Disclaimer: I don't own the Doctor, the TARDIS, Rose or any of the characters, planets, technology etc that appear in Doctor Who. I wish I did but who doesn't?

Chapter Summary: The Doctor discovers who is behind everything that has been going on and deals with it in true Doctor style.

Chapter Thirteen: This Will End

The Doctor turned around. 'You know, I really didn't think it would be you,' he said calmly. 'Or maybe I just hoped that it wouldn't be.'

Liana gave him a smooth smile. 'I'm impressed you found me out. You were blundering along so blindly.'

'Ah, well, that's the way I work,' he said, tapping a foot on the floor.

'I thought I had got away with it.'

'Can't hide things like this forever,' he replied. 'Certainly not from a brain like mine.'

'Aren't you confident in your abilities?' she mocked.

He raised his eyebrows. 'As old as I am, I know exactly how good I am. Why pretend I'm not?'

'I'm not intimidated.'

'Good!' he exclaimed. 'That's good. But…you really should be.' He strolled across the floor. 'What exactly are you doing here?' he asked curiously.

'You don't know that?'

'That's why I asked.'

Liana smiled. 'I was rebuilding our species,' she said smoothly. She reached out and carefully brushed invisible dust off of the front of his suit and started to fix his tie which had come loose. 'From other creatures,' she added. 'Using my own biological structure as a template, I experimented and adjusted, trying to – '

'Create your own race of Time Lords,' he said, his tone neutral.

'Yes,' she agreed. 'Think of it, Doctor! We needn't be the last Time Lords! We could begin our race again, we could rebuild them! We could mend history again, we could mend the damage of the Time Wars!'

'You're using other creatures,' the Doctor said softly, stepping back, away from her. He looked disgusted. 'Against their will, you're taking them and butchering them and stealing all the best bits – '

'I don't have to,' Liana cut him off. Her smile was wide and arch. 'Now you're here I don't have to go about rebuilding the Time Lords in that laborious, tedious way.'

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply and then thought better of it. 'I don't think so,' he said as lightly as possible.

Liana's eyes narrowed. 'Why?'

'Um – don't take this the wrong way,' he said carefully, 'but – at the risk of causing offence – you're a raving lunatic.'

The other Time Lord regarded him silently. 'You're very rude,' she said eventually.

'But truthful,' he pointed out, grinning. 'And not ginger,' he added in an undertone, as an afterthought.

The slap wiped the smile off of his face.

'Ow,' he said, rubbing his face. 'Was that really necessary?'

'No,' Liana said calmly. 'But I felt like letting you know my feelings before I kill you.'

'Kill me? I won't be much use to you dead,' he pointed out reasonably.

Her smile was nasty. 'I can still use your DNA,' she said calmly.

'Well, how about I just leave now,' he said, backing away. He wondered if Xan had any idea that the three of them were no longer alone. Obviously, Liana had arrived after Xan and Rose had gone and she was out of range of Xan's telepathy. He hoped that Rose was all right.

'You're not going anywhere,' Liana snapped.

'You can't stop me,' the Doctor said.

'Are you willing to put that to the test?' the other Time Lord asked smoothly. Her eyes shimmered and her grin was nasty.

The Doctor backed slowly away. 'You don't want to fight me, Liana,' he said in a soft tone, menacing and deadly.

'No?' she asked. 'Why, Doctor, you're no match for me.'

'You're willing to bet on that?' he said, his face a carving in ice.

'Yes,' she said slowly, deliberately. 'I am.'

The Doctor bounced up and down on the balls of his feet and looked down at the floor. He looked up. 'Do you know how many I've fought over the centuries?' he asked in a conversational tone.

Liana tilted her head back but didn't answer.

'I've lost count, to be honest,' he continued. 'Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen, Ice Warriors, a hundred others. More, even. I've fought them all and I've defeated them all. I've fought and destroyed renegade Time Lords. Like yourself.' His voice rose menacingly. 'Do not underestimate me.'

The other Time Lord smiled. 'You're a warrior, aren't you Doctor? Our people were never warriors. Is that why you fought in the war? I saw it in your eyes when we spoke of the Time War. Was it because you are a fighter at heart? A survivor, perhaps? Our people were peaceful. You are not.'

'I was once,' the Doctor replied softly. 'No more.'

'Oh, scary,' she sneered.

'I am telling you that this will end,' he said coldly.

'You can't make me stop.'

'You lied about Xianfrith, didn't you?' the Doctor said conversationally. 'You said he was involved in illegal slave trading, but he wasn't, was he? He stumbled onto your secret and you decided to get rid of him.'

'What makes you think that?'

'He told me you were friends, once. You said that you barely knew each other. He had no reason to lie, did he? You came up with the trumped up charges against him, didn't you?'

'Xianfrith was in my way.'

'You were friends.'

'So? I don't let friendship stand in my way.'

'He trusted you.'

'Of cource he did. Xianfrith would never betray anyone, he doesn't understand the concept of treachery. It's easy to use someone who, however well experienced he may be in what terrible things people will do to each other, cannot quite believe that his friends would ever betray him.'

'And here was me wondering if he was in on this,' the Doctor said. 'But you've all but told me he had nothing to do with this, except trying to stop it.'

'So you're handsome and clever,' Liana observed sweetly.

'Oh, save it,' he snapped. 'I'm not interested in flirting with you, or anything else with you. My point is that you're a liar, a criminal, a lunatic and a lot of other things. You also let an innocent man go to the prison mines to keep a secret that you, frankly, haven't been particularly good at keeping your actions secret.'

She scowled.

'You see, I've spent a lot of time with humans,' he continued. 'A stupid little species at times, although they can be endearing. They have their good points, even if they can't see what's right in front of them half the time. But there's one thing humans are. They're resourceful. And if there's one thing that they're good at, it's surviving. You didn't realise how resourceful humans are, did you? That's how they managed to escape you. And you don't have the resources to keep them in prison, right? It's just you doing this experiment, a few big-wigs giving you the funds, but all that's going on renting the rooms and buying the parts and the equipment. You can't afford to hire guards and you certainly can't afford for them to leak that information out.'

'True,' she admitted. 'It's top secret. Which is why you're going to have to die.'

'Am I really?' he asked in tones of great interest. 'Maybe I've spend too much time with humans. I'm very resourceful myself. Very resourceful and frankly, I'm probably the cleverest person in this room. Cos, well, you're really quite stupid.'

'Am I really? How come?' she said with a smirk.

'Because you assumed I came alone,' the Doctor said.

Liana frowned and then collapsed onto the ground as a chunk of metal smacked her solidly across the head.

'Not very observant, is she?' Xan commented, lowering the metal pipe.

'It's the gloating,' the Doctor said, looking down at her. 'Gets them every time.'

'Are we just going to leave her here?' Rose asked. 'Is she dead?'

'Not yet,' Xan said regretfully.

'No,' the Doctor said with forced cheerfulness.

'I can soon remedy that.'

'We'll just hand her over to the authorities and then be on our merry way.'

'Or we could tie her up and leave her here,' Xan said. When the other two both turned and stared at him, he said irritably, 'I spend six months in a prison mine, and then months on the run from the law in fear of my life because of her. Believe, I'm restraining myself.'

The Doctor considered. 'Nah,' he said. 'She might escape.'

'That depends,' Xan said.

'On what?' Rose asked.

'On how many pieces she's in when we tie her up,' he said grimly.

'Stop it,' the Doctor said, rather sharply. 'You don't need to stoop to her level.'

'Or we could sell her in pieces for scientific research. That has a certain poetic justice to it.'

'Enough with turning her into a jigsaw,' Rose told him. 'Let's just tie her up and take her to the police, or security, or whatever. Then we can leave.'