Title: Needs Must
Summary: Romana and Braxiatel have some unfinished business. Post-"Panacea".
Rated: PG-13, like usual
Spoilers: "Panacea", obviously. And the Gallifrey series in general.
Notes: Lady Vivien said, "Write some Romana/Brax." I said, "Okay."  And I did.
Needs Must




"Needs must when the Devil drives."
"That's Braxiatel speaking."




"Romana."

Four failed attempts, and Romana insisted that she wasn't giving up, but they'd all had enough. Braxiatel watched them scatter through the empty halls of his former collection, not speaking, not looking at each other, not speaking.

He found her later, up on the surface of the planetoid. She was sitting on a rock, staring at the stars.

"You look like a primitive," he said, "seeing them for the first time and wondering what they are."

"The souls of the dead," she breathed. "That is, some low-level civilisations believe they're the souls of the dead. Put in the sky by the gods to watch over the living."

"Picturesque."

She hadn't looked him in the face since she had emerged from the TARDIS. Not once.

"I feel like those souls," she said. "Guarding the biodata of the species. How do you think the dead feel, watching the living? Unable to guide them in any way..."

"You've spent too much time with interventionists."

"I wish I'd never come back to Gallifrey."

For a moment, he was centuries younger, and a different Romana was pulling off her ceremonial robes, unpinning her hair and telling him she'd been selected for a mission. Sometimes, he considered going back and telling his younger self to forbid her, to keep her on Gallifrey, under his care, under his control.

She'd gone, she'd stayed away, she'd come back as another woman, and for a while, it had seemed as if he'd lost her forever.

On impulse, he reached out and touched her hair.

"I have an irrational resentment of Pandora," he said, "for taking your first face."

"Poor lost girl," Romana murmured. "She fought so hard."

Her hair was smooth under his fingers. There were goosebumps on her bare upper arms. He selected a single strand from the crown of her hair and plucked it out. He felt her shiver, and when he pushed her hair aside and kissed the curve of her neck, she didn't pull away.

Braxiatel had never been an artist, never had a shred of that talent in any of his regenerations, but he was as proud of Romana as of any other work in his collection. His former collection. He'd traded it all for her, and she was worth it, that lovely mind he'd shaped and taught, that lovely ruthlessness he'd honed the way Leela sharpened her knives.

She shifted, and her mouth met his. It had been too many years since she'd been this close to him, but this, at least, hadn't changed: her quick, shallow breathing, the way she cupped the back of his head to bring him closer.

"You are gloriously improper," he had told her, the first time, and she had pushed her dark curls out of her face and given him that little smile that was all the more wicked with her innocent eyes.

"Nonsense," she answered, "it's entirely proper to follow the example of one's tutor."

They were older and sadder now, and he thought she was crying instead of laughing, but he didn't let her go. There was a shadow in his mind, the last remnant of Pandora. He sensed her amusement, and hated her. Romana gasped as he bit her lip, and for she dropped her hand from his shoulder--

--And there was a pain in his chest, and then no pain at all, just surprise. He looked down at the blood spreading over his chest, then up at Romana.

"In your next regeneration," she said, wiping Leela's knife on her dress, "think twice before you betray me."

She stood up, and she seemed terribly tall, but it was just that he was falling backwards. And she was watching him, and if he could have spoken, he would have told her how proud he was.


end