When they awoke again, they were lying on the grating in the console room. It wasn't really the console room any more than their previous location had been the real Powell Estate, but it would serve its purpose. Rose got to her feet and eyed the Master, who was still on the floor with his eyes closed, mumbling about clumsy quasi-humans and inconsiderate transdimensional beings.

"Sorry about that. But you need to see this, because as soon as we wake up we're going to have to deal with it. Or rather, you're going to get started on it, since you're much stronger in that area than the Doctor."

"It feels like you just poured my brain through a sieve, woman." He groaned loudly as he slowly climbed to his feet.

"Sorry, sorry! Next time I'll just leave you in the middle of an empty mindscape, shall I?"

"That's precisely what you should have done. I did not intend you to bring the other along."

The Master spun around to look at the source of the third voice, which Rose already recognized. He frowned with obvious bafflement before schooling his expression into neutrality. Rose refrained from rolling her eyes. Time Lords, like she won't know what he's thinking anyway.

"Then warn me then next time, instead of making me fall asleep! I didn't know what was happening until I was here. Besides, he's not going to have much to do until we figure out a way to get the Kellisari to leave the courtyard. He might as well hear what's going on."

The TARDIS eyed him with definite suspicion. Rose was a little surprised. She hadn't realized the time machine was capable of seeming so human, almost nervous. Though when she thought it through perhaps it wasn't unexpected; for the TARDIS, her mutilation at the hands of the Master was still happening in a way. She had always seemed undeniably alien to Rose, even in her human form, but now she could see exactly how much of an effect her humanity had on the time machine.

"You understand what is happening on Kellisarium now, yes?"

Rose nodded. The Master looked back and forth between the two women, one eyebrow raised.

"The missing Void ships must have come through when we opened up this universe. Whoever's got most of them has got the Kellisari under their control and the whole planet has fallen into chaos. How are we going to find out who's behind this?"

The TARDIS smiled. "My Thief has always been skilled in that area. Once you are complete, you will find this abuser of Time Lord technology together."

"What about him?" Rose asked, indicating the Master with a nod of her head.

"I do not trust him, but some of his...expertise may be useful."

"Okay. What else do we need to know before we wake up?"

"I have temporarily disabled my console in order to prevent the Doctor from harming the Kellisari. I did not have the resources to maintain my contact with you and him at once, so he does not know what is happening."

"He's gonna be thrilled about that."

"He is most unhappy, but I have no doubt all will be well once you two are returned to him and my console reactivates."

Rose held her tongue. The TARDIS may have gained an understanding of her occupants when she shared herself with Rose, but her knowledge had definite gaps. She had only just figured out how much more vocal the TARDIS wanted to be about their lives together, and it made her more than a little nervous. She wasn't at all sure how the Doctor would react to any of this.

Before anyone said anything else, one of the doors leading off from the imaginary console room opened and a small figure emerged. If she had been a real human being, Rose would have put her age around four, the same as her little brother. Unlike Rose's strawberry-blond brother, this girl was olive-skinned, with dark brown hair and huge gray eyes. She was dressed in a simple black dress and white tights, a pair of tiny leather flats on her babyish feet. She toddled toward the TARDIS, her expression reminding Rose of Tony after a bad dream.

"Mummy," the little girl said, her voice high, almost angelic. "The birds have seen me."

Rose realized who this must be with a start. She didn't know why the other TARDIS would appear as a small child when she was half a century old, but then, she didn't know why the Doctor's TARDIS chose to appear as a madwoman in a tatty dress, either. She glanced at the Master, who was staring at the girl as though he'd seen a ghost. "Who is she? What are they - why do I recognize that little girl?"

"You ought to, you're bonded to her."

The Master's skin drained of all its color. "They're the TARDISes? How are they doing this? They're a completely different kind of being - they don't really even understand things like life and death!"

She shrugged as the TARDIS collected her daughter in her arms and soothed her with a strange, high-pitched song Rose couldn't understand, but which reminded her of the constant song of the TARDIS itself. "You'd have to ask them exactly how it's done. It's something to do with how I wound up the way I am. I took a part of the TARDIS and the TARDIS took a part of me. Now she can project an image of herself as a human being when she chooses. I've only seen her do it when I'm asleep or unconscious. You're unconscious with me so I suppose you're seeing them too."

The TARDIS released the baby TARDIS, who looked at the Master with wide eyes before running to Rose and hiding behind her leg. She peered around Rose and stared at the Master.

"Does she have a name?" Rose asked, her hand on the hair of the little girl clinging to her leg.

The TARDIS looked thoughtful. "We don't have names such that you could understand them. Nor were we ever assigned names by the Time Lords. We were known simply by our model and registration numbers. Amongst ourselves, each TARDIS's song is unique, and could function as a name, in a manner of speaking." She paused, then added, "Though, the Doctor does call me Sexy."

Rose bit back a laugh, knowing the Doctor would not be pleased that the Master had heard that.

The Master was sniggering, seemingly recovered from his fit of unease. "He would."

The TARDIS looked at him sharply. "Don't think I've forgotten what you did to me in the name of your conquest. I did not destroy you then because I knew it would grieve my Thief. I do not destroy you now because my Wolf needed you and you gave yourself freely to her. Do not assume I will allow any harm to come to my child."

The Master looked as though he was going to retort before thinking better of it. Rose sighed with relief; the TARDIS may look like a disheveled escapee from a Victorian asylum, but she could destroy his mind in here as easily as Rose could swat an insect. Rose wasn't sure exactly what she wanted from him, but she felt oddly protective. She didn't want the TARDIS to hurt him. He instead mumbled something that might have been "Yes, ma'am."

The child chose that moment to emerge from behind Rose and slowly approach the Master. He watched her come, completely still. The mixture of terror and wonder he was feeling was palpable. The little girl tugged on the leg of his trousers, and when he didn't respond gestured to him to move down to her level. He knelt slowly, as though in supplication. With an assurance unnerving in someone so small, she grasped his head in her tiny hands and whispered something in his ear.

Rose glanced at the TARDIS, who looked on with a mixture of maternal pride and unease. The Master knelt before the little girl, who wrapped her arms around him. When she released him and he stood, his eyes were shiny. Rose raised an eyebrow at him and he looked away, but not before she heard a slight sniff from his direction.

"The time is now," the TARDIS said. "My Thief approaches. Rose is right. This Time Lord can be useful to these plans. Here is what we shall do to protect ourselves and the Kellisari both."

****

The Doctor had never been much good at waiting.

Patience was not his strong suit, nor any Time Lord's. For a nigh-immortal race with the ability to perceive time itself, waiting - wasting time - was almost physically painful.

He had briefly considered going out and surrendering himself to the Kellisari; "take me to your leader" had always been an effective strategy for him. He went so far as to retrieve his coat from the to support strut and swing it around his shoulders before he realized that the barrage against his door would probably kill him before he even managed yell auntie. It wouldn't do to regenerate on a planet where he'd recently blown up a large amount of Time Lord technology. They might only be myths, but the fear they'd once inspired across the universe lingered even now.

He had called up all the information on Kellisarium and its inhabitants through history in the TARDIS database to refresh his memory, but nothing there had helped him understand what was happening now. There was no mention of Time Lord tech ever being found here, or of anything that might be causing the strange feeling in the back of his mind whenever he looked out at the birds surrounding his TARDIS. They had mostly stopped firing now, contenting themselves with cordoning off the area and waiting for him to emerge. They'd made no attempt to try to move the TARDIS itself, and they hadn't yet noticed the baby TARDIS across the courtyard.

There was nothing left to do but let his thoughts wander where he desperately didn't want them to go. The same place they'd gone obsessively since the Master had entered Rose's mind and fallen into a coma, seemingly just as deep as hers. It had occurred to him that by refusing to complete his bond with Rose he might have lost her forever, even if she survived. Would she bond with the Master to save herself? Would she leave him, go with the Master? Would she even have a choice?

He cringed at the thought, his fingernails digging deep into his palms as he clenched his fists. Rose was his, always had been, even when he'd been foolish enough to throw her away on a mere shadow of himself. The Master wouldn't take her, couldn't take her. She was his.

The Doctor was so wrapped up in his thoughts he missed it as a blinking red light on the console flipped on. The Kellisari had noticed something strange about the extra column decorating the courtyard and were slowly approaching it.

Leaving the warning unheeded, he climbed slowly to his feet, his mind made up. He would throw himself into their dreams, wrench them apart, bring Rose back to him.

He crossed the threshold into Rose's room and realized that they were awake.

Awake, and wrapped in each other's arms.

****

When Rose finally woke, her mouth feeling like it was stuffed full of cotton wool, there was a cool, slim body pressed against her back. Strong arms were wrapped around her midsection, holding her close. And there, ensconcing itself comfortably in the crack of her arse, was what was undoubtedly a sizeable erection. She groaned inwardly; she felt fine but the call of nature was definitely her first priority. That and several cups of tea. She must have been asleep for quite a long time judging by the thickness of her tongue. Was the Doctor ever going to get over this new obsession with sex? She didn't object to the multiple orgasms he never failed to give her, but he knew how cranky she always got before she'd had her morning cuppa.

"Doctor, I need to - "

The low, dark chuckle from behind her was definitely not coming from the Doctor. She spun around, noting that the arms tightly clasped around her midsection didn't give any more than they needed to to let her face the man holding her.

The man she already knew was the Master.

She closed her eyes and counted, very slowly, to ten. When she opened them, he was still there, and still smirking.

"I assume you've got a reason for being here that doesn't involve the Doctor being dead in a ditch somewhere, because that's the only way I can think of that he'd let you in my bed."

"You haven't known him as long as I have. You might be surprised."

"I know enough to know that that -" she pushed forward a tiny bit against his erection, making him stifle a groan, "is voluntary for Time Lords."

"I've been in a very vulnerable state, makes it har- - more difficult - to exercise the full control of my physiognomic reactions. Really, Rose, you should be more grateful to the Time Lord who just saved you from - "

"Oh," she whispered as it came back to her. "I remember." It always seemed to take her brain a few moments to process events involving the Bad Wolf when she woke up. It was annoying and disorientating. "I didn't have much time left before this body died when you found me. I - I don't know what to say. Thank you, Master."

His lips quirked in a wry smile. "You're very welcome, wolf girl."

"You did it for him." There was nothing in the way she phrased it that made it a question.

The Master looked at her for a long moment, his eyes unreadable. She reached out with her newly enhanced telepathy, the movement of her mind coming as naturally as the hand on her wrist as she cupped his face. He flinched away from her as she touched his mind, then relaxed. She kept the contact between their minds light and fleeting. She knew enough about Time Lords now to understand that they expressed their deepest feelings telepathically and a direct mental touch was the equivalent to a deep tongue kiss from a human in her own culture. To speak one's feelings out loud was virtually never done.

"He's the one who saved me," he said. "You're the one who saved him."

Rose felt her throat swell as his emotion swept through her, bittersweet regret and a deep, abiding love. Love for her, even, because she made the man he loved happy in a way the Master had never been able to. Love for her because she helped fill the void in his mind where his people had been, much as he had once loathed them. And there, buried at the bottom of the well where he kept his emotions, his love for the Doctor. A love that had spanned centuries and dozens of incarnations between them and death and rebirth. Always there as they fought each other across the universe, teasing and taunting.

"Thank you, Master," Rose repeated softly.

He smiled, but there was a tightness behind it she hadn't seen in him before. She allowed her fingertips to brush his temples again, and felt the overwhelming loneliness in him. So much like her Doctor. They even carried a similar darkness, though the Master's was much closer to the surface. He had embraced it, once, and now that it no longer ruled him he felt a lingering emptiness.

On impulse, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. Instantly his fingers tightened against her back. She opened for him, her tongue brushing delicately against his.

His emotions rushed through her in a mad torrent, so much deeper and more complex than she was accustomed to. She wasn't human anymore, but she would never be this, either. Never a Time Lord, born and trained to the deepest of repression. A precaution against power-madness, they told themselves, but in truth a way to keep them all under the yoke of the Council. The way he felt things, at once tentative and deeper than the deepest ocean trench - the part of her that was still human couldn't comprehend it.

She didn't need to understand. She sent him a wave of love tinged with appreciation for what he'd done and for what she knew he would do in the future. He moaned into her mouth and she let the corners of her lips quirk up into a smile. Perhaps human feelings weren't as powerful, but they had an undeniable effect. His erection was back, bigger and harder than before, and he clutched at her back, his fingers digging hard into the soft skin there.

She pulled away slightly, not wanting things to go too far, too fast. She had seen all of him, his true self bared to her under the TARDIS's influence, but she knew he didn't remember. She had to be cautious with him.

The Doctor cleared his throat behind her, adequately conveying his annoyance both through his mental presence, knocking on the wall she'd erected around her mind, and with the sound he made. Rose's eyes widened as she suddenly remembered just where she was: locked in an intimate embrace with a naked, and still very aroused Master. His had loosened his grip when the Doctor walked in, but his arms were still wrapped around her. His cock was wedged against her thigh. She looked at his face and he was smirking again.

"Uh oh, honey, looks like your husband came home early."