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He meets them in the dark.
Gallifrey is still. For a planet with two suns, it’s shockingly dim, all dead houses and dead streets and dead for something he was so eager to shut down himself. Not a single light is on in the city, and there really is no point checking the outskirts to check for a difference. Everything happens in the Citadel. If it’s like this here, it’s like this everywhere.
The Master clumsily makes his way through the rubble and unfinished construction, holding his makeshift bomb tight in his arms.
It weighs enough for him to feel like he’s dragging it around more than carrying it, but about two minutes ago, that weight had felt worth it. He was going to storm into city central with it strapped to his chest and cause a little panic until someone got the authorities involved, but he can’t really do that if there’s no one around who cares.
He scurries his way to the Citadel, all the way up to the Lord President’s office, and pretends not to notice the uncountable amount of bodies sleeping together in the hall. Right. That’s where everyone is, then.
“Master?” a voice calls out when he accidentally steps on someone’s fingers.
“Not funny,” he snaps, “not funny, where are you?”
The bodies, still lulled to sleep in the hallway, shift to make way like a centipede, a domino effect that ripples as they all roll to the side to make a single, straight line from where he’s standing to the door.
Out comes Tecteun. Wearing the last face he remembers the Matrix showing him.
She looks so in control of herself. A small smile rests on her face.
“Hello, Master. It’s us.”
“Division?” He asks, not bothering to hide the disgust in his throat.
Tecteun chuckles, small and polite, like talking to a child who just asked if there’s a number bigger than infinity. “Not quite. We helped them. Made them better. Made them us.”
The bomb in his arms rattles. “The hell are you playing at?”
“What were you going to do with that?” Tecteun asks, perfectly calm.
He doesn’t give her the dignity of an answer. A bomb is designed with one purpose and, if Tecteun is here, the chances she doesn’t know he hacked into the Matrix are slim to none. Timeless child feels heavy on his tongue. He couldn’t say it even if he wanted to. He... He knows why he’s here. She knows, too.
“Well?” she insists.
He waits for her to accuse him of something. Let his adrenaline build up so its worth it when he rips her hearts out of her chest.
“Division,” he repeats, “I won’t let you get away with it. What you did to me.”
What you did to her.
“I’m glad we agree, Master. All this individuality you Time Lords pride yourselves on is so… exhausting, is it not? Lonely? Are you lonely, Master?”
The Master doesn’t hesitate. He puts his hand on the detonator and holds the bomb in front of him, showing it off. It’s an ugly–looking bomb, if he’s honest, not the best example of his craftsmanship, but it looks nuclear, and that’s enough to wipe the smile off Tecteun’s face and make the bodies on the floor flinch.
“Don’t. Really, don’t.”
“We can fix that. You just have to let us in.”
“What is this? Who are you?”
“We are us. Come closer, Master. It’s time we fix you.”
Whatever it is, its reflexes are incredibly quick, and the Master doesn’t notice the bomb has been ripped out of his hand until the bodies in the hall are pulling him down to his knees, wrapping themselves around his waist like quicksand.
It’s all hands after that. Hands around his throat, hands around his arms, hands pulling his head back and little whispers around his ear going open wide. He watches Tecteun, except she’s not the real Tecteun, walk toward him with the stability and confidence that comes from seeing a reaction like his far too many times.
She seems so excited when she kneels down in front of him. Like this is special. Like this is love. Like it really is good for him, what they’re about to do.
“Are you lonely, Master?” she asks again.
He doesn’t get to answer when she shoves a little ball of flour into his mouth and forces him to chew it down.
It’s wrong. The thing claims his mind as its own and starts building its house inside of him. A thousand minds that couldn’t possibly understand how complex his mind is enter him, swim in him, mark his eyes and hands and legs and fingers and lungs as theirs. We share, they assure him. He doesn’t like sharing.
He bites something, in his outside body, and feels the exact same force of it on his forearm. The minds in his head echo his whines like a chorus, singing a neverending loop of giving pain and recieving it.
Something clicks.
“Am I you, now?” he asks, after five hours of being crushed by every body in the Citadel trying to hold him down.
“Welcome to the Flux,” Rassilon’s dead body whispers in his ear.
The Master feels nothing. Nothing except for what everybody else feels, which is everything.