Title: The Quality of Mercy
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Brendan Block
Fandom: Doctor Who/Secret Smile
Rating: PG-13
Table: Buffet 1, fc_smorgasbord
Prompt: 72, Mercy
Warning: past non-con.
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Brendan Block, unfortunately. Please do not sue.

***

"So that's what the Cybermen are like," the Doctor said with a sigh. "I don't like recalling them, Brendan, but we're headed to a place that they've been before. I don't want you to be shocked if you see evidence of what they might have done there."

"They're horribly destructive, aren't they?" Brendan murmured, already a little shaken by some of what the Doctor had told him. The Time Lord had mentioned the Cybermen before, but he'd never gone into such detail about the things they'd done.

"Yes, they are," the Doctor told him, sounding sober. "But no more so than some of the other enemies I've had -- and still do. The Daleks are just as frightening, and .... well, you've already met the Master. You know the kind of harm he can inflict."

Brendan nodded, a shudder going through his slender body. He didn't want to think about the Master; ever since he and the Doctor had been through that terrible experience, he'd gone through so many emotions that he wasn't sure how he felt now.

"The Master is someone I'd like to forget -- sometimes," he finally said, his heavy sigh mirroring the Time Lord's. "But I can't, as much as I want to. He always has a way of coming into my thoughts when I least expect him to -- and then the anger comes along."

The Doctor nodded, watching Brendan's face anxiously. "I know how you feel, love. I've felt the same way towards him. It's impossible not to, with all the pain he's inflicted on us. But we both have to accept the fact that it's how he is, and that he's not going to change."

"But we don't have to take that from him!" Brendan burst out, clenching his fists. "We can beat him Doctor. You know we can. We should be able to bring him down the next time he confronts us -- and we can get rid of him and do the world a favour."

The Doctor shook his head slowly, sighing again. "No, Brendan, we can't. If we did that, especially when we have the upper hand, that makes us no better than him. I understand the desire for revenge. I do. I've felt it myself. But I won't drag myself down to his level."

Brendan sighed, trying to marshal his thoughts and push away the rage that whirled in the back of his mind. He knew that when he considered all that had happened with the Master, he had to keep a clear head and not let his emotions cloud his perception.

Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes, trying to calm himself. When he opened them again, the Doctor was still watching him, those beautiful dark eyes clouded with worry. He gave the Time Lord a wan smile, reaching out to take the other man's hand in his own.

"I don' twant you to be like him," Brendan said, squeezing the Doctor's hand. "You have something he'll never have, Doctor, and I don't want you to lose it. You know how to be merciful, and he never will. That quality isn't part of his psyche."

"It never has been," the Doctor said quietly, returning the gentle pressure to his hand. "He's always been the way he is now, Brendan, even when we were children on Gallifrey. Cruelty is all he's ever been capable of. I know that better than anyone else."

Brendan shuddered at the thought; he had seen what the Master had done to the Doctor during their brief imprisonment, and he could only imagine what his lover had been through at that monster's hands in the past. He didn't want to think about those times.

"The quality of mercy is something that he's never going to learn, is it?" Brendan said with another sigh. "I shouldn't expect him to learn to be a better person. He doesn't want to -- and unless you want something, then you're not going to turn towards it."

"He's never known what mercy is," the Doctor murmured, apparently lost in thoughts of the past. His gaze seemed dreamy and faraway, his words coming out slowly. "And he's always laughed at the idea that anyone could embrace that quality and believe it exists."

"I think the most appalling thing is that he wants you to be just like him," Brendan muttered, his anger rising again. The thought of the Doctor becoming anything like the Master made him feel physically ill -- and there was another thought bothering him, too.

He had been close to becoming like the Master, before he'd met the Doctor and had let his life take a different path. He hadn't known much of the quality of mercy when he was younger. He'd been in danger of becoming some kind of monster himself.

Thank goodness he'd seen the Doctor that day, when he'd been contemplating taking revenge on that hideous Miranda bitch, he told himself. If he hadn't, there was no telling what he could have degenerated into -- and he was sure that there would have been no coming back.

He'd never been one to be merciful in the past. The Doctor had taught him most of what he knew about that quality, and he was thankful for those lessons. Without them, he would have been no better than the Master -- and he still had to fight against becoming like that now.

It was a struggle not to give in to his need for revenge, his thirst for retribution, not only for himself, but for the Doctor as well. But the Time Lord was right; he couldn't let himself sink into that morass. If he did, then eh was no better than the person who had wronged them.

But he wasn't going back to the person he'd been before he'd come to know the Doctor. He didn't like that person much -- and he was sure that the Time Lord wouldn't have liked him if he'd continued down the path that he'd been on. Fortunately, he'd never have to find out.

"I know that I should feel merciful towards him, so I won't end up being the way he is," Brendan sighed, shaking his head. "But it's hard, Doctor. Turning the other cheek might be an easy concept in theory, but it's much harder to put into practice."

"I can't argue with that," the Doctor told him with a wry smile. "But you have to embrace the quality of mercy, Brendan, as hard as it can be to do that. If you don't, then your anger and resentment is going to eat away at you -- and eventually take you over."

Brendan nodded thoughtfully; he knew that the Doctor's words were true, but still, it was so hard to make himself let go of what he felt was righteous anger. "Like I said, Doctor, not so easy to do in practice. That anger isn't just going to disappear."

"I know it isn't," the Doctor told him in a quiet, constrained voice. "My anger hasn't abated, either. I've just learned to temper that anger with mercy. You have to do that, if you want to exist in this world and not live apart from it, the way that the Master does.

What he said was true. Brendan knew that the Master could never be a functioning part of the world; his psychosis was such that even if he tried to live amongst people for any length of time, his need to control and dominate would always take over eventually.

That need for control would invariably turn into an impulse to destroy. Brendan knew that all too well; he'd fought against it himself in the past, and he'd managed to overcome it. He had never let himself fall into the trap that the Master had fallen prey to.

What if the Master had managed to overcome those impulses, too? Would he have become a completely different person -- more like the Doctor? And would the Doctor have been able to love him -- therefore not needing Brendan to be in his life at all?

Brendan shuddered at the thought; even if the Master had never become the warped individual that he was now, he still didn't like to think of the Doctor being with him. There was something about the Master that could never be trusted, even if he hadn't taken the path that he was on.

"Mercy is the best quality you can have, Brendan," the Doctor said softly, as if the Time Lord somehow divined his thoughts. "Don't give up on it -- and please don't lose it. I don't want to see you take the road that the Master has. You're too good for that."

"I don't know if I'm above those feelings, but I'll try to be," Brendan murmured, touched that the Doctor was so confident in his ability to be merciful. "I'll take a cue from you, Doctor. I want to be more like you -- so maybe this is where I should begin."

The Doctor nodded, a small smile curving his lips as he squeezed Brendan's hand again. Being merciful might not come easily to him, Brendan told himself, but he would work at it, if only for the Doctor's sake. He wasn't sure that he'd be successful, but he would at least try.

***