MadCap's Fiction Corner - Doctor Who: "Chalybe Panacea" (Epilogue)

It would be a mess when Protector Command sent in a team to secure the station, quite a bit to explain with very little left by the broken shells of Cybermen and a few dead bodies. The Cybermen had been stopped, however, and their efforts on the higher levels had been stopped by none other than a certain Tenza patient who was now well on the mend after having exerted a great deal of psychic force.

The next hour or so was spent by Nyssa in checking on the remaining staff, seeing that things went back to normal as much as possible. It was then, and only then that she made her way back to Atrium 14 with a certain leather jacket folded under her arms. Without having to look too hard, she found that familiar blue box standing there amid the scarring of the metal floors that the energy from the Restoration Lattice had done. Finding the door unlocked, the opened it and entered once more.

"Alright, then!" The Doctor was moving about the console. "Did some system checks, now just need to take her on a quick loop around a moon or two to make sure we've got all the bugs worked out. I'm thinking the Twin Moons of Valarestia Seven. Fantastic place! One of them has a restaurant where a portal drops you to a restaurant on the other one. Can you imagine that? Having tea and biscuits on one, then pop on over to the other for fish and chips."

"I can, certainly." Nyssa said.

"Well, then, what are we waiting for?" The Doctor asked.

"What do you mean?" Nyssa inquired.

"I mean, you and me! Time and space! Just like old times!" The Doctor said. She could see the enthusiasm just eking out of every pore of the man's face. "We could hit up Earth, maybe pop over to Manussa. Less the giant snakes anymore."

"That sounds lovely." Nyssa said. "I have a question for you, though."

"Oh, a request? Where'd you have in mind?"

"No, not that." Nyssa shook her head. "I know you said it'd been some time for you, though... but you've been traveling alone?"

"For a while, yeah." The Doctor's enthusiasm dimmed only slightly. "Given the circumstances, I thought it'd be better that way."

"I see." Nyssa nodded. A silence hung in the air between the two of them for a moment before she spoke again, having been thinking over her next words carefully. "When I left you all, back on Terminus, you were travelling with Turlough and Tegan."

"Yeah, that's right."

"What happened to them?"

"Oh, Turlough went back home." The Doctor said. "His exile was lifted and he decided to go back."

"And what about Tegan?" Nyssa asked. The enthusiasm faded further in the Doctor's eyes and he turned away, busying himself with bits of the TARDIS, tweaking them in a clearly meaningless manner to avoid the conversation. "Doctor-"

"Y'know, there is this meteor shower over Apalapucia that we-"

"Doctor." Nyssa said, more firmly. The Time Lord stopped, standing still but not turning back to Nyssa. "What happened to Tegan?" Once more, that silence hung. Nyssa felt every fiber of her being tensing, fearing that she'd learn of her... dear friend... praying that she hadn't suffered the same fate as Adric.

Or, the feel sank into her gut and she felt ill, worse.

"She's gone..." The Doctor said quietly, after so long a silence. His voice was low, but Nyssa caught every word. "She left the TARDIS, went back to Earth."

"So she's... alright?" Nyssa asked. "She's alive?"

"Last I checked in on her, yes." The Doctor said. He turned back to Nyssa. "We met the Daleks and... it was a bad day. A very bad day. One of the worst. And... she'd had enough." The wound, it seemed, had not fully healed for the man. "The things I've done since... she was scared of me then. I can't imagine what she'd think of me and my life now."

"I think, if she'd seen you today, she'd know who you are." Nyssa said.

"And who am I?" The Doctor asked.

"You're the Doctor." Nyssa said.

"When I started my last incarnation," The Doctor said, "I was on Karn and I died... and I said there was no need for a Doctor anymore."

"You did what had to be done to fight the War," Nyssa said, "but the War is over, now. No matter what happened there, I believe you can be the Doctor again."

"Someday, maybe." The Doctor said, though from his tone she knew he didn't believe it. "I'm not sure that I can be that man anymore."

"You can. You will." Nyssa said. "I just... wish I could be there to see it."

"What do you mean?" The Doctor asked, his face scrunched in confusion.

"I can't go with you, Doctor." Nyssa said, frowning sympathetically. "My place is here. I have to take care of my patients. I have responsibilities now."

"I can literally have you back five minutes ago, you know." The Doctor said.

"I know that." Nyssa said, looking around at the TARDIS. "The days I spent here... traveling with you and Tegan and Adric, and even Turlough... they were some of the best days of my life. The best. I know that they were. But, if I come back onboard, I'll never want to leave. That isn't fair to any of them."

The Doctor's eyes met hers, and Nyssa regretted what she had had to do so very deeply. He had always been so kind to her in the past, it felt to her like a bit of betrayal. Yet, there was no malice in it and some part of him seemed to recognize that. After a moment, he nodded, a bit of that smile coming back to him.

"You really are too good for this world, Nyssa." He said.

"Perhaps you should think of the good more." Nyssa replied. "There's plenty to be found if you look. Or, if you go and make it yourself." She approached the man (setting the folded jacket on the console) and the two embraced for a moment. Before pulling back entirely, she kissed his cheek once more. "I'll see you again, Doctor. Hopefully with less Cybermen next time."

"Count on it, yeah." The Doctor said.

"Oh, there's one more thing." Nyssa said, taking the leather jacket that she'd bundled up from on top of the console. "This belonged to Commander Katoss. I think you should have it."

"Me? Why?" The Doctor asked, holding it up. It would be just about waist-length on him. Quite a departure from... well, most things he had worn before.

"He was an old soldier, like you." Nyssa said. "I knew him for longer than you did, but... he was a goodhearted man. In the end."

"He was, yeah." The Time Lord nodded in agreement. "And he has no next of kin, I'm guessing?"

"Not as such." Nyssa said. She watched the Doctor looking at the jacket, considering it for a moment before he slipped it onto his shoulders. It went quite well with the rest of his outfit, she thought. "Perfect fit."

"Seems so." The Doctor said, smoothing the shoulders of it. "Thank you."

"Until we meet again, Doctor." Nyssa said with a smile and, with a heavy heart, she turned and left the TARDIS behind. She made herself not look back after she closed the door behind her. She did not look back as she heard, once again, the ethereal hum as the TARDIS dematerialized... and was gone.

Pain went through his hearts, but he knew she'd been right. Another companion who had gone on to something more. Bigger and better things. He knew that the dashing, handsome cricketeer he had once been would be proud of her. He was proud of her. As much as goodbyes hurt him so, it was knowing that those companions were going out and living their lives day after day... happy. That definitely was something he could carry with him. Something he'd have to carry with him. Ever onward.

"Looks like it's you and me again, old girl." The Doctor said to the TARDIS. The ship hummed under his feet. To the untrained ear, the machine seemed ambivalent. The Doctor affectionately patted the console as he watched the column at its center slowly rise and fall with the engines.

There were still a few things that bothered him, of course. How had Doctor Trizaxa developed such advanced technology? Crude for a Time Lord, certainly, but far more advanced than anything of that time. No scientist of the thirty-sixth century, not matter how brilliant, should have been able to suss out how to do that. It was something that drifted into the back of his mind for now.

Some mysteries... well, they were best left unsolved, weren't they?

It was so many years later that Nyssa found herself looking out at the place where it had all began so many years before. It had been thirty years since the day that Lister Station had been overtaken by the Cybermen and had been repelled by the actions of a singular man in a big, blue box. Today was the anniversary of that day and, coincidentally, the day of Nyssa's retirement party. After nearly half a century as its administrator, Nyssa had stepped down.

She sat in her office for the final time, looking out into space.

"Administrator Nyssa?"

"I think just Nyssa will do for now." Nyssa said, turning to her former (and thoroughly more vetted than Jarac had been) assistant Derul. "After tonight, I'm hardly the Administrator, am I?"

"Perhaps not, ma'am." Derul said. "But you have a visitor. A woman is here to see you."

"A woman?" Nyssa asked. "Who?"

"She didn't give her name," Derul said, "just said she was some kind of doctor." Nyssa's face scrunched up in confusion.

"...send her in?"

"Oh, thank you! Finally!" A woman in some frankly odd clothing choices stepped into her office. A black shirt with a rainbow pattern, mustard-colored suspenders, a long gray coat, trousers, and a pair of boots. The entire hodgepodge of an outfit was so absurd that it almost brought a smile to her face. "Tell them you're in a rush and they make you wait forever in the lobby. How do you people cope?"

"Doctor..." Nyssa said, standing to face the woman. "You've... you've regenerated again?"

"A couple of times, yeah." The Doctor wore a grin as she approached, embracing Nyssa and pulling her into a huge. "Oh, look at you... retired Administrator! All dignified and what. Long and distinguished career. I've been watching. It's been... oh, it's been brilliant! It's been what... thirty years since you last saw me, by the smell of it?"

"Thirty years exactly, yes." Nyssa said. "How long has it been for you?"

"Oh, I've stopped bothering with trying to count, it's been so long." The Doctor said, pulling back. "I came back, though. Said I would. Little late, sorry. Well, I mean I got here tomorrow, but they'd said you were already gone, so I knew I had to come back to today. Then I did go back a bit more, made sure everything down at Lister went off without a hitch and came back. Closed loop and all."

"Come back?" Nyssa asked. "I'm happy to see you, of course, but why?"

"Because I was... thick, honestly." The Doctor said, waving her hands a bit to emphasize. "I didn't see it back then, when I was the cricketeer. Or when I was the one with the close cropped hair and the scowls. Didn't even see it as the one in the bowtie and I could have sworn-"

"Doctor, I... what are you talking about?" Nyssa asked.

"Okay, sorry, right." The Doctor said, clearly speaking faster than her mind was catching up. Or was it the other way around? "Back in the TARDIS, all those years ago. You and Tegan. I didn't see it. I was as blind as a bat. But I know better. I know so much better now, and I remembered what you did for me, when I needed it the most. I wanted to pay you back, thank you for what you did."

"I don't understand?"

"When I came to you, right after the Time War." The Doctor explained. "I didn't know if I could do it anymore. Traveling around, fighting the evils I fought. You reminded me, though. You reminded me of who I was, set me back on my path. I kept going and I found new friends. I was able to be the Doctor again. I can't thank you enough. I really can't, but I can do the next best thing."

"What were you blind to?" Nyssa asked. "What is it that I'm missing?" Her answer came in the form of that ethereal humming, one she'd heard thirty years ago for what she had thought would be the last time. The TARDIS had materialized in her office, right there before them. The door opened, and a figure emerged.

Nyssa stared in shock at the woman who emerged from the time machine. Older, certainly, but age did not keep her from recognizing Tegan Jovanka in the least.

"...hello." The Australian woman spoke, a voice Nyssa remembered only too well.

"Hello." Nyssa said, when she could finally find the words. "It's good to see you. It's been too long."

"I know," Tegan said, "but, like you, I'm indestructible." Without another word, the two embraced and, following that embrace, their lips met in a tender kiss. Their first, but certainly not their last. The two stared at one another for a moment before realizing the third party was, in fact, still in the room.

The Doctor looked nervously to the pair, hands behind her back. "Sorry... not... a hundred percent on the kissing this time around. Bit awkward." She said. Her former companions both laughed heartily, a smile on the face of all three women. "I've... got to go, though. So... Nyssa, I think you've got a place for your retirement in mind?"

"I was thinking Earth." Nyssa said, slipping her hand into Tegan's. "How about you?"

"Earth suits me fine, yeah." Tegan said, smiling to her. "Provided we can get back in this rackety old thing."

"I'm a much better pilot than I used to be, thank you very much!" The Doctor replied with mock-indignation. The three sharing a chuckle as they re-entered the TARDIS, the other two not witnessing a pale, golden glow around the Doctor's hands.

THE END