#narvinectralonum

Narvin makes it back to his quarters with a millispan to spare. Bile had been inching up the back of his throat for the last half an hour, threatening his carefully curated exterior of nonchalance and annoyance. Responding to Leela’s gentle teasing had broken the facade. Shame and horror rushes from his gut to his throat in one rollercoaster movement.

Without his futures selves, his time sense is unmoored. The spaces his lives left behind feel like hollows behind his eyes, their negative pressure narrowing his vision. Grasping for support, feeling unpleasantly like he is existing two feet to the left of himself, he clings to the wall of his room like a drunkard.

The echo of each regeneration rattles around inside his skull. Every timeline has been peeled back, unspooled like a thread from a bobbin and snapped taught into oblivion.

Frantically pawing at the lock to his room he smacks the panel until the keypad flashes red. Locked in. Safe. Alone.

He tries to gulp a deeper breath. His room is more airless than he remembers. No pretences left. All appearances kept.

His body leaves him no choice but to feel the shock of his grief. Gravity starts to get the upper hand, his limbs and chest full of adrenaline, the room is too hot, his head is too heavy and the floor meets him, hard and unforgiving.

Leela hears the heavy slap of Narvin hitting the ground. She recognises the boneless, wet thud of someone losing consciousness.

She’d followed behind wanting to apologise, lightly padding along the corridor keeping one ear on Brax and Romana as they spoke of their plans for the next portal. They wouldn’t involve her in their strategies. There was a limit to their trust in her abilities to comprehend their situation on the Axis. So she listened, absorbed the information and added it to the terrain. On Gallifrey she’d been able to lean on the background noise of the planet to help her navigate but here there were no sounds beyond those they made themselves. Every bit of conversation became precious, another mark on her mental map of this alien space.

With a slight tremble her fingers seek for the keypad to Narvin’s room. She didn’t bother calling for assistance - Narvin wouldn’t want any weaknesses being exposed in front of his Lady President or her Chancellor.

The keypad makes angry buzzing noise in response, denying her entry. Unsheathing her knife, she levers the sharpest point under the edge of the electronic locks outer casing. Delicately she feels to see if there are wires, or something to cut. Her fingertips find a cold, ridged circuit board which refuses to divulge its secrets. Increasingly concerned for Narvin, Leela rams the hilt of her knife into the electronics. And again. And a third time until a soft whumpf signals the door sliding open.

Stepping across the threshold, Leela’s foot collides with a large dense object on the floor, which groans pitifully.

Falling to her haunches Leela gently tries to ascertain if it’s Narvin she has just kicked unceremoniously in his own doorway. She can feel his brow is sweaty and his breathing is ominously shallow. Frowning, Leela gently shakes his shoulder.

“Narvin” she hisses as low as she can, as to not startle him. Narvin either can’t or won’t respond.

Straddling the line between exasperation and fear she shakes his shoulder harder and barks “Coordinator!” In her best imitation of Romana’s sternest clipped tones.

Sitting bolt upright in a panic, Narvin nearly headbutts Leela in his frenetic burst of energy. He struggles to focus - as the grogginess clears, he recognises someone is talking to him as if he is a time tot. It's Leela, he realises, as she swims into view. She has his face in her hands, asking him something in a softer tone than he has ever heard her use before. Narvin steadies himself by grasping Leela's forearms. Her warmth helps ground him. He tries to compartmentalise his need for comfort away. He fails.

Clearing his throat, he decides the best thing to do is send her away.

"Why are you on the floor? Are you unwell?" Leela repeats herself. He can read the concern on her face.

"I am fine. Just fancied a lie down", he lies, pathetically. Leela responds with the expression she reserves for the most stupid suggestions the High Council make.

"Should I get Romana or Brax?" she begins, but his panic won't let her finish that sentence - he cant let them see this weakness.

"No, no, no. Absolutely not. No point in bothering them. This is a simple misunderstanding. I decided to take nap is all. On the floor. By my door. You interrupted me is all. Anyway, thanks for checking, I will see you tomorrow."

Narvin felt himself gabbling and inwardly cursed at his inability to lie properly to this human. Despite his legs feeling like custard, he braces himself to stand and tries to extract himself from Leela's grip. With impressive balance, Leela deftly shifts her weight so she is straddling his legs. Now perched in his lap she effectively blocks his escape.

"Do you think me stupid Narvin?"

Narvin desperately hopes this question is rhetorical and he won't be forced into an answer that will end with him on the wrong end of a blade. He shakes his head, which is still in Leela's hands.

"I am sorry for what I said before. With K9. Had I known you were grieving I would not have joked. Can you tell me what you have lost? Can you help me understand what loss is so great it would make a spymaster lie so poorly?"

Narvin's resolve crumbles. Not even 20 microspans ago he'd sworn to himself he would never divulge his torture to another living soul lest they use that knowledge against him. Leela's honesty and concern has undone him. There has been vanishingly few situations in he can recall been shown this level of kindness.

“They’re gone” he replied simply.

Not for the first time since she lost her sight, Leela wished more than anything she could see Narvin’s expression. She missed his sideways glances, the shared disgruntlement and camaraderie when the High Council were being unbelievably pompous even by their standards. She felt she’d all but forgotten his smile and most of all his look of concentration which was unexpectedly sweet. Leela could hear the tremor of pain in his voice. His breathing had calmed under her touch but fact that he was tolerating her proximity raised her anxiety about his well-being.

Keeping a thumb on each of his cheekbones she traced the contours of Narvins’ face. She felt his furrowed brow, and the tense muscles in his jaw as he held whatever had happened back.

Timelords were notoriously skittish, in Leela’s opinion, and any sort of potential admission of vulnerability from them was to be approached carefully as to not spook them further from intimacy. Settling her forehead to his, she waited for him to speak again.

He swallowed, once, twice. And then recounted his tale. His lives and futures torn from him. His torture during her tenure as President. His grief became a palpable presence in the room. Leela stilled and let him speak till he couldn’t any more.

Leela broke the silence which had settled between them.

“I am sorry. I am sorry for your loss and your pain. I wish that I could help bear this for you”

Her response was so vehement and earnest that it arrested Narvin’s train of thought.

Pulling back so he could see her whole face, closely monitoring her as she had done to him. He could find no deceit or mockery. Narvin gazed at Leela in a mix of disbelief and confusion.

“I didn’t think you’d care, I didn’t think that anyone would“

Leela’s responding scowl was fierce.

“Do not doubt my words, timelord. I do not have the time nor the inclination to be economical with the truth. Especially not in the case of the wounding of my friends. Do you think so little of your relationship to us all, that we wouldn’t notice your pain?”

Narvin didn’t have an answer for that, at least not one that he deemed would be acceptable for Leela to hear.

Slowly cupping his elbows, Leela levered them both to standing - and led him over to his cot. As he sat down, Narvin came to a sudden realisation.

“How on earth do you know where my bed is?”

Leela blushed. The tops of her ears turned pink in a way that Narvin had never seen before.

“When you are all in the laboratory, plotting the trajectories of the portals, I have taken the liberty of mapping each room on the axis. Sometimes K9 aids me, sometimes I have scouted alone. A hunter must know all her grounds, blind or not.”

The ghost of a smile flits across Narvin’s face. He really should consider this to be a unconscionable assault on his privacy. He really should. But knowing that Leela knew every inch of the axis only made him feel safer. Exhaustion was prickling at the back of his eyes again, threatening to overwhelm his efforts to stay sitting up. Somehow, sensing this, Leela lifted his legs, swinging them onto the small spartan cot. Finally horizontal again, the pain in his head created from the wounds of his lost regenerations threatened to lure him back into unconsciousness - he had always suspected that relaxing was probably dangerous. Before he goes back under, he grasps for Leela’s hand. Finding his target he concentrates on squeezing her hand - he hopes she can feel the gratitude he’s sending through this gesture. He’s desperate that she understand.

As Narvin’s hand drops, his muscles limp as he succumbs to his exhaustion, Leela settles beside his bed. She knows, though he probably wouldn’t admit it, he needs her to stand watch, a silent vigil against the weight of his loss. She listens to the sounds of the axis as she makes herself comfortable, crosslegged on the floor.