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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
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- 4
The Master and I were obligated to endure a formal meeting of his consultants so they could understand I was his adviser, or partner, or whatever. They were stodgy old things and reminded me of the Gallifreyan High Council. They spoke a dialect my TARDIS wasn’t entirely able to translate, which I found odd and disturbing, but in the end it didn’t matter. They accepted that I was there to help their emperor.
“My apologies for them,” the Master said as we walked away from the group, who were still discussing the agriculture issue. “Their arguing isn’t personal, it’s traditional. This is why no one ever gets anything done.” He shed his sandals and slung them into a random corner. “It’s been hours. I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, I could eat again.” I couldn’t quite grasp how easy of a companion he made when he wasn’t being a twat about universal domination. “So, you have to go through hours of discussion over the simplest of things? How does your temper take that?”
“Badly,” he admitted. “I sometimes have to spend equal time in the exercise rooms afterward. Physical activity dampens down the urge to just slit all their throats.” He took us outside into the dwindling sun and pointed toward some greenery close by. “The berry patch,” he informed. “You’ll like them. I don’t especially want to wait for a seven course meal when I can fill up on fruit sugar and be done with it.”
Well, I agreed with him there.
We picked up an entourage of cats as we walked, and soon they were all there with us in the berry patch. The Master tossed reddish berries at them as he ate, and they could all leap much higher than our height to catch them. He was playing with them, I realized, seeing how he smiled indulgently at them.
“Having been practically a cat at one time, does it make it easier to communicate with them?” I asked, thinking of the Cheetah Planet.
“Probably,” the Master told me after a second’s reflection. “I understand their urge to leap and run and bring down prey. Too, the taste of raw blood in the mouth.” He smiled and shrugged and continued eating, still flinging berries out, which the cats ate after wallowing.
“I see Earth berries here,” I said, recognizing raspberries.
“Trans-Galactic Trading Company,” the Master said for the second time today. “They never landed here before I invited them, because the people were suspicious of strangers and space travel. After getting an alien emperor, though, they’ve settled a bit.”
I ate for a few minutes before taking up the next topic. “Do these cats go most places with you?”
“Probably fifty percent of the time. I don’t allow them in the senate because it makes them docile. The high ion bombardment is bad for their appetite.” The Master took me by the sleeve and dragged me five steps toward a big bush of indigo berries. “Recognize these?” He asked.
“Flathberries!” I shouted in surprise. “They only grew on Gallifrey!”
“I had seeds in my TARDIS,” he said. “They like this climate.”
“Ohmygod,” I managed to get out before grabbing a handful of the rich, sweet things. I hadn’t had these in centuries, not since I was a child. Come to think of it, the last time I’d had them, I’d been with him.
The Master chuckled. “Always so eager for sweets,” he commented, and in his voice I heard the same indulgence as what he displayed in smiling at his cats.
I tried not to be covert about it, but I took to observing him. He plucked one berry at a time for his enjoyment, bypassing the ones with anything the slightest bit wrong with them. He hadn’t a leaf or a speck of dirt on him. By contrast I was covered in filth and ate huge handfuls of the berries at once. Suddenly, I felt very common. It was an unwelcome sensation, but I’d often felt it in his presence. He was usually quite careful in dress and manner. I wondered if he’d ever really relaxed a day in his life.
“Stop it,” he said quietly, but the command in his tone carried anyway. “I can see what you’re thinking, and it’s stupid. Your greedy, free approach has its own merit.”
“You’ve said that to me before.”
“Yes, when we were only boys, and you didn’t listen to me then, either.” The Master mixed some of the berries together in the slackened fabric pouch he’d made of his outer robe. It was black and wouldn’t show a stain. He’d never do that with the white part of his outfit. “I just remembered I promised Cook I’d bring her a spike-neck for her father.”
“What’s a spike-neck?” I asked as I followed him out of the berry patch and toward a jungle of trees and vines just meters away.
“A sort of pheasant, very nutritious,” he answered. “Cook’s reward for making me that dessert you ate earlier.” The Master, still holding his makeshift apron of berries, bent and took up a rock. “Be quiet now, Doctor.”
I held very still as his Alpha cat came alongside and sat at the Master’s feet. She looked toward the forest a moment, then they both moved together until just in front of a large bush. The Master threw the rock, and a bird with spiked plumage at the neck burst from the undergrowth. The cat leaped nearly straight up and caught the bird instantly. Instead of savaging it, she dropped it flapping at the Master’s feet. He took a moment to stroke her large head and praise her with soft words, then caught up the bird and snapped its neck.
“Yuck,” I said. “Impressive, but icky.”
“Death is rarely as clean as I’ve just made it for this bird,” the Master replied coolly. “Don’t be a hypocrite, meat-eater.”
“I’m not,” I protested.
“You are,” he insisted, brushing past me. “You’re like your precious earthlings, thinking your meat grows in cellophane at the grocer’s.”
Chastised and not liking the feeling, I again took to following him. He led me into a very large kitchen in the palace. All the women bowed to him, stopping what they were doing to pay him homage. He went straight to a pretty, black haired, middle aged woman and gave her his kill.
“My emperor,” she said, bowing very, very low, “you honor a bargain you created. I would do whatever you wished without the reward.”
“You said your father was sick and required a spike-neck,” the Master said, and the way he turned on his charisma and charm even made my face heat up. “Cherzo needed the kill, your father needs the soup you’ll make out of this bird, and I needed to show my friend what the cats can do. Everyone is satisfied.” As he spoke he dumped his berries into a bowl.
“As you say, Your Highness,” the cook replied. Her eyes slid to me, but she didn’t stare.
“Come on, Doctor,” the Master said, leading me out. “I have an hour before bedtime and more work to do.” He left his berries, and I wondered if they hadn’t been a little bonus for the cook.
Once we were back in his personal quarters, he left the door open and the cats started showing up. They sprawled all over the bed while the Master perused some scrolls. I gingerly arranged myself so that I wasn’t infringing upon any one cat’s bed territory and simply let my eyes drink their fill of him.
It was so good to know he was alive. I dearly hoped he meant what he said about his self improvement program. My fondest desire was that he wouldn’t bounce back into thrill killing and destruction. Well, I really wanted him to find himself, too. He seemed sincere.
“You don’t intend to sleep at all, do you?” He asked, not looking at me. “When was the last time you did?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
The Master made a tsk noise and exchanged one scroll for another. “You didn’t sleep well as a child. It never changed?”
“Not really.” He spoke truly. Life moved too fast for me to feel comfortable going unconscious on purpose. I couldn’t get enough of living, actually. I didn’t think I was alone in that. The Master, however, had obeyed the timetable of his wife’s needs on the Valiant. He went to bed when she did and got up when she did. I didn’t know if he’d slept, though. “Do you keep regular hours now?”
“I do,” he answered. “I feel better for it. Regular periods of rest seem to sort my head.” He tossed his work down and went to a closet to sift through clothing. “Let’s see,” he murmured. “Something decent enough to answer an emergency, but indecent enough to convince you I’m not going wandering…”
“Locking the door and giving me the key is a good start,” I said.
“Shall I chain myself to the bed?” He asked, and though he had absolutely no expression on his face, I heard the words in a suggestive way. “Maybe I’m not the only one with a restraint fetish?”
“Stop it,” I replied shortly.
“God, you’re such a little Pollyanna,” he complained. “I can’t even get adult conversation out of you. You simply don’t have it in you to play anymore. What happened?” He put on a pair of boxers and took off his svond and over-robe, proving to me he’d been naked underneath his glorified nightgown. “Seriously, I mean it,” he stressed, coming over in order to hang over me. “No one knew as many raunchy jokes as you did, and now I make you blush with a simple crack about chains?”
“It’s probably just that it’s you,” I said before I could censor myself.
The Master’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”
I decided not to make the effort of lying. “Like I said, you’re very… earthy this time round.”
The Master grinned a very full grin. “You aren’t even looking,” he protested, “not really. Oh, you complained a little to yourself that you never regenerate as handsome as I do, and you were glad I looked healthy, but other than that you’re not inspired.”
“Look, do we have to fight about absolutely everything?” I asked.
Again his eyebrows went up. “Don’t you like to?”
I squirmed a little. That hit too close to the mark. “Yes, well…”
“Oh, give over,” he said in a good natured tone. He blew out the candles, doused the lamps, and got in bed. “Cherzo, quit hogging the blankets,” he told his Alpha cat, who obliged him by moving over a bit. “And, Doctor, you’ve never been ugly,” he added.
Warmed, I stared up at the ceiling and thought about that. Every time I regenerated I got a shock at my appearance. Maybe I just wasn’t good with change.
“You’re thinking too loud again,” the Master said, sounding a bit sleepy now. “If you have to do that, pick something boring.”
“I don’t mean to do it in the first place,” I said, irritated with myself. “It’s your fault for having mental powers beyond the norm.”
“Keep up the silly whinging and I’ll show you my mental powers,” he warned. “It’s bed time. You insisted on being in here. So, be quiet and let me sleep. You won’t like it if you make me cranky.”
I forced myself into calmness inside and out, and the Master gave a long, satisfied sigh. In mere moments his breathing changed into a deep, regular rhythm. He slept. And, despite myself, after an hour of staring at nothing, I went to sleep, too.
**
“No, no, no,” the Master groaned, awakening me. I kept still, unsure of exactly what was going on. “No, Ailla, it can’t be true.”
A small shock settled into me, as he’d said the previous sentence in a voice he hadn’t used in centuries. An old voice. I didn’t know who Ailla was, either.
I got up and used my sonic screwdriver to light a candle. In the dim light, the Master gleamed with sweat. He wasn’t tossing and turning, just lying there as rigid as a statue.
“Ailla,” he groaned again.
I carefully touched his shoulder with just one finger, and he jerked awake.
“What is it?” He asked instantly. “Is there a problem?”
“You were having a nightmare,” I explained. “You okay now?”
He rolled over onto his side and stared at the far wall a moment. “Not really, no,” he answered. “But, I’ll make do. I always make do.” With that he closed his eyes again. I watched as he fell asleep almost in seconds.
Worried, I got back in bed and tried to relax enough to sleep.
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Lapidary