Title: Bury My Hearts
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Doctor/Master
Timeframe: Valiant, just after The Master refuses to regenerate
Warnings: expect a bit of insinuation.

His body was growing cold, his pale skin turning ashen. Theta clutched the body against his own chest as though trying to warm him - as if by some miracle he could bring his best enemy back to life.

He lets out a strangled cry of agony - rocking his friend - as though a child and he - the non-hero - can scare the monsters away, as Kos used to when they were vulnerable, not-so-innocent children.

He doesn't need to look up to know they are staring at him as though he's gone mad over the death of his torturer - but what they don't understand is the need for each other - like breathing creatures need oxygen, like Sea Devils need water...

Let go...But he can't let go, his hearts are burning with pain like fire - as though the bullet has pierced him instead of the cold form clutched in his grasp.

The last words haunt him. Will the drums stop? The truth is he doesn't know. The Matrix is destroyed, but that doesn't mean their isn't an afterlife is there? A part of him doesn't want to know at all.

He clings to the body as a drowning human clutching at a piece of rotted driftwood. His bruises ache - the beatings he's experienced of late have taken their toll.

His head throbs with the emptiness that hangs there. There are no threads of the matrices to hide anymore - and no one to hide them from. No one to pry along his mind, no one to scour with long claws, leaving his mind scarred in the wake. He'd thought for an entire year he was no longer alone - welcoming the pain - but now he is alone, for real this time.

No Rose - who probably wouldn't understand anyway.

Martha has her family to look after now - she doesn't need him anymore.

The person he truly needs - the one his arms ache to hold, his lips long to caress, and his two hearts beat out of synch for in the first place has left him alone - deserted in the universe. Hot tears sting his cheeks. He has no one.

He cannot deny that there have been times this past year that he considered giving up, letting the threads of the network slip between his grasp, give into the prevaling madness, and let his left heart give out - but the need for the other body next to him, the quivering hands clasped in his, the pale skin under his fingertips - have kept him going.

He brushes his lips against the cold cheek, sighing shatteredly, his mind too beaten to form articulate thoughts..

He feels old now, even though he doesn't look it anymore. His left heart is beating sporatically again - every bruised muscle is aching, and his head throbs - but there is nothing but painful silence.

A/N: not completely happy with it, feels a bit awkward in places, and the sentence structure is a bit off. R&R anyway?