A/N: Just a brief note to thank everyone for sticking with this lengthy soap opera of a story! I'm hoping to hear some more comments, to find out what people think of this histrionic epic, hint, hint!

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oOo

Several hours passed before Kyris put in an appearance again. Ace had left him to his own devices while she concentrated her mothering skills on making sure Noni, who was only a few years younger than herself, was recovering from the indignity of getting sick. The Doctor and Tegan had briefly stopped by the kitchen, the Doctor heading for the Console Room at Ace's pointed glare. Tegan had reluctantly poured herself a glass of milk, making a face as she sipped what was obviously not her favorite beverage. She took it and a few stolen crackers with her to her room, swearing it wasn't just so she could hide out when pressed by Ace on the matter.

"I'm tired," she admitted. Both Ace and Noni noted how her hands kept straying back to her abdomen, instead of avoiding the bulge as she had before, just as they noted the new air of serenity she projected. Whatever she and the Doctor had found to discuss had apparently done wonders for her frame of mind. "I'm going to have a bit of a lie down. That's all." She left the room with a tired droop to her shoulders.

Noni, on the other hand, was full of energy; she appeared to have bounced back quite well. Her color had returned and she was talking a mile a minute when Kyris entered the room. She and Ace were sitting at the table, the half-empty package of crackers and two cups of tea between them while Noni filled her in on everything that had happened on Gallifrey after their disappearance. Kyris joined them, slipping onto the bench next to Ace, listening intently as Noni described her kidnapping.

"He was already in the house when we got back." She'd left the pram by the back door, hurriedly changed Susan's nappie and returned to the main room to find the Master waiting for her. Holding a weapon as he smirked at her startled reaction. She glowered at the memory. "I was holding Susan, so I couldn't even reach for a knife or try to kick the gun out of his hand."

Not that she'd let that stop her…

As soon as Noni recognized the unwelcome visitor, shecradled Susan to her chest and turned to run. The sound of the weapon discharging stopped her in her tracks just as the energy bolt sizzled over her shoulder, singeing a few hairs on her head and sending the baby into a startled howl. The bolt smashed into the opposite wall, destroying a bundle of her mother's spears, scattering the remnants in every direction. She hunkered down, protecting the now screaming Patience with her own body, but was fortunately far enough away that none of the shattered debris reached them.

A black-gloved hand reached down and yanked her to her feet, holding her by one elbow and shoving the barrel of the weapon, still warm from that first discharge, against not Noni's head but the baby's. "I have absolutely no compelling reason to keep her alive, not with her parents already serving as my hostages." He sounded like he meant it, and Noni risked a nod to show that she understood; she would give him no reason to use that weapon on the baby.

Not that she shared that particular memory with Ace and Kyris; she glossed over where exactly the weapon was aimed, hurrying past the threats the Master had made against their daughter. "At least there wasn't anyone else in the house," was all she did say.

She was grateful the Master didn't linger; although she knew she and Patience were the only ones home, she was terrified one of her brothers or sisters would wander back after lessons the way they sometimes did, noisy and hungry and far too easy for the Master to harm. Nor did she dare try anything, not while the gun was still firmly pressed against Patience's dark wisps of hair. She took comfort in the fact that there would be no confusion as to whether she and the baby had left of their own volition; the blackened wall and wreckage spoke for themselves. The rest of the family would be alerted, and help would soon be on its way.

"Where are you taking us?" she risked asking as the Master walked her quickly over to a ground conveyance he'd obviously stolen. There was blood on the driver's side of the bench-like seat, not quite dried, no doubt belonging to the unfortunate former owner of the vehicle. She shuddered, but the Master ignored it as he shoved her into the passenger side and sidled in next to her. She started to ask him again; he raised the weapon and she quickly shut her mouth.

"Put this on." He reached under the seat with one hand and thrust a pair of shackles at her, watching as she fumbled one end onto her right wrist. She hesitated with the other end, looking uncertainly at Patience and then daring a glance at the Master. He moved like lightning, grasping the open end and attaching it to the turbulence handle built into the metal between the windshield and her own window. Once it was secure, he checked the other end, making sure it was on as tight as it could go, and she gritted her teeth as her wrist began to throb with pain. She was forced to lean slightly forward, and turned herself as much as she could in order to give Susan a more comfortable resting place. The baby's wails had died down to a series of tired whimpers, interrupted by the occasional hiccup, and Noni jiggled her softly, trying to further calm her.

As she turned, her attention was arrested by the sight of the pram shoved awkwardly into the back of the ground vehicle. Her stomach lurched as she realized this meant the Master had long-terms plans for the baby, despite his threats. "You don't need an extra hostage, you already said so!" she blurted out without thinking. "Please, let me put her back in the house. I'll go with you wherever you tell me to; I swear I won't give you any problems!"

The Master had already started the vehicle; with a snarl, he raised his weapon, reversed it, and smashed its stock against her head. He softened the impact at the last second, refraining from knocking her into unconsciousness. The blow left her bleeding from a gash at the top of her forehead, and her cheek banged painfully into the window as her head bounced back. Patience was startled back into full-throated cries at the jostling she received. Noni tried to control her own cry of pain, but failed miserably. Blinking tears out of her eyes, she used her sleeve to try and stop the blood from dripping onto the baby's head.

"Silence!" the Master ground out through gritted teeth. "We are on a rather tight schedule and I would rather not have to render you unconscious. Not when I need you to keep that brat calm." He glared at Patience. If he knew who she really was, that she was Susan, Noni realized, she'd be in even greater danger. "By the time we reach our destination, I expect you to have shut her up. Or else I will."

Noni managed to soothe Patience into a half-doze by the time they reached the Contemplation Colonnade, only a few clicks from their isolated family estate. She looked around for any sign of a TARDIS or the Doctor, but saw nothing. Apparently, they'd arrived ahead of him.

The Master was silent as he hurried her out of the car, leaving her wrist shackled and pulling her along bythe otherend. He allowed her to lay Patience in the pram before shoving her in front of him, looking around alertly the entire time. He suspects an ambush, Noni realized as she pushed the pram along the pristine marble pathway that led to the Colonnade. Because it's exactly what he would do. She'd hated him in the abstract before, for the pain he caused the Doctor and his family; now, she felt the burning flames of a more personal hatred growing in her hearts. She fought to keep it under control; for the baby's sake, she needed to keep her head.

The one thing she feared the most, that the Master would take Patience away from her, never happened. He brought them to a bench, half-hidden between a group of close-set columns, shoved her onto the cold marble seat and attached the other end of the shackle to one of the slender poles holding the bench upright. She hunched forward, just as Patience woke up and started whimpering. The Master glared at her, and she reached into the pram awkwardly, one-handed and terrified of dropping the baby, who settled back down and nestled comfortably in the crook of Noni's free arm.

The Master grunted his approval. "I am moving out of your range of vision, but I am not leaving. If you make any sound, any sound at all, I will be forced to kill you. Do you understand that?" Noni nodded sullenly. She understood, all right. She'd been right to associate the Master with an ambush, because that was exactly what he was setting up. And she'd played a part, telling the Doctor where Kyris and Ace had gone in response to a note he was purported to have sent. How could she have been so stupid? They were wrong to entrust the baby to her, this was all her fault...

There was a sound as of hurrying feet, and the Master melted into the lengthening shadows between two of the larger columns. One was a deep black, the other a vibrant blue. She could have unerringly picked out his choice of hiding place even if she hadn't seen him edge closer to the black one.

She raised her head alertly at the sound of voices. The Doctor! He was there, trading barbs with the Master, demanding to know where his son and Ace were...and the Master was taunting him. She leaned closer, trying to hear them better, and inadvertently nudged Patience. Who promptly woke up and let out a distressed cry before Noni could stop her.

Hearts thudding, she waited to see what the result of that slip would be. She was terrified the Master would make good on his threat. Patience fell silent after that first cry, and Noni held her breath as the Master raised his voice so she could hear him clearly: "He knows you're there, no need to keep the brat quiet." Then, in a softer tone: "Would you care to view my latest acquisitions?" He must have intended those words for the Doctor. Noni braced herself for their appearance, which wasn't long in coming.

"I'm sorry, Doctor, he was already in the house." Her voice was steady, but she could feel her lips trembling. "He forced me to bring Patience."

More mockery, more threats, words that Noni barely listened to. Instead, she spent her time intently watching the two men, hoping the Master would make a mistake, drop his guard and give the Doctor an opening to wrestle the weapon away from him.

Until the Master's next words rang clearly to her distracted ears.

"I intend to leave you with nothing, Doctor, not even your life."

"How very...unoriginal," was the Doctor's only comment. Noni struggled furiously with her bonds, subsiding only when Patience began to fuss in protest of her rough handling.

"But what shall I do with my prisoners after you are gone?" the Master mused. He looked directly at Noni, who froze under that baleful stare but met his eyes defiantly. "Perhaps I'll raise Patience as my own, eh?" Noni flushed with a combination of rage and humiliation as he ran a clinical eye over her body. "Or perhaps I'll simply raise your grand-child to be a servant to my own. Perhaps seeing your domestic circumstances has awoken a longing for family in my own breast." His tone was mocking. "She's young enough to give me as many heirs as I might want, don't you think? And lovely enough to make it a pleasure rather than a chore to break her to my bed."

Before Noni could react to those hateful words, another voice rang out, a familiar voice, and she almost sobbed with relief as she heard her mother speak. "Or I will kill you."

"She didn't realize we wouldn't be able to find you if she killed the Master," Noni concluded earnestly. "Or she never would have done it, I promise. She was just worried about me..."

"And she had every right to be," Kyris said, his voice reassuring.

Ace muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "served him right, too" before offering her own reassurances to Noni. "What's done is done. Now if the Doctor will just get moving on finding out if the Master did something to us that could hurt Susan, this can all finally be over."

"We never stopped looking for you." Noni seemed to think Kyris and Ace were the ones who needed reassuring. She looked at them both, her face solemn. "I never wanted to leave Susan with him, but the Doctor--"

"I know," Kyris replied with a smile. He couldn't help but be amused by Noni's obvious dislike for his father's first self. "Thank you again for taking care of her for us." His voice cracked on the last word, and Ace reached up to take his hand in hers.

The Doctor decided to choose that moment to make his reappearance. "Right, time for some tests." He rubbed his hands together briskly. "Come along, you two, I've found the medical center. Noni, if you'd care to assist, I could use an extra pair of hands and I don't want to disturb Tegan's nap."

She found it charming that he'd obviously peeked in on his former traveling companion and found her sleeping. "Of course," was all she said, but she couldn't help the grin that spread across her face. This was finally it; if they found nothing wrong with Kyris and Ace, then they could get Susan back, bring Tegan to Earth or maybe even to Gallifrey to have her baby, and everyone would finally be where they belonged.