Author's Note: Whoo-ee, the last chapter was a bit of a controversial one - some people loved the idea of Jack and Tejana temporarily together, some people hated it (I love you full-on Master fans, you are great!), some didn't care and (as always) a lot of people didn't bother to review, so I don't know what they thought, LOL!
Anyway, thanks for the following people for reviewing: GallifreanGirl, tardisandafirebolt, OhTex, KoscheithePianist (I'm so happy you are back, yayyyy!), Omniac, MayFairy, Beautiful Rogue, babybluepineapple, Aietradaea and iLuvTwiboyz!
Also, a big wave to my new reviewers, Lost Moon and Chia - I'm always so thrilled to get new reviewers, especially this far into what is quite a lengthy series, so I was so happy to hear your opinions. I hope you keep on reviewing and letting me know what you think!
More waves for xxTeam-Masterxx, jazz-sparks, Kaylie S and xxCoffee-and-Creamxx, if you are still reading!
Bit of a violence warning on this chapter, I'm afraid, but nothing too severe.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
- The Flight Deck, The Valiant, December 2008 -
The main doors to the flight deck slid open.
Apart from a skeleton night crew up on the Bridge, the Doctor was currently the only occupant of the large room. Crouching in his canvas tent, huddled in the filthy straw, he glanced up warily at the sound of the door, expecting to see the Master. Instead, a young man marched in and stood strictly to attention, facing the stairs leading up to the Bridge, not far from the Doctor's enclosure. He was dressed in the black uniform of the Master's elite bodyguard. The Doctor recognised him. He was one of Tejana's personal guard. He also recognised the dry, tight look in the boy's dark eyes. It was fear.
For a few moments, the Doctor waited. But nothing happened. No-one else came in and the boy continued to stand as still as a statue, as if his very life depended on it.
Anxiety tugged at the Doctor. What was one of Tejana's guards doing here all alone, looking so terrified? There had been all sorts of rumours floating around the ship in the past few weeks about the sordid things the Master was apparently doing to his daughter. He guessed that the Jones family purposely shielded him from the worst of the stories. Nevertheless, as day after day continued to pass without seeing her, his worry had been mounting unbearably.
"Pssst!" he hissed quietly, so the crew up on the Bridge couldn't hear him. "You there. What's your name?"
The young man blinked and swallowed, before swinging his gaze down to locate the Doctor in the tent. "It's Damon, Sir."
"Pleased to meet you, Damon, I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord said, cautiously emerging from his shelter, wincing at the ache in his ancient joints. "What's going on? You're Tejana's bodyguard, right? Where is she? Is she all right?"
"She's fine," Damon assured him. "She's in her rooms."
"Then why are you here?"
Damon hung his head, his face as white as a sheet. "I've offended the Master. I think...I think I'm going to be punished."
The Doctor frowned. The Master's punishments were never taken lightly on board The Valiant, which was why the human slaves did their absolute level best to avoid his notice at all times. Depending on his mood, his retribution could range from disfigurement, to disablement to death.
"What did you do?"
Damon gave him a rueful half-smile. "I had a snow-ball fight with your daughter."
"What?" the Doctor asked, confused, not sure he had heard correctly. "A snow-ball fight? How did you manage that on board The Valiant?"
"Not on board. The Master took her down to walk the Earth, to a forest in Switzerland."
"He did what?" the Doctor snapped, more puzzled and more anxious than ever. "Listen, Damon, I haven't seen my daughter for nearly three weeks. I need to know that she's all right. Tell me the truth, is he hurting her? Is he...forcing her? Abusing her?"
The young guard opened his mouth to answer, but before he could speak, the doors slid back again and the Master entered, followed by four burly guardsmen. The Doctor could see at once that his enemy was furious. The anger and frustration was present in every taut line of his body, his eyes burning with incandescent rage. The Doctor stared at him. The Master was generally unpredictable and often irrational, but surely a snowball fight, whatever the circumstances, couldn't have upset him this much. Something else was going on here.
Damon straightened up even more, his jaw muscles twitching in barely controlled terror. The Master didn't even spare him a glance.
"Good evening, Doctor," he said, his voice low and deadly. "I just thought I'd let you know...as promised, I've captured your wandering friend, Martha Jones. She's currently confined downstairs in the cell next to yours. I thought maybe you could pass the time banging on the walls in Morse code or something. Won't that be fun?"
"What are you going to do with her?" the Doctor gritted out, trying to hide his dismay at the news. The Master just kept on winning, triumphant at every turn, and it seemed that this time the Doctor could do nothing to stop him.
"I haven't decided. I'm going to have to think long and hard about that!" the Master returned harshly. "I'm very, very tired of that woman causing problems for me."
The Doctor studied him closely. It was odd. The Master didn't look like a man who was winning. Knowing his arch-enemy as he did, he would have expected him to be jubilant at the news of Martha's capture, gloating and effervescent, eager to maliciously taunt the Doctor with this fresh evidence of his downfall. So what could have caused this strange, broodingly dark mood? Was it something Martha had done? Or something else altogether?
"And Damon here? What are you planning to do with him?"
The Master's gaze lit with a fresh blaze of anger. "Damon needs to remember his place. This will be one lesson he won't forget. And you, Doctor, are going to watch."
With that, he nodded to the quartet of guards. Two of them stepped forward and seized Damon's arms, holding him firmly. At first, he struggled in panic, but then he seemed to accept the futility of his effort and just stood still, waiting for the inevitable.
The Master folded his arms, his eyes narrowed cruelly. "Begin."
The other two men rolled up their sleeves and curled their hands into fists. Then the blows began, raining down on Damon's defenceless body in a flurry of violence, each man taking turns to inflict a systematic, bestial beating, hitting the boy everywhere at will, on the head, the ribs, the stomach, the groin...
The Doctor turned his head aside, sickened by the rampant, gratuitous savagery. "Stop it!" he said to the Master. "Stop it now!"
"Keep watching, Doctor," the Master answered coldly. "Or it will go on longer."
Helplessly, the Doctor forced himself to observe the rest of the punishment. Finally, when Damon passed out, his bloody, opened mouth sucking for air, his body hanging limply like the carcass of a dead animal, the Master called a halt.
"That's enough. I don't want to kill him. Take him down to the medical bay."
The Doctor's insides were churning as he watched the guards drag the unresponsive Damon away. "You didn't need to do that! He's just a boy!" he cried angrily. "What's really going on here? Why did you have to punish him? And why make me watch?"
Something stirred deep within the Master's gaze, something sharp and powerful. If the Doctor hadn't known better, he would have said it was pain.
"Maybe because you were the one who taught me how to make bloody snow angels!" he snarled cryptically, before turning away and walking towards the door.
The Doctor stared after him in bewilderment. Snow angels? What the...?
"Wait..."
The Master looked back at him, his handsome face twisted in contempt. "'Night then. Sweet dreams, Doctor."
The doors slid open for a final time and then closed behind him, leaving the Doctor with a thousand more unanswered questions.
- The Morgue, The Valiant, December 2008 -
Wearily, Professor Simon Vane pushed his glasses back up his nose, trying to stretch his aching back muscles. He was getting nowhere fast. He knew he shouldn't be surprised. After all, there was no reason to think that this autopsy would be any more informative than the six previous ones he had already undertaken. But he couldn't help hoping for some clue, some small indication, some trace of a reason why these people had died.
Security Chief Anderson had made it very clear that both their tails were on the line if he couldn't come up with anything. Professor Vane didn't like Security Chief Anderson. He was an arrogant, self-important little man, who treated every other human on board The Valiant as though they were fit only for him to wipe his feet on.
Back in the old days, Professor Vane had been the Chief Forensic Medical Officer and Head of the Department of Forensic Medical Sciences at the Forensic Science Service, London Laboratory. Back then, he had a string of letters after his name, each representing an exclusive academic qualification. He had prestige, respect, authority and wealth. People had hung off his every word. He had been important and influential, he had mattered. He had even been in line for an OBE, before Harold Saxon took power and everything changed. Now, like the lowest menial on board this ship, Simon Vane did what he was told. He had to grit his teeth and take orders from inferior men, like that oaf Anderson, whose only notable credentials in life were that he was useful to the Master. And Security Chief Anderson had told him to find out why seven people had suddenly dropped dead of unknown causes. Or else.
Closing his eyes briefly, the Professor ran the list of victims through in his mind once more: Wesley McNeill, 17, kitchen hand; Malcolm Willoughby, 43, engineer; Jeffrey Wallace, 22, cleaner; Jared Sinclair, 38, flight crew; Ian Morrison, 25, maintenance officer; Cameron Kirby, 32, pastry cook; and lastly, the current body on the autopsy table, Karl Conrad, 24, guard.
Apart from the fact that they were all male, none of the victims had anything in common - not age, not occupation, not location of death. Professor Vane had run every test and analysis he could think of, but still he had hit a blank wall. There were no signs of trauma, no gun-shot wounds, stab wounds or strangulation marks. There was no evidence of disease or any form of toxicology.
Professor Vane looked down at the corpse lying in front of him. Karl Conrad had not been an attractive man in life and, in death, his appearance had not been improved by the gaping 'Y' incision the professor had cut into his upper body. His chest cavity was now open and empty, all his organs removed, with two huge swathes of skin peeled back to either side. The top of his skull was missing, exposing the brain, with the loose scalp drawn down in two gory flaps over the sides of his face.
The Professor sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, it was time to ask for help. He had heard that the Master had recently arrested the Torchwood team and had imprisoned them aboard The Valiant. Professor Vane had never had any dealings with Torchwood, but he knew who they were and what they did. He also knew of their Medical Officer, Doctor Owen Harper, whose role within the covert organisation apparently included performing autopsies on folk who had died in very strange circumstances. Perhaps Doctor Harper could throw some light on the fate that had overtaken these seven people.
Turning his back on the autopsy table, he began to strip off his surgical gloves. All at once, a strange odour reached him, strong enough to overwhelm even the pervasive smell of formalin and disinfectant which usually filled the room. The Professor sniffed curiously. It smelled almost like an odd mixture of ozone and old blood. It was nauseating - dense, wet, vile, almost shockingly sweet, like the vomit of a drunk.
Suddenly, he sensed movement behind him. Whirling around, he stared in shock at the blood-stained autopsy table. Slowly, ever so slowly, the mangled corpse of Karl Conrad was beginning to sit up. Professor Vane almost stopped breathing in sheer revulsion. He had never seen anything more horrifying in his entire life.
"No! It's not possible!" he gasped, backing away.
A pair of blank, lifeless eyes swivelled towards him. They were obsidian-dark, completely without pupils, as deep and as empty as coal pits. Sluggishly, without hurry, the thing slid off the table and began to advance towards the terrified human, its arms outstretched as if to embrace him.
Nearly paralysed with fear, Professor Vane continued to retreat until, clumsy in his panic, he collided with a wheeled instrument tray, sending metal implements clattering noisily to the ground. His heart pounding wildly, he snatched up a razor-sharp surgical scalpel and brandished it before him threateningly.
"Keep back!" he cried frantically. "I'm warning you, stay back!"
Heedlessly, the creature continued to move forward, its feet dragging along the ground as it shambled towards him. With a strength born of desperation, the Professor drove the scalpel into his assailant's carotid artery, a thrust which would have immediately felled any living man. Unfortunately for him, Karl Emerson Conrad was no longer a living man. Inhumanly strong fingers closed on the Professor's neck, crushing his larynx and shattering the small bones in his neck as he struggled futilely for breath. His eyes bulged obscenely, his tongue extruding from his gaping mouth as he died, like a loathsome strip of meat.
The creature paused briefly, the fresh corpse dangling limply from its hands. Then, as if obeying some silent command, it allowed the dead man to slip to the floor, where he lay abandoned in a mess of tangled limbs. Moving in the same slow, measured pace with which it had arisen, it returned to the autopsy table and lay back down, as though nothing had happened.
Far away, in another part of The Valiant altogether, the demon known as Legion threw back its head and laughed, safely cocooned in the depths of its stolen body.
The time was close now, so very close.
- Tejana's Suite, The Valiant, 2008 -
Tejana couldn't stop shivering. Great shudders racked her body from head to toe as she huddled on one of the sumptuous lounges in her luxurious suite, gazing out at the night sky. She couldn't remember ever feeling so broken, so empty, so lost and alone, not since she had stood in front of the Untempered Schism long ago on Gallifrey. Handling her gently, like a child, Peter had stripped off her wet jacket, wrapped her in a blanket and turned the heating up high, but still the trembling persisted. He had hovered anxiously for a while, but in the end Tejana had told him to go. She needed to be on her own.
Her right hand seemed to ache unbearably. She kept staring at it, as if she expected it to be damaged in some way from where she had struck the Master. But deep down she knew it was all in her tortured imagination. The only thing that was really aching, the only thing that was really damaged, was her soul. Over and over again, she replayed the scene in her mind – Martha's battered face; the shame in the expressions of the Torchwood team; the ugly truth in the brown eyes she loved so much; the pain and betrayal that had flooded through her as she realised nothing had changed since The Year That Never Was; and then the sharp, savage sting as her hand impacted with his cheek.
Bastard!
She had seen the rage instantly flame into life in his gaze, the immediate desire to punish her. She had waited for the blow, craving it, wanting him to crush every bit of love she had ever felt for him and grind it underfoot. She didn't want to have to choose any more, didn't want to be so agonisingly torn between what she felt for him and what she knew to be right.
But he hadn't done it. He had looked into her face and he had held back.
I'll never hurt you, Ana.
Hot, painful tears began to course slowly down her cheeks as she remembered his promise on the day she had taken his hand and followed him into his TARDIS, leaving her entire life behind her.
Damn it, Koschei, don't you understand that you ARE hurting me? And not just me, but yourself too. You're destroying both of us with your idiotic stubbornness!
But she couldn't make him listen and she couldn't make him stop. Jack and Martha and Torchwood couldn't make him stop. Even the Doctor couldn't make him stop. This time he was going to win and there was nothing any of them could do about it. Dully, she wondered what the Universe would be like with the Master in total control. She couldn't even begin to imagine it. Worse, she had no idea what he expected her role to be. His lover, his consort, the mother of his children. His prisoner, loving him and hating him, for the rest of her life. Just the thought made her begin to shiver all over again.
Even so, she couldn't help seeing in her mind the gorgeous, curly-haired child in the vision of the Could-Have-Been-King, the son she should have shared with the Master. Her hand crept under the enveloping blanket to settle on her stomach once more. Was that still in their future? She didn't think she was pregnant yet, but she couldn't be sure. Ordinarily, she would sense a new little Time Lord mind coming into being almost as soon as it happened. But with the psi-bracelet in place, she could no longer rely on the sixth sense to warn her if she was with child. It was unlikely – Gallifreyans didn't conceive nearly as easily as humans. Tejana could remember being fascinated at the speed with which Gwen had become pregnant after her marriage to Rhys Williams. Humans seemed to take childbirth so casually, probably because there were so many of them. It was so different to the reverence and importance placed on the advent of children in Gallifreyan culture, where offspring had been much more rare.
She rubbed wearily at her eyes, trying to drive back the fog of exhaustion which numbed her brain. She was so tired, especially after her exertions in the snow, but she didn't dare to sleep. The peculiar nightmare grew more terrifying every time she experienced it, until she was almost too frightened to close her eyes. She had been tempted so many times to confide in the Master, to tell him of the invisible creature which stalked her dreams. But then she would feel the pinch of the psi-bracelet he had placed on her arm and her pride would forbid her to speak. After today, the idea of asking for his help seemed even more impossible.
Suddenly, the door to her suite opened. Clutching the blanket around her like a shield, Tejana jumped to her feet and whirled around, expecting to see the Master. Instead, to her complete shock, she realised that her visitor was Lucy Saxon.
Peter hesitated in the doorway, clearly in two minds about whether he should allow the human woman to enter. It was obvious to the bodyguard that a head-on meeting between the Master's wife and his lover could not be a good thing. However, despite her apparent fall from grace, he had received no orders countermanding Lucy's authority, leaving him unsure as to what he should do.
"It's all right, Peter," Tejana said quietly.
The bodyguard nodded and retreated slightly, but did not leave the room, his eyes watchful. Lucy and Tejana stared at each other. As always, the human woman looked absolutely stunning. She was dressed in a short, black, silken cocktail dress, her perfect figure alluringly displayed. Her ice blue eyes glittered in her beautiful face, her delicate pink and white skin as fine as porcelain. Her long, flaxen hair shone like burnished gold under the lights. In her five inch stiletto heels, she towered over the smaller Time Lady. Yet again, Tejana felt at a distinct disadvantage with her damp, tangled curls and her tear-streaked face. This time, however, she was already too miserable to care.
"What do you want, Lucy?" she asked, keeping her voice steady with an effort.
Lucy's perfect face tightened in anger. "You will address me as Mrs Saxon. I'm still Harry's wife, no matter how much you both choose to ignore that fact!"
"His name isn't Harry, Mrs Saxon," Tejana retorted. "It never was."
Lucy began to circle her, prowling around her like a wild animal trying to decide when to pounce. Tejana stood stock still, her chin raised proudly, trying not to waver on her feet. After the day she'd already had, this confrontation was absolutely the last thing she needed. There was something different about Lucy tonight, something Tejana had never seen in her before, some kind of weird edge. She found herself wondering if the human woman, never particularly stable at the best of times, had finally snapped.
"Oh, you think you're so special, don't you?" Lucy sneered. "Looking at me like I'm a piece of dirt, just because you're an alien, like him. Well, let me tell you, you're not special. You're nothing more than an inter-galactic, husband-stealing slut!"
The Time Lady's lips pressed tight, anger beginning to seethe deep inside at Lucy's presumption. That the human woman should dare! Tejana had been coming to Earth with the Doctor since she was a young girl. Her father had taught her to love all things human. Many of her best friends were human. But for all that, she was still a Gallifreyan. And to a Gallifreyan, humans would never be any more than a lesser species.
"He's a Time Lord," she said coldly, each word enunciated like a shard of ice. "He walks in eternity. You're nothing but an inferior human. No marriage contract between you could ever be meaningful or binding."
Lucy hissed in fury, her fingers curling into claws. "He loved me, before you and your father suddenly came into our lives and wrecked everything!"
"We didn't suddenly come into his life, we've always been there," Tejana replied quietly, feeling the anger slide away again, submerging into a deep well of weariness. "And he never loved you."
Something moved behind Lucy's eyes, something dark and indefinable and ancient. For a brief moment, her gaze was snake-like, hypnotic, almost unrecognisable. Tejana blinked, knowing that something wasn't right, trying to get her tired mind to focus. But before she could identify what she was seeing, Lucy pulled back her hand and struck her violently across the face with preternatural force, sending her reeling backwards to collide with the sharp edge of the glass coffee table. A streak of searing pain sliced across her forehead, blood already streaming down her face, seeping into her eyes and blurring her vision. Dimly, she heard Peter shouting for assistance as he tackled a struggling Lucy.
Shakily, Tejana put her hand up to her head and then brought it back down to stare at the lurid crimson which stained her fingers. All at once, helpless, hysterical laughter began to bubble out of her throat, uncontrollable and wild.
Well, it was funny, wasn't it? She hit the Master, then Lucy hit her, and around it went, around and around and around, spinning and spinning, like the room...
And to the sound of her own ugly laughter, she went down into the darkness of unconsciousness.
- Excerpt from the Diary of Lucy Saxon, The Valiant, December 2008 -
I've been locked in my rooms. They said that I hit her. I don't remember seeing her. I don't remember hitting her. I don't remember even going to her room. I've never hit anyone before. How can I not remember? Harry is going to be so angry with me.
My head is burning. It feels like it's on fire. It hurts. It hurts. I'm scared.
I don't know who I am or what I'm doing any more. I don't remember things. So many things. There are big blanks in my mind. I suddenly find myself places and I don't know how I got there. Hours go by on the clock but I don't know what I've done.
I was feeling fine when I first started writing this. I still feel fine. No, I don't. I think I'm sick. I can't remember things. Lots of things. I'm so scared. There's no-one to help me.
I mustn't forget who I am! My name is Lucy Saxon. I'm the youngest daughter of Lord Cole of Tarminster. I'm married to Harold Saxon, Prime Minister of Britain.
My name is Lucy Saxon. I'm the youngest daughter of Lord Cole...oh God, I can't remember my father's face. I can't remember where I went to school. Something is moving inside my head, my skull is splitting open, it hurts, it hurts...
My name is Lucy Saxon...Lucy, Lucy, Lucy!
Harry? Help me, Harry, please help me, it hurts so much...
My name is...my name is...
MY NAME IS LEGION, FOR WE ARE MANY.