A/N: Sorry it's been so long. I recently finished my GCSE exams and am starting A-Levels. 8A*s, 4As, I'm so happy! This one's been sitting in drafts for ages, so I've skipped a little ahead, but thought I'd finish it in honour of the new series. Don't worry, a certain Mrs. Theta Sigma will be turning up soon. So looking forward to it - L x

:/:

A hologram, of course it was a bloody hologram. Missy should have known herself and should have known that he'd keep his back covered. All that time thinking she was going mad again, when it was just all a trick. The Doctor would have found it funny. Hilarious in fact, that The Master had now run out of people to torment, so had to resort to tormenting himself from the future. Well, if he was here he would.
The first day The Doctor didn't come to visit, Missy thought nothing of it. The second, she thought he was just busy. Now, it was just offensive. He was on Earth, Missy knew that for sure, she could feel his presence. And he was wounded, recently healed. Not through regeneration, that left a certain... residue. This was different. And Missy didn't like different. She liked Friday Chinese takeaways, ordering around his egg-headed companion and him sneaking down his guitar so they could play together. 

"Theta Sigma, if you are evading me, I will not be happy", Missy thought, knowing that somewhere across the ages he'd be able to hear it. She laid back into her seat, watching the doors of her cell. That five minutes of freedom roaming the university felt like a millennium ago. Of course, it didn't last though. The Doctor always had a plan, which made her think that he had been planning this absence for quite some time. Once The Master had disappeared from the library with little more than a few words saying that she'd be seeing him again, she found herself transported back into her cell. The freedom was a lie, in a way. The Doctor had some sort of teleporter set on her pulling her back into incarceration at the flick of a switch, like a bungee cord. Still though it sat in her psyche. It was a longing, a hunger for something she couldn't have, and it pained her to ponder how it was on the other side of a door that she should have been able to crack by now. 

It had been three months and Missy was running out of things to do. If The Doctor's plan was to make her sane, locking her within four walls and leaving without so much as a note was not helping. Moving from the chair to the piano, she moved her stool slightly closer and played a few notes, then slammed the lid down in a huff. This just wasn't fair. Two thousand years and she was never this bored before. Just, what was there to do? Nothing, that was the answer. Nothing fun anyway. She had thought about setting something alight, or making some sort of device to disrupt all of the university's electrical networks, or even just summoning some sort of Earth demon. At least she'd have something to talk to. However, all plans fell flat. Sliding onto the bed, she closed her eyes and thought about what ventures she could undertake in the little workspace she had. Stars filled her mind, and for once it was lovely to hear just the silence of the space she remembered. Basking in the stillness of the colour-burst galaxy that spread across her subconscious, feeling her entire body respond to the peacefulness, and something else...

Missy held herself very still, listening to her two hearts beat in rhythm, but another sound intertwining amongst them: tap, tap tap, tap. "Just your bloody mind playing tricks on you", Missy thought to herself, but, without thinking, continued to listen to the tiny beats reverberating throughout her. 

That was impossible. It couldn't be. No, no, it shouldn't be. 

"Oh you've really got me now, haven't you Doctor", Missy said out-loud, and her eyes flicked open to her abdomen that now made her feel quite unnerved. Surely that couldn't be right, she... No, it just couldn't. She couldn't. 

The silence that was once in her mind had now become a symphony of thoughts, all amalgamating into one white noise. A wave of nausea hit her, but she held herself back enough to stop her from heaving. 

"All in your head", she mumbled to herself, rolling away from the thick duvet and standing on the wooden floor, the sound of her heels clicking only adding to the orchestra of noises that now rang in her ears. Pacing towards the door, she held onto the bars of the door handles, and nested her head into her chest. "All in your head. You're not a mother. You're not going to be a mother. That was another time and another you". The memory of her daughter ran through her head, an almost crowning glory to the dissonance of thoughts. God, she thought she was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Cionsia, or Cion, named after her grandmother, who shared Missy's fiery temper and cunningness, but her mother's empathetic nature and ability to think the best of people. She was still not sure how Cionsia's mother even fell for her, probably pity for the fallen Time Lord with the drum beat in their head. Missy was young then though, not quite Rassilon's toy in a war that would, ultimately, take everything from her, including Cion. Missy could remember vividly that day, Cion had recently regenerated, gaining the long, red locks that so regularly filled Missy's dreams to this day. She could recall her, crouching with her mother in the doorway of one of the buildings, looking around them with smoke in their eyes as rubble fell from above. Missy couldn't quite remember what words came to her lips on that day, as the building above them folded in on itself like a tower of cards, but it was probable that it was a scream. 

No, she couldn't relive that. But she couldn't live without whatever creature was gestating within her. This was what she had left. This was her second chance that The Doctor kept banging on about. The Doctor... Oh, no. He had lost family too, friends. This would break him, thinking that he might lose something else. Missy's mind was swimming with panic and doubt, but there was one thing that she was certain on:

The Doctor would never know. 

:/: