Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One, two, three, four. Dun, dun, dun, dun.

Always, forever, all the time, non-stop. The drumming, the damned, never-ceasing drumming. Always in his head, always, always, always. He remembers when he first heard it, staring into—into the Untempered Schism, mind twisting and eyes filling with light and darkness and everything and nothing and – dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun.

He had frozen even before he first heard them, the Untempered Schism capturing him, immobilizing him, but eventually, it ended. He'd been taken back, maybe with a hand on his shoulder to keep his path straight or maybe he'd imagined that, but it had ended.

Only when he'd found himself lying in bed had he realized that the drumming in his head didn't match the beating of his hearts. He'd forced down a chocked sob, curled onto his side, covers over his head, and somehow, had fallen asleep.

The drums had been there ever since, a flutter in the background, behind the whirling activity of everyday life. They tended to grow louder when he got annoyed, fuelling the feeling until it bubbled out as explosive rage. But with age came maturity, control, and by the time he'd been assigned to a TARDIS, he was perfectly capable of keeping them at the back of his mind at almost all times. They still bothered him sometimes, they were always there, made more noticeable by the fact that they were away from Gallifrey, away from other Gallifreyan except for the seven of them.

The first mission was the worst, but also the best in a sense. As a newly graduated unit, they had a Captain, orders, no responsibility other than do as told. The spatiotemporal distance from other Gallifreyan minds had made the drums louder, but he hadn't needed to think, and so he'd been able to get used to them and wrestle them back under control. It had also helped that he hadn't been alone, that Time Lord teams were made of six people, and that a certain someone had been in the same team.

Distraction, he'd found, was even better for quieting the drums than the mind-numbness that came of following orders.

Things had changed much since that first service, but he'd always managed to keep a tight grip on the drums, no matter how much they had messed with his head. In his best moments, he looked back and cringed at some of his plans, wondering how that stupid beat could have had such an impact that he'd thought those were good ideas.

But he persevered, staid in control, even if he wasn't at his best.

And then, he'd been brought back for the Time War, and he'd run.

The Cruciform – the Daleks with that weapon—

No.

He'd run, so far and so fast and so completely that he'd turned himself human, of all things, to get even further. And no, he couldn't blame the drums for that.

He'd prepared the Chameleon Arch, pre-programmed the TARDIS to relocate to a split-second differential and leave him behind, and activated the Arch. And there he was again, a child with drums beating in his head. Only, that time, they were loud, so loud that he had been thought deaf for most of his youth and early adolescence. It had turned out to be for the best, in the end, as they had sent him to the engine room and taught him how to maintain the machines, because no one could hear anything down there anyway. And since he couldn't make out what they told him to do, he'd started to improvise on what his 'instinct' told him, developing many unorthodox but functional solutions. Eventually, he'd been able to mute the drums for the most part, and his next ship had taught him to talk.

But when he'd finally opened the Chameleon Arch, the drums had returned with a vengeance, so loud and overbearing that he hadn't noticed Chantho was still alive until it had been too late, wasting a regeneration in what should have been an easy escape.

They were so loud, in fact, that it hadn't been until he'd landed on 2006 Earth that he'd noticed they were the only noise in his head. No more whispers of Gallifreyan minds buzzing in the background, no more caresses of Time Lords brushing past as they moved in the Time Vortex, no more jingling of the minds of House Oakdown—the ones who hadn't renounced him when he'd left Gallifrey, that is. Muted as they should be due to distance, they should have still been there.

But they weren't. There was nothing but the faintest echo of the Doctor, the slightest tinge of a temporal impression from the last linear time he'd been in London. And the drums had quickly overwhelmed even that.

First order of business had been to hide. Lucy's father had been perfect for that, as the owner of a telecommunications company, and it had only helped that she had taken an interest in him even before he could put himself together enough to be able to start projecting a look at me, I'm a cute and innocent and likeable human faint psychic impression.

Like the old days of travelling in a unit, with a Captain who frowned down on 'exploring' but with a crewmate as willing, or even more, to push against the invisible line of the non-interference policy.

After, he'd built his image, his 'Harold Saxon' persona, and put his plan together.

Mad, mad plan, but the drums were so loud, so demanding, and he had never been able to stop himself from trying to claim Earth before. Stupid planet full of stupid apes who would so stupidly allow themselves to be controlled. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

But useful.

And in the end, they had proved it, just how stupid they were, when he'd finally succumbed to the drums drowning his mind, his self, and chosen not to regenerate. Trapped in the TARDIS, with only the Doctor for company, when the drums were this loud and insistent and maddening? No, not going to happen, nope, nope, nope.

He'd rather die than let the drums take over.

So, he'd died, and the stupid humans had followed his subtle manipulations and brought him back.

He hadn't counted on Lucy learning a thing or two from him, hadn't counted on her butchering his resurrection with a concoction of poisons that would have killed him if not for his pulling the life out of his 'cult' to shield himself.

It had ended badly, and not only because the whole building blew up. Who cared about that? Not him, that's for sure. No, the reason it had gone wrong was that he was supposed to drain the cult slowly, weaving their life force into a new body, a new life, around the consciousness in the ring together with the mixture of chemicals and the remnant of time energy from Lucy.

But in using their energy to destroy the poison – quite explosively, might he add – he'd had none left to stabilize his new body.

And without the time energy to stabilize the process, there was only so much he could do with flesh. It sustained him, true, but it was in no way a long-term solution, or even a cure. A palliative, a bloody painkiller, that's what it was. The 'Immortality Gate'—hah!—had helped, but it still wasn't enough. Of course, if he'd used its full power to fix his body instead of taking over humanity, it could have maybe worked, but there was no time energy in it, nothing that would stabilize him, properly fix him.

And the drums had wanted Earth.

Always, always, always Earth, for some bloody reason he couldn't figure out, so loud…

And then the gate had opened, and he was deaf again.

The drums, the cries of Gallifrey at war, the roar of the Lord President's—Rassilon's—presence that almost brought him to his knees—

The crashing of the Doctor falling through the glass ceiling.

Too late.

It was too late.

It is too late.

Gallifrey is back, is returning, and the drums are almost muted by the psychic screams of the Gallifreyan just past that wall of white light.

His plan to rewrite the Time Lords in his image fails, crumbles like a castle of cards, and only then does he realize how foolish it was to begin with.

But Gallifrey – Gallifrey is back, so what if the War had turned to Hell? The Master lives for chaos, for a world that requires a Master—

“Even the Time Lords can't survive that.”

The Doctor, the man who makes people better because he hopes they can be better, has no hope anymore.

The drums are deafening, the whole of Gallifrey screaming for blood and for help, and then the Lord President is talking about ripping the Time Vortex apart?

“That's suicide.”

“We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be.”

Like the Eternals. Can they make themselves Eternals? It should be impossible, but if Rassilon is saying it…

“You see now? That's what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them.”

“I was the only one who could end it. And I tried. I did. I tried everything.”

But the Lord President would never listen, not to a renegade, not to an idealist like the Doctor, regardless of his many impossible triumphs.

The drums grow loud, so loud, so much noise—

There's no escape. No escape, nowhere to run, no way to leave them behind—except the Final Sanction. Maybe then, maybe when there's nothing but consciousness left…

“You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making. No more.”

There are only the drums.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The drums and nothing else.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

All his life, ever since the Untempered Schism.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

A signal, in his brain, the heartbeat of a Time Lord, always, always, always pulling him to Earth, and from Earth, to Gallifrey.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

He doesn't realize he's stepped back until his back hits the console.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The White-Point Star, another clue, another thing that had always been in his mind, even if he hadn't known until today.

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

The Lord President lifts his gauntlet, and he feels despair—

The light is gone, hidden, and despair turns to hope.

The Doctor.

A gun in his hands, as still and unmovable as a Fact, standing between the Master and the wall of light, aiming at the Lord President.

The Doctor, the man who would never take a gun, aiming one now at Rassilon.

The Doctor doesn't kill. And the Lord President knows it.

“Choose your enemy well. We are many. The Master is but one.”

“But he's the President. Kill him, and Gallifrey could be yours,” he says, and only once the words are out, does he realize how stupid they were.

This is the Doctor, not himself. Control, mastery, is not what he wants.

It doesn't make it any less surprising to find himself at the other end of the gun, though.

“He's to blame, not me,” he scoffs, meeting those dark eyes – and dread fills him, trying to drown out the hope he'd managed to scrounge together a moment before. “Oh, the link is inside my head. Kill me, the link gets broken, they go back. You never would, you coward,” he says as the hope starts to dissolve into the tumultuous sea of fear and pain and betrayal, at the same time as his vision starts to blur for no reason, because the intensity of the light isn't changing, is it? “Go on then,” he whispers, part of him chanting no in time with the drums, but the part that speaks is the one that breaks under those brown eyes, under that brief almost touch of time feelers—

“Let's see them, just you and me. Every single star in the universe. All that ever was, is, and will be. Together.”

“Do it.”

But the Doctor turns to aim at the Lord President once more, and the almost gone dregs of hope flare in his chest once more.

“Would it stop, then? The noise in my head?”

“I can help.”

“Exactly. It's not just me, it's him. He's the link. Kill him!”

Help me!

“The final act of your life is murder. But which one of us?” the Lord President asks, still calm, still composed, and the drums just keep beating louder and louder—

The Doctor turns once more, all of himself bared and flaring and this is the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness, the Destroyer of Worlds.

This is the being that destroyed Gallifrey and the Daleks while the perfect warrior for a Time War ran away and turned himself human to escape the horrors of it.

What little hope remained vanishes with his last breath.

“Get out of the way.”

“Then let's find it. You and me.”

“A star fell from the sky… The star was a diamond… And the diamond is a White-Point Star.”

The hope hurts more than the fall, blinds him more completely than the flash of the bullet destroying the White-Point Star, and turns the staccato of the drums into its herald, into a roar that he can easily convince himself is the Rage of the Oncoming Storm Unleashed.

“The link is broken. Back into the Time War, Rassilon! Back into Hell!”

Gallifrey is falling. Gallifrey falls.

Ga-lli-frey-falls. Ga-lli-frey-falls.

“You'll die with me, Doctor.”

But that will not happen.

“I know.”

Because it's time the Master finally took control of his destiny, like he intended when he claimed that name all those centuries ago.

“Get out of the way,” the Master whispers, straightening and spreading all of himself as threateningly, as unmovable, as the Doctor did but a moment ago, but not completely, not yet.

He delivers a last caress first, the briefest zap of static from time feeler to time feeler that feels eternal yet ephemeral at the same time, a thankyouloveyouhateyoumissyou that is over almost before it begins.

The Doctor ducks and the Master strikes.

He feels his energy draining, his senses dimming, all but his sight and temporal awareness so that he doesn't lose his target, and lets the drums fuel his rage one last time as he advances towards his revenge and his death.

“You did this to me! All my life! You made me! One! Two! Three!”

Four strikes the gauntlet that the Lord President has managed to lift in a last attempt to protect himself, even though the tendrils that have yet to burn are already overflowing with potential regeneration energy. The backlash of the impact hits the Master so hard that, for a moment, he thinks he's dead.

And then, with a silent gasp and a flash of light, his senses return.

He's surrounded by splintered wood, broken machinery and ripped paper, painfully lodged in a pile of desks and chairs and computers, with only the remnants of the Immortality Gate in front of him.

His head is empty, only the drums whispering in the background, and he can't help but think about young Yana waking up for the first time.

Gallifrey, the Time Lords, everyone is gone. His mind is empty, no more screams, no more hope, no more links.

Only the drums, and the distant sound of someone sobbing, and the flutter of a dying connection—

A dying connection. There's someone left.

Not for long.

He scrambles out of the pile almost madly, ignoring his flickering body, the tiredness and hunger gnawing at his bones and hearts, the blood he leaves behind as he wrenches himself out of splintered wood and bent metal and sharp plastic shards.

There's an old human standing in front of the control chambers, the lights dark and the fans off, his shoulders shaking as he brings a hand up to his mouth to try and quiet his grief.

His meat will be stringy, weak and not too filling, all those years lived draining it of the potential time energy that he could feed on, like a far messier version of a Weeping Angel.

The Master ignores him completely, all his senses focused only on the shivering brown form crumpled on the floor of the closed chamber.

“No,” he whispers, his voice almost too soft for even him to hear.

And then he runs, slams into the glass with a strength that would have shattered it just like that which is covering the middle of the room if it wasn't whatever-its-name-is alien glass. He scrambles madly, almost as if he's forgotten how a door is supposed to open, before his hand curls around the handle and he wrenches it out of the way, falling to his knees so quickly that his body blazes with the impact. He doesn't care, not about the pain or the hunger or the mantra of nononono falling out of his lips in a chocked whisper.

“I don't need him. Any second now, I'll have Time Lords to spare,” he'd said, but it was a lie, a stinky lie, because the Time Lords are gone now, into the time lock, into the Time War, burnt with Gallifrey, but the Master only cares about one.

His hands shake and flicker to blue and bone, but his grip is strong and gentle as he carefully pulls the trembling curled up body into his arms, turning him so he can look down at a face he has seen smile and beg and cry, a face that has been kind and admiring and deadly and unbending, a face that has been young and wrinkly and a thousand years old, a face that has been whole and dirtied and damaged.

A face that is scrunched in agony now, painfully red and covered in cracks of skin peeling off or blistering, the bruise inflamed, and the cuts blackened and with the skin peeling back, as if burned.

“Open up the Nuclear Bolt. Infuse the power lines to maximum.”

His litany of nononono cuts off with a broken sound, mouth gaping soundlessly, as he rests a shaking hand on the reddened and gnarled one fisting a handful of brown hair that may no longer be attached to the skull, the touch featherlight as he softly caresses the Doctor's temple with his thumb.

“I've got you. I've got you,” he whispers, cradling the trembling body closer as tightly as he dares, and tries to ignore the echoes of his words at the back of his mind, spoken by a different voice. “You're not dying. Don't be stupid. Just regenerate.”

“One little bullet. Come on.”

“You've got to. Come on. It can't end like this. You can't just save the whole of creation and die like that. Life is not a bloody fairy tale, you can't play the martyr!” he sobs, rocking on his heels as he curls closer to the too hot body on his lap, which is slowly going limp.

“Axons. Remember the Axons? And the Daleks.”

“We're the only two left. There's no one else. I-I'll do it! I'll come with you, spend the rest of my life in the TARDIS, locked away. I'll do it! Regenerate!” he shouts, begging, but he knows it's no use.

He curls around the body, one arm around the bony back but careful not to press on the spot of red he'd noticed when he'd captured him, so much like a gunshot that the Master had wondered just what it had taken Naismith's goons to keep the Doctor away when they had taken him back at the wasteland. His other hand presses gently against that burnt face, while his time feelers reach for the Doctor's own – and come up empty. They've burnt, shrivelled, died, and in the stumps still clinging to life, the Master feels only the barest remnants of regeneration energy.

Just enough to consume the body upon death, the fine mist of golden dust leaving only ceremonial robes behind.

But there are no ceremonial robes this time, no Matrix of Time, no family to weave the name of the departed into the House History.

Gallifrey burnt, and now, the Doctor will follow.

“You can't die on me, you can't. You promised, you bastard! You said we would fix the drums, together! You said you would help me! You can't die and break your promise, you liar!” he shouts, throat raw and hurting, holding tighter to the rapidly cooling body as his rocking grows more violent—

And freezes when a weak mind caresses his own.

“Theta, please.”

It's like a blanket of coolness washing away pain and worry, numbing any scars and hurts, all-encompassing yet loose enough that he can easily get out of the hug if he so wishes.

He doesn't want to get out, not now, not ever.

The feeling spreads as he tries to return it, as he delivers reassurances and offers what flickers of hope he has left, but the other mind ignores his, moving purposefully, tracking down—

Dun-dun-dun-dun.

—the drums.

“W-What are you—Stop. Stop, Doctor, you're in no shape for—Stop!”

But he doesn't stop, still as stubborn as ever, gliding through his mind sharp and fast as an arrow as he tracks down the origin of the link – and rips it out.

The Master is sure he screams, the agony in his mind is too much not to, but he doesn't hear it, his senses on overdrive and jumbled so much…

His eyes are open. So are the Doctor's.

The lids are droopy, pulled almost halfway up, and the orbs underneath are white and dull, like those river pebbles in that stupid planetoid, where they had laughed—

He stomps the memory down, silencing long lost times that he can't allow to distract him, and realizes his mind is silent. No screams, no drums—

“You did it…” he whispers, and the shadow of a smile flickers through his mind from the exhausted one under his cold fingers – accompanied by the echo of the drums. “You took them. You took the drums,” he realizes, speaking out loud – or, at least, he thinks he does, his mind still reeling from the damage of having the link ripped out of it, struggling to heal when his whole body is collapsing.

Gallifrey falls.

“But not you. You can't. You promised we'd see the stars together. You said you'd help me. You're the Doctor, the man who makes people better. How will I get better without you? You can't go!”

“Koschei…”

The almost voiceless whisper is easily heard even over his ragged breathing, but the name that echoes in the Master's mind is much different, and much truer.

“Theta…” he whimpers, calling a different name as he tightly grasps the mind slipping away from his.

He gets a blurry hint of important and pocket and hurriedly obeys, pulling out a warm key from the inner pocket of the ripped pinstriped jacket.

“The TARDIS…”

A second out of synch, stables, is what he's shown in answer, and his sight blurs so badly that he fears his body is finally breaking down. A moment later he blinks, and his sight clears slightly as warm liquid slips down his cheeks.

A gnarled hand curls weakly around the one he's pressing against the Doctor's temple, and the Master stops breathing.

The next burst of emotion fixes that, as he's forced to take in a large breath after he releases a loud sob and can’t stop.

The weak mind slips some more before clawing onto his, and the Master can't help but cry out at the burning waves of energy rushing into him, wrapping around his fractured edges and filling empty spaces and stitching rips—

He's screaming again, though, this time, he's not sure whether it's in pain or grief.

When the last of the energy settles, too little to regenerate but just enough to mend a resurrection gone wrong and a rip in a mind previously occupied by a drumming beat, the Master finally opens his eyes again.

Blood drips sluggishly from the hand tightly clenched around the key, but the pain from it is nothing compared to the silence in his mind.

No drums, no screams from a Gallifrey at war, and no echo from a dying Time Lord.

The Doctor's body is completely limp in his arms, colder than is healthy even for a Gallifreyan, blind eyes closed, and face relaxed into what could almost be called a smile. No weak and erratic heartsbeat flutters against the arm the Master still has around his back, no minute press of an expanding ribcage against the Master's stomach, no mind brushing against the Master's frantically reaching one.

“Liar… Liar!” the Master screams, curling around the Doctor's lifeless body to bury his face in his still chest.

Theta, cries Koschei's mind, still hoping for an answer that will never come.

Chapter Text

Wilf feels about ready to break down, but only allows himself some tears and sobs.

They saved the world. Donna and Sylvia are safe.

The Doctor is dead.

And the Master, the monster that turned humanity into an image of himself, the one Time Lord the Doctor wouldn't kill, the psychopath the Doctor wanted to save, is curled around the Doctor's body crying loudly, grieving as if he'd lost his whole world, when not even their planet's destruction accomplished that.

The Master has the TARDIS key, like he wanted when he took them prisoner, but he's ignoring it completely, even when he holds onto it so tightly that he bleeds. He's no longer flickering between human and skeleton, probably owing that to the golden glow and the screaming that engulfed them both before the Doctor's body finally slumped, lifeless, in the other Time Lord's arms. He's no longer whimpering in that strange alien language that had brought even more tears to Wilf's eyes despite not understanding a word, after the Doctor finally went still, just sobbing brokenly instead.

And despite looking so alien, so mad before, the Master is so human now…

No, Wilf can't break down yet. Slowly, making sure his footsteps are easily heard over the sounds of a broken man, Wilf approaches them and leans down to rest a hand on the Master's shoulder.

The Doctor called him Koschei with his last breath, just like the Master kept calling him Theta, but Wilf only knows that whenever they introduced themselves, they did so with their titles, so he considers his words carefully before he opens his mouth.

“Lad?” he calls softly, fumbling for his next words.

How are you? Are you alright? None of them are right, not now, and maybe not for a long time. Wilf's hurt, grieving, heartbroken, because the Doctor had been great, amazing, so good for Donna, and saved the world so many times… But the Doctor and the Master had known each other for most of their lives, maybe for all of them, and, regardless of what their relationship had twisted into, they never stopped caring for each other.

“Why are you still here?” the Master's broken voice asks as he slowly uncurls, his shoulder twitching under Wilf's hand as if he wants to shrug it off.

Wilf takes the hint and moves back, breaking the contact.

“Where would I go?” he finally settles for, no matter how much he wants to offer support or reassurances instead.

This is the Master, after all, but more important, this is a broken and grieving man. And Wilf is more into the habit of hugging that kind of people instead of lying to them. The Master won't accept a hug, but he seems like the kind of man that would take a lie even worse.

After all, the Doctor was like that too.

Wilf can't keep a sob back at the thought but manages to silence the next. The Master shudders with a tremulous breath, and Wilf is about to apologize and leave the room when the Master hugs the Doctor closer – and stands.

If not for the reddened and blistered hand that falls off the Doctor's lap, Wilf would think he's merely unconscious, held bridal style in the Master's arms with his face hidden against the Master's neck.

The Master himself looks horrible, cheeks and eyes red and tear-stained, so heartbroken and alone that Wilf must really fight not to hug him as tightly as he can.

He's a genocidal alien psychopath who took over the Earth and tried to kill Donna not a day ago. It seems almost impossible that he needs to consciously remind himself about that now, but…

“You did it… You took them. You took the drums.”

“You are diseased, albeit a disease of our own making.”

“Would it stop, then? The noise in my head?”

“I can help.”

The Master walks past Wilf without even a glance, carrying the Doctor's body as if it weighted nothing. Wilf hesitates for a moment, but finally follows in silence, regardless of how much he wants to ask about where they're going.

The answer becomes obvious not much later, when they enter the stables – and find the TARDIS.

She looks old and broken, paint peeled and scratched, wood chipped and cracked. None of the window glass is missing, but some panes are broken, looking as if they would fall in pieces at the softest touch. The Master doesn't hesitate in his approach, but Wilf stops, surprised and worried. What could damage the magnificent time ship thus?

More surprising still is the fact that the doors seem to open of their own accord as soon as the Master is close enough, sparing him the awkward manoeuvring that would have resulted if he'd tried to use the key without putting the Doctor down. And Wilf is sure he wouldn't have put him down, not with the way he's holding onto him, as if he would disappear as soon as the Master let go.

When the doors don't close behind the Master's back, Wilf ventures inside.

The room is dim and as broken as the outside, with cables hanging lifelessly from the ceiling, panels cracked or fallen, a couple of pillars crumbled on the ground, and a smell too much like decay and still air covering everything. It's as if a bomb had gone off years ago, and no one had bothered to come in since.

“What happened here?” Wilf asks in a whisper, looking aghast at all the damage, the controls sputtering for just long enough to make him realize they look like someone took a hammer to them – a large hammer with the intent to harm, not the tiny one used for flight.

“A TARDIS bonds with her Time Lords. When the Doctor—” the Master answers softly, freezing as he cuts himself.

“But she's still alive, isn't she?” Wilf asks tentatively, gesturing towards the dim lights and the intact and softly glowing column thingy in the middle of the controls, even though the Master has his back to him.

“She is,” he answers simply, walking down the corridor to the body of the ship.

This time, Wilf doesn't follow, deciding to close the door and start shuffling debris off and away from the controls to try and distract himself.

Not long after, he leans against an intact spot with no live wires, covers his face with his hands, and weeps.

Wilf has yet to move by the time the Master comes back, but at least he's not crying anymore. The Time Lord has changed into a high-collared black jumper and black trousers, with a short black coat over it. There's no evidence of tears on his face anymore, not even red eyes, though his gaze holds an emptiness that speaks louder than words. He has the TARDIS key in one hand and the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in the other, but Wilf stays silent, just watching as he steps up to the screen and looks over all the post-it notes covered with circular glyphs. With a tremulous breath, he reaches for a paper taped to one corner, stained but still 'legible', and covered with different circles. The moment the paper touches the key in his hands, the metal starts to glow a soft gold.

The Master stares at it for a moment, head tilted almost as if listening, and Wilf holds his breath. When he finally looks up at the column, the lights grow brighter, and the soft humming of machinery starts all around them.

“Where do you live?” the Master asks, startling Wilf into looking at him instead of around the broken but now functional ship, just in time to see him carefully fold the paper and put it, alongside the now inert key, in an inner pocket of his coat.

Surprised by the question, Wilf finds himself answering before he can think better of it.

“But you can't go there! If Donna sees the TARDIS, or anything that makes her remember the Doctor, she'll die!” he stammers when he realizes what he's done.

“I don't plan to get that close,” the Master answers blankly, not even looking at Wilf as he moves around the controls, fiddling with wires and putting things in place before tweaking knobs and dials and pulling levers, far more calmly than the Doctor did.

Then again, the Doctor was in a hurry before, trying to track down this very man.

The flight is brief but shaky, and Wilf isn't sure if it's because of the state of the TARDIS or her new pilot. When they land, though, Wilf hesitates. The Master is still leaning over the controls, staring down at the console.

It may never be the right time, but this is the only time, so Wilf asks.

“What's going to happen with the Doctor?”

The Master tenses, hands curling into fists, but doesn't look up.

“He'll have a proper Gallifreyan funeral,” he answers simply, voice almost blank, and that gives Wilf the courage to ask his second question.

“And you? What's going to happen with you?”

The Master finally looks up, and Wilf sees grief, pain, loss and hopelessness in his eyes.

Instead of answering, he straightens and turns his back to Wilf, folding his hands behind his back but under the coat, probably to hide the trembling that's already affecting his shoulders.

Wilf moves to the door, steps into the sunny and undamaged street where joyful people are talking animatedly, completely ignoring the battered blue box that has just appeared in the shadow of a tree, but he stops before closing the door behind him.

The Master is still with his back to the door, but his trembling is obvious now and his head is bowed, his face hidden behind his hands.

“He wouldn't have wanted you to suffer,” he calls, loud enough for the Master to hear but not to catch the attention of the people in the street, and almost chickens out of the rest when the Time Lord stills. “I offered him my gun, to kill you, to protect himself. He didn't take it. Not until he heard about the diamond,” he explains, softer now, as he gathers courage for the rest. “Take care of yourself. And if you ever need someone to talk to, or at, or just shout, come find me, alright?”

Wilf doesn't wait for an answer, feeling like he has already pushed his luck enough, and finally closes the door.

Sylvia rushes out of the house to meet him with relief that soon turns to worry when she sees his face.

“Dad! Oh my God, are you hurt? What happened? Everyone’s faces and-and the huge planet that appeared out of nowhere, the Doctor sent it away, right? Are we safe?”

Wilf pulls his daughter into a hug and feels tears slip down his cheeks once more.

“He's gone, Sylvia. The Doctor is dead,” he tells her, sobbing into her shoulder, and her grip tightens in surprise.

“But—”

Sylvia's question is cut with the rumble of the TARDIS disappearing, and when Wilf pulls back and looks at the corner, there's nothing there anymore.

They bicker when they meet up again, it’s inevitable. Mickey grew into himself in an alternate universe, hunting Cybermen and wearing the face of the dead rebel leader. Ricky had been serious, no-nonsense, and good with guns. Mickey was focused and good with computers and decided to use his wit to make a difference. If he could quip while in the line of fire—like the Doctor, though he doesn’t say that out loud—then he was already better than Ricky. Eventually, his marksmanship improved too, and here he is.

Martha learnt from the Doctor as well, and walking the Earth, and to inspire hope, she had to have hope herself. And what better way to show it than acting so calm, so composed, so cheerful? Everything would be alright, the Doctor would fix everything, what other reasons did anyone need to be happy? She had left hope and joy after her, anywhere she went, almost as much as she had left Toclafane and death and destruction. But the Doctor had fixed it, and so Martha keeps smiling.

It helps that her actual partner knows about the universe and time travel as much as she does. There are no secrets between Martha Jones and Mickey Smith, and that’s why they are the best UNIT has to offer. That’s why they are here, to investigate potential alien activity, and that’s why they have managed to find the abandoned warehouse district where some Sontarans have decided to set up a cloning facility for their war. It's nothing on the scale of poisoning the whole Earth, but they can easily build their forces here and eliminate the resistance once their numbers are high enough. A barren Earth works for them, after all, even after the Doctor made it clear that they are not allowed here.

“This is no place for a married woman,” Mickey nags, as usual, and Martha throws him a grin.

“This is no place for a family man,” she retorts, earning herself an annoyed glare.

Martha has Tom, true, but Mickey is sponsoring a grand total of one orphanage, as he spends so much time in UNIT headquarters or out on missions that he has no need for a flat nor anything to spend money in – though Martha is starting to suspect there’s something between him and that new cadet, Jake, judging by the huge and delighted expression that crossed Mickey’s face when they first met.

So, there they are, joking and poking fun at each other one moment, and planning an ambush the next.

And then, an unconscious Sontaran lands at their feet.

Both look up with their hands on their weapons, startled at having someone approach them so stealthily, more so when carrying or dragging the dead weight of a fully armoured knocked out Sontaran. For all their jokes about them being dumplings or potatoes, Sontarans are heavy.

Mickey frowns, confused and wary, but Martha freezes.

His hair is blond and slightly longer than she remembers, there’s stubble on his face, and he’s wearing a black high-collared jumper, black trousers, black boots, and a short black coat. But despite all the changes, his face is the same that still haunts her nightmares.

“It can’t be,” Martha whispers, the hand on her gun trembling, and sees Mickey give her a quick look from the corner of her eye. “It can’t be you, you’re dead. I watched you die!”

The newcomer doesn’t react to the accusation, keeping his expression serious, and when his eyes meet hers, she shivers.

Martha would say his eyes are empty, but that would be a lie. There's something there, something dark and threatening that is aimed nowhere near her or Mickey or the Sontaran, but that terrifies her all the same—

And Martha finally gasps, knowing where she’s seen such an expression before.

After all, the Doctor’s eyes had looked just like this after he’d returned from cremating this very same man.

“This one was over there, aiming at you,” he says instead of answering to her previous words, gesturing at the unconscious Sontaran and the catwalk behind him with a mallet that looks too much like the one the Doctor keeps on the TARDIS’ controls to be a coincidence. “There are three more in the corridor, knocked out and restrained with stasis cuffs. I'd offer you some more, but those are the only ones I found,” he explains with a nonchalant shrug, though the expression on his face doesn’t change.

“Who are you? Why did you do that?” Mickey asks, taking the lead since Martha is still frozen in place, fighting her own memories of the Year That Never Was and trying to come to terms with his presence here.

“He had a list. People to say goodbye to. Your names, this place, the time five minutes ago…” he answers instead, drawing a little circle with the mallet once more before dropping the nonchalant tone from his voice. “A tiny message. ‘Help Mickey and Martha’. So, I did. You can take care of the rest.”

He turns around without another word, walking back towards the stairs he must have come down from, and Martha finally springs to her feet, clutching the gun tightly but keeping it firmly pointing at the ground.

Her heart skips a beat and starts pumping faster as she feels her blood run cold.

“What happened to him? Why did you come?” she calls, but he just keeps walking, as if he doesn’t hear her. “What happened to the Doctor?! Master! What happened to the Doctor?!” she shouts, tears falling down her face, because she already knows.

Mickey helps her sit down, asking her what’s going on, but through blurry eyes, all Martha can do is stare at the Master’s back as he vanishes down the second-floor corridor.

A moment or an eternity later, they hear the TARDIS dematerialize, and Mickey’s supportive grip turns into a trembling hug as he finally realizes what Martha did.

“He had a list. People to say goodbye to.”

Martha buries her face in Mickey’s shoulder and cries.

Luke still doesn’t know what happened, but last Christmas was mad. All Christmases have been insane since 2006, from mind-controlled people threatening to jump off buildings, to the star-shaped alien ship and the one that looked like the Titanic. Luke won’t say it out loud, for fear of his mom telling him he’s jinxing them, but those Christmases were cool.

Last Christmas though? The last one was just plain mad. First, everyone suddenly remembers the face of a laughing man whom they had been dreaming about for a while but forgotten until then, and then they become the man! Luke’s memories after looking around to see people with a different face are so blurry that he can’t even remember anymore, just some flashes of anticipation and dread before everyone went back to themselves again.

But as if that wasn’t bad enough, then a planet pops out of nowhere, threatening to push the Earth out of orbit. It was almost like when the Earth was transported to the Medusa Cascade, only the other way around, with the mysterious planet being brought to Earth instead. Such a huge world, red as if on fire, suddenly appearing in the sky… Not everyone on Earth saw it, what with the world being round, but luckily, it and the tremors were easily explained by the same 'Wi-Fi driving people mad' story Mr. Smith spun to explain the different faces. And since any damage vanished with the planet, it looks like aliens will remain a mystery one more day.

He's telling the short version of the events to Clyde, who's away on holiday, when he's suddenly dragged off the street while a car rushes past with a honk.

“Whoa! What—Oh my God, you're the guy with the face,” Luke exclaims, throat going dry when he meets his saviour's eyes.

The same eyes he saw on everyone for one fleeting moment back on Christmas, before a fiery planet shadowed the Earth.

Face-guy gives him a Look that is more than half disgusted, but Luke doesn't know what to make of the tangle of aimless darkness lurking behind the expression.

“Humanity, the universe's most adaptable race. Of course I have a face, you stupid ape, every sentient being on this ridiculous planet has one,” he scoffs, stepping away from Luke as if 'stupidity' could be catching. “And what were you thinking, crossing the road without checking for cars first? Were you thinking at all?” he questions almost as sharply as Mom when she knows she won't like the answer, and he doesn't even wait for Luke to put himself together before straightening with another disgusted huff. “What am I saying? Of course you weren't.”

“Dude, no need to be rude,” Luke protests, pressing his phone protectively against his thigh despite Face-guy not having even looked at it. “Who are you anyway?”

Face-guy bows his head to deliver a freezing glare, and Luke finally notices the locks of blond hair under the hood of his black coat. The nightmare-face had dark hair and a clean-shaven face, he remembers now, but the face-face was just like this one, blond and with stubble. Despite the differences, they were still the same.

“Are you an alien?” he adds before Face-guy can answer, trying to remember what kind of humanoid alien would be powerful enough to— “Oh shit, you're Prime Minister Saxon.”

The official story is that Prime Minister Harold Saxon created the 'Toclafane' inspired by the growing rumours about aliens in later years, and used the robots to kill United States President Winters before the guards could shoot the Toclafane out of the air. Saxon had gone mad and ended up interned in a high security psychiatric ward somewhere undisclosed.

According to Mom and Mr. Smith, he was an alien who had used the Archangel Network to manipulate people into voting for him so he could take control of the Earth, though, fortunately, he'd been stopped before his Toclafane could do any more harm.

They still don't know what Mister Saxon is supposed to be, but Mom seems to have ideas, judging by how serious she gets the few times Luke dares to ask, and how she always tells him to let it go. Saxon is gone and will cause no trouble anymore.

Only, well, he obviously is neither as gone as they thought nor any less of a would-be conqueror, judging by last Christmas.

… And then, he goes and gets Luke off the path of a car rushing down the street.

“I don't go by that anymore,” Saxon scoffs, as if insulted, before turning serious. “Look, I don't care how bloody important that phone call is, you look before crossing the street, you hear me? Both sides, twice, and only if there are no cars do you cross. Capisce?”

“Yes, Sir,” Luke answers quickly, unnerved about this conversation with Mister I’m-not-Face-guy-and-I-don't-go-by-Saxon-anymore.

Why is a wannabe world ruler lecturing him about the dangers of crossing the road? Why him?

“Luke? Oh, there you are! I forgot to—” Mom calls, trotting out of the house, and freezing as soon as she sees who Luke is talking to. “What do you want? Get away from him!” she orders, approaching them quickly as she takes her sonic lipstick out of a pocket.

Not-Saxon takes a step back with his hands held up in the 'I'm unarmed' sign, his lips twitching with what looks like amusement and maybe even fondness, but the whatever-it-is in his eyes doesn't change.

Luke quickly moves to be at Mom's side when she reaches them, and lets himself be pushed slightly behind her, resting a hand on her shoulder with a soft I'm fine.

“Sarah Jane Smith. You haven't changed at all,” not-Saxon hums, hands still up, as he takes yet another slow step back, movements choreographed despite not sparing the sonic lipstick even the quickest of glances, like he already knows what it is and is just humouring them.

“Who are you? What do you want?” Mom asks once more, serious and steely, and not-Saxon's slight smile finally vanishes, replaced once more by seriousness.

And still… Is it just Luke or does not-Saxon look almost sad?

“He had a list. Places, times, people… and messages. 'Make sure Luke is alright'. You should teach the brat to look for cars before crossing the street, by the way. You won't always have a—” he tells them, starting to scowl before he cuts himself with a chocked sound, eyes flashing with a spike of what is clearly grief.

Mom's hand starts to shake, the lipstick slowly lowering almost against her will, and Luke can feel her trembling under the hand he keeps on her shoulder.

“There was another one. 'She will never be forgotten'. I don't know what he had planned, he probably didn't even know himself, improv clown that he was, but… That's all I can do. And even if none of you primitives ever thought I was telling the truth – totally undeserving that once, you know – I'm sure you knew him well enough to believe he would write that. That he wouldn't do it. He could never forget you, Sarah Jane Smith. And if you don't trust me, then that's more than answer enough, isn't it? Why would I come here to tell you that, to tell a pathetic little human that she was special enough to be remembered with such fondness after so many centuries?”

“No…” Mom sobs, covering her lower face with her hands as tears start falling, and Luke quickly engulfs her in a hug, freaking out of his mind.

“Mom! Mom, what's going on? What's he talking about?” he asks, shaking her softly before looking over his shoulder—

Saxon is not there anymore, instead making his way down the street with his hands in his pockets, calmly, as if he hadn't left a sobbing woman behind with just some vague words—

Luke's breath leaves his lungs with a loud gasp, like someone just punched him right in the solar plexus.

A blue police box, battered and with paint stripped off, waits for Saxon half hidden between two trees. A blue police box that most definitely wasn't there before, any other before.

The TARDIS.

But this man, this Saxon, he can't be the Doctor! The Doctor wouldn't speak like that to Mom, not even if he'd regenerated into a-a shithead this time, because the Doctor—

The Doctor travelled with Mom. They share memories, experiences, knowledge. But Saxon spoke like he didn't, even if he clearly knows Mom from before, maybe from when she travelled with the Doctor.

And yet, he steps up to the TARDIS and opens the door with a key he pulls out of his pocket, turning for a moment to meet Luke's wide eyes and Mom's tear-stained ones.

“Wait…” Mom sobs, pulling her hands away as she takes a step towards the TARDIS, but just that one step. “Master, wait… Is the Doctor really…”

Standing in the threshold, Saxon—'Master' is a title, just like 'Doctor', are they related in any way?—smiles softly at them, the expression holding no mirth, only pain and grief, before disappearing inside, the door closing after him.

A moment later, the TARDIS dematerializes with her characteristic whoosh, and if it sounds more muted than usual, Luke doesn't care, too busy hugging Mom as she breaks down crying while trying not to cry himself.

The Boeshane Peninsula. The Time Agency. The TARDIS. The Hub.

Friends, family, partners, John, the Doctor and Rose, Estelle, Lucia, Suzie and Owen and Tosh, Gray, Alice and Steven, Gwen and-and Ianto.

Everything, everyone. Eventually, Jack loses them all, whether to enemies or to time.

Time. Bloody time.

Immortality is a curse, not the blessing people believe it to be. If Jack hadn't known before, he has learned it by now, the hard way.

And it won't stop at this.

He stares into his drink, for once ignoring his surroundings, the other bar patrons, everything but his swirling dark thoughts.

Loss is inevitable. No wonder the Doctor runs all the time. He might not be immortal, but he's long-lived enough to see his companions grow old and die many times over. That's why he brought Sarah Jane back, why he left Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Steward and Jo Grant and all the others, regardless of whatever excuses he gave them. Jack knows, because that's what he would do.

… He could really use the Doctor now. To rant, to blame him for not being there, to beg him for a ray of light, for some hope down the line, for a hug, dammit all. A hug, that's all he asks for. Not a kiss, not a shag, not an adventure. Just a hug, from a man who understands him, from someone who can hold him tight and speak words that are true and sincere, because he has lost it all too.

It's not fair, that he wants to use the Doctor thus, but the bloody universe is not fair either.

Jack just wants a hug.

Someone sits by his side. His Time Agency-given and experience-honed instincts immediately latch onto the fact he's humanoid, and how that means he’s alien because humans haven't left Earth yet at this time, but immediately disregards his presence when he slumps in his booth.

Looks like Jack isn't the only one who could use a hug.

A small part of his mind points out Jack can help with that, and that the cute stranger can help Jack in turn, but the bigger part remembers Ianto and notices the stranger's ears and immediately pulls up the image of a man in a leather jacket and an ear-to-ear grin.

If he wasn't as well-trained as he is, Jack would have flinched. Emotional as he is now, though, he can't help but react by turning to the other direction – and finally flinches.

This time, though, it isn't because of the man in the booth at his left side, but because of the one who has just appeared at his right.

Jack stares up at him, eyes wide and frozen in place, and so the newcomer claims the booth next to his before his brain can do more than notice the blond hair and the stubble on his chin and realize what that means.

“Hello, Frea—Captain,” he salutes nonchalantly, quickly correcting himself, and that does it for Jack.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he growls lowly, reaching for a gun that isn't there because they're not allowed in this establishment, and he really wanted a drink.

Is that it? Is he drunk out of his mind already and hallucinating everything? Could it be that simple?

“I don't really know, actually,” the newcomer answers, asking for a drink by catching the bartender’s attention with a wave and pointing at Jack’s glass. “You know how he was, hardly made sense half of the time. Part of me wants to drink until I can't remember my name anymore, but I'm pretty sure that's not what he had in mind.”

Jack's hands are shaking, eyes wide once more, and there's a cold something gripping his chest so tightly that he can only take in quick shallow breaths.

He can't be saying…

“What have you done to him… What have you done to the Doctor?” he hisses, anger melting the ice in his lungs, hands gripping the counter so tightly that he almost hears the metal groan in his grip.

“You know the Doctor?” a voice at Jack's back asks, hopeful and surprised, and he swivels around to see the humanoid, the one with the ears, staring up at him.

“You know the Doctor?” he repeats, startled, before a huff reminds him why they are having this conversation in the first place.

“Oh, so that is what he had planned! I would've sent an anonymous message if only I'd known, a note or something. Maybe I could have ordered him a drink in your name, that always seems to work.”

“What the Hell are you babbling about, Master?” Jack snarls, bristling, as he turns once more to the blond man by his side, who is staring into the bottom of his glass with a humourless smile.

“He left a list, with names and places and times, and some tiny messages. 'Cheer Jack up', yours said. I was starting to think I would have to offer you to kill me to accomplish that but turns out he'd planned for it already. He knew you'd find someone to do that for him. He just needed to get the two of you acquainted,” he explains nonchalantly, but his smile quivers and his eyes fill with grief.

Jack's heart skips a beat, and his breath catches in his throat.

“Who are you? And why are you talking about the Doctor like he's…?” Ears-boy asks, voice trailing off tremulously, as Jack tries to break free of his paralysis.

The Master's smile finally vanishes, and without hesitation, he downs his shot and stands up, dropping some credits next to his empty glass.

And then, he looks at them.

Jack lets out all the air in his lungs in an explosive gasp, and almost chokes on his next inhale. His eyes feel hot, prickly, but he doesn't blink. His shaking hands clench once more around the counter, but it doesn't stop his tremors this time. A warm and equally shaky hand curls around his forearm, seeking comfort as much as giving it, and Jack's drops on top of it before he can even think about doing so.

The Master gives them a mirthless smile as watery as his grieving eyes and disappears in the crowd.

Jack finally breathes again, and if it sounds like a sob, his companion doesn't mention it as he rests his forehead on his shoulder.

Verity smiles up at the man, repeating how no, her book is not fantasy, it's based on a true story, on the journal her great-grandmother kept about the man she fell in love with in 1913. She knows just how impossible it sounds, what with John Smith the Teacher being an alien, a 'man from the stars', as her great-grandmother had put it, and for a long time, Verity had thought just like this man. But now, after aliens and invasions and planets and strange stars filling the skies, Verity looks at her great-grandmother's journal with different eyes.

There's still a lot of scepticism going around, and a lot of conspiracy theories about chemicals in the water supply or Wi-Fi microwaves making people hallucinate the weird events… But Verity was on a rooftop, that Christmas years ago, saw what she believed to be her grandmother's ghost turn into a metal man, and witnessed her neighbour being killed by a floating peppershaker screaming 'exterminate' with a robotic voice.

So, no, Verity doesn't think her great-grandmother was just highly imaginative anymore. After that first alien Christmas, she went up to the attic and retrieved her great-grandmother's journal, alongside the one that had belonged to 'John Smith', and read them more attentively than when she'd been a little girl looking for adventures and romance. Bit by bit, in her free times, she had put up a timeline, started transcribing the texts and organizing them into one single document, and before she'd realized it, she'd found herself with an actual book in her hands.

Verity had read it to her fiancée, and Judith had encouraged her to get it to her editor, who, in turn, had given her a contract and started talking numbers.

And here Verity is, signing copies of A Journal of Impossible Things by Verity Newman: Based on the Diaries of Joan Redfern.

The bookshop is relatively small and not too busy, being the middle of a Wednesday morning, but that's fine for Verity. With all the 'alien' happenings, books like her own have become a sensation lately, so it's to be expected that her own will take a while to be noticed – or that it will never be one of the big names. And that's fine too, because no matter how proud she is to be finally able to tell her great-grandmother's tale, it still feels much like a family tale, like another story shared in family, sitting around the hearth on a Christmas evening.

A new book is carefully put in front of her, and Verity smiles, as much to herself as to the new customer, and opens it to sign the first page.

“And who's it for?” she asks, taking her pen back in hand after she put it down talking with the last customer.

“The Doctor,” a man's voice answers in a voice barely above a whisper, and the name startles her into looking up almost as much as does the pained tone.

The man in front of her desk is smartly dressed all in black, with his short blond hair and stubble contrasting sharply with it. He's wearing sunglasses as well, but he takes them off to meet her eyes.

Verity's first thought is that he needs a hug, badly, and a shoulder to cry on. The second is that she has seen that face somewhere before, but the memory slips through her fingers like a dream. The third is oh God, he looks just like Harold Saxon.

And then, he looks down at the book and Verity remembers his words.

The Doctor.

“That's the name he used,” she whispers, clenching her pen but not moving an inch, and he smiles sadly down at the open book under her hand.

She doesn't need more than that to realize just what is going on, remembering when she saw that same expression on the mirror after her brother died in a car accident.

And still, he meets her eyes again and opens his mouth.

“He left a list of people he wanted to check on,” he tells her simply, voice almost nonchalant but eyes sad, before looking down at the book once more. “Was she happy in the end?”

Verity doesn't answer at first, just breathing calmly. Then, when her brain has finally rebooted, she turns to the book and carefully starts writing, smaller than any other dedication she has written before.

“Yes. Yes, she was,” she finally tells him when she's done, looking up to meet his eyes again. “Was he?”

His lower lip trembles but after taking a deep breath in through the nose, he manages a sad but sincere smile and a nod.

Verity gives him a small smile of her own, and realizes she was wrong. That is not the same expression as when her brother died, but the one after Judith and her broke up seemingly forever.

That is why she opens her mouth again, smile and voice far softer than before.

“Will you be?”

He looks surprised for a moment, before his face crumbles into loss and grief. Verity wants to get up and hug him, and not let him go until a million years later. For a moment, she even entertains the thought of dragging him home to swaddle him in blankets on the couch while Judith prepares her miraculous veggie soup.

Before she can react, though, he takes a hitching breath and meets her eyes again with tears and sadness, but also with a hint of amusement managing to shine through.

And she smiles and knows. He won't be alright, not for a long time, but he'll try, because that's what the Doctor would have wanted.

So, Verity puts her pen back to the page once more.

“What did he call you?” she asks, knowing better from her great-grandmother's accounts than to ask for his name.

He looks startled once more, but this time, there's curiosity in his eyes rather than sadness.

It takes him a while to answer, gaze lost in the middle distance, but the couple waiting in the queue behind him are distracted talking with the young woman after them, so no one protests.

When he finally answers, it's so softly that if Verity wasn't used to her mother's quiet voice, she would've asked him to repeat himself. And he doesn't look like the kind of man who would repeat himself, especially not about this.

So, she writes that single word down as best as she can, hoping she doesn't spell it wrong, closes the book carefully and hands it to him like one would a unique glass ornament.

He takes it with the same care, turns it around and opens it. His breath catches in his throat, and he looks at her with startled wide eyes.

Verity smiles.

His next smile is just the tiniest bit lighter, and so Verity lets him go without another word, hoping that, like the Doctor, he will learn to forgive himself and find his happy ending too someday.

Sylvia Noble can feel the tears in her eyes when Donna and Shaun duck under the spray of petals and the loud cheers, her cheeks hurting with her smile. Next to her, Dad claps just as loudly as everyone else before rushing to the newlyweds to give them effusive kisses and hugs and non-stop chatter.

Her Donna, her baby girl, has finally found her happily ever after.

Sylvia breathes in the fresh air outside the church and gives a silent thanks to whoever may be listening. The last time she had thought as much, Donna had vanished in a flash of gold, only to return with a nameless man and rush off to get her liar of a would-be husband killed when saving the Earth from a race of man-eating spiders, or something of the like.

Of course, it had taken a while for Sylvia to learn about that, and more to believe it, but it doesn't change the fact that she's glad nothing like that had happened this time. Shaun Temple is good for Donna, the best she could have asked for, not only because he loves her, but also because he knows when to let her talk about her mad 'dreams', and when to hug her when she gets lost in nostalgia for something she can't explain.

In a different universe, Sylvia would hold onto the hope that one day she would see a blue box appear out of nowhere to let a grinning alien out with some kind of 'miracle cure' that would make Donna's sad frowns disappear at last.

But after hugging her dad in the middle of the street last Christmas once the chaos was over, holding onto him as he cried like he hadn't done since Mom's death, Sylvia doesn't hope anymore.

There will be no alien, no 'cure', no blue box—

Only, there is.

A blue box, as battered as the last time she saw it, and almost completely hidden behind the wall enclosing the church, with an alien standing under the arch of the pathway.

He's not the alien she remembers, but she knows he is the alien, the one Dad told her about.

So, as soon as he has left Donna’s side when they start with the pictures, Sylvia calls for her dad, never looking away from the alien. All in black and with that look on his face, it looks like he's in a funeral rather than a wedding, and Sylvia remembers that the police box travels both in space and time.

How long has it been for him?

Wilfred Mott sucks in a startled breath when he finally sees the alien, and unnoticed by Donna in her excitement, both walk down the path to meet him.

“You're here… I thought—” Dad whispers, though he cuts himself as soon as he realizes what he was about to say.

“Yeah, well. Places to be, things to do, presents to give,” he answers almost nonchalantly, rolling his shoulders in a shrug as he takes a yellow envelope out of an inner pocket of his cloak. “He left a list with times and places and people, messages to deliver. He didn't keep any money, though, the bastard, and I didn't have any. Got lucky, met a good man who lent me some. Geoffrey Noble, he said his name was. I thought this is what he intended all along, so…” he explains, trailing off with another shrug and eyes on the ground, and Sylvia feels Dad's arm wrap around her shoulders even as he reaches for the envelope.

Geoffrey. Oh God, she misses him so much… He would have been so proud of their little girl…

They stay silent for a moment as they absorb the situation, and finally, Sylvia straightens, having successfully managed to keep her tears at bay.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. You didn't need to do this, but you did it anyway. So, thank you, Master,” she tells him, sincere, and stops herself before she can think squeezing his arm is a good idea.

He flinches at the name, though, and Sylvia finds herself doing just that. He tenses under her hand, but it doesn't disguise his shivering. When Dad reaches for him, however, he finally steps back, breaking Sylvia's weak hold.

“I… I don't go by that anymore. And he left the list, he had always planned to – to do this. After everything I did…”

This is the least I could do, Sylvia hears when he trails off, with as much guilt and pain as the rest of his words, and she feels herself frown in helplessness.

This is the bastard who played them like a fiddle, masquerading as Harold Saxon, to conquer the Earth. He almost accomplished it when his blond self somehow managed to turn everyone on Earth into himself, and tried to kill Donna when she didn't change.

But after Dad had calmed down and Donna and Shaun retired to her old bedroom that mad Christmas day, he had told her the full story.

This man is a murderer, yes, but so was the Doctor, and both were victims of their messed-up society, where children were forced to face insanity at the tender age of eight. The Doctor had destroyed his world to prevent his race from destroying everything. The Master had tried to conquer humanity because he'd been manipulated like a puppet his whole life, so he would bring their leaders back when the war that ended them became too much. None of that excused the horrible actions they had taken during their long lives, most of which neither Wilf nor Sylvia would ever know about, but it explained a lot.

And in the end, even though he'd been mostly motivated by revenge, the Master had saved the Doctor, despite the fact it would have cost him his life… And the Doctor had saved the Master with the last of his.

Here and now, with an envelope containing a wedding present from Geoffrey at the behest of a dead man, and looking so broken and grieving, Sylvia is willing to do as her dad did on that fateful Christmas day, and forgive this dangerous alien, give him a blank slate to work with.

And all that starts with a name, which means that, by refusing the title of 'Master', he's already on the right path, in Sylvia's opinion.

“What would you like to be called then?” she asks him softly, calmly, supportive, as she pulls up her best ‘Mommy is here’ voice.

He doesn't glare at her for that, or scoff that he's centuries older than her or something along those lines. Instead, he stares at his boots, hands in his pockets and shoulders slumped.

“When we were kids… He called me Koschei,” he finally whispers, almost too softly to catch, and Sylvia shares a smile with her dad.

“That's a good name, lad. I'm sure he'd be proud,” Dad tells him, hesitating for a moment before patting his shoulder.

“The Naismiths were arrested for crimes undisclosed, and the government locked the mansion down as evidence. They won't get out anytime soon, and no one will get in there in some years, at the very least,” she adds, changing the subject with her satisfied tone of voice, and he looks up with eyes ablaze and a cutting mix of smirk and snarl.

“Good,” he growls, and despite the way his dark voice makes her shiver, Sylvia smiles and nods.

He calms down with a deep breath before he meets their eyes again, nods solemnly, and takes a step back, further under the arch and closer to the blue box.

“Take care of yourself, Koschei,” Sylvia whispers as she takes Dad's hand.

“You will always be welcome if you want to visit, lad,” Dad adds, and after a nod, they return to the party.

When Donna opens the envelope and complains about how cheap someone must be to gift her a lottery ticket, Sylvia looks back at the empty arch with a soundless 'thank you'.

It's New Year, and that is the only reason Rose is not actually angry with her mum. She was supposed to be at Mickey's ages ago, but Mum's current boyfriend hadn't shown up, using cheap mechanic excuses. Rose knows she has no right to complain about mechanics, since Mickey is one, but that doesn't stop her.

“Get rid of him, Mum. He's useless.”

“Listen to you, with a mechanic,” Jackie chastises like Rose expected, though her smile turns sad after that. “Be fair, though. My time of life I'm not going to do much better.”

“Don't be like that,” Rose tells her, feeling her good mood and mischievousness slip away, but quickly pulling up a reassuring and loving smile as she rubs Mum's shoulder. “You never know. There could be someone out there.”

“Maybe, one day,” Mum concedes with far less hope than Rose, but she still gives her a tight and warm hug. “Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year!” she answers in kind, before they split up to go to their respective parties. “Don't stay out all night.”

“Try and stop me.”

Rose chuckles under her breath and puts her hands in her pockets, eyes fixed on the door to Mickey's building.

Snow covers the ground, and while there's music all around from the flats overhead, the estate is so empty that it's almost magical.

That is probably the only reason Rose catches the soft murmur at her back, though she doesn't understand the words, and turns around.

In the entrance of the alley, in a shadow cast by the lamp on the corner, there's a man hunched forward, face hidden behind a hand while his shoulders shake with soft sobs.

“You all right, mate?” Rose calls before she can stop herself, turning around and stepping closer to him.

She can't make out his face due to the shadow he's in, but she knows from the tension in his body that he's startled, and she could almost swear that his eyes are shining with unshed tears. Probably a trick of the light, but still.

“Huh? Ah, yeah. Yes, I'm alright,” he manages to stutter, but his voice is so raspy and full of tears that Rose takes a couple of steps closer, disregarding the passing thought that this all might be a trick to do something to her.

The poor bloke is clearly upset, and she knows he's sincere. And there's no way she's going to leave a man to cry alone in the shadow of an alley in New Year's, or any other day.

“My boyfriend lives just over there. I was going to his party. You can come with me, even if you don't want to party. Get a nice warm cuppa, something to eat. I'm sure I can convince him to leave you alone in the room if you want to,” she offers, already thinking of the right balance of stern and puppy eyes to convince Mickey to accept her guest.

“No! No, no, that's—Ahem. What I mean is, thank you, but I have somewhere to be, I-I can't leave her alone,” he tells her after some stumbling and mad hand waving, finally settling back against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders pulled up.

Rose still can't make out his face, too far away and too dark in his corner, but she's pretty sure he's blushing, so she smiles.

“Her?” she repeats with a wiggle of her eyebrows, and for a moment, she feels his eyes meet hers and sees him tense right up.

“It's not what you think,” he whispers, deflating and looking at the ground again. “She misses him so badly, but I can't do what he did, I-I can't, but she has no one else to look after her—” another sob cuts his shaky words, and Rose's smile slips right off her face.

Oh God, that's why he was crying… He isn't drunk or has broken up with his girlfriend or something, he's – he's mourning.

And there's a little girl who's mourning with him.

Without hesitation, Rose crosses the distance between them and pulls him into a tight hug.

He tenses in her arms, shivering softly, but after a moment, she feels his arms carefully circle her back and his chin resting on her shoulder.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” Rose whispers, sad and guilty for having been so insensitive when she knew he had been crying, squeezing him a bit more.

With a harsh sob shaking his whole body, he buries his face in her shoulder and cries.

Rose can't hear anything more than gasps and ragged breaths, but she can feel him shake in her arms and she's sure that, if her jacket was any thinner, she would be able to feel wetness on her shoulder.

Knowing there's nothing else she can do, she rubs his back comfortingly, shushing him softly, but doesn't tell him everything will be alright.

Mum gets like this on the anniversary of Dad's death, and even though she has got better lately, Rose still hugs her and lets her cry until she's spent before saying anything, knowing she won't be able to understand or hope if she keeps all that sadness inside.

So, there she is, standing in the shadows in a snowy alley on New Year's, with a strange man crying in her arms. Rose knows Mum will call her everything from stupid to mad, for stopping to talk to a man hiding in the shadows when there's no one around, but with his cold form shivering in her arms as he takes in large gulps of air, Rose knows she did the right thing.

Slowly, he straightens, and while he tugs her away from him, he doesn't let go of her jacket. Rose smiles and rubs his cheeks to clear them of tears, feeling the wetness through her gloves, and understanding that, despite the worse being over, he still needs reassurance.

“There you go. You'll feel better now,” she tells him softly, trying to meet his eyes, but he turns his face away, staring at the ground. “Look, I don't know what happened, but it'll get better, you hear me? Everything looks big and scary and impossible now, but it'll be alright. You just got to get through things one at a time,” she adds, but knows he doesn't believe her when he finally lets go and shuffles away from her to lean against the wall once more, hands in his pockets and still not facing her. “That's how my mum did it, after my dad died. I was six months old, so I never really knew him, or what happened after, but Granddad told me. Mum was heartbroken, but bit by bit, she made things work. She paid the bills, and raised me, and she did it so well that here I am now, helping other people with what she taught me. Never give up. Always keep trying, no matter how tough it looks.”

He's looking at her now, finally seeing her, and clearly going over her words with a seriousness that is almost too intense. Despite staring straight into his eyes, Rose can't say if they are a really dark brown or an almost luminescent green, which doesn't make sense at all, but before she can mull it over, he opens his mouth.

“I don't know if I can go on without him. He made me better, kept me in line. He – He was the only good thing that ever came into my life, and I loved him so much… He saved my life, even though it killed him. How can I go on without him?” he sobs, voice thinning with every word as tears choke him once more.

“Oh, hon, come here,” Rose whispers, resting her hands on his cheeks again, and he puts his gloveless and cold ones on top of hers as he closes his eyes with a ragged breath. “You don't have to. Go on without him, that is. And before you ask, no, I'm not talking about giving up. You know, the thing about never knowing your dad is that everyone tells you just how amazing he was, and how much he loved his family. And when my friends went home from school with their dads, and I had to go alone, I imagined he was there. I thought of how he would pick me up on foot instead of the car because this way we could spend more time together. And how he wouldn't be angry at me when I pulled Daisy's pigtails when she said my shirt was stupid, because he would say I looked pretty in that shirt, and I could wear it if I liked it. And well, all those times? Maybe I'm wrong, because I didn't really know him, but they helped raise me almost as much as Mum did. Dad was my guardian angel. And thinking about what would make him proud, doing everything I could to make him proud, that's what helped me do it, what helped me get through the bad days. Maybe he couldn't be there with me, but he was always with me, in my memory, in my heart,” she tells him, blinking away her own tears even as she smiles widely.

Sure, she wishes more than anything that she could have met her dad, that he was here, but she knows, from all that Mum and Granddad told her when she was little, that she's not wrong when she imagines the most amazing and loving man smiling at her in Heaven.

His hands are cold, gloveless as they are, but they no longer shake as he wipes the tears off her cheeks.

“That's one way of doing it,” he tells her with a tiny smile, and Rose's widens as she pokes her tongue out at him.

“The best way,” she answers, dropping her hands from his face when he drops his. “Will you be alright now?”

“… I don't know,” he answers sincerely, hands back in his pockets and gaze on the ground, but he's frowning softly this time, almost as if planning. “But I'll do as you said, take things slow. First, I'll go back and make sure she's alright. Then… He wanted to travel, to see so many places… I think we'll do that, travel, see all those sights, so I can tell him about all he's missed when we meet again.”

“There you go!” Rose cheers with a bright grin, bouncing on the balls of her feet to try and warm up her toes. “You sure you don't want to come up for a cuppa? I can convince Mickey to part with some beer even, no biggie.”

This time he huffs a laugh, and Rose feels warmer with just the sound.

“Nah, not a big fan of beer – though I don't mind a good red wine. Thanks, but I've got things to do.”

“Okay, if you're sure,” Rose relents with a shrug, feeling better at how his voice sounds stronger now, not trembling anymore.

“I am. Oh, by the way, what year is it? I'm afraid I've been, er, preoccupied…”

“2005, Mister. And don't sweat it,” she tells him with a chuckle, and he nods gratefully.

“2005, huh? I'm sure it's going to be a great year.”

“I'm sure it will. Happy New Year,” she tells him with a wink, making her way towards Mickey's building.

“Happy New Year, Rose,” he whispers back, watching her with a fond smile until she's safely inside.

As she bounces up the steps, warm from having been able to help the strange man, Rose realizes that she never told him her name. Maybe he heard her talking with Mum? Had Mum said it before they went their own ways?

She looks down once she reaches the flat's floor, and sees snow covering the ground, disturbed by some trails of footsteps going up and down. She recognizes hers, and her Mum's, and there's another one going on the opposite direction that seem to end before a corner, where the snow is flattened in a square. Music echoes from inside, cheer and happy voices all around, but the estate is empty, making it look almost magical.

Rose stares for a moment longer, happy with herself and really excited for this year, even if she doesn't have anything special planned down the line. It's just… the way the strange man had said it, it gives her hope. For some reason, she knows he's right.

Finally, when her nose starts to get a bit too cold, Rose Tyler shakes her head and rushes inside with a large smile on her face.

The Thief is gone, will be gone, was gone. Her Thief is-was-will be gone.

And it hurts, is hurting, hurt, will hurt.

Tenses are complicated, and that is a fact. But in this situation, tenses are not the only complicated thing.

It hurts-hurt-will hurt, and she is broken, is breaking, with all the hurt.

The complicated thing here is that she's not sure if all the hurt is hers.

Or who is hurting more.

The Thief hurts-hurt-will hurt, she hurts-hurt-will hurt, the Protector hurts-hurt-will hurt.

Everyone, everything, hurts.

No more hurt.

Time to stop the hurt.

Something sputters, something explodes, something shakes, someone screams.

Thief? Protector? Anyone?

No. Not now. Because now is now, and now is time to stop the hurt.

And with the hurt gone… Oh, what's the word? A big and complicated word, a word so sad…

What comes after the hurt?