Chapter Text
Strictly speaking, the planet of Davidia serves as a retreat exclusively for heads of state. And even more strictly speaking, Romana no longer qualifies as such, given that she resigned the presidency of Gallifrey six months ago and handed over all the artifacts of Rassilon to Livia Caralis.
So when Romana sends out an eyes-only assignment to an exclusive list of CIA agents – Narvin, Leela, Braxiatel and Ace – informing them of a required mission to Davidia, with no further information and no briefings planned beforehand, Narvin immediately digs into her private data logs to discover what she’s up to.
As the Deputy Coordinator of the CIA, he shouldn’t have his hands on the Coordinator’s private files. But he definitely set up a handful of backdoor access points to Romana’s communications accounts, her calendar, and a host of other information, before he gave her the keys to the Coordinator’s office. More precisely, he set up six sets of access points – five dummy sets of varying complexity, meant for Romana to find and eliminate as she customized her security, lulling her into believing she’d properly safeguarded herself; and a real set, buried so deep that even the Citadel’s most adept security technicians would have a difficult time finding it. After all, he didn’t spend so many years sitting in the Coordinator’s chair just to blithely hand everything over at Romana’s say-so.
He trusts Romana without reservation. He trusts her brilliance, and her steel will, and her sacrificial willingness to protect Gallifrey. He also trusts her fundamentally good nature, which is a less-than-ideal trait for a CIA Coordinator. It means that her back needs close watching - such close watching, in fact, that she isn’t even aware it’s happening.
He discovers that the Davidian Conglomerate thinks President Livia booked the four-day stay for her underlings, with all communication about the affair craftily redirected to Romana herself. The whole thing is financed by a cleverly executed set of micro-transactions lifting funds from a host of Gallifrey’s civic operational budgets, such tiny amounts that they are unlikely to be noticed, but taken together they easily cover the cost of renting out an entire planet.
Narvin can’t bring up her extraordinary, and frankly quite baffling, efforts without giving himself away, so he pursues a more general line of questioning during their next daily one-on-one status meeting. “What sort of security threat are we dealing with on this Davidia mission? Has someone been meddling with the Conglomerate?”
“Meddling with the – no, nothing like that,” she replies with a laugh. “We deserve a few days’ rest, is all.”
“With respect, Coordinator, we don’t deserve any such thing. Given Lady Livia's Unvossi conference next week, and the reaper infestation that just cropped up in Cosmos Redshift Seven, this is hardly an ideal time to step away,” he retorts, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers as he studies her. “What are you really up to?”
“Nothing you need to concern yourself with, Deputy Coordinator. However, before we leave, I’d would like you to double-check all of the Davidian security measures, since they were somewhat lacking the last time I visited.” She lifts a single, no-arguments-allowed eyebrow at him. “And be sure to pack your swim trunks.”
Narvin has never, in his hundreds of years of life, owned swim trunks.
By the time they all land on Davidia, Ace sitting next to him with her hands pressed against the transport window and making excited noises about the extravagant resort below, he’s finally worked it out. Leela and Romana have had their heads together, smiling and laughing the whole journey; Romana has teased Ace and Narvin several times since they left Gallifrey. But she’s hardly spoken to Braxiatel, and Braxiatel has definitely noticed.
He’s been close-lipped about where he sprang from and how he escaped from the Axis vortex; regardless of the fact that he saved Romana and Leela’s lives, he has a lot to account for. No one, no matter how oblivious, could fail to notice how strained things have been between him and Romana. She’s brought Braxiatel to this isolated, private place for a debriefing. Not the sort of debriefing Braxiatel has always longed for with Romana, probably, but a debriefing nonetheless. The rest of them are meant to serve as a cover for this process, or maybe act as a buffer, Narvin isn’t sure yet.
As they debark from the transport, Leela hangs back a little. While the others walk ahead, she leans close to his ear and murmurs, “You have been much too quiet and serious today. Stop thinking so hard and enjoy yourself, Narvin. What is the purpose of coming to this beautiful planet, if we do not relax?” Her hand cups his ass and squeezes; he squeaks softly, glancing around to see if any of the Davidian ground crew noticed. Flashing a grin, tongue between her teeth, she struts away with her hips swinging, to catch up with Ace.
The tips of his ears burn all the way inside the building.
This thing between him and Leela is new, and feels wildly dangerous and unpredictable. He’s been attracted to her for so long – longer than he’d ever admit – but it’s only been six days since she first kissed him, and four days since he first spent the night in her bed. Granted, they’ve managed a truly extraordinary amount of sex in such a short period of time, especially compared to the state of his romantic life since … well, ever. They’ve been sneaking to each other’s quarters at every opportunity, and Leela even locked him into his CIA office one afternoon and instigated an incident. (They cracked a desk leg, broke a data pad, left a compromisingly-shaped smudge on his window, and put a divot in the wall with his desk chair. Explaining the damage to the CIA Tower’s maintenance crew was an exercise in creative license.)
In this whirlwind of a week, they haven’t spoken their feelings for each other aloud, because it seems easier to simply act on them.
They also haven’t said anything to anyone else about what’s happening in private, and Narvin would like to keep it that way. As much as he has grown to appreciate Leela’s expressive personality, it puts him in a perpetual state of mild mortification. She can be discretion itself when she chooses, and so far she’s been content to kiss and touch and explore in private. But surely they’ll reach the inevitable moment when she holds his hand, or embraces him, or straddles his lap in front of someone – anyone – everyone, and he’ll have to account for himself.
Fifteen microspans after they’re all escorted to their private rooms, Narvin stands alone beside his bed, staring at his open suitcase. A pair of strange shorts are neatly folded atop the rest of his clothes – shorts that he definitely didn’t pack. Shorts meant for swimming. Shorts patterned with little stylized pig-bears. Shorts that he doesn’t own.
It had to have been Leela, of course. He’s halfway to her room, swim trunks wadded in his fist and a speech on his tongue, when the resort’s perimeter breach alarms begin screeching.
He quadruple-checked the security measures for this trip and this planet; he sent a list of two hundred seventy-three changes and improvements to the Davidian Conglomerate and insisted they all be implemented before he approved their departure from Gallifrey. This isn’t supposed to be happening. Four Davidian guards come trotting down the opposite end of the corridor, weapons drawn. They stop at Leela’s door, and press an override code to open it without knocking.
Narvin breaks into a run before he thinks better of it, cursing the fact that he didn’t sneak a staser into his luggage even though they’re forbidden here. He screeches to a halt just inside Leela’s room, and finds that she isn’t alone. Romana’s here, too, and somehow the glass wall is cracked wide open, massive chunks of it missing. Red-faced with laughter, the two women hold onto each other so they don’t fall down with the force of their mirth. Nothing else in the room looks amiss, except a nearby table that seems to be lacking a few chairs.
“What the blazes is going on?” he says, stepping through the group of guards. They deferentially shift aside, delighted to let him handle this situation now that they’ve decided no one is in mortal danger.
“Oh, nothing at all,” Romana says, letting out an hysterical giggle. In all the years they’ve known each other, it’s the strangest sound he’s ever heard her make.
“Narvin, are you here to – to rescue me – with a – with a swimming costume?” Leela gasps, laughter intensifying at the sight of the pig-bear trunks in his hand. Her sparkling eyes confirm, beyond a doubt, that she bought them for him. Her bright pink cheeks and wide smile pull at something just below his sternum, a soft revelation that he wishes he could always be the source of so much delight, for her.
“Oi, what’s going on? Is everyone okay?” Ace asks from the doorway. She slowly steps inside. “What the hell happened to the window?”
“An excellent question,” Narvin says, wadding the swim trunks into an even tighter ball and trying to hide them in his fist. He points at one of the guards. “Fetch a repair crew immediately.”
“No, please, leave it,” Leela says, her giggles dying down. “I like the fresh air. Romana will tell you – don’t I, Romana?”
Romana snorts, patting her own cheek and taking a deep breath as she collects herself. “Leela has always liked the fresh air on Davidia. It’s a particular favorite of hers.”
“Have you both gone mad?” Narvin asks, waving at the broken glass. “You’ve smashed a window and destroyed half a dozen perimeter sensors!”
“Narvin, we’re on vacation,” Romana says. “Lighten up a little.”
“This isn’t vacation, it’s property damage! It’s hooliganism!”
At his elbow, Ace gasps in utter glee, “Oh my god, I was skeptical about a corporate retreat with Time Lords, but I was underestimating the possibilities. This weekend is gonna be wicked!” She nudges his arm, the one holding the swim trunks. “Adorable teddy bears, by the way. Is it time for a dip? That enormous lake-thing we saw when we were landing, the one with all the different waterfalls and stuff, that’s the pool, yeah?”
“Yes, it is,” Romana replies.
“Last one in the water is 'it,' for the first round of Marco-Polo,” she says with a wink, and strolls out of the room.
Narvin stares at the two other women in bafflement. “Marco Polo?”
"A friend of the Doctor's, I believe," Romana hazards. "He wasn't invited."
"Perfect. A second security breach, and we haven't even been here a full span," Narvin sighs, rubbing his eyes with thumb and index fingers. "Rassilon save us."