Hello, again. I'm out of town once more. I have not seen Listen, but I have read reviews about it, because I felt like spoiling myself. Looking forward to seeing it after I get back. So far, I do like 12, especially with Robot of Sherwood. Hopefully he might eventually, maybe a couple of years from now, show up in this fic. Now this week, I'm doing an interval chapter-I'll start Dalek next time. I just feel like focusing on some other characters...
"Morning, Lucy, Harold." Moriarty smiled as the couple walked into their London townhouse.
"Morning, James." Lucy smiled at her husband's friend, though a bit coolly, before she moved on to the private quarters. She wanted to freshen up and change her clothes after trudging through the wreckage of 10 Downing Street, an absolute mess.
She didn't quite trust James, who looked too snakelike to her. But the Master trusted him, and she supposed that was reason enough to stand him for a little while longer. The Master had promised her that, someday, they would be rid of Moriarty, once they were free of the TARDIS restraint that kept them either stuck on Earth or Utopia.
She shivered a moment as she recalled that horrendous, hellish vision of a place. But she blocked it from her mind with the hope the Master offered her of traveling beyond the stars, to see and conquer the entire universe. They would know, fear, and love the name Lucy Saxon.
"Bitch." Moriarty muttered, shaking his head as she vanished. "Head stuck up her ass."
"You're just jealous." The Master said. "She has her resources and her uses and she knows how to play the game well."
"So what if I am? And I can play the game way better than she can." Moriarty remarked.
"No one doubts how well you can play, but not the type of game we're playing." The Master said.
"Fine, I'll be good. So how did it go over there, Master?" Moriarty asked. "Did you get a hold of Mycroft? What did he have to say about what happened?"
"Yes, I did." The Master said, frowning as he explained some of what he had gleaned out of the Iceman. "He knows about you. The Slitheen mentioned your name when they were confronting the Doctor and his friends."
"Oh, bollocks. I was hoping to stay off of Mycroft's radar for a little while longer." Moriarty sighed. "Well, never mind, I suppose it would have to come out sooner or later. We'll deal with him eventually. Is that all you got out of him?"
"He saw and knew everything about the Slitheen plan, thanks to the Doctor and his brother Sherlock's investigations." The Master said. "He received some future knowledge from the Doctor about Ms. Harriet Jones, one of the back-bench MPs, becoming prime minister."
"Ms. Harriet Jones? She sounds revolting. I'm certainly not going to vote for her." Moriarty said.
"I don't know. She might be relatively inexperienced in terms of politics, perhaps easy enough to influence." The Master frowned. "We shall have to see. Hopefully Mycroft won't get his claws dug too deeply into her."
"I think you might be going into a losing battle there." Moriarty said. "Mycroft was with her during one of the most trying hours of her life, I should imagine, with ravenous aliens taking over Parliament, threatening to destroy the Earth, and then a missile crashes into Downing Street. He's probably a big influence on her already. But who would have guessed a missile would take out Downing Street and the Slitheen?"
"The Doctor contacted one of his companions to get access to the missile that destroyed Downing Street through UNIT." The Master added. "That was all I got out of Mycroft and it was more than enough."
"I'm surprised that they did use a missile." Moriarty said. "You said he doesn't like to use weapons, especially guns, even to destroy his enemies."
"Well, the Time War changed him, probably more than he evens knows." The Master said. "Nowadays he's more likely to resort to measures he once considered as anathema to further his own goals. If he knew that his precious earth was threatened, there wouldn't be anything he wouldn't do to save it."
"And Gallifrey? His home planet, your home planet?" Moriarty asked.
I can't say the same for him there." The Master growled.
"He's my kind of man there." Moriarty grinned. "It's surprising as well that no one questioned what happened with the destruction of Downing Street."
"Mycroft, Ms. Harriet Jones, UNIT and those alien experts who escaped are handling that situation as best they can." The Master commented. "They'll try to keep panic and questioning down to a minimum."
"Should we encourage that panic?" Moriarty asked.
"It's debatable how much of an impact it might have, and it might negatively affect us as well, drawing attention." The Master said.
"Well, let's avoid any more of that. There weren't any problems getting into Mycrroft's mind, was there?" Moriarty asked, turning to the Master.
"What do you mean by that?" The Master asked. "You don't think I can do it, do you?"
"No, not that, I'm just curious. Archangel is strong enough to do that?" Moriarty asked.
"Archangel is still weak." The Master said. "It needs to be further refined before it can be effectively used on a wide population. But yes, it's good enough to handle one man."
"Did he resist you? Will he remember what you did to him? Will there be any changes to him? Can you influence him?" Moriarty wickedly grinned at that last thought, having the Iceman as a puppet to command was so much fun to think about.
"Subtly I can influence him. Not enough to take control of him, but enough to leave some suggestions." The Master said.
"Oh, poo. I would have loved to make him dance." Moriarty said.
"You can make some people dance, but not all of them." The Master remarked. "He has a pretty strong mind that does resist my control. However, it is not strong enough to completely block me out. Only Time Lords and certain other individuals are completely immune." The Master frowned.
"I'm one of them, aren't I?" Moriarty asked.
"Never mind that." The Master wished at times that he could have controlled Moriarty right from the beginning of their 'partnership'. It would have made things so much easier between them if he had such a powerful, intelligent person completely under his control to act as his intermediary with the outside world.
But oddly enough, the criminal mastermind did show a remarkable, uncanny, almost superhuman capability of being able to resist and block the Master's control of him. Moriarty had simply laughed whenever the Master did try, and so the Master had given up on that.
Sometimes he half wondered if Moriarty was completely human, if there was some alien DNA in his genes. There might even be some fob watch somewhere, or an equivalent thereof, that had Moriarty's Time Lord essence trapped inside. It was folly to think on that too much, although the Master did keep his eyes open, just in case.
"I certainly did make him forget about what I did to him, or else he would have had some upsetting concerns." The Master said.
"I bet." Moriarty smiled, remembering the trance-like state he had observed on other people's faces as the Master had delved deeply into their minds.
He had never been in that predicament, no matter how hard the Master had tried that trick on him. But he could imagine the shock and trauma those people might have suffered if they had been aware of the Master's probing. Quite funny, once you thought about it.
"I can't change him, however." The Master said. "I can't make him do anything totally anathema to his nature or make him forget everything. And besides, if I changed him too much, people who do know him well, like Sherlock, are bound to notice and question what happened."
"Ah, I see. Don't want to alert them too early about your presence, but as for me, I'm fair game." Moriarty sighed.
"The others heard your name as well, not just Mycroft." The Master said. "It's out in the open. It's too late for me to take it back now and make them forget. They're already gone."
"I see your point." Moriarty remarked. "I still hate it. But maybe it might make things more interesting. My name will strike fear in their hearts without ever knowing whose face I possess." Moriarty grinned.
"It's your own fault as well for getting involved with the Slitheen." The Master said. "They babble as well as fart too much. I would have suggested a different family, or another alien group to align ourselves with"
"I liked their farting. Too bad they're all gone." Moriarty sighed. "Besides, the Slitheen would have succeeded if it wasn't for the Doctor and his friends destroying them. I can't say the same for your Auton friends. I don't know much about other aliens, but from what I gather, whatever sort of aliens we could have aligned ourselves with, the Doctor probably would have disrupted their schemes and our schemes as well."
Before the Master could protest, the phone rang. He answered as Harold Saxon, and then frowned. "James, it's for you." He said, handing the phone over. "It's Margaret Blaine. She's alive, alone, hurt and stranded. She wants you to come pick her up."
"What?" Moriarty frowned, taking the phone. "Where are you and why should I care? You failed me." He listened and nodded. "I see. All right, I will consider trying to help you one last time. Fail me again, and you will wish you died with your brothers and sister." He hung up the phone.
"You really are going to try helping her one last time?" The Master asked. "Feeling sentimental?"
Moriarty shrugged. "Call it a moment of weakness. I still expect to see some results out of her, though."
Several weeks ago, Rose had been living a rather mundane sort of life, working a steady job, living with her mum, and seeing her boyfriend and friends. She had made mistakes in the past, but she was making up for them. She was trying to earn a living for herself and her mum so that they could be more independent, not so reliant on their boyfriends. She was looking forward at times to changing her life, advancing or going somewhere, but even then something was missing from her life that she couldn't quite name.
Then the Doctor came into her life and changed everything. Rose hadn't expected her life to get so out of control at that point. And even then, if it wasn't for Sherlock Holmes and John Watson showing up on her doorstep, nothing might have come out of it.
Aside from that experience at the department store, and the Auton hand, Rose and the Doctor might have parted ways and never met again if it wasn't for the fact that John helped her find Clive and more information about the Doctor, while Sherlock stuck around with the Doctor, leading to them all meeting again. Maybe, just maybe, Rose could have found Clive on her own and gotten back with the Doctor without John or Sherlock around to help, but she wasn't willing to bet on it.
She kind of enjoyed having the boys around, as she and probably the Doctor thought of them. They were extra company, quite funny, and could be helpful at times. Sherlock was admittedly brilliant and could point things out rather quickly, while John was a medical doctor and quite brave on his own. And they were together, which was sort of sweet in a way that surprised Rose and made her think...nah. It probably would never happen.
But then again, neither Sherlock nor John had really been together until they started traveling together with the Doctor and Rose, experiencing such exciting, dangerous activity that might have trumped even Sherlock's cases and thrust them even closer together. They were so incompatible, or so it seemed at times, that they might never have imagined being together until it finally happened. Who knows if they would have ever gotten together if they weren't shaken out of their routines and encountered the alien side of the universe? It made Rose think that maybe someday...no, it probably would never happen.
But the way he had looked at her in that meeting room in Downing Street with her mum on the phone asking if he could keep her safe, and then later he said he couldn't protect Rose, that he might lose her...Rose wondered how he really felt about her. And how she really felt about him. Her heart swelled up whenever the Doctor looked that way at her, almost as if it might break.
But she tried to deny and dismiss those feelings as well. She was just really good friends with him, that's all. She cared enough about him to worry, and he cared enough about her to do the same. There wasn't anything more there than that. Still, it was a really good feeling she got inside, even though it might hurt, whenever the Doctor looked at her that way. Even better when he smiled and laughed as well.
However, she still had to remember the reason why she finally chose to travel with the Doctor, the hope that maybe she might convince him to let her see her father, to be by his side when he died, and maybe even save him if she could. Sherlock had tried to dissuade her from those thoughts, that the Doctor wouldn't allow her to change the past when it went against the laws of time travel. But he promised to keep her secret until she was ready to ask. That was pretty decent of the detective.
She still had not gotten the nerve to ask the Doctor, though, to help her, even though weeks had gone by since Downing Street blew up. Time passed strangely at times; she, the Doctor, Sherlock and John would spend hours, maybe even days, cooped up inside the TARDIS, floating through space. They would relax in their rooms, read books from the TARDIS's massive library, and watch TV and movies from all across the universe and other times. (Some of those movies and shows were strange and outlandish, with plots that only the Doctor could explain.)
They played games of all sorts, video games and sports, with Sherlock and John in particular exercising now and again, though she and the Doctor usually avoided the gym, aside from a bit of football and swimming. The TARDIS pool was massive and lovely, sometimes with a fake beach as well. But of course, they couldn't spend all of their time cooped up inside the TARDIS, not when there was a whole universe to explore out there as well. And so they would go traveling, jumping through time and space.
Usually it would be Earth or an off-shoot of that, as the Doctor figured they might prefer some 'familiar' terrain, even though it was far from what they had ever experienced. At other times, though, he introduced them to strange worlds and different aliens that they never would have thought possible, but they loved every minute of it. Except, of course, for those bad times whenever they came across any danger or any foe that would cause trouble for them or people around them. Then they would have to step in and help out, no matter what.
Except for those one or two times when they couldn't help out, when they were too helpless to do anything to stop what was happening. One of those times, they landed in the middle of a war. The Doctor hated that, she knew, and she could see the darkness in his eyes that must have come from the war his people fought, which had destroyed his whole planet. She was afraid in those moments that he might be completely subsumed by that sense of helplessness, destruction, despair and darkness that surrounded them.
But for the moment, he seemed to be keeping his head above water, just barely. As soon as they had landed and found out where they were, what was going on, he had wanted out of there, and she had agreed with him. What was going on here was terrible and she wished there was some way that they could fix this, make things better. But she was afraid of what might happen to the Doctor if they stayed there longer than necessary. However, they hadn't been able to return to the TARDIS as it had been lost in the middle of the battlefield. There was little chance of them getting back to the TARDIS without crossing the battlefield, which they eventually had to do. What a nightmare.
She wondered if Watson would react the same way as well, when he had been injured in Afghanistan in what must have been at times a brutal conflict. But he actually seemed quite comfortable with what was going on around them, apart from some grim stoicism on his part. He had an attitude of dealing with what must be dealt with. She felt like he might be ready to pick up a gun and protect them if necessary, fighting against the unknown foe, if the Doctor wasn't so opposed to fighting, or Watson in particular fighting. The Doctor seemed to be aware and mindful of Watson's attitude, treading gingerly around him and trying to keep the man away from fighting, just like she worried about the Doctor himself. She wondered if the Doctor saw himself in Watson.
And as for Sherlock Holmes...well, he seemed to be absorbed and intrigued in everything happening around him, as usual. He observed and noted what was going on, deducing some information about the nature of the conflict. He got some impressions of the people involved in the fighting and their reactions to the fighting. He watched his friends and lover as well, figuring out how they felt about the conflict, and eventually agreed that they should get out of here as soon as possible. He was most worried about what was happening here when Watson risked his life.
It happened when Sherlock, the Doctor, John and Rose were under cover from a barrage passing overhead, hunkered down and afraid that they might be targeted, when a soldier in the distance, running across the battlefield, was hit. While the others stared at the sight in horror, John Watson stiffened and watched with intensity until he saw the wounded soldier moving, and heard him crying out for help. John launched himself out of cover before Sherlock could stop him and raced across the battlefield to the wounded man's side.
"I'll get him. Just stay here!" The Doctor shouted at Sherlock and Rose, racing after him to help.
Sherlock was panicking, the most frightened she had ever seen him. Rose had to restrain him as well from bolting after the others, though she was more afraid of being left alone in this foxhole than that he would be hurt in that moment. They watched, gripping each other tightly, in horror as the Doctor and John managed to lift up the wounded man between them and half drag, half carry him back.
A dust cloud stirred up by the barrage obscured their vision, and the Doctor had taken off his jacket to shield himself, the wounded man, and John from the dirt. Several times, the Doctor, John, and the wounded man seemed to vanish in the dust and the sound of the barrage would continue around them, frightening Rose and Sherlock even more as they worried about their friends and (maybe, in Rose's case) lovers being killed.
However, the dust cloud would fade away, and the Doctor and John would still be there. Finally, the Doctor and John returned, now dragging the wounded man under their cover, making it even more crowded and uncomfortable under there with the wounded man sweating and bleeding, still crying for help and water. John bent over, tending to the wounded man once more as the Doctor sagged, exhausted next to them. Rose wrapped an arm around the Doctor for both of their comforts.
"Don't ever do that to me again." Sherlock hissed at John.
"And what would you have me do, leave him to die out there?" John asked.
"Yes," Sherlock said, though even he was a bit hesitant to say that, knowing John's feelings on the matter. Both Rose and the Doctor arched their eyebrows at that.
"You're heartless." John muttered, turning back to the wounded man.
"He does have a point, though." The Doctor remarked. "You could have gotten us both killed, John, running out there. And then where would we have been?"
"Squashed flatter than a pancake or blown to pieces." Rose shivered.
"Exactly. You all right, Rose?" He asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine enough. Thanks for asking." She sighed. "I just wish we weren't here."
"I know exactly how you feel." The Doctor muttered.
"You could have just regenerated." John muttered. "And you didn't have to run out there after me."
"Of course I did have to run out there after you. Sherlock would have blamed me for it if I didn't. I would have never heard the end of it." The Doctor said.
"You're damn right I wouldn't have let that go." Sherlock said. "And I would have run out there-"
"Exactly. Sherlock, a civilian, would have run out there on his own to save you. I never would have heard the end of it from you, John, if Sherlock had died." The Doctor said.
"A civilian? You think of me as a civilian?" Sherlock asked, shocked. "I'm a bloody good detective. That's way more than any ordinary civilian."
"Hmm, more or less." The Doctor said, causing Sherlock to frown.
"And what does that make you, Doctor? A soldier?" Rose asked.
"I'm not a soldier, not anymore." The Doctor barked out, then sighed. "But I know what it's like to be one."
John grimaced, glancing around at his friends and lover. "All right, I might have made a lousy mistake running out there like that without even thinking or taking stock of my surroundings. But I still did it for the right reasons, and this man will live, thanks to you and me, Doctor."
"Don't thank me." The Doctor said. "Just save him." John slowly nodded, and went back to his duties.
"Besides, it's not always a given that I'll regenerate." The Doctor said, continuing an earlier strand of their conversation. "A really good hit could have blown me to pieces, and who can regenerate out of that? And someday, maybe soon, I'm going to run out of regenerations."
"What's this regeneration and regenerated business?" Rose asked.
"We'll talk about that later." The Doctor said.
"Hopefully before it ever happens." Sherlock remarked with a grin. "Otherwise she's in for a big surprise."
"Oh, hush." The Doctor said.
"How many regenerations do you have left?" John asked, looking up at the Doctor.
"A couple, more than enough for me, thanks." The Doctor sighed.
"And then what happens next?" Sherlock asked, looking up at him.
The Doctor shrugged. "Nothing happens for me next. No more regenerations, no more options left. I would die for good and all after that."
Rose paused and stared at him, just like Sherlock and John. "You can't die yet." Rose said, tearing up. "We need you."
The Doctor sighed and softened. "You don't have to worry about that, Rose, John, and Sherlock." He added. "That's not going to happen to me for awhile yet, years and years down the line. I'm still going to continue for a long time." And he was afraid, though he didn't want to admit it or tell them, that he might outlive them or never see them someday.
"Good." Rose said, nodding. "Because I won't let you die."
She realized then that she meant it, because she loved him, yet she was afraid of her love for him. He was a hard, cold, broken man and it would be difficult to love him, maybe even more difficult than it was for John to love Sherlock. And it might be harder for the Doctor to love her in turn, just like Sherlock loved John. She didn't know much about the Doctor, she had to admit to herself; he was an alien, not entirely human. They might not even be compatible for all she knew.
He was far older, grander, and stranger than she would ever be, yet that didn't mean she didn't matter. She did matter, and she would have to take care of herself as well, just like she always knew she would. She couldn't always depend on him to be around, she realized, just like her father. She would have to face things on her own someday. And maybe find someone else to love as well. For now, she chose to ignore her feelings for the Doctor. There were others out there, she knew, not just him. She would ask him, though, if she could still see her father, Sherlock be damned.
Eventually, they got the wounded man to a field hospital and got back to the TARDIS. Rose thought about asking the Doctor for help a couple of times, but didn't try. Then they landed in Utah.