Chapter Text
‘I still can’t believe you agreed to travel with me.’
The Master grunts and shoves a hand stubbornly in his pocket. It’s quite a scene to behold the two of them standing, having a normal conversation in the middle of her TARDIS which has decided to activate her own personal mood lighting- a mixture of blues and deep purples.
‘You have something I need. It’s not an agreement, it’s a compromise.’
The Doctor raises her eyebrows, forms her mouth into an ‘O’ shape.
‘That’s new. I thought you were going for cool and impervious.’
He scowls, paces a few steps away from her. There’s silence for a few seconds, the ship’s engines whirring under their feet. She’s about to speak when she sees a tremor shoot through his hand.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘It doesn’t seem like nothing.’
‘You ignored me, jammed my perception filter in front of a patrol of Nazi soldiers, stole my TARDIS, left me on Earth for 77 years and exiled me to a parallel dimension. You’re right, I’ve had worse.’ It’s the first time she’s heard him be sarcastic in this body. Compared to her friend- ‘O’- its jarring, like she’s seeing a mask lifted on one of his many disguises.
‘77 years doesn’t mean anything to us.’
‘That’s what you thought in your last regeneration too.’
She shouldn’t have said that.
‘That’s not what I-‘ she calls after him.
He’s already gone.
She spends a couple of hours at the console, pacing, following energy trails around her display as they whizz around the galaxy. It’s all she can do whilst her friends are gone these days, a mask to keep her mind occupied instead of lying to them. Judging from the TARDIS’ complaints, The Master has already found his room- or what she had replaced his room with after they’d parted the last time. She can already guess what the damage will be like when she finds it again and prays that the ship’s self-reparation circuits are still active.
The Doctor is slipping into unconsciousness when there’s a small buzz from the display screen, an alert to warn her if one of the fam has ventured too far down the corridors into places she doesn’t want them poking. She pauses for a second, wondering if it’s worth it and grabs her jacket to follow up the alert.
He’s far in but traceable enough that the TARDIS can make an easy path for her. She eventually finds him sitting hunched over a step on the wardrobe’s spiral staircase, a large mass of assorted coats and various outfits picked up on her travels hanging messily on a steel rail on the platform beside him.
She reaches out with her mind. Finding no trace of him in the surrounding air, she edges her way up the stairs in the hope that he won’t shun her away like last time.
Her friend stares coldly ahead, unblinking when she sits down on the step beside him, she spends a long ten seconds deciding where to put her hands before letting them rest awkwardly in her lap. What can she say? He’s grieving, like her, but she can’t help him like she’d help Yaz or Ryan or Graham. She doesn’t speak.
‘Let’s go somewhere.’
The Doctor blinks.
‘What?’ It comes out husky, almost a whisper.
‘You promised me we’d see every star. Let’s go, we can start now.’
‘I- did. Yes.’ The words don’t quite come out. It’s nothing compared to everything she wants to say to him now but there’s something in his eyes as he stares dead ahead that is desperate, frantic, like they’re running out of time.
‘You can choose. Pick somewhere.’
‘Vienna. The 18th century.’ His mouth curls happily at the edges, she’d expected him to scoff.
‘You really are a sop, aren’t you?’
She fakes a gasp. He chuckles, propping his head against the hand-rail, finally meeting her eyes with a sea of deep brown and-
Oh.
She’s smitten.
‘You’re not going in those clothes.’ He pulls himself up, offers her a hand. She tries her best not to dissolve into a large fleshy puddle as she takes it.
‘Okay.’
A ha, that’s why he’d hidden himself in the wardrobe.
They descend the stairs to one of the many small platforms, its one she hasn’t seen for a while so the dust in the air must be hundreds- if not thousands- of years old.
‘Pick something.’ He says.
She stares at the rails, trying to make sense of the mess of stimuli in front of her. There are too many objects in too many places for her to process. She starts with the first rail, selecting a small collection of suits from their hangers.
One catches her eye. An extravagant shirt with frills protruding from the centre, paired with a sleek black bow-tie- did she really have a thing for bow-ties again?
‘How about this one?’
‘No.’
She tries again, picks out a long multicoloured coat and trousers. It’s eye-catching if anything and the orange on the lapels make her hearts pound.
‘This one.’
A look of disgust crosses his features. The look sparks a pit of shame in her stomach and she quietly apologises.
‘What about this one?’ A waistcoat, its dressy but the pin badges along the side give it a gleeful charm.
‘That is the most revolting thing I have ever seen, my dear.’
She sighs, roots around again and pulls out her last option. Before she can turn, he grabs the shirt from her, turns and crams it into the highest draw he can reach.
‘Hey!’ the draw is too high for her to reach even when she stands on tiptoes and tries jumping. She doesn’t even need to look to see the smug satisfaction cross his face, he’s grinning from ear to ear. ‘That’s a dirty tactic.’
‘Shush. I’ve got something- don’t look so put out.’ He stumbles backwards as she clutches for the garment.
It’s a long green dress. The skirt looks pleated like a schoolgirl’s and around the waist of it there are some ribbon-y things and lots of stuff that seems important, but she can’t think why. He’s holding a jacket too, very much like his own but long, with sleek fitting sides.
She grabs for the jacket.
‘Ah, ah, ah. Try again.’
‘You don’t mean-‘
‘Yes, I do.’
He chuckles as her expression sours.
‘I’m not getting into that.’
‘Oh so now you’re backing out?’
A sigh.
‘No.’
He smiles.
‘How do these… work?’ She fiddles with what she assumes is a DIY kit around the waist.
Wide eyes meet hers again.
‘You mean you’ve never-‘
‘No, why would I?’
‘Are you always so incongruous Doctor?’
‘I can’t- I mean- uh-‘
‘I’ll help you.’
She can feel her face redden.
‘Unless you want to go undercover in rainbows and suspenders.’ He pauses. ‘Don’t answer that.’
Unusually, The Master halts. ‘May I?’
She nods.
He lays a hand on her chest and slowly slides it under the arm of her jacket, pulling away the soft fabric until she can see her own bare skin in front of her. It had been a long time since he’d done this and under very different circumstances that cause her cheeks to redden even further.
The jacket is on the floor now, she hadn’t noticed the other sleeve but now it’s just her thin, loosely-fitted shirt between him and bare skin she can’t figure out if she wants him to see or not.
His mind prods gently at hers, asking for consent to go further, to carry on unwrapping her. She lowers her shields slightly in response. Yes. Yes, you can, Go gently.
His hands work at exploring the gentle curves of her shoulders and her waist. The warmth of his hands through the fabric prompts a small gasp, he looks up.
‘Take yours off too.’ She pleads. She sounds like a child.
He slips off his jacket, letting the heavy purple fall gently against the floor. Now they’re both even, like two raw nerves against a garden of fabric and silk and cloth.
His hands continue. She remembers her own, places them against his chest, exploring. He’s taller than her now but the way his soft eyes look gently at her makes her feel like curling into his arms like a small animal.
His hands probe at the hem of her shirt. Slowly she raises her arms so he can slip it over her head and she is still okay. She’s okay because he’s gentle and it feels so familiar, his hands are soft like feathers tickling as they pass her ears.
So she stands. Waits. A gentle smile crosses his face. She expects him to look down and in a horrible moment cackle at her bare form but instead his eyes bore deep into hers like he’s exploring her again.
‘I’ve found you.’
‘Yeah.’
They stay like that for a long while. She notes his golden-brown skin and how beautifully it glows in the soft light of the room, how it feels when she, in turn, lifts the shirt over his head and caresses the canvas of soft hair and smooth skin along his chest.
It hurts a little when he eventually looks, a puzzled expression clouding his face. Something sinks inside her again, like when they’d argued in the console room. He’s seen what she is. She’s disgusting. Her own skin is disgusting to him like it is to her. She knows he can see all the blemishes now, the scars, every flawed expanse of her feminine body. Disgust. It’s disgust. She can’t get out now, she’s-
‘You have your bra on inside out.’
Her breath hitches.
‘What?’
He grins. She feels him gently lapping at her mind again.
‘The straps, they’re- let me show you.’
She sends him a puzzled thought.
‘Sit down.’
They come to rest on top of a box, The Doctor doesn’t know what’s in it but the wooden lid seems to be almost bursting open as they sit atop it. He crosses his legs, motions for
her to turn so he can see the clasps along her back.
‘How could you move like this?’
‘I thought that was how you did it.’
She knows he’s smiling without looking.
‘You know you don’t have to be in pain all the time, you don’t have to choke yourself to be comfortable.’
‘It feels like I’m in pain all the time.’ She grumbles, ‘All these bodies ever do is hurt.’
He strokes her back, sending tingles to a place she didn’t even know she had.
‘It doesn’t have to. There’s medicine for that, hot water bottles, chocolate.’
‘Mmm…’ She hums.
He unclasps her bra and The Doctor almost faints from the relief. She fills up her lungs with air for the first time in a while and sinks back down onto the lid of the box. The Master chuckles.
‘What was it like, when did the pain go away?’
The ministrations continue, she feels his hands around her again, smoothing large circles into her waist.
‘I bled. A lot. There were days I couldn’t leave my TARDIS. I didn’t know you could stop it, so I sat and hurt until I ran out of food. I thought that’s what these bodies did.’ He hesitates and The Doctor’s heart bleeds out in the silence. ‘I used to screw myself into a ball because I thought I was weak. I wasn’t. You’re not weak for hurting.’
‘What stopped you hurting?’ It’s little more than a whisper now.
He pulls away from her and thinks for a long time until she has to force herself back into his hands to make him touch her again.
‘Time.’
She sees his hands in front of her again as he offers her the straps.
‘Push your hands through there. Tell me if it feels uncomfortable.’
She obliges and the cage adjusts itself around her chest again but this time it is light, like it is pulling her into herself with a small but insistent persuasion. The clasp fastens and his fingers find themselves unoccupied.
A comfortable silence falls and she is suddenly aware of the room around her again, the smell of the clothes strewn across rails, the natural yellow glow of the room, the large staircase beside them, his hands around her waist, larger than she’d known them to be before.
She thinks to herself how they look together. If the garish coats had eyes would they choke in revulsion or would it be warm, would they look right instead? More thoughts appear, she catches one in the air.
‘Koschei.’
He appears over her shoulder.
‘Yeah?’
‘I think I’m ready for that dress now.’