Before Sunset (1/?)
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: G
Pairing: AU!Master/Doctor (10)
Summary: Sequel to Communication - after their latest adventure the Doctor has a little problem - which turnes out to be a huge problem. And once again the Master has to find a way to save him.
It was silent inside the TARDIS. The gentle humming of the engines only underlined the absence of any other sound. Even the Master’s loud footsteps did nothing to chase the silence away; he hated the way they echoed in the halls.
It had been silent before. He and the Doctor, they had never spoken, not once, in all the time they’d spend together since he’d found his old friend again and they’d kissed, caught between a fountain and a murderous crowd. But he’d heard the Doctor talk to the TARDIS or himself, heard him wander through the corridors, heard him breathe. Even if he heard nothing, in the rare hours when the other man slept and all was still it was never silent. It was different now. The TARDIS seemed empty, the Master’s presence not enough to fill it with life. For the first time he was aware of the impossible size of the ship and he felt like he was all alone in an endless, empty space. The sounds he caused seemed at the same time dull and impossible loud, making him feel like the intruder he was. Even the sounds of the ship itself seemed subdued, quiet. As if it didn’t dare interrupt the stillness of this place.
The outer doors cluttered loudly as he pulled them open, revealing the planet Cobsar in the distance, right now a dark silhouette in front of its sun. From here it looked normal, unremarkable, and it was - the only thing that made it interesting was the fact that it would chase to exist in less than a day.
But the moment hadn’t come yet. The Master imagined the surface of the planet, imagined the survivors of the last war running around like headless chicken, trying to escape their inevitable fate or entirely ignorant of it, and felt something like anticipation. He’d piloted the Doctor’s TARDIS off that world but had not left the system. A few more hours and the world would be torn apart, and he didn’t want to miss that.
But not yet. He closed the doors and left the console room to wander through the corridors, through the silence. It was cold. Colder than before, he was constantly wearing a coat now. His first thought had been that maybe his new cobsarian body was used to higher temperatures, but that planet had about the same climate as Earth. No, it had been the TARDIS, gradually lowering the temperature to gallifreyan standard. Since a Time Lord could adjust to pretty much any climate the ship’s internal temperature was usually made to be acceptable for whoever was currently travelling with the Doctor, including him. But now the sentimental old thing seemed determined to make it as comfortable as possible for her Doctor, as if he’d notice.
In the infirmary the silence seemed even thicker, despite the constant beeping of the machines. The Master saw at once that the Doctor had not moved in the passed hours; He hadn’t expected him to. Since they had returned here two days ago the other Time Lord had not stirred. The Master had already performed surgery twice, doing his best to save his enemy’s life. Still the number of broken bones and internal injuries left him feeling helpless and angry. Defeated.
There was little he could do.
No Time Lord should exist in such a state. This close to death the Doctor should have long since regenerated and the Master didn’t quite understand why he hadn’t.
Checking the monitors confirmed that nothing had changed. The Doctor’s state had not improved, but at least it hadn’t gotten any worse either. He was still deeply unconscious, needed artificial respiration and one of is hearts wasn’t beating despite the Master’s best efforts. Dark lashes resting on pale cheeks and for a moment the Master despised him for the fact that without him the ship seemed so empty.
He didn’t take the other’s hand because that would be a silly thing to do. He had programmed the systems to alert him the moment anything changed and didn’t understand why he was still here.
To justify his presence he checked the monitors again, ran a few new programs -
And froze.
“No, no…” he whispered. Checked again. Couldn’t believe it while everything made perfect sense.
“Stupid,” he cursed, suddenly unable to move. “Oh, you stupid, stupid little boy!”
When his gaze fell on the Doctor again he felt ready to strangle him. Wrap his hands around that slender throat and squeeze until he was gone. But that would be the end. If he killed him now, the Doctor would not regenerate. He would not regenerate ever again.
In his effort to keep the machine running, down on the planet whose destruction the Master could not await, in his effort to keep the artificial realities from collapsing, to save the universe, the Doctor had used up all his strength. Every last bit. Including the energy needed for regeneration. It was gone. All gone.
And there was no way to replace it.
All the Doctor had left were the very last reserves that kept him alive, and in a body this broken they were not much use. If the Master switched off those machines he would die within minutes. But even if he recovered eventually, even if he could save this one life, in the long run he was lost. All of a sudden he’d run out of second chances.
The Master swallowed dryly. He found himself remembering that moment lifetimes ago, when he’d been in his last body and dying - running out of time after a ridiculously short life. Back then he’d felt desperation, fury - and determination. Determination not to let it end like this, convinced that he deserved more than a few pathetic centuries. It was a determination that gave him the strength to trigger a thirteenth regeneration. One that left him in a disgusting, corps-like form, but gave him the chance to find another body to use. And it had served him well.
But that was not a way the Doctor would go. And the Master couldn’t chose for him, not this time. All he had left were the fury and the desperation.
Helplessness.
It wasn’t a feeling he was used to. It fuelled his anger but that anger had no direction.
“You are not dying on me, you bastard!” he hissed, his fingers clasping around the Doctor’s cold hand against his will.
-
Four hours later the planet called Cobsar was torn apart in front of his eyes. The Master watched the spectacle with a feeling of cold satisfaction.
-
Another week passed before the Doctor regained consciousness. Living in a world of pain he needed no explanations about his state and could barely follow the Master’s words when he spoke to him. It felt odd, something was wrong with the way the Master sat beside his bed and talked to him without expecting an answer, but the Doctor couldn’t put his finger on it. It was too hard to concentrate on the words. In the end the Doctor gave up and let the Master’s voice lull him back to sleep.
He lost every sense of time while he drifted in and out of sleep for days. Sometimes he felt the Master’s presence at his side, sometimes he was alone. Sometimes the pain was so strong he felt like dying, sometimes everything was dulled by painkillers. They caused his thoughts to be even more confused than the rest of the time but didn’t kill the pain completely, merely made it bearable.
“I can’t give you more than that,” the Master said one day, looking down on him indifferently. “You’re body can’t take it.” The Doctor didn’t find the strength to answer.
Sometimes he woke up, hardly able to breathe, other times a machine was doing it for him. Most of the time he was asleep, reliving his past in confused dreams. Once, when he woke up alone, he panicked, suddenly unsure weather the Master had really been here of if it had all been a dream and he was still alone. Other times he woke up to the other man’s voice and wondered if he was still dreaming. Because he couldn’t feel his presence as another Time Lord he could never tell what was real.
It took time for him to recall what had happened down on that planet. Bit by bit he remembered the terrible war going on, and the brave and kind people he’d met, and he remembered the fake realities in which everyone was happy and alive. He also remembered his decision to destroy all that, to let the planet and all its people die. It would have been destroyed anyway, taking the entire universe with it, but in the end it had been him who had sacrificed the world. Who had seen those people living their life in peace and decided that no, it couldn’t be.
And he cried silently, cursing the universe that forced such choices on him again and again.
-tbc
September 16, 2007
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