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magicallawTitle: Be Careful What You Wish For (1/2)
Author: Madge
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Master, Ten/Romana (ish)
Disclaimer: I own a Ten and Simm!Master doll, but that's about it. There's no way I could ever claim ownership of Romana for she is way out of my league.
Author's Note: Written for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
churchontime fic-a-fest. Loosely based on the prompt, 'Please marry me? The future of the planet's at stake.' (for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
netgirl_y2k). Thanks to my wonderful beta, ionlylurkhere, and to persiflage_1 for giving it the once over as well. Please bear in mind, this story only takes into consideration Telly Canon, and that the Doctor and Romana were together at the end of the Time War.
The planet Gallifrey no longer existed. It no longer existed because somebody blew it up. The race of the Time Lords that lived on Gallifrey were all but extinct. Well, all but one. He now lived alone in his beloved spaceship: the TARDIS.
He wasn’t alone all of the time, however. Sometimes he had friends living with him, and they had wonderful adventures travelling through Time and Space. He couldn’t explain how they ended up with him. They were just there, but he was always very grateful that they were.
Well, some of the time...
“I cremated you.” Not your usual greeting, the Doctor conceded. But when he saw the man whose body he had burned just days earlier, well, it was all he could say, really.
“Yes, Doctor. I was there, remember? You owe me a new suit, by the way. I was rather fond of that suit, you know. Lucy gave it to me.”
“It’s a bit late to get sentimental, don’t you think?”
“Hey, it’s not my fault she was so impressionable.” The Master leapt from his seat at the kitchen table and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Reviving every cell in your body is rather hunger inducing, and all you’ve got is – what is this?” he asked as he picked up one of jars and examined it, a rather unimpressed look upon his face. “Marmalade. Yeuck.”
“Yes, well I like it.” The Doctor, somewhat theatrically, leapt towards the Master and grabbed the jar from his hand as he had a sneaky suspicion that said jar could soon end up all over the floor. After he put the jar back in the cupboard (and yes, the Master did spot him making sure the label was lined up to match all the other jars – he would keep that one for later), he stood and stared at the Master, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m waiting for an explanation,” he said.
“What?” The Master looked shocked that the Doctor hadn’t figured it out already. “You really thought I had let myself die? . . . Well, it explains the sobbing, I suppose. If only you knew what it was I found last year, oh, you’d know there would be no way I would kill myself. This is going to be far too entertaining. Thing is, couldn’t have all those humans watching, especially those working for UNIT, so I pretended to die. So here I am, in your kitchen, and you still haven’t offered me a ham sandwich? Where are your manners, Doctor?”
“UNIT? What are you talking about, UNIT?”
“Cheese and pickle, maybe? Oh wait, I bet you’ve only got the smooth stuff. Yes, you’re just the type.” The Master wanted to add something about people who liked the smooth stuff were sick and evil but, a) that would be slightly hypocritical coming from him, and b) he didn’t want to let the Doctor know about his love for Branston Pickle. Never reveal your weaknesses and all that.
“Erm, I think Martha left some salami in the fridge if you fancy?”
“No, don’t worry,” the Master sat back at the table, folded his arms and turned his head away, “don’t want a sandwich now, anyway.” He was very good at sulking.
The Doctor sighed, “Well what do you want?”
“A little enthusiasm would be nice, Doctor. I’ve got the surprise to end all surprises and you can’t even muster up that stupid, pathetic grin of yours. And a little gratitude would be nice; I didn’t have to tell you all of this, you know.”
“But that’s it: you haven’t told me anything.”
“That’s the problem, Doctor. I haven’t decided whether or not I should. Of course, now that you know I’m hiding something from you, living with you will be unbearable: all that whinging and sulking. No. I’ll have to tell you now.” The Master had thought long and hard about sharing his discovery with the Doctor. He had been harbouring this secret since before he was elected Prime Minister, he was even tempted to tell him during the Year That Wasn’t, but of course, sharing such information would have done his plan no favours at all. But now, without the Toclafane, without Lucy, without the Paradox Machine: annoying the Doctor like this was the best he had.
The Master hadn’t long been alive (again), so there were still a few synapses that hadn’t connected fully, there were some thoughts and processes that just weren’t clicking. He hadn’t realised this yet, but by the time he did, it would be too late; the Doctor would no longer be annoyed with him. In fact, chances are, he’d be deliriously happy, and the Master would be kicking himself.
“In your own time then, Master.”
“It’s actually staring you in the face, Doctor. Perception filters are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?” But there was no ignoring the watch after the Master had chucked it at him. The Doctor caught it in time, of course, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look at it. Instead, he continued to stare, open-mouthed, at the Master. He didn’t need to ask what it was; the Gallifreyan inscription under his fingertips had told him that.
“Who is it?” Now, that was a question. “Where did you find it? Tell me, Master, where did you get this?” he shouted.
“Now, now, Doctor. There’s no need to raise your voice. Besides, these things don’t come with name tags attached. I was kind of hoping you would be able to tell me.”
“But ... but ...” The Doctor shook his head in disbelief.
“Fine,” the Master said, snatching the watch out of the Doctor’s hands, “I’ll open it then.”
“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Oh, what’s the matter, Doctor? Worried that the third to last ever Time Lord’s essence is going to go ‘poof’, never to be seen again?”
“Why are you doing this?” The Doctor was referring to how he was tormenting him, and not the baby voice he was putting on.
“Because I finished the Sudoku and this was next on my to-do list. Why do you think, Doctor?” And they both knew, because, well, why did the Master do most things?
“How long have you had this?” asked the Doctor.
“A couple of years. Does it matter?”
“Yes... No. I don’t know.”
“Shall I tell you what I know, Doctor. I know that, potentially, you are holding the future of our race in your hands, and not for the first time, I might add. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you and me are brilliant – well, at least one of us is – but two same sex Time Lords a new planet does not make.”
“So you think it’s her as well, then?”
“That watch just screams pretentious, Doctor.”
“Could be anyone, in that case.”
The Master tutted. “You know it’s her just as well as I do; that woeful little face you made the minute you touched the watch gave you away.”
“All right, smart arse. What do we do with it?”
“The only thing we can do with it: you sit and pine over it whilst I point and laugh at you.” The Master didn’t bother to suppress his slightly manic laughter, or the hand clap that went along with it.
“But... wait a minute. You found this on Earth, right?”
“Yes. So what?”
“Well, then whoever owned it is more than likely to be on Earth.”
“So?”
“Sooooooo, we just have to find them.”
The Master didn’t like what he was hearing (apart from the fact that searching for one woman out of the billions on planet Earth was highly preposterous). He had been alive again for about four hours now, and those connections that were missing earlier were starting to click in to place. The fact that his thought processes were usually about the same speed as the Doctor’s (often quicker, he liked to think), meant that he didn’t like what he was thinking. But he was determined to dampen the Doctor’s enthusiasm in any way possible. “All right then, Doctor. We’ll start in London: I’ll turn right, you turn left, and we’ll both meet in the middle. Should take, oh, about a decade, and knowing us, a regeneration or two. How does that sound?”
Now, the Doctor was in a bit of a predicament. He could either let the Master continue with his plan to torment him at any and every given opportunity. Or, he could admit that he may have a lock of Romana’s hair. It was even from her most recent regeneration because she gave it to him the night before... before... Well, what else are two Time Lords supposed to do the night before their planet is destroyed? The TARDIS could track her down with that lock, almost instantly, and, well, Robert’s your Father’s brother, as the Doctor might be inclined to say.
On second thought, though, the Doctor realised that whatever action he took, the Master was going to ridicule him. He decided that making a show of actually looking for the lock of hair, instead of pulling it out of his pocket, might make his life a tad easier. In fact, he had an even better idea.
It took less than ten minutes for the Doctor to return, and he greeted the Master, who was waiting in the console room for him, with that stupid grin of his; the one that made the Master’s lip curl up to one side in pure disgust. The fact that he had his arm around the former President of Gallifrey made things even worse.
“Master, you were right. Can you believe it? Oh, this is... is... It’s brilliant, that’s what it is!” The Doctor stopped bouncing up and down momentarily as he was sure he spotted the Master physically kicking himself.
“Get her off my TARDIS.”
“Now, Master, I think the Doctor might have something to say about it being your TARDIS,” Romana replied.
Problem was, the Doctor wasn’t really listening; he was far too busy promising himself that if they did somehow manage to create New Gallifrey, he would try his hardest not to blow it up.
+++
The problem with the Master is that he doesn’t know what he’s got ‘til it’s gone. For a whole year, he had the Doctor at his beck and call; he was all his. And a week ago, for about 30 minutes, he had him all to himself, without any annoying humans around to ruin their fun.
Now the Master had to share the Doctor. Worst of all he had to share him with her. Actually, the main problem was that he wasn’t even sharing him at all. The Doctor had paid the Master little, or no, attention over the last seven days. Seven of the most boring days the Master had had the misfortune to live through; he had more fun being dead. Straight after they picked Romana up, the Doctor set off into the Vortex, and that was where they had remained ever since. The Doctor claimed that the TARDIS needed the Vortex energy in order for her to heal properly after that ‘monstrosity of a Paradox machine’ butchered her. The Doctor had also muttered something about a ‘time slip’ and a small run-in with the Titanic. He was most intrigued by a comment about forgetting how silly he looked with a stick of celery pinned to his lapel, but he decided to keep it for later. He was doing a lot of that recently; making notes and saving up key pieces of information. You see, the Master may have been playing nice and not getting himself in to too much trouble (well, there’s plotting and there’s sheer boredom, and besides, it was terribly amusing to watch the Doctor’s face when he realised that the last three pages were missing out of all of his favourite books in the library) but, seriously, the Doctor couldn’t be so naive as to think he was happy in his room playing with the Doctor’s clapped out gadgets (all of which, the Doctor had made sure were unable to cause any harm whatsoever – especially to the Master). No, now that the Master’s brain was back to its fully functional, and highly superior, the Master might add, best, he was hatching up a rather brilliant plan. As luck would have it, the thing that was making the Master so incredibly angry, was the one thing that was giving the Master all of this time to work on his little plan.
The Doctor wasn’t particularly interested in anything the Master was doing; not now that he had Romana, anyway.
Two peas in a pod, that’s what they were like. The reality of it was, though, that they had been reunited. The same was true for him and the Master, but this was different. She was blonde (again) for a start, and the thing was, he always thought, in his heart of hearts, that he would see the Master again. One day. (He blamed the tears on the Valiant on the physical strain that his body had been through, gaining back his ability to regenerate. That and hayfever. You know, in the sky.) He had had to say goodbye One Last Time to Romana twice, and the Doctor was of the belief that if someone comes back from E-Space, or back from the dead more than three times, then they are surely built of strong stuff, and the likelihood is that they would never really leave the him.
The Doctor, however, didn’t like to leave anything to chance and decided that serious action was needed. Serious action involving an engagement ring, that is.
“She said yes! Can you believe it? And guess what?”
“If you put the word Time and Babies in the same sentence, I may have to do some serious damage to your Time Bollocks.”
“It’s all down to you.” The Doctor walked over to the Master and flashed him his most brilliant smile. “Thank you.” The resulting hug was inevitable.
How had this happened? The Master thought to himself. Then the most important memory that the Master was ever likely to have dawned on him. The last week had taught the Master that he should be careful what he wished for; and this was a lesson he was more than willing to teach the Doctor.
Part Two
Author: Madge
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Master, Ten/Romana (ish)
Disclaimer: I own a Ten and Simm!Master doll, but that's about it. There's no way I could ever claim ownership of Romana for she is way out of my league.
Author's Note: Written for the
churchontime fic-a-fest. Loosely based on the prompt, 'Please marry me? The future of the planet's at stake.' (for netgirl_y2k). Thanks to my wonderful beta, ionlylurkhere, and to persiflage_1 for giving it the once over as well. Please bear in mind, this story only takes into consideration Telly Canon, and that the Doctor and Romana were together at the end of the Time War. The planet Gallifrey no longer existed. It no longer existed because somebody blew it up. The race of the Time Lords that lived on Gallifrey were all but extinct. Well, all but one. He now lived alone in his beloved spaceship: the TARDIS.
He wasn’t alone all of the time, however. Sometimes he had friends living with him, and they had wonderful adventures travelling through Time and Space. He couldn’t explain how they ended up with him. They were just there, but he was always very grateful that they were.
Well, some of the time...
“I cremated you.” Not your usual greeting, the Doctor conceded. But when he saw the man whose body he had burned just days earlier, well, it was all he could say, really.
“Yes, Doctor. I was there, remember? You owe me a new suit, by the way. I was rather fond of that suit, you know. Lucy gave it to me.”
“It’s a bit late to get sentimental, don’t you think?”
“Hey, it’s not my fault she was so impressionable.” The Master leapt from his seat at the kitchen table and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Reviving every cell in your body is rather hunger inducing, and all you’ve got is – what is this?” he asked as he picked up one of jars and examined it, a rather unimpressed look upon his face. “Marmalade. Yeuck.”
“Yes, well I like it.” The Doctor, somewhat theatrically, leapt towards the Master and grabbed the jar from his hand as he had a sneaky suspicion that said jar could soon end up all over the floor. After he put the jar back in the cupboard (and yes, the Master did spot him making sure the label was lined up to match all the other jars – he would keep that one for later), he stood and stared at the Master, waiting for an explanation.
“I’m waiting for an explanation,” he said.
“What?” The Master looked shocked that the Doctor hadn’t figured it out already. “You really thought I had let myself die? . . . Well, it explains the sobbing, I suppose. If only you knew what it was I found last year, oh, you’d know there would be no way I would kill myself. This is going to be far too entertaining. Thing is, couldn’t have all those humans watching, especially those working for UNIT, so I pretended to die. So here I am, in your kitchen, and you still haven’t offered me a ham sandwich? Where are your manners, Doctor?”
“UNIT? What are you talking about, UNIT?”
“Cheese and pickle, maybe? Oh wait, I bet you’ve only got the smooth stuff. Yes, you’re just the type.” The Master wanted to add something about people who liked the smooth stuff were sick and evil but, a) that would be slightly hypocritical coming from him, and b) he didn’t want to let the Doctor know about his love for Branston Pickle. Never reveal your weaknesses and all that.
“Erm, I think Martha left some salami in the fridge if you fancy?”
“No, don’t worry,” the Master sat back at the table, folded his arms and turned his head away, “don’t want a sandwich now, anyway.” He was very good at sulking.
The Doctor sighed, “Well what do you want?”
“A little enthusiasm would be nice, Doctor. I’ve got the surprise to end all surprises and you can’t even muster up that stupid, pathetic grin of yours. And a little gratitude would be nice; I didn’t have to tell you all of this, you know.”
“But that’s it: you haven’t told me anything.”
“That’s the problem, Doctor. I haven’t decided whether or not I should. Of course, now that you know I’m hiding something from you, living with you will be unbearable: all that whinging and sulking. No. I’ll have to tell you now.” The Master had thought long and hard about sharing his discovery with the Doctor. He had been harbouring this secret since before he was elected Prime Minister, he was even tempted to tell him during the Year That Wasn’t, but of course, sharing such information would have done his plan no favours at all. But now, without the Toclafane, without Lucy, without the Paradox Machine: annoying the Doctor like this was the best he had.
The Master hadn’t long been alive (again), so there were still a few synapses that hadn’t connected fully, there were some thoughts and processes that just weren’t clicking. He hadn’t realised this yet, but by the time he did, it would be too late; the Doctor would no longer be annoyed with him. In fact, chances are, he’d be deliriously happy, and the Master would be kicking himself.
“In your own time then, Master.”
“It’s actually staring you in the face, Doctor. Perception filters are a wonderful thing, aren’t they?” But there was no ignoring the watch after the Master had chucked it at him. The Doctor caught it in time, of course, but he still couldn’t bring himself to look at it. Instead, he continued to stare, open-mouthed, at the Master. He didn’t need to ask what it was; the Gallifreyan inscription under his fingertips had told him that.
“Who is it?” Now, that was a question. “Where did you find it? Tell me, Master, where did you get this?” he shouted.
“Now, now, Doctor. There’s no need to raise your voice. Besides, these things don’t come with name tags attached. I was kind of hoping you would be able to tell me.”
“But ... but ...” The Doctor shook his head in disbelief.
“Fine,” the Master said, snatching the watch out of the Doctor’s hands, “I’ll open it then.”
“No, no, no, no, no.”
“Oh, what’s the matter, Doctor? Worried that the third to last ever Time Lord’s essence is going to go ‘poof’, never to be seen again?”
“Why are you doing this?” The Doctor was referring to how he was tormenting him, and not the baby voice he was putting on.
“Because I finished the Sudoku and this was next on my to-do list. Why do you think, Doctor?” And they both knew, because, well, why did the Master do most things?
“How long have you had this?” asked the Doctor.
“A couple of years. Does it matter?”
“Yes... No. I don’t know.”
“Shall I tell you what I know, Doctor. I know that, potentially, you are holding the future of our race in your hands, and not for the first time, I might add. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you and me are brilliant – well, at least one of us is – but two same sex Time Lords a new planet does not make.”
“So you think it’s her as well, then?”
“That watch just screams pretentious, Doctor.”
“Could be anyone, in that case.”
The Master tutted. “You know it’s her just as well as I do; that woeful little face you made the minute you touched the watch gave you away.”
“All right, smart arse. What do we do with it?”
“The only thing we can do with it: you sit and pine over it whilst I point and laugh at you.” The Master didn’t bother to suppress his slightly manic laughter, or the hand clap that went along with it.
“But... wait a minute. You found this on Earth, right?”
“Yes. So what?”
“Well, then whoever owned it is more than likely to be on Earth.”
“So?”
“Sooooooo, we just have to find them.”
The Master didn’t like what he was hearing (apart from the fact that searching for one woman out of the billions on planet Earth was highly preposterous). He had been alive again for about four hours now, and those connections that were missing earlier were starting to click in to place. The fact that his thought processes were usually about the same speed as the Doctor’s (often quicker, he liked to think), meant that he didn’t like what he was thinking. But he was determined to dampen the Doctor’s enthusiasm in any way possible. “All right then, Doctor. We’ll start in London: I’ll turn right, you turn left, and we’ll both meet in the middle. Should take, oh, about a decade, and knowing us, a regeneration or two. How does that sound?”
Now, the Doctor was in a bit of a predicament. He could either let the Master continue with his plan to torment him at any and every given opportunity. Or, he could admit that he may have a lock of Romana’s hair. It was even from her most recent regeneration because she gave it to him the night before... before... Well, what else are two Time Lords supposed to do the night before their planet is destroyed? The TARDIS could track her down with that lock, almost instantly, and, well, Robert’s your Father’s brother, as the Doctor might be inclined to say.
On second thought, though, the Doctor realised that whatever action he took, the Master was going to ridicule him. He decided that making a show of actually looking for the lock of hair, instead of pulling it out of his pocket, might make his life a tad easier. In fact, he had an even better idea.
It took less than ten minutes for the Doctor to return, and he greeted the Master, who was waiting in the console room for him, with that stupid grin of his; the one that made the Master’s lip curl up to one side in pure disgust. The fact that he had his arm around the former President of Gallifrey made things even worse.
“Master, you were right. Can you believe it? Oh, this is... is... It’s brilliant, that’s what it is!” The Doctor stopped bouncing up and down momentarily as he was sure he spotted the Master physically kicking himself.
“Get her off my TARDIS.”
“Now, Master, I think the Doctor might have something to say about it being your TARDIS,” Romana replied.
Problem was, the Doctor wasn’t really listening; he was far too busy promising himself that if they did somehow manage to create New Gallifrey, he would try his hardest not to blow it up.
The problem with the Master is that he doesn’t know what he’s got ‘til it’s gone. For a whole year, he had the Doctor at his beck and call; he was all his. And a week ago, for about 30 minutes, he had him all to himself, without any annoying humans around to ruin their fun.
Now the Master had to share the Doctor. Worst of all he had to share him with her. Actually, the main problem was that he wasn’t even sharing him at all. The Doctor had paid the Master little, or no, attention over the last seven days. Seven of the most boring days the Master had had the misfortune to live through; he had more fun being dead. Straight after they picked Romana up, the Doctor set off into the Vortex, and that was where they had remained ever since. The Doctor claimed that the TARDIS needed the Vortex energy in order for her to heal properly after that ‘monstrosity of a Paradox machine’ butchered her. The Doctor had also muttered something about a ‘time slip’ and a small run-in with the Titanic. He was most intrigued by a comment about forgetting how silly he looked with a stick of celery pinned to his lapel, but he decided to keep it for later. He was doing a lot of that recently; making notes and saving up key pieces of information. You see, the Master may have been playing nice and not getting himself in to too much trouble (well, there’s plotting and there’s sheer boredom, and besides, it was terribly amusing to watch the Doctor’s face when he realised that the last three pages were missing out of all of his favourite books in the library) but, seriously, the Doctor couldn’t be so naive as to think he was happy in his room playing with the Doctor’s clapped out gadgets (all of which, the Doctor had made sure were unable to cause any harm whatsoever – especially to the Master). No, now that the Master’s brain was back to its fully functional, and highly superior, the Master might add, best, he was hatching up a rather brilliant plan. As luck would have it, the thing that was making the Master so incredibly angry, was the one thing that was giving the Master all of this time to work on his little plan.
The Doctor wasn’t particularly interested in anything the Master was doing; not now that he had Romana, anyway.
Two peas in a pod, that’s what they were like. The reality of it was, though, that they had been reunited. The same was true for him and the Master, but this was different. She was blonde (again) for a start, and the thing was, he always thought, in his heart of hearts, that he would see the Master again. One day. (He blamed the tears on the Valiant on the physical strain that his body had been through, gaining back his ability to regenerate. That and hayfever. You know, in the sky.) He had had to say goodbye One Last Time to Romana twice, and the Doctor was of the belief that if someone comes back from E-Space, or back from the dead more than three times, then they are surely built of strong stuff, and the likelihood is that they would never really leave the him.
The Doctor, however, didn’t like to leave anything to chance and decided that serious action was needed. Serious action involving an engagement ring, that is.
“She said yes! Can you believe it? And guess what?”
“If you put the word Time and Babies in the same sentence, I may have to do some serious damage to your Time Bollocks.”
“It’s all down to you.” The Doctor walked over to the Master and flashed him his most brilliant smile. “Thank you.” The resulting hug was inevitable.
How had this happened? The Master thought to himself. Then the most important memory that the Master was ever likely to have dawned on him. The last week had taught the Master that he should be careful what he wished for; and this was a lesson he was more than willing to teach the Doctor.
Part Two
