A/N: Welcome to my new story! x3
As always, I try to explain things on the go, so you get the important information without having to read the previous stories. (If you want all the juicy details, though, start with "The Master's Game")
This story will probably be a little darker than the previous one. It will also focus less on TV episodes (although there will be some). It's exhausting to do rewrites. And there also might be slightly (lol) more M rated content in it. But I'll tag those chapters with an (M) for you.
There also will be a surprisingly frequent guest. It's just funny to have her around, so... You'll see. ;P
~~ Also as always, I'm super happy to read comments, even simple one liners. Don't be shy. x3
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Act I - Running together
In which the Master has too many secrets and Roka starts to accept her choices.
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"Follow me," the boy whispered and swiftly ran into a nearby alleyway.
Roka spun around, only able to catch a glimpse at his vanishing small back. He wore the dirty, ragged clothes of an urchin. Judging by his size, probably not older than ten. In case he was of human origin, that is.
"Did the brat steal something from you?" the Master asked with a taunting undertone. "You really should start remembering that you're visible now."
"No, he didn't," she grumbled back. "Just reminded me of Venice."
There had been a similar situation, and when she had followed the child, back then, he had long vanished. It hadn't even been a trap.
Right now they weren't on earth. This was a planet that was inhabited by human colonists, but also a few other species. Some humanoid, some not so much. Neither Roka, nor the Master knew what they were actually looking for exactly, here, so all there was to do, was to look around and hope to get a clue.
Before Roka had left the Doctor, he had given her a chip that contained all data he could retrieve from the traces around Roka's childhood home. They had found out there were literally countless of points all over time and space that seemed unconnected, but wore all the same signature. Together with the Master they had narrowed it down to the first appearance this entity had made at where those points clustered together. And now they jumped from point to point, hoping to find whoever was behind all of it, and who had kidnapped her little brother.
"I still don't get it," Roka eventually mumbled and kicked a pebble away. It rolled under a booth that was made of junk and scrape metal. Several lights blinked all around it's opening and inside sat a wrinkly and bold humanoid with a cigar in his mouth. "You're not the helping type. What is it you get out of this?" She waved a hand as if she meant this market place, but she referred more to the whole situation. "Why do you help me find Josh? What's in it for you?"
There was only a mean snickering coming from the Master, mocking to be an answer. Roka peeked up at him, searching for a hint in his features, but as always, he wouldn't give anything away. And, as always, he looked completely out of place, wearing his usual attire of all black, dress shirt, waistcoat, pants and boots. Only a blood red tie and his blond head contrasted the sight. His posture was casual, hands tucked away in his pockets, eyes scanning the marketplace for something interesting.
They turned around a corner and found themselves suddenly inhaling all sorts of delicious smells, all coming from the various booths and shabby looking merchants inside. Roka wasn't sure if she actually wanted to eat something here. After all, the whole place was one gigantic junkyard and trading went down mostly via exchanging items, rather than money.
The Master didn't bother. His appetite was as untamable as ever, so he went ahead with a mischievous smirk and hypnotized a merchant to hand him something wrapped into newspaper. One of them he handed to Roka, who sniffed at the content with wrinkled nose.
"Don't make such a face," he mocked. "It's just fried cholbera bugs. Bet you ate worse on your travels."
"Yeah... sometimes. Mhm... this smells nice at least." Carefully she picked out one of the small, fried objects, slid them between her teeth and chewed carefully. "Hey, that's not bad." Roka munched the next bug, feeling her stomach grumble from the previous lack of food. "I once had to live on something that looked like berries. Small, yellow things. Tasted like shit, literally. But they were high on nutrition and there wasn't much else around, so..."
The Master chuckled. "Yeah, some places really have horrible food."
"Makes me wonder," Roka drawled, while chewing, "did that ravenous appetite of yours, you had after resurrecting ever vanish? I mean, it was outstanding even before that..."
"Oi! Don't be mean!"
She giggled and threw an impish look in his direction. "Come on, you can't stay away from food if your life depends on it."
"At least I'm not pouring buckets full of coffee into me each day," he snapped back, although more amused than peeved.
"Okay, okay, draw. Let's get a place for the night and see if we can find more when it's day again."
"TARDIS?"
Roka huffed. "It's a five hour walk from here. Or does your mighty remote control work again?"
The exact function he had been bragging about in front of the Doctor all the time had actually broken down just s few days ago. Much to his sorrow. It wasn't the only part of the time machine that would not work properly. All in all she was in a much worse shape than the Doctor's. The Master had escaped the Time Lock because he found a crack in reality and had piloted his TARDIS through it. Turned out the process had taken a toll on the ship and countless of her functions. And without the Time Lords it was hard to find the right parts and tools to repair the damage.
Because of this it was no wonder Roka got only a low growl in return, and since her Vortex Manipulator was still charging they had not much choice than to either walk or stay here. For once the Master even refrained from complaining about her human need for sleep. Probably because it was almost a week since he himself had gotten a good night's rest, and a week was definitely long, even for Time Lord standards. So far, though, Roka hadn't been able to find out what it was that kept him awake.
Rain started to pour down in thick drops and heavy streaks as they left the market and the fleeing crowd behind to head back to the small city that had been built right in the centre of the junkyard. It was an astonishingly clean place, considering the circumstances. People had settled here over two centuries ago and had learned to keep the dirt and junk, and also the smell, out of their settlement.
Somehow it was even a nice place. Houses towered above their heads in shaky constructions of old metal, while other shacks hunched below the giants. The settlers had installed lights everywhere, illuminating the place all day and night, making it look as if they had spread a bucket of stars over the junk.
Somewhere they got some proper food, then headed their way to what managed to look like a medieval tavern. Well, except for all the metal, of course. The interior was loud and full, the air thick with smoke and the smell of various liquors. At the bar stood a young fella, almost humanoid if it weren't for the greenish skin and the scales that grew only on neck and hands.
"What do you need, travellers?" he greeted, while wiping a cloth at a dirty mug, as if it was a thing all bartenders in the universe had agreed to do all the time.
The Master stepped in, leaned a little over the counter and glared into the creature's eyes with an intense stare. "You'll give us a room for tonight. Free of charge, because you like us so much."
"Free... of charge. Of course," the man repeated in a slightly slower voice, but then he shook his head. "Don't have rooms for two anymore, friends." His smile was apologetic, the shrug too.
"Doesn't matter," the Master grumbled. "Didn't plan to sleep anyway."
"Alright, then it's room 12." The young guy smiled widely and he turned to rummage around in a drawer, before he came back to hand them a small key. "Enjoy your stay."
Without a thanks the Master snatched the key and pushed it into Roka's hands. His eyes wandered over the people and the place in general, as if to decide with what he would waste his time during the next few hours.
"Maybe you should get some sleep too," Roka suggested carefully. "Don't you dare thinking I don't know you haven't in a while."
His eyes snapped from the crowd to her, showing surprise and a little concern for a split second, before he could hide it behind his usual mask of mischief. His thumbs wandered into his pockets and he bent down a little towards her, eyes twinkling. "You heard the fella. There's only one bed."
Right... there was. Roka bit down on her lower lip and nodded. "Still, you should rest somehow." She poked a finger against his chest. "That can't be healthy. Even for you."
For a moment she awaited him to protest, but instead something else crossed his eyes, something dark and exhausted. He clearly was at his limit right now, and knew it perfectly well, although he would not admit it aloud.
"And you should stop wasting your worries on me. I know what I can take."
Nonetheless he followed her upstairs and into the sporadically decorated room. Beside the bed was only a small table and a desk - everything made of metal scraps - and a small, adjacent bathroom. From the window they could see out into the streets and watch the thousands of lights that had given this place its name. Not that Roka could actually pronounce it, though.
The bed was small, the covers grey and not looking as if they could keep one too warm at night, but Roka had slept in worse places already. Most of the time, actually, she hadn't slept in beds at all, preferred to have the night sky over her head. It was always a strange feeling to lay on her back and see nothing but the ceiling when she looked up.
The Master moved to the window to stand there, straight and with his hands clasped behind his back. He often did that, maybe as some kind of meditative Time Lord resting... thing. A picture of calmness, although Roka knew better.
"Why don't you sleep?" she decided to ask while kicking off her boots and hanging her jacket over the chair.
No answer.
Roka sighed and crawled under the covers. "Fine, don't tell me."
Only then did she feel how tired she actually was from wandering around all day. Her eyes fell shut in seconds, her mind slowly drifting away into the darkness, accompanied by the busy noises from outside.
"It's still somewhat insulting how well you can sleep while having me around," a low, mocking voice seeped into her floating mind.
She would not move, hoping the Master might talk some more while thinking she wasn't perceiving any of it. A weight settled on the bed next to her, the fleeting touch of fingers against her cheek, then playing with her hair. Sometimes he could be so gentle, like the calm caress of a subtle wave. While other times he was the perfect opposite, a tossing storming ocean, roaring thundering through time and space.
"I put a lot of work into you, little crow" he muttered. "That can't have been for nothing. I wouldn't like that."
Yes, indeed. He had freed her of the glitch that had made her invisible to everyone, that would have caused her atoms to dissolve slowly over time and leave her as nothing but a literal ghost, one day. He was the only person who hadn't forgotten her, and only in the last moments of her existence had she learned the reason for it. He had taken her life with his own hands, because he knew her death would cause the paradox of her glitch to unwind and would tear reality itself open all around them, with himself being the centre of this wave of destruction.
It had burned the memory of her into his whole timeline, making him unable to ever forget her, no matter in what part of his life. But with the annihilation of her existence she also had never really died, so the wave had stopped and reversed at some point, leaving the two of them as the only witnesses of this ever happening. After that she somehow had been still alive, the glitch gone, and neither of them entirely sure how it was possible at all.
And the Master demanded payment. For searching for her for over ten years, knowing he would have to take her life the moment they met. Either this or erasing her from time forever. And that he couldn't do, his feeling for her running to deep to give her up like that. As payment he had demanded to hear each and every single story of her travels, effectively taking her prisoner for years with this.
"Roka?" his low voice asked. But she kept silent, unsure if he knew whether she slept or not. She heard him sigh, his hand retreating from her hair.
Instead she felt his weight shifting onto the bed next to her, but still a good distance away. One of her eyes crept open slightly, peeking through the half opened lid to see him lying there, his head perched in his hand, eyes staring into nothingness.
Once she and him had been close. Before the drums had overtaken his mind, before he had been resurrected, and before he had fell into the Time Lock, together with his burning home planet. For one and a half centuries Roka believed he had abandoned her for some stupid revenge on Rassilon, leaving her unseen and unremembered to the universe. Leaving her to wander time and space all alone, sadness turning to desperation, then to hate.
A hate that had grown stronger when she realized he tried to keep her, and that also didn't diminish when the Master had brought her to the Doctor, to utilize his knowledge of humans. For utterly selfish reasons, but with a surprisingly good-willed purpose.
He wanted her to smile again, to fix her soul that had been broken by loneliness.
Much later she had seen his memories. Of how unrepairably broken his mind and body had been, of how the Time Lords had finally removed the link in his head, leaving him with only silence that had almost broken him. After centuries of having the drums in his head, the Master almost hadn't been able to cope with them being gone.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
Tap, tap, tap, tap.
His fingers mindlessly tapped the old rhythm against the sheets of the mattress, his eyes wandering off into the distance of his own thoughts, struggling to stay open.
There was much the Master could be blamed for. More things than there were stars in the sky. But he had never abandoned Roka. And even though over a century of hating him couldn't be erased within a moment, she found herself being able to leave the past behind her and to allow herself to... she wasn't sure what exactly. But it was herself who had suggested travelling together, after their stay with the Doctor and Amy.
"I know you're awake," the Master stated suddenly, an amused smile twitching the corner of his mouth upwards.
Roka huffed and opened her eyes. With a yawn she turned so her back rested against the wall and tugged the blanked down a little. "And you cannot, for once, respect my personal space, can you?"
"Never." The smile widened to a cheeky grin. "You wanted me to sleep, didn't you?"
"I'd rather know why you don't."
The mirth vanished from his eyes in an instant and Roka felt a sudden sting of panic. It was over so fast she wondered if it had been imagination. There was no reason for any kind of fear right now, so why should she...
"Time is a dangerous thing to toy with, you know," the Master mumbled and closed his eyes. "Things that shouldn't be could be again. And things you thought were broken might end up not being so broken at all."
"You make no sense," sighed Roka. "What does that have to do-"
"Nothing. Forget it," he suddenly snapped and she fell silent in surprise.
She watched him, now certain that something was off and definitely not as it should be. And of course the Master was too stubborn to let her even know about it. Well... not her problem. Roka closed her eyes and tried to finally fall asleep, expecting the Master to wander off soon to occupy himself with whatever he usually did when she rested.
It took her a few minutes, in which she probably nodded away at least twice, before she realized he wasn't moving. Her eyes crept open, peeking to the other side of the bed. Her heart started pounding a little faster, for no valid reason, in her opinion. There was so much space between them that a third person would easily fit in the space, after all.
And as much as she tried to fight it, it was exactly this space that bothered her so much. No, she absolutely no longer hated him, and whatever she felt right now only confused Roka. So many years ago she had been lonely, thanks to the glitch, and had clung to the only person who wouldn't forget her. And for the longest time she had assumed this had been the reason she had developed any feelings for him. How else could it be, considering who he was?
The Master was death, a wave of burning chaos that left nothing but destruction it its wake. He was dangerous, he never hesitated to take lives, no matter if out of necessity or out of mere fun.
But had she not done a fair share of bad on her own? And certainly not all of it because circumstance had demanded it.
A chuckle made her open her eyes again. "Still awake?" he taunted. "Do I scare you so much?"
"You wish," Roka grumbled into the pillow. "Just... too many thoughts in my head."
"'Bout me?" he asked with a grin.
"Yeah." She hadn't planned to admit it, but his dumbstruck face was somewhat reward enough for that slip. "I'm not a good person, am I?"
"Because you travel with me?" he asked, the twinkle never leaving his eyes as he slightly leaned towards her. "Or what dirty thoughts about me are spooking through your head, little crow?"
It was no help. She blushed horribly and tried to hide her face in the shadows. "Nothing like that! And stop calling me that, you bugger."
"At least my pet names for you are nice. You can just admit that you like me, you know," he continued to tease and poked out his tongue.
Roka narrowed her eyes and tugged the pillow out from under her head to throw it into his face. He caught it though and only laughed, which made Roka shoot up and towards him to push the pillow back down with her own hands. Not that she would be able to do much about his inhuman strength, she only wanted to be mean, right now, grinning from ear to ear when she managed to surprise him for a short moment, the pillow muffling his protest.
A second later it was gone, ripped out of her hands and tossed against the wall behind her. The Master grabbed her wrists, threw her onto the mattress and knelt above her, mischief all over his grinning face that now leaned down so close to her that their noses almost touched.
"That wasn't nice."
"It wasn't supposed to be," Roka quipped back and poked out her tongue. Their eyes locked in a little staring contest and her heart rate sped up so much he must have felt it pumping through the veins in her wrists. Not out of fear, but because of the closeness that made her struggle not to stretch up to him a little, her eyes falling to his lips, twitching away almost in guilt.
It happened again. She felt something, an emotion that wasn't her own, although she couldn't tell how she knew. There was a hint of sadness, of regret. The Master's eyes lost the mischief and instead took on a warm smile she could feel reaching right into her soul.
"At least you can have fun again," he stated, the softness of his eyes belying the casual tone. He let go of Roka's wrists and flopped down to the mattress again, facing her. "Fine. That bed's mine now. You're right, I need to sleep a little."
She needed a moment to find her composure again, her hands dropping to her sides, her head turning to the Master, who lay there, one hand under his head, eyes closed, but his face not completely able to hide the barely visible smirk on it. He could be so childish sometimes and it made her smile.
Roka reached behind her and fumbled around for the cloth there. "You don't have a blanket, though," she mumbled and tugged herself under said cloth, out of protest, and also to tease him a little more. "I hope your toes freeze off. Or... something else."
The Master let out a snort, reached out and grabbed her blanket to steal it away. She held on to it tightly, rolling around in the process and landing with her face against his chest. Carefully she peeked up, hoping he would not feel her maddeningly fast heartbeat. He abused her distraction, tugged at the blanket once more and draped it over them both. His arm went under his head again, the other snaked around Roka's middle and pulled her flush against him.
"Yep, I think that'll do," he cheered and closed his eyes.
Roka wouldn't move, her pulse still ridiculously quick, cheeks flushed. She had one hand between them, slightly pushing against his chest to have at least a little space. There she felt not only her own heartbeat, but his too, faster than it should be.
A lot faster.
Because of her.
Roka stared at her hand, feeling for the fast rhythm underneath it, knowing he was still awake and aware of what she did. His breath brushed over her the top of her head, his arm holding her firm in place. As weird as it was, but Roka knew she was safe. For the moment at least. So she relaxed and ignored how utterly wrong it was to feel so secure with this man. She even snuggled herself a little closer and fell asleep much faster than was appropriate.
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