Doctor Who_ Deep Blue - Mark Morris [26]
„You missed dinner,‟ he said, the note of indignation in his voice immediately causing her to bridle.
„I wasn‟t hungry,‟ she replied tersely, determined that he wouldn‟t spoil what had turned out to be a lovely evening.
He wandered along the corridor towards her. „Turlough and I were concerned. We missed your company.‟
„I‟ll bet,‟ she muttered.
„Have you eaten?‟ he asked.
She swung round on him, still feeling a little dizzy from the alcohol. „Since when have you cared about my welfare?‟
He looked taken aback, hurt. „I care a great deal!‟
Realising she had overstepped the mark, but too proud to apologise, she mumbled, „Anyway, who are you to ask me where I’ve been? Where did you disappear off to this afternoon?‟
All at once he looked evasive. „Catching up on an old friend.‟
„What old friend? Doctor, what‟s going on?‟
He sighed, „Nothing‟s going on.‟
„Yes it is. As a Time Lord you may have strange and unusual powers, but you‟re a rotten liar. Tell me, Doctor.‟
He raised his eyes heavenward. „All right.‟ He told her about the light in the sky; the trawler; the alien mind that had briefly touched his upon their arrival.
Tegan saw her holiday evaporating before her eyes. „Why didn‟t you tell me all this earlier?‟
„I didn‟t know about most of it earlier. Besides, you and Turlough are supposed to be on holiday, recuperating from recent traumas.‟
„So are you!‟
„My powers of recuperation are considerably greater than yours.‟
„So you keep us in the dark, treat us like children!‟ she snapped.
„Only because you often behave like one,‟ retorted the Doctor.
She glared at him for a moment, then abruptly turned and walked away down the corridor, back towards the lifts.
„Tegan!‟ he called.
„Drop dead!‟ she shouted.
The Doctor spun on his heels in exasperation - and came face to face with Turlough, who had been standing silently in the doorway of his room, watching the exchange.
Turlough raised his eyebrows in apparent sympathy and said, „Shall I go after her?‟
„You do what you like,‟ the Doctor muttered, and stalked back to his room.
Perhaps if she hurried she could catch up with Andy, though what would follow from there she really had no idea. She wouldn‟t want him to think she was throwing hers elf at him, and however much she liked him she knew that there was no future in their relationship. She supposed she just wanted someone to talk to, someone neutral, normal, sympathetic -
though how she could explain what was on her mind without telling him about the kind of life she led was anybody‟s guess.
When the lift doors opened on to the reception area she half-expected to see the Doctor standing there, waiting for her, having beaten her to the ground floor via the stairs.
When he wasn‟t she felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. She hurried across to the main doors and out into the night.
Andy was nowhere to be seen, but maybe that was a good thing, after all. Tegan had enjoyed the sheer normality of the evening they‟d spent together, but perhaps what she really needed right now was time to think, time to sort out the confusion in her mind.
Should she leave the Doctor and try to pick up the threads of her life again? Rather than simply taking a holiday, or visiting her grandfather, should she break her ties with him once and for all? There was a part of her that craved the kind of normal human interaction she had experienced tonight, and a part that told her she should grasp her once-in-a-lifetime experience of life aboard the TARDIS with both hands and wring from it what she could. She was travelling around the universe in a time machine, for Christ‟s sake! She was seeing and experiencing things that the vast majority of people could only dream about! In that respect she was mad for even contemplating giving it all up. But wherever they went they found trouble, danger, death...
She walked along the promenade until she came to a flight of stone steps that led down to the beach. She descended carefully, holding on to the metal railing