Yeah, yeah, so this series is unbelievably old but I watched it a few days ago and whatever silly person decided that Master should tell Martha to "Kneel" or call her "Good/little girl" was asking for this pairing.
So here it is. A little one-shot. Not necessarily what I think SHOULD have happen, just.. yeah. You know what I'm on about.
I don't own the song, that is Nickelback's. I don't own Doctor Who, that's Russell. T. Davies or Stever Moffat's, or whoevers - RTD ftw people :)
Allons-y! Read on!
I want to take his hands off
Just for touching you.
I want to rip his heart out
Just for hurting you.
And I want to break his mind down
Yes I do.
- Just For, Nickelback.
There is only one being in the universe who can give another being a hug whilst the apocalypse rains down upon the Earth.
The Doctor.
And he would only give this hug to one other individual.
The Master.
Who didn't particularly want said hug. But he got it anyway.
Crouched on the floor, screaming in protest, the Master feels the Doctor's skinny arms around him, his deep, midnight voice telling the words he doesn't want to hear: "I forgive you"
"No!" he shrieks, leaping away from his enemy. It's going all wrong. His Spheres are gone, the world keeps chanting the same damned word over and over "Doctor" the Jones family are giving him a glare that reminds of the phrase If looks could kill and now he is going to spend his life with, his life with…
"No" he spits it like a petulant teenager "No no no no no!" He even jumps up and down on the spot a little.
"Yes" the Doctor is calm, cool, passive. The good guy. "I'll take you away from this planet and we'll go somewhere across the stars-" The Doctor's reasoning voice is drowned out by peels of musical, maniacal laughter. The Master is laughing at him, shaking his head, walking over to him. He faces the Doctor squarely, his expression wild.
"You forgive me?" his voice barely suppresses mirth. He punctuates the statement with a jab in the Doctor's chest and then his own.
"Yes" repeats the Doctor, his voice almost inaudible, filled with emotion too old for his face "Yes I do"
An enraged snarl slither's though the Master's teeth. His irises flash and he casts around, sharp eyes scanning the room. They fix on a person. The pupils dilate as an idea forms in his crazed mind. Then he points.
"You! Girlie, here, now!" Martha Jones does not move, rooted where she stands by fright. "NOW!" he roars.
The Doctor's young companion lifts her chin up and walks, as boldly as she can, to where the two Time Lords stand. The Master smiles pleasantly at her, as if greeting an old friend. Then he turns to look at the Doctor, one eyebrow cocked, his agreeable smile morphed into an evil grin. When he speaks, his voice is low, filled with menace.
"You can forgive me, Doctor, but" His hand flashes out and clutches Martha's chin in a vice-like grip "Can you forgive her?"
Confusion flashes fleetingly across the Doctor's features as the Master draws Martha's face towards his and kisses her roughly.
When their lips collide, for that's what it is, not a kiss, but a collision, Martha's whole body locks up in disgust and horror. The Master goes from holding her chin to cupping her face with his snowy hands and he pulls her impossibly closer, devouring her mouth like some kind of depraved animal.
Her family move to aid her but a dirt-smattered Jack Harkness holds a hand up to stop them. If it was a serious action, the Doctor would intervene in some way. And the ex-Time Agent is, as he would tell you he always was, correct. "Stop it"
The Master uses one hand to angle Martha's face upwards and uses the other to catch her smooth, ebony hair in his fist, out of his way. "Master, stop, now, leave her be, now"
With a grunt, the Master releases Martha's lips. Her family exhale a sigh of relief. The Master smirks at the Doctor. The hand gripping her hair pulls downwards and Martha's head tilts up further. Then he leans in and places a kiss on Martha's racing pulse-point and her face stiffens in pain when his teeth bite into her skin.
Her family, once again, do not breathe. The Doctor's brow creases in helplessness and he shakes his head a little. "Please, please, let her go, don't do this of all things"
The Master ignores his enemy's pleas and continues to leave small, nipping kisses all the way down to the base of Martha's throat. She stands, still as a statue, always the martyr, staring at the ceiling as the Master has his way with her and only the Doctor sees the glistening moisture gathering behind her eyes.
"C'mon, Jones" the Master growls against her skin "Throw me a bone, darling" Martha lets out the tiniest of whimpers and her eyes screw shut, silver tears running down the sides of her face and into her hair when the Master runs his icy tongue, ever so slowly, up the arc of her neck.
"Enough!" The Doctor's voice is hard "Stop right nowor I swear-"
"You swear what?" The Master drawls in a bored voice, his hands grasping Martha's face once again, and she trembles, terrified, beneath his touch. Then he smiles again "Like I said, Doctor, can you forgive her?" He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively then swoops down to capture Martha's lips again.
The Doctor sees, in his mind, in the Master's mind, a split second before it happens, what the Master is planning to do. All the air in his lungs whooshes out of him in panic and, when the Master forces Martha's lips open, her eyes go round with nausea as his tongue invades her mouth, of cold of it wracks goose bumps up her cheeks.
"NO!" The Doctor shouts, his voice, his eyes, begging, imploring. The Master winks at his foe and rests his forehead, almost gently against Martha's, his eyes closing in concentration.
And, no matter how much the Doctor screams and pleads, it's too late.
As soon as the Master's forehead touches her own, Martha's eyes nearly bug out of their sockets and she grabs the Master's forearms, just for something to hold onto, because the whole world seems to be falling around her and she can feel the Master inside her head, smiling provocatively, his fingers tapping out four beats against her brain and the sound of the drums is roaring inside her mind and she feels like she will most definitely go mad is she can't share this beat with someone, she'll go mad if no one else can hear it.
But someone else can hear it. He can hear it. He's given it to her. They are linked in their howling fear of going utterly insane. And if you blinked, you could have missed the way Martha relaxed at that thought.
The Doctor has learned that blinking is a mistake he would very much like to take up with God, should they ever meet in someway or another.
Blinking can lead to death. One moment of content for your aching eyes is also a moment when the world can come crashing down around your ears. Thus, the Doctor does not blink very much.
Except...he's tired. It's been a long, long, horrible, gruelling, lonely day. Year. Lifetime. Lifetimes.
His eyes close for that millisecond that is blinking. And that's the only time the drums need. And, less that half a second later, his eyes are open. And he sees. He sees. And a single tear drips down his face.
"If you knew, Doctor, it would break your hearts"
But the Doctor has had his hearts broken before. When Rose left. When the Master regenerated. When he discovered his TARDIS cannibalized. When he blinked and open his eyes to find that his best friend melted in his worst enemy's arms.
And the Master is no longer forcing her, oh no. He is not forcing her, he is winning her.
Martha's hands hold onto his face for dear life, and she kisses him like she is drowning and he is her oxygen. She winds her fingers into his surprisingly soft hair, pressing herself against him, the need for contact, the need for sanity overwhelming her. The drum beats resonate between them and Martha can't believe he has lived with it this long, that no one else can hear it, when it's so loud.
So loud. Louder and louder. Closer and closer. Too loud. Too close. Her mind is opening up in ways a human mind is not supposed to open. And she feels like she going to die and die and die and die and die –
A person may compare heroin to honey.
In Martha Jones's stunted experience of the clinically obese and the drug-addicted, she has come to realise they are very much not the same thing.
One is soft, tentative, almost embarrassed: allowing you a drop of contentment within the grand scheme of things. You eat it and it's gone, just like that. It leaves you feeling happy and yet, somehow, still sad.
The other is ravenous, unambiguous and uncontrollably seductive: lending you over to the state wherein you become so dependant that you take it once and you need more, even if you don't want it. You're a fool to stop yourself.
To Martha it is now all very clear, excruciatingly clear.
The Doctor is honey.
The Master is heroin.
One is reachable, one is undeniable.
And the drumming is getting unbearably louder.
As quickly as their desperate, animalistic yet still very much mutual kiss began, he ends it. He rips their lips apart, and they gasp almost at the same time, much-needed air rushing into their lungs.
The people around them sag in relief that their daughter, sister, friend is free.
Martha is crying before they even stop kissing. She sobs and snivels, tears tumbling down her face, her whole frame shaking. She tries to hiccup out the words I'm sorry to the Doctor but they aren't uttered, she can't form them and the headache the Master knows so well is starting to come on.
The Master chuckles at the sight of the distraught girl, reaching for her.
"Aw," he coos as if talking to a small child whose stubbed their toe "Come here, you poor thing"
The Master enfolds her in his arms, cuddling her to his chest. Her face is crushed against the crook of his shoulder, her hands pinned against his stomach, and her tears are soaking his shirt and she doesn't fight him but she doesn't hold him. Martha finds her voice to blubber words that sound very much like: "Son…of a…bitch…hate you...hate you"
He strokes her hair mockingly, crooning into her ear "I know, sweetie, I know" like she is telling him how much it 'really really hurts, mummy…'
And his face is clear to all bar the woman he embraces: to Francine Jones, to Clive Jones, to Tish Jones, to Lucy Saxon, to Jack Harness, to the Doctor. The expression tells them all: "She. Is. Mine"
His eyes snap to lock with the Doctors and they have that old, manic gleam in them. The Doctor's face is passive but the Master can sense an anger rising in him, boiling to the surface and he just wants to provoke him that little bit further, watch him explode like he knows he can.
I forgive you, indeed.
His lips pull up into a wayward sneer and as he addresses the Doctor his eyebrows quirk upwards to join his amused smile,
"Well, Doctor? Can you forgive her…even when you can see how much your dear, sweet Martha-" he pulls the girl in question to his body more forcefully than before, making her squeak "- wants me?"
BANG.
The singular gun shot rings out across the room in the silence. The weapon crashes loudly to the floor.
Lucy Saxon curls the hand that was holding it, her pale face hard, her red lips quivering. "Cheating bastard" she hisses. The statement may be been almost comical if it had not been for the gravity of the situation.
The Master buckles at the waist into Martha and she feels hot liquid pooling rapidly in her hand and she pulls away in horror.
The Master's blood, wet and crimson, coats her hand and is spreading rapidly across one side of his shirt. His eyes are wide and his mouth is open and he is reeling backwards in agony. The Doctor skids, faster than light, to catch the Master as he collapses. They topple to the floor and the Doctor holds his enemies in his arms and shakes his head in disbelief.
The drumming increases. Louder, so much louder. And Martha grits her teeth and cries out, her hands going to her temple, blood smearing her face, as she tries to block out the noise. The four beats, louder than is even possible, how can they not hear it?
The pain and the madness bring her to her knees and, eyes closed in anguish, she crawls blindly towards the last two Time Lords. Tries to hear through the deafening noise inside her head what they are saying...
"...not dying, don't be stupid!" the Doctor is saying, and his voice sounds like it is trying to convince himself more than the man he is speaking to. "You can regenerate, you have to!"
The Master, his face strained in effort, lets out a hoarse chuckle "What? And spend...the rest of my...life imprisoned- with you?" He tosses his head in refusal and Martha, through the haze of noise and the throbbing headache, sees the stream of tears pouring from the Doctor's eyes.
He holds the Master tighter, "But...but we're the only two left, you HAVE to!" The Master isn't listening. He is focused on Martha. The girl has curled into a ball and is clutching her head, her face a mess of tears and blood: the picture of suffering.
The Doctor turns his head and looks too. "Martha?" he enquires, his voice almost hysterical.
"It hurts..." she murmurs to the floor "Doctor, it hurts....make it stop...please…it hurts..."
"Will it stop Doctor?" the Master questions breathlessly "The drumming? Will it stop?" His voice is hopeful, even in his dying moments.
"No, because you're not going to die!" The Doctor's voice is demanding "I can't do this on my own!" he beseeches, his lips trembling, tears running down his neck, ruining the collar of his suit.
"Please...." comes the small plea. A dark, feminine hand is touching the Master's cheek, the skin in shocking contrast, almost caressing it. Two sets of dark Time Lord eyes meet with a pair on squinting human ones.
Martha's lip shivers as she continues "Don't...you can't...I need you..." and her voice is distorted in lunacy and the headache makes it hard for her to even form cohesive words "Can't...the drums...alone...they hurt, they hurt, I can't face them alone!" And she is sobbing again, holding her head in her hands.
The Doctor groans and looks at the Master "What have you done to her?" he wails.
The Master barks out a laugh, wincing in pain, rolling his eyes "I knew you'd forgive her..." His eyes suddenly droop and the Doctor shakes him gently,
"No, no, no! Just...just regenerate! Please!" he begs again. "REGENERATE!" A howl of an animal going extinct.
"Don't leave me..." is in inaudible whisper the confused, terrorized, disturbed human offers him.
The Master hears. His face pulls up in a grin. Eyes wide-open, face red with the endeavour of staying alive, he jerks his head spasmodically to Martha and his smile turns to one of absolute, triumphant madness. Leaning upwards so the Doctor can hear him clearly, he rasps out:
"I win"
And his last, cold breath washes over the Doctor's face. The Last Time Lord buries his face in the Master's hair and screams in misery, the tears spurting jets down his face.
The Doctors worst enemy goes limp in his arms. His two hearts stop, the Ba-boom Ba-boom fading.
And the sound of drums in Martha's head goes silent.
Reviews are love and I likes love a lot :D