The days passed by in a haze.

It felt surreal that I couldn't feel my sister anymore. I could still sense her but our connection felt dim.

The Master enchanted with my new 'form' had made an elaborate birdcage catwalk above the heads of those who came to the helm room. There I was imprisoned only being let down to do my daily rituals before being pulley back up into my golden cage.

He hadn't ended up bringing my family onto the ship, instead he had a couple screens of mum and Mickey's living rooms near my cage so I could see they were well but being watched.

My truly Rapunzel-like hair was kept long by order of the Master and braided by the women staff. It was just one more thing weighing me down in my spot.

My dreams were full of another life, a man with blonde hair and blue eyes that looked at me and smiled with no joy, just satisfaction. Strong grips on my arms and tightening grips. I would feel suffocated when I'd wake often leading into panic attacks when I'd see the golden bars glimmer in the moonlight.

It was in those moments that a low hum singing the song of Time would resonate inside my head, so familiar and so different from when my sister would sing it to me.

At first I thought it was the Doctor but our connection had also dulled along with my sisters. I still knew he was working on intercepting the satellite's signal, I would get hints of his determined emotions on occasion.

It took me longer than I'd like to admit to remembering the same hum from my time living in Mrs Lovett's TARDIS. The night I realised this the hum sounded approvingly before continuing until I felt my heartbeat and breathing normalise after a recent attack.

Time passed and the Earth became the Master's domain but instead of being satisfied he became more erratic and restless.

One night I woke to see the Master wander into the helm room, his gaze unseeing as he meandered around the room mumbling beneath his breath.

He made his way over to my piles of braided hair, almost as if by instinct, before he curled up in the heaps, his mumbling calming and his face smoothing over looking calm.

This would happen on numerous nights, on some his wife would come to find him. Waiting till he woke before guiding him back to their suite. Her expression always seemed so empty but in those moments she'd gaze up at me with such resentment.

The Master would prefer to ignore me most days. However, he was sensitive to others paying me attention, on occasion throwing his staff physically off the ship if they so much as talked to me even if they were just performing their duties.

Other days he'd try to get reactions out of the Doctor and I. He would have the chained Doctor brought to the helm and then show us some heartless thing he'd done recently. Sometimes I wondered if he wanted praise but knowing that impossible he sought for any emotion from us.

The Doctor often would lose the game, his hands clenching at his sides or shouting 'why!' But even that grew into disappointed silence over time.

He quickly found I was not an easy target. I had been imprisoned before by an obsessive prick and I learned long ago how to shut down my reactions to everything.

One day he surprised us though, even his wife who had begun to look like a marionette reacted.

He knelt before my seat with a smirk on his lips.

"Shall I ask you to marry me again?"

The Doctor gaped while I shook my head.

"When have you ever asked me to marry you?"

I could nearly feel the stares of Lucy drilling in the back of my head.

The Master chuckled, "How odd, I thought for sure you knew it was me. You've always been so good at recognizing me even if I'm in disguise."

"The cafe? When?"

The only time I remembered seeing him before had been our coffee 'date' after the Sycorax failed invasion.

If he'd seen me any other time, it would have to have been at the Corner Shop Cafe.

"Funny old woman who ran it would always glare at me. She'd warn me away, watching over you whenever I came by."

My brow furrowed as I recalled one customer that seemed to always get Mrs Lovett's hackles up.

"The cap and hoodie?"

Mrs Lovett's song would be louder on the days he came, layered and more complicated. But Mrs Lovett's song tended to get that way when she was upset about something, especially since she could get upset rather easily if a customer paid me a little too much attention.

"Oh you do remember."

He'd been around long before the Sycorax then.

"Oddly it wasn't the first time I was proposed to over a coffee."

'I could marry you' was an occasional exclamation I'd receive when I served someone their much needed caffeine.

"Who?" The Master's brow furrowed as he snarled.

I let out a laugh, "Too many to remember."

I saw the Doctor's lips twitch as if he were holding back a snicker.

The Master leaned dangerously close, all the while being wary not to touch me.

I'd long come to suspect that the drums had driven him to complete madness. Instead of seeking relief he was submerging himself in the drumming.

"You are already mine, let's make it official."

I could argue that point with him all day long but I wouldn't get anywhere.

I leaned forward so our noses brushed against each other.

A sardonic grin graced my lips as he flinched.

"Even if you weren't already married, my answer would still be no."

By the time the year came to a close, and the Master's rule was about to come to an end. We all needed it, even him.

When Martha was brought into the helm room a year and a day from that first time all of us were in the room the Master made sure we all attended. The Doctor and Jack in their shackles, me bound my hair (a new entertainment the Master had), and Martha's family.

The Master and his wife stood on the staircase in their best evening wear awaiting the arrival of the Doctor's companion.

Martha was brought forward by the guards and then forced to kneel at the foot of the stairs.

"Down below the fleet is ready to launch 200,000 ships set to burn across the universe. Are we ready?"

A chorus of voices from the ships followed the Master through the speakers at the helm.

"Three minutes to align the Black Hole converters. Counting down." The ticking of a clock sounded signalling the countdown. "At zero to mark this day, the child, Martha Jones will die. Any last words?"

Martha stayed silent looking only briefly at the clock and then forward.

I noticed the Doctor had slowly been making his way to my side inch by inch so as not to raise the Master's suspicion. He would need to touch me at just the right moment for this to work. He'd been disrupting the signals of the telepathic network this whole year waiting for the moment to arrive.

"Such a disappointment. Days of old Doctor you had companions that could absorb the Time Vortex." The Master grinned at me. I looked at the clock as the Master pointed his laser at Martha ready to shoot as soon as the clock ticked down.

Martha bowed her head seemingly obediently, glancing at me from the corner of her eye a smile upon her lips.

"And so it falls to me as Master of all, to establish this day a new order of Time Lords. From this day forward…" He stopped as he caught Martha's chuckle. "What's so funny?"

"A gun? Really?" Martha looked up with an eyebrow raised.

"Yes, I destroyed it." The Master gestured with the laser.

"A gun, in four parts, scattered across the world? Really?" She laughed.

The Master lowered his laser, "What do you mean?"

"As if I would ever ask her to kill." The Doctor's shackles rattled as he crossed the rest of the distance to my side.

"It doesn't matter does it? I've got her exactly where I want her."

"Don't you want to know what I've been doing travelling across the world?"

Martha expounded on their plan and the Master sat on the staircase in a huff.

The Master always had a blind spot for those he thought were less than he, and he'd continue to be blindsighted if he didn't learn his lesson.

"I told a story. No weapons, just words. I did just what the Doctor said."

I closed my eyes and walked through the corridors of my Mind Palace toward my Starling door.

"Faith and hope, is that all?" The Master chuckled.

"No, because I gave them instructions. I told them if they think about one thing at the same time."

I kept my eyes closed and readied myself by the door that led to my Starling gift.

"One word, just one thought at one moment but with 15 satellites!" Martha expounded.

"What?" The Master's face slackened as it started to hit him.

"One word binding them all together."

The Master turned toward the Doctor pointing the laser at him.

The Doctor shrugged and smiled, "Not me."

The clock ticked its last when the Doctor slipped his hand in mine and I felt the connection of millions voices all calling out for Earth's "Starling" just as I opened the door in my mind.

"If I believe in one thing, I would believe in my Starling." The Doctor's hand squeezed mine as his mind's voice joined the others.

White gold light shone through the room as I accessed Time; the past, present and future.

"What are you doing?" The Master shouted as my hands shot out streams of light wrapping around everyone, others making their way out into the stars reaching for the 15 satellites.

My eyes glimmered as I opened them, "I'm making things right again." I glanced around everyone, "Prepare yourselves this will be trippy."

I felt my power surge through my veins in a way I'd never quite felt before.

I heard an approving hum fill my head.

I closed my eyes again and imagined the Earth turning backwards, time being rewound.

I could see in my mind's eyes landscapes being reverted back to their previous shapes before the Master's rule all back to one moment in time that was fixed.

I opened my eyes to see the room shining in a blinding white light before clearing. All of us were back to our previous positions from a year and a day ago.

Only those of us entwined in light remembering the year that never was.