The next chapter's on the 8th of June.
The Doctor sits opposite her at the table, a rather more extravagant meal than usual today, not that take-aways should be much of a baseline for that.
It includes a very weak coffee mixed with a sub-par tea and far, far, far too much sugar and some kind of tomato pasta dish in a ceramic bowl.
The Mistress twines the strands around her fork tines with curiosity.
She doesn't know if the Doctor made this himself and kind of hopes he didn't because she knows very deeply how bad his culinary skills were and doubts even a whole history of new memories can fix that.
The sauce is miles beyond anything she's had for a very long time in her new memories, dividing themselves off from her current ones again.
Again- she supposes that she shouldn't use a reference made up of take-aways and packaged food.
If she was going to be fussy she would say that there isn't enough salt, the acid isn't balanced out quite right and there's too much of a herb which Missy can't remember the name of today and too little of the small not-quite-spiky one with the purple flowers.
Rosemary.
She thinks that is it.
The pasta is a little overcooked too.
As it is she stays quiet, enjoying the fact that she's having something which presumably hasn't just been bought out of convenience from a nearby vendor.
The Doctor eats too, not seeming to notice the food he is eating.
When they're both finished he looks at her properly again and gestures for her to pass the bowl and cutlery over to him.
"You seem to be doing well." He says.
The Mistress instantly feels her guard rise, uncertain what he means by complimenting her.
Even in the old timeline that was rare and this version of him has far less hope than that version had.
She realises that he expects her to say something.
"Thank you." She says, voice uncertain even to herself.
"You had better not be planning something." He warns and her hearts which had been speeding up plummet and her head hurts with the rush of anxiety which goes through her.
"I- I'm not." Her mouth feels dry as she looks at him, hand on the tabletop for some kind of grounding as she feels the world focus in in an incomprehensible way.
She knows that he says something but she can't remember what it is when she's curled up in her blanket nest, staring at nothing.
She walks with Bill around the room, letting a hand rest on the wall occasionally, as if testing the bounds of it. It makes her throat feel tight and her head hot.
Nevertheless Bill holds her arm, thumb running over the clothing between them as firmly that she can feel it. It's enough to hold her in the present, enough to let her feel the tile and stone and glass and wood.
Soon she'll be have to moving beyond even these things.
Soon she'll have to be in a space where she can feel time again.
Soon she'll need to be able to walk without Bill's arm in hers without panic crashing in.
She wants to tell Bill to let her go, that she's not helping her by letting her take things so slowly.
The Time Lady turns her gaze to the woman walking next to her, smiling encouragingly yet without pity or anything that makes her feel patronised.
She turns away again, presses her palm to the wall.
It's still there.
She'll have to move beyond it but that day isn't today.
The Mistress is busy plotting routes to get to the pyramids from where they are on a hastily drawn map in the small notebook which Bill has given her, pencil tracing possible shipping patterns from memory of the list which Bill had given her and trying to consider the fastest, the safest and the easiest.
It will be easier when Bill gets her some information beyond what's just available to everyone but for now it's enough to get an idea of what their journey will look like and what supplies they might need for it.
She doesn't notice that the Doctor has come into the vault until she hears the click of her door open beside her.
She looks over, shutting the book tightly and shoving it under the layers of blankets, blind panic fuelling her because if he knows then they'll know soon and then they'll have failed and she'll never escape and his eyes are on her now and he hasn't said anything yet but she can just imagine-
It's a fight to push through the torrent of fear but the Mistress manages to, aided by a single word which chills her to the bone.
"Sorry."
His lips move, pale and pressed together tightly even though his eyes are empty. She wouldn't have caught the word if the language hadn't chilled her to the core.
"I'm trying." He hisses in the archaic Gallifreyan which they both hate more than anything- a warning system for just the two of them.
There's an almost smile on his lips and she can feel the glass behind her as he robotically leaves the room, something of his old awkwardness peeking through the movements he makes.
Missy feels the glass behind her as she slides down the surface, solid, reliable.
There is hope within her but the fear which comes with the language carrying it turns it cold until it's ice in her stomach and her throat.
She hears the doors begin to open again a few seconds later and ensures the book and any things that she shouldn't have are properly obscured by the blankets and that the glass door is closed as she stands in front of it to greet him, anxiety pulling at her.
Once again the Mistress says nothing of the Doctor's lapse to Bill, holding the information close to her hearts as if speaking it might prove it false.
Bill seems too excited to realise that anything is different with her though, much to Missy's convenience.
"We've got some messages back and everyone's being careful but we're managing to get a better idea of how things are looking everywhere!" She says with a grin stretched wide across her face.
The human opens the laptop for Missy and boots it, navigating through the interface far more fluidly than she had when the Mistress had shown her.
"This person works high up in the only shipping company we have now I think- they got us a list of shipments to and from everywhere with dates and times and the routes and security measures on each ship!" Bill explains, pointing to a message from a user titled 'CHRIS'.
The Mistress hopes that whoever they are wasn't stupid enough to use their real name. She does look forwards to looking through that information though.
"And this one lives in a town near the Pyramid and knows their guard schedule." The human says, pointing to another name; 'MOONFLOWER'. It's obnoxious but it's a better codename at least.
The Mistress scrolls through the message sets they have, only five in total so far but far more than they had been expecting after only a few days.
Bill grimaces when she reaches the bottom.
"Ah. Yeah. We've had a few weird ones. I wasn't sure how to reply to that one so I haven't yet." The human admits as Missy clicks through into it.
The username which she had given themselves was 'HOPE' which worked well in that it was neither of their names and also a concept that Bill has been gently pushing in her work outside of the vault.
Whoever this person is has forgone all poetry though and has called themselves 'SIT'.
'SECURITY CLEARANCE?' Reads the single line of text in that conversation.
The Mistress stares at the blinking line indicating that she can type an answer.
She types, Bill saying nothing though Missy can feel the worry radiating off of her.
'. . . . , . . . . , . . . . , . . . .'
If it's anyone important enough to really be asking that then that would hopefully be enough information to tell them who they're dealing with.
She passes the laptop back to Bill, meeting her gaze seriously.
"Bring it back to me when they reply as soon as you can and don't interact with them." She warns.
"Who do you think they are?" Bill asks, worry creasing her face.
The Mistress frowns as she stands up, ready to try walking by herself again.
"Probably just some paranoid human who managed to steal a laptop." She dismisses the concern.
"But it could be more?" Bill asks.
"Yes." The TIme Lady replies, staring at the doors, "It could be."