Chapter 26 – Fallout
Masha caught Koschei as he collapsed and picked him up.
"Right," she said, carried him across the hall, and tucked him in bed with Susan before returning to the hallway to look for Jake.
"So, is this every day for you? Because it usually is for me, and I want to be sure that our crazy levels are synched," Jake teased. He was leaning against the wall of the lab, arms crossed, just surveying the damage.
Masha pointed to the wrecked room behind her. "See all this? This is why I did not want to go to a doctor's office!"
"No problem," he assured her. "TARDIS repair protocol, initiate!" he called out and the room began to right itself, things flying back together and picking themselves up.
"So… do you know Freeya? I mean, as something other than swirly energy patterns? Because apparently she is missing and I promised to look for her. Koschei said she was his lab assistant, so I thought I would check there first."
"Workshop, actually, he hates it when people call it a lab," Jake corrected, standing up and heading out, back into the hallway. "He was forced to do terrible things during the War, or something like that, in a Lab, since then he hates that term for his own workspace," he explained, as he walked into the console room and then into the clinic. "But let's try the intercom first, it's simpler."
"You find the kid, I'm going to get a doctor for Susan, Koschei, and Spanner Girl, okay? Watch the crazy one!" she told him
"How can I tell which one is the crazy one?" Jake snarked and Masha laughed and went out of the TARDIS and into the clinic.
"Martha! Hey, Martha? There's been a thing, would you just give Susan and Koschei and the ...new person a onceover and make sure they are all right? I pressed the bed buttons but I don't really know how to work them. Would you mind taking a look?"
"What happened? I only just walked out! I cannot leave that lot alone for even five minutes!" Martha sighed and walked into the TARDIS, Masha following behind.
She looked around until she found Jake and smiled.
"Martha has gone to take care of them, but she was kinda annoyed. Says they get in trouble a lot."
"That's actually true, Koschei is like a jeopardy magnet or something," Jake agreed when he saw her walk in "So, what the hell just happened, anyway? Because I am utterly baffled!"
"We went to the doctor for a twenty minute medical scan, remember?" The dry tone in Masha's voice indicated that this was not the first time she had been on this particular merry-go-round. "And it went south, and it always goes south."
"Are there always bombs and explosions, lightning, and glowing people?" he asked in a conversational tone.
"No, that part was all new." She chewed on her lip.
"Right, if you don't mind. I'll be skipping your yearly physical," he told her with a grin and Masha stared at him in horror.
"You know, I thought my life was nuts, Angel, but you have me beat, that makes me feel oddly better about things." Jake shrugged. "You are certainly not going to be boring as a partner!"
"I've never managed to achieve 'boring,'" she mused. "I have always thought it would be nice to try it on for size for a day but… meh. So TARDIS tell you where the kid is?"
"Boring is over-rated, and she says the kitchen," he told her. With a nod, Masha followed Jake into the kitchen. It looked like something out of Grimm's fairytales, all wooden beams and check prints. Standing on a stool by the counter was a little girl with large green eyes, carefully placing mugs on a plate with a frown of concentration. A pot of tea and one of coffee were on a tray nearby.
"Hello?" Masha looked around.
"Tea and coffee are almost ready," the little girl said. Presumably, this was Freeya.
"We've been looking for you. Come on, kiddo," Jake said. "Koschei slipped and fell, he's fine, but they all feel a bit off, and they said you were already getting drinks? That was such a good idea!" Freeya nodded, searching Jake's face for signs of worry or stress, but his smile was firmly in place and she relaxed against him.
"Okay, Jake," she agreed and he tossed her up onto his shoulders to ride to the medi-bey.
"Everyone likes tea right?" Masha beamed at Freeya and then spotted the cookie jar. "Oh! cookies! I've never tried baking before… have you?"
"Naw, I leave that to Susan, she makes the best cookies ever! I build things. Koschei is teaching me! He's brilliant! He's helping me to make a Temporal Stasis Chamber! It's going to be amazing! My cookies will never get stale!" she enthused, chattering at Masha. Jake picked up the tray with the pots on them and Masha took the one with the mugs.
"Sounds yummy… what sort of cookies do you like, anyway? Chocolate chip? Peanut butter? Sugar cookies?" she asked, trying to keep her mind occupied.
"Susan makes a chocolate chunk macadamia cookie that is amazing, but my favorite are the sugar cookies," she replied. "My Mum made them too and Susan always makes them special for me."
"Come on, and I will show you where they are sleeping," Masha took Freya's hand.
Susan was standing by Koschei's bed, her hand on his cheek, her eyes unfocused, when they walked in.
"Hope it's visiting hours," Masha beamed at them both and Susan blinked and turned to smile at her.
"For you? Always," she assured her and Freeya ran into her arms. Jake set the tray on the bedside table and took the one from Masha as well, setting it down on the desk.
"Is he okay?" Freeya asked, peering nervously at the still form on the hospital bed.
"Clonked his head something fierce, but luckily he has a very thick skull," she assured them both, still smiling. "He'll be fine." Freeya breathed out in relief and Susan set her on the bed next to him. the little girl stretched out next to him and stared at his face, as if she were she to turn away, he might vanish.
"Um, Susan," Masha looked awkward, "I'm really sorry about this. I figured that the scans would go badly but I never dreamed that it would all have run off the rails this far. I am so, so sorry."
"I don't know why you are apologizing, you're not the one who was waving a spanner about," she murmured, drawing Masha away from the bed and out of Freeya's hearing. "In fact, you're the one who put us all to bed, so you have absolutely nothing to apologize for." She added, pouring out tea for them both and handing Masha a cup. She paused and frowned. "Let's step outside, there is something that I really need to talk to you about."
Masha winced, but the expression on her face told her that this conversation was not unexpected.
"Sure, okay," She gestured Susan outside and followed her. "But… I want to go first, if that is okay."
Susan walked her into a room that was done up like a coffee shop and gestured her into a chair.
"After you, then."
"Spanner girl looks just like me!"
"I suspect that she was the basis for the batch cloning," Susan sighed out.
"Yes, I was thinking something along those lines as well. Wanker," she grumbled. "Do we have any idea how many… er… of me… are out there?"
"A lot, but Koschei didn't get an exact count, he was too busy dodging a spanner to ask her," Susan shrugged. "Look. I need to tell you a story. It's very important."
Masha listened intently, occasionally sipping her tea.
"At the end of the Time War, Rassilon, who was the Lord President of Gallifrey, realized that the Time Lords were losing the War and that they would all be destroyed. He had an opportunity, a ... moment in time... when he could have destroyed everything in the Time Locked war zone. It would have saved the rest of the universe and a few of us might have survived, but he didn't like the odds," she took a breath.
"He knew that there was a way to escape, to save himself, but it would require destroying not just that universe, but all of them, the whole of creation, and restarting the Big Bang. Everything everywhere would die, but he would live on. To do that he needed someone who wasn't present when Gallifrey was destroyed. Only two Time Lords weren't there. My grandfather and the Master." She paused to see if Masha was following her.
"Wanker," she grumbled, but continued to listen closely.
"The thing he needed was a signal he could follow and someone who was completely dominated by him, utterly programmed to do exactly what he needed him to do, within very narrow parameters. So, he went back in time, to the point when the Master was only eight years old and implanted a drumbeat to be the signal, and he crushed that child's mind utterly. He was doing this from the other end of history, so he knew what the Master would do for all those centuries, he knew what he'd become, and he did it anyway. That's how colossal his indifference and his vanity were." Susan took a breath.
"When I was eight, my grandfather took me and fled from Gallifrey to save me from something bad. Eventually, they caught up with me and dragged me back to Gallifrey." She looked down at her hands, which were trembling in her lap. "They tried to break my mind and when they couldn't, they summoned the Master to destroy me."
"But, he didn't. We fought and I kicked his arse," she chuckled. "The thing is, I got into his center, into his soul, and I saw him. I saw who he really was and I stopped fighting him. He got into me as well. He saw me, not the Doctor's weird little grandchild, the odd girl who liked humans, but me, Susan. He stopped fighting me as well and because we were so deep inside of each other, we got tangled into each other. I spent the next two hundred years with a ranting lunatic in my head." She grimaced. "With me so far?"
"So far, so good," Masha was trying to keep her face neutral, but she was clearly suspicious at this point.
"We got separated and he went even crazier, he thought I was dead and fell completely apart. Once Rassilon showed up though, and he realized who had done this to him, he saved Grandfather and threw himself back into the Time War. He was willing to give his life to save us all." She shrugged.
"But, that glowing gold energy reached out and saved him. He was dropped down here, totally sane and free, for the first time in his life, and he was nearly destroyed by the guilt and horror of all that he had done and been." She was staring at her hands, like there were secrets written on them.
"When we finally found him again he was half out of his mind from solitude and agony. He's finally becoming the man he always should have been, the man he always was inside, but it's so fragile, Masha. I can't and won't ask you forgive him or to be his friend, but at the very least, could you not try to kill him, because I love him more than life itself , but I also really care about you, and I don't know what would happen if you did."
She leaned back and looked at Masha, her face drawn and tired and Masha dropped her head into her hands.
"And I've met him, haven't I?" she guessed. "Who, precisely, are we discussing here?"
"My husband, Masha," Susan told her in a surprised tone, as though she'd thought that the younger woman had already guessed. "We're talking about Koschei."