The Master bucked up and caught her with his elbow. Missy toppled over the side of the bed, taking him with her. They writhed in a tangle of skirts and pressed pants, neither quite aware of where they were, physically. The banging on the door reverberated, bounced around, intermingled with the drumming in an echo chamber.

Somehow the Master had gotten turned around and dug his fingers into Missy's hair, undoing her updo. Instead of forcing her out, which even under the drumbeat he had to realize he could easily do, he dove in. Missy's mental walls were in shambles after Rassilon had finished with her, and even as long as it had been since, she hadn't completely recovered. The Master's own defenses on the other hand were still fortified, no cracks, no back doors, even the drums would have served as a deterrent for anyone except Missy.

When the drums thrummed loudest without the background hum of Gallifreyan minds, she would have clawed her way back to Gallifrey for some reprieve and tried exactly that. Now that they were gone, it was so, so quiet. The Doctor never reached out to her, refused to be touched, afraid (she liked to think) that he wouldn't find her even though she was always there. Always.

It made it easier to hide if he wasn't even looking for her, but was so lonesome and hurt, just a tad. No other species could hope to understand the mind of a Time Lord except another Time Lord. She'd tolerate the drums for the contact, and the Master could share them at least temporarily. Both got what they wanted, folded neatly together like origami.

Tributaries of history rushed down, down between them, bleeding into one greater river with a rapid, shared heartbeat - different cells, but one person, one timeline, a Mobius strip twisted up. And yet, she couldn't remember this. There were no locked doors or empty spaces, no infinite feedback loops like mirrors reflecting each other. The memories just didn't exist. This was more than a limitation effect at play.

They were forcibly pulled apart, gasping like they'd been drowning. Respiratory bypass did little if one didn't remember to use it.

As soon as they broke contact, everything came rushing back. Quiet, again, in Missy's mind. The drums all the louder now that they weren't shared, in the Master's. Missy tasted blood in the back of her throat. That might have been a bit of a bad idea. She was still out on whether it had been worth it or not, thoughts swirling and unfocused.

Even if Missy could make up her mind and wanted to reconnect, the hands on her arms, hooked at her elbows, kept her from approaching the Master. He was likewise held, but much more carefully, supported just enough to not fall down. He, after all, wasn't the danger here. The Toclafane spun and chattered, still unable to see Missy and confused about the commotion.

"Let me go," he spat out, yanking himself free to fall to the floor. "Her - her too. Let go."

He caught Missy when she fell forward, and the Master pushed her back against the side of the bed with his body. Hands around her throat, thumbs stroking the sharp lines of her jaw. She felt him prodding at the surface of her mind, could read his response in just that simple touch, but he didn't go deeper. Disbelief mixed with suspicion and anger, and also an embarrassing seed of hope. A future self meant a future. One without the drums. God, she'd been a mess back then. She was a mess, still, if this situation was anything to go by.

The Master was silent, then barked, "Out!" The suits obediently left, but the Toclafane required another shout before they vanished.

"Aw, they're just children. Be nice," Missy cooed. She caught the Master's wrists and pulled his hands away when he began to squeeze just a little too hard, brought them down to rest over her hearts.

"I'm not nice." To prove his point, he tore her blouse, twisted it down around behind her and caught her hands in the cuffs. As though she were going anywhere. Missy's fingers curled with a mixture of anticipation and the slightest flutter of fear. If she recalled correctly (and she was sure she did, the parts at least that didn't involve herself), the Master in this incarnation was violent, unpredictable, and had several minor issues with women. She didn't know how that would apply to a woman who was also himself, which made it just a teensy bit exciting.

His face scrunched in thought as he looked over the body he'd have in the future, mind closed off again. Wary as the half-feral creature his drums pushed him to be, especially now that he didn't have to play pretend, he splayed his hand on her chest, between her hearts. Counting. Missy slumped against the bed as best she could with him straddling her, eyes on the ceiling. Her nose stung. He must have hit it somewhere in their earlier flailing.

"What the hell were you thinking?"

"Just having a bit of fun, love."

"A bit of fun?" he mimicked, even switching to her accent before snapping back to his own. "Are you mad?"

Missy gazed at him with eyes half-lidded, a small frown marring her features when he made no move to continue ravishing her. Without her memories of this encounter to guide her, and the instability in that regeneration that she could no longer relate to, it was almost like he was a different person, someone she knew not from the inside, but the outside. He was still the Master, though. Even if the personalities changed, even through torture and torment and a hundred poor choices, the Master, at his, her, or its core, remained the same.

"You would know."

He did know, even if he didn't know her. Bananas, the both of them. The Master pulled Missy to her feet and ordered her to free herself from her blouse and skirts. She kicked them aside, but kept her underlayers on. Layers had always been very important. Nudity, vulnerability, was always so off-putting.

"You know, I got dressed up so nice for you," she bemoaned as she pulled the bobby pins out of her ruined pile of curls. "And what do I get in return? I get my nose broken. That's gratitude for you."

"That's assault for you," he echoed in the same tone as he folded her clothes and picked up the pins she kept dropping. "Try that again, and I don't care who you are, I'll break you."

Missy waited for him to stand, pins in hand, and blue eyes met amber. She dropped three more, then smiled at the Master. He hit her.

Missy stumbled back, a scowl on her face, fingers pressed to the blooming injury.

Mercurial as ever, the Master caught her and tugged her onto the bed with him before she had quite recovered. He pulled her hand away and touched the reddened skin of her cheek, her lip, as though he didn't know how it got there, then moved on to exploring the rest of her. The vortex manipulator was unclipped and deposited on the bedside table. Missy sighed and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He seemed more intent on verifying she was properly his body instead of another stolen one than doing anything fun. She bruised like a Gallifreyan, and whinged like one, too, until he told her to shut up. Missy blew a raspberry and sprawled back onto the bed, let him get his self-assurances out of the way.

The Master had not taken the news that Gallifrey was gone well at all when the Doctor, tactless as ever, had informed him. He'd known from the silence, but he trusted the Doctor's word so much more than his own mind. That idiot didn't even realize what kind of power he had over the Master. It embarrassed her, seeing him like this: moody, desperate, and out of control, a personality not befitting the Master. She would have to straighten him out.

First order of business: Gallifrey's absense. When Missy got tired of being pawed mentally and physically in decidedly unfun ways, she disavowed him of that notion. She hadn't know about Gallifrey when using the Infinity Gate, so imagined this tidbit would just be another moment lost. No harm, no foul, excluding whoever messed with her memories. There would be a lot of harm when she found them.

"It's not gone."

The Master's hands stilled. "What?"

"Not. Gone. Gallifrey's not gone. Still there. Just can't get to it." She wiggled her fingers in some vague gesture of there/not there/you know how it is.

"Well... that. That just completely throws a wrench in my New Time Lord Empire," the Master said.

Missy shrugged and took his face in her hands, felt the tumbling emotions under a veneer of droll commentary. "It wasn't a very good plan to begin with."

"I'm sure yours is much better."

"It is. Thank you." Missy pulled him down, caught his mouth with a click of teeth and tint of blood. They didn't connect mentally again, but not for lack of trying on Missy's part, and this time the meeting was far more controlled. Mutual, almost, but the Master showed his disdain for Missy's earlier approach in how roughly he was acquainting himself with her body.

He really wasn't very nice at all. But then again, neither was Missy.