Fic: Memories and Mesmers
Presenting my first proper ficathon entry!
Title: Memories and Mesmers
Word count: 7000+
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Liz Shaw/Romana II
Beta: Many thanks to bytheseaside for reassurance and being so lovely about the last-minute rush :o)
Summary: She's a sceptical scientist missing some memories. She's a street-smart Time Lady who's rather good at cards. They fight... pirates.
Notes: Written for calapine for the dw_femslash ficathon.
Cross-posted to: dw_femslash, dw_slash, dwfiction and who_otp.
Romana had hoped that being locked up in dark and dingy cells was to be a thing of the past, to be regarded as an occupational hazard when one’s occupation happened to be accompanying a certain toothy troublemaker around time and space. Her stay in E-Space had given her a reprieve from occasional imprisonment, and since returning to N-Space she had been lucky enough to avoid it. Until now, that is. Granted, she hadn’t been back very long, so it was really only a matter of time. Perhaps being a magnet for trouble had worn off on her.
It was probably rather lucky that she had grown used to being shackled to walls, even if it had been a while since she’d last had the pleasure. Diverting the flow of blood against gravity to elevated limbs was much easier when one had had plenty of practice. Unfortunately, her companion did not share this ability.
“You know, this isn’t very easy when your fingers have gone all tingly.”
As it was only semi-dark, Romana could see Liz fumbling frustratedly with the manacles around her wrists as a high-pitched humming filled the cell. The large metallic hairclip she held in one hand clinked as she impatiently tapped it against the cuff, until the heavy metal finally fell loose with a clang. With a sigh of relief and then one of resignation, she started on the other hand.
“Aren’t you glad now that I gave you that hairclip?”
“Oh very. Hardly a day’s gone past when I haven’t thought, ‘I hope I get manacled to a wall soon so I can try out this new gadget.’”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Romana told her with a smile.
“Oh, there’s every need, Romana.” With a final whine and clunk, the second cuff fell open. “Ah, that’s better.” She rubbed at her wrists and winced. “Blood’s rushing back.”
“Hurry up, I only made one of those.”
Standing up stiffly, Liz stretched before crossing the small cell and standing in front of her friend, looking down at her with a smile on her face.
“Now, this looks quite familiar, don’t you think?”
Romana arched an eyebrow at her, not without amusement. It was true that she hadn’t been shackled to a wall in a good long while, but that’s not to say that cuffs had been completely absent from her recent activities.
“Liz, perhaps this isn’t the best situation. Pirate spaceships aren’t the comfiest of places.”
“I wasn’t serious,” Liz replied with a laugh, crouching down to put her gadget to work on Romana’s cuffs. Her skirt rode up as she did so, affording Romana a better view of her companion’s legs. Her attention was noticed, drawing another short laugh and a much more telling blush.
***
“You’re human!”
The disbelieving whisper cut through her foul mood, and her head whipped up to stare at the woman addressing her.
“How can you be human? Your species hasn’t even left their own solar system yet!”
Liz shook off her shock long enough to answer her.
“How do you know I’m human?”
“I’d recognise one of you lot anywhere!” The woman beckoned her forward and Liz stood, taking the few painful steps across her prison cell and holding onto the bars to keep her balance. A pale, slender hand circled her wrist gently then moved up to touch her cheek. Unable to help herself, Liz turned her face towards the contact; the first kind touch since she’d left Earth.
“How long have you been kept here?” the woman asked, delicate fingers moving softly on her face, checking her eyes.
“Not sure. Maybe a fortnight.”
“How did you get here?”
Liz closed her eyes and sagged against the bars. “That’s a long story,” she sighed. “Involving an alien invasion. One that had no qualms about taking prisoners. Well, I think I’m more of a ‘specimen’, actually.”
The woman rolled her eyes as she hunted through her pockets. “Those bloody Feli-Amru, thinking they can just take people from whatever planet they choose,” she muttered, drawing out a slender pen-like device and aiming it at the door-lock.
“What’s that?”
“Sonic screwdriver. Now come on,” she urged, taking Liz’s hand and tugging it gently. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Something nagged at her mind in an irritatingly vague fashion, but she was so muddled from the procedures she had endured that she couldn’t work out what it was trying to tell her.
“Who are you?” she asked as the smaller woman peered round a corner then hurried her along. She struggled to keep up, her feet stumbling beneath her as her vision swam.
“Romanadvoratrelundar,” she replied. “But you can call me Romana if it’s easier.”
***
The corridor outside the cell was just as dark and dingy, and although Romana had no difficulties, the lack of visibility did not lend itself to stealth on Liz’s part. There were no pirates within earshot, fortunately enough, so her stubbed toes went unnoticed by anyone except Romana, who took on the task of systematically shushing her as they made their cautious way along the corridor.
They had barely gone twenty yards when Liz tugged on her arm. She turned and saw that her companion was peering through the slat in a nearby door as she beckoned her over.
“What is it?” she hissed, glancing about cautiously as she joined Liz at the door.
“There’s people in here,” Liz whispered.
“More prisoners?”
“Think so.”
Romana glanced inside and took out her sonic screwdriver again; the specially designed lock-picking hairclip was only good for small locks like handcuffs.
As she aimed at the digital lock and switched settings to find the right frequency (the ship seemed to use an odd mixture of advanced and primitive systems), voices began to issue from inside the room.
“Are those awful pirates back?”
“I don’t think so, Highness, doesn’t sound like them.”
“Who’s there?”
Rolling her eyes, Romana motioned to Liz, who quickly moved back to the slat and hushed them.
“We’ll have you out in a minute, just keep your voices down!” she urged.
“How dare you speak to Her Royal Highness like that?” came one of the voices, and Liz winced at the volume, casting worried glances up and down the corridor.
“Calm down, Orval, I think the situation calls for a breach of protocol, don’t you?” said a female voice, undoubtedly the aforementioned Royal Highness. At least she was keeping her voice down, Romana thought as the lock finally opened.
Turning to Liz, she held out her hand with a smile. Liz frowned at her for a second, before catching on and releasing her hair from the hairclip once more. She handed it over as Romana swung the door ajar and whispered, “Keep an eye out,” before slipping inside.
***
“So you’re not human, then?” Liz whispered as they crept along another corridor.
“Of course not,” her rescuer said with a light laugh.
“Then where are you from?”
“Gallifrey.” With a stifled gasp, Romana stepped back from the next corner and tugged Liz against the wall, holding up a hand for silence. Her other hand was still holding Liz’s as they hid from whatever was around the corner, the slim fingers cool against her skin.
When she motioned for them to move again, Liz echoed her. “Gallifrey?” Romana nodded. Liz’s muddled mind was sorting through its memories, but they were choppy, with bits missing. The last two weeks were all too clear, but for several years before that, several important events were missing. The last Christmas with her family, her thirtieth birthday, the birth of her nephew. She knew she had moved away from Cambridge at some point and then moved back a year later, but she couldn’t remember why. She had the unshakeable feeling that something important and exciting - or at least dramatic - had happened in that year, but she was at a loss to think what it could’ve been.
She was about to ask Romana about Gallifrey in the hopes of shaking loose a memory or two, because she was sure that she’d heard the name before, but they had come to a halt before she even opened her mouth. They were standing in front of a tall, grey cabinet, one that looked as though it might hold stacks of paperwork or folder upon folder of personnel files - if it were on Earth. There was no signal for silence this time, but Liz waited without a sound as Romana lifted a chain from around her neck and grasped the key hanging from it. She slid it into the lock at the top right-hand corner of the cabinet, but paused before turning it, turning to say patiently, “This might be a bit hard to take in, but trust me, it's not an illusion.”
Liz peered at the cabinet suspiciously, wondering what on earth she meant. She’d always been a fairly sceptical person, but being abducted by aliens would undoubtedly open one’s mind a little.
The key turned in the lock, and the front of the cabinet swung open, revealing nothing but darkness. Romana pulled her inside and, too surprised to protest against being dragged into a metal box that shouldn’t have been big enough for one, Liz stumbled in after her.
***
The cell was just as dark and dingy as the one she and Liz had been kept in. Three faces looked up at her in varying states of relief and confusion, and she moved over to the dark-haired young woman first.
As the high frequencies of the cunningly-disguised gadget filled the cell, the woman peered at her through the gloom. She wasn’t very old, maybe a few years out of her adolescence, but even chained to a wall she had an air of dignity.
“Your Highness.” Romana gave her a friendly smile as the second cuff fell open and she helped the young woman to her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, shaking Romana’s hand gratefully. “They took you captive too, then? I wondered what had happened to you. I thought you would have escaped in your craft.”
“The Jovian caught us before I could even get the key out of my pocket,” Romana told her with a wry smile. “Sorry for the intrusion, by the way. I didn’t know we’d be landing on an imperial ship. I use a coordinate randomiser - it’s more fun that way.”
She grinned and moved over to the two men to start on their manacles. The woman went with her so as not to have to raise her voice.
“We hardly spoke on board my ship. I didn’t get the chance to ask your name.”
“Romana. And yourself?” The heavy-set man she was freeing glared at her in a way that made it perfectly clear to her that she was not addressing Her Royal Highness in the appropriate manner.
“I am Princess Noemi, of Aneth.”
With a clunk, the cuff Romana had been working on fell open and she turned to stare at the young woman beside her. “Aneth?” she repeated. Princess Noemi nodded.
“You know of our planet?”
“Know of it?” Romana laughed. “I helped save it once. Sort of.” Ignoring the astonished stares of the two men, she continued, “How long has it been since your people were freed from the Skonnans?”
The princess gaped at her for a moment before recovering her composure and replying, “Almost eight generations. How could you have been involved in those events? You can’t possibly be old enough!”
Romana stifled her laughter, holding back the sudden urge to reveal her true age to the young princess. “My craft travels in time,” she told her instead, seeing the comprehension dawn in her eyes.
The man whose manacles she was now working on, a tall, fair-haired individual, spoke up. “You mean you’re one of the travellers who blew up the Nimon Power Complex?”
Romana frowned, casting her mind back. “Well, that wasn’t me,” she confessed. “But I had a hand in the whole affair.”
Once uncuffed, the tall man stood up and gave her a grateful smile. The heavy-set man had clambered to his feet a minute or two ago and was hovering by the princess’s shoulder protectively.
“Your escort?” Romana enquired.
“Oh, yes,” Noemi replied, throwing the man a quick smile. “This is Orval, my personal guard. And Tuan, my pilot.” The tall man acknowledged his name with a smile.
Nodding, Romana ushered them to the door.
“All clear?” she whispered.
“Clear,” Liz replied, holding the door open for them. Indicating to the Anethans to keep quiet, Romana led them down the corridor, relying on engineering logic to tell her where the cargo bay was most likely to be. When she had been taken captive, she had heard one of the pirates ordering the TARDIS to be brought with them, so heading to where the booty was kept was the best course of action for getting off the pirate ship.
Being right a lot of the time came in handy, especially in situations like this. Her TARDIS sat at the side of the room, disguised as a tall mahogany wardrobe. Not an obvious choice, but still a lot less conspicuous than some.
She felt slightly uneasy as she dug the key out of her pocket and approached the wardrobe; when a stun pistol whined into life behind her, she realised why. Spinning around, she came face to face with the large Jovian who had taken them captive.
Princess Noemi gave a cry of fear and Orval stepped in front of her, shielding her with the bulk of his body. Tuan took a few nervous steps backwards, while Liz inched closer to Romana. Without looking at her directly, Romana shook her head very slightly. Liz stopped inching, and instead took hold of Tuan’s arm and tugged the startled pilot in her direction.
“Where d’you think you’re goin’?” the Jovian grunted, the lights from his stun pistol reflecting faintly on his damp purplish skin.
“I believe we were escaping,” Romana said matter-of-factly. She put away her key and calmly folded her hands behind her back. “But you caught us! Well done.” She gave him a disarming smile, while moving her hands through a few insistent gestures. Liz carefully and discreetly slid her free hand into her pocket.
The Jovian glowered at her and took a step forward. Romana clicked her fingers. At this signal, Liz pulled the spare key from her pocket and made a dive for the TARDIS, pulling Tuan with her as she went. Tuan was smart enough to do the same to Noemi, no matter the impropriety of grabbing one’s princess roughly by the elbow and yanking her backwards.
Romana stayed exactly where she was, standing perfectly still, smiling. This had the handy effect of confusing the Jovian enough that it took a second or two for him to realise that most of the prisoners were getting away. With a shout, he fired his stun pistol towards the TARDIS. Orval turned, yelling in shock when he saw that his princess was unconscious on the floor. Tuan had lost his grip on her when she had been stunned, and Liz had dragged him inside the TARDIS. Romana gave their attacker a cheery wave, distracting his attention long enough for Orval to rush forward, scoop Princess Noemi into his large arms and disappear into the TARDIS.
The wardrobe vanished with a smooth whirring sound, and Romana watched it go, a small, proud smile tugging at her lips. As the Jovian stomped towards her with a face like thunder, she held up her hands in surrender and hoped to Rassilon that Liz had understood those hand signals.
***
It felt like someone was pounding on a door in her mind. It was an almost physical sensation that disoriented her as she stared around the room. The hexagonal console covered in switches and levers was so familiar, yet she’d never seen it before. It brought back memories of being fondly frustrated with someone, and of vague worry. She shook her head, putting aside the jumble of remembered emotions to focus on a more pressing matter: the cabinet was bigger inside than it was outside. For some reason, this wasn’t perturbing her as much as it ought to.
“Are you alright?” Romana asked, looking up from the screen on the console. Liz nodded slowly. “I realise it’s a bit overwhelming -”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I just, I remember - well, I don’t, that’s part of the problem - I can almost…” Two words suddenly sprang to her lips, and she mouthed them carefully before saying aloud, “Are you a Time Lord?”
For a long moment, Romana stared at Liz in shock, her hands still on the buttons as the glowing column in the centre of the console rose and fell. Then her lips curved into a knowing smile and she laughed.
“You know the Doctor, don’t you?”
As if hit by a battering ram, the door in her mind gave way.
***
Captain Feno was very nearly the image of your typical galactic buccaneer. He sat across the table from Romana in the ‘interrogation room’ (which seemed to be the dining area), whiskers twitching slightly as he regarded her with interest.
“Tell me, how did you manage to escape from my cells?”
“It wasn’t that difficult,” Romana replied, wanting to fold her arms but her hands were bound to the chair. “You just have to have the right know-how.”
“And you do?”
“Obviously.”
Feno gave her a somewhat sceptical look, his black ears twitching. “For both types of lock?”
Romana rolled her eyes. “It’s not that difficult. Most manual cuffs have padlocks that can easily be picked with the right tools.” She left out the part about the hairclip, just to be safe. “And the digital door lock? Child’s play.”
Against the side wall, the Jovian stood, arms folded, holding his stun pistol conspicuously in one hand. A female cat person with calico colouring and pale green eyes lounged in a chair nearby, smirking.
“Is this your crew?” Romana asked as she glanced between them, unimpressed.
Feno indicated the female in the chair. “Jathani. First mate.”
Romana eyed Jathani with mild contempt, earning herself an angry hiss which made her fight to keep a straight face.
“Qceef.” He nodded to the Jovian, who grunted.
“We’ve met,” Romana replied shortly. “What’s he, then? Hired gun?”
“Pretty much.”
“What about a pilot?” She nodded to the three of them. “You’re all here, who’s flying this thing?”
“That would be me.”
Romana looked around quickly to find the source of the new voice, but there was no-one else in the room.
“That’s Ett. He inhabits the ship.”
“So you knew we were escaping the whole time?” she asked, aiming her question at the ceiling.
“I did.” The voice had an air of smugness to it, the cultured accent only adding to the impression.
“Why didn’t you send Qceef earlier, then?”
“I wanted to let you think you were going to escape. It’s more fun. It’s not my fault if someone else’s reaction time was the cause of the rest of your group escaping.”
“And you, Miss Escape Artist?” Feno interrupted. “What name do you go by?”
She felt like seeing them gape for a moment, so she treated them to her full name. As expected, they all looked taken aback. Even the non-corporeal pilot didn’t say a word, although she wasn’t sure if he was still listening.
“Does that come with a nickname?” asked Jathani, speaking for the first time since she had entered the room. She practically purred as she spoke, in a drawl that would’ve shamed the most refined southern belle.
“Fred.”
Romana thought she heard a slight snickering from overhead, but none of the other pirates seemed to notice the discrepancy.
“Why do you want to know my name, anyway? And I didn’t ask for yours. I’m just a captive, right?”
“Right,” Feno replied, giving her a feral grin. “It’s just good manners to acquaint yourself with your prisoner before you throw her out of an airlock.”
Romana nodded sagely. “I see. The space-faring equivalent of walking the plank.”
“Precisely. You’re clearly difficult to keep restrained, so I have no choice.”
She sat up and looked him straight in the eye. “Would it really be wise to murder an Anethan delegate?” She raised an eyebrow as he stopped grinning, taken aback. “You could end up starting a war, you know.”
Just as she thought she might actually have got away with the barefaced lie, Ett spoke up.
“She’s not Anethan,” he said sharply. “She has two hearts. She’s a Time Lord.”
“Time Lord?” Qceef repeated, frowning warily at Romana.
She could almost hear the eye-roll in the pilot’s voice. “From the planet Gallifrey.” Qceef continued to look confused. “Binary coordinates 1001100 by 02 from - oh, why do I bother?” The voice exhaled frustratedly. “Captain, Jathani, you know the Time Lords, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard of them,” Jathani purred, and Captain Feno nodded, scratching his chin with one claw.
Romana spoke up quickly. “You wouldn’t want to kill a Time Lord either,” she told them. “My people don’t take very kindly to that. They could put your ship in a time loop and effectively remove you from continuity - and I’m not lying this time.”
“She’s not,” Ett added, and she could sense his nervous hostility towards her. “The Time Lords have powers beyond the comprehension of most races. This ship is my body, Captain, I will not see it time-looped.”
Feno and Jathani were exchanging worried glances, clearly as unwilling to be time-looped as Ett was. Qceef still seemed a bit baffled by it all.
“What’ll we do with her, Captain?” Jathani asked.
“You could release me,” Romana suggested, grinning at them - she knew full well she wouldn’t get away that easily.
Feno gave her a look that suggested as much. “And where exactly would I release you to? We’re in the middle of deep space.”
“Good point,” Romana said, sighing as if to admit defeat. “Or it would be, if I didn’t have a way to very easily get off this ship no matter where we are.”
“If you had that, you’d have done it already,” Jathani drawled, inspecting her claws.
Romana tugged at her hands to demonstrate that she was currently bound tightly. She’d been trying to wriggle free during the entire conversation, but her hands were bound separately to either side of the chair, and tied far too tightly to simply slip her hands out. “If my hands were free, of course I could.” An idea quickly took hold, one that would guarantee that her hands were untied. “Look, would you be willing to let me win my freedom?”
Feno frowned at her. “How?”
“I have a pack of cards in my pocket. I bet I can beat you.”
Romana began to smile as she saw the glint in Feno’s eye. Pirates were notoriously bad at refusing challenges; space pirates were no different.
“You win, I’ll stay - you can lock me up or put me to work, I won’t try to escape. I win, I leave alive and unharmed. Deal?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jathani looking worried. “Captain, maybe that’s not such a -”
“Deal! Name your game!” the captain said, eyes flashing.
“By the goddess Santori…” Jathani sighed, covering her face with one furry hand.
***
Concerned blue-grey eyes were looking down on her when she woke, and the pale brow above them was furrowed with worry. A hand steadied her when she tried to sit up, and a glance around her was enough to determine that she was no longer in the console room. It was some sort of medical room - had she passed out? Her head hurt so much, what was going on?
“Easy,” said Romana gently, preventing her from getting up. “You hit your head on the floor when you lost consciousness.”
“Ow,” was the only word Liz could manage. Her head felt very heavy, and she slid back down from her half-sitting position to lie on the flat but comfortable surface beneath her.
Romana smiled sympathetically. “Does this happen a lot?”
Liz shook her head from side to side very slowly, so as not to make the pounding worse. It was normal pounding this time; a headache, not a mental door with -
Gasping with the sudden shock of realisation, Liz felt the urge to sit up, but she lacked the strength.
“What is it?”
“The Doctor!” she managed, fighting back the sensation that she’d been hit with a ton of bricks.
“You knew him?” Romana asked. “Travelled with him?”
“Yes - no. Never travelled. He was stuck.”
Romana’s hand took hers; a gesture of support and comfort. “You don’t have to talk now. Rest, then we’ll talk.”
“You know him,” Liz stated.
Romana nodded, smiling. She pressed a button next to the bed, and Liz felt her eyelids drooping. She tried to keep them open, irrational panic spreading through her, but Romana squeezed her hand gently. “It’s okay. Rest. I’ll be here.”
***
Silence filled the room as the two players stared each other down. The other pirates hovered nearby, looking worried. Their captain had a rather small pile of cards in front of him, while Romana had a large share of the pack and was enjoying being rather smug about it.
Lifting a card from the top of her pile, she held it carefully face down as she held eye contact with Feno. She placed the card face up on the haphazard pile between them, lifted her hand, and they both looked.
Her hand immediately slapped back down again, Feno’s hitting the back of hers a split-second later.
“Snap!” she cried, pulling the cards towards her with a smirk.
He glared at her, pupils narrowing to slits within his yellow eyes. She neatened her new pile of cards between her hands, then picked up the top one and set it down; the Four of Owls.
Feno took one of his and laid it on top of hers. The Six of Deeps.
Romana’s turn; the Hand of Mesmers.
These were Gallifreyan cards, round in shape and two and a half inches in diameter. There were seven suits, and six numbered cards of each plus the face cards, making up a sixty-three card pack. She could see Feno struggling to remember and differentiate between the face cards; the Hand, the Duke and the Rogue. He wouldn’t admit to his difficulty though. Partly out of goodwill, Romana occasionally allowed him to win the numbered-card snaps. The other reason was because she was playing for time; she couldn’t put her escape plan into operation for another nine minutes. She’d told Liz half an hour. She had to give her time.
The Duke of Dominoes. The One of Souls. The Rogue of Souls. The Two of Clouds. The Two of Flames.
Feno’s hand slammed down, claiming the small pile as Romana pretended to make an effort to win the turn then feigned disappointment.
They started again. The Six of Owls, the Three of Dominoes, the Hand of Flames. The cards built up steadily, none of them matching numbers or faces but occasionally matching suits. She saw Feno twitching to ‘snap’ these once or twice, but he managed to restrain himself. She wasn’t surprised he’d never played Snap before, but she had expected him to at least have heard about it. Luckily the rules were simple enough to teach.
When there were about twenty cards in the centre pile, two Rogues were put down one after the other, and Romana slapped her hand down as Feno hesitated. He snarled in frustration, and she pulled the cards towards herself quickly. There were already a few scratches down the back of her hand from a few close calls.
A few turns later, she let Feno win five cards, then she won six. The game carried on like this for several more minutes, until Romana was sure that Liz would have had enough time to carry out her instructions.
With a glance and a smirk at the captain, she stopped holding back.
***
Several hours passed, but Liz couldn’t be sure. She only woke up once or twice, and each time she was only half-aware of her surroundings. She couldn’t speak or open her eyes, but she felt a cool hand on her forehead, soft fingers against her cheek.
When she was finally able to break the surface and stay afloat without much of a struggle, she sat up slowly, warily, mindful of the pain threatening to make its presence known. Romana was sitting in a chair next to the bed, her eyes closed, her expression peaceful.
She wasn’t asleep, as Liz found when she tried to get up. No sooner had she put one foot on the ground than those careful hands were steadying her, helping her, and easing her back into a sitting position when her legs wouldn’t support her. Romana gave her a glass of water and a clear, liquid-filled capsule to take, and within minutes the pain had cleared.
“That’s amazing, what is it?”
“A powerful pain reliever that specifically targets the brain. It’s very good for treating the after-effects of psychic tampering.”
Liz frowned slightly. “Is that what happened to me? Psychic tampering?”
Romana nodded, opened her mouth, then paused. "What's your name?" She gave her a small, guilty smile. "I didn't manage to ask."
"Elizabeth Shaw. Liz."
She nodded again. “Well, Liz. The Feli-Amru focus their studies on psycho-neurology, particularly in other species. They don’t tend to care whether their subjects are willing or not. There’s no word in their language for ‘volunteer’.” Since the chair was somewhat lower than the bed, Romana hopped up beside Liz. “I did a few scans while you were resting,” she said, nodding towards the screens and equipment across the room. “They were trying to see how deeply ingrained certain experiences were, by removing several layers of memory. They would have then recreated the memories using holo-equipment and exposed you to them, to see if the sight, sound or smell would restore the memory to you from what was left over.”
Liz merely nodded. That explained why she had forgotten about the Doctor. It had been his name that had restored her memory, and the sight of the console in Romana’s TARDIS - and how easily the word came to her now that she remembered all those failed experiments with that piece of junk he so treasured.
“They obviously hadn’t reached that stage yet,” Romana continued, “but I think some of your memory has been restored anyway. They’d probably be quite pleased with the results of their experiment, if they could see it,” she said with a smile.
“What about the rest of my memories?” Liz asked.
“The medicine I gave you isn’t just a pain reliever. It will heal the parts of your brain where the memory has been cut back, and help to restore them. It might take several days, but you’ll get them back.”
“The Doctor, my year with UNIT - that came back before I took the medicine,” Liz said, half to herself. “I won’t pass out again when more comes back to me, will I?”
Romana pursed her lips and frowned, staring into the middle-distance thoughtfully. “No,” she said decisively, then turned her gaze back to Liz, her smile bright once more. “Shouldn’t do. The medicine should protect your mind from the shock.” On the bed between them, Romana's hand half-covered hers in a gesture of reassurance. “You'll be fine, trust me.”
***
Increasing the pace of the game confused Captain Feno enough that Romana was able to finish the game in less than a minute.
“Snap!” she cried for the last time, slapping her hand down onto the Duke of Mesmers and taking all the cards. Taking the box out of her pocket, she slipped the stack of round cards into it and put it away again. While her hand was in her pocket, she quickly pressed a button on her Stattenheim remote, stood up from the table and moved back several paces.
The two cats jumped up immediately, Feno fuming and Jathani unsheathing her claws. Qceef took a moment to react, bringing his stun pistol up and pointing it at her.
She held up a reprimanding finger, telling him sternly, “None of that. I won, didn’t I?”
They paused at that. She grinned, knowing she’d just caught them out. Pirates had rather strict rules about honouring bets.
“Captain, our defences are being breached!” Ett’s panicked voice interrupted as a welcome whirring sound filled the room. “An interdimensional craft is materialising, it’s overriding my security systems!”
The sound localised directly behind her, and she gave them a wide smile. “Well, it was lovely meeting you, thanks for having me, and I hope we never see each other again!” she said brightly. The door behind her swung open, and she nipped inside.
Her companion stood at the console, pulling the door lever once Romana was inside.
“Nice rescue.”
“Your idea.”
They shared a grin as Romana pulled the dematerialisation lever and the time rotor began to rise and fall.
***
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“...I do. But I left him for a reason. When I was first assigned to help him with his...” Romana paused, her fingertips grasping air as she searched for the right word. “...his quest, I suppose you could call it, I was like any other Academy graduate - I thought I knew everything.” Her lips twisted into a self-deprecating smile. “Thought I was so clever, with my grades and degrees. Although it was fun to tell him he had such-and-such a psychological condition and watch him get all defensive.” She grinned, and Liz laughed. “Then I regenerated - I explained that to you, didn’t I?”
Liz nodded quickly. That had been one of the first things Romana had said in this discussion - as unlikely as it seemed to her, it made sense for a race so long-lived to change themselves once in a while, to avoid stagnation. Although, according to Romana, the society of the Time Lords could do with a regeneration itself.
“My first self didn’t get on with him as well as I do now. We did get on, sort of, just... not as well as we both would have liked. I was a bit condescending back then,” she admitted, looking a little shamefaced. “But then I regenerated, and my new personality turned out to be more compatible with his. You know him; he’s a big child at heart, so he needed somebody to run around and explore with, not to criticise him all the time. What fun is gallivanting about in time and space without being able to share it with somebody you like?”
Curled up next to her on the sofa, Liz tapped her on the knee thoughtfully.
“My Doctor was stuck on Earth,” she reminded her.
“Oh, of course. How did he cope with that?” Romana bit her lip in concern.
“He didn’t like it one bit, of course. He always wanted to be away from there, away from UNIT, away from day-to-day life. He told me once... what was it... He said he felt like a shipwrecked mariner.”
Romana nodded sagely. “The Doctor doesn’t live day-to-day. He lives day-to-millennium-to-second.”
“The number of times he tried to get away...” Liz mused. “He always said goodbye to me. Every time. Said he’d miss me.” She smiled fondly.
“Did you...?” Romana waved a hand vaguely at her.
“What?” Liz blinked at her, and Romana raised an eyebrow. “Oh! No, of course not,” she said, laughing. “He was kind of... well, old. Old-looking,” she amended, as Romana opened her mouth to point out that the age difference was so much that it hardly mattered. “He was just a grumpy old eccentric professor, really. I cared about him, but never like that. You?”
“Not really. Mine was younger-looking,” she said with a grin, provoking Liz to poke her in the knee in playful retaliation, “so there was more potential for the relationship to progress that way. But I never really gave it much thought beyond potential. Not my thing, perhaps,” she smiled, catching hold of Liz’s hand.
The old-fashioned lamp nearby picked out highlights in Romana’s pale hair, and threw her eyes into shadow. Her mouth curved in a smile that was perhaps a little more telling than the previous ones, but Liz wasn’t sure how to read it. Romana’s thumb stroked back and forth on the back of her hand; rhythmic, soothing.
“So why did you leave, in the end?” she asked, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under the strange gaze. Romana’s fingers slipped away from hers almost unnoticeably, and she glanced away, her lips quirking faintly, knowingly.
“Well, we got trapped in this other dimension for a while; we called it E-Space. I’d been called back to Gallifrey, but I didn’t want to go yet. While we were there, I realised that my desire to stay away wasn’t because of the Doctor - it was because of the universe. I wanted to keep seeing things, meeting people, making a difference. There wasn’t much I could do to make a difference on Gallifrey, not then. I chose to stay on a planet in E-Space and help a race of time-sensitives that lived there. Tharils, they were called. Leonine, but quite friendly once you get to know them. They needed some guidance in their governing. I rather enjoyed it,” she mused, resting her chin on one hand. “When I eventually go back to Gallifrey, I might run for something along those lines. Maybe President!” She laughed lightly. “I have been back already, of course,” she added as an afterthought. “Where else would I be able to get a TARDIS from? I just don’t want to stay there, not just yet. Maybe soon. For now, I have itchy feet.” She flashed a brilliant smile at Liz, who found herself grinning back. “That’s why I came back from E-Space, there’s nothing to do there now that the Tharils are all sorted out.”
“So now you’re gallivanting about in time and space?”
Romana’s mouth widened into a grin as her own words were echoed back to her. “It’s the only way to sight-see.”
***
“All in all, it went rather well,” Romana decided.
Princess Noemi was frowning bemusedly from her position on the floor, propped up against the wall. There was a bruise on her forehead from her earlier fall, and she looked rather dazed. Orval was somehow managing to hover by her side while remaining seated. He held a half-drunk glass of water which he insisted she sip from every couple of minutes.
Liz was smirking. “You played Snap with pirates?”
Romana nodded. “They’re astoundingly bad at it.” She pulled the pack of cards from her pocket and showed it to Liz, who pulled out a few cards and peered at them.
“What’s…?”
“Oh, they’re Gallifreyan cards.”
“They’re round!”
“Earth cards are rectangular, aren’t they? Only four suits.”
Liz nodded, holding one card up to examine it.
“That’s the Duke of Mesmers,” Romana explained. “The picture in the centre and the tiny ones around the edge, that’s the value - the Duke is a face card - and the background colouring is the suit.” She watched Liz’s fascinated gaze with amusement, then added, “Don’t look at that one too long, the pattern on the background will make you dizzy.” Liz quickly put the card back in the pack and picked out another. This one had a large 5 in the middle and smaller ones around the edge, for easy identification when holding several in your hand. The background picture was burnt orange overlaid with vague white shapes.
“Better than our cards,” Liz decided, returning the Five of Clouds to the pack.
“Did you have any trouble with the controls?” Romana asked, patting the console fondly.
“Only a little.”
“Well, you managed very well; better than most humans would.” Liz blushed, unable to stop the smile that broke out across her face at this compliment. “You got me out of there. Thank you.” She laid her hand over Liz’s on the console.
“Don’t thank me, K9 did most of it,” Liz confessed, nodding to the metal dog next to the console, whose satellite-dish ears were currently swivelling uncertainly as the Anethan pilot Tuan inspected him cautiously. “Aligning the coordinates with your … what was it, remote recall device?”
“Stattenheim remote, but that works too,” Romana smiled. “Well then, thank you, K9!”
“Thanks are not necessary, Mistress. This unit is incapable of operating below maximum possible efficiency.” Romana laughed, shaking her head.
“Well, I guess… thank me, then,” Liz said with a smile. Romana grinned at her and pulled her in for a kiss.
Tuan was staring with a slightly dopey grin when they pulled apart, and Noemi made an ‘aww’ face. Orval seemed uninterested in anything except getting the princess to drink some more water.
Liz tucked her hair behind her ears self-consciously, unable to wipe the grin off her face, and Romana moved to the console to input coordinates.
“Right, then. Aneth, anyone?”
***
Over the next couple of days, regular doses of the pain-relieving, memory-restoring drug had done their job, and Liz could now remember the events she had forgotten. They came back to her in the mornings, when she woke in an unfamiliar but comfortable bedroom, like remembered dreams. She told Romana about them, sitting with her at the kitchen table and drinking tea. She seemed glad of the progress, and happy to hear about these bits of Liz’s life. Sometimes they talked in the kitchen, sometimes in the room with the comfy sofa and soft lights, and sometimes in a small workroom, where Romana fiddled with the electronics of an inanimate metal dog while they swapped stories.
A day after she was fully recovered, Romana brought up the subject of Cambridge. Liz looked up from her tea, a mix of emotions confusing her.
“Back to 1978?”
“My TARDIS is a lot more reliable than some,” she said meaningfully, a slight smile crossing her face. “I can get you back on the right day, don’t worry.”
“Oh.” Both were quiet for a time, sipping at their tea and occasionally glancing up at the other.
“You know -” Romana began hesitantly, but then stopped. Liz gave her a questioning look, but she shrugged. “No, never mind.” She got up, went to the sink and rinsed her mug. Liz stood and followed her curiously.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Romana repeated, her lips curving a little at Liz’s gentle insistence.
Setting her mug on the side, she put one hand on her hip and waited. Romana turned to her, laughing when she saw the expression on her face.
“Okay,” she said finally, one hand on Liz’s arm as she addressed her seriously. “What fun is gallivanting about in time and space without being able to share it with somebody you like?”
Liz looked at her, trying to work out if Romana was saying what she thought she was saying. The slight frown must have come across as confusion, because Romana rolled her eyes slightly, then moved her hand to the back of Liz’s neck and pulled her down.
Their lips met firmly and Liz, taken by surprise, kissed back instinctively. The fingers of Romana’s other hand touched her cheek, and Liz found her arms going around the petite woman’s waist without thinking, drawing her closer. She tasted of tea and time and toast with honey, and the softness of her lips made Liz’s heart tumble over in her chest.
When the kiss ended, Romana looked up at her, a pleasantly dazed look in her eyes along with a hint of anxiety.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
***
Additional notes: Gallifreyan cards taken from the handy and extremely detailed Rassilon, Omega and that Other Guy.
Title: Memories and Mesmers
Word count: 7000+
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Liz Shaw/Romana II
Beta: Many thanks to bytheseaside for reassurance and being so lovely about the last-minute rush :o)
Summary: She's a sceptical scientist missing some memories. She's a street-smart Time Lady who's rather good at cards. They fight... pirates.
Notes: Written for calapine for the dw_femslash ficathon.
Cross-posted to: dw_femslash, dw_slash, dwfiction and who_otp.
Romana had hoped that being locked up in dark and dingy cells was to be a thing of the past, to be regarded as an occupational hazard when one’s occupation happened to be accompanying a certain toothy troublemaker around time and space. Her stay in E-Space had given her a reprieve from occasional imprisonment, and since returning to N-Space she had been lucky enough to avoid it. Until now, that is. Granted, she hadn’t been back very long, so it was really only a matter of time. Perhaps being a magnet for trouble had worn off on her.
It was probably rather lucky that she had grown used to being shackled to walls, even if it had been a while since she’d last had the pleasure. Diverting the flow of blood against gravity to elevated limbs was much easier when one had had plenty of practice. Unfortunately, her companion did not share this ability.
“You know, this isn’t very easy when your fingers have gone all tingly.”
As it was only semi-dark, Romana could see Liz fumbling frustratedly with the manacles around her wrists as a high-pitched humming filled the cell. The large metallic hairclip she held in one hand clinked as she impatiently tapped it against the cuff, until the heavy metal finally fell loose with a clang. With a sigh of relief and then one of resignation, she started on the other hand.
“Aren’t you glad now that I gave you that hairclip?”
“Oh very. Hardly a day’s gone past when I haven’t thought, ‘I hope I get manacled to a wall soon so I can try out this new gadget.’”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” Romana told her with a smile.
“Oh, there’s every need, Romana.” With a final whine and clunk, the second cuff fell open. “Ah, that’s better.” She rubbed at her wrists and winced. “Blood’s rushing back.”
“Hurry up, I only made one of those.”
Standing up stiffly, Liz stretched before crossing the small cell and standing in front of her friend, looking down at her with a smile on her face.
“Now, this looks quite familiar, don’t you think?”
Romana arched an eyebrow at her, not without amusement. It was true that she hadn’t been shackled to a wall in a good long while, but that’s not to say that cuffs had been completely absent from her recent activities.
“Liz, perhaps this isn’t the best situation. Pirate spaceships aren’t the comfiest of places.”
“I wasn’t serious,” Liz replied with a laugh, crouching down to put her gadget to work on Romana’s cuffs. Her skirt rode up as she did so, affording Romana a better view of her companion’s legs. Her attention was noticed, drawing another short laugh and a much more telling blush.
***
“You’re human!”
The disbelieving whisper cut through her foul mood, and her head whipped up to stare at the woman addressing her.
“How can you be human? Your species hasn’t even left their own solar system yet!”
Liz shook off her shock long enough to answer her.
“How do you know I’m human?”
“I’d recognise one of you lot anywhere!” The woman beckoned her forward and Liz stood, taking the few painful steps across her prison cell and holding onto the bars to keep her balance. A pale, slender hand circled her wrist gently then moved up to touch her cheek. Unable to help herself, Liz turned her face towards the contact; the first kind touch since she’d left Earth.
“How long have you been kept here?” the woman asked, delicate fingers moving softly on her face, checking her eyes.
“Not sure. Maybe a fortnight.”
“How did you get here?”
Liz closed her eyes and sagged against the bars. “That’s a long story,” she sighed. “Involving an alien invasion. One that had no qualms about taking prisoners. Well, I think I’m more of a ‘specimen’, actually.”
The woman rolled her eyes as she hunted through her pockets. “Those bloody Feli-Amru, thinking they can just take people from whatever planet they choose,” she muttered, drawing out a slender pen-like device and aiming it at the door-lock.
“What’s that?”
“Sonic screwdriver. Now come on,” she urged, taking Liz’s hand and tugging it gently. “I’m getting you out of here.”
Something nagged at her mind in an irritatingly vague fashion, but she was so muddled from the procedures she had endured that she couldn’t work out what it was trying to tell her.
“Who are you?” she asked as the smaller woman peered round a corner then hurried her along. She struggled to keep up, her feet stumbling beneath her as her vision swam.
“Romanadvoratrelundar,” she replied. “But you can call me Romana if it’s easier.”
***
The corridor outside the cell was just as dark and dingy, and although Romana had no difficulties, the lack of visibility did not lend itself to stealth on Liz’s part. There were no pirates within earshot, fortunately enough, so her stubbed toes went unnoticed by anyone except Romana, who took on the task of systematically shushing her as they made their cautious way along the corridor.
They had barely gone twenty yards when Liz tugged on her arm. She turned and saw that her companion was peering through the slat in a nearby door as she beckoned her over.
“What is it?” she hissed, glancing about cautiously as she joined Liz at the door.
“There’s people in here,” Liz whispered.
“More prisoners?”
“Think so.”
Romana glanced inside and took out her sonic screwdriver again; the specially designed lock-picking hairclip was only good for small locks like handcuffs.
As she aimed at the digital lock and switched settings to find the right frequency (the ship seemed to use an odd mixture of advanced and primitive systems), voices began to issue from inside the room.
“Are those awful pirates back?”
“I don’t think so, Highness, doesn’t sound like them.”
“Who’s there?”
Rolling her eyes, Romana motioned to Liz, who quickly moved back to the slat and hushed them.
“We’ll have you out in a minute, just keep your voices down!” she urged.
“How dare you speak to Her Royal Highness like that?” came one of the voices, and Liz winced at the volume, casting worried glances up and down the corridor.
“Calm down, Orval, I think the situation calls for a breach of protocol, don’t you?” said a female voice, undoubtedly the aforementioned Royal Highness. At least she was keeping her voice down, Romana thought as the lock finally opened.
Turning to Liz, she held out her hand with a smile. Liz frowned at her for a second, before catching on and releasing her hair from the hairclip once more. She handed it over as Romana swung the door ajar and whispered, “Keep an eye out,” before slipping inside.
***
“So you’re not human, then?” Liz whispered as they crept along another corridor.
“Of course not,” her rescuer said with a light laugh.
“Then where are you from?”
“Gallifrey.” With a stifled gasp, Romana stepped back from the next corner and tugged Liz against the wall, holding up a hand for silence. Her other hand was still holding Liz’s as they hid from whatever was around the corner, the slim fingers cool against her skin.
When she motioned for them to move again, Liz echoed her. “Gallifrey?” Romana nodded. Liz’s muddled mind was sorting through its memories, but they were choppy, with bits missing. The last two weeks were all too clear, but for several years before that, several important events were missing. The last Christmas with her family, her thirtieth birthday, the birth of her nephew. She knew she had moved away from Cambridge at some point and then moved back a year later, but she couldn’t remember why. She had the unshakeable feeling that something important and exciting - or at least dramatic - had happened in that year, but she was at a loss to think what it could’ve been.
She was about to ask Romana about Gallifrey in the hopes of shaking loose a memory or two, because she was sure that she’d heard the name before, but they had come to a halt before she even opened her mouth. They were standing in front of a tall, grey cabinet, one that looked as though it might hold stacks of paperwork or folder upon folder of personnel files - if it were on Earth. There was no signal for silence this time, but Liz waited without a sound as Romana lifted a chain from around her neck and grasped the key hanging from it. She slid it into the lock at the top right-hand corner of the cabinet, but paused before turning it, turning to say patiently, “This might be a bit hard to take in, but trust me, it's not an illusion.”
Liz peered at the cabinet suspiciously, wondering what on earth she meant. She’d always been a fairly sceptical person, but being abducted by aliens would undoubtedly open one’s mind a little.
The key turned in the lock, and the front of the cabinet swung open, revealing nothing but darkness. Romana pulled her inside and, too surprised to protest against being dragged into a metal box that shouldn’t have been big enough for one, Liz stumbled in after her.
***
The cell was just as dark and dingy as the one she and Liz had been kept in. Three faces looked up at her in varying states of relief and confusion, and she moved over to the dark-haired young woman first.
As the high frequencies of the cunningly-disguised gadget filled the cell, the woman peered at her through the gloom. She wasn’t very old, maybe a few years out of her adolescence, but even chained to a wall she had an air of dignity.
“Your Highness.” Romana gave her a friendly smile as the second cuff fell open and she helped the young woman to her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, shaking Romana’s hand gratefully. “They took you captive too, then? I wondered what had happened to you. I thought you would have escaped in your craft.”
“The Jovian caught us before I could even get the key out of my pocket,” Romana told her with a wry smile. “Sorry for the intrusion, by the way. I didn’t know we’d be landing on an imperial ship. I use a coordinate randomiser - it’s more fun that way.”
She grinned and moved over to the two men to start on their manacles. The woman went with her so as not to have to raise her voice.
“We hardly spoke on board my ship. I didn’t get the chance to ask your name.”
“Romana. And yourself?” The heavy-set man she was freeing glared at her in a way that made it perfectly clear to her that she was not addressing Her Royal Highness in the appropriate manner.
“I am Princess Noemi, of Aneth.”
With a clunk, the cuff Romana had been working on fell open and she turned to stare at the young woman beside her. “Aneth?” she repeated. Princess Noemi nodded.
“You know of our planet?”
“Know of it?” Romana laughed. “I helped save it once. Sort of.” Ignoring the astonished stares of the two men, she continued, “How long has it been since your people were freed from the Skonnans?”
The princess gaped at her for a moment before recovering her composure and replying, “Almost eight generations. How could you have been involved in those events? You can’t possibly be old enough!”
Romana stifled her laughter, holding back the sudden urge to reveal her true age to the young princess. “My craft travels in time,” she told her instead, seeing the comprehension dawn in her eyes.
The man whose manacles she was now working on, a tall, fair-haired individual, spoke up. “You mean you’re one of the travellers who blew up the Nimon Power Complex?”
Romana frowned, casting her mind back. “Well, that wasn’t me,” she confessed. “But I had a hand in the whole affair.”
Once uncuffed, the tall man stood up and gave her a grateful smile. The heavy-set man had clambered to his feet a minute or two ago and was hovering by the princess’s shoulder protectively.
“Your escort?” Romana enquired.
“Oh, yes,” Noemi replied, throwing the man a quick smile. “This is Orval, my personal guard. And Tuan, my pilot.” The tall man acknowledged his name with a smile.
Nodding, Romana ushered them to the door.
“All clear?” she whispered.
“Clear,” Liz replied, holding the door open for them. Indicating to the Anethans to keep quiet, Romana led them down the corridor, relying on engineering logic to tell her where the cargo bay was most likely to be. When she had been taken captive, she had heard one of the pirates ordering the TARDIS to be brought with them, so heading to where the booty was kept was the best course of action for getting off the pirate ship.
Being right a lot of the time came in handy, especially in situations like this. Her TARDIS sat at the side of the room, disguised as a tall mahogany wardrobe. Not an obvious choice, but still a lot less conspicuous than some.
She felt slightly uneasy as she dug the key out of her pocket and approached the wardrobe; when a stun pistol whined into life behind her, she realised why. Spinning around, she came face to face with the large Jovian who had taken them captive.
Princess Noemi gave a cry of fear and Orval stepped in front of her, shielding her with the bulk of his body. Tuan took a few nervous steps backwards, while Liz inched closer to Romana. Without looking at her directly, Romana shook her head very slightly. Liz stopped inching, and instead took hold of Tuan’s arm and tugged the startled pilot in her direction.
“Where d’you think you’re goin’?” the Jovian grunted, the lights from his stun pistol reflecting faintly on his damp purplish skin.
“I believe we were escaping,” Romana said matter-of-factly. She put away her key and calmly folded her hands behind her back. “But you caught us! Well done.” She gave him a disarming smile, while moving her hands through a few insistent gestures. Liz carefully and discreetly slid her free hand into her pocket.
The Jovian glowered at her and took a step forward. Romana clicked her fingers. At this signal, Liz pulled the spare key from her pocket and made a dive for the TARDIS, pulling Tuan with her as she went. Tuan was smart enough to do the same to Noemi, no matter the impropriety of grabbing one’s princess roughly by the elbow and yanking her backwards.
Romana stayed exactly where she was, standing perfectly still, smiling. This had the handy effect of confusing the Jovian enough that it took a second or two for him to realise that most of the prisoners were getting away. With a shout, he fired his stun pistol towards the TARDIS. Orval turned, yelling in shock when he saw that his princess was unconscious on the floor. Tuan had lost his grip on her when she had been stunned, and Liz had dragged him inside the TARDIS. Romana gave their attacker a cheery wave, distracting his attention long enough for Orval to rush forward, scoop Princess Noemi into his large arms and disappear into the TARDIS.
The wardrobe vanished with a smooth whirring sound, and Romana watched it go, a small, proud smile tugging at her lips. As the Jovian stomped towards her with a face like thunder, she held up her hands in surrender and hoped to Rassilon that Liz had understood those hand signals.
***
It felt like someone was pounding on a door in her mind. It was an almost physical sensation that disoriented her as she stared around the room. The hexagonal console covered in switches and levers was so familiar, yet she’d never seen it before. It brought back memories of being fondly frustrated with someone, and of vague worry. She shook her head, putting aside the jumble of remembered emotions to focus on a more pressing matter: the cabinet was bigger inside than it was outside. For some reason, this wasn’t perturbing her as much as it ought to.
“Are you alright?” Romana asked, looking up from the screen on the console. Liz nodded slowly. “I realise it’s a bit overwhelming -”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “I just, I remember - well, I don’t, that’s part of the problem - I can almost…” Two words suddenly sprang to her lips, and she mouthed them carefully before saying aloud, “Are you a Time Lord?”
For a long moment, Romana stared at Liz in shock, her hands still on the buttons as the glowing column in the centre of the console rose and fell. Then her lips curved into a knowing smile and she laughed.
“You know the Doctor, don’t you?”
As if hit by a battering ram, the door in her mind gave way.
***
Captain Feno was very nearly the image of your typical galactic buccaneer. He sat across the table from Romana in the ‘interrogation room’ (which seemed to be the dining area), whiskers twitching slightly as he regarded her with interest.
“Tell me, how did you manage to escape from my cells?”
“It wasn’t that difficult,” Romana replied, wanting to fold her arms but her hands were bound to the chair. “You just have to have the right know-how.”
“And you do?”
“Obviously.”
Feno gave her a somewhat sceptical look, his black ears twitching. “For both types of lock?”
Romana rolled her eyes. “It’s not that difficult. Most manual cuffs have padlocks that can easily be picked with the right tools.” She left out the part about the hairclip, just to be safe. “And the digital door lock? Child’s play.”
Against the side wall, the Jovian stood, arms folded, holding his stun pistol conspicuously in one hand. A female cat person with calico colouring and pale green eyes lounged in a chair nearby, smirking.
“Is this your crew?” Romana asked as she glanced between them, unimpressed.
Feno indicated the female in the chair. “Jathani. First mate.”
Romana eyed Jathani with mild contempt, earning herself an angry hiss which made her fight to keep a straight face.
“Qceef.” He nodded to the Jovian, who grunted.
“We’ve met,” Romana replied shortly. “What’s he, then? Hired gun?”
“Pretty much.”
“What about a pilot?” She nodded to the three of them. “You’re all here, who’s flying this thing?”
“That would be me.”
Romana looked around quickly to find the source of the new voice, but there was no-one else in the room.
“That’s Ett. He inhabits the ship.”
“So you knew we were escaping the whole time?” she asked, aiming her question at the ceiling.
“I did.” The voice had an air of smugness to it, the cultured accent only adding to the impression.
“Why didn’t you send Qceef earlier, then?”
“I wanted to let you think you were going to escape. It’s more fun. It’s not my fault if someone else’s reaction time was the cause of the rest of your group escaping.”
“And you, Miss Escape Artist?” Feno interrupted. “What name do you go by?”
She felt like seeing them gape for a moment, so she treated them to her full name. As expected, they all looked taken aback. Even the non-corporeal pilot didn’t say a word, although she wasn’t sure if he was still listening.
“Does that come with a nickname?” asked Jathani, speaking for the first time since she had entered the room. She practically purred as she spoke, in a drawl that would’ve shamed the most refined southern belle.
“Fred.”
Romana thought she heard a slight snickering from overhead, but none of the other pirates seemed to notice the discrepancy.
“Why do you want to know my name, anyway? And I didn’t ask for yours. I’m just a captive, right?”
“Right,” Feno replied, giving her a feral grin. “It’s just good manners to acquaint yourself with your prisoner before you throw her out of an airlock.”
Romana nodded sagely. “I see. The space-faring equivalent of walking the plank.”
“Precisely. You’re clearly difficult to keep restrained, so I have no choice.”
She sat up and looked him straight in the eye. “Would it really be wise to murder an Anethan delegate?” She raised an eyebrow as he stopped grinning, taken aback. “You could end up starting a war, you know.”
Just as she thought she might actually have got away with the barefaced lie, Ett spoke up.
“She’s not Anethan,” he said sharply. “She has two hearts. She’s a Time Lord.”
“Time Lord?” Qceef repeated, frowning warily at Romana.
She could almost hear the eye-roll in the pilot’s voice. “From the planet Gallifrey.” Qceef continued to look confused. “Binary coordinates 1001100 by 02 from - oh, why do I bother?” The voice exhaled frustratedly. “Captain, Jathani, you know the Time Lords, don’t you?”
“I’ve heard of them,” Jathani purred, and Captain Feno nodded, scratching his chin with one claw.
Romana spoke up quickly. “You wouldn’t want to kill a Time Lord either,” she told them. “My people don’t take very kindly to that. They could put your ship in a time loop and effectively remove you from continuity - and I’m not lying this time.”
“She’s not,” Ett added, and she could sense his nervous hostility towards her. “The Time Lords have powers beyond the comprehension of most races. This ship is my body, Captain, I will not see it time-looped.”
Feno and Jathani were exchanging worried glances, clearly as unwilling to be time-looped as Ett was. Qceef still seemed a bit baffled by it all.
“What’ll we do with her, Captain?” Jathani asked.
“You could release me,” Romana suggested, grinning at them - she knew full well she wouldn’t get away that easily.
Feno gave her a look that suggested as much. “And where exactly would I release you to? We’re in the middle of deep space.”
“Good point,” Romana said, sighing as if to admit defeat. “Or it would be, if I didn’t have a way to very easily get off this ship no matter where we are.”
“If you had that, you’d have done it already,” Jathani drawled, inspecting her claws.
Romana tugged at her hands to demonstrate that she was currently bound tightly. She’d been trying to wriggle free during the entire conversation, but her hands were bound separately to either side of the chair, and tied far too tightly to simply slip her hands out. “If my hands were free, of course I could.” An idea quickly took hold, one that would guarantee that her hands were untied. “Look, would you be willing to let me win my freedom?”
Feno frowned at her. “How?”
“I have a pack of cards in my pocket. I bet I can beat you.”
Romana began to smile as she saw the glint in Feno’s eye. Pirates were notoriously bad at refusing challenges; space pirates were no different.
“You win, I’ll stay - you can lock me up or put me to work, I won’t try to escape. I win, I leave alive and unharmed. Deal?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jathani looking worried. “Captain, maybe that’s not such a -”
“Deal! Name your game!” the captain said, eyes flashing.
“By the goddess Santori…” Jathani sighed, covering her face with one furry hand.
***
Concerned blue-grey eyes were looking down on her when she woke, and the pale brow above them was furrowed with worry. A hand steadied her when she tried to sit up, and a glance around her was enough to determine that she was no longer in the console room. It was some sort of medical room - had she passed out? Her head hurt so much, what was going on?
“Easy,” said Romana gently, preventing her from getting up. “You hit your head on the floor when you lost consciousness.”
“Ow,” was the only word Liz could manage. Her head felt very heavy, and she slid back down from her half-sitting position to lie on the flat but comfortable surface beneath her.
Romana smiled sympathetically. “Does this happen a lot?”
Liz shook her head from side to side very slowly, so as not to make the pounding worse. It was normal pounding this time; a headache, not a mental door with -
Gasping with the sudden shock of realisation, Liz felt the urge to sit up, but she lacked the strength.
“What is it?”
“The Doctor!” she managed, fighting back the sensation that she’d been hit with a ton of bricks.
“You knew him?” Romana asked. “Travelled with him?”
“Yes - no. Never travelled. He was stuck.”
Romana’s hand took hers; a gesture of support and comfort. “You don’t have to talk now. Rest, then we’ll talk.”
“You know him,” Liz stated.
Romana nodded, smiling. She pressed a button next to the bed, and Liz felt her eyelids drooping. She tried to keep them open, irrational panic spreading through her, but Romana squeezed her hand gently. “It’s okay. Rest. I’ll be here.”
***
Silence filled the room as the two players stared each other down. The other pirates hovered nearby, looking worried. Their captain had a rather small pile of cards in front of him, while Romana had a large share of the pack and was enjoying being rather smug about it.
Lifting a card from the top of her pile, she held it carefully face down as she held eye contact with Feno. She placed the card face up on the haphazard pile between them, lifted her hand, and they both looked.
Her hand immediately slapped back down again, Feno’s hitting the back of hers a split-second later.
“Snap!” she cried, pulling the cards towards her with a smirk.
He glared at her, pupils narrowing to slits within his yellow eyes. She neatened her new pile of cards between her hands, then picked up the top one and set it down; the Four of Owls.
Feno took one of his and laid it on top of hers. The Six of Deeps.
Romana’s turn; the Hand of Mesmers.
These were Gallifreyan cards, round in shape and two and a half inches in diameter. There were seven suits, and six numbered cards of each plus the face cards, making up a sixty-three card pack. She could see Feno struggling to remember and differentiate between the face cards; the Hand, the Duke and the Rogue. He wouldn’t admit to his difficulty though. Partly out of goodwill, Romana occasionally allowed him to win the numbered-card snaps. The other reason was because she was playing for time; she couldn’t put her escape plan into operation for another nine minutes. She’d told Liz half an hour. She had to give her time.
The Duke of Dominoes. The One of Souls. The Rogue of Souls. The Two of Clouds. The Two of Flames.
Feno’s hand slammed down, claiming the small pile as Romana pretended to make an effort to win the turn then feigned disappointment.
They started again. The Six of Owls, the Three of Dominoes, the Hand of Flames. The cards built up steadily, none of them matching numbers or faces but occasionally matching suits. She saw Feno twitching to ‘snap’ these once or twice, but he managed to restrain himself. She wasn’t surprised he’d never played Snap before, but she had expected him to at least have heard about it. Luckily the rules were simple enough to teach.
When there were about twenty cards in the centre pile, two Rogues were put down one after the other, and Romana slapped her hand down as Feno hesitated. He snarled in frustration, and she pulled the cards towards herself quickly. There were already a few scratches down the back of her hand from a few close calls.
A few turns later, she let Feno win five cards, then she won six. The game carried on like this for several more minutes, until Romana was sure that Liz would have had enough time to carry out her instructions.
With a glance and a smirk at the captain, she stopped holding back.
***
Several hours passed, but Liz couldn’t be sure. She only woke up once or twice, and each time she was only half-aware of her surroundings. She couldn’t speak or open her eyes, but she felt a cool hand on her forehead, soft fingers against her cheek.
When she was finally able to break the surface and stay afloat without much of a struggle, she sat up slowly, warily, mindful of the pain threatening to make its presence known. Romana was sitting in a chair next to the bed, her eyes closed, her expression peaceful.
She wasn’t asleep, as Liz found when she tried to get up. No sooner had she put one foot on the ground than those careful hands were steadying her, helping her, and easing her back into a sitting position when her legs wouldn’t support her. Romana gave her a glass of water and a clear, liquid-filled capsule to take, and within minutes the pain had cleared.
“That’s amazing, what is it?”
“A powerful pain reliever that specifically targets the brain. It’s very good for treating the after-effects of psychic tampering.”
Liz frowned slightly. “Is that what happened to me? Psychic tampering?”
Romana nodded, opened her mouth, then paused. "What's your name?" She gave her a small, guilty smile. "I didn't manage to ask."
"Elizabeth Shaw. Liz."
She nodded again. “Well, Liz. The Feli-Amru focus their studies on psycho-neurology, particularly in other species. They don’t tend to care whether their subjects are willing or not. There’s no word in their language for ‘volunteer’.” Since the chair was somewhat lower than the bed, Romana hopped up beside Liz. “I did a few scans while you were resting,” she said, nodding towards the screens and equipment across the room. “They were trying to see how deeply ingrained certain experiences were, by removing several layers of memory. They would have then recreated the memories using holo-equipment and exposed you to them, to see if the sight, sound or smell would restore the memory to you from what was left over.”
Liz merely nodded. That explained why she had forgotten about the Doctor. It had been his name that had restored her memory, and the sight of the console in Romana’s TARDIS - and how easily the word came to her now that she remembered all those failed experiments with that piece of junk he so treasured.
“They obviously hadn’t reached that stage yet,” Romana continued, “but I think some of your memory has been restored anyway. They’d probably be quite pleased with the results of their experiment, if they could see it,” she said with a smile.
“What about the rest of my memories?” Liz asked.
“The medicine I gave you isn’t just a pain reliever. It will heal the parts of your brain where the memory has been cut back, and help to restore them. It might take several days, but you’ll get them back.”
“The Doctor, my year with UNIT - that came back before I took the medicine,” Liz said, half to herself. “I won’t pass out again when more comes back to me, will I?”
Romana pursed her lips and frowned, staring into the middle-distance thoughtfully. “No,” she said decisively, then turned her gaze back to Liz, her smile bright once more. “Shouldn’t do. The medicine should protect your mind from the shock.” On the bed between them, Romana's hand half-covered hers in a gesture of reassurance. “You'll be fine, trust me.”
***
Increasing the pace of the game confused Captain Feno enough that Romana was able to finish the game in less than a minute.
“Snap!” she cried for the last time, slapping her hand down onto the Duke of Mesmers and taking all the cards. Taking the box out of her pocket, she slipped the stack of round cards into it and put it away again. While her hand was in her pocket, she quickly pressed a button on her Stattenheim remote, stood up from the table and moved back several paces.
The two cats jumped up immediately, Feno fuming and Jathani unsheathing her claws. Qceef took a moment to react, bringing his stun pistol up and pointing it at her.
She held up a reprimanding finger, telling him sternly, “None of that. I won, didn’t I?”
They paused at that. She grinned, knowing she’d just caught them out. Pirates had rather strict rules about honouring bets.
“Captain, our defences are being breached!” Ett’s panicked voice interrupted as a welcome whirring sound filled the room. “An interdimensional craft is materialising, it’s overriding my security systems!”
The sound localised directly behind her, and she gave them a wide smile. “Well, it was lovely meeting you, thanks for having me, and I hope we never see each other again!” she said brightly. The door behind her swung open, and she nipped inside.
Her companion stood at the console, pulling the door lever once Romana was inside.
“Nice rescue.”
“Your idea.”
They shared a grin as Romana pulled the dematerialisation lever and the time rotor began to rise and fall.
***
“You miss him, don’t you?”
“...I do. But I left him for a reason. When I was first assigned to help him with his...” Romana paused, her fingertips grasping air as she searched for the right word. “...his quest, I suppose you could call it, I was like any other Academy graduate - I thought I knew everything.” Her lips twisted into a self-deprecating smile. “Thought I was so clever, with my grades and degrees. Although it was fun to tell him he had such-and-such a psychological condition and watch him get all defensive.” She grinned, and Liz laughed. “Then I regenerated - I explained that to you, didn’t I?”
Liz nodded quickly. That had been one of the first things Romana had said in this discussion - as unlikely as it seemed to her, it made sense for a race so long-lived to change themselves once in a while, to avoid stagnation. Although, according to Romana, the society of the Time Lords could do with a regeneration itself.
“My first self didn’t get on with him as well as I do now. We did get on, sort of, just... not as well as we both would have liked. I was a bit condescending back then,” she admitted, looking a little shamefaced. “But then I regenerated, and my new personality turned out to be more compatible with his. You know him; he’s a big child at heart, so he needed somebody to run around and explore with, not to criticise him all the time. What fun is gallivanting about in time and space without being able to share it with somebody you like?”
Curled up next to her on the sofa, Liz tapped her on the knee thoughtfully.
“My Doctor was stuck on Earth,” she reminded her.
“Oh, of course. How did he cope with that?” Romana bit her lip in concern.
“He didn’t like it one bit, of course. He always wanted to be away from there, away from UNIT, away from day-to-day life. He told me once... what was it... He said he felt like a shipwrecked mariner.”
Romana nodded sagely. “The Doctor doesn’t live day-to-day. He lives day-to-millennium-to-second.”
“The number of times he tried to get away...” Liz mused. “He always said goodbye to me. Every time. Said he’d miss me.” She smiled fondly.
“Did you...?” Romana waved a hand vaguely at her.
“What?” Liz blinked at her, and Romana raised an eyebrow. “Oh! No, of course not,” she said, laughing. “He was kind of... well, old. Old-looking,” she amended, as Romana opened her mouth to point out that the age difference was so much that it hardly mattered. “He was just a grumpy old eccentric professor, really. I cared about him, but never like that. You?”
“Not really. Mine was younger-looking,” she said with a grin, provoking Liz to poke her in the knee in playful retaliation, “so there was more potential for the relationship to progress that way. But I never really gave it much thought beyond potential. Not my thing, perhaps,” she smiled, catching hold of Liz’s hand.
The old-fashioned lamp nearby picked out highlights in Romana’s pale hair, and threw her eyes into shadow. Her mouth curved in a smile that was perhaps a little more telling than the previous ones, but Liz wasn’t sure how to read it. Romana’s thumb stroked back and forth on the back of her hand; rhythmic, soothing.
“So why did you leave, in the end?” she asked, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under the strange gaze. Romana’s fingers slipped away from hers almost unnoticeably, and she glanced away, her lips quirking faintly, knowingly.
“Well, we got trapped in this other dimension for a while; we called it E-Space. I’d been called back to Gallifrey, but I didn’t want to go yet. While we were there, I realised that my desire to stay away wasn’t because of the Doctor - it was because of the universe. I wanted to keep seeing things, meeting people, making a difference. There wasn’t much I could do to make a difference on Gallifrey, not then. I chose to stay on a planet in E-Space and help a race of time-sensitives that lived there. Tharils, they were called. Leonine, but quite friendly once you get to know them. They needed some guidance in their governing. I rather enjoyed it,” she mused, resting her chin on one hand. “When I eventually go back to Gallifrey, I might run for something along those lines. Maybe President!” She laughed lightly. “I have been back already, of course,” she added as an afterthought. “Where else would I be able to get a TARDIS from? I just don’t want to stay there, not just yet. Maybe soon. For now, I have itchy feet.” She flashed a brilliant smile at Liz, who found herself grinning back. “That’s why I came back from E-Space, there’s nothing to do there now that the Tharils are all sorted out.”
“So now you’re gallivanting about in time and space?”
Romana’s mouth widened into a grin as her own words were echoed back to her. “It’s the only way to sight-see.”
***
“All in all, it went rather well,” Romana decided.
Princess Noemi was frowning bemusedly from her position on the floor, propped up against the wall. There was a bruise on her forehead from her earlier fall, and she looked rather dazed. Orval was somehow managing to hover by her side while remaining seated. He held a half-drunk glass of water which he insisted she sip from every couple of minutes.
Liz was smirking. “You played Snap with pirates?”
Romana nodded. “They’re astoundingly bad at it.” She pulled the pack of cards from her pocket and showed it to Liz, who pulled out a few cards and peered at them.
“What’s…?”
“Oh, they’re Gallifreyan cards.”
“They’re round!”
“Earth cards are rectangular, aren’t they? Only four suits.”
Liz nodded, holding one card up to examine it.
“That’s the Duke of Mesmers,” Romana explained. “The picture in the centre and the tiny ones around the edge, that’s the value - the Duke is a face card - and the background colouring is the suit.” She watched Liz’s fascinated gaze with amusement, then added, “Don’t look at that one too long, the pattern on the background will make you dizzy.” Liz quickly put the card back in the pack and picked out another. This one had a large 5 in the middle and smaller ones around the edge, for easy identification when holding several in your hand. The background picture was burnt orange overlaid with vague white shapes.
“Better than our cards,” Liz decided, returning the Five of Clouds to the pack.
“Did you have any trouble with the controls?” Romana asked, patting the console fondly.
“Only a little.”
“Well, you managed very well; better than most humans would.” Liz blushed, unable to stop the smile that broke out across her face at this compliment. “You got me out of there. Thank you.” She laid her hand over Liz’s on the console.
“Don’t thank me, K9 did most of it,” Liz confessed, nodding to the metal dog next to the console, whose satellite-dish ears were currently swivelling uncertainly as the Anethan pilot Tuan inspected him cautiously. “Aligning the coordinates with your … what was it, remote recall device?”
“Stattenheim remote, but that works too,” Romana smiled. “Well then, thank you, K9!”
“Thanks are not necessary, Mistress. This unit is incapable of operating below maximum possible efficiency.” Romana laughed, shaking her head.
“Well, I guess… thank me, then,” Liz said with a smile. Romana grinned at her and pulled her in for a kiss.
Tuan was staring with a slightly dopey grin when they pulled apart, and Noemi made an ‘aww’ face. Orval seemed uninterested in anything except getting the princess to drink some more water.
Liz tucked her hair behind her ears self-consciously, unable to wipe the grin off her face, and Romana moved to the console to input coordinates.
“Right, then. Aneth, anyone?”
***
Over the next couple of days, regular doses of the pain-relieving, memory-restoring drug had done their job, and Liz could now remember the events she had forgotten. They came back to her in the mornings, when she woke in an unfamiliar but comfortable bedroom, like remembered dreams. She told Romana about them, sitting with her at the kitchen table and drinking tea. She seemed glad of the progress, and happy to hear about these bits of Liz’s life. Sometimes they talked in the kitchen, sometimes in the room with the comfy sofa and soft lights, and sometimes in a small workroom, where Romana fiddled with the electronics of an inanimate metal dog while they swapped stories.
A day after she was fully recovered, Romana brought up the subject of Cambridge. Liz looked up from her tea, a mix of emotions confusing her.
“Back to 1978?”
“My TARDIS is a lot more reliable than some,” she said meaningfully, a slight smile crossing her face. “I can get you back on the right day, don’t worry.”
“Oh.” Both were quiet for a time, sipping at their tea and occasionally glancing up at the other.
“You know -” Romana began hesitantly, but then stopped. Liz gave her a questioning look, but she shrugged. “No, never mind.” She got up, went to the sink and rinsed her mug. Liz stood and followed her curiously.
“What?”
“Never mind,” Romana repeated, her lips curving a little at Liz’s gentle insistence.
Setting her mug on the side, she put one hand on her hip and waited. Romana turned to her, laughing when she saw the expression on her face.
“Okay,” she said finally, one hand on Liz’s arm as she addressed her seriously. “What fun is gallivanting about in time and space without being able to share it with somebody you like?”
Liz looked at her, trying to work out if Romana was saying what she thought she was saying. The slight frown must have come across as confusion, because Romana rolled her eyes slightly, then moved her hand to the back of Liz’s neck and pulled her down.
Their lips met firmly and Liz, taken by surprise, kissed back instinctively. The fingers of Romana’s other hand touched her cheek, and Liz found her arms going around the petite woman’s waist without thinking, drawing her closer. She tasted of tea and time and toast with honey, and the softness of her lips made Liz’s heart tumble over in her chest.
When the kiss ended, Romana looked up at her, a pleasantly dazed look in her eyes along with a hint of anxiety.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
***
Additional notes: Gallifreyan cards taken from the handy and extremely detailed Rassilon, Omega and that Other Guy.