Chapter Text
Sartia is absolutely putting a bolt through Arkadian’s head at the first opportunity.
He did his best to wheel and deal his way into possession of her time ring, but she’s not stupid enough to give up her one means of freedom, not for anything. So her ship was the bargaining piece instead, once she wiped it of any personal or incriminating information or possessions. She dropped him off on it after verifying that his recordings are the real deal, and now he’s got quite a nice ship to jack up the price on at the first opportunity. She doesn’t really want to know what he does after that. But he almost certainly has a copy of his recordings tucked away somewhere, so she’s certain Romana will get caught in his crossfire again.
Sartia just gets the first shot at her.
She doesn’t doubt that Arkadian will take the first opportunity to snatch her time ring and leave her in the hands of the CIA, if they cross paths again. She plans to avoid that timeline.
The video is more interesting than she expects. And she has to hand it to him for getting a recording device into and out of Gallifrey without any of the Time Lords noticing. Probably it was at a low enough tech level that the Time Lords didn’t even consider it. That sort of dismissiveness would be in character.
There’s a lot of chatter about a virus and an economic downturn and a deal with Arkadian, mostly involving political figures she doesn’t recognize. And something about Romana in disgrace, which is certainly new to her. When she asked Arkadian how Romana got the Presidency back, he only shrugged and winked.
Which meant he was trying to seem like he knew more than he did, probably.
It doesn’t take her long to back up everything where she wants it, to set the trip wires ready to be triggered. The leak she picks is a bit about that exiled former president. A muttered conversation Arkadian was standing close to. Time Lords, never resisting the urge to complain.
The message goes to Gryben’s control, one piece of a storm of static. One rather obvious piece. If they don’t pick it up, they’re just incompetent.
She waits.
It takes almost a day. They must really be short-staffed. Or they’re debating on whether or not to call her bluff.
(Which isn’t a bluff. She really will release a new bit of the tapes each day, and to more central locations than Gryben, if no one comes to chat.)
Sartia’s spent the better part of that day pacing around her chosen meeting place. It’s got a few fun surprises in store for the Time Lords, if they try anything, but the most sturdy piece of her armor is Arkadian’s information. It’s set up to release automatically, from various randomized locations, and only she knows how to make it stop.
Almost a day. Her legs are getting sore. Her fingers have drummed along the walls too many times. She’s started talking to herself by the end of it, practicing how this exchange could go.
Thank Rassilon the TARDIS doesn’t show up in the middle of that.
But it does show up, eventually. A smooth materialization. A click of the doors.
Sartia glances up, arms crossed, leaning back against a wall. She lets herself smile.
“Hi, Mana.”
Romana hasn’t regenerated since the last time they met, but she looks different. Older. Her eyes are colder.
“You’re under arrest,” she announces.
Sartia laughs. “That’s cute.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“It isn’t an arrest either. This is my show, Mana. I called, you came running.”
“Releasing classified information is a crime. So is making agreements with wanted arms dealers.”
“So is being a renegade, but that didn’t stop them from making you President.” She doesn’t see anyone behind Mana, but obviously, whoever she brought as backup wouldn’t make themselves known. “And you clawed your way back after being exiled in disgrace! The Time Lords really have exquisite taste.”
Romana’s mask shifts ever so slightly. A flicker of anger. Good. “How did you manage to track down Arkadian? He should be dead.”
“On that point, we can agree,” Sartia mutters. “And what? Did I outsmart your CIA? Bit embarrassing for them, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“They nearly caught you last month.”
“Nearly being the key word. If I ever end up in a CIA cell, it will be because it’s exactly where I want to be.”
“I suppose that is the only way you can come home anymore.” Romana shakes her head. “A renegade returning isn’t such a big deal, I should know. If it weren’t for all your other crimes, you would have been pardoned.”
That startles Sartia. Romana really thinks they would ever have let her back, once she ran.
“Do you really think I didn’t know exactly what I was doing when I left? Do you really think I ever thought there was a chance I’d be welcomed back?” She laughs. “All these years, and you still don’t understand. Of course not. You’ve never considered what it might be like to be someone who isn’t you.”
And finally that mask of cool indifference that never looked right on Romana’s face cracks. Finally she stops hiding in the doorway of her TARDIS, and the floor planks creak as she steps closer.
“You aren’t the only one who’s traveled the universe. You don’t get to claim moral superiority for traveling to other places and meeting other people.” Romana’s fingers twitch at her side, clenching and unclenching. “I left to do something good in this universe. You left because you wanted power. If you didn’t want to close the door behind you, you should have made a different choice.”
Look at her, standing there sanctimonious as ever–
Red-hot anger slams into her before she can blink, and Sartia seizes Romana’s wrist, digging her nails in hard.
“You have no idea why I left.”
Romana doesn’t tug her hand away. She doesn’t do anything at all, except stare, her eyes wide, her breath heaving. Something cold drops in Sartia’s stomach–she grabbed the President, Romana’s agents should be spilling out of the TARDIS. Sartia wasn’t supposed to feel this–out of control.
But no one’s rushed to Romana’s aid.
“Did you come here alone?” she breathes.
Romana doesn’t speak, but her expression says enough.
A thrill rushes over Sartia, head to toe. She didn’t expect Romana to be this idiotic. She didn’t expect an audience that was quite so captive.
“Are you planning to kill me?” Romana says calmly, as if she doesn’t care one way or the other what the answer is.
Romana’s skin is pinched under her fingernails, and part of Sartia wants to dig until she draws blood. She wants to wrap her hands around Romana’s neck and make her so, so afraid. She wants her to understand what it’s like to need–with everything in you–to run.
The memory of fingers on her throat surges forward, and Sartia tastes blood.
“You didn’t finish the job last time,” Romana says. Still so infuriatingly calm.
Sartia snorts. “I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
And now Romana is the one to seize her wrist, to glare at her with something dark and potent bubbling up behind her eyes. Sartia’s never seen her look like that before.
“Don’t lie. You left me to drown. You enjoyed it.”
“Do you really think drowning is an efficient way to kill a Time Lord? If I wanted you dead, you would have been.”
“You said–”
“Oh, you think I was telling the truth, then? You were telling yourself this stupid story, that I was your dear friend gone astray, that you had to save me. I don’t want your help, Mana! I don’t need it anymore! You had your chance to help, and you left, and I had to get out myself!”
“What are you talking about?”
Romana looks so genuinely bewildered, and something inside Sartia withers.
It would be easier, if Romana intended to be cruel. If she has any inkling what happened to Sartia when she went back to her House. If she understood at all what Kinnora was, and just didn’t care. It would be easy then, to want to tear her apart.
If she didn’t know, then she just—didn’t care. She didn’t hate Sartia when she chose to graduate early, to leave Gallifrey on her own. Sartia just didn’t factor into her life. She was irrelevant.
After growing up together. After all those years.
Sartia yanks away from Romana’s grasp and steps back.
“It doesn’t matter,” she mutters. “You wouldn’t believe me now.”
She fixes her eyes on a point past Romana’s shoulder. “I have evidence of a deal Gallifrey made with a known crook, and apparently you don’t want the juicy details getting out, or you wouldn’t have come.”
Romana looks taken aback at the change of subject, but all she says is, “And what deal are you trying to make with me?”
“I haven’t decided.” Some of that playful nonchalance creeps back into her voice, and Sartia relaxes. She has the better hand here. She can’t forget that. “But. You can start with explaining what the fuck happened to my memory.”
Romana’s brow creases in confusion, but it only takes a moment before her whole demeanor shifts.
“Oh.”
Sartia wasn’t actually sure if Gallifrey had anything to do with it. It was the most plausible idea, considering the whole situation is decidedly un-plausible, and Gallifrey seems to be at the center of a tangle of confusing stories. But it’s one thing to suspect and another thing to have Romana all but admit it.
“Oh? You steal months of my life somehow, without even knowing where I am, and all you can say is ‘oh’?”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“How do you unintentionally remove my memories?”
“There was a virus, something Free Time brewed up–shouldn’t you know about that? We caught you answering a call to Free Time agents.”
“Yes, you finally caught me, well done.” Sartia waves a hand. “They kept me in the dark about the virus. Guess it would have been awkward to tell the Gallifreyan that you were planning to attack her biology, too.”
Romana blinks. “Well. A significant portion of Gallifrey was infected. I had to take–drastic measures.”
“Drastic how?”
“Biological reset. Our archives stored biodata on every Time Lord before they were infected. It was easiest to….reboot everyone.”
Sartia stares. “You wiped the memories of every Time Lord? No one would agree to that.”
“We were in an emergency situation.”
She stares and stares until something in her breaks, and she starts to laugh. “Of course. The exiled president, returned to power. How else could you have done it? If they don’t remember why they hated you, they’ll welcome you back with open arms.”
“I didn’t want to be President again. The High Council insisted–”
“Oh Mana, please, don’t downplay your ambition. It doesn’t suit you.” She shakes her head. “If I didn’t know already that the virus is real, I would have assumed you’d made the whole thing up. Pity. Revealing that would have been a great way to wreck your presidency.”
“Is that why you joined Free Time? Just to get me out of office?”
Yes, the honest part of her says, but Sartia squashes that voice. It would be pathetic to admit it, especially since Romana probably hasn’t spared her a thought in all these years.
“You joined a corrupt system, Mana. Some of us can see that.”
“Which is why you started working with Arkadian.”
“A means to an end.”
“I’m sure you were.”
Sartia barely squashes the urge to draw her blaster. “You’re trying to cover something up. You wouldn’t be here if you were fine with the truth getting out.”
The look on Romana’s face is difficult to read. She looks exhausted more than anything.
“I’m here to give you your last chance.”
So. This is how it’s going to be. The same old I can save you talk. The certainty that she is the arbiter of mercy, and Sartia should be grateful to receive it.
“My last chance. Aren’t you the one whose presidency is hanging by a thread?”
Romana crosses her arms. “You are woefully uninformed about the political situation on Gallifrey. I know what information Arkadian had, and much of it is already public knowledge. The virus. The civil war.”
“Pandora?”
Romana’s glare is icy. “A discredited conspiracy theory.”
“Is it.”
“We have weathered worse than a few bits of leaked footage from a known criminal who has every motivation to doctor the recording. I’m sorry to disappoint, but your threats are empty. You’re not as important as you think you are.”
She’s lying. She’s trying to save face, to get Sartia to agree to whatever absurd deal she’s concocted.
“I have bigger problems than you. Since we now know he’s still alive, Arkadian is wanted for a whole litany of charges. I don’t expect you to cooperate, but the CIA will be more lenient if you provide any leads.”
Sartia laughs. Romana can’t just pretend she has the upper hand and expect Sartia to go along with it.
“And why should I care what the CIA wants?”
Romana gives her a pitying look. “Did you really believe I came alone?
And the ceiling comes down.
Something slams into her chest, and Sartia’s knees hit the floor. Her arm are wrenched behind her back before she can breathe. The air is choked with dust, and she wheezes for air, and her nerves are numb.
The weight of the blaster is yanked from her hip. The whine of a staser echoes in her ear.
Mana steps through the dust. It wreathes around her, kicked aside by the swirl of her robes. She stares down at Sartia, almost disinterested.
“At least you gave my agents a challenge. It took them longer than expected to dismantle your trap.” She jerks her head. “Get her in the TARDIS.”
“Madam President, we can’t find her time ring–”
And Sartia laughs, a laugh that might be a scream. Something torn from her throat.The time ring burns against her ankle, and the room whips away into the raw winds of the Vortex.
Someone is still clinging to her arms. She yanks away, jerks them into oblivion. No passengers allowed.
When her knees hit the dusty pavement outside the first city she could think of, Sartia stares at a garish blue horizon for a long time.
Romana had to be lying. She had to care about the information Sartia had. Of course she would want Sartia in custody–she could tell the CIA to torture Sartia into not releasing the recordings.
But Romana lost. She lost. Sartia got away, and the information is still out there, and–
–and Sartia’s stuck with no ship and a time ring that needs to charge, on a planet she has no allies on. If Romana’s presidency did fall apart because of this, how would she even know?
A wind whips through her. Dirt kicks up into her eyes. Sartia tugs her jacket tight and lets the burning of her ankle scorch deep into her.
She was careless. She wanted her memories back too much. She should have known that there was never a chance of that happening. She should have known not to bait Romana too quickly.
Next time, she won’t make the same mistake.