rude_not_ginger | for best_served_hot | At your side I feel like a ghost

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verse [active]: rewriting history

for best_served_hot | At your side I feel like a ghost

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Hours had passed. Hours. The Valeyard was now sleeping. The two weeks that the Doctor had rested left him awake, energized. There was more than an hour in him, now, though he didn't know how long.

He reached to his side table and flipped a switch. Lights flickered around the ship, and a few of the cameras turned off. The damage done would leave the Valeyard angry, but it would keep the Doctor and the Master safe. For now. It wouldn't be long until the Valeyard worked it out, and the Doctor knew it.

So hard, sharing one body. The part of him that wanted to stay the Doctor remaining safe and secure in a small section of the tyrant's mind.

He got out of bed and slipped down the corridor, avoiding the cameras he knew were still on as he made it to the infirmary. No guards. They were switching out, now. He had a window of opportunity to make sure the Master was safe. He had to make sure. He had to see that the damage the Valeyard had done wouldn't be permanent.

He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

"Master."

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The Valeyard blinked his eyes. He was in pain. His mouth ached, his jaw ached, and there was the taste and smell of blood everywhere. He didn't see the ceiling of his sleeping quarters, he saw the ceiling to the infirmary. What he didn't see was the Master in his table. Two guards, lying on the floor. One, he could tell, was still alive. What the hell had happened? And why was there a scalpel in his hand?

He wasted no time in making his way to the room. Once there, he punched in the access code, waiting impatiently for the door to slide open. When it finally did, he was greeted with darkness.

He stepped in slowly, allowing his eyesight to adjust as he did. He could still barely make out a thing. He reached his hand into his pocket, hand curling around the device there as the door closed behind him.

Something was very, very wrong here.

As the Master stepped into the room, the being waiting in there began to wake up. Slowly. She did not want to be woken up, she liked believing everything that was happening to her was a dream.

She especially did not like being woken up by him. The being she despised almost as much as the being that took the place of her Time Lord.

The floors around the Master's feet began to glow a light green as the familiar shape of the console room of the TARDIS surrounded him. The console room, but twisted and warped by the Valeyard experimenting with it and damaging it. She stood there, completely void of energy and near the point of dying. It was, in all probability, only her stubbornness of will that kept her alive now.

And as the Master stood there, something the Doctor had planted in his mind clicked into place. The TARDIS energy began to swirl at his feet, and the links for a symbiotic bond began to form. The TARDIS had a new, permanent pilot. And he'd just walked in.

The first thing that came to him was a wave of revulsion, whether it was the ship's or his own, he could not be sure. Even with the Master's own machinations, some time ago for her, at least she had been in working order in a perverted sense of the term.

He felt the connection, and there wasn't much to be done to stop it. His earlier words that he'd said to him about giving up came to the forefront of this mind as the bond began to form, and he let out a literal roar of frustration. He had been giving up! He should have dug deeper. but he let himself trust, if only just a little bit, and that was his first mistake.

He knew better. How many centuries gone by and he knew better.

The connection threw him, he hadn't been connected to a TARDIS since the War, and that one had died just as his own had before her. He was shaking with anger, all self control he had possessed moments earlier gone with the realizations of what had been done.

He was going to kill the Valeyard, and then he was going to make the Doctor suffer.

He tried to reign himself back under control, and took a step towards the console. He needed to work out how bad the damage was. The Valeyard would surely be on his heels, and he didn't need to be locked inside a mostly dead time ship with that thing ready to barrel in and no escape.

The TARDIS was miserable. The only person she hated more than the man she was now connected to was the one that controlled the Doctor. And there was no way to stop him.

She didn't speak, as some TARDISes did. She only moved. She moved emotions around in his mind, shifting him towards places on the console that hurt, towards places on her monitors that glowed. She was helping him. She was helping him, because she wanted the Doctor back. And that was the only reason.

"All personell to the infirmary," the Valeyard's voice rang out over the intercom. He sounded a bit off, as he was trying to speak with a nano-sealed tongue and a whole hell of a lot of confusion running through him.

The Master took a moment to look over the areas she showed him. There wasn't much he could do now, not with the call for everyone to make their way to the infirmary, but he would be back.

It wasn't as if he had much else to be doing.

He brushed a bit of dust off of the console, a small gesture that could be mistaken for kindness, and turned to leave. He had to get out of there before he was found out.

He went to the door, opening it, and peering out before making his way back down the corridor. Once to the infirmary, he wandered in, appearing for all the world as if he were, quite simply, bored. He took in the state of the Valeyard, the dead guard on the floor, and the boy that had come to some time ago.

"I must have missed all the fun."

The Valeyard spun around, his eyes full of rage.

"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped, his voice slightly slurring from the injury to his tongue. He raised his hand. No, he didn't care. "Which one of you didn't notice he'd gotten out?"

Two of the guards looked at each other, and the rest of the staff looked shamed and scared. He picked one of them, pulled their gun from the holster, and shot them in the head. The staff didn't even flinch. No one could feel anything but fear for the Valeyard, and that was how he liked it.

"He's not getting away this time. Someone detain him." A guard promptly took the Master by the arms.

It took every last inch of self control he possessed to keep himself from cracking a grin or simply laughing at the way the Valeyard sounded. He managed to keep his face impassive, even as the dead guard's body crumpled to the floor, blood pooling from the hole in his head.

"Oh, really now," said the Master, not trying to get loose from the grip the guard had on him. "Getting away? I was in my quarters."

"You don't have quarters," the Valeyard snapped. "You don't have anything that I don't grant you, and I did not allow you to leave this room."

He was a ball of fury now. He wanted to destroy something. He wanted to kill something. He stepped past the Master towards the door, and then stopped. He stepped back and inhaled.

One eyebrow raised as he looked at the Master. Interesting.

With that, he stalked back for the door. A small smile touched the edges of his lips. Interesting indeed.

The Master was exhausted. He'd been fighting it off tooth and nail for the past--he'd forgotten just how long. He'd rested, in small intervals, when he knew he wouldn't be disturbed by the Valeyard.

It wasn't enough.

His arm was healed now, and he'd settled himself back into a routine of sorts. He mucked about in the labs where the Valeyard hated him spending time, and focused on the faint mental bond he now had with the TARDIS deep within the Valeyard's ship. Grudgingly, after a few days of obnoxious rants and tirades, he had allowed him to go back to his own quarters, since he'd been unable to find any evidence that the Master had done anything wrong.

When the Valeyard was busy, and he could manage to get a guard alone, he had begun to weave his own, rather intricate web of instructions into their minds. If it came down to his having to leave rather quickly, he wasn't intending on fighting off an entire crew loyal out of fear. He made certain that his machinations were subtle, and well hidden, then sent them on their way.

At the present moment he was still within a lab that wasn't too far away from his quarters. He hadn't realized just how badly his exhaustion was starting to show until he reached for a vial, only succeeded in knocking it over, and stared at the spot, not quite comprehending how that had actually happened.

He shook himself momentarily, turned to get something to clean up the chemical, and collapsed, exhaustion having finally won.

When he found the Master sleeping, all he could do was look at him. He'd waited so long to sleep. It was time for him to rest.

When the Master would wake up, he'd find himself changed into a set of silk jim-jams, and placed in his quarters, tucked in. The lights would be out, and the Master would be alone, given his privacy. The lights outside would flicker, with the electricity cut in strategic locations.

A gentle knock would touch the door, just a brief rap.

"Are you awake?" The voice was quiet, the tongue now healed.

When he woke, he did so with a start, knowing this was not where he had finally succumbed to his exhaustion. He felt refreshed, and now on edge at the knocking on the door, and his current predicament.

He reached out for the bedside lamp, and turned it on, eyeing the door with no small amount of suspicion.

"I am."

He leaned heavily against the door, his breath coming out shallowly, shaky. He made no move to go for the handle.

"I-I woke up," he said. "During one of his dreams."

He was still wary, but he made his way over to the door. He didn't yet know who was behind it, and he was fairly sure the Valeyard suspected something.

He would after that last encounter.

"What are you talking about?" He pulled the door open, only enough so that he could see him, and eyed him darkly.

Even well-rested, changed into proper sleep wear, and in his own room he was incredibly angry at the Doctor. He could hardly be blamed for his near constant state of testiness.

"He dreams," he said, his voice still uneven. "Every night. About all of the things he's done. And I thought I was dreaming them, too."

He put his hand up to the door handle, let it brush the mechanism, but didn't open it. He stayed on the other end.

"I turned the cameras off," he said.

This was not the resounding clarification of who he was that would have eased his mind before.

The Master watched his hand as it brushed the door handle, eyes narrowing a bit. Still uncertain as to who he was, he wasn't about to let him in.

"Having a moment of weakness?" he asked. "Didn't want your guards to see?"

"Master," his voice was quiet, just above audible. "Please let me in."

"I can't help but take that as some sort of warning, something about three brother pigs. Though I think you already know the appropriate response."

There was no more reply, as he turned to leave the door and shuffle his way back to his own sleeping quarters.

"You are pathetic, you do realize that, don't you?" He called it out after him, and pushed the door open enough so that it would hit the wall with thunk.

He crossed his arms over his chest, noting the slide of the jim-jams he was in, and made a face.

"And what am I wearing? Are these paisley? They are. One article of clothing aside, I think there may be a rule about wearing too much of something in this pattern."

He stops, but doesn't turn around. He waits for the Master to step behind him, but keeps himself still, waiting for the Master to make the first move.

He walks over to him, stopping just out of reach if he were to be wrong in thinking that he is addressing the Doctor.

"Aren't you going to say anything?"

"I don't know what you want me to say," he replied, his voice still quiet. "I've given up, you say."

"Prove me wrong."

He looked down but didn't turn around.

"Tell me," he said. "Tell me what you want me to do. I'll do it."

for best_served_hot | At your side I feel like a ghost

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