fic: children of time (9/14)
Title: Children of Time: TARDIS Tales
Characters: Donna Noble, the Rani, the Master and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
TARDIS Tales
The Master steps out of the cryogenic tube, groggy and unsteady. He looks up, he blinks, he swings his fist at the Rani and it connects solidly with her jaw. She hisses in pain and immediately punches back, giving him a cut on his lower lip.
Before the Master can retaliate the Doctor leaps between them, pushing them well apart. “That’s enough!” he shouts with all the anger he can muster.
They pause and look at him. “She,” says the Master, practically hissing with fury as he nurses his broken lip, “shoved me in that thing barely ten minutes after I finally got a new body.”
“I did tell you to shut up,” snaps the Rani, “several times, but would you listen? Of course not. You’re too busy getting off to the sound of your own voice.”
“At least I might have the opportunity to get off, what’s with the old lady look this time round?”
She narrows her eyes. “This isn’t old; it’s classic. And dignified. Unlike you pair, regenerating into a couple of pretty boys. Who did it first, hmm? And who got hopelessly jealous and just had to get a firm young body of his own?”
“Stop it,” the Doctor says. “Just stop it.” There’s silence, and he realises they’ve listened to him and now they’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what else to say.
The Master gives the Rani a sly look and raises an eyebrow. He jerks his head at the Doctor. “Has he given you the speech yet?”
Her mouth twitches. “‘We’re the only ones left, everything is different,’” she mimics, rather more accurately than the Doctor feels comfortable with.
“Oh, why can’t we all just hold hands and get along,” adds the Master, sing-song.
“Stop that too,” says the Doctor petulantly.
“He cried when I died, you know,” says the Master, not giving the Doctor a glance. “Wailed and sobbed over me, even though I’d just spent the year blowing chunks out of his favourite planet.”
“Hardly surprising,” says the Rani, “he’s always been emotionally overdeveloped.”
“Right,” says the Doctor firmly, “that is enough. Get in the TARDIS, both of you.”
The Master finally turns to him, and fixes him with a dark liquid gaze. “I didn’t want to be kept before,” he says softly, “and I don’t want to be kept now, so why would I do that?”
“Because UNIT’s just outside the door, and if you don’t come with me, then you’re stuck here with them.”
The Master groans, pulling a face. “I hate you. I do hate you. Both of you. So much.”
“Oh, do shut up,” snaps the Rani, “or I’ll shove you back in the cryo-tube.”
The Master glances at her, and frowns. “You’re going along with this rather easily.”
“I’m getting a lift home, actually, where I will be free of his whining, your narcissism and be able to get on with my experiments in peace.”
“Oh.” He folds his arms and fixes the Doctor with a glare. “And what about me? I’m not getting in that old tub of yours without some sort of guarantee that there’s not a window-dressed cryo-tube waiting for me in there.”
The Doctor shrugs and looks at the Master. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Do you have any idea how pathetic you sound?” the Master says, but his voice is quite mild.
Seconds tick by in silence, until it’s broken by a snort from the Rani. “That’s pathetic? Look at the pair of you, you’re practically simpering. Either fuck or kill each other, I don’t particularly care, but I do want to leave. Now.”
“Right, yes, of course.” The Doctor’s flustered, but not much, and his eyes fall on the little grey box sitting on the lab bench and he remembers what he’s supposed to be doing. “Ah, about that lift... I think there might be a slight detour on the way.”
“I assume this is some sort of joke,” says the Rani.
“Yeah, no, it’s not. Sorry, but this is kind of important, and you know it’s important so let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay?”
“Aw, no big welcome home parade for Queen Rani today,” says the Master, his bottom lip pouting. “Queen Rani... doesn’t Rani mean queen? How does that work then? They call you Queen Queen? Sounds a bit dumb, doesn’t it?”
“Nobody calls me queen anything,” she says sweetly, “and if you don’t stop prattling on, I’m going to wring your scrawny little neck.”
He smiles at her. “Would you really?” he breathes, taking a step towards her. “I think I’d like to see you try.”
She tilts her head, regarding him. “You’ve never been overly fond of physical violence,” she says, “and you aren’t very good at it.”
“Davros,” says the Doctor, deciding it might be best for the moment if he just pretended most of this wasn’t happening, “The box’ll have the Time Corridor’s co-ordinates stored, so we can follow him. And I’m not letting a post Time War Davros who is mad enough to destroy all of creation wander freely around the universe, all right?”
The Rani sighs. “Fine,” she concedes.
The Doctor gives her a sceptical look. “Really?”
“I’m not entirely satisfied with the state of the universe, Doctor, but I have no desire to see reality annihilated. You’re going to track him down anyway, and it’ll be a lot faster and more efficient with my help.”
“Oh. Well then. Thank you, Rani.” He looks at the Master. “What about you?”
“Blah blah evil cakes,” he mutters, not looking directly at the Doctor. “It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do is it?”
-
“Okay,” says the Doctor, “slight problem.”
“Let me see,” says the Rani, and the Doctor just about manages to avoid getting elbowed out of the way as she takes a look at the console.
“This is my TARDIS,” he mutters, but not too loudly. He can see she’s concentrating and the Master’s smirking at him from the other side of the room and it’s obviously going to end in disaster, but right now, just for this moment, there’s something joyous about having the three of them like this, working together.
The Rani kicking the console knocks him from his reverie. “Hey! No! Absolutely not!” he says, then gives his TARDIS a reassuring rub on her central rotor. “She’s already suffered more than enough abuse from him.”
“She’s an idiot,” says the Rani, “and probably as senile as you are. She’s unable to make any sort of intuitive leaps beyond the co-ordinate pathways.”
“Well, you can’t either.”
“I’m not a being adapted for life in the Time Vortex. This thing that you laughingly call a TARDIS does not properly understand how to navigate the space/time continuum. It’s intolerable.”
“For you, maybe,” says the Doctor, “but for me it’s a feature not a bug. If she can’t make the leaps then she’s just going to have to follow it all the way until it gets to the final destination.”
The Rani rolls her eyes. “Oh, brilliant, and if there are an infinite number of deflections from the real co-ordinates?”
“Well,” says the Doctor, “Davros probably didn’t have time for that. Tell you what, if we haven’t arrived within the decade, I’ll call it a day and drop you off at Miasimia Goria.”
The Rani closes her eyes for a long moment and the Doctor can see that she’s forcing herself to control her temper and is actually a little bit proud of the fact that she manages to sound completely calm when she speaks again. “I’m going to check on the patient,” she says, and leaves the console room.
“Patient?” asks the Master.
“Donna,” the Doctor tells him, “bit of a long story.”
-
“Feeling better?” asks the Rani as she walks into the medical bay.
Donna’s sitting up in bed, looking brighter and feeling a hell of a lot better than she has ever since she got an extra mind stuck inside her head. “It’s kind of odd that, hearing you sound like you care,” she says, watching the Rani carefully to see how she’ll react.
Her smile is thin and humourless. “It’s not affection; it’s purely a practical question. If the patient is able to tell you how they feel it can aid in assessing their condition. So, how do you feel?”
“Better.”
The Rani takes a look at the readouts monitoring Donna’s condition. “As expected, more-or-less,” she murmurs. “Certainly a lot more stable than the Doctor’s solution.”
“More-or-less?” asks Donna, raising en eyebrow.
“No-one’s ever done this before, there are bound to be some unexpected side-effects, but it doesn’t seem to be anything that your system can’t adjust to.”
“You don’t have to speak to me like I wouldn’t understand; I do know everything that the Doctor does.”
She smiles again, not so hard. “I’m speaking to you exactly as I’d speak to the Doctor. He’s not a complete fool, I grant you, but his grasp of biology seems extraordinary to you only because you judge it against human standards. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.”
“It’s getting easier to understand the things in his mind, and more and more of his memories-“
“It might be best,” says the Rani, interrupting, “if you were to try and leave them alone.”
“Why?” asks Donna.
“Your system doesn’t need additional stress.”
“I know what the Doctor did, what he had to do to his planet, his people...” And she stops, because there’s something in the Rani’s eyes that she doesn’t quite understand and she doesn’t think the Doctor understands either, but it’s there and it’s powerful and it scares her.
“You may know what he did, but you don’t know what he felt. You don’t understand the experience of it and besides that there is a great deal more in the Doctor’s life that I imagine you’d rather not be aware of.” She turns away, checking more instruments.
“Is it alright if I get up now?” asks Donna.
“Yes,” says the Rani curtly. “You should probably eat. Try not to exert yourself.”
Donna nods. “Thank you, again,” she says as she leaves. “I know you don’t particularly care, but thank you.”
-
Donna finds the Doctor alone in the console room, murmuring softly to the TARDIS. “I like your friends,” she says.
“They’re not my friends,” he says, looking up. “One’s an amoral ultra-rationalist with nothing resembling a conscience and the other’s megalomaniacal psychopath with delusions of grandeur.” He pauses and grins. “You look fantastic, by the way.”
“Still,” says Donna, standing next to him, giving him a nudge in the arm. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“It should,” he says, his voice serious again. “A lot of people have died because of them.”
She reaches out to take his hand, and looks up at him. “It doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself that...”
“You know,” he says, meeting her eyes, “this is more than a little disconcerting.”
“It’s frightening.”
“Yes. Donna, the things you know...”
“You’re afraid I’ll hate you, and that I could end up hating myself.”
“And even that,” he says, “knowing what I’m going to say, what I’m going to think.”
“Oh, come on, space boy,” she says, and it’s completely, undeniably Donna talking now, “like this is the worst or more terrifying thing that’s ever happened to you. You, of all people. Yeah, it’s so awful someone who loves and cares for you knows all these thing about you, like, so much worse than facing Sutekh or leaving all those people to die on a burning Earth or that sentient sun that got inside your head. It’s me, you great turnip, Donna. Alright?”
He can’t help but smile. “Alright,” he agrees.
-
Fifteen materialisations and dematerialisations later, they’ve still not got to the final destination of the Time Corridor. The Doctor has a cup of tea with Donna and then goes in search of his two guests, not because he doesn’t trust them, he just knows them really, really well.
He finds the Master in the library, sitting in one of the comfy leather chairs that flank either side of the fireplace. The hearth is cold and he’s grateful the Master hasn’t tried to light a fire and accidently-on-purpose burn the library down. Either he’s not that bored, or he’s in a better mood than the Doctor suspected.
He’s sitting cross-legged, a very thick book propped open and resting on the arm of the chair while he’s using another book as a writing surface and scribbling on a sheet of paper. The Doctor drops into the chair opposite and the Master ignores him.
He reaches across the table for one of the neatly stacked pieces of paper already covered with writing and gets slapped on the hand. The Master glares at him. “Three seconds,” he says, “you couldn’t sit still for three seconds.”
“I like the fact you were counting. Shows you care.”
“Shove off, Doctor. I’m busy.”
“Oh?” He tilts sideways and squints, just about able to read the spine of the book resting on the Master’s chair. “Is that Shakespeare?”
“Uh-huh,” says the Master, going back to writing.
“You’re not plotting to kill Shakespeare are you?”
“Yes, Doctor,” he says, “I’m plotting to kill Shakespeare, and then I’m going to kill the lovely Bess Tudor, stick on a dress and rule England... forever!” He raises his hands in horror and gives the Doctor a scandalised look. “What d’you take me for? Of course I’m not killing Shakespeare. I like Shakespeare. We’ve done stuff together, Will and me. Great stuff.”
“You have not.”
The Master stares at him for a moment. “Oh, I see. You’re the only one who’s allowed to befriend Earth’s greats. Very petty, Doctor. Any more of that and the first chance I get it’s gonna be me, your credit card and Reinette Poisson in twentieth century Vegas for one hell of a debauched weekend.”
While the Master’s talking the Doctor makes another grab for the pile of paper. “Aha!” he says, jumping up and around the back of the chair as the Master makes a move to snatch it back. “What is this? Are you... you are. Why are you rewriting Shakespeare? With yourself in it?”
“Why not?” says the Master, leaning back and looking smug. “Thought it could use an update or two. Make it more relevant to the modern day Time Lord.”
The Doctor scans the first few lines and reads: “’Now is the paradox of our discontent made glorious Otherstide by this son of Gallifrey.’ You do know how terrible this is, right?”
“It’s a first draft,” says the Master. “Besides, I’ve read your diary, so I wouldn’t criticise too much.”
The Doctor takes his chair back, tosses over the sheet of paper. “If you’re Richard...?”
The Master rolls his eyes. “You’re so self-obsessed. Richmond, if you must know. But if you don’t stop annoying me, it’s Clarence.”
“And if York’s Gallifrey, what’s Lancaster?”
“Well, Earth, duh.”
“So you’re writing a play about Earth overthrowing Gallifrey?”
He glares up at him. “I’m changing the ending obviously.”
“A TARDIS, a TARDIS, my planet for a TARDIS!”
“Oh, very droll,” mutters the Master. “Now sod off, I’m busy.”
“That’s it?” says the Doctor, his disappointment evident, “Is that really all you’ve got to say to me?”
The Master puts his pen and paper to one side and regards the Doctor over steepled fingers. “You’re willing to let her loose on the universe but not me. How is that fair?”
“You were willing to make war on the universe because you were having a little percussion trouble in your head. Whatever else she is, the Rani is not a warmonger.”
“No, she just sees people as walking heaps of chemicals. We should appoint her as ambassador to the UN, lovely woman to have around in a humanitarian crisis.”
“Is that it then? You don’t think I’m being fair?”
“It? It? It is your hypocrisy. It is always your hypocrisy. Why am I the one who has to be the salve to your guilty conscience, Doctor? I want my freedom. I want to be able to go as I choose and to do as I choose. If you’re looking for someone to save, find the Rani a conscience, or stop that human from going stark-raving mad when she finally has to look you in the soul, but leave me out of it. I am not here for you to redeem, and you have no right to act as my judge or jury.” He stands up, kicking the table in front of him away, sending papers flying, and stalks out of the library.
The Doctor stares after him, his face expressionless.
-
The long walk to the Doctor’s sorry excuse for a laboratory restores some of the Master’s good humour, and he practically skips in, a smile on his face. “Rani,” he says, “Rani, Rani, Rani.”
She sighs as she turns around, less than thrilled at the Master’s appearance and the complete lack of pilfering opportunities in the Doctor’s laboratory. The thing’s pretty much a relic from twentieth century Earth and she’s thoroughly unimpressed. “Did you want something or are you here purely to annoy me?”
“A little from column A, a little from column B,” he says. He jumps up to sit on the lab bench and then slides over to her. “How d’you feel about zapping the Doctor and making off with his ride?”
“Not as good as I’d feel about ‘zapping’ you and dumping you in the Vortex, why?” she says, adjusting her glasses.
“Oh. Well, there go my evening plans. I just thought a little coup d’états might make the time pass more quickly.”
She slams a cupboard shut. “Being dead really didn’t do much for your personality growth, did it?”
“Being human didn’t do too much for yours either.”
She raises a thin eyebrow. “Do you really want to start this? Really? When I know rather more than I think you’d like about you, the Cruciform, a Professor Yana and the last of the human race.”
“You know,” says the Master lightly, “I think I may have left a candle burning. Somewhere.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m done here. I wouldn’t touch anything, by the way, some of it is liable to take your hand off,” she says as she leaves.
-
“I don’t suppose you’ve discovered where we’re going yet?” asks the Rani, walking into the console room, where the Doctor has retreated after his less-than-fun conversation with the Master in the library.
“As a matter of fact,” says the Doctor, “I have.”
“Well?”
“Skaro.”
She stares at him, watches his hands as he makes minute, meaningless adjustments to the console. “You’re afraid too,” she says, sounding surprised.
He looks up at her. “Excuse me?”
“You, and the Master,” she says, “you’re both so afraid of the Daleks.”
“There was a war,” he says tightly, not looking at her.
“There are always wars.”
“If you’d been there-“
“If I’d been there I’d have had enough control of myself not to allow my emotions to override a reasoned, rational response.”
“Why weren’t you?” says the Doctor, turning to her and letting his anger show. “Where were you, Rani, when our species was fighting for survival?”
“The President didn’t think it worth her while to solicit my aid,” she says coolly, “and you’re avoiding the issue.”
“It’s hardly something I want to talk about, especially not with you.”
“Why? Because I won’t coddle you like your precious little humans?”
“Because I don’t want to and... ah, oh.” His hands are moving over the console with some actual intent now.
The Rani joins him at the controls as the ship materialises, and says, “More problems, I take it?”
“No,” says the Doctor, “No, not at all. Just the one actually: there’s already an earlier incarnation of me here.”
“On Skaro?”
“Yup.”
“Doing what?”
“I think,” says the Doctor slowly, “I think that he might be trying to commit an act of genocide.”
-
In search of something annoying and petty to do, the Master considers the kitchen to be an excellent place to look for ideas, but is quickly foiled by the fact that Donna’s already there. So instead of filling the sugar bowl with salt or throwing out all the coffee that isn’t Nescafe, he flops down in the chair opposite Donna and plants his chin on the heel of his hand, watches her drinking her cup of tea.
“Well,” he says, “I see you avoided the stupid hair. So what did you get? A bonus heart? His penchant for bad suits? His moral hypocrisy?”
She takes a sip of tea and looks at him and he’s not sure he likes it very much. She’s not afraid, or angry, or.... Rassilon save him, it almost looks like pity. “I got his mind,” she says.
“My sympathies.”
“Everything he knows, everything he can remember,” she says, and he feels slightly disgusted at the tone of wonder in her voice.
“Everything?” he asks, with the quirk an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Ooh, then this might be awkward,” he says, leaning over the table. “We’d better get this unresolved sexual tension between us out of the way post haste. How about the sofa over there?
She looks at him again, or through him, or into him, and she smiles a smile that he recognises all too well and for an instant he’s almost overwhelmed by the impulse to strangle the life out of her. He clenches his fist and sits back, managing a thin smile of his own. “You should talk to him,” she says, not looking at him, but at her tea and the smile’s gone now but that doesn’t make it much better.
Someone bangs the kitchen door and the Master jumps. The Doctor, of course. “Not the way to interrupt in polite society, Doctor,” the Master says.
“We’ve arrived,” says the Doctor. “Drink up, Donna, cause this is where the fun really starts.”
Characters: Donna Noble, the Rani, the Master and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
TARDIS Tales
The Master steps out of the cryogenic tube, groggy and unsteady. He looks up, he blinks, he swings his fist at the Rani and it connects solidly with her jaw. She hisses in pain and immediately punches back, giving him a cut on his lower lip.
Before the Master can retaliate the Doctor leaps between them, pushing them well apart. “That’s enough!” he shouts with all the anger he can muster.
They pause and look at him. “She,” says the Master, practically hissing with fury as he nurses his broken lip, “shoved me in that thing barely ten minutes after I finally got a new body.”
“I did tell you to shut up,” snaps the Rani, “several times, but would you listen? Of course not. You’re too busy getting off to the sound of your own voice.”
“At least I might have the opportunity to get off, what’s with the old lady look this time round?”
She narrows her eyes. “This isn’t old; it’s classic. And dignified. Unlike you pair, regenerating into a couple of pretty boys. Who did it first, hmm? And who got hopelessly jealous and just had to get a firm young body of his own?”
“Stop it,” the Doctor says. “Just stop it.” There’s silence, and he realises they’ve listened to him and now they’re looking at him and he doesn’t know what else to say.
The Master gives the Rani a sly look and raises an eyebrow. He jerks his head at the Doctor. “Has he given you the speech yet?”
Her mouth twitches. “‘We’re the only ones left, everything is different,’” she mimics, rather more accurately than the Doctor feels comfortable with.
“Oh, why can’t we all just hold hands and get along,” adds the Master, sing-song.
“Stop that too,” says the Doctor petulantly.
“He cried when I died, you know,” says the Master, not giving the Doctor a glance. “Wailed and sobbed over me, even though I’d just spent the year blowing chunks out of his favourite planet.”
“Hardly surprising,” says the Rani, “he’s always been emotionally overdeveloped.”
“Right,” says the Doctor firmly, “that is enough. Get in the TARDIS, both of you.”
The Master finally turns to him, and fixes him with a dark liquid gaze. “I didn’t want to be kept before,” he says softly, “and I don’t want to be kept now, so why would I do that?”
“Because UNIT’s just outside the door, and if you don’t come with me, then you’re stuck here with them.”
The Master groans, pulling a face. “I hate you. I do hate you. Both of you. So much.”
“Oh, do shut up,” snaps the Rani, “or I’ll shove you back in the cryo-tube.”
The Master glances at her, and frowns. “You’re going along with this rather easily.”
“I’m getting a lift home, actually, where I will be free of his whining, your narcissism and be able to get on with my experiments in peace.”
“Oh.” He folds his arms and fixes the Doctor with a glare. “And what about me? I’m not getting in that old tub of yours without some sort of guarantee that there’s not a window-dressed cryo-tube waiting for me in there.”
The Doctor shrugs and looks at the Master. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“Do you have any idea how pathetic you sound?” the Master says, but his voice is quite mild.
Seconds tick by in silence, until it’s broken by a snort from the Rani. “That’s pathetic? Look at the pair of you, you’re practically simpering. Either fuck or kill each other, I don’t particularly care, but I do want to leave. Now.”
“Right, yes, of course.” The Doctor’s flustered, but not much, and his eyes fall on the little grey box sitting on the lab bench and he remembers what he’s supposed to be doing. “Ah, about that lift... I think there might be a slight detour on the way.”
“I assume this is some sort of joke,” says the Rani.
“Yeah, no, it’s not. Sorry, but this is kind of important, and you know it’s important so let’s not make a big deal out of it, okay?”
“Aw, no big welcome home parade for Queen Rani today,” says the Master, his bottom lip pouting. “Queen Rani... doesn’t Rani mean queen? How does that work then? They call you Queen Queen? Sounds a bit dumb, doesn’t it?”
“Nobody calls me queen anything,” she says sweetly, “and if you don’t stop prattling on, I’m going to wring your scrawny little neck.”
He smiles at her. “Would you really?” he breathes, taking a step towards her. “I think I’d like to see you try.”
She tilts her head, regarding him. “You’ve never been overly fond of physical violence,” she says, “and you aren’t very good at it.”
“Davros,” says the Doctor, deciding it might be best for the moment if he just pretended most of this wasn’t happening, “The box’ll have the Time Corridor’s co-ordinates stored, so we can follow him. And I’m not letting a post Time War Davros who is mad enough to destroy all of creation wander freely around the universe, all right?”
The Rani sighs. “Fine,” she concedes.
The Doctor gives her a sceptical look. “Really?”
“I’m not entirely satisfied with the state of the universe, Doctor, but I have no desire to see reality annihilated. You’re going to track him down anyway, and it’ll be a lot faster and more efficient with my help.”
“Oh. Well then. Thank you, Rani.” He looks at the Master. “What about you?”
“Blah blah evil cakes,” he mutters, not looking directly at the Doctor. “It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do is it?”
-
“Okay,” says the Doctor, “slight problem.”
“Let me see,” says the Rani, and the Doctor just about manages to avoid getting elbowed out of the way as she takes a look at the console.
“This is my TARDIS,” he mutters, but not too loudly. He can see she’s concentrating and the Master’s smirking at him from the other side of the room and it’s obviously going to end in disaster, but right now, just for this moment, there’s something joyous about having the three of them like this, working together.
The Rani kicking the console knocks him from his reverie. “Hey! No! Absolutely not!” he says, then gives his TARDIS a reassuring rub on her central rotor. “She’s already suffered more than enough abuse from him.”
“She’s an idiot,” says the Rani, “and probably as senile as you are. She’s unable to make any sort of intuitive leaps beyond the co-ordinate pathways.”
“Well, you can’t either.”
“I’m not a being adapted for life in the Time Vortex. This thing that you laughingly call a TARDIS does not properly understand how to navigate the space/time continuum. It’s intolerable.”
“For you, maybe,” says the Doctor, “but for me it’s a feature not a bug. If she can’t make the leaps then she’s just going to have to follow it all the way until it gets to the final destination.”
The Rani rolls her eyes. “Oh, brilliant, and if there are an infinite number of deflections from the real co-ordinates?”
“Well,” says the Doctor, “Davros probably didn’t have time for that. Tell you what, if we haven’t arrived within the decade, I’ll call it a day and drop you off at Miasimia Goria.”
The Rani closes her eyes for a long moment and the Doctor can see that she’s forcing herself to control her temper and is actually a little bit proud of the fact that she manages to sound completely calm when she speaks again. “I’m going to check on the patient,” she says, and leaves the console room.
“Patient?” asks the Master.
“Donna,” the Doctor tells him, “bit of a long story.”
-
“Feeling better?” asks the Rani as she walks into the medical bay.
Donna’s sitting up in bed, looking brighter and feeling a hell of a lot better than she has ever since she got an extra mind stuck inside her head. “It’s kind of odd that, hearing you sound like you care,” she says, watching the Rani carefully to see how she’ll react.
Her smile is thin and humourless. “It’s not affection; it’s purely a practical question. If the patient is able to tell you how they feel it can aid in assessing their condition. So, how do you feel?”
“Better.”
The Rani takes a look at the readouts monitoring Donna’s condition. “As expected, more-or-less,” she murmurs. “Certainly a lot more stable than the Doctor’s solution.”
“More-or-less?” asks Donna, raising en eyebrow.
“No-one’s ever done this before, there are bound to be some unexpected side-effects, but it doesn’t seem to be anything that your system can’t adjust to.”
“You don’t have to speak to me like I wouldn’t understand; I do know everything that the Doctor does.”
She smiles again, not so hard. “I’m speaking to you exactly as I’d speak to the Doctor. He’s not a complete fool, I grant you, but his grasp of biology seems extraordinary to you only because you judge it against human standards. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.”
“It’s getting easier to understand the things in his mind, and more and more of his memories-“
“It might be best,” says the Rani, interrupting, “if you were to try and leave them alone.”
“Why?” asks Donna.
“Your system doesn’t need additional stress.”
“I know what the Doctor did, what he had to do to his planet, his people...” And she stops, because there’s something in the Rani’s eyes that she doesn’t quite understand and she doesn’t think the Doctor understands either, but it’s there and it’s powerful and it scares her.
“You may know what he did, but you don’t know what he felt. You don’t understand the experience of it and besides that there is a great deal more in the Doctor’s life that I imagine you’d rather not be aware of.” She turns away, checking more instruments.
“Is it alright if I get up now?” asks Donna.
“Yes,” says the Rani curtly. “You should probably eat. Try not to exert yourself.”
Donna nods. “Thank you, again,” she says as she leaves. “I know you don’t particularly care, but thank you.”
-
Donna finds the Doctor alone in the console room, murmuring softly to the TARDIS. “I like your friends,” she says.
“They’re not my friends,” he says, looking up. “One’s an amoral ultra-rationalist with nothing resembling a conscience and the other’s megalomaniacal psychopath with delusions of grandeur.” He pauses and grins. “You look fantastic, by the way.”
“Still,” says Donna, standing next to him, giving him a nudge in the arm. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“It should,” he says, his voice serious again. “A lot of people have died because of them.”
She reaches out to take his hand, and looks up at him. “It doesn’t matter how many times you tell yourself that...”
“You know,” he says, meeting her eyes, “this is more than a little disconcerting.”
“It’s frightening.”
“Yes. Donna, the things you know...”
“You’re afraid I’ll hate you, and that I could end up hating myself.”
“And even that,” he says, “knowing what I’m going to say, what I’m going to think.”
“Oh, come on, space boy,” she says, and it’s completely, undeniably Donna talking now, “like this is the worst or more terrifying thing that’s ever happened to you. You, of all people. Yeah, it’s so awful someone who loves and cares for you knows all these thing about you, like, so much worse than facing Sutekh or leaving all those people to die on a burning Earth or that sentient sun that got inside your head. It’s me, you great turnip, Donna. Alright?”
He can’t help but smile. “Alright,” he agrees.
-
Fifteen materialisations and dematerialisations later, they’ve still not got to the final destination of the Time Corridor. The Doctor has a cup of tea with Donna and then goes in search of his two guests, not because he doesn’t trust them, he just knows them really, really well.
He finds the Master in the library, sitting in one of the comfy leather chairs that flank either side of the fireplace. The hearth is cold and he’s grateful the Master hasn’t tried to light a fire and accidently-on-purpose burn the library down. Either he’s not that bored, or he’s in a better mood than the Doctor suspected.
He’s sitting cross-legged, a very thick book propped open and resting on the arm of the chair while he’s using another book as a writing surface and scribbling on a sheet of paper. The Doctor drops into the chair opposite and the Master ignores him.
He reaches across the table for one of the neatly stacked pieces of paper already covered with writing and gets slapped on the hand. The Master glares at him. “Three seconds,” he says, “you couldn’t sit still for three seconds.”
“I like the fact you were counting. Shows you care.”
“Shove off, Doctor. I’m busy.”
“Oh?” He tilts sideways and squints, just about able to read the spine of the book resting on the Master’s chair. “Is that Shakespeare?”
“Uh-huh,” says the Master, going back to writing.
“You’re not plotting to kill Shakespeare are you?”
“Yes, Doctor,” he says, “I’m plotting to kill Shakespeare, and then I’m going to kill the lovely Bess Tudor, stick on a dress and rule England... forever!” He raises his hands in horror and gives the Doctor a scandalised look. “What d’you take me for? Of course I’m not killing Shakespeare. I like Shakespeare. We’ve done stuff together, Will and me. Great stuff.”
“You have not.”
The Master stares at him for a moment. “Oh, I see. You’re the only one who’s allowed to befriend Earth’s greats. Very petty, Doctor. Any more of that and the first chance I get it’s gonna be me, your credit card and Reinette Poisson in twentieth century Vegas for one hell of a debauched weekend.”
While the Master’s talking the Doctor makes another grab for the pile of paper. “Aha!” he says, jumping up and around the back of the chair as the Master makes a move to snatch it back. “What is this? Are you... you are. Why are you rewriting Shakespeare? With yourself in it?”
“Why not?” says the Master, leaning back and looking smug. “Thought it could use an update or two. Make it more relevant to the modern day Time Lord.”
The Doctor scans the first few lines and reads: “’Now is the paradox of our discontent made glorious Otherstide by this son of Gallifrey.’ You do know how terrible this is, right?”
“It’s a first draft,” says the Master. “Besides, I’ve read your diary, so I wouldn’t criticise too much.”
The Doctor takes his chair back, tosses over the sheet of paper. “If you’re Richard...?”
The Master rolls his eyes. “You’re so self-obsessed. Richmond, if you must know. But if you don’t stop annoying me, it’s Clarence.”
“And if York’s Gallifrey, what’s Lancaster?”
“Well, Earth, duh.”
“So you’re writing a play about Earth overthrowing Gallifrey?”
He glares up at him. “I’m changing the ending obviously.”
“A TARDIS, a TARDIS, my planet for a TARDIS!”
“Oh, very droll,” mutters the Master. “Now sod off, I’m busy.”
“That’s it?” says the Doctor, his disappointment evident, “Is that really all you’ve got to say to me?”
The Master puts his pen and paper to one side and regards the Doctor over steepled fingers. “You’re willing to let her loose on the universe but not me. How is that fair?”
“You were willing to make war on the universe because you were having a little percussion trouble in your head. Whatever else she is, the Rani is not a warmonger.”
“No, she just sees people as walking heaps of chemicals. We should appoint her as ambassador to the UN, lovely woman to have around in a humanitarian crisis.”
“Is that it then? You don’t think I’m being fair?”
“It? It? It is your hypocrisy. It is always your hypocrisy. Why am I the one who has to be the salve to your guilty conscience, Doctor? I want my freedom. I want to be able to go as I choose and to do as I choose. If you’re looking for someone to save, find the Rani a conscience, or stop that human from going stark-raving mad when she finally has to look you in the soul, but leave me out of it. I am not here for you to redeem, and you have no right to act as my judge or jury.” He stands up, kicking the table in front of him away, sending papers flying, and stalks out of the library.
The Doctor stares after him, his face expressionless.
-
The long walk to the Doctor’s sorry excuse for a laboratory restores some of the Master’s good humour, and he practically skips in, a smile on his face. “Rani,” he says, “Rani, Rani, Rani.”
She sighs as she turns around, less than thrilled at the Master’s appearance and the complete lack of pilfering opportunities in the Doctor’s laboratory. The thing’s pretty much a relic from twentieth century Earth and she’s thoroughly unimpressed. “Did you want something or are you here purely to annoy me?”
“A little from column A, a little from column B,” he says. He jumps up to sit on the lab bench and then slides over to her. “How d’you feel about zapping the Doctor and making off with his ride?”
“Not as good as I’d feel about ‘zapping’ you and dumping you in the Vortex, why?” she says, adjusting her glasses.
“Oh. Well, there go my evening plans. I just thought a little coup d’états might make the time pass more quickly.”
She slams a cupboard shut. “Being dead really didn’t do much for your personality growth, did it?”
“Being human didn’t do too much for yours either.”
She raises a thin eyebrow. “Do you really want to start this? Really? When I know rather more than I think you’d like about you, the Cruciform, a Professor Yana and the last of the human race.”
“You know,” says the Master lightly, “I think I may have left a candle burning. Somewhere.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m done here. I wouldn’t touch anything, by the way, some of it is liable to take your hand off,” she says as she leaves.
-
“I don’t suppose you’ve discovered where we’re going yet?” asks the Rani, walking into the console room, where the Doctor has retreated after his less-than-fun conversation with the Master in the library.
“As a matter of fact,” says the Doctor, “I have.”
“Well?”
“Skaro.”
She stares at him, watches his hands as he makes minute, meaningless adjustments to the console. “You’re afraid too,” she says, sounding surprised.
He looks up at her. “Excuse me?”
“You, and the Master,” she says, “you’re both so afraid of the Daleks.”
“There was a war,” he says tightly, not looking at her.
“There are always wars.”
“If you’d been there-“
“If I’d been there I’d have had enough control of myself not to allow my emotions to override a reasoned, rational response.”
“Why weren’t you?” says the Doctor, turning to her and letting his anger show. “Where were you, Rani, when our species was fighting for survival?”
“The President didn’t think it worth her while to solicit my aid,” she says coolly, “and you’re avoiding the issue.”
“It’s hardly something I want to talk about, especially not with you.”
“Why? Because I won’t coddle you like your precious little humans?”
“Because I don’t want to and... ah, oh.” His hands are moving over the console with some actual intent now.
The Rani joins him at the controls as the ship materialises, and says, “More problems, I take it?”
“No,” says the Doctor, “No, not at all. Just the one actually: there’s already an earlier incarnation of me here.”
“On Skaro?”
“Yup.”
“Doing what?”
“I think,” says the Doctor slowly, “I think that he might be trying to commit an act of genocide.”
-
In search of something annoying and petty to do, the Master considers the kitchen to be an excellent place to look for ideas, but is quickly foiled by the fact that Donna’s already there. So instead of filling the sugar bowl with salt or throwing out all the coffee that isn’t Nescafe, he flops down in the chair opposite Donna and plants his chin on the heel of his hand, watches her drinking her cup of tea.
“Well,” he says, “I see you avoided the stupid hair. So what did you get? A bonus heart? His penchant for bad suits? His moral hypocrisy?”
She takes a sip of tea and looks at him and he’s not sure he likes it very much. She’s not afraid, or angry, or.... Rassilon save him, it almost looks like pity. “I got his mind,” she says.
“My sympathies.”
“Everything he knows, everything he can remember,” she says, and he feels slightly disgusted at the tone of wonder in her voice.
“Everything?” he asks, with the quirk an eyebrow.
“Yeah.”
“Ooh, then this might be awkward,” he says, leaning over the table. “We’d better get this unresolved sexual tension between us out of the way post haste. How about the sofa over there?
She looks at him again, or through him, or into him, and she smiles a smile that he recognises all too well and for an instant he’s almost overwhelmed by the impulse to strangle the life out of her. He clenches his fist and sits back, managing a thin smile of his own. “You should talk to him,” she says, not looking at him, but at her tea and the smile’s gone now but that doesn’t make it much better.
Someone bangs the kitchen door and the Master jumps. The Doctor, of course. “Not the way to interrupt in polite society, Doctor,” the Master says.
“We’ve arrived,” says the Doctor. “Drink up, Donna, cause this is where the fun really starts.”