Author's note/summary: This is the result of a conversation my dear and I had a while ago, about how we imagined Missy shortly after her regeneration, having escaped from Gallifrey and the Time Lock and basically just sitting in some house she probably broke into, looking very aesthetically pleasing with wet hair, a cup of tea, and wearing some sort of dressing gown. It needs to be said that at that point neither of us had watched past "The Day of the Doctor," and even now that I've finally finished it I'm still two seasons behind, and from what spoilers I've seen so far, this is everything but canon-compliant. (I couldn't care less though to be honest because I'll probably deny canon ever happened anyway.)
TL;DR: Utterly AU fantasy about Missy's first few hours.
Hair. The hair was the first indicator, really, once he got his bearings back enough to realise that there seemed to be a veritable mane surrounding his face, a few brown, wavy strands hanging into his face and obscuring his vision. He got his fingers tangled for a moment as he tried to brush them out of the way. He hadn't even had hair that long at the Academy. With a quiet curse, he stumbled to his feet, only to pause at the sound of his voice. He cleared his throat and tried again, but it still sounded strangely high-pitched. Too much so to be attributed to a dry throat. And combined with the fact that somehow the floor seemed a lot closer than he was used to…
A quick patting down, and he had his answer. Well. She. She had her answer. Now, that was certainly interesting. An image of the Doctor's face, speechless for once, floated before her mind's eye, and her new lips quirked into a grin. Very interesting indeed.
It was a pity she didn't have time to think about it in detail right now.
-D-W-
Running, be it metaphorical or literal, should definitely be left to the Doctor, the Master decided. Of course, even leaning against the door of the house she'd just broken into, out of breath, swimming in too large clothes and sweat plastering her hair to her skin, she still couldn't deny that there hadn't been another option. No time for elaborate plans and plots and safety nets. She hadn't been expecting an opportunity like that, none of her more or less thought-out schemes and ideas had included all this, but she couldn't exactly be picky, now could she. The tiniest opening in the time lock's boundaries, just the smallest fissure – she hadn't known where it had come from or why it was there, and in that moment, she couldn't have cared less. It was a way out.
That upon leaving her hiding place she'd been discovered almost instantly had been sheer bad luck, but at least it could be said that the Time Lady who'd spotted her had been even less lucky – the Master wouldn't be able to brag about finesse to anyone, but she had nonetheless managed to prevent her unfortunate ex-compatriot from telling anyone where she had run off to. She might even have done the Master a favour, in a way. Not that she was overly fond of being forced to regenerate, but at least it helped cover her tracks a little. It wouldn't have taken too long for anyone to arrive at the scene, since Lady Whoever had managed to sound an alarm before the Master could stop her, but due to her untimely demise, she couldn't exactly tell anyone what had transpired, and the residue energy swirling around the corridor might easily be blamed on the aborted regeneration attempt of one cheeky Time Lady who hadn't known what she was messing with, and wouldn't be messing with anyone anymore. Ergo – no one knew what had happened, and with a bit of luck, no one would connect the presence of a stumbling Time Lady in too large clothes to the renegade Time Lord who'd spent most of his time evading discovery by hiding. Not very dignified, no, but there was a saying about desperate times.
The TARDIS she managed to escape with was no more dignified either. She was half tempted to vow to never make fun of the Doctor's old Type 40 again. This machine was closer to death than to anything resembling life, and its attempts to build up a telepathic connection to the Master left her with a pounding headache while she tried to operate the smoking and partly demolished controls. Her original plans hadn't necessarily involved capsules in quite such a state of disrepair, although she should maybe have expected that. They also had not involved being in quite as much of a hurry, or having had to regenerate only minutes previous, but after a few moderately eloquent curses there was no time to dwell on these things. She didn't even dare kick the damn thing's console, lest it refused to move out of spite, or simply fell apart underneath her feet. No, this was her one chance to escape the hellhole that was once supposed to be home, and she was determined to take it.
It took a lot of cursing, minute manipulating of levers and buttons and modules and whatnot, with shaky fingers and clenched teeth, until the TARDIS had inched its way out through an opening that should, by all means, be too small in a spatio-temporal sense to actually slip through. However, both she and the Doctor had always tended to take words like "impossible" as a challenge, of course. She didn't know if her narrow escape had any effect on the Time Lock and what remained inside it, nor did she care now that she was on the other side. Hearts beating erratically in her chest, she urged the groaning, almost whimpering machine to land on the next best planet it could lock on to, the sound of a large bronze bell resonating through the rooms all the way there. The Master had barely made it three steps out the door when the bell's ringing merged into a hideous sound like screeching fingernails on rough stone and metal bending and twisting and breaking, and she was all too aware that this particular TARDIS had made its last journey. One step at a time, now, she told herself. At least it had gotten her out.
Wherever she was, it was night, or late evening, and the only thing around seemed to be a reasonably large house that hinted strongly at (in this case, wealthy) humanoid natives, which meant with a bit of luck she wouldn't look too conspicuous. Breaking in didn't go as smoothly as she'd have hoped – there was some sort of alarm system that appeared to be set to "owners on vacation, call the authorities if someone so much as breathes on the door" – but even with unsteady hands and a slightly blurred vision, disabling the rather primitive technology wasn't too much of a feat. Not that she couldn't deal with homeowners or local authorities if any showed up, but she needed to get out of sight and to something at least resembling safety, and it was a lot less taxing with no one trying to stand in her way yet again.
Once she had caught her breath, which had really been embarrassingly out of control – there was no reason for panic, it wasn't like anyone could have followed her – once she had caught her breath, she pushed away from the front door and stumbled deeper into her new temporary residence. Her clothes were too large and too warm, she was covered in sweat and she could feel her hair becoming more and more comfortable with being a damp, knotted mess all around her face. She'd have to take care of that.
-D-W-
An hour later found her sitting at the kitchen table, damp hair haphazardly held up and out of the way by a hair tie and a few clips, with just a few wavy strands still dangling around her face. She had forgotten how bothersome long hair could be, but after a thorough examination of her new face in the mirror she was unwilling to trim it, which had been her first impulse. She'd figure out what to do with it soon enough. What she needed first were clothes. After her shower, she had sifted through every wardrobe she could find, only to discover that every resident of this particular domicile had to be at least a head taller than her, which was really not fair at all. She would have to find herself shoes with heels.
Unable to find anything her size, the Master had finally settled on a slightly too large silk dressing gown. Since no one in this house had a sense of style and therefore almost everything was held in bright pastel colours, the thing of course had to be eggshell white with soft pink adornments, and she had to push up the sleeves every three seconds if she wanted to use her hands, but it would do for the moment.
She had found a newspaper lying around, doubtlessly a few days old at least but still worth scanning for a bit of information on where and when she had ended up. Although, the "where" part of course had become obvious rather soon, and only the fact that her head already hurt enough as it was had stopped her from banging it against a shelf in frustration. Did every wrecked TARDIS default its settings to the same rainy island on the same stupid planet?
At least humans produced palatable tea. It might be their only redeeming quality.
The newspaper told her that she had turned up in Earth's year 2142, which didn't tell her much since unlike certain others she had never cared to memorize Earth history, but if she recalled correctly there weren't currently any major wars happening, which meant one thing less to worry about. Beyond that… she needed clothes. She needed shoes, she needed practical clothes, she needed something fancy, maybe a dress. She would keep the hair clips and ties she had found in the bathroom. She needed food, she needed to get off this ape-ridden floating rock and therefore she needed a plan and a spaceship or a teleport or a vortex manipulator, she needed to find a new basis of operation which meant she might need forged documents or at least a bit of psychic paper, she needed a weapon, she needed to find out what the Doctor was up to, she needed… the Master blinked a few times at the blurring newspaper in front of her and eventually set it down on the table, together with the almost empty cup of tea that had almost slipped from her grip. She needed, possibly, to sleep.
-D-W-
On the way to the nearest bedroom, it felt like the floor was rolling under her feet, and after staggering through the doorway, the Master all but collapsed onto the mattress, not bothering to remove her stolen fluffy slippers or to pull the blanket around her. She'd have to come up with a cover name if she wanted to keep the Doctor from recognising her right away, she thought vaguely. Her fingers clenched loosely around the soft fabric, and here eyes were fluttering close despite her efforts to finish the thought. A cover name, just for the time before she revealed herself… something not too far off but not too obvious. Perhaps the Doctor would be able to figure it out on his own.
She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
The Doctor stared at the sight before him, feeling at a loss. He had picked up an impossible energy reading, and, impossible or not, he had followed it, and found that the impossible was real and the energy's source indeed a dying TARDIS, stranded within walking distance of a lonesome, wealthy human property. A property which, upon closer inspection, someone had broken into, and his hearts had sped up despite his stern insisting that it simply couldn't be.
And now here he stood, in a stranger's bedroom, the bed occupied by someone it didn't belong to but who obviously couldn't care less. Someone with a face he'd never seen, with excess regeneration energy still tangible in the air around her, fast asleep – she hadn't even stirred at his rather hurried entrance. And regardless of the unfamiliar face, the Doctor knew there really was only one person she could be, but still he couldn't bring himself to wake her up.
Shaking his head at himself, he settled on the chair next to the dressing table to wait.