Chapter 10 – Ships Passing
The Cruciform, Susan sighed and looked around the cramped quarters she'd been given. She was a day early, but she'd wanted to get settled in to her new duty station, get used to the station's gravity and its air, and make sure that the millions of minds wouldn't overwhelm her. She wasn't going to be able to keep her shields up as tightly as she was used to, not if she wanted to be able to function as a Doctor, after all.
"Any messages?" she asked mechanically, though all hope of that was gone now.
"No messages." The same reply she always got and she hadn't expected there to be one, so she really wasn't feeling disappointed.
Susan called up the station's duty roster, as she always did at each new place, checking to see if the Master was assigned here, even as she told herself that she was being stupid. Just as she always did. He was never stationed anywhere she was, it was like he was deliberately avoiding her. Which was good, it was very good. He ought to be avoiding her, after all.
Her hearts stuttered in surprise as the impossible happened. There it was; Captain, the Master, listed in Station Security Division. She tried to ignore the way that her blood sang in her veins as she caressed the words on the screen with her fingers.
Twenty years. They hadn't seen each other in twenty years. Why was she made happier just by the thought that she was on same space station with him?
It's not like the Master had ever come to see her. He had sent no messages and made no attempt to contact her. She had tried twice to contact him, she still didn't know why, but he'd never responded.
She couldn't even imagine what they would say to each other. What sort of conversation could they even have? "So, conquered any lesser species lately? Oh, and by the way, sorry we ended up connected so deeply that we can't get free." It was ridiculous. He hated her, despised her as the grandchild of his worst enemy. Even if he were to see her, what could there ever be between them?
Memories of the dream rose up to ambush her and she was gasping and forcing the sudden desperate need back down again. He was insane, dangerous, unhinged, yet she thought of him and could only remember that glorious beauty deep inside of him. Why couldn't she stop wanting him? Why was she still even asking herself these questions? She just had to stomp on her feelings and move on.
There were nice young men who smiled at her, asked her to go walking with them, but she felt nothing at the thought of them touching her. She had lived twenty years on one kiss, on one ridiculous dream, and it was beyond stupid of her, but she couldn't stop herself.
Then there was the question of what would happen if she could let go of him. The Tower's attacks on her mind had damaged her. She could barely stand even the lightest of mental touches, even from those close to her. The only mind she could bear within her own was her grandfather's and even then she had to keep her thoughts so carefully contained, so that she didn't leak out her secrets to him, that she hardly let him past her surface thoughts.
To smile back at any of those nice young men would mean having to open up to one of them someday and she knew that she couldn't do it. Let them call her frigid; let them call her an "ape lover", or whatever they wanted to. The only two minds she could tolerate were her grandfather's and the Master's, which was utterly pathetic.
She was just so stupid. That dream, that amazing, intoxicating, incredible dream, it was just her own subconscious mind acting up. There was probably a psychological term for it, Transference, or something like that. They were nothing to each other and that was as it should be.
"Right, enough of that!" she muttered and quashed the agitation that the mere sight of his name on a roster had roused in her. "Stupid, stupid, Susan, just grow up!" she admonished herself and pulled the white robe around her shoulders, the mark of a fully qualified medical Doctor.
She stepped out of her rooms and joined a group of other medical personnel as they strode down the corridors, forcibly shoving her emotional turmoil away in a box and sealing it shut.
She greeted her colleagues, felt their curious eyes on her, and the weight of expectations begin to press down on her. They were all watching her, the Doctor's granddaughter, who wasn't raised on Gallifrey, and who'd married a human. She couldn't ever be anything else than brilliant around them. She had to prove that her time living on other worlds hadn't damaged her, made her less than the other Time Lords. She had to prove to them that Grandfather had been right to take her away. She had to be so careful all the time, not slip up, and not show how different she was from them.
She straightened her back and put on her 'Doctor's face'. It was time again to pretend that she fit in, even if she never would. She'd been so alone for decades now. She would just have to accept that it would always be this way. She would never feel that sense of belonging that other people did. She just had to accept the feeling that no place would ever really be home to her.
The Master stood patiently, Darginian looming behind him like a pile of bricks, and listened to the General giving them their next assignments, but there was something eating at him. He was edgy, jumpy, his skin felt too tight and his scalp itched. He was nervous for no reason that he could understand.
He felt, rather than saw, movement behind him, a cluster of fluttering white robes, passing by in the hallway outside. He turned his head, feeling like he was being pulled on a string, and a pair of emerald green eyes met his. She paused in mid-stride, eyes gone wide in startled recognition and he found himself frozen in place, even as his body demanded that he move, run, go to her.
She was the same as he remembered, though not as thin and starved looking as she had been. Her skin was pale alabaster, her hair a sweep of darkness, pulled into a ponytail, already losing tendrils that swept across her cheek, and then his eyes were arrested by her mouth, pink and slightly open. It all burned itself into him in an instant.
"Susan," he whispered and watched her own lips forming his name, the name he'd abandoned so long ago.
"Koschei."
She was jostled by an older man, who glared at her, and hustled her along. He instantly hated that man. She glanced back once more, her eyes searing him like branding irons, but she was soon lost in the crowd. Gone again. He felt as though a fist were squeezing his hearts and he stood there like a statue, fighting against the urge to run after her, to grab her, to shove her against a wall and reenact that long ago dream with her, for real this time.
"Captain," the General barked, recalling him to his senses. "You and Captain Darginian will be going to Nydia to repair their defense systems and redesign them; your Trans Mat is scheduled to depart in ten minutes from now." The Master nodded his head, both in acknowledgement and understanding.
He was being sent away, sent to where he could not touch her. Rassilon's memory was long and he was still determined to separate them.
Darginian was bored by the routine briefing, but kept himself looking dangerous and ready regardless. The Master was not someone to be taken lightly and he had enough problems with the conflicting nature of his orders that he couldn't risk being distracted.
The Master's head whipped around suddenly and his eyes locked on a girl in white doctor's robes walking by outside. Susanatrevalar, he realized. She'd regenerated and he felt a stab of guilt seeing that. She was sane though, which was far more than he could have hoped.
She was staring at the Master and he was staring back at her, his lips parted, eyes gone soft, a yearning in his face that Dar was certain he wasn't aware of.
The strange part was the girl was watching him with the same look. There was longing, desire, and something he couldn't quite grasp. She was pushed on by some elderly doctor and the Master frowned as she was moved away. She looked back and Dar was shocked by the heat in her eyes before she vanished again.
What the hell was that about, he wondered, watching the Master close himself up again, becoming once more the controlled, careful egomaniac. But, Dar knew he'd glimpsed beneath the mask and what he saw was surprisingly gentle.
He turned back to the briefing, pondering the conundrum.
She made her excuses to the others and darted away through the crowds, sure that she was being stupid, certain that she'd gone as mad as he was. She followed the faint trail of their connection and made it to the departure bay. He was stepping onto the pad, with a looming hulk of a man at his side, and her voice caught in her throat. He was leaving. Why?
His eyes found hers in the crowd and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but it was too late, he was gone, vanished in a flash of energy.
"Don't…." she whispered to empty air, but even she didn't know what the end of that sentence was going to be.
She stood alone in the crowded bay, not knowing what she'd expected, not knowing what she'd hoped for, just feeling like she'd lost something infinitely precious, something necessary to her.
God, but what a fool she was.
He'd had two seconds of hope, of feeling that something was going right for him and then the shock of the Trans Mat, the feeling of dislocation, of dissolution, washed over him and those emerald green eyes were gone. Again.
He stepped forward and glared at the guard sent to meet him and escort him to his new duty station, the man recoiled in fear, which made him feel slightly better. He listened with only half an ear to the nervous chattering explanations of his guide, his mind dwelling entirely on Susan. Darginian was at his heels as usual, but he hardly even noticed the other man.
Why had she come to the Trans Mat? She'd been about to speak, what had she been going to say? Was she making sure he was leaving? Did she want him to stay? His hearts sped up in mingled hope and need. Could she feel it too? Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Had she tried to contact him, tried to see him, only to be prevented by Rassilon?
He laughed, disgusted at himself, as he forcibly quashed his mounting hopes. What sort of idiot was he to imagine that she felt anything but relief at his departure? Even if there were some residual attraction, it wasn't enough for either of them to do anything with. She wasn't a fool and only a fool would put themselves willingly into his power. He knew what he was, he was proud to be a predator amongst the mewling whimpering masses.
He reached up and rubbed at his teeth for a moment, reassuring himself that they were no longer fangs. That world had been more powerful than he'd imagined and he wasn't sure that being quite so much the predator had been a good thing. He still shuddered at the thought of cats.
"These will be your rooms, Captain," the guard informed him with a wild-eyed glance at him, before scurrying away, and he stalked into it.
His TARDIS was already there, parked in the corner, looking like an army locker. He frowned at it, wishing he could get in and just go. He wanted to go and find Susan, drag her into his TARDIS if he must, imprison her there until she broke, until she begged for his touch, until she craved him as much as he craved her.
This obsession was the worst sort of folly, the height of madness, and he despised himself for such weakness. To be so much in another's power was to court destruction, yet he was so tightly wired into her that he'd turned down several likely partners, all because they weren't her.
He was sometimes torn between the desire to possess her and the desire to kill her, to break this connection and free himself. But he knew, from his reaction today, that it wasn't possible. Even if he killed her, he would never be free.
"Captain? Who was the girl who came to the Trans Mat?" Darginian asked him and he turned to see curiosity, but still no contempt or mockery in the man's eyes.
"Susanatrevalar, a Prydonian, of the Lady Professor's line," he answered and he could hear how his voice caressed her name. He closed his eyes and willed some self-control.
"The Doctor's granddaughter, the one that married a human?" the CIA agent asked, surprised, but again, the Master could sense no judgment in the man. He was honestly curious, interested, but not cruelly inquisitive.
"Yes," he answered, but he wanted to say so much more. He wanted to tell the other man about the sunlight in her soul, about the way her eyes would look inside of you, and how much he wanted her. He wanted to say that she was his, how she belonged to him and only to him, but the words remained inside of him. He was silent.
"She's beautiful," Darginian commented and it was just a simple statement of fact, like he'd said the suns rose that morning.
"Yes, she is," he replied and knew that he'd revealed more of his feelings in three words than if he'd said all the rest of it.
Darginian watched as the Master turned to his things and began picking out the tools and equipment he would need. He wondered if the other man knew how much his voice trembled when he spoke of the girl, or that his hands were shaking as he worked.
The agent turned away and gave him some privacy, feeling rather shaken himself. Who could have imagined that the Master, could love a girl so deeply that just speaking about her made his eyes go soft and his body quiver?
"What's our first job?" he asked and the Master turned and looked at him, lips twisted into a bitter smile.
"Upgrading the defense grids, of course, what else?" he answered and Dar saw him taking deep breaths of control from the corner of his eyes. The older man was deeply shaken by his encounter, brief as it was, and a sudden thought occurred to him. The way that his head had whipped around towards her and hers had swiveled in answer, spoke to a connection between them. Were they truly bonded? The Doctor's only grandchild, of the Highest of Houses, was she soul wed to the Master, the insane, hated, cast-off child of a lower house?
He controlled his own reaction to that thought carefully. Despite all that he had heard of the Master's madness and savagery, he'd seen little to confirm the stories as of yet. Perhaps there was more to him than gossip and rumor had said.
"Can I carry anything?" he asked and the Master looked at him startled. Allowing himself to be burdened would make him more vulnerable if the Master choose to try to attack him. Even asking was a sign of trust, an offer of something akin to friendship.
"The tool case, then, if you want to," the Master answered, shrugging, as though they both didn't understand that something of significance had passed between them.
"Very well," Dar answered and picked it up, swinging it over his shoulder. The Master rose and studied him, head cocked. There was a breathless moment when options were considered and then he simply turned, showing his back to Dar, letting himself be open and vulnerable to the agent and walked out the door. Darginian took a deep breath, wondering suddenly where his loyalties lay these days, and then he followed the Master, realizing that that in itself was his answer.
Andred tackled Lt. Grest and pinned him down. He'd thrown his mental shields up as strongly as he could, but Grest's mental collapse was like standing next to a black hole, it sucked at his own mind in a very unpleasant manner.
Two other soldiers ran over to help him as Grest screamed and thrashed about, trying to fight some enemy that existed only in his mind.
Two nurses, mauve vests rippling as they ran, dashed in and jammed a neural inhibitor over Grest's head. The sudden silence and cessation of movement was jarring; it always looked to Andred like someone had hit the 'off' switch. Grest lay still, his chest rising and falling, his gray eyes staring off into space.
"Got him Colonel, thank you!" one of the nurses told him and Andred released the young lieutenant and stood up, brushing off his uniform.
"Yes, quite," Andred answered, checking his own mental status carefully as he did so.
"He's the third one this week," Sgt. Hewst muttered and Andred nodded.
"We've had a lot of TLC's this month; it's bound to be stressful. He'll be fine in a few days," he reassured the Sergeant, patting him on the shoulder as he walked back towards his office.
"All these 'never-were' problems are getting worse," Hewst sighed out, running a weary hand across his close cropped black hair. "The more time lines collapse, the greater the corruption of the probability matrix becomes. Pretty soon things that were, but aren't anymore, or things that never-were, but could have been, are going to start creeping into the here and now." Andred nodded his understanding, remembering that Hewst had been a temporal engineer before the war.
"Any ideas about what we could do about that?" Andred asked, with a frown etched deep on his face. He couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled, but he was pretty sure the time was measured not in days but in decades. Gods, but he wished Leela would get back soon, he couldn't relax when she was out of his sight. He was having nightmares of waking up one morning to discover she'd ceased to exist. Her mission was important, but it tried his sanity.
"I'm an engineer, Sir, not a theorist, you'd have to talk to the Doctor about that one," Hewst answered, with a shake of his head.
"I'll make sure to send him a memo, assuming that, after the next collapse, we have still had this conversation." Andred replied, but as jokes went, it wasn't particularly funny.