Summary:
They find a peculiar treasure and Roka wants to find out how much of her past the Master has seen.

Roka suddenly sprang up, approaching the Master.

"What...?" he asked confused.

But she was actually more interested in what was behind him. There stood a small building on top of that metal platform and she had to stretch to see up to it. Probably a control room. And in there...

"Look, something's blinking in there." She pointed up.

"Weren't you feeling sick a moment ago...?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, still do a bit... but..." There had to be a way to get up there.

"You were in my mind..."

"Uhm... okay, okay... sorry about that..." She looked down.

"That's not the point," he answered, sounding perplex. "Aren't you... I don't know... traumatized or something?"

"Huh?" Roka looked up again. "Should I?" She jumped up a bit, but was unable to grab the platform. "Ah, dammit! Could you give me a leg-up?"

The Master stared at her for a few seconds, then shook his head and helped her, before climbing up himself, following a few steps behind. "Whatever it is, it's mine."

"Hey, I found it!" The door was blocked, but the window was big enough to climb inside. It was horribly dark in there though, making her hesitate for a moment.

"What's wrong?" came an amused question. "Afraid there could be a monster inside?"

Roka froze and turned around. Until now she had completely forgotten that he has had time enough to scramble around in her own memories. "Please, don't tell me, you saw that!" she groaned.

But his overly amused grin was answer enough. "You, hiding under your bed, because you thought there was a monster in the closet?"

Crossing her arms she turned around, staring into the darkness. "To my defense... I was five!" And mumbling she added, "And there really was one inside..." She grabbed the window frame and swung herself into the dark room. "It was striped and had some nasty teeth." There it was.

"Whatever you find in there... it's still mine. Just so you know."

"Come on, let me have some loot."

"Loot?" What do you think..."

"Ohhhhhh!" Roka burst out and laughed. "Cool!" She came back to the window, holding up a gray blocky device. "Oh my... I haven't seen one in ages. The light must have reflected on the screen. If only I had batteries..."

"Err... I have. Come out there."

The Master stared curiously at her and at the device in her hands, while she climbed out of the window again. Then he pulled her towards him, casually opening the jacket she was still wearing and reaching inside one of its inner pockets, suddenly holding various kinds of batteries in his hand.

"Time Lord pockets." He winked. "What do you need them for?"

"Ah... just feeling a bit nostalgic." She giggled, took the ones she needed and booted up the Game Boy. It was the earliest model. "Aaaaaw... too bad. Can't see it clearly enough. Stupid eyes..."

The Master took it out of her hands and examined it. "What a primitive thing... Is that a game?"

Roka nodded. "Don't think you would like it much though. Those were tough back then."

"Pfff... I can beat it!" He frantically pressed the buttons, tongue between his teeth. "Ha! That's not too hard."

"Sure... not in the first few levels." She giggled.

Then suddenly a grumble resounded. The Master looked up, then to Roka... and grinned.

"Hey, I haven't eaten something since morning!" she defended herself. "I wonder if there is some food down here..."

The Master grabbed the jacket once more and Roka gave him a mean look that went completely ignored. He reached inside one of the other pockets, pulling out some bags of beef jerky, but kept them all, ripped one open and chewed on a slice while devoting his attention back to the game. Roka stared at him.

"Want some?" he asked, grinning again. "Beg for it."

"Pah... keep it." But another growl resounded from her stomach. The Master walked past her with a chuckle and put one of the bags into her hands, before sitting down on the metal floor, feet dangling from the platform, his attention still occupied by the game. Roka moved away a bit further and sat down against a metal post, hastily starting to eat before he could change his mind.

"Why do you even carry that around?" she asked amused.

"You never know. Saved my life once." But he didn't say more. He never talked about anything from his life or his past.

A few minutes went by. Roka was unsure if she should ask or not, but in the end she couldn't hold back her curiosity. "What else have you seen in my head?"

At first it seemed as if the Master just ignored her question. He lay down on his back, holding the Game Boy up, so his flashlight could illuminate the screen.

"Why did you sleep in the attic?" he asked suddenly.

"None of your business."

The Master laughed. "How about... you answer all my questions and I tell you, what I've seen?"

Roka grumbled something and spent some time chewing on the beef jerky, before finally answering.

"A ghost has to haunt a proper place, doesn't it? What else...?"

"That's no answer." His voice sounded very amused. He obviously enjoyed toying with her like that.

She sighed. "Fine... it's boring though, just so you know." She stuck out her tongue, but he was too occupied with the game to even notice. "When my younger brother was born my parents gave him my room. Cause... they couldn't remember it already belonged to someone." Thinking back to those days made her smile though. It actually had been nice up there, although a bit creepy sometimes. "Hm... for the first eight years or so I really believed I was a ghost. It seemed fitting to use the attic."

"See? That's an answer." He grinned.

"What does it even bother you?" she asked annoyed. "Think you can use that against me somehow? Good luck."

"Heh, have heard that phrase often enough to know it's not true. And yes, I do. The fun part about it... you're too curious to stop asking, right?"

Roka crossed her arms and stayed silent for a while. But he was right. There was no way she could resist learning about what he had seen. "Fine... ask your dumb questions," she grumbled.

"Academy? University? How do humans call that?" he promptly asked. "There were mostly impressions of lecture halls."

"Hmmm." This really wasn't a thing he could use against her in any way. "No one ever cared if I attended school or not... So I skipped most of it and snuck into the nearby university. Didn't understand much the first few years and had to learned the rest on my own. Bless the local library..." She chuckled. "It was fun though. I learned some Quantum physics, normal physics, some biology... Everything regarding Chemistry is awful. But the computer science classes were nice. I also tried psychology... but that was boring."

"Nah, it's useful. If you know about that you can let your enemies destroy themselves," he said happily.

"That... wasn't why I went there," she protested. "Not everyone wants to use everything for mere destruction."

A chuckle came from the Master. "You think I'm such a bad person, right? Because I do whatever I want, just because I can." And when she didn't react to that he continued, "But you're not much better. I just wonder... why did you stop?"

Slowly she looked up and towards him. "With what?"

"With strangling the life out of him."

Roka froze.

"Those small children hands of yours... around that much much tinier neck." He carefully and slowly put his words together, sounding as if enjoying every single one of them. "Slowly squeezing the breath out of your brother's small lungs. Because for him they completely forgot about you. That day they brought him home you became a ghost in your own house for good. And you wanted to make him suffer fo..."

"Shut up!" Roka shouted, shivering. "Just... stop it."

But all she got was a very mean and satisfied laugh. "He was just a few weeks old... what a thing to do. And that only for your own good."

"I... didn't do it!"

"Coward. No one would have ever caught you."

"No..." She took a few slow, deep breaths before continuing. "It wasn't his fault. And yes, no one would have ever known who... " She shook her head and lay it on her knees, being silent for a while. "Seen anything else?" Suddenly she felt tired. Or rather... this tiredness had spread inside her since she had sat down. But it got stronger the longer she didn't move.

"Mhm... just one thing. Doesn't make much sense to me though." The Master was still lying on his back with the Game Boy in his hands. "A view from atop some cliffs, looking over the sea as if waiting for something. Was quite the strong image. Important."

"Oh," made Roka, sinking down at the post, putting an arm behind her head and staring up into the darkness.

"So? What were you waiting for?"

The tiredness almost overwhelmed her. "Doubt," she mumbled. "Fear..."

"Huh?"

"That was the day I met the Doctor. The day... Seems you can't see that deep after all."

"With more time... Still, what was that about?"

She laughed tiredly. "I won't tell you."

And surprisingly he didn't ask anymore. Roka stayed silent herself, remembering that day, while the sounds of moaning metal and pushed buttons got fainter. Images popped into her mind, flashes of memories she had wanted to forget. And those other images that weren't her own. For a while she tried to bring them back, to look at them more closely. There had been so much darkness, but even more... she looked at the Master. What could turn a man into something like him? One minute a merciless murderer, the other innocently enjoying a simple thing like that game. One moment happily laughing, the next raging in chaos. And such a deep burning sadness... more pain than a human heart could ever endure... and that in just a single fracture of his mind.

The thought slipped away, as did the sounds. Everything just slowly drowned in that strange tiredness.

Roka stood on top of the cliffs. Finally she had reached the place she had seen from below. Such a nice view over the sea. So high above the waves. Without haste she took off the backpack, leaning it against a tree. Then, slowly, she stepped out onto the natural plateau. There was more than enough space to walk, but still she spread her arms to keep the balance until reaching the end.

Carefully she sat down there, letting her feet dangle above the gaping depths below. And waited. Waited for the fear that used to keep her moving. For some doubt about what she was about to do. But she hadn't felt much since the day she had lost her... the day she had... It seemed like hours passed, but neither of those feelings appeared inside her. Her eyes wandered to her hands, staring at them for a while. It felt wrong that they looked so clean now, when only...

It had gotten darker. The sun set above the sea, leaving a trace of burning fire on the waves. Roka stood up and stretched. There was no point in waiting any longer. Everything was so calm. So cold. She looked down once more, moving her foot...

A soft breeze came up, making her freeze in place. The wind... no it wasn't wind, it was a sensation as of fingers that carefully ran through her hair, gently playing with them. She stood still, let it happen, while the scene slowly faded and she returned to the waking world, not opening her eyes though, and only when she finally moved slightly after some time the sensation vanished abruptly.

For another while she lay still before noticing that the ground was hard and uncomfortable. Only her head leaned against something warm and she didn't want to move. The memory of where sleep had taken her away returned slowly and she opened her eyes to see nothing else but the red cloth of a shirt in front of her. Where did that come from?

Then a sudden realization hit her and within a second she was wide awake and sat up, crawling backwards at least a few meters, away from the Master on whose site she had apparently curled up during her sleep. And who was now chuckling at her sudden reaction, his eyes and hands still glued to that Game Boy.

Roka put her arms around her knees and looked away. "... you could have woken me."

"Too busy," was the only answer she got. But not even a minute later he suddenly shot into a sitting position, a wide grin on his face. "Ha! See? I beat it!" And he held the Game Boy in front of her face.

Roka could barely see something blurry when the screen suddenly faded. Now it was on her to smirk. "It went off."

The Master took it back and stared at it. "Come on! I just beat it! Stupid batteries!" He shot up and threw the thing as hard as he could into the darkness where it crashed into a pile of stuff somewhere in the distance.

"Welcome to the true horrors of my childhood." Roka had to laugh, but then something came to her mind. "Wait... that were either the worst batteries ever, or... how long have I slept?" Confused she blinked a few times. For her it hadn't felt like more than a few minutes.

"No idea..." He sounded disappointed and still stared towards where he had thrown the game. "Some hours." Shrugging his shoulders he turned around, staring down to her. "That stupid action of yours completely drained your energy." He sighed. "I can't even erase it... not without damaging your own memory at least."

"Guess it won't kill me." Roka shrugged. "Don't worry, I haven't seen anything that would make any sense to me."

"Doesn't matter..." He tilted his head and put a finger on his chin. "I just wonder if that will affect your mind. Although for now it doesn't seem so..." For a moment he observed her like a particularly interesting test subject. "Whatever... let's get that stuff back upstairs."