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She was alive. She knew that. She was in pain, everything hurt, and she opened her eyes.
Where was she?
The room was a cold grey colour. She was laying down on a bed of some kind. There were crude medical equipment she recognised from her history class at the time Lord academy. And there were tubes attached to some liquid dripping from a bag into her bloodstream.
What happened last? Oh god, she thought with dawning horror.
The time war. Gallifrey falling. Watching her planet burn!
She felt tears running down her cheeks. So, how did she survive?
Suddenly the door opened and in walked a blonde man. She wouldn't have recognised her husband, koschei, if not for the mental connection all time lords share.
She felt strange, like she was detached from her body in some way much like astral projection they taught on Gallifrey.
Oh god, Gallifrey. It was gone.
Koschei walked into the hospital like room quietly. Nervous though he was, after all he had not seen his mate in what felt like a hundred years while his conciousness was trapped in that rassilon- be- damned fob watch, he had felt the moment she woke up.
Then he saw her tears, and both of his hearts broke, because he knew exactly what she was thinking about. Gallifrey. Watching their world, their HOME burn. Their daughter, trapped on gallifrey as it was destroyed. And he knew exactly who was to blame.
The Doctor. His once best friend, a brother in all but blood. Betrayed them when he decided the fate of gallifrey and watched as It BURNED.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, he quietly walking to her bedside and without saying a word, wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed for everything they lost, after all, to her it was just yesterday that their planet was destroyed.
Minutes passed in silence as koschei held his wife, his mate, in his arms, the only sound was her quiet sobs and eventual sniffles as she ran out of tears to shed.
"Where am i?” she asked quietly in Gallifreyan, her voice hoarse from crying.
“We are on earth.” He replied quietly to her, shifting so he was half sitting on the bed with her still tucked in his arms.
"What happened?” she whispered to him, snuggling deeper into his embrace.
“Gallifrey is gone. It burned. “ he said quietly, as if speaking too loud could change that fact.
“Oh rassilon!” she exclaimed horrified. Her last memories of the once great civilisation of the time lords, destroyed.
Suddenly the door opened, revealing a human by the look of it, decked out in all black clothes with a very large gun hanging from a shoulder strap.
"What is it?!" Koschei yelled, annoyed at being interrupted.
"Sir, we found them." The human replied, scared.
"One minute." Her husband said, turning to her, he quietly asked, “Come with me?”
She nodded, too uncomfortable to speak in their language with a human present. Slowly getting up from the bed, she realised she was wearing the different clothes, human most likely. Grey pants and a black sweatshirt that smelt distinctly like koschei.
He took her hand, helping her off the bed carefully watching to see if she was in pain.
Walking hand in hand, they followed the human guard as she took in her surroundings. They were on a aircraft of some kind, she could hear and feel the dull roar of the engines and turbines keeping it in the air. The walls were a stark grey, like everything else.
She walked silently behind her husband, still partially in shock over the destruction of their home planet. It had not yet truly sunken in that they were the last of their kind, her shocked brain still reeling from loosing the psychic link that all time lords had together. You were always able to sense the other time lords, yet all she could sense was koschei.
"Here sir." The human spoke, turning to a computer to point at a map of what she assumed was somewhere on earth. She had only been to this planet once with her husband and his best friend, theta sigma, when they had just graduated from the time lord academy. They were mere children at the time. She was over 700 years old, and on her 3rd regeneration.
"Daistarri, what can you see?” her mate asked quietly in gallifreyan, so the human did not hear them.
"We are on a ship of some kind,” she began, “somewhere over earth.” her brain was still fuzzy, so she said nothing more.
Koschei nodded. "Bring him and his merry group of friends to me." He ordered the guards surrounding the room. "Follow me, love.” he motioned her to a regal looking set of chairs.
Confused as to whom her mate was referring to when he ordered the guards to find, she turned to koschei. "Who?”
“The Doctor, Daistarri."
She gasped, surprised that he had survived the war when she assumed they were the only ones left of the time lords.
Focusing on her psychic link to koschei, she realised that he was right, she could faintly sense the doctor if she focused, as he was hiding his mental signal from them.
“It’s his fault. He ended the Time War. He destroyed Gallifrey.”koschei stated.
He once was their best friend, now enemy, for it was him who ended the last great time war that resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey, their home.
She wanted to scream at theta sigma, yell that there had had to have been another way of ending the war, a way where gallifrey and their people survived, but no, she would not give him the satisfaction of seeing any weakness from her. She was the master's mate, after all. She learnt from the best at schooling her emotions and creating a mask of indifference to portray to the world.
No, she was Daistarri, the Mechanic, builder of TARDIS's and mate to the Master. She was a gallifreyan high born and would act nothing less than that which she was.
Her mate looked at her, amazed at her sheer force of will, he wanted to scream and shout at his once best friend as well, cry and ask why he let gallifrey burn. No, he was the Master, koschei, mate to the Mechanic, Daistarri, and he would get his revenge on the Doctor for the destruction of their home.
"Ah, Doctor, so glad you could join us!"
In walked a tall, brown haired man with brown eyes and a blue suit- the Doctor. Along side him was a black woman, human, and a human man who felt off, like he shouldn't exist almost. The guards surrounded the room, yet made enough space in the centre of the room for the Doctor, his companions and koschei, and her.
Daistarri couldn't take her eyes off the human male, and wanted to know what he was.
“Something is off about the human male.” she stated, eyes locked on the strange off- putting human. Koschei nodded, he had noticed as well, the human, Jack was his name he believed, was a fixed point in time, something that should not be possible and told her so quietly.
The Doctor gaped in shock when he walked through the door to the control room of the ship, it was a time lady! But not just any time lady, the Mechanic, Daistarri, his friend! He thought he was the only one until the master was found. But now there were three of them! Alive, relatively unharmed, and in front of him.
He drank in the sight of her, amazed that she was there, ecstatic she was alive and had survived. He took in her looks, same brown short hair style, as long hair got in her way when she worked on the TARDIS's on gallifrey.
But why was she looking at him like that?
They were friends! Why would she look at him so coldly?
Then it hit him. Gallifrey. His planet. The planet he helped destroy. No wonder she looked so coldly at him. The master he could handle, he had been his enemy for years, but to see such a cold look on daistarri's face while looking at him disturbed him greatly.
"Well, have nothing to say, Doctor?" The master taunted, wanting to get the focus off of his mate which the Doctor was blatantly staring at in amazement, as if he couldn't believe she was real, and daistarri, who was glaring coldly at the Doctor. The Doctor snapped back to reality, flushing red in embarrassment at being caught staring at the master's mate.
"How?! How is she here?! I thought everyone was gone when Gallifrey was destroyed!" The Doctor exclaimed.
"I kept her safe, away from the fighting. Away from you. She was at the eye of Orion, which is why you couldn't sense her until now." The master replied.
"She is right here!” daistarri snapped in gallifreyan, annoyed that they were speaking as though she was not right in front of them.
"Doctor, why isn't the TARDIS translating for us? Who is she?" The black woman asked scared and confused at the strange musical sounding language.
Not even turning to his companion, the doctor replied, "Martha, this is my old friend, daistarri, a time lady, and the TARDIS doesn't translate Gallifreyan."
Martha gasped, the Doctor had told her that he was the last of his kind, then they found the master in utopia, and now a time lady?! Her head was spinning.
“You lost the right to call me that when you destroyed gallifrey!” dastarri yelled, furious that after everything that the Doctor did, he still thought they were friends? Ha!
The Doctor flinched, stunned at her anger, he had only seen her angry a few times in his lifetimes but he had never seen her this furious before. Then again, he though ruefully, her anger is justified.
"What did she say doctor?" Martha whispered, scared at the fire, the hatred in the time lady's eyes. Shed never seen someone so angry before.
"It's my fault." Was all the Doctor said, voice cracking at the realisation that he had truly lost his last friend. He would not find a ally in daistarri, the mechanic, he corrected himself.
The master placed a hand on his mate's shoulder, sending his love and calmness through the mental bond they shared. He visibly watched at her shoulder slumped and she turned into his open arms, trying not to cry.
Finally the master spoke. "Yes, it is your fault! You DESTROYED our home! It was genocide of the time lords is what you did! And for what? There are still daleks out there that survived! They will just keep coming back and the war will never end! You thought you did the right thing, but no. You just destroyed your own people in the name of peace. Of ending the war! You're a fool, Doctor. You once told me that the most dangerous people are those who have the conviction that what they're doing is good! War does not determine who is right, only who is left alive. Well, congratulations, there's no other time lord or lady left alive, and it's your fault!"
"You act as if you're the only one who's lost someone! You think that you're the only one with pain? Our daughter was on gallifrey! She's gone, and it's your bloody fault!" The master screamed, and the Doctor took a step back, and even the human guards took a step back in fear.
Then there was silence. The only sound was the harsh breathing of the master and the quiet cries of daistarri and she wept for all they had lost. The master turned away from the Doctor in disgust and quietly wrapped daistarri in his arms as she cried into his shoulder.
The Doctor stood there in shock. He'd never seen the master care about anyone but himself but here he was, trying to comfort daistarri. When they were children, yes Koschei cared about his two only friends, daistarri and theta sigma.
When they became the Master, the Mechanic and the Doctor, they had lost touch. It wasn't until his 3rd regeneration that he first saw the master again. He was cold, aloof and uncaring about anyone that got in the way of his plans. But there he was, holding a crying daistarri lovingly in his arms.
He had changed, but that's what war does, it changes people, nobody comes out unscarred.
Yes, he had family on gallifrey, but he hadn't seen them in hundreds of years and that was fine with them.
He was never close to his wife, it was an arranged marriage and when they bonded, it was a very cold relationship. He had a son, but he had died early on in the war.
Then there was his half human granddaughter, Susan, who was somewhere in 22nd century earth with her husband, he hadn't seen her since his first regeneration even though he had promised to return, he never had.
Martha and jack stared at the doctor, just as shocked as he was at the master's speech and how he held the time lady. You could tell they loved each other, just by looking at them as the woman cried on the master's shoulder.
The Doctor had said that the Master was a monster, a dangerous enemy, but looking at what the other time lord had said, he was right to be angry.
Regardless of how you spin it, the Doctor, in order to end the time war, sacrificed his entire species and home planet in a bid to permanently destroy the daleks, and it failed.
Jack remembers the dalek that shot him on satellite 5 all those years ago. The thought of another war starting, of even a few daleks surviving, terrified him. He had heard all the stories of the mighty time lords and the evil daleks and he was more scared than he'd care to admit.
Martha on the other hand, was torn. The Doctor said that the Master was evil. She believed that, sort of. But the Doctor sacrificing an entire species, let alone his own species, in a bid to save the rest of the universe, and have it be all for nothing, well, it changed how Martha saw the Doctor. He wasn't infallible, he wasn't invincible, he made a terrible mistake, but did that make the Doctor evil also? She wasn't sure.
Daistarri slowly calmed her breathing, and turned to face the murderer of their species, leaning on koschei for support. “What you did is inexcusable, Doctor.”she began. "My daughter was on Gallifrey. I will never forgive you. You killed her.”
The Doctor hung his head in shame. She was right, of course. He sacrificed his entire species, his friends in family in a last ditch effort to 'save the universe'.
He'd failed. Not only did he fail to get rid of all the daleks, but he'd failed the master and more importantly, he'd failed daistarri.
He didn't even try to defend himself. There were no words to explain why he did it. They knew why. He had not only lost his people, his home, but now, also his best friends.
Without even looking at the Doctor, the master ordered, "take them to the cells."
And as the Doctor and his friends were led away, he thought back on how they had all met and how so much had changed. And not for the better.