Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.

Spoilers: All the way through the "End of the Time" special at the end of season 4. This piece uses actual dialogue from the second part of the episode. Also, there is a little tribute to Douglas Adams slipped into this.

Rating: T for some language and mild sexual situations.

A Night Without Armor

It has already happened. It is going to happen. It is happening right now...

There was a sound. A sound like someone knocking on a door, distant and hollow. A rhythmic beating, like the sound of his own two hearts. Pounding eternally in measured beats of two.

No...no, it was not like that. The sound: it was too hollow, too crisp.

Perhaps it was the sound of drums then; it had that kind of echo to it. Yet that idea also pricked at something inside of him, made something wrench deep in his gut. A twisted, tangled knot of fear. Of desperation. Of impending...

...loss.

It has already happened.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open. The feeling was still there: the feeling that he had lost something valuable, had left something important somewhere. His head was swimming, and his awareness was bobbing like tiny, silvery fish to the sparkling surface of his consciousness, his sluggish synapses firing like twinkling fireflies in the all-consuming dark. He had dreamt of darkness. And the sound of drums. He could hear the rhythmic tapping now, outside of his own head, growing ever more distant as the sound moved away from him. Groggily, he untangled himself from the nest of bed sheets he had been lying in and staggered/tripped over to a brightly-lit balcony, all but falling through an open set of French doors. He leaned heavily on the wrought iron rails. There, in the distance, was the source of the sound he had been hearing: a horse drawn carriage, meandering slowly down a small brick lane. Clip-clop! Clip-clop! The sound of the horse's hooves had infiltrated his dream, had made him think of the sound of drums. Had made him think of the repeating echo of two beating hearts.

Had made him think of a set of bare knuckles, rapping on a door, knocking four times...

A slight sound escaped the Doctor's throat, a pained whimper that was more psychic than physical. He continued to cling to the wrought iron rails, confused as to where and when he was. At first, he believed himself to be somewhere on Earth, perhaps in the 1800's. Or so the horse drawn carriage had led him to believe. But a moment later, a red Honda Accord went whizzing down the lane after the horse, and confusion set in anew. He stared across the cobbled lane, to a grassy, well-appointed square lined with towering oaks and dotted with wooden benches. At its center, a large ornate water fountain gurgled on relentlessly, its foamy waters infested by a group of frolicking metal mermaids, their horned instruments pointed heavenward. A light breeze skittered across the square, lifting the tree limbs that were heavily draped with Spanish moss, fanning out the pale, snaky tendrils like the silky ends of a young woman's hair. The Spanish moss and the hot, damp breeze made him think he was somewhere far south, somewhere close to the Earth's equator. There was a persistent stickiness under his collar, a fine coating of sweat clinging to his skin. The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck with numb, tingling fingers, grimacing at the clammy feel. His hand came away damp.

"You're a tad overdressed for the climate here."

That voice! The Doctor's head snapped to the side, seeking the voice's owner. I know you! Through a wavy sea of rolling lace curtains he saw him, sitting in a velvety high back chair by the bed. The same youthful face, the same close-cropped blond hair. Watching him from a shadowy corner. The curtains hanging across the French doors billowed and swayed, partially obscuring his view. He was there, then gone again. Just like in his dream. Maybe, he thought, I'm still dreaming.

"No, this isn't a dream," said the Master, answering his thoughts. Had he said the words aloud? The Doctor's mind was still reeling, still partially submerged. His thoughts were just barely bobbing along the upper currents of his consciousness; the clarity of the shore remained stubbornly out of reach.

The Doctor unconsciously ran a hand through his damp, messy hair. After a moment, he roughly chucked his beige blazer from his shoulders; he loosened his bow tie. The heat was stifling. He walked with a newborn's hesitant, plodding steps back through the French doors. The Master was still sitting in the chair. "I was dreaming," the Doctor murmured in the middle of the darkened room. "I kept hearing that sound...the drums."

The Master frowned. "You mean the sound in my head?" His eyes dropped to the floor. Dense shadows obscured his face. "Don't speak of it," he whispered.

The Doctor stopped by the foot of the bed. His hand reached out and grasped the wooden post, sliding around a sturdy pillar of cherry wood. He was swaying just a little. He looked at the Master.

"Why are you here?"

Silence. Then another question:

"Why am I here?" The Doctor frowned, remembering. "I was...I was sitting in this nice little Irish pub at the end of the universe. And there was this crow, this bird, sitting on a little swing above the bar, who kept screeching, Avast! The end is nigh! Everyone drink rum! And he had solid gold gears for eyes. And there was this awful Skonnan music playing in the background and this drunk Sontaran was talking to me. I wasn't quite sure if he was flirting with me or not. And then suddenly, everything just sort of went black..."

Through a sliver of shadow, the Doctor saw the corner of the Master's lips lift in a fraction of a smile.

"I'm sorry. I had the bartender slip a little something into your drink. It may have been a bit too strong."

"But how? You're dead." The words were said in such a matter-of-fact manner, that the Master snorted.

"Does it matter? This is just a tiny detour, a little infinitesimal wormhole I've created..."

The Doctor's brows shot together at the mention of a wormhole. Before he could speak, the Master said, "Don't give me that look. It's barely the size of your pupil. Or the moon. Depending on how you look at it. It won't harm anything." The Doctor still looked skeptical. The Master's head fell forward; his voice was angled toward the carpet. "Nothing can harm me now, anyway. I'm already dead. You said it yourself. I'm dying right now..."

"What?"

The Master suddenly clutched at the sides of his head. He was still wearing the same Earth clothes the Doctor had seen him in last, the grimy hoodie and pants and sneakers. "I'm dead...and yet that sound...that sound...I can still hear it. It's still following me." The Doctor gripped the bedpost tighter as the Master's voice climbed several pained octaves at the end of his sentence. Both Time Lords remained silently glued in place. Then suddenly the Master looked up; there was something dark and desperate in his eyes as they burned through the Doctor. He held out his hand, the pale, sweaty flesh tiger-stripped by the shadows. His words were a deep, throaty whisper:

"Come to me."

The Doctor hesitated only briefly before stepping toward the chair, before reaching out to take the Master's outstretched hand. Damp fingers curled around his own as the Master pulled him into an awkward embrace. The Doctor was forced to sink to his knees, half on, half off the chair. The Master clung to him, clung to him as if he were life itself. The whole room fell away. Time itself fell away. Suddenly, the two of them were boys again, back on Gallifrey, back before the Master had looked into the Untempered Schism, back before the Lord President had a chance to tamper with his destiny, before he had a chance to alter all of their fates to suit his own selfish purposes. Before Evil had separated them. The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed his face into the open neck of the Master's hoodie.

The Master let out a contented sigh. "That's better. I can't hear it so much now."

"What do you hear then?"

"Just you. And your two hearts." The Doctor felt the Master's nose burrowing through his hair. He heard him murmur, "You've changed again. You've regenerated. And here I thought I had saved you. Guess I was wrong..."

"It's alright. It was my choice." The Doctor's voice was a tiny, tin echo of its usual bright, effervescent speech. Moments ticked by as the two of them clung together. Then the Doctor said in a whisper:

"I'm sorry. I tried to save you. I did. I really, really did. I wanted so badly for you to come away with me." The Doctor remembered the desperate words, his imploring expression, as he tried to convince the Master to leave with him, to give up the folly of the Immortality Gate. You could be so wonderful. You're a genius. You're stone cold brilliant; you are, you really, really are. But you could be so much more. You could be beautiful. With a mind like that. We could travel the universe together. It would be my honor... The Doctor's fingers twisted inside the Master's own, twisted with the agony of his failure, with the hurt of his memory. His voice was little more than a cracked, tormented whimper as he said, "I tried! I tried to change it!"

"There was no changing it," the Master proclaimed bitterly, his chin resting on the Doctor's tousled head. "It went exactly the way the Lord President wanted it. From the moment he planted that madness inside my head..." The Doctor felt the arms around him tighten. The Master's voice sounded like shattering glass, like splintering wood, as he choked out words that were laced with immeasurable amounts of regret and pain. "He stole my life from me! He stole it all! He drove me mad, and he stole my destiny!" Fingers clutched possessively as he said, "And what's worse is...he stole you from me, too!"

The Doctor shuddered at that pronouncement; he trembled beneath the weight of those words. The Master continued to rasp out his mental agony. "He planted a ticking time bomb in my head and ruined everything. He took you away from me. The bastard..." Four hearts pounded together in a rapid staccato: ba-bump! ba-bump! ba-bump! ba-bump! Tears etched silent, silken trails down the Doctor's face.

"I'm glad you blew them all to hell! Every last one of them! All of Gallifrey! I'm glad that you did what I could not," the Master finished with a gleeful snort.

"It wasn't supposed to be like that," the Doctor insisted with a helpless whine. He could feel the Master's chest move as he chuckled beneath him.

"Don't make excuses and don't play innocent with me, Oncoming Storm. It doesn't suit you. You're just as vindictive and dangerous and egotistical as I am, in your own way." The Master squeezed his arms affectionately. "God...what a pair we could have made."

The Doctor's head snapped up. "Don't say it like that."

"Like what?" There was the distinctive arch of an eyebrow.

"Like we could have been the rulers of the universe. That's not...that's not who I am." The Doctor started to pull away, but the Master's grip kept him in place. Their eyes remained locked on each other.

"We could have been gods," the Master whispered with a regretful smile. "You and I."

The Doctor shook his head and answered simply: "No." Then:

"I wonder who you would have been, if not for the madness of the time vortex beating a drum inside your head." And then he remembered the words he had said before the Immortality Gate:

I wonder what I would be, without you...

The Master lifted a clammy hand to the Doctor's face; the sheen of sweat and madness hung over his eyes. "You were meant for me. Do you...do you not feel that?"

A fiery orange sunset crawled through the open French doors, crept silently across the wooden floors. The dying light grazed the Doctor's boots as he knelt, frozen, in the Master's embrace. The first light of fear touched his eyes. The fear that the Master might be speaking the truth, that perhaps it was not only the Master's destiny that had been stolen, but his own as well. A fear that began to slowly spread, to gain clarity, as the Master continued to speak.

"Why do you constantly travel from place to place, Doctor? Why do you take companion after companion, only to discard them a scant few months later? Why are you never satisfied? Have you never asked yourself this? Have you never asked yourself why? Well, I'll tell you the answer..."

"Don't..." The plea was an almost inaudible whisper.

The Master ignored it. "I'll tell you why: because right from the beginning, there was no one for you but me. It was fated. It was destiny, until that wretched bastard and the council interfered with it. But even though they changed the actual physical events, even though they changed the way things happened, they couldn't change the feelings; they couldn't alter what was hidden inside." The Master placed a fist over his twin hearts. "Don't tell me you can't feel that?"

The Doctor's face was a blank page as he responded in a flat voice, "I don't feel-"

"-then feel this!" And the Master surged forward and grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a bruising kiss. The Doctor's hands flailed upwards; he started to push at the Master's shoulders, but then his hands froze in mid-air. And as the Master pressed forward, deepening the kiss, the Doctor slowly lowered his hands to rest in his lap, the palms lying open in surrender. He tipped his head to the side, allowing the Master greater access, and he felt the Master's tongue push in to parry and twist above and below and around his own. He felt almost bereft when the Master suddenly broke the kiss, his hands running in covetous strokes down the sides of his face, his forehead pressed flush against his own. "Now I can't hear the sound at all," the Master whispered, smiling.

The Doctor wasn't smiling. "Why do you always say and do things that hurt me?"

The Master leaned back and shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know. I can't help it. I can't keep away from you. Or those idiots that travel with you."

The Doctor shook his head. "Don't say that."

"Really? You don't want me to speak ill of those humans? They're not fit to shine your shoes; you know that. I'd string them all up if I could. Just for being near you. And that's the truth." There was a malicious twinkle in the Master's eyes as he spoke. "I tell you, it gave me just the tiniest little thrill every time I killed that pretty American Captain that used to travel with you. Back when I was Harold Saxon. I was delighted with his ability to resurrect himself. That meant I could torture and kill him as much as I wanted to, over and over again. And you know why I did it? For being near you. For getting to be with you when I couldn't-ngh!" The Master suddenly wrenched forward, clutching at his chest. It occurred to the Doctor that the sheen of sweat covering the Master's face wasn't just from the heat. His eyes widened in alarm, and he gripped the Master's arms. "What is it?"

"Collateral damage," rasped the Master. He pulled up his hoodie to reveal a make-shift bandage across his chest that was, even in that moment, spreading, blooming into a riotous blood-red rose. "That old man and his gun..."

"Wilfred?" The Doctor's hand trembled over the bandage as the Master slumped heavily in the chair. The vibrant, orange flair of the sunset had given way to impending dusk. Long shadows of twilight striped the floor. Dark, voluptuous clouds of deep indigo and violet could be seen cavorting through the French doors, parading across the sky. The stars were just starting to peer out, rearing their twinkling, sleepy heads.

"You're dying," said the Doctor. One of the hearts beneath his hand was faltering in its rhythm: ba-bump! bump! ba-bump! bump!

"I'm already dead," observed the Master. "I'm dying there. I'm dying here. I'm dying now."

It has already happened. It is going to happen. It is happening now...

"Don't go!" The fear was coming back, the fear that his destiny had somehow been altered, that it was all beyond his control. He had to fight to get it back. The Doctor's hands clutched at the damp material of the hoodie. "Stay with me." It came out a whine.

"I'm sorry, beautiful, but I'm afraid that our time is up...again." The Master writhed against the chair in pain, panting out the words. "I'm...I'm glad I made this happen, though. I'm glad I was able to make this one little moment for us. One little piece of paradise they couldn't steal from me." A feverish light burned in the Master's eyes as he lifted a weak hand to the grasp the Doctor's arm. "Come down here. Stay with me til the end. Give me...give me that one last thing before I go."

The tears were coming back, blurring the Master's face into a fun house mirror of macabre proportions and twists. The Doctor bent forward and kissed the other Time Lord lightly on the lips, then he sank down on top of him, holding him, listening to the faltering beats of his failing heart. His hands lightly squeezed the Master's arms, and the Master squeezed back, weakly, but firmly. They remained locked together like that until the light was completely gone, until it was full dark and the moon could be seen hanging like a round paper lantern above the balcony doors.

Until the sound of crickets could be heard chirping in the dark, like a symphony in June...

Until the sound of drums could be heard no more...

End/Fin.