33. Race Against the Clock

The Doctor, who had been gently shaking the Master's shoulder and saying his name with an urgency that was on the precipice of causing a flashback to the Year-That-Never-Was, looked up to find River's face a picture of Bad News.

"He's not dead," the Doctor stated flatly. "He can't be."

As if through a thick fog, the Doctor heard Snape and Dumbledore coming out of the basement. The Doctor suddenly shot to his feet, feeling more energy coursing through his body than he had felt in months, and had stalked right up to the half-conscious Barty Crouch, who was being supported between Dumbledore and Snape.

He grabbed Crouch's collar with one hand and forced the wizard to look him in the eye with the other. "You just killed my friend," the Doctor said in a low voice, the sort of voice he had not used since he had met Rose.

The Doctor gritted his teeth against the memories threatening to overwhelm him.

"The only other one left!" The Doctor shouted. "And you bled him dry to bring…" to his horror, he found himself once more choking on the name. "To bring HIM back to life!"

There was a beat of silence as Crouch looked at the Doctor, his eyes vague and almost rolling into the back of his head, clearly injured from the fight. A slow, insane smile crept across his features, and his tongue raced to the corner of his mouth. The Doctor stared back into a face that he had once fought so hard to keep, a face that had once held good memories for him, a face that had been liked. Trusted, even.

Suddenly, said face jerked backwards, blood spurting from the nose, and the Doctor felt a pain in his fist. The next second, Dumbledore and Snape were ushering Barty Crouch Junior out of his reach, though Snape seemed reluctant to save the criminal from harm, and River was pulling him into a chair, shaking him, trying to talk sense into him.

And suddenly, he couldn't stand it anymore.

"I killed him!" He snapped, staring from his fist to the Master's body. "He's gone, River, and it's my fault."

"Doctor, Barty Crouch Junior just looks like you – he did this, not you. And the Master isn't dead," River hurried to reassure him. "But very nearly".

The Doctor found himself sitting in a chair by the Master's bed, staring at the slack face of the man who had once been one of his best friends, not remembering how they had got there, but knowing that he was somehow in Grimmauld Place. He frowned. He pushed away his confusion, dismissing it as irrelevant in light of the situation at hand.

Downstairs, he could hear the commotion of a nation recovering from a war, but he tuned it out. Every so often, there was a groan from along the corridor, where Madame Pomfrey was treating her patients.

But the Master wasn't her patient, could never be; his physiology was just too alien. River stood in a corner, medical scanner in hand, deep in thought as she stared at the readings. The Doctor could see her scanning him when she thought he wasn't looking, but he didn't care.

He looked at the man in the bed. He was pale, almost impossibly so, as if in a human he had been almost drained of blood. And, going off what they had found when they had rescued him, he might as well have been. The Doctor was positive that Barty Crouch Junior had drained a dangerous amount of the Master's open life energy in an attempt to bring You-Know-Who back to life, and it had very nearly led to his oldest enemy's death. Crouch was lucky that he was being thrown in Azkaban – he'd be safe from the Doctor in there.

The Master's chest rose faintly; the only reminder that he was, in fact, still alive. The Doctor ran his hands over his face, feeling fatigue set in against his will.

"You need to rest," River said.

"No," he snapped.

"Sweetie, there's nothing you can do."

"There has to be something!" The Doctor shot back. "Some way of stabilising his life force, something I've missed!"

"You told me his resurrection went wrong," she told him gently. "That from the beginning, his body was born to die."

"There's always a way."

"I know it's difficult-"

The Doctor flinched involuntarily. "We're the last ones left," he said. "He can't die now, not when I've just found him again."

He ran a hand through his hair. "If I had access to the TARDIS, maybe I could do it – with the right resources…" He trailed off, thinking, then slapped his hand down on the bedside table in annoyance. The Master didn't even twitch. "If only we could get him there."

"You know we can't. The trip would kill him."

"You could go through…"

"And do what?" River asked, trying not to get frustrated at the situation. "There's nothing that can help him, even in our universe. A resurrection like that has never been attempted – no one else would be mad enough to try it!"

The Doctor sighed. "There's something I'm missing."

River put a hand on his shoulder and shoved the medical scanner under his nose. "Look at these readings," she commanded.

The Doctor frowned, trying to focus. "What?"

"They're your readings."

"Oh," the Doctor muttered, ignoring them and turning back to the Master.

"Oh?" River repeated incredulously. "Did you even read them?"

"No. They wouldn't stay still. And you need to adjust the clarity of the monitor on that thing," he lectured. "How can you expect to use it in an emergency if it's all blurry?"

River looked at the monitor, then back at the Doctor. "The picture is clear."

"Oh."

River sighed. "Do I have to restrain you?" She asked, getting out her wand.

The Doctor looked at her vaguely, then his gaze moved to her wand. He leapt to his feet, a grin of enlightenment and joy on his face, and opened his mouth to speak. "River!" He paused, swaying. "He doesn't have to…"

River caught him before he hit the ground.

oOo

River levitated the Doctor into a spare bed and, with a flick of her wand, the sheets were pulled up to his chin. The Doctor didn't even twitch, his face slack in unconsciousness. River stared at him, trying to ignore the pale pallor of his skin, the dark circles under his eyes, engraved over too-prominent cheekbones. She laid a hand on top of his still one, staring at his fingers – fingers that looked little better than a skeleton's.

She sighed, trying to keep herself together. It wouldn't do to give in to emotion now, not when there was so much left to do. She thought of the other Time Lord in the room next to the Doctor's, of what the Doctor had told her of him, of his schemes.

There was no doubt that, if she let him die, the universe would be better off. If she let the penultimate member of a once great and ancient race die…

She resisted the urge to hang her head under the burden of the decision resting on her shoulders. She knew what he was, what he did, what he would likely do. The man had eaten human beings, cannibalised the TARDIS, enslaved the Earth, tried to steal regenerations, and that was just the beginning. Just the cherry on the top of the cake, so to speak. This was the man she was contemplating saving.

She looked at the man she had previously thought to be the last surviving Time Lord. The man who, from what felt like her very beginning, had known everything about her, had cared about her, had done everything he could to help her. The man who had been willing to die by her hand for the sake of the universe. The man who would likely do anything she asked. The man who, for some reason that River struggled to understand, still cared for the other Time Lord.

She had to admit that their relationship was a strange one. From what she had gathered, it consisted of the Master trying to kill or imprison the Doctor, who in turn kept trying to foil the Master's plans, kept trying to help the other Time Lord. And every time he did this, the Master got away, lived, and caused more havoc. Didn't the Doctor know by now that it was futile? That the Master would always be an insane evil genius intent on causing as much destruction as he could? The Doctor's mercy, as the man himself had admitted, had allowed the Master to cause much more havoc than would ordinarily be possible.

Yet she knew the Doctor would never kill the Master – never could. They had been friends once.

River sighed. She had realised immediately what the Doctor had been trying to say, had seen it in the way he had looked at her wand – magic had a better chance of saving the Master than technology did.

She remained by the Doctor's bedside for a long time, watching him sleep, weighing the options in her mind. Finally, she reached a decision. She just hoped it was the right one.