Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [16]
„Tegan thinks you have a hidden agenda, Doctor.‟
She went puce with fury, but the Doctor simply looked baffled. „Hidden agenda? Whatever do you mean?‟
Turlough smirked in the face of Tegan‟s anger and pressed the fingertips of his hands together.
Speaking as though she was biting off each word and spitting it out, Tegan said, „I just want to know what we‟re doing here, that‟s all.‟
„Doing?‟ said the Doctor, still baffled, or feigning it. „We‟re having a holiday. I told you, I thought we could all do with one.‟
Tegan was irritated by his presumption, but decided not to pursue it; she was more concerned with the matter in hand.
„But why here? We‟ve got our rooms in the TARDIS.‟
„What‟s the point of going on holiday but staying at home?‟
said the Doctor.
Tegan sighed again. She was getting nowhere fast. Maybe there was nowhere to get. „All right, I‟ll buy it,‟ she said. „But you would tell us if there was something wrong, wouldn‟t you, Doctor?‟
„If I thought we had any cause to worry, I‟d certainly inform you of the circumstances,‟ he assured her.
The key to the room he had booked for Tegan was still looped over his forefinger. She took it and picked up the bag he had told her to pack in the TARDIS after their afternoon at the fun-fair.
As they waited for the lift, the Doctor rocked back on his heels, hands in pockets, and commented on the architecture.
Turlough nodded but remained silent. Tegan merely grunted.
Their rooms were on the fourth floor. Tegan had 404, Turlough 408 and the Doctor 418 at the end of the corridor.
„See you later,‟ he said with a brisk smile outside the door to Tegan‟s room and turned to stride away.
„When later?‟ she called after him.
„Dinner at seven,‟ he replied without turning back.
She made an exasperated face, which Turlough, fitting the key into the door of his own room, responded to with what might have been construed as a sympathetic raising of the eyebrows. Tegan went into her room and shut the door.
Looking around, she huffed out a sigh, though in fact it was a very pleasant room, spacious and airy with butter-yellow walls and a deep-mattressed double bed. She dumped her bag on the armchair beside the dressing table and strode across to the large window flanked by flowery curtains on the far wall. She opened the window wide and, sticking her head out, closed her eyes and took several deep breaths.
Immediately, she felt calmer. The combination of warm sunlight on her face and the salty tang of sea air filling her lungs was a soothing panacea. The cries of gulls, though raucous, were familiar and comforting, transporting her back to a happy weekend she had spent in Brighton with Aunt Vanessa not long after arriving in England, and to days sailing off the south coast with her grandfather.
With a guilty start she remembered that the last time she had seen her grandfather he had been about to move house and she had promised to visit him just as soon as she returned from Amsterdam. However it was in Amsterdam that she had met up with the Doctor again. She wondered now how her grandfather had taken her apparent disappearance - he was bound to be worried about her.
She pulled her head back in through the window, then blinked. Of course! The solution was so blindingly obvious she was a dolt for not having thought of it straight away. All she had to do was ask the Doctor to take her to visit her grandfather before he had cause to wonder where she was.
Tegan had never been one to let the grass grow under her feet. She believed in striking while the iron was hot, acting on impulse. Of course, this attitude had got her into trouble many times, but she knew she would never change.
She almost ran across the room and pulled open the door, only remembering at the last moment to go back and snatch up the key from the bed before yanking the door shut behind her. She marched down the corridor and rapped on the Doctor‟s door. There was no answer.