Trigger warnings for this chapter: abuse, torture, telepathic violence, xenophobia, rape.
Ey hadn't meant to say it.
Ey'd meant to say a lot of things, but definitely not that, ey knew better than to say that, but it was Lucy and Tish and Martha was struggling in the grip of a guard and Lucy made a sound like the beginning of a sob and ey couldn't let it go on, ey'd do anything, Master, just stop this, please, Kosch—
The Master hadn't noticed for a nanospan but when his brain caught up with his ears he dug his fingers hard into the neural ganglion in eir shoulder and hissed "What did you call me?" and Theta must have shrieked in pain because everyone stopped and turned and looked.
Ey knew ey should have looked down in submission but ey were too afraid to tear eir eyes away from the Master's. "K-koschei," ey whispered hoarsely, and couldn't even hear eir own voice.
The Master twitched and Theta tried to back away from him but his fingers were still digging into eir shoulder and there was nowhere for em to go and ey felt ill and ey couldn't breathe.
When the Master spoke again, his voice was terse and furious and very, very tightly controlled.
"Take them back to the cells," he hissed between his teeth. The guards dragged Martha away, and Theta was scared for her, ey was but ey couldn't even focus on what she was shouting because ey was so much more scared for emself.
Ey could actually see the exact moment the Master's last thread of patience snapped.
"All of them!" he shouted, and Theta wished ey had eir shimmer so ey could cry.
"No," ey sobbed, "Please, it's not their fault, don't hurt them—"
The Master hit em hard enough to send em reeling back on the floor, stunned by the force of the anger pressed into eir mind with the open-handed slap.
"Get the lovebirds out of my sight," he snapped. The guards converged on Tish and Lucy—Tish was crying silently, stumbling to her feet, where Lucy's face was like ice—and Theta almost went into hysterics, fighting back a scream. The Master gripped eir frills and dragged em onto eir knees. "Theta and I are going on a little nostalgia tour."
The Master pulled em, stumbling, down the halls of the Valiant and into the bowels of the airship and ey was terrified, no, not again, please, but the Master bypassed that section of the ship entirely. Instead he dragged Theta deeper than ey'd ever been, and there was an awful humming sound, ill and grating, and ey clapped eir hands to eir head to drown out the noise before realising it wasn't a sound at all. It only got louder and louder and it hurt so much, ey didn't understand how the Master wasn't affected; even unbonded to her he must have heard it, she was being tortured, crying out for help to anyone who could listen.
By the time ey'd been pulled into the Paradox Machine proper ey didn't know if it was only the TARDIS screaming or if ey was as well. The console of the machine glowed an ugly, vicious crimson, the colour of the Rassilon-led ranks of War Loomed soldiers' armour. The metal grate under eir bare feet burnt red-hot and the Master was speaking, jerking harshly at eir frills as punctuation; ey couldn't make out the words over the TARDIS' screams.
But ey could feel it when the Master ripped open his TARDIS' telepathic circuits, his hand in eir frills holding eir own mind captive, forcing a twisted mockery of a union. Ey could feel her shriek of defiance, feel her brace herself against the Master, and ey could feel her rage and fear when she wasn't able to stop him, as he took her incredible power and forced it through the wrong pathways. They burned through Theta's mind, black and scarlet in eir head as they fought with each other, searing and scorching, the Master snapping connections and ripping the TARDIS' power from her to cauterise them before they could heal, and it shouldn't have happened it was so wrong she wasn't supposed to be used this way and ey missed her warm golden spark, she didn't want to hurt em...
And then she was gone, the connection hauled closed by the Master, locking her out again while she screamed, and this time she was really and truly gone because when the connection closed Theta could no longer feel her.
Ey… couldn't feel her. The Master's fingers were still wound through eir frills but Theta couldn't feel him, either, not even a little, not even a hint, and ey wanted to scream as ey realised eir telepathy was gone. The ability was still there, ey could sense it, Gallifreyans were a telepathicspecies by their nature, but no matter how hard Theta strained ey couldn't access it, couldn't access anything. With the TARDIS bond had died eir timesense, empathic projection, communicative telepathy, timesense, it was like being smothered from all sides. Ey couldn't feel anything and ey never thought ey'd ever have to go through this again, not after the Divergent universe, and that seemed like a loomling's game in comparison, ey might not have had eir timesense (nor eir physical senses, for a stretch, but that was barely noticable; ey'd hardly relied on them to begin with), but that was nothing compared to a block on eir chronal lobe entirely; if Bortresoye had been like being blinded, this was having gone blind and deaf and mute.
Without the TARDIS screaming in eir mind (and instead surrounded by utter, terrifying silence, ey was in eir TARDIS, it should not have been silent, ey couldn't hear her or feel her and ey didn't know what to do) Theta could finally hear the Master.
"...and until you forget Gallifrey ever existed," he was growling, "You can stay this way."
It shouldn't have been such a terrifying prospect. Humans lived like this, most species in the universe did, and they all managed perfectly fine with four to six senses; ey still had considerably more than that functioning at full capacity, and they were almost all of them stronger than those of humans. Ey should have been fine, ey'd get used to it, it wouldn't be so horrible…
Ey let eir hands fall limply to eir sides and ey opened eir eyes again. The burning metal grate beneath eir feet ought to have been all the more noticeable with the absense of so much other sensory information, but ey felt numb. When ey looked up at the Master, he didn't look like the Master, could have been any five-dimensional humanoid and could have passed for four at a glance, his perception filter higher quality than anything Theta'd ever had. Without being able to sense his mind…
But it was difficult to mistake that look of cold derision. He dropped Theta carelessly at his feet now that he was done with em, turned to a guard and said...
No. Oh, no.
The translation circuits. A telepathic process that could at least partly function without a bond to a TARDIS and was an innate part of a Gallifreyan's mind: the ability to understand speech and writing under most circumstances. Ey couldn't think of a time ey'd not been able to understand what someone was saying. And the Master's words were gibberish.
Which meant… "You… speak English?"
"Shut up!" the Master yelled, and that time Theta understood him just fine. Ey flinched out of the way of the kick the Master aimed at em. "Just get rid of them," he snapped at the guard, and this time he was very careful to let his own translation matrix take over.
The guard said something shortly and grabbed Theta's shoulder, pulling em roughly to eir feet.
"Master!" ey cried. "What did you tell him to do? Master!"
He didn't respond to Theta, turning to the guard and speaking again in English. What he might have said, Theta had no idea. It seemed like he wasn't saying enough to have been giving anything like detailed instructions, but ey had never studied English and didn't know how sentences were constructed, how much information could be communicated in a given period.
The guard nodded, repeating his two-syllable refrain—it must have been "yes, Master", ey thought—and dragging em out of the cannibalised TARDIS. Ey tripped and almost fell, stepping on the guard's feet and receiving a harsh reprimand that sounded like an angry sneeze.
Theta was steered back to the stairwell and up, head reeling and stuffy and stifled and it was like trying to interact with a world covered in cotton balls, it felt wrong and ey couldn't tell what anything was supposed to be. The guard paused for a second on one of the landings and Theta's hearts almost stopped, ey experienced several moments of white-blind panic because no matter how shell-shocked and disoriented ey was ey would never forget this part of the ship and what had the Master told him to do? But the guard only adjusted his grip on Theta, holding em by the upper arm instead of the shoulder and supporting some of eir weight to guide em up the last flight of stairs and back into the main deck of the Valiant.
Once they were back in the throne room the guard let go of em, leaving Theta to straighten eir sleeves out from where they'd gotten bunched up from being grabbed. The guard waited silently until ey'd finished, then placed a hand between Theta's shoulder blades—and ey cringed at that, didn't want the guard to touch em why was he touching em what did he want—and steered em firmly up the steps and onto the balcony. He said something to em, a short set of instructions that Theta wished ey could understand and hoped ey wouldn't get in trouble for not understanding; the guard luckily didn't seem affected by Theta's blank look, nodded professionally and stepping back into a corner. Theta got the feeling ey was supposed to take eir usual place, but the guard was behind em if ey did that.
Eir frills fanned in and out quickly, and ey tried eir best to calm down; the Master would be back in a few microspans at most and the guard seemed uninterested besides. Hands shaking, ey slid to the floor beside the throne, tucking the fabric of eir robes behind eir knees. Ey looked behind em at the guard for a moment, afraid to look away from him but equally afraid he would take Theta's staring as a sign of disrespect. He might not be doing anything now, but ey had no way of knowing if he didn't have orders for later in the day.
The Master did return eventually—it mustn't have been more than a microspan, but with the guard standing behind em it felt like an eternity—and the day continued almost as normal. The Master didn't touch Theta once and consistently spoke in English when guards, servants, and other assorted employees entered to have audience with him. Theta sat meekly beside him, such a normal fixture of the room hardly anyone seemed to notice em.
Their language was quick and rough, with long vowels and harsh consonants and no particular cadence, and they used "suh", whatever that meant, with the same frequency that Daleks used "exterminate".
The daily routine could only last so long, however, and once the Master got bored of running the planet and left the throne room without so much as pausing to ruffle Theta's frills, and the guard didn't follow him, Theta was rather at eir wit's end as to what ey was supposed to do. Normally ey would retreat to eir dressing room, even though Tish wouldn't be there, because it was safe and familiar and well-lit and ey knew ey was allowed; or else ey would see if Lucy was in her room, and they'd sit quietly together or sometimes Theta would take a nap. Ey had been allowed to sleep at the foot of the bed after eir regeneration, with a much longer chain. Theta wondered if that would be taken away now.
Theta decided to go to eir dressing room after all. If nothing else it would be warm and familiar and maybe it would make the awful silence seem a little less awful. Ey gathered eir robes to stand, and the guard straightened, focusing sharply on em, and looked like he was about to move.
Theta quickly sat down again, and the guard rolled his eyes but went back to standing still in the corner.
When the Master came looking for Theta, spans later, ey was still curled into emself, pressed against the throne and watching the guard from the corner of eir lateral eyes.
The Master didn't comment on it. He ordered dinner up from the kitchens but it was one of their informal nights; the one thing he said to Theta in Gallifreyan was "I don't have time for you," and Theta tried really very hard not to think about what he did have time for. So Theta sat in a corner of the throne room with a bowl of soup ey had no appetite for while the Master ate his own meal without looking at em and swanned off to do something or other.
The guard never stopped shadowing em. He never touched Theta or acted like he was going to, he was just… there, standing unobtrusively to the side while ey ate eir soup. Theta wanted to ask the Master about him again, but the Master had been very clear that he didn't want questions, and Theta didn't want to be hurt anymore. When the Master left that night, he gave the guard an order—in English, and where had he even learnt English, even Theta didn't speak English! The guard had saluted and given that short hissing bark of assent.
He didn't move until Theta finished eir soup and placed the bowl gingerly on the kitchen cart, at which point he stepped forward and gestured with his weapon in the direction of the Master's private rooms. Theta shook as ey was lead down the hall and into the bedroom; the guard hadn't done anything yet, but that didn't necessarily mean he wouldn't.
The room was empty except for them. The Master wouldn't be in for a while, he always went somewhere in the evenings, and Theta stared down at the carpeting and hoped very intently the Master cared more about not getting bloodstains on it than he did Theta being punished for eir recalcitrance.
The guard holstered his gun and stepped towards Theta and ey panicked, tripping backwards as the guard reached for em, and oh no, please no, and ey didn't have a way to lash out against him, not how ey'd fallen, and he was pulling at eir robes and Theta thrashed helplessly, crying out for him to stop and wincing a moment later in expectance of a blow which didn't come. The manacle at the end of the bedpost was tightened on eir wrist and ey dug eir fingers into the hard metal floor.
"You're begging like you think you have the right," the guard said in disgust, ramming his hips forward. "Let me lay it out for you since you're obviously too stupid to understand it on your own: you don't have any rights. You're someone's property, just some little alien fucktoy that can't even do its own job right."
A second voice behind em: "If its begging annoys you so much I could always cut out its vocal chords. Then it wouldn't be able to."
Theta flinched at the warm, cloying breath on eir frills, whimpering in fear as the blade dug into eir neck.
"Nah," the original guard said, shoving two fingers into em and no no no please no it was bad enough already, "I'd rather hear the whore scream."
Theta did scream, ey was screaming now, curled in a ball on the carpet, pressing into the cold end of the bed in an attempt to fuse with the metal and the guard was saying something, shouting and holding up his hands like he was trying to calm a wild animal. But he was just a guard, just a human, hardness but not malice in his eyes, and he looked more alarmed than anything else; he'd even tossed eir outer robe back over em, hadn't touched em at all except to fasten the handcuffs.
He said something to Theta—a question, it sounded like, more wary than concerned but not aggressive and not a threat, either. Theta couldn't have answered it even if ey had understood it; the best ey could manage was a whimper, curling into a slightly tighter ball. The guard at least seemed less panicked now that the worst was over, and cast one last disturbed look at Theta before letting himself out of the room. Theta was positive he would be back in the morning but pathetically grateful he wasn't there. Ey turned onto eir back, hugging emself and staring at the ceiling as ey waited for the Master to come.
It was really, really cold down here.
It made sense, of course, bowels of the ship and all; there were no personnel down here, just engine rooms somewhere below them and this awkward level in between that had probably originally been meant for storage, but then again the Valiant had been Harold Saxon's baby and Tish was fairly certain there was a reason the storage rooms had been designed to have barred windows and ridiculously secure iron doors. The one thing nobody had bothered designing was particularly good insulation. Tish suspected they were right up against the outer hull, and prayed the walls didn't open or something like that.
She'd stopped trying the doors ages ago, of course. They didn't budge and she wasn't stupid enough to just bash herself against solid iron in the hope that the muscle and weight of a political PA would somehow tear a hole in it. Now she was hugging her knees on the ground in the cold, shivering and stubbornly refusing to sit on the thin bunk, which was probably even less comfortable than the floor.
She wished she could be angry at the Master. That would be so much easier than scared and cold and lonely.
Anger would be so much easier than the guilt.
She hugged herself closer and wondered if she'd ever forgive herself. She could still smell Lucy, even over the scent of metal and fear. She could… she could still taste her, even though that was impossible, whatever Theta had shouted it had stopped… well, everything, it'd stopped her, before anything had even really had a chance to happen and she was grateful to em, she was but she'd been ready to do it and Lucy was never going to look at her again even if the Master didn't kill her, which was likely, as she was no longer needed as a bargaining chip against her sister. Oh, God, Martha would never forgive her, not even she was that generous.
She couldn't stand it. She shoved herself to her feet and kicked the door. It didn't even bang properly, it was too solid and heavy. All she did was (from the feel of it) break every bone in her foot, hop on the other until she almost fell over, and swear in a manner that would have scandalised her father.
To her shock, there was a soft sigh from somewhere she couldn't see, off to her left. It worried her that she could recognise the woman just from hearing her exhale.
For a long time, she didn't say anything. She just leaned against the tiny little barred square and tried not to cry.
"...Lucy?" she managed.
There was no answer.
"Lucy, I'm sorry."
"Don't." It was a whisper.
"I'm sorry," she tried again. "Lucy, I—"
"Don't!" And now Tish was truly shocked, because she'd never heard that kind of raw emotion in Lucy Saxon's voice, not ever. "Don't apologise like it was your fault. You both do that, he forces you into his game and you act like you had a choice, it's going to kill me, now stop it."
"I did have a choice," Tish reminded her. Her voice was rough from trying to fight back self-loathing tears. "I could have said no."
"You could have told him to murder your sister or you could have trusted me," Lucy said acidly. "It may not have been what anyone wanted but do you really think I'd be so horrified by now of you touching me that I'd rather you have your sister thrown out an airlock?"
"Oh for God's sake," snapped Martha, and Tish banged her head on the door jerking in shock. "If you two are done with your little lovers' spat about how Tish has the nerve to respect your boundaries, some of us are trying to sleep."
"Martha?!"
"Martha Jones?"
"No, the other Martha, Saxon, who the hell'd you expect down here?"
"It's not a lovers'—"
"Shut up, Tish. Saxon, stop yelling at my sister for having actual human decency."
"I'm not—"
"Yes," said Martha, "you are. That is exactly what you're doing. And while it's a perfectly normal coping mechanism, it's both harmful and physically painful to listen to." She sighed impatiently. "And Tish, stop beating yourself up, all right? You're just as much a victim as her."
"But—"
"It wasn't your idea, you didn't want to do it, he made you, coerced consent is not consent, do I seriously need to go over this with you right now, Tish, I'm trying to sleep."
"Nice to see you again, too," Tish griped.
"Hey, Tish. How's the weather been?"
"Cloudy with a chance of Theta having a breakdown."
"And there's a tropical depression near Haiti," Lucy added helpfully.
"…Thank you, Lucy," said Martha after a confused pause in which she seemed to be trying to figure out whether she was serious. "Tish, how's the Doctor been, really? Last time I saw him he didn't… seem like himself. I mean. He was murdering people with a razor, very… Sweeney Todd."
"Theta's been doing better lately," Tish said. "Ey only threw up twice this week."
Another pause while Martha absorbed this. "Ah. So he—ey's going by Theta now, that's not just the Master?"
"Yeah. And… don't call em 'Doctor', it's just kind of… sad. Ey doesn't like it."
"Theta isn't h—isn't eir real name, is it? The witches said ey didn't have one."
"The witches…?"
Lucy interrupted. "Theta is what ey's calling emself," she said with surprising firmness. "It's not as if eir real name was The Doctor, either, after all."
Tish could actually hear Martha's raised eyebrow. "Fair enough," she said slowly, and the underlying Tish, your girlfriend's a bitch was so strong she almost snapped She's not my girlfriend! before realising that Martha hadn't actually said anything.
There was an awkward silence.
"So… Lucy, huh?" Martha asked with forced casualness. "Not sure I want to know how that one happened."
Tish cleared her throat. "Remember that 'just as much a victim' bit?"
"I helped him," Lucy corrected. "And then I grew up."
There was another, shorter pause. "Right," Martha said. "Well. Welcome to the Resistance, Lucy Saxon."
"Great hospitality you lot have. Love the food. Terrible customer service, though, have you got a manager I can complain to? The staff is terribly rude."
"Shut up, Tish."
Theta was staring at nothing in particular. Ey hadn't been able to sleep, it was too empty and ey should have been able to sense the timelines and hear whispered, dreaming thoughts in the back of eir mind but there was nothing and all ey could think about was Lucy and Tish and Martha and the guard ey knew was standing outside the door.
The Master called in the guard and Theta bit back a whimper as the door opened. He'd not hurt em, hadn't shown any indication of a desire to, ey was fine, ey'd be fine… Ey pressed emself back into the foot of the bed.
The Master spoke to the guard, a short few phrases of English, before looking down at Theta with distaste in his eyes. He'd not spoken to Theta in days now, and when ey heard Gallifreyan pass his lips ey looked up in shock.
"I expect you to be at the Paradox Machine in an hour," the Master said to em, and then laughed and turned to address the guard again, letting the TARDIS translate for him. "Give them your watch."
The guard saluted before unclasping a leather band from his wrist and laying it on the ground in front of Theta. He didn't touch em except when it was completely necessary, after the first day. That didn't make it any less humiliating when Theta obediently strapped the watch on with unpracticed fingers. The Master laughed again and left, and the guard finally reached down and unlocked Theta's handcuffs, stepping back as ey pulled eirself awkwardly to eir feet. He stood aside and inclined his head towards the door, a silent instruction.
The dressing room felt horribly empty without Tish or Lucy, and the guard standing in the corner made em feel sick; the only concession he made was to avert his eyes while Theta quickly changed out of eir chemise with shaking hands (ey knew he could still see em in his peripheral vision, but it was better than it might have been). The robes were difficult to put on without any help, whether it be from Innocet or Koschei or, most recently, Tish, and ey felt horribly rushed trying to get them on right, looking at eir wrist every few minutes to check the time. When ey had to leave to see the Master, ey knew ey looked déshabillé at best, pulling at the folds to get them to lay as best ey could as ey was led down the halls.
If it had been agonising stepping into the cannibalised TARDIS the first time, it was nothing compared to this, running a hand along her hull and feeling her shaking with pain but not able to sense anything, not able to talk to her and have her hear. Ey knew she was screaming but couldn't feel even a hint of her presence, and ey felt cold and empty and silent and like ey was standing in her corpse.
The Master was waiting for them, leaning casually against what had once been her console, and even with her so strange and untouchable Theta had to fight not to cringe, not to yell don't touch her.
"Right on time," he said warmly, and Theta sighed with relief that ey could understand him for now. He waved the guard off, and the man saluted once more and backed out of the TARDIS. "Very good, Theta. You've been so cooperative, haven't even complained once! I'm very proud of you," he said, putting a hand on Theta frills and ey was torn between fear and relief at the touch. "I think it's been long enough, don't you agree?" Theta nodded, heartsbeat quickening.
"Good Theta," the Master purred, and without so much as a warning he ripped the remnants of eir paper-thin shields out of the way and blasted a path through eir mind.
It hurt. It hurt even more than it had last time, because at least then the Master had only been exploiting a connection that already existed; this time he was forcing a new one, raw and sharp like he was carving it with a razor and Theta could feel the neurons being stripped and rewired, could feel the snapped connections as they were dragged forcefully back into place by that swirling maelstrom of black smoke and red sparks as his TARDIS struggled to control the shift of energy.
She was fighting him so hard, all metaphorically bared teeth and claws, and for a moment ey could even see a flurry of gold as she wound herself around the Master's invading presence and yanked, managing for that one brief instant to channel her own power into Theta's shielding, giving em more strength for eir mental protection than ey'd had since losing her; but she was shackled by the paradox, choking under the too-weak connection the Master was offering. He managed to redirect their combined energies back to Theta's chronal lobe, back to the severed bond, and oh, it hurt when that connection was reformed, when he felt the scarlet flood of pain and rage and hatred and fear and couldn't block it, but the Master couldn't separate them now and neither she nor em could stop the rush of pathetic love, almost of relief, before the brutal healing continued and Theta's mind was overwhelmed so badly ey could barely sense her through the noise.
They were screaming, both of them, their minds entwined and the worldlines converged and knotted and straining in the heart of the paradox and it hurt so much and everything felt raw and open and ey couldn't tell if the taste of blood was a memory or if eir half-healed throat had torn.
Eir legs gave beneath em and ey fell to the floor and the metal grating burnt black marks on eir fingers but ey wasn't aware of anything outside of eir own mind, trying to repair eir shields as best ey could but it was like trying to lay dominoes in an earthquake, structures collapsing faster than ey could put them up.
Theta was barely cognizant of being pulled to eir feet and dragged out of the TARDIS; the pressure in eir head lessening slightly as the Master led em out of the plasmic shell which maintained the sanctity of the paradox; ey could still see the worldlines, fraying and horribly bright and feeling wrong, impossibilities strung together without care… but there must have been care, nothing to this extent could be accomplished unintentionally, and Theta wondered how much the Master's mind must have been twisted by the drums and the War for him to have thought of it at all. It felt like like something Theta emself might have created under the influence of the Other, more magic than science but not really magic as all so much as a long-forgotten discipline from the Pre-Universe, something written about in the Dark Times. The Master had never studied those scrolls, laughing at Theta and Ushas and Ruath when they hadn't thought them useless myth and lore.
"Keep up, Theta," he said shortly, but that was hard when suddenly his hand in eir frills was like a live wire searing and electrifying every last nerve and ey didn't know if it was just overstimulation like had happened to Lucy or if—but no, ey was right, and it was almost a relief to remember the pain of eir TARDIS wrestling the Master and understand what she'd been doing, fighting to stop him from making too many connections too quickly. The Master hadn't just given em eir senses back; he'd augmented them, though why Theta had no idea. And the new connections would fade soon enough, in eighteen hours, maybe in thirty-six; but Theta's mind was too open now, senses heightened to a degree that wasn't natural, wasn't safe, and the TARDIS had known that and she'd tried to protect em even after ey'd failed her so completely.
"Where…" Theta gasped, because they weren't going back to the stairs, the Master was half-dragging em down the corridor and deeper into the ship, this was a place Theta had never been to before but something deep inside em was demanding that ey turn around and walk the other way, saying there is something wrong here and something very very wrong and turn around, run while you can, it's not right it's not natural it's dangerous it's wrong wrong wrong...
The Master tutted in reproach. "I expected a bit more loyalty from you, Theta. To see your friends, of course. Don't you miss them?"
Theta's head swam and ey was scared now, afraid that maybe the Master was going to hurt Tish and Lucy and make Theta feel the whole thing but he wouldn't have needed to go through all this trouble if that was his plan and anyway it didn't explain the trepidation that was screaming now, shrieking in eir ears and trying to turn em back, away, ey was too close no no wrong wrong wrongwrongwrong.
There was a door at the end of the hall and this must have been near the centre of the ship, burning hot and completely empty and the floor hummed from the proximity of the engines and Theta's frills fanned out reflexively and all ey wanted to do was get away, it felt wrong, felt like death and life and paradox and humanity and the Master had a vicelike grip on eir frills that felt like acid as he opened the door and Theta tried to back away but he pushed em forward forcefully and ey fell to eir knees.
Ey heard the door slam shut behind em and ey could feel the Master's presence vaguely, but it was nearly entirely drowned out by the force of wrongness in the room, like dead Time. Human pheromones hung thick and cloying in the air (c. 4300 H.E.) and ey felt like ey was choking on the mixture.
Theta's senses must have been scrambled, ey thought, because the signals they were sending em didn't make any sense, eir eyes said that the only other thing in the room was a human, a half-naked man tied to a pole like Theta had been once and ey would have panicked at that thought but ey was in pain and confused. Because while eir eyes insisted there was only the human everything else was screaming and ey could feel the abomination in the room, the hulking black mass that should not could not must not exist and it occupied the same space as the man even in eleven dimensions and it wasn't possible but it was there.
The only explanation ey could think of was possession and that was weak at best, anything with as much power as the eldritch construct wouldn't need to possess a body, it could create one for itself, a four- or five-dimensional shadow of its own natural form…
The man was, ey realised, speaking. "…okay there, Doc?"
Theta tried to hide eir cringe at the name; he was trying to get to em, probably, this was all some highly involved game of the Master's and ey would not play it.
"Long time no see, eh Doctor?" the man said cheerfully, and even through eir determination not to listen to a word he said Theta thought dimly that the voice sounded almost familiar. "Can't say I like Gallifreyan hospitality much. Still, you're certainly a sight for sore eyes."
Theta glared up at the man, or as near as ey could manage; looking directly at him was like looking at a star or a black hole, the four-dimensional form drowned out by the impossible, hulking mass and it hurt. "Stop it," ey muttered, and regretted speaking to the man at all a moment later. Ey was playing into the Master's hand.
Ey felt the man's faint twinge of regret for the remark like it was a freight train, a comparatively mild emotion slamming into em and adding to the noise in eir head, and the wrongness was overwhelming and it was crushing em, it felt like a black hole after all, eir sanity was being slowly dragged away by the impossible force of a thing that grated and pulsed and had no place in the universe and it hurt it hurt so much and Theta's entire mind rebelled against it. Ey heaved and shuddered as the human strained suddenly against his bonds and called out the name of a Time Lord that no longer existed but ey didn't care it was too much and ey needed to get out of here right now.
Ey pulled emself to eir feet with difficulty, running to the door and banging on it as hard as ey could, ey had to get out of here, it was like poison, ey couldn't breathe. "Master!" ey screamed, and there was more blood in eir throat and the back of eir mouth but ey hardly noticed. "Master, please, let me out! Master!"
"Doctor, calm down!" the man behind em shouted. Eir only reaction was to knock more frantically.
Ey could feel the Master's mind, just barely. It was almost completely drowned out by the presence in the room, but it was there, he must have been able to hear, and Theta refused to believe he would leave em there. Ey only had to use the right words. "Master, I'm sorry, please, I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you like, just please let me out of here! Master!" ey cried, eir voice cracking on the last word.
"Doctor, it's all right!" the man was shouting. "I'm not gonna hurt you, it's fine, it's me! It's just me!"
Theta was beyond hearing. "Master," ey whimpered, pressing emself into the door like ey was trying to phase through the metal. It was more of a sob than anything else, helpless and hopeless and no, no, he was going to leave em here, Theta had finally done something so awful the Master wasn't going to come back and ey was going to be trapped in here with that horrible awful thing and it was going to be forever and ey couldn't do it ey couldn't survive it it hurt and then suddenly the door opened and ey stumbled and fell through it and hit eir head on a protruding pipe as ey collapsed but it didn't matter because ey was out.
"Master," ey whispered.
"Obviously, Theta," said the Master, sounding irritated but not angry, and Theta was so grateful that he wasn't angry ey almost wanted to cry. "Where are you going?"
Theta wasn't sure, all ey knew was that ey wanted to get as far away from this horrible place as possible so maybe eir head would stop hurting and the Master rolled his eyes and grabbed em by the shoulder, turning em around and pushing em back the way they'd come. "The stairs are that way, Theta." Theta bobbed eir head and whimpered gratefully and tried not to look like ey was running away as the Master followed em back through the winding corridors and up the stairs—slowly, so incredibly slowly and ey didn't know how he could stand it but ey didn't dare ask him to go faster. Finally the throbbing pain faded; Theta was still acutely aware of the wrongness, knew it existed but ey could almost ignore it now, and the TARDIS was doing her best to put up her own shields, ey could feel that she was in pain but the pain itself didn't echo along their bond and it felt so wonderful to be able to sense things again. Ey walked right past a guard and didn't even cringe because ey could sense his boredom, could tell he had no interest whatsoever in his Master's alien pet.
It was intoxicating. It was beautiful and solid and Theta felt as close to free as ey was ever likely to feel again.
That was when an alarm went off, bright lights flared, and there was a loud explosion as a helicopter careened past the picture windows and crashed into the hull of the Valiant.