I'm so sorry this took so long. Uni sucks.
But now we get more Twissy, finally! Hopefully it is worth the wait. :)
Charlie sat on her mother's throne with her bowl of breakfast. Over the last couple of weeks it had become her favourite place to eat in the mornings, since her mother was almost always off doing something else and therefore didn't require the seat for herself.
Just as she had stuck the spoonful of the bizarre purple substance in her mouth, a worried courtier entered the room and halted at the sight of the five year old on the throne. All the same, he was quick to give a tiny bow. It had only taken a week for everyone on the moon to learn exactly who Charlie was and how Missy expected her to be treated. Charlie just thought the whole thing was quite funny. She'd never had anyone bowing and curtsying to her before, and now people were doing it left right and center.
"Miss Charlotte," the courtier stammered, "I was told that the Mistress wanted to see me. Do you know where your mother is?"
"No," Charlie said simply, spoon still in her mouth, "Sorry." She put another spoonful in her mouth.
"Not to worry, I'm here," Missy announced grandly as she strode through the double doors, "No need to fret, whatever your name is." She regarded him more critically. "You're the sort of helpful one, yeah? Who got the upper class to accept my presence and let me get on with my work?"
"Er, yes," he said, dropping to his knees in front of her while she smirked, "You wished to see me?"
"Oh yes, that." The Time Lady barely spared him a look as she ascended the steps that led to her throne. "I just thought I'd inform you that you can have your moon back. I'm done with it. So the two of us will be on our way now. Come along, Charlie, and leave that horrid food here, we'll go and find you something decent."
Charlie considered it, and did as she was told a moment later.
"Thank you, merciful one," the courtier grovelled, still on his knees but now with his head bowed a little, "We have been humbled by your presence."
"Sure, sure," Missy said, waving her hand boredly, "See if you can make anything out of what's left of this place."
With their now hefty deposit of plutonium, the mother and daughter had a few relaxing nights on their TARDIS before Missy had found her new target for controlling and scavenging. She kept her daughter in the TARDIS for the initial take over, just because a five year old wasn't going to be too much help in that area yet, but was soon able to bring Charlie out.
Charlie stepped out of the TARDIS and felt the eyes of an entire room of people on her as she stood there clutching her mother's hand. The inhabitants of the planet had pale yellow skin and darker yellow hair, and all were about seven feet tall and incredibly thin.
"On your knees, people of Tristine," Missy commanded, her voice cold and authoritative. The yellow people hurried to do as they were told. "Now. My daughter Charlotte is to be treated with the same reverence as you would bestow upon your new Queen and Mistress. Anything she asks for, you give. Any form of address she requests, you comply. You will briefly live to regret any failures on your part to observe this. Now get up and get back to whatever it is you usually do around here."
The crowd dispersed, murmuring amongst themselves in hushed and concerned tones. Only a small group remained.
"The thrones you have requested are being brought here as we speak, my queen," said a Tristine woman with green eyes that held a quiet reluctance. Charlie supposed she probably wasn't happy about her mum being in charge now. "But as the former governors of the planet, what would you have us do with ourselves?"
"Keep governing," Missy replied, as if it were obvious and even having to say it bored her, "I don't have time to deal with every single matter, you lot are far more equipped to deal with that. It just means that now you answer to me."
"Understood." While the green eyed woman still seemed wary, she had relaxed slightly upon hearing that not much was changing.
"What's your name?"
"Darla."
"Pretty name," Missy said, making Darla lift a pale eyebrow at her with badly hidden surprise that quickly morphed into suspicion, "I'll be sure to remember it. I'll learn and remember everyone's names. And do you know why?"
When several of them opened their mouths to answer, she held up a hand to silence them.
"That was a question for my daughter." She turned her head to Charlie, who blinked at her. "Well, Charlie dear? Why would I bother learning their names?"
"In case you need to find them?" Charlie guessed, not quite sure. "It would be harder to find them if you didn't know who to tell people you were looking for."
"True, that's true, but why else?"
The girl considered it, thinking back to the things her mother had done on the moon they had recently left. "In case someone makes a mistake? You'd need to know who to punish." She didn't actually know what the punishments were or if they were always the same, just that they had involved dungeons last time. Her mother had said that those sorts of things didn't matter until she was older.
A few of the Tristine governors shared looks of unease at a child of her size speaking with such clarity, or she assumed that was what it was because she didn't know why else they would be concerned, unless maybe they didn't like the idea of getting punished.
Missy, meanwhile, just beamed and clapped her hands together. "Oh, look at her. So clever already. You're right, Charlie, of course." When her gaze returned to the governors, it fell flat with boredom. "You can all run along now too. I'll get to the rest of your names tomorrow."
The governors were only halfway out of the door when Missy added one more thing.
"Oh, and Darla dear?"
Darla tensely turned around to look at them. "Yes?"
Missy cocked an eyebrow. "Yes, what?"
"Yes, my queen?"
"Better. Be sure to make it known that any resistance will not be tolerated. My slaughter of the planet guard was downright pleasant compared to what I'm capable of."
Darla, if possible, turned an even paler shade of yellow and just nodded before rushing out of the door and leaving the mother and the daughter alone.
Charlie glanced curiously at her mother. "Did you kill the planet's guards?"
"Sure did. It was the perfect way in. This lot get attacked all the time. By slipping poison into the guard food, it meant I could swoop in as their new saviour who can keep the other evil aliens at bay. They could only agree."
"So you made them need you."
"Exactly."
"That's smart," Charlie said, thinking not for the first time that her mother was definitely the more intelligent of her two parents.
Missy smirked down at her. "Well, being the Queen of Evil does take a fair degree of genius, my darling."
She took one of her daughter's hands and grabbed her small remote out of her plum jacket. One click on it had an upbeat song pouring out of the open TARDIS doors, and a moment later they were spinning around the room.
"Do you want to learn one of the dances we did on Gallifrey, Charlie dear?"
Charlie nodded earnestly, and so Missy took her hands properly and began to walk her through the steps. They became so engrossed in the lesson that they didn't notice someone else had entered the room until about a minute after he arrived.
It was, unsurprisingly, Missy who spotted him first.
"Doctor," she said, stiffly, her grip on Charlie's hand tightening until it almost hurt. "Silent entrances aren't really your style. Hoping to steal our daughter back? Stealth was never your strong suit, you know."
The Doctor looked very tired, and he just sighed and shook his head before lamely holding up the literal white flag (or rather, handkerchief) in his hand. "I'm not here to try anything. I just wanted to see my daughter."
Charlie beamed, and would have run to him if her mother hadn't had such a firm hold on her.
Missy narrowed her eyes at him for a moment, trying to assess if he was telling the truth, but apparently decided she believed him because she released her daughter, who immediately ran into the arms of her father.
The child was still glad she had chosen to go with her mother, but she had missed her father and Clara terribly. It was good to be able to breathe in the scent of his old jumper again.
"I've missed you, kit," he told her, letting out a content sigh.
"Kit?" Missy asked, lifting an eyebrow.
"It's what badgers call their babies," Charlie said cheerfully as she was finally able to turn to look at her mother again. The older female did not look impressed.
"You're not a badger, Charlotte," she said flatly.
The Doctor rolled his eyes as he got to his feet but kept a firm grip on Charlie's hand. "Well, that's a little obvious. I'd frankly be astounded if she was."
"You're hilarious."
"I think I understand that sarcasm thing now," Charlie said quietly, looking between the two of them, "It's when you say something but mean the opposite."
Missy stared at her for a moment before laughing. "Yes, dear. And I suppose we should be grateful that at least your father didn't bring his little pet with him. There's only so much tiny control freak I can take." Her gaze moved back to the Doctor. "I assume you didn't bring her because you knew she would never be okay with dropping in and not trying to take little Charlie back."
He said nothing, which seemed to tell Missy that it was true if the way she smirked was an indicator. Charlie was still learning about the finer points of humanoid interaction, and anything between her parents was even more difficult to understand than most things.
"Dad, do you want to see my room?!" Charlie asked excitedly, yanking on his hand.
His eyebrows shot up, but he nodded and let her drag him into Missy's TARDIS and down the corridor until they came to her room, which was currently on the default treetop setting.
"Isn't it pretty?"
The Doctor blinked at the room, his eyes taking it in with great surprise. "Yes. I daresay it is." He looked over his shoulder at Missy, who had followed them and was leaning on the doorframe. "You did this?"
"No need to sound so surprised," she drawled.
He went a little pink, which Charlie thought was funny. "No, not surprised, exactly," he stammered, scratching his head, "You're brilliant enough for it, I just thought you would have considered such a project a waste of your time."
"As if anything for our daughter could be a waste," Missy said, rolling her eyes at him, coming to put her hand on his shoulder and smile coyly, "It's nice to hear you still think I'm brilliant, though."
He snorted. "Of all your shortcomings, Missy, your brilliance has never been one of them."
"You really know what to say to a girl," she purred, looking at him with something in her eyes that Charlie didn't understand in the slightest.
The Doctor shifted uncomfortably and very pointedly moved his attention back to Charlie. "So, Charlie girl, does this room do anything else I should know about?"
"Yes!" The girl chirped, and ran to the sky controls to put it on the Gallifrey setting, knowing that he would love it. Sure enough, his eyes widened as the dome ceiling turned to burnt orange and had twin suns appear, with the three-dimensional image of the citadel on the far wall.
When he didn't say anything and just continued staring, Charlie frowned.
"Don't you like it?"
He snapped to look at her and immediately dropped to sit on the bed next to her. "No, Charlie, it's beautiful. I just wasn't expecting it, that's all." He glanced back at Missy, who just shrugged.
"If she can't grow up there, she can at least get to sleep under the same sky."
The Doctor nodded, and pulled Charlie onto his lap. "So what has your mother told you about Gallifrey?"
"She told me how she met you, when you were little boys," Charlie said, smiling at him.
"Everyone deserves to know how their parents met, after all," Missy pointed out as she came to join them on the bed, her hand playing with one of Charlie's curls, "And our story is better than most."
"It really depends on your definition of better," the Doctor retorted, but softened a moment later. "Though I suppose one way or another, it is quite the story." He tilted his head back to look up at the imitation of his first sky. "How much has she told you about Gallifrey itself, Charlie?"
"Not very much," Charlie admitted, "We've busy."
"I bet," he muttered, but smiled at her a moment later, "Do you want me to tell you about Gallifrey?"
She beamed. "Yes please!"
So they sat there for several hours, and Charlie let herself be taught about her heritage by her father (and her mother's occasionally interjections). After a while, the soothing tones of her father's voice lulled her into near sleep, and she snuggled against him. She was only half aware of them shifting her off his lap and tucking her into her bed properly.
"Our kit," Missy's voice murmured.
"I thought you thought that was stupid."
"Thought I'd try it out. It's not so bad."
The Doctor's lips pressed to the top of Charlie's head. "Goodnight, kit."
When Charlie woke a few hours later, she wiped at her eyes and wandered out of her room, calling for her parents as she entered the hallway. They didn't answer, so she went through to the console room and poked her head out of the doors.
The two thrones had been established in their absence, one noticeably smaller than the other. What surprised Charlie was seeing her father sitting on the larger one, with Missy sitting on top of him. He seemed to be saying her name. Not Missy, but Mistress, and he was saying it quietly as his hands rested on her waist, almost like he didn't want to.
"Why are you sitting on Mum's throne?" Charlie asked him. They had been looking at each other in that same way as before, the way she didn't understand but knew had to be important.
They both jumped and turned their heads to stare at her. Her father went bright red in the face.
"She said I could," he told her quickly, swallowing, "We're just talking, Charlie. Go back to bed." Missy looked to be holding in laughter of some sort, but when she gave Charlie a nod, the girl just shrugged.
"Okay."
She went back to bed, thought about how adults were weird, and quickly fell asleep.
The moment Charlie was gone, the Doctor made sure to give Missy his very worst glare. She just laughed at him.
"Oh come on," she murmured, tracing the lines of his face with a long red nail, "She has no idea what she just saw. Besides, you don't even have my knickers off yet. What she did see was nothing."
He still wasn't pleased in the slightest. She just kissed him roughly to put all thoughts of their daughter from his mind for the time being.
"Did you miss me?" She whispered, guiding his hands underneath the fabric of her skirt and helping him bunch it around her waist.
"No," he snapped, and she just tutted and grabbed his chin in her hand.
"Are you lying?"
He gave her a hopeless look. "Of course I'm lying."
"Of course you are," she agreed, kissing his nose and smiling before rocking against him and making him groan and clutch her thighs tighter. "Now, say my name, Doctor. You know you want to."
"No."
"Say it."
Those bright blue eyes of hers bored into his, so vivid, so adoring, so cruel. They wouldn't allow him to look away. She pressed her body against his and he lost all of his resolve.
"Mistress," he breathed, "My Mistress."
"My Doctor."
When she kissed him again, he gave in to his weakness completely.
One week til we get more Twissy in the show! *vibrates with excitement* Let me know what you thought! Feedback is really appreciated, especially constructive criticism!
-MayFairy :)