The Road to ... (prologue)
While the rest of the Earth returned to normal, returned to peace, the atmosphere on board The Valiant was of a nature even the Doctor had rarely seen. Utter confusion and panic. His own hearts were pounding furiously in his ears, and he felt distinctly uncomfortable. The reversal of time - the undoing of all those things which had genuinely, truly taken place in time and space - made him feel strange, as if he were upside down. But he was barely aware of any of this.
He knew the humans in the room - the Jones family, the guards, Lucy Saxon, even Jack and Martha - couldn’t have truly grasped what had happened yet. They knew the tables had turned, but the question resounding in all of their minds, on a level they weren’t even aware of, was Am I safe? And of course, the answer to that depended on one thing: who was now in control?
To the Doctor, this was unimportant. Far better nobody be in control. He certainly didn’t want that responsibility. No, there was only one person in this room for whom the Doctor would accept any responsibility. That person was now glaring at him furiously, hatred and fury and obsession filling up his gaze. He didn’t care. All those months, tortured on this ship, the excruciating age transformation … he had endured them without complaint. He hadn’t done that for Martha, or any other human, or even his own pride.
It was a lot to ask of the Jones family, to leave the Master living. He didn’t blame them a bit for wanting to watch him die, this man who had tortured them for fun, forcing a wife to watch her husband be beaten, a mother to watch her daughter be maimed. The Doctor knows the taste of vengeance, very well. And, of course, it’s so easy to justify it, when you know you’ll be protecting countless others.
This time, though, he feels none of it. He has suffered more than them, as the Master made him feel each horror these humans endured was his own fault. And, while the desire to protect the only other of his kind still living is strong, that is not what made him forgive. He cannot hear the drums himself, but he can well imagine them. None of these humans, brave or strong or wonderful as they are, can possibly understand. He won’t let them kill the Master. They will simply have to trust him.
He didn’t imagine that Lucy would take up the gun and shoot the man she knew as her husband, the man who had shown her the universe. In the end her will, already cowered and crushed by the Master, was easily taken over by the will of the human race. He didn’t think she had enough will left.
The Master lay, dying, in his arms, still defiant, still mocking him. Refusing to regenerate. The Doctor couldn’t understand. He knew the Master so well; he’d been so confident that the Master would not blow them both up, along with the Earth, when they had teleported off the ship. And he’d been right. His own survival had always been the most important thing. And he’d been right; his own will had looked a little crushed when he realised the Doctor knew this. It meant he would always have power over him.
No, the Doctor couldn’t understand the refusal to regenerate. In frustration and despair he looked around the ship, to his friends, who looked confused, but relieved. And then his eyes came to rest on Lucy Saxon. Some of the blankness had gone from her eyes; she was intent and focused, biting her lip, nodding slightly with everything the Master said. Then her eyes met the Doctor’s, and narrowed, and flicked down towards the Master’s right hand. The Doctor reached for it with his left hand, and felt the engraved silver ring, and began to understand, a little.
But only a little. So the tears he wept for the Master were genuine, and even though he had his doubts that this is truly the end, it does these people good to see that their suffering is over.
By the time he comes to say goodbye to the Master, choosing the time-honoured ritual of a funeral pyre, he has had time to think. He watches the flames intensely, looking for any signs that would confirm his suspicions. Eventually he turns to walk away.
Then, a small distance away, he spots a figure, still clothed in red, fair hair in disarray. Slowly, she walks towards him.
The Doctor speaks first. “He asked you to shoot him. If all else was lost … he wanted you to shoot him.”
Lucy barely whispers. “If all else was lost … to you. If he failed any other way, he would live on at all costs. But you …” she trailed off. She took a deep breath and glanced towards the fire, as if afraid he might hear her. “He didn’t want to lose to you. So I killed him.”
“And now you’re hear to bring him back. That’s unlike him … putting his life in someone else’s hands. Especially a human.” He didn’t want to say the last part. He didn’t want to sound … sanctimonious, that was what the Master had accused him of being. He put his life into the hands of humans many times, but the Master, never.
“He trusted me because he controlled me. Even outside of the Archangel pattern, at times. And because he had no one else, I suppose.”
He had me, the Doctor wants to say, but he knows that’s not true. Whatever scheme the Master had dreamed up here, he would turn to anyone in the universe before he would come to the Doctor. That hurt. But there was one thing that Doctor didn’t understand. “So why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t you be playing grieving widow about now, before you rush to bring him back to life?”
Here, Lucy faltered, and her soft voice grew even quieter. “I … can’t. I can’t try to go back to that life. He’ll have no use for me now. He’ll leave. And I can’t live here, with everyone’s scorn. Or worse, their pity.”
There was a touch of alarm in the Doctor’s voice as he asked. “So you’re just going to … leave him? Dead?”
She shook her head, fiercely. “No. When the fire cools - he knew you’d use fire - I’ll fetch the ring and you can do the rest. But before that … I want you to help me. Help me start again, somewhere else. I know you can do it.”
The Doctor gazed at the fire for a long time. He understood Lucy’s request - it was no more than any human would want, he thought - and he considered what she was offering him. A reunion with the Master. Alone. On his terms.
“I can’t give you a completely new start,” he told her. “The chameleon arch - I assume he told you about that - doesn’t work for humans wanting to be other species.”
“I know. But you could take me somewhere … and your TARDIS could give me some kind of new identity, couldn’t it? She seems to be hoping, rather than really knowing.
“I suppose,” the Doctor says, noncommittally. “Yes, I suppose it could.” He turns away from the fire, distracted for the moment with a practicality. Something of his usual energetic, chirpy demeanour returns. “So, where would you like to go? Who would you like to be?”
He turns and strides away to the TARDIS, Lucy struggling to keep up in her impractical outfit. “Let’s see … you could live the high life in New New York. Or I could take you to one of the planets in the Padrivole system, you’d fit right in there!”
Starting to get slightly out of breath, Lucy whispers, “Couldn’t I stay on Earth?”
“Well, yes. Yes. Of course you could. Not here, and not now, though. You need to get away. So, what’ll it be? You can’t be anyone historically important, mind.” He looks at her sharply.
“No, of course,” she answers solemnly. “Besides, I’ve had quite enough of the spotlight.”
“Right then! Where shall we go? Ireland? Canada? India? Russia? Farmer’s daughter? Soldier’s wife? Sculptor’s sister? Although, if you fancy an identity of your very own, you could be a salon-keeper in the French Enlightenment …? He glances at her again. “Maybe not.”
In the end, after she has handed him the Master’s ring, he takes her to India, to be Florence Bellingham, the only child of an English lord who had died and left her his estate. The year was 1906. He handed her a stack of documents and watched her walk away. This was a strange world for a politician’s wife from twenty-first century London, but he was not unduly worried. Lucy Saxon, despite appearances, was a survivor.
And for now, the Doctor has far more important things on his mind.