Fic: Predestination Paradox
Title: Predestination Paradox
Rating: G
Summary: The sort of thing that was meant to happen. (Two/Romana)
A/N: I cannot write New Who fic without bringing in Old Who canon somehow and now I cannot write Old Who fic without bringing in New Who canon. I find this...annoying. Hrrm.
Predestination Paradox
The lonely figure on the pebble beach, wrapped in robes that look faintly ridiculous in this place, this time.
The Doctor cannot ignore her.
“I saw you on the hilltop,” she says, not bothering to turn around. “You were gazing at the sky.”
“It’s a very pretty day,” he replies. Close, but not too close. Simply running away has always got him out of far more trouble than any real escape plan. Sometimes instinct is perfectly, inconspicuously right.
“Wrong direction for Gallifrey.” She has a stone in her hand: a smooth, round thing.
“I wasn’t looking-”
“Of course you weren’t.” A flick of her wrist sends the stone skimming across the water. He counts five jumps before it sinks. “Your shot.”
They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t even bother to speak to him before they snatched him away.
So he picks up a not at all perfectly round pebble and throws.
Three jumps.
“I’m out of practice.”
She picks another stone, places it in his hand, carefully avoids touching his skin with her own.
Her fingers are long and pale. Precise. He glances at her face and sees a smile. “Wrong shape,” she says.
He skims the stone. Equals her five jumps. His smile - and the clap of delight - evaporates as he turns to face her. “You didn’t come all this way just to play games though.”
“But it’s very relaxing, don’t you think?”
“I think that you’re being a very effective distraction.” Still he makes no move to leave.
She shrugs. “As you like. But I came here to talk to you, Doctor. Not your friends.”
“If you’ve-”
“I couldn’t do anything,” she tells him. “Even if I wanted to. Things are rather complicated at home just now.”
His eyes are bright and sharper than they look. “Who are you?”
“Romana.” The name is unfamiliar, but there’s a dignity in the way she pronounces the vowels. “We’re friends.”
“Not yet.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I didn’t want to speak to him. I wanted to see you before…”
“Before?”
“Before you lost your fear.” The sadness lasts only a moment, and he sees her reach for other memories, sees the smile tugging at her lips as she says, “When I first knew you, you were more a force of nature than anything else.”
“Well, that’s…actually that’s not very nice at all. Sounds rather destructive.”
“You did have a knack for getting things done. You still did, the last time I saw you.”
“Yes, well, I’m not doing too badly just now either, thank you very much.”
“But you’re afraid.” Her voice chills him.
“They find me then, don’t they?”
“Of course they do. But not until you want them to.”
“I don’t think you’re meant to tell me that.” He doesn’t bother to point out that he really wasn’t meant to ask either.
“I suppose not. But then I’m not meant to be here at all.” She turns away from the lake, finally facing him. “You’ve always been the most terrible influence on me.”
“I won’t apologise, since you do have me at a distinct disadvantage.”
“Not as much as you think.”
“Whatever’s happened, I don’t think running away is the answer.” Unless it's him that's running away, but he always goes back when there’s something be fixed, so it’s a very different sort of running away to jumping back in time to a deserted beach and skimming stones with someone you’re not supposed to have met yet.
“I am not running away,” she insists. “I just needed some time for myself before… and I wanted to speak to you.” She smiles. “You’ve always been our first line of defence, whether you knew it or not.” Her voice is light, but the sound is not reflected in her eyes.
“It’s worse than I think, isn’t it?”
She nods. “I don’t know what else we can do; I don’t know what else I can do.” She sighs, her eyes suddenly looking at the sky. “I think you’ve forgotten us, Doctor, but we need your help.”
His people have a knack for missing the obvious, so he says, “Then why not ask me?”
“I thought it might make more of an impression if I mentioned it now.” She can’t meet his eyes. “And even if we could find you, the relative you, it would be too late.”
The words replay inside his head and bits and pieces fit together, forming a vague picture. A picture that isn’t nearly vague enough, and he suddenly finds himself quite incensed, quite angry. “You know what you’ve done?”
“Oh yes.” She turns away, begins to walk up the back, pebbles clacking under her feet.
He has to forget what he’s heard, and he has to remember he has to forget, but meanwhile he moves to catch up with her, “Do you really imagine it will change anything?” Later. He’ll forget later. The memory’s such a delicate thing and he does tend to be somewhat absent-minded. Even about the important things.
Especially about the important things.
A slight shrug. “I don’t know. I had to try. You see, you were always our last line of defence too. Besides, you started it.”
“Don’t!” He stops, slams his hands over his ears, lets her pull his arms back down when she stops speaking.
She leans in close, and he can feel her breath against his neck. “And you’ll finish it,” she whispers into his ear.
He turns his head, meets her eyes and they’re close. Far too close. “You can’t blame me for things I haven’t done yet. That’s not fair.”
“Time is relative,” she reminds him as they reach the base of the cliff, begin to follow its path along the beach.
“Besides, I’m sure that I had my reasons,” he says, feeling some belated loyalty to his future self. “Very good reasons.”
“I’m quite sure you did. But you usually find reasons to justify meddling, not avoid it.”
“You might not be changing anything by being here. You could have tried this already and set yourself up in a nasty little loop,” he points out.
“I suppose I could have.” There’s a hollow in the cliff face now, not quite big enough to be called a cave. “In which case, you needn’t worry at all.”
“Or you could have caused…” He stares into the hollow, notes the burnt out fire and thin blanket and little tinder box. “You could have caused whatever it is you’re so worried about…” he trails off.
“Oh, possible, but highly improbable. Unlike you, I do my research.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Time is relative,” she tells him again.
“You did run away.”
“So I did.”
“Romana…” It’s the first time he says her name, and he catches the flicker of her eyes that are definitely not looking at him. “You can’t stay here.”
“I know that.” She sits by the unlit fire, folds her hands neatly on her lap. “I really was waiting for you, but I began to think you’d never come, that I’d made a mistake and then…it was easier to stay, to wait. To pretend that all the universe was as peaceful and simple as this. I don’t think I was going to go back, but now here you are.”
She waves a hand, invites him to sit. It’s not quite regal, but there are definite undertones and he can’t decide if she knows that and is trying to goad him or if she’s more like the rest of them than he had thought.
He sits.
Her hand is small and pale and reaches out to touch his fingers. He can feel the fear in her flesh, and clasps his hand around hers because it’s just a small, compassionate gesture, and it’s the small things that matter the most.
Like tiny details about the future one time traveller accidentally-on-purpose lets slip to another.
“I don’t know what I’m going back too,” she says.
And not because she’s a beautiful woman, though she undoubtedly is. Not because he knows the risk she must have taken to come here, risks worse than the ones he took each and every time he slowed down. Not because she was soft and so impossibly familiar and her eyes and thoughts were so close he could hear her hearts beating out of time with his own. Because…
He knows her. And it doesn’t matter that this is too early for him, and she is so much sharper than she should be. There’s unnatural ice in her expression, and all the answers to questions she knows he can’t ask.
Still, he knows her.
Time moves backwards as well as forwards. Fluid and serene, for the moment, and he listens. Hears the faint echoes of the future.
Kisses her.
He’s never met her before and he knows she’s kissing him goodbye. Her skin is as cool as his own, her mouth is soft and open and he pulls her close. Protective, though he knows he can protect her from nothing; comforting, though he knows he has to leave her and soon.
“Give me another option,” she whispers, pulling away, leaning her forehead against his.
And because he sometimes finds discretion to be the better part of valour, “The coward’s way out?”
“We can’t just run away.”
“You won’t have to.” Already his mind is filled with scenarios and possibilities and impossibilities. So many more things he has to remember to forget. And he will, he really, really will. Because he’s the Doctor, and he’s always found a way, whether he really knows what’s going on or not. He brought about the final end of the Daleks; he could stop whatever was destroying his people too.
It would be so easy to slip the knowledge somewhere discrete at the back of his mind.
But he can’t. He knows he can’t.
Meddling in the tapestry of Time was the sort of insanity that was liable to destroy your own timeline - neatly eliminating the problem before it starts - but tug at a thread, just a little, and -
He hasn’t even met her yet.
“You’ll forget,” she says, her voice so quiet it’s almost lost in the silence of the beach. He doesn’t look at her. She closes her eyes. Rest her head against his shoulder.
“I hope I do,” he tells her.
And he wonders whether or not he’s lying.
Rating: G
Summary: The sort of thing that was meant to happen. (Two/Romana)
A/N: I cannot write New Who fic without bringing in Old Who canon somehow and now I cannot write Old Who fic without bringing in New Who canon. I find this...annoying. Hrrm.
Predestination Paradox
The lonely figure on the pebble beach, wrapped in robes that look faintly ridiculous in this place, this time.
The Doctor cannot ignore her.
“I saw you on the hilltop,” she says, not bothering to turn around. “You were gazing at the sky.”
“It’s a very pretty day,” he replies. Close, but not too close. Simply running away has always got him out of far more trouble than any real escape plan. Sometimes instinct is perfectly, inconspicuously right.
“Wrong direction for Gallifrey.” She has a stone in her hand: a smooth, round thing.
“I wasn’t looking-”
“Of course you weren’t.” A flick of her wrist sends the stone skimming across the water. He counts five jumps before it sinks. “Your shot.”
They wouldn’t do that. They wouldn’t even bother to speak to him before they snatched him away.
So he picks up a not at all perfectly round pebble and throws.
Three jumps.
“I’m out of practice.”
She picks another stone, places it in his hand, carefully avoids touching his skin with her own.
Her fingers are long and pale. Precise. He glances at her face and sees a smile. “Wrong shape,” she says.
He skims the stone. Equals her five jumps. His smile - and the clap of delight - evaporates as he turns to face her. “You didn’t come all this way just to play games though.”
“But it’s very relaxing, don’t you think?”
“I think that you’re being a very effective distraction.” Still he makes no move to leave.
She shrugs. “As you like. But I came here to talk to you, Doctor. Not your friends.”
“If you’ve-”
“I couldn’t do anything,” she tells him. “Even if I wanted to. Things are rather complicated at home just now.”
His eyes are bright and sharper than they look. “Who are you?”
“Romana.” The name is unfamiliar, but there’s a dignity in the way she pronounces the vowels. “We’re friends.”
“Not yet.”
“No,” she agrees. “But I didn’t want to speak to him. I wanted to see you before…”
“Before?”
“Before you lost your fear.” The sadness lasts only a moment, and he sees her reach for other memories, sees the smile tugging at her lips as she says, “When I first knew you, you were more a force of nature than anything else.”
“Well, that’s…actually that’s not very nice at all. Sounds rather destructive.”
“You did have a knack for getting things done. You still did, the last time I saw you.”
“Yes, well, I’m not doing too badly just now either, thank you very much.”
“But you’re afraid.” Her voice chills him.
“They find me then, don’t they?”
“Of course they do. But not until you want them to.”
“I don’t think you’re meant to tell me that.” He doesn’t bother to point out that he really wasn’t meant to ask either.
“I suppose not. But then I’m not meant to be here at all.” She turns away from the lake, finally facing him. “You’ve always been the most terrible influence on me.”
“I won’t apologise, since you do have me at a distinct disadvantage.”
“Not as much as you think.”
“Whatever’s happened, I don’t think running away is the answer.” Unless it's him that's running away, but he always goes back when there’s something be fixed, so it’s a very different sort of running away to jumping back in time to a deserted beach and skimming stones with someone you’re not supposed to have met yet.
“I am not running away,” she insists. “I just needed some time for myself before… and I wanted to speak to you.” She smiles. “You’ve always been our first line of defence, whether you knew it or not.” Her voice is light, but the sound is not reflected in her eyes.
“It’s worse than I think, isn’t it?”
She nods. “I don’t know what else we can do; I don’t know what else I can do.” She sighs, her eyes suddenly looking at the sky. “I think you’ve forgotten us, Doctor, but we need your help.”
His people have a knack for missing the obvious, so he says, “Then why not ask me?”
“I thought it might make more of an impression if I mentioned it now.” She can’t meet his eyes. “And even if we could find you, the relative you, it would be too late.”
The words replay inside his head and bits and pieces fit together, forming a vague picture. A picture that isn’t nearly vague enough, and he suddenly finds himself quite incensed, quite angry. “You know what you’ve done?”
“Oh yes.” She turns away, begins to walk up the back, pebbles clacking under her feet.
He has to forget what he’s heard, and he has to remember he has to forget, but meanwhile he moves to catch up with her, “Do you really imagine it will change anything?” Later. He’ll forget later. The memory’s such a delicate thing and he does tend to be somewhat absent-minded. Even about the important things.
Especially about the important things.
A slight shrug. “I don’t know. I had to try. You see, you were always our last line of defence too. Besides, you started it.”
“Don’t!” He stops, slams his hands over his ears, lets her pull his arms back down when she stops speaking.
She leans in close, and he can feel her breath against his neck. “And you’ll finish it,” she whispers into his ear.
He turns his head, meets her eyes and they’re close. Far too close. “You can’t blame me for things I haven’t done yet. That’s not fair.”
“Time is relative,” she reminds him as they reach the base of the cliff, begin to follow its path along the beach.
“Besides, I’m sure that I had my reasons,” he says, feeling some belated loyalty to his future self. “Very good reasons.”
“I’m quite sure you did. But you usually find reasons to justify meddling, not avoid it.”
“You might not be changing anything by being here. You could have tried this already and set yourself up in a nasty little loop,” he points out.
“I suppose I could have.” There’s a hollow in the cliff face now, not quite big enough to be called a cave. “In which case, you needn’t worry at all.”
“Or you could have caused…” He stares into the hollow, notes the burnt out fire and thin blanket and little tinder box. “You could have caused whatever it is you’re so worried about…” he trails off.
“Oh, possible, but highly improbable. Unlike you, I do my research.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Time is relative,” she tells him again.
“You did run away.”
“So I did.”
“Romana…” It’s the first time he says her name, and he catches the flicker of her eyes that are definitely not looking at him. “You can’t stay here.”
“I know that.” She sits by the unlit fire, folds her hands neatly on her lap. “I really was waiting for you, but I began to think you’d never come, that I’d made a mistake and then…it was easier to stay, to wait. To pretend that all the universe was as peaceful and simple as this. I don’t think I was going to go back, but now here you are.”
She waves a hand, invites him to sit. It’s not quite regal, but there are definite undertones and he can’t decide if she knows that and is trying to goad him or if she’s more like the rest of them than he had thought.
He sits.
Her hand is small and pale and reaches out to touch his fingers. He can feel the fear in her flesh, and clasps his hand around hers because it’s just a small, compassionate gesture, and it’s the small things that matter the most.
Like tiny details about the future one time traveller accidentally-on-purpose lets slip to another.
“I don’t know what I’m going back too,” she says.
And not because she’s a beautiful woman, though she undoubtedly is. Not because he knows the risk she must have taken to come here, risks worse than the ones he took each and every time he slowed down. Not because she was soft and so impossibly familiar and her eyes and thoughts were so close he could hear her hearts beating out of time with his own. Because…
He knows her. And it doesn’t matter that this is too early for him, and she is so much sharper than she should be. There’s unnatural ice in her expression, and all the answers to questions she knows he can’t ask.
Still, he knows her.
Time moves backwards as well as forwards. Fluid and serene, for the moment, and he listens. Hears the faint echoes of the future.
Kisses her.
He’s never met her before and he knows she’s kissing him goodbye. Her skin is as cool as his own, her mouth is soft and open and he pulls her close. Protective, though he knows he can protect her from nothing; comforting, though he knows he has to leave her and soon.
“Give me another option,” she whispers, pulling away, leaning her forehead against his.
And because he sometimes finds discretion to be the better part of valour, “The coward’s way out?”
“We can’t just run away.”
“You won’t have to.” Already his mind is filled with scenarios and possibilities and impossibilities. So many more things he has to remember to forget. And he will, he really, really will. Because he’s the Doctor, and he’s always found a way, whether he really knows what’s going on or not. He brought about the final end of the Daleks; he could stop whatever was destroying his people too.
It would be so easy to slip the knowledge somewhere discrete at the back of his mind.
But he can’t. He knows he can’t.
Meddling in the tapestry of Time was the sort of insanity that was liable to destroy your own timeline - neatly eliminating the problem before it starts - but tug at a thread, just a little, and -
He hasn’t even met her yet.
“You’ll forget,” she says, her voice so quiet it’s almost lost in the silence of the beach. He doesn’t look at her. She closes her eyes. Rest her head against his shoulder.
“I hope I do,” he tells her.
And he wonders whether or not he’s lying.