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Tegan started it, of course, as soon as the TARDIS was in flight. Turlough could have seen that one coming with his eyes closed at midnight.
"So," she announced, "as soon as we land, we're pushing That Weasel out the door and taking off again. Right?"
The Doctor gave her a long look. "Turlough is fine, Tegan."
"Fine? He was trying to kill you. He signed on to kill you."
"Under duress," Turlough put in. It was a real pity that the row was about him; it looked to be a good one. Popcorn-worthy.
Although he had a lot to think about. A bit too much to indulge in his favorite sport, Watching People Make Asses of Themselves. (Not that the Doctor was good for that at the best of times—worst of times?—but a few headfirst charges into the Great Wall of Politeness would get Tegan nicely simmering.) No, at the moment, Turlough rather wanted to be alone. To enjoy the beautiful, still, blessed silence of his own mind.
"Oh, and you believe that?" Tegan said, without a pause. "Well, why wouldn't you?" She laid on a few extra layers of sarcasm. "It's not as if every other word that comes out of his mouth is a lie."
Turlough scoffed automatically. "When have I lied to you, Tegan?" He had no idea himself, but he hadn't been caught in any especially damning ones. "Besides my reasons for travelling on the TARDIS. That doesn't count." He made himself look away and down. Victimhood wasn't his favorite part to play—very much the opposite—but the Doctor would buy it. "I didn't have a chance to tell you the truth. The Black Guardian was inside my mind; there wasn't a split second when he wasn't watching me. And if he thought I was trying to subvert him, he—" Now clamp the mouth shut, make it clear that you're putting a mask back on, let them draw their own conclusions about what nightmare tortures the Black Guardian must have inflicted on poor brave Turlough. He gave Tegan an even more edged and crooked smile than usual. "Let's just say it wasn't a picnic."
"Oh, yes," Tegan said, "that rings true. More likely you told Birdbrain you'd kill anyone for a spot of cash, signed on the dotted line, and only tried to slither out when you realized it wouldn't be a doddle."
"That's unnecessary," the Doctor said quietly, as Turlough thought, that's a bit too close for comfort. I'll have to keep an eye on that.
Not that it mattered what Tegan thought. The Doctor held the only opinion worth worrying over, and he wasn't about to push Turlough out into the snow, or (more to the point) into the crossfire. No, the Doctor was a gentle soul. Compassionate. He would listen to any sob story, pick up any stray. He had so little user in him—it was a mystery to Turlough how he didn't get saddled and ridden by every half-competent con artist in the galaxy—
In fact, it was a mystery that had been bothering him since he laid eyes on the man. His first, split-second impression—Turlough was good at split-second impressions, they were an important survival skill—had been, not a user. A victim, then. Poor sap. And the Doctor had just reinforced that opinion by being unflinchingly ready to die for his hangers-on.
Only—it wasn't quite accurate. It wasn't complete. The Doctor would listen to any sob story, true enough, and then he would try to remedy it. And when he found something that wasn't smoke and moonshine at the end of some thread he was following (easy enough, someone was always hurting someone), he would stick. And that was when you suddenly noticed that a person you'd thought was entirely composed of caring and weakness—wasn't. Underneath the soft, yielding politeness, there was battle steel. And when he dug in his heels, he might as well have had roots reaching down to the core of the planet. Without fuss, without even really changing, he would turn into the living incarnation of Not Moving.
"I'd like to talk with Turlough for a few moments, actually," the Doctor was saying to Tegan, in the same calm, mild tone that he'd used for the rest of the argument. "I don't suppose I could trouble you to put the kettle on. We could all use some tea, I expect."
"Are you going to talk to him about being a murderous little sneak, or are you just trying to get me out of your way?"
"Tegan."
Tegan pressed her lips together, turned on her heel and went, still trailing fumes of righteous indignation. It was disconcerting, Turlough thought, how the Doctor could say something that should have barely been a timid request and have everyone jump to.
The Doctor knelt, popped off one of the panels under the central column, and produced a penlight from some inner pocket so that he could see the circuitry better. After a moment, he said, "Turlough? Could you fetch me my toolbox? This is a bit more damaged than I had hoped. I'm going to have to reroute."
"This is what you wanted to talk to me about," Turlough said, fetching the toolbox.
"More or less." The Doctor was using his yes, of course, Tegan voice, meaning that he wasn't listening. "More, or—" One of the circuit connections had fused. It took him some tugging to get it apart. "Less."
Turlough seated himself on the other side of the toolbox, assuming a flawless attitude of utter nonchalance and indifference. "Is there a reason you don't hate me now? Just out of curiosity."
The Doctor twisted to look at Turlough. "What would I want to do that for?"
Turlough made his tone light. "I did try to kill you. Some people might hold a grudge."
"I've never seen a grudge that was worth the effort of holding onto. Besides, you said yourself. You were under duress."
"Well, yes." Good. Hook, line, and sinker. "I'm glad you understand. A lot of people wouldn't."
"It comes in a lot of different shapes, I've found," the Doctor said, using a set of tweezers on a particularly fiddly piece of circuitry. "Duress. Anything that would drive a man afraid of dying to leap into space—that goes a little bit deeper than mere pain, I think."
"He did hurt me," Turlough said, and found his tone a shade more defensive than he'd meant. He looked away, dropping his voice, playing on that indefatigable compassion. "A lot. I thought my head was going to explode. I thought I was going to die." Which was true. Sneering laughter and a voice that was pure contempt, cutting into his mind, pain like knives growing out of his skull—
The Doctor shook his head, still studying the innards of the console. "I'm not sure he could have killed you directly. Or perhaps I should say I'm not sure he would have. I can't say I know everything about them, but the Guardians usually seek someone's agreement in order to operate in our level of reality. I suspect it may be some sort of treaty between the two of them rather than an actual limit to their power. Very like the Cold War on Earth; it plays out through tense meetings and careful maneuverings because full force would destroy what both power blocs want."
"You think I agreed to be used like that?" Which he had, of course, but deny, deny, deny everything, as indignantly as possible.
The Doctor pulled his head out of the TARDIS long enough to give Turlough a long, steady look. "I think," he said, "that under some circumstances, when sufficiently unscrupulous entities are involved, agreement and duress start to blend together." He pulled a microfilament adjuster out of the toolbox. "Besides, you were fighting it. With some success. Tell me, did you realize right away that the best way to fool the Black Guardian was to fool yourself?"
"What?"
For once, Turlough was too boggled run the word past his internal spin doctors.
"Every time you had a clear shot at me, you found some reason why it wasn't possible just then. Or else you made an attempt of sorts and backed away immediately once it fell flat. Not once, not twice, but repeatedly. And then there's the prize that the Black Guardian offered you. Wealth at that level isn't mere luxury. It's power. Perhaps even enough power to become utterly free of fear, to make sure you're never trapped anywhere again. But you stepped back from temptation." The Doctor's eyes were very intense, very blue, and for one vertiginous, terrifying instant, Turlough could almost believe that the Time Lord could see past all his armor, right to the bottom of him. "Some basic part of you, something so essential it can never be argued with, said I am not a killer. The very notion makes you sick, right down to your bones." The Doctor gave Turlough a quick, brilliant smile. "One thing you and I have in common, perhaps. Now, I have to make a few delicate circuit bypasses. Would you mind holding this torch?"
And then the dizzying split second passed, and the Doctor was just an overly nice man with entirely the wrong end of the stick. "Oh," Turlough said, a little weakly, "you know me. Anything for a friend."
God almighty, the Doctor was—how could anyone think that way and still be breathing? How could anyone be simultaneously that intelligent and that stupid? He'd noticed what Turlough was about. He'd known. And yet he was so frantic to see the good in every living creature that he concocted this—this thing, this flawless, brilliant gem of wish-fulfillment, in which Turlough might prevaricate or manipulate now and then but always came through in the end, on the side of the angels.
He probably hadn't said anything because he was trying to figure out how to save Turlough. Hook, line, sinker, and possibly bait bucket.
Well, Turlough was free now. And he hadn't realized how much Birdbrain—yes, he was definitely going to nick that off Tegan—had been oppressing him. He felt lighter. Cleaner, somehow.
And now that he was well shut of the cackling bastard, maybe—when it seemed like the best way out, when it didn't put him in too much jeopardy—he would steer the Doctor out of one or two of the dangerous situations he helped himself right into the middle of. Possibly. If he felt like it.
Someone had to look after the man, after all. Keep him from getting hurt.