Remix
Title: Imaginary Worlds (the Here I Dreamt I Was An Architect Remix)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5739
Characters: various Masters (Ainley, Delgado, War Chief, Crispy), Five
Original Story: Imaginary Worlds by x_los.
Summary: There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked.
Thanks to aralias for invaluable beta services!
There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked. From time to time, a nosy companion finds it and asks the Doctor what he keeps in there. He replies something different every time - Schroedinger’s cat, Blackbeard’s wives, Sleeping Beauty. I lost the keys, he says, dropped them somewhere a long time ago.
*
For a long time, the Master doesn’t remember the silly construct he made as a boy. Not until the Doctor dares to run away without him, leaving no trace, no trail that can be followed. He can’t help but remember the construct then. The memory forces itself into his thoughts and somehow becomes a fixed idea, until he can’t help but go looking for the construct. Finding it is harder than he thinks, though. Back then, he pushed it away in some deep dark corner of his mind, like a forgotten childhood toy. Theta’s reality by far eclipsed the paltry imitation.
But there’s another reason it isn’t as easy to find the construct as it should be. The Master’s thoughts used to be ordered and systematic, like the notes he kept at school and the books in his library. But that was before he touched the Doctor’s whirlwind mind. For years they have been living wrapped up in each other and like two trees standing too close, their roots are a tangled mess. Even half the books and the records in the Master’s shelves migrated there from the Doctor’s library. He really should burn them, he thinks, a bonfire right here in the Citadel of the Time Lords, but what is the point of causing a scandal if the Doctor will never know?
In the Doctor’s presence, the Master’s mind has grown like brambles, wild and vital and chaotic. In the Doctor’s absence, it has turned into a tangle of ivy, draining him dry. It has wrapped around the construct, embraced it, swallowed it. Digging it out again is hard work, almost physical. His mind feels like flesh under his hand, like he is digging in meat. It oozes memories of the Doctor like tar, and they stick to him, black and unpleasant.
But then he gets a hold of the construct and pulls. He pulls with all the rage and disappointment the Doctor has left behind. Finally, something gives, and the construct slides out of its cage and into his arms.
Its face is surprisingly clean. Strange, the Master thinks, he had forgotten they were this young when he made the construct. It has Theta’s face still, the face of a boy, almost a child. It blinks at him with eyes still cloudy with sleep.
The Master makes a floor for them to stand on, and puts the construct down on the floor. Spreads it out, arranges its limbs and robe and its feathery hair.
"Koschei," it says. "I knew you'd come back to me."
"Shut up.” The room around them is swimming, fraying at the edges, an uncontrolled nightmare rather than a mindscape, and he hates the Doctor for it. He hasn’t had a nightmare since he was an uninitiated child. "You'll obey me. You must."
"What do you want me to do?" the construct asks readily. "You look sad, Koschei."
It doesn’t sound like the Doctor at all. How could he ever be satisfied with this tawdry thing? He pushes it down on the floor to climb on top of it, straddling its chest and grabbing its face in both hands. It falls silent, staring at him with wide eyes. Better.
"I’m your Master.”
It smiles. The Doctor also smiled when the Master announced his name, but not like that. The Doctor’s smile turned into a laugh that he couldn’t repress. But the construct only smiles. "You've always been my - "
"Quiet." He clamps a hand over the construct's mouth. He wants to hear it say that in the Doctor’s voice, not in a childish, obsequious whimper. "Look at me. Yes. There's no difference when you’re silent." Except that it’s much easier to shut the construct up. But he doesn’t miss the Doctor’s contrariness. He doesn’t. The Master laughs, high and breathless, nearly choking on the sound. In mindscapes, breath is not an issue. But in nightmares, the lungs are always short on air. Falling silent again, he rubs the construct's soft lips with his thumb and bends down to kiss it, shuddering when they part. "You always were my first," he whispers. His first kiss. His first fuck. And now another first, another experiment. Slowly, feeling their way, his hands encircle the construct’s bare white throat.
He never expected death to be this difficult. He didn’t think it would be like a dream of falling from which you woke at the very last second, forever suspended, never reaching the ground. Death, too, it turns out, has its first times, its learning curve. They’ll get there eventually, if it takes years.
Over time, he tires of the killing game. The construct, after all, is an imitation of a Time Lord, and it comes back to life again and again, perversely never changing its face, because the Master doesn’t know what man the Doctor has become in the meantime. Only its eyes change, resembling the Doctor more and more. There is a strange new awareness in them now, and when it looks at him sometimes it seems haunted by something, deeply conflicted. The Master wonders if he should get rid of it, close the book on the Doctor once and for all. But the changes in the construct give him other ideas.
If he must hunger for company, the company of his own mind seems to him the least annoying. It speaks of self-sufficiency. The Doctor was only an interlude, in truth the Master has never needed anyone but himself. And what is the construct, if not a piece of him that he shaped in the Doctor’s image?
When he created the construct, he was only a child. He had only just begun to dabble in the psychic arts. But now he has delved deeply into secrets both dangerous and arcane, deeper perhaps than any Time Lord in centuries. In time, he will hone the construct into a piece of art so fine it starts to truly resemble the Doctor. One day it will be perfect, and the Doctor no longer incomparable, and the Master will celebrate that day as a victory.
*
He likes to dress the Doctor in every colour available to his imagination. The Master looks at him with a tailor's mind, selecting sliding silk and heavy brocade and lush velvet. He clothes and unclothes the Doctor in every colour not available to him here. The world of the War Lords must be one of the most miserable places in the whole universe. He can say that as an expert - the Master has become quite the connoisseur of hellholes since he left Gallifrey. Walled-in by drab greys and mindless drudgery, the Master cultivates mindscapes like late summer gardens, rich and heavy and sweet. Some days are made to revel in red, red, red, all shades of blood, from the sheets to the ceiling, to the welts on the Doctor's pale back. Some nights are meant for blues fading into black, for opals around the Doctor's neck and bruises like bracelets around his wrists. Some hours are leather, binding him securely, and some are flimsy, barely covering their bodies, gauze hours filled with whispered visions of their days to come.
"How much longer are you going to do this?" the Doctor complains on a rough flaxen afternoon. The Master has withdrawn from his day’s work to spend a few hours alone, but the Doctor’s mood is bristly like a penitent’s shirt. When he’s in a mood like this, he will eviscerate the Master's daily routine as the War Chief, dwelling of every humiliation and mocking the grand plan. "You’re in a rut. I think you've managed to find the dullest possible way to conquer the universe."
"I will continue for as long as it takes," the Master always replies, because the Doctor's provocations have long ceased to bother him. He feeds the Doctor grapes, and their taste on his lips makes him forget the lingering bitterness of protein rations. "Until I am master of all matter."
"Until you start wearing ugly glasses like the rest of the War Lords?" the Doctor smirks. “You already seem to have forgotten your name, War Chief.”
"Silence," the Master growls, but he likes this game.
The Doctor ignores him, smiling a jack-knife smile. "If I had a body, I'd be embarrassed to be seen with you."
"If you had a body," the Master echoes, and pushes the Doctor on his back, pinning him on pale gold sheets, "I'd lock you in a room. No one would ever get to see you but me."
"You could never keep me," the Doctor sneers. He struggles, but the violence between them remains subdued, a ritual fight with a foregone conclusion. As the Master settles between his legs and pushes forward impatiently, the Doctor gives in, dropping his head back on the pillow and baring his throat to a hungry kiss.
"Say it," the Master demands, because he needs to taste the word that has become their secret. He needs it far too often, far too badly these days. The Doctor’s lips part in a smile, in a moan, releasing the word. He shouts it, in ecstasy. He repeats it. Reverence shivers between their lips, and in its glow the Master knows his name.
*
The Master is in prison. Getting caught by UNIT was humiliating, but he prides himself that he bears his imprisonment with far more grace than the Doctor does his exile. He could try to escape, or close his eyes and imagine himself anywhere else, but he tells himself that he is here by choice. Sooner or later, the Doctor will come to him. That will prove a point: that the Doctor, given the opportunity, can’t resist him. And it will provide an opportunity - either to get his revenge with the help of the Sea Devils, or to convince the Doctor to leave Earth with him. The Doctor must see the opportunity, too: they’re both trapped now, and all the Doctor has to do to end it is to ask nicely where the Master left his TARDIS. Very nicely, and then they will escape together. But until then, the Master will not lie to himself about his imprisonment. So he closes his eyes and thinks of the measurements of his cell, erects the walls stone by cold stone and covers the windows with bars. He even locks the doors of his imaginary prison.
It’s been a while since he last indulged in the construct’s company. Not since he has met the Doctor in his newest incarnation. Their regular clashes were too distracting (too satisfying) for him to get bored. But he needs to wait now. He’s playing the long game, and the boredom is like an itch. He needs to sit back and relax a bit before impatience makes him careless - not to mention that when the Doctor finally comes to visit him in prison, it won’t do for the Master to seem too eager.
Therefore he thinks up a chair in his mindscape and takes a seat. The Master is prepared for the tedious work of updating his toy, but even before he can summon it, there are footsteps behind him. Surprised, he turns around - and stiffens in his chair, suddenly anything but relaxed.
The construct should still wear the Doctor’s first face, as it did all the years it kept him company. But it saunters close to him now in the tall, graceful incarnation the Master has become used to so quickly, silver haired, velvet-clad, eyeing the cell with that damned critical look in his bright eyes. “It’s no doubt comfier than most, but I think I know a prison cell when I see one.”
You’d think that the Master has more control over his avatar than his body. But his reaction is as knee-jerk as if this was the physical world: he jumps to his feet too quickly, needing to face the Doctor standing up. “You look -"
The Doctor raises his brows expectantly. “Yes?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have to hide anything in the privacy of his mind. But the Master smoothes the surprise from his features. “Very lifelike, my dear. I don’t think I’ve seen that coat before.” He hasn’t, but the red velvet works fine, it’s perfectly in tune with the Doctor’s current tastes. There’s only the question of when the construct became capable of taking the initiative.
The construct smiles politely, acknowledging the compliment. His smile doesn’t last long. “So would you care to explain your -“ he indicates the room, “predicament?”
“I’ve allowed myself to be captured,” the Master explains. “Unfortunately, now my plans require some waiting. And there are only so many hours a day I can entertain myself with catching up on human cultural achievements.”
“I see.” The Doctor steps closer. The difference in height becomes disconcerting like this, even more so when he smoothes down the Master’s shirt in a proprietary manner. He’s initiating something, and the Master does not feel in control. But he is hesitant to stop the construct just because of that - this Doctor is assertive in real life, and the Master has always found that attractive. “You’re waiting for him in this little room he gave you. What if he never comes? I used to ask myself that quite a bit. Of course it’s different these days. I know you always come to me eventually.”
He should not let the construct talk to him like that, but the Doctor cups the Master’s neck and strokes his cheek with his thumb. He wears gloves, the Master thinks hazily, and lets the Doctor kiss him. They need not breathe, but the kiss steals something from him nonetheless, makes him forget what he came for. Only when the Doctor chuckles into it does the Master flinch back from him. Disorientation turns into rage within a blink of an eye. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
“You forget who you are,” he warns. The threat should be deadly, but the construct’s even, unimpressed gaze does not falter.
“Actually,” it drawls maddeningly, “I think I know it better than I ever did before.”
There is a human fairy tale the Doctor once told him, a long time ago, of a girl who makes a pact with a demon. The demon helps her make gold from straw, expecting child sacrifice in return. Originally, perhaps, that was how the tale ended, with the death of a firstborn, but in the version the Doctor told, the girl finds out the demon’s secret name by spying on it.
The construct has not yet said his name in this body. Like the Doctor, it keeps it in reserve. But when it says it, the implication stands, it will be devastating, because it won’t mean the same thing as before. The Master does not stomp his foot, and the ground does not swallow him, but he escapes from his mindscape just as hurriedly.
Staring at the real room around him, he regrets shaping his fantasy like his prison cell, because for a long moment, he finds it hard to tell the two rooms apart.
*
The Master never took care of his bodies before, always taking them for granted. He did not understand the power the body has over the mind. That realisation comes too late. It fills him with rage that his decaying synapses take whole areas of experience with them. As his pleasure centres burn out in storms of pain, they take away not just his ability to feel pleasure, but also his ability to imagine it. Even thoughts of revenge only cause variations of pain and rage. Pleasure is only a word, ever more elusive, and its meaning is turning, twisting, becoming something else.
"If you're not going to fight death, then you should let go, rather than disgracing yourself like this,” the construct points out calmly.
The Master’s eyes, rotting, disguise the world with milky veils, but the Doctor is still a crisp vision in his mind. He stands before him, tall, immaculately dressed down to the last silk ruffle, as clean as the Master is filthy. It’s easy for the Doctor to speak of grace. But worst is his serious tone, the flicker of pity in his eyes that the Master, although he wants to, cannot entirely attribute to the construct. Perhaps the Doctor would pity him if he saw what has become of the Master.
"I won't give you the satisfaction," the Master says, not with his mind but with his own rattling breath. The Doctor ignores him, kneeling before his sunken form to look him in the eyes. He does not shrink from the stench, as he would have if he were here in the flesh. If it were him, and not a dream. The Master wishes he could dream of being healthy again. But his dreams, like his memories, are caught in the ever-narrowing present.
The Doctor frowns slightly. "You aren't Master of anything now, are you?"
"I'm still your Master."
"Prove it."
"Go away," the Master hisses, rage boiling the sluggish remainder of his blood.
"Make me," the Doctor goads, and the mocking gleam in his eyes is like a hand extended to raise the Master up from the ground. He takes it, claws at it, rises from his rotting physical shell and lunges at the Doctor, striking him down. He is a wraith in the shape of hooks and knives, and his hands are white hot oblivion, searing the Doctor's skin like brands. And still the battered body of his enemy cannot please him, because it is only a vision.
Stopping his assault, the Master finds himself looking down to see his body. It looks dead, slumped in its rags beneath him, and he is without it, floating free. But he is alive, he is thinking, imagining. The construct whispers to him with a bloodied, encouraging smile. "It's only a body. For now, be the master of your pain. Control it. Use it. Transcend it."
The words are like the blood of life. The Master feels himself drawn back into his body, but it no longer feels quite so much like a grave. He can leave it, if he can only master the pain. The pain is not a worm eating at his flesh. The pain is a weapon, waiting to be picked up. He can be free of the flesh. "Mind over matter," he rasps, and takes the construct’s hand again.
*
He made Castrovalva from a dream, and now the dream is racing back along the lines of his thoughts, like poison in his veins, his own (single) heart drawing it closer with each beat. The Castrovalvans tear at his white robe, at his hair and his skin, and the walls, closing in, are pushing them closer. There is a strange double vision to it all, as if his mind has multiplied, and he is all of them: he feels his own body under their hands, sees what they see, and their mindless rage is his own. They are what he will be. They do not want to kill him, but make him one of their own. The Master screams, inarticulate, breathless, terrified of losing himself.
He screams, but this time his screams are answered. The Doctor is calling for him. Castrovalva’s collapsing dimensions fracture his voice, like light in a mirror maze, and it reaches the Master like that: broken, bent, refracted. And then suddenly it is not. The sound turns warm, whole, rich, a perfect wave. A sound that touches and engulfs him, a voice cocoon. There are no grasping hands now, no crowding bodies. He’s sinking, not falling, breathing in air that is not air, but the thought of air, the memory of air. Slivers of thought flit through his mind, disjointed, like particles of dust in the sunlight.
“Sleep,“ the Doctor says to him, and it is the smartest, most lovely thing he has ever said.
When the Master wakes again, it is to the voice of a single bird. It seems to chirp and tweet at random, but the longer he listens, the more clearly the melody begins to crystallize. It arcs, blossoms, falls back on itself and begins to build again, like a spiral staircase that ends where it begins. With each turn it becomes more intense. It has found that perfect tune that is all mathematics and truth, that cannot be improved, and it holds it for a moment before it loses it again. Only a trace of perfection remains in the fractured song.
“Do you know what your mistake was?” the Doctor asks. The Master turns, surprised that he isn’t alone. He’s lying in a familiar bed, in a familiar room: the place where he put the Doctor when he first arrived in Castrovalva. The sheets still smell of him. But their positions are reversed now: the Doctor sits by the bedside, looking healthy and young, while the Master feels battered and exhausted. All he can do is glower at the Doctor.
“Enlighten me.”
“You didn’t make one,” the Doctor replies, smiling because he’s being clever. “Your world was too perfect. Too static. Perfect things can’t change. Without imperfection, there’s also no hope.”
It isn’t true, the Master thinks. He had his perfect ending to this game all laid out: the Doctor would lose and admit defeat, and the Master would graciously spare him. Keep him until an indefinitely postponed after like a fly forever cocooned in a spider’s web.
“Is there a point to your lecture?”
“I’m merely explaining my changes to your design,” the Doctor says mildly. “I thought you’d be curious.”
Only slowly does the meaning of all this trickle into the Master’s mind. Castrovalva still exists. It no longer seems to be unravelling. And the Doctor is here with him. “I see you’ve managed to stabilise the dimensions.”
“Indeed. And without the boy as a conduit, I might add. It’s all a bit more random now. A bit more dynamic.”
Why? is on the tip of the Master’s tongue, but he doesn’t really have to ask. He can see it with his own eyes in the Doctor’s confident posture and the subtle changes all around him. The rougher weave of the blanket. The fresher breeze of air. While the Master was out, the Doctor has made this world his own. And that means that the Master has won although he has lost. It’s not the outcome the Master bet on, but it is passably close.
The Doctor leans forward in his chair and puts his hand on the Master’s chest. It rests there lightly, but the Master can feel his hearts beat faster. Two hearts. The Doctor nods. “Would you like to see what else I changed while you slept?”
*
That the Master’s TARDIS lets him materialise his own inside her only compounds the Doctor’s suspicions. Something is either very wrong with the Master, which wouldn’t be surprising given how badly his Castrovalva scheme ended for him, or he’s still not sick of toying with the Doctor. Whatever it is, the Doctor has to investigate, as the Master’s TARDIS is sending an automated distress signal. He can’t ignore that not even when it’s the Master. Luckily, his companions are all safely in their rooms, recovering from the last few days. It would be hard to explain to them why he still feels duty-bound to offer his help.
He cautiously opens the TARDIS doors, but one glance into the Master’s console room tells him that the distress signal is genuine. Slumped at the foot of his black console is the Master, still in the white robe of the Portreeve, which is now stained and torn. Bruises and scrapes mar the Master’s face and hands. While the Master certainly isn’t too proud to feign weakness, he would never let himself be seen as dishevelled as this if he could avoid it.
First the Doctor switches off the distress signal, then he kneels by the Master’s side. Two fingers against his pulse point tell him that the Master is feverishly hot, quite unnatural for a Time Lord, but still alive. Something else is odd about him as well - a tingle just under his skin, the strangest psychic aura. He looks entirely unconscious, so the Doctor is quite startled when the Master suddenly opens his eyes.
“You came,” he rasps. The pitch of his voice is all off. Too high somehow.
“Well,” the Doctor says. “You know how annoying the sound of that distress signal is.”
The Master stares at him with an odd expression for a long time. “You don’t recognise me, do you?”
Consternation quickly turns into wariness. What is the Master playing at? “Of course I recognise you. I’m well over my regeneration trauma by now. In fact, I came here with the express purpose of finding out what happened to you after that mess with Castrovalva.”
“Did you worry?”
“No.” Even the Doctor knows that his denial came far too quickly and forcefully. “It did look bad for you, I’ll admit. But it seems you got out with just a few scrapes. Better than you deserve, really.”
“Make up your mind, Doctor.”
“I will. I have. I’m going now.” He rises to his feet.
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“You still don’t know who I am. Here, let me jog your memory. It was a long time ago. The last time we met, you called me... what was it again? Ah, yes. A ‘little fuck doll’. Ring a bell?”
The Doctor shakes his head, he would never say a thing like that, but at the same time, he takes a step beck. Then he blanches as he remembers. “You’re that... thing. The construct the Master made when we were boys. But you can’t be. He got rid of you.”
“Hid me away, you mean. Come on, you never actually saw him destroy me. And you know that he likes to have a backup plan. A convenient escape, in case things go wrong. And things did go wrong rather spectacularly for the two of you, didn’t they?”
Seeing the Master’s face twist with expressions that are not his own, and hearing his voice with such strange modulations (but they’re familiar, they’re so close to the Doctor’s own) is quite distressing. He cannot believe that it’s really the little construct Koschei made. “If... if that is true, you’ve certainly changed.”
The construct in the Master’s body smiles mirthlessly. “I’ve had a long, long time to grow, Doctor. Maybe I was just a doll, back then. Imagine this is your world: a room made of the same immaterial material as you, walls that are your skin, a bed that is your body, and he is the only thing real, your sun and your moon and your stars. What else did I know? What else could I want? But then you came into my room. Things have never been the same since.”
The Doctor hasn’t quite been sure up until now. It could have been another trick, another mindgame, but this goes too far, even for the Master. Which means that apparently, the Master has been carrying an imitation of him around in his mind all this years, kept it, as a sex toy or a punching bag or whatever it was he did to it. A potentially sentient imitation, on top of that. The Doctor doesn’t know what horrifies him more - the invasion of his privacy, or the fate of his imaginary twin. Which makes it quite appalling that the next thing he asks is, “What about the Master? Is he ...?”
“Alive. As well as can be expected, after his mind was nearly torn apart by the Castrovalvans. I’ve put him in a regenerative trance.” The construct’s tone is cold, angry, but the Doctor can’t quite tell at whom the anger is directed. He has an odd feeling that it’s him.
Anything the Master creates is potentially evil. The Doctor is sure of that, if nothing else. “Do you plan to take over his body? Because you seem to be on the best way there, and if so, I’d like to have a word in that, if you please.”
It looks at him with disdain, which makes it look very much like the Master. “You think it’s that simple, Doctor? The creation turning against its creator? You’re wrong. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m made in your image in all aspects but one: I love him. Unconditionally. Absolutely. You care, Doctor, you care for everything. You might even care for me. And that will always stand between you and him. I, on the other hand, care only for the Master. And for myself, but that is really the same thing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, is it?”
The construct ignores the question entirely, caught in its passionate monologue. The words spill out of it, and the Doctor thinks that probably it has never had an audience before. It might never have talked to anyone but the Master - and him, all those years ago. “I’ve always protected him. I’ve been with him through everything. I soothed him when you had nothing but hurtful words for him. When you would have seen him die, I showed him the way to survive. But he keeps coming back for more, keeps returning to you. It gets worse every time. One of these days, you’ll kill him.” It stares at the Doctor. “Won’t you?”
“It’s usually the other way round.” The accusation hurts the Doctor, because he cannot be quite sure. He should be sure. He never wants it to kill. But it has sometimes been necessary, and it might be again.
“I have to protect him, Doctor. If he dies, so do I.”
“I see. So you’re going to kill me, is that it?”
The construct smirks sourly. It lifts a hand, which is the most it has moved since the Doctor has stepped into the Master’s TARDIS. After a few trembling seconds, the hand flops down again. The construct, in the Master’s body, looks exhausted. “I can’t even stand, Doctor. And believe me, killing you would make him anything but happy. I have a proposition for you, Doctor. A deal that might make us all happy - you, and me, and him.”
Deals with entities of dubious nature, in the Doctor’s experience, seldom bring any good. He doesn’t intend to make any. But he is curious to hear what the construct has to say - more than curious. In centuries, he hasn’t come up with a single solution that might achieve what the construct promises, and not for lack of trying. “Go on.”
“Castrovalva was a good plan,” the construct begins, and immediately the Doctor has to interrupt him.
“It was? Because I’m still a bit fuzzy as to what exactly the plan was. Actually, I just thought the Master was playing another game, and got in over his head.”
Something almost like envy sneaks into the constructs expression. “He built a city for you, Doctor, from your own stories. A kingdom of magic. A house with impossible architecture, that could be home for you both. He didn’t think you’d raze it to the ground. He thought you’d live with him there.”
“But - it wasn’t real.” Possibly, it is too much to expect a construct to understand that. The Doctor’s own mind is still reeling from the things it said.
“You’re Time Lords, Doctor. Your minds are capable of block transfer computation. He took you to Logopolis, didn’t he? An entire planet of people who create reality with their thoughts. A world you created, with both your minds, would be as real as any. But that’s not what I’m asking of you. All I’m asking is - leave him alone, and I’ll spin a world for him to live in, and he’ll never know the difference.”
“Trap him in an illusion, you mean!” The Doctor draws himself up in indignation. “I wouldn’t do that to anyone.”
The construct smiles, forgiving his outburst easily. “He’s there, right now. We’ll all be happy. He’ll have you, I’ll have him, and you’ll... have your peace of mind, I suppose.”
“But - it’d be a lie.”
But the Doctor feels terribly conflicted, and the construct’s victorious expression tells him it shows on his face. If he frees the Master now, he’ll go on doing terrible things. Killing innocents. Destroying whole sections of the universe. In a dream world, on the other hand, the Master could have anything he wanted, and never harm a single person. The Doctor will never again have to explain to anyone that his former friend killed their aunt, or their father, or their entire planet. He’ll never come to the point where he has to decide whether the Master should live or die.
He can’t lie to himself: an illusion is not what the Master would want. But it might be more than the Doctor could ever give him. More than the Master deserves.
“Give me a room in your TARDIS. A place where his body is safe. And then lock the door, and throw away the key, and forget about the room,” the construct urges.
It seems so terribly easy.
*
There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked. There once was a key, but the Doctor buried it in an iron chest under a green oak tree on a remote island in the distant past of a planet that will one day be known as the Eye of Orion, where it is as safe as it can be.
For the first few decades, he sometimes wakes from dreams where he hears the sound of hearts beating incessantly from behind that door, and a voice calling for him, and a monster waiting for him inside. But after a century or so, he gets used to hearing that sound wherever he goes. It reminds him that a locked door is like a cat in a box: no one knows what’s inside until the door is opened.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 5739
Characters: various Masters (Ainley, Delgado, War Chief, Crispy), Five
Original Story: Imaginary Worlds by x_los.
Summary: There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked.
Thanks to aralias for invaluable beta services!
There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked. From time to time, a nosy companion finds it and asks the Doctor what he keeps in there. He replies something different every time - Schroedinger’s cat, Blackbeard’s wives, Sleeping Beauty. I lost the keys, he says, dropped them somewhere a long time ago.
*
For a long time, the Master doesn’t remember the silly construct he made as a boy. Not until the Doctor dares to run away without him, leaving no trace, no trail that can be followed. He can’t help but remember the construct then. The memory forces itself into his thoughts and somehow becomes a fixed idea, until he can’t help but go looking for the construct. Finding it is harder than he thinks, though. Back then, he pushed it away in some deep dark corner of his mind, like a forgotten childhood toy. Theta’s reality by far eclipsed the paltry imitation.
But there’s another reason it isn’t as easy to find the construct as it should be. The Master’s thoughts used to be ordered and systematic, like the notes he kept at school and the books in his library. But that was before he touched the Doctor’s whirlwind mind. For years they have been living wrapped up in each other and like two trees standing too close, their roots are a tangled mess. Even half the books and the records in the Master’s shelves migrated there from the Doctor’s library. He really should burn them, he thinks, a bonfire right here in the Citadel of the Time Lords, but what is the point of causing a scandal if the Doctor will never know?
In the Doctor’s presence, the Master’s mind has grown like brambles, wild and vital and chaotic. In the Doctor’s absence, it has turned into a tangle of ivy, draining him dry. It has wrapped around the construct, embraced it, swallowed it. Digging it out again is hard work, almost physical. His mind feels like flesh under his hand, like he is digging in meat. It oozes memories of the Doctor like tar, and they stick to him, black and unpleasant.
But then he gets a hold of the construct and pulls. He pulls with all the rage and disappointment the Doctor has left behind. Finally, something gives, and the construct slides out of its cage and into his arms.
Its face is surprisingly clean. Strange, the Master thinks, he had forgotten they were this young when he made the construct. It has Theta’s face still, the face of a boy, almost a child. It blinks at him with eyes still cloudy with sleep.
The Master makes a floor for them to stand on, and puts the construct down on the floor. Spreads it out, arranges its limbs and robe and its feathery hair.
"Koschei," it says. "I knew you'd come back to me."
"Shut up.” The room around them is swimming, fraying at the edges, an uncontrolled nightmare rather than a mindscape, and he hates the Doctor for it. He hasn’t had a nightmare since he was an uninitiated child. "You'll obey me. You must."
"What do you want me to do?" the construct asks readily. "You look sad, Koschei."
It doesn’t sound like the Doctor at all. How could he ever be satisfied with this tawdry thing? He pushes it down on the floor to climb on top of it, straddling its chest and grabbing its face in both hands. It falls silent, staring at him with wide eyes. Better.
"I’m your Master.”
It smiles. The Doctor also smiled when the Master announced his name, but not like that. The Doctor’s smile turned into a laugh that he couldn’t repress. But the construct only smiles. "You've always been my - "
"Quiet." He clamps a hand over the construct's mouth. He wants to hear it say that in the Doctor’s voice, not in a childish, obsequious whimper. "Look at me. Yes. There's no difference when you’re silent." Except that it’s much easier to shut the construct up. But he doesn’t miss the Doctor’s contrariness. He doesn’t. The Master laughs, high and breathless, nearly choking on the sound. In mindscapes, breath is not an issue. But in nightmares, the lungs are always short on air. Falling silent again, he rubs the construct's soft lips with his thumb and bends down to kiss it, shuddering when they part. "You always were my first," he whispers. His first kiss. His first fuck. And now another first, another experiment. Slowly, feeling their way, his hands encircle the construct’s bare white throat.
He never expected death to be this difficult. He didn’t think it would be like a dream of falling from which you woke at the very last second, forever suspended, never reaching the ground. Death, too, it turns out, has its first times, its learning curve. They’ll get there eventually, if it takes years.
Over time, he tires of the killing game. The construct, after all, is an imitation of a Time Lord, and it comes back to life again and again, perversely never changing its face, because the Master doesn’t know what man the Doctor has become in the meantime. Only its eyes change, resembling the Doctor more and more. There is a strange new awareness in them now, and when it looks at him sometimes it seems haunted by something, deeply conflicted. The Master wonders if he should get rid of it, close the book on the Doctor once and for all. But the changes in the construct give him other ideas.
If he must hunger for company, the company of his own mind seems to him the least annoying. It speaks of self-sufficiency. The Doctor was only an interlude, in truth the Master has never needed anyone but himself. And what is the construct, if not a piece of him that he shaped in the Doctor’s image?
When he created the construct, he was only a child. He had only just begun to dabble in the psychic arts. But now he has delved deeply into secrets both dangerous and arcane, deeper perhaps than any Time Lord in centuries. In time, he will hone the construct into a piece of art so fine it starts to truly resemble the Doctor. One day it will be perfect, and the Doctor no longer incomparable, and the Master will celebrate that day as a victory.
*
He likes to dress the Doctor in every colour available to his imagination. The Master looks at him with a tailor's mind, selecting sliding silk and heavy brocade and lush velvet. He clothes and unclothes the Doctor in every colour not available to him here. The world of the War Lords must be one of the most miserable places in the whole universe. He can say that as an expert - the Master has become quite the connoisseur of hellholes since he left Gallifrey. Walled-in by drab greys and mindless drudgery, the Master cultivates mindscapes like late summer gardens, rich and heavy and sweet. Some days are made to revel in red, red, red, all shades of blood, from the sheets to the ceiling, to the welts on the Doctor's pale back. Some nights are meant for blues fading into black, for opals around the Doctor's neck and bruises like bracelets around his wrists. Some hours are leather, binding him securely, and some are flimsy, barely covering their bodies, gauze hours filled with whispered visions of their days to come.
"How much longer are you going to do this?" the Doctor complains on a rough flaxen afternoon. The Master has withdrawn from his day’s work to spend a few hours alone, but the Doctor’s mood is bristly like a penitent’s shirt. When he’s in a mood like this, he will eviscerate the Master's daily routine as the War Chief, dwelling of every humiliation and mocking the grand plan. "You’re in a rut. I think you've managed to find the dullest possible way to conquer the universe."
"I will continue for as long as it takes," the Master always replies, because the Doctor's provocations have long ceased to bother him. He feeds the Doctor grapes, and their taste on his lips makes him forget the lingering bitterness of protein rations. "Until I am master of all matter."
"Until you start wearing ugly glasses like the rest of the War Lords?" the Doctor smirks. “You already seem to have forgotten your name, War Chief.”
"Silence," the Master growls, but he likes this game.
The Doctor ignores him, smiling a jack-knife smile. "If I had a body, I'd be embarrassed to be seen with you."
"If you had a body," the Master echoes, and pushes the Doctor on his back, pinning him on pale gold sheets, "I'd lock you in a room. No one would ever get to see you but me."
"You could never keep me," the Doctor sneers. He struggles, but the violence between them remains subdued, a ritual fight with a foregone conclusion. As the Master settles between his legs and pushes forward impatiently, the Doctor gives in, dropping his head back on the pillow and baring his throat to a hungry kiss.
"Say it," the Master demands, because he needs to taste the word that has become their secret. He needs it far too often, far too badly these days. The Doctor’s lips part in a smile, in a moan, releasing the word. He shouts it, in ecstasy. He repeats it. Reverence shivers between their lips, and in its glow the Master knows his name.
*
The Master is in prison. Getting caught by UNIT was humiliating, but he prides himself that he bears his imprisonment with far more grace than the Doctor does his exile. He could try to escape, or close his eyes and imagine himself anywhere else, but he tells himself that he is here by choice. Sooner or later, the Doctor will come to him. That will prove a point: that the Doctor, given the opportunity, can’t resist him. And it will provide an opportunity - either to get his revenge with the help of the Sea Devils, or to convince the Doctor to leave Earth with him. The Doctor must see the opportunity, too: they’re both trapped now, and all the Doctor has to do to end it is to ask nicely where the Master left his TARDIS. Very nicely, and then they will escape together. But until then, the Master will not lie to himself about his imprisonment. So he closes his eyes and thinks of the measurements of his cell, erects the walls stone by cold stone and covers the windows with bars. He even locks the doors of his imaginary prison.
It’s been a while since he last indulged in the construct’s company. Not since he has met the Doctor in his newest incarnation. Their regular clashes were too distracting (too satisfying) for him to get bored. But he needs to wait now. He’s playing the long game, and the boredom is like an itch. He needs to sit back and relax a bit before impatience makes him careless - not to mention that when the Doctor finally comes to visit him in prison, it won’t do for the Master to seem too eager.
Therefore he thinks up a chair in his mindscape and takes a seat. The Master is prepared for the tedious work of updating his toy, but even before he can summon it, there are footsteps behind him. Surprised, he turns around - and stiffens in his chair, suddenly anything but relaxed.
The construct should still wear the Doctor’s first face, as it did all the years it kept him company. But it saunters close to him now in the tall, graceful incarnation the Master has become used to so quickly, silver haired, velvet-clad, eyeing the cell with that damned critical look in his bright eyes. “It’s no doubt comfier than most, but I think I know a prison cell when I see one.”
You’d think that the Master has more control over his avatar than his body. But his reaction is as knee-jerk as if this was the physical world: he jumps to his feet too quickly, needing to face the Doctor standing up. “You look -"
The Doctor raises his brows expectantly. “Yes?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have to hide anything in the privacy of his mind. But the Master smoothes the surprise from his features. “Very lifelike, my dear. I don’t think I’ve seen that coat before.” He hasn’t, but the red velvet works fine, it’s perfectly in tune with the Doctor’s current tastes. There’s only the question of when the construct became capable of taking the initiative.
The construct smiles politely, acknowledging the compliment. His smile doesn’t last long. “So would you care to explain your -“ he indicates the room, “predicament?”
“I’ve allowed myself to be captured,” the Master explains. “Unfortunately, now my plans require some waiting. And there are only so many hours a day I can entertain myself with catching up on human cultural achievements.”
“I see.” The Doctor steps closer. The difference in height becomes disconcerting like this, even more so when he smoothes down the Master’s shirt in a proprietary manner. He’s initiating something, and the Master does not feel in control. But he is hesitant to stop the construct just because of that - this Doctor is assertive in real life, and the Master has always found that attractive. “You’re waiting for him in this little room he gave you. What if he never comes? I used to ask myself that quite a bit. Of course it’s different these days. I know you always come to me eventually.”
He should not let the construct talk to him like that, but the Doctor cups the Master’s neck and strokes his cheek with his thumb. He wears gloves, the Master thinks hazily, and lets the Doctor kiss him. They need not breathe, but the kiss steals something from him nonetheless, makes him forget what he came for. Only when the Doctor chuckles into it does the Master flinch back from him. Disorientation turns into rage within a blink of an eye. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
“You forget who you are,” he warns. The threat should be deadly, but the construct’s even, unimpressed gaze does not falter.
“Actually,” it drawls maddeningly, “I think I know it better than I ever did before.”
There is a human fairy tale the Doctor once told him, a long time ago, of a girl who makes a pact with a demon. The demon helps her make gold from straw, expecting child sacrifice in return. Originally, perhaps, that was how the tale ended, with the death of a firstborn, but in the version the Doctor told, the girl finds out the demon’s secret name by spying on it.
The construct has not yet said his name in this body. Like the Doctor, it keeps it in reserve. But when it says it, the implication stands, it will be devastating, because it won’t mean the same thing as before. The Master does not stomp his foot, and the ground does not swallow him, but he escapes from his mindscape just as hurriedly.
Staring at the real room around him, he regrets shaping his fantasy like his prison cell, because for a long moment, he finds it hard to tell the two rooms apart.
*
The Master never took care of his bodies before, always taking them for granted. He did not understand the power the body has over the mind. That realisation comes too late. It fills him with rage that his decaying synapses take whole areas of experience with them. As his pleasure centres burn out in storms of pain, they take away not just his ability to feel pleasure, but also his ability to imagine it. Even thoughts of revenge only cause variations of pain and rage. Pleasure is only a word, ever more elusive, and its meaning is turning, twisting, becoming something else.
"If you're not going to fight death, then you should let go, rather than disgracing yourself like this,” the construct points out calmly.
The Master’s eyes, rotting, disguise the world with milky veils, but the Doctor is still a crisp vision in his mind. He stands before him, tall, immaculately dressed down to the last silk ruffle, as clean as the Master is filthy. It’s easy for the Doctor to speak of grace. But worst is his serious tone, the flicker of pity in his eyes that the Master, although he wants to, cannot entirely attribute to the construct. Perhaps the Doctor would pity him if he saw what has become of the Master.
"I won't give you the satisfaction," the Master says, not with his mind but with his own rattling breath. The Doctor ignores him, kneeling before his sunken form to look him in the eyes. He does not shrink from the stench, as he would have if he were here in the flesh. If it were him, and not a dream. The Master wishes he could dream of being healthy again. But his dreams, like his memories, are caught in the ever-narrowing present.
The Doctor frowns slightly. "You aren't Master of anything now, are you?"
"I'm still your Master."
"Prove it."
"Go away," the Master hisses, rage boiling the sluggish remainder of his blood.
"Make me," the Doctor goads, and the mocking gleam in his eyes is like a hand extended to raise the Master up from the ground. He takes it, claws at it, rises from his rotting physical shell and lunges at the Doctor, striking him down. He is a wraith in the shape of hooks and knives, and his hands are white hot oblivion, searing the Doctor's skin like brands. And still the battered body of his enemy cannot please him, because it is only a vision.
Stopping his assault, the Master finds himself looking down to see his body. It looks dead, slumped in its rags beneath him, and he is without it, floating free. But he is alive, he is thinking, imagining. The construct whispers to him with a bloodied, encouraging smile. "It's only a body. For now, be the master of your pain. Control it. Use it. Transcend it."
The words are like the blood of life. The Master feels himself drawn back into his body, but it no longer feels quite so much like a grave. He can leave it, if he can only master the pain. The pain is not a worm eating at his flesh. The pain is a weapon, waiting to be picked up. He can be free of the flesh. "Mind over matter," he rasps, and takes the construct’s hand again.
*
He made Castrovalva from a dream, and now the dream is racing back along the lines of his thoughts, like poison in his veins, his own (single) heart drawing it closer with each beat. The Castrovalvans tear at his white robe, at his hair and his skin, and the walls, closing in, are pushing them closer. There is a strange double vision to it all, as if his mind has multiplied, and he is all of them: he feels his own body under their hands, sees what they see, and their mindless rage is his own. They are what he will be. They do not want to kill him, but make him one of their own. The Master screams, inarticulate, breathless, terrified of losing himself.
He screams, but this time his screams are answered. The Doctor is calling for him. Castrovalva’s collapsing dimensions fracture his voice, like light in a mirror maze, and it reaches the Master like that: broken, bent, refracted. And then suddenly it is not. The sound turns warm, whole, rich, a perfect wave. A sound that touches and engulfs him, a voice cocoon. There are no grasping hands now, no crowding bodies. He’s sinking, not falling, breathing in air that is not air, but the thought of air, the memory of air. Slivers of thought flit through his mind, disjointed, like particles of dust in the sunlight.
“Sleep,“ the Doctor says to him, and it is the smartest, most lovely thing he has ever said.
When the Master wakes again, it is to the voice of a single bird. It seems to chirp and tweet at random, but the longer he listens, the more clearly the melody begins to crystallize. It arcs, blossoms, falls back on itself and begins to build again, like a spiral staircase that ends where it begins. With each turn it becomes more intense. It has found that perfect tune that is all mathematics and truth, that cannot be improved, and it holds it for a moment before it loses it again. Only a trace of perfection remains in the fractured song.
“Do you know what your mistake was?” the Doctor asks. The Master turns, surprised that he isn’t alone. He’s lying in a familiar bed, in a familiar room: the place where he put the Doctor when he first arrived in Castrovalva. The sheets still smell of him. But their positions are reversed now: the Doctor sits by the bedside, looking healthy and young, while the Master feels battered and exhausted. All he can do is glower at the Doctor.
“Enlighten me.”
“You didn’t make one,” the Doctor replies, smiling because he’s being clever. “Your world was too perfect. Too static. Perfect things can’t change. Without imperfection, there’s also no hope.”
It isn’t true, the Master thinks. He had his perfect ending to this game all laid out: the Doctor would lose and admit defeat, and the Master would graciously spare him. Keep him until an indefinitely postponed after like a fly forever cocooned in a spider’s web.
“Is there a point to your lecture?”
“I’m merely explaining my changes to your design,” the Doctor says mildly. “I thought you’d be curious.”
Only slowly does the meaning of all this trickle into the Master’s mind. Castrovalva still exists. It no longer seems to be unravelling. And the Doctor is here with him. “I see you’ve managed to stabilise the dimensions.”
“Indeed. And without the boy as a conduit, I might add. It’s all a bit more random now. A bit more dynamic.”
Why? is on the tip of the Master’s tongue, but he doesn’t really have to ask. He can see it with his own eyes in the Doctor’s confident posture and the subtle changes all around him. The rougher weave of the blanket. The fresher breeze of air. While the Master was out, the Doctor has made this world his own. And that means that the Master has won although he has lost. It’s not the outcome the Master bet on, but it is passably close.
The Doctor leans forward in his chair and puts his hand on the Master’s chest. It rests there lightly, but the Master can feel his hearts beat faster. Two hearts. The Doctor nods. “Would you like to see what else I changed while you slept?”
*
That the Master’s TARDIS lets him materialise his own inside her only compounds the Doctor’s suspicions. Something is either very wrong with the Master, which wouldn’t be surprising given how badly his Castrovalva scheme ended for him, or he’s still not sick of toying with the Doctor. Whatever it is, the Doctor has to investigate, as the Master’s TARDIS is sending an automated distress signal. He can’t ignore that not even when it’s the Master. Luckily, his companions are all safely in their rooms, recovering from the last few days. It would be hard to explain to them why he still feels duty-bound to offer his help.
He cautiously opens the TARDIS doors, but one glance into the Master’s console room tells him that the distress signal is genuine. Slumped at the foot of his black console is the Master, still in the white robe of the Portreeve, which is now stained and torn. Bruises and scrapes mar the Master’s face and hands. While the Master certainly isn’t too proud to feign weakness, he would never let himself be seen as dishevelled as this if he could avoid it.
First the Doctor switches off the distress signal, then he kneels by the Master’s side. Two fingers against his pulse point tell him that the Master is feverishly hot, quite unnatural for a Time Lord, but still alive. Something else is odd about him as well - a tingle just under his skin, the strangest psychic aura. He looks entirely unconscious, so the Doctor is quite startled when the Master suddenly opens his eyes.
“You came,” he rasps. The pitch of his voice is all off. Too high somehow.
“Well,” the Doctor says. “You know how annoying the sound of that distress signal is.”
The Master stares at him with an odd expression for a long time. “You don’t recognise me, do you?”
Consternation quickly turns into wariness. What is the Master playing at? “Of course I recognise you. I’m well over my regeneration trauma by now. In fact, I came here with the express purpose of finding out what happened to you after that mess with Castrovalva.”
“Did you worry?”
“No.” Even the Doctor knows that his denial came far too quickly and forcefully. “It did look bad for you, I’ll admit. But it seems you got out with just a few scrapes. Better than you deserve, really.”
“Make up your mind, Doctor.”
“I will. I have. I’m going now.” He rises to his feet.
“Wait.”
“What now?”
“You still don’t know who I am. Here, let me jog your memory. It was a long time ago. The last time we met, you called me... what was it again? Ah, yes. A ‘little fuck doll’. Ring a bell?”
The Doctor shakes his head, he would never say a thing like that, but at the same time, he takes a step beck. Then he blanches as he remembers. “You’re that... thing. The construct the Master made when we were boys. But you can’t be. He got rid of you.”
“Hid me away, you mean. Come on, you never actually saw him destroy me. And you know that he likes to have a backup plan. A convenient escape, in case things go wrong. And things did go wrong rather spectacularly for the two of you, didn’t they?”
Seeing the Master’s face twist with expressions that are not his own, and hearing his voice with such strange modulations (but they’re familiar, they’re so close to the Doctor’s own) is quite distressing. He cannot believe that it’s really the little construct Koschei made. “If... if that is true, you’ve certainly changed.”
The construct in the Master’s body smiles mirthlessly. “I’ve had a long, long time to grow, Doctor. Maybe I was just a doll, back then. Imagine this is your world: a room made of the same immaterial material as you, walls that are your skin, a bed that is your body, and he is the only thing real, your sun and your moon and your stars. What else did I know? What else could I want? But then you came into my room. Things have never been the same since.”
The Doctor hasn’t quite been sure up until now. It could have been another trick, another mindgame, but this goes too far, even for the Master. Which means that apparently, the Master has been carrying an imitation of him around in his mind all this years, kept it, as a sex toy or a punching bag or whatever it was he did to it. A potentially sentient imitation, on top of that. The Doctor doesn’t know what horrifies him more - the invasion of his privacy, or the fate of his imaginary twin. Which makes it quite appalling that the next thing he asks is, “What about the Master? Is he ...?”
“Alive. As well as can be expected, after his mind was nearly torn apart by the Castrovalvans. I’ve put him in a regenerative trance.” The construct’s tone is cold, angry, but the Doctor can’t quite tell at whom the anger is directed. He has an odd feeling that it’s him.
Anything the Master creates is potentially evil. The Doctor is sure of that, if nothing else. “Do you plan to take over his body? Because you seem to be on the best way there, and if so, I’d like to have a word in that, if you please.”
It looks at him with disdain, which makes it look very much like the Master. “You think it’s that simple, Doctor? The creation turning against its creator? You’re wrong. I couldn’t if I wanted to. I’m made in your image in all aspects but one: I love him. Unconditionally. Absolutely. You care, Doctor, you care for everything. You might even care for me. And that will always stand between you and him. I, on the other hand, care only for the Master. And for myself, but that is really the same thing, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, is it?”
The construct ignores the question entirely, caught in its passionate monologue. The words spill out of it, and the Doctor thinks that probably it has never had an audience before. It might never have talked to anyone but the Master - and him, all those years ago. “I’ve always protected him. I’ve been with him through everything. I soothed him when you had nothing but hurtful words for him. When you would have seen him die, I showed him the way to survive. But he keeps coming back for more, keeps returning to you. It gets worse every time. One of these days, you’ll kill him.” It stares at the Doctor. “Won’t you?”
“It’s usually the other way round.” The accusation hurts the Doctor, because he cannot be quite sure. He should be sure. He never wants it to kill. But it has sometimes been necessary, and it might be again.
“I have to protect him, Doctor. If he dies, so do I.”
“I see. So you’re going to kill me, is that it?”
The construct smirks sourly. It lifts a hand, which is the most it has moved since the Doctor has stepped into the Master’s TARDIS. After a few trembling seconds, the hand flops down again. The construct, in the Master’s body, looks exhausted. “I can’t even stand, Doctor. And believe me, killing you would make him anything but happy. I have a proposition for you, Doctor. A deal that might make us all happy - you, and me, and him.”
Deals with entities of dubious nature, in the Doctor’s experience, seldom bring any good. He doesn’t intend to make any. But he is curious to hear what the construct has to say - more than curious. In centuries, he hasn’t come up with a single solution that might achieve what the construct promises, and not for lack of trying. “Go on.”
“Castrovalva was a good plan,” the construct begins, and immediately the Doctor has to interrupt him.
“It was? Because I’m still a bit fuzzy as to what exactly the plan was. Actually, I just thought the Master was playing another game, and got in over his head.”
Something almost like envy sneaks into the constructs expression. “He built a city for you, Doctor, from your own stories. A kingdom of magic. A house with impossible architecture, that could be home for you both. He didn’t think you’d raze it to the ground. He thought you’d live with him there.”
“But - it wasn’t real.” Possibly, it is too much to expect a construct to understand that. The Doctor’s own mind is still reeling from the things it said.
“You’re Time Lords, Doctor. Your minds are capable of block transfer computation. He took you to Logopolis, didn’t he? An entire planet of people who create reality with their thoughts. A world you created, with both your minds, would be as real as any. But that’s not what I’m asking of you. All I’m asking is - leave him alone, and I’ll spin a world for him to live in, and he’ll never know the difference.”
“Trap him in an illusion, you mean!” The Doctor draws himself up in indignation. “I wouldn’t do that to anyone.”
The construct smiles, forgiving his outburst easily. “He’s there, right now. We’ll all be happy. He’ll have you, I’ll have him, and you’ll... have your peace of mind, I suppose.”
“But - it’d be a lie.”
But the Doctor feels terribly conflicted, and the construct’s victorious expression tells him it shows on his face. If he frees the Master now, he’ll go on doing terrible things. Killing innocents. Destroying whole sections of the universe. In a dream world, on the other hand, the Master could have anything he wanted, and never harm a single person. The Doctor will never again have to explain to anyone that his former friend killed their aunt, or their father, or their entire planet. He’ll never come to the point where he has to decide whether the Master should live or die.
He can’t lie to himself: an illusion is not what the Master would want. But it might be more than the Doctor could ever give him. More than the Master deserves.
“Give me a room in your TARDIS. A place where his body is safe. And then lock the door, and throw away the key, and forget about the room,” the construct urges.
It seems so terribly easy.
*
There is a room in the TARDIS that always stays locked. There once was a key, but the Doctor buried it in an iron chest under a green oak tree on a remote island in the distant past of a planet that will one day be known as the Eye of Orion, where it is as safe as it can be.
For the first few decades, he sometimes wakes from dreams where he hears the sound of hearts beating incessantly from behind that door, and a voice calling for him, and a monster waiting for him inside. But after a century or so, he gets used to hearing that sound wherever he goes. It reminds him that a locked door is like a cat in a box: no one knows what’s inside until the door is opened.