Trueness to oneself was something that The Doctor held very dear. Some of this friends, The Corsair being the prime example, shed much during their regenerations; their hearts changed, sometimes even their souls. Yet The Doctor was always the same man on the inside. It was being this man that had carried him through all the darkness he had faced.
The Doctor, as far as he was concerned, was no longer that man. Staying true to himself was a luxury he could no longer afford, and he was facing darkness worse than anyone had ever seen. Provided the war ever ended, and scholars were to look back, would they wonder what it was that drove this War Doctor? Could even he answer it himself? Such questions were left unasked, tossed into the void among the dead and broken bodies spattered across the cosmos.
Tonight, The Doctor wasn't thinking about any of that. It was in that thought process that The Doctor found his problem. Whether he liked it or not, he represented something bigger than himself. The days where we wasn't feeding the engines of war were happier ones, but altogether more selfish ones, as well. He was a strong force. he was an affective force, and if taking up the sword meant he could save more lives, who was he to argue? What was the alternative?
When he still wore his eighth face, and all the romantic sensibilities that came with it, he had tried to save people without getting involved. All it took was one failure to take all that away, and The Doctor had fought a long and bloody battle ever since. As sick as the thought would've made him, there was a certainty present in all of this. The Doctor had a set purpose that he was fully aware of. Contrary to all of that, he did not know what tonight was. Perhaps a pull to the light he had so direly missed, or perhaps it was something more. All he knew was that as he came up the steps to the memory projection chamber, the weight on his shoulders was lifted ever so slightly.
At the top of the platform, he saw a wooden table flanked by two matching chairs. A small unlit candle sat on top of the table, joined by a non-descript bottle and two crystal glasses. He looked around, the room empty besides the little set up.
"I couldn't decide where to go, so I figured we could go everywhere." Romana's voice rang out.
"Nowhere new, then?" The Doctor asked, turning to her.
Romana was wearing her white dress, the very same one she had worn all those years ago when they first met; minus the garish fury cloak, of course. It draped down her form, stopping just before her ankles and no longer falling to her feet. This version of her was taller than she had ever been, taller than even him. The Doctor smirked, thinking on this; she had never been taller than him before.
"Quite." she replied. "Honestly, you couldn't have put on anything nice?" Romana asked, regarding the Doctor with a critical glance.
The Doctor looked down on himself with a frown. He was wearing a new waistcoat. Romana walked past him, taking a seat. The chair creaked as she sat, an indication of its age.
"Your new waistcoat is nice, though. A little odd, considering the rest of you, but beggars can't be choosers." Romana said, motioning for him to sit.
The Doctor did as motioned, fiddling with the buttons as he did; the waistcoat was only just too tight.
"Good of you to notice." He said with a small smile, darting his eyes away.
The Doctor never looked at her for more than a few moments at a time, keeping his eyes trained on just about everything else. Just like the waistcoat, Romana noticed this, but chose not to say anything about it.
"I thought we were going to go to dinner." The Doctor said, attempting to beat the silence away.
"I thought we were going for a drink." replied Romana. She lifted the bottle, looking at it. "Only, you said dinner, because saying drinks sounds so much less professional. How many official dinners have we been to? They've become quite drab."
She rolled her hand, the liquid in the bottle rushing about on the inside.
"Paris." The Doctor said. "The Louvre."
Gallifrey melted away around them, the chamber reconfiguring around them. Romana grinned, opening the bottle and pouring them each a glass. As the liquid fell into the glasses, the changing scenery was reflected in it. It appeared distorted even as the room twisted to match The Doctor's memory. Giant pillars flanked by white walls shot out of the ground, rising into the sky.
At their apex, the roof materialized sealing the gap above them. Outlines of various civilians slowly came into focus, their footfalls becoming more audible as they went on. Paintings on the walls appeared sporadically, without any clear order or reason.
"Cheers." Romana said, the two of them clinking their glasses together.
The two of them both took a drink, both wincing as it went down.
"What is this?" The Doctor asked, trying in vain to suppress a cough. A quick glance at Romana would show that she was doing the same.
"Gods, I don't know. It was a gift from an admirer in my academy days. It's supposedly..." Romana coughed, holding a hand over her mouth. "Thousands... thousands of years old."
"It's quite... smooth." The Doctor replied, letting out a series of coughs afterwards.
"An admirer?" He asked, opting to look at one of the paintings as she answered.
"Yes... what was his name? Fax... Fed? Fattle? There was an "F" or two in there, somewhere. He left it at my door in the dead of night with this little note attached, poetry written on it in oh, what was it? The language made of the little diamonds?" Romana asked, making little diamonds in the air with her finger.
"Mirten." The Doctor said, watching the people walk by.
Because their table situated in the middle of a crowded area, the projections would sometimes walk through the two of them. It was quite jarring.
"Mr. F. had no real ear for meter. I spent the night fixing the poem up and returning it to him with a follow-up poem amounting to "no." I also kept the bottle." Romana grinned at The Doctor, both of them taking another drink.
The second time around, it seemed to do down easier, the two of them adapting to the bitter feeling. Before The Doctor would reply, a rather large man stood in front of Romana, inside the table.
The Doctor held his hand over his mouth, coughing. His throat was still burning, and he felt a laugh coming on as the large man looked around aimlessly with Romana still inside the projection.
"I've got it, don't worry." The Doctor said, finally recovering.
He dug into his coat and pulled out his screwdriver. He pressed a switch, a high-pitched whirring floating throughout the room. The other people faded from view, the screwdriver seemingly doing its job. As the man standing in Romana's place vanished, The Doctor saw her refilling their glasses. A slew of sparks erupting from the ceiling startling them both.
They lifted their arms to shield themselves. Romana gave The Doctor an annoyed look, blinking in disbelief as the room shifted around them. As quickly as the sparks had flew, the two of them found themselves in The Louvre sideways, they table and chairs sitting on the walls. Looking down at her feet, Romana found herself sitting directly on top of the Mona Lisa. Before she could say anything, it began to rain without waiting, their time at The Louvre starting to bleed into another one of their shared memories.
The Doctor non-chalantly picked his glass up as the wall (the floor if The Louvre, to their perspective) collapsed, revealing Ribos behind it, in the midst of a snowstorm. The Doctor looked at his glass, taking a hefty gulp, Romana doing the same.
"You always make things so bloody..." The Doctor interrupted her, coughing roughly.
"Odd." She finished, her coughs following after his.
Romana shook her head, standing up. She moved over to where the rain ended and the snow began. She kept her eyes on the divide, the water droplets and snowflakes hitting each other as if bouncing off invisible walls blocking their path.
"Well come on, then." She said. "Bring the bottle."
The Doctor cleared his throat, doing as he was told. He stood up, and took the bottle, moving to join her at the snowy divide.
"Alcohol must be making the memories all faulty." He remarked.
"Or maybe you're still just rubbish with machines and you don't want to admit it." Romana teased. Indeed, there was something amiss. The Louvre was already topsy turvy, but Ribos was shifting like a great ocean in the middle of a storm. Mountains raised, only to come flashing down, causing the land below to ripple and twist.
The Doctor and Romana looked at each other.
"Let's agree to disagree." He said.
"Agreed." She replied, taking the bottle from him.