Edit: First intention was to upload this separately, but for reader convenience I'll be posting further chapters to this story (sorry for the mess). Any and all reviews are much encouraged and appreciated.
The Master Who Waited
They were a thing to be taken for granted, as far as their hazardous lives would allow for. Despite constant arguing and frequent disasters, they couldn't imagine going anywhere without each other. It was hard to say how many places they'd been, how much time had passed.
The Doctor had his arm around the Master's shoulders, to the Master's eternal grudge. The Doctor knew he hated coddling in public. They were in the year 2517, on what was did not look as much as a space station as a dump. It was packed with people, trade and entertainment, and the Doctor loved every second of it. This was culture, he insisted, something the Master openly laughed at.
"...Proof of alien life! This will change you for the rest of your life. We are not alone!"
There was a man calling out. He sold tickets to an exhibition. The Doctor and the Master exchanged looks and tried not to smirk. Humans hadn't discovered alien life yet, so this had to be a treat. The Master let the Doctor pay.
It was all very dark and foreboding inside the tiny room of the exhibition. The Doctor didn't let go of the Master. Here they were alone and screened from the squabbling of the crowds outside. They looked at the single, lit tank in front of them and the creature inside of it.
"Cow foetus?"
"Mutated cow foetus."
Both amused, they couldn't help smiling in the dark of the room. The dead foetus had no comment whatsoever.
"This is almost a little romantic," the Master accused the Doctor.
"It's cruel, that's what it is!" the Doctor protested.
The Master pinched the Doctor's ass. He furrowed his brows and said nothing. By now, the Doctor was used to it. Something else caught his attention and he slipped a hand inside his coat.
"Oh, what now?"
"Message on the psychic paper," the Doctor explained. He read the message, one brow arching up a bit further for every word. "Are you sending me dirty messages on the psychic paper again?" he asked.
"It wasn't me this time," the Master assured. He peeked over at the paper and his face fell into a frown.
"Then I suppose Jack needs help. Time to be on our way."
"Been long since I saw him," the Master remarked as he shuffled after the Doctor.
"Yes, let's not have a repeat of last time."
"I told you, I thought he liked bondage."
"You tortured him," the Doctor reminded. "For a year."
"It never happened. He remembers it, but technically it never happene—Oh, great."
The door to the TARDIS had slammed right in front of him.
"She's doing it again!" the Master called out. He knocked at the door with his fist a couple of times, then folded his arms and waited for the Doctor to convince her to let him in. The TARDIS hadn't exactly grown fond of him during their travels.
Once the TARDIS had been sufficiently coddled by the Doctor, the two Time Lords were on their way to Cardiff and the 21st century. They frequently landed on Roald Dahl Plass to refuel and knew what to expect, but never had they stopped for longer than they had to. Unless Jack needed help, the Doctor wasn't going to expose him to the Master.
They were both surprised to find that the place had been levelled. More than levelled. Where the Torchwood institute should have been, there was a deep crater. While as there was no love lost between the Doctor and Torchwood, this was cause for concern.
xxx
Finding Jack had proven to be a delicate task. They weren't the only ones searching for Torchwood but they had something the government didn't; a big, blue box. They had gotten in touch with Jack and agreed to meet. The TARDIS materialized in an abandoned building as close to Thames House as they dared. The Doctor wasn't complaining about being back in London and he greeted Jack with as bright of a smile as ever when they stepped out on the dusty floor.
"Doctor!" Jack exclaimed. He pulled the Doctor into a hug, giddy in a way that neither Gwen nor Ianto had seen before. The two were measuring the Doctor up and down, both having thought that the man Jack always went on about would have looked a lot more impressive and a lot less geeky.
"You're the Doctor." Gwen stated. When the Doctor turned to talk to her, she punched him. "Where the Hell have you been?" she screeched at him. "Jack whines about you coming to rescue us and it never happens. It's about bloody time you showed up!"
The Doctor had doubled over. The Master was quick to put a hand on his shoulder, but he was quite amused.
"Welsh, is she?" the Doctor grunted before he straightened up.
"This happens to you a lot; women punching you," the Master commented.
Ianto and Jack were horrified at Gwen, but Jack snapped out of it when he saw who the Doctor's companion was.
"What are you doing here?" Jack asked, immediately going defensive. He was aware that the Doctor had taken the Master along in the TARDIS, but he had expected him to be kept locked up. Frozen down. Immobilized and forgotten in a corner. "Doctor, why is he walking around like a free man?"
Gwen and Ianto didn't understand the animosity and looked at Jack with confusion. Jack knew best, but they hadn't heard any mentions of this man.
"Evil rehab," the Master explained. "It's not working out too well," he added with a cheeky smile. "It's not like any of it actually happened."
"And still I remember it so well," Jack said with a forced, near threatening smile. "A year of bondage doesn't sound too bad in retrospect, but I could have done without the torture and death."
Ianto cleared his throat in a light manner, drawing everyone's attention. "We can't stay here. I suggest we brief them about the current threat and don't waste any more time." He looked at Jack with worry, then at the Master with a hint of disgust.
"You're jealous," the Master hissed at Ianto.
"Alright, introductions everyone," the Doctor broke in. "I am the Doctor, and this is the Master. He travels with me and his bark is usually worse than his bite."
"That's a lie," the Master informed.
Jack's lips curled with distaste before he introduced his team. "Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones. We are all that's left of Torchwood Cardiff."
"Jones? Nothing to do with the Jones who gave me so much trouble?" the Master asked with suspicion.
Ianto looked mildly confused. "I wouldn't know. I don't think I—?"
Jack was between Ianto and the Master, pointing one threatening finger at the Time Lord. "You stay away from him."
"Oh, touchy," the Master singsonged.
Nothing more was said between them while Jack explained to the Doctor about the aliens that had just landed.
"They took twelve children last time. Now they are back for more."
"You traded the lives of twelve children for a flu vaccine. With aliens," the Doctor repeated, looking at Jack with disapproval.
"Twenty-five million would have died from Indonesian flu," Jack protested. "They said the children would be taken good care of. That they would live forever."
"And that always works out for the better," the Doctor said with a meaningful look at Jack. "You are hunted by the law and aliens want your children. I need to have a talk with these aliens. Who are they?"
"We call them the 456," Ianto informed. "We don't know who they are."
The Doctor looked frustrated, but they all knew what he was capable of. Having him around shifted the odds considerably in their favour.
"I will talk to them and give them one chance to retreat. Only one, but I need to know more about them first."
"We have already given them more than enough chances," Jack insisted.
The Doctor knew Jack was making this personal, but he tried to be considerate. If he was taking over this situation, he would need Torchwood's complete cooperation and all the information he could have. The only thing Torchwood ever did, as he had experienced, was to get in the way.
They were taken to Torchwood's current headquarters. Little more than a warehouse full of computers. The Master didn't like any of it, especially not how the Doctor and Jack were talking about their adventures together, about what the Doctor had been up to, about Martha's time in Torchwood. Even about their time fighting against him. Of course, he preferred a reputation of being bad, but he was feeling left out. No one ever let him brag about the things he'd done.
Another person who wasn't happy with this joyful reminiscing was Ianto Jones, but he had different reasons for being displeased with Jack making googly eyes at the Doctor.
xxx
Sleeping at the Torchwood headquarters was terrible. They didn't really have beds. The Master hated it almost as much as he hated waking up with his hand cuffed to a pipe. It could have been the start of an interesting morning, but with his trousers on and the Doctor nowhere in sight, that was out of the question.
"What is going on?" he yelled out while he pulled at the cuffs. It wasn't long before his angry shouts were answered. Gwen peeked over the top of her computer.
"The government is giving up the children. Jack ran in there to stop them before the Doctor could prevent him," she said. "He said it was best if you couldn't follow."
The Master let out a frustrated sneer. He yanked at the cuffs a few more times before he dug around in his jacket for the laser screwdriver. It cut the cuffs off and he was immediately over Gwen.
"Where did they go?" he demanded. "Tell me."
He caught a glimpse of Gwen's computer screen where a live feed from Thames House was up. He could see the glass cage containing the 456. His hearts sank, and he didn't hang around to watch. He was on his way to the Thames House.
Long before he arrived, Jack and Ianto had already gotten in. Jack was furious that their government had allowed for such a deal and he had gone right up to the 456 and told them the deal was off. The entire building had been sealed and the Doctor barely had time to make it inside. He had a gas mask in his hand, having a good idea of what these aliens would do. He trusted Jack would be fine and had hoped to drag him out before it would even go this far. Then he saw Ianto.
There was so many people inside the house, the Doctor couldn't possibly get them all out in time. He shoved the gas mask into Ianto's hands and approached the tank with the 456.
"Doctor, what's—?"
"Put the mask on," the Doctor snapped. "I address the 456, or whatever your true name is. By the Order of the..."
He coughed. Doubling over, he grabbed for his screwdriver. He pointed it at a window, unlocking the shields that had gone down. He could feel the virus inside him, heard the screams and panic out in the hall. This had been stupid. They had all been stupid.
It wouldn't kill him as quickly as it killed off the humans. Together he and Ianto dragged Jack out of the window and onto the grass outside. Jack would be alright, but it was insufferable to the Doctor, knowing the last thing he'd done was to fail so many people. He buckled and fell over.
When the Master showed up, he was nothing but a blur in the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor reached one hand out, dropped the screwdriver and fumbled until he found the Master's cheek.
"You're alright?"
"Shut up. You cuffed me to the bed!" the Master snarled. He was angry. He was infuriated. He took the Doctor in his arms and held him tight enough to squeeze the remaining life out of him.
"I don't want to die. I don't want to regenerate," the Doctor complained. He held onto the Master in turn. It wasn't fair. He'd die and someone else would take the Master in their arms. Someone who was him, but not really him at all.
The Master didn't know what to say. The Doctor never said things like that. He never protested out loud or showed any sort of dread. He was doing all of that, now. The Master had no way of handling it. He looked to Jack, who was dead and being fussed over by Ianto. Jack would revive and be just the same. Jack was the lucky bastard who never had to die or change.
The light began surging around the Doctor's body. Into and from and around, the golden threads wormed their way around his body. The Master scrabbled away, still sitting on the ground and watching.
The Doctor was fighting the regeneration. While he would never let himself just die permanently, he didn't want to change either. For a moment the Master was worried the regeneration would go wrong, but that's when the explosion of golden light began and the Doctor changed before his eyes.
He'd seen many of the Doctor's incarnations. He knew the man would be different. Still, it was odd to see an entirely new man, hardly filling out the clothes of the already lanky Doctor. The man who had been so afraid of dying was now gone, replaced with what was hardly more than a boy.
The Doctor was high on regeneration energy and jumped to his feet to check out his new features.
"Hands, legs, ears. I've been lucky yet again. Still not ginger, though. Ginger hair keeps eluding me. Now, I really need to get into something more fitting. Master, I have a faint idea that the TARDIS needs our attention so we'll be on our way. Chop chop. No time to sit about."
The Master let the new Doctor's rant go in one ear and out the other. It wasn't before the Doctor collapsed from exhaustion that he felt he ought to do something. Picking himself up, he kneeled down by the Doctor who was laying face-down in the grass.
"He's become a moron. Wonderful," he gritted out.
He heard Jack gasp as he came back to life. Not wanting to hang around for hugs and kisses, the Master grabbed the Doctor by his arms and made to haul him back to the TARDIS. Before they could get there, the Doctor had another surge of energy and was running about down the street for almost a minute before exhaustion took over once more.
When they got to the TARDIS, the Master had the Doctor leaning on one of his shoulders. The TARDIS was smoking and sizzling. Something about the unwanted regeneration had screwed it up. When the doors were opened, they could see that the interior was working on rearranging itself completely.
"Oh, but she's beautiful. Isn't she beautiful? She's a sexy thing and you know it," the Doctor said with a grin while he clung onto the doorframe.
"I liked the old desktop," the Master muttered. "And you forget about the 456."
They had left Jack and Ianto on the lawn to take care of themselves. Not that the Master minded, but he had thought the Doctor would. Except the Doctor gave him a very stern look at this point.
"No," he said.
"No?" The Master looked at him with interest.
"This one time, I am leaving this in Torchwood's hands," the Doctor said. "The government are the ones who handed over the children in the first place. And moronic as that was, Jack will find a way to set things right. I have faith in him. Even more so, I am simply useless right now."
The Master shrugged. "If you say so." He was truly thrilled to just leave the humans to their own fate. Maybe he had some influence on the Doctor, finally. Still, something wasn't right. When he looked at the Doctor, he couldn't really see the Doctor any more.
"Number eleven, is it?" he asked.
"Yes. Nothing wrong with that, I hope," the Doctor said. There was a slightly nervous smile on his lips.
The Doctor shouldn't look nervous like that. It was wrong. It was all wrong in every way. The young face, the cheekbones, the chin and everything. The Master had really grown fond of the tenth Doctor's nose.
"Look, nothing has changed," the Doctor insisted. He could guess what was going through the Master's head. "You have seen me in other bodies. I've seen you in other bodies. Really, I've even seen you as a rotting corpse, a husk—and let me tell you, decay does not look good on you—but you don't hear me complaining."
"It's not the same as if I would regenerate now," the Master pointed out.
The Doctor was getting petulant. "All the time we spent together, we did that together you and me." He gripped harder onto the doorframe of the TARDIS. Biting his lip, he stared at the Master, beckoning him to come inside with him. "What, does that suddenly not count anymore? It's not like you're human. You're used to this. You know who I am, no matter what I look like. You and I will always recognize each other."
"A little boy like you is nothing like the Doctor I knew," the Master scoffed. "You were goddamn awful and old from time to time, but this is ridiculous. Overcompensation, that's what it is."
"You have nothing to say on the matter. You used up one regeneration cycle already. How many times is that? Do remind me, because it sounds something like too many. You should be the last one to lecture people about regenerating. So what if I'm not a frail old man? I might be a little younger, but I am still the Doctor."
The Master huffed. Shaking his head, he made to turn around.
"You're not my Doctor."
The Doctor refused to believe this. The Master hadn't even tried to get used to him. Taking the Master by his shoulders, he held him back. He kissed him with determination, intent on making the man realize that he was the same. He felt everything that his previous regeneration had felt.
When they parted, the Doctor was breathless. The regeneration had left him so weak, and holding the Master back took all his strength. He looked at the Master, almost pleading.
The Master licked his lips, and then he turned on his heel.
"The teeth are all wrong, now."
The Doctor refused to look at the Master walking away from him.
"I could have been dead! Would that have made you any happier?"
Angry, he slammed the door. Then he fell over the TARDIS dashboard in exhaustion. The panel was smoking and emitting sparks, and the kitchen had crashed through a wall and into the tennis court. Not good. Not good at all. He bit down all the hurt and rage that was trying to force its way out of him. He had been betrayed, and he wasn't staying around for the Master to change his mind.
He piloted the TARDIS on his own, and he wouldn't be shouting allons-y ever again if he could help it.
As soon as the TARDIS took off, it was obvious that something was terribly wrong. The thing plummeted through time and space, throwing him around like a ragdoll. He was having a great time, forgetting about the Master and ending up face-down in the pool by the time the TARDIS had crash-landed in someone's backyard. When he had managed to climb all the way up to the door and scrabbled out of the machine, he was on an adrenaline high.
This was good. This was great. Now he just needed to fix the TARDIS and he could be off again. New desktop, new screwdriver, new face. Surely he could forget the Master if he only found something to distract him. Before that, though, he needed food. He was starved. Energy completely burnt up. He was lying on his back and could hardly move an inch, he was simply too tired.
"What are you doing in my garden?"
He looked up to see a little girl with bright red hair. She sounded Scottish.
"Taking a nap?" he suggested. It only made her frown.
"Who are you?" she asked, all the more insistent.
Now, he had to smile, because he knew that she'd be confused at first and then she would believe him completely. None of this rubbish about wrong teeth.
"I'm the Doctor," he told her.
xxx
Amy Pond was a brilliant girl. She was about to get married, and while the Doctor didn't at all approve of her jumping him that one night, he took a silent pride in making her adore him so much. Enough to question her wedding. It was a small comfort that made him forget about the Master at least for a little while, but it came to the point where he had to remind her that she had a fiancé.
Rory Williams joined them, and the Doctor was quite happy to be travelling with the pair. They looked after each other and cared for each other like he could only dream of with the Master. Not that he would ever say that out loud. Amy and Rory reminded him of why he and the Master was a terrible idea to begin with.
There was another concern to preoccupy him, and that was the time rift that kept stalking them like a supernatural phenomenon on legs. He hoped it wasn't the doing of the Master, because that would be too typical. While he didn't doubt they would be fighting each other again, now was too soon.
Paying only the necessary amount of attention to the rift, the three of them were out on their adventures in time and space. The Doctor had exposed Amy to Daleks, Weeping Angels and the general stupidity of colonists, and he didn't go any easier on the pair when Rory joined the crew. They had a run-in with buxom alien fish in Venice, and it only got better from there on.
It went right. They had a good time together, then Amy and Rory went back home and got married. They moved to a nice little village and Amy was about to have a child. They hadn't been destroyed like everyone else who had travelled with him. No, it was almost too idyllic to be true when the Doctor landed in the TARDIS for a visit.
The only thing that really threw him off was Rory's ponytail, but he tried to be polite. They shared stories, laughed together, took a walk in the pleasant weather. Considering how isolated and small the village was, the Doctor was truly surprised when he saw a very familiar figure approaching fast.
The Master ran into him and they hugged each other so tightly. It didn't matter that they'd argued; they were here, together again. The Doctor could barely resist the urge to kiss the Master right before his companions, but he had a mind not to.
"Doctor. I'm sorry, Doctor," the Master said. He held onto the Doctor's jacket and it was all very heartfelt for a moment before they woke up.
On the floor of the TARDIS, the three of them were alone. The Doctor, Amy and Rory. They sat up, and after a bit of confusion they didn't take long in finding out that they'd all had the same dream. It was all very weird.
"So, Doctor," Amy said with her hands on her hips. "Who was that, then?"
"Who?" the Doctor asked. He was good at acting like he had no idea what she was talking about.
"The pretty blond one with the nice legs."
"I don't want to talk about it," the Doctor muttered. "But he has, hasn't he?"
Rory looked at Amy with a small frown.
"What?"
The TARDIS powered down. They were being hurled towards a sun and they had nothing to protect them. Falling asleep again was an irresistible idea. They were sitting on a bench, now. The Doctor had his head rested in the Master's lap. His eyes shot open and he was quick to sit up before Rory and Amy came to.
"You've become shyer than ever," the Master said with a smirk at the Doctor. "I can like that."
The Doctor looked at the other Time Lord. The Master was as sleazy as before. It felt real.
"You decided on coming back, then?" he asked.
The Master shrugged and looked away. "I... It was rash. I could try and get used to your new face."
"It's the only decent thing to do," the Doctor agreed. "But you're not decent."
The Master glared at him.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Amy broke in. "Did we all just fall asleep?"
"Amy, could you take Rory and go back inside? I'll be right with you, I promise, but he and I have something to talk about," the Doctor said.
They were puzzled, but didn't argue. Once it was just the two of them sitting on the bench, the Doctor turned to the Master with an apologetic look on his face.
"I am sorry about all of this. I probably let you down, but I didn't mean to. You know I didn't mean to."
"I know. We are both so stubborn, but after thinking about it, I know there's no going back. You made me better, Doctor. You fixed me," the Master said. "And you'll always make me better. It doesn't matter that you regenerated."
It was exactly what the Doctor needed to hear. He put his arms around the Master's waist and leaned against him.
"I missed you," he said. "Even if it's usually disastrous when you're around. It's a bit like the TARDIS' chameleon circuit. It's broken, but I like it better that way."
The Master laughed. "I missed you, too," he said. He took the Doctor's hand and smiled at him. "Now we can be off in the TARDIS again, and it's going to be like nothing ever happened."
Like nothing ever happened. The Doctor fell asleep to those words, and he woke up with a smile that quickly vanished. There was a man there with them. One who called himself the Dream Lord. They were spinning towards the sun and unless they found out which world was real, they were going to die. When next they woke up in the village, there were old people possessed by aliens everywhere, and they turned people to dust.
Together they were running, the Doctor and the Master, trying to get to Amy and Rory in time. When they got there it was already too late. Amy was sobbing over the little pile of dust that was Rory, and she marched the Doctor outside to a car. The Master was feverishly trying to hold the Doctor back.
"She wants to kill you!" the Master protested.
"I don't want to live in a world without him. This can't be the real world," Amy raged as she pulled at the Doctor's arm. The Master pulled at the other arm, just as insistent.
"He is my Doctor," the Master hissed.
"Stop it, both of you!" the Doctor yelled. They let go. He almost fell over, then dusted his jacket off. He looked to Amy. "This is your choice," he said and sighed. "Amy's choice. This world might be real, be warned."
"I can't take that chance," she said. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she caught sight of the Master's devastated expression and she looked to the Doctor. "You don't have to come with me."
"No, Amy. I do. I really do," the Doctor said. He glanced over at the Master with uncertainty. "I want you as my companion so badly and here you are. It's too good to be true. All of..." He waved in the Master's general direction.
"Does any of that matter so long as we've found each other again?" the Master asked.
The Doctor's eyes softened, and then he got into the car.
"Drive, Pond."
Amy took a quick glance at the Master before she got the car in gear and slammed the gas pedal down. The Doctor caught a glimpse of the Master in the mirror and was quick to close his eyes.
"He wouldn't have said that. He would never have said that," he told himself in a final attempt at assuring himself this was all a dream. Then the car slammed into the side of a building and they died.
When they woke up in the TARDIS, it was just three of them again. The Doctor, Amy and Rory. The Doctor's face fell into a frown, but as soon as the TARDIS powered back up and the Dream Lord congratulated them, he was up on his feet.
"Oh, no. I know who you are now," he said with a sneer at the Dream Lord. "And I know what this TARDIS has that a real TARDIS doesn't."
He hit the self-destruct button. It looked rather like a jammy dodger. They all died.
Waking up for real this time, the three took a moment to pick themselves up. Amy was clinging onto Rory and the Doctor let the two of them have their moment while he thought about the dream. The Master in his dreams was something quite different. Loving. Concerned. Probably boring to spend an eternity with. There was something about self-destruction that never grew old.
"Who was that man?" Amy asked once she was done kissing Rory all over.
"You shouldn't think about that," the Doctor said. When he turned around and faced her, he had a smile on his lips again. "Now. I am thinking of somewhere far away in the distant future. Nothing better to take the edge off a near death experience than encountering alien species with unknown intentions," he said. Before the couple could say anything, he was already running about the control panel and piloting with his usual grace.
xxx
It was long before the Doctor wanted to go anywhere near Earth again. They had been travelling for a couple of months when the TARDIS more or less demanded they return. The Doctor tried very hard to keep her from bringing them down against his will, but she was insistent. This resulted in a violent landing in China. The better part of a cheap motel was reduced to splinters as the TARDIS crashed in.
The Doctor was mildly amused when he stepped out of the TARDIS, despite his unwillingness to go there in the first place. He had mixed feelings when he saw Jack, but he brightened up nevertheless.
"Jack. Here I was worried when I left you on your own," the Doctor said with a laugh. "It worked out with the...?"
Jack's lips twitched as he recalled how the world had been saved, without the help of the Doctor.
"Thank you for saving Ianto," was all he said before he gave the man a hug. Next he was introduced to Amy and Rory.
"And where exactly are we?" the Doctor asked.
"Shanghai. The world needs rescuing again," Jack explained. "Come on in, I think our room might still be intact. Gwen is scouting ahead and Ianto is getting us ready for tonight's operation."
The Doctor sent Jack a sharp look.
"Saving the world," Jack insisted and shepherded them inside before anyone noticed them. "Maybe it's a good time you arrived, Doctor." Jack looked at him over his shoulder. "I've become mortal. The rest of the world... They've become me."
The Doctor was taken aback. "Everyone's immortal?"
"We have discovered something called the Blessing," Jack explained after they had shut the door behind them. "It's what made it all possible, but it needs to be stopped. The government is taking charge over who gets to live or die. They are burning people alive."
"Hello." Ianto greeted them with a wave and a cup of coffee.
The TARDIS appeared to have thrown them right into another Torchwood mess, but the Doctor wasn't walking out on them this time, as much as it held bad memories. After convincing Amy and Rory to stay at the motel, the Doctor was headed towards the Blessing together with Jack, Ianto and Gwen. To the Torchwood team, there was a familiar run-in with Jilly Kitsinger, together with a woman called the Mother. While unfamiliar to the Doctor, he had an idea that they were in trouble when several armed guards had them at gunpoint.
They were shown the Blessing. A massive chasm that the Families had introduced to Jack's blood, and it had made everyone immortal. Only mortal blood would be able to set the effect back to normal. The Mother was ready to have them all killed when someone ordered her to be quiet.
The Doctor's head whipped around at the familiar sound. Down the stairs came the Master, back in his spot free suit and with his hands down his pockets. He looked so casual about the whole thing.
"Fancy seeing you here, Eleven."
"Mr. Saxon, this really isn't any of your business," the Mother said, but the uncertainty in her voice suggested she didn't know whether she actually had the authority to say that.
"My name is the Master," the Master said without taking his eyes off the Doctor. It was very quiet in the room by now.
"I knew we couldn't trust him," Jack muttered to the Doctor. "You trusted him?"
"Of course I trusted him," the Doctor gritted out in return. "Master, are you involved in this?"
"Involved?"
The Master laughed. He wasn't telling the guards to put their guns down. With a smirk, he stepped up to the Doctor, enjoying the sight of them all with their hands over their heads.
"Why, I told them how to use the Blessing, about Jack and what his blood might do."
Rage flickered over the faces of every Torchwood member.
"You're the cause of all this," Gwen screeched. "My dad, you son of a bitch."
"Don't be ridiculous," the Mother said. "It was the Families who organized it all. We found a way of turning it into profit, into control. Mr. Saxon only—"
"My name. Is the Master."
The Master shoved her over the railing. With a scream, she fell. The Blessing didn't seem too interested in taking her in. It was just an endless chasm for her to explore in freefall.
The Doctor stared at the Master, mouth open. The Master turned to him with a sneer.
"When you left, I didn't have anything. The drums were gone, you were gone. I couldn't show myself in public, so I couldn't act out in the open. I found the Families."
"You tried to take over the world again," the Doctor said. "This is getting old. I mean, you could always take over a nice holiday resort with far less effort. A holiday would do you good. When was the last time you went to a beach?"
He was cut short as the Master took hold of his face and forced him to meet his eyes. "You're coming with me," he said. Dragging the Doctor with him towards the lift, he signalled for the men to shoot. The Doctor protested, but the Master had his laser screwdriver pressing into the Doctor's back. As soon as the lift was on its way up, the Master shoved the Doctor up against the wall.
"You. I knew you would come as soon as I started something. Destroying Earth is a sure-fire way of making you pop up."
"You wanted me here?" the Doctor asked. He was more concerned with the people that had been left downstairs. "Master. Don't do this, we can still go back," he pleaded. "Don't let them be killed."
The Master furrowed his brows. "I am telling you I waited for you, and you are more concerned with them? Did you even think about me once?"
"I did," the Doctor assured. "But you're a murderer, and I'll never stand for that no matter how much I..."
"No matter how much you what?" the Master asked through gritted teeth. "Don't you see I did this for you? Out of generosity? You love the filth that crawls around on this planet. Well, I gave them the option of becoming immortal, how about that? They wouldn't have to die. None of your precious human lives would be lost ever again. What they decided on using it for is their own problem."
The Doctor couldn't believe his ears. He was forced out of the lift, which descended down behind them. They were up in the cold night air. Reunion was nothing like what he had wanted, yet everything he should have expected.
"Master. If you wanted to do me a favour, you would leave them alone," the Doctor said. Firm eyes met those of the Master. It turned into a glaring contest. "What you did wasn't generosity or, or good, not in any way. This is just what I can expect from you. Why would you even want me back here?"
The Master was surprised at the Doctor's reaction. It wasn't such a big deal, after all. Just a few humans and a lot of trauma for the World.
"There's a rift in Time," he said bluntly. "And I wasn't worried or anything," he added. "But that's a bad thing. It could be bad for all of us, even me."
"You're trying to save your own neck," the Doctor hissed. He was angry and he didn't want to acknowledge that the Master had been worried about him. It was quiet underground, now. No more shooting. The Doctor was faced with the man he could only dream about, and he tried so hard not to hate him.
The Master was looking him up and down in turn, seeing him in his new clothes for the first time. "I didn't think it was possible for you to get any scrawnier," he commented. "And I miss the tie."
"Hey." The Doctor's voice had a warning tone to it. "Bowties are cool."
The Master didn't look convinced. "Either way, you have to agree that this wasn't my fault."
"The people who died down there are your fault."
Right then, there was a massive explosion while the lift appeared topside once more. Jack, Ianto, Gwen and Kitsinger had all made it to the surface. The Doctor and the Master stared in disbelief. Explosives had been laid out around the Blessing, and it would be buried at this point. The world was returning to normal. Gwen was desperately trying to call her father, Ianto had submitted to Jack's tight embrace, both so relieved.
The Doctor and the Master looked at each other, and the Master shrugged.
"No real harm done."
"It's not just you. What the humans have done to themselves..."
The Doctor looked disgusted. He didn't want to stay. Without even asking, he took the Master by his upper arm and marched him back to the motel and into the TARDIS. Amy and Rory were likely in bed, leaving the two on their own for a little while longer. The Doctor turned on the Master, lecturing.
"You're still dangerous on your own. I'm not giving you a choice this time."
The Master looked around with a slight nod. "I can get used to being back."
There was a moment of silence between them where they refused to meet each other's eyes. It was the Doctor who finally spoke.
"How long was it for you? How long were you stuck here waiting?" he asked.
The Master shrugged, arms crossed over his chest. "A year. But really, what is a year to our kind? And you?"
"Some months. There's a couple travelling with me, and you are going to be nice to them. Amy Pond joined me right after you left." He hope the comment stung. "Then her fiancé, Rory, a while back."
"Fiancé," the Master repeated. He had to laugh at the Doctor. He shook his head. "Is this how you deal with breakups? Screw up other people's marriage?"
"Now hold on just a minute. No one said anything about a breakup," the Doctor reminded him.
"I left you," the Master said, incredulous.
"No one ever said anything about us being... something. Anything. In the first place. You need to actually have something that can be broken up."
The Doctor couldn't meet the Master's eyes. The look he was given was simply intolerable. It made him ashamed and embarrassed.
"Ah. Haha. I shouldn't have said that, should I? I mean, no one said anything, that's all I was saying."
"Congratulations," the Master said coldly. "You have more problems with commitment than I do." He scoffed. "I'm taking my room back if you're keeping me prisoner again."
"I'm not..."
The Doctor trailed off as the Master stomped up the stairs and vanished into the halls of the TARDIS. They were back to old tracks, and the Doctor had to remind himself that they had actually been enemies at one point in order to keep his face straight. The Master could huff and puff all he liked, but it was denial, nothing else.
The Doctor wondered whether he ought to go after him when the Master reappeared. He leaned onto the railing and glared down at the Doctor.
"She moved the room."
"Just a little present from her to welcome you back," the Doctor said. His lips quirked into a smile whether he wanted them to or not. The smile served to piss the Master off even further.
xxx
"Vincent van Gogh. One of the greatest painters that ever lived. You will love this," the Doctor assured. He had spent the morning getting Amy and Rory all riled up about seeing him when the Master walked into the control room. He was in the middle of straightening his tie.
"Painters; drugs and alcoholism. I always liked those," he said. "Your new companions, are they?" He nodded to Amy and Rory with a scornful smirk.
"Oi, Doctor, isn't that the—"
"I still don't want to talk about it, Pond. Thank you," the Doctor said in a pleasant tone to Amy.
"Talk about what?" the Master asked.
"Nothing. Amy, Rory, this is the Master. We picked him up last night and he will be joining us for a bit."
Amy and the Master both looked at the Doctor in a manner that would have made a lesser man's skin crawl. The Master was aghast at the idea of the Doctor picking him up. Amy hadn't for a second thought the Doctor would just invite someone else to join them without saying a word.
"The Master?" Rory asked. "Not like that Dream Lord version of you I hope."
The Master raised his brows at the Doctor.
"Remind me, why are we having this conversation?" the Doctor asked. "I told you we weren't going to have it. Forget about it. Is it just me, or is it getting crowded in here? Treat each other as friends and it will all be fine. Now, Vincent van Gogh everyone?"
The party would have protested, but the TARDIS shook. They landed, and the Doctor was on his way out the door.
"Ah. France, 1890. Not a good time and place to be van Gogh, but this is where we will find him."
"Yes, Eleven. You would take us to a painter who was mad and killed himself," the Master commented. Hands in his pockets, he was strolling down the street after the three others and taking in the environment. It wasn't by far a bad place, but he trusted the Doctor to get them tangled up in something lethal.
"How is he anything like the man we saw in the dream?" Rory muttered to Amy. She already disliked the Master because of the way he acted towards the Doctor.
"Don't know. The Doctor made him seem like such a sweet guy," she said with a sharp look at the Doctor's back.
"He what? What have you been telling them?" the Master asked. He caught up with the Doctor and glared up at him.
"It's a long story," the Doctor said, clearing his throat. "You see, I created this dream world. Unintentionally of course. We were trapped, and you were there. You were wonderfully sane and not as aggressive by far. They got the wrong first impression, very wrong, should have warned them."
The Master narrowed his eyes at him. "That explains so much."
"What? It doesn't explain anything. What would it explain?" the Doctor asked.
"You still think I am insane. After all we've been through, you're still set on changing me. You still want the Architect, don't you?" he scowled.
"You are still angry from last night. You don't know what you're saying," the Doctor assured him.
The Master's teeth were making a horrible noise as they grinded together. Oh yes, he was angry. He didn't even know why. This new Doctor was just wrong.
"What's all that about, then?" Rory asked.
"Shut up. I wasn't talking to you," the Master spat. He broke out from their group before anyone could stop him. The Doctor called out for him, but he was gone once again. Probably for a run around the block. The Doctor didn't think he would be off for good.
"So what was that?" Amy repeated the question to the Doctor, who looked mildly embarrassed.
"Don't worry about him, he's insane," the Doctor told her.
"Then why do you try to keep him around?" she insisted.
Turning to face her, the Doctor had one of his sterner looks in place. "Him and I are the last of our kind. He needs help. That's all there is to it." He was still smiling, but his eyes were telling her not to ask about it again. Amy and Rory could guess that there was far more to it than the Doctor wanted to admit even to himself.
Down a parallel street, the Master sauntered down on his own. He had hoped that, in time, the Doctor would convince him that he was still the same. Something would surface eventually, if he just waited. However, now he could see how the Doctor had made himself at home with new companions and a new face. It was a new life entirely.
Kicking at the ground, he hated himself for missing his Doctor. It was about the same time that he ran into Vincent van Gogh, and a giant, invisible alien causing all sorts of trouble. This led them to a fetch quest for the Doctor all over the city, and together the Time Lords were capable of identifying the beast. It meant setting their differences aside for a moment and for the Master to work alongside Amy and Rory. Somehow it was accomplished, and the Doctor was worried over how the Master appeared to be connecting with Vincent.
With only Vincent capable of seeing the alien, the five split up and searched. Namely, the Doctor insisted that everyone else stayed behind while he went to the TARDIS to retrieve a particular instrument that would help him see it.
The Master had all sorts of objections to being stuck in Vincent's house with the three others. He was sitting in a chair by the window and pointedly glaring at the world outside. It went on for quite a while until Amy, with her hands crossed over her chest, pointedly sat down next to him.
"The Doctor is lying about you, I know it. What happened between you two?"
The Master tilted his head up with a frown. "He changed. And then he got you to look after him, that's what happened."
"Changed how?" Amy asked. She was able to ignore the insults for now, but it wasn't going unnoticed. "He didn't use to be like you, I hope."
"Do you know what you are, Pond?" the Master asked without any intentions of answering her question. "You're not his companion. You're just a toy, and he always, always breaks his toys."
"So that's what this whole display is about. You're jealous," she said. Deadpan, annoyed, and just a little triumphant to see the Master get even further annoyed. "What are you to him, then? Did he break you already?"
He could pull his screwdriver out and burn her to nothing. It would be instant, entertaining, put an end to the constant nagging. It would also be overstepping the line and pissing the Doctor off something immensely. Realizing that he was actually staying within a line just made him angrier. He shouldn't have a line at all.
Without a word to Amy, he got up and marched over to Vincent, taking him by the upper arm.
"You and I are getting drunk now," he informed the painter.
xxx
It was, all in all, an interesting day. The Master and Vincent spent most of it at a tavern, drinking and complaining. The two had a great time, until the invisible alien crashed in followed by the Doctor who had a strange contraption strapped to his chest. Lacking better judgement, the Master and Vincent tailed on and pursued the Doctor to a church, where they ended the poor alien creature.
After taking their farewells with Vincent, the Doctor let Amy and Rory back into the TARDIS but took the Master aside.
"You had to go and get yourself drunk, didn't you?" the Doctor asked with a sigh. He straightened the Master's tie and smoothed his hair back. The Master swayed lightly. "Catching Aliens Under Influence is a bad idea and I never want to see it again, is that clear?"
"You're fussing over me," the Master said. It wasn't so much of a complaint this time as it was a statement.
"You are drunk," the Doctor reminded. He put an arm around the Master's waist and steered him down a quiet street. There was a path at the outskirt of the city where there would be no curious onlookers to disturb them.
"We were drunk the first time we had sex. The Doctor and I," the Master said. He held onto the Doctor's arm, half leaning on him.
"I remember. I was there," the Doctor assured him.
"You're Eleven. That's all you ever will be. Where are we going?" the Master asked.
The Doctor was frustrated, but tried not to show it. "Nowhere. I wanted to talk, and the TARDIS is rather full at the moment."
"It's bigger on the inside, if you remember."
"Maybe I wanted a 'nowhere' with a starry sky over it."
The Master sent him a pointed look. "Is this an attempt at reconnecting?" he asked.
"Possibly," the Doctor said, lips curling in dismay. "It's not going very well, is it?"
The Master took the Doctor by the front of his shirt and pulled him close.
"Look," he said through gritted teeth. "You did things to me. Made me care what you think. Then you went and became someone else. You prance around with your bowtie and screwdriver like you know what you're doing and I don't like it. It's not what it used to be."
"Maybe it's not what it used to be because you're being an impossible child?" the Doctor asked. His patience was running thin. "The least you could do is call me by my name rather than a number. And I told you about the bowtie; it's cool."
The Master took hold of the Doctor's suspenders and yanked him closer still. He hissed against the Doctor's ear. "The suspenders I can get behind, but this 'date' thing you're trying is rubbish. Completely, utterly non-Doctorly and domestic."
He let go. The suspenders smacked back in place and the Doctor yelped. By now, the Doctor was getting thoroughly angry with the Master, and he didn't even try to stop him from heading back to the TARDIS.
xxx
The Doctor was good at pretending that everything was fine. The Master did a good job ignoring the Doctor in general, and that made the following travels bearable. Amy and Rory functioned as a sort of shield between them; they never had to talk to each other or debate why they weren't just going their separate ways.
It all worked quite well, in hindsight, even if it forced the Master to get to know Amy and Rory. While Rory ended up the constant focus of the Master's teasing, he never went as far as to piss of Amy and in turn the Doctor.
"You're alright, Pond."
The Master made sure neither the Doctor or Rory were in the vicinity when he said this rather out-of-the-blue. They had been separated by a tunnel collapse while venturing through a silverite mine in a distant world.
"That's worth something, coming from you," Amy replied. She actually didn't know whether to be sarcastic or not.
"Hey, you know I think you filthy monkeys are scum, but for a human, you're not bad."
"Thanks. I guess." The Doctor had made her promise to be wary of the Master no matter what he told her, and especially if he told her something nice. "If I'm 'alright', tell me how you and the Doctor met, then."
"I like the Scottish accent but I am not your best friend," the Master told her with a snort.
Amy inclined her head and gave him that no-nonsense look he had come to despise. It made him cringe.
"We used to be enemies. Then we weren't, but we were. Now we're enemies again."
"You're starting to sound like him," she said with a laugh. Upon seeing the Master's expression, she wished she hadn't. "Really, though. He's mad at you, even Rory can tell."
Defining the situation hadn't been the Master's first priority. He'd been more concerned with the huffiness and the anger part of the situation, because it was something he knew how to deal with and act according to. "He likes the person I could be, and I liked who he was. Not without hating him, mind you. I always have and I always will, but it's a sort of..."
"Love stroke hate thing?" Amy suggested. The Time Lords thought they were good at hiding things, but they were only hiding from each other. To the people around, they were very transparent.
"If you as much as mention that word about us ever again, I am going to take my screwdriver and—"
"Everything alright with you two?"
The Doctor, dusty and as cheerful as ever, had dug through the debris with the help of Rory. Striding over the debris, he adjusted his bowtie. The Master thought he looked like the biggest dork in the entire universe, but Amy was thrilled at being rescued and ran right into Rory's arms.
The Master so disliked how she put words to things he'd been happy to stay in denial about. He honestly liked Rory better. At least he was a source of entertainment when the two of them got stuck in a death trap together on Darillium after a tour of the Singing Towers went horribly wrong. The Master might have had something to do with the aggression that the natives were now showing towards them.
"This is his fault," the Master scoffed. "If he'd only allowed me to infiltrate the world's government instead of raising awareness, we would be just fine." Arms folded over his chest, he was looking up the four meters of wall surrounding them. They were spiky and steadily coming closer. Rory was running around in hopes of finding a way to climb out of the pit.
"Are you even capable of shutting up?" Rory asked. The Master was leaving the panicking to him. "We're going to be stabbed and crushed to death. Knowing whose fault it is doesn't make it better."
"It's never too late to blame someone else," the Master assured. "And dying isn't so bad after you have tried it a few times. You need to see the advantages of it; Pond might finally find someone to satisfy her sexually."
Rory's red face and ears was enough of a delight to last a lifetime. With the trap closing in on them, the Master still found more than enough time to lean in close and whisper some very intimate relationship advice in Rory's ear, just to watch him squirm and get angry. He almost shoved the Master into the spikes by the time the Doctor and Amy showed up to rescue them.
"I know what you were trying to do, taking us to the Singing Towers," the Master told the Doctor while Rory stormed ahead towards the TARDIS and Amy ran after him.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," the Doctor lied outright. "I am only showing the humans a good time. Don't you see how romantic it is, how they keep rescuing each other? Things like that build relationships. Make people trust each other. You're not bad at getting into trouble yourself."
The Doctor was making it all too obvious what he really wanted, and the Master narrowed his eyes at him.
"I don't need you to rescue me. I don't want you to rescue me. I rather die than have people know you're running around rescuing me. This wasn't a heroic rescue and it definitely wasn't a date."
The Doctor let the harsh words slide in an instant if only to annoy the Master further.
"Still, we had a good time, didn't we?" he said with a grin.
"You keep getting in my way," the Master accused. He was determined to remain sulky, though he was starting to realize that this approach might actually not bring his Doctor back. Still, he wanted to keep blaming this incarnation for the death of the real Doctor. "You just had to save him, didn't you?" the Master spat. "You died to save that pathetic, unimportant monkey."
"A lot of people died," the Doctor replied. His manner went stiff and cold faster than the Master could avert his eyes. "I saved the one life I could. Ianto was no less important than any of us."
"You were more important," the Master burst out.
The two stopped in their tracks and went quiet. Amy and Rory were already back inside the TARDIS and people were probably chasing after them still. They were always running. This was one conversation the Doctor didn't want to run away from.
"I wouldn't have cared if you regenerated," he said. "It wouldn't have made a difference."
"That's because you're fine with anything so long as it doesn't die or leave you," the Master growled. By now, he was starting to see that the Doctor was in the right and that only made him all the more upset. He missed the Doctor, damn it. He just couldn't acknowledge that the man in front of him, this boy, this dork in a bowtie, was it.
"I won't wait for you forever," the Doctor warned him. For a moment there, perhaps there was a flicker of the Doctor that the Master knew so well. Dangerous, threatening and taking all control away from the Master. The Master didn't know what to make of it, and he followed the Doctor back into the TARDIS without a word.
xxx
"You can't mean this." The Master looked at the Doctor with utter disapproval. "Not only are we stuck on this bloody planet, but we have to share a room?"
With the TARDIS trapped in a time loop preventing Amy and Rory from landing, the Doctor and the Master were simply forced to find a place to stay until it could all be sorted out. A note in Amy's handwriting had told them where they needed to go to find an apartment and the Doctor had let the Master sabotage a cash machine for their benefit. Stealing and wrecking helped calm him down.
What didn't sit well with the Master was sharing a single room in a tiny house together with humans. He despised it the second he crossed the doorstep.
"Oh, this isn't bad," the Doctor said. He was swinging back and forth on his heels, seeming all too delighted as he took in the curiously normal surroundings.
"Remind me why we are renting together when I literally can't stand your face," the Master sighed.
"Shush. They will think we are more normal if we act like a couple. Convinces them into thinking that you're not too crazy to have company," the Doctor explained. "Isn't that why you got a wife when you ran for Prime Minister?"
"Free sex," the Master said with a shrug.
"Too bad you got the gender wrong then, hm?" the Doctor said with a bright smile.
"Shut up," the Master hissed. "I am stuck in Cardiff, of all places, with you. If you want to act like we are a couple, then we're currently going through a rough patch. You're sleeping on the floor."
"At least my new back will handle it better."
Disgustingly happy, the Master thought. And the bloke who was renting out the room didn't exactly help matters. Craig was useless, fumbling and completely blinded by the woman he loved. Typical, hopeless human. The Master was forced to get to know him better the next morning. He'd promised the Doctor not to maim anyone, and so he kept his attention on breakfast and forced out some simple replies that might qualify as small talk.
"You've been together long, then? Not to be nosy or anything. I don't mind, of course," Craig said between shovelling down breakfast. He was going over to Sophie's. "First time I've had a couple like you staying, though. Don't want to say anything wrong."
The Master was getting more displeased by the second and his lips twitched as he tried to keep himself from sneering.
"Oh, the Doctor and I go way back. Very recently got involved, though." This was bullshit. Craig's awkward conversation made his skin crawl, and he swore it wasn't because it made him think about this... This thing with the Doctor. "I used to have a wife, you know."
"Really? You're one of those, are you? Found out you had other interests?" he asked. Craig was obviously just trying to be polite and be out the door as soon as possible. The Master scoffed, eyes set on the frying pan.
"Early onset of mid-life crisis, if you will. Everything was just peachy until he showed up."
"Sounds like a nasty affair, that," Craig said. He was getting his coat on and was on his way out the door.
"It was," the Master said through gritted teeth. "I died once. That's what happens with him around."
Craig was just about to ask what he meant by that when the Doctor peeked his head into the kitchen, sniffing the air.
"Your recent evil plot smells rather good," he informed.
"I'll be on my way then," Craig excused himself. The two men were the weirdest he had ever seen, but it might be offensive to comment.
"I'm cooking," the Master said without looking away from what he was doing. The Doctor made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end.
A bit more cautious this time, the Doctor sniffed the air again. His brows furrowed.
"You cook? You cook?" he asked, leaning over the Master's shoulder to have a look. "And it's not poisoned or anything; you're making actual, edible food?"
"Yes, and if you breathe a word of it to the two tarts stuck in the TARDIS, I'm serving up your testicles next," the Master warned him. He scooped bacon and eggs onto a plate and pushed it into the Doctor's hands. "Sit," he ordered.
The Doctor took a seat and poked at his food with the fork as if he was expecting it to bite him.
"If I didn't see Craig leave just now, I would have been worried about just what you made this with. Don't think I have forgotten about the people you killed after the last time you were resurrected."
The Master sat down across the table from him with a deadpan expression. "Eat your breakfast."
After somewhat of a staring contest, the Doctor gave in and had a try. He was pleasantly surprised, and soon he was scoffing down. It was perhaps not fish fingers and custard, but the Master had hidden talents. Maybe there was a shrivel of creative spark left in him that wasn't used up for evil.
"Thank you. I hope you make it a habit of cooking me breakfast," the Doctor said with a smirk.
"Feeding into your fantasies, that's all," the Master replied sweetly. He wasn't looking at the Doctor. He made a point of keeping all concentration fixed on his tea. There was a British flag printed on the cup. Quaint. Disgustingly quaint. The same could be said for having breakfast with the Doctor and sharing a room with him.
He spent a while lost in his own thoughts. After so long, his head still felt disturbingly empty without the constant rhythm there to remind him of who he was. The Doctor had changed him, then left him. He couldn't possibly have been any crueller.
"You could like me. If you tried."
The silence was broken and the Master looked up to see that the Doctor had been watching him all this time.
"What, and let you win?" he asked.
"There's no winning." The Doctor raised a brow at him. "What are you going to do? Wait until I turn back, is that what you're doing? It's impossible. It can't happen and this is who I am now. I'll regenerate again someday. One day I'll have to deal with you regenerating."
"You're not the Doctor."
"And yet..." The Doctor leaned across the table, that infuriating smile of his so sly and persistent. "I am. We travelled in the TARDIS together for ages. We fought against and alongside each other for centuries. No matter how many times you backstab me, I keep coming back. I still do. How am I not the Doctor in that respective?"
"You're an idiot. There's a difference."
The Doctor took hold of his chin, preventing him from looking away. He couldn't escape the truth and he hated every second of it. The Doctor's voice was soft, and there really was something sensual about Eleven that set the Master's teeth on edge.
"I still know exactly what you like in bed. Keep that in mind," he murmured.
The Master was about to ask how a twig such as this man was going to keep up with him. He stopped himself when he realized that he really wanted to find out. It was perhaps not a bad thing to at least exploit the Doctor's desires for a chance to break him down into the sheets and take back control.
He was about to pursue the matter further when the Doctor grabbed the dishes and got up.
"I was invited to play football today with some of Craig's mates," he said.
Feeling snubbed, the Master decided to be difficult again. "And why are you telling me this?" he asked.
"Because maybe you would want to come along, like a normal person might have wanted," the Doctor replied. The Master swore he could detect a faint tease in his voice, but he had to laugh, loud and sharp, and then he grinned at the Doctor.
"No."
He might actually have had fun playing him, but no way was he going to make himself be fun to have around.
"I will be wearing football shorts."
"When are we leaving?"
The Doctor raised his brows. "Seriously?"
The Master thought it over once more. "No," he said. "And you're doing the dishes."
"We might as well be married already," the Doctor called after him as he made his way out of the kitchen.
The Master had the faint feeling that the Doctor was playing games with him, and he didn't like it in the least. It was time to reap what benefit he could get from the Doctor's horribly misdirected affections towards him.
xxx
The Doctor looked all too triumphant when he came back from the football match. Apparently he had turned out to be rather good at the game and everyone but Craig liked him for it. Craig was jealous, and the Master had to suppress a smirk. It was cute how the Doctor didn't notice that he was ruining the man's life.
The Doctor was going for a shower when the Master got between him and the door, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him into the bathroom. The door was locked behind them.
"I decided to take you up on that offer before," the Master said.
"Offer?"
The Doctor's mind had been elsewhere completely.
"Socks off," the Master ordered while he threw his shirt, trousers and pants off. Once the Doctor was barefoot, the Master pushed him into the shower. He wasn't giving him time to undress. On the contrary, his hands were on the Doctor's thighs, fingers slipping up the shorts. The Doctor in shorts was something he could literally get behind.
"Oh. So that's what..." The Doctor furrowed his brows. "You want to do it here? In here? In the shower?"
"What, regenerating made you squeamish?"
"No, but I was hoping you would at least let me get undressed," he said, but didn't get to finish the sentence before the Master had turned on the water. Shirt and shorts were soaked through, half transparent and sticking to the Doctor's skin.
"One good thing about regeneration; I get a completely new body to explore," the Master said. His lips were pressed to the Doctor's neck and the words were muffled, but he got the point across. His hands were kneading the Doctor's ass through wet fabric and he pressed himself flush up against him.
The Doctor struggled to get the wet shirt off and ended up getting it caught around his head. He let out a squeak as the Master bit down on one of his nipples and yanked at his shorts. He was trapped and soaking wet, and the Master didn't hesitate to abuse his body.
Forced against the shower wall, the Doctor was near choking in wet fabric as the Master pulled his legs up. He was trapped between the wall and the Master, locking his legs around the Master's waist and clinging on. He made a frustrated noise as the Master shoved two fingers into him.
"Lost control, did you? Not a happy man at all when you don't get your way," the Master hissed. He didn't care much to be careful with the Doctor, even less than the first time they had sex. This wasn't the body he'd shared so many good times with before.
The Doctor was able to free himself of the shirt and gasped for air. Hair flat against his face and already short of breath, he could only grab onto the Master's shoulders when the fingers left.
"I bet you haven't even tried this body out, yet."
The Master was all too pleased, because despite the Doctor's noises of protest, he wasn't being pushed away. The Doctor missed this just as much as he did, if not more. He pressed the Doctor's knees up and let him sink down onto his erection, slowly impaling him.
There was a pained noise from the Doctor and his nails scraped against the Master's back.
"Ow." The grimace on his face made it clear that he wasn't handling it well, nor was he pleased with the less than graceful treatment. Wet shorts and pants caught around his thighs while getting taken up against the wall was not entirely ideal.
The Doctor had to wonder why he had missed this at all. Unless he was the one taking charge and forcing the Master to be compliable, he would always be treated rough to a point where it almost wasn't enjoyable. Still he kept coming back for more and he let the Master turn him around and take him as he wished.
It was a good thing Craig was still out with Sophie, because when the water ran cold, they made their way back to their room, leaving a trail of water on the floor, all the way to where they had fallen over together in bed.
The sheets stuck to their damp skin while they furiously made out, and the Master had taken hold of the Doctor's hips and was trying to get him underneath again. He wanted the Doctor on his hands and knees while he took him hard from behind, but the Doctor had by now had enough of his heartless fucking.
The Doctor wouldn't let him, and instead held the Master down with him on the bed as he sheathed himself onto him again. In each other's arms, finally with no clothes between them, it was more like he preferred it. When the Master protested, the Doctor rolled over and got on top. His movements were slow and firm to the point of caring, and that didn't sit well with the Master.
He hated it when the Doctor was tender with him. Tender sex felt like it actually mattered. The Doctor's kisses and touches, the way he moved against the Master's body and let their limbs grind against each other, it bordered on passionate.
The Master did his best to hide how much he really enjoyed it. He found that this new body wasn't bad at all. Smooth and slim, and so desperate to please him. They came together in such a nice way, and he didn't care if he breathlessly slumped against the Doctor's chest after they rolled over and succumbed to each other's embrace. He was pleased to know the Doctor would be sore in the morning.
"I missed your cuddling," the Doctor murmured once he had caught his breath. He was sticky and still damp, but somehow it didn't make him any less cheeky.
"I don't cuddle," the Master protested. "If you say that again, I am going to fuck you with your screwdriver."
The Doctor just laughed and pulled the Master a little closer. Nose scrunched up, the Master pressed his cheek to the Doctor's chest.
"Your previous screwdriver made a better toy, anyway," he muttered, then he closed his eyes.
"But think of how interesting the new one must feel," the Doctor said with eyebrows cocked suggestively.
"Oh, go to sleep."
When the Doctor went quiet, he could hear it. The heartbeats, rushing against his ear. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. It almost scared him, hearing the rhythm again like this. Except it wasn't tangible in the same way as it had been inside his head. It was natural and good; soothing where the drums in his mind had been maddening.
All things considered, it could only be him and the Doctor. Not only were they the last two of their kind, but there was so much history between them. The Master was almost a little disgusted to realize that if one person put up with him, it was the one currently next to him in bed. No one had ever forgiven him as much.
There was no chance the Master would ever think of anyone like he thought of the Doctor. It made him feel so helpless, and that just annoyed him. He wanted to deny all of it.
The days ticked by and life was exceedingly domestic and boring. It was also ridiculous how the Doctor was utterly oblivious to what was going on with the people around him and the Master was considered to be the insane one. The Doctor clearly had some issues of his own. Craig and Sophie were locked in a platonic relationship that just needed a shove in the right direction. The Doctor didn't see it while the Master took enjoyment in watching them waste their lives.
All in all, the Doctor was the one rousing suspicion about their real identity, in the Master's opinion. He'd always been better at fitting in and manipulating those around him, while the Doctor was a disaster waiting to happen in a normal, everyday life situation.
Of course, the Doctor had to discover that there was an alien living on the floor above them, and after a lot of hassle they were able to expel the thing, saving Sophie's life in the process and getting her together with Craig. The Master was glad that this allowed the TARDIS to land and for them to finally leave. At least when he was Prime Minister, he'd had a somewhat entertaining life on Earth.
Now the Doctor was letting the Master have all the sex he wanted, and that was the only good thing that had come of this detour. A nagging voice in the back of his head told him that the Doctor would allow himself to be used if only to please him. The Master didn't mind. He chose to ignore anything that made the eleventh incarnation seem more like his Doctor.
xxx
The crack was following them. No matter where or when they went, if they only looked close enough, they could notice it. The Doctor and the Master hadn't mentioned it to Amy and Rory. The Master said he was just waiting for one of them to get taken by it, but the Doctor could tell that even he was a little nervous.
No matter what way they looked at it, a crack in Time was not beneficial for anyone.
"Not even a creature of pure consciousness would be able to escape if that thing swallows the world," the Doctor thought out loud. He grabbed for the cup of tea that the Master had made him, but it was held out of reach.
"When are you ever letting that go?" the Master asked with a frown. He set the cup down on the table after another moment of terrorizing the Doctor, then he took himself a seat.
"I can't help but wonder if you'd still choose that."
The Master hated the way the Doctor looked at him, saw right through him.
"To get away from your nagging? Yes. Incorporeal sex must have its advantages," the Master pondered. He wasn't giving the Doctor a serious answer if he could help it. He blew on his tea while the Doctor regarded him.
"Now see, I let Amy and Rory be off on their own this time so you and I could have a little talk," the Doctor said after a moment.
"That's not like you at all. Usually you are the first one out the door of the TARDIS and the last one to want to talk about anything. Unless by 'talk' you mean 'sex'."
"No, to be honest, it's Amy. I have been suspecting it for some time and I was wondering if you had noticed, too."
The Master said nothing. He had noticed there was something off, yes. The Doctor had likely noticed better than him. He took a sip of his tea before he spoke.
"Are you confiding your worries in me, Eleven?"
"Doctor. Are we still not past that?"
"I just love to see you get worked up," the Master said with a smirk. He was set on being impossible. "As for Amy, if you're thinking about—"
There was a sudden shift in the gravity. Everything in the room began to slowly float towards the ceiling.
"Not again," the Master groaned in dismay as he was lifted up from his seat.
"Don't tell me she's been making a habit of this?" the Doctor asked. He was quick to give his teacup a shove in the opposing direction so it wouldn't get all over them. This change of gravity did horrible things to his hair.
"I've been sleeping in the ceiling ever since I got back."
They tried to take hold of something and stay down, but nothing was within reach. Table and chairs were aloft, bumping into them before going on their own merry trajectories.
"And you didn't have a mind to say something?"
"I don't need you to sweet-talk her on my behalf," the Master spat. "Besides, it's comfortable once you get used to it."
"We need to get back to the control room. Ouf."
They bumped into each other as they hit the ceiling. The gravity was low, but kept them from getting back down to the floor. They exchanged looks where they hovered right under the ceiling.
"This is starting to get on my nerves," the Master remarked.
"Maybe if you were nicer to her, she wouldn't do this."
"I'm nice to her!" the Master insisted.
"You cannibalized her and turned her into a paradox machine," the Doctor reminded him with a harsh look. "And you smashed a chair into her dashboard for no reason."
"I did a number of other things on that dashboard too, and you were involved."
"See? You need to leave my sexy thing alone. You may have tried to take over Earth, and succeeded on several occasions, but if there's one thing I can't forgive it's that you cannibalized her."
The Master's eyes narrowed. The Doctor was about to push himself away from the ceiling and make an attempt for the door, but the Master wrapped an arm around his waist and held him back.
"I'll show you who your sexy thing is."
The Doctor couldn't help a smirk and turned back to look at the Master. "Oh, you are sweet when you are jealous."
It was interesting, doing it in the ceiling. Their clothes floated in midair and drifted away as they got themselves into one heated tangle of limbs. Of course the TARDIS turned the gravity back to normal while they were in the middle of it, sending them right back into the floor. It wasn't comfortable by far, and the place looked a mess when Amy and Rory returned. They'd barely had time to pull their clothes back on.
"I think they're getting suspicious of what we're up to," the Doctor muttered to the Master, who just rolled his eyes. The Doctor could be so blind.
Nevertheless, it was time to get on the move again. It had almost been nice to be stuck in a suburb together if only because there was little to do but lie around and have sex all day. That was the Master's ideal holiday, but Amy had insisted they go to America.
She had all of time and space to choose from, and she wanted to see the 21st century's California. She might as well have contacted a travel agency and left the real time travellers alone with the TARDIS. Needless to say, the Master was not in a charming mood when they appeared in the middle of Los Angeles. Even less so when he found out that they were going sightseeing and shopping.
"Oh, come on, it's wonderfully quaint, isn't it?" the Doctor said. He was walking with one arm around the Master's shoulders. "I thought you missed it. What do you think, Amy? Ever remember him being as sulky as when we left the suburbs? These aren't suburbs, but you know, normal human life and all that. It grows on you."
Amy tried not to laugh at the Master's expression.
"He really was sulky," Rory agreed.
"He's always sulky. Never mind him, come on you lot, chop chop. If we're lucky, there won't be anything trying to destroy the world today, and we can have some nice and quiet."
"When did you start liking nice and quiet?" the Master asked.
He learned too late that by nice and quiet, the Doctor meant running around all over the city and letting Amy shop and do whatever she liked while their feet grew steadily sorer. The woman had a gear reserved for shopping, and the Master didn't think even a Time Lord had the lifespan and patience required to keep up with it.
"Another thing I loved about being Prime Minister," the Master sighed as they, hours later, passed out inside a café. "I could pay people to take my wife shopping."
They ordered coffee. The Master couldn't believe that the Doctor and Amy weren't fatigued in the least, but he supposed women simply had a way with the big cities. He preferred London. There were less humans and more other things in London; other things that wanted to destroy and conquer pretty much once a Christmas. Those were things after his own hearts.
The Doctor wasn't allowed any coffee, as he had more than enough energy simply from being down on Earth and taking in all the little details of the place. Now he had spotted a television on the far wall. The news was on and something had caught his attention. He was up from his seat and prodding at the television with his screwdriver to get the volume up.
"...insists that the deaths were caused by some alien life form. The government has employed the Lightman Group, the world's leading experts on lie detection, to determine whether there is any truth in his statement. America may be facing its first alien encounter."
"They're jealous that the Brits are getting all the action," the Master commented. Though he would, in all honesty, be a little annoyed if someone other than him took over this world. He'd put quite a lot of hours into this place.
"Does this mean what I think it means?" Amy asked as the Doctor returned to their table.
"Definitely. Holiday is over, everyone," the Doctor said and he clapped his hands together with a bright smile. "This Lightman Group sounds fascinating and we should drop in for a visit. Shouldn't be hard to find the place."
"At least let me finish my goddamn coffee," the Master hissed. The Doctor had already run off, though, and Amy and Rory were at his heels. The Master didn't make a move to follow and instead made a point of drinking up before moving a muscle.
xxx
The Doctor was far too excitable to worry about leaving the Master on his own for a while. He didn't take long to find the Lightman Group's headquarters, a big building where he strolled in casually ahead of Amy and Rory. The TARDIS was parked outside, just so the Master would be forced to come looking for them.
The way that the Lightman Group's logo was on every wall gave him some creepy associations to Torchwood. He hoped they didn't have a Lightman van with blinking lights and no subtlety whatsoever.
In his office was Cal Lightman, head of the Lightman Group and not one who was easily surprised. Of course, there had been countless alien sightings in London the past few years, but nothing substantial. The case file on his hands was making him raise his brows. There had been a car crash, and a lot of people were reported dead. Everyone in the vicinity of the car, actually, and not because of the collision. It had yet to be determined what had made them all drop dead, but one eyewitness who had seen the driver, whose head had been smashed open, had reported tentacles. Tentacles coming out of a person's head. Minutes later the body had gone missing.
All this was puzzling, and his colleague Gillian was talking to the witness now while Cal was leafing through reports of the various sightings in London. He'd already determined that the witness wasn't lying, but Gillian was less open-minded about the entire alien idea. He was keeping one eye on a live feed of the interrogation when something else caught his eye. Someone out in the hallway, someone who was so out of place in every way, it almost made him topple his chair when he hurried to put his feet down from his desk.
He leaned out of the doorway to his office and stared.
"Oi!"
The Doctor was looking at the photographs of various facial expressions plastered all over the wall. He was deeply concentrated about mimicking them when Cal called out, and he turned to face him with a smile. Amy and Rory were right behind him, but it was the Doctor that Cal had his eyes on.
"You. Who invited you in here?" he asked.
"Oh, an English accent. Lovely. Love those," the Doctor said. "One reason why I always go to England. Trying to keep my own in tip top shape," he informed Amy and Rory. The two were amazed by the fact that Cal was even capable of walking, what with his posture being most reminiscent of a question mark. He was a short man who could be intimidating or charming to his own desire. The Doctor offered his hand. "And who might you be?"
Cal regarded him, utterly put off by the Doctor's mannerism, but he took his hand and shook it.
"Dr. Cal Lightman. I run this place. And you are?"
"The Doctor," the Doctor presented himself. "Just the Doctor."
"Right you are. Why don't you tell me your real name?" Cal asked.
"I told you, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said. "Sometimes I go by John Smith, but really, to friends it's the Doctor." He shook Cal's hand vigorously before he let go and returned to look around like an excitable child.
"Amy Pond," Amy introduced herself. "And this is Rory Williams."
"Yes, hi. Now why is he dragging you in here? You don't seem like you have any clue what he's doing, so what are you up to?" Cal asked. His eyes were set on the Doctor, who was peeking into one of the security cameras and prodding it with his screwdriver.
"Just very interested in the Lightman Group and what you have going on here," the Doctor said. "We're tourists, so to speak. Just silly tourists wandering about where we shouldn't be."
"It's about the alien, isn't it?" Cal asked. "Though that last part's definitely true."
The Doctor turned to him with a smile. "Speaking as one doctor to another, it's all very exciting, isn't it?"
"What sort of a doctor are you, then?" Cal asked. There was work to be done, but this man had caught him completely off guard. Everything about him screamed of interesting.
"A doctor of everything," the Doctor said before he wandered off down the hall.
The Doctor was either a very good liar, or he really was a doctor of everything. Either way, Cal was impressed. He turned to Amy and Rory.
"Just who is he?" Cal asked.
"He's the Doctor," Amy said with a shrug.
"Yes, but where's he from?" Cal pressed.
"No idea," Rory answered, helpful as ever.
Cal was getting frustrated. "What about you two, then? That's a Scottish accent you have there. Amy, was it?"
"Yeah, but I was brought up in England. That's where we're from."
Cal gave them both a long, hard stare. "But that's not where you arrived from, is it?"
Amy and Rory exchanged looks.
"I was right about that then. So this alien. Any reason why that Doctor should be interested in it?" Cal asked. He shepherded Amy and Rory into his office while he talked.
"Who said it was an alien?" Amy asked. "No one said it was an alien. That bloke on the telly was probably just bonkers."
Cal resumed his seat and put his feet up on the desk.
"Now, see, we at the Lightman Group are deception experts. Lying to us doesn't really work," he told them and gestured for them to take a seat. "You're deflecting, and you have no confidence in what you're saying. Your nervous fidgeting is a dead giveaway, and the way you just raised your eyebrows tells me you know the truth. I'll ask again; why are you lot so interested in the alien?"
While Amy and Rory gave each other looks and decided on what to say next, Cal brought up the live feed of the interrogation room. He had a feeling he'd be seeing the Doctor interrupt Gillian at any time.
"Well," Amy began.
"We're looking for aliens. That's why we're here in America, we're just huge... alien fans," Rory said.
"Still not true," Cal said without even looking at them. "You two might be tourists, but he's something else." Now he looked at them, brows furrowed. "I can tell he's not normal, and that you two don't know what to make of him, either. Does he have anything to do with the alien sighting?"
"He's not really connected in any way," Amy said, truthfully enough. "But it's his sort of thing, alright?" She was getting annoyed with the way Cal looked at them, as if he could see what they were thinking. "He's a good man and he'll probably be a lot of help to you if you let him."
Cal kept looking at her, and after a moment he nodded. "Fair enough. Why would he want to help us out?"
"It's what he does," Rory said. "He's always running around, helping people. We're sort of just tagging along."
"We're his friends," Amy added.
"You don't sound too confident about that, love. I think I should have another talk with him."
xxx
By now, the Doctor had already introduced himself to Eli Loker and Ria Torres, who were sitting outside the interrogation room while Gillian talked to their eyewitness. Neither knew what to make of the Doctor and they were trying to get him out of the room when Cal arrived with Pond plus one at his heels.
"Dr. Lightman, this guy just showed up and said you let him in," Torres was quick to say.
"And what did you make of that?" Cal asked. He was looking the Doctor up and down, still baffled by him.
"I don't think you gave him any sort of permissions to interrupt our work," she replied.
"Right, but let him have a look around anyway. I'm of the impression he can be of some help."
The Doctor was thrilled. "Me, help out? All this science is so fascinating. I'd love to. I want to see more of it. Deception experts; that's so cool."
"Doctor, if I could have a talk with you?" Cal asked. With a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, he steered him out. "Torres, Loker, give these two the tour if you're not too busy."
"We're working a case. I'd say that's busy," Loker said.
"Well, it's not the important kind of busy. I saw the news broadcast, the guy isn't lying, Gillian just needs some convincing, so do as I say."
Loker looked to Torres with a frown. "Lightman believes in aliens now?" he muttered.
Cal walked the Doctor out of the room and down the hall. This man was too much of a mystery for him to let go of.
"I've been told you're a bit of an alien expert," he said, eyes set on the Doctor.
"Right you are. No sense in trying to fool you, is there?" the Doctor asked with a laugh.
"Studied anywhere? Or is it maybe personal experience?"
They looked at each other, and the Doctor had to smile as he saw how Cal looked back at him.
"Oh, you have a beautiful brain, don't you? Yes you do. Not a lot of humans would be that quick to figure it out. Good for you, doctor. I bet not even the slightly psychic paper could fool you."
Cal paused. That was a lot to take in at once. It was dawning on him pretty quickly that the Doctor did perhaps have more in common with the alien than just general interest.
"You look human, but you talk as if we're a completely different species."
"Which means?"
"Most likely you're completely mad."
"Oh, I am. I assure you," the Doctor said. "A mad man with a box, people use to call me. I prefer that to the Oncoming Storm. Fancy as that is, I find a mad man with a box is far more approachable, don't you agree? Mind you, I'm bound to draw attention at dinner parties no matter how I introduce myself, and it's not usually because I make an excellent banana daiquiri, sadly enough."
"Completely bonkers," Cal sighed. "But very convincing."
"I'll let you in on a secret," the Doctor said, leaning down to be level with Cal. "I don't look human. You look Time Lord."
xxx
"And you believe all this?"
Gillian was humoured as she walked with Cal and he explained what the Doctor had told him.
"I'm telling you, he's eccentric, but he's not lying."
"He claims to be an alien. Cal..."
She stopped in her tracks, making Cal stop as well.
"This is like the incident with that 'psychic' of yours. She believed in what she saw, so she wasn't lying—"
"And she turned out to have a bipolar disorder, but this is nothing like that," Cal insisted. "You didn't actually see the Doctor. He doesn't act like people, and his companions have seen things. They believe him."
Gillian shook her head.
"And what about the eyewitness, then?" Cal asked. His voice was rising. "Gillian, one thing is being scientific, another is ignoring the truth. Do you even remember what we do in this place?"
"They think it's a gas that killed those people. It could have made the eyewitness hallucinate."
She wasn't meeting Cal's eyes, and it was driving him up the wall.
"Go talk to him. He's in my office looking at the case files. He might know what we're really up against and lives are going to depend on it."
Gillian didn't want to believe him, but she did as Cal told her. Accepting that they had an alien in the building went against her every instinct. Cal seemed so convinced, but acknowledging this to be real meant that all those alien sightings in London might have something to them as well. She wasn't quite at that point yet.
Cal went the other way. With his ex-wife out of town for the weekend, their daughter Emily was staying with him and she'd promised to come around after school. He'd expected to find her in the lobby, but not with company. Definitely not with an older, good looking man in a suit.
He looked vaguely familiar, but that notion was pushed back in favour of fatherly rage.
"Who are you and what the hell are you doing talking to my daughter?" Cal asked, coming up behind Emily to glare at the stranger.
"Dad, we were just talking," Emily said. As always she was immensely embarrassed by her father. "He said he's got information about the case you're working on."
"Did he, now?" Cal asked without taking his eyes off the Master, who smirked at him.
"I'm with the Doctor. I think you already met him?"
"Who's the Doctor?"
"Not now, Em. How do you fit into this whole picture, then?" Cal demanded of the Master. "You don't look like one of the kids who follow him around."
It was a good question. Being likened to Pond didn't sit well with the Master. Cal took a step closer, staring at him with that inscrutable look of his.
"Touchy about that one, are we?" Cal asked. "You think you're more important than them, is that it?"
"Dad, that's rude," Emily protested.
"She has a point," the Master said through gritted teeth. "You wouldn't want to insult the wrong person." Nothing pissed him off more than humans who thought they were worth something, particularly when the Doctor was close by and wouldn't approve of murder.
"You actually mean that as a threat. That was quick," Cal remarked. "You're really sore about the Doctor, aren't you? And completely transparent about it."
The Master's eyes narrowed. He was known as the master of disguises. A controller, a manipulator. Now this monkey thought he had even the faintest idea of what was going on inside his head. It was the Doctor's fault for making him soft.
"Oh, that's not a good look," Cal muttered. The more he looked at the Master, the less he liked him. Cal was nothing if not an expert on antagonizing the wrong people, and he could read malicious intents all over the Master.
It was a good thing the Doctor arrived when he did to yank Cal out of the way of the Master's laser screwdriver. It burnt a hole in the far wall.
"Bad Master. Bad. I told you to stop that," the Doctor scolded.
"The filthy ape insulted me!"
"I'll be confiscating that, thank you," the Doctor said, taking the Master's screwdriver away.
Emily and Cal were both shocked. Neither had seen anything like the screwdriver before, and the hole in the wall spoke for itself.
"Do they have anything to do with your case?" Emily asked. She was quick to draw conclusions, and Cal took her firmly by the arm.
"Go home, Em. I don't want you involved in this. I'd better not see you talking to him again," Cal said, glaring at the Master. "He's dangerous. And wrong." He'd seen more than he would have liked to.
"Takes one to know one," the Master told him. The Doctor elbowed him not so subtly.
"The Master won't be a problem, trust me. I will keep an eye on him. Think of me as his personal Doctor."
Cal wasn't amused, and he was giving Emily a shove towards the door.
"The Master, is he? Another one of your kind?"
"What do you mean 'your kind'?" Emily asked. She was impossible to keep away from these things. "Dad, you're not going to work with them, are you? He tried to kill you." She was frantic, but at the same time she was so very curious.
"We're aliens," the Master said. The more he could anger Cal, the better. "The Doctor and I come from a different planet."
"So it's true what that man said on the news?" Emily asked, looking to her father with big eyes and then quickly back to the Master and the Doctor. "The case you're working is about aliens? They're aliens?"
"Em, I told you to go home. I don't want to hear another word from you," Cal said.
He had to drag her out of the room. Despite the Master's little indiscretion with the screwdriver, she was mesmerized at the idea of extraterrestrial life forms. It didn't quench her curiosity that her father had just forbidden her from talking to the Master, but rather the opposite.
The Doctor and the Master were left alone in the lobby, and the Doctor sent the Master a meaningful stare.
"What?" the Master asked. "I've been good ever since we arrived."
"You're a disaster and you always will be." The Doctor sounded tired.
"What, you thought I would change when I stopped hearing the drums?" the Master asked. His lips curled. He wasn't sure if he should laugh at the Doctor or be mad at him. "Eleven, you really are a moron."
"I am the Doctor. And I'm not letting you kill anyone if I can help it."
"Except you can't. I'll never be who you want me to be, and the best part is how fun it is to watch you try and change me."
The Master grabbed onto the front of the Doctor's coat and pulled him close with a smirk.
"I'll keep killing people and you'll keep on forgiving me."
"I still want to fix you," the Doctor insisted.
"Now you sound more like my Doctor," the Master mused. He brushed his finger over the Doctor's bowtie, then over his cheek before he tangled his fingers in the Doctor's hair. "But we are way, way beyond that point, love."
The Doctor wasn't the least bit amused. He looked at the Master with hard eyes, resenting how he could only say nice things about him when he was being sarcastic. Still he was so drawn to the touch.
"It's funny how you're killing me more now than when you were actually trying," the Doctor remarked.
The Master let out a soft snort. He caressed the Doctor, almost with scorn.
"I forgot to tell you; your haircut makes you look like a girl."
"For a moment I was worried I was a girl."
The Master grimaced. "Alright, so this regeneration could have been worse."
The Doctor couldn't help a smile. He plucked the Master's hand out of his hair and straightened his bowtie. "Now. We have an alien to catch."
"Right. Where are Pond and her barnacle?"
"Taking the tour I think. We should investigate while they're busy. And don't call him a barnacle. That's rude."
"As always."
xxx
"Gay aliens in a destructive relationship. At least you can't complain about mundane commissions."
Cal and Gillian were looking at the footage from the lobby. The Doctor and the Master's conversation had been captured in its entirety, and there was enough material for a psychologist to drool over. Gillian was getting partial to the alien theory, though something still bothered her.
"You were awfully quick to believe them."
Cal didn't answer at first. He had to really think about it. This puzzled him more than an alien encounter.
"There's just something familiar about the Doctor. About all of this." He scratched his head and kept looking at the video. "We need to be careful, one way or another. We've got a murderer on our hands. The one man who appears capable of stopping him fancies him. Neither can be considered sane even by our standards."
"We shouldn't let them stay around at all," Gillian said. "He tried to kill you, Cal."
"Who doesn't, though?" Cal asked. "And for all we know, the alien we're looking for is even more dangerous."
"Then we should get this case over with as soon as possible," Gillian decided. "And don't antagonize them any further."
"You know I never take any unnecessary risks," Cal assured her.
"That's a lie anyone could see through."
While Cal and Gillian examined the psychological mess that were the last two Time Lords, the rest of the Lightman Group was collecting information. The Doctor and his flock had tagged along. Amy and Rory were with Torres out in the field, the Doctor and the Master were looking at footage from surveillance cameras with Loker.
"Lightman convinced the authorities to release the footage to us. He seemed to think you two can identify... whatever that is."
Loker pointed to a blurry bit of video. The driver could barely be seen in the wreckage of his car. His head had been smashed open against the dashboard.
"That's what he gets for not wearing a seat belt," the Master remarked. He earned some points with Loker, but the Doctor was more interested in the tentacles seeming to be rooted in the driver's brain.
"That's not right, not right at all," the Doctor said with a frown. "Explains the crash. That's a parasitic alien. It would have manifested like an early onset of Alzheimer's. Scans might have picked it up as a tumour. They emit a toxic nerve gas when they feel threatened. Killed everyone around it instantly."
"You're kidding."
"You tell me, deception expert."
Loker sighed. The tape went on with little more interesting details than the tentacles slowly flailing a little, and then the rest was scrambled.
"Whomever took the body knew about the security cameras. We've already interviewed some witnesses and have a number plate. We're working on tracking it down. Shouldn't be hard; they don't seem like professionals."
"Someone knew about the alien," the Doctor muttered. "That's not good."
"Very interesting. Except it isn't. Tell me when we are actually going to do something," the Master said. He was on his way out, and the Doctor had no desire to stop him. The Master didn't exactly lower the risk of casualties.
While everyone else was working on the case, the Master went to look for more interesting endeavours. He wasn't too surprised to run into Emily again outside the building. While she seemed hesitant at first, curiosity won and she walked up to him.
"Any luck with the alien?" she asked. She was looking at the Master with big eyes. For him, it was an interesting turn of events; most people were drawn to the Doctor. It had to do something with Cal banning her from talking to him, he was certain.
"Didn't your daddy tell you to stay out of it?" the Master asked with a sly look in her direction.
"Just making conversation," she said with a shrug. "It's not every day you meet aliens."
"You believe in it, then?"
"My dad believes you." Emily looked uncertain but hopeful. "I haven't decided what to think. You look like us."
"Why do all humans say that we look like them?" the Master scoffed. "Maybe you look like us. Did that ever occur to you?"
"Sorry, I guess." Emily rolled her eyes, then looked away. She was embarrassed, but not on her own account. "And don't mind my dad. He's always rude to everyone. You didn't really mean to kill him, I'm sure."
"Of course not," the Master said smoothly. A lie too big if ever there was one. "I just wanted to scare him."
Emily looked relieved. The Master took pleasure in how angry Cal would be if he saw them now.
"If you're an alien, then where are you from?" Emily asked. She could barely hold herself still with all the questions she wanted to ask. The Master couldn't help the urge to indulge her. Anything to screw with Cal, really.
They were walking aimlessly as he talked about Gallifrey. He was quite subtle about his own role in this whole thing and Emily was listening intently with a marvelling look in her eyes. The Master laid out about the silver forests and the amber sky, entertained by this naïve child and at the same time taking pleasure in talking about Gallifrey as if it still existed. It did, in a way, but he could never go there again. He knew the Doctor would refuse. He had to wonder if the Doctor had ever talked to his companions about Gallifrey like this.
They weren't too far from the Lightman Group's headquarters when they heard screaming from down the street. Perhaps had the Master been a bit too influenced by the Doctor, because he was running for the sound without thinking. Emily was at his heels.
When they arrived, the street was littered with bodies. They appeared to have dropped dead instantly. In the middle of the slaughter was a body with tentacles protruding from its skull.
"Don't go near it," the Master told Emily as he toed around the bodies. Typical that the Doctor had taken his screwdriver right before things got heated. It was better to go back and not risk his neck.
A van sped towards them and hit the breaks, screeching to a halt by the infested body.
"They're here for the body," Emily said, looking to the Master.
"Not our problem," the Master was about to say, but Emily ran off. He called after the goddamn stupid girl in vain.
Men leapt out of the van to grab the body. When they saw Emily running for them, they appeared to panic. In their haste, they grabbed her as well. She kicked and screamed, not short of a bite at all, but she wasn't getting anywhere by it.
The Master couldn't really do anything. He so missed his powers. Even if they'd used up his life force, it had been a great excuse to eat everything he liked. Now he simply had to explain this to the Doctor and Cal without getting ripped to shreds.
xxx
"You let my daughter run right at them and get kidnapped?"
The Master presumed this was a rhetorical question. Cal was furious. Rarely had the Master seen a human who could be so threatening; he actually stepped back as he got Cal screaming in his face.
"You let them take my daughter," he yelled, taking the Master by the front of his jacket. He was near frothing around the mouth, and it took Gillian and the Doctor to haul him away and calm him down somewhat.
"We have a trace on the car. We'll find her, Cal."
"And then I'll rip this schmuck into pieces."
"There was nothing he could have done," the Doctor said. His firm hand on the Master's shoulder said otherwise.
"You don't believe that any more than I do. I told him to stay away from Emily," Cal snarled.
"Trace on the car," Gillian reminded. She was worried sick, but she had her priorities right. "We must find Emily before anything bad happens. Agent Reynolds will know how to handle this."
Cal whipped around to face the Doctor. "You. You don't look like you're bothered to wait for the authorities. You know how to handle danger."
"I may have saved the world at one or twenty occasions, yes."
"Then you're coming with me," Cal said. He was over the computer, writing down the address.
"Right then. Master, get Amy and Rory and follow us, will you?"
"I need my screwdriver," the Master insisted.
"You're not killing anyone."
"I won't be any help without my screwdriver."
They glared at each other for a moment before the Doctor handed the screwdriver back.
There were a lot of protests from Gillian, but Cal was unstoppable at this point. The five of them were off, heading to an abandoned factory in one of the more questionable districts.
Getting there, they split up. The Doctor would go with Cal, the Master with Amy and Rory. Cal was too prone to break the Master's neck for them to be anywhere near each other.
"He's usually agreeable," the Doctor told Cal, who was walking and fuming ahead. "He was a lot worse back in the days, you should have seen him. Not trying to take over the world half as many times as he used to."
"Keep telling yourself that. You don't even believe it yourself," Cal growled. "The Master is an insane murderer and he's using you. He doesn't even pretend to be nice to you."
There was an uneasy smile on the Doctor's lips. "It's complicated. We have a long history together. He used to want to kill me."
"He won't even refer to you by name. 'Eleven', is that what he called you?"
The Doctor's lips tightened in a thin line. "You don't know what that means."
Cal looked back at him over his shoulder, scornful.
"And yet you cringe whenever he says it. You hate it. If you want to keep fooling yourself, that's none of my business, but you're keeping that lunatic away from Emily."
"On another note, you seem to take all this 'saving the world' stuff with surprising ease," the Doctor pointed out.
"Classic deflection," Cal accused. "You know I am right."
"That beautiful brain of yours doesn't have an off switch, does it?"
While the Doctor and Cal ventured further into the abandoned fabric without finding much, the Master, Amy and Rory were less fortunate. There were guards with guns, and while the Master had incinerated two of them, they were in trouble. Amy and the Master had thrown themselves into hiding behind some dusty machinery, but they had gotten separated from Rory. The guards had run after him in the opposite direction and Amy was fretting. She was also searching franticly along the floor.
"Dropped an earring, Pond?" the Master asked. People had shot at them with guns and her fiancé was lost. There really were more important things.
"Found it," Amy sighed out. She picked her engagement ring up from the floor.
"How about a pocket?" the Master suggested testily. He peeked out from behind their cover to see if the coast was clear. "You should go back and find the Doctor. Tell him they're armed."
"Rory's out there," Amy protested. "And I don't have any pockets."
"Give it here," the Master said.
Amy turned to face him, but made no other move.
"I have pockets, you dumb girl. And a weapon. You'll just get yourself killed. The Doctor will do a better job at looking after you."
Amy didn't like it but she handed the ring over and got up. "Thanks. You had better find him."
The Master sighed. The things he did for the Doctor's admirers. At least with Amy running back to the Doctor, he didn't have to worry about being responsible for her. He could press on without concern for her.
He didn't see a lot of guards. That couldn't be a good thing. It meant that the Doctor and Cal were likely running into the bulk. Oh well, it was their problem now.
He came to a halt when he entered a spacious room with a gallery behind glass walls. Shots were being fired up in the gallery, but the Master was more concerned with the many bodies laid out on tables in the room. They filled the entire floor and tentacles were poking out of several heads. It was a farm for the parasite alien. One wrong step and these things would release a poisonous gas. The Master tiptoed past, quite certain that regeneration wouldn't cover this one.
He snuck his way up to the gallery, staying within the doorway. Rory had taken cover across the room behind a table while a guard approached, shooting after him. Emily was tied to a chair at the far end.
The Master considered, but wasn't keen on taking a bullet or chancing on hitting Emily. He didn't need Cal's wrath brought down on him.
"Rory," he called out. He threw his screwdriver across the room. Rory fumbled and dropped it on the floor, but grabbed it before it rolled away.
"How do you use this?" Rory yelled.
"You push the button, you moron."
A laser beam shot across the room and hit the guard by chance. He was incinerated and turned to dust. Rory was shocked at his own actions.
The Master scrabbled out of hiding to snatch his screwdriver back.
"Far better than sonic, don't you agree?"
Rory just stammered. Emily was equally shocked, but Rory had a mind to go and untie her.
"Where's Amy?" he asked.
"With the Doctor. I told her to go back."
Rory looked back at the Master with surprise.
"Oh, shut up," the Master growled.
More guards were piling in. Rory shoved Emily behind a table and the Master leapt back in action with the screwdriver. He had to wonder what all these people were even doing with the aliens, but he couldn't say he was surprised to find humans farming alien parasites.
One after another the guards fell, but the Master alone wasn't enough to protect them. There was a cry from behind him. Rory collapsed. Now he knew he was thoroughly fucked whether he survived this or not. Emily was beside herself, and this was when the Doctor, Cal and Amy arrived. They had more people at their heels and the Doctor did the only thing he could. He closed the gallery door and deadlocked it behind them.
The Master had cleared the gallery and he looked back at Rory. Emily was crouching by his body, but a bright crack in the wall had distracted her. It was reaching out tendrils of light.
"Emily, back off!" the Master called out. He grabbed her and hauled her away from Rory's body right as Amy entered and saw Rory bleeding out on the floor. The crack in time didn't matter. It took the Doctor and the Master together to hold her back.
"No! Rory," she screamed. "This is your fault," she yelled at the Master, kicking at his shins. "You did this on purpose, you were supposed to keep him safe!"
Cal was quick to grab Emily, but his eyes were on the light consuming Rory's body. "Doctor, what is that?" he asked, backing off.
"A crack in Time," the Doctor explained. He took Amy and made her look at him. "Amy. Listen to me. There is nothing we can do, it has him already and he is going to be erased. He is never going to have existed unless you remember him. You must remember him, Amy, concentrate."
"It's the Master's fault," she sobbed, still wanting to haul Rory's body away from the rift.
"The Master saved us," Emily protested. "He saved Rory, he didn't do this."
"Em, this doesn't have anything to do with us," Cal told her. "Just keep away from that light."
Already the memories were fading. Not for the Doctor and the Master, but everyone else in this timeline were starting to forget as soon as Rory's body had been taken by the light. Amy quieted down and Cal simply hugged Emily in relief. She had forgotten that she had just seen a man get shot.
They were, however, reminded that there were guards in the room below trying to get to them. Cal was infuriated that they had dared lay a hand on his daughter. He let go of Emily and grabbed a gun from the floor.
"If those aliens are startled, they'll release poison gas. Nothing that can reach us up here, can it?" he asked. He looked ready to shoot whatever the answer was.
"You're not killing those men in cold blood," the Doctor said. "We will find a way to escape without making you a murderer."
"It wouldn't be the first time," Cal growled, but the Doctor was insistent. There was no way he could wrestle the gun out of Cal's hand, but he would damn well try.
The Master decided to act on everyone's behalf and took another gun from the floor. The window shattered and the bullet went straight into one of the bodies laid out below. The aliens acted accordingly.
The Doctor looked at the Master with blank eyes as the gas killed off their pursuers. The Master had a feeling that the Doctor had seen this coming, that he might actually have banked on it. Still he was disappointed. That was just unfair.
xxx
The case was closed. Everyone had seen far too much excitement for one day, and back at the Lightman Group headquarters they were getting their bearings. I.E. the Doctor was ushering them all into the TARDIS before any more questions or accusations could be thrown around.
"I still wonder about that Cal Lightman," the Master said. "He was quick to trust you for an intelligent person."
"Everyone trusts me," the Doctor sniffed. He was typing in their next coordinates. "But he already knew about me. He just forgot."
It took a moment before this clicked in the Master's mind. "Not Torchwood again, is it?" he groaned. The Doctor grinned.
"Cal Lightman was British Intelligence. Mycroft Holmes sent him to infiltrate Torchwood a good while back. Jack told me about him. A very good asset to their team, but he had to be retconned when they found out he was a spy. If there's a secret organization, trust Cal Lightman to have had a foot inside."
"Too bad he didn't remember a thing, or he might have been some help," the Master scoffed.
Neither he nor the Doctor said anything for a while. Amy had gone to change and get ready for their next destination. The Time Lords weren't sure what to do with her. She wasn't even grieving the loss of her fiancé.
"Do you swear to me that you had nothing to do with it?" the Doctor asked.
"No, I told you," the Master insisted. "Emily told you. And do you really think I would kill him? He was far too much fun to tease when he was alive."
The Doctor wasn't buying it. He was looking at the Master in that way of his that could make anyone squirm. This wasn't sitting well with the Master.
"You used to trust me," the Master said. There was accusation in his voice.
"I never trusted you. I never could; whenever I did, you stabbed me in the back."
"You let it slide," the Master gritted out. "You trusted me at least to some extent. What did Lightman tell you?"
"Nothing I didn't already know," the Doctor assured with a frigid look in his eyes. "You still resent me. You look right through me and it's as if you're still waiting for 'your Doctor' to come back."
"I wish I didn't. Do you think I am enjoying this?"
"You left me."
The Master looked at the Doctor, incredulous.
"That's what this is about?"
"And you're and ass," the Doctor added. "Something I've grown used to over the centuries, but there is only so much I can take."
The Master shook his head, needing a moment to take in what the Doctor was saying. "You. You. Do I even know a fraction of the people you have left behind? Your so-called 'companions'? Never mind that. How many times have you been married only to run off? And you're complaining about trust and being left behind?"
"You don't see me complain often," the Doctor replied stiffly. "But perhaps you were special."
"Who could feel special with you?" the Master spat. "You reduced me to just another companion and that's just not enough for me."
"You would be more than just a companion if you thought of me as more than a number."
The Doctor was in the right here; he wouldn't budge. Though they were both throwing accusations at each other, the Master had been moping for long enough. He was a Time Lord, not a human who was foreign to the concept of regeneration. Really, the Master had done it more often than the Doctor, he wasn't one to complain. Perhaps he just needed the conflict.
Predictably, the Master had no argument against that. He glared at the Doctor, then looked away.
"I don't care what you think of us," he said. "But I finally did something good, and you don't even believe it. Amy trusted me."
"She doesn't know you like I do."
The Master took the engagement ring out of his pocket. He looked at it, turned it over in his fingers. Then he set it down on the dashboard of the TARDIS. He glared death at it before he looked back at the Doctor, no more pleasant. "I don't want to stay with you anymore."
"I'm not letting you leave," the Doctor replied. The ring surprised him but he didn't show it. Amy had trusted the Master and now he felt bad for letting her down. The Doctor could only call it progress, but the Master was still so, so dangerous.
"That's what I thought. I am just letting you know that you can no longer rely on your charms to keep me here. I don't imagine you'd ever have the will to see me leave again."
The Doctor said nothing. So many lives had been lost because he let the Master live and roam about as he pleased. The Doctor didn't have it in him to keep him locked up and the consequences of that were catastrophic. Anyone but the Master would have been a prisoner, had they done the things he did.
With the Master off to sulk by himself, the Doctor picked up the ring. It didn't take a genius to understand that it would be difficult for them to stay together, but it had worked out for a while, before he regenerated. It was the Master holding them back.
"Doctor?"
Amy was back. The Doctor quickly straightened up and put on his smile as he faced her.
"Any requests for our next destination, Pond?"
"How about Ancient Rome? I always wanted to see that."
"Ah, we had a bit of an incident back there with the Master," the Doctor said, apologetic. "But so long as it's not Caligula..."
Amy's eyes were on the ring. The Doctor trailed off in hope that she would remember something. Rory didn't have to be truly lost.
"Did the Master give you that?" she asked.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. He was looking for any signs of recognition on her face.
"Oh. Congratulations? I didn't know if Time Lords had a tradition of marriage."
"What? No. I mean, yes. You would be surprised by how many societies, no matter how simplistic, have some form of marriage tradition but what I mean is no, no the Master and I are not getting married," the Doctor said, utterly flustered and caught off guard. "This belongs to a friend. Not him. Though he is a friend, or actually I don't even know that, but this belonged to a very precious friend of mine. He was keeping it for that friend of mine and then he gave it to me."
Amy blinked, having no idea what the Doctor was going on about.
"Amy Pond," the Doctor sighed. He took her by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Nothing is really lost, you just have to remember it."
Amy was more confused than ever, but she was also sad. She couldn't explain why, but there was a horrible sadness eating away at her. Before she knew it, tears were streaming down her face and the Doctor was hugging her. She just couldn't understand why.
xxx
The argument between the Doctor and the Master didn't make too much of a difference, other than in bed. The Doctor wasn't afraid of the Master running off, not without the TARDIS. This meant carrying on like usual and never taking his eyes off his precious time machine. The Master was no less destructive or unpleasant. It would forever be a mystery to the Doctor why he insisted on keeping the man with him.
It might have something to do with how possessive the Master was of him. He fought not to show it, but when they visited the oldest planet in the universe only to find "Hello Sweetie" carved into a cliff face by River Song, the Master was boiling over with jealousy. The Doctor enjoyed every second of it.
The Master was complaining all the way to Britain 102 AD, where River Song's message had sent them.
"The woman is an obsessed fan. She's stalking you and she's not even that pretty," the Master insisted. "There's no point in seeing her. It's boring and besides, it was my time to choose a destination."
"You can stay in the TARDIS until we get back," the Doctor said as they strode out into ancient history.
"You would lock me up."
"I never heard you complain about handcuffs before."
"I did. You never use them in fun situations."
"Too much information," Amy cut in.
Their conversation came to a halt when they saw the roman army parked on a giant field before them.
"Oh. Yes. Romans invaded Britain several times during this period," the Doctor remarked.
"Oh, I know," Amy said. "My favourite topic at school. Invasion of the hot Italians."
"I know, right?"
The Doctor looked at them both with disapproval.
A soldier ran up to them and he was looking at the Doctor. "All hail Cesar!" he called out.
It was a very interesting beginning to the day, being invited to see Cleopatra. The Master was still disapproving, but he almost had a fit when he saw River in an Egyptian wig waiting for them.
"You grafitied the oldest cliff face in the universe," the Doctor remarked. He was, initially, not too happy either.
"You wouldn't answer your phone," River excused herself.
"I told you to get a mobile," the Master said with an exasperated noise. "Then we wouldn't have needed to go all the way out here and meet her."
"Except for this," River said. She presented the Doctor with a rolled-up painting. "It's your friend Vincent's work."
They rolled out the painting and they immediately saw that there was reason to be worried. Even the Master was. The TARDIS exploding would cause more than physical damage.
"There are coordinates on the door, see? It's not far from here."
"Does it have a title?" the Doctor asked.
"The Pandorica Opens."
"What's a Pandorica?" Amy asked.
"A box, or a cage, a prison. It was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe," River explained.
"There's just one problem," the Master said. "I'm clearly out here."
He got a couple of sharp looks.
"It's a myth," the Doctor insisted. "A fairytale, a legend. It can't be real."
"You're all missing out on what's really important," the Master broke in, getting their attention again.
"What?" the Doctor asked. He was stressed out because of the painting; the talk about the Pandorica didn't help.
"She's Cleopatra, you're Cesar and I'm Caligula. Don't tell me I am seriously the only one who sees the potential in this."
"Caligula?" River asked.
"Long story," the Doctor dismissed her and he stepped in front of the Master, taking him by his shoulders. "You," he sighed, shaking his head. "My murderous optimist, if you would please shut up and help out for once, that would make me very happy, thank you."
The Master huffed and looked away. "I would make a better Cleopatra, anyway."
After this had been proven by passing River's wig around, they were off to Stonehenge, the only place in the vicinity where they imagined the Pandorica could be buried. They found the stairs down and the Doctor was surprised to find that this fairytale was real.
"Oh, come on, Eleven. This always happens when you say something doesn't exist. Isomorphic screwdriver, remember that?" the Master taunted. "Nothing should surprise you anymore."
"Don't call me that," the Doctor said with a frown. He was running around the place scanning, and so was River. Stonehenge was transmitting, and things were looking bleak. They had Daleks approaching, Cybermen, Sontarans and everything else that the Doctor had possibly upset.
"I half expect you to get up there and join them," he muttered.
"It's been on my mind, yes," the Master assured.
"Good thing we have the finest war machine ever constructed right outside the door," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. "Master, while I hate asking you to do things, disastrous as the turnout usually is, I need you to recruit some Romans."
The Master rolled his eyes. "They would never have stood a chance against me."
"You're sending him out on his own?" River asked. "I won't have you putting our lives in his hands."
"Then you can go with him," the Doctor suggested.
"No she can't," the Master argued. "I never needed her help to acquire an army before."
"Now is a good time to start. Both of you, off you go," the Doctor said, shooing them off. He was more concerned with the Pandorica than with them. This served to annoy the Master enough to stomp off with River at his heels.
"What is your problem with me?" River asked as they approached the roman camp. "You shouldn't have a problem with me already."
"Thinking the Doctor is at your beck and call is what my problem with you is, though I'm sure I'll have all the more reasons later on."
"You called him the Doctor just now," River pointed out with amusement.
Fists clenched, the Master said nothing more.
The two of them were able to convince at least some of the soldiers to help the Doctor out. Fifty roman soldiers against some hundred thousand spaceships would have the same effect as pissing in the ocean, but the Doctor would surely come up with something clever. Funny how he always got people to fight for him.
This was when the Doctor contacted River, and the Master leaned in to listen.
"I need you to move the TARDIS," was his request.
"Hey, I can fly it," the Master butted in.
"River, under no circumstances let him fly that thing alone, but it might be best if you take him along. Things are going to get heated down here."
"You're letting me drive," the Master hissed at River who was doing a good job of ignoring him and marching ahead. The Master didn't like it one bit how the Doctor was giving her more attention than him.
They got back to the TARDIS and River took the controls. Except the TARDIS was being disagreeable again.
"It wants me to drive," the Master immediately said. The TARDIS responded with a violent shake that threw him against the railing. That bloody machine hated him.
"I don't know what's wrong. I think she's trying to take us somewhere," River said. She was trying to override the controls but it wasn't long until the TARDIS had stopped in a new location and let them out.
They were at Amy's house. It wasn't hard to recognize. Her room was littered with things she had made as a child. A little wooden TARDIS and a doll of herself and the Doctor. The Master was almost a little sad she hadn't met him as a child and made him into a doll as well, but that wasn't the point. The book about Ancient Rome, Pandora's Box, it was all starting to piece together and River was contacting the Doctor again.
The Doctor was getting impatient for the TARDIS, but River explained the situation, how it all had to be a product of Amy's memories. None of this was making sense.
The Master and River had gotten back into the TARDIS and were trying to return to the Doctor while this conversation was taking place, and that turned out to have been a terrible idea.
"Look, when are you?" the Doctor asked. He was starting to sound panicked.
The Master ran over to the display.
"26th of June, 2010," he read out. He was getting a sudden feeling of dread. "Eleven?"
"No, no, any other date, fly the TARDIS out of there," the Doctor yelled out for them both to hear.
"I am trying!" River sneered. "Doctor, something is wrong with the TARDIS, it's refusing to land."
"Let the Master fly it if you can't."
"You taught me how to fly this thing, I know what I'm doing."
"Both of us together can't stop this. This isn't it, is it?" the Master asked. He was honestly scared.
"I'm afraid it is," the Doctor replied. "The cracks spreading out across time are from the TARDIS exploding on this date. Get out of there, both of you."
The Master and River looked at each other in panic.
"If we get out, the engines will shut down by themselves," the Master said.
"Well, come on, then." River pushed the transmitter into the Master's hand and ran for the door.
The doors wouldn't open. She yanked at them but they were firmly shut. The Master stood there with the transmitter in his hand, not quite hearing the orders that the Doctor was shouting at them.
"I'm going to die here with her," the Master said with an expression of disgust.
"Not half as bad as dying here with you," River yelled back at him.
The Master raised the transmitter back to his ear. He was numb. "I'm sorry, Doctor."
There was silence from the other side. He'd just admitted he was sorry and the Doctor wasn't even responding. Gritting his teeth, he ran to help River with the manual override of the doors. It didn't exactly help. When they forced the doors open, they were met with a smooth stone wall.
"This is the shittiest of days," the Master sighed.
He might have chosen some different words if he knew that they would be transmitted in a time loop for the Doctor to pick up on after a series of events involving the Pandorica and the old switcheroo. Rory spent two thousand years guarding the Pandorica with Amy inside, until they were joined by the Doctor at the museum in the year 2010. Up on the roof they could see the exploding TARDIS like a sun in the sky.
To the Master and River, it felt like no time at all before the Doctor popped up in the TARDIS.
"A vortex manipulator? That's the tackiest of time travel," the Master hissed at him. "You had better not get addicted."
"Shut up. Both of you, come with me," the Doctor said, taking both River and the Master by their arms and teleporting them down to Earth, away from the explosion to join Rory and Amy on the roof of the museum.
"Rory?" the Master exclaimed.
"He's plastic," the Doctor explained.
"I am sure we both have a lot of questions," River said and turned to the Doctor. "First of all. What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"
The Master put his hands on his hips and looked at the Doctor as well.
"It's a fez. I wear a fez now," the Doctor explained. "Fezzes are cool."
Amy grabbed the fez off his head and threw it in the air. The Master whipped out his laser screwdriver and blew it up before it even reached the peak of its trajectory. It was a job well done.
"Did you hear what I told you?" the Master asked as he looked back at the Doctor.
"What, about this being the shittiest of days? I would have to agree."
"No, about being—"
"Exterminate. Exterminate."
A Dalek was elevating up to the roof and they scattered as it shot after them. They escaped back down inside the museum.
"What was with the cheap Technicolor paintjob?" the Master asked.
"New design. I did try to stop them with a jammy dodger," the Doctor apologized.
"Go go Dalek rangers."
"Now, we need to hurry," the Doctor said. "We have four and a half minute before it shoots me."
"Shoots you?"
"Oh, shut up, never mind," the Doctor waved it off as if it was the most minute of matters. He was hurrying down the stairs with everyone else tailing behind him. "The restoration field of the Pandorica brought the Dalek back to life. Back to existence. In fact, it never existed because the TARDIS blew up and destroyed everything, but now it does."
"Only a few particles of the old universe would contain the information needed to restore it. Given enough power, the Pandorica could recreate everything," the Master joined in. He could see a solution to all this, but then he got a sudden, dreadful feeling of where this was going.
"Exactly," the Doctor said with a smirk. "We're going to reboot the universe." He snapped his fingers. "Come on."
"But you would need infinite energy to restore everything," the Master continued, all fears confirmed.
"And we have one."
"That's what worries me. Doctor..." The Master grabbed him by his arm and stopped him in his tracks. He looked up at him with narrowed eyes.
"You called me Doctor."
"What's he planning on doing?" Amy asked. She was catching onto the Master's worry, and so was everyone else, even if they couldn't quite see how this worked out.
"Big Bang Two," the Doctor said with a smile that only scratched the surface of his expression. He looked at the Master. "I'm sorry."
"I won't let you—"
The Master couldn't finish his sentence. The Doctor was hit by a beam from the Dalek that had been pursuing them.
"Exterminate. Exterminate."
The Doctor collapsed on the floor. The Master didn't have time to kneel down by him, that would be River's job. He was too busy whipping out the screwdriver and blowing the Dalek into pieces with an enraged sneer.
When he looked down, the Doctor had activated his vortex manipulator and was gone.
"What the—Where did he go?"
"Downstairs," Amy said.
"How do you know?" River asked.
"We saw him," Rory explained. "Before he rescued you, he arrived from the future."
"Then what are we waiting for?" the Master asked.
"He died."
Amy was devastated. The Master gritted his teeth, then made a run for it. The Doctor couldn't die. Not now. He skidded down the stairs and almost tripped in Rory's coat, which had been left on the floor.
"He was supposed to be here," Rory said.
"Are you sure he was dead?" River asked.
"He said he was."
"Well, he lied to you, you morons," the Master snapped. "This way."
He ran towards the Pandorica, knowing what the Doctor had planned. True enough, the Doctor was sitting inside of it. This was when it all clicked into place for River as well.
"Oh. Big Bang two."
"What?" Amy asked. "What is he doing?"
The Master ran up to the Doctor to check on him and took his face in his hands. The Doctor was barely responding.
"The Pandorica's restoration field, powered by an exploring TARDIS. It's exploding at every point in time, it's going to restore everything if you throw the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion. He's wired the vortex manipulator to it."
"He's going to fly it there himself?"
River looked back at the Doctor, who was being poured over by a distressed Master who was refusing this to happen. And all around them the world was shaking, unravelling at increasing speed.
"It will close the cracks in time and save everyone," River murmured.
"But he's going to be alright, isn't he?"
The expression on River's face assured her that this was not the case.
"None of us will even remember him."
While they talked and watched, the Doctor was coming to. He felt the Master's hand on his cheek, genuine worry and affection. Even if he was dying, about to bring on his own death, he had to smile.
"Hello, you," he murmured once he got the Master's face in focus. "The Master who waited. All this time. Waiting for your Doctor to return to you."
"I know what you're planning and I won't let it happen," the Master gritted out. "What am I going to be without you?"
"You'll get to run around and destroy things, no me to stop you taking over the universe. You should be thrilled." The Doctor's voice was weak, but he sounded almost happy for the Master. That was just wrong.
The Master took one of the Doctor's hands in his own, holding onto it, tangling their fingers together.
"But... you were supposed to fix me."
"I couldn't, though. But I'll tell you a secret."
The Doctor could barely keep his eyes open. The Master wasn't even trying to stop his tears.
"What?"
"I always liked you, just as you are. No fixing needed."
It was too much for the Master. He pressed his face against the Doctor's chest, shoulders shaking.
"I tried to tell you I was sorry."
"Didn't hear. Roman soldiers dragged me away from the phone."
"Goddamn you," the Master hissed. He looked up at the Doctor again, eyes red. "You don't have to go alone this time."
"I'd handcuff you, but... Sort of dying right now. Would you mind doing it yourself?" the Doctor asked. He coughed softly.
"I mean it," the Master said. "You keep trying to protect me, but this time we're supposed to go together," he insisted. "You won't escape this."
"But you can. You'll be fine, you won't even know I existed," the Doctor assured. "I rather you forget about me than die."
"That's not what I want," the Master complained.
"Someone has to be the last Time Lord."
"But—"
The Doctor used his last strength to pull him close and claim his lips. It was a painful kiss wet with tears and full of passion, and then the Doctor shoved him back and away from the Pandorica. Before the Master could regain his balance, he activated the vortex manipulator. The Pandorica closed and shook before it shot to the sky.
They were all knocked into the wall by the force of the box. River's transmitter beeped with one last written word from the Doctor; "Geronimo!"
xxx
The Doctor was, for a second, convinced that death had once again eluded him. Unlike being a ginger, it always pleased him when death did that. Eluded him, that was. But then he realized that he hadn't survived at all. He was rewinding. His whole life span was unravelling and he was stuck watching the repeats. If anything, he could do one last attempt at helping his friends.
He saw Amy and spoke to her twice. He was already choking up by then, but he stuck around, hoping to be reminded of the good times with the Master.
He was disappointed to find himself in the TARDIS only to be met by the argument they had right after he regenerated.
"The teeth are all wrong, now."
"I could have been dead! Would that have made you any happier?"
The Doctor unconsciously ran his tongue over his teeth, eyes fixed on the Master storming out of the TARDIS. He hated repeats. He wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't know how to make the best of it, though. He followed the Master of the past outside the TARDIS. The door was slammed and he watched the Master stop in his tracks, mind wondering what would happen next.
"It's alright," the Doctor said. The Master couldn't hear him, but his words might still have some effect. "I'll forgive you. Just keep a lookout for cracks in time and come running when you think I'm in danger, why don't you?" He smirked to himself. "I knew you cared all along."
The Master looked alerted, as if he could sense something, but now the Doctor was moving on to the next moment in time. He found himself in a familiar room in the TARDIS and everything was quiet. He checked his watch. This was right after the incident with Titanic. Space Titanic, that was. He turned around to see the Master in a corner, asleep. His hair was rumpled and his eyes were red from crying. He'd been locked up for some time.
"Oh dear, look at you," the Doctor murmured. He strode over to the Master, sitting down by him and pulling him into a careful embrace. "I did terrible, terrible things to you, didn't I? That won't have happened anymore." He sighed. The Master looked like such a pitiful little child. Plagued by the sound in his head, there was no wonder he was insane.
The Doctor stroked his hair and cradled his sleeping form. "But don't worry," he whispered. "The drums will go away one day. It won't make you any less you, trust me, but they'll be gone, and that's when we'll have the best days of our lives, you and me and the stars. The Doctor and the Master in the TARDIS, and the days that never will be. I hope you'll dream about it."
He rested his head on the Master's shoulder with a sigh. He could hear his heartbeat. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. It was a mesmerizing noise, he had to agree. "You know, I've called a lot of things beautiful. Machines, aliens, Cal Lightman's brain and a number of other things that may or may not have been inanimate but..."
He left the thought hanging. It was time to move on to the next memory and he carefully let go of the Master. When he got up from the floor, he was ankle-deep in red grass. Oh, this memory was going to break him.
He was staring out over silver forests and a burning sky. Silhouetted against the setting suns was the hill on which they had parked the TARDIS, and there they were, in their stolen robes, lying in the grass and watching the dusk creep up on them.
The Master and the Doctor, having their first kiss under Gallifrey's amber sky. It had been surprising more than it had been pleasant, but the Doctor of the present couldn't help but think that he'd rather be dead than for this to never have happened. Curious, how no one else was going to miss this moment.
He noticed that one sneaky tear had made its way down his cheek and he wiped it away, staring at his wet fingers with dumbfound sadness. "Oh, look at me," he said with a smile. "All teary-eyed. As if the world was ending, haha. Ridiculous."
He shook his head and turned away. "I think we'll skip the rest there. Don't think I could stand to see Seven's outfit ever again, anyway." His former taste in question marks was a particularly bad memory.
All he had to do was walk through the crack. He'd never belonged in this Gallifrey and he certainly didn't belong on this side of the crack any more. Now he was just wrong, and if anyone had the courage to step through the crack in order to keep the universe safe, it was him.
xxx
Amy Pond had parents. She had a fussing mother and a tiny dad. She was also getting married that day, to Rory Williams. It was the most beautiful day of her life. Actually, she wasn't sure that was correct. She was sure she had seen things beyond what any human ever had, but when she tried to put it to words, she could only think of how her wedding was the most beautiful day of her life.
At the wedding reception, she started crying and she couldn't understand why. She'd seen a woman pass by outside and something stirred in her memory. Her father was trying to get his speech done and everyone was waiting when someone came up to her and said there was a man there to see her. She went to the door together with Rory.
"Who are you?" she asked. She looked the man up and down. He was blond, dressed in a tux. In a way he reminded her of a former Prime Minister, but that was a ridiculous notion.
"That's really of no importance," the Master said. "But I was on my way and this woman outside wanted me to give you this." He held out a book with blue cover. It looked a little worn. Amy took it and flipped through the pages. They were blank.
"Oh. Right, thank you," she said, staring at the book still. Then she looked back up at the man. He was so familiar, and at the same time not. "Excuse me, but why are you here?" she asked. He was dressed for the wedding and she had a feeling he may have been invited.
"I don't know." The Master was looking around with a frown. "Someone important would have wanted me to be here."
Amy and Rory exchanged looks.
"Oh, neither of you," the Master laughed. "You're not important. Why am I here? I don't even like you humans. The moment this is over I am growing myself a TARDIS and leaving this stinking planet."
He was on his way to the punch bowl, but neither Rory nor Amy had a mind to stop him.
"Is he one of your..." Rory couldn't quite find the word. "Friends?"
"I thought he was one of yours," Amy replied.
"I don't think so. I know him, though."
"Yeah." Amy narrowed her eyes at him while they walked back to their seats. "Friend of a friend maybe?"
"That must be it," Rory agreed. "But whose?"
The Master was getting quite a few stares, but Amy and Rory had no mind to make him leave. Having him there was a pain, but it was right, in a way.
After sitting down, Amy kept pouring over the book she had been given. It was Rory who reminded her of that saying, and she took liberty of interrupting her father by standing up and shouting it out. Someone was supposed to be there. The missing link between them and that strange blondie getting drunk off their punch, someone she'd never, ever have her wedding without, her childhood without. And no one believed her when she talked about her raggedy doctor, but it was like that old wedding proverb. Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue. And there was no better blue than TARDIS-blue.
Everyone stared in shock as the phone box began to materialize in the middle of the room. Amy was walking over the table with intent and the Master had stopped assaulting the alcohol.
"How could we forget the Doctor?" Rory asked no one in particular.
Amy was at the door to the TARDIS when it opened and the Doctor peeked out with a top hat on, tux and scarf and everything.
"Surprised you this time, didn't I?" she asked.
"Most definitely," the Doctor assured. He was as surprised by his existence as all the other guests in the room. He stepped out, bright as ever and far too smug about being alive.
"Oh, you absolutely may definitely kiss the bride," Amy said, only to be shoved aside by the Master.
"One moment," the Doctor said, holding his hands up before the Master could assault him. "I need to move my box. We need space."
"What?" the Master asked. "You just rematerialized into existence after saving the entire universe. What is more important than me?"
"Dancing."
"Don't you dare."
"Don't worry, I'll dance with you as well," the Doctor said before he vanished into the TARDIS and left.
For once, he hadn't gone far. With the TARDIS parked outside, it wasn't long until the Doctor was in and joining the festivities.
"You're terrible," the Master told him. "Your last incarnation was way better."
"You should have seen Nine. He was brilliant," the Doctor said with a grin. "I forgot again. Now, keep loose. This is brilliant."
The Doctor rocked out without shame and span the Master around on the dance floor. Amy too, when the Master could spare her a second. It was when the music slowed down that the Master took the Doctor all to himself and held him as close as possible. Lights turned down, it was almost romantic between the two, and the Master made sure to take lead so the Doctor wasn't embarrassing them.
"I still can't believe you left me," the Master muttered against the Doctor's shoulder.
"Had to save the universe. You've endangered it so many times, you know how it is," the Doctor murmured in return.
The Master pressed his cheek to the Doctor's chest with closed eyes. He wasn't so much dancing with him as he was holding onto him and swaying on the spot.
"Reminds me of Titanic."
"Excuse me, but are you cuddling?" the Doctor asked, just to clarify.
"Shut up. You didn't exist," the Master said. To assure himself that he hadn't gone completely soft, he made the Doctor yelp.
"Hands! Down boy. Hands back in place," the Doctor scolded.
Smirking, the Master nuzzled back against the Doctor's neck. The Doctor calmed down, and he had to smile.
"Do you remember Gallifrey? When you and I went together?"
"Mh. What about it?" the Master asked. He missed it still.
"Just checking."
"We could go there again," the Master suggested. "If we ever wanted a place to settle down."
The looked at each other, then they laughed. As if they'd ever settle down. Imagining anything even remotely domestic for either of them was only short of impossible.
"Am I your Doctor now, then?"
The Master took the Doctor's top hat off and reached up to kiss him. It was a definite yes. They both got caught up in the kiss, not noticing anything around them while they snogged on the dance floor. They knew they'd fight again. The Master was bound to do something stupid and the Doctor was sure to punish him too hard and they'd get this whole mess started over again, but neither really minded so long as there were moments like these.
The night only lasted for so long, and the Doctor was getting itchy to move on. When no one was looking, he took the Master by his hand and dragged him outside to the TARDIS.
"Not going to ask if I want to come with you?"
"You're stuck with me," the Doctor said with a smirk at him over his shoulders. "That's what makes you special."
The Master shook his head with amusement and put the Doctor's top hat on. Once the door to the TARDIS was closed, he grabbed the Doctor by his bowtie.
"I never thanked you properly for saving all of time and space," he said, dragging the Doctor towards the stairs. The Doctor let himself be dragged, but his thoughts were on everything and anything, as always.
"Were you ever married?" he asked. "For real, I mean. With someone you cared about."
"I was married to Lucy. You see how well that went down," the Master replied, not too interested in the topic.
"I suppose she didn't appreciate how good you look in a suit."
"Shut up about her. We need to have sex before the Ponds get here."
They'd both had women in their lives. The Master probably not as many as the Doctor. Whether they liked each other more than they had liked any of those before was an uncertain thing, but there was something about being the last Time Lords.
They never got as far as any bed. The Master tripped the Doctor up and pinned him to the floor. He didn't care to wait or find somewhere comfortable. The Doctor wasn't protesting. He pulled the Master down, removing the top hat and tossing it aside as he kissed him. Indulging in it ravenously, the Master got the Doctor's tailcoat open. He was undoing the Doctor's tie when he felt hands grabbing his hips and the Doctor grinding up against his ass.
"You said I was getting a reward and we both know you really don't mind," the Doctor said with a snicker against his lips. He was working on getting the Master's trousers down. The Master rolled his eyes and continued with the bowtie.
"I said that as an incentive. I didn't mean it. You don't even like being rewarded. If you were rewarded every time you saved the world, you wouldn't have time for anything else. You're a stick. I'd feel ridiculous with you on top. That's the price of regeneration for you."
"Now, that's not fair and while I know that things usually aren't, I have to protest. You needed Amy in order to remember me. I have all reason not to be pleased with you."
"You do that," the Master said with a smile as he looped the bowtie around the Doctor's wrists and bound them tightly.
The Doctor raised his brows. "Starting to like those, are you?"
"Not as much as the suspenders by far," the Master said. "Those I can use as reins. Here we are, two men in tuxes and yet we both know who the bride is."
"Do we?"
The Doctor still had all the freedom he needed to grab the Master by his collar, pull him down and roll him over. What followed was a bit of an awkward struggle to get the upper hand, but more than anything they were trying to get each other's clothes off. The tuxes were a bit too much work though, and it was a one-hearted job so long as they were able to access skin, kissing and biting and feeling each other up. In the end, it wasn't even much of a struggle any more as they both gave in to each other.
The Master would of course deny that they had become like equals in any way, even more firmly than he would deny that he let the Doctor have him. He was taking pity on the Doctor, he told himself as he lay on his back with the Doctor's arms around his neck. The Doctor's hands were still tied together and their bodies were tangled up in half-discarded clothes.
It was rushed and feverish, not the best he'd had but it was definitely special. The Doctor existed once more and he had come to terms with the regeneration. The point here was that the sooner and harder they screwed each other the better.
They lost track of time. Not for the first time did they find themselves wrapped around each other on the floor of the TARDIS' control room. Had anything changed, it was that there had never been this little animosity between them. Surely this was as good as it would ever get. It had to be all downhill from now on.
The two looked at each other, long since recuperated but too bloody comfortable and content to get up. The Doctor was about to say something when the doors to the TARDIS opened.
"Docto—Oi! I did not need to see that," Amy exclaimed as she spotted them on the floor. She covered Rory's eyes at once. Not her own.
The Doctor, quite red, was quickly up and pulling his clothes back on.
"Ah, Ponds. Sorry about all this, it's ah, well, in the spirits of weddings and all, you know, and celebrating the fact that I actually exist again."
"He's adorable when he rambles," the Master commented in a pleasant tone. He was a bit more languid about the situation as well as about getting dressed, and took his time to smooth his hair back and straighten his cuffs once they were back in place.
"Oh, shut up, you," the Doctor said, clearing his throat. "Well, then. Tonight was a blast, wasn't it?" He couldn't help smiling as he looked at the newlyweds. "Look at you two. All domestic, but making it look so nice."
"Like you aren't?" Amy asked, gesturing to the two of them.
"Hm? No, no. We're entirely different. We're casual, exciting, adventurous, nothing domestic at all," the Doctor assured.
"You're about bloody time, is what you are," Amy told him.
"Either way," the Master broke in with a firm look at Amy. "Now that you have seen the situation, I think we all know that this is time to say goodbye."
"But..." Rory looked to Amy, who looked at the Doctor, who smiled at them both.
"And be quick about it."
Amy ran for the door and Rory followed. The two shouted out their goodbyes and waved to the people at the reception, while the Master looked at the Doctor in horror.
"We're bringing the Ponds? I mean monkeys? We're bringing the monkeys?"
The Doctor just grinned and ran for the control panel to get them moving.
"Amy, close the door. All Ponds and Time Lords inside the TARDIS for takeoff. Next destination; anywhere."
And it always would be. Maybe the Doctor had a point when he'd told the Master so long ago that seeing and experiencing all of Time and Space was enough in a way of owning it. While companions like Amy and Rory might come and go, the Master was a Time Lord. He belonged here with his Doctor.
xxx
It should have ended there. That would have been happy. On the other hand, that was the problem with living for so bloody long; it never ever stopped when it ought to.
Amy and Rory left to go on their honeymoon. The Doctor and the Master had quite an interesting time of their own while they were alone in the TARDIS. Life was good and they were both getting steadily sorer by the day.
It was a while since it had been just the two of them. They savoured it for quite a while, but they were getting restless. The Doctor had people he wanted to pay visits, the Master needed to tend to his own neglected interests.
"That holiday resort you mentioned might not be a bad idea."
"Which one?" the Doctor inquired.
"The one I'll conquer and rule and enjoy a nice holiday at, bossing people around and not causing more destruction than you approve of," the Master reminded. Of course he would cause a lot more destruction than that, and the Doctor knew. He was hard to convince, but in the end they agreed on having a week apart.
The Doctor set the Master down on Earth. As sick as the Master was getting with the planet, he could see the charm in small, corporate takeovers. It could make an interesting hobby. Of course, before the weekend was over he had taken control of a massive hotel chain and was relaxing at a luxury resort in the States. The Doctor didn't need to know how many people had been brainwashed, tortured and killed in a matter of days.
What boggled the Master's mind was that, while he was leaning on the railing of his suite's balcony in only a bathrobe with a glass of champagne, looking at the sundown's brilliant reflection in the swimming pool, he truly missed the Doctor. He was getting his fill of carnage and comfort but he couldn't wait for the Doctor to rush in and stop him. Or fuck him in the Jacuzzi. Either way.
He ought to try and take over Earth again, if only for nostalgia's sake. Perhaps he'd even let the Doctor take him as a reward for stopping him. If the Doctor couldn't, then the Master would let him buy the Earth free with sex.
Grinning to himself, he took a sip of his champagne. Then he emptied the rest of the glass onto the head of the pool boy who was passing underneath the balcony. He let out a cruel giggle.
Life was perfect. Even if the Doctor wasn't with him, he could take pleasure in planning all the things he was going to do to him when they met again. He would say that this was when relationships were at their best; when they were at a distance and communication consisted mostly of sexting on the psychic paper.
He was torn away from his dirty mind fodder by someone knocking. Upon returning inside from the balcony he found that a letter had been pushed under his door. This amused him, as the Doctor never sent letters but it was obvious who it was from.
The envelope, TARDIS-blue and with a golden number on it, marked the change of everything.
