(no subject)
Title: Requiem for Adric
Rating: G
Category: Angst, romance
Pairing: Five/Tegan
Summary: Takes place at the beginning of “Time-Flight” Inside the TARDIS, what if the conversation between the Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa happened differently?
Disclaimer: No, I don’t own Doctor Who…oh but I wish I did!
Author’s note: I was excited about writing this but also nervous because this is my first Doctor Who story. And…I don’t have a beta. Any feedback would be most appreciated and hopefully I’ll come up with other ideas as I watch more episodes.
*~*~*~*
It had been eerily quiet inside the TARDIS. Tegan Jovanka walked through the white corridors. Like the atmosphere, her stroll was solemn. As she neared Nyssa’s room, Tegan hesitated at the half-open door. She stood there, listening for any movement. The air hostess heard what sounded like footsteps marching back and forth.
“What is Nyssa doing?” Tegan wondered to herself. “Pacing maybe?” Thinking Nyssa was distraught, Tegan knocked twice on the door. “Nyssa?”
The walking stopped abruptly, and then Nyssa said, “Come in.”
Tegan entered, shutting the door. She noted several dresses that lay upon the brass bed. Her brown eyes shifted to Nyssa standing in front of the mirror and holding a ruffled dress against her. The girl from Traken shook her head at the dress she had disliked and gone back to the closet to hang it up.
“Nyssa?” Tegan stepped closer to her. “Are you all right?”
Nyssa stood over the bed and picked up another dress, short and red with small buttons raining down the back and two pockets in front. “I wanted to try on some dresses. I may want to wear something different one day. What do you think of this one?”
Tegan cocked her head to the left, studying the dress and as she was about to open her mouth…
“No,” Nyssa said quickly and headed back to the closet.
“You didn’t give me a chance to say anything.”
Nyssa strode back to the bed and stood over it again.
Tegan asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Nyssa let out a deep sigh and turned to face Tegan. At that moment, the air hostess thought she saw tears in Nyssa’s eyes, tears she seemed to desperately restrain. “No, I’m not all right. Why? Why did he have to die?”
“I keep asking myself the same question.”
Nyssa continued. “First it was my mother, then my father and now Adric.” She swallowed hard and shook her head.
Tegan followed Nyssa’s gaze to the dresses, noting that she was no longer interested in them. Nyssa angrily picked up two dresses and walked to the closet. Tegan wished her friend would cry, shout…do something. If she had done so, Tegan would be there for her, give her a hug. Instead, Nyssa focused on hanging up the dresses. There had been an awkward silence between them, a silence that made Tegan uneasy.
“I’ll, uh--,” Tegan began, “I’ll go see what the Doctor is up to. Maybe he’s in the console room.” She sadly shut the door behind her.
Tegan had gone to the console room, expecting to find the Doctor but he wasn’t there. She then checked his room and no luck. “Where could he be?” she thought and remembered another place…the cloisters. Tegan continued through the corridors that had seemed like a crazy maze, recalling the first time she walked through them and got lost, and even now she would still get confused. Even now the inside of the TARDIS still amazed her. When Tegan finally arrived at the cloisters, she saw the Doctor pacing around a bench, hands tucked deep in his striped trouser pockets. He suddenly stopped at the sight of Tegan, and then he slowly sat down on the bench. Tegan joined beside him and again, there had been that awkward silence while he stared straight ahead.
Frustrated at Nyssa and the Doctor’s stoic behavior, she blurted, “Why do I feel like I shouldn’t cry? I didn’t know Adric for a long time but he was still my friend.”
The Doctor remained silent.
“Doctor? Are you listening to me? Adric is dead. Don’t you care?”
He turned his face and shot an offended glance at her. “How can you say that? Of course I care!” The Doctor returned his gaze at the columns ahead. “You know what he said to me,” he started softly. “He told me whenever you or Nyssa had a question, I always find time to answer it, but I didn’t give him any time. That’s why he was upset and wanted to go home. I told him I’ll make more time--,” The Doctor hesitated and then he added, “Time.”
“Doctor?” Tegan called, noting he appeared to be in shock.
He continued, “I gave him my word.” The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut and when opening them again, he said, “Adric was a very dear friend. He will be missed.”
“I’ll miss him, too.” She could not fight the tears any longer and sobbed uncontrollably. For a moment Tegan was embarrassed in the Doctor’s presence. Tegan Jovanka… intense and emotional. It wouldn’t surprise her if he had been annoyed with that part of her personality. But she was surprised when he circled his arm around her and gently pulled her against him. Tegan laid her head onto his chest. She could hear the frenetic beat of his two hearts.
Two hearts.
And she thought…
“Will I ever get used to that?”
He held her for a while. Then…
“Tegan?”
She looked up into his water-blue eyes and Tegan could see he was struggling to say something else, or was it her imagination that his lips inched closer to hers. Suddenly, the Doctor leaped onto his feet and nervously plunged his hands back into his trouser pockets.
“We need to leave,” he said quickly. “I have a special treat to cheer us all up.”
The Doctor left a bewildered Tegan on the bench. She could not stop thinking about what had transpired. That look in his eyes and it seemed he wanted to kiss her. Would she let him?
“What are you thinking? He’s a Time Lord. Why would he be attracted to a human? Why would I be attracted to him?”
“Oh but you are,” she heard a voice say, the voice she tried desperately to ignore, because she knew nothing could ever happen between them. Distraught over the death of Adric and torn between the Doctor wanting to kiss her or just her imagination, Tegan sadly left the cloisters.
End