Kaleidoscope

Le'letha

Summary: 'Missy dreams kaleidoscope dreams.' Seven character study drabbles for Missy, in moments of one hundred words each.

Missy inhabits a universe of cardboard cutouts.

She's surrounded by paper dolls that crush and tear so easily, becoming briefly interesting in their origami folds as they crumple. They don't matter. They're not real. Sometimes they possess sparks of reality, if they become a threat to her, but Missy is careful to prevent that, thinking ahead and planning.

Truly.

Missy is going to live forever.

Paper burns so easily; should that spark catch it is her right to snuff it out before it scorches her.

She is real, and he is real, but everyone else is cardboard. Shallow.

Not real.

Of course she hates him. He left her behind. Long ago.

So what was the point of a thousand, thousand nights of two little boys hiding together, planning what they'd do when they ran away?

He left without her. The drums roared louder than ever, because he wasn't there, as they tried to fix her, while she screamed.

She was bait, she knows, luring the renegade home.

He should have come for her, regardless.

She's going to hurt him until he apologizes, and then everything will be all right again.

Of course she loves him. Or what was the point?

Missy thinks it right she should have two heart's desires.

She does not want to rule the world; if she truly wanted to rule, she would find a world far away from Earth, where he would be less likely to be. Also, why would she be content with one world?

She wants only two things, and they are very simple.

Missy wants to live forever, and she wants the Doctor to pay attention to her.

She does not care what form that attention takes.

Let him curse her; let him hate her – she will never allow him to forget her.

Missy likes being herself.

She does not miss the endless searing pain of dragging herself back to life again, or the phantom taste of charred rot that lingered in her throat for so long.

She no longer sees through golden cat's eyes, or struggles to think through the haze of hunger and the hunt. It has been lifetimes since she froze, ready to pounce on something tiny and moving.

(she misses the fangs, a bit)

That she is female now amuses her; it presents so many new possibilities.

(what she became in war is a secret never to be told)

When she screams it is at the silence – dizzying, deafening – and at the loneliness, because it has all gone wrong.

I need my friend back, and she has never, never spoken truer words.

She needs him. She needs the sound of his hearts beating – she cannot bear the silence that is hers alone – and the static of his thoughts alongside hers.

She kissed him because she could, and because it was terribly funny. In her weaker moments that she allows no one to see – and live – she wishes she could embrace him, and be held.

She has no one else.

Missy dreams kaleidoscope dreams.

She sees the universe laid out before her like glass, beautiful and fragile, intricate and cold.

How can she resist shattering it, for the sound it makes and the sparkle of the fragments, razor-sharp and suddenly lethal, and so delightfully unpredictable? How is she supposed to know how something works without breaking it? And isn't it much more interesting, afterwards?

She'll take it all apart and he'll put it back together again, better this time, and for a while she'll be with her friend, in his element, as it should be.

The Doctor needs her too.

There is an entire universe to wander through, and all of time. There are million billion trillion places she could be and things she could be doing. And none of it is of any interest to her.

None of it is any fun.

She could avoid him, but then she would die of boredom. Again and again, she goes back to him, or ensures that he will find her.

Missy tells herself that the Doctor hates her.

She tells herself she doesn't need him. She doesn't care. Not anymore.

She lies.

The Master hates him. Missy loves him.

It's complicated.