Author's Note: Thanks very much to the people who reviewed the last chapter - SawManiac211, mericat, Imorgen, xxTeam-Masterxx, Theta'sWorstNightmare, MayFairy and MountainLord-92. Sorry for small delay in posting this one - busy weekend!

CHAPTER FIVE

Tejana was not given any chance to escape. With one guard on each side of her, she was frog-marched out through one of the many service entrances at the rear of the hotel and forced to climb into the back of a van with darkly tinted windows. Her first instinct was to scream and kick and fight, to make sure she drew as much attention as she could to the fact that she was effectively being kidnapped. But then she changed her mind. She knew enough of the hold Harold Saxon had over the thoughts of the British public in 2008 not to bother. As long as the Archangel Network was in place, anything that was done on his orders would not be questioned.

Waiting for her in the back of the van was a blonde woman with cold, arrogant features. Tejana recognised her as the Master's chief enforcer - she remembered seeing her once before, when the Jones family had been taken into custody at the very beginning of The Year That Never Was. Dexter, that's what Francine had called her. Miss Dexter.

"Where are you taking me?" she demanded as the van doors slammed shut behind her, trapping her inside with the woman. Almost immediately, the engine started and the van swung sharply away from the curb.

"We told you. Mr Saxon wishes to speak to you," Dexter responded flatly.

"Yeah? Well, maybe I don't want to speak to him!" Tejana snapped.

"You don't have a choice, I'm afraid. Mr Saxon has given the order. And whatever Mr Saxon wants, Mr Saxon gets."

Tejana choked back a peal of bitter laughter at this. Oh lady, she thought, if you only knew!

"You can't just arrest me. I haven't done anything wrong."

The woman gave her a cruel, thin-lipped smile. "Oh, I think you'll find that we can."

Her eyes wandered up and down Tejana's body and the Time Lady only just managed to suppress a shudder. She could tell this woman wanted to hurt her. It wasn't personal in any way, Miss Dexter just liked inflicting pain on people. But from the avid look in her cool grey eyes, it seemed that small, fragile-looking females particularly appealed to her. Tejana was eternally grateful that she couldn't see whatever sick fantasies were filling Dexter's head right then – she really didn't want to know. Once upon a time, the other woman's menacing presence would have alarmed her. But not any more. If she had to kill Dexter to protect her unborn child, then she would. It was that simple.

Ignoring the other woman completely, she stared out the tinted windows of the van, trying to think of a way out of this mess. She knew she should open up the psychic link and call to the Doctor for help. But she didn't want to do that, even though she was sure her father must have noticed she was missing by now. She knew he would be furious with her for the huge risk she had taken in coming to see Harold Saxon. He had never understood or approved of her relationship with the Master in the first place. Just the thought of trying to explain to him the terrible need that had driven her here made her feel like she was swallowing razor blades, the impossibility of putting her grief into words lacerating her deep inside. Besides, she told herself, bringing the Doctor into the Master's timeline this early would only compound the imminent paradox. Things were bad enough already. Somehow she would have to find a way to escape by herself, before she came face to face with the Master.

Resolutely, she ignored the insistent whisper in the back of her mind that told her the real reason she didn't want to involve the Doctor was that she didn't want to escape this at all – and that coming face to face with the Master was the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the Universe.

"Wow!" was all Rory could say, looking across the street at the seething, chanting crowd outside the Claridges Hotel. "All this for a politician? You've got to be joking!"

"Harold Saxon wasn't just any politician," the Doctor said grimly. "The Master was a Time Lord and absolutely brilliant into the bargain. With the help of the Archangel Network, he was almost unstoppable."

"Almost, but not quite, though, right?" Rory responded. "You managed to stop him, after all."

The Doctor gave him a dark look, shadowed by memory. "Only just. The 'Year That Never Was' was a long and bitter struggle for everyone concerned. That's why this is such a vulnerable point in the Earth's history. And to make matters worse, the Master hasn't even got his Paradox Machine up and running yet, so if Tejana causes a paradox now, there's nothing protecting the causal nexus."

"What's a Paradox Machine?" Amy asked. "You mentioned it earlier as well, when you were talking to the TARDIS."

The Doctor sighed and rubbed distractedly at his temples. "Back then, the Master stole the TARDIS from me and cannibalised her systems to create a stabilising device which enabled paradoxes to be sustained within the space/time continuum, something which is usually impossible."

"So, for instance, we could have gone back to Leadworth and met our younger selves, without it being dangerous?" Amy guessed. "Actually, that might be quite handy – there's a few things I wouldn't mind telling myself to do differently, if I ever got the chance!"

Unexpected anger sparkled in the Doctor's eyes. "Humans!" he exclaimed disgustedly. "It's never enough for you to just see the Universe, you always have to want something back. I lost my planet, my entire race. Don't you think there are things I'd like to change if I could? But some things just aren't meant to happen, even for Time Lords. As it happens, the Master used his Paradox Machine to allow him to bring the last descendants of the human race back in time to slaughter their ancestors without temporal consequences."

Rory stared at him in horror. "You mean...?"

"Yes, at the beginning of the Year that Never Was, he decimated the Earth's population. Millions and millions of people were killed."

"Oooo-kay. And we're sorry this guy's dead because...?"

"Because Tejana loved him!" Amy retorted, glaring at both the two men, as if the answer to Rory's question should be more than obvious. "And he really loved her. People can change, you know, love does that. Anyway, that's all ancient history. The real question is, how are we going to find her in all this mess, Doctor?"

Before the Doctor could reply, the hotel doors swung open and a man and a woman emerged on to the red carpet, surrounded by a coterie of bodyguards. The crowd went absolutely wild, screaming and howling, "Harry! Harry!", while the air exploded with flashbulbs as the paparazzi took photograph after photograph of the happy couple posed in the doorway. Then both Harry and Lucy Saxon were smiling and waving to the crowd as they were escorted to the two black limousines that waited at the curb. Attentively, Harry handed Lucy into the back seat of the first limo, leaned in and gave her a farewell kiss, before closing the door and watching it drive away. Then he moved to the second car and the uniformed chauffeur bowed politely before opening the rear door for him to enter. For just one tiny second, Harold Saxon seemed to hesitate, gazing out over the excited mob as if he was looking for someone. The Doctor held his breath, his body tight with tension as the searching brown eyes passed over the section of the crowd where the three time travellers were concealed. But then the other man gave a small shrug and got into the limo. The chauffeur closed the door behind him and returned to the driver's seat, while the black-dressed security guards fought to hold the obsessed fans back from the car. The powerful engine purred and, slowly but surely, the car disappeared up the street.

"He's gone, thank God," Amy said, her shoulders sagging in relief. "The whole thing's over and the world didn't end or anything like that. We were all worried about nothing. Tejana's probably safely on her way back to the TARDIS right now, no harm done."

But the Doctor just stared after the Master's car and didn't reply.

"Doctor? Doctor! It is over, isn't it?" Rory asked urgently, not liking the look on the Time Lord's face.

The Doctor tilted his head back, looking up into the sky. Nervously, Amy and Rory followed his line of sight. Overhead, instead of dispersing, the ominous clouds were blacker than ever, roiling into a peculiar funnel shape. Amy shuddered – it almost looked like a dark tunnelled pathway, leading somewhere she didn't even want to think about.

"Oh, it's far from over," the Doctor said softly. "I think it's only just beginning."

Saxon Headquarters. A big, beautiful, well-appointed series of offices in the heart of London. The hub of his empire. As he walked along the thickly-carpeted passageways, the Master couldn't help looking around him with a small amount of nostalgia. He would almost be sorry to leave this place, when he took up residence in the newly-rebuilt 10 Downing Street in just a few days time. Almost, but not quite. Now that his plan was so close to fruition, he was constantly having to fight back the impatience welling up inside him. Eighteen months pretending to be one of these stupid, snivelling apes. How had he ever stood it? But in the end, when the entire Universe was at his mercy, it would be worth it.

Lucy had returned home, in a separate car, to their luxury flat in Chelsea to get ready for the film premiere they were attending that evening. He had never been able to understand why it took women so damn long to get ready for anything. Hours and hours and hours, for Rassilon's sake! What did they do in all that time? But in this case he was pleased to be rid of her. He had some pressing business of his own to attend to.

Reaching the entrance to his private office, he pushed the door open. Tejana was there, just as he had ordered, sitting in a chair facing the door, flanked on either side by his guards, her head bowed. Miss Dexter was also seated nearby, one elegantly-stockinged leg crossed over the other, patiently waiting. At his arrival, she rose deferentially to her feet.

But the Master had no eyes for her. Instead, his attention was riveted on the small, copper-haired figure. She was so tiny in this regeneration, so soft and delicate-looking, especially beside the hulking black forms of his guards. One might almost be fooled into thinking she was fragile and vulnerable. But the Master had known Tejana for a very long time and he was not fooled. He was more than aware that she was anything but fragile and vulnerable. She was stubborn, proud, wilful and determined. And when the occasion called for it, she could be as hard as nails and just as ruthless. It was as though, when designing her new appearance, the Universe had been playing one of its unfathomable jokes, making her exterior as different to her interior as it was possible to be.

She raised her head and met his gaze and, for the first time, he got a proper look at her face. Her eyes were a clear, true green, as green as the summer grass on Earth, set in an oval, lightly-tanned face with high cheekbones, framed with the tumbling mass of auburn hair. A shiver of shock passed through him, an inexplicable uneasiness crawling up his spine. Someone's death was in those eyes, he could see it. They were sad, so terribly, shatteringly sad. Dark shadows were etched under them like bruises. What the hell had happened since Malcaissaro to make her look like that? Had the Doctor died after all? No, that was impossible, he would have felt that. In fact, he was almost sure he had sensed the Doctor in the crowd outside Claridges that afternoon, but the feeling had slipped away in all the noise and confusion. Jack Harkness, then? No, Captain Freak couldn't die, he was some sort of unnatural fixed point in Time. That had been demonstrated clearly on Malcaissaro. Martha Jones? Hmmm...maybe...but he doubted that the loss of Martha would be enough to put such sheer devastation into Tejana's eyes. Whoever she had lost, it had been someone that meant everything to her, enough to rip a hole in her soul.

Still holding her gaze with his own, as though they were the only two people in the world, he walked forwards into the room.

"Get out!" he said to Dexter.

The woman bristled in surprise at his curt tone. "But, Sir, you said she was dangerous..."

The Master knew enough of Dexter's warped inclinations to guess that she was hoping he would order her to use some of her more interesting interrogation techniques on Tejana. Well, she could keep on hoping. No-one was going to touch this particular prisoner except him.

"You'll get out when I tell you to get out!" he snarled. "Now go, all of you!"

After a slight hesitation, Dexter nodded to the two guards and the three of them hurried from the room, closing the door behind them and leaving the Master and Tejana alone.

For a few tense moments, the two Time Lords just regarded each other silently.

Then the Master gathered himself together and gave her a mocking grin. "I looked into the crowd and what did I see? I saw Tejana looking back at me!" he taunted in a childish, sing-song voice. Still smiling, he took a few steps forward until he was standing directly in front of her chair. "You didn't really think I wouldn't notice, did you? Welcome to Saxon Headquarters, Tejana. Welcome to my world."