Chapter 5
Every time the Master closed his eyes, he was back in that sea of gold, back in the Heart of the TARDIS.
He couldn't be sure if he really was there or if he was just dreaming of when he had been...
With his connection to the TARDIS, he supposed it was basically just semantics in the end.
Help.
The cry came through the gold, blocking out the light with a void of fear.
Please... Stop.
At first, the Master thought it was his own dream.
Please help...
But no. It was coming from somewhere else...
Someone else.
Don't hurt them.
There was only one person that could be.
The Master opened his eyes.
Everything was still, the hum of the TARDIS filling the silence comfortably.
The Master got out of bed, blanket trailing behind him as he made his way to the Doctor's room.
The Doctor was asleep.
He never slept.
The Master was starting to understand why.
He stepped close to the bed, watching his sleeping friend. The Doctor was still, apparently peaceful.
The Master reached out to put a hand gently to his friend's head.
Inside was horror, pain, screaming and dying and burning and helplessness...
The Master snatched his hand away in shock.
He frowned. Pain was a constant in the Universe. People avoided pain, caused pain, feared pain, withstood pain. It was the closest thing to a Universal currency that the Master had ever found.
He and the Doctor had both felt many types of pain themselves over the years.
The Master had come to the conclusion that it was simply unavoidable.
If you lived, you would feel pain. It was the price demanded by survival.
But it wasn't a good. It wasn't something to be sought out.
And there was plenty of pain to be had without adding more.
But the Doctor dreamed of others' pain as if it had happened to him. Personally.
Like he wanted to take it on himself.
Why would he do that?
The Master had always been of the opinion that others' pain was their own problem.
Just as his own pain was his problem.
Pain was everywhere. Worrying about it wouldn't change that.
He crawled into bed next to the Doctor. He didn't want to wake him but... This had come up before, a long time ago.
He wasn't sure if he'd helped back then but he thought he may have.
He took the Doctor's hand and fell into the nightmare with him.
Now it was red.
Blood red.
The rust-colored grass of Gallifrey was burning, each blade sheathed in vibrant, ravenous flame.
Then blood.
Crimson rivers soaking everything in sight, dousing the flames.
Covering the ground, turning the entire world in a macabre swampland.
And someone somewhere was laughing, as if this was all the funniest thing ever...
Laughing faces covered in blood.
The Master felt a stab of guilt as he realized that this nightmare was entirely his fault.
He forgot sometimes how fragile the Doctor could be.
He gripped the Doctor's hand tighter.
Finally, the Doctor noticed his friend's presence.
"Why?" the Doctor asked. "What did those people ever do to you?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" the Master responded evenly.
"They were alive," the Doctor said. The sadness in those words was more than the entire Universe could hold.
The Master squeezed his friend's hand tighter. "Everything dies, Doctor."
"But do we have to be the ones to cause that?" the Doctor pleaded.
The Master wished he could lie, or better yet, change reality itself. But the Doctor deserved the truth. "Sometimes," he said.
"But why?" the Doctor said. Such a big question. "Why us?"
Rivers of blood sank into the sandy field, as if the ground itself was drinking the lives of the lost. It cracked as the moisture vanished, leaving a barren red wasteland. Thirsty. Insatiable. Waiting for every life that had ever been or ever could be. Drinking it all until there was nothing left.
"Tell you what," the Master said, leaning into his friend, "I'll make sure it doesn't have to be you. When I can."
He was stronger than the Doctor when it came to this. Maybe he could help.
The Doctor shook his head. "That's not what I'm asking."
"I didn't think you were asking for anything," the Master answered. It had simply been an offer.
And he wasn't really open to a refusal.
Death was part of life, part of survival.
A part the Doctor had never accepted.
Raindrops started to fall, crystal-clear, soaking into the blood-drenched earth. Cleansing it. Feeding it. Slaking its thirst.
"Just because you're alright with it doesn't make it any less wrong," the Doctor told his friend.
"I never said it did," the Master responded. He wouldn't have presumed to think his own moral feelings defined right and wrong. Reality was so much vaster than those concepts. "I'm just trying to help."
The earth was fertile again and green started to appear.
"If you really want to help, please..." The Doctor knelt in front of his friend in the new growth of the field. "Next time Rassilon asks you to do something like that... Find another way."
The Master looked his friend in the eyes, feeling the sincerity, the desperation, the pain. "I'll try," he promised.
A part of him regretted it even as he said it.
But not nearly enough to want to take it back.
"Thank you," the Doctor sighed.
They stood together then, watching trees grow, flowers bloom, birds and insects flitting in the breeze.
"Doctor."
"Yes?"
"There isn't always another way, you know," the Master pointed out regretfully.
"I know," the Doctor said sadly, watching the life surrounding them. "But there should be..."
Rassilon did send the Master out on similar missions again, many more times.
Sometimes, he tried to find another way.
Sometimes, K-9 managed to follow and he tried a little harder, knowing the dog could and probably would tell the Doctor everything.
Sometimes, when he didn't find another way, he thought of the Doctor, of how he seemed to feel the pain of the people who suffered around him.
Sometimes the Master could almost imagine what that was like...
No wonder the Doctor worried so much about everyone.
The Master thought that must be exhausting.
Just thinking about one other person added a thousand more steps to every decision he had to make.
It took away so many of his options in one fell swoop.
Things seemed to go better when they went into the War together. The Daleks were fair game and the Doctor could always be counted on to vocalize his displeasure at the Master's tactics when he felt uncomfortable.
It was far easier than trying to guess what the Doctor might or might not be ok with.
But even on the days when things didn't go according to the Doctor's stringent restrictions, the Master never showed up at the TARDIS covered in blood again...
And the Doctor didn't have any more nightmares alone.
And when the Master's nightmares started, he didn't have to face those alone either.
You guys hanging in there?
I don't know if reading this is as traumatizing as writing it was but... Man, even editing this is making me tear up.