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grassangelTitle: a little quickens, but much extinguishes
Series: Doctor Who
Character/Pairing: Thirteen/Missy, cameos from the series 11 team
Genre: Angst, fluff
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 1747
Dedication: for the soulmate AU prompt given by zahnie “the one where you and your soulmate share an emotional link“ and completed for
AceMcshane
Summary:
The Doctor and the Master are bound to feel each other's emotions. They've gone through periods of delighting in this connection and through periods of denying what they feel isn't their own.
After the colony ship, after regenerating, the Thirteenth Doctor struggles to relearn how to ignore the longing in her hearts.It works until it doesn't.
previously published as an ask on tumblr, but now edited and available on AO3
Once, their bond had made them inseparable. It had given them strength, the disapproving mutterings only driving them closer together, to the only other person who truly understood. Even the attempts to appeal to their pride as Time Lords in potentia and their duty to their Houses could not drive them apart.
No. They had driven each other away instead.
They eventually learned the ability to ignore the emotions that filtered through across time and space. It was easy to disregard the acrid resentment they shared, that mutual bitterness making it easier to believe that the emotion was their own. But it was harder to bury the desperate longing they each had, hide it deep enough they could pretend they didn't reciprocate the aching desire that drifted through the link between them like smoke.
Eventually they could even manage to disregard the blaze of emotion that flared into life when they stumbled across each other's paths. A task made easier if they each pretended the hurt and hope that flickered in the hearts of the other was their own.
Except it could never be easy for them to forget one another, to deny their connection to the only other person who could understand them. But they tried.
The bond between them had almost been doused on the shore of a lake, on a planet devoted to trial and execution. The light between them forever extinguished by her death, until she had offered up the tiniest spark of hope. A spark they hadn't been aware they both sheltered.
They had seventy glorious years, nurturing and fanning that glowing point of hope. Until it had grown out of control and consumed them both.
She had gotten used to the tears and overwhelming waves of regret, how those shared feelings had only intensified over the years of proximity the Vault had offered. Grown accustomed to the trickle of hope as it flowed between them and gradually widened into a small stream.
It was odd then, to wake and not feel that push and pull of emotion. Her hearts feel like two gaping voids, unfilled without the presence of her oldest friend, distance reducing the volume of emotion that flows between them. Even the lingering echo of her old self does little to help sate the empty feeling of loneliness and abandonment.
"Thank you," she says softly, her eyes still closed, the slight shift back in surprise telling her that it's Ryan who has set down the cup of tea that had woken her.
The Doctor makes an effort to open her eyes and give him a smile.
"You shouldn't have, not today."
Ryan gives a nod of acknowledgement, but doesn't move to take the cup back, instead mumbling something about her being a guest before heading back to the kitchen where the scents of dry toast and fried egg waft from.
Despite her protest, the Doctor still sits up and reaches out to take the cup perched precariously beside a bouquet of flowers and a note of condolence.
She wishes she could share emotions with these people, help shoulder their grief over Grace as easily as they share their hospitality. But the psychic projections of human emotions could never be anywhere near as strong or as forceful as what she had with Missy. Nothing could.
Instead, her grief for the woman had passed almost as quickly as the tea in her hands cools, leaving her instead mourning the loss and betrayal of another.
Leaning back, tea eventually turning tepid as she stares at the date on the spare announcement of Grace's memorial perched on the piano, the Doctor thinks she might invite more than one person to travel with her this time. She would welcome the distraction a full TARDIS would bring, the busy hum of meals and bathrooms being used, the fastidious needs of human circadian cycles, the guaranteed complaints of at least one companion. The Doctor thinks she knows at least two who would welcome the distraction that an invitation to travel with her holds.
Closing her eyes against the sound of Graham coming down the stairs, holding a half shouted conversation with Ryan as he does so, the Doctor starts to relearn how to ignore the thin stream of longing in her hearts.
Months later, she insists on returning her friends home after Ranskoor Av Kolos, back to what makes their adventures worthwhile. The Doctor leans out of the TARDIS to say goodbye to them, her own neural balancer still attached which causes Yaz to look at her oddly, but she's resolute they rest at home and that she'll be fine on her own for now. It's a chance for them to recover and she hopes this time will allow Graham to appreciate what he's learned - that he can always be the better man - when furious rage slowly pours over her, her mouth drying with the need for revenge.
She wants, no, needs to keep this desire secret from her friends, but something must show on her face, as this time it's Ryan who gives her an odd look, Yaz already walking up the hill to her apartment.
"A quick trip to Floriana and I'll be fine," she reassures him, flashing a smile before quickly closing the door as quietly as she can when Ryan turns away to follow Graham into the house.
She's reversing the valve that will take her back to the planet and the temple to a false god before she knows it, her anger finding its focus on the most recent being to get on her bad side. The impulse for revenge is still running hot as she makes it to where Tzim Sha is imprisoned, her plan for him already made. It's only when she's standing in front of the case, spare neural balancers placed to dispel the psychic field of belief that had allowed the Stenza cheat to live for so long, sonic buzzing in her hand, that the Doctor realises the anger is not her own.
She'd forgotten what emotions over distance had felt like, how they settled into the cracks and crevices, filling you until they felt like your own. She had focused so much on ignoring her own feelings that she hadn't thought that Missy might not be doing the same.
There's no room for regret in the Doctor's hearts for what she's just done, the glass cracking and shattering to reveal armour laying in a pile of dust, the reversal of the field of belief accelerating the decay of even the case. She doesn't even have space for the revenge that had prompted this revelation, her overflowing hope pushing out that aching desire.
The Doctor is grinning as she races back to the TARDIS, the temple crumbling around her and the pile of dust and armour that had been its locus. She leaves Ranskoor Av Kolos as quickly as she had arrived, not out of shame, but out of excitement as the Doctor sets the TARDIS to scan for events and flash points in history that match Missy's methods.
She feels an answering swell of hope after the third attempt to find Missy at the right point in her timeline. It renews her determination, and it turns out seventh time's the charm.
Missy seems to have been waiting, as no sooner than the Doctor opens the TARDIS door, she walks in hurriedly.
"You're late. I was trying ever so hard to be good for you and it was very hard not to kill those annoying, contrary little pale men." Missy brushes past her, walking straight to the console before looking around and, spotting no place to sit, leans up against it, arms crossed.
"But thank you," she says, eyes softening as the Doctor slowly makes her way towards her. "I thought you'd abandoned me again."
The Doctor reaches out for Missy, taking the hesitantly offered hands and squeezing them in reassurance before sliding forward to hug her.
"I did too."
The Doctor pulls back a bit, enough so she can lean her forehead against Missy's to share the memories of her loneliness and her attempts to fill the gap Missy had left in her hearts. She tries to pull away before what she'd done on her second visit to Ranskoor Av Kolos, the way Missy's emotions had overtaken her. But she's too slow, and the Doctor jerks back out of Missy's grasp in over compensation.
"I'm sorry," Missy says softly, trying to comfort her after seeing what her anger had caused the Doctor to do. Regret is beginning to seep in, and this close to the Doctor, Missy must be feeling it too.
"He deserved it," she mutters, half believing it deep down herself, and turns to pilot a new course, wanting to move on from her actions. Missy follows after her, turning her around with a touch on her shoulder. She reaches out to tuck some of the Doctor's hair behind her ear, stilling the Doctor for a moment.
"You've changed. I like it." Missy leans in to kiss her, fingers still gently touching the side of her ear.
A giggle bursts out from the Doctor. "Yeah?"
She receives a nod and a smile in response.
"I like the way you've changed too," the Doctor says, her fingers catching on Missy's pockets as she reaches forward to kiss her again.
Later, Missy is less than impressed the new companions haven't been told about her.
"You told them about Rivs but not about me?!" Missy asks, outraged, pulling back from the Doctor in order to give her the stern look she deserves.
"I'm not married to you! And you aren't dead!"
"Darling, I'm never dead," Missy says glaring slightly at the Doctor. "But by fifty-nine galactic standards, including Gallifreyan common law, we are married."
"You never asked!"
"Neither did you!"
They're both silent for a moment, neither having any good argument why they shouldn't get married now, not when they both want it.
"Fresh start," the Doctor offers. "New year's eve, Delga."
"The crystal showers of 14380, Yelain," counters Missy.
"We could do both," the Doctor says, her face lighting up with a smile, "we could do them all."
"We'll need witnesses for Reeba V."
The Doctor gets up, finding her trousers and stepping into them before picking up a t-shirt and her jacket. "I think I can find three easily enough," she says, still smiling, as she heads out of their bedroom towards the console room.
