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Leela doesn’t speak to him for a full two weeks after they leave Unity. Incredible, perfect, beautiful, kind, brave, impetuous, loyal Leela. Narvin has dealt with her annoyance, her anger, her grudges before, but never has he seen her like this. Even all those years ago, when neither he nor Leela could stand the sight of each other, she had never treated him like this. Not even when she blamed him for the death of her husband.
And then one day, she shows up in the console room, red hair tumbling down past her shoulders, and she puts her hands on her hips, looking at Narvin.
He looks at her, setting down the tools with which he’d been attempting to fix the scanner, which keeps breaking out into white static.
“How could you leave her, Narvin?” Her tone indicates that she wants a fight, but her voice breaks as she speaks. Narvin thinks he can glimpse unshed tears in the corners of her eyes, but maybe it’s a trick of the light.
He sighs. Of course her first words to him post-Unity are accusing him of leaving Romana. Leela has a big heart, full of love for her friends and anger at anyone who dares cross them. He can’t imagine the sort of conflict she might have felt at abandoning Romana to save him and Rayo. “It was her choice,” he finally says, looking down. The words feel hollow, somehow.
He remembers Trellick and Qatal and their doomed ship, cracking and fracturing off into millions of timelines. Trellick choosing to die rather than live a never-ending, haunted existence.
He remembers Romana’s words to him from all across her presidency and coordinatorship. Her independence. Her stubbornness. Her loyalty. Her leadership.
Her exhaustion.
He remembers the hunted look on her face, the way she was always looking over her shoulder for some unknown enemy, whether it was Rassilon or a Dalek or something else. He remembers her pale, haggard face, reflecting off the darkened scanner in this very console room, where she would stand for hours, unable to sleep due to the terror of her dreams.
It was Romana’s choice to stay on Unity. Her choice to rest. Her choice to get out of all of this. Her choice to protect her friends, no matter the personal cost.
“It was her choice.”
This time, it’s Narvin’s voice that breaks, and he swiftly turns away, not wanting Leela to see the way his face crumples up when he thinks about Romana, the way his throat constricts just that tiny bit, making it that much more difficult to breathe.
Leela’s face softens, and she walks over. Where once she might have taken his hands in hers, or offered a hand on his shoulder, or hugged him, or kissed him, she stands there, hands at her sides, fingers fidgeting, nails picking at callouses. “She is not dead,” she says, in a voice that is softer, gentler. And then she pauses, and says, “Is she?”
And that’s what actually kills Narvin, because he doesn’t know if Romana is dead, because he hasn’t been able to pick up her biodata signal on Unity since they left the planet, and that means she’s either dead, taken prisoner by the Daleks, or successfully used the Chameleon Arch. Or some combination of the three. And in the end, it doesn’t matter. She’s as good as dead no matter how you look at it.
But he can’t let Leela know, because she hasn’t spoken to him in two full weeks, and he needs her. He needed her before, when she was missing, and he needs her now, especially now that Romana is gone. He needs her wisdom and her bravery and her stubbornness and he just needs her. And if he tells her that they left Romana to die, that even if she’s still alive right now, she’ll most likely be dead soon, well, she’ll never forgive him.
So he blinks a few times, offers the most cheerful smile he can muster, and says, “Oh, oh—what? Of course she’s still alive! It’ll be fine, everything is going to be… fine.”
Leela takes his hands in hers and looks up at him. “You are still a bad liar, Narvin,” she says, her voice soft. “You do not think Romana will survive this.” She studies him a moment longer, then adds, “You do not think Romana survived it at all.”
The cheerful smile, already forced, flickers and dies. “She’s in a dangerous position,” Narvin tries. “But she knew that it would be dangerous, and she’s both intelligent and resourceful. I’m sure she’ll be… fine.”
There’s that word again, that word that he uses whenever the world is crashing and burning around him, that word that he’s stuck repeating like a glitch in a simulation whenever anything goes wrong. Fine. Everything will be fine. Narvin is a Time Lord, which means he’s spent all his lives compartmentalizing and ignoring every emotion he could possibly feel, or trying to do so, at the very least. And that’s left him with fine.
Leela squeezes his hands gently. Her hands are warm, warmer than his, hot and rough and calloused. “And if she is not?” There’s warning in her tone.
He smiles again, but this time, there’s no cheer in it. “I’d like to say that we get revenge on the bastards who killed her, but I suppose that’s a dreadfully uncivilized thing for me to say.”
She matches his sad smile. “It is something that I would do.”
“Exactly.”
His eyes meet hers, then, and before they know it, they’re smiling real smiles, and then they’re laughing, laughing like they just heard the funniest joke in the world. And then they’re crying, and Leela folds herself into Narvin’s arms, and they hold each other, this mix of laughter and tears, happiness and despair.
“I missed you, Narvin,” Leela says finally, her head somewhere near his collarbone. “Every day that I was gone, I missed you and Romana. I made a life for myself on Unity because I was forced to, I found people I could love because I needed people to love and who would love me.” She looks up at him. “But I never stopped missing you.”
He smiles sadly again, and he wonders if Leela will make fun of him if he starts to cry. “I missed you too,” he says. “Every day that you were missing, every moment that passed while you were gone.” He lets out a heavy sigh and ends the embrace, stepping back. “If only I could have used someone other than the Master for that mission, if only I hadn’t shot Trave, if only Romana hadn’t tried to assassinate Rassilon.”
“Do not ever wish for things gone by,” Leela says suddenly, sharply. “They are no longer important. Perhaps if I had not gone with the Master, I would have stayed on Gallifrey a bit longer, but I might also have died, executed for treason like Trave, or murdered in my sleep by a spy. I do not know of the other things you mentioned, but these things happen for a reason.”
“Like destiny?” Narvin doesn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but it’s out before he can stop it.
She snorts. “Call it destiny or fate or the Web of Time, I do not care,” she replies shortly. “They are but different words for the actions we make and the consequences we face. All of these things happened, yes. You cannot do anything about it, even if you are a Time Lord. And I will not mourn the years I spent without you, because if they had not happened, I would not have met Veega and Rayo.” Her eyes soften. “It was my choice to go with the Master, Narvin. Just as it was Romana’s choice to stay on Unity. To become someone other than herself.” Her voice drops. “To sacrifice herself for us.”
It was Romana’s choice. Just like it was Trellick’s choice to die rather than stay in the fractured timelines created by Qatal. Just like it was Agata’s choice to break the time loop and sacrifice herself, the older self, to save her husband and son.
Just like it was Leela’s choice to go with the Master on that mission.
Just like it was Narvin’s choice to follow Romana to the ends of the universe.
He and Leela sleep together in his room that night. Nothing happens between them, but both need the company. Romana wasn’t the only one haunted by the Time War, by her past sins. And sometimes, when Leela is laying tangled up in him, her red hair fanned out across his chest, tickling his neck, sometimes he can live with himself.
Live with the choices he’s made.