Series 9: What We Deserve
Warnings: dark themes, violence, torture, m/f, f/f & m/f/f relationships, explicit scenes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did…damn you, Moffat!
Summary: Missy is feeling vulnerable after literally baring her soul to Clara. Clara is feeling powerful. The two inevitably clash.
A/N: This is where the Clara x Missy dynamic begins to unfold, so if it's not your thing I'd advise you look away now. Two scenes are from 'the Dark Path', a Missing Adventures Novel by David McIntee. If you can find a copy, it's worth the read, most especially for the Master/Doctor dynamic, and further information on Koschei before he became the Master. So spoilers for that!
Missy was a dead weight on Clara's shoulders, as she and the Doctor half-dragged, half-carried her between them to the Tardis. Behind them, their pursuers yelled and continued to fire, darts and explosive ammunition hitting the rocks around them.
Whoever had hit Missy had clearly been a lucky shot.
At that moment, Clara was never more grateful for it. As they neared the Tardis, the Doctor snapped his fingers and the doors opened. The trio tumbled inside ungracefully, the Doctor releasing Missy gently and springing over her to shut the doors and prepare to dematerialise.
Clara rolled Missy over until she was on her back, and brushed aside the long curls covering her face. The Time Lady was moaning and mumbling, delirious strings of words that made no sense. Her cheeks were bloodless and she was sweating, every muscle in her body locked tight in tension.
The Tardis wheezed and jolted as her pilot dematerialised her. They couldn't leave the planet, not until the next calculation was completed and the dimensional fissure made. But they could hide.
This time, the Doctor made sure to scan for technology or signs of life when they materialised in the middle of Death Valley, California but this time, there was nothing for hundreds of miles around. They were safe.
"Doctor?" Clara called him urgently, and he spun, unwelcome fear and desperation tugging at his hearts. He wasn't supposed to feel this way about her; he wasn't supposed to feel this at all. But he did, and he'd just got her back, and he did damn it.
He knelt over her, taking her head in his lap and smoothing her curls back. He looked up into Clara's dark eyes and glimpsed the same reluctant concern and fear there. Despite everything, she was still the same compassionate person he'd first known and loved.
"What's happening to her?" she asked, as he gently removed the dart from Missy's neck and staunched the wound with his handkerchief. It bled little, but he noted the strained beating of her hearts with alarm. He inspected the dart, sniffing it carefully for traces of the toxin.
Suddenly Clara gasped. His gaze darted to her, before he felt it too. Instinctively, he raised his mental shields but it was a struggle. She'd always been the better telepath.
"Clara? Clara!?" he called her name desperately, as he realised exactly what the toxin was doing to Missy. And if he wasn't careful, he'd lose two people he loved.
She couldn't see him. She could him calling her name, begging her to listen, but she couldn't see him. She didn't know he was.
Where was she, for that matter? She could feel the old panic rising, the feeling of being lost worming its way into her veins like poison.
But just as abruptly as she'd been dumped in this grey, nothing world, she was suddenly out of it. But not back on the Tardis…
She stood on a rocky outcropping, the sky a burnt, blackened red above her, filled with stars. Vague, amorphous memories shifted and sighed in her mind, as she shivered. Familiarity washed over her as she looked back down, to see a group of men and women in ornate robes, adorned with strange headdresses, leading a small boy towards a large, circular disc set into the earth.
Instinct whispered, or maybe it was memory, that she knew this place. She knew it oh so well.
The Untempered Schism. Backlit by torches, Clara couldn't see into it from her vantage point. Something inside her whispered she didn't want to.
Her gaze was directed to the small boy, clad in black and white robes, hair as dark as the night, blue eyes wide with fear and uncertainty. And innocence.
Shock lanced through Clara. Changed though they might be, she knew those eyes.
The Mistress' eyes. Or rather, the Master's. The boy who would become the most infamous child of Gallifrey.
She was inside her memories. Somehow, she must be.
Cautiously, she edged closer but she was nothing but a ghost to everyone around her. She watched as an elderly looking Time Lord in maroon robes placed a hand on the boy's shoulders, giving him an encouraging squeeze as the boy stopped and looked back at him.
That same fear fuelling her, Clara made sure to avoid looking at the Schism as she stepped closer, eyes fixed on the boy. He looked so innocent, so untouched by the life he would lead, the person he would one day become. He was just a child.
Compassion bloomed in Clara's heart then, adding to the understanding that the Doctor had given her. She didn't want to feel it, she didn't want to care but it was as insidious and irresistible as the toxin flooding Missy's systems.
She watched as the horror and the madness bloomed in those innocent blue eyes. She ached for him as he collapsed to his knees, cradling his head, screaming about the drums.
"The day it all began," a voice murmured sadly, as Clara turned to find the Doctor standing beside her, tired eyes taking in the scene sorrowfully.
"What happened?" she asked. "Why are we here?"
"The dart contained a neural toxin that's targeting Missy's brain. It's disrupting her neural pathways, disintegrating them. The Mistress is a very powerful telepath, always has been, and in the confusion she lost control of it," he explained quietly. "I very much doubt she meant to, but here we are. Ghosts in her memories."
"This is it, isn't it?" Clara whispered. "The moment he became the Master."
"Not entirely," he shook his head. "The seeds were planted, yes, but not yet brought to fruition. That came later…"
And as if in response to the Doctor's words, the scene before them melted into nothingness, and Clara blinked back tears.
Once more the nothingness gave way except this time it was difficult to see exactly where they were. It was dark and disruptor blasts flew around her.
Her eyes fell on a short, compact man with sallow, aristocratic features wearing a dove-grey, double-breasted suit, a laser pistol in his hand. She didn't need the Doctor to tell that was the Master.
She saw him shoot an assailant, before a figure emerged from the darkness behind him. She watched him turn and shoot, a clearly instinctive action, but the cry that echoed from his lips broke her heart.
"Ailla!"
Clara watched as he crashed to his knees beside her, leaning over as the woman, tall and pale with dark, short curls, tried to speak. She couldn't hear them, but she was shocked as the Master leant over her and pressed his lips to hers in a display of tenderness she'd never have expected from him.
"His first human companion, Ailla," the Doctor explained beside her.
"You didn't tell me about her," Clara murmured, eyes fixed on the Master as he covered the woman's face with a handkerchief and walked away, an expression of inexorable determination masking the grief in his eyes. "He loved her."
"It wasn't my place to do so," the Doctor replied and she nodded. She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, they were stood in a Tardis console room, similar to the Tardis' original desktop setting, but with filing cabinets and two cylindrical storage lockers. The Master stood toe-to-toe with a short man with black hair and a tired looking face, dressed in an ill-fitting frock coat and checked trousers. The Second Doctor.
Clara vaguely recognised him from her echoes' memories.
Beside him stood a young girl in Victorian dress, and a woman with shoulder-length auburn hair, high cheekbones and intelligent eyes. She looked pale and slightly ill.
Clara listened intently. It seemed the Master had committed genocide using a device called 'the Darkheart', to bring back his Ailla.
"You mean you've allowed the death of a whole species just so I can live? A race died because of me?" the woman asked in a horrified voice.
"What are you babbling about?" the Master demanded scornfully.
The Second Doctor coughed. "Koschei, listen to me. This is Ailla. She's one of us-" he tried to explain.
Clara watched as the woman, Ailla, apparently a Time Lady, and the Master stared at one another. She could see his hearts break in his eyes, and the cold cruelty she had always seen in his latest incarnation's eyes take hold.
But rage burned hotter.
She watched them argue back and forth for a moment, before the Doctor asked the inevitable question. "What's happened to you?"
The Master smiled, a cold, cruel smirk. It sent shivers down Clara's spine even as her heart broke anew. He had been betrayed by two people he loved, had committed genocide and destroyed planets for her. And she had betrayed him.
Clara could almost see the tiny flame of warmth in his eyes snuffed out by this discovery. "What's happened?" the Master murmured quietly. "My people mistrust me; I kill one of my best friends who was sent to me by the other; and both betray me." he went on, smiling slightly. "I have found myself Doctor, and I am the stronger for it."
She watched as Ailla tried to reason with her former friend, while the Doctor poked around. They argued back and forth for awhile, before three men in uniform appeared. At the Master's order, they seemingly appeared ready to take the Doctor and Ailla away, but the Doctor broke free, drawing himself up to his full height. "Koschei, stop this madness!"
The Master's words both chilled and made Clara ache for him. "Koschei, Doctor? Koschei…died with his 'human' companion."
The world faded to grey once more, and the Doctor's hand found and twined itself with Clara's. "We were so alike once," he sighed. "But there are some lines even I would not cross. Not then. The Darkheart would have given him absolute power."
"And absolute power corrupts absolutely," Clara finished for him. "And was that-?"
"Yes," the Doctor sighed. "The day he became the Master. My old friend, any trace of…humanity he possessed, gone."
"What happened to Ailla?" she asked.
"She got home eventually. She was killed in the Time War, when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform," the Doctor replied, and from the look on his face, Clara had no desire to know more. "He was there," he continued. "When she died. I wonder if that was why he ran, in the end."
Clara suddenly stumbled, her mind flinching as their surroundings buckled and dissipated, returning to that shapeless grey cloud. The Doctor took her arm to steady her, looking around them worriedly.
"Missy's mind is starting to collapse in on itself. I need to repair the damage," he muttered. "I'll send you back, then get started."
It was as sudden as her arrival into Missy's mind. One moment she stood in that grey, shapeless world, the next she was kneeling on the cold hard gantry, the Mistress's limp hand clutched tightly in her own.
The Doctor had been able to repair the damage done by the neurotoxin, and Missy had awoken from her coma after a few days. Clara had wondered if she was aware that she'd accidentally established a telepathic link with her, but she didn't feel able to ask.
She soon got her answer though.
Missy started keeping her distance from Clara. Stuck as they were on a ship with immense dimensions, Clara could tell she was making a concerted effort to avoid her. It both intrigued and saddened her.
It also have her a feeling of power. Missy knew almost everything about her, had been shadowing her life for years, and yet Clara knew nothing about her opponent in return. A few amorphous memories from her life as a Time Lady, but they were rarely accessible. Now, she knew almost too much and she had to remind herself that understanding was not justification, and Missy's crimes made her a monster even if they were exacerbated by the machinations of her own people.
It also explained, partly, the Doctor's lingering loyalty. How much guilt did he still harbour over Ailla? Over her death and regeneration, and the lie of omission he'd told to his oldest friend? Maybe he still hoped there was some lingering goodness underneath all that darkness.
Clara wasn't so optimistic. Any goodness she possessed had been stamped out long ago, and she was left with darkness and insanity and power. A desire for order but an inability to perpetuate anything but chaos.
She wondered how she would have reacted, if such a thing had happened to her. To be betrayed by her nearest and dearest, to have been lied to for so long, to go through such grief and all for naught, to have committed such a terrible act out of love, out of desperation…she knew what Danny would have done. She had lied to him for so long, and in the end, he'd only protected her, sacrificed himself for her and the rest of humanity. But for herself…she wondered if she would have been so forgiving in his place. If she mightn't have fired the gun levelled at her head, had she been in his place. To find out the one you loved was really another…
It made Clara feel sick all over again, grief welling up inside her to drag her down again. With an effort of will, she pushed it away, as she stood on a balcony overlooking the swimming pool, leaning on the rail.
A mocking voice interrupted her thoughts, as she jumped and spun, startled. "Oh, you're not snivelling again, are you?" Missy sneered coldly, a feral gleam in her icy eyes. Her hair was once again immaculately coiffed, her clothes correct and neat, a white bandage just visible above the line of her collar. Clara couldn't forget the sight of her laid out on the console room floor, hair ruffled and askew, skin bloodless and sweating. The feel of her hand holding limply to hers…
The image kept her strong as she turned to face her.
"Well, clearly my efforts saving your life were wasted, since you've been struck dumb," the Time Lady continued scornfully, eyes scanning Clara intently. "A common occurrence among your pitiful kind, I know."
Clara could see the slight unease there at her apparent nonchalance, as she turned to leave, apparently frustrated by Clara's continued silence. It also gave Clara her answer. Missy knew.
She was like a wounded animal lashing out and seemingly forgetting her quasi-friendly-bordering-on-flirtatious behaviour of the past few weeks. And wounded animals were never more dangerous than when backed into a corner.
She should have walked away. It was the safe, sane thing to do. But Clara was feeling reckless and powerful, and maybe it made her forget.
"Who's Ailla?" she asked before the Time Lady had walked away. She watched as that slender back had tensed and frozen as hard as rock. She slowly turned, with a kind of predatory intent that should have sent Clara screaming, but all she felt was a kind of wild exhilaration at baiting the storm.
"Spare me your amateur attempts at mind games, my dear," Missy sighed, with mocking patience. It might have riled Clara at any other time. "You're playing with, quite literally, the master of such things."
"Maybe," Clara replied with a small smile. "But you didn't answer my question. Who's Ailla?"
Her apparent refusal to drop the subject obviously prodded the Mistress's temper a little too far. Before Clara could even blink, she found herself shoved against the railing, plastered between it and a very annoyed Missy. She could almost feel her double heartbeat thundering against her breasts.
"If you know that name," Missy snarled. "Then you know who she is, already. But how?"
"And if you know I know, you know how I know too," Clara replied, as coolly as possible with her body plastered against Missy's. "You should really learn how to control your telepathy," she mocked further, ignoring the instincts screaming at her to shut up.
But then Missy smiled and laughed, a low, husky sound so different to her usual maniacal cackle. It sent shivers down Clara's spine. "Oh, my darling girl!" she sighed, her eyes glinting with a feral light. "I have taught you well."
Clara was just opening her mouth to utter a blistering retort, but she was stunned as Missy's hands shot up from where they'd been curled around the railing, and clasped her face tightly. Before she could say a word, Missy's lips were against hers.
Her kiss wasn't like the messy, almost hilarious kiss she'd pressed on the Doctor in the mausoleum, nor the tender, soft kiss she'd accepted from him in the graveyard. Both kisses Clara had witnessed; one had left her feeling a mixture of amusement and revulsion, the other anger and betrayal. She hadn't actually seen them kiss during their tryst in the console room, not while she'd been standing there.
She wondered if they'd been like this one.
Missy's lips were a skilled, drugging caress. Her mouth was cooler than Clara's, giving her no space, no leeway to escape and before she could really think about what she was doing, she was kissing back. Her hands were in that elegantly coiffed hair, and her tongue was in Missy's mouth. It was lust and anger and hatred, a play for domination and manipulation, and Clara realised that whatever game she'd been playing up until now, they were just the opening moves. And she was determined not to lose.
Gathering her strength, as Missy moaned into her mouth, she pushed her away, following her until she had crushed her body back against the opposite wall. The Time Lady moaned at the impact, pressing her body harder into Clara's, her knee coming up to press intimately between her legs. Even though she was in the dominant position, Clara knew she was losing this battle but she didn't care. Desire was building in her blood, and despite what her head was screaming at her, her body was alive with sensation. So, so alive.
It was fair to say Missy had been surprised when little Miss Control Freak had kissed her back so ardently. So much passion in that petite frame, so restrained and repressed, until now.
It had surprised her. That she'd had the audacity to mention what she'd seen while her own telepathy had pulled her into her mind, to try and use it as a weapon, was both intriguing and exciting. That the little fool thought she could control her, even in this sphere.
They were two of a kind, both control freaks at heart. And never try to control a control freak.
Clara tasted of sweet, fresh desire untouched by the heady, intoxicating feel of Time that the Doctor's kisses held. She was so human, so fleeting, it was like kissing a supernova already in the final stages of its death. Hot and destructive and oh so fleeting.
She was fighting back, refusing to let her lead their new dance. Missy raised one hand to her scalp, raking her red nails through her hair, making her sigh into her mouth. She reciprocated, her shorter nails destroying her intricate hairstyle, and the flash of lust along her nerves almost drew Missy up short. She used her hold on Clara's waist and her position against the wall to rock Clara's hips down against her thigh, making the human whimper helplessly. Seizing her chance, she turned and forced Clara back against the wall in turn, pressing against her soft body desirously.
She could almost feel the boundaries of Clara's mind, just lingering there on the edges of her own, tentative and mistrustful and so tempting. But not yet, she couldn't let herself slip into her mind yet. Not yet…
She could feel the moment when sense apparently returned and she began to retreat. She let herself be pushed away even though her rather unTime-Ladylike instincts were screaming at her to push on with her seduction. Missy was a jealous and possessive creature, and she wanted her Time Lord and her Impossible Girl safely in her possession.
But not yet. She had to be patient and the girl's own darkening nature would push her into her companions' arms soon enough.
She watched as Clara drew herself up, panting and ruffled, and smiled. She knew full well it wasn't a particularly pleasant smile, the smile of a lioness with her prey. She just didn't care. It would make their game all the more interesting.
"You won't win this game," Clara said firmly. "I won't let you."
"Oh my dear," Missy sighed in reply. "The game's just beginning."
Apparently Clara seemed to think that retreat would be the better part of valour, as she said nothing and walked away. Missy smirked, glad to have deflected her prey away from her new weapon with such enjoyable ease.
Oh yes, the game was just beginning…
To be continued…