Astronomy

Elements n. 3. Astronomy: any of the data required to define the precise nature of an orbit and to determine the position of a planet in the orbit at any given time.

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On a secondary street in the heart of Chiswick, on the fringes of the business district, in the middle of a block of mixed stores and homes, was an old, three-story Victorian painted in gay purples and greens. The ground level had long been given over to commerce; for the last four years it had been a new-and-used book store, the proprietors of which lived in the upper floors. A large, hand-painted wooden sign hung above the steps; exhorting passers-by in flowing script to Remember Elizabeth.

On that bright winter afternoon one of the proprietors was running the cash register, helping a steady stream of customers with their last-minute gift selections, and grumbling to her helper in between. "Honestly, Grandad, why on earth did he have to go now? What was so bloody important that he had to go haring off two days before Christmas, leaving me to manage the shop all by myself, smack in the middle of our busiest season?"

"Well, I'm sure he had good reason, Donna. You know better than I do what a devoted Dad he is. It's funny, though – how these things always seem to happen right around the holidays."

"Yeah, but does he have to skive off to save the world? Why doesn't he just call the Doctor? It's not like we can't get a hold of him, with that superphone he left us."

"Oh, let the man have some fun for himself, sweetheart."

Another customer, purchasing a billionaire's autobiography. "Why should he have all the fun these days? Why can't I go off and save the world too? I used to be pretty good at that myself, you know? Grandad? Oi! Are you even listening to me?"

Wilf, standing near the back of the store, had stopped still, his head turned towards the back door. He waved her down. "Hush! You hear that?"

"What? All I hear is carols from the radio."

Suddenly he turned, a huge grin splitting his face, and began a jig, right there between the mysteries and the sci-fi. "We've got company!" he sang.

"Oh! Perfect timing!" She dashed past him, tossing off a "mind the store a minute!" over her shoulder.

"But..." he started to protest, then grinned and waved her on, and scuttled up to the register.

Donna burst through the back door just in time to see the last flash from the TARDIS light as it finished fading into the corner of their tiny back garden. As the wooden door opened and the smiling family piled out, she couldn't resist a jab at the Doctor. "You're getting better at parking that thing at last – you're only half on the flower bed."

Hugs all around, and then Davey scooted upstairs to find the twins and see what mischief they could get into – or at least, that's how Rose put it, to Donna's protests. "Oh, don't go giving them ideas, they do enough of that on their own, thank you!" She told the couple to go up and make themselves at home; "Unfortunately Mike has wandered off, leaving me and Grandad to watch the shop today, so I can't join you till we close."

"Can I help?" offered Rose, and Donna accepted gratefully. Even the Doctor tagged along into the stacks, though he was – as usual – more interested in browsing himself than helping the customers. Still, one-and-a-half additional pairs of hands would make the hours fly by faster.

As they came in through the back door, they found Wilf standing behind the counter with a confused and apprehensive look on his face as he listened to a woman dressed in a long black coat, speaking low and urgently to him. Both of them turned to the entering group, and Wilf caught the Doctor's eye, pointing to the woman as if to say "help me out with this one."

The woman hesitated, then made up her mind. She stepped forward to the Doctor, ignoring Donna's "may I help you?" and spoke directly to him. "Doctor? You're the Doctor?"

"Who are you?" he asked, warily.

She seemed to take that reply as an affirmative, and nodded, taking her large, concealing sunglasses off to peer intently into his face. There wasn't much that could be said about her; she had an average-looking face, medium build and height, with her hair concealed by a large kerchief, while the coat almost met her pumps. "My name is not important. I must speak with you, urgently, on a matter of utmost importance."

When she didn't go further, he prompted her "Regarding?"

Voice dropping to a low, intense whisper, her reply shocked him into momentary stillness. "Regarding the Master."

Rose, standing by his elbow, gasped, looking quickly from the mysterious woman to her husband. He'd told her about each of his encounters through the centuries with his old nemesis, especially the last one during the Year that Never Was.

The Doctor stared at the woman for a moment, then shook his head. "He's dead. I watched him die."

"We have reason to believe that is no longer true."

"What?" His sharp reply could have cut paper.

"Who's 'we'?" put in Rose.

The woman glanced at Rose, and decided to answer her. "Our group includes certain family members of Lucy Saxon, the Master's wife. We've been watching over her as best we could since her secret trial and incarceration, preparing against the day we now believe may have come to pass." She turned back to the Doctor. "Saxon left behind secret books, detailing – among a great many other evil things – how he could be brought back to life. We have reason to believe a group of devotees managed to obtain something of his, something through which a piece of him survived. And we believe they finally managed to bring all the pieces together – and resurrect the Master."

"When?"

"Last night. Lucy was being held in Broadfell Prison. Last night it was utterly destroyed in a huge explosion. The resulting fire burned it to the ground. No survivors were found. But if the cause of the explosion was the rite of resurrection, then he would have survived. We have no doubt of that."

"How do you know that's what caused it?"

"We had someone on the inside, whose job was to remain as close to Lucy as they could, and give her the 'antidote', if you will – the opposite formula to the 'elixirs of life' as detailed in those secret books. That person has disappeared – but they weren't supposed to be on duty last night. The only reason they would have been present at the prison is if that ceremony were to have taken place."

Shocked and horrified, the Doctor didn't want to believe this mysterious, unnamed woman. But the simple fact of her knowing as much as she did pointed towards the awful possibility that her information was correct. He closed his eyes, and forced himself to take a deep breath, concentrating on deciphering the scents – and there it was: the tiniest, distant yellow tang that could only come from one source: a Time Lord. He knew it wasn't Michael, his scent was a diluted version of the Doctor's own. No, the woman was right.

The Master had returned.

The Doctor was now in a race against time, against whatever evil the resurrected Master was concocting, to find the Time Lord and stop him.