Blue Christmas

Part 18:

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Osgood had been expecting an explosion yet expecting it she had still been too shocked to react when Missy suddenly flipped from quiet and tense to violent and unhinged. Unsurprisingly her Uncle Tom was the first to react, his years of army training kicking back in and he rushed to try and pull The Mistress off of his old friend.

That had Osgood moving and she flung herself at her Uncle before he could make the mistake of laying a finger of the raging Time Lady. Osgood's instincts proved right as they barely rolled out of the way of a sudden blast of laser fire, from a clearly homemade disrupter pistol that looked suspiciously familiar.

"What do you think..." Uncle Tom demanded his blue eyes flashing in betrayal and horror as his own niece seemed to be in league with this...this monster.

"Stay down." Osgood commanded him. This was a situation he knew nothing about and Osgood would try and stop it but preferably without turning The Mistress's ire onto members of her family.

The Doctor's screams were terrible to listen to, yet more distressing where the echoing cries of the twins and that had to be her advantage.

"Missy stop...you have to stop." Osgood raised herself slowly from the floor hands raised, not even certain that the Time Lady could hear her right now but knowing she had to try.

Reaching The Mistress Osgood reached and placed her own hand over Missy's hand that held the knife against The Doctor's throat, barely even flinching as the hand that held the disrupter snapped up and Osgood felt it jammed against her own racing heart.

"Please stop."

"No he deserves it!" Missy spat back, her pupils blown wide as if she was riding high on The Doctor's screams. "You know what he did."

"I know..." Osgood paused trying her best to catch and hold Missy's gaze.

"I know." She added softly when that wild look in Missy's eyes seemed to subside a little. "I wish that you wouldn't but I understand why you feel you have to....but not like this...Missy can't you hear them? Your children you're hurting them too."

It took a moment; The Mistress had been so blinded by her rage and the blood pounding in her head screaming for revenge that it took for Skip to mention it before the visual and mental cries of her own children pierced through the fog.

Oh...no...The Doctor's shields were down and his parental bond was active...Oh no...

Missy's mental assault stopped instantly and the combined screaming fell suddenly to pained panting from The Doctor and panicked cries from her children.

"Thank you." Osgood said softly, freezing slightly as icy blue eyes narrowed and pinned her in place.

"I didn't do it for you." Missy hissed before dropping her gaze to meet the pain clouded gaze of The Doctor. "And I didn't do it for you either!" Missy added digging the blunt knife deeper into his neck to emphasis her point.

"I know." The Doctor grunted out a response, his head was still spinning from her frenzied assault, it was as thought everything in his mind had been dashed about by some great storm and nothing was quite where it should be.

Yet there was no hiding from the gouging wounds that Missy had inflicted in his psyche, like a tornado she had laid waste to his mental landscape, her grief, anger and betrayal still resonating like a toxic coating that would continue to linger. She had been moments away from destroying him utterly and then she had stopped. Being so intimately connected at the time The Doctor had felt it all, how her anger gave way to horror, then the rush of maternal concern and...

"Stay out of my head Doctor!" The Mistress all but growled pushing away from The Doctor his disrupter held up to stop anyone from challenging her as she moved over to her crying children.

Whispering soothing words in their own language Missy nuzzled her babies, rubbing foreheads as she tried to calm them and dissipate the sharp spiky memories of first pain, checking their minds over carefully for any sign of damage. Mae was the one worse affected, her daughter's natural talent for mental contact had worked against her and Missy had her work cut out for her softening the edges of those memories, wincing as she realised just how much of The Doctor's attack they had actually felt.

"Are they alright?" The Doctor asked from over her shoulder, reaching out to touch his daughter's cheek, his pain only multiplying when Mae flinched away from him and began to cry again, burrowing her head into her mother's shoulder.

She was only an infant; all Mae knew was that it was her connection to him that had caused her such pain, she didn't know who or why only that the pain came from him. The Doctor knew that and yet his daughter's rejection and the stay away vibes he was getting mentally hurt worse than the torture Missy had subjected him to.

"They'll be fine." Missy retorted shifting awkwardly at having The Doctor at her back. "It's your own wellbeing you should be concerned with." She added turning around and pointing her disrupter at him.

Stepping back The Doctor's face fell, blue grey eyes pleading and full of despair. Running his hands through and tugging at his silver curls The Doctor stifled a scream of frustration, what was it with the women in his life and pointing weapons at him?

"Did you really think I was just going to let you get away with it Doctor?" Missy spat his name like a curse. "I trusted you, I put my very being into your hands and how did you replay me?"

"Koschei please I didn't mean..."

"To butcher me, to keep me in alive in that pathetic state..."

"You did that to yourself." The Doctor countered. "I had nothing to do with that."

"No you did nothing at all and that it the point Darling." Missy hissed. "I trusted you; I sent my essence to you....Dammit I even sent it registered delivery!"

"I know." The Doctor confessed the fight draining out of him, how could he argue, he was guilty and they both knew it. "I know and there are no excuses for what I did...or didn't do. I can only ask you to forgive me."

Hand shaking with suppressed rage it was probably only the child in her arms that stopped Missy from launching herself back at him and ripping him apart with her bare hands.

"Forgive you." Missy's voice bordered on the hysterical as she raised her disrupter and took aim. "There is no forgiveness for what you did there is only fitting punishment. Say goodbye Doctor."

"Missy no." Osgood spoke up, moving to place herself between The Mistress and her victim.

"Move Skip I will fire he deserves to die, I have no desire to kill you pet but if you stand between me and him then I will do so with barely a flicker of regret."

"I believe you." Osgood replied sadly. "But I am not asking for myself, if you really mean to do this I know no one could stop you, but don't make them watch Mistress...he's their father...haven't they been traumatised enough for one day? Surely you don't want them to have to suffer through that memory as well?"

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