Disclaimer: I don't own 'Doctor Who' or any of the related characters; you should know the drill by now
Feedback: I'd appreciate it, believe me
AN: Some references here to the BBC Eighth Doctor and Past Doctor novels, as well as the classic series; feel free to ask for clarification on where anything came from if you want to know and I'll include information on what novels they came from and what they meant in context in the next chapter
Broken Faith
As the Doctor walked through the streets of London, Jack and Martha close behind him, he couldn't help but allow himself a slightly pleased smile at how things had just gone there.
True, the loss of the TARDIS was a frustrating detail- even if he knew it would be around here somewhere, he always hated it when he was separated from his ship; that year or so he'd spent in London during his first meeting with Sabbath had been the longest he'd been separated from the ship and been consciously aware of it, and he remained convinced that its loss had accelerated the decay of his heart-, and the identity of the man who'd stolen it had definitely been a shock he wasn't expecting...
But he was here.
He'd followed his enemy- the one enemy he'd definitely never expected to see again; the Daleks were one thing, but he'd been so certain he was gone after that fatal battle in San Francisco- back to where they'd started, and he'd even managed to bring Jack and Martha along with him.
It wasn't the same as it had once been, of course- that dedication and complete acceptance was something that it wasn't easy to replace-, but they were a good group; he couldn't ask for much better, really.
As they sat around a semi-circular stone 'bench' of various seats in the middle of a small street, their location confirmed- for all that he'd appeared confident to Jack the Doctor had waited to find a newspaper before he allowed himself to get comfortable; it had been a long a time since he'd programmed something like the Vortex Manipulator for time travel, and even then he'd been using a more basic machine for only a short hop-, the Doctor had sat down to give himself a chance to focus
"...if you're gonna get stuck at the end of the universe," Jack said, his voice breaking through the Doctor's thoughts as he slipped out of his brief meditative state, "get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his Vortex Manipulator-"
"But this Master bloke," Martha interjected, her expression clearly demonstrating her concern at the thought even without knowledge of the Master's past, "he's got the TARDIS; he could be anywhere in time and space-"
"No," the Doctor said simply, already reaching out with his mind to search for the familiar traces of another of his people; there was a faint something there, but it was vague and hard to pin down, even now he was looking for it...
But it was there.
"He's here," he said, continuing to look silently ahead of himself as he spoke, keeping his comments to the basic essentials to focus all his mental energy on the search. "Trust me."
"Who is he, anyway?" Martha asked, looking in confusion at him. "And that voice at the end; that wasn't the Professor."
"If the Master's a Time Lord," Jack said, taking up the explanation as the Doctor studied the street before him- something about those 'Saxon IS Your Man' posters struck a chord that he didn't like the feel of-, "the he must've regenerated."
"What does that mean?" Martha countered.
For a moment, the Doctor wished he'd finished filling Martha in on regeneration after that thing with the living sun. He'd started it with Ben and Polly even when he knew he was dying after holding back DeCaster's mental pulse, and from then on he never seemed to bring up regeneration with those companions he was closest to; he'd mentioned it to Mel, but Sarah and Adric had only known about it because his old mentor and Romana brought it up, and Peri and Rose had been taken completely by surprise when he'd changed before them...
But he didn't have time to think about that right now; he had to find the Master. Pushing Jack's description of the regenerative process aside- he must have had access to UNIT records at some point while he'd been away; Time Agencies had never had access to that kind of information-, he turned his attention back to his search...
And paused.
Now that he was trying this hard, there was something throwing him off... some kind of... beat... that he couldn't quite penetrate... four rapid beats followed by a brief pause before repeating the pattern... the beat disrupting his own basic attempts to search for his old friend's presence...
As Martha questioned how they were going to find the Master in this instance, the Doctor brought his attention back to his companions; this attempt wasn't getting him anywhere, but he had to at least look like he was doing what he could.
"I'll know him," he said simply, as he looked over at the two of them, his mental energy returning to the here and now. "The moment I see him. Time Lords always do."
He was just grateful that such a talent was unique to Time Lords unless the other races involved had a scanner of some sort; he still recalled that close call he'd had with the Daleks during that encounter with Davros on Necros in his sixth incarnation (The affair on Vulcan was really more of a case of bad luck at a good time, really; if the Daleks he'd fought then hadn't already mind-probed some of his future selves they wouldn't have known who he was, but who knew how long it would have taken Ben to believe he was him without the Dalek to 'back him up'...)
"But hold on..." Martha said, her tone suggesting something had just occurred to her that she didn't like to think about. "If he could be anyone..."
Following the direction of Martha's gaze, the Doctor saw her eyes being directed towards the posters he himself had noticed earlier, the ones that had made him so uncomfortable when he'd seen them for the first time himself.
His blood ran cold.
No... he thought, his eyes widening in horror. It can't be...
"We missed the election," Martha said, her voice further reinforcing the Doctor's earlier thought that she'd realised what he was now thinking of. "But it can't be..."
As the sound of applause reached his ears, the Doctor heard a brief reference to Mr Saxon leaving the palace coming from a large public TV screen positioned on a post near the end of the street, and he knew that his worst fears had just come true.
"I said I knew that voice," Martha said, her tone clearly displaying her horror as the three of them walked down the street to get a better look at the screen. "When he spoke, inside the TARDIS, I've heard that voice hundreds of times; I've seen him, we all have! That was the voice of Harold Saxon!"
As the screen came into clear view before him, the last evidence the Doctor needed was confirmed.
He might be younger than his last incarnation- at the moment of death, anyway; from what Yana had told him about his life prior to the watch being opened the regeneration that gave the Master that incarnation could have begun by turning him into a young man and the extra years were just gained from his time as a human-, he might lack the beard that had long been his 'trademark' during most of his willing regenerations- that body he'd hijacked in San Francisco aside-, but there was no mistaking that aura of evil and resolve he could see even through the television screen.
"That's him," he said, his voice low. "He's Prime Minister. The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain..."
A brown-haired woman stepped forward, her face partly hidden from view behind one of the Master's bodyguards, but her 'role' there clear as the Master leaned in to kiss her, her shoulder-length brown hair preventing the Doctor from catching a clear view of her face.
"The Master and his wife?" the Doctor said, voicing his shock at this latest turn of events without even registering that he was doing it; apart from that brief thing the Master had had with that Atlantean queen during the TOMTIT business- and he might have spent far too much with Rose if he was using the phrase 'thing' to describe the Master flirting with the queen to win support- the Master had never shown any sign of being interested in female company, and now he was married?
And as for the wife...
The Doctor briefly shifted his gaze back to the woman in question, but it was too late; she'd already stepped away from her husband and was once again standing behind a bodyguard, concealed from view- save for that frustratingly familiar-looking hair; why did he feel like he'd seen that somewhere before?-, the newest Master stepping forward to address the camera.
"This country has been sick," the Master said, his tone of voice almost teasing as he addressed the country. "This country needs healing. This country needs... medicine. In fact," he added, the slight smile on his face growing broader even as he spoke, "I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs, right now... is a Doctor."
As applause came up from both the audience at Saxon Headquarters and those watching the screen around them, the Doctor turned back to look urgently at Martha.
"We need somewhere to hole up until we're ready," he said, his expression grim as he looked at her. "How long would it take to reach your flat from here?"
AN 2: Notice the difference? It might not seem much now, but I can assure, it will be VERY significant later on....