Next chapter's on the 9th of January.
The Mistress paces in the highest room in the house, light catching the dust through the grimy porthole windows at each end. There is clutter up here, boxes of tech the humans don't know how to use anymore, old toys, some old paintings covered in sheets of dust.
If she was thinking she'd probably expect to smell rat piss or bird droppings or something similar. The absence of it is not notable to her right now as her heeled boots clunk across the floor, skirt sending up whirls of disturbed dust as her footprints carve a path into it.
She wants to speak to Florence, to get some kind of reassurance that she wouldn't somehow fall for the Master.
She knows it's ridiculous though- that her companion is far smarter than that and also has far better taste than a mess like him.
Still she feels her mind spinning on its wheels, imagining her with him, what he would do to her.
She knows that he can be charming when he wants to be- devastatingly so- and, well, Florence's morality has been influenced by Missy's own after so many years together and she has had her more dubious patches despite her current attempts to be better.
The Mistress doesn't know what she would do if Florence did fall for him.
What would she say to Aaron? To her children? They have been part of
The Time Lady knows that if the Master had her he would take her away from them however he could. Maybe he would arrange an accident, maybe he'd kill them in front of her- could she protect them from him if he tried to do that- if Florence went with him?
She knows that Florence never would but in saying that she can see it happen, the way he'd smile at her, hunger and jealousy, the way she'd somehow never be enough for him, the way he'd consume her just as he'd consumed everyone who'd been his companion before.
There's a clatter as the hatch is pushed up and shoved to the side. The Mistress watches it blankly, brain still playing a mixture of fear, confusion and guilt.
Fingers grasp over the edges of the hole, white knuckled to pull up elbows which hook over the lip to give Florence enough purchase to pull the rest of herself up, grunting a little with the exertion of it.
The ladder had broken long ago and had not been replaced.
Now the Mistress is looking at her, sees the grey hairs, just one or two but very there, sees the wrinkles coming in again, sees the delicacy of her hands, the softness of the dip to her brows as she looks at her, concern in her eyes as she assesses the situation before acting.
How does she ask her?
How does she tell her?
Florence wraps her in her arms and the Time Lady can feel that single fragile heartbeat against her arm, trapped between their bodies gently.
She raises an arm to grasp at Florence's, tucks her face into the human's neck and breathes in deep, holds her there as if she has any intention of leaving if she wasn't held.
"I'm here." Florence tells her, voice near the Mistress' ear, quiet.
And suddenly Missy feels so small and vulnerable in her companion's arms. She wraps her arms around her tight and her breath shudders as she tries to form words.
"I know." Is all that she can summon to her lips.
She strings together some more words, forces them to follow as she shivers.
"Thank you."
And then she is quiet again, buries her face in Florence's neck again.
The human lets the silence sit for a while, runs her hand up and down Missy's back in the way she does which is always comforting at least just a little.
It feels strong, far stronger than she feels right now.
In her arms she feels even more guilty for the thoughts she has, her fears.
She knows that she will have to say them eventually but for now she just wants to be held, as stupid and human as the Master's voice in her head says it is.
Florence does it without needing to be asked, sits them down on an old box of parts, pulls the Mistress' head into her chest, runs her fingers through her hair, rocks her a little, uttering soothing nonsenses and cooing gently.
Then, when some of the tension has been drained from the Time Lady's body, the human shifts them apart and takes Missy's hands, looks in her eyes.
"Show me?" She asks, as patient as any good mother learns to be, not pushing in the slightest.
The Mistress is nervous but exhales.
"Yes."
Florence cups the Time Lady's face in her hands and closes her eyes.
The Master doesn't know what has changed but he knows something has as they stand in the forest again waiting for the Doctor.
The Mistress isn't looking at him, arms crossed, parasol hanging limp from one hand, and the not-human is not engaging with his attempts at making conversation beyond answering straight-forward questions or a basic acknowledgement of the fact he's spoken.
If he didn't intend to keep it he'd kill it- her- for that.
Thankfully- and he never thought he'd be thankful for this- he can hear the Doctor stumbling around not too far away.
The old man really was getting old.
"It's weird," he says, sidling up to the Mistress, peering in her face enough that he knows it'll get on her nerves, "that you don't remember any of this." He finishes, faking innocence.
The Time Lady rolls her eyes and he just about manages to keep from rolling his own at her terse response.
"The two of us together puts the timelines out of sync. You can't remember so I can't keep the memories." She says, shuffling away from him.
The Master does roll his eyes when he finally sees the Doctor approaching, pet in tow.
"You just had to bring it, didn't you?" He complains.
"Her." Four voices correct in unison along with four variations of irritation and scorn. One annoys him more than the rest.
He turns back to the Mistress.
"Her?" He says incredulously, "it's bad enough being a woman but do you really see these barely evolved apes as being people?" He raises an eyebrow at his older self, as much as he hates to think about it, and she just sneers back at him.
He can practically feel the humans rolling their eyes and he briefly regrets whatever small points he's lost in his attempts to sway the not-quite-human.
"Where is it?" The Doctor asks, joining the crew of people ignoring the Master.
He means, of course, the lift.
"Right here." Florence says, knocking on the air and producing a metallic clunk.
The Doctor fishes in his pocket, pulls out the sonic and swings it in an arc around them, hitting it against the palm of his bandaged hand in frustration when nothing happens.
"Just need to get the frequency." He says, pointing it back at the spot where Florence had tapped. After a second the lift pops into view as if it had always been there.
The Time Lord makes a noise of victory and swings his sonic screwdriver in an arc again.
This time a few more chrome columns come into existence.
The Doctor grins, fiddling with some kind of setting on his screwdriver.
"And now, doors." He says as an unseen seam in the cylinders cracks open with a hiss and the doors slide into the shaft.
"This," he says, smile uncomfortably wide across his face as he turns, looking at them all, "is how we'll evacuate the children." He tells the four people gathered.
There's a silence in which crickets would be heard if they existed here.
Bill breaks it first.
"Well, uh. Yeah. You told us that earlier." She says awkwardly.
"Ah." The Doctor wrinkles his nose, lowering his arm.
"You could have pretended it was cool." He says, just a little downcast.
The Master hits the button on the outside and the other Time Lord is immediately dragged from his moping.
"What the hell did you do that for?" He demands, grabbing the Master's arm and pulling him back, away from the lift.
The Master shrugs.
"Well, we're going to need them if we're getting out of here." He says.
"The lift was downstairs you twit! What if it wasn't empty!" The Mistress hisses, "they already had one up here yesterday- they're going to be even more suspicious now even if there wasn't one already in there!" She says, putting herself between the doors and Florence even though the companion had already put a cyberman out of commission just yesterday without any help or tools.
The Doctor has shoved Bill behind him and has readied his sonic at the lift as it hums innocently. The Mistress raises her parasol and, with a sigh, the Master pulls out his laser pen.
The Master is the first to jump back, shrieking as the lift open and there's the immediate buzz of some kind of weapons fire.
"Kill it!" He cries out, "Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!" The Time Lord repeats, tucked safely against the side of the lift, almost behind the cyberman, as the Doctor and Missy manage to disable it.
"Sonic the lift. Keep it here." The Doctor commands.
The Mistress follows without complaint or challenge, locking the lift to the level they are on with a buzz.
"It looks… Different." Bill says after a moment of consideration, peering around the Doctor at the slumped cyberman though he is already moving around, zapping the other lifts.
She's right.