Doctor knew he would find the wreck he was looking for. He liked scrap yards; they were nostalgic and sad and full of untold stories. He sighed, feeling the wind in his hair and tugging at his trenchcoat, looking out over the tops of all those ships.

"Ooooo!" the stringy young scrap yard attendant cried in horror as they came in sight of the steaming wreck. "God! That was our best Starcutter!"

The Doctor blinked. "What? Oh no! Oh, shame," he said with real conviction. The Sontaran ships had punched into the decaying hulk of a huge old military vessel like three suicides into the top of a classic Bentley. "Look at those lines! She must have been a real beauty once."

"Aw, she was... She was real beautiful..."

The Doctor decided to leave the kid to his grief, hopping off the cart onto the crumpled hull as they came alongside. He strutted up to the center sphere, the one that reeked of bent time. The hatch was clear of any wreckage. He tugged it open.

The burnt-out form of the Movellan android washed halfway out on a wave of slime. He jumped back in fear for his Chucks, danced forward again to grab Jarast's shoulders as she moved, trying to right herself. Comforting words tumbled out of his mouth, unacknowledged by her half-lidded and probably fried optics. Together they got her leaning up against the hatch frame.

She turned her head towards him. "Time."

"Yes.. you traveled in time," he nodded, trying to brush the remains of the Rutan from her face. "You were inside the space-time vortex." The destabilised polymer came apart under his hands and fell away, revealing a shiny white ceramic base underneath. An intrigued 'ooh' escaped him. Then he frowned. If her soft polymers were shot, it was likely most of her systems would be badly compromised as well.

"Unffffffortunate."

"I know... such an interesting experience, and here you are too far gone to enjoy going over the data. Listen... I am sorry I didn't go back to help you. Your life might've been saved."

"Expendable," she said.

He looked at the slime-covered ground.

"Request."

"Hm? What's that?"

"Repatriate or destroy," Jarast managed, her synthesised voice rumbling with malfunction.

He stuck his jaw out, nodded curtly. "I'll see to you, Jarast. Rest easy."

"Peace," she said, and shut down.

The Doctor looked at her for a long time, a small contemplative frown on his face, his trenchcoat floating on the wind.

"Peace," he echoed, still sounding slightly surprised.

A few minutes later, after determining it would be safe, and with a few more generous flashes of his psychic paper, he helped the grieving junkyard boy destroy his beloved Starcutter's three killers in the yard's smelter.

Tegan's heart pounded with frightened rebellion, walking down apartment blocks one after another in search of the address the information screen had shown her, before the Doctor blanked it.

She wasn't sure why she was doing this. She wanted to punish the Doctor for being so heartlessly clueless. She wanted to know Turlough would be all right. She wanted, maybe, to see if he missed her, the way she knew she was going to miss him. The way she was going to miss the Doctor.

Those were good reasons, weren't they?

She felt a small surge of relief when she found the right door. Damn the consequences. She pressed the intercom button.

"Yes?" a tinny version of Turlough's voice answered.

"It... It's Tegan."

"Tegan!?"

A moment later the door burst open. Turlough stood there, nearly the one she knew. She couldn't read this one, either. He looked very glad to see her, at least. A sob burst out of her from nowhere.

"Tegan," he said again, stepping forward as she did, wrapping her up in a close, comforting hug. She clutched him back.

The Doctor tapped his foot impatiently despite the amazing speed of the public tram. Turlough had assured him that Tegan should be safe in the city in broad daylight, but he had picked up on a thread of deception in the boy's manner. The trouble was, he couldn't tell whether it was just part of Turlough's ongoing effort to needle and lie to him about Tegan, or something more serious.

The tram came very close to the address Turlough had suggested. As it rattled to a momentary halt, he sprang off and down the street, dodging between the huge cement traffic flow pylons. Medium-rise residential blocks with their grey balconies stretched up on either side of him.

He spotted a flash of color: Tegan's blouse.

"Tegan!" the Doctor shouted.

She didn't hear.

She was at the door. One fifty-one. He broke into a run.

The door opened. Turlough stood on the threshold, looking down at her. They surged together into a tight clench.

The Doctor's stride broke.

They were kissing. Another moment and they were gone, vanished behind the young man's door.

He stopped gracelessly, staring at that closed door in indecision. He had the uncomfortable feeling that by the time he could reach the apartment, he would be, er.. interrupting things. The older Turlough had obviously taken her visit in stride, making it seem likely that Tegan had got away with this in his timeline, anyway.

But it wasn't fair, it wasn't, that Tegan should go to Turlough, a Turlough she didn't even know yet for Rassilon's sake! It was his shoulder she should be crying on. Didn't she trust him?

Well, he knew the answer to that. No. Not with things like this.

He began the long walk back to the TARDIS, his bowed head the only outward clue to his unhappy frustration.

Walking east, walking west, the young Doctor with his young face, the old one with his young face. Each passed a blind alley without a second glance, missed a quiet blue shape hidden in the shadows. They nearly missed one another as well, both sets of eyes cast down to the grey pavement.

Chuck Taylors, noticed one.

Plimsolls, noticed the other.

They each stopped in their tracks and looked up.

The older cursed in surprise and immediately looked as cowed as if he'd sworn in front of Borusa in school, but pressed on regardless. "Hello, I - Oh, look at that!"

"What?" Thrown off his bearings, the Doctor scowled. He was the one who was supposed to be disarmingly bewildering.

He broke into a grin. "Celery! I'd forgotten all about the celery. Doesn't look too lively, does it? When's the last time you changed your celery?"

"Sorry? My celery?"

"I've drifted away from vegetables a bit. Try to keep a banana on me these days," he said, pulling one out of his trenchcoat pocket and dropping it back in. "It'll make a dreadful mess if ever I fall on one. I've been lucky so far."

"Oh dear. You're not me are you?"

"Pleased to meet me," he grinned, cuffing his other self on the shoulder.

The Doctor looked dubiously at his shoulder, at the other man. He sighed, rubbing his temples. "Just please tell me this isn't some sort of CIA intervention. I'm not even here on purpose, you know."

He swallowed hard, shaking his head, determined to sound natural. "No, nothing like that."

"Only a couple of Sontarans forced my ship down and... er, well I suppose you know." The Doctor casually scrutinised the man in pinstripes. Not bad. A bit thin, but he'd grown fond of thin lately. Frustratingly fond.

(Turlough hadn't stopped teasing him when he'd started with Tegan. The Doctor had simply begun to ignore him, refusing to help him cheat on her. He didn't like it, the boy's cruel flirting. And Tegan gave him such icy looks, as if she was imagining he was playing along. This future Doctor's eyes were warm, if a little shuttered.)

The older Time Lord nodded carelessly. "Yes. I've, er.. just come back from taking care of them. They came from my time. Filthy accident." He held up his hands. "Not my fault, though. You know how those Sontarans are. I just wanted to clean up a bit for once."

"Oh! Well. That's one piece of good news, at least."

"Trouble?" The older Doctor tried to remember, but that far back, it was always awfully hard to locate one particular moment in the jumble of his memories. He was more interested in watching his younger self anyway. How he missed those expressive eyes! He could never look a prat scowling with those eyes. In the right light he looked like a god, and not the scary Norse ones his seventh self was always impersonating. And he seemed to recall something about an enormous-

"Tegan," the younger Doctor said, and the older responded immediately with a sympathetic noise. The Doctor sighed and lifted his pale eyebrows - not a sign of things improving between them, then. "She's run off in a huff and... well, shacked up with the Turlough from the local timeline." His brows knit in consternation.

"Oh, don't worry. I'm sure she'll be back before long." He chuckled. "You know, I'd actually forgotten about her and Turlough. Amazing."

"A mercy, if you ask me. It's been all eggshells in the TARDIS lately."

"I can imagine." He was cruelly tempted to say it wouldn't be a problem much longer.

"I'm considering giving up girls. See if I can't find another brave young lad to come adventuring next."

The Doctor laughed. "I hope that works out for you. Look..." he leaned closer and spoke in quiet tones. "Do me a favor, will you? And give Turlough that kiss he's been after?"

The one in the fawn coat went still with offense. "What? But Tegan-"

"Tegan is breaking a cardinal rule of time for a nice shag. You need some happiness too, you know."

The younger Doctor looked at the star on the other man's shoe and sighed.

"Just you think about it, eh? I've got to be off; I've got someone waiting."

He nodded, and turned to watch himself hurry away on long, slim legs.

The Doctor entered his ship humming. Seeing his fifth self on such a good day, by his standards anyway, was such a soul-lightening treat. The biting sadness of Tegan's departure had mellowed through the centuries, leaving him with warm nostalgia and plenty of interesting memories of Turlough to weave into his imagination.

"Turlough," he called, stepping up to the console. Nobody answered. He frowned. "Turlough? Where are-"

A note. On the console.

Oh no.

In Turlough's angular script, it read, "you already know."

It was signed twice.

Shouting ancient curses, he tore out of the TARDIS door in search of the ship's own younger self.