Title: Time's Key
Summary: Astra has strange dreams.
Rated: PG-13
Notes: Astra/Romana (either or both Romanas); Astra/Rose. Spoilers for "The Armageddon Factor" and New Who. Written at the request of ladyvivien. Blame her.

Time's Key
by LizBee

Astra has strange dreams sometimes. Of Time and vortices, things that never happened and things that, may the gods of Atrios smile on her, will never happen.

She was once the Sixth Segment of the Key to Time. Whatever her husband says --- and Merak says little enough --- surely there is some lingering effect. She remembers little of her abduction, and less of her time as the Key, but she has strange dreams.

*

She dreams she is Romana, but she looks in the mirror and it's the face of the Lady of Atrios that she sees. Still, there is something alien behind her eyes, a shadow of a taller, darker woman. Astra is the proud daughter of a royal house, and a heroine in her own right, but the arrogance of the Time Lady is something new, compelling and repulsive at the same time.

She collects stories about the Time Lords. She knows they can change their faces. Why Romana should choose hers, she doesn't know, but the compliment warms her.

Other dreams---

*

She dreams that Time wears the face of a woman, an alien girl who has looked into something beyond her comprehension.

"I don't know what to do," she tells Astra.

"Be strong," Astra whispers; she knows what the girl is feeling and seeing.

She kisses Time's stolen lips and remembers what it was like to be Her Key---

*

She dreams of the War, and wakes with tears on her cheeks and Merak asking urgently if she is all right. She turns away and grieves silently.

Romana will die, is dead, never existed, is alive in another universe, is dead in another universe---

"I'm sorry," Astra tells her, and means it.

"There's nothing you can do," Romana says. She is still young, and Astra feels so old now. So many years have passed---

"I was the Key," she says sadly.

"It's not enough." Romana attempts to smile. "But thank you."

Romana kisses her, traces every line on her face with hesitant fingers.

Astra wakes too soon.

*

And she dreams of the survivor, but he holds her at bay and never lets her touch him.



end