Adult-FanFiction.org : Television / Streaming

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
- 21
- 22
- 23
“It would help if you didn’t think of us in such black and white terms,” the Master said as he crunched his way through a salad. We’d met for lunch on his balcony, and I couldn’t focus on my food at all. He ate the freshest greens available and never slathered them in dressing, just had them served with a dash of vinegar. “You’re going to have to put on a happy face or something, because Alair’s noticed your desultory focus, and Harkness has been glaring at me all morning.” He pushed my plate closer as a prompt to eat. “I suppose he thinks I didn’t appreciate your efforts with the hot spring.”
“I don’t know how you can bear to sit here and look at me,” I replied, picking at my meal. I’d felt lost for what seemed like days, when in truth I’d only suffered less than twenty four hours.
“You’re easy to look at,” the Master said with a wink. “My beautiful consort.”
Despite the situation, I responded to his teasing. A little smile edged out on my lips.
“Was that so hard?” The Master slid over the tea setting.
“It’s just that there’s no hope,” I said. “You’ll never see me the way you did on Gallifrey, not ever again.”
The Master shook himself a little as if I’d said something that washed over him wrong. “And?” He prompted. “Is that what you were hoping for secretly all these years?”
“Yeah,” I admitted.
“Oh.” He sat back a little and stared at me. “And my no-second-chance policy is bothersome.”
“If I want any sort of real relationship with you, it is,” I said, darkness swirling around my soul like a dropped funeral shroud in a windy graveyard. “And, even if I got a chance for a do-over, I couldn’t change what I did.”
“Yes, I know,” the Master assured quietly. “But, that sort of resolve is something I like about you, Doctor. I could do without the self-castigation and the moping, though.”
“There’s no one to rebuke me but a certain someone who refuses to,” I bit out, pouring tea with angry movements. “I’m all that’s left. If I don’t punish me, no one will.”
Suddenly, I was jerked to my feet and shoved against the balcony wall, the Master in my face. His hands made fists in my jacket lapels, and his strength surged against me. A wild bit of hope took hold of my hearts, hope that he’d hurt me somehow and give relief, but I squashed it ruthlessly. I knew better than that.
He sought my eyes and held them, his focus so intense and piercing that I felt him inside me, looking for things I didn’t even know existed, seeing things about me that I only barely understood. “Do you have to be so magnificent in your pain?” He asked, and quite seriously. “I swear, there’s no one in the universe so able to twist me into knots.”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but he only pulled me forward and shoved me back against the wall to cut me off.
“You should be sorry,” he said in a tone of utter wrath. “You’re asking me to indulge in the very things that I’m working so hard to either suppress or eradicate, and I’d think you’d be pleased at my efforts. Instead, you want me to revert to form just to alleviate your guilt.” He shook me a few times and let go of me, stepping back and breathing hard, his eyes like fire. “You can’t just accept what’s happened and try to go on, can you? You’re desperate to have that little boy I used to be. He was safe and he needed you even if he needed no one else. Is it that important, Doctor? Don’t I have any value the way I am right now?”
“Of course you do,” I whispered. My throat ached so much.
The Master turned from me and picked up our lunch, throwing it over the side of the balcony. His chest heaving, he promptly fell back against the wall and clutched at his right heart. “It’s not fair,” he swore viciously. “Why are you always so far behind me? Why couldn’t you have figured out what you mean to me before I nicely excised you?”
“Because I’m always late,” I answered miserably. “For a Time Lord, that’s unforgivable.”
“I thought you wanted me tamed,” he said back, his voice just as wretched. “That went along with my plans to prove myself so well. Now you go and pull your support out from under me.”
“I don’t want you tamed,” I told him, rallying to fix things, if I could. “That’s impossible and wrong in a thousand ways!”
To my shock and horror, the Master put his hands over his face and let out a sound of pure anguish. It was despair and hopelessness distilled to a single note. I’d never heard him make a noise like that, ever, and it sent a burning spearhead through both my hearts. But then he dropped his hands and met my gaze, proud even when his pain made his eyes leak. “If I could only hate you,” he said, straightening his back into a rod and putting his head high. “But, I can’t. I never could.”
I swallowed and nodded. Equal ground, anyway, even if it hurt to walk on it. “If only I could just run,” I commiserated. “But, there’s nowhere far enough.”
Silence.
Very slowly, the Master and I came to stand together, both of us looking out over the heather and silver landscape. I reached for his hand, and he met me without hesitation, without even checking. Our fingers threaded and gripped.
“What would I have to do?” I asked simply.
“What would I have to be?” He parried softly.
**
“What the hell happened?” Jack asked, holding the basket higher so I could pitch berries into it with more accuracy. “You’ve been wandering like a black-eyed shadow for two days, and the Master’s gone all snappy and strange. Neither of you have slept, either.”
“I told you we were complicated,” I said, pausing a moment to close my eyes against a fresh wave of pain. “Both of us expect too much, I suppose.”
“Uh-huh,” Jack said. “It’s pretty clear to me there’s nothing physical now, even if you let me believe it. So, without the physical, there’s only the emotional.”
“Jack,” I said, overwhelmed and exasperated and downright cross. “It’s not always about the physical.”
Jack gave a little laugh and took over my berry picking. “So, it never has been for you two,” he surmised correctly. “Only, maybe you’d like it to be? Maybe he would?”
“He doesn’t want me that way,” I protested.
“How would you know?” Jack leaned on the berry fence and looked up at the brilliant sky as if to search it for answers. “You’re too close to the problem, Doctor. A man like the Master doesn’t reveal his secret heart, especially to an enemy who’ll probably use it.”
“I wouldn’t hurt him!”
“Not out of spite, but you’d do it in a red hot minute to teach him a lesson,” Jack said. “And, so would he.”
I had to admit that was the truth. It made me feel even worse. I was sick of feeling like this, even sick of myself.
“It must be horrible to live so long with a view of forbidden treasure,” Jack continued on casually. “Both of you revolving around each other and always pulling closer no matter how hard you try not to.” He picked a bunch of grapes and added them to my basket, his face thoughtful. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be apart.”
“Why not?” I demanded, getting angry again. “All we do is cause each other misery!”
“So?” Jack gave me a wide-eyed look of impatience. “Doctor, you and he are the only ones left, as you both like to talk about.”
“I don’t see your point.” I snatched the basket back and began tossing random berries in it, so irritated and angry I couldn’t see straight. “So we’re the only ones, so what?”
“So, it seems more like destiny than accident,” he parried. “Or, don’t you believe in destiny anymore? Did traveling and meddling all over the universe prove destiny to be a load of shite?”
“Shut up,” I said, rounding on him. “You have no idea, Jack, just none! Your human comprehension isn’t good enough!” I grabbed his collar and hauled him closer, just seething and at my absolute limit. “You think we’re going to solve this thing by going into each other’s backsides, hm? That if we only lay hands all over each other that we can forget the tragedy, the pain we’ve caused each other and everyone else?” I shook him a little, aghast at myself and unable to stop. I couldn’t stop. “It’s not that easy! Every time I kiss him it’s like I lose part of my soul!”
Jack grabbed my hand and wrenched us apart only to keep hold of me. “Doctor,” he said quietly while I shuddered and panted. “You do lose part of yourself every time you try for more. But, you idiot, so does he.” He pulled me closer and put an arm around my shoulders, drawing me in for a very gentle, very non-sexual hug. “You both have to give up. It’s that easy. Just give up.”
I smashed my face in Jack’s neck, feeling broken and hopeful in the same moment. “Give up,” I repeated. “What happens if I give up and he destroys me?”
“He’ll be destroyed too, if it’s any consolation.” Jack patted my head kindly and kissed my temple. “So, what a good thing it’ll be to start over, right?”
**
I went to the temple. I had no other recourse but to follow Haddon’s path. The Not-Coincidence kept pointing me there with old words on an even older theme. I took no guards, not even Jack, but I dared to imagine even the worst assassin would have taken one good look at me and decided I was best left alone.
Although Haddon understood his mate’s regard, and returned it, he didn’t understand why they’d been betrothed at such an early age.
I sat in the middle of the temple, right on the cold stone floor, and considered that passage in something akin to detached panic. “Why?” I asked, hearing my voice bounce and echo. There was no one here to see me, hear me, to witness my utter sense of loss.
“You finally ask it out loud,” I heard a woman’s voice say. She walked around me and knelt, and I felt waves of pure goodness radiating from her. Her long, black and silver cloak kept her body and face covered. “He would never tell you, so I suppose I will,” she went on. Gracefully, the woman copied my stance and sat across from me with her legs folding inward.
“Who are you?” I asked. At this point I had no eloquence or care left.
“I’m Death,” she answered. “The one your beloved Koschei follows with such faith and trueness.” She shifted a little and lowered her hood, showing me a face that could stop Time Itself with beauty. “You want to know how he met me, how he came to belong to me, don’t you, Theta?”
“Please,” I whispered. I wasn’t afraid of her, though she stood for all I feared. And, I believed she was exactly who she claimed to be.
Death tilted her head and smiled a little at me. “You would have made a good servant, too. I chose you, originally.” She clasped her hands together in her lap. “When you and Koschei were only boys, a schoolmate tried to drown him in the reflecting pool at the academy. You don’t remember it, of course; I took your memory of it at Koschei’s request.”
The Master’s fear of water, then.
“The boy was jealous of Koschei. He waited until Koschei was alone, and held him under water.” Death looked into me, and her power filled me with awe and wonder. “You came by, saw what was happening, and dove in to save Koschei. But, the boy wouldn’t stop. No matter what you did, he wouldn’t let go of Koschei. In fear for your friend, you took the boy by the hair and smashed him into a corner of the reflecting pool. Over and over and over you crushed him, until he moved no more.”
I swallowed back a surge of raw bile. I didn’t remember this at all, but truth resonated within me so strongly I knew not to deny her words.
“I came to take the boy’s soul to the Gathering Place, and saw you standing there with blood on your hands. I thought you would make a servant capable of dealing me out with justice.” Death paused and lifted her chin. Her liquid eyes shuttered. “But, Koschei, weak and more than half drowned, pleaded with me to spare you that life. He didn’t think your soul could take being my servant. He asked to take your place, and I accepted.” She smiled at me again. “I accepted because he hadn’t any allowance in his core for me to not accept. You meant that much to him, and his willpower, even at such a young age, was already that strong.”
“He had to walk by that pool every day to teach his students,” I whispered with numb lips. “He had to pass by the scene of his own near-execution, the only one to remember what happened.”
“Yes, and I know it was hard on him. The drums were already taking his reason, his quietude. Koschei’s spirit loved the stillness, the quiet, and he was thrown into noise that would never leave him.” Death shook her head sadly. “People all over the universe think I’m cruel, but I have to exist, Theta. Without me there is nothing that would ever grow. And, Koschei, though his methods brought my more painful aspects, still serves me absolutely. He believes that if he falters for one moment to be true to me, that I’ll come back and claim you.”
“Oh, my God,” I said. It was all I could say.
“But, Koschei has fulfilled his obligation,” Death went on. “He’s paid up. He can stop, now, if he wishes. I certainly won’t refuse his work, but I expect nothing more of him.”
“Then, tell him,” I pleaded.
“I have tried,” she informed softly. “He comes to this conclusion by slow and hard work. Let him understand in his own time.” Death lowered her head and looked into me once more. “And, don’t condemn him for being my agent. He does what you can only do under extreme duress. He’s taken your place willingly, without any thought of reward or respite. Like a wild animal, Koschei only reacts.”
Death stood, holding her hand out to show that I shouldn’t get up. “You can dance around each other, taking and dealing hits until Time rots, Theta, but you cannot sever the bonds you both put into place with self sacrifice. I’ve never seen two spirits so united, not since Time created me. I daresay I never will.”
Death faded away before my eyes, turning to nothingness in mere seconds. The quiet threatened to swallow me whole. Numb, I struggled to my feet and stood there a moment, trying to assimilate and orient.
This put so much perspective into my strained and bleeding hearts that I didn’t know if I could ever comprehend it, any of it. All I knew was that I had to see the Master.
Now.
**
- 21
- 22
- 23
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Lapidary