Hey guys, thanks for all the nice reviews! :) I'm sorry about the hiatus. Last semester was a little more exciting than usual! But I'm not as busy now. I'll try to update regularly (hopefully weekly).
A good man is dying.
Jack lowers the gun grimly, and, down the hallway, two Silence falter and drop from the ceiling. He glances over his shoulder at the Doctor. The Time Lord's face is pale, almost ashen, and there's dark blood all the way down his scalp. Every time Jack checks on him, he's afraid to look at the Doctor's chest. He's afraid it will have stopped moving.
"Don't do that," River admonishes. "A firefight is twice as hard when you keep forgetting where the enemy is." Her gun rattles off a stream of bullets, and three Silence collapse to the floor.
Jack doesn't say anything, but looks at her briefly. River bites her lip.
"He's not going to die now," she says, firmly. "I've seen him after this—there's one at three o'clock—and he doesn't regenerate for a while." There's a "but" pressed between her lips, and Jack angles at it.
"But…" he prompts. The hallway is mostly empty of the gas fumes, though there are a few wisps trailing around the door entrances and corner. Bullet holes and scorch marks riddle the walls. Or rather, the parts of the walls that haven't fallen off and crumbled into piles of drywall, insulation, and broken cinderblock. There's an overturned plastic table halfway down the hall, and Jack stares at the top, waiting for a bulbous head to emerge.
"But there's something messing with the time stream," River says. "Something more than you, Mr. Fixed Point. It's like…" she frowns and shakes her head. "It's—"
Suddenly, River's eyes go wide. At the same moment, the Doctor takes a huge breath and sits halfway up from the pile of rubble.
"Oooooh blast!" he says.
"You really are desperate," River says, turning to look at the Doctor. Jack is distracted from the shooting, watching them. There's something going on, and he doesn't understand why he's the odd one out.
"What? What happened?" demands Jack.
"Ugh," the Doctor moans, his head drooping slightly. "The Master…" he swallows. "He's here."
"Good," River says, curtly.
Jack grinds his teeth.
"You bastard!" he snaps. "You promised!"
"Jack." River's voice is low and urgent.
Jack looks back towards the hallway—and stills. At least a dozen pear-shaped heads are silhouetted dangling from the ceiling; a few feet below, the Silence are filing in. Dozens of them.
"Oh, damn."
Jack turns to him.
"It's been nice knowing you, Doc. River. See you next life. I hope your next regeneration is as sexy as this one—and that goes for both of you."
And then the wall behind them explodes—or rather, the dull metal door set in the reinforced wall twenty meters behind them explodes open—and Jack suddenly remembers where they are.
"You son of a—" Jack mumbles, hastily re-training his gun. River grabs his hand and stills it.
From out of the smoke-filled hole, a man steps out with an all-too-familiar swagger. Jack stiffens unconsciously, his hand tightening on the weapon. It's Rory's face, but there's something different about the eyes—a hardness, a brightness. No, not brightness. A dark glitter. He walks with an easy, defiant insolence, and bile rises up in Jack's throat.
The Master stops and looks down at the pile
"Doctor," he says.
The Doctor breathes in, slowly.
"Master."
The Master's consciousness burns like a star in the back of the Doctor's mind. It's been so long since he sensed another Time Lord—even River's mind is a muted blaze. The Master half-saunters, half-swaggers out with the stage presence of a dictator, amplified by his familiar projection. Not a hypnotic suggestion, not even the subpsychic stream of the Archangel, it's a telepathic command barely brushing the edge of consciousness. A magnetism, a sense of power. But there's a touch of something else there, flickering behind the projection. The Doctor reaches for it, and the Master blinks and glares at him.
"You son of a—" Jack's invective is cut short by his gunshot. River jerks his hand away, and the bullet goes wide.
"Ah, Captain Jack Harkness," the Master says, conversationally. "It has been a long time." He stops and licks his lips. "It has been a long time. It has been a long. Time. A long time. A long… time. Oh, I like this voice. I could do something with the deeper registers." A half-manic grin flickers across his face, and he shakes his head quickly. "Ah. No. Not time for that, yet. I need a throne. Or at least a spinning chair." He suddenly crouches by the Doctor. "Hello, Doctor! How's the new face? I'm afraid I never got a chance to see it before Rassilon—" the Master stops. The confident projection freezes for a moment, and the Doctor gets half a second of terror, hatred, defiance, and mania before the Master smiles again. "Before I got hit with the Arch." He smile widens and darkens. "In the hell you sent me to. Sent us all to."
"You will stand," comes a muted rasp. "You are the criminal known as the Master. You have committed unpardonable trespasses."
The Doctor only now sees the circle of Silence around them. All he can think to say is:
"You know them?"
"I stole their sacred annihilation project and killed about a third of them," the Master says calmly. "Oh, don't give me that sanctimonious look! They were planning to destroy the universe; I stopped them. I even tried to burn their race as well. You ought to be proud."
"You are the criminal known as the Master," the Silence rasps as one. "You have committed unforgivable trespasses. You will be destroyed."
"You, my good sir," the Master returns jovially—and the Doctor can feel the whole psychic projection shift and strain—"kidnapped my wife. I'm going to kill you for that, all of you." He smiles calmly, draws his sword, and steps out from behind the overturned table. "I've going to decapitate you. It means to cut off your head. And since your grossly oversized craniums are self-sustaining, well… I'll have to think of something fun to do with them before the body grows back. Bowling, perhaps."
And suddenly, he throws the sword. It arcs cleanly through the air and buries itself halfway in the throat of the lead Silence.
The Master turns and leaps back behind the table.
"Come on," he hisses. "I sent Amy to get the TARDIS. Now's the chance to make a strategic escape."
"You mean run?" the Doctor says.
"No, I mean fly like little birds. Of course I mean run. Leave the freak and the…" he stops. "My daughter? Doctor, she's my daughter?" His face flickers. "Curse you!" he spits out. "Well, she may prove useful. Not as a distraction! She's valuable. Oh, they're after her!" The Master involuntarily puts a hand to his head and jerks it away, glaring at the Doctor. "Curse you, Rassilon, you sniveling rat, by all that's sacred, by the power of the Drums. –Now Doctor," in a mock-casual tone, "We really should run. Bring your companions."
He doesn't bother to see if the Doctor follows him, and he certainly doesn't feel an uncomfortable wrench as part of him tries to think about Jac—about the freak and the… other one. No, he's as focused as a drumbeat, his feet pounding along in glorious synchrony to the pulse of the universe as he rounds the corner. It's a beautiful rhythm, the pulse of everything really, and if you catch it and ride it, you're invincible. Run, duck, kill, throw, slide, run, all to the rhythm. He hated it once, but he could never admit it was comforting. Now let them loose the drums of war, the drums, the drums—
Jack slams him against the wall and the Master realizes they're in the Doctor's TARDIS. The first beat of pain is a surprise and a shock, and he's almost dazed.
"Insolent fool!" he snarls, but it comes out as a petulant, "What was that for?"
"You know damn well what for," Jack snaps.
The Master scowls.
"Touch me again and I will remove your hand," he says regally, but he is frustrated to hear it come out as, "Oh my God! Oh my God! I'm so sorry!"
"No I'm not!" he spits. "Shut up! And leave me alone, freak." He hears himself add, unaccountably, "It hurts to look at you. What's wrong with you? I mean, no offense."
The Master pulls back, aware that the Doctor, Jack, River, and the girl Amy are staring at him. This is unacceptable. He turns his face away and looks into his mind. Damn it, when did he get so old? The mind isn't what he's expected. There's a whole new wing here, a second system fused with the familiar one. He wants to swear. This isn't how an Arch is supposed to work. You use it for a few dozen years, turn back, and lock away the Arch memories in a nice little room somewhere in the city of your mind. That's it.
But no one's been locked in an Arch for millennia, a niggling voice tells him. The Arch selects certain personality traits from the Time Lord's range and shoves them up into the limelight. Who'd know they'd develop on their own?
The Master tentatively reaches for the new system. A miserable human mind. How callow. How inferior! He rebels from it. This isn't him, it's a stupid mask worn to deceive pitiful humans. He is Koschei the deathless, the Master of all, Lord of the Drums, the one who defied Rassilon—
The Doctor's mind brushes the Master's, and he forcefully blocks everything but the present. The Doctor raises an eyebrow, and the Master grinds his teeth when the Doctor speaks in a tone of concern.
"Er, Master? Rory? Are you all right? You're rather—"
The Master summons up his old majestical projection.
"I'm perfectly fine," he announces. "Just a bit tired. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to get some rest. Instruct your TARDIS to prepare a bedroom for me." He can't miss the sudden buzz of confusion and fear, and picks up a mass thought of prison and restraint. He smiles broadly. "Reinforce it as you like. I have nothing to hide."