Sanctuary
The Man in the Castle
"Alison get some tea, would you? It would appear that the Doctor is in need of a cup."
She nodded and quickly left the room via a side door. The Doctor still hadn't moved.
"Won't you sit down?" said the Master. "There is, I believe, a lot to talk about."
Rose looked up at the Doctor, his face like stone, his eyes burning intensely. It was a mask, and it frightened her just a little because she wasn't sure what he was hiding beneath it.
She tugged on his hand. "Come on, Doctor, come and sit down," she said, as though coaxing a frightened child. He seemed paralysed, and she decided that it wasn't really fear, or anger, but a sort of disbelief as he tried to accept something that he had thought impossible. Her initial tugging on his hand seemed to have no effect. "Doctor, please, sit down," she repeated, squeezing his hand a little tighter.
Finally he moved, his eyes travelling from the Master to her. She gave him the smallest smile, but it was enough and he let her guide him into a seat, before she took the one next to him.
She swallowed, letting the silence stretch on for a few moments. It was almost eerie, watching the two Time Lords stare so intently at one another. There was no-one else in the room, no-one else in the universe. She wished Alison would hurry up and get back with the tea.
"So he's the Doctor, you're the Master. What's with that?" she asked, shattering the silence with the first question she could think of.
The Master's eyes flicked to meet hers, and she felt a sudden rush of fear under the intense gaze, but she didn't flinch, didn't look away.
"Different degrees, Miss Tyler," he said. "We were at school together, isn't that so, Doctor?"
"Long time ago," he ground out.
The Master gave a long-suffering sigh and rolled his eyes heavenwards. "I did save your life."
"After poisoning me in the first place."
The Master smiled. "Indeed, but that is not what I'm referring to. I shall show you when…ah, the tea."
The panelled door had slid back noiselessly, and Alison had reappeared, carrying a very full tray replete with tea, milk, sugar and cups. Rose made a move to help her, but Alison met her eyes and gave the smallest shake of her head.
She settled the tray on a low cabinet by the door and swiftly set out the tea things on the conference table. Rose ran her fingers over the cup she had been given, decorated with a seaside motif, it reminded her of the view from the cliff top. Alison poured Rose's tea first, and seeing no reason not to, Rose helped herself to milk and two generous teaspoonfuls of sugar.
"Thank you, Alison. Please join us," said the Master, when she had finished pouring.
She nodded and took a seat on the opposite side of the table to Rose, and poured a cup of tea for herself.
Rose noticed that the Doctor had added just a little milk to his own tea. He stirred it methodically before taking a long, deliberate sip.
"Ah, so you do trust me," the Master said.
"Not to kill me before you've had an opportunity to gloat? Sure, I trust you," said the Doctor.
"Kill you!" spluttered Rose, midway through a sip. She coughed as she swallowed the hot liquid the wrong way.
"Well, yes, occasionally, in the past, the Doctor has proved to be a bit of a problem. In fairness, however, I only actually succeeded in killing him once, and I am certainly not going to try again today. In fact, Doctor, I find myself in need of your help."
"Hang on a minute. You killed him? Killed him? As in dead?" said Rose.
"That's right," confirmed the Master.
"He looks pretty good for a corpse," she said..
The Master frowned slightly and looked at the Doctor. "Doesn't she know?"
"Know what?" asked Rose. "Know what, Doctor?"
"Not now," said the Doctor. "It's not important. What you should be paying attention to is the fact that he's trying very unskilfully to attack your trust in me. See, that's how he works."
"How very obtusely put, Doctor," said the Master.
"Yeah, well, I'm not really in the mood to play, thanks."
Rose turned to the Master. "This some sort of game to you then? You like scoring points off each other or something."
"Not today, Miss Tyler. Alison, if you please."
Alison put down her teacup, and stood up to slide back part of the wall panelling, revealing a monitor embedded in the wall. She touched a control and for a moment the screen flickered, before it resolved into a rotating graph. Rose screwed up her eyes as she tried to make out what it said, and then gave up. As far as she was concerned, graphs were only supposed to have an X-axis, a Y-axis and one or two lines. She tried to pretend she hadn't noticed the mathematics sliding along the bottom of the screen which has far too many Greek letters and far too few numbers for her to believe that it was actually meaningful.
But it meant something to the Doctor. He couldn't quite disguise the fascinated expression on his face, though he was trying. She could see how hard he was trying, and she wasn't the only one who had noticed. The Master now looked decidedly satisfied. Rose guessed that was a point to him.
The Doctor stretched his arms, sat back in his chair and managed to look completely nonplussed. "Alright, so you're a genius. Well done. What's the convoluted psychotic little twist you've got planned? After all, wouldn't want to waste all of that genius on a nice straightforward idea, would you?"
"Survival is a simple enough idea," said the Master.
"And how much blood have you split this time to keep your rotting carcass clinging onto life? How many people have you murdered just to give yourself a few extra years?" asked the Doctor, his voice harsh, cutting, and his face twisted into a sneer.
He was startled when it was Alison who replied. "None," she said.
"Doctor, what does the graph thing mean?" asked Rose
The Doctor glanced sharply at the Master before he spoke. "We're on Earth," he said. "In the early Devonian period."
There was the smallest cough from the Master.
"Fine, mostly early Devonian period. There's a few pockets of later epochs transplanted onto the crust of the planet. And we're also on Earth after it was destroyed."
"I don't understand," admitted Rose, trying to ignore the sudden memory that forced itself upon her: great chunks of her world burning in space, and nothing left but a dying sun.
"This is Earth, as it was millions of years ago occupying the present time, some fifteen minutes after you saw the Earth destroyed, and space a few seconds ahead of relative time."
Rose frowned. "So we're here now. On an Earth that's like it was then."
"Yeah. Sort of."
"What about the Sun then? It expanded, didn't it?"
The Doctor glanced at the Master, almost as though he were looking for guidance, before standing up to get a closer look at the screen. "That's the clever bit: there's a localised time-bubble so we're pocketed in the far future looking out at the past, to when the sun was intact. And we're being kept out of danger by the jump ahead of relative time." The Doctor turned on his heel to look at the Master. "For security, I assume."
"Quite correct."
"But from what?" asked the Doctor.
The Master clapped his hands together once and stood up. "That's enough for this afternoon, I think. I have a great deal of work to do and I'm sure that both you and Miss Tyler require rest and refreshment. Alison, something in the east wing with a view would be ideal."
"Hang on a minute," protested the Doctor. "You go to all the trouble of getting me here…"
"…and now that you see you are in no danger, I'm sure you will be delighted to accept all the hospitality that Sanctuary can offer. If you'll excuse me." Before the Doctor could object again, the Master touched a control on his own comms bracelet and transported out of the room.
"Very flash," muttered Rose.
"Complete waste of power," said Alison.
"Well, that's what vanity'll cost you." The Doctor stuck his hands into his jacket pockets and looked at Alison. "I suppose you'd better get on with your chores then and tidy us away into a neat little corner of your colony."
Alison left them alone in a light and airy day room that had a spectacular view of the thick rainforests that the grassland gave way to. Dividing doors at either end of the long room lead to separate bedrooms. Occasional tables littered the room, a teapot on one, a bowl of fruit on the one by the couch.
The Doctor lay sprawled across the couch, fingers laced together behind his head, while Rose gazed out the window.
"I should have known," murmured the Doctor, letting his mask slip. "Why didn't I know?"
Rose turned to look at him. He was staring at the ceiling, eyes wide. She knew what it was like to see her world destroyed, because he had taken her there. She knew what it was like to be the last of her kind, because he had taken her to a place where the humans were alien to her.
But she had always known that she could go back, always known that her Mum was waiting at home with a cup of tea and a warm hug. There was a bit of the universe she could point to and say that's me, that's where I'm from. When infinity was opened up to her, the knowledge that she had her own little corner was always a comfort. The TARDIS might have become a second home to her, but she was still a working-class girl from London, and a very small, very secret part of her knew that she wasn't going to be travelling forever.
Her thoughts turned to her father, her dad, and how she had felt when she had the chance to talk to him. When he should have been dead, but against reason and logic and sense she had had the chance to talk to him, to let him know who she was.
But no feeling that she could sum up could ever quite fit that strange lost expression on the Doctor's face. He was a child, and all Rose wanted to do was protect him.
She crouched down by the sofa, so that her face was almost level with his.
"How could you have known?" she said softly. "Whole universe, all of time and space. But you know now."
His eyes turned to hers, and this close she could see how very blue they were. And how very old. It scared her a little, looking into them. Like if she stared long enough she'd forget everything else.
"Doesn't matter. I should still have realised. Up here." He tapped his forehead.
"Like telepathy, you mean?"
"Yeah, in a way. Nothing fancy. Just knowing that you're not alone in the universe; knowing that there's others out there like you. Gives you a sort of intuition. Means we can recognise each other, predict each other. Mean we never die alone."
"You're not alone, Doctor. I'm here. I'll always be here." His hand reached out to hers and clasped it gently.
"But why him?" he asked. "Out all of them, why him?" His voice was stronger now, laced with an anger Rose recognised.
"He doesn't seem to want to kill you now, whatever it was that happened before. It seems alright here, actually," she said.
"That's only because I'm useful in some way," said the Doctor. "But what's his plan? What's he doing here?" A wry grin suddenly appeared on his face. "Look at me, falling into old patterns." He glanced at her. "Feels good, Rose. Feels normal, the old sort of normal."
"So what's the story then?"
"Old friends falling out, bit of a incompatibility in points of view."
"What d'you mean?"
"He likes killing things and being in charge of stuff. I like to stop him."
"So it is a game then?" She couldn't stop herself from sounding just a little bit angry.
The Doctor sat up and leaned forward. "The sort of game where people die, yes. The sort of game where everyone's grown-up and has to make very difficult, very serious and very nasty decisions, yes. The sort of game where you break the rules to win because there's too much at stake, yes. I used to be very good at games." He flopped down in the sofa. "Course now I'd be quite happy with a nice game of Twister."
"Twister?" Rose, reluctantly smiling.
"Yeah, it's got this wheel thing and a big mat with lots of coloured spots."
"I know what Twister is, Doctor." She sighed and sat down properly on the wooden floor and crossed her legs. "Anyway, he doesn't seem to be doing very much. And what's with the nicking an old Earth and sticking it down here?"
"Security. I told you."
"And they can both exist at the same time - the one back there and the one now I mean."
"Obviously. We're here aren't we? Very safe places exploded suns. Pockets of time, also very safe, especially now. Put the two together and you get yourself a very cosy little base."
"There's a lot of normal people here too, y'know."
The Doctor sat up suddenly. "Really?"
"Sure, there's a whole town out there," Rose told him. "Market day today," she added.
The Doctor shook his head. "They can't be indigenous. What are they doing here?"
"Maybe your friend want to conduct some mad scientist type experiments on them?"
"Don't put it past him," warned the Doctor. "Don't put anything past him." He leaned over to the table to pluck a grape from the fruit bowl, examining it for a moment before tossing it in the air and catching it in his mouth.
"Very impressive," said Rose.
"Anyway," said the Doctor, swallowing the grape. "You're hardly one to talk, getting chummy with his number one minion."
Rose shrugged. "She wasn't quite like that before. It's like she's keeping up her guard when you high and mighty Time Lords are around."
"What? And only you, Rose Tyler, can see the true face of our hopelessly misunderstood adversary?"
"Hey, nobody has actually tried to kill us yet."
"Speak for yourself," muttered the Doctor.
"Well, apart from that. It's all been very polite and civilised."
"And you'd like it to stay polite and civilised?" asked the Doctor.
"Yeah, so don't jinx it!"
The Doctor jumped to his feet and offered Rose his arm. She took it, and he led her towards the main doors, talking as they walked. "We're not getting any answers sitting about here, so I propose that you go talk to your lovely new friend, and I shall do a spot of careful investigating."
He opened the doors and ushered Rose through. Without a word, they agreed to head in separate directions. As the Doctor turned away, Rose grabbed his arm. "Don't do anything stupid," she said.
The Doctor grinned. "Do I ever?"
