Chapter Text
"How did this creep get in here, Professor?" The Doctor's young companion - Ace, her name was - glared at him with vitriol poisoning her eyes.
Not to say that his eyes were not poisoned as well. It had been a countless eternity since he had appreciated his appearance in a mirror. His eyes were yellow now, full of disease and virus. He couldn't stand to look at such a thing in his reflection for too long.
The Master - for he was still the Master, lest anyone forget - was at the console of his TARDIS.
The Doctor shot him a withering look, a long sigh escaping his lips. "I imagine it's because, like me, he has no real home. When I was released from the planet of the Cheetah people, I came to Earth - which has always been the nearest I've had to a home. The Master doesn't like anywhere, and nowhere likes him - but he has to go somewhere, I suppose, and he ended up here, inside a little bit of Gallifrey on Earth."
Insolent fool. The Master's eyes narrowed in annoyance, his nostrils flaring. "I prefer to think, Doctor, that I was brought here by the strength of my will and of my desire to be once again free to travel through space and time."
The Doctor held his umbrella up, brandishing it like a weapon. The Master was half-tempted to bat it away, but he spoke up too quickly. "Not in my TARDIS!"
"No longer yours, Doctor." The Master said gleefully, relishing the brief look of confusion that crossed the Doctor's features as satisfaction curled inside of him like a cat that had gotten the cream. He opened his fist to reveal a small structure of crystal and wires. "You see? I have removed the Individual Recognition Module."
The Doctor - such a small man in this body, but of course the Master could see the immensity of his person all the same - shrugged airily. "There are spares."
His grin stretched wider across his face, all sharp teeth on display. It was then that the young girl tried to throw herself at him, only to be stopped when the Doctor grabbed a handful of her jacket. He shot the human a withering, disdainful glance. Where did the Doctor find them all? Nevertheless, he continued. "As usual, my dear Doctor, I am relying on your incompetence."
"Incompetence?" The Doctor was stammering with barely suppressed rage, his eyes almost alight in his fury. "What do you mean, incompetence?"
"I mean, Doctor, that without the Individual Recognition Module you cannot gain automatic access to the TARDIS data banks. You will have to feed in the correct access codes. Do you remember the access codes?" He explained this slowly, almost like a Tutor would to a student back at the old Academy they had both attended.
The Master enjoyed watching the Doctor fumble about for a few moments, his finger on his lips and a frown on his face. "I'm sure I wrote them down...notebook..."
"As I thought, Doctor. As I thought. You could fit a spare module, of course. If you can find one. I imagine you store your spare parts inventory in the data banks though." Like the little fool he is.
Ace muttered irritably from where she was held in the Doctor's grip. "I wouldn't bet on it. Back of an envelope, right, Professor?"
"In any case," the Master continued as though they had not said anything at all, "I am confident that in your usual efficient fashion you will be quite unable to locate a spare Module in time."
The Doctor perked up immediately, his eyes flashing once again with that deliciously dangerous gleam. "In time for what?"
"Nothing ominous, Doctor, have no fear. I simply mean that you won't regain control of the TARDIS before we arrive at our destination. I've already set the coordinates. And now-" the Master pulled down a lever on the console, and the transparent column in the center of the console began to rise and fall with the same wheezing, groaning noise it always did, "-I start the Time Rotor. Off we go. A mystery tour, Doctor: I know you love mysteries. Next-" he lifted a hammer above his head, "-I make sure you can't interfere, Doctor!"
Just as he moved to bring down a shocking blow on the Doctor's beloved TARDIS console, the Doctor darted forward quickly, nimbly, and his hand grabbed the Master's arm before he could finish the punishing blow. The Doctor grunted as the kinetic energy traveled into his body instead, not fully being prepared for it. After all, the Master had always been a strong individual, but he had grown only physically stronger since he had been infected with the Cheetah Virus. The two of them stare at one another in almost disbelief for a few long moments, and then the Doctor shoved the Master off of him and away from the console.
"Doctor-"
"RRRelying on my incompetence, you say?" The Doctor's glare turned frosty, and he once again hoisted the umbrella over his shoulder. "You forget that the automatic fail-safes would work on me no matter how many Individual Recognition Modules you find and destroy."
"Oh, right!" Ace too was now wearing a wicked grin as she looked between the two Time Lords. "You have that - that special relationship with the TARDIS!"
"Yes, Ace," the Doctor nodded, his eyes never leaving the Master, who rubbed his wrist where the Doctor had grabbed it as though trying to nurse it back to help. "A form of symbiosis. Permanent. Part of the, ah, RRRassilon Imprimatur. But the Master knows this."
"Which is why he wanted to destroy the console." Ace finished, edging closer to the Doctor as though trying to stand between the Master and the hexagonal console.
Attacking him by herself would have been a foolish move, but even the Master had to concede that the two of them together may be able to overpower him. In truth, if the Master wanted to avoid any unpleasantness, this may be the time to leave the control room. He slipped further back.
The Doctor pulled a lever on the console too, and while it did not seem to immediately work, the TARDIS quickly seemed to recognize her pilot, Individual Recognition Module or not. The Time Rotor paused in place.
"Doctor, I warn you -"
"About what?" He stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he stared slightly upwards at the Master's face. "And here I thought you wanted my help."
"I want no such thing!"
The Doctor blinked at him for a few moments. He was now leaning on his umbrella, which he easily used as a pivot point to turn back towards the console. "If you insist," he said lightly, then pulled at the door controls. The outside door swung open, showing the immensity of space-time just outside of her. Dangerous. Infinite. He looked back towards the Master, "there is the exit."
He stared out those doors into infinity for a few moments too long, his eyes almost getting lost in its swirls, but he pulled himself back to attention. "Doctor."
"Yes? Is there a problem?" He said cheerily, a pleasant smile on his face.
"Surely not even you are foolish enough to allow people to-"
"-never been vortex swimming?"
Blithering idiot. Fool. Of all the asinine remarks he could make.
"I am not getting off this TARDIS while it is floating in space-time."
"She." The Doctor corrected absentmindedly, twirling his umbrella around with one hand and throwing and catching his hat with another. "While she is floating in space-time."
The Master's glare turned all-consuming, and he clenched his hand into a fist so tight that he heard his knuckles crack. His hand moved, almost with a mind of its own, to hover just a few centimeters from the Doctor's neck, but the other Time Lord didn't appear to notice at all. At least, if he did, which the Master had no doubt about, he was pretending he had not. The Doctor ducked his head, sending his neck almost crashing into the Master's gloved hand - it would have been so easy - and caught his hat on his head.
"Ace?"
"Yes, Professor?"
The Doctor did not turn away from the Master as he spoke. "Close the doors. Then activate the Time Rotor again. The coordinates are already programmed."
"Yes, Professor!"
The Master relaxed slightly as soon as the swirling vortex disappeared from his view. "You don't even know where I had programmed this TARDIS to fly."
The Doctor gave him a deadpan expression that lasted only a few microseconds before smirking again. "Of course I know where we are going. I re-programmed them."
He clenched his jaw. Naturally, he did. It was what the Master would have done in this situation. He forced a smile on his face, and it would have been almost pleasant if he did not have the sharp fangs of the Cheetah people hanging low over his bottom lip. "Tell me, Doctor. Tell me where you are taking me."
He could hear the Time Rotor begin to rise and fall as Ace activated the proper switches and tried not to think about how it may spell out his doom. That would be dramatizing things, and the Master never did that.
"Somewhere I should have taken you long ago."
He darted forward his hand aiming a crushing blow towards the Doctor's trachea at that, but the Doctor held up his umbrella and opened it up all the way. The curve of its top hit the Master up the cheek and knocked him off balance, sending him stumbling backwards a few feet. Damn him! His eyes glowed yellow as he glared, and then he righted himself with all the air and grace of a man who did not just get knocked up the face by an umbrella.
"Where to then, Doctor?" He spat at the shorter man. "Back to Gallifrey? You know that the Time Lords would -"
"No," he said serenely as the Time Rotor came to a stop. "Not to Gallifrey. Far too stuffy over there for my tastes. Come closer." He beckoned the Master forward with his now-closed umbrella as he walked closer to the door, which Ace dutifully opened before bounding behind him like all the clumsiness of a newborn gazelle.
The Master saw only space out of the window. He huffed in annoyance and disdain. "Doctor, this is barely a step up from before."
"Do you rrremember our time as boys?" The Doctor asked, leaning against the door. He afforded the Master a glance back. "Well, I think we were boys then, but it doesn't matter."
"Of course, I do." He snarled, his words biting the air in front of his mouth. He tasted something bitter in his mouth, a bad sensation that spread down into his chest and then his stomach. "And how exactly, my dear, dear Doctor, is that relevant?"
"Because!" The Doctor took his hat off, putting it on the red curve of his umbrella's handle. "I seem to recall we made a pact back then. Every single star." He gestured out the door.
The Master felt the rage build inside of him like a pressure tank going into the red. His teeth suddenly felt far too sharp, and it was all he could do to not sink them into both the Doctor and Ace that very moment. Congratulating himself on his self control, he consoled the whining aspect of himself craving their blood by promising that he could tear them apart later. The Cheetah would need to be fed at some point.
"Cretin."
"Perhaps." The Doctor agreed. "This is something I should have done long ago. Come closer. Look."
He stalked closer to his prey if only to have the opportunity to push them out the door. "A nebula. How quaint. Are you done yet, Doctor?"
The nebula was a swirling mass of colors, an enormous cloud of dust. The cloud had clearly been contracting for a long, long time, becoming denser and denser and hotter and hotter. The clouds had at some point in the past broken up into smaller clumps and flattened out into a disk shape.
"No." The Doctor stared out into the dust. "Ace, do you see the center of that disk?"
"Hmm? Oh, yeah. Looks kind of hot, bright. Is that the star then, Professor?"
He shook his head. "Not quite. Not yet. That is a protostar. It isn't hot enough yet to start all of the nuclear reactions, but it is almost there. It's getting close to - oh, about forty-five million years old."
"Forty-five million?"
"Oh, yes, yes. As it continues to collapse, the protostar gains mass, which increases its temperature. At a certain point, it will become hot enough to start those nuclear reactions."
"And then it's a star."
"Precisely."
"Wicked."
The Master's eye twitched, and he glared into the back of the Doctor's head. "Are you done with your lesson yet, Doctor?"
"Hmm? Oh, no. Lessons are best stretched out over a period of time, don't you agree? It helps the information sink in."
"Which star is this anyway? Or - protostar."
"Ah!" The Doctor leaned down. It would be so easy for the Master to just kick him, send him falling into nothing, but he restrained himself. The Doctor kept talking. "This will one day become a star you humans call RRRigel."
"Rigel." Ace grinned. "I've heard about that one. Isn't it the brightest in Orion?"
If she remembered the Master was there, she didn't make it obvious, and wasn't that irritating? The Master could easily turn back and program the coordinates back to his desired destination and then destroy the console, but instead he was standing here and looking at protostars with the Doctor. He felt the disgust coil inside of him like a snake about to strike.
"If you are done sight-seeing, we can be off."
The Doctor finally turned back to the Master, seeing the fury that danced across his features. "There were so many things I wanted to show you."
"I'm afraid we are not boys anymore, my dear Doctor."
"Perhaps not." He gestured for Ace to move back into the TARDIS, and he closed the doors. "But this is a promise I would rrrather keep now. Call me a sentimental old fool, but something tells me I may not get many more opportunities to do so." With an air of enigma that the Master despised, he twirled his hat around three times on his finger before putting it back on his head. "You are not trapped here. There are no chains or," he added this next part on almost as a joke to himself, "leashes keeping you tied here. I am not going to force you to stay, but...I would much prefer if you did."