Chapter Text
Just spent three months in a Judoon prison.
The first text she sent after her escape didn’t get a response. At the very least, she’d expected him to gloat. Even without proof, the Doctor was almost certain he’d had a hand in her arrest. It wasn’t his style, but a few months ago she would have said destroying Gallifrey wasn’t in his wheelhouse either. The Master was always full of surprises.
Now she was thinking he must have dumped or lost O’s phone along the way.
The Doctor had been sure he’d text her back. Even if it was just to laugh at the image of her in prison for a change, or mock her for taking so long to escape. She hadn’t expected silence. There were other ways to contact him, but she wasn’t ready to let him back into her mind.
Texting was easier.
Like texting O had been easy, she thought bitterly. He’d been so hopeful and kind. Honestly the Doctor had given the spy his number confident he’d never hear from the man. But O texted reports of alien sightings and strange goings on with a cheerful, was that you?? And the Doctor couldn’t help but be drawn in.
She loved to talk about her trips and dazzle her friends. O always responded with a string of emojis and asked questions that were half joking, and it gave her the same feeling. They’d become friends. Texting friends, but that was easier in some ways. No chance he’d be hurt, or die, or leave her. No chance she’d get hurt either.
With a bit of hindsight, it was obvious that he’d played her perfectly. He knew she loved telling stories, and he knew she loved the smart ones; the ones who weren’t phased by the strange and unusual. O had been unflappable. A short pause between texts or a small head tilt, and he had assimilated her mad impossible updates into his view of the universe. She’d liked that about him.
Following her latest regeneration, he’d text her a pic of an Earth politician, following quickly by a not so serious text, gotta be an alien?
She’d laughed as she’d replied in the affirmative and then in the moment, she’d decided to send him a pic of herself in her new outfit. She had looked at the pic and grimaced. The lighting was all wrong, too bright, and she wasn’t sure about her nose in this regeneration. Too small.
She’d considered taking a different picture, but shook her head at the absurdity of the thought, before pressing send. She was just updating a friend on her new outfit. It wasn’t too different to how he’d seen her last; coat, suspenders and a pair of good running boots.
She’d also text, They didn’t have any long trousers, but I kinda like these. For context.
His reply has been typical O.
That still doesn’t explain the suspenders.
And it was so typical of the Master as well. The playful mocking of their youth.
She never realised how much she had missed that aspect of their relationship. She hadn’t noticed when she had found it again with someone else. Well not until that someone else turned out to be the Master in disguise and then it was gone. Poof. Like it had never existed.
Maybe it had never been real. It was all part of his ploy. The longer the con, the more dramatic and over the top his reveal got to be. He’d always enjoyed that part. But if it had been real, maybe there was still a chance her friend was in there somewhere. Too many maybes. Too many what ifs. And as usual, the bastard with all the answers wasn’t willing to share.
The Doctor had been too obvious; checking her phone too often. Jack didn’t comment on it in the first days after he’d helped her escape. But she’d noticed him looking at her strangely.
The first few times she brushed it off, saying she was checking her notifications, clearing out her inbox, updating her profile. She was running out of excuses. Her mouth randomly repeating phrases she’d heard her fam use.
When she eventually did run out of excuses, she found her fingers flying over the touchscreen. She just wanted to look like she was doing something, texting someone, and not glaring at her phone in the hopes she could make a message from her old school chum magically appear. The Doctor had never meant to press send but damn, there it was. Her finger slipped. Or maybe it was muscle memory. Sent.
She immediately regretted the text she’d almost definitely sent by accident to O’s number.
Jack says hi.
That would definitely get a reply. If he still had the phone. And if he actually bothered to check it.
But that wasn’t a good enough excuse for possibly putting one of her friends in danger again. With Jack it wouldn’t be mortal danger, but she still felt a twinge of guilt as she stuffed the device back into her deep pockets.
She distracted Jack, and herself, by babbling about her fam and Sheffield, bouncing around the Tardis console. She steered them towards 21st Century Earth, suddenly desperate to see the friends she’d put off visiting for the last few days. She’d needed some downtime after their escape, but now, she needed to keep her mind busy.
Horrible, terrible things happened when she stayed still too long. There was a long list, and now texting would be added to the end of that very long list. Texting a phone that probably didn’t exist anymore.
She needed something to do, an adventure, and it didn’t take much to get Jack on board. He was always up for meeting new people.
[...]
She found Graham first, or rather he found her, walking towards the Tardis as her and Jack were leaving the blue box. He must have heard the old girl from his flat, or maybe he'd already been out, but he didn’t look happy to see her. He looked tired and a little bit angry, and he pulled her into a strong hug before she could stop him.
She still wasn’t 100% on hugging in this regeneration.
When he pulled back to look at her, his eyes were wet. “You never do that again, do you hear Doc? Never.”
She nodded without thinking and then added, “how long has it been, for you?” because she hadn’t actually paid much attention to the console in her rush to get back to her old life. Silly things like dates and years hadn’t seemed relevant.
“You been gone seven bloody months. We thought you were dead.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, but Graham was already moving away, shaking Jack’s hand. Instead of an adventure in space, she found herself looking forward to some Earth food, as they walked to meet Yaz and Ryan at a local cafe.
Yaz was there before them; standing tall in her full uniform, hat in hand and everything. She beamed at the Doctor, and pulled her close just as quick as Graham had earlier, hugging her tight.
They'd already ordered, teas and coffees for the humans and gravy chips for the Doctor, when Ryan arrived. Still half asleep from a late shift at the warehouse, he didn't bound up to the Doctor with the same energy as the others. He was relieved to see her, but - he seemed quieter.
He pulled up a chair to join their table, and soon they were catching the Doctor up on all she’d missed and it wasn’t long before the subject turned to Gallifrey.
Jack rolled his eyes as it became obvious the Doctor had gone AWOL after a supposed suicide mission. Of course, he'd think they were overreacting, and she'd had a plan all along. But there hadn't been a plan.
They had been so sure she’d died that they’d held a small memorial service for her; just the three of them and the other humans that survived Gallifrey.
Her fam had questions about where she’d been for the past 7 months. what happened on Gallifrey, about how she’d ended up in prison. She answered some of them, deflected others, babbled on about her love of gravy chips, but some of their questions couldn’t be avoided.
“And what about the Master? Is he gone for good this time?” Graham had asked.
That definitely got Jack’s attention. “The Master?!” he exclaimed. “He’s alive?”
The Doctor flinched when she looked up at his too pale face. She bit her lip as she admitted, “yeah, It was him. He destroyed Gallifrey; killed all the Timelords. We’re the only two left, again.”
“But, when the Death particle went off, he was still on Gallifrey. So, he’s dead now.” Ryan said. Yaz smacked him in the arm, but he still didn’t realise what he’d said wrong.
“Looks like,” the Doctor said, refusing to meet any of their eyes.
Her friends were quiet. She must be doing a really bad job of holding things together. Not even Jack was crowing at news of the Master’s possible death.
It was Jack that reached for her hand across the table and she had to raise her eyes up from the table to face him. “Hey Doctor, you okay? Did he - What did he do to you?”
She shook her head, but the words didn’t come. Because Jack remembered the year that wasn’t just as well as she did. He had suffered and he had watched the Master with his Doctor, and Jack thought he understood what he’d witnessed. Jack was old, impossibly old, older than her now, maybe, but he would never understand them.
And she couldn’t explain it. But she took a deep breath, rubbed her hands over her face and tried. “He didn’t do anything to me Jack.”
Jack looked disappointed in her for some reason, but he didn’t argue.
“So this is a regular thing then? The Master showing up, causing havoc, threatening to kill your friends.” Graham casually drank from his mug of tea, but the accusations behind his words were obvious.
“Well, he did more than threaten me,” Jack grinned. “But yeah, I’d say it’s becoming a pattern.”
The Doctor cocked her head to one side. “Something has to happen more than twice to be a pattern,” she pointed out. She wasn’t wrong, she was just omitting a lot of relevant information.
“And has he done stuff like this more than twice?” Yaz asked. Oh she was going to be a great police officer, very observant. Not so great when you’re trying to downplay your BFF’s tendency to murder your friends.
“Yes,” she gritted out. “But - but he was changing. Okay, no Jack, no he almost changed. She was good and she wanted to help and then - something went wrong. I don’t know what, but there was a good six months there when she didn’t threaten to kill anyone.
“Granted I had her locked in Quantum Fold prison cell for most of it, but you know the Master, that wouldn’t have stopped him - or her rather - if she’d really wanted to kill someone.”
“You do realise that nothing you just said changes the fact that he hurt you,” Jack pointed out, his voice too soft and understanding.
“Hurt me? Jack, he’s killed me before and I’ve killed him. Believe it or not, this is progress. Everyone survived this time.”
“Except the Timelords,” Ryan added helpfully.
“Yes, well - yeah, it looks like they’re gone. For now.”
“Looks like?!” Graham exclaimed
“We’re very hard to kill, and even harder to keep dead. They’re loopholes, so many loopholes, and the Master knows all of them. He’s regenerated more times than any other Timelord - except, well I guess that isn’t true anymore,” she trailed off.
“You think he’s still alive,” Yaz guessed.
“Oh, definitely. He always survives. I threw him in a black hole once. In hindsight, he might still be a little sore about that one. But he came back, and yeah, he’ll probably come back from this too.”
The Doctor’s wide smile faltered as she watched her companions share concerned looks with one another. Maybe they were just confused. Black holes confused most humans.
“Do you want him to be alive?”
“Jack.”
“Answer the question Doctor.”
“You were there, the last time I thought he was dead.” She didn’t need to say more. Jack shook his head at her, arms crossed in disapproval. “He was my friend,” she said softly.
“I thought that was just an act.” Ryan wasn’t asking a question but his voice rose towards the end and she couldn’t let him think that she’d fallen for O’s ruse, even if she still re-read his texts with disturbing regularity. No, she knew O hadn’t really been her friend.
“It was. He loves his disguises,” she’s grinning now. “But we were friends once. The Master was my first friend at school; my first friend ever. We were always getting in trouble; never good at following rules, but then, he changed.”
“It’s okay Doctor. He was your friend and it’s okay to be sad that he’s gone. And it’s okay to hope that he’s still out there somewhere. We might not understand it but you can’t change the way you feel.”
The Doctor smiled at Yaz, opened her mouth to say thank you, and she really should thank them more. Her fam. But the phone in her pocket pinged and the words didn’t come.
She pulled the phone out quickly and tried to look disinterested when she saw the whatsapp notification icon. Her hearts drummed a little faster at the sight, but she very quickly put the phone back in her pocket without checking her messages.
“What was that?” Ryan asked.
“Telemarketers.”
“Telemarketers that text?” Graham asked.
“The future is a scary place, Graham,” she said as she popped another chip into her mouth.
They were all looking at her now. Her fam looked confused again, eyes narrowed and brows furrowed. Or maybe that was suspicion. She was very bad at facial expressions this time.
Jack, more familiar with 54th century telemarketers, was smirking into his coffee. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but who was he pretending to be?”
“Don’t worry. You didn’t vote for him this time,” the Doctor said, waving away Jack’s concerns. “He was a forgettable MI6 agent. Seriously, they all called him O cause they couldn’t remember his name. But he was a nice guy, even helped me once or - twice “
She trailed off as she noticed Jack was making a funny face.
“O?” he asked, or maybe it was more of an “Oh.”
She nodded, already not liking where this was going.
“O. From MI6? Short asian bloke. Great eyebrows. Terrible fashion sense. That O? Was the Master?”
“His fashion sense wasn’t that bad,” Yaz pointed out, "but yeah, that’s him.”
The Doctor didn’t think talking would be a good idea right now. Jack had his head in his hands and was creatively cursing the Master.
Nothing new there, but Jack’s anger seemed too fresh given all the years he had lived since the Valiant. Her mouth settled in a silent O as the only possible explanation rose ponderously to the front of her mind. Jack had met O. Jack had met a version of the Master he didn’t recognise, and the Master knew exactly which buttons to press to make Jack’s life a living hell.
The Doctor didn’t think he could have done anything too bad to Jack this time around. He had been playing the part of O to perfection, and he wouldn’t risk that for the opportunity to shoot Jack with lasers again. Or hang him. Or shoot him with regular old bullets. Or drown him. Or any of the other methods of torture he’d employed aboard the Valient.
O was too patient for that. He’d spent years making her trust him, letting her think he was her friend. If Jack hadn’t been there for the big reveal, and only knew the Master as O, what’s the worst the Master could have done?
Pretended to be Jack’s friend.
Oh no.
“Oh Jack, tell me you didn’t?” the Doctor asked, her face scrunched up, bracing herself for the worst.
“I didn’t. But I - I fucking hate that guy.”
“You’re not alone there mate,” Graham commiserated.
The Doctor sighed. She didn’t really want to know what the Master had done this time around. She could guess. But even as the tension drained away, her fingers twitched to reach for her phone.
This morning, she didn’t think it was possible to regret sending that message anymore than she already did. But if Jack met O, that meant the Master could know things about Jack, about his friends and family in the 21st Century.
“What time is it anyway?” she asked, already knowing the answer in her veins, but it was a useful pretense for pulling her phone out again and covertly checking her messages.
Tell the freak I’ve got a room set aside for him if he wants to drop in
Shit
Her fingers flew over the screen, and she’d pressed send again before considering the consequences of her actions. Again. Texting was too easy.
Think he preferred O…
“It’s not even tea time yet. What do you say to a little trip before - what? Have I got something on my face?”
Her fam were all watching her closely; everyone except Jack. He was still starring in the middle distance with a look of faint terror in his eyes.
“Texting back those telemarketers?” Graham asked casually.
“Well, they’ve got a job to do, same as everyone else.”
Graham hmmed, just as her phone went ping again. She ignored it.
“You not going to get that?” Yaz asked.
“Nah, they can wait. Don’t wana seem too eager?”
“To text back the - telemarketers?” Ryan asked.
“Course, them. Who else would I be texting?”
Graham nudged Jack with his elbow, drawing the man’s attention back to the table. “They used to text too. Her and that O fella.”
The Doctor spluttered. “That doesn’t - That’s not, really relevant is it?”
“Not sure Doctor. It’s just we’re not really used to seeing you text anyone except us,” Yaz pointed out.
“Or him.” Ryan added unhelpfully.
“That is not exactly 100% accurate. I text people, lots of people. I just don’t feel the need to go around talking about all the people I’m texting. That’s an entirely human preoccupation.”
Jack had been following their conversation, like a man watching a four sided game of tennis, confused and just a little bit scared. Now he chuckled, and finally seemed to return back to himself, all arrogant swagger and gleeful flirt. “Oh Doctor, tell me you didn’t?”
She glared at him. “Not funny.”
He continued to laugh, shaking his head at her.
“Not even a little bit funny. As if I would - ever - not again. Never mind.”
Her phone went ping again, and she grabbed it with every intention of turning the blasted thing off. But she’d just check her messages first, make sure no person or planet was in immediate danger. It was the responsible thing to do.
Did you prefer O?
Oh go on, tell the truth Doctor.
The Doctor wasn’t sure if he was looking for a compliment or baiting her. At least he wasn’t mentioning Jack; that was progress of a sort. She considered a snide reply, but almost immediately decided against it.
He was less complicated
And with that she turned off her phone.
“There. Telemarketers be gone.”
This time Jack joined her friends in staring at her, the sparkle in his eyes dimming.
They didn't believe her. Granted she was lying to them but she always told little lies, and only to keep them safe. Surely they knew that by now.
The Doctor almost groaned aloud. It was embarrassing that it had taken her this long to figure it out. She was almost as bad at reunions as goodbyes. They weren't angry with her. Not really. But they didn't trust her anymore. Not like they used to, before him. Before Gallifrey.
She'd lied to them before and her fam had never pushed. They had respected her privacy. She's fairly certain they saw through most of her deflections and attempts to avoid awkward questions but they never challenged her, because they'd trusted her. Maybe not to tell the truth. But they'd trusted her to keep them safe.
And she'd failed. Abandoned them to the cybermen while she played This is your Life with the Master. Sent them home, while she went back to Panopticon with every intention of killing herself and her oldest friend. She'd left them to grieve for seven months.
And she'd never told them why. There had never been time and she didn't want to talk about it anyway. It was easier to run from one adventure to the next, pretending Gallifrey was still there. Easier for her, but every time she'd pushed them away they'd lost a bit of faith in her.
And now, they saw right through her.
She forced a stiff smile on her face. "I'm sorry. You have my full attention now, promise. It's a long story, what happened on Gallifrey, but - ask me anything."
"Were you just texting the Master?" Ryan asked.
The Doctor groaned, closed her eyes and tried something new. "It's complicated, but yeah.”
"He tried to kill us,” Yaz pointed out.
Jack raised a finger pointedly. "He actually did kill me."
“Listen, if I'm talking to him or texting him, then there's a chance, a very small chance, that he isn't burning a planet to the ground.” Her friends looked sceptical and the Doctor waned her hands in frustration as she continued. “He’s like one of those yappy dogs. If you give him attention, he’s less likely to start yapping.”
“So he’s what? Your pet?” Ryan asked.
“No. No. Do not let him hear you say that?” the Doctor pointed a shaky finger at Ryan. “Pets can be trained, controlled. No one can control the Master, and if he thinks someone is trying to give him orders, well..” the Doctor blew out a loud breath. “Let’s just say that all the people who ever tried to control the Master died, horribly, and none of them are ever coming back.”
“He didn’t kill you though.” Graham pointed out, and the Doctor felt her eyes tighten, tears rising with the guilt. She had nothing to say to that.
“I just mean,” Graham went on. “You go all over the universe saving people, and you’ve saved people from him before. You stopped his plan with the Kasarvin, and they didn’t seem too happy with him after that. You’ve gone toe to toe with this guy over the years, and it sounds to me like you always come out on top.” Jack snorted, but Graham kept talking. “But he doesn’t seem to want to kill you.”
“Yeah,” Ryan added. “When we were at the boundary, he only threatened to kill us when you wouldn’t go with him.”
“He doesn’t actually want to kill me, because - ”
The Doctor frowned as she tried to find a truth that would be palatable for her friends. They probably wouldn’t be happy to discover that this was all a game to the Master. Their planet, their lives, just pawns he was trying to remove from the board.
She licked her lips and tried again. “I have never tried to control him. I always knew he was uncontrollable,” the Doctor said quietly. “I tried once or twice, to convince him to stop killing people. But even then, I never expected him to do what I told him to do. There’s no point, he always does the opposite. Always has.”
“So, you think you can convince him to stop murdering people, by texting?” Yaz asked, her eyebrows raised in disbelief.
“No. But if he’s distracted looking at his phone, then that’s a few short minutes where he isn’t killing someone.”
Again, Jack raised his hand.
“That was different, He doesn’t control the planet this time, He doesn’t have an army,” she said and instantly regretted it. Her shoulders slumped as she wondered how many Cybermasters he could have gotten off planet with him. If he’d relied on a vortex manipulator or transporter technology, hopefully none.
“I don’t know Doc,” Graham said. “All this seems like a far fetched excuse for you to keep in touch with a mate who’s frankly batshit crazy and very dangerous.”
“I second that,” Jack said.
“Wait a sec,” Yaz interrupted Jack. “You think texting the Master will stop him killing people because he likes the attention. But you turned off your phone?”
When the Doctor had decided to tell her friends the truth, she’d expected disbelief and even anger at the news she was texting the Master. Yaz’s reaction confused her. “Well, I kind of got the feeling it was annoying you guys, and you were all giving me strange looks. Yes, it was a bit like how your face looks right now Yaz.”
“You just stopped texting the Master? Like mid - conversation, you just left him on read?” Ryan asked.
“Well, no. I don’t know if he replied,” the Doctor clarified. “But that doesn’t matter. I am not planning to text him again today because it obviously annoys you. And I want today to be about us, catching up and getting back out there.”
Her fam did not look enthused. They shared wide-eyed looks with one another.
“Jack?” Yaz asked. “You spent a lot of time with the Master?” He nodded stiffly, mouth a tight line. “How do you think the Master would react to the Doctor not texting him back?”
“Badly,” Jack said with his eyebrows raised. “Very, very badly.”
“What are you on about? I used to go months before remembering to text him back. It’ll be fine. That’s the great thing about texting.”
“Except you weren’t texting the Master then,” Yaz pointed out. “You were texting O.”
Graham picked the Doctor’s phone up and held it out towards her. “I don’t think texting him is a good idea. But now that you’ve started, you’re going to have to keep it up.”
Even Jack shrugged his agreement when she turned to him, “At least read your messages; make sure he isn’t threatening genocide today.”
The Doctor took the phone from Graham grudgingly. “You’re overreacting. He probably hasn’t even text me back.” Still her fingers shook a little as she traced the pattern to unlock her phone. Except it wasn’t really a pattern. She’d upgraded her phone to accept more complex patterns, and set an old Gallifreyan word as her passcode.
The Master would appreciate that if he was here to see it. Or he’d call her sentimental. He definitely wouldn’t kill someone just because she’d taken a few extra minutes to text him back. Surely they were past that.
Her phone pinged as soon as she’d turned it on. And then it pinged again.
Shit
By the ping of the fourth incoming message, she realised she had vastly overestimated the Master’s patience in his current regeneration.
O was boring. Smart, but oh so boring.
You’re not actually into that are you?.
Are you ignoring me in favour of your boring little pets?
The most recent message made the Doctors brow furrow. An image, fuzzy and from a weird angle. She turned her head from one side, to the other, just waiting for the pixels to make sense to her eyes.
Her phone couldn’t have been off for more than five minutes. He couldn’t have found her so quickly. The grainy image of the Doctor and her friends had been taken from outside the cafe, and answered one question. The Master had escaped Gallifrey with a Tardis.
This meant the Doctor was revising upwards the number of Cybermasters that could have escaped the planet’s destruction, while looking over Graham and Jack’s shoulders. The front of the cafe was all glass, allowing her an unobstructed view of the street outside.
“What is it? What are you looking for?” Ryan asked.
“Okay, so you might have been right about the Master reacting badly,” the Doctor said as he eyes found a lone figure seated outside the shopfront.
“Why? What has he done?”
“Don’t panic. It’s going to be okay,” she assured them. It was amazing how quickly she reverted back to lying.
The figure outside had their back to her, as they puffed out a cloud of smoke. The Master had always tended to burn through his regenerations faster than other Timelords, but she never expected him to choose such a human method of speeding up his death. It would take decades to have any impact on their respiratory system.
She felt the quiet press of ‘contact’ at the edge of her mind, and she knew, even if the figure outside wasn’t the Master, he was close. “I think the Master is here,” she had to admit. Of course all her friends twisted around in their seats, and Jack was already reaching for something under his coat.
Graham cursed under his breath, “Christ, that is him, isn’t it?”
Her lips pressed together in a thin line as she stood. "Don't move. I'll be right back".
Yaz grabbed her arm as she walked by her chair, stopping her with a concerned look that made guilt twist in the Doctors gut. "Where are you going? You can't go out there alone."
"I can and I will. He won't do anything.” Her friends looked doubtful. “Listen if there's one thing that's always remained constant with the Master, it's his flair for the dramatic. He's not going to start anything at a cafe in Sheffield. It lacks… grandiosity. "
She gently took Yaz’s hand from her arm and squeezed it tight.
She pointed a stern finger at Jack."Stay here, Jack. I can handle him"
“Think that's what we're afraid of,” Ryan muttered as she walked away.