Work Text:
Romana wakes, gasping for air.
The echoes of the dream cling to her consciousness, crawling from the recesses of her mind down into her skin. She can almost feel the white-hot electric current trembling through her body, a memory from another world twisted by her subconscious so she’s the one left trapped and screaming.
The darkness of the room swirls around her, pressing in from all sides, and she squeezes her eyes shut to block it out. One hand traces a familiar path towards the button on the wall that will cast some light into the room.
Her fingertips press hard onto its cool metal surface. Her ragged breath slices through her body, once, twice. She squeezes a fistful of blanket in her other hand, a grounding touch that manages to steady her breathing ever so slightly. After a long moment, Romana opens her eyes.
The familiar colors and shapes of her bedroom in the presidential palace swim into view under the harsh light.
She has spent far too many nights since her return trying to convince herself that this world is real. These are her quarters. This is her presidential palace. Not some alternate copy that has more secret doors than she could ever fully uncover. Not a Citadel falling apart under the onslaught of Dalek fire.
She isn’t under constant threat of assassination. The Dogma virus is cured. The Daleks are trapped. Gallifrey is saved.
No matter how many times she repeats the mantra, it never quite sinks in.
Romana tucks her knees to her chest, burrowing more deeply under the covers. Footsteps sound outside her door — probably a late night staff member returning to their quarters, or a guard walking their route through the halls, but Romana instinctively digs her nails into the sheets.
It’s ridiculous. Nothing is going to come barging through that door to kill her.
Probably.
After another span of uncomfortable shifting on the bed, Romana shoves off the covers in exasperation.
There’s a datapad beside her bed, and Romana adjusts the pillows so she can lean against them with the pad resting on her knees. She has another slew of meetings in the morning to discuss the status of the Academy. Arguments with the High Council about its reconstruction and her offworlder policy. Attempts to persuade the other Temporal Powers that Gallifrey hasn’t completely shut its doors to their students’ return. Maybe she’ll even be able to sound convincing when she insists that Gallifrey has ousted its violently xenophobic political faction. No, High Monan, of course there won’t be any bombs exploding this time.
It doesn’t even sound terribly convincing to her own ears.
She scrolls through her notes with a weary sigh. The beginning of a headache is starting to twinge behind her temples.
Even the more sympathetic Cardinals have taken to dropping hints that perhaps that old project of hers has had its day. It’s no use trying for a second chance on a policy that failed so spectacularly the first time. Accepting outsiders was never really going to work, not on this world.
Sometimes, she wonders if she really did go too far, dream too big. Maybe Gallifrey can’t ever really change.
Except she just spent months on a version of Gallifrey that survived even more radical social change. She faced down a version of the Time Lords just as stuck in their old ways, just as resistant to the presence of those they considered beneath them. And yes, she can’t say how long peace will last between the Outsiders and the Regenerators, but that world was changing. New laws were signed, agreements were brokered. The townships have a chance of lasting.
Gallifrey, any Gallifrey, can be a better place if they only care to try, if —
She’s stared at the same three paragraphs for the last five microspans and hasn’t take in a word. Wonderful.
Romana drops the datapad back on her nightstand and rises out of the bed. She rolls her shoulders, stretches her arms over her head with a brief yawn. Perhaps a short walk will do her good. Stop her head from spinning at least. The president isn’t exactly supposed to be wandering about in the middle of the night, but she knows that very few people would dare stop the president from wandering exactly where she pleases.
She tugs her night clothes over her head and pulls on one of her more subdued set of robes. Less elaborate layers. Less eye-catching from a distance.
Her hair is a tangled mess too, and Romana sighs and combs through the worst of it. Part of the job description is being presentable whenever she walks outside of her own rooms. Just in case she should be spotted by oh, anyone else on Gallifrey.
The hiss of her door is too loud as she slips out. It shouldn’t feel like sneaking.
Her latest guard stands straighter as she exits her quarters and moves to fall into step behind her. Romana waves her off.
“I think I can manage to walk down the hall on my own, thank you.”
“...of course. Madam President.”
She nods at the guards as she passes them, a practiced lift of the chin. The weight of Gallifrey is never easy to bear, but at this point she’s well used to the decorum of the office.
Romana had intended for her walk to be aimless, a chance to clear her head of the remnants of her latest dream. But in spite of herself, her footsteps follow an automatic path through the twisting halls of the palace, a path that used to be familiar in the time before the Axis.
Perhaps it’s simply an attempt to avoid the other Time Lords up at this time of night. The palace is never quiet, what with the security and Gallifreyans working around-the-clock shifts in all positions. But there is one particular corridor that few Time Lords dare patrol late at night, because the presidential bodyguard has insisted on not being woken by the clumsy sounds of boots outside her door. And she does have a knife.
Leela’s room is further away than is logical, considering she is supposed to be a bodyguard. But the Chancellery Guard was never fond of her appointment all those years ago and had insisted there were simply no other empty rooms, Madam President, in which to house the — in which to house Lady Leela.
Her pace slows as she approaches Leela’s door. Before the war, on several occasions when they were both restless and up late, Leela had opted to spend the night in Romana’s quarters instead, stretched out on the sofa. Then on the Axis, as they both grappled with their isolation from the world they knew and the horrors of the worlds they visited, Leela had stayed over in Romana’s room more than once, curled up in bed beside her. Her warm presence at night nearly became a habit, but since their return to Gallifrey, that old habit has slipped away.
They haven’t spent much time together even in daylight, since they reset the Time Lords. This world is demanding everything from Romana, as it always has — her time, her energy, all her skill in political maneuvering. Parts of the Capitol are still in ruins from the civil war, fear of another Dogma virus outbreak still simmers among the High Council, alliances with the other Temporal Powers are still tenuous. Amidst this constant churn of work, most of the conversations she has with Leela are hasty, usually requests for a specific mission to help with the rebuilding effort.
Is that why her impromptu late night stroll took her in this direction?
Romana’s stopped walking now. She fidgets with a loose string on her sleeve, rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. An anxious gesture she picked up sometime in the past many difficult years. Decades.
A nervous impulse stirs within her — the urge to knock, to duck out of the world of presidential demands, to steal a quiet moment with her best friend that has nothing to do with the fate of Gallifrey.
The door waits in front of her, cold and unyielding.
But it’s the middle of the night, and Leela needs more sleep than a Time Lord. And whenever they speak these days, Leela never quite looks pleased to see Romana. It could simply be frustration at how busy they all are right now, or...or it could be that Leela’s starting to remember why she never much liked this life in the Citadel that she’s been dropped back into.
Romana’s thoughts drift to the confidence with which Leela carried herself when she walked into the Capitol to negotiate for mining rights. She seemed — well, much more settled in her own skin after living for months with the Outsiders. Maybe even happier.
Leela is the most forthright person she knows, yet Romana can’t quite tell, truly, if Leela really is pleased to be back, or if her heart is still leading her away from the Citadel. Away from Gallifrey, even.
Romana clenches her fists and takes a steadying breath. Right. She’s being ridiculous. This panicked excursion has gone on long enough, and Leela certainly doesn’t need Romana bothering her at this time of night.
She tries not to let the vague embarrassment show in her footsteps as she walks briskly back to her own rooms, back to the long, solitary spans before first sunrise.
The automatic whoosh of the door still feels both familiar and wrong as Leela strides into Romana’s office. Her feet have traced the path into the presidential office many times on this world, and yet after so long living outside the city on the other Gallifrey, the return of these regular sounds and sensations is unsettling.
Romana glances up as she crosses the room.
“Leela. Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Of course.”
A flash of something crosses Romana’s face, too quick for Leela to decipher. Leela skips a couple more steps forward to lean against Romana’s desk.
“What is the problem now? It is not the Dogma virus?”
“No, thank Prydon.” Romana pushes her chair back and stands. “The reset seems to have well and truly resolved that particular problem. The High Council is still fretting, of course, but Narvin assures me that the CIA is using every resource it can to ensure that no one, Free Time or otherwise, tries to introduce another strain of the virus.”
“If that has gone so well then — ”
“Gallifrey always had many more problems than the Dogma virus. The Academy, for instance.” Romana taps a nearby screen, and familiar images of crumbling walls and broken glass flicker across it. “As long as it remains in this state, the students cannot return.”
“Many other buildings damaged in the war have already been repaired.” Leela frowns. “Why has the Academy been ignored?”
Romana raises her eyebrows. “Because if the Academy is fully rebuilt, then the question of which students will be permitted to return becomes a more imminent concern. With everything else going on, it’s much easier for the High Council to ignore the overly controversial question of inviting off-world students back.” Her tone makes it clear that those particular words are someone else’s.
“Your High Council is trying to shut out the non-Gallifreyans again.” Leela shakes her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
“It’s always the same story, isn’t it. The Time Lords of Gallifrey cannot abide by any outsiders.” Romana sighs. She looks exhausted.
“What do you need me to do?” Leela asks quietly.
For a moment, Romana’s careful presidential aura slips, and the look she gives Leela is warm and grateful. But it’s gone just as quickly as Romana glances back over at the screen and pulls up the Academy layout.
“Ostensibly, the High Council is concerned about the reconstruction of the Academy because of the damage the security system suffered in the civil war.” Romana’s fingers run across the screen, and the layout image zooms in, lingering on specific security points. “Their argument is that we cannot be certain that our adaptations to the system for military defense, combined with the final attack from Pandora’s forces, and any lingering effects of the technological strain of the Dogma virus, have not fundamentally compromised the system’s integrity.”
Leela raises her eyebrows. “I do not see how I can be of help with that. I am not a technician.”
“The technical component is not the problem. Our engineers are perfectly capable of arranging for someone to visit the Academy ruins to run a full diagnostic on the system and assessing the results.” She sounds frustrated now, angry even. “And even if it has been corrupted, Gallifreyan ingenuity most certainly has the power to install a new system.”
Romana’s hands are pressed hard against the surface of the desk. Leela’s eyes trace the lines of tension from her fingers, to her shoulders. Picking up the pieces of Gallifrey’s prior crises is not an easy task, and Leela does not envy her for it.
“They are using the security issue as a delay tactic.”
“Yes.” Romana gives Leela an apologetic look, as if she’s realized she was starting to ramble on without getting to the point.
“And you need my help to...encourage them to move forward with it?” Leela says, a thread of false innocence in her voice.
Romana grants her a small, amused smile. “Something like that. They’re playing on the fear of the Dogma virus to avoid sending anyone in, even though the technological version wouldn’t have a lasting effect anyways. I would go myself, but my schedule doesn’t give me much latitude. And…”
Leela’s well put the pieces together at this point. “And I am not a Time Lord, so I am not at risk of infection regardless. You can send me in to collect any information you need, for your technicians.”
“Exactly. The equipment can be pre-programmed, and setting it up doesn’t require much technical skill, it’s only time-consuming. One of the engineers can teach you easily enough.”
Leela’s not exactly happy with the idea of being used this way, especially if there is a risk other than the Dogma virus from the Academy’s worn down security system. Because there is, of course, another reason that the High Council would find it difficult to disagree with letting Leela walk into a potentially dangerous situation — most Time Lords on Gallifrey have disliked the significant role she plays in Gallifreyan politics, by virtue of being the President’s friend and bodyguard. If an unexpected problem were to arise, they would not be disappointed. It might even give them more leverage for insisting that outsiders do not belong on Gallifrey.
Romana wouldn’t try to put her at risk, Leela is certain, but she’s also certain that Romana intends to use to her advantage the fact that most members of the High Council both care little for her safety and doubt her ability to carry out a technical project, even a basic one. She is one more piece in the elaborate game Romana is always playing, whether she likes it or not.
There were parts of the old Gallifrey she missed while they were away. This was not one of them.
“You think the High Council will agree to this plan of yours?” Leela crosses her arms.
Romana leans forward with a sigh. “I think it’s my best chance. No one’s actively speaking against the Academy, or even the return of the students. They’re only making excuses, dropping hints. If there’s no good reason for them to refuse the inspection, perhaps they’ll give in.”
She really does look so tired. Even when Leela snuck in and out of the Citadel, catching an occasional glimpse of the President, even when they were attempting to negotiate mining rights or when Romana was pleading with her to let Lord Zakar go, the weariness on Romana’s shoulders was not as absolute as it is now. The last time Leela saw Romana this exhausted was in the Matrix, when she was also pouring all her time into building a new dawn for Gallifrey.
And it has been strange, stepping back into this role where she can be summoned into Romana’s office and asked to complete missions in a way that doesn’t exactly sound like a request. The desk between them is not that wide, but it’s starting to feel like quite a distance again.
Something twists in Leela’s stomach. Romana’s exhaustion, this mission briefing, it’s all another reminder of before the Axis, when the world pushed Romana until she lost herself. That fight had started with the Academy too.
“If you think this will work, I will help you.” Leela’s voice rather lacks enthusiasm, but she does mean what she says.
When Romana needs me, as she does now, I will support her without question. That will never change. Leela had spoken those words to Narvin on the other world, and they still feel true in her heart. She hasn’t yet turned down one of Romana’s missions since their return to Gallifrey, knowing how busy her friend is, how badly she needs an ally in these times. But for once, she wishes that they would share a conversation that is not also another demand on Leela’s time.
“Thank you.” Romana says briskly. There is a grateful look in her eyes, but it’s fleeting. One problem is addressed, another begins. She has another meeting after this, and another one after that.
Working with Romana again should feel comfortable, but there’s an intangible wrongness to it. It isn’t like when they fought the Daleks on the other Gallifrey, when they were running together against a common enemy. There’s a desk between them again, and Leela can’t help the dread that twists up from her stomach, the fear that that desk will slowly become a wall.
As Leela leaves Romana’s office, she wonders again, as she has far too often in these past weeks, if their return to Gallifrey is really the triumph they had hoped it was.
Most of Romana’s office personnel have slipped away for the day. The suns have long since set, and if she’s perfectly honest the screens in front of her have started to blur slightly. She had managed to doze on and off after waking up last night, but as a rule, her sleep is never peaceful these days.
But the presidency doesn’t care if the Time Lord holding the office is tossing and turning at night, and it never did. The work goes on.
She’s reviewing a dull report on the status of post civil war infrastructure repairs in the outer Citadel when there’s a knock on her office door.
Ah, yes. She dismissed her secretary several spans ago.
“Romana? I can see that your light is on.” Leela’s voice is muffled by the door, but still clearly audible from her desk.
She sighs. She’s been doing a lot of that lately. “Yes. Come in.”
The doors slide open, shut. Leela’s eyes flick over Romana as soon as she walks in, and Romana resists the urge to squirm under her oddly judgemental gaze.
“What is it?” The words come out a bit more irritated than Romana intended.
Leela stops short. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not terribly. How can I help you?”
Leela raises her eyebrows. “You said you wanted to speak to me before tomorrow? To...debrief about your meeting with the High Council?”
“Oh. Yes. Of course.”
“You forgot.”
“I didn’t forget!” Her protest sounds entirely feeble, so Romana hastily changes tactics. “Oh, alright, I did forget. I’m sorry, I’ve been buried in reports all evening.”
“I can tell.” The same judgement that was in Leela’s eyes earlier is in her voice now. Romana supposes there is a warmth under it all, but it still stings.
She spares her datapad a brief glance. “Rebuilding is never ending work, it seems.”
Leela pulls over a chair and drops in front of Romana’s desk, her legs dangling over the arm of the chair. When she speaks, it sounds like she’s choosing her words carefully.
“Is your return to Gallifrey what you expected?”
“I — ” Romana laces her fingers together. “I knew rebuilding after the reset was always going to be difficult. We can all hope for a new dawn, but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen without a fight.”
She smiles wryly. “Story of my presidency, really.”
Leela looks like she’s considering Romana’s words just as carefully. Her guarded watchfulness is unsettling, not because Romana hasn’t seen it before, but because of how easy it had been to stand by Leela’s side against the Daleks. After everything they had been through, after all that had broken in their friendship at one point or another, sheer relief washed over her when she realized that Leela had, miraculously, chosen to come back to her.
But now Leela is watching Romana so closely, and Romana doesn’t know what she’s looking for.
The silence between them has gone on for long enough, so Romana clears her throat and walks through her debrief of the High Council meeting. They’re nearly giving in to her plan, and Leela offers a few suggestions for pushing them all the way over the fence. Romana mentally organizes them into “has some merit” and “let’s not create more political upheaval, shall we?”
When their discussion wraps up, Leela untangles her limbs from the chair she’s lounging on and stands.
“Are you coming back to your rooms now? It is quite late.”
Romana does not yawn, although it requires some effort. “I’ll head back later. I still have more reports to read.”
“You have been working yourself too hard. Romana, you look terrible.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Leela rolls her eyes. “It was not meant as an insult. Only an observation.”
“Well, it’s really none of your concern.” Romana picks the datapad back up, a blatant signal that she’s trying to return to her infrastructure report. “There’s a lot to be done.”
“And must it be done now?”
“Leela — ”
“Ever since we were trapped in the Matrix — ”
“Leela, I do have quite a bit of work to be getting on with. Could you please wrap up this lecture in the next microspan?”
Leela’s eyes flash and she moves again, snatching the datapad from Romana’s hands before she can react.
“Leela! What do you think you’re doing?” Romana is on her feet in an instant.
“Someone needs to make sure you are getting some rest, and you clearly are not.”
Romana makes a quick grab for the datapad, but Leela dodges out of her way.
“You’re being ridiculous. Even if I went back to my quarters now, as you demand, I would still have to read and respond to these reports. And you have no right to demand that of me.”
Leela narrows her eyes, and her fingers squeeze slightly around the datapad. “Oh, but you can demand whatever you wish of me?”
“I — ”
“Did you miss having a personal servant on that other Gallifrey? Someone who worked for you and no one else? Or did Narvin fill that role well enough?”
“Leela!”
But Romana can’t muster up a good retort. It’s as if Leela has doused her in cold water, and she’s left frozen and floundering.
After a moment or two, she manages a reply. Her voice is quiet and scathing and definitely not at all shaking. “That is enough. If you have a complaint with your current position, you can speak with me tomorrow. I don’t have time for you to continue bothering me tonight.”
Leela drops the datapad on the desk with a clatter. Romana doesn’t move to pick it up.
“If your reports are so important, you are welcome to them. And if you start another crisis on Gallifrey because you are too tired, then that is your problem as well.”
It’s not technically possible to slam an automatic door, but with how quickly Leela jams the controls, she gives it a good effort.
Romana is still for nearly a full microspan before she realizes she’s still standing, hands clenched around the edge of her desk, and that her eyes are stinging with tears.
She sinks back into the chair, head in her hands. Whatever Leela was looking for, whatever test was lurking under the surface of their conversation, Romana is certain she has utterly failed it.
Her breath rushes in and out. Too short. Too shaky.
She can count on one hand the number of times she let herself cry during all those months stuck on the other Gallifrey, terrified that she would never see Leela again. The long corridors were so dark and dreary without her, but even as the emptiness of that loss hit Romana unexpectedly day after day, she had to compartmentalize. She had to be the leader Gallifrey needed.
But here and now she’s threatening to fall apart again, and she shouldn’t be, she needs to have it together, she needs —
During one of Romana’s sleepless nights working on the transduction barriers in the Matrix version of Gallifrey, Leela had curled up next to her and done her best to encourage Romana to stop working. She hadn’t stopped, not really, but she had dozed off for several microspans with her head on Leela’s shoulder. With Leela’s arm curled around her back, holding her up — in that moment, Romana felt safer than she had in years.
Romana aches with that same want now, that wish for a pair of strong arms holding her up, a wish for a few moments of stolen rest in this scattered landscape of nightmares and work. Most of all, the wish for Leela by her side, breathing in tandem.
Leela’s words echo back to her on loop. A personal servant. It stings, and something about it rings far too true for Romana’s comfort. Professionally, Leela is beholden to practically no one but Romana. She does far more than a typical bodyguard, even if that is allegedly her title. Perhaps Romana has demanded too much of her, stretched the bounds of their friendship to breaking again. Perhaps Leela will never be happy if she’s beholden to anyone.
She dries her tears with the back of her hand, steadies her breathing and stares down at the report of her screen. The words are a jumbled mess now, her brain not making sense of any of them.
Ever since they fought the Daleks together, Romana has wanted to believe that Leela really has returned to her side for good. When Romana was exiled from the Matrix version of Gallifrey, Leela did follow her without hesitation. But they were also both of them being manipulated by a construct of Romana’s future self, so who can say if Leela really meant what she said in the TARDIS bay? And perhaps choosing to stay with Romana was an easier decision when it meant rejecting Gallifrey, rejecting the world of politics Leela always felt stifled in.
Romana laces her fingers together, squeezing her eyes shut and tipping her head against her hands. That sinking feeling that’s lurked inside of her for days and days is bubbling up, threatening to overwhelm her. The low, unsettling conviction that everything will fall apart around her again. Romana has lived with many of these convictions over the years (the certainty that she’s going to die on that carved out planetoid-turned-prison without ever seeing her home again, the certainty that her world will never stop demanding everything of her and she will never stop giving it). Romana tries to ignore the convictions that feel too nebulous, gut feelings that are too illogical to trust. Not all of her convictions have come true, after all.
But she can’t shake the feeling that Leela is unhappy, that Leela doesn’t want to be here. And Leela would tell her to trust her instincts.
Romana knows, deep down, that a part of her is just waiting for the moment when Leela walks away again, or walks away for good. And the lonely, selfish part of her wants to do everything she can to ensure that Leela stays by her side.
I’m just trying to make things right, she told Leela after the mining negotiations, and that same impulse has driven her since their return, to fix the damage from the war she helped cause, to rebuild a better world and heal it from her own mistakes. But if she really wants to make things right for Leela, perhaps she cannot insist that Leela stay here in this city.
Perhaps the only thing that will truly make things right is letting Leela go wherever she will be happiest.
The air circulation through Leela’s room is too stiff for her liking. It doesn’t feel like the natural progression of a breeze, but is instead locked into an unchanging rhythm.
The room is dark, but it is far different from the modest house she slept in in Mancipia. The earthy smells are missing. The textures are all constructed. Familiar, and yet unfamiliar at the same time.
Leela shifts on her mattress. She rolls over and tucks an elbow under her head. She stretches her legs, flexing and relaxing. Sleep doesn’t come to steal her away. The world is dark, and stiff, and empty.
She burrows her face into the soft fabric and muffles a sound between a sigh and a sob.
Her frustrations, Romana’s sharpness — it all knocks around inside her. She had thought, perhaps, that after so much wandering, after so much quiet sitting with her own thoughts, she had found her way back home again. But that warmth and certainty is increasingly precarious, and Leela hates that feeling of drifting. She’s drifted so much since Andred was first lost to her. She is tired of not having solid ground beneath her feet.
A knock sounds outside her door, and Leela sits upright. Only one person would tap on her door at this time of night, and Leela did not expect to hear from her again today. She’s not entirely sure that she wants to hear from her again today.
Still, she instinctively clambers to her feet and strides over to the door. Her hands hesitates briefly over the opening mechanism before it falls.
The door slides open, and Romana is there.
She’s disheveled. Not obviously, not to most who would pass her by in a corridor. But a select few could recognize the way she’s curled in on herself, how strands of her hair are falling out of her practical twist into a loose halo. Her eyes are a little red, but only a little, and Leela has seen that look more than once. Romana has been crying, but is trying to hide it.
Romana doesn’t say anything. She opens her mouth, fingers twisting around each other. Uncertain.
Leela waits, expressionless.
“I’m sorry, I — did I wake you?”
Leela sighs. “No.”
“Do you have a moment?” Romana catches herself. “I’m not here to…demand anything of you. I only want to talk.”
“To talk?”
“Yes.”
“About what?” There could be so many answers to that question, and Leela isn’t sure which one she hopes it to be.
The expression on Romana’s face is a tangled mess that’s difficult to piece together, but the overwhelming emotion is still sadness. Leela thinks back to the words she flung across Romana’s office earlier this night, and feels something ache in her. They were both too harsh.
“May I come in?”
Leela is well aware that Romana hasn’t answered the question. She steps backward to let her in anyways.
Before the door slides shut behind them both, Leela taps on the lights, squinting at the sudden burst that illuminates the room. Romana hovers near the doorway, standing, and Leela feels no desire to lower herself back down onto her bed.
Romana takes a long breath in, then out, like she’s steadying herself.
“I’m sorry I shouted,” she says. “I — I’m sorry for snapping at you. For — ”
Leela holds up a hand, trying to stop the flood of stammered apologies. Romana falls silent.
“I was the one who interrupted you. I understand.”
Romana shakes her head. She smiles, softly, sadly. “I’m not sure you do.”
Leela crosses her arms, about to push back, when Romana lifts her palms.
“Please,” she says.
Leela says nothing.
“You were right, I suppose. I haven’t been fair to you, not since we’ve come back to our Gallifrey.” Romana twists her fingers through the hem of her robe, and her next words are almost a whisper. “Perhaps not ever.”
Leela frowns, surprised. Romana is exaggerating, but it’s still unusual for her to notice the patterns in herself, especially the more unsavory ones. But perhaps Leela is not the only one who has been stuck with her thoughts since their argument tonight.
“Leela.” Romana’s voice is perhaps softer than she has ever heard it. “You don’t need to stay here in the Capitol.”
Whatever Leela was expecting Romana to say next, it was not that. Romana’s angry words from earlier echo in her head — I don’t have time for you to continue bothering me. These words are far gentler, Leela’s feelings towards Romana softened in advance by her apology. And yet all the implications of her statement spill out before Leela, cold and unsettling.
Romana did miss her, when they were apart on that other Gallifrey. Leela knows this to be true. But perhaps now that they have returned to the world that is Romana’s home, she doesn’t feel the need to hold onto her friends quite as closely.
The ache in Leela’s heart, the one that began earlier, grows now. It twists down into her stomach, rushes up through her head to sting and prick at her eyes.
“Oh.”
Romana is still staring at her, eyes so soft, smile so sad. Leela swallows and swallows again, as if that will dislodge the lump in her throat. The delivery is framed as an offer, but it sounds just as much a choice as the mission into the Academy.
Leela knows her own words were too strong tonight. She threw too much blame at Romana’s feet for past disasters. She was frustrated, she is frustrated, but this? A dismissal veiled in an apology? What could she have possibly said that warranted this?
“You want me to go?” Leela would like to think her voice is all disbelief and anger, but she can hear all too well the tremor in it, feel the tears stinging behind her eyelids.
Romana takes a step back, brow furrowed. “What?”
“I thought you were apologizing, but you — you could not wait even until morning to tell me this?” The hurt is wringing out now, but with every syllable Romana’s face scrunches up tighter.
“Leela —” Romana lifts a hand, but Leela steps away from her.
“I think I’d rather you hadn’t come in.”
“What in Prydon’s name are you talking about? I never said I wanted you to go.”
“No, you have twisted your words to make it sound like it is my choice.”
“But it is your choice,” Romana says, bewildered. “I thought...well, I thought you would want to go.”
That pulls Leela up short. “Why?”
Romana blinks at her. “What do you mean, why? You’ve never cared much for living here, you clearly are not pleased with your position. And you seemed to prefer living outside the city, on the other Gallifrey. I...”
She struggles to speak for a moment, while Leela can only stand by, reframing the conversation around her.
“...you have no obligation here. You have no obligation to me.” She gestures in a vaguely flippant way, but the tremble in her voice betrays her.
Leela pauses for a long moment, letting Romana’s words sink in. They are still not what she expected when she opened her door tonight, but in an entirely different way. From Romana’s tone of voice, she can tell the offer is a genuine one. But she can also see the sadness that hovers behind her eyes and knows that this is not the offer Romana wants to be making.
The sadness, the hesitance of her entry into Leela’s room, the shakiness of her voice — Romana is afraid, Leela realizes.
It is frustrating, that Romana will not speak out loud what is truly on her mind. And yet, Leela has to admit she has not been especially forthcoming with her own worries, her fear that Romana will draw away into herself and leave Leela stranded once again.
“Oh, Romana.” Leela sighs. “Living in the Capitol...that is not why I am unhappy.”
Romana stares at her. “What do you mean?”
Leela closes her eyes, and a flood of memories spring to mind. All the days she has spent in this room, all the joys and all the terrible tragedies that have accompanied them.
“It is so easy for you to slide back into your role. You can be President anywhere, but I — I cannot just go back to the way things were. The last time I was here, I was another person. And now that we are back, it feels like...like I am playing a role. Like I need to bury the memories of the other Gallifrey.”
She lifts her chin, eyes level with Romana’s.
“I do not want to forget the time I spent there. I needed that time, to mourn. To think. To find a purpose again.”
Romana’s eyes drop to her feet. Mourn.
Leela eyes flick over the walls, the door. In her mind she’s tracing the many elaborate corridors of this city, the central gathering spaces, the house she once called hers and the corner of the palace she has claim to now. “The other world was unfamiliar. It was easier to move forward when it was the only direction to move in. This world has too many ghosts.”
She cannot keep her own weariness out of her voice.
Romana steps forward hesitantly, one hand almost reaching out. Before Romana can retreat back in on herself, their eyes meet, and her words run through Leela’s head. I thought you would want to go.
And in Romana’s expression, anxious and vulnerable and tired, she hears the words Romana didn’t say. I’m afraid you want to go.
It’s not the same as hearing them out loud, but it’s enough for Leela to take a step forward, meeting Romana halfway to lace their fingers together.
Romana squeezes Leela’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
The words don’t come. She is too weary to collect her thoughts together.
Leela stretches her other hand out towards Romana, who is the one to meet her halfway now, their fingers tangling together.
“Leela,” Romana says, and her hand slips out of Leela’s for a moment, resting on Leela’s arm. She can’t help but lean into that careful brush of Romana’s fingers against her own skin. Romana’s touch is so light, as if she’s waiting for Leela to pull away at any moment. “If you don’t want to leave the Capital, then what do you want?”
“I — ”
Another stumbled step forward. Romana’s other hand lifts to Leela’s arm and then suddenly there is no space between them.
Leela tucks her chin on Romana’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut. To her surprise, Romana’s arms wrap around her just as tightly. Both of their breathing is shaky. A little bit ragged, a little bit broken.
“I do not want everything to be the same as it was, before the Axis. And since we have returned, it has felt so lonely here.” Leela’s voice is a whisper against Romana’s ear. “I do not wish to be alone.”
Romana tugs her in tighter, if that’s even possible. A finger traces the back of her neck absently, and Leela sighs with something like contentment.
“I understand,” Romana says.
Her voice is trembling, and Leela realizes that she is not the only one fighting to keep her eyes dry. She pulls back, her thumb reaching up to curl a strand of hair behind Romana’s ear.
There is something like a reflection in Romana’s eyes. A loneliness, even when they are surrounded by other people.
An outsider. A president. Isn’t that the story of their lives?
Romana’s eyes flick to her feet before she lifts her chin and looks Leela in the eye. “I know I’ve been so busy lately, but I am glad to have your company. Truly.”
Leela takes Romana’s hand between hers and holds it between Romana’s hearts and her single one. It’s hard to put into words what she wants. She can be honest so many times, but sometimes she is still afraid. The sensation of drifting is still too familiar to her to ever fully trust the ground will be steady beneath her feet.
“Will you stay?”
It’s not everything she wants to ask. It speaks only about tonight and not tomorrow or the next day or whether Romana will continue to drift away when the burdens of her office weigh down on her again and again. But it is the beginning of admitting her own fears. It is the beginning of healing them.
Romana’s eyes widen in something like understanding. A smile, not a sad one just a smile, lights up her face for the first time this evening, and Leela wonders suddenly if Romana was waiting for her to ask.
“Of course.”
Leela leans forward, resting her forehead against Romana’s. A gesture of understanding, of gratitude. A comfort, for both of them.
They stay like that for a long time before Leela steps back, her one hand never letting go of Romana’s as she steps back over to her mattress and curls up on her side. Romana stretches out on her back with a yawn.
When Leela leans over to rest her head on Romana’s shoulder, Romana’s arm slides around her automatically. And as they drift off to sleep, the ache that has grown in her heart finally starts to fade.
For a moment, Romana doesn’t remember where she is. Her hearts hammer, her body shifts against the soft, scratching material beneath her, one hand moving instinctively for the light and —
She feels the weight of a warm arm across her stomach, a cheek pressed into her shoulder, the audible exhales of another person breathing beside her.
Romana shuts her eyes and inhales. Tonight’s dream was still enough to wake her, but there was no pain, no burning. Just an endless blackness, familiar mechanical voices screeching after her as she stumbled forward, alone in the darkness.
Leela makes a soft, sleepy noise and snuggles closer against her.
For a moment, the world stops. Narrows. Cradles around her. The universe is made up of countless possibilities, countless shifting realities that are always at the corner of her mind, at the edge of her awareness. But right now, it’s as if those crowded other worlds slip away and this moment, wrapped in Leela’s arms, is all that matters.
Her breathing is still quiet and shaking, much to her chagrin. She tells herself she’s safe. She tells herself this reality is the dominant one. But the quiet irrational fear that this universe can’t possibly be true, that this moment is too good to be true, that it is more than she deserves — that fear is so hard to shake.
Even in sleep, Leela is too aware of her surroundings. Perhaps it’s the unsteady shift in Romana’s breathing, perhaps it was her physical shifting on the bed. Regardless, Leela’s eyes blink open, and her fingers squeeze against Romana’s arm.
“Romana? Are you — ”
“I’m fine.” She squeezes her eyes shut, blocking out what she knows will be Leela’s eyebrows raised in skepticism, or concern.
But she’s startled by the brush of Leela’s fingertips against her temple, before they slip into her hair to tug a strand behind her ear. Leela repeats the motion, a soothing touch so uncommon in this world, one that leaves Romana breathless in an entirely different way.
Leela speaks eventually, a murmur next to Romana’s ear. “I know what a nightmare looks like.”
Romana opens her eyes to find Leela waiting, head still tucked on Romana’s shoulder. Her eyes are gentle.
“I —” She doesn’t know how to say anything. She can’t. There is too much anger and misery buried in her memories, too many dark things she’s never spoken of to another person, all bubbling too close to the surface since she faced the Daleks again. She is supposed to put on her best face, to not let anyone see the bitterness and turmoil that lurks underneath. Leela has already seen too much of that anyways.
(I’m afraid you would want to go.)
There are too many ghosts here, Leela had said, but the same isn’t true for Romana. The ghosts follow Romana wherever she goes, plucking at threads of her memory she’d rather have just discarded. Tumbling her back into long lost yesterdays in her sleep until the fear resettles in her bones.
“It’s just a dream,” she manages, voice strained and unconvincing.
Leela’s hand cups Romana’s cheek, forcing their eyes to meet. She wonders how many layers of fear are visible in her own. She wonders if she matches the weariness in Leela’s eyes. She wonders if there will ever be a time when they are both happy.
“I am sorry.”
Romana laughs. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is not your fault if you are tired because you are haunted at night. I should not have been so quick to judge.”
She gives a sort of wry chuckle. “Because I’ve never been quick to judge.”
“That does not make it right.”
“No. No, I suppose not.”
Leela pauses for a moment, her gaze suddenly scrutinizing. After the moment passes she speaks, steady and straightforward.
“Is it the Daleks?”
Cold. Empty. Romana is standing on the edge of a pit that’s twenty years deep, a pit she swears she’ll never fall back into again. She pulls back slightly from Leela’s embrace, every line in her jaw tense.
“Yes.” Romana whispers, surprising herself. She rubs her eyes with the back of her wrist before they start stinging, but even as she opens her mouth to try to explain, try to justify herself somehow without raising Leela’s concern, her throat goes dry. No other words escape.
It was one thing hissing words alone in the dark to a Dalek. To a thing. But this is all she can manage to speak out loud to Leela, just the barest admission of a pain she’s never really let another person see.
But Leela doesn’t push. She only leans forward and brushes her lips against Romana’s forehead.
Romana swears her hearts stop beating for a moment. She bites her lip, blinking hard, a tingling warmth rushing against that cold feeling in her stomach. No. She is not going to fall apart, here in the arms of someone she —
“I missed you,” Romana whispers against Leela’s shoulder, unsure how they suddenly ended up in a tangled mess of arms and legs. I missed you every single day and it hurt and I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.
“So did I.”
Leela is so warm and soft and safe, cuddled around Romana, and at last some of the tension she’s been carrying starts to lift from her shoulders. She still has to face the High Council in the daylight, face the other Temporal Powers, face the uncertain future of the Academy she has tried so hard to protect. But without the quiet distance between her and Leela that has needled at her since their return, those burdens feel a little less heavy. A little more bearable.
“Leela, are you...are you certain you want to stay?” The words are muffled against Leela’s skin, Romana’s last threads of doubt creeping into her voice. “I know you’ve never really thought of this place as home —”
Soft fingers brush through Romana’s tangled hair as Leela exhales.
“It is true that, for a time, I thought I would never find a home here again.” Leela leans forward to touch her forehead briefly against Romana’s. “But that was a long time ago. And right now, I promise you, my home is here.”
And the way she says it, it’s clear she isn’t talking about Gallifrey.
Her eyes shine as they meet Romana’s, certain and still. Romana can’t quite muster the words to respond. So many conflicting, twisting wants fumble and blaze in her hearts. But above it all is a soft warmth that sinks into her bones, something like belief, at last, that right here truly is where Leela wants to be. That maybe it isn’t only a matter of time before she walks away from Romana again. That maybe they can’t go back to the way things were, but that is a good thing.
“And so I am here,” Leela concludes, simple and true.
I am here.
The words echo through Romana’s mind, echo through the darkened timelines that would dare challenge that statement.
“I’m glad,” Romana whispers, and means it with everything in her.
The darkness is pressing in from every corner. The darkness will be pressing in for the rest of her lives. But here, holding Leela fiercely to her hearts, Romana is not facing the darkness alone.