The Doctor returned to Meg and found she wasn't alone. A man was kneeling on the floor, cradling her unconscious (he hoped) body in his arms, his back to him. It had to be the man who summoned them here, the one with the anti-Lambda.
"Who are you?"
"You don't remember me? After all we've been through?" He turned around and smiled. "I'm hurt."
Looking into his baby blue eyes, he knew in his gut who the man was, even when the last time he saw him he had brown eyes – coupled with a completely different face. A time lord recognizing another of his kind had nothing to do with appearances.
"Master."
He was alive. That was so him. Long before the war when time lords had only twelve lives to live, the Master used his up and found out a way to steal regenerations from others. Later, he refused to regenerate to spite the Doctor. Little knowing the backup plan, the Doctor cremated him. The Master came back anyway but in a highly unstable form. A genius like the Master might have come up with yet another loophole, but he was sucked into the time lock to stay forever, never dead, always dying.
"How?" the last time they saw each other, they were working together – admittedly only because the bad guys held an unwavering bias against the criminally insane – still, as the last Time Lords the Doctor was prepared to accept him as a brother. Only what was he doing now?
The Master brushed a lock of hair away from Meg's face with the barrel of his gun. "You know I saved her life once, too? She was just a little slip of a thing then. How time flies."
The Master set Meg's body down on the ground, drew the sonic screwdriver from her limp fingers and stood up. He backed away far enough to allow the Doctor to go to her. He checked her pulse. Still alive. He breathed a sigh of relief. "What do you want?"
"You don't really care, Doctor. Admit it. You've never cared about what I wanted. Everywhere I went, there you were to spoil my plans. But I care. And I know what you want. You want the anti-Lambda onboard, don't you?"
"You have it?"
The Master fished it from his jacket pocket.
"Give it to me." the Doctor said. "I can still save her."
The Master dropped the vial.
"No!" the Doctor shouted, but it was too late. The serum lay splattered on the tile floor among shards of glass. "Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why save her if you were only going to let her die? Why risk yourself? The Lambda can just as easily mutate and kill you with her."
"And there's where your line of questions should have taken a sharp left turn." The Master said. "You actually thought she had Lambda, didn't you? Well don't worry about me – though it is touching – I'm perfectly safe."
"What did you do?"
"Parasitic nanogenes hidden inside dead Lambda cells. It'd fool any computer, but Lambda? Please, Doctor. I'm crazy, not stupid."
"Nanogenes." He repeated dully, realizing all that worry was for nothing. Well, not quite nothing. The Master took out a small remote.
"Fantastic little things with a smorgasbord of features. There are the standard Lambda symptoms you've seen – I loved the hemorrhaging of the eyes, didn't you? Very dramatic. There's coma, heart attack, stroke, seizure, death and… yes, here it is: agony."
He pressed the button and Meg's eyes snapped open only to squeeze shut as the pain hit every nerve cell in her body. She screamed.
"Stop it." the Doctor commanded, trying to hold her still.
He did nothing.
"Please!"
The Master knelt in front of the Doctor, his eyes cold. "She's mine, old friend. She has been mine for going on fifteen years now. I will decide when to stop, not you, and I decide to stop only when it pleases me."
The Master held up the remote control and silently dared the Doctor to say something, Meg screaming all the while, blind and deaf to everything but her pain. When he didn't speak, the Master pressed the coma button again, and she went limp.
"Why torture her? What do you get out of it?"
"It's fun." He replied. "To hold another person's life in my hands. You know that's the only toy in the universe I'll never tire of. But it'd be a shame to kill her – so don't make me. She's fascinating. Don't you think she's fascinating?"
"I get it." the Doctor said, holding her. "You want me to suffer. But I just met her, and empathetic pain will only go so far. Inject me with the nanogenes. Leave her out of this."
The Master aimed his gun at the Doctor's head with a smile. "I would be happy to oblige." He squeezed the trigger. It clicked. Empty. He didn't need the gun, the remote control was enough of a threat, and it couldn't miss. "However, little Miss Meg is involved whether we like it or not."
"Why?" he asked baffled. "Why? She's just a human. What could you possibly want with her?"
Meg started screaming again. The Master shut it off just as abruptly with another click of a button. "Don't be coy." He warned.
"I wasn't. I don't…"
The Master blinked. "Really? You've known her for how many hours now, and you haven't noticed it yet? I'm disappointed in you. Look at her."
The Doctor swept her hair from her face and studied her peaceful face. He was distracted before, and he never took the time to really see her. "I don't know what you want me to say." There was a beauty mark on her right cheek and a little white scar above her eyebrow. He noticed earlier her eyes were a lovely honey color that complimented her olive skin and chestnut hair. The nanogenes did a number on her, but she was still beautiful. She'd be stunning once she was happy and healthy again. He felt his stomach flip flop, but he buried the feeling. Human. He reminded himself.
"Close your eyes if you must, but focus."
The Doctor would rather turn his back on a Zygon than close his eyes with the Master in the room, but he had little choice. He obeyed, closing his eyes and expanding his senses, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
Nothing happened at first, his attention still on the Master and his insane plans.
Only…
Less in his mind, and more in the pit of his stomach, he felt something. Butterflies. Time seemed to slow. For the first time since he saw the Master, his heart beats calmed to a normal rhythm. A human would describe the feeling as true love, but the Doctor knew it was something far, far rarer.
The Doctor looked up, feeling the hair on his arms stand up.
The Master grinned. "Interesting isn't it? And the phenomenon is stable. She's had it since she was eight, at least."
"Impossible."
"And yet."
"What is it?"
"You know what it is."
"But how? She's human."
"Maybe."
"No. She is. I checked when she boarded the TARDIS."
"Then explain it." the Master challenged.
"I can't, not yet." The Doctor admitted.
The Master shrugged. "It doesn't matter. The Matron is alive and would like to see you – and Meg – at your earliest possible convenience. Don't keep her waiting."
"Wait!" the Doctor protested. "She survived too? How many others are there?"
"Ask her yourself."
"Did she tell you to torture Meg?"
The Master shrugged. "She never told me not to."
"And what makes her think I'll overlook this?"
The Master looked pityingly on the Doctor. "She'll be in touch. Don't keep her waiting – I can always get another remote."
He tossed his controller to the Doctor and disappeared.
There were two large buttons on the bottom one black and one white. Start and Stop. The options must have been in a psychic relay with the Master. One would turn off the nanogenes, and Meg would wake up perfectly healthy. The other one would most likely kill her. The Doctor touched the white and paused. Too obvious. He pressed the black and Meg's eyes opened.
"Hey. Welcome back."
"You found the cure." She smiled and looked around. "Was there someone else here?"
"No. Why do you say that?" he lied.
She shook her head. "Just a dream I guess – it couldn't be true, but I could have sworn my uncle Ian was here."
He sighed. So it really was a dream.
"Your uncle?" he asked, helping her to her feet, slipping the remote into his bottomless pockets.
"Yeah, he's not my biological uncle, just a good friend of the family. He dropped out of nowhere and saved my life when I was a kid; I guess that's why I dreamt of him."
"When was that?" he asked, stomach dropping.
"Going on fifteen years. Why?"
"Just curious." He lied. "What was his name again?"
"Ian Masterson."
The Doctor took her back into the TARDIS, wondering what she was and what he was going to do with her. She knew the Master – and didn't hate him. Suspicious. She hated aliens – and he was an alien. Another red flag there. She was violent – he was a pacifist. Problematic. She was human – with an inhuman ability. Intriguing.
The Matron and the Master had plans for her. That settled the internal debate. Meg would stay where he could see her, with him on the TARDIS. He couldn't say she was safe there, but he'd do his best to protect her until he found out more.