Title: Planet of Silence
Authors: Takada Saiko and Gabrielle Day
Disclaimers: We do not own the two last remaining Time Lords, but if anyone knows where we can get our hands on a TARDIS, please, let us know.
Notes: So, this is what happens when Gabi says 'Watch Doctor Who', I do, and then we write. Haha. This is a slightly AU that follows directly after the third season and is also connected to my one-shot "Curse of the Time Lords," but it's not an absolute requirement to read it. I'd highly appreciate it though =D
Chapter One.
No matter how many years he lived, how many lifetimes that his one overstretched, or how many companions that he knew, it never got any easier. Leaving them behind, for whatever reason, was always the new hardest-thing-he'd-ever-done, and he was really, really starting to hate it.
He'd given up on traveling with anyone for a while, and then he'd met Rose. Fat lot of good that had done. He'd loved her, as much as he ever could wrap his mind around the idea, but he'd managed to destroy her life. There'd been Astrid and Martha as well. Well, after everything, at least one of them got out alive and in their correct dimension.
The Doctor sighed heavily and leaned against the controls to the TARDIS. He was alone again. Always alone. The machinery buzzed around him and he reached over and flipped a switch, starting the ship moving on its way. It jolted and he moved around, his usual energy quelled considerably, as he worked the various levers and buttons. The time machine gave a violent lurch, sending him off to one side. Dark brown eyes widened as he realized that was not just the usual hiccups of a ship run by only one man. He stood as it shuddered again and he reached for his faithful hammer to work it back into functioning mode.
"Come on, don't do this to me now. Doesn't a break sound nice? Somewhere with good, even temperatures, very little precipitation, nothing completely evil trying to blow down the door? We can manage that, can't we?" he murmured to her. He tweaked the usual buttons and levers and for a moment the TARDIS seemed to even out. It was the deception before the spiral. The TARDIS tilted harshly, sending the Doctor staggering and grabbing for a railing to keep himself from being totally thrown around.
The Doctor growled in frustration and pulled himself up. He yanked down a screen and shoved his glasses into place, eyes quickly taking in the readings. "No, no kickback from there. It isn't...no it couldn't be. No comets. No dust mites. Wait...two life forms? What? What are you talking about?" he demanded of the ship.
"Perhaps she's merely commenting that it is little comfort to offer her safety from completely evil things blowing down the door when the completely evil thing is already inside."
The Doctor spun around, eyes wide. "What?" he demanded of the familiar face that stood grinning at him. It was that grin that unnerved him to his deepest core. That grin that told him that things were about to go bad if not worse, and certainly a grin that he thought he'd never see again after its owner had died in his arms. He'd burned his body on a pyre, but there he was. In his TARDIS. "Master?"
The grin broadened. "I like it when you use my name," the other Time Lord purred and leapt down from his perch, sending the Doctor sprawling as the time machine lurched too and fro, angry with her secondary passenger.
The Doctor was stunned and didn't move out of the way in time block the blow to his jaw. He felt the cool metal of the TARDIS floor against his cheek and the warm hands of a man who should by all accounts be dead close around his throat. "You..can't..." he gasped, kicking and trying to claw the arms away. "We're crashing! You don't know when or where we'll end up!"
"Maybe I don't care. Maybe it doesn't matter. I'll kill you and take the TARDIS far away from wherever we wind up. Tell me, Doctor, were you able to fix everything? Were you able to heal all those little people who had to spend that year on my platform?"
Images flashed through his mind of the very people that his former friend spoke of and all the pain seemed to crash around him again like a tidal wave. Pain, desperation, anger.
"I'll take that as a no," the other chirped. The TARDIS convulsed again, this time throwing the two men apart. The Doctor rolled, trying to regain his bearings. It would do no good to roll over and die here. Whatever the case for the Master, he was his responsibility.
Dark brown eyes met gold as the ship gave what felt like a roll, turning the entire console room upside down.
Both Time Lords groaned as they collided with the ceiling. The Master grabbed his shoulder and bit off a curse. The sudden silence and stillness seemed almost stifling.
The Doctor braced himself against the side and looked around. "Hold on, hold on, I think we've stopped."
"Is this how you've survived so long? Brilliant deductions like that?" the Master asked wryly. A small stream of water curved around the upside-down staircase and dripped down past him. "I hope you were running a bath or I'll be tempted to think your pool's overrunning."
"Aww, that'll take ages to clean up." the Doctor groaned.
A small creak caused them to both fall silent. They looked at each other and both grimaced when another creak reached them. Ever so slowly, the TARDIS began titling, picking up momentum as she went.
"You landed us on a slope, you git!"
"It's not like I got much of a landing with you jumping me like that!"
The two Time Lords hung on as best they could as the TARDIS titled and rolled down whatever piece of land they'd managed to come across in the chaos of the landing.
When it finally stopped - they hoped - the Doctor picked himself up and rushed to the controls. "My poor girl," he cooed as he ran a hand along the machinery.
"Do you need a moment?" the Master grumbled, standing and checking to make sure he was still mostly intact. This was not how he'd planned this trip.
The Doctor ignored him and continued to fiddle with the controls. Smoke poured from them and sparks flew, but it didn't look completely beyond repair.
The Master kicked at the console. "Can't you do anything right?" he asked.
The TARDIS gave a screech and the Doctor reached over and pushed him away. "Don't do that! What is the matter with you? If you're not going to be helpful go stand over there until I can figure out what to do with you."
"That's very funny. You do realize that I came here to kill you and take this blasted machine away from you, correct?"
"Oh well that's original. Like we haven't spent the last year of our lives doing just that and look how it turned out for you. Yes. You get shot by a girl and I save the universe. Just in case you missed any of that." The Doctor snapped.
"And in the process you ended up all alone. Again."
Silence hung in the air until an alarm began screeching, the TARDIS demanding her owner's attention. The Doctor gave a sniff, trying to push down the hurt that threatened him over the words. "Like you're any better off," he managed, adjusting his skewed glasses and working on the control panel. "Apparently we're stuck at each other's throats for all of eternity."
The Master gave a nonchalant shrug. "Fills the time."
"Really? So, taking over planets and enslaving people to wage war against the universe is just a good way to fill the time?" the Doctor demanded, turning and glaring. He couldn't believe he was having this conversation.
That grin reappeared on the other Time Lord's face. "Thought you had forgiven me."
"And then you broke my TARDIS!"
The Master shrugged and winced, hand going to the shoulder he'd landed on mid-flip. The Doctor almost moved towards him and then thought better of it. "How did you do it, anyway? You were dead, you know." he said quietly, running a hand through his spiky hair.
The Master sent him a sidelong glance and watched him carefully for a moment before pulling a thin necklace out of his shirt. "Tiranthian Crystal. Delays healing processes quiet nicely. You only thought I was dead. And wasn't that just so sweet. Nice girl, Lucy, couldn't aim worth a damn. Of course waking up to my body mere seconds from being consumed by flames was just the icing on the cake. You really outdid yourself."
"That's what you get for making people think you're dead," the Doctor shot back, irritated. He turned his eyes back to the controls, glancing sidelong every once and a while. "You want me to take a look at it?" he ventured when he realized the Master's attention was on his injured shoulder.
Golden eyes narrowed. "Always got to fix something, dotcha? Anyway, you've got your hands full with your wrecked ship."
The Doctor's lips twitched in a downward motion. "Come on, now. She's rebooting. Not like there's much we can do but wait. Every Time Lord's favorite past-time. Let me have a look."
The Master watched as the Doctor slowly moved closer, willing himself not to flinch as the other reached out to touch him. It hadn't been so long ago that he had been dead. So blissfully close to the darkness of the after, with only the sound of the Time Lord's cry to send him into oblivion. Of course it couldn't be that simple. There were things still yet to be done. No time to be dead, even for him.
The Doctor had already taken over his space, leaning over his shoulder as his fingers poked and prodded and him himmed and okayed'd his way around.
Golden eyes slipped closed and he clenched his teeth. He could still hear the drumming. That would never change. It was the sound that would always be there, always driving him perfectly mad.
Death. Death was the only silence for it. He'd discovered that his own was not the rout he was willing to take, but others... That seemed to come so easily. Like the bleeding-heart Doctor that stood there, moments ago so angry with him, now tending to a trifling wound that would knit itself back together given a couple of hours. It would be so easy to catch him off of his guard right then and without anyone to protect, the Master wondered what kind of a fight he would really put up. They were on some distant planet that was not his beloved Earth, away from all of those sniveling Humans...
He pulled away suddenly. "Leave it."
The Doctor blinked at him, looking surprised. "It's out of socket. It won't set right till you put it back in."
"It'll heal on it's own." The Master said, pulling further away.
The Doctor watched him, wary and confused. "That'll take hours. Why would you want to hurt longer on purpose?"
The Master closed his eyes and focused on the pain, the flashes when he moved, the burn when he held it perfectly still. He frowned when the dull throb began to keep time with the beat in the back of his mind. "It's none of your business." he murmured. He pinched the bridge of his nose before rubbing his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Just leave me alone."
"Ha!" the Doctor snorted, throwing his hands in the air. "Leave him alone, he says! Aren't you the one who stowed away?"
"To get to you, not to have you continuously try to fix me!" the other barked, gold eyes flashing with anger and irritation. If he took one more step he was going to –
"You're impossible."
"Glad you noticed, but it goes both ways."
The Doctor took a deep breath and stepped forward again, about to go into full rant mode. The Master lunged forward with a snarl, grabbing the Doctor's throat with his good hand and shoved him back towards the console. He didn't stop until the Doctor's back was shoved against the panel forcing the other Time Lord to put one hand down to brace himself while the other clawed at his wrist. "Oh come on, Doctor. You can do better than this." the Master hissed.
"Stop. Just stop. I don't want to hurt you."
"That seems to be your greatest downfall. You're never actually willing to do anything worthwhile. And there's no-one coming to your rescue this time."
"Oh for the love of..." Finally the Doctor kicked out, half surprise that he was able to make enough contact to force the Master backwards and to release his throat. He rubbed at the place the other's hand had just been wrapped around and glared.
A broad grin was once again plastered on the madman's face. "Well look at that. He can fight back!"
"That's enough! We are quite possibly in the middle of nowhere and this is pointless! We should be-"
"Working together to blah blah blah, I know," the Master mocked. "What do you want from me, Doctor? A promise to play nice and do my very best not to rip your head from your shoulders?"
"That'd be a start." He paused, risking a glance back at the machinery. The TARDIS would take a while to repair herself and until then they were stuck. Just great, and the Master seemed more off than usual, if that were even possible. At least before he'd been calculated, but now it seemed almost as if he were battling his inner demons to such an extent that he wasn't in control of anything. "So," the Doctor murmured at last, peering over his glasses, "if you're so keen on killing me, why didn't you do it when you had me completely defenseless for a year? Why didn't you kill me then?"
The Master sat at the bottom of the staircase and titled his head, his brown-gold gaze never leaving the Doctor. "That was about making you suffer. Which, might I add, I did quite well. Next time though I'll know to kill your companion at the very beginning. Very pesky, all these humans you gather before scattering their ashes to the wind."
"You didn't seem to mind them all that time. Even took yourself a wife, if I recall."
"Oh, come now. You know perfectly well it was all for the part. And they had their amusements, certainly. But you'll never find me pining away for my faux wife what's-her-name like you do for Rose Tyler. Or even Martha Jones. You're adding to the list all the time." A smile perked his lips at the look that crossed the Doctor's face at Rose's name. "Ooh... Hit a sore spot, have I?"
"You don't know anything," the Doctor hissed, anger flaring. He'd tried, he told himself. He'd really, really tried, but he was about done with trying. Why shouldn't he be?
"Actually, I know more than you might think," the other answered and stretched out leisurely. "I know that Ms. Tyler caught your fancy and landed herself in a whole other dimension. Nearly died because of you."
"Shut up."
"May be dead over there and you'd never know."
"I said shut up!"
"There is one thing I've been dying to know. Did both of your hearts break when she got trapped, or just one?" the Master asked with vicious glee.
The Doctor actually jerked forward and the Master held his breath for one second, almost believing it would be enough to get him to lash out. It wasn't quite. The Doctor turned away from him and moved further away around the console, fiddling with switches and knobs. The Master was disappointed to find that the slumped curve of the shoulders in the pin stripped suit felt like less of a victory than it should.
His fingers tapped a steady beat on the metal beneath him, echoing the sound that he was so accustomed to in his mind. "Couldn't have been both," he mused at last, watching the other carefully for a reaction. "Moved on far too quickly for that." He stood when the Doctor only continued with what he was doing and inched closer. Maybe if he got more of a reaction...
"The air outside's breathable," the Doctor murmured, catching the Master off guard at the change of subject and flat tone of his voice. "We should go have a look around."
"What? You don't want to stay inside and play?"
The Doctor strode past him to the door and flung it open. Light flooded in, turning the Doctor into a silhouette glowing faintly around the edges. The Master squinted and snorted softly, no matter where they went in time or space the universe would cater to the image of illuminating angel Doctor. And the man wondered why he didn't want to travel with him for the rest of eternity.
"You can do what you like. Just don't talk about her." The Doctor said quietly, stepping out of the TARDIS.
"About her?" the Master called after him, moving quickly to make sure he was heard. "About sweet Dr. Jones and her dear little family that just wanted to live their lives in peace... Or about Rose?"
"Don't you know when to quit?" the Doctor growled quietly, never turning to face the other Time Lord.
"Nope. Don't think I ever quite got that one."
"If you think you're going to irk me into taking a swing at you..." He stopped, head titling slight.
This place seemed oddly familiar, as if he'd been there before, but if he had it was much changed. Gone were the sweeping hills and the tall buildings of the city. The ancient people that had lived there with their customs and their beauty.
"Oh, yes, please. Take a swing, I beg of you..." Next to him, the Master fell silent. The stillness was almost overwhelming. No sound of water running, of life in the vegetation, no low hum of any technology, no sounds of life at all from anywhere made the planet itself seem almost dead. But the green around them indicated some habitable conditions, so the planet wasn't completely dead, just dormant. It did not feel right.
"You feel that?" the Doctor murmured.
"Yes." The Master agreed before he could stop himself.
The Doctor gave a slight sniff as he pocketed his glasses, starting forward in several long strides.
"Where the hell are you going?" the Master called after him.
"To find out what's happened here," the other answered easily. "I was here once before with... I've been here before. In the grand scheme of things, not that long ago. Certainly not long enough for this-" he swept his hand out towards the vast quietness - "to happen." He paused, the first sign of amusement in some time reaching his eyes if not the rest of his face. "If you're scared, you can wait in the TARDIS."
"Scared?" The Master demanded. "What makes you think I won't just leave with the TARDIS and let you wallow here in eternal silence?"
The Doctor reached into his pocket and dangled a knob on a chain in front of him. "Because I put the parking brake on."
The Master stepped outside and slammed the TARDIS door shut behind him. "Maybe I'll find an extremely tall cliff from which to push you." he grumbled. "Or a large, intestine eating creature. Or a flock of large, intestine eating creatures."
"If there's a flock I doubt they'll make do with just me." The Doctor said mildly.
An eerie hush loomed over the land as the two Time Lords walked, the silence pressing down on them. Neither had ever been known for their long stretches of quiet, but now they seemed unwilling to break the strange spell that seemed to be cast over the planet.
Finally, the Master took a deep breath. "So..." he whispered, unwilling to let his voice carry very far. "What was it like before?"
"If this is the same planet," the Doctor mused, equally as quiet, "then it was very beautiful. There was a very ancient race living here that kept secrets."
"They're myth."
"Not if you know where to look for them," the Doctor grinned. A distant look overtook him and the smile turned sad. "I brought Rose here. She got into a bit of trouble, but it all turned out all right."
The Master rolled his eyes. "I'm sure it ended with a kiss and a cuddle. What do you mean they kept secrets? Their secrets? Other's secrets? Freely given or taken by force?"
They crested a hill and stopped at the sight before them. A river sparkled ahead, it's movement tracked by the ripples formed from the rocks jutting out into the air. It made no sound. "That's...not possible." The Master murmured.
A/N: So, what lies in store for our two favorite (onlyish) Time Lords? Wait and see! =D Also, we're addicted to reviews. Feel free to feed that addiction. XD