Archive of Our Own

Oh dear, let me see those smoky eyes,
'Cause you're a villainous thing, 
And we can't have you living a lie.

—Villainous Thing, Shayfer James

The horses are being driven too hard. The Doctor recognises this—their sweat steaming in the cold air, the rattling of the stagecoach's wheels, the night tearing past—and yet he cannot bring himself to slow down. Not one metre. 

Even as the coach jolts over a hole in the road. The Doctor hisses with it, and tugs the reins to avoid the next. Not for his own comfort, but for his companion's.

Jamie McCrimmon lies feverish in the coach itself. The Doctor wishes the boy would sleep, but even if the rattling allowed it, he knows the fever has him in its grasp—any sleep would be thin and restless, full of burning dreams. He knows Jamie isn't asleep, just as he knows how the boy's heart beats, how he hears it louder than his own pulse would be, if he had one. A hot hammering thing he can pick out beneath the creak of leather, the snort of horses, the wind in his ears.

It pounds through the Doctor's awareness. So loud, so alive, so full of potential. 

Fever softens edges. Fever blurs lines. Fever makes things—possible. 

In one hand, the Doctor holds the reins. In the other, a slim recorder—pale white wrapped in blue. He clutches it hard enough that his knuckles blanch, nearly the shade of the flute itself. Under his breath, a mantra in time with the clatter of hooves and creaking wood, he mutters, 'I won't. I won't. I won't.'

And he won't. 

Even though Jamie offered, had said, once, when the fever was first climbing, 'it's what ye do when the blood runs too hot. Ye bleed the man'—and then softer, as if it settled the matter, 'I wouldn't mind. If it steadies you. No sense in us both being poorly.'

As though it were practical. As though it were not exactly the thing the Doctor could not have. As though it were not exactly the thing he craved down to the marrow.

Bleed the man.

The words ring hollow and insistent. The Doctor thirsts with them.

Bleed the man. 

He raises the recorder to his lips instead. Not playing, not yet, just holding the reed between his teeth, something to anchor, something to bite against as it echoes, again and again—bleed the man.

He urges the horses onward, as though he could outrun thought itself. 

*

It's begun to rain by the time the coach pulls up before the castle gates. 

The Doctor brings it in too fast, reins cutting into his palm as the horses throw their weight back, hooves skidding on wet cobblestone. From the gates, someone shouts—a question, a warning—but he is already down from the box, already at the coach's door.

Inside, it is quiet.

The Doctor climbs inside and closes the door behind him, shutting out the rain, the lamps, the looming castle ahead. For a moment there is only the creak of the suspension settling, and the close, fever-thick air.

The space inside is not vast, but it is accommodating. The coach has arranged itself the way it always does when he needs it to—discreetly, cooperatively, as though it knows better than to confine its master and his companion.

There are the seats along one wall. The lanterns hanging low, their rocking slowly stilling. A wooden trunk that contains the Doctor and Jamie's belongings and even more space within. And then there's the bed.

Jamie lies stretched along it, blankets twisted loose around him. A lamp hangs from a hook overhead, still burning low, its light catching the sheen of sweat on his skin. Jamie's boots are off, abandoned near the door; his coat has been shrugged halfway down his shoulders and left there, as if the Doctor had meant to come back and finish the job properly.

The Doctor steps closer, recorder held tight in his hands. The boy's skin is flushed too warm, his hair dark with sweat at his temples. His breathing is shallow and uneven, a soft rasp catching at the back of his throat. The Doctor stills at the sight of him, at the blood so near the surface of flesh, the pulse jumping visibly at his neck.

Jamie stirs, then, lashes fluttering without focus. His mouth moves, shaping something that never quite becomes sound.

'I know,' the Doctor murmurs, already reaching for him. 'I know. I've got you.'

There is room to lift him properly. To slide an arm beneath his shoulders, another under his knees, to gather him in without knocking elbows or catching fabric. Jamie comes easily, pliant as a child. Folds into him with boneless ease, fever-soft, his head tipping forward to rest against the Doctor's chest as though that is where it belongs.

The closeness is unbearable.

Jamie's heat bleeds straight through the Doctor's cloak and coat. His heart hammers against the Doctor's ribs, erratic and fast, a living thing insisting on itself as though it were the Doctor's own. His mouth aches in response, a deep, involuntary pull, and he has to swallow before he trusts himself to move again.

He carries Jamie to the door, steps back out into the cold night. From the outside, it should not work. Anyone watching might expect a knee to catch, a shoulder to knock against the frame—might expect the Doctor to have to turn sideways, to struggle. He doesn't.

By the time the Doctor reaches the gates with his burden, there are voices—a challenge, lanterns lifting—but he is not swayed away by the stern man standing there, his hand raised, uncertain. Not a guard—a porter, perhaps, or a steward. Someone whose job it is to decide what sort of trouble has arrived and whether it is worth answering.

'He's ill,' the Doctor says. 'Fever. Infection.' Each word is clipped, measured, like precision alone might buy him time. 'Your healers. Please.'

The man hesitates, eyes flicking to Jamie’s flushed face, taking in the way his breath catches shallowly in his chest. Compassion wins out quickly; it usually does.

'Bring him inside,' he says, already stepping back. Then, quieter, over his shoulder: 'Wake the physicians.'

Another figure moves at once, disappearing down a side passage.

The Doctor crosses the threshold without ceremony. The doors close behind him with a dull finality that makes something in his chest tighten, though he refuses to name it. Stone cools the air, but it does nothing to leach the heat from Jamie's body, pressed close, bleeding warmth into him. The Doctor adjusts his hold, closer, tighter, as though he might keep Jamie’s heart beating simply by listening hard enough.

The steward escorts him through the castle. Pulls aside another servant who stops at the sight of a stranger, to mutter, 'inform his lordship that we've company.'

The Doctor hears it. Of course he does. 

He keeps walking.

*

The steward leads them onward at a brisk pace, lantern light skimming over stone. 'You're fortunate to have come here,' he says, not unkindly, the idle chatter of a man intending to comfort. 'His lordship does not keep fools. The physicians here are… thorough. Their methods may appear unconventional to some, but I assure you, sir—they work.'

'I know,' the Doctor says plainly.

The steward's steps falter—not in alarm, but in recalibration. He glances back at him then—really looks, for the first time. Takes in the set of his mouth, the way the Doctor holds his burden without strain, the stillness beneath the haste.

'Ah,' he says, and nothing more.

They continue on.

The corridors open and narrow again, stone giving way to wood and back to stone, the castle folding in on itself with the quiet confidence of a place long inhabited. Servants pass them—one bearing folded linens, another with a tray of glass vials stopped in wax, a third with ink-stained fingers and a ledger tucked under one arm.

None of them pay the Doctor much attention. A nod, here. A respectful lowering of the eyes, there. The smallest of pauses to make room for the Doctor and the fevered weight in his arms, then life flows on again around them.

There is no fear that he can scent in the air, despite who he knows rules the house and its surrounding lands. The Doctor feels it settle over him like a second skin.

This is a house that knows what it shelters—a place where blood is not an emergency, nor a scandal, nor a thing spoken of only in prayer and whispers. Where servants know better than to ask questions, or draw attention to what might happen behind closed doors.

Against the Doctor's chest, Jamie has gone slack, breath evening out, the fever dragging him under at last. He shifts faintly, a soft sound catching in his throat. The movement bares the line of his neck for just a moment, pulse fluttering there, erratic and bright. The Doctor's mouth aches with it, a pressure along his gums, a familiar, unwelcome throb.

Ahead, the steward walks, unaware.

The Doctor becomes sharply, sickeningly aware that no one here would be startled by blood. That they would not cry out, or bar his way, or drag him back by the collar if he faltered. A step to the side would be enough. A turn of Jamie's head, a press of teeth—the hot scent of iron filling the air, filling the Doctor's mouth.

Saliva gathers painfully beneath his tongue, unbidden.

The servants here have seen worse things done in quieter corners, darker spaces. They would avert their eyes and call it mercy. They would keep walking, or even wait to be told what to clean in the aftermath. They would maintain a polite fiction until the Doctor emerged steady again.

The knowledge is a weight. Not temptation exactly—worse than that. Permission.

The Doctor adjusts his hold again, deliberately clumsy, shifting Jamie higher so that the angle is wrong, uncomfortable. He fixes his gaze on the back of the steward's head and breathes through his teeth, counting the steps until the hunger crests and breaks, leaving only the hollow ache behind—cold and clean as an unused blade.

*

The physicians' quarters are in the east wing of the castle. 

The air cools as they cross the threshold, stripped of smoke and damp and replaced with sharper things—lye and spirits, boiled water, the clean bite of metal wiped down again and again, forged too recently to have dulled. Beneath it all lingers the green, bruised scent of crushed herbs, not masking the chemical tang so much as coexisting with it.

The light is brighter here, too, reflected back by pale stone and scrubbed wood. Unlike in the corridors, no tapestries warm the space. Instead, the walls are adorned with bookshelves full of tomes—old, some as ancient as the Doctor, but kept painstakingly dust-free. A basin stands near the door, steam ghosting up from its surface; a physician stands there, already washing his hands when they enter, sleeves rolled high, fingers scrubbed raw-pink at the knuckles with lye-soap.

Another looks up from a chair drawn close to the hearth, where a kettle simmers steadily. She closes the book in her lap with a thumb marking the page and rises at once.

'How long has he been feverish?' she asks.

'Since yesterday morning,' the Doctor says. He is careful with his voice, keeps it from wavering. 'Wound to the thigh. Cleaned and bound, but the fever took hold.'

A stretcher is brought by a nurse and laid out with fresh linens that smell faintly sun-warmed, clean with soap. 'Lay him here,' says the woman.

For a moment, the Doctor doesn't move.

Jamie's weight is familiar in his arms, even now—fever-heavy, pliant. His head lolls slightly as they shift him, breath brushing warm against the Doctor's collarbone. Something in the Doctor tightens, sharp and instinctive, and he swallows it down.

He lowers Jamie carefully, guiding the transfer until other hands take over without jostling him. The nurse murmurs something low and soothing as they turn away, already in motion.

Then hands are on Jamie. Fingers press at his wrist, his throat; someone murmurs a count under their breath, steady and unalarmed. A thermometer is produced—mercury glinting—then tucked beneath Jamie's tongue with practiced ease. He hardly shifts.

The Doctor hovers, useless and keenly aware of it. He reaches for the recorder at once, drawing it back into his hands as though by reflex. He curls his fingers around it, grounding himself in its smooth, familiar weight, the promise of breath and sound. It steadies him enough, even as he watches the rise and fall of Jamie's chest. Too fast, too shallow. The fever has him flushed, lashes damp with sweat.

'The wound,' the woman says, brisk. 'Let's see it.'

Jamie's kilt is nudged up the thigh, and the bandage cut away. The smell reaches the Doctor at once—not rot, not yet, but the sharp, unmistakable warning of infection. The Doctor exhales slowly through his nose, cataloguing what he sees: redness, heat, swelling. Angry, but only so much. He'd been careful with the spirits, but still—pestilence has its ways.

'Clean work,' one of the physicians remarks, bringing him back to the room at large. 'Who did this?'

'I did,' the Doctor says. 'As soon as I could.'

'Inflamed,' another one says, fingers tracing the very edges of the redness. 'But not necrotic.'

'And no foul discharge,' the woman adds. 'That's good.' She nods once, decisive. 'Take him to the sickroom. He needs cooling, rest, and observation. If the fever breaks, he ought to keep his leg and his life.'

The word if lodges beneath the Doctor's ribs.

'How long?' he asks.

'Tonight will tell us much,' she says. 'By morning, more.'

Jamie stirs as they lift him, a faint sound catching in his throat. The Doctor steps forward without thinking, one hand hovering uselessly near Jamie's shoulder before he stops himself.

'He'll be watched over,' the woman assures him, reading the hesitation easily, the familiar worry of a loved one. 'You've brought him in time.'

That, at least, he believes.

Jamie is carried away down a side passage, the smell of soap and linen following him. The Doctor stands where he is for a heartbeat longer, recorder pressed hard into his palm, counting his breaths until the hollow ache inside him settles into something manageable.

Then he is turning, already thinking of where to find some quiet—some corner of the castle where he can play, can let the sound pull him back into himself. The gardens, perhaps, he did always enjoy walking the flower caerdroia—

But before he gets much further, the air changes.

It's subtle: a change in cadence, the faint tightening of attention. The physicians in the room straighten. The woman herself smoothes down her apron, gaze lifting toward the doorway.

The Doctor feels it an instant before he hears the voice.

'Well,' says the Master, warm as hearthfire and just as dangerous. 'I had hoped it might be you.'

The Doctor looks up.

The Master stands in the doorway as though the castle itself has arranged him there—dark coat immaculate, posture relaxed yet poised, eyes bright with interest. His smile comes easily, affectionate enough to sting.

Relief and hunger and loathing crash together, sharp and unwelcome in the pit of the Doctor's stomach. He swallows, jaw tightening as his body reacts in ways he does not permit himself to examine.

'Oh, my dear Doctor—don't look so worried,' the Master says, stepping into the room. 'My physicians are excellent.'

The woman nods, respectful but unruffled. 'I assure you, sir, he's in good hands.' To the Master, she says, 'we've taken the boy to the sickroom, and will arrange watches.'

'Very good.' The Master's gaze never leaves the Doctor. 'Our guests are to be treated with the utmost hospitality.'

'Of course, my lord,' she replies, turning to clear the table of their instruments.

A hand settles lightly at the Doctor's elbow. Not forceful. Never forceful. 'Come, Doctor,' the Master says, 'Sit with me. We've ever so much to talk about.'

The Doctor exhales through his nose.

'If I must,' he says at last.

'Do send word if the fever breaks,' the Master says over his shoulder to the physicians, 'or if it worsens.' 

The Doctor allows himself to be guided into the corridor, the door to the physicians' quarters closing softly behind them. The cool stone air presses in again, shadows stretching long along the walls.

He almost turns back.

The Master's hand tightens, just slightly, at his elbow.

*

The Doctor is led to a sitting room.

Low-ceilinged and warm, tapestries muffling the stone, a fire already banked to embers as though it has been waiting. Chairs arranged for conversation, not interrogation. Civilised. Considerate. The sort of room that suggests nothing dreadful ever happens here—only agreements.

The Master pulls at his gloves, one finger at a time, then pockets them. 'You must be hungry after such a journey.'

The Doctor keeps his hands folded around his recorder. He does not breathe too deeply, lest he scent the meals that have doubtlessly occurred in this room. 'I've managed.'

'Oh, I'm sure you have,' the Master says pleasantly. His smile is quick, knowing. 'But please—let me offer you something. It's been ever so long.' He reaches out and gives the bell pull a single, precise tug. The sound is soft. Decisive.

They wait hardly at all before a servant appears at the door, head bowed, eyes averted in that particular way that speaks of long practice. 'Your lordship?'

'Drinks, please,' says the Master, turning his back as though the matter is already settled. 'My usual.'

The servant nods, then looks to the Doctor. 'And for you, sir?'

'Cattle's blood,' the Doctor says firmly.

The servant hesitates only a fraction of a second, then inclines his head and withdraws.

The Master hums, amused. 'Still keeping to your little rules, I see.'

'They're not little,' the Doctor says, and just barely keeps it from coming out snappish, petulant.

The rules are important. They have to be. 

But he cannot deny that this time, he was lucky.

The Master takes his seat. After a moment, the Doctor follows.

Not opposite, where it could be construed as confrontation, but adjacent, angled just enough invite conversation. The chairs are deep and well-made, the sort that encourage a body to stay. The Doctor perches on the edge of his, restless, recorder still cupped in his hands like a talisman.

'You've changed,' the Master remarks mildly, as if commenting on the weather.

The Doctor snorts. 'I should hope so. That was rather the point.'

He takes in the Master's posture—hands folded in his lap, the tilt of his chin, the ease of a man who's never once doubted what he owns, what he is owed from the world. His eyes linger for a moment, maybe two, on the scar tissue that covers the side of his neck, a patchwork of crescent marks, light on dark skin. The way the marks are not hidden, rather, but displayed.

'You've not changed at all,' the Doctor returns. 

The Master smiles, warm yet acidic. 'I should hope so. That was rather the point.'

The room settles into silence. Not an awkward one—nothing so simple—but the kind that remembers things. Old habits. Old arguments. Old nights neither of them has ever quite laid to rest. Firelight shifts over stone and tapestry, over familiar lines of a face the Doctor has tried to forget. 

It stretches, as though they are both waiting to see who will blink first.

The Doctor becomes acutely aware of his own stillness, of the way the Master's attention never truly leaves him. 

He shifts at last, unable to keep still any longer. The chair creaks softly beneath him.

'Let's not pretend this is a social call,' he says, a little too brisk. 'I didn't come for reminiscence. Or hospitality. Or whatever game you're playing these days.'

The Master waves a hand, like the thought had never occurred to him. 'Of course. I would have thought the feverish human made that quite clear.'

The Doctor's grip tightens on the recorder. 'I won't stay longer than necessary.'

'Oh?' The Master lifts a brow. 'You wound me, Doctor.'

'I doubt it.' The Doctor exhales, words spilling now that he’s started. 'You know very well I wouldn't be here if there were another option. If there were any other way to ensure—' He cuts himself off, jaw setting. 'This isn’t about you.'

The silence that follows is attentive. Interested. Almost pleased.

The Master leans back in his chair, fingers steepled. 'You didn’t have to come yourself,' he says, lightly. 'You could have sent the boy ahead. Entrusted me with his care.'

'I don't trust you,' the Doctor says sharply, 'with anything that matters.'

'And yet,' the Master goes on, spreading his hands, 'here you are.'

The door opens before the Doctor can answer.

The servant enters without meeting either of their eyes, carrying a tray balanced with practiced ease. Two carafes rest upon it: one dark and opaque, catching the firelight only at its edges; the other clearer, thinner, red that looks almost too bright against the glass.

'Ah,' the Master says as crystal glasses are set out. 'Perfect timing.'

The servant pours the Master's first, the liquid thick and unhurried as it slides down the bowl. The Doctor smells it at once—iron and warmth and something alive still clinging to it—and has to look away.

Then the Doctor's is prepared. Cattle's blood, warm, fresh, but unmistakable in its flatness. It smells… adequate.

It usually is.

He counts the seconds for the servant to pour it, and counts again before he allows himself to reach for the glass—only once the servant has withdrawn, only once the door shuts softly behind them.

‘To old times,’ the Master says pleasantly, lifting his glass for a toast.

The Doctor tells himself to sip. To pace it. He has rules for this sort of thing, too. He has lived on cattle's blood for years without this—without the clawing urgency, the thin edge of panic beneath it.

The first swallow is gone almost before he registers it. Then another. The edge dulls—only slightly—but the ache that's been needling at him since the road loosens his grip. He exhales without quite meaning to, shoulders dropping a fraction as his body recalibrates, soothed.

It isn't good blood. It never is. Too thin, too simple, like drinking water after remembering wine. No complexity, no warmth that means anything. But it fills the hollow well enough. It sustains, it maintains, that's all that matters.

Across from him, the Master drinks deeply, and does not look away, eyes bright with something like satisfaction.

The Doctor sets his glass down, aware only then that it's already half-empty.

'Now then,' the Master says pleasantly as he lowers his own, keeping it in hand. 'Are you going to tell me how you acquired your latest pet?'

'Jamie is not my—' the Doctor catches himself. Scolds himself for rising to the bait so early. It's the hunger, he tells himself. Making him antsy. Irritable. He ghosts his fingers over the recorder's keys, a little ditty to keep him sane. Something steady. Something his. 'He travels with me. That's all.'

'Of course he does,' the Master says easily. 'They always do.'

The Doctor's fingers still.

The Master reclines a fraction further into his chair, one ankle crossing neatly over the other. 'Young,' he continues, ticking the points off with a finger. 'Human. Brave enough to follow you into places he doesn't understand. Loyal enough to stay once he realises he can't leave unscathed.'

He takes another sip.

'You do have a type, Doctor.'

His gaze flicks, briefly, to the recorder, to the tension in the Doctor's hands, to the space the boy has already begun to occupy without being present at all.

'So,' the Master says lightly, as though changing the subject. 'Where did you find him?'

The Doctor exhales. 'On the road,' he says at last. 'In poor shape.'

The Master hums. Interested. 'And you… took him in, I imagine?' A pause, deliberate. His smile sharpens just a fraction. 'Much like a stray cat.

He examines his glass idly, the languid slosh of deep red. 'You've always had a weakness for anything wounded,' he adds mildly. 'Especially when it looks at you like you're the last warm thing left in the world.'

The Doctor's jaw tightens. 'He's human,' he says, as though that explains everything. 'They form attachments. It doesn't mean—'

'That you don't?' the Master supplies, pleasantly.

The Doctor does not answer that. He lifts his glass instead, though there is very little left in it now.

'How did your stray come to be injured?' the Master asks.

The Doctor hesitates. Just a fraction.

'There were bandits,' he says. 'On the road.'

The Master's brow lifts. 'Ah. The road again.'

'They weren't after him,' the Doctor adds, sharper now. 'They didn't even see him at first.'

'But he saw them,' the Master murmurs.

The Doctor's fingers curl around the glass stem. 'He stepped in front of me.'

The Master studies him, now. 'How every predictable,' he says. 'You inspire that sort of loyalty.'

The Doctor bristles. 'I didn't ask him to—'

'No,' the Master agrees smoothly. 'You never do.'

He sets his glass aside at last. 'And yet they bleed for you all the same.'

The Doctor turns his gaze to the fire, letting out a slow, controlled breath. 'He's not a shield,' he says quietly.

He hadn't asked Jamie, truly, was the thing. But Jamie had done what Jamie was oft to do, and took the blow for him. As though the Doctor wouldn't have been fine, wounded or not.

'Surely, you could have stopped them yourself?' the Master begins. 'Or have you clipped your fangs as well?'

The Doctor's mouth thins. 'I ended it quickly,' he says. 'No one died.'

'But he still bled.' The Master lifts his glass for another sip, longer this time, savouring.

He lowers it slowly. 'Which raises a rather obvious question, doesn’t it?'

The Doctor does not look at him.

Something tightens anyway, low and traitorous.

'You go to such lengths,' the Master continues, mild as ever. 'Rules. Substitutions. Cattle's blood.'

His gaze flicks, briefly, to the Doctor’s half-empty glass.

'And yet when your human bleeds for you—'

A pause. Deliberate.

'—do you truly expect me to believe you don't taste it, Doctor?'

The Doctor's silence presses in on the room.

The Master takes this in. 'How many times?' he asks mildly.

'What?'

'Don't play coy. I can smell the recursion from here.'

Moments pass. The curtains shift with the wind. Rain batters against the windows. 

'Twice,' the Doctor says quietly. 

The Master's mouth curves, slow and knowing.

'And that was already twice too many,' he adds, before the man gets any ideas.

The Doctor recalls without warning, the first time. 

A soldier boy hitchhiking south—into enemy land, but into land, unlike his own so horribly conquered. His abdomen had been bandaged, the blood darkened brown with time, but as the Doctor helped him into his stagecoach, something had torn afresh. 

A single finger drawn through the bright-red trickle and brought to the lips, as the boy slept.

A terrible lapse of judgement, of discipline—of self.

The second—

No. 

He refuses to think of it.

The Doctor sets his glass down, a little too hard. The sound rings louder than it should.

He reaches for the carafe, intent only on dulling the echo of memory—on filling the hollow before it sharpens into something worse.

He very nearly pours—muscle memory already carrying him there—then the scent hits him: iron, warmth, depth. He sets the jug down, draws his hand back as though burned.

The room has not changed. The carafes have not moved.

Across from him, the Master watches. 'Careful,' he says. 'Old habits.'

The Doctor folds his hands around the recorder at once, knuckles white. He does not reach again.

The Master rises from his chair. 'Your stray is lucky,' he says mildly, stepping away—not to leave, but following the perimeter of the sitting room. His glass finds its way to rest upon a shelf, littered with tomes and scrolls, as the Master peruses.

'Lucky?' the Doctor echoes, his eyes tracking the man.

'Bandits on the road,' the Master continues, as though ticking off a ledger. 'Infection. Fever. A physician who happened to be competent. You do realise how narrow that margin was.'

The Doctor does. He knows, without picture or detail, how many miles he would have lasted. How many miles he had lasted, once, on another road, in another place—where there was no castle.

'Margins like that are not survivable, Doctor,' says the Master gently. 'Not repeatedly.'

He retrieves a scroll from the shelf, old, annotated, practical.

'You live on the road,' the Master says, unrolling it across the table with care. 'Roads attract hunger. Men with knives. Men with nothing to lose.'

The Doctor doesn’t answer.

'You can fight them,' the Master goes on, voice mild. 'Scare them. Kill them, if you're feeling nostalgic. But you can't make the road stop being what it is.'

His finger traces a familiar route south, then pauses.

'And your boy will keep stepping in front of you.'

The Doctor’s jaw tightens. 'Don't.'

'Why not?' the Master asks lightly. 'He already has. He will again. You inspire that sort of behaviour.'

Silence stretches. The fire shifts in the grate.

'Walls,' the Master says at last, as though offering a solution to a puzzle. 'Walls are remarkably effective. So are beds. Physicians who don't have to be found by chance.'

He glances up at the Doctor.

'Routine,' he adds. 'Predictability. A place where the worst danger your companion faces is boredom.'

The Doctor lets out a breath through his nose. 'And you think I'd just… stay put.'

The Master’s smile is faint. Knowing.

'I think,' he says, 'that you'd do anything to stop him bleeding for you on the roadside again.'

He taps the map. 'There is a city-state west of here,' he says, 'Tamworth. One day's journey from my own holdings.'

The Doctor flicks a glance despite himself.

'Small,' the Master continues. 'Prosperous enough. Well-governed, for the most part. But the king ails, and he has no sons. No brothers worth the name. A council already bracing itself for uncertainty.'

He pauses, fingertip resting on the parchment.

'They'd accept a new bloodline,' he says calmly. 'With the right guidance.'

He looks up at the Doctor.

'I think they could do with an heir,' the Master says. 'Don't you?'

The room seems to tilt, just slightly.

'Don't tell me,' the Doctor says, sharp, incredulous, 'you're about to offer me a throne.'

The Master laughs.

'Heavens, no,' he says easily. 'You'd hate it.'

A pause.

'I meant your boy.'

The Doctor stares at him. 'Absolutely not.'

'Hear me out.'

'No. You offer a cage,' the Doctor says, 'and call it shelter.'

'Doctor—'

'Jamie has no interest in ruling,' the Doctor snaps. 'He didn't ask for responsibility, or politics, or—'

'He didn't ask to be stabbed on the road either,' the Master returns, gently.

The Doctor falters. Just for a fraction of a second.

The Master steps closer. Not crowding. Never crowding.

'Your Jamie,' he says, tasting the name, 'has the sort of face people trust. The sort of courage that makes them believe.'

The Doctor goes very still. 'You'd make him a figurehead. A puppet.'

'A symbol,' the Master corrects. 'Fed. Clothed. Protected. Adored.'

He tilts his head, studying the Doctor with open curiosity. 

'You say he has no interest in ruling?' he continues. 'Fine. Preferable, even.' A languid wave of the hand. 'You would be his advisor. His counsel. You'd guide. Decide which treaties are signed, which lords are indulged, which ones disappear quietly into obscurity.' He shrugs. 'Nothing you haven't done a hundred times already—just without the inconvenience of pretending it's accidental.'

A pause.

'Power,' the Master adds softly, 'and you don't even have to wear the crown.'

The Doctor’s mouth thins. When he speaks, his voice is tight, inflexible as steel. 'This city-state,' he says. 'I suppose it's no coincidence that it’s near yours.'

'Surely,' the Master begins, 'you won't scold me for taking an interest in my neighbours?' A faint smile. 'We trade with Tamworth. I'd hate to see it descend into chaos.'

'Is that so.'

The Doctor looks back to the fire. The offer settles into place with unpleasant precision.

No roads. No bandits. No feverish nights spent bargaining with chance. A court. A schedule. Walls that keep the world out.

Jamie safe. Jamie fed. Jamie admired, as he ought to be.

The Doctor exhales slowly. 'And I wouldn't be passing through,' he says. ‘I wouldn't be welcome to leave.'

'Of course you could travel,' the Master amends, 'when you wished. But you would always come back—to the same walls. The same bed. The same man.'

'Stability, Doctor. Certainty,' the Master says, gentle as a blade. 'He'd be safe, and you would always know where to find him.'

The Doctor nods once. He has heard enough.

'What,' he asks quietly, 'would you get out of this arrangement?'

The Master considers him for a moment. 'My dear Doctor,' he says mildly, 'I just told you.'

He lifts his glass from the shelf, finally draining it.

'Stability,' he says. 'Continued trade-relations.'

The Master smiles at last, slow and satisfied.

'And the pleasure,' he adds softly, 'of knowing you're only a day's journey away.'

*

Jamie's fever breaks in the early hours of the morning.

It is not dramatic. There is no sudden waking, no gasp or cry. The heat simply recedes, inch by careful inch, until the physician—who has been watching for signs all night—allows herself a long, quiet breath and sends a servant in search of the Doctor.

The Doctor is not asleep. He rarely is.

He has taken himself outside, to the gardens that spill down the eastern wall, where the grass glistens with dew beneath the moon. He walks without purpose, hands clasped behind his back, steps measured to avoid disturbing the hush.

The air is cool, clean, smelling faintly of wet earth and clipped yew. Somewhere beyond the walls, an owl calls. Somewhere closer, water drips steadily from a leaf into the basin of a fountain, each sound distinct, unhurried.

Three nights.

He has counted them without meaning to. Counted the hours between footsteps in the corridor. Counted the times he has stood outside a closed door and not gone in. 

Three days of pacing corridors at dawn and dusk. Three days of sleeping not at all, or not enough to call it that. Three days of empty chairs at long tables—meals prepared, blood served when asked—of servants who bowed deeper than necessary and spoke carefully, as though the walls themselves were listening.

Jamie's fever has raged like a thing with teeth. The physician—competent, cautious, blessedly uncurious—has warned him not to linger too long, not to exhaust the patient with company. As though the Doctor might forget how fragile humans are. As though he hasn’t been reminding himself every waking moment.

Three nights, and the Master has been almost entirely absent.

Not gone. Never gone. But removed—seen only in passing, felt in the way the castle runs too smoothly to belong to anyone else.

The Doctor has not been summoned since their first conversation.

He stops near the yew hedge, fingers brushing its clipped edge, resin sharp and clean beneath his skin. The craving has been… manageable. More so than it has any right to be, given the circumstances. He tells himself it is the routine. The walls. The certainty that help is near if it is needed.

He does not tell himself that this is exactly what the Master promised.

Footsteps sound on the gravel path behind him.

The Doctor stills—not startled, but alert. He turns as a servant approaches, moving quickly but trying not to appear as though they are hurrying. The man bows, breath just slightly out of rhythm.

'Sir,' he says, keeping his eyes down. 'I was sent to find you.'

The Doctor's hands come away from his back. 'Is it—'

'The fever has broken,' the servant says at once. Relief leaks through the formality despite his best efforts. 'The physician says the worst has passed. She's asking for you.'

The Doctor closes his eyes—not in prayer, not quite—but in something close enough that it serves. He exhales, slow and controlled, steadying himself.

'Thank you,' he says, already turning back toward the castle. 'Please—let them know I’m coming.'

The servant bows again and retreats, footsteps fading into the dark.

The Doctor stands there a heartbeat longer, moonlight silvering his hands, the damp grass seeping through the soles of his shoes.

Then he goes inside.

*

The sickroom is a bedroom, first and last.

It is large, well-appointed, turned temporarily inward. Heavy curtains drawn against the dawn, their fabric dark and richly patterned. A fire banked low in the hearth, enough to keep the chill at bay without overheating the air. The bed itself is canopied, its posts draped with linen that has been pushed back and rearranged, not removed, as though the room is waiting patiently to become itself again.

A washstand has been pulled closer, its basin freshly emptied. Clean cloths are folded with care atop a chair. There is the faint scent of spirits and crushed herbs beneath everything else, but it does not dominate. 

Jamie lies propped against pillows, hair dark with sweat but no longer plastered to his skin. His face is pale, yes—but not waxen. Not drawn tight with pain. His breathing is slow, even. Human. When his chest rises and falls, it does so without effort, without the hitch the Doctor has been listening for for days.

The Doctor stops just inside the threshold, one hand braced briefly against the doorframe as the relief hits him all at once—too fast, too strong, threatening to knock something loose inside his ribs. He does not move closer yet. He lets himself look.

Jamie's eyes are open.

Not unfocused. Not swimming. They track the movement in the room with lazy curiosity, blinking as the light shifts. He turns his head slightly on the pillow, expression creasing as though in thought.

'... didn't see much of it,' Jamie is saying, voice hoarse but unmistakably him. There is a faint rasp there, the lingering edge of fever, but no delirium. No slurring. 'Only what he carried me through.'

'A pity,' comes the reply, smooth and unhurried. 'The city shows best in daylight. The parks, especially.'

The Doctor stills.

He knows that voice.

Of course he's here.

There is the soft scrape of a chair being adjusted — not moved closer, merely resettled.

'You'd like the upper terraces,' the Master continues. 'They're level enough, and the view is quite forgiving to those who aren’t fond of heights.'

Jamie huffs a quiet, breathless laugh. 'I'll keep that in mind.'

'You should,' says the Master mildly. 'You came here under rather unfair circumstances. It would be a shame if that were your only impression.'

The Doctor steps fully into the room.

The Master sits angled toward Jamie, coat neat, posture relaxed, hands loosely folded as though he has simply been passing the time. He does not rise. He does not turn at once. He looks, for all the world, like a courteous host keeping vigil over a guest who fell ill under his roof.

Only then does he glance up.

'Ah, Doctor,' says the Master pleasantly. 'I was beginning to wonder when you'd come.'

The Doctor had rushed to Jamie's sickroom. He lets the comment slide, anyway.

Jamie turns his head further, squinting slightly as though the movement costs him something. 

'Doctor,' he says, relief immediate and unguarded—then, softer, as though the word alone hasn’t quite done the job, 'you're here.'

The Doctor crosses the room in three quiet strides. He does not look at the Master. He does not slow until he reaches the bedside, one hand coming to rest against the carved post as though to steady himself.

'You're awake,' he says.

'Aye,' Jamie replies, smiling. 'And starving, if that helps.'

It does. God help him, it does.

'The physician's quite pleased with herself,' the Master offers easily. 

The Doctor nods once. He reaches out, fingers hovering for the barest moment before he allows himself to press them to Jamie's wrist. Warm. Steady. Human.

'Good,' he says. Then, more softly, 'Good.'

Jamie watches him with open affection. 'He was telling me about the parks,' he says, nodding faintly toward the Master. 'Says I ought to see them when I'm on my feet again.'

'When you’re ready,' the Master corrects mildly. 'There's no rush.'

The Doctor's mouth tightens. He straightens, at last turning his gaze toward him.

'I imagine you'd both like some time together,' the Master continues, rising smoothly to his feet. 'I'll take my leave at once.'

Jamie smiles, tired but sincere. 'Thank you. For—' He gestures vaguely. 'All this.'

'A pleasure,' says the Master. 'Truly.'

He steps closer—not to Jamie, but to the Doctor.

It is done without ceremony. Without announcement.

One moment he is there, the next his hand is at the Doctor's sleeve, fingers warm and familiar, as he leans in to press a kiss to the Doctor's lips. Brief. Certain. Intimate. Unquestioned.

The Doctor doesn’t return it—but he doesn't pull away, either. For a moment he is very still, eyes unfocused, as though somewhere else entirely.

His fingers tighten instead around the recorder, the leather strap creaking softly under his grip.

The Master pulls away. He nods and gives a gentle, proprietary pat on the Doctor's cheek. 'Until next time, my dear Doctor.'

Then he steps back, already turning away.

Jamie blinks.

He watches the Master leave. Watches the door close.

Then he looks back at the Doctor.

After a moment, he clears his throat. 'Well,' he says, voice still rough with sleep and sickness. 'He seems to know you awfully well.'

The Doctor starts, just a little, as though Jamie has spoken too close to his ear—or too close to something he hadn't yet put back in order. He looks down at the recorder, then up again, blinking.

'Mm,' he says, after a beat. 'Yes. I suppose he does.'

Jamie shifts. Adjusts a blanket that doesn't strictly need adjusting. 'So you've… been here before, then?'

'Once or twice,' the Doctor says, trying for light. 'Passing through.' 

He moves closer then, decisively, breaking the line of sight. Reaches for the glass and carafe on the bedside table, where it has been waiting untouched. The water inside is clear, catching the firelight faintly as he pours. He's distinctly aware of Jamie's gaze on him.

'How are you feeling?' the Doctor asks, instead. 'Properly, I mean.'

'Fine, fine,' says Jamie—then his brow furrows. 'But Doctor, that man—'

The Doctor presses the cool glass into Jamie's hand. 'You ought to be resting,' he says. 'Not worrying about things best left alone.'

'I'm no' worried, I'm just… It's only—' Jamie falters, eyes flickering briefly to the door before returning to the Doctor. 'Folks don't look at each other like that, unless something's been done.'

'Jamie.' The Doctor says his name gently, but firmly. 'Drink your water.' 

Silence settles in. 

Jamie does as he's told. The glass trembles a little in his hands, then steadies. The Doctor watches him over the rim of his own thoughts, listening to the slow, careful swallow, the heartbeat settling back into something like order.

Only then does the Doctor speak again.

'Jamie, he and I—' He stops. Breathes. '—we've always been very bad at stopping.'

Jamie looks up at him then. 'Aye,' he says. 'I see.'

And for a moment, the Doctor has the strange, unbidden certainty that in another time, Jamie says, I see you, just as gently.

Jamie's fingers tighten briefly around the glass, then loosen again. He stares down into it, watching the water slosh faintly as his hand shifts.

'There's… something else,' he says, after a moment.

The Doctor stills. 'Yes?'

Jamie clears his throat. The colour creeps faintly back into his cheeks, whether from warmth or embarrassment it’s hard to tell.

'When I was ill,' he says slowly, carefully. 'I ken I said some things.'

The Doctor’s mouth opens—then closes again. He says nothing.

'I was fevered,' Jamie continues. 'Not thinking straight.' A pause. “About—about you. And blood. And all that.'

The Doctor's gaze drops before he can stop it.

Jamie's collar has slipped, just enough—linen tugged loose by sleep and sickness. At the hollow of his throat, just visible above the edge of the blanket, the paired marks sit pale against his skin.

Old. Unmistakable.

The Doctor looks away at once, as though the act itself were a rule. He exhales through his nose, quiet and measured. 'You weren't yourself,' he says at once. 'You needn’t worry about—'

Jamie shifts, wincing faintly as he does, then settles again. 'I meant what I said,' he adds, honest to the bone. 'That it'd be okay.' He swallows. 'But I shouldnae have put that on you. Not when I know how hard you work not to cross that line.'

The room is very quiet.

The Doctor reaches out before he quite realises he’s doing it, fingers brushing Jamie's cheek, then cupping it fully. 'Jamie,' he says softly. 'You don't have to apologise for caring.'

'Aye,' Jamie says. 'But I can apologise for tempting you.'

The Doctor closes his eyes for half a second. 'What you offered,' he starts, 'came from a place of kindness. That's what matters.'

Jamie nods, relieved—but still serious. 'I just wanted you to hear it said plain.'

The Doctor leans in, carefully, to press his lips to Jamie's forehead. Pulls back just enough to murmur, 'Thank you, dear.'

When he straightens, he keeps a hand on Jamie—his arm, now, feeling the solid, steady warmth of him. 

Jamie drains the last of the water and sets the glass aside. 'I'll stick to being a nuisance in more conventional ways,' he promises, attempting something like a smile.

The Doctor huffs a quiet laugh before he can stop himself.

'Please do,' he says. 'I'm much better equipped for that.'

*

The physician shuts the door closed against the corridor and sets the tray down with care—not hurried now, not watchful. Next to the table, Jamie sleeps soundly, slack with exhaustion rather than fever. A blanket covers him, soft, thread-bare from how often it’s been washed.

A small wooden case rests upon the physician's tray, fitted with narrow grooves. Inside, a neat row of glass vials glint in the lamplight—each sealed with pale wax, each marked in the same precise hand.

'This is the draught we spoke of,' she says. 'One hundred milligrams of penicillin, suspended in salt water.' Her fingers tap the case once. 'One vial per dose. No more, no less.'

The solution inside is pale and unassuming. The Doctor has known it darker, cloudier, dependent on luck.

She meets the Doctor's eyes, assessing. 'Have you ever given an injection before?'

'Yes,' the Doctor says at once. Then, after a beat, more honestly, quieter: 'Not like this.'

She lifts one free and breaks the wax seal with a practiced twist. Two glass syringes wait beside it, needles thin as a pin.

'That will do.' She takes up a syringe. 'Watch.'

She draws the solution up slowly, tapping the barrel to chase the air free, and stops when the barrel is half-full. Her movements are unhurried, confident—this is not new to her, even if it is new to the world, and she treats it accordingly. Jamie stirs faintly as she bares his arm, swabbing the skin with spirits.

'Every three hours,' she continues, as if discussing the weather. 'Strictly. Not sooner. Not later. Until every vial is used.'

The Doctor glances at the wooden case. At least three dozen.

'Mind that you check the barrel for air—you can expel it, like so,' she says, drawing the Doctor's focus back. She expels the air from the syringe with a sharp flick of her nail, until the draught beads at the needle's tip.

The needle slips in. Jamie makes a soft sound, more breath than protest. The physician depresses the plunger until the draught is all gone. 

She withdraws the needle and sets it aside, on a different tray entirely. 

'There,' she says. 'That was only half—normally it's given all at once. You'll finish this one.' Not a question. 'Pick a site. Same pressure.'

He prepares a site near the physician's, gently wiping it down with spirits. This, at least, is familiar.

The Doctor takes the last syringe. It is lighter than he expects. Fragile. Exact. Draws up the solution as she had. Taps it once.

Jamie’s skin is warm beneath his fingers. Alive. He aligns the needle precisely where he cleaned—

He does not breathe as he presses it in.

Jamie flinches, a crease forming briefly between his brows, but does not wake. 

The Doctor depresses the plunger slowly, counting without meaning to, until the barrel is empty.

When he withdraws the needle, he stills, waiting for some internal alarm to sound.

Nothing does.

Two small beads of red well up from the punctures.

The Doctor presses clean gauze over them at once, steady and practiced. Pressure applied. Angle adjusted. He counts to three without thinking, then releases just enough to check that the bleeding has stopped.

The punctures sit close together. Neat. Paired.

He covers them at once.

'That's well done,' the physician says after a moment. Approval, spare but genuine. 'You've a good hand.'

'Thank you,' says the Doctor, faintly.

She closes the wooden case and slides it toward him. The weight of it is reassuring—finite, measured, accountable. 'Every three hours,' she reminds him. 'Until the case is empty, even if he seems improved. Alternate sites every dose. The muscle needs time to recover.'

The Doctor tears his gaze away. Inclines his head. 'Of course.'

She pauses, looking at him more closely now—not with suspicion, but with the quiet appraisal of someone who has seen many sorts of caretakers. 'He's fortunate,' she says quietly, 'to have someone like you.' 

'I suppose he is,' the Doctor murmurs.

When she is gone, the room settles into quiet.

The Doctor remains beside the bed, one hand resting lightly over Jamie's arm, listening to his breathing even out. Pliant with sickness, but steady. Alive.

Two marks, already fading.

He keeps his eyes fixed on Jamie's face and does not let himself think about how easily such small wounds might mean something else.

*

The lamps are being lit as the Doctor steps out into the coachyard, one by one, their flames blooming into the dusk. Twilight sits low over the stone, the air cool and damp with evening. Somewhere beyond the walls, a bell tolls the hour—unimportant, unhurried.

The coach stands ready.

The horses have been brushed and fed, harness gleaming faintly in the lamplight. Steam ghosts from their nostrils as they shift their weight, patient, familiar. Someone has taken care here. Of all of it.

Jamie is already seated on the box, bundled against the chill, shoulders squared with the effort of staying upright longer than his body quite wants. He looks steadier than he did this morning—tired, yes, but present. Alive in ways that matter.

The Doctor considers telling him he ought to rest in the coach. But he knows he'd lose that argument—and that he'd want to lose it. He's had enough of being alone with his thoughts.

He circles the coach instead, fingers trailing briefly along the polished wood, then bends to check the boot. He undoes the fastenings and lifts the cover.

Inside: blankets. The drag shoe. Various odds and ends for making camp. And the wooden case.

The penicillin is exactly where it should be, snug and secure, each vial accounted for. Finite. Measured. The Doctor lets himself feel the reassurance of that weight one last time before he notices what sits beside it.

A single container, wrapped in cloth. Small enough to fit easily in his palm.

He knows what it is before he touches it. The warmth gives it away, anyway—fresh, unmistakable, a living heat that seeps through the glass and cloth and into his skin when he cups it without thinking. His breath catches, sharp and involuntary, and for one treacherous moment the world narrows to that simple, terrible fact: human.

Considerate, then. The Master always was, in his own way.

Considerate, but not kind.

In another world, the Doctor might have pulled the cork with his teeth, poorly trained scientist that he is—and in doing so, would have brought himself too close to the glass. To the warmth and the ambrosia within. He might have tasted it before he knew he had.

In this world, he doesn't dare.

He does not look back toward the coach. He does not look up at the windows of the castle. He walks instead to the edge of the yard, where rainwater gathers in a shallow runnel along the stones.

He unstoppers the bottle with fingers that shake. 

The smell reaches him at once. Familiar. Tempting in ways he does not dignify with thought.

Without ceremony, without reverence, without mourning, he pours it into the gutter.

The blood darkens the stones and is gone, carried away as quietly as it came.

When it is empty, he sets the bottle carefully on the kerb, upright, knowing exactly who will hear of it. He steps back at once, as though distance itself were a kind of ward.

He covers the boot once more, checks the coach's door is latched, then comes round to the front.

When he climbs up, Jamie is already settled on the driver's box, boots hooked easy, shaking out a match. The last curl of smoke disappears into the evening air. The lantern beside him casts an amber glow, bright and fresh against the night.

He glances over, quick and familiar, and smiles. 'All set?'

The Doctor gathers the cloak around himself, takes his place beside him. He pats his pocket once, feeling for the familiar weight of the recorder, and then takes up the reins.

'Yes,' he says. 'All set.'

With a click of the tongue, the horses start.