Title: Silent Partner.
Characters: Simm!Master, Ten, Ten's hand, Rose.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: not mine.
A/n: There's quite a lot of Rose bashing here. Also not as cracky as I though it would be.
For anomoly_fetish I'm sorry it took so long.
Summary: You have heard of the epic romance of the Master and Ten's hand right?
What the humans didn't realise the Doctor thought ruefully, as he sat in a wheelchair that was considerably worse than the last one he had had, was that the Master wasn't solely responsible for the havoc wrecked on earth.
No, as capable as he was to do all these things, he had someone constantly egging him on to new and ever increasing heights of evil and insanity. The Master had a silent partner.
A very silent partner. One so devious, so sly, so cunning that everyone believed he was a prisoner just like anyone else.
The Doctor knew better though, he watched them daily, canoodling, hand holding, plotting against him. The betrayal broke his heart.
He hated him more than he hated Lucy, the dancing Barbie that she was.
It hurt so much to see the lengths that the Master went to protect him too, while all he did was hurt the Doctor. Armed guards, Time Lord technology, specially re-enforced titanium briefcase and a fancy new jar.
Oh, how the Doctor hated his severed hand.
Hatred was not a good enough word for it, loathed could not come near the depth of emotion he was feeling towards his hand. In fact, no human word was capable of describing it and the Doctor was having difficulty thinking of any word that would, perhaps a Vogon word...
Together, the Master and his hand had brought the Doctor down and destroyed his beloved earth. During the day, the hand would sit innocuously, bubbling away in its new jar.
Happy.
Content.
Smug.
Wet.
It was not harmless though, every bit of dissent was reported to the Master. Every transgression and everyone was punished for it. The Doctor knows it was the hand that told the Master about his last three escape attempts. Each night when the Doctor had to crawl into his filthy tent and sleep in smelly, itchy sheets, the hand was taken away and placed on a velvet pillow like some macabre house pet.
The hand stayed by the Master's bed at night and was always ay his side during the day, usurping the Doctor's rightful place. The Doctor swore to himself that if he ever got the chance he would make his evil, opportunistic hand pay.
*****
The chance came sooner than the Doctor expected...well that isn't exactly true, it is not as if the Doctor considered his plan would fail and that he would get the last remnants for the earth and its people completely destroyed and the rest of the universe conquered.
Therefore, the chance came at almost exactly the time the Doctor expected. The circumstances were a little different, though.
Never in a million years did the Doctor expect that the Master would refuse to play house with him and pop his clogs instead. The Doctor had no reason to after all, if the Master was this happy with a glorified hunk of the Doctor's DNA, why wouldn't he be even happier with the entire thing?
He wasn't.
Still the Doctor got one over on his hand. He got to send the Master on his way, so to speak.
The hand had to sit on the TARDIS floor, sending out tiny psychic distress signals while the Doctor burnt the Master.
Just to rub it in, when he was walking past the jar; he kicked it and left it lying on its side for a few weeks.
*****
The Doctor's next big spot of revenge came sooner than he expected, which is also a lie because that would imply that he was waiting for this to happen when in fact he wasn't expecting this at all.
At the time, he had been alternating leaving his hand in the oven and the freezer, just until inspiration struck.
Instead, he just got lucky. Well, relatively speaking.
There is the completely unfortunate incident with Donna nearly getting her brain fried and dying.
The genocide was lucky though. Gave the Doctor an easy way to sort all his problems, the Daleks gone and he didn't have to lift a finger, gave him a way of getting rid of a really clingy Rose, because frankly it was just becoming embarrassing and he could get rid of his hand and never have to look at that betrayer again.
So he dumped them on a beach, but not before he had warned his hand that he'd better keep Rose off his back or he would pay.
He watched in smug satisfaction as his clone kissed Rose and promised he loved her and told her lots of other lies and the Doctor knew he would finally get some peace and she would stop turning up.
*****
The light burned him as it pulled him in and then he was falling through the void, all on his own. The rest of the Time Lords were gone, sucked back into the Time War and locked up until the end of the universe. He hadn't come from the inside of the Time Lock and so he couldn't be pulled back into it. That meant he was left drifting through time and space protected by a bubble of residual energy from the lock snapping shut.
Eventually after what seemed like a millennia, long enough for the Master's resurrection to stabilise and stop burning him up from the inside out, his little protective bubble got sucked into a rift and he was unceremoniously dumped into the tide of a beach in mid-November.
He groaned, spat out what feels like a gallon of salt water and feebly tried to glare at the shocked woman wrapped up in a coat and scarf with a Labrador straining on its lead. He failed miserably and then passed out.
When he came to some indeterminate time later (his timey sense were a bit confused from the fall), the beeping of monitors and the hushed whispers of people told him he was in a hospital.
He tried to lift his head in the direction of the voices to see who was talking, but he was still too weak. Instead, he just closed his eyes and listened.
"Yes, yes I'm sure, I've done the x-ray three times!" came the first voice, a harassed sounding woman.
"This is impossible, there's no way anyone could survive this long with that kind of defect! It's impossible" the voice of an even more harassed sounding man drifted towards him.
"Shh! Keep your voice down. C'mon," and the man let out a little yelp of pain, their shadows grew against the curtain that had been pulled across to hide the Master's bed from view. The Master guessed that the woman had dragged the man out of the hall and over to his bed so no one else would hear them.
The curtain was suddenly ripped open and the man and woman stepped inside the little cubicle created by the curtains and the wall.
"Is there any change?" the man asked softly.
"I'll check, close those curtains, will you?"
The Master concentrated on keeping his breathing even, which wasn't too hard, since it was something that he and Theta used to practise in the academy.
The woman hummed as she tapped the monitors and checked the various tubes that were running into the Master's body.
"No, no change," she whispered and the Master guessed that the man must have come closer without him hearing it. Stupid bloody humming. The woman's hand briefly ghosted over his forehead.
"He's so cold" she said sadly, "too cold, I don't think...I don't think..."
It was the man's turn to shush her now, "We'd better go, whatever this is it's beyond us."
"Okay" she murmured and their footsteps retreated, until the Master was alone with the beeping again, a slight improvement from the drums.
It was then of course that he realised that the drums were gone. He's not proud to admit it (so he never will) but he fainted.
*****
It was a boring day at Torchwood (and not in an infinite number of years did he ever think he would be working there) when Rose sauntered up to him and sat in his lap. Internally he took a deep breath and put on his best I-Love-You smile. He had always been a good liar but now he was the best.
"Doctor," Rose said (even though he had asked her again and again not to call him that) and leaned forward to kiss him. The little voice in his head that he was sure was some part of Donna was shouting "Slag! Slag!" and giving him various bits of relationship advice, most of them being to ditch the chav and see the universe. It was very tempting advice.
She had been pestering him to take their relationship to the next level, whatever that was supposed to mean. He gave Rose a quick peck on the lips and then sat back. She frowned and opened her mouth to complain or say something stupid (Donna again) when Mike, a new member to replace Mickey, came in.
"Up you get gang, got something for you to investigate."
"Oh yeah?" John (as he called himself now, felt apt) hopped to his feet but caught Rose's arm before she could fall.
Mike frowned for a minute but his expression cleared again, "A friend of mine, he's a doctor. This patient came in, fell out of the sky, thousands of feet apparently. He survived; he's in a coma now. But, that's not the strange thing; the doctors were doing the usual tests on him. He has two hearts! And he's so cold, he practically sub-zero."
Beside him, John can hear Rose's sharp intake of breath, "Doctor" she whispers.
Donna makes a disgusted noise in his head and grumbles something about a cheap tart.
Exactly four minutes and thirty-seven seconds later, Rose is driving them towards the hospital (John does not drive anything anymore-it does not feel right). Luckily, the hospital is within an hour's drive, so he won't have to listen to what she calls music for too long.
*****
They are met the two doctors that had contacted then at a quite side entrance to hospital. Dr. Irving, who was apparently an old friend of Mike's, briefly explained what had happened but he didn't have much more information than he'd given Mike. Every so often, he would glance at his female colleague, Dr. Collins, to emphasise a point. She was standing a little away from them and smoking contentedly despite the drizzle.
Once Dr. Irving had told them all he knew, she dropped the butt and ground it into dust with her boot heel.
"Okay, let's go, we've wasted enough time" and she led the way back towards the patient's room, with one brief detour to a small storage room. She emerged seconds later and thrust a small box into John's hands.
"Here" she said, "everything he was found with. It's not much, just some clothes mostly and a few...animal bones."
'Animal bones?' Rose mouthed at him and John couldn't hide his eye roll. Did everything have to be repeated at least twice to her?
John ignored her and turned back to the doctors, "everything? You're sure?"
Dr. Collins, nodded, "Yes, we've sure, we were very careful, not skin contact with any of the items either."
"We'd better hurry," Dr. Irving put in, "the cops are meant to come in to question him soon."
"But he's in a coma"
"That's what I said."
*****
Rose hurried on after the doctors, eager to see her Doctor, John meanwhile hung back. He was in no hurry to see that tosser.
Instead, he stayed behind, decided to see if they had taken anything useful off the Doctor. He had his own sonic screwdriver, but it just wasn't as good. He could not find everything he needed here when he was building it. But if he was lucky, he could swap them and get the Doctor back to his own universe before he noticed.
On the other hand...if he was unbelievably lucky, the TARDIS key would be here and the TARDIS not too far away. Then he could escape and the Doctor could stay here with Rose. But of course, John was never that lucky.
He snapped the plastic lid off the box, and reached in and pulled out a dark hoodie. It was dirty and ripped almost to shreds, smelling of seas, sand and death. It sitting on top of a pair of runners and some folded up jeans. They were in an even worse state than the hoodie if it was possible. Aside from the destroyed clothing, the box was empty. Wherever the animal bones were being kept it wasn't here. John fingered a rip in the hoodie thoughtfully for a second; he wondered when the Doctor had taken to dressing like this. Must be another regeneration he mused, clothes were the wrong size otherwise. His worrying of the fabric caused a bit to tear off; he placed the hoodie back in the box, rolling the tiny bit of fabric between his thumb and forefinger.
Rose met him at the room door, looking confused and biting her lip.
"Musta regenerated, cause you look different Doctor"
He ignored her and strode into the room, curious to see what the regeneration that he would never have now looked like.
The two doctors were leaning against the windowsill and discussing the patient's condition, when John quietly pulled the curtain aside at the edge and ducked in.
They both jumped when the plastic box fell to the ground with a hollow thump, the lid that was only sitting on, not pushed into place, clattered off and the contents spilled out.
There was the sound of squeaky footsteps, Rose's runners on the hard floor, before she came bursting through the curtains and ran into John's back. The resulting collision snapped him out of his fugue and he grunted and got to his feet.
"Right you lot, get moving I need some privacy here."
The doctors looked nonplussed but left without any complaint. John turned back towards the patient, who still slept on despite the noise. John sat gently down on the side of the bed, careful not to pinch or pull any I.V.s.
Running his hand through the Master's hair, he leaned forward, his telepathy wasn't what it once was, but if the Master was this far-gone, he might have a chance of getting through his shields and getting to him.
He gently rested their foreheads together and put three fingers on either temple.
"Wot are you doing?" a voice beside his left ear broke through his concentration.
John sat back and glared at Rose, "I told everyone to get out Rose, I need privacy."
Rose stepped back and folded her arms looking determined, "If something's wrong with the Doctor, I'm no leaving him."
"Well Rosy," John drawled, unconsciously imitating Donna's intonation, "this is your lucky day. This isn't the Doctor so you can sod off."
Rose looks stunned, "how is this not the Doctor, he's a Time Lord isn't 'e? So it has to be the Doctor."
John grins widely, "No it's not the Doctor, now SOD OFF!"
He turns back around to the Master and waits until her squeaky shoes disappear out of hearing, then he leans forward, foreheads touching again.
Then he sits back abruptly, "oi!" he says and shakes the Master gently, "I know you're awake!"
The Master opens one eye, and gives him a critical once over, then he tentatively sniffs the air. John stiffens, afraid of what the Master might say.
"Huh, well you look like the Doctor and you almost smell like him, but not quite, so pray who are you?" The Master's voice was weak from lack of use but still held the same force.
"Metacrisis"
"Ah, I see." He pauses and the silence is strung out between them, then he quirks an eyebrow and gives John a half smirk, "I missed you and," he said running a finger from John's wrist to his elbow "I really can't say that I'm sad about the upgrade. The sex will definitely improve."
John smirked back and leaned in to kiss him, when Rose came back.
"Doctor!"
John groaned and leaned his forehead against the Master's shoulders in frustration.
"Hate when she calls me that" he muttered into the side of the Master's neck and the Master made a little noise that John recognised from his time at the academy (that he didn't actually attend and that never technically existed now) as a noise Koschei would make when he was filling away information for later use. Then he rapidly straightened up and angled around to face Rose without moving from where he was sitting. The Master appreciated the display of flexibility and once again cursed his weak-as-wet-tissue body. He was so tired.
"Yes, Rose?" John said tiredly.
"Just came to see...how you are getting on" Rose said, she rose on her tiptoes so she can see over John's shoulder, see the Master who was blinking a little myopically in the light as his eyes adjusted.
"He woke up."
"Excellent deduction my dear, tell me do you dress yourself in the morning or are the buttons just a bit too tricky for you still?"
John gave the Master a sideways look, "don't be nasty" he muttered.
The Master chuckled, "you like me nasty."
John made a "well yeah" gesture and looked at Rose again expectantly.
"So is he a Time Lord?"
"He is right here, my dear" then he glanced at John, "I'll never understand why you align yourself with such stupid humans."
"Be nice I said"
The Master huffed but subsided.
Rose had edged around during this time so John didn't have to turn around to her this time.
"Yes, he's a Time Lord. Rose, meet the Master."
"The Master?"
"Yes"
"Oh" then she brightened a little, "He a friend?"
John and the Master shared a grin, "the best."
The Master turned his charm on, smiling beatifically, "Be a dear and fetch us some tea, we've got some catching up to do."
Rose nodded and disappeared through the curtains again.
"Now," said the Master turning back to John, "you hate when she calls you your name?"
John shrugged, "That git is not who I am."
"Agreed, what do you call yourself now?"
"Just John, the perfect name for a fake man."
"Well that may be, but I think you need a new one."
"And what would you have in mind?" John laughs.
"Oh, I was thinking of something along the lines of the Valeyard."
"Y'know," said John speculatively, "I think I like that."
Then he took the Master's hand in his and grinned widely as he kissed it.