A/N: expect an epilogue, but other than that, the story is done. Thank you for reading, and I hope it's been enjoyable.

Chapter 10:

Martha drove home in silence. She did many things in silence these days. Somehow, if it didn't have to do with her work, she just didn't have anything to say. Things had been…better…since her conversation with the Doctor. But better was still the bittersweet realization that she was, in effect, a widow. The man she loved was not truly dead but had returned to his true self, a self that could never love her the way she loved him. It was accepting that her Sam had always been a part of the Master. It was knowing that she would do everything the same. She would make all the same choices, love just as fiercely, even though what they had could never last. It was still real. It was still worth it.

Just like on that fateful day four months ago, Martha pulled into her driveway and sat in her car. This time, she just needed a moment. Missy had been kicked out of daycare two months ago for bad behavior, and Martha was obliged to enlist the help of a sitter to watch over her daughter while she was at work. Mrs. Jenkins was the second sitter in as many months. A retired schoolteacher, she was up to the task of managing a rambunctious and moody child than the first sitter had been.

She walked into the house, a frown briefly touching her lips when she didn't see Mrs. Jenkins in her usual spot, camped out in the chair with her knitting. But the sound of low voices and Missy giggling soon smoothed the worry away. She followed the welcomed sound to her daughter's open bedroom door and peered in.

There was her husb-No, Sam- no, the Master sitting across from Missy at her little craft table, somehow looking like an elegant crow even with his knees nearly up to his ears and a garishly pink teacup cradled in his hands. Martha's knees gave out, and she gripped the doorpost to keep herself standing.

A part of her wanted to burst into tears, throw her arms around his neck and sob, "You're home, you're home, you're home!" until her voice gave out. A smaller part recoiled at the very thought, but most of her was frozen in shock and unable to do anything else but force herself to keep breathing and watch the scene unfolding before her.

Missy was dressed in her favorite Cinderella dress. All her biggest stuffed animals were sat in the chairs not occupied by herself or her father, and as Martha watched, Missy took her tiara off and reached across the table to place it on the Master's bleach blond head. He accepted the crown with the sort of solemnity that was on par with an actual coronation, taking a pretend sip from his cup when Missy sat down.

"The transfer of power is complete," Missy said, so seriously that the corner of the Master's mouth began to twitch, "what are your orders, Princess Daddy?"

The Master cleared his throat, and Martha could hear his badly suppressed laugh in his voice, a sound that went right through her. "My first order as the new ruler of this illustrious kingdom is for you, my dear Lady Missy, to sit down and have dinner with me and my new subjects."

Martha's brow furrowed. Normally Missy was always the princess or queen, and Sam had always been forced to serve the tea and act as Missy's servant or loyal knight. Had the Master…had he overthrown his own daughter? Martha couldn't help it: she snorted, the sound turning into a fit of giggles the longer she stood there and thought about it. What kind of psychopath does a hostile takeover of his own kid's tea party? She guffawed, barely holding herself together when the pair turned, the Master's raised eyebrow superseded by Missy's delighted, "Mummy! Daddy's home!"

Missy leapt out of her chair and into Martha's arms, hazel eyes shining with exuberance. "Daddy's home!" The girl repeated, her happiness at this fact doing nothing to hide the way her eyes searched her mother's as if seeking affirmation. Martha's heart clenched, but she smiled widely and said, "I can see that! It wasn't that long after all, was it?" She teased, knowing all the while that it could have been much longer. It could have been forever. It still might be, she thought, watching him watch them with dark, intense eyes. She had no idea why he had come back.

"What did Mrs. Jenkins think when Daddy suddenly showed up?" Martha wondered aloud.

"She was delighted. I expect she was happy to go back to her knitting and her horde of cats," The Master said, rising from his seat. Missy immediately reached for him, and he took her in his arms, slinging her across his hip as if it was the most natural thing in the world. As if it was something he did every day and there was nothing cosmically absurd about him standing there in his well tailored black suit holding a child in a Cinderella dress and Monsters Inc socks.

Martha also didn't wonder at his knowledge of Mrs. Jenkins and her (probably illegal) number of cats. He was a Time Lord and a powerful telepath: he likely knew the secrets of half of Scotland. His mouth kicked up in a half smirk, and Martha flushed, annoyed that he was reading her thoughts.

'Stay out of my head,' she thought loudly, a smile still plastered on her face as she listened with half an ear to Missy's excited chattering. His smirk blossomed into a full fledged grin, eyes crinkling in amusement as Martha pictured a thick metal dome encircling her head. It probably wouldn't keep him out, but it was the principle that mattered. She might be his wife, but that gave him no rights to her inner thoughts. Well. Her own thoughts brought her up short. She was Sam's wife, of course, but still…he wasn't allowed in her head.

"Oh!" Missy suddenly gasped, tugging urgently on the Master's lapels. She stared at her parents with wide, scandalized eyes. They shared a brief, confused look.

"What is it, Missy?"

"Daddy! You haven't given Mummy her 'welcome home' kiss yet!" Missy said, looking very disappointed. The Master's brows briefly dipped in confusion before shooting up, his smile nothing short of devious as he replied, "My goodness, you're right! How could I have forgotten? Come here, Mummy, let Daddy give you your kiss." Missy squealed and wiggled out of his arms, alternating between covering her eyes and giggling as she watched them expectantly.

How had anyone believed he was good, Martha inwardly fumed, when his acting was this terrible? He couldn't possibly expect her to actually kiss him, could he? And yet, she didn't resist when he wrapped his arm around his waist and pulled her to him. Of their own accord, her hands swept up his chest to interlock behind his neck. Her heart began to beat wildly in her chest, her breath hitching as he bent his head down to hers. Oh God, this was really happening. She was really going to - his lips sealed over hers in a chaste kiss.

Kissing the Master, at first, felt identical to kissing Sam. They both liked to start off chaste, just a simple brushing of the lips. Teasing. Coaxing her into opening of her own accord. When she wouldn't, there was a laugh, just a huff of breath really, and then he would cup her jaw, angle her up to him just so as he swept his tongue across her lips, and that always made her gasp and allow him entry. And they tasted the same, though the Master's taste was much stronger. Time and space and what she imagined a collapsing black hole would taste like burning the back of her throat. He even smelled of burnt circuits the way Sam did, the scent clinging to him like cologne.

He laid waste to her mouth, refamiliarizing himself with every square inch. That hand on her jaw slid into her hair, tangling in her braids so she couldn't escape. She found herself clinging to him, not just being kissed but actively kissing him back. Her fingers twisting in his hair; his hands firm and kneading, mapping out the shape of her hips and bum beneath his palms, pressing her to him so that she could feel exactly how much he'd missed her.

It was him who broke the kiss, the both of them breathing harder than before. She licked her lips, tasting him there, and had to stifle the irrational urge to kiss him again.

"Aren't you going to say, 'welcome home?'" He murmured. His hands were still on her hips, squeezing and keeping her flush against him. She could feel the hardness of his erection where it was pressed against her navel, and she could have cursed her own response to it, if she'd been able to think.

"Welcome home," she said rather weakly, and the Master smiled a smug little smile before letting her go.

"C'mon, Missy. Let's you and I prepare dinner while Mummy gets out of her work clothes." Missy, a great fan of cooking shows even at her young age, eagerly agreed and skipped out of her bedroom without a backwards glance at her flustered mother. The Master made to follow after the girl.

"Are you -"

"Go. Wash the grime of the day off. Missy and I will be fine." He said, pressing a kiss to her cheek and shocking her into silence long enough for him to slip by her and down the hall. The bastard.

Martha forced herself not to rush through her routine, telling herself that the Master had had hours in which he could have taken Missy. If stealing her away were in his plans, he'd either have already done it or would wait until after dinner. Instead, she let herself think about the transfer request she'd put in while at work.

She wanted to go back to London. Sam was the reason they'd moved to Dalbeattie in the first place. Too many people had wondered if he was the missing former Prime Minister, and it was getting messy, both explaining away the resemblance to Sam and running interference with those who couldn't be paid off. But with Sam gone, she could go back home, and Missy could finally start cultivating a relationship with her grandparents and the rest of the family Martha had been forced to leave behind.

Her parents and sister hadn't taken the news of her latest mission from the Doctor very well. Hardly a day had passed between the reversing of the Year and Martha's new task starting. Francine had been hit especially hard, and things had been said. Emotional, unkind, heat of the moment type things. But Martha, hardened by a year of hell, had stood firm. The Doctor needed someone to look after the Master, and Martha trusted no one else with him. That, at least, her family understood. But nothing she could say had ever been good enough to explain away how she was with Sam.

"It's like you're in love with him!" Her mother had accused about a year into Sam living with her. She had denied it, of course. She could never love the Master, she would repeat every time the subject came up. And it came up often. By the time Missy was born, Martha was barely on speaking terms with her mother.

Francine would be glad to hear that he was gone. She would welcome her daughter and grandchild with open arms, now that the wedge between them had disappeared off into space with the Doctor. That's what Martha thought, when she put the request in and sent out tentative texts to her mother and sister. She might have lost Sam, but she could have the rest of her family again.

But that was before the Master appeared.

'Why should his reappearance change my plans?' Martha thought, massaging lotion into her post shower skin. 'Missy and I mean nothing to him.' That didn't explain why she could hear dinner being made in the kitchen, the familiar sound of Sam's poorly disguised exasperation as he tried to let Missy help him cook drifting down the hall. "Like herding cats," Sam had always said.

'He doesn't care about us,' she reminded herself sternly. 'He doesn't care about me.' Then why was he here? What did he want? Revenge? Maybe. Hell, probably. Hadn't she said that very thing to the Doctor? That the only reason the Master would ever come back would be so he could kill her, make her pay for embarrassing him? Maybe he just didn't want to do it in front of their daughter. Even the Master, Martha thought dryly, must have standards.

She dressed, throwing on a pair of workout shorts and one of Sam's old shirts, loose enough on her that most of her shoulder was exposed. Dinner was ready, and the Master, with Missy's help, was plating the food. He'd made spaghetti, Missy's favorite. He was standing in front of the stove, Missy in front of him on a step stool. He would place the pasta on the plate and hold the pot while Missy carefully dipped the ladle in for the sauce. Then he would hold the pasta laden plate under the ladle and let her pour the sauce. She did well on the first plate and second, pouring the sauce with extreme caution and slowness, but on the third her confidence got the better of her, and she plunked the full ladle down with a loud splat, causing sauce to spray all over the Master's face and clothes.

"Oops! Sorry, Daddy," Missy said, staring up at him with big, brown eyes. The Master carefully picked her up by the waist and set her down on the floor. A handkerchief was produced from the inside of his coat, black of course, and he wiped his face.

"Just…be more careful next time," the Master said with a smile that was only a little tight. Martha chose this time to enter the dining room fully. She thought feigning ignorance of the scene she just witnessed was her best bet.

Missy trotted to the table with her plate while her father followed behind with the other two. One was set down in front of Martha while he took the other to the seat just to the right of her.

"How was it?" Martha asked, gesturing to the immaculate state of Missy's clothes while his suit jacket was now covered in food and stains.

"Like herding cats," the Master snorted, managing to sound annoyed and fond at the same time. Martha's heart did a funny flip that she did her best to ignore by twirling a forkful of pasta up. But she paused halfway to her mouth, thinking, 'what if it's poisoned?' That would be such an easy way to get rid of her, and with him being the man he was, she was sure he knew of all sorts of poisons that would fly under current Earth technology's ability to detect. He could kill her and make off with their daughter by next morning. Or leave her to die a slow agonizing death while he galavanted off to god only knew where.

"Martha?" The Master's hand felt heavy where it landed on her bare shoulder. He met her eyes, one eyebrow raised. Suddenly, she felt something strange, like a caress but across her brain. Then, 'It's not poisoned.' His mouth didn't move, but she heard his voice loud and clear. He'd projected his thoughts into her mind.

"I-ah. Sorry, just tired from work," Martha said aloud, shaken by the mental contact. It was one thing to live with telepaths, as she'd done with the Doctor, but it was quite another to experience a telepath's ability. It was like hearing the Doctor's heartsbeat for the first time all over again. The Master was really an alien. She didn't know why it shocked her so much. She brought the forkful of spaghetti to her mouth and began to chew.

Dinner was peaceful, and Missy was drooping over her plate by the end. Martha, smiling affectionately, made to pull her daughter from the chair.

"I've got her," the Master was quick. He was up and out of his chair with Missy cradled in his arms before Martha could do more than stand up. She blinked and opened her mouth. "Go ahead and get ready for bed. I'll get this one settled in hers. Go." Maybe it was hypnosis, or maybe she was just that affected, but Martha found herself obeying, stopping only to drop a kiss to Missy's forehead as she walked back to her bedroom.

The day had been long, and even though they had barely talked, Martha felt emotionally wrung out from her dealings with the Master. He hadn't done anything, that was the problem. He wasn't acting like the energetic to the point of mania villain she had become so familiar with during the Year, the one who would send his Toclafane to her hiding places and broadcast himself whispering sweet nothings to her while she and her companions cowered in fear for hours. He wasn't acting like the man who'd burned Japan to the ground just to flush her out. The man who enslaved her family and in turns taunted and threatened her with their lives held in his hand. No. Despite the black suit and the dangerous aura that emanated from him like rays from the sun, he was…being nice? No. He was acting like Sam. And that rattled her.

For the sake of her sanity, she'd placed him and Sam into two very distinct boxes, and they were not allowed any overlap. Just as she had done for the Doctor and John Smith. Not only could they not be the same, they weren't allowed to be the same man. Because if they were, even a little bit, her heart couldn't take it. She needed the separation. She had chosen to love Sam and to love him with everything she had. If he was the Master in any capacity then…what did that mean for her? What did that make her? A woman who was capable of loving a monster. A woman who needed the monster to love her back.

Consumed by her thoughts, Martha didn't notice when the Master entered the room. He had unbuttoned and cast aside his suit jacket and was halfway out of his dress shirt by the time she realized he was there. So used to the sound of Sam preparing Missy for bed, Martha hadn't seen anything wrong with dressing down to just a shirt and knickers, losing herself in her thoughts and the familiar habit and forgetting that it was not her man outside but the Master. And now that he was in her bedroom, she couldn't very well get dressed. He would see it as a weakness and a concession to the effect he had on her. So instead Martha crossed her arms beneath her breasts and sat at the foot of the bed, watching him undress.

He looked different, somehow. Leaner maybe, as if he hadn't eaten in a while. As Sam, he was always thin, but now the chest he was baring and the shoulders and arms looked downright wiry.

"You're blond." Martha said in lieu of the millions of other thoughts racing through her mind.

The Master paused in his undressing and ran his fingers through his hair, nose wrinkling in distaste. "The sun on Fulsom was as hostile as my takeover of the planet was. Not like the star here. Your sun is nice and harmless." Martha briefly thought of the millions of people who developed skin cancer every year due to the sun's harmful rays. She decided not to mention it.

She wanted to ask how long he had been gone, but settled for an inadequate, "I see." He cast his shirt aside and, bare chested, began working on his belt buckle. Martha swallowed and forced herself avert her gaze. She did not want him, and the sight of his body did not excite her, she reminded herself. Little matter that she knew exactly what he looked like beneath those clothes, knew intimately and in excruciating detail the heights of pleasure his body was capable of taking her to. She was a rock.

"Do you? I wonder," the Master said. He finished with his belt buckle and bent down to unlace his smart shoes.

Martha shrugged in helplessness verging into frustration. "I mean, yeah. Of course I don't understand. I've no idea where you've been, and more importantly, I've no idea what you're doing here. If you're not here to kill me or us, then why are you here? I'm not your -"

The Master interrupted, his voice hard as he said, "But you are. Mine. Never forget that, Martha." He kicked off his shoes and socks, throwing them in the same pile as his shirt and jacket.

"But -"

"I did think about it, you know," the Master said idly, undoing the buttons to his trousers, stepping out of them and slowly stalking towards her in just a pair of black briefs, "killing you and the girl. Or killing you and taking the girl. Be kinda fun being a father. Could raise her to be just like her dear ole dad, couldn't I? But I decided against it in the end." He was standing over her now, having pushed his way between her legs. He caught her chin in his hand, forcing her to look up at him. "Why? Because. You. Are. Mine. Mine to kill or to keep. But mine all the same. Tell me, Martha, what kind of master would I be if I let others take my things from me?"

Martha hardly dared draw breath, feeling scared and aroused and confused all at once, and over all that, a sickening feeling of hope and yearning.

"I dunno. Not a good one."

He stroked his thumb across her bottom lip. "That's right, my dear Martha. Besides," and now his dark eyes turned pensive and annoyed, though the latter was directed inward, "the part of me that lov…that cares about you is bigger than expected. It's much more convenient to keep you alive." And with me. Unspoken, the words seemed to hover in the scant air between them.

"That part of you…isn't Sam?"

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, persistent bugger."

"But the Doctor said -"

He scoffed. "Haven't you figured it out yet? The Doctor lies. All the time. Don't feel bad: he does it to everyone."

Martha pursed her lips. "And you don't?"

He laughed. "Not really. The truth is often more painful than any lie." That she believed. As for the rest, as for what he stopped himself from saying, did she dare take him at his word?

His free hand began to trace the smooth column of her neck, following it to her clavicle and down her arm and then back up the way it came. The touch was maddening, distracting.

"Missy and I are moving back to London." She said, squirming as he pressed closer. He bent down, ghosting the line of her jaw with his lips.

"Congratulations. What? D'you think I won't be able to find you in bloody London? Or," he nibbled his way to her earlobe and gently sank his teeth into the sensitive flesh, humming when her breath hitched, "are you asking permission?"

When had her arms wrapped around his neck, she wondered. Why was his hair as soft and as thick as she remembered, his skin the same beneath her tongue and teeth?

"I…I was just informing you." She said, tilting her head back of her own volition to give his questing lips more skin to explore and mark, gasping softly when his hand closed over her breast and began to knead.

He chuckled and pushed her down onto the bed, crawling over her with a predatory smile on his face. "Silly human. I'll always be able to find you. I'm your Master."