oOo

Nyssa rounded a corner, coming to a stop with a blink of surprise. Hadn't the Doctor's TARDIS been in one of the corridors on a lower deck? She glanced over her shoulder involuntarily, in case she had gone the wrong way in a fog of thought, but no, she was where she thought she had been, on the way to the Arboretum. Two decks above where the TARDIS had last been situated. She stepped closer, but the incongruous blue box remained, solid and real and definitely in the wrong place. The Doctor must have moved it, she concluded, but why?

A sudden thought occurred to her; had he left the station and come back? That would have been grossly unfair to Peri, leaving her innocently touring Terminus and allowing Borean to flirt with her while the Doctor went off who-knew-where. Chasing the Master, perhaps? A sudden hope seized Nyssa, but she forced it down sternly. There was simply no way the Doctor had discovered Tegan and John's whereabouts and brought them back. Not this quickly.

But she couldn't still the sudden increase in her heart rate as she approached the TARDIS and tried the door. Locked. She hesitated, then rapped on the door insistently. Hope was a terrible thing when you didn't know if it was justified.

No answer, even when she called out to him. Nyssa stepped away, head bowed, one hand on the knob, the other rubbing tiredly at her neck. "Where are you, Doctor?" she asked in frustration.

"Probably in his own TARDIS," came an unexpected answer. With a yelp of surprise, Nyssa whirled around to face the speaker.

The voice had been male, and one of the two young people facing her was male, so she assumed he was the speaker. She recognized neither him nor the woman next to him. Nyssa opened her mouth to question them, then paused, staring at the dark-haired man intently. There was something about him, those unearthly blue eyes... "Kyris?" she breathed, disbelieving, swiveling her eyes to study the young woman. "Ace?"

"And you must be Nyssa," Kyris replied, stepping forward to offer his hand. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. I presume my father told you what we looked like, left a family portrait in case we dropped in for a visit?"

"No. You have his eyes. The one that's here now," Nyssa corrected herself. She ran absent fingers through her hair. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting you. And now he's here, but he already knows what's going on," she muttered, half to herself.

"Well, he's one up on us," Ace interjected sourly. "Are you all right?"

Nyssa mustered up a tired smile. "Sometimes. It's your father's fifth self that's here," she said, addressing Kyris, making up her mind on the spot to stick to the truth-telling she'd inadvertently started by blurting things out to the wrong Doctor. No point in keeping anything from his son. "He knows everything that happened. I didn't mean to tell him," she added, forestalling the objection she saw in Kyris' eyes. Ace just looked steadily at her, as if she knew there was more. "But he knows, and it's just as well. The Master's taken Tegan and her son, kidnapped them. He wants his TARDIS back, in exchange."

There it all was in a nutshell, baldly put, but Nyssa was too exhausted for diplomacy.

"So the bastard's stolen another baby," Ace said quietly, but there was something in her tone that promised murder, should she ever get her hands on the Master. "And we've been chasing around the whole bloody universe looking for him, when all we had to do was come here and wait." A bark of laughter escaped her, one that had nothing to do with mirth. "That's rich, that is. What's the word? Ironic."

Kyris put an arm around her shoulder. She made a move as if to shrug it off, but didn't, instead leaned tiredly against him. Not relaxing; the tension in her voice was manifest in every line of her body as well, in the tightness of her lips and lines in her forehead no woman of her tender years should be showing.

"Why does your TARDIS look like the Doctor's?" Nyssa asked, just to change the subject, at least for a moment. "That could get confusing."

"Ace forced this TARDIS into that configuration and smashed the chameleon circuit," Kyris replied, obviously forcing himself not to show any impatience. "Please, tell us about the Master. Where is he?"

Nyssa hesitated a moment. "Let me get my husband and the Doctor's current companion. Meet us two levels down; you'll see your father's TARDIS there, in Corridor C-23. Give me ten minutes." She turned and hurried away, not bothering to wait for an answer.

The other two stared after her. "I guess I know when we've been dismissed," Ace huffed.

Kyris squeezed her hand gently. "Let's go find my father. I suppose it's time to introduce myself to him again. At least he knows what's going on."

Grumbling, Ace allowed herself to be pulled along.

oOo

Someone was opening the TARDIS door. Expecting Peri, or possibly Nyssa, the Doctor blinked in surprise as two strange youngsters appeared instead. "Lost?" he asked, then frowned. There was something about the boy... "You're from Gallifrey!" he said in surprised tones.

"Fine way to greet the fruit of your loins," the girl interjected, ignoring the frown that comment generated from both the men in the room. "I'm Ace, this is Kyris, you're the Doctor's fifth self, can we consider ourselves introduced?"

"Is she always this abrupt?" the Doctor asked Kyris with a quirk of an eyebrow.

His son mustered up a ghost of a smile. "She has her moments."

"And I'm sure your moments have been few and far between since the Master stole your daughter," the Doctor said softly, taking a step forward and clasping Ace's hand in both of his. "I can't begin to imagine how that must feel. I'm sorry."

He felt her hand tighten on his, as if to accept his sympathy, then she jerked it free with a glare. "Don't be sorry, be sodding useful! Where's the Master?"

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO'

A/N: Delays, delays...sorry for the long delays. Next chapter up sooner, I hope!