Fic: Look, It's Beginning to Snow
Title: Look, It's Beginning to Snow
Author: StalkedByChibis
Characters: Valeyard/Romana
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None, I don't think...
Summary: Romana receives a visitor.
Each psychic signature was just that, a signature. Each Gallifreyan had their own unique...bouquet of firing synapses and flickering consciousness, though only Time Lords and Ladies were trained in how to properly contort and control it; the entire populous had some odd sort of static in the back of their minds at all times. Most found it comforting, like a shield against fierce invaders or a blanket against the lonely cold.
Cold.
Romana hardly feels it anymore, to be honest, the chilling wind that blew in from the cracks and seams in the window. She'd already decided he was doing in on purpose; any one who could...could do...what he's done should be perfectly capable of making a window without any damned drafts. Then, she thinks sometimes, maybe he can't, and remembers...before.
The window isn't barred. There's no force field or screen there. Not even glass. Just simple wooden shutters, with little star-and-heart shaped holes cut into them. Almost mocking. There's nothing keeping her in. Because there's nowhere left to go. She's not so foolish as to think of flinging herself out of a window at this height to simply be brought back inside to properly regenerate after they've scraped her off the barren ground. Not so foolish. Not so mad.
Yet.
She can feel him coming though, up the spiral stair, and even before he's entered the tower. She would recognise that presence, that spark of existence anywhere, anywhen. Romana could close her eyes and, by simply brushing against it, could see countless galaxies spiralling endlessly, could feel warmth stretching through every part of her, and with every one of her sixteen senses, she would know it was him. Only now, it was...different. Not on any properly tangible level - that was how he had got so close the first time, she hadn't realised, hadn't known, not yet - but there was something new, or maybe something old, that twisted it into something both pervasive and perverse.
It slipped and looped around her defenses, whispering in her ear of things she had hidden, of things she had told no one...if they were even her own thoughts. With this new level came the sickening sweetness of poisoned sugar; the lightness of toxic gas as it drained away your heavy life; the gentle whisper of weapons sliding easily from their holsters; the sense of wonder one might feel towards a black hole drawing you closer to its gaping maw. And that's what it does, she knows, just as the trapped mouse knows that the serpent doesn't wish it well; his very presence is like a gravity well, drawing them all in so slowly, with such predatory patience that they thought they had come willingly.
When he's halfway up the tower, she moves to the window, opening the shutters as if that would help. As if fresh air - ha - could stop it, could stop her from feeling that dark and familiar consciousness. Hoped it would, even as she felt him in her mind - or many she was inside his - sliding in like honey into cup of tea, slick and slow and sweet, dripping around any walls she tried to put up in her mind. Romana shivers, and looks out the window as the door opens and he walks in.
Silence.
"Romana." He says with a smile in his voice and all the warmth she remembered and all the steel she had come to know. "How have you been?"
She almost wants to turn. Part of her wants to look him in the eyes and prove that he hasn't broken her, that he will never sway her. Another part stays there, eyes fixed on the nearly flattened mountains, hands flat on the windowsill, keeping her back to him. She's not sure which part is the coward.
"Romana," he says again, and there's a hand on her shoulder, gentle but strong. He calls her name twice more, as if it was part of some incantation. "Won't you come down soon? Everyone's waiting for you. Are you going to stay up here forever?"
There are no locks on the door. No bolts or keyholes. She could come and go whenever she pleases, they both know that. She could even go outside, but even Gallifreyans can't last forever without food or water or shelter, and within months she'd need to return, back to this tower, back to this room.
Him.
"Romana, please?" He sounds so close, and she wants to spin around and face that smile and be told it's all going to be alright. But it's not, and she doesn't. "We miss you. I miss you. Won't you join us?" His hand slides from her shoulder, down her arm, and long fingers curl around her hand. Romana keeps still, not pulling away, not moving to take his hand as well. "Romana."
She shivers, caught at his event horizon, at the very edge of his gravity well, one moment - one thoughtless, breathless moment - away from slipping in like the rest, of becoming lost in the wonderful, terrible bottomless pit that is the madness beneath a veneer of sanity.
He sighs, pulling away after minutes, hours perhaps. His hand traces its path up her arm, her shoulder, and she almost misses the touch. "I hope you'll join us soon, Romana. There's always a place for you, when you're ready."
Romana clutches at the windowsill, eyes flickering closed. She still hasn't seen a mirror since she'd regenerated what feels like centuries ago; she wonders what colour her eyes are. Maybe he would tell her, if she'd ask. If she'd look.
Behind her, the door opens and closes, and the Valeyard is gone again. She waits until his presence in her mind begins to pull away from her own before she turns to face the door. She looks around the room, at her beautiful, gilded cage without bars, and simply stands there for several long moments. Alone.
Cold.