So, I know I should be working on DS, and I am, making slow but steady-ish progress, but I just have this Nyssa obsession at the moment, and I needed to vent.

Set: After 'Time-Flight'

Characters: Nyssa, mentions of: Fifth Doctor, Tegan, Adric, The Master, Tremas and Kassia of Traken

Pairings: Mentions of implied Doctor/Romana.

Spoilers for: The Keeper of Traken, Four to Doomsday, Earthshock, Time-Flight

Basically, while working as a stand-alone, in my mind it is a prequel to a Nyssa/Phantom crossover fic that I plan on writing at some point. Enjoy!

Nyssa sat in her bedroom in the TARDIS, trying not to be bothered by the slightly eerie silence around her. Usually, she would be able to hear Tegan or Adric bickering, either with each other or the Doctor, who was at that moment tinkering with the TARDIS, something she had felt he may wish to do alone.

There hadn't really been any time after Adric's…she had to close her eyes and force her mind to think the word death…to adjust to him not being around before they had landed in Heathrow and gotten caught up in all the troubles with the Master reappearing. And then the Doctor had left Tegan behind…merely saying that it was where Tegan had been trying to get to all along, and that it was the obvious thing to do. But to lose both of her friends just like that…it was hard to get her head around.

But she had the Doctor, at least. They had always had a quiet understanding of each other, the two aliens with no people (well, he did have people, but he had insinuated on several occasions to her that they weren't particularly fond of him), and he had seen so much death, lost so much that she knew that he could understand her pain better than anyone. Not that she would ever mention it of course, he had enough things to worry about without her own problems weighing him down.

But seeing the Master again had shaken her resolve quite deeply. To stare into her father's eyes, and to not see the warmth and merriment that had always filled them, but the cold hypnotic stare of the Master, it shook her every time without fail. She was not sure if he realised how cruel it really had been of him to steal her father's body, but she knew that even if he did know, it would only please him more. For she knew it was not her father anymore, but every time she saw the Master, it just brought her father's death back into the foreground of her mind, where it caused her heart to throb in a way that she was unsure she was able to conceal. Her only consolation was that every time, the Doctor managed to best him.

The Doctor. She owed so much to him, really. Without him, she would be dead along with her people. And it would be strangely nice to travel alone with him, it would bring them closer together, and perhaps unlock a mystery or two about the friend whom she still knew so little about.

She knew he was old…but how old? How many lifetimes had he lived, how many people had he known? How many people had he loved?

He had mentioned a woman called Romana (Adric had told her a little about the Doctor's previous companion, but not a lot) a few times, and whenever he did Nyssa noticed a strange sort of longing sadness in his eyes when he did so, accompanied by a strange fervency when he uttered her name. Was that love? Nyssa was not sure. She had not seen enough of it, though it had been evident between her father and her step-mother Kassia, but they had never been separated in a way that would cause them to need each other, so Nyssa was unable to compare the Doctor's actions to them.

But the idea of love…the possibility that there was be someone out there who could understand her perfectly, could be the other half of her whole…it seemed almost impossible. And when she tried to imagine who that person would be, what they would be like, she came up short. Was that wrong, that she didn't know what she wanted? For she knew that she wanted it, she wanted it so badly, to be loved in a way that she had never known before…to share that sense of intimacy with someone…she could barely imagine it, but felt part of her know that it would be wonderful. That had been why when Monarch had planned to turn her into an android, a machine incapable of love, the one thing she truly longed for, she had felt cold and unparalleled fear flood her heart. Since then she had been more grateful than ever that she was still alive to get a chance at this miraculous thing that seemed to shape the universe.

The question was, who was it that she was destined to love, and be loved by in return, and would she ever find them?

I hope you liked it! Yeah, the bit where she was talking about not knowing what she wanted in a soul mate was sort of my playing around with her upcoming shipping with the Phantom. Because let's face it, Nyssa would never see him coming or imagine herself loving someone as totally crazy as him (though we know he is very awesome despite the craziness, and he's so lonely that he needs someone like her).

Hopefully anyone who is a Phantom fan (or phan) and is also a Nyssa fan will check out my fic when I eventually get around to it.

That's all for now! Please leave me a review and let me know what you thought.

MayFairy :)