neverwouldiever | Valiantly Living On.

"No. No, no, no, no..." The Doctor was just muttering the word over and over, holding the Master in his arms and refusing to believe any of this was happening. It couldn't. It couldn't be that he was alone again. So close, but he should have known, the Master had always been spiteful.

For all it mattered to him at the moment, no one else could have been here. Just him and the Master's lifeless body, already starting to cool. "No!"

There had to be something! Anything! His eyes had tears in them when he looked up, casting a wild look around the room. "Jack! Jack, come here. Come here right now."

The Doctor had been working on the TARDIS without pause. Of course, she didn't technically take any damage after everything had been resolved, but it didn't feel that way to him. He kept cleaning every part of the console, mutter reassurances and compliments and all of that while trying to ignore the elephant, well, the Master in the room.

Finally he couldn't bear the tension anymore, waiting for him to wake up and not knowing if he would and dreading either outcome. Finally he made his way to Jack's room, still wearing his glasses. He didn't bother knocking, because some lessons he'd never learn, but instead walked right in.

"Jack?"

Unpredictably, the first thing the Master heard was a very faint drumming, lulling him slowly back into consciousness and away from the comfortable dark he'd been enjoying for the past few days. His head was absolutely killing him, among other things, and his tired brain was trying desperately to work out everything it could before his eyes opened. Perhaps it wanted to prepare him for the shock of what he was going to see. Like the fact that despite his best efforts, he wasn't dead.

And all around him was the gentle hum of this decrypted old rust box of a TARDIS.

The Master jerked as his mind slowly woke up, hands straining against his cuffs. What was happening? This didn't make any sense. He was shot, he died. He definitely one hundred percent remembered dying. And he certainly didn't feel the very familiar pain of a gun shot wound when he was moving.

Hissing, the Master yanked harder against the cuffs, trying to force his hand through the loops. This was far from ideal.

"I don't think you two can just keep pouting the whole time," the Doctor reasoned as he paused from licking the ice cream off the cone in his hand, "We have ice cream. It's very anti-pouting."

The kitchen should have had more than enough space for three people, but since they all came with a lot of tension of all kinds, it felt rather cramped. The Doctor did his best to ignore that, sitting in the chair, feet on the table, leaning back and mostly just paying attention to his ice cream instead of Jack or the Master. At least the ice cream didn't judge him. And it was delicious.

He turned the cone in his hand, tongue out so he could swirl it all up properly. Mhmm, banana.

The Doctor turned from the freezer, fresh ice cream in his hand, which should at least make some part of this pleasant. Although he was pretty determined not to bring up yesterday's events, the Master or anything else that could bring Jack back to pouting, so he was fairly confident.

Carrying his cone he headed to Jack's room, not knocking and simply walking right in. "Jack, do you have a moment?"

Well, this was an awfully strange dream.

Sitting on the floor, one hand on his head, he groaned loudly and rubbed the back in a comforting manner. Oh Rassilon's rod, that really hurt. His brain was rolling around in his damn head, or so it felt like that anyway, he legitimately thought he could puke at any moment. Blinking a few times, he slowly looked up at the man in the room with him, a confused expression because he didn't know the face. Or even the clothes. All he knew was a familiar tingle that left a confused feeling in him.

"... Theta?" Koschei asked, a frown on his face as he let himself slump back downwards, having trouble getting his mind to engage properly. It was like someone had bruised the inside of his mind. "What happened? -- Did we die? I don't get it. My head is killing and--"

He stopped, staring for a moment as he took it all in properly. "You regenerated?!"

Working with Koschei was strange, to say the least. Quite depressing a lot of the time. Sometimes he felt as if he was watching from the outside, not even really there, just that disconcerting experience of the Master not being the Master, of his friend coming back from a past that seemed to be so far behind him that it didn't even feel like part of himself anymore. It was however also incredibly invigorating, awakening feelings in his hearts that he had all but forgotten about. It was complicated and sometimes he found himself just leaning against a table in the lab, staring off at nothing or staring right at Koschei until he managed to snap himself out of it.

But even so, they worked together quite well. The Doctor had begun to understand just what Koschei was getting at and he was fairly certain that it would actually work. The faster the better, because no matter how torn he was on the subject on an emotional level, he definitely knew on an intellectual level that it should be resolved as fast as possible.

"Looking good, don't you think?" He swiped his finger along the phial he held, sticking it into his mouth for a taste. "I think this should work."

The TARDIS was a real bitch this morning. Yes, sure, she hated him but usually she at least let him get some kind of food. Something he could eat to prevent that unfortunate side effect of no food otherwise called 'death'. But today she was having none of it. The fridge was jammed, the toaster shocked him and he couldn't seem to open any cupboard.

He was currently grasping onto the handle of the fridge with one hand while the other tried to part the sides, a look of frustration on his face. Someone was still bitter over being a paradox machine.

"Open, you stupid old rust bucket," the Master hissed angrily, giving up with a sigh and childishly kicking the fridge in response. Not that it so much as dented it, all it did was hurt his foot. Wincing, he continued to glare, a vague sort of childish pout on his face. He was so telling the Doctor. "If you were mine, I'd sell you for scrap metal."

Edited 2014-10-27 20:58 (UTC)

Waking up from death was always an alarming experience for Jack. Particularly in the instances he didn't know he had been dead in the first place. He gasped and his eyes shot open, filling his lungs with sweet, life-affirming air. Wherever he was, it wasn't comfortable, and it took a moment for his vision to really come back to him for him to recognise where he was. The control room. But why was he on the floor? Why couldn't he move his arms? How long had he been out? The only question he didn't have was who was responsible. The Doctor never would have done something like that. Still, he'd have liked the full picture.

Just after the Master has been shot and refused to regenerate. Kinda. Wibbly-wobbly.

A while after they started out. Most precise time.

Everyone's favourite has awoken!

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