A/N: So I'm going to base some of the next few on some prompts that I received, but this was a plot bunny I had kicking around so thought I'd do that one first. Thanks for the reviews!

8 News from Home

The Master finished the others off as quickly as possible, but Rassilon he saved for last. There was no way the founder of Gallifrey himself didn't know what the Master now knew.

He threw Rassilon down in front of the panopticon, pinning him down with a boot on his chest. "Talk!" he yelled. The rage was back in force in this new body. Good. He needed it, and they all deserved it.

"What the hell have you done?" Rassilon cried, trying to turn his head to look out of the window at the smoke, the devastation. The Master forcefully shoved him back down.

"I said, talk." He ground his heel against the man's collarbone, making it as hard for him to breathe as possible. His respiratory bypass would kick in soon, if the Master didn't let up.

He didn't.

"You're the founder of our great and glorious Gallifrey, aren't you? You know everything there is to know."

"What the hell are you getting at, you maniac-"

"The Timeless. Child." The Master spit. Rassilon's eyes went wide. The blood started to drain from his face. "Can't even deny it, can you? You know exactly what I'm talking about."

Then, Rassilon's face contorted in a smirk. He grabbed the Master's ankle, not to yank him off but just to dig his nails in as he grinned. "And what about it? You'd have done the same, if you'd had the opportunity."

The Master backhanded him, hard. "She was just a child! I was just a child when you DROVE ME TO THIS!"

"Drove you?" Rassilon let his arm drop back onto the floor, his words both breathy and spiteful. "You had a choice. You wanted to become a Time Lord. Didn't you know the risks?"

The Master pushed harder, choking him for several long seconds. Rassilon coughed for a full minute when he let up. "Tell me one thing. Is the Timeless Child really - did they really become-"

"The Doctor." Rassilon grinned at the way he flinched. "Aw. Poor thing. What's the matter, Master? Don't like that the strongest part of you is really your friend?" He leant up again, patting the top of the Master's shoe like he was being comforting. "But didn't you always know that it was? You've never bested the Doctor, not really. The Doctor wasn't broken by the initiation like you were-"

"Shut up..."

"-the Doctor actually made something of themselves when he left Gallifrey, not like you-"

"Shut. Up."

Rassilon leant up, even as the Master tried to pin him back down. "And I'll bet knowing about this doesn't stop the Doctor, either," he said, eyes glinting. "You'll never get to see them spare and forgive all of Gallifrey - you destroyed it first just so you didn't have to, didn't you?"

"Shut up!" The Master backhanded him again, and again, and again. Rassilon stared up at him through a swollen eye, still smiling. "Don't you get it! It was ALL FOR NOTHING! Making me look into the Untempered Schism as a child, when what made a Time Lord came from - from - from them, all along, all this time!" He dragged Rassilon up, robes clenched in his fists. "You cost me EVERYTHING!" he roared. "My sanity! My life! You cost me the only person I ever loved!"

He stopped short. He hadn't meant to say that. He didn't mean that.

But Rassilon was grinning, just as nastily as before. "I told you before, Master," he said, resting his hands on the Master's clenched, bloody fists. "We never did that. That was all you. After all, your dear Doctor never went mad, did they?"

The Master breathed heavily. His hands shook. He had no answer, except to shake his head over and over.

"And I'll tell you something else," Rassilon said, wasted eyes boring into his own. "It isn't what the Doctor is that separates you. It's what she does. She'll always be better than you because she chooses to be. And you'll always be a murderous little child, missing his schooldays when he was the superior one. Such a shame. Such a waste."

Rassilon leant in closer, speaking like he was savoring every awful word. "But go on. Put it all on us. Put it all on her. I can die happy knowing you have nothing, nothing, nothing, worth living for in your pathetic little life. And even then...I bet the Doctor still won't kill you."

The Master shook his head again. It was another lie. Just another lie, like all the rest of them.

The Doctor hadn't gone mad because they loved the stars, and the universe. The Master didn't, not the same way. Anyone who wasn't her, wasn't the Timeless, would have gone mad.

She was different. She was special.

She lived again and died again, over and over, a star in the sky, a supernova.

Just like...

"You can die," the Master said, "When I say so." He flung Rassilon to the floor, relishing that first bit of doubt in his eyes. "We have all your regenerations to get through," he said, his voice soft. So far over the line now. No coming back. Never. "You'll give the me the whole truth, whether you want to or not."

He produced the TCE from his pocket. Back to the old ways. Why not.

"And when we get to the last, you can die." He waved the weapon in Rassilon's face. Even then, the elder Time Lord wouldn't flinch. So secure in his own wickedness. Far, far worse than the Master had ever been. The universe wouldn't miss him.

"You can be my trophy," he said softly.