Shattered

Sonya eyed Arthur curiously then sat beside Mal, a hand on her arm where the bruise was, slowly sending some of the golden energy through the blanket, healing her there as well. "So, tell me, Arthur. Are you some sort of knight in tainted armor? Rescuing damsels in distress, or are you just a vigilante that likes to inflict violence on unsuspecting people?" She asked curiously, her voice coming out sarcastic as she leaned back, her arms folded over her chest as she stared over at him with a slight frown. "You don't act like a lot of people around here. In fact, you act like someone I knew quite a few years ago."

(Short post, just woke up and can't get my brain into gear without coffee)

Arthur laughed slightly and grinned, "Trust me, I'm no hero. I just don't like bullies." he answered. Years ago, that was as good a place to start as any. Years ago he'd been... he didn't like to think about years ago. "I... may have gone by a different name a few years ago," he admitted. Truth be told, he didn't know who he was, he only knew the aliases he'd gone by over the years. His last had been different from the others, he'd spent years thinking he actually was The Master. "Well, less of a name more of a title..." he admitted. "Sonya." he repeated her name from earlier, racking his brains. "You're not from around here are you..." he realised.

"You could say that..." Sonya murmured quietly, standing up and beginning to pace around the flat, studying the things he has scattered about. "I'm from quite a bit away, in fact." She added, her eyes darting over towards Arthur again as she crossed the room and stood by the window. "You could say the same about yourself, in fact. You don't act like anyone from around here either."

Her nerves were getting the best of her, she just couldn't sit still for more than a few minutes before wandering over to another part of the room. Sonya imagined this would be what it felt like to be trapped in a cage, unable to go farther than the next wall of bars. She hated it with a passion. Sitting in one place too long, it made her nervous and anxious. Too many things could happen while she was in one place for too long. "So, tell me, where do you come from, Arthur?"

Mal murmured her thanks and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders before cupping the mud in both her hands and sitting down. She murmured another thanks when Sonya healed her arm before she looked at the two with wide, curious eyes. Taking a sip, she sighed as the warm sludge ran down her throat. Well, it was helping her warm up faster then she could have hoped for. It was better than remaining cold. Actually, the soaked clothes she was wearing probably wasn't helping.

Mal shook her head and took another sip of the coffee when her mind began to wonder before she listened to the conversation at hand. She honestly didn't know how people could tell if someone was from a certain area or not...

"Well, that's... A long story" Arthur admitted. He glanced at both of them before continuing. "Well, not really actually. I don't know why people say that they almost always follow with the aforementioned story and it lasts less than two sentences. I used to think I was from a place called Gallifrey, but I'm not. I don't know where I'm from. See, two sentences, just as I said." He paused, "Don't you just hate it when your life was a lie..." He muttered turning away. "But enough about me, what about you two?"

"Why do you say you think your from Gallifrey?" Sonya demanded quickly, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him. "You can't just think you are, hardly anyone knows about Gallifrey, you can't just suddenly think one day. 'I just might be from a planet that's hardly known and gone now.'." Shaking her head, she started pacing around the apartment again, her hands folded behind her back as she glared at the floor. "Who are you? And I don't want a cover-up. I want to know who you are and what the hell do you mean."

Mal looked from Arthur, to Sonya, and back again. "Uh, i-isn't that.. where you and the Doc are from? Wait, does that make you a... Time Lord? Jeez, this just gets better and better, don't it?" The petite girl rubbed her forehead vigorously before taking another sip of her coffee. Remaining silent would be the best option now, obviously the two had some things to discuss.

"I said I thought I was. Turns out I wasn't. I can't answer you because I Don't Know!" He stressed out the last three words for emphasis and effect. "I thought I was some-one else for 4 years. The Master to be precise, but I wasn't him, and I don't remember much of my time as him. That's what I do, I steal people's identities. I'm sorry but that's who I am!"

Sonya frowned slightly and looked down at her feet with a slight scowl. "So... My brother is truly a moron, your not him... Shame." She sighed and looked back up at him, her arms folding over her chest as she let out a soft sigh. "You made a better brother than he does now... At least you were around when I needed you." Shaking her head, Sonya began pacing around again, unable to stand still as she thought over everything he said. "You have no idea who you are. Nothing from your past that you could put an anchor on? Some point in time where you started to steal identities?" She asked sharply, her eyes flicking up from the floor and back to his face before they dropped down again.

"Well... Yes. I only know that I seem to have regenerative abilities, and that I have 3 years to live." The way he said it made his statement seem irrelevant and insignificant. Brother. The word caught in his mind and trudged memories to the surface, memories his body had pushed away. Memories of... Happiness? Whatever it was, that life was gone. He could never have that feeling again.

Sonya let out a long drawn out sigh and finally stopped her pacing in front of him, her blue eyes critically studying the man with a small frown. "I don't care if we aren't blood, I don't care if you aren't the master... What you've done for me in the past, what we've witnessed and did..." Falling silent for a moment, she felt a slight smile quirk up the corners of her mouth as she lifted a hand and gently set it on his shoulder. "You are my brother, what you've done, even if you don't remember, what you have done to help me and my friends, that makes you a brother to me."

Mal finished off the last of her coffee and peered into the mug with wide eyes before looking at the two in front of her, "I'm sorry but what the hell is going on? I have no idea what the two of you are even talking about. Who's this Master you're talkin' about? Man, talk about identity issues. Oh crap, that was rude, wasn't it? I didn't mean it like that." Blushing, Mal looked into her mug again as if it had become the most interesting artefact in the world. She really had to stop letting the first thing in her mind tumble out before she had time to process what it was.

Arthur smirked and knelt down by the chair so his eyes were level with Mal's. He patted her shoulder as he spoke: "The Master is not a very nice man. Think of him as evil male Sonya. He's also not me. As for the rest, it's complicated timey wimey paradoxical nonsense. Just ignore it, the only important part was that..." He paused, standing back up straight, "...I found my sister."

A slow smile crept across Sonya's face at his words. This impossible man who didn't even know who he was, was her brother no matter what anyone says. She had renounced her relation to the Master after their last meeting, granted he never really tried to harm her in any way, he was still a sore spot in her memory. "And it's about damn time too." She finally added, laughing lightly as she allowed herself to fall back against the wall. "Now the only challenge is to find out who you are. Because honestly I can say I have never ran into anyone with a situation like yours. And that is saying something, I've seen a lot of things."

Mal blinked at Arthur, "I-is this serious? OK, I'm assuming bad evil Sonya would be terrifying." She looked over at Sonya, imagining that situation and visibly shuddered. Placing the mug on the table in front of her, she slowly leaned back in the chair and studied Arthur. What a weird thing to be, unknown to many including yourself. When he took people's identities.. where did they go? Did he change his face or just take the name and information? She remembered hearing about certain aliens that could live inside you or steal your face and all that creepy, fun stuff.

"The rain's stopped." He announced it while glancing out the window as if ignoring what the two of them had been saying. He did that sometimes: zoned out. "I'm going to die." He said absentmindedly, rephrasing his earlier speech. "Not for three months though..." He said it almost as if trying to reassure himself. "...and I can do a lot in 3 months..."

"Why do you say three months? What's going to happen?" Sonya asked curiously, glancing over to the window and blinking slightly as a bright shaft of sunlight shone through it just as she did. A soft hiss of irritation slipped from her as she raised a hand to her eyes and stepped back away from it. "I really need to get sunglasses or something." She mumbled, her hand dropping to her side as she squinted until the black spots vanished from her vision. "Back to what we were talking about then..."

Her attention returning to Arthur accompanied with a slight frown of disapproval. "What makes you think you'll die in three months? no one knows when they are going to die. not even identity thieves. No matter how good you are at it." She said curiously, her eyes searching his face for any clue, any thing that might let her know what he was thinking. "Talk to me."

Mal shivered as she imagined what it would be like to know when you were going to bite the dirt. The unknown was scary but in a situation like this, not knowing was probably for the best. Mal, personally, would be shaking and nervous ridden and wouldn't be able to simply enjoy her life because she knew when it was going to end. With that in mind it would be hard to enjoy the time you did have. Poor guy, was he scared? "How'd you find out this bit, man?" Her curiosity got the better of her so she opened her mouth and asked the pesky question.

"Same way I found out I wasn't The Master." he said with a sigh. His eyes looked weary, worn and tired. "Time Lords regenerate. When I thought I was one, I knew I only had one regeneration left. I'm not a time lord, but my body does something similar." he shivered. "I met a man in a bar. He said something to me, a word. I don't remember the word but I remember the feeling, because the word was some kind of trigger and I knew then, who I wasn't, and how long I had to live. Sounds weird, but I felt it, and I know it's true." He finished his drink, placing the glass down on the side. "Sorry, that was a bit of a mood killer" he smirked.

"Are you some sort of amorphous blob then? Is my brother some big pile of goo that changes shape?" Sonya asked curiously, a twinkle of humor in her eyes as she shoved his shoulder gently. "I have to say, pretty solid for some goo thing, not bad looking either, but that is beside the point." She added with a shrug, trying to look nonchalant as she wandered into the kitchen to refill her own drink. Bare of any details, only necessities and nothing for decoration. Just like him. Snorting lightly, she shook her head and filled her glass once more before walking back out into the living room again. "So blob, brother. Three months, what shall we do first?"

"That is just confusing and messed up, man. Sorry to be the one to say it. Wow, I'm surprisingly calm... must be a full moon." Mal muttered the last bit to herself as she tugged the blanket in closer to herself, shivering slightly. This was weird... and very curious. Now she wanted to know how this was even possible. Maybe he was a secret agent who is on the run. In three months one of his agent buddies will come looking for him and kill him and he only knows this because someone from the future came back and warned him! Wow, that sounded like a fantastic movie. I would totally watch it if it were...

"Well, I'm working on becoming a crime lord." Arthur responded to Sonya with a grin. Then he glanced over at Mal, "First to say it but hardly the first to notice it," he replied, this time with a smirk and a chuckle. For a man nearing the end of his life he was in surprisingly high spirits. "So..." he paused in thought, "Poker? Snap? Magic Tricks?"

"A crime lord? Well, wouldn't be too much different from when you were the Master in all honesty." Sonya said, a small smile quirking her lips up at the corners. "But not sure about magic tricks, unless you want that to be your thing. All Crime Lords have a certain thing they do. Some have a cat, some have a collection, others smoke nasty cigars..." She trailed off in thought, trying to remember what she was talking about in the first place. "But, I dunno about games. I cheat at poker without realizing it and never could figure out the rules to playing Snap."

"I've never been good at games like that. I'm not much of a card person. Or gambler. Actually I'm not much of anything." Mal furrowed her eyebrows as she thought about things she did in her spare time. Sleep was the one thing that kept playing through her mind. Was all she did was sleep? Jeez, how boring. Boring girl. "Oh.. what's the time?" Her head steered in a different direction, her head turning to look at the walls in an attempt to find a clock.

"Well aren't you two a barrel of laughs," he mocked with sarcasm filling his voice. He gestured with an outstretched finger towards a clock as he spoke. "It occurs to me that you two probably have homes you should be getting to before it's too late..."