Chapter Text
When Bill had told Shireen that the only way that she would get a date would be if she and a woman were locked in a room together, Bill had been joking. This was certainly not what she had meant.
The Vault’s doors were not opening.
Bill hadn't been too worried at first: she thought that she'd put the pin in wrong. The piano being played menacingly behind her, Bill had taken a deep breath and put the code in again. She did it slowly, making sure it was correct.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, switching the last two numbers around. Nope - that pin was swiftly denied. She switched the first two numbers. Again, nothing happened.
'I am not scared. I will be fine. I will get this door open.' Bill kept repeating to herself. She also cursed the Doctor internally. If he hadn't sent Nardole to Leeds, she wouldn't have had to come down here. He knew that Missy had demands, and that he himself had a tight schedule of classes this week.
Bill couldn’t believe that he had really sent her down here – into the dragon’s den – just to give extra blankets to his…prisoner? Friend? Wife? Bill wasn’t really sure of the nature of the Doctor and Missy’s relationship, and she frankly was not keen on finding out the truth. Still, he had sent her down with extra blankets for Missy – who was ‘cold’ apparently but she hadn’t touched the blankets Bill had given her, and had just looked a bit disappointed that it was her who had opened the vault doors.
The Time Lady had said nothing, just swivelling back around on her piano stool, and returning to some terrifying, gothic sounding piece she was playing. There was no sheet music on the piano, so Bill just assumed that Missy was coming up with the song herself.
Bill put the whole pin in backwards, with no success, before trying it the way that the Doctor had told her once again. Still nothing. The music was not helping, in fact, it was just making her freak out all the more.
For one brief, wonderful moment, Bill breathed a sigh of relief when the room fell into silence. It was only after that moment she realised what that silence actually meant.
“What are you still doing here?” A cross sounding Scottish drawl reached her ears like a slap to the face. Bill jumped, and spun around to face her.
There wasn’t anything about Missy that Bill could point to and go ‘ah yes, this is why she gives me bad vibes’. It was just everything about her. Her demeanour, her posture, the way she had styled her hair, the distinct quirking of her eyebrows that let you know she knew more than you thought, the anachronistic clothing, the predator’s grin she sported: the woman was bloody terrifying.
And now she was looking right at her.
“Um…”
“Get lost before I do something that will make the Doctor very cross.” Missy tapped her long nails against the wood of the piano, in a very threatening manner that reminded Bill very much of the Other Mother from Coraline. That didn’t make her feel any better.
“Trust me, I really want to get out of your hair,” Bill stammered, which just made the terrifying Time Lady at the piano chuckle, “but the doors aren’t opening.”
“Oh no.” Missy said, monotonously, and turned back to her piano again.
Bill got her phone out of her pocket. The Doctor needed to get her out of here – lest she end up some kind of snack for the woman at the piano. That woman started playing the circus clown song in the minor key with one hand, staring Bill directly in the eyes as if daring her to get offended at the insinuation that she was a fool.
Bill took a deep breath. Do not let her get under your skin. She just ignored her, and found her way to the Doctor’s number in the phone. She would be rescued soon, she told herself. Just keep your cool.
Her spirit took a nosedive, however.
“Oh – no signal.” Bill sighed.
Missy stopped playing, and shot her a look that screamed ‘are you stupid or just pretending to be?’
“Do you really think that a vault meant to hold me would have signal?” She pressed a hand to her chest, as if offended. “Think of all the chaos I could cause with mobile phone service.”
“Well – how am I going to get out?” Bill cried out, despairingly. This was just great. She was going to die in here, eaten by the Doctor’s weirdo girlfriend/war-criminal/pet and it was completely his fault.
Instead of jumping on her like a child in a tiger-pen, Missy just smiled at her. It was clearly supposed to be a rendition of an innocent smile, but it was far from that. In fact, it chilled Bill to the core and she pressed back away from her, her back against the door.
“Have you tried hitting the doors with something?” Missy asked, sweetly.
“What?”
“It sometimes works.” She shrugged and pushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “The Doctor sometimes has to kick them to get them open.”
Now, that did not seem like something the Doctor would do to Bill. That seemed like a tall tale told by someone that wanted to get her into trouble. Bill narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.
“I’m not sure that’s true, and if I break them kicking them, we’re going to be stuck in here a lot longer.”
“Not me, sweetie.” Missy’s voice turned sour. “I’m going to be in here for 930 years more, whether those doors open within your tiny little lifespan or not.” She sneered.
“…930 years?!” Bill’s mouth dropped open.
Now, she was aware that the Doctor had been at the university for ages – decades even – but Bill hadn’t even considered how long he was planning on staying. How did he think he was going to keep that up when everyone around him knew that ‘the Doctor’ should have been long dead? Bill knew the answer. He hadn’t considered that yet.
“So, hang on. How long have you been here so far?”
“Seventy years.”
“You’ve been in solitary confinement for…seventy YEARS?” Bill blinked in astonishment.
“And he left me all alone in here for six months!” Missy whined. She didn’t need to remind Bill – her memory of that was very clear. “I would say that this is the worst prison I have ever been in, but I’m supposed to be working on not lying…or something like that.”
Bill got the feeling that lying wasn’t actually Missy’s problem. She hadn’t lied to Bill at any point in any of their conversations – before this one anyway. If anything, it was being too honest that was her problem. Although, maybe she was midway through a change?
Bill knew that she and the Doctor were both ancient – maybe Missy had been a terrible liar and the Doctor’s Vault idea was working? Maybe she’d gone from hopeless liar to brutally honest, and maybe just a little bit longer in the vault would take her into kindness? That was probably the Doctor’s reasoning, anyway.
Bill took a deep breath. She stepped away from the safety of the door. They would have to get along, she reasoned. Missy could make threats: she wouldn’t act on it. The Doctor would rain hell down on her if she did anything to her. Might as well make the best of the situation.
“So…” Bill tried to sound conversational, cheerful, even. “What did you, like, do…to”
“For my friend to lock me in a box?” Missy did not match her tone. She looked like she could crush Bill under her foot.
“You’re friends?”
“Old friends. We grew up together. I know - ” She put a hand under her chin and preened under her own praise. “I’ve aged better.”
Bill didn’t really know how to respond to that, so she just kind of laughed, nervously. Make the best of it, she thought. The chair the Doctor would sit in when he came to the Vault was open and Bill took a seat.
Missy raised an eyebrow at her doing this, but said nothing. Instead, she turned on the piano stool so that she was facing her properly. She looked like an Edwardian lady getting ready to have tea, rather than an admitted murderer. Although, Bill supposed, there must have been Edwardian lady murderers…
“As for why I’m in here.” Missy continued. “He told you.”
“He said you’re in evil rehab.”
“That’s not a direct quote but yes, that’s the general gist of the situation.” Missy rolled her eyes. “Personally, I think he’s more like me than he cares to admit."
"How do you call him?" Bill asked suddenly.
"What?"
"You make demands, like, all the time.” Bill pointed to the stack of blankets that she still hadn’t touched. It wasn’t even cold in the Vault! She was sure Missy had only asked for them as a power play. They were ‘ha, I can still control you from inside my prison’ blankets. “You can't be doing it in person. How do you call him?"
For a moment, Missy just regarded her with interest. Then her face cracked. She smirked.
"Ah - see - you're a clever one. I'll try and remember your name." She said, nodding, pointing at Bill.
"Thank you?" Bill nodded too.
"He has a psychic paper.” Missy explained, speaking with her hands similarly to how the Doctor did during his lectures. “We are a psychic species. That's how he knows when I require things."
‘Yeah’, Bill thought, ‘like blankets you don’t use’.
"Oh sweet!” Bill said, instead, sounding more chipper than Missy was expecting. “Psychic, that's cool, like professor X!” Bill needed to make the Doctor and Nardole watch X Men, she realised.
Missy clearly had no idea what she was talking about, but just kind of nodded like a parent listening to a toddler’s rambling story that had no point. She didn’t deserve to know what was going on, Bill decided.
“Hang on!” Bill paused. “Can you hear what I am thinking now?"
"It's more like being able to feel emotions, rather than concrete thoughts. I can taste your fear."
"Well, that is a terrifying sentence. You sound like a horror movie villain. You’re Hannibal!"
Missy did not take that as the mild insult it was supposed to be. Instead, she did a hissing Hannibal impression with her teeth (of course she would know Hannibal Lecter and not Professor X) and laughed heartily at Bill’s horror.
"So, could you send him a message?" Bill asked.
"Already have, sweetie.” Missy said, flippantly. “I don’t want you in here. He'll be here after his lesson. I told him to bring me lunch, too."
"Oh, nice.” Bill sighed. “So, we're stuck together then?"
"Yeah. You're so lucky." Missy said, arrogantly.
Well, this was going to be a long couple of hours, Bill thought.