Don't Get Me To The Church On Time, 2/4
Title: Don't Get Me To The Church On Time 2/4
Author: uktechgirl_fic
Rating: PG
Pairings: Amy/Rory (Fifth Doctor/Turlough)
Summary: The Doctor, Amy and Rory run into Turlough, on his wedding day. Now, that is awkward.
Chapter 1 is here.
When the smoke began to clear, their situation had not improved.
The bar was wrecked: shattered glass and scorched paintwork. The scattered cushions on the floor were either smoking or still burning, like the silk cloths that hung from the ceiling. Even the Doctor’s bowtie had had to be abandoned, due to an unfortunate case of smouldering. He was not happy.
He wasn’t the only one.
Amy lay sprawled on her back, half-buried beneath a pile of rubble and a trellis of thick, twisted metal girders from the crumbled roof above.
Turlough was curled on his side, still, his red hair white with brick dust.
Only Rory seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed - coughing in the thick air, shaking his head from the explosion and staring around in horror.
‘We are the Sons of Logar!’ declared a sandy-faced man dressed in white robes, reaching out with his fist, and receiving a series of open-palmed clasps from his companions. They wore robes too, though the spiritual effect of the flowing cloth was, the Doctor felt, rather marred by the straps of their rifles. Across the smoggy wreckage of the room came screams, and scuttling, as the survivors tried to hide.
‘I’ll give your brother one thing, Turlough,’ noted the Doctor. ‘He does know how to make an entrance.’
‘Amy!’ yelped Rory, flinging himself down alongside her, and reaching gingerly through the cage of metal that hung, precariously, between them. ‘Amy, my god, are you - ’
‘Oh, don’t fuss,’ she said, flat on her back but flapping a hand confidently. ‘My mouth feels like a hoover bag, but that’s probably the drink. I’m fine.’
‘But your legs,’ said Rory, patting at her, looking for holes. ‘Can you feel your legs?’
‘I’d rather you felt them,’ she said, giving him her best filthy-thoughts eyeflare. Then she frowned: sat up awkwardly on her elbows: turned pale.
‘I’m trapped?’ she whispered.
‘It’s all right, I’m here, I’m right beside you,’ said Rory, looking nervously up at the remains of the ceiling as it gave an ominous groan.
‘I’m trapped!’ Amy scrabbled for purchase on the rubble, sending cascades of grit trickling between the fallen rocks that buried her.
‘We know, Amy!’ said the Doctor, urgently reaching through the twisted metal to seize her flailing arms and trying to still them, before she became even more buried. ‘And we don’t like it any more than you do, but you really must stay still, Amy, please. Please, stay still.’
‘I don’t like to be trapped,’ she whispered, her voice high and thready with panic, still fighting.
‘Who would, hmm?’ he said quickly, awkwardly folding her arms across her chest and stroking dust from her forehead. ‘Running, that’s the thing. We all like running. Athletes, we are. Egg and spoon? Count me in. But sometimes we have to stay still. To keep ourselves safe. To keep everyone safe. Yes?’
His voice calmed her, words distracting her enough to slow her breathing: to bring the world back into focus. She nodded, swallowing, letting her head fall back, and her limbs go limp.
The Doctor stroked her hair, kissed her hand, kissed Rory’s forehead, then stared urgently across the chaos, seeking Malkon. He caught Turlough’s eye instead. His former companion, now conscious, was watching him from his crumpled position on the floor with a kind of detached longing.
‘Sorry,’ croaked Turlough, realising he was discovered, and smirking, unabashed. ‘It’s just - I’d forgotten what it’s like. To be one of yours.’
A chunk of ceiling fell down, smashing a hole in the table between them.
‘Don’t miss that bit so much,’ said Turlough.
‘Apparently unavoidable,’ said the Doctor ruefully, climbing over the broken glass towards him in a futile effort to get there before the approaching armed guards.
They dragged Turlough to his feet in a cloud of dust, and snapped cuffs around his wrists.
‘Look!’ protested Turlough. ‘Five bloody minutes in your company and I’m clapped in irons!’
‘Your brother’s fault this time, don’t look at me!’
‘Malkon?’ said Turlough, slumping in his captors’ arms as they began to haul him away. ‘Bugger. Looks like I might not be the marrying kind after all.’
With a nod to Rory, and a rather wonky cheerful grin for Amy’s benefit, the Doctor hurried after him.
*
‘Now, I’m a reasonable chap, but I was halfway through a Sinalara Sling and now it’s got bits of grit and dead people in it. Is that any way to repay me for saving your life?’
The Doctor had kept his hands raised, defensive in the face of quite so many guns trained on him - but as Malkon flicked a finger and the guns dropped, the Doctor clasped them comfortably before him.
‘That’s better. Now, I should probably introduce myself again. I’m the Doctor, and I’m a terribly good friend of your brother’s, the one you’ve got strung up over there.’ Turlough had been placed in the ruined entrance to the bar, for the greatest visibility to the gathering crowd outside. Chains were attached to the archway above his head, and a pair of ropes twisted horizontally across the doorway, compressing his throat. Turlough looked unimpressed. Possibly a little bored. The Doctor, with a twinge of guilt, admitted that it was the sort of thing that seemed to happen to Turlough a lot whenever he was in the vicinity - and not even in the fun way.
‘And we’ve met before, Malkon,’ he continued, ‘but I’ve changed a little since then. Rather natty, don’t you think?’
‘The blue box,’ said Malkon drily. ‘We found it. I know who you are.’
‘Ah!’ said the Doctor, brightening. ‘Then you’ll remember how I saved you and all your followers from burning to death from numismaton gas?’
‘I remember you depriving Logar of his rightful sacrifices, yes,’ said Malkon, as the guns were raised again.
‘Oh,’ said the Doctor.
‘No matter,’ said Malkon, dreamily. ‘The debt will soon be recovered.’
‘Hmm,’ said the Doctor, watching unhappily as the robed Sons of Logar began to light torches from a flaming cauldron at Malkon’s feet. ‘You know, I’ve read that nine out of ten gods prefer willing sacrifices. It would be a crying shame to disappoint your Logar all over again, don’t you think? And - ’ He peered up at the viewscreen, which was now showing the exterior of the bar, and the crowd outside, which was rapidly growing into a mob. ‘I think the people of Trion are looking for a slightly more practical solution to their problems than a barbecue.’
The military had arrived, ostensibly to surround the bar, but they were now obviously preoccupied with pinning the mob back. Fights could be glimpsed breaking out within the crowd, far back: different factions of the same side, confined in a tiny space. Shots rang out, audible from outside: laserfire flared on the screen, searingly bright, a fraction of a second later. An explosion rocked the ground, sending more grit and rubble trickling from the ceiling on the bar.
The Doctor looked anxiously over at Amy and Rory. Rory was crouched over her, protective, his back coated with grit. She gave a frantic wave from underneath.
Then the ground rocked again. Turlough yelled in pain, or frustration. The viewscreen flashed, then went black.
The lights in the bar went out, leaving it lit only by the flaming torches. Malkon’s face glowed in the flickering orange light, his eyes shining.
*
Amy lay very still, and pretended the darkness would be punctured with stars if only she would open her eyes.
So she opened them, and it wasn’t. It was thick and black and it was only the rasp of her hair on stone at the back of her head that made her sure which way was up. But there was a hand holding hers, very tightly, one thumb stroking her palm, and then the Doctor appeared carrying a flaming stick that bounced orange light off all the funny crags and hollows of his face: lighting up Rory, too.
‘Power cut: part of the plan, Doctor?’
‘No. Sorry. Amy, do you mind if I borrow Rory for a minute or two? There’s a few more rather broken people over there.’
She nodded, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and then the hand holding hers went away, and so did the light.
‘Not afraid of the dark, not afraid of the dark,’ she sang, softly and unconvincingly to herself.
Then a cold hand slapped across her mouth, clamping her lips closed.
Amy wriggled and tugged at the hand, peering desperately into the darkness, making little squeaky noises till she was shushed into silence. After a long pause, the cold hand went away.
‘Totally afraid of creepy hands over my mouth!’ she whispered.
‘Apology, miss,’ said a low female voice. ‘Thought you’d seen me: didn’t want you to give me away.’
Amy could just make out a blurred face above her. She reached a hand to it to check, and felt her fingers curled into a fist, as it was clasped.
‘Oh, you’re that waitress, right? The one who served our table?’
‘I am Attis, miss, yes, and I had the privilege to serve Turlough and his friends. Now I’ll have the privilege of saving his life.’
‘Really? Brilliant. The Doctor was supposed to be doing that, but, well, he’s a bit useless. And I’d fix it myself, but I’m a bit stuck. Though aren’t you a bit stuck? I mean, in here?’
‘Secret entrance, left over from the Clan days,’ explained Attis. ‘I will escape unseen, then return with my Clan brethren to lead Turlough to his rightful place.’
‘Right. Which would be?’
‘At Berrow’s side in the city square, presiding over Trion for one hundred years!’
Amy coughed. ‘O-kay,’ she said. ‘But before that, these brethren of yours, could they do me - I mean, Turlough - could they do Turlough another favour? There’s this blue box out on the roadside, not far from here...’
*
‘He still fusses, then,’ said Turlough irritably, as Rory assessed his pupils.
Rory had attended the other wounded first, doing his best with bandages made from curtains and splints or table legs, but the Doctor had insisted Turlough was checked over too. He seemed remarkably unscathed, apart from grazes from the chains and the ropes that held him in place in the entrance archway. Rory suspected he’d only been sent there to keep Turlough company - though it might, embarrassingly, be the other way around. He knew he wasn’t all that sensible when Amy got hurt. Other people, he managed every day: she only had to look wan and he forgot everything.
But Turlough had lost consciousness for a moment after the first blast: he should keep him talking. Test his memory, perhaps?
‘So,’ said Rory, shifting. ‘The Doctor. Is that why he always travels with... a friend? I mean, does he always...?’
Turlough looked comfortingly baffled for a moment, then peaked an eyebrow. ‘Does he always fuck his travelling companions, you mean?’ he said, a little too gleefully for someone with a rope about his neck.
Rory winced.
‘Well, in my day, he had quite the harem,’ said Turlough. ‘There was Nyssa: looked like butter wouldn’t melt, but took off her clothes at the drop of a pin. Tegan - she was another human. Air hostess: short skirts, boob tubes. Liked a drink: good-time girl, you know the sort. And of course there was Peri, who turned up in a bikini and, well... oh, god, you’re actually believing me, aren’t you? ’
Rory’s look of horror dialled down a notch.
‘Rest assured, in my time at least, he was a perfect gentleman. So much so that it took an astonishing effort of seduction on my part to get him to unbutton in the slightest. Actually, I always imagined it made me special.’ Turlough looked thoughtful. ‘That might be ego, though. Or generosity. I credited him with not being an utter tart, at least for a year or two: you can’t really ask more than that when you’re shagging a Time Lord. It’s not as if we were going to settle down and groom cats in our dotage.’
Rory’s eyes slid away, guiltily. Turlough (to his credit, he felt, under the circumstances) suppressed a smile.
‘But that’s what you want, I take it? Kids, two bathrooms, an apple tree planted in the garden that gets old with you?’
‘It’s on the wedding list,’ sighed Rory. ‘I asked for a pear tree, though: she prefers pears. And yes, I know, I’m an idiot, what am I even thinking - ’
‘I really wouldn’t worry about Himself,’ said Turlough, eyeing the Doctor’s spidery progress across the rubble to check on the remaining wounded under Malkon’s supervision, spindly arms akimbo. ‘Mine wasn’t exactly forward, but him? Might be nothing but smooth down below, like those plastic mannekins in a shop window. Even if he’s not, I think the whole sex palaver probably seems a bit too complicated at his age.’
‘They kissed!’ said Rory.
‘Really?’ said Turlough, gleeful again.
‘Well,’ said Rory. ‘She kissed him. Once. Slightly.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing! She was probably trying to find out about the smoothness, or otherwise. He does make you wonder.’
Rory and Turlough both watched the Doctor, gesticulating at Malkon, resting his hands on his hips - till Rory decided that he was asking a question to which he had no desire to know the answer, and should perhaps stop staring.
‘Anyway,’ continued Turlough, still staring, ‘whether he’s got man-bits or not is hardly the point. The one thing I know about him, nauseating as it is, is that whatever his face looks like - or anything else - he wants the very best for his friends. You’re his friend. So’s Amy. If you two being together is what will make you both happiest, he wouldn’t dream of getting in the way. In fact, he’d probably fling himself in the direction of noble self-sacrifice on your behalf, on the off-chance it was the right thing to do.’
‘But,’ said Rory, pleading, though he wasn’t sure for what, ‘it’s - she’s - it’s Amy. I’m not sure she wants to settle down to groom cats either.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘To marry Amy.’
Turlough sagged in his chains, though not unkindly.
‘And if there was no Amy? What would you want then? For yourself?’
‘To find her,’ said Rory, without hesitating.
‘But - ‘ said Turlough, then stopped himself. ‘Listen, I’m a selfish person, Rory. I don’t want to spend the next one hundred years standing in a fishtank for the good of the people of Trion, hoping I don’t asphyxiate in the process. I can’t imagine making a lifelong commitment - and you can, so perhaps we’re too different. And granted, at this particular moment in time, I am a touch biased.’ Turlough waggled his manacles pointedly. ‘Right now I’m on the brink of being executed by my only brother, and if I happen to sidestep that, it’s the fishtank for me - so I’m developing a genuine fondness for the present. But bias aside, that’s not a terrible way to live. Things happen. Bars explode, gods make demands, Doctors arrive too late or too early or never at all. Planning the future’s a mug’s game, even for him. Something tells me today isn’t working out quite as he planned. Care about the here and now: it might be all you’ve got.’
Rory frowned. ‘Are you just saying that because you and the Doctor aren’t together any more?’
Turlough rolled his eyes, bored, the way he used to with Tegan.
‘No, Rory. I’m saying that because I want you to find a way to unlock these cuffs, so I’m trying to ingratiate myself. How’s it working so far?’
‘You could’ve just asked,’ hissed Rory, looking around in alarm. ‘I thought you said you’d changed too much to just run away?’
‘I lied. Don’t worry, the Doctor’s used to it. So: Rory, can you unlock these cuffs?’
‘No!’
‘That guard there, he’s got keys. You could just bonk him on the head, and then we can daringly escape. It’s pretty standard stuff, Rory. You must’ve done this... oh hell: you’re new, aren’t you?’ He leaned sideways in his chains. ‘Doctor, you could at least have brought an experienced escapologist!’
The Doctor looked up, and offered a shrug.
Rory turned to protest - and as he did, he saw the Doctor’s face fall: saw his hands rise up in panic.
Then Rory heard Turlough’s gasp, as gunfire rattled in his ears. Then Rory felt the wet snick of bullets in his back, gasped too, and fell.
*
Chapter 3 is here.
Author: uktechgirl_fic
Rating: PG
Pairings: Amy/Rory (Fifth Doctor/Turlough)
Summary: The Doctor, Amy and Rory run into Turlough, on his wedding day. Now, that is awkward.
Chapter 1 is here.
When the smoke began to clear, their situation had not improved.
The bar was wrecked: shattered glass and scorched paintwork. The scattered cushions on the floor were either smoking or still burning, like the silk cloths that hung from the ceiling. Even the Doctor’s bowtie had had to be abandoned, due to an unfortunate case of smouldering. He was not happy.
He wasn’t the only one.
Amy lay sprawled on her back, half-buried beneath a pile of rubble and a trellis of thick, twisted metal girders from the crumbled roof above.
Turlough was curled on his side, still, his red hair white with brick dust.
Only Rory seemed to have escaped relatively unscathed - coughing in the thick air, shaking his head from the explosion and staring around in horror.
‘We are the Sons of Logar!’ declared a sandy-faced man dressed in white robes, reaching out with his fist, and receiving a series of open-palmed clasps from his companions. They wore robes too, though the spiritual effect of the flowing cloth was, the Doctor felt, rather marred by the straps of their rifles. Across the smoggy wreckage of the room came screams, and scuttling, as the survivors tried to hide.
‘I’ll give your brother one thing, Turlough,’ noted the Doctor. ‘He does know how to make an entrance.’
‘Amy!’ yelped Rory, flinging himself down alongside her, and reaching gingerly through the cage of metal that hung, precariously, between them. ‘Amy, my god, are you - ’
‘Oh, don’t fuss,’ she said, flat on her back but flapping a hand confidently. ‘My mouth feels like a hoover bag, but that’s probably the drink. I’m fine.’
‘But your legs,’ said Rory, patting at her, looking for holes. ‘Can you feel your legs?’
‘I’d rather you felt them,’ she said, giving him her best filthy-thoughts eyeflare. Then she frowned: sat up awkwardly on her elbows: turned pale.
‘I’m trapped?’ she whispered.
‘It’s all right, I’m here, I’m right beside you,’ said Rory, looking nervously up at the remains of the ceiling as it gave an ominous groan.
‘I’m trapped!’ Amy scrabbled for purchase on the rubble, sending cascades of grit trickling between the fallen rocks that buried her.
‘We know, Amy!’ said the Doctor, urgently reaching through the twisted metal to seize her flailing arms and trying to still them, before she became even more buried. ‘And we don’t like it any more than you do, but you really must stay still, Amy, please. Please, stay still.’
‘I don’t like to be trapped,’ she whispered, her voice high and thready with panic, still fighting.
‘Who would, hmm?’ he said quickly, awkwardly folding her arms across her chest and stroking dust from her forehead. ‘Running, that’s the thing. We all like running. Athletes, we are. Egg and spoon? Count me in. But sometimes we have to stay still. To keep ourselves safe. To keep everyone safe. Yes?’
His voice calmed her, words distracting her enough to slow her breathing: to bring the world back into focus. She nodded, swallowing, letting her head fall back, and her limbs go limp.
The Doctor stroked her hair, kissed her hand, kissed Rory’s forehead, then stared urgently across the chaos, seeking Malkon. He caught Turlough’s eye instead. His former companion, now conscious, was watching him from his crumpled position on the floor with a kind of detached longing.
‘Sorry,’ croaked Turlough, realising he was discovered, and smirking, unabashed. ‘It’s just - I’d forgotten what it’s like. To be one of yours.’
A chunk of ceiling fell down, smashing a hole in the table between them.
‘Don’t miss that bit so much,’ said Turlough.
‘Apparently unavoidable,’ said the Doctor ruefully, climbing over the broken glass towards him in a futile effort to get there before the approaching armed guards.
They dragged Turlough to his feet in a cloud of dust, and snapped cuffs around his wrists.
‘Look!’ protested Turlough. ‘Five bloody minutes in your company and I’m clapped in irons!’
‘Your brother’s fault this time, don’t look at me!’
‘Malkon?’ said Turlough, slumping in his captors’ arms as they began to haul him away. ‘Bugger. Looks like I might not be the marrying kind after all.’
With a nod to Rory, and a rather wonky cheerful grin for Amy’s benefit, the Doctor hurried after him.
*
‘Now, I’m a reasonable chap, but I was halfway through a Sinalara Sling and now it’s got bits of grit and dead people in it. Is that any way to repay me for saving your life?’
The Doctor had kept his hands raised, defensive in the face of quite so many guns trained on him - but as Malkon flicked a finger and the guns dropped, the Doctor clasped them comfortably before him.
‘That’s better. Now, I should probably introduce myself again. I’m the Doctor, and I’m a terribly good friend of your brother’s, the one you’ve got strung up over there.’ Turlough had been placed in the ruined entrance to the bar, for the greatest visibility to the gathering crowd outside. Chains were attached to the archway above his head, and a pair of ropes twisted horizontally across the doorway, compressing his throat. Turlough looked unimpressed. Possibly a little bored. The Doctor, with a twinge of guilt, admitted that it was the sort of thing that seemed to happen to Turlough a lot whenever he was in the vicinity - and not even in the fun way.
‘And we’ve met before, Malkon,’ he continued, ‘but I’ve changed a little since then. Rather natty, don’t you think?’
‘The blue box,’ said Malkon drily. ‘We found it. I know who you are.’
‘Ah!’ said the Doctor, brightening. ‘Then you’ll remember how I saved you and all your followers from burning to death from numismaton gas?’
‘I remember you depriving Logar of his rightful sacrifices, yes,’ said Malkon, as the guns were raised again.
‘Oh,’ said the Doctor.
‘No matter,’ said Malkon, dreamily. ‘The debt will soon be recovered.’
‘Hmm,’ said the Doctor, watching unhappily as the robed Sons of Logar began to light torches from a flaming cauldron at Malkon’s feet. ‘You know, I’ve read that nine out of ten gods prefer willing sacrifices. It would be a crying shame to disappoint your Logar all over again, don’t you think? And - ’ He peered up at the viewscreen, which was now showing the exterior of the bar, and the crowd outside, which was rapidly growing into a mob. ‘I think the people of Trion are looking for a slightly more practical solution to their problems than a barbecue.’
The military had arrived, ostensibly to surround the bar, but they were now obviously preoccupied with pinning the mob back. Fights could be glimpsed breaking out within the crowd, far back: different factions of the same side, confined in a tiny space. Shots rang out, audible from outside: laserfire flared on the screen, searingly bright, a fraction of a second later. An explosion rocked the ground, sending more grit and rubble trickling from the ceiling on the bar.
The Doctor looked anxiously over at Amy and Rory. Rory was crouched over her, protective, his back coated with grit. She gave a frantic wave from underneath.
Then the ground rocked again. Turlough yelled in pain, or frustration. The viewscreen flashed, then went black.
The lights in the bar went out, leaving it lit only by the flaming torches. Malkon’s face glowed in the flickering orange light, his eyes shining.
*
Amy lay very still, and pretended the darkness would be punctured with stars if only she would open her eyes.
So she opened them, and it wasn’t. It was thick and black and it was only the rasp of her hair on stone at the back of her head that made her sure which way was up. But there was a hand holding hers, very tightly, one thumb stroking her palm, and then the Doctor appeared carrying a flaming stick that bounced orange light off all the funny crags and hollows of his face: lighting up Rory, too.
‘Power cut: part of the plan, Doctor?’
‘No. Sorry. Amy, do you mind if I borrow Rory for a minute or two? There’s a few more rather broken people over there.’
She nodded, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and then the hand holding hers went away, and so did the light.
‘Not afraid of the dark, not afraid of the dark,’ she sang, softly and unconvincingly to herself.
Then a cold hand slapped across her mouth, clamping her lips closed.
Amy wriggled and tugged at the hand, peering desperately into the darkness, making little squeaky noises till she was shushed into silence. After a long pause, the cold hand went away.
‘Totally afraid of creepy hands over my mouth!’ she whispered.
‘Apology, miss,’ said a low female voice. ‘Thought you’d seen me: didn’t want you to give me away.’
Amy could just make out a blurred face above her. She reached a hand to it to check, and felt her fingers curled into a fist, as it was clasped.
‘Oh, you’re that waitress, right? The one who served our table?’
‘I am Attis, miss, yes, and I had the privilege to serve Turlough and his friends. Now I’ll have the privilege of saving his life.’
‘Really? Brilliant. The Doctor was supposed to be doing that, but, well, he’s a bit useless. And I’d fix it myself, but I’m a bit stuck. Though aren’t you a bit stuck? I mean, in here?’
‘Secret entrance, left over from the Clan days,’ explained Attis. ‘I will escape unseen, then return with my Clan brethren to lead Turlough to his rightful place.’
‘Right. Which would be?’
‘At Berrow’s side in the city square, presiding over Trion for one hundred years!’
Amy coughed. ‘O-kay,’ she said. ‘But before that, these brethren of yours, could they do me - I mean, Turlough - could they do Turlough another favour? There’s this blue box out on the roadside, not far from here...’
*
‘He still fusses, then,’ said Turlough irritably, as Rory assessed his pupils.
Rory had attended the other wounded first, doing his best with bandages made from curtains and splints or table legs, but the Doctor had insisted Turlough was checked over too. He seemed remarkably unscathed, apart from grazes from the chains and the ropes that held him in place in the entrance archway. Rory suspected he’d only been sent there to keep Turlough company - though it might, embarrassingly, be the other way around. He knew he wasn’t all that sensible when Amy got hurt. Other people, he managed every day: she only had to look wan and he forgot everything.
But Turlough had lost consciousness for a moment after the first blast: he should keep him talking. Test his memory, perhaps?
‘So,’ said Rory, shifting. ‘The Doctor. Is that why he always travels with... a friend? I mean, does he always...?’
Turlough looked comfortingly baffled for a moment, then peaked an eyebrow. ‘Does he always fuck his travelling companions, you mean?’ he said, a little too gleefully for someone with a rope about his neck.
Rory winced.
‘Well, in my day, he had quite the harem,’ said Turlough. ‘There was Nyssa: looked like butter wouldn’t melt, but took off her clothes at the drop of a pin. Tegan - she was another human. Air hostess: short skirts, boob tubes. Liked a drink: good-time girl, you know the sort. And of course there was Peri, who turned up in a bikini and, well... oh, god, you’re actually believing me, aren’t you? ’
Rory’s look of horror dialled down a notch.
‘Rest assured, in my time at least, he was a perfect gentleman. So much so that it took an astonishing effort of seduction on my part to get him to unbutton in the slightest. Actually, I always imagined it made me special.’ Turlough looked thoughtful. ‘That might be ego, though. Or generosity. I credited him with not being an utter tart, at least for a year or two: you can’t really ask more than that when you’re shagging a Time Lord. It’s not as if we were going to settle down and groom cats in our dotage.’
Rory’s eyes slid away, guiltily. Turlough (to his credit, he felt, under the circumstances) suppressed a smile.
‘But that’s what you want, I take it? Kids, two bathrooms, an apple tree planted in the garden that gets old with you?’
‘It’s on the wedding list,’ sighed Rory. ‘I asked for a pear tree, though: she prefers pears. And yes, I know, I’m an idiot, what am I even thinking - ’
‘I really wouldn’t worry about Himself,’ said Turlough, eyeing the Doctor’s spidery progress across the rubble to check on the remaining wounded under Malkon’s supervision, spindly arms akimbo. ‘Mine wasn’t exactly forward, but him? Might be nothing but smooth down below, like those plastic mannekins in a shop window. Even if he’s not, I think the whole sex palaver probably seems a bit too complicated at his age.’
‘They kissed!’ said Rory.
‘Really?’ said Turlough, gleeful again.
‘Well,’ said Rory. ‘She kissed him. Once. Slightly.’
‘Oh, that’s nothing! She was probably trying to find out about the smoothness, or otherwise. He does make you wonder.’
Rory and Turlough both watched the Doctor, gesticulating at Malkon, resting his hands on his hips - till Rory decided that he was asking a question to which he had no desire to know the answer, and should perhaps stop staring.
‘Anyway,’ continued Turlough, still staring, ‘whether he’s got man-bits or not is hardly the point. The one thing I know about him, nauseating as it is, is that whatever his face looks like - or anything else - he wants the very best for his friends. You’re his friend. So’s Amy. If you two being together is what will make you both happiest, he wouldn’t dream of getting in the way. In fact, he’d probably fling himself in the direction of noble self-sacrifice on your behalf, on the off-chance it was the right thing to do.’
‘But,’ said Rory, pleading, though he wasn’t sure for what, ‘it’s - she’s - it’s Amy. I’m not sure she wants to settle down to groom cats either.’
‘And what do you want?’
‘To marry Amy.’
Turlough sagged in his chains, though not unkindly.
‘And if there was no Amy? What would you want then? For yourself?’
‘To find her,’ said Rory, without hesitating.
‘But - ‘ said Turlough, then stopped himself. ‘Listen, I’m a selfish person, Rory. I don’t want to spend the next one hundred years standing in a fishtank for the good of the people of Trion, hoping I don’t asphyxiate in the process. I can’t imagine making a lifelong commitment - and you can, so perhaps we’re too different. And granted, at this particular moment in time, I am a touch biased.’ Turlough waggled his manacles pointedly. ‘Right now I’m on the brink of being executed by my only brother, and if I happen to sidestep that, it’s the fishtank for me - so I’m developing a genuine fondness for the present. But bias aside, that’s not a terrible way to live. Things happen. Bars explode, gods make demands, Doctors arrive too late or too early or never at all. Planning the future’s a mug’s game, even for him. Something tells me today isn’t working out quite as he planned. Care about the here and now: it might be all you’ve got.’
Rory frowned. ‘Are you just saying that because you and the Doctor aren’t together any more?’
Turlough rolled his eyes, bored, the way he used to with Tegan.
‘No, Rory. I’m saying that because I want you to find a way to unlock these cuffs, so I’m trying to ingratiate myself. How’s it working so far?’
‘You could’ve just asked,’ hissed Rory, looking around in alarm. ‘I thought you said you’d changed too much to just run away?’
‘I lied. Don’t worry, the Doctor’s used to it. So: Rory, can you unlock these cuffs?’
‘No!’
‘That guard there, he’s got keys. You could just bonk him on the head, and then we can daringly escape. It’s pretty standard stuff, Rory. You must’ve done this... oh hell: you’re new, aren’t you?’ He leaned sideways in his chains. ‘Doctor, you could at least have brought an experienced escapologist!’
The Doctor looked up, and offered a shrug.
Rory turned to protest - and as he did, he saw the Doctor’s face fall: saw his hands rise up in panic.
Then Rory heard Turlough’s gasp, as gunfire rattled in his ears. Then Rory felt the wet snick of bullets in his back, gasped too, and fell.
*
Chapter 3 is here.