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He had spent a month running away from the memory of Adelaide Brooke. He ran to the far edge of the Milky Way, to middle of time, to his favorite and his least favorite planets. Anywhere and anytime to get away from the shame of breaking time’s rules.
In the back of his mind, he knew there was one place he could try to go. One place that he could escape his shame and his future. One place where, maybe, he could find someone who would understand (or, at least, empathize) what it was like to be tempted by configures of time. It would take luck, an enormous amount of calculations, and finding the thinnest part of the universe to push through.
He held his hand on the switch, ready to leap into another plane of existence, when the TARDIS rocked back on its heels and sent him stumbling, running into a beam. A flash of bright white light filled the console room. The Doctor shook his head and rubbed his jaw.
“What?!” he exclaimed. He looked around and saw a woman dressed in a red jacket and heels, unsteady on her feet. She went to the console and braced herself.
“Good lord, where am I? This looks like a TARDIS,” she said, examining a meter.
He dusted himself off and straightened his tie. He felt something familiar from this woman, a recognition that she wasn’t a stranger. She walked around the console, her gait slow and slightly limping. She had to keep her hands on the console at all times for support. She was older, much older looking than him. She took another turn and caught his eye. She straightened up to her full (but very short) height.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you the navigator of this ship?” she said. Her voice was deep and throaty.
“Well, I try to be,” he smiled, walking towards her. He felt dull pulse of recognition any Time Lord has for another beat in his body. No, this couldn’t be…
He had been trying for E-Space, after all. Why would it be so absurd that the greying woman in front of him was Romana? Was it the relative ease with which she came back, a quick flash of lightening and an impulsive decision, that made it so hard to believe? He had searched all of space and time in his existence for another Time Lord, only to find one just beyond the flimsy membrane of his existence.
Romana was thin to the point of frailty, her hands bony and dotted with liver spots. Her long, pale hair had lightened from gold to a silvery white. Her face was creased with wrinkles, framing her lips and eyes. He could see the woman he had loved, even after centuries apart.
She circled the console towards him and narrowed her eyes. She gave him a few glances over, quick flicks of her eyes up and down. “It is clear by your ship and our telepathic recognition that you are a Time Lord, but I can’t tell if we’ve met before. It’s been a few centuries since I’ve last met one.”
“I think you know me quite well,” he said, his voice lowering. He stood in front of her, still towering over her as always; he briefly thought what it would’ve been like had she met a shorter incarnation. (She probably would’ve kissed him more – less work for her). He reached out and pressed his fingertips to her temples. “Contact,” he whispered.
“This is quite forward – ” the rush of memories filled their minds, their introduction those many centuries ago, when she was young and wore her first face, running around Paris and kissing in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, Adric and K9 and their fleeting family, their short, repressed goodbye, and everything after he wanted to show her – but not the Time War, not yet.
He pulled his fingers away and laid his hands on her shoulders. She blinked and shook her head, dizzy with memories and her first contact in years. “Doctor?”
“The one and only,” he smiled.
She studied him, leaning away from him. “How many lives has it been for you?” She crossed her arms and set her mouth.
“Half a dozen, I suppose, possibly more. I never had the self-preservation instinct you did.” He kept smiling, hoping it would convince her to trust him again.
“Quite. I still have the body with which I left you.” She took her gaze off him and started walking around the console room. “What is this control room theme? The white one was so clean and tasteful,” Romana said, examining a coral beam.
“Don’t you get tired of looking at the same thing over and over again?” he said.
“I’m not looking at the aesthetics of my machine, just the practicalities of it.” She picked up a loose piece of steel off the TARDIS console and examined it. “Two obvious qualities you still lack.” The Doctor grabbed the piece and pocketed it.
“Come on now, Romana, that’s no way to treat an old friend!”
She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head. “Friend? Is that what you’ve been calling me?”
“Friend, ex-lover, same difference,” he brushed away, turning to the console. He flipped some switches and pretended to look busy.
“I think we had a time crash, Doctor. I was on a ship, trying to head for N-Space, when my ship hit turbulence and a light flashed. I’m here with you now, instead.” She turned back to face him. He wanted to face her and throw his arms around her, beg for forgiveness, or understanding, but he knew Romana wouldn’t tolerate such displays after so long apart. Better to ease her into the situation, to turn up the temperature slowly.
“Did you want to return back to your ship? I’m sure you don’t want to leave your crew mates alone. Do you have crew mates? I’m traveling on my own now, it’s been a while since I’ve done so.” He checked a meter again, pretending to be preoccupied with its normal reading.
“No, I’m by myself. I didn’t want to make the risky trip into and out of N-Space on my own.” She sighed deeply, then cleared her throat. “I’m dying, Doctor. That’s why I wanted to find you, before this old body gives way to a new one, I wanted to see you one last time, looking like this.”
His hands froze and his hearts stopped. He wasn’t the only one on a fool’s errand, hoping to catch one last glimpse of the impossible before dying. Romana, despite all of her words and actions, still had the small bit of sentimentality tucked away in her hearts for few to see. He turned around and looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time since she left.
Her chest rose and fell in quick breaths, the sound shallow and thick with phlegm. Her hands were slightly tremoring, and she was leaning on the railing around the console platform, less out of boredom and more out of necessity, her whole weight balanced on her wrists. “Is it from old age?”
“Yes. I was rather fond of this body, so I kept it as long as I could. I made it about 500 years before it decided to give way. Some days are harder than others, especially getting out of bed.” She walked carefully to the jump seat and groaned as she sat. “Other days, it hurts to sit for too long. It’s amazing how nothing can be restive after a while, just temporary stances until they hurt.”
He walked over to her and sat down next to her. He thought back to his first body, the only one he lost to old age. He remembered when he first picked out a cane; he originally told himself it was for fashion. Eventually, though, it was harder and harder to lie to himself when he found simple tasks, like climbing the stairs, too taxing for his knees. “It’s never any fun, getting old. Might be why I was so reckless with my bodies after the first one.”
“What happened to the body you had when I left?” she asked.
“Fell from a satellite tower. The Master was pursuing me. I had to follow him to keep him from making this universe entropy out of existence.”
“The Master. You know they mentioned him at the academy, also? I always wanted to meet him, just to see if he was really somehow more incompetent than you,” she smirked. It had been so long since he’d seen that look on her face, he forgot how winsome it was. He gave back a lopsided smile.
“Unfortunately that wasn’t the last of him. Met him a few times after that in other bodies, including this one. Not much improved, either. Well, maybe in some areas, like taste in clothes, but really still as scheming as ever.”
She stared at him for a moment, not to look at him, but to think about him, before asking “How old are you now, Doctor?”
He pulled on his ear and scratched his sideburns. “Well, I’ve been telling humans about 900 years old or so, and I do think that’s the rough estimate, maybe closer to 1000, though. I’m not quite certain anymore, things like that happen with time travel – ”
“What was it like, your first death? The one where you died of old age. How painful was it?” Romana could easily spare and parse with him, talk endlessly on, but not today. She knew her time was precious, even more precious than his, and she cut his prattle to the bone.
He wanted nothing more than to ramble and talk for ages, to keep her here forever, to keep her on the TARDIS, but Romana was never one to acquiesce to him. “It’s not pain-free until the end. The time leading up to it, you can feel your hearts getting slower and sharper, and your breathing gets worse. Then when the time comes, it’s just a sleep. You close your eyes, and it’s done.”
“The pain is the hardest part. I’ve tried starting the regeneration process, like before, but this body doesn’t want to, not yet. I’ve loved this old body. It’s gotten me through so many things. I guess it doesn’t want to leave me yet, either.”
He smiled and, cautiously, took her hand in his. She smiled back and let him, slowly giving back into a rhythm that they once knew but had long stopped. “Can you tell me what you’ve been up to? What it’s been like, in E-Space?”
“Oh, it was hard, leaving E-Space, even if it was just for a temporary trip. They say they’re okay without me, but it’s hard to leave something you’ve helped rebuild.”
“What was the rebuilding like? Is it still as vast as it was when I left?”
“You know how it is: an empty room gets smaller and smaller the more you add to it,” she said. “It’s not like Gallifrey, or the Citadel. I wanted to keep it open, not wall it away. The first couple centuries were nothing but helping the Thrails. Eventually we were able to gain their independence and reestablish their community, though it took a lot of fighting and negotiating. Some refugees of time and other universes came through and needed resettling. Eventually, we were able to set up a small civilization again.”
She stopped, to catch her breath. She took three short, rasping breaths, before a fit of coughing took over her body. The Doctor braced a hand against her back, steadying her. She pulled out a handkerchief and covered her mouth. She coughed, before settling back to her rattling breath. He saw a flash of crimson on the cloth as she folded it away.
“Were you a good ruler?” he asked. He wanted to ask this one last question before she grew too tired.
“Oh, ruler? Come on now, Doctor. I am a builder, not a ruler. Besides, there weren’t many people to rule anyway. We mostly governed ourselves.” She stared down at the floor, her eyes glassy with tears. He couldn’t tell if they were from coughing, or from memory. “Is it my turn, now? To ask the questions.”
“Ask away. I’m an open book, anything you’d like to know.” He kept his hand on her back, missing the touch of her in his hands.
“Very well. What happened to Gallifrey?” She looked him dead on in the eyes, unflinching. He was hoping to work up to that, maybe talk about other companions or bond over Adric, but Romana never liked to follow his rules if she couldn’t make her own in the process.
“You know, it’s Gallifrey! Why do you want to know what happened to Gallifrey? Bunch of stuff shirts, really, that’s why you left, right?”
“You can only ramble for so long, Doctor. Eventually you’ll have to answer my question.” She leaned back on the chair back, moving his hand away. “There were a few refugees from Skaro who ended up in E-Space. They said they had been blown there from the blast of The Moment, in the Time War. They said they were the last of the Thals.”
“Possibly. I haven’t been on Skaro in ages.” He knew to break eye contact would give it all away, but he couldn’t do it like this, not with Romana questioning him like a solicitor at trial.
“I’ve kept my curiosity at bay for as long as I could. I lived in E-Space, that’s my home now. But I needed to know, before I died; what happened.” She let go of his hand and pocketed both of them in her jacket. “Why were you so close to E-Space, Doctor? I can’t imagine why you’d make a trip so risky, but we time crashed for a reason.”
The Doctor swallowed and hung his head. He had dreamed of this moment, that he could somehow have her back, but the dreaming was always sweeter than the reality. Loneliness was bitter but certain to him now; confronting Romana with the truth of Gallifrey was sharp and sour.
“I wanted to find you, because I needed someone, anyone, who would know what it is like to be a Time Lord, even if it killed me.” He lifted his head and met her gaze. “It’s gone, Romana. I destroyed Gallifrey, and everyone on it. It was that, or the Daleks and Time lords would have continued the fight until the literal end of time.”
Romana gaped slightly at him, and her eyes lost focus. She stared ahead for a minute, two, three. He wanted to run out of the TARDIS and throw himself to the stars. He wanted anything but this, to have her freeze on him like this. “Please, say something, Romana. I can’t bear this.”
“I really don’t know what to say, Doctor.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m upset, angry, relieved, shocked, disappointed. How would you feel if an ex-paramour of yours abolished your shared home planet, even if you both hated it?”
“Please, Romana, understand, I didn’t take it lightly or enjoy it – ”
“I don’t care how you felt about it. The thing that matters is that you did it. Not Brax, or the Master, but you. Why did you think you had the right to do it?” Her voice had a ragged edge to it, not from her cough, but from anger.
“No one else would, Romana, and there was no other way.”
“No way to get the children out, or to find me in E-Space and maybe see if we could take some of them, any of them?” She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap.
Shame sluiced over him. The thing about finding another Time Lord was that he had to answer to his crimes, over and over again, each one compounding until the weight nearly killed him. “You know it’s a risk to travel into E-Space, Romana. I couldn’t risk myself going, let alone numerous other people.”
“So you’d rather pick killing than try dying for something benevolent?”
“Romana, it’s not like that – ”
“The only comfort of you still being here means I’m not the last of my kind. Unfortunately I now share that distinction with you.” He thought back to Sarah yelling at him when he showed back up, how her voice quavered between anger and sadness. Romana’s voice, though, was labored but steady. She could verbally lacerate someone without raising a decibel, a quality he had admired until now, when her words had pierced his hearts.
He rested his elbows on his knees and looked down, at the grill floor. The blue light flashed up at him, hurting his eyes. He kept them open.
“One last question, Doctor.” He didn’t respond. “Why did you find me now? It’s been years since those Thals arrived in E-Space.”
He didn’t know if answering the question or ignoring it would make it worse. He knew one thing; Romana would not enjoy either response. “I broke the laws of time, Romana, and I ran as far away as I could.”
She stood up and found the railing again. “You broke the laws of time? For what?”
“For three humans that were in mortal danger on Mars. No one was stopping me. Until one of them did.”
Romana stood still and quiet at the railing. She didn’t look at him or acknowledge his last sentence. Minutes went by, until he stood up and faced her. She was looking up at the high ceiling of the TARDIS, her hair failing over her shoulders and cascading down her back.
“When we first met, I remember the first thing about you that attracted me to you. It was your brazenness. I had never met a Time Lord so bold and unafraid of what others’ thought or did, and it was enthralling. Now I’m not so sure.” She lowered her head and faced him again. “I know you haven’t been my Doctor for years. But I was hoping I could at least see something, anything familiar. But you’re just a stranger, given how much time has passed.”
“Please, Romana, understand, nothing I did was out of cowardice or cruelty – ”
“I’m not interested in arguing with you, Doctor. I’d rather not spend my last moments like this. But I think I made the right decision with my life – have you?” She walked to the console and fiddled with some knobs, pulled some switches, and checked a meter. “I should be going back to E-Space now; I started the process of separating our ships.”
How foolish he was, to try and seek validation from Romana, of all people. She had loved him in spite of his fumbling, not because of it. When she had developed enough experience and confidence, she had discovered all of his charms to be dull and old.
“I’m sorry, Romana,” he whispered.
“I am too, Doctor, to think that a few centuries of nostalgia and a dying wish would keep us the same..” She flickered in and out, growing paler and ghostlier, until she was gone, no goodbye or love exchanged.
He braced himself against the console and stared at the blue light until the room started to spin and the sound of the TARDIS humming became the only noise in his mind. There had to be something else out there, somewhere he could run away, and forget the shame, again.