AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't own any Doctor Who character.
WARNINGS: Angst..a little bit fluff, but you will possibly hate me if Thoschei is your OTP (as it is mine) . Blood..pain...major character death.. Don't forget the Kleenex-box.
Finding you and Losing us
"So where are we now, Sexy?" asked the Doctor his TARDIS as he danced around the console.
She just materialised on some small planet in the Filogian galaxy.
"Nice choice, dear. Nobody around so I have time to do some work on you." commented the Time Lord, opened one of the hatches to gain excess to the circuits.
He was travelling alone once again and fortunately this was one of these days when he wasn't bothered by it. The slight humming of his ship calmed him down and repairing some circuits even more. Needing move freely for his work, he removed his jacket and continued working in the white shirt.
Bad idea actually, because the hydraulic oil you can't get out again at any circumstances. Of course at the time he finished his repairs, his shirt was laced with oil stains.
He sighted and turned around to get to his room, but then he heard it. Even the TARDIS has stopped humming, so he could clearly hear some weak knocking on the front door.
This planet was uninhabited.
Another knock.
The Doctor rubbed his hands on his shirt and approached the door.
Slowly and hesitatingly he opened it.
Nobody was there. He stepped outside to look around for his visitor, when he felt a hand around his ankle.
Turning around quickly, he spotted a man sitting right next to the door, leaned weakly against the wooden blue box.
"Hey Theet..guess what..I'm not dead." said the man, chuckled and started coughing in result of it.
Obviously too weak to raise his hand, the coughed up blood was running down his chin.
He smiled bitterly: "...yet."
The Doctor felt the shock running through his body, something tightened in his chest and his next breath came out shakily.
The man had short blonde hair, was dressed completely in black and even in this miserable condition, there was no doubt.
It was the Master.
He swiftly kneeled beside his best friend and wiped away the blood from his face.
The Time Lord's face was full with cuts and bruises and he had dark circles around his eyes.
The Master groaned in pain, when he moved his hand towards the Doctor.
He only managed to leave a bloody track on the white fabric before his hand fell back to his lab.
"I think I need a Doctor"
"What happened..." said the Doctor, while he was checking his pulse. Only one heart was beating and you could not call it a steady pulse.
"Oh you know...Sabotaged some reactor, got captured, they tortured me for weeks and left me on this planet to die. Have you been looking for me or am I just incredibly lucky?!" answered the Master.
It was more a whisper.
"Lucky isn't the adjective I would use to describe you right now. Can you stand up? We have to get you inside the TARDIS."
"Do I look like I can?"
"Actually ..no..It will hurt if I carry you..but it seems I have no other choice." said the Doctor and moved his wavering hands under the thin body.
They must also have let him starving, because he was hardly skin and bones and the younger Time Lord could lift him without any problem.
Walking as fast as he could without letting the man in his arms feel any jolts, he headed straight for the infirmary. The TARDIS has moved it, so it was connected to the console room.
Laying the Master down on the examination table, he started to switch on the machines hastily and tried to ignore the blood on his hands.
First thing he did was to take out the bottle of the Masters blood, he always had here and give him a transfusion. They have travelled long enough together to think about applying blood reserves for both of them.
He heard his friend coughing up more blood and his hands shook even more from the gurgling sound.
The Doctor quickly lift up the head of his patient, so he doesn't choke on his own blood and looked him in the eyes: "Why don't you just regenerate and spare me from seeing you like this."
Koschei's lips formed his usual smirk, tipped back his head, closed his eyes and he replied weakly: "Oh but Doctor, this body is so handsome and I think you like this one too. I would like to keep it."
"Stop joking Kosch! You're dying right now..just regenerate..if you're playing games with me like you did on the Valiant..." frowned the Doctor.
The Master opened his eyes again and managed to hold his look.
He sighted: "I'm not playing any games...I tried..", he groaned from the pain when the Doctor hit him in the chest, trying to restart his left heart again, "to regenerate..as you can see it didn't work.."
The Doctor froze with his fist in the air, his eyes widened in shock, his legs suddenly felt unsteady and he had to grab the table to not sink to the floor.
He felt his eyes starting to burn, but he managed to press a weak question through his lips.
"You...can't...regenerate?"
"Surprise, Surprise.." breathed out the Master. Even beaten up and weak as a child he was sarcastic as he always has been.
"No, No, No, No, No, No, No...you will not die on me again, Kosch. Do you hear me. DON'T YOU DARE TO DIE" said Theta with a voice full of fear.
He was running around the laboratory, pulling out needled, bottles, bandages and scissors.
"Not on my bucket list... and who would dare to argue with his Doctor?.." answered his friend.
The Doctor jumped back to the table and started to cut away the Master's red shirt and black hoodie with the scissors until he could remove all of the fabric.
"I thought ripping away my clothes was planed after you've saved me, but if you insist.." murmured his patient.
"Maybe later you idiot..and I said STOP joking..." answered his Doctor, who gasped seeing the full expansion of the wounds on his chest.
One third of the skin have been burned or cut away, the rest was laced with deep violet bruises and judging by their placement most of the ribs must be broken.
He started to clean the wounds with his hands still shaking.
If he manages to stop the bleeding he could maybe restart the second heart. But what if...
Theta felt the tears starting to run down his cheeks.
One of the main arteries was damaged and the system couldn't compensate. In the 30th century he bought once a sonic-thingy to close such wounds...where...He swiftly opened some cupboards and it was the moment he found it, when he heard it..
A long high tune.
The Doctor turned around, racing back to the examination table.
"NO..NOT NOW. YOU PROMISED!" screamed he desperately. He swing himself up so he was sitting on his lab, started to press mouth-to-mouth oxygen into Koschei's lungs and giving him a double cardiac massage.
The monitor's bleeping signalised that for a second one of the hearts cough up a rhythm, but failed again.
With a blurred view Theta turned around and reached for his equipment.
He opened one of the bottles, drew up few millilitres of the clear fluid into one of the syringes, ran the needle into the right heart of the Master, pushed down the plunger and injected the adrenaline into the failing organ.
The body beneath him jolted upwards and Koschei inhaled sharply.
"Rassilon what was that?" groaned the weak Time Lord.
"ADRENALINE you moron...both of your hearts stopped...I thought..I thought you were gone..." said the Doctor, bend down and pressed their foreheads together.
The Master raised up his hand, wiped away the Doctor's tears and dragged him into a gentle kiss.
"I think I'm still bleeding." said Koschei.
"Yeah..right.." responded Theta and pulled out the sonic device he was looking for.
Once he switched it on and pressed it to the arterial wound, the flesh started pull together and the main vein system was recovered.
The bleeding had stop and the Doctor came down from the table believing everything is going to work out, but Koschei suddenly screamed and pressed one hand to his chest.
"What? What is it? Tell me!" said the Doctor.
"The left heart..a broken rip went straight through it...the right is damaged too, but still beating" whispered the Master.
"No..." whispered the Doctor and shut his eyes, clinching his fists.
"Doctor.."
"NO shut up..there must be something..just let me think"
"Do.."
"SHUT UP"
The younger Time Lord started to pace around and ran his hands through his hair.
Koschei went silent and starred at the ceiling.
After almost a minute the Doctor stopped and started laughing
"Oh Rassilon, it's so simple" he approached the table and took the Master's hand in his.
"You can't regenerate...but I CAN.."
His eyes were sparkling with the forced artron energy.
"NO don't do that..." realised Koschei what his partner was planning to do.
"I have three left..I'm going to be ok...If I transfer the energy to you and concentrate it on the damaged hearts..."
"I SAID NO!" shouted Koschei, pushed him away and added:" You can't know how much energy it would burn up. I will not allow you to kill yourself for the small possibility that I might live."
"Why? Few regenerations ago you wanted to take over my body to save you" said the Doctor angrily
"And now I don't want it anymore." snapped back the Master, breathing heavily.
On the monitor the spikes were getting smaller.
The Doctor stand beside his beloved Koschei, thinking about forcing him to accept it.
For this he had to break into his mind and he would certainly fail.
The Master has always been the better telepath.
He felt his tears coming back, grabbed the weak hand again and begged his lover:
"Please...just accept it...I want to...I...can't let you die...I need you...please..."
A weak smile spread on Koschei's face.
"Every time I'm dying you have to watch and I'm sorry. Last time I said to you, that I win, but I don't.
I lose. We lose. Everyone loses."
"No..don't leave me..you promised...you promised me a 850 years ago on Gallifrey..Don't..I don't want you to...please, please, please...let me try it..I can't lose you again...please" the words ran through his lips more and more changing to painful whispers mirroring the tears in his eyes.
"You took away the drums...I can think as myself again thanks to you..I have lived too long and too fast. Theta..my Doctor...I love you and always will, but I couldn't live with myself knowing you died for me. I just could not live with it."
"And you think I can? Since I can remember it has always been us. Friends, Partners, Enemies... everything was us...I tried...but it has always been you, even if you were destroying worlds.
Don't leave me behind Koschei... don't...just don't" he kissed him "I love you more than you can imagine and you want me to let you go?"
"Yes" he pushed himself up and faced the Doctor "It's too late and you know it...just don't do something stupid you sentimental idiot... And I can imagine, because I do love you as much as you do. I followed you through centuries, galaxies and here we are...I didn't catch up ..I ran pass you..here we are..saying goodbye.."
Koschei grabbed around Theta's neck and pulled him into one passionate kiss.
The Doctor responded with equal passion and didn't stop even after he heard the long tune of the machine. He felt the pressure of Koschei's lips losing up and the body in his arms go slack.
He pressed the lifeless body into the last hug, clinging to the only person in the universe he had ever wanted to spend the eternity with.
He breathed in the iron stench of blood and the specific scent of his dead love.
Even after Gallifrey was gone, Koschei always smelled of the red grass, copper and home.
Now he was gone too.
His legs gave up and he slid down to the floor still the Master in his arms.
He didn't scream anymore. The universe didn't listen.
Even the tears stopped.
Everything went blank and he just sat there with his Koschei in his arms.
The TARDIS started to play their favourite lullaby from the times, when they were some small toddlers.
Just once they have mentioned it inside the TARDIS, but she remembered.
She pressed the words inside the Doctor's mind. He didn't even resist for one second.
What for?
He placed a kiss on Koschei's short hair and started to sing the lullaby in the ancient language of Gallifrey.
The language which had been theirs alone.
Now it was his.
Forever only his.
His...
The mad man's in the small big blue box..
Doctor's..
Theta's...
This is what he was now.
Theta without his Koschei.