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Tweak says, "taylor swift is a karen"

lucy saxon isn't as dumb as she seems to be (neverthatbright) wrote in colligo_threads,
@ 2010-11-05 23:39:00

Entry tags:

!closed, #complete, lucy saxon, the master

WHO: Lucy Saxon and the Master
WHAT: A surprisingly calm reunion.
WHEN: Not long after Lucy posted this.
WHERE: The steps of the Grand Library, to start.
RATING: PGish [language and references to darker themes]
STATUS: Complete!

The Master was alive.

Lucy had known there was always a chance he would be resurrected. She had known, as soon as she was settled in prison, she had to start making plans to stop that from happening. However no sooner had she received her sentence did she find herself in that strange little library with knights who seemed determined to keep her out. Clutching the device they'd given her in her hand, she stared once more at the conversation she was having over what she guessed was a public message board of some kind. Her stomach tightened at the words that stared back up at her, finger lightly dancing across the small picture that made identification all too easy.

The Master was alive.

She wasn't prepared for this. She was in an unfamiliar city that apparently wasn't even on Earth, she couldn't leave, and she wasn't at all prepared to face him again. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest as she quickly scrolled through the menu of her PDA. It had given her the number of a flat, as well as a map, and she was curious if there was anything else of use. Anything at all that might help her.

Coming up empty, the woman closed her eyes for a brief moment. Her jaw quivered, lips pressing softly together as she swallowed down the emotions rampaging through her. When her eyes reopened she was calm, almost detached. Rising to her feet, she gripped her PDA tightly with one hand and began descending the stairs. She knew she wouldn't make it all the way to her new flat. She knew he was already on his way because she knew him. What she didn't know, though, was when exactly their paths would cross or what would happen once they did.

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cantyouhearit
2010-11-08 06:38 am UTC (link)

It was surprising. This was surprising. Oh, he'd broken women before, bent them to his will. He had conquered kings and keepers, dominated planets, destroyed civilizations, made deals with demons, and pushed the human race -- the universe's greatest creators and most infectious disease -- to the brink of extinction. But in the end, all of his creations had backfired on him, turned to be the ruin of his plans with no intention of ever turning back, that hearing Lucy say those words with such an intense sincerity that it was...off-putting in a way he hadn't experienced in a great time.

And the question left him struck silent, just holding her for a long moment as an internal debate raged in his mind and his gut until he found himself saying words that he never thought that he would out loud, not to anyone but the one who had been there to experience it as well and even then, reluctantly to him.

"It's not you, Luc," The Master said after an extended silence. "You didn't do anything wrong. I just kept expecting you to."

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neverthatbright
2010-11-08 07:09 am UTC (link)

She waited with baited breath for what felt like ages for him to respond. If he would tell her what she'd done wrong, she knew she could fix it. She could make sure she never did it again and then maybe, just maybe, she could be the companion he needed instead of such a great disappointment. She knew it wouldn't be easy. He was a difficult man to please under the best of circumstances. However if he could forgive her for betraying him as he had, surely she could at the very least manage not to screw things up this time.

Except, when he finally did speak, the answer wasn't what she'd been expecting at all. It didn't make the least bit of sense either. Her brow furrowed slightly in confusion.

"I don't understand," she said slowly. A tear finally fell, sliding silently down her cheek all but unnoticed as she struggled to figure out why he wouldn't just tell her. He'd never spared her feelings before. Why was he trying to do so now?

"All those times... and you were so angry, so disappointed with me... and I thought..." She wasn't even finishing her sentences, the tears threatening to turn into nothing short of a deluge. "Please just tell me," she all but begged, clutching at the front of his shirt as she peered up at him in earnest. "Whatever it is, whatever I have to do, I promise I'll do it. I can change. I can."

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cantyouhearit
2010-11-08 08:19 am UTC (link)

It was impossible to explain, too long and sorted and far more complex than words could express, but she was sobbing and demanding that he tell her what she'd done wrong, and squashing down on the rise of anger at the general woman's tendency to assume that it was her fault only in those moments when it was not. Reaching up and grasping the sides of her face perhaps a little harder than he should, he shook his head as he leaned looked down at her.

"Oh, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. Be quiet and listen, you silly, silly girl," The Master said, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against hers.

A torrent of images blossomed in her mind, himself, younger and yet older at the same time, looking so much more carefree and gentle than even his cover had ever managed to do. On Earth, in London, with a young woman, a young woman that he believed to be human, and taking her to his TARDIS (blended perfectly into the landscape in Hyde Park) and disappearing into thin air. A cascade of visions followed after that, friendship, playful sites, adventures, experiences, love, until they settled down in the middle of a warzone, colliding with the Doctor and his companions, both there in order to stop the same thing.

The chaos of the scene unfolded with a hectic speed: strategies, arguments, insisting that the Doctor take his companion with him, so that she would be safe. Him, trying to set the machinery to self destruct, only to be ambushed by team of guards while he's trying to finish and a fight breaking out, his mind immediately tuning to automatic as he mowed down anything that entered the room without even pausing to think until his body lashes at the sound of someone entering the room and fires...only realizing a second to later that it isn't a guard but his companion that had entered the room.

Fleeing the room, running into one of the people in charge, convincing him that they're on the same side, manipulating him into obeying his instructions, allowing him access to the machinery only to be spotted by one of the Doctor's companions.

"Ailla is dead," the odd voice replied, his own but still foreign to his ears, somber and heavy as the surprise crosses the young girl's features.

"I... I'm sorry. What happened?"

"A stupid accident," His voice tightened, anger and rage tainting it, self-hatred boiling just under the surface. "A twist of fate when I wasn't paying attention to where she was."

"I am sorry."

"It's such a total waste," He murmured, the anger fading from his voice back into sorrow.

"Had you known her for very long?"

A long pause extended between them, him hunched over the control panel of the weapon that they'd come to stop, sadness etching his features but mixed with an odd sort of determination, "How long does anything finite last when compared to eternity? Time is relative, Miss Waterfield; sometimes it seemed I had always known her; perhaps we but briefly met."

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cantyouhearit
2010-11-08 08:19 am UTC (link)

The scene skipped, consolation of the Doctor's companion mixed with a maniac determination in his younger self that more closely mirrored his current self. The concern seem intensified, bleeding into confusion at the franticness with which his younger self was working, a certain heaviness in his form before he broke away from the machinery to make a call.

The return of the young scientist that he'd manipulated provoked the suave aspects of his personality, alternating mocking and praising as he moved forward to lay out the details of a plan.

"My dear Terrell, you will have a very long time to wait for results if this is the best you can do. All you’re really doing is exploiting a simple side effect of the Darkheart’s operation. The true power... That still eludes you, does it not?"

The young scientist looks incredulous, as if he wants to know exactly who this man in front of him is to tell him what he has managed, "And I suppose you can do better."

"Of course," The reply was irritated, mocking, as if to suggest that he was anything but capable of thinking higher and better than the man in front of him was an insult. Which it was. "The Darkheart was, after all, designed to transmit vast energies around the Cosmos. I would suggest you use it as such."

"To what end?"

There was a brief moment of hesitation in his features, as if he knew what he was about to say was a monumental choice that, once made, could not be taken back. And one that he shouldn't be making for that matter. But after that moment, the younger man turned back to the control panel, setting the dials as his body slowly settled into the choice he'd made, a dark smile crossing his features. "Pick a specific target."

He fled the machine, pale and burdened, no longer the carefree and gentle man that he'd been, encountering the Doctor's companion again, quietly stunned at the concern that she seemed to show.

"Did you stop that changes?"

"Oh, I did," He replied, a quietly haunted look on his features that seemed to startle the young girl in front of him. "Yes, Miss Waterfield, the effect has stopped. Terrell and the others are now busy with some functions of the Darkheart that are rather more narrow in their visions."

"But they're still using it?"

"I'm afraid they are. Sometimes, Miss Waterfield, one must compromise and accept the existence of a lesser evil for the greater good."

Another torrent of images and scenes, the young Master wedged until a panel of wires with the Doctor's young companion looking on.

"These all seem to be in working order, they are simply not configured and powered yet. Yes, my dear, I do believe we can work with these."

"To do what?" Such an innocent question from an innocent girl expecting heroes and miracles while watching the worse unfold.

"Anything we want," His younger self replied, good natured, smiling in a soft reassurance despite the lingering darker undertones in his words. "For one thing we can rescue Ailla. First, though, there is so much to study. Knowledge is power."

"But, Allia’s dead..."

"With access to the space/time conduit, Ailla is only dead until I choose otherwise."

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cantyouhearit
2010-11-08 08:23 am UTC (link)

Another rush of scenes and work, the Companion leaving the room as she was instructed only to return a few minutes later looking relieved only to have it fade a second later.

"The Doctor has always said that you can’t go back and change what has happened to you. I’m not sure whether he means it is impossible or just wrong"

"Both – under normal circumstances," The younger Master answered, still focused on his work. "It would be so easy with this equipment – to undo what has been done..."

"What do you believe it?" The question of a child, but the young woman standing behind him was little more than a child, with the same questioning innocence in her eyes as she looked up at her, imploring him to say what she wanted him to say.

"Oh, I believe in me. Whoever that is."

The Master broke away, a sheen of sweet on his forehead, taking deep breaths as he tried to mask the raw emotion flashing across his face as he released Lucy's face, staggering for a moment before taking a few steps backwards and collapsing into the closest chair, squeezing his eyes closed against the headache raging in his mind. It was only half the story, not even far enough into the tale to truly tell the changes, the reasons, the explanation that he'd been meaning to get to. Reaching up blindly at Lucy, he caught her hand, squeezing it for a moment as he kept his eyes closed.

"I need a minute."

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