Chapter 10 – Bunker Mentality
Dar carried his friend into the TARDIS and straight through to the med-bay, where Susan was already waiting by an empty bed. Her face was composed, but he could see the worry in her eyes. Of course, he realized, she must have felt Koschei go down, as tightly wrapped up as they were. He felt stupid for not having thought of it, he should have had Geneva call and reassure her.
Geneva was on his heels and only now was holstering her gun. She was filthy, covered in blood and dirt, smoke and soot, yet she was still sharply professional, efficient and solid beside him. He was coming to depend on her and that worried him. He forced her out of his awareness and focused on his injured friend.
Susan was scanning him and running diagnostic programs with quick efficiency, but her hands were trembling slightly and he could sense the tightly controlled fear in her. Her mind was like iron though, her discipline as rigid and her defenses as formidable as any CIA field agent. In that moment, he really hated Rassilon and the High Council more than he'd thought possible. He wondered what she had been like before they had gone into her head and laid waste.
Koschei stirred and groaned, his eyes opening with obvious discomfort. He looked up into Susan's face and gave her a cheeky grin.
"Sorry, but you're still stuck with me, better luck next time," he murmured to his wife, who rolled her eyes at him.
"It's a pity I'm such a good doctor, but I'll get over my disappointment," she shot back and the sarcasm of their exchange was ruined by the way his fingers were gripping hers and the tears she was blinking back from her eyes.
"If those terrorists weren't such rubbish, you might have managed to get rid of me," he teased, but she shook her head and didn't come back with a joke this time, just turning to get more equipment and start in on healing his injuries. His eyes following her were tortured and Dar felt suddenly like he was witnessing something intensely personal.
It occurred to him that the sarcasm and jokes were all that protected them from the sheer enormity of what they were to each other. To care that much, to need each other the way that they obviously did, to be that wrapped around each other's souls, it had to be excruciating at times, especially when they were both such independent people. The only defense they had against the raw emotions that bound them up was the distance of humor and right then, even that was failing.
He grabbed Geneva and stepped out, gesturing to the Doctor and Rose as well. They all left the room and Dar felt as though his own hearts were hurting as well. What Susan and Koschei had together was too much for him, he knew he couldn't bear the searing intimacy of that relationship, but oh Stars, how he envied them the love they shared.
"You alright?" Geneva asked him with a frown. She was looking at him as though she could read every thought in his head and he shrugged.
"I'm always all right," he quipped and the Doctor looked at him in surprise and concern.
"Of course you are," Geneva responded and her disbelief was tangible.
"I spent a hundred and eighty years watching over that guy, he was my responsibility, and he became my friend, you will please forgive me if I was a bit worried there for a moment," he grumbled and she ducked her head in apology.
"Sorry, I forgot that you two had a history," she answered, her eyes going thoughtful and he knew that she was cataloguing things about him. It ought to make him nervous, but he trusted her, so he found it comforting instead.
"You know, it's interesting, I was his friend before he was driven mad, but you never knew him before, how did you two end up as mates?" the Doctor asked, scratching his head and looking at Dar with an expression of genuine interest and fascination.
"There were at least three occasions where he could have easily killed me, or simply left me for dead, yet he didn't. There were two occasions where I could have let him die and I found that I couldn't," he shrugged. "There is just something about him. He's brilliant, funny, erudite, and knowledgeable on almost every subject. You know, even when he was doing something horrible, he never did it with enjoyment, just with a sort of ruthless pragmatism. He wasn't a sadist, he was just… the Master." He ran out of words, shrugging helplessly at the Doctor, who simply smiled back with a rather rueful expression.
"I know, he gets under your skin and you find yourself forgiving even his worst excesses," the Doctor admitted.
"He's frankly just too damn charming to hate," Dar grumbled and the Doctor laughed in agreement. "I wanted to, Stars know I did, but he gives you this amused look and says something funny, brilliant, and incredibly insightful, and you can't help but admire him."
"So, you're telling me you both have man crushes on him?" Rose teased and the two Time Lords burst out laughing, while Geneva leaned against the door, arms crossed, listening carefully.
"I suppose so," the Doctor chuckled. "He's my best mate, what can I say?" Dar just nodded, he would probably never understand why he liked a guy who he'd watched wrenching the control circuits out of a Dalek slave's head without concern for the life he'd just taken, but he did.
"It makes no sense, but there it is," Dar finally answered.
"No," Geneva answered, shaking her head. "It makes perfect sense. Even through the insanity and all that was done to him, he still never lost himself completely; he still retained his humanity, his soul. There's a lot to admire in that," she commented and Dar nodded, she'd hit the nail on the head. You could always feel the underlying decency that was Koschei, even in the moments of megalomania or psychopathy.
"He held on to it, up until the point that he lost Susan, and then he fell apart," the Doctor murmured, looking at the closed door to the medi-lab. "After he thought she was dead, he just … broke." The pain and sorrow in the Doctor's voice, the way that his eyes seemed suddenly too old and too filled with darkness, made Dar very glad that he hadn't been there to see Koschei that way.
"We should get the TARDIS back home, stop blocking up traffic at the hospital," Rose suggested and they all went to the console room, leaving the Master and his Arkytior alone together.
Susan worked silently to clean his wounds and heal them up, suppressing her own awareness of his pain as best she could. He was watching her and she could feel his gaze on her as a physical weight.
"Talk to me," he finally demanded, grabbing her hand and stilling her work on him. She looked up at him and saw the rich blue of his eyes, the tenderness and warmth in them, and burst into tears. He sat up and pulled her onto his lap, wrapping her up and holding her close, cradling her like she was a small child in need of comfort.
He just held her as she cried, and she was holding him just as tightly. She was trying to pull herself together, but too much had happened and she just couldn't.
"I'm so sorry, love, I'm so sorry, I didn't ever want to make you cry," he sighed out, feeling awful for worrying her like this, and she hugged him hard and then took a few gasping breaths to compose herself.
"Then you don't think I love you very much, do you?" she asked, sniffling still and he looked at her in surprise.
"What?"
"Oh my darling idiot, you haven't thought this marriage thing through very well, have you," she chuckled damply. "If you get hurt and I don't get upset, then I must not care very much. If you really want me to love you, you are going to have to accept that you're going to make me cry, probably an awful lot, considering how jeopardy friendly you are in this body!" she explained to him and his lips curled up in rueful acknowledgement of her words.
"I suppose that's true," he admitted. He kissed her and wiped the tears away with his thumbs. "But you really shouldn't cry, love, your face gets all red and blotchy, it's the coloring from being a ginger, probably, but it's just not…" he was stopped from saying anything further by the ginger in question shoving him back on the bed and straddling him.
"Look where my hands are, husband, and then think about the wisdom of finishing that sentence," she informed him with a scowl.
"I like where your hands are," he grinned and she rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Are you going to beat me now? Don't we have better things to do?" he teased, recalling a dream he'd had about her nearly two hundred years ago. He was alerted that something was wrong by the sudden stillness. Looking up into her eyes he saw the look of befuddled confusion. "What?"
"I was never going to mention this to you, for fear your already huge ego would swell to gigantic proportions," she told him with a shy smile. "But I had these dreams about you," she admitted and now it was his turn to feel confused. He sat up, scooting back against the headboard so he could listen to her properly.
"Yeah?" he prompted, since she was now blushing and looking delightfully embarrassed.
"Well, in the first one, you pulled my hair and I said that to you, about the beating." Her voice had dropped nearly to a whisper and he had to strain to hear it. He closed his eyes in disbelief.
"I thought it was just a dream," he protested and she shivered on his lap.
"What?"
"I had that dream, it was nearly six weeks after they'd dragged me away from you in the tower," he confessed and opened his eyes to see her staring at him in shock.
"Five weeks, four days, thirteen hours," she whispered and he pulled her against him, crushing his mouth against hers, suddenly needing to feel her underneath him with an ache that went through to his bones. He turned and pressed her into the mattress, hands and mouth moving over her, not caring about his newly healed injuries, just wanting her, right that moment.
She wrapped her arms around him, a leg tucked over his, her mouth hot and frantic as she responded with equal desperation. Clothes were shed with haste and little dignity and neither one cared. His mouth was dry from wanting her so badly and soon he was burying his fears, his questions, his confusions, losing himself in her, and then falling back down into the circle of her arms, tears on his face and hers. He buried his head in her neck, trying to understand and finding nothing that made sense.
She was drifting into sleep, tangled in his arms, and he reached for a blanket, dragging it over them, before he started to succumb as well.
They'd been just dreams, he thought as he fell asleep. That was all. There was no way that they'd reached across time and space and made love to each other, it simply wasn't possible.
The Doctor stepped out of Susan's TARDIS warily. Dar and Geneva began doing a circuit, checking the flat to see if it was safe. After their all clear, they moved into the rest of the house and began packing.
The phone rang and they all jumped. The Doctor answered it.
"Hello?"
"Doctor?" Pete's voice sounded relieved. "Is everyone alright?"
"Pete," he sighed out and the others relaxed and went back to packing. "Andred is doing all right; he's in the Zero Room with Leela, finishing up his regeneration. Koschei is fine; Susan's caring for him right now. None of the rest of us was injured. How about the first responders?" he asked.
"We lost two more agents and three policemen, about fifteen more were injured," he reported and the Doctor winced at the butcher's bill.
"All we wanted to do was help," he whispered and Pete sighed on the other end of the line.
"It's a really small group of people, from what we've been able to figure out," Pete tried to console him. "The majority of Earth is really excited and happy to have you all here."
"Geneva and Dar are with us, they've suggested that we pack up everything and get back to Gallifrey, at least until these terrorists are dealt with. I think I'll take the family on a little trip until things settle down. Give you time to work while also removing the targets from play," he informed his father in law.
"That sounds like a good plan, but make sure to answer your phone in case there are any developments, okay?" Pete reminded him and the Doctor chuckled.
"Will do, Pete." Rose gestured for the phone. "Hold on, Rose wants to talk to you."
"Dad?" Rose took the phone from him. "Yeah, there were two EMTs here earlier, Flores and Hastings, they suggested that Susan needed at least six lab techs, medical students, or some such to help her out and make things go more smoothly. They volunteered and Susan said that if they passed a background test, she'd take them on. But do you think that either you, or UNIT could start working on that?" she told him and the Doctor raised an eyebrow. It did make sense; Susan couldn't clone a whole race by herself after all. "Great! Thanks, Dad!" she chirped and rang off.
"So, more inmates for the asylum?" Dar asked dryly.
"Yes, we have tons of engineers, physicists, and one spy," Rose teased him. "But we have a sad lack of doctors."
"Yes, mother was a bit one sided in her recruitment wasn't she," the Doctor sighed.
"Yes, well, I volunteered, which is why I'm here, she had to strong arm the rest of them," he grumbled.
"You volunteered? How did I miss this story?" the Doctor mused and put the meager contents of the refrigerator into a box and then grabbed the tinned food from the cupboards.
"Well, Koschei had told me that only the Lady Professor had listened to him at all when he'd told the High Council it was hopeless. When he vanished, I figured it was time to vamoose myself, so I took myself back to Gallifrey. After I heard what the Council was planning to do to Susan I took myself straight to the Lady Professor and offered my services in breaking Susan out of jail."
"Susan was in jail?" the Doctor asked, his full attention suddenly riveted on Dar.
"She didn't tell any of you?" he asked with an exasperated look. "Rassilon was going to have her forcibly bonded so he could try to turn her into the Arkytior and use her to destroy the Daleks."
"She was already married to Koschei," he pointed out, trying not to explode and start raining fiery death at the very thought of what that would have meant for Susan.
"No one knew that, they had kept that a complete secret for two hundred years," he reminded the Doctor.
"Wait," Geneva waved a hand. "They were secretly married or whatever for two hundred years and no one figured it out?"
"It's not like a marriage bond is visible to the naked eye, Geneva," Dar chuckled. "I knew something was up on the Cruciform, the way his head whipped around when she walked by was pretty obvious, but that could have been pure lust, after all."
"They still do that," the Doctor pointed out. "It's a bit of a giveaway."
"But they were actually physically separate for all that time," Dar reminded him. "Had they been in the same room together it might have become obvious to everyone, the way it is to us now, but they were kept strictly isolated from each other."
"How utterly agonizing that must have been," the Doctor murmured and glanced over at Rose with a look of remembered sorrow.
"Let's finish packing," Geneva suggested. "The longer we're here, the more danger we're in."
Dar started and it occurred to him that he would be upset if anything happened to Geneva.
He needed to find a Time Lady of his own, someone he could settle down with and start a family. He was obviously just way too lonely if he was starting to obsess over this woman. It needed to stop.