Tears streamed freely down the Doctor's face. There was nothing he could ever say and nothing he could ever do to right his wrong. The Master was right: Gallifrey, his home – a citadel so ancient and glorious that it outshone the stars - had perished in a ball of flame, and it was all his fault. He alone had pulled the trigger. It was with a different face and more than a lifetime ago, but it was still him. He still remembered every moment, every emotion, and every scream.
What he had told the Master was not entirely true. He did not have to do it – he knew that. He had made a choice. For the sake of all of creation, he had ended it. He had tried so hard – tried everything - to stop it. To stop them. But in the end there was nothing he could do. It was the Time Lords or the universe itself. And he had taken a stand. Against his family, against his home, against everything the Time Lords had become. He had stopped it. And now he was alone. And the only other Time Lord in existence hated him for it.
The terrible image of his burning home world was forever etched into the Doctor's mind. Sometimes he wanted to forget it all. But he knew that he never could. The Master was right about one thing; people are defined by their choices. The Doctor had chosen to sacrifice Gallifrey in order to save the world, because he was the only one that could. Or perhaps just the only one that would. He could only hope that one day he might be able to live with that fact.
The Doctor knew he could never redeem himself from what he had done, but perhaps he did not need to. In the Master he could see embodied everything that the Time Lords were: The pride, the power, and the disregard for all other 'lesser' forms of life. They could have saved so many, but they never did. So it fell to him – the renegade; the runaway who defied the law to save millions of lives that were otherwise condemned. On the last day of the Great Time War he had wondered: What was it that separated the Time Lords from the Dalek after all? By the time he ended it the same willingness to destroy all others no matter the cost was embodied equally in both.
He told himself that he would have done it all over again if the choice had been the same. But he would fight with everything in him to make sure that he never had to make that choice again. Now the Master had returned; an image of that same pride, power, and destruction. He was the last remnant of Gallifrey; the last vestige of the Time War that the Doctor had fought so hard to end. But this time would be different. He would not pull the trigger this time. He had to stop the Master, but more than that - he had to save him. He had to save the Master from himself. He could not lose the last of his kind again. He did not want to be alone.
All the same, if there was one thing that the Master had been wrong about it was this: If he thought that just because the Doctor had committed that one terrible act so long ago that he would now step aside the let the Master commit another, he was mistaken. Because if there was one thing that the destruction of Gallifrey had taught him it was that life is precious. And he would not stand idly by while another world was destroyed. Not this time. Not here, not now. Not on earth.
This planet was amazing; its people even more so. They were amazing because he knew what they could do. He knew the greatest heights to which they would strive and the lowest depths to which they would fall. But they could not see it. They lived their normal lives on their humble little planet, day in and day out. One day they would roam the starts, but they would never own them. They were explorers with a practically endless thirst for discovery and a true enjoyment of the best things in life. They were defined by their perseverance and they held true value to life and honor and sacrifice and love and beauty. They were not Time Lords, and that is what made them brilliant. Humans were not perfect by any means - he constantly chided and rebuked them - but then again, neither was he.
The Doctor had struggled long and hard to overcome the guilt of his actions in the Time War. But then he had gone back to Earth and named it his new home. Then he found her: Rose. She was everything that he loved about the human race; adventurous, compassionate, and open-minded, with a never-ending thirst to be amazed. When he was with Rose she had made it all better. Being with her reminded him that maybe – just maybe – it had all been worth it. Maybe there was more to this world that he had saved than just hate and evil and war. There was love, and hope, and wonder. That was what she was to him, and that is what the human race was. He had lost her. But he would not lose them.
This little planet of 'pathetic apes' had adopted him – or very nearly – as their own. He was their guardian and their protector. 'This World's Champion' he had been called on the first day of his new life. And that was what he was. He was the Doctor. And he would not see this world fall.
With this thought the Doctor's mind returned to saving the planet and its populace. He remembered what he had told Martha about using the power of the whole human race through the Archangel network. He did not know how long it would take, but he had to try and link himself to the psychic matrix. If he could integrate himself into the telepathic field he could use it to set them free. Even chained as he was, the Doctor was more than helpless. But after such a mental lashing, not to mention a physical one, this would be a lot harder than he had first thought.
The ever-present ringing of the TARDIS' desperate alarms still filled his ears, and the incessant tolling of the cloister bell sounded ominously, growing more and more like the sound of a final knell.
"Ooh…" The Doctor spoke out loud, but communicated even more strongly through his telepathic link to his ship. "What has the mean old Master done to you?" He asked in sympathy. He could feel her response; an emotion of pure pain, both physical and mental. The TARDIS wanted to be able to help the Doctor just as much as he wanted to be able to help her. She could feel each drop of his spilt blood as it fell to the floor.
'Shh. I'm here.' He mentally whispered. 'I'm going to fix this. I promise.' A warm feeling of hope and trust emanated from the ship in response.
Sagging in his bonds, the Doctor shifted his weight between his tired feet and his painfully shackled hands, trying not to stretch the fresh red wounds that now decorated his ribcage. If only he could get to his sonic screwdriver, this would all be fixed. But it was still in the pocket of his overcoat, which had been tossed several yards away by the guards. Sighing heavily, he resigned himself to his chains.
'I'm sorry, old girl. I'm so sorry.' The Doctor closed his eyes and concentrated on communicating with his beloved TARDIS, trying to break through the unnatural walls and barriers that the Master had constructed around her. The further he pushed his mind the more he felt the ship's pain. Unnatural fire burned in its heart, defiling the pure and ancient essence that brought it life. Bound just as much as the Doctor was and hurting even more, the TARDIS struggled vainly against the Master's terrible devices.
The Doctor felt awful for allowing this to happen. Because it was all his fault. He had opened her door and let the Master walk right in. How could he have been so blind? When he had locked the coordinates he never thought that it might lead to this. He still remembered hearing her call out to him as the Master forced her to leave him behind at the end of the universe. It had nearly broken his hearts.
The bond between a Time Lord and his TARDIS was always symbiotic at a deep telepathic level, but as the last of both of their kinds the Doctor and his TARDIS shared an even deeper bond. It was true, she was not originally his. He had borrowed her – stolen, really, and saved her from being destroyed and replaced with a supposedly 'better' model. But to this day, he could swear that it was not just he that had chosen her, she had indeed chosen him. She was his TARDIS, and he was her Doctor.
If the Master had thought to torture them both by locking them up together, he had actually done a pretty good job at it. But it was still his mistake. He had underestimated the two's bond, and the Doctor would use it to his greatest advantage. Even in its tortured state, the TARDIS stove only to help her Doctor, and at the moment he was mentally entrusting his plans to her. The Archangel network, now that he was aware of it, would become his greatest and only hope of victory, and the TARDIS would help him reach it.
The Master may have intended for the TARDIS' psychic presence and pain to be torturous to the Doctor, and in truth it was, but it could also help him amplify his own power to penetrate the larger network that surrounded the globe. Even now, their two minds worked as one to sense and analyze the hidden telepathic field.
The Doctor knew that he had to be careful. He was not the only Time Lord any more, and his rival would sense his mental efforts if he was not careful to hide them. He would take it slowly and try his best to cover his trail. But he did not know how long he had. He had given Martha a message to the world. Now he could only pray that she succeeded. If anything happened to her, he needed to be ready. But the earth was a large and populace place. The mission he had given her was not a simple or an easy one – in fact it would be the hardest, most painful thing she had ever done, and hopefully would ever have to do. But he believed she could do it. Neither of them would be detected. And upon her return, he would be ready.