One year later
"Citizens rejoice," a voice recording of the Master said from the flight deck. "Your lord and master stands on high, playing track three." The Master entered the flight deck and pulled me with him as he started to dance. He released me and pulled Lucy to him and they danced together before he kissed her hand and went to the head of the table. Lucy wore a bright red, backless dress to grab his attention as much as she could. I wore a strapless black dress that hugged my curves until it hit my waist and just fell to the ground. The Master seemed to prefer me in floor-length dresses so Lucy followed suit. Francine, as a maid, served him tea. He didn't approve of it so he poured it out and threw the cup on the ground before going up the steps and ringing a bell. The Doctor crawled out of his straw-strewn tent. The Master flung himself down the stairs and grabbed the lapels of the Doctor's jacket and forced into his wheelchair and took him for a push around the deck before stopping at a window.
"It's ready to rise, Doctor," The Master told him. "The new Time Lord Empire. It's good, isn't it? Isn't it good? Anything? No? Anything? Oh, but they broke your hearts, didn't they, those Toclafane, ever since you worked out what they really are. They say Martha Jones has come back home. Now, why would she do that?"
"Leave her alone," The Doctor ordered.
"But you said something to her, didn't you? On the day I took control. What did you tell her?" The Master asked him.
"I have one thing to say to you. You know what it is."
"Oh no, you don't!" He got up from his spot on the floor and pushed the Doctor's wheelchair away from him.
"Valiant now entering Zone One airspace. Citizens rejoice."
"Come on, people!" The Master called out while clapping his hands. "What are we doing? Launch Day in twenty-four hours." The Master grabbed my hand and pulled me with him as he left the flight deck. Before we left, I noticed the Doctor placing 3 fingers on his thigh as Francine passed by.
At 14:58, according to the chronometer up on the bridge, the Master entered the flight deck with me and Lucy behind him.
"Time for my message. Who shall I have today? Tanya. Come on, sweetheart. Lucy, have you met Tanya? She's gorgeous," I looked at Lucy as the Master removed his jacket tossed it on the table. I watched as her face fell because of his words. While she understood that he'd never truly love her while I was still alive and on his mind, she'd been hoping she was right behind me. This only proved how flighty he was with human women. "Tanya, when we go to the stars, I'm going to take you to the Catriga Nova. Whirlpools of gold. You two should get to know each other. That might be fun." Tanya massaged the Master's shoulders and he sighed in comfort at the magic her hands provided. "Hunter, come sit." He ordered and I did so. I sat across from him and cleaned my fingernails.
"You seem stressed, darling," he said to me. "Allow Tanya to give you a message."
"I'll pass."
"Condition red." Suddenly repeated over the intercom.
"What the hell?" The Master asked standing up and pulled me up with him to the flight area.
"Repeat, condition red." I looked behind me to see Francine throw the Master's jacket to Tish who gave it to the Doctor. The Doctor took out the laser screwdriver from the pocket and the Master forced me behind him as it was pointed at the Master.
"Oh, I see," the Master said looking at the small group in front of him.
"I told you. I have one thing to say," the Doctor told him. The Master laughed when the Doctor couldn't get the laser screwdriver to work.
"Isomorphic controls." He took the screwdriver from the Doctor and punched him. I ran down from the control area and helped him to get up. "Which means they only work for me. Like this." A laser beam just barely missed Francine.
"Say sorry!"
"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."
"Mum!" Tish rushed to her mother's side.
"Didn't you learn anything from the blessed Saint Martha? Siding with the Doctor is a very dangerous thing to do. Take them away," he ordered.
"Move. Come on," the guard ordered and the pair were taken away. I helped the Doctor into a chair before the Master grabbed my arm.
"Gotcha," he said moving me aside while he sat on the table and placing his foot on the seat. "Oh, do you know, I remember the days when the Doctor, oh, that famous Doctor, was waging a Time War, battling Sea Devils and Axons. He sealed the rift at the Medusa Cascade single-handed. And look at him now. Stealing screwdrivers. How did he ever come to this? Oh yeah, me."
"I just need you to listen," the Doctor begged.
"No, it's my turn. Revenge! Best served hot. And this time, it's a message for Miss Jones."
"My people. Salutations on this, the eve of war," the Master said after he'd gotten the feed on the camera to work. He'd ordered one of the guards to hold me back and cover my mouth so I woudn't be seen or heard on the broadcast. "Lovely woman. But I know there's all sorts of whispers down there. Stories of a child, walking the Earth, giving you hope. But I ask you how much hope has this man got? Say hello, Gandalf." The Master stood behind the Doctor and made sure the camera got a good look at him before moving to stand in front of him again. "Except he's not that old, but he's an alien with a much greater lifespan than you stunted little apes. But what if it showed? What if I suspend your capacity to regenerate? All nine hundred years of your life, Doctor. What if we could see them?" The Master retuned his screwdriver and zapped the Doctor like he did last year. "Older and older and older. Down you go, Doctor. Down, down, down the years." Finally, the convulsions were over and the Doctor was gone. He'd fallen out of his wheelchair and disappeared into his clothes. "Doctor." I watched the Doctor's pile of clothes with worry before the Master knelt down to look at them. A tiny creature with big-eyes peered out from the otherwise empty clothes. "Received and understood, Miss Jones?" The Master ended the broadcast and I was released from the guard's grip. I moved towards the Doctor slowly and knelt down next to him.
"I remember when you used to be this short as a child," I tried laughing and he offered me a small smile.
"Hunter." I looked up at the Master and his offered hand. I felt a small hand on mine and I looked down at the Doctor.
"We can get through this," he whispered to me. I sighed before nodding. The Master, probably growing impatient with me, moved to us and forced me up with a firm grip on my arms.
"Get the Doctor a new cage," the Master ordered before dragging me off the ship.
After pulling me to my room, he didn't force me to share one with him, he threw me on my bed.
"I've told you not to talk to him," he reminded me.
"No matter what you do, the Doctor is my husband," I reminded him and I saw him growing angry with me. "You can't change that."
"Unless I kill him."
"Even if you kill him I'll never marry you." He raised his hand to hit me and I just watched him knowing he'd never been able to hurt me before, and hoping that was still true. He sighed before lowering his hand.
"I told them I wanted you as my Protector," he told me. "You were supposed to be mine. Not his."
"They took my request into consideration," I told him, finally looking down at my hands. The three of us had been best friends when we were children, but when it came time to who I was ordered to stay with, the choice had been mine. "I asked to be partnered with the Doctor after choosing my name." I finally looked up at him and he just looked confused.
"We were meant to remain together," he whispered sitting next to me. "You were meant to stay with me. Marry me."
"No," I countered. "I wasn't. Why were you nev-" He grabbed my face and forced my lips to his. I fought for him to let me go, and when he did I slapped him. "How dare you!"
"You felt that," he told me. "You felt something between us."
"I felt nothing but anger and disgust." I stood up and went to the door but couldn't leave it. He'd shortened the distance I could go from him again. "Let me go." I heard him get off my bed and walk until he was right behind me.
"Never."
Once back on the flight deck, the Master decided now was the right time to play with the Doctor's head. Lucy was still with us in her red dress, but she wasn't as happy as before.
Tomorrow, they launch. We're opening up a rift in the Braccatolian space. They won't see us coming. It kind of scary," the Master smiled at the Doctor
"Then stop," the Doctor told him, standing up in the small bird cage he was now in.
"Once the Empire is established, and there's a new Gallifrey in the heavens, maybe then it stops," the Master told him before moving closer with me at his side. "The drumming. The never ending drumbeat. Ever since I was a child. I looked into the vortex. That's when it chose me. The drumming, the call to war. Can't you hear it? Listen, it's there now. Right now. Tell me you can hear it, Doctor. Tell me."
"It's only you." The Master looked at me and I shook my head.
"Good." The doors opened behind us and we turned to see one of the sphere's enter.
"Tomorrow, the war. Tomorrow we rise, never to fall."
"You see? I'm doing it for them. You should be grateful. After all, you love them so very, very much," the Master reminded him, sitting in one of the chairs at the conference table. "I took Lucy to Utopia. A Time Lord and his human companion. I took her to see the stars. Isn't that right, sweetheart?"
"Trillions of years into the future, to the end of the universe," Lucy told us.
"Tell him what you saw."
"Dying. Everything dying. The whole of creation was falling apart, and I thought, there's no point. No point to anything. Not ever," she told the Doctor.
"And it's all your fault," the Master reminded him. "You should have seen it, Doctor. Furnaces burning. The last of humanity screaming at the dark. All that human invention that had sustained them across the eons. It all turned inwards. They cannibalised themselves."
"We made ourselves so pretty."
"Regressing into children. But it didn't work. The universe was collapsing around them," the Master told him. "My masterpiece, Doctor. A living Tardis, strong enough to hold the paradox in place, allowing the past and the future to collide in infinite majesty."
"But you're changing history. Not just Earth, the entire universe," the Doctor reminded him.
"I'm a Time Lord. I have that right."
"No," I finally spoke up. "You don't. None of us do. We swore we'd protect history not change it."
"But even then, why come all this way just to destroy?" the Doctor asked.
"We come backward in time all to build a brand new empire lasting one hundred trillion years," the sphere told him.
"With me as their master. Time Lord and humans combined. Haven't you always dreamt of that, Doctor?" the Master asked him. "Human race, greatest monsters of them all." The Master moved to my side and wrapped his arm around my waist. "Night, then." I turned and stared at the Doctor as I was forced from the room, the sphere following us.
During the night, I was woken up by the Master and ordered to get dressed and go with the Master back to London. We were accompanied by armed guards and spheres and the Master kept a firm grip on my hand so I couldn't run off.
"Martha. Martha Jones. I can see you! Out you come, little girl. Come and meet your master. Anybody? Nobody? No? Nothing? Positions. I'll give the order unless you surrender. Ask yourself. What would the Doctor do?" Martha came out of a house and walked towards us. "Oh, yes. Oh, very well done. Good girl. They trained you well. Bag. Give me the bag." She moved towards us taking off the bag as he pulled out his screwdriver. "No, stay there. Just throw it." Martha threw her bag towards us and he fired his laser screwdriver at it. "And now, good companion, your work is done." The master pointed his laser at Martha and, before I could try and stop him, a man ran out of the house.
"No!" The Master killed him and laughed.
"But you, when you die, the Doctor should be witness, hmm?" The Master took a deep breath. "Almost dawn, Martha, and planet Earth marches to war."
The next morning, I stood beside the Docter as the Master broadcasted his words down to the planet below us.
"Citizens of Earth, rejoice and observe." Guards brought Martha in with her family on one side of the room and Jack on the other. "Your teleport device, in case you thought I'd forgotten." Martha threw Jack's vortex manipulator to the Master. "And now, kneel." She did as he ordered. "Down below, the fleet is ready to launch. Two hundred thousand ships set to burn across the universe. Are we ready?"
"The fleet awaits your signal. Rejoice!"
"Three minutes to align the black hole converters. Counting down." One the wall a countdown started. "I never could resist a ticking clock. My children, are you ready?"
"We will fly and blaze and slice. We will fly and blaze and slice." The sphere's repeated over and over again.
"At zero, to mark this day, the child Martha Jones, will die. My first blood. Any last words? No? Such a disappointment, this one. Days of old, Doctor, you had companions who could absorb the time vortex. Well, they can't all be like my Hunter, can they? This one's useless. Bow your head." She did as he ordered. "And so it falls to me, as Master of all, to establish from this day, a new order of Time Lords. From this day forward-" He was interrupted by Martha's laughter. "What. What's so funny?"
"A gun," she stated.
"What about it?"
"A gun in four parts?"
"Yes, and I destroyed it."
"A gun in four parts scattered across the world? I mean, come on, did you really believe that?" she asked him.
"What do you mean?" the Master asked confused.
"I think you forget who it was she spoke to last," I told him with a smile.
"As if I would ask her to kill," the Doctor stated.
"Oh well, it doesn't matter. I've got her exactly where I want her."
"But I knew what Professor Docherty would do. The Resistance knew about her son. I told her about the gun, so she'd get me here at the right time."
"Oh, but you're still going to die," he told her.
"Don't you want to know what I was doing, traveling the world?"
"Tell me," he sighed sitting on the steps.
"I told a story, that's all. No weapons, just words. I did just what the Doctor said. I went across the continents all on my own. And everywhere I went, I found the people, and I told them my story. I told them about the Doctor. And I told them to pass it on, to spread the word so that everyone would know about the Doctor."
"Faith and hope? Is that all?" he asked her.
"No, because I gave them an instruction, just as the Doctor said," she told him standing. "I told them that if everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time."
"Nothing will happen. Is that your weapon? Prayer?" he asked her standing up again.
"Right across the world, in a word, just one thought at one moment but with fifteen satellites," she told him and he started to realize what she was saying.
"What?"
"As Harold Saxon, you created something to bind the humans together," I reminded him.
"The Archangel Network," Jack said.
"A telepathic field binding the whole human race together, with all of them, every single person on Earth, thinking the same thing at the same time. And that word is Doctor." The countdown hit 0 and the Doctor inside his cage started to glow.
"Stop it. No, no, no, no, you don't."
"Doctor." I smiled and turned to Jack as he closed his eyes and thought of the Doctor. "Doctor."
"Doctor." I smiled at Martha's family as they did the same as Jack.
"Don't."
"Doctor. Doctor. Doctor."
"Stop this right now. Stop it!"
"Doctor." Even Lucy helped us.
"Doctor."
"Doctor."
"Doctor." The Doctor reverted back to his previous centegenarian form.
"I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices."
"I order you to stop!"
"Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor."
"Doctor."
"The one thing you can't do. Stop them thinking." The Doctor was finally back to his normal appearance and I hugged Martha happily. "Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this." Martha separated from me and ran to her family for a large group hug.
"No!" The Master fired his screwdriver at the Doctor, but the energy field still surrounding him didn't let it get through.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"Then I'll kill them." He pointed the screwdriver at Martha and her family, but the Doctor just stretched out his hand and it flew from the Master's hand. "You can't do this. You can't do it. It's not fair!"
"And you know what happens now."
"No! No! No! No!" As the Doctor floated towards the Master, the Master backed away from him as quickly as possible. I went around the stairs and moved towards them.
"You wouldn't listen."
"No!"
"Because you know what I'm going to say."
"No." The Master curled into a ball in the corner and the Doctor put his arms around him.
"I forgive you." The Doctor looked up at me and I knelt down next to them and hugged them both.
"My children." The Master whispered and I turned to Jack.
"Jack, the paradox machine! Take the guards with you!" I ordered.
"You men, with me! You stay here."
"No!" I turned in time to see the Doctor grabbing the manipulator and grabbed on the last minute.
We landed in the quarry and the Doctor had to help me up since I was still in the black dress.
"Now it ends, Doctor. Now it ends." A roll of thunder was overhead and sirens sounded in the shipyard.
"We've got control of the Valiant. You can't launch," The Doctor reminded him.
"Oh, but I've got this," Tthe Master pulled out a device from his coat. "Black hole converter inside every ship. If I can't have this world and Hunter, Doctor, then neither can you. We shall stand upon this Earth together, as it burns."
"Weapon after weapon after weapon," the Doctor said as we slowly moved towards him. "All you do is talk and talk and talk. But overall these years and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do. Give that to me." The Master handed over the trigger and I smiled before hugging the Doctor. The ground below us suddenly started to shake and the boys struggled for the vortex manipulator. "Hunter!" I moved to the Doctor's side and the three of us disappeared together to wherever the Doctor had set the coordinates. When we got back to the flight deck papers were flying everywhere and Martha was thrown into the Doctor's arms. "Everyone get down! Time is reversing!" I held onto the Doctor and Martha's hands as we laughed and time-reversed below us. Once calm had returned we were all able to stand up again. The Doctor pulled me into his arms and kissed me until we had to part for air. "The paradox is broken. We've reverted back, one year and one day. Two minutes past eight in the morning." He went to one of the controls and messed with it until he heard someone talking to us.
"This is UNIT Central. What's happened up there? We just saw the President assassinated."
"Just after the President was killed, but just before the spheres arrived. Everything back to normal. Planet Earth restored. None of it happened. The rockets, the terror. It never was." The Doctor explained after he'd turned off the radio.
"What about the spheres?" Martha asked.
"Trapped at the end of the universe where they'll stay," I told her.
"But I can remember it," Francine said.
"We're at the eye of the storm. The only ones who'll ever know," the Doctor told her before noticing Martha's father in the control area with him. "Oh, hello. You must be Mister Jones. We haven't actually met." The Master ran for the door just as Jack walked in.
"Whoa, big fella! You don't want to miss the party. Cuffs." One of the guards handed Jack cuffs and Jack restrained him before pulling him back to us. "So, what do we do with this one?"
"We kill him," Martha's father said.
"We execute him," Tish agreed.
"No, that's not the solution," The Doctor told the pair and I noticed Francine aim a pistol at the Master.
"Oh, I think so. Because all those things, they still happened because of him. I saw them." I moved between her and the Master.
"Go on. Do it," he egged her on and I sent him a look.
"For a man who doesn't want to die, you're not doing a good job at trying to stay alive."
"Francine, you're better than him," The Doctor tried getting her to lower her gun, but she held it steady.
"She stood next to him all year and watched as he hurt all those people," she said keeping the gun pointed at me. "How?"
"This device keeps me at his side and only he can take it off." I showed her the Shadow Bond on my wrist as the Doctor finally got her to lower the gun. The gun was dropped to the ground and I sighed with relief as the Doctor hugged her tightly. He handed her off to Martha as the Master spoke up.
"You still haven't answered the question. What happens to me?"
"You're our responsibility from now on. The only Time Lord left in existence," the Doctor told him.
"Yeah, but you can't trust him," Jack reminded us, moving from his side to ours.
"No. The only safe place for him is the Tardis."
"Which works for me since I can't take off the Shadow Bond."
"You mean you're just going to keep me?" The Master asked.
"Mmm. If that's what I have to do. It's time to change. Maybe I've been wondering for too long. Now I've got someone to care for."
"You've always had someone to care for," I reminded him and he pulled me into his side. Suddenly, a gunshot went off and I looked at the Master to see him hunched over. I looked behind me to see Lucy holding the gun before running to the Master and the Doctor's sides.
"Put it down," Jack told her.
"There you go. I've got you. I've got you." I placed one hand on the ground next to his bound hands to hold me up while putting pressure on the injury.
"Always the women," the Master said, his voice drenched with pain.
"I didn't see her."
"Dying in your arms. Happy now?"
"Of course we're not happy," I told him tears filling my eyes.
"You're not dying. Don't be stupid. It's only a bullet. Just regenerate."
"No."
"One little bullet. Come on," the Doctor begged.
"I guess you don't know me so well. I refuse," the Master told him.
"Regenerate. Just regenerate. Please. Please! Just regenerate. Come on." The Doctor began to cry and I couldn't hold my tears back any longer.
"And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?" the Master asked before looking at me. "I won't allow him to keep me as a pet. Not even for you."
"Just regenerate and we can all be together again, like we were as children," I begged him.
"The three of us, all the things we've done," the Doctor tried getting him to remember. "Axons. Remember the Axons? And the Daleks. We're the only two left. There's no one else. Regenerate!"
"How about that. I win." He looked between the two of us, and his face changed to fear. "Will it stop? The drumming. Will it stop?"
"Yes," I told him with a small smile on my face. "The drumming will stop." He took his last breath and I cried.
"No!"
Somewhere, later, the Doctor lit the Master's funeral pyre and I grabbed his hand. The Master, while we begged him to regenerate, had taken the Shadow Bond off my wrist. We shared one last look at our fallen friend before turning away and walking back to the TARDIS.
"Time was, every single one of these people knew your name. Now they've all forgotten you." Martha, Jack, the Doctor and I were standing in Cardiff. The TARDIS was refueling and we were dropping Jack off with his team.
"Good," the Doctor told her.
"Back to work," Jack said looking at the secret door where his team waited for him.
"I really don't mind, though. Come with us," the Doctor told him.
"I had plenty of time to think that past year, the year that never was, and I kept thinking about that team of mine. Like you said, Doctor, responsibility," Jack told him and I smiled at him.
"Captian Jack Harkness. Defending the Earth." I shared a smile with the Doctor. "Not even we can argue with that." The Doctor took Jack's hand and exposed the vortex manipulator.
"Hey, I need that," Jack complained.
"I can't have you walking around with a time travelling teleport. You could go anywhere, twice. The second time to apologise." The Doctor soniced the manipulator so it would no longer work.
"And what about me? Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?"
"Nothing I can do. You're an impossible thing, Jack," the Doctor told him.
"Been called that before." he laughed before moving a few steps away from us. He turned back to us and saluted. "Sir. Ma'am. Ma'am." he moved away from us before turning back again. "But I keep wondering. What about aging? Because I can't die but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know? What happens if I live for a million years?"
"I really don't know," he told him.
"Okay, vanity. Sorry. Yeah, can't help it. Used to be a poster boy when I was a kid living on the Boeshane Peninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me. Hmm. I'll see you." Jack headed off towards Torchwood's secret entrance and I stared after him in shock.
"No."
"It can't be."
"You've got to be joking," I laughed.
"No. Definitely not. No. No."
Outside of Francine's home, we watched the Jones family as they talked and laughed. Francine looked out her window at us and I waved at her. She returned it with a small smile before going back to her family. We walked back inside the TARDIS where the Doctor's spare hand was now attached to the base of the console.
"Do you think she'll come?" he asked me and I grasped his hand in mine.
"We'll see." The doors opened and we moved to look and saw Martha on the ramp.
"Right then, off we go. The open road. There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water. Fancy a look? Or back in time. We could, I don't know, Charles the Second? Henry the Eighth. I know. What about Agatha Christie? I'd love to meet Agatha Christie. I bet she's brilliant." She didn't say and he understood. "Okay."
"I just can't," Martha told us.
"We understand," I told her.
"Spent all these years training to be a doctor. Now I've got people to look after. They saw half the planet slaughtered and they're devastated. I can't leave them," she told us.
"Of course not," the Doctor sadly agreed. "Thank you." They shared a hug before I pulled her into a hug of my own. "Martha Jones, you saved the world."
"Yes, I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good." The three of us laughed. "You going to be all right?"
"Always. Yeah," he told her with a nod.
"Right then. Bye." Martha left before turning around and coming back inside. "Because the thing is, it's like my friend Vicky. She lived with this bloke, student housing, there were five of them all packed in, and this bloke was called Sean. And she loved him. She did. She completely adored him. Spent all day long talking about him."
"Is this going anywhere?" The Doctor asked her confused.
"Listen," I told him.
"Yes. Because he never looked at her twice. I mean, he liked her, but that was it. And she wasted years pining after him. Years of her life. Because while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again, I said, get out. So this is me, getting out." She dug in her pockets and tossed me her phone. "Keep that, because I'm not having you two disappear. If that rings, when that rings, you'd better come running. Got it?"
"Got it."
"I'll see you again, mister." With that, Martha left the TARDIS and we dematerialized from her street. I put her phone on the cockpit and we started to set in coordinates for our next destination when, suddenly, there was a sound of a ship's foghorn. The bow of a ship smashed through the side of the TARDIS and we were thrown back over the seat and onto the ground.
"What. What?" The Doctor asked confused before picking up a lifebelt with the name Titanic on it. "What?"