fic: night vision
Nov. 15th, 2009 04:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carmen_ljTitle: Night Vision
Pairing/characters: Romana II/Liz Shaw
Rating: PG
Words: 1200
Notes: written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
atraphoenix for the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
dw_femslash ficathon.
Summary: Time Lords are dead helpful for learning important stuff, like how to make universes.
Night Vision
There are times when Romana wonders whether she’s made a mistake in inviting Liz aboard her TARDIS. She's clever. For a human, she’s exceptionally clever. Clever enough to repair alien technology she’d first encountered only hours before, clever enough to cure extraterrestrial plagues and successfully negotiate treaties with irate Martian ambassadors.
Clever enough that Romana is just slightly worried that if she doesn’t get Liz back to Earth very shortly after she’s left it, something very nasty will happen to the planet.
The Untempered Schism doesn’t exist anymore, but as she watches Liz sleep, Romana wonders what she would see if she looked into it. A human never had, of course. (Narvin’s voice echoes in her head, “Madame President, it is one thing to allow these... these people into the Academy, but I’m afraid that even your good intentions will not change fundamental biology. But, please, by all means, show them the Schism you wish to murder them all. I doubt the High Council will object.”)
She cannot believe that this human would die; she believes that she could be inspired.
She slides her fingers down Liz’s arm, tracing nonsense words in her own language, amuses herself with meaningless mathematics in another. She kisses Liz’s wrist, her skin deliciously warm beneath Romana’s lips.
Liz rolls over to face her and opens her eyes. “If you’re going to write on me, I insist it makes sense.”
“Oh, alright. How about a mathematical model of the universe?” says Romana, moving her fingers to skim over Liz’s back and beginning a new set of equations.
“Slower,” murmurs Liz. “I’m not much of a cosmologist.”
“Liar.”
Liz turns over onto her back, Romana doesn’t miss a beat. Her fingers are soft and cool on Liz’s stomach, inscribing the secrets of the universe in a language that is almost-but-not-quite too primitive to begin to understand them. She feels Liz stifle a giggle as she strokes a sensitive spot and glances up at her face to see her trying to frown.
They travel to the beginning, and the end, and Romana is unsurprised to see a familiar blue box register on the scanner each time. “Don’t you want to speak to him?” asks Liz when Romana rematerialises her TARDIS on the other side of Malcassairo.
“Do you?” asks Romana, arching an eyebrow and recalling Liz’s acerbic comments about why she’d left the Doctor to go back to her own studies. Her hands move over the console, completing the technically perfect landing. She leans back and bites her lower lip. “You know, I think I met him after he’d grown up a bit – he didn’t feel he needed to patronise everyone around him. He just did it because he could.”
“Including you?”
Romana smiles. “What do you think?”
“Does it make sense to you?” Liz asks as they step outside, arm-in-arm. The sky is dark save for a single dying star.
“That’s a very linear question.”
“How does it begin?”
“I told you. Well, I wrote it on you.”
Romana sends her TARDIS spinning out from the initial explosion of Event One, the Big Bang. They race out and forward through time. Liz watches their progress avidly. “We’re approaching the edge of the universe,” she says. She looks up sharply. “Is that safe?”
“Not particularly.” Romana’s fingers dance over the console. “We can go outside it, if you like.”
“That’s....” Liz swallows down the impossible. She knows better than that. She watches the equations scroll past on the screen and Romana watches her. There is a terrible certainty in mathematics.
“Shall we?”
Liz nods her ascent. Romana flicks a switch. Around them space ripples like liquid.
Outside the universe, they land. Liz looks at Romana, raises a questioning eyebrow. Romana looks at the scanner and smiles. “There’re a lot of answers out there. More than you could ever find on Earth, I think.”
They’re greeted by an irritated man in black robes.
“Oh good,” he says, “another one.”
“That’s Narvin,” says Romana. “Ignore him.”
“What is she doing here?” he demands. “And where have you been? You do realise there’s rather a lot of important work to be done, I assume?”
“In reverse order: yes, out, and she wants to understand the nature of the universe.”
Narvin snorts. “Brilliant plan, Madame President. Shall I just turn over the computers to her now, or can she wait until we’ve resurrected our species?”
Liz isn’t listening; she’s examining her new surroundings. Matte silver walls rise up into a high cathedral arc that disappears into shadows so high above her she loses her sense of perspective. A dozen corridors sweep out of the room they’re in and she can see them rising or falling into the distance. It’s a space station of absurd size. And it’s so quiet. As the voices of the two Time Lords fade into the distance, she can hear nothing else.
Her footsteps seem unnaturally loud; she begins to notice the feel of her heart beating. A pulse in her wrist, her neck, inside her head. A throbbing beat of blood, getting louder.
The air is so still and blank. She can smell nothing at all. Suddenly, irrationally, she believes she cannot breathe.
Something lands on her shoulder. She gasps and turns, backs away, her hands raised to defend herself.
“Romana!” she snaps, indignant.
“Sorry,” Romana says, sounding more amused than apologetic. “I thought you might like to know where everything actually is. These corridors go on for, well, it’s entirely possible they go on forever.”
“Like a TARDIS?”
“Very like a TARDIS. In that respect. We cannot, however, travel through the Vortex.” There’s a bitter edge to her voice. She presses her hand flat against the wall and a section just about the size of a door shimmers out of existence. “Transport tube,” says Romana. “After you.”
Light reflects, refracts. She can see; she can hear. All the physical laws are in evidence. “It’s another universe, isn’t it? It’s an entirely separate self-sustaining system.”
“And a very handy place to hide,” agrees Romana.
The control centre to the station is a more majestic version of the console room in Romana’s TARDIS.
“Is there anyone else here?” asks Liz. The emptiness of the place has begun to take on a character of its own, and it looms a little too much like a tomb for comfort.
“There was.” Bitterness, again. “At the moment, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me.” Romana hits a control on the console with more force than is necessary. “And Narvin,” she adds, an afterthought.
The dome ceiling of the control centre slides back. Liz looks up to see the shimmer of a force field, then there is nothing (“Darkness,” thinks Liz, “is the absence of visible photons reflected from a surface. What am I seeing?” ), and then...and then she realises she can see the universe, shimmering, shining, whole.
All of existence. If she stretches out her arm, it'll fit into the palm of her hand.
Here lies the impossible; here lies understanding.
Liz looks at the universe.
The universe looks back.
Pairing/characters: Romana II/Liz Shaw
Rating: PG
Words: 1200
Notes: written for
atraphoenix for the dw_femslash ficathon.Summary: Time Lords are dead helpful for learning important stuff, like how to make universes.
Night Vision
There are times when Romana wonders whether she’s made a mistake in inviting Liz aboard her TARDIS. She's clever. For a human, she’s exceptionally clever. Clever enough to repair alien technology she’d first encountered only hours before, clever enough to cure extraterrestrial plagues and successfully negotiate treaties with irate Martian ambassadors.
Clever enough that Romana is just slightly worried that if she doesn’t get Liz back to Earth very shortly after she’s left it, something very nasty will happen to the planet.
The Untempered Schism doesn’t exist anymore, but as she watches Liz sleep, Romana wonders what she would see if she looked into it. A human never had, of course. (Narvin’s voice echoes in her head, “Madame President, it is one thing to allow these... these people into the Academy, but I’m afraid that even your good intentions will not change fundamental biology. But, please, by all means, show them the Schism you wish to murder them all. I doubt the High Council will object.”)
She cannot believe that this human would die; she believes that she could be inspired.
She slides her fingers down Liz’s arm, tracing nonsense words in her own language, amuses herself with meaningless mathematics in another. She kisses Liz’s wrist, her skin deliciously warm beneath Romana’s lips.
Liz rolls over to face her and opens her eyes. “If you’re going to write on me, I insist it makes sense.”
“Oh, alright. How about a mathematical model of the universe?” says Romana, moving her fingers to skim over Liz’s back and beginning a new set of equations.
“Slower,” murmurs Liz. “I’m not much of a cosmologist.”
“Liar.”
Liz turns over onto her back, Romana doesn’t miss a beat. Her fingers are soft and cool on Liz’s stomach, inscribing the secrets of the universe in a language that is almost-but-not-quite too primitive to begin to understand them. She feels Liz stifle a giggle as she strokes a sensitive spot and glances up at her face to see her trying to frown.
They travel to the beginning, and the end, and Romana is unsurprised to see a familiar blue box register on the scanner each time. “Don’t you want to speak to him?” asks Liz when Romana rematerialises her TARDIS on the other side of Malcassairo.
“Do you?” asks Romana, arching an eyebrow and recalling Liz’s acerbic comments about why she’d left the Doctor to go back to her own studies. Her hands move over the console, completing the technically perfect landing. She leans back and bites her lower lip. “You know, I think I met him after he’d grown up a bit – he didn’t feel he needed to patronise everyone around him. He just did it because he could.”
“Including you?”
Romana smiles. “What do you think?”
“Does it make sense to you?” Liz asks as they step outside, arm-in-arm. The sky is dark save for a single dying star.
“That’s a very linear question.”
“How does it begin?”
“I told you. Well, I wrote it on you.”
Romana sends her TARDIS spinning out from the initial explosion of Event One, the Big Bang. They race out and forward through time. Liz watches their progress avidly. “We’re approaching the edge of the universe,” she says. She looks up sharply. “Is that safe?”
“Not particularly.” Romana’s fingers dance over the console. “We can go outside it, if you like.”
“That’s....” Liz swallows down the impossible. She knows better than that. She watches the equations scroll past on the screen and Romana watches her. There is a terrible certainty in mathematics.
“Shall we?”
Liz nods her ascent. Romana flicks a switch. Around them space ripples like liquid.
Outside the universe, they land. Liz looks at Romana, raises a questioning eyebrow. Romana looks at the scanner and smiles. “There’re a lot of answers out there. More than you could ever find on Earth, I think.”
They’re greeted by an irritated man in black robes.
“Oh good,” he says, “another one.”
“That’s Narvin,” says Romana. “Ignore him.”
“What is she doing here?” he demands. “And where have you been? You do realise there’s rather a lot of important work to be done, I assume?”
“In reverse order: yes, out, and she wants to understand the nature of the universe.”
Narvin snorts. “Brilliant plan, Madame President. Shall I just turn over the computers to her now, or can she wait until we’ve resurrected our species?”
Liz isn’t listening; she’s examining her new surroundings. Matte silver walls rise up into a high cathedral arc that disappears into shadows so high above her she loses her sense of perspective. A dozen corridors sweep out of the room they’re in and she can see them rising or falling into the distance. It’s a space station of absurd size. And it’s so quiet. As the voices of the two Time Lords fade into the distance, she can hear nothing else.
Her footsteps seem unnaturally loud; she begins to notice the feel of her heart beating. A pulse in her wrist, her neck, inside her head. A throbbing beat of blood, getting louder.
The air is so still and blank. She can smell nothing at all. Suddenly, irrationally, she believes she cannot breathe.
Something lands on her shoulder. She gasps and turns, backs away, her hands raised to defend herself.
“Romana!” she snaps, indignant.
“Sorry,” Romana says, sounding more amused than apologetic. “I thought you might like to know where everything actually is. These corridors go on for, well, it’s entirely possible they go on forever.”
“Like a TARDIS?”
“Very like a TARDIS. In that respect. We cannot, however, travel through the Vortex.” There’s a bitter edge to her voice. She presses her hand flat against the wall and a section just about the size of a door shimmers out of existence. “Transport tube,” says Romana. “After you.”
Light reflects, refracts. She can see; she can hear. All the physical laws are in evidence. “It’s another universe, isn’t it? It’s an entirely separate self-sustaining system.”
“And a very handy place to hide,” agrees Romana.
The control centre to the station is a more majestic version of the console room in Romana’s TARDIS.
“Is there anyone else here?” asks Liz. The emptiness of the place has begun to take on a character of its own, and it looms a little too much like a tomb for comfort.
“There was.” Bitterness, again. “At the moment, I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with me.” Romana hits a control on the console with more force than is necessary. “And Narvin,” she adds, an afterthought.
The dome ceiling of the control centre slides back. Liz looks up to see the shimmer of a force field, then there is nothing (“Darkness,” thinks Liz, “is the absence of visible photons reflected from a surface. What am I seeing?” ), and then...and then she realises she can see the universe, shimmering, shining, whole.
All of existence. If she stretches out her arm, it'll fit into the palm of her hand.
Here lies the impossible; here lies understanding.
Liz looks at the universe.
The universe looks back.
