Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She stumbles back into the TARDIS numb with shock, closes the doors behind her, and leans against them heavily. Her chest is heaving, her hearts beating rapidly. She can barely sunk in air. Distantly, she reels. Old grief is already seeping through her chest, settling into the hole that never really filled.

It was missed, she thinks, all that old grief. It was missed.

Before she realizes what she’s about to do, she’s already in the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets. Dried goods, explosives, spices, and…

Finally , she comes upon the cabinet she rarely uses. Nearly empty, because this regeneration isn’t one to drink. But there is a single bottle of wine, red, which doesn’t mean anything to her. It’s been too long since she’s actually drank to appreciate the varieties. But it doesn’t matter. One bottle—of any color of the rainbow—is enough.

Cups. Who needs cups? Cups are for company, and that’s the last thing she wants. She removes the cork with some difficulty—a lot of difficulty—and wanders into the console room, bottle gripped by the neck, taking swigs and wrinkling her nose each time it goes down.

“Ooh. I don’t like this.” Takes another sip. “Ugh, not that at all.” Another. “Did I really enjoy this?”

About four or five long swigs in, however, though the taste grows more bitter, her mind starts to loosen, unraveling like a ball of string. Her head is light and floaty, the world around her rotating slowly. Muddled. Distant. She likes it.

Distant is brilliant. Distant is safe. The further she is from anything that can touch her, the less pain she will feel. The less she’ll remember of that smoke-smeared sky, the city stripped to bone and char. The less she’ll be tempted to count— 

“No,” she gasps, and brings the bottle to her lips, takes another enormous swallow, and nearly spits it out for the sour taste. Each sip is worse, the taste lingering on her tongue and turning bitter. She doesn’t like it, but at this point, they could pry the bottle from her cold, dead hands.

She’s not sure who they are. The fam? Ridiculous—she’ll never tell them of this. They don’t deserve to know of so much blood and destruction, don’t need to feel sorry for her. And furthermore, childishly, she doesn’t want to, because they won’t get it. They could never understand, not even Graham, what it means to lose in the entirety. Not a wife, not friends, or family, but a world. A home.

There’s a dizzying sensation, she thinks, to know that she has nowhere left to go. She felt it after the Time War too, always tugging at her heels, forcing her to run lest she feel it. To stand still is to recall the great, dizzying emptiness of being the last. To know that she needn’t bother turning her back on her home, because her home is already gone.

It’s a terrible feeling, the Doctor thinks bitterly, to not have something at her back. A home, even one in a pocket universe—a place to return to—is a comfort you don’t even notice until it’s gone. Easy to ignore, easy to hate, until you’re the last of your own lot, and you’re back at square one, carrying a title— Time Lord —that doesn’t mean a thing anymore.

She’s drunk. She can really feel it now, the alcohol sloshing through her brain, her grip on the bottle both loose and tight as a vise, everything around her moving just a little too much. She staggers to the stairs and falls against them, wincing as they jab into her back. Useless stairs, she thinks woozily. Too hard. Easy to trip on. She should fix them, but she can’t be bothered. What does it matter? She’s the only one here.

Not true. Her fam will be here soon enough, even if she can’t bear to face them. She can’t bear to be alone more, and that’s the problem. She’ll put on a smile and skip around the TARDIS and be happy, and the whole time she’ll be begging in her head please, please don’t ask me anything, please don’t leave . She needs company. She needs to be alone.

Except all of a sudden, she can’t stand it. A surge of appalling loneliness rushes through her, the bottom of her stomach dropping out, and she feels sick. Not alcohol sick, but lonely-sick. The way she feels when, every once in a while, she looks at her fam’s faces and recalls how temporary they are. How temporary she isn’t.

She can’t do it. She needs company. She can’t bear to face them. She needs—she needs— 

The Doctor closes her eyes, and tilts her head back to the ceiling. She breathes in, once.

Contact .

It takes a moment. Actually, it takes several, and in the quiet, the emptiness, she’s terrified he won’t answer.

Then her head fills with a sigh, harsh and angry and full of I-could-kill-you-right-now-I-want-to-kill-you-I-want-to-see-you-die— 

The Doctor smiles, her eyes still closed. “Hello, old friend.”

There’s a moment of silence, blank with surprise, then her head fills again with crowded thoughts, screaming in anger and hate and a million ways he would get revenge if he could— 

I’d-kill-you-I’d-kill-you-I’d-kill-you —

The Doctor shrugs, and takes another swig of wine, grimacing at the taste. The Master pauses, and she knows he can tell what she’s doing.

Then he laughs, the sound filling her head. Drinking your troubles away, Doctor?

“Shut up,” the Doctor growls, and waves a vague hand toward the console room. “Go away.”

The Master only laughs louder, cackling and ugly, filled with an anger that borders on hysterical.

Oh, you . He chuckles, but he’s seething. I just picked up the phone, Doctor. You’re the one who made the call. Let me guess—lonely?

“No,” the Doctor snaps, and goes to take another sip, then decides against it. The world is already spinning, and she has things she wants to say. “I’ve got friends, thanks. Brilliant ones. And you—you’re the one stuck in—in—”

Oh, I’ll get out of here. He laughs, like it’s such a small thing. Like she hadn’t won . Sooner, if I don’t waste time talking to you .

The Doctor balks. “S’not a waste,” she mumbles. “I’ve got things to tell you.”

A pause. Really.

“Yes,” the Doctor retorts. “Useful things. Secrets. You’d want to hear them.”

He sighs, loud and long. Tell me.

“You first,” the Doctor replies. 

What?

“You first.”

A pause, as if gauging. Deciding. Then— 

I was planning to kill Barton once I’d finished my plan. Well, personally. He was incredibly annoying.

It’s barely a secret. The Doctor frowns. “I could’ve guessed that.”

Another pause. Then, he growls, Tell me, Doctor.

The Doctor sighs. She reaches for her bottle, takes a long pull, and forces herself to swallow it. Disgusting, it really is.

“My secret is…” She waits a second, dragging it out, then waves a vague hand to wherever the Master might be standing. “I hate you.”

There’s a long, long silence. So long, in fact, she thinks the Master might have ended their conversation. 

Then, he starts to laugh. Quiet at first, then it grows, filling her head and the room, bouncing between her ears, forcing a grimace. It’s making her nauseous, all the noise, though that might be the wine playing a part as well.

Doctor. She can almost see him shaking his head. In his voice is anger, hatred, glee. You might as well have told you that you love me .

The Doctor pauses, the bottle halfway to her lips. Then she sits up slowly, her hearts pounding in her ribcage.    

“I did not,” she says, slowly, dumbly, “I did not.”

Sure. She can see him now, holding his stomach with laughter, wiping tears from his eyes. That grin spread across his face, the same one across every regeneration, the one she knows . C’mon, Doctor. It’s just you and me, now. And you’re calling me in the middle of the night, just to tell me you hate me. How else will I know you care?

“Shut up,” she hisses, and leans forward, elbows on her knees, bottle dangling in her hands. She’s really sick now, she can feel it. The room is spinning unpleasantly. The bottle is suspiciously light. “I do not. I hate you and your stupid face, every single one of them. I don’t even care, you know that? If you died, I wouldn’t even care.”

Then why didn’t you kill me?

“Because—because—” She’s grasping for an answer, and she can’t find one. Because she doesn’t kill, but that’s a lie, she kills when it suits her. Because he deserves a second chance, everybody does, except he doesn’t, he never has, and she’s already tried giving him one besides. Because—because—because— 

“You’re a jerk,” she says, when she really means I do care, and I hate that I care, I shouldn’t care because you’re a monster and I hate you because to love you is immoral — 

But he knows what she means anyway. He sighs, a quiet exhale, and reaches out through their bond, and she knows that she shouldn’t accept the comfort he’s giving, the tentative brush against her mind, but she does anyway, because she’s drunk and alone and drowning.

You want to know a secret, Doctor? he whispers, and numbly, she nods.  

I hate you too.

Then he’s gone, the contact shattered painfully, like glass smashed over a rock, and she knows he did that on purpose too. Made it hurt, because that’s how he says things.

But it doesn’t matter. She knows what he means anyway.

Chapter Text

She doesn’t call him again. She goes a week and five planets without so much of a thought (which is also a lie), and doesn’t call him.

Then, a week later, it’s Graham’s birthday. She’d forgotten all about it—lousy friend she is—and might not even have remembered on the day of, except Yaz bakes a cake and Ryan breaks out champagne as a surprise. The Doctor doesn’t drink, especially after last week, except that it’s Graham’s birthday and she’s already too lousy of a friend to politely decline. So, she has a glass.

She likes this stuff, actually. It’s fizzy and nice, not too sour at all, and the only downside is that she doesn’t feel much after the first glass. So she has another one.

That’s not suspicious, in itself. The others have more than one glass too, and there’s a space of time, somewhere between that second and fifth glass, where it’s quite wonderful. It’s a hazy, quiet moment, just friends and drink and food, the four of them crowded around a small, wooden table, laughing over stupid jokes. She revels in it precisely because she is drunk, which means she doesn’t have to think about anything else.

The problem is, the others stop around three or four glasses, and start giving her worried looks when she’s five drinks in. It’s not that she does it on purpose; she drinks on reflex, because there’s a drink in her hand and it feels good, and that’s what she’s supposed to do. That’s what humans do at parties, isn’t it? They drink until they’re drunk, and she is, without a doubt, drunk. 

“M’fine,” she tells them, and they don’t believe her, which is unfortunate. Somewhere around the seventh, Ryan gently pries the drink from her hand, pours it out and places the glass in the sink. She watches him woozily, without even the sensibilities to protest. Might be for the better. Maybe.

“I’m going to bed,” he announces, and Yaz quickly agrees, after sharing a look she can’t decipher with the others. 

“Me too,” she decides, and tries to stand up, only to be hit by a wave of dizziness. “Mmm...in a bit.”

Ryan chuckles and she grins broadly at him, because it’s good to make your friends laugh, isn’t it? They’re buying it, the three of them, her laughter and grins and drunken foolishness. Champagne is staving off the edges of grief, though even now she can feel the tendrils creeping up like vines, sinking thorned limbs into her mind. 

“M’fine,” she repeats, though she’s not sure who it’s for, and waves a hand vaguely in their direction. “Oh, c’mon. Don’t look at me like that. Off to bed, we’ve got a day tomorrow.”

They hesitate, but file out, Ryan and then Yaz. It’s only Graham who lingers for a moment, his hand on the back of her chair, not touching, but she can feel the warm presence, meant to be comforting. It’s only intrusive, if only because she won’t let him in.

“Are you sure, Doc?” he asks gently, and she raises her head, which until then had been moments from sinking to the table.

“Mmm?”

“That you’re fine.” His grip is tight upon the back of the chair—she can hear his nails scrabbling against the wood, too loud and too close. He leans in, and his voice drops, worried. “Because you don’t—er, you seem a bit—”

“M’fine,” she says, forceful this time, and even when she’s drunk she’s got enough fire to make him back off. He leans away, but his hand lingers on the chair for another second. Then he reaches out to pat her on the shoulder, an awkward, grandfatherly gesture.

“Alright, Doc.” His voice is a sigh. “Alright. Let me know if you need anything, yeah?”

She barely hears him. Her head is already sinking to the table. She’s held him off, and the resulting emotion, muddied with drink, is a strange mix of satisfaction and sudden loneliness. All of a sudden, she doesn’t want him to leave. No—she doesn’t want to be alone. There’s a difference.

The moment he’s gone, she’s resting her cheek against the table, the surface cool beneath her skin, and letting her eyes slide shut. For a long moment, she does nothing. Then— 

Contact .

It takes him several moments to answer.

Hello, Doctor. You don't sound good.

“You destroyed our home,” she spits, suddenly irritable. “What do you expect me to sound like?”     

He chuckles, this time all sympathy, and somehow she hates that even more. Doctor. If you knew what I’d discovered— 

“Tell me,” she breathes, her cheek pressed against the table, her eyes boring into the wall opposite. She can’t raise the whereabouts to move. “Just tell me .”

No. He’s petulant, like a child. Peevish. Why should I?

“Because we’re friends,” she says to the wall. It occurs to her that she might as well be talking to one, and the urge to laugh rises hysterically in her throat. “Or we were. We’re something.”

We’re nothing , he growls, with such force that she knows he’s lying. I hate you, Doctor.

“You love me.”

Boldness surprises even her. It stops the Master in his tracks. For a long moment, there’s silence. Then— 

You’re drunk again.

“So?” She frowns at the far wall. “And you didn’t deny it.”

I’ll deny it now . She hears a sigh rattle through their connection. And tell you something along with it. You’re pathetic, Doctor. I hate you, and you’re pathetic. Don’t you have something to do, besides bothering me? Humans to spill your guts to?

It stings, even though it shouldn’t. Her breath hitches, and for the sparest second she’s wide open, all the pain-grief-can’t-tell-the-fam-have-to-hide , and even though she shuts it off a moment later, she knows he sees.

Oh. Oh, my dear— Laughter again, this time edged with cackling glee. Oh, you can’t tell them, can you? Don’t want to let them know who you really are. So you hide, and drink, and call me— 

“Shut up,” she says, and goes to slam the connection shut, but he edges in a hand and keeps it open.

Loneliness. His voice smacks of satisfaction. Last of the Time Lords once more. The poor Doctor, all alone in time and space— 

“Not true,” she gasps, though suddenly her hearts are pounding with it, her stomach curling— “I have you.”

A pause. She can hear it over their connection, the very silence of it, heavy and disdainful.

Oh, dear friend. His voice drips with it. But I don’t want you.

Then, before she can retort, before she can even summon a reaction, he jerks his support from the connection, sending it reeling shut. Telepathic silence crashes over her, and for a moment, the Doctor just sits there, head bowed. Then, slowly, she forces herself upright.

Silence crowds. It creeps into her, wraps around her fuzzy head and stays there. In the distance, she can hear the pitch of loneliness, encroaching. Drink, she realizes, could only keep it at bay so long.

“You’re a liar,” she whispers into the bright silence of the kitchen, the tile and wood. Nobody answers her. She’s not even trying to establish a connection. “You’re a liar, and I hate you. And I’m never going to talk to you again.”

Two, she thinks humorlessly, can play the lying game.

Chapter Text

Drinking is a funny habit, the Doctor thinks. Easy to fall into, hard to break out of. She instructs the TARDIS to empty the liquor cabinet, and pretends not to think twice about it. It’s not the alcohol that’s the problem, she knows. She’s not addicted—doesn’t even like the taste. Rather, it’s the lack of inhibition that comes along with it, the loosened morals and lowered guard. 

She doesn’t need those things. What she needs is to grieve, and then move on, because that’s what people do. Her people are gone. She is alive. She survived once before, and she can do it again.

(But what is survival, one part of her whispers, without living? What is a traveler without a home, what is a friend without someone to turn to? Who is she, with nothing at her back?

She doesn’t know. So she doesn’t answer.)

Not drinking is easy, because she never liked it, anyway. Acting normal is a bit harder, now that her friends have started to see. She grimaces at it, because they’re trying in their adorable human way to help, and she wants none of it. Ryan and Yaz bake cookies, and Graham makes her tea though she doesn’t ask for it. Sometimes, when she falls asleep doing repairs, she awakes with a blanket pulled to her shoulders.

It’s nice. It’s thoughtful. Sometimes it draws tears to her eyes, pathetic, willful tears, the kind spun out of the fragility that sits inside her heart, and threatens to break with every moment. She’s not so strong, she’s quickly finding out, as she once thought she might be. Losing Gallifrey the first time brought her to her knees. Losing it a second time is like a boot to her back, pushing her into the dirt.

But she doesn’t call him. She goes about her days, and takes the fam traveling, and works on repairs. She thinks about him, because there’s nobody left to think about that doesn’t make her hearts crack in two, but she doesn’t call him.

Until, one day, she has no choice.

That’s a lie. She always has a choice, because there’s nothing necessary about a call to somebody she should never be talking to. But this time—this time— 

This time happens when she’s not drunk at all. This time happens because she happens to be walking past the kitchen, and completely-by-accident stumbles upon a conversation she should never have heard at all.

“You know who still gives me the heebie-jeebies? That Master guy.” It’s Graham’s voice, accompanied a moment later by Yaz’s. The Doctor stops in her tracks. 

“Oh, me too,” Yaz agrees, only for Ryan to chime in with a disbelieving snort.

“Really, Yaz? Because you were super cute with him at the party.”

“Ryan!” Yaz hisses. “He’s a genocidal maniac! And I was not! I didn’t even know—”

“That he was gonna kill us all?” Ryan’s voice is still teasing, like a brother’s. The Doctor resists the urge to barge into the conversation. It’s like hearing a good friend be torn apart, except it’s not like that at all, because they have a right. The Doctor has got nothing to do with it.

“Well, yeah,” Yaz admits, then hastens to add, “but he was doing it for show, anyway. And I weren’t buying into it.”

“Yeah, sure—” Ryan begins, only to be cut off by a cluck of Graham’s tongue.

“Oi, son, lay off her. She didn’t know about him. And besides, with apologies to Yaz—”

The Doctor is leaning against the door, all casualness gone. Should somebody open it, she’ll fall flat upon her face.

“—that man has eyes for nobody but her.”

The Doctor’s blood runs cold. Distantly, there’s a pause. Then Ryan snorts, as if he doesn’t believe it. Or at least, so Graham seems to take it, because a moment later he jumps in again, this time defensive. 

“Oh, you don’t believe me, son?” The Doctor can almost see him gesticulating. “Listen, I know blokes! They’d do anything to get a woman’s attention, and that includes blowing up whole planets, you mark my words.”

It’s bad word choice, and nothing more. A coincidence. 

It doesn’t stop the Doctor’s hearts from plunging to her stomach.

There’s another pause, then Yaz says, “Okay, but if the Doctor used to be a man—”

The Doctor doesn’t stick around to hear their amateur dissection of Time Lord gender binaries. She pushes off from the wall and dives down the hallway, to the direction of her room. Dimly, her head is spinning, because a realization is picking at her, one she can’t allow to surface. If she does, she’ll drown in it.

As it is, she makes it to her bed before her legs give out beneath her. It occurs to her, as her face hits the pillows, that she’s overreacting. This is not a big deal. This is not news. Even the Master’s confession— how else would I get your attention? —is something she’s long since suspected. 

“Overreacting,” she gasps, and the sound is swallowed by the pillow. “M’being stupid. This is stupid.”

It’s not stupid. It is. No—it’s real, and it’s picking at her, daring her to stare the theory in the face. To put two and two together, to finish the equation, of which she herself is only a part of.

The Doctor’s morals plus destruction times magnitude equals her attention. Simple. How had she not seen it before?

Except she might be lying to herself. She might be way off base. She might be— 

It doesn’t matter what she might be. She has to know.

The Doctor rolls onto her back, and stares at the ceiling. It depicts nothing but the blackness of space, and she falls into it, wide-eyed. In her head, she’s already reaching for that tendril, that connection.

Contact .

It takes him a moment to answer, and when he does, it comes with a laugh.

Drunk again, Doctor?

“No,” she says to the ceiling. Her hearts are pounding, pounding, pounding. “Tell me something.”

No .

“Why’d you do it?”

A pause. Do what?

“Destroy it,” the Doctor says. “Destroy Gallifrey. Why?”

Another, longer pause. Then, I assume you found my message.

“Of course I found your message,” the Doctor growls. “I don’t care about whatever bloody feud you had with the Time Lords. Why’d you do it?”

He laughs then, a quiet chuckle. You think I had other motives? Isn’t the destruction of everything we know to be true enough of a justification?

“Not for you,” the Doctor replies. The Master only laughs harder.

Dear Doctor, you don’t think this has something to do with you, do you?

“Tell me it doesn’t,” the Doctor whispers. For half a second, she doesn’t even care if he lies. “Just tell me you didn’t do it for me.”

For several aching seconds, there’s no reply. In it, she nearly thinks she’s lost the connection. Then— 

You don’t even care about the Time Lords. What do you care if they’re gone?

“I want a home,” the Doctor whispers. “I want a place to go back to.”

You never went back there anyway.

“But—” He’s right, and she hates it, because that’s not the point . “I don’t want to be the last. I don’t want to be alone.”

Is that why you call me?

He’s smug, self-satisfied, the smile on his face dripping through their connection. She nearly screams. She doesn’t. Instead, her hands dig into the blankets on her bed, curling into the fabric.

“I just want an answer,” she forces out. “And for you to tell the truth.”

That’s a lie, and he knows it. She wants him to tell her what she wants to hear, that the destruction of Gallifrey has nothing to do with her, that she’s an innocent in its twice-spilled blood, that she can wash her hands. 

That’s what she wants, and he knows that, and it’s precisely why he won’t give it.

He laughs again, loud and hard-edged. My dearest, oldest friend. I destroyed Gallifrey because I had to make them pay. Because I couldn’t let them get away with what they had done to us.

“And that’s it,” the Doctor whispers. Her hands are digging into the sheets, white-knuckled.

Well… He draws it out, relishing in the torment. Sometimes, flowers just won’t cut it.

She throws him out of her head. It’s so fast, she doesn’t even have time to catch his laughter, high and gleeful, but it echoes around her skull anyway, a stinging reminder. She flops onto her stomach, presses her pillow over her ears, and tries to stop gasping for breath. Her hearts are slamming against her ribcage.

A love letter. Gallifrey destroyed, for a schoolchild’s note passed across the classroom. She wants to scream. She wants to kill him. She wants to make him suffer. 

She does none of those things. Instead, she presses the pillow tighter over her ears, buries her nose into the blankets, and tries not to cry.

Chapter Text

“Doctor, are you sure you’re alright?”

The Doctor, crouched low over the device upon the ground, screwdriver in hand, doesn’t immediately look up. She pauses, sonic hovering, then stifles a sigh.

“I’m fine, Yaz.”

Yaz studies her with dark, worried eyes. The Doctor isn’t looking up, but she can just imagine her biting her lip, concern clear upon her face.

“Yeah, okay.” There’s a pause. Then, a sucked in breath, determined. “Only you seem a little—“

The Doctor catches her hand at the edge of her vision, fluttering as if she can’t quite describe what’s happening with her. The Doctor hesitates for a long moment, then glances up, not at Yaz, but at Graham and Ryan. In a better world they’d be right here, distracting Yaz from her questions.

But they’re not. They’re talking to the locals, lovely gilled folk, reassuring them that whatever the Doctor has found at the edge of their village is nothing to worry about. In reality, the Doctor doesn’t know if it’s something to worry about. Which is precisely why she’s scanning it.

She stands abruptly, brushing her trousers off, and turns, ignoring Yaz’s confused look.

“Going to talk to the locals,” she says. “Make sure they’re standing back.”

Yaz stands too, trailing after her. “But I thought you said it probably isn’t—“

“Probably isn’t,” the Doctor reminds her. “I want to be sure.”

“Okay.” Yaz doesn’t argue. She follows her, feet sinking into the loose dirt of a turned up field, as the Doctor approaches the people clustered around Ryan and Graham.

“You lot!” she calls as she nears. “I need you all to stand back!”

The locals look to each other, passing worried looks and concerned warbling mutters.

“I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous,” one of them calls back. The Doctor shakes her head.

“I need to do more scans to be sure,” she says. “In the meantime, I need you all to stand back!”

She waves her hands to accompany the statement, and they all seem to get it. The locals start to nod, and drift away, until only Graham, Ryan and Yaz remain, studying her uncertainly.

“Hey, it’s not really dangerous, yeah?” Ryan asks, concern creasing his brow.

The Doctor shrugs. “Not entirely sure. It’s looking okay, for now, but—“

“So it’s supposed to be beeping?”

The Doctor stops, and frowns. “What?”

“Beeping.” Graham points over her shoulder. “Like that.”

“Like—“ the Doctor turns around, and her hearts plummet. Because Graham is right. The device is beeping, a steady, quiet sound, and a light is flashing, which, as she watches, grows faster and faster. “Oh. Oh no, no, no, no—“

“Doc, is that bad?” Graham sounds significantly uneasy. “Because that looks like—“

“A bomb,” the Doctor breathes. Quickly, she waves a hand behind her. “You lot, get back.”

“But—“ Yaz begins, but the Doctor is already pushing past her, striding forward, sonic out, praying this will work—

“Doctor!” Yaz falls, and the Doctor hears slipping footsteps behind her, a whole group of them, and fear leaps in her throat. Without thinking, she spins around.

“I told you all, get—“

She doesn’t have time to finish. A final beep sounds in her ears, loud and insistent, and for a skipped second it goes quiet. The Doctor has only a moment to realize what that means.

Then, the entire world blows up.

——————

She straggles awake, bleary and confused, and doesn’t know where she is. The entire world is a sharp landscape of white, shelves and walls and beds—

Beds. A curtain. Rounded edges, a scratchy blanket. Her sleeve, when she dazedly lifts her arm, is clothed in simple white pajamas.

A hospital. She’s in a hospital.

“My friends,” she gasps, and immediately a nurse is upon her, pushing her gently back into bed, and that’s when the Doctor realizes she’d been trying to sit up. “My friends are—“

“You need to calm down.” This nurse is all business and no nonsense, her voice clipped and her hands gentle but firm. “I’m sorry, dear, but your friends are fine and you need to sleep.”

“Need to check—“ She has to get out of bed, she has to find them, because it was her fault, wasn’t it? Hadn’t checked the bomb properly, hadn’t done things right, hadn’t—

There’s a voice, that same nurse, talking, only she realizes a moment later it’s not directed at her.

“Yes, doctor—I agree, okay, five mg of Axipro, just as usual—“

Axipro, the Doctor recalls, is a strong sleep medication, something she doesn’t want at all, except the nurse is already leaning over and fiddling with an IV.

“No—no—“ Her voice is washed out and thin, and the nurse takes no notice. “My friends—“

“Your friends are fine,” the nurse soothes, but she doesn’t understand that the Doctor needs to check.

“I need—“ But it’s too late, she realizes distantly, because the room is weaving and her own head is spinning pleasantly, her body going leaden despite how she fights to stay awake. Her strength is seeping away, but her fight stays, and it occurs to her that she has to do something. Anything.

With her last spark of consciousness, she gathers up all her psychic energy and casts it out desperately like a fishing reel, searching.

She remembers only too late that her friends are not attuned to her psychic wavelength, that they won’t be able to pick it up, but she doesn’t have time to reel it back before the drugs drag her into unconsciousness.

She never reaches her friends. Instead, she reaches someone else.

————

Floating. She’s floating.

Distantly, the Doctor realizes that she is not quite asleep, but at the same time, she is far from awake. Not human, she recalls dimly, as if through water, and not on the list of species they recognize, so of course the meds won’t affect her as they’re supposed to. They do half a job, leaving her in between, and she cries out, but nobody answers.

Until somebody does.

Doctor, Doctor. What’s gotten into you?

The voice is familiar, warm and exasperated and layered with an anger she doesn’t understand.

“You,” she slurs, “You’re—mmm—“

She can’t make words, can’t even think, and there’s a silence on the other end, a confusion that halts even the simmering rage.

What?

“My friends—“ But this person is her friend, isn’t he? Only—only—

Something’s wrong. She can’t understand what’s happening, she’s trapped in her own head, can’t move, can barely speak, and somebody—somebody—

“Where are you?” she begs, and she’s not sure who she’s begging to. “Where am I?”

In your own head. The voice sounds faintly, vindictively, amused. I presume. And this is incredibly entertaining.

“I need my friends,” she cries, weak as a kitten, and feels the ghost of a hand on her arm, then a chuckle, deep and satisfied.

What am I, then? Nothing?

“I don’t—“ Familiarity drags at her, pulls her under. She knows that voice. She strains to recognize, but she’s stuck and distracted, because now there are different voices, hands on hers, comforting.

“We’re here, Doc—“

“Nurse, is she okay?”

“Is it normal she’s talking like that?”

“Fam,” she gasps through a layer of wool, and feels a comforting pat on her shoulder at the same time as she feels that oh-so-familiar voice draw back in disgust.

Seems there’s been a misunderstanding. You called the wrong number, Doctor.

“Wait—“ the Doctor mumbles, sudden desperation rising in her, because this voice is her friend too, a millennial of warmth mixed with confusion mixed with hate, mixed with—wait—

She’s reaching out without thinking, the psychic equivalent of grabbing for his shirtsleeve, dragging him close, because she doesn’t want him to leave, not until she can figure out what’s happening, why everything is so wrong—

“I miss you,” she whimpers, and it’s as true as the day is long, but it’s also the worst thing she could have said. She knows it the moment it slips out, though she doesn’t know why, can’t wrap her head around anything at all, and the hands around her own tighten, except now they’re the wrong friends, not the one she wants—

Do you? Surprise has him. She can feel it. She can’t even remember his name, but she’s caught him in utter surprise, and it’s a victory, though not one she should revel in.

Then he chuckles, and just like that he’s back on both feet, balancing easily.

Fine, he says, deep, satisfied, if you miss me so much—let me give you a gift.

She doesn’t even have time to respond, or even question him, before he’s shoving something into her head, hard enough to hurt, and she cries out in pain, and then he pushes her away, back into consciousness, back into the world.

She blinks, and drags her eyes open. Her friends are around her, a few bandages here and there, but fine. She thinks they’re fine. She can’t focus. Something is pounding in the back of her head.

“Doctor.” Yaz smiles, utter relief filling her expression, and the Doctor doesn’t smile back, only stares at her woozily.

“Do you hear that?” she asks, and watches Yaz’s smile drop.

“No,” she says. “Hear what?”

“That,” the Doctor insists, and turns to Ryan and Graham, both watching her with concern. “That—“

But Ryan is shaking his head.

“The air conditioning,” he says. “The hum is loud as anything, ain’t it?”

The Doctor stares at him blankly. Deep in her mind, a realization seeds. It blooms slowly, blanketing her thoughts with panic.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh. Yeah, you’re right.”

Yaz grips her hand tightly, as if afraid to let go.

“You okay, Doctor?” she asks. “You were crying out and all.”

The Doctor stares at her for a long moment, then slowly nods.

“I’m fine,” she says. “Just fine.”

In the back of her mind, somebody laughs cruelly at the lie, but it’s blanketed out by the sound, which grows as she lies there, a steady, pounding beat.

Knock-knock, knock-knock.

Chapter Text

Knock-knock. Knock-knock .

It’s constant. Always there, and almost not, just at the edge of her consciousness. A steady, tapping beat. Like a light knock against a door. Like fingers tapping upon a table. Like— 

Knock-knock. Knock-knock .

“Doctor?” 

The Doctor startles, her head jerking up.

“Sorry, Yaz, what were you saying?”

Yaz studies her, uneasy. For a long moment, she says nothing, and the Doctor watches her eyes run over her, seeing—only Rassilon knows. The Doctor herself hasn’t been keen to look in the mirror lately, to catch her straggly hair or the dark circles under her eyes, or worse—to look close and catch a glimpse of a madness she knows too well, a madness she’s seen so many times in her own best friend’s eyes.

Yaz’s eyes drop to her hand, and the Doctor follows it. It’s only then that she realizes her fingers are moving, tapping out a steady, tuneless beat.

She stills them. The beat continues. 

“I was asking if you’ve been getting enough sleep.” Her eyes are on the Doctor again, worried. “You just seem...distracted, is all. Not to mention…”

Her eyes move again, her neck craning slightly, and quickly, the Doctor ducks her head, lets her hair fall to cover her temples. She knows what Yaz is looking at.

Two marks, burned into her temples. Red and angry, like welts. The result of an ill-fated attempt to fix whatever the Master had planted in her mind.

In her head, the TARDIS beeps worriedly. She ignores it.

“It’s nothing, Yaz,” she lies. Or tells the truth. She isn’t sure. After all, how bad is it, really? Sometimes, she almost forgets it’s there. Sometimes, she pretends it isn’t.

Sometimes, she resists the urge to tear the hair off her head and the skin from her skull, just to dig it out.  

“I’m just tired,” she continues, and gestures to the collar of her shirt, where white bandages peek beneath her clothes. “And recovering, you know. Trying to take it easy. As you lot should be.”

She accompanies this with a stern glare to Yaz’s bandaged arm, currently being used to butter toast. Yaz follows her gaze, then sighs, and switches to her other hand. She holds the knife awkwardly, and for a moment the Doctor wonders why, then remembers that humans aren’t naturally ambidextrous.

Or had she known, and just forgotten? She feels like she’s leaking, all her attention and carefully memorized facts draining like a puncture in the bottom of a soda can. What else is she forgetting? She’s distracted, always distracted, and if she could just focus — 

“Doctor.” Yaz is waving a hand in front of her face. The Doctor blinks. “Are you sure you’re alright? You don’t look it.”

“I’m fine,” the Doctor says on reflex. “Just…” Excuses, she needs an excuse. “You’re right, actually. I do need more sleep.”

Yaz sags slightly, clear relief filling her face. “Huh. Never thought you’d agree with me on that one.”

“I know,” the Doctor agrees, and in the back of her mind it occurs to her that this agreeing thing is quite easy—she should do it more often. “Actually, you know what? I’m going to get some sleep. Right now.”

“Now?” Yaz stares at her as she stands abruptly, her chair screeching across the tile. “But—”

“No time like the present, Yaz,” the Doctor says dimly, only half listening because she can hear it, that drumbeat, pounding at the back of her head and she can’t—she can’t—

“But Doctor—” It’s too late. The Doctor barely catches her protest as she turns and makes a beeline for the door. She falls through it clumsily, stumbling from vertigo—she really is tired, been lagging lately—and leaves Yaz’s objections behind. She hopes she won’t follow her.

She doesn’t. The Doctor finds her room easily—too easily, and she can feel the TARDIS’s urging worry in the back of her head—and makes it through the door, to the bed. It’s messy and unmade from her last attempt at sleep, but she falls into it anyway, and revels in peace.

Peace from questions. Peace from concerned gazes and odd looks, and the worry that trails her fam like a lost puppy.

“I’m fine,” she mutters to the ceiling, and hears nothing but the drumbeat at the back of her head, dull and steady. “I’m fine. Seriously, I’m—”

Fine?

Sprawled on her bed, the Doctor freezes.

In her head, the Master chuckles. Hello, Doctor .

The Doctor stares at the ceiling. The drums beat in her head. The Master smiles at her, she can feel it through the telepathic bond, slow and cruel with the knowledge of exactly what he’s done.

“How are you here,” she says flatly. “How are you here in my head?”

How am I in your head? His voice is pleasantly amused, as if this is all nothing more than a game. Doctor, you invite me in all the time.

“Not this time,” she whispers hoarsely. “Not now. I never even—”

Called me? There’s an edge to his voice now, that same eagerness she’d heard back on the plane, an oh please pick up on how clever I am, oh please— 

She doesn’t pick up on it. She can’t. Her thoughts are drowning in that steady beat, her entire mind too discombobulated. She couldn’t even do a quantum equation, should the need arise. 

“Get out of my head,” she growls, and he only laughs.

No . 

She changes tact. “Why are you here then? Why did you—why would you put this thing inside my head?”

Why not?

“That’s not an answer,” she snarls. “Tell me why.”

To watch you go mad .

“Liar,” she hisses. Anger is rising in her gut, buoyed by those insistent four knocks. “You’re a big, fat liar. I can hear it, you know. I always know when you’re lying. You want something else.”

Do I? he asks. He sounds genuinely surprised. Doctor, you know me. I’ve spent centuries trying to do you in. Why wouldn’t I take the chance now?

“Because then you wouldn’t have anybody paying attention to you,” she says. Her voice is mocking, barely restrained fury, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. It’s hers but it’s not, because it’s bolstered by that aggravating, infuriating— 

Knock-knock. Knock-knock .

The Master chuckles softly. Angry? It’s a new look on you .

“No, it’s not,” she says. He only laughs louder, more abrasive.

I wish it weren’t. It suits you.

She sits up so fast her head spins, the knocks sickening at the back of her skull, and for a moment she wavers, the heels of her hands pressed to her eyes as the beats overwhelm her, dig deep and stay—

“You got into my head,” she gasps. “You did something to me, and I just need you to tell me—to tell me—”

And that’s why I won’t . He sounds incredibly pleased with himself. How else would I amuse myself?

“You shouldn’t have gotten into my head,” she gasps through her fingers. Her head is going sick with the pounding, nausea building in her throat, saliva gathering in her mouth. She feels as if she’s about to throw up. “You can’t unless I invite—”

Oh, you and your boring rules! he snaps, all fury all of a sudden, and it’s enough to send her drawing back. A moment later, she winces for it. I don’t need rules, Doctor. Besides, even if I did, you were the one who left me an opening.

The hospital. The drugs. Blindly reaching out for her friends, for anybody who would listen, and not bothering to check the intruder alarm. Which only meant— 

“You left the door open,” she realizes with a terrible certainty. “You snuck in, and—”

No! he growls, furious and harsh, but before she can even recoil he’s drawing back, his tone softening. I didn’t sneak in, Doctor. You called me. I only picked up the phone .

“And decided to overstay your welcome?” she snarls between fingers. She’s still cradling her head as she speaks, trying to think around a beat that seems to have taken over her entire mind.

He laughs again, but all his previous harshness is gone. Now he’s only sly, with a familiar, almost comforting slickness. She knows that slickness. Seen it when he’d lied to a teacher’s face at the Academy, watched him try to use it on her more than once. They’re back in the realm of predictable, and she can only be grateful.

Overstaying? he asks. He sounds vaguely amused. Doctor, I’m not staying at all. I’m only checking up.

“Checking up on what?” she asks, but he’s only shaking his head, she can feel it, chuckling in a way that’s vaguely hysterical, too much so to be sane. It rises and falls and grows, and then he’s reaching out without permission, groping for the back of her mind and— 

“Ow!” Her hands fly to her forehead and she keels in pain, the drumbeats roaring in her ears, but just before the pain overwhelms her he whips his hands away and fades, leaving nothing but the ghost of pain and those everpresent knocks, along with— 

The Doctor stares at the ground in front of her. The vaguely blue carpet, fuzzy with lint she hadn’t had time to clean for the past few centuries. In her head, those beats knock out a rhythm.

Only now, she knows what they’re saying.

“Impossible,” she breathes, and in the back of her mind, catches a wisp of his cackling laughter.

Is it?

He’s not there anymore. He’s left, leaving her with nothing but an ache in her chest and a pain in her head and something at the back of her head, something that she can see even though she refuses to look. Because she won’t. It will only be stupid.

The drumbeats continue, a steady knock-knock, knock-knock. Only now, they spell out a plan.

Chapter Text

She can’t stop working.

“Doctor, are you alright?” 

Ryan is kind, his voice full of concern. He towers over her as she bends over the console, but his presence is almost comforting. She doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t answer him. 

“Doctor?” He steps closer, hesitant, only to stop as she winces, the heel of her palm flying to her forehead. 

“Fine,” she grits out, but her body language is all over the place and she’s sure he can see right through. “I’m fine.”

But she’s not. Pain, constant pain, sears through her head, and the dull beats pound, and she can’t sleep, can barely even think , except for a plan. His plan, but she’s helpless to stop it, though she’s tried all the mental tricks. His plan, and she might as well be hypnotized for the way she’s obsessed.

She can’t stop working. She can’t stop, or the drumbeats will catch up to her, will consume her, and he will win.

She’s not sure how he will win, but it drives her on anyway, desperate and demanding.

“You don’t look fine,” Ryan says. “You look—well, you’ve been acting differently lately. Like you’re possessed, or something.”

This gives the Doctor pause. Her hand still on the circuitry she’s rewiring, and then she looks up.

“I’m not possessed,” she says, slowly, evenly. As if that might make it true. “I’m just—working on a project.”

Deep in the back of her head, the Master laughs. Loudly, gleefully. She can picture his thrown back head, his scruffy beard. She hates him.

She can’t stop. 

“What project?” A new voice sounds, and the Doctor whirls around.

“What?” Her hands, she realizes, are digging into the console, hard enough to hurt. “Yaz—have you been listening?”

Behind her, Ryan shifts, uncomfortable. “We were just having a conversation, Doctor.”

“Oh.” The knocks in her head are overwhelming. Tantalizing, beckoning. She has to follow them. Quietly, she heaves a shaky breath. “Right. I know that. Why do you want to know?”

Yaz bounds down the steps, worry wrinkling her brow. “Just—curiosity. We’re a bit worried about you, Doctor.”

“Worried,” the Doctor breathes, and nods. She can barely think for the drums, but she has to, because the plan is almost complete. She has so little left to do— “Right. Where’s Graham?”

Yaz frowns, confused. “Uh, in the kitchens. Why?”

“I need him.” The Doctor turns to the console, and presses in a command that will get Graham to the console room. He’ll follow, out of curiosity if nothing else. “I need all of you.”

“For what?” Ryan moves into her line of vision, and when she doesn’t acknowledge him, waves a hand. “Doctor. What are you doing?”

“Sending you lot home.” She rattles it off easily, as if it’s a lie. It almost is. “Lots of repairs to do, some dangerous stuff, don’t want you involved. Safer if you’re back in Sheffield.”

“What?” Ryan exclaims, and moves in closer, this time accompanied by Yaz. “You’re kidding, you can’t—“

“I can.” She finishes plugging in the coordinates and looks up, one hand on the take off lever. Ryan stares at her, mouth open in outrage, but she only eyes him evenly. “Trust me, Ryan, you don’t want to be around so many live wires. I’ll drop you off, come back in an hour. You’ll barely notice.”

“Hang on—what is this?” Graham tramps down the stairs, confusion painting his expression. “And you didn’t have to call me like that, Doc, I’m not a bloody—“

“The Doctor is sending us home.” Yaz turns to face Graham, who stops mid-reprimand. His eyes go from Yaz, to the Doctor. Then, he frowns in such a way as to almost look disappointed.

Any other day, it might have hurt. Today, she can only think of her plan, of his plan, which is so close to fruition that she only needs to drop them and then—

Why not keep them around for the party?

The Doctor flinches, then shakes her head.

“Don’t need to be here,” she mutters, ignoring the baffled expressions of the fam. A cruel laugh cuts through her thoughts.

But they could , he says, and he’s already reaching inside of her mind, twisting, forcing her— They could see the show—

She has to finish her work. She’s so close. She has to finish her—

“Doctor.” Yaz steps forward, nearly fearful. “You look like you need—“

“I don’t need anything!” she snaps, and feels only a flash of guilt as Yaz reels backwards, hurt flickering over her face. “I mean—no. I need you to—“

But her hands are already creeping to the console, egged on by the beat in her head, desperate to finish what she’d started—

“Doc, what are you doing?” Graham asks, and she only shakes her head, the inside of her lip chewed raw and bloody, but he steps forward anyway. “Are you—“

“I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose,” Ryan realizes behind her, and the Doctor should feel relieved— they’ve figured it out, they can help —but all she can think is caught .

“No I’m not,” she says, but Ryan is stepping forward, a hand reaching for her shoulder. “I mean—listen! I have to drop you off—“

“Doctor, is something making you do something?” Yaz sounds frightened behind her, and the Doctor shakes her head, but it must not be convincing because Ryan’s hand finds her shoulder, comforting and at the same time a threat.

“Nothing is wrong,” she lies, only it’s not a lie, because everything is right, because—

Miss me, Doctor?

She does. She can’t even tell if it’s the drums or her own bloody hearts, but she wants him back, her oldest friend, and she can’t control—

“Fine,” she bites off, and half of her mind screams against it, but the other half is screaming in victory— “Don’t go home.”

“What?” Ryan says, but she doesn’t even hear him, because the Master is roaring with laughter in her ears, and pain is blinding her, and the only way to get rid of it, the only way to move past is—

To complete the plan. 

She reaches out, and splices the final wires together.

Immediately, an alarm blares.

“Holy—!“ Graham starts to say, but never has time to finish, for in that moment, a lurch of the TARDIS sends the whole fam flying, all except the Doctor, who clings to the console and smiles despite herself. She’s not sure why she’s smiling, except that she’s finished the plan and the drumbeats in her head are singing victory, and it’s so good, it’s so good—

“Doctor!” Yaz screams, but the Doctor barely hears her. She’s grinning broadly, bared teeth and no mirth, at a point in front of her, a point which is slowly splitting, growing, expanding, until with one last wrench that ripples through the entire console room, it spits out—

“Oh, yes !” The Master lands on both feet, stumbles slightly, then flips back his hair and shoots the Doctor a grin. “Oh, love, I owe you one. I really do.”

The Doctor stares at him. Her victory is sliding from her mind, the beats fading like the final note in a song.

No. Not her victory. His, implanted in her head from the moment she’d been in the hospital, and slowly brought to fruition by her hands.

He’d always been so good at hypnosis.

“Yes.” The Master’s smile widens. “I do think we make a good team.”

The Doctor doesn’t say anything. She can only stare, and think, with horrifying realization, that she’s just made the biggest mistake of her life.