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Lapidary	By : Savaialian Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 1563 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Doctor Who fandom, nor to I make money from writing about it. I use their creations with due respect.

Chapter List
- 1-Lapidary
- 2-TWO
- 3-THREE
- 4-FOUR
- 5-FIVE
- 6-SIX
- 7-SEVEN
- 8-EIGHT
- 9-NINE
- 10-TEN
- 11-ELEVEN
- 12-TWELVE
- 13-THIRTEEN
- 14-FOURTEEN
- 15-FIFTEEN
- 16-SIXTEEN
- 17-SEVENTEEN
- 18-EIGHTEEN
- 19-NINETEEN
- 20-TWENTY
- 21-TWENTY-ONE
- 22-TWENTY-TWO
- 23-TWENTY-THREE
- 24-TWENTY-FOUR
- 25-EPILOGUE
- 15
- 16
- 17
We set up in the main control room, mostly because I needed a certain tweeker in there and the Master didn’t want to be out of earshot if he was needed. To that thought, we left the TARDIS door open. And, because of that, when Zaeus delivered the pieces of ancient equipment for the Master, he got a look inside.
“My Lord Emperor,” he said in a faint voice, having nerve enough to take a step inside.
“It’s safe, Zaeus, come in,” the Master bade him. “This is the Doctor’s ship.”
Zaeus put his bag of broken equipment on the Master’s worktable. He looked over the TARDIS controls with awe. “My Lord and Lord Adjudicator, is this sort of ship common to your people?”
“Well, yes and no,” the Master answered, carefully laying bits out for examination. “It was considered commonplace, but only because our people forgot the brilliance of their ancestors, not because they understood anything. These ships were widely in use at one time, but this one is one of only two left, I believe.”
“Isn’t she beautiful?” I asked. I couldn’t resist getting compliments on my precious old girl.
“My Lords, she is magnificent,” Zaeus said with complete sincerity. “She comprises all of the Holy Elements. I feel her life force pulsing all around me.”
The Master and I exchanged a look. Rarely did anyone sense the life in a TARDIS but those with special perception. Also, I’d never considered it, but my TARDIS was a true representation of all the basic elements. Air because she could fly. Water, because she was organic, Earth because she was also mechanical, Fire could be represented by her many different ways to fuel herself. Spirit for the life force, and Wood… I gave a short laugh as I considered her basic, wooden shell, a shell I insisted upon because of sentiment.
“It’s little wonder that My Emperor and his consort are so adaptable to Seldatia,” Zaeus went on, still looking around in wonder. “Your people must be Elemental by nature, not practice.”
“All our people are gone,” the Master replied shortly, beginning to piece things back together with intuitive exactitude. “The Doctor and I are the only ones left, Zaeus.”
I watched covertly as the old man drew back in horror. “The only ones,” he whispered. “Then, you must pick appropriate females and have children, My Lord.”
The Master gave a bitter laugh that I couldn’t help but silently echo even though I missed Gallifrey and all the life upon it. “The universe is better off without us, Zaeus,” he replied, and I heard that he meant his opinion. “You’re looking at two of the most blood-soaked creatures ever to walk upright.” He clamped a sensor down to the base and grabbed from a pile of wiring I was using on the UV filters. “To be perfectly honest with you, my efforts here as emperor are the first, tentative steps toward proving I can be more than a murderer.”
I closed my eyes a moment, both thankful to hear that out loud again, because it reassured me, and, hating that the Master never had a chance to be anything but what he’d become. Our people had ruined him, then neatly removed themselves from blame. Denied it, even.
“But,” the Master said firmly, “the Doctor isn’t like me. He’s kind and generous. He’s been kind and generous enough to give me a chance at proving myself even though our history would preclude any such faith.” The Master threaded the wiring into the apparatus he was assembling, and twisted another few pieces together. He snitched my sonic screwdriver to cement the connections, not looking at his festival planner. “There’s no other person in the entire galaxy more suited to give complete power, yet he’d never take it, which makes him perfect to remind me of what I should and shouldn’t do.”
Zaeus lowered his head, ostensibly to think. After a long, long moment he brought his gaze back up to the Master. “Self-governance is indeed the most difficult control to achieve,” he said. “One may become an excellent ruler, an exemplary father or husband, an upright model citizen and a generous neighbor. However, one’s heart is not easily managed.” He put his hands behind his back and looked at me for a split second before turning his attention back to the Master. “And, the heart is the compass point,” he finished. With that, Zaeus bowed and backed out of the TARDIS.
The Master sighed and dropped everything in his hands to slump over the table with his head turned sideways so that he could meet my eyes. “Is it just me or is the philosophical wading around here like trying to move through quicksand?”
“It’s quicksand,” I agreed instantly. “Only, more like slowsand, right?”
The Master chuckled.
**
I made fifty of the UV sterilizers in the same amount of time it took the Master to complete the repairs on the decrepit weather monitoring equipment. He’d amended the original design and function, of course, improved on it, and even polished the metal until gorgeous. I admired his Steam Punk/Streamline Moderne design and told him so.
“I like the classic, bare-technology clockwork thing,” he confessed, walking around the revolving spires and gears to assess his work. “It’s elegant. One doesn’t really have to create completely along the lines of minimalism, though I confess I went through a stage of that.”
“Yeah, so did I,” I said. “It’s the way we were brought up.” I boxed up all the sterilizers and tucked them under my arm. “I suppose tomorrow I’ll start installing these. I’ll take a few people with me so they can learn to do it and I can just focus on making them.”
“Show some people how to make them, too,” the Master suggested. “These Seldatians are highly motivated to learn, and the exposure to non-polluting technology might inspire them to create even better things.” He paused to think, his eyes moving back and forth rapidly. “Solar cell panels, though… That’s going to take a bit of effort to make by scratch here. They’re barely up to good metallurgy.”
“Which is polluting,” I said, finishing the thought. “Some pollution is inevitable.”
“I know, but I’d like to leave this planet in better shape than I found it, for the sake of ego if nothing more.” The Master hefted the weather equipment and began carrying it out. “I’ll get Zaeus some grunts to carry this wherever he wants it. I think I’ll leave him in charge when we go.”
I affected a calm I didn’t feel. “Going with me, Master?”
“You’ve offered,” he reminded me.
“And, I meant it,” I assured swiftly.
“Then what’s to discuss?” He gave me a big smile and departed the TARDIS.
So many things had changed, and in so little time. Why, in our relative timelines, this was a mere inhale of good air, the first after centuries in a choking cloud.
I took the water treatment lights down to the lower levels, and knocked on Matreus’ door politely. “Come in!” I heard him say. I entered his domain to see Raenna and Alair in a far corner. They appeared to be taking turns reading to each other, but they paused to wave at me, smiling easily and naturally.
“They like it down here,” Matreus said, drawing my attention. He stood in front of his longest table, a few small fires under some cauldrons and glass vessels close to whatever he was working so hard to grind up. “For some reason, they even like me,” he added. “Though, I give them no spare moment. Having been denied an education because of their sex, they have to work twice as hard to either catch up or show off, right?” He winked at me.
I winked back. Finding a clear spot on his table, I put my box down. “Have a few minutes?”
“Of course, My Lord Adjudicator,” he replied, wiping his hands and coming over to my position.
“You know, ‘Doctor’ would be fine,” I said.
“If I address you as such, then my own title is lessened,” he told me, grinning.
I couldn’t help grinning at the sly old man. “Right.” I took out one of my UV sterilizers and placed it on the table. “This, when clamped to the interior of a water pipe, will kill harmful bacteria, making the water safer to drink. I’ve already analyzed the water source for the city and found it free of harmful metals, and your people have always used clay pipes, so the only thing that could cause so much disease is pernicious microorganisms.”
Matreus eyed me. “The unseen things that make people ill, that I’ve always advised people to boil their water to kill,” he summed up.
“Exactly.” I was impressed that he’d come up with this in a medieval sort of environment. “Ultraviolet light, which is probably invisible to you, is deadly to most of the little buggers. Your sun emits a bit of it, but not in a concentrated amount, not enough to take care of the vermin.” I showed him the long wire attached to the solar collector. “This is called a solar panel. Tiny little cells inside it collect the light of the sun and turn it into energy, into electricity. Lightning is electricity, but too powerful to harness for Seldatia right now. The charge goes down the wire to the light. If there isn’t any sun, a renewable battery turns on and does the job.”
Matreus again eyed me. “The way Frost Lichen collect the radiant heat of cave bats in order to glow and attract spores to reproduce,” he said.
“I’ll take your word for it. I’ve never seen Frost Lichen,” I answered. I put the sample back in the box. “Your emperor and I will be working like fiends to make sure every household gets one of these solar powered sterilizers where the well or water source pumps water to the living space.”
“Wonderful,” Matreus said fervently. “That way even the stubborn and the ignorant won’t kill their offspring from something as simple as dirty water.”
“Well, we’ll have to go on the ‘dirty water campaign’ anyway, Matreus, because the current level of advance here isn’t enough to make these solar cells, and an increase in population means a greater demand for clean water.” I leaned on his table, thinking about the matter. “We’ll have to add water safety to the curriculum in the schools. If the parents are too stubborn to learn from the children, then we’ll have to open adult schools, too.”
“Adult schools,” Matreus repeated, his bright eyes going even brighter. “My Lord Adjudicator, that is a brilliant notion. We already have academies of higher learning for the rich, the people able to spend to show that they are better without making a wage, but a school for those less fortunate is…” He shook his head. “It is a dream,” he announced. “If you can make it true, then the people are forever in your debt.”
“I can only try, Matreus, but you have to understand I’m rarely this enduring in a society. I usually have left long before now. Wanderlust, you know.”
Matreus smiled a little. “When you have someone to come home to, though, the wandering is less a need and more a holiday, sire.”
**
Like madmen, the Master and I churned out UV filters. In the two weeks we toiled, Sigglis, Zaeus and Matreus were given charge of the aqueduct construction with our specific, exhaustive expectations. But, on the Day of Wind, the aqueduct began producing clean water to the city, and those who could not hook onto it were all proud owners of a fine alternative.
We were so tired and cranky we barely spoke, either during the process or on the holiday dedicated to Air. Still, we functioned brilliantly as a team. So much so that we hardly noticed we did. I’d get food ready, the Master drew our baths, he’d choose our clothing and I’d keep the household in running order. We forgot about the insidious vine on the balcony, but it hardly mattered. We felt too tired to be wrathful, lustful, or anything else.
“Jesus Christ,” the Master said, more a sigh than a curse. I’d noticed he liked that particular Earth blasphemy and just let it go as inconsequential. “Doing this on the up and up with no grand plan to blow you to Kingdom Come is tedious.” By ‘this’ he meant ruling a nation, I expected. He threw on a silvery white svond of perfect, knitted silk and started managing the bright, shell buttons with more clumsiness than I’d come to expect of any of his incarnations. “Sometimes I just want to kill people until what I expect comes to pass.”
“From the bottom of my right heart, I thank you for not reverting to form,” I said, looking at myself in the mirror. I had a svond to match his, of course, since we dressed for another of Seldatia’s endless ceremonies. I’d had a recent hair-pulling and clay bath; yesterday, actually. “You’re being quite patient, and also you’re a brilliant emperor.” I ran a hand through my hair. It wanted cutting. Badly. It was past my shoulders now. I hadn’t noticed because I’d been horribly busy. “Would you whack off some of my hair?”
“Are you kidding?” The Master turned to give me a strange look. “Do I look like a hair expert?”
“You don’t have to be.” I plucked a pair of wicked looking sheers from his desk manager and handed them over. “Just cut it. I can’t stand it long, never have.”
“Sit, then,” the Master ordered with another sigh.
I sat, and he began to cut.
“Did Sigglis say what this particular ceremony involves?” I asked hopefully. The Master’s adept and careful fingers in my hair felt absolutely incredible.
“We stand and look pretty while the dancers do their routine. After, there’s a meal of all the plants here that require wind to pollinate instead of bees.” Snip, snip, snip; hair began falling all around me. “Incense is lit, and we gather at the uppermost spire to watch the migration of some sort of bird that comes into town.” Snip, snip, snip. “We’re free, then. Free to drag our Time Lord carcasses back here to fucking bed, which I assure you I intend to do come hell or high water.” Snip, snip, snip. “And, you’re getting tied to the bed tonight. I don’t know how you find the energy to sleepwalk.”
“Fine,” I relented. I didn’t care, truly. “Make it a soft rope.”
“I have a satin one set aside for your delicate wrist,” he assured, and I didn’t know if he was teasing or not. Snip, snip, snip. “Your mane is as wild and unmanageable as you are,” he complained. “No two hairs go in the same direction.” Snip, snip, snip. “Feels good, though; really soft.” Snip, snip, snip. “You always, always have this sort of thing going on with your scalp; chaos.” Snip, snip, snip. “If you’d just concentrate you could regenerate with civilized hair.”
“My blond self had civilized hair,” I argued. I secretly enjoyed this hair cutting session. Not only did the Master’s touch elicit feelings of close fondness, I liked that I could trust him near my head with a sharp object. More proof that he’d changed for the better. “My ninth regeneration had practically no hair. Maybe you’d have liked him better.”
“I didn’t get to see him,” he reminded. Snip, snip, snip.
I concentrated, using his contact to show him what I meant. The Master stopped cutting as I pushed the lifespan of that incarnation into his head, in its entirety, in a matter of seconds.
“Oh,” he said in a small voice. “Oh, Doctor.”
“I don’t wanna talk about how lost I was,” I warned.
The Master resumed cutting, but slowly. “I felt that you missed me,” he revealed lowly.
“Of course I missed you. You’re the only constant I’ve ever had, for good or for evil.” And, that was the plain truth.
Snip, snip, snip. The Master combed his fingers through my hair, seeking perfection, as always. “Little Rose Tyler is the only reason you survived, regardless,” he murmured. “I teased you about her.” He drew in a breath, let it out, and kept on cutting. “She was your Ailla, though she wasn’t a treacherous bitch at all.”
“No, Rose was magnificent,” I agreed instantly. “And, still is. I just can’t see her while she’s being magnificent.”
The Master made few more cuts before brushing my shoulders of hair, his movements slow and precise. “I…” He released a very long, hard sigh. “I don’t want you to believe I can’t comprehend your loss. But…”
“I know,” I murmured back.
“Well, whatever happened to her?” He asked softly.
“I left her on a parallel Earth with a metacrisis version of myself,” I answered. God, that had hurt, watching her kiss him. She must have wanted me as much as I wanted her, and only been too noble to push me into any sort of commitment. She understood me. She’d decided she’d rather have me the way I was than push me into anything, which made her above ninety-eight percent of her race. Then, I’d offered her the dreams of her heart with myself, and she’d taken them. All that mattered was her happiness, but I’d suffered. The lonely Time Lord going back to haring around time and space for adventures to stave off the entropy and inevitable void of singular existence.
The Master put his forehead on the back of my head, at the rear peak of the crown, and exhaled slowly. “I could never have made fun of you for this one,” he admitted. “Not even in my cruelest moment.” He straightened and finished cleaning me of hair, then, his movements deliberately brisk. “I’m glad I told you of Ailla. You did understand, didn’t you?”
It was a completely rhetorical question, and free of any feelings but sympathy.
“Yeah, I got it,” I told him. “In a way it felt good to hear about Ailla, because of Rose, and because I could never say out loud how much pain I was in. When Martha started traveling with me I realized I had to start working through it, though. I hurt Martha terribly without even knowing it.”
“She was in love with you,” the Master murmured. “I saw that. I even used it. Still, the pair of you smashed my plans.” He tossed the scissors down and stepped back for a look at me. “Looks a mess, which means you ought to like it.”
I went into the bathroom for a good look in a mirror. He’d cut my hair perfectly, the fussy prig. It was exactly as I liked it. “It’s great,” I called out, running my fingers through the part that stuck straight up. “I wonder why my existence revolves around my hair so much lately?”
“I don’t know, but if I were you I’d quit getting plucked. It can’t be good for you,” the Master shouted back.
I suddenly had the thought that the Master and I had become entirely domestic, and that neither one of us seemed to mind. In fact, I would bet he found it comforting, because I did, too. We weren’t cozy and probably never would be, but I thought we’d proven we could cohabitate with equanimity and a certain level of camaraderie.
“I can’t quit getting plucked,” I said as I joined him again. “It’s expected. The oils are getting on my nerves, I’ll admit. But, I’ve gotten used to the eye paint.”
“I haven’t,” he said, chuckling lightly as he strapped on a rapier. “Every time you glance my way it’s like looking into an abyss.”
“It’s making you uncomfortable?” I hadn’t expected that.
The Master shrugged, managing to sum up in that slight shoulder movement a contradictory lack of concern and a bit of discomfort. “You always have intense, manic eyes,” he answered, though. “Tons more life than our contemporary’s, and off the scale in comparison to our elder’s; however, the eye paint rams that home in an unavoidable way.”
My eyes made him feel judged, I understood in a flash of insight. And, they probably ought to, because I was forever leveling them upon him in an attempt to discern what he was about. “I’d say I’m sorry,” I murmured, “but you know-.”
“Yes, I’m perfectly aware that to you I merit looking toward,” he interrupted with a grim sort of tone. “I’m also resigned to the fact that I’ve done quite enough to make you never, ever trust me. It’s nothing for you to feel sorrow or guilt over. I did what I did and I can’t change that without a lot of bothersome temporal shifting.” He eyed me askance while tightening his sword belt. “And, I could do that,” he admitted. “Being talented, determined and ambitious lends a lot of opportunities that others don’t even imagine.”
“Yes, I’m fully on line with that,” I admitted, thinking of some of my more irresponsible solutions to problems. Now that I had no lofty members of the High Council to answer to, I was unfettered and wild. It didn’t even feel good. I’d thought it would, but of course, no. Still, the Master hadn’t waited until there wasn’t anyone to call him on the carpet. He’d never been satisfied with doing things the traditional way, the way our people insisted. Which was why his compliance with tradition here seemed so telling.
The Master perched on the edge of his desk with the athletic casualness so recent to this regeneration. He drew a foot up, bent his knee, and wrapped his arms around his leg. His gaze seemed to go into me and just stay there. “Do you know how I perpetually escaped capture, or how I managed to always have a TARDIS or two at my disposal when my current one became unusable? Have you ever thought about the fact that our own people failed to find me when I wished to vanish?”
I’d pondered all those points endlessly, of course. Even with a TARDIS, a Time Lord can be found by the High Council. I sat on his bed and nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got the ‘slippery’ down to an art form,” I admitted. “Even with all your bragging you manage to keep secrets and stay mysterious.”
The Master smiled with only one side of his mouth. “That was a backhanded compliment,” he scolded mildly.
I affected an innocent mien just for fun, which made him chuckle.
“So, what are you trying to tell me?” I asked. “You have a secret place no one knows about? Does the Master of Disguise have an identity that absolutely no one can see through?” I paused to think of the past. “And by the way, what was up with that weirdo disguise you used on me when you were trying to harness the Xeraphin Consciousness? That was completely unnecessary.”
Again the Master grinned. “Maybe so, but the look on your face was priceless when I unmasked.” He slid off his desk. “We’re going to be late if we don’t go now.”
“Hold on, you can’t just throw a tease for information out like that and then blow me off,” I protested, having to skip a bit to catch up to him. For a shorter person he could move quickly. “I hate when you drop candy for me to follow and then the gingerbread house has two witches instead of one!”
**
- 15
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- 17
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Lapidary