A/N: Nothing much happens in this chapter. But therefor you'll get lots of fluff in the next one ;D

And also:

An early Merry Christmas to all of you! ❤❤❤

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Vienna stared at me. She had followed us inside, one hand once again on her gun. "What… was that? What the hell?"

Dumbfounded, I blinked and then shook my head. "Uh… the drugs? He err… was a bit out of it there."

Her stare unnerved me, but it also kept me from running a finger over my lips. Right where he had kissed me. It had happened way too fast for me to react and now that it slowly sank in my heart did a strange little flip that it definitely wasn't supposed to do. He had been confused. That was it. There was nothing more to it. Why else would he do that? He had no reason for it and he hated humans anyway.

"Mhm sure… you're blushing."

I winced and turned away. "Shut up. And don't dare to do anything stupid. I'll stay here and hold watch."

Vienna didn't appear to be a bad person and she had all the right reasons to do what she wanted to do. The universe would be a better place without the Master in it.

But not for me.

I had spent decades trying to be who others wanted me to be, shaping myself after their view of what was right and wrong. No one ever gave me anything in return. And then there was the Master. This total prick with not even an ounce of consciousness, whose very definition of fun was to burn down places and rule and kill people left and right whenever. Of all people… he was the only one who wanted me. The real me. Not some mask, not some performance. Just me.

I knew this was selfish. I knew this was wrong. But I dragged a chair over and sat down in front of the bed anyway, the laser screwdriver in my hands, glaring up at the assassin. "You'll have to kill me first."

She sighed, running a hand through her long blond hair. "I guess, no one will die then. I swore to only take on targets who deserve their death. And you…" She looked me up and down. "I'm still not convinced you're acting on your own will. And if you do… well, it seems you might have your reasons for it."

"Probably," I murmured. "Can't remember them. He's my only way to get those memories back. I think. The Doctor was no help at all. Wish I could call him somehow. I don't… I hoped… he would come. Wouldn't he? You know him, right?"

"Yeah. We've met a few times. Didn't he give you anything? A tracker or at least a phone or anything?"

I shook my head. "No one dared to face the Master. He and Donna thought all of this here was on purpose. The flames…" I took a breath, remembering. "He didn't cause them. Just wanted to watch. But the Doctor took it all the wrong way. To be fair, we all did."

"Wait, so you came alone?" Although I was quite impaired when it came to reading faces, hers clearly said something like are you fucking nuts? "Why did the Doctor let you?"

"Cause 't was his idea." Perplexed silence. "He thought the Master wouldn't hurt me. I… don't know why."

"Definitely seems to be true." Vienna stared at the unconscious Time Lord.

All of his behaviour made no sense. The threats, followed by the more gentle side. Was all of it fake? In the end, it didn't matter that much. He just had to stay alive and I would find out. One way or the other.

Would I really be able to watch over him? Now that I sat down, my lids got heavier by the second, all the excitement pushed down on me, all the fear left me exhausted. But I couldn't let Vienna out of sight. I couldn't risk it.

"I tried to die," I eventually muttered. Talking might keep me awake. "He saved me, that's why he gave me a piece of his own life. Literally, if I got it right… and…" My head got a little dizzy too. I just wanted to sleep, just wanted the pain to stop.

What pain?

The world went dark around me, drowning in dancing black flakes in front of my eyes. I barely noticed sliding from the chair and landing on the ground, blood rushed through my ears as loud as if I would stand next to a waterfall and cold shivers ran through my body.

Vienna's voice barely rang through to me. Somehow I moved, got dragged. I remembered to struggle, but my body didn't obey me any longer. My tongue didn't allow me to form words, laying in my mouth like a dead snake. It took a while, but eventually the white noise calmed down and other noises made their way to my ears again.

"...n't you say they got you too?" Vienna's face came into view, the haze slowly fading. "It's not too much blood, you're lucky. But still… let me see what else that guy has in his drug cabinet."

And with that she vanished.

Blood? Oh, right. The shot through my shoulder. And the one that had grazed my arm. The shock must have numbed the pain until now. I reached up to the wound and winced at the touch. The bullet had gone straight through my clothes… and skin… and maybe bone? Had I even bones there? I moved the shoulder, trying to discern where my shoulder blade sat. The movement shot more pain through me, but it was actually quite bearable.

"Don't move so much," scolded Vienna. "You'll just widen the wound."

"Doesn't even bleed that much." I pursued my lips. "Stupid body. That collapse was an overreaction."

"Don't play tough." Carefully she inspected the hole, lifting up a scrap of cloth. "I don't think it hit anything important, you're lucky."

If that was the case… I stood up and at least tried to get past her and back into the bedroom. The laser screwdriver was still in there, if I could get it fast enough…

Vienna grabbed my arm. "Hey! Don't run off!"

"Let go!"

"Like hell I will!"

I struggled against her grip and tried to tear my arm away, but her strength far exceeded my own. Vienna drew me back, so, in a desperate attempt, I tried to head butt her.

No success.

"Stop struggling, you idiot. I'm trying to help."

"Yeah, by shooting him, if I let you, let me go!"

To my surprise, she really did and I stumbled away, not thinking about it. The other room was only some steps away and there it lay. The laser. I swiped it up from the floor and hurled around, only to see that Vienna hadn't moved an inch. No, she only stood there with an amused smirk on her face, waiting patiently for me to walk back, clutching my only weapon.

"You know," Vienna said. "I was making fun of him before, in the park when you napped. But the longer this… thing here is going on, I think I might have been on to something."

"What're you talking about?" I grumbled, then nodded to the other end of the room. "Over there. I don't think you can shoot from that angle."

"Wasn't going to anyway."

I glared at the woman, hoping it was clear that I didn't believe a word.

"No really. You're so protective, I want to find out why. Can I get to that wound now? It won't kill you now, but a bullet drags all sorts of dirt inside, grime and pieces of cloth and stuff. You don't want to get an infection and die from that, do you?"

Grumbling, I sat down on a chair and let her help me to get out of my upper clothes. Raising my arms so high hurt like hell and I clenched my teeth, suppressing a pained noise. Vienna leaned down to clean the blood with some cotton and alcohol. That hurt even more, but I knew she was right, it needed cleaning, so I endured the torture for as long as it lasted and gladly accepted Vienna's help with getting a bandage around the shoulder, before she examined my arm.

"You've done that a lot, haven't you?" I mumbled.

"Comes with the job." She grinned. "Have been wounded more times than I can count. And patched up at least as many." I hissed when she put alcohol on my arm. That wound was only minor, but she treated it anyway. "How about you? Other people would have reacted far worse to being shot. You don't seem the type, though. For getting into danger, I mean."

I grunted and shook my head. "No, definitely not. I'm useless in dangerous situations. Hate them anyway."

"Mhm… But you were with the Doctor?"

"Uh, yeah."

"It's just that he usually picks people that are a little more on the adventurous side themselves. From what I've heard. And the ones I've met."

I lowered my head, shame bubbled up from some place deep inside of me. Being not enough, that happened all the time, but it never stopped hurting. "Then maybe he lied about me being safe and actually wanted to get rid of me," I mumbled. "Wouldn't be the first time people do a thing like that."

"Oh, not the Doctor. He's too much of a do-gooder. I'll see if I find a way to contact him. If he really didn't dare to come here then now would be a good time. The baddy's down and the world's safe again."

"Don't do anything to him," I whispered. When push came to shove, I knew there would be nothing I could actually do to stop her. I was weak, slow, and had no combat experience. All I got was this laser screwdriver. But what good would it be if she was faster?

"Maybe it's good I didn't." Vienna sighed. "Now that I think about it, something's very wrong here."

"What do you mean?"

She crossed her arms and hummed, contemplating. "I don't believe it was actually the Master himself who gave me that contract."

"Huh? But you said…"

"He wasn't blond. The one I've met."

Right. That certainly would have been a detail to at least mention, or, in her case, mock him about.

I blinked. "It… might be a temporary thing? He didn't seem too bothered about it." That or the dying part had taken his priority.

Vienna looked in the direction of the bedroom, thinking for a while. I watched her face, the wrinkles, age and adventures had left there. She might have been in her forties maybe. The blond hair made her look younger, probably dyed anyway. I wondered for how many years she lived like this now and also what made her tick the way she did.

"You killed people too," I let her in on parts of my thoughts. "By contract yeah, but that's better how?"

Vienna looked back at me, raising an eyebrow. "Like I said, I only take on targets who deserve it."

"By whose standards?"

That threw her off guard. She stared at me for half a minute before quietly starting to laugh. "Oh, you're a clever one, aren't you?"

"Not really. 'S just a maybe too logical mind. Doesn't answer my question."

Her eyes twinkled, her lips stayed in a smile. "It's pretty obvious who the bad guys are, don't you think?"

"No? Why would that be obvious? What if you only see or know about one side of them? What if the bad stuff they do causes good stuff in the long run? What if you just misinterpret?"

Vienna glared at me, not with a bad expression. She simply seemed… dumbstruck. As if that question had either been the stupidest thing she had ever heard or the opposite and she had never thought about it like this.

"You don't need to defend him, you know? I won't murder the Master in his sleep."

It hadn't been a defense! Okay, maybe a little. "It wasn't… about him. I mean with everyone. How do you decide how someone is bad enough to deserve death?"

Vienna shrugged and suddenly smiled. "I simply try to keep the casualties down. One person dies, a hundred live? That's a win in my book. And maybe," she rose from her chair, "you should remember the sheer number of people whose blood are on his hands."

I stared at the ground, not quite sure what to make of this. "How does that work?" I muttered. "How do you see faces and people behind it? Those numbers… they are huge, yeah, but it feels like it's just… data in my head." Somewhere a war wages. The news tells you of the hundreds and maybe thousands of people dying each day. Each of them had a face, a story, and all life lost. It's impossible to ever see them all, remember them all, see more than a number on a screen. "How am I supposed to feel anything? And how am I supposed to hate the only one who ever respected me as a person and not as a pretty mask? How, Vienna?"

The assassin just looked at me for a long while. Then she shook her head and walked away. "I don't know. But I see why he likes you."