Author Notes: All this sprang from one phrase that I said one day and then thought, "The Master would so say that if this had happened in the series instead."
He found it recorded on the Tardis memory strings. She must have tapped into the security systems that day, to monitor. And the Doctor's not sure why he was even looking, but once found, he's been obsessed with Rose.
Magnificent, he calls her. A goddess among the rabble, he exclaims. You've certainly downgraded, he mocks.
"Though, I can't really blame you, can I dearoldonce friend." He grins that manic grin, the one that's gotten worse over the years and the Doctor's sure the Master's mind has finally fractured too far. "It's always hard to find an act that can follow perfection, well-no, it's always impossible to find an act that can follow perfection.
And I'm sure this… Martha thinks she's clever, having been able to avoid me, but it's never really clever when you're merely following instructions, is it?"
The Doctor ignores him, mind flitting briefly to Martha and wondering when she'll be back when suddenly, he's there, in the Doctor's face; eyes wide and mouth slavering like a rabid dog.
"I have a present for you. Something to – lift that flagging heart. What do you say? Do you want to see it? Come on! Say you want to see it!"
He's bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, eyes alight like a child at Christmas and hands clasped together. If the Doctor hadn't known better, he'd really believe that the psycho was actually asking and that the gift was actually wonderful. He steels his heart as best he can, trying to prepare for the worst.
The ghoulish grin makes its appearance as the Master dances over to his wheelchair, grasps the handles and rolls the Doctor into the next room. Computer monitors decorate every spare inch of the walls and the Doctor knows that when this is over, the Master will have reduced him to tears.
"Let's see… oh wait! That undying thing you travel with will want to see this too! Yes! Guards!"
Quick orders are given and the guards swiftly dispatched. In the ensuing solitude, the Doctor can hear nothing but the ticking of a clock somewhere in the next room, the dull, lifeless shuffle of the Master's wife as she wanders like a ghost about the halls, and the Master clicking away at the computer terminal. Then the clanking of chains as Jack is marched down the hall, into the room and tied like an animal to previously unseen metal loops on the ceiling. It seems every room on this ship has got some sort of restraint. The Tower of London in the Sky. The Bastille of the Clouds. Any way he terms it, it's never beautiful.
His eyes are sad as he takes in the dirt and grime that is caked over Jack's body, his lank and oily hair, his beaten down expression. He had just started to come alive again, on that planet so far from now. Jack looks back at the Doctor, smiles a sad smile, an I'm okay smile, an I forgive you smile. It doesn't make him feel any better, but then, nothing has been able to make him feel any better since Rose'd gone.
The Master turns and the grin on his face gets impossibly bigger. The Doctor wonders, idly, if he's made of wax; and can I burn him down? He's not all that sure he isn't as fractured beyond repair like Koshi. He isn't quite sure if he cares.
"Good! You're both here. Undying Thing, I told our dear Doctor here that I have a present for him. I thought you'd like it too. Now, is every one comfortable? Yes? Good! Here we go!"
And with a flourish of the hand, the Master depresses the enter button. Jack sends an apprehensive glance the Doctor's way, but he's barely paying attention. He's got his eyes fixated on the screen because dear Rassilon, no!
He recognizes that room, those people… that day. He recognizes it and his hearts start to pound. His eyes tear up and before he can stop himself, before he can think better of it, before he has to endure her loss over again, he does exactly what the Master desires. He begs.
"Please, Master, please!"
The Master's eyes light up, sadistic pleasure in every little corner of his black, black hearts and he merely ups the volume. Jack's eyes are wide as he recognizes Rose, the Doctor, and a room. They are wide as he hears the Doctor as he's never heard the Time Lord before. Broken, beaten, dead.
"Please, Mast-er," his voice breaks as he humbles himself, but he doesn't care about either, just, "please don't so this. Not this, please for the love of Rassilon, please!"
The Master just claps in glee as Rose pops back on the screen, throwing the hopper off and shouting, "I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you!" As she releases the clamp to reach for the lever, to push it back into place, as she slips and screams for the Doctor, as he screams for her, as she falls towards the Void, as she falls in. It flashes before the Doctor's eyes, but not on the screen. In his mind's eye, it replays like a broken record; it has since she's been gone, since Martha joined him, but it's worse now. Because he's laughing as the best thing in his life is ripped from his grip.
Her terror as she realized there would be no last minute saving, that this was her last chance to say it. She shouts "I love you" on the screen and it's echoed within the Doctor's own mind. He remembers as he lets go himself, falls toward the Void, as he slows, slams into the wall. He cracks an ankle but nothing more. Rose, she's worse than dead and he wishes, always, to be with her. To lose his sanity alongside of her.
There's rattling from the Doctor's other side, and shouting, but the Doctor can't discern the particulars. It's Jack, he knows, screaming at the insensitivity of the Master, trying to protect him.
He doesn't mean to, it slips out, gives the bastard even more ammunition, but, "I never even got to tell her I love her. I'm a Time Lord and I ran out of time."
Jack stills, his eyes riveting to the Doctor, anguish on his face. Not for himself, the Doctor knows, but for the Doctor and Rose, for what they lost… for what they never had. For where she will reside for eternity and for no time at all.
The Master approaches, crouches next to the wheelchair and puts his arm around the Doctor's shoulders. He adopts what the Doctor assumes is supposed to be a sympathetic face, but really just looks like the cat that ate the cream. He says, "You know, it's all fun and games until someone gets pulled into a swirling vortex of horror."
And then he laughs. The Doctor watches, his pain boiling. It grates, it crawls into his pores, and claws his nerves, making him bleed. Tears like blood leak out of his eyes and he screams, deep and long and feral. He launches himself at the Master, his anger and agony giving him strength and his fingers, long and hard and clenched, are wrapped around the bastard's throat and he's squeezing. The life is leeching from the Master's face, from his lungs, and Jack shouts, yanks on his chains, pulls and thrashes like a wild animal, face snarled and spittle flying from his mouth.
The Doctor notes this, but he pays it no mind, he's busy watching as he silences that laugh; as the harsh words and the enjoyment strangle into silence. He holds on, he knows this won't kill him, for long, but he can't remember through the haze how he's supposed to do it. He just squeezes. He doesn't know how long.
Then there are hands on his shoulders, then at his hands, prying his grip off the dead throat. He comes back to himself, slowly, and realizes he's weeping, sobbing loudly around words.
"Don't you mock her. Don't you say her name. Don't you enjoy her torture!" Over and over and over; his mantra.
"Doctor." The word is soft, waterlogged, and suddenly the strength leaves his frail body. He falls back into Jack's chest, crying. Jack's arms are strong as they encircle the Doctor's body, as they lift him up, as they carry him swiftly through the halls.
The Doctor notices the unconscious bodies of the guards, dealt with by Jack he assumes while he was raging. And he's forgotten, as has Jack, about the problem at hand, about the humans living and dying as slaves long after such has been seen on this planet. He's running and the Doctor knows towards what.
He's going to do it, cross his own timeline because Rose doesn't deserve her purgatory and he, well he's just decided to be selfish. Jack is on the same wavelength as he rounds the corner to the room the Tardis is kept in. She's been abused, the Doctor can feel it, but he needs her to do one last thing for him before she can rest. Rose will be back in his arms and everything will be fine. She always makes everything fine.