Author's Note:

Hooray, back with another update at last. I've got the middle-of-fic blues again, as usual, which has been slowing me up a bit, and this chapter was a PITA to write anyway.

Thanks to the following terrific people for their reviews: gallifrey calls now, SawManiac211, Push to Shove, Beautifulina, doctordiva23, MayFairy, EDZEL2, sailormajinmoon, EmmaMarie, Celestial Valkyrie, Geraldine, MountainLord-92, Theta'sWorstNightmare, GuesssWho, Lost Moon, Aietradaea, BeautifulSpace (x 3), Imorgen (x 2), TheWickedHeart, Vincenth and silentnight.

To a writer, reviews are a very precious gift, so bless you all for giving them to me XXX

To BeautifulSpace/Rosalina: Thank you both very much for your continued support, much appreciated. This chapter is a little longer, so hopefully you will enjoy.

To doctordiva23: I'm so glad you are following along and enjoying it - I would have sent you a PM to say thanks personally, but that function is disabled on your profile. So I will say it here instead - thank you :)

To Geraldine: Thanks again, it's terrific you're finding it exciting! Hopefully I can keep it up X)

To Lost Moon: Aw, you're making me blush. Happy New Year to you too! XXX

To silentnight: Yup, Theta is getting very close to figuring Kat out, he's very brainy, our young Doctor. As for River, she is still stuck in the TARDIS, as per the canon episode. However, you can rest assured that they will rescue her very shortly :) Thanks for the review \0/

And lastly, massive thanks to CookieCakeMonster, who drew me some more lovely fan art for this series, which was a total buzz. The link is on my profile page, go check it out!

Here's the chapter - fingers crossed that someone out there likes it :S

- CHAPTER TWENTY TWO -

"I close my eyes, then I drift away,
Into the magic night, I softly say,
A silent prayer like dreamers do,
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.

In dreams I walk with you,
In dreams I talk to you,
In dreams you're mine, all of the time,
We're together in dreams, in dreams...

But just before the dawn,
I awake and find you gone,
I can't help it, I can't help it, if I cry
I remember that you said goodbye..."

- Roy Orbison, In Dreams

As Tejana had predicted, apart from a short time out to take Lord Borusa his afternoon tea, she spent the rest of the day scrubbing the floor of the Academy ballroom until the dark onyx shone like a mirror. However, when it came down to it, she much preferred the hard manual labour to the nerve-racking experience of fronting up to Borusa's study.

Fortunately, the senior Time Lord had hardly even glanced up from his work when she placed the tray on his desk, his attention remaining fixed on the various data tablets spread out in front of him. Even so, given her recent nerve-wracking encounter with Theta, just being so close to him had Tejana's pulse rate climbing in anxiety.

Much to her dismay, it hadn't taken Theta long at all to work out that she was an outsider here. Fortunately, at this point in his time-stream, centuries before the upheaval and change of the Time War, the idea of a Time Lord actually daring to break the Fourth Law of Time was completely unthinkable to her naïve young father. Which was the only reason the truth of who and what she really was hadn't immediately occurred to him, despite all the damning clues he'd uncovered.

But Borusa had never been naïve. She was more than aware of the danger presented by his sharp intelligence, and she had little confidence that her cover story would hold up if he really became suspicious.

All the same, she wished she had been able to sneak a look at whatever it was he was so engrossed in. Chances were, it had something to do with the temporal explosion and the cracks, and the more information she could discover on that subject, the better she would feel. Was the temporal instability really caused by an exploding TARDIS back in her timeline? And if so, was the Doctor safe? And, with her and the Master trapped here on Gallifrey, what had happened to their own TARDIS, and to John Hart? The list of crucial things she didn't know seemed to be growing all the time. But she was unable to think of any excuse to linger without being obvious about it, so she was forced to leave Borusa's study none the wiser.

When she returned to the ballroom, some of the maintenance staff had carefully lowered the enormous chandeliers down to floor level. After reporting to Fionnula, Tejana was put to work with a team of other maids, polishing each individual crystal, even though, from what she could see, they hardly needed it. The chandeliers were already perfectly immaculate. Despite her stern resolution to keep out of trouble, Tejana felt a slow burn of anger rising inside her. She had nothing better to do while awaiting the arrival of the crack, but the utter waste of her time still chafed at her unbearably. The entire exercise was so completely pointless. Who amongst the dancers at the Otherstide Ball would ever bother to look up at the chandeliers anyway? She knew she never had, whenever she danced here, not even once.

So typical of the Time Lords, she thought viciously, rubbing away at one of the thousands of glittering prisms with more force than was strictly necessary. So concerned about making sure everything is all shiny and bright on the outside, without ever troubling themselves about the rotten core within.

But, deep inside, she knew it wasn't really the ridiculous cleaning task that was bothering her. That was nothing more than an excuse to turn her simmering pain into anger, the only way she knew to vent her tightly-coiled emotions. Staring down at the brilliant reflective surface of the crystal, she fancied for a moment she could see again the look on young Koschei's tortured face as he began to finally understand the depth of his father's hypocrisy. Fury and sorrow made her want to smash the crystal into a million pieces on the onyx floor. For here it was again, the paradox she always felt when it came to Gallifrey. She had always been so proud of being a Time Lord, her ancient and glorious birthright - and yet, of the Time Lords themselves, she could never be proud.

When she thought of Lord Oakdown, outwardly playing the self-righteous Kitriarch of one of the most noble and respected Houses on Gallifrey, yet all the while living a secret life of lust and debauchery, systematically twisting and warping the lives of both his sons; when she thought of Lord President Drall, wilfully turning a blind eye to the sadistic perversions of his heir, using his position to cover up Anzor's crimes rather than prevent them; when she thought of Borusa, her childhood mentor, all those abilities, all those incredible talents, and every one of them directed not towards the good of others, but solely towards his own power-hungry self advancement, so full of greed that even being Lord President of the most advanced and ancient people in the Universe hadn't been enough for him; and, of course, when she thought of Rassilon, the so-called father of his people, willing to sacrifice the entire Universe to war and chaos and, in the end, obliteration, just to ensure his own continued existence; when she considered all of these, what else was there to feel but shame? It was at times like this, she realised that she didn't regret the Doctor's use of the Moment. She grieved for her childhood home and what it could have been – perhaps even for what it once was, in the glory days long before she was born – but for the reality of what Gallifrey had become at the end, for the slow descent into corruption that had begun centuries before the advent of the Time War, she grieved not at all.

Then the image within the crystal seemed to change and she saw Theta's face instead, overlaid with the boyish features of the eleventh Doctor. A lump rose in her throat, knowing that, in spite of everything, no matter how much they argued, no matter how difficult their relationship became, there was one Time Lord she would always be proud of.

Stay safe, my father, she thought, closing her fist firmly around the prism, as if to protect it and the imagined face smiling within. Please stay safe.

"GET BACK!" the Doctor roared.

Amy, who was all too familiar with the threat of the Daleks, had already seized Amelia and was running back towards the dubious safety of the North African alcove. Without hesitating, the Doctor grabbed Hart and dragged him behind the Pandorica, just as the lead Dalek loosed a searing blast of laser fire that ricochetted off the grey box in a shower of blazing sparks.

"What the hell are you doing, Doc?" Hart growled angrily.

The Doctor had his back to him, hunkering down and peering out around the wall. "Those are Daleks!"

"Yeah, I figured that much out for myself." Hart rolled his eyes in impatience. "Your daughter told me all about them. Mutated humanoids encased in an armoured shell – ruthless, single-minded and completely beyond reason. I got it. Now, let me past so that I can go kill them before they kill us!"

"Only they're not just any Daleks! They're Alpha Class Attack Daleks, survivors of the Time War. And believe me, your little pop gun...," - here, the Time Lord gestured contemptuously at Hart's blaster pistol - "...isn't going to be enough to stop even one of them, let alone three."

Even as he spoke, another salvo of laser fire struck the Pandorica, just above their heads, making them both jump backwards.

"EX-TER-MIN-ATE!" the three Daleks repeated in unison, their monotonal voices echoing stridently throughout the room as they began to approach their target.

Hart hissed through his teeth. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. If it has a physical body, it can be killed. So, if you're such an expert, Doc, tell me what their weakness is, because they have to have one! And you'd better make it quick. I've only got a couple of shots left in this thing."

"Wea-pons sys-tems re-stor-ing!" the lead Dalek announced.

"Re-stor-ing!" the other two agreed. "Con-firmed."

"They're still low on power!" the Doctor realised, his hearts surging with sudden hope. "Maybe we have a chance, at least to incapacitate them long enough to get past them. But they're still too far away - you'd need to let them get close enough to take a direct hit on the eye-stalk."

But Hart apparently had no intention of waiting. "Direct hit coming up!" he said.

And before the Doctor could stop him, he leaped recklessly out into the open, his blaster pistol held ready.

"Hey, ugly!" he yelled. "Over here!"

The lead Dalek's eyestalk swung around towards him, its weapon already beginning to rise. If the lethal cyborg had been at full strength, the Doctor had no doubt that Hart would have instantly been a dead man. However, its movements were still sluggish and uncertain and it was much too slow. A blast of iridescent blue light erupted from the ex-Time Agent's sonic blaster, travelling the entire length of the room in the blink of an eye, smashing with unerring accuracy into the Dalek's optical sensor.

"Ass-ist! Ass-ist!" it screamed, spinning around on the spot. "Pow-er fail-ing! Ass-ist!"

The other two Daleks fired at Hart, but their shots lacked power, and he had already dived back to safety beside the Doctor. Abruptly, the lead Dalek stopped whirling and its eyestalk dropped.

"Ass-iiiiiissssst..." it said again, in a drunken voice that trailed away into silence. The sentient light in its optical sensor winked out, together with the luminosity dischargers on the top of its dome-like head.

"Bull's-eye!" Hart grinned, checking the energy levels in his blaster, his back hard up against the wall of the Pandorica. "Go on, admit it, Doc. Impressive, right?"

"Maybe you're not such a waste of space after all," the Doctor said dryly, echoing Hart's earlier mocking words to him. "But don't get too cocky, Captain. You haven't killed it. It's only temporarily disabled."

"Yeah? How can you tell?"

The Doctor risked a peek around the corner of the Pandorica, watching the other two Daleks glide cautiously past their incapacitated colleague and start to advance towards them through the gloom.

"Trust me, I'm the Doctor," he said, using his habitual catch phrase without even thinking.

Hart's eyebrows rose in derision. "Wow. Very patronising! Does that ever actually work for you?"

The Doctor's head snapped huffily back around towards him. "All the time, as it happens!" he retorted.

"Yeah, right," Hart said, his tone layered with sarcasm. "If you say so." He quirked his thumb towards his blaster pistol. "OK, I've got one shot left. One shot, two Daleks. Not good odds, even for me. And we're running out of time. They'll be on top of us in a minute. Any bright ideas?"

As if to confirm his words, one of the approaching Daleks barked, "You will sur-ren-der! You will o-bey the Da-leks, or you will be ex-ter-min-ated!"

The Doctor got out his sonic screwdriver and twirled it between his fingers. "Fine, we'll have to improvise. You take one out, while I try to come up with something to stop the other one."

Hart grinned again, his white teeth gleaming in the dim light. "No, Doc," he said solemnly. "Try not. Do...or do not. There is no try."

With that, he disappeared around the back of the Pandorica to the other side, presumably to ambush the Daleks from a different angle.

The Doctor shot an indignant look over his shoulder to where Amy and Amelia were anxiously hovering in the opening to the alcove. "Did he just quote 'The Empire Strikes Back' at me?"

Both the girls nodded.

"Ye-p!" Amy said, popping the 'p' with ironic emphasis.

The Doctor returned his attention to the settings on his sonic screwdriver, an affronted scowl on his face. "'Do or do not'! Huh! Cheeky sod!" he muttered crossly. "This is meant to be the 'D-Team'! I'm supposed to say the funny lines!"

Tejana had so many of her own problems clamouring for her attention that at first she hardly noticed the subdued atmosphere of the servant's dining hall. She sat in her seat, toying absently with her food, not even noticing what was going on around her as she wrestled with the biggest problem of all. Tonight, she was going to have to tell the Master of her decision to jump back into the crack and to try to persuade him to guide her back to the Doctor. Considering all the effort he had made to bring her here, to save both her life and that of their son, she knew that she was facing a colossal, if not completely impossible, task. Imagining exactly how angry he was going to be caused her to lose what little that remained of her appetite.

However, as immersed as she was in her own thoughts, little by little she became aware how quiet the meal was. Dyoni sat beside her, eating mechanically, with none of her usual bright chatter. Glancing around, Tejana saw that the other servants all appeared equally morose.

Before she could whisper to Dyoni to find out what was going on, Fionnula rose to her feet at the head of the table and called for their attention. Usually, it took some time for everyone to settle down enough to listen to her announcements. But today, all the servants just stopped what they were doing immediately, as if they already knew what she was going to say.

Fionnula cleared her throat, as though she was preparing to say something distasteful. "For those who haven't heard, today is a sad day for the servants of the Academy. One of our longest serving stewards, Antoni, was told this afternoon by Cardinal Lenardi that his services were no longer required."

A general, bitter murmuring spread throughout the hall.

"So what?" Tejana asked Dyoni out of the side of her mouth, surprised at all the angry faces.

"He's an old man!" Dyoni hissed back. "He's worked here nearly all his life, he's got nothing else. Every atom of his being was wrapped up in his service to the Time Lords. And then Lenardi just dismisses him like a piece of garbage, all because he put a few things back in the wrong place when he was straightening his room. He said Antoni was old and useless and needed to be replaced. They've sent him back to his village, dismissing him without a pension or any kind of thanks for his decades of loyal service – the disgrace of it will probably kill him!"

Tejana's gaze returned to Fionnula in shock. She had never been taught by Cardinal Lenardi, but she remembered him well. He had always been autocratic and imperious, acting as if he was better than any other Time Lord that had ever been born. The students in her class had delighted in taking him off behind his back, mocking the way he always walked with his nose in the air. But for him to be so callous and indifferent towards an old man...the anger at the arrogance of her own people flared inside her again, burning like hot lava that could no longer be contained.

"Settle down, please!" Fionnula ordered, raising her voice to be heard over the discontented rumblings. "We must take this as a lesson and a warning, to maintain our standards, to prevent this happening to any of the rest of us. The Time Lords demand perfection and will not accept anything less."

"Why do you put up with it?"

The question rang out clearly in the hall and suddenly everyone else was deathly silent. Every eye in the place fixed on Tejana as she rose to her feet, her face pale with anger.

Fionnula was so startled at the interruption, her jaw nearly hit the table. "Excuse me?"

"I said, why do you put up with it? Why do you let them push you around like this?" Tejana repeated passionately. "You're not animals, you're people, just as much as they are!"

"Sit down, Kat!" Fionnula commanded in a scandalised voice. "You are new here, and unfamiliar with our ways, so I will overlook this outrage, just this once..."

But Tejana stood firm and unmoving. Everything she had once hated about her home planet came flooding back to her, all the hurt and all the pain, all the disgusting things that had hidden under the Time Lord veneer of respectability, and this time she'd had enough.

"Please, Kat, do as she says!" Dyoni whispered urgently, tugging at her arm. "You can't criticise the Time Lords. You're only going to get yourself into terrible trouble!"

"No, I won't sit down!" Tejana retorted, her overflowing rage projecting her voice to every corner of the room. "Do you know, in Low Town, in the main square, there's a sculpture depicting a Time Lord standing on a worker's back, grinding him into the dirt? But it's not just the Shabogans, it's all of you, all the plebeian classes. You're the ones that keep Gallifrey running. The Time Lords couldn't do it without you. But you just keep on letting them treat you like dirt, because you won't stand together and tell them no!" She looked around at all the gaping, astonished faces that surrounded her. "Lord Anzor tried to rape and kill me," she continued, loudly and clearly, saying the words that no-one else had ever dared to state in public before. "He destroyed Salome's face. He drove Minya mad. And the stars alone know how many others he injured and maimed. But still you suffered in silence and did nothing. How many more Anzors do there need to be before you start to fight back? How many more Lenardis, picking on the old and the weak among you? How long do you intend to live in fear?"

"That's ENOUGH!" Fionnula screamed, her face red and flustered.

"No, it's not enough. It will never be enough until something changes!" Tejana shot back. "When I first came here, Dyoni told me you were servants, not slaves. Well, that was wrong – because from what I can see, slaves are exactly what you are, every last one of you!"

With that, she turned on her heel and marched from the room, her back stiff with contempt. Behind her, she heard the silence break, the hall erupting into a tidal wave of noise, as a hundred voices began babbling at once, despite Fionnula's desperate attempts to quiet them.

By the time Tejana reached the quiet sanctuary of the bedroom she shared with Dyoni, she had begun to calm down a little bit. Given everything that had happened since she arrived on Stonehenge, it had only been a matter of time until her fraying temper snapped. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she put her head in her hands and breathed deeply, praying she hadn't done too much damage with her impulsive outburst. Everything she had said was true, but that didn't change the fact that she should never have said it. Somehow, it seemed like another omen, confirming to her that she had made the right decision to leave Gallifrey. Whatever the Master might think, all the doors of possibility were closing...and she had to go back, no matter the risk.

The Master...where was he?

She raised her head and glanced around the room. She still couldn't sense him nearby, but both her hearts told her that he wasn't too far away.

"Koschei?" she said softly. "Koschei, are you there? I need to speak to you."

Only silence answered her. Undeterred, she changed hurriedly into her nightgown and climbed on to the bed, determined to get this over with before Dyoni returned to the room. Or, even worse, before an irate Fionnula came looking for her.

"Koschei, I'm going to sleep now. Please, I need you to dream-share with me. We have to talk, it's important!"

Lying back on the pillow, she closed her eyes and tried to relax, willing herself into sleep.

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in a completely different place. It was a small, round building, made of beautifully-weathered grey stone. The walls were only waist high, not much more than a stone balustrade, topped with gracefully arched open window embrasures, decorated with intricately-carved scrollwork. The floor was formed from polished white marble, with a stunning mosaic of a golden oak tree inlaid in the centre.

The building was obviously located high in the mountains, in a terraced garden at the head of a rocky valley, because the view from the windows was utterly breathtaking. Tall, craggy peaks rose all around, crowned with drifting cloud, white and fluffy against the burnt-orange sky. Acres of silver-leaved forest swept down the sides of the mountain into the narrow valley, shining in the sunlight. Far below, Tejana could see an elegant manor house, facing out over a glittering lake, surrounded by gently sloping fields of red grass, waving in the summer breeze. The air was warm, and filled with the scents of trees and flowers.

As she gazed out over this magnificent vista, entranced, a tiny creature with brilliant, jewelled wings flitted in and settled on one of the stone window sills, its long antennae twitching slightly. It was a flutterwing. Reminded of Maerl, Tejana couldn't help giving it a smile. "So," she said softly, reaching out a finger towards it. "Which of the three hundred and twenty seven varieties are you, gorgeous?"

Her sleeve swished silkily as she moved, and the flutterwing flew away. Surprised, Tejana looked down at herself, realising for the first time that she was no longer dressed in the cotton nightdress she had gone to bed in.

She was wearing a cream-coloured watered silk chemise that clung lovingly to her small,slender figure like a second skin. It had long, draped sleeves and a low, scooping neckline that revealed an uncomfortable amount of cleavage. Over this was a sleeveless kirtle of heavily embroidered brocade, jade in colour and edged in gold, which laced tightly under her small breasts and flowed gracefully away behind her in a short train that would brush the floor as she walked.

As she looked more closely, she realised that the designs embroidered across the kirtle were actually tiny, exquisitely-sewn golden oak trees. Not too hard to guess who was controlling this dream, then. Even her clothes marked her as belonging to him. Her own personal Dream Lord. Her hearts skipped a beat in anticipation, knowing it wouldn't be too long before he put in an appearance.

In the meantime, she twirled around, watching the lovely skirt bell out around her. It had been a very, very long long time since she had been required to wear formal Gallifreyan clothing. Even then, apart from the gowns she had worn to the Otherstide Ball, it had only been the heavy, shapeless Prydonian robes the Academy had deemed appropriate for formal occasions. She had never had to wear anything like this.

Her long, gleaming hair had been twisted and twined into a series of intricate braids, before being elegantly coiled around her head in an elaborate style which, in real life, would already be giving her a headache.

She patted at it ruefully. "Even a woman's hair isn't allowed to be free and unconfined on Gallifrey,"she told herself, still speaking out loud. "I'm guessing Koschei isn't going to like it like this, though."

"I don't know about that," he said suddenly from behind her, making her jump. "All the more fun undoing it all."

A shiver traced its way up her spine. His voice was a low, velvety drawl, almost a purr, the way it always was just before they had sex. She turned around and saw him standing in the doorway, leaning on one of the carved pillars, his arms folded. Her eyes widened. She was accustomed to seeing this particular incarnation of the Master in a suit and, of course, in his more recent casual attire of jeans and a hoodie. But she had never before seen him in traditional Gallifreyan clothing. He was wearing a black velvet doublet over a white, open-necked linen shirt, with soft black trousers and leather boots. Like his younger self, his garments were edged in gold, embroidered with the oak tree that was the symbol of his House. The sun shone down on his platinum hair, making it gleam like a halo.

The breath caught in Tejana's throat as he walked towards her. He wasn't merely handsome – that seemed like much too tame a word. He was...beautiful...sinfully beautiful, like a fallen angel, his eyes full of dark temptation.

"You make me sound like a gift you intend to unwrap," she said huskily, as he drew nearer to her.

Even as she spoke the words, she could hear the Doctor's voice echoing in the back of her mind: "You've taken away all my other choices in this, Tejana, but I won't formally hand you over to him, like some sort of gift-wrapped present. I'll never give him that satisfaction." She stiffened unhappily at the memory, not wanting to imagine the danger her father could be in.

Leaning close, the Master kissed the line of her throat, his lips barely brushing her sensitive skin.

"Not a gift," he corrected, as if he knew exactly where her thoughts had wandered. "The word 'gift' implies that you don't yet belong to me. And we both know that isn't true, don't we, Ana?"

She closed her eyes, trying to muster her self-control, trying to ignore what he was doing to her.

Somehow, she had to keep her mind clear, so that she could talk to him sensibly. Somehow, she had to tell him that, despite all his arguments, despite the risk to her life and their child's, she was going back. And, most difficult of all, somehow, she had to convince him to help.

"However...speaking of gifts..." he continued teasingly, taking her hand and raising it to his lips in an oddly formal caress. "Happy Otherstide, sweetheart!"

Her eyes sprang open again; a small, surprised smile lighting her face as she looked up at him.

"Wow, it's so long since I heard somebody say that!" she exclaimed wonderingly.

Actually, she couldn't believe how very good it felt. Ever since the Time War, the Doctor had chosen to adopt human customs instead of Gallifreyan, celebrating Christmas instead of Otherstide, birthdays instead of namedays. In the beginning, she had thought it was because he was travelling with Rose and that he had adapted his ways to suit his human companion. But now she wondered if it was really because, after the destruction of Gallifrey, he couldn't bear to be reminded of the festivals of his own people.

Savouring the nostalgic burst of pleasure, she threw her arms impulsively around the Master's neck and went up on tiptoe to kiss him on the lips. "Happy Otherstide to you, Koschei!"

One of his hands slipped to her waist, pulling her hard against him, while the other one cradled the back of her head, holding her motionless as his mouth took hers as deeply and completely as he could, his tongue hot and tantalising against hers, arousing her as only he knew how. With a gasp, feeling her control slipping away, she stepped backwards, pulling away from him before she could lose herself in the raging river of sensation. He didn't try to restrain her in any way, but simply smiled, his eyes dark with possessive amusement at her reaction.

Tejana eyed him warily, all her instincts warning her he hadn't simply brought her here in response to her request to talk. There was something else going on here, she could feel it. He had something on his mind, some kind of hidden agenda. For some reason, he was playing with her, like a cat plays with a mouse, and she didn't like it. Not one bit.

"I have something for you," he said.

A golden chain suddenly caught her gaze, glittering and spinning in the sunlight as it dangled from his hand. Before she could say anything, he reached out and fastened it quickly around her neck, his fingers deft and agile, the metal falling cold against her skin. Looking down, she saw that a heavy gold pendant now hung against her low-cut bodice, fashioned in the form of a stylised oak tree, similar in shape to those already decorating her dress and the hem of his doublet.

"Thank you," she whispered, a little bit taken aback. She had never been in the habit of wearing jewellery, especially something as ornate and valuable as this. "It's...beautiful."

His fingers sensuously traced the line of the golden necklace at her throat, following where it led, all the way down to where the elegant pendant nestled between her breasts.

"You're my wife, Ana. It's time you wore the symbol of my House."

Her eyes met his, guilt rising inside her at what she knew she had to tell him, guessing he would see it as another betrayal. "But...I don't have anything for you."

His hand drifted lower, settling on the still-flat plane of her stomach. She could feel the warmth of his touch through the thin silk of her chemise, stroking across her skin. His whiskey-coloured gaze was intent and serious. "You're carrying my son. There's no greater gift than that."

Understanding of his motive slowly dawned on her. This dress, this necklace...they did not belong to Tejana of the House of Lungbarrow, free wanderer among the stars. They were the trappings of Lady Oakdown, chateleine of a great Gallifreyan estate, wife to the Lord President, mother of his child. This entire scene was intentional, orchestrated down to the very last detail. He was showing her what he expected her to become, doing his best to sway her to his way of thinking, using every potent tool at his command to manipulate her emotions. Which only confirmed to her what she had already suspected – whatever he was planning, it would happen soon, unless she could manage to talk him out of it.

She jerked back from him, purposely putting some distance between them.

"This is your dreamscape, isn't it?" she asked, crossing to one of the window embrasures and staring out over the beautiful valley. "You created it for me, the same way you created one for Anzor, right?"

"After a fashion, yeah," he agreed. "With a few, rather significant differences, of course. The one Anzor is currently enjoying isn't quite as...relaxing...as this one. I'm master here. I can change it any way I choose."

With that, he snapped his fingers and they were standing on the shale-covered, volcanic slopes of the planet Sarn. The Master was wearing the same black, close-fitting suit with the long coat-tails he had worn back in the Fifth Doctor's day. It looked very strange and out of place on the smaller, more compact body of his current incarnation. Tejana looked down and saw that she was wearing the denim cut-off shorts and black tank top she had worn long ago, back when she and her father and Turlough and Peri had clashed with the Master on Sarn, the outfit obviously drawn from his memories. A hot wind was blowing and the eye-watering stink of sulphur hung heavily in the air. Tejana could feel the heat from the rocks beneath her feet, penetrating the thin soles of her gym shoes. She couldn't help shivering – Sarn had always been a horribly bleak place, but the Master's dream version of it was even more unpleasant than she remembered.

He snapped his fingers again and they were suddenly standing in a large, circular stadium, amongst an enormous crowd, all of whom were screaming their lungs out, creating a seething atmosphere of complete hysteria. Down below, on a stage at the centre of the stadium, Tejana could see four figures, three holding guitars, one playing the drums, all of them gamely trying to sing into old-fashioned microphones, battling against the incredible background noise. Overwhelmed by the absolute pandemonium, Tejana glanced at her life-mate and couldn't help giving an unexpected peal of delighted laughter. The Master was wearing a green paisley shirt with cream-coloured flares and platform shoes, while she had on an impossibly short micro-dress, patterned with orange and purple polka-dots, which clashed horribly with her dark-copper hair.

"Earth, 1965!" he shouted gleefully in her ear, as the distant strains of "Can't Buy Me Love" drifted towards them. "Shea Stadium, New York – probably the greatest Beatles concert ever!"

A ripple of surprise skimmed through her mind. For the Master to reproduce this so clearly for his dreamscape, and in such great detail, he must have actually attended this concert. She'd had no idea that he was a Beatles fan. But before she could say anything, he was already snapping his fingers again.

This time she was lying on her back on a bed with black satin sheets and she wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, her bright copper hair spread beneath her naked body like a puddle of blood. With a flash of panic, she recognised the state room in which she had been imprisoned during "The Year That Never Was, That Never Was", when the Master had used the power of the Rift to return them through time to the Valiant. He was kneeling above her, also naked, his eyes dark with desire. Then he was kissing her again, purposefully this time, crushing her into the mattress, no hint of playfulness or teasing left in him. Despite her best intentions, she could feel the heat rising between them as she kissed him back. Hot, twisting tension burnt through her, his mouth hard and unrelenting on hers, her body already knowing exactly how it would be if she let him continue, already craving it...

...the shattering lust, need need needneedneed, oh please, please; sweat and skin and want, the neverending, forever-want; tongues lapping, the bite of teeth and then nothing in her world but him and the building, blinding, cresting pleasure...

SNAP!

It took her a few seconds to understand that the sound she had heard had been him clicking his fingers again. Slowly, disoriented and dazed, panting slightly, she opened her eyes to see they were back in the circular stone building on Gallifrey, standing facing each other, fully-clothed once more, their bodies not even touching.

"Any way I choose," he repeated calmly, stroking his fingers lightly down her cheek, and this time, she understood that the words held an underlying threat. The mercurial changes in environment had been meant to unsettle her. He had been giving her proof that, in this strange dreamworld, hidden between tangible realities, he was the one with all the control. Like Anzor, as long as she was asleep, she was completely at his mercy. If he wanted to, he could keep her trapped here forever, making sure she never woke up.

She raised her chin defiantly, her eyes blazing as her quick temper ignited. This 'carrot and stick' approach was just so typical of him. He couldn't for one second actually consider talking an issue through, oh no. It had to be his way or no way at all. Well, he could throw his empty, bombastic threats around as much as he liked, but he was wasting his time. As dangerous as he was, she wasn't afraid of him, not for her own sake. Whatever the Doctor might think, she didn't believe the Master would ever harm her or their child.

"So what did you choose for Anzor?" she asked icily.

"Shada," he replied, his voice hard and clipped.

She flinched, the very word making her feel sick inside. Amongst her people, Shada had been a place of legend, the most terrible of all the Time Lord prison planets. They said it was the closest thing to hell the Universe had ever known. Only the most dreaded criminals had been sent there. Tejana's stomach churned as she thought of the tortured expression on Anzor's sleeping face. After encountering the monsters of Shada, she doubted the Lord President's son would ever be able to function normally again, even if the Master was merciful enough to eventually release him.

"Shada?" she faltered, hating even to speak the name. "What do you know of Shada, Koschei?"

His lips pulled back from his teeth in a mirthless grin. "The Time Lords sent me there once," he replied. "Didn't the Doctor ever tell you? It was centuries ago. You would have only been a child."

Shock and revulsion gripped her at the thought of him being subjected to the abyssal horrors of the infamous prison planet. But she knew she shouldn't be surprised. The Time Lords had sent their most dreaded criminals there – and, thanks to Rassilon, he had always been the most dreaded of them all. "No, he never told me. What happened?"

Shadows shifted behind his eyes; old, black nightmares stirring. "It didn't suit me. So I left."

Tejana stared at him, stunned by the blunt, matter-of-fact statement. He had left. In other words, he had escaped...from Shada. But nobody escaped from Shada! The compulsion to ask him all about it was nearly overwhelming, but something in his curt tone warned her not to. He was usually so ready to brag about all the things he had done. If he didn't want to talk about Shada, how bad must it have been – both for him then, and for Anzor now?

"And this place?" she asked, returning the conversation to the present. "Where are we?"

He came to stand beside her at the window. "It's a summerhouse, on the Oakdown lands on Mount Perdition."

She nodded. She had already guessed that the elegant estate below belonged to his family.

"Why did you bring me here, specifically?"

For the first time, he seemed a bit uncertain. "I'm...not sure. You said you wanted to talk. This place...I used to play here all the time when I was a child." He ran his hand gently down one of the carved stone pillars, his eyes distant and clouded with recollection. "It was one of the few safe places."

"Safe places?" she queried softly.

His jaw tensed, his face like stone. "Places where he never came."

At the haunted expression in his brown eyes, Tejana felt her anger draining away. Instead, she found herself holding her breath, not wanting to speak, in case she shattered his confiding mood. This was the first time he had ever even come close to telling her anything specific about his childhood. Usually, he acted as if everything that had happened in his life before he became the Master was inconsequential and not worth remembering. She had a sudden image of a tiny, dark-haired boy hiding out here, lonely and afraid, doing his best to avoid his father's constant criticism and blinding rages, and her hearts contracted in sympathy. She had always felt the loss of her own father as she was growing up – but perhaps it was better to have no father at all than one like Lord Marnal Oakdown.

"The House of Lungbarrow was just over that peak there," he added, pointing towards a nearby mountain. "Nearly an hour's walk through the pass. Theta came exploring one day, when we were both about six, and found me here." A small, reminiscent smile tugged at his lips, as if he was seeing it all unfold again in his mind's eye. "I beat him up, that first day, for trespassing on Oakdown land. But he wouldn't give up on me, just kept on coming back. He was always stubborn as hell. Bit by bit, we became friends. We used to spend hours here together, reading, talking, dreaming, playing all sorts of fantastic games..."

His voice trailed away and his face hardened. She could literally see him shutting down again, locking away all that happened back then, taking refuge behind his usual impregnable walls.

"I was there, in the Infirmary, this afternoon," he said, changing the subject unexpectedly. "I saw you comforting my younger self."

Tejana didn't answer. His tone was silky, dangerous, and she wasn't sure where he was going with this conversational curveball. She had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't anywhere good. Surely he wasn't about to start getting jealous of his younger self? As weird as that sounded, she wouldn't put it past him. Was she supposed to feel guilty for her actions; was that what all these theatrics were about?

"The thing is, I can't remember you being there," he continued. "All I can remember is crying alone in that damn hospital bed. Now that it's happened, now that history has changed, my memory should have changed as well. And it's not just that. I still can't remember ever coming across a Shabogan servant girl named Kat back in my Academy days." He reached out and caressed her tightly-braided hair. "Now I wonder why that is, Ana?"

She tensed under his hand, suddenly realising what all his game-playing had been leading up to. She didn't need to tell him about her decision to jump into the crack. He already knew. And, as she had expected, he was furious.

"I think you know why," she replied in a low voice. "Because you weren't just in the Infirmary, were you, Koschei? You followed me outside into the corridor as well. You heard my entire conversation with Theta. So you already know what I've come to tell you - that I've decided to jump back into the next crack. Which will, of course, erase me from this timeline, meaning that no-one, including your younger self, will remember that Kat the Shabogan servant girl ever existed here."

"There are some advantages to being a ghost," he said. "And being able to listen unseen is definitely one of them. So, yeah, I know what you're planning. And I know that you want me to help you do it. But it's not going to happen, Ana."

"Koschei, the Universe is crumbling! The stars are going out! Whatever happened back in our time, whatever the Chaos-Master did, it's wiping out everything!" she cried. "Even if we did stay here, how long do you think Gallifrey will be immune? The temporal safeguards built into the transduction barrier will protect us for a while, maybe even several years, but in the end, Gallifrey will fall too. We're no safer here than we were back in our own time! We have to try to stop it happening!"

"No!" he shouted, his anger showing clearly now. "If we go back, we're both dead and so is our son! The Doctor's back there – he's the big hero, the big saviour, let him repair the Universe, he's done it often enough before!"

"And what if he can't?"

"It doesn't matter, either way. Once my father is dead and I control Gallifrey, I will fix it from here, by changing the past. With the power of the Matrix at my command, I will manipulate history in the real Universe just as easily as I manipulate the environment in this dreamworld. The Time War will never happen, the Cruciform will never be built and the Chaos-Master will never exist."

"By doing that, you'll change and destroy the lives of billions of people, right across the cosmos!" Tejana argued. "Don't you see? You won't be able to help yourself. In the end, you'll be no better than the Time War itself!"

"But you and my son will be safe, with me, here on Gallifrey," he said shortly. "And that's all I care about. The only thing I've cared about for a very, very long time. The rest of the Universe can go to hell, as far as I'm concerned."

She shook her head, frightened by the single-minded purpose burning in his eyes. "I love you and I love our son. But it's too high a price to pay, Koschei."

"That's for me to decide!" he snarled. "You're my wife, Ana, and you will do as I say."

"Or what? You'll keep me here, like Anzor? Will you send me to Shada too?"

His gaze was unrelenting. "If I have to, to keep you safe until I've put my plan into place!"

Slowly, steadily, she began to back away from him, heading for the doorway he had entered the summer-house by earlier. "I don't believe that. If you care for me the way you say you do, I don't believe you would do that to me."

"Keep away from that door, Ana!" he ordered harshly. "I'm the Master, you know what I'm capable of. Don't even think about defying me, or I'll make you very sorry!"

She kept on walking, not taking her eyes off his face for a second. "I'm going out that door, Koschei. Then I'm going to wake up. And at midnight tomorrow, I'm going to jump into that crack. I'm afraid – so terribly, terribly afraid of what will happen – and I don't want to go alone. But if I have to, I will."

"And if I do let you go, if by some miracle you make it back to the Doctor without my help, what exactly do you expect to do?" he said in a voice of iron. "What the hell can you do to change anything?"

The doorway was close now. She could feel a cool breeze blowing across the back of her neck. She had no idea what waited on the other side – the freedom of the waking world or a prison somewhere else in his land of dreams. Faith, she told herself desperately, forcing back the crippling apprehension that curled up her spine. I have to have faith. I know he won't hurt me. He loves me. I know he'll let me go.

"I can do what I've always done," she said aloud. "I can fight for what I believe in."

"What, the integrity of the Universe?" he sneered. "You really are Daddy's little girl, aren't you?"

"Actually," she responded quietly. "I was talking about you and our son."

And with that, she turned and stepped through the doorway.

With a sharp jolt, Tejana sat upright, her breath rasping painfully in and out of her throat, her double heartbeat pounding in her chest. For a few terrifying seconds, she wasn't quite sure where she was. Then the familiar surroundings began to seep past her panic into her consciousness and she recognised the servant's bedroom she shared with Dyoni. She was sitting up in her own narrow bed, wearing the nightdress she had donned before going to sleep.

"I'm awake," she whispered in deep relief, knowing instinctively that she was no longer in the dreamworld. "Oh, thank the gods, I'm awake."

Gradually, her breathing started to slow. She looked down at her hands and saw that they were trembling. For the first time, she allowed herself to acknowledge just how frightened she had been that the Master wouldn't allow her to leave his shadowy realm.

Willing herself to calm down, she lay back on the pillow. And in that moment, she realised two, very disturbing things.

Firstly, around her neck there hung a heavy gold pendant shaped like an oak tree, as real and as corporeal as she was.

And secondly, on the pillow beside her, lay what was left of Theta's timey-wimey detector, smashed into smithereens.

An Author's Apology:

OK, so I was wrong about reaching the Otherstide Ball in this one. you can blame the Master and Tejana, they sort of took over this chapter with their little chat, and by then it was far too long to write any more. I would say that we will reach the Ball in the next chapter, but you probably won't believe me anyway, so I think I'll just shut up and go hide somewhere.