Chapter Text
The Master didn’t know where he was. His whole body hurt like hell and he didn’t know why which just added to his frustration. He tried to move his left arm away from his head but all it did was send a spike of pain through the shoulder. He let his arm fall back the centimetre he had managed to move it and sighed.
The air was cool and so was the stone? Metal? Whatever it was, the floor was equally as cold. The room he was in was silent apart from his uneven breathing. Except it wasn’t. There was something else, something different. What was it?
He tried to focus on it which took a lot more effort than it should have until… The Drums. They were back. But how? And why? And- okay that was too many questions. He pushed it to the back of his mind for now and decided to tackle that while he wasn’t lying curled up on a cold, hard floor, not exactly sure where he was.
He reached his mind back as far as he could. He tried to remember where he had been before this, what he had been doing. Nothing. The only thing he could think of was being turned into a tooth and that didn't help much. He lay there for what could have been five minutes or five days he couldn’t tell, just letting the silence and the Drums wash over him. Footsteps sounded in a corridor outside, getting closer and closer. Six pairs of them in fact.
Determined not to look too pathetic in front of his captors, he forced himself to sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain, leaning back against the cool glass walls that surrounded him. He opened his eyes and immediately shut them against the blinding lights. Slowly he reopened them and took in his surroundings.
He was sitting inside a large circular chamber of glass. He noticed that the floor was in fact made of metal. The glass cylinder had been placed inside a larger rectangular room which too was made of metal. There were bright white lights attached to the ceiling, making sure not an inch of the room was dark. There was a large door to one side, no handle present on the interior.
There was a loud click and the door swung outwards and the six people walked in. Three he didn’t care for, two he did not fancy seeing and one who he definitely did not want to see right now.
Kate Lethbridge Stewart led the Doctor, Donna, and three UNIT soldiers through the door, another soldier closing it behind them. Donna looked about 15 years older than when he had last seen her. The Doctor looked older too and yet wore the same face they had on the Valliant. He was already out of it enough as it was and now the Doctor was being even more confusing than usual. How kind of them.
The Doctor immediately moved closer leaving Kate and Donna standing by the door, watching. Opening the Vault with a swift wave of their sonic they stepped inside, ignoring Kate's warnings of course. They made their way to the centre of it and sat down, not bothering to close the door again. Even if he did try to escape there was no way out and there were also three armed soldiers pointing their guns at him. He wasn’t going to get out.
“Hello,” they said, their tone as neutral as they could make it.
After a second he replied, “Hi,” he said flatly. Or he tried to. His voice was too quiet and stupidly pathetic to come off intimidating like he had planned. It hurt to talk and his throat stung for a second or so after.
The Doctor seemed to have noticed this as he heard them say, “Contact?”, so quietly it was hard for him to hear properly, let alone the humans.
He wanted to say no. He wanted to laugh at the mere thought. But he didn’t. Instead he gave a small nod of the head, expression remaining unreadable. He was weak, he was not thinking straight that would be his excuse. And everyone would believe him. Hopefully.
The two humans in the background watching on in interest.
The Doctor smiled back at him slightly and moved closer until their foreheads were almost touching.
“You sure?” They muttered.
Instead of an answer he let his head fall forward the remaining centimetre to meet the Doctors. Their presence filled his mind instantly.
“Better?” they asked, their words filling the Master's mind.
He did not answer with words. The Doctor already knew the answer. Instead, he said,
“Why are you here?” The Doctor seemed to ignore his question.
“You’re older than when I last saw you, and when I last saw you you weren’t… you. So this face came back. My face came back too,” they put on a stupid little smile as if to say “look!”, “Why though? I thought my face came back because I was tired,” Really? Now that was one of the stupidest things he had heard today, “but if yours came back too- Did you do something? Was this you?”
“I was trapped in a stupid tooth Doctor. No. It wasn’t me,” He drawled. There was no point trying to take credit for it. They were in his head, the Doctor would have been able to see through his lie before he even said it.
“Then how come our faces came back? Hang on, how many times have you had this face?”
Now that was a weird question. “Two. Three if you count the whole Resurrection thing,” he answered cautiously. What was the Doctor on about? “why?”
“Oh, nothing,” Their expression remained neutral and all the Master’s attempts to push their conversation into the other time lord's head was blocked. There was silence for a moment.
“The drums though?” Oh. He had forgotten about that, “You said they were gone. So you were just lying to me? All those years as Missy I really thought you were improving,”
The Doctor seemed really agitated by this for some reason. “Oh no! I lied to you? That seems so out of character for me! I’ve never lied to anyone in my life before! Oh, what are we to do Doctor! I’m-”
“Alright I get it,” the Doctor said over him. He grinned back cattily, “Why are you here then? Well, other than the whole tooth… thing. What were you doing before the toymaker would probably be a better question.”
“Don’t know. Can’t remember a thing,”
The Doctor paused for a second. He tried to look into their thoughts and was once again blocked.
“What?” he said, “What is it?”
“I think I know where you were before the whole toymaker thing. Only I can’t tell you because the timelines would get messy,”
“Oh, you can’t tell me. How very convenient,” he retorted.
“Look. I won't go into detail but a few regenerations ago I met you, this you, but I also had future you with me. Which means, the timelines must have desynced making you forget. Which is why you don’t remember,”
It did sound plausible.
“So you’ve figured out what I was doing before the toymaker, whoop dee doo. We can all go home. I can escape. And everything can carry on as usual,”
“Not quite. I don’t think Kate will just let you waltz out of here,”
“They never stopped me before,”He replied. He would get out. Admittedly it had been a long time since he had last used hypnosis but it couldn’t be that hard could it?
“UNIT soldiers won’t fall for that. They’ve been trained against it. Admittedly most of them still use Jo’s method BUT it’s better than most,”
The Master began to reply but the Doctor cut him off, “Look, I’m going to get us out of here. You stay quiet and try not to be too obnoxious,”
They leapt up quickly, breaking the connection. The Master felt the Doctor’s consciousness be pulled from his own and he winced internally. It was not a nice feeling. He felt a flicker of hurt flash on his face for a second and tried to cover it with a scoff hoping the Doctor hadn’t noticed. If they had they didn’t show it.
“Doctor what's going on?” the stupid red haired human asked, “what were you doing?”
“I thought your pets were supposed to be smart, Doctor,” the Master forced himself to say aloud. His voice was much stronger now and it was less painful than before. A lot less. He shot a look at the Doctor, who purposefully ignored him, turning instead to Donna.
“Time Lords are a telepathic species, Donna. We were just talking… sort of,” they answered.
“Oh… Wait. Does that mean you can see my thoughts? I swear to god spaceman if you’ve been going through my head-” she fired up suddenly.
“No! No, telepathy needs a two way connection for something like that. I can’t just go around peaking into other peoples heads, and even if I could I wouldn’t,”
“Well you better not.”
“Doctor, why is he here? Or rather why was he in the tooth?” Kate asked.
“I don’t know.” they said frustrated, “I mean obviously because the Toymaker put him there but what happened before that?” they shrugged, "I know when in his timeline but that's not much help in telling what his plan is,"
“But if he’s back that means a part of the Toymaker survived. Doctor what if the Toymaker did the same? What if he trapped himself in a tooth at the last second? Doctor, what if he survived?”
“Nah, he didn’t. He may have been a… a god of such but he followed his rules. We won, we got a prize. That's the rules.”
“But what if it’s not in his-”
“Kate, it’s fine. He’s gone. Trust me.”
“Doctor, we thought the Master was gone. Multiple times in fact. So forgive me if I am more than a little hesitant to trust you.” Kate replied with a slight edge to her voice.
“Well… yes. But the Master's different. It’s like comparing… apples and oranges. Completely different situations,” seeing Kate's unconvinced look they carried on, “and anyway we saw him fold and fall into the box didn’t we? If he had turned into a tooth we would have seen,”
“The Doctor’s right Kate,” Donna said sympathetically, “If the Toymaker had transformed we would have seen.”
“I suppose you’re right. But what’s he doing here then?” she asked exasperated, pointing an accusatory finger at the Master who gave her a sickly sweet smile back, “Surely he should have compressed with the Toymaker,”
“I don’t know!” The Doctor complained, “But the point is he’s here so now we have to figure out what to do with him,”
“Well, we obviously can’t let him out can we,” Donna said,
“You could,” the Master said but he was ignored.
“No. You’re right that would be a disaster. We need to find a way to keep him contained and out of harm's way,” they said thoughtfully.
“Surely he could stay here. I mean the Vault is safe isn’t it?” Donna asked.
“No.” the Master replied instantly, drawing every eye in the room to him. He fancied his chances of escaping from the Doctor more than from UNIT. Their security may have been weaker but at least with the Doctor he could use their emotions against them, “Anything else.” He raised a hand to his forehead dramatically, throwing himself across the floor, “I’d rather use up all my regenerations than spend any more time in here.”
“You’ve only been here for two hours,” the Doctor said, amused.
“I get bored rather fast,” He added, quickly sitting up again, “there’s not much to do in here. Unless you got some recreational things. A piano for instance,” The Doctor smiled slightly at this but they didn’t know why, “but I have a feeling your people would be against that.”
“Then it will be perfect for you.” Kate said, “Just the kind of punishment you need. Right Doctor?”
Now they all turned to the Doctor. They opened their mouth a few times but seemed to have not thought of what to say yet and closed it again.
“Well-” they started eventually though were immediately cut off by Kate.
“For God’s sake Doctor! Do you know what he’s done? How many people he’s killed?”
“Of course-”
“I don’t think you do. If you did then you would agree with me that he needs to stay in here where he can't escape.”
“Kate- it's- well- it's just-" they sighed, "Look at it this way, does UNIT really need to waste its time and energy looking after a rogue Timelord when there is a much more capable person who could take that responsibility from you?”
“So what, you’re just planning on keeping him?” Kate asked
At the same time Donna said, “I am not keeping another Time Lord in the house!”
And the Master exclaimed, “You’re not planning on keeping me like some sort of pet are you? Is there an option where someone just shoots me?” over the top of both of them.
“You tried that before and how did it turn out?” The Doctor said darkly.
“Very well thank you very much. It’s not my fault my stupid wife brought me back is it?” he spat.
“Do you want to stay in the Vault?” The Timelords glared at each other, neither wanting to look away first. The tension in the air was like a bomb. A bomb that could go off if someone so much as breathed wrong. After what felt like a million years the Master looked down at the floor.
He sighed and muttered, “no,” under his breath.
“I’m sorry I didn’t quite hear that,”
“No,” he shot back through gritted teeth.
“Exactly. So-”
“Doctor!” Donna shouted indignantly. The Master had almost forgotten she was there, “I am not keeping him in my house! One Timelord is already pushing it but two? No way.”
The look on the Doctor's face was so sad and pathetic that the Master almost laughed. Almost. He didn’t fancy staying in the vault and did not put it past the two humans to change the Doctor's mind if he so much as breathed wrong.
“Doctor, he literally tried to kill me. He is not staying in my house. I’m sorry but Rose’s life is worth more than some murderer’s”
“I know Donna and if he tries anything I swear he will be moved into the Vault immediately. I promise you that,”
“And what if it's you he kills? What if, oh I don't know, he strangles you in your sleep or something? Then who’s going to stop him?”
“Don’t give me ideas,” he said sinisterly.
“He wouldn’t. I know he wouldn’t,”
“Are you sure?” he asked, grinning slyly.
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with him but yes. Are you sure?” Donna said as if it physically pained her to say.
“Yes,” they said definitively, “He wouldn’t be able to kill me even if he tried,” they added.
That wasn’t true. He could kill the Doctor if he wanted to. And he did want to. The Doctor had just said that to wind him up. They didn’t believe that. He was literally the reason they had regenerated last time for Rassilon’s sake! Admittedly he’d had a giant laser then but still! The Master glared daggers at them. They ignored him.
“Donna, I’m certain no harm will come to you or your family. I’m retired, I won't be distracted anymore. I can keep all my focus on protecting your family,”
“You know, when she was eight Rose found a stray cat outside and insisted we keep it. I’m almost certain she gave almost the exact same speech,” Donna joked.
The Master muttered “I’m not a stray cat.” at the same time the Doctor said hopefully, “So he can stay with us?”
After a moment she sighed heavily, “Fine. But you’re the one telling Mum and Grandad. And if he breaks anything you’re paying and-”
She was cut off by the Doctor bounding over and hugging her tightly.
“Thanks Donna,” They whispered giddily.
She smiled back at him wearily, seemingly already regretting the decision.