fic: The Armistice Year

[skyglass_]

Pairing: 10/Master

Spoilers: TLoTTL, TSOD, in fact, the whole end -of-series arc.

Rating: PG-13, swearing

Summary: The fate of the Earth has been averted, but Time has altered dramatically. In an alternate story of the last of the Time Lords, would the Doctor do anything to keep the legend of Gallifrey alive? Because, in the end, absolute power corrupts…

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, or any of the characters - the BBC do. Nor do I make any profit.

A/N: I refuse to believe in some things. Therefore, this is not so much a fix-it as a total denial of the ending of Season 3. I know, I know. Rusty wouldn’t like it. Sorry, Rusty.
This fic and all of its parts are dedicated to mia_v, the fantastic illustrator of 'There, in the corner of your eye'.

So: Restart the clocks, Muse. Let time run backwards. For, let’s face it, with every action there is a precipitous point in which so much can be changed. We’ve waited.

A shot rings out, and a desperate Time Lord is trying to not become the last of his species…

The Armistice Year

A Tenth Doctor/ Seventh Master Adventure

Chapter 1 - Everything Changes

“Not in the next life

I want it in this, I want it in this…”

The Beautiful South - Good as Gold

“Take my hand.” The voice is resolute. “Please. Regenerate.”

Something in the air has changed. There’s barely a trembling drumbeat of a double heart there, in the Doctor’s lap.

“It’s not like I get a choice, is it?” His eyes roll back into the pale, pale head.

A hissing sigh. Then, silence.

There was dead weight in his arms for all of five minutes.

The Doctor simply waited. There was something in his hand, and in his head, and in his hearts. If he did what he was planning to do, then perhaps the memory of Gallifrey had a chance.  The ship began to curve around, following its course above the Earth, and the deck creaked. The gun slid to one side, and the people aboard simple swayed, silent. It was as though the power of speech had died here, numb and exhausted. All swayed on their feet, some in disbelief, others deep in shock. The eerie silence became the calm of futility, and it was as though there was no more need for words. Emotions simply hung, and faded.

Cradling the body in his arms, the Doctor held a little trinket in his palm.

Of course, if it all backfired, the universe would be missing a species, but as it probably happened every day, he reasoned that it was worth a try.

Crossing his fingers, he began to twist the object, manipulate it so that all it required was a touch.

What if it all went wrong?

Outside the windows of the Valiant, the clouds of smoke from a freshly liberated but still ruined Earth rose. Outside it may have been rotted and black, but the sky was the most perfect pastel blue that anyone could have wanted.

The free and clear sky. Even as he made the final calculations, he wasn’t really thinking about anything other than what Gallifrey had looked like. What it might have looked like, if it had been left outside the war, just like its two survivors.

The look on the Master’s dead face still made him wonder. Perhaps, he too was dreaming of a free blue sky.

It wasn’t the Master’s style, but perhaps he was.

-A free, blue sky -

The burst of flaming energy around the pair made everyone duck. The flaring energy built up, passed, and the Master threw back his new head and screamed.

“Well. Blimey.” The Doctor let him go, carefully moving the prostrate Gallifreyan on the floor to a less crumpled position. Gasping for breath, eyes blinking, he resembled a landed fish. So much for a sedate rebirth; it was more like recovering from a complex set of aerobics.

The Master shrugged, with a little difficulty. “How is it?”

“Um, perhaps I preferred you without the beard.”

The Master stirred, and began to evaluate exactly where he was. Without missing a beat, he pulled out his laser screwdriver and aimed off a shot. Lucy Saxon simply slipped to the floor with a rather ungraceful thud, amidst more shrieks of panic from the motley of humans aboard the Valiant.

“You what…you vicious - she dropped the gun! She dropped it!”

He sat up, and looked over to the corner where she had rolled over, face down to the deck.  “Oh, good shot.”

“Good shot?” The Doctor aimed a kick at the Master’s spine, and felt a resounding thud as he tripped him flat onto his newly-made face. Shocking as it was, unusual as the circumstances were; it seemed the appropriate thing to do.  The Master growled, and had such a look of surprise about him as he reeled back upwards, that it gave him an even more arrogant air than usual.

Not that anything seemed usual about him now. The previous body had possessed some notable flaws: a slight weakness in the face, perhaps even a slight stockiness. This body seemed surprisingly similar to the last. Still annoyed at his death, and still with traces of regenerative energy streaming about him, he had seemingly grown a beard that was neat and squarely trimmed to the jaw. His eyes now were a slightly deeper grey, but still remained slightly sunken.

“I could have done with a few more inches in height.”

He flicked out his fingers. Thinner, and more agile hands than before held his ring.

“The hair’s changed, too. Darker? Hard to say. What would you think, Doctor? Do I need a dye job yet?”

Which was when Jack levelled the gun at his head.

“I swear, one more move and you’re not going to regenerate again with a head.”

The Master’s new eyes regarded him coolly. Raising his hands, he made a show of slowly turning around to face the freak.

“Point taken. By the way, I haven’t changed that much, have I ? I can feel it. Such an easy skin to be in, this time. That’s the thing about recent regeneration. Die within a year or so of your last cycle, and you get to keep most of the attributes. A bit like a Reader’s Digest offer.”

Jack made a noncommittal snort, and kept his distance.

And then - but no-one could quite say how - the Doctor took charge. Still effervescing from some of the Archangel power, he restored the scene. Silently at first, the wind swept by, blowing gusts this way and that, illuminated from within by some etheric energy. Lucy, standing all at once in the corner. Jack, pushed to one side as if by a great wind. Martha, on the point of reaching out to him, cradled up to her family. Scared, but safe.  The roaring of whatever power created the turbulence settled upon them all, whirling furiously and making them buckle -

And then it all paused.

“Interesting.”

The Master took his hands off his head, and looked at the Doctor, eyes aglow. “So, it’s us, now, is it?”

“Not in the way you mean. I’m going to make sure this time that you will never do this again.”

“Never’s a pretty final word. Care to re-evaluate?”

He watched, impassively, as the room darkened, and the whole scene washed out as though darkened by sudden rain. The ship vanished underneath their feet, and with a tiny crackle, the very air began to disappear. Trace by trace.

It was as though this were the void. There was a very definite sense of depth, but not any sensation that there was any direction. Up and down became redundant, for there weren’t any real markers to indicate them. The Master found that although he wasn’t floating, he seemed to be extant only in three dimensions. Feeling unpleasantly enclosed, there was little else to do but wait.

When the final molecule of existence blinked away with a small popping sound, there was only silence. It was broken by the singular sound of the Doctor, much more than a voice - more like a presence, there in the void with him. He could feel a hand on top of his hand. And then something spoke with the Doctor’s voice, but it seemed like a multitude, a host of tongues all speaking at once.

“You have been judged by the last representative of the Gallifreyan High Council as a galactic criminal under the edict of the First Era, and will be sentenced. Sentence is…two…

“Not so bad, then.”

“…thousand years, bound in subjectivity, to a suitable representative of the High Council. Your sentence has begun. This Tribunal rises.”

“Don’t I get to plea?”

The Doctor’s voice was nearly at his ear. “No, not really.”

And there was a blue flash, and the room returned to how it had been. Light returned, air filled his lungs and with a deafening crack, the world reappeared beneath them.

The silent tableau before them was still frozen into place. But he and the Doctor, the only two players in this strange drama, were free to move about and look at each other, still blinking into the light.

And the Doctor quietly held up a small blue sphere.

“You total b- “

“No. Never as much as you. Now shut up, and accept your punishment.”

“Two thousand years with you is going to be an eternity. Why not just kill me with boredom? You actually used it. When I was last on Gallifrey, they hadn’t used it in millennia!”

“Until you came along, they had no need to.”

“And you call me cruel. You do realise that you’re as trapped as me, don’t you?”

It’s not as if the Doctor hasn’t understood this. From the moment he’d been delving around in the Tardis to try and find something to help them against the Toclafane, he’d kept one hot hand on the orb. It wasn’t something to be used lightly. In fact, there had been serious doubt if he could use it at all. But now it had been activated…well. It changed everything. Nothing now could ever keep on its track. Even the very line of time would be disjointed, from this moment forward. Is this regret?

He shivered. “The paradox machine. Uncouple it. Reverse everything.”

“How can you know I’ll do it? I could just take off, leave you all here to stew.”

But his voice isn’t quite as cocky as it has been before. And under it, the Doctor fancies that he, too, can now hear the drums. They make a very strange rhythm, and he fights down the urge to panic at what he’s done.

You won’t run, Master, because I’m …asking you not to. It’s not right.

-You say that so often. But I’m not a very good basis for comparison, am I?

All right then. I’m going to have to teach you, from here on in. Just like the Academy.

And he pushes him. Just a touch. Enough to make the Master move without his own will, towards the Tardis.

- You absolute b-

The voice retreats, muted by the Doctor’s own will. True telepathy is not in the range of a Time Lord - usually they prefer to keep well out of each other’s minds as a mark of respect. But this goes deeper than respect, further than trust, and is a lot less noble than speech. This telepathy is playing dirty. In this, the Master feels vindicated in being compelled to fix the Tardis’s predicament as soon as possible.

The Doctor simply shakes his head, as though to rid himself of the slightly tinny sound of his own voice, echoing back into his own head. This wasn’t part of what he expected. Teaching him a lesson? What a terrible line. But an even more sanctimonious sentiment. A slight giddy sensation rises. This isn’t him.

Is it?

Stiffening, he begins to let himself think about what he’s just done. Looking over to the Tardis, he sees the huddled new body of the master, carefully testing out new muscles as he heaves components out of the way, wrenching cables from their sockets with a few remembered expletives.

Not bad.

And again, his mind is wandering. It’s as if he were tired, and allowing himself to be led as he walks towards the frozen tableau. He sees Martha, and thinks about the times they ran together, and about Jack, and the times that he ran from him.

It’s not that he refuses to think about Rose. It’s just that his memory can only stand so much at one time, and for some strange reason, he’s feeling altogether too close to crying.

“Oh, for-“ Another string of curses. The Master backs away from the Tardis, sparks streaming past him, singeing his clothes.

“Mind the generators. They’re very temperamental, given the wrong kind of tool.” The Doctor throws him something from a coat pocket, but the Master simply nods, still holding onto the sonic screwdriver.

When did I give you that?

-I nicked it from your pockets when you were helping me up. You really should be a bit more careful, you know. Oh, and you’re all out of pink jelly babies.

The Doctor makes a kind of clucking noise under his breath, and wonders why he isn’t raging, absolutely furious about his screwdriver. He tries, experimentally: there’s no rage, not even a slight upset feeling about the theft of something that’s quite possibly been with him for longer than any companion. Something that’s travelled all the way from Gallifrey, just to end up in the hands of a villain.

No, no rage at all. Just, perhaps, a tremor of pride.  But as he sticks his hands into his pockets once more, he notices the Master wiping away tears.

Pride? Why would he feel pride? He just stopped a world in its tracks -

Later. He’ll think about all this later.

With a deep breath, he knows what he has to do. Didn’t someone sing once about goodbye being the hardest word?

-Actually, it was ‘sorry’.  Freudian slip, at your age?

He winces. Get out of my head, Master.

-You keep saying it so often.

What?

-Both of them. Sorry and goodbye. Gods, how much stuff do you keep in here? This place needs a clear out. You’re disgusting.

And I should feel ashamed, having my Tardis criticised by a murdering megalomaniac. I said GET OUT of my head, and get back into reconverting that monstrosity.

-I’m going. And I wasn’t talking about your Tardis, for Gods’ sake.

Their eyes meet. And what the Doctor sees in the Master’s is not exactly family viewing: it’s got hints of some kind of murderous facility with his thoughts, and that little grin that simply spreads, and has the tiniest trace of fun and malice. But what really disquiets him is that feeling, the tiny buzzing sensation in the back of his brain that there’s a lot more to the way that the Master licks his lips, and looks straight through him. Inside him.

And there’s this heat, deep down, right where -

He looks down. That’s not right; somewhere, some part of him is screaming very loudly that this is not a Good Thing, and that this might be construed as something close to temptation.

He chooses to ignore it. Perhaps, it’ll go away, a bit like the tiny tapping of his hearts against his ribcage, fighting his rising blush of confusion. He’s always been able to manage it before. Nine hundred years of doing rather well at it so far, despite the odds.

If he feels another flutter, he stifles it.

-Go do it.

Do you mind? I’ll do what I want to.

-I think you’ll find that one a bit limiting. All you’ve ever wanted to do was get involved with humans and wander around the galaxy, you and your messiah complex.

He doesn’t answer. Actually, that one stung a bit.

- Go on, break her heart. Tell her you’re leaving, she was a nice girl, but you’re off.

As the Doctor uses the very last of his reserve of loaned strength, he claps his hands together. It breaks the spell, and suddenly time and space and reality begin to seep back onto the ship. It reminds Martha of waking up in the middle of the night, her thoughts like an oily cup of coffee. Slowly, she walks forward to him.

“You’re leaving.”

He’s holding his coat over his arm. Looking sheepish, he nods. And there’s a moment when there’s the noises of the wounded, the whimpers of the bewildered on board. She clears her mind, and then asks him what she’s wondered.

“Will you just leave us like this, then?”

Alone, she means. The people have been calling out for someone to save them, and now he’s going to disappear without so much as a farewell. For them, she adds mentally. Not for her. Certainly not for her.

“It’s not what I planned.”

-Liar.

Keep working, and shut up. Leave Martha out of this.

She looks at his face, lost in an internal decision.

“I’ll restore everything to what it was. Once we’re away.”

The unspoken question of who, exactly, we are is not lost on him. “I’m taking the Master away. He’s going to have to come to terms with what...with what’s been going on.”

-So unselfish.

“He’ll be under arrest, Martha. He’ll never do this again. Ever.” He pulls out something from his coat pocket, and Martha feels somehow that this is beyond her, now. There used to be so much she could be blasé about. But whatever he did now was not the Doctor she had known.

He held it towards the light. From a distance, it had looked like a pale globe of blue glass, and closer to, it shimmered. There was something at its heart, and for a moment Martha was reminded of the smoky curve of the glass in a marble. Dark and light, strands caught in a finite twist. There was the same fine twist in the orb. It seemed to glow, slightly, as he held it up in his palm.

“It’s called a Zys. It…well, it yokes two things together. Energy and matter.” He absently scratched the back of his head, and self-ruffled his hair back up again.

“Years ago, when the Time Lords had prisons…oh, don’t look so surprised, we weren’t all saints…way back when, the Time Lords of the Silver Nova decided that in order to rehabilitate a criminal, you had to put him back into society. Force him to pay his debt by being around others far more moral than him. No matter what you did, you’d never be allowed to brood on it or to think how great you were. There’d be literally no escape from a respectable society. You’d be part of it, like it or not.”

Martha looked at it dubiously. “So, they put them in there, then?”

The Doctor giggled, a little nervously. “Oh, no. No room in a Zys for anything, certainly wouldn’t be able to fit a Time Lord in amongst all that energy, no. You see, it’s pretty clever. The Zys links two Time Lords telepathically, mentally - just for a set period of time. They used to set the period on sentencing day, and choose a member of the High Council to be a Zysaeus.  A Zys - mate. In effect, a jailer.”

“So, what’s to stop the prisoner running off with this Zys - thingy and never returning?”

Closing his hand on it, The Doctor hid its pale glow once more. “Usually, death.”

“How?”

“ Like a plant needs sunlight, the Zys bonds with the Artron energy in each of the pair it’s bonded with. It’s a little like a parasite. Give it the energy of two Time Lords, and it simply links them for a time. But if there’s only one within a range of, oh, say a hundred miles - “

He caught Martha looking very dubiously at him. “What?”

Pushing back his hair, he gave a difficult, half-hearted smile. “Well, ok, suffice to say that the one with the Zys gets drained of all his energy, and regenerates again and again, never breaking free of the cycle. The other - well, there’s something far nastier for them. Still, it didn’t half cut the crime rate.”

“Usually, by cutting half the criminals.” The voice behind her made her skin crawl, still. “There’s a reason why they stopped doing this, you know.”

The Master gave the Doctor a meaningful look, and watched as he clumsily stepped forward to hug the girl, and say a final goodbye.

-Time we were going.

Not so fast. We have things to set right here, you know.

-I know. But I can feel it, pulling me along…

The Doctor does not acknowledge that he, too, feels it. The frantic whisper of the drums, building into a crescendo somewhere in his blood.

Is this what it is to be yoked to a madman? Forced forever to go at his pace?

There are remarkably few tears. Martha has gone back to stand with her family, but Jack stands alone, waiting.

“It was years. Years, and I needed to find you.”

“I’m sorry.” They both know it’s a very convenient line, but Jack lets it slip.

“Just...just get me back. Not to the Agency, that’s too far. Back…” and he indicates the ground below him. Somewhere on Earth, he means, where he could make a home. Or something like it.

The hug is too brief for any real import. But it is the end of an era, without the years and within them.

“Jack. I promise…”

What he’s promising is a bit too nebulous. He could mean that he’ll fix everything, but what he in fact does is short out Jack’s gadgets for good. He may well be stuck forever in one era, but the Doctor suspects that it’s not Jack’s patience that will be tested.

“Wait, you’re taking him?”

There’s a guilty look to answer him. Jack doesn’t look away, instead choosing to stare right back at him. But as he sees the blue glow in the very depth of his eyes, he begins to realise that something, somewhere isn’t right.

In fact, it’s very wrong.

“Doctor?”

Somehow, time has speeded up: Instead of being in front of him, the Doctor is somehow now waving to them, from the Tardis’s doors. There’s a hum, and an all-too familiar whine.

And then, there was nothing but the blue, open sky.

There had better be a good explanation for this.

-Oddly enough, I just wanted to see what you’d do when you see him crying. But then, I thought, why not make a party of it? After all, you do have the rest of the problem to deal with.

Problem?

-The Archangel network. You really think that I wouldn’t have fitted some kind of safety device?

It was at times like this that the Doctor really did feel that for all its transference of behaviour problems, the Zys was actually very handy for not making him feel that guilty.

The punch knocked the Master away from the console, and down the steps.

“How long have we got?” Standing over him, now, mentally facing him down. Squirming in his mind, the Master finally gave in.

“An hour. Possibly less. It’s on the dark side of the moon. Old Torchwood facility, hasn’t been used remotely in years.  You’ll have to disarm it manually.”

“Ah, we. You’re going to come with me every step of the way.”

“Go to hell.”

And, just like a prophecy, all the lights went out as they crashed, silently, into the shadows of the moon.