Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Dr Who - What If ❯ The Last Time Lord ( Chapter 17 )

Martha and Rose dodged patrols as they made their way through Bexley to a run down street in the slave quarters, where they knocked on a door. `Let me in. It's Jones.'

 

They entered the terraced house, and found it full of scruffy, unwashed people. `Did you bring food?' a woman asked.

 

Martha shook her head. `Couldn't get any, and I'm starving.'

 

`All we've got is water,' the woman told her.

 

`I'm sorry,' Rose said, feeling helpless.

 

`It's cheaper than building barracks,' Martha said. `Pack them in, a hundred in each house, ferry them off to the shipyards every morning.'

 

There was a teenage boy sitting on the stairs, looking intently at them. `Are you Rose Tyler?'

 

Rose smiled. `Yeah, that's me.'

 

`Can you do it? Can you kill him? They said you can kill the Master, can you? Tell us you can do it. Please, tell us you can do it,' the boy pleaded.

 

Before Rose could answer, another woman spoke. `Who is the Master?' There was a babble of voices wanting information.

 

`Come on, just leave her alone,' Martha said. `She's exhausted.'

 

Rose smiled at the way Martha's was mothering her. `No, it's all right. They want me to talk, and I will.' She sat on the stairs, and started to tell them what they needed to know. `I travelled across the world, from the ruins of New York to the fusion mills of China, right across the radiation pits of Europe. And everywhere I went, I saw people just like you, livin' as slaves.' The house was silent, hanging on her every word.

 

`But if Rose Tyler became a legend, then that's wrong, because my name isn't important. There's someone else. The man who sent me out there. The man who told me to walk the Earth. And his name is the Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times, and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I've seen him . . . I know him . . . I love him. And I know what he can do.'

 

A panicked woman hurried through the front door, breaking the spell. `It's him! It's him! Oh my God, it's him! It's the Master. He's here.'

 

`But he never comes to Earth,' the teenager said. `He never walks upon the ground.'

 

`Hide her!' the woman said, looking at Rose.

 

Martha picked up an old sack. `Use this.' Rose lay down on the stairs with the sack over her, while outside, the Master was accompanied by armed guards and spheres. Martha readied her gun by the letter box.

 

`He walks among us, our lord and master,' the teenager said.

 

`Rose. Rose Tyler,' the Master called in a sing-song voice. `I can see you! Out you come, little girl. Come and meet your master. Anybody? Nobody? No? Nothing?' He stopped in the middle of the road.

 

`Positions,' he ordered, and his troops assumed an attack position. `I'll give the order unless you surrender. Ask yourself . . . What would the Doctor do?

 

Rose took off the Tardis key and went to the door. She lowered Martha's gun and stepped outside.

 

`Oh, yes. Oh, very well done. Good girl. He trained you well. Bag. Give me the bag,' he ordered. Rose took a step forward. `No, stay there. Just throw it.'

 

She threw her backpack towards the Master, who took out his laser screwdriver and fired at it, blowing it up.

 

`And now, good companion, your work is done.' He pointed his laser at Rose, and she closed her eyes. So this was it. She just hoped she'd done enough, because now, she would never know.

 

Martha ran out of the house pointing her pistol at the Master. `NO!'

 

`MARTHA! NO!' Rose put her hands to her mouth in horror as the Master killed Martha in a blaze of yellow light, laughing as he did.

 

`But you, when you die, the Doctor should be witness, hmm? Almost dawn, Rose, and planet Earth marches to war.'

 

 

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On the flight deck of the Valiant, at the top of the stairs, the Master addressed the camera. `Citizens of Earth, rejoice and observe.'

 

Guards brought Rose in to join Jack who was being held at gun point. She looked at the Doctor, locked in a birdcage, and she nearly lost it. What had that bastard done to the man she loved?

 

`Your teleport device, in case you thought I'd forgotten,' the Master said to Rose. She took it off her wrist and threw it at him.

 

`And now, kneel. Down below, the fleet is ready to launch. Two hundred thousand ships set to burn across the universe. Are we ready?'

 

`The fleet awaits your signal,' a man told him. `Rejoice!'

 

`Three minutes to align the black hole converters. Counting down. I never could resist a ticking clock. My children, are you ready?'

 

The voice of the spheres came out of the speakers. [`We will fly and blaze and slice. We will fly and blaze and slice.']

 

`At zero, to mark this day, the child Rose Tyler, will die,' the Master said. `My first blood. Any last words?' Rose glared at him. `No? Such a disappointment, this one. For a companion who could absorb the time vortex, she's useless.'

 

He came halfway down the stairs. `Bow your head,' he commanded her, but she continued to glare at him defiantly. `And so it falls to me, as Master of all, to establish from this day, a new order of Time Lords. From this day forward . . .'

 

Rose started to quietly laugh.

 

`What. What's so funny?'

 

`A gun.'

 

`What about it?'

 

`A gun in four parts?'

 

`Yes, and I destroyed it.'

 

`A gun in four parts scattered across the world? I mean, come on, did you really believe that?'

 

`What do you mean?'

 

`As if I would ask her to kill,' the Doctor said quietly from his birdcage.

 

`Oh well, it doesn't matter. I've got her exactly where I want her.'

 

`No!' She said with fire and ice in her voice. `You have brought me exactly where I want to be, where I should be . . .' She would deny the Doctor no longer. `By my husband's side.'

 

`Husband?' the Master said, stunned.

 

`Yes, you heard me. My husband. I knew what Professor Docherty would do. The Resistance knew about her son. I told her about the gun, so she'd get me here at the right time.'

 

He gave her a boyish smile. `Oh you little minx.' He looked at the Doctor in his cage. `You were wise to keep that from me. Oh well, too late to do anything with her now.' Turning back to Rose, he pulled a pretend sad face. `I'm afraid you're still going to die, Doctor's wife.'

 

Oh what he could have done to the Doctor if he'd known they were married. He wouldn't have needed to use his laser screwdriver; he could have raped her mind and found the key to the Doctor's mind.

 

`Don't you want to know what I was doin', travellin' the world?' Rose asked, almost teasing him.

 

`Tell me.'

 

`I told a story, that's all. No weapons, just words. I'm a good and dutiful wife. I did just what my husband told me to do. I went across the continents all on my own. And everywhere I went, I found the people, and I told them my story. I told them about the Doctor. And I told them to pass it on, to spread the word so that everyone would know about the Doctor.'

 

`Faith and hope? Is that all?' the Master scoffed.

 

`No, because I gave them an instruction, just as the Doctor said.' She stood up defiantly. `I told them that if everyone thinks of one word, at one specific time . . .'

 

`Nothing will happen,' he told her. `Is that your weapon? Prayer?'

 

But Rose ignored him. `Right across the world, one word, just one thought at one moment but with fifteen satellites.'

 

`What?' The Master was suddenly aware that something was wrong.

 

`The Archangel Network,' Jack said.

 

`A telepathic field bindin' the whole human race together, with all of them, every single person on Earth, thinkin' the same thing at the same time. And that word is . . . Doctor.'

 

As the rocket countdown reached zero, the Doctor and his cage started to glow.

 

`Stop it. No, no, no, no, you don't.'

 

`Doctor. Doctor,' Jack chanted.

 

Staff and servants who had been bullied and threatened to serve the Master started to chant. `Doctor. Doctor'

 

`Don't,' the Master protested.

 

On the monitor, crowds across the globe started chanting `Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.'

 

`Stop this right now. Stop it!' he demanded.

 

His wife Lucy chanted. `Doctor.'

 

Rose grinned and chanted. `Doctor.'

 

The Doctor was surrounded by an ethereal light, and was slowly transforming back to his original form, much to the delight of his wife. His voice reverberated in their heads. `I've had a whole year to tune myself into the psychic network and integrate with its matrices.'

 

`I order you to stop!' The Master was starting to sound like a spoilt child.

 

`Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor.'

 

The Doctor was restored to his former (and what Rose considered foxy) glory, and held out his arms as he rose into the air. `The one thing you can't do. Stop them thinking. Tell me the human race is degenerate now, when they can do this.'

 

Rose ran to Jack and hugged him.

 

`NO!' the Master shouted. He fired his laser screwdriver at the Doctor, but the ethereal light that was still around him absorbed the energy.

 

`I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,' the Doctor said.

 

`Then I'll kill her,' he raged, pointing the laser at Rose.

 

The Doctor stretched out his hand and the screwdriver flew from the Master's hand.

 

`You can't do this. You can't do it. It's not fair!'

 

`And you know what happens now.'

 

`No! No! No! No!'

 

The Doctor floated towards the Master. `You wouldn't listen.'

 

`No!'

 

`Because you know what I'm going to say.'

 

`No.'

 

The Master curled into a ball in the corner. The Doctor put his arms around him. `I forgive you.'

 

`My children,' the Master said, calling to the spheres.

 

In orbit around the Earth, the spheres started to descend. `Protect the paradox. Protect the paradox. Protect the paradox.'

 

The Doctor stood urgently. `Captain, the paradox machine!'

 

`You men, with me!' he said to the guards who had previously been his gaolers. He turned to Rose. `You stay here.'

 

The Doctor spotted the Master activating the manipulator, and grabbed it. `No!' They disappeared in a flash of light.

 

`NO!' Rose shouted. She'd only just got the Doctor back, and now he'd gone again. She went over to the control centre and looked at the display. `We've all six billion spheres headin' right for us.'

 

Jack and the guards found three spheres guarding the TARDIS, so they started shooting at them. `Can't get in. We'd get slaughtered,' one of the guards said.

 

`Yeah. Happens to me a lot,' Jack said with a smirk and went in alone. He managed to get inside the TARDIS and empty his machine gun clip into the paradox machine, causing it to explode.

 

The Master and the Doctor ended up in the quarry next to the shipyard where the rockets were lined up waiting to be launched.

 

`Now it ends, Doctor. Now it ends.' There was a roll of thunder, and sirens sounded in the shipyard.

 

`We've got control of the Valiant. You can't launch.'

 

`Oh, but I've got this. Black hole converter inside every ship. If I can't have this world, Doctor, then neither can you. We shall stand upon this Earth together, as it burns.'

 

`Weapon after weapon after weapon. All you do is talk and talk and talk. But over all these years and all these disasters, I've always had the greatest secret of them all. I know you. Explode those ships, you kill yourself. That's the one thing you can never do. Give that to me.'

 

The Master handed over the black hole converter trigger, and the ground started to shake. The Doctor and the Master struggled for the vortex manipulator, and they disappeared together.

 

The spheres disappeared and the Valiant shook. Papers flew everywhere, and Rose was thrown into the recently teleported Doctor's arms.

 

`Hmm, that's more like it,' she said with a grin.'

 

He kissed her quickly on the lips. `Everyone get down! Time is reversing!'

 

The Master held onto some railings, while, the winds of time created havoc and panic on the ground, until finally the people, the rockets and the statues disappeared. Calm returned and a red bus drove around Piccadilly Circus.

 

`The paradox is broken,' the Doctor announced. `We've reverted back, one year and one day. Two minutes past eight in the morning.

 

`This is UNIT Central. What's happened up there? We just saw the President assassinated,' a voice called out from the speakers.

 

`Just after the President was killed, but just before the spheres arrived. Everything back to normal. Planet Earth restored. None of it happened. The rockets, the terror. It never was.'

 

`What about the spheres?' Rose asked him.

 

`Trapped at the end of the universe.'

 

`But I can remember it.'

 

`We're at the eye of the storm. The only ones who'll ever know.'

 

The Master made a break for the door just as Jack was entering. `Whoa, big fella! You don't want to miss the party.' He grabbed the Master by his arms. `Cuffs,' he said to one of the guards, and secured his hands behind his back. `So, what do we do with this one?'

 

`We kill him,' the ADC said.

 

`We execute him,' the deck officer said.

 

`No, that's not the solution,' the Doctor told them.

 

The ADC aimed her pistol at the Master. `Oh, I think so. Because all those things, they still happened because of him. The orders he gave out. The reports we got back, I saw them.'

 

`Go on,' the Master goaded her. `Do it.'

 

`Aide-de-camp Dexter, you're better than him.' The Doctor got Dexter to lower the gun and he hugged her, and then handed her off to Rose.

 

`You still haven't answered the question. What happens to me?' the Master asked.

 

`You're my responsibility from now on. The only Time Lord left in existence.'

 

`Yeah, but you can't trust him,' Jack said.

 

`No. The only safe place for him is the TARDIS.'

 

`You mean you're just going to keep me?'

 

`Mmm. If that's what I have to do. It's time to change.' He looked over at Rose. `Maybe I've been wandering for too long. I've got a wife, and now I've got a long lost relative. A sort of black sheep of the family that's come back to the fold.'

 

`Oh great. I'm going to be a house guest of Posh and Becks!' the Master said sarcastically.

 

Shots rang out, and the Master fell into the Doctor's arms. Lucy was standing there with a pistol in her hand.

 

`Put it down,' Jack said cautiously.

 

The Doctor lowered the Master to the floor. `There you go. I've got you. I've got you.'

 

`Always the women.'

 

`I didn't see her.'

 

`Dying in your arms. Happy now?'

 

`You're not dying. Don't be stupid. It's only a bullet. Just regenerate.'

 

`No.'

 

`One little bullet. Come on.'

 

`I guess you don't know me so well. I refuse.'

 

`Regenerate. Just regenerate. Please. Please! Just regenerate. Come on.'

 

`And spend the rest of my life imprisoned with you?'

 

`You've got to. Come on. It can't end like this. You and me, all the things we've done. Axons. Remember the Axons? And the Daleks. We're the only two left. There's no one else. Regenerate!'

 

`How about that. I win. Will it stop, Doctor? The drumming. Will it stop?' the Master asked him before his eyes closed, and his body slumped in the Doctor's grip.

 

`NO!' he cried out in despair.

 

Rose knelt beside him and put her arm around his shoulders. He turned and hugged her, tears trickling down his cheeks. She didn't know what to say to console him. Okay, she'd lost her mum and Mickey, but she still had her friends and other humans to turn to. The Doctor had no one of his race to turn to.

 

`There, there Love. It'll be all right,' she said, feeling useless.

 

`For a while there, it wasn't just me,' he said through his sobs.

 

`Hey, come on,' Rose said, crying herself and rubbing his back. `Remember what you told me? We've got each other.'

 

He looked up at her and pulled her into a passionate kiss. It was the first kiss they had shared for the last 8,760 hours, and it said everything. It said they had missed each other for the last 365 days. It said they had needed each other for the last 52 weeks, and it said that they loved each other, not just for the last 12 months, but forever.

 

 

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Rose handed over the money and picked up the bouquet of flowers off the counter. She stepped outside, took a deep breath, taking in the fragrance of the blooms, and looked up to the sky with a sigh. If only she could have been one of the six billion people for whom the last year had never happened.

 

She found her way to the nearby park where the Doctor said Professor Alison Docherty would be, and found her walking along the path. She ran up to her and presented the flowers for her to take.

 

'Just to say, I don't blame you,' Rose said, not that she could blame her for anything now, it had never happened.

 

'But who are you?' The Professor asked in confusion.

 

She left the baffled Professor, and walked back to the TARDIS, where the Doctor and Jack were waiting for her. They were still helping the TARDIS to fix the damage that the paradox machine had caused, and glanced at her as she walked up the ramp.

 

'And was the Professor completely clueless?' The Doctor asked her with a knowing smile.

 

'Yeah,' she said with a lopsided smile. 'But it made me feel better.'

 

The Doctor gave a single laugh. 'It reminds me of when we first met Martha and I took my tie off in front of her in the street . . . she must have thought we were nutters.'

 

Rose laughed as well and looked at Jack. 'Yeah, and she was right.'

 

They all laughed; it was good to laugh again after the year of hell that they'd been through.

 

'Right then, a quick stop off at the Rift for a top up, and then we can be on our way.' He started the time rotor, and moved around the console adjusting the settings. The paradox machine had been drawing energy from the TARDIS while it allowed the future and the present to coexist, and now she needed to regain that lost energy.

 

The TARDIS landed next to the cascading water feature where it normally parked, and they stepped out onto Roald Dahl Plass. The sky was cloudy, but it was warm and bright, they could hear the Herring Gulls in the bay.

 

'Come on, let's go, and grab some lunch in that restaurant out on the jetty,' Jack said. 'I'm buying.'

 

Rose linked arms with both of them, and they strolled down the Plass, and right onto Mermaid Quay, following it around to the short jetty, which they walked along and into the restaurant.

 

'This takes me back a bit,' Jack said as they looked at the menu.

 

'Yeah,' Rose said absently, lost in her memories as she thought about Mickey, and then her mum.

 

`And who'd have thought that when returned here, we'd be husband and wife,' the Doctor said, bringing her out of her melancholy mood.

 

`I would!' Jack said with his perfect smile, and they all laughed.

 

When they had eaten their lunches, Jack paid the bill, and they wandered back towards the Plass, and the waiting TARDIS. They stood by the red brick Pierhead Building, leaning on the railing, and looking at all the people in the Plass, going about their daily business, getting on with their lives.

 

'Time was, every single one of these people knew our name . . . now they've all forgotten us,' Rose said sadly, there would be no recognition of what they'd done for them, the risks they'd taken, the sacrifices they'd made.

 

'Good,' the Doctor said simply, sounding relieved. He couldn't travel like he did if everyone knew who he was.

 

'Back to work,' Jack said suddenly, climbing through the railing.

 

'I really don't mind, though . . . come with me,' the Doctor said softly to his old friend. He was becoming desensitised to his “wrongness”, and he wouldn't mind travelling with Jack again, they could reminisce about old times.

 

'I had plenty of time to think that past year . . . the year that never was.' He looked over to the secret entrance to Torchwood Three, the last remaining outpost of the institute. 'And I kept thinking about that team of mine.' He looked back at them. 'Like you said, Doctor, responsibility.'

 

'Defending the Earth . . . can't argue with that,' he said. Jack had told him in the warehouse that the old Torchwood had gone, there were only a handful of them now, and he'd rebuilt it in his honour.

 

The Doctor grabbed Jack's arm and exposed the Vortex manipulator on his wrist. He took out his sonic screwdriver and disabled it.

 

'Hey, I need that,' Jack protested.

 

'I can't have you walking around with a time travelling teleport. You could go anywhere . . . twice,' he told him. 'The second time to apologise.' Rose snorted a laugh at that.

 

'And what about me? Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?' Jack asked in desperation.

 

'Nothing I can do. You're an impossible thing, Jack.'

 

Jack laughed and gave him that perfect smile. 'Been called that before.' He turned and took a few steps, before turning and saluting them. 'Sir.'

 

The Doctor touched his forelock. Jack winked at Rose. 'Ma'am.' She gave him a wave and smiled.

 

He took another step and turned again. 'But I keep wondering . . . what about ageing? `Cos I can't die but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know?' he said pointing towards his head. 'What happens if I live for a million years?'

 

'I really don't know,' the Doctor drawled with humour.

 

Jack laughed 'Okay, vanity. Sorry . . . yeah, can't help it. Used to be a poster boy when I was a kid living on the BoeshanePeninsula. Tiny little place. I was the first one EVER to be signed up for the Time Agency. They were so proud of me. The Face of Boe, they called me, hah!' He had a melancholy air about him now. 'I'll see you.'

 

He finally turned and headed off towards Torchwood's secret entrance. Rose touched the Doctor's arm, a look of amazement on her face.

 

'No,' he said.

 

'It can't be,' she said as they watched the retreating figure of Jack Harkness.

 

'No. Definitely not. No.' Rose started laughing. 'No,' he said again, and started laughing himself. It all made perfect sense now.

 

'Come on, the TARDIS should have a full charge now.'

 

They entered the TARDIS, walking up the ramp; the Doctor threw his coat over the coral. He silently looked at the console, the time rotor, and around the domed, vaulted ceiling. Rose's arms came around his chest and she hugged him from behind, resting her head in between his shoulders.

 

'Right then, off we go. The open road,' he said, turning in her embrace to face her. `There is a burst of star fire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water, fancy a look?'

 

`Mmmm, sounds brilliant,' she said, unbuttoning his blue jacket and slipping it off his shoulders. `I'll put it on the “to do” list on the fridge.'

 

`Oh, right,' he said, clearing his throat. `Or back in time, we could, I don't know, Charles the Second?'

 

`Yeah, we could,' she said sensually, unfastening his tie and using it to pull him into a kiss.

 

`Mmmm, Henry the Eighth?' he mumbled through the kiss.

 

`Mmmm, put it on the list,' she breathed as she unbuttoned his purple shirt.

 

`Mmmm, I know, what about Agatha Christie? I'd love to meet Agatha Christie. Mmmm, I bet she's brilliant.'

 

`Doctor?' she said, taking off her hoodie and pulling her T-shirt over her head.

 

`Hmmm?'

 

`Shut that gorgeous gob of yours and take me to bed!'

 

 

 

The End