One, two, three, four. Dun, dun, dun, dun.

Always, forever, all the time, non-stop. The drumming, the damned, never-ceasing drumming. Always in his head, always, always, always. He remembers when he first heard it, staring into—into the Untempered Schism, mind twisting and eyes filling with light and darkness and everything and nothing and – dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun.

He had frozen even before he first heard them, the Untempered Schism capturing him, immobilizing him, but eventually, it ended. He'd been taken back, maybe with a hand on his shoulder to keep his path straight or maybe he'd imagined that, but it had ended.

Only when he'd found himself lying in bed had he realized that the drumming in his head didn't match the beating of his hearts. He'd forced down a chocked sob, curled onto his side, covers over his head, and, somehow, had fallen asleep.

The drums had been there ever since, a flutter in the background, behind the whirling activity of everyday life. They tended to grow louder when he got annoyed, fueling the feeling until it bubbled out as explosive rage. But with age came maturity, control, and, by the time he'd been assigned to a TARDIS, he was perfectly capable of keeping them at the back of his mind at almost all times. They still bothered him sometimes, they were always there, made more noticeable by the fact that they were away from Gallifrey, away from other Gallifreyan except for the seven of them.

The first mission was the worst, but also the best in a sense. As a newly graduated unit, they had a Captain, orders, no responsibility other than do as told. The spatiotemporal distance from other Gallifreyan minds had made the drums louder, but he hadn't needed to think, and so he'd been able to get used to them and wrestle them back under control. It had also helped that he hadn't been alone, that Time Lord teams were made of six people, and that a certain someone had been in the same team.

Distraction, he'd found, was even better for quieting the drums than the mind-numbness that came of following orders.

Things had changed much since that first service, but he'd always managed to keep a tight grip on the drums, no matter how much they had messed with his head. In his best moments, he looked back and cringed at some of his plans, wondering how that stupid beat could have had such an impact that he'd thought those were good ideas.

But he persevered, staid in control, even if he wasn't at his best.

And then, he'd been brought back for the Time War, and he'd run.

The Cruciform – the Daleks with that weapon—

No.

He'd run, so far and so fast and so completely that he'd turned himself human, of all things, in an attempt to get even further. And no, he couldn't blame the drums for that.

He'd prepared the Chameleon Arch, pre-programmed the TARDIS to relocate to a split-second differential and leave him behind, and activated the Arch. And there he was again, a child with drums beating in his head. Only, that time, they were loud, so loud that he had been thought deaf for most of his youth and early adolescence. It had turned out to be for the best, in the end, as they had sent him to the engine room and taught him how to maintain the machines, because no one could hear anything down there anyway. And, since he couldn't make out what they told him to do, he'd started to improvise on what his 'instinct' told him, developing many unorthodox but functional solutions. Eventually, he'd been able to mute the drums for the most part, and his next ship had taught him to talk.

But when he'd finally opened the Chameleon Arch, the drums had returned with a vengeance, so loud and overbearing that he hadn't noticed Chantho was still alive until it had been too late, wasting a regeneration in what should have been an easy escape.

They were so loud, in fact, that it hadn't been until he'd landed on 2006 Earth that he'd noticed they were the only noise in his head. No more whispers of Gallifreyan minds buzzing in the background, no more caresses of Time Lords brushing past as they moved in the Time Vortex, no more jingling of the minds of House Oakdown—the ones who hadn't renounced him when he'd left Gallifrey, that is. Muted as they should be due to distance, they should have still been there.

But they weren't. There was nothing but the faintest echo of the Doctor, the slightest tinge of a temporal impression from the last linear time he'd been in London. And the drums had quickly overwhelmed even that.

First order of business had been to hide. Lucy's father had been perfect for that, as the owner of a telecommunications company, and it had only helped that she had taken an interest in him even before he could put himself together enough to be able to start projecting a look at me, I'm a cute and innocent and likeable human faint psychic impression.

Like the old days of travelling in a unit, with a Captain who frowned down on 'exploring' but with a crewmate as willing, or even more, to push against the invisible line of the non-interference policy.

After, he'd built his image, his 'Harold Saxon' persona, and put his plan together.

Mad, mad plan, but the drums were so loud, so demanding, and he had never been able to stop himself from trying to claim Earth before. Stupid planet full of stupid apes who would so stupidly allow themselves to be controlled. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But useful.

And, in the end, they had proved it, just how stupid they were, when he'd finally succumbed to the drums drowning his mind, his self, and chosen not to regenerate. Trapped in the TARDIS, with only the Doctor for company, when the drums were this loud and insistent and maddening? No, not going to happen, nope, nope, nope.

He'd rather die than let the drums take over.

So, he'd died, and the stupid humans had actually followed his subtle manipulations and brought him back.

He hadn't counted on Lucy learning a thing or two from him, hadn't counted on her butchering his resurrection with a concoction of poisons that would have killed him if not for his pulling the life out of his 'cult' to shield himself.

It had ended badly, and not only because the whole building blew up. Who cared about that? Not him, that's for sure. No, the reason it had gone wrong was that he was supposed to drain the cult slowly, weaving their life force into a new body, a new life, around the consciousness in the ring together with the mixture of chemicals and the remnant of time energy from Lucy.

But in using their energy to destroy the poison – quite explosively, might he add – he'd had none left to stabilize his new body.

And, without the time energy to stabilize the process, there was only so much he could do with flesh. It sustained him, true, but it was in no way a long-term solution, or even a cure. A palliative, a bloody pain-killer, that's what it was. The 'Immortality Gate'—hah!—had helped, but it still wasn't enough. Of course, if he'd used its full power to fix his body instead of take over humanity, it could have maybe worked, but there was no time energy in it, nothing that would actually stabilize him, properly fix him.

And the drums had wanted Earth.

Always, always, always Earth, for some bloody reason he couldn't figure out, so loud…

And then the gate had opened and he was deaf again.

The drums, the cries of Gallifrey at war, the roar of the Lord President's—Rassilon's—presence that almost brought him to his knees—

The crashing of the Doctor falling through the glass ceiling.

Too late.

It was too late.

It is too late.

Gallifrey is back, is returning, and the drums are almost muted by the psychic screams of the Gallifreyan just past that wall of white light.

His plan to rewrite the Time Lords in his image fails, crumbles like a castle of cards, and only then does he realize how foolish it was to begin with.

But Gallifrey – Gallifrey is back, so what if the War had turned to Hell? The Master lives for chaos, for a world that requires a Master—

"Even the Time Lords can't survive that."

The Doctor, the man who makes people better because he hopes they can be better, has no hope anymore.

The drums are deafening, the whole of Gallifrey screaming for blood and for help, and then the Lord President is talking about ripping the Time Vortex apart?

"That's suicide."

"We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be."

Like the Eternals. Can they make themselves Eternals? It should be impossible, but if Rassilon is saying it…

"You see now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them."

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

But the Lord President would never listen, not to a renegade, not to an idealist like the Doctor, regardless of his many impossible triumphs.

The drums grow loud, so loud, so much noise—

There's no escape. No escape, nowhere to run, no way to leave them behind—except the Final Sanction. Maybe then, maybe when there's nothing but consciousness left…

"You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making. No more."

There are only the drums.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The drums and nothing else.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

All his life, ever since the Untempered Schism.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

A signal, in his brain, the heartbeat of a Time Lord, always, always, always pulling him to Earth, and, from Earth, to Gallifrey.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

He doesn't realize he's stepped back until his back hits the console.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The Whitepoint Star, another clue, another thing that had always been in his mind, even if he hadn't known until today.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The Lord President lifts his gauntlet, and he feels despair—

The light is gone, hidden, and despair turns to hope.

The Doctor.

A gun in his hands, as still and unmovable as a Fact, standing between the Master and the wall of light, aiming at the Lord President.

The Doctor, the man who would never take a gun, aiming one now at Rassilon.

The Doctor doesn't kill. And the Lord President knows it.

"Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one."

"But he's the President. Kill him, and Gallifrey could be yours," he says, and only once the words are out, does he realize how stupid they were.

This is the Doctor, not himself. Control, mastery, is not what he wants.

It doesn't make it any less surprising to find himself at the other end of the gun, though.

"He's to blame, not me," he scoffs, meeting those dark eyes – and dread fills him, trying to drown out the hope he'd managed to scrounge together a moment before. "Oh, the link is inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back. You never would, you coward," he says as the hope starts to dissolve into the tumultuous sea of fear and pain and betrayal, at the same time as his vision starts to blur for no reason, because the intensity of the light isn't changing, is it? "Go on then," he whispers, part of him chanting no in time with the drums, but the part that actually speaks is the one that breaks under those brown eyes, under that brief almost touch of time feelers—

"Let's see them, just you and me. Every single star in the universe. All that ever was, is, and will be. Together."

"Do it."

But the Doctor turns to aim at the Lord President once more, and the almost gone dregs of hope flare in his chest once more.

"Would it stop, then? The noise in my head?"

"I can help."

"Exactly. It's not just me, it's him. He's the link. Kill him!"

Help me!

"The final act of your life is murder. But which one of us?" the Lord President asks, still calm, still composed, and the drums just keep beating louder and louder—

The Doctor turns once more, all of himself bared and flaring and this is the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness, the Destroyer of Worlds.

This is the being that destroyed Gallifrey and the Daleks while the perfect warrior for a Time War ran away and turned himself human to escape the horrors of it.

What little hope remained vanishes with his last breath.

"Get out of the way."

"Then let's find it. You and me."

"A star fell from the sky… The star was a diamond… And the diamond is a Whitepoint Star."

The hope hurts more than the fall, blinds him more completely than the flash of the bullet destroying the Whitepoint Star, and turns the staccato of the drums into its herald, into a roar that he can easily convince himself is the Rage of the Oncoming Storm Unleashed.

"The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!"

Gallifrey is falling. Gallifrey falls.

Ga-lli-frey-falls. Ga-lli-frey-falls.

"You'll die with me, Doctor."

But that will not happen.

"I know."

Because it's time the Master finally took control of his destiny, like he intended when he claimed that name all those centuries ago.

"Get out of the way," the Master whispers, straightening and spreading all of himself as threateningly, as unmovable, as the Doctor did but a moment ago, but not completely, not yet.

He delivers a last caress first, the briefest zap of static from time feeler to time feeler that feels eternal yet ephemeral at the same time, a thankyouloveyouhateyoumissyou that is over almost before it begins.

The Doctor ducks and the Master strikes.

He feels his energy draining, his senses dimming, all but his sight and temporal awareness so that he doesn't lose his target, and lets the drums fuel his rage one last time as he advances towards his revenge and his death.

"You did this to me! All of my life! You made me! One! Two! Three!"

Four strikes the gauntlet that the Lord President has managed to lift in a last attempt to protect himself, even though the tendrils that have yet to burn are already overflowing with potential regeneration energy. The backlash of the impact hits the Master so hard that, for a moment, he thinks he's dead.

And then, with a silent gasp and a flash of light, his senses return.

He's surrounded by splintered wood, broken machinery and ripped paper, painfully lodged in a pile of desks and chairs and computers, with only the remnants of the Immortality Gate in front of him.

His head is empty, only the drums whispering in the background, and he can't help but think about young Yana waking up for the first time.

Gallifrey, the Time Lords, everyone is gone. His mind is empty, no more screams, no more hope, no more links.

Only the drums, and the distant sound of someone sobbing, and the flutter of a dying connection—

A dying connection. There's someone left.

Not for long.

He scrambles out of the pile almost madly, ignoring his flickering body, the tiredness and hunger gnawing at his bones and hearts, the blood he leaves behind as he wrenches himself out of splintered wood and bent metal and sharp plastic shards.

There's an old human standing in front of the control chambers, the lights dark and the fans off, his shoulders shaking as he brings a hand up to his mouth to try and quiet his grief.

His meat will be stringy, weak and not too filling, all those years lived draining it of the potential time energy that he could feed on, like a far messier version of a Weeping Angel.

The Master ignores him completely, all his senses focused only on the shivering brown form crumpled on the floor of the closed chamber.

"No," he whispers, his voice almost too soft for even him to hear.

And then he runs, slams into the glass with a strength that would have shattered it just like that which is covering the middle of the room if it wasn't whatever-its-name-is alien glass. He scrambles madly, almost as if he's forgotten how a door is supposed to open, before his hand curls around the handle and he wrenches it out of the way, falling to his knees so quickly that his whole body blazes with the impact. He doesn't care, not about the pain or the hunger or the mantra of nononono falling out of his lips in a chocked whisper.

"I don't need him. Any second now, I'll have Time Lords to spare," he'd said, but it was a lie, a stinky lie, because the Time Lords are gone now, into the time lock, into the Time War, burnt with Gallifrey, but the Master only cares about one.

His hands shake and flicker to blue and bone, but his grip is strong and gentle as he carefully pulls the trembling curled up body into his arms, turning him so he can look down at a face he has seen smile and beg and cry, a face that has been kind and admiring and deadly and unbending, a face that has been young and wrinkly and a thousand years old, a face that has been whole and dirtied and damaged.

A face that is scrunched in agony now, painfully red and covered in cracks of skin peeling off or blistering, the bruise inflamed, and the cuts blackened and with the skin peeling back, as if burned.

"Open up the Nuclear Bolt. Infuse the power lines to maximum."

His litany of nononono cuts off with a broken sound, mouth gaping soundlessly, as he rests a shaking hand on the reddened and gnarled one fisting a handful of brown hair that may no longer be attached to the skull, the touch featherlight as he softly caresses the Doctor's temple with his thumb.

"I've got you. I've got you," he whispers, cradling the trembling body closer as tightly as he dares, and tries to ignore the echoes of his words at the back of his mind, spoken by a different voice. "You're not dying. Don't be stupid. Just regenerate."

"One little bullet. Come on."

"You've got to. Come on. It can't end like this. You can't just save the whole of creation and die like that. Life is not a bloody fairytale, you can't play the martyr!" he sobs, rocking on his heels as he curls closer to the too hot body on his lap, which is slowly going limp.

"Axons. Remember the Axons? And the Daleks."

"We're the only two left. There's no one else. I-I'll do it! I'll come with you, spend the rest of my life in the TARDIS, locked away. I'll do it! Regenerate!" he shouts, begging, but he knows it's no use.

He curls around the body, one arm around the bony back but careful not to press on the spot of red he'd noticed when he'd captured him, so much like a gunshot that the Master had wondered just what it had taken Naismith's goons to keep the Doctor away when they had taken him back at the wasteland. His other hand presses gently against that burnt face, while his time feelers reach for the Doctor's own – and come up empty. They've burnt, shriveled, died, and, in the stumps still clinging to life, the Master feels only the barest remnants of regeneration energy.

Just enough to consume the body upon death, the fine mist of golden dust leaving only ceremonial robes behind.

But there are no ceremonial robes this time, no Matrix of Time, no family to weave the name of the departed into the House History.

Gallifrey burnt, and now, the Doctor will follow.

"You can't die on me, you can't. You promised, you bastard! You said we would fix the drums, together! You said you would help me! You can't die and break your promise, you liar!" he shouts, throat raw and hurting, holding tighter to the rapidly cooling body as his rocking grows more violent—

And freezes when a weak mind caresses his own.

"Theta, please."

It's like a blanket of coolness washing away pain and worry, numbing any scars and hurts, all-encompassing yet loose enough that he can easily get out of the hug if he so wishes.

He doesn't want to get out, not now, not ever.

The feeling spreads as he tries to return it, as he delivers reassurances and offers what flickers of hope he has left, but the other mind ignores his, moving purposefully, tracking down—

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

—the drums.

"W-What are you—Stop. Stop, Doctor, you're in no shape for—Stop!"

But he doesn't stop, still as stubborn as ever, gliding through his mind sharp and fast as an arrow as he tracks down the origin of the link – and rips it out.

The Master is sure he screams, the agony in his mind is too much not to, but he doesn't hear it, his senses on overdrive and jumbled so much…

His eyes are open. So are the Doctor's.

The lids are droopy, pulled almost halfway up, and the orbs underneath are white and dull, like those river pebbles in that stupid planetoid, where they had laughed—

He stomps the memory down, silencing long lost times that he can't allow to distract him, and realizes his mind is silent. No screams, no drums—

"You did it…" he whispers, and the shadow of a smile flickers through his mind from the exhausted one under his cold fingers – accompanied by the echo of the drums. "You took them. You took the drums," he realizes, speaking out loud – or, at least, he thinks he does, his mind still reeling from the damage of having the link ripped out of it, struggling to heal when his whole body is collapsing.

Gallifrey falls.

"But not you. You can't. You promised we'd see the stars together. You said you'd help me. You're the Doctor, the man who makes people better. How will I get better without you? You can't go!"

"Koschei…"

The almost voiceless whisper is easily heard even over his ragged breathing, but the name that echoes in the Master's mind is much different, and much truer.

"Theta…" he whimpers, calling a different name as he tightly grasps the mind slipping away from his.

He gets a blurry hint of important and pocket and hurriedly obeys, pulling out a warm key from the inner pocket of the ripped pinstriped jacket.

"The TARDIS…"

A second out of synch, stables, is what he's shown in answer, and his sight blurs so badly that he fears his body is finally breaking down. A moment later he blinks, and his sight clears slightly as warm liquid slips down his cheeks.

A gnarled hand curls weakly around the one he's pressing against the Doctor's temple, and the Master stops breathing.

The next burst of emotion fixes that, as he's forced to take in a large breath after he releases a loud sob, and can't stop.

The weak mind slips some more before clawing onto his, and the Master can't help but cry out at the burning waves of energy rushing into him, wrapping around his fractured edges and filling empty spaces and stitching rips—

He's screaming again, though, this time, he's not sure whether it's in pain or grief.

When the last of the energy settles, too little to regenerate but just enough to mend a resurrection gone wrong and a rip in a mind previously occupied by a drumming beat, the Master finally opens his eyes again.

Blood drips sluggishly from the hand tightly clenched around the key, but the pain from it is nothing compared to the silence in his mind.

No drums, no screams from a Gallifrey at war, and no echo from a dying Time Lord.

The Doctor's body is completely limp in his arms, colder than is healthy even for a Gallifreyan, blind eyes closed and face relaxed into what could almost be called a smile. No weak and erratic heartsbeat flutters against the arm the Master still has around his back, no minute press of an expanding ribcage against the Master's stomach, no mind brushing against the Master's frantically reaching one.

"Liar… Liar!" the Master screams, curling around the Doctor's lifeless body to bury his face in his still chest.

Theta, cries Koschei's mind, still hoping for an answer that will never come.


AN: So, this is something that occurred to me after watching The End of Time and reading quite a lot of fics. The idea of the Master travelling with the Doctor, either after The End of Time or Last of the Time Lords is quite popular, and there are some nice fics out there about that, but what if…

Never let me ask that question.