Episode: The Lost Child
Chapter: A Future Without Its Past [5/5]
Summary: Amy and Rory wanted for the TARDIS to get fixed so they could go back home and get married. Torchwood Three wanted to keep Cardiff safe as the Rift stabilized and solve a string of gruesome murders. Jack Harkness wanted to protect his team and talk to the Doctor. The Master wanted for humans to stop poking at things they could never understand. Or the one where old friends and old enemies meet again, new friends and new enemies are made, and something vast stirs in the dark.
Rating: T
Ianto leaves to fetch the SUV and the others move the boxes of equipment closer to the exit, so their departure can be as swift as possible. Gwen is the only one to step out of the alley, to talk to Andy about keeping the crime scene closed, while Jack sits the Master's limp form on one of the boxes, though he keeps a hand on his shoulder to help him stay focused, and Amy immediately takes the space next to him so he's leaning on her.
She looks worried, as if the Master was someone truly deserving of it, and while Rory doesn't join the pile, he still kneels in front of the Master and starts checking his vitals and the bandages on his right hand. Owen scowls, insulted, though Tosh calms him down with a gentle squeeze of his forearm and a quick smile.
They're worried for their friend, and fussing over him is the only thing they can do to assuage that worry.
Owen rolls his eyes but wipes the scowl off his face, so Tosh lets his arm go.
Jack is on the fence about those two, sure of how good they can be to each other but also how much damage can be done if things don't work out. Both Owen and Tosh have demonstrated in the last year how much they are willing to do when it comes to a loved one, and while Jack wishes them the best, he still doesn't want to see them hurt.
"Wait, so they're not Torchwood?" Andy asks at the other side of the plastic, voice louder as a result of moving closer to it.
Either Gwen is coming back in, or they're stepping away from the masses. Since there are no footsteps to go with the voices, Jack bets on the second.
"No, they're just giving us a hand. They're from UNIT."
"UNIT? As in Unified Intelligence Taskforce? The UN's elite group for all things weird and alien?"
Jack huffs, grinning at that, while the others look either bored, interested, or confused, in the case of the civilians.
"If you want to call it that," Gwen agrees with a smile in her voice. "Just, keep this place closed, alright?"
"Will do. One more thing. Was Saxon always a UNIT spy or was he recruited after or… Well, you know. Is he an actual alien or something?" Andy asks, and though he has lowered his voice, he's still clearly audible to the group behind the plastic, so Jack grimaces.
Oh, this will be fun to expla—
"Spatial genetic multiplicity," the Master calls, loud enough that Gwen peeks into the plastic, startled, with Andy looking over her shoulder. "An echo and repetition of physical traits across time. Or, to put it plainly for your primitive minds, an extremely lucky combination of genetic traits that, without there being a blood relation, results in a mirror image of another person. Or, even simpler, a 'long lost twin'. Now stop asking stupid questions and let's get out of here," he explains, grumbling the last part and burying his face in Amy's shoulder.
Gwen exchanges a startled grin with Jack but pulls back before he can do more than blink in surprise. Amy rolls her eyes with a grin even as she hugs the Master closer, while Rory turns to the others with a grin that looks more like a grimace.
"That actually means he likes you," he tells them with a shrug, and Jack doesn't bother hiding his scoff.
"I would've never guessed."
"Uh, Raggedy Man? What are you doing?" Amy asks, catching their attention, and Jack frowns as he sees the Master bury his face in her neck sniffing audibly.
"Amelia? Is that you? You don't look like you," he asks as he opens his eyes, unfocused but not as much as before.
"I grew up. Remember?"
"No, you got old."
"Oi!"
"You don't look like you but you smell like you… Where's Rory? Does he have a new face too?" the Master asks, ignoring her indignation, as he rolls his head to analyze the man kneeling in front of him. "Mickey? What happened to your beard? I liked the beard."
"There's no way you met Mickey Smith," Jack exclaims before his brain can stop him, and, this time, the Master lolls his head to stare up at him with a 'no duh' look. "He's in a parallel universe!"
"Time travel," he deadpans, and lets his head fall to Amy's shoulder again.
Jack's blush doesn't improve when he hears even Tosh and Owen snicker at him. His own team! Yes, it had been a dumb question, but still!
Fortunately for Jack's dignity, Ianto chooses that moment to come around, and everyone's focus goes back to the job at hand.
Of course, the SUV only has seven seats. They're eight. And, as the resident fixed point and injured Time Lord, it falls to Jack to have the Master sitting on his lap.
"For the record, I am completely against this," he scowls, unable to do anything else, as he wraps his arms around the dozing Time Lord to keep him from falling to the floor.
Amy and Rory sit at his sides, while Tosh and Owen are in front of them. At the front, Ianto is at the wheel while Gwen rides shotgun, though she makes sure to turn around to give Jack a huge grin.
"What, having a hot blond guy literally craving your presence for the sake of his sanity?" Owen mocks, earning a snort from Gwen and a grin from Tosh, while Amy and Rory grimace.
"Ew, that's like hearing about your cool uncle's hot escapades," Amy comments with a shudder, and Rory drops his head back while covering his eyes with his hands.
"I did not need that image."
"You wouldn't say that if you knew what he's capable of," Jack threatens, and when Owen gives him a look that dares him to try, Jack decides to oblige him. "The Master has conquered worlds, destroyed planets, enslaved entire civilizations… He conquered Earth using the Toclafane, killed a tenth of the population. He would have set out to conquer the universe if the Doctor hadn't stopped him and reversed time, to the moment after Saxon killed President Winters. For a whole year, he kept me chained aboard the Valiant, dropping by whenever the fancy struck him to kill me in a way he hadn't tried yet. He starved me, had me beaten to death, shot, asphyxiated, burnt. For a year, he kept the Earth under his merciless thumb. He turned Europe into a nuclear wasteland, destroyed Japan… One. Whole. Year. If it hadn't been for the Doctor, that would have been your future. Or, what, did you think the order to investigate something in the Himalayas was genuine?" he asks with a humorless grin, meeting the wide-eyed and horrified looks of the other occupants in the car, including the two civilians and Ianto's eyes through the rearview mirror. "But the Doctor came through. He reversed time, made it so that whole year never happened. And he didn't want to kill him, did you know? He actually wanted to take the Master alive, keep him locked in the TARDIS for eternity, despite how that would mean he would have to be locked in it too. Only, Lucy Saxon shot him before the Doctor could take him away. And instead of regenerating, the Master decided to die in the Doctor's arms. The last two of their species, and the Master chose to die, just to spite his old friend turned enemy," he adds, bitterness filling him as he remembers the Doctor's pain, and how neither Jack nor Martha had been able to help him with that.
And yet, here the Master is now, alive and – not 'well', not at the moment, but alive. Somehow, the bastard managed to come back from the dead, like he did at the end of the universe, only, this time, it looks like he decided to accept the Doctor's offer. How that happened and why the Doctor trusts him around his new companions, Jack just can't understand.
He really can't wait for that part of his 'personal future'. He has some choice words for the Doctor that are not to be repeated in polite company.
The rest of the ride goes by in silence, broken only by some nonsensical murmurs from the Master, like an equation that he doesn't resolve, a comment about how he likes 'chubby chickens' that makes almost everyone snort in amusement, and something about a sad little man benefitting from watching the Teletubbies, among other things, but he stays in that mostly asleep state he fell into after Jack picked him up in the alley.
The TARDIS is in another alley, slightly scratched and a paler blue than Jack remembers, but he feels his heart speed up just at the sight of her. The Master stirs in his arms, blinking his eyes open – and tenses.
"The TARDIS is gone. The Doctor is gone," he whispers, but Jack simply pushes the comment away, since the TARDIS is right in front of them.
He's not sure which misadventure that is from, but sincerely, he doesn't care. He'll finally be rid of the Master now, and maybe the Doctor will give him a call to help them sort the Rift's restlessness and the temporal void, but this is it. No more crazy Time Lord in Cardiff, thank you very much.
Amy tries the door while Jack helps Rory shoulder the Master's tense body, still unable to properly support himself, but it doesn't bulge.
"Uh, Raggedy Man, please tell me you still have the key," she asks as she turns to them with a grimace, but the Master frowns and lifts a tremulous hand—
The snap of his fingers echoes in the alley for but a moment, but nothing happens.
"Great, he's lost in Wonderland again," Rory groans, trying to adjust his bulk, and Amy steps up to the Master to rummage in the pockets of his leather jacket, though the Time Lord himself seems completely oblivious to her presence, snapping his fingers a couple more times before letting his hand fall.
"Found it!" Amy chirps as she steps away from them, the key in her hands – and freezes as her eyes meet the Master's. "Raggedy Man? Hey, what's wrong?"
"I can't… I am not… The Doctor is dead," the Master croaks with a clearly tearful voice, shoulders trembling, and Jack tenses with a sharp inhale. "Amy, the Doctor is dead. He's dead, I killed him," he sobs, and Jack finds himself in front of the Master in two long steps, pulling him up by his jacket once again so that his unfocused and tear-filled eyes can focus on his own with a gasp. "Captain…?"
"What are you talking about? Where's the Doctor?" he hisses threateningly, so tense as he stops himself from punching the Master that his whole body shakes.
"The Doctor's gone," the Master answers plainly, with no hesitation, and with his eyes focused on the present, on the here and now, before he tilts his head to look at the TARDIS over Jack's shoulder with growing dread and his breath quickening. "Gone, they're all gone, everyone is dead."
"No! No, that's not true!" Amy exclaims, hesitating for a moment before rushing to the TARDIS door and fiddling with the lock. "Let's get you to the infirmary and fix you up. Everything will be better once—No… No, it can't…"
"What happened to the TARDIS?" Rory questions, eyes wide and voice chocked, while the rest of Torchwood, standing behind him, frown in confusion.
"Gone. Everyone's gone. I'm the only one left, but it's coming back. It's coming back and I'm the only one left and everyone's going to die," the Master whispers, eyes losing focus, and, feeling dread slowly replace the anger in his blood, Jack turns around—
And freezes.
Amy is standing in front of the doors, but both of them are wide open so the inside is easy to see past her trembling figure.
It's a box. The police box is not the TARDIS, it's a box. There's only wooden walls and empty space inside the as-big-as-the-outside blue box. This is not the TARDIS; this is just a police box.
A police box that opened with the TARDIS key.
"It can't be," Jack manages to say past the chokehold on his throat, slowly lowering the Master so that he can stand on his feet again, if leaning heavily against Jack. "That's – That can't be the TARDIS, that can't…"
"Gone. The TARDIS is gone, and the Doctor is gone, and it's just me now and it's coming back. It's coming back and everyone's going to die," the Master mutters again, his hands wrapping tightly around Jack's upper arms so he can push himself off Jack's chest and meet his eyes with completely serious, focused and terrified gold-green eyes. "That's what you've opened, right in the center of Cardiff. What was born in the final days. Hell."
"What we've – you mean the Rift? The temporal void and the murders, all of that is coming through the Rift? But we sealed it! We sent Tommy back to 1918, he sealed the Rift! It's not at risk of opening anymore!" Jack hisses, clutching the Master's arms as tightly as the Master does his, feeling his unease and fear grow as he sees them fester in the Time Lord's gaze.
"Something is returning," the Master whispers, tremors increasing as he looks down, losing focus, before he forces himself back to the present once more with a shake of his head.
Jack looks at the empty police box that should be the TARDIS, at Amy and Rory, holding onto each other's hands in worry, and at his team, staring at them in wariness as they wait for Jack to figure things out.
"The Doctor? The Doctor's returning? How?" Jack asks, turning back to the Master, who scowls with a huff that has the benefit of slowing his breathing as he glares up at him.
"Don't you ever listen? Not someone, something," he hisses, though, a moment later, his anger deflates to leave only fear and uncertainty. "Not just the Daleks, but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could Have Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres. In the alley, that Neverwere, that was just the vanguard. But if the Rift continues to expand, if the time lock's broken, then everything's coming through. Don't you see? It's already happening. It's spilling onto Earth, drop by drop. And once it's free, no longer locked away, it will rage until creation itself ceases to be."
"What will rage? What is coming?" Jack hisses, carefully shaking the Master before he can stop himself, and the Master meets Jack's eyes.
"The Time War, Captain Harkness. The Time War is coming."
AN: The title, like with Silence in the Catacombs and Forest of the Angels, is a nod to The Empty Child, Jack's first appearance. The something vast stirs in the dark quote is from the Elder of the Ood in The End of Time.
Don't ask me, I don't know anything about temporal theory either.
And the characters literally did whatever they wanted with this one, from turning it into a two-parter to most everything that happened in it. I'm just as confused and flabbergasted, and the second part is coming along much in the same way. These characters have too much personality, it's hard to keep them out of trouble.