Using the characters from the webcast "The Scream of the Shalka" and set after the same. Alas, I own nothing.


It was the end of another long dog day in the TARDIS, and simulated day was turning to simulated night, dragging every moment of its simulated way.

In the kitchen the lights faded themselves to a level meant to indicate "early evening" and Alison Cheney finished her toast, delicately mopping up each of the crumbs left on her plate and the work-surface with the tip of a moistened index finger and flicking them into the sink. She finished her tea, and washed up the plate and mug by hand instead of putting them into the dishwasher, in order to pass a few extra seconds.

Then she put the peanut butter back in the cupboard, thought better of it, retrieved the jar, took a spoon out of a drawer and began to eat.

When spoonful number three had just been transferred from the jar to her mouth, Alison glanced up at the clock. 6.30. How predictable. It always seemed to be 6.30 in the TARDIS, as far as Alison could see, always interminably afternoon, like in that Tennyson poem she had read at school. She decided to try and find the Master, acknowledging that it wasn't much of a decision since she had done the same thing at about 6.30 for the past four weeks.

She left the kitchen, still absent-mindedly clutching the peanut butter and spoon and ambled through the TARDIS corridors, sticking her head around the doors to various rooms where she knew the Master would not be, just to render the whole thing less predictable. She, of course, knew that at 6.30 the Master would be in the Green Library. Predictably, he would tell her to go away, which, since he was the Master, meant, "Please stay". Alison would then stick around until she started to feel uncomfortable (a wholly predictable time-span of about half an hour) and would then ask him if he wanted her to leave. "By no means! You're most welcome to stay, my dear," he would predictably reply, and Alison would take the hint and go.

She would then spend about twenty aimless minutes wandering the TARDIS corridors deciding what to have for dinner. The she would cook and eat said dinner, then . . . perhaps a film, just like every other night for the past month.

It was a strange irony, Alison mused, that she had only accepted the invitation to travel aboard the TARDIS (could it even be considered an invitation, she wondered, since the Master had invited her by pretending not to invite her, and the Doctor had simply assumed she was coming along) because she had been so bored in Lannet, and yet the past six months had been filled with degrees of boredom that Alison would never have believed possible in even her gloomiest ponderings back in Lancashire. TARDIS life seemed to be composed of long dry spells of tedium, punctuated by intermittent bursts of extreme mortal peril. Although the mortal peril had tailed off a bit recently since the Doctor had, for the past month, flatly refused to materialize the TARDIS anywhere, preferring instead to float in the vortex, locked away with his Puccini records, his whisky bottles and various balls of untangleable circuitry, uncommunicative with, and largely unseen by, the ship's other occupants.

Frankly, she as well have stayed at home with Joe and her Mum – at least in Lannet you could go for a walk, or down the pub to break the monotony – as be confined on a spaceship with two middle-aged aliens who seemed to view her role as being only that of audience and arbiter to their endless quarrels. At least in Lannet it would have been her choice to be bored.

"Ah, Miss Cheney!" drawled a smooth voice somewhere in the corridor behind her.

Alison gasped, genuinely surprised, although more by the break in routine than because he had crept up on her (he always did that). The Master appeared at her side, carrying a large blue and white umbrella stand under one arm, and flashed her a grin that sparkled with malicious amusement.

""But . . But it's 6.30," she said lamely.

The Master's grin became broader and less malicious: "In the afternoon they came unto and land/ In which it seemed always afternoon."

"What are you doing with that?" Alison asked, pointing at the umbrella stand.

"All round the coast the languid air did swoon . . ." he purred mellifluously to himself. Oh, this – I'm taking it back to the console room. It was in the Zeppelin hanger."

Alison smiled, "And how did it get into the Zeppelin hanger in the first place?"

"I put it there"

The Master was forever moving the umbrella stand out of the console room for seemingly no reason other than to drive the Doctor mad.

"I see," said Alison, feigning surprise.

"And I thought I'd put it back."

"Why?"

"Because it's been there five days and he hasn't noticed, which defeats the whole point of the exercise. Most tedious! And the Zeppelin hanger is really a most inconvenient location for it, makes it very difficult to pick up an umbrella on the way out. Not, of course, that I have any need of them, since I am not allowed out of the TARDIS.

Alison gave him a look that was more sympathetic than she had perhaps intended

"Nor, so it would seem, are you," he continued dryly, "Honestly, I feel about a hundred and twelve!"

"Why a hundred and twelve?" Alison enquired, "The last time I got grounded I was seventeen."

For a moment the Master looked as if he was going to make a cutting riposte, but he simply raised an immaculate eyebrow, sighed and strode off to the console room.

"They sat them down upon that yellow sand/ Between the sea and moon upon the shore"

Alison followed him at her own pace. After all, there was no rush; they had all the time in the world.

When she entered the console room the Master was by the TARDIS doors, lining the umbrella stand up so that it was parallel with the hat-stand, and grumbling to himself: "Comes to something when one can't even play a practical joke to relieve the monotony – I wouldn't put it past him to have a play with my circuitry, bypass my sense of humour chip or some such."

Alison leant back on the console and grinned. For all his faults – which were many and glaring – the Master could be very droll. She couldn't exactly say that she liked him, and she knew that he didn't like her (he gallantly told her so often enough), but they had develop a wary sort of comradeship in adversity, with each acting as a flimsy bulwark between the other and the tide of boredom that would otherwise have engulfed them. She sighed listlessly, turning to examine the TARDIS controls.

As a rule, Alison was not greatly interested in the workings of the TARDIS. She had long ago resigned herself to not understand how it did what it did – after all, what chance did a girl who had barely scraped GCSE Physics have with a machine that frequently baffled the combined brains of the Doctor and Master? – and had paid it no further mind. Until today, where she found herself studying the controls closely, for no other reason than, in her boredom, she had realized that here was something that she had never looked at properly, that could be new and fresh to her. The console was a riot of switches and levers and flashing lights, and at first she confined herself to counting them, seeing if there were any patterns in their layout. Then her eyes rested on a great round, smooth button and she found herself wondering what would happen if she were to press it. "You'd break the TARDIS, most likely," snapped the voice of common sense inside her head and, oddly, the thought did not appall her as much as it should have. "I could press it," a deeper voice countered, "Just to see what happens. There's no-one to stop me. And if it did break the ship – which I doubt it would – well, that would be something. Something would have to happen!"

Alison shivered and turned away from the console abruptly, not wishing to admit to herself how seriously she had considered pressing the damned button. She looked up and her eyes met the Master's. He was no longer fussing with the furniture, but gazing up at her with an odd, knowing look upon his face. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Master, are you bored?" she blurted out, finally. It felt strange to address someone as 'Master', and she wondered what his real name was. Not that there would be any point asking him that, or any other question. Neither he nor the Doctor would give a straight answer if a circuitous and evasive one could be produced.

The Master turned to face her, cocking his head to one side wryly. "Shall I take that to mean that you yourself are bored, my dear Alison?" he said, striding towards the console

"Ah, a question answered with a question" Alison though as she listened to his black dress shoes click smartly up the steps, "How very surprising!"

"Yes, To Death." she said simply, opening her jar and spooning more peanut butter into her mouth.

"Miss Cheney, what are you doing?" the Master asked lightly, eyes fixed on the jar in Alison's hand and using that innocent tone he always adopted when he wished to tease her.

"I'm eating peanut butter out of the jar," she snapped, ingesting another mouthful to prove her point.

"That is quite the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, and I am going to have to ask you to desist immediately!"

"You what"

"And don't talk with your mouth full - disgusting! Now, give me the jar."

The Master held out a gloved hand toward Alison.

"No"

"Miss Cheney!" he repeated, like a mother whose child was screaming in the supermarket.

"Why should I?"

"Because I am the Master and you will obey me!" he answered, chuckling blackly, "Seriously, it's all for your own good, my dear. In the first place, you'll get fat – you're not being placed in nearly enough mortal peril to work it off. And secondly, because it is a disgusting habit, and not one I am prepared to indulge. The Doctor may be quite content to let you roam the TARDIS corridors like a savage, but I, perhaps unreasonably, feel that we have accepted some responsibility for your personal development while you are aboard! The jar, if you please!"

"Oh, sod off!" Alison spat, insulted and perplexed by his behaviour. Instantly, the Master's gloved hand grabbed the jar and tugged it away with android strength before she had quite registered what was happening. Alison made a grab for it, and he held it just out of reach, above his head.

"Hey! Give that back! You can't do that! I'll. I'll – "

"You'll what?" he snarled, and there was no longer any trace of his usual black silky humour in his voice, "You'll tell the Doctor? You'll switch me off?"

Alison stepped back, shocked and abashed, there was something in the Master's eyes that she did not like, something which simultaneously frightened her and made her ashamed. Did he really think that she'd run and tattle-tale to the Doctor?

Almost as if he had read her thoughts, he sneered, "Well, why don't you run along and tell him, you little brat? Off you go!"

"How dare you?" Do you really think I'd . . . ? You stupid bastard! Don't you dare say – "

She never got to finish her sentence, something changed in his eyes then and he hissed, "You threaten me?" and Alison was suddenly frightened, and forgetful that the Master was a machine, whose programming prevented him harming anyone, forgot that he was the one who chatted to her and made sure she got her tea in the morning, forgot that she had never quite believe the things that the Doctor had had to say about him. All she knew was that she did not wish to be in the console room any more, and she ran. Dimly, with her peripheral vision, she saw the Master launch the peanut butter jar at the back of her head. She did not doubt that his aim was good, and she waited to feel the impact. It did not come. There was a pop and a tinkle and she turned in time to see the jar explode in mid air, spattering its contents across the room and reigning glittering shards of glass down onto the console.

"Did you do that?" she stammered, "What ha - ?"

"State of grace," came a cold voice, and she turned again to see the Doctor standing by the entrance with a black remote in his outstretched hand.