Lost till you're found

Swim till you drown

Know that we all fall down

Love till you hate

Strong till you break

Know that we all fall down

All Fall Down - One Republic

She's crying.

It's bizarre, amusing, and agonising all at the same time. And entirely his fault.

He'd yelled at her, in a justified fit of fury. When the memories had vividly resurfaced, of finding Osgood's glasses on the floor of the cargo bay and seeing all of the dead of the human race as cybermen, of Clara crying over PE...the relief that had come initially upon seeing her alive faded from him because she'd killed and no matter how many years passed she never even tried to be any different.

The Master had screamed back at him of course, of his hypocrisy and that they were just humans and what did it matter. The argument had taken them out of the console room and into the corridor. The Doctor can't remember the exact thing he'd said that had ended it all and broken her. Simply that one moment she was ready to fling another curse at him and the next she'd dropped to the floor with tears in her eyes.

All he can do is stare down at her. Her skirt is perfectly pooled around her and her tiny hands are fisted in the dark fabric. She hasn't worn the hat in while and he's glad for it before it looked ridiculous anyway and her hair doesn't need any ornamentation.

He knows it's bad because she's crying silently. Missy's such a bloody drama queen (well, always has been, but this time around it's downright absurd) that her crying is usually more akin to wailing, pleading with him like a petulant child who hasn't received enough attention. But this time, the tears roll down her cheeks and she's not even looking at him, she's looking at the floor.

After an age of her tears falling and him just standing frozen in front of her (or perhaps it's only been three seconds, for once in his life he can't be sure), she speaks, in full Scottish voice.

"I'm not the one you're supposed to be mean to." Those ice blue eyes, the ones that haunt all of the dreams he's had since they had found each other again, finally lift to regard him through a sheen of tears. "Everyone else, sure, but not me. You love me, that means you have to be nice."

"I'm not nice," he says, frowning slightly.

"No," she agrees, in a whisper that is more bitter than he can remember a single word ever being in the whole of universal history.

He grinds his teeth as annoyance flares in him. She will not make him feel like the bad guy. "You killed people, just to get my attention, just to give me a present you had to know I would never accept." He's torn between wanting to stop her tears and wanting her to finally, finally feel some pain after all she's caused. "If you want my forgiveness-"

"You can take your forgiveness and go fuck yourself with it," she snaps.

"Then what?!"

"I want your love. Not your forgiveness, your love."

The Doctor takes the stride necessary to take him closer to her before sinking to his knees and taking her face in his hands and kissing her deeply, with passion and yearning and everything he could never quite put into words. When he pulls away but doesn't let go of her, she makes a face. The kind that suggests she's glad he did it but isn't budging from her current emotional stance.

So he lets his hands travel to her jacket buttons and slowly undo them until he can push it from her shoulders and leave her in the pale blouse and skirt. Then his fingers travel back up to pull her hair free of the updo. Her beautiful mahogany curls tumble down to sit on her shoulders and frame her angular face. Gone is the harsh and terrible Queen of Evil. With her features softened by the hair and the tears still fresh in her eyes, this is just Missy. (His Missy, his Master, his Koschei, no different to the scared and angry boy she had been in their days at the Academy.)

"Beautiful," he murmurs. She sniffs.

"Do you think so?" Her voice is still Scottish, and he's starting to think that it's her way of enticing him in a new way that subtle enough that she could probably justify it with pure whim if he asked. "I couldn't be sure."

"I do."

"Well, it's new, that's for sure. Never been beautiful before."

He takes her hands from her skirt and brings them together so that he can close his hand around them and drop a kiss onto her knuckles. "That's up for debate."

Missy jerks forward to drop a feather-light kiss on his nose, a tiny and strangely melancholic smile twitching at her lips. "Well, I'll always be beautiful to you, I suppose."

He ignores that, if only because it's too embarrassing to acknowledge, and instead presses his head to her chest to listen to the hypnotic thumping of her hearts. It's pure fact that he'll never stop craving and savouring the sound. In a moment of suffocating conflict between wanting to hate her so desperately he almost feels sick and needing her so badly he chokes, that double heartbeat is his anchor.

He's such a lost and pathetic hypocrite. She stands for everything he opposes and were she anyone else he'd have vanquished them centuries ago. Sometimes he had been strong enough to try and almost succeed, other times she had fallen due to her own mistakes. But every time she'd reappeared over the years, there had always been a spark of relief amongst the fear of what she was going to do.

She is a madwoman. A murderous madwoman with a penchant for universal domination.

But she is his. And he is hers. Two sides of the same battered coin. No amount of collateral damage can erase that, no matter how much he sometimes wishes it could.

The Doctor finally lifts his head and lets one hand wind around her waist to hold her small body against his thin one. The other delves into her hair and pulls her into another kiss, one that is soft and warm and is the closest thing he will ever offer her in terms of an apology (he could never actually force out words that apologised for caring about murder).

She kisses him back, tasting like the salt of her tears. Her hands settle for pulling him in by his jacket lapel. He sits on his heels and pulls up her and into his lap, her legs on either side of him. It allows for both of his hands to travel up her back and hold her to him tightly. He'll never have her close enough to him, or far enough away, but at least in his arms she can't harm anyone. (Except for him, and half of the time he's messed up enough to want her to.)

"My Mistress," he breathes against her mouth, and the sigh of relief that comes from her shakes her entire body.

"Doctor…" She whispers it like a prayer, like he's just handed her the secret to the universe. In the end, all he can do is grip her tighter and kiss her harder and hope that someday it might be enough.

(Enough for what, he doesn't think he'll ever know, all he knows is that right now it's not.)

I knew if I waited long enough, an idea would hit me for these two. Not quite sure where it came from, but the idea of Missy just silently crying hit me really hard for some reason, so I decided to run with it.

Between this and To Suffer Love, I've written these two a bit gently so far, but that's because these moments are oddly soft and emotional for these two. My next Twelve/Gomez!Master thing will have them being more dysfunctional and probably violent, I think, as must be more normal for them.

Feedback is really appreciated, and thanks for reading!

-MayFairy :)