Fanfic: The Afterlife is So Overrated. Doctor Who, PG
Title: The Afterlife is So Overrated (1/?)
Rating: PG in this chapter, for a bit of cursing and ‘religious themes’, namely a fictional view of the afterlife
Character/Pairing: Simm!Master, there will be Doctor(Ten)/Master in later chapter
Word length: 1,341 in this chapter
Spoiler: A/U after End of Time, Part Two
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and its characters belong to the BBC, not to me
Notes: This story is inspired and based on the view of the afterlife shown in the brilliant short film ‘In God We Trust’ made by Jason Reitman in 2000.
Summary: After the Master died at the end of ‘End of Time’, he goes through a very strange experience in Purgatory...
There were a lot of things the Master expected to happen after he’d thrown himself at Rassilon and was swallowed by the bright light along with the aforementioned bastard. Mostly, mind-blowing pain, oblivion or ending up in the Gallifreyan courtroom surrounded by millions of pissed-off Time Lords. Needless to say, he was very surprised when none of these things happened. Instead of searing agony and wrathful Gallifreyans, there was a very anticlimactic ‘Ping’ as metal doors slid open in front of him to reveal a boring looking office in front of him. “... Buh?” was the only thing the usually eloquent Master could muster up.
“New arrival! Ah, there you are. Come along now, sir, this way.” A petite woman with far too large and thick glasses stepped into his view, grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the elevator, leading him along like a kindergarten teacher would lead a toddler.
“What... what the hell is this place?” The Time Lord finally could bring out.
The woman that he quickly assumed to be some kind of secretary or receptionist gave a little giggle at the question “Oh, no, not hell. Not yet anyway. Well, that depends... this is where you are judged for the afterlife.”
“What, here!?” He asked incredulously. “Not exactly... besides, doesn’t some kind of deity do the judging?”
“Do you really think God has the time to judge every person in the universe that dies? Oh, heavens, no, He’d never get all that paperwork done. You could see us as ... angels. Anyway, just have a seat and it won’t take a moment.” She left him at a desk before the Master could ask another question, returning to her post by the elevator.
In all honesty, this place baffled the Master. It would be different if he had to face his irate colleagues, he would have done so with his usual arrogance and charm. Well, less charm since he was pretty pissed off himself at the whole ‘drums’ issue. At least that was gone now. Maybe he really was dead then. But this place... he felt lost. He looked up with a certain amount of dread when someone sat down in the seat on the other side of the desk.
“Hi, I’m Brad and I will be your caseworker today.” The man said with the fake cheer of someone working with people day in day out. He looked young, but that probably meant nothing up here. For the rest, he looked very... well, average. The Master wouldn’t have given him a second look passing him on the street. Then again, he wouldn’t for most humans.
“... Right. So... I’m dead?”
“Oh, thank god.” The alleged angel sighed in relief “You don’t know how many idiots I have to work with that just won’t get that. Well, now that that’s out of the way, let’s get this over with, shall we? Now ...” He typed in something on the keyboard of an ancient-looking computer in front of him. The Master slid his chair back a few inches when the computer suddenly started humming loudly and smoke started to rise ominously out of the fan openings.
“... Sorry, we’re still running Windows ’95, I’ve been asking for ages to get an update but you know what administration is like...” Brad muttered as he slammed his hand a few times on the troublesome machine. Finally it more or less stopped shaking about and whatever it was that the angel wanted appeared on the screen. Still, he groaned “Aw, hell... you’re a Time Lord.” Now he sighed in exasperation “You lot are way too complicated with all that multiple lives nonsense.”
“... Sorry?” The confused Time Lord muttered as he didn’t know what else to say to that, but the irate angel didn’t appear to have heard him as he continued to grumble.
“When I meet that Doctor friend of yours, I’m going to deck him a good one. When he blew up that planet and millions of your kind appeared here at once... that took forever to get through. And the paperwork!”
“That must have been quite an inconvenience.” The Master replied with an annoyed edge to his voice. Sure, he wasn’t too fond of his kin, but there seemed to be something inherently wrong about someone being concerned only about the administrative problems his race’s genocide appeared to bring about.
“Quite so.” The man agreed, failing to notice the sarcastic tone of the dead Time Lord. “Well, this seems to be working now. Let’s see...”
“Yeah, I think I know the outcome already... Hell, right?”
“Good guess.” The angel replied, unperturbed. “Your score is -500.”
“Excuse me, score?” The Master asked puzzled.
“Yes, score. Good deeds give positive points, bad deeds negative points. Simple, ain’t it?”
“I guess. But ... that doesn’t actually sound too bad. I would have expected ... worse, really.”
“I think it gave up there, I’m not sure. As I said, you Time Lord blokes are way too complicated. But fine, we’ll take a look.” Brad said, moving the computer mouse to scroll down and look over the list. “There’s plenty of murder in there. That’s very bad.”
“No, really?” The Master said in a deadpan voice.
“... Yes. But there appear to be mitigating circumstances. Some kind of insanity plea deal with the placing of a ... drum? In your head.”
“Oh... that. Yes. Wow.” Apparently he had to thank Rassilon for something then. Or not. Why wasn’t that bastard here anyway? Oh, right, he died in the ... past? This was confusing even for a Time Lord.
“You also killed a lot of people on Earth in 2007... well, actually, it gives a vague reference to it and then it just says ‘File not found’, so it is unable to count that. On the other hand, you saved a lot of people too.”
“Er... I did?” He asked surprised.
“Apparently. When you were a human, you worked selflessly to save the last of humankind, you have just sacrificed yourself to save the Doctor and you also saved Earth by stopping the Time Lords from bringing Gallifrey into the normal timeline. Oh, and there appears to be an instance where you destroyed a planet which would have otherwise years later start a war in that quadrant of the universe where billions would have died. It counts as an accidental good deed.”
“Oh... good?”
“Not good enough though, you’ve still done plenty of bad things. For instance, you never gave to charity.”
“I’ve been busy.” The Time Lord shrugged, uncertain why he even bothered to come up with a feeble excuse.
"The fact that you've been a politician doesn't help either."
He arched an eyebrow "That seems a little discriminating."
"Well, what do you expect, we are judging you here, you know." Brad replied before giving the computer another whack as the screen flickered briefly "It also says here you’ve never had sex.”
The Master gave a choked cough “What!?” He turned red, both from embarrassment and anger when he saw the annoying little smile the angel made at that. “How... how is that bad then!?”
“Well, you’ve never lived then, have you?”
The Time Lord groaned and tilted his head back, wondering how much worse hell really could be than this.
“Anyway, it’s pretty clear now overall, isn’t it? So let’s round this up and we can send you down to-... Bloody hell, not again!” Brad growled as the computer started to buck again and more smoke arose from it.
The Master briefly considered waiting for the computer to explode, or possibly cause said explosion, when the elevator’s ‘Ping!’ sounded through the room. He looked back to see another hapless ex-mortal stepping bewildered out of the elevator cabin, when a thought hit him. He quickly threw a glance at Brad to see he was completely occupied on the annoying piece of machinery. Now was his one and only chance! He leapt to his feet, throwing the chair back as he sprinted through the alarmed angels for the elevator, pushing the recently-deceased man out of the way as he jumped into the elevator just before it closed shut.
Next thing he knew, he was standing in the Naismith mansion in the middle of the obliterated Immortality Gate.
Continued in chapter two