A/N: Hey everyone! It's been a while and I haven't actually written anything new, save working VERY SLOWLY on some Fission sequels. Oh, you are going to love the plot twists.
For now here's some Master/Martha fluff I wrote in 2018 or so and never got round to uploading, I hope you enjoy!
The illustration for this fic is over on Deviantart - /atlantihero-kyoxei/art/December-775776729
"It's too bloody cold," said Martha Jones for the sixth time in ten minutes.
"Martha, you are wearing shorts and a t-shirt on December." The Master's tone was one of weary exasperation. "I frankly don't know what you expected."
Martha glared at him through the haze of snowflakes that had accumulated on her eyelashes. "You know when you said, I'm bored of Hawaii, let's go build a snowman, I thought you were joking."
The Master's expression became serious. "I never joke about snowmen."
The two unlikely companions were stranded on the planet December, picking their way down a gentle slope of fifteen feet of compacted snow. Dense fog pressed in all around them like a blindfold, forcing them to stick close to the low, crumbling stone wall that was their only landmark.
They were searching for the TARDIS, which had unfortunately and unexpectedly de-materialised on them after they had stepped out of its doors a little while previously, the Doctor still inside and slightly tipsy on tropical drinks. They were both hoping he had not ended up anywhere stupid.
The Master was stomping ahead with his heavy waterproof boots, kicking the top layer of snow out of his path with such vigour one might think it had personally offended him. His hands were deep in his pockets and his hood was pulled up to provide some protection from the freezing wind.
Martha's cotton t-shirt offered no such relief - it had already absorbed some moisture from the air, making it cling to her shoulders like an icy second skin. Her denim shorts extended halfway to her knees with fashionably frayed hems, and did absolutely nothing to keep the remainder of her legs warm.
The only small mercy she had were her strong, leather heeled boots - life in the TARDIS quickly taught you that impractical footwear was never a good choice, as every adventure - no matter how innocuous its outset - would almost certainly contain a good amount of running away from things.
Their current adventure however seemed to involve more in the way of trudging through endless snowdrifts and squinting into a haze of whiteness, searching for a tall blue box.
Martha shivered and rubbed her bare arms as they approached a low stone stile in the wall. The cold was beginning to seep into her bones. "If I catch hypothermia after this, you owe me an apology and a hot water bottle."
The Master ignored her, hopping over the stile with the agility of a cat and crossing into the next snowfield. Martha scrambled after him, idly wondering if any angry snowman-farmers would emerge from the mist and rage at them for trespassing on private land.
Two fields later, just as Martha was beginning to give up hope of ever being warm again, the Master abruptly stopped mid-stomp, tilting his head upwards as a gentle breeze swept past them, lifting some of the surrounding fog.
"What is it?" Martha asked through chattering teeth.
"Hush, now." The Master closed his eyes as if concentrating intently, took a deep breath through his nose and then exhaled, a cloud of mist escaping from his lips.
"This way!"
Suddenly he was animated, springing up like a startled deer and bolting off into the mist.
"Oi!" Martha panicked, stumbling after him through the snow. "Wait!"
But the mist had already swallowed the Master's dark figure. Martha groaned in frustration, coming to a halt and weighing up her options.
Under normal circumstances the idea of never seeing the Master again would have quite pleased her, but stuck on a snowy alien planet with no way home and no warm clothes, she had to admit it was safer to stick with a Time Lord.
However the Time Lord in question was apparently not keen to stick with her, and Martha cursed him under her breath as she paced back and forth, trying to decide what to do. If she followed him blindly she would lose the wall, and they might never find each other again in the foggy tundra.
Her brain felt like it was freezing over, making it hard to think straight.
"Stupid Master. Stupid snow. Stupid TARDIS."
She sat down on a mossy rock and rubbed her temples, frustrated and shivering. She needed to come up with something before she became a Jonesicle.
After a few minutes, however, the Master's hooded shape bobbed back into view, apparently confused that she had not followed him.
"You coming?" he asked, coming to a halt in front of her and bouncing on the balls of his feet enthusiastically. "I found the TARDIS. Well, sort of."
Martha raised her eyebrows at him in silent query. He shrugged, a grin playing around his lips.
"It's buried under ten feet of snow. I don't think we should let the Doctor drink and drive again. But," he continued, ignoring Martha's groan of despair, "I'm sure we can dig it out."
"I can't dig anything." Martha glared at him, keeping her tone level despite her rising temper. "I'm bloody freezing and you got us into this situation, then just abandoned me in the middle of nowhere and ran off into the fog with no explanation." She was shaking now, both from coldness and anger. "And now the TARDIS is stuck in the snow so we're probably going to freeze to death. Well, just me, because you can probably curl into a little time-lord-hedgehog ball and conserve energy or something, I don't know, but you'll be fine and I'll be dead. Not that you'd care."
The Master blinked, taken aback by Martha's sudden emotional rant. She dropped his gaze, feeling self-conscious.
"Just leave me alone," she mumbled. "I'm cold and exhausted."
A few seconds of awkward silence passed. The Master seemed unsure of himself, fidgeting with his sleeves and watching Martha shiver, her head buried in her bare arms.
At last, the Master seemed to make a decision. With a sigh, he tugged off his precious black hoodie and pulled it down over Martha's head and shoulders, wrapping the hood around her ears like he was dressing a child.
Martha was too shocked to object. The hoodie was warm, and smelled like coffee and burnt fuses.
The Master straightened up, adjusting his scarlet long-sleeved shirt and eyeing Martha apprehensively, as though afraid she might bite.
"Better?"
Martha slowly nodded, staring at him in surprise. His ghost-white hair blended perfectly into the snowy backdrop.
"Good. Don't get any of your human germs on it, or you owe me an apology and a bucket of detergent."
Martha managed to crack a small smile. "Deal."
As it turned out, they didn't need to dig the TARDIS out of the snow.
When they returned to the spot where the Master had allegedly stubbed his toe on the buried police box's roof-lantern, it was no longer there.
"Are you kidding me?" Martha sighed. She was feeling slightly better for being wrapped in the grimy hoodie, but the prospect of more searching dampened her spirits considerably.
"It was right here!" the Master insisted, kicking at the ground at their feet.
This proved to be a very bad idea, as there was a colossal whoomph, and the snow promptly gave way underneath them.
Martha jumped backwards but her boots slipped on the collapsing snow and she tumbled ungracefully down into the TARDIS-sized sinkhole that had just opened up. She covered her head as chunks of loose snow and ice rained down into the hole.
The Master was scrabbling at the side of the pit to try and haul himself back to ground level, but the surface snow simply crumbled beneath his fingers and sent him skidding back to the bottom.
After a few seconds the avalanche settled and the two residents of the snow pit stared up at the edge of their chilled prison, panting with exertion.
"Well," said the Master through gasps of cold air, "It definitely was righthere. Must have dematerialised."
"Well, what are we going to do now?" Martha managed to keep the panic out of her voice, although the idea of being trapped under ten feet of snow with the Master was not exactly a calming one.
The Master let out a deep sigh, placing a hand on the pit wall. "This snow's been compacted by the TARDIS, we won't be able to shift it. I can't believe I'm saying this, but… I think we need to wait for the Doctor to come rescue us."
Martha blinked. "Seriously? No escape plan, no laser screwdriver tricks? No aces up your sleeves?" she flapped the ends of the hoodie sleeves at him for emphasis.
"Nope." The Master slumped against the pit wall, apparently lacking energy. "He'll turn up, I'm sure. He always does."
Martha craned her neck to look at the sky overhead, which was showing worrying signs of darkening.
"Well he'd better turn up soon, or we're dead."
Two and a half hours later, a metallic wheezing sound ripped through the still night air of December. A large, blue police box faded into view beside the rim of a deep pit in the middle of a snowfield. Ten seconds later, the doors opened and a tall man in a Hawaiian shirt, flower garland and trench coat hurtled out, almost pitching into the hole himself.
The Doctor righted himself and peered down the snowy, shadowy abyss.
"Martha? Master? Are you down there?"
There was a moment of silence, then;
"TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH, YOU GREAT FATHEAD!"
"WE'VE BEEN STUCK DOWN HERE FOR HOURS!"
"I'M HUNGRY!"
"I'M FREEZING!"
"I CAN'T STAND BEING IN PROXIMITY TO THIS LOWER LIFE FORM FOR SUCH AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME!"
"EXCUSE ME?!"
The Doctor squinted in the half-light and managed to make out two figures curled in the snow at the bottom of the pit, from where the shouts were emanating. He frowned, not sure if his eyes were telling the truth.
"Are you… wearing the Master's hoodie?"
The Master answered this somewhat defensively. "I had to keep your pet human alive somehow or you would have sulked for days!"
Martha was apparently either too tired or too outraged to formulate a reply to this.
The Doctor sighed. "Well I'm glad you're both alive. I thought I'd landed in the right place before, but it happened to be a few metres out. Piloting the TARDIS after eight Banana Daiquiris and a Havana Passion is not easy, let me tell you."
"Being stuck in a snow pit with a psychopath tops that, I think," called up Martha. "Doctor, you'd better have a plan to get us out of here."
"Right. Yes. Plan." The Doctor spun round, eyeing up the TARDIS with a gleam in his eye. "How do you two feel about staying very still and trusting my parallel parking skills?"
"On a scale of one to ten?" the Master paused in mock thought. "Minus ten."
"That's significantly higher than usual, then!" the Doctor grinned, leaping into the TARDIS. "Allons-y!"
Five mildly terrifying minutes later, all three time travellers were safely inside the TARDIS, along with a few large chunks of December snow.
"So, what have we all learned from this trip?" said the Doctor, who was in a maddeningly good mood after his successful execution of the 'companion scoop'. "I think I will be sticking to fruit juices for a while, personally."
"I think I will be sticking to my bed," grumbled the Master, slouching off to the nearest door without a backwards glance.
"And I'm never following him out of the TARDIS again," said Martha, flopping onto the pilot's seat with a groan and gratefully accepting the blanket the Doctor offered her. "Remind me why we keep him around, Doctor?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Somebody's got to."
Martha smirked and hugged her shoulders, then realised she was still wearing the Master's hoodie, which had grown heavy and damp from the snow. With a grunt of distaste she pulled it off and lobbed it into the corner of the console room, where it landed with a wet thud.
"Don't ask," she said, waving away the Doctor's raised eyebrow with a tired hand. "But apparently I now owe him a bucket of detergent. And he owes me-"
"Alright, I've got your bloody hot water bottle. Laser heated for maximum comfort."
The Master had reappeared without warning, carrying a fluffy object which he shoved into Martha's arms before turning on his heel and exiting the room again, scooping up his hoodie on the way out.
The Doctor blinked in surprise. "Wow, that's the most genuinely thoughtful thing he's done for months. Maybe I should abandon you two on planets together more often."
"Please don't." Martha hugged the hot water bottle, starting to feel her body slowly returning to a normal temperature. "If there is a genuinely thoughtful part of the Master's brain I doubt it will ever grow larger than a nanometre."
The Doctor grinned with amusement, flicking a dial on the console as the time rotor began to warp up and down. He thought of the Master, and the way he had grabbed Martha's hand and pulled her out of the TARDIS when they had first landed on December, excited to show her the new planet. The snowflakes nestled in his blond hair while Martha's remained warm and dry beneath the black hood. And the highly probable power drain on his laser screwdriver from boiling water in just ten seconds flat.
"You might just be surprised, Martha Jones."