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"When you're sleeping, you're ceramic, you're surrounded by the stars
Every shine is a searchlight, every planet is ours . . .
Maybe there's a light that's always on, maybe we're not only human . . ."
*****
"All right, Princess Whoever-You-Are, you've got five minutes to tell me what the fuck you're talking about. Start now."
Romana thought she might be best served by sitting down and laughing for a solid ten minutes. This was the help she'd crossed fifteen million light-years and wired her TARDIS into a black-hole energy converter to get? This was what had become of Irving Braxiatel?
To start with, he was short.
"I'm sorry, did I not say it in fucking English? Spill, sweetheart. Explain what the fuck we're doing hiding in my office from a couple of kids in Halloween costumes."
To continue, he was rude. And belligerent. And needlessly loud. And not in possession of the normal number of human phalanges. It was supposed to be ten, right? It's been ages since intergalactic biology and she doesn't have time to remember the chapter on human physiology when there are Daleks attempting to penetrate the seat of American government and kill two of the only Time Lords left in existence.
She'd needed backup, and her choices were extremely limited.
She should have gone after the Doctor. She'd tracked him down easily enough. He's on Messaline right now, and after giving his human companion a splitting headache on the first attempt to contact him, Romana had decided against it. Donna Noble is too important to risk. Also, he hasn't found out she's alive yet in his timeline, and that reunion is something that deserves to stay un-meddled-with. It had been surprisingly lovely.
She could have tracked down the Master. He'd certainly lend a hand - he dislikes the Daleks almost as much as she does - and he does owe her one, after that bit of trouble on Quar'toth. But she'd have to either pull the resurrected version out of the Time War (which will play merry hell with the timeline) or spend time convincing one of his previous selves to help (the bearded ones in particular are noticeably less psychotically homicidal), because the slim, manic-depressive one drives her 'round the bend. She might shoot him and leave him to the Daleks, and then where would she be?
There are two other options, that she knows of. Iris Wildthyme's TARDIS has been spotted around the Xenexian Arm, and while she's certainly cordial enough with Romana, Iris would not be the best choice to assist her in Dalek-hunting. There is also the option of the Rani - some say she's dead, but Romana knows if anyone were capable of surviving a genocide with their sanity relatively intact, it would be the Rani. But she's gone so far under the radar that it would take time to find her, and the Dalek squadron heading for the White House isn't about to wait while Romana tracks down a renegade Time Lady.
And thus, Braxiatel. At the very least, she didn't have to go looking for him: he's the Chief of Staff to the American President (Barack Obama, the shining light of the early 21st century, she remembers him from Terran History 101). Trust Braxiatel to insinuate himself into the highest levels of power.
"Seriously, is your hearing fucking deficient?" he asks, grabbing her by the arms. "Who the fuck are you?"
"Get your hands off me," she huffs. "You would go and turn yourself into a human with personal space issues and an ego the size of a small moon."
"I'm not even gonna ask why you seem to have the focacta idea that I'm not human, because that's-"
The unmistakable sizzle of a Dalek laser beam hums through the barricaded door, and they both dive for cover behind the oak desk. There are photos of a smiling, happy family atop it, and Romana feels a pang of sorrow - she is going to deprive a wife of her husband, children of their father. She never expected Braxiatel to harbor the desire for a home, a family. It wasn't something she'd considered, when she made her way here.
"What the fuck was that?" he gasps, chancing a look above the desk at where the laser has scorched the paint on the far wall trying to burn through. "Talk to me here."
"Daleks," she says, dragging him back down by the end of his tie. "Their mission is to kill you, and after you, President Obama. They've already killed most of the Secret Service and sealed the staff into their offices."
"They're that dangerous? Those fuckers look like they can barely burn toast with those-"
"Listen to me!" she hisses, grabbing him by his lapels. "They will kill us. They will kill everyone. We're going to die unless you stop your ridiculous and profane questions and show me your watch." The gleam in his eyes screams "if you weren't a surprisingly-tall blonde woman, I might punch you", but he obediently holds out his wrist. Romana has to restrain herself from shaking him. "Not that one! It would be old. A fob watch, made of gold, with strange designs on it, but that you've never opened."
He looks confused for a moment, then turns to open the bottom right-hand drawer of his desk. He retrieves a velvet box and opens it, holding it out to her.
"It was my father's. He got it in Israel. What does it have to do with anything?"
She shakes her head sadly. "No, he didn't. And it means everything. I need you to open it."
"It's broken," he says, "The catch is welded shut."
There isn't a thing wrong with the clasp. There never has been; his perception filter is very inventive.
"Look at it again, Mr. Emanuel."
He shakes his head in irritation. "My name is Rahm, Princess. Do me the fucking courtesy of using it before we try and defeat the pepper-shaker army with the power of fairies or some shit."
"Rahm, then. Please."
He turns the watch over in his hand, and she can tell he's still not seeing that it can open, but his thumb rests on the catch and some of the artron energy escapes, swirling and golden. A humming fills the air, and it's the sound of his TARDIS, a smooth soprano bell. It's going to draw the Daleks, but the look on Rahm's face is just so open. Innocent, almost. It isn't an expression she'd ever thought to see on Cardinal Braxiatel's face. Or Rahm Emanuel's, for that matter.
Rahm doesn't take his eyes off the watch, but his voice comes directed toward her. "What happens if I open this? Does it explode or something? Take us and the alien pepper shakers with it?"
"You'll change," she says. "Remember who you are, what you are, what the Daleks are and why we're fighting them."
"Why can't I fight them now? Why do I have to change?"
One of the fascinating things about utilizing a chameleon arch - and she's not too proud to admit that yes, she'd played around with one in the Academy - is seeing how drastically one changes. Unless you set it for a non-humanoid species, you still look like yourself, but your personality is completely different. It has to be, to effectively hide a Time Lord. Sometimes you come out only a little different; your general persona, but in a human mindset. Sometimes you come out the complete opposite of what you are. It appears that Braxiatel is affected in the latter manner.
She would try and explain it further, but the door to Rahm's office splinters and then explodes under an extermination ray. They duck for cover from the sparks - a stray extermination ray can stop even a Time Lord's hearts, she doesn't want to see what it could do to a human - and Romana draws a modified de-mat gun. Torchwood Three had been very helpful (the Captain even offered to put her in contact with Torchwood Six in DC) and had assisted her in fixing up an old de-mat gun to fire either stasis fields or bastic bullets. Very useful in fighting Daleks; trap them and take them out with minimal damage. The Time Lords had used similar tech in the very beginnings of the War, before sheer numbers got too big.
"Stay down!" she hisses, before getting to her knees and lining up a shot over the top of the desk.
The Daleks - only a small squadron of three - have breached the door and are hovering themselves into the room. Romana drowns out the endless repetitions of "EXTERMINATE!" and squeezes off three short bursts from the stasis generator. A time-locked field extends around two of the Daleks, but the third dodges, so she thumbs the switch over to bastic bullets and aims for the eyepiece. She gets a few rounds in before one finally penetrates, and the Dalek blows up in a shower of sparks and bits of dalekanium.
"Holy shit," Rahm swears, wide-eyed and white-knuckled gripping the desk. "What about those two?"
"I don't know if I have enough rounds to finish them off," she says. "I was counting on you - well, not you, but the Time Lord inside your brain - to have some ideas."
"Time what now?"
"Time Lord. Highest class of Gallifreyan. Lord of space and time. Ringing any bells?" she asks, checking the chamber on her gun. Only three rounds left.
"Not even remotely," he says, still staring in equal parts fascination and horror at the two trapped Daleks. "And you're one, too. Time Lord?"
"Time Lady, technically. One of three left. As you're one of three Time Lords left. That's what the Daleks did to us."
He looks over in surprise. "They killed you all off?"
"We killed ourselves off, trying to fight them. It was a mutually assured destruction," she says, wondering if he's going to want the entire story.
He doesn't, just nods, and edges out a little from behind the desk. "We can't just leave them like this. For one, it'll be a bitch to have Senior Staff in here with a couple of aliens floating in midair."
Romana doesn't particularly hate how "you" has turned into "we". This is good - he's beginning to identify as a Time Lord again, even if he's still biologically human. He's not going to care about his job when he does turn back into himself, but that's an issue to deal with later.
"What do you suggest, then?" she asks, turning back around and sliding down to sit on the floor.
Rahm studies the Daleks, their metal casing and extermination ray and the time-locked stasis field that's holding them, his gaze running over them like he's an engineer looking for a design flaw. It's the same expression then-Professor Braxiatel wore a few millennia ago during debates with her; the expression that Cardinal Braxiatel wore when appraising his Collection; the expression Chancellor Braxiatel wore baiting Pandora. He's an attack dog, this Rahm Emanuel, she knows that much from her quick research before she came to America looking for him, but he's also a problem-solver. He likes being challenged.
Braxiatel always did appreciate a challenge. Perhaps not the complete opposite, after all.
"What's in those bullets?"
"They're bastic," she says, waving a hand in dismissal. "They penetrate a Dalek's weak points and - overload, for lack of a better word that you might understand, their circuits."
"So they're part electric?" he says, surprising her with his intuition.
"Yes. Essentially."
"Can't you just make more?"
She looks at him in surprise. "I - don't know. I'm not sure of the exact chemical composition, and anyway, for the parts I do know, we'd need a way to harness the alpha-neutrino energy of your planet's sun, and a containment field so we don't blow ourselves up, and something resembling bullet casings. And I don't suppose you have an extra laser or sonic implement around?"
He rolls his eyes, getting to his feet and approaching the motionless Daleks. "Listen, Romana-"
"Oh, so you did hear my name? I was beginning to think you were going to call me 'Princess' again."
"I heard it. Your nose just scrunches up when you're angry, and it's kind of fucking cute. But listen, I may be some dumb human. I may not measure up to your almighty fucking brilliance, but I'm good at improvisation. You've gotta be, when you work with some of the dipshits that I work with. I mean, I'm talking seriously bone-dead, knucklefuck stupid--"
"I certainly hope you're not referring to me," a voice says from the now-open door across the room.
Romana has met a great many people in her life; important, historic people. She was Lady President of Gallifrey herself. Barack Obama? Appears surprisingly normal, for someone who's going to impact centuries of human history.
"Nah, Barry, you know you're all right. For a Harvard Law egghead who geeks out over comic books."
Obama laughs off Rahm's insult ("go put on some tights, Baryshnikov"), and turns his gaze toward Romana. "I apologize for him. He really does take some getting used to. Is there a reason why you seem to be unfazed by the impending alien invasion and why you and my Chief of Staff have managed to capture some of them?"
Rahm answers before she can. "Princess here was just telling me how we can blow these fuckers right to hell. Apparently, I'm an alien and she's an alien and we have to go fight an intergalactic war with a bunch of overgrown pepper shakers."
"They're called Daleks," she says impatiently, crossing her arms and glaring at Rahm. She'd promised herself she wouldn't sulk - it makes her look twelve, even with how this body of Princess Astra's has aged - but Brax always did know just how to irritate the hell out of her. "And I'm sorry to do this to you, Mr. President, I really am, but I need to permanently deprive you of your Chief of Staff."
Obama is quiet for a moment, but he shrugs. "I can't fault your honesty, Miss -?"
"My name is Romanadvoratrelundar, former Lady President of Gallifrey, if you want to be formal. It's just Romana now."
"I see. And you're hijacking my Chief of Staff because?"
She glances over at Rahm, but he folds his arms and nods to indicate it's her show. "He isn't your Chief of Staff. Well, he was, but he's not himself. He's a Time Lord, like me. An alien."
While Obama is processing this, Romana checks the setting on her modified gun. The field is time-locked, but really, one shouldn't keep potentially lethal Daleks floating around in clear view, especially when one is in the middle of the White House.
"And you're okay with this, Rahm? I mean, I always suspected you'd leave me to go back to Nancy and the House Dems one day, but running around fighting aliens is different. A lot cooler, for one."
Rahm actually looks uncertain for a moment, glancing over at the family photos askew on his desk, a bullet having singed the corner of one of the frames. It's of a much-younger Rahm and a blonde woman - his wife, Romana suspects - in some sort of desert environment. There is a market in the background and the woman holds a basket of foodstuffs, laughing as Rahm pulls her to him. They're happy, and Romana has not seen Braxiatel happy in a very long time.
Maybe this was a bad idea.
"I believe her," he finally says softly. "You can't make something like this up, not with aliens trying to kill us and a hidden identity in my father's old pocket watch. You can't fabricate the way it sounds when I hold it to my ear. And the way she talks about the war between her people and the Daleks - sir, you and I both know what war survivors sound like. She's fucking genuine."
And then again, maybe it wasn't. Braxiatel was always - whatever his manipulations, whatever his hubris - honest, could always recognize honesty. He offered complete truth to a President who was used to counselors who spoke in triplespeak, told her only what they thought she should hear. It was what he himself had taught her, all those years ago in the Academy; truth is essential, for without truth, the universe itself falls apart. It's fitting that he trusts her honesty even now, in this borrowed persona.
"What about your family?" Obama asks. The question she didn't want to be the one who brought up. "Amy. The kids. Your parents and brothers."
She doesn't want to look at him, because she knows she'd betray herself. He should be nothing but an asset to cultivate; a soldier for one of the smallest armies in existence, an ally in what she's beginning to think is an eternal war with the Daleks. But he's Braxiatel, and she doesn't know what she'll do if he refuses to open the watch. She isn't capable of forcing him, so, in all likelihood, they'll all die. The timeline will be severely bollocks-ed up, because Barack Obama's "where no one has gone before" speech is what jump-starts the Mars expeditions, the first human colony on Mars, and eventually, the first deep-space flight. He's who a teenaged Adelaide Brooke calls her "inspiration". He is a link in an unbreakable chain, and the being inside Rahm Emanuel knows it.
"This is important, Barack," Rahm says, pretending neither he nor anyone else hears how his voice shakes. "This is epically, universe-alteringly important. I know it. I don't know why, maybe it's whoever's inside my head, but I know this is the only decision I can make."
Obama nods. "All right. So, what's your plan? How do we kill these things?"
"You're advocating violence?" Rahm and Romana ask, in what might be a funny sort of unison if there weren't impending death still presenting itself as an option.
"They're shooting at my people and putting lives at risk," he answers simply. "Is there a way to take them out?"
Rahm looks first at Romana, then at Obama. "According to her, I'm supposed to know how to do it. I'm not entirely clear on how."
"Before you turned into the person you are now, you developed a new formula for bastic bullets." She turns to Obama to offer a quick explanation. "Bullets that both penetrate a Dalek's armor and electrocutes the circuitry and organic tissue inside." She turns back to Rahm. "You shared it with the Rani when the weapons factory on Miasimia Goria started mass-producing them, but she's even harder to track down than you are. And you like me a good deal more than she does. Well, ever since that misunderstanding with her graduate research and Borusa's cat . . . Anyway, you're our best hope of reproducing the formula. Even Torchwood hasn't gotten it right, as you can tell from these two floating above us."
"Torchwood?" Obama asks, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "They really exist?"
"Yes," she says, unsure of why he's shocked. "As the President of a nation containing four branches of Torchwood, you should be aware of their existence."
"I honestly thought it was Nancy pulling a fast one on me," he admits. "They come in for National Security briefings occasionally, like that incident in England with the cars, but I just assumed they were a glorified security firm. Like Blackwater, except working for us. Of the ones in DC, some are FBI, a couple are Marines. The California contingent seem to be out-of-work stunt guys and screenwriters. The Philadelphia and San Antonio ones are just weird. Anyway, they seem to be quite comfortable reporting to Nancy instead of me."
Romana has to suppress a laugh. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, third in line to the Presidency, is the head of Torchwood in the United States? Romana might pay actual money to be on one of Jack Harkness and Nancy Pelosi's conference calls; from all accounts, even Harkness couldn't sweet-talk his way past the American head of Torchwood.
"No, they're real. They're the front line of defense for Earth against threats of an alien nature - well, them and UNIT, but I hear UNIT's not as powerful as they used to be."
"Well, Erisa Mogambo's still settling in after Mace's death," Obama says. "I think they're all just lost without Sir Lethbridge-Stewart and Lady Shaw, but Peru's having a lot of trouble with whatever they've got in containment down there."
Rahm breaks into the conversation. "As much as I love to gossip about Nancy and her pet black ops boys - and no, sir, she's never going to let you rappel in from the ceiling for a Joint Session - what are we going to do about the Daleks? There's not a time limit on that forcefield, is there?"
Good question. There's not, as she verifies with a quick call to Torchwood Six (their tech expert is odd, a woman perky and prone to exaggerated familiarity, and, at least on the visit Romana had made, been wearing colors Romana hasn't seen since that curly-haired incarnation of the Doctor), and she has to ignore the rapid-fire curiosity of the President of the United States to do it. This is getting more surreal by the minute.
"No time limit, but the longer they stay in the White House, the more of a chance there is that they'll attract attention. If we don't destroy them and contain the damage, the entire West Wing might be caught in the explosion."
Obama has an expression on his face that's half kid-in-a-candy-store and half please-don't-cause-an-international-incident. But before he can plead with her to either let him shoot the de-mat gun or get someone in here who knows what they're doing, Rahm picks up the fob watch from his desk and places his hand on the catch.
"It was an honor, sir," he says to Obama. Then, turning to Romana, "This had better work." The watch clicks open, and Obama watches in open-mouthed amazement as the artron energy sparks around Rahm until he opens his eyes and Braxiatel's looking out of them again. He looks down at his hands, then back at Romana. "What, did my chameleon arch miscount? There are supposed to be ten, correct?"
Obama stifles a laugh, and Romana nods cheerfully. "You'll just have to make do. It's good to see you, Braxiatel."
"And you as well, my Lady Presi- wait, no. Did you ever retake the Presidency after that debacle Rassilon caused?"
"Are you insane? And clean up after the galaxy-sized cock-up he made? I told the Council where they could stick their Presidency after they allowed Rassilon to lock me in a time-sealed chamber. It's just Romanadvoratrelundar again."
He nods, that so-serious, perfectly Braxiatel look. She admits, she has missed him. "Romana, then. And, well, this is a surprise. President Barack Obama. I did aim high with this identity, didn't I?" He holds out his hand. "Irving Braxiatel, former Chancellor of the High Council of Time Lords, advisor to Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar."
Obama recovers admirably, grasping Braxiatel's hand in his and shaking. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. Again. Um, is Rahm still in there - inside your head?"
Braxiatel smiles softly - a rare feat, when he's not using the gesture as a means of manipulation - and nods. "I'm still Rahm Emanuel. I can remember everything that happened when I was him. I can tell you what his wife's favorite color is, the nickname he got in college, and what you ordered for breakfast at the White House commissary this morning. I'm just more, now."
"Well, we still have a problem to solve, unless you want me to call in UNIT. Or Torchwood, now that I know about them."
Braxiatel glances over at the time-locked Daleks, and Romana can see the wheels in his brain start to turn. He studies the stasis field, holding a hand a few centimeters away and noting the strength of it. Next, he picks up a stray piece of paper and, still studying the stasis field, begins writing down formulae in his familiar Academy scrawl. She knows he doesn't need to - no Time Lord past the age of seventy is incapable of doing quantum calculations in their head - but he's always said he finds it soothing.
"How long has the time-lock been active?" he asks, without looking up from his calculations.
"Thirty-eight minutes, ten seconds," Romana says. "It's at frequency 24.5693."
"Thank you," he mumbles, crossing out three sets of calculations, then beginning a new set. "And you want the formula for the bastic bullets as well, correct?"
"Yes."
Braxiatel finishes the formula, then looks around the room. He slides past the floating Daleks to retrieve a wastebasket, a bunch of papers, a roll of currency from a drawer, and a lighter. He unrolls the currency to reveal copper-colored coins, then turns to Obama.
"You know how you always wanted to set fire to abortion bill legislation? Now's your chance."
"Not that I'm complaining, but why are you indulging in pyromania right now?"
"When paper burns, it releases carbon and sulfur gas. I need both, mixed with the copper alloy from the pennies, to form the bullets. Romana, please tell me you happened to bring along a laser implement?"
She laughs - she'd been counting on him retaining one. "I wish I did, I'd have overloaded the binary circuits on those Daleks and cross-wired them into the alpha neutrino setting ages ago."
"Can you extend a time-seal over this room? We're going to be constructing explosives."
She can do that, and extends the field to encircle the room. Braxiatel frowns for a moment, then reaches for the Chicago Cubs coffee mug on Rahm's desk. At his touch, she recognizes the sound of a TARDIS's dimensional stabilizer. So that's where it's been all this time. He ducks inside - Obama lingering at the open door and murmuring "how does it - how can it be bigger than - oh, this is amazing!" - and after a few minutes, returns with a laser magnifier, a handhold scanner, and a quartz mirror. He calls over to Obama.
"I don't suppose you'd want to help us?"
Obama grins. "Help a couple of aliens blow up other aliens and save the world? Are you kidding me? What can I do?"
"All right, Romana, start setting up the quartz collector, you'll need it by the window. About 40 kelbs of alpha-neutrino energy should do it. Barack, I want you to take this - it's a data scanner, works kind of like a Blackberry - and press the buttons for the numbers you see on that first row of equations. I'll start melting the copper."
Up against the former Lady President of Gallifrey, the current President of the United States, and one of the most cunning of political advisors for any planetary government? The Daleks aren't going to know what hit them.