A/N: HI GUYS! I'm still alive! You're probably tired of my excuses for not writing enough (tbh so am I xD) so let's just get on with the story!
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is owned by the BBC, I do not claim rights to it.
It was surprisingly peaceful in the console room.
The TARDIS hummed in its usual fashion, and the Master leant back against the console with a sigh, shaking his head and gazing exasperatedly down at the Doctor, who had fallen asleep. On the floor. In the middle of the room. The Master had nearly tripped over him when he'd come up the stairs from the swimming pool.
He fiddled with a dial on the console and idly wondered whether, if there were no isomorphic settings, he could fly the TARDIS to the other side of the galaxy and back without waking the Doctor.
The TARDIS buzzed, but not as angrily as she usually did when the Master touched any of the controls. Perhaps the Doctor was right, and she was finally getting used to him.
All of a sudden, the whole room shuddered, and a lever on the console flipped downwards, setting the ship into flight.
The Doctor mumbled something in his sleep and rolled over. The Master was amazed that he didn't wake up - the TARDIS was making a lot of noise, rattling and juddering along.
"Now, where do you think you're going?" the Master muttered, sliding around the console and watching as the ship seem to run on autopilot.
Eventually, the TARDIS ground to a halt with its usual rasping noise. This seemed to rouse the Doctor at last, and he sat up, rubbing his spiky hair where it had been flattened under his head.
"Wush goin' on?" he mumbled sleepily, "What happened?"
"Your ship decided to start flying itself." the Master informed him, letting go of the railings as the ship stabilised.
"What?!" the Doctor was instantly awake. He jumped to his feet and examined the scanner screen.
"I can't... something's blocking the read-out! She's never done this before," he frowned and patted the console, "What's wrong with you, eh?"
"Can your TARDIS actually fly without a pilot?" the Master asked, appearing at his shoudler.
"Well... technically, I suppose..." the Doctor scratched the back of his neck, "No, I don't... well, I mean, it's possible. Perhaps... I don't know."
"Fat lot of good you are." the Master muttered, pulling the scanner screen towards him and giving it a good thump just in case.
The Doctor was probably about to make some scolding remark about hitting his beloved ship, but before he could do so, the room gave another huge lurch, and the engines rasped loudly before settling down as the ship landed properly.
Luckily, both Time Lords were firmly holding onto the console, although the Master thought he heard a teapot smash somewhere in the corner of the room.
"Dear, oh dear!" the Doctor tutted, walking around the console and watching a few stabilisers press themselves, "This is interesting."
"Never mind interesting," the Master called from behind him, "Come and see where we are!"
The Doctor spun around and saw the other Time Lord standing by the open door. He walked over and curiously stuck his head outside.
A chilly wind blew into his face as he peered at the landscape. Grassy grey hills stretched off in all directions as far as the mountainous horizon, with the occasional purple, spidery tree growing here and there. The sky was a very pale lilac, and although it appeared to be overcast, the whole area shone with a bleached, blueish light that made it difficult for the Doctor see clearly.
"Aha!" he said loudly, "Uspheria!"
"You recognise it?" the Master squinted past him at the anemic-looking planet.
"Yes, as a matter of fact," the Doctor replied, striding out of the doors and bending down to examine some grey grass, "I came here a while back. I was dealing with an insane giant cyborg lizard who was trying to destroy this galaxy as revenge for the theft of his breath mints," he glanced over at the Master, "Not my fault, by the way."
The Master followed him out, shutting the door behind him, and raised his eyebrows.
"Well," the Doctor straightened up, scratching the back of his neck, "Not really my fault. I mean, they were-"
Suddenly, a deafening bellow rang through the air, drowning out whatever reasons the Doctor might have had for stealing breath mints.
Both Time Lords whipped around to see that the TARDIS was parked in the shadow of a tremendous reptilian monster.
Its enormous feet were encased in shining iron, and its long tail scraped the ground with an ominous, metalic sound. Half of its head and a good portion of its neck were covered with roughly-bolted silver plates, and a nasty-looking gun barrel protruded from under one of its scaly wrists.
"Oh," was all the Doctor could say. "Right."
"TARDIS!" the Master yelled, but before they could even take a step towards it, the blue box was swiped aside by a giant lizard hand. It sailed through the air, trying to spin into a safe landing spot, but eventually the engines failed and it fell headlong into one of the beautiful purple trees about a mile away. The Time Lords watched as it crashed through the uppermost branches, then stuck on a thick bough about halfway down and began to smoke angrily.
The giant lizard wasn't finished. It loomed over them with a horrible scraping sound and reached out its scaly claws. It grabbed them both in one hand and lifted them clean off the ground, before the Master could even make a sarcastic remark (which was quite an achievement).
"This isn't the most comfortable kidnapping situation I've ever been in!" the Master yelled over the rush of air as they were lifted up, getting his sarcastic remark after all.
The Doctor said nothing in reply, as he was trying to reach his pocket. Squashed between the Master and some scaly fingers, he was finding this very difficult.
The lizard raised them up to its face, where a green robotic eye glared at them from a network of interlocking metal panels and cogs. Under any other circumstances, the Doctor would have probably made an appreciative comment about the cyborg's design, but right now he was more concerned with not being ripped to shreds, or dropped, or any number of other horrid things that might happen in the next minute or so.
"So, is this the friend you were just telling me about?" the Master asked, trying to free his arms from the straitjacket of fingers that were crushing the two Time Lords uncomfortably close together.
"I took his breath mints and he tried to destroy me, and a whole galaxy - we're not exactly friends!" the Doctor replied, "But how can he be here? I made sure he was safely dispatched to a cyborg repair facility in the Tukulla galaxy."
"The Tukulla- oh, Doctor, you idiot."
"What?" the Doctor demanded, giving up trying to reach his pocket and staring at the Master.
"Paragon. Remember? The misplaced sun. It appeared right in the middle of the Tukulla galaxy, and we had to tow it back to Ignia."
"Oh..." the Doctor's eyes widened. "Of course. The whole galaxy would have been in shambles. Security gates failing - it would have been easy to escape while everyone was still recovering from the shock."
The giant lizard suddenly roared and shook them about in its hand, but didn't seem to want to eat or injure them. In fact, it seemed quite content just holding them forty feet above the ground.
"He looks like he wants something," the Doctor said thoughtfully, "I think he must've come straight back here after escaping, used his cyborg systems to track down the TARDIS and pull it here." his eyebrows skyrocketed, "That must've taken a whole lot of power."
"He probably just wants his breath mints back," the Master said, "Why did you take them anyway?"
"They were just lying there!" the Doctor explained loudly as they were subjected to another ferocious shake and a roar, "They were white and shiny and I thought, 'Ooh, nice, I'll just take them.', okay?"
The Master gave him a concerned look. "I'd tell you you're a bit weird, Doctor, but I'm sure you already know. Have you still got them?"
"Yes! Somewhere!" said the Doctor exasperatedly. "Probably in my extremely inaccessible pocket!"
The Master groaned in frustration as the lizard-cyborg roared again, this time with a definate tone of insistence.
"Alright, alright, calm down!" shouted the Doctor, once more trying to wriggle into a good pocket-accessing position. "So much for bigger-on-the-inside pockets if you can't even get to them!" he muttered.
"I can get to my pockets, if that's any help," said the Master. The Doctor gave him a sardonic look.
"Well, you wouldn't happen to have any foot-long white capsules that look like giant breath mints on you, do you? No, didn't think so."
The Master raised his eyebrows. "No, but I have the laser screwdriver." He glanced around at their scaly prison. "I could probably take off a finger or two."
"Don't even think about it," said the Doctor automatically. "Besides, he'd just drop us."
The Master tried to shrug, but was too squashed to do it properly. "Well, have you got any better ideas?"
The Doctor thought deeply for a full minute, and then sighed. "Nope."
The landing was painful, and involved a lot of screaming and... painfulness.
Grass, despite appearing bouncy and buoyant to those who are skipping gaily through it, is not such a kind surface when you are approaching it from forty feet above the ground. Indeed, if Time Lord bone structure was not highly advanced and superiour to your average human's, the fall could have been fatal.
As it was, the Doctor and the Master survived to tell the tale with nothing more than a few fractured ribs, which were easily mended by the TARDIS (as soon as they retrieved her from the tree... which is a story for another day).
It must also be mentioned that the Doctor eventually succeeded in retrieving the giant stolen breath mints from his transdimensional pocket, returned them to the lizard-cyborg, and then returned it to the repair facility it had originally escaped from.
The Master also made several sarcastic comments on the matter, most of which the Doctor ignored with a practiced tolerance.
A/N: Couldn't fit any references in this chapter, sorry D: but there are self-references to Chapter 1, so there's that. Complimentary cookies for everybody anyway, for sticking with me this long and putting up with my long chapter breaks ^^