Fic: In the Dust of the Stars
Title: In The Dust Of The Stars
Author: Kristin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sarah/Romana I
Summary: Romana and Sarah Jane meet accidentally and find unexpected companionship in each other.
Disclaimer: The characters in no way belong to me. They are the property of the BBC
Notes: This is somewhat AU, as I infer that between Romana I's regeneration into Romana II, she takes a brief furlough to Earth. And if it can pair her with Sarah Jane, I make it work however I can. For Sarah's part, this takes place roughly three years after the Doctor dropped her back on Earth. There is femslash, so don't read if you don't like that. Enjoy!
*
A charcoal dusted air surrounds her as the sun cedes its empire and night comes slowly from beneath a horizon she imagines you can actually touch; a briefly suspended purgatory between abundant light and absolute darkness.
Because of the transitory luminance of the stars and moon, it is easy to notice those lights which don't belong. She expects the streetlights, the small, muted glows of lamps through windows, but not the lone shimmer atop a shadowed box.
There is a sound so like the one she hears on the edges of dreams, and when she looks up...
...the TARDIS.
She shivers, thinking of the three years she's spent remembering the labyrinthine corridors, walking the shelves of books and fingering through the unmatched volumes of music held within the tiny box. It is a memory so near she can still recall the sound of being and not-being, of going from one place to the next, through time...within time.
Sarah wonders if the Doctor is in there, though it's more likely he's about. What for, she can only wonder.
She shivers, not understanding why, this night, she should see the TARDIS again. But she clenches her right hand, running fingers over her knuckles as she ruminates over what to do. Eventually, she heeds her first instinct.
Walking up to the exterior, she beats the side of her fist against the dark door, "So you can get to Croydon, can you? Just not when it matters. Evidently, when you dump someone off you just assume if it's somewhere on Earth, that's good enough, is that it?"
Taking a deep breath, Sarah feels an instant relief, then strokes an apologetic hand over the TARDIS doors, which had always seemed to sense any modicum of discontent in the human girl, responding accordingly. Hard to fully see in the wane light, Sarah pauses as the familiar hum she expects does not come.
Just then, the door opens quickly, and a woman with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair appears, looking nonplussed.
"Can I help you?" The woman asks tightly.
"The Doctor--"
"Is wayward in his own TARDIS. From the fragments of pejorative vocalizations I was able to decipher, I gather you have an...issue with the Doctor?"
Sarah processes the revelation that this is a TARDIS, just not the Doctor's TARDIS, that the Doctor is unsurprisingly elsewhere, and that another Time Lord is standing before her.
"Well, I did--I do. Sort of. It's just--"
Romana scrutinizes her features a bit, then interrupts knowingly, "Sarah Jane Smith."
Another tremor of shock passes through Sarah. This other Time Lord knows of the Doctor...has she also traveled with him, to know who she is?
"Yes," Sarah affirms, hesitantly, "and you are?"
Romana smiles, sticking a hand out as she leans against the TARDIS doorframe.
"You may call me Romana."
Sarah returns the handshake, then rubs her arms up and down each other, as standing in one spot is causing her to feel the chill which earlier had been tolerable.
"Oh, it must be cold for you. Do come in," Romana says politely, stepping away from the door to allow Sarah room inside.
An awfully inviting gesture, and Romana seems nice enough anyway, but still...it is a TARDIS. And Romana is a Time Lord. Sarah feels quite certain she's had her fill of Gallifreyan natives. Still...what could it hurt? Not all humans are alike, not all planets are alike, and if she learned anything from her tenture with the Doctor, it was to "broaden her mind," so she decides to quiet her doubts for the time being and see how different the two Time Lords really are.
Breathing is an action she has to remind herself of suddenly as she walks inside, looking up to survey the high ceilings, the wooden, dark-paneled walls, the lighting that is more of a glow than a clinically focused beam. There is nothing harsh or insipid about this interior, quite different from that of the Doctor's.
"Would you like some tea? I've never personally made it myself, but I am aware your species is fond of it, particularly in moments which might be...disconcerting."
Sarah is still surveying, aware of the voice so near her, but not quite coming to it yet.
"Yes," she says, simply.
The voice is closer to her, "Is this such a moment for you, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah comes back then, looking Romana in the eye. There is something temperate and reassuring about her, despite the flash of haughtiness, the air of superiority.
"I wouldn't say that, no. It is rather surreal, though. And perfect to consider over a cup of tea."
"Splendid. Make some for us, won't you? I've never had the pleasure to partake of it before."
Sarah purses her lips. What was it about meeting Time Lords and being dictated to about fixing beverages?
"Why don't you show me where the kitchen is, and I'll show you how to make tea."
"Whatever would I need such a skill for?"
"Broaden your mind," Sarah says frankly after a pause, almost smiling as she follows Romana to the kitchen.
*
Very little about them is congruent, but for the fact that they are both Time Lords.
Two hearts. The more to love with. The Doctor used both hearts to love, and this is why, Sarah thinks, it could never have really worked between them. He could never curb his wanderlust, could never cease loving freely and deeply the many people he embraced on his travels.
But she wonders about Romana's hearts; are their rhythms fluid and linear, pumping only to sustain life--or is there room enough between them for further incentive to exist?
"So will you be traveling with the Doctor again?" Sarah ventures, after the tea.
They are in the library, and this one is equally full of varied texts, but a little more intimidating, yet strangely encompassing with unexplained warmth.
"I imagine so. There is more I hope to learn from him, but I thought a...sabbatical, as I think you humans call it, was in order."
Sarah picks up an anthology of Earth poets. Her fingers catch between pages holding to each other with some invisible bond: time and circumstance. She peels them apart gently, absorbing words she hasn't known for years.
"I believe he was...fond of you," Romana tries the word, wondering if it will fit Sarah's assessment of her relationship with the Doctor.
Sarah shuts the book tightly. The memory of you emerges from the night around me. Beautiful words. Always beautiful, always just words.
"I was fond of him. But we had to part."
Sarah is wistful, running a hand over the velvet couch next to the bookshelf holding Victorian literature.
"Was there...love between you?" Romana is genuinely curious, her tone void of recrimination or even a sort of disdain Sarah might expect from a species she's learned traditionally looks down upon the human race and its frivolous notions of attachment.
"Of a kind," Sarah presumptuously takes a seat in the deep cushion, folding her hands in her lap.
"How many kinds of love exist?" Romana sits across from her.
Love is just a word, for Romana, but one she has seen progressively deeper shades of, in her travels. Her first glimpse was an innocent kiss on a high cheekbone; then, closed eyes as lips linger above eyebrows; eyes level as people have silent conversations, mouth soft over knuckles and fingers; and the culmination of every collected affection, the joint coalescence of lips, the losing of breaths.
The eyes were always closed in that moment, making her wonder what they were afraid to see. What could be gained from putting mouths together?
She wants to know more about humans and their behaviors and since the Doctor spent such a lengthy amount of time with Sarah Jane, Romana thinks there must be something in her worth knowing.
"Many kinds. You've got bookshelves full of Earth writers spending their lives trying to figure out what love is, what it means for everyone. The greatest mystery, I suppose."
"Yes, I do enjoy your Earthen prose. Some of it is bombastic and superfluous, but others...yes, I quite enjoy. But why does the notion of love remain a conjecture not yet definitively answered?"
Sarah shrugs, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles.
"Because the world keeps turning."
Romana smiles slightly, tilting her head fractionally to the side.
"You answer a question with an abstract."
Pulling her arms tightly over her stomach, Sarah tries to ignore the sensation that she's being scrutinized for something, as though she's a specimen under a microscope. And it's largely because she hasn't yet figured out if Romana is genuinely interested in her or just her convenient membership in the human race, something she obviously cares to know more about.
"I mean we keep meeting people, we keep learning things, and we have to figure out how to fit all these people and ideas into our tiny human heads. You can't love one friend the same way you love another, because that friend might leave, the other might stay. It's always changing."
Romana tucks away a smile at Sarah's own declaration of her people having 'tiny human heads' and starts to think, more firmly, that she'd like to spend a little more time with this Earthly creature.
"I think I like you, Sarah Jane," she announces, as though it's a revelation Sarah should be glad for.
Oddly, she is. And as she lets her arms unravel from their tightly wound position against her stomach, she thinks she likes Romana too.
*
It presses against her ribs, this tight feeling of being between; she marks time in a corridor that exists outside linear patterns so familiar to her, wondering whether to flee from such a place or succumb to the whispers of comfort starting against her heart.
And Sarah thinks this is dangerous, how quickly this feeling enraptures her, but then remembers how she fell to the promises of distant lands she could only dream of, and would long for were she not to follow him. The Doctor: meaning well, often, but too lofty, too entangled in affairs and beings to ever focus on just one person, and their needs, for any length of time.
Maybe it's because Romana lets her wander of her own accord, answering and asking questions so that there is an interaction so clearly delineated from the often Doctor-dominated banters of old. Romana does not tantalize her with tales of the exotic, the unattainable but through space travel; she glides along the floor, her hands so easily reachable, her personality not hidden or masked in pleasantries.
Maybe it's this.
Romana promises nothing. Yet. And even if she does, when she does, Sarah doubts it would be unfulfilled or simply bait to keep from being lonely.
There is a garden she comes to, her fingers running over green veins and gazing wonderingly at an artificial sunlight above her. There are Earth plants (sunflowers and lilies) and foreign ones whose names roll easily from Romana's tongue as though she could tell you everything and you'd want to hear it.
There is a grace in her voice, a welcome that Sarah has no desire to turn away from. It would be so easy to feel foreign lands against those lips, to breathe unearthly air between their confluence. She thinks she's been in this TARDIS for years, the way she so easily imagines intimacy with Romana.
She comes beside a larger plant, a purple flower blooming at its center. As she gazes at it, breathing in its scent--a mixture of roses and strawberries--her fingers slide to its petals and immediately it grows, shimmering orange lights no bigger than the edge of her fingernail dancing away from it, around her.
Romana stands beside her, arms folded across her chest as she smiles pleasantly at Sarah.
"This is my favorite plant. It's native to the planet Cylux, and its given name would mean little to you, but roughly translated, it's called the Violet Firestorm."
Sarah hesitantly reaches a finger out to touch the errant drops of light, surprised when it doesn't burn her, despite its similarity to an ember of fire.
"A name like that could give one pause, you know. I thought it might burn me."
"No. It quite likes you, which is why it's allowed its lights to dance around you."
Sarah smiles slightly, knowing there are worse things than being fancied by a plant. A few seconds later, the lights retreat back into the bloom and the plant lowers itself to its original height. Sarah shrugs, patting the sides of her legs.
"Fancied by flora. Perfect end to the day," she jokes.
"Yes, it has impeccable taste," Romana concurs, causing the earlier feeling within Sarah to gain force once more.
Romana takes her hand impulsively, pulling her along to the console room. Sarah notices, once again, how different this console room is--sparse lighting through lamps suspended from the ceilings, dark walls with paintings. There are textures and colors with vibrancy, making it much easier to believe there is life within its very walls.
And Romana's hand inside her own is just slightly warmer than the Doctor's ever was. She thinks this is why she agrees to Cylux, with its firebreathing flowers and its apparently breathtaking meteor shower--the one she can't miss. Romana promises to bring her back to this exact moment, so she won't be missed on Earth.
The Doctor used to promise that ad nauseam.
But as Romana asserts it, her fingers deft across the controls, Sarah believes.
*
They arrive as darkness has dominion over the chilled planet, mists rising from distant valleys, the surrounding air given nearly to silence. Sarah is surprised to be free of anxiety, nearly trusting the quiet words that distantly whisper the only inhabitants of this planet are the plants.
Sarah watches Romana walk easily into the distance, nearing one of the blooming plants.
There is no danger here. There are no ill portents hovering on her consciousness, no burgeoning desire to seek reassurances of safety.
There is no hand across her collarbone impeding her stride, assuring her she will be safer away from whatever may lay beyond. Perhaps because Romana knows it's safe, and perhaps because she understands that Sarah would prefer to venture, not be shunted aside for ostensible protection.
Romana watches Sarah approach her slowly, continuing to assess the human girl.
"You'll excuse the delay--I'm still a bit...wary around foliage, since a rather nasty encounter with a Krynoid. I mean--I know this plant's harmless, it's just...habit."
Romana rubs a leaf the size of her hand between her fingers, cataloguing the litany of experiences Sarah's been through. She's never seen a Krynoid herself, but from what she knows of them, she doesn't doubt the memory of an encounter would linger, stifling further interaction with plantlife.
And yet, Sarah reaches out to touch a leaf herself, finally smiling.
So she experiences fear, but she does not let it hinder continual experience, knowledge, and growth. Interesting. She'd thought the human race a bit...timorous. Certainly Sarah Jane does not represent the entirety of her species to the extent that such an assessment would be completely false, but it pleases Romana to know that her current companion has diverged from stereotype, in many ways.
She was, for all intents and purposes, left by the Doctor.
Romana does not know the extent of their relationship, but she surmises it was unsettling enough to make Sarah wary of Time Lords and travel.
Yet she came here.
She appears to function pleasantly, despite the loss of love of a kind.
She still believes--with what Romana assumes is an enviable ease--promises.
Sarah Jane, she thinks, is indomitable. In myriad ways, and more than might be believed at first glance.
A racing descent of light across the sky catches their attention and they look upwards to see the meteors transforming the sky. Multi-colored meteors, some exploding in harmless bursts of briefly intense light. Like fireworks, Sarah thinks.
And as Romana's arm unwaveringly presses against hers, Sarah muses on the nascent relationship right here, amidst the last lives of the meteors above.
*
They spend what Sarah translates into something like three days in space, suspended, in her crude postulation, somewhere between time--much like her travels with the Doctor had been. She is surprised by the ease with which she continues to accept traveling with Romana. It's hard for her to think of herself as Romana's companion, but maybe that is only because she feels it isn't a word which properly fits--not really because it infringes on anything she'd previously had with the Doctor--but because she starts to think this isn't about mere companionship anymore.
It's about forgetting the limits of divergent species and time and galaxies that used to be friends. It's about learning that companionship is more than just being pleased with the person you spend time with, but less than the contrived notions of love which dictate that creatures should never try other loves, or lives. It doesn't mean that the separation lasts, that the departed don't ultimately place permanence only in the love between them.
Sarah snorts to herself as she turns these thoughts over in her mind, setting down the book with Pablo Neruda poems. I ought to start reading Flannery O'Connor, that would put me right out of sentimental rubbish.
Despite Sarah being stretched out on the sofa, Romana assumes her familiar position on the third cushion, pushing Sarah's feet a bit to make room.
"I've reset the coordinates for Earth, we should be landing promptly."
Sarah crosses her arms over her stomach, frowning slightly, but Romana continues, noticing her expression, "That hardly means you have to leave. I've simply overheard of some minor disturbance in your area that I thought worth looking into."
Sarah's interest is piqued, but she wants to assert her standing on their...relationship--whatever it is.
"What makes you think I'd want to stay here once we've landed?"
Romana raises an eyebrow, glancing at the book Sarah just set aside.
"Don't you? I'm usually very good at this, observing people and making assumptions about their desires and motivations. I'd be moderately willing to admit that perhaps I was wrong, in this instance."
Sarah sits up a bit, though keeps her legs near Romana's hip.
"It's not that I haven't enjoyed the company, mind you. I might even say we've gotten to be friends. It's just that--well, I don't know if I should do this, want to do this, rather."
"Do what? We're merely socializing, aren't we?"
"Are we? I guess--"
Romana picks up the book Sarah had placed on the floor, her eyes taking notice of the lines Sarah had called attention to with pencil.
"And if you listen well, in the rain you will be able to hear that I come back and go away and stay. And you'll know when I must leave. What does this mean to you, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah bites the corner of her lip briefly, thinking her burgeoning feelings aren't reciprocated at all, yet again, and it's time she learned just when to staunch these things before they intensified, only to be perpetually one-sided.
"It means...love."
"Loss, endings--these are inherent in your experiences of love?"
"If it's important, I suppose," Sarah responds, wistfully.
"Why should that be?"
"They'd have to be, otherwise...it wouldn't ever really work, ever really last. There wouldn't be any point in holding onto it if it was just...fleeting."
Romana closes the book, setting it down gently on the table to her right, then turning to Sarah and smiling. She stands, patting Sarah on the ankle, and readjusting the end of her shirt.
"Are you in love with anyone, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah furrows her brows, sitting up fully and swinging her legs over the side of the couch.
"What sort of question is that?"
Romana steps forward again, obstensibly presumptuous, and says, "Because I wanted to do this," she whispers, as she leans forward and brushes a soft kiss against Sarah's lips, "but I wouldn't want to infringe on prior loyalties."
*
"Your planet has a peculiarly abundant amount of alien interference. I can't imagine why."
"There are times, quite frequently, when it makes perfect sense to me," Sarah muses, sardonically.
"A shapeshifter," Romana specifies randomly, deciphering something (Sarah's not sure what) over the controls of the TARDIS.
"Go on," Sarah prompts, arms crossed as she leans against the wood-paneled walls.
"Apparently it's the cause of that commotion in your area. Simple thing to tend to, really, but best I do it alone. The few shapeshifters I have met have been disingenuous and perfidious, despite their ostensibly feckless appearance. Better to assume the worst about them, I say."
Sarah stands up from the wall, suddenly, wondering at how familiar this scenario is. It was often that the Doctor tried to keep Sarah away from a situation for "her own good" and this was apparently no different. The situation, anyway. But the person doing the shielding this time is quite different from the Doctor, Sarah knows, in myriad ways.
"It is my home, Romana. I don't see the point in trying to keep me from it. I mean, imagine I'd had to deal with this on my own, without you at all. I've learned to take care of myself."
Romana stands up straighter, collecting a few tools Sarah isn't familiar with, and moves towards Sarah, putting a hand on her shoulder and bending her head slightly to look intensely at her.
"You argue your point well, Sarah, but I must observe the situation as it is now, and as it is, I would prefer not involving you until the shapeshifter has been neutralized. Given that we have no idea what form it's currently taken, the situation could be volatile."
Sarah persists, wrapping her hand around Romana's, taking pleasure as it distracts the Time Lady (Sarah smiles internally, remembering the instance days ago when Romana had pointed out the distinction) and continuing in a firm tone.
"Volatile, hostile, treacherous...these are all situations familiar to me. Haven't we come to an agreement of sorts?"
"Oh? And just what is that?"
Sarah smiles, tentatively. "Two is better than one. And you asked me last night if I wanted to keep traveling with you..."
"Yes?"
"I do. So it's time you learned to accept that I will accompany you. That's what friends do."
Romana furrows her bottom lip in consideration, turning over the concept.
"Yes, friends we certainly are, but I'd rather thought we'd started to become..."
"What?"
"Well, what's the successive relationship deriving from that foundation?"
Sarah smiles, brushing a kiss at the corner of Romana's mouth. "Lovers."
"Oh. Well, we're not there yet, Sarah."
Sarah's smile falters a bit and she begins to drop her hand from around Romana's until the other woman clings to it tightly, using her free hand to brush at strands of Sarah's hair. Romana smiles gently, a previously unseen look of diffident adoration in her eyes.
"Physically, Sarah. We haven't consummated anything. But my feelings for you have become quite strong. In fact, I think I might be terribly fond of you, Sarah Jane. Which is why I'm reluctant to see you follow me. It's a strange feeling, wanting to...protect you. I know rationally you're capable and even fierce."
Sarah takes Romana's hand away from her face, squeezing that one, too, and smiling again.
"It's only natural, Romana. I feel the same."
Romana pecks Sarah's cheek with a quick kiss, then pulls back from her, to exit the TARDIS. As they step outside, Romana glances down the alley they've landed in, keeping a tiny sensor in front of her to aid in detecting the shapeshifter. Involuntarily, her left hand goes behind her to take Sarah's, and neither women are surprised by how easily their fingers slide into each other's.
*
"Sarah. Sarah!"
A cold hand presses against her cheek, and Sarah groans, turning her head slightly. Another hand comes to her other cheek so that her face is enveloped in soft, chilled hands, but she relishes the situation, latently recognizing it as familiar and natural.
"Sarah Jane, open your eyes for me, please."
The tone is laced with concern, almost agonizingly desperate, and forceful, demanding nothing but compliance. Slowly, her eyes begin to open, closing halfway briefly as she struggles to consciousness amid a pervading fog. At last, Romana's anxious face hovers before her, leaning in closer as Sarah wakes fully.
Disconnected images flash at her, but what she's only capable of fully absorbing at the moment are sensations: the freezing pulse of lips across her knuckles, strangely warming hands through her hair and around her shoulders, and a smile burgeoning across Romana's face--an image that, at last, slices through the haze.
Sarah puts a hand to her head, pulling back as she feels blood on her palm. Romana may be smiling slightly, but there is still a palpable, firm concern flooding her eyes as she helps Sarah sit up.
"What happened?" Sarah questions, her voice hushed and muffled.
"Well, there was a brief, physical altercation between myself and the shapeshifter, and you...stepped in front of me. How do your ribs feel?"
Sarah frowns, suddenly noticing an increasing pain in the middle ribs of her right side.
"Like they've been bruised."
Romana nods, very carefully helping Sarah stand, and keeping a tight grip around her human girl as they walk slowly back to the TARDIS.
"I certainly hope that's all they are," Romana asserts, her hand light against Sarah's hip.
As they near the TARDIS, Sarah's groggy, slightly slurred voice questions, "What happened to the shapeshifter?"
Romana's gaze remains focused on the TARDIS doors, her fingers deftly pushing the keys into the lock as she says, with a quietly bludgeoning edge, "He won't be troubling anyone."
Sarah is only mildly surprised. The Doctor likely wouldn't have done such a thing, but then she realizes another thing about Romana: the Time Lady is obviously much more pragmatic about things that are inherently dangerous.
It was noble to think the best of all creatures, but also naive. Sarah actually feels a tinge of relief about Romana's decision. It means she's intelligent, practical, and forthright.
As Romana leads her to the medical center, Sarah continues to reassess everything different about this TARDIS, everything that's somehow better. Her throbbing head and protesting ribs start to undercut further contemplation, though, and by the time they pass through the doorway to the infirmary, Sarah is nearly slumped completely in Romana's arms.
Having only a mild concussion, Romana injects Sarah with a natural anesthetic from Gallifrey, thinking it best that she doze a bit as Romana tends to her ribs and any other injuries she may have missed. Sarah briefly catches Romana telling her that the ribs are merely bruised and should mend quickly with the advanced topical cream and dressing she applies.
Sarah's eyes are nearly fully closed as Romana lifts her shirt to spread the warm blue gel over her skin, an instant relief fusing into her bones, and relishes the sensation of long fingers brushing through her hair again, lips affirming absolutes to her forehead.
*
About a week later, Sarah notices Romana watching her on the edge of new intensity, her head tilted as Sarah pulls headphones away from her ear. Sarah smiles at Romana, who takes the expression as an invitation to come forward.
Sitting next to Sarah, she smiles back, questioning, "Were you enjoying the music?"
"Very much. It's a symphony from--"
"Brexa. Musical savants amass on that planet. I had a hunch you'd enjoy it."
Sarah smiles, as the selection had been waiting for her when she put on the headphones. She looks at Romana more closely, though, removing the headphones from around her neck and turning to face the woman.
"Is anything wrong?"
Romana sighs a bit, reaching forward to take Sarah's hands.
"Since our incident with the shapeshifter, I've been increasingly more reluctant to let you out of my sight. It's a rather bothersome feeling, not only for its disruptiveness, but its inherent illogicality. I don't want to let go of you. I'm between loyalties: my old one, to travel and discovery, and my new one...to you. I wish to return to the Doctor, to see out my adventures with him. But I think...perhaps I'm in love with you. And a lot of this has been roiling and becoming more apparent since you were hurt."
Sarah bites her lip and stands, taking Romana's hand and quixotically leading them both to Sarah's designated bedroom. As they enter the room, there is no hesitation, from either of them, and Sarah leads Romana to the mattress. The pain of her bruised ribs is tolerable now, especially for the activity awaiting them.
"That's a human reaction," Sarah finally says, kissing Romana's neck. She wants to do this, and forget letting go for the moment.
"Is it? I'm not sure I like that, the implication that I'm reacting as a human would, that is."
Sarah gently, but forcefully, pushes Romana into the pillows. "I think you might like this."
As Sarah kisses her, Romana feels an odd sensation come over her, through her. Tingling warmth--that's it. How terrifically odd. But she finds it's a rather pleasant feeling, so she pushes further into the kiss, pulling back after a time to speak again.
"And why would you assume that, Sarah Jane?"
"Most creatures do. You're so curious about human relationships and their expressions of love, and this is a manifestation of all that."
Romana considers this, stroking her fingers through Sarah's hair, wondering at her with distant consideration.
"What do you call this, then, this...entanglement of limbs and onslaught of lips upon skin?"
Sarah giggles a bit, kissing Romana's cheeks. "We call this making love."
"Making love? An abstract notion becomes something capable of being created...I think I quite like the designation. If I've assumed everything correctly, then I would say this act is rather like an affirmation as well."
Sarah runs her palms down Romana's hips, shivering as Romana's hands roam everywhere, and her lips, between conversation, claim bare skin.
"Yes, about the sum of it. Now...do you like it?"
Romana smiles widely, kissing Sarah's lips again. "Quite well, actually."
"Then hush, will you? There's more to come and you're distracting me."
"Am I? And what's more? You mean, better than this?"
"Much."
Sarah kisses her shoulder, then, propelled with fervency, kisses her lips as Romana says, "Teach me."
Sarah obliges.
As they part, much later in the night, the fusion of fire and ice recedes, and they are once again an alien and a human seeking ways to forego boundaries and suspend time for moments like this, moments when they believe they could sustain each other.
Sarah's head is upon Romana's stomach, her limbs languid, her mind sluggish, so she goes easily into Romana's embrace as new her lover pulls her upwards until her cheek is against her neck. Brushing a kiss across Sarah's knuckles, Romana whispers, "My Sarah Jane" and tightens her arms around the human she shouldn't love.
And this isn't a love of constants.
But it doesn't consider its fate.
*
There is a difference between being alone--longing for a person, or people you might love--and being lonely. And if Romana was the latter, she might be dangerous to love, just as the Doctor is. But since she isn't, Sarah starts to think it's all right to love someone you will inevitably miss, and be without.
As Romana's TARDIS dematerializes, Sarah takes some of the remnants of their time together, steeling herself for another ending. But she is taken aback when Romana follows her, thinking it only fitting that this goodbye be so different, as different as the relationship itself is.
They land in Sarah's back garden, and hold hands the brief distance to Sarah's flat. Walking in, Sarah sighs as she sets her things down, looking at Romana reluctantly.
"I know about endings. I'm just not so fond of them sometimes," Sarah bites around a cracking voice.
Like stars dying around you, endings you never really see--you just breathe in. Sarah, because she'd actually been amongst the stars, had enough stardust at the bottom of her lungs to make her more than just a human from Earth. She also, in faint ways and maybe more than anything else, belongs to the universe.
With every breath that leaves her, she is returning tiny remnants of galaxies to their destinies far from her own. So when she dies, she will have actually given the universe back pieces of itself. And this is why it's so unnervingly easy for Romana to love her, because Sarah belongs only to the very institution Romana knows best: time.
The Time Lady's hands cup her cheeks, brushing at the lone tear about to fall.
"There's no need to think of this as such," Romana declares, pushing her lips softly against Sarah's.
"Why is that?" Sarah berates herself for the juvenile way it sounds. So wanting for reassurance.
"I'll always come back."
Sarah is stories, ancient and young and fragmented, and because Romana promises her ownership of her extra heart, Sarah lets her leave, knowing an ending will never be theirs. But as much as she wants to believe Romana, Sarah still decides to take this as an ending, realizing that not all of them are similar. And this one...is uncertain.
With one last kiss, Romana leaves through the back garden, and for the first time in years, the sounds of dematerialization do not trouble her.
And there's a star in the left corner of the sky that reminds Sarah Jane, on her scant lonely days, there is a nearly infinite creature loving her to the limitless universe which holds them both on the edges of suns.
fin.
* Both of the quotes from poetry come from Pablo Neruda
Author: Kristin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Sarah/Romana I
Summary: Romana and Sarah Jane meet accidentally and find unexpected companionship in each other.
Disclaimer: The characters in no way belong to me. They are the property of the BBC
Notes: This is somewhat AU, as I infer that between Romana I's regeneration into Romana II, she takes a brief furlough to Earth. And if it can pair her with Sarah Jane, I make it work however I can. For Sarah's part, this takes place roughly three years after the Doctor dropped her back on Earth. There is femslash, so don't read if you don't like that. Enjoy!
*
A charcoal dusted air surrounds her as the sun cedes its empire and night comes slowly from beneath a horizon she imagines you can actually touch; a briefly suspended purgatory between abundant light and absolute darkness.
Because of the transitory luminance of the stars and moon, it is easy to notice those lights which don't belong. She expects the streetlights, the small, muted glows of lamps through windows, but not the lone shimmer atop a shadowed box.
There is a sound so like the one she hears on the edges of dreams, and when she looks up...
...the TARDIS.
She shivers, thinking of the three years she's spent remembering the labyrinthine corridors, walking the shelves of books and fingering through the unmatched volumes of music held within the tiny box. It is a memory so near she can still recall the sound of being and not-being, of going from one place to the next, through time...within time.
Sarah wonders if the Doctor is in there, though it's more likely he's about. What for, she can only wonder.
She shivers, not understanding why, this night, she should see the TARDIS again. But she clenches her right hand, running fingers over her knuckles as she ruminates over what to do. Eventually, she heeds her first instinct.
Walking up to the exterior, she beats the side of her fist against the dark door, "So you can get to Croydon, can you? Just not when it matters. Evidently, when you dump someone off you just assume if it's somewhere on Earth, that's good enough, is that it?"
Taking a deep breath, Sarah feels an instant relief, then strokes an apologetic hand over the TARDIS doors, which had always seemed to sense any modicum of discontent in the human girl, responding accordingly. Hard to fully see in the wane light, Sarah pauses as the familiar hum she expects does not come.
Just then, the door opens quickly, and a woman with wavy, shoulder-length brown hair appears, looking nonplussed.
"Can I help you?" The woman asks tightly.
"The Doctor--"
"Is wayward in his own TARDIS. From the fragments of pejorative vocalizations I was able to decipher, I gather you have an...issue with the Doctor?"
Sarah processes the revelation that this is a TARDIS, just not the Doctor's TARDIS, that the Doctor is unsurprisingly elsewhere, and that another Time Lord is standing before her.
"Well, I did--I do. Sort of. It's just--"
Romana scrutinizes her features a bit, then interrupts knowingly, "Sarah Jane Smith."
Another tremor of shock passes through Sarah. This other Time Lord knows of the Doctor...has she also traveled with him, to know who she is?
"Yes," Sarah affirms, hesitantly, "and you are?"
Romana smiles, sticking a hand out as she leans against the TARDIS doorframe.
"You may call me Romana."
Sarah returns the handshake, then rubs her arms up and down each other, as standing in one spot is causing her to feel the chill which earlier had been tolerable.
"Oh, it must be cold for you. Do come in," Romana says politely, stepping away from the door to allow Sarah room inside.
An awfully inviting gesture, and Romana seems nice enough anyway, but still...it is a TARDIS. And Romana is a Time Lord. Sarah feels quite certain she's had her fill of Gallifreyan natives. Still...what could it hurt? Not all humans are alike, not all planets are alike, and if she learned anything from her tenture with the Doctor, it was to "broaden her mind," so she decides to quiet her doubts for the time being and see how different the two Time Lords really are.
Breathing is an action she has to remind herself of suddenly as she walks inside, looking up to survey the high ceilings, the wooden, dark-paneled walls, the lighting that is more of a glow than a clinically focused beam. There is nothing harsh or insipid about this interior, quite different from that of the Doctor's.
"Would you like some tea? I've never personally made it myself, but I am aware your species is fond of it, particularly in moments which might be...disconcerting."
Sarah is still surveying, aware of the voice so near her, but not quite coming to it yet.
"Yes," she says, simply.
The voice is closer to her, "Is this such a moment for you, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah comes back then, looking Romana in the eye. There is something temperate and reassuring about her, despite the flash of haughtiness, the air of superiority.
"I wouldn't say that, no. It is rather surreal, though. And perfect to consider over a cup of tea."
"Splendid. Make some for us, won't you? I've never had the pleasure to partake of it before."
Sarah purses her lips. What was it about meeting Time Lords and being dictated to about fixing beverages?
"Why don't you show me where the kitchen is, and I'll show you how to make tea."
"Whatever would I need such a skill for?"
"Broaden your mind," Sarah says frankly after a pause, almost smiling as she follows Romana to the kitchen.
*
Very little about them is congruent, but for the fact that they are both Time Lords.
Two hearts. The more to love with. The Doctor used both hearts to love, and this is why, Sarah thinks, it could never have really worked between them. He could never curb his wanderlust, could never cease loving freely and deeply the many people he embraced on his travels.
But she wonders about Romana's hearts; are their rhythms fluid and linear, pumping only to sustain life--or is there room enough between them for further incentive to exist?
"So will you be traveling with the Doctor again?" Sarah ventures, after the tea.
They are in the library, and this one is equally full of varied texts, but a little more intimidating, yet strangely encompassing with unexplained warmth.
"I imagine so. There is more I hope to learn from him, but I thought a...sabbatical, as I think you humans call it, was in order."
Sarah picks up an anthology of Earth poets. Her fingers catch between pages holding to each other with some invisible bond: time and circumstance. She peels them apart gently, absorbing words she hasn't known for years.
"I believe he was...fond of you," Romana tries the word, wondering if it will fit Sarah's assessment of her relationship with the Doctor.
Sarah shuts the book tightly. The memory of you emerges from the night around me. Beautiful words. Always beautiful, always just words.
"I was fond of him. But we had to part."
Sarah is wistful, running a hand over the velvet couch next to the bookshelf holding Victorian literature.
"Was there...love between you?" Romana is genuinely curious, her tone void of recrimination or even a sort of disdain Sarah might expect from a species she's learned traditionally looks down upon the human race and its frivolous notions of attachment.
"Of a kind," Sarah presumptuously takes a seat in the deep cushion, folding her hands in her lap.
"How many kinds of love exist?" Romana sits across from her.
Love is just a word, for Romana, but one she has seen progressively deeper shades of, in her travels. Her first glimpse was an innocent kiss on a high cheekbone; then, closed eyes as lips linger above eyebrows; eyes level as people have silent conversations, mouth soft over knuckles and fingers; and the culmination of every collected affection, the joint coalescence of lips, the losing of breaths.
The eyes were always closed in that moment, making her wonder what they were afraid to see. What could be gained from putting mouths together?
She wants to know more about humans and their behaviors and since the Doctor spent such a lengthy amount of time with Sarah Jane, Romana thinks there must be something in her worth knowing.
"Many kinds. You've got bookshelves full of Earth writers spending their lives trying to figure out what love is, what it means for everyone. The greatest mystery, I suppose."
"Yes, I do enjoy your Earthen prose. Some of it is bombastic and superfluous, but others...yes, I quite enjoy. But why does the notion of love remain a conjecture not yet definitively answered?"
Sarah shrugs, rubbing a thumb over her knuckles.
"Because the world keeps turning."
Romana smiles slightly, tilting her head fractionally to the side.
"You answer a question with an abstract."
Pulling her arms tightly over her stomach, Sarah tries to ignore the sensation that she's being scrutinized for something, as though she's a specimen under a microscope. And it's largely because she hasn't yet figured out if Romana is genuinely interested in her or just her convenient membership in the human race, something she obviously cares to know more about.
"I mean we keep meeting people, we keep learning things, and we have to figure out how to fit all these people and ideas into our tiny human heads. You can't love one friend the same way you love another, because that friend might leave, the other might stay. It's always changing."
Romana tucks away a smile at Sarah's own declaration of her people having 'tiny human heads' and starts to think, more firmly, that she'd like to spend a little more time with this Earthly creature.
"I think I like you, Sarah Jane," she announces, as though it's a revelation Sarah should be glad for.
Oddly, she is. And as she lets her arms unravel from their tightly wound position against her stomach, she thinks she likes Romana too.
*
It presses against her ribs, this tight feeling of being between; she marks time in a corridor that exists outside linear patterns so familiar to her, wondering whether to flee from such a place or succumb to the whispers of comfort starting against her heart.
And Sarah thinks this is dangerous, how quickly this feeling enraptures her, but then remembers how she fell to the promises of distant lands she could only dream of, and would long for were she not to follow him. The Doctor: meaning well, often, but too lofty, too entangled in affairs and beings to ever focus on just one person, and their needs, for any length of time.
Maybe it's because Romana lets her wander of her own accord, answering and asking questions so that there is an interaction so clearly delineated from the often Doctor-dominated banters of old. Romana does not tantalize her with tales of the exotic, the unattainable but through space travel; she glides along the floor, her hands so easily reachable, her personality not hidden or masked in pleasantries.
Maybe it's this.
Romana promises nothing. Yet. And even if she does, when she does, Sarah doubts it would be unfulfilled or simply bait to keep from being lonely.
There is a garden she comes to, her fingers running over green veins and gazing wonderingly at an artificial sunlight above her. There are Earth plants (sunflowers and lilies) and foreign ones whose names roll easily from Romana's tongue as though she could tell you everything and you'd want to hear it.
There is a grace in her voice, a welcome that Sarah has no desire to turn away from. It would be so easy to feel foreign lands against those lips, to breathe unearthly air between their confluence. She thinks she's been in this TARDIS for years, the way she so easily imagines intimacy with Romana.
She comes beside a larger plant, a purple flower blooming at its center. As she gazes at it, breathing in its scent--a mixture of roses and strawberries--her fingers slide to its petals and immediately it grows, shimmering orange lights no bigger than the edge of her fingernail dancing away from it, around her.
Romana stands beside her, arms folded across her chest as she smiles pleasantly at Sarah.
"This is my favorite plant. It's native to the planet Cylux, and its given name would mean little to you, but roughly translated, it's called the Violet Firestorm."
Sarah hesitantly reaches a finger out to touch the errant drops of light, surprised when it doesn't burn her, despite its similarity to an ember of fire.
"A name like that could give one pause, you know. I thought it might burn me."
"No. It quite likes you, which is why it's allowed its lights to dance around you."
Sarah smiles slightly, knowing there are worse things than being fancied by a plant. A few seconds later, the lights retreat back into the bloom and the plant lowers itself to its original height. Sarah shrugs, patting the sides of her legs.
"Fancied by flora. Perfect end to the day," she jokes.
"Yes, it has impeccable taste," Romana concurs, causing the earlier feeling within Sarah to gain force once more.
Romana takes her hand impulsively, pulling her along to the console room. Sarah notices, once again, how different this console room is--sparse lighting through lamps suspended from the ceilings, dark walls with paintings. There are textures and colors with vibrancy, making it much easier to believe there is life within its very walls.
And Romana's hand inside her own is just slightly warmer than the Doctor's ever was. She thinks this is why she agrees to Cylux, with its firebreathing flowers and its apparently breathtaking meteor shower--the one she can't miss. Romana promises to bring her back to this exact moment, so she won't be missed on Earth.
The Doctor used to promise that ad nauseam.
But as Romana asserts it, her fingers deft across the controls, Sarah believes.
*
They arrive as darkness has dominion over the chilled planet, mists rising from distant valleys, the surrounding air given nearly to silence. Sarah is surprised to be free of anxiety, nearly trusting the quiet words that distantly whisper the only inhabitants of this planet are the plants.
Sarah watches Romana walk easily into the distance, nearing one of the blooming plants.
There is no danger here. There are no ill portents hovering on her consciousness, no burgeoning desire to seek reassurances of safety.
There is no hand across her collarbone impeding her stride, assuring her she will be safer away from whatever may lay beyond. Perhaps because Romana knows it's safe, and perhaps because she understands that Sarah would prefer to venture, not be shunted aside for ostensible protection.
Romana watches Sarah approach her slowly, continuing to assess the human girl.
"You'll excuse the delay--I'm still a bit...wary around foliage, since a rather nasty encounter with a Krynoid. I mean--I know this plant's harmless, it's just...habit."
Romana rubs a leaf the size of her hand between her fingers, cataloguing the litany of experiences Sarah's been through. She's never seen a Krynoid herself, but from what she knows of them, she doesn't doubt the memory of an encounter would linger, stifling further interaction with plantlife.
And yet, Sarah reaches out to touch a leaf herself, finally smiling.
So she experiences fear, but she does not let it hinder continual experience, knowledge, and growth. Interesting. She'd thought the human race a bit...timorous. Certainly Sarah Jane does not represent the entirety of her species to the extent that such an assessment would be completely false, but it pleases Romana to know that her current companion has diverged from stereotype, in many ways.
She was, for all intents and purposes, left by the Doctor.
Romana does not know the extent of their relationship, but she surmises it was unsettling enough to make Sarah wary of Time Lords and travel.
Yet she came here.
She appears to function pleasantly, despite the loss of love of a kind.
She still believes--with what Romana assumes is an enviable ease--promises.
Sarah Jane, she thinks, is indomitable. In myriad ways, and more than might be believed at first glance.
A racing descent of light across the sky catches their attention and they look upwards to see the meteors transforming the sky. Multi-colored meteors, some exploding in harmless bursts of briefly intense light. Like fireworks, Sarah thinks.
And as Romana's arm unwaveringly presses against hers, Sarah muses on the nascent relationship right here, amidst the last lives of the meteors above.
*
They spend what Sarah translates into something like three days in space, suspended, in her crude postulation, somewhere between time--much like her travels with the Doctor had been. She is surprised by the ease with which she continues to accept traveling with Romana. It's hard for her to think of herself as Romana's companion, but maybe that is only because she feels it isn't a word which properly fits--not really because it infringes on anything she'd previously had with the Doctor--but because she starts to think this isn't about mere companionship anymore.
It's about forgetting the limits of divergent species and time and galaxies that used to be friends. It's about learning that companionship is more than just being pleased with the person you spend time with, but less than the contrived notions of love which dictate that creatures should never try other loves, or lives. It doesn't mean that the separation lasts, that the departed don't ultimately place permanence only in the love between them.
Sarah snorts to herself as she turns these thoughts over in her mind, setting down the book with Pablo Neruda poems. I ought to start reading Flannery O'Connor, that would put me right out of sentimental rubbish.
Despite Sarah being stretched out on the sofa, Romana assumes her familiar position on the third cushion, pushing Sarah's feet a bit to make room.
"I've reset the coordinates for Earth, we should be landing promptly."
Sarah crosses her arms over her stomach, frowning slightly, but Romana continues, noticing her expression, "That hardly means you have to leave. I've simply overheard of some minor disturbance in your area that I thought worth looking into."
Sarah's interest is piqued, but she wants to assert her standing on their...relationship--whatever it is.
"What makes you think I'd want to stay here once we've landed?"
Romana raises an eyebrow, glancing at the book Sarah just set aside.
"Don't you? I'm usually very good at this, observing people and making assumptions about their desires and motivations. I'd be moderately willing to admit that perhaps I was wrong, in this instance."
Sarah sits up a bit, though keeps her legs near Romana's hip.
"It's not that I haven't enjoyed the company, mind you. I might even say we've gotten to be friends. It's just that--well, I don't know if I should do this, want to do this, rather."
"Do what? We're merely socializing, aren't we?"
"Are we? I guess--"
Romana picks up the book Sarah had placed on the floor, her eyes taking notice of the lines Sarah had called attention to with pencil.
"And if you listen well, in the rain you will be able to hear that I come back and go away and stay. And you'll know when I must leave. What does this mean to you, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah bites the corner of her lip briefly, thinking her burgeoning feelings aren't reciprocated at all, yet again, and it's time she learned just when to staunch these things before they intensified, only to be perpetually one-sided.
"It means...love."
"Loss, endings--these are inherent in your experiences of love?"
"If it's important, I suppose," Sarah responds, wistfully.
"Why should that be?"
"They'd have to be, otherwise...it wouldn't ever really work, ever really last. There wouldn't be any point in holding onto it if it was just...fleeting."
Romana closes the book, setting it down gently on the table to her right, then turning to Sarah and smiling. She stands, patting Sarah on the ankle, and readjusting the end of her shirt.
"Are you in love with anyone, Sarah Jane?"
Sarah furrows her brows, sitting up fully and swinging her legs over the side of the couch.
"What sort of question is that?"
Romana steps forward again, obstensibly presumptuous, and says, "Because I wanted to do this," she whispers, as she leans forward and brushes a soft kiss against Sarah's lips, "but I wouldn't want to infringe on prior loyalties."
*
"Your planet has a peculiarly abundant amount of alien interference. I can't imagine why."
"There are times, quite frequently, when it makes perfect sense to me," Sarah muses, sardonically.
"A shapeshifter," Romana specifies randomly, deciphering something (Sarah's not sure what) over the controls of the TARDIS.
"Go on," Sarah prompts, arms crossed as she leans against the wood-paneled walls.
"Apparently it's the cause of that commotion in your area. Simple thing to tend to, really, but best I do it alone. The few shapeshifters I have met have been disingenuous and perfidious, despite their ostensibly feckless appearance. Better to assume the worst about them, I say."
Sarah stands up from the wall, suddenly, wondering at how familiar this scenario is. It was often that the Doctor tried to keep Sarah away from a situation for "her own good" and this was apparently no different. The situation, anyway. But the person doing the shielding this time is quite different from the Doctor, Sarah knows, in myriad ways.
"It is my home, Romana. I don't see the point in trying to keep me from it. I mean, imagine I'd had to deal with this on my own, without you at all. I've learned to take care of myself."
Romana stands up straighter, collecting a few tools Sarah isn't familiar with, and moves towards Sarah, putting a hand on her shoulder and bending her head slightly to look intensely at her.
"You argue your point well, Sarah, but I must observe the situation as it is now, and as it is, I would prefer not involving you until the shapeshifter has been neutralized. Given that we have no idea what form it's currently taken, the situation could be volatile."
Sarah persists, wrapping her hand around Romana's, taking pleasure as it distracts the Time Lady (Sarah smiles internally, remembering the instance days ago when Romana had pointed out the distinction) and continuing in a firm tone.
"Volatile, hostile, treacherous...these are all situations familiar to me. Haven't we come to an agreement of sorts?"
"Oh? And just what is that?"
Sarah smiles, tentatively. "Two is better than one. And you asked me last night if I wanted to keep traveling with you..."
"Yes?"
"I do. So it's time you learned to accept that I will accompany you. That's what friends do."
Romana furrows her bottom lip in consideration, turning over the concept.
"Yes, friends we certainly are, but I'd rather thought we'd started to become..."
"What?"
"Well, what's the successive relationship deriving from that foundation?"
Sarah smiles, brushing a kiss at the corner of Romana's mouth. "Lovers."
"Oh. Well, we're not there yet, Sarah."
Sarah's smile falters a bit and she begins to drop her hand from around Romana's until the other woman clings to it tightly, using her free hand to brush at strands of Sarah's hair. Romana smiles gently, a previously unseen look of diffident adoration in her eyes.
"Physically, Sarah. We haven't consummated anything. But my feelings for you have become quite strong. In fact, I think I might be terribly fond of you, Sarah Jane. Which is why I'm reluctant to see you follow me. It's a strange feeling, wanting to...protect you. I know rationally you're capable and even fierce."
Sarah takes Romana's hand away from her face, squeezing that one, too, and smiling again.
"It's only natural, Romana. I feel the same."
Romana pecks Sarah's cheek with a quick kiss, then pulls back from her, to exit the TARDIS. As they step outside, Romana glances down the alley they've landed in, keeping a tiny sensor in front of her to aid in detecting the shapeshifter. Involuntarily, her left hand goes behind her to take Sarah's, and neither women are surprised by how easily their fingers slide into each other's.
*
"Sarah. Sarah!"
A cold hand presses against her cheek, and Sarah groans, turning her head slightly. Another hand comes to her other cheek so that her face is enveloped in soft, chilled hands, but she relishes the situation, latently recognizing it as familiar and natural.
"Sarah Jane, open your eyes for me, please."
The tone is laced with concern, almost agonizingly desperate, and forceful, demanding nothing but compliance. Slowly, her eyes begin to open, closing halfway briefly as she struggles to consciousness amid a pervading fog. At last, Romana's anxious face hovers before her, leaning in closer as Sarah wakes fully.
Disconnected images flash at her, but what she's only capable of fully absorbing at the moment are sensations: the freezing pulse of lips across her knuckles, strangely warming hands through her hair and around her shoulders, and a smile burgeoning across Romana's face--an image that, at last, slices through the haze.
Sarah puts a hand to her head, pulling back as she feels blood on her palm. Romana may be smiling slightly, but there is still a palpable, firm concern flooding her eyes as she helps Sarah sit up.
"What happened?" Sarah questions, her voice hushed and muffled.
"Well, there was a brief, physical altercation between myself and the shapeshifter, and you...stepped in front of me. How do your ribs feel?"
Sarah frowns, suddenly noticing an increasing pain in the middle ribs of her right side.
"Like they've been bruised."
Romana nods, very carefully helping Sarah stand, and keeping a tight grip around her human girl as they walk slowly back to the TARDIS.
"I certainly hope that's all they are," Romana asserts, her hand light against Sarah's hip.
As they near the TARDIS, Sarah's groggy, slightly slurred voice questions, "What happened to the shapeshifter?"
Romana's gaze remains focused on the TARDIS doors, her fingers deftly pushing the keys into the lock as she says, with a quietly bludgeoning edge, "He won't be troubling anyone."
Sarah is only mildly surprised. The Doctor likely wouldn't have done such a thing, but then she realizes another thing about Romana: the Time Lady is obviously much more pragmatic about things that are inherently dangerous.
It was noble to think the best of all creatures, but also naive. Sarah actually feels a tinge of relief about Romana's decision. It means she's intelligent, practical, and forthright.
As Romana leads her to the medical center, Sarah continues to reassess everything different about this TARDIS, everything that's somehow better. Her throbbing head and protesting ribs start to undercut further contemplation, though, and by the time they pass through the doorway to the infirmary, Sarah is nearly slumped completely in Romana's arms.
Having only a mild concussion, Romana injects Sarah with a natural anesthetic from Gallifrey, thinking it best that she doze a bit as Romana tends to her ribs and any other injuries she may have missed. Sarah briefly catches Romana telling her that the ribs are merely bruised and should mend quickly with the advanced topical cream and dressing she applies.
Sarah's eyes are nearly fully closed as Romana lifts her shirt to spread the warm blue gel over her skin, an instant relief fusing into her bones, and relishes the sensation of long fingers brushing through her hair again, lips affirming absolutes to her forehead.
*
About a week later, Sarah notices Romana watching her on the edge of new intensity, her head tilted as Sarah pulls headphones away from her ear. Sarah smiles at Romana, who takes the expression as an invitation to come forward.
Sitting next to Sarah, she smiles back, questioning, "Were you enjoying the music?"
"Very much. It's a symphony from--"
"Brexa. Musical savants amass on that planet. I had a hunch you'd enjoy it."
Sarah smiles, as the selection had been waiting for her when she put on the headphones. She looks at Romana more closely, though, removing the headphones from around her neck and turning to face the woman.
"Is anything wrong?"
Romana sighs a bit, reaching forward to take Sarah's hands.
"Since our incident with the shapeshifter, I've been increasingly more reluctant to let you out of my sight. It's a rather bothersome feeling, not only for its disruptiveness, but its inherent illogicality. I don't want to let go of you. I'm between loyalties: my old one, to travel and discovery, and my new one...to you. I wish to return to the Doctor, to see out my adventures with him. But I think...perhaps I'm in love with you. And a lot of this has been roiling and becoming more apparent since you were hurt."
Sarah bites her lip and stands, taking Romana's hand and quixotically leading them both to Sarah's designated bedroom. As they enter the room, there is no hesitation, from either of them, and Sarah leads Romana to the mattress. The pain of her bruised ribs is tolerable now, especially for the activity awaiting them.
"That's a human reaction," Sarah finally says, kissing Romana's neck. She wants to do this, and forget letting go for the moment.
"Is it? I'm not sure I like that, the implication that I'm reacting as a human would, that is."
Sarah gently, but forcefully, pushes Romana into the pillows. "I think you might like this."
As Sarah kisses her, Romana feels an odd sensation come over her, through her. Tingling warmth--that's it. How terrifically odd. But she finds it's a rather pleasant feeling, so she pushes further into the kiss, pulling back after a time to speak again.
"And why would you assume that, Sarah Jane?"
"Most creatures do. You're so curious about human relationships and their expressions of love, and this is a manifestation of all that."
Romana considers this, stroking her fingers through Sarah's hair, wondering at her with distant consideration.
"What do you call this, then, this...entanglement of limbs and onslaught of lips upon skin?"
Sarah giggles a bit, kissing Romana's cheeks. "We call this making love."
"Making love? An abstract notion becomes something capable of being created...I think I quite like the designation. If I've assumed everything correctly, then I would say this act is rather like an affirmation as well."
Sarah runs her palms down Romana's hips, shivering as Romana's hands roam everywhere, and her lips, between conversation, claim bare skin.
"Yes, about the sum of it. Now...do you like it?"
Romana smiles widely, kissing Sarah's lips again. "Quite well, actually."
"Then hush, will you? There's more to come and you're distracting me."
"Am I? And what's more? You mean, better than this?"
"Much."
Sarah kisses her shoulder, then, propelled with fervency, kisses her lips as Romana says, "Teach me."
Sarah obliges.
As they part, much later in the night, the fusion of fire and ice recedes, and they are once again an alien and a human seeking ways to forego boundaries and suspend time for moments like this, moments when they believe they could sustain each other.
Sarah's head is upon Romana's stomach, her limbs languid, her mind sluggish, so she goes easily into Romana's embrace as new her lover pulls her upwards until her cheek is against her neck. Brushing a kiss across Sarah's knuckles, Romana whispers, "My Sarah Jane" and tightens her arms around the human she shouldn't love.
And this isn't a love of constants.
But it doesn't consider its fate.
*
There is a difference between being alone--longing for a person, or people you might love--and being lonely. And if Romana was the latter, she might be dangerous to love, just as the Doctor is. But since she isn't, Sarah starts to think it's all right to love someone you will inevitably miss, and be without.
As Romana's TARDIS dematerializes, Sarah takes some of the remnants of their time together, steeling herself for another ending. But she is taken aback when Romana follows her, thinking it only fitting that this goodbye be so different, as different as the relationship itself is.
They land in Sarah's back garden, and hold hands the brief distance to Sarah's flat. Walking in, Sarah sighs as she sets her things down, looking at Romana reluctantly.
"I know about endings. I'm just not so fond of them sometimes," Sarah bites around a cracking voice.
Like stars dying around you, endings you never really see--you just breathe in. Sarah, because she'd actually been amongst the stars, had enough stardust at the bottom of her lungs to make her more than just a human from Earth. She also, in faint ways and maybe more than anything else, belongs to the universe.
With every breath that leaves her, she is returning tiny remnants of galaxies to their destinies far from her own. So when she dies, she will have actually given the universe back pieces of itself. And this is why it's so unnervingly easy for Romana to love her, because Sarah belongs only to the very institution Romana knows best: time.
The Time Lady's hands cup her cheeks, brushing at the lone tear about to fall.
"There's no need to think of this as such," Romana declares, pushing her lips softly against Sarah's.
"Why is that?" Sarah berates herself for the juvenile way it sounds. So wanting for reassurance.
"I'll always come back."
Sarah is stories, ancient and young and fragmented, and because Romana promises her ownership of her extra heart, Sarah lets her leave, knowing an ending will never be theirs. But as much as she wants to believe Romana, Sarah still decides to take this as an ending, realizing that not all of them are similar. And this one...is uncertain.
With one last kiss, Romana leaves through the back garden, and for the first time in years, the sounds of dematerialization do not trouble her.
And there's a star in the left corner of the sky that reminds Sarah Jane, on her scant lonely days, there is a nearly infinite creature loving her to the limitless universe which holds them both on the edges of suns.
fin.
* Both of the quotes from poetry come from Pablo Neruda