The Mistress staves back tears as the Doctor lectures them. She remembers not caring when she had been the Master but now all she can feel is her throat trying to close over and the burning in her eyes.
Eventually he leaves- the younger her- and the Doctor stares at her with such hope.
She cannot deny that she's changed, the words not coming because she can't leave him with that when she's going to face herself- knows it would hurt him too much and she's tired of pain.
She cannot deny when he says that for her to stand with him because it's all he's ever wanted she doesn't feel the same.
He's dying in a few hours and she's dying in minutes- it's the least she can do- tell him that they feel the same.
"Me too." She whispers, voice heavy with emotion as the tears threaten to fall. There are no more words needed. They are the two most important words she will ever say and they are when her Doomsday clock is at 11:59.
She wishes she could have told him earlier how much he means to her in this language they finally share- their final frontier. Understanding. He wins but it doesn't matter anymore.
She cannot stand with him. Not now- possibly not ever now.
The Mistress has to go. The blade- so small- is heavy in her hand. Her palm is damp around it.
She's nervous- afraid even- but she's also at peace.
The warring states of mind pull her apart and she can feel the jagged tear- a heart for each yet both for the Doctor.
He takes her hand as she tries to leave. Feels the blade. Feels her sweat.
He must do.
"Thanks for trying." She manages to get out.
He doesn't let go as she tries to move past him.
"Missy." He says, voice gravelly, grip firm.
They stand for another moment.
The Doctor tenderly swipes his thumb over her knuckles.
"Stay." He asks quietly, "Just another moment. Please."
The Mistress falls to her knees, arm outstretched behind her, still in the Doctor's hand, as the other comes up to rub at her face.
"Don't do this." She says, voice trembling. Her shoulders shake as the first of her tears hit the ground.
"Please!" The Time Lady begs, breath hitching.
The Doctor doesn't release her hand, as if afraid she will disappear as soon as she does. He steps closer to her, bending down and wrapping his arms around her, pressing her clenched fist to her chest and taking her other hand and placing that over the top, fingers interlaced with his. He presses himself against her back, his cheek against her hunched shoulders.
"Missy." He says softly as she sobs in his arms, leaning forwards still for the task she must finish.
"I have to." The Mistress cries, curling further into the Doctor, "I have to." She repeats as he releases her hands, fingers holding onto her arms tightly, both of her hands still held to her chest.
"I know." He says, voice breaking as he presses a kiss to the back of her neck.
"Then let me go. I can't stand with you." She pleads.
"You can." He replies, "You can." He says again, shaking too.
"Of course you can." The Time Lord emphasises.
"You can come back to me. Be kind. Be gentle and then- you can come back?" He says, refusing to release her.
She shivers, grabbing his arms and rocking back so she is sat in his lap.
"I will. I will." She vows,"I will be- good." The Mistress promises him.
"But I can't- I can't- promise you that!" She cries out.
The Doctor just cries, tilting his head to look up at the fake sky.
It should be raining.
He turns her around in his arms and she wraps her arms around him, weeping into his shoulder.
"Doctor!" She sobs, swallowing, "I can't promise you that!" He bends to rest his head against her shoulder too.
"Then promise me you'll try. Try to survive. Try to live. For me, Missy. For me?" He begs her, voice low.
The Time Lady nods against his shoulder.
"I will. I will. I don't-" She lifts her head, pulling his up with a clammy hand on each cheek. She runs her thumbs over his skin, watches his lips quiver.
"I don't want this to be the end!" The Mistress admits, eyes shining with tears that have not yet fallen.
"Neither do I." The Time Lord confesses, his hands shaking as he lays them against her hips.
The Mistress stares at him, tilting her head to the side softly, eyes rimmed with red.
The Doctor kisses her, tongue urgent against hers as she slips her mouth open, desperately leaning into him as her fingers dig into his hair.
He pulls her closer, wanting to keep her safe from her past but knowing there was nothing else he could do without risking the humans relying on him.
They part gently, hovering on the precipice of another kiss.
The Mistress gives in this time, tenderly and sweetly pressing her lips to his before pulling away again.
Her hands paw at the Doctor.
"I have to go." She says shakily, resting their foreheads together.
"I'm sorry!" She whispers, voice cracking into silent sobs.
"Me too." He murmurs, taking her hands in his.
He lets her go.
She runs to catch up with her past self, shaking off tears and focusing on what must be done.
It's time to change.
Time to be good.
"What kept you?" The Master asks impatiently as she comes to stand beside him.
"Sorry," She smiles, tears dried by now, "You know how he is. Wouldn't let go of me." The Master opens the lift, stepping forwards from her.
"Clingy." He says with a smile, "Right. Come on then. Hop in. Straight down. Tardis." He saunters towards the door as he speaks.
The Mistress can feel the knife in her hand. She doesn't want to do this.
"Come here." She replies, smiling too. He turns to look at her, perplexed.
"I'm sorry?" He asks, tucking his laser screwdriver back in his pocket.
The Time Lady plants her umbrella firmly in the earth.
"Come here a sec." She requests, voice quavering a little as she opens her arms to her past self. He chuckles, eyeing her like a father eyes his daughter when she does something particularly girlish and charming.
"Seriously?" He questions. She stretches out an arm, all childish expectation.
"Are we really going to do this?" He asks, already walking towards her, arms raising in anticipation despite his complaints.
He wraps his arms around her and she wishes that she didn't love him. How could she love him?
She slides the knife from her sleeve as she holds him.
"I loved being you." She says, slipping the blade through his clothes, into him, "Every second of it. Oh, the way you burned like a sun. Like a whole screaming world on fire." She tells him, feeling his breath on her neck, his face against hers.
"I remember that feeling and I always will." The Mistress promises.
The Master grips at her, breathing beginning to falter.
He loves her too. She knows this. They're the same- how couldn't they love each other.
"And I will always miss it." She says as they pull away tenderly. Her voice catches and he looks into her eyes, betrayed yet awed. He lets out a breath again as she takes the blade from his flesh, hand going to the wound. The Time Lady manages a quirk of her lips. The Master looks into her eyes.
"Now that was really very nicely done." He says quietly, smiling.
While he can still stand he drags her forwards to him, kissing her hard. She kisses back tenderly as his hands grab at her face, parting from him again with tears in her eyes.
"Thank you." The Mistress says for her fond memories. He looks at the blood on her cheek, lifts his shaking hand again and smears it below her eye, huffing out a breath in amusement.
The Time Lord looks down as she shakes out the handkerchief in her left hand, taking the blade in it and slicing across her palm. The sting spreads outwards, radiating pain, but she doesn't react.
They both look at the oozing wound.
The Mistress raises her trembling hand and wipes her own blood on his face, smearing it as he had done.
"It's good to know I haven't lost my touch." He says, swallowing.
"You deserve my best." She replies, nodding slightly, voice calm.
He begins to wobble and she wants to cry.
Not yet- she pleads with herself- I can't cry yet. He deserves more than my tears.
She wraps an arm around his shoulders, leads him to the lift. His arm is heavy around her neck. She rests a hand over his right heart- allows herself that much.
"How long do I have?" He asks her.
"Oh, I was precise." She replies, "You'll be able to make it back to your Tardis. Maybe even get a cuppa." She reassures him. Gently she turns him around, curving him into the cubicle and propping him up against the wall.
"Though it might leak a little." She says as she straightens out his clothes and steps back and out of the lift. She wanders back over to her umbrella, plucking it from the ground and turning to face him again.
"And then regenerate... Into you?" He asks, leaning towards the doors, breathing laboured now. The Mistress watches him. She bends down, places her hand over his and nods.
"Welcome to the sisterhood." She says softly, squeezing his hand.
"Missy, seriously, why?" He asks as she tucks him back inside the lift chamber.
"Because he's right." The Mistress responds, voice almost breaking as she looks at the line between fake forest floor and metal lift, "Because it's time to stand with him." She continues.
"It's where we've always been going and it's happening. Now. Today." The Time Lady says, looking into his face.
It shows only disgust and pity.
"It's time to stand with the Doctor." She asserts, still crouched beside the door, fingers grasping at the frame.
"No." He replies as if it's a particularly foolish lie.
"Never." He growls.
The Mistress stands, stepping back from him a little.
"Missy!" He shouts as she looks down at him, knuckles white as he claws at the floor.
"I will never stand with the Doctor!" He roars and she smiles sadly.
"Yes, my dear. You will." She says firmly, darting forwards and slamming the tip of her umbrella into the button for the bottom floor.
There's a click and Missy dives to the ground instinctively. Energy fizzes over her, cut off by the clank of the elevator doors as they shut.
"No!" She hears her past self rage.
"No! You can't do this! It's not fair!" There's banging from the lift as if goes down and down and down.
"Missy!" He calls out, furious at her escape.
The Mistress laughs a little, feeling leaves and twigs beneath her even if she knows they can't be real.
The sound rings out, turning into sobs of relief.
Doctor. Says her mind as she cries into her hands.
"Doctor." She says aloud, standing on shaking limbs.
The cybermen keep coming but she fires over and over again, deflecting their fire with the umbrella where she can and dodging where she can't.
She finds the Doctor, breathing heavily and running.
"Doctor!" She screams out, chasing after him, nimbly skipping over branches and around trees.
She spins, shooting another three cybermen and ducking beneath another shot.
The Mistress can't help but laugh, dancing in the danger zone.
"Missy." The Doctor turns briefly, stuck where he is, firing over his shoulder. He smiles a little, focusing back on the battle.
"Will you stand with me?" He calls out as she smashes one of the more old-fashioned cybermen in the head, still running to meet him.
She turns, covering his back and firing instantly, one hand reaching out behind her to clasp his waiting one.
"Always!" The Mistress crows, tightening her grip as she grins, tears falling down her cheeks.
"Forever and always!" She cries out joyously, opening her umbrella to catch a shot at the Doctor's side.
Behind her he grins too.
"Good!"
The world explodes and the Mistress flings her arms up to cover her head as the fireball encompasses everything.
There's a ringing in her ears when she comes to.
She moans, feeling the strain in her arms. Her head aches when she opens her eyes to the desolation around them.
The Time Lady coughs, throat itching and tasting of ash.
"Doctor." She calls out weakly, voice thready. Almost immediately she curls up, coughing taking over.
The Mistress forces herself to sit up, swallowing despite the pain.
"Doctor?" She calls out again.
She looks around, spotting the skeletal remains of her smouldering umbrella.
Her head spins and she rolls over, dead ground scratching at her as she drops back to the ground. Her eyes blur, dizziness taking over, as she stares at the body next to her.
"Doctor!" She cries out, wrenching herself up again to lean over him.
He is not badly burned, bottom half a little scorched but the rest of him with no wounds that weren't already there. She places her hands over his hearts hurriedly.
Four beats.
He's okay.
The Mistress smiles in relief.
"I'm sorry. I broke your present." She says softly, looking back at the umbrella and giggling a little, "It- it. Kept us safe though." She says, brushing a grey curl back from his face.
"So that was good, huh, me being good." The Mistress says as if he can hear right now.
She notices a shadow over them and looks up. A cyberman stares down at them.
"Bill." Missy acknowledges her.
The cyberman nods.
"Is he al-right?" Asks the robotic voice and Missy nods.
"Yes. It's just. He'll be fine. Time Lord stuff." She says briefly.
"What do you mean, Time Lord stuff?" Bill asks.
"Regeneration. He's going to change." The Mistress replies, "He'll burn up this body and make a new one. Heal himself." The cyberman nods in understanding. Its head tilts to the sky and Missy stares at it, confused.
It's raining. Finally. The Time Lady turns her head to the sky too, closing her eyes and feeling the drops soothe her skin. There's the sound of a river and she looks to the source of the sound.
A girl is rising from a puddle.
"I've been chased by a puddle."
The words echo in Missy's mind and she stares at Bill, human and outside of the cyber-form still standing in front of them.
Bill looks back at the body and it falls backwards, collapses.
"Am I dead?" Asks the human, looking back at the puddle-girl.
The girl steps closer towards her and presses their lips together sweetly.
The Mistress watches the two not-quite humans speak, smiling a little. Her hand wanders to the Doctor's temple and she gives him this moment- knows he will be happy when he wakes up again.
"But, the Doctor, we can't just leave him." Bill looks back, meets Missy's eyes, "Or her. The Doctor needs her." She says frowning.
"Of course we can't!" Says the girl in a voice that sounds like a laugh, "And we're not going to." The girl takes Bill's hand and leads her to them. The Mistress notices a star in the girl's eye and no hesitance.
She extends a hand and the Mistress takes it, her other gripping the Doctor's. Bill bends down to take the Doctor's other hand, eyes not leaving his face.
Everything fades out then back in and the Mistress is staring at the interior of the Tardis.
It hums quietly around them, soothing after their ordeal.
"I'll take care of him." The Time Lady promises, still bent over him. She pretends to catalogue his wounds as she watches the two girls out of the corner of her eye, projecting the scene into the Doctor's mind.
The girl pushes the doors open and the Mistress stares out too at the beauty of the universe- she thinks she might be crying.
Bill looks back at Missy one last time and bends down next to her, pressing a kiss to the Doctor's cheek.
"You look after him." She says firmly, "We'll come back and visit so you-" She breaks down and the Mistress stares at her in surprise.
She looks up at the puddle girl who nods.
Carefully the Time Lady places a hand on Bill's shoulder.
"He's my friend too." She reassures. The human meets her gaze and looks at the tears littered across the Doctor's skin.
"Where there's tears. There's hope." She says with a sad smile, "Even for you Missy."
Then she stands and joins hands with the puddle girl.
"Goodbye, Bill." The Mistress says, eyes fixed on the Doctor.
"And you too, puddle-girl." She adds.
They both laugh and Bill turns to face her girlfriend.
"Goodbye Missy. Doctor." Says Bill before focusing back on the girl in front of her.
"Just one thing. I've been through a lot since the last time we met." Bill says honestly, "So I'll show you around."
The girls walk through the Tardis doors, hand in hand. They close behind them.
Missy smiles, stroking the Doctor's cheek.
"They remind me of us." She whispers, feeling the tell-tale buzz of a Time Lord about of regenerate.