A/N: I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but ehhhhhhhh, whatever. The next chapters will hopefully make up for it.
Also, happy new year everyone!
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The Master made a mental note to not get drunk again anytime soon, if ever again. The evening on the small island had been fun, no doubt about that, but now there was something missing. And he wasn't entirely sure if his way of coping, some hours before wouldn't slap him in the face all too soon.
Images of the past haunted his sleep while his body got rid of the toxin. Images of how he had stumbled over this stupid woman somewhere in a too small town. She had looked more like a boy with the short pixie cut and the nerdy glasses. And then that thing also possessed the audacity to have the same name as his former wife. As if the Master needed any reminder of that one. He dreamed of the moment he found that girl again, somewhere by the ocean, red blood dripping from her wrists, telling him to just let her die.
But the Master couldn't. Not when he had felt something in her mind cry out. Something that felt like it belonged to him. A mystery. And so he had broken the promise to let her sleep and had pushed some of his own life force inside this dying body to bring her back. To find out why the heck he would ever go and leave some sort of marker inside that human's mind to begin with.
He had never found out, in the end. Not really. He also had never planned to get attached to the little ape. But she had refused to stay away from him, too fascinated, too lonely, too curious. Even when he had scared her, she had always come back.
Something shifted atop of his chest. The Master slipped out of the not-sleep half dream, realising two things. First, the alcohol was gone. His body had done its job. Second, an arm lay over his chest, and it was attached to a certain Time Lord who slept soundly next to him.
The Master scrunched up his nose, contemplating pushing the arm away. When had it happened, anyway, that he allowed anyone to get so close to him? Not long ago and he wouldn't have even thought about staying the night, no matter the circumstances. It all had changed over the past year. The ape had made him soft, he decided. It was time to change that again.
Abruptly, he sat up and tossed the Doctor's arm down, startling him awake.
"Wh's happn'd?"
"I'm not your cuddle toy," the Master grunted, earning himself only a confused look.
The Doctor sat up and rubbed over his face with both hands, then looked up and suddenly beamed. "Hello there. Still here?"
Alright, this situation was uncomfortable. The Master really didn't want to talk. Not about why he hadn't left to sleep somewhere else, not about what they had done the previous evening and most certainly not about what this might mean to the way they now stood with one another.
"Tea?"
"Huh?"
"You want some tea?" The Doctor still wore that stupid smile.
"No. We don't have time for this nonsense. Let's get back to the TARDIS. Grab your human and I'll fetch my Vortex Manipulator, we'll meet on deck in ten minutes."
With that the Master slipped into his shoes and enjoyed a few seconds of stunned silence, that, of course, didn't last.
"You still have that thing? I thought I took it away." The Doctor winced subtly, as if the thought reminded him of the state of prisoner the Master had held up until now. "And why such a hurry all of a sudden?"
The Master just shrugged. "I have enough of boat trips."
"Mhm… right… right then. I'll get Donna."
He didn't really listen.
Waves lazily sloshed against the ship, muffled by wood and metal. Each one was slow, taking its time to draw out the eternal movement. Something inside the ship creaked, maybe one of the countless wooden beams or planks, sighing out the burden of holding the ship together. The Master closed his eyes and sank into the sea of noises, just breathing. Was there a seagull? No, this planet didn't have them. He needed to stay calm, needed to focus. What were the next steps? What options did he have?
The waves didn't care. Time slowly ticked by, unfazed. Not even the wood gave him the answer.
Probably because he already knew.
None.
It was that simple, for once. There was no way to bring back the dead.
The Master pinched the bridge of his nose and fought down the drumming, pushed it back to a part of his mind he could almost ignore. That had to be enough. He couldn't allow them to take his mind… again. He needed to stay clear, so he could listen to something else, something that sat deep inside of him. To the tiny spark of life force he had once given away, only to take it back on a whim.
It had seemed like it would work. Every strand of his mind had felt it. A whisper in the darkness of a shared space, intertwined and one.
Now, this tiny spark was no longer preserving a life. It sat inside his chest, somewhere, one with the rest of his life force. And yet… yet it was to him as if he could make it out. A little light that had been touched by another person and was now, forever, changed.
How could he have known?
The Master listened into time. Two minutes had passed since the Doctor had left. Another stupid decision. It would be a good idea to get up and move out of this cabin, away from the memory of a heated moment. They hadn't shared intimacy like that since they had been young. Buried days in red grass. Like an old human photograph, those with the sepia tint.
He huffed at the thought. Time Lords were rulers over time itself, but it were the humans who had invented a colour for nostalgia.
The Doctor hadn't run last night. Not like he had done in all those centuries before. Whenever they crossed paths, whenever there was the danger of getting too close, no matter in what way. The Doctor had always run.
But not this time.
.
"Oi, what's with the sudden hurry?" blurted Donna as soon as she saw the Master. "I thought we were havin' a nice vacation." Her eyes searched the deck of the ship until her eyebrows rose high. "'N where' S Lucy? Not on the island still?"
"No." It was all the Master said, although he knew it wouldn't be enough. They glared at him with a thousand yet unspoken questions. And he couldn't tell them, not about what was true, anyway. But that didn't matter. The Master knew how to craft a well working lie. Take some strands of truth and weave them together into something pretty. "She went home. I brought her back last night."
Bravo, his voice hadn't shown the tiniest crack, not a single slip.
"Home?" Donna repeated, mouth hanging open. "Why would she go home to that horrible woman? Is she… oh, no wait… I thought it had been her dad who had died, but it was… her mom. What? This is confusing. I can't remember which one's right."
"Because both are true." The Doctor gritted his teeth, hands buried deep inside his pockets. He fixated the Master with a glare. "You changed her past."
There you go. A truth he could literally feel. What better ruse was there? "It wasn't my idea. And if someone tells me they want to kill their abusive, violent mom, who am I to say no?" The Master produced his nastiest grin. "Oh, come on, Doctor. There's nothing wrong about this. One monster died and therefore her father still lives. She gets a place to stay, a family, a happy end." He made sure to put some extra drama into the last words.
"It could have caused some severe damage to her timeline," the Doctor grumbled. "You know that as well as I. "What if that had erased her from the current events?"
The Master shrugged. "I'm still a Time Lord. Of course I checked the time streams, duh! Can we go back now?"
"She could at least have said goodbye." Donna pursed her lips. I'll miss her. And her little dragon too."
Right. He hadn't seen the small fletching ever since he had come back from the TARDIS. Maybe it had left, now that its guardian wasn't there anymore. The Master didn't really care. When he had stolen the egg from the corpse of the dragon, he had hoped to raise a weapon, but instead the thing was only as big as a rat and far from dangerous.
"We could still just sail back to the TARDIS." The Doctor eyed the Vortex Manipulator with a sceptic look. "It doesn't look like it can carry three people."
"You think so?" The Master lifted the lid to the mainboard, showing its wiring. "Worked fine for two. A third shouldn't be a problem."
To his surprise, the Doctor smirked. And he didn't like that, at all. Usually, the Doctor wasn't the smartest with engineering. That had always been the Master. And they both knew it. Which could only mean that he was overlooking something.
"Your fuse will break if you carry us all," said the Doctor, tapping against the display. "Last time you travelled with one human. Now we have two Time Lords."
"And one human," chimed in Donna.
"Ugh. No, I haven't calculated that in, crap." The Master checked the device's bowels, but could find no flaw in the Doctor's reasoning. They were trapped on board of this ship. "I could still travel alone and lea-"
"Oh, don't you dare, moon boy! You're the only one who knows how to sail this thing!"
"It doesn't need sailing," groaned the Master. "It has an engine. The sailing was just for fun."
"What's so bad 'bout it anyway, all of a flippin' sudden? You stole the damn thing!"
"It stopped being fun."
"Ah, cause your girlfriend left, I see."
The Doctor trod between the two, holding his hands up to soothe them. "Don't fight, please. Master, give me your Vortex Manipulator, I go and get the TARDIS, then we can all return."
"So you can keep it and trap me again?" the Master snarled. He held the device out of reach. It didn't matter what was between them, if anything true at all. He didn't want to be a prisoner any longer.
The Doctor's face fell and took on that look of a lost puppy it so often had in that regeneration. Once, he had promised there wouldn't be any cuffs anymore, but he had never released the Master from his state as a prisoner.
Except for last night, when he had simply accepted that the Master would leave.
So maybe…
"You'll get it back." The Doctor did not avert his gaze and he did not shrink. If anything, he seemed to grow a little; the decision was made.
Time relentlessly ticked by. The Master was aware of every nuance of its passing. His counterpart had chosen. So what would his own move reveal? For centuries they had known nothing but the fight… and the running. Two opposing forces, eternally spiralling around each other.
Until three little words had been spoken.
And one little flame had died.
The Master opened the clasp of his wristband and held the device out to the Doctor, who took it with a firm nod and disappeared.
The choice, he realised, had been made long ago. And if the Doctor was willing to accept him, or at least try to, then maybe…
Yeah, maybe.
That was all he had, right now. But it also was more than he had had all those years since they travelled together.
He could work with that.