9.
The teleportation was less traumatic than Serene's last journey, but it was still unpleasant, uncomfortable and extremely disorientating. However, they did land inside the TARDIS console room, slamming into the floor on arrival.
"Whoo. Not a nice way to travel," the Doctor said. "Even a vortex manipulator is better than that."
She got up.
"You okay?"
Serene was sitting with her eyes closed, trying to steady her breathing.
"I will be. Is he here?"
"Not right now."
The Doctor turned on the scanner.
"But he's close. I can tell, but I don't want to tip him off that we're here."
She examined the console, trying to determine where the TARDIS had landed.
"Don't know this planet, but it's inhabited. If the egg is that of a Metamorph burrower, then we definitely need to stop it hatching here."
There was a clang as the bracelets dropped off Serene's wrists once more, and the Doctor put them away, helping her friend to her feet. She spied her coat and boots, tucked away to the side of the room and gratefully put them back on, feeling more like herself. Barefoot was fine when fencing on a lawn during an English summer; running around the universe and going up against the Master, not so much.
"You ready to do your thing?"
"I'll try. Not so easy without…" Serene tapped her empty wrist. "But hopefully I can find it again. How about you?"
"Oh, I've been ready for this for a while. Most of the times I meet the Master, they're one step ahead, always planning something, some scheme or other going. That time in the Library was an anomaly. This time, I'm coming for him, and he doesn't know it."
Her face was utterly determined, and Serene felt a flash of concern, but there were other things to worry about right then than the Doctor going a little darker.
"Okay. I'll do what I can. What's that phrase they have on Earth? See you on the other side."
"Alright. Good luck."
They hugged briefly, then Serene went further into the TARDIS, as the Doctor headed outside.
The Master wasn't far away. The landscape was barren, rocky and dry, and the air felt oppressive, like a storm was coming. In a large clearing, flat and dusty, under a darkening sky, he was busily working on something, a large piece of equipment already mostly constructed, and the Doctor couldn't quite tell what it was. He'd flung off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeves, and she was a little surprised he didn't have a team of flunkeys (or worse, slaves) doing the work for him. Maybe he had known she was coming, after all, no time to assemble a workforce.
He was using her sonic, and that was especially annoying. Tempted though she was to run and catch him by surprise, the Doctor held herself back. She stopped about ten feet behind him, waiting, hands in her pockets.
Eventually, the Master stilled.
"What kept you?"
"Well, it's not like you made it easy for me. Stole my ship, my sonic, my best friend."
The Master still didn't turn around.
"You got one of those back already, I assume. Unless the collar burned her up on the return journey."
The Doctor ignored that last part.
"Now I've come to get the other two." Her tone sharpened. "And stop whatever this nasty little plan is."
"You haven't figured it out?"
"I'm not all that interested."
He finally turned to face her, and she saw the gem-egg, suspended in an energy field in the middle of what he was building.
"If I'm honest, I'm bored of this," the Doctor continued. "Me chasing you round the universe, stopping everything you try. And I do succeed, have you not noticed that?"
The Master grinned.
"But at what cost? Maybe that was the point all along."
"I really don't care."
She moved closer, until they were face to face, and she didn't try and hide her anger.
"Everything you've done. All the death, the destruction. It still isn't enough?"
"What could ever be enough?" His eyes bored into hers, his expression burning with intensity. "I could wipe out the universe, all of reality, and it still wouldn't be enough."
She held his gaze.
"And without me to stop you, that's what you'd do?" she asked.
He shrugged, the intensity vanishing, his mood shifting like a switch had been flipped.
"I've thought about it. Sometimes I wonder what'd take its place, if I did."
"What'd take the place of the universe?"
That did throw the Doctor a bit. Davros had tried to do something similar, once. It hadn't really occurred to her to think what would've come after, if he'd succeeded.
"Yeah. Would it be better, or worse?"
The Doctor sighed, anger ebbing as exhaustion set in.
"Why can't you just get a hobby? Watercolours, or something. You could take up cross-stitch, or frog breeding-"
"This is my hobby," the Master replied, gesturing around. "I make plans, and I carry them out. Annoying you is a bonus."
"And what if I just chose to ignore you? To stop caring what you do?"
"Then people'd die."
His words were deceptively calm.
"I could take this-" he indicated the Burrower egg "-back to Earth easily enough, or the Order you found your little friend in. Once it's full-sized, it can destroy a planet. It could split that moon in two before it was half-grown."
"And what'd that achieve?"
He shrugged again.
"Chaos. Death, destruction. All my favourite things."
The Doctor's face showed her disgust.
"Yeah. They really had your number back in the Ma'at Hall, calling you Set. God of storms, disorder and violence."
The Master ignored her.
"And maybe you'd get that look on your face, like you can't believe I really did it, I went that far and I did it."
The Doctor's expression shuttered but the Master didn't stop, leaning in closer, enjoying himself now.
"I've seen it so many times, and it is just the best. Last time I saw it was on Gallifrey. What'd it take to see it here?"
His eyes flicked over her shoulder, looking to see if Serene was also present.
"Did you lose her already, or are you keeping her away from me? Your little empress."
"Empress?"
"Oh, I know all about what she could've been. She thinks she's so strong 'cos she turned down temptation, but I didn't get the chance to test her, to really push her."
"No, and you won't either," the Doctor snapped. "She outsmarted you and she got away, and found me again."
"Should've shoved her into a sun when I had the chance," he snarled, chaos looming in him once more. "Should've done that to all your little friends. Maybe that can be my new pastime, when I'm done here. Tracking down everyone you ever travelled with and killing them. Those you didn't already get killed, anyway."
The Doctor's hands curled into fists involuntarily. He could provoke her so easily, knew how to hurt her.
"You've done enough of that already. Don't think I've forgotten or forgiven how you spent an entire year torturing Martha's family, and killing Jack over and over."
The Master smirked.
"You mean that year I kept you as my pet? Good times, even if your meddling got everything reversed."
"Or if we go a bit further back, how you murdered Tegan's aunt. And Nyssa's father, then stole his face and caused her entire planet to be destroyed. Surprised she never came after you for that. You probably murdered Danny, Clara's boyfriend too. At least one of the Osgoods. And then there's Bill."
The Master laughed out loud, raucous.
"Bill! Oh, that was a good one. I really committed to character there. Spent years earning her trust so I could get her Cyber-converted. You had that look on your face then, too, when you first saw her like that. I love seeing how it looks on your different faces."
The Doctor made a Herculean effort to restrain herself.
"You changed though, after that. When you were Missy."
"I was lying."
"No. I watched over you in that vault, for years. You're a good liar, but even you aren't that good. You couldn't commit that long, pass up all those chances to run off, to go back to your old ways, unless you meant it, even a little. And didn't you end up killing each other, when there were two of you in the same place?"
The Master's expression boiled over with rage, but he kept it from spilling into action.
"Why d'you think I'm like this now?"
This time it was the Doctor who smiled, though it hurt to think of those things, those times, when she and the Master had been different people. It was a far cry from her usual joyful expression, closer to the satisfied smirk that suited the Master.
"Because you never could stand yourself. You think it's me you hate?"
They stared each other down.
"We're probably the last two Gallifreyans left alive, the only Time Lords in the Universe," the Doctor said. "What's the point of all this?"
"It only stops when one of us is dead," was the bitter reply. "You know that."
"Maybe you're right."
"But could you do it, Doctor? Could you kill me?"
He leaned in, forehead pressing against hers. She didn't pull away.
"I don't know. You deserve it. Push me far enough, and we'll find out."
They were interrupted by the arrival of Serene, who approached slowly.
She didn't want to get in the way, but she was concerned about what would happen. The thought of killing the Master herself had crossed her mind, but she knew the Doctor would never forgive her for that, so it had to be ended another way.
"Did you find it?" The Doctor asked her, stepping back from the Master, but not looking away from him.
"Yes. It's not being very cooperative, though."
"Doesn't matter."
The Master broke eye contact, looking over at Serene.
"Getting a taste of your own medicine, are you, Empress?"
"I did everything you said," she snapped back. "Your obedient little pet."
"And it was as dull having you trail after me as I thought it would be."
He glanced back over at the Doctor, who hadn't moved.
"I don't know how you stand it. They're so tiny."
"I wouldn't expect you to understand," she replied.
"And they break so easily."
He pointed the sonic toward Serene. The Doctor made a grab for it, but he sidestepped quickly. There was a whirring sound, and then a sudden searing pain in Serene's head, shooting out and up from the implant in her neck, made her gasp and drop to her knees.
"Useful little thing, that," the Master commented, casually, as the Doctor ran to her friend's side, supporting her.
"And you connected to it so many times with this." He waved the sonic. "Easy enough to find what you did, and to use that to hurt her. And I will hurt her, Doctor. Might even kill her, if I want to see that look on your face again."
But the Doctor's expression just then was pure hatred.
"Enough. Stop it."
"Make me."
Without giving herself time to think, to talk herself out of it, the Doctor threw herself at him. Her current body was slighter, smaller than her previous incarnations, but she was far from weak and helpless, especially when her friend was being threatened. Hitting his chest with her shoulder, she knocked the Master over, the sonic flying from his hand and releasing Serene from the pain he was inflicting.
The Doctor pinned him to the ground, one knee on his chest, her hands around the base of his throat.
'I could,' she thought. 'I could do it. Wouldn't kill him, not properly, but it'd stop him. Maybe regeneration would change him, he'd go back to being like Missy was, at the end.'
But the Master was laughing.
"Oh, we don't do this enough."
"Serene, pick up the sonic," the Doctor called out. "We need to find out how close that thing is to hatching."
Groggily, her friend got up, doing as she was asked. The Doctor told her what settings to use, and she scanned the near-completed machinery.
"I think it is a Metamorph burrower," Serene told her. "The field's holding it in stasis, for now."
"So what's your plan?" the Doctor demanded, to the Master. "To let it hatch, and change this planet? Why here?"
He stared up at her, lying still but appearing amused.
"It's the largest in this solar system. Once it's done with this planet, it'll seed the rest, and then they'll spread out, until the whole galaxy is infested. And then they'll keep going."
She stared back, uncomprehending.
"Why?"
"You know why. This is what I do. Chaos, destruction, and death."
"And I stop you. That's what I do."
"As I said, Doctor. At. What. Cost?"
Moving incredibly fast, he pulled out a gun she didn't even know he had, pressing the barrel to her forehead.
"Doctor!"
Serene took a step toward them but the Master held up his other hand.
"Don't you move! One more step and I shoot her in the head. Remember what I said, last time we did this? I keep shooting, and she doesn't come back. You don't just lose her as she is now, but the Doctor dies forever, no more regenerations."
Serene stopped still, hands held out in front of her. He was staring at the Doctor, but she knew he'd be able to tell if she moved.
"Which one of you would hurt more, if I killed the other?" he wondered aloud. The Doctor took her hands away from him, leaning back as he sat up, the gun still held to her head.
"I mean, you've had a lot more practise, Doctor. I'm sure you could shake off losing one more pet."
"Don't act like you understand what you're saying," she replied. Her voice was quieter but her anger still simmered through her. "You've never cared about anyone."
He ignored her.
"But you, little Empress. Could you go back to being nobody, stuck in one place and time?"
Serene didn't answer.
"And you've never lost anyone you loved before, have you?"
"My whole family's dead," she threw back.
"But you don't even remember them. It's not like this, not up close watching them die."
"Let her go," the Doctor demanded. "This is between you and me. Always has been."
"Oh, but this is a lot more fun."
The Master was grinning now, enjoying himself. He gestured for her to get up, and both Time Lords got to their feet.
"What could I make her do, to save you? How far could I push her?"
He left the Doctor standing in the open, holding the gun steadily on her as he backed toward Serene.
"Let's start with taking down the containment field around the burrower, shall we?"
He stood at Serene's side, taking hold of her shoulder, bunching the material of her jacket in one hand.
"The command's already programmed into the sonic. Do it."
Serene looked at the Doctor, fear for her friend racing through her. She believed him, the same as when they'd stood in the Hall of the Ma'at cult.
"I said do it!" he yelled, shaking her and she did as he said.
The field shut down, and immediately, the egg began to vibrate, close to hatching.
He gave her more instructions, finishing what he'd been building and starting the activation process, then took the sonic back from her, pocketing it.
"What does it do, this machine?" Serene asked.
"Gets the burrower further in faster, like a drill making a mineshaft. Speeds everything up. We're on a faultline here, and it can direct the burrower to the point where it'll do the most damage."
"And all the people living on this planet?"
"They'll die."
The Master looked over at her, keeping the gun trained on the Doctor, who was waiting, tense, for any chance to intervene.
"So… will you try and stop the burrower, knowing it means letting the Doctor die, or will you do what I tell you? Save her, and kill a planet?"
"How do I know you won't kill her anyway, if I do it?" Serene asked. "Kill us both when you're done."
He smirked.
"You don't. But this is your one chance to try and save her."
Serene stared at him, mind whirring.
"I mean, I already know you'll choose her, over a bunch of strangers," the Master continued. "It's not about the choice, not really. It's about how you live with what you've done."
He watched panic spread across Serene's face as she realised he'd called it right. She couldn't let the Doctor die, there was no way she'd let that happen. The Doctor was the only person in the universe that she loved. Not romantically, a best friend rather than a partner, but the thought of being without her was unbearable.
"You're a real bastard, aren't you?"
"Like you didn't know that already."
Agonised, Serene looked between the Master and the Doctor, searching for another way out. But there was nothing. Her body sagged, giving up and giving in.
"All right. Tell me what to do."
He pointed to the controls, the part that she recognised had come from the alien lab, giving her instructions. But as soon as she began, and his attention went back to the Doctor, she threw herself at his gun arm, catching him by surprise and they wrestled for control of it.
The Doctor was too far away to intervene in time, and though Serene made him drop the gun, he grabbed hold of her and shoved her, hard, right into the machinery he'd built.
The containment field sprang up again, but this time it surrounded the whole machine, trapping Serene inside. The Master pulled out the Doctor's sonic, activating whatever he'd done before to her recall implant. Pain shot through her, the field preventing her from escaping, and she could see sparks all around as parts of the machinery blew.
The Doctor barrelled into the Master, knocking him down again and grabbing the sonic, but instead of releasing Serene, there was another explosion, and everything went black.
The Doctor leapt to her feet, ignoring the Master as she pulled her friend's body from the still sparking machine, the containment field collapsing. Serene wasn't moving, unconscious and barely breathing, angry red burns spread across her neck, radiating out from the implant, which looked fused.
The Master was laughing.
"And now you have to choose," he said. "Stay here and try and save your friend, or leave her here while you try and stop me taking your ship again."
He backed away, heading toward the TARDIS, but the Doctor didn't even look up. Putting two fingers in her mouth, she gave a piercing whistle, then turned her attention back to Serene, trying to find out what damage had been done.
"What was that in aid of?" the Master asked, annoyed by the lack of response from the Doctor.
Turning around, he could see the ship, a little way off, the doors wide open. And heading toward him, incredibly fast, was a huge dog, a glowing blue collar around its neck.
"What? How did you-?"
He didn't get to finish his question. The bloodhound from the Ma'at cult, released from the infinite trap inside the TARDIS, leapt at him and they both vanished in a flash of light.
"That ought to keep you busy for a while," the Doctor muttered, with some satisfaction. "They won't fall for your tricks twice, so good luck getting away from them this time."
The sonic wasn't getting detailed enough results, and the ones that did come up were very worrying. Serene wasn't waking up, so once she'd made sure the Metamorph burrower was once more suspended in the containment field, albeit a rather wonky one, the Doctor did her best to half-carry, half-drag her friend back to the TARDIS.
The ship lit up as it recognised her, pleased to have lost her unwelcome pilot and have her thief back.
"Hello, lovely," the Doctor said to the TARDIS, setting Serene down. "I'm very, very glad to be home. But there's no time for that. We need a hospital. Quick as you like."
The doors swung shut, and the Doctor hurriedly took off.
There were many places she could've taken Serene, lots of reliable hospitals and medics. But she was so worried about her friend, she couldn't think straight, trusting the TARDIS to find the best place.
'I really miss having a Team in the TARDIS. Someone else to help out. Definitely miss having a medic on board. Martha, or Rory. Even Strax.'
Opening the doors, she found they were on the Exigency Space Station, right in the reception area.
"I need help!" she yelled, going back to Serene and trying to lift her. A trauma team rapidly arrived, somewhat confused by the ship but not really having time to process the transcendental dimensions. They moved Serene onto a anti-grav stretcher and pushed it out of the TARDIS. One tried to prevent the Doctor from following, but she was determined to stay at her friend's side.
"You need me to tell you what happened."
"All right, for now you can stay. What's her species?"
"She's Zinariyan. No existing health problems that I know of. There was an accident, an explosion. She was so close, right inside it. But it's not that I'm worried about. Her implant-" The Doctor gestured to her own neck. "It's part of a memory recall device. The secondary part's already gone, but the way it's fused… there could be brain damage."
"Okay, we'll get the specialists in to look at her. Are you two married?"
"What? Oh. No. We're just… friends."
"But you're close," the medic finished, clearly experienced in dealing with relatives and loved ones. "The best thing you can do now is leave her with us, honestly. Fill out as much detail as you can with Reception, and trust us to help her."
They reached the trauma unit and rushed Serene straight in, leaving the Doctor behind. For a moment, she stared at the doors, hands clenching and unclenching uselessly. She hated this, all of this. Her friend suffering, not being able to do anything…
At least the Master was safely away from Serene, hopefully imprisoned by the cult of Ma'at for a very long time. When all this was sorted, she'd look into finding his TARDIS, putting it somewhere safe. Stranding him wouldn't be permanent, not with his resourcefulness, but it would slow him down. Assuming the Doctor didn't end up inflicting a worse punishment on him, depending on how bad Serene's injuries were.
'Come on, Doctor. Pull yourself together. You've been here before, and this doesn't mean you'll lose her. Don't give up.'
Something the medic said sank in. Specialists… This was one of the top trauma hospitals in the universe, but what about aftercare? The recall device could've done more damage than the explosion itself, and the Doctor knew just where to find a specialist for that.
The Doctor could have materialised the TARDIS directly into the lab, but she decided it would be better to take her time, and instead landed in the Serenity Garden, the place where she and Serene had first met.
'If she hadn't been here at the exact time I landed, would we even have met? Would she have stayed here her whole life, bored but safe?' The Doctor thought, passing slowly through the rose-covered walkway. All the thoughts and worries that had surfaced during her Ma'at 'trial' came back; whether people she met and travelled with were better or worse off for having done so. Those who had died, or been changed… and if she couldn't help Serene now, then what?
The Doctor headed out of the garden, toward the cluster of enormous sand-coloured buildings, laid out around an open cloister, like an ancient Earth university, all soaring spires and stained glass, a cathedral to learning and knowledge. She checked in at Reception, wanting to do things properly for once, though she wasn't entirely sure of her motivations.
Once members of the Cerebral Order realised who the Doctor was, she received a lot of fascinated stares. Some remembered how she had seen off a troop of attacking Nevedi forces, others that she had come to them for help when she'd lost control of her memories, and how they'd been prevented from studying her as they wanted to. Some were just curious, as the Order encouraged them to be.
The Doctor had forgotten how quiet the buildings here were. Busy, but everyone going about their business calmly and with the serenity the Order had hoped to imbue in her friend with the choice of name they'd given her. But she did remember running full tilt down these corridors with Serene, laughing.
'Hold onto those memories, the good ones. Don't get distracted.'
She found the correct lab, knocking and awaiting invitation before entering. Professor Leyser, a middle-aged Black woman in the blue tunic of the Academic members of the Order, recognised the Doctor immediately, getting to her feet and going straight over to her. As before, she looked over the Doctor's shoulder to see if Serene was with her, and once again, she found nothing.
The scientist looked back at the Doctor, her expression darkening, and the Doctor had to fight the urge to drop her own gaze.
"What now?" Professor Leyser asked. "This isn't a social visit, is it?"
"I wish it was. I need your help. Well, Serene does."
Leyser folded her arms.
"What happened?"
"I… there was an accident. No, that's not right. There's a man, another Time Lord. He… we're enemies."
Leyser said nothing, waiting. The Doctor took a breath, feeling like this was a confession.
"He hurt her. There was an explosion, but that isn't the problem. She wasn't hurt too badly in the blast, but her device, the recall implant, it's sort of fused. She needs an expert, to see what damage might have been done."
"I see. Where is she?"
"With the doctors in the trauma unit on the Exigency Station. They're good, really good, but…" The Doctor trailed off.
Professor Leyser pulled out a stool and sat back down, rubbing a hand over her eyes.
"The first time we met, you needed my help, and I gave it to you. You repaid me by erasing all my notes, the records of the work I did, and you spirited Serene away with you. Then you lost her, and you came back for my help, and I gave it to you. Now, once more, you're here because you got her hurt, and you need me to help you again. Do you understand why I'm not pleased to see you, Doctor?"
Her words knifed through the Doctor. None of it was anything she hadn't thought herself, but it hurt to have it laid out like that in front of her.
"Yeah, I know. Trust me, if I could've stopped him, I would have."
"But he only hurt her because of you, yes? This man?"
"Yes."
There was no point in denying it, or arguing details. That was exactly why the Master had hurt Serene, because of her association with the Doctor. He might not have intended the exact nature of what had happened, but hurting, or even killing Serene, had been on his mind since the first time he saw her.
Professor Leyser met the Doctor's eyes again, her expression growing angry.
"I've known Serene almost all her life, Ever since she was a toddler. This tiny little thing, so full of energy and noise, so curious. I was still a researcher then, but it was lovely, having this little kid running around, so different to everyone, everything else here. I watched her grow up, wondered what she'd choose to do with her life, if she'd become a full Sister here, or an academic even. And then you turn up, and you whisk her away across the Universe and I never saw her again."
The Doctor swallowed every reply that came to mind. Whatever defence she could think of was unnecessary, because the Professor was entirely correct. That Serene had wanted to come with her, enthusiastically, didn't counteract all the bad things that had happened since.
"You didn't even bother to tell me that she was all right, after she'd been abducted. I managed to get some information from the Zinariyan Alliance, afterwards, but for weeks I didn't even know if she was dead or alive."
The Doctor flinched.
"It didn't even occur to you, did it? You stormed out of here, all righteous anger because you thought I'd kept information from you about your friend, never mind that we cared about her too."
The Doctor said nothing. She needed the Professor's help, and if hearing all this was what it took, then she'd keep quiet. Besides, it was true.
"So…"
Professor Leyser got up again, beginning to gather her things.
"Let's go and see her now. She won't be the girl I knew, but there's nothing I can do about that."
The TARDIS returned to the Exigency Station shortly after it had left. Despite her anger, Professor Leyser was astounded to see the ship's interior, scientific curiosity almost overriding her resentment of the Doctor.
They parked more considerately this time, out of anyone's way, then tracked down those taking care of Serene, and found that the trauma team had finished dealing with any physical injuries from the explosion. The forcefield, despite trapping her within the machinery, had actually managed to protect her a little, though the escaping energy was what had destroyed the implant.
"It's too badly fused to be removed safely," the surgeon told them. "It's no longer operational in any way, and we've ensured it won't cause any further damage. But you said it's a memory device?"
Professor Leyser showed her similar recall device, demonstrating with the wrist part how it worked.
"Memory is my specialisation," she told them.
"Well, then let's get to work," he replied.
The Doctor let them go. Serene hadn't regained consciousness yet, so there wasn't much she herself could do.
'Being clever isn't enough, here and now,' she thought. 'Leave the specialists to their work, offer help when you can.'
Part of her wanted to run off, to fill the time with her usual activities of adventure and exploration, to distract herself from worry, but she didn't want to risk missing her friend waking up, anything that she could do to help Serene's recovery.
'There must be something you can help with, though. Try and make yourself useful.'
The Doctor left messages with the trauma team, and at Reception so she could be contacted if needed, and went to find something good to do, while she waited for news.
Disclaimer: anything you recognise, isn't mine, etc.
I will be writing more, but in another story.
Let me know what you thought? I didn't tag this as a Master story as I wanted his involvement to be a surprise, so I'm dying to know if anyone figured it out before he showed up.