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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"Cut him out of your mind. Dead hair, that's all he is. He's just weighing you down."

Oh, there's a thought. Not the TARDIS, not when he's just got her back.

"It's all right," he says. "The real Master's going to be living in her soon. He'd better get used to not doing anything." He adds, "And I trust you, Morgana. You won't let anything happen to her."

"I could not cut you out. You just faded away." On the other hand, Morgana cannot remember actively trying to stop the outbursts of the Doctor, just adapting to them. "But then again --" it was the Doctor who broke her silence in the warehouse in Osten.

"If I could not stop you, I do not think I could stop him." She's frustrated, and angry, mostly with herself. This is not like her. She's never been helpless, yet it's the only way to describe how she is feeling. There's also a niggling feeling that what is happening might be partially her own doing.

Then again, it's not as though the after effect of torture was a common state-dinner discussion topic.

Edited 2010-06-06 16:24 (UTC)

"What do you mean?" he says. "You stopped me well enough. Opened up doors in my mind I thought I'd sealed pretty well-shut. And the Master won't have done that with you, he just thinks you're an ordinary human without your---well, gifts."

She doesn't think of them as such and he knows it. But he's still going to try to appeal to her pride. He has faith in her abilities, even if she doesn't.

"I could get into your head, Doctor, but I could not get out -- and I could not get you out of mine. When the Master," Morgana pauses, as her another pain hits and she takes a slow, steadying breath to get through it, "when he hit Rose, I said something -- you told him to stop."

She may not be realizing it, her silence, everything save the conversation with Drusilla, in that warehouse in Osten, was a result of what she had picked up from the Doctor.

"I thought you were gone," that he had faded away, as before, "but you hadn't. What if the Master -- he was trying to take when --" she can't even finish the thought, when another one, more frightening, hits her.

Frantically, she reaches into her pocket, and finds that her might-be-a-screwdriver is still there. She holds it out to him. "Take it. He'll use it, as a weapon. He'll make me break my promise."

In an almost insane form of agreement, someone else says. "Well, crap. I could've used that."

He hesitates, but reaches out and takes the screwdriver from her. "It can't hurt anyone," he promises. "I did what you asked."

He looks down at the small device that he's made especially for her. Of course, the Master would figure a way through his safeguards on it, wouldn't he? Brilliant old Master. The Doctor would admire him if he didn't hate him so much.

"Don't you think that maybe you called out to help Rose because you care about Rose?" he asks. "Or care that a person was being hurt? You're better than you think you are."

"But I could not stop anything."

The Doctor, incidentally, has managed to discover exactly why she spoke when she did -- neither the Doctor, nor Morgana could tolerate it, but Morgana's convinced herself her silence was cowardice, and thus credits the Doctor alone with speaking.

"The Master, he knew. He knew it was your voice. That is why he figured it out, why he wanted inside my head and I could not stop him. The more I tried, the more it hurt."

There's something else she wants the Doctor to know. "He was trying to take the memories. It felt like he was trying to pull them out of my head. I do not know if he saw what was to become of himself."

"You're not weak, Morgana. That's happened to me, too. And I certainly couldn't stop him." He shakes his head. The Year That Never Was was hardest on the ones he loved, but it was very hard for him, too. This feels a bit like a revival of that, like it's woken up memories he's worked very hard to repress. He's waiting for the ones he loves to leave him like Martha and Jack did.

He puts a hand to her shoulder. "He's not here, now. His connection to you isn't that strong. You don't have to pull out the sword, Morgana, you just have to cleanse the wound."

"I do not know how." Herein lies the problem. "And it is always the wound that can fester, and become poisonous." The fact Morgana is feeling helpless isn't helping either.

"You told me, the day before Gwen arrived," she doesn't think to hide the connection from him, the waiting for Gwen, and how all his assumptions about her that day were correct, no matter how she protested otherwise. "I would be lucky if the Master only killed me." She may have felt like a coward in the warehouse, but she refuses to be one now. "If I remain like this, he will use me to hurt someone." Morgana knows he's already used her to hurt the Doctor.

"I will make my own luck."

The Doctor looks at her, suddenly wary of her words.

"What's that supposed to mean? You can't give up!"

It's a decision, and it is a firm one -- and one the other voice is dead silent on.

"I stayed quiet when I was taken, Doctor, to avoid anyone else getting hurt." Not that it matters, with Arthur being -- no, she cannot think of that right now and she wraps her arms around herself to try and get some comfort. "Gwen's," Yes, Gwen she can think of, "room is just a few doors down from mine. She would not have been able to fight back. If I would not let an Extra hurt someone, I will not let the Master. I do not think the Master realizes that about me."

And because she's feeling guilty about one thing, "He has already used me to hurt you."

"He's hurt me a billion times over, Morgana, I don't care," he says, firmly. "You can't give up. If I've lost your trust from him, then I've lost it. If I'm hurt, I'm hurt. But I can't---"

No, not him. Not about him.

"--the universe needs you."

Oddly enough, the more she talks of it, the more it sounds like a reasonable solution.

"Of the two people in the universe that need me," and Morgana is not entirely certain of one, "I have lost one but this was never about me. It was about you. What was done to me was his way of reinforcing, to you, that he is your Master. He could make you do his bidding. He could make try something that would hurt me."

Most importantly, "And I could not stop him. Perhaps that is why he picked me to make his point."

For all her intensity while Morgana speaks, she isn't her usual still self while making the point. The index finger of her hand, the one with the wounds the Master inflicted, has started tapping in anxiety. It's a beat of four, very softly heard against the plush material of the sofa.

"But I could stop him now."

Edited 2010-06-07 00:05 (UTC)

The Doctor doubted the Master picked Morgana to make his point because she was weak. On the contrary, he probably picked her because she was strong, because she mattered to the Doctor. It might've been Rose he chose instead, but he picked Morgana because her mind already knew the Doctor, and he demanded the ability to force his way through that (dare the Doctor think it?) intimacy.

But the Doctor wouldn't say that. It gave too much away.

"How?"

"I could make my own luck. You were right."

"Okay," the Doctor says, not fully understanding her words. "What are you going to do?"

"You were right. It would have been better, I would have been lucky if the Master had killed me. He could not use me then."

It is perfectly rational, like staying quiet to protect Gwen and -- no, not thinking about that -- to keep people safe.

Morgana is also not thinking about what else this may imply.

Edited 2010-06-07 00:39 (UTC)

It connects in the Doctor's mind and he springs forward, putting his hands back to her shoulders.

"No," he says. "Morgana, you don't have to die here. You don't. Don't let him win, don't let him convince you to end it. You don't have to."

"That would not be him winning, Doctor; it would be him losing."

The tapping of her finger continues. This is a perfectly acceptable plan.

"He'd only lose if I died," the Doctor says, firmly. "If you die, that'll hurt me. He knows it."

He ventures some honesty, and lowers his voice. "It will break my heart, and he knows that. If you want someone to die, Morgana, kill me. Don't kill yourself."

"Why would I kill you?" If the Doctor is unclear as to who is talking, that would be because both are.

"She has far too much of your attention, Doctor." That speaker would be clear. "And I don't share you as well, as you did this thing with me."

"If you kill me, he'll give up on you. He won't have any reason to torment you. Just please, don't. Don't die." The very thought of Morgana killing herself to be free of the Master makes him ache. He can't lose her, not like this. Not after everything they've been through.

"She has just enough of my attention, now stop it."

"Quite sacrificial this one. You should be flattered, I was able to tweak that so easily." He's been playing with the Doctor all along, twisting around in Morgana's head -- finding that about which she feels most strongly -- as it's easier to access.

"Want to see what else I can make her do?"

"Leave her alone," the Doctor snaps.

Which, translated from angry Doctor, comes out roughly as "No, in fact, I would rather not like to see what you can make her do."

"He will not leave me alone, Doctor," Morgana is frustrated and embarrassed, and the longer this goes on, the stronger both those feelings become.

She leans forward, and into him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her head into his shoulder.

Aaaaah, that wasn't what the Doctor was expecting at all. He expected to be slapped or insulted, or to have Morgana threaten to hurt herself again. A tender hug wasn't expected in the slightest.

He's not sure what to do, at first, but he finally relents, putting his arms around her in a hug.

"Just fight him," he says. "Don't give in, don't give up."

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