Allons-y Impossible Girl

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

Chapter 21

Clara felt sick to her stomach. Her head was pounding like crazy, time travel without a capsule did that to you apparently, but the feeling within her was definitely due to their recant encounter with the Master. She'd woken up as the Doctor hauled her into his arms and slammed her hand down on Jack's time vortex manipulator. She really wished she had stayed unconscious for the trip.

He had looked at her. After he opened the watch, he had stared right at her, his gaze so intense she couldn't look anywhere else. His eyes had been full of longing. Longing that didn't make any sense. He had stared at her with a look that said so much, had held so much emotion, not all of it bad. It had terrified her that one look. Made her collapse. She seemed to be doing that a lot since she met the Doctor, since she had never, ever been even the slightest bit ill before she met the Doctor.

He was here. Harold Saxon. Prime Minister. The Master had control of the UK. Martha's family were in deadly danger, and the entire world was tapping out the constant drumming. Clara's head was spinning as they ran from Martha's car in attempt to get away. They ran through the rain, no TARDIS, nowhere to go, no hope at the moment.

She wanted to help, but right now she was pinned to the Doctor's side, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. It felt wonderfully good to have him so near, even though he was worrying about her non-stop. The thoughts, the ones that weren't hers, thoughts of a mad woman dressed at Mary Poppins and Cybermen and dead people filled her mind and made her pale, dizzy and useless much to her frustration.

"Leo! Oh, thank God. Leo, you got to listen to me. Where are you?" Martha said into her phone a few feet behind them "Leo, just listen to me. Don't go home. I'm telling you. Don't phone Mum or Dad or Tish. You've got to hide. … On my life. You've got to trust me. Go to Boxer's. Stay with him. Don't tell anyone. Just hide." Suddenly Martha went oddly quiet for a few minutes before she shocked the others by screaming down the line. "Let them go, Saxon. Do you hear me! Let them go!"

The Doctor immediately snatched the phone from her and pressed it to his ear. Clara stood alone, pushing the memories away to make herself stronger.

"I'm here." The Doctor said into the phone.

"Doctor."

"Master."

"I like it when you use my name." Saxon chuckled softly.

"You chose it. Psychiatrist's field day." The Doctor replied bluntly

"As you chose yours. The man who makes people better. How sanctimonious is that?" he said, as if they were still just old friends discussing things lightly.

"So, Prime Minister, then."

"I know."

"It's good, isn't it?"

"Who are those creatures? Because there's no such thing as the Toclafane. It's just a made up name, like the Bogeyman." The Doctor demanded.

"Do you remember? All those fairy tales about the Toclafane when we were kids back home. Where is it, Doctor?" the Master whispered.

"Gone." The Doctor said. It hurt. It hurt to tell the only one left they could never go home, and it was his fault.

"How can Gallifrey be gone?"

"It burned"

"And the Time Lords?"

"Dead. And the Daleks, more or less. What happened to you?" the Doctor asked, too curious to leave it much longer. Martha, Clara and Jack were stood a few feet away, watching him anxiously. Clara's face was still white, but she was recovering.

"The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a Time War. I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because I was so scared." He told him. And for a moment the Doctor understood.

"I know."

"All of them? But not you, which must mean…" he rounded the subject back to what the Doctor didn't want to think about.

"I was the only one who could end it. And I tried. I did. I tried everything."

"What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did that feel?" the Master demanded, making the Doctor so angry, so guilty, it was all he could do not to crush the phone in his hand.

"Stop it!" he ordered.

"You must have been like God." He continued.

"I've been alone ever since. But not anymore. Don't you see? All we've got is each other." He looked at the three of them. Martha and Jack, so loyal, good friends. His eyes zoned in on the girl he loved, the girl he doubted. A girl who Daleks saw as their own, who wasn't related to her parents, who knew things she never should. He loved Clara, but he still wanted a Time Lord. Someone to share the loss of his home with. His old friend back.

"Are you asking me out on a date?" the Master joked, but the doctor couldn't give up. If he couldn't have his friend, he had to save the earth.

"You could stop this right now. We could leave this planet. We can fight across the constellations, if that's what you want, but not on Earth." He pleaded.

"Too late." The fateful words came.

"Why do you say that?"

"The drumming. Can't you hear it? I thought it would stop, but it never does. Never ever stops. Inside my head, the drumming, Doctor. The constant drumming." He said, making the Doctor remember the days from before. The days they'd simply thought him a little bit mad.

"I could help you. Please, let me help." He tried one last time.

"It's everywhere. Listen, listen, listen. Here come the drums. Here come the drums." The people nearby were all tapping the drum beat.

"What have you done? Tell me how you've done this. What are those creatures? Tell me!" the Doctor shouted, but he got no answer

"Ooo look. You're on TV. You're on telly. You and your little band, which, by the way, is ticking every demographic box. So, congratulations on that. Look, there you are." The Doctor looked at the televisions in the window. The pictures of the four of them came under the words TERRORIST SUSPECTS. "You're public enemies numbers one, two, three and four. You can tell handsome Jack that I've sent his little gang off on a wild goose chase to the Himalayas, so he won't be getting any help from them. Now, go on, off you go. Why not start by turning to the right?" the Doctor zapped the CCTV camera with his screwdriver. "Oh, you public menace. Better start running." The Master said "And one last thing. We're not just fighting for the earth, we're fighting for her. You may have Clara Oswald right now Doctor but don't worry, I will get her back. Go on, run." He hung up the phone, leaving a chill spreading through the Doctor. He wanted Clara! Since when and why were still a mystery, but there was no way he could tell her.

Clara could tell something was up though. Even as they sat in that cold warehouse fixing TARDIS keys while eating takeaway food he watched her with an edgy, possessive glare. He was still getting excited about Archangel and all that, but Clara could tell there was something else he wasn't telling them.

She was thinking about the Master too much. She was so sure there was something about him, something she couldn't quite place that made him very important. When the Doctor spoke of Gallifrey, she could picture it perfectly, almost as if she had been there herself. Then he talked about the drumming, how the Master went mad at the age of eight when he looked into the Untempered Schism.

"It won't stop Clara, the drumming won't stop. Can't you hear it?"

"There's no drums Koschei! You're going mad!"

The same words played in her mind as they got aboard the Valiant. Koschei. It was the Master's name, or at least some kind of Gallifreyan name. She could feel it. But how she knew that terrified her. What if she really was a trap? What if all the knowledge, the dreams, the Daleks was all down to him?

Clara stared intently at him as they crept into the flight deck, ignoring President Winters as he addressed the human race about the Toclafane. She barely heard the Doctor's instructions to get her TARDIS key around his neck. By this point she was too spaced to probably have done it.

Not that she got a chance, because the next thing she knew the President was lying dead on the floor. It gave her enough of a shock to pull herself together however, and she was on red alert as the guards stopped the Doctor from running at the Master.

"We meet at last, Doctor. Oh, ho. I love saying that." He grinned crazily, and Clara decided anyone who thought this man was mad had the right idea.

"Stop it! Stop it now!" the Doctor demanded. Clara felt the urge to do something, anything to help him growing inside her. She locked her muscles into place and felt behind her for something to grab a hold of.

"As if a perception filter's going to work on me. And look, it's the girlie and the freak. Although, I'm not sure which one's which." Clara had to assume he was talking about Martha and Jack, since his eyes skated right over her. Maybe her perception filter worked while theirs didn't? She didn't have time to consider it because when Jack ran forward the Master zapped him with his own screwdriver.

"Laser screwdriver. Who'd have sonic? And the good thing is, he's not dead for long. I get to kill him again!" Clara shivered at the sick delight it his tone.

"Master, just calm down. Just look at what you're doing. Just stop. If you could see yourself-" the Doctor desperately tried to reason with him.

"Oh, do excuse me. Little bit of personal business. Back in a minute. Let him go." Clara felt the tension vanish, but remained on edge as the Doctor stepped forward.

"It's that sound. The sound in your head. What if I could help?" he coaxed, his eyes wide and honest.

"Oh, how to shut him up?" the Master mused, and as his eyes met with Clara's, she knew he hadn't missed her "I know. Memory Lane. Professor Lazarus. Remember him and his genetic manipulation device? What, did you think that little Tish got that job merely by coincidence? I've been laying traps for you all this time. And if I can concentrate all that Lazarus technology into one little screwdriver? But, ooo, if I only had the Doctor's biological code. Oh, wait a minute, I do." He opened a large metal briefcase "I've got his hand. And if Lazarus made himself younger, what if I reverse it? Another hundred years?"

Clara felt panic rise in her chest as he aimed the screwdriver at the Doctor. Then in the same moment the Doctor went into rapid convulsions and two solid arms wrapped around her waist and lifted her off her feet as she screamed "NO!" and kicked her legs. Only it wasn't the strange feeling she felt whenever the Doctor was inches from death. More like genuine fear of the pain he was enduring. This wasn't any weird thing about her, this was her honest desperation to help the man she loved. The thought thrilled her slightly. The arms didn't release her once the Doctor lay old in Martha's arms, and they'd pinned her down so she couldn't fight them off. She couldn't help but notice that the Lucy Saxon looked less than happy at all these events.

She could only watch helpless as the Toclafane came through the rip in the sky. "Shall we decimate them?" the Master asked "That sounds good. A nice word, decimate. Remove one tenth of the population!"

Clara began to shout, unable to watch anymore as the cries for help came through the radio. "You can't! What are you doing? Please!"

Suddenly Martha disappeared and Clara listened as London called through for help. Her home, her friends, her family. The Master and Lucy led the now ancient Doctor to the window as a guard dragged Jack off and the man holding her put her in a chair and handcuffed her to it.

She was left alone, tortured by the desperate appeal for help from her people. Finally the Master returned alone and switch the radio off. He approached her and looked down, his eyes burning with that strange longing.

Then he leaned forward and pressed a very quick kiss to her lips. He stroked her hair once and whispered "I'm so glad I finally found you"

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