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lizbeeSummary: Unscrupulous temporal engineers and a major breach in the laws of time lead Rose Tyler and the first Romana to join forces to rescue the Doctor. Both of him.
Rated: PG-13
Notes: So, I posted the first three chapters a few months back. But it's been a while, and I changed a couple of minor details in the early chapters, so I decided to repost.
Timepiece
by LizBee
Two
Romana's planning process was quite different from the Doctor's. Slightly less chaos and hardly any screaming.
On the other hand, Rose thought, surveying the wardrobe room, it was much messier.
"Try this," Romana said, handing her a pile of black fabric. Unfolded, it was revealed as a uniform, although with more sparkly bits than Rose usually associated with that sort of thing.
"Let me guess," said Rose, "we're going to be, like, visiting dignitaries? And bully our way into the laboratories?"
Romana looked faintly crestfallen at having her thunder stolen, but she said, "That's essentially it, yes."
"Right." Rose examined the uniform again, then threw it aside and followed Romana further into the wardrobe room. "Thing is," she said, "visiting dignitaries in shiny uniforms are a bit ... showy."
Romana arched one thin eyebrow. "'Showy'?"
"You're thinking that if we make enough noise, they won't dare shoot us or hook us up to their machines, yeah?"
Romana nodded.
"But don't you think," Rose said, "that the Doctor hasn't tried that already?"
"And what," Romana asked with all appearance of sweetness, "do you propose?"
Rose shrugged. "One thing I've noticed is that no one ever pays attention to, like ... cleaning staff?"
Romana blinked. "Cleaners?"
"Or technicians?"
"Technicians."
"Or ... something."
Romana pursed her lips and tilted her head.
"You're right," she said eventually. "You're quite right." She reached into the back of a shelf of clothes, retrieved a pair of grey trousers and threw them at Rose. As Romana turned away to find clothes of her own, Rose thought she was smiling.
Romana was still smiling as she landed the TARDIS. She smiled as she told Rose they were in a storage bay for private space vehicles. She smiled as she booked them passage on an interstellar liner heading for Temnein. She smiled at the man who told them that the journey would take a day (he smiled too, and blushed a vivid green). She smiled as they were shown into their tiny berth that held little more than two narrow beds, a bathroom and a mini bar.
"You think you're so clever, don't you?" said Rose.
"Yes," Romana said. She was brushing her hair. With Rose's brush.
"And modest, too."
"I've always thought false modesty was terribly unattractive."
"You and the Doctor must be a great pair," said Rose, lying back on her bed. "Going around the universe being cleverer than everyone. It's amazing you don't have people trying to kill you more often." She looked up. "So how'd you two get together, anyway? I know he's had a lot of people with him, but I never thought..." Rose trailed off, not sure what she was trying to ask.
Romana said, with a trace of smugness, "As far as I know, I'm the first Time Lord to travel with him."
"Oh. That must be nice."
"There was his granddaughter, of course, but she was unqualified."
Rose sat up slowly.
"And of course," Romana added, "he never talks about her."
"Right. Figures."
"I was sent to assist him with the search for something called the Key to Time." Romana put the hairbrush down and started twisting her hair into an elaborate knot. "And after we've found it ... I suppose ... I suppose," her voice faltered, "I shall go home and complete my studies."
"What? Just like that?"
"It would be irresponsible to stay."
"But you don't really believe that, do you?"
Romana looked away. "Of course I do," she said. "Of course ... one might make an irresponsible choice now and then."
"Yeah. One might."
"An excusable youthful error."
"Better than dropping out of school to shack up with Jimmy Stone."
"Who?"
So she filled Romana in on her short and uneventful life up to the moment the Doctor blew up Henriks (which Romana said was typical, and wasn't it sad when a person got too old to change), and Romana told her about going to university, until her voice lulled Rose to sleep.
Just before she lost consciousness altogether, she stirred herself to say, "You know, he's never even told me the name of your planet."
Silence.
"Gallifrey," Romana said.
"Nice," said Rose, and then she did fall asleep.
She was woken by a shudder, and for a second thought the TARDIS had landed, before she sat up and remembered everything that had happened, and saw Romana -- wide awake -- in quiet, urgent conversation with someone at the door.
"What's happening?" she asked.
"The Temnein," said Romana grimly. "They're searching all incoming traffic for time travelers" She was throwing their things into the bag. "We need to get out of here."
