It was raining. The water droplets hit the roof of the warehouse that Jack, Martha, the Doctor, and Kayla had found. Using the darkness from the rain, Martha had snuck out to go get some chips, leaving Jack, the Doctor, and Kayla in an uncomfortable silence.
The brunette looked in between her Bonded, the Doctor, and her father, Jack. She crossed her arms over her stomach and finally asked the question she had be burning to ask the two men, "Why?"
The Doctor, who had been using Martha's laptop, and Jack, who had been using his Vortex Manipulator, both turned to look at each other and then Kayla in confusion. When she didn't elaborate, the Doctor hesitantly asked, "Why what?"
"Why would either of you think you have the right to keep something so important from me?" Kayla snapped, her voice constantly threatening to rise in volume. The only thing stopping her from shouting at them was the risk of someone hearing her and then reporting to the police.
The Doctor winced and looked over at Jack for help, but Jack looked just as pained as the Doctor knew he looked.
Kayla, seeing the exchange of looks, seemed to, somehow, get even angrier. She had been getting angrier and angrier as she held her tongue, and by the time she had started she was already furious. But seeing the Doctor and Jack look at each other as if they had no idea what to say made it even worse.
"Don't you have anything to say for yourselves?" she snapped at them.
The Doctor, either bravely or stupidly, started off first. "Kayla," he said in a soft, slow voice, "You weren't conscious when Jack was brought back. The moment he was all I could feel was…pain and wrongness and –" the Doctor took a deep breath and shook his head. "Even now, all I want to do is grab you and run from him. He hurts."
He paused to look at Kayla's expression and winced as he saw the deep frown on her face. "I ended up telling you about Jack and you obsessed over finding him. You didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't move from the console. And then, one day, you collapsed at the console. I took you to the med bay, I did a scan and," the Doctor swallowed hard. "The scan theorized you would have a couple of months left before you were in dire medical attention. I had to do something, Kayla, so I did.
"I had the TARDIS do a scan for Jack and found him in London. I explained the situation, I explained how you were trying to track him via his spare vortex manipulator. We came up with a plan. He'd send a notification to you and stage his death. The only thing I had to do is give him his vortex manipulator and – "
"And wipe my memory of him being immortal," Kayla finished for him.
The Doctor nodded. "Yes," he agreed.
Giving him a glare that made the Doctor's stomach turn and his hearts drop, Kayla turned to Jack. "Well?" she snapped.
Jack just shrugged. "It happened like he said. He showed me what you looked like Kayla, and it was...you looked better at the Time Agency."
Kayla looked down, the memory of how she had looked during that period of her life hitting her. Through the mental link, she winced as she got a brief flash of the image the Doctor was thinking of. She swallowed hard.
"Would you do it again?" she asked the two men.
"You were dying in front of me, Kayla," the Doctor started slowly.
"It's a yes or no question, Doctor," Kayla pointed out while crossing her arms.
For a moment the Doctor seemed too hurt to speak, but then he almost snapped, "Do you think I liked doing it, Kayla? Because it was the worst moment in the world for me. I broke your trust in me, and you have every right to be angry at me for that, but it was either that or me tracking Jack down to tell him you were dead."
"But you know how I feel about memory wipes!" Kayla protested. "After everything I've told you about the Time Agency, about what they made me do, and about what they did to me, you still wiped my memory!"
"Because you were killing yourself, Kayla!"
The Doctor's emotion-filled shout hung in the air heavily, making Kayla take a step back as if she had been struck.
"I would never have let it get that far," she said in a weak voice.
The Doctor just shook his head. "Let me show you," he offered while taking a step forwards. When Kayla made no move to step back, he took another step forwards, and then another until he was in front of his Bonded. He placed both hands on the side of her head and closed his eyes. After a moment, Kayla did the same.
"Kayla," the Doctor's voice was strained as he followed the brunette around the console. They had just landed somewhere and she was heading over to the monitor to look at it to see if her father was outside. The Doctor already knew he wasn't, because they had gone through this routine over a hundred times.
"Kayla," the Doctor tried again when she hadn't responded. The brunette was gasping for breath now, the half-circle around the console proving to be too hard on her body. She hadn't eaten or slept in the past week and the Doctor wouldn't lie and say he wasn't concerned.
It happened in slow motion, to the Doctor. He watched, in horror, as Kayla started to cough. Hard. Her body shook with the coughs and, as he moved to reach out and grab her, she fell back with her eyes rolling back in her head and closing. Her breath, painfully wheezing, was far too weak for the Doctor to do anything but pick her up and run to the med bay.
All he could think about was how light she was in his arms.
The Doctor pulled back from the connection as gently as possible, watching as Kayla's eyes fluttered open.
"I'm sorry, Kayla," the Doctor whispered, "I'm so, so sorry."
Kayla didn't respond for a long time. Instead, she just hugged the Doctor tightly, burring her face into his jacket. It took the Doctor a second to realize that she was crying – sobbing, really.
When Martha Jones snuck back into the warehouse, a bag of food in hand, she found the Doctor still working on her laptop, and Jack still working on his manipulator. The only thing that had changed was Kayla sitting next to the Time Lord. They were much closer than they had been before she left, which made Martha rather happy. Seeing the two of them fighting was far too similar to when she had been a little girl and hiding on the top step listening in on her parents fighting.
But something was still off with the couple. That was blatant to Martha. The way Kayla was watching the Doctor wasn't with the usual expression of a smile, but instead it was one of…confusion. As if she didn't know what to think of him.
The only reason Martha recognized the expression was because she had looked at the Doctor the same way when they had first met.
Frowning, Martha shifted her weight onto her other foot, drawing Jack's attention to her. It was almost startling how much he picked up.
"How was it?" he asked, effectively drawing the Doctor's and Kayla's attention to Martha as well.
Martha shrugged. "I don't think anyone saw me. Anything new?" She asked, already starting to walk over to an empty seat by the almost dead fire they had set up.
Jack grinned, looking far too pleased with himself. "I've got this tuned into the government wavelength so we can follow what Saxon's doing," he informed her with a motion to his manipulator. Martha still had no idea what it did, only that it was very useful.
"I meant about my family," Martha corrected.
"Still just the Jones family taken in for questioning," Kayla informed her. "But there's no mention of Leo."
Martha smiled at Kayla. "He's not as daft as he looks," she remarked…and then her smile fell and she shook her head and sat down with a thump in a seat, the bag of food hitting the ground. "I'm talking about my brother on the run. How did this happen?" she asked.
Carrying his chair over to where Martha had sat down, Jack picked up the dropped bag and ate one of the chips and then smiled. "Nice chips."
The Doctor brought over both his and Kayla's chair and took the bag from Jack. For a moment, their hands brushed and he winced as if he had been slapped, making Martha send him an odd look. But the Doctor didn't say anything so she instead went back to glowering at the floor while she thought about her brother on the run and her family locked up.
"Actually, they're not that bad," the Doctor agreed with Jack, sounding shocked. He passed one over to Kayla and watched as she took a bite and then made a face. She gave him the rest of the chip, making the Doctor frown deeply. Kayla loved chips, and ever since she had gotten pregnant, that love had seem to grow.
Distracted by his concern at this behavior, the Doctor didn't notice Jack and Martha sending each other looks, trying to convince the other to speak. Huffing, Jack was the one who asked: "So, Doctor, who is he? How come the ancient society of Time Lords created a psychopath?"
The Time Agency had studied the Time Lords, had looked up to them and their time travel. They had been idolized, basically. And, during his time at Torchwood, Jack had taken the opportunity to ask other species. Those who knew about the Time Lords spoke about them like gods. So the idea of the Master, who was clearly a psychopath, confused Jack. How could a god go insane like the Master had?
"And what is he to you? Like a colleague…" Martha added on, her voice trailing off meaningfully.
The Doctor sighed. "A friend, at first," he corrected in a tone that was just a little too light, too uncaring, to fool anyone that this wasn't a touchy subject.
Martha leaned back in her chair, frowning. "I thought you were gonna say he was your secret brother or something."
Kayla stared at Martha. "You've been watching too much TV," she chastised with a shake of her head. Martha just shrugged and chuckled half-heartedly in response.
Also giving Martha an odd look, Jack turned to the Doctor. "But all the legends of Gallifrey made it sound so perfect," he pointed out with a frown.
"Jack, the Time Agency wasn't truthful ever – especially about Gallifrey," Kayla pointed out.
The Doctor nodded. "It was perfect to look at, maybe. It was beautiful. They used to call it the Shining World of the Seven Systems. And on the Continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude, there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords."
Through the mental link, Kayla could picture the planet herself. The sky was a brilliant orange and yellow with two suns hanging in it. The snow-capped mountains surrounded a glass dome, the Citadel. Silver-leaved trees waved in the wind as two young boys ran through the red grass.
"The oldest and most mighty race in the universe…looking down on the galaxies below…sworn never to interfere…only to watch. Children of Gallifrey, taken from their families at the age of eight to enter the Academy. And some say that's when it all began. When he was a child… that's when the Master saw eternity. As a novice, he was taken for initiation, it's a gap in the fabric of reality through which could be seen the whole of the vortex."
Kayla winced as the image of the Master as a child appeared. Still young, the boy seemed to almost flinch away from the schism, but then something seemed to draw him in and all he could do was stare…and stare…and stare.
"You stand there, eight years old…staring at the raw power of time and space, just a child. Some would be inspired…some would run away…and some would go mad," the Doctor finished. Kayla briefly caught the image of the schism through his mind, before it was pushed away by the Doctor himself.
"What about you?" Martha asked as the Doctor took a bite from another chip.
The Doctor smiled, through it didn't reach his eyes like it usually did. "Oh, the ones that ran away. I never stopped."
Before anyone could really formulate a response, Jack's vortex manipulator beeped. Kayla looked over at him sharply. "Who's messaging you?" she asked. It would be just their look to have a Time Agent coming after them.
"Encrypted channel with files attached. Don't recognize it," Jack read off with a frown and a furrowed brow. It had been sent through to Torchwood Three, which meant that it couldn't be a Time Agent.
"Patch it through to the laptop," the Doctor instructed with a wave of his hand to said device.
At that, Jack winced, making Kayla and the Doctor look at him warily. "Um, since we're telling stories, um, there's something I haven't told you." He admitted.
That something was revealed when Jack sat down on the laptop and patched the message through. The first thing that popped up was the Torchwood logo in all its familiar, nausea inducing glory.
Kayla stared at her father, horrified. Her mind was already bringing up the memories of what had happened there when she had been pregnant. She took a hesitant step back from the computer, and Jack, her hand going to her stomach in a protective manner.
The Doctor pulled Kayla into a tight hug, keeping her at his side and far away from the now-exposed Torchwood agent.
"Did you know we were prisoners there?" Kayla asked Jack in a hoarse voice.
Jack winced at the question. "I tried everything, but Torchwood Three is nothing to Torchwood One."
"Kayla nearly lost our child there," the Doctor snapped with a glare to Jack.
Jack nodded. "The old regime was destroyed at Canary Wharf. I rebuilt it, I changed it. And when I did that, I did it for you, in your honor."
When the Doctor and Kayla didn't respond to him, Jack opened up the file. A video of an older woman with blonde grey-streaked hair, sitting at a desk, appeared. "If I haven't returned to my desk by 2200 hours, this file will be emailed to Torchwood. Which means, if you're watching this, then I'm… Anyway, the Saxon files are attached. But take a look at the Archangel document. That's when it all started. When Harry Saxon became Minister in charge of launching the Archangel Network."
The screen changed from her image to a graphic of the spinning Earth with satellites.
"What's the Archangel Network?" the Doctor asked, shaking his head in confusion.
Martha pulled out her mobile and handed it to the Time Lord so he could look down at it. "I've got Archangel. Everyone's got it." She said with a shrug.
"It's the mobile phone network. 'Cause, look, it's gone worldwide. They've got 15 satellites in orbit. Even the other networks, they're all carried by Archangel," Jack elaborated on.
Kayla stared down at Martha's phone cautiously. "There's no way to escape him."
Nodding, the Doctor took out his sonic and used it on the phone. Looking at the readings, he grinned despite their troubling report. "It's in the phones! Oh, I said he was a hypnotist! Wait, wait, wait. Hold on." He hit the bottom of the phone, making Martha wince. However, the phone started to beep out the same four-beat rhythm that had gotten to everyone. "There it is. That rhythm, it's everywhere. Ticking away in the subconscious."
"What is it, mind control?" Martha asked, more than a bit disgusted at the idea that this alien had been subconsciously getting to everyone in the entire world for over a year.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no, no. Subtler than that. Any stronger and people would question it. But contained in that rhythm, in layers of code… Vote Saxon. Believe in me. Whispering to the world. Oh, yes! That's how he hid himself from me. 'Cause I should have sensed there was another Time Lord on Earth. I should have known way back. The signal cancelled him out," he explained almost frantically.
"Anyway we can stop it?" Kayla asked the Doctor.
"Not from down here. But now we know how he's doing it," the Doctor pointed out.
"Which means we can fight back."
The Doctor kissed Kayla on the nose. "Oh yes!" He agreed with a smile.
Giving her a peck on the lips, the Doctor grabbed the laptop from Jack and started to take both that and the phone apart. He paused and then asked, and received, Jack's, Martha's, and Kayla's keys from them. Putting those items onto the table, he used the circuitry from the laptop and soniced to the keys. Digging around in his pockets, he pulled out three bits of strings and looped it through the hole at the top, making the keys wearable. After a pause, he gathered the last bit of material together to do his own key.
Finally finished, he held up the four keys to his bewildered audience. "Four TARDIS keys, four pieces of the TARDIS with low-level perception properties because the TARDIS is designed to blend in. Well, sort of, but…Now! The Archangel Network's got a second low-level signal. Weld the key to the network and…Martha," the Doctor paused to take a step back, "look at me. You can see me, yes?"
"Yep!" Martha agreed, a bit confused. He had only taken a step back, not run behind her.
"What about now?" the Doctor asked as he slipped the key over his neck.
The effect was clear as soon as the key hit the Doctor. Martha tried to look at him, but her eyesight kept blurring and turning away.
Kayla and Jack, who had both experience the effects of a perception filter, smiled. It was always such a strange feeling – knowing someone was there but being unable to see them.
"No, I'm here. Look at me," the Doctor called to Martha, the smile obvious in his voice. He was having far too much fun with this.
Martha shook her head. "It's like…I know you're there but I don't want to know."
"And back again," the Doctor said as he took off his key. "See? It just shifts your perception a tiny little bit. Doesn't make us invisible, just unnoticed. Oh, I know what it's like. It's like—it's like when you fancy someone and they don't even know you exist. That's what it's like. Come on!" He ran over to Kayla and took her hand and pulled her along with him, beaming at his success.
'Doctor, it didn't work on me,' Kayla admitted through the mental link.
'We're Bonded Kayla, nothing can hide you from me,' the Doctor replied. 'It will work on the Master. He will not hurt you Kayla, I won't let him,' he vowed.
They waited by the warehouse for Martha and Jack, who slipped on their keys. The Doctor turned to Kayla, gave her a small kiss, and then slipped her key over her head before finally slipping on his.
"Don't run. Don't shout. Just keep your voice down. Draw attention to yourself and the spell is broken. Just keep to the shadows," the Doctor instructed.
"Like ghosts," Jack commented dryly.
"Yeah, that's what we are. Ghosts," the Doctor agreed, no humor left in his voice at all. He reached out and took Kayla's hand and gave it a squeeze as they headed off into the night.
They watched, silent and still, as the Master and his human wife Lucy greeted the President from the plane. They watched as the Master made an ass of himself, angering the President to take over the entire procedure. By the small smile on the Master's lips, and the way he smirked at the President's back, it was clear that America being in charge was exactly what he wanted.
Ushering his wife off, the Master turned and looked over at where their group was standing. The Doctor tilted his head up slightly, as if he was challenging to the Master to come over to them. But the Master just turned, smirking, as a police van pulled up. The people in the back were ushered out, revealing themselves as Martha's parents and her sister.
"Oh my God," Martha gasped, horrified at the sight of her parents being grabbed at by guards and pushed to that…that monster!
"You can't move," Kayla reminded Martha in a low voice.
"But…" Martha protested helplessly, her parents leaving her view.
"Don't," the Doctor ordered.
As Martha's family was transferred to a large Land Rover, Martha shook her head. "I'm gonna kill him." She growled.
"Say I use this perception filter to walk up behind him and break his neck?" Jack offered.
"You would be shot down the second you moved," Kayla pointed out. "There are snipers waiting for us to appear."
Jack huffed, as if he had known that all along. "Still a good plan," he grumbled.
The Doctor gave the two worried looks, clearly disagree with how the three viewed the situation. "He's a Time Lord, which makes him my responsibility. I'm not here to kill him. I'm here to save him."
'Since I'm a Time Lady, doesn't that give me say?' Kayla questioned.
'He's my best friend, Kayla. I have to at least try.'
Kayla pursed her lips and crossed her arms. 'Doctor…what if he isn't worth trying for?' she pointed out, her mind going to her thoughts about her pregnancy. If the Master were to somehow harm their child…
'If it gets that far then he'll be dead,' the Doctor vowed bluntly. A chill traveled up her spine at how cold his mental voice was…at what the Doctor was promising.
Martha nudged the Doctor softly, making the two break away from their conversation almost guilty to hear Jack reading from his vortex manipulator. "Aircraft carrier Valiant. It's a UNIT ship at 28.2N and 10.02E."
"How do we get onboard?" Martha asked, frowning. Knowing the location was fine, but their lack of TARDIS posed a transport problem.
The Doctor looked over a Jack. "Does that thing work as a teleport?" he asked.
Jack nodded. "Since you revamped it, yeah." He smirked and, without a pause to punch in anything, he added, "Coordinates set."
Gathering them all around the manipulator, Kayla watched as the Doctor made sure they were all holding onto Jack's arm before he nodded his head. Jack pressed the button, and they were sent to a humid, steam-filled engine room.
Kayla winced, a headache already forming. She rubbed at her head, trying not to frown at how…adversely the travel had affected her. Usually, she was the least affected, but now she felt like her stomach was about to upturn. She slumped against the wall, refusing to meet Jack's worried gaze. Even he had already brushed off the affects.
"Oh, that thing is rough," Martha groaned, rubbing at her head.
Jack gave her a pat on the shoulder. "I've has worse nights," he admitted. He cracked his neck loudly, making Kayla wince at the noise. "Welcome to the Valiant."
Martha looked at a nearby porthole window. "It's down, she remarked. Frowning, she walked over to it and peered out. "Hold on, I thought this was a ship. Where's the sea?"
"A ship for the 21st century. Protecting the skies of planet Earth," Jack explained, walking up behind her.
"It's an aircraft carrier?" Kayla asked, her eyes widening. At least in a normal boat, they could have jumped and then swim off had things gone bad. An aircraft carrier would be much, much harder to get away from.
Picking up on her thoughts, the Doctor stepped over to Kayla and took both her hands to give them a gently squeeze. 'I promise, Kayla. He will not touch you.'
Dropping one of her hands, the Doctor turned to Jack and Martha. "We need to get to the Master before he's able to do what he's planning."
The two nodded, which made the Doctor smile grimly.
The foursome had been running through the maintenance halls, thankfully not running into anyone, when the Doctor and Kayla stopped to look down a hall together before exchanging very pleased, if tense, looks.
"We've no time for sightseeing!" Jack chastised when he turned around to see them no longer running and instead looking at each other.
"No, no. Wait. Shh, shh, shh. Can't you hear it?" the Doctor asked, tilting his head towards a corridor.
Behind the couple, Martha shook her head. "Doctor, my family's on board," she huffed in reminder as she strode past.
"Brilliant! This way!"
Leading the group, Martha and Jack ran after the Doctor and Kayla as they changed directions and started down more sets of corridors until they hit a set of doors that the Doctor pushed open to reveal…
The TARDIS.
"Oh, at last!" the Doctor cheered.
"Oh, yes!" Martha agreed with a laugh.
"What's it doing on the Valiant?" Jack pointed out with a frown.
The Doctor strode to the doors and pushed them open. Instead of the cool, blue light of his interior to hit him, the Doctor stumbled back, letting go Kayla's hand in horrified shock, when a hot, red light hit him instead.
The Time Lord, his expression now pained, walked into the TARDIS and stared around the console room, Kayla walking behind him. Without even looking, he reached out and took her hand to squeeze it tightly, unable to believe what the Master had done to his ship…his home.
"What the hell's he done?" Jack asked, his voice sounding just as horrified as the Doctor and Kayla felt.
"Don't touch anything," Kayla warned him, knowing he was probably drawn towards the machine in its current state. Though she loathed to admit it, her father was a paradox.
"I'm not going to," Jack promised, and then crossed his arms to prove this point, his hands tucking underneath.
"What's he done though? Sounds like it's… sick," Martha pointed out with a frown, her head tilted to the side as she waved her hand over to the caged console, which had been stripped of different parts as well.
"It can't be. No, no, no, no, no, no, it can't be," the Doctor said, shaking his head.
"Denying it won't change it," Kayla said softly, her eyes on the console as well. At the questioning look Martha sent her, Kayla ran a hand through her hair. "He cannibalized the TARDIS. It's eating itself up to make a paradox. It's a paradox machine," she explained with a shake of her head.
The Doctor took a step forwards and motioned at an object. "As soon as this hits red, it activates. At this speed, it'll trigger," he cut himself off to look over at Kayla.
"Two minutes pass 8:00," Kayla answered with a look at her watch.
"First contact is at 8:00 and then two minutes later…" Jack frowned, looking at the Doctor for an answer.
"What's it for? What's a paradox machine do?" Martha wondered.
"More importantly, can you stop it?" Jack questioned.
"Without knowing what it's doing, a wrong touch and we could blow up the entire universe," Kayla explained. "We've got to stop the Master."
Jack nodded, and then frowned. "Yeah. How do we stop him?"
"Oh, I've got a way. Sorry, didn't I tell you?" the Doctor smiled at the others, and if Kayla didn't know him, she would have thought he was happy.
The Doctor, Martha, Jack, and Kayla edged their way into the bridge. As soon as they entered, the Master's smile slipped off and was replaced with a look that closely resembled a child pouting.
"For as long as man has looked to the stars, he has wondered what mysteries they hold. Now we know we are not alone…" President Winters was saying as they entered.
"If I can get this," the Doctor started while holding up a key, "around the Master's neck…cancel out his perception, they'll see him for real. It's just hard to go unnoticed with everyone on red alert. If they stop me…" the Doctor's voice trailed off as he swallowed hard. Kayla took his hand and squeezed it, making the idea of him getting caught all the worse. "You've got a key," he pointed out to Jack in a dry voice.
"Yes, sir," Jack nodded. If they hadn't been unable to move, Jack would have saluted.
"I'll get him," Martha vowed as well.
The Doctor shook his head. "One of you need to take care of Kayla."
"If you're caught, they'll be nothing for them to take care of," Kayla snapped in a low voice.
'Our child, Kayla,' the Doctor said hesitantly, a dark grief filling their link. 'Our child would survive us, and the Master with his hands on it…'
Kayla swallowed hard, a wave of nausea hitting her at the mere idea. Sensing this, the Doctor rushed to add, 'I won't let him near you or our child, Kayla. He won't be able to lay a hand on you.'
Their conversation ending, the couple watched as the President greeted the Toclafane, the metal spheres that the Master was claiming to be friendly, and the Toclafane almost too predictably turned on him.
"You're not the Master," the first Toclafane said in a female voice.
"We like the Mr. Master," the second Toclafane added in with an almost nod-like bob, it's voice also female.
"We don't like you," the last Toclafane, and the only one with a male voice.
The President frowned, just not getting it and clearly not seeing the Master's smirk on his face. "I…can be Master, if you so wish. I will accept mastery over you if that is God's will."
The third Toclafane actually snorted. "Man is stupid," he spat.
"Master is our friend," the first Toclafane giggled.
"Where's my Master, pretty please?" The second Toclafane wondered.
"Oh, all right then. It's me," the Master huffed as he stood up, though he didn't sound as upset as Kayla figured he was trying to sound. "Ta-da," he laughed while holding out his hands. "Sorry. Sorry, I have this effect. People just get obsessed. Is it the smile? Is it the aftershave? Is it the capacity to laugh at myself? I don't know. It's crazy!"
The President turned to him, sending the man an annoyed glare. "Saxon, what are you talkin' about?" he snapped.
All pretense dropped, the Master turned to the President and sent back a cold look. "I'm taking control, Uncle Sam. Starting with you." He turned, lazily, to look at the Toclafane. "Kill him," he ordered.
One of the Toclafane followed through immediately, shooting the President with a laser that caused him to disintegrates. Chaos erupted, as expected. The reporters and the rich viewers stormed to the exits, only for the Master's guards to take out their guns in a threatening manner.
Still against the wall, Jack, Kayla, Martha, and the Doctor pressed against the wall, not wanting to risk a stray person brushing them.
Watching it all, the Master laughed and clapped his hands. "Guards," he ordered.
"Nobody move! Nobody move!" The guards ordered, pointing their guns.
Smirking, the Master turned towards the camera still recording everything. "Now then, peoples of the Earth, please attend carefully."
Kayla nearly ran after the Doctor when he rushed forwards, the only thing stopping her was Jack's quick hand tug. She could only watch in horror as two guards grabbed her Bonded and forced him to his knees in front of the Master.
"We meet at last, Doctor. Oh, ho! I love saying that!" The Master clapped his hands together as he looked down at the Doctor.
"Stop this! Stop it now!" the Doctor yelled up at the Master.
The Master just snorted and looked up at Martha, Jack, and Kayla. "As if a perception filter's gonna work on me," he snorted. Kayla felt her blood run cold and her breath become more shallow as the Master's eyes met hers. "Oh, and look, it's the girlie, the freak, and your pregnant Time Lady. Though not pregnant for much longer by the looks of it. Tell me, Doctor, have you Bonded with her yet?"
Growling, Jack let go of Kayla's hand to rush the Master himself. Not even flinching at the movement, the Master lifted some sort of device that looked like a bulkier sonic screwdriver and shot a laser at Jack, causing him to the fall to the ground and die.
"Laser screwdriver, who'd have sonic? And the good thing is, he's not dead for long. I get to kill him again!" the Master cheered.
Martha hurried to Jack's side while Kayla did the same to the Doctor, not even flinching when two guards grabbed her and forced her to kneel as well.
'Kayla, what are you doing?' the Doctor snapped, his eyes trying to meet hers, but Kayla's were locked onto the Master.
'Not leaving you,' Kayla snapped back. It had been their plan, for her to leave, should things go wrong. While she had agreed with it at the time, she had had no intention of following through.
Shaking his head in frustration, the Doctor looked back to the Master to see him watching them almost thoughtfully. "Master, just calm down. Just look at what you're doing. Just stop. If you could see yourself…"
The Master's thoughtful expression dropped to one of annoyance. He turned to the camera and sighed. "Oh, do excuse me, little bit of personal business. Back in a minute." With that taken care of, he ordered the guards to release the Doctor, causing the Time Lord to drop to the floor.
"It's that sound, the sound in your head. What if I could help?" the Doctor asked from his fallen position.
The Master rolled his eyes. "Oh, how to shut him up? I know. Memory Lane!" He plopped down on the steps and gave the Doctor, and Kayla, a patronizing look. "Professor Lazarus. Remember him? And his genetic manipulation device? Did you think that little Tish got that job merely by coincidence? I've been laying traps for you all this time. And if I can concentrate all that Lazarus technology into one little screwdriver…But, ooh, if I only had the Doctor's biological code. Oh, wait a minute, I do!"
Jumping to his feet, the Master ran to a silver case and opened it, revealing the Doctor's hand that Jack had brought into the TARDIS.
"I've got his hand! And if Lazarus made himself younger, what if I reverse it? Another hundred years?"
The Master pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Doctor. The affect was immediate as the Doctor screamed out and started to convulse on the floor. But another scream joined his, making the Master wince, likely from the noise, as Kayla slumped in the guards' arms and started to convulse as well. Though she didn't start to age like the Doctor was, she was still experiencing the same amount of pain.
Rubbing at his head, the Master grabbed a golden bracelet, etched with Gallifreyan, and walked over to Kayla's twitching body and snapped it onto her forearm. Her body relaxed as she passed out, her head dropping in front of her and causing her hair to fall forwards. He knelt down in front of her, using his laser screwdriver to get a reading on her body. A smirk started to form as he saw the information.
"Somebody's ready to pop," he whispered to the now passed out Time Lady, but she never heard him.
Very, very pleased with himself, the Master casually stopped the Doctor's aging. He knew that the black woman, the Doctor's companion, was now wearing a vortex manipulator curtesy of the now-alive Jack.
"Doctor, I've got you," he heard Martha say in a soft, sweet voice.
It was positively disgusting, and the Master would have to put an end to it. "Aw, she's a would-be doctor. But tonight, Martha Jones, we've flown 'em in all the way from prison—"
The Master took great pleasure in seeing how Martha's eyes widened, and the way she brokenly whispered "Mum," when her family were dragged into the room.
"The Toclafane, who are they? Who are they?" The Doctor asked, his voice ragged with the effort it took for him to get a breath out.
The Master just gave his old friend a pitying look. "Doctor, if I told you the truth, your hearts would break."
As the Toclafane came to eagerly asked if it was the paradox, the Master allowed his gaze to flicker over to the still sleeping Time Lady. If she hadn't thrown her lot with the Doctor, he would have rather liked her. Even if she wasn't really a Time Lady, but a species turned, the Master would have taken so much pleasure from taking the last Time Lady from the Doctor.
Taking their child from them would have to do. From what his laser screwdriver had reported, she was about to give birth any day now.
There was an extra bounce in his step, an extra ounce of pleasure in his voice, as he watched the decimation of the world. He didn't care when Martha disappeared, she would be easy to track down.
"And so it came to pass…that the human race fell and the Earth was no more. And I looked down upon my new dominion as master of all and I thought it…good."
And the best part was that there was nothing the Doctor could to about it.
Poor Kayla and poor baby :(. I wish I could promise that it won't get worse but this is only the beginning. I hope the twist in the next two chapters will shock you guys. I've had it planned since I first came up with Kayla.