Work Text:
“Oh, good, very good. That's why I left it for you. Wondered if you would... take out me, take out these lifeforms, all those bodies still in the vaults, every organic cellular life form on this planet... forever. And yourself. Do that, would you?”
“Yes. This time, yes.”
“Go on, then. You were the start of all of this, now finish it. Come on, come on. Come on! Come on, come on! What have you got left anyway? You don't even know your own life. Look how low I have brought you. I have won, Doctor. You may have made me, but I have destroyed you. Become death. Become me. Come on.”
He goaded her relentlessly, pushing her to finally end this. The second the Cyberium had entered his body, he had known he had gone too far. This wasn’t just one of their normal games, where he would push and push, but he would always leave a flaw for her to find, and she would always discover it at the last minute. There was no flaw this time, no perfect solution she just had to find. The Cyberium was too strong, too smart, even for him. There was no way out.
So he pushed her, because if this didn’t end here, it would never end. The entire galaxy would be laid waste, and then the rest of the universe. And despite how he acted, not even he wanted that. He had already tried to end it once, but the death particle didn’t activate, just shrank, and now, with the Cyberium inside his head, there was nothing else he could do. So he waited for her, hoping that she could finish it when he couldn’t, to be strong when he failed.
She was so close. Her thumb hovered over the trigger, the death particle mere millimeters from blowing up. But this wasn’t her. She didn’t destroy like this. She saved lives, not ended them, protected planets, not destroyed them. She had destroyed Gallifrey once, and it had nearly destroyed her. So it was no surprise when she hesitated, beginning to lower the explosive.
In a split-second decision even the Cyberium was too slow to counter, he snatched the bomb from her hands, pressing the trigger and tossing it high into the air. The Cyberium screeched, rushing out of him into its silver cloud, forming and reforming angrily. The last thing he felt was her arms catching him before he hit the floor, and then everything went white.
**************************
It was a surprise to wake up again. Honestly, he hadn’t been planning on surviving. From the second he knew about the death particle, he had resigned himself to detonating it. It would be his penance, his redemption. His atonement for all the wrongs he had done. If he died saving the universe she loved, maybe she could forgive him.
So to wake up surrounded by the warm, orange glow of her TARDIS was a shock. He tried to sit up, but found the effort beyond his strength. Settling for simply turning his head, he looked around to see the Doctor leaning against the console, head in her hands. He could see her shoulders shaking through her thin shirt, the splash of her tears landing on the controls loud in the otherwise silent room.
“What happened?” He whispered, rolling towards her. As his forehead hit the TARDIS floor, he realized he had been laying on her coat, rolled up under his head. “How did we get out?”
She hastily brushed the tears from her eyes before she turned around, but she couldn’t hide the redness of her face. “The TARDIS.” She replied. “You throwing the bomb in the air gave her just enough time to materialize around us. She must have sensed my distress and already been on her way. The Cyberium is gone, fled from you the second you grabbed the bomb. Gallifrey is gone too. Nothing left but rocks and dust.”
He rolled back onto his back, staring at the ceiling in relief. “Thank you.” He whispered. The lights flashed gently in reply. He tried to keep his eyes open, but they started drifting shut despite his efforts. The light slowly disappeared behind his eyelids as he drifted back to sleep.
**************************
When he woke up the next time, he was in a bed. The mattress was incredibly soft beneath him, and he fought the urge to go back to sleep. He had something he needed to do first.
His feet hit plush carpet, and he glanced around the room. He had assumed the Doctor had put him in her room, but this room clearly was not hers. The bed was covered in a thick purple duvet, and the carpet under his feet was equally purple, far softer than the Doctor liked. The furnishings in general were rather opulent, much nicer than the Doctor would normally choose, and he realized with a start that she must have made this room for him.
He grabbed his coat from where she had placed at the foot of the bed, shrugging it on like armour before he went to find her. He slipped through the hallways, hoping the TARDIS would take him to her without making him search the whole ship. They really needed to talk.
The Doctor was in the library when he finally found her, curled on a couch, eyes even redder than the last time he had seen her. She had been crying again. "Hello.” He whispered from the doorway, trying not to startle her.
It didn't work. She shot to her feet, instantly on guard. "You're awake."
"Obviously." She rolled her eyes at him, and he grinned at the familiar response. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting me rest, for making me a bedroom, for not throwing me out into the vortex. Take your pick."
"I'm still debating that last one." She muttered under her breath.
"Hey!"
She sat back on the couch, and he joined her, far enough apart that they weren't touching at all. "Why did you do it?" She sounded broken, and while it was only a few hours ago he had claimed breaking her was his goal, it was a lot less satisfying in reality.
"Do what? I've done a lot of things. You're going to have to be more specific."
"Destroy Gallifrey. Try to rebuild the Cybermen. Let the Cyberium inside you. Try to get me to kill you." Tears filled her eyes again, and she hid behind her hands. "All of it. Why?"
He sighed. This was a conversation they needed to have, but it wasn't going to be easy. And it was not going to be fun. "I did it because they hurt you. When I found what they had hidden in the Matrix, what they had taken from you, I was so furious I couldn't see straight. By the time I calmed down, the planet was already destroyed. I don’t even remember doing it.”
She was still crying, but she was at least looking at him now, so he continued. "The Cybermen was just a game. I was trying to get your attention, Doctor. I knew as soon as you found out what the Time Lords had done, I would need something big to get your attention back, so I brought them with us. And then I found out about the Cyberium, and things all fell apart."
She glared at him. “What you really mean is you realized you had a chance to gain ultimate power, and you tossed me, and the rest of your plan, to the side. You claim you care about me. You claim you did all this for me, but the second you realized you could have what you really want, you threw me away and replaced me. You don't care about me. You never did." She stormed out of the room, leaving him stunned.
By the time he recovered enough to look for her, she was nowhere to be found.
**************************
He looked for her everywhere over the next couple of days, but she managed to avoid him until even the TARDIS finally got tired of her running. He finally found her at the end of a long hallway that he could have sworn had a door just a minute ago, and based on the yelling she was doing at her ship, it probably had. He approached slowly, not wanting to scare her away, not when they finally had a chance to fix this mess.
"Doctor." She ignored him, keeping her back resolutely towards him and continuing her argument with the TARDIS, but he pushed on anyways. "Doctor, we need to talk. I know you don't want to listen to me right now, but you've got it all wrong. I never threw you aside. I was trying to save you."
She finally stopped arguing, slumping against the wall, seeming resigned to listen. "As soon as I found out about the Cyberium, I knew I had to stop. It had to be stopped. It was too powerful to be let go. I tried to destroy it with the Death Particle, but it just shrank instead of exploding. And then there the Cyberium was, right in front of me. I knew if it got to you, the universe was finished. All its knowledge and ruthlessness, combined with your brain and your infinite regenerations? It would never stop. So I let it in. At first, I thought I could control it. By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. I had already lost control."
She had sunk to the ground as he spoke, and as he paused, she turned to face him. He could see the hope shining in her eyes even though she tried to hide it. "You're lying." She said flatly.
"I'm not. I promise. See for yourself, if you want." He dropped to his knees in front of her, ignoring the crack of pain the impact sent shooting up his legs. He leaned forward, and she slowly raised a shaking hand to his temple.
He could feel the moment she entered his mind, and had to force himself not to push her out immediately. She was gentle but persistent, sifting through his memories to find exactly what she was looking for. He could feel the shock in her mind when she realized he had been telling the truth. She only watched to the moment the Cyberium entered his body before pulling back.
"If that's all true, why did you try to get me to kill you? Why didn't you just tell me the truth?" Tears were still running slowly down her cheeks, and he fought the urge to reach out and wipe them away.
"I couldn't. I wanted to, so badly, but the Cyberium was controlling too much. It wouldn't let me. But it didn’t stop me from trying to die, because that idea was so foreign to it that it couldn’t understand my plan. If you had activated the particle, it would have been destroyed. So I pushed you and goaded you, hoping against hope you could fix my mistakes. When you finally refused, it distracted the Cyberium just long enough to give me control for a second. So I activated the explosive, and hoped you would survive. And hoped, maybe, somehow, you could forgive me someday."
She smiled wetly at him. "I forgive you now."
He couldn't stop himself anymore, reaching out and pulling her into his arms. She stiffened, before relaxing into his hold for a minute, but pulled back far too quickly.
"I forgive you, but that doesn’t fix everything. I still need some time. You destroyed my trust. You were hurting, I know, but that doesn't excuse you lashing out at me in your pain. Today was a good start, but it's going to take more time to rebuild the trust we used to have."
It hurt, but he knew she was right. It wasn't fair to expect her to go back to how things used to be. He needed to fix things. And to do that- "Doctor?" He waited until she was looking at him before continuing. "Can I stay? Please? I want to fix this, I really do. But if I don't know where you are, if we go back to seeing each other only once every few hundred years, I don't think I can. I don’t think I can keep being good without you there.”
She laughed. "The Master, admitting he can't do something? I never thought I would see the day." She reached out and wrapped him in another hug. "Of course you can stay. I wouldn't want anything else."
There, wrapped in her arms, kneeling together on the floor of her TARDIS, he thought things might finally be turning around for him. He finally had a chance.