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The Doctor knows that she shouldn’t do this, be crossing her own timeline just for a hug, but at the same time she also just really really wants some comfort right now.
She had considered, very briefly, going to her Fam. But as much as she loves them, she’s kept them so far out of the loop that the very realisation that she’d need to explain first before comfort could even be a possibility makes her skin crawl. So her Fam isn’t an option.
Missy isn’t a much better choice but if she stuck the landing properly, seeing the Time Lady should be relatively safe. The chance of comfort from a caregiver — her caregiver, even if she isn’t hers anymore — is too enticing to pass up, too.
The TARDIS hums low and unpleased as she parks but the Doctor ignores her.
Embarrassingly, she’s already starting to slip. The fear and stress and sadness of the past few days starts to come crashing down on her the closer she gets to comfort. Even though she’d told herself that she wouldn’t regress doing this.
No. Not yet. she thnks to herself before pulling herself back from where she’d had a mental toe in her headspace.
She pushes the TARDIS door open and steps out…and barely manages to stop herself from running the rest of the distance to the Vault. The TARDIS hadn’t liked her trying to park so close to herself but it had reluctantly agreed to park out on the university grounds.
Instead of running, the Doctor walks. Well, speed-walks but that’s still walking!
She stops with her back to the brickwork around a corner when she hears her past self’s voice approaching. Once he’s gone, she hurries on. The closer she gets to the Vault, the faster she gets.
She’s slipping again, and fast. This time she can’t find it in herself to stop it.
Going down the stairs, she only stumbles slightly as her feet catch on the uneven stairs. A whine tears itself from her throat as a hand shoots out to catch herself before she goes splat against the floor. Tears begin to pool in her eyes as she continues on.
She hadn’t even tripped!
The Doctor freezes in front of the closed (and locked) doors of the Vault, staring at the keypad. She hasn't forgotten the combination, not even after all this time. But she's already feeling so small that the numbers on the keys are swimming in front of her eyes. She remembers the combination but right now she's having trouble actually reading the numbers.
Soon enough, she manages and pushes open the door.
“What’s this? Does the Doctor have a new pet?”
Whatever remaining composure the Doctor has crumbles embarrassingly, pathetically fast.
She’s shaking her head so intensely it’s starting to hurt as she walks toward the Master.
“No, ‘m not — no. Missy, ‘m—” Her words are escaping her but she needs Missy to understand, no matter its danger to time.
Giving up, she barrels forward to hug Missy, unable to resist the comfort which is right here.
“What are you—” Missy cuts herself off mid-sentence, listening. “Two heartbeats? Doctor? Have you regenerated?”
Despite her bursting in on her so suddenly like this and despite herself, Missy sounds so worried that it actually makes a new wave of tears well up. It’s just then that she sniffs and realises with no lack of shame that she’d been crying against Missy’s neck and hadn’t even noticed.
Why hasn’t Missy pushed her away yet? This is a Master she’d just barreled in and hugged. By all rights, she should have pushed her away immediately so why—
“Why did you come to me, poppet?” Missy asks. The petname sounds like she hadn’t meant to say it but it just makes her feel smaller. “Instead of your past self?”
Regrettably, she lets go and pulls back. There’s half a dozen things she could say to that, make up some excuse or some grand reason for why she had tackled the Master into a hug, but all that comes out is an embarrassingly small and whiney: “Hug,”
She sniffs again and decidedly doesn’t look her in the eyes.
“—‘nd I was feeling…small,” she adds quietly.
“In that case, come here,”
There’s a rustle of fabric and she looks up to see Missy holding her arms out in a clear invitation. She clings to the Time Lady with renewed vigor.
The Doctor feels Missy move her, by scooping her stright off of the floor first. A pleased nose escapes her at the swooping feeling that swoops through her as she’s picked up. The gentle rocking as she’s carried makes the Doctor’s eyelids droop heavily.
She’s just resting her eyes!
Time and her own brain go a bit fuzzy after that; it’s a mix of her regressing even smaller and maybe a little bit of dissociation too.
But that’s okay! Because’s she’s with Missy now and Missy will look after her!
She has just begun to drift off when she’s jostled suddenly. She is being put down and then Missy’s arms are leaving her!
Leaving!
She’s leaving!
No no no no no!
The Doctor whines loud and desperate and distressed as panic grips her tight and she frantically pushes herself up.
“Don’ go!!” she cries.
“I’m not going anywhere, little one," Missy says, holding her hands. “I was just getting a snack, how does cereal sound?”
Her eyes light up.
“Cereal?”
“Yes,”
When Missy goes to move away again, she shoots up and latches onto her arm. That’s where she stays even as the Time Lady gets up to go to what can barely be considered a kitchen. Even as she hands her a (plastic) bowl of cereal.
“Are you ever going to let me go, or are you going to be a little limpet forever?” Missy jokes.
“Yes,” she says, seriously.
But then Missy laughs.
“Why are you laughing?” she asks, frowning.
She’s serious! So why’s Missy laughing!
The cereal’s nothing special, not that she’s expecting it to be. It’s just some Cheerios but she’s expecting that (her past self had bought the box for Missy, after all) but right now it’s everything. Well, almost everything. Her focus is split between keeping contact with her and not spilling the cereal on the floor.
She drifts off to sleep eventually. In the peaceful atmosphere of the Vault with music playing softly (when had that started?) and Missy is still holding her and now that she’s got the comfort she’d been holding out for, it’s hard not to fall asleep.
The Doctor sleeps better than she has in a long, long time.