CHAPTER 3

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ECHOES OF THE PAST

The TARDIS materialized in the middle of a war torn planet that looked like it had definitely seen better days. Everywhere that the TARDIS crew looked there was nothing but devastated buildings and shattered dreams as hundreds of refugees moved through the area looking for a place of safety.

"This is definitely not where I had expected to wind up on my first visit," Osgood said in a horrified voice.

"Maybe it's good that you get that lesson out of the way early then. Traveling with me isn't always fun and romantic. There are many horrors out there in the universe, and this is only one of them," The Doctor said in a somber voice as he looked out at the devastation around him with disdain.

The Master said nothing. Once she would have thought that a scene like this wasn't even worth her attention. She would have completely passed a place like this by on her travels without even a second thought . . . or a first one.

Now though she felt so bad for these people. She was surprised to find that she actually wanted to help them.

"Is there anything that we can do for this world, Doctor? Maybe we could stop the war or at least help the survivors find a safe place to go," The Master said before she even realized what was coming out of her mouth.

To her complete surprise, the Doctor actually smiled at her for a brief moment before he said, "We can't really do anything for them, Clara. This war is a fixed point in time and can't be stopped. As for the people, there's already an organized plan in place to get them all to safety going on even as we speak."

"How do you know that, Doctor?" Osgood asked in surprise.

"I've already been here before. Mr. Bow Tie came here with Amy Pond and helped to organize the refugees so that they could help themselves. He established an underground base to take the survivors to once the battles were finished," The Doctor said.

"Why did we come here then?" The Master asked.

"I just wanted to check and see how it was going. It seems to be running very efficiently from what I can see here so I suppose we should just go somewhere else then," The Doctor said.

The Master looked at the Doctor suspiciously as she wondered if there had been more to it than that. Since when had the Doctor ever gone anywhere just to check up on its progress? He never looked back once he left somewhere. He also usually had a reason for everything that he did even if it didn't always look like it. Who would know that better than her after all, his oldest friend/enemy?

Something was wrong about this whole situation, and it made the Master wonder yet again if the Doctor knew who she really was now despite the perception filter. Other than that brief smile at her however he didn't seem to be acting any differently than he ever had to her before. She decided to just let it go in the hopes that it was nothing more than the Doctor's usual quirkiness.

She wasn't exactly acting normally herself these days come to think of it. She already knew from the start that the war was a fixed point in time, but part of her had still wanted to end it anyway. She had looked at the suffering of the people of that world and had automatically wanted to undo it all somehow or at least to make things better there.

She couldn't help but wonder what was happening to her lately. Why had she suddenly started to care so much about others? Those questions were really starting to bother her now but not half as much as the horrible sense of guilt that she had started to feel.

"Clara, what is it?" Osgood asked in concern as she saw her starting to cry.

"It's nothing. I guess I've just let what's happening here get to me I suppose," The Master lied.

"Yeah, I have to admit that it's pretty upsetting to me too. Doctor, can't we go somewhere where we could actually make a difference?" Osgood asked.

"Yes, Doctor, let's do that for Osgood. We don't want to drive her off on her first day do we?" The Master asked even as she tried to keep the accusing faces of numerous people from her past out of her mind.

"It's good that she knows what she's in for right from the start, Clara. This life isn't all a nice big happy lark like she seemed to think that it was. You know that better than most," The Doctor said.

"Yes, but it really can have its fun moments too. So far you're not showing her any of those, Doctor. Let's take her to a happy place. Practically any place would be happier than this by the way," The Master said.

The Doctor led the way back to the TARDIS as he said, "Well, I wasn't exactly going to take her to Trenzalore, Clara."

"Knowing this new version of you, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you did, Doctor. I bet you actually think of that as a vacation spot, Old Man," The Master said with a small smile as she felt a little like her old self for a moment.

"I don't pick destinations based on how fun that they are. That was more Mr. Bow Tie's thing than mine. I will however try to pick a much more interesting location. How do you feel about history, Osgood?" The Doctor asked.

"Are we going back in time?" Osgood asked in excitement.

"Why not? Or we could even go forwards. Pick a time. Any time at all," The Doctor offered as he finally opened the TARDIS doors for the two women with a snap of his fingers.

As Osgood went inside, she began to look anxious about this decision as she said, "I don't know. There's just so much history to choose from."

"How about we let the TARDIS choose then?" The Doctor offered as he dematerialized.

The Master shuddered not sure that she wanted to let the TARDIS choose if there was a chance that they would wind up in another place like this again. She knew from experience that left to her devices that the TARDIS would always lead the Doctor straight into trouble.

The TARDIS knew that that's how he liked his journeys after all.

Why should she care whether it did or not though? Trouble used to be a great source of humor to her once. She used to enjoy reveling in other people's misery and suffering.

Not now though. Now she actually cared. Maybe the Doctor had been right after all. Maybe some part of her really was still Clara Oswald.

That was complete nonsense though of course. There was no way that that could be true. She had no conscience, right?

That's what she told the endless stream of faces that went through her mind as she struggled to ignore them. They were all the faces of her many, many victims over the centuries. The worst one was Lucy Saxon. She continued to accuse her over and over again of ruining her life and asked her again and again why she should get a second chance to redeem herself if she had never gotten one since she was far more deserving of one.

The Master honestly couldn't answer that question.

"Clara, are you alright? You haven't been acting right ever since we left Earth," Osgood asked in concern.

The Master couldn't even look at Osgood as she said, "I'm fine. I guess I'm still just worried about Danny is all."

Osgood smiled at her as she said, "Oh, I'm sure that he'll be alright, Clara. They'll find him and bring him back to you. I know that they will."

Clara simply nodded without answering her. She couldn't bring herself to look at Osgood because she knew that if things had been different that she would have killed her just as callously and just as cruelly as she had all of her other victims. She didn't deserve Osgood's compassion or sympathy. She didn't deserve a friend like her at all.

Despite her current mood, she almost smiled at that. When had she started thinking of Osgood as her friend?

"Clara, I think that the next destination will probably be a much more pleasant one if that makes you feel any better," The Doctor said.

"I'm not sure that anything can make me feel any better at the moment," The Master answered.

She was beginning to wish that she had never opened that watch. For all of her worries and recent heartache, Clara Oswald's life was infinitely preferable to the one that she had now.

Even the Master's previous life would have been better than this one. She almost found herself wishing to go back to it despite how wicked that it was.

It had been so much better when she had had no hearts. Then the guilt wouldn't matter would it?

"Doctor, I hope that we really are going someplace nice next. I'm very worried about Clara. She's driving herself mad worrying about Danny," Osgood whispered to the Doctor.

The Doctor looked at her oddly for a moment as he said, "Yes, about Danny. Well, I think that our new trip will be exactly what she needs. It's both a trip to the past and a . . . fun one. I don't really understand the use of a fun visit, but if it will help to cheer her up I suppose I can make the sacrifice."

"So you know where we're going then?" Osgood asked in surprise.

"Of course I know. I decided not to let the TARDIS pick after all. I picked our next destination myself in order to help Clara get over this depression of hers. We're arriving there now as a matter of fact," The Doctor said.

The TARDIS then materialized in the very next minute, and Osgood immediately ran outside eager to see exactly where they had wound up next. She smiled as she saw immediately that they were in a lush garden that looked to her just like paradise.

"It's beautiful! What is this place, Doctor?" Osgood asked with a huge smile on her face.

"Is it beautiful? Yes, I suppose it is. I came here once a long time ago and haven't been back since so I decided to give it another look," The Doctor said.

The Master now took a look outside as well, and her hearts immediately skipped a beat as she recognized the garden immediately. She knew exactly where they were now, and everything in her wanted to run from this place as fast as she could.

She couldn't bear the shame.

"You never did say the name of this place, Doctor. Where are we?" Osgood asked.

"We're on a planet called Traken," The Doctor said with no trace of emotion whatsoever.

The Master meanwhile actually began to feel physically ill. Traken was just one planet out of many that the she had completely wiped out. Now she had to really wonder what this was all about.

Why had the Doctor really brought them here for? It couldn't be a coincidence. Did he know?

Did he know who she really was after all?

Meanwhile at that very moment back on Earth, Kate Stewart finally collapsed from exhaustion at her desk after a long day of working constantly with the scientists at UNIT to do something to help the Cybermen. She had a huge smile on her face as she sat there filled with pride in herself.

They had finally managed to do it. They had found a way to completely restore the emotions of the Cybermen and then had transferred their consciousness into Movellan android bodies that looked exactly like their original bodies. They hadn't been able to save everyone in the Rani's Matrix unfortunately because some of them had been there for so long that their brainwave patterns had degraded and were non-transferable to a new source. Those that they couldn't save were released when the Matrix was turned off in order to give them a final sense of peace.

Over all though, Kate felt as if she had done an extremely good job by saving as many people as she could. The one thing that bothered her was that she still hadn't managed to locate her father just yet. She knew that he was still out there somewhere though in his new Cyberman body because she had been hearing reports of a lone Cyberman saving people and helping them out all across the countryside. Who else could it be?

Sooner or later she hoped that she would run across him too. She wasn't sure how he would react to being given a chance at having an android body, but she had to at least offer that choice to him. She wouldn't be able to live with herself otherwise.

Just as Kate was about to fall asleep at her desk from pure exhaustion however, she was suddenly interrupted by one of her scientists who came running into her office with an anxious look on his face.

"Yes, what is it, Malcolm?" Kate asked.

"Ma'am, we've finally located the consciousness of a man named Danny Pink just as you asked us to do. He had been transferred back into the Rani's Matrix after his Cyberman body had been destroyed in the fight," Malcolm said.

Kate smiled thinking of how happy that Clara would be to hear that as she said, "Good work, Malcolm. Has he been transferred into an android body yet?"

"Yes, Ma'am. That's not the only reason that I'm here though. You see Danny told us something once he was able to do so. Something very important that I knew that you'd want to hear immediately," Malcolm said in a breathless voice.

"Oh? What was that?" Kate asked in surprise not having expected to hear anything like that.

That was when a man burst into her office and saluted her as he said, "I'll tell you myself, Ma'am. I'm Danny Pink and the woman that you call Clara Oswald isn't who you think that she is."

"Really? Exactly who is she then? Are you saying that she's not the real Clara?" Kate asked in confusion.

Danny began to tear up as he said in an emotional voice, "I wish that's what I was saying. No, the real truth is that there never really was a Clara. The person that I knew was a complete fake. I found out the real truth when she blew my Cyber body up with some kind of blast from a watch in her pocket. Clara Oswald is and always has been someone called the Master."

Kate's jaw dropped as she stared at him in a state of pure shock.

"Yeah, that's the reaction that your people had too. I'd still like to know why. Who is the Master?" Danny asked in a desperate voice.

"Malcolm, alert all of the proper authorities at once. Oh, and I don't care how many times that you have to try his number because he doesn't answer the phone. Call the Doctor!" Kate ordered.

Then she turned to Danny with a sad look on her face as she said, "Sit down, Mr. Pink. This is going to be a very long and painful conversation."

Next: Let the fallout from this news commence! Will the Doctor and Osgood find out the truth? Or does the Doctor already know it anyway as the Master suspects? Why are they on Traken anyway? By the way, did any of you guess that the Cyberman that called out Clara's name in the first chapter was Danny?