Chapter Text
“What do you think, O, fancy a trip in a box?”
“I really, really would.”
The Master was almost giddy with the feeling as he stepped over the threshold onto her TARDIS. it had almost been too easy. All he had to do was flash a smile he knew she’d fall for (stupid, predictable Doctor) and she’d invited him on board her precious ship.
Admittedly, this was the point where everything could fall apart.
He just had hope that her TARDIS wouldn’t recognise him. The Doctor was stupidly smart but it was a lot easier to fool her than a machine. The TARDIS couldn’t be charmed by a friendly face and hero worship.
If the TARDIS figured it out then his entire plan was ruined and everything he’d been planning so carefully for years would be over like that. And he wouldn’t get to enjoy the look on the Doctor’s face as he revealed his Great Master Plan at the Most Opportune Moment if her stupid TARDIS ruined it for him first. He tried to rid the scowl that he felt forming and instantly fell back into O, turning round to grin at her.
“Shut up.”
Well, at least he’d gotten to tell her to shut up. New highlight of his day, even if he had to say it about something else or not because she was talking too ridiculously fast like she always did.
“Just ridiculous.”
There she was again, with that damn smile. She really was a complete fool. Was it really this easy to make her happy? A big pair of eyes grinning like a child at Christmas, or whatever else people went about smiling for.
He’d not felt this happy in years.
The Master tried to keep his thoughts in check as they all filled into the TARDIS and got ready for Barton’s birthday. He could still feel the thrum of the TARDIS all around him as he got changed into a suit the ship provided for him. It was nothing special but it fit and that was all he needed. Still, he couldn’t help the smirk he had to tap down into a shy smile when the Doctor beamed at him when he came back out into her console room.
“You clean up nice,” she noted.
“Not had much of an excuse to out in the Outback,” he joked, reveling in her laugh.
“A shame really,” she muttered, so quiet that no human would have heard it.
He kept his face schooled into the soft doey admiration she’d come to expect from O, but inside he was preening, internally jumping up and down in joyous triumph. All his plans were falling into place now and it was going to be So Much Fun. He heard her “fam” come trooping back in to join them and watched her features shift slightly as she schooled her face into something marginally more neutral. Now, that was interesting.
He turned to smile at them and ran as hand over the console, feeling the TARDIS purr underneath his hand. This was going to be positively wonderful.
💙💙
It had in fact, not been wonderful. It had been decidely unwonderful and the Master was ready to find the Doctor and scream in her face. He really hadn’t had enough of a chance to do that before, too busy pretending to be oh so nice and in love with her. Well, that was before she’d decided to dump him in the 1940s on Earth and just left him there to suffer while she skipped ahead nearly eight decades and laid a trap for him.
Actually, maybe wringing her neck would be more fitting.
She’d ruined it, again. Everything, all those plans that had taken years of careful planning, all undone in a manner of days.
At least for her. He’d had to wait years for her victory.
He ran and licked his wounds, waiting for her to go find the little gift he’d left her. It was what she deserved after all of that. She deserved the truth.
He felt victory twist in his gut and ignored that it somehow felt like loss as well.
💙💙
It took entirely far too long for The Doctor to get it. All those plans he’d crafted, the time he had to put into getting everything ready for her and here she was; as dense as ever.
No matter, he’d soon fix that.
And he did. He stood there with a snarl on his face as he forced her to face a truth she hadn’t even known about. He unravelled every lie, unearthed every little way they’d stolen her life from her and used her to create them. To create him.
He watched understanding slowly dawn on her face, somewhere underneath the pain that the truth was causing.
He could see her hearts breaking in front of him.
Good.
He relished in every grimace, every flicker of hurt, every tiny flinch.
It was easier to indulge in her pain. It made it all easier. All those months, those years, he’d spent carrying this knowledge with him without her knowing, it had yet burned another hole into his already tarnished spirit. All he’d known for so long had been the yearning to watch her hearts break in front of him a s the terrible truth broke her.
She was broken now.
He’d won.
💙💙
Of course he hadn’t. He didn’t even know where in the galaxy he was. All he knew was that she had stood there like the goddamn sun and burned away another one of his plans. Okay, fine, maybe it was a touch too melodramatic to resurrect those bastards as part of his army but he’d thought it had gotten his point across very poetically.
She hadn’t thought so.
She was meant to break but she’d stood there with that fierce glint in her eye and saved the bloody day again.
It was infuriating.
The Master turned and screamed into the darkness around him, yelling until his throat was hoarse. He hadn’t even noticed tears of exertion had started rolling down his cheeks until his voice cracked, raw and broken.
He wiped the offending problem away from his face and set his face into a hard line. He was definitely spending too much time with The Doctor lately if he was suddenly crying. That was just not going to happen. Not to him.
She was not going to bloody win.
So, he set to work. First things first, get back to actual coordinates and devise an evil scheme. Act out said very evil scheme and watch the Doctor lose. Be very happy and hold it over her for a long, long time. Maybe get rid of her stupid fam. Gloat some more. Finally win.
It was genius, really. He was a genius after all so by default all of his schemes were automatically genius. That was just the rules.
It took far too long but he managed to make it back to Gallifrey. Last known point of contact, ge thought bitterly as he kicked some of the rubble around. He kicked one piece particularly fiercely and watched it soar in an arc before it clattered to the ground in a deafening thud. It was too quiet here, the wind dancing around the ruins of the Citadel.
It’s what you deserve, he thought as he sunk to his knees to pick up a handful of dirt. “It’s what you deserved!” he growled as he watched the ashes fly out of his hand as they were carried away by a gust of wind that felt too soft for the monstrous acts that had been committed.
He watched the ashes fly away when he felt it.
A sharp pang in his hearts.
Straightening to make sure no one else was around (impossible, why would anyone be here?), he closed his eyes and let out a breath, concentrating. It hadn’t been him. He had no love for these people. He wasn’t sure he ever had, even before they’d driven him mad. No, love was a concept too tightly wound into grief and he didn’t want to grieve the stupid planet.
Heartbreak.
His eyes opened sharply and he turned and threw up next to his shoes. He grimaced at the sight and vaguely hoped he’d thrown up on Rassilon, or some other twat that most definitely deserved it.
That wasn’t his heartbreak.
That could only mean…
“No! No! No!!” he screamed into the dead air, but only the wind answered him.
He concentrated again and when he felt the intrusion again he wondered how he’d been so wrapped up in his own rage to miss it. It felt like a lead weight on his mind now that he’d acknowledged it, the heavy burden of overwhelming sadness trying to claw at him.
But it wasn’t his own sadness he was feeling. It was hers.
‘Doctor, you get out of my head this instant.’
The wind wisped about and the ashes stirred but no answer came.
‘Doctor, go away right now or you will regret it.’
‘Doctor… Doctor… Doctor!’
He tried everything. He cursed her out in every language he knew, threw promises of revenge and threats against every friend she’d ever known, told her he’d rip her apart, said he’d hunt her down. He even tried throwing his anger back to make her acknowledge it.
She didn’t.
Surely she wasn’t going to ignore him.
Not now. She thought they were the only ones left. That had always meant something to her, something dumb she used to whisper to him to try to get him to stay with her. The Doctor was simply incapable of ignoring him. It was the only thing he knew to be true when he first found out everything else was built on lies.
That could only mean one thing.
She didn’t know she was projecting.
Even worse, she wouldn’t be able to stop doing it. “I’m going to make you stop,” he whispered dangerously into the rapidly approaching night as he tried futilely yet again to get her incessant thoughts to leave him alone.
But still her thoughts lurked.
The Master went about his plan. He started devising and creating, salvaging a TARDIS and fixing it up until he knew it would be enough to get him to her. That was the only thing that mattered. He could figure out what to do after, but right now he was laser focused on one thing: He had to get to her. He no longer needed to make her scream and break and pay for ruining yet another brilliant scheme that he had put so much work into. No, now he had to get her to shut the hell up.
💙💙
His plan wasn’t happening fast enough. The TARDIS was easy enough to fix up but it was almost too easy. He didn't have to think too much about it and that meant he started tuning in to her thoughts. They were always there, tucked away at the back of his mind and now that he knew what it was it was impossible to ignore.
She'd always been impossible to ignore but it had never been this bad. At least even when she wasn't aware she was being impossible she still knew she was affecting him somehow. Now? This was just some bizarre torture concocted by the universe to drive him to insanity once more.
At least this time it would be her fault.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, going insane again. It was another thing he could hold against her, one more thing that would cause her hearts to break.
She'd most definitely deserve it.
Day in, day out all he felt was an overwhelming sense of sadness. Sometimes it felt more like grief, some days it felt more like guilt but every day it felt like poison.
Really, he should be delighting in the fact that her mind was so awful, but he couldn't. Not when he was being forced to suffer through it with her. It was tedious, that never-ending self hatred on a constant loop, intermingled with bouts of doubt and fear over who she was.
The Master banged his head against the console, hoping it would either get her to shut up for a bit or a least knock him out so he didn't have to listen to her anymore.
It did neither of those things.
💙💙
He parked his TARDIS and went outside, breathing in the smell of life that was decidedly not burnt. Gods, was he happy to finally get off of that hellscape he’d once called home.
He looked around and spotted her stupid phone box instantly. She could have fixed the Chameleon Circuit years ago and instead of utilising her genius she had left it with that dumb exterior. This was why he was the smartest of the pair, he thought as he went over to it. It was a little plain and boring but it still stuck out like a sore thumb. It didn’t belong in this era. As much as he hated Earth, he’d spent enough time on Earth to know that. He looked back over his shoulder at his own TARDIS, carefully disguised as an oak on a street corner. It wasn’t anything special but at least his own machine actually served the purpose it was designed for.
He reached the door of her ship and slipped his hand into his coat to get out his lock picking tools. He already knew she wasn’t there. Her sad thoughts had been tampered down with her evident excitement at meeting some new alien species or something. Honestly, she was pitifully predictable some days.
He got his tools out but before he could unlock the door himself it swung open. Straightening up, he pushed the door open a little further and strode in with a wide grin. “Oh, darling Doctor, you really need to remember to lock your doors. Never know what kind of people might be lurking about,” he remarked as he walked around her console.
This place was unchanged, orange light lighting the main room as he gave the controls a proper inspection. “I did think this would be a lot harder,” he said, reaching out to touch the console.
His hand barely grazed it before the door was slamming shut behind him. Turning at the sound of the noise, he ran towards the door and started pounding on it. Realising he wasn’t going to be let out he turned round to face the console again and his next thought made his smile twist his features again.
“Oh stupid, Doctor. Have you really trapped me in your TARDIS? I take back anything I ever said about you being smart.”
The Master walked towards her console again, taking slow deliberate steps as he tried to figure out how to readjust his plans for this wonderful anomaly.
“I thought your precious TARDIS was your best friend,” he mocked, one hand coming to rest on one of the orange fixtures around her console.
Instantly he pulled his hand back as if he had been burned. He looked in horror as the lights of the TARDIS started pulsing around him. He wasn’t sure how it was possible but the ship was definitely mocking him.
“But how?” he growled, pacing furiously around. “You’re just a ship, you’re not meant to be like this!”
He cried out sharply as he felt himself walk firmly into nothing. “Okay, fine, I’ll accept that you’ve got me trapped here. Now what? You keep me as bait for when the Doctor shows up? All you do is help me out if you do that.”
There was no answer but he had been expecting that. This wasn’t like sparring with the Doctor. He didn’t have someone who could match him. All he had was a dumb ship who thought he could be kept hostage.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something glowing in the console and gently reached out towards it, hesitating when his fingers were hovering right over it. “If this is a trap I will rip you apart,” he promised before he touched the glowing instrument.
The sense of sadness that he felt was overwhelming. He knew it was the Doctor’s immediately. It was the same sadness that had been plaguing him every moment since he’d last seen her, even if it had taken him too long to realise that’s what the feeling had been.
He turned his gaze from where it had been focused on the glow under his fingertips and gently focused it on the centre of the console. “Okay, she’s sad, it’s partly my fault, what do you want me to do about it?”
The replying hum seemed to vibrate through his entire being, setting his soul on fire from the inside out.
Oh. Oh.
Now that was an idea.