It's been a while but I have a decent excuse this time, namely Christmas and The New Year. The end of the first year of the new decade. Impressed so far? No me neither. Actually I'm quietly panicking, because I've got some rather important exams coming up this year and I have less than no chance in getting a decent mark in anything apart from RS. Still, enough about my problems.
So far there had been very little of any kind of relationship. I suppose I'm more worried about the plot (which probably means you should be too). But I've tried put a bit more in.
The moment the Master had swung the door shut The Doctor started the engines and left.
"Where are we going?" The Master asked, strolling up to the main consol, watching the Doctor whizz around it.
"To get Sam. The first place they'll go is back to that flat, and then they'll find him." The Master grabbed the Doctor's head as he went past, making the Doctor jerk as his head stayed in one place and his body carried on. The Doctor lost his balance, and with a slight yelp he was completely supported by The Master. The Master examined the bruise forming around his eye closely.
"He punched you in the same place I did this morning." The Master said, touching it and making the Doctor wince slightly.
"It'll heal quick enough. Slightly longer than it would've otherwise, but it's fine. You wouldn't really have killed them, would you?" The Master growled.
"I have to kill one of them. I haven't killed anyone since you decided to make me travel with you. I miss it." The Doctor looked disapprovingly up at him.
"You don't have to kill anyone. There's no reason for you to."
"Annie will give us away, Chris is irritating, Ray's an ignorant ape, and Sam is a disappointment. I'd never let myself be kidnapped, forcefed narcotics and handcuffed to my own radiator."
"What about Hunt?" The Master's eyes narrowed.
"He hurt you. Only I get to do that. Like this." Then he dropped the Doctor, who hit his head on the floor.
"Ow." He sat up, and rubbed his head. He gave The Master a dirty look, who was standing over him with a huge grin on his face. "You need a new hobby." He told him reproachfully.
"Why? It's fun hurting you." The Master held out his hand. The Doctor ignored it, grabbed the consol and pulled himself up. The Master flicked a switch experimentally, but drew back his hand sharply as the TARDIS started to spark.
"She still carries a grudge." The Master noted.
"Really? Why would she do that?" The Doctor said sarcastically, as he rubbed the console soothingly. "Never mind him. He's got a duplicate I can replace him with, as soon as I pick him up." The Doctor said, smiling up at the rotor, which clanged hopefully.
"You wouldn't." The Master said, a cross between scorn and worry. The Doctor chuckled.
"Why shouldn't I? He doesn't beat me up, he doesn't run off, and he doesn't expect me to fix every problem he makes."
"That's part of my charm." The Master slipped under the Doctor's arm and leaned against the consol. "I know you like solving problems, I know you like running and I know you secretly like me beating you up." The Doctor scoffed, but didn't look him in the eye. The Master's grin widened.
"And besides, you like having me." The Master grabbed his tie and pulled The Doctor closer to him. "In the TARDIS. Or on a different planet. Or just anywhere we happen to end up in." The Doctor coughed.
There was a clunk, as the time rotor stopped moving. "We've landed." The Doctor pulled himself away and literally ran towards the door.
The Master huffed. "Scaredy cat." He looked up at the TARDIS. "I thought you didn't have a sense of timing." The Master jumped up as the consol became electrified. "There's no need to be like that." The TARDIS made a grumbling sound. The Master smoothed out hs shirt, and ran after the Doctor.
Gene swept into the room, Chris and Ray behind him. He'd decided it wasn't a good idea to leave the two of them alone, seeing how quickly the Doctor had got out the last time. He stopped short. Annie was standing there, staring at where the police box had been mere minutes ago when he'd left to get Litton, who'd disappeared somewhere. Gene was about to yell at Annie, but he stopped when he saw she was shaking, and there were tears streaming down her eyes. The Doctor and Sam were nowhere to be seen.
"Annie, love, what happened?" Gene asked grabbing her arms, and sitting her down in one of the chairs.
"Sam... Sam..." Then she burst into tears. Chris and Ray exchanged looks.
"Chris, Ray, go back to Tyler's flat, and fast." The guv glared at them so feroiciously Chris and Ray they pratically scrambled over each other to get out the room. Gene turned back to her.
"Okay, Annie, tell what he did." He told her, pulling out a handkerchief to give to her and silently thanking the missus for insisting on him carrying one everywhere he went, like he was a bloody school kid.
Annie took the handkerchief, rubbed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. "He wanted to kill me guv. He grabbed my arm, and asked that Doctor if he could kill me. He was grinning like a lunatic." Her mascara was running, giving her panda eyes, and she tried to rub it off onto the handkerchief.
"What did the Doctor do?" Gene asked. Any hope he may have harboured of Sam being coerced into something by the Doctor was disappearing rapidly.
"The Doctor said he couldn't. He said he wouldn't let him 'kill every random person he happened to meet.' What does that mean? We haven't just met, we've known each other for months."
"Maybe the Doctor didn't know that. Maybe The Doctor really is a doctor. I mean, we both know how much of a nutcase Sam is."
"He is a nutcase. I know he's a nutcase. He tells me things, Guv. He thinks..." Annie bit her lip, unsure even now whether she should divulge Sam's biggest secret. Gene knew a confession when he heard one, and all he had to do was just wait.
Annie took a deep breath. "Sam thinks he's from the future. That car accident he had when he first came here, it did something to his head, and he sees things and hears things and sometimes I ask him about Hyde and it's like he's never even been there." She said it all in a rush, then looked away, ashamed with herself.
Gene blinked. As the no-nonsense guv, he should start laughing and assure Annie that he's just a nutter and they were going to catch him and throw him in the nick from now until the time he thinks he's from. But there was still the undeniable fact that a two ton wooden box had suddenly disappeared in less than five minutes, in a completely solid room and with only one witness. And the fact his DI wanted to kill the girl he was totally besotted with, which he knew he'd never do, no matter how much of a lunatic he was. It was like he'd turned into a different person, ever since the Doctor arrived.
"Annie, what happened to the box?" Gene asked, and immediately regretted it, because she started crying again.
"It disappeared!" She cried, rubbing her eyes with the handkerchief. "It literally vanished, right before my eyes. They stepped into it, and the light on the top started flashing, it started making this noise, and it disappeared. It just doesn't make sense."
Gene stared at her. She seemed to be telling the truth, in which case she was right, it didn't make any sense at all. But he was damned if he was just going to sit there and let keep not making sense.
"Come on." He said, pulling Annie up and leaving the room. Instead of going out to the cortina, though, he went through to CID and to the personel files. Annie watched bemused as he kneeled down and opened the staff forms and grabbed Sam's file.
He stood up and opened it, looking over the papers, looking for something abnormal.
"Here, Sam's transfer form. We call up this DCI Morgan and find out what exactly happened."
"I would have thought you'd be running after Sam and The Doctor as fast as you could, guv."
"Those two, whatever else they are, aren't stupid. They won't go back to that flat. Sam's spent enough time here to know where to go to become invisible. And who knows what the Doctor's got up his sleeve. Get the phone."
Sam opened his eyes blearily, his throat dry and his head dizzy. He sat up, and was surprised to find he was in his kitchen. Sometimes he really wished he knew what was going on. And that his brain could come up with slightly more plausible scenarios. Right now, all he knew for certain was that he was thirsty, so he pulled himself up to the sink, grabbed a cup, poured himself some water and tried to get his head to stop spinning.
After a couple of minutes he worked up the courage to stagger through to the main room. There was no one there. The entire place was eerily quiet. The telly was still upturned, not that Sam was complaining. He really didn't feel up to facing the Test Card Girl.
Now, what to do. He had no idea at all where The Master was, and even less where the mysterious Doctor was, although he had an idea he may have been here while he was unconscious, because he had some vague memory of The Master talking to someone. Gene and the rest were presumably either at home or still at the station, if they still didn't know what had happened. He had two choices; stay here and wait to be found by someone, or go to the station and try to sort things out without seeming insane.
He decided to take his chances at the station. By now it was properly dark outside, and glancing at the clock he found it was very nearly midnight. Gene would probably be there, the only time the man went home was when he got drunk, and he didn't think he'd drunk that much today. Well, by Gene Hunt standards.
He made his way slowly out of the flat and down to the street below. Again everything was incredibly quiet. Normally, this was one of the things he liked about 1973. The pubs closed at 11, so by the time 12 came along there the revellers had made their way home and normal people were asleep. It didn't mean the streets were any safer, it just meant the people were comitting crimes that made less noise. But if you concentrated you could trick yourself into believing everything was good, and fine, and no one was or were going to make his life difficult.
Normally. Now it was suspicious. The silence was tense, waiting for something to happen. There were no people, no cars, no animals, nothing. The street was completely deserted, the orange glow from the street lights were the only things breaking the darkness, creating pools of light. He made his way slowly down the street, heels clicking against the pavement. It wasn't raining, but there was a feeling of moisture in the air, and every so often a droplet would fall onto Sam's skin. Sam's heart started pounding for no good reason, and he quickened his pace.
He turned the corner, and nearly jumped out of his skin when a strange sound filled the air. He looked around wildly, and nearly had a heart attack when he saw a blue box fade into existence across the street, a light going on and off at the same time as the sound waxed and waned, like a huge engine. There was a thump, the light went out and the noise stopped. A man came running out of it, stopped in the middle of the road then turned to look back at it, running a hand through his hair.
After a moment, another man came out, and Sam stumbled back, trying not to be seen. It was the Master, who ran out as well, and stopped short of the first man.
"This way to Sam's flat, isn't it?" The man who must've been The Doctor said, slightly breathless.
"Yep. We'll have to be quick though, the humans will get there soon, and then we're going to have problems." The Master was examining The Doctor, looking slightly unhappy about something.
"You know, there's still something wrong with this. I've seen something, something... off, but I don't know what." Sam kept moving back, hoping he wouldn't be seen.
"With what exactly? You and I, or Sam?" The Doctor stopped talking, but Sam couldn't see his expression from here. Then Sam put his foot straight in a small puddle. The two aliens looked around at the noise.
"It's Sam!" The Doctor exclaimed, as Sam turned and ran. The two ran after him, trying to catch him.
Sam thundered down one street and then down another, dodging down an alley, but the two were right behind them, The Master in front and The Doctor a little way behind him.
Sam ran across the road, and was nearly hit by a car. He looked round at the screech of brakes, and his eyes widened as the headlights came towards him. For a second he thought he was dead, but the car managed to slow down and stop a few yards from him. When it had stopped, the driver and the passenger got out. "Tyler!" cried a harsh, familiar voice.
"Ray!" Sam yelled in relief, never thinking he'd be happy to see him. The relief lasted a second before The Master barrelled into him, nearly knocking him over. The Master kept them upright, and clamped a hand over his mouth and pulled him into the side street.
"Tyler, they want to arrest you," The Master muttered in his ear, moving quickly down the side street, easily overpowering Sam in his dizzy and confused state. "They think you've stolen their firearms and threatened to kill one WPC Cartwright." Sam made an angry noise and doubled his efforts to push The Master away. "Don't worry, she's safe for now. But if I leave then you'll take the blame, and who knows what'll happen to you. But if you come with me, The Doctor and I will figure out why you're here and more importantly, get you back home." Sam stopped in surprise, which allowed the Master to push him through an unlocked gate and into someone's back garden. Chris and Ray ran straight past them. After a moment The Master lowered his hand, and loosened his grip on him.
"You can take me back." Sam said, slowly.
"Absolutely. That box you saw, that was a TARDIS. It's stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."
"It's a time machine." Sam said, hardly believing it.
"As you humans say. We can take you back whenever you like, although the Doctor would probably like to wait until we find out how you got here in the first place."
"Oh my god." Sam said, grabbing his head. It was starting to hurt more, from this revelation. He could get back. He could go home. Back to the future.
"Hang on." Sam asked, trying to find a flaw in this. There was no way after all this time he was just getting a ticket home for free. "Why do you want to help me?"
"It's what The Doctor does." The Master said simply. "He helps people. I couldn't care less about any of this, but The Doctor has an unsatable curiousity, and a heart far too big for his own good. Not only will he help you, he'll figure out the entire mystery and for good measure find those ridiculous guns that-" The Master stopped abruptly. Sam saw worry slowly unfold on his face.
"What is it?" Sam asked. The Master stared at nothing, and Sam saw the spark of real fear in his eyes, which surprised Sam more than a lot of other things tonight. Somehow he doubted the Master was the kind to scare easily, little girls with clowns aside.
Suddenly the Master closed his eyes and breathed in sharply, like he was smelling the air. He opened them again and went back out into the street. "Doctor?" He called, going back the way they had come. Sam, followed him, at a loss for anything else to do. Slowly The Master picked up speed, calling out his name again. Sam followed him back to the main road, by which time The Master seemed to be really panicking.
"He's gone." The Master told him.
