A/N: Okay, I'm not even going to apologize for starting another story. It simply was driving me up the wall. Kinda weird, this pairing, considering I ship The Doctor and Rose like a madman (admittedly without a box), I thought Master/Rose could work. Shame they never got to meet. Anyway. Oh, this story takes place in a kind of AU in which The Stolen Earth and Journey's End happened before Utopia, The Sound of Drums, and The Last of the Time Lords.
Disclaimer: I am a poor, poor Floridian who owns nothing. Sorry. All rights go to BBC
Warnings: Possible blood or violence in later chapters as well as language.
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The merciless beating of the drums pound incessantly in the mind of The Master, driving him further into madness. He can feel his own blood on his skin as it spreads, and he can't help but think that he knew something like this would happen. He feels his legs begin to weaken beneath him, followed by the harsh collision of flesh against solid ground he collapses. It is then, as he lies on the floor, that he realizes what he must do to obtain complete and total victory over The Doctor.
He feels the arms of his once friend wrap around his torso, feels him shake as he tells him that he'll be alright if he would just regenerate. He's dying; he can feel himself on the precipice between life and death. His hearts are weakening, and it's becoming more and more difficult to keep the impending regeneration at bay. He endures the pain simply because by persevering, he is hurting The Doctor already. By not regenerating, he will make The Doctor truly the last of the Time Lords. It is the final and most damning act he will ever accomplish. Though this desperate last act will surely result in the extinction of his entire race, he no longer cares. He knows now that he abandoned all hope for his species the second he ran, leaving Gallifrey to war, leaving it to burn.
He realizes now, as a quaky, shallow breath hisses between his teeth, that being shot with a human bullet isn't nearly as painful as he would expect it to be. His head cradled in the arms of the man he has tortured for a year now, he is dying. Sort of ironic really. The voice of The Doctor rings out above him, and though it should be close and clear to him, it sounds distant and warbled, as if the sound is coming from beyond glass, but he knows what The Doctor is saying. He's telling him, begging him really, to regenerate, to live. Why should he though, if it will only result in him being imprisoned for the rest of his existence? He thinks he might have said something to that effect, but he cannot be sure - the line between thought and reality has long since begun to blur.
It is seconds after this when he feels himself starting to slip, the waves of darkness reaching toward him, inviting him in to a place where all the pain will be no more. Despite the inviting current that he knows will bring him peace, The Master clings to life. He wants utter agony from The Doctor, wants him to have to see the death and destruction he leaves in his wake. The Doctor, the man who makes people better, brings more pain than he ever will life.
Now he balances on the edge, tiptoeing along the fine line between death and life, though life now has become the equivalent to imprisonment. Out of the two he would much prefer death. It is then that he feels it, a throbbing numbness followed immediately by an icy rush through his veins. Though he will not regenerate, he feels a deep feeling of disappointment. He had hoped the perhaps the drums that had plagued him childhood would cease in his final moments. It is obvious that he was wrong now. He looks up at The Doctor, his eyes probing, seeking honesty. It is then that he asks the most important question he can pull from within himself, although he needs the answer before he can willingly let go of life.
He wants to know if it will stop. He wants to know if in death he will finally find peace from the relentless drumbeat. It takes all the energy he can muster, and forces the question past his lips. As the last word of his question escapes, he feels his entire body tense, and then feels it start to go limp. It is now that he falls into the darkness, into the welcoming embrace of death.
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He dies in the arms of the now sobbing Doctor, lying in a puddle of his own blood, shot down by his human wife whom had stood so loyally by him for the past year. In his defeat she had killed him.
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He was dead. He had to be dead. Yet the drums continued.
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The drums continued.
They would never end. Ever.
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The man once known on Earth as Harold Saxon is on a beach. Or at the very least he assumes that it is a beach, his eyes are closed, but the sound of crashing waves and screeching sea gulls tell him he's somewhere near the coast. He presses his eyes closed tighter as he tries to think, tries to remember. He remembers Lucy shooting him. He remembers dying. He remembers falling into the welcoming darkness. After that, he can remember nothing.
His hands, palms down on the ground beneath him, close slowly, and loose earth slips between his fingers as he digs them in. He is laying on his stomach, his body still clothed in the suit he died in, and the uncomfortable grit of sand presses against his right cheek. He takes quick stock of the state of his body, starting by wiggling his toes, then his ankles, then bending his knees. This process continues, finishing with him rolling on his side and running his hands down his front. It is what he discovers there that makes his eyes open in shock and stare at his chest.
The hole in his jacket from the bullet remains, as does a vast quantity of his own blood, but there is no wound, no scar, nothing to indicate he was ever shot, let alone killed. There is also no pain as he presses his hands to the spot where he knows the bullet pierced his skin. This leaves him with only on explanation as to why he is still alive. He must have regenerated. It is the only explanation he can think of, but even that doesn't seem to make much sense. He is not, as he had dreaded, imprisoned on the TARDIS, at least he doesn't think he is. He feels no hum from a sentient ship. The Doctor would not have let him free, certainly not after he threatened his precious Earth. So where in Rassilon's name is he?
He rolls back onto his stomach, pressing his palms firmly against the sand as he moves to push himself upwards, onto his hands and knees. To his surprise, this small, inconsequential motion makes the blackness creep upon his vision. He is somewhat alarmed to know that whilst he is fully awake and active mentally, his body seems to be in a state of utter exhaustion. It takes him an impossibly long expanse of time to go from his hands and knees to a hunched over kneel, and even longer to rise to his full height. He has no idea how long it's taken him to achieve the small feat of merely standing up, but his body throbs with the effort it has required. The drums beat louder in his head now, exaggerating the beginnings of a headache.
He has not regenerated, he realizes as he looks down upon his body. He feels the same as he did before, and there's not as much confusion as there has been in his past regenerations. For this, he's grateful. He'd become fond of his body, lean and slender, the body of a predator. Now that the only explanation that he had for why he isn't dead is obviously not the correct one, The Master is back to square one. He decides to suspend confusion and wonderings, so that he can try to figure out where he is, before figuring out why he is. He closes his eyes and presses both his forefingers and his middle fingers to his temple, rubbing in a circular pattern in hopes of quelling the oncoming headache before it can reach full intensity.
It is moments after this, that he opens his eyes and truly looks at and absorbs the place he is in, and as he does he is utterly bewildered as to how he noticed none of it before. His assumption that he was somewhere along the coastline was correct, and he observes the landscape with curiosity. The stretch of shoreline he stands on has a surreal feeling to it, the waves that crash against the shore a dark, almost black in color from silt. The sky itself is stained with inky patterns of grey, foretelling of future storms. The sand on which he now stands would probably be tan in proper lighting, but with only little sunshine making its way past the clouds, it looks to be pale silver. The entirety of it gives the feeling of being in a black and white photograph.
Now, as he reaches out with all other senses, he realizes there is so much more to this beach than he could have thought before. The very ground here tells of heartbreak and loss and misery. It tells of so many things lost and so few things gained. It tells of worlds and hearts both ripped apart and healed, and of choices made and promises broken. It's too much. He simply cannot take in all that this beach has to share. His eyes have once against slid closed as he drinks in all the agony and pain that this place exudes. He opens them and glances around, looking for any indicator of a more specific location other than 'beach'.
That's when he sees her.
In hindsight, he'll wonder how he could have possibly missed her, but for now he stares at her, unable to do anything else for the longest moment. She wades in the tide, not a hundred meters away, and though her jeans are rolled up to her shins, she walks about knee-deep in the water. Her body is lithe, and he can't help, not that he wants to mind you, the thoughts that spring to his head. He takes her in; the messy way her hair his put up and how her arms wrap tightly around herself, as if she's trying to hold herself together by force. It makes him smile wider. All he can think is how amazing and simple it would be to twist his way into her head, how easy it would be to make her break, make her his. Nothing more than a possession. He is returning to himself, fueled only by lust and anger as his eyes dance over her. He wants to move forward, to grab her, to claim her as his in the most animalistic and brutish way possible. But he will not. He will restrain himself, because as she turns, angled just so he can see her profile, he knows who she is. And he knows where he is.
His flashes back to his verbal assaults on The Doctor, the way he'd delved through his memories and had made a point to cause him as much emotional pain as he could. He remembers prying through his dreams while he slept, seeking new ways to increase his agony. He remembers the name that The Doctor called to mind whenever on the verge of breaking, the images and memories of adventures and losses: the image of a golden-haired girl with warm brown eyes, the feeling of a small hand intertwining with his, and a name that calls resolve and strength to his spirit. And now The Master knows who this girl is, knows what her being here means, and knows where he is. She is Rose Tyler, precious former companion of The Doctor, lost to a parallel universe with a Human/Time Lord Metacrisis.
As his eyes refocus from his memories to the present, he sees her clearly now. She's walking toward him, foolish girl, ignorant child. She's like the lamb walking into the claws of the hungry lion without protest. He's a predator, and as she nears, his heart rates skyrocket in anticipation. It's when he realizes that he's walking too, that he notices his mistake. In his daze he had forgotten the bout of weakness that controlled him. His legs had been ready to give out beneath him when all he was doing was standing. Now that he's walking, and now that he's realized he is walking, it is all he can do to not fall over and even that doesn't last for long. He staggers forward and plummets back to the ground, his hands thrown out to catch himself. As he hits the ground and his dignity is forcibly removed, stars dance before his vision. He feels a hand on his back, his side, and the voice of Rose Tyler asking him if he's okay. And despite his desire, his need, to break her, he can't. He can't even produce a coherent thought. And it is in the mindset of confusion and exhaustion that he allows himself to be taken into the darkness once more.
Well there ya go. I hope you enjoyed, reviews are always appreciated, and I'll hopefully see you next chapter. :D