The day Harold Saxon was to be announced as prime minister, Rose woke up with a groan. The Master had been by late the night before, gloating as usual, and had gotten annoyed when she'd appeared neither impressed nor frightened. She reached up, gingerly touching her right eye and wincing. At least it wasn't so swollen she couldn't open it this morning. The quick healing was a blessing when it came to swelling and throbbing pain...she was less concerned with how long the bruises lasted, though the Master still enjoyed the fact that the worst of them would manage little more than a few days.
She shook her head when the television in the wall blared to life, showing yet another profile of the wonderful Mister Saxon.
"Just can't get enough of yourself, can you?" she muttered, pulling herself to her feet.
The breakfast tray arrived just as she was getting out of the shower, and she sat down cross-legged on the bed to poke at it. She rarely had any appetite anymore, but she forced herself to eat at least a few bites of every meal for two reasons: one, she knew that not eating at all would kill her just as assuredly as anything the Master might plan; two, she wanted to at least appear as sane as possible.
That was the driving factor behind almost everything now, because she knew it wasn't simply paranoia that kept her believing that the Master could be watching her at any given moment. It was for this reason that she brushed her teeth and made her bed after she choked down a few bites of something mushy and non-descript. She finger combed the tangles out of her long, still blonde hair—she didn't have a mirror, but she could tell the new inches were still the same honey tone she'd dyed it years ago, before even Canary Wharf. Something about codon replacement therapy…the alien dye actually manipulated the bits of DNA that designated hair color, giving it a level of permanence unknown to Earth. She was glad, now, that she'd found it...something about still being blonde made her feel better, more like herself.
Since that day when it had clicked in her mind that the Master fully believed the Doctor was coming back, she'd done everything she could to hold on to things like that. She couldn't stop all the effects of her near complete isolation—the mood swings that would shift her from panic to rage, the insomnia, the nightmares, the paranoia, the lack of appetite—but she could keep them at bay by reminding herself that she was Rose Tyler, the woman who waged war with Time itself to stay with the Doctor and won. She ordered herself to stay strong, to fight against whatever madness might be growing, to ignore the Master's nauseating smugness and her own feelings of doubt and anger regarding the Doctor. Because if there was one thing in the universe that she could really believe in, it was the fact that the Doctor would stop at nothing to find her and save her and everyone else from whatever the Master had planned.
This new determination had fueled a new rage in the Master—the stronger she appeared to be, the more he seemed to be driven to distraction. It annoyed him that he had gotten so close to breaking her, just for her to rise up again. It had resulted in another broken arm and more than a few black eyes, but she regarded these injuries with a sort of grim triumph, because each one showed that she could get to him just by refusing to back down, while breaking her down took more and more effort from him with each passing day.
She was standing in front of the television tying off the end of the braid that hung over her shoulder when she felt it. The bond that had lain weak and distant in the back of her mind for eighteen months to the day suddenly flared to life, making the room spin as she stumbled to wall, leaning on it heavily for support. She stared at the wall in front of her in complete disbelief, all the fear and resentment and anger suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of intense happiness that she hadn't been sure she'd ever feel again.
The Doctor had come back.
oOoOo
"Oh, my head," Martha groaned as the three travelers gingerly got to their feet.
"Time travel without a capsule," the Doctor said distractedly before turning his back on them and stalking down the alley.
"Still, at least we made it," Jack said. "Earth, 21st century by the looks of it. Ha, ha, talk about lucky."
"Sh sh sh sh," the Doctor said, spinning around and holding up a hand, a look of intense concentration on his face.
"Mind meld," Martha said, and Jack glanced at her. "They can have conversations in their heads."
"Gotta love telepathy," he said with a grin. "Always wanted to try that. Granted, I've seen it go pretty wrong too. But at least we know she's still alive." He stopped when a look of horror came over the Doctor's face. "Doc? What's wrong? Is she alright?"
"She...well...she says she is," he said uncertainly. "But…Jack," he said, looking up at the captain. "He's had her for a year and a half."
"But this Master bloke, he has the TARDIS," Martha said as Jack stared at him in shock. "He could've gone anywhere. What made you so sure he'd be here at all, much less astonished about him being here for a year and a half?"
"Because he couldn't go anywhere," the Doctor said. "I fused the co-ordinates of the TARDIS, should've landed right here, right now...unless..."
"Unless?" Jack prompted.
"He must have realized it," the Doctor said. "Pushed the parameters. Given himself a bump. Eighteen months was the most he could've managed." He ran a hand through his hair let out a string of curses that made Jack's eyebrows jump.
"But, hold on, she said she's alright, didn't she?" Martha asked.
"She always says that," the Doctor said. "She'd say that if she was in a full body cast filled with fire ants, being forced to watch Waterworld on an infinite loop, because that's who she is. But the Master is insane, and cruel, and hates me, which gives him all the more reason to be cruel to her...I guarantee you she is anything but alright."
"But with that mind meld thing, couldn't you just, I dunno, find out what's been happening?" she asked.
"It's not mind reading, Martha," the Doctor said. "It doesn't work like that. And with all the practice time we put in getting her to control her thoughts...I'm not going to know anything she doesn't want me to."
"You think he'd hurt her?" Jack asked.
"Yes," the Doctor said a hard voice. "The only question is how badly, and how often. Well...that, and why she's still alive at all. And that...is also most likely because of me...hang on."
He turned away again, focusing on the mental conversation with his wife while Jack and Martha looked around.
"So who is he?" Martha asked. "The Master?"
"No idea," Jack said honestly. "But I think it's safe to assume that he and the Doctor have a history."
"And he's a Time Lord...so he can change his face too?" she asked. "Because that voice at the end, that wasn't the professor."
"He must have regenerated," Jack said.
"Then how are we gonna find him?" she asked.
"Already did," the Doctor said, and they turned to see him standing in front of a television in a shop front window. "He never has been very good at keeping a low profile."
"Mr Saxon has returned from the Palace and is greeting the crowd inside Saxon Headquarters," the newscaster reported as a man in his early thirties smiled and waved at the camera.
"You two missed the election," he said, glancing back at them. "Sorry about that."
"I said I knew that voice," Martha said, staring at the screen. "When he spoke inside the TARDIS. I've heard that voice hundreds of times. I've seen him. We all have. That was the voice of Harold Saxon."
"He's Prime Minister," the Doctor said. "The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain." Their jaws dropped when the man turned to the blonde next to him and kissed her thoroughly. "The Master and his wife. Oh, that's just...very him."
"This country has been sick," Saxon said. "This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, what this country really needs, right now…is a doctor."
"Come on," the Doctor said, turning from the television in disgust. "We need to get off the streets, regroup. Martha, your flat is close by, right?"
"Um, yeah, just down this way," she said, pointing hurriedly as they turned a corner.
"What about Rose?" Jack asked. "We need to get her away from him."
"Rose is staying where she is," the Doctor said.
"What?" Jack asked, grabbing the Doctor's arm and spinning him around. "No, we can't just leave her. You said yourself he's insane."
"Yeah, he is," the Doctor said, shrugging out of his hold. "Which means that if I go to her right now, he'll be watching, and he'll kill her before I can get anywhere near her. The only way to keep her even remotely safe is to leave her where she is."
"You've gotta be joking," Jack said, shaking his head in disbelief. "That's Rose...that's your wife. Time was, you'd rescue her out of the middle of a fleet of Daleks without a second thought, and now we're going to hide away in a London flat and leave her in the hands of a psychopath?"
"In case you haven't noticed, Jack, I don't have a TARDIS with extrapolater shielding that can materialize around her right now!" the Doctor shouted, and Jack saw the old rage that used to blaze in his blue eyes. "I've got nothing to fight with, no idea what he's doing, or what kind of place he has her in. So yes, I'm going to go sit in a London flat and try figure out something, anything, and keep the hell away from her, even though it kills me, because right now, that's the only chance I've got of ever seeing her alive again. Is that alright with you?"
They glared at each other for a moment as Jack tried to hold back the impulse to punch the Doctor in the face. He took a breath, trying to flip things, imagine if it was Gwen or Tosh or Ianto, even Owen, what he would do. He had to admit that he'd take the same course of action, even if the rest of the team hated him for it, even if he hated himself for it—and as much as he cared about them, his strange little mixed up family, it was nothing compared to how the Doctor felt about Rose.
"We're going to get her, Jack," the Doctor continued after a moment, quieter but still fierce and determined. "I promised her I'd always come for her, and this time is no different. I will get my wife back. It's just a little more delicate than usual. So I need you here...I need to know I can count on you to have my back. Please."
Jack looked at his friend for a moment, recognizing what it took for the Doctor to admit that at all, much less to someone he'd run to the end of the universe to avoid hours before.
"Anytime, Doc," he said finally. "But I wanna be there when you take this guy down."
"You have my word," the Doctor said before turning and heading off down the street again.
oOoOo
"Home," Martha said as they stepped into her flat.
"What have you got? Computer, laptop, anything?" the Doctor asked, glancing around, and saw Jack on his mobile. "Jack, who are you phoning? You can't tell anyone we're here!"
"Just some friends of mine," Jack said, frowning at the phone before pocketing it again. "But there's no reply…"
"Here you go," Martha said, handing the Doctor her laptop. "Any good?"
"I can show you the Saxon websites," Jack said, taking the laptop and sitting down at Martha's desk. "He's been around for ages. Or, at least, there's some record of him going back ages."
"That's so weird though," Martha said. "It's the day after the election. That's only four days after I met you."
"We went flying all around the universe while he was here the whole time," the Doctor said, staring into space, then straightened abruptly. "Torchwood!"
"What about Torchwood?" Martha asked as Jack spun around in his chair, looking horrified.
"It was only three months before we met you," he said.
What happened with Torchwood? he asked Rose quickly.
He kept me in the TARDIS while you opened the rift, came her reply, and he let out a breath. But why? Why would he want to keep her alive?
Did he mention why the sudden desire for your safety?
It seems I'm a valuable commodity, she thought back dryly, and a memory seeped into his mind from hers.
"You are nothing. A child. A pawn. A commodity whose value diminishes every time you open your mouth."
I'm sorry, Rose, he thought painfully.
Stop apologizing for him and focus on stopping him, she replied, and he felt her lock down again.
It wasn't the first errant memory that had slipped through...there had also been something about the Master hoping he didn't damage her too badly before the Doctor made it to her, and calling her a sanctimonious bitch, and some diatribe about her being a speck of dust and just as worthy of attention. What worried him was that these were the memories that were slipping through, that she wasn't concentrating as hard on...he shuddered to think what the ones she was actively hiding involved. The whole situation was his nightmare come to life—Rose taken and hurt to some extent or another simply because she was important to him—and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it, at least not right now. She'd said herself that stopping the Master was priority, that he couldn't safely get to her until after that was accomplished, but he hated the fact that time was of essence, that he was forced to make the choice between trying to sort out what had happened to her and trying to figure out what the Master was planning.
"So?" Jack asked when he focused on them again. "How'd she manage it this time?"
"He kept her in the TARDIS," the Doctor said, pushing aside his worries about his wife's psychological wellbeing and upsetting memories with difficulty.
"That was…nice of him," Jack said, sounding as confused as the Doctor. "I guess as long as she made it, that's all that matters, right?"
"Yeah," the Doctor replied shortly as Jack turned back to the computer.
"You gonna tell us who he is?" Martha asked. "I mean, beyond an insane Time Lord. Who is he to you? He's not, like, your secret brother or something, is he?"
"You've been watching too much TV," he said, arching an eyebrow at her. "He's...it really doesn't matter. We've known each other a long time, and we've been on opposite sides for...a lot of it. He's insane, he's got Rose, and he's trying to take over the world. Really, that's all you need to know." He moved to stand next to Jack, looking over his shoulder. "Come on, show me Harold Saxon."
"Martha, where are you?" a voice asked, and he glanced up to see Martha at her ansaphone. "I've got this new job. You won't believe it. It's weird, they just phoned me up out of the blue. I'm working for—"
"Oh, like it matters," Martha muttered, turning it off as Jack started playing some of Saxon's campaign commercials. The Doctor moved to sit cross-legged on the arm of the couch as he watched.
"Former Minister of Defense," Jack said after a moment, reading off the site. "First came to prominence when he shot down the Racnoss on Christmas Eve. Nice work, by the way," he added, turning back to the Doctor.
"Oh, thanks," he said distractedly, his mind whirring.
"He goes back years," Martha said, leaning over Jack to flip through photos. "He's famous. Everyone knows his story. Look. Cambridge University, Rugby blue, won the Athletics thing, wrote a novel, went into business, marriage, everything. He's got a whole life."
oOoOo
The Master wandered through the back halls of Ten Downing street rubbing his hands together thoughtfully. The Doctor was here, most likely with Tweedledee and Tweedledum in tow, probably already talking to Rose. He wondered what she'd tell him...a month ago, he'd been sure that the Doctor would have been greeted by a broken shell, maybe even a catatonic wife. But no. Something in her had shifted, just when she'd been nearly broken...and now she was more insufferable than ever. He couldn't even beat it out of her anymore—now, he half expected her to turn to him and say "Please, sir, can I have some more?" Cheeky little bitch. So she was probably telling the Doctor everything she knew, however little that was…on the plus side, he could hope that she'd also let on how miserable her life had been the last eighteen months, and the Doctor would make a foolhardy rescue attempt that would lead to the quick end of her death—finally—and his capture. He checked his mobile with this thought in mind, but was disappointed when it failed to alert him to an attempted prison break.
He approached the sitting room where he'd instructed Lucy to wait for him, but paused when he heard voices inside, narrowing his eyes.
"Your husband is not who he says he is," a woman said. "I'm sorry, but it's a lie. Everything's a lie. The school days, his degree, even his mother and father. It's all invented. Look, Harold Saxon never went to Cambridge. There was no Harold Saxon. The thing is, it's obvious. The forgery is screaming out and yet no one can see it. It's as if he's mesmerized the entire world."
"I think perhaps you should leave now," Lucy said, and he smiled. The Doctor wasn't the only one who could have a faithful little human pet.
"Eighteen months ago he became real," the other woman said. "This is his first, honest-to-God appearance, just after the downfall of Harriet Jones. And at the exact same time, they launched the Archangel Network."
"Mrs Rook, now stop it," Lucy said, sounding a little alarmed, and he rolled his eyes. She was always so worried about protecting his secret, as if this Rook woman was any real threat to him.
"Even now they say that the Cabinet has gone into seclusion," the woman said. "I mean, what does that mean, 'seclusion'?"
It means they're all dead, Mrs Rook, he thought cheerfully.
"How should I know?" Lucy asked.
"But I've got plenty of research on you," the woman said. "Yes, good family, Roedean, not especially bright but essentially harmless. And that's why I'm asking you, Lucy. I'm begging you. If you have seen anything, heard anything, even the slightest thing that would give you cause to doubt him…"
"I think…" Lucy trailed off, and he stood up straighter, eyes narrowed.
"Yes?" Mrs Rook asked.
"There was a time when we first met," Lucy said, her voice slightly dreamy. "I wondered…But he was so good to my father. And he said…"
"What?" the old crone pressed. "Just tell me, sweetheart."
"The thing is…I made my choice," Lucy said, her voice stronger, and the Master smiled. Good girl. Good, boring, easily deluded girl. She really was the perfect accessory.
"I'm sorry?" the reporter asked, sounding stunned, and the Master put his fist to his mouth to keep from laughing as he stepped through the door behind the woman's back, leaning on the frame.
"For better or for worse," Lucy said. "Isn't that right, Harry?"
"My faithful companion," he said proudly.
"Mr Saxon," the woman said, rising quickly. "Prime Minister, I-I-I was just having a little joke with poor little Lucy. I-I didn't mean—"
"Oh, but you're absolutely right," the Master said, walking to the center of the room. "Harold Saxon doesn't exist."
"Then tell me…who are you?" she asked.
"I'm the Master," he said, and held out his hands as he mentally summoned a few of the warped little creatures that were all that remained of his once beloved refugees. "And these are my friends."
"But-" she started, then stopped, confused.
"I'm sorry," Lucy said.
Badada dum badada dum badadadum
"Can't you hear it, Mrs Rook?" he asked over the sound as the little spheres floated around him.
"What do you mean?" the reporter asked.
"The drumbeat," he said. "The drums coming closer and closer."
"The lady doesn't like us," a voice said from one of the spheres as they flew closer to Mrs Rook, spikes thrusting from them.
"Silly lady," another said as the spikes started spinning.
"Dead lady," said a third, and Mrs Rook screamed while the Master grabbed a hold of Lucy, dragging her from the room and closing the door behind them to deaden the screams from within. After a moment, he took a breath and reached forward, opening the door again. The screams continued and he winced, closing the door again. After another moment, he tried again, but was met with more screams. Honestly, could no one just die gracefully anymore? Rose hadn't screamed like that even during the scalpel experiment.
"But she knew," Lucy said with a gasp. "Harry, she knew everything. You promised. You said Archangel was 100%."
"Um, 99," he said. "98?"
"But if she's asking questions, then who else?" Lucy demanded, obviously panicking. "How much time have we got?"
He gave her a pitying look and held his arms out for her, and she stepped forward gratefully into his embrace. As much as he might rather tell her to shut up about things she didn't understand, she hadn't actually done anything wrong...she was just...a little pathetic.
"Tomorrow morning, I promise," he said as she quivered in his arms. "That's when everything ends."
