Chapter One
"You are the second most necessary thing these eyes have ever seen," a soft voice said in Italian.
Lucy Cole looked up from her desk. The owner of the voice leaned in her office doorway: A young man, with short, sandy brown hair. He was impeccably and expensively dressed in a slim black suit that contrasted with his boyish smile.
Lucy brushed a stray strand of blonde hair back behind her ear and smiled. "I don't think 'necessaria' is the word you're looking for."
The young man ambled into the room and sat on the edge of her desk. "Oh, it's the exact word. I cannot think of anything i need right now more than you." His brown eyes twinkled, as if he were laughing at a joke only he seemed to catch.
Lucy blushed but didn't look down. "And what is the most necessary thing you've seen, then?"
"I will so enjoy showing you--truly, it's breathtaking and quite, quite necessary, you'll know when I show you--but first you must allow me to take you to dinner. Forgive me--I'm Harold Saxon." He extended his hand.
She took it. It was cool and dry in hers. "Yes, I know, I'm Lucy Cole. I'm to be your editor here."
"Yes," smiled Saxon, "I know." He kept hold of her hand.
"I--we'll probably be having many working dinners in the course of publishing your book, Mr. Saxon. Perhaps then." Lucy took her hand back, pleased and slightly flustered.
"Only working dinners?" He pouted a little, then gave her a full, dazzling smile. "And please, call me Harry. No, I insist, Lucy, on taking you out for a proper dinner. Tonight, if you'll let me." Before she could object, he added, "Just to get to know one another. If you're going to be helping me with my autobiography it's only right you should get to know me, isn't it?"
Well, we were supposed to get to know one another, thought Lucy dimly later that evening. She was lying in Harry's arms on her sitting room sofa, and he was kissing her passionately. How she had ended up there she wasn't quite certain; taking a man home on a first date, or whatever their dinner had been, was definitely not her style.
But there was something about Harry. He was unlike any man she'd ever known, especially considering how successful he was--and as Lord Cole's daughter, she'd been surrounded by very rich, very successful men her entire life. He had listened, really listened, to her at dinner, leaning across the table intently, encouraging her with perceptive questions.
Lucy had found herself telling him things she'd never told anyone. Things about her family, about growing up lonely, the daughter of a peer and a politician, raised by private schools and the staff, and how she had hated that life. Looking into his eyes, she felt as if he could see straight through to something hidden inside her, and liked what he saw. When he'd walked her to the door of her flat, she hadn't even thought twice.
"Lucy," Harry said, his voice heavy with desire. "Is this all right?" He kissed her again, softly but skillfully, leaving her a little dizzy. "I don't want to rush you. You're just so, so beautiful. I'm sorry--you just leave me weak. I can't resist you." He stroked her neck and cheek as she looked up at him, and she shivered a little.
He pulled her closer, her head against his chest. "Harry? Your heartbeat--"
He laughed. "I'd say it was your effect on me, but no, it's a birth defect. I'm perfectly fine, but my heart sounds as if it had a double." He took her face in his hands. "Do you want this, Lucy? Tell me you want me."
His eyes were so dark, so full of desire, so suddenly commanding--she couldn't breathe, she couldn't think beyond what she saw in them.
"Yes," she said, and closed her eyes.
Chapter Two
"Harry!" laughed Lucy as he steered her through the enormous penthouse, his hands over her eyes and his feet nimbly avoiding the hem of her wedding gown. "Mind my train! What is this surprise?"
"A whirlwind romance deserves a whirlwind honeymoon, don't you think?" he said in her ear, and came to a stop, his hands still over her eyes.
"Let me guess--a helicopter on the rooftop garden to whisk us away," Lucy teased, her hands on his wrists.
"Oh no. No, much, much better than that. Though I could get you one if you wanted one. But why would you? No. Remember the day we met? I said you were the second most necessary thing these eyes had ever seen. Do you remember?"
"Of course I do, Harry!" she said, nearly prancing with delighted impatience. "Let me see!"
He dropped his hands. "This," Harry said, "this is the most necessary thing in all the universe."
Lucy started slightly. "A police box. A replica of an old police box?" She turned to her new husband and smiled uncertainly. "I don't understand."
"No," he murmured, "and I doubt you ever will. Care to have a look? Of course you do, Mrs. Saxon!" And he swept her up in his arms, pushed open the police box door, and carried her across the threshhold as she squealed with girlish laughter.
Once inside, he set Lucy down, and her laughter stopped. "Harry?" she said, as she slowly turned round. "Oh my God..."
Harry was standing in front of the door watching her casually, hands in his formal trouser pockets. "Yes, yes, it's bigger on the inside. Just say it."
"It is," she said wonderingly. Lucy looked over at him. "What is this?"
"Oh!" he replied, striding to a console-like structure in the middle of the room, "this is our whirlwind honeymoon trip." Grinning, he began pressing buttons, typing in commands and pushing levers. The room lurched, and a strange grinding noise filled the air.
Lucy felt her insides lurch precariously, and she grabbed onto the nearest solid object for dear life. "What's happening!" Harry just continued twiddling knobs and peering at things, an almost frightening--no, definitely frightening--grimace on his boyish face.
"Everything, Lucy!" he shouted above the din, bouncing manically. "Everything is happening!"
The lurching came to a halt. The room was very still. Lucy kept her white-knuckled grip on the railing she'd found, and stared at her husband, who grinned back. "Harry. What is this thing?"
"This? This is the TARDIS. My TARDIS now. Doesn't matter what it stands for, you wouldn't understand anyway, my little blonde ape."
Lucy stood agape and slightly outraged, her eyes searching his face. Harry's boyish, sweet demeanor was gone, replaced by something nonchalant and yet commanding. His eyes were much, much darker. How was it possible she was afraid of her Harry? And yet she was.
She gathered up her wits and her gown. "I think I'd better go," she said, turning to the double doors.
"Oh, by all means, sweetheart," laughed Harry. "You do that."
Lucy rustled up to the doors and threw them open. The penthouse was gone. Before her stretched a barren plain, strangely dark.
"I don't understand," she said, her voice quavering. "I don't understand...Harry? What's happening?"
He smiled. "I told you," he said, joining her at the doors. "Everything. And nothing. In the end, there's nothing. It's the big secret of the universe, and I'm showing it to you, Lucy. Do you want to see more?"
She turned away from the doors. "No," she whispered, her eyes huge and staring. "No."
"But darling, there's so much more--and so much less--to show you." Harry turned her firmly around to face the empty prospect, and put his arms around her, holding her there.
She stared through the open doors at the unfamiliar landscape and began to tremble. "But--the penthouse? Where on Earth are we?"
"Earth? Gone," he answered. "We've gone trillions of years into the future, Luce, and it's as if Earth never happened. It's as if you never happened. Everything you ever knew? Gone. Everyone you've ever known? Gone." He nuzzled her neck, but the gesture carried no comfort. "Nothingness, Luce, it all comes down to this--to nothingness."
Sheer terror welled up in her. She struggled in his arms, fighting to get away from the black--and from her husband, suddenly turned so strange, finally biting his hand in her need to get away from them both. "Ow! You fucking cow!" he bellowed, and threw her bodily away from him. She half-crawled, half-slid as far as she could away from the doors until she was unable to go any further, burying her blonde head in the white lace and tulle skirts of her gown.
"Lucy." Harry was standing over her. "I forgive you, darling. Lucy, look at me. Look at me!" She raised her head to see Harry's hand extended to her. She stared at it. "Take it!" he commanded. She meekly took it.
He pulled her to her feet, half-dragging her back to the doors. "Welcome, sweetheart, to the beginning of our wedded bliss and the end of everything."
Lucy shakily walked out onto the dead plain, clutching his hand in both of hers. "No stars," she said. "Not a one. Harry?" she said, looking back at him, "where are the stars?"
"Welcome, Lucy, to Utopia."
Chapter Three
Lucy stood in the TARDIS doorway, looking out into the penthouse once again. Hadn't she loved this place once? Yes, she thought she had. Didn't matter now.
"We're back where we started from, darling, but such a long way we've come, don't you think?" said her husband, propelling her through the doors from behind. "Yes, I think we understand now, don't we?"
"Yes," whispered Lucy. "Nothing matters, does it?"
"Not a thing."
She was silent for a long while, considering this. "Why am I here, then?"
"Do you need a reason to be?" he said, lifting her bedraggled blonde hair from her neck and kissing her nape.
"Yes. Is there a reason?"
She felt him smile against her skin. "Oh, yes. I have a reason for you to be, Lucy. A purpose. And a goal. Do you want that?"
"Yes. Yes!" she nearly sobbed. She turned and clung to his arms as if she were falling. "Tell me. Tell me, Harry. Please!"
"Sshhh. There, there." He stroked her cheek. "To begin with, my name is not Harry. Well, to anyone who asks, yes, my name is Harold Saxon, and when we are out in the world you will call me by that name. But when we are alone, like this, you may call me by my real name." She looked at him, hanging on his every word. He lifted her chin with one finger. "Oh, Luce, really, you are the prettiest little thing when you look at me like that. My name is, he whispered in her ear, "the Master." He pulled back to look her in the face. "Say it," he said sharply.
"Master," she said, staring deep into his eyes.
"Ohhh," the Master growled, "I am very pleased with you, Lucy." He pulled a strange pen-like thing from his pocket and ran it down the silk-covered buttons of her wedding gown. She smelled something like burning fabric, and felt cool air at her back. He slipped the gown from her shoulders and helped her step from the frothy puddle of white. He undid her bra and flung it aside, and then hooked his fingers in the sides of her little lace knickers and ripped.
The Master gripped her head in both hands. "Do you choose me, Lucy? Shall I become your reason to be?"
"Yes," she whispered.
He kissed her, hard, until she felt she was drowning. He broke the kiss and she gasped for air. His eyes bored into hers. "You are this to me now," he said, one hand still holding her head, the other cupping her mound and squeezing painfully. "You are your father's connections, a lovely face, and a willing body. Do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered again, her voice breaking.
"And you will do whatever I tell you to do, and you will love it, and you will love me. Won't you?"
"Yes," she sobbed.
"There's my good girl," he smiled. He picked her up, carrying her through the penthouse to their bed. He shed his clothes and lay atop her, holding her down. "What's my name, Lucy?"
"My reason to be," she said, raising her lips to be kissed, "My Master."
He kissed her. "Yes, I am," he said, sliding into her. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Yes."
"And so it begins." He matched his tempo to the drums in his head. "Andiamo, Lucia," he whispered. "Andiamo."