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The smell was the worst.
The Doctor couldn’t escape it, no matter how many times she inhaled or tried to block it out of her nose. The acidic perfume of burnt grass was the most prominent, but thin layers hid underneath it, layers the Doctor could unfortunately picture with too much clarity.
Scorched earth, boiling metal, stinging dust, leaking gasoline, crumbled buildings.
Burnt flesh.
The new Gallifrey.
The place of her memories, the shelter of her childhood. Ruined was too poor of a word to describe it. The Doctor didn’t want to, but as usual her mind was ahead of her, already running to put words, feelings, fresh wounds on the distant cracking of dying embers and the empty howls of the wind between the broken shards that used to be the Citadel. The picture was coming to life stroke by stroke, storing dead colors and lifeless information she would forever loathe, but never able to forget.
The smell was truly the worst, though.
The Doctor tried to ignore it once again, to block it out of her system by focusing all her attention on the back of the Master walking ahead of her, to no avail. It was as stubborn as her, making it all the more infuriating, with its stench of putrid deaths and lost souls. It stuck to her skin, glued itself around her coat, like fragments of broken dreams sticking to the closest surface they could find. She could almost taste them on her tongue, touch them with a brush of her fingers.
A new waft arose and came to her nostrils as she stepped onto shriveled floor, like a deadly plant releasing its luring perfume. She frowned.
The Doctor knew the smell of burnt flesh. She had, unfortunately, gotten used to it during her many travels. Accidents happened. There was no denying it. While some of her other incarnations greedily absorbed those repulsive pieces of information, to try and face them better, some chose to remain blind. She hovered between the two categories; she wasn’t naïve enough to believe all her adventures would go peacefully, but she’d rather not add another trauma to the long, long list stored in her head. The smell of burnt flesh was unwelcome but not unknown.
The smell of burnt grass, though, was truly offending.
The Doctor blinked, eyes locking on the blotch of purple color walking ahead of her, proud, arrogant, unrepentant. There was something very ugly she couldn’t quite name about the long blades of red grass burnt away to nothingness in a planet emptied with its life that made her stomach churn.
She couldn’t explain it. She wasn’t even sure she would be capable of it one day. All she was that smelling the death of the vast fields she used to run into, to laugh into, to cry into was creating a very ugly feeling inside of her. A feeling akin to burnt flesh; unwelcome, but not unknown.
Anger.
No, not anger. Fury. That was the right term. It crystalized in her belly as she looked at the perpetrator of such destruction. It tasted bad, just like bile, and it spilled into her mouth all the same as her mind pictured the impossible futures dead Gallifreyan would never have before her very eyes.
To be honest, the Doctor didn’t mind the deaths of the adults. The nobility, at least. But the kids?
The Master had created a wound she didn’t think he was truly aware of when he had dropped whatever weapons he had used to destroy her homeworld. Never mind the corruption of the adults.
But the Doctor had been a child, once, and she had run into crimson fields and they had welcomed her amongst the strict order and endless sets of impossible rules in a civilization that didn’t forgive difference. Whatever consolation she had found in the faraway nature surrounding the Citadel, those children, reduced to bleached bones and swirling dust, were forever been deprived of it.
Something jumped in her stomach. Fury twisted violently and turned into something else. The Doctor squinted, searched for the right word as she kept walking while she sensed the genuine bliss radiating off of the Master. One second, two. There it was.
Hate.
Her breath hitched. She stumbled slightly. The Master, attuned to her every movement, glanced briefly behind him, quickly checking to make sure she wasn’t running off, before looking straight ahead again.
The Doctor breathed once, twice. The hatred was violent. It beat in her heart, spread in her blood, in her shaking legs. It called for revenge, for justice, and most importantly, for blood. The Doctor didn’t even try to reign it in.
The Doctor’s life had always been about restraint. Restraint in her past, restraint in her present, restraint in her future. Restraint against friends and enemies alike. She knew this, and had always made sure to keep the proper safeguards around her. Humans were a great help, friendship was the most effective. Her emotions were soothed, her feelings quietened, her thoughts gentle. Companions were walls of flesh, living barriers of compassion and forgiveness containing a being older than their own planet, whose thoughts could spiral at any moment if pushed too far.
Except now there were none of them.
No Yaz with her bright smile, no Ryan with funny jokes, no Graham with wise eyes. There was just her, her, her hatred, the smell of burnt grass, the ghosts of wailing children and the back of the Master guiding her deeper into the heart of his destruction.
She didn’t hesitate for long. The first movement was swift, efficient. Her arms shot out, her hands met with purple fabric and the next second the Master was whirling toward the ground. The impact was satisfying, the sounds of pain even more. She didn’t rush, didn’t swoop down on him to bash his face. Instead she simply waited, with soft breaths and hands curled into fists. Once he had recovered, both from the shock and the fall, the Master turned sharply toward, lips pulled into a half, disbelieved snarl which died immediately when his gaze landed on her.
The face he was met with was absolutely, perfectly blank. No emotion shone on features usually so bright, so cheerful thanks to the palette of endless emotions she liked to display. The sheer absence of them stunned him for a bit. Then he saw her eyes, and his confidence came back, for they were two pits of blazing hatred, a sight he had dreamed of so many times. Slowly, theatrically, the Master stood up, taking extra seconds to dust off the sleeves of his coat, knowing she was inwardly brimming with impatience. He looked at her in that same slow, calculated way, tilting his head to the side in an innocent gesture that had her clenching her fists even tighter. Neither noticed the thin lines of blood in her palms.
“Well, love? Care to explain what that was for?”
The tone was mocking, sweetly innocent and incredibly infuriating. An obvious taunt wrapped in poisoned honey.
The Doctor didn’t need more.
She lunged. Dust rose behind her, grit followed her footsteps. The Master met her head-on. He didn’t speak, didn’t need to. His nemesis’s movements, aiming for hurt and blood and bruises, were the greatest love letter she could have offered him, but right now the Doctor didn’t care. In her head, there was nothing but that pulsing need for destruction, the aching hatred silencing all thoughts and morals she might have left. Her fists sought to hurt, her nails to tear, her teeth to rip, her feet to kick. Right now, among the rising puffs of scorched dirt, there was nothing she wished more for than to see the Master’s blood. Her eyes craved to witness crimson liquid splatter the rocks below, to feed a land she had cherished and he had reduced to ashes.
The love with which he answered her blows was sickening to see. It fueled the Doctor’s rage as much as it encouraged him. One harsh punch of hers in his shoulder was rewarded with a playful, light kick in her ribs. She collided against a crumbled pile of rumbles, fell, felt the shock rattle her chest. The Master simply laughed, a cruel, gritting sound that joined perfectly well the rising howls of the wind. She tore his cheek, he pushed her to the ground. She kicked him, he slammed her back. To her each cut was a win, to him it was another admission of her weakness, of the so-called humanity she liked to nurture with the company of inferior beings, but nothing could stop the Doctor for now. The fight became a dance, the blows a choreography, one attuning their movements for pure pain only while the other simply followed. The smell of burnt grass drowned among the billowing dust and streaks of blood.
The Master couldn’t have dreamt better. Each furious flash of teeth, each distorted snarl of the Doctor announcing an oncoming blow were a fantasy coming to life, a picture drawn by spilt blood and blossoming bruises. Even he couldn’t recall how long he had craved it. The moment they were sharing, right here on Gallifrey, breathing the ashes of their dead, hissing between ruins, was something only he got to witness. Not her humans, not her Tardis. Him. The rawness of her hatred, flooding out of her for the first time, her sweet face disfigured by such pure, undeniable hatred was a fragment of time he was the only one allowed to see, keep, and cherish. This was perhaps the Doctor’s first defeat; the abandonment of her carefully built-up façade, the bubbly, harmless one he was so meticulously carving through, each and every time they met, until he finally succeeded, to reveal the ugly truths he figured were hidden in her head.
No matter the dead and their dusty bones. No matter the fallen Citadel behind them. This was about him winning over her.
One particularly vicious blow sent him reeling. The Doctor swooped down on him in a silvery flash, coat floating behind her, her hands already flying to his throat to carry what she hoped to be the killing blow, but her opponent, as expected, didn’t play fair.
The Master’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her down with him, using his weight to drag her to his level. Surprised flashed briefly on her face and the Doctor fell, coughing swirls of ashy dust, scrambling to get up, but it was too late. One second her fingers were digging into the burnt ground, the next she was rolled on her back. If she was faster, he was definitely stronger. She couldn’t push his weight off her as he settled on her hips, neither could she push his face off when he crushed his lips against her mouth. The kiss was a mockery, a parody of love, a demand for attention and a taunt wrapped in false physical affection, a goading and a needy cry for her. It was a paradox summarized in a simple, harsh push of his lips against hers, a gesture meant for genuine love he was once again twisting in his own version of intimacy. Any contact that wasn’t meant to hurt at the moment repulsed the Doctor, but this one was even more offending and horrifying. The kiss was meant to last; she refused it. The shove she gave him was perhaps the hardest of all her blows as she put all her strength into her arms and slammed them back with only one thing in mind: to push. The moment ended as quickly as it had begun. The weight of her opponent was ripped away from her with a strangled, shaky laugh. The fight was on once again; in barely two seconds the Doctor was on her feet, crawling over the wheezing body of the Master, one hand clasped around his collar, the other frantically searching for a rock, a piece of metal, anything to make blood spill, anything that would shatter that smile. She was exhausted; her body was roaring in pain, strained by both fresh wounds and efforts, but once again she didn’t care. Nothing mattered except the maddening smell of burnt grass that wouldn’t get out of her head. She was twisted beyond recognition, mouth snarling and teeth bared. She was the most beautiful thing the Master ever had the chance to witness. He was more than happy to let her throw him around a bit and cut into him as much as she wanted. They hadn’t played like that in so long.
However, he knew the game was coming to an end as soon as her fingers curled around a lone, broken rock. She raised it, no hesitation in her eyes, and he lunged. All the strength he had been holding back came to life as he shoved her, hard. The rock clattered to the ground, disappearing between mounds of sand as the Doctor’s back collided with the ground. The pain racing through her vertebra was secondary information, a background effect while she twisted and writhed beneath the Master. The smell had long faded, but she swore she could feel it clinging to his jacket as he loomed over her, holding both of her hands prisoners above her head. However, as angry as she was, feeding sorely on feelings during the fight, physical exhaustion eventually caught up to her. Her thrashing died, bit by bit. Soon all the pieces of information she had been dead set on ignoring hit her slowly, like a wave clawing its way into her tired bones. Cuts on her collarbone. Bleeding cheeks. Bruises forming on her ribs. Trembling legs. Maybe a torn nail. Messy hair.
The worst, oddly, was her coat. She felt tears widening into the fabric of her second skin as she slowly stopped moving, dust and blood falling off the silver surface she so dearly cherished. It felt tainted, somehow, spoiled by feelings she knew shouldn’t have let out, but it was too late now. The damage was done.
The Master carefully watched the changes on her face, her features slipping back into place like a puzzle, with frowning eyes and pulled lips smoothing themselves into the face she always showed him. Impassible, slightly impatient, impenetrable. Once, the Master would have found it infuriating, to watch her feelings retreat so quickly deep inside of her, out of reach, always, for him, but she had given him so much of herself today that he didn’t mind. Whatever happened at the Citadel, he would walk out of this victorious, and there was nothing the Doctor, or anyone, could possibly say to change his mind.
They waited a while. Him for her to calm her breathing, her to soothe the anger demanding the end of an unfinished revenge inside her head. She took her time to look at him, really look at him, like she usually did and not through the red haze of fury she had been under for the past minutes, and felt incredibly satisfied to see him as dirty and bloodied as her. It was a small, petty victory, but a victory nonetheless.
“You okay, love? Got it out of your system?” the Master asked, tilting his head as if they hadn’t been at each other’s throat a moment ago.
She scoffed. The familiar gesture brought a smile to his lips, and she pushed him away. He let her, sitting back on his heels to watch her run a hand through her hair, feel the dried blood on her scalp. She then fixed her coat, passed a gentle hand on the tears with a twinge of regret. It was fascinating for him, to see her act as if his existence had simply been erased out of the picture. The faint twitch of her fingers and the precautions with which she smoothed the fabric told so much of her, so much he wanted to learn, but there wasn’t time.
There were still things she needed to learn.
Without waiting any longer, he stood up and forcefully hauled her up. The movement was harsh, unexpected, and she stumbled slightly, eyes dazed. He answered her dirty look with a playful shrug.
“What? Can’t laze around. Come on now.”
He turned around and started walking again, his pace even more joyful and resolute than it had been before the fight.
The Doctor didn’t speak. Didn’t sigh. She didn’t give the satisfaction of an answer. She just followed, stepping over the drops of their blood in the sand. Whatever awaited her in the Citadel, she would face it, and he would pay.
She would make sure of it.