Work Text:
Going out from the TARDIS, the first thing the doctor noticed was than the painting had disappeared from the front door.
“Well. At least, it’s cleaner, he told out loud, trying to hide his disappointment. No face to observe on the door, any more… That won’t help him to find Clara.”
Suddenly, an alarm ringed inside his ship. His string of though vanished when he started running to the TARDIS console. Without more thinking, he asked her to teleport them to the coordinates where the distress call came from. The cloister bell immediately chimed, and some incredible tremors made the doctor fell against the railing.
Then everything including the light just shut down.
He had arrived.
***
Missy was putting more eye-liner, while stretching her foots. Her boots were at one side of the flat she was squatting, where she had thrown them, and her jacket on the other.
She had travelled around the world all day, placing stuffs in different places and ideas in different heads, hoping it would be useful for her next plan which haven’t been decided yet. She had ended her trip in front of a mirror, and had discovered her make up had been fading.
She had though it was a bit childish, to cease all activity in order to fix her look. But her high-heeled shoes had been making her suffer since the past thirty minutes. A break could be only welcomed.
Plus one of the many advantage of being her was to do what she wanted, childish or not.
She made her eye-liner learn how to fly by throwing it away, and went back to her jacket.
Suddenly, something knocked at the door.
Four times.
Missy froze during the half of a second before grabbing her DiePhone in a pocket, and moving quickly toward the door.
She hated that. She rarely lose her chill. But this… this was bad memories, and someone triggering it shouldn’t be trusted.
Her device in a hand, she opened the door with the other.
And hide her panic behind a grin.
“Oh. Mister president. Long time no see. And you weren’t missed, if you have to know everything.”
Rassilon was standing in front of her. He looked tired and lost, but a sort of determination in his eyes made Missy suspicious.
“Here you are. After looking for you during days, I really began to think you were that a waist for the time lord race. But it seem today you will finally prove yourself to be useful.”
The discourse wasn’t sounding reassuring neither.
“yeah yeah yeah. Whatever. Anyway… what are you doing here ? Aren’t you supposed to be stuck on Gallifrey ?”
Rassilon put a feet in the entrance, Missy aimed her disintegrater, he raised his arm. Missy sigh theatrically while her eyes darkened.
This asshole still had his glove.
She lowered her weapon, and joined her hands, ready to teleport with the vortex manipulator. She had kept the adjustments necessary to use the energy of Rassilon’s weapon to run away from him if she had to cross his path again. No way she was repeating the mistake she had made at the end of the time war.
Ready, she raised her eyes to the sky.
“Come on, just do it!”
She waited for the shoot allowing her to run away from this mess, but nothing came, just words: “Oh no. I’m not here to kill you. well... I will,but only when I'll have what came from. Your vortex manipulator. See, the doctor asked for my exile, and the old fools of the council listened to his request. But I won’t stay stuck on this miserable planet one more second.”
Missy tried to quickly proceed these informations. So the doctor have finally found Gallifrey. And get ride of Rassilon. She grinned more.
“Well clearly he didn’t choose the planet where they threw you, did he ? Otherwise you would be on a desert rock in the border of a galaxy. Not his precious earth.”
Rassilon does not answered and just came closer. Missy went behind the table of the room, and decided to teleport right away. She changed three parameters, and turned the vortex manipulator on.
Nothing happened, but a twisted smile on Rassilon’s face.
She understood right away something was wrong, continuing to step back, she tipped few things on her DiePhone, which show her there were four time-scrambles surrendering the flat, making any teleportation impossible. She tried to hide her panic. How many pieces of the time lord technology did Rassilon take with him ? She raised her head back to him, while pushing one last button and going back on the disintegrater mode.
“So. Dead end, isn’t it ? She said, smiling has much as she could.”
The older time lord continued to come closer.
“I don’t think so. I have a weapon much powerful than you little gadget, and you don’t have you freaking powers any more. Your chances are null.”
He was finally on her side of the table. She immediately rolled under it and ran through the door. But Rassilon fired, and the lightening had just a too big range to avoid it.
Missy fell, shouting, But immediately fired back with the DiePhone. She could have touch him if he haven’t used his glove to stop her attack.
“This time I won’t let you regenerate.”
Missy though the same about him, before remembering it will be more difficult today than this last damned time, when something resonated in her head.
Four beats.
No.
she still tried to draw away from her attacker, a bad feeling in her stomach.
Tap tap tap tap.
This time, completely she froze, and glared at Rassilon, before asking “what have you done ?”
He opened his mouth for an answer, but the noise started again. She shrink, and quickly hanged her head. another look at the immortal made her understand than he wasn’t aware of what was happening, and was losing patience.
Tap tap tap tap.
She cried out, curled on herself, hanging her head. This couldn’t be happening. She had made them stop. She had succeed in stopping them. Running away from Rassilon and the council. Trying to stay still despite the hunger, the pain and the noise, always louder. Going through the dalek army without any real weapon, just luck at playing hide and seek. Avoiding the nightmare child. Finding the vortex in the middle of the time war. and facing it again, hopping for a miracle to happen.
It happened. They had stopped.
So they couldn’t come back !
tap tap tap tap.
Rassilon was getting closer. His hand directed at the time lady. Missy tried to move away, shaking, trembling, acting only thank to her self preservation.
Tap tap tap tap.
Tears had begun to wet her face, when suddenly a police box get through the windows, passed between her and the immortal, and stopped in the corner of the room.
Rassilon stood still, astonished.
Missy, now disconnected to the environment, continued to cry.
Tap tap tap tap.
The doctor stepped out of his TARDIS, and contemplated the mess.
A shaking mess in a corner of an unknown room. Missy, falling on the floor.
Facing him, Rassilon, with his silly glove on his hand.
his eyes widened in front of this scene
“Is that serious ?”
Rassilon immediately tried to harm him, but the energetic field of the TARDIS protected the doctor. He grabbed his new screwdriver, and pointed it at the glove which made few sparks. Rassilon stared at it for seconds and tried to aim it at Missy. Nothing happened, and he looked at his attacker with confusion.
“last version, the doctor said with a joyless smile.”
then he made a quick scan of the room, before approving the result.“Time-scrambles. That why the TARDIS had difficulties coming here. Logical.”
He hesitated a second before he went to Missy, and knelt by her side.
“Are you the one who called me ?”
She didn’t react to the question, neither she seemed aware he was here. He tried to find something to do, before wrapping his hand on her back. Then without a look for the immortal, he said:
“Sir. You should really go away now.”
Rassilon straightened up, tense, before walking to the door.
The doctor let his hand go through Missy hair. She let out a pained noise, while her hand tightened against her skull.
Beyond his worry for her, the doctor quickly understood he was forgetting something.“And let your glove here.”
He raised his head to watch the immortal obeying, and added.
“And don’t take your little gadgets while you going away.”
He waited from the time lord to disappear in the corridor. Then his attention went back to his best enemy.
The drummed hadn’t stopped this all time.
the doctor grumbled:
“please. I’m not good at this. How can I help you ? What happened ?”
Missy felt she had difficulties breathing. She couldn’t go through that again. She tried to speak once.
Twice.
Then she gave up and just screamed her frustration.
Hands went on her back, closing around her. And the doctor tried again:
“Please. I need to know. If you need help you have to tell me.”
She began to focuses on his voice. Not the best idea, but the only one around. She breathed in and out few time, and then finally succeed to whisper something coherent to his ear.
“the drumming doctor.”
They took some distance from each other, and he finally saw her face. Her blue eyes, circle in red, and panicked, were wide, and the rest of her muscle contracted.
“It’s back.”
The doctor closed if eyes, trying to know what to do with this information, while Missy went rigid with a groan when they resonated once more. He finally took her head between his own hands after forcing hers to let go.
“Can you make me listen to it ?”
She shook her hand in confusion.
“Why why why ? do you think it would change something ? You already heard them…”
“I’m trying to help. Let me help you !”
She tried to relax, before making their foreheads touch.
She breathed more heavily. She was losing the few self control she had left, crying openly and without any restrain.
They separated.
“Missy. Are you listening me ?”
She made a sign, too panicked to do more.
“It’s not the same than before. They are not here.”
A mad laugh came out of the lips of the time lady, overwhelmed. She tried to tell him to not play the fool, but because of louder beats just fell against him. Her hands catching his velvet coat. She quickly though it was nice, but mainly clung again the piece of clothe, the only reality she had left to fight against the drums.
“they are not real, Missy. It’s a memory coming back. You can fight it. Just relax and come back to the present.”
She cried more, imagining what would happen if she failed to remain calm, which was exactly what was happening. The sound. Staying forever, even after death. She sobbed in the doctor arm, while he kept holding her tight. She desperately clung more.
He didn’t move, just keep going by telling her she could get ride of the noise. Letting his hand drawing circle in her back. Not letting her go.
After what seemed like hours, despise this sound, her mind began to slip away, tired.
The last thing she felt was the velvet in her hand and the tight grip.
At least she wasn’t alone.
***
The first thing she noticed when she woke up was the silence. The blessed silence. Oh yeah that was good.
She opened her eyes, and had a look around, analysing where she was.
A TARDIS clearly. But customized. Blue lights, stairs to get to the different levels, and sat in one of them, an old time lord burying is head in his hands.
She had been lied down on a sofa, the velvet coat used as a blanket. She get up, and found her boot and her own jacket on a chair at her side.
“Do you often took flat which are not yours ?”
She didn’t offer him another look. “Yeah, well, think I generally don’t kill the actual owner. So I don’t take the complains.”
Only a sight answered her, while she began to put her boots back.
It take almost a minute before the next question. Missy was already visiting the TARDIS when the doctor dared.
“what happened, on Gallifrey when you got back in ?”
This time, Missy was the one showing signs of annoyance. Going around in the different floor of the TARDIS, she finally found a mirror and And raised an eyebrow facing the disorder her hairs had become. She began to pull of her hairpins before putting them back one by one. Meanwhile the doctor had stood up and come closer.
“Did the drums stopped ?”
She smiled, before she struck back:
“Where is Clara ?”
“She went away. The drums, Missy.”
She faced him, looking at him like he was an idiot.
“Of course they stopped.”
She took the time to enjoy the return of her self assurance before adding.
“Do I look like they are still beating ? Obviously they stopped. Try to come back in the real world, my dear.”
Missy turned around, half jumping, half dancing to support her statement. A last glance at the mirror informed her she looked okay, and nothing could show she had been a crying mess few hours ago. She passed nearby the doctor, and jumped in the stairs to approach the commands.
“Would you mind stopping by so I can take my leave ?”
The doctor joined her, the eyebrows more frowned than usual.
“Why would I do that when you refuse to tell me anything ?”
Missy gave him a disapproving look, and decided to let herself rest against the balustrade. Still smiling any way.
“If I invoke our old friendship to tell you you don’t want to know, will you just shut up about it ?”
A light of disappointment appear in the doctor’s eyes, but he finally just sighted and activated the TARDIS so it transport them.
This doctor sighted a lot.
“How did you contact me ?”
Her let her drama part give her an exceeded tone, while she brought out her DiePhone;
“Do you really thing I don’t have a doctor button in case of emergency. Without a TARDIS myself I know I have to be careful.”
The TARDIS landed, and they went at the entrance. She was back in front of the building she had squatted earlier this day. She turned to the doctor.
“Thank you my dear, she said with her usual charming but a bit dangerous smile. Kiss Clara for me.”
She saw a confused look, like if the time lord was trying to remembering something, before nooding and answer
“Take care of yourself Missy. And try to keep things calm.”
He closed the door, and ten seconds later, the TARDIS was not here any more.
Missy stared at the empty place a bit. Then she her she left, half dancing.
Staying calm ? No, she won’t.