This chapter's a bit avant-garde when compared to the previous pace of this story, as it's a transition. I initially meant to end it at some point after the revelation of the Master's identity, but the ideas I've been getting for continuations of this plot are good enough to warrant more, I feel. This is a transition between the first part of this story and the next.

14

Leverage

Once a very long time ago, longer ago than you or I can remember or even imagine, there were two children who were the best of friends.

One of them was Fire And Ice. The other one was Shadow And Light.

The two loved nothing more than to play games, to test their skill against the other's. They played Ri and Chainball and Watch Me. They raced each other, they wrestled, they fought. They made games out of who could do the most push-ups, who could name the most constellations in the sky, who could read books the fastest. Everything was a competition between the two, and yet Fire And Ice and Shadow And Light remained the best of friends.

As they grew older, they found that the old games bothered them. So they invented new ones. Fire And Ice would build tiny villages in the sand and populate them with tiny sand villagers, Shadow And Light would build tiny sand armies and try to raze the village. One would build elaborate puzzles, games within riddles within games, and the other would solve them. One would create great stars and suns and moons in the sky, and the other would blot them out or burn them up or tear them down.

The two grew older still, and as they did so they drifted apart, as all friends do. The elders looked down on their brilliance, wasted on such childish competitiveness, and they were given responsibilities, great responsibilities, and they no longer had time for games. They drifted apart, and many many years passed without one seeing the other.

Then one day, they both tired of the drudgery of life forced upon them by their society, and escaped. Both at the same time, and yet independent from each other. They cast off their responsibilities, and fled, meeting each other in the void outside reality.

"What shall we do?" Fire And Ice asked. "There is nothing here, in the void. No games for us to play."

"Then we shall create one," said Shadow and Light. "We shall create the greatest game of all, and it shall be an eternal competition between you and I."

And so the two threw bright stars and suns and moons across the blackness, and they created the Universe.

"You will be a force for order and righteousness in this Universe," said Shadow And Light, "And I will be a force for chaos and discord. What you create, I will destroy. And we will compete this way for as long as we like."

"We can create and destroy worlds at a glance," Fire and Ice replied. "How is it that this one reality will suffice for the both of us?"

"That's easy," his friend responded. "We shall take on physical forms ourselves, and play this game as inhabitants of this existence. We will fight across the stars, and it will be glorious."

And so the two, now and forever the best of friends, went off into the Universe they had created.

That is what this reality really is; that is all that it is. Just a game between two old friends.

- Ancient folk tale. Origins unknown.

Doctor Tom Milligan by no means considered himself to be in any way special, or unique, or destined for greatness.

Of course, he knew that he made a positive difference in his work as a paediatrician, and even more so in his work overseas in third-world countries in Africa or Asia, but those were small differences, changing the course of maybe a few lives. And he was satisfied that he was able to do that. No, more than satisfied- he was proud.

He had never believed in those people who change the fate of the entire world with their actions, who save or damn all of humanity with a single choice. He supposed he should actually think in terms of the Universe now, he realized, as more than enough evidence of extraterrestrial life had been presented to Earth in the past few years.

But as for tales about heroes and villains who carried the world on their shoulders- he dismissed them as just that. Tales. The real difference was made by people who worked their hardest at changing on little bit at a time, be it one life, one place, or one event. Normal people, just doing the best they could. People like him and his fiancée Martha Jones.

Of course, all this was before he showed up at her apartment one day to find her in the middle of a very loud and very strange argument with her mother.

"You don't have to do this!" Francine yelled, tears in her eyes. "You don't owe him anything!"

"But I do, mum!" Martha insisted. There were two suitcases at the front door, and Martha was throwing clothing into them just as fast as her mother was taking them out. "I owe him my life. Countless times over. And so do you. And so does everybody else on this planet!"

"So what!?" Francine screamed. "You're not obliged to go and risk your life for him! I doubt he even wants you to!"

The whole thing seemed very surreal to Tom. For a few moments, he even wondered if they were talking about him.

"Of course he doesn't!" Martha screamed back. "That's why I have to go. Because otherwise he'll end up doing this alone!"

"Then let him!"

"I think I am obliged to do a little more than let him do this by himself. The Doctor's done so much for us; for me- and now I have the chance to do something for him. Please, mum. Can't you understand?"

For a good few seconds the two of them just stood there, Martha with an armful of sweaters and jackets ready to be put into the suitcase, and Francine with an armful of her daughter's underwear that she had just pulled out of it. And then Francine's arms shook, and she dropped the clothing and sank to her knees sobbing.

"M-Martha…" she heaved, tears running down her face, "He'll kill you. I know he will. H-he almost did it once before. You- you'll go with them, and something will go wrong, and- and he'll kill all of you. Oh God, Martha, please just stay as far away from him as you can. Please, please, Oh God…"

And now it was Martha's turn to drop the bundle of clothes she was carrying and sink to her knees, as she put her arms around her mother. She did not cry, however, and her voice remained firm.

"I can't do that, mum. It's not about me. It's not even about this planet, not really. I need to go, because… I don't think the Doctor really sees the danger he's put himself in. He can't see past this one chance he has to belong again, and… and he needs us to be there for him. He's saved all of us and now it's my turn to save him."

Francine clutched her daughter desperately, as if she would never see Martha again. "Martha, aren't you- aren't you scared?"

"Terrified."

It was at this point that Tom Milligan's wit overcame his mute confusion, and he eloquently placed his questions as to the precise nature and circumstance of the dispute into speech:

"What the hell is going on?"

Martha did not look at him, and this worried him somehow. "I… I need to go away for a while Tom."

"What? Where? And for how long…?"

She picked up the clothing she and her mother had dropped and began placing it in the suitcase. "Tom, I… Oh, God, this is going to sound ridiculous isn't it? Tom, I honestly have no idea where, and… I don't know how long. I'm sorry."

He frowned. This was very unlike her. "Martha… has something happened?"

She stopped at this, hands frozen in place. Francine burst into tears again.

"Tom…" she said. "Help me pack these suitcases, please."

"Tell me where you're going!" he demanded.

"Help me pack," she repeated. "And then you can see me off. How's that sound?"

"Martha. Tell me what's going on. Now."

She thought for a moment, and then sighed. "Once we get these in the car, I'll tell you. There's something you need to see, otherwise you won't understand."

It was early in the morning. Tom had been over to Martha's place to take her out for coffee before they went in to work; him in the hospital downtown and her… well, she had never really told him where she worked, only that it was in government and that it was classified. He realized that whatever was going on now likely had something to do with that, but he recalled that Francine had acted very much like she knew what was going on, which meant that she had to be in on it too.

Martha parked the car in a lot outside of a warehouse on the Thames. Looking around, Tom saw that there was only one other car present- a matte black one that looked pretty beat-up. Besides the two of them, however, there was nobody in sight. The only thing out of the ordinary was the blue police call box that stood in the middle of the lot.

They stepped out of the cars and Tom retrieved Martha's bags from the trunk. He wondered if perhaps she would be going wherever it was via the river, but she headed straight for the blue box and, taking a deep breath, inserted a key into the lock.

She opened the door and stepped inside. When he simply stood in confusion, she poked her head back out. "Come in," she said.

"What are you talking about? There's no way the two of us will-"

"Just come in," she repeated.

Shrugging, Tom followed her inside the tiny blue box.

And promptly dropped the suitcases he was holding.

Inside the box was- The box was really- it opened onto some kind of chamber that was far too large to fit inside such a small structure. The walls glowed organically and coral-like growths arched from the floor to the ceiling. The center of the room seemed to be some sort of vastly complicated console, with levers and dials and buttons and screens and a hammer for hitting things that didn't work. Tom could see doors in the walls that led to more rooms inside the box.

The place was a bustle of activity. Suitcases, beer cans, firearms, and pizza boxes were strewn about, and people bustled back and forth in a worried scramble, tense expressions on their faces.

A thickset man in a World War II-era greatcoat was attempting to feed a baby girl he held in his arms, while at the same time shouting instructions to a dark-haired woman feverishly writing everything down and a black man sorting through several boxes of firearms and ammunition with a slice of pizza jammed in his mouth the whole time. An older redheaded woman was sorting through the many suitcases of clothing and grocery bags of food that lay about the floor. A blond girl was arguing feverishly with a tall, thin man with ridiculous hair wearing a brown coat in a language Tom had never heard before, as the tall man bounded around the central console twisting and adjusting and occasionally whacking with the hammer. Martha went straight to the man and began speaking to him quietly.

The only person there that didn't seem to be busy was sitting in fold-out chair in the middle of all the chaos. He had wild dark hair and darker eyes that stood out against pale skin, and he was wearing something that had once been a designer suit but had in the intervening period of time been nearly destroyed. When Tom looked closer, he noticed that the man's arms and legs were handcuffed to the chair he was sitting in.

"Doctor Tom Milligan! Martha's told me all about you! So here you are in person, then."

Tom turned to find the cheery man in the brown coat smiling and offering him his hand. Hesitantly, Tom took it and shook it.

"I always love to meet another Doctor. Just wanted to let you know I'm so happy for you and Martha, and I promise- I really promise- that I will bring her back to you safely."

"Who the hell are you?" Tom burst out- he'd had quite enough. "Listen. I think I've been quite patient, and it's about time someone told me just what in God's name is going on here!"

There was a bit of a silence. The tall man gave Martha a look that clearly said: you haven't told him yet?

It was of course at this time that the man tied to the chair broke the silence with maybe the most confusing sentence of all. "Hey! I remember you! I killed you that one time! How's it going?"

Martha bit her lip. "Tom," she said. "There's something you need to hear. It's… you might want to have a seat."

While Martha spoke to her fiancé, and her father continued to make fevered preparations, Jenny spent her time determinedly trying not to look at the Master. It was made all the more difficult by the fact that his eyes were following her wherever she went, and that she could feel his presence, along with that of her father, in the back of her mind.

Although his arms were tied down, his fingers still beat a tattoo against the chair's metal. It was the familiar four-beat rhythm of her own twin heartbeat.

"Jack," she said, desperate for something to take her away from the overwhelming tension between the three Time Lords. "Have you decided what you're going to do with her?"

Jack looked down at the infant vampire in his arms. "I talked with the Doctor. He figures that we can stop by Malsangur before we head out and hopefully find someone who will take her in. All her family on this planet is dead, and it's far too dangerous where we're going, so there's really not much choice."

"You could leave her here, on Earth," said Sarah Jane. She was looking past Jack, at the Master, with a look of intense dislike.

"Did you know him?" Jenny asked. "I mean… before?"

She shook her head. "No. I only met him once, and he was different, back then. And I don't just mean the regeneration, it's like… he's fading. His mind's more unstable than I remember it being. The only thing that's really the same about him is his obsession with the Doctor."

"It feels… weird," Jenny said after a while. "My whole life… well, I say my whole life, but it's really been only three years. Clone, you know. But for as long as I can remember, there's been this special connection I've had between me and my dad. I always thought that it was something intangible, that only the two of us shared. Something that couldn't be explained, or rationalized, or quantified…"

She sighed.

"And now I find out that it's not like that at all. Because this… this Master, whoever the hell he is… I look at him, and I feel the same connection. I can't help it. I want to hate him, but there's this mental link, and I just… I just can't. It burns me up inside to think that, just because we're the same species- he's every bit as important to me as my father is."

Sarah laid a hand on her shoulder. "No, Jenny, he's not. Because you know your father cares for you. He loves you. He'd die for you, Jenny, just like he'd die for any one of us. That man there…" She struggled to find the words, and couldn't. "Jenny, no matter what happens, you can't ever forget that he's dangerous. As long as he's nearby, you're in more danger than you've ever been."

"I know," she said. "And- don't tell my dad this- I wish I could kill him. I really do, because I honestly think it would be for the best. But it's not just my dad or my ideals that are stopping me. When I look at him, I know that my mind would never let me do it."

"Well, for now that's quite enough talk of killing and danger," Sarah Jane sighed. "There's been enough of that lately, and I expect there'll be far too much more in the near future for you."

She turned to Jack and held out her arms. "May I hold her, Captain?"

Jack smiled forlornly and handed the baby Elizabeth to Sarah Jane. "Ma'am."

"Oh, when I was young I never though the day would come when men would call me that." Sarah rocked the child gently. "I could watch over her, if you like. For now, at least."

Jack held up his hands. "I- I wouldn't want to put you out."

She glanced back at the Master. "Please. It's the least I can do. And I have a feeling you'll have your hands full on this outing."

Jack sighed. "Tell me about it."

Sarah Jane's gaze shifted slightly towards the Doctor himself, who was working in stoic silence. "It's up to us now, to watch over him. I think that, because of what he's gone through, and what he will go through… it'll be tough for him. And maybe now, we can all try and repay him for everything he's done for us."

Just then, Mickey jumped up from the array of weaponry spread out on the floor before him, rubbing his sore back and reaching for a can of Arcturus Ale. "There you go boss. Just about everything you'd need, all cleaned, loaded, and primed."

"Hell," Gwen breathed, looking over the collection. "Sure you've got enough?"

Jenny let herself admire the weapons, a bit of a guilty pleasure for her. There was enough there to not only start a war, but finish it as well: An antique-looking Colt revolver, a portable laser used for cutting metal, a squareness gun, a pair of heavy-calibre Sig Sauer handguns, bandoliers of smoke, incendiary, and fragmentation grenades, plastic explosive, road flares, an automatic sniper's rifle that technologically shouldn't have existed for another two hundred years, a machete, a Louisville Slugger baseball bat, brass knuckles, Bowie and Swiss Army knives, and a rapid-fire stutter laser.

"One of these guns must be Chekov's," Jenny attempted to be funny.

"Huh?" said Mickey, Jack, and Gwen.

"Never mind." Figured as much.

Jack clapped Mickey on the back heartily. "You've really pulled through for me this time, Mickey. Can't wait to blow something up."

"Ah, you know me. Man in the van. The Tin Dog," he replied winking at Sarah Jane, something that made no sense to Jenny at all.

Jack continued, addressing both Mickey and Gwen. "Now, I want you two to work with Sarah Jane while we're gone. Hold down the fort. If any trouble pops up that you can't handle, well… the Doctor's got my cell on Universal Roaming. Hopefully, it won't come to that."

"Sir." Gwen sprang to a sharp salute that was softened by her warm smile at the Captain. Mickey simply shook his hand solemnly.

"Oh, don't worry about us, Captain," Sarah Jane moved to join Mickey and Gwen. "I was doing this centuries before you were even born, you know."

"The world is in good hands," Gwen said, and Jenny believed her. "Now you just got to make sure you protect our Universe."

"Like a perfect little family, they are." Being tied to a chair had in no way whatsoever diminished the Master's vitriolic attitude. "Old Dad loads the kids up into his van- somehow manages to cram them all inside, you'd have no idea it was that big lookin' at it- and he throws all the luggage into the back, slams that baby into gear, and hi-ho it's off on another grand adventure on the open road."

"And what part do you play in that little metaphor?" The Doctor asked. To every non-Time Lord aboard, it seemed that he was intently focused on calibrating the TARDIS' main console. Only the three of them knew that he was actually fiddling uselessly, and making a very poor charade of doing otherwise. "Are you a part of that family?"

"Me?" The Master shook his head with dry amusement. "I'm that asshole in-law that you just can't get rid of."

The Doctor's patience was wearing thin, and the both of them knew it. He had been subject to enormous amounts of physical, mental, and emotional strain in an extremely short period of time, and it didn't seem likely that the pressure would let up in the near future. As the only one of them with information that the other needed, the Master had the clear upper hand, and it wouldn't be long until he pushed the Doctor into a mistake. The both of them knew that, too.

"Fancy a game of Ri?"

"I'm quite busy with this little game you insist on continuing to play, thank you."

"I see. Can't handle the strain, can you Doctor?"

The Doctor scowled. "Maybe later."

"Dad."

The two of them turned to find Jenny standing in front of them, eyes on her father's haggard face. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Jenny, don't worry. Now, there's a lot to do before we leave, have you checked that we have milk? We always run out of milk- I can stop at the store and-"

"Get away from him, Dad."

The Doctor paused mid-sentence. He glanced back and forth between Jenny and the Master. "What do you mean?"

"This… guy." Jenny refused to call him by his name. "I'd like to talk to him for a moment. In private. And you talking to him and not getting any rest isn't doing you any good, either. He's got the information, he has the leverage, we all know that, so can we quit it with the games for now? You're being stubborn and he's being a prick."

There was a moment of silence, and then both the Doctor and the Master burst out laughing.

"Oho, this daughter of yours, Doctor! She knows how to play!"

"It seems she does," the Doctor said, much more warmly. "Talk all you want, Jenny, but keep in mind that when it comes right down to it, he's the one who's tied to a chair."

And he strolled away, not even acknowledging the Master's chirp of 'Kinky!' from behind him as he did so.

"So then," he turned to Jenny. "What would you like to talk about?"

"Who the hell are you? How do you know my dad? If you're a Time Lord, how are you still alive? What was Gallifrey like? How did it die?" She took a deep breath. "You have the answers to all of these questions, don't you?"

He chuckled. She definitely knew how to play the game. But she was forgetting that she was playing with two of the best. "Yes. I do."

"Information that I want. Leverage."

"That's right."

"The question is…" For a second, he wondered if maybe he had underestimated her. "What do you think that information is worth?"

A common, yet effective, technique. Forcing the other party to name a price almost always shoehorns them into a disadvantage. Almost always. Again, she was playing with the best.

"I want a TARDIS," he said. "Not necessarily this one. Any one will do. I know where, and when, one is- if you can get me there, I will tell you everything you need to know."

Jenny shook her head. "I don't think what you're offering quite matches the price. And I think you know that."

He remained silent.

"I'll talk to you later about that, I suppose. When you're in a bit more of a negotiating mood. Oh, and…"

She whirled and turned, jabbing him hard with the tips of her fingers in his chest, just below the ribcage. He fell forward coughing, remaining on the chair only by virtue of being bound to it.

"…You want to watch what you say or do to my father. 'Cause he's patient. Me, not so much. And don't forget that, mind games or no, a steel-plated combat boot in the throat hurts all the same."

The Master gasped for breath, watching her back as she walked calmly away. No, he most certainly would not forget about Jenny. Nor would he underestimate her. But perhaps she overestimated herself; parading brashly and with a lack of finesse that made it all too easy to see the weaknesses in her façade.

There was this trick that the best players pulled all the time, where they made you think you were winning only to reveal at the last second that they had been two steps ahead of you the whole way.

Tom was speechless. Actually speechless. He simply couldn't think of a response to any of what Martha had just explained to him.

Fortunately, he was spared from having to by the tall man in the brown coat who greeted them- the man Martha had referred to as 'the Doctor.'

"Hello, Martha, this must be… Tom, right?"

He nodded mutely, his hand seized and shook cheerfully. Shaking hands with an alien, who was apparently so absentminded as to have forgotten that he they had already been introduced, already shaken hands. Suddenly he wrenched his hand away, and then placed in on the man's chest. Felt the heartbeat underneath. Moved his hand to the other side, felt the beat there, too.

"Jesus." He muttered.

"Tom, I'm sorry I had to keep this from you," Martha said. "I just didn't know how to explain it…"

"And why now?" he asked. "What's so important now that you need to tell me, that you need to leave?"

Neither Martha or the Doctor answered him right away. Instead the man bound to the chair shouted, "Hey, you! Over here!"

Tom ignored both Martha's and the Doctor's admonishments and walked over to where the man was seated. "Who the hell are you?" He was beyond patience now.

He grinned. "I'm the reason you're fiancée over there thinks that this little venture is important to tell you about. Because there's a very good chance she won't be coming back from this one."

"What do you mean? Who are you? Tell me!"

The man smiled. "Just look at me for a second."

"What-"

"The Year that Never Was. But temporal manipulation is never perfect- it leaves remnants. Evidence. And those memories are buried deep within your mind, and all it takes is the right key."

Tom was overcome with a horrible familiar feeling. Neither Martha or the Doctor attempted to interfere, and simply watched.

"Shh. Listen. Listen, Tom Milligan."

Tom listened.

"Can you hear it?"

"Hear what?"

"The drumming. Just behind everything. The drumming is the key."

The man- the Master's fingers tapped out a beat on the metal of the chair again, and Tom's own hand rapped out the same beat against his thigh. He was not doing so consciously, and yet he was aware of it.

"What is this…? It feels like I've…"

And then he remembered.

His very first reaction was to turn and run as far away from the Master as he could. His eyes scanned the inside of the TARDIS for something- anything- and he spotted the handguns that Mickey Smith had been calibrating earlier. Tom grabbed the Sig Sauer, slammed the chamber back, and pointed the gun at the Master's face.

Something kept him from firing, though. That memory of Martha, from that year that never happened, explaining that Time Lords can regenerate their bodies. Literally bring themselves back to life.

"Remember something?" The Master said, and Tom hated him as he had never hated anyone ever before. Except in that time that never existed.

"You… Oh God… you killed me. I died because of you."

"Told you." The Master said it with some sort of mocking accent, so that it came out Toadja.

"Tom," the Doctor said, and he sounded very tired. "Put the gun down."

He did, and then turned to the subject of a thousand legends that he actually remembered hearing, from the mouth of his fiancée. "You're the Doctor," he stated.

"I am."

"Martha trusts you." Another statement. "And I trust Martha." That was all he needed to say, although he wasn't at all happy to hear himself saying it.

And now he and Martha were standing outside the TARDIS, away from the monster that was tied to a chair, and they were whispering what very well could be their last words to each other.

"I remember that year," Tom said. "I remember everything you said about the Doctor. You… you said you loved him."

Martha's face flushed. "I did. I really did. But I could never have had him. And… now I don't want to. I have you."

"I died for you," Tom smirked, feeling oddly self-inflated.

"Don't you dare do it again," Martha admonished. She leaned forward, he leaned down, and their lips met. She tasted sweet.

"Promise me you'll come back," he said when they parted.

She didn't, but instead she said, "Time travel's a funny thing. I could only be gone for five minutes. Just think of it like that."

She turned and disappeared into the impossible machine, and Tom remembered that there had been legends told about her as well- Martha Jones. That she alone could strike down the Master of All.

He felt suddenly inadequate next to these immortals that were whisking her away from him.

Mickey, Gwen, and Sarah Jane left the TARDIS and stood watching as its great engine whirred with the sound of the Universe itself, and it vanished into nothingness. They stayed a moment longer, and then piled into the plain black car and drove off.

I could only be gone for five minutes, she had said.

Tom waited for five minutes.

She did not reappear.

This chapter might seem unimportant at first glance, but I really do love the literary device which Jenny alludes to at one point here. I'll leave it at that.

Also, I just want to note that I really like the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter, so much so that I actually considered publishing it here as a separate, one-shot story.

Thank you for reading and reviewing, as always.