Chapter Twenty One

A/N: Thank you to Lil'Sparrow7 for reviewing the last chapter.

Clarelia trembled desperately, her eyes fixed to the dark, empty barrel of the gun pointed at her chest. It was not the weapon that scared her; she had seen more of them over the past few weeks than she wanted to in a lifetime. It was the glint in the eye of the man that held it.

"What are you doing?" Lucy asked, her voice lower and more dangerous than Clarelia had ever heard. Her arm was reaching across her daughter, shielding the girl as best she could. She seemed to pay no heed to the deadly weapon in The Doctor's hand; perhaps she was more familiar with a gun than she seemed.

"The link between Earth and Gallifrey." the man responded. He sounded like his heart was breaking in half. "I'm so sorry, Lucy. I never realised it. Maybe if I had…"

"Then what?" the woman snapped. Her skin was reddening with fury. "Then you would have killed her the first time you met her?"

"I know how it sounds." The Doctor stated; even he did not seem convinced by his own words. After a few moments, he lowered the gun. Lucy strode towards the dark-haired man, looking as if she might strike him, but the blonde barely brushed past him, coming face to face with her real target.

"Was this you?" Lucy asked her former husband, each syllable biting as viciously as a poisonous snake. For the first time, The Master almost seemed guilty. "You did something to me, made it possible for Clarelia to be born. This was what you were thinking of all along, wasn't it?"

The blond man was silent, studying the ground beneath him. He did not answer Lucy's accusations, nor notice the glares of his fellow Time Lords. The one voice he heard was small, filled with her mother's pain and her father's fury.

"You made me to be a weapon." Clarelia's voice was quiet, filled with the wealth of emotions of a child who had been lied to by her father; fear, sadness, betrayal, disbelief… anything but understanding.

"I made you to be exactly what you are." The Master replied. He smiled at his daughter, but there was desperation in his eyes. "Don't you see what you've done? You've raised an ancient civilisation from the dust and returned it to glory. The history books will hail you as a saviour for the rest of time."

"Stop it!" the girl exclaimed. "Stop pretending this is about me! This is about you, and your ambition, and your people. You created a life just to get what you wanted, and now that it's not gone your way, you want to pretend that you wanted me all along. But you didn't want me. You wanted glory, and I was just a way to get it."

The Master looked away from the child, unable to stand the intensity of her glare, but when he looked to Lucy, and after her to The Doctor, he found near identical expressions on their faces. Perhaps it was a mercy the human race no longer bore his image, for more likely than not they would have judged him the same way.

Suddenly, from behind them, Rassilon began to laugh, a sound so cold it sent a shiver down The Doctor's spine. His eyes ran over those gathered before him with contempt. "Primitive squabbles. And you wonder why this species remains but a speck on the fabric of the Universe. Time Lords are so much more."

Clarelia did not know where she found the courage to step forward, against her mother's and even The Doctor's arms trying to hold her back. She walked until the light of the Gate was bright enough to blind her. "You've got no right to judge this planet or it's people. You know nothing about us."

Rassilon scoffed. "What could there possibly be to know? A few thousand years of warfare and building, and only just now stepping out among the stars. Time Lords have overseen the progress of the Universe itself for a billion years. Our dominion was established long before humanity stood on two legs. And yet you think both should be equal?"

"Yes." The answer was harsh, no trace of the innocence Clarelia had found when she found her family. This was a girl who had lived all her life thinking she was not wanted. And it only made her see better. "Humans and Time Lords are different, but it doesn't make one better than the other. It's not your species that decides something like that, it's just you. The most brilliant man I've ever seen, and the most terrible, are Time Lords. The bravest person in the Universe is human. I'm both, living proof that humans and Time Lords can exist together. So why can't you just try?"

For the tiniest moment, Rassilon's expression seemed to soften, his arrogant smile fading into an expression of contemplation. The girl could have cried for joy. She had succeeded where all the others had failed, Time Lord and human alike. Perhaps she truly was the piece they needed.

If she had not been so blinded by her new optimism, she would never have turned her back. She would have seen Rassilon's contemplation turn to fury. She would have had enough time to run away.

"You." The Lord President spat the word as if it were poison. In slow realisation, Clarelia turned back to the Time Lord, and saw his face set with fury. "You are a precedent that should never have existed, a blemish on the great empire of Gallifrey. And if our people are to rise in glory, you cannot be the weight to bring them down."

Rassilon raised his gauntlet once again. Lucy shrieked in horror. The Doctor's eyes fell to the floor. He had heard tell of the weapon concealed by the Lord President's armour; he knew enough that it would be a brief and yet agonising death. However horrible it might seem, perhaps it would be a relief for Clarelia to die this way. At least he would not have to be the one to kill her.

The girl herself was calm, for the few moments after she realised what had happened. She had never imagined dying- what child had?- but she was not as afraid as she thought she might have been. The girl spared a final glance for her mother, fighting against The Doctor's restraining arms, before she closed her eyes.

The gunshot echoed through the room, and then all was silent.

A/N: Not much more to go now! Hope you guys are still enjoying this, please review!