Walk The Earth: Doctor Who/Studio C [Book 2]

Wailing Wind

Wailing Wind

Oh my blue, blue caravan / Oh the highway is my Great Wall / For my true love is a man / Who never existed at all. / Oh he was a beautiful fiction / I invented to keep out the cold / But now my blue, blue caravan / I can feel my heart growing old. / Oh my blue, blue caravan / I can feel my heart growing cold. -Vienna Teng, 'Blue Caravan'

The Doctor stood, near motionless, a burning torch held in his hand.One vial of the Master's blood could change the future of the human race more than even the Year had, and he simply couldn't let that happen.

"I'm a Time Lord. I have that right."

The Doctor shook his head minutely, stepping forward to light the carefully stacked pile of wood. The Master's body was wrapped in a shroud, as in Time Lord tradition. As cruel, unstable, and evil as even the Doctor had to admit the other Time Lord had been, he still deserved a proper, Gallifreyan send off.

"The oldest and most mighty race in the universe... looking down on the galaxies below... sworn never to interfere... only to watch."

And here he stood, the most infamous child of Gallifrey cremating the only other Time Lord who could have given him a run for that title. Both the Doctor and the Master had chafed under the rule of the Time Lords, from their days at the Academy together all the way through the next several centuries. They might have had markedly different ways of showing it—stealing a TARDIS in the Doctor's case, assassinating the Lord President in the Master's—yet, somehow, they had ended up with the same amount of blood on their hands.

Too much.

Tossing the torch into the flames, the Doctor stalked away back toward Wester Drumlins, his face blank.

He did not see the Master's signet ring fall to the ground, nor the perfectly manicured hand that retrieved it.

~~~

It seemed to be an altogether dreary London morning when Matt woke. Rain pounded against the windows, making the warm bed he currently occupied seem even more cozy by comparison. Unknowing and uncaring of the time, he continued to slip in and out of sleep.

At some point, though, then gentle press of another body against his had his eyes flicking open to see a mass of tangled brown hair. Yesterday came flooding back, taking away any chance of more sleep with it.

Mallory must have still been half in a doze herself, because she burrowed closer to him, giving a lazy but definitely deliberate nudge of her hips into his that had his breath catching. "Mal," he said quietly, shifting away. He had known where boundaries were yesterday—but yesterday for him was a year ago for her, and who knew what had changed since them.

"Mm." She continued to press against him, all but draping herself over his chest when he shifted from facing her to his back. "Five more minutes. Can't remember the last time we slept in a real bed."

A pang went through him at the words, spoken as casual fact but betraying so much of what she'd been through. He had a feeling that the past day hadn't made itself known to her conscious mind yet, just as it had taken a moment for him. "Mal, it's me," he said quietly, trying to impress upon her that he was not the one she'd spent the last year with.

"Should hope that's who's in my bed." She nuzzled his chin and pressed a kiss to his jawline before freezing. "What happened to your...?" she started, before breaking off. "Oh."

There it was. Mallory slid back, putting several inches between them and eyeing him. "To my what?" Matt finally ventured.

"You, um..." She made a vague gesture that told him nothing. "You had a beard. Guess I just got used to you with it." She sat up, tossing the covers away. "I'm just gonna go use the bathroom."