Frontios' Legacy
By Taleya

Timelords don’t sleep.

 It meant you could get a lot done, for one thing.  But it also meant there was no respite from reality.  No little death, no slide from the cares and worries of the world into the blissful obliviousness of rest.  The mind chased itself about in circles, a never ending parade of ideas - inspiration, guilt, sorrow.

 The trick was to keep yourself busy. A mind pleasantly occupied in various tasks was a mind too busy to dwell on the darker side of existence.

 The Doctor puttered aimlessly about the darkened halls of TARDIS night time, absently brushing at the walls with a handkerchief.  Dirt and rock still smudged the white walls here and there, remnants of Frontios and her near destruction.  He buffed industriously at a near-invisible smudge on the wall, making an idly pleased noise as the mark finally surrendered to his efforts.

 A sound echoed down the endless corridors towards him and his half smile faded, stillborn.  If only the other marks of that remote planet were as easily erased.

 His feet took him on a path his mind crept away from, through dim, half-forgotten halls, closer to the console room, the motions horribly familiar, as they had been every night since they had left behind Man's last hope.

 He paused at a familiar door, hand resting on the handle, head bowing as another sound skittered past him. Every night, it was the same.  Every night, the price had to be paid.  The coins weren't in his hand though, and tonight, like every night, he prayed with a child's longing they would be.  That tonight there would be hope.  A change.  Something.

 "Doctor?"  Tegan was standing in the hall, almost ghost-like in her nightgown, small and frail-looking in the half-light from the roundels. Her hair was mussed, feet bare, eyes worn and weary.

 He didn't remember her looking so old.

 Her eyes slid to the door of the room as if drawn, white hands clutching at the neckline of her gown. "It's Turlough again, isn't it?"  Her voice was small, lost in the endless halls of the TARDIS. "He's getting worse."

 His head bowed a little further with guilt, the posture at odds with the brittle smile he forced to his face as he turned to her.   "There's still hope, Tegan."  And he would have gone to her, would have comforted her, but they both knew the lie behind the smile.  "He just needs time."

 She didn't answer him as he opened the door, didn't follow, and for that he was grateful. They had all the time in the universe, handfuls of it to trickle through their fingers and dispose of as they wished.  The birth of civilisations to the death of stars, the dizzying heights of a thousand cultures and their inevitable decay.

 And all of it was useless.

 "Turlough?"  The door clicked closed behind him with a dry sound, flat. Muted. Too much like the sound of tumblers locking on a gaol cell for his liking. Closing in on their dirty little secret, hidden away inside the TARDIS.

 There was no answer to his soft enquiry, but he had long stopped expecting one. A thin figure moved along the wall towards him in the half-gloom, absent, uncaring.  Blue eyes, once so mocking and bright with arrogant intelligence stared vacantly past him, through him, hooded and dark in the too-pale face. Clever, quick hands, bruised and thin clutched absently at the hem of his shirt, untucked sometime from when the Doctor had left him in an uneasy sleep, fingers clenching and unclenching in a mindless rhythm.  The sardonic jaw hung slack, uncaring, twitching around barely murmured words.

 "The appetite….beneath the ground…."

 This was Frontios' final legacy.

 Not for the first time he cursed Brazen.  In his eagerness for answers he had forced the young man far deeper than he should have gone. Memories that should have been gently coaxed, gradually encouraged until they could do no harm were instead ripped to the surface, trapping him in a hell of the past.

 "They're there…waiting…." Turlough's hands roamed over a roundel, pushing at it, then drawing back to cradle like frightened mice at his chest. "Waiting….in the dark…" The glint of the rooms mirror seemed to catch his eye in the dim light and he turned to it as if drawn, hands falling to his side as he approached, graceless, almost stumbling.  "Watching…..waiting…." he swayed before the mirror, a hand reaching out as if to cup his own face in the reflective surface.  "The earth hungers…" he whispered, almost lovingly.

 The caress altered, shifted until his hand was pressed flat against the mirror, eyes staring vacantly into themselves.  "Under the soil…..below the rocks…."  His eyes shuddered closed, breath heaving in the narrow chest, head hanging low. "No….no…" His hand pressed flat against the mirror, his other hand raised to strike at the silvered surface, curled into a fist, shattering the thin glass, voice rising in a scream. "No! I CAN'T!!"

 "Turlough!" The Doctor leapt forward and captured the hysterical figure around the waist, dragging him away from the mirror as it threatened to fall.   "The Tractators are gone, Turlough.  You're safe. They're gone."  He pulled the other man closer, almost cradling him, desperate to break through the hell his companions mind had become. "Please Turlough, listen to me, they're gone, we've defeated them, they're gone!"

 It would have been so easy to imagine that the young man leant into his embrace, took comfort in his form or words but it was a fragile lie, broken by the eyes that never focused, the softly keening mouth that never stilled.

 "Never gone….under the earth…hungry…waiting…" the thin features twisted in some unimaginable pain and Turlough buried his face into a cream-coloured sleeve.  "Never forget," he moaned. "Never forget…my people…"

 He sagged to his knees and the Doctor went with him, gripping his arms,  following him to the floor so they knelt almost facing each other, Doctor and companion, one faced painted with an awful compassion, the other lost in a battle won centuries ago. "Forget…..please…."

 "Turlough…" it was a groan, a plea of his own as those wild blue eyes slid senselessly past his, then returned to lock on his face.

 "Doctor, please….help me."

 These were the moments comparable to hell. The moments that lifted the Doctor's hearts with hope, yet at the same time twisted them painfully, ice shards driving deep beneath his flesh.  The moments of clarity. These brief, bittersweet times when reality broke through, when his companion was aware of his surroundings, of the Doctor, the TARDIS….

 …and his own insanity.

 Slender hands reached for him, gaunt fingers twisting desperately in his cream coloured frock. "Help me forget…..please….please…" Turlough begged. "..please…" The hands retracted, twisted, almost claw-like to plunge through unkempt red hair, fingers clutching at his skull as if to wrench the memories from his brain by force. "no…no! The earth hungers. It waits to eat. The earth hungers. It waits to eat!" The mantra tumbled endlessly from mindless lips, brief tears of sanity falling unnoticed on his cheeks.

 And in the darkness of the room, the Doctor cried with him.

All Content Copyright © 2001 Taleya Joinson
Last modified: November 12, 2010