Jack died for four days this time. The Master at least gave her the dignity of leaving all of her in one cell, or perhaps she was afraid of ending up with multiple Jacks. The Doctor never saw how it happened, but after four days, she glimpsed Jack tied again to her posts, back in her old, stained clothes.
That night, the Master laid the chain collar again about the Doctor's neck and related through touch Jack's experience. The Doctor suspected the Master had pulled Jack's memories right from her mind. As she felt her phantom spinal cord sever, guilt filled her rather than gratification. She shoved the Master away and rolled off the table.
"Too much for you, Doctor," the Master said with a grin.
"These are people's lives," the Doctor said. She huddled against a wall, hiding her nakedness with her arms and legs.
"Jack's got enough to go around." The Master crouched beside the Doctor, looking almost concerned. She lifted the Doctor's arm, kissed her left breast. The Doctor did not resist.
In the mental turbulence of experiencing and passing on Jack's memories, the Master had replaced Jack's face and body with the Doctor's, but they retained a cloudy surrealism. If one only dreamt about traveling to Castoreli Major, one had never truly been there to walk among the upside down trees in the sun caves.
"You need rest," said the Master with the most kindness she had mustered since regenerating into this body. "You can have my bed again."
The Master raised herself cautiously onto one elbow so she could watch the Doctor sleep. The Doctor breathed quiet and deep, trusting the Master not to hurt her. The Master snorted a laugh. She wasn't sure she trusted herself as much as the Doctor did. So many times, she had almost killed the Doctor, and some of those times she had wanted to. Her hatred and her love tangled like raveling tapestry threads around the Doctor's life. She never knew when the wrong one would snap.
Artificial light crept in over the top of the sliding blindfold. Instead of the now familiar choke chain, she felt coarse rope against her skin and shuddered.
"Stand," the Master said. "Now, up here."
"You're not really going to..."
"No, Doctor. What if I got carried away? Now, up."
The Master slid her patent leather-clad foot under the Doctor's naked one and lifted it onto a short platform.
"Are you sure you're not – "
"Do you trust me?"
No, of course the Doctor didn't trust her, but that was part of the thrill. She stepped up with her other foot and felt the rope tightening.
"It used to be, in England," the Master said, "that a woman who had committed petty treason got a far worse punishment than a man." She lifted the Doctor's long dress slightly and ran a hand up the inside of her leg. "Instead of a simple hanging like a man got, a woman was burned too."
The Master licked up her leg like tiny tongues of flame. "Sometimes they let her die first, which I personally find to be no fun at all, but other times... oh other times it was all at once."
This time the Master sent no psychic stimulation. She knew the pain of burning alive. She would make this pure fantasy.
"And there she'd be, choking to death, the feeling going out of her legs as she saw them blister and crack beneath her blindfold. The noose would prevent smoke inhalation, so she can't breathe in to make the end come faster. No, it's all black and heat and a haze between you and the audience and your blood cutting off from your brain so slowly you could be slipping into a dream."
She lifted her head beneath the Doctor's dress and swept her warm tongue up between the Doctor's legs.
"And by the time the flames get here," she whispered, "a human would be dead. But not a Time Lord. No, not a Time Lord."
The Master stroked and lapped like fire, and the Doctor twisted, the rope getting tighter with every movement. Finally, as she started to lose her peripheral vision, the Master released her, and she collapsed to the ground.
"Good, wasn't it, Doctor?" the Master asked. "It would be rude not to thank me for it."
The Doctor could only cough a reply. Her blindfold barely covered one eye now. The Master loosened the rope slightly and took the slack in her hands. With the knot against the back of the Doctor's head, she lead the Doctor's mouth to her clit.
"Suck," the Master said, and the Doctor did as the noose slowly crushed her throat again until she gasped. The Master loosened it. "Continue."
"She looked like you, just a little, as much as a human can look like a Time Lord," the Master said, pulling long breaths as she spoke.
"Who?" The Doctor stopped.
"The girl from yesterday," the Master said. "Who told you to stop?"
The Doctor tried to rise. "What girl?"
"I thought you were paying attention. Am I really the only thing on your mind? Not up on current events? That resistance leader girl. Got her on treason. Mind you, I had to cut her hair and dress her in brown first."
"Did you put her in a pair of trainers too?"
"Did I call her 'dear Doctor' and make her fuck me first? No. Do you really think I would?"
The Doctor yanked the rope from the Master's hands and shoved her into the wall.
"You're sick, just sick!" the Doctor shouted. She grappled with the rope, trying to remove it.
"Yes, I am sick! Sick as I've always been!" the Master cried.
She sprang to her feet and dove for the Doctor, dragging her down by the rope still around her neck. The Doctor choked and flailed beneath her. The veins in her neck bulged as she bucked against the Master's weight. Finally, she lost consciousness.
Pop music blasted the Doctor awake. She covered her ears and curled up on the hard floor.
"Wakey, wakey, Doctor!" the Master shouted, banging on something that turned out to be the bars of a cell.
"Don't you want to?" the music blared. "Don't you want to hold the gun?"
The Doctor raised her head, rubbing her sore neck.
"Turn the music down!" shouted the Master, and it faded immediately.
"Look, Doctor, I've got one of those nifty little scrolls for you," the Master said, waving a familiar piece of paper between the bars. "Wonder what it says…"
"Don't," the Doctor answered. She stretched her neck back and leaned her pounding head against the metal wall. "I'm not in the mood for it right now."
"Hardly anyone ever is." The Master read from the scroll, "'The Doctor, an alien from another world and enemy of Earth, is hereby sentenced….' You should know I thought a lot about this. I'd considered the breaking wheel – oh, the agony of it! But you know, that's what the humans they used it on died of, the agony. Not you, though. So I thought… the drawing and quartering, that was fun. But we've already done that. You deserve something new."
"I deserve a proper rest."
"And that's exactly what you'll get, when I'm done with you."
"It's not funny anymore."
"Let me finish. 'For multiple traitorous actions and attempts on the person of the Lord and Master of Earth, resulting in punishment upon the entire human race.' They'll like that part. A lot of people would pay to see you dead. 'To hang by the neck – "
"Oh, yes, of course," the Doctor sighed.
"Do you understand, Doctor? This isn't a fantasy anymore. It was always my fear of seeing you die that stopped me every time we've met," the Master said, crouching and pressing her face between the bars. "And now I can think of nothing else. I want to do it myself this time, hold you still and sink a knife through your skin. I want to dress you in white so the blood blossoms into florid patterns."
She breathed through gritted teeth, terrifying as she'd been the moment the Toclafane had burst through the rip in time. This was how everyone but the Doctor saw her – an abomination from beyond the stars, clearly unhinged.
"What then?" asked the Doctor. "A cosmos without me?"
"My dear Doctor, we have had so long, so long to enjoy each other. You knew it had to end at some point. Better at my hands, don't you think?"
"I'll regenerate."
"And I'll keep going. You're almost out of lives. You give me your new body, and I'll wreck it."
The Master had to be playing a game with the Doctor, making her believe so that she could draw gratification from the Doctor's fear.
"When and where is this going to happen?"
"In three hours, in London. Always was your favorite."
The Doctor crawled closer to the bars. She reached for one of the Master's hands, hoping for a hint of her intentions, but the other Time Lord drew her hand out of the Doctor's reach. The Master stood, and the Doctor remained on the floor. Her headache had subsided though a growing trepidation replaced it. Her throat burned slightly when she breathed, a reminder of the Master's capacity for violence.
"You should make your peace, Doctor," the Master smirked. "Oh, and may God have mercy on your soul."
When the Valiant touched down on a deserted roadway near the Marble Arch, the Doctor stood naked in the center of a small room. The Master paced around her, letting out a little "hmmm" every few steps. If her arms had not been bound behind her, the Doctor would have wrapped them around her body to hide her shuddering. She reasoned the room must be cold, that she wished the Master would touch her only for the warmth of her fingers, of her jacket lining brushing against the Doctor's naked hip.
Silently, the Master picked up a length of coiled rope from the table. A white shift lay beneath it, gleaming under the harsh lights. The Master stepped up to the Doctor and stared into her eyes. She stroked the Doctor's chest with the back of one fingernail.
"Down," she said.
The Doctor's body quaked involuntarily at the command. She started to kneel.
"Oh, you too, Doctor? Going with quiet dignity?"
The Doctor rose back to her full height, and the Master kicked the back of the Doctor's knees, forcing her to the ground.
"That's more like it," the Master laughed. She dropped the noose around the Doctor's neck.
"Up." She yanked it, and the Doctor struggled to stand. The fibers were softer than they'd looked; the rope seemed almost gentle.
The Master turned her roughly to face a long mirror propped against one wall. The Doctor's freckled body glowed starkly white against the Master's suit, and the rope cut a thick line across the base of her neck.
"This is how I finally conquer you," the Master said. "Stay in this body until the end. I like it."
"No."
"You like it too." The Master plied her fingers between the Doctor's legs. "Just one more time, then?"
"Not if you're killing me."
"Doctor, you wound me."
"Good."
The Master drew her hand away, leaving a deep scratch up the Doctor's torso. She tugged the rope. "Come along, time for clothes. Wouldn't want you going out looking like that. People might get the wrong idea about us."
Drums pounded as they had for Penelope Atkins, but the Doctor came not in a cart but led like a dog by the Master. Her hearts kept time with the beat, and she was afraid. Until she stepped off the Valiant into the parted crowd, the Doctor believed the Master meant to intimidate her, to drag her to the brink and show she had full control over whether the Doctor lived or died. But in front of so many people, the Master would never relent. This would be the Doctor's final walk.
The Master had expected a half-baked escape attempt. She had planned for it, trained her loyal Toclafane on a pair of bright-eyed twin girls. The Doctor stepped hard and determined toward the platform, as if entirely ready to trade her life for a last moment of dignity.
The Master pulled her close and whispered in her ear, "I'll bleed you out slowly, and then I'll take your left heart just to show them you really are an alien."
"We're from the same planet," the Doctor said.
"They know what I am, but you, their savior… if you were the same as me, what would they think?"
"They think Lucifer was an angel."
The Master slapped her, not a light, corrective hit but an audible smack that would leave a mark long after the Doctor was gone. The Doctor regained her balance, burning from the blood pooling under her skin. She said nothing else as the Master taunted, as the audience cheered, as rough hands yanked her up the stairs she was doing fine ascending on her own. As she reached the top, she looked out at the buildings rising high around her and knew where she was. Old Tyburn. The Master's sense of humor at work again.
The Master tossed the slack of the rope to a man in dark clothes and gazed up at the Doctor. "One last kiss, then."
"No," the Doctor said, though she ached for the Master's kiss to soothe her for the coming pain.
"Your loss. Go on up, then."
The Doctor felt a tug and mounted the tiny stool.
The Master watched as one trainer-clad foot and then the other landed. They would be planted there only long enough for a few brief… announcements. She wished for that final kiss, but perhaps she would steal it later. The Doctor's crimes, numerous as they were, took several minutes to list, and the Master looked back every few lines to see the Doctor biting her lip in expectation.
The Master kicked the stool away herself, setting it upright again just out of the Doctor's reach. The Doctor's legs pumped, forever running but this time from nothing. The Master stepped up on the stool, twisting to avoid the Doctor's kick, and grasped her reddening face.
"Oh, my brilliant, bloody stupid Doctor. So noble," the Master said. She drew a knife and reached behind the Doctor, holding her tightly. She sank the knife into the Doctor's lower back. "So beautiful, even like this. What a fine mess you're in."
Time Lord blood poured warm and thick over the Master's hand. She pulled it back and brought the knife to the front. As she punctured the skin over the Doctor's left heart, she gripped the Doctor's fighting body and kissed her clenched lips. Particles like dust filled her lungs, and she let go of the Doctor in horror. The Doctor's face seemed to glow in the overcast midday. No.
"Kill the broadcast!" the Master shouted. She sawed through the rope with the bloody knife in blind desperation. "Kill them all." She waved her other hand quickly toward the stunned audience and chopped at the last strands. A gold mist traveled up the rope, wrapping around her hands. The last strand broke, and the Doctor dropped, lifeless, the last foot.
"At last footage of the Doctor's body…," the newscaster stated as Martha's mother entered with a tray of custard and berries.
She pointedly ignored the television as she left the tray on the bedside table and bowed out of the room.
The Master stroked the Doctor's hair while she slept. Food and a warm bed were the closest she could come to asking forgiveness.
"…Solar flare which interrupted yesterday's broadcast…," the newscaster continued.
The Master took a bite of one of the sandwiches and then held it under the Doctor's nose.
"Wakey, wakey," she whispered.
The Doctor opened her eyes and looked up at the Master sternly. "No, thank you," she said.
"Not bad," the Master said, taking another bite. "Bread's a bit dry. Jam's a bit runny. Typical Jones cooking, but from what I hear, it's better than Tyler cooking."
"You killed everyone there, didn't you?"
"Yes."
The Doctor nodded. "You didn't kill me."
"You started to –"
"I know."
They sat in silence for several minutes, watching the recap of the Doctor's supposed death. Apologies and forgiveness hung unspoken between them, as they often did. The Doctor groaned inwardly from the pain, as she often did. But for the first time since the Master had chosen that name, the Doctor felt hope.