A/N: Hey everyone! So I'm a pretty big 10/Rose and 11/Amy shipper, but ever since I wrote a Master/Doctor fic for OnyxvanGem (an amazing author, by the way. Go check her out!), I decided that I ship them, too. Here is an attempt at a darker fic, enjoy! And please review! I love to know what you think! Suggestions, comments, improvements, really obvious errors I should fix, anything and everything is good to me! Thanks so much, you're all awesome!
Rose turned the page of her book and continued reading. It was an interesting book, a biography of Dick van Dyke. After absentmindedly skimming about half the page, she stopped suddenly and listened hard. There was something wrong. It was too quiet.
Usually, Rose could listen like this at any given time and hear the faint and distant clink, clink of the Doctor tinkering with the TARDIS or the soft hum of the machine itself. But no sound came from anywhere in the box. The only thing Rose could hear was her steady breathing, in and out, like a never-ending metronome.
Immediately sensing that something was not right, Rose put her bookmark in page 394 and set the book down on her nightside table. Slipping on her top-siders and trotting toward her bedroom door, she quickly and quietly exited the room and shut the door behind her.
"Hello?" she announced loudly down the corridor of the TARDIS, expecting to hear that familiar, cheery voice call back to her. But Rose did not receive such an answer.
"Doctor?"
No answer.
Becoming more suspicious by the minute, Rose began at a brisk pace toward the TARDIS console room, opening random doors as she passed them. Each room held something different, but none of them held the Doctor. Just then, Rose felt her heart stop as she heard a loud thump coming from the room at the end of the hallway.
"Doctor!" she called again with more urgency in her voice, but this time, her reply was a sinister chuckle that definitely didn't belong to the Doctor.
Not wanting to waste a moment, Rose raced to the door, grabbed the handle, and flung the door open.
The walls of the room were a deep blue, like many of the unused rooms in the TARDIS. Nothing was in the room that Rose could see except for a lump of black clothing in the corner. As Rose stepped forward to look closer, she could see it was a person. Not just any person…
"Doctor! Oh my God, are you…" She was abruptly cut off by a hand over her mouth. The force of the hand slammed her back against the wall, and Rose felt a resonating pain in the back of her head. Groaning, she slumped down to the ground and closed her eyes.
"Well, well, well," came an all-too familiar voice that chilled Rose to the bone. "It seems that the "damsel in distress" roles have been gender-bended. How sweet."
Rose pried her eyes open and tried her hardest to look fierce. "What do you want, Master?"
Her blond-haired, dark-eyed assailant had a frightening grin plastered on his face. "Rose Tyler. How are you, my love?"
"Pretty well, considering the circumstances," she shot back. "What have you done with him?"
The Master's smile grew even wider and more frightening, if possible. "Nothing too serious yet. In fact, if you hadn't gotten here sooner, he would already be dead." Rose could hear the Doctor moan horridly from the corner, an obvious indication that he had indeed been beaten harshly. Although Rose could not see his face, she knew it wasn't going to be pretty.
"What do you want from him? Or are you such a cynical bastard that you'd just torture him for the fun of it?"
The Master's face grew stormy. "That's neither here nor there. But now I have business to take care of," he explained, jerking his thumb toward the Doctor's motionless body.
"You've hurt him enough."
The smile returned. "Oh, that's where you're wrong, Miss Tyler. I've only just begun."
Striding over to the corner, the Master rolled the Doctor over with his foot so that Rose could get a clear view of his face. What she saw made her gasp.
The Doctor's normally smooth, pale face was dotted with various cuts, bruises, and gashes. He was beginning to develop a black eye, and his lips sported a generous amount of blood. Dark hair stuck out in all directions. Thick dirt was matted into his scalp. Rose screamed.
"Oh, dear God," Rose whispered as the Master grabbed the Doctor by his head of hair.
"Where's his God now?" the Master hissed at her as he pulled his fist back and punched the Doctor square in the face. Blood spurted from the Doctor's nose like a firework and the Master dropped him back onto the ground, disregarding the Time Lord as if he were a rag doll.
A tear fell down Rose's cheek. "Please…please just let him go," she implored weakly. "Please. He can't take it."
The Master didn't reply as he took the Doctor by the hair again. "If you tell me, Doctor, I'll stop. See, now you're hurting her, too. If you would just tell me, I can make this all stop."
"What are you talking about? Tell you what?"
The Doctor attempted to answer, but the Master silenced him with a slap upside the head. "That doesn't concern you, Miss Tyler," he replied sharply without looking at her.
"I'm afraid it does. What won't he tell you?"
Without warning, the Master violently pulled the Doctor's hair and sent his body colliding into the wall, making Rose gasp. "Because this bastard," he snapped, kicking the Doctor's side, eliciting an anguished scream, "knows how I'm going to die, and he won't tell me."
"How…how does he know?"
"No idea. His story gets more desperate every time I come at him."
Rose was disgusted. "And you would practically kill him over a stupid thing like that?"
Without warning, the Master dropped his voice down to a low, harsh whisper. "I can't die, Rose. I have to live. Imagine if I knew how I would die, the steps I could take to avoid it! How much longer I would live, in control of the world and its people!"
"You're a monster."
The frightening grin returned. "Oh, I'm much, much more than that. Now if you'll excuse me, I still have some interrogating to do. You're welcome to…stay and watch, if you'd like."
Rose's voice was defiant. "I'm not leaving until you stop trying to bash his brains out. Look at him, he can't even lift a finger to fight back!"
The moment the words left her mouth, she knew she had made a grievous mistake. Something clicked in the Master's mind, and a smug smirk played on his face.
"You're right."
"Excuse me?"
"He can't fight back, now can he?"
Rose didn't like where this was going. "Well, obviously not. Look at him!"
The smile didn't waver from the Master's face as he stepped towards the Doctor and grabbed him by the lapels of his suit, lifting him up until their faces were inches apart. Rose could see that the Doctor's left eye was swollen shut, and his right eye was half-open in a feeble attempt to see.
"The Doctor, Destroyer of Worlds. The Bringer of Darkness." The dark-haired Time Lord shuddered faintly at the mention of his fearsome past. "Most peculiar how you can conquer whole galaxies, yet you can't do a thing to stop me from getting what I want," the Master whispered to the Doctor before pulling him up to meet his lips with his own.
Rose became paralyzed out of shock. She wanted to move, to get up, to shove the Master off of her Doctor, to do something, at least, but all she could do was stare helplessly at the scene unfolding in front of her. She knew the power of the Master, and she knew she could do nothing to stop him. But that wouldn't stop her from screaming, and scream she did.
"Stop! Do you hear me? I said stop! Right! Now! If you don't put him down and take your filthy hands off of him, you will pay dearly for it! I swear on everything I own!" The Master took no notice of her. He only deepened the kiss, wrapping his arms around the Doctor's neck and pulling him closer into him. "You can't do that to him on my watch!"
Upon hearing that, the Master broke apart sharply from the Doctor, and Rose could see the Doctor gasp desperately for air. "Really? Well, if you care about your precious Doctor so much, then why don't you keep your word! Go on! Come over here and give me what I deserve!" To Rose, his impossibly wide Cheshire Cat smile screamed trap.
"Rose…"
Fresh tears fell from Rose's eyes as she heard the weak, pitiful voice of her best friend. "Doctor…"
"Rose…don't do it, Rose…" the Doctor pleaded. "Don't do it. It's what…it's what he wants." And Rose knew that he was right. She nodded, the tears staining her cheeks.
"But I'm not leaving you. Never."
In reply, the Doctor closed his eyes.
The Master grinned in response to this conversation. "So no more interferences? Wonderful!" The grin on his face implied a vastly different meaning to the word.
Knowing what she had to do, Rose retreated to the farthest corner of the room, put her head between her knees, and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the storm to pass. It was only after a long, long while when she heard the door slam that she picked her head up and turned to look at the Doctor from across the now empty room, preparing herself for the worst.
There he was, lying in a similar position to when she first found him, laying on his side facing the corner, only this time he was shirtless. Rose began sobbing at the obvious indication of what had just transpired.
"Doctor?" she called weakly across the room.
She didn't receive an answer, so Rose got up slowly and cautiously walked towards the Doctor. "Doctor, can you hear me?" No answer.
She got down on the floor next to him, pressing herself against his bare back and resting her arm on his. "Doctor, I'm sorry. I am so sorry."
"It's not your fault." His voice sounded wispy and seemed to be barely there.
She reached up and ran her fingers slowly through his hair. "It's all going to be alright," she whispered softly. "We'll get through it together."
They stayed like this for the rest of the day and through the night. Neither moved. Both needed the other's company, and they both knew how precious it was. It was only in the morning, around nine-o'clock, that Rose broke the embrace while the Doctor was still sleeping to search the TARDIS for the Master. But she never found him. He had disappeared.