DISCLAIMER: No, I don't own Doctor Who. Yes, I wish I did. No, I don't earn any money from this. Yes, David Tennant is My Doctor.
ALL PRAISE TO THE MIGHTY BBC! ;)
SUMMARY: Starting at Utopia, things change for The Doctor and The Master. But in a good way, I promise! (This is my first fic, so take it easy on me, please!)
A/N: So like I said, this is my first fic and I was completely not secure in the fact that I posted this story starter. But I'll tell you what...2 reviews in under 24 hours makes me so flippin happy I did post it. So FYI cammiestar58 and .Wonderland.8510... I completely love you! THANKS and I hope it stays good reads.
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Outside the Professor Yana's lab, Jack smashes control panel and the door opens, allowing them to rush in. The Doctor runs forward but can only watch as The Master shuts and locks the TARDIS doors.
The Doctor quickly finds that his key doesn't work, nor does his sonic screwdriver as The Master deadlocks the TARDIS.
To The Master's amusement, he can hear The Doctor pounding on the doors and begging.
"Lemme in! LET ME IN!" The Doctor's fear mounts further when Martha finds Chantho dead and Jack is unable to secure the lab doors. "I'm begging you. Everything's changed. It's only the two of us; we're the only ones left! Just let me in!"
The Master holds onto the TARDIS console, looking weaker by the second. "Killed by an insect. A girl. How… inappropriate. Still, if the Doctor can be young and strong, then so can I. The Master, reborn!"
The fires of regeneration consume The Master's body, altering every cell. The Doctor can hear The Master screaming through the pain and looks on in horror at the lights flickering through the TARDIS windows.
At that moment, the Future-kind make it to the lab door, trying to force it open. "Doctor! You better think of something!"
What neither The Doctor nor The Master realize is this: As The Master starts to regenerate, he is standing entirely too close to The Doctor's severed hand. The Master's regeneration energy explodes from his body, engulfing the jar and reacting with the genetic material held within. It backfires spectacularly and The Master is inundated with memories. His own as well as The Doctor's.
He remembers.
His days at the Academy.
Koschei walked the halls of The Academy, lost in his own mind. His thoughts should be on the current project he and Theta were developing for their Quantum Field Theory and Statistical Mechanics classes. It was, of course, almost finished. They were the smartest students in the Academy, regardless of their "extracurricular" activities. (He really would find a way to prove the miniature sun Theta created last week was an accident.)
He remembers Theta. His best friend.
"Theta! You idiot, run!" 18-year-old Koschei tears through the halls of his father's house, laughing loudly as he grabs his shocked friend's hand and drags him out and through the courtyard. They keep running, across the red grasses of the field behind the manor to the silver-tipped trees beyond.
Theta trips and pulls his hand from Koschei's, slamming his side into the nearest tree.
"Ow…" Theta rubs his aching head and ribs as he rolls to his back. His gaze is pulled from those beautiful burnt orange skies when Koschei plops beside him, panting a bit from exertion.
"I don't know why you insist on taunting your tutor, Koschei. It just causes more trouble than it's worth and you always end up getting more lessons in the end."
Koschei grinned at his friend, "Yeah, but it really is worth it to see steam pour from Father's ears when his 'greatest disappointment' surpasses him again. And again. And again! Ha!" He giggles like the child he was not so long ago.
Theta grins back at him. "Idiot." The boys look back to the skies of their home. Each lost in the dreams and hopes and plans for the future.
He remembers the Time War.
"What the HELL do you think you're doing? Get away from there, Koschei!" The Doctor pulls his friend from the control panel of the TARDIS.
"You can't do this, Theta. You CAN'T! This is gonna kill you. Properly this time! Let me do it!" The Master never begged. As much as The Master hated The Doctor, Koschei loved him because his friend never gave up on him. The Master couldn't fathom where this influx of consciousness came from, but he felt almost compelled to help.
"The Council are idiots and fools." The Doctor turned, ignoring his friend, twisting and turning the controls to begin the necessary launching sequence.
The Master stalked up behind him, fists clenched. "They can't expect you to commit genocide, even it is the Daleks! This goes against everything you are, and don't you DARE deny it!"
The Master grabbed The Doctor by the shoulders, turning him around to face him, and he froze. His friend, the good one, his guide. His eyes were like frozen stone; cold and unyielding.
"No." The Doctor reached to hold The Master by the wrists, pulling his hands from his shoulders. "I've seen how close you are, old friend. The madness you've held at bay for so many years. I can't."
He turned back to the controls, but The Master reached to jerk him back around. "NO! Just stop…"
"You stop, Koschei." The Doctor barely had a hold of his temper now.
Quietly, The Master straightened and looked The Doctor in the eye, a shield falling across his face. "I'll stop you somehow. You know that, right?" It wasn't really a question.
"You can try." The Doctor started beginning the launch sequence on the TARDIS again. "Leave, Koschei. Leave now."
The Master cocked an eyebrow. "Nope," popping the 'p' like The Doctor's 10th self did.
The Doctor froze, straightened and faced the time rotor of his beloved ship.
The next thing The Master knew, he was waking up in a field of red grass, his mind aching and his jaw feeling bruised. The sounds of The Doctor's TARDIS just fading in the air.
Disbelief. "He hit me. That bastard HIT me!"
The Master and The Doctor didn't see each other again for years. By then, the madness rooted in The Master's mind had overtaken him. Koschei was long gone the first time he tried to kill The Doctor.
He remembers Gallifrey.
The Council of the Time Lords had resurrected The Master. "The perfect soldier" he was called. What did they know? Sure, he liked to kill. Daleks, especially. But this? This wasn't war. This was a massacre. So The Master ran.
The Doctor's mind was overtaken by fire and screams and pleas for help, save me help me no no no no NO don't do this stop them stop them stopthemstopthemstopthem!
The Doctor did his duty. He used The Moment and burned Gallifrey, locked it in for all of time and beyond.
The once long locks of hair shorn in a soldier's cut, black trousers, boots, and tunic fitted with holsters for weapons of many shapes and sizes. The Doctor had used those weapons too, and died a little inside with each life he took. Soon, only the cold detachment he'd had to instill in himself kept him from following the path of The Master into insanity.
He looked very much the part of the conquering leader, the once Lord President of Gallifrey, the general of the greatest army of the Seven Systems. The Destroyer of Worlds. He lost it all as he grasped his head in his hands, fell to his knees in the TARDIS, and screamed until his throat bled.
The Doctor expected to die. There's no reason why he shouldn't have died. His injuries before opening The Moment had ensured he would at least regenerate soon. But the screams of his people dying, the lights in his mind for each Gallifreyan and Time Lord soul, extinguished one by one, locked that part of him. He refused to regenerate. Refused! Let this be the end. PLEASE!
The fire from the loss of everything he knew became, all to quickly, ice and numbness, and swallowed the last of the Time Lords in blackness and nothingness.
dying
pain
Why the hell was he alive? He should have died with the rest of his people. He was ready for that at least! Not a new body though. Never that. The soft, poetic, Byron-esque man that was his Eighth self replaced with the hard soldier, leather and big ears, and an emptiness in his mind only soothed by the hum and constant presence of the last TARDIS in existence.
Weeks in the TARDIS' Zero Room gave him time to heal physically. Then, after a few slightly (but not quite) unconscious suicide missions, Her admonishments to Her pilot, Her thief, finally broke through.
Then he met her. Rose Tyler. Oh, he tried to forget her in the minutes after telling her to run for her life. Should have been easy too. But no. His TARDIS chimed in his head to save her… again. So he ran from death again, only seconds away from being blown to bits by the bomb he planted on the roof of Henriks.
So why couldn't he leave her behind? He tried to forget her again after dealing with the mess that was the Nestene Consciousness. Weeks he traveled. Months. Then, years. The Titanic, Krakatoa, the day Kennedy was assassinated. He tried to leave Earth. Really! He did! But his precious ship was having none of that.
Humans. Supid apes. Wouldn't know how to properly travel in time if they had a hole in their foreheads.
Rose Tyler.
His little pink and yellow human.
When did he fall in love with her? From the word "Run"? Dickens? Probably really started sinking in with the incident with the Slitheen family. "I could save the world but lose you." Sappy, broken, miserable, old man.
Oh, if the mighty Time Lords could see him now. They really would banish him, but with no chance of repeal this time. Ha!
She's dead. "Your stupid game killed her!" The only thing keeping me sane and you took that away from me. Jack? Help me. Avenge her. Stop this madness. Wait… what? JACK! "SHE'S ALIVE!"
She saved him though, in the end. Oh, so many times. Killed him too, to be honest, but he'd do it again. In a heartsbeart. Daleks. Can they never die? … Oh. Rose… you'll burn!
Gut-clenching, mind-numbing, fear that she wouldn't want to be with this New Doctor. Gods, it almost crippled him when she asked him to change back. Would she leave him?
No. Not Rose. Never Rose. He'd even put up with her mum's cooking, if that's what it took for her to see he really was the same man. Still loved her, even though he'd never be able to say it. Didn't do domestics, eh? Might be easier this time. Easier with two. No. Easier with her. Better with her.
"Tea! That's all I needed! Good cup of tea! Super-heated infusion of free-radicals and tannins, just the thing for healing the synapses..."
"Aww, I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger. And you, Rose Tyler, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me. Ooh, that was rude. Is that the kind of man I am now? Am I rude? Rude and not ginger?"
"Blood Control? Oh! I haven't seen blood control in years!"
"I challenge you!"
He hears Rose yell. "Doctor!" and tosses the sword to him. "Still the Doctor, am I?"
Pain. "You cut my hand off!"
And things start to fade a bit, greying around the edges of The Master's consciousness as his regeneration literally burns itself out.
"And now I know what sort of man I am. I'm lucky, because quite by chance, I'm still within the first 15 hours of my regeneration cycle, which means I have just enough residual cellular energy to do this."
Ah. So that's where the hand came from. Good job, Doctor.
"Witchcraft?"
"Time Lord."
Then nothing. His mind snaps. His body seizes. Darkness.