A/N: IT'S ALIVE! I'm so sorry for the ridiculously long time since I last updated this – I discovered a crucial flaw in the plot (A had to happen before B, but B had to happen before A, and neither was possible without the other) and had to do a huge amount of rewriting, rearranging and re-plotting to fix it. That combined with unfortunate other issues going on really squashed my creativity and will to write for a while and made it take a lot longer than expected. ^^; However, all sorted now, and a good chunk of the next ten chapters is already written with the chapters after that mapped out pretty well, so hopefully I will never again leave the story hanging that long.
There are too many reviewers since the last update for me to address them all individually, but thank you so much to all of you! Every time I see a new review I end up bouncing around with glee as I read and re-read it, and it's so wonderful to see that people are still reading and enjoying my work – even getting a new follower notification makes my day. :3 You guys are all awesome, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story!
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and all related content and characters belong to the BBC; no infringement is intended.
It had been a quiet few days since the concert in Stafford, at the Doctor's insistence. "After that racket, I doubt any of you would even be able to hear me yell 'Run!' at you, so what's the point?" he'd complained, though no one had objected to the brief vacation from their travels. Amy was happy to have some time to relax for a change, and Rory was just glad to be out of the TARDIS and away from the Master, who had shoved him off of the console platform for unwittingly singing 'You're My Best Friend' in his presence. The Time Lord had been particularly snippy in fact, much to Amy's frustration – she almost had the feeling he was trying to make up for what little pleasantness he had exhibited earlier, and it made him impossible to talk to.
Fortunately the planet Pela had sufficient diversions to make talking to the Master for any length of time unnecessary. The TARDIS had been parked on the sand under the waving fronds of a gigantic silvery orange fern, and the warm breeze coming up from the beach made the feathery leaves dance and brush over each other with a delicate shimmering sound. The effect was wonderfully calming, and it became even more so when combined with gently rolling surf breaking on a long span of pearlescent beach, lavender skies dotted with gold-tinted clouds, and the perpetual sunset tones of the red-orange sun overhead.
A slightly creaky old deck chair had been brought up from the depths of the TARDIS and set outside near the doors, and Amy sat down in it and fanned herself with the large straw hat Rory had insisted she wear while on the beach. The Doctor had already told him several times that the sun's radiation wasn't harmful so long as one didn't eat carrots, but the nurse had remained unconvinced. It appeared the Doctor had been correct about the harmlessness of the sun's rays – after two days, Amy still didn't have even a trace of a tan – but it was high noon and the breeze had died down a bit, and the fern's shade was a welcome respite from the heat on the exposed sand.
She dropped the hat into her lap and carefully leaned back in the chair, watching as Rory and the Doctor wandered along the shoreline in search of brightly-coloured shells, until a faint whistling caught her ear and she squinted into the shade cast by the TARDIS. "How can you stand to wear that hoodie on a day like this?" she asked the figure crouched there, but the Master didn't look up from his television, apparently riveted by the adventures of Tiny Clanger. When he didn't reply, Amy shrugged and turned back to face the ocean. "Fine; be unsociable as you like. Everyone else is out having fun, but go ahead and sulk in a corner instead. I'm sure that's much more fun than lying on the beach or going for a swim like some normal person."
The Master glared balefully over his television at the water. "I despise the seaside. He knows that," he grumbled. "And I loathe sand and don't care for being out in the sun. This is his way of getting back at me, I'm sure of it."
"Because going somewhere everyone else really likes is clearly meant just to annoy you," Amy said, rolling her eyes. "Anyone ever tell you the universe doesn't revolve around you?"
"I'm a Time Lord. It sort of does."
"In that case, tell the universe to get me a nice tropical drink. Something in a coconut, maybe, with one of those funny little umbrella thingies. The TARDIS can make one of those, right?" The Master shrugged one shoulder disinterestedly and returned to his show. Briefly Amy pondered investigating the TARDIS's drink-mixing abilities on her own, but the shade was cool and the deck chair comfortable, and she decided it could wait until the Doctor came back. But in the meantime… "You and the Doctor," she said casually, sitting forward and clasping her hands in her lap. "You've known each other a long time, yeah?"
"You could say that."
"Over nine hundred years, the Doctor said."
"Did he indeed?" the Master said in a tone of pure boredom.
There was a pause as Amy waited in hope that he might volunteer even a tidbit of information, but her wait was in vain as he ignored her in favour of watching the puppets on his screen. Once it became apparent that he wasn't planning to say anything further on the subject, she waved one hand slightly in an encouraging motion. "Sooooo… how'd you guys meet?"
The Master grimaced, though Amy wasn't sure if it was at the question or her persistence in talking to him. "Not certain, but I vaguely recall him bashing me over the head with a Roentgen brick. It wasn't the best introduction."
"Oh, I dunno," Amy said, running her fingers lightly along the brim of the hat. "The first time I met him after I'd grown up, I hit him with a cricket bat and handcuffed him to my radiator, and we still get along fine."
"So I've noticed," the Master grumbled. "You really do think he's just marvellous, don't you?"
Amy chuckled with a glance at the TARDIS and the alien landscape around her. "Travelling around all space and time, saving worlds, meeting famous people from the past… yep, I'm calling him pretty marvellous. Who wouldn't?"
The Master snorted and shook his head slightly. "Shall I write you a list? I'm afraid you have a rather skewed view of him, Amy Pond; his defining trait is the trail of destruction he leaves in his wake, not that he often realizes what damage he's brought about. He just wanders on his way again, blissfully trusting in Time to fix itself and never for a moment thinking it might not." He grinned sharply and tilted his television screen to indicate himself. "Or that someone else might take advantage of the mess he's made. Really, I should thank him for that Harriet Jones fiasco – there she is, about to bring in Britain's new Golden Age, and he goes and destroys her career in a fit of pique. I took the opportunity to fill that temporal gap, and, oh, it was a very different future on Earth for a while." His eyes gleamed for a second as he recalled it with a distant and almost predatory smile, but then he sighed and slumped back, rolling his eyes in annoyance. "But of course, when I do something to affect the future, it's always all 'you're altering the course of history!' and 'you're damaging the temporal matrix!', because it's only okay when he does it."
"Probably 'cause he only changes things to make them better and help people," Amy countered. "I don't know what changes you would've had in mind, but I'll bet it wouldn't have been anything good."
The Master chuckled and rose fluidly to his feet, switching off his television and tucking it away in his front pocket as he stepped out of the shade. "Good is in the eye of the beholder," he said, carefully straightening the cuffs of his sleeves before tilting his head to look sidelong at her with a slightly unnerving smile. "I play rather more roughly with my toys, I'll admit, but it's still just a game for us both. He meddles because it entertains him to do so, and I do the same, and most of the time we act purely to spite the other and damn the consequences."
"Oh, please," Amy said, shaking her head and leaning back comfortably in her chair. "The Doctor's not spiteful. Even you can't accuse him of that. There's only one of you two who's spiteful, and he's the one who's blocking my view right now."
In response the Master strolled over to stand directly before her, resting his hands on either side of the chair's frame. "Hmm. You may be right there," he admitted with an exaggeratedly serious nod as Amy slapped irritably at his arms in a futile effort to make him move away again. "But you can hardly deny that he has little concern for the outcomes of his actions. He acts on feeling and emotion, not sense. If he used his brain more than his hearts, he'd have killed me centuries ago, and yet…." He spread his arms out wide and flashed a broad grin at her. "Compassion and nostalgia can make such a fool of a man."
"Considering you're only still around because of his 'foolishness', I'd think you'd be more grateful that he has it," Amy retorted, scowling at him. "It's not like you've done anything to thank him for rescuing you, either – all you do is whine, insult everyone and eat everything in sight."
"At least I'm not insulting everything and eating everyone." He shrugged. "See? There're things you should thank me for, too. And it's that same bleeding-hearts complex that's made him hold back on humanity rather than wiping your kind out, which negates any positive feelings I may have had toward him on that score. He really thinks you'll all become better if he just loves you enough. Still, even he has his limits – eventually some ape will really get his goat and he'll just give up and torch the place."
Amy scoffed. "Oh, like he would."
"He already burnt our planet; why stop there?" At Amy's confused expression the Master raised his eyebrows gleefully, twisting at the waist to watch the Doctor's receding figure as the other alien disappeared around a short sandy point. "What, has he never mentioned that one? How odd. Yes, he has been known to break out the old fire and brimstone routine on occasion. There's more than one planet in the sky that's nothing but a burnt husk because of him, and more than one species exterminated by his hand, too. It's what he turns to when loving them didn't work. But it's okay," he said in a consoling manner, bending forward over her with his hands clasped behind him. "He always feels really bad about it afterward."
"Shut up," Amy said, glaring up at him. "You're lying."
"Okay, maybe he doesn't feel that bad about it."
Amy rolled her eyes and returned to fanning herself with the hat, pointedly ignoring him, and the Master turned gracefully on his heel and returned to the shade. He flopped down on the sand and rested back against the TARDIS, gazing out at the rolling waves, and for a while they both sat in a silence that was serene on the Master's part and seething on Amy's. Ugh, why did I even bother trying to talk with him? she thought, giving him a narrow look from around the hat. I was having such a nice day, and he had to go and be horrible all over it.
Deciding that the Master really did just enjoy getting others upset, Amy resolved to not give him the satisfaction of thinking she was angry with him, and so she assumed as unaffected an expression as she could and pretended she was sitting alone. It wasn't like she was angry anyway – his vicious lies weren't worth being bothered about, and they were obviously lies. She knew her Doctor, her kind wonderful Doctor, and there was no way he would go around burning planets. Well, unless there was no other option, of course. Or maybe if they really deserved it… like maybe a planet with nothing but Daleks and Weeping Angels on it. Or maybe –
"See, the thing you don't realize is that the Doctor is just like me," the Master piped up, and Amy slumped back in her chair with a growl and stuck the hat on her head, pulling the brim down with both hands. It seemed he was going to make it difficult to convince herself that he didn't exist. "We're the wrathful gods, as were the Time Lords of old. Commanding the lesser species is our birthright, and one that we both claim. I use discipline and order to achieve my goals, he prefers the lovey-dovey group hug approach, but at the end of the day they're either marching to our beat or destroyed. Oh, he likes to cloak himself in sanctimonious virtue and claim the moral high ground, an avenging angel dealing out divine retribution, but underneath it all he and I are very much alike. I'm just more honest about what I am."
The chair squeaked loudly in protest, threatening to topple in the uneven sand as Amy clambered out of it, but she managed to rise from its vividly striped fabric seat and strode over to the Master. "You only wish you could be even half what the Doctor is!" she said angrily, standing over him with her arms folded crossly over her chest. "I know what you're trying to do, and I know you think you're oh so clever and can twist everyone around all you like, but you're nothing next to him. He does great things for people all the time, just because he can, and he's brilliant and amazing and makes everything better. You wouldn't believe some of the things he's done."
The Master met her eyes levelly. "Neither would you." Taken aback, Amy opened her mouth to retort but couldn't think of anything to say. At her hesitation, the Master sighed and leaned his head back against the TARDIS, and Amy was surprised to see a flicker of sadness cross his face. "You're too innocent," he said tiredly. "You can still believe in people, believe in him, with all your heart. But eventually he will let you down. He always does."
There was an unusual quietness to his voice as he spoke, and his downcast gaze made Amy wonder if he was still only talking about her. Thinking on it, her mind went back to the Doctor's words from a few days earlier - neither of us will ever fully trust the other. Not anymore. At the time she'd only thought of the Doctor and how the Master must have betrayed him to cause such a rift, but now it occurred to her that perhaps the Master had once trusted the Doctor, too. Despite herself, she couldn't help feeling a slight twinge of empathy toward the alien, and she crouched down to face him and rested her chin on her folded hands. "Doesn't mean he's not still worth believing in."
He tilted his head contemplatively with a faint frown, glancing down the beach again, and then looked at her curiously. "Why did you hit him?"
Amy blinked and raised her head. "Huh? I haven't hit him."
"With the cricket bat. You said you hit him and chained him to the radiator, so I assume there must have been a reason. Unless that's how you usually greet people."
Sitting back on her heels, Amy huffed with frustration at the abrupt change in discussion. Just when I think I'm starting to get somewhere with him… "Because I was annoyed with him, stupid. He was late, twelve years late; I was hardly going to break out the tea and biscuits for him, was I?"
The Master shrugged. "He's not very good at keeping appointments. You're hardly the first person he's left waiting for a decade or two. So how long did he tell you he'd be away?"
Amy paused and sighed. "Five minutes."
That made the Master do a double-take, raising an incredulous eyebrow at her and then shaking his head with an amused chuckle. "Impressive. Even for him, that might be a record. But then, that's the Doctor all over." Once again he peered past her, and this time he grimaced and stood, brushing sand off the legs of his black jeans. "Oh, and here they come, the intrepid explorers returned. Ech. I'm going inside." Amy turned and craned her neck to see around the ferns to the beach beyond, and she soon spotted the Doctor and Rory coming back toward the TARDIS. Their voices were drowned out by the gentle surf, but even so she could tell that it was the Doctor who was doing most of the talking, and she smiled and waved to the pair. Behind her the TARDIS door creaked as the Master went in, and she pushed herself to her feet and wandered toward the two approaching men.
"Have much luck?" she asked as they drew nearer, and in response Rory held up a canvas bag filled to the brim with shells. "Nice," Amy said, peeking into the bag and pulling out a vibrantly pink and blue specimen to admire it. "Wow, you've got dozens in here! Um, what are we going to do with all of 'em?"
"I was thinking we could use them in the front garden when we get home, maybe line the path with them or something," Rory said, digging into the bag to bring out a few more particularly fantastic shells. "These ones could go on the bookshelf, too, and there's a big one in here that would look nice by the telly…" He paused and looked at the Doctor suspiciously. "They won't come back to life and try to take over the world or eat people, will they?"
"Oh, no, these ones are completely uninhabited and non-take-over-the-world-y," the Doctor assured him. "Though you might want to watch out for those blue ones."
"O…kay," Rory said slowly, eying him. "I'll make a note of that." Turning back to Amy, who was sifting through the collection and picking out her favourites, he said, "I was thinking we could pop back to Leadworth to drop these off at the house, get some fresh groceries, that sort of thing. Is there anything you need from home?"
Amy gave a distracted shrug, still gazing at the shells in her hands but no longer focused on them. She was aware of the Doctor standing nearby, and yet she found she couldn't quite look at him as the Master's words drifted through her mind, refusing to be completely silenced. Much though she wished she could just disregard what he'd said and not think about it any further, it seemed that the questions raised weren't going to go away until they'd been answered.
Realizing that Rory was waiting for her to reply, she glanced up at him. "Um, yeah. I've got a few things I want to pick up. Are we going right now? Better get that chair back in." Rory handed her the bag of shells and picked up the deck chair, folding the unwieldy frame and trying clumsily to tuck it under his arm before carrying it into the TARDIS.
The Doctor started to follow him to the TARDIS but then paused and turned back to Amy with a concerned expression. "Are you all right?" he asked her quietly. "You look a bit…."
"I'm fine," she said, forcing a smile. "Just warm out here, that's all." That didn't seem to convince him, but he tilted his head in acceptance and continued on his way. His foot was just barely across the threshold of the TARDIS door when Amy found herself blurting out, "Is it true that you burnt your planet?"
The Doctor drew to an abrupt halt and spun around, rocking back on his heels slightly. "Ah… right. You've been talking with the Master. That's often a very not good idea – you should be careful with that. It can lead to bad things." Amy searched his face, and after a moment of silence he sighed and waved one hand. "Yes, yes, I suppose it's true. In a manner of speaking, at least; I was a different man back then, different time. But it had to be done. I'd tried everything else, everything I could think of, and if I'd done nothing, well, the whole universe would have been destroyed. Time itself would have been wiped out, ceased to exist, and we all know how that turns out, don't we?"
Amy contemplatively swayed back and forth for a few seconds, tracing patterns in the sand with the toe of her boot while she mulled the information over, and finally she looked up at him again with a small smile. "Okay. If you say it had to happen, then it must've been the only thing to do." The Doctor shuffled his feet uncomfortably and said nothing, and Amy squirmed as the awkward silence stretched out. In an attempt to break it, she asked teasingly, "Does that happen to you a lot, then, having to save the universe?"
"I wouldn't call it a usual day, but it does come around with a certain regularity."
Amy laced her fingers under her chin and gave a contemplative hum. "It's a good thing you're always there then. Have you ever noticed how we always seem to end up somewhere that needs saving?"
The Doctor heaved a disgruntled sigh in agreement. "Quite. I suspect it's a glitch in the TARDIS's systems, pulling her off-course toward complicated space-time events. Anything that has the potential to cause a massive change in time generates turbulence, the TARDIS gets caught in it, and we end up somewhere or somewhen quite different from where I intended. I've been meaning to fix that, but I never seem to find the time."
"Too busy saving the universe, I guess."
"Well, that could certainly be a factor." He hesitated, his brow furrowing slightly, and then he drew a deep breath and held it for a second. "Amelia…. About what the Master –"
"It's fine," she interrupted quickly, smiling at him. "Really. I know you made the right choice."
"Right, then. Good," the Doctor said, though without much conviction, and his eyes studied her face intently before finally flicking away. He hovered in the doorway briefly before tapping his hand on the frame and going in, leaving Amy standing outside. She stared down at the ground, nibbling her lower lip, but then shook her head and followed him, closing the door firmly behind her.
