Waking or Sleeping

Turlough hesitated to move closer, though the Doctor seemed intent on the workings he'd pulled out of the pedestal. It wasn't squeamishness that held him. He'd no lack of getting his own hands dirty. Civil war would do that – it wasn't the sort of war where the killing stayed impersonal, at a distance. He'd done his share of skirmishing in the streets. His share of resorting to brute force and blunt instruments to dispatch someone. He knew exactly the sound a skull cracking would make. He'd just never expected to have to hear it again.

One thing to be said for exile, all the fighting was long over for him. Or had been.

The Doctor leaned further forward, rocking on the balls of his feet, utterly oblivious to everything but the puzzle before him.

Turlough hesitated. Long over. Supposed to be. Could he still kill? More to the point could he kill at all just to suit himself? Without the spur of young, stupid fervour for a 'cause'? Just to escape this miserable planet with its miserable, ignorant people and the endless stifling stupidity of being stuck here pretending to be one of them?

Kill the Doctor or let him live and suffer the penalty himself. The choice had changed, hadn't it?

The choice had changed and the chance was slipping away. There was only so long the Doctor's concentration on the device would last.

The memory of the Black Guardian's voice, the memory of the fear drove him forward. He raised the rock, resisted the urge to look away as he did it and brought it down at the exact moment the device exploded.

The rock crashed against the Doctor's skull, but without the sickening sound of Turlough's recollection, the blow off target as the Doctor was flung back from the device. He rolled on the ground, grasping blindly at the injury, an almost unbelievable amount of blood staining his hair and hands scarlet. Turlough backed away, suddenly horrified as the Doctor made it to his knees and blinked at him giddily.

"Turlough?"

Blood dripped into the Doctor's eyes from his fringe and he sounded genuinely uncertain and with a cold feeling Turlough realised he didn't know the blow had been deliberate. The Doctor was asking for – expecting – his help.

Now, boy, the deep, vicious voice echoed in his head. Finish it now.

Turlough still stared unable to move either to help or continue his attack.

Now, boy. Now!

Moving slowly, in an eerie sort of detachment, Turlough found himself holding the rock once more. The Doctor stared up at him, dazed and still not understanding – wide eyed in pained bewilderment, not fear.

Turlough raised the rock and there was the barest flicker of realisation across the Doctor's face, the slightest twitch as he started to try to move, but far, far too late as Turlough brought the improvised weapon down for the second time and the Doctor crumpled still wide eyed, but lifeless onto the grass.

Shaking, Turlough let the rock fall, a nauseating, roiling mixture of horror and relief washing over him.

Pick it up.

Turlough flinched so hard he nearly fell.

"What?"

Pick it up, boy. Our agreement is not done with yet.

Turlough did let go then, falling to his knees, his voice a wail.

"The Doctor is dead."

No. The Doctor cheats that like he cheats everything else. You still have more to do to make an end of him.

Turlough glanced at where the Doctor's body lay and leapt back to his feet. A soft light played across his bloodied features brightening to obscure them completely. Turlough stifled a cry of shock as the body stirred.

Again, boy. Now while he's still vulnerable.

"I can't!"

You already have. Defy me now and you will suffer. Do you think you'll be forgiven for killing him once just because you lost your courage to go through with it to the end? Again, boy. Now.

Horrified, almost unable to look at his his hands as he did it, Turlough picked up the rock and stood over the Doctor as the light faded to leave him unmarked, but changed. Not changed in the horrible twisted way of Mawdryn's kind but a untroubled, confident new face looking up at him. Slightly confused but apparently quite unworried.

"Turlough, isn't it?" he said moments before the rock crashed down again.

Again. Again.

Turlough was shrieking now, striking blindly, ending each new life as it began, no longer caring as long as the Doctor and the Guardian would both just leave him alone...

He jerked upright, bedclothes in a sweaty tangle around him.

He panted, almost sobbing, as he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face against them.

There was a soft hum and the light level subtly increased – the TARDIS knew he was awake?

A moment later there was a rapping on the door.

Turlough hesitated, but it was such vigorous banging it would be very hard to claim he'd slept through it.

"Yes?" he shouted.

"It's me."

The Doctor. It would be.

"Are you all right?"

"Fine." Turlough snapped, not moving to open the door.

There was a pause. Turlough could picture the Doctor's expression as he tried to puzzle out a question that would elicit more of an answer.

He obviously failed to find one because the next sound was, "Oh."

Another pause.

"That's... good. I just... thought I heard... something. But you're fine. Good."

Turlough listened but nothing further came and after quite a few more moments he heard footsteps moving away. To his surprise he was slightly disappointed.

Stupid, he chided himself. You didn't exactly invite help and what were you expecting anyway? A nightlight and a bedtime story to get rid of bad dreams?

The next morning, or what passed for morning in the TARDIS, he was aware of the Doctor watching him on more than one occasion over breakfast. He tried to pretend he hadn't. Was he still not trusted? Had the Doctor put his night-time wailing down to another contact from the Black Guardian? Was he watching for signs of further treachery? Waiting for a convenient planet to drop him off and be rid of him? Tegan certainly still eyed him with outright suspicion. Hadn't he given up enough to be accepted yet?

He watched the Doctor in return, when unnoticed, unable to stop himself replaying the nightmare. The sight of the back of that blond head bent low in concentration over the console, inexorably summoning the image, shockingly vivid of how it had looked with blood soaking it, dripping onto the pale coat and white jumper. The sheer contrast somehow making the sight that much worse.

He dragged his gaze away, left the console room ignored the worried gaze that he knew followed him.

So near the supreme moment! The Brigadiers must not converge! And Turlough had found them. One at the machine, frowning but resolved, one confused and about to intervene.

"No!" Turlough heard himself shout and flung himself at him, tackling him away from his other self, sheer momentum making up for the size differential.

As one Brigadier went down the other's hand was already moving the switch that would start the machine. Turlough had barely registered it as he went in, driven too much by panic to look around, but it now became impossible to ignore as it shrieked into life, filling the room with a fierce light

And it wasn't the only thing shrieking. The Doctor, tethered to the perimeter of the device by both wrists was screaming as though he was being torn apart. It seemed impossible that anyone making a sound of such utter, unreasoning agony could be still standing, but somehow he was still on his feet , right up on tiptoe, back arched and head thrown back, almost as if he were suspended by the same fierce light that burned around the room. Screaming until it seemed impossible there was any breath left in his body but still it went on and Turlough clapped his hands over his ears as the laughter of the Black Guardian joined it, and Nyssa shouted and cried, and Tegan swore as both struggled to extract themselves from the machine.

And then it stopped. The Doctor crumpled bonelessly to the floor, his heaving breaths sounding like sobs in the sudden silence.

Moving slowly, more than half against his will, Turlough walked over to where he lay. The Doctor blinked up at him, struggling to focus, struggling to untangle himself from the connectors he'd dragged down on top of himself in his fall.

"Help me." The Doctor's voice shook as much as the hand he reached out.

Now, boy. Turlough recoiled and clutched his head. Now, even an inept wretch like you can finish him. Now!

Turlough watched his own hands close on the Doctor's throat.

And woke, still feeling that leaping pulse falter and fail beneath his fingers.

He sat up, shaking and flung his legs over the side of the bed launching himself to his feet to pace the room.

He didn't sleep the rest of that night, but if he looked dishevelled the following day, no one commented on it. He flung himself into the day's explorations and mishaps with more than usual vigour. Perhaps exhaustion would bring dreamless sleep.

Instead it only brought such deeper sleep that the nightmares were worse before he woke.

Wrack's ship.

"What shall we do with your friend the spy?"

"Get rid of him."

A simple thing this time. He simply didn't correct her.

"Have you ever seen a man flogged to death?"

Blood splashed on the deck and knowing he was dreaming but unable to wake, Turlough closed his eyes but couldn't escape the sound of it. The crack of the lash and the choked, frantic noises the Doctor made as he fought not to cry out, not to give Wrack any more 'entertainment' than he could help.

"Or keelhauled?"

Soundless this time, the Doctor thrashing, unprotected in the vacuum outside the air barrier. Long minutes, far longer than seemed possible before his struggles grew more spasmodic and slowly stilled altogether.

Turlough didn't even try to return to sleep after waking now. Instead he wandered the dimly lit corridors. Idly he wondered how the TARDIS decided it was night time anyway, given they were who knew how far from the nearest sun. Not really paying much attention to where he was going he found himself in a room that was more like a monastery garden than anywhere on a spaceship.

He sat on a low bench and leant back against the wall. There was a warmth to the stone as though in had been in the sun all day, impossible as that was. The hum of the ship's workings was muffled by the thick greenery and there was a sweet smell in the air from something growing in the neat beds. It was strangely peaceful and he found his eyes slipping shut. He fought them open, intending to get up and walk some more, not wanting to sleep. But he was so tired, and it was warm and quiet and perhaps a short dreamless doze was exactly what he needed.

The diamond shone before him. The diamond and the choice. Both sharp edged. Clear cut and cold. The Doctor watched him, his face calm. As impassive as the glittering stone itself.

His composure was so utterly at odds with Turlough's own tumbled feelings, that for a split second he felt a savage desire to shatter it.

He'd fought so hard against the consequences of his bargain, tried to get out of it, tried to fulfil it, failed at both.

And he knew the Doctor knew, or suspected at least, what was going on. But he said nothing, did nothing, let him struggle, let him suffer. What did he owe him anyway? He barely knew him, barely cared, and the diamond was there and shining and represented everything he wanted. Freedom. From this bargain, from exile, from scraping and scrounging and hiding who he was.

Everything.

He reached out. The Black Guardian's laughter rang triumphantly around the room and the Doctor gave him a look of such shock it was somehow worse than anger before flames leapt up from nowhere to engulf him.

Turlough landed on the flagstones with the Doctor's dying cries still ringing in his ears. His heart pounding.

"I got lost in here once."

Tegan. How long had she been there? Turlough sat up.

"Can't say I felt like settling down for a kip though."

Turlough scowled at her, not at all wanting company.

"Trouble sleeping?" she persisted.

"No," Turlough snapped. "I sleep in a heap on the floor every night just for fun."

He'd hoped she'd take offence and flounce off, instead she just shrugged.

"Don't get shirty with me just because whatever passes for your conscience is playing up."

Turlough stood and pushed past her, not caring to be drawn into any conversation on those lines.

"Good night, Tegan."

Again he ignored the gaze on the back of his neck as he left.

He joined the others for breakfast, and Tegan didn't comment on their earlier encounter. The Doctor lingered longer than usual over his morning tea in a cosy kitchen which Turlough could have sworn had been a cupboard the day before, fussing with the teapot and rambling on about how the TARDIS had used to have a very good toaster which had been broken in an unfortunate incident with a asteroid shower. Tegan finally shot him an exasperated look and headed off to amuse herself elsewhere.

Turlough gulped the coffee which he'd been staring at instead of drinking, suddenly realising he'd been ambushed.

The Doctor stopped rearranging the sugar cubes, set the tongs down on a saucer and looked at him openly.

"Is everything all right, Turlough?"

Turlough swallowed the mouthful of coffee too haste in his haste to get an 'okay' out, spluttered and then answered crossly.

"Apart from trying to drown myself, answering stupid questions at the breakfast table you mean?"

The Doctor smiled faintly, altogether too knowingly for Turlough's liking.

"Of course."

Whatever that was supposed to mean. The Doctor picked up the sugar tongs again and poked one of the cubes into a neater angle with the rest. He spoke without looking up from his fiddling, almost as an aside.

"If there's was anything the matter, you do know I'd try my best to help, don't you?"

Turlough swirled the dregs of his coffee around and stared at them.

"Did you know?" he asked eventually.

"Know?" The Doctor peered into the teapot and poured out the last half cup for himself.

"You know what I mean!" Turlough said impatiently. "About me!"

The Doctor took the sugar cube he'd just neatly added to the pile back off it and dropped into into his tea.

"That you weren't quite the human school boy I was supposed to take you for? Or that you were acting on telepathic instructions to kill me?"

He added milk, stirred it and only then looked up to meet Turlough's eyes,

"The former was obvious fairly quickly. The latter... not at once. Though there were clues. The crystal – clearly some sort of telepathic amplifier, I've seen similar before."

"But you gave it back to me?" Turlough shook his head. "Why?"

"Severing that kind of psychic connection too abruptly can have side effects." The Doctor took a sip of his tea and made a face. "Almost cold. At that point I had no idea why you were on Earth and the fact you'd chosen to keep quiet about it was reason enough to wonder about your motives, but certainly not enough see you harmed on the off chance they were hostile."

"And you took me with you on the TARDIS. Even though you 'wondered about my motives'?"

"Mmm," The Doctor pushed the unfinished tea away from him. "You think I should have left an alien of unknown motives on Earth instead? I'm rather fond of that planet you know."

Turlough scowled. "I can't think why."

The Doctor smiled. "I don't suppose you saw the best of it. But at that stage I had no real reason to fear attempts on my life, and in any case Time Lords are fairly hard to get rid of."

"Because of this 'regeneration'."

"Well, it's a fallible process, but it does provide a certain extra safety margin."

The Doctor was watching him closely now. Was that suspicion or curiosity? Turlough couldn't quite tell.

"So when the Black Guardian wanted me to kill you..."

"In the normal way of things you would have had to make more than one attempt at it, yes. I imagine that's why, from his point of view, Mawdryn's crew and their machine presented such a tempting opportunity."

"And the Eternals' prize – Enlightenment..."

"Yes. 'Whatever your heart desires'. I expect if you had chosen to have me dead at that moment, the force behind it would have interpreted that as 'dead beyond regeneration.'"

Turlough stared at the Doctor, who seemed just as calm discussing the fact he'd nearly been killed repeatedly over the past few weeks, as he had been discussing the broken toaster.

Turlough's mind suddenly jumped back several steps in the conversation.

"The crystal." he said. "It was broken, burnt out. You said there could be side effects if the link was broken suddenly. What side effects?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Oh I don't think you need worry. The link was broken at the point your agreement with the Black Guardian dissolved. It wasn't unexpected as such. Any lingering effects should be minimal."

"Like what?" Turlough insisted.

The Doctor shrugged. "Lingering thoughts or feelings which were his not yours, unfocussed anxiety. Bad dreams."

"Bad dreams," Turlough repeated.

The Doctor regarded him. "Have you been having problems?"

Turlough pushed his empty cup across the table, adopting the Doctor own strategy of fiddling to avoiding looking directly at him.

"Dreams, yes. But things that didn't happen. Things I didn't..."

"Nightmares."

"Yes, but things I couldn't know – things about regeneration, about Mawdryn's people -"

"-things the Black Guardian knew, not you," the Doctor finished for him.

"But he's gone, isn't he?" Turlough found his voice had become pleading.

"Inasmuch as he ever is," the Doctor agreed.

"I don't want anything to do with him, I don't-"

"I believe you." The Doctor was still calm. "It will pass. As I said, I don't think you need to worry. It's been happening ever since the crystal was broken?"

"Yes."

The Doctor smiled slightly sadly. "And it's taken until now for you to say anything because you thought I'd assume it meant you were still in contact with him. Still a threat."

Turlough stared at him. The Doctor's words were a statement, not a question and he had no answer.

The Doctor shook his head. "And you don't think we've passed enough suitable planets in that time that I couldn't have found somewhere to politely part company in that time?"

Turlough shrugged, feeling suddenly stupid.

"Incorrigibly independent," The Doctor pronounced with a rueful sort of smile. "I can't say I've never been accused of it myself."

Turlough met his eyes again, tentatively at first and then with a smile. For a moment the Doctor didn't return it.

"I'm not going to make you leave, Turlough, but I extended a certain amount of trust in making that decision. You might want to consider returning some of it. I can only help with the things I know about."

Turlough nodded, feeling the smile slip back off his own face and sure to his bones that the Doctor had no idea how difficult what he was asking for actually was.

The Doctor stood, and paused for a moment.

"Oh and hot milk."

"What?"

"Hot milk before bed. For nightmares. Just the job."

He grinned, bright and quick and Turlough found that all of a sudden he was laughing harder than he had in longer than he could remember.

-END-