A/N: The events that are written about in this chapter come from the big finish audio, 'Master' featuring the Seventh Doctor and Geoffrey Beevers' Master. It's an amazing audio that I have listened to twice already and recommend to anyone who is curious about the Master and the Doctor's beginnings. I also have the file ready for emailing if anyone doesn't feel like buying it. ;)

The next day, K'anpo woke me shortly before sunrise. He made sure I was well prepared for the journey ahead of me before bidding me farewell and sending me down the mountain. I took my time returning to the base of the mountain, taking note of the way the snow was slightly tinted orange in the sunrise and admiring the beauty of the stones that were pink, brown, red, and a dozen other colors.

I readjusted K'anpo's gifted satchel over my shoulder as a thought suddenly came to me. I remembered that even though the Doctor had not always been fond of the Time Lords, he still greatly missed his home planet. Hoping that my idea was in fact a good one, I pulled out my phone and took a series of pictures of Gallifrey's stunning landscape. Further down the mountain were the beautiful daisies the Doctor would later recall and I took a beautiful picture of the stretch of flowers with the Cadonflood shining far below.

After I felt I had taken enough pictures, I place my phone in my pocket again and continued my trek to the base of Mount Cadon. By the time I passed through the snow and daisies and finally reached the red grass towards the base of the mountain, my legs and feet ached and it was already mid afternoon. I hurried the rest of the way down the mountain as fast as I dared and made for one of the larger trees that stood along the riverbank. The shade of the tree's silver leaves was a wonderful relief from the intense heat of Gallifrey's twin suns and the river's water splashed on my face immediately began to cool my heated face.

Leaning back against the tree's trunk, I sighed and closed my eyes with a smile. Speaking with the Doctor over the phone the night before and receiving K'anpo's help had made me feel just a little less hopeless about my situation. I had a plan and a map and a phone in case I needed help from the Doctor or even Jack or Missy. Letting out another sigh, I hugged the satchel against my chest and stayed there under the tree for close to an hour. I eventually decided that if I was going to stay by the river that night and start for the other side of the mountain the next day, I needed better shelter in case more Gallifreyans (specifically Theta and Koschei) came by the river. I had just barely found a place well hidden behind a group of large trees that was blanketed with tall, thick red grass when the two boys I had been hoping to avoid came running towards the river.

Stifling a gasp, I lay flat on my stomach with the grass ending mere inches above my head as the boys ran to the river's edge. Theta reached the water first and when Koschei caught up to him, he playfully pushed against his friend's shoulder as he joked about pushing Theta into the water. Theta pushed Koschei in return and stuck out his tongue at the other boy. I watched in stunned silence as the two began playing on the banks of the river, occasionally splashing each other and throwing handfuls of scarlet grass in each other's faces. They carried on like that long enough for the suns to move even closer to the horizon and eventually they wore themselves out with their horseplay. I peered through the grass, still on my stomach, as they sat down on the very edge of the river bank, their legs dangling in the water and their backs facing me.

I remembered all the times the two would fight in the future and knowing that they would loose the close bond they had formed as children nearly broke my heart. I couldn't help but wonder what had caused them to draw apart in the first place and why. They seemed so close to each other that it seemed unlikely the two boys would ever fall apart. So what would happen to change all that?

Suddenly, bursting out from behind the trees only a few yards to my left, another boy appeared. He was wearing a red cloak with brown trousers and a loose, white shirt and the cloak fluttered dramatically behind him as he rushed towards the two boys. At first I thought maybe he was a friend of one or both children, but I realized how wrong I was when the strange boy went up behind Koschei and shoved him headfirst into the river. While Koschei was struggling to get out of the water, the boy shoved Theta to the side and then jumped into the river. He grabbed Koschei by the throat and forced his head under the water.

I jumped to my feet and nearly rushed forward to stop the boy, but then I remembered K'anpo's warning. I couldn't change what was to come in case in threatened Theta's future. But the urge to protect the young Doctor and Master was so strong that I almost couldn't restrain myself. The boy was laughing as he continued to hold Koschei's head under the water, the laughing only stopping for a few moments at a time when he would have to push Koschei under the water again.

Watching Koschei being tormented was too much to bear, despite who and what he would one day become. Just as I stepped out from behind the trees to stop the boy drowning him, Theta suddenly leapt to his feet. He started looking around the ground and then bent over to pick something up: a rock. With rage burning in his eyes, young Theta Sigma rushed forward with the rock gripped tightly in his hand. He stepped into the river and raised his arm, drawing the other boy's attention and making him pull away from Koschei. Then Theta's arm came down and the rock in his hand smashed against the other boy's skull.

I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. All the air suddenly rushed out and I stumbled back in shock, leaning heavily against one of the trees for support. The boy collapsed into the river with blood flowing profusely from the open gash in his head just above his left eye. Theta dropped the rock and reached into the river to help Koschei stand up, both boys clinging to one another as they stared down at the third boy's lifeless and bloody body. The river was stained red within moments and the boys stood in the middle of the current while blood continued to flow around them.

Theta was frozen as he stared at the boy's body, terror and shock written plainly on his face, and Koschei's expression was almost identical. I could barely believe what I had just seen, who I had just watched commit murder. It wasn't Koschei, the boy who would one day become the universe's greatest psychopath and killer, but Theta, the Doctor.

Theta suddenly turned to his friend and stared hopelessly at him. "Koschei," he said, "Koschei, what do we do?"

Koschei continued to stare at the the third boy's body. "We... We have to get rid of him," he said softly, his voice wavering slightly.

Theta's voice shook so much that he couldn't say more than a few words at a time. "But... We can't."

"We have to. What someone discovered what happened, what you did?"

"But I was only... only trying to save you," Theta stammered.

"If we're arrested, we'll never be able to leave this place, Theta. We'll be stuck on this planet forever."

Even from my spot in the trees I could see that Theta was terrified. His entire body was trembling and his face was still frozen in shock. "What do we do?" he asked after a long moment.

Koschei was silent for a minute or two before he finally pointed a shaking finger at the dead boy's body. "Help me pull him out," he said.

I stumbled back into the shelter of the trees when the call of a strange bird startled me. I fell to my knees and silently watched the two boys pull the still bleeding body from the river. They settled the boy's body on the bank of the river, his blood and the grass nearly the same color. Then Koschei look up at the tree that leaned over the river and an idea seemed to spark in his head.

"Help me grab those branches," he told Theta.

Wordlessly, both Theta and Koschei began pulling the low lying branches from the tree trunk and laying them over the dead boy's body. However, there weren't enough branches from the single tree to cover the body and they had to take more branches from the trees I was hiding in. Scared of being seen by Theta and them discovering that I had witnessed the entire scene, I quickly grabbed my satchel and strapped it over my shoulder. As the boys started towards me, I grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it towards the river in an attempt to distract them long enough for me to get away.

"What was that?" Theta asked in a panic after hearing the stone splash in the water.

I scrambled to my feet and began running as fast as I could in the opposite direction of the river. As I ran down the path in the direction K'anpo had instructed me to go in, the image of Theta smashing the rock against the other boy's skull kept flashing before my eyes. The rage in his eyes before the attack, the terror written on his face afterwards, the shock on Koschei's face when he realized what his friend had done for him.

Fear of being caught and fear of what I had seen kept me running, even though I was already tired and sore from my day long trek down Mount Cadon. I hadn't realized how far I had gone until I recognized the tree that I first woke up beneath two days earlier when I first arrived on Gallifrey. I leaned heavily against the tree as I tried to slow my breathing, occasionally looking over my shoulder to see if Theta or Koschei had followed me.

He killed him, I said to myself in shock. He's just a child and he's already killed someone.

I knew that the Doctor wasn't innocent. He had killed before, he had even been willing to kill his own people at one point although those circumstances were extreme and rare, but seeing him as a young child and so full of rage had shaken me to my very core. But then I remembered how terrified he had looked and could only imagine what he thought of himself because of what he did. He couldn't be more than eight or nine years old, maybe even ten, and he was perhaps already afraid of himself and what he was capable of. That fear would never go away.

I looked over my shoulder and although the river and the trees were hidden behind the curve of the mountain, I stared in their direction as if I could actually see Theta and Koschei. I knew they would be busying themselves with getting rid of the body and afterwards, they would come in my direction to return to the Academy. I would have to leave to avoid being seen, so I turned around and faced the open fields of red grass that seemed to endlessly stretch out before me. Then I looked up at the sky to see that the twin suns had started to set on my left, the direction K'anpo told me to go until I reached the lake.

"Brave heart, Diana," I told myself as I readjusted the satchel's strap over my shoulder. "Brave heart."

A/N: I know it's short, but I'd love to know what you all thought.