*

"He left me too..."

*

She doesn't do this, she's not the type if there is such a thing, but there's a look in her eye of abandon and betrayal which she recognizes so very well. Sarah-Jane Smith can't help herself, she brings the sad-eyed stranger home, makes her tea, and does her best to chat her up. She's dreadfully bad at this, she knows, too little practice in too many years and she's not the slightest clue how to proceed from one step to the other.

"You're very beautiful," she sighs, wincing at the cloying words and hating her tongue for betraying her but it's true.

"Am I?" the woman wonders, surprised from her melancholy, then laughs bitterly. "I hadn't thought to look."

It's a strange thing to say except it isn't, not to Sarah, and that's when she starts to wonder.

*

She tries to ask, tries to see, but the woman never says. Every question is met with a well-timed quip, an agonized look, a traumatized smile. Something's happened, something very bad, and she's quite sure of her suspicions but she knows it's not yet the time to say.

Instead, she slides a hand across the table to touch lily-white skin, soft and inviting. When her guest doesn't push her hand away, Sarah leaves it, lets her thumb stroke in reassuring patterns.

Eventually, she asks her name again and this time, she receives a whimsical smile in response and the assurance, "You likely couldn't pronounce it."

*

"You may call me Romana," the whisper comes in the darkness of her living room, a tiny box of a thing that fits neither of them well but Romana wears like an badly-tailored suit. They've settled against each other in a little ball of comfort, Sarah's hand in her hair and Romana's on her hip. "It's been so very long."

She kisses her forehead, a gesture of comfort which carries the promise of something else when Romana shifts closer and slides her hand to rest just beneath her breast. "I can imagine..."

"No," Romana says wearily, a thousand different pains in the one word. "No, I don't believe you can." She smiles, her lips just so very near. "You shouldn't."

It's a kiss which comes out of nowhere but they've been anticipating for hours and they take their time.

When Sarah slides a hand beneath her threadbare shirt, over the swell of one breast and feels it...

She pulls away, shocked, and Romana's smile is pained.

"He left me too."

*

"I know who you are," she breathes into impossibly youthful skin, slick and hot beneath her mouth. The realization is dizzying, but Romana doesn't give her time to consider it much. Freed of illusion and artifice, the Time Lady rolls her and presses close, a fire in her eyes that's just this side of madness.

"I am no one at all," she says, angry and sad. "They're all gone, we're gone, him and me. We've just refused to admit it to ourselves." The kiss which follows the words is full of the same anger that Sarah wants to soothes away but Romana won't let her.

Instead, she pulls away, sliding down her body with mouth and teeth seeking out the places which will make her cry, make her beg, and when she finds them, Sarah does that and more. She pleads, and begs, and wants just that much more and Romana smiles a pleasant smile which almost makes her forget before

She doesn't know when the Doctor left Romana, she doesn't know if that's what's put the shadows in her eyes. The question is delayed when Romana slides one finger then another inside, curling up and moving.

Sarah's lost in time that flattens and stretches out, making her hover eternally at the brink.

"He left me too..."

 

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