"Full Circle" (3/3) -- SLASH ================ (disclaimers in 1/3) "Sleeping is the only thing you do in bed?" I asked as I stroked the long, pale column of his neck with my tongue. I only had to loosen his tie and collar first to do it. I had faith in my ability to quickly bring him to a preferred state of dishabille. "You have something else in mind?" I answered his question with a kiss, and he answered my kiss with another nibbling kiss. With some pride, I can say that I managed to retain the presence of mind to steer him to the bed as we devoured one another. Age and treachery, you know. ****************************************************** Asleep, Turlough looked more relaxed but no less wary. He slept hard and deep, yet stirred reflexively every time I moved under him. I tried to stop moving and kept restraining the urge to take him apart to see how he worked. My love of mysteries often got me into trouble. I also kept asking myself if I really wanted him to go back to some future self I hadn't even become yet. It wasn't so much selfishness as an inclination for getting and enjoying gifts early. Really. How could I steal from myself? Time tended to take care of itself eventually, with a few nudges here and there, so I was sure I could make the paradoxes work out. I couldn't stop trying to imagine the look on Turlough's face when I took him to the TARDIS. He'd make me pay for keeping my identity from him, and that couldn't help but be fun. Sarah might be scandalized at him and us at first--she could be narrow-minded at the oddest times--yet I couldn't help thinking she'd come around once she saw my contentment. How Turlough and Sarah Jane would get along with one another I couldn't even begin to guess, but it would certainly be interesting to watch. They each seemed to enjoy a good verbal battle now and then... I wanted him, and what was the point of being a lord of time if you couldn't use it to make yourself happy now and than? ****************************************************** But I awoke alone again, this time with my hand brushing something that rustled. A Dear John letter? I picked up the scrap of sketch paper and read. Turlough had written his note in pencil with a heavy hand, leaving deep marks. Some of the letters of his angular handwriting didn't look quite right for English, showing traces of a different alphabet. Although I already had a good idea about what the letter said, I read it anyway. He said some frankly flattering things about his need to depart by stealth while leaving only this note to explain, assuring me that he wouldn't have been able to say goodbye at all otherwise. He didn't believe in fate or predestination, yet he felt somehow that he needed to stay with the Doctor, that being there would take him someplace he needed to go. No matter how much he wished he could explain it, he couldn't. I could. I saw Turlough's attachment to my future self in every word about him, the lucky bastard. I swallowed down disappointment, but it didn't surprise me that Turlough had gone. He'd struck me as being hard to hold onto. Besides, I knew I'd see him again. But, damn it, patience *isn't* a virtue I believe in. ****************************************************** I rushed into the TARDIS and started adjusting the controls. There had to be a way to free us. Suddenly, I realized I was not alone. At another station of the TARDIS's console, also adjusting the controls, stood a lad in a boys school uniform, and he looked at me with as much surprise as I felt on my own face. He seemed familiar... "Who are you?" I asked. Then it hit me in a rush of disjointed images. New York City. A night of engaging conversation followed by an even more intimate connection. Turlough, my devious guttersnipe. This last regeneration had been harder than most, leaving my memories of my past selves more difficult to access. Even before that, my excess of memories had made it necessary to file the majority of them away deep in the back of my mind. But once unfolded, that night hit me with an immediacy that left me breathless. I smiled, which surprised him even more. "Who are you?" I asked again. He hadn't met the former me yet. Polite and deferential, Turlough gave me his name, then spun a story of truths, half-truths, lies, and outright evasions. I pretended to believe his tale of being an Earth boy who'd wandered into the transmat. I doubt anyone had ever been as happy to see him as I was at this moment. ****************************************************** "--been wandering from one calamity to another of late with no chance to take a breath. We need a rest," Tegan said. "Oh, come now. We just had a vacation," I said. Tegan did tend to go on over very little. "Which lasted all of ten minutes until Borusa started to steal your past selves and we had to go to the Death Zone." "We went to see your grandfather in Little Hodcombe." "And got caught in the possessed citizens' war games and the Malus' evil plans. I was nearly sacrificed as the May Queen. That is *not* a vacation." Tegan and Turlough did look worn and a bit haggard. "What do you say, Turlough?" I asked. "A rest would be much appreciated," Turlough answered, looking mild and deferential if you missed the smolder in his pale eyes. As usual. "We could come back fresh. Wouldn't that be better?" When they thought I wasn't looking, Tegan raised an eyebrow at Turlough, and he smirked back. And the other Time Lords couldn't understand why I treasured the company of other races so. "Then we shall have a vacation. I'll decide on a spot." "Please, not Earth *again*. Especially not England." Turlough's words struck me with all the force of deja vu. He constantly said something along those lines, but now they had a slightly different, yet familiar tone. Then I understood. He'd said them that night. Was it time at last? Turlough thus far hadn't proved to be quite what I'd expected. Instead of the insouciant troublemaker my past self had met, Turlough had come to me twitchy, desperate, and haunted, always on the verge of a flinch. I hadn't expected him to be tied to the Black Guardian and bound to seek my death, though realizing that the Black Guardian had coerced him with physical force and threats made me feel a bit better for myself and outraged on Turlough's behalf. Freed from that, he'd been slowly relaxing, gaining in confidence, taking on that remembered fire that had attracted me so. It was time, and I knew where we'd be going. I smiled in a way that was more reminiscent of my past self, though I doubt they'd recognize it, and said, "Oh, not to worry." Some things were worth waiting for. **************************************************** As I walked out of the TARDIS with Peri back into the ruin, I heard Turlough say, "You go on," followed by him snapping out, "Go on, please!" to his brother, a man I didn't know, and the group of Sarns nearby. Something told me that this boded no good, so I pulled myself out of my depressed introspection. I hadn't wanted to destroy Kamelion, but the android had begged me to, unable to continue an existence in which the Master could turn it against its friends at any time. The TARDIS became ever emptier. Tired, horrified by the slaughter, almost in tears, Tegan had left me after our last battle with the Dahleks. For all their previous shows of enmity, Tegan and Turlough had looked stricken at the thought of separation. Yet she still left us. I had to destroy Kamelion myself. Only Turlough remained. Now I feared that he would be the next to go. Turlough looked dazed and preoccupied as stood there waiting for me. His fair skin, now slightly reddened, showed the early stages of sunburn from our time in the sun on Lanzarote and Sarn. That skin... it made you want to lock him away in a darkened room for his own protection. Perhaps the Trion Custodians had chosen not to arrest him for breaking his exile. I would not let myself think of the alternatives.... I thought that a Turlough under arrest would look sullen and a bit sly as he considered his options for escape. I also doubted that a culture that branded its political prisoners would be kind enough to allow one to say goodbye to his friends before it sent him back to prison. At least I knew why he'd always directed my attention away from his left forearm, slipping up only that once with my past self, who he'd thought he would never see again. Divided among myselves, I never remembered the look and feel of that patch of flesh raised into two triangles from that night and morning in New York. Besotted with him, now as then, I'd asked no questions. Now I had almost all of his dark secrets, and I couldn't quite blame him for keeping them from me. He preferred not to be known too well, and what I knew now explained him almost entirely and allowed me to guess much of the rest. Besides, I had no right to complain when I'd never revealed myself to him, even though he was familiar with how Gallifreyan regeneration worked, at least in theory. Waiting for a perfect moment that never arrived, not the first time he met me as my current self, not the first time we'd made love, not any time, I'd remained silent on it. I couldn't be the same person to him, and he wasn't the same person to me. He never acted as wild and wanton with me as he had with my past self, but I didn't think my present self would react to it as well as the past one had. Turlough's quiet voice sounded thick, and his eyes flickered up and down, unable to remain on me. "My exile has been rescinded." Yet he looked miserable. My mouth chose to do the responsible thing even as the rest of me floundered in shock, too well aware of what would come next. "I'm pleased for you." "Doctor, I--" "I shall miss you," I said as brightly as I could. I knew. He'd found his brother, been given another chance. Although he'd never mentioned his home to me, it must have obsessed him while he'd languished in exile. His eyes still couldn't stay on me. "I don't want to go, Doctor." I heard the truth in his words; I always had a fairly good judgment of his lies versus his truths. That was no doubt why he often chose to say nothing to me on some issues. "I've learned a lot from you. But I have to go back to Trion; it's my home." "Better to go back while you're a bit of a hero, eh?" Some dark part of me wanted to say that his home planet wouldn't be as he remembered it and that his time away had changed him, perhaps to the point where he'd never fit in again. But I remained better than that. In any case, his misery told me that he already knew. Turlough had the look of a man about to embark on an unwanted but necessary duty. I'd once pegged him as a creature that would gnaw his own foot off to escape a trap. Now he knowingly backed into such a trap and looked utterly unhappy but resigned to it. How pathetic that we couldn't say a real goodbye, reveal the things we always thought we would have more than enough time to say, instead of sending silent signals we hoped the other would be able to read. But Peri's presence, the planet's imminent destruction, and the man in the military uniform who watched us with cold, sneering eyes prevented it. If men like that made up Trion's Custodians, I could understand the fear Turlough had shown since we found that Trion homing beacon. Turlough and I shook hands. His fingers fluttered against mine in a brief caress, then he let go. "Thank you for everything, Doctor." Then his eyes locked on Peri, and his voice turned even softer and thicker. "Look after him, will you? He gets in the most terrible trouble." He must have assumed that she'd already made a commitment to join me. Peri, new to it all, asked, "What? I--" Turlough started to walk away but stopped. Heart in his eyes, he looked back at me, then left in the presence of the cold-eyed Trion Custodian who would take him home. Watching him go, I felt so old, so tired. I only granted myself a moment to stare at the empty space where he'd been until I returned my attention to young Peri. "Well, I should be getting you home." If I looked and sounded carefree, maybe I would feel it. If I didn't think about everything I'd lost.... "Oh, must you?" she asked. She'd been threatened with death by the Master and this alien planet, yet it sounded as if she would like to go on with me. Turlough had known. "Oh, yes. Your friends will be worried." I would no doubt give in to her soon, even if I couldn't find any enthusiasm for it. She was an engaging person, and I *needed* companionship of some sort. But it wouldn't be at all the same. **********************THE END*********************** NOTE: "Planet of Fire" gave me such an impression of things left unsaid that it felt good to get some of them out here. More Viridian5 stories can be found in The Green Room at http://members.tripod.com/~drovar/viridian/ --------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- ChickShops.com- online boutique shopping. Click Here ------------------------------------------------------------------------