Without Past
Title: Without Past
Author: darklyenigmatic
Rating: PG
Spoilers: EoT (very vague)
Summary: They are men without history, without a past. They are anomalies. They should never have even existed.
Characters: Eleven, Other Master
Pairing: Implied Eleven/Other Master, past Theta/Koschei
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, unfortunately. BBC owns them.
Word count: Approx. 900
Author’s Note: I wrote something that isn’t dark and depressing! Finally! Clearly my writing brain is in overdrive at the moment. I apologise for any spamming of f-lists that may occur until such a time as my mind sees fit to shut up. As it is, I should be studying. I have an exam tomorrow. Why am I not studying?! Ahem. Anyway, this is Master PoV and is written for the doctorwho_100 prompt 049: History. 5x13 is probably partially responsible for this, though this doesn’t contain any spoilers for the episode. Hope you enjoy, comments are love! :D
They are men without history, without a past. They are anomalies. They should never have even existed.
When the Doctor ended the Time War, he did not just kill his people. He removed them from the timeline. Gallifrey never was, never had been, never would be. It existed only in their memories and the lingering echoes that spread across the universe, in legends and stories and the minds of the few temporally sensitive higher species who managed to survive the War.
He and the Doctor, they are just two of those echoes, ripples of something that never even was.
By rights, even with himself as a human, even with the Doctor in the eye of the storm, they should have been torn from time and into non-existence, into never-existence. That they weren’t is ... a miracle. The Master doesn’t believe in miracles, has spent hours working out the equations, the reasons that they alone survived. The reasons are there, thin and thready, and now there is no one left but he and the Doctor to understand them. Everyone else will see it and think it and know it as a miracle, because that is all their minds can comprehend.
Being without a timeline (though it is still there, somehow, their own personal lives still stretching out behind them; the Doctor ran into a previous self, and that is evidence enough) is a strange sensation. He feels untethered, loose and buoyant, floating through time and life and the universe, unattached. He wonders whether their lives, their timelines, will one day fade out of being, ripples dissipating, and they will be lost. Just one day cease to have ever been.
People’s timelines should have a thousand - a million - links to others. They should be branched, connecting them to whoever’s lives they have touched, the points in history that they have affected or been part of. He and the Doctor should have a billion links each. Somehow, they have only one between them. He is free of the past, of the future, of cause and effect, and yet somehow he is bound to the Doctor.
It doesn’t surprise him.
*
One day, years in the future, he meets the Doctor on a small, little-known moon of the planet he is planning to conquer and rule. They have not seen each other in nearly a century. The last time there were guns and Gallifrey and white light blinding them both. This time there are two TARDISes and a rocky outcrop.
‘You escaped, then,’ the Doctor says, looking out over the dull-gold sand of the moon.
‘You doubted it?’ he asks.
The Doctor just shakes his head. Silence falls between them, but it isn’t awkward. Things between them have never really been awkward. They know each other too well for that. It’s the same reason things have never been comfortable, either.
Finally, the Doctor speaks, green gaze flicking over to rest on him. They both wear different bodies now. ‘Are the drums gone?’
He nods. ‘The moment the Time Lock closed.’ It had been strange, the silence in his head seeming to buzz, a thin whine of nothing. He had become used to it, tuned himself to his own heartbeat for the times when the quiet became too much. He was glad they were gone. No one controlled him.
‘Do you remember the Academy?’ the Doctor asks.
‘Do you remember escaping it?’ he counters. The Doctor laughs, lips quirking upwards even as his eyes flicker down, tipping his head as if acceding a point.
There is another pause. He can’t stop himself from thinking back, now the question has been asked, though he won’t answer it. He and the Doctor - Theta, then, and he was Koschei - they had always defied expectations, broken the rules. Some things always remain. They had been so young, had sworn to always be friends, and later lovers. It hadn’t quite been a lie, though there was so much more to it now that it wasn’t really the truth, either. The promise hadn’t been broken, but bent and twisted out of shape until only they could recognise it for what it was.
It was long ago now. More than a thousand years.
‘I know what you’re planning,’ the Doctor says, the words plucked delicately from the air. The Master likes the way this regeneration speaks. He doesn’t reply though, just smirks. This body is good at smirking.
‘You know I’ll stop you.’
He does. His only tenuous link in the whole wide universe is the Doctor. He’ll always be there. Some things never change.
The Doctor turns to him more fully, his expression softening with a smile. ‘Well, I’d best be off. I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but it would be somewhat wasted breath, don’t you think?’
His smirk becomes a smile, and he reaches back through the ages to a time that only exists for him and draws forward his words. ‘My dear Doctor, I believe I could say the same.’
They don’t say anything more. The Doctor leaves, and the Master watches him go. It is a familiar routine. They both know the Master will conquer the planet below. They both know the Doctor will save it. It is how things have always been.
For men without a past, there is a great deal of history between them.
Author: darklyenigmatic
Rating: PG
Spoilers: EoT (very vague)
Summary: They are men without history, without a past. They are anomalies. They should never have even existed.
Characters: Eleven, Other Master
Pairing: Implied Eleven/Other Master, past Theta/Koschei
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine, unfortunately. BBC owns them.
Word count: Approx. 900
Author’s Note: I wrote something that isn’t dark and depressing! Finally! Clearly my writing brain is in overdrive at the moment. I apologise for any spamming of f-lists that may occur until such a time as my mind sees fit to shut up. As it is, I should be studying. I have an exam tomorrow. Why am I not studying?! Ahem. Anyway, this is Master PoV and is written for the doctorwho_100 prompt 049: History. 5x13 is probably partially responsible for this, though this doesn’t contain any spoilers for the episode. Hope you enjoy, comments are love! :D
They are men without history, without a past. They are anomalies. They should never have even existed.
When the Doctor ended the Time War, he did not just kill his people. He removed them from the timeline. Gallifrey never was, never had been, never would be. It existed only in their memories and the lingering echoes that spread across the universe, in legends and stories and the minds of the few temporally sensitive higher species who managed to survive the War.
He and the Doctor, they are just two of those echoes, ripples of something that never even was.
By rights, even with himself as a human, even with the Doctor in the eye of the storm, they should have been torn from time and into non-existence, into never-existence. That they weren’t is ... a miracle. The Master doesn’t believe in miracles, has spent hours working out the equations, the reasons that they alone survived. The reasons are there, thin and thready, and now there is no one left but he and the Doctor to understand them. Everyone else will see it and think it and know it as a miracle, because that is all their minds can comprehend.
Being without a timeline (though it is still there, somehow, their own personal lives still stretching out behind them; the Doctor ran into a previous self, and that is evidence enough) is a strange sensation. He feels untethered, loose and buoyant, floating through time and life and the universe, unattached. He wonders whether their lives, their timelines, will one day fade out of being, ripples dissipating, and they will be lost. Just one day cease to have ever been.
People’s timelines should have a thousand - a million - links to others. They should be branched, connecting them to whoever’s lives they have touched, the points in history that they have affected or been part of. He and the Doctor should have a billion links each. Somehow, they have only one between them. He is free of the past, of the future, of cause and effect, and yet somehow he is bound to the Doctor.
It doesn’t surprise him.
*
One day, years in the future, he meets the Doctor on a small, little-known moon of the planet he is planning to conquer and rule. They have not seen each other in nearly a century. The last time there were guns and Gallifrey and white light blinding them both. This time there are two TARDISes and a rocky outcrop.
‘You escaped, then,’ the Doctor says, looking out over the dull-gold sand of the moon.
‘You doubted it?’ he asks.
The Doctor just shakes his head. Silence falls between them, but it isn’t awkward. Things between them have never really been awkward. They know each other too well for that. It’s the same reason things have never been comfortable, either.
Finally, the Doctor speaks, green gaze flicking over to rest on him. They both wear different bodies now. ‘Are the drums gone?’
He nods. ‘The moment the Time Lock closed.’ It had been strange, the silence in his head seeming to buzz, a thin whine of nothing. He had become used to it, tuned himself to his own heartbeat for the times when the quiet became too much. He was glad they were gone. No one controlled him.
‘Do you remember the Academy?’ the Doctor asks.
‘Do you remember escaping it?’ he counters. The Doctor laughs, lips quirking upwards even as his eyes flicker down, tipping his head as if acceding a point.
There is another pause. He can’t stop himself from thinking back, now the question has been asked, though he won’t answer it. He and the Doctor - Theta, then, and he was Koschei - they had always defied expectations, broken the rules. Some things always remain. They had been so young, had sworn to always be friends, and later lovers. It hadn’t quite been a lie, though there was so much more to it now that it wasn’t really the truth, either. The promise hadn’t been broken, but bent and twisted out of shape until only they could recognise it for what it was.
It was long ago now. More than a thousand years.
‘I know what you’re planning,’ the Doctor says, the words plucked delicately from the air. The Master likes the way this regeneration speaks. He doesn’t reply though, just smirks. This body is good at smirking.
‘You know I’ll stop you.’
He does. His only tenuous link in the whole wide universe is the Doctor. He’ll always be there. Some things never change.
The Doctor turns to him more fully, his expression softening with a smile. ‘Well, I’d best be off. I’d tell you to stay out of trouble, but it would be somewhat wasted breath, don’t you think?’
His smirk becomes a smile, and he reaches back through the ages to a time that only exists for him and draws forward his words. ‘My dear Doctor, I believe I could say the same.’
They don’t say anything more. The Doctor leaves, and the Master watches him go. It is a familiar routine. They both know the Master will conquer the planet below. They both know the Doctor will save it. It is how things have always been.
For men without a past, there is a great deal of history between them.