Okay. We've made it to the End of Time. We are getting closer to the promised happy ending. Even though we still have angst to get through.
I agree that Rose is really left in the dark, but I have no idea how to bring her into it without something bad happening. Like I tried writing her more into this episode, but the Master wasn't cooperating and kept doing evil things. So...yeah. After the baby is born she'll be around more. But until then...let's take a deep breath and get through this. :)
Despite my insistence that we go to the Ood Sphere immediately, the Doctor decides for another trip. We go to several places and cause some trouble. Then he takes us to a planet called Hanukkah, a future colony of the Hawaiian Islands. I have no doubt that he would try for even more trips, but with Rose on my side he couldn't. I didn't tell Rose that this trip would kill me and the Doctor would bring it up because of her condition. All I needed to say was that the Earth was in danger, and he was powerless to resist the trip.
So we head to the Ood's planet. We step outside the doors into the snow covered landscape. The Doctor is wearing a Stetson and I'm covered in leis. Rose opts out for a hot bath. She's not big on the cold while being pregnant. I'm grateful I didn't have to deter her anymore than that.
"Ah! Now, sorry. There you are. So, where were we? We were summoned, weren't we? An Ood in the snow, calling to us."
I cut in to the Doctor's ramble. "Well, we didn't exactly come straight here. Had a bit of fun, you know. Travelled about, did this and that. Got into trouble. You know him. He was trying to avoid the inevitable. Went and saw the Phosphorous Carousel of the Great Magellan Jestadt, saved a planet from the Red Carnivorous Maw, named a galaxy Alison. Got married. That was a mistake. Good Queen Bess. And let me tell you, her nickname is no longer...Anyway, I'm here now. Shall we talk business?"
Ood Sigma answers. "You should not have delayed."
"The last time I was here you said that my sisters song would be ending soon. I didn't understand that at the time. Thought you maybe meant Donna. But now I do get it and I'm in no hurry for that to happen."
I'm touched by the concern his voice. And then Sigma speaks again. "You will come with me."
"Hold on. Better lock the Tardis." The Doctor points a remote key at the Tardis. The door locks and the light flashes at it beeps. "See? Like a car. I locked it like a car. Like. It's funny. No? Little bit? Blimey, try to make an Ood laugh."
I roll my eyes and change the subject. "So how old are you now, Ood Sigma? Whoa." I'm startled by the city.
The Doctor is excited. "Magnificent. Oh, come on, that is splendid. You've achieved all this in how long?"
"One hundred years," Sigma answers.
"Then we've got a problem. Because all of this is way too fast. Not just the city, I mean your ability to call us. Reaching all the way back to the twenty first century. Something's accelerating your species way beyond normal."
"And the Mind of the Ood is troubled." It's an ominous statement.
"Why, what's happened?" I let the Doctor ask even though I know the answer.
"Every night, Doctor, every night we have bad dreams."
We head to the cave to join the Ood counsel. We sit in a civil in the ice cave. The Elder Ood speaks. "Returning, returning, returning, it is slowly returning through the dark and the fire and the blood. Always returning, returning to this world. It is returning, and he is returning, and they are returning, but too late. Too late. Far too late. He has come."
"Sit with the Elder of the Ood and share the dreaming," Sigma instructs.
"So. Right. Hello." The Doctor and I move to join.
In unison the Ood chant. "You will join. You will join. You will join. You will join. You will join. You will join. You will join."
We sit and link hands with them. And then the Master's face appears in my mind and his maniacal laughter rings in my ears.
The Elder speaks. "He comes to us every night. I think all the peoples of the universe dream of him now."
"That man is dead." The Doctor says it certainly but still looks at me for confirmation. I sit stoically.
Elder continues. "There is yet more. Join us. Events are taking shape. So many years ago, and yet changing the now. There is a man..." The laughter echoes again. "So scared."
"Wilfred. Is he all right? What about Donna, is she safe?" The Doctor worries.
"You should not have delayed, for the lines of convergence are being drawn across the Earth. Even now, the king is in his Counting house." Images of a dark skinned man and his daughter appear. Honestly I don't remember why they're important at all.
"I don't know who they are," the Doctor looks at me and I shrug.
"I don't know everything. But I did tell you that we should have come straight here."
Before he can respond, the Elder interrupts. "And there is another. The most lonely of all, lost and forgotten."
The woman appears and I announce who she is. "The Master's wife." Her story makes me very sad. She didn't ask to become the abused wife of a lunatic. She deserved better.
Sigma looks toward us. "We see so much, but understand little. The woman in the cage, who is she?"
The Doctor speaks my thoughts. "She was. It wasn't her fault, she was. The Master, he's a Time Lord, like me. I can show you."
The Doctor shows the Ood images from the last time he saw the Master. "The Master took the name of Saxon. He married a human, a woman called Lucy. And he corrupted her. She stood at his side while he conquered the Earth. I reversed everything he'd done so it never even happened, but Lucy Saxon remembered. I held him in my arms. I burnt his body. The Master is dead."
"And yet, you did not see," I say sadly.
"What's that?"
The Ood show us how a woman picked the Master's ring from the rubble. The Doctor's eyes widen. "Part of him survived. We have to go!"
He yanks me up and keeps a firm grasp on my hand as the Elder gives us more information. "But something more is happening, Doctor. The Master is part of a greater design, because a shadow is falling over creation. Something vast is stirring in the dark. The Ood have gained this power to see through time, because time is bleeding. Shapes of things once lost are moving through the veil, and these events from years ago threaten to destroy this future, and the present, and the past."
"What do you mean?"
"This is what we have seen, Doctor. The darkness heralds only one thing."
I finish the statement. "The end of time itself."
The oncoming storm mixes with a look of intense fear. I try to convey that everything will be fine but I know it won't be. His grip tightens as he runs back to the TARDIS, dragging me with him.
DWDWDW DWDWDW DWDWDW DWDW
The Doctor's explanation to Rose is rushed. She insists that she can't leave him, or me in this situation but being eight months pregnant doesn't put her in much of a position to help. In the end, she ends up locking herself into the zero room. If anything happens, the TARDIS is programmed to take her to Jack on the other side of the universe. I hope that it doesn't come to that.
A little later, the Doctor and I stand on a small cliff. He breathes in deeply, hoping to find the Master. And then we hear it. The four beats of a drum. We run toward it and then see the sipper of the Master against the skyline. A shiver of fear runs up my spine as he leaps into the air. We chase him. When we catch up, his skeleton flashes.
"Please, let me help. You're burning up your own life force." Despite the Doctors plea, he runs again. We follow, but then Wilf is blocking us with a group of older people behind him.
"Oh, my gosh, Doctor. You're a sight for sore eyes." We haven't seen Wilf since telling him that Meta was dead. He's been looking for us. I knew that. We've all been ignoring his calls. We agree to take the bus with him. We owe him that, and he's a bit important in this story.
Wilf takes us to a cafe. "Oh, we had some good times, didn't we though? I mean, all those ATMOS things, and planets in the sky, and me with that paint gun. And that time Meta and Donna decided to do that mud run but Donna thought it was a spa." I laugh at that. It was a good day. "I keep seeing things, Doctor. This face at night."
"Who are you?" Wilf is confused by the Doctor's question.
"I'm Wilfred Mott."
"No. People have waited hundreds of years to find me and then you manage it in a few hours."
"Well, I'm just lucky I suppose."
"No, we keep on meeting, Wilf. Over and over again like something's still connecting us." When the Doctor says that it brings something to mind.
"Boxing Day." They both look at me to elaborate. "Back in Pete's World...that one's version of Donna was mine and Rose's driver. And we went to their house for Boxing Day. You were there Wilf. That version of you. It's not the Doctor you're connected to. It's me. You're both connected to me. That's why you keep meeting."
"What's so important about you and me?"
"Exactly. Why you two?"
I look at him mournfully. "I'm going to die." That's the reason. That's why it's us too. I just hope I can make sure that the Doctor won't blame himself for the events today.
Wilf tries to make light of it. "Well, so am I, one day."
"Don't you dare." The Doctor doesn't like that idea. Wilf has been a father type figure in his life for a couple of years now. Him and Meta often would talk with him and about him. I shake myself. I have to move on right now. Thoughts of Meta will just distract me.
"All right, I'll try not to." I smile at Wilf's response.
"But we were told. He will knock four times. That was the prophecy. Knock four times, and then..." I trail off in my sentence. Wilf will knock, but he doesn't know it yet.
"I won't let that happen." The Doctor is adamant, but he won't be able to change it. Wilf has gone quiet so we follow his gaze out the window. Donna gets out of the car.
"I'm sorry. I had to. With James gone she'll definitely want you here." Lee steps out with her. "The wedding is in the spring. You'll be there won't you. All of you?"
I give the Doctor a look. "Yeah. We'll be there."
"We'll see. I'll try," I say.
"That's all I'm asking. So how's Rose. When is she due?"
"A few more weeks. She's doing good. But something happened recently. Ran into my child all grown up. He was alone. Did something stupid..." He breaks down a bit and tears fill his eyes.
"Oh, my word. I'm sorry." Wilf's words are a comfort for something he doesn't understand.
I give the Doctor a small smile. He smiles back and says, "Merry Christmas."
"Yeah, and you," Wilf smiles.
"Look at us."
"Everything will be okay. You'll see. At point or another we all have to leave out children alone. Our job is to just prepare them for that in the mean time."
DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW
We bid Wilf farewell when we finish our tea and pie at the cafe. And we go back to tracking down the Master. It's night time by the time we find him. The Mastef fires bolts of energy at us from his hands. On his third attempt he hits the Doctor square in the chest. I catch him and lower him to the ground.
The Master approaches with the rambling a of a madman. "I had estates. Do you remember my father's land back home? Pastures of red grass, stretching far across the slopes of Mount Perdition. We used to run across those fields all day, calling up at the sky. Look at us now."
"All that eloquence. But how many people have you killed?" The Doctor's breath is ragged.
"I am so hungry." He eyes me up and down and I try my hardest to keep my fear from showing by glaring at him with my own version of the Oncoming Storm. The face of the Merciless Exocutioner."
"Leave her be. Your resurrection went wrong. That energy. Your body's ripped open. Now you're killing yourself." The Doctor place a protective hand on my arm.
The Master doesn't appear to hear anything. "That human Christmas out there. They eat so much. All that roasting meat, cakes and red wine. Hot, fat, blood, food. Pots, plates of meat, and flesh, and grease, and juice, and baking, burnt, sticky hot skin. Hot. It's so hot."
"Stop it." He's really freaking me out.
"Sliced. Sliced. Sliced."
I stand to my fill height. "Stop it."
"It's mine. It's mine. It's mine to eat and eat and eat."
The Doctor cuts in. "Stop it. What if I ask you for help? There's more at work tonight than you and me."
"Oh yeah?"
"I've been told something is returning." He leaves me out of it, not wanting to bring attention to me.
"And here I am."
"No, something more."
"But it hurts."
"I was told the end of time."
"It hurts. Doctor, the noise. The noise in my head, Doctor. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Stronger than ever before. Can't you hear it?"
"I'm sorry." The Doctor thinks it's insanity but I know better. Maybe I can help him? Maybe?
"Listen, listen, listen, listen. Every minute, every second, every beat of my hearts, there it is, calling to me. Please listen."
"I can hear it." Both men look at me with shock. But their shock is for different reasons. The Master is excited. The Doctor thinks I'm being stupid and lying.
"You can hear the drums?" He gets in my face a bit.
"I have before. I can't hear it now. And the Doctor has never heard it."
"Listen." He forces the sound into the Doctor's head. He pulls away in shock.
"What?" The Master asks.
"But..." he sputters in answer.
"What!"
"I heard it. But there's no noise. There never has been. It's just your insanity. What is it? What's inside your head?"
"It's real. It's real. It's real!" He takes off and we run after him. "All these years, you thought I was mad. King of the wasteland. But something is calling me, Doctor. What is it? What is it? What is it?"
A helicopter comes and knocks the Master out. The Doctor tries to get them to stop but they fire at him. And then he gets shot in the back.