Martha solemnly walked towards the Master aboard the Valiant. She looked for the family and friends that she had been missing desperately over the past year. She was happy to see them all alive, but her eyes widened, shocked to see Angel pregnant, standing by Jack. She looked up to her face to make sure her friend was alright, but all she saw was shame and guilt. Then she looked to see the Doctor, the poor man stood with his shrunken body in a large bird cage.
The Master stood before her on the stairs, his laser aimed for her. "Your teleport device, in case you thought I'd forgotten." She pulled it out of her cargo pants and tossed it to him. "And now, kneel." Martha did as he commanded, but he was impatient. "Down below, the fleet is ready to launch. 200,000 ships set to burn across the universe." He ran to his communication panel, activating a channel. "Are we ready?"
"The fleet awaits your signal, rejoice!"
"Three minutes to align the Black Hole Convertors. Counting down!" He initiated a timer on his wrist. "I never could resist a ticking clock." He noted with a smile. Angel's eyes narrowed, the little bit of information seemed useful, in any other situation. "My children, are you ready?" He yelled out to the sphere-covered heads of the last humans.
"All will fly and blaze and slice! We will fly and blaze and slice!" They chanted.
"At zero, to mark this day, the child, Martha Jones, will die. My first blood," he said with a chuckle. Angel didn't understand what he mean. He's killed so many already! "Any last words? No?" He looked over to the Doctor, who just blinked in response. "Such a disappointment, this one. Days of old, Doctor, you had companions who could absorb the Time Vortex! This one's useless! Bow your head." He aimed his laser at Martha, once again. She checked the clock, worried she might be killed too soon.
"And so it falls to me, as Master of all, to establish from this day a new order of Time Lords. From this day forward…" He paused when Martha let out a chuckle of her own. "What? What's so funny?"
"A gun?"
"What about it?"
"A gun in four parts?"
"Yes, and I destroyed it."
"A gun, in four parts, scattered across the world? I mean, come on! Did you really believe that?"
"What do you mean?"
"As if I would ask her to kill," the Doctor finally spoke from his cage.
"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. I've got her exactly where I want her." He smiled, relishing his success.
"But I knew what Professor Docherty would do. The Resistance knew about her son. I told her about the gun so she'd get me here." The Master bowed his head at the bad news. "At the right time."
"But you're still gonna die," he refused to let go of the joy of ending her.
"Don't you want to know what I was doing, traveling the world?"
Ok, she was right, he was curious. "Tell me."
"I told a story. That's all. No weapons, just words. I did just what the Doctor said." She looked up at the clock, 60 seconds left. "I went across the continents all on my own. And everywhere I went I found people and I told them my story. I told them about the Doctor. And I told them to pass it on. To spread the word so that everyone would know about the Doctor." 44 seconds.
"Faith and hope? Is that all?"
"No, 'cause I gave them an instruction." She stood back up. "Just as the Doctor said. I told them that if everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time…"
"Nothing will happen! Is that your weapon?" He mocked her. 16 seconds. "Prayer?"
"Right across the world. One word, just one thought, at one moment, but with 15 satellites." She said through her teeth, conviction rising in her.
His face softened in understanding, but disbelief. "What?"
"The Archangel network," Jack answered, with Angel under his arm. She clutched his shirt, glad he was out of his awful imprisonment. Her heart pounded at the thrill of the Doctor's plan unfolding before her eyes. He was brilliant!
"A telepathic field binding the whole human race together." 8 seconds. "With all of them, every single person on Earth, thinking the same thing at the same time. And that word is "Doctor". The timer ended.
The Doctor's shrunken body began to glow with white and gold shimmering light.
The Master's brows furrowed. "Stop it. No, no, no, no, you don't."
Jack closed his eyes and said, "Doctor!" Angel followed suit. Then the Joneses, who were standing at the back of the room, added their chants.
"Don't," the Master commanded.
Martha saw the camera footage of people on the ground doing the same. All chanting, "Doctor".
"Stop this right now! Stop it!" Lucy realized that she had a way out of her horrid marriage and followed suit with the rest of her species.
"I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices," the Doctor said as his body slowly reverted in age.
"I order you to stop!" He ran to the Doctor.
"The one thing you can't do is stop them thinking." Jack and Martha began to laugh. Angel smiled warily. The Doctor's body returned to his original age! "Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this." He levitated up into the air.
Martha took the distracted moment to run and hug her family.
"No!" The Master yelled, shooting his laser at the Doctor's glowing form.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." The laser stopped working.
"Then I'll kill them!" But the Doctor used his enhanced psychic energy to telekinetically move the weapon out of his grip. The Master stood there defeated, hands raised. "No. You can't do this! You can't do… It's not fair!"
"And you know what happens now."
"No!" The Doctor's levitating body slowly approached the Master. "No!" The Master backed down the stairs. "No! No!"
"You wouldn't listen."
"No!"
"Because you know what I'm going to say."
"No." The Master, having backed up as far as he could, cowered against the wall. The Doctor wrapped his arms around him. "I forgive you."
"My children!"
"Protect the paradox! Protect the paradox!" The floating spheres high above the Earth repeated.
The Doctor yelled, "Captain, the paradox machine!"
"You men, with me!" Jack recruited the guards in the room, leaving Angel to get to the TARDIS. "You, stay here."
"No!" The Doctor shouted when he saw the Master pull out the teleportation device. He grabbed it just as the Master activated it. They both were teleported to the top of a pile of rubble and rock.
The Master raised his arms up, showcasing his work. "Now it ends, Doctor!" A bolt of lightning struck through the sky behind them. "Now it ends!" In front of them stood an innumerable number of ships.
Back on the Valiant, Martha ran to the controls when the alarm sounded. "We've all six billion spheres heading right for us!"
"We've got control of the Valiant. You can't launch," the Doctor said to the Master.
"Oh, but I've got this. Black Hole Convertor inside every ship," he said as he showed the control to the Doctor. "If I can't have this world, Doctor, then neither can you. We shall stand upon this Earth together as it burns!"
Jack and his group of men reached the TARDIS. Three spheres floated in front of it. Outside the ship the sky was infested with them. They unload their weapons on them, but the sphere's are unphased by the bullets. Spikes release from the spheres, beginning to spin. "Can't get in, we'd get slaughtered."
"Yeah, happens to me a lot," Jack replied. He ran forward, gunning.
The Doctor approached the Master slowly. "Weapon after weapon after weapon. All you do is talk and talk and talk. But over all these years, and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do." He reached his hand up to take the device away. "Give that to me." The Master hands it over.
Jack finally reached the TARDIS and slumped his back against the door. The red glow from the paradox pushed him to get back up and shoot the damn thing.
The Doctor and the Master teleport back to the Valiant. The ship shook as it took on damage from the spheres. Papers flew and everyone had to grab something to hold on, or else they fell over. Martha saw the Doctor return and clumsily climbed to hug him. "Everyone, get down! Time is reversing."
Francine and Lucy see a handgun slide down the tilted floor.
All of the changes from the past year glimmer away. To Angel's horror, the baby inside of her disappeared suddenly with a glimmer. "What happened to my baby! Where's my baby!" She panicked, clutching her stomach from her spot on the floor. No one could hear her over the commotion. She curled up into the fetal position, her sobs were muffled by her knees. Her dress was drenched in tears.
Then, the turbulence subsided. Everything was as it was a year before. The Doctor hopped up to fiddle with the radio. "The paradox is broken. We've reverted back. One year and one day, two minutes past eight in the morning."
"This is UNIT Central, what's happened up there? We just saw the President assassinated," the man on the radio said.
"See. Just after the President was killed, but just before the spheres arrived. Everything back to normal, planet Earth restored. None of it happened. The rockets, the terror, it never was," the Doctor explained.
"What about the spheres?"
"Trapped at the end of the universe."
"But I can remember it," Francine said, trying to make sense of it.
"We're the eye of the storm, the only ones who'll ever know," he explained further. Then he looked and saw Martha's father for the first time. "Oh, hello! You must be Mr. Jones! We haven't actually met." When the Doctor went to shake said man's hand, the Master bolted for the door.
"Whoa, big fella! You don't want to miss the party." Jack was just coming into the door when the Master tried to exit. He grabbed the Master's hands behind his back. "Cuffs." He called out to the man beside the door. He dragged the Master, now in handcuffs, back to the Doctor. "So, what do we do with this one?"
"We kill him," Clive said, ready to punish him.
"We execute him," Tish added.
"No, that's not the solution. You're my responsibility from now on. The only Time Lord left in existence."
Jack went to whisper to the Doctor. "Yeah, but you can't trust him."
"No," the Doctor shook his head. "The only safe place for him is the TARDIS."
"You mean you're just gonna keep me?"
"Mmm. If that's what I have to do." The Doctor turned to Jack. "It's time to change. Maybe I've been wandering for too long. Now I've got someone to care for."
A gunshot boomed. Everyone jumped. The Master began to fall. Jack went for the gun that the blonde woman in the slinky red dress held. "Put it down," he softly suggested, slowly removing it from her hands.
"There you go. I've got you, I've got you." The Doctor held the Master.
The Master's face contorted painfully into a smirk. "Always the women."
"I didn't see her," the Doctor whispered.
"Dying in your arms. Happy now?"
"You're not dying, don't be stupid. It's only a bullet, just regenerate."
"No."
"One little bullet, come on."
"I guess you don't know me so well. I refuse." He widened his eyes and smiled devilishly.
"Regenerate, just regenerate, please. Please, just regenerate, come on!"
It felt like Angel's heart had stopped when she heard his refusal. She quickly crawled to where the Master was dying on the floor. "Please! Don't leave me!" She held his hand to her chest, and begged with the Doctor.
"And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?" His refusal stung. Angel and the Doctor were desperate, but it only seemed to cement the Master's decision.
"But you've got to. Come on, it can't end like this. You and me. All the things we've done. Axons! Remember the Axons, and the Daleks. We're the only two left. There's no one else."
"Regenerate!" The Doctor yelled, causing Angel to jump.
"How about that?" The Master smiled watching the Doctor and Angel cry for him. "I win." He groaned and swallowed. "Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming? Will it stop?" His eyes looked up and closed for the last time. The Doctor clutched the Master's body, rocking as he cried. Angel leaned onto his arm, clutching the Master's arm.
The Doctor burned the Master's body on a pyre. Angel stood a few meters behind him, staring at the Doctor and the pyre. She said goodbye to the Master and to their baby who never existed. They would both live on in her memory now.
The Doctor came back to her side and grabbed her into a hug. He held her so tightly that she felt like his anchor. She wrapped her arms around his middle, squeezing him just as tightly. They stared at the fire.
When they were about to head back into the TARDIS, Angel decided it was as good a time as any to tell the Doctor her plans. She turned to face him, looked and said, "Doctor, I want you to know that I won't be riding along in the TARDIS anymore." She looked back up to his face. It seemed to freeze in place. "I'm not in a good place right now after losing the Master and our baby. You can be gone for a long time, and I think I would get depresesd. And now I know that Jack is my father, so I want to spend some time with him. It's nothing to do with you, I love when you are around." Hearing the l-o-v-e word made the Doctor's emotions return to his face. His face went wide eyed. "So DON'T take it too personally. Ok?" She stood on her toes, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and planted a long, languid kiss on his cheek.
When she turned and walked away, the Doctor stood stuck in place, jaw dropped. He had no words, nor did he have to say any. It was just a friendly peck, it meant nothing. She was leaving him, there was nothing left to feel any which-way about. On that thought, he followed behind her towards the TARDIS.
Angel, Jack, the Doctor and Martha all leaned on a rail beside one-another in Cardiff. The TARDIS was juicing up again. "Time was, every single one of these people knew your name. Now, they've all forgotten you," Martha said.
"Good," the Doctor replied.
"Back to work," Jack said, ducking under the rail.
Before Angel followed suit, she squeezed Martha into a big hug. "I'm staying with him, Martha. You're my best friend, so please come visit me!"
Martha returned Angel's affectionate hug. "For sure. See you later!" Then Angel ducked under the rail, copying her father's movement.
"I really don't mind, though," the Doctor added. "Come with me."
"Had plenty of time to think that past year. The year that never was. And I kept thinking about that team of mine. Like you said, Doctor. Responsibility."
"Defending the Earth. Can't argue with that," he made a light-hearted frown. Then he grabbed Jack's wrist.
"Hey, I need that!"
"I can't have you walking round with a time-traveling teleport. You could go anywhere. Twice. Second time to apologize." The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver on his device to prevent such things.
"And what about me? Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?"
"Nothing I can do. You're an impossible thing, Jack." The Doctor's comment got a chuckle out of Jack.
"Been called that before." He walked a few steps, about faced and saluted the Doctor. Angel awkwardly stood beside him. "Sir." The Doctor gave a casual two fingered salute back. "Ma'am," he said and winked at Martha. She gave them a wave. Jack took another step and turned around again. "But I keep wondering, what about aging? 'Cause I can't die, but I keep getting older, the odd little gray hair, you know. What happens if I live for a million years?"
"I really don't know," the Doctor said. The thought brought a smirk to his face.
"Okay, vanity, sorry. Yeah. Can't help it. Used to be a poster boy! When I was a kid living in the Boeshane Peninsula, tiny little place. I was the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency." The Doctored gave a nod, impressed with his story. "They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me." Both the Doctor's and Martha's faces fell when they heard that. "I'll see you." He turned back around, finally walking away with his daughter by his side.
Martha tapped on the Doctor's arm. "No." The Doctor denied.
"Can't be," Martha said with a gasp
"No. Definitely not. No." The Doctor's jaw dropped and he looked back at Martha, then back to Jack. Martha playfully hit his arm and laughed. "No!" The Doctor couldn't believe it. He busted out laughing with her.
The Joneses stood inside of Francine's house, Martha included. Francine looked out at the Doctor. He gave her an awkward smile. She returned it. He decided to stop spectating the family and get back into his TARDIS.
He sat back into one of the jump seats and rested his feet up on the console. Martha came back and he peaked out from behind the structure. "Right then!" He yelled. "Off we go. The open road!" He hopped out of his seat and rubbed his hands together, ready to get his time-travels back on. "There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water." He makes a show of his enthusiasm. "Fancy a look?" When Martha maintains her straight face, he tries another route. "Or back in time. We could… I don't know, Charles II? Henry VIII? I know, what about Agatha Christie! I'd love to meet Agatha Christie, bet she's brilliant!" His face fell when Martha just looked completely detached. "Okay.
"I just can't."
"Yeah."
"I've spent all these years training to be a doctor, and now I've got people to look after. They saw half the planet slaughtered and they're devastated. I can't leave them."
"Course not," he looked at her, one edge of his lips curled up. He looked sad, yet proud. "Thank you," he said earnestly and moved to hug her. "Martha Jones, you saved the world."
"Yes, I did," she said, nodding. "I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what?" She scrunched her face and said, "I am good," with a smile. "You going to be alright?"
"Always, yeah."
"Right, then." She gave him a sad look before quickly pecking his cheek. "Bye." Just as quickly, she walked out of the TARDIS, stopped for a minute, then went back. When the doors reopened, the Doctor turned back, surprised to see her. "'Cause the thing is, it's like my friend Vicky. She lived with this bloke, student housing, there were five of them, allpacked in, and this bloke was called Shaun. And she loved him, she did, she completely adored him, spent all say long talking about him…" She smiled at her memory.
"Is this going anywhere?"
"Yes," she said with wide eyes. "'Cause he never looked at her twice." The Doctor's eyes looked to the floor. Martha's smile left. "I mean, he liked her, that was it. And she wasted years pining after him, years of her life. 'Cause while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again, I said, 'Get out.' So this is me… getting out." Their eyes finally met in understanding. Martha felt relieved to get it off her chest.
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and threw it at him. "Keep that. 'Cause I'm not having you disappear! If that rings, when that rings, you'd better come running, got it?"
"Got it."
She turned to go again. "I'll see you again, mister." He smiled at his last companion leaving him alone in the TARDIS.
When she left he set course for who knows what and ended up with the bow of a ship breached through the console room of his TARDIS, horn blaring. "What?" He said in utter disbelief, hanging from the console and the jump seats. Bells rang. He found a lifebuoy on the floor and turned it over. It read TITANIC. "What?"