Chapter 3: Through Her Eyes
As the rain outside pelted down harder onto the Valiant, it drowned out the sound of a little girl sobbing into her pillow. She stayed there for what seemed like a while when she knew her room was now harbouring another person.
Lifting herself up, she turned her head to find herself staring into the eyes of the man lost in his insanity, the man who happened to be her father.
"Lucia…I'm sorry…." He tried to apologise to her, his calm hands reached out to her, for a hug but she shunned him, in favour of backing into a corner of the room.
"Don't….." she snivelled, "I don't want you near me, Daddy."
Inside his time lord body, the insane man felt both his hearts breaking; words that tried to explain his situation were lost to his tongue.
"You're not my Daddy anymore! You're insane! The Man in the Cage is nice to Mommy, not insane at all! HE would never HURT her!"
The Master started. What was this? Hadn't he told the guards to keep them separated?
He sank to the floor before his little girl's bed, digging his fingers into his dirty blond hair.
"Did he hurt you?" he asked, suddenly rising. His eyes lit up. His head cocked to one side. He cracked his neck, feeling the old rage burn. "But he must have done. He's turned you against me, my little angel."
He brushed off his suit. His tie was white, and had a bloodstain on it. His fists were clenched as he started to walk.
The Doctor didn't really deserve what he was about to do to him. But then again, at least it wouldn't be her. Lucy was a cow. But his Lucia?
The only thing he could do for her now was to beat out all his frustration on someone who could take it.
Someone who would understand.
"Daddy, leave him alone!" Lucia's desperate screams echoed down the hall as she watched her father enter the dining room again…
"You traitor..." she heard him hiss to the frail caged man and then she began to run,
"Daddy, leave him alone!"
The Master considered opening the lock on the Doctor's cage. His old friend did not struggle, out of habit. The idiot had a way of accepting fate in every situation that rather made him seem a lout, because the fate he accepted was always a fate he'd planned for ahead of the game. In advance.
He smiled, sticking his fingers in between the bars, feeling the metal's cold against his skin. They were dirty. A smudge of some sort of brown chew stained the white cuff peeking from the hem of his black suit sleeve.
"I'm going to shoot the American who spat at you," he murmured, using the ruined cuff to fiercely wipe the rest of the tobacco sludge from the bars.
"Filthy heathens. It's so hard to get good help these days. Maybe I'll run him through a grinder and make gourmet hot dogs later."
"Do you have to?" said the little imp he'd turned the Doctor into. "Blood before breakfast is so passé. It's like a bad Italian movie."
The Master laughed, despite himself, resting the crowbar in his hand against his shoulder. "You know, Theta, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were taking a shine to your accommodations, finally." He swept his hand against the bars of the Doctor's prison and then lifted his arm in an arc, encompassing the whole room.
"Well, why don't you come into my room? We could take a spot of tea, eat some biscuits. Talk about the weather…" He allowed the sentence to die, projecting calm acceptance… he knew that crowbar wasn't for opening boxes.
Cracking his neck from side to side, the Master unlocked the door to the Doctor's cage and reached in, lifting him out, gentling him as he'd done during the incident at Stangmoor Prison.
"Remember the last time we did this?" he asked softly as the Doctor was forced to wrap emaciated arms around his back and neck to stay upright.
Their cheeks touched; a brief brushing of flesh that let in so many old memories, and both of them found themselves revealing in the small respite brought by nostalgia.
Then, it was as if a clock had struck the time. They knew their places. The roles they had always played, despite themselves.
The Master let the Doctor fall to the floor.
The Doctor sighed, letting his body pool bonelessly on the metal.
"its okay, Koschei. Do what you have to. I know it's not your fault."
As the crowbar came up again and again, each time dripping with more orange-red blood and bits of bone, they were so engrossed in each other's pain they never gave notice to the small face staring at both of them from behind a rubbish bin.
Authors note: the Masters an evil bastard, we all knew that.