Archive of Our Own

The barking of the dog and running feet harkened the approaching herd of children. Quickly, Tegan Jovanka Jones retreated up two steps and allowed them to crowd through the hall. The pack of seven little boys and two dogs moved through the house; the sounds of child exuberance drowned out the sound of the falling rain.

She loved/cursed the rain…it always seemed to fall these days. Her nephew stopped and glanced up at her before he followed the rest of the boys.  Her son, Adric, led the pack.

“Sorry, Auntie Tegan!”

In his upturned face, she saw her sister’s countenance. He was with them for the school year while her sister figured out her life. But she loved him as if he were her own. She cupped his cheek and shook her head. “Just keep it down, Jon, okay?”

With a sigh, she lifted her arm to let them run under and into the playroom…aka the fourth bedroom. “And don’t tear down the house, you pack of scamps! Hell’s teeth…” She called after them.

She bent and retrieved a jumper and a pair of trainers from the front hall. And with a sigh, began to climb the stairs. There were two other members of the house who she hadn’t heard from in a while. And, as her daughter was very much as she had been as a teenager: silence often meant she was getting into trouble. In this case, she’d drag her cousin Mira with her. Rainy Saturdays were not the best news for parents, she had determined long ago.

“Nyssa?”

“Here, Mom!”

It couldn’t stop raining quickly enough. After all her travels in the Universe, she would never understand why a rainy day when she had three children living with her, two in secondary school and one in primary school, would sink fear in her heart. And then the friends, good heavens...a good vodka screwdriver when the packs were in migration. The structure simply wasn’t meant for this many children in confinement; the house might reduce to rubble. She laughed quietly.

She needed to get back to work as well. Jordan would stay home with them on Monday if this weather front stayed. Summer rains simply were as troublesome as they were beautiful.

With a loving sigh, because she would do this to her parents as well, she climbed the last few steps and entered her daughter’s bedroom. It was only Nyssa and Mira, her niece, in the room. For a moment, she felt like she had entered a sanctum. But she knew it was simply because, with 7 boys in the house, it WAS a sanctum.

“Hiding from the jackals?”

“Boys are a pain,” Mira answered. Nyssa smiled widely.

“What are you two doing?” Tegan asked. The rain was slapping against the pane of glass rhythmically and it was soothing.

“Looking at a scrap book…I’ve never seen it before…”

Tegan’s heart stopped as she spied the book in her daughter’s lap. It was HER scrapbook. The one of…

“I found it…” she said happily.

“…in my closet…” Tegan finished for her. She crossed her arms over her chest and tucked her chin a bit. “Nyssa…”

“I know…I’m sorry, Mom…” her daughter answered, clearly not very sorry at all. “But this guy is HOT.”

Curiosity won out over caution, and she edged to the bed and sat down. She smiled at Mira and then reached out to rub her daughter’s dark brown hair. “Who’s hot?” Mira scooted a little to the side as she sat on the pink and green quilt. Nyssa slid sideways to show the book to her mother. “Him…this blond…”

Her finger pointed to Him, indeed, Tegan thought. She remembered that picture well…it had been taken by her grandfather at Christmas all those years ago. A lifetime ago. For a moment, she ceased to hear the rain...and almost felt the cold of the snow once again.

Nyssa stood at her right, her arm about Tegan’s waist, and her head on her shoulder. The girl smiled with happiness glinting in her wide eyes. Her smile was wide, so wide that no one could mistake that she was TRULY giddy. There were snowflakes in her hair and for a blessed moment, Tegan felt the pain she had felt when the girl had walked away from them…from her, from the Doctor…in that corridor. But this is what Nyssa had been trying to capture, Tegan understood that now: this happiness that only comes from the inside, from knowing who you are, where you are going and what, exactly, the Universe expected from you. She felt it in this picture. So soon afterwards, that happiness had left.

To her left was the Doctor. He towered over her, over Nyssa. His arm was about her waist from the other side and his lips were split wide over his ever so white teeth. That jumper that he had worn those few days on Earth…the blue-gray one that brought out the midnight blue in his eyes was caught well on film. His blond hair had flakes of snow in it as well, and the strands…they had always been silky…between her fingers. He smiled, she thought, with acceptance…of him, of the situation, of her. Oh, her heart still skipped a beat at his face…even now…even after this time. For a moment, she was a girl again and she wanted the image of her to turn into his chest and let his other arm slip around her shoulders. Like he used to…

The pain was sudden and acute.

“That’s…” Tegan answered quietly. “That’s the Doctor.”

“Who’s the Doctor, Mom?”

Bite the bullet, Jovanka, Tegan thought and moved to pull the book onto her lap.

Nyssa lifted out the letters out of the box next to her on the bed…the letters she hadn’t seen in a long time…the letters she had received…the letters that…

“A friend, Nyssa.”

“He sounds like more.”

In that moment, Tegan laughed, a sudden smile filled with happiness at memories widening her lips. “At one time, he was…much more. And before you ask, your father does know…he’s met him.”

“You loved him?”

Tegan laughed and reached out to tweak her daughter’s nose. “Yes. You’ll find that you’ll love a lot of people, Nyssa Keira, for a lot of different reasons.”

“He sounds…”

Tegan removed the letters from her daughter’s hands and smiled. “Arrogant, full of himself, loving, deep…there are many words to describe him…depending on my mood.”

“Did you really meet with him…” Nyssa held up the bundled letters…all three of them. “Did you meet with him all three times he asked?”

“Several times, I do think it was three…both before and after I met your father…and beyond, I have met with him after you were born. Even last year. It’s all old news. And he still might come around.”

“What was he like?”

“Full of questions, aren’t you? You want to hear that he was sexy, I suppose. Yes, he was,” Tegan said. “Very sexy, a complete gentleman…most of the time…gentle, protective, intelligent. Very intelligent.”

“Dad always did say that you like smart men.” Nyssa laughed. “He says that’s why you married him.”

“I married your father and have stayed married to your father, because I love him,” Tegan said and then slid her arm about both girls. “Enough about the past here. It’s time to get ready for dinner and with this company of bucks in the house, I need help getting the food on the table. Come on, you two…”

Tegan picked up the box and the scrapbook and ushered the two pre-teens out the door.

**

“What are you looking at, dear?”

Tegan sat, cross-legged on the bed, with the book open in front of her. She smiled up at Jordan and moved a little aside to let him sit next to her. Before she answered, she could see him nod.

“My scrapbook.”

“Ah, the Doctor…and friends?”

“It’s the only scrapbook I have. Nyssa found it this afternoon.”

Jordan laughed. Then he rubbed her on the back. “I’ll go watch the telly, darling. Come join me when you’re done?”

Tegan nodded and gave her husband a kiss as he bent over her. She watched him as he cheerfully walked out of the room. His dark hair and muscular strength were comforting to her to the extreme…and in a way, he reminded her of her grandfather. He was very understanding of her past; after all, he had told her, it was what made her the woman he loved.

It was one of the many reasons she loved him with all her heart.

With a smile, she looked back down at the scrapbook and the picture of the Doctor. Her finger traced the edge of the photo. Nyssa had taken the picture of the two of them right after they had been reunited with him.

She loved him very much…still.

The rain was still falling outside as she turned the page to remove the top letter of three stationeries now weathered with age….
**