Chapter 22: Only a Phone Call Away

The Master stood in his office, watching the moon reflect off the Thames as the clock ticked over to midnight, bringing Election Day one day closer. His aides had briefed him constantly from Lazarus' gala, and although he hadn't expected the device to wake up dormant genes in the old man, the rest of the evening had gone exactly as he'd hoped.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler had attended with Martha Jones, and they'd made a less than stellar impression on the young woman's mother. It was almost disappointing how easy it had been for his operatives to persuade Mrs. Jones that the Doctor was a danger to her daughter, although the malfunctioning science experiment had certainly helped his case.

All she had needed to hear was the absolute truth about some of the Doctor's adventures. Of course, what most of his aides didn't know and thus couldn't tell Mrs. Jones was that all of those disasters took place over the course of 900 years of space travel. It seemed like a horribly long list if you thought the Doctor was only 35 or 40 at the oldest.

His phone rang, and the Master turned away from the sight of his future empire to answer it. "This is Saxon."

"Dexter here, sir."

The Master smiled; the blonde woman was his most ruthless aide. "Has Francine Jones agreed to bring Martha back to Earth before we introduce the Toclafane to the world?" He heard her hesitation, and stiffened. "Dexter?"

"We ran into an unexpected wrinkle in the plan tonight, sir. While Mrs. Jones is certainly unimpressed with the Doctor, it seems Rose Tyler managed to allay some of her concerns."

His eyes narrowed to slits. Of course. He hadn't written a contingency for Rose Tyler into his plan. Your interfering is causing me more problems than I expected, he thought darkly at the TARDIS, even though the ship couldn't hear him from this distance.

"What do you mean, exactly?" he asked.

"Even when we told her about how the Doctor tends to recruit young women to join him in his dangerous lifestyle, Mrs. Jones only seemed concerned that Martha would find something to do besides medicine. The panic we expected was simply… non-existent."

The Master paced the length of his office, feeling his plans fall apart around him. "But will she be persuaded to pressure her daughter into coming home for a visit?"

"I'm currently not confident in the outcome of this mission, sir."

The Master's hand tightened into a fist and he breathed shallowly through his nose.

"Well then," he said after he'd calmed down a bit. "It seems like we need to find more leverage to convince her to do what we want."

"What did you have in mind, Master?" Dexter asked, a little of the uneasiness seeping out of her voice at the promise of a new plan.

"I believe I will give young Letitia the day off tomorrow. After all, she went through quite the ordeal tonight at the gala. Assign an agent to her flat. If Mrs. Jones balks, bring Tish in and tell her mother that it would be in her family's best interests to do as we say."

"Yes sir," Dexter said, a smile in her voice.

"Thank you, Dexter," the Master said then ended the call.

A metallic pop over his head and a dull sense of wrongness alerted him to the arrival of one of his Toclafane. A smile crossed the Master's face as he considered how the Doctor would react to the name he'd given the mutated humans.

"Is it ready?" the Toclafane asked.

A second pop signalled a second Toclafane entering the room. "Will the Master's Doctor friend be with us when the paradox starts?"

The Master leaned back in his chair. "Oh yes, he'll be there," he said smoothly. "I have the one thing he will always come back for—his precious TARDIS." He very briefly considered the possibility that the Doctor would choose to protect his bond mate rather than confront him, but he dismissed it almost immediately. The Doctor's pathological need to help people would dictate his return to Earth, even if he hadn't stolen the TARDIS.

The two Toclafane soared through the air over his head. "The paradox machine is humming. It sounds funny."

"We don't like it."

The Master hid his discomfort at the reminder of the TARDIS' sickly hum. That was a side effect to his plan that he had not anticipated. "You'll like it well enough when we hit start and the machine allows you and all of your brothers and sisters to pop back into existence."

They sped up, generating a buzzing hum of their own. "Yes, Master. When will we all be together again?"

The Master turned and looked back out at London. "In three days. Just three days from now."

oOoOoOoOo

Martha was unsurprised the morning morning after the gala when the Doctor announced that it was time for a relaxing trip. "After all, we wouldn't want you to think your mum might be right—death all around me, etc etc," he'd told her as he set the coordinates. But Martha had seen the way he glanced over at Rose as he said it, and she had a feeling this was an apology trip.

Not that Rose seemed to be holding a grudge over their argument the night before. Martha observed her lounging on the jump seat, looking for some trace of stiffness or resentment, but all she could see was the same excited smile Rose always seemed to wear whenever they landed someplace new.

Martha returned the smile, happy that fights between the Doctor and Rose were apparently nothing like fights between her parents. "So, Doctor," she said, leaning against a strut, "where are we going?"

"Mineral lakes of Kur-ha," he said. "The best ice skating in the galaxy."

"Sounds gorgeous," Martha said. "Like something from a Christmas card." She looked at Rose's thick jumper, snow boots, and heavy winter coat. "Should I go change, though?" she asked, gesturing to her own mid-weight top and leather jacket.

The Doctor nodded. "If you didn't bring winter clothes, you can find something in the wardrobe room."

In her room, Martha layered one of her own jumpers over her shirt and pulled out her favourite hat and scarf. A quick stop in the wardrobe room turned up a coat, gloves, and boots.

When she returned to the console room, the Doctor and Rose were both bundled up in hats, scarves, and gloves. He looked relatively normal, but Rose…

Martha stared at the multi-coloured scarf that covered most of her friend's face and then looped around her neck several times. "What is that?"

Above the line of the scarf, Rose's cheeks lifted in a smile. She took one of the ends of the scarf and twirled it in the air. "It used to be the Doctor's," she said. "The TARDIS had it out, and it happens to be really warm."

"Probably because you're covered in five layers of fabric." Martha looked at the Doctor. "You used to wear that?"

"Lifetimes ago," he told her, drawing a giggle from his wife. "Although I have to say, I think Rose pulls it off better than I ever did."

Martha shook her head slowly—sometimes, they really were alien. "Well, am I dressed warmly enough now?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, you look much better prepared for the bracing winds of Kur-ha," he said. "The high mineral content in the lakes means the water doesn't freeze solid enough for skating until the temperature reaches -10. Ready to go?"

Martha patted her pocket. "Yep. I've got my phone so I can take some pictures. Even if I can't tell people where I've been, I want to start making some sort of record for my own purposes."

"Oh! Your mobile." Rose looked at the Doctor. "Don't you think it's time…?"

He nodded and pulled one of his gloves off with his teeth. "Before we go, can I take a look at your phone, Martha?" She raised an eyebrow, but handed it over. He sonicked it for a few seconds, then tossed it back to her. "Right, there we go. Universal roaming. Never have to worry about a signal again."

She looked down at her phone, her jaw dropping slightly when the display read Universal Roaming, with a full signal. "No way. This is too mad. You're telling me I can phone anyone, anywhere in space and time on my mobile?"

"As long as you know the area code." The Doctor smiled as he put his glove back on. "Frequent flier's privilege. Go on, try it."

Martha looked down at the phone, then back up at the Doctor. "I can't believe this," she muttered as she hit a speed dial button.

Tish's phone rang twice before she picked up. "I can't really talk, Martha. You'll never believe who hired me after last night—Harold Saxon! He gave me the day off, but I'm doing some research from home so I can hit the ground running." There was a short pause. "Hang on, how are you even calling?" she asked, her voice low. "Aren't you still…"

"Yeah, I'm still with the Doctor and Rose," Martha confirmed. "The Doctor just upgraded my phone so I could call home, and I wanted to try it out. You go back to your research, and I'll call later."

"Okay. Have fun, and be safe!"

Martha ended the call and put her phone back in her pocket. "That's… unbelievable."

Rose grinned. "That's life in the TARDIS for you. Did you call Tish?"

"Yeah. I figured she'd be home, since her job kinda disappeared yesterday. But she's already got a new job, working for Harold Saxon."

The Doctor and Rose exchanged a look. "Who is Harold Saxon?" the Doctor asked as they stepped out of the TARDIS. Rose's comments the night before about the coincidences surrounding Martha and her family were gaining credence.

"You're kidding me," Martha said. "You seriously don't know?"

"We're not exactly in contemporary London on a regular basis," Rose pointed out.

They crested a small hill that overlooked a frozen lake. The planet's sun hung fairly low in the sky, indicating it was still morning, but there were already several people on the ice.

"Right. But…" Martha rubbed at her eyebrow, then nodded. "Well, unless things change drastically in the next forty-eight hours, relative to London, he's the next Prime Minister."

"It's weird to think that there's going to be an election," Rose said. "I've been gone so long, I'm just not aware of what's going on here anymore." She tried to remember the last time she'd even thought about UK politics and realised it must have been when Harriet Jones was ousted.

"Benefit of TARDIS travel," the Doctor said as he led them towards a hut on the side of the lake. "You can avoid dealing with all the messy planetary politics. As long as they don't call you back to become Lord President, at least."

Rose choked back a laugh. She'd learned to pick up on those moments when his seemingly casual statements were actually nuggets of information about his past, and this was one.

"All right, both of you," she said, deciding they could talk more about Saxon later. "We are going ice skating, and then, Doctor, you will get us whatever resembles hot chocolate on this planet while we warm up."

oOoOoOoOo

Five hundred yards behind them, the TARDIS hummed in relief as the timelines stabilised. She should have known Harold Saxon would tickle her Wolf's curiosity, but investigating him now would cause a paradox even she couldn't contain.

Before they could face the Master, they had to travel to the end of the universe and wake him up. She would have to be stolen—a ripple of the future discomfort ran through her—and only then could her Wolf and her Thief follow and set things right.

Feeling only the tiniest hint of guilt, the TARDIS touched their minds and carefully implanted the subtle suggestion to brush aside any further questions of Harold Saxon's identity. As much as she would want them to rescue her—had wanted them to rescue her—this was the way things had to happen.