Doctor Who ficcie!
Title: I Promise
Rating: PG-13 for some violence
Characters, pairing: Theta/Koschei, Ten/Master
Disclaimer: I don’t own Doctor Who. Oh, and the idea for this fic came from this conversation.
Summary: “Just do what you can, Theta. I’ll do everything else.”
Spoilers: Last of the Time Lords, maybe the two before that
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“Just do what you can, Theta. I’ll do everything else.”
They were children when Koschei made that promise-so young that he still went by the name “Koschei”. But they both knew he meant it. They were in the Academy, learning about math and science and history; and outside of classes, they had learned about other things.
Friendship.
Loyalty.
Love.
At age nine, they had already realized that their feelings for each other went far beyond friendship and loyalty. It was logical, in their minds, for them to realize it so soon-they were from Gallifrey, educated by the best, equipped with the best minds evolution had ever deigned to grant a species as a whole. So, both holding this knowledge, they knew that Koschei meant it when he made that promise.
He kept it, too. Theta was a “color inside the lines” type-so Koschei left the boundaries that had been set for him, again and again. He hacked into the most secure data libraries and picked the locks to the more old-fashioned ones. He learned everything he could get his hands on. And each night, he would show Theta everything he’d learned.
In return, Theta helped him with the drums, seeking out “alternative therapies,” like meditation, that might actually work on their Gallifreyan minds (most psych drugs didn’t). When the drums grew too loud for Koschei to handle on his own, Theta would be there to calm him down, ground him to reality, and, if he needed it, come into his mind to take some of the burden off of him.
They shared a dorm room their first four years at the Academy, which made it easier. But when, in their fifth year, they were separated for the first time, Koschei was left alone to deal with the drums-and Theta, scrawny as he was, was left alone to deal with the bullies among the students.
That was when Koschei turned violent. The first time he saw Theta with a split lip, he took a knife in the cafeteria and sliced open the arm of the boy who’d given it to him. Theta would have been horrified had he been there, but he had locked himself in Koschei’s room to avoid his roommate, who was best friends with his tormentor. So he never learned what Koschei had done.
It only escalated from there.
By the time they graduated from the Academy, Koschei had
1) discovered and mastered his hypnotic ability,
2) invented the Tissue Compression Eliminator,
3) tested said invention on another of Theta’s tormentors,
4) used up his first regeneration when he was injured stealing a virus that would continue attacking a body long after death (and last through a Time Lord’s regeneration cycle; he planned to use it on anyone who tried to hurt himself or Theta), which only increased his insanity,
5) stolen a TARDIS, and
6) chosen and begun to use the name “The Master”.
On the day they graduated from the Academy, during the party (or as close as Time Lords ever came) that followed, one of the professors came over to speak to Theta privately. Koschei could think of no reason to stop him, but he knew what the professor was going to say before he’d started leading Theta away. (It was the only time he’d regretted Theta’s presence, as it prevented him from hypnotizing the man away.) So while they were talking, he wrote a simple note and left it on the table before leaving the party to disappear from Gallifrey in his stolen TARDIS.
When Theta returned to the table, he found the note at his place. It consisted of four words, including the sign-off:
I promised.
-The Master
Theta fled. Pushing past graduates and teachers and unrecognized parents, he ran from the area, back to the dorm he’d shared with Koschei those first four years, now vacant since the students were all on break. He collapsed on the bed, shaking, his breath coming in ragged sobs.
Koschei was gone. He was gone, and it was Theta’s fault, his fault because he’d let him make that stupid, stupid promise.
He was gone, and Theta was alone.
---
In their mind, Theta died that day, and the Doctor began, although he didn’t take the name for a while yet. “The man who makes people better”, as the Master would say, years and years down the line. The man who makes what the Master does better because it is all his fault, and he knows it, but he never admits it, not until it serves him to do so.
Theta couldn’t destroy Gallifrey. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. Whichever. He needed Koschei then, or the Master-it didn’t matter. He needed the person who made that promise. Because doing what Koschei would have done for him, long ago, tore him apart. It turned him into someone he wished he wasn’t.
Someone who would stand unfazed as he drowned millions of Racnoss.
Someone who would leave a boy to be a freak or an experiment rather than try to make his mistake better.
Someone who would kill every Cyberman in existence without pity if that was what it took to save others.
Someone who didn’t mean it when he said “I’m sorry”.
Then the Master reappeared, reappeared after being absent so long that his survival shook the foundations of the Doctor’s world. And the Doctor could hear the shock in the Master’s voice, the guilt, when he learned of what the Doctor had done.
Do what you can, Theta. I’ll do everything else. The long-ago promise seemed to echo in their ears.
But you didn’t! he wanted to scream. You didn’t! You left me alone, left me to kill our own people! You promised! You promised, even as the Master, you promised! You did! Why weren’t you there?
But he didn’t say any of that. Fury and rage were allowed to reach his face and voice on occasion, but sorrow, confusion… those were never allowed to make it. They were carefully hidden behind his glass-smooth mask. The mask that the Master had proven to also be glass-fragile.
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“I have one thing to say to you. You know what it is.”
He said it every day, because it was a lie. He had many more things than just one to say to his old friend, but he couldn’t say any of them because all of them had been banned from disturbing his mask. The honest way to phrase it was that there was only one thing he could say.
“I forgive you.” The reason for saying it went unsaid. He had to stop at forgiveness. It would shatter his mask to add, Now please give me Koschei back.
He forgave the Master because he needed Koschei back. There was no other reason. He needed Koschei back, because the Year that Wasn’t hadn’t been hell. It had been the greatest year since the Time War. For one year, it had seemed that he wouldn’t need to do anything he couldn’t ever again.
But Koschei was gone. And the Master didn’t give a damn about his promise anymore.
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