A/N: This fic was written for a Support Stacie Author Auction fic for TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel. She got a 1000-word fic. I fail at 1000 words. Her prompt was fantastic - Nine meets the Simm!Master. I could not help it. The fic is, therefore, an AU. Beyond that, I don't want to spoil it for you.
Flirting With Disaster
Chapter 2
"No, but seriously," the Master insisted on continuing, "that is impossible."
The blonde girl looked at him with a bright, cheeky grin. "What? You never seen a pregnant human before?"
"Not one that smells like him from here," the Master shot back. "You cannot be pregnant. Time Lords are sterile."
That cheeky human just snickered and put a hand on her rather huge belly. "You hear that, baby?" she said. "Your daddy's sterile." She looked up and met the Master's eye again. "We had this conversation 'bout ten months ago. Was interesting, me standing there holding three positive tests and him swearing it was impossible."
"Bit fantastic, really," the Doctor agreed happily.
The Master's head felt like his brains were spattered all over the inside of his skull like scrambled eggs in a cocktail shaker. "How did this happen?" he whispered.
The Doctor laughed even harder, then reached out a hand to snag the blonde who looked very likely to just walk right up to him, completely innocent of his identity. The Master smirked. The Doctor smirked right back. "Rose, this is the Master."
"So I was right?" Rose asked, and now she was the one smirking. "One of your people did…"
"Let's put it this way. If someone gave me a choice between this one an' that Dalek downstairs…"
Rose put a hand on the Doctor's face, an absurdly familiar gesture for any human to dare to take with a Time Lord of Gallifrey in front of his underlings and enemies. The Master was torn between amusement and disgust. "It'd be a tough call, I get it," she said in a soft voice like she was gentling a madman.
The Doctor nodded slowly, pressed a kiss into the girl's palm, and then glared balefully at the Master, those icy eyes just daring him to say something as he stood there holding hands with the girl. "Isn't this lovely," the Master exclaimed cheerfully. "The Missus and the ex, how fun is that?"
"You're not the ex," the Doctor snapped.
"So we're still on?" The Master batted his eyelashes at the Doctor. This was a new tactic, but it was fun! One of his guards seemed to think so, too, because he snickered.
"I have better taste in men than you," Rose told the Doctor flippantly.
"I like her," the Master decided. Then, he did a double take. "Wait…"
"Just need you to drop us next to th' TARDIS. I'll take care o' the Dalek problem, then Diana here'll fill the base full o' concrete. End of story, no alien museum, no more brain dead geniuses, no more Dalek, no more living outta sync. That all right, or d'ya wanna try to take over the world real quick?"
"Same thing we do every night, Pinkie," Rose muttered. The Doctor grinned at her.
The Master didn't get it, but he had to admit the Doctor's little wife was fun. She was smart and irreverent and he could already tell she gave the Doctor fully as much trouble as, say, the Time Lords ever had. He frowned. "I get to keep Diana," he decided, just to see what they'd say.
"Thanks, I've already played with one megalomaniac," said Diana coldly. "It's all fun and games until somebody loses a life."
The Master pouted. "I haven't killed anybody!" he exclaimed.
Rose made a cough that wasn't a very good disguise at all for the word, "Bullshit."
The Doctor snorted. "Must be, what, a good hour?" he said. "That's gotta be a record for you!"
"Oh, shut up," he snapped. "And get into the TARDIS, the pair of you." He looked at Diana's lithe form and fiercely intelligent eyes. "I've never done the human companion thing," he said, "but for you I'd make an exception."
Diana glared. "I've never done the alien head on my wall thing," she countered. "But yours is certainly decorative enough."
"I'm starting to see the appeal of these human females," the Master commented, cheerfully.
Everyone ignored him. "Doctor, don't you want to take the team with you?" Diana offered. "I know you've tried to keep them off spaceships wherever possible, but most of them have seen some things."
The Doctor shook his head, quite busy with supporting a smiling, but not particularly mobile, Rose. She gave a whole new definition to the words 'great with child'. "Is she having twins?" the Master wondered.
"You'll at least want someone to help arrest him," Diana insisted.
The Doctor looked concerned and pensive, and the Master knew, then and there, that he was up to something. More, the Master was certain he'd never approve. "There's no point."
That was new.
The Doctor smiled beatifically, his blue eyes alive and shining in a way the Master could only just remember from their very distant childhood. "I've always wondered," the Doctor said, "if you don't jus' run because I'll chase you. Some things you've done, they're definitely the utter nightmares of your diseased mind, but so much more of it had to be purely to piss me off."
The Master had honestly never been so frightened in his life.
"So tell me, Koschei," the Doctor said, speaking in Gallifreyan and deliberately choosing that long forgotten name, "if I said I am done with running and you are welcome to stop with me, what would you do?"
The Master stared. "Theta," he answered, in the same language, the only other word for the Doctor he had ever known. He chanced a glance at the blonde girl, saw that pain was contorting her face, wondered if she understood. "Is it time then?" he asked, the words compassing not merely the advent of that child, but of entire worlds of new beginnings.
"You get one chance," the Doctor said, extending his free hand.
Incredibly, his little bride extended hers as well, an offer of such trust and peace written bright as daylight in the simple fact that the Doctor let her. "Come with us," she said, and in Gallifreyan, and she made it such a welcoming, gathering word, inclusive.
Need and hope rang out louder than drums, surrounding him, enfolding him. The Master looked into the inferno eyes of the man who had been everything to him in this life, the very last of his kind, the only other who had ever mattered to him, anyway. He made his choice.
He nodded, and it was done.
The Master took Rose's free arm and together, he and the Doctor led her into his TARDIS. Diana followed, but the Master didn't see fit to put her out. She was a bit mad, Diana, and a bit of a female tyrant, and he liked her.
"I don't get jolts on short hops," the Master said, calmly, "but we'll want to keep close on the controls all the same. My Medbay isn't what it could be, so I'd prefer if we got her to yours."
The Doctor went to the opposite bank of controls, and Rose selected the bank near the door, bracing herself and holding tightly. Diana followed her example, and the Master looked a question at his fellow Time Lord. The Doctor touched three controls, the Master touched three more, and they were off.
The sound of drums was incessant, eternal, and much, much worse since the War.
The TARDIS rematerialized without a glitch and the Master automatically ran a trace to try to locate that damnable Dalek. The Doctor's fingers flew over the bank of controls before him. "Still got the VLA armed?" he asked.
"I might've hit it with the TCE," the Master admitted.
"What's the TCE do to a Dalek?" the Doctor wondered, a very curious expression on his face. It was scientific curiosity, the Master realized, genuine interest that piqued that genius brain into action.
"What's a TCE?" Rose wondered.
"He liked miniatures," the Doctor said. "It's called the Tissue Compression Eliminator, though, 'cuz only one person's ever survived the process."
"Lemmee guess," Rose said blandly, "superior Time Lord physiology and all that?"
"Of course," the Master said, shooting her a fetching smile.
"Well, we need ta find that thing and get on, because the owner of the superior Time Lord physiology over here is tired of his surroundings."
The Doctor moved toward her as if automatically, and Rose waved him back, an expression of exasperated fondness lighting up her face. "Diana, hit all those red switches," the Doctor ordered.
"They're silver," the Master added. "He's not color-blind, just forgetful."
"Used to do that to me all the time!" Rose commiserated, and gave the Master a look of such fellow feeling that he couldn't resist grinning at her. Then, she gave a small cry and nearly doubled over.
At this, the Doctor really did rush toward her, not even the need to find that Dalek stopping him. The Master, being closer, reached her first.
Maybe it was jealousy, spite, hate to one, hate of the other. Maybe it was a need every bit as base as hunger or warmth. Maybe they were more insane than he was to even imagine there was any other option than this. Maybe it rage, blood, vengeance, fear. Maybe it was the drums; maybe it was always the drums.
He snatched Rose close, the TCE in his hand and at her temple in an instant. "You bastard," Rose hissed, then groaned as her knees tried to buckle.
"Stand on your feet, pretty, I'll not carry you," the Master said. "No, Doctor!" he ordered, edging toward the doors.
The Master laughed, wicked and unrepentant. "It's never the elaborate traps," he said. "Do your other enemies know? So many people hate you, and she and her kind are your weakness. Life is your weakness, and homes and families and all those things you can never, ever have!"
