„No," the Doctor gasped. „No, no, no, no, no!" It felt weird, like he hadn't used his voice in ages when he'd just talked to the people around him, talked so much. Felt wrong, speaking to the Master like this, with words; it wasn't in the rules, but he couldn't help it.
"Not again", he whispered to himself. "Please, please not again." He couldn't hear his own voice over the noise.
This world was on the brink of destruction. The war had been raging for decades and soon it would be over. The Doctor could feel the universe ripple around them – unnoticed by everyone else but agonizing for a Time Lord. Someone was trying to manipulate reality, rewrite history. They weren't succeeding, they never would – these beings were unable to change and control the flow of time, but they would die trying and take everything with them.
Everything. The whole universe. Everything that was and ever had been.
It was what had attracted the TARDIS to this place a week ago. Since then the Doctor had met the resistance, had found out what was going on and had convinced a handful of brave people to help him get inside the base of the enemy to stop them before it was too late. Now most of his friends where lying around him, shot by archaic weapons or torn to pieces by grenades. The last bullet had been meant for him. And it would have hit its target.
He still didn't understand what was going on when he ran to the Master and cradled his bloodied form in his arms (again, and this wasn't how it was supposed to happen, wasn't part of the game). This was his chance to get away – the others where calling him but he couldn't move and didn't want to. The Master said something but the sound didn't reach his ears. He'd heard him speak before, once or twice, to people they'd met during their travels, but never to him and now he couldn't remember the sound of his voice.
Most likely he was telling him to get away, or else his sacrifice would be useless. The Doctor didn't comprehend – the Master didn't sacrifice himself. He had half expected to find his TARDIS stolen once again when he got back. He'd never thought the other Time Lord would come here and save his life, still didn't believe it. But the evidence was lying dying in his arms.
There was no use in asking him to regenerate this time. Human body. The man in his arms took hold of his hand and pressed it with all the strength he could muster, and this the Doctor understood. He pressed back, gently, and refused to move until a wave of darkness washed over him and took him away.
-
The Master awoke to sunshine and the sound of birds singing in the trees. He blinked a few times, trying to clear his head. He felt confused and disoriented but he knew that something was seriously wrong here. As wrong as birds in the trees could be, and where the Master was concerned that was pretty wrong.
He closed his eyes for a moment and consulted his memory. It told him to come back at a later time but he stubbornly knocked on the door of his mind again and again until it presented him with pictures of destruction and chaos, the smell of smoke and decay and the Doctor in the middle of all that.
Now came the point where he was supposed to realise that things had just happened, without any conscious decision on his side: He'd gone looking for the Doctor after he'd been gone for a week (out of boredom, not some kind of concern, because what would he care?), found him in the middle of a fire fight, carrying a device that looked so ridiculous he must have constructed it himself – out of the remains of an umbrella and pieces he'd found in somebody else's attic. Then he'd seen someone aiming a rifle at his favourite enemy and just got between them without ever realising what he was doing. Because if he had realised it he wouldn't have done it. Heroism was for idiots.
But the truth was that he'd very much known what he was doing. During the week he'd spend alone in the TARDIS he'd had enough time to think of what he'd do when the Doctor was gone. Without him there to stop him the Master could take over whole galaxies, maybe the entire universe. But without the Doctor there to stop him he didn't know why he should try.
He'd never, in all the centuries of his existence, thought that he would outlive the Doctor. A universe without him wasn't something he was able to imagine and not a place he wanted to live in. Sure, he'd tried to kill him and he'd even succeeded, but the Doctor had had enough lives left then. Still, if the Doctor was ever going to die, it would be by the Master's hand. The thought of someone else sharing that intimacy with him made him sick.
He'd never really thought he would be left behind, but when he'd seen that man about to fire, knowing there was no way he could stop him, the Master had for one second gotten a taste of the emptiness that was to come. And so he had stepped between them. It wasn't heroism. It was an act of self preservation.
Of course it was an act of self preservation with a possible deadly outcome, which made it a kind of stupid thing to do. He'd do it again any day. He'd rather leave the Doctor behind, knowing perfectly well it would break him, than be left himself.
Not that he wanted to die, though. In fact, he very much wanted to live. So he'd tried to get hit in some part of this body he didn't necessarily need. He hadn't been sure it had worked when he'd lain in the Doctor's arms once again and watched the tears running down his face. It was rather nice, if somewhat pathetic. Would have been even nicer, tough, if the Doctor had appreciated his selfless act and moved his skinny ass to safety. Because the Master had clung to his intention to survive even as his consciousness faded away, and it would have been very inconvenient if he'd woken up alive to find the Doctor dead beside him.
(For one moment his stomach turned to ice, the mere thought impossible to bear.)
What he'd not expected was waking up in a soft bed, bathed in sunshine. And the damn birds just wouldn't shut up!
He tried to move and found out that he was very much alive and very much in pain. He'd been hit in the shoulder, a bit too close to the heart for his liking, but when he moved it hurt pretty much everywhere. Highly unfair, he thought. That's what you get for being nice. Maybe he should have stayed out of the way and hoped that the Doctor would regenerate. Right now that seemed like the better idea.
"You're awake!" a female voice pointed out, as if he needed telling. "I'm so glad!"
The Master opened his eyes again and saw an elderly woman hurrying over from the door to fuss over him. He tried to push her away but moving made him wince in pain, which made her fuss even more. Being cradled in the Doctor's arms was one thing, this was just embarrassing. He wasn't a child after all, although right now he wanted ice-cream.
"Who are you?" he managed to croak out. The woman smiled at him.
"I'm Teenan's mother," she said as if that explained anything.
"I see."
"You've been out for two weeks", the woman continued. "We've had you over at the hospital but they needed the bed so we took you home."
"Why are you helping me?" the Master wanted to know, since it was a rather new experience for him.
"Because you saved the Doctor. He's been such a great friend to us and we are all so very grateful!" The woman beamed down at him and for a moment the Master felt like beaming back. He didn't. Stealing the Doctor's jelly babies was okay, but he didn't want to turn into him!
"He's alive then," he noted in the most casual voice he could manage. "Where is he?"
"Not here. But I'm sure he will be, soon." The woman still smiled but it seemed a little tense. Before the Master could ask another question, she changed the topic.
"Isn't the weather wonderful?" She opened the window and the annoying birds got even louder. "The fresh air will be good for you."
The Master grimaced. The people of this planet looked like humans, and they acted like them as well. But they didn't speak a terran language but something completely different. It was a simple language, easy to learn for a Time Lord, and it was a good thing the Master had done so, because just now he realised that the TARDIS wasn't translating anymore, which meant…
"Teenan has gone to the festival, but he will be back soon. He'll be happy to see you awake and well."
The Master, not feeling very well, grimaced even more and wondered which of the pathetic creatures the Doctor had gathered around himself this time she might be talking about. Or what she was talking about in general.
"What's happened to the war?" he asked.
Teenan's mother looked confused.
"What war?"
"The war I was shot in?" the Master suggested, now wondering if this woman was a little dense. She suddenly smiled softly down at him.
"Oh, you poor thing. You had a bad dream. No surprise after what you've been through." She patted his head and the Master silently vowed to cut off her hands at the first opportunity. "There was a robbery. You protected the Doctor and got hit. Don't you remember?"
"No," the Master said matter-of-factly. But he did remember. Going home late, a dark alley, a man with a gun, throwing himself against the Doctor to knock him out of the way. It was an absolutely ridiculous memory, and not even a real one. More like a story someone had told him. It had happened and yet it hadn't. It was like someone had painted that story over reality, but underneath the original reality still existed. Underneath the Master found fire, death and the smell of blood and that wasn't something he was likely to forget, even though he'd encountered plenty of it in his lifetimes. Yet, the woman had forgotten all of it. Because it had never happened. Someone was messing with reality.
The Master knew that one party in that war had tried, but this was far beyond them. They had neither the technology nor the mind to control it like this – or at all. Yet it happened. And the Doctor was nowhere to be seen, the telepathic link to the TARDIS broken.
It didn't take the Master long to come to a conclusion.
"I have to go," he declared, got out of bed in one swift movement and collapsed with a yelp of pain.
- August 17, 2007