taxonomites | eighteen | location: the tardis | it's never that simple

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eighteen | location: the tardis | it's never that simple | locked to morgana & those in hc clements

after this.

The Doctor leaves Rose sleeping after a while and heads to the console. He promised he wouldn't take them from Taxon until Rose woke up, and he plans to keep that promise. He'll say goodbye to Rose, send her back to her world, and then take everyone else back. Everyone except the Master. He can't give him back to the timeline, he just can't. He needs to convince himself that he's wrong, but that will take time.

But, there's something he needs to do in Taxon, first. Someone he has to give some very sad information to.

He steers the TARDIS towards another room in HC Clements, one with another victim of the Master's resting up. Vaguely, he recognizes that going to visit Morgana while Rose is sleeping won't look very good to Rose, who is already suspecting he's up to more than he actually is, but he can't just run away from this. Not this time.

He parks the TARDIS in the middle of the room and heads towards the door.

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"Or I stop playing your game and leave right now."

That's an irresistible challenge. "You would leave her here, like this? After I told you she can hear us?"

"Let me talk to her, now," he says again, trying to stay firm. He wouldn't leave her, but he needs to know she's still in there.

"You're holding her hostage, and I want to know that the hostage is still alive."

The next statement is said with all the appropriate disgust. "Doctor, who do you think is holding your hand?"

He looks down at their hands. It's not something the Master would do, is it? Morgana must be frightened. He gives her hand a small squeeze. He's going to get her out of this. He doesn't know how, not yet, but he will.

"She's stronger than you," he says. "She'll fight back, she doesn't need me to save her."

That being said, he reaches up to press his fingers to her temple. Can he even find what the Master's done? Has he even done anything to her at all?

Simultaneously, the hand is pulled back and Morgana moves away from the touch to her temple. The laugh that is starting is cut off, and there's a cry of pain.

So the amusement is gone. "I told her you would try. Force yourself into her head, making you no different from me."

"No, I didn't!" the Doctor snaps, furious. "I'm not like you, I wouldn't---"

But he would, and he did. He did it to Donna, and he very nearly did it to Morgana. To save her.

"Let her go, let her go right now!"

The other voice isn't quite done yet. "Or what? She tried to force me out, very nearly did. It's the only interesting thing about her, really."

"But understand, Doctor, I told her you would try. I could convince you to do her what I did and now she knows I succeeded. Rose was simple. Tell her what you did, with this one, and it would be enough. But you have worked so hard with this uneducated, naive thing, I had to ask myself why? Why make all that effort."

"Then I figured it out, and what a waste of my time. So I focused on how to undo everything."

"She believed you wouldn't, insisted upon it. I've proven her wrong."

Edited 2010-06-05 00:50 (UTC)

"Because Morgana is better than you think she is," he says, disgust in his voice. "Morgana's stronger than you think, and she will beat what you've done to her. I know her. I know how she thinks and she's better than this."

He leans towards her and tries to take her hand again.

"Morgana, please. Don't give up. You almost beat him, you nearly pushed him out, which means you can stop him."

The voice sounds practically grateful at being given such an opening, "I know how she thinks too. I've had a good roam around. I'm surprised you like this one so much. Such potential to be so dark. No wonder Drusilla likes her."

She holds her hands to her chest when he reaches out, so that they cannot be taken. "She will succeed, eventually. Matter of time, with someone like her but when she does, she'll know. She'll know you were willing to go into her head, all her private thoughts, without her permission and she was completely convinced you would never do that to her."

"As much as that will hurt her, I imagine it will be hell for you."

Which was, of course, the Master's plan all along, wasn't it? It's had nothing do with creating traps or pathways in her mind, it's had to do with breaking her trust in the Doctor.

And it worked.

"I don't care," he says. "Just leave her alone, let her go right now, or---"

He thinks of a threat, and suddenly the edges of his lips twitch up into a small, cruel smile.

"Or I'll go down to that cell where you are and I'll make sure you can't hurt anyone like that again."

Now that's confusing and Morgana's head tips to the side, like a puppy who has just been chastised -- if that puppy were a psychopathic Time Lord.

The problem is that he is not completely controlling the physical, and the movement is too much, causing her to curl back up on the couch -- a ball of pain and nausea and rejection.

"You wouldn't do that. Not over this simple, one-hearted brat of a girl. You're bluffing."

"Am I?" the Doctor says, his eyes wide and manic. "You've figured out what she means to me, Master, and you know I'd rip the universe in half for someone I care about."

He leans in, his voice cold as ice.

"And I can't kill you in that cell, but I have a TARDIS with a chameleon circuit. And a human can't tear a hole into anyone's mind. Course, they also get older, have lowered strength, constitution..." He straightens. "Your choice. Right now."

"I have," the smirk is back, but it isn't as strong. "But I know what I mean to you as well. I could get old in that cell. 40, 50 years, what is that to someone who lives as long as we do?"

"By then, this girl will probably be dead. Then you'll be down in that cell, releasing me from being Yana all over again. The universe is wrong without me," yes Doctor, he found that memory in his walk through her head. "You told her as much. You pathetic, desperate idiot."

The Doctor's expression doesn't falter, the cold smirk on his face doesn't waver. Right now, it's Morgana or the Master, and he needs the Master to believe it's Morgana he's choosing.

He shrugs.

"Meh."

"Make me." The smirk is fading even further. "You've already tried. You've already proven me right, so why --"

Her fists clench and Morgana shuts her eyes again. It is a pathetic little voice that speaks. "Where is Gwen?"

The next statement would be absurd, save the situation. "Shut up, bitch."

He drops the act immediately and leans forward, taking her shoulders in his hands. He's utterly terrified for her, and he knows that shows now, but he doesn't care.

"Morgana!" he says. "Morgana, you're there, fight him. Fight him, you can! Just focus your mind, cut him out like he's dead hair. You can, you're stronger than he is."

Someone is desperate not to share the attention, and stares at the Doctor, with an intensity only shared by the passionate and the mad, "Do you really think I'll just disappear from her mind. I did dig through it Doctor. I looked, far deeper than you did. Maybe I won't ever really go." It's clear it's more difficult to speak.

The stare is broken and she looks to the floor. "You said you would not lose anyone else. You lied." The word choice is specific, to show the complete lack of trust.

"Morgana," he says, desperately. "Please, I'm sorry. Please, come back. I need you."

No, no, no. He doesn't need her. He doesn't, because he's still trying desperately to deny his attraction to her.

"Gwen needs you, Morgana. She needs you more than ever, now. Come back."

"You lied and I was wrong." It's a simple statement, unlike the emotion behind it. Morgana is still staring at the floor, and flexes her hands, like she's checking she's in control of them. Doing so stretches the scrapes on her one wrist, and it stings.

"See, Doctor, all that hard work for nothing. Look at what I did." This time, the voice is full of pride, and a little bit of if only I had some popcorn to enjoy the show.

"Yes," he says, not acknowledging the Master at all. "Yes, I did. I'm terrible and bad and everything you thought I was, but the Master is worse. You have to fight him, Morgana. Please, fight him."

And again, more firmly: "Fight him for Gwen. Fight him for Gwen, because she needs you."

"I'm hoping she punches you. I can't quite make her do that. She wouldn't even let me scratch you earlier. That'll change, she's got a lot of violence in her. So not your usual type."

"Your usual type isn't too pleased with you either." A sigh of satisfaction, "I'm good. I'm so good."

There is more pain, making her feel like her brain is trying to exit through her forehead, and she leans over, curling back into a ball. For a moment, Morgana is sure she's going to be ill, but it's her lack of any equilibrium that's tricking her. When it steadies there's a cry of frustration.

"No one else, you insisted. Why did I believe anything you ever said?"

"I don't care," he says, again. "She can hate me if she wants, I just want her safe."

It's a lie, of course. He cares. He cares and he doesn't want to care. The Master is right. Rose is in the TARDIS, sleeping. Rose, who loves him and trusts him. But he has to save Morgana. He has to.

He leans forward and tries to put his hands on her shoulders again. "Morgana, listen to me. He's twisting the emotions in your mind, he's stopping you from concentrating. You can destroy him. I've seen what you can do, you're brilliant. Please."

When she feels his hands, Morgana pushes them away, "Did he twist your actions? He tells you to try and insert yourself into my thoughts, without my permission, and you do." She thinks back to a conversation, one that took place entirely inside her head, when the Master forced himself inside. When she nearly pushed him out, making it twice as painful, when she resisted.

"He thought it would be easy. I told him he was wrong. You are worse than he is, because he can make you do anything."

The other person in her head, is more than happy to play an extremely snarky Greek chorus.

"You go, girl. This hurts him a hell of a lot more than it hurts me."

Edited 2010-06-05 03:33 (UTC)

"Right, you're right," he says, his voice getting angrier. "I'm terrible because I go into your head and try to save your life. I'm sorry if that bothers you, Morgana, but if it's your privacy or your life, I'm going to do my best to save your life!"

And, for good measure, he adds: "There's gratitude for you!"

He's trying to make her angry. If she's angry, she might be able to push away the Master harder, to give herself the advantage against the Doctor.

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