In the morning, before going out into the cool, fresh air to drink her first coffee, she wakes her husband by tickling his neck. He grunts and rolls over, but she knows he'll be up in a few minutes.

She opens the door, and is startled to see the black silhouette of the Master in the same place as the previous day, sitting on the folding lawn chair, his right ankle resting on his left knee.

Furious, she comes across and sets her cup roughly down on the table, ready to shout at him for not having kept his promise. A few drops of coffee spill and spread out in the saucer.

"Did you see that?"

The Master sets his foot down on the ground and shows her the black puddle. Strangely, it looks more like a thick paste than coffee. He gently lifts the cup and upturns the saucer. The liquid, instead of falling straight to the ground, veers to one side and lands a good twenty centimetres from where it should.

"It's starting," the Master observes.

"It can't be what you said," replies Tegan. "It's windy, that's all."

"Windy?"

Around them, the branches are perfectly motionless.

"Then...I don't know...you deliberately swung the saucer so the coffee didn't fall straight."

"Try it yourself," he responds. She sighs.

"I do wonder why I'm listening to you, when I know you're incapable of the least trace of honesty."

She takes the cup and spills a little, taking care to keep it steady. The few drops fall to the ground with a clearly slanted path.

"It's increased from earlier," the Master observes. "Before nothingness, entropy will consume the universe more and more quickly. Total chaos will descend, before that too disappears. And this will be very difficult and very painful for every living being in the cosmos."

"As if you're concerned with others!" she snipes.

"For others, no - but for myself, yes. The 'Doctor', who is running amok now...but I think we can no longer give him that name. He would be better designated by the word he used himself, the first time I met him: the Valeyard. He took my place on the side of evil. Our duo is not as powerful as the forces of the Guardians, but it is essential to the equilibrium. And this equilibrium is broken. I will be the first to feel the strongest effects of the chaos, and the first to disappear as well."

"There, I knew it!" says Tegan triumphantly. "You're out for yourself more than anything else!"

"That is correct," he affirms. "I've never denied it. And believe me, to come to you asking for help is the most humiliating thing I've ever done. As well as having to fight 'on the good side'."

Mechanically, Tegan takes a sip of her cold and tasteless drink.

"It's odd, but...I believe you now," she murmurs. "Even though experience tells me this is another ruse, and you're tricking me...but I want to believe you." She turns to him. "What will happen to the Doctor if we beat him and get the universe back on its feet?"

"I'd like to be able to give you an answer, but in reality, I know nothing about that. I tried to travel into the future, but I came up against an impassable wall. This may mean that we will fail and that in a short time, everything will be gone. Or it may mean that the possibilities are so numerous that they form a barrier that can't be crossed.

At that moment, Brian Henson starts singing at the top of his lungs - very loudly, and with a terrible accent - the refrain of an Offenbach air.

"Tell me Veeenus, what pleasure you fiiind, in causing the downfall, the downfall of my viiirtue...?" The song trails off to a mumble, and she can't help but smile, despite the seriousness of the conversation.

"At least Brian is happy and doesn't suspect anything," she sighs.

"For now," the Master reminds her. "I don't want it to seem like I'm rushing you, Tegan, but you must decide before it's too late. We don't have much room for error. It's already becoming difficult to travel through time."

"And if I refuse?"

"I will go alone, and my chances of success will be nearly, or equal to, zero."

"That doesn't seem like you - the modesty. You're usually rather vain."

"I am doing a lot of things that don't seem like me, at the moment. And that wasn't modesty - that was as accurate a calculation as possible of the probabilities."

"Brian will notice I'm gone."

It is at that admission that she has finally accepted. He gets up, and answers,

"If we succeed, I will bring you back here in a few seconds. If we fail, there will be no place to bring you back to, and Brian will no longer exist."

"What a cheerful way of looking at it!" she jokes, with an acidic irony. "Is that supposed to comfort me?"

She returns to the house, puts her head inside and yells,

"Brian, I'm off! I'm going to work."

"OK," can be heard in the distance. "Have a good day, dear - see you this evening. Oh," he adds, "I'm going bowling with Riley and Madison. I'll be back a bit late."

Nodding her head, Tegan murmurs,

"You can still go bowling tonight with Riley...and Madison."

She returns to the Master, who is waiting for her near the fence.

"Let's go," she declares. "Where's your TARDIS?"

"Hmm...there's another problem I haven't told you - I no longer have a TARDIS. In fact, there are no longer any TARDISes. And there is no chance of making another."

"How is that?" Tegan asks, walking with him down the path leading away from her home. "What's happened?"

"Our home planet disappeared. In fact, I wonder if that wasn't ultimately the first act of the Valeyard. There was a war...a very bloody war, between the Time Lords and the Daleks."

"Ah...the Daleks." Tegan sighs.

"I played a part too - albeit reluctantly. What's more, that is why I'm once again able to regenerate. The Time Lords needed me to lead the battle. They needed everyone. Towards the end, the war had got out of control. There seemed to be only one solution, and the Doctor took it: to completely destroy both civilizations."

"He killed all his own people?" Tegan gasps, stunned. "How are you still alive?"

The Master smiles.

"I always find a way out." Then he continues, morosely. "Also, when I tell you I'm afraid, you have to believe me."

"That sounds strange to my ears, but actually, I do believe you. If you don't have a TARDIS, how do you travel?"

"I saved this technology," he says, pointing to a golden-bronze coloured, fine metal bracelet on his left wrist. "And I've improved it. Of course, it's not worth what a TARDIS would be. This is much less comfortable, but it allows me mobility in time and space as accurately as if I still had my machine."

"Yes, but what about me - how am I going to follow you?"

"Wait, I'm adjusting it..."

They slip into an acacia grove, and he taps on the object with the little fingernail on his right hand. She understands why he has grown this nail and cut it sharp - it is a simple tool, not an unpleasant whim.

"There needs to be contact so that the temporal bubble takes you as well, but don't touch the controls on top."

"How?" she queries.

"Take my arm, underneath...yes, there."

She had never imagined one day doing something like this - gripping the wrist of the Master in her hands, not only willingly, but with pleasure.

Because even if this isn't what she would have hoped for, it is an adventure all the same.

And then she is drawn into a vertiginous whirlwhind.