New Gallifrey by Xanthe

Story Notes:This is my first Doctor/Master story and I really

enjoyed writing it. I've made up some Time Lord/Gallifrey stuff

because it's where I wanted to go in the story but it might not

be consistent with some of the earlier canon or what we know

of Time Lord physiology/society. My apologies if I got anything

glaringly wrong :-).

This story is archived here: http://www.xanthe.org/new-

gallifrey/

The sky is bright red, almost the exact same shade of crimson as the sky once was on his

homeworld. The Master sits on the beach, gazing at the waves as they crash on the seashore.

Silvery waves, reflecting the red of the darkening sky, turning the ocean into a rippling tide of

foamy blood.

New Gallifrey the Doctor calls this world, but it's nothing like the New Gallifrey the Master

would have built if he'd had his way. For a start, it's completely uninhabited save for the two

of them, which makes it about the most boring place the Master has ever visited. There's

something familiar about it all the same; the Master wonders how long the Doctor searched

for a planet so like the place where they grew up, that they could, if they wanted, pretend

they were home.

Then again, the Doctor always was very good at pretending.

The weather is balmy, and this world is undeniably beautiful; lush vegetation, in a multitude

of bright, vibrant colours, and a beach that stretches for mile upon mile of silvery pink sand.

And there, far off in the distance, the little blue box that is home, perched on the sand just

out of reach of the warm waves that bathe the shore. Yes, New Gallifrey is undoubtedly

beautiful; beautiful, sad and lonely.

The Master's white shirt billows restlessly in the breeze. Restless. Just like him. Just like the

Doctor, however much he tries to hide it. How long will they stay here? He thinks the Doctor

might mean for them to stay here forever. There was a time when the idea of the Doctor

staying with him forever would have filled him with wild joy, but that time has long since

passed. He thinks he should probably find some irony in the fact that he finally has the one

thing he's always wanted his entire life - and it has to be like this.

He watches as a small figure exits the blue box, and walks slowly down the beach towards

him. It's been six months since they arrived; since the Doctor reanimated his living

consciousness from the carefully designed ring where he'd been residing, and watched him

take corporeal form again.

He was weak when he first reanimated - weak like a baby, because he hadn't regenerated.

With regeneration came that rush of life, the mad giddiness of existence, of being made all

over again, and the joy of discovering all that your new body can do. Being reanimated was

different. He was like a foal taking its first few, faltering steps, and the Doctor had birthed

him, nudging him along, helping him remember.

The memories come back daily. The ring was an inexact instrument to hold his consciousness,

designed only to be used in a moment of absolute crisis. The Master still isn't sure of all the

little details of what happened in the days leading up to his last "death" - those memories are still hazy - but he has little flashes of them every day.

The Doctor comes close, all big brown eyes and wide, flashing smile; the Master could close

his eyes and still feel his Time Lord presence. The Doctor shines like a beacon, a shining bolt of

psychic, temporal energy; bright, sparkling, and more dazzling than any Time Lord the Master

has ever known. He wonders if the Doctor knows how blinding his soul is, but then snorts to

himself. Of course he knows. Egotistical bastard that he is. Always was.

"Is it true, that I made you live like a dog underfoot for a year, and trained you to answer to a

bell?" he asks the Doctor, when the other Time Lord reaches him. He does this every day,

aiming to find some little thing that might upset or anger his nemesis.

The Doctor pauses for a moment to catch his breath, and then grins, and throws his arms up

in the air. The Master sighs inwardly.

"It was enlightening. I'm much nicer to dogs now," he replies, as if nothing the Master has

ever done to him has ever upset him, which they both know isn't true.

"There aren't any dogs on New Gallifrey," the Master comments sourly, surveying their new

home. If only, just once, he could get under the Doctor's skin and hurt him, the way he's been

hurt, over and over again throughout the years, until the Doctor's very presence beside him is

like a knife nestled icily between his two hearts.

"Well, if there were, I'd be nice to them." The Doctor shrugs, and sits down beside him.

The Master hates the smell of him, the touch of his arm brushing his own, and the intrusion

into his private thoughts.

"What you doing?" the Doctor asks.

The Master fantasises, as he has a thousand times, about holding the Doctor face down in the

sand and smothering him to death. Sometimes, just for variety, he holds the Doctor face up,

his hand around the other Time Lord's neck, keeping him still, until the waves come in and

drown him. In his fantasy the Doctor chokes and splutters and pleads for his life but he keeps

him there, his own hand unwavering and strong, until the Doctor quietens and dies. In reality

he thinks the Doctor wouldn't plead at all, but instead would simply lie there, those big brown

eyes staring up at him, forgiving him everything to the end.

Or at least until he regenerates.

The Master has considered this too. He's thought of holding the Doctor under the water and

watching him die over and over again. He wonders what that would feel like, to witness face

after startled face coming and going beneath him, until he reaches the last, and the Doctor

finally runs out of lives. Sometimes he even thinks he'l do it. Last week for instance, when the

moons were full and the Doctor was being even more insufferable than usual, staring at him

with eyes so full of sympathy that the Master wanted to drag him out of the TARDIS there and

then and hold him down in the water.

His fingers twitch slightly. He could do it. He might do it. One day.

"I'm just thinking," he replies to the Doctor's question, a smile hovering maliciously around his lips. "About the past."

The Doctor stiffens, almost imperceptibly, and the Master thinks he's probably wondering if

he'll mention the one thing they've very purposefully not mentioned in several hundred years.

"The moons were pretty on Gallifrey weren't they?" the Master says, and the Doctor relaxes

slightly, but only slightly, because they both remember what happened beneath the moons of

Gallifrey one long, hot summer, many hundreds of years ago.

"Yeah," the Doctor replies. "They were. It's late." He yawns and stretches, extravagantly, showing off as usual, always play acting just a little bit, and then he gets up.

The Master smiles again. He knows that the Doctor hates talking about Gallifrey. The Doctor

loved the place, although fuck knows why. The Master always hated it, and the demise of the

other Time Lords is no great loss to him, either. They were all a pack of hypocritical

charlatans.

"Time to head back to the TARDIS," the Doctor says.

The Master gets up, slowly, fighting back another wave of irritation. The Doctor is polite

enough not to make it a command, but it is, all the same. He sleeps when the Doctor sleeps,

and wakes when he wakes, eats when he eats. The Doctor wants to know where he is every

hour of every day.

His captivity is one of sea breezes and walks across silver sands, and he is at liberty to wander

the TARDIS, room to room, whenever he wants, but that doesn't make his imprisonment any

the less complete. He is the prisoner and the Doctor is his jailer, and this, he thinks, is

probably the only way they were ever going to end up living together again.

They walk across the beach together, the sea wind caressing their hair. The Master wonders if

his nemesis thinks that this is in any way companionable. He suspects that maybe the other

Time Lord is deluded enough to think just that, judging by the way he allows his arm to touch

the Master's as they walk.

The Doctor's TARDIS is as it always was. The Doctor likes to pretend that its Chameleon Circuit

is broken but the Master knows that's bullshit. The Doctor could fix just about anything of

Gallifreyan origin - the only Time Lord at the Academy with a better understanding of

temporal engineering was himself - and he's damn sure he could fix the circuit if it were

broken. It isn't. The Doctor just thinks the blue box is retro-cute, that it displays the quirkiness

of his personality to best effect. It's wasted on the Master. He knows the Doctor too well.

They were eight years' old when they first met at the Academy, the Doctor quirky and self

assured, the Master shy but brilliant. Both were the acknowledged geniuses of their

generation, and they were fascinated by each other. Homesick and lonely, the Master

struggled at first, but the Doctor took him under his wing and they formed an intense

friendship. That was when the Master first found out what it was like to bask in the bright

light of the Doctor's shining essence, and, of course, once you had a little taste of it, you

always wanted more. What had it been like for them, the Master wondered, all the poor saps

who'd come after him, falling hopelessly in love with a man who could never love them back?

In a room in the TARDIS is a display of images of all the people the Doctor has ever travelled

with. The Master found it one day, when he was bored. He went back there, day after day, for

weeks, spent hours studying each and every single one of them. Some he knew, and some he

didn't, but he recognised each of them as his successors.

The pictures were little moments, snapshots of the Doctor's favourite memory of each,

images he'd literally fished out of his own mind and encapsulated forever in holographic form.

The boy Adric, smiling that pathetically gormless smile of his; the elfin girl - Jo - peeping at the

Doctor from big, admiring eyes - oh, how the Doctor must have loved her! He always did

enjoy a bit of slavish adoration. There was Ace, and there Teegan. The Master was more

interested in Turlough though, scowling as usual, hiding a surprisingly loyal heart behind his

many betrayals. The Master stayed gazing at him for a very long time.

There were others, many, many others, but a few leapt out at the Master, and he knew why.

He recognised the fellow travellers - those who had fallen in love with the Doctor, drawn to

his brilliance like moth to flame, just as he once was. He saw the expression of hope in their

stupid, adoring faces, and the light of their unrequited love dancing in their eyes. He knew

their names as well - all he had to do was run his hand over the image and each name rose in

his memory, clear and vivid. Jamie, Sarah Jane, Rose, Martha, Jack....

Jack. He had gazed at the handsome Time Agent for awhile, smiling to himself, enjoying the

insouciant stare, and the bright, crisp sound of the name in his head. Jack. A memory

returned when he saw that picture; he'd enjoyed Jack himself. Oh yes, he'd once strung up

the handsome Captain and fucked him nightly for weeks on end - and the thing about Jack

was, you couldn't be entirely sure that he hadn't enjoyed it.

Fucking Jack had felt good because Jack couldn't die, no matter how many times you killed

him - and the Master went through a phase of killing the good Captain every time he brought

the immortal freak to climax. It was so much fun, teasing that climax out of Jack, watching

him try and hold back, desperate not to surrender to the skilful way the Master's tongue

skimmed his hard cock, or the Master's fingertips dipped in and out of his anus, exciting his

prostate with each inward thrust. Jack would hold off, time and time again, drawing it out,

hoping to delay the inevitable, but each time he'd fail - and the Master would laugh as he slit

the Captain's throat and watched the blood and come mingle together before Jack

reanimated a few minutes later, still sweaty from his climax, the blood staining his beautiful

pale skin.

"You enjoy doing that, Big Fella?" Jack would drawl, stone cold anger burning behind the

flirtatious blue eyes.

And for a while he had, because hurting the people the Doctor cared about was the next best

thing to hurting the Doctor himself. Besides, he felt they should know the true pain of loving

the Doctor, just as he did. It was educational for them, and he hoped they appreciated the

time and trouble he spent on teaching them what it really meant to love the Doctor - because

he'd had to learn the hard way. There had been nobody to teach him.

The TARDIS door is open and they step inside. It's an artfully eccentric mess within - the

Doctor has no sense of order, or at least he pretends that's the case - the Master suspects

that might be more of the same irritating whimsy that the Doctor has always liked to indulge

in.

The TARDIS is empty though, without essence - the Doctor has taken her heart and hidden it

somewhere - somewhere the Master will never find it. The Doctor doesn't trust that the

Master won't kill him in his sleep and steal off with the TARDIS one dark night so he's put her

out of reach. The Doctor is right not to trust him; that is exactly what the Master would do if

he had the chance.

Sometimes he thinks about stringing the Doctor up, as he once did with Jack, and torturing

him until the Doctor tells him where he's buried the TARDIS's heart. He'd do it too, if there

was any point, but they both know the Doctor would never tell him, not even if he tortured

and killed him down to his last regeneration. No, the Doctor would take that secret to his final

death. At least with the Doctor still alive there is a chance that the Master might one day

escape, and be free of his nemesis at last.

The Doctor locks the TARDIS door behind them, with an apologetic look in his eyes.

Sometimes, when the Master has allowed himself to forget, it's these little touches that

remind him what they are to each other now. He gives a bitter, self-contained smile, and the

Doctor winces.

"Nightcap?" he suggests, waving his hand at the bottle and two glasses that rest on the

darkened central console. The Master gazes at him impassively. He wonders what the Doctor

gets from this pretence at normality.

"If you wish," he says, inclining his head. He takes a seat, and watches the Doctor pour the

drink.

"Here you go." The Doctor hands him a glass.

"Thank you, Doctor," he says pointedly. He knows the Doctor has trouble addressing him by

his title, and sometimes he enjoys making him say it, or shaming him into it.

Only those Time Lords who performed a particularly noteworthy act were allowed titles of

their own choosing - the rest had to make do with their given names. The Master had longed

for a title of his own for years, but, needless to say, the Doctor, Gallifrey's shining golden

child, beat him to it.

He can still remember the Doctor returning triumphantly from the Medusa Cascade after

healing a deep rift in the space-time continuum. He was the only one who could have done it -

or so everyone said. The Master knows that he took the title "Doctor" because he thinks of

himself as a healer of time, travelling across the aeons in search of rifts to heal, broken

timelines to mend, and lost souls to find. It's sickening.

The Master earned the right to a title himself, some years later, after wiping out an entire

colony of humans in a bid to save a small ship of Time Lords. The Doctor never forgave him for

that. Neither did some of the other Time Lords - there was even a faction that fought against

allowing him the honour of taking a title. He'd killed them for that of course, several years'

later, when everyone had long since forgotten the original insult. He never forgot.

The Doctor sits down opposite him, holding his drink gingerly in his hands. He never was a

great drinker. He's lost in thought, and the Master can guess what he's thinking about; he's

known him for nine hundred years after all.

"We could go back there you know," the Master says, softly. "Gallifrey. We could go back in time, visit her, just once."

The Doctor stares at him, appalled. What the Master is suggesting is against the very ethos of

what it means to be a Time Lord. Then again, the Master never did have much interest in the

tedious rules and regulations the Time Lords invented for themselves. Yes, there would be

consequences, but so what? What's the point of being a Time Lord if you can't screw with the

universe a little every so often?

"You know we can't do that," the Doctor murmurs.

"I don't see why not. You could tell them about the Time War, warn them. We could change

history, bring them all back so we wouldn't have to be alone."

A speculative look seeps into the Doctor's eyes, and the Master knows he's tempted. He likes

doing this. It always was fun seducing the Doctor's dark side. That was what nobody ever

understood - the Doctor has a dark side as beautiful and full of shadows as his own - he just

keeps it tightly controlled, instead of giving into it. Fraud.

His own darkness was always more obvious. The Time Lords had seen it from the beginning,

and shaped him to be their warrior. If they'd helped him, he could have mastered the

darkness, but they had wanted it for their own ends and thought to master him instead, to

keep him tame and tethered, their obedient weapon to be unleashed on their command. His

title, when he finally claimed it, had been his own sense of a warped joke. He suspected that

nobody ever got the joke - not even the Doctor.

The Doctor was different. Even as a child his brilliance had shone brightly, overshadowing

everyone else, including the Master's undeniable genius. The Doctor was going to be

Gallifrey's ambassador for the future, the leader of his generation. Only he had proved too

much the maverick, his own creativity and quirkiness putting a serious crimp in the Time

Lords' plans. That's another thing they had in common.

"We could walk on the Promenade, watch the real Gallifreyan moons rise, not these pale

imitations," the Master whispers. He loves how expressive the Doctor's face is. No matter

what body he wears, his eyes always dance and his features are always animated.

"Yes," the Doctor says softly. "We could go back. See the places we loved. See ourselves

maybe? Watch ourselves, as we once were, knowing how we'll end up?" There's a sharp glint

in his eyes. He hasn't been tempted at all - he's been playing with the Master, one step ahead

the whole time.

The Master inclines his head, regretfully, acknowledging that he's been defeated.

"Oh well. I never liked the place anyway. Even at its best, Gallifrey was almost as dull as this

shithole."

He loves watching the little spike of hurt rise in the Doctor's eyes. He doesn't think he'll ever

tire of that sight. He puts down his untouched drink on the console, and gets up.

"It's late," he says. "Time for bed."

"Good night then!" the Doctor says, with a cheery wave of his hand. "Um...Master." He always looks embarrassed saying it.

"Good night, Doctor."

The Master gives a little half bow, and retires to his room. It's big, beautifully furnished, and

he keeps it scrupulously tidy, not as a reaction to the Doctor's clutter and disorder but

because that's just the way he is. It's another reason why they always find living together so

hard. One of many.

The Master undresses and slips, naked, between the cool, black, satin sheets. Outside, he can

hear the sound of the sea crashing on the shore and it comforts him because it helps keep the

other sound at bay. The drumming in his head is always worse at night, when there are no

other sounds to drown it out. There is only one way to ever get any respite from it, and he

knows, wearily, that it is a way he'll take before the night is through.

The Master lies on his back and gazes at the ceiling. When they left the Academy they had

been so bright and full of hope, both of them so sure of the brilliant destiny that awaited

them. No wonder they couldn't keep their hands off each other. They had journeyed the

universe together at first, exciting each other with each new discovery, and sealing that

excitement in bed each night.

The Master wonders what Jack would have said if he'd told him that he had been the Doctor's

first companion, and every one of them since had been a pale imitation of himself, a reminder

to the Doctor of what he had lost, and the reason why he could never fully give himself to any

of them. It's been flattering, in a way, watching the Doctor try and recreate a little of what

they had together with all the people he's taken on his journeys ever since.

The Master gets up, and splashes cold water from the bowl at his bedside over his face. He

feels hot, and the drums are gaining momentum inside his mind. He can feel the sweat

beading his brow.

It was easy in the beginning. They had been young, and the universe had been theirs for the

taking. He remembers long nights spent making love, bodies moving as one, minds merging,

coalescing in a bright spangle of exploding stars. They were never able to fight the attraction

between them, their lives one long history of attraction and repulsion, over and over again,

the lust between them always searing white hot, always needing to be sated, no matter how

long they spent apart. They both felt it, whenever they were near each other. The need, the

longing, the calling...

The Master pulls on his black silk robe and walks, wearily, towards the door. The robe swings

open a little, the cool air caressing his bare chest as he moves, soundlessly, barefoot, through

the TARDIS.

The Doctor is still dressed. Dark blue shirt, brown trousers, but at least he's stopped wearing

the ridiculous tie these days. He's sitting at a desk in the massive room that doubles as his

study and bedroom, gazing at something quizzically, brown eyes blinking rapidly behind his

black, heavy framed glasses. The Master stands in the doorway and just gazes at him for a

little while.

"Damn!" The Doctor picks up the device he's working on, shaking his head.

The Master walks silently across the room, and lays a hand on the Doctor's shoulder. The

other Time Lord doesn't move. He isn't startled or surprised by the Master's presence; he just

gazes forlornly at the device in front of him.

"Not working," he says, hefting the object in his hands.

The Master reaches out and touches the cool metal device. He lets his essence sink into it a

little, sensing its purpose. It isn't Gallifreyan in origin. He suspects the Doctor has picked it up

on his travels somewhere. Earth probably. The Doctor is obsessed with Earth. The Master lets

his mind find the fault, and then probes it with his fingers, deftly finding the problem. The

Doctor is good at this kind of stuff, but he is better. The Doctor is a great improviser, endlessly

creative, but the Master has a sounder grasp of actual mechanics.

"There." A light comes on, and the device gives a little hoot, as if excited to be working again.

"Fantastic!" The Doctor gives a smile that lights up his entire face. "Uh, any idea what it is?"

"I believe it's a device to make tea," the Master replies. "You get it ready the night before, prime it, leave it by your bed, and in the morning..." He shrugs and makes a little "voila!"

gesture with his hands. "A hot cup of tea awaits you. Although personally I think that's what

servants are for."

"Fantastic!" the Doctor says again. "Humans! They think of all the best things."

He takes the device and places it beside the massive bed that occupies the centre of the

room. The Master surveys the room wearily. If he could only move the bed against the wall,

shove the desk over there, put the mass of objects, papers, and general detritus on the

overflowing shelves in the corner....

"Stop that!" the Doctor says. "You're tidying things in your mind again. I can tell."

"It's a habit," the Master agrees.

"Can't sleep again?" The Doctor surveys him sympathetically.

The Master sweeps some dusty journals off the bed, and sits down with a sigh.

"The drumming is always worse at night," he murmurs. "My apologies." He hates apologising for his neediness, but he hates the neediness itself more, and feels that it should be

apologised for.

"Don't be an idiot." The Doctor crosses the room and stands in front of him. He lifts the

Master's chin, and gazes into his eyes. "Come here," the Doctor murmurs.

He bends down and his lips catch the Master's. It's so old, so familiar, no matter what bodies

they occupy - it always feels like this. This hunger. This white hot intensity. He knows the

Doctor feels it too, no matter how much he plays at being nonchalant. The Master reaches up,

hungrily, and his hands come to rest on the Doctor's bottom. It feels firm and ripe beneath his

fingers, and he caresses it greedily.

Once, long ago, they used to do this every night, and during one long, hot Gallifreyan summer

many hundreds of years ago, they made a child between them. Time Lord children are woven

in their essential spirit form by the continued merging of their parents over several months,

each parent taking it in turns to keep the newly forming child within themselves, part of their

own glowing inner essence, and yet separate, a new, emerging being, in embryonic stage.

When complete, the child separates out from its parents, and its first corporeal body forms

around it, encasing the bright inner core. The body is the vessel - the true Time Lord essence

is what lies inside, shining and radiant.

Their child, their first and only child, had been as bright and beautiful as only their merged

beings could produce. They called her Thalia, and at the beginning she had gone everywhere

with them. The Doctor, though, fresh from his success at the Medusa Cascade, wasn't ready

to settle down. That's never changed.

Even now, here on the tranquil sands of New Gallifrey, the Master sometimes wonders who is

keeping who prisoner.

The Master surrenders to the Doctor's warm kisses, giving into them as he always does. He

sinks back on the bed, and the Doctor straddles him, looking down on him. The Doctor's warm

inner core washes through him like a gentle breeze, caressing and calming him. Slowly, the

sound of the drums begins to fade and the Master starts to relax.

He hates this man, who is now, gently, so gently, running long, loving fingers along his jaw. He

hates this man who is moving aside his black silk robe, and lowering his head to take a nipple

in his mouth. He hates this man who he is opening his legs for, wanting to feel the warm,

hard, pounding heat inside him. He hates this man who is kissing him now, tongues melting

and melding as their inner cores begin to touch. The feeling of their merging is as electric as

ever; hatred or love, it makes no difference to how good it feels.

He hates this man, who he loves so much.

He's reaching for the Doctor's clothes now, tearing them off him, needing to feel skin beneath

his fingertips and white light blinding his mind. He pushes the Doctor back onto the bed, and

reaches for his cock, loving the feel of it, hard and pulsing in his hand, loving the sound the

Doctor makes in the back of his throat as he caresses it smoothly, with practised ease.

They roll over and the Doctor is now on top. It doesn't matter. Either way will do. The Doctor

is slicking something cool between the Master's buttocks, and then he's sliding in, up to the

hilt. He always likes doing it like this, looking down on the Master, kissing him while they

make love, eyes connecting as their essences merge. The Master closes his eyes - there's no

reason why the Doctor should always have it his own way.

"Why won't you look at me when we make love?" the Doctor reproaches, his fingertips firm

but oddly gentle on the Master's hips.

"Because you have enough of me as it is," the Master replies, through gritted teeth. Why

must the Doctor always have all of him, but never give him everything in return?

The Doctor sighs, and kisses the Master again, softly, kindly, on the lips, and much as he'd

love to reject him, the Master can't. He opens his mouth and welcomes the Doctor's tongue,

tasting the sweetness.

They begin moving in time; tongues, hands, backs, hips, legs...moving, moving, moving as one,

becoming part of each other. It's an age-old dance, and they've danced it many times before -

too many to count - but each time it feels the same. It satisfies the Master deep in the very

core of his being. He has no need of Gallifrey, new or old - the Doctor always was his home.

A powerful crescendo builds deep inside the Master's body, igniting flesh, blood and soul all

at the same time. He wraps his legs even tighter around the Doctor's body, and screams as he

reaches his climax. The Doctor is close too, and seconds later he reaches his own orgasm, with

a series of beautiful, shuddering little gasps. After nine hundred odd years, and even despite

many different bodies, the Master is intimately familiar with that sound. He wishes he didn't

like it so much.

The Doctor collapses on top of him, smiling. He kisses the Master again, soft little kisses that

flutter on his face, and then withdraws, and slides down beside him. He reaches out, and

wraps his arms around the Master's body, and the Master is too tired, and too sated, to push

him away.

He lies there, dreamily, staring into space. This is the only time he is ever at peace, the drums

finally silent - it's only ever this way after making love with the Doctor. Maybe during

lovemaking he steals enough of the Doctor's essence to make him sane, for just a little while.

He doesn't know. He just knows that it feels good, and he stretches out, humming to himself,

the Doctor's sweaty arm lying across his belly, the Doctor's mouth warm on the back of his

neck, more kisses scattering across the top of his spine, his shoulders, and his hair.

When they're lying here like this, the Master can almost imagine that they are Theta and

Koschei again, wrapped up in each other's arms before it all went wrong; before Theta left

Koschei, and moved on.

Their relationship fell apart when Thalia was still young. The Doctor said it was because he

didn't like what the Master had become, but the Master looked into the Doctor's eyes and

saw that he was scared of love, scared of the intensity between them, scared of losing himself

in the Master. The Doctor didn't understand that love was madness, and you had to surrender

to it. He was flawed; a coward. Together they could have ruled the universe - apart they were

shadows of what they might have been.

And it had hurt. It hurt more than any pain he'd ever felt, hurt more even than his first death

and regeneration. And it went on hurting, decade after lonely decade. It still hurt.

Desperate to punish the Doctor, the Master took their daughter and ran. He and Thalia

travelled the universe together, and he taught her everything he knew; he taught her disdain

for all the endless, wearisome Time Lord codes and laws, taught her about their own

superiority over lesser species, and he taught her the most important lesson of all - to hate

her other parent, the Doctor, and everything he stood for.

She was dark, complex and twisted, like him, and chaotic, brilliant and sometimes capable of

surprisingly noble acts, like her other parent. He gloried in her. She was beautiful, and she was

his.

Eventually she grew up and left him, but they remained close. She wanted to rise up in the sky

like a star, and be famous across Gallifrey. He had taught her well.

She was reckless, ruthless, and would stop at nothing to get her way. She broke every law the

Time Lords had, and they punished her by sending her falling into a dying sun at Regis Prime,

using up every single regeneration in that one long plunge to her death. He heard her final cry

across the galaxy, but by then it was too late.

The Doctor found him of course, grief stricken and inconsolable, and, when the Master looked

into the Doctor's eyes, all he saw was sympathy and forgiveness. It was more than he could

bear. His grief turned to darkness and anger, and he became bitter. He turned the Doctor out

before he could say the words of forgiveness that the Master didn't want to hear.

Thalia left behind a child, a daughter, young and alone. The Master went to find her, to take

her in and mould her to him as he had moulded her mother, only to find that the Doctor had

got there first.

"Susan will be coming with me," he said, tightly, gripping the small girl's hand and towing her back towards his TARDIS.

He was welcome to her. She was dull, pedestrian, and ordinary - nothing like her mother.

It had made him laugh though, watching the Doctor turn into a crotchety old man as he took

their grand-daughter with him on his journeys. The Doctor didn't like domestic ties - they

slowed him down, made him irascible. Besides, the Master knew all too well that the Doctor,

the healer of the great rift of the Medusa Cascade, a Time Lord with a heart big enough to

love so many unworthy, lesser species, was incapable of loving just one person.

He wonders whether Jamie, or Sarah Jane, or Rose, or Martha, or handsome Captain Jack ever

realised that. Poor stupid fools. The Doctor would always run out on them, dump them, just

when they started to get close. That's what he did. That's what he *was*. The Master might

know himself to be dark, murderous, maybe even evil at his core, but at least he knows how

to love; totally, unconditionally, with an all-consuming fervour. And he's only ever loved two

people in his life. One of them is dead, and the other doesn't understand about love at all.

Never has. Never will.

The Master wipes his hand across his eyes and is surprised to find that his fingertips come

away wet.

He turns over to find the Doctor staring at him with those big brown eyes, full of sympathy.

They could make another child. They won't though. Their species will die out after they've

lived their final regenerations. They both know that. Better that than risk making another

child together.

"I forgive you," the Doctor says, as he's said so many times before, even though it never

makes any difference. His hand slides down the Master's back and gently comes to rest on his

bottom, stroking tenderly. He doesn't say Thalia's name but it hangs between them,

unspoken, the way it has for hundreds of years.

The Master doesn't want his forgiveness. He doesn't give a damn about his forgiveness. He

should be *asking* for forgiveness, not doling it out like it's only his to give.

Somewhere in the distance he can hear the sound of drums, just faintly, starting to play again.

His respite from them, which sometimes can last all night after they've made love, has been

all too brief on this occasion. The Master wonders what it would be like, right now, to take

the Doctor's neck in his hands, and crush his windpipe beneath his fingers.

The Doctor moves his other hand to gently caress the Master's face. Little sparks of light

shimmer between them in the darkness. The Master shudders.

"Is the drumming back?" the Doctor asks, sympathetically.

"Yes. Louder now than ever," the Master whispers. The booming in his mind torments him,

destroying him from the inside out. The Doctor kisses him softly on the lips and the drumming

recedes a little.

"What did you see?" the Master asks, as he has asked a thousand times over the years.

"When you were eight years' old and they made you look into the time vortex - what did you

see?"

The Doctor smiles at him, kindly, because he's answered this question a thousand times as

well. "I saw the beginning and end of everything," he replies. "And everything in between. It was chaos, and it was beautiful."

"Yes." The Master nods. He clings to the Doctor's naked body, his legs wrapped around the

Doctor's thighs. The Doctor wraps his arms more tightly around the Master's body, warming

him, warding off the sound of drums which is growing steadily louder in his mind.

"What about you?" the Doctor asks, as he always asks.

"The same," the Master lies, as he always lies. "Beginning, end, everything in between. Chaos, beauty. All that stuff."

The Doctor nods, his brown eyes sad, aware of the lie.

They lie there for a long time, gazing at each other, the Doctor's hand still stroking the

Master's naked bottom, languidly, tenderly, lovingly.

After a little while the Doctor's eyes close, his breathing slows, and he falls asleep.

The Master extricates himself from the other Time Lord's arms, and gets up. He picks up his

abandoned robe, and wraps it around his body, swaying gently to the sound of the drums in

his head.

He's eight years' old again, staring into the un-tempered schism, looking into the time vortex

itself, and there, in the very centre, against a backdrop of time, chaos and madness, is the

Doctor, dancing to a tune the Master can't hear. The Doctor is one with time, and he looks so

beautiful there that the Master draws closer, longing to join in that dance, to be with the

Doctor. As he gets nearer, he can hear the beat the Doctor is dancing to, just faintly at first, a

distant drumbeat, and then it grows louder, and louder, until it bursts into his mind, making it

reverberate with sound - a sound that will never completely go away, ever again.

It takes ten Time Lords to pul him back from the very edge of the vortex just as he's about to

throw himself in. And that is how he came to realise, at the age of eight, that at the centre of

time, at the very core of his universe, is the Doctor. It's a destiny he's alternately embraced

and battled ever since.

The Doctor is ephemeral, like time itself. You can love him from afar but he wil never love

you back. You can never own him, the way you want, or keep him willingly by your side. It

would be like pinning down a wave on the sand. The Doctor is elusive, eternally and utterly

beyond reach, but always, tantalisingly, just there, that broad grin on his face, that maddening

light in his eyes, as teasing and tormenting as the sound of the drums in the Master's head.

The Master glances back down at the sleeping Time Lord coldly. He could kill him right now.

Kill him in his sleep; knock him over the head with that stupid Earth gadget he was so excited

about earlier. Or smother him with a pillow. He'd enjoy it. The Doctor would regenerate and

forgive him, and then they'd start all over again. It would be so easy.

The Master reaches out one finger, touches it to the side of the Doctor's sleeping head, and

gently strokes. Outside, the moons of New Gallifrey have risen high in the sky, casting their

silvery light over the blood red sea.

Maybe tomorrow.

The End

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