Chapter 6: Fractured Fairytales

They had no idea where she would have gone. At the TORCHWOOD hub they researched and inputted every location the Doctor could think of that she might have gone to. There wasn't anything. There weren't even parallel dimension versions of her family to try and contact.

At a loss for what to do, it was Jack who finally suggested that Rose and the Doctor call at a night, and that he would stay at the hub with Celyn and Delia and continue researching.

"We'll call if we find her." Jack had assured him, before he had all but thrust the Doctor and Rose out the door, and returning to where Celyn stood, making a remark about what a striking resemblance he had to someone Jack had known a few centuries ago.

The Doctor soaked in the details of Rose's flat as she clattered around in the small kitchen. Walking through the living room he ghosted his fingers across the top of the mantle, inspecting the pictures until stopping at one in particular that he picked up for closer examination.

A wedding picture, that appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be of him and Rose. He found it odd the effect the photograph had on him.

How different would his life have been if he hadn't left Rose on the beach with the product of himself and Donna? He could see that maybe domestics weren't nearly as ghastly as he had always protested them to be.

He set the picture back on the mantle, almost guiltily, as Rose entered the living room, bumping the swinging door from the kitchen open with her hip and holding two cups of tea.

"You still take two sugars, yeh?" She asked with an awkward half smile. He nodded and they sat down next to each other on the couch. And the silence in the room was almost tangible.

How would you begin to speak to someone you hadn't seen in over one hundred years?

It was Rose who finally broke the awkward silence.

"Why did you leave?" She asked, staring into the bottom of her tea cup. The Doctor started.

"What?"

"You left. You left me, a y'never even asked what I wanted. And he wasn't you. I learned to love him, but he wasn't you. Not really, anyway."

"But… you married him…."

"He… wasn't…. you!" She said between gritted teeth, brushing tears away angrily with the heel of her hand. "He could never be you, and we both knew it. We made the best of it, but it was always you."

"I'm sorry." He said quietly.

"Yeah, you're sorry, you're always sorry Doctor." She said under her breath as she clambered to her feet and crossed to the other side of the room. She hastily plunked her tea cup onto the mantle and stood motionless with her back to him, trying to collect her thoughts and feelings into something even remotely coherent.

The Doctor sat with his mouth slightly agape in the after math of Rose's outburst, finding no reply at the ready. It was not as if the words she said were not ones that had not echoed within his own mind over and over throughout the years since he had last seen her.

He knew that she had every rite to blame him, by that token, she had every rite to never wish to speak to him again.

But she had spoken to him, even if she was now cross with him, and he had to do something, say something, say anything. His forehead creased in a slight frown as he set his tea cup on the short end table beside the sofa and got to his feet, moving to stand beside Rose in only a few strides. He reached a tentative hand towards her, letting it hang momentarily in the air before coming to rest lightly against her cheek.

"You should be mad, you should hate me…" She turned her head towards him as he spoke. "But I need you to believe me, that from the second that I left you on that beach, till I was standing her with you, right now … every moment I wish I could have it to do over. There was never a day that I didn't think of you, and regretted never telling you."

Rose tilted her head slightly, regarding him.

"Telling me what, Doctor? Or does it still not need saying?"

She felt a small twinge of guilt at the look that crossed his face at that, not enough to offer an apology however. Why, she had hurtled through time and space, the very fabrics of dimensions, with only the hope of finding him driving her forward.

She lost track of the times she'd nearly been killed, the hostile alternate worlds she stumbled blindly into. But somehow she'd done it, and she done it all for him.

And then he had put her back exactly where she'd come from and not even been able to say three small words to her. It didn't matter that had been centuries since the incident, the sting of it was as fresh as a new paper cut, and she could feel the bitter tears brimming in her eyes.

"I'm sorry…" He found himself saying again, feeling defeated in the face of her pained expression.

"How could you have even asked me if it needed saying? Of course it did! If you felt it all it should have been easy for you! I didn't find it hard. Do you know how hard it was to find you? Do you? And then for it to be all for nothing?". She hated that she was crying, it wasn't how she had planned for it to go. She buried her face against her palms, feeling ashamed of her emotions. The Doctor lightly pulled her hands away and cupped her face in his hands, tipping it up to him he lightly kissed her eyelids and down the side of her cheek. He stopped with his lips hovering mere centimeters above her ear and whispered.

"Rose Tyler, I have always loved you."

He kissed her then, not with the desperation of when they had first been reunited, but in the deep and passionate way he has always wished he'd had the courage to. And Rose eagerly returned his affections, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body firmly against his. His arms tightly encircled her waist and he pulled her hips flush against him. After what seemed like years they broke apart from each other, gasping for air and breathing heavily.

Rose smoothed back her hair and licked her lips, regarding the Doctor with a look in her eye that reminded him, with slight discomfort, of when he her body had been taken over by Cassandra on New Earth. After a moment she grabbed his hand and pulled him deeper into the flat, and he followed wordlessly, with a sort of awed obedience.

She pushed open the door to another room, and the Doctor had only a moment to look about him at his surroundings, what he assumed to be Rose's bedroom, before she was once more kissing him. He felt for a moment, almost like he would melt under the heat of her lips, and her fingers were so nimble, undoing buttons, working lose the knot of his tie, undressing him with a mind boggling quickness. He felt it completely impossible for his brain to fully take in the situation, let alone keep up with it. He barely realized that she had been guiding him backwards until the backs of his knees met with edge of the mattress, buckled, and he found himself involuntarily seated.

Rose's mouth never left his, however, and she slid onto his lap, straddling him. She broke the kiss only to begin to tug up at her own top, and the Doctor managed to finally acclimate to the situation and grab her shirt, and pull it cleanly up over her head and her up stretched arms.

It happened fast, much more so then either of them had expected, mere moments later both were unclothed and moving in union. He kissed every inch of her skin that he could without disrupting their movement as she purred his name. It was as if there had never been any separation, it had always been this way, the Doctor and Rose, together, and all way right in the universe. And when he climaxed he held tightly onto her and told her again that he loved her in almost a whimper.

He fell asleep in a tangle of sheets, and limbs, and blonde hair pressing against his face.

===== BREAK =====

He put an arm around her waist as she stumbled slightly exiting the pub. The Master regarded Moira and wondered how much she'd had to drink before he'd found her, she'd spoken with perfect coherence, so perhaps the small wobble of her step just then had been pure coincidence. Unsure footing in dim lighting, and what have you.

The rain had started up once more, and while he, himself, was unbothered by it, he stopped and turned to his companion, pulling her crimson hood up to cover head, before extending his hand to her.

"Come on, Little Red." He said, a gentle teasing tone to his voice, and she accepted his hand without comment, letting him lace his fingers through hers and lead her down the rain soaked streets. "My chauffer will be waiting for us a few blocks from here." He explained to her and she nodded.

They walked awhile in silence before passing the window of small appliance type store, the view screens displayed in the window broad casting the local news. Moira moved to the display window and stood with the palm of her hand against the glass, carefully regarding the news cast.

"New President, Harold Saxon, has already begun to act on his platforms which promise to bring Britain into a new golden age…" Came the faint voice of the news caster through the glass. Moira frowned.

"That's you. You're the president here." She said looking at him quizzically. The Master smiled winsomely and moved to stand next to her, casually draping an arm around her shoulders. "… Harold Saxon?" She asked after a moment.

"You've been to places before with the Doctor, I assume, where he's used a pseudonym to avoid suspicion I'm sure. If I remember correctly, he favours John Smith." Moira gave a small nod. "Harold Saxon has been a personal favourite of mine, but of course, with you pet, Harry is fine."

"Harry…" She said slowly and he grinned at her.

"That's my girl!" He said, and pressed a kiss to her forehead before once more taking her by the hand and leading her away from the store front.

At the end of a few blocks they found a man in a newly pressed suit, standing in front of a well polished transport ship.

"The lady have a bit of a hard night?" The man asked, and the Master smiled, giving Moira a squeeze.

"You know how it is, Hen party got to be a bit much." The driver nodded sympathetically.

"All the same, if you don't mind me saying so 'mum. You're a lucky woman, if my Misses had called me out 'ere in the middle of the night, I'd of told her to find her own way home. Your fiancé is a better man than me, I'm afraid." He said with a chuckle as he lowered the short flight of steps into the cabin.

The Master was pleased that Moira had not so much as blinked at the driver's statement, and had only given him a small smile. He gently nudged her to climb up into the ship and followed her up the steps.

Once they were both seated in the cabin, the driver slid into the front of the ship, behind the control console and set about pressing the correct controls to seal the cabin and set the ship in flight.

"Where are we going?" Moira asked quietly enough that only he could hear.

"London."

===== BREAK=====

When the ship landed outside of the large mansion the Master gave Moira's hand a small squeeze, and she awoke with a small yawn and looked about her as the cabin doors were opened.

Once inside he helped her struggle out of her damp coat, handing it off to one of the household staff he lead her up the grand staircase, all the while watching her eyes attempt to absorb the luxury around her.

He led her down the hall and into a large room, with floor to ceiling windows and an enormous four poster bed. He released her hand and observed as she wandered into the room, trailing a hand over the top of the vanity and a chest of drawers before turning back to look at him.

"It's yours, if you want it." He told her, and she tilted her head questioningly.

"Why? Why go through all this for me? " She said, with a gesture to her surroundings. "It just … doesn't make sense". He crossed to where she was standing, smoothing a stray hair from her forehead.

"We'll just say that I owe you a lot."

"What?" It was almost more of a statement, and it made him smile, and evade it entirely, focusing on his hand that was still at her hair.

"He didn't deserve you, you know." He told her, and she looked shocked, almost violently so, like being woken up by having cold water thrown on you. He enjoyed the look of shock on her face, and he grinned disarmingly at her. "He took you for granted you know, always made you play second fiddle to that little 21st century shop girl of his. You deserve better." He leaned down, his cheek pressed against hers "I can give you better."

She took a step backwards, and shook her head to clear it.

"I don't blame him, she's the love of his life. Besides I can't really compare to her."

"Oh? And why is that?" He asked, still smiling in a way he knew she found charming.

"Well, you can't really match up to someone who absorbed the whole vortex of time and space, and can, you know, live forever. Compared to that, I'm more then a bit insignificant" She said with a small, humourless laugh.

"You'd be surprised the things you've done without even realizing it. You could hardly be called insignificant." He advanced slightly, compensating for the step she had taken. She didn't move again, instead, she was completely still, her eyes fixed on him. He felt almost like a snake, hypnotizing a mouse it was about to devour. "Why should you be so upset over him? What is it? Attraction? Affection? I do know for a fact, that you are not exactly apathetic in regards to me."

A blush rose in her cheeks and she smiled, a little awkwardly, at that.

"Well, yes, but you do realize that up until a few hours ago I assumed you were a figment of my imagination."

"You should never assume, pet." He told her, moving closer still. Observing the effect that his drawing nearer was having on her. The slight dilation of her pupils, the quickening of her breath, he could clearly hear the tempo of her heartbeat. He'd been intune with her mind long enough to know, clearly, what she was thinking behind her increasingly wide eyes. He found himself enjoying the predatory feeling, finally standing face to face with her, he wanted nothing more then to drag her down like a gazelle. Claim her.

"If you meant so little, do you think I would have done all this to find you?" He moved closer still. "You called me here Moira. You knew. You always knew that this was where your fairy tale was going. He was never going to play the Prince, you were never going to recover the glass slipper. That's not how it's going to end."

"There are no fairy tale endings." She whispered.

"No… there aren't" He said, and pulled her roughly to him, closing the remaining distance between them. He kissed her hard, and much too quickly for her to process. The blunt force of it caused her bottom lip to become cut on her teeth, and when she managed to open her mouth to him he could taste the salty, metallic notes of blood. This did nothing to help the purely animalistic sensations he was feeling.

There was nothing soft, or romantic in the way he pushed her onto the bed. This was entirely about possession. His dull nails scraped shallow tracks up her thigh as he roughly pushed her skirt up over her hips. The fabric of her dress making a sharp hissing noise as it ripped under the force of his hands, matched by her soft cry as he bit down where her neck met her shoulder. He wondered momentarily how many bruises she would have in the morning.

Moving over her, his left hand gripped her thin wrists above her head while his right pressed against the side of her temple, and he simultaneously entered her mentally as well as physically. He was instantly aware as he rummaged through the haphazard maze-like domain that was Moira's mind, that the Doctor had never once set foot there in all the time he'd been with her. The Master felt oddly giddy at the fact that he held a complete claim over something that previously belonged to the Doctor, she belonged to him even more so now. He foraged into the corners and recesses of her brain that he hadn't previously had access to.

Rooms filled with Ireland, and orphans, and her childhood. But more so, there were rooms filled with the Doctor. The places they'd gone, things that they had done and seen. The secrets he had told her. The knowledge, for the Master, is just as gratifying as the sex. He finally released his hold on her wrists and her mind, instead gripping onto her shoulders hard enough that he can feel his nails breaking the skin there. She moved her hands between the two of them, resting her palms against his chest, and between gasps she whispered:

"You have two hearts."

"Time Lord" He growled and nipped at her neck as they came simultaneously.

====BREAK===

Rose's first thought upon waking was a somewhat panicky one. Having lived alone as long as she had, the sensation of waking up to someone lying on top of her had become incredibly foreign. But she craned her neck slightly, and recognized the messy, albeit, fantastic brown hair, and the face below it. He was still asleep, with his mouth slightly open. She found it completely endearing.

Despite herself, she reached a hand out to touch the side of his face, assuring herself that he was real, not another dream, not simply going to evaporate with the chirps of her alarm clock. His eyes opened slowly, and a childish grin spread across his face and he kissed her lips lightly.

"Good Morning" he said, and Rose laughed, shoving him off of her.

"You've got morning breath, Doctor."

"Oi!" He exclaimed looking offended, she apologized and snuggled against him. She had missed him, the way smelled, the way he looked first thing in the morning. Pale, and skinny, and disarmingly handsome as he had been the last time she'd seen him. She was happy that he was the same, right down to dusting of freckles across his face and that old pinstriped suit. She thought that one day she should ask him, how, exactly, in two centuries, it had not fallen apart.

"Where do you think she went?" Rose asked quietly, and the Doctor shook his head, or as close to as he could while lying down.

"I have no idea, this may be parallel, but this isn't her world. It's different, even if only slightly, it's enough that it wouldn't be familiar. I don't know, maybe I'm being vain, but I never really supposed she would just you know, up and leave." Rose sighed at him.

"Oh for goodness sake, would you stay after you saw us? You must've known how she felt about you… I think she knew this was going to happen." He raised an eyebrow.

"How would she have known?"

"Dunno, just something she said when we were out. Was all a bit cryptic at the time … but it all sort of makes sense now." She sat up, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. "What's going to happen now? I mean, if we can find her, and after that?"

"What are you wanting to happen?" He asked with his manic grin, nudging her leg playfully with his foot. "Back to the way things were? Rose Tyler and The Doctor in the TARDIS?" She couldn't help but smile back at him, slightly biting down on her lower lip. She prepared to settle back into bed when the room was filled with the lights and noises of her communication device going off.

Rose sighed heavily and switched it on.

"Yes?"

"Sorry to interupt you crazy kids but we've found something down here." Said Jack's voice through the instrument. The Doctor sat up in bed, moving to sit with an arm draped over Rose's shoulder, and peering at the device.

"What is it?" He asked.

"You should really come down and see for yourself." Jack said, and the communication channel closed with a snap.