Author's Note: Thank you to AnGel oF mAdNeSe for pointing out a Classic Who reference I didn't explain in the previous chapter. I mentioned Romana, who gave the Doctor the controls to destroy the Matrix, and therefore Gallifrey. She was a companion of the 4th Doctor, and was sent by the Time Lords to help him in a quest to recover the Key to Time (but that's a whole different story XD). She was also a Time Lord, and left the Doctor when she volunteered to stay in E-space, where she would be trapped. She returned in a Doctor Who novel, and became the President of Gallifrey. I presumed that she had been deposed, as Rassilon was obviously the President in the "End of Time".
The Master's POV:
The drums are rattling out their beat, pulled into one continuous drone at the back of my head, fed by the light. They're blinking, drawing my power from me. The pain has become worse as the drums rise again. They're fighting the light, I realise. There's a battle being waged in my head, and... it hurts!
I can still feel the floor I'm lying on, but I can't see anything but the light. I know I have my eyes open; I just can't see. That doesn't scare me as much as what the drums are doing though. I've never thought of them as a sentient being, and what they're doing now, fighting off the invaders, fighting for me, is making me dizzy. And not in a good way. I feel sick, like I'm floating in the vortex, only I'm lying still, unmoving.
The light begins to shrink, though it doesn't dim. I push the drums forward, ignoring their poundings. I think, 'Kill! Destroy!', and they obey me. They attack the light, sending it spiralling backwards in an arc of pain.
The last thing I hear before the drums force the light out of my head is, "What are you?"
"Time Lord," I snarl. With one final shove, the light is gone from my head, and I can see again. I'm face down in the same corridor I left. Gives 'travelling' a disappointing edge, I think, pushing myself up.
I glance up and down the corridor. It's empty, even the red light machine gone, along with the wolves. How long was I unconscious?
Pulling myself up the wall, I groan as the drums return, louder than before, as if the break in their beat hurt them, and they need to remind me the pain they can cause me, and who's the boss here. I close my eyes, and take several deep, measured breaths. Then I remember the Doctor.
My eyes fly open, hoping against hope he's still unconscious. Weakness isn't something anyone wants to display around their captor.
He's still lying where he dropped though, twitching every now and again. His face is deathly pale, and I can see tear tracks running down his face. I consider leaving him there. The bracelet isn't on my wrists anymore, even if it was ever activated. I was an idiot to think he could ever kill me. He's too weak. I sneer at his unconscious body. The wolves and the light would come back and keep him here, and eventually he'd break from whatever they were doing to him. I could run, get to his TARDIS, and fly away. She would work for me, I know. It's coded into her to obey all Time Lords, and no matter how much she dislikes me, she can't ignore her programming.
But I'm also curious to know what they were doing to him that made him lose control. If I can find out what that is, it will be an invaluable weapon.
I approach him cautiously. He's still twitching, he left fist clenching and unclenching, his face shaking uncontrollably. I kneel carefully by his head, placing my fingertips on his temples, and close my eyes, entering his mind slowly.
I can smell fire. Lava. Burning. Death.
I can hear screaming.
I can feel people dying beneath the blaze.
There are voices buried beneath the haze of pain and tears.
"Lay down your life..."
"...set to detonate a bomb, buried... Don't let them..."
I frown, pushing deeper, not understanding what this place is. There are now flashes of images moving through my mind.
Ships, sleek and silver.
A button, small and meaningless.
Red turning to green. Waves rolling down blue and through red.
My fingers press harder against the Doctor's skull, and he lets out a whimper. I can hear him talking, but it's as if he's somehow seperate from what I'm seeing.
"This is the worst, most traumatic memory they could find."
An image of his TARDIS console. I can see the small button buried amongst the controls.
"This is the one thing that will make me... kill myself. The one thing that I choose not to remember."
That's when I realise he's speaking to me. He knows I'm inside his head.
"I never wanted you to see this. Because there's a reason you weren't there. Only I could have done it. You wouldn't have let me."
"What?" I ask.
"I'm sorry..."
His voice fades, and the images flash faster and faster.
One of his old bodies, which I recognise as his eighth, crying, clawing at the TARDIS console. He's screaming, curling up into a ball and roaring with pain.
A place without stars, where he comes to hide. He stands at the doorway of the TARDIS.
And... flings himself out.
I jerk back, gasping. He's kneeling in front of me now, and I skitter backwards, away from him. He's looking at me with that sorrowful look, that's so full of apology I could never truly understand it.
I realise I'm gasping, and force myself to regain control.
He merely looks at me. "I'm sorry."
I shake my head, somehow not as angry as I feel I should be. "You can never apologise for what you did."
He nods. "I choose not to remember. It destroyed me once... but you got one thing right, I guess." A small smile appears on his lips. "Things that destroy you aren't worth living for."
Author's Note: Sorry, there's only one scene, but it seemed the perfect place to end this chapter. I'll do a longer next one. :)
The 8th Doctor I reference was played by Paul McGann, and only featured in one on-screen story. It was never fully detailed in cannon how this Doctor regenerated, so I have made it so that this was the regeneration that fought in the Time War, and killed himself after it.
Hope everyone likes!