A/N: Hello! I haven't been great about getting these out in a timely manner, and I apologize. I will just say that I'm having to think very carefully about the way the story will go and how to best get there.

Another little thing I wanted to mention is the difference in when the Master was Yana as opposed to Sam. To me the Master's relationship with the Tardis (his and the Doctor's) makes the difference. With his own Tardis, there's a bond of trust, so the human facade is stronger, but his Tardis didn't necessarily have time to suppress the drums. Whereas the Doctor's Tardis has all the time she could want but doesn't have the bond or the energy to make the facade really stick. So she decides to suppress the drums, using that (and Martha's love) as her trump card to keep the Master docile and content enough to stay Sam.

That's my thinking on it anyway. Let me know what you think! Enjoy!

Chapter 5:

(6 years ago)

Weak and woozy from blood loss, a fire burning in his side and beneath his skin as regenerative energy searched for an outlet he refused to give it, the Master fought the Doctor for every step gained. They were the last of the Time Lords, and they were a sorry pair.

With that damned human girl's help, the Doctor had carried him into the Tardis and to the med room, picking over the sentimental fool's beloved machine's exposed and brutalized guts as they did so. Once there, the two of them worked to save him, doggedly ignoring the sound of the Freak yelling and pounding on the locked Tardis door. Oh, if he knew what they were doing…the Master had laughed then, choking on blood.

"Martha, help me with him!" The Doctor exclaimed, his voice taut with tension and fear. There was the sound of booted feet scrambling against metal, and then his arm was being thrown across a pair of shoulders, and a slender body was carefully tucking up under his right arm to help support his weight and force him towards the console room. Though she was careful, a searing pain tore through him, and the Master groaned through gritted teeth, his knees briefly buckling.

"You should've let me die," he growled as they dragged his dead weight down one hall after another, staring holes into the side of Martha's face. The ends of her hair clung to her face, gone sticky with sweat, "I wanted to die. Don't act like you think I don't deserve it." She pursed her lips, refusing to acknowledge him, but this close to her, basically skin to skin, he could sense how much she agreed with him. He let his head loll until his face was pressed into the side of her head, his mouth against her ear. "D'you think you're being kind, Martha Jones? Don't let the Doctor fool you. This is worse than death, and I won't forgive you."

They were in the console room now, stumbling over cables and smoking circuits. His handiwork, ruined.

The Doctor jostled him, forcing him away from Martha and down into a chair with a pained hiss. "That's enough; leave her alone." The Master wanted to laugh, but it was all he could do now to stay conscious.

The chameleon arch was set over his head, and the Tardis seemed to hum with renewed energy. Fear lanced him as the arch crackled to life, and the Master locked eyes with Martha, not above pleading with her with his eyes. She didn't answer his plea, but she also didn't look away, holding his gaze as he fought and lost his battle with the Tardis, something like compassion in her large brown eyes as the sound of the drums faded and he finally lost consciousness.

"What now?" Martha asked, watching the Doctor carefully, gently check his friend's vital signs with his sonic. He stowed his sonic and turned to her. The expression on his face was one she had learned to distrust.

"Now," he said, taking her hands in his, "I've got a huge favor to ask of you."

~~~

The Master opened his eyes and slowly sat up. He was unconscious. He knew this because he was on Gallifrey, and Gallifrey was gone.

With face upturned to the golden sky, the Master quietly reveled in once again being fully himself. Six years was nothing to a Time Lord, the span of a human lifetime just as negligible, but to be forced, and by an aging and decrepit Tardis no less, into a life he did not ask for was an insult and embarrassment he should never have had to endure. No matter. He would get them back, that damned Doctor and the sentimental Tardis that enabled him both. They would pay, and if she'd thought being a paradox machine was bad, just wait until he got his hands on her again!

Putting aside thoughts of revenge for now, the Master stood and began to walk through the waist high scarlet grass. Time passed not at all (and all at once) in the mind of a Time Lord, but eventually shapes appeared and grew closer on the endless horizon.

There was part of the wall and the alcove in which he'd sabotaged the scholars of Logopolis. He walked past it, smirking. Then bits and pieces of Trakken architecture as well as a garden and the courtyard in which his Tardis had stood. His fingers trailed over the throne he'd usurped and the simulacra of the body he'd stolen, but he kept walking. Above, below, and all around the sound of the drums reverberated, a deep and pulsing rhythm that rattled his bones down to the marrow but slowly quieted the further he walked, until it was a low tremble in the ground that tickled his feet. He found the Doctor's silly human car, Betsy, among a small forest of statues of himself from the various planets he'd successfully conquered. Peering through the statues, the Master could make out yet another object. It was farther away, in the deepest and most protected part of his mind, where even the drums were just a suggestion on the wind. Winding his way through the stone thicket, the Master stopped short when it came into view.

There was a cottage one hundred yards to his left. It was the Dalbeattie house, complete with a tricycle, the chair Sam liked to sit in with Martha, and the pile of dolls Missy so enjoyed playing with.

The Master stared at it, scowling. So this was where that human thing had settled. It made sense, in a pathetic way, that Sam would flee to the part of the Master's psyche that still thought of itself as Koschei. The part of himself he had fought tooth and nail to guard, and the part of himself that he had ultimately failed to keep the Doctor's Tardis from clawing a scrap from and slapping a human mask on.

At least, he'd assumed it was scraps. Bits of memory and emotion here and there. Just the tiniest bit of himself that would dissipate, consumed by the chameleon arch reversal. But if that were so, the cottage would not be here in the inner sanctum of his consciousness.

He didn't want to enter the cottage, and that enraged him. Imagine being afraid of your own mind! Was he or was he not, at the very least, the master of his own self??

His feet carried him to the cottage, and he was absently stepping over the dolls and grasping the door handle before he really gave it a thought. But…did he really want to talk to Sam? He spent six years as him, watching him bumble around, clueless to his true identity, living his ridiculous human life. Happy as a fucking clam with his devoted wife and joyful daughter. It was nothing like when he was Yana. The man had been nearly as insane as he was. But not Sam. Contentment had oozed from every facet of his psyche.

And why shouldn't it? The Doctor and his cruel Tardis had gone to such lengths to give him a perfect life. And Martha Jones! That martyr, falling on her sword, opening her legs for him, telling him she loved him, smiling in his face, giving him a child; all because the Doctor asked her to. Had she actually loved him or was it another part of the Doctor's plan to break him? That, more than anything, stung and galled him. Who did she think she was?! Playing with his feelings, making him think she loved him…it boiled his blood. She had no right, and he would square things with her, too, just as soon as he finished with the Doctor.

He yanked the door open, unsurprised and yet annoyed beyond comprehension to see Sam knelt down in the middle of the living room, a picture of Martha and Missy cradled between his hands. Sam looked up, and the Master didn't bother to conceal his disgust at the tears streaking down Sam's face.

"You're pathetic," he said, sneering as he crossed the small space and plopped down into an overstuffed chair. Sam sniffled, wiping his face on the sleeve of his jumper.

"What're you doing here?" He asked, misery thickening his voice. The Master propped his feet on the coffee table and shrugged.

"Oh, me? I'm just waiting to regain consciousness so I can kill the Doctor." He noticed the way Sam seemed to perk up and said, "Oho, you'd like that wouldn't you? Me, killing the Doctor? What a nasty, hateful little thing you are."

Sam's brows dipped, his expression wet and sullen. "He made me leave Martha. Of course I want him dead."

The Master rolled his eyes. Rassilon spare him from sentimental fools! His feet hit the ground firmly, making Sam jump. The Master rested his elbows on his knees as he leaned forward. "You know it was all bullshit, right? Martha Jones never loved you." She never loved us. The thought crossed the Master's mind, and he angrily dismissed it. He didn't care about Martha Jones except that she'd foiled his plans and had played a part of him for a fool. That was it. Period.

Sam shook his head, not bothering to look up from where he was caressing the photo. "You're lying. You know you are. Martha loves me. She -"

"She tolerated you because her precious Doctor asked her to. She was probably picturing him every time you fucked her."

Sam's grip on the picture frame white knuckled. "Even…even if that's true, it doesn't change the fact that I love her. I'll always love her," he barked a laugh and tilted his head up to meet the Master's furious gaze. He smirked. "I'm a part of you, right? Then you'd better get used to loving Martha Jones because I'm here and I'm not leaving."