The Quickest Route
Title: The Quickest Route
Characters/Pairing Four/Romana
Rating: PG-ish
Spoilers: Logopolis
Summary: The TARDIS has an infinite number of rooms, but sometimes a certain room can be run across just once too often.
Author's Note: Written for the "Rooms in the TARDIS" challenge at tardis_quickie. Because those scenes in Logopolis just kinda demand it. And because, strangely enough, I don't have the slightest inclination to turn against my original OTP in favour of my new one, or vice versa. Because goddammit, if the Doctor can love them both, then so can I! Take that!
The first time he ran across her bedroom by accident he was just looking for a spanner. He vaguely remembered having seen just the thing in a tiny, seldom used chamber tucked away in a corner of the TARDIS. Naturally he took the quickest route, though it led him straight past her door. He stopped abruptly, the sudden wrench of pain catching him completely by surprise. The Doctor swallowed hard, put the fleeting sensation out of his mind, and continued on his search for the tool cupboard.
The second time it happened, it was less of a surprise, but the impact was greater. It was the middle of the night - or what he arbitrarily called night, anyway - and he couldn’t sleep. Nothing terribly unusual or bothersome in that, but this one time he was unreasonably bothered. So he got up and prowled the corridors, looking into rooms he hadn’t seen in years or possibly centuries. A dressing room here, a Victorian parlour there, a narrow room with nothing but tables holding boxes of mostly unsorted mineral samples from various planets, even a dusty exercise room the Doctor couldn’t remember having seen before. He whiled away several hours delightedly exploring all the nooks and crannies he found.
Just before morning - or what he arbitrarily called morning - he tired of the pursuit and decided that breakfast was what he really wanted. He took the quickest route to the food cupboard, which was in the same section of the ship as the living quarters. This time, when he reached Romana’s room, he stood just outside the door, fingers lightly caressing its surface. He started to go in, but changed his mind. His imagination was too good, and he could feel her presence all around him. The sense of loss was almost overwhelming, like a giant black hole somewhere inside him, threatening to suck him into its depths.
The Doctor headed straight for the console room, his appetite quite gone.
The next time he passed her door he was in a hurry and didn’t stop. He gave it a quick glance out of the corner of his eye, but that was all. He never even connected his sudden vague, empty feeling with the incident at all.
Only once did he ever go there deliberately.
The Doctor took a sudden fancy to the idea of changing back to one of his older scarves, then couldn’t remember where he’d last seen the blasted thing. The wardrobe room was the obvious place to look, of course, but he was certain he wasn’t that tidy. The old control room, perhaps? No, he distinctly remembered Romana having taken that scarf off him and looping the new one around his neck, complimenting his newly matched ensemble in the way only a woman who had chosen the whole thing could do. And she’d made him look at the effect in her bedroom mirror, he knew that, so maybe there was a chance the scarf was still in her room.
It wasn’t there, of course, because Romana was very tidy, always. She would never have allowed an article of shabby clothing to just remain where it had fallen. Heaven forbid. But the Doctor got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed just in case. As he got to his feet again, his hand rested for a moment on the immaculate white coverlet. It was so dainty and feminine. So very her. He’d always felt oversized and ridiculously out of place in that bed. But she’d been there, too, and that made it all right.
Now, of course, she wasn’t there, and nothing was all right.
The last time he wandered across her room by accident, he was giving Adric a sort of tour of the TARDIS. This corridor was simply the quickest route back to the console room, same as always. And Romana’s room was right there, same as always. He pushed open the door, gazing around at the familiar setting yet again, feeling that same vague empty sensation once more.
“I suppose we’re going to miss Romana,” he said, with the air of a man making an unexpected discovery.
Very shortly after that, the TARDIS developed an urgent situation requiring the immediate diminishment of a certain amount of mass, and the Doctor did the only sensible thing and jettisoned the one room he could be absolutely certain would never be needed.
After that, there were no more surprises waiting for him every time he decided to take the quickest route.
Characters/Pairing Four/Romana
Rating: PG-ish
Spoilers: Logopolis
Summary: The TARDIS has an infinite number of rooms, but sometimes a certain room can be run across just once too often.
Author's Note: Written for the "Rooms in the TARDIS" challenge at tardis_quickie. Because those scenes in Logopolis just kinda demand it. And because, strangely enough, I don't have the slightest inclination to turn against my original OTP in favour of my new one, or vice versa. Because goddammit, if the Doctor can love them both, then so can I! Take that!
The first time he ran across her bedroom by accident he was just looking for a spanner. He vaguely remembered having seen just the thing in a tiny, seldom used chamber tucked away in a corner of the TARDIS. Naturally he took the quickest route, though it led him straight past her door. He stopped abruptly, the sudden wrench of pain catching him completely by surprise. The Doctor swallowed hard, put the fleeting sensation out of his mind, and continued on his search for the tool cupboard.
The second time it happened, it was less of a surprise, but the impact was greater. It was the middle of the night - or what he arbitrarily called night, anyway - and he couldn’t sleep. Nothing terribly unusual or bothersome in that, but this one time he was unreasonably bothered. So he got up and prowled the corridors, looking into rooms he hadn’t seen in years or possibly centuries. A dressing room here, a Victorian parlour there, a narrow room with nothing but tables holding boxes of mostly unsorted mineral samples from various planets, even a dusty exercise room the Doctor couldn’t remember having seen before. He whiled away several hours delightedly exploring all the nooks and crannies he found.
Just before morning - or what he arbitrarily called morning - he tired of the pursuit and decided that breakfast was what he really wanted. He took the quickest route to the food cupboard, which was in the same section of the ship as the living quarters. This time, when he reached Romana’s room, he stood just outside the door, fingers lightly caressing its surface. He started to go in, but changed his mind. His imagination was too good, and he could feel her presence all around him. The sense of loss was almost overwhelming, like a giant black hole somewhere inside him, threatening to suck him into its depths.
The Doctor headed straight for the console room, his appetite quite gone.
The next time he passed her door he was in a hurry and didn’t stop. He gave it a quick glance out of the corner of his eye, but that was all. He never even connected his sudden vague, empty feeling with the incident at all.
Only once did he ever go there deliberately.
The Doctor took a sudden fancy to the idea of changing back to one of his older scarves, then couldn’t remember where he’d last seen the blasted thing. The wardrobe room was the obvious place to look, of course, but he was certain he wasn’t that tidy. The old control room, perhaps? No, he distinctly remembered Romana having taken that scarf off him and looping the new one around his neck, complimenting his newly matched ensemble in the way only a woman who had chosen the whole thing could do. And she’d made him look at the effect in her bedroom mirror, he knew that, so maybe there was a chance the scarf was still in her room.
It wasn’t there, of course, because Romana was very tidy, always. She would never have allowed an article of shabby clothing to just remain where it had fallen. Heaven forbid. But the Doctor got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed just in case. As he got to his feet again, his hand rested for a moment on the immaculate white coverlet. It was so dainty and feminine. So very her. He’d always felt oversized and ridiculously out of place in that bed. But she’d been there, too, and that made it all right.
Now, of course, she wasn’t there, and nothing was all right.
The last time he wandered across her room by accident, he was giving Adric a sort of tour of the TARDIS. This corridor was simply the quickest route back to the console room, same as always. And Romana’s room was right there, same as always. He pushed open the door, gazing around at the familiar setting yet again, feeling that same vague empty sensation once more.
“I suppose we’re going to miss Romana,” he said, with the air of a man making an unexpected discovery.
Very shortly after that, the TARDIS developed an urgent situation requiring the immediate diminishment of a certain amount of mass, and the Doctor did the only sensible thing and jettisoned the one room he could be absolutely certain would never be needed.
After that, there were no more surprises waiting for him every time he decided to take the quickest route.