Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

Previously...

Then, when the toclafane said nothing, he looked at the swiping, shining and very sharp blades in front of him and muttered to himself, "Guns. I knew I shoulda brought guns."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As he heard the yell of 'freeze!' from behind him, Jack Harkness wondered, and not for the first time, what he'd done wrong in a past life.

He thought it must have been something terrible, because it seemed that every time things were going well, whether it was his time as a time agent, his time travelling with the Doctor, or his time with Torchwood – every time things were looking up, something came along and ruined it. With the Time Agency he suddenly lost two years of his memories, with the Doctor, he died and was left behind, then with Torchwood, the Doctor shows up again, shortly followed by the Master and his damn torture. And now this!!!

Apparently it wasn't enough that he was facing several psychotic homicidal basketballs.

He'd been in the process of thinking of a plan to get out of there with Theta unharmed, when two guards had burst through the door behind him, guns raised.

"Put your hands in the air and turn around!"

Jack didn't move. What should he do? If he didn't turn around then it was highly likely that the guards would shoot him, but if he did... well, Jack didn't really fancy turning his back on the sharp blades that were still swiping through the air in front of him.

"Do as he says, Theta," he muttered to the boy next to him. Then at least he wouldn't get shot.

"Sir, we have orders to shoot if you don't comply," one of the guards warned.

Now Jack was really beginning to panic. If he was shot, it would take a little while for him to wake up, and in that time the Toclafane could kill the child Doctor and be on their merry way before he even began to stir. But then if he turned his back on the creatures and was killed that way, then he'd be no help to Theta either. What was he to do?

"Look," he said, "I really don't want to turn my back on the killing machine in front of me."

"They won't hurt you," one of the guards said, scathingly, "They follow the Master's orders."

Not any more, Jack thought. Theta had seen to that, and as fond as he was of the kid, he had to admit that just as he did as an adult, the child Doctor seemed to have a knack for getting them into trouble... and life-threatening situations.

"We don't want to shoot you, mate," the other guard said – the one who definitely sounded more sympathetic and less trigger-happy, "But—"

Jack heard no more. Burning pain tore through his chest only a split second before he heard the crack of the bullet leaving the gun. He looked down and saw the hole where the bullet had exited his body, and the spreading blood, staining his already stained shirt. Theta's horrified scream was the last thing he heard before everything faded to darkness, with death temporarily taking him yet again.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Jack awoke, oxygen tearing back into his lungs, it was to find that Theta was miraculously unharmed. The boy was sitting beside him, tears in his eyes and a look of shock on his face.

"You alright?" Jack asked.

Theta nodded, and then whispered, "You're alive!"

Jack grinned and reassured him, "I told you, I can't die."

Getting to his feet, Jack surveyed the room and found to his surprise that there were no Toclafane in sight, and that the two guards were standing by the door, one obviously uncomfortable, the other cockily still pointing his gun at Jack.

"Now get moving," the cocky one said, waving Jack through the door with his gun, "Unless you want another bullet."

Jack glared and said nothing. But then he obeyed the order, taking Theta's hand and leading the way through the door, wondering all the while about the mysterious disappearance of the creatures that he'd thought were about to kill them all for sure. Where had they gone? And more importantly, what were they going to do next?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jack and Theta were taken at gunpoint back to the Valiant's main control deck. And Jack had no doubt that that was where the Master was, probably still prancing around telling everyone how powerful he was.

Sure enough, when they got there, the Master greeted them with a very sarcastic, "Captain, so nice of you to join us. Martha and I were just having a nice little chat, weren't we Martha?"

At the sound of Martha's name, Jack looked to where the Master was gesturing. His heart sank when he saw that he was telling the truth, and that Martha had indeed been captured. The girl looked up at him, and with his eyes he asked her the silent question, Is there any help coming? But Martha just shook her head, barely perceptibly. They were on their own.

"Now," the Master said with a large degree of self-satisfaction, "You've all arrived here at a most opportune time. You will all bear witness to the start of a new age. The ships are complete and ready to begin in our conquest of the universe. Everyone across the stars will bow to me as their almighty leader!"

"You're insane," Jack said, wondering at how the Time Lord could possibly justify himself, even in the most twisted of logics.

"Perhaps," the Master conceded, almost amiably, "But then, no one gets to greatness by being ordinary or one of the crowd. Like you humans, all sheep, each following the other. In order to truly be legendary, there has to be a spark of insanity there."

"Or a whole forest fire's worth in your case," Jack mumbled, and fortunately this time the Master didn't hear.

He did however hear Francine who said scornfully, "That's ridiculous!"

"Is it?" he said, turning to her. Then he looked at Theta, then back at Martha and Jack and asked, "What about your precious Doctor then?"

"He was a legend wherever he went, amongst our people, even to the Daleks. He was the infamous 'Oncoming Storm'. Now you can't tell me that he isn't the slightest bit mad, can you?"

The Master, apparently satisfied that this example proved his point, nodded and turned away from Martha and Jack. Thinking about it, they had to admit that maybe the Master had a point about the Doctor. Obviously he had nowhere near the amount of screws loose as the Master did, but definitely was a bit... eccentric, to say the least. He came up with the craziest ideas that would kill anyone else who tried them and yet for him they worked like a charm. He had that grin that could only be described as manic. He could babble away about anything at about 90 miles per hour, and somehow manage to say absolutely nothing at all. And then there were his numerous other 'quirks', like his oral fixation for example.

No one contradicted the Master on the point of the Doctor's sanity.

"So," the Master said, bored of the conversation and looking for a change of topic. Then he spotted his favourite source of amusement... Theta. "So," he said again, approaching the boy, "You've been a very naughty boy today, haven't you?" he asked rhetorically, pinching Theta's ear and making him wince, "The launch of the ships is due to commence within hours, and you know how much I want you and your little friends to witness the start of my new empire, so you thought you'd ruin it for me, didn't you?!"

With his last accusation, the Master let go of Theta's ear. But as he moved away in relief that it was over, the grown Time Lord grabbed the boy's arm, twisting it behind his back. Theta cried out in pain, tears springing to his eyes.

Infuriated at this treatment of the young Doctor, Jack practically growled with rage, and the whole Jones family murmured angrily, Francine being far more vocal than the others.

"Shut up!" the Master roared at them. Then, turning back to the tearful Theta, he hissed, "Now, if you don't do what you're told in the future like a good boy, then you will not like the consequences! Understand?"

Theta nodded in earnest, his bright blue eyes wide, and his face stained with tears.

The Master smiled, a cold, cruel smile that no one liked, and said, "Good." Then he let go of Theta's arm, thereby dropping the boy to the floor.

Immediately Theta put as much space as he could between himself and the Master. He scrambled straight over to Mrs Jones, who immediately sought to comfort the child. It was at this point that Martha realised just how much she'd missed when she was away. The last time she'd seen her mother and the Doctor together, she'd slapped him in the face! And here she was taking care of him? How times changed, and how much of a difference it was when the Doctor was only a boy who needed just as much protection as everyone else.

Unfortunately though, the Master noticed these actions, and given the bad mood he was in already, it didn't make things any better...

"Leave him alone," he ordered Mrs Jones.

"Oh come off it!" Mr Jones protested, gesturing at Theta who was now in Francine's arms, "He's only a boy for Heaven's sake!"

"No see, that's where you're wrong!" the Master proclaimed, "He's not a boy, he's not a child, in fact, he's not even human!"

For a second, no one said anything, and Jack and Martha even began to worry that the Jones family were taking the Master's words to heart. But then, a second later, Francine said coldly, "I don't see how that matters. He's still only a child, whether he's human or not."

Had Jack been near enough, he could have kissed her. "Exactly," he added, "and besides, whatever he is, Theta is still a damn sight more human than you."

"And thank heavens for that," the Master muttered.

Unfortunately for the Master however, Jack and Francine's little outbursts gave the others more courage. They all began to criticise the Master for his treatment of Theta.

All their voices ran over each other's, carrying on and on and on. Getting louder and louder and louder. It filled the Master's head just as the drumming did. The sound was beginning to close in on him, wherever he turned it was there. It had to stop.

Just managing to resist the almost irrepressible urge to cover his ears with his hands and scream, the Master shouted, "Stop!"

No one listened, and the Master knew it was time to take action. He grabbed Theta, who was now sitting on the floor a little in front of Francine, and dragged him to the middle of the floor.

"Enough!" the Master yelled. And this time, everyone listened when they saw what he was doing. The deranged dictator had gotten his laser screwdriver out, and had it pointed menacingly at Theta.

"Right then. You refuse to see him as anything other than a boy, then I'll make him different! How old should I make him?" he asked, a sadistic and more than a little crazy smile on his face, "100 maybe? 200? 500? 900? Or shall I go the whole way and make him even older than he was before? Lets see how you'd pine over him then, Martha," he added, "Would you still love your precious Doctor if he were an old man?"

No one dared move. No one dared breathe. But just when it seemed that all was lost, something caught their eyes from outside.

Looking from where they were standing through the windows, they could see a large black cloud getting closer.

"Ok, this is either really good, or really bad," Jack muttered, really hoping that the cloud was not what he suspected it was.

But today was not his lucky day.

The swarm of Toclafane surged towards the Valiant, going far faster than anyone on the ship would've liked.

"What the--?" the Master said, not believing what he was seeing.

"Oh God!" Francine cried, knowing as they all did, just what would happen when the swarm reached them.

"STOP!! What are you doing?!" the Master shouted, "I order you to stop!!"

The smug look that had become an almost permanent feature over the last year disappeared, and in it's place, horror appeared as the Master realised that he'd lost control of the Toclafane. "As your Master, I command you to stop!!" he yelled in a last ditch effort to stop them. Then he turned to the others as he realised he was just as vulnerable as them in the face of this peril.

"We will fly and slice and burn," the Toclafane chanted, over and over again, "We will fly and slice and burn."

"There's no way to stop them!" Jack yelled. No one argued. Everyone knew what the Toclafane were capable of. The ex-time agent grabbed the Master by the front of his suit and barked, "Turn the Doctor back, NOW!!"

"I won't!" the Master hissed.

"We need the Doctor!" Martha shouted, "Change him back!"

"I refuse," the Master said, "I have won my victory over him, and the Earth, I won't let the Doctor ruin it!"

"Look, the Doctor is the only one who has even a chance of stopping this!" Martha shouted, infuriated, "So stop being so damn stupid! Do you want to die?!"

The Master hesitated. He glanced between the fast approaching swarm of deadly Toclafane and Theta, who was still sat on the floor, staring up at the Master with his big brown eyes. The Time Lord was clearly torn between wanting to reign it supreme over the Doctor (or at least the child he now was) and wanting to survive.

"Come on!" Martha yelled, all too aware of the peril they were all in.

The Master said nothing, but took his laser screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at Theta. His face was cold and impassive, and he looked as if he were carrying out someone's death sentence. Martha shivered, and Theta shifted where he sat, a look of fear on his face.

Then, the Master flicked on his screwdriver, and Theta screwed up his face, bracing himself for whatever was coming.

He soon found out.

Again the Doctor screamed and flailed, but this time was made all the worse by the fact that it was a child's voice doing the screaming. Trish and Francine's hands went to their mouths, and Martha almost looked away. She hated that they had to put the Doctor through all this, but the fact was that they needed him... the world needed him.

Then, it was all over, and the Doctor, the proper Doctor, fully clad in his usual pinstriped suit, got to his feet. For a second he just stared at the Master with eyes as cold and hard as those of his nemesis.

Seeing the Doctor back to his old self, Martha didn't even try to stop the huge grin that spread across her face. However, her momentary joy faded when she saw again the black swarm headed right for them.

"Doctor!" she called, breaking the pair out of what she feared could become a fully fledged Time Lord staring contest, "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but we have a serious problem."

The Doctor looked away from the Master, glanced at Martha, and then followed her gaze to the windows. In that second, he saw exactly what she was talking about.

He sighed deeply, weariness in his entire posture, and murmured, "Hi ho, hi ho."

Then he was back into action. "Captain!" he yelled, "The paradox machine!"

Jack nodded. "You men! With me!" he yelled to several of the guards as he ran from the room.

Then the Doctor rushed to the controls, setting whatever shields and protective measures the Master had incorporated into the ship to maximum.

Then, knowing that Jack would get the job done, the Doctor turned to Martha. "Are you alright?" he asked, pulling her into a hug.

"I am now," she replied, holding tightly onto the man she hadn't seen for a whole year. She was almost afraid to let go, just in case this reversal wasn't permanent, and she didn't think she could deal with that again. Theta was very sweet and all, but Martha just couldn't relate him to the Doctor. In some ways, it was impossible to believe that the Time Lord had ever been that young. In other ways however, she had completely been able to see the Doctor in Theta, in how brave he was, how intelligent... and then she could also still see Theta in the Doctor, in that the Doctor did still act like a little kid sometimes, and always seemed to have the attention span of one.

Finally letting go of him, Martha felt she should say something, to avert the danger of an awkward silence falling between them. As she tried to think of something, his words earlier came back to her. "Hi ho hi ho?" she said questioningly.

"What?" the Doctor was perplexed.

"Earlier, when I said we had a problem, you said 'hi ho hi ho', what were you on about?" she asked.

"Oh," the Doctor said, "Well, you know, 'it's off to work we go'? It's a... reference to... uh."

"Snow White and the Seven Dwarves?" Martha finished his sentence for him, smirking that the 'great Time Lord' was quoting a Disney film.

"Anyway, moving on," the Doctor said, clearing his throat. Again a serious expression graced his face as he turned back to the Master. "What are you going to do now, Koschei?" he asked quietly, showing in that use of his name that he remembered everything from the past year. "Without the paradox machine, everything will go back to how it was. This year will never have happened. No one besides us will remember your reign of terror on Earth."

The Master said nothing as the wind outside the Valiant began to pick up, swirling by at an unnatural rate. Time was reversing...

(A/N: everything from here happens as it did in the episode – the Master is shot etc etc

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hours later, the Doctor grieved. He stood and watched as the flames consumed the funeral pyre of the Master, his greatest nemesis, his one time friend.

The aftermath of this adventure had been one he wished he didn't have to deal with, the consequences had just been too great. Now he was definitely the last of the Time Lords, there was no one else. He truly was alone, just as he'd thought he was before.

He'd implored the Master to regenerate, begged even. It had only been a bullet wound, the regeneration would've been a simple one, unlike many of his own in the past. But the Master had refused, just to hurt him.

Trying to look on the brighter side, he'd gotten to know the Jones's a little better over the last year, even if they did only know him as a 6 year old. And because they'd known him as a child, all of them were still terribly protective of him, particularly Francine... It was nice, having someone care, but it was going to get annoying, he could tell. In fact, it already was, in a way. Francine was still insisting on calling him 'Theta' despite his arguments that he was 'the Doctor'. She just couldn't accept the fact that he'd left that name behind a long time ago...

However, another consequence of what happened for the past year was that Martha and Jack had both left him. Jack had gone back to his Torchwood team in Cardiff, ready to save the world again. And Martha had stayed behind to look after her family, something that the Doctor completely understood, but it didn't make leaving her any easier.

And so the Doctor was alone again. He'd cope, just like he'd always coped. He'd grin and bear it, put on a brave face so no one would see his suffering. Just as he would for the rest of his life. It was a standard pattern, and one he knew well by now; companions came, they said they'd stay with him forever, and then they left... It was inevitable, and he knew it would happen... Perhaps he was just destined to always be alone?

THE END

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/N: Yeuch... I thought I'd never get this finished!!!! Hurrah!

Anyway, I'm not even going to start on this chapter, there are so many things I don't like about it! In my defence, I'm not the genius that the writers of the show clearly are, so trying to re-write it was damn near impossible. Also, I tried really hard to make this good, and spent one hell of a long time in the attempt!!

So yeah, please please please review and tell me what you thought of the chapter, and the story in general! Reviews mean the world to me!