Disclaimer: I don't own 'Doctor Who' or any of the related characters; you should know the drill by now
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AN: This chapter occurs at approximately the same time as the last one, looking at the Valiant's cells as they play host to a very particular prisoner…
Broken Faith
As Sarah Jane Smith sat in the cells on board the Valiant- when she'd agreed to check over the plans as part of her 'alien expertise' service to UNIT, she hadn't expected to be experiencing them like this-, dressed in a drab grey prison uniform and with her wrists and ankles bound in manacles, she wondered what should surprise her more; the fact that it had taken this long for 'Mr Saxon' to get around to capturing her, or the fact that she was still alive after spending this long as his 'guest'.
She'd been waiting for his men to show up for her ever since she'd helped Martha Jones get out of England on the first day of 'Mr Saxon's' reign over Earth… and, in all fairness, in those early days there'd been a part of her that would have welcomed it, after seeing Luke…
Sarah couldn't stop a brief tear from trickling down her cheek at the thought of her long-dead 'son'; she doubted that particular injury would ever truly heal, no matter the fact that she'd now spent almost more time missing Luke than she'd ever spent with him.
After so long thinking she'd never have a family beyond her fellow companions and that 'tin dog'… to have lost her son like that…
It had only been the knowledge that Maria and Clyde needed her that had allowed her to go on at first, and even then it had been mostly desperate hopes rather than anything else. Their attempt to combine K9 and Mr Smith's programs to develop a means of controlling the black hole K9 was monitoring to use as a weapon against the Toclafane- the hope being that they could open it at just the right moment to absorb a mass of Toclafane all at once- only resulted in K9 being sucked into the hole before Mr Smith could stabilise it himself, and that had required Mr Smith to devote all his processing power to the task to prevent Earth's destruction. Clyde had later been killed when a Toclafane struck him down while he was trying to make contact with his father- the man was somewhere on the other side of London, apparently; Clyde had heard something about him still being alive and left without taking precautions-, and Maria…
The sight of her still, dead face after Mike Yates- Mike Yates working for the Master; Sarah still couldn't believe there was any hypnotic control strong enough to make Mike do something like that- had shot her simply for trying to protect her…
It had only been a couple of days since her capture- evidently 'Mr Saxon' had more important things to do with his time then deal with her-, and Sarah already knew that the image of Maria's death would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life.
And the fact that the Master wanted her alive…
She didn't know what that meant, but if he still had the Doctor held captive somewhere- and he would have the Doctor captive somewhere; she might have only met the renegade Time Lord during that 'Death Zone' business herself, but she'd read enough UNIT files to have a pretty good grasp of what made him tick, and 'proving' his superiority to the Doctor to ensure his enemy knew that he'd lost was always one of his most defining characteristics-, she had a sneaking suspicion that he was just waiting for the right moment to kill her in such a manner as to truly break the Doctor's spirit…
Sarah's grim thoughts were cut off when the door to the cells was opened and a young woman with shoulder-length blond hair walked into the room, dressed in an elegant black skirt and jacket as she looked at Sarah with a slightly condescending smile, as though Sarah was missing something obvious that the woman was fully aware of.
Sarah's blood ran cold.
She knew this woman…
But her presence here… looking like that… apparently unharmed and walking freely through the Master's headquarters…
"Rose?" she said, staring incredulously at the Doctor's most recent companion- not counting Martha Jones, of course- as she stood outside her cell, continuing to smile at her in a somewhat unnerving manner. "Wh… what are you doing here?"
"Oh, when my husband told me that you'd been captured, I just felt like checking up on you to see how you were," Rose replied, still smiling at Sarah as though they'd simply met up in a café rather than conversing on opposite sides of a cell. "It's been so long since I saw a familiar face, I just felt that I had to-"
"Hold on; your husband?" Sarah repeated, looking at Rose with renewed shock.
It didn't fit with the Master she'd read about, but now that she thought back on the footage she'd seen of 'Harold Saxon's' wife before his true identity was revealed, allowing for a change in hair colour- Mrs Saxon's face had always been concealed from view for some reason or another-, his wife did look like Rose…
"You married the Master?" she said, horror dominating her expression as she stared at the Doctor's former companion.
Seeing Mike shoot Maria had been bad enough, but he was almost certainly hypnotised if his blank expression and constant silence were any kind of clue; Rose looked and acted far too… normal to be under the Master's influence…
"Of course I did," Rose said, shrugging slightly as she looked at Sarah, dashing Sarah's fleeting hope that she still had an ally in Rose. "He saved me from the alternate world where I was trapped and brought me back to the Doctor; it was the only thing I could do for him-"
"I'm sorry; you married him because he brought you back to the Doctor?" Sarah repeated, looking incredulously at Rose. "How does that make any kind of sense?"
"Oh, it's more a marriage of convenience than anything else- I helped him establish some credibility with the voters and gave him a bit of human insight into where some of the resistance might be hiding out-, but he's not bad company really," Rose said, a casual smile on her face that almost scared Sarah more than an insane grin might have done; if it wasn't for the fact that Rose was talking about marriage to the man who'd once tried to summon an alien devil, she could have almost thought Rose was rational. "Plus, the stories he has to share about the Doctor…"
"Such as the fact that he destroyed Atlantis trying to take control of a time-devouring monster?" Sarah interjected, recalling an event from the UNIT files she'd studied after joining the Doctor- her wrist might have ached from the forms the Brigadier had made her fill in at the time, but it had been worth it to get clearance to find out more about her remarkable new friend- as she glared at Rose. "Your 'husband' is a psychopath, Rose-"
"No he's not," Rose said, shaking her head as she looked at Sarah. "He's just more… direct… than the Doctor is; it's a bit more disturbing, but it's not a crime-"
"He once tried to unleash a race of prehistoric fish-people to destroy us just to get out of prison!" Sarah yelled in frustration. "God, he threatened to kill three Doctors at once the last time I saw him; that is not the action of a man who's thinking clearly!"
She knew that there was more to the Sea Devil situation than what she'd just told Rose- the Doctor had often virtually insisted that she understand that the Silurians and Sea Devils were merely misguided rather than being explicitly villainous-, but this wasn't the time to get into that kind of detail; she just hoped that the example of the Master being prepared to kill three different Doctors at once- something that even she, with her limited knowledge of time, knew would have been dangerous; how could he have killed all three of those past Doctors in Rassilon's Tomb without some kind of damage being done to history?- would give Rose something to think about…
"That was then," Rose said, shaking her head at Sarah, her tone making it clear that the journalist's attempts to make her see reason had failed before they could even really get started. "The Master's not like that any more; he's not doing this for himself, he's doing it to rebuild the Time Lord Empire-"
"The 'Time Lord Empire'?" Sarah repeated incredulously. "The Time Lords were basically 'intergalactic ticket inspectors'; they just… kept an eye on Time and were content to hang around and watch, they didn't want an Empire-!"
"And that's why they fell," Rose said, her tone actually sounding sad as she looked at Sarah. "The Doctor doesn't yet appreciate that we're only doing what's necessary; sometimes- like in the Time War after the Daleks killed his people- you have to kill the few to save the many-"
"The Doctor once had a chance to completely destroy the Daleks at their very beginning," Sarah interjected; she hated sharing such a personal trip with a woman as deranged as Rose had apparently become- even during their 'contest' back in their first meeting she hadn't mentioned that encounter-, but if Rose thought she could justify mass murder in the name of some 'greater good' and think that the Doctor would understand it she had another thing coming.
Rose blinked.
"What?" she asked, looking uncertainly at Sarah.
"It was when I was travelling with him," Sarah said, looking coldly at the woman she'd once considered a friend. "The three of us- me, the Doctor, and Harry Sullivan; another old friend of ours- were sent to the Daleks' home planet in its distant past by the Time Lords, who wanted the Doctor to prevent or delay their evolution when they had only just been created."
"Oh my God…" Rose said, her voice low as she stared at a point slightly past Sarah, her expression making it clear that she was currently lost on thought at the implications of what Sarah had just told her, before the smile faded.
"He failed," the other woman said, a sorrowful expression on her face that Sarah wanted to slap off; how dare this… bitch try to act like she sympathised with the Doctor when she'd gone and married to one of his greatest enemies? "He couldn't stop them beginning their spread across the universe… he failed to prevent their evolution… that failure led to the Time War…"
"Actually, he wouldn't stop them, Mrs Saxon," Sarah said, smirking grimly at Rose (The idea of the Doctor being responsible for the extinction of his own people by his inaction was a troubling one, but Sarah still knew that the Doctor couldn't have done otherwise if he was to remain who he was). "There is a difference."
Rose stared in confusion.
"…What do you mean, he wouldn't stop them?" she asked at last, looking at Sarah as though she'd just spoken in Japanese. "The Doctor couldn't have let the Daleks live if he'd had a chance to destroy them-"
"But he did," Sarah said, staring grimly at Rose as she spoke, wanting to ensure that her former fellow companion- as far as Sarah was concerned, she couldn't even consider Rose a companion any more; the other woman didn't even deserve to be associated with the Doctor if she'd participate in something like this willingly- understood what she was saying. "He'd set up a series of explosives that would have destroyed the already-evolved Dalek mutants in their 'breeding room' before they could even be installed in the 'Mark Three Travel Machines'- the casings we see the Daleks using normally; the casings hadn't gone into mass production yet-, and all he had to do was touch two wires together to complete the circuit and set the explosives off… but he. Did. Not. Do it."
"Why not?" Rose said, looking honestly confused as she looked at Sarah.
Sarah smiled slightly at the woman she'd once considered part of the strangest family in existence- a family where the only common factor was a police box; time, planet, and even species of origin weren't details that could stop you from becoming the Doctor's companion if you wanted to join him-, allowing herself a brief moment's reflection on that particular trip with the Doctor and Harry- poor old Harry, dead of a heart attack around a year before she met the Doctor once more- before she continued her grim explanation, the memories of her revelations about the Doctor's motivations filling her mind as she reflected back on those dark days.
"I wondered that myself at the time," she said. "Even as we stood outside that room as he prepared to touch those wires together… even when I reminded him how evil the Daleks were… all the suffering they'd cause if he let them live… he reminded me of one crucial detail; if he- if any of us- kill like that… wipe out an entire species when they can't fight back and technically haven't done anything wrong- there were only around three Daleks actually active at that point; the rest of them were little more than malformed blobs that could barely move- just because of what they are… how are we any different from the Daleks?"
After giving Rose a moment's silence to process what she had just said, Sarah fixed her gaze on the other woman's eyes as she spoke again. "There are no circumstances- none- that will allow the Doctor to 'understand' what you're doing is 'for the best'; he recognised long ago that mass murder on this scale is never an answer."
For a moment, as Rose stared back at her, Sarah could almost allow herself to hope that her words had reached whatever sanity was left in Rose's mind…
Then Rose stepped back, a disgusted look on her face, and Sarah knew that she'd failed.
"You don't get to criticise me," the younger woman said, staring coldly back at Sarah. "I've seen what the Doctor will do-"
"I never said he wouldn't kill; I simply said that he wouldn't kill on this scale… and definitely not the way you've done things," Sarah said, her tone cold as she stared at the younger woman. "No matter what reason you've created to justify this to yourself, you and your 'husband' destroyed millions of lives without even providing the people you killed with an explanation why you were doing it when they had done nothing to you; even if the Doctor had to do something like this, he would only do it if he was undeniably certain that he'd exhausted every other option that could allow him to save the majority."
"This was the only way-" Rose began.
"To accomplish what, exactly; to save us from Utopia?" Sarah asked, raising a critical eyebrow as she glared at Rose.
Noting the other woman's stunned expression at Sarah's unexpected knowledge, the journalist smirked slightly.
"I met Martha Jones, Rose," Sarah explained, glaring at Rose as she spoke. "She told me how the Master got here, where he came from, and what it was like then… and I have to say that, as far as I'm concerned… she definitely understood the Doctor better than you do."
Sarah almost couldn't believe what she'd just said- she hadn't even consciously realised that she felt that way regarding Martha's status as the Doctor's companion-, but she knew that it was the truth.
Rose might have demonstrated a certain… interest… in the Doctor when they'd met during that affair at Deffry Vale school, but Martha had shown a genuine compassion and concern for the Doctor during her brief meeting with Sarah that Rose hadn't shown; Rose had been more concerned with the fact that she wasn't the Doctor's 'first' companion- how she could have believed that Sarah didn't know; even she'd only been with the white-haired Doctor she'd met originally for a couple of weeks before she'd heard about Jo Grant, and even then she hadn't been surprised there'd been others- and trying to 'outdo' her with what they'd seen in the TARDIS then actually showing interest in asking for more information about the Doctor himself…
"You…" Rose practically growled as she glared at Sarah. "You… you liar! You can't understand what Utopia was like or why we're trying to stop it; I love the Doctor-"
"And you're married to his greatest enemy; that's definitely what you do to someone you love," Sarah countered, glaring back at Rose. "At least Martha's trying to help him; you've been up here for a year and you've done nothing for him but make sure he stays put, have you?"
"He needs to understand-" Rose protested.
"Understand what; that you betrayed everything he believed in and married his greatest enemy to virtually destroy his favourite planet?" Sarah interjected; she couldn't believe someone could be this deluded. "There are no circumstances under which the Doctor could see what you've done as a 'good' thing, Rose Tyler; he would only see it as the greatest betrayal anyone has caused him."
She acknowledged that she might be exaggerating with that last comment- it was possible another companion might have done something more drastic that she herself hadn't known about-, but she still felt that it was a valid point. After witnessing the Doctor's shock at Mike Yates' original betrayal of UNIT to work with 'Operation Golden Age', she knew that one of the things the Doctor held most dear to himself was the knowledge that he could always trust his companions; the thought that Rose- whom he'd evidently been close to back when she met them- could do this couldn't be something he found pleasant to think about.
"The human race was reduced to little more than scavengers-" Rose continued.
"After surviving to the end of the universe itself, I think we have a right to be a bit desperate!" Sarah retorted. "The Master doesn't care about us, Rose; all he cares about is hurting the Doctor-!"
"All we want is for the Doctor to understand," Rose said, looking scathingly at Sarah as she stepped back slightly and nodded at one of the nearby guards. "If you can't appreciate that…"
She sighed in an overly dramatic and sympathising manner as a guard stepped forward to open Sarah's cell, his gun aiming at her even as Rose continued to speak, "…then we'll just have to try a more direct method to make our point."
Sarah didn't even have a chance to ask what Rose meant by that before the younger woman turned around and walked off down the opposite corridor with a casual strut, the guard indicating with his gun that Sarah was to follow her.
Walking along the corridors of the Valiant, Sarah barely paid attention to her surroundings, still trying to figure out how the woman she'd met during the Krillitane crisis could have become this twisted that she'd side with the Master- this was clearly no form of hypnosis; Rose was far too confident in her speeches to lack an independent mind, even if she was sprouting off this ridiculous crap-, until she found herself in what could only be the conference room, currently unoccupied apart from a figure slumped in a wheelchair and a man in a dark suit that Sarah instantly recognised.
"Oh, there you are," she said as the Master grinned at her, his beardless face reflecting the same casual arrogance she'd seen when she'd first met him in the Death Zone with her original Doctor all those years ago (She still appreciated the chance to say a more proper goodbye to that incarnation, even if she regretted never getting a suitable farewell with the Doctor he'd become). "I wondered when you'd have the nerve to show yourself."
"Oh, come on, we're all old friends here, Miss Smith, aren't we?" the Master replied, casually nodding at the guard that he could leave even as he continued to grin at Sarah. "I still remember the last time we met-"
"Yes, you threatened to shoot the Doctors and the Brigadier knocked you out while you were distracted; that did have a lot to recommend it, really," Sarah interjected, allowing herself a brief smirk at the momentarily offended look on the Master's face before his old casual grin returned.
"Well, we're all a bit stupid when we're young, aren't we?" he said dismissively. "I spent too much time talking before I'd really won, my dear companion here believed in the Doctor's talk of winning without death being a requirement, the Doctor here never believed his companions could think for themselves to that extent…"
Sarah barely registered whatever else the Master might have been saying; as soon as she heard the Doctor's name, she stepped off to one side to look at the man in the wheelchair behind the Master.
For a moment she thought that the Master was referring to someone else- the figure before her was far too old to be the Doctor; his skin was covered in liver spots and his skin was so stretched she could practically see his bones-, but then she took in the clothes he was wearing- the same brown suit and long overcoat she'd seen the Doctor wearing the last time she'd met him- along with the familiar gleam in his eye- dimmed due to his physical condition but no less evident-, and knew that she was correct.
"Doctor?" Sarah asked, staring at him incredulously; Martha had warned her about what the Master had done to him, but she didn't think it had been that extreme. "But… but you're…?"
"Old?" the Doctor replied, smiling slightly back at her, the grin on his face still recognisable as the smile he'd given her when they'd said goodbye last time. "Laser screwdriver… accelerated aging… long story…"
"And you're not really going to have time to hear it, Miss Smith," the Master added, stepping back slightly to point a strange gold-and-silver device that vaguely reminded Sarah of the Doctor's new sonic screwdriver at her chest, glancing over at the Doctor with a casual smirk as he aimed it at her. "Of course, if the Doctor here is willing to offer his assistance in getting that TARDIS of his working again- or even use his oh-so-interesting insight into your species to maybe even offer me a few suggestions on what the 'resistance' might do next, things like that-, I might think about letting you hang around to hear that story in detail…"
For a moment, Sarah simply stood in silence as she stared at the Master, before she leant over slightly and spat in his face.
"Live in a world ruled by you?" she asked, looking scornfully at him. "I'd almost rather be dead."
Apparently unconcerned about the outraged expression on the Master's face, Sarah turned around to look at the Doctor with a slight smile.
"Good luck," she said simply, noting the Master's grip already tightening on that weapon he was holding- at least it didn't seem to be his old TCE; the last thing Sarah wanted to be shrunk to death- before she said her last sentence. "And Martha's doing brilliantly, Doctor."
She wished she could say more, of course, but with the Master and a clearly-insane Rose standing mere inches away from her she didn't dare tell the Doctor that she was aware of the full details of his and Martha's plan to defeat the Master; as grateful as she was to see that brief smile appear on a face that had never looked more defeated even when Davros was torturing her and Harry, what she'd just said was pushing her luck more than she was comfortable with…
Then something struck her in the chest, and Sarah Jane knew nothing more.
As the woman who had been one of his closest friends across at least two of his incarnations- his seventh and eighth selves had spent far too little time with her to really call her a close friend, even if they'd both enjoyed the meetings (Assuming Sarah even remembered them; with the Council and the Faction erased would those encounters have even happened any more?)- fell to the ground before him, the Doctor could only clench his fists and glare over at the Master.
Every time the Master turned the laser screwdriver against another friend of his, the Doctor could barely restrain the desire to scream in rage at the loss of another of his family; only the knowledge that they would be saved when Martha completed her mission had stopped him from taking action before now…
"What did she mean by that?" the Master asked, turning to look at him and breaking his train of thought. "How could she know Martha Jones? I checked the TARDIS databanks; you and her never…"
His voice trailed off as an explanation occurred to him, prompting a slight smile as he glanced back at the Doctor. "But you didn't visit Miss Smith then; Miss Jones went to her after escaping here for some reason, didn't she?"
As though the question had been a cue, the Master walked over to crouch down opposite the Doctor, smirking casually at the other man as he did so. "Any chance you'll be willing to answer that little question, Doctor? After all, you've just lost a very dear friend; do you really want to know who else I can still find out there?"
"I've only got… one thing… to say to you…" the Doctor said, his voice low as he stared at his former friend. "I-"
"BZZT!" the Master said, sitting rapidly back up and holding out one hand in a 'stop' gesture. "Sorry, wrong answer, no time for that now; we're going to have to move on to our next event!"
With that, he turned around and walked towards the door, casually turning as he left the room to smile at Rose before departing.
As soon as the Master had vanished from view, Rose turned to look at him with a broad smile.
"You see?" she said, walking over to crouch down slightly in front of him, an almost fanatical smile on her face as she stared into his eyes with an expression that was probably intended to be seductive. "You're willing to let everyone else die to maintain your 'moral high ground', but you sent me away to save my life! I'm more important to you-"
"I was protecting you… from a confrontation… where death… seemed inevitable; I would… have done the same… for anyone… who was there," the Doctor practically spat out as he stared at Rose. "And right now… there is nothing… I can do… to save Sarah… or the others; you… would kill them… eventually… even if I… agreed with you… so I see… no point… in asking you… to let them live…"
He paused for breath for a brief moment, trying to collect himself for what he was about to say next, before glaring at Rose with a renewed intensity. "You kill… without regret, Rose Saxon; how… would Jackie feel… about what… you've become?"
For a moment, as Rose flinched back from the Doctor's words, he entertained a brief hope that he'd struck a chord, only for that hope to swiftly die as Rose stared at him with a renewed desperation.
"Mum just wanted me to settle back into a normal life; her opinion doesn't matter to me, Doctor," she said, reaching out to gently caress his cheek (How she could do that one time and slap him the next the Doctor would never fully understand; her moods could vary randomly from one day to the other). "She didn't understand why I wanted to travel with you in the first place; why should she have any say in-"
"I don't… understand," the Doctor growled at her, jerking his head back slightly to force her hand away as he glared at her. "Nothing… can excuse… what you've done… Rose Tyler… and no amount… of death… will make me… change my mind…"
Once again, Rose didn't bother replying to the Doctor' rejection; she simply stood up, shaking her head in a pitying fashion, and then walked out of the room, leaving the Doctor alone with his thought.
Hurry, Martha… he whispered in his mind.
AN 2: For those wondering about the meetings the Doctor reflected on after Sarah's death, Sarah met the Seventh Doctor in "Bullet Time", where she was involved in his efforts to help a crashed alien ship escape Earth before it was destroyed by the Cortez Project- a renegade branch of UNIT that believed all alien presences on Earth were an automatic threat as they could destroy our way of life- and the Eighth Doctor in "Interference" when investigating a group called the Remote who were apparently selling advanced weapons to the UN. However, given that both encounters were at least partly the result of the actions of the Doctor's time-active enemies the Council of Eight ("Sometime Never") and Faction Paradox ("The Ancestor Cell")- both of whom were essentially erased from existence by the Doctor's actions in their final confrontations with each other-, I'm assuming that Sarah no longer remembers these meetings completely as for her they technically didn't happen, hence why she acted in "School Reunion" as though she hadn't seen the Doctor since he left her in "The Hand of Fear" (The meeting in "The Five Doctors" didn't count becaue she spent most of her time in that story with the Third Doctor, and nobody ever clarified that the Fifth Doctor was a later Doctor than the one she knew)