Chapter Text
Her gaze was a mixture of defiance, resentment, and grudging acceptance of the reality that she couldn’t find a way out of this one. His latest strategy was a success and they both knew it. “Fine,” the Doctor growled between clenched teeth. “You win.”
The Master’s grin only widened. He loved it when she said that. It didn’t happen nearly enough, in his opinion.
“You win,” she repeated, now more irritated than anything else. “We’ll eat in tonight instead of going out.” A sly note crept into her next words: “But…”
His glee ebbed a tiny bit. He’d been so excited about getting his way that he didn’t think through the implications of his victory.
“…you’re making dinner, not me,” the Doctor concluded triumphantly.
“How is it that even when you lose, you act like you won?” the Master grumbled, trying to remember if their kitchen contained anything that qualified as “food.”
She smirked. “I’m an optimist.”
“I might make you regret that, you know.”
“When it comes to you,” she said, stretching out on the sofa now that he had vacated it, “I have no regrets.”
The Master turned away from the shelves he was examining and gave her a slightly incredulous look. “All right, few regrets,” she amended. “I could have done without that time we got trapped in a temporal loop and had to relive the same day over and over for seven weeks.”
“Which happened to be the date of our final exams at the Academy.”
“On the plus side,” the Doctor pointed out, “we retook them so many times that we both got perfect scores when it was all over.”
“Still not seeing where the ‘regret’ comes in.” He certainly didn’t regret it: as irritating as it had been at the time to be stuck together with no one else aware of their predicament, by the end of it they didn’t want to be apart ever again.
And everything since then had been perfect: as long as they were together, he had everything he ever wanted or needed.
She looked at him with fond annoyance. “I regretted the interrogation Borusa put us through afterwards because he thought we had cheated.”
The Master didn’t want to admit out loud that he agreed with her, so he did his best to convey it through a very ambiguous shrug. “So it’s not me you’re regretting, then.”
“Exactly. Just the…” She waved a hand around vaguely. “…general circumstances surrounding you. On occasion.”
He resumed his inventory of the kitchen, perplexed at how they had managed to acquire so many tins without labels. “Quite the endorsement.”
She laughed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to convince me to like you a little less.”
“Yet another plan of mine that you’ve foiled.” Maybe he should just start opening the tins and hope that the contents were at least edible.
“I love foiling your plans. It’s my favourite hobby.” She sat up. “How’s it going in there?”
“There’s a very good chance that we won’t starve to death.” When had they even purchased these things?
“Care to provide a few more details?”
“No.” Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time they’d gone shopping…
“So you’re winging it, then.”
“I’m always winging it,” he said, struggling to find something he could use as a tin opener. “Unless I’ve meticulously planned it down to the smallest detail.”
The Doctor pretended to look wide-eyed with curiosity. “When do I find out which one you’ve done in this case? Before the indigestion sets in, or after?”
Did they even own a tin opener? “Very funny,” he said drily.
“It’s not too late to change your mind about going out to eat. Or—” She smirked again. “—to ask for my help.”
That smug expression drove him crazy (in more ways than one), which was why the Master couldn’t resist slipping in a little dig: “Why would I ask for your help? You can’t even make iced tea properly.”
Her amusement gave way to something more apprehensive. “When did that happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think I’ve tried making iced tea before,” the Doctor said with a frown. “Seems like the sort of thing you’d want to drink when it’s blazing out, but everything in the Capitol is temperature-controlled so it’s never an issue here. I can’t even remember the last time I had any…” Her eyes grew distant. “It was on a visit somewhere… a cabin, I think…”
“It was just hypothetical,” he said quickly, then laughed—or tried to—as he rejoined her on the sofa. “You don’t have to take everything so literally, you know.”
“I’m not—” she protested, before realising that he was just winding her up. After a brief glare, she sighed. “I have no idea why that rattled me so much.”
“Well,” the Master murmured as he put an arm around her, “let’s see if I can make it up to you.”
“I’m sure you’ll be able to manage it,” she said, letting him pull her closer. “I am an optimist, after all.”
As they kissed, he marveled at how he’d managed to get everything he wanted and how short that list of wants actually was. In fact, it was really just one thing—the Doctor—and here she was, in his arms.
If he had to sum it up in two words, it would be easy:
I win.
It was an absolutely sadistic choice, one that the Doctor would have given anything to not have to make:
Should she get up and see what the new day had to offer, or should she stay in bed for just a little while longer?
It was the Master’s fault, as usual: if he had bothered to wake up first, then it would have been an easy decision. But instead, he was lying next to her, sleepy and disheveled, and it was difficult to think clearly when her hearts were pounding in her chest like this.
Just a few more minutes, she decided, snuggling a little closer. Everything else could wait.
It was strange to think of herself as content with any kind of inactivity. And yet, here she was: relaxed and happy doing absolutely nothing.
The strangest part of it, though, was that it still felt so new, even though it wasn’t new at all. They had always been together, partners and lovers, ever since their days at the Academy. They’d never needed anyone else and, despite all their youthful claims that they would leave Gallifrey and see the rest of the universe, they just never got around to it.
As long as they were together, she had everything she ever wanted or needed.
“I’ve got an idea,” the Master announced—directly into her ear.
“Is it a fiendish scheme?”
“Very fiendish,” he said. “Let’s not do anything today. In fact, let’s stay right here.”
Of course he’d wait until she was already conflicted to make that suggestion. Still: “We do have to eat at some point, you know.”
“I’m not feeling particularly hungry at the moment,” he whispered, running a finger along the side of her face and then tracing invisible patterns down her neck and shoulder. “Are you?”
“Certainly looks like you’re ravenous for something,” the Doctor teased him, feeling herself shiver under his touch. That particular type of starvation was beginning to overtake her as well, pulling them together like a gravitational force.
“Looks like I win again.”
“So do I,” she countered. “Remember? Even when you win, I—”
Her communication device pinged from the other side of the room. Stifling a curse, the Doctor dragged herself out of bed.
“You don’t have to answer it, you know,” the Master remarked.
“If it’s who I think it is, I’d rather take the call instead of waiting for her people to knock down the door. At least this way, trousers are optional.”
“Trousers are always optional.”
Doing her best to keep a straight face, the Doctor tapped the button to open the channel. “Morning, Romana. Any chance you’re calling to tell me that everything’s wonderful and I should take the day off because I’ve earned it?”
The fact that the Lady President didn’t even look amused was not a good sign, and her answer confirmed it: “Unfortunately, no. We need you to come to the Citadel.”
“Figured it was too much to ask,” she muttered. “Another sighting?”
Romana nodded grimly.
“How many?”
“We don’t know. More than last time. They haven’t broken through yet, but the fact that they’re growing bolder is a cause for concern.”
“Yes,” the Doctor agreed. “It is.” The High Council had never been able to figure out any specifics about the shadowy figures that appeared just beyond the borders of the city almost at random, but this much was certain: they were getting closer.
And if they ever made it inside, it might spell the end of everything.
“I’m on my way,” she told Romana, and ended the call.
“Every time,” the Master grumbled, reluctantly getting out of bed as well. “Any hint of trouble and they ring you up like it’s your job.”
“Kind of is my job, though,” the Doctor pointed out as she got dressed. Ever since the Division disbanded, she had become the High Council’s all-purpose problem solver, and while it was nice to know that she was helping people, it was still irritating to be interrupted when she was in the middle of something.
“You’re not at their beck and call. Tell them to stuff it.”
“Last time I tried skiving off, Romana threatened to put me on the High Council, which would have meant Hats and Robes and all sorts of bother. Besides,” she added with a smirk, “if I’m not always saving the day, how are they going to know how brilliant I am?”
He took her hands in his. “If they haven’t recognised it by now, then I’m not sure there’s much hope for them.”
“Well, at least you appreciate me,” the Doctor said.
“You make it easy,” he replied.
Grinning, she leaned in and kissed him. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I might not be here, you know.”
“Of course you’ll still be here. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
She was joking, but for a moment it was as though a dark cloud overshadowed his usual expression. He looked unnerved. “Everything all right?” she asked hesitantly.
And then the cloud was gone. “Everything’s perfect,” he reassured her. “Just hurry back.”
Everything is perfect, the Doctor silently agreed.
Still, there was now a nagging sense of danger that hadn’t been there before.
There’s nowhere for you to go.
Those words had unsettled the Master more than he cared to admit, which was ridiculous because why would he want to go anywhere else? Everything he needed was here—well, the focal point of that “everything” was currently heading to the center of the Citadel to dazzle them all with her genius, but he could scarcely take a breath without knowing that she was his and nothing could come between them.
On the other hand, he’d been cooped up at home for a while and some fresh air would probably do him good.
Every step he took through the Capitol was a tour of a thousand different memories: the streets that he and the Doctor ran through as children, the alleys where they hid from Borusa when they skipped classes, the sites of endless jokes and rivalries and arguments, the Citadel that housed everything from the Matrix to the Time Lord Academy—all places that he’d once longed to escape but now couldn’t imagine leaving.
It wasn’t just the heart of Gallifrey: it was the heart of his own hearts.
Then why did it feel like something was wrong?
Well, not wrong exactly, but there was a tightness in his chest that he couldn’t identify or ease away. It was something unsettling, something that nagged at him… what was it?
Around him, everything seemed normal: people walking the streets of the city, going about their usual business—whatever that happened to be—and no one sparing him a second glance, which he preferred since there was really only one person whose attention he really cared about. Most of the time, the Master didn’t even bother to keep track of names or faces: they all tended to blur together into anonymity. A whole city—a whole world, really—of featureless and interchangeable background characters.
Even the buildings looked more or less the same the further he got from the Citadel: places he never visited, merely walked by without really thinking about them. If he peeked through a window, there would probably be dull people inside, doing dull things.
It occurred to him that he had never actually looked. He had never bothered to pay attention—because why would he?—but it seemed strange that he had never been curious.
He stopped walking and examined the closest building. Typical pompous Gallifreyan architecture, where everything concealed some kind of deep dark secret: lacking any signs or distinguishing features, it was impossible to tell if he was standing outside a residence, a business, or some other kind of structure.
There was, however, a faint crack on the wall, something that he would have normally walked past on any other day. He reached out a hand to touch it—give it a poke, more accurately—and, to his surprise, a section of the wall about the size of his fist broke off and smashed to the ground below.
As he jerked back, startled, three things happened in the span of three blinks:
One blink, and the polished paradise of Gallifrey vanished, leaving the Master standing in the ruins of a shattered city pulverised into rubble and ash.
Another blink, and everything returned to the way it was… almost. The eerie silence from his vision of the destroyed Capitol remained, which was when he noticed that he was the only one out in the street. Not just that: he couldn’t see signs of life inside the buildings, including the Citadel.
A third blink, and he could see someone: in the distance, beyond the great dome that enclosed the city, was an army of identical figures—more than he could count—slowly advancing on the Capitol.
Any other attempt to clear his senses and drive away the sight of this oncoming threat was futile: no matter how many times he blinked, they were still visible, coming closer and closer with each inexorable step. He didn’t know how he could see them so clearly—the edges of the city were kilometers away from where he was standing—but every detail was horribly magnified. The morning light of the rising second star illuminated the silver metal bodies of each figure, whose chrome faces with dead eyes were framed by the ornate neckpieces favoured by the Gallifreyan elite.
It’s not safe here. Not anymore.
For a moment, all he could do was stare, before turning and running toward the Citadel as fast as he could.
“Finally,” the Castellan said, sounding somewhere between relieved and irritated. “We at least have a visual record of them now.”
“But what are they?” Romana asked.
The Doctor frowned at the images that the Chancellery Guard had managed to obtain: hundreds of metal creatures massing outside of the city. “Hard to say,” she admitted. “Could be robots—which implies a controller of some kind—but it could also just be armour—enhancements, possibly…” She started pacing. “Wish we had more than just images—ooo, which brings up another question: why couldn’t we see them clearly until now?”
“Cloaking technology, perhaps?”
“Maybe,” the Doctor conceded, “but a group that large would leave footprints, at least. Someone on the outskirts of the city would have noticed. Or maybe they did but can’t remember? Wait…” Something tickled at the edge of her mind. “I heard about creatures somewhere… what was it… as soon as you looked away, you forgot.” She sighed. “And, ironically, I can’t remember what they’re called.”
“But we can see the ones outside the city now,” the Castellan pointed out.
“Something changed. I don’t know what—maybe it’s like a quantum waveform, where it’s there and not-there until it’s observed properly and then the quantum state resolves…” Another tickle in her memories—or at the place where the memory should have been. “There was something silver—no, it was grey stone, I think—but when you blinked…” She exhaled in frustration. “I don’t know. This isn’t enough information to work with. Maybe we should try talking to them, find out what they want—”
“Doctor,” Romana said in that tone of voice she typically used whenever the Doctor suggested something particularly ludicrous, “they’re an army. I think it’s rather obvious what they want.”
“Might not be an army,” the Doctor countered. “Might be a chorus line. I’m not going to jump to conclusions before I ask them.”
The Castellan put his head in his hands. “Of course you’re volunteering to do it,” he sighed.
“I’m more mouth than militant, anyway,” she replied cheerfully, already heading to the door leading out of the President’s office. “Worst case, they attack me and we find out if they’re carrying lethal weapons.”
“If they do attack—” Romana began.
“Turn and run, got it! I’m fantastic at running. Don’t worry—”
She took a step through the doorway and collided with the Master.
“We have to go,” he said urgently, grabbing her by the arm.
“Kind of in the middle of something,” the Doctor said, trying to regain her balance. “Well, and also on my way out, so I guess I am going?” Lowering her voice, she whispered so that Romana and the Castellan wouldn’t overhear: “What’s the matter?”
“Cybermen.” From the look in his eyes, he was barely keeping himself under control. “They’re here, on Gallifrey.”
“They’re the ones trying to break through the dome?”
Apparently they hadn’t been quiet enough. “So we have a name now,” Romana said. “How do you know about them?”
“Does it matter?” the Master demanded. Strangely, he actually sounded a little uncertain.
“Forget that for the moment. How do we fight them?” the Castellan asked.
“You can’t fight them," he snapped. “They can regenerate. Shoot them and they get right back up again.”
“Regenerate? How can they—no.” The Doctor’s eyes widened. “No, they can’t be.”
“They can. They’re Time Lords—well, they were. Now they’re just corpses controlled by an artificial intelligence, and once they get inside the city, they’ll do the same to everyone here.” The hand on her arm trembled. “An endlessly resurrecting army: Time Lord organics with the ability to regenerate and self-repair in Cyber armour.”
Romana looked nauseous. “That’s monstrous. Who would do that?”
The Master’s expression twisted in frustration and—unexpectedly—fury. “It doesn’t matter who!”
“Yes, it does!” the Doctor protested. “If someone started this, maybe they can end it!”
“It’s too late now! They can’t be stopped!” He tightened his grip on her arm and pulled her out of the chamber after him.
“How do you know they can’t be stopped?” she demanded as they ran. “How do you know any of this?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “We need to go.”
“Go where?”
“That doesn’t matter either! Just away. We grab a TARDIS and run.”
“What are you saying?”
The Master emitted a wordless growl of aggravation. “Look, I know how much you love saving the day, but if the Cybermen are here then it’s already too late!”
“That’s not what I meant.” She wrenched her arm out of his grasp, which brought them both to a halt. “What is a TARDIS?” she asked.
He froze.
“Well?” the Doctor asked after the silence had stretched on a little too long. “You’re the one who brought it up, not me.” She exhaled in frustration. “Really, an explanation of anything would be useful right about now.”
“Better if I just showed you,” he finally said, taking her hand and leading her through a part of the Citadel that she rarely visited. “Sector Eight,” he muttered to himself. “Not far… should be our best shot.”
She’d never heard of Sector Eight and was surprised that the Master knew about it—he rarely visited the Citadel unless absolutely necessary. “Best shot at what?”
“That’s where the TARDIS landing bays and repair shops are. It’ll be easiest to swipe one there: even a damaged TARDIS could at least get us off-world.”
The Doctor laughed in disbelief. “Off-world? You think we can leave Gallifrey?”
“Why not?” he asked impatiently. “We always said that we would.”
“Yes, when we were children! Before we discovered that the Founders had lied to us: Tecteun never made it off Gallifrey! Her ship exploded and they covered it up!”
He stopped walking again and looked at her in horror. “That’s not what happened,” he breathed.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t!” the Master shouted. “We made a pact that we’d go together—”
It was like he was speaking a completely different language. “We made a pact that we’d figure out space travel—get it right where Tecteun had failed—but we never really worked on it, we did other things instead, we were happy—” She looked at him and tried to keep the dread from taking over. “Weren’t we?”
“Yes!” But something in his protest rang hollow. “I just… I need to show you something, and then we’ll come up with a plan.”
“And whatever it is, it’s in Sector Eight?”
“Yes. Please,” he whispered desperately. “Please just trust me. I’ll explain—I promise, I’ll explain everything, but right now you need to trust me.”
In all their years together, the Master had never given her a reason to not trust him, so after a moment’s hesitation, the Doctor nodded and let him guide her to a part of the Citadel that she could have sworn wasn’t there yesterday.
There seemed to be a lot of things now that weren’t there yesterday, she reflected: an entire sector of the Citadel, the Cybermen, the panicked look on the Master’s face… and the feeling of doubt in the Doctor’s stomach.
Until this morning, everything had been perfect. They hadn’t needed anything but each other.
And somehow, in the blink of an eye, it had all slipped away.
Their destination was surprisingly mundane: a spacious corridor with large grey columns along one of the walls. For some reason, each column had a set of doors on them; the Doctor assumed that they were storage units of some kind.
However, it wasn’t one of the grey columns that the Master was interested in, but a strange blue box at the very end of the row with little glass-paned windows set into the top of the doors and the words “POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX” written above them. In the Doctor’s opinion, it looked a bit tacky, but she wasn’t entirely surprised that the Master was so excited to see it; he’d always liked tacky things.
“There it is… there it is,” he exhaled in relief as they went up to it. “That ugly old death trap. You’ll love it—for some inexplicable reason. Just have to open it up—”
He shoved the door open and the Doctor braced herself for the sight of something wonderful—
But whatever the Master had been expecting wasn’t there: the box was empty.
“No…” he moaned in horror. “No… no, where is it?” He slammed his fists against the inside walls, over and over, until the bare wood ripped open the skin of his knuckles. “Where is it?” he screamed.
“What are you looking for?” the Doctor asked, alarmed.
But he didn’t seem to hear her: instead, he went to the gray cylinder next to the blue box, opened it, and made a similar howl of dismay at the cramped interior. “It’s all of them,” he cried frantically, going down the row of cylinders. “They’re all…”
“All sheds?” she supplied.
“They’re not supposed to be!” he snarled. “They’re supposed to be bigger on the inside, dimensionally engineered, they’re supposed to be TARDISes!”
“What is a TARDIS?”
“Something’s gone wrong,” the Master said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Cybermen on Gallifrey, no TARDISes, and I’m apparently the only one here who hasn’t gone crazy!”
She couldn’t help feeling a bit offended at that. “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s going crazy? When we woke up this morning, you were fine and now you’ve dragged me—”
“This is exactly why something’s wrong!” he countered. “It’s barely been six hours and—”
“The Cybermen have been approaching the city for months now!” she snapped. “Just because you don’t pay attention to what I say doesn’t mean that—”
“I don’t pay attention?” the Master echoed incredulously. “You’re the only thing I think about!”
“Then why didn’t it occur to you to tell me that you had information about the threat I’ve been occupied with all this time?”
“Because I didn’t have any!”
“Then what changed?”
He froze again, eyes wide, which was when she understood why the Master was panicking: he didn’t know how he knew.
But before the Doctor could say anything else, a massive tremor rocked the Citadel, followed by the sound she dreaded the most: the deafening crash of the Capitol’s glass dome shattering.