Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters contained herein, I merely make them dance in what I hope is true to their rhythm.

Chapter 2

Smith and Jones Again

"And you are absolutely sure?" asked the Doctor. "Are you absolutely, positively, one hundred and twenty per cent sure?"

Sean nodded. "Definitely," he said. "I would recognize that horrific desktop anywhere. The Master was using the Windows Vista operating system."

The Doctor sat back. "You know what this means, don't you?" he said to Martha, who was still looking at the viewscreen with Sean at the other end.

Martha raised an eyebrow at him. "He's not up to date with current technological trends?" she guessed.

Sean laughed. "We know the Master is insane, but he at least would use the latest operating system if it suits his needs. He wouldn't use Vista if he wasn't up to date, he would still be using Windows XP. He's smart enough to not use Vista."

The Doctor nodded. "There must be something in Windows Vista that has eluded everyone's attention, but the Master somehow found, and was able to exploit."

Martha was still incredulous. "Or maybe he just updated it to Vista and hasn't bothered to move to Windows 7," she said. "Maybe he's just too busy trying to take over the universe and becoming immortal to worry about the latest operating system."

The Doctor waved her off. "I can use the TARDIS to scan through the code for Windows Vista to see if she can pick up something interesting."

"Don't hold your breath, Doctor," said Sean. "The only interesting thing about the system, as far as I know, is that they ever released it in the first place. But you could discover something."

"Did you get anything else from the Thompson's house?" asked Martha.

Sean shrugged. "Some scraps of paper, and pictures of everything they have in the basement."

Martha nodded. "If you get a chance, see if you can find anything on that computer," she said. "If the Doctor finds something in the code of the operating system, you may be able to connect it with something that the Master is doing."

"Okay," said Sean. "Hey Doctor," he said, turning to the Time Lord. "I was wondering, how was the Master able to separate the sins from himself in the first place? I mean, would it be possible for a human to do that and become pure?"

"Don't even think about it," snapped the Doctor. "If you were to remove those aspects of yourself, you would cease to be yourself! You would cease to be human!"

Sean shook his head. "I'm not asking for my sake," he said. "I'm just trying to find out, what if another human, an evil human, discovers how to do it?"

"Like I said," said the Doctor through his teeth. "They would cease to be human. Humans are fallible, humans sin, and humans die. That's the way it works."

Martha spoke up. "But what if someone did?" she asked. "We would have to find somebody else to stop, right? Not to mention stopping seven more homunculi?"

The Doctor nodded. "That's right," he said with a sigh. He ran his hands through his hair. "I don't know how he separated the sins from himself, but I can tell you this for sure." He looked at Martha and Sean each in turn, and held their gazes. "He is not immune to those desires any more than you or me. Time Lords are fallible, Time Lords sin, and Time Lords do, in fact, die." He sat back and wiped his nose. "It takes us a few tries, but we get it right in the end."

Martha smiled. "Not you, though," she said. "You'll keep on going long after we're all gone."

The Doctor distinctly did not meet Martha's eyes at this. "I don't like to think about it," he said after a long pause.

Martha pursed her lips and laid a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. He forced a smile and squeezed her hand. Sean still didn't really know this mad man in his box, but he knew enough to know that he was very old and had seen the end of many friends, either through misadventure or just plain old age.

"The Master," said the Doctor, "whether he wants to admit it or not, is still plagued by those sins he claims to have rid himself of. When he anthropomorphized them, that is, gave them form, he did not completely get rid of those base emotions that are a part of his own person. He is still a Time Lord, and he can still die. Did either of you notice one of those deadly sins still very much at work in my old friend?"

Sean thought for a moment. It was obvious, in the end, what such a person would still have. "Pride," he said out loud. "He was so proud of his success in severing the ties with the sins."

The Doctor nodded. "That's right," he said. "And there's still Greed there as well, because otherwise he would be satisfied with what he had accomplished. Gluttony always comes along with Greed, of course, and Lust as well."

"What about Sloth, Envy, and Wrath?" asked Martha.

The Doctor smiled grimly. "He has always been envious of me," he said. "He hates that my name is loved throughout the universe. It's hated of course too, you can't get as big as I am without making enemies along the way, and the Master's not even the greatest of my enemies, just the oldest." He sighed. "There are worlds out there that are alive because of me, and he detests me for it." He gave them a sidelong look. "That's where his Wrath comes in, of course."

"And Sloth?" said Sean.

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm not sure about that one," he said. "The Master I know has always been willing to put in a bit of work to get what he wants. I don't know how I would ever see that manifesting itself, but it is possible."

"This is heavy," said Sean. "I'll see what I can get off of the computer. Let me know if you find anything out, Doctor." Sean turned to Martha. "Be careful," he said to her quietly. "Don't do anything foolish."

She chuckled and jerked her head to the Doctor. "It's him you have to worry about," she said. "I'll have to be the one pulling him back." She reached out to touch the screen just as Sean did the same on his side. It was almost as though their fingers were touching. Almost.

The Doctor cut off the transmission abruptly. He was frowning at her.

"What on earth did you do that for?" asked Martha angrily.

"You're married!" he said. "I've had to deal with this kind of thing before, though she was engaged, and she was trying snog me the night before her wedding." He chuckled. "Goodness, that night seemed to last for years. He died twice and went out of existence and back, and then the universe blew up." The Doctor looked back at her. "I wasn't super comfortable with that situation, although I was much more heavily involved in the why of it."

Martha waved him off. "Mickey and I have an open marriage. We spent a great deal of time with Captain Harkness, so maybe some things rubbed off on us, ideas about the perfect marriage not being the only thing."

Her friend shuddered. "That is not the image that I wanted!" he cried out. "The Captain, of course, I understand, and he has implanted images like that in my mind for years; centuries in fact, but I'm just not used to it from you, Martha Jones!"

She waited a bit. "Are you done?" she asked. "Because if you'd like to have a tantrum about how and with whom Mickey and I spend our nights, I'm sure that the universe will wait for you to grow up."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Fine, whatever you want," he said. "Just as long as you let Mr. Mickey know what you're doing with Sean."

Martha nodded. "We have a full communication about what and who we do when we're apart, and of course we will occasionally have someone together."

The Doctor shuddered again. "Images!" he cried. "That's enough with the images!"

Martha laughed. "So what now, Mr. Time Lord?" she asked.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Well, I'll run the TARDIS through the Windows Vista code," he said. "Wait. Strike that. Reverse it. Thank you. I'll run the Windows Vista code through the TARDIS computer for her to find something interesting in it."

"And if she does?" asked Martha.

"Well, I suppose it depends on what she finds," he said. "Until then, I'll run a search for more major incidents involving the homunculi. Greed was suspiciously absent during the Drum Corps International World Championships incident."

"What would signify a Greed attack?" asked Martha. "Would it be like a massive bank robbery, where everyone inside the bank decides to rob it all at the same time?"

The Doctor nodded. "It would be something like that, yes," he said. "Although it might be more subtle than that." He thought for a minute. "Maybe it would be something on Wall Street."

Martha raised her eyebrows. "You're not a huge fan of the one percent, are you Doctor?" she asked.

The Doctor laughed lightly. "You could say that," he replied. "Even though I may or may not have enough money to effectively buy Earth somewhere here on the TARDIS, I still understand what it's like to have nothing. Even the so called self made million- and billionaires don't really remember their friends from when they were young and poor. They made new, rich friends that only liked and appreciated them for their money. It's vile," he spat. "Greed is quite possibly the ugliest sin there is. It turns people into monsters. Worse is when Greed is teamed with Envy." He sat back. "Just add Wrath and you have a murder on your hands."

"But from what the Master said at the competition, Greed has separated from the rest of them," said Martha. "I don't think we'll see anything other than isolated acts of greed, though there would be a lot of people involved in them."

The Doctor, while he had been talking, had begun the process of running Windows Vista on the TARDIS. He looked up when he hit the start up command. "Well, I suppose it's as good of a time to try to find some mass bank robberies." He set the TARDIS to begin analyzing the code, and went to another monitor to start searching through human history for acts of mass greed.

Before he could type in one key word though, the TARDIS began whining as though it was about to take off.

"No, no, no," said the Doctor, running to the console to cancel the liftoff. "I didn't tell you to take me anywhere yet!"

An angry noise came out of the console, and the whooshing and whining continued. The machinery was going up and down.

"What's she doing, Doctor?" cried Martha, suddenly worried.

"I don't know," said the Doctor, running back to the screen that was running the Windows system. "I think it might be the operating system. Something in it may have triggered the time travel."

"How could it do that?" asked Martha.

He looked at her. "It all depends on who wrote the code," he said. "If someone knew enough about TARDIS systems, there could be a seemingly innocuous line of code that would tamper with the system and possibly take it over."

"Doesn't the TARDIS have a firewall or something?" she asked.

"It does, and if I had thought that the Master had a hand in writing the Windows Vista code, I would have disconnected the TARDIS from the operating system, aside from the analysis procedure itself."

At these words, the TARDIS landed with jarring crash, sending the Doctor and Martha to the floor. They got up gingerly.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so," she said. "Where, and when, are we?"

The Doctor shook his head, looking at the view screen and typing furiously. "I'm not sure, the TARDIS has locked me out," he said. He smacked himself in the head. "That's where Pride has gotten me, thinking that I'm impenetrable and impervious to any kind of attack, including from him."

"So do we just go outside?" asked Martha.

The Doctor shrugged, but a grin was spreading over his face. "I guess so!" he exclaimed. "Oh, I do love a good adventure where I have no idea where we've ended up or even if the air is breathable!" He ran over to the doors and threw them open. "Hello, new world!" he called out. "Come and get me!"

An arrow appeared in the door frame next to his head. He looked at it, shocked. "I didn't mean right away, of course!" He grabbed the arrow and was about to shut the doors again, but a large, armored arm grabbed him and pulled him out.

"Doctor!" called Martha, starting after him, but she was too late. The doors shut again, and the TARDIS made its familiar whining.

"No, please," she cried. The time machine made no response to her pleas, now as cold and evil as the system now running it.