Some of you have been asking why Sam isn't smarter than Rose, if he's the Master. Well, for one thing, Rose isn't actually dumb. And secondly, Sam doesn't know he's the Master (some of you may counter that Yana was a genius, yes, but he was raised in the future, where everyone is smart; Sam is just your average Joe). Thirdly, Sam's inner Time Lord will really start to show during season three, when we get nearer to the time of the opening of the fobwatch. Kay?
I would love it if someday this fan fic was to the Doctor Who fandom as "Twist And Shout" is to the Supernatural fandom. (Except it doesn't make you cry your eyes out. Because it's going to end happy, I swear!) So I really appreciate all you loverly people who are reading and commenting. You help me get through the week.
Thanks to Mabudachi-trio, TimeTravellingThestral, Akayuki Novak, FandomsUponFandomsUnleashed, Grac3, Capollo, Somnone, Hello, The Other Fangirl, Tmnt rocks 2012, Satanic Cinnamon (awesome username), and an unnamed guest for reviewing and to anyone else who read. Cheers.
The Doctor opened the door of the TARDIS and stepped out. Or tried to, anyway, but found himself nose to nose with the side of a blue cargo container. "Ah," he said.
"Problem, Doctor?" Sam asked as the Doctor retreated back inside.
"Oh, just have to turn the TARDIS about 90 degrees to the right," said the Doctor, punching a few button on the console. There was the familiar mechanical wheezing as the machine de-and-rematerialized. "Got us trapped up against a wall."
"Hmm, now there's an interesting idea," Sam mused, grinning to himself.
"What?" the Doctor asked, turning to look at him curiously.
"Huh? Oh, nothing. Anyway, where are we?" Sam asked quickly as he followed the Doctor outside. He spied a Shayne Ward poster on the wall. "Earth, then. Present day?"
"Near future, actually," said the Doctor. "I had a passing fancy, only it didn't pass. It stopped. London, 2012. Thirtieth Olympiad."
Sam looked up and saw an Olympic banner hanging over the street they were standing in. "Alright!" exclaimed Sam. "Now this is what I'm talking about."
"Thought you might like it," the Doctor grinned as they walked down the street together, side by side, the long hem of the Doctor's brown coat flapping in the wind. "Just a couple of boys, getting together for a day of sport. I've always loved the Olympics, ever since the original. Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood around baying. No, wait a minute, that was Club Med."
Sam laughed.
"Just in time for the opening doo-dah, ceremony, tonight, I thought you'd like that," the Doctor continued. "Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much, I went back and watched it all over again. Fella carrying the torch. Lovely chap, what was his name…"
Sam spotted a man standing on the sidewalk, posting a piece of paper on a light pole. As the man walked away, Sam left the Doctor's side and went over to inspect it. "Doctor," he said.
The Doctor wasn't listening. "Did you ever have those little cakes with the crunchy, edible ball bearings? They were brilliant-"
"Doctor, I really think you should look at this!" Sam called.
The Doctor was shaken out of his reverie. "What? Huh?" He came over and joined Sam.
There were two missing child posters tied to the light post.
"What's taking them, do you think?" asked Sam.
"Dunno," said the Doctor, shrugging his bony shoulders. "Children disappear all the time. Sure it's nothing."
"I dunno," said Sam, shaking his head. "Two from the same street? Within…" He consulted the notices. "Two days? Don't you find that a bit odd?"
"Hmm. Now that you say it, it is weird," said the Doctor. He looked around the neighborhood. "Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this. And why's it so cold? Is someone reducing the temperature?"
Sam shrugged his black hoodie closer to his body. "Why would a person do this?"
"Maybe it's not a person at all," said the Doctor darkly.
Sam and the Doctor had been investigating the neighborhood where children and animals were disappearing as if by magic. Dark magic. The Doctor deduced that they were being transported to somewhere. So the only logical thing to do was to try and find where they were being taken.
Sam had been trying to find where an orange tomcat had been teleported to, when he heard a loud thump coming from a garage, followed by an even bigger thump. "Not gonna open it, not gonna open it…ah, screw it," he said, and opened the garage door.
Suddenly, something flew out at him and knocked him to the ground. It beat at him, like a giant moth's wings against a light fixture.
Sam managed to get a look at it. It was…well. It looked like a giant tumbleweed made out of blackish-grey material.
"What the hell?" Sam muttered, trying to shield his face, torso, and groin from the thing at the same time.
"I got you, I got you! Stay still!" Sam caught sight of something brown and skinny in his peripheral vision. The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the…whatever it was. Suddenly, it shrunk down to slightly smaller than a baseball and landed harmlessly in Sam's hands.
"Okey dokey?" The Doctor asked.
"Yeah," said Sam, accepting the Doctor's outstretched hand. "What is this thing?" he asked, staring at the small ball in his hand.
"Dunno," said the Doctor, taking it from him. He tossed it up in the air, then rapped at it with his knuckles inquisitively. Then he sniffed it. "Smells familiar. Here."
Sam took it and smelled it too. "Yeah. Like…like…wait." He marched over to where a missing poster was hanging on a mailbox, tore it off, and swept the ball across the back of the page. It left a large, silvery-grey marking. "It's graphite," said Sam, tossing the ball back to the Doctor. "It's pencil lead."
"Flying pencil lead attacked you? Why?" said the Doctor, looking at the ball of graphite quizzically. "Well, whatever it is, it's animated by energy. Same energy that's snatching people. That is so dinky! The go anywhere creature. Fits in your pocket, makes friends, impresses the boss, breaks the ice at parties."
"Yeah, but look at the shape," said Sam. "Doesn't it look like when you write something, then scratch it out? Like a pencil scribble, but 3D."
"Good point," said the Doctor. "But why would someone generate scribble creatures?"
Sam shrugged. "Maybe it was a mistake. Like on a…drawing. Like on a child's drawing," he said slowly, as realization washed over him. "Of course! Who would take children? Another child."
"Oh, ho-ho-ho," the Doctor laughed deeply. "Sam Tyler, you are beautiful."
Sam grinned. "So all we have to do," he continued, "is find the little artist that lives on this street, and we have our suspect."
"And you have an idea?" the Doctor asked.
Sam thought for a moment. "Well…" He turned the flyer over. "This Dale kid. He was taken from this address." He pointed to the last place the child had been seen. "So all we have to do is peruse the houses around there. And I'm willing to bet that the child we're looking for lives right across the street."
"Let's see…that's where that nervous Trish woman lived," said the Doctor.
"Maybe we should pay her a visit."
The Doctor threw an arm around Sam's shoulders. "And you said you weren't brilliant."
"It was elementary, my dear Doctor."
They found Chloe Webber, and talked to the Isolus within her. "How did you know it was so lonely?" Sam asked.
"Fear, loneliness. They're the big ones, Sam," said the Doctor, putting together pieces of the gizmo that would help him locate the Isolus's pod. "Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive, wormhole refractors. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold. Because believe me. I know…" The Doctor plugged in one last circuit. "What it's like to travel alone."
The Master knew loneliness.
There was the loneliness Koschei felt before he ever met his best friend Theta Sigma. Then there was the loneliness of being surrounded completely by people, his classmates, but knowing there was none among them who gave a damn about him. But then he made friends with Theta, and Koschei was happier than he'd ever been in his whole life.
"What's wrong?" Thete asked him one day.
"I was just…thinking. Dreading," amended Koschei.
"Dreading what?" asked Theta, grinning. "We're going home for the semester break. No stupid professors, no homework, no exams-"
"No you," said Kos glumly.
Theta smiled sadly and took his hand. "Come home with me then."
"What?" said Kos confusedly.
Theta shrugged. "Sure. Why not? After all, it's about time my parents met the man I'm going to be bonded to someday."
Kos leaned into his love, smiling gratefully. "Alright, I will."
Then, some years later, Theta left him, and the Master felt an empty kind of loneliness. The kind one feels when something or someone they deeply love and need is taken from them. It stayed with him for a hundred years, until Theta returned. But by that time, he was getting married to someone else, someone not Koschei, and the Master's world turned dark and cold, the way it would for someone who didn't have someone to love them. The loneliness ate at him so much, it turned into anger. It only got worse as the Master and the Doctor bitterly fought against each other time and time again.
The worst was when the Master's Time Lord body was dying, and the Doctor didn't even care. Or the endless decades spent in the recesses of the Eye of Harmony in the Doctor's TARDIS, which drove him truly mad. Or maybe it was during the War, when the Master didn't know whether the Doctor was alive or dead. Because damn that cursed Time Lord, after all they had suffered through, the Master still loved him. He needed him.
A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bore thinking about.
One day, the Master couldn't take it any longer. He threw down his weapon, went to his TARDIS. He pulled out an old watch.
"I'm sorry, Thete," he whispered. "I can't do it anymore."
"That's…so sad," said Sam softly, feeling his heart throb.
The Doctor looked up. He concernedly put a hand on Sam's shoulder. "Hey, hey, I'm okay. Don't look so upset. Really, I'm fine."
Sam shook his head slightly. "Oh. Yeah. Of course."
The Doctor smiled at him, then continued his work.
Sam listened desperately through the door as Trish and Chloe cowered from Chloe's nightmare father.
"I'm here, Chloe!" exclaimed Trish. "You're not alone! You'll never be alone again."
Then, the mother began to sing to her daughter, and the beast went away.
Sam sighed with relief.
Sam felt panic when the Isolus took the Doctor. He knew they would succeed, but there was always a part of him that was scared.
It only intensified when the Doctor didn't reappear with the TARDIS or the other children.
"Maybe he's gone somewhere," said Trish, trying to comfort Sam.
Sam looked at his lap sadly. "Who's going to hold his hand now?"
But then Sam saw the skinny idiot running with the Olympic Torch and felt his heart leap-in a good way. The Doctor was alright and all was well.
That didn't stop him from punching him in the arm when he saw him later. Hard.
"Ow!" exclaimed the Doctor.
"What the hell where you thinking? I was worried sick, you bloody idiot!" Sam scolded. He tried to glare at his traveling companion, but his frown was losing to the relieved smile that was trying to invade his face. Finally, he gave up and hugged the Time Lord tightly. "I thought I'd lost you," he muttered.
"Nah, can't get rid of me," laughed the Doctor.
"Good," said Sam. They still weren't pulling apart. "You know," he said, "they keep trying to split us up, but they never will."
"It seems we must always meet again," the Doctor agreed, ruffling Sam's hair.
Sam had to bite back the urge to say, They do say opposites attract. "You and me, Doctor. Until the End of Time."
The Doctor laughed, and before he knew what he was doing, he cupped the other man's face and dropped a brief, friendly kiss on Sam's forehead.
Sam seized up. His face, neck, and ears flushed absolutely scarlet. "Uh…I'm s-sorry," stammered the Doctor.
Sam swallowed and nodded, wordlessly turning around and heading toward the TARDIS.
The Doctor, mentally slapping himself in the face, slowly followed after him, but then, sensed something, and stopped. There was something, something in the air…
A storm approaching.