Fic: There Was a Master in a Game (1/25)
Title: There Was a Master in a Game
Author: azriona
Characters: The Master, Sally Sparrow, assorted others to be named later
Rating: PG-13 for language
Betas: runriggers and earlgreytea68
Spoilers: Everything. The majority takes place after The End of Time, but there are references to events through the end of Season Five.
Summary: Gallifrey wasn’t entirely lost when it went back into the Time Lock; it just got stuck. The Master wants out. Isn’t he lucky that the Doctor left him a way?
A/N: Written for the_tenzo’s Bingo Card Ficathon. Any discrepancies with canon (or historical accuracy, for that matter) are purely the author’s intention, resulting from lack of sleep and not enough vegetables in her diet. Let this be a lesson to you, folks: eat your greens, they’re good for you.
Chapter One: Horizontal O
“Wow,” said the Master on the 4,332nd day of being in the Time Lock. “This sucks.”
When none of the other Time Lords answered him (mostly because they agreed, but eh, what could you do?), the Master shrugged.
“Well, kids, it’s been fun. Let me know who wins that game of Parcheesi.”
The next thing they knew, he was gone.
*
The thing Sally Sparrow hated most about the 19th century was the underwear. It had taken the better part of a year of living in 1869 before coming to this conclusion, but once there, she was fairly certain that of all the inconveniences living in 1869 brought, when one was used to 2007, underwear beat them all.
It took a few weeks, but Sally became used to the lack of lavatories, pre-packaged dinners, and electric light bulbs. She became rather fond of horse-drawn carriages, being able to see the stars at night, and having the post delivered twice a day. She did miss bowls of dry cereal and milk, being able to watch the telly on rainy afternoons, and sometimes she wanted nothing more than to give the entire city of London a well-needed bath, but otherwise, she was fairly content with her lot.
Really, it could have ended so much worse for her, she figured. One minute, she was in Wester Drumlins, that odd house on the edge of town, desperately frightened out of her wits, when she felt a cold, hard touch on her back-
And the next, she was on a muddy, cobblestone street in rainy London. Sally was never certain why she’d fallen. It might have been trying to get her bearing on the slippery curved stones that lined the road. It might have been sudden shock and slight headache from having been transported over a hundred years into the past. She might have seen the horse bearing down on her from out of the corner of her eye, but Sally couldn’t be sure. All she really remembered was the few seconds of standing in the road, completely out of her element, before her world exploded into lightning bolts of pain, and she passed out.
When she woke, it was nearly a week later, and she found herself in a bed in one of the toniest houses in London (Westminister, actually, quite near Oxford Street, which didn’t exactly exist the way Sally remembered - very disappointing, considering her current luck). Sally figured if one had to be nearly run over upon landing in 1869 London, it was just as well she’d been nearly run over by Randolph Spencer-Churchill.
Randolph, despite being an absolutely rubbish driver, was at least a good sort of fellow. Having trampled poor Sally nearly to death - and certainly having knocked her unconscious as well as destroyed her clothing (because how else did someone explain her curious get-up?) he had taken her to his house, placed her in a room, and hired nurses to take care of her ‘round the clock. When Sally woke up, she had the presence of mind to pretend to have amnesia.
It was incredibly stupid. Sally was certain she’d read a similar plot device in a novel when she was twelve. Stupid as it was, however, it worked like a charm on Randy.
That was the problem. Sally liked Randy. He was sweet, and kind, and enormously intelligent, despite his naivety. Over the previous year, as she’d learned more and more about the time in which she now lived, she was able to slowly “regain” her memory. She had now constructed an entire life in the 19th century, or at least bits of it. Most of it was - well, not exactly true, but at least true enough to her own history that Sally didn’t have to struggle to remember parents or siblings or pet animals who never existed. It was easier than continuing to outright lie to Randy, if she could console herself that she was only neglecting to mention the exact century in which she was born.
Hope for going home - well, that had disappeared long since. Sally didn’t have any idea, really, how she’d gotten to 1869. She wisely realized that if she didn’t know how she’d arrived, she really had no hope in returning. Now, after a year, there were days when it was almost easier to believe that she’d never actually been in the 21st century at all.
*
Back to the underwear. Sally Sparrow, having lived in 19th century London for nearly a year, decided once and for all that she hated the underwear most of all. She decided this approximately two seconds after the maid had tightened the laces on her corset for the fourth time.
“Ow!” squeaked Sally.
“Sorry, miss,” said Mary, not sounding one bit sorry. “Just a bit tighter, that’s all.”
“It’d be easier to let out the dress than try to squeeze me into it.”
“And have Miss Parsom wreck the lace? It’s more than my life is worth, miss,” said Mary. She handed Sally one of the laces to hold. Sally took it in her fingers, careful to keep it taut. She’d rather have let it out a little, to give herself space to breathe, but the last time she’d tried it, Mary had pulled her hair. For a servant, Mary was terribly bossy.
“Besides, miss, it’s only the three times you have to wear it, and then we’ll put it back in its trunks and into the attic.”
“Until Randy pulls out the next one.” Sally winced as Mary pulled one of the laces with a particularly sharp tug.
“Goodness, miss, how many mothers do you think he had?” she asked. “And she was only married the once, in the one dress, so I do think you’ll be safe on that account.”
“Remind me never to tell you an actual joke, Mary.”
“I’ll tell you every morning, if you like,” said Mary saucily, and took the lace from Sally to tie them both together. “There, miss, you can exhale now.”
“Not really, no,” said Sally.
Mary didn’t comment, she simply slipped the dress over Sally’s head. Sally’s world was briefly cream-and-pastel lace, before her reflection in the mirror came into view once more.
Underwear be damned, Sally had to admit she liked the dress. She wouldn’t have agreed to the ridiculous corset had she not. It had been Randy’s mother’s wedding gown, some thirty years before, and Sally supposed that it might have been his grandmother’s in some form, thirty years before that. The dressmakers had altered it once more for Sally, bringing it to the height of 1869 fashion, but Sally could still see the evidence of the original dress in its lines. It hung from her shoulders, sweeping delicately into her incredibly tiny waist, before flowing out like butterfly wings to the floor by her feet.
In 2007, Sally would have thought the dress absurd. In 1869, she thought it nearly perfect.
“Hair now, miss,” said Mary, and she pushed Sally to sit on a nearby chair. Sally frowned and closed her eyes.
“You’d think I was getting married today, all the trouble you’re going to, Mary.”
“Just as good as, with a portraitist and flowers and all,” said Mary, pins in her teeth. “And anyway, today’s the day you’ll remember, not the one with the vows, if you don’t mind me sayin’, miss. On account of the portrait. You’ll have that to remember it by.”
“A photograph would be easier,” said Sally, thinking of her long lost camera, destroyed under the horse’s hooves and discarded as rubbish before she’d woken up. “And that’s one less time I’d have to wear the corset.”
Mary twisted Sally’s hair in response, and properly admonished, Sally frowned.
“Photographs don’t have the same feel as a portrait painted,” Mary scolded her. “They’re for the likes of me, who don’t have the time or money to spend on the finer things.”
“But twice, Mary,” persisted Sally, and her hair was pulled again.
“Be glad it’s only that,” came the response, completely unsympathetic.
Sally pondered while Mary continued to twist her hair. “What do you suppose will happen to it, Mary? The portrait, I mean. Where will it hang?”
“Why, here, miss, of course,” said Mary, tugging on Sally’s hair the same way she’d tugged on the corset laces. “Where else?”
“Always?” wondered Sally. “I mean - suppose some museum wants to show it, a hundred years from now.”
Mary barked out a laugh, without dropping a single pin. “Oh, miss, that’s a lark. You’ll be lovely, but I doubt anyone will sell your wedding portrait.”
Sally frowned while Mary giggled, but then she had to grudgingly admit it made some sense. Anyway, she didn’t remember anyone ever telling her about a portrait that she resembled, so she supposed it did stay in the family after all.
And besides - had anyone pointed such a thing out to her in 2007 - well, she had no reason to think the woman in the portrait was actually her. She’d just think it a coincidence, and she’d probably have shivered like someone stepped on her grave.
Which made Sally wonder. Where was she buried, anyway? The idea that she might have passed by her own tombstone was a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Mary was putting the finishing touches on her hair now, and Sally could hear someone at the door downstairs. The painter had arrived. It was time for the portrait.
*
The house was really very nice. She’d always pictured Victorian houses to be overwrought and filled to the brink with the most ridiculous of knick-knacks, but Randy’s house was fairly austere, as far as a Victorian sense of decoration went. Sally would have known this even had she not already visited several other houses in the past year, and been able to compare Randy’s bare walls and empty shelves to those of his friends and relatives. Sally, who had a habit of slipping down to the kitchens when Mary wasn’t looking, in order to find something to eat, had more than once overheard the household staff exalt in the pleasure of having very little to dust, compared to their old positions elsewhere.
Sally liked Randy’s house. She had no intention of cluttering it up with a Victorian sense of décor. She might put up with the underwear, but she was not going to put up with the accessories.
Randy waited for her in the entryway. He was really very nice, too, looked almost exactly like a caricature of a classic Victorian gentleman, with handlebar moustache that tickled Sally’s nose, and his hair parted neatly down the middle. The only incongruous bit from the norm was his bowtie, which he was hopeless at tying evenly - not even his manservant could manage it, but Sally half thought it was on purpose, so that she could fix it for him. His eyes sparkled blue, however, and he liked to make everyone around him laugh, which was just as well since he was very good at it.
Randy hadn’t seen the dress yet. Sally hadn’t wanted him to see it until the wedding, but this was quickly overruled, in order that she might wear the dress for the portrait. Walking down the steps now, Sally was pleased to see Randy’s eyes widen, and then even more pleased to see that he had started passing a pair of gloves from one hand to the next, as though he couldn’t make up his mind what to do just then.
“Do you like it?” Sally asked, pausing on the landing.
Randy choked and coughed for a moment. “Yes,” he croaked. He swallowed, and spoke again. “You look lovely.”
“The dress, not me,” said Sally, and she started down the stairs.
“You,” said Randy firmly, and Sally thought the laces on her corset might snap.
“I’m sorry if I’m late,” she said as she descended.
Randy recovered remarkably well. “Not at all. He’s only just arrived.”
“What’s he like?”
Randy’s moustache quirked. “A bit…odd,” he said. “I can’t decide if he’s odd because he’s an artist, or an artist because he’s odd.”
Sally laughed. “I’d hope it would be the first, otherwise I would question his talent, and your reasons for hiring him.” She reached up and quickly straightened his bow tie, and Randy caught her hands in his to tuck them under his arm.
“Oh, he’s talented, never fear. Are you ready to be immortalized in oil, my dear?”
Sally felt a shiver go down her spine. “I suppose,” she said.
“Go on, then,” said Randy. “I’ll be along in just a moment, there’s a gentleman in the library who needs my attention.”
But Randy didn’t let go of her hand just yet. Instead, he paused, looking enormously shy, right before he leaned in and kissed Sally on the lips. It was a chaste kiss, but considering the expression on Randy’s face as she’d come down the stairs, and the fact that he had only kissed her once before, Sally felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
The painting was to be done in the parlor. It was a dour, dark room - the only one that was remotely what Sally had come to expect as Victorian. The painter had already pulled the curtains back from one of the windows, and the light flooded onto the divan where Sally was to sit, with Randy standing behind. A very classic pose, Sally had been assured, though Sally thought it rather dull. Still, if she would have to sit for hours on end for it, at least she’d be sitting. Poor Randy would have to stand the entire time. Yet another point for photography, thought Sally, and then she saw the painter.
The painter. Randy was right - there was something odd about him. Only Sally knew exactly what it was.
The painter was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.
He turned as soon as she entered the room, and Sally could not take her eyes off him. His eyes were hollow, his cheeks were drawn, and his yellow hair couldn’t have been washed in at least a month. The sweatshirt hung off his body, and Sally wondered how no one had managed to comment on the sneakers on his feet. But most amazingly - just as shocked as Sally was to see him, he appeared shocked to see Sally.
“Well,” he said finally. “Aren’t you out of place?”
“I’m sorry?” said Sally, alarmed.
“Where am I, anyway?” wondered the man, looking around him.
“London, 1869,” said Sally carefully, and the man glanced at her.
“Odd way to answer,” he said. “Most people wouldn’t respond with a city and a year.”
Sally blushed. “You’re in Sir Randolph Spencer-Churchill’s parlor. How can you not know that?”
“I wasn’t here a minute ago,” said the man thoughtfully.
“Randy was right - you are odd,” said Sally, before she could think.
The man laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. But no matter, it’s time I was off.”
The man saluted Sally with a jaunty grin, and headed right to the door. Where he stopped, as surely as if there was a plate of glass keeping him inside the room. In fact, he slammed directly into it, and fell backwards onto the carpet.
“Bugger,” he said, rubbing his nose. He sat up. “Oh, bugger. All.”
Sally leaned over him. “Are you all right?”
“Do me a favor,” said the man crossly. “Don’t talk to me. And walk out that door if you could?”
Sally did, and turned back to look in the room. The man scowled, and jumped up to his feet.
And then he promptly ran, full speed, into the invisible glass wall in the doorway. This time, Sally thought she could hear the banging reverberations of the man hitting the barrier.
She herself passed through the doorway without any harm.
“But how did you get in?” she wondered aloud.
“Oh, who cares how I got in, it’s how I get out that matters,” said the man, clearly not pleased with his entrapment. “That wanker,” he added.
Sally stiffened. “I don’t think I caught your name,” she said warily.
“Oh, you can call me the Master,” said the man, still a bit sore. He got to his feet and shook out his legs. Sally wondered how hard he’d hit the barrier anyway.
Sally snorted. “I will not. I haven’t seen any evidence that you’re a master with a paintbrush, and until I do-“
“Why would I know what to do with a paintbrush?”
“That’s what you’re here to do, isn’t it? Paint my wedding portrait.”
The man let out a laugh that was not meant to show amusement. “You do know that you don’t belong here, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what-“
“Don’t be stupid, girl,” said the man sharply. “I’m a Time Lord. Don’t tell me I can’t tell a 21st century girl in an 18th century dress, getting married to a 19th century git.”
“Randy is not a git!” cried Sally.
“But you don’t deny the rest,” said the Master. “How’d you get here? How do you know the Doctor? He’s part of this, isn’t he? Has to be, who else would shut me up in a room with painting supplies and an insipid idiot. Where is he? I need to talk to him.”
Sally stared at him. “I have no idea.”
“No idea which? How you got here, how he’s part of it-“
“Doctor Johnson is presumably at his surgery-“
The Master groaned. “Not your stupid physician, you idiot girl. The Doctor, my Doctor, the man who’s set up this stupid trap for me. Where is he? I know he’s around here somewhere.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Fat lot of use you are to me,” said the Master, and for a moment, Sally thought he might do something drastic.
Except then - he was gone.
*
The Parcheesi game was still going when he returned. Not a single one of the Time Lords playing was a bit surprised to see him.
“Back so soon?” asked one, so smoothly that the Master wanted to knock her head right off from her shoulders.
“I hate him,” said the Master, and for once, the Time Lords at the table nodded sympathetically.
Chapter Two
Author: azriona
Characters: The Master, Sally Sparrow, assorted others to be named later
Rating: PG-13 for language
Betas: runriggers and earlgreytea68
Spoilers: Everything. The majority takes place after The End of Time, but there are references to events through the end of Season Five.
Summary: Gallifrey wasn’t entirely lost when it went back into the Time Lock; it just got stuck. The Master wants out. Isn’t he lucky that the Doctor left him a way?
A/N: Written for the_tenzo’s Bingo Card Ficathon. Any discrepancies with canon (or historical accuracy, for that matter) are purely the author’s intention, resulting from lack of sleep and not enough vegetables in her diet. Let this be a lesson to you, folks: eat your greens, they’re good for you.
Chapter One: Horizontal O
“Wow,” said the Master on the 4,332nd day of being in the Time Lock. “This sucks.”
When none of the other Time Lords answered him (mostly because they agreed, but eh, what could you do?), the Master shrugged.
“Well, kids, it’s been fun. Let me know who wins that game of Parcheesi.”
The next thing they knew, he was gone.
*
The thing Sally Sparrow hated most about the 19th century was the underwear. It had taken the better part of a year of living in 1869 before coming to this conclusion, but once there, she was fairly certain that of all the inconveniences living in 1869 brought, when one was used to 2007, underwear beat them all.
It took a few weeks, but Sally became used to the lack of lavatories, pre-packaged dinners, and electric light bulbs. She became rather fond of horse-drawn carriages, being able to see the stars at night, and having the post delivered twice a day. She did miss bowls of dry cereal and milk, being able to watch the telly on rainy afternoons, and sometimes she wanted nothing more than to give the entire city of London a well-needed bath, but otherwise, she was fairly content with her lot.
Really, it could have ended so much worse for her, she figured. One minute, she was in Wester Drumlins, that odd house on the edge of town, desperately frightened out of her wits, when she felt a cold, hard touch on her back-
And the next, she was on a muddy, cobblestone street in rainy London. Sally was never certain why she’d fallen. It might have been trying to get her bearing on the slippery curved stones that lined the road. It might have been sudden shock and slight headache from having been transported over a hundred years into the past. She might have seen the horse bearing down on her from out of the corner of her eye, but Sally couldn’t be sure. All she really remembered was the few seconds of standing in the road, completely out of her element, before her world exploded into lightning bolts of pain, and she passed out.
When she woke, it was nearly a week later, and she found herself in a bed in one of the toniest houses in London (Westminister, actually, quite near Oxford Street, which didn’t exactly exist the way Sally remembered - very disappointing, considering her current luck). Sally figured if one had to be nearly run over upon landing in 1869 London, it was just as well she’d been nearly run over by Randolph Spencer-Churchill.
Randolph, despite being an absolutely rubbish driver, was at least a good sort of fellow. Having trampled poor Sally nearly to death - and certainly having knocked her unconscious as well as destroyed her clothing (because how else did someone explain her curious get-up?) he had taken her to his house, placed her in a room, and hired nurses to take care of her ‘round the clock. When Sally woke up, she had the presence of mind to pretend to have amnesia.
It was incredibly stupid. Sally was certain she’d read a similar plot device in a novel when she was twelve. Stupid as it was, however, it worked like a charm on Randy.
That was the problem. Sally liked Randy. He was sweet, and kind, and enormously intelligent, despite his naivety. Over the previous year, as she’d learned more and more about the time in which she now lived, she was able to slowly “regain” her memory. She had now constructed an entire life in the 19th century, or at least bits of it. Most of it was - well, not exactly true, but at least true enough to her own history that Sally didn’t have to struggle to remember parents or siblings or pet animals who never existed. It was easier than continuing to outright lie to Randy, if she could console herself that she was only neglecting to mention the exact century in which she was born.
Hope for going home - well, that had disappeared long since. Sally didn’t have any idea, really, how she’d gotten to 1869. She wisely realized that if she didn’t know how she’d arrived, she really had no hope in returning. Now, after a year, there were days when it was almost easier to believe that she’d never actually been in the 21st century at all.
*
Back to the underwear. Sally Sparrow, having lived in 19th century London for nearly a year, decided once and for all that she hated the underwear most of all. She decided this approximately two seconds after the maid had tightened the laces on her corset for the fourth time.
“Ow!” squeaked Sally.
“Sorry, miss,” said Mary, not sounding one bit sorry. “Just a bit tighter, that’s all.”
“It’d be easier to let out the dress than try to squeeze me into it.”
“And have Miss Parsom wreck the lace? It’s more than my life is worth, miss,” said Mary. She handed Sally one of the laces to hold. Sally took it in her fingers, careful to keep it taut. She’d rather have let it out a little, to give herself space to breathe, but the last time she’d tried it, Mary had pulled her hair. For a servant, Mary was terribly bossy.
“Besides, miss, it’s only the three times you have to wear it, and then we’ll put it back in its trunks and into the attic.”
“Until Randy pulls out the next one.” Sally winced as Mary pulled one of the laces with a particularly sharp tug.
“Goodness, miss, how many mothers do you think he had?” she asked. “And she was only married the once, in the one dress, so I do think you’ll be safe on that account.”
“Remind me never to tell you an actual joke, Mary.”
“I’ll tell you every morning, if you like,” said Mary saucily, and took the lace from Sally to tie them both together. “There, miss, you can exhale now.”
“Not really, no,” said Sally.
Mary didn’t comment, she simply slipped the dress over Sally’s head. Sally’s world was briefly cream-and-pastel lace, before her reflection in the mirror came into view once more.
Underwear be damned, Sally had to admit she liked the dress. She wouldn’t have agreed to the ridiculous corset had she not. It had been Randy’s mother’s wedding gown, some thirty years before, and Sally supposed that it might have been his grandmother’s in some form, thirty years before that. The dressmakers had altered it once more for Sally, bringing it to the height of 1869 fashion, but Sally could still see the evidence of the original dress in its lines. It hung from her shoulders, sweeping delicately into her incredibly tiny waist, before flowing out like butterfly wings to the floor by her feet.
In 2007, Sally would have thought the dress absurd. In 1869, she thought it nearly perfect.
“Hair now, miss,” said Mary, and she pushed Sally to sit on a nearby chair. Sally frowned and closed her eyes.
“You’d think I was getting married today, all the trouble you’re going to, Mary.”
“Just as good as, with a portraitist and flowers and all,” said Mary, pins in her teeth. “And anyway, today’s the day you’ll remember, not the one with the vows, if you don’t mind me sayin’, miss. On account of the portrait. You’ll have that to remember it by.”
“A photograph would be easier,” said Sally, thinking of her long lost camera, destroyed under the horse’s hooves and discarded as rubbish before she’d woken up. “And that’s one less time I’d have to wear the corset.”
Mary twisted Sally’s hair in response, and properly admonished, Sally frowned.
“Photographs don’t have the same feel as a portrait painted,” Mary scolded her. “They’re for the likes of me, who don’t have the time or money to spend on the finer things.”
“But twice, Mary,” persisted Sally, and her hair was pulled again.
“Be glad it’s only that,” came the response, completely unsympathetic.
Sally pondered while Mary continued to twist her hair. “What do you suppose will happen to it, Mary? The portrait, I mean. Where will it hang?”
“Why, here, miss, of course,” said Mary, tugging on Sally’s hair the same way she’d tugged on the corset laces. “Where else?”
“Always?” wondered Sally. “I mean - suppose some museum wants to show it, a hundred years from now.”
Mary barked out a laugh, without dropping a single pin. “Oh, miss, that’s a lark. You’ll be lovely, but I doubt anyone will sell your wedding portrait.”
Sally frowned while Mary giggled, but then she had to grudgingly admit it made some sense. Anyway, she didn’t remember anyone ever telling her about a portrait that she resembled, so she supposed it did stay in the family after all.
And besides - had anyone pointed such a thing out to her in 2007 - well, she had no reason to think the woman in the portrait was actually her. She’d just think it a coincidence, and she’d probably have shivered like someone stepped on her grave.
Which made Sally wonder. Where was she buried, anyway? The idea that she might have passed by her own tombstone was a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
Anyway, it didn’t matter. Mary was putting the finishing touches on her hair now, and Sally could hear someone at the door downstairs. The painter had arrived. It was time for the portrait.
*
The house was really very nice. She’d always pictured Victorian houses to be overwrought and filled to the brink with the most ridiculous of knick-knacks, but Randy’s house was fairly austere, as far as a Victorian sense of decoration went. Sally would have known this even had she not already visited several other houses in the past year, and been able to compare Randy’s bare walls and empty shelves to those of his friends and relatives. Sally, who had a habit of slipping down to the kitchens when Mary wasn’t looking, in order to find something to eat, had more than once overheard the household staff exalt in the pleasure of having very little to dust, compared to their old positions elsewhere.
Sally liked Randy’s house. She had no intention of cluttering it up with a Victorian sense of décor. She might put up with the underwear, but she was not going to put up with the accessories.
Randy waited for her in the entryway. He was really very nice, too, looked almost exactly like a caricature of a classic Victorian gentleman, with handlebar moustache that tickled Sally’s nose, and his hair parted neatly down the middle. The only incongruous bit from the norm was his bowtie, which he was hopeless at tying evenly - not even his manservant could manage it, but Sally half thought it was on purpose, so that she could fix it for him. His eyes sparkled blue, however, and he liked to make everyone around him laugh, which was just as well since he was very good at it.
Randy hadn’t seen the dress yet. Sally hadn’t wanted him to see it until the wedding, but this was quickly overruled, in order that she might wear the dress for the portrait. Walking down the steps now, Sally was pleased to see Randy’s eyes widen, and then even more pleased to see that he had started passing a pair of gloves from one hand to the next, as though he couldn’t make up his mind what to do just then.
“Do you like it?” Sally asked, pausing on the landing.
Randy choked and coughed for a moment. “Yes,” he croaked. He swallowed, and spoke again. “You look lovely.”
“The dress, not me,” said Sally, and she started down the stairs.
“You,” said Randy firmly, and Sally thought the laces on her corset might snap.
“I’m sorry if I’m late,” she said as she descended.
Randy recovered remarkably well. “Not at all. He’s only just arrived.”
“What’s he like?”
Randy’s moustache quirked. “A bit…odd,” he said. “I can’t decide if he’s odd because he’s an artist, or an artist because he’s odd.”
Sally laughed. “I’d hope it would be the first, otherwise I would question his talent, and your reasons for hiring him.” She reached up and quickly straightened his bow tie, and Randy caught her hands in his to tuck them under his arm.
“Oh, he’s talented, never fear. Are you ready to be immortalized in oil, my dear?”
Sally felt a shiver go down her spine. “I suppose,” she said.
“Go on, then,” said Randy. “I’ll be along in just a moment, there’s a gentleman in the library who needs my attention.”
But Randy didn’t let go of her hand just yet. Instead, he paused, looking enormously shy, right before he leaned in and kissed Sally on the lips. It was a chaste kiss, but considering the expression on Randy’s face as she’d come down the stairs, and the fact that he had only kissed her once before, Sally felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
The painting was to be done in the parlor. It was a dour, dark room - the only one that was remotely what Sally had come to expect as Victorian. The painter had already pulled the curtains back from one of the windows, and the light flooded onto the divan where Sally was to sit, with Randy standing behind. A very classic pose, Sally had been assured, though Sally thought it rather dull. Still, if she would have to sit for hours on end for it, at least she’d be sitting. Poor Randy would have to stand the entire time. Yet another point for photography, thought Sally, and then she saw the painter.
The painter. Randy was right - there was something odd about him. Only Sally knew exactly what it was.
The painter was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans.
He turned as soon as she entered the room, and Sally could not take her eyes off him. His eyes were hollow, his cheeks were drawn, and his yellow hair couldn’t have been washed in at least a month. The sweatshirt hung off his body, and Sally wondered how no one had managed to comment on the sneakers on his feet. But most amazingly - just as shocked as Sally was to see him, he appeared shocked to see Sally.
“Well,” he said finally. “Aren’t you out of place?”
“I’m sorry?” said Sally, alarmed.
“Where am I, anyway?” wondered the man, looking around him.
“London, 1869,” said Sally carefully, and the man glanced at her.
“Odd way to answer,” he said. “Most people wouldn’t respond with a city and a year.”
Sally blushed. “You’re in Sir Randolph Spencer-Churchill’s parlor. How can you not know that?”
“I wasn’t here a minute ago,” said the man thoughtfully.
“Randy was right - you are odd,” said Sally, before she could think.
The man laughed. “You don’t know the half of it. But no matter, it’s time I was off.”
The man saluted Sally with a jaunty grin, and headed right to the door. Where he stopped, as surely as if there was a plate of glass keeping him inside the room. In fact, he slammed directly into it, and fell backwards onto the carpet.
“Bugger,” he said, rubbing his nose. He sat up. “Oh, bugger. All.”
Sally leaned over him. “Are you all right?”
“Do me a favor,” said the man crossly. “Don’t talk to me. And walk out that door if you could?”
Sally did, and turned back to look in the room. The man scowled, and jumped up to his feet.
And then he promptly ran, full speed, into the invisible glass wall in the doorway. This time, Sally thought she could hear the banging reverberations of the man hitting the barrier.
She herself passed through the doorway without any harm.
“But how did you get in?” she wondered aloud.
“Oh, who cares how I got in, it’s how I get out that matters,” said the man, clearly not pleased with his entrapment. “That wanker,” he added.
Sally stiffened. “I don’t think I caught your name,” she said warily.
“Oh, you can call me the Master,” said the man, still a bit sore. He got to his feet and shook out his legs. Sally wondered how hard he’d hit the barrier anyway.
Sally snorted. “I will not. I haven’t seen any evidence that you’re a master with a paintbrush, and until I do-“
“Why would I know what to do with a paintbrush?”
“That’s what you’re here to do, isn’t it? Paint my wedding portrait.”
The man let out a laugh that was not meant to show amusement. “You do know that you don’t belong here, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what-“
“Don’t be stupid, girl,” said the man sharply. “I’m a Time Lord. Don’t tell me I can’t tell a 21st century girl in an 18th century dress, getting married to a 19th century git.”
“Randy is not a git!” cried Sally.
“But you don’t deny the rest,” said the Master. “How’d you get here? How do you know the Doctor? He’s part of this, isn’t he? Has to be, who else would shut me up in a room with painting supplies and an insipid idiot. Where is he? I need to talk to him.”
Sally stared at him. “I have no idea.”
“No idea which? How you got here, how he’s part of it-“
“Doctor Johnson is presumably at his surgery-“
The Master groaned. “Not your stupid physician, you idiot girl. The Doctor, my Doctor, the man who’s set up this stupid trap for me. Where is he? I know he’s around here somewhere.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Fat lot of use you are to me,” said the Master, and for a moment, Sally thought he might do something drastic.
Except then - he was gone.
*
The Parcheesi game was still going when he returned. Not a single one of the Time Lords playing was a bit surprised to see him.
“Back so soon?” asked one, so smoothly that the Master wanted to knock her head right off from her shoulders.
“I hate him,” said the Master, and for once, the Time Lords at the table nodded sympathetically.
Chapter Two