The Doctor woke up to find himself lying on his side, his forehead against Clara's. He smiled at the sight of her, a brown curtain of hair hiding part of her features, a small smile on her lips as she slept. She seemed so serene. And she was beautiful. The Doctor wanted to wake up every single day of his life like this, by her side, watching her sleep. His hearts clenched for a second at the idea that this was highly, highly improbable, but he shook the thought away. He couldn't resist the temptation to push the stray strands behind Clara's ear, caressing her check gently, trailing down to her bare shoulder and playing with the sheets, pulling them down her arms and then lower to admire her perfect body. She shivered in her slumber and he woke her with a kiss on her lips, gentle but insistent, pressing his cool lips against her warm ones until she responded.

"I'm cold," she lamented as they parted, but she was smiling. She couldn't imagine a better way of waking up than seeing his stunning blue eyes, deep dark pools of melting ice as he recalled the events of the night.

"You are beautiful," he stated.

She grinned cheekily in reply.

"Not too short, bossy and with a funny nose, then?"

He looked almost insulted.

"Your nose is perfect as it is. And your small size only makes you prettier."

"You didn't say anything about being bossy," Clara noted, her grin growing wider.

"Maybe because there's no hope to change that."

"Maybe because you love it."

"Oh, really? You sure about that?"

"Yep" she confirmed, moving to kiss his smiling lips.

~oOo~

Clara awoke slowly, feeling the Doctor's arm wrapped around her shoulder and the gentle raising and falling of his chest beneath her head. She lazily opened her eyes to look at him and was surprised to find him still deeply asleep. His handsome features were relaxed, a rare sight especially in the last days, after the prophecy, when he hadn't had a moment of serenity. She decided to let him rest, knowing that he had experienced more frequent nightmares and slept so little these days. She was content that at least now he was sleeping peacefully.

Clara rubbed her eyes sleepily, feeling tired. It was probably still very early in the morning, otherwise the Doctor would have been already awake, and she wondered what had shook her from her dreams. She listened attentively in search of a noise or some other cause. Almost immediately, she heard a soft beat coming from the recesses of the ship. Tu-tu-tu-tud. Tu-tu-tu-tud. A rhythmic sound that seemed to come from the control room. She carefully shifted the Doctor's arm from her shoulder to her pillow and pulled herself up to a sitting position. The noise came again. Someone knocking on the door, maybe?

Slowly, she got off the bed.

~oOo~

Entering the console room, after the noise had grown louder and louder all the way along the corridors, Clara realised it had been someone knocking furiously at the doors from the start, so hard they would have fallen apart had they really been wooden.

*DU-DU-DU-DUN* the knocking came again.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Clara assured, annoyed. "Who the hell do you think you are to bang at the doors like that anyw-" she stopped mid-sentence, utterly shocked and speechless, as she opened the doors and recognised the man in front of her.

"Universally known as the Master! Oh no you don't!" the blond-haired man exclaimed when the girl tried to shut the door. "Let me in! I just want to talk!" he affirmed as he pushed against the blue wood, Clara fiercely trying to keep him out by pushing back with all her strength and succeeding poorly.

Flashes of one of her echoes dying because of the Master popped in her mind for a moment "Sure," she panted, "and I'm the Queen!"

"I'm sorry your majesty," he mocked, "but I'm not in the mood for games!" with that, he slammed his shoulder against the door and forced it wide open, sending Clara straight on the floor.

Biting her lower lip nervously, aching from the painful fall, she was quick to get to her feet again, but the Master caught her wrist before she could do anything, pulling her close to him.

"Bastard!" she hissed, trying to hit him with her free hand, but he was ready to firmly catch her other wrist as well, leaving her immobilized to stare angrily in his blue eyes.

"Oh-oh, how rude of you. Always the feisty ones, he chooses. Never approved of his companies…" he seemed to notice something and leaned closer to her, to which Clara responded backing off as much as she could. He inhaled her scent and pulled out a disgusted face. "Hell, you smell of him. Always knew he banged-"

"Let her go at once," the Doctor commanded, his screwdriver pointed towards his old friend. He had felt the sudden lack of Clara's warmth beside him and had immediately sensed that something was wrong.

"Threatening me with a sonic? Go build a cabinet."

The Doctor shrugged and pointed the sonic at the console. A buzz resonated in the room, and suddenly Clara felt pulled backwards, then upwards, feeling the floor disappearing beneath her feet. Before she could realize that the Master had lost his balance and let her go, the strange sensation was gone and they were both lying on the floor. Their eyes met for a fraction of second, then she rapidly got up and ran towards the Doctor, who was also getting back to his feet.

"What was that?" the girl asked to the Doctor.

"Me messing up with the gravity circuit," he answered distractedly, his eyes already locked with the Master's. He had so many questions. Why are you here? How? Where's Gallifrey? I thought you were dead. Is Rassilon dead? He only said a few words instead: "I understand everything now."

The Master laughed. "Do you?"

"Yes. It was you, in Victorian London. The time machine. The exceptional perception filter. And that smell. I should have recognised the smell of another Time Lord at once, but your filter was too strong… Koschei, tell me it wasn't you who killed those people. Tell me it wasn't you who raped those women," the Doctor begged, his eyes staring intensely in the Master's, a plea and a request in them.

The Master had committed every possible crime, every wicked thing wasn't unknown to him, and yes, there was so much blood on his hands. But the Doctor had never stopped believing that, one day, the man who had been his friend could understand his mistakes and find the right path again. He had never stopped believing that there was always a spark of goodness in him. The Doctor could never believe his friend had fallen just so.

"It wasn't me."

The Doctor's hearts became suddenly lighter in his chest. He felt that, for once, the Master wasn't lying. Or perhaps he wanted to believe he wasn't. "Then that man you killed just before we found you, the man with the scar, was…"

"Yes, it was John Ruperts. The murderer."

"You killed him," the Doctor pointed out, smiling.

"Don't get ideas. I got hanged and buried in a bloody mass tomb because of him. Call it a personal revenge."

"Why did they arrest you?"

"I just sort of happened to be there. Where he killed a woman. And they didn't exactly care that I swore to be innocent."

"So you made up a confession, let them hang you, and bury you…"

"Yeah," the Master admitted with a disgusted look on his face. "I figured it was better if they thought I was dead instead of having them chasing me all over London."

"Why where you there anyway? How did you escape the Time Lock? Why?" the Doctor questioned, unable to contain the oppressive need for answers.

The Master gave a low chuckle. "Rassilon wanted me dead. He wanted to kill me as soon as the connection between Gallifrey and Earth faded and we got locked again in the War. And of course everybody was okay with that. But guess who remembered them that we are supposed to be a civil people, with regular trials and such?"

"The Woman," the Doctor answered immediately. If there was someone with a still firm common sense, that was her.

"Exactly. Bless her. I think she knew they would decide to execute me anyway, but she wanted to give me time to come up with a plan. I think it was her way to thank me for helping you. Or maybe she simply wanted to piss off Rassilon." He laughed to himself. "They imprisoned me, and I didn't have much of a plan until you and your other selves performed that little trick. Delightful, by the way. Everybody just panicked. Rassilon was furious. The General had simply bypassed his authority and let you shut them in a pocket universe. In the mess of it, I broke out and stole a TARDIS. A type 20, bloody piece of junk. I calculated the weakest point in the dimensional wall of the pocket universe and transferred all the power in the transdimensional rotor-"

"But you pushed it too far," the Doctor interrupted. "You lost control. You couldn't control the landing and the energy levels… you exhausted the power?"

"Nearly. Just a drop of it remained, the poor piece of junk nearly died."

"But you were nowhere near The Rift or another place to refuel radiation. So you waited."

"Yes. I didn't have enough power to leave. I waited for it to recharge by itself, and when it was ready I went out to kill Ruperts… luckily the landing had been so messy that the Time Lords couldn't track me down- I opened a breach in your pocket universe, they came after me, they're chasing me."

The Doctor nodded. The presence of the Time Lords in the universe explained the sudden interest of the Cybermen in time travel. He wondered how he hadn't felt, in the depths of his mind, that his people was back. But of course there were ways they could use to hide their presence, developed during the War.

"You're asking me for help. That's why you're here."

"Yes, I-"

"Why did you ran in Victorian London?"

"Because-" his voice trailed lower. "I stayed there for a while… Vastra had… a reputation," he muttered. The Doctor nodded, knowing that the Master was alluding at the way the Silurian dealt with criminals. "I recognised her and I just… didn't notice you or your smell… you had regenerated… only when I had already dematerialized my TARDIS I saw the presence of yours in the radar. I tracked you down and here I am."

"Wait a minute-" tracked him down? "What do you know of the Family of Blood?"

"Ah. That. Right. That was ages ago…" the Master started, hesitant. "Back before the Year That Never Was."

"Go on," the Doctor ordered, anger flickering in his eyes.

"I might- uh- I might have hired them to chase you because I thought it could be… fun."

"I hate you," the Doctor said, stepping closer.

"Nah, you don't. Come on, you can't blame me: I'm nuts," the Master apologised, grinning.

The Doctor smiled back and held out his hand to the Master. In the end, whatever happened between them, they'd never stop needing each other. "What about the drums? Are they gone now?"

"Yes. It's- weird. I didn't remember how it was, to live without. I remembered when they weren't so loud, but I had sort of… got used to them." He squeezed the hand the Doctor was offering. "How long has it been, since we last-"

"Eleven centuries, give or take."

The Master gave a surprised, almost pained expression. "How many-"

"Regenerations? Twice."

"I missed one you," the Master muttered, looking upset.

"It happened before."

"Will you help me?"

Anger took over again in the Doctor's hearts, just for a second. "I don't remember you being so attached to your life, a while ago," he stated bitterly, remembering how, eleven centuries before, his friend had wanted to die in his arms rather than travel with him. It would have hurt in any life, but it had particularly in his tenth, when he had needed him most, when he wasn't any good alone. When he became dangerous for others and for himself when he didn't have someone by his side.

The Master stood silent, maybe knowing apologies were useless, maybe not willing to give any.

"It was a long time ago, Doctor," came Clara's voice suddenly, together with the gentle touch of her hand on his shoulder. The Doctor's hand left the Master's, and he turned to face Clara. 'He hurt me. And not just me. He's mad. He's evil,' his gaze seemed to tell her. "You know better than let them execute you friend. You are better than that. I know you are."

The Doctor stared into her brown eyes. She had told him that before, and he hadn't listened. He wasn't better than that, even if Clara didn't want to admit it. But maybe she pushed him to try to be. Maybe Clara would always believe he could be a better person, in the same way he had always hoped that the Master could be a better person.

"I will help you," he stated after a brief silence, facing the Master again. "But you need to remind me something." The Master looked puzzled, and waited. "Did I ever punch you for refusing to regenerate?"

"No! No, of course you didn't… oh. Hell."

"Yeah."

The Master only had a second to close his eyes and tilt his head lightly before the Doctor's fist hit his cheekbone.

"Doctor!" Clara exclaimed.

"I'm sorry, my dear," he apologised, smirking as he massaged his knuckles, staring at the Master's unconscious form on the floor. "We had a score to settle."