(no subject)
Title: Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters
For: oltha_heri who wanted either ‘City of Death’ era fluff or Time War-President Romana angst. So I gave her both.
Summary: President Romana watches Gallifrey burn and remembers Paris
Rating: PG/PG13
Notes: Title taken from the Indigo Girls song of the same name. Obscure reference to both A Tale of Two Cities and the fact that Lalla Ward is apparently an avid knitter, because I am a dork. I don’t know very much about the Time War, the High Council, the looms or even how much has been said about them in canon, so I made it all up.
She hasn’t been idealistic in a long time, and she’s nearly forgotten how to dream. Her imagination cannot conjure up any ending to this, or not one that could be described as ‘happy’. When she thinks past the war, she knows she won’t survive. She hopes someone will, and knows it will probably be the Doctor. Half the High Council are dead, and the rest of the population are too busy losing a war to bother with elections, so she appoints a few old friends to make up the numbers and they sit in the chamber in silence because they’ve run out of heroes and eleventh hours and million-to-one-but-it-just-might-work plans. No-one there talks of leaving, of running away and saving themselves. She’d kill them with her bare hands if they did. Every so often, she hears footsteps and raised voices and winces, avoiding sympathetic stares as she hears her name being shouted by a man she once thought of as her best friend. He doesn’t understand why she won’t let him in, won’t let him help, which just goes to show that she always was more intelligent than him.
He’s changed on the outside but not the inside, and she’s changed on the inside but not the outside. She wants to shake him, scream at him, tell him to stop treating her like the girl who ran around Paris chasing intergalactic art thieves, and start treating her like the President of Gallifrey. She doesn’t do any of those things, but she could. Instead, she remembers baguettes and creamy, slightly sour cheese. She remembers never getting the bouillabaisse she was promised, and carrying a slight grudge throughout the trip because of it. She remembers Duggan - sweet, hopeless, foolishly violent Duggan - and hopes that he resolved whatever issues he was so clearly carrying around. She remembers that she was happy, but she can’t remember what that feels like. And she thinks she was in love, just a little bit. Just a lot.
She went back to Paris herself, once. After E-Space and before the Presidency, she made it clear that she needed a holiday. She supposes she naively wanted to recapture her lost youth. In the end, she got the dates wrong and ended up in the middle of a revolution. She’d sat on the sidelines and watched as they executed the rulers, knitting a scarf because it was cold and she missed the Doctor. Looking back on it, she should have paid closer attention. Decapitation would be faster than this.
She’s dying. She can feel each breath hurt more, imperceptibly, the pain gets just a little worse each day. She’s not sure what she has left to live for, except that she should be the last one standing. She should be the one who feels what it’s like to be the only Time Lord in the universe, to know that it’s all her fault and to hate herself for it. And then she can let the blackness take her, but not before it hurts. The Looms were the first to be destroyed. She didn’t mention to anyone that there was supposed to have been a child, that she was going to stand down, get out whilst she still could, have a life. It’s too late now, but stupidly she wants to tell the Doctor. He’d been a father, once upon a time, he’d have understood. She wonders if he’d have forgiven her, though, for giving the order that destroyed them, that wiped out the entire next generation of the Time Lords. Maybe one day she’ll be able to tell him, if she can find him in the ruins of what used to be her home.
She’d seen him privately, once, and asked him if he had any ideas. She must have been desperate. He’d shaken his head sadly and said “I just wanted to see you.” He reached out to pull her close and she pushed him away because the President of Gallifrey doesn’t cry on the shoulder of the man that she tells herself she doesn’t love.
For: oltha_heri who wanted either ‘City of Death’ era fluff or Time War-President Romana angst. So I gave her both.
Summary: President Romana watches Gallifrey burn and remembers Paris
Rating: PG/PG13
Notes: Title taken from the Indigo Girls song of the same name. Obscure reference to both A Tale of Two Cities and the fact that Lalla Ward is apparently an avid knitter, because I am a dork. I don’t know very much about the Time War, the High Council, the looms or even how much has been said about them in canon, so I made it all up.
She hasn’t been idealistic in a long time, and she’s nearly forgotten how to dream. Her imagination cannot conjure up any ending to this, or not one that could be described as ‘happy’. When she thinks past the war, she knows she won’t survive. She hopes someone will, and knows it will probably be the Doctor. Half the High Council are dead, and the rest of the population are too busy losing a war to bother with elections, so she appoints a few old friends to make up the numbers and they sit in the chamber in silence because they’ve run out of heroes and eleventh hours and million-to-one-but-it-just-might-work plans. No-one there talks of leaving, of running away and saving themselves. She’d kill them with her bare hands if they did. Every so often, she hears footsteps and raised voices and winces, avoiding sympathetic stares as she hears her name being shouted by a man she once thought of as her best friend. He doesn’t understand why she won’t let him in, won’t let him help, which just goes to show that she always was more intelligent than him.
He’s changed on the outside but not the inside, and she’s changed on the inside but not the outside. She wants to shake him, scream at him, tell him to stop treating her like the girl who ran around Paris chasing intergalactic art thieves, and start treating her like the President of Gallifrey. She doesn’t do any of those things, but she could. Instead, she remembers baguettes and creamy, slightly sour cheese. She remembers never getting the bouillabaisse she was promised, and carrying a slight grudge throughout the trip because of it. She remembers Duggan - sweet, hopeless, foolishly violent Duggan - and hopes that he resolved whatever issues he was so clearly carrying around. She remembers that she was happy, but she can’t remember what that feels like. And she thinks she was in love, just a little bit. Just a lot.
She went back to Paris herself, once. After E-Space and before the Presidency, she made it clear that she needed a holiday. She supposes she naively wanted to recapture her lost youth. In the end, she got the dates wrong and ended up in the middle of a revolution. She’d sat on the sidelines and watched as they executed the rulers, knitting a scarf because it was cold and she missed the Doctor. Looking back on it, she should have paid closer attention. Decapitation would be faster than this.
She’s dying. She can feel each breath hurt more, imperceptibly, the pain gets just a little worse each day. She’s not sure what she has left to live for, except that she should be the last one standing. She should be the one who feels what it’s like to be the only Time Lord in the universe, to know that it’s all her fault and to hate herself for it. And then she can let the blackness take her, but not before it hurts. The Looms were the first to be destroyed. She didn’t mention to anyone that there was supposed to have been a child, that she was going to stand down, get out whilst she still could, have a life. It’s too late now, but stupidly she wants to tell the Doctor. He’d been a father, once upon a time, he’d have understood. She wonders if he’d have forgiven her, though, for giving the order that destroyed them, that wiped out the entire next generation of the Time Lords. Maybe one day she’ll be able to tell him, if she can find him in the ruins of what used to be her home.
She’d seen him privately, once, and asked him if he had any ideas. She must have been desperate. He’d shaken his head sadly and said “I just wanted to see you.” He reached out to pull her close and she pushed him away because the President of Gallifrey doesn’t cry on the shoulder of the man that she tells herself she doesn’t love.