The very beginning of this is straight out of the Sound of Drums, but it then goes off into AU territory where I once again mercilessly whump the poor Doctor. And Jack this time, too. This is a pretty dark fic with violence, mind control, and a bit of hinted non-con if you squint. Master/Doctor fics have been sprouting positively everywhere lately, and I think I understand why.
Once again, I'm offering something else up in place of the fifteen part h/c OT3 monster that I'm trying to force into something resembling a manageable story. But this kinda needs to be posted before the last episode of S3, anyway, so here we go.
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| Tenth Doctor | |
Loophole by Adalia Zandra [Reviews - 59]  Chapter or Story Author's Notes: | |
Part One — The Master of My Mind
“Master!” the Doctor gasped with breathy desperation. “Just calm down. Just look at what you’re doing. Just stop! If you could see yourself…”
“Oh, do excuse me. Little bit of personal business, back in a minute,” the Master said cheerfully to the cameras. Then, to the guards, “Let him go.”
They roughly tossed the Doctor forward, and he actually slid several feet across the floor towards the Master before stopping himself and sitting up again.
“It’s that sound,” the Doctor continued, looking up at the Master, willing him to listen, trying to ignore the fact that Jack lay dead to his right and Martha stood precariously hidden by her perception filter behind him. He had to focus, he had to reach him. “That sound in your head. What if I could help?”
“Oh, how to shut him up?” the Master mocked, making a chatty motion with his hand, ignoring the Doctor’s pleas. “I know, memory lane!”
The Master sat himself down on the steps, so that they were again on a nearly even level with the Master just high enough that the Doctor was forced to look up at him.
“You never answered my question, you see, and I really, really want to know. What did it feel like?” the Master asked, whispering the question almost conspiratorially, that gleefully malevolent grin still across his face.
The Doctor’s eyes widened as he realized what the Master was about to do, but before he could react the Master called the guards forward again with a gesture and the Doctor found himself too securely held to make an effective move.
“Make sure he can’t bring his hands up,” the Master instructed his guards, “and let’s have him a little closer.”
The guards shifted the Doctor closer to the foot of the steps where the Master sat, sliding him along on his knees. Then they changed their grips so that his hands were held tightly at his sides. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t defend himself, and he couldn’t fight back. But he could still talk.
“I could make the drums stop,” the Doctor said, looking up to hold the Master’s gaze and resolutely keeping himself from thinking about what he now knew the Master was planning. “If you just stop this, just let me help…”
“But I don’t want your help, Doctor,” the Master cut him off, reaching down to cup his cheek with one hand, almost tenderly. “And you’re being very rude still not answering my question.”
Unnoticed in the background of the drama of the two Time Lords, Jack came back to life with a strangled gasp and Martha unthinkingly moved to help him sit up. The guards were then able to notice her despite her perception filter and both of them quickly found themselves held at gunpoint. Thus rendered impotent, they both continued to watch the confrontation between the Master and the Doctor, wishing there was something, anything they could do to help.
Punctuating his words with increasingly harder pats of his hand against the Doctor’s cheek, the Master slowly and carefully repeated himself, “I. Want. To. Know. What. It. Felt. Like!”
At the end of the sentence, he hauled off and slapped the Doctor hard enough to send him reeling backwards into the grip of the guards, who kept him upright.
Then, while the Doctor was still off balance, his mind busy asking itself why people kept slapping him, the Master reached down with both hands and cradled the Doctor’s head with his fingers searching out very specific points.
“Contact,” the Master said calmly, his tone of voice making it an order and a demand, instead of the polite request it should have been.
When his touch settled and he spoke the word, the Doctor jerked as if the Master had physically struck him again. But the guards held him still, forcing his hands down and back even as he instinctively tried to raise them to return the Master’s contact.
The Master, an accomplished hypnotist and telepath, was forcing his way into the Doctor’s mind by sheer power of will. Unable to match the open link in the other direction, the Doctor was left at a severe disadvantage. He fought back as best he could from his enforced position of passive resistance, throwing up the sturdy mental shields he had built so strongly in his previous incarnation to combat the terrifying emptiness left in his mind where his telepathic brethren had once resided.
But the Master knew what he was doing. Instead of directly attacking the Doctor’s mental shields, he slid along them, a dark and unsettling presence in the Doctor’s mind, following the imagery of his shields until he reached their source.
The memory of the Time War.
What did it feel like? he demanded again from inside the Doctor’s mind, pushing at the memories and forcing them to rise up inside the shields the Doctor had hidden himself behind. Show me!
Trapped behind his own shields and helpless to act beyond them, the Doctor could do nothing more to fight off the Master. And so his memories of the Time War replayed themselves for the two Time Lords currently residing in the Doctor’s mind, drowning out the Doctor’s own mental voice. Please don’t do this…!
The Master reveled in the memory of the Doctor’s anguish and his renewed pain as the memories swamped his awareness and overwhelmed his control. The Doctor’s shields crumbled, and the Master effortlessly and efficiently insinuated himself into every corner of the other Time Lord’s weakened and distracted mind.
Even before the Time War finished replaying itself, the Doctor knew the battle was lost. He had no means with which to fight the invading presence in his mind, no resources to call up that the Master did not already control, no hidden area to retreat to and regroup from that the Master had not already found. His defeat was resounding and complete, and showed unequivocally how terrifyingly well the Master still knew him, understood him, and could manipulate him.
In the outside world, Jack and Martha watched with horror as the mental battle played out across the features of the two Time Lords. Not a word had been spoken aloud after the Master had demanded Contact, but the triumph on the Master’s face and the growing despair on the Doctor’s told the entire story. Finally, the Master’s eyes opened again to gaze down at the now quiescent Doctor. Maintaining the position of his hands and thus the strength of his connection to the Doctor, the Master began to speak in low, hypnotic tones.
Martha and Jack, struggling against the guards who held them back, were sickened by what they heard.
“I have placed myself so deeply in your subconscious that you can not remove my presence, or ignore it, or replace it. I control you. You will obey all orders without question. Failure to obey causes physical pain, the worst you have ever felt. And for starters, you will keep silent unless you are ordered to speak. Do you understand? Use my name when you answer me, and do not lie.”
The Doctor fought the compulsion to reply, but the Master was everywhere in his mind and the pain that tore through him was so strong that it effectively scattered his will to resist. After only a moment of fighting it he was left trembling in the grip of the guards, unable even to cry out, the Master’s hands still holding his head steady. Knowing there was only one way to stop the pain, he desperately tried to speak the words the Master wanted to hear.
“Yes, Master!” he barely managed to gasp the words coherently, and then the pain blessedly stopped.
“There’s a good boy,” the Master smiled down at him. “You always were a quick learner. Here is your next lesson. You can not fight me, physically or mentally. You will retain enough of your free will and identity that you will want nothing more than to throw off my control, but nothing you can do will ever release you. You are helpless, and I control you. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor replied, his voice steady, but his eyes showing the Master every iota of passionate loathing he felt for the other Time Lord and what he was doing.
“Oh, if looks could kill!” the Master practically giggled. “I would be a smudge on the floor. Now, Doctor, is that any way to treat your Master?”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor replied again, truthfully, as the compulsion forced him to. Whether it was his own feelings or the compulsion that the Master was building, he wanted nothing more than to fight the presence in his mind. If a death glare was all he could offer to communicate how he really felt about the Master, then it was certainly an appropriate way to treat him.
The Master giggled again. “Now this is what I call fun! Okay, time for a recap. Tell me what I’ve taught you so far.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor replied yet again, and his companions shivered at the dead monotone his voice adopted as he recited the Master’s orders. “I can not remove your presence from my mind, ignore it, or replace it. You control me. I will obey all orders without question. Failure to obey causes physical pain, the worst I have ever felt. I will keep silent unless ordered to speak. I will use your name when I answer you, and I will not lie. I can not fight you, physically or mentally. I want nothing more than to throw off your control, but nothing I can do will ever release me. I am helpless, and you control me.”
“Good boy!” the Master drawled, finally releasing the careful placement of his fingers on either side of the Doctor’s head and moving one of his hands up to ruffle the Doctor’s hair. “Alright, let him go. Let’s see if he behaves.”
The guards released the Doctor again and stepped back. The Master leaned back against the stairs he was sitting on, watching the Doctor carefully. Jack and Martha stopped struggling against their own guards for a moment, also watching.
As soon as there was no one else holding him up, the Doctor slumped forward until he was kneeling on all fours, barely propping himself up with shaking arms, his head bowed and nearly touching the floor. For once, instead of making him look tall and confident, his long brown coat seemed to pool around him and make him look small.
There was a breathless moment as everyone in the room who was not hypnotized into a zombie-like disinterest by the Master waited to see what the Doctor would do. Silently, Martha and Jack were rooting for him, hoping that he would be able to fight off the Master’s control and somehow save the day.
And he tried. The Doctor pulled on everything that made him who he was, every scrap of strength and courage and hatred of what the Master stood for. His own mind, the mind of a Time Lord, was just as powerful as the Master’s. If he could just break the compulsion for long enough to push the Master out of his mind, he would be free.
But the compulsion was too well built. The Master had thought of everything. Try as he might, there was no way for the Doctor to break the compulsion from inside his own mind. He could not fight the Master, physically or mentally. He was helpless.
A whimper escaped him as he fought a loosing battle to regain his free will. It quickly became clear that he wouldn’t be able to break the compulsion and push the Master out. There was only one other thing he could try, and if he thought about it too hard or for too long the compulsion wouldn’t allow him to act on the thought.
With a nearly primal yell of rage and pain, the Doctor launched himself upwards and aimed towards the Master’s languid form on the stairs in front of him. Without giving himself time to think about it, or hear the cheers of encouragement from his companions, he instinctually reached for the other Time Lord’s throat. He wrapped his hands in as strong a chokehold as he could, pinning the Master to the stairs with the weight of his body.
“Stop!” the Master choked out the order, and the pain which the compulsion had associated with disobeying tore through the Doctor again. Again, he couldn’t even scream with the force of it. Instead, he single-mindedly channeled every sensation into tightening his grip.
Breaking the compulsion was not the only way to push the Master out of his mind. Even if he subsequently regenerated, killing him would do. It would do nicely, the Doctor thought with grim determination, fighting through the unimaginable pain. He was almost there, either he would break through the compulsion soon or the Master would politely expire. One way or the other, soon… why were Jack and Martha screaming his name in warning?
The only way to act against the compulsion was to literally rage against it with very narrow minded focus, and that left the Doctor too unaware of his surroundings for too long. One of the guards, acting under a mild hypnotic suggestion that it was his duty to protect Mr. Saxon at all costs, simply strode forward and applied the butt end of his semi-automatic rifle to the base of the Doctor’s skull.
The Doctor slumped limply on top of the Master, stunned by the blow. The terrible pain faded as he thus involuntarily obeyed the order to stop, his hands falling as limp as the rest of him, while a new pain blossomed from the back of his head. The Master, still pinned beneath his weight, waved the guards off as he coughed a few times to clear his throat. Then, in a gesture that made Martha feel nauseous and caused Jack to curse him fluently in multiple languages, the Master wrapped his arms around the Doctor’s body almost gently, cradling him as he sat up.
“Oh, very nice, Doctor,” he congratulated the barely conscious Time Lord in his lap, his voice hardly affected by his near strangulation of moments before. “Very impressive, really. Too bad it didn’t quite work.”
The Master’s embrace tightened, turning more into restraint than support, pinning the Doctor against him. The Doctor choked back a sob as he literally felt his best chance at freedom slip away.
“Let him go!” Jack shouted, finally managing to drag his guards forward with him even though he couldn’t break free. “For God’s sake, just let him go!”
The Master looked up at Jack with amusement. “So, the freak can speak! Hey, that rhymes!”
As the guards pushed Jack to his knees to keep him from getting the traction to pull them any farther forward, the Master turned his attention back to the weakly struggling Doctor. It was as if Jack had never spoken or moved, and the message was clear. Jack was inconsequential.
“Now, Doctor,” the Master began, his tone of voice full of condescension and malicious glee. He smiled wider when he felt the Doctor shiver in his grip.
“Doctor, Doctor, Doctor,” he continued, “whatever are we to do with you? Perhaps we need to go over the more important bits of your lessons. Repeat after me, Doctor.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor couldn’t stop the reply, even though he continued trying to force his muscles to respond and allow him to push himself away from the Master.
“You are helpless. I control you,” the Master intoned, dropping back into his hypnotic voice.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me,” the Doctor spoke the words as the compulsion demanded of him, but it was obvious that they were just words. Still he fought his losing battle against the Master’s mental and physical holds, despite the part of the compulsion that insisted he could not.
“Say it again,” the Master ordered.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me,” again the words were spoken but still in an emotionless monotone as the Doctor continued to fight.
“A little more feeling, please, Doctor,” the Master instructed, “I don’t believe you, yet. Say it again.”
This time there was hesitation, pain flashing across the Doctor’s features as he disobeyed. His mind was fuzzy from the blow to the head, and still reeling from the Master’s invasion. He knew he couldn’t beat this, but neither could he just give in. He clung to the last vestiges of the rage that had allowed him to attempt his attack on the Master.
“Say it again!” the Master ordered, his voice angry.
“No!” the Doctor howled, all the emotion missing from his voice previously now present in abundance.
“Say. It. Again!” the Master’s voice roared even louder as he literally shook the Doctor with each syllable.
The Doctor, a dangerously manic laughter escaping him, took the request literally and roared back, “It again!”
The Master was not pleased with his captive’s sense of humor, and showed that displeasure by roughly pushing the Doctor off of his lap and using one of his hands to pin both of the Doctor’s as the fingers of his other hand slid into the Doctor’s hair.
This time, as the Master repeated his order, he punctuated each syllable by lifting the Doctor’s head by his grip on his hair and then pushing it back down onto the silver-painted concrete step below his cheek. “Say. It. Again!”
The repeated blows to the head were doing more to sap the Doctor’s strength than even the rapidly growing compulsion. Each slam to his skull and each repetition of the Master’s order ate away at him.
“Yes, Master,” he gasped, the monotone back again. “I am helpless. You control me.”
“That’s much better. But I’d still like some more feeling in that! Say it again,” the Master repeated, maintaining his grip on the Doctor’s wrists and hair as the other Time Lord was still pulling ineffectively against him. It was a sign that he was still fighting, and the Master wanted to see him completely defeated.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me,” the Doctor said again, his voice barely catching on the words, the monotone still largely in place.
“No good, Doctor, I want to hear that helplessness! We’re going to do it until you get it right. So say it again!” the Master scolded, leaning all his weight on the Doctor’s wrists and his head, grinding him into the steps, making him feel the Master’s dominating presence over his own curled up form.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me,” the monotone was muffled by the punishing weight grinding down on his head as if the Master was slowly squeezing all other thoughts out of his brain.
“Not good enough!” the Master declared. “Say it again!”
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me.”
“And again!”
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me.”
“Again!”
“Yes, Master…”
On it went, until the Master could feel the fight leave the body pinned beneath him.
“Again!”
On it went, with everyone else in room except for Martha and Jack looking hypnotically bored or unaware.
“Yes…”
On it went, until it seemed that sheer uninterrupted repetition had forced the ideas to seat themselves firmly in the Doctor’s mind.
“Again!”
On it went, as the Doctor’s voice turned first angry, then scared, then into painful sobs, the words only then taking on their intended meaning.
“Yes, Master! I am helpless, you control me!”
On it went, as Martha cried quietly and Jack cursed loudly in the grips of their respective unmoving guards.
“Again!”
On it went, until even the sobs left him and the helplessness the Master wanted to hear finally took hold of the Doctor.
“Yes, Master, I am helpless. You control me.”
On it went, as the Master forced him to repeat the words until both of them were hoarse.
“Again.”
On it went, while chaos reigned in the outside world as no communication came from the aircraft carrier and hours passed.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me.”
On it went, until finally the Master was satisfied with the listless and hopeless tone the Doctor had settled into with each repetition.
Finally, the Master sat up, releasing his grip on the Doctor, massaging his own stiff fingers as the Doctor remained, unmoving, where the Master left him.
“Well,” the Master said, stretching, looking over to see Martha’s tear stained and exhausted features and Jack’s still barely contained anger. “That only took an attack on his most traumatic memories, several knocks on the head, and oh, about three and a half hours of compulsive programming. Piece of cake!”
Jack started cursing at him again, but the Master cut him off.
“You are so tiresome. Shut up, or I’ll just kill you again.” He stood on the steps, nudged the Doctor’s still form with his foot, and commanded, “Up.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor responded slowly, but not out of rebellion. Every motion was clearly painful as he pulled himself to his feet at the base of the steps.
“Good boy. Look at me and say it for me one more time,” the Master commanded.
The Doctor stood, shoulders slumped, looking up at the other Time Lord.
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me.”
“Oh, that’s just perfect! Beautiful, even!” the Master crowed, and Jack and Martha were hard pressed to tell if he meant his handiwork or the Doctor himself. Neither was sure they wanted to know. The Master looked into the Doctor’s eyes, delighted to see the varied emotions still dwelling there. “Just like I want you. Not broken, but nevertheless completely under my control. Tell me, Doctor, how do you feel?”
“Yes, Master. I am helpless. You control me,” the Doctor replied simply.
The Master chuckled. “I suppose so, since I just spent so much effort beating that thought into you. But how do you feel underneath that?”
“I hate you, Master,” the Doctor replied darkly, his hands curling into fists. Jack and Martha took a small amount of hope from the defiance in his voice. “I am going to kill you.”
“Is that a fact?” the Master said mildly. “You might want to see someone about those genocidal tendencies of yours. But in the meantime, we can’t exactly have you running around loose to make good on your death threats. Coat and jacket off, please, and turn out your trouser pockets.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor complied, piling his coat and jacket on the floor next to the steps and then dumping the entire contents of his remaining pockets on top of the pile. When he was done he looked up at the Master again.
The Master reached down and took each of his arms in turn, rolling his shirtsleeves up for him as if he were a child who needed the help. Again, Jack and Martha couldn’t help but notice how the Master seemed to be getting off on this sick power trip over the Doctor.
“There,” the Master said when he was finished with the oddly intimate act. “Now why don’t you ask the nice guard over there to handcuff you for me?”
Giving the Master another death glare and bitter, “Yes, Master,” the Doctor stepped over to the guard on his right and held his hands out, his bare wrists together in a universal gesture.
The Master, not satisfied with the nonverbal request, specified, “Ask him nicely, Doctor. Out loud.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor replied grudgingly, and then, to the guard, “Please handcuff me, Sir.”
The guard moved to oblige, and the Master ordered, “Now thank him, there’s a good little Time Lord, and then come back over here.”
“Yes, Master,” the Doctor grated out, hating every word and action the Master was forcing out of him, but completely bound by the compulsion to obey. The hours of hypnotic programming the Master had just forced him through had given the compulsion too much strength for him to fight it any more. When the guard was finished clicking the cuffs shut tightly on his wrists, the Doctor said, “Thank you, Sir,” and then moved to stand in front of the Master again. As he turned, he made eye contact with both of his companions, his expression as unreadable as theirs of horror and anger were clear.
The Master took his hands to check the cuffs, and then yanked on them so the Doctor would stumble forward. Keeping his balance for him, the Master pushed the Doctor’s head down by gripping his hair again and then leaned over to whisper in his ear.
When he was released, the Doctor uttered one last, “Yes, Master,” and then moved to stand next to the guards who held Jack and Martha.
“Lock them up in the brig,” the Master ordered the guards, “I have a population to decimate and a planet to conquer, I can’t be bothered playing with my new pet and his little friends any more right now.”
Both Jack and Martha cursed him vehemently, dishing out as much verbal abuse as they could before the guards dragged them out the door. The Master cheerfully waved goodbye until they were out of his sight, only then releasing his hypnotic spell on the rest of the inhabitants of the room and picking up where he had left off at the Doctor’s interruption.
As they were dragged down the corridor, Martha and Jack both tried to talk to the meekly following Doctor.
“Doc?” Jack queried nervously, wondering if he would be able to reply.
“Doctor,” Martha insisted, less willing to entertain the thought that he wouldn’t talk to them. “Doctor, answer me!”
“Yes, Martha,” the Doctor replied, keeping his gaze on the floor in front of him, using the same monotone he had previously with the Master.
Hearing him answer her that way sickened her, and she asked, “God, Doctor, what did he do to you?”
“I’m helpless, Martha,” the Doctor replied, as if he were still mindlessly repeating the same refrain. “The Master controls me.”
That nearly put her into hysterics, and she cried, “But what did he…”
“Stop it, Martha!” Jack cut her off, still struggling uselessly to give his guards the slip. “Leave him be!”
“Jack,” Martha pleaded with him, struggling against her own guards. “Over three hours of those words, repeating over and over… what did that bastard do to him!?”
“It’s a telepathic hypnotic compulsion. A very strong one. He somehow forced himself into the Doctor’s mind, using his worst memories and a few blows to the head to keep him off balance. We heard him set up the compulsion… and we heard the hours of programming it took to make it stick,” Jack explained, his own revulsion for the Master’s actions obvious in his voice. “He’ll obey any orders put to him that don’t conflict with the Master’s, he can’t help it. So please be very careful what you say to him, Martha!”
“Oh, God, I’m sorry, Doctor,” Martha apologized. She hadn’t realized the power they could hold over him with mere words.
“You can speak freely to us, Doctor,” Jack said gently even as he elbowed the nearest guard with as much force as he could muster.
“Thank you, Jack,” the Doctor replied, still steadfastly staring at the floor as they made their way down the corridors. “And it’s alright, Martha. You didn’t understand.”
“I don’t suppose an order to help us overpower these guards would work,” Jack mused.
“No, Jack. I’m sorry,” the Doctor replied.
“It’s not your fault,” Jack told him. “You don’t need to apologize.”
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
They reached their destination soon after that, a dark corridor in the bowels of the airship, filled with a row of cells. The guards made quick but efficiently thorough work of searching all three of them, ordering the Doctor to submit to the somewhat humiliating search despite the fact that the Master had already ordered him to turn out all his pockets. When they were satisfied that their prisoners had nothing useful on them, they opened one of the cells and pushed Martha and Jack inside. The Doctor followed them under his own power.
The door slammed shut, leaving the three of them in a fairly small, windowless, poorly lit metal box. The Doctor sighed, and moved to the center of the floor. He knelt facing the door, lifting his cuffed hands over his head to lace his fingers together behind his neck.
“Doctor?” Jack said, confused but suspecting the truth.
“Master’s orders, Jack,” the Doctor explained. “I’m not to move from this spot or this position until the Master releases me.”
“Oh, God, Doctor,” Jack breathed, dropping to his own knees in front of the Time Lord. Martha sat herself down on the floor next to them.
“Can you… is there any way you can fight it, Doctor?” Martha asked.
“No, Martha,” he replied. “There is no way I can fight it.”
Jack blinked at the emphasis in the Doctor’s words, a wild hope forming in his mind.
“There is no way you can fight it,” Jack stated.
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied, his eyes meeting Jack’s, willing him to ask the right questions.
“Are you implying that there is a way we can fight it, instead?” Jack asked.
“Yes, Jack!” the Doctor replied, smiling encouragingly.
“Can you explain it to us?” Martha asked.
The Doctor looked pained for a moment, as he tried to push past the compulsion enough to directly explain his idea. His eyes slid closed and he tried to fight back the pressure in his mind.
Suddenly realizing that the Doctor was only uselessly wearing himself out, and that Martha’s question might be enough to keep him trying despite the futility, Jack softly commanded, “Stop, Doctor.”
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor gasped, trying to regain his composure. Then he looked at Martha sadly and answered her question. “No, Martha.”
“There’s a way we can fight this for you, but you can’t tell us what it is,” Martha said. “We have to figure it out on our own?”
“Yes, Martha. And no,” the Doctor replied.
“You can’t tell us what it is, but we can ask you questions,” Jack corrected.
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
“Let’s start with the basics then,” Jack said. “Was my explanation to Martha before essentially correct?”
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied. “Using essentially the technique you described, the Master has built a very specific telepathic hypnotic compulsion on a very specific level of my mind.”
“Very specific?” Martha caught the Doctor’s repeated wording.
“Yes, Martha,” the Doctor replied.
“Well, that brings up two questions,” Jack said. “First, what very specific level of your mind?”
“It’s very deep, Jack,” the Doctor replied. “But not as deep as he could have put it given that much time for the programming. He wanted me to retain enough free will to know what he’d done to me.”
“I remember him saying that,” Martha said, shivering a little.
“And the second question… I hate to ask this of you but you seem to think it’s necessary. Can you tell us the very specific compulsion?” Jack asked tentatively, his eyes searching the Doctor’s face for any sign that he should rescind the request.
But the Doctor simply nodded, “Yes, Jack.” His eyes closed again, and slipped back into the sing-song monotone to recite, “I can not remove the Master’s presence from my mind, ignore it, or replace it. He controls me. I will obey all orders without question. Failure to obey causes physical pain, the worst I have ever felt. I will keep silent unless ordered to speak. I will use your name when I answer you, and I will not lie. I can not fight the Master, physically or mentally. I want nothing more than to throw off his control, but nothing I can do will ever release me. I am helpless, and the Master controls me.”
“The key is in the wording of that somewhere, isn’t it,” Jack said when the Doctor’s eyes opened again. “You’ve found a loophole that we can exploit.”
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied. “I can not remove the Master’s presence from my mind, ignore it, or replace it. I can not fight the Master, physically or mentally. Nothing I can do will ever release me.”
Thinking carefully on this edited version of the compulsion, Martha realized, “It’s something that specifically one or both of us has to do, because there’s nothing you can do.”
“Yes, Martha,” the Doctor replied.
“Can you tell us which one of us?” Jack asked.
“You, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
“Okay, that gives us something to work with,” Martha said encouragingly. “We need to look at the differences between me and Jack.”
“Yes, Martha,” the Doctor replied.
“Well, let’s start with the obvious. Does it have to do with my immortality?” Jack asked.
“No, Jack,” the Doctor replied.
“That would be too easy, I suppose,” Jack groused.
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied, smiling slightly.
“Is it that he’s a bloke?” Martha asked. “Or that he flirts to say hello?”
“No, Martha,” the Doctor replied, actually chuckling.
“We’re both human, so species isn’t it… unless… does it have to do with my native time period?” Jack asked.
“Yes, Jack!” the Doctor replied. They were finally on the right track.
“Okay, something about humans from my time period that isn’t true in Martha’s,” Jack mused to himself. “Something applicable right now. Oh! I am so stupid. Telepathy!”
“Yes, Jack!” the Doctor replied again.
“But, Doctor,” Jack protested, “even though I had some training as a Time Agent it was only enough to find out that I’m not any good. I don’t register very high as a telepath and I was useless at using what powers I did manifest.”
“Doesn’t matter, Jack,” the Doctor insisted. “I can not remove the Master’s presence from my mind, ignore it, or replace it.”
“You want me to use my pathetic telepathic powers to do something for you. Something to do with that part of the compulsion,” Jack assumed.
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor confirmed. If he trusted Jack enough, there was a way to undermine the Master’s control. A loophole. But he had to get Jack to understand before the matter of trust could even become an issue.
“Jack,” Martha spoke up then. “He can’t remove, ignore, or replace the Master in his mind. What options does that leave him?”
Jack gaped at Martha for a moment. The Doctor fidgeted in his frozen position, obviously wanting their attention.
“Can you answer that question, Doctor?” Jack asked him.
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor replied. “It leaves undermining him. But I can not fight the Master, physically or mentally. Nothing I can do will ever release me.”
“Undermine him? You want me to…” Jack gaped at the Doctor now. “You want me to go deeper in your mind than the Master did and undermine his compulsion with one of my own!?”
“Yes, Jack,” the Doctor confirmed, obviously as unenthused by the idea as Jack, but pointing out, “It’s the only option.”
tbc…
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