Surprised by the sound of a third voice joining the conversation, Sarah turned back towards the TARDIS' exit. What she saw there filled her with such a dread that this time around, she could have sworn her heart had skipped a few beats. She opened her mouth in shock, but could not bring herself to breathe in the air.

On slightly unsteady legs walked into the TARDIS, the personification of Death himself: The broken figure of a man with a face scarred and burnt beyond recognition and a body mostly hidden underneath a thick layer of black, tattered robes. Whatever had happened to him had left him with so little facial features that his head was more of a skull. Teeth defined the edges of his mouth and the eyes bulged out of their sockets. The seemingly skinless fingers of his right hand twisted around the handle of some kind of gun which he pointed at the two time travellers.

Sarah had seen a lot of monstrous figures already, but this was the one to top even the gruesome new body of Morbius. Her mouth opened wider to let out a scream of terror, but there was not enough air in her lungs to actually get it out. She made an attempt to retreat backwards, which caused her only to bump into the Doctor. Thankfully however, that action helped both of them to snap out of their first moment of shock. They exchanged a glance of worry before turning back to face the horrible sight of their intruder.

"It's you.", the Doctor eventually stated. His expression was stern and his dry voice showed only the smallest amount of hatred this time, but it was more than enough for Sarah to understand who he was talking of:

The Master.

"Yes, Doctor: It's me. And this is what I have become, thanks to you.", the broken creature of a man confirmed. There was a bit of twitching around his eyes and the human wondered if it was painful for him to try to form an expression. He suddenly raised his arms, clenched his fists furiously and shouted out: "Look at me now! This is all your fault!" His raspy, half-muffled voice sounded even worse when it was this loud and this angry.

A shiver ran down the young woman's spine.

The Doctor shook his head vehemently and Sarah noticed how he pressed himself further against the console sitting in his back. "No! This was not my fault! If you would have given up there and then, this would have never happened to you.", he defended himself, although it seemed very doubtful that the Master was up for any discussion. "Besides, I was expecting you to regenerate-"

"But I could not.", the Master almost interrupted him. "My regeneration cycle has already been exhausted. I am forced to cling onto what little life I have left…!"

"...Ah! I see..."
The Doctor's grip on the console eased a little, now that it became a little clearer what was going on. During their previous adventure, the Master had been after the Etabonite mineral they had been talking of earlier, by the use of which he could have held an entire galaxy at ransom. Naturally, Sarah and her friend had prevented that from happening, but at a great cost for the Master. He had ended up in a horrible crash between two futuristic hovercrafts, and they, heroes of the day that they had been, and thinking that their enemy would suffer from post-regeneration trauma, had decided that it was not necessary to double-check that the Master would never get his hands on the Etabonite again. But apparently things had not played out the way they had expected them to: It seemed the Master had not allowed himself to be set back by his extensive injuries and agony, stolen the Etabonite after all, and now he was back for revenge.

"Now, since you are the one responsible for my suffering, I decided that I should relieve you of one of your regenerations.", the Master continued to explain and he chuckled between the sentences. His laugh sounded more like coughing. "Lucky for you, I currently lack the right tools and will not be able to gain any other benefits from the end of your current incarnation other than to watch you die painfully..."

The Doctor's facade slowly began to crumble and Sarah could now see the first signs of fear shimmering in his eyes. Only a light frown revealed to her that he was still thinking about a possible way out of their dilemma.
Sarah, for her part, was truly afraid now. The Master, as a Time Lord, seemed to know very well how to cause pain and suffering to one of his kind, especially in regard to the fact that a regeneration was always preluded by both. The mere thought that her best friend could be exposed to such only a few months or years – time was very hard to tell in the TARDIS – after his near death at Metebelis III, scared her greatly. He enjoyed being a scatter-brained, middle-aged globetrotter with childlike humour, and he deserved more time to stay like this. She clutched the Doctor's arm with both hands, desperately wanting to protect him, although the best she could do right now was to pull him out of the way if the Master was to pull the trigger on his gun.

The Doctor shot her a glance out of the corner of his eye to acknowledge her crude attempt of saving him, but did not comment on it. "So, if that is what you are not going to do, what will be your revenge, then?", he then demanded to know of the Master, "Have you come to finally destroy me, like all the other times you had planned for it?"

"You will fail this time, too!", barked Sarah at their arch enemy from her position, half-hidden behind the Doctor.

But the Master simply ignored her insolent comment. "No, Doctor.", he answered to the other Time Lord instead. "If death is too good for me, then it is too good for you, too." Before he continued his explanation, he pulled out of one of the many folds on his robe a brass fob watch and let it dangle by its chain for everyone to see. Along the surface of the casing ran a crack and there was a dent in it as well. "Instead, I have brought this."

The Doctor squinted his eyes to make out the object. "Is that… part of a chameleon arch?", he asked – not quite what Sarah would have expected him to say – but then he realized something and whereas the fright had been just a notion in his eyes before, his companion could see it plainly now.
"Oh, I see…!", her tall friend gasped and pointed at the dangling watch. "Well, I hope you've noticed that because it is damaged, anything might happen! It might not work. It might work too good. I might be killed. Or, I could… end up somewhere in between." He was not usually one to hesitate with words, but this last possibility seemed so bad that it took a while before he had uttered the last bits of his sentence.

"Doctor, what is that? What does he want with you?", she tugged at his sleeve and demanded to know.

Just as the Doctor turned to look at the young woman by his side, the Master raised his voice again.

"That's right, Doctor. Anything can happen, but whatever will, it will leave you handicapped in some way or another. Just like me...", he explained, which only stirred Sarah's worries further, before he proceeded to point his gun at her.
"Now! Get out of the way, Miss Smith!", he threatened her, "This is a matter between him and me only, and if you interfere, rest assured that I will annihilate you myself this time!"

The Doctor turned sideways, which forced Sarah out of her hiding and as he placed his hands on her shoulders, she let go of his sleeve as well. Although his eyes still showed a great deal of worry, he attempted to speak to her with determination in his voice. "Sarah, I think it's better if you stepped off the TARDIS while he still allows you to."

"And leave you as a victim of his? Are you out of your mind?", Sarah stared at him unbelieving of what she had just heard.

"Sarah, please!", her friend urged her and shook her lightly. "I just might make it out alive and well, but if you stay, you will force his hand."

Sarah's voice was cracking as she replied, almost hysterical.
"You might make it?!"

In order not to push her further into panic, the Doctor tried pleading instead.
"I beg of you, for your sake and mine." He bent his knees to match her eye level, like he was talking to a child.

Sarah stared into his big blue eyes for what felt like a small eternity, just trying to figure out what was wrong and why she could not try to stay and help him. There had to be some kind of plan, right? Some idea, how she could make it back to save him at the last second. He would not just send her away if he had none… But then why did he look so sorry? "Can't you think of something, Doctor? Or have you already?", Sarah begged in her thoughts. With the Master watching them, even if he had some complex plan, he would not have been able to tell her. And whereas most of the time, she could read the Doctor's face like an open book, when it came to his plans, there was no way of predicting when the right thought was going to hit him or whether an idea he already had would settle. Oh, she just wished she knew!

"All right now, that was more than enough time for a farewell." The Master's voice cut into their silent conversation, urging them to hurry as he gestured with his gun for Sarah to step aside.

Reluctantly accepting the order, the Doctor sighed as he lifted himself back up to full height.
To Sarah's surprise, he turned her around by her shoulders and, with fairly little force, pushed her a few feet away from him. "Go now, Sarah!"

She glanced back over her shoulder, perplexed, and the feeling of worry stuck in her throat like a big lump.

But he averted his look quickly and lowered his head to hide his eyes in the shadow his unruly curls cast into his face. "Go!", he repeated his words, but with a lot more of a commanding tone this time, marking them as final.

Internally, Sarah begged that it was all just an act. She glared at the Master angrily as she stepped out of the inner railing and moved further towards the time machine's exit. At the same time, their enemy carefully moved closer to the room's centre, always making sure that both the Doctor and she remained in his field of view, although his gun was pointed only at her.
He urged the Doctor to back away from the console, so that he could operate the TARDIS' instead of its owner. The Master pulled the lever which opened the TARDIS' doors, and as Sarah continued walking towards the exit ever so slowly, reluctantly, he flicked another set of switches.
When Sarah stopped in front of the open door, the Master waved the gun at her.
"Out! Now!", he shouted with this horribly distorted voice of his.

She would not let him out of sight, she swore to herself as she took two steps out of the TARDIS and into the open. The coldness of the wet grass was immediately soaked up by her socks and the wind outside felt just as icy as her hatred towards the Master for whatever he was about to do.
"Are you happy now?", she turned around and sullenly asked their arch enemy, averse to move away further unless she was threatened into doing so.

"Not quite, no.", was the answer of the disfigured Time Lord. He was still pointing the gun at her. What for? She was already far out of the way, was she not? All he had to do was to close the doors!

"Would you prefer me back inside, then?", Sarah kept asking impatiently. "A little to the right; to the left maybe? What do you want!?"

Even though he still avoided the eye contact, she noticed the Doctor smiling at her fearless outburst in front of the villain. Between him and the Master a strange-looking piece of head gear lowered out of the ceiling of the TARDIS. It hung from a mechanical arm coated in brass, and was wired up with dozens of cables originating from the inside of the time machine. At the front of the head gear, the place where it would cover one's forehead, was a circular, empty space, into which the Master pressed the fob watch he had showed to them earlier. Sarah could see the crack in the little clock even from afar. A soft glow was emitted from it.

With her heart beating ever so slightly louder, she continued to watch as the Master pushed the metal arm into the Doctor's direction. He had made well sure to keep his adversary far away from interfering with the controls. "Doctor, if you will.", he ordered the other time traveller and nodded into Sarah's direction before explaining, "And no funny tricks this time, or I will ensure personally that you will have the chance to watch your companion leave your company the painful way."

Sarah gritted her teeth. So she was still good for blackmailing, was she? "Don't do it, Doctor! Don't listen to him!", she called out, but her friend was not listening to her. Although every single movement of his proved that he was fighting internally with the unwillingness to obey, he stepped closer to the device. With a menacing look of disgust and hatred directed at the Master, he pulled the head gear over his mob of curly hair. In an almost hopeless attempt of looking unafraid he shoved his hands into the pockets of his tweed trousers. Sarah noticed him saying something to the Master after he had turned his face away from him again, but he said it so quietly that she failed to make out the words.

Whether it was because of what the Doctor had said or not, the Master pulled a lever on the console and the TARDIS' doors began to close in front of Sarah. Instinctively, she attempted to step back into the ship right away, but when her gaze was met with the sight of a gun's muzzle, she quickly went back on that decision and stayed outside.

The automatic closing of the TARDIS' doors was a rather slow process and since she was forced to wait, Sarah saw the Doctor raising his head and looking over to her one last time. Single curls were sticking out of the contraption on his head in every direction. He knitted his brows and, at the same time, attempted to form a smile for her, but failed somewhere on the way. She just knew too well what his kind of grin had to look like.

"Don't worry, Sarah!", he shouted over to her, "Remember how little energy is left! He won't make it far!"

The TARDIS doors kept closing. Already the crack was too small for a human to fit through.
Sarah saw the Master throwing a leverand in the very last second before eventually even the crack had closed in front of her, Sarah's ears were filled with the scream of her best friend.

"AAARGH!"