Call it Fate, Call it Karma

Martha

"Fuck me," exclaimed Clara in horror.

"If you like," said the woman on the stage. Clara faltered.

"I didn't mean like that."

"Well, I'm always around, if you get bored of the yank. Or, actually, I don't think he's regenerated yet, has he? Admittedly, it's hard to keep track, especially when you never invite me along on your shenanigans."

"I'm so confused," Amy said, "Who is this?"

"I'm Clara's fiancée."

"What!? No you're not," said Clara annoyed, "She's the Master. Missy. The girl one."

"Oh, the one who… didn't you make us do an obstacle course, or something? Six months ago?" Amy asked, confused.

"And more importantly, tried to take over the entire world more than once, got themselves elected as the prime minister, and – oh yeah – enslaved my whole family," Martha said, furious.

"Now, that's not true, is it, Martha?" said the Master, with the air of scolding a child, "Your brother managed to escape, and so did you, for a bit."

"Didn't you die?" Martha questioned angrily, "I saw you die, with my own eyes. How did you come back?"

"Ah, you wouldn't believe me if I told you," she shrugged, "But is this the thanks I get for organising a nice, fun, scavenger hunt for Rose's hen party? After Donna dropped the ball so badly with that whole murder mystery… it's easier than you'd think to send little suggestions to her through the time vortex. Whispers. Especially because she was drunk already."

"Where's the chicken nuggets?" Rose asked.

"They're coming, the chef's… I don't know what the chef's doing, frankly," Missy complained, then said to Clara, "I don't how you put up with her, she's so impetuous." Clara plainly had no idea who this chef was.

"So you're the one who's pissing about with our powers?" Clara questioned, "And my mind patch?"

"Would I do a thing like that?" Missy asked faux-innocently, then grinned, "Alright, you caught me out, yes, it was me. Although, really it was your dear sister, she helped me create an enormous inhibition field."

"What? Oswin wouldn't do that," Clara said seriously, "She wouldn't help you."

"She would, she's very easy to manipulate. I just had to kidnap and threaten to defrost that boyfriend of hers at some point in your future, can't remember when, and she did everything I asked," Missy shrugged, "Very susceptible to blackmail, that girl. Of course, you already know that. But didn't you have fun?"

"No!" Martha shouted at her, "We haven't had fun!"

"Really? Are you sure?" she began to get down from her stage, walking over to the steps. "Isn't it fun being challenged? Tested? Isn't that why you humans opt to do escape rooms? Or play sudoku? I've never understood why anyone would put themselves through that."

"So this whole thing was a set up?" Amy asked, "A historically inaccurate set up? All fake?"

"No. Not all of it. The ghost pirates were a bit of a rush job, I'll admit, but I suppose that's what I get for hiring out-of-work Shakespeare actors – you know they're terrible if Shakespeare fired them, the man will employ drunks to do his plays," Missy said, "And the entire island, yes, is an artificial job built mainly out of plastic. But I knew you wouldn't fool that easily. This really is 1718, after all, and that really was Nassau, and a lot of them really were pirates."

"But we weren't in any actual danger?"

"No, you were. Those sailors? Not mine, just washed up here, went a bit Castaway, started eating the dead bodies of their crew mates – you know how the British Army can be. They just set up camp on the beach and I thought I'd just ignore them and they'd die eventually."

"You mean they might have actually killed and eaten us!?" Clara was horrified.

"Maybe. To be honest, I was very interested to find out," she was completely indifferent. "But, really? I got you a whole theme park! I mean, fine, maybe most – or all – of the rides don't work, and my only employees are that bastard fry cook and these ridiculous robot skeletons I was sold on a fake promise that they'd be an army fit to tackle the Roman legions – but it's a sound premise. There's real profit to be made here, I didn't have to waste it on a bunch of ungrateful time travellers."

"Great, well," Donna began, "Now we're found out what your scheme was, can we leave, do you think?"

"Yes, of course!" she said, then paused, "Eventually!"

"'Eventually'?" Amy questioned.

"In a bit. Once we've had some fun. If you'd already had fun on your adventure, well, you could have just gone right on your way, but since Martha was so insistent that you haven't had any fun, I can't rightly let you leave. I won't have anybody say I'm a bad host."

"Didn't see you being a particularly good host when you kidnapped and enslaved my family," Martha reiterated.

"That was ages ago! Get over it, Jones. If the Doctor can forgive me, I'm sure you can. Anyway, it's just your luck that I've got lots of fun activities planned."

"Not another death-course…" said Amy.

"No," snapped Missy coldly, "What kind of monster do you take me for? I thought we could play a game. We could vote on who has the best arse, or something."

Clara laughed, "Well, that's easy," at the same time the other three (Rose still pining for chicken) asked, "Why would we do that?" This put Clara under great scrutiny from her crewmates.

"Go on, then," Donna challenged her as she began to falter.

"Well, I, uh… I mean, I'm not going to-"

"Have you been perving on us? Maybe Rose is right," said Amy. Martha wasn't sure she wanted to know Clara's opinion of their behinds.

"No! I just… I have eyes, I don't know, I see things."

"Could you try not to 'see things' in future?" Amy snapped.

"I'm still waiting," said Donna.

"Can we vote for ourselves?" Clara asked.

"Unbelievable…" muttered Martha.

"It's a valid question!"

"She's right," Missy said, "It's a valid question, to which the answer is no, how conceited can one woman actually be?" Clara glared.

"Then Martha wins," Clara shrugged.

"I what?"

"I mean, if I had to go in order, then it's you, then Rose, then Donna, then Amy."

"What about me?" Missy asked.

"You're wearing a bustle, I can't see your arse properly. Sorry."

"I'll whip it off in a jiffy if you like."

"Hang on, why am I the lowest!?" Amy demanded, "Not that I care what you think – but why? How am I lower than Donna!?"

"What's that supposed to mean!?" Donna exclaimed.

"It's just – it's to do with, like, volume," said Clara.

"VOLUME!?" Donna shouted, and Martha was very grateful that she didn't have her power, "Are you trying to imply that I have a fat arse? Because I think you're talking out of your arse, mate."

"No! I'd love to have a go on your arse!" Clara defended herself.

"God knows what that means," Martha shook her head.

"You can shut up," Amy snapped at her, "Little Miss Perfect-Bum."

"I'd really like to disinvolve myself from this entire conversation. How did we sink to this level?" Martha complained; this was almost worse than having to put up with Anne Bonny.

"At the end of the day," Clara said, "Everyone's a ten. Every woman."

"Wow, you really don't have any standards, do you?" Missy asked, scrutinising Clara like she was an exhibit in a museum. Clara shifted very uncomfortably. "Shall we rate tits next?"

"No," they all said at once.

"Nuggets…" Rose whinged, going and sitting at one of the tables since she wasn't capable of standing up anymore. Without warning, Missy thwacked one of the plastic tables loudly with her umbrella, making them jump.

"WHERE ARE THE NUGGETS!?" she yelled.

"THEY'RE COMING!" someone yelled back from the kitchen. And here Martha had half thought her 'chef' was completely made up. Rose cheered and then slumped across the table.

"In the meantime, I have something to ask your opinion on, Clara," said Missy, "Something very important." She produced from somewhere – Martha hadn't a clue where, but Time Lords had a habit of doing things like that – a big, leather-bound book, which she held out towards Clara. Clara took it, though she didn't seem happy to do so, and flipped it open.

"…Are these stock photos?" she asked, squinting at them, while Missy peered over her shoulder, "They're pixelated and still have the watermarks on them. Why have you got these? In an album?" She turned it around to show the rest of the group. They were all pictures of smiling families or smiling people at a business meeting or smiling doctors messing around with a microscope.

"Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara, Clara," Missy said, smiling and shaking her head, "Clara. There are some things in this wonderful universe you will never understand." She took the album from Clara, glanced at one of the pictures, tittered, then lobbed it backwards over her shoulder. It crashed down onto a table and startled Rose out of her drunken slumber.

"Why are you only talking to her?" Amy questioned.

"The rest of you are being very hostile," she said, "I can't say I have the patience for it. I've got more photos, if you want to look at them?"

"No, thanks," said Amy.

"Oh, there we are," Missy said, pointing with her umbrella – almost hitting Clara in the face as she did so – at the kitchen, "Here's the lowly servant girl."

"Ashildr!?" Clara exclaimed.

"You can fuck off," the girl said angrily to Missy, carrying an actual bucket of freshly-fried chicken nuggets. It took Martha a few moments, but she eventually placed Ashildr as the girl who'd stabbed Jenny and had been brought onto the TARDIS a few weeks ago by the Shadow. The teenage Viking Other Clara had apparently slept with – of course she remembered that part, because Rose and Oswin brought it up constantly when they made fun of Clara. Ashildr dropped the bucket onto the table in front of Rose, who cheered weakly and said something incoherent about Grog.

"Excuse me? I'm not paying you for that sort of profanity," Missy said. Ashildr stuck up her middle finger.

"You're not paying me at all."

"Why are you here if she's not paying you?" Martha asked. Missy cut across Ashildr before she could answer.

"Work experience," she said, "She's just reached that bit in school. Needs more things to put on her CV." Ashildr glared at her.

"It sounded a lot more fun than it's turned out to be," Ashildr said, "She told me she was planning on building a pirate-themed death park and I wanted to see how it turned out. I had no idea she was going to force me to cook food."

"You just fried some nuggets, it's hardly cooking," said Missy.

"Not true," said Ashildr, taking something wrapped in tinfoil out of her pocket, "I also made this sandwich."

"For me? You shouldn't have."

"It's my sandwich," she snapped, jumping up to sit on the bar.

"How are the GCSEs going?"

"I was eighteen when I died," Ashildr argued as she unwrapped her sandwich, "Eighteen."

"Really? Isn't that a bit old? For Clara, I mean."

"Excuse me?" Clara argued, "Right, I don't know where this joke has come from, but I'm not a pedo, okay?"

"Are you sure?" Donna asked.

"Am I-? Yes, I'm sure!"

"You did sleep with an eighteen-year-old," Donna pointed out, "What's the legal age of consent?"

"Sixteen," said Clara. "It's sixteen."

"She's got it memorised," quipped Missy, "You know, just in case. 'She told me she was sixteen, officer, I swear,'" she mimicked Clara, making Clara sound about ten times more whiny than she already did (which was often quite whiny.)

"Can we just stop this?"

"Do you want to go back to the incest jokes?" Missy asked, then smirked, "How's your sister?"

"What? Since you kidnapped and blackmailed her?"

"Has she managed to kill herself yet?"

"Hilarious…" grumbled Clara, crossing her arms. Rose was stuffing her face with nuggets. It suddenly struck Martha just how hungry she was, seeing Rose with her nuggets and Ashildr with her sandwich. That morning seemed a million miles away now. "I would genuinely kill for some nicotine…"

"I've got some chewing tobacco?" Ashildr suggested.

"You know that stuff rots your gums?" Martha said.

"Yeah. It's hardcore."

"You are such a teenager," Amy scoffed. Clara deliberated for a few seconds before crossing the room towards Ashildr.

"What are you doing?" Martha asked.

"Getting some chewing tobacco," she said.

"Just quit."

"Marth, it's an addiction. I can't just quit." Ashildr fished a small tub of chewing tobacco out of her pocket and held it out to Clara.

"You can keep that," she said, "I think it's making some of my teeth turn brown."

"I swear you didn't always smoke," Donna said while Clara picked out the tobacco from the tin.

"I get stressed."

"What do you have to be stressed about?" Amy asked incredulously.

"I don't know – this entire situation, maybe? Everything that's happened to me for six months? The whole thing was renewed because you lot put me and Oswin in a hallucinatory coma."

"You'd expect Oswin to be used to that sort of thing by now," Missy jibed. They all looked at her. "Sorry – did you forget I was here? You're just so funny arguing amongst yourselves. Aren't you supposed to be much more cohesive? You're very disorganised, always at each other's throats. Well, Clara's throat. I suppose she does have a nice throat."

"Right…" said Clara awkwardly, chewing, "That's… creepy…"

"Makes me want to throttle you. In a sexy way, like."

"Did the Time Lords ever have a sex offenders register?" Ashildr quipped.

"You shut up, you wee little brat," Missy told her off, "Get back in that kitchen and make some chicken nuggets for the rest of us."

"Chicken nuggets!" Rose shouted with her mouth full of said nuggets.

"No," said Ashildr, "I'm on break. Or, I quit, I don't know. Can you lot give me a lift?"

"A lift!?" Donna exclaimed, "Where? And with what?"

"I don't know, somewhere that isn't here, I'm bored of pirates," she shrugged, "Can I come to Rose's wedding?"

"No," said Donna, "I'm the best man, and since the bride is…"

"Totally shitfaced," Amy supplied.

"Yeah, since the bride is shitfaced, I say no, you're not invited."

"Well. I can get Jenny to bake me a fancy cake whenever I like."

"Why would she bake you a cake? You stabbed her," said Martha.

"We're friends now," said Ashildr, "She has respect for me, because I defeated her in mortal combat. It makes us even because she stole my girlfriend." Ashildr winked at Clara when she said that.

"Aren't you the one who gave her the nasty black eye she has at the moment?" Martha asked.

"Yeah!" Ashildr said proudly, "I've got a good right hook. And Jenny doesn't mind."

"Anyway, anyway, enough chit-chat, I've got presents," Missy interrupted again, "Which my trusty companion over there was instructed to bring out from the backroom." She looked expectantly at Ashildr.

"What? I said I'm on break."

"The gifts, Skallagrim."

"The sandwich, Mistress," she said, holding up her half-eaten sandwich, "Have some bloody patience, would you?"

"You just cannot get the staff these days. How hard is to find a reliable henchperson to help do my dirty work? Clara, be a dear and fetch the gifts from the kitchen, please. It's a big hamper." Clara turned to go towards the kitchen.

"You're not doing it, are you?" Martha asked.

"I… she did say please…"

"She's literally a maniacal mass-murderer."

"Martha! It's all in the past! Have a chicken nugget!" Missy said, indicating the nuggets.

"I don't want a chicken nugget!"

"Christ, fine, I'll get the hamper," Ashildr said, climbing down from the bar surface, "But count me out of any future schemes of yours. Tormenting you lot is not as fun as it sounds. And you're always in a bad mood, the lot of you. And Clara, if you touch my sandwich, I'll cut you. I know what you're like around unattended sandwiches." She slinked away back into the kitchen.

"…I wonder what kind of sandwich it is…" Clara mused, peering at it.

"Leave it alone," Amy told her.

"I still don't understand the point of this theme park," Martha said, "Especially when the rides don't work."

"Alright, fine," said Missy, "You've caught me out, it was part of some billionaire's dream to build his sick daughter a pirate theme park."

"And what? You nicked it?"

"He never finished it!" Missy protested, "She died, see – very insensitive of her, when you think about it. I mean, how bad is leukaemia? Really? Besides, he was paying a fortune in rent. I merely took it off his hands. I will, however, take responsibility for the Queen Anne's Revenge. What it is, see, is I helped out a little bit on Pirates of the Caribbean – not that they'd give me the rights to the soundtrack, had to use some knock-off version for my skeletons there, all because of an incident involving somebody keying Hans Zimmer's car. My money's on that Keira Knightley, you can't trust her. Anyway, because of them not letting me have their soundtrack, I stole the Flying Dutchman prop. Covered it in glow in the dark paint. And of course, I acquired the army of robot skeletons from the future. Maybe one day I'll whip them into shape and take over the universe, but I wouldn't bank on it. Ah-ha, here she is." Ashildr returned with a truly gigantic hamper.

"What's this in aid of, anyway?" Donna asked suspicious. A gift-basket from the Master was quite possibly the most suspicious thing Martha could think of – it screamed 'bomb scare.'

"Wedding presents for Rose and some things for Martha. For the sprog, wee little, er… can't remember its name now… don't even know the sex, to be honest, they're all small and bald, aren't they? And I didn't get to meet it for long, either, until you chased me out of the house. With guns. I remember thinking to myself, what a lovely family… hasn't happened to you yet, though, it's still growing if I recall correctly? Like mould, in a petri dish. Culturing."

"You've met the baby? Mine!?" Martha exclaimed.

"Yes, I remember distinctly because of the weird eye thing."

"Hang on, eye thing? What eye thing?" she asked seriously.

"You know, the…" Missy pointed at her own eye, "I don't know, it's weird. I'm sure you'll find out. But there's an eye patch in there somewhere, I got it from one of the old gift shops. Most of that stuff is from the gift shops, to be honest." Ashildr dumped the hamper down on the table next to Rose. "Hats, and whatnot."

"I do quite like pirate hats…" said Amy.

"Well, go ahead, Martha," Missy said, indicating the hamper.

"You expect me to open those presents? There's probably a bomb in there."

"Don't be ridiculous, the bomb isn't there, it's somewhere else entirely."

"There's a bomb!?" they all shouted.

"What? No! Of course not, why would there be a bomb? Who even brought up bombs? Martha – have you planted a bomb somewhere?"

"I could kill you."

"With your bomb, probably," said Missy, "Everybody, back away from the pregnant lady. She's clearly armed and dangerous."

"She won't kill you," said Ashildr, "If she does, I'll just send a message to your TARDIS. And she wouldn't have told me about this scheme – I wouldn't kill any of you."

"Except Jenny," said Donna.

"I thought she was responsible for the deaths of three million people," Ashildr said, "It was a misunderstanding. I like Jenny! If I had to pick one person to steal my girlfriend, it would be her. And she gave me a robot horse – but don't tell her, I think it's in her future still."

"If I was going to kill you it would be much more elaborate than hiring hundreds of fake pirates to sail the Caribbean to bring you to an island I stole from a bereaved father," Missy said dismissively, "Give me some credit. I haven't even got a real army this time, just these rubbish skeletons. I used to have legions of Cybermen under my command."

"How far the mighty have fallen," Ashildr quipped.

"Shut up, lackey."

"Fuck off."

"I'll open the bloody presents," Amy ultimately volunteered, "You better let us leave, soon."

"Can't you ask someone to pick us up sooner? If you have a line to the TARDIS?" Clara questioned Ashildr.

"It's called a phone, you might have heard of them," said Ashildr. Clara glared at her. "I could, but I don't want to right now. I want to see what the presents are. So long as they're not explosive devices."

"If I was going to kill them with an explosive device, I'd put it in a much subtler place, like in an underground storage room while they were all gathered above for some kind of ambiguous soiree."

"I feel like that's been done before…" Ashildr mused.

"It's a hat," Amy announced after unwrapping the first present. She examined it and then put it on. "Do you think it suits me?"

"I want a hat," Rose whined.

"Here," Amy said, giving her another present which was also, clearly, a pirate hat. Missy had been telling the truth about it being tat from the gift shops. Rose unwrapped it awkwardly and put it on her head, a piece of blue wrapping paper hanging down in front of her eyes.

"I thought the bridesmaids could wear them. How many bridesmaids are there, again?" Missy asked.

"None, apart from the maid of honour," said Donna.

"And how many groomsmen?"

"None, apart from the best man. Which is me, by the way. I'm the best man. The best of all the men."

"Ooh, a toy sword," Amy said, waving around a cutlass. She bent it with her finger. "Plastic."

"Give Martha one of her presents, go on," Missy ordered. Amy checked to see which one had her name written on it, and then tossed it in Martha's direction. It was soft and squishy when she caught it; she carefully unwrapped it and found it was a teddy bear, TARDIS blue – an odd colour for a bear.

"Right," said Martha, "Well, thanks." She was ninety percent sure it had some sort of surveillance device hidden in it. "I'm sure the baby will love it…" It was going nowhere near the baby.

"I'm sure it will, the little… creature. Anyway," Missy raised her arm to check the time on a watch, though she clearly wasn't wearing one, "I think this is about time I make my exit. There's nothing else interesting in the basket, really."

"You can't leave," Donn argued, "You haven't given us our powers back!"

"And you don't have a ship," Clara added, "Apart from pirate ships."

"Maybe I'll go to Tortuga, start a pirate crew of my own," Missy said, "But I really have to dash. You see, when I let Oswin go after she built me my inhibitor, of course I knew she was going to immediately rush to help you after determining exactly what date you went missing. Then all she has to do is send a message to somebody in the past who isn't one of you five, and they'll show up in the TARDIS to investigate. It's unfortunately very tricky to TARDIS-proof an island like this, because of all the plastic."

"Sounds legit," muttered Ashildr, still eating her sandwich.

"But, really, this has been fun," Missy said, backing away from them and fumbling with her umbrella handle, "Marvellous thing about your sister, she's very good at designing portable, handheld technology. Haven't you seen that fancy-pants walking stick of hers?"

"Shit!" said Clara, "The inhibitor for our powers is in the umbrella!"

"Yes! Well done, I thought it was obvious when I said Oswin made it for me, but we all have brain farts sometimes, I suppose," Missy said, "Funnily enough, that's where my teleporter is, too," she flipped open the handle to reveal a complex interface of very small buttons. "Oh, and, give my compliments to the cook – I've always loved Gazpacho soup." She disappeared in a blue flash of light, gone off to who knew where.

"…If she took the inhibitor with her…" Amy began.

"Then our powers should come back, but it might take a few minutes," said Martha.

"…Are you sure you won't give me a lift?" said Ashildr, "It's just, if she's pissed off, I'm basically stranded here."

"Why were you helping her?" Clara questioned.

"I thought it would be a laugh. It gets boring being millions of years old," she said, relatively indifferent.

"You let her kidnap my sister!"

"I didn't know anything about that," said Ashildr, "I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of your sister. I mean, first of all, she's hilarious-"

"Debatable," Donna muttered.

"Second of all, she can be incredibly dangerous when she puts her mind to it," said Ashildr, "I don't want her as my enemy. I have integrity."

"You have literally no integrity," said Clara.

"How dare you!"

"So… she brought us here… to give us… pirate hats and chicken nuggets… and now she's gone?" Amy asked.

"Who knows what she's up to," said Ashildr, "I once heard a story about her starting a drug dealing ring selling ketamine to middle-class parents in East London."

"That sounds very far-fetched," said Martha, "Why would she need to sell ketamine?"

"Something to do with a jetpack, I'm foggy on the details. Lift, though? She said the TARDIS was showing up any minute-" And Missy had been right. They heard the vworping echo through the Galley, the gaudiest fast food restaurant Martha had ever had the displeasure of stepping foot in. She'd never been happier than seeing the TARDIS at that moment, a beautiful indicator that she wasn't going to die stranded on a tropical island, drowned or stabbed or hanged or eaten alive by insane soldiers. It appeared in the centre of the room, thrummed to a halt, and the door creaked open. Jenny appeared in the entrance, wearing an apron with splotches of cake batter on the apron, her face, and her cast.

"I just had a very frantic phone call from Oswin from the future saying I have to come and rescue you five from being murdered by pirate skeletons?" Jenny said, unsurely.

"Chicken nuggets!" Rose shouted.

"Right… well, I'd love to hear an explanation for all this… but I'm in the middle of baking a big wedding cake, so… are they pirate hats?"

"Yes, and we'll be leaving them all behind," said Martha, "The Master gave us them. She orchestrated this whole thing. Said it was a hen party, for Rose."

"Why wasn't I invited!?"

"You're too useful," said Ashildr.

"What are you doing here?"

"Just… hanging out… can I have a lift back to Zeniph Nega? I was in the middle of a game of skrips when she came to recruit me," said Ashildr.

"I… fine, but this cake won't bake itself. Why didn't you teleport away?"

"Because Rose is drunk out of her mind and Missy has an adrenaline inhibitor which affects hundreds of miles of the Caribbean Sea she apparently blackmailed Oswin to build for her," Clara explained.

"Well… come on, then," Jenny stepped aside, holding the door open.

"And me?" Ashildr asked.

"Yes, you, as long as you don't hit me again," Jenny said angrily, "Now hurry up. I don't want my batter to congeal."