Work Text:
The landscape itself is almost devoid of color. A massive, yawning pit stretching from this end of eternity to the next, and spiraling just as deep downwards. Huge, swirling masses of grey clouds spin, circling into the chasm. One great whirlwind churning slowly and viciously, and thankfully, miles away.
Standing next to the cliffside would be madness. Anything that gets too close—sucked into the void. The barrier between really strong wind and being dragged into certain, high-speed death is a thin one, and unfortunately for some not very easy to pinpoint. Standing by the edge would be madness. That’s why Clara sits a few more meters away, leaning back casually on a stone bench.
It’s a calm day, comparatively. The storm howls its typical guttural cry, crackling and echoing like something fierce and pained is trapped inside. Someone explained the science to her, once, but with such monotony and esoteric language that she barely listened. It didn’t matter. Another traveler waxed about spirits, violent and passive swept alike into the vortex.
His words were poetic, and endearing, but ultimately not the answer she sought. For her, the winds rage, the storm wails, and in the background, observing the chaos, beautiful and crashing and crumbling, Clara watches and feels it reflected in her heart.
“Does it remind you of anyone?”
Clara pulls her gaze from the formation and turns to her right. He hadn’t been there a moment ago, but it’s easy to sneak up on someone in this weather. The man, dressed in a violet overcoat, stares at her with intense eyes.
“Yes,” Clara answers honestly, scanning the newcomer’s face. She’s never met him before, she would remember—his gaze is dark, enthralling, and yet somehow... familiar. “And you?”
He nods, a short, hesitant gesture. Like he wasn’t really expecting her to return the question, but usually when people ask something they’re searching for it in themselves too. “Are you close?”
His words are nearly stolen by the wind, but she catches them. With regret, she shakes her head. “No. Not anymore,”
“Shame.”
Interestingly, he looks like he means it. His lips twist with bitterness, and she frowns. “Do I know you?”
The storm shrieks then, a lengthy, truly loud cry that captures both of their attentions. Clara and the stranger turn towards the cloud formation, and it gives her time to think, to try and place him. Nothing comes up, but the wail dies down and they turn back to each other.
“I don’t know,” the man shrugs impassively, but his eyes find hers fast and with such absorbing darkness that she freezes. “Do you, Clara?”
He says her name carefully, like the balancing act of a dagger between delicate fingers, but she’s not sure if he’s warning her against pushing it or edging her into it. They know each other, clearly, but the sudden stillness of his expression indicates that all of her initial hints are up.
For a few moments, she studies him, and he lets her. The chances of meeting someone who recognizes her out here—this corner of the universe, this exact time, and this intensely aware—there is a very, very slim list of people who would qualify. More for effect than a true need for validation, Clara reaches out a hand and grabs his wrist. He stiffens in surprise, but allows her to turn it over and feel his pulse.
Four beats. The sign of twin hearts, thrumming in mismatched time with the storm. It’s not with satisfaction that she lets go of his hand, but it sure is some kind of release. Looking back up at him, Clara gives him what he wants.
“Master,” she says, because there’s no denying it. His eyes flutter shut for a moment, and she knows she struck correctly but she can’t help teasing. “Unless it’s still Missy?”
“No. Not anymore,” the Master echoes her former words, shifting further to face her. “You don’t seem surprised,”
“Is that what you wanted?” she says, propping an arm on the backing of the bench. “There’s very few who would be able to find me here, and even fewer who would want to. So, why?”
“Why,” he repeats, frowning, “why. Can’t I just see an old friend?”
He can’t be serious. “Friend? Pretty sure you tried to kill me last time we met,”
“Oh, come Clara. That was flirting,” his lips quirk into a sort of smile, a ghosting at the memory. She can’t relate.
“Yeah, shoving me into a Dalek. I really felt the love,” she says it sarcastically, but realizes there’s no real bite. It’s been so long, she can’t find it in herself to be upset. Especially when he laughs. Not a deranged cackle, or even the sinister, cunning snicker of Missy. Something more genuine, a quick reprieve from the bitterness and intensity of his face.
He looks so old, and haunted. Like something truly vicious reached inside of him and shattered whatever remained. Instead of resentment, it’s concern she feels, because Missy had been composed—intact. Sharp like a blade, with collarbones to match. This Master just seems... lost.
“What happened to you?” Clara asks, and the bitterness returns.
“Nothing,” he says quickly, so obviously a lie that she almost laughs.
“Wanna try that again?”
The defensive surge rising in him seems to consider itself, and the surroundings, and he lowers his hackles. With a deep sigh, he looks to the storm, wind whipping his hair into his face. The vortex swirls with turbulence, and its sheer presence is overwhelming in a way she never tires of. That resounding, perpetual howling, hitting hard into her chest—it doesn’t take away the ache, but it makes it easier to understand. The Master stares at the storm, and she remembers his first question. There’s really only one answer to that.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead, Clara?” is what he settles on instead, edging around whatever painful truth he’s harboring. “Circling back to that fixed point... what was it, the long way ‘round?”
“Death is for other people,” Clara replies dismissively, and she knows he recognizes the words. Years and years ago. A truly different time, but she remembers. Even centuries later.
“Did you ever try?” he asks, “To go back, to Gallifrey. Fix the timeline,”
“I did,”
“What did you find?”
Clara breathes, “Devastation.”
Finally, he faces her. “And?”
“Everybody dead. I couldn’t return even if I wanted to,”
She hadn’t, not really, but Me had left some years before and she was lonely, and her fate was looming. Landing on Gallifrey, stepping onto brittle stalks of red grass and gazing into the destroyed remains of the Citadel—she wishes she could say it was grief she felt; but as she wandered through the city, devoid of life and charred beyond repair, all that came to her was a guilty, surprised wave of relief. Time knit itself back together. Clara breathed in the smoke of a dead planet and felt her heart beat again.
“How did it feel?” his eyes gleam with an eager light, sharp as flint. The eyes of an artist, seeking validation, begging for admiration for a work he’s already proud of. In that hungry look, truth is revealed, and it should be painful but regretfully, unremittingly, it’s not.
“Sacred,” she says, and that isn’t the word she planned to use but it comes out anyways. His eyes widen, and she continues. “I spent hours, walking through the Citadel. And it was terrible, of course. But also... in a way, it felt... righteous. Like retribution,”
“You understand,” he whispers, barely loud enough to combat the wind.
Her words seem to have unraveled him, offering a twisted sort of gratification. An indulgence, maybe, that she shouldn’t have given but it’s true—no, she didn’t know why he did it, she hadn’t needed to. She felt it. And it was wrong. And it made sense.
Clara decides to ask anyways. “Tell me about it?”
Take or leave. The Master hesitates, and it’s obvious he hasn’t spoken to anybody in genuine conversation in... a long time, likely. Probably not about this at all. Not to someone who would listen.
“I discovered something,” he begins slowly, “and it changed... everything.”
“What was it?”
He studies her, just for a few moments. Then he takes a breath, and tells her a story.
Long ago, on an unimportant, unknown planet, a traveler left the cradle of her civilization in search of something beyond. In her exploration, she finds a child, alone by a rift. She takes the child back to her home world, and cares for her like her own. The child has an accident. She dies. She is reborn. Her adopted mother brings the child into a laboratory and experiments, dissecting and torturing and forcing them to regenerate, over and over again. Finally she achieves her desires. Her planet advances and the child is disregarded. The truth of the civilization’s founding is buried deep, the child’s memory is wiped, and there are no repercussions.
“But who was the child?” Clara asks, and the Master laughs. Bitterly and regretful.
“Who do you think?” He inclines his head to the storm.
A massive, turbulent identity. Almost unfathomable, the sheer force of it—and how it howls, like a siren, sucking in anyone who gets too close and tearing them apart. Beautiful, terrible, and utterly captivating. Some are dragged in. Others hear the call, compelled by the wind pulling them forward—and jump.
“Oh,” is all Clara can say.
The Master mutters something in response, mouth twisted into a sort of dark smile—but she doesn’t catch it, and she doesn’t get the feeling it’s for her anyways.
“Do they know?”
He nods.
“Didn’t go well, I take it?”
Grimacing, he shrugs. “She ran away and let a human martyr himself to kill me.”
Carefully, she says, “And now?”
“Prison, at one point. Probably fucking off with her pets and pretending nothing happened. So, standard.”
Some part of her rises defensively, because that’s still an instinct she carries despite the millennia between this epoch of living and the last. She swallows it, because that won’t be helpful right now, and there’s a readily available cliff in front of her if the Master decides he doesn’t like what she says. Not that she’s worried about that, not truly, but there’s definitely residual trauma from her last encounter with the Master and indeterminably deep holes.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Yeah, what have you been up to? Can’t all be leveling planets,” it’s a semi-attempt at a joke, probably misplaced, but she thinks her tone is balanced enough not to be grating.
“Mm,” he considers the question, “don’t really know. Feels weird to say that. Usually there’s something but it’s just... drifting. Meandering, even. A lot of self-loathing.”
“Chasing down ‘old friends’?” Clara suggests, and just to try it out, she knocks her knee against his because they really are sitting quite close, and she senses a spiral. It seems to do some good, because the dark clouding in his eyes clears and he blinks at her in surprise.
“Sure, that.”
He still seems mildly jarred by the contact, and she wonders how long it’s been since someone touched him without malice. A friendly gesture. What would he do if she hugged him? Might get violent. Or he could start crying. She’s almost tempted to do it.
“How long has it been, since you landed?” he interrupts her scheming, “on Gallifrey.”
She hums. “Ten years, maybe?”
“You’re not aging,” he narrows his eyes. “Still a bit of a fixed point, then.”
Shrugging, she says, “I figured it was just Time Lord technology. Side effect of misuse,”
“Sums it well enough. And how is immortality?”
There’s a lot of ways to answer that. Clara considers the years—the sheer energy and time of existence, much more than she ever expected for herself. Knowing she was eventually going to return to Trap Street, she crammed so much into the first century; and then another passed and another and she kept wondering when it was going to end, when the thread would spin out with its last frayed tip and she would finally face the Raven.
It never did, and now she never will.
“Long,” is what she decides on, painfully short for the true weight of it all. But he nods, and she knows he understands.
A tired look comes over the Master’s face. If he weren’t already sitting, she might be concerned of him toppling over, but he stays still.
“I don’t know where to go from here,” he confesses, and if anything, that amounts to the brokenness, because the Master always has a drive, something to strive for or spite against. “I wanted it to be over. For her to end it. She couldn’t even give me that,”
“But you won’t,” Clara says, “do it yourself, I mean. Would you?”
Slightly, he shakes his head, and that’s a strange relief in her chest. How did they get here? It’s easy to forget his atrocities when talking to him like this. There’s a certain magnetism, dark and drawing her in since she met Missy. Even with the pain, and betrayal, and consistent death threats and then actual attempts. Like this, sitting together on stone and bracing against the wind, empathy makes sense.
The storm swirls and bays and suffers, cursed by its own mass to spin and rage and regret and she knows exactly how she got here, and why he followed—now over any other time. Seconds of eternity, from this edge to the next. A seemingly endless abyss and the forces that spin you into orbit before you ever have a chance of hitting the ground. The call of the void. Clara takes her chances and reaches out, clasping his hand.
He stares at her in surprise, and maybe confusion, but he doesn’t recoil or attack so she doesn’t pull back. Warily, he regards her, but after an odd few moments he laces their fingers together.
“You could come with me,” Clara offers. His hand is warmer than she expected considering the weather, but it’s not unwelcome. Through his fingers, she feels his pulse, quick but steady.
The Master smiles at her, tight-lipped and close to regretful. “No.”
“We could travel together,” she pushes anyways, “sunny skies only. It could be interesting,”
He shakes his head. “I’m sensing conditions,”
“Only a few,” she says, “just the basics. Not a mission to reform you. Some boundaries, and we could be... partners.”
“Partners,” he repeats, “what makes you think I might want that?”
“Because immortality is exhausting alone? And I’m the only other creature who could even come close to understanding and accepting you?”
He pauses, considering, and glances down at their hands. And then the vortex—then her face. She’s sure he’s going to reject her. Time Lord egomania and his typical defensive solitude barring him from any connection with what he considers a lesser species, which is basically everyone in the universe expect for one person. But extending the offer is low risk, because the worst that can happen is she goes back to flying around in her empty TARDIS, hopping from time and place and hoping for fulfillment. Loneliness is a burden she’s familiar with.
“I can’t,” he says, “sorry, Clara.”
She knew what he would say, but still: “Tell me why,”
“I prefer to run alone,”
“Liar. You’re lonelier than ever,”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”
“No, I think you do,” she says, “give me a real reason.”
A moment passes. He seems to struggle to say it, but finally he tells her, “I’m not the Doctor.”
Her breath catches. “I’m very aware of that,” she replies. Carefully, she considers her next words. “And, neither am I. Perhaps that’s a good thing, yeah?”
“You miss him,” the Master states, fingers clenching a little harder around her hand. It doesn’t hurt, but the contact is apparent and it takes until that moment for Clara to fully recollect that his kind are touch-telepaths.
“Obviously,” she says. There’s no reason to deny that. It bleeds out of her, as it does every time she comes here. “So do you. It hurts, doesn’t it?”
“So much,” he closes his eyes. “She burns inside of me, Clara. No matter what I do, I will never just... get away. Everything is about her. All I am is because of her.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” Clara says, “you’re still your own person. What you discovered doesn’t change that.”
“You don’t understand,” he says, somewhat desperately. “My whole life revolves around her.”
“Actually, I think I’m the only one who can understand. Impossible Girl, remember? Born to save the Doctor... all those other lives, scattered throughout time. Would they resent it, if they knew?” she pauses. “Everything you’ve done, all you’ve been, it hasn’t been erased. Im not telling you... how to feel, but you aren’t lesser because of your origins.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but her last sentence seems to catch the impulse. A flash of bitterness and anguish crosses his face, and she wonders what really happened in their last meeting. Considering her words, he stays silent, and when he doesn’t seem inclined to offer a reply she takes the opportunity.
“I know you’re not him. And I’m definitely not her. But I’m not looking for a stand-in, and I wouldn’t ask you if I didn’t mean it. So. Come with me?”
He hesitates. This much uncertainty looks strange on the Master. Missy had always been coordinated—the only time Clara ever saw her flounder was back on Skaro, caught in a lie she couldn’t salvage—and that one almost killed them both. But this Master; somber, intense, and shattered—has been very honest with her. It’s not that she wants to fix him, that’s an impossible feat, but she might be able to pull him from the edge. And they work well together, even as antagonists. As friends...
“Impressive,” he finally says, “you’ve managed to change my mind.”
“You’ll join me?” she tries to stay neutral, but excitement creeps in.
“Can’t be any worse than what I’ve been doing,” he replies, and it’s not an enthusiastic yes but it’s good enough for her.
Carefully, he extricates his hand from hers and flexes his fingers. Clara pulls hers back, and the warmth lingers on her palm. “Where do you want to go?
“You choose. Somewhere without rain,”
He still looks sleep-deprived, but there’s a spark of interest in his eyes that wasn’t there before. Some of the sharpness returning. Briefly, she considers how horribly wrong this could go; potential conflicts of interest and morality, all that—but quickly disregards it. She’s made much worse decisions, and this one bursts with possibility.
“I’ve got some ideas,” Clara says, smiling. His lips quirk up in a weak response. It’s not joy, but that’s not what she expects. Just company. “Wanna get out of here?”
The wind howls as she speaks, crying out as if betrayed. Spinning and pummeling itself, the clouds crackle and it feels personal. She spent so much time here, contemplating or sobbing or screaming at the vortex as if it in particular wronged her. And each time, enraged, numb, suffering or seeking, the gale drags her forward and compels, begs her to take another step. Find what she’s missing. Give in to temptation.
It’ll always call to her, and she knows the Master feels it too because this entire meeting bleeds out longing for the unattainable. Well, if she won’t jump she might as well step back. Pull him with her if she can.
“Probably for the best,” he answers, stretching his legs. Standing up, he turns to her and holds out his hand.
She takes it, getting to her feet, and doesn’t neglect to notice the kindness in the action. No longer sitting, it’s harder to resist the wind, but she manages to step around the bench, towards the path she came.
With one last look at the storm, the Master turns away and follows her. Once in range, she reclaims his hand with hers. “For precaution,” she says, “it’s a long way down.”
Their eyes lock, and he nods, short and knowing. “Don’t worry,” he replies, “there won’t be any more falling.”
It’s an odd way to put it, but the words call back deep into her memory. Of a world saved and hidden, now burnt to a husk. No longer falling sometimes just means hitting the ground. Crushing into the earth or disappearing into the depths. Not always a rescue. An end.
“No more falling,” Clara agrees softly.
With that, she pulls him along the path and doesn’t look back.