From: Bardesse@aol.com To: sadwank@onelist.com Subject: [sadwank] Story -- Return -- 1 of 1 Date: Friday, December 04, 1998 23:34 From: Bardesse@aol.com Prolific much, Maried? ::rueful grin:: I've been saving these up for a bit and I guess you all get to "benefit". Also, as earlier said, these stories run along something of a "mini-series" line, and as such have continuity. I doubt there are are any devout canon-eers here who would object, but again Strange Things Happen. It's my own Whoniverse. So there. ;-D Once again, comments shamelessly begged for. :-) ****************************************************************************** ****************** Copyright 1998 Mareid Sullivan The characters portrayed herein do not belong to me. They are the property of TPTB, and I'll return them mostly unharmed when I'm done with them. Song quote taken from Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)". Enjoy! * Return * –can you lift me up, can you turn me around, can you get me right out of this godforsaken town– The first night that she was back in the TARDIS, he came to her. She supposed she'd known that he would. In the old days... when there had been Nyssa, and Adric... he had needed no excuses, but had often used the end of an adventure as his reason to be there, in her quarters. The realization now of how unlike him it was came to her suddenly. It was his way to respect the boundaries of privacy set up by "your space" and "my space" within the TARDIS. Though it all belonged to him, anyway. She guessed. It had been different for them, for a time. For other companions before her. And how was it now? She didn't know, couldn't tell. Was he there just to bid her "welcome back and goodnight", cheerful and annoyingly oblivious as he could sometimes be? Or... she swallowed, throat dry. After the funeral of Nyssa's unnamed baby, she had known that there would be no more of what they'd once shared. A widowed, yet never married wife of sorts. So why was he there now? Tegan felt prickly, soured inside, and yes–she recognized it–not wanting him to be there that night. She wanted to be alone, or at the least to sit near Nyssa's comforting placidity and be silent. Yet he had come to her. "What do you want?" she asked rudely, finally, to break the silence. Silence. She realized how cattish that had sounded, too late of course. It was his TARDIS, after all, and he'd let her back aboard when she'd asked–silently and with words–to join him once again. No use to ask herself what she'd been thinking, hoping–that this, what she was now fearing, would happen. She'd been weak. Now, she paid for it. He said nothing, but stuck his hands into his pockets and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. He leaned against the doorframe, boyish and yet older than time. "Tegan," he spoke at last, quietly. She turned away, couldn't look him in the eye. "What do you want?" she repeated. His indecision was tangible, filling the room. He could act so... so British at times! Jolly good show and all that, Tegan, hoped we might have another go at it, righto? When he spoke, his words surprised her. "Why?" he asked. "Why what?" He shrugged. "Why everything, I suppose." The dam burst. "Why did I leave you, you mean?" she snapped. "That among other things." His steady gaze would drive her mad, she could feel the weight of it on the back of her head. She shook her hair angrily, wanting to shake away the sensation of the stare. She would not look back at him! He took his hands from his pockets and looked around awkwardly. "Might I come in for a bit?" "You never asked before," she said disconsolately. To her disgust, she found herself making room on the bed. To her relief? dismay? he sat instead on the chest at the foot of her bed, out of arm's reach. "No," he agreed. "Suppose I never did, at that." The admission cost him, she could tell. Those had been strange times. She knew now how out of character it had been for him to do what he did with her, how he did it. Romana had been frank, blunt even, when they had spoken. He didn't know about that, but she knew now how he had been a far different lover to others in the past. Which left the question–was it her, or was it the times they'd been living in, in the midst of all times? They sat in silence, together, for a long moment. She knew he was waiting for an answer. Would wait forever, if he had to. Yet try as she might, there were no words that would describe it correctly. Any attempt–it would only be a poor reflection of the truth. "I can't–" she started impatiently. "You can." His voice did not waver. That, more than anything, goaded her into sudden, rash speech. "You've no idea, have you?" she demanded. "What it was like. Yes, you were hurt but so was I, Doctor! Words! They're all trite, they don't mean a bloody thing. We... what we did... it should never have happened. That's all." Pause. "I would have thought otherwise, Tegan." Stung, she retorted: "I'd have thought nothing else, Doctor! After Adric died it was like I'd gotten the bubonic plague for all that you'd come near me, and after–" she choked, still unable to say Nyssa's baby– "the second thing, we both knew there'd be no more. That was it, end of story!" "Do you remember the first time?" he asked quietly, startling her out of all composure once again. She shook her head, desperate to shake off the clinging memories. "Not likely to forget, am I?" Never never forget it the cold floor on my back on my belly the hot hard heat of you and your seed inside me so warm so filling so angry and satisfying– "Perhaps that should not have happened," he admitted. It was both a knifelike wound and a soothing balm to hear him say it, finally say it. "I'm not–" "Shut up, Doctor," she said sulkily. And all the others times how you'd come to me and it was always so angry that you needed something to block up the anger that the whole universe had given to you and I was the receptacle into which you put it I see that now I know that now– He sighed. "You're right, you know." Curiosity overcoming her (irrational?) anger: "About what?" "All the things you haven't said, I suppose." He rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. She knew that motion, a throwback to an earlier regeneration. "And since you can't say it, then I suppose I will, eh?" Apprehension. "Doctor, don't–" "Has to be said, though, doesn't it?" She could hear the anger in his voice, the frustration. "I opened the doors of this TARDIS to you again because it couldn't end that way. Not one of my companions, not like that." He suddenly, unexpectedly laid a gentle finger under her chin. "Not a lover." She blushed fiery red. "Doctor, please." He jumped up and began to pace. "True, though, wasn't it?" "Yes," she admitted grudgingly. "Why?" He stopped and held his arms out, pleading. "Why did it happen? I don't know. No. That's a lie, I do know why and so do you. That's not what I need to know." "What do you need to know?" she flared. "If I knew the question I might know the answer!" She realized how he had tricked her too late. Merciless, he took advantage of her blunder. "The question is this, Tegan: why the pain? Why did it have to be that way?" "You're no child," she hissed. "No child," he agreed. "Yes. That was one reason. You see–you have to–understand–after Nyssa, what she went through, I couldn't–" "You assumed," she said coldly. "Didn't ask, didn't look it up. Just assumed." "And you left before I could know," he said. "Here's my other question: were my fears justified, Tegan?" His eyes bored into hers. "I have to know." She stood, and ran a cold eye over him. Put her hands under her tube top, and in one smooth motion stripped it off and stood naked to the waist, showing a stomach flat and unmarked by any signs of pregnancy. "There's your answer." That had been a mistake. His eyes, so sad before, had taken on the look of a deer in the headlights, looking past death into heaven. She caught the merest whiff of his scent, the spicy hormones that his skin released when... Or perhaps it wasn't a mistake. Perhaps this was her chance to get back at him. Revenge. A small Tegan, in the back of her mind, thought: this isn't you, who is this? She ignored it, walked a step or two closer to the Doctor, boldly cupping a breast in each hand, rolling the nipples so that they stood out. Deliberately whorish, lewd, insulting him. "Never any milk here," she said crudely. "So you worried for nothing, didn't you?" She could tell he barely heard her, though the relief registered on an unconscious level. His eyes were wide, dilated, fixed on her; the scent grew stronger. She leaned over, letting him catch the scent of her own skin, smell what she couldn't with his keener senses. Oh, yes, she wanted him too–as he'd wanted her the first time, with anger and frustration. Let him eat it as she'd eaten it. Her breasts brushed against his face; he swallowed, hard. "Tegan. Tegan. You–" She cut him off by cruelly claiming his mouth with her own, searing it with her kiss. The Mara had taught her much, and she used it now. It was not so hard to twist his senses about, even Time Lord senses, for he was a man, wasn't he? It was easy. And it would be so easy to lose herself in him, for when she tasted him again she realized how much she'd missed it. Cloves and honey and coffee, the faint tang of sweat that came on every skin but was sweeter on his. The heat of his lips, opening now despite his best efforts to stay calm and steady, his tongue darting against her own. She felt him become aroused and knew that she'd succeeded; for him there was no turning back once he'd turned on. You are my Achilles heel, my weak side, my blind spot, thought the Doctor. But I will not let you win, not now, not like this. I promised it when I found you once again. I will keep that promise. Slowly, surely, he began to turn the tables on his seducer. There had been so much that he had been too angry to do, yet that he'd lain awake at nights dreaming of doing. Without her realizing, he shifted the balance of power bit by by, starting by breaking his mouth from hers and showering a rain of kisses on her neck, her shoulders, her face. She drew in her breath sharply, and he whispered against the corner of her eye: "I was afraid for you, you see." More kisses, this time tantalizingly circling her breasts but never quite touching them with hands or lips. Softly, so that his breath would hit her, he said: "There had been too much death. Before and after you arrived the first time." He caught her blindly groping hands with ease, and drew his tongue along them, the sensitive inner elbows. "I used you to mop up the pain." A sudden dip of his head, and whispered only centimeters from her flat belly: "I was wrong. I admit that." Lower. "I wanted you back, Tegan. I wanted to make it right, you see?" She shook her head, fighting for control. "No," she said raggedly. "It can't be made right after so long." Lower. "It can, and it will, Tegan, or you're not the one I remember." Finally, he laid his lips upon the belt of her jeans. "Brave heart." Her growl was wordless, and yet told him everything he needed to know. For now it was enough. With the low laugh of a victorious lover, he used his teeth to draw down the zipper of her jeans and do what he had always wanted to do, sliding away the wisp of cotton knickers she wore, and burying his lips and tongue in her and hear her scream in esctasy. And scream she did, so loudly that even Nyssa must have heard it. He was gentle and without mercy, playing her like a lute, a fiddle, yet coaxing her own melody from her. Ever before, she remembered muzzily amidst the sensations, he had taken her quick and hard, from behind or on their sides, standing or even in the water. Never before had he done this–laid her tenderly upon the bed and lavished kisses over every inch of her body, setting it all aflame until she could bear the wait no longer and gathered him into her hungry arms. His secret name rang the rafters when he entered her. Even then, there was no rush, no hurry, but only a long slow caressing stroke after stroke that drove her beyond insanity time and time again. How long it lasted she never knew, only that when it was done, and his hot seed spilled into her, she was floating, not touching the ground, and that the feel of his arms around her was the only thing keeping her from leaving the TARDIS and flying into the stars on her own. He fell asleep there on her chest, so like a little boy in his rare slumber. Never before had he slept, but always dressed hurriedly and fled her chambers as if guilt-stricken. That he did not do so now told her more than a thousand wordless caresses. She ran her fingers through his hair, thinking hard to herself. She would leave him again. Soon. She would not grow old and die while he stayed young, or died and regenerated into an entirely different person. The next time they were on Earth, in her time period, she would go. For she had something to go back to, something that he did not suspect. She had lied to him. Lied so well that he never knew it. She had a man to return to, someone who waited for her. If she were lucky and timed it right, she'd just come back from her trip to the corner store and he'd never know a thing. If she were unlucky, she would return to find him grown up. A man, with floppy blond hair and a pert, Australian face, one who had his smile and her eyes. Plastic surgery had taken care of the stretch marks, which she'd done for a photo shoot. She modeled, a bit. Had an "exotic" air, as did the boy. Her son. Their son. Not a freak nor a monster, not entirely human or entirely Time Lord. He bore the Doctor's secret name as his own, and no one knew that he was more than a toddler with an unusually scientific mind. She smiled, thinking of him, not sorry that she'd lied. Sleep, little one, whenever you are. I'll be home soon. Perhaps someday, she could tell him exactly Who he was. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.