I'm not sure if you could read this without 'One Last Chance to be Good' but you can give it a go if you like because I honestly don't think it's much worth to read that looking back, haha!

So I couldn't resist sticking Florence and her family back into the mess of Missy's life when I kept getting little moments in my head of various characters interacting and all the relationship stuff I could explore. This is possibly the most selfish thing I've ever wrote, haha!

Also FlorencexMissy is 1000% canon for this fic if you were left with doubt after One Last Chance to be Good.


The Mistress finally stops throwing things at him and that's when the Doctor really begins to worry, looking at the shattered pot by his left foot. He nudges the pottery and it clacks together.

He's removing the pottery from now on for both of their safety's.

"Doctor?" She asks, voice tremulous and small.

It's only the fifth day.

How are they going to survive the next almost 1000 years of their lives?

"Missy?" He asks, voice gentle.

"I miss her." The Time Lady says, swallowing before picking up again, "She made me good Doctor- I miss her. She was good." The Mistress says, sounding bewildered despite having admitted this to him even when comparatively sane.

"Not really." The Doctor sighs, "She didn't really make you good. She tempered you a little, took away some of your crueller traits. She made you better but not good." The Time Lord states wearily.

When this doesn't bring a new torrent of objects rushing towards him the Doctor chances a look around the table he's sheltered behind.

Opposite him the Time Lady is sat in a crumpled heap, legs splayed and hands smoothing out all the little creases in the fabric of her skirt. Her lips are parted in concentration as she focuses on the floor in front of her. By her side is a shattered clock, the glass pooling from its front.

Her eyes find his easily, so blue and young he struggles to breathe for a moment.

"I want to see her." She insists, folding her legs in.

The Mistress has been cycling through this about three times a day so far. The Doctor hates it- hates having to explain it to her again, watch her face fall into despair and hold herself together and remember herself and just go silent.

"Missy." He says softly, standing slowly and crossing to her.

"Missy." He says again, gentle as he rests a hand on her knee and looks into her eyes, still eerily piercing even when she's drifted from reality.

"Missy- I'm sorry." He says.

"She's dead. Daleks. You told me- you keep forgetting but you killed them all. You couldn't save her Missy. I'm sorry." The Doctor says carefully, frowning.

There's a flicker of horror and pain which passes over the Time Lady's face, quickly schooled into emptiness.

"Oh. Yes. I remember." The Mistress says, focussing properly. Quietly she stands and picks up a chair.

She sets it back on its feet without sound and sits on it.

The Doctor looks up at her and wants to hold her.

He doesn't.

Instead he sets about cleaning up the vault, sweeping up the broken things and righting the furniture.

"It's my fault you know- all mine- I did it." The Mistress sneers, leaning into his view.

She's not particularly tall or menacing, barefoot with her hair down and in a nightgown but all the same he would rather not be laying prone on the floor with her in this mood.

The Mistress crouches down, looks into his face upside-down and smiles a horrible smile.

"I've told you haven't I? Bananas!" She sings, to her feet in moment.

"Bonkers!" She shouts, pacing around him.

"Mad!" She states in that cockney accent she enjoys.

"Crazy- loco- insane- unstable- wrong- broken- dirty- unhinged- cruel- evil- a bitch- vicious- the universe's fuck up! The worst Time Lord! The Nightmare of Rassilon! Horror incarnate! The End Song! War! Pain-giver! Queen of Evil- Destroyer of Hope!" She cries out, each phrase delivered in a different voice, getting more and more grandiose as she goes on, ripping to a crescendo that sounds delivered by a wild dog if such a feral thing had a voice box and could gesticulate so extravagantly. She steps just out of his reach, seeming to have forgotten he's there.

The Doctor attempts to stand in her distraction.

She notices anyway and kicks his legs from under him easily.

"Pop." She teases, face overtaking his vision as she tilts her head to the side, eyes wide as she grins.

"I have been called all those things." The Mistress emphasises. She waits, holding her breath.

"But. You know what else I've done? More than any of those labels?" She says, lips parted as she stares at him, unblinking.

The Doctor doesn't answer, not wanting to upset her any further.

She smirks, standing again, towering above him.

" Worse than any of those labels?" She asks, "Do you know?" Her voice is soft, dangerous.

The Doctor sighs.

"You didn't try-" He starts exhausted.

"WRONG!" She shouts, looking oddly joyous.

"Wrong! Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!" The Time Lady repeats.

"I killed them. All of them!" She cheers like a cartoon villain, arms raised to the air and a caricature of happiness on her face.

" All of those people I loved so much! All of those beautiful hearts! All of those people I still love! I killed them all!" She leans to the side, swivelling on her heels.

"Because I'm evil." The Mistress says, act dropping as she lets her arms fall and looks down her nose at the Doctor.

"You're lucky I haven't killed you." She spits, "Not for lack of trying."

"Missy." The Doctor hisses as she just walks away from him.

"Missy!" He shouts and she stiffens and oh- Rassilon he regrets it but it's done now.

"Missy." He repeats more gently and she turns, crying.

"I killed them Doctor. The people I love. I'll kill you too." She sniffs, lips trembling.

"Oh, Missy." He utters, rolling over and pushing himself to his feet, glad she hadn't really been intending to hurt him.

"I killed them all because I'm evil." The Mistress says, voice somehow quite steady despite her distress.

"You aren't evil Missy. You've never been evil." The Doctor soothes, crossing to her and pulling her into him.

She almost claws at him in her desperation.

"Don't lie. Don't lie!" She whispers, voice hitching against his chest.

"I'm not." He says quietly, "If you were evil- really evil- you wouldn't have cared at all in the first place. I'll help you get better. You know that- don't you?" He asks, holding his best friend as she breaks down in his arms, fully aware of the new bruises she's given him.

"Please, Doctor, please!" She begs, pressed tightly to him.

Neither of them are sure what she wants but the Doctor sighs, and walks her over to the bed.

"Come on." He says gently, sitting her down. She complies easily, hands pressed against the edge of the mattress.

The Doctor crouches so their eye level is matched. He rests a hand on her knee and squeezes lightly, smiling sadly.

"You didn't kill any of them, Mistress. Not a single one. They were too precious to you- you did your best to protect them. Remember that." He says, knowing it's what she needs to hear in this state of mind.

She sniffs, looking away and the Doctor lets her.

"Try and rest now." He suggests, softly nudging her shoulder.

The Mistress follows the movement, laying down carefully and letting him pull the covers over her.

"I'll be back down later with some food." He says, tucking her in better.

"Okay?" He asks, smoothing a piece of hair behind her ear.

Missy nods, lips thinning.

The Doctor stands and she just stares up at him like she's a child.

"Please." She asks, fingers just touching his.

The Doctor smiles, slipping their palms together and running his thumb over the back of her hand.

"Okay. I can't stay for long though. You know that, right?" The Doctor clarifies.

Missy nods, taking her hand from his and laying it over the blanket.

The Time Lord pulls up a chair and sits beside her head. He takes her hand in his and she rolls over to face him, one hand beneath the pillow. She closes her eyes and the Doctor can feel her drop into sleep quickly, her hand going limp in his.

The Master had always had a lot more control than most over their body.

The Doctor never tells Missy but he's afraid of watching her sleep as much as he appreciates that she trusts him enough.

The things he sees are rarely pleasant and even the things which should be are tainted by horror.

Today she dreams of daleks and her companion dying and their daughter in her arms and laughter dissolving into tears. She dreams of blood and viscera and screaming and the deaths preluding them being too clean, too surreal to believe.

The scenes impress themselves in his mind and he sighs, feeling wrong to be seeing all these secrets she wouldn't ever be so honest about when awake so explicitly.

Eventually he has to leave- there's essays to mark and food to buy and Nardole to quieten.

He places her hand beneath the covers and lays a kiss on her brow, leaving her to her nightmares for a while, sighing in resignation.

The Doctor sighs in exasperation.

"I just don't feel any remorse for it!" The Mistress says, shoulders rising and forehead creasing in a shrug as she blows out her lips.

"They're just inferior- I didn't care and I don't care. They were more interesting in death than in life and barely enough to hold my attention for a millisecond at that. It's about the power of holding their itty-bitty lives in your hands." She summarises.

"But how?" Asks the Doctor, truly unable to understand her lack of guilt, "How can you just not care about all the people you've killed- not have even the slightest touch of compassion- and yet love the people you choose to so dearly?" He asks, frustrated, head in his hands as he slumps over in his chair.

The Mistress turns her head away, still laying back in the chaise lounge.

The Doctor realises his mistake almost instantly, cursing under his breath.

"Missy- I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that- you know I just. I can't understand Missy. It's just. It's alien to me." He says apologetically, hating himself for it.

"Please leave." She says coldly.

The Doctor frowns, stands and walks across to her.

"Missy. I'm sorry." He murmurs gently, going to lay a hand against her shoulder.

She moves away from it, still not looking at him.

"Leave." She says firmly. Her voice trembles only slightly, her shoulder a little more.

The Doctor nods, swallowing down his apologies.

He's thankful that at the very least she has learned to temper her violence over the last sixty years.

That or he's hurt her too badly.

He walks slowly across the floor, footsteps echoing in the silence between them. It hurts him to hear her cry quietly, obviously trying to hide it from him. He gets stuck just before the doors, wiping his hand across his face to remove his own tears before he sees Nardole.

"Florence would have understood. She always did." The Mistress says wistfully, softly.

"But I killed her." Her says, voice breaking finally.

The Doctor pushes himself out, uncaring of Nardole seeing his guilt as his best friend in the universe breaks into sobs, distraught because of him.

"Sir?" Nardole asks, squinting at the Doctor's face as he slides down the closed vault doors.

"Not now Nardole." Says the Doctor, voice low as he brings his hand across his face again.

Inside the vault the Mistress is curled up on the chaise lounge, head in her arms and chin against her chest as she tries to stop the sobs wracking through her and her guilt.

"Are you having an emotion?" Nardole asks curiously, bending down a little to peer into the Doctor's face.

" Nardole - not now." He orders.

The metal man stands back, hands in the air.

"Okay. I get it. No need to get all cross." He says defensively.

The man sighs, putting his hands on his hips.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks, raising his brow and looking down at the Time Lord looking as human as anyone.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow, glancing up at his minder.

"Would I-" He asks incredulously, sputtering slight in indignation despite his sorrow.

Nardole only tilts his head.

"Would you?" He asks again, still staring at the Doctor.

The Doctor just stares at him in utter confusion.

"Fuck it." He says clearly.

"Oi! Language!" Nardole warns, slapping the Doctor's arm lightly as he slumps down next to him.

"What would your humans say? What would your wife say?" He asks, crossing his arms and looking reproachfully at the Doctor.

The Time Lord scowls, staring at the wall opposite.

"My students wouldn't care and you know River has worse language than me." The Doctor says, successfully brought out of his moping.

"That is very true." Nardole says.

"Now- what've you both done this time?" The metal man asks.

The Time Lord explains.

Nardole turns out to be quite the listener when the Doctor lets him.

"So." He says when the Doctor has finished, fingers entwining and separating in anxiety the whole time, "Obviously what we do is we pick up this human from a stable point in her timeline and bring her in for a chat. The Mistress gets to see her- we wipe the girl's memory, drop her back and everything's just fine." Nardole says, shrugging.

"No." The Doctor says firmly, "We can't just pick her up and dump her in this mess- she's human. She'd probably break or something- you know how they are. I don't even know how Missy would react- she could do anything from eat her alive to have her worst break down yet. You know how unstable she is." The Time Lord reasons.

Nardole stands, laying a hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

"Well. Just tell me when you want to do this incredibly stupid, dangerous thing that will probably go enormously wrong." He says chirpily, grinning.

The Doctor sometimes wishes his wife hadn't found him such a great friend.