Disclaimer - Whoever says we fanfiction authors make cash on this site is an idiot. If we did, then we'd be richer than rich. I don't own Doctor Who, but if I did then Romana and the Rani will be coming back.
The Truth of the Toclafane.
" Some sort of magnetic clamp," Docherty whispered as she worked on the outer shell of the Toclafane they'd brought down. Romana couldn't help but feel smug that they'd brought this information even though it hadn't been their intention. Recovering that disc had been a stroke of luck when Martha and her had travelled across Africa.
Up close the Toclafane itself wasn't very threatening; it was more like a metallic basketball in size, but everyone knew that these things were responsible for the Master's swift takeover of Earth. Romana frowned when Docherty made that comment about magnetic clamps, and it made her want to take out her sonic screwdriver and do the work herself, but she decided against it. Sonic screwdrivers were alien technology, Docherty and Milligan would certainly question it. With the Master's launch date so close now Romana didn't want to risk it unless she had to.
Docherty was straining to open the shell, " Hold on, I'll just trip the..." Finally she opened the shell, putting her tools down and opening the shell, like the petals of a flower. When Docherty lifted the casing, she gasped, " Oh my god!" Moving back in shock - genuine shock, the Master was hardly likely to tell his agents on the planet what the Toclafane truly were - Docherty let them get a good look at the thing inside the sphere, and confirming the theory that Romana had made on the origins of the spheres. The sphere was packed with wires and tubes, probably feeding tubes, directly into a withered human head. The Head fit right into the casing, and it was plugged into something that covered the mouth, some sort of breathing or microphone apparatus. Martha recoiled slightly at the creature, they all did.
The head woke up, it was a strange sight watching a disembodied head wake up like that. Romana examined it with her eyes, it's eyes were milky, pale silver, set into a wrinkled brown skin.
The sudden action made the three humans jump, but Romana had maintained her cool. " It's alive!" Docherty gasped. Romana rolled her eyes; the scientist had quoted a famous horror movie. Frankenstein. Considering the circumstances, Romana found it appropriate.
" Martha. Martha Jones." The head croaked; whether it was because the electricity had shaken its organic components more than the electronic ones, Romana didn't know, but the Toclafane recovered swiftly.
Milligan whispered at Martha, " It knows you." Romana rolled her eyes, wondering if this human made stating the obvious a hobby. The Toclafane ignored them and focused on Martha.
" Sweet, kind Martha Jones, you helped us to fly." The head spoke clearly now into the voice synthesiser.
Martha, still horrified, and she didn't make the connection, the thought that had just entered Romana's mind with dawning horror and revulsion. She'd held out hope it wasn't true, but seeing the head and the way the sphere knew Martha made that hope vanish. The final confirmation of the Toclafane's identity. The Time Lady had long suspected the truth about the Toclafane, this was the final confirmation she had of the horrible theory of what the Master had done to recruit the spheres.
" What do you mean?" Martha asked, sending a questioning look towards Romana. The Time Lady's face showed clearly she knew what was going on, but she couldn't bring herself to say.
The Toclafane still carried on, almost like it was revering Martha for some deed only it knew, " You led us to salvation."
With fear in her voice, Martha asked almost hesitantly, " Who are you?"
Nothing could've prepared Martha for the horror of the head's next statement, " The skies are made of diamonds."
Martha gasped in shock and horror, " No." she backed away in terror as the truth set in "You can't be him" She whispered in horror, unwilling to believe what the head was saying. She couldn't believe it, she didn't want to believe...Yet it made sense, why the Master had needed to open the rift with the TARDIS and wipe out one tenth of the Earth's population. Made sense why Romana seemed to know what they were not long after they started on the journey around the world, why she didn't seem to want to say anything about it. Martha understood why now, the Time lady hadn't wanted to base her thoughts on a hypothetical theory.
Unbidden, her mind went back to Malcassairo, to the sweet little boy, Creet, "...the skies are made of diamonds," he said. Looks like he was wrong, Martha thought sadly. Other memories flooded her mind, the people at the end of the universe, trying to escape the end of everything, the last of humanity. Martha had seen the colonists board the rocket Yana had built for their journey. Were they all Toclafane? Had some of them committed suicide rather than turn their backs on their ancestral forms? Had the Master himself influenced their madness? Considering what the evil Time Lord had done so far Martha wouldn't put it past him.
" We share each other's memories," the head explained, " You sent him to Utopia."
" Oh, my god!" Martha choked on the bile that was rising through her body.
" What's it talking about? What's it mean?" Tom whispered, unnerved clearly by the familiarly the head had with Martha, and finally realising that something deeper was happening.
The same thought occurred to Docherty, " What are they?"
Milligan became more insistent, " Martha. Martha, tell us. What are they?"
Martha looked them both in the eye, except Romana, who was staring down at the head with an expression of someone who clearly wanted to be sick but couldn't find the time to do it.
" They're us. They're humans. The human race from the future." She looked back into the milky eyes of the head as it gazed on her with an emotion that was hard to place.
Romana took a breath, " I'd worked it out a while ago. I told you sometime ago, Dr Milligan," she addressed Tom with his professional title, even though there were few hospitals that even had the right resources now, " that I'd met DaVinci, and that Martha told you she'd met Shakespeare himself. The reason for that is simple. We're time travellers. Yes, time travel's possible. The Doctor, the Master and myself are from a race known as the Time lords," Romana hadn't wanted to admit that to these two, they might tar her with the same brush as the Master, but she needed them both to understand the scale of what was really happening, the only real way of them realising that was to reveal her true species. She held up her hands, " I'm not going to hurt you, even amongst my race there are those members that are psychotic. The Doctor and I were trying to stop the Master from taking over, but he was too strong, he'd been here too long and assembled his plans," Romana gazed thoughtfully at the head as it too listened; Romana wondered if it was listening in curiosity or whether it saw it had nothing better to do.
She shook off the thought and carried on to her silent human audience, " My people solved the mysteries of time, eventually we built ships which transcended time and space. We call them TARDISes. Time and Relative Dimension In Space. The Master once owned a TARDIS himself, but he had no choice but to use the Doctor's. Before he left the end of the universe, the Doctor locked the controls. That means that the Master can only travel between two points in time and space; present day 21st century Earth and the End of the Universe. It was the only thing he could've done at the time."
" With the TARDIS, the Master could barely travel far. You've seen what he's done to Earth already," she said to the humans, " if he got out, no one would be safe from him. The end of the universe was the only place he could go." Romana glared at the Toclafane in disgust. " He found Utopia."
Martha took up the story, she gave a brief summary of the project for Docherty's and Tom's benefits before she finished, " The Utopia project was the last hope. Trying to find a way to escape the end of everything."
For the first time the head that had once been a human being spoke in a voice so solemn, it could only come from a victimised survivor, and that made Romana feel a sort of kinship with the hideous thing in the shell, even if she found it repugnant.
" There was no solution. No diamonds. Just the dark and the cold. We turned on ourselves, using that wonderful invention of our ancestors, our...ingenuity to make ourselves so pretty." The Head said in a voice that was becoming a good mix of fanatical and mad at the same time. " But then the Master came with his wonderful time machine, to bring us back home."
" That time machine doesn't belong to the Master," Romana snarled at the head.
Dochery had time to assimilate the date she'd been given, and she arrived at an obvious flaw in the Master's plan, " That's a paradox. If you're the future of the human race, and you've come back to murder your ancestors, you should cancel yourselves out. You shouldn't exist."
Romana was aware that primitive races trying to solve time travel would at some point realise the dangers of paradoxes, and Docherty had hit this one dead on target.
Martha though came right back, " And that's the paradox machine."
" A living time machine, able to see and predict the changes and compensate for them. That sort of crime's unthinkable. The Master's changing history, not just that of Earths. The entire universes." Romana whispered.
" We come back in time, all to build a brand new empire, lasting 100 trillion years!" The Toclafane cackled in a child like tone.
" Not if I'm around," Romana retorted; her mind had gone back to that conversation in the TARDIS after the Doctor had found her from that planet. She remembered him telling her that the limits of Time lord body regeneration were no longer valid. If the Master found out...
" What about us? We're the same species. Why kill so many of us?" Tom asked in a voice of cold fury.
The answer was simple, and oh so predictable from a creature that had been twisted back into childhood, " Because it's fun!" The head laughed.
No one objected when Tom put a bullet in the centre of its forehead, straight into the brain. Death was instantaneous.
" Why didn't you say anything about the Toclafane?" Martha asked Romana. Docherty was cleaning up, Tom was taking the Toclafane somewhere, anything that found it would think it had some kind of malfunction or something.
Romana had been expecting and dreading this question, " If I had would you've believed me, Martha? You believed, when we were at the end of the universe ourselves that we were doing good, to tell you that it had been a failure, that present day Earth itself would be paying the price, it might've made you question what we were doing."
Martha felt anger burning in her chest, " You mean you didn't want me running off and telling everyone we met that the Toclafane they were running and hiding from were their own descendents 100 trillion years ahead?" Romana didn't say a word, but Martha had come closer to the truth than she knew. Martha looked away from Romana, and whispered, " Maybe the Master's right, maybe..."
Martha didn't get a chance say anymore, Romana had gripped her by the shoulders and started to shake Martha, " Listen to me, Martha, that's the attitude the Master wants. The Doctor himself worked it out months back, I felt his horror through the telepathic link that binds us together. But the Doctor's still fighting him, and so am I. I know how you feel, Martha, really I do. You're not the only one to be let down by your own race."
This time it was Romana's turn to look away, to be on the point of a breakdown, " My own people wanted to wipe out everything. We hadn't fought a war in 10 million years, hardly a wise attitude if you're planning to fight the Daleks. I was deposed, and my people brought back a monster. One of the legendary founders of our race, but he didn't care about the universe or the people within it. He almost brought about the destruction of us all, but most of my more weak willed people joined him in his mad quest." Romana turned to face Martha, tears in her eyes and taking Martha by surprise, up to now Romana had been like a rock, now she was exposing the heartbroken woman beneath, " You're not alone Martha, I've seen races turn inwards on themselves, people who don't care if they cause harm to others. The Master's a member of my race, yet he behaves like a rampaging animal and destroying everything in his path."
" I will not let him destroy the Earth."
If someone had told Romana and Martha they'd have been flown back to the Valiant, then they'd have been disappointed because what they were expecting was shock, not no emotion from the two girls. After spending their last night with the slave workers before the Master, and Rose, picked them up, Romana had listened as Martha laid down the story one last time. Then Docherty had come through for them, one last time. The Master himself, with his wife, had come to arrest them personally. Romana wondered why both of them had come, she could easily guess the Master's rationale, they did from the same species afterall, but Martha...If Romana was honest with herself, she would guess that Rose was here just to gloat.
The plane was opulent, then again it must be the only passenger plane left. It was a pity both girls were handcuffed; Romana was delighted that the Master didn't know about her sonic screwdriver, but she was less than glad that Rose had her own version of a laser screwdriver, the callous way she'd shot down Tom Milligan in the street like a dog made Romana angry.
As the plane left the ground, the Master said to both of them, " I've been looking for both of you for so long," he looked at them in a way that most people would guess was kindness, but Romana saw the contempt in his eyes, especially when his gaze bore into her like a laser. " I've heard many things about you, Lady Romana. The last president of Gallifrey, reduced to walking the Earth on an errand from a heartbroken fool."
Romana clenched her fists in rage, her blood pressure rising at the denigrating words the Master had used to describe the Doctor, but she didn't rise to the bait the way the Master had expected. Romana turned away, unable to stomach looking at the Master anymore, and found herself looking at Rose.
The human woman's face was something a child would have on their faces when adults told them something incredibly stupid, something only child knew was the truth.
Romana wasn't in the mood for Rose, " What?" She asked in annoyance.
Rose smiled condescendingly, her voice was like that of a teacher speaking to a teenager and thinking of them as five year olds, " I can't imagine why the Doctor sent you around the world, only for you to be caught. You must've known we would catch you. You've failed..."
" Don't forget, Rose, we've been giving you two the run around for a year, moving on constantly." Martha spat, hatred for this bitch entering her eyes. Romana studied both their captors; the Master was calm, yet he seemed confident in his victory. Rose, however, was the opposite of her husband, she was smug, arrogance was seeping through every pore, it was in her body language, the casual way she was sitting. But the Master was eyeing both Martha and Romana in bemusement. Romana could guess why, the Master didn't know the full extent of the Doctor's plans, why he'd sent them across the world the way he had. Romana was delighted their gun cover was over, it hadn't been pleasant thinking about taking life. Considering the person they were supposed to kill was one of the last three Time lords in the universe, Romana wondered why the Master would think the Doctor, a man who hated the thought of violence and only used it as a last resort would suddenly order two of his companions to find a gun to kill him.
The Master and Rose clearly thought that whatever the Doctor had had in mind, it failed because the gun had been destroyed. They were in for a shock.
Rose, however, was still gloating, looking both girls scathingly, " There's nothing special about you two, just like there's nothing special about any of the Doctor's former companions. He said I was an exception-"
Martha wasn't letting her get away with that, not after they'd met some of those companions, " Then why is it none of them would agree with what you're doing? We met some of them, we told them about Utopia, where we found you," she added to the Master, looking at the other Time lord with barely disguised loathing before she turned her ire back on Rose, " None of them agree with what you're doing."
" None of them love the Doctor like I do."
" Love?" Romana sneered, unwilling to let this jumped up ape use that word. " After what you've done do you really expect the Doctor to love you? I watched as the Master aged him into that homunculus, and I don't recall ever seeing you rush over to him, to check if he was okay after that. What makes you think he'd love you after you've murdered millions on a scale for something that hasn't even happened?"
Rose didn't even bother to respond to the accusations Romana had thrown her way, she didn't seem to care, but she did respond to the last question in a voice that was to humor Romana and Martha.
" So you'd sit back and let the end of the universe happen? The Doctor's way is wrong, it'll kill us. He just needs time to understand - " Rose was interrupted again, this time by Martha.
" Needs time? After what you and your husband have done I'm surprised he's still alive." Martha shouted.
Romana sneered at the Master, who was listening in stony silence. " Is that the shit you've told her? That the reason you're torturing the Doctor is to make him 'see the light,' or 'see the truth'? You and I both know, Master," the way Romana had just said the title was like she had a rotting piece of fruit in her mouth, " the Doctor will not accept this."
The Master was still silent, but Romana still had her attention turned on Rose, " Face facts already, you're not helping the Doctor, you're only interested in helping yourself."
SLAP! Romana's head rocked as Rose slapped her across the face, this prompted the Master to grab his wife and pull her back down into her seat. Rose glared with hatred at Romana.
" How dare you question my love for the Doctor! He loves me, I know he does. I crossed two universes to get back here for him-"
" Yet you married him?" Martha pointed at the Master, " I feel the love here."
By now Rose was furious, but the Master had a strong grip on her arms to stop her getting up again, " Oh really, bitch, you think you know all about the Doctor? I know things about him that would make your hair turn grey." Rose smirked, thinking this would be easy.
Romana and Martha took up the challenge willingly, " Go on then," Romana challenged, " tell us."
The Master was the only one of the two who picked up on the sarcasm, Rose was oblivious, and before the Master could get Rose to stop, she'd already started.
" Did you know the Doctor's a father-"
" We know he's a grandfather," Romana said, her Time lady ice queen persona running at full power. Bashoth women smirked at Rose's slack look of shock, clearly the Doctor hadn't told Rose much about his life prior to leaving Gallifrey. Gallifrey, that gave Martha an idea, one she was sure she'd win in this pathetic little contest.
" Rose, did the Doctor take you to Gallifrey?" Martha asked innocently.
The two Time lords reactions to this question were obvious, the Master was suspicious, but he was clearly interested in where this would lead. Romana looked at Rose, a small smile playing on her lips, she could see where this was going to go.
Rose, startled by the question, answered with a smile. " Of course he did, he wanted me to see the whole universe," she sighed dreamily, " He took me there after we dealt with the Slitheen. It was beautiful, purple skies highlighted in gold and silver, chocolate brown trees and grass, green water," she sighed again, then she got a hold on herself, " Why do you ask?"
Martha countered with another question, " Did he tell you about his homeplanet?"
Rose shook her head, looking pitying and making Martha and Romana want to punch that look off her face, " No. He always got so sad whenever someone or something brought up his people, I didn't want to make him sadder."
Martha asked another question, " Did he ever tell you the name of his planet?" Martha saw although Rose obviously didn't, how she was able to travel with the Doctor without noticing her surroundings was beyond Martha's comprehension, the looks on both the Master and Romana's faces. They could see where Martha was going with these questions, but the Master's expression made it clear that whilst he was aware of where the questions were leading, he wasn't going to say a word. Clearly the Master was fed up with Rose, and Martha didn't care why.
" No." Rose replied unsurely, sending a look at the Master for help, but she received a cold look.
" Do you want to know it?" Romana asked, smiling coyly. Without waiting for an answer the Time lady told her, " The home world of the Time lords was called Gallifrey. The Doctor lied to you Rose, the planet he took you to was one I visited a long time ago. It's called Florana Minor. I don't know why he lied, and I don't really care."
Rose looked between the three of them, but the Master was eyeing her with disappointment for falling for such an obvious trap, and Romana and Martha's faces both had massive smirks on them.
" Ok," she said at last to the other two women with a red face, whether it was anger or jealousy, they didn't know, but they gathered it was a bit of both, " I admit that you know some things, but get this. I love the Doctor." Rose sat back angrily, but the look in her eyes reminded Romana of Soldeed, the maniacal Skonnon who was later betrayed by the Nimon.
