Warnings: Character Study, Introspection, Angst, Missing Scene, Implied Slash (if you squint), Dark!Fic
A/N: Written for who_contest 's Prompt:The Bad Guys. For some reason, I saw this prompt...and went completely blank. This is my kind of prompt and there was no chatter from the Muse. Add in hectic RL and things get messy. Last week I finally came up with something (and elements of that 'something' are in this fiction), but I never got it down. When I did sat down to write, what I intended to write and what I actually wrote were (as always) two different things. Don't know why the Master decided to make an appearance, but I'm rather glad he did. Not really sure what is going on here (and as always, the accuracy of the characterization could be hit or miss). In the end, I leave that up to you, Dear Readers. As per usual, this fic is mostly unbeta'd and written in one go, so please forgive any mistakes and/or blatant vagueness. As always, I apologize for any repetition, misspellings, sentence fails, grammatical oh-noes and general horridness. Unbeta'd fic is overly-thinky/blithery and unbeta'd.
Disclaimer(s): I do not own the scrumptious Doctor or his lovely companions. That honor goes to the BBC and (for now) the fantastic S. Moffat. The only thing that belongs to me is this fiction - and I am making no profit. Only playing about!
His cheek was still warm when he stormed through the faded blue doors of the TARDIS, the Machine's weariness reflected in the unhappy, battered look of Her exterior. Not that he noticed it much, as he barely stepped foot outside of Her doors if he could help it.
He wasn't that different, he knew: scuffed, weary, old and frail. For such a vain creature as he could be, at this point he didn't much care. He had no love or worries for anything beyond those doors. Not anymore.
Tonight he had finally told the Paternoster Gang that he'd had enough. He had mustered up just enough rage and indignation to get through it; the sting along his left cheek the right amount of fuel to get the job done. It didn't solve why he had been slapped, but maybe if he was no longer forced to acknowledge anything outside the TARDIS, he wouldn't have to think about why the girl he had encountered felt the need to do such a thing.
He already knew why, though. He had failed her. By being there, but not in time. By not being enough (was he ever truly 'enough'?) By trying to be what he had convinced himself for centuries he had to be. It wasn't the truth. It wasn't even close. But it was a lie he had bought into all the same. A lie that had brought more ruination and heartache than he could dare to contemplate within these exhausted, too large-yet-too-small walls.
He wanted it to be the truth. But in the end, at the last of his lives, he knew the folly he had been courting since his first life. The loss of his Ponds, the little family he had selfishly made for himself drove home the point of his own useless, pathetic attempts to hold the universe together. Such arrogance! As if he ever mattered one whit in the end to the universe. The same universe that seemed to be managing perfectly fine without him.
His cheek stung and throbbed and he thought about monsters that lived in shadows, how they ate the weak and the helpless. Was he truly any different? He lived in the shadows now, he called them home. He also destroyed the weak and the helpless through his simulated compassion, his blind need to keep loneliness at bay. The only difference between him and the monster that led to the mark across his face was that he let his victims live afterward.
Maybe…maybe he was worse. Maybe his people were right to exile him. He was a monster to them (especially toward the end of the Time War). He was a self-described liar, an incessant meddler and a walking paradox within his own existence. When all was said and done, what did wishing and hoping do for anyone who happened across his path?
He had wasted centuries (and all of his lives) on trying to do what was right, with only ashes and regret to show for it. It was shown to be the worst kind of falsehood. There was no making it better. There was no turning back time to fix it, change it. There was only emptiness and echoing halls to remind him of his foolishness, his childish rebellion leading to these last years of rage and remembrance. There was nothing else. In all honesty, there never really had been.
"Never were much for honesty, were you, Theta?" The Master asked from his usual lonely corner of the console room. "For such a 'hero', you are the biggest liar I have ever encountered."
"Do shut up," the Doctor responded, wearily grateful to see him, even as he wished his madness would present itself in a less solid way. "No one wants to hear it, Kosh."
"No one is here," the Master retorted smoothly, eyes innocent and overly-wide, even as a twisted smile came to life on the thin lines of his lips. "And you are avoiding the statement, aren't you? You know, it is kind of pathetic, isn't it? I am the so-called 'bad guy' in this relationship and yet I have always been the more honest of the two of us. Turns the whole concept of good versus evil on its pointy head doesn't it?"
'Guess it rather does,' the Doctor thought numbly, fingers drifting over his cheek as he collapsed across the steps leading away from the console room.
He flicked a glance at Koschei, not in the slightest bit surprised that he was wearing the form of Tremas (the Master's longest-running face). A face that was almost a comfort in the stark atmosphere the Old Girl had created for him to live in. She was in mourning as well and therefore had every right to do as She pleased; but the drastic change only exacerbated his loneliness, driving him to hallucinate at the oddest of times.
Odd times like right now, for instance.
He wasn't remotely bothered by the hallucination itself (which should have been a troublesome thought), but he was relieved instead that it was the Master and not the Dream Lord, who'd also had an odd penchant to show himself of late. It was rather terrible (upon reflection), when one not only hallucinated, but had a preference for certain ones over others. This Master was a little easier to handle (more relatable) than either the Dream Lord or the other Masters. He was at least willing to talk; fill the empty spaces with his voice and musings on life, the universe and everything outside of the TARDIS' doors.
The Doctor shrugged in response to the Master's question, feeling the warmth rise like a living thing from his cheek, fingers hovering in a loose pattern as though to soak up the sensation of another being's hatred and contempt. He was too tired and empty to feel sorrow at the girl's anger, her loss. He was too tired and empty to feel. He would let his hallucinations do that for him, but they took up too much time picking endlessly at the flaws he was all too aware of.
Like the fact the Master himself had taken apart worlds (had done so deliberately in fact), with every intention to destroy – generally to get the Doctor's attention. The Doctor himself took apart yet other worlds, destroyed them in a misguided attempt to save others before finally giving over the ultimate in destruction: wiping his own people (and his old friend-turned-enemy Koschei) from the expanse of the universe. Blotting them out so completely he could barely remember the orange skies, red grass and silver trees of his home planet.
He didn't know if that was a relieving comfort or a fresh terror, but seeing the Master studying him so quietly under his eyebrows left him feeling grieved and hollowed out all over again. They were feelings, though. Terrible, bleak – but feelings nonetheless. His own selfishness wouldn't let him do anything other than grasp them tight and hold them close, even as they crushed his already battered soul. There was an awful satisfaction in that alone. One he didn't want to study too closely if he wanted to retain what little sanity he did have left.
He hadn't realized he had closed his eyes until the sensation of cool leather against his fingers startled him into opening them. The Master was leaned over him, still quiet, eyes unreadable in the green dimness as he pulled the Doctor's hand away from the anchor of his cheek, tilting closer to examine the mark that must have stood out even in the shadowed expanse of the console room.
Those same gloved fingers brushed the handprint the girl had left, the Master's lips thinning even further as his touch raised fire along the Doctor's cheek, his caress surprising in more ways than one: a solid hallucination in the stark reality of the Doctor's safe zone; the console room unspoken neutral territory that the Master had never bothered to respect.
But this wasn't a touch of rage or even dominance. It wasn't a point to be driven home. He seemed almost…angry – eyes fiery as he let his hand drop away from the Doctor's jaw – narrow face a blank mask as he regarded the Doctor's profile with an intensity that left the Doctor shivering with regret and an odd sense of want. He had never allowed himself to miss Koschei as much as he did now, the memories of his former friend too painful to dwell on.
The first casualty in the Doctor's War against himself and his upbringing.
'I'm sorry, Kosh,' he thought with weary sorrow, too stunned to make himself say it. Not that it really mattered. Koschei was no longer alive to hear him.
"Who did this?" The Master asked, tone open and friendly, even as his voice bled soft darkness. "Who dared –"
"Someone I failed, Kosh," the Doctor answered, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers as though he was trying to wipe the image of the Master's anger from the surface of his vision. A headache bloomed along the vise of his temples, the urge to bawl sudden and unwelcome. "I deserved it. I deserve much worse, but I never get it, do I?"
"Don't say that," the Master retorted, venomous and stung all at once. "For all our bickering, I know what I am – I know what you are."
"All I am is a different kind of monster," the Doctor replied, wishing that the Master was real, that he could apologize and beg his forgiveness. That he could truly go home again. It wasn't something he wished often and he had never wished it half as strongly as he did right then, surrounded by the nothingness he had created. The only thing left to him (so near the end of it all) was the TARDIS and who knew how long that would be? She had survived thus far – but how much more could She take? "And I'm far worse. I honestly thought…never mind. It doesn't matter what I thought, does it? What's done is done."
"Thee," the Master's voice never rose above a whisper as his removed his glove, long, chilly fingers drifting over the mark once more, his eyes opaque, mouth twisted in some unnamed emotion as he traced the raised, reddened flesh on the Doctor's face. "What happened today? Where did you go?"
"Vastra called," the Doctor answered faintly, allowing himself to detach and just float on the unreality of his old friend's concern. Nothing really mattered anymore – the pain, the anger, the confusion. He had made sure he would never confront such pain again. That he would never be the cause of that self-same pain as he had seen in that girl's face. He hadn't even bothered to learn her name. Some 'hero' he was. "I…I went to go help her, but I was too late. The girl's parents were dead and she is so, so young. Younger than Jenny was when I found her. She has nothing because I am a fool. Because I am not enough. Jenny and Vastra…they handled it, I just –"
He knocked the Master's hand from his cheek, turning away so he wouldn't see the look on his friend's face. It wasn't really there. He wasn't really there. He was just another sad attempt to hold onto what the Doctor never truly had. He could have had it, he could have kept it once – but that was centuries and lifetimes ago. He destroyed what they had been as surely as he had destroyed his own planet. As surely as he had failed a young girl who didn't need to know about the monsters that lived in the darkness; about the old monster that loomed over her city in a rackety old TARDIS that was never truly his to begin with. Haunted by those he would never see again as he exercised his own futile need to control what was uncontrollable. As he fought against a universe that was likely more than glad to see the back of him.
He staggered to his feet, unsure of what he was supposed to be thinking or feeling, just knowing he wanted to be alone. Away from the reminders of all that he had lost, sleeping the fevered, restless sleep of the old and weary. It was past time for him to sleep. It was long past time for him to fade away, but he always was a stubborn old man, wasn't he? Never knew when to leave well enough alone.
He had obliterated his Name from the stars, but he couldn't stop himself from seeking the familiar. Maybe…maybe it was time to move on. If he wasn't here, Vastra and Jenny wouldn't feel the urge to call on him. Maybe then he could rest, if old monsters could ever be said to do so.
"You were right all those years ago, Kosh," the Doctor said softly, still unable to look at the Master, too afraid he would lose himself to his own insanity forever – and he wasn't quite ready for that. Not just yet.
"About what, Thee?" Was the hollow query, the Master's voice already fading – becoming part of the hum of the Machine he ghosted within.
"Sometimes the bad guys aren't the ones we can see clearly," the Doctor responded, his own voice soft, muted in the mournful hum of his console room; memory of bygone days and whispered secrets, murmured truths under the orange sky of Home leaking into the tired boom of his tone. "Sometimes, to see them, we have to see ourselves."
He touched the raised print of a small human hand against his cheek, the warmth gone, but the lesson forever etched into his memory. He closed his eyes and turned his back to the Master, to the heart of his Girl. The blackness of his own heart filling him to overflowing as he remembered days that should never have been; things lost that should have never been found. On the delicate turn of the universe on such simple, yet weighty decisions. Like a man who stole a Time Machine and ran away with his grand-daughter to see the stars.
The Master said nothing, but not for the lack of argument. No one could argue like Koschei. No one could call into question Theta's reasoning, his convictions, his mistakes like his dearest and oldest friend. But the room behind him was silent once more. Truly it always had been.
The Doctor closed his eyes and trudged wearily to the nearest corridor, almost half hoping he would get lost within them, the truth of his best friend's words from so, so long ago a fresh sting he hadn't thought about in centuries. He thought about the roads to hell and the good intentions that paved them – and vowed to not look within any mirrors that night.
'Good night, Kosh,' he thought sadly, keeping the words inside so he wouldn't have to hear them echo within the emptiness of the only place he had ever truly thought of as home; a home that was now as alien and cold as his own hearts. 'Sleep well.'
Goodnight, Theta…
The Doctor didn't bother to look around, to acknowledge this whisper of ghosts long dead; maybe see if he could catch one more glimpse of that familiar face in the unfamiliar chill of his new console room. After all, there was nothing to see, was there?
There had never been anyone there.
He took a deep breath, shaking his head as he turned to disappear within the depths of his ship, wishing (if only for a moment) that fantasy was reality. Wishing for one more chance to say goodbye, to speak with the first one he had failed, maybe find what he had lost before he had escaped the stagnant gravity of his planet…but it was not to be.
Second chances were rare. Third and fourth chances were impossible. The dead always stayed dead. The past always remained within the past (even for beings such as himself).
And to find the bad guys, sometimes all one had to do was gaze upon their own reflection.