Chapter 39: Our Lord and Master

Rose's words broke the Doctor out of the fog he'd been in since the Master had locked him out of his TARDIS. He dashed to the door and grabbed Jack's wrist with the Vortex manipulator.

Jack's arm jerked every time the Futurekind pounded on the door at his back, making it hard to point the sonic screwdriver at the inner workings of the Vortex manipulator. "Hold still! Don't move! Hold it still!" the Doctor ordered. Finally, he was able to repair the connections that had burnt out when Jack left the Game Station.

"I'm telling you, it's broken," Jack protested. "It hasn't worked for years."

The Doctor looked up at him and shook his head. "That's because you didn't have me. Rose, Martha, grab hold." As soon as he was sure everyone had a hand on the device, he pressed the button. "Now!"

Calling the Vortex manipulator a space hopper hadn't been jealousy talking. The device offered minimal protection from the Vortex—enough that the trip didn't kill them—but it still felt a little like being put through a blender.

When they were pushed out of the Vortex, they all stumbled into an alleyway in London. The Doctor hunched over, trying to regain his equilibrium.

"Oh, my head," Martha gasped out.

"Time travel without a capsule. That's a killer," the Doctor said as he straightened up. He looked around for Rose and found her leaning against the wall, her face pale.

"All right there, love?" he murmured as he rubbed her back.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine." She smiled weakly and took his hand.

The Doctor opened his mouth, then shook his head and pressed his lips into a thin line. They'd find out soon enough if the TARDIS was far enough away to affect her health; no reason to borrow trouble.

She should be nearby; even without the "Vote Saxon" posters plastered to the building, he would have known they were in 2008. And as long as the TARDIS was here, Rose would be fine. Unease bubbled up inside him, and he turned on his heel, anxious to get out of the alley and away from the sense of foreboding.

"Come on," he said, leading them out into the street. He still needed to find the Master.

"Still, at least we made it," Jack said as they walked through London. "Earth, twenty-first century by the looks of it. Talk about lucky."

"That wasn't luck; that was me," the Doctor countered. He looked around. "Though something pulled us slightly off course; we should have ended up in Cardiff, not London."

"Let's sit down while we come up with a plan," Rose suggested, pointing to cafe tables and chairs.

"The moral is," Jack said once they were seated, "if you're going to get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his Vortex manipulator." He tapped proudly at his wrist band, but the Doctor couldn't be bothered to argue yet again that he'd been the one to get them here.

Martha shook her head. "But this Master bloke, he's got the TARDIS. He could be anywhere in time and space."

The Doctor scanned the street. Harold Saxon was everywhere—on posters, on t-shirts—and the Master was nowhere. He knew the Master was here, but he still couldn't feel him in his mind.

How is that possible?

"No, he's here," he told Martha. "Trust me."

"Who is he, anyway?" Martha asked. "And that voice at the end, that wasn't the Professor."

"Chantho was holding a gun," Rose said. "If she shot him, he must have regenerated."

Martha frowned. "What does that mean?"

The Doctor was vaguely aware that Rose's gaze cut over to him before she answered Martha's question. "When a Time Lord is dying, their body regenerates into a new form. New face, voice, body—everything."

"Then how are we going to find him?" Martha asked worriedly.

Across the street, a beggar tapped a rhythm out against his cup. Four even beats, repeated over and over. There was something about it…

The Doctor shook himself out of his daze. "I'll know him, the moment I see him. Time Lords always do."

Martha straightened up and looked at something behind the Doctor. "But hold on. If he could be anyone… We missed the election."

The Doctor took in the ubiquitous presence of "Vote Saxon" posters on the street with new eyes. A large public television screen flickered on, and they all stood up to watch.

"But it can't be," Martha breathed.

"Mr. Saxon has returned from the Palace," the news anchor announced, "and is greeting the crowd inside Saxon Headquarters."

A slim man was walking confidently down a flight of stairs. As soon as the Doctor saw him, a jolt of recognition hit him. Beside him, he heard Rose quickly suck in a breath. I can feel him now, in my head, she told him. But I couldn't before. It's like, he was hidden, until I saw him.

"I said I knew that voice," Martha said as they joined the crowd that was gathering around the screen. "When he spoke inside the TARDIS. I've heard that voice hundreds of times. I've seen him. We all have. That was the voice of Harold Saxon."

The Doctor nodded. "That's him." The Master looked directly at the camera, a feline smile on his face. "He's Prime Minister. The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain."

On screen, a photographer was coaxing the Master into poses. "Mr. Saxon, this way, sir. Come on, kiss for the lady, sir."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow when the Master bent down to kiss the pretty woman on his arm. "The Master and his wife?"

The Master stepped away from his wife and addressed the reporters gathered at the foot of the steps. "This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that what this country really needs right now, is a Doctor."

Rose grabbed the Doctor's hand. "He knows we're here."

The Doctor nodded. "He would have known the moment we got here."

Martha got up and hailed a cab. "Come on. Let's get out of the street."

During the silent cab ride, Rose tried to reach out for the TARDIS. If they could find the ship, they'd stand a better chance against the Master.

The answering hum wasn't reassuring. The TARDIS was there on Earth, but she felt off somehow. Rose bit her lip. She'd tried not to think about it, but she couldn't ignore the possibility that the Master had messed with the TARDIS enough to affect her own health.

Don't worry about that yet, the Doctor told her, rubbing his thumb in soothing circles over the back of her hand. If he has, we'll deal with it. But you feel fine right now, don't you?

She nodded.

And hopefully, we'll have her back soon and this will all be behind us.

A shiver of foreboding went through Rose. The Doctor didn't believe this would be resolved that quickly any more than she did, but for their own peace of mind, they shoved those bleak thoughts to the back of their minds and sat in silence for the rest of the ride to Martha's.

Martha led the way up the stairs to her flat. "Home," she said as she pushed through the door.

Rose stood to the side of the room while everyone else bustled into action. The Doctor threw his coat down onto the sofa and Jack pulled out his mobile. Martha was poised to do whatever the Doctor asked.

"What have you got?" he demanded. "Computer, laptop, anything." He put on his glasses and noticed Jack on the phone. "Jack, who are you phoning? You can't tell anyone we're here."

Jack frowned. "Just some friends of mine, but there's no reply."

Martha handed the Doctor the laptop she'd retrieved from underneath the television. "Here you go. Any good?"

Jack grabbed it out of the Doctor's hands and carried it over to the kitchen table. "I can show you the Saxon websites. He's been around for ages." Rose and the Doctor huddled behind him, waiting impatiently for the website to load.

"That's so weird though," Martha said. Rose glanced over her shoulder and watched her turn around in her living room, looking stunned. "It's the day after the election. That's only four days after I met you."

The Doctor straightened up and shoved a hand through his hair. "We went flying all around the universe while he was here all the time."

"You going to tell us who he is?" Martha asked.

Rose frowned at the impatient tone in her voice. "He's a Time Lord," she said, trying to hint that she shouldn't ask for more.

But Martha had never been good at picking up on that particular hint. "What about the rest of it? I mean, who'd call himself 'the Master?'" she said, putting air quotes around the name.

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said, then bent over the laptop again in an obvious dismissal. "Come on, show me Harold Saxon."

Rose recognised the irritation on Martha's face, but for once, she didn't scold her bond mate on his rudeness. Later, he might need to tell more of the story, but right now, he was still reeling from the events of the last two hours, and it was more important that they figure out how the Master had become Prime Minister in the first place.

"Do you mind, Doc?" Jack said finally, looking over his shoulder at the Doctor. "I can literally feel you breathing down my neck."

The Doctor bared his teeth, but he retreated a few paces and perched on the back of Martha's sofa, his gaze still focused on the computer.

The Vote Saxon website finally loaded, and Jack clicked on the testimonials tab. Endorsement videos played in a pane that took up most of the page. "I'm voting Saxon," Sharon Osbourne said. "He can tick my box any day."

The band McFly were next: "Vote Saxon! Go Harry!"

And finally, Tory MP Ann Widdecombe was interviewed standing with the Master, with Big Ben in the background. "I think Mr. Saxon is exactly what this country needs. He's a very fine man." She looked up at Saxon. "And he's handsome too."

Rose snorted. "Figures the Master would be a Tory." It made her skin crawl to see how thoroughly he'd hoodwinked the nation, and she was glad when Jack moved on to the page with Saxon's biography.

"Former Minister of Defence," Jack told them. "First came to prominence when he shot down the Racnoss on Christmas Eve. Nice work, by the way," he added, looking at them over his shoulder.

"Oh, thanks," the Doctor said absently.

Martha walked over to Jack. "But he goes back years." She tapped at the personal history tab and scrolled through the pictures as she talked. "He's famous. Everyone knows his story. Look. Cambridge University, Rugby blue. Won the Athletics thing. Wrote a novel, went into business, marriage, everything. He's got a whole life."

The Doctor leaned back on his perch and rubbed his hand over his mouth. Rose could understand his confusion; how was this even possible? She'd seen him use the sonic screwdriver to lock the coordinates on the TARDIS—the Master simply couldn't have been here long enough to build the kind of history he seemed to have.

"Budge over, Jack," the Doctor ordered as he jumped off the sofa. "Why don't you make tea? Four sugars and a splash of milk for me."

"Lemon and honey for me," Martha added.

Jack rolled his eyes, but then he shrugged and smiled at Rose. "Milk and one sugar, right?"

Rose blinked; he still remembered that after 150 years? She nodded, and Jack went into the kitchen. A moment later, she heard water running.

The Doctor slid into the chair and started poking around on the Master's website. He swung his legs up onto Martha's desk, but Rose tapped his knee and shook her head when he looked at her. He pouted, but put his feet back down on the floor and hunched over the laptop instead.

"There's something not right about this," the Doctor muttered as he dug deeper into Saxon's past. "Harold Saxon has this history, but there's no way he's been here that long." Rose ran her fingers through his hair, and she felt him relax just a little. "But if it's all an elaborate lie, then how did he convince the entire nation?"

"But he's got the TARDIS," Jack reminded him from the kitchen. "Maybe the Master went back in time and has been living here for decades."

The Doctor didn't look up from the computer. "No."

"Why not? Worked for me." Jack returned with three cups precariously balanced in his hands.

The Doctor twisted in the chair and took his tea. "When he was stealing the TARDIS, the only thing I could do was fuse the coordinates. I locked them permanently. He can only travel between the year one hundred trillion and the last place the TARDIS landed. Which is right here, right now."

"Yeah, but a little leeway?" Jack asked sceptically.

The Doctor leaned back a little, thinking about it. He wanted to deny the possibility, but the Master was a genius—it was possible he could have given himself a slight bump. "Well, eighteen months? Tops—the most he could have been here is eighteen months."

A thought occurred to Rose. He's the one who was trying to split us up at Canary Wharf.

Most likely. I did think at the time that only a Time Lord would be able to manipulate timelines the way he was doing.

He looked back at the laptop. "So how has he managed all this? The Master was always sort of hypnotic," he admitted, "but this is on a massive scale."

"I was going to vote for him," Martha said matter-of-factly.

"Really?" Rose asked, and the Doctor knew she was thinking the same thing he was—Martha was clever and savvy. How had she been sucked in?

"Well, it was before I even met you. And I liked him."

"Me too."

The Doctor looked from Martha to Jack. "Why do you say that?" Momentary confusion crossed Jack's face, and the Doctor pressed for more details. "What was his policy? What did he stand for?"

"I don't know. He always sounded good." Martha started tapping her fingers in the same four beat rhythm the Doctor had heard on the street. "Like you could trust him. Just nice. He spoke about…"

She paused, and the slightly vacant look on her face as she tried to pull up details of the Master's campaign was disturbing.

"I can't really remember, but it was good. Just the sound of his voice."

The constant tapping was both annoying and ominous somehow. "What's that?" the Doctor asked sharply.

Martha jolted out of her daze. "What?"

The Doctor pointed at her hands. "That. That tapping, that rhythm. What are you doing?"

Martha looked down at her hands, and the Doctor realised she hadn't even been aware of what she was doing. "I don't know. It's nothing. It's just, I don't know."

A music alert played from the Saxon website, and when the Doctor looked, a banner covered the page, announcing, "Saxon Broadcast All Channels."

The Doctor ran across the room and turned the telly on. "Our lord and master is speaking to his kingdom."

The Master was sitting in the cabinet room, his hands folded casually in front of himself. "Britain, Britain, Britain. What extraordinary times we've had. Just a few years ago, this world was so small. And then they came, out of the unknown, falling from the skies. You've seen it happen."

He narrated a few clips of the Doctor and Rose's adventures in London. "Big Ben destroyed. A spaceship over London. All those ghosts and metal men. The Christmas star that came to kill."

The camera focused on the Master again. "Time and time again, and the government told you nothing. Well, not me. Not Harold Saxon. Because my purpose here today is to tell you this. Citizens of Great Britain…" He paused, letting anticipation build. "I have been contacted. A message for humanity, from beyond the stars."

The Doctor's mind raced, trying to figure out what the Master was up to. He couldn't possibly be orchestrating humanity's official first contact almost fifty years early, but there was also no way he was simply trying to be open with his constituency.

The Master nodded to someone off camera, and a staticky video started. A metal sphere hovered in mid-air and spoke in a childlike voice. "People of the Earth, we come in peace. We bring great gifts. We bring technology and wisdom and protection. And all we ask in return is your friendship."

"Ooo, sweet," the Master cooed into the camera. "And this species has identified itself. They are called the Toclafane."

The Doctor rocked back on his heels. "What?" If he'd needed proof that the Master was up to something, that was it.

"And tomorrow morning, they will appear," the Master continued. "Not in secret, but to all of you. Diplomatic relations with a new species will begin. Tomorrow, we take our place in the universe. Every man, woman, and child. Every teacher and chemist and lorry driver and farmer." He shrugged and smirked. "Oh, I don't know, every medical student?"

The Doctor spun around to look at Martha, whose eyes were wide and frightened. His mind raced, and he turned the TV around to see sticks of dynamite rigged to explode.

"Out!" he hollered. Rose and their friends ran out of the flat, and the Doctor followed them, after grabbing the laptop and his coat.

Martha was halfway across the street when she heard the explosion and shattering glass. She screamed and spun around, unprepared for the sight of flames licking through her kitchen window. And if they know who I am…

"Everyone all right?" the Doctor asked, a protective arm already around Rose.

"Fine, yeah, fine," Jack said.

"Martha?"

Martha ignored him, dialling her mum. The Doctor had taken care of his family; she was going to take care of hers.

"What are you doing?" the Doctor asked.

"He knows about me," she said, pacing the street while the phone rang. "What about my family?"

"Don't tell them anything."

Martha's simmering anger spilled over at the order, and she glared at him. "I'll do what I like," she said through clenched teeth.

Someone on the other end of the line finally picked up. "Hello?"

"Mum?" The air whooshed out of Martha's lungs in an audible breath. "Oh my God, you're there."

"Of course I'm here, sweetheart. You all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm fine," Martha lied. "Mum, has there been anyone asking about me?"

The hesitation wouldn't have been noticeable to anyone who didn't know Francine, but it was enough to make the hair on the back of Martha's neck stand on end.

"Martha, I think perhaps you should come round."

Martha looked back at the Doctor, Rose, and Jack. "I can't. Not now."

"No, but it's your father. We've been talking and we thought we might give it another go."

Martha blinked. There was no way that was true. "Don't be so daft. Since when?"

"Just come around. Come to the house. We can celebrate."

Dread pooled in the pit of Martha's stomach. "You'd never get back with him in a million years."

"Ask him yourself."

Martha turned in a circle and clutched the phone nervously, not understanding what was going on. Less than a week ago, her parents had been yelling at each other outside of a restaurant, and now they claimed they were planning to reconcile. It wasn't right.

"Martha, it's me," her father said.

"Dad, what are you doing there?" Martha spun around to look at the Doctor, who walked towards her slowly.

"Like your mother said. Come round. We can explain everything."

Martha's mum could bluff her way through anything, but her father was a horrible liar. "Dad?" Martha asked. "Just say yes or no. Is there someone else there?"

There was a long pause, then he shouted, "Yes! Just run!" In the background, Martha could hear her mum say something about Tish, but her father shouted back. "I'm not sacrificing one daughter to save the other! Run, Martha!"

There was a loud clattering noise, like the phone had hit the ground, and then sounds of a fight and her mother yelling over the top of it all.

"Dad? What's going on? Dad?" Martha flipped her phone shut and jogged to her car. "We've got to help them."

"That's exactly what they want. It's a trap!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"I don't care." Martha got in and shoved the key into the ignition.

Rose slid into the front seat beside her, and the men got in the back. Martha started the car before the doors were all shut and floored it, sending them roaring down the street. She drove heedless of all other traffic, swerving through lanes and into oncoming traffic as needed in order to keep moving.

"Corner!" the Doctor yelled, and she cranked the wheel hard, sending them skidding around a corner.

Once they were heading in the right direction, Martha tossed her phone to Rose. "Speed dial 2," she ordered, and her friend pressed the button that would call Tish and handed it back to her.

The phone rang four times, and Martha clutched the steering wheel tighter. "Come on, Tish. Pick up."

"You have reached Letitia Jones."

Martha swore when the call went straight to voice mail, thinking about what her parents had said about Tish.

"He must have taken her." She tossed the phone onto the centre console and glared back at the Doctor. "It's your fault. It's all your fault!"

"Martha, listen to me," Rose said quietly. "I know you want to help your family, but in order to do that, you have to stay alive. They want us to go to your mum's, because then we're neutralised."

The car squealed around the corner, but Martha slammed on the brakes when she saw her parents being shoved into a police van. "Right," she muttered, shifting the car into reverse and hitting the gas. "Let's get out of here."

She shifted back into drive and peeled out seconds before gunfire filled the air. Out of the line of fire, she threw a scathing look back at the Doctor. "The only place he can go, planet Earth. Great!"

"Careful!" he ordered when she nearly ran into a cyclist.

Jack leaned forward. "Martha, listen to me. Do as I say. We've got to ditch this car. Pull over. Right now!"

She wanted to argue, but she'd seen enough movies where people were on the run to know he was right. "There's an underpass down here," she said, turning the car down another street. "We can leave it there. Maybe they won't find it and they'll think we're still in it."

"Good thinking, Martha," Rose said.

Martha clenched her jaw. She didn't want anyone to tell her she was clever, or smart. She just wanted to know her family were safe.

It started raining as she carefully navigated the underpass to park the car, hidden, on the other side. Everyone else piled out quickly, but Martha scanned the car, looking for anything she'd want. Not seeing anything, she closed the door and dialled her brother.

"Martha, come on!" the Doctor ordered from fifteen feet in front of her.

Martha jogged to catch up with them and nearly cried when Leo picked up the phone. "Leo! Oh, thank God. Leo, you got to listen to me. Where are you?"

"I'm in Brighton," Leo said. Martha drew in a relieved breath—that was why Saxon hadn't gotten them. "Yeah, we came down with Boxer. Did you see that Saxon thing on telly?"

"Leo, just listen to me," Martha interrupted. "Don't go home. I'm telling you. Don't phone Mum or Dad or Tish. You've got to hide."

"Shut up," Leo said after a short pause.

"On my life. You've got to trust me. Go to Boxer's. Stay with him. Don't tell anyone. Just hide."

A third voice broke into the conversation. "Ooo, a nice little game of hide and seek. I love that. But I'll find you, Martha Jones," Saxon promised. "Been a long time since we saw each other. Must be, what, one hundred trillion years?"

Martha stood stock still. "Let them go, Saxon. Do you hear me! Let them go!"

The Doctor had been trying to give Martha space, but when he realised the Master had intercepted her phone call, he shoved the laptop at Jack and plucked the phone from her hand. He walked a few steps away from his friends, with only Rose at his side.

"I'm here," he told the Master quietly.

After a long pause, the other man whispered his name. "Doctor."

"Master."

The Master sighed. "I like it when you use my name."

The Doctor looked around at the empty shopping centre he was standing in. "You chose it. Psychiatrist's field day."

"As you chose yours. The man who makes people better. How sanctimonious is that?"

The Doctor held his hand out and Rose took it immediately. "So, Prime Minister, then," he said, walking slowly away from the underpass. Jack and Martha followed, but maintained the distance between them.

"I know. It's good, isn't it?"

"Who are those creatures?" the Doctor asked, voicing the question he'd had ever since the Master had claimed they were the Toclafane. "Because there's no such thing as the Toclafane. It's just a made up name, like the Bogeyman."

"Do you remember all those fairy tales about the Toclafane when we were kids back home?" the Master asked smoothly. "Where is it, Doctor?"

That was the question he'd been dreading ever since Rose had told him about the watch. How could he possibly explain to someone who hadn't been there that he had been forced to make an impossible choice—Gallifrey, or the universe.

He swallowed hard. "Gone."

"How can Gallifrey be gone?" the Master spat out.

The Doctor stopped and looked at the ground, swallowing back the tears that threatened. "It burnt." Rose's compassion warmed him, and he squeezed her hand in thanks.

"And the Time Lords?"

"Dead." The Doctor sat down on a bench. "And the Daleks, more or less. What happened to you?"

"The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I'd be the perfect warrior for a Time War." The answer sickened the Doctor, but he knew how far the High Council had gone towards the end of the war. "I was there when the Dalek Emperor took control of the Cruciform. I saw it. I ran. I ran so far. Made myself human so they would never find me, because I was so scared."

The Doctor sighed and squeezed Rose's hand. He understood that, better than anyone. "I know." The Time War had been terrifying, and he couldn't blame the Master for hiding, not really.

"All of them?" the Master asked suddenly, turning the conversation away from himself. "But not you, which must mean…"

The Doctor had known it wouldn't take him long to figure that out. "I was the only one who could end it. And I tried. I did. I tried everything."

"What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did that feel?" the Master whispered reverently.

"Stop it!" the Doctor ordered, hating the way his old friend was twisting the worst day of his life into an experience to be envied.

"You must have been like God."

"I've been alone ever since," the Doctor said, focusing on what the end of the War had truly meant for him. "But not anymore. Don't you see? All we've got is each other."

The Master chuckled. "Oh, but you've got your bond mate, your little human-Time Lord hybrid."

The Doctor's hand clenched around the phone. He wanted to yell into the phone, to demand the Master leave Rose alone, but he took a few deep breaths and changed the subject instead.

"You could stop this right now. We could leave this planet. We can fight across the constellations, if that's what you want, but not on Earth."

"Too late," the Master told him quietly.

There was something about the way he said that… "Why do you say that?"

"The drumming."

The Doctor finally placed that four-beat rhythm he kept hearing—it was the drums Professor Yana had said he heard in his mind. Somehow, the Master had taken that telepathic misfire and passed it on to the whole of the human race.

"Can't you hear it?" the Master continued. "I thought it would stop, but it never does. Never ever stops. Inside my head, the drumming, Doctor. The constant drumming."

"I could help you. Please, let me help."

"It's everywhere. Listen, listen, listen. Here come the drums. Here come the drums."

Someone across the street started tapping the same rhythm out against his legs. The Doctor stood up abruptly and started pacing. "What have you done? Tell me how you've done this. What are those creatures? Tell me!"

"Ooo look. You're on TV."

"Stop it," the Doctor said, tired of the Master's flippancy. "Answer me."

"No, really. You're on telly. You and your little band, which, by the way, is ticking every demographic box. So, congratulations on that. Look, there you are."

The Doctor looked through the shopping centre window at the television on display. All their faces flashed across the screen, and the banner read, "Nationwide hunt for terrorist suspects."

"You're public enemies number one, two, three and four," the Master said smugly. "Oh, and you can tell handsome Jack that I've sent his little gang off on a wild goose chase to the Himalayas, so he won't be getting any help from them." The Doctor looked over at Jack and Martha and nodded for them to come take a look. "Now, go on, off you go. Why not start by turning to the right?"

The Doctor looked up and spotted the CCTV camera. "He can see us," he said, then disabled the camera with the sonic.

"Oh, you public menace," the Master chided. "Better start running. Go on, run."

The Doctor ended the call and realised the severity of the situation. The Master was the Prime Minister. "He's got control of everything." Every CCTV camera, every weapon, every branch of law enforcement…

Martha stared at him, her arms crossed over her chest. "What do we do?"

Rose's face was white. "If he's Prime Minister, then…"

Jack finished the thought for her. "We've got nowhere to go."

"Doctor, what do we do?" Martha repeated.

He looked at the three of them and took Rose's hand. "We run."