Work Text:
Instead of dying there, shot in the back by her former self, Missy wakes up.
Something has changed in the time she was out, she can smell it in the air. Fire and ashes and death, smells so familiar and yet so distant after only a few decades in the Vault. There are ripples, too, in the Web of Time, ripples that threaten to turn into dangerous waves.
The Doctor. It has to be him. There are so very few beings who have tied themselves to the universe so thoroughly that their fate could shake history.
Missy struggles to her feet, hissing as every movement pulls at the open wound that stretches over her back. She lets the pain fill her, fuel her, keep her from passing out or regenerating or dying. Once upon a time, the Doctor had committed murder to save her life. She has slaughtered a thousand worlds just to watch the blood soak the ground. She will slaughter a thousand more if it means setting this right.
Somehow she fears that it won't be that simple.
She struggles through the forest, through the fields. She struggles past the barn where the Doctor's pet Cyberman had lived, past the farmhouse that sits silent and dead. She struggles until she finds the battlefield, blasted to smithereens like so many of the planets she's conquered, and it's there that she finds the conqueror of the Cybermen.
He isn't breathing. She collapses next to him, panting. The Web hasn't torn yet, she should still have time, but he isn't breathing. She presses her ear to his chest, straining to hear his hearts. There's nothing. No sign of life.
"Damn you, Doctor," she whispers. She begins rifling through his pockets, searching for his Confession Dial. She can upload his soul to the Matrix, at least. She can do right by him this once.
No Confession Dial. It shouldn't be possible, but he doesn't have his Confession Dial.
"You stupid, irresponsible, pathetic excuse of a Time Lord," she says. "Where the devil is it? Where did you put your soul?"
"He sacrificed himself." The cold, mechanical voice of a Cyberman almost makes her hearts stop, but when Missy looks up it isn't an upgraded model. There can only be one creature encased inside.
"You don't understand," she hisses. "A human like you could never understand."
"I am not human."
"I know that, you idiot." Missy feels something wet on her cheeks. Tears. She's shed more tears in the past few months than in her centuries of life. "You don't understand. His mind, his soul - It should be here. There should be something of him left."
"The Doctor knew that he would die," the Cyberman says. "It was his choice."
"Well, it wasn't mine," Missy snaps. The Cyberman cocks its head, and it's such a human gesture that something of the Doctor's human must still remain.
"You mourn for him."
"Is that really such a surprise?" Missy says. She looks back down at the Doctor, and his body is still broken and dead. "I stabbed myself in the back for the chance to stand with him. When I shot back - I thought it was right, it was fitting. I was always supposed to die first. Even if my own Confession Dial never made it back to Gallifrey..." Missy shakes her head. "Not that I could bring him to the Matrix even if I tried. The lifts are gone and the Cybermen are coming. We're both trapped here." The Cyberman is staring at the body of her oldest friend, and as Missy watches water seeps from behind its ocular lenses.
"I carried him," the Cyberman says, and Missy can almost imagine the emotion that should have been in its voice.
"For all the good that did," she says bitterly.
"No," the Cyberman says. It looks at her, its fabric face darkened by its tears. "I carried him. You can carry him, too." It takes a moment before Missy understands.
"Oh," she breathes out. "Oh. You are a clever little human after all, aren't you." The Cyberman hums mechanically, seemingly pleased that's she's gotten it at long last. Missy places her hands on either side of the Doctor's head, rests her forehead on his, and listens.
It should have taken his body days to die if he hadn't had any regenerations left. This death is impossible in more ways than one. But that means that there's still a chance, a chance that he's channeled all that energy into preserving his mind, a chance that she can use to - there. A spark, a remnant, something that's survived even as this body grows cold and stiff with rigor mortis.
Missy? His voice sounds faint, but it's there, alive. She digs deeper. Missy, what are you doing?
What needs to be done. You aren't allowed to die, Doctor, not if it isn't by my hand.
You came back...
I came home, Missy says. She digs in deep, entrenching herself around the contours of his mind, tightening her fist as he tries to shy away. It's where I've always been going, the long way around.
You said you wouldn't stand with me.
I lied. His mind, which had been flagging, blazes to life with all the brilliance of regeneration. Let me do this for you, Doctor. Let me grab your soul away. Let me carry you.
Not... Not the Dial? She catches fragmented glimpses - a veiled figure, an open grave, millions of skulls, a wall. And beneath that, an ocean of fear and loneliness and trauma so deep she might drown in it. She had known that there were places he'd walked where she could never follow, but she had never imagined this.
Never. Never the Dial, never the Matrix. Just you and I, my Doctor, piloting this body for eternity. His mind draws away from hers at that, hesitant.
I was so tired. I was ready to let go and fall. It was for a good cause, at least.
There are other good causes. There are other threads to anchor, to change. You are not allowed to die, not like this. For a long time, he doesn't respond.
Yes... He still doesn't feel certain, but it's all the permission that Missy needs. She reaches, claws, and pulls him into her. She will put this right. She unravels his soul from his body, bringing him into her. Their minds enfold each other, intermingling and coalescing until there's nothing left to separate them.
Their new creation breathes in, looking up to see their companion with new old eyes.
"Doctor?" Bill says. They smile.
"Maybe," they say. "I don't know quite yet. But whatever I am," and they are, determination and stubborn kindness and will to survive, "I'm sure it's going to be fantastic."