Hey! Rhia here. Yeah, I know, this is a really fast update... don't get used to it. *laughs* It's only because I've had this chapter written for a while-we haven't started the next one yet, and Mandy starts school tomorrow, so there will be a wait. Don't hurt me... *waves white flag furiously*
Warnings for the chapter, you say? Um... fluffles, minimal angst. And a bit of tsundere!Master.
When the Master finally awoke, he felt extremely disoriented, although more rested than he had been in a long time. There was something missing, he thought, and he wasn't supposed to be here, but what was missing—and where "here" was—had momentarily escaped him.
Slowly, it began to come back to him. Pictures, sounds, feelings. The room with the glass roof, and the Doctor crashing through it like an ange—a bumbling fool, the horrible noise of glass breaking, falling. The Doctor pointing a gun at him, telling him to get out of the way. His rage at Rassilon for making him into the monster he knew he'd become—yes, he had finally admitted it, although he was trying not to think about it. Trying to kill Rassilon, for vengeance and to save his Doctor—uh, that insufferable idiot. Being pulled into the Time Lock with—
Wait.
He was in the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor had saved him, he realized, lip curling in distaste. He didn't need saving. All right, so it had been… helpful. Sure, he missed Gallifrey, but being stuck there for eternity and having to face up to his crimes was not something he'd wanted for himself. But then, his "eternity" probably would not have lasted long. He was weak, about to d—
Oh. Yes. He remembered the last bit now. For some reason, he felt himself blushing. Stupid, really. It wasn't as if it had been t-that… well, it hadn't meant anything, had it? No, of course not. Just… the Doctor, wanting to hang on to his own consciousness, and of course wanting to save the Master. Always "saving" people, wasn't he? Especially the ones who didn't need saving. Which he hadn't. Not at all.
Well, maybe a little, he admitted to himself grudgingly.
And that… well, whatever the Doctor had done… sharing his regeneration energy… whatever that was. It had felt, well—no, that was nothing. Of course it hadn't felt intimate. What was he thinking? Since when had he been in a bed?
Having successfully distracted himself from his own thoughts, which seemed to be racing around in his head very strangely, the Master sat up, taking in his surroundings. Bedroom. Looked pretty normal. His head felt very strange. There was something missing, from the room, or from…. his head?
One-two-three-four, he tapped out on the duvet. Familiar, comforting. One, two, three—
There was no echo. Nothing in his ears except the dull thump of his hand tapping out the rhythm. It sounded sad. He could barely hear it. And there was nothing else.
The Doctor! He had taken the drums away, he had tried to fix the Master, he didn't need fixing, why did the Doctor feel the need to rummage around in his head—
Or…. No. What if….
The signal was gone. It was gone, vanished with Rassilon into the Time Lock. The Master was alone in his own head.
He didn't know whether to scream or laugh, so he did both, a strange strangled cry, clutching at the pillow as if it were his last lifeline.
The Doctor poked his head around the doorframe a few seconds later, which the Master supposed had been inevitable. He carefully did not think about… what he'd been thinking about a minute ago. "You're awake! Did you have a nightmare?" the Doctor asked, eyes filled with concern.
The Master rolled his own eyes. "I don't need you to do the mother-hen thing over me, Doctor, and no. Worse than that."
The Doctor babbled something along the lines of "Oh-no-what's-wrong-let-me-help," which the Master stopped listening to after the first syllable, and rushed over to the side of the bed.
"Where did you find this room, anyway?" the Master asked, evading the issue. In response, the Doctor only gave him a Look that was a strange hybrid between a death glare and his patented puppy-dog eyes.
The Master sighed. "The drums are gone, and I assume you had nothing to do with it." (Read: If this is your fault I will personally tear you limb from limb, no matter how much I lo—like—hate—respectyou.)
Wide eyes. "They're gone?"
That would be either a "no" or an "I'm such a good actor, look, I didn't know about that at all!"
"Yes. Did you not hear me the first time?"
"I did, but… that's great!" The Doctor started forward excitedly as if to hug the Master, but drew back quickly, letting his arms fall to his sides as if he didn't know quite what to do with them. Despite himself, the Master felt a little… disappointed. And annoyed. Mostly annoyed.
"Um, uh, that's great!" the Doctor said again, putting one of his hands behind his head awkwardly.
"No. It. Isn't," the Master said through gritted teeth, glaring at the Doctor, who, exasperatingly enough, seemed to have no idea what he'd said wrong.
"But… why not? Now you're free, right?" Well, of course this didn't make sense to him, with his saving-people thing. He thought the Master was saved from the drums. But what he really needed saving from now was himself.
Without thinking, the Master reached out and put his hands behind the Doctor's head, pulling their faces closer together. "You don't understand," he growled. "Those drums made me who I am. So who am I now? I've lost everything. And you think that's great?" he almost shouted.
There was a pause in which the Master realized just how close the Doctor's face was to his and what would happen if they got any closer. Then he jumped back as if he'd been electrocuted, somehow managing to bump his nose painfully on the Doctor's as he did so.
"I-I'm sorry, I didn't know… I, uh…" the Doctor stammered, backing away and blushing furiously in a manner that the Master could almost describe as adorable… i-if he didn't hate the idiot so much. And well, you were allowed to think of someone as adorable even if you hated them! Right? Er. He should say something, shouldn't he?
"Uh… it doesn't matter, I mean, it's not, I mean—oh, Rassilon, I really need to work this stupid personality out." The Master considered for a moment the merits of picking up the pillow and burying his face in it, but ultimately decided against it as it would probably make things even more awkward between the two of them. Which would be quite a feat, since he was pretty sure things had never been this awkward between them, not even when they were at school.
"Clothes!" the Doctor burst out suddenly.
"…what?" The Master overemphasized the word and gave the Doctor a "you have gone completely mad and that's strange coming from me" look.
"Maybe finding you some clothes that aren't those awful rags will help with the, er, personality issues! No offense to your current clothes of course," the Doctor said, although his face clearly said that he was indeed taking offense to the Master's current clothes and would he take them off before some… thing… happened oh no Master you are not blushing. The Master quickly turned his face away, pretending to be very interested in the wall (quite an awful shade of green now that he looked at it) rather than the Doctor's face or his own treacherous thoughts. What was he, a bloody schoolgirl?
"Uh… Master?"
"Yes! Yes, sorry, that's… fine."
"Did you just apologize to me? Rassilon, this is worse than I thought!" the Doctor said with a slightly forced laugh.
The awkwardness just was not going away, was it? And the Master's head was spinning, thoughts racing one after another in endless circles. Who was he, without the drums? He felt awful, vulnerable, like he was an eight-year-old child again—which in a sense he was. He had kept some of his old self, but it felt… younger somehow, more easily wounded. His walls were crumbling. Those walls had been built up by the drums, and without them… well, he would just have to build new ones.
"Here we are!" he heard the Doctor say, as if from far away, and realized that they'd been walking. Oh yes, the closet.
"Here, you can have some of my old things," the Doctor said, beaming and shoving about three shirts, four jackets and two pairs of pants into the Master's arms in quick succession. The Master rolled his eyes. What did he expect him to do, put them all on at once? Finding a convenient chair, he dumped most of the clothes onto it and held up one jacket for inspection.
"Ugh! Doctor, you kept this atrocious jacket?" The Master winced at the bright colours currently making his eyes burn.
"It brings back memories! Like that time with the Rani and—"
"Yes, I remember it quite clearly, thank you. I was there. The time when your obnoxious companion was nearly turned into a tree, yes?"
"Peri wasn't obnoxious! She was… uh… okay, she was a little obnoxious that day," the Doctor conceded.
"Her entire vocabulary consisted of the words 'Oh no,' 'Doctor' and 'Save me,'" the Master deadpanned, tossing the (horrid) jacket to the floor. "And this jacket made you look like you'd escaped from the circus. That regeneration had awful fashion sense."
"Oh yes, like you're one to talk. Remember what you were wearing that day?"
"What exactly was the problem with it? It was a perfectly sensible outfit, and it was black, not… whatever you choose to call that monstrosity."
The Doctor gave him a Look. "It had bows on."
"It… did… all right, fine, you win. I can't think of a suitable comeback to that one. You kept this?" The Master held up a shirt with poufy sleeves—the shirt with poufy sleeves, the one he'd worn as Professor Yana—and stared at it. "Where's the waistcoat? Or did you only like the shirt?"
…and if he didn't know better, he'd say the Doctor was blushing.
"I—I had no idea I had that! You stuck it in my closet, didn't you, when you stole my bloody TARDIS?" If the Doctor was blushing as he said this, the Master couldn't tell, because the Doctor had (rather conveniently) turned his back and was looking through a rack of shoes.
"I did not! I remember exactly where I left those clothes, and it wasn't here. Why did you keep them?"
"I… didn't know they were yours?" Still refusing to look at the Master. The Doctor always had been bad at coming up with excuses.
"You're contradicting yourself. Never mind, I don't want to know. You still have this jacket? Rassilon, your third regeneration used to wear this thing!" the Master said, picking up a maroon velvet jacket and hanging it tidily over the back of the chair.
"Here, I have some of his shirts, too!" The Doctor beamed, handing the Master a tangled mess of white with ruffles that looked like it had about five sleeves.
"Wha—do you even have a system of organization for this mess?" The Master gestured wildly at the room, which seemed both endlessly large and endlessly disorganized. There were pieces of clothing strewn everywhere, including the floor, and he could see several dresses and skirts mixed in with what was supposed to be the coatrack, a mismatched pair of socks hanging from the back of a chair, and was that a wig in one of those shoeboxes?
"Um…" The Doctor looked sheepish. One hand was behind his head again, that awkward gesture more than one of his regenerations seemed to do. "Well, I did."
"What happened to it?" The Master's love of organization was setting in again, and this was the exact opposite of organized.
"Um… companions happened?" The Doctor gestured helplessly at the dresses and the wig, which the Master now recognized as the one Jo Grant had worn that time in Atlantis.
"Oh, for the love of—just turn around, would you? Unless you don't actually want me to change and only dragged me here in order to torture me with… this."
"Oh! Right!" The Doctor turned around obligingly and pretended to be very interested in the rack of clothes in front of him. Well, the Master supposed he might not be pretending. Probably remembering good times with his companions, all those bloody Earth girls… oh yes, he was supposed to be changing clothes.
When the Doctor finally turned around again, it was all he could do to stifle an "aww" or other sort of acknowledging-cuteness noise that would probably have gotten him killed (or at least Death Glare'd). The Master was wearing one of his old ruffled shirts, but the sleeves were… a bit long. Well, ridiculously long, really, and it was rather adorable. He coughed and said "You look… different," trying not to blush. Again.
Sure enough, the Master was glaring at him, or possibly at the sleeves, it was a bit hard to tell, since he kept looking back and forth between them. Finally, he only said "Sleeves are too long" and motioned for the Doctor to turn around again, at which point he attempted to collect his thoughts by staring intensely at the sleeve of one of Rose's old dresses. It didn't work.
"Is that a cravat?" The Master's voice broke into his thoughts, although he was glad of the distraction.
"What? Er, yes," the Doctor said, after looking around distractedly for said accessory.
"Pass it."
"Er—right." The Doctor grabbed the cravat, which had been tossed haphazardly over the top of one of the clothing racks, and stuck his arm out blindly, waiting until he no longer felt the fabric in his hand and then putting that hand self-consciously in his pocket.
"Right, you can turn around."
The Doctor did so. This time, he didn't manage to restrain himself from making an extremely coherent noise something along the lines of "Kdzjwha." The Master only looked at him in annoyance and what might have been slight amusement.
"You'll have to be slightly more articulate than that, my dear Doctor…"
The Doctor just stared. Not only was the Master wearing a cravat, he was also wearing one of the Doctor's own (well, his third incarnation's) velvet coats and a different shirt with ruffles on the sleeves. The overall effect (that is, if he had been wearing shoes) was that of a Victorian gentleman. He'd definitely never seen the Master like this before. And he had said—the Doctor's eyes widened. Was that on purpose or because he was currently thinking more like his earlier regenerations?
"Um… shoes," was all the Doctor could say in between staring and trying not to stare. Why did he say that, was that meant to annoy me or—
"Yes, those would help, wouldn't they? Can't exactly go on wearing those ratty old trainers, can I?" The Master smirked. He was enjoying this, the Doctor realized, and the small part of his brain still capable of coherent thought realized He seems to be back to his old self. His old, snarky, not-quite-so-crazy self…
"Er, yes! Shoes! Boots, there are some boots over there." Vague gesture to the right.
"Good." After looking through the messy pile of shoes and attempting to organize them somehow, the Master finally found a pair he liked. He put the left one on, picked up the right one and—the lace broke.
"You need to take better care of these, Doctor. The lace on this is broken," he said, holding up the offending object.
"Shoelaces, yes, I've got those somewhere. Er… box, they're in a box, they—ah! This way," the Doctor said, looking pleased with himself and more than a little relieved to have something useful to think about. Lucky that bootlace was broken, or he might have been standing there staring awkwardly for ages, he thought, turning the corner into the main control room.
"Doctor. Why do you have shoelaces in a box in the main control room?" the Master asked patiently. Or, well, as if he was trying to be patient and it wasn't working very well. The Doctor's lack of an attention span was beginning to get on his nerves. Oh, who was he kidding? It was always on his nerves, every time he was in the same room with the idiot.
"Best place to keep things. Here it is!" The Doctor reached under a panel in the floor and pulled out a small cardboard box with various items (papers, books, and—yes, a shoelace) spilling over the edges and a messy letter S scrawled on the outside. "Now let's see. Not the right length, tangled in—what's that doing in there? Oh yes, Sally Sparrow—here we are!"
The Master looked on in confusion and annoyance as the Doctor proceeded to toss several things across the room (one of which promptly landed half-over a lever, another in a dusty corner and yet another nearly on the Master's head) in his search.
"Give me that." The Master grabbed the shoelace, stuck it in his pocket, and wrested the box from a momentarily very surprised Doctor. "First of all, what is this book doing in the S box?"
"Title starts with an—oh."
"Exactly. Is everything you own in this much of a mess? Never mind, I don't want to know. Get the sock off of that lever, and while you're at it put that book in the correct box, and…."
In the argument that ensued, neither of them noticed the photograph quietly sitting in the neglected corner in which it had fallen…
"…and do you ever clean this place? I didn't even think it was possible to have that much dust in one room!" the Master nearly yelled as he walked half-sideways back into the main control room, still incensed from a "tour" of the Doctor's TARDIS that had ended up more like "let's take this argument around random hallways that are even messier than the control room!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I must not have found time in between saving the universe and foiling your plans again," the Doctor shot back, deliberately taking the long way around the console bank in order to more effectively yell at the Master across it. "And being attacked, kidnapped, all manner of—"
"Oh, come on. When was the last time you were kidnapped?"
"By you, actually."
"You're bluffing, aren't you? You have no idea."
"Yes I do! I'm just… finding it hard to place in my personal timestream."
"Your excuses are terr—" The Master cut himself off, staring intensely into a corner.
"What, see a ghost?" the Doctor half-joked, feeling slightly—incongruously—worried.
"Doctor," the Master said carefully, not allowing his gaze to leave the darkened corner, "you don't happen to have statues aboard the TARDIS, do you? One of which you wouldn't have happened to move in here as a practical joke?"
"No, I—what are you talking about?" The Doctor maneuvered around a bench to peer into the corner the Master seemed to find so interesting.
"So, this is the… real… thing." The Master had more fear in his voice than the Doctor could ever remember hearing, and upon reaching the spot, dread filling his hearts, the Doctor could see why.
"A Weeping Angel."
...don't hurt me! *waves white flag again* I'm sorry for the evil cliffhanger! I'm sorryyyy~ *wails*
But... *cough* It would, ahem, motivate us to put you out of your misery faster if you reviewed to tell us how evil we are (or how awesome, but that might be pushing it after that cliffie). Just sayin'.
