A/N: Thanks to Shian1998 for your review!
I should probably mention, given these are oneshots, they're kinda...out of order. Like, there's no strict chronology and these aren't necessarily even happening in the same timeline. So if the Doctor and Master go from being on kind of the same page for five minutes in one oneshot, to at each other's throats in the next, that's why.
This one's a bit different, since it focuses on the companions post s12.
6 The Adelaide Gallery
At first Yaz had been able to keep herself distracted when she returned to Earth. They had had to find new identities for the humans who had come from the future with them and that had been tricky enough. Graham especially had been helping his new lady friend get adjusted, while Ryan caught up with his work and schooling.
Yaz tried to get used to life without the Doctor, but it was hard. She'd be doing fine, then something would blindside her and she'd be back on the cold floor for the rest of the day.
Like one day she was on the beat and had to chase a perp. She'd gotten so good and so quick at running that she had them pinned down in seconds, the story being so impressive it even made it back to her superior.
Then they offered her the thing she had wanted all along: a more interesting shout in future.
And she hadn't even got the energy to be happy about it.
So she did something both proactive and ridiculous. She started looking for information about the Doctor.
It was a crazy theory, but one that she was sure made some sort of sense. If she could just find information that the Doctor had been on Earth in a time period that the others didn't recall having been with her, that had to mean that she had survived.
She had survived and just hadn't found her way back to them yet, but the visits in other time periods would have already happened because of how time travel worked...she hoped.
She texted her theory to Ryan, who tried to explain it to Graham, who Ryan reported back to her had said: 'Thinking about it's doing me nut in, but tell her I hope she finds something'.
But Yaz didn't find much. Every time she found information on the Doctor that wasn't some redacted government source, it turned out to be about a man.
Why are you calling me ma'am? The Doctor had asked.
Because... you're a woman, Yaz had said.
Then the Doctor had smiled that luminous smile, maybe the first time Yaz had ever seen it. Am I? Does it suit me?
And Yaz hadn't known what to say.
"It does suit you," she said softly, sighing to herself. She couldn't imagine the Doctor any other way than she was now. Yaz supposed other people must have felt the same way.
Well, at least their was one plus side. If most of the Doctor's incarnations since coming to earth had been male, that would make narrowing down the relevant information easier.
Eventually she ran dry with official channels. She figured it would happen sooner or later, but she would have to try the weird world of online theories.
With how secretive the Doctor had been, she was actually kind of surprised at herself that she hadn't tried this sooner.
And she was even more surprised with the huge amount of results that she found. Yaz almost wasn't sure where to start, until she found a forum that looked reasonable - Something Completely Different (dot com) - with a pretty consistent set of users, who were generally respectful and enthusiastic about sharing what they knew.
Yaz went to a subforum dedicated to 'first female Doctor on Earth?' and started poking around the threads. There was discussion of some of their adventures on Earth, and others that were speculation from the forum users. Some of the guesses were way off base, but one adventure everyone agreed the Doctor was involved in was Tesla and his tower. The users were actually pretty good at noticing odd details that would suggest alien involvement, and they commented themselves whenever they thought a theory was outlandish but wanted to share it anyway. There were even detailed threads commenting on the merits of pacifism versus the inconsistencies of different moral stances - it was pretty fascinating when she started digging into it.
The comments had the same sort of energy Yaz herself had when she first started travelling with the Doctor - a sort of starry-eyed excitement at it all. Some of the comments gave Yaz the impression that the commenter wanted nothing more than for the Doctor to crash into their front room and abduct them from their boring, dull lives.
What would they think if they knew that was exactly what had happened to Yaz?
One comment caught her eye:
I don't think I'd even care if I ended up dying in the past, or on some far-off planet. Anything's better than my life rn
Even if I did something really small that helped save someone, that'd be better than anything I've done with my life so far
Yaz felt a catch in her throat, the pain coming over her again.
She regretted it over and over, all day long. The Master was a dangerous lunatic with an equally dangerous army, but they could have figured something out. They shouldn't have just left her there - Yaz should never have left her there.
Every time the Doctor had pushed her away, tried to keep her safe... Yaz had just gone along with it.
What sort of police officer was she, in the end?
Another thread caught her eye, with a title that lifted her spirits a little: The Adelaide Gallery.
Yaz didn't recognise that location. And it was a time period she didn't remember having been to, the 1840s.
She eagerly clicked on it, finding a long scroll of text.
Old snippings taken from the Adelaide Gallery, 1840s. It seems like there were photos that never made it into the newspaper reports at the time, and they look a hell of a lot like you-know-who!
Heart pounding, Yaz clicked on the link.
It was the Doctor, all right - but she was wearing a dark suit...the tux. Yaz's heart sank. This must have been when the Doctor had been time-hopping to get back to them.
But as she looked as the grainy photograph further, she noticed a couple of odd things.
The Doctor was...kneeling? And she was facing someone else...Yaz's throat tightened.
Oh. She should have known.
It was the Master, looking sharp as ever in a period suit. He was looking down on the Doctor with a weird expression. Yaz had never seen that look on his face before, even when he was O. He was staring down at the Doctor, completely absorbed by her. The Doctor was facing away so Yaz couldn't see what her expression was - were they speaking to one another? - but something about the situation was...odd. The Doctor was in a vulnerable position - the bastard must have ordered her to kneel - but the Master didn't look smug or even pleased by it.
He looked like he was teetering on the edge of something. What that something was, Yaz didn't like to think about it.
She was a cop, not a detective, but she'd picked up another around the office to know when the full picture had been obscured from her.
There was more than just the destruction of Gallifrey that the Doctor had kept secret, a lot more.
And she would bet anything it had something to do with the Master.
Yaz scrolled down, found a second picture. In it, the Master was now kneeling at the Doctor's level, saying something to her with the same intense look on his face.
The comments below it were pretty animated.
Look who's back.
12:10am
Found the corresponding article about this. It sure reads like something odd was covered up.
1:15pm
Shrinking device returns?
1:30pm
Can't be, he could have just shrunk the Doctor with it then?
1:35pm
Nah, that's not how they roll.
1:40pm
Dudes, it's not a good thing for us if he's back.
1:50pm
Who cares? The Doctor always stops him. Get the popcorn and enjoy the show!
2:00pm
Yaz gnashed her teeth. These stupid strangers were treating this like it was all some game! Her fingers itched and she fought down the very strong impulse to make an account and clue them in on just how awful the Master could be...but she fought the impulse back down.
Doing that wouldn't bring the Doctor back, which was the whole point of this endeavour to begin with.
She clicked around, finding more threads about the Master that went down nearly as many rabbit holes as the Doctor ones did. Where the Doctor turned up in descriptions as either a guardian angel or a friendly meddler, accounts the forum users speculated were the Master were all him either hurting people for fun, or doing weird things like showing up out of nowhere and watching The Clangers for fun.
Some of them talked about him like he was charming, fun and just slightly off-kilter, rather than the unhinged liar she had known.
Yaz pushed her mouse away, frustrated.
This wasn't getting her anywhere.
Chances were, things were just the same as before. The Doctor was dead after using an awful weapon on her own home planet, just to stop her so-called former friend from unleashing an un-killable army on...well, the rest of the galaxy, Yaz supposed? She wasn't really clear on that, and the thought alone was ridiculous to think about, even just in her own head.
She sighed. She bookmarked the pages that interested her and picked up her phone to text Ryan and Graham.
She really needed to talk to the both of them. They were, after all, the only ones that could understand nowadays.
Yaz took one last look at the grainy Adelaide photos. Well, if she had to deal with the awful thought that she would never see the Doctor again, she could at least comfort herself with the thought that Earth should be safe from the Master, too.
A new comment stuck out to her:
Stopping him isn't enough. He always comes back. He's like the Road Runner, he just won't go down!
2:50pm
Yaz growled and slammed the computer lid shut. She didn't like to think of the awful death the Doctor might have had, but if she never had to see the Master ever again? That would make it more bearable.