NOT THE ONLY ONE

A/N Thank you to lilli-glenanne for your review.

Beta read by Ancalagar the Dragon Lord

Please review.

Disclaimer. I don't own it.

The little girl clutched Braxiatel's hand, placing her small hand in his, and he smiled warmly at her. She did not know this man, but she felt safe with him. He had kind eyes, even though his eyes looked ancient.

Braxiatel looked at her. She was so trusting, so young to get mixed up in this.

Suddenly alarms starting going off in all directions, and the sound of shouting and footsteps were getting closer. He pulled her around the corner towards his ship.

"Run," he said, pulling her towards an old red telephone box.

"But... its so small," she gasped, staring at the phone box in front of her, not sure how they could hide in there.

"It's bigger on the inside." He smiled again at her, forgetting that this child had never been around Time Lords and time travel before.

"All right," she said, trusting him completely. She pushed open the door, but before he had managed to get to the door himself, he felt something hit him and he fell against the rough cold floor." Braxiatel felt his head smash against the ground and the blood dripped down his face.

"Where's the child?" he heard a voice demanding an answer. The pain was nothing in comparison to his anger; he felt for these people, but it helped fuel his retaliation all the same.

"Safe," he spat. "Where you can never hurt her again. You don't need her."

"She is a weapon in this war."

"War? What war?" he shot back in anger, as he got to his feet.

"This cold, bitter war against the Doctor."

Braxiatel was slightly taken back that the Doctor was alive; his brother also survived, but what had he done to have so many enemies?

"The child is not a weapon!" Braxiatel growled

"She can be. Give us time and she will be."

"You have already lost her, and I swear I will never let you near her again."

Romana leaned against the console, watching the as an uncomfortable silence lingered in the air.

"Why don't you just say it?" she asked.

He looks up at her.

"What you wanted to say? I can see it in your eyes." She moved closer, forcing him to look at her.

"Braxiatel," he says. "You and him… were you…? I mean, I asked him but he always denied it."

Romana sighs sadly. "Not in the way you are thinking. I loved your brother; I really did, and he was everything to me, but we never slept together. I like to think it was much deeper than that."

She remembered that day as if it was yesterday, when they first became aware of their feelings for each other:

They stood there, facing each other, after those twenty years at the Dalek's hands. Braxiatel, her friend, the Time Lord who had cared for her after that terrible time, and now she saw him more than just her friend. Something had changed between them, and she had been stunned to silence at what was happening between them, as her lips found his, and he crushed his lips against hers as they kissed before pulling apart.

"Okay, I was not expecting that," she said softly as she beamed at him.

"Really?" he had asked her, with an air of surprise in his tone of voice.

Romana blushed furiously. "But it was nice," she said as she leaned in to kiss him once more . "Are you sure?" she asked. "Is it what you want?"

"I want to be with you, Romana, and I hope you feel the same way. I have grown quite fond of you in the months away from Gallifrey. Tell me you feel the same."

"I do feel something for you," Romana replied, softly looking into his dark eyes that were so mysterious, that felt like they held so many secrets.

He smiled and placed a tender kiss on her soft lips, before wrapping her in a loving embrace.

The Doctor interrupted her thoughts.

"What does that mean?" he asked, shocked, that there had been a relationship of some sort between the pair. Of course, he should have known; they always looked very comfortable in each others' presence, as if they were more than friends, the way they reacted to each other and the way she had smiled at him; but Braxiatel had always denied they were anything but friends. He was always a terrible liar. He would have been happy for them if that's what Romana wanted, and she deserved to be happy after her terrible ordeal of been kidnapped by the Daleks for those twenty years.

"I was with him. I was lonely. We were both lonely. We were together in every sense but it was never sexual, not ever. We didn't…" She broke off mid sentence. Losing Braxiatel, or whatever it was that had happened to him, had hit her hard. She had not been the same.

"I was in love with him. I think we both were in some way, but we never talked about it. That wasn't the way Braxiatel was. He never liked talking about his feelings."

The Doctor nodded. He knew only too well.

"I'm sorry," he said, taking her hand in his, "but you never said what happened to him."

"It was a bad day. He fell through a time portal. He might have survived; I don't know, he had a slim chance." A tear slipped down her cheek as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push the memories away . After he had Time scooped them to an alternative Gallifrey, she had met a Valeyard version of the Doctor, who wasn't really even the Doctor.

Braxiatel was there one moment, so alive. The man she had loved with everything she had. He had been her second chance of happiness, then the next moment, he was falling through that time portal. As both the Valeyard and Braxiatel tumbled through the Time portal, she saw him falling and she screamed in terror. She had to be held back by Leela and Narvin before she fell to her knees in shock and horror, and the only words on her lips were "Why him?" uttered in horror, over and over, before she blacked out.

She bit on her lip, tasting the blood in her mouth, as another tear rolled down her cheek, as she tried to quickly turn away to hide her pain from the Doctor.

The Doctor sensing her distress pulled her into his arms and held her close to him. "He saved me, saved Leela and Narvin. I like to think he is still out there, somewhere. It's what he'd do, just start over, you know what he's like, was like," she whispered sadly.

She never knew just how true that statement was.

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