Turlough, Turlough (SWF edit)

Chapter 5: Tegan and the other one

Turlough let go of Tegan and stepped back to let his eyes sweep over her. She was just the same, of course. Sharp, young, beautiful. And behind her, far away on the other side of the street, he saw him. A figure in fawn with a hint of red, stumbling out of a run.

Quickly, he bent to kiss Tegan, pulling her back past his doorstep. He glanced out again as he shut the door and saw the Doctor stopping in the distance, watching it close.

Turlough's modest, split-level alien flat was comfortably lived-in, if slightly in need of cleaning. There was a crystal chess set with a half-played game on an end table. The smell of takeaway was in the air. Tegan couldn't absorb many more details, because Turlough wouldn't stop kissing her. And as much as she suddenly wanted to be ravished, she wanted to damn well say hello to the man first.

But this Turlough was better than hers at reading body language, and backed off moments before she would have pushed him away. His gaze jumped all over her, an old habit, and he squeezed her shoulders. "Are you all right?" he asked.

It was the last thing she'd expected out of the situation, out of Turlough, and she blinked her way through a small involuntary scowl.

"The Doctor made you angry enough to drive you here," he said, reading her again. "That's all you told me at the time."

She relaxed. "Oh. No, I'm fine, really. He was just..." she raised a hand, dropped it.

"Being the Doctor," Turlough supplied.

Her chin jutted with remembered offense. "And I'd had enough."

Turlough looked sad and distant then, covered it up with a smirk and a nod and a glance at her chest. "I can understand that."

Tegan sighed, wanting to get all of this out and over with. "Everyone leaves him, that's what he said. Like he's just waiting for us to go. He didn't want to know if you were all right. He didn't want to know why you'd stopped traveling with us." Her throat tightened, wondering if the Doctor would even care when she left him. How could he, when he'd quite literally abandoned her once already?

From the look in Turlough's eyes, at least he would miss her.

"It's not a matter of want, Tegan," he said softly, stroking her arm. "He can't know. The timeline-"

"Oh, sod the rabbiting timeline! I'm breaking those time-laws right now aren't I? And nothing bad's happening. And he breaks them like they were traffic regulations!"

Turlough looked a little uncomfortable. "You can't predict how it will react. He has a natural feel for it. He is a Time Lord."

"I know that," she snapped. "But if he has this feel for mucking about with time, what harm can a little insight do?"

"Do you really think he could have lived with Adric, if he'd known?" Turlough asked, and sighed at the steely, hurt look in her eyes. Tegan seemed doubly alien to him in moments like these. She had resented him once, trusted him about as far as she could spit. With time, she'd grown fairly close to him - but, bogglingly, seemed to trust the Doctor less and less. "You aren't sure. You honestly aren't sure, are you?"

She shook her head, her eyes glittering.

Turlough hugged her, stroked the back of her head. "Oh, Tegan. He's inhuman, but that doesn't make him a monster. Any more than it does me. Yes?" She nodded into his shirt and he smirked. "I mean, I am one but that's bound to happen sometimes, just by chance."

She squeezed him tight. "How do you do it, Turlough? How do you leave?"

He let out a long breath. "It's not easy," he said dully. "You have to be ready to look him in the face and watch his hearts cracking straight across."

She laughed hopelessly into his chest. "As if he cares."

"Tegan." He pulled back, took her face in his hands, looked into her eyes, almost hypnotic. "The Doctor cares."

She wanted to believe it. She wanted it to be true. "Just being with him can be so terrible sometimes... Here I am missing you, and you haven't even gone yet. How am I supposed to make sense of that?"

Turlough kissed her again, gently, and this time she didn't want to talk. His hands drifted down, thumbs brushing her neck. "Don't try so hard," he said, close to her mouth. "Sense isn't something you can always find, where the Doctor's concerned. Just let go and live the life he's put in front of you."

Pulling back, Tegan cocked an eyebrow, immune to the sentiment. "Is that a line, Vislor Turlough?"

"Please don't call me Vislor," Turlough complained.

"Why don't you show an old friend a good time?" Tegan said saucily, stroking a hand down his chest. A silly smile broke onto her face. "See? Now that's a line."

They laughed together, like friends, like they remembered, watched one another's faces, looking for that moment. Hesitantly, Turlough leaned towards her. Unbelievably aroused by his sudden caution, Tegan closed the distance and kissed him, the kind of kiss that only ends properly with a cigarette.

He broke it and took her hand, led her to his bedroom, careful to only glance back at her once or twice, her face lustfully bemused.

The room was futuristically sparse: hidden closets, windows polarised down to match the deep warm grey of the walls, gold accents making the place appear slightly pimp. The linens were dark grey, and right away Tegan found herself picturing him in contrast against them. Together, they settled onto the edge of the bed and after a short, sappy mutual stare, began to kiss again.

Turlough wandered away from her mouth, kissing her collarbone to ear. He rubbed his face into her subtly red-tinted hair, sighing with familiar contentment. "I've missed that. Tegan and TARDIS lavender. Nothing quite like it."

She turned her head and stroked his feathery ginger hair, breathing deep. "You smell different. Like spice. Like a warm breeze."

He chuckled, biting her ear. "Hot air. What a compliment."

"Shut up, Turlough," she grinned, shoving his shoulder.

(raunchy things happen)

Tegan's mind wandered far and wide. She could see the city dimly through the large windows, and it made her smile. This was what she'd hoped for, out here - hot sex with alien friends before wild alien vistas, the excitement of a new world's grit under her shoes, wonders, unions and reunions.

Turlough was the dangerous alien boyfriend she'd briefly thought the blond Doctor would be, during that short interval between the Time Lord regaining his marbles and her deciding she just wasn't going to get on with him all that well. But Turlough was going to leave. And she wasn't all that sure she'd want to be alone with the Doctor, out in the terrible universe he traveled.

Turlough's hand landed with a smack on her arse and she shrieked. "Pay attention," he demanded. "You'll make me think I'm an accessory."

"Turlough, the great big sex aid," Tegan chuckled.

"Well." He sniffed. "As long as I'm the deluxe model."

"Super deluxe."

He snickered. "And you complain about being objectified."

"You're not really going to deny that you're a huge dick?" Tegan shot back, admirably arch given the circumstances. "Because, really, Turlough..."

"Yes, all right, thank you."

(really very raunchy things happen, and then a nice cuddle)

Tegan relished the state of pure comfort and satisfaction she was in, and the pleasantly companionable feeling of Turlough's thumb petting whatever bit of her it could reach.

Then the petting stopped, and she heard a gentle snore.

Tegan closed her eyes, happy. The Doctor could wait.