Dead again

[neverreallygone]

Characters: The Master, Rose, the Doctor
Rating: R for violence and language
Time Period: Modern ---> Near Future
Location: The Time Room ---> Castle ruins
Relative Date: A few minutes after this
Status: Closed (or open to anyone who wants to find the Master's body

Comments

[thedoctorx]

Sometime later the Doctor stood over the Master's body. He was motionless, though analytic, he followed every detail of the scene with careful eyes. He saw the wound on his head and the tiniest of punctures through the shirt on his chest. He guessed that was the more important of injuries, subtle as it was. He could have knelt down and examined him more closely, but he didn't dare break the space between them.

How long had it been now? Minutes or hours? It didn't matter. He never thought about leaving or about what he should do next. He was numbed beyond any action. A hand raised to his face, he took a moment to rub his eyes of the imagery and he felt for a split second that he might finally cry. When he dropped his hand back dry he realized he was incapable of even such an obvious response.

What happened? Murder, probably. Shot. And he faltered, hit his head. But he didn't regenerate. Maybe whatever strength willed him back had also rendered him incapable of it. Or maybe he never did want to live in the first place. Isn't that what he told him? It was so unbelievable, even now. Even after seeing him like this for a second time; seeing that he chose to die rather than be with him.

Why couldn't he have just found him sooner? And what would have happened if he did? He'd been so angry then. The Master was out of control, more reckless than usual, and in return he found his own restraint wearing dangerously thin. Was what he was looking at the result of that recklessness? Maybe he really didn't want to live anymore.

A cold breeze settled in and the Doctor closed his eyes against the chill. None of that mattered now. All the long angry battles met head on against desperate senseless destruction. All the frantic pleas and trying, trying, trying. It was all meaningless in the face of this. Wherever they were heading, they'd reached their destination. It was clear how this had to end and like so many things in the Master's life; it ended with death.

[neverreallygone]

And then, quite suddenly, the Master's body disappeared.

There was no puff of smoke, no sparkle of a transmat or twinkle of magic, no sound and no sense of motion.

Just simply, one moment it was there; the next it was gone.