So, this is set after 'The Christmas Invasion' (which really had nothing to do with Christmas and was obviously just using the holiday as a hook), and it's me trying to make the Doctor feel damn guilty for what he did to Harriet Jones. … Ok, not entirely, but it is based around him thinking about that event, and how he dealt with it. He's still fairly new here, and his personality's still forming, so it's (seems to me) natural he's still a little confused.

You won't get a lot of this unless you're at least superficially familiar with the older Doctors, and I'm sorry if the style's a little confusing, I was trying to represent actual thought patterns. The only other real thing you need to know is that the Master's old (I suspect self-appointed) name was Koschei, and the Second Doctor encountered him in the MA novel 'The Dark Path', where we see his transformation from good to evil.

Aside from that, enjoy.

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He has echoes in his head. Ideas, so many of those he doesn't know where he keeps them, and memories in other people's voices.

They're talking to him now, he can feel it, except they're not talking per se, they're just pushing the right memories into place, subtly moving his feelings around like a jigsaw.

His little conceit; he likes to call them his conscience.

His big one; he likes to think he doesn't need them.

They're usually applauding him, after all, they're his memories, even if they like to move themselves round. But now, there're too many of them, ten of him, there were ten, ten different ways of thinking, of accessing his thoughts, if he should choose. The most secret powerful skill of the aging Time Lord, and now it's crowding him in.

"I say old chap, that was a bit unnecessary, don't you think?" His humourous baritone, he remembers, lightly laughing but with a disgusted edge. He offered jelly babies to anyone he didn't like.

"One must do what is necessary." He remembers that mindset too, and wonders if he's moving further towards it or further away.

"Why don't we just get along, hmmm?" And he's playing for time to save his friends, but that's drowned out by a strident, angry barrage declaiming all loss of life as wrong, wrong, there's a principal! But he knows he won't do more than yell because he's stuck here and more than that, he won't sink to their level …

A calmer voice, "Time Lords do not interfere."

And that almost makes him laugh, because there's no Time Lords left, there's just him now, just him! And he can come and go and change things however he likes because he has the power and he's all alone…

And he pulls back, choking, almost drowning because he has to remember that's not him anymore either and it's so hard because up until a little while ago it was…

It is a little while before he thinks to ask, is a rule a rule if no one is around to enforce it anymore?

As though this is a trigger he remembers his voice being subtle, soft, (Scottish?) and he was advising caution again. "Of course you must do what you must, but never to no end. There must be a plan, there must be a goal. You work for good, remember, even if no one can see the hand you play. If you have ultimate control, what point in momentary vengeance?"

And another one, laughing, long hair flying as he realises, "There's no one to judge me here, I can be better and I can make everything right and I can have fun."

And finally he is relaxing because he remembers and it doesn't have to hurt, thinking in so many different ways. He is Right, he is Defender and he has Control. He can do this.

And out of the darkness comes one last voice, one last angry face and feelings of flute and all the memory can moan is betrayal, betrayal, and he spits out, "Koschei, Koschei, Koschei, Koschei …" in his head forever and a day, and all he can remember is being shaken to his bones.

He lies back with memory crowding around him, and wonders if this is how the great have fallen.