The TARDIS

"Go ahead. Ask me."

Kyris looked up, startled. He'd been reading in the Cloister Garden, leaning against a fallen column (fallen by design or accident?) with a half-eaten sandwich lying forgotten by his side. "Ask you what?" He was honestly bewildered. They'd been chasing the Master fruitlessly for almost two months now, and he'd sought refuge this "afternoon" because he could no longer stand the sight of the tracking device his father had tinkered together. Its silence had become a symbol of futility.

The Doctor hunkered down next to him, resting his hands on his knees. "There's been a question burning on your face since we left, and I warrant it has nothing to do with either Ace or chasing the Master. Does it."

Kyris ducked his head, embarrassed to have been caught with speculation in his eyes. Which he must have done, or his father wouldn't have sought him out like this. Not that they hadn't spoken; on the contrary, they'd spent a great deal of time together, and an equal amount of time apart, separately and together trying to improve their chances of finding the Master, while at the same time learning more about each other and the lives they'd led before. Before the Master, before this endless searching. But lately Kyris had found his thoughts straying from the task at hand, returning to the conversation he and Ace had shared the night before he left. "It's none of my business," he mumbled. "I'm sorry if I've, what's the saying? Put you on the spot?"

If he'd hoped to distract his father with a lecture on the origins of yet another Earth saying, he was disappointed. The Doctor stared at him until he looked back up. Until he asked. With a sigh, Kyris capitulated, offering a mental apology to Ace for not keeping shut as she'd asked. "Leela's daughter, Noni, the oldest one, she came to Ace the night before we left. Told her Leela had...feelings...for you when you traveled together."

"Noni is not your half-sister," the Doctor replied, not to the fumbling statement, but to the unspoken question he knew was in his son's mind.

Kyris straightened, startled and defensive. "I never asked if she was."

"But you wondered." The Doctor looked steadily at his son until he nodded reluctant agreement. "I met your mother after Leela left me. I thought you knew that."

"I did." The words came out angrier than Kyris intended, burdened with shame that he'd even considered such a thing. "I knew that. She's too young, she'd be older than me. I did know that. But there are all kinds of paradoxes out there, like meeting your grown daughter while you're just pregnant with her."

The Doctor's grin was rueful. "Touche."

"Noni said her parents used to fight, when she was younger. About you. She was afraid they'd start again, now you were back."

The Doctor went very still at that revelation. "I see."

Kyris studied his father, not sure what he was looking for nor what exactly he was looking at. The Doctor was much better at hiding his thoughts than his son. "Ace asked me not to say anything to you. Told me not to start trouble, not in so many words, but that was what she meant. Said she didn't want her family fighting."

"And so we won't. You didn't ask, I did. And now we both know." The Doctor rose to his feet with a groan, arching his back and stretching. "Never get old, Kyris. It wreaks havoc on your system."

Kyris scooped up his book and sandwich and came to his feet as well. "It beats the alternative."

Before the Doctor could respond, an alarm shattered the TARDIS' silence. As one, the Doctor and his son stared upward. "The Master," the Doctor breathed. "It's about bloody time."

But Kyris was already half-way to the door. The Doctor strode after him, stepping over the book and sandwich his son had dropped, unheeded, when the alarm began.

"Let's finish this." His voice was hard, and the Doctor merely nodded and continued out of the room without a backward glance.

oOo

"A decoy!" The words exploded from Kyris' mouth with bitter force, and he swore under his breath as he came to a stop just in front of the TARDIS console. He turned to face his father, just coming through the door behind him. "That bastard keeps one step ahead of us at every turn."

The Doctor sighed as he closed the door behind him, looking down at his jury-rigged tracking device. They'd been chasing the Master's false signal for almost a week, chasing it down and only barely escaping with their lives when the explosive device to which the false telemetry was attached had exploded. "That's done it for this method," he finally said, his voice quiet, regretful. "He'll just play the same trick on us, only next time we might not be so lucky." He nudged the welded-on equipment with one toe. They'd expended a great deal of time and effort on what had turned out to be the wildest of goose chases. It was disheartening, to say the least.

"So now what?" Kyris demanded, his voice a mixture of anger and indecision. "How do we find him without walking into another trap? We have to be back in time for the baby, but we can't go without finishing this."

The Doctor shook his head. "No. You have to be back for the baby. I don't." He raised his hand to forestall the protest he saw in his son's eyes. "I've been rethinking my 'strategy,' if you can call it that." There was self-disgust in his voice. "I've decided to take you back to Gallifrey. Then I'm going to work on this." He pulled the data retriever out of his pocket. "Your mother didn't develop this completely on her own. She was no expert in miniaturization; someone helped her. I'm going to see if I can find that someone, get them to modify this thing so I can track the Master with it."

"I can help--"

"No, you can't," the Doctor interrupted. Expecting the protest. "Miniaturization isn't your specialty, either. Is it." He waited for Kyris' reluctant head-shake, then continued. "We've been searching for two months, and found only a trap the Master set for us. It's time to change tactics. I don't know how long it will take me to find someone who can help me modify this, and I don't dare tinker with it myself until I understand exactly how it was put together in the first place. I'd be able to focus better if I knew you were back with Ace. And I know she wants you there when the baby is born."

"She wants us both there," Kyris pointed out.

"Then she'll get half of what she wants, which is more than most people get," the Doctor shot back waspishly. "You know you want to be there as well."

"Yeah, I do," was Kyris' sullen, unwilling response. "You're right. But I don't have to like it."

"Nor do I. But it is what will happen." There was a finality in the Doctor's voice that his son couldn't find the strength to argue with. Besides, his father was right. He did want to be back in time for the baby, and knew Ace would never forgive him if he missed it.

Once again, the Master would have to wait.