Learn How To Be You In Time
by LizBee

When he was thirty-three years old, Duggan met an alien.  Several aliens, actually, but the notable one was a sweet, mad girl in a schooldress.  She almost let the world end because she didn't want him to die, which seemed foolish later, but there were extenuating circumstances.

Duggan was not clever or remarkable, but he must have done something right, because she kissed him.  In the middle of the night, in a cafe they'd broken into, sitting in the dark with empty wine bottles and broken glass on the table between them, and she leaned over and kissed him.

What followed was awkward and undignified, and afterwards they could hardly look at each other, because neither had much practice at that sort of thing, and it was all a bit strange, having intercourse in a cafe with an alien you've only known for a day.

He liked to think maybe it had something to do with the way she wouldn't let him be killed.

Later, in an impossible ship, in a point halfway between the beginning of history and what he thought of as now, she took him aside, leading him away from the console room and the Doctor.

"You could come with us," she said.  Her hands were tight around his.

"No," he said.  "It's not for me."

And that was that.  She didn't ask again, and he was glad.

But he said, "If you ever need anything," and she just smiled, but he meant it.  He bought a postcard as she walked away, hand in hand with the Doctor, and he kept it until it was faded beyond recognition, and he saw Romana's face in the Mona Lisa's.

He was an old man when he saw her again.  The world ended when he was sixty-two years old, while Harold Saxon watched and laughed from above. 

It was easy, he found, to disappear, especially if you had no family, no ties.  No one to betray you.  He stayed in the shadows, and kept out of sight, and maybe he'd learned patience over the years, because his sabotages were small and subtle, and could go a long time without discovery.

He nearly killed her when he saw her.  Because it had been almost thirty years, and she hardly looked older.  Alien.  But his brain, for once, overtook his instincts, and he waited hours before he spoke to her.  "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

They were in an old bedsit, a squat.  Eight people in one small space.  It hadn't been redecorated since the sixties, it was all mouldy pine and threadbare green carpet.  They sat side by side on a camp bed. 

"It's all gone wrong," she said.  "I came back -- everything was gone, and now this."  She teased a loose thread from a blanket.  "I don't know how to fix it."

"There are stories," said Duggan, "about a girl who's going to destroy the Master."

"Yes.  There are always stories."  Her fingers curled towards his.  Her hands were cold.  "Do you believe them?"

"Maybe.  No.  I'm not waiting around for salvation.  If she's out there, that Martha Jones, she's got even less chance of surviving than us."  He hesitated.  "It's a nice idea, though."

"Yes.  It is."

She kissed him, and she was exactly as he remembered.  He led her outside, to a shattered, empty cafe, and it wasn't Paris, and it wasn't romantic, but it was, for the moment, fine.

Two people were more memorable than a man alone, and they never stayed in one place for long.  He taught Romana to strip, clean and load a gun, while she quoted ancient laws from dead worlds and drew designs for improbable time machines on walls.  Weapons attracted the Toclafane, that was the trouble, but they were fast and cunning, and they never stopped moving.

They walked and hitched from London to Cambridge, Duggan's knees protesting every step of the way.  There, they were sheltered by a scientist who listened without question to Romana's mad plans.

"Do you believe in Martha Jones?" she asked.

"I don't know," said Romana.  "But if I were in her shoes--"

"Yes," said Professor Shaw, "I'd do it, too."

The universities were stripped almost bare, but Shaw and the others had their secrets.  There was a basement full of the stuff, machines and notes and plans. 

"You need a second hiding place," said Duggan, "and a third.  Keeping everything together, that's just asking for trouble."

Too late, though.  Everyone had a neighbour or relative in the Master's secret police, everyone had a grudge to hold or a need to fill.  He and Romana took shelter in an old lecture hall.  The air stank of burning paper and plastic. 

"If they take our notes to the Valiant," Romana whispered, "the Master will know there's another Time Lord on Earth."

It was a thought that kept her awake, made her paranoid around anyone perceptive enough to notice how cold her skin was, how odd her heartrate, how she never wore a watch yet always knew the time.  If she was discovered by a human, she'd probably be killed on the spot, and Duggan along with her.  If the Master found out--

"Look," he said, keeping his voice low, "if we get out of this, what do you say we get married?"

She almost laughed.  "Married?  Here?  Now?"

"We find a minister, or a registrar, or a nice pile of rocks, and we make it sort of official."

She was smiling, tears sliding down her cheeks.  "All right," she said.  "We make it official."

"Good."  He kissed her quickly, trying to commit every piece of her to memory in a few seconds.  "Wait here.  Stay down."

The police squad were emerging from the basement, weighed down with charred papers and half-melted equipment.  Duggan kept to the shadows, hoping his legs would hold him up, hoping the gun wouldn't jam.  He waited until they were close and closed his eyes.

The Toclafane didn't distinguish between human prisoners and collaborators.  They killed without discrimmination, knives flashing, childlike voices raised in excitement, almost before the gunshot had finished echoing.  It was quick, at least.

He thought, she almost let the world end because she didn't want me to die.

And that was it.

He was an old man when he saw her again.  The world went mad when he was sixty-two: the American President was killed before the eyes of the world, and the Prime Minister died at his wife's hands -- but nothing came of it, except for rumours and conspiracy theories.

It was a cool, wet morning when she found him.  She looked almost the same, like the faded Mona Lisa in his wallet, but something about her demeanour was much older, much sadder.

Well.  Time would do that, and he wasn't the man he'd been in 1979, either.

He said, "I didn't think I'd ever see you again."

Romana took his hand.  "Isn't it funny," she said, "the way things work out."  She gave him a sidelong look.  "You look--"

"Old?"

"Better than the alternative, I think."  She looked away.  "We were wrong about Martha Jones and the stories that saved the world.  But I don't think it was all in vain, what we did.  I remember, you see, I remember everything."

"I'd forgotten you were crazy."

Romana laughed, and kissed him. 

"Tell you what," she said when at last they separated, "proposals made in extreme circumstances aren't binding, especially after history's been changed, but if you'll have me, I'll have you."

"Are you proposing marriage?"

She was blushing.  "I draw the line at rocks, though," she said.

"Okay," he said, "fair enough.  So do I, I think."  He kept her hands in his.  "I hardly even know you.  One night in a cafe thirty years ago--"

"Give me time," said Romana.

When he was sixty-four, Duggan married an alien.  He had no regrets.

end