And Then There Was Silence
End of Time part 3 – Comfortably Numb
AN: It may say part three, but this actually is the starting event that kicks off the whole AU. Written because some readers have been confused.
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"One! Two! Three! Four!"
With each number, each beat that they'd drummed into his head, he forced out his life energy, lightning strikes aimed straight at the Lord President.
"You did this to me!" And another, as he shouted over Gallifrey's fall. "You made me like this!"
Stepping forward again, switching hands, each strike brought him closer to the Time Lords, further from Earth and back into the clutches of the Time War itself.
He grinned as the elder Time Lord flinched from the onslaught – a small victory, granted, but it was there, and he'd won it – and was about to follow through with another when, startled and angry and with just a little fear, he was thrown off his feet, hurled backward by a single blast from the glove that Rassilon wore, now pointing directly at him, the man's hardened face cracked with what looked suspiciously like fear for his own survival.
The Master smirked widely, with smug superiority, brought himself back up from the floor, buoyed by the adrenaline and success, making his hearts go faster as he rubbed his hands together in order to bring out one more – just one more blow – but nothing. He tried again, but still nothing.
He screamed in frustration, not hearing the Doctor shout for him to stay back as the Time Lords were dragged back into the War once more, fading out of this time and space, trapped for real this time and no way back. Locked away, for good. Gallifrey falling.
Continuing forwards, he only fade a couple of steps before falling down again, the fault of now suddenly weak and exhausted legs, muscles not responding even as the drums beat a rapid pulse in his ears, not giving in, never abating, the noise that would never end, not even now. He brought his hands to his head at the injustice – for a few glorious minutes, they'd been dampened, made bearable compared to the past few days, even the past few years, by the return of his people and Gallifrey. And now, back to this.
He just sat there, limp on the glass-ridden floor – and he could blame the Doctor for that, too – and sought to block the rest of the world out. Made no effort to move, why should he, when it would only show how weak he was? Simply moaned quietly and waited for the drums to fade, not that they ever did. With any luck, they'd get so bad that he could lose himself, maybe forget, destroy, and show the world just how diseased he could be.
And then they went faster, his hearts skipping a beat or two. The drums of insanity only ever went louder, or, if there was an appeasing amount of violence, softer, quieter, for a short time. But they never changed in tempo. Never faster, never slower, always keeping perfect time.
For the first time since Rassilon had struck out at him with the Glove, since Gallifrey had gone back into its own place, he listened.
His pulse. He could hear – feel, his own heartsbeats thudding in his ears. There was an echo of the drums that had been in his head for so long, but they were fading, interminably slowly, and almost imperceptibly. But they were, and while he was thankful to know that they were going to be that much less than the painful, it was an obvious conclusion that it would eventually reach a painful quiet.
He wasn't quite sure what he'd do when it got to that point, but he'd deal with it when it happened.
He was free.
A cruel smile drew itself across his face as he contemplated this new, welcome thought.
Free. He hadn't been truly free since he'd been eight years old and naive.
He ignored the voice – small, so small, unheard over the drums in so, so long – that said that he wouldn't know what to do if he was free, no prisoner ever did.
He could do what he liked – mental capacities running on full – and he could already feel the hunger that had been his driving force ever since he'd been resurrected abated to a bone-deep feeling of starvation instead of an instinctual, primal need.
He laughed. They thought that they had stranded him, did they? Well, it wouldn't be for long. He'd find a way to get them back, to make them feel just as he had for the past millennia, all because of him.
And then the door to the radiation chamber clicked shut, and irony added itself to his list of reasons to laugh at the universe.
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AN: Not entirely pleased with this, but it does explain things to an extent, I hope.