The Fourth Doctor

Sleep? Ha! Sleep was for tortoises! He was a busy man, the Doctor, far too busy for nonsense such as sleeping! He seldom bothered.

But after a few drinks, why, a little snooze was a good thing, a very good thing indeed. And he had partaken in a few drinks the night before, so he thought probably he could forgive himself a few hours shuteye.

Of course...when I say a few drinks, I mean a fair few. Quite a lot, to be perfectly frank. Well, I say quite a lot, I actually mean a heck of a lot. He had an uneasy relationship with his drink, did the Fourth Doctor. He was a far cry from his predecessor, who liked his fine wines and his rich, strong brandies, all washed down with a delicate platter of cheese and biscuits. When number four drank, alas, he really drank. It was ever thus that he tended to avoid drinking at all, for fear of embarrassing himself too often, or wearing out his fourth liver well before it's time. He was somewhat attached to this body, with his wild curls and his great height, his relative youth too. He saw no need to ruin himself.

But yesterday, dear Romana had insisted they go to an olde english mead festival, and the results were horrific. One horn of mead became four, which became eight soon enough, which fast became twelve. Romana wasn't innocent either, as best as he remembered. She'd been the life and soul of the party, dancing merrily with the BO ridden peasants of centuries past. The stench of the tent had, indeed, been quite horrific. The Doc liked visiting the past well enough, but the smell of the folks from back then was pretty awful.

They'd taken their leave in the small hours, and...

And what, indeed? They'd made it back to the Tardis, somehow, though he couldn't quite recall how they'd done it. He vaguely remembered carrying Romana through the doors, staggering into the blinding white light of the console room, and then...well, that was all.

He pressed a hand to his throbbing sore head, and stretched out in the bed he so rarely used. He'd get up soon, but a little more sleep wouldn't go amiss. Just another hour or so. He sniffed and rolled over to his side, colliding with something that was neither mattress, nor pillow, nor even duvet.

He opened his round blue eyes, which swelled to magnificent proportions when he saw what - and who - was in bed next to him.

"No..." he whispered, his booming voice soft in the cavernous white bedroom. "Surely not..."

Romana.

She opened her eyes and groaned in pain, her brown eyes coming to meet his blue. Her mahogany hair was askew, and her robe open to the waist.

"No..." she gasped, staring at the Doctor with horror. "No, we didn't..."

"We can't have..." the Doctor gaped.

She bit her lip. "Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"I think we did."

"So we're in agreement," he said later that day, hunched over the console, still red in the face, "it should never have happened?"

"Full agreement." Romana replied, her posh clipped voice dripping with embarrassment. She was wearing her best white robe, her hair flowing and her bare feet leaving moisture prints against the cold, snow white floor of the Tardis. Her ten toes were literally curling.

"I...don't know what came over me." the Doctor lied, trying to pretend (as he always did) that he felt no attraction towards the young Time Lady, who was almost too beautiful to be real, too perfect to actually exist.

"I do." she scoffed. "It begins with M, it ends with D, and you drank one heck of a lot of it last night."

"Yes," the Doctor said airily, "let's not pretend you didn't."

She shrugged. "True."

"But what happened, Romana?" the Doctor insisted, "how did we end up...do you remember? Because I don't."

"Bits and pieces," Romana admitted, "you carried me in, and we ended up drinking some of that Bordeaux you've had lying around."

"My previous regeneration loved that stuff," he replied, "but I don't much like it these days."

"Be that as it may, you had four glasses of it last night." Romana laughed. "And we started telling jokes. I was hysterical, you were hysterical, and...well, one thing led to another."

"Who made the move first?" he wasn't sure he wanted to know, and regretted asking immediately.

Romana frowned. "You, you idiot! Do you really not remember anything of it?"

"Not a jot." the Doctor replied. "My twelve meads and, as it transpires, four wines attests to that."

"Hmm." Romana trailed off and examined her fingernails. Was it his imagination, or did she look - just slightly - crestfallen? Disappointed? Hurt, even? Yes. Yes, he rather thought that she did. Which meant...if his not remembering instilled such emotion in her, it meant that she didn't regret it as much as she claimed. Perhaps, even, she didn't regret it at all.

Good. Because whatever he'd said, the Doctor didn't regret it a single bit. Not one.

"Romana, I..." he began, "I...um...well, won't you have a jelly baby?" he extracted the crumpled bag from his pocket, only to discover it as empty as sin. "Oh dear..." he moaned. "I'm out of jelly babies."

"You were handing them out last night," she told him, "the peasants couldn't get enough of them."

"Well, quite." the Doctor sighed. "But look...what I meant to say was..." It was hopeless. For the first time in his fourth life, he was well and truly lost for words. How could he confess his true feelings to her? To little Romana, with her superior brain, and her full Gallifreyan biology, and her ravishing beauty? How could he, an impure half-human, tell her that he really rather loved her? He wasn't at all worthy of her, not a bit, and he felt sure that she'd laugh if he told her. He thought, just possibly, the heartbreak of it might kill him.

Romana shuffled her dainty bare feet awkwardly. "Go on." she muttered.

"I mean...I hope this won't change anything between us? If you want to go home, then I'd understand, but..."

At this, she padded over to him and did something rather lovely - standing on tiptoes, she planted a kiss on his pale cheek, and drew away softly.

"I love travelling with you." she told him. "I could have gone home after we'd found the last key, and I didn't. I chose not to, Doctor. We were drunk last night. It happened. It shouldn't of happened, but it did. I think we should forget about it. How does that sound?"

He smiled. "And carry on as normal?"

"And carry on as normal." she agreed.

He broke into one of his massive, toothy grins and nodded. "Well then! I need some new jellybabies. A trip to Blackpool? 1970's, perhaps?"

"Sounds perfect." she beamed.

Never again did the Doctor sleep with that version of Romana. But after her fateful accident and subsequent regeneration, they became a little more than friends. Almost partners, he supposed. Partners in crime. And whilst they never again did mention that night, the Doctor knew that he'd never forget about it.

Almost never...

By the time his ninth life (or tenth, if you'll be pedantic) came around, Romana herself was but a faint memory, a shadow from the past which he deliberately obscured as best he could. It hurt too much to remember her. It hurt too much to remember any of them. That first night they spent together was a passing dream, a happy time turned sour by the war which saw Romana - and the rest of the Time Lords along with her - burned to dust. At his hand.

He might never have thought about it again, were it not for the awful thing which happened shortly after Captain Jack joined him and Rose...