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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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.

"Do you feel better when you tell yourself such stories?" Morgana does not know how to explain that the only thing inside her head is the whatever has been talking. No traps, or hidden dangers, just a powerful remnant, like what the Doctor would leave, just 10 times more controlling, and 1000 times crazier.

"You hurt people for their own good. I trusted you," oh, yes, she did just say that, out loud, but in the past tense. "I asked you to save them if I could not and you lost one." She's known all along. It's why she's only asked for Gwen.

"My, what I," Morgana is about to discuss her nightmares, but no longer even feels safe referencing them through the vaguest of phrasings, with the Doctor.

To sum up, someone else wants to add in his megalomaniacal two cents. "I am so brilliant. Bet you were all worried about you Rose, when I had this one, all to myself. Great twist of drama there. Two thumbs up."

For the first time since she has awoken, Morgana is not letting him get the last word. "Keep quiet!"

"You're right, I did," the Doctor says. "And you know what, I never really cared for the blond prat anyway. Certainly know you didn't. Couldn't even get five words about him out of you."

It hurts him, almost physically, to be cruel to her now, when she's going through this. But he has to make her fight, and she's fighting back. The Master's being quieter.

It is Morgana, and only Morgana who stares at him when he taunts her. "Do not discuss him. You do not have the right."

"Why not, eh? He's not here to defend himself, I don't think anybody will have a problem with it."

Good. Good. Internally, he's begging her to come forward, to be herself.

For the third time in front of the Doctor, Morgana begins to cry. Unlike the first time, when everything was just so overwhelming sad, she did not care if her tears were seen, or the the second time, where she couldn't hold them at bay, this time it is out of anger, because she is not capable of admitting to anything else.

She cries while she speaks. "You take care of nothing. The people around you vanish, and you say so much," how he pleaded with her to come to HC Clements, in the oddest journey ever. "You make excellent pretenses at caring, but cannot keep track of those around you. How long were we prisoners? How long before you noticed we were missing?" Morgana does not actually know how long, but it felt like an eternity.

She pushes up her sleeve, and finally shows him what she's been carrying for over a month. Hanging from the thin chain (which also happens to be sitting in the centre of some untreated wounds), wrapped nearly a dozen times around her wrist, is a TARDIS key. "I should have known," she sneers, "from how you take care of your things."

And, because Time Lords shouldn't lose TARDIS keys, someone else pipes in, "A month? Someone should tell the TARDIS. Get three of the most important things in this hellhole furious at you."

And, despite everything, the Doctor gives her a small smile.

"I knew you had it," he says. "I can feel it, it's part of me, like the TARDIS is."

He shakes his head. "Felt a bit right. You had one, Rose had the other. Seems that's how more than one thing goes on in my life."

"Why would you leave the key with me?"

And cue the chorus, "She picks up everything else, and misses that?"

It's for the best that she doesn't quite understand. That's the last thing they need, isn't it? So much is already far too complicated.

"You trusted me, Morgana, I trust you. That's how it works. And I trust you." He reaches out to cover the key on her wrist with his hand.

He looks at her with confidence. "Now, beat him."

Morgana looks at him for a moment, very seriously, like she's considering something. "He couldn't take it. He tried."

She looks back at the scratches, some rather deep, when the Master tried to gain some purchase, something resembling a grip on it, and couldn't. Carefully, she starts unwrapping it from her arm, but it's sticking to the wound.

"Miss Maclay enchanted this for me," yes, she was willing to give magic a try, to keep it secure, "The Master failed to realize I was the only one who could remove it."

She was talking to distract herself from peeling off the dried blood, and wounds in her skin. Once she's done, she places the chain, and the key in her lap. The dress is already ruined, so what is one more stain?

He wants to fix her wounds, he wants to fix everything. But he can't, he doesn't know if trying will just make it worse or not.

"Why?" he asks. "Why did you want to keep it?"

"It is important and needed to be taken care of, properly." That is as truthful a reason as Morgana understands.

For the first time, she looks directly at the TARDIS. With her other hand, she grips the chain, which is covered with blood, and needs a thorough cleaning.

"You cannot have it back."

"Okay," he says.

He looks at her wound, wincing a little at the pain there.

"I'm so sorry, Morgana," he whispers, trying desperately to keep himself together.

The wound on her wrist is on the the opposite hand to the one Morgana injured on the roof, that day with the Doctor. She wipes the back of her hand across her face, the crying now slowed and considers what to do.

If she's practical, there's only one other person in the room. She holds out her arm, a little. "It needs cleaning."

And because it will be a while before everything is gone. "Oh you cannot be serious, you medieval bitch."

The Doctor smiles internally, because knowing the Master is frustrated is exactly what he wants to hear. He wants to know that the Master hates Morgana, that the Master can't control her. It means Morgana's won.

He steps back and finds a first aid kit, which he brings back to her.

"Always cleaning your hands," he says. "Think I should take you to places where you can't get hurt."

"The only, and last place you will be taking me, and Gwen, is back to Camelot." Morgana does not mention Arthur. She will not discuss him with the Doctor but it hardens her resolve not to flinch while her wrist is being cleaned.

She will not look at the Doctor either, just as she will not think about Arthur. That is too much for her, at the moment.

There is a wave of anger seeping through and her other hand clenches into a fist. She's disconcerted, uncertain whose anger it is.

"I'll be taking you home," he says. "To the real Camelot."

He slips on his spectacles and begins working on her wrist, cleaning the wound and gently rubbing out the dirt and grime. The Master did a number on her, that's for sure. A number she should never have had to endure.

"The TARDIS just needs a quick trip, drop Rose off, first. Then you and everyone else in this city in groups. Everyone can go home." Not everyone. Not Arthur, not Jack or Tosh or Helen. Just the people left.

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