Episode: The Master Stitches

Chapter: ... And How to Reach Across Them [3/5]

Summary: Torchwood wanted to find a way to fix the problem without anyone killing each other first. Amy and Rory wanted to keep a secret while keeping everyone safe. Jack wanted to get rid of the Master before he was driven insane. Koschei just wanted… He wanted… What was it again? Or the one where things gets fixed but still stay broken… and where things get better yet worse at the same time.

Rating: T

"Right. Give it to me," Koschei orders as he joins the group around the computers, putting the Doctor's jacket over his shoulders once more.

Comforting as the Raxacoricofallapatorian t-shirt is, he has been forced to switch it for one of Harper's white t-shirts due to size issues. He's sad now. Note the sarcasm.

T-shirt or no t-shirt, Koschei's finally recovered enough that they can have a proper debriefing, after siphoning Rift energy to speed his healing and aided by the stability provided by Harkness' status as a Fact. There's also the teensy tiny detail of having watched a movie literally pressed to Jack's side, the positioning having been decreed after one too many comments about the plausibility of the temporal physics in the movie and yet more flying popcorn from the others, who wanted to watch the monstrosity that is Back to the Future.

He's not fully healed, nowhere close, but at least he's not drifting anymore, tethered to the present by his re-growing feelers and, much to his displeasure, Jack's presence. As soon as he's back in the TARDIS, he can use her instead as his tether, and the Zero Room to heal properly, but since the TARDIS isn't here, Jack will have to do.

It helps that he's unaware of just how much Koschei actually needs him. His pride wouldn't survive such a blow. After all, it's one thing to plead when he's been so badly hurt that he's not aware of himself – literally, he can't remember much of what happened since before he awoke in the Hub, and practically nothing of the alley after the Neverwere attacked him – but it's completely different to have to ask such a thing when he is conscious of it.

So. Vanquish the Neverwere, fix the Rift, and leave bloody Cardiff. Priorities set, Koschei rolls his shoulders to adjust the jacket and takes his place in the circle surrounding the screen. Jack gives him a look, suspicious as expected and definitely not trusting, but aware that, right now, they are each other's best bet. Well, that the Master is Jack's best bet at fixing this mess.

"Six days ago, we detected a surge of Rift activity usually tied to the appearance of a Weevil. However, when we arrived at the scene to capture the Weevil before it could cause any damage, we instead found a body," Jack explains, passing Koschei a folder instead of showing the images onscreen, out of respect for Amy and Rory given their reactions to the one in the alley. "Since Weevils use their teeth to rip their victims' throat out, it was clear we were dealing with something else. We found nothing on the database that could give us a clue about the victim's identity, or at the scene. We got nothing the next day either, but… There have been instances of people getting caught in the Rift, crossing through time periods or vanishing. We thought she was one of those, only… one of the unlucky ones," he adds, grimacing, before handing Koschei some more folders. "That was before we found the next body."

Jack doesn't say more, letting Koschei look over the files at his leisure, which actually takes him three point one seconds, flipping through them. Still, even after Koschei has closed the files, he stays silent, the rest of his team imitating him while Amy and Rory exchange a look over Koschei's head.

Koschei. Maybe that name is fitting, after all. But… No. No, because Koschei could deal with this, but Koschei always had a team, a squad of Time Lords with him, always had Theta. And Theta is gone now, both the real one and the ghost, due to the damage he suffered in the Neverwere attack.

No, this time, Koschei's alone. And the only Time Lord who could deal with this kind of thing alone…

Well, there's only one Time Lord left in all of existence, so these idiots are lucky all coins have two sides.

The Doctor would have fixed this by being clever. The Master will by being efficient.

"Give me all your data on the Rift activity of the last two months," he orders, passing the files back, and Jack merely answers by looking at Sato, who complies without a second thought, quickly bringing it up on the screen. "These points here, expand. Any other unusual activity in the last half a year? From UNIT's files too, I know you have access to them," he asks even as he looks over the data from the activity peaks, frowning at the latest one.

He remembers something about psychic impressions triggering the Rift, which is a frankly ridiculous thought, but this must be what they had been talking about. Still, there's something wrong with that…

"It's only been a week. Why do you need the last half a year? Whatever triggered these murders has to be recent," Harper scoffs, almost defensively, and the Master doesn't even bother giving him a pitying look. "Also, UNIT? This is Cardiff. Torchwood takes care of Cardiff."

"Oh, you sad little man. Ever watched the Teletubbies? You'd benefit from that," the Master hums after that last comment, giving in to the urge to roll his eyes, though he doesn't miss the way the others startle. "Seriously, none of you? Give it a try, you obviously need it."

And they do. Televisions implanted in the stomach? They're useless, how could someone watch their own stomach? Obviously, no one can. So that means it's for someone else's benefit. Collaboration. Isn't that why it's a children's show? To teach them to play nice and help each other? Brilliant way to subtly teach puny humans the 'values' of friendship and generosity and whatever else. Also, a good idea about how to get good use out of an otherwise useless species. Make them think they're being useful, so they don't rebel, while actually using them for his own self-interest. If only he was inclined to such tools of conquest, he would try that one next.

But then again, what for? It's no fun without someone to try and stop him. Chess is a game for two.

"I am the sad little man?" Owen complains with a disgusted grimace, and there's more than one smirk floating around.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Amy asks the Master softly, resting a hand on his arm, and he has to squash the urge to rip it out of her grip.

He has worried her. Both Amy and Rory. The least he can do after landing them in this mess is to not give them any more reason to worry. So, instead of jerking his arm away from Amy's touch, he rests his own hand on top of hers and squeezes softly, meeting her eyes with a grin.

"Amelia, I promise you I have been far worse and still managed to get things done. At least this time I have a semi-dependable team around, plus you and Rory, so fret not," he reassures her perhaps not as cheerfully as he would've done any other time, but it's definitely enough to take the edge off of her worry.

"Semi-dependable?" Jack repeats with a scoff, but he doesn't bother with anything more even when the Master turns to him with a lifted brow, daring him to argue. "Is this about 'us' messing with the Rift?"

"Obviously," he answers before he can stop that knee-jerk reaction, though he immediately lifts up a hand with a wince to stop any potential argument breaking out. "What do you know about Neverwere?" he asks instead, turning to Jack instead of looking at the data Sato just got onscreen.

Frowning in annoyance yet still knowing better than to push the matter, Harkness decides to focus on the question, crossing his arms in front of his chest and lowering his chin.

"Not much. At the Time Agency, we were taught about temporal anomalies that they classified as temporal voids. They were events of 'no time', times with no 'history'. They didn't register as time, only as a complete lack of it. They were moments when time had ceased to exist, leaving only a scar in its wake. No one had ever seen, lived or registered a temporal void, but there was always something left behind. Someplace grass wouldn't grow, some statue no one had built, a mineral vein that didn't belong in the area… Whatever it was, it gave people a bad feeling. A bit like a haunted house, only, when analyzed with the proper instruments, these ones had a reason for it," he explains, looking pointedly at the Master once he's done as prompt for his explanation.

"The Footprints of the Neverwere," he answers with a nod, folding his hands behind his back and staring at the water sliding down the pillar in the middle of the main room, though his mind is far away – before he shakes his head and focuses back on the present, meeting Jack's eyes once more before turning his attention to their audience. "Unlike what you may believe, time is not fixed. History changes all the time; it isn't set in stone. You just don't happen to notice any such changes," he explains, stopping for a moment as he tries to decide how to best communicate his next point to beings without a link to the fourth dimension. "However, there are some events that are set. Some things must happen, will always happen, in the same manner, no matter what else changes. Those are Fixed Points in Time. Other events link to a time traveler, and can be a source of paradoxes if they are messed with. Going to Leadworth now, in 2008, could change your timestream, which would result in a paradox as it ripples to all the points in the timeline you have interacted with," he tells Amy and Rory, who frown for a moment, exchanging a look, before answering with a tentative nod. "We can deal with that later. My point is, changing time is easy. It can still be wounded and it has weak points, but Time is far more resilient than anyone outside it gives it credit for. Which is why, while a clumsy time traveler can create a wound in time, it takes a lot more to create a Neverwere. Neverwere are never an accident," he adds, this time meeting Jack's eyes and staring, seeing him frown in worry as the concept sinks in. "Had the nanogenes not been stopped—"

"That was an accident!" Jack immediately protests, uncrossing his arms as he clenches his fists tightly and takes a step closer, but the Master stands his ground.

"Maybe. But you get the idea," he answers, having expected as much, and Jack grimaces, looking paler, before taking back his spot, arms crossed more defensively this time. "The Nazis winning World War II wouldn't faze the timeline. That's how resilient it is," he adds for everyone else's benefit, and more than a couple curses and gasps follow those words. "Which is why I'm sure you did something. So, stop saying you did not. Torchwood is known for poking at stuff. I dare you to look me in the eye and say you haven't messed with the Rift or tried to open it even once."

And, as expected, all the members of the Torchwood team look away, guilty or chastised – except Jack, who meets the Master's gaze with dawning horror.

The Master's stomach falls to the ground.

"What did you do?" he whispers, holding back a grimace—

"We opened the Rift."

And, at that, the Master drops his head in his hands with a long and exasperated sigh.

"You know, just once, I would've been happy to be proven wrong," he grumbles under his breath before looking up, hesitant. "Fully opened it? Not, you know, tried to but couldn't?"

"No. Actually fully opened," Jack groans, and, if anything, his team is even more guilty and ashamed. "Before the election."

Before the election.

The Master stiffens, looking up at Jack with wide eyes.

"Before the election? But that's… That can't be," he stammers, thinking back to his time as Harold Saxon, trying to remember if the timeline had behaved any more abnormally than it was to be expected— "Oh, the temporal overlap! You actually opened the Rift then? With a temporal overlap already happening?"

"It was a mistake, alright?!" Owen exclaims before Jack can answer, snarling at the Master with shame in his eyes. "It was a mistake and we fixed it! The Rift was closed, Abaddon is dead, problem solved!"

"Abaddon?" the Master asks, frowning softly, once Jack is done calming Harper down with a hand on his shoulder. "You're really original with the names. Whatever, doesn't matter. You opened the Rift then, have since closed it. But that wouldn't have caused a Neverwere and even if it had, the Neverwere in the alley was not it. That one came from the Time War."

"But the Time War—"

"Is time locked, inaccessible. Mostly. Don't ask, personal future," the Master adds before Jack can open his mouth again, turning to the screen as he tries to figure out why a Neverwere that crossed into Cardiff all those months back would stay inactive for this long and still be that well fed—

And stops, stilling completely as he deciphers what's on the screen.

The peaks are labeled with a simple name and about a line of information. Sato's doing, most likely, to help speed up the process by giving the Master an idea about what went on, a way to tell apart different activity like 'arrival of plane Sky Gypsy' and 'Rift rewinding due to explosion'. One, however, catches his attention, mostly because it doesn't fit the facts he's just been told about.

"Who is Bilis Manger and how did he release this Abaddon creature?"

The Torchwood operatives tense before shame and guilt fills them again, and when the Master's eyes meet Jack's this time, he makes it clear enough that he will not back down without answers.

If his team is that affected by this mess, by that temporal spike that just happens to coincide with them opening the Rift…

"He's a timeless man with the ability to step between different eras," Jack explains, straight to the point, and the Master stills and listens.

Timeless. Not belonging to anywhere or anywhen, a time traveler whose original timeline has been changed beyond recognition, or who has become stranded in the Vortex. Maybe even someone who no longer remembers where they came from, either due to age or injury. The ability to step between eras can be technological, though Jack hasn't mentioned any kind of Vortex manipulator…

"And Abaddon?" he asks instead, deciding to get all the general facts first.

"Bilis called it the Great Devourer, the son of the Great Beast. He said it had been cast out before time and imprisoned beneath the Rift. It absorbed the life of anything that got caught under its shadow, which is how we killed it. It chocked on me," Jack answers, grinning crookedly with his last sentence, though his fellow Torchwood agents still look uncomfortable despite their own amusement.

"That's impossible."

"Don't say that until you see me without my clothes."

"Jack!"

"Sorry, old habits," the bastard tells his flustered team, obviously not sorry, but the Master merely rolls his eyes and ignores Amy's awkward chuckle and Rory's pained whine, turning his attention to Sato and the computer.

"Give me as much detail on that spike as you have," he tells Sato, pointing at the Abaddon-Rift thing, and, after a moment to shake her head back to the present, she obeys. "Jack, focus. There's no such thing as before time. There was nothing before time, surely the Time Agency taught you that much," he adds, glaring at Harkness while Sato gets to work.

"That's what Bilis said. Look, we didn't exactly have time to run scans on that thing, and the Hub was collapsing. And after…"

"There was no body left. Abaddon collapsed in a bright light, and there was no trace of it when we checked," Cooper supplies when Jack goes silent, uncomfortable but sharing a quick smile with her boss. "We fixed the Hub, examined some of the victims—"

"But it was as if their hearts had just given up," Harper cuts, taking over the explanation despite his obvious discomfort, crossing his arms over his chest. "We passed it as a gas leak, to cover for the numbers. Abaddon's footsteps actually helped with that, cracking some lines and who knows what else."

"Unfortunately, the damage to the Hub means we lost a lot of data or just didn't record it. Most of this is from before we opened the Rift, and from some street cameras and civilian recordings," Sato adds, pulling up some images and graphics.

"Daemon!" the Master exclaims as soon as he sees the first picture, practically pushing Sato away in his haste to click on the next images to confirm his suspicions.

"Should we get an exorcist?" Rory asks hesitatingly, turning to Torchwood, and Harper grumbles something that sounds like an agreement.

"I said Daemon, not 'demon'. Pay attention!" the Master chastises, never looking away from the screen even as he frowns in confusion, noticing the inconsistencies. "Aliens, from the planet Daemos. Ancient ones, by this universe's standards," he adds, trailing off as he tilts his head, despite the fact the new angle won't shed any kind of metaphorical light on the issue at hand.

It may look like a Daemon, but the whole 'life-absorption through shadow' thing doesn't really fit.

"I thought that was a myth. The Daemons, the race that created life as a means to conduct experiments, fated to never leave their planet of origin. Of course, no one could say which or where that planet was, or what they looked like," Jack adds, more for the benefit of the other humans than for the Master's, who is busy checking over the readouts on Rift activity from before and after this Abaddon incident.

"Oh, they were very much real, ancient and with such technology that many advanced civilizations thought it magic. They could change size and shape, up to a point, and of course they could leave Daemos. They just didn't care to do it unless it was for an experiment. At least you got that part right. But they're gone now, eradicated in the Time War, like many other—" the Master explains with a scowl before cutting himself off as a new thought pops up in his head, immediately searching through the files for the data on the most recent notable spike of activity, as well as those before the Abaddon incident, and ignoring Sato's surprise and indignation at having him get through her security with ease. "If you want your data protected, set better encryptions. Now, this is interesting. What happened to Bilis Manger?" he asks as he compares the data onscreen.

Match. Match. Almost a match. And, surprise surprise, another match! Of course, neither of the humans around would be able to see the graphics of energy activity and spikes as matching, but that's because they don't know how to read the fourth dimension.

"He said he'd done his part and vanished," Jones answers, straight to the point, while the others exchange confused looks.

"He's back."

"What?!"

"Pay attention!" he scolds them all, comparing the recent readings about the Neverwere appearances and grimacing when they also match. "If his mission was to release Abaddon, then his job was done and he could leave. If his mission was to aid his master in taking over Earth, or devouring all life on it or whatever, then his mission failed. Abaddon died of an indigestion. For anyone else, that would be game over."

"But not for a time traveler," Harkness finishes, joining him to stare at the screen and frown at the graphics displayed. "Is it just me, or are these points here and here a match?" he asks, gesturing to a couple of spikes in the 'before Abaddon' and 'first Neverwere' graphics, and the Master smirks humorlessly. "So, the Neverwere are his doing?"

"Do you ever pay attention? The Neverwere come from the Time War. However, if Bilis is trying to bring back a Daemon, or something similar enough – Skaro, he could even be trying to reach for 'before time', for all we know! One way or another, he's managed to tap into the Time War, in the one moment in all of it when the time lock was at its weakest. Just before the destruction of Gallifrey, at the end of the War. When all the worst creatures were roaming around. If he manages to crack it open—" he explains, though his voice cuts with a chocked sound, the sudden realization and horror making a shudder rack his body.

"We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be."

Rassilon's eyes boring into him, filled with nothing but contempt and disgust, gauntlet lifting – and the Doctor stepping between them, gun cocked, ready to kill.

"But you can fix it, right? Come on, Raggedy Man, we've dealt with worse," Amy tells him, voice cutting through his thoughts as much as does the warmth of her hand on his shoulder.

The Master looks at her, at Rory's expectation, and instead turns his gaze down to the console, to his hands tightly curled into shaky white-knuckled fists.

"No. No, you haven't. But the Vortex itself will reach out of the Schism to unravel me the day I let that bastard get what he wants," he seethes, glaring at the image of Bilis Manger onscreen for lack of Rassilon's smug grin. "He took everything from me. I won't let him take even a second more. Which means we have to stop this idiot's poking before he manages to unleash something worse than a Neverwere," he adds, taking in a deep breath so that the last sentence comes out louder and clearer.

"There are things worse than that?" Rory asks, paling, and the Master just gives him a tight look. "Oh, that's the you don't want to know look, isn't it?"

"You're paying attention, good. You may yet survive this one," he whispers, making sure to add a grin to it so they know he's kidding, though Amy still pokes him in the shoulder for it, eyes full of worry. "First of all, we need to get to the TARDIS."

"Right. There's one little problem with that," Amy answers, grimacing, and the Master frowns, trying to hide his growing unease. "The TARDIS is gone. We tried to get you to it after the Neverwere, but… There was nothing inside. She was just a wooden police box."

"Meanwhile," the Master groans, rubbing his face and huffing before looking up again to face the humans' confusion. "They're similar to the Neverwere but not as aggressive. They are a split-second differential, a 'parallel instant', you could say. Whatever they interact with is taken out of your timeline, into that differential. It still exists in this universe, you can find records of it, but no one will have memory of it," he explains, wincing at the simplicity and how much he's actually butchering the explanation both by using English and by adjusting it to fit the comprehensive capabilities of tridimensional creatures.

Ianto Jones startles at that, immediately rummaging in his pockets for his wallet – and taking in a sharp breath at whatever he sees in it.

Jack and Gwen peek at it, startled, before Harkness wraps an arm over his shoulders with a smile.

"Your sister and her children, I assume?"

"I think so. Those are my niece and nephew. But I… I don't know her," Jones answers softly, confused but hopeful, and the Master's frown vanishes as realization dawns. "What will happen to her? If we stop Bilis… Will I get the memories back? Will I get her back?"

"Yes," the Master answers plainly, firmly, no hesitation, and even going as far as to meet Ianto's startled eyes. "If everything works out, you will get everyone and everything back. But I'll need your help," he adds, turning to Jack, who looks even more surprised than anyone else.

Then again, having the Master ask for help is probably more than enough reason to be startled.

But without the TARDIS… Without the TARDIS or any other Time Lords, the Master is going to need Jack and his nature as a Fact.

"Torchwood's help?"

"No, Captain Jack Harkness' help. Don't make me ask again," he answers, scowling, because it doesn't matter if he needs Jack's help, he's still not comfortable with asking for it.

Besides, Jack needs the Master almost as much, not to say more, so he just grins but nods – and extends a hand.

"Don't stab me in the back when we're done. Those always itch horribly and tend to be in difficult spots to reach," Jack jokes, though his eyes are serious, and the Master merely rolls his eyes and clasps his hand.

"And don't you shoot me. I've had enough guns for the rest of my lives."

AN: And now, to answer your reviews...

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