Author's Note: Thanks very much for reviewing the last chapter MayFairy, MountainLord-92, Theta'sWorstNightmare and xxTeam-Masterxx. Yet again, there seem to be loads of people who are reading without reviewing. If you like it, a bit of encouragement might be nice, yeah?

Anyway, here's the next bit...when Tejana's good, she's good. But when she's bad, she's very, very bad.

CHAPTER SIX

"The Master's wife left in a separate car," the Doctor said, setting off again up the street, leaving his two companions to straggle after him. "Which means he's probably going back to Saxon Headquarters. Since the paradox is still building, I'm guessing that's where Tejana will be too."

"We'll never catch up with them if we have to walk all the way!" Amy puffed.

"Who said anything about walking?" the Doctor retorted, moving across to a small, blue car parked by the side of the road, his sonic screwdriver already in his hand.

"You can't just steal a car!" Rory protested, realising what the Time Lord had in mind.

"It's kind of an emergency, Rory!" the Doctor snapped, using the screwdriver to pop the lock on the driver's door. "What would the owner prefer, do you think? To have their car inconveniently moved across town, or to be wiped out of Time by a cataclysmic paradox? Gee, let me think...bit of a no-brainer, that one, really!"

"Fine, but I'm driving!" Amy told him, slipping calmly past the Doctor into the driver's seat, before he could argue. "You can give me directions."

"Amy!" Rory said in a shocked voice.

"What?" she replied. "You've seen him drive the TARDIS. Do you really want to let him behind the wheel of a car?"

"I would resent that, if we had the time!" the Doctor said huffily, before hurrying around to the front passenger door. "I've driven a car before, you know."

Once inside, he reached out with the screwdriver and used it to start the ignition. The engine of the little car sprang to life with a roar.

Reluctantly, realising they were about to leave without him, Rory hopped into the back seat.

"Great! Just brilliant!" he muttered. "Now I'm a member of a gang of inter-galactic car thieves."

"Just shut up and put your seat belt on!" Amy ordered as she jammed down the accelerator and the little car hurtled out into the street with a screech of tires.

Tejana watched the Master walk towards her. That was all he did, just walk, but seeing it made her throat go dry and a shiver of heat run through her. It was something about the way his body was put together - not tall, but fine-boned and smooth muscled, every movement both graceful and powerful. He looked slightly more civilised in a suit, rather than the black hoodie and jeans she was accustomed to, but the sense of dominance was still there, the calm, arrogant confidence that he was the centre of the Universe and everything revolved around him.

Whenever he came to her like this, with that intent, hungry look on his face, it usually meant there was only one thing he wanted from her. Automatically, without even thinking, she raised her face to him, ready to part her lips for his kiss. But then, looking into his mocking eyes, she remembered with a heart-wrenching ache that this was not her Koschei, not yet. While her Koschei would have been prepared to tear the Universe into tiny pieces to keep her with him, this man would be just as happy to kill her as to kiss her.

He was saying something now, probably something taunting and sarcastic, just as he always had, back in this timeline. She didn't care what it was, she wasn't even listening, just watching his lips move instead, remembering how good his mouth had felt as it moved hotly over her skin. A haze of unreality enveloped her. After Mnemosyne, she had never thought she would see him again. But how could she go on believing that he was dead, when he was standing right in front of her? How could she continue to grieve, when all she needed to do was to stretch out her hand and feel the warmth of him, feel his chest rise and fall with every breath he took?

"Good, isn't it?" he smirked triumphantly, leaning over her as she sat in the chair, trying to intimidate her. "In just a few days, I'll be Prime Minister of this pathetic little country. And then...oh and then...you have no idea of the fun I've got lined up for these stupid apes!"

Her double pulse thudded almost painfully at his nearness, prickles of desire shivering up her spine. She still didn't answer him, holding herself back from him, badly wanting to touch him, but afraid, so afraid, of what she might set in motion. During the Year That Never Was, she had often refused to speak to him when he addressed her, just staring at him coldly and defiantly, knowing that her stubbornness irritated him more than anything else. But it wasn't like that this time. This time, she honestly just didn't know what to say. She desperately wanted to tell him everything that had been burning in her hearts since he had died on Mnemosyne – how much she loved him, how much she missed him, how she could hardly bear to keep breathing without him. She wanted to tell him about their baby, how sorry she was she hadn't told him before, when she had the chance, on the beautiful, magical night she had worn his marriage flowers in her hair. But she couldn't. Not just because it would cause a history-destroying paradox, but because this Master would understand none of it. All he could hear was the relentless pounding of the drums in his head, driving him to kill and maim and destroy – the concepts of love and family and protection and belonging were all still completely alien to him.

But she couldn't be the Tejana she had been, either. The Tejana he was expecting. The Tejana who was full of hate and anger and fear towards him, wanting to kill him more than anything else. All of that was long gone and she didn't have the energy to pretend it was still there, not even to safeguard the causal nexus. So instead, she dropped her eyes away from his and said nothing at all, trying to hide the truth deep inside her.

However, it was much too late for that. Much, much too late.

"Oh, come on, Tejana...not sulking are we?" the Master taunted. "Ohhhh...didn't your little mission turn out quite the way you planned? Didn't expect to end up here, all alone with me, at my mercy? Tough!" Then, as she still refused to reply, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor, he growled, "Look at me, little girl. Look at your Master!"

She tried to turn her head away, but he was too quick. His right hand lashed out, digging into her hair and forcibly tilting her head back. "I said, LOOK AT ME!" he snarled.

Her eyes flew to meet his, green eyes striking sparks off brown, his touch in her hair seeming to burn like fire.

Oh gods, the causal nexus...for him to see her was bad enough, but to touch her as well...what had she done?

"That's better," he approved silkily, his other hand coming up to gently stroke the soft skin of her cheek. "Now then...tell me...where's the Doctor?"

The blue car was stopped at a zebra crossing, waiting as a little old lady picked her way slowly across the street with the help of a Zimmer frame.

The Doctor was sitting forward on his seat, every line of his body tense, almost as if he thought he could propel the car ahead with sheer force of will.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Amy said impatiently, slamming her fists hard against the steering wheel in frustration. "Move it along, grandma!"

The old lady had almost reached the opposite curb, when suddenly she seemed to shimmer and jump, as though they were watching an old-fashioned film caught in a projector. Without warning, she disappeared and re-materialised again, on the far side of the road, right back where she had started from. Then she began to shuffle across the street again, leaning heavily on her frame, exactly as she had the first time, like an extreme case of de ja vu.

"What...the hell...just happened?" Rory breathed, staring at the pensioner in shock.

"Time is starting to haemorrhage," the Doctor said, the words firing out of his mouth like bullets from a gun. "The wound is growing deeper and more noticeable by the minute. And believe me, noticeable is not what we want!" Then, as the old woman finally got out of their way, he added urgently, "Now come on, let's go!"

"Which way?" Amy demanded.

The Doctor pointed grimly towards the gyring funnel of unnatural black cloud, hovering like a whirling tornado in the air high ahead of them. "That way."

The Master looked down at Tejana, his hand still buried in the silkiness of her hair, her head tilted back to reveal her slender, vulnerable throat. Again, he smelt the sweet, wild scent of honeysuckle. It was nothing artificial, like the heavy cloying scents worn by human women, it was the actual scent of her skin, warm and enticing, like a Gallifreyan summer. She was completely still, reminding him of a small animal hoping a predator would pass on by, her full lips slightly parted as she drew in tight, shallow breaths. Her eyes were locked with his, deep, green pools filled with an expression he didn't understand. There was no hatred there, no rage, nothing he remembered from their past encounters, just that indefinable sadness...and behind that, something else, some sort of yearning. Some sort of...softness.

He swallowed hard and shoved the thought abruptly away. He was the Master. Whatever this was, whatever scheme she and the Doctor had cooked up between them to stop him, he wasn't going to fall for it. He had planned too long and hard for this. He had thought of every contingency, covered every one of his bases. Nothing was going to make him slip up this time.

"Still as stubborn as ever, I see?" he said harshly. "It doesn't make any difference, anyway, now that I have you. Because there's one thing I know for sure, he won't allow me to keep you – he'll be here soon to get you back."

To his surprise, a small, bitter smile quirked her lips and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. His sense of unease - of something being very wrong – deepened. Tejana had never cried easily, even when she was eight years old. And to cry in the presence of an enemy, especially him, that was something she would rather die than do.

He tightened his fist in her hair, trying to fight off the insidious effect she was having on him by intentionally hurting her. "This time I'm going to win," he said viciously. "No matter what it takes. Whatever he has in mind, I'm ready for him. I've been expecting him, laying traps for him all along. This will be the final battle and you can't stop me, either of you."

Slowly, she shook her head, as if he just didn't get it. "I'm not here to stop you, Koschei," she whispered, the first words he had heard her say, her voice low and sad.

His eyes widened, shock blasting through him as he heard her speak the name he had not used in centuries, a name he had never before heard on her lips. Somehow, just the sound of it tightened things in his lower body, stroking through him like a sensual song he had sung long ago but was only just beginning to remember.

"What did you call me?" he hissed.

Spinning the wheel like a professional race car driver, Amy sent the car careening headlong up the street in the direction the Doctor had indicated.

"Doctor, you said the wound in Time is growing more noticeable," Rory ventured, clutching white-knuckled at his seat as they screamed around a corner at top speed. "What did you mean? Who's going to notice it besides us?"

But the Doctor didn't answer, his eyes fixed grimly on the rapidly gathering clouds, as if he didn't even hear.

Horrified at the mistake she had made, Tejana tried to pull away from the Master, but he wouldn't allow it. Instead, he slid his hands to her upper arms and pulled her roughly to her feet. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe, the air around them pulsing and electric with tension.

"What. Did. You. Call. Me?" he snarled, shaking her like a rag doll.

She stared up into his angry face, feeling the unique, almost unbearable pleasure of his hard body pressed against hers, seeing the involuntary heat beginning to stir in his brown eyes, fully aware that her body was responding in kind, just as it always had.

"Koschei!" she cried, aware she was treading on dangerous ground, edging closer and closer to disaster, but she was unable to help herself. Her skin was aching for his touch. "I called you Koschei!"

His face hardened at the sound of his name, his eyes blazing as his body recognised the need in hers. His hands tightened on her upper arms, the heat between them making her catch her breath in sudden realisation. He wanted her, he wanted her so badly, it was like a fever inside him. Once, he could have hidden it from her, fighting the desire with anger and hatred, as he had for so long during The Year That Never Was. But she was not the same person any more. She had belonged to him, body and soul - had shared his bed and his life, had been in his mind and in his dreams. Now nothing could be hidden between them, no matter how hard he tried.

"Why are you really here, Tejana?" he ground out, his self-control evidently hanging by a thread. "You say you're not here to stop me...then what the hell do you want from me?"

He was holding her so closely to him, she could sense his double heartbeat, rapidly pounding in perfect synchronicity with the drums in his head. Her own pulse sped up in response, a wave of desire searing through her. What did she want from him? The answer to that was simple...everything. She wanted everything from him. Everything he could give. Everything she could not have, not without breaking the Laws of Time. And she couldn't do that, could she? Every rational instinct told her she had to pull away from him. She had to stop this, now. But then he moved his head down, and his mouth was so close to hers, so very close. Oh gods, Koschei... The need for his kiss burnt so sharply inside her that it was almost physically painful. Suddenly, with an acute flash of anger and rebellion, she realised she didn't care any more about the possible repercussions. So what if she changed the course of human history? What the hell did it matter? She was the last Time Lady of Gallifrey. The Master was her life-mate. It was her right.

The Laws of Time are mine and they will obey me, she thought defiantly. Isn't that how it goes, Doctor?

And with that, she stopped thinking altogether and pressed her lips passionately against the Master's.