Archive of Our Own

Thing is, it was never about them . 

He was holding her down again. A solid weight across her body, pinning her wrists to the mattress. Pins and needles had started to crawl their way up her arms but Yaz didn’t say anything. Her focus was narrowed to the scrape of teeth and lips against her neck. The burn of stubble accompanied movement as he dipped lower

She let a sigh pass through her lips. 

A harsh nip at her pulse point brought her to reality, to him, to this . 

She could see her own irritation reflected back at her in his whiskey eyes.

Try it, he seemed to say.

Because how dare one of them forget for one damn moment. 

Her head fell back on the pillow, closing her eyes as his tongue rasped against the newest patch of aching skin. Soothing it, possibly. “C’mon already,” she ground out. “Hasn’t there been enough foreplay?”  

Her hand still ached from the last bit, but the look on his face had been priceless. The pressure against her body reminded her that he got his.

“What’s the rush, Yaz,” She felt the hum of his voice against her collarbone as he whispered kisses and she spared another moment to hate herself for enjoying it. “Somewhere to be?”

Don’t call me Yaz, she bit down on the immediate reaction that bubbled up. Don’t call me what she would. Her tongue ached with the pressure of her teeth. Intentional bait. She wouldn’t give him what he was waiting for. 

That was the game she was learning, whoever could drag out the most reactions.

He was watching her for weakness, an echo of the perception she had seen in the Doctor working against her. Cataloging reactions, minute shifts. She didn’t have to see his expression to know he had likely already put together what she had tried to hide and it fanned the flames of her resentment even higher.

That, and her own self-loathing at letting herself be put into this position in the first place.

“I asked you a question, Yaz ,” the Master’s voice was cheery, but she could hear the dangerous edge underneath. The heel of his hand-ground into her wrists. It should have hurt, but it barely registered to her. Some inner sense of self-preservation reminded her to be scared, but she felt that train had left the train station awhile ago. 

“No,” Yaz said shortly. The honesty felt bitter. There was nowhere left she wanted to go. Burned too many bridges to want to face what was left. She looked him in the eyes and saw satisfaction written across his face. 

She wanted to scratch it off of him. 

“I’m just bored,” She said impulsively, trying to turn her tone into something flippant at the last moment. His look of surprise was heady. “Thought you would be a better lay,” she continued off the cuff, watching his eyes narrow. She grasped the final nail to cap it off and her heart twisted as she took a particularly vicious stab in the dark. 

“Guess I should know better to buy into everything the Doctor says.”  

Pain doesn’t blunt the anticipation of his hand wrenching her hair aside and pushing her face into the mattress until it could almost smother her. She almost didn’t mind when his next move was to nudge her legs apart and settle between them

“Well, we can’t have that, can we,” he asked rhetorically, mockingly, but she didn’t care because she could feel the heat of him just where she wanted him to be. His free hand was sliding down and she threw her head back and oh yes right there please

“Please, what,” softly, deadly, always part of the game.

“ Master .” 

The first time Yaz saw him standing there, fiddling with some contraption on his wrist, alive and perfectly fine she thought about killing him.

How dare he-how dare he when she isn’t-

She was moving before she could register it, shoving past people on the busy street corner with less care than she ever would’ve thought. Her fist flew into his nose, first, before the man even realized she was there and she didn’t get the chance to relish the surprise that cropped up before raising her fist again and again.

People started shouting and someone tried to drag her off him and in the back of her mind she knew she was being stupid and was probably damning her career and maybe even her life but she didn’t care beyond making him bleed.

He was laughing as they managed to pull her off of him, like it was all a damn joke, like ruining his pretty face and his expensive suit meant nothing to him. He laughed and he laughed and he laughed and she was twisting in someone’s hold intent on clawing his eyes out.

“Well, hello to you too,” He chokes out, “I knew there was something interesting about you, Yaz.”

It was the approval inherent in his bloody smile that sent the red hot anger boiling over into something black. The next thing she saw was her knees on his chest and hands fisted in his hair as he tried to drag her down with him, teeth bared like he won something.

It wasn’t until later she realized he had.

The worst part was the disappointment. 

She could feel it, radiating off the officers the moment they ran her ID. It made her skin crawl and her stomach feel sick, queasy. Her superior, Sargent Sunder was coming all the way to London to get things sorted out. She didn’t reckon that meant good things for her.

She had been so stupid .

Aggravated assault. Dozens of witnesses. It didn’t matter that he didn’t stick around to press charges, the evidence was all over the pavement and whatever phone cameras were rolling.

Her life was over. Charges filed or not, she’d never get a job again with something like this on her record.

A hitch of breath. Fuck. She could end up in prison .

Yaz dreaded the seconds that passed, pulling her closer and closer to the moment Sergeant Sundar was due to arrive. She couldn’t imagine having to look him in the eyes and try to explain-

How could she even explain?

Yaz went to bury her hands in her face, then stilled. Wouldn't be a good idea. She imagined she looked like a fright. Her hands were speckled with blood and she couldn’t tell if it was from her knuckles, bleeding sluggishly, or from him. She closed her eyes and swallowed, trying to imagine anything else. 

The pain radiating throughout her body when she took a breath ensured she couldn’t.

She was a fucking mess. 

It was a mistake. They had to see that. Just a terrible, terrible mistake. She wouldn’t… She had just been so angry. Her stomach turned with nerves. They had to understand that this wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.

It occurred to her belatedly that it hadn’t stopped her from hurting him anyway.

If Yaz had bothered to...to stop and think before, she would’ve assumed that the rage she had felt in that moment would have disappeared. It hadn’t, though. It was still there. Sitting in her chest, burning out the numb haze that she had grown accustomed to. She could remember the Master, vicious and bloody after they pulled her off of him. The mess left from where her hits landed so very visible. 

I did that, Yaz thinks. She waits to feel guilty and she does, but to her horror, it wasn’t enough to drown out the sharp satisfaction.

She thinks if she had been left five more minutes to her own devices she might be facing homicide charges rather than whatever they were planning to slap her with. She also thinks, tracing the beginning of a black eye, that she might have been the one to die. It isn’t surprising how little that bothers her.

Despite her growing rationality, she realizes if he had been arrested, if they had been put in the same cell she would have tried again. It didn’t matter that this was a police station and it’d be the height of stupidity to try anything. With a twist in her gut, Yaz realized she still wanted to.

How dare he be here when she isn’t-

And, well, anger was better than numbness.

The sound of laughter brought her out of her thoughts. As if he was summoned, the Master was strolling down the hall towards her. He had an arm slung casually over the shoulders of one of her arresting officers, chatting amiably at him. 

He leaned in closer, saying something she couldn’t make out in the man’s ear. It was at that moment she realized the officer hadn’t reacted to anything. His eyes were vacant. 

The Master met her eyes over the officer’s shoulder and smiled, teeth still speckled with blood. It sent a jolt through her. Her hands had curled into fists and she was backed against the cell wall before she could think. 

A plan. She needed a plan.

She should have expected this, why didn’t she-

Didn’t matter. She curled her hands into fists, trying to calm her nerves. There were no escape routes, of course there wasn’t this was a cell. Their footsteps drew closer. The Master was still talking, but she didn’t dare pay any attention to the words.

The footsteps stopped. A smooth click, and then the door swung open. Her eyes closed for a long moment before she steeled herself, turning. 

He didn’t get to see her fear.

“-nk you,” Yaz caught the tail end of what the Master was saying. The officer made no move to react to his words, instead of trembling where he held her door. His face was fixed in a pleasant expression but she thought he looked-

Terrified. 

The Master patted him on the back heartily, still wearing that infernal smile. “I mean it. You know, you just don’t get quality service like this every day. Hm. Maybe I should write a review. Does your-does your station have a Yelp?” The policeman didn’t reply, still shaking. He was staring right at her. Pleading.

“Well, suppose not, then.” Then, in a flash of light that burned her retinas, the man was gone. Blinking through the spots in her eyes, she saw the Master picking up what looked like a figurine. “It’s the thought that counts, right?” 

Yaz bit down on her tongue until she could swear she tasted copper. She didn’t let it show on her face. He didn’t get to see her fear.

He looked at her with the curiosity of a child pulling the wings off bugs. His hair was still askew from where she had pulled it and he hadn’t bothered to change his shirt from where there was blood spattered on it. 

It unnerved her, the lack of care in his presentation. It didn’t fit with the picture she had of him in her head.

“Now what am I going to do with you?”

Something her mother told her when she was a little girl: you reap what you sow.

Yaz had a feeling she wouldn’t like the answer.

The problem with time is that it doesn’t happen linearly. If you knew where to look, how to look you’d see it twist and turn and loop around in a dizzying pattern that had no discernible logic.

All this a long-winded way to say that sometimes, especially for the travelers that put themselves outside of it, things happen out of order. Like the meeting of someone who will try to break all, he loves because he doesn’t know how else to hold on to it and someone who lives with the consequences of the actions that both have, haven’t, and always will be taken.

Or, as Yaz will, has, and might put it: “Fucking paradoxes.”

The problem is, she tried. She tried to go back to how it was, to live a great life like the Doctor pleaded in the last moment they shared.

Yaz tried .

She went back to her life. Family dinners, arguing with her sister, parking disputes. Normalcy. Something she should crave, after everything. A month passed, then two and then it had been nearly half a year before she realized that was what was going to be the rest of her life. That there were no take backs, the Doctor was gone and she wasn’t coming back.

Yaz hadn’t even known she had been waiting for that until she was on her knees, halfway through getting dressed, unable to breathe.

Because she saw the rest of her life-banal arguments with her family over things like who ate the last piece of toast, working a job she could do in her sleep, going for tea at Ryan and Graham’s on all the stolen moments in between.

It was a good life. With some work, it could even be a great life.

It wasn’t enough.

Why wasn’t it enough?

The thought lingered, consuming her. Yaz just lay there imagining what she could’ve done differently. If she had been just a little bit smarter or wiser and thought of the right words to convince her to stay. To run away with them.

It was a fool's errand. There was no changing the Doctor’s mind when she had decided on a course of action. Yaz knows this intimately, but she couldn’t stop herself from going over every angle until the images danced in her mind. 

The solutions came up sparse, each more far-fetched than the last. If there had been a way to have fixed what had happened, Yaz couldn’t think of it. It felt like a failure on her part. Her eyes stung and she rubbed them with a heavy hand. 

Everything about her felt heavy.

Her phone rang in the background. Once, twice. It didn’t feel important.

Soon enough, it all went quiet once more. 

The realization that finally comes to her was not a surprise, simply a confirmation of what has been building for months. 

Yaz wishes she had stayed .

It wasn’t out of a latent sense of heroism or a desire to fix the past. It didn’t even matter if she would have been able to save the Doctor or not. She just wishes she had been there, at her side, and done one meaningful thing with her life even if only once.

That way, neither of them had to be alone.

It didn’t escape her that the thought was so unbelievably selfish. Her family, friends, should mean so much more to her. She shouldn’t have been able to even consider something like that. Leaving them. Not for someone who she barely knew, who wouldn’t even look at her as anything more than-

Well.

It was pathetic, Yaz knew that intimately. All of it but especially that she should be able to cope like Ryan or Graham were. She never faltered before when their lives and others were on the line so why now, why…

Why did a simple promise said before the end threaten to break her?

Not for the first time, Yaz couldn’t help but think there was something very wrong with her. 

Nothing was the same after that.

“You sure that’s all you want,” Ryan asked, sliding the vinyl booth across from her. ”I’m buying, remember?” 

He looked good. It shouldn’t surprise her, but it does. There was an ease to his movements now, and the slight lines of stress he used to wear were all but gone. She supposed that his being home has been good for him.

It felt disquieting.

“Yeah, course.” A beat too late, though he didn’t seem to notice. Yaz curled her hands around her cup of coffee tighter on reflex, letting the heat sting her fingers. It felt grounding.

“So,” he said leadingly, “How have things been? We haven’t been able to catch up in a minute.”

“Fine,” Yaz replied. She tapped a finger on the cup once, twice, casting around for a distraction. “Normal. Where’s Graham?”

A bit of a smile played out over Ryan’s face. “He’s got a bit of a coffee date too. Guess with who.”

She felt her spirit lighten despite herself. “No,” she gasped. Go, Ravio. To think she had thought that her and the other remaining refugee would have trouble finding their feet in this century.

“Yeah, guess they might be making things official. Or not. It’s just coffee.”

“Still. Pretty exciting, right?” A bit of the good humor faded. Life set in.  ”How are you doing with that? I mean, I'm happy that he’s moving along but..”

“But,” He repeated quietly, then let out a breath. “It’s hard, the idea of it. Bit tough to swallow. But, I want him to be happy, and I know my nan would too.”

Familiar melancholy settled on his shoulders, in the lines of his face. Without needing to think, Yaz reached out and wrapped her hands around his free one, squeezing gently. She watched his expression shift into something fond, and the uncertainty she had felt since sitting down drained away.

How many nights had they spent like this? Just them, talking about everything that had become of their lives. Before he had trusted Graham, and even after it had been her he had opened up to. Hours spent talking about the things they didn’t want the others to see underneath the luminescent arch of the TARDIS ceilings.   

Yaz understood how to comfort as easily as breathing, it was everything else that was the problem.

He cupped his hand over where his other was clasped, his hands moving as if trying to smooth away the callouses. “I want you to be happy too.”

Confusion set in, confidence faltering as she tried to place his expression. Serious, piercing. Recognizable. Only, she had never expected it to be directed at her. Her stomach twisted.

She remembered who he used to look at like that. Yaz wondered how she had ever been able to bear it.

“I am.” She withdrew, tucking her arms around herself. Things had gone off script, leaving her floundering. “Course I am. Look at me, a proper copper now. Got a badge and everything.” Like he didn't know. He had attended the ceremony. “All I ever wanted, really. Tell me if you have a parking ticket needing taken care of.” Ryan didn’t do anything, but she still felt pinned to her seat by his stare.

She knew she shouldn't have come.

“Yaz. Just, stop.” It should have been gentle, inviting. Instead the frustration and tiredness in his tone left her cold. "You know you can talk to me, right? Whatever's going on with you, we can work it out." 

This wasn't quite right. A few dodged, yes dodged, phone calls and lunch dates wouldn't have caused this reaction. Something else was up, someone…

Oh. Of course.

Yaz felt the realization set in.  A betrayed, angry thing clawed its way up in her throat.

“Sonya put you up to this, didn’t she?” It was a statement more than anything.

There it was. Ryan looked up at her, caught. Yaz wondered if she should feel satisfied by that. Instead, she averted her eyes, swallowing hard. A bitter taste still remained in her mouth. She had suspected there was an ulterior motive behind guilting her into catching lunch, but the confirmation hurt. There had been a trust between them, but it seemed as absent as she was these days.

“That’s not,” Ryan started, then sighed. "She's worried about you. So am I.

Yaz bit down on her cheek, tasting salt and copper.

“She barely sees you anymore.” Ryan pressed on. He sounded concerned, she noticed distantly. Ryan rubbed his eyes, exhaustion shining though. “No one does. You’ve been practically living at the station and when you’re not there you’re gone. She even talked to Sargent Sunder-”

"She did what-"

“-and even he says you've been distracted lately."

"You both went behind my back -"

"-wouldn't need to if you just talked to us-"

“I can’t believe you, why would you believe that it’s-”

“Fine? Yeah, I know. That’s what you’ve been saying. You know, when you pick up.” Yaz didn’t miss the sarcastic bent to his statement. “This isn’t like you-.” 

“I'm fine!" Her palms reverberated against the wood. She hadn't even noticed she was standing. A hush had fallen over the busy diner. "I’m fine,” Yaz said as firmly as possible in a quieter tone. It didn’t matter whether or not she believed it. “Tell her, I’m fine . To stop getting on my back about, about my sleeping habits or who I text and making pointed comments-”

“Oh, tell it like it is-”

“-or staging a damned intervention,” her voice rose, becoming shrill. To her horror, tears started to prick at the corner of her eyes. “I don’t want or need any of it.” 

Why couldn't anyone see she was dealing the best she could given everything? Why did they have to go out of their way to make it harder?

Ryan scoffed, sounding disbelieving. “Intervention? Wow. Okay.” He closed his eyes for a long moment. “I’m trying to be your friend, Yaz. It’s not exactly been easy lately.” He mumbled the last part, but Yaz still caught it. 

Guilt welled up, bleeding through her defenses, but it wasn't enough to make her back down. She couldn’t. If she gave ground here, she might as well give into everything. She had come so far from who she used to be and had learned to stand on her own. Doing anything else felt like a betrayal. 

Yaz tried to swallow around the lump in her throat.

Ryan had held her hand and led her home when she had stood there, shellshocked, after they had arrived back on Earth. He was the one that chased her down when she tried to get into the locked Tardis, desperate to try anything to get her back. He had been by her side for every laugh and every terror for the past almost two years.

Those times, those adventures were the best times of her life. Even then, she couldn’t shake the belief that her best friend’s life would be undeniably happier if he hadn’t met her.

In the corner of her eye, she could see him reach for her in an aborted motion, hands fluttering anxiously. A familiar quirk. She didn’t have to ask where he picked it up. The pain hit her like a physical blow, winding her.

“I...” Ryan took a deep breath, eyes shining. “Please. Don’t shut me out. I can’t lose anyone else.”

She couldn’t go to him and give him what he wanted. Not when there were barely enough pieces to keep herself together. Yaz needed to remain the strong one, it was the only thing that was getting her through the days. Telling Ryan and Sonya, letting them in to see what little was left of her would only hurt them and she wouldn’t do that. Not again.

Yaz’s eyes burned and each breath felt heavy,

This had gone on long enough. One of them had to be the first one to step away. Yaz didn’t know if she would ever stop regretting it, but she couldn't be the person he needed her to be anymore.

I’m sorry. 

Grace’s death had brought them together. It seemed fitting that the Doctor’s would be what ultimately would make them fall apart.

He shoved her from behind. Hard. Yaz’s balance disappears and she desperately tries to catch herself, palms splitting as she lands roughly on the ground. She turns around and glares up at the Master, but the only response she gets is the tapping of his shoe.

Her face goes hot with helpless anger and she forces herself to her feet.

Slowly, on purpose.

Something about the look in his eyes causes her mouth to dry. Any budding lecture died in an instant.

There’s no sound coming from the street beyond them, she registers. It’s just the two of them. Secondary location, the last vestige of her police training screams. The idea that no one could hear her scream flits across her mind before she quelches it. She balls her hands into fists too. 

He just watches her, waiting. There’s a smile tugging at the corner of his lips, and his fingers tap against his arm in a quick rhythm. One, two, three, four. A weeping cut drips down from his brow, framing the side of his face into something sinister. 

The memory of her fist against his face hit her like a physical force. The satisfaction from that act of hurting him was a visceral thing, burning through her even now. It made her sick.

This isn’t her. Yaz looked towards the street, trying to see a way out.

Her back went into the unyielding brick, vision whiting from pain. His hand was wrapped around her throat and she clawed at it even though it wasn’t cutting off her breath just yet. She pulled in deep gasps, disorientated. 

His face was inches away, a mockery of intimacy. She could not mistake the look in his eyes for anything human. Her mind went to burning skies and broken towers, the expression on the Doctor’s face in that basement when she told them she stood on the summit, alone. 

Fear ignited. Yaz became suddenly convinced that she was playing in a game with stakes she didn’t know how to win but couldn’t bear to lose.

“Don’t. Scream,” his breath hot on her ear, a parody of affection. She closed her eyes but his grip ensured she could not ignore reality. “You wouldn’t want to drag anyone else into this. I’m not exactly in an accommodating mood.”

A beat.

“What, nothing to say? Come on, don’t be shy.” He tisked. “No? Hm. I expected more.”

“Fuck you,” she said vehemently. She tried to jerk away. Her pulse rose as his hand tightened. Upping the stakes

“I’d watch my tone. After all, I’m not the one the timeline can afford to do without.”

Yaz had wondered how long it would take him to bring that up. He had put together that he wasn’t from her present but her past within minutes of dragging her out of the station. She hadn’t wanted to answer any of his questions, but that didn’t matter when she couldn’t hide her reactions enough to fool him.

It still stung. To be seen through so easily.

She wondered if he knew about the hope that she crushed down, bitter and painful but still very much there. The idea that she could erase it, change it all. Leave everything that had happened as yet another one of many horrible possible futures out there.

Bring her back. 

It wasn’t that simple, she knew that rationally. It couldn't be. She knows what the Doctor would say, that she was being reckless, stupid. Was she really? Her eyes flicked over him, bruised skin, and lips pulled back in something that wasn’t a smile. He was close enough they shared breaths.

What good had he ever done for anyone?

She let out a shaking breath, caught in indecision. If the Doctor was here... she’d know what to do, how to handle this. But she wasn’t, was she? That was the point. There would be no clever plan to fix everything. No take-backs.

Unless there was.

She wouldn’t approve, Yaz thought, but did that even matter now?

For lack of a better option, Yaz spat at him. She, unfortunately, missed his face but landed on the lapel of his torn button-up. His face filled with anger, hand tightening until it relaxed and had her gasping for air, seeing spots. 

The Master looked down at her, now amused. “You know,” he said consideringly, “If I had known you were this fun I would’ve…” He trails off and then laughs, “Well, I wouldn’t have spared you but I might’ve saved you for last.”

“M’flattered,” she rasped, deadpan. Her hand shook from the effort of trying to pry his fingers off.

“Though, that could have been kind of fun,” He continues, seemingly lost in his own thoughts if not for his thumb gently, purposely tracing the skin of her neck. “Hm. Imagine, being the last-the last true member of your species, the rest corrupted, gone.” His expression tightened before smoothing over like a memory.

His voice was low and almost gentle, “Your planet, gone. Everything you knew, cared for turned into a mockery...a walking defilement.” 

“There you are. The last. Alone.”

He blinks a few times, focusing on her. “Oh, that would’ve been good. I’ll have to remember it.” His brow then furrowed and his hand slipped from her neck to her face. The Master brushed her cheek, deceptively gentle, and his fingertips came away wet.

Yaz hadn’t known she had been crying. 

He rubbed his fingers together, an oddly curious motion, before wiping it unceremoniously on his shirt. His expression was fixed on her, intent, a shark that had scented blood in the water.

He was practically vibrating, alight in a way she couldn’t understand. Didn’t want to, either. Her heart pounded in her ears and it left her dizzy with adrenaline. The desire to act was almost undeniable.

Helpless.

She considered how she could get out of this. It wouldn’t be too hard, she thought. The grip itself was something taught in basic. Knee to the groin, fist to the throat, just like she was taught. Get him to lose his grip and-and-

Then what? Run? Kill him? 

How had she even gotten to the point where those were reasonable questions?

For the first time, Yaz thought maybe it would be better to just...stay. Let him do what he wanted. Not put up a fight. Then it’d all be over. No more pain, no more anything,

...Would she see her again when it was over?

The idea almost felt...fitting. Poetic.

Without warning, the Master stopped. Yaz hadn’t realized how much he moved until he had gone still.

 He smiled, once. His eyes weren’t kind.

“It probably is good our dear Doctor isn’t around to see you,” the Master leaned forward like he was sharing a secret. “She’d be so ashamed to see what her pet had become off the leash.”

How dare he-

Forgetting herself, she lunged forward, forehead cracking against something brittle. She was shoved back into the brick with so much force her head swam. Her knees buckled for a moment and he grabbed her waist to hold her steady, only to earn scores across his wrists as her nails dug in. 

He didn’t let her go.

The Master gave a rattling laugh near her ear, ignoring his newly bloodied nose. “Like I said. Fun.” His voice sounded almost fond.

There was something about those eyes, the way the skin crinkled around the corners. In this light, Yaz thought they were almost the right shade. 

In a moment of insanity, Yaz closed the distance. She didn’t really know what she was doing until their lips met and she tasted his blood in her mouth. She could feel his sharp intake of breath, then the kiss deepened, becoming something more than chance. His hand slipped up to cradle her jaw, and it almost felt normal. 

Her head spun. Light sparked behind her eyelids. Deep in her mind, her rationality was screaming how everything was wrong. This was wrong. She was kissing someone who had ruined her life and-and-

-she was enjoying it. 

This wasn’t her . Yaz got ready to push him away but like he sensed it, he tilted his head and got a better angle causing her to lose sense for a moment. Her eyes fluttered shut and she had to remember to breathe. 

This was wrong but there was a thread of rightness to it. The bite of adrenaline, the high stakes, a gentle touch... It was almost how she had pictured it would be with her. If she kept her eyes closed, it was all too easy to imagine the hair under which she was trailing her fingers through was blonde. 

With the thought, she pressed forward and ran her tongue across his bottom lip, the taste of rust sharp until his mouth parted and she slipped her tongue in. Now it was her in control, pulling the small sounds out of his throat.

If things had been different, would she have kissed back? A sigh drawn out, the slight hum of pleasure becoming electric. Would she have let Yaz draw her closer until all she could feel was the heat coming off skin. Would she have allowed her to run a hand through her blonde hair, leaning into the touch.

An arm hooked around her waist, jolting her out of her illusion. Her eyes flew open. She jerked back only to have her lips captured again in a bruising kiss. Two steps forward, removing the space, as if cutting off an escape before it could be conceived.

There was a desperation to his movements. The kiss was harsh, clacking teeth and brushing lips and not an inch of space between them. His hand twisted in her long hair when he pulled away for a ragged breath. His eyes opened and he stared right through her.

Her heart skipped a beat. For the first time, she paused to consider who he might be seeing when he looked at her.

He pulled her head to the side and she let him. Yaz hardly breathed as he interchanged kisses with bites down her neck, flaring with pleasure and pain. When he got to her shirt collar, he made a disgusted sound from the back of his throat and tugged it down over her shoulder. His other hand sharply pulled her shirt out from where it was tucked into her trousers. 

Sharp pain flared from her collarbone as he bit down. In the same moment, his cool hand slipped under her shirt, smoothing over bruised skin. Blood suddenly rushed back into her limbs and all at once, Yaz was moving. She lashed out at him blindly, striking him in the jaw. Every moment was consumed by the desire to get away.  

“For fuck’s sake,” Yaz heard distantly. Hands gripped onto her wrists and she knew he was saying more but the content escaped her. Instead, she pulled, trying to get free. Frustration sparked sharply when that didn’t work, and she let herself be pulled closer to bite down on his fingers.

Salt and copper.

The Master swore, recoiling, and that was enough. She stumbled backward before gaining her balance. Street in sight, Yaz turned and bolted as fast as she could run. She could figure the rest out when she got some good distance between them.

She didn’t make it more than a few paces. The Master’s hand had caught the back of her shirt collar, dragging her back by hard enough to choke. 

“Stop running, just calm down,” He was ordering, voice rising with frustration. The absurd commands didn’t sway her for a moment. Instead, she used his newfound proximity to jab an elbow into his side, feeling more than hearing the breath driven out of his lungs. 

It didn’t wind him like she had hoped, though. Instead, his arm swung around her midsection, trying to hold her still. Yaz stamped on his instep in retaliation, but it didn’t provoke more than a curse. His arm tightened around her until her eyes were watering and her breath became sparse.

“Just stop. Fighting,” He ground into her ear, not letting up with his grip. He shook her when she didn’t respond to his liking. “Yaz,” he snapped and something in her faltered, heart-pounding far too loudly in her ears. 

She found that anger returned to her with frightening ease.

Yaz shoved backward, causing the both of them to stumble. His grip loosened enough for her to turn and face him. Yaz bared her teeth, not consciously registering the action, “Don’t call me that,” her voice snarled at him. “Don’t you dare.” 

He had the audacity to look confused for a moment before understanding fell over his face. “Oh, I get it now,” He said, lips curling into a grin. Somehow, despite the weeping cuts on his face, he managed to look handsome. She saw a glimpse of the charming MI6 agent she had met and had thought, maybe.

Because he was human. Because he actually looked at her. Because he made her feel smart and capable and she had needed that.

She ground her teeth and tried to shove off his grip. She had been so naive.

The Master just chuckled, grip not faltering an inch. “Yaz, it’s a nickname, isn’t it? Who wants to bet it was the Doctor who gave it to you, sounds like the kind of inane thing she’d do,” He pursed his lips for a moment.  “Did she say something like-like this means we’re friends? No?” 

He tilted his head, brown eyes searching. “Hm. ‘I’m calling you Yaz because we’re friends now’, was it?” 

Her stomach flipped, panic and nausea welling up. He couldn’t- Her mind went through past interactions with the Doctor, odd behavior becoming abundantly clear.  “Get out of my head,” her voice rose with her panic and she returned to thrashing.

“Just, just, stop that,” He ordered, sounding annoyed, “I’m not actually in your-stop!” He cut off as she landed a hit on his chin, drawing blood.

Within an instant, he lashed out and grabbed her wrists, dragging her towards him. “I told you-will you ever bloody learn? Guess I should have known better than to expect you were smarter than that, rather than acting just like…” He trailed off at the last word, meeting her eyes in something like surprise.

His face contorted briefly and then he looked away. The Master took a breath. Her feet felt stuck to the ground.

He looked back at her, actually looking this time. He shook his head and huffed out a laugh. The Master looked resigned and bitter. 

“You think that you were, what, special?” His mouth twists into something that wasn’t a smile.  “You’re just the latest in a long line. The Doctor collects interesting people and keeps them around until they either die or disappoint her. She has always loved her projects .” He snarled the last word, making her flinch backward.

“You don’t know anything,” her voice rose without her consent. “Not about me, not about-”

“I know you’re alone.” He cut her off, low and intense. “No Doctor, no friends coming to get you-and isn’t that just interesting? Just that anger. I can see it, burning you up even now.” A pause. The silence between them was so loud she could hear a pin drop. “I did something to you, that’s obvious. Hm. Did I kill one of your little friends? Both?”

Blood drained from her face. Blond hair and resigned hazel eyes. Live great lives. “Get fucked.”

“I’ll take that to mean I’m close. Well, if it’s any consolation they would have died eventually. I just...helped it along. That would explain why she hasn’t stuck her nose in the middle of things.” He huffed, rolling his eyes skyward. “Don’t take it personally that she left you behind. Always hates to look back on her failures, that one.”

This time he caught the punch before it made contact, holding her wrist in a bruising grip, tugging her off balance. She spat at him, the spittle looking disconcertingly red. The Master screwed up his nose in disgust.

“And that is what’s interesting. It’s about her, isn’t it? All that anger.” He broke off into a series of chuckles to a joke only he could understand. “It would be, wouldn’t it? This whole, revenge plot-thing, is about her. Let me guess, she left and you blame me-”

Yaz tried to hit him again. He caught her other fist, and she just shoved him without thought. Her mind just kept returning to the Doctor’s back as she walked away. Her breath was coming in pants, the memories consuming her. 

Anything would be worth it to make him shut up.

“But it’s more than that,” the Master continued, infuriating her with every word. “This, this doesn’t come from nowhere. It has to build on something.” Silence. She could feel him studying her. His shoulders started shaking. “You. You-oh, this is too good. That idiot went and got another human to fall in love with her.”

It would have been better if he punched her. Yaz stared at him, hearing a faint ringing in her ears. 

“Did you even get the chance to tell her before she dropped you like last week’s roast?” He asked, twisting the barbs. “Or did you just follow her around, fawning like a puppy? I bet if she asked you would have even gotten on all fours-” 

In training, she had been taught to see everything as a potential threat. Desensitization in order not to hinder the potential for her to do what needs to be done.

He was on the ground. Her hands were around his throat, the grip crushing. She watched the proceeding almost outside herself. She didn’t know how long she had been there. Enough that he had stopped thrashing and his face had turned color.

There was no thought, no feeling. Just quiet focus. 

Then a hand wrapped around her own and the world exploded in color.

Rage. A hand around her throat, forcing her off the railing even as she continued to smile at him. He could feel the cold sastifation sparking off of her as she spoke. The words didn’t matter as much as the context. 

She had won. Again.

He couldn’t delude himself to think he held her life in his hands, even as he gripped her tighter. She couldn’t even give him the luxury of fear. He considered pressing harder, until she gasped, until she burned, he wondered how hard he would would have to hold her until he finally broke her-

Hands on the pavement. The sound of harsh breathing. Gagging. Her hands. Familiar, bloody. Her breathing, escaping her in a panicked rhythm. 

She was her. She was Yaz. Yaz, Yaz, Yaz-

She was-the Doctor, she hurt, no. No, she-Yaz didn’t.

Hazel eyes. Snarling at her like she hated her, and she hated her too-she wanted her to hurt, to break, to-

stop talking. Shut up, wouldn’t stop talking-shut up it hurt she hated -

her hands choking. Hazel eyes, brown eyes-just make it stop

Coughing, rough. Wheeze of breath. She wasn’t-her hands were empty. Yaz whirled around, looking-

Not the Doctor. Purple button up, brown skin. Bruises. The Master.

Of course, of course. Him. It was him. She hadn’t…

She…

An outline of fingers stark against his throat. The acrid smell of sick hit her nose before she registered the gagging. She watched his body shudder, dignity gone as he almost knelt in his own sick. 

She…

Hands around a throat. Hateful gaze, didn’t care. Just. Just wanted to-

break him.

Yaz wanted to be sick as well. She closed her eyes, willed herself elsewhere. It offered no relief. She could see the Doctor's face burned into her retinas. Her hand went to her own throat sympathetically.

This wasn’t. This wasn’t. This couldn’t be her. 

What had she done?

There was something very wrong with her.

The sound of gagging had tapered off, leaving the alley all too silent. She watched him wipe his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and stagger to his feet. Yaz didn’t didn’t bother to react as he turned to her. There was nothing left in her that wanted to run.

Whatever he decided to do to her, she’d make it easy for him. No more fighting.

Footsteps drawing closer.

It was better this way, with what she was becoming.

Closer.

She deserved it.

Stop.

Yaz didn’t bother to look up. She just wanted it all to stop.

She didn’t expect him to walk by her, seemingly ignoring her existence. Curiosity stirred, despite itself. Yaz raised her eyes from her knees, but saw nothing of note. Just the Master, a few paces from her, seemingly absorbed with studying the brick wall.  

He kicked it, only to start swearing. He looked from his foot to the wall with a betrayed expression.

“So, not a perception filter, then. Hm. Clever,” He mused to himself, looking strained. He shook himself, clearing his throat. The words still came out a rasp. “But not clever enough.” He fished something out of his pocket, the same weapon he used to kill the officer. It glowed an ominous shade of red.

Yaz didn’t see what he did next, but the pieces came together anyway. A scrape of metal against metal. Static electricity racing down her spine. Then, with a click, a door swung open where there had been none.

No, not just a door. A TARDIS .

He looked back at her, bathed in the glow of unnatural orange light. He looked almost ethereal, unworldly, even as his cuts shone to black.

“Well. Are you coming?”

Incredulity was her first response, breaking her out of her numb haze. It didn’t...what was he… That was followed closely by confusion and then, maybe, a bizarre sense of…

Relief.

The next thought that came to mind was Doctor .

She had stood nearly where the Master was standing now. A different place, a different time. Hovering in the doorframe of her TARDIS, uncertainty coiled in her frame as they had all traded goodbyes. 

Despite the relief in her eyes when they had all decided to stay, the Doctor had never asked them to. Yaz didn’t think she ever would have. 

She never had to ask, but Yaz thought it might have been nice to hear.

Yaz closed her eyes for a long moment and then climbed to her feet. She didn’t say a word as she brushed past him into a familiar setting.

There was nowhere left she wanted to run.

She wasn’t sure how she had got to this point. Perched on a table, her legs wrapped around his waist with him trailing kisses down her neck. Her shirt was gone, probably somewhere in the mess scattered across the floor. He pulled a patch of flesh into his mouth and a flash of heat in response shot through her.

Even then, she tried not to look at him.

The room looked the same as her memories, more or less. Messier, maybe. Bit lower lighting than before, but the same. Without knowing any better, it easily could have been mistaken for months ago when things had been so much simpler.

If Yaz tried, she could almost picture she was back there. With them, with her . If she closed her eyes and willed it strong enough she could...she could remember... she could imagine this was something different than it was. 

It felt better than the hollow feeling in her chest. There was part of her that was folding in on itself, vanishing, until there would be nothing left of her. 

Every day, every minute there was just… so much less of her.

Maybe that’s what she deserved. It still wasn’t what she wanted.

At least, if she gave in to the sensation she could feel something before it was over. Whatever that would turn out to be.

She forced her gaze back to him, sight blurring with emotion she repressed. He didn’t get to see her fear. Even though the low visibility, there was something about his eyes that burned as he was watching her

He lowered his mouth to her breast. She whined involuntarily, pausing her finger’s path through his hair to arch into where he was sucking a spot on her breast. A quick motion of fingers, and then her bra was slack, falling off of her shoulders. The noise she made as he took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked was obscene.

Even now, she couldn’t understand why he was doing this. Why he hadn’t just killed her and gotten it over with yet. 

It would have been easier. Simpler.

Yaz had tried to kill him.

Even in the low light, she could see the marks of her violence. The faint swelling on his nose, around his eye. The cuts were harder to see, but she knew they were there. Yaz thought that maybe if she traced his neck, she could feel the imprint of her fingerprints against his skin.

It was sick how right that thought felt.

Yaz was a murderer by intention if not actuality, and yet there the Master was, pulling her closer and trying to take her apart with his tongue and teeth.

Yaz threw her head back, panting. He had hummed against her skin, the vibration causing her to lose sense. She could feel him, hard against her through the obstruction of their clothing and the knowledge that he wanted her burned. Without thinking, her fingers fumbled inexpertly at the button of his trousers, feeling the Master not pause in his ministrations once as she tugged them down, off.

He stepped out of them, kicking the offending garments away. He took advantage of the opportunity to work at the zipper of her jeans, lifting her by her waist to slide the last of her clothing down. She hit the table again, and he was in her space. A flash of shock as a hand slipped down, calloused fingers circling her clit before sliding two fingers easily in her. 

Pleasure sparked and she swore filthily.

She felt him mutter. “That’s the idea, yes.” The bastard managed to curl his fingers in a way that made her vision swim in time with the words.

She didn’t realize immediately that she was moaning. It was just light sounds, incoherent mumbles, hitches of breath. Something like shame creeped in, but biting her lip didn’t stifle it. Rather, it seemed to encourage him, causing him to deliberately draw out larger and larger reactions.

Thumb pressed against her clit, sharp and just right. Her eyes flew open, taking everything in.

He was inches away, breath coming heavily. His eyes were darker than she remembered, something like hunger playing across his face as he drank in her expressions. The cuts and swelling that had marred his face had already begun to fade and she realized he looked nearly handsome. 

It would be easy to pretend that he was someone else. That this was something else.

A kinder reality where he wasn’t a monster and she wasn’t letting him do what he wanted anyway.

Hazel eyes in her mind, staring at her antagonistically, reproachfully. Live great lives.

She had never asked Yaz to stay, never asked her to do anything but that one last request. Yaz hadn’t even managed to make it a year before throwing herself at the first escape that came her way.

...what did that make her, exactly?

He pressed harder, giving her friction just where she needed it and her vision whited out. Next thing she knew, her head was resting on the Master’s chest while her hands curled around his arms for stability. 

He brushed sweaty hair out of her face, clearing her line of sight. She only realized then her braid must have come loose at some point. When she had just barely pulled herself together, the Master moved even closer, guiding himself to her entrance and pressing into her.

It hurt, was the first thought. A ragged gasp tore from her lips, nails digging into his skin as she tried and failed to adjust. Her breath came in small pants and she could feel her eyes beginning to water.

It had been longer than Yaz cared to admit since her last lay, and well, she had always preferred women anyway. Quick fumbles with her fingers had failed to adequately prepare her. The stretch bordered on painful, causing her to build tension with every moment.

Then he moved and she had other problems.

A sound that had nothing to do with pleasure left her throat, mixing with his own moan. It hurt for a long moment, causing her to lean away, but then the Master’s fingers were back on her clit and it wasn’t good but it was better. 

His lips returned to her neck, sucking and scraping his teeth against her sensitive skin. A moan slipped out of her throat just as he was sucking a hickey at her pulse point and the vibration made her nerves sing.

He was learning her, she realized. His free hand stroked up against her side, reaching her breast and rolling a nipple between his fingers. 

Her pained tension was disappearing, letting a new type take its place.

An arch of his hips paired with a firm stroke of his fingers and she surprised herself by moaning. Her fingers loosened their grip on his arms by increments. The pleasure was returning, if slowly. The next moan was muffled by a kiss, using the opportunity to slip his tongue in her mouth, coaxing out more breathless noises.

He pulled her closer as if he wanted to touch her. As if he enjoyed it. Even when their eyes met, there was no trace of the previous malice.

She didn’t understand.

A sharp bolt of pleasure raced down her spine as he seemed to hit just the right spot. She gasped, head tipping back involuntarily before he drew her back. She hooked her legs around his hips, drawing him closer, encouraging him. He must have understood her unspoken request because he angled the next strokes in just the right way. 

She mumbled a curse against his lips as the pace picked up, bringing her closer to completion, and felt them curve into a smile.

He put his lips to her ear as if sharing a secret. “What do you think your Doctor would do if she could see you now?” 

The temperature of the room plummeted. Her body went rigid, but he pinned her with his free arm, forcing her into an embrace before she could think about pulling away. His other hand picked up the pace on her clit, making stars burst behind her eyes. 

Yaz braced her hands against his chest, trying to force distance even as she was bucking into his touch. 

She had been wondering why he didn’t kill her. It looked like she had her answer.

That would have been too kind.

“Please,” she could hear herself saying from almost outside herself. She didn’t know what she was asking for. Her mind burned in fractals, fear and desire colliding. “Please, please,”

“Please, hm? Please, what?” She must have not responded fast enough, because he upped the pace into a punishing rhythm. “Please, what ?”

“Master . Please-please -”

There. Her mind blanked for the next few moments as a wave of pleasure washed over her.

Returning to herself, she realized she was slumped back across the table. Tears were streaming from the corners of her eyes. She tried to blink them away, feeling them sting. He was watching her, his body heavy on top of her. There was something to his expression, the way he studied her, something… fascinated . 

I hate you, she tried to tell him with her eyes even as the despair sunk its way in. I hate you. 

If the Master could hear her, he didn't answer.

Yaz still didn’t leave.

The shower beat down on Yaz, the stream both soothing and harsh on swollen skin. She leans into it, tries to imagine the scalding water sinking beneath her skin, cleansing her. The activities of the past day circling the drain with ease. 

It’s a nice thought. She doesn’t feel like she’ll ever be clean again.

She grabbed the bottle of shampoo and worked to lather some of it in her hair, wincing when her fingers brushed a tender spot on her scalp. She gritted her teeth. It was no use to go careful, not when her entire body already felt like one big bruise.

She worked her fingers through her foamy hair with a viciousness, fingers catching on tangles and snarls. She should wait to use the conditioner to smooth it out, but all of a sudden she couldn’t stand the mess. She pulled harder and opened her eyes to watch a clump of hair circle the drain with red-tinted water. 

A sob burst out of her throat before she could stifle it, sounding far too loud in the small room. She realized she was shaking despite the temperature and had to brace a hand on the wall to support herself. 

What was she doing?

What the fuck was she doing?

She covered her mouth with the palm of her hand, pressing harder every time a hiccup of air escaped her. It left her feeling dizzy and sick as her mouth filled with the taste of salt. She leaned more of her weight into the wall, sinking slightly.

This was her fault, was all she could seem to think. She wasn’t sure about what, the situation she’s in now or the Doctor’s death or anything else. 

  Herfaultherfaultherfault   

She had been so stupid.  

Everything was wrong. She was wrong . Normal people, good people didn’t-they didn’t-

Yaz shuddered.

Is this why the Doctor never trusted her? 

In her mind, the image of the smiling blonde warped into something hateful. A snarling visage, staring at her as if she was nothing better than one of the many foes she had conquered. The accusatory look her mind cooked up shook Yaz to the core.

I didn’t mean to, her lips mouthed against her palm. I didn’t-I didn’t-

The hazel eyes, the ones she knew so well, didn’t soften.

A hand was placed on her waist, cutting through her thoughts.  “Doctor,” She breathed, turning in a wild hope. It wasn’t her.

Right.

It couldn’t have been. 

Instead, he stood there, accenting everything she was not. The steaming water slicked back his hair, making it seem impossibly darker, and ran rivlets down his chest. Not too long ago she had been running her hands down it. Three score marks where her fingernails had made contact were evidence of that. 

Not too long ago she had tried her very best to kill him. She could pick out the evidence of that, too.

She felt sick.

“Pass me the soap, would you?” He said, not waiting to reach past her and grab a bottle. Yaz remained very still as he moved, feeling the tickling of his breath against her skin.

A pop of a plastic lid. Yaz flinched as cool gel dribbled across her back. His hand followed, working it into a lather.

“So tense,” the Master huffed. It made the hair at the nape of her neck stand on end. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were bothered by my presence.”

He brushed her hair over her shoulder, running a sudsy hand over her opened back with the other. Goosebumps rose in its wake, reminding her of the vulnerability in her position. “But, well, that can’t possibly be true. After all, you were screaming my name not thirty minutes ago.”

Fuck. Him.

Yaz turned around to face him. He was inches from her, soapy hand outstretched. There was a bit of a smile playing around on his lips as if the situation amused him. Pushing her buttons, drawing out a reaction. It made her feel sick.

She leaned against the wall, feeling the spray beat down on her. “Does it bother you? That you can’t find anyone that can stand to be around you unless it’s a lay or you’re lying, I mean. It has to be rough, cause it seems like you need a lot of attention.”

The Master’s bearing shifted in a moment, the edge of playfulness turning to stone. He looked away from her. It left her feeling unsure, caught off guard. Her lips twitched downward as she studied him. Had he... If Yaz didn’t know better, she’d have thought he had actually been bothered by her response.

Ridiculous.

His eyes were on her again. Static built in the air, leaving goosebumps to crawl their way up her skin. Surprisingly, he didn’t bother to lash out at her. Instead, he stepped closer until they were sharing breaths. Her heartbeat picked up and she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or excitement. It felt almost the same either way.

“Doesn’t seem to bother you,” he replied simply. 

Silence. Then, the denial sprang to mind at that absurd comment. She hated him. She tried to kill him. 

This man took everything that mattered from her and she was just left… She was…

She was left holding the pieces.

Alone.

No purpose. No future worth anything. 

Just alone.

“Not as much as it should,” Yaz admitted to him, words almost silenced by the beat of the water against the tile. Her honesty didn’t matter. She was talking to a dead man, after all. It was oddly freeing to know the only witness here was someone who would never tell.

He turned away and she almost missed the warmth. 

“Does it bother you,” She couldn’t help but pry, part of her driven further by the knowledge it’d be unwelcome. “That I’m not…” Her , she didn’t say. For the millionth time she wondered about the nature of their relationship. An old friend, the Doctor had said. An enemy, the Master told them.

So much context she was missing, and yet… A warped sense of familiarity set in. There was something recognizably human about their interactions. Baggage. Hatred.

She remembered being inside his head. Hands around her throat and the promise of a long drop into a burning city. Actions were driven as much by anger as by a need to-

Touch. To be sure that she was real, solidthesame -

Well. Yaz guessed even the Doctor wasn’t above having something as messy as relationship drama.

The thought felt unfamiliarly bitter.

“Not as much as I thought it would,” the Master echoed her own words, offhandedly. A spark of anger at him dismissing her flared until she looked at him. Posture stiff underneath the hot spray of water. Grip on the canister of soap white-knuckled, warping the plastic. Expression trying far too hard to be unconcerned.

She knew that expression. Had worn it more than once on her adventures. Don’t let them see your fear, the Doctor had warned her once and she never had.

Looks like she touched a nerve. A part of her she didn’t understand wanted to dig further to find the satisfaction that was missing. To draw out a reaction, an explosion, something to break the silence. 

It was better that way, to give her something to feel even if it left them both bleeding. Better than feeling like she was left in the cold.

How else would I get your attention?

Yaz wondered how different that made her from him.

She cautiously drew closer, putting her hand on his wrist. Her fingers slid over his hand, taking the bottle from his hand gently. Her fingers lingered against his for a long moment. She let a bit of the rapidly warning liquid dribble into her free hand.

She swallowed. She couldn’t take his eyes on hers any longer. “Turn around.”

He listened. There was less damage across the plane of his back. A few marks from where her nails bit in and a bruise here or there, but otherwise it was untouched. Hesitantly, she began to touch him, spreading the lather around. Even though she had seen him come undone, this contact felt more personal.

The surface of his skin was hot, having taken on the temperature of the air around them. There was tension in him, but she felt him slowly relax into her touch. It felt odd to stand this close to him without being motivated by fear, trailing her hand down his back. 

Yaz drew closer almost despite herself. Her nose was almost brushing the curve of his neck. An unsteady breath escaped her and she felt a shiver go down his spine in response.

Her hand inched its way down to his lower back, thumb tracing the curve of his spine. His muscles reacted to her touch, jumping and relaxing. She accidentally brushed over a scratch and he hissed through his teeth, causing her to jerk her hand back.

He turned around in a fluid motion before she could withdraw fully. Both his hands grabbed for her own, tucked against her side. Yaz’s heartbeat in her throat and she expected...something else, but his grip was not painful. Rather he cradled her hand in between his own as if it was worth something.

Yaz slowly looked up, wetting her lips. He was watching her with an intensity that was almost frightening. Almost, because she felt something stir in her chest in response. Recognition. 

She wasn’t sure who moved first, then. But one of his hands was cupped around her jaw, an arm looping around her waist, drawing her closer. She found herself slinging her own around his shoulder, playing with the hair at the nape of his neck. Then, with an ease of movement, she met his lips with her own.

 Her eyes fluttered shut, head swimming. There was a sudden clatter and she realized belatedly that she had dropped the bottle of soap. Those thoughts abandoned her quickly, too focused on the soft pressure of his lips.

She ran her tongue against his bottom lip, before sucking it into her mouth. The noise he made in response was heady. He walked her backwards, keeping her steady on the slick floor. Yaz’s back hit the wall and she gasped a desperate noise as he began to pepper kisses down the soft underside of her jaw to the hollow of her throat.

The Master tongue ran down to her collarbone and bit down lightly on a patch of her skin before sucking it into his mouth. A breathy moan escaped her throat, and her fingers curled in his hair, tugging at it. He broke away, resting his forehead against her shoulder. His breathing was heavy. 

Yaz could feel him growing against her leg, already half hard. A bolt of heat shot down her spine. She freed a hand from his hair and slid it down his shoulder blades, the planes of his back, tracing nonsense patterns. Her fingertips reached the globes of his arse and on impulse she squeezed one.

She felt him start in surprise. He let out an incredulous sounding laugh, only for it to be cut off with a choke as she wrapped her hand around his hardening cock. She stroked down firmly and felt him swear loudly in her ear, the curse sounding unfamiliar.

She stroked him a few more times, feeling more than hearing his reaction. Her fingers traced over the swollen head, thumb smearing the precum across the tip. A hand grabbed her wrist within a heartbeat, pinning it above her head. 

Forced concentration was written across the Master’s face, eyes screwed shut and breathing unnaturally even. The seconds passed in a tense silence until his shoulders loosened and his eyes opened.

In a sudden motion, he grabbed one leg and then the other, sliding her up against the slick surface of the wall. Her legs wrapped around his waist on instinct, hands braced on his shoulders for stability. Then, he guided himself into her entrance and her mouth fell open, her head tipping forward to rest against his.

It was all too much.  The heat of the water. The press of skin against hers at every point of her body. His breathing and her own, so loud in her ears. The wet sound of their sex. His eyes always, always burned. 

An expression fell over his face that told her he was close. The Master’s breathing grew erratic, the pace he had set following suit. His eyes fluttered shut once, twice. He made a sound like something had been stolen from him and with a shudder, he released.

Yaz felt his muscles go slack under her hands. He slumped against her for a long moment before drawing back, regaining his balance. When he pulled his softening member from her, it left her feeling oddly empty.

Yaz tried to find her balance on rubbery legs. holding onto him for support.  Besides her, the Master slammed his hand against the shower dial. The water stopped falling rather suddenly. He was breathing hard, looking rough around the edges.

“Get on the bed,” the Master said. His voice sounded hoarse. 

Yaz complied.

History, as it is said, repeated itself.

Yaz moaned from where she was pressed into the mattress as the Master set a rather brutal pace behind her. Her hands fisted into the sheets, wrinkling them probably though she couldn’t particularly care.

She had gotten what she wanted, after all. Gold star for Yaz.

“She liked this too, you know,” the Master was saying, voice breathless. He nipped the shell of her ear. “Different faces, bodies, and yet she’d always come back-” He stuttered briefly, losing composure as he hit a spot, making her clench.

The mental images consumed her mind like wildfire, no matter how hard she tried to stifle them. Blonde hair, pressed against the mattress. In the shower, taken across the table. Yaz bit back a moan, jealousy surging hard.

For a bizarre moment, she wasn’t sure who she was jealous of.

The Master breathed in her ear. “I knew she’d always come back.”

How many times, Yaz wondered. The thought felt almost desperate. She had known the Doctor had ducked out when they hadn't been there, going to look for this very man. How many times had the blonde been in this exact position? 

Yaz didn’t know, but suddenly she wanted nothing more than to pick through every moment they shared, dissecting it. Torturing herself with her imagination. She wanted to know what the Master had done that was different from her, what had made the blonde choose him.  

What made him better than her?

She thought she’d beg him to know, but the words escaped her whenever she tried to open her mouth around them. Instead, intelligible sounds, whimpers, and moans fell out.

Yaz could almost see her, splayed out with a flush dancing under her skin. The bite of pink lips against her teeth as she tried to hold back a moan. Stubborn, familiar pride playing across her expression.

Her heart clenched, receiving something she had always wanted that had been tainted beyond compare...she thought…

Her mind shattered into sensation. Hot pleasure spiked with pain. Light arching into darkness. A singular emotion, burning and all-consuming that she couldn’t name, and the Doctor’s face over and over again. Inescapable. 

It all tore her apart until she couldn’t tell which way was up. Drowning, falling, but still alive.

“When we were,” the Master’s voice, an anchor in a storm, caught. “When we were at the Academy, I’d drag him into supply closets, empty classrooms and the like. He’d pretend didn’t approve, but I knew he wanted it as much as I did. Hypocrite .” Briefly, a deep bitterness surged through her. It was gone before she knew it.

Exhale. “Such a fucking-”

Light built up behind her eyes, bringing her to the breaking point. Images flashed through her mind too fast to touch, unfamiliar but-

but those eyes - 

Yaz realized what the emotion that was burning through her was. It was barely recognizable, twisted in on itself. The kind of maddening, consuming passion that could drive a person to do terrible things in its name.

Like someone to kill without hesitation or thought of consequence.

Love.

A hand gripped her jaw, turning her almost painfully away from the bed. Dark eyes, pain. He pressed his lips against before she could fall completely and-

Fire, consuming everything as buildings fell with a deafening sound. Impossible screams tore at her sanity, and she wanted to beg for it to stop-but she didn’t. She just stood there and watched it burn and knew it would never be enough.

For a brief moment, Yaz understood.

The world went white.

She came back to herself slowly. Sensation returned to her limbs, her extremities. Her mind was her own once more, running into familiar patterns. Yaz couldn’t forget what she had seen, stolen images flaring bright, imprinted in her memory like a brand. 

Something in her felt irrevocably ruined, but the rest of her just felt free.

She could feel eyes on her without looking. Unable to ignore him for a moment longer, Yaz shifted on her side. Her body chose that moment to remind her of all the aches and pains she had accumulated, causing her to let out a low groan as her eyes fluttered shut.

 What she saw when she opened them didn’t surprise her.

He was lying on his side next to her, in a mirror of her own position. Watching her, even as his brow furrowed. His gaze was both here and far away. Yaz didn’t have to wonder what the Master was thinking. Her hand reached forward, squeezing his without thinking. The moment broke. 

He came back to himself, drawing his hand away. The motion left her feeling oddly cold.

She lay her head back on the bed. She was so tired.

“Yaz,” his voice was quiet, contemplative. He paused long enough for her eyes to flutter shut, welcoming the dark. “Before. Why were you alone? It doesn’t. Her TARDIS is attune to the timelines of her companions, which makes it very hard to meddle in their lives without interference and believe me I’ve tried- ”

“Does it matter?” Silence answered her. Yaz supposed it did to him. “You were right, in what you said before. She-the Doctor left. She-” always leaves, but the words that came to mind weren’t hers.

“You wanted to follow.” It wasn’t a question. “What stopped you?” He then answered before the question finished forming in her mind. “Doors open from both ways.”

Truth for truth, then.

“Didn’t think of it. Not till it was too late.”

Yaz felt him grow still next to her, not having noticed the fidgeting until it stopped. She didn’t need to look at him to know he was digesting her answer.

“Were you ever going to kill me,” Yaz didn’t really need the answer. She was so far past trying to find his game. It just felt like something she should ask. 

A shift. “Yes, and no.” A long moment passed. “Do you want me to?”

A wry smile curled on her lips despite herself. Her heart began to pick up a frantic pace, fear or excitement didn’t really matter, the result was the same. She didn’t bother to hide it. “Yes, and no.”

A huff of something close to laughter.

“Did she… Did she love you?” Even now, knowing the Doctor better than she ever had, the blonde’s inner motives were inscrutable

There was something to that thought that stung but Yaz was too tired to grasp at what.

He moved closer, nose brushing her ear. “That’s not what you want to ask.”

“Suppose not.”

A sigh. “She was never going to love you. Not the way you want, Yaz,” the Master told her. For once, he didn’t sound cruel, just tired. “The Doctor, she’s not-she’s not like you . She’s not like anyone.”

Yaz closed her eyes. Her chest ached with every word he said. It was worse to hear them said out loud rather than to herself. knowing that they were true.

“She can’t give you what you want. She can’t fix you. And that pain? It’s going to stay there, festering. It’s never going to stop.” He took a breath and let the silence grow for a long moment. “No matter what you do.”

Her vision blurred from tears. She let them fall. She had nothing left to hide.

A wry chuckle burst out of him, and she could feel his shoulders brush against her as they moved with the force. He leaned his forehead on hers. “Doesn’t it just drive you mad?”

It did.

It does.

For the first time since the Doctor died, Yaz let herself break. The world blurred around her, until all she could feel was tears and the gentle pressure of fingers against her temple. Forign words whispered into her ear like a broken litany, 

asking her,

no.

giving her something

like

like

 a promise. 

Something had changed.

Her memory wasn’t quite right. Things had gone missing, knocked loose. Days, hours were all wrong. There was a familiarity to this, something, something Yaz had known it she had...

“...of my head!”

Well, it probably wasn’t important.

The world was just slightly askew. Or she was. It probably didn’t matter which. 

Yaz was going home. That was all that was important right now. 

She could work out what was going on later.

Yaz could still feel the echoes trailing through her mind like a ghost. Solid enough to seem real but easy to fall though. Hands on her. Watching a city burn. The impact of a fist against a warm body.

Some crossed the street before she was next to them. Conversations cut off as soon as she got within earshot on the regular. 

Part of her thought that they might be right to.

Her clothes were torn, bloodied but she didn’t feel hurt. The thought settled oddly. Wallet, present. Keys missing. No phone. Still, probably not a mugging. Yaz wished she had a water bottle on her. Her mouth tasted bitter, with odd notes of salt and copper.

The pieces just out of grasp, tantalizing close if only she could just…

Just..

Yaz stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk before she could reach her apartment block. For a moment the whole world froze around her. 

Impossible. That was, that wasn’t possible. Yaz blinked, but her vision didn’t change. Her heart began to thunder in her ears at an ominous rhythm, drawing out all sound. She thought she might have even forgotten how to breathe. 

Vaguely, she considered she might be dying.

It’d at least make more sense.

A blue box sat on the sidewalk in front of her flat. That of which should have been millenia away, abandoned on a battlefield where no living being remained.

It wasn’t-after everything is wasn’t. She couldn’t have been still alive.

Her heartbeat in her head had gotten louder. She thought it almost sounded like drums.

It couldn’t be.

In defiance to her thoughts, the doors swung open as a person began to exit. She recognized him, would know that coat anywhere even if she had only seen it once.

“Yaz,” a so very familiar voice asked from behind her, breaking her train of thought.

Impossible.

Blonde hair, longer than before. No other outward change. The same outfit, the same everything.  Leaning forward, mouth twitching into a frown, brow furrowed. Her weight was balanced on the balls of her feet in a move that always struck Yaz as ready to take flight at a moment's notice.

Impossible .

“Bit of a shock, I know. I was in space jail,” the Doctor said cheerfully, waving everything away with a free hand. She went on, seemingly mistaking the expression on Yaz’s face for something else. “Took me a bit to get out. Had some help, I’m sure you remember…”

The floodgates opened in her mind, images like fire only being suppressed scoured her clean. Everything, everything, everything made sense and doesn’t it just drive you mad . Truth for a truth, it’s all part of the game. Yaz sank to her knees, ignoring the hands that reached to her as an infernal drumbeat played in her head loud enough to drown out all sound,

and she laughed,

and laughed,

and laughed.