It wasn’t love at first sight, of course not. Don’t be ridiculous; there’s no such thing – what people mistake for love is in fact lust, a chemical reaction to strong emotion or attractiveness. No, the first time I saw him it was in fact loathing. How could something like him exist? It wasn’t right, it violated all the carefully studied laws of the universe I had grown up (grown old?) learning. In all of time and space, nothing is fixed. Everything can be changed...it’s just that some things shouldn’t be. Lynchpins of the universe, turning points that affect the flow of time – and I can see them all. It’s like a map inside my head, the ever-changing landscape of the fourth dimension, and it’s what makes me a Timelord. Beyond the technology, beyond the physiology, beyond the mystique, this is what makes us gods: that we can perceive time as lesser races perceive space.
And he was solid, immovable, immutable. A fact. It made me sick.
I wanted him to be mine.
~*~*~*~
It didn’t take long to figure out what the meddling Doctor had done to the TARDIS to try and stop me. Isolating the co-ordinates to ‘return to sender’ was irritating at first – all of time and space at my fingertips, just out of reach, and I had to be content with 21st century Earth and the end of the universe? Ridiculous. But I am a genius, and it was the work of a moment to come up with a plan. Global domination? Small fry. No, I was looking at something much larger: an Empire, the way the Timelords should have been. We have the power, why not use it? So I did. The TARDIS was useless to reach other planets – and besides it was so much more poetic to use the Doctor’s favourite planet as my launch pad – so I cannibalised it, turned it inside out and back to front and waited for the opportune moment.
I worked my way through the ranks. I became the Minister for Defence, shot down the Sycorax and the Raknoss Empress (it felt so good to destroy something, being nice is not my specialty but it was all part of The Plan) and then it was time to ascend to the highest elected office in Britain: Prime Minister. Just in time for the Doctor to come home.
I felt him immediately, the meddling fool (there was only one other Timelord in the universe now so it wasn’t like it was difficult), but also the constant I hadn’t realised I was missing. I’d felt him disappear with the TARDIS several days ago of course, but I’d thought it was relief I felt. Instead, finally noticing my relaxed confidence return, I knew that it was loss. I actually missed him. And on the heels of that revelation was the knowledge that I hadn’t sent his little team away to cut him off from information; I’d made sure they were out of harm’s way so they couldn’t hurt him.
Ridiculous. I may have wanted him, but I didn’t care about him – I just wanted to own him. Didn’t I? I couldn’t think, the drums pounding in my head, louder than ever before. Forget Handsome Jack – I had a world to dominate, a war to start, and a Doctor to outsmart.
~*~*~*~
He should have been flattered that I acknowledged him, that I counted him competent enough to take measures against him, that I paid him attention – it’s not like the chit got the same consideration. The Doctor and I have history, he knows me better than anyone else living, and to be honest – with myself if no one else – I really didn’t want to ruin Handsome Jack’s face. Not that it would have stuck very long, he defaults every time he dies and I was going to thoroughly enjoy killing him while I had him. After all, it’s not often one gets a prisoner that comes back if you slip a bit.
But no. He looked at me like I was the scum of the Earth (as if I’d be so limited, and besides I’m not scum, I’m a god to these petty creatures), and then he actually tried to attack me, all for his precious Doctor. I should have seen it coming, the puppy following his oft-absent master (and they thought I was arrogant – at least I’m honest about myself and what I want) but I found myself hoping. Hope...what a cruel emotion. It raises your expectations, and then when they are inevitably disappointed you feel worse than when you started. So, when my constant attacked me...I felt betrayed. Isn’t it odd, since he’s never been anything other than my enemy? Still, I couldn’t help it. I covered it up with a taunt about his undying ways to the Doctor, but I was constantly aware of his glare boring into my back as he recovered from death.
The Plan must go on. It doesn’t stop for anyone, not even Captain Jack Harkness. I’ll show him what he’s done, how he’s hurt me. I’ll burn his sins into his mind and soul, because marks on his body fade far too quickly. He’s mine, and he’s never going to forget it.
~*~*~*~
I almost regret hurting him, killing him, breaking him down piece by piece with isolation and whispers and death and no one to tell him where the line is. Oh yes Captain, I know you – without the righteous Doctor you’re as vicious as I am about your goals. I’ve seen what Torchwood has done – I’ve ordered some of it, and just watched for the rest – and it’s not a whole lot different in Cardiff. Oh yes Jacky boy, I know you a lot better than that old man. I’ve watched you. I understand you.
At some level, he knows he deserves this. The pain, the death, the orders. He can’t be trusted on his own, he needs someone to hold his leash – who better than me? And in turn, when the drums beat their loudest and someone’s going to die because I can’t think and I can’t read and I can’t even sit still and they just need to shut the fuck up – well, who better than someone that comes back? We were made for each other, made to balance.
~*~*~*~
When I hold his heart in my hand, I can feel the Time Vortex itself, and it drowns out the drumming – until it stops beating, and I have to start again. It’s like a drug; Jack Harkness is a drug, and I’m addicted: to his pain, to his death, to his nearness, to his constancy. I won’t ever give him up.
~*~*~*~
A captive. A countdown. A word. A miracle. A reunion.
A shot. A death.
A funeral.
Bittersweet victory.
~*~*~*~
Jack still isn’t sure why he followed the Doctor to that isolated crag where he burned the Master’s body. It had seemed intrusive, almost voyeuristic, watching the man who changed his life turn the man who took it so many times into ash on the wind. Even when the Doctor walked away, guilt and grief and anger writ large on his usually smiling face, he stayed and watched the pyre burn.
At dawn, when the roaring flames had turned to smoking embers and white ash, he approached. This man had taken over the Earth, enslaved the human race, tortured him for a year and nearly destroyed the galaxy if not the universe with his fleet of rockets; now he was nothing. A breeze stirred the ashes, eddying in the thermals and lifting a drift of dust. The Master would be taken all over the world by the wind, inhaled and exhaled by a million, a billion humans – just a breath of air. It seemed wrong that such a threat to their very existence was just forgotten like that.
He sighed and turned to leave, boot contacting a piece of debris that skittered away along the rock. But wait – that sounded like metal. Attention caught, he bent over and saw the distinctive ring the Master had used as his signet, odd geometric shapes in a double spiral set in some kind of green stone he couldn’t quite put a name to. For a moment he saw that hand again, inflicting death on him in a multitude of ways, the mocking laughter and voice assuring him that he belonged to the Master now and the Doctor was obsolete.
Then, oddly, was the memory of the Master’s back pressed into his front as he walked him to his judgement. The way he leaned backwards, trying to get away (or was it towards him?) from the Doctor and his patience.
Abruptly, he decided. The Master didn’t deserve to be forgotten, not really. He bent over and picked up the ring, ignoring the inaudible sizzle of flesh as skin met hot metal, and slipped it onto his own hand.
It fit perfectly.
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