Episode: Monsters of the Cosmos
Chapter: We All Depend On the— [4/4]
Summary: Amy wanted to travel and ended in the middle of the UK. The Queen wanted the truth and learned nothing new. A little girl wanted her friend back and almost caused the end of the world. The Master wanted the noise in his head to stop and realized he had been right all along. Or the one where they visit Starship UK and learn more about themselves than they anticipated.
Rating: T
The observation deck is empty, only Koschei standing there, arms crossed against his chest, staring out at the sea of stars all around them.
As soon as Mandy and her friend tackled Amelia into a hug, laughing, and the Queen and her Winders shared some sad and relieved looks, Koschei had bolted, leaving even Theta's ghost behind.
Not that it matters now. Theta is in his mind, after all, so, even if there's no other living being around, he's still there, standing shoulder to shoulder, looking out.
They don't talk, lost in their musings and the Space Whale's new song. There's still pain in it, aftershocks and soreness after those centuries of torture. But the joy, the relief at having its freedom back, at being able to choose to help once more, despite all that these disgusting creatures have put it through…
Koschei's next breath goes out in a tremulous shudder that makes even his shoulders shake, the grip his arms hold on his sides tightening for a moment.
"Is that what it would have been like if I had accepted?" he asks softly, not looking away from the stars even when Theta turns to him.
"I don't know. Maybe. Probably with a lot more wariness – after all, I knew you far longer than this whale has known humans," the ghost answers after a moment, keeping his tone light with his last sentence.
Then again, this Theta is just a ghost of the Doctor, a remnant, an image left behind after a hurried mind-link. There's no way he can know what the actual Doctor would have done, even with access to Koschei's own memories.
"I forgive you."
If Koschei had taken the offer back then, on the Valiant, or even after he'd been cuffed, would the Doctor have felt like this? Still hurt, still healing, but so relieved and glad?
And what about the landfill, the warehouse, the mansion? If Koschei had accepted then, had agreed to help, even if he never agreed to travel together at the time? Would it have been like this too?
… But he couldn't choose, not then, not with the drums so much louder than any other time before. No matter how much he'd wanted to, when the Doctor had outright said it, strapped down as he'd been at the time. Without the drums…
Well, without the drums, things would have been completely different from the start. So different, in fact, it doesn't bear thinking about.
A Time Lord's timeline isn't like another being's. Koschei can't just kick back and flip between 'maybe' and 'possible' and 'could be' and 'might have been' like he could with anything else, and it isn't just because they're in the past. A Time Lord's timeline is infinitely more complex by nature, and, though they can be messed with, their pasts tampered with, it's extremely hard to decipher possibilities, more so the closer the timeline is to the viewer, or the target Time Lord to the observing one.
Theta's and Koschei's timelines first came in contact long before the Academy and the drums, so much that there's no chance for Koschei to ever glimpse any possible deviation there could have been.
Even with the Valeyard and the Matrix thrown in the mix, their timelines had remained immovable and inscrutable to each other. Not even the Valeyard's, possible future version of the Doctor he was supposed to be, had been accessible.
He'll never be now, just another Could've Been, like many others before him, turned Never-Were.
Just like this one with him now, an echo of something that, if only he'd taken the metaphorical hand any of the times it had been offered, could have been a real solid Doctor instead of the ghost of a butchered mind-link.
"Oi, I can hear you thinking, you know!" Theta pouts, straightening indignantly, and Koschei can't help his snort.
"I doubt that. You were never that good with telepathy," he pokes, relishing in the aggravated look that earns him and the childish pout that follows.
"Well, you were never that good with jiggery-pokery! I had to keep telling you what to do with those electrodes."
"And you were half as useful as a blind human with its hands tied behind its back. As usual."
"Oi!"
"And would you stop referring to Field Technological Repair and Assembly as 'jiggery-pokery'? It's embarrassing, frankly."
"It's way faster and more practical than calling it that. Gets me less questions too."
"You're dealing with humans, what did you expect?"
They snort in unison, smiling and once more staring at the stars, but the mirth doesn't last that long.
So, it is immersed in solemn silence that Amelia finds them – him.
Only him. From now until forever, it will only ever be just Koschei.
Amelia is smiling as she practically skips to his side, adrenaline and cheer oozing out of her, and Theta pops out of existence the second before she takes his place. Koschei's folded arms press tighter against his chest, but he doesn't look away from the stars.
For a moment, she stays silent, observing him and calming down from her triumphant high, but it doesn't take her long before she waves something white in front of him.
"From her Majesty. She says there will be no more secrets on Starship UK," she explains, stilling so Koschei can identify the mask in her hands.
He doesn't react though, and so she eventually lets the mask drop, sobering.
"You could have killed every single person on this ship," Koschei finally tells her, keeping his voice level and never looking away from the stars.
After his outburst, down at the Tower, he feels depleted, empty. How long since he last rested, since he slept? How long until he'll be able to? He has the feeling he will never be able to close his eyes again without seeing the Doctor's lifeless body, almost imperceptible smile on his burnt and slashed face, and feel his world crumble all around him.
Amelia is silent, eyes moving from the starry outside to his face a couple times before she settles for staring down at the mask in her hands.
"You could've killed a Star Whale," she answers in a tone that is equal parts petulant and somber.
She's not trying to be contrary, he's pretty sure about that, but he can't help but feel a stab of burning hot ire straight through his hearts.
He tilts his head back with a humorless snort, grinning sharply and rocking with the movement, forcing himself to not take his eyes off the stars or his hands off his arms. If he moves, if he even dares look at her… Koschei's not sure what will happen if he does, but he doesn't trust himself.
"We will initiate the Final Sanction. The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart."
"Ah, but that's the way of things. Always, always the same. Save one person or a hundred. One life for a country, for a planet. One planet in exchange for the whole of creation," he chuckles, grin widening as his eyes inevitably turn to a bright reddish speck in the starry tapestry on the other side of the window, invisible to human eyes.
The suns are still there, but Gallifrey is gone. It was the Doctor's choice, to end the Time War. And it was the Master's, to send Gallifrey back when he chose one person over the whole planet.
It was never about creation, about the universe, about the humans. It was about the Doctor, about Theta, forever and always.
"Get out of the way."
For the whole of creation, the Doctor sacrificed Gallifrey. For the Doctor, the Master sacrificed Gallifrey.
But in the end, it was useless. The Doctor is gone now, and Koschei is adrift in the vastness of space and time, lost and alone.
"… I would destroy a thousand worlds to get one person back. But that's not how it works. It never does," he whispers, unsure if he's actually saying it aloud or in his head, and sees Theta appear again from the corner of his eye. "It's always one who pays the price of the whole. One life in exchange for the planet, for the universe."
"You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making. No more."
Ire burns again, and he feels his shoulders tense and his hands claw his own arms, but Koschei chooses to focus on the starry sky over the memory of Rassilon's face, snarling at it instead of reacting.
"It's wrong. It's wrong! It's wrong but they still do it, they still choose to sacrifice one for the others, to torture one for the benefit of the bastards in power, to get what they want, and it's not fair!" he roars, dropping his head and squeezing his eyes tightly shut, hands shooting to grab the sides of his head as he tries to mute the drums, the never-ending drums threatening to swallow him whole—
"Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one."
"The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"
His next exhale comes out as a chocked sob, and Koschei freezes.
Those aren't the drums; the Doctor took them. That's his own heartsbeat, drumming in his ears as his anger burns, nothing more.
"It isn't always like that," Theta whispers from somewhere in front of him, and, when he opens his eyes, Koschei sees he's kneeling on the ground so that their eyes can meet. "I saved you, didn't I?" he adds with a small but bright smile.
"I wasn't supposed to survive."
"Now, none of that! That's for me to decide, you know. And I made my choice a long time ago," Theta rebukes, waving a hand as if to wipe away any protests. "Besides, you did save my life. Sure, you wanted to get back at Rassilon, but you could have done it after he struck me down, or knocked me out of the way yourself. And yet, you didn't," he adds, straightening and dusting his trousers as Koschei uncurls, looking into those warm brown eyes framed by the endless tapestry of stars and city lights outside the window. "It's hard, Koschei, it really is. But sometimes, you can really save everyone. Don't give up, alright?"
And, with a wide grin on his face and not waiting for an answer, Theta vanishes.
Koschei takes in a deep breath, clenching his fists, and focuses on the stars.
"Never give up, never give in, huh? The Doctor, the sanctimonious twat who makes people better," he snorts softly, taking another deep breath as the echo of his heartsbeat finally vanishes from his hearing.
"Well, it can't hurt to try, right Doctor?" Amelia asks calmly, a hint of a smile in her voice as she tentatively grabs his hand in one of her warm ones.
Koschei winces and finally meets her eyes.
"Don't call me that, please. That's not who I am," he asks her, pain and sorrow in his own voice, and, after a moment of surprise, she squeezes his hand with a sad smile.
"Alright, I won't. But you really need to give me something to work with or I'm going back to calling you Raggedy Man," she tells him, her sincerity turning to harmless needling, and, this time, his snort is actually sincere.
"You drive a tough bargain, Amy Pond. But I'll see what I can do," he concedes with a magnanimous nod, and Amy chuckles before startling when she finally processes his words.
"You called me Amy!"
"That's what you want to be called, isn't it?" he asks her, calm and sincere, and, after a moment of surprise, she smiles and nods. "No promises I won't fall back on Amelia every now and then, but I'll try."
"Thank you, Raggedy Man. And, you know… It may be hard, but it is possible. To save everyone, I mean. I'm always going to be here to help you find another way when you're stuck, alright? You and me, together, we'll find a way to make it better," she tells him with a warm smile and bright brown eyes, paler yet so similar to those other ones that still haunt him.
For some long seconds, 4.8 to be exact, Koschei can only stare at her in disbelief, not even breathing, as he runs her words through his mind over and over again. Her smile softens and, still moving slowly yet confidently, she lets go of his hand and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling his head onto her shoulder.
Tentatively, almost as if he isn't the one directing the movement, his hands pull up to rest on her shoulder blades. His breathing is tremulous but his sight is clear when he finally realizes that, yes, Amy is hugging him.
Him, Koschei, the Master, the murderous alien who went all crazy psycho on them all down in the Tower.
"Uhm. Are you an incredibly clever and charismatic psychopath who has killed and manipulated people to his own aims without remorse?"
"More of a sociopath, actually, but yes, I am."
… Well, he did warn her.
His chuckle is almost breathless as he squeezes Amy close for but a second before pulling out of the hug with a mischievous, but not crazy, grin.
"And what if I don't want to?" he asks her mockingly, and, smiling herself, Amy taps his forehead with the mask still in her hands.
"I'll have to whack you on the head until you're convinced otherwise, of course!"
The two of them chuckle at the joke, disentangling fully and turning to look at the stars again. Koschei's smile doesn't last that long, though, not when one persistent thought keeps circling his mind like a vulture.
"How did you know? That the Star Whale wouldn't just run away. How did you know?" he asks Amy, turning to her to be met with a sad smile.
"I've seen it before," she answers simply and, swallowing back a tremulous breath, Koschei turns to the window once more.
Amy's hand wraps around his own, reassuringly, after a moment, and he feels the uneasiness in his shoulders mounting.
Koschei is not the Doctor, he's nowhere close. He just acted because of the Fixed Point that's coming for this ship, something that's starting to really make his skin crawl. He didn't want to save humanity, or this shred of it. He didn't want to save the Star Whale, though something about people using others for their own aims really ticks him off after the whole drums thing got cleared up – and he's not poking that thought again until the end of time, he's not sorry for all he did up to that point. Drums or not, he was fully conscious of his actions then, and a new piece of knowledge won't make him suddenly start sobbing about all his past choices or make him feel sorry for himself.
He is the Master, was the Master, and all his choices, all the pain inflicted and lives taken, were intentional. Whatever he wants to take back has nothing to do with knowing about the drums, just like the Doctor's choice to destroy Gallifrey didn't change despite having lived with it, when he was given a second chance at the Naismith mansion.
The choices he hates, the choices he would take again, are still the same as when the drums were still beating relentlessly inside his skull, and that much won't change.
And the same applies to how repulsed and awed he is at humanity's talent for cruelty and evil.
It doesn't mean he can't appreciate other qualities displayed by some of its individuals, though.
"I'm not kind. I was serious about the blood on my hands and all I've done. And I'm not going to apologize about that," he tells Amy, once more meeting her eyes.
Amy smiles ruefully and squeezes his hand.
"I know. But I also know that someone who isn't the slightest bit kind wouldn't smile at a scared seven-year-old girl," she points out, mischievousness in her expression, and Koschei looks away with a huff and an eyeroll.
"Keep deluding yourself," he tells her dismissively, but doesn't let her hand go.
When she bumps her shoulder against his, Koschei can't help but smirk, the expression softening when he catches Theta's beaming smile on the window's reflection.
Alright, so maybe he has a soft spot for scared little girls. No one is perfect, not even Koschei.
And maybe, and that's a very slight maybe, he could learn to be alright with that.
They're back in the TARDIS after leaving without a goodbye, chuckling, when Amy realizes that this is it.
Despite all her words in the observation deck, Amy was promised just one trip, and it has come to an end. Maybe she could talk him into going out again, to see more of Starship UK, but Amy doesn't feel like walking down those alien yet so familiar streets, not after the adventure of meeting the Queen and almost being eaten by a Star Whale, and liberating said Star Whale while keeping the Starship safe and whole.
So, Amy deflates, looking down at the mask still in her hands, her 'souvenir' of the experience, while the Raggedy Man fiddles with some buttons and knots and levers, glaring down at them and grumbling under his breath as they keep moving back to their previous positions. Amy can't help but snort at the scene.
"You're the strangest alien I've met," she tells him, finally hopping to his side as he glares down at the controls, as if he could make them obey with just one look.
"How many aliens have you met?"
"Other than you? Prisoner Zero, the Atraxi and a Star Whale," she answers calmly, leaning against the console as he looks at her with a lifted eyebrow.
"And out of all those, I am the strangest? Nice to see I've still got it," he chirps while puffing up proudly, as if it was an actual compliment.
Taking it in stride, Amy chuckles and rolls her eyes, before her attention goes back to the mask once more.
"What do you want to do with it?" she asks the Raggedy Man, offering the mask, and he just spares it a glance before going back to wrestling with a lever, which keeps pushing back to its previous position as soon as he lets it go.
"It's yours, Lizzie gave it to you. Seeing how there's no way you could use it as she did, it's just another decorative item now, so you can keep it. You can show it to all the visits and tell them the Queen of the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland gave it to you after you saved the country," he answers with a bright grin, before glaring down at the lever once more. "A far more cooperative queen than you, you royal pain in the backside, and she was human."
Shrugging off that last comment, Amy chooses to laugh instead.
"You know what? The funniest part of that is that they might even believe it," she tells him before sobering, squeezing the mask one more time as she makes her mind. "Look, I know you said—"
A phone rings.
Startled, Amy and the Raggedy Man exchange a look, before Amy pushes away from the console to move around it. A phone, a silver and dark red flip phone, sits innocently in a slot shaped perfectly for it. The tiny screen on its cover is alight, and it buzzes softly as it rings.
"You have a phone?" Amy asks, dumbfounded, and the Raggedy Man grins widely with a shrug, gesturing around.
"Phone box," he answers simply, before nodding at her to pick it up.
Wary but curious, Amy takes the phone and flips it open, pressing it against her ear while looking at the attentive Raggedy Man.
"Hello?" she asks, almost expecting to hear someone blow a raspberry, or for the Raggedy Man to start laughing while chanting 'innocent, innocent'.
Instead, she hears a man's voice, coming through as clear as if she was back in 2010 instead of in the middle of space in the twenty-ninth century.
"This is the Prime Minister. I need to speak with the Doctor."
"Sorry, who?" Amy asks, more startled at there being an answer than at the words.
"The Prime Minister, I'm the Prime Minister. And I'm looking for the Doctor."
Amy blinks, looks down at the phone to see an actual number on the screen, and pulls it back to her ear, ignoring the Raggedy Man's increasing amusement.
"Seriously, who?"
"The Prime Minister," the man huffs, clearly running out of patience. "I need to speak with the Doctor, is he there or not?"
"Ah, yes, just a moment," she tells him before pulling the phone away and covering the bottom half with her hand, staring wide-eyed at the Raggedy Man. "Says he's the Prime Minister. First the Queen and now the Prime Minister. Get about, don't you?" she asks, swallowing a bout of hysterical laughter as she wraps her mind around that.
The Raggedy Man rolls his eyes.
"I was the Prime Minister, Amy. You know that."
"Yeah, well, he's not you. The voice is definitely not yours."
"Well, which Prime Minister is he then?"
Amy repeats the question into the phone, glaring at the Raggedy Man as she realizes she's acting like his secretary.
He grins back widely and unrepentantly, knowing perfectly what she's thinking.
"The British one," the man on the phone answers, and, when Amy asks him which one, "Winston Churchill."
And that's when Amy slaps her hand back down on the phone and hands it to the amused Raggedy Man.
"Winston Churchill. It's for you," she tells him, practically forcing the phone on him when he blinks at her owlishly, surprised.
"Winston Churchill?" he repeats, blinking in surprise, before pulling the phone up to his ear. "Prime Minister, hello! What's up?" he says cheerfully, unruffled, and Amy barely holds back the urge to strangle him.
You did that on purpose! she mouths at him, huffing, and he bats his eyelashes in a clearly fake who, me?
He turns with a hum, staring at the screen, filled with lazily spinning graphics and circular glyphs, and Amy rolls her eyes.
Seriously. Worse than the aliens. Er, the other aliens, the ones that were actively trying to get her killed.
"Oh, don't know, let me check my schedule," he says into the phone as he presses some buttons on the console, different graphics filling the screen for a moment before a date pops up. "Sure, I'll stop by. See you in a minute!" he answers with a grin and, without waiting for an answer, flips the phone shut.
"Are we seriously going to meet Winston Churchill?" Amy asks excitedly, feeling her own smile begin to grow.
"Of course not," the Raggedy Man answers with an eyeroll, dropping the phone in its slot and moving around the console to fiddle with the controls once more. "I'm going to drop you back at your place, five minutes after we left, and then I will go see what dear Mister Churchill is so angsty about. I promised you one trip, so, there you go! One trip delivered, with space and aliens and the future Queen of the United Kingdom all included. Other people had far less than you did, you should be happy."
But Amy doesn't, she feels as far from happy as she could ever be.
The Raggedy Man is leaving again. And while, yes, she does want to go back home, resume her life, how can she just hop off the TARDIS after this amazing trip, danger notwithstanding? Or, actually, make that danger included, because, without that edge, they would have never met the Queen, or saved the Space Whale.
Besides, who is going to keep an eye on the Raggedy Man if Amy goes? He needs someone, he needs to be reminded that he can do good without hurting people, he needs someone to help him deal with his own demons.
Amy promised she'd be by his side, she told him she would help. And she will keep that promise.
"Three trips," Amy blurts out, straightening and crossing her arms against her chest when the Raggedy Man turns to her with a small frown. "You said you would give me one trip because of the time I had to wait, right? Well, I deserve three. This one was for those twelve years when you said five minutes," she explains, lifting a hand to start counting, cementing her determination when the Raggedy Man ignores the levers shifting on their own in favor of listening to her. "I deserve a second one for these last two years. You said yourself you only meant to be away for a day, but not only were you gone for two years, you also left without saying anything," she chastises, but doesn't manage to get a reaction out of him, which makes her last argument shakier. "And the third trip is, uh, the third trip is for the services provided. Yep, that's it. I gave you food, twice, and I helped with Prisoner Zero, using my acting skills. And now, with the Space Whale, I helped too. So, I deserve payment for that, and I want it to be an extra trip," she manages to explain, strengthening her resolve once more.
And then, silence fills the control room, only the soft humming of machinery all around them.
"Are you seriously trying to bargain more travel time out of me?" the Raggedy Man finally asks, still frowning softly but completely serious.
"No. I'm asking for my rightful payment," Amy corrects, lifting her chin and hoping she looks as stern and unmovable as the Raggedy Man did when dealing with the Atraxi.
"That's the Amelia I remember!" the Raggedy Man exclaims, grinning from ear to ear, as he claps his hands, pleased. "I'm warning you; things are going to be as dangerous as this last trip, or more. And Churchill is waiting in 1941, so that means no telling people anything about the future. Are you sure you're up to the challenge?" he asks, his smirk daring her to answer, and Amy grins sharply.
"Bring it on."
AN: I can't really think of much to say other than what is already in the fic. References to different episodes (who can spot them all?) and some made up adventures to round things up, but nothing that merits any notes, me thinks.
Oh, and the titles of the chapters. They're from the end quote of the original episode.
Guest: Thank you!
Next time: Churchill's call is not what Koschei expected, and someone will pay for it. In blood. (Episode title: Paradigm of the Daleks)