by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk)

The Copyright of Dr Who and the other characters is owned by the BBC.

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'Not like this!'

Those three words she could not forget; they had haunted her down the last
dozen years - fuelling her regret.

The bag weighed heavier in her mind than it did on her shoulder - even with
the two house bricks, wrapped in plastic, inside it.

The young woman stood at the very edge of the canal in agonised indecision.
She clutched the battered airline bag and stared down at the surface of the
stagnant water.  Its stillness reflected darkly the grey-blue of the
depthless, early evening sky.

'Come on!  Throw the bloody bag and get it over with!' She urged herself.

Her voice was quiet, but intense - touched with a trace of a colonial
accent - worn thin by years of exile.

She made another attempt to cast the bag away; but her fingers would not
surrender it to the water.  She sighed.  With a little despairing shake of
her head, she gave in to her "weakness", and stepped back from the brink.

One last look?  Just one last look?  Then, perhaps, she might summon the
resolve to relinquish these last reminders.

She turned from the edge and crossed the tow path to a public seat against
the railings of the park.  Beyond them, the flower beds were dim in the
grey light of the late summer evening.  They were past their best,
beginning to look ragged and untidy, even in the soft, kindly light.  The
first street lamps were coming on.  The roar of the traffic along the
elevated section was muted in the warm, still air.

Sitting at one end of the bench was an elderly gentleman with shoulder
length white hair, wearing a shabby, old-fashioned, black suit.  He had not
seemed to notice her.

She paused, undecided.  She wanted a last private moment with the souvenirs
of her impossible dream.  The dream that had been a nightmare!  One last
wallow in memories and regrets, then she could cut herself adrift from her
former existence, and get on with the remains of her life.

She did not care to have a witness to her self indulgence, especially not
some old tramp.  She started to turn, to go to the next bench; but the old
man spoke to her.

'Please don't mind me, young lady.'

The vibrant strength of the voice compelled her to look more closely at the
elderly gentleman.  The face, she noticed, was full of character, marked by
a touch of arrogance, but no unkindness.  The eyes, what she could see of
them in the dimness, were alert - they missed nothing.  Perhaps it was the
soft light - but the advanced age seemed more an affectation than a true
tyranny of the years.  The suit was shabby, but not dirty or unkempt.

On impulse she decided she liked this old man and sat down.

Setting her hand bag and sketch book beside her on the bench, she rested
the flight bag on her lap.  She made no move to open it.

For several minutes she just stared across the canal at the backs of the
buildings along the Harrow Road, unwilling to put herself to the ordeal.
Her reluctance had nothing to do with the presence of the old gentleman;
though she tried to tell herself that it had.  In truth, she really did not
want to poke through these old memories and stir up the buried hurts.

Out of the gathering gloom over London, a Jumbo with navigation lights
blinking, emerged from the darkness.  It sailed in surreal slow motion
overhead, heading into the sunset, on its final approach to Heathrow.  A
sad, declining whine of engine noise trailed it into the west.

The sound rang a profound echo from the heart of Tegan Jovanka.

Tegan followed it with eyes that glistened tearfully.  A mix of emotions
played over her face; while she tormented herself in an orgy of regret.

She started violently when the old man spoke.

'If you don't mind me saying so, my dear?  You seem far too young to have
so many regrets.'

Ten years ago the old Tegan might have rounded on him and snapped: 'Mind
your own bloody business!'

But it had been a long ten years - or was it twelve?  Long, lonely, weary
and wasted years.  She just looked at him and fought down the sorrow that
welled into her brown eyes.

She began to rummage in her hand bag for a tissue.  A large patterned
handkerchief materialised before her face.  Tegan took it and dabbed at her
eyes.  Then she blew her nose on it and hesitated a moment before offering
it back to the old man.

'Keep it,' he said.  'I always keep a good supply.'

She crumpled it and dropped it in her lap.  From her hand bag, Tegan took
out a small cosmetics purse.  The old fellow looked diplomatically in the
other direction while she repaired the damage.  Giving a last pat to her
brown curls, she put the purse away.

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Tegan lifted out the two bricks in their plastic wrapper and set them by
her feet.  Reaching in again she brought out the framed photograph that
rested on top of the other items.  Holding it before her, she studied it in
the fading light.  It depicted a group of four people.  Behind them was a
waist high wall of white stone; and beyond that was a landscape that could
not have existed on Earth.

At the farthest right stood Adric.  He did not look directly at the camera,
but to his left out of the picture.  Something had caught his attention
just as the camera clicked.  Tegan wracked her brains to remember what it
was, but nothing would come.  Poor Adric!  Luck always seemed to be looking
the other way when he needed her.

Next to him stood Nyssa, dear Nyssa, in her dark Traken robes.  She looked
earnestly back at Tegan from the photo, her face serene.  The word "friend"
was simply inadequate.  Next to Nyssa - HE stood.

The Doctor gazed back at the camera with a sheepish expression.  He
clutched his hat to his chest; the fingers of his hands were blurred with
motion as they worked constantly on the rim.  The stick of celery in his
lapel stood out stark and green against the light coloured blazer.  And to
his right, herself.

The younger version gazed back at her with a wide grin.  Behind her on the
wall her uniform jacket lay where it had been carelessly tossed.  What had
she been thinking at that moment?  Tegan could not remember.  What had she
been feeling?  That too eluded her.  But, certainly, that long, slow ache
had already begun.  Tegan peered closely at the face in the poor light,
searching for some trace of her inner disquiet; but nothing of it showed.
There was only that grin, which seemed somehow vacuous now.

Tegan let out a long, weary sigh.  This was stupid.  Why had she not had
the strength of will to throw the bag - to hold true to her intention?  Was
she turning into an emotional masochist in her old age?

'May I, my dear?'

She came back to the canal-side with a start.  The old gentleman was
holding out a hand towards the picture.

She passed it across.  After all, what harm could it do?

He held it up, tilting it to catch the orange glow of a nearby street lamp.
The blond hair of the Doctor flamed under the odd illumination.  He seemed
to have a halo.

The man's eyes flicked over the picture.  His mouth tightened suddenly and
he peered more closely.  After a moment his eyes darted from her image to
her.  There was a slight calculating accusation in them that stirred
memories of the Doctor in Tegan's mind.  She shivered a little under that
probing gaze and dug back into the bag to bring out another memory.

It was a cricket ball.  She weighed the hard, red sphere in her hand and
remembered the impromptu game of beach cricket the Doctor had got up on the
sand at Blackpool when they had landed there.  Nyssa had got bored with the
game and wandered off to poke around in the rock pools under the pier.
Adric had lost all his money playing the slot machines, but remained
confident that he was on the point of working out the system.

She had watched from a deckchair on the promenade as the Doctor organised
the children into two teams.  The easy way he related to the children had
served only to exacerbate her growing discontent.

Why could he not have been different?  Why had he never been able to relate
to her like that?  But of course, that was foolishness, if he had not been
the way he was, she would never have come to feel the way she did.

The cruel inevitability of it appalled her.

No!  She would not think about it.  Even the good times were spoiled for
her by all the words that had been left unsaid; and the underlying strain
that had grown in the silence.  She had not dared to say them; and the
Doctor did not know how.

She dropped the ball back into the bag.

'He looks an untrustworthy type of fellow?'

She looked up.  The old man was peering at her with that penetrating gaze.

'Oh no!  He was loyal and kind and brave.'

'But?  I sense a but.'

For a long time Tegan did not answer.

This was the nub of the problem.  She never trod this ground willingly,
even in the privacy of her thoughts.  If only she had had a friend; someone
to pour out her heart to; someone who would listen and not judge her or
condemn.  Then, the last dozen years might have been easier.

Oh, Nyssa!  Nyssa!  I miss you!  I miss you almost as much as him!

'But?' The old gentleman repeated, a trifle more insistently.

Tegan drew a long breath.  She knew that if she could say this next bit,
she would be past the emotional block barring her way; but it was piled up
so high, so damned high!  At last she found her voice.

'But he could not love me.'

'Couldn't?'

She looked away, fingers kneading the handkerchief.  'No.'

'But you loved him?'

The hum of the traffic sounded loud in the lengthy silence before Tegan
answered.

'Yes.  I loved him.  I still love him...But I never told him...I was never
able to tell him so.'

The man harrumphed and said quietly: 'It is always the things we do not do
that we most regret.'

'I...I've regretted not telling him since the moment I left.'

In a mocking refrain the three words: "Not like this!" repeated themselves
over and over in Tegan's head.

'And there's no way...There's no bloody way back!' Tears started in her
eyes and she resorted to the handkerchief again.

'I have found in my travels, my dear, that it is seldom completely
hopeless.  There is usually a way - if you keep your eyes open, and your
mind alert.'

'No way,' Tegan repeated forlornly.  She turned her sad face to him.

'Are you sure my dear?'

Explanations, impossible, insane explanations trembled on her lips; but she
did not speak them.  What was the point?  At last she just shook her head,
not trusting herself to speak.

A gentle, fatherly smile turned up the thin lips of the old man.  His face
had lost its stern quality; or was it just the soft light of the street
lamps?

'In that case, my dear, if there is no way back?  Then your only way is
forward.  A single step at a time, if need be, but forwards!  No stopping!
No looking back!  I have found that a remarkably effective strategy for
living.'

The stark simplicity of the idea was somehow indecent.

It cut right through Tegan's confusion.  For the first time in her life
Tegan acknowledged a self evident truth.  The strong, oddly compelling
power of this elderly gentleman's voice served to reinforce the impact.

There was a quality to that voice which had power to send delicious ripples
through the still centre of her being.  A power she thought only the Doctor
possessed.  All the while there were people in the world who could stir her
so - just by the simple act of existing - then there was hope!  Her time of
aimless drifting was past.

She had purpose again.

'You're right!' Tegan said decisively.

She took back the photo and put it in the bag.  She put the bricks back on
top and sipped it up.  Rising from the bench and gathering up sketch book
and handbag, Tegan walked to the edge of the canal.

She glanced back at the old gentleman who hooked his thumbs through the arm
holes of his waistcoat and beamed his approval at her.

Tegan flung the bag.  It dropped into the water, which received it with a
sullen gulp.  She stood a long moment watching the ripples spread.  Then
the old Tegan of a dozen years gone by, reborn anew, turned to grin broadly
at the old gentleman.

No matter that the grin owed more to bravado than happiness - that would
come.

She would take up the offer - the offer to do the illustrations of the
birds.  She would convert her hobby into her life.

The sketch book made a comfortably bulky package under her arm.  It bulged
with the promise of her new life.  It would not be easy, but she would make
it work.  She was Tegan Jovanka!  She would be famous one day; she had
decided upon that!

Tegan strode away in the direction of the future.

'Remember, my dear!  No stopping!  No looking back!'

The old gentleman's voice drifted after her along the path.

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'Who was that lady, Grandfather?'

The Doctor looked round.  'Ah!  Susan!' He fished in his waistcoat pocket
and took out a large watch.  He consulted it.  'About time too!  Is
Chesterton and Miss Wright with you?'

'Here, Doctor.  I must say you almost scored a bull this time.' The teacher
waved a paper in the Doctor's face.  It was dated "4 September 1996".  'You
got the right planet - and only about thirty years out, too!'

The Doctor stood up looking just the tiniest bit superior.

'Shall we give it another try? Ay, Chesterton, what do you say my boy?'

Susan linked her arm through his. The quartet moved off along the path to
where an old, blue Police Box stood in a secluded corner of the gardens.