All belong to the BBC

Chapter 13

Harriet pulled her Seat to the side of the road and came to a stop.

"This is as far as I can go. There's been a wall of steel round Downing Street for some time now, well at least the last 20 odd years at any rate."

The Doctor undid his seat belt and opened the door.

"Thank you. Now I want you two gone. Is there anywhere safe nearby for you to go to?"

"Can we not go to the TARDIS?" Rose piped up

"No I'm afraid not. Unfortunately Harriet's act in saving us has led the Master know that I am here and I have people to protect."

Harriet looked as if she was making a difficult decision.

"I have a place we can go. Though when we get there I'm afraid some security measures will be needed to be done to us."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. I've never been there before."

"Well it's safer than being around me at the moment. Get going. I'll contact you when things have quietened down."

The Doctor closed the door and the blue Seat sped off towards the outskirts of the city.

He pulled his coat together and buttoned it and started walking towards SW1.

As he walked towards his destination his mind replayed the countless times he had faced the Master and the different ways he had been defeated.

What had been the deciding factor? In Devil's End it had been a combination of Jo's near act of sacrifice and his refusal of Azal's power. On Earth it was when he stopped the Master from closing a CVE by snapping a cable and falling from a height. This one did cost him his fourth incarnation. On Sarn he had stood firm as the fire that was to enlarge the Master to his former height turned to burning flames. It was there he thought he had ended his former friends life.

But like a bad coin the Master had come back, invading the Matrix as the Doctor was supposedly on trial which was a mockery in the end. And what did seem like the final battle on the cheetah world. The Doctor was lucky in that one. He resisted his fall into a savage form. The Master wasn't so lucky.

Yet he returned again. Sending his telepathic signal with a request to take his ashes back to Gallifrey after his execution by the Daleks. It was the only time the Doctor himself had not been threatened with extermination by the Hitler like pepper pots. He knew how that one ended up. Though in the end the Doctor himself in an act of compassion retrieved the Master's soul from the Eye in his TARDIS and had left the essence in the care of the medical profession on Gallifrey.

They made a mistake of giving him back a body with 6 regenerations left.

Though he had to admit that for once he was glad the megalomaniac was around. The Master was instrumental in getting him the explosive that let him defeat the Daleks at that huge cost.

And now as he nearly was at his destination, he wondered just one thing.

How on earth was he going to stop his old friend this time?