"About-Face"

By Viridian5

5/30/00

RATING: R; 5th Doctor/Turlough, Tegan/Nyssa. If m/m and f/f insinuation bother you, what are you doing here?

SPOILERS: "Terminus," "Mawdryn Undead," and "Earthshock"

SUMMARY: Here, the manipulators and manipulated are one and the same.

ARCHIVING/DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere, as long as you ask me first.

DISCLAIMERS: All things _Doctor Who_ are property of BBC Enterprises Ltd. No infringement intended, and anyone who thinks I'm making a cent from this is on drugs. Besides, it's their own fault for introducing a character who wore a tight boys school uniform most of the time.

By Viridian5
=====================

"Turlough's not down here, Doctor. Maybe he managed to get the damned door to rematerialize and got back into the TARDIS," Tegan shouted up to the Doctor.

"Then we'll see if we can find the door and the TARDIS with it," the Doctor said as he helped her up out of the hatch.

Just another day for them. Being cut off from the TARDIS and unable to escape ground zero as the fate of the universe all came down to them fixing something at the spot they were trapped in. Except for the moments of total terror, it got to be boring drudgery really. raveling time and space while saving the universe again?

Yawn. How much discomfort and ruined clothing will be involved this time?

Tegan was tired and dusty, her knees and hands raw from crawling through the ventilation system she'd been lost and trapped in with Turlough. Her throat felt a little swollen too, probably from all that gas the ship had pumped at them. At least she hadn't been electro-shocked like Turlough had.

She'd worried about Turlough after she split from him, but he was probably safe in the console room plotting mischief at this very moment. Why did he have to stay with them, while Nyssa....

Tegan wouldn't let herself think about Nyssa. How many people would willingly stay in some broken-down space station in the arse-end of nowhere out of some bizarre sense of duty and mercy? This would teach her to get involved with one of those martyring hero types.

Not that they were involved involved. They had the deep love of friends combined with a physical relationship that had started after Adric had died. They'd needed the comfort and companionship. Tegan didn't want to think about how much more this would hurt had she been romantically involved with Nyssa.

Maybe it had meant nothing to Nyssa, who had been alien after all. Maybe the Traken had very different ideas about love and friendship. Even if she had been teary-eyed as they'd said their farewells.

Tegan sighed. She was doing a great job of not thinking about Nyssa, wasn't she?

Tegan's train of thought brought her back around to the other incomprehensible alien in their midst. Aside from the Doctor.

The alien who might be dangerous. "You can't trust Turlough, you know."

"Can't I?" the Doctor asked.

"He only shows you his best face, but I've gotten a better look at him since I'm not the one he's trying to impress. He's unreliable and sneaky. I'm sure he's plotting something right now. He's like a puppy that's been abused so often that he expects it all the time, and he has only three reactions for that: fawning, cringing, or biting." Then she cursed herself. She *had* to compare Turlough to some young, abused creature? Nothing would get the Doctor involved faster.

Yet Turlough was. Victim as well as victimizer. She'd seen it in him sometimes as they'd tried to escape the ship together. It didn't make him any less dangerous, though.

"Isn't it customary to try to keep the puppies that follow us home?"

"You're not taking this seriously!" As usual.

"It's up to us to show him something better."

Tegan shook her head at his arrogance and decided not to say anything about the way Turlough constantly flattered him because she knew that would get her nowhere. Instead, she said, "He's also trying to seduce you so you'll trust him better."

The Doctor smiled, looking sunny, very blond, and utterly guileless. "Really?" All sarcasm.

She gritted her teeth. "The way he talks to and defers to you?" So oily, so ingratiating. A "smile and a soft phrase" indeed, you superior little bastard. Dishonest was more like it.

"I wouldn't mind it if you deferred to me now and then."

"I bet. Look, trust me on this. He's doing it, and you're responding to it. You keep encouraging him."

"Tegan, how old am I?"

"I don't know; the number changes every time I ask."

"Very funny. I am centuries old. Do you really think so little of me that you'd believe I could be led around like that?"

Damned if you do; damned if you don't. "I just want you to know what he's up to and be careful. I'd be happier if you'd drop him off somewhere he can't be a threat to anyone anymore, but in the absence of that, I want you to be careful." She sighed. "And if you do let him muck up your common sense, at least make sure he puts out for you so you get something out of it."

"Tegan!" the Doctor protested with a surprised laugh.

"Well?"

"Trust *me*, Tegan. I know what I'm doing with him."

*****************************************************

Turlough felt the comforting rhythmic pulse of an engine beneath the floor his face rested against. He could make out the scents of metal and polymers just above the overwhelming stench of singe in his nostrils. His head and body pounded, but he tried to keep his wits about him.

He felt horribly exposed, but he always felt horribly exposed in such situations. Who wouldn't? Experience made him keep his eyes closed and his body limp. A scanner would tell his enemies that he was still alive, but if he looked dead enough they might not use one. Or they might think he was still unconscious, which could give him some time.

The intense flashes of pain suggested that someone had used a neural flayer on him, but his nausea and the way he felt as if his organs had been rearranged suggested a gas weapon. What kind of sadist would use both?

Where were the others? He had responsibilities if he was the last survivor of his squad....

He couldn't breathe through his swollen throat. He had to do it surreptitiously, but he needed to breathe. He didn't intend to gasp so loudly or turn his head, but his battered body betrayed him. Anyone out there would know he was alive and conscious for sure now.

"Turlough." The Black Guardian. Even if his ringing ears couldn't quite make sense of what the voice said, Turlough would recognize that bellow anywhere, since it haunted him waking and asleep.

It told him that the war was long over and lost, the warrior he had been was beaten and brainwashed out of him, and none of his battles would be simple or resolved through mere force again.

It almost made Turlough wish the Black Guardian *had* killed him.

But not quite. Some shameful part of him still clung to survival.

Knowing how much the Black Guardian enjoyed doling out punishment, Turlough tried to answer as he put his hand to his head and painfully levered himself up, but it came out as nothing more than a badly choked "Yeah."

"Can you hear me?"

Rising at all had been a bad idea. He could feel pain and nausea wrack his body as he struggled to remain on his hands and knees. "What?"

"The Doctor is returning."

Turlough tried to look even more pathetic than he felt, to look small and weak in his dusty, cheap, and rumpled Earth school uniform. Besides, he actually felt terrible. That had to help.

He'd left pride behind a long time ago. The Black Guardian seemed to be devoid of pity, but maybe an appeal to common sense would put him off a little while.

"I feel ill," Turlough said, amazed himself by how shaky and watery his voice sounded.

"This is your last chance, boy." The Black Guardian couldn't be serious. After what he'd done, whatever that had been exactly, he expected his pawn to just get up and... what? Kill the Doctor with his bare, shaking hands? Only if the Doctor helped him stand and placed his hands around his neck.

Turlough struggled to move. "What did you do to me?" He remembered the blinding flare and searing agony as the Black Guardian had detonated the communication crystal as punishment.

"You will recover."

Yes, he would, a little. Until the next time. He always did. Hurt him and he just went on and on until the next time. Pain and pain and pain until death, no doubt a messy and painful one. And for what?

The Black Guardian had tricked him into this deal. Lied to him about the Doctor's nature. Hurt him constantly. Possessed him outright at times. If Turlough had succeeded in his earlier attempt to sabotage the TARDIS, he was now certain that he would have been left to die despite the Guardian's assurances.

The Doctor had been kind to him, trusted him. While the Black Guardian had gotten him off Earth, the Doctor had kept him off Earth. The first being--well, aside from Hippo Ibbotson, who had motives--who had treated him like a person since the war, and he was to snuff this life out.

War had been one thing. His enemies had threatened his family, his way of life, the stability of his planet. Killing was much simpler when people shot at you; it was self-defense. You could look them in the eyes and feel nothing for them.

With the way the Doctor survived everything thrown at him, it seemed that the only way to finish him would be to do it up close, with no chance for him to escape. A gun, a knife, a pipe, a large rock, bare hands, if Turlough's conditioning let him do it. But Turlough would have to look right at him as he died.

Unfortunately, Turlough's processing at the hands of those enemies had apparently been too successful, because he couldn't kill the Doctor that way, not in cold blood. Couldn't depersonalize him to the point where the Doctor became simply a sack of meat to be put down. Turlough had tried and failed. He hadn't the stomach for this kind of killing. Not anymore.

He *wanted* to kill the Doctor, even if only for showing him how weak he'd become, but he couldn't. He couldn't do it even to save his own life.

He only lived--if you could call failed acts of long distance treachery and interludes of terror between being abused by the Black Guardian for his shortcomings "living"--until the Black Guardian understood that.

He didn't want to live this way.

"I can't go on. Kill the Doctor yourself, blame me for it, I don't care. I can't do it!" Turlough shouted.

"You have little choice."

"Turlough," the Doctor called from outside, sounding worried. Not because the Doctor expected him of treachery, no; the Doctor no doubt felt concern for his safety. It made Turlough's head feel like it was splitting wider. "Turlough!" He put his hands to the sides of his face to try to hold himself together.

He was on his knees. He should have been accustomed to that by now.

"He is coming, boy. This is your last chance. I shall not say that again. Kill the Doctor!" His point made, the Black Guardian's face disappeared.

Turlough sat back on his heels and looked around. Despite everything that had happened, the console room looked untouched. Had the explosion really occurred? Something had certainly hurt him. The crystal looked whole and perfect, but it had repaired itself once before.

Maybe it had just given off some kind of force or radiation. Turlough shook his head, then winced. A "death ray"? He'd been on Earth far too long.

With effort, he stood and stumbled to the console to retrieve the crystal, symbol of his betrayal, but when he attempted to pick it up, he knocked it off the console. It almost brought him to tears. He slid back down to the floor and pocketed the crystal. He felt better on the floor anyway, where the pulse of the TARDIS's engine could remind him that at least he wasn't on Earth anymore.

Turlough tried to breathe as he set his story straight in his mind. He had to look better by the time the Doctor arrived. If not, perhaps he could blame it on his alien physiology and all that gas he and Tegan had been dosed with over and over. She'd also seen him take quite a shock on his first attempt at manipulating the bypass switch. He had enough excuses to look terrible even aside from the Black Guardian playing painful games on his nervous system.

He had a talent for such stories, a talent cultivated during his time in the prison camp and honed during his years of "schooling" while exiled in England. Amazing how many homicidal doors Brendon School had....

He would lie to keep the Doctor and Tegan's trust before betraying them terribly and failing to kill the Doctor all over again. He wondered how long he could keep the pattern going before the Black Guardian killed him or he found the courage to end it all at his own hand.

******************************************************

When they found Turlough in the console room, Tegan sneered at her earlier worry over him. Then, looking at him again, she felt the concern return.

The Doctor knelt beside him on the floor. "Turlough, what happened to you?"

Turlough had exchanged his usual too-pale for dead white. Even his ginger hair seemed to be bleached of color. He visibly trembled. "I... don't know. I managed to get the door back for us after Tegan left. I called for her, but she was too far away. I thought that perhaps I could help from inside the TARDIS, but I collapsed once I reached the console room. I don't understand it myself." His voice sounded thick and choked.

He could be faking in an effort to avoid suspicions as to what he would have been up to in the console room all alone, but he looked too genuinely ill. Tegan didn't see him as the sort who would deliberately induce such a state in himself, no matter the reason.

"Tegan, how do you feel?" the Doctor asked.

"Tired, but who wouldn't be after all the running and crawling around we did? I'm all right." She didn't understand why Turlough looked ready to vomit up a few internal organs, so she thought about it a bit. "Doctor, Turlough took an electric shock while working on the bypass switch. Could that have something to do with it? We were gassed a few times as well."

It could have affected him differently. Turlough may have looked as human as she was, but he wasn't. He was as alien as all of Tegan's other constant companions had been of late.

That worried her sometimes.

"That may well be it. I'll examine Turlough, but I think my diagnosis will be that a little rest will sort him out."

Examine Turlough? "Doctor? What would an examination entail?" Tegan asked. Right after she'd spoken with him, too....

The Doctor gave her a look Turlough wouldn't be able to see. "Just the usual. Nothing to be worried about. I'll take a look at you later as well."

"I'm just not so sure you're a doctor doctor."

"And what would that mean?" the Doctor asked, sounding peevish and genuinely offended. "A doctor doctor?"

"A medical doctor."

"I'll have you know--"

"I'm fine," Turlough said weakly, interrupting before another fight could start. "I just need a little rest." He seemed to be genuinely surprised by the concern.

"Nonsense," the Doctor said. "I can't have my friends collapsing on me."

If Turlough had looked surprised at the concern, he seemed stunned by the word "friend." "You can't--"

It made Tegan remember a previous discussion she's had with him. "Are we friends?" Turlough had asked her earlier... today? It felt like forever ago. She'd answered, "Not yet," while meaning, "Drop dead."

"Of course I can," the Doctor said before helping him stand and letting him lean against his shoulder. "I'm sure your bed would be much more comfortable than the floor, wouldn't you agree?" All innocence.

"No. I mean, yes."

Tegan couldn't help smiling at the Doctor taking over the situation as usual. Turlough would never beat him for sheer sneakiness.

As the Doctor helped Turlough out the door, Turlough had an oddly vulnerable expression on his face. He looked open, as open as Tegan had felt he'd been on those steps when he'd asked her if she could kill someone in cold blood. When he'd been a weird, lost-sounding boy trying to find a way back to the TARDIS for them instead of being a possible saboteur. He pressed closer to the Doctor than he had to, but it seemed to be more for comfort for himself than for any kind of seduction attempt, which would be feeble right now given how weak he was. It may have been possible to play sick in a way that looked fetching, but Turlough was missing it completely at the moment.

Tegan's smile deepened. It didn't mean she wouldn't keep watching and worrying, but maybe the Doctor knew what he was doing with Turlough after all.

***********************THE END**********************