Chapter Text
The message came as an untidy scrawl on her psychic paper. Middle Gallifreyan, with blotches of ink flicked across the paper at the ends of the strokes. His handwriting.
12.787-413-magenta-frustration-12. Coordinates, in the old style. She shoved the paper back in her pocket and faked a smile to the fam.
That night, she set the TARDIS adrift in space - always more peaceful away from planets, she told them. It was also only a few seconds out from where she needed to be. She steered there manually once they were in bed, as smoothly as she could.
The place he’d called her to was an asteroid, small enough that gravity was an afterthought but somehow big enough to hold a weather system to its surface. Oxygen. A lot of oxygen. How considerate of him. She pulled up alongside and landed with barely a bump.
He was leaning against a railing built into the rock, staring out at the horizon, which on an asteroid this small was unnervingly close. Her shoes crunched on dust and sand as she moved to stand next to him.
Without looking, he aimed a knife at her ribs. Without looking, she twisted it out of his hand, bending his thumb just short of breaking it. “Touché,” he muttered.
“What do you want?”
“What, I can’t just want to see you?”
“No.” There’s always a reason.
He nodded and shrugged. “I got a message from the High Council today.”
“What.” The Doctor’s thoughts tripped over themselves. “How?”
“They sent me a summons. One of the box ones. I’m to face trial.”
“No, I mean- Gallifrey's dead." You should know.
“They’ve just looped me back in the timeline. Worked it through the drumming.” He tapped his head in that familiar, four-beat rhythm.
“...You could ignore it.”
“Oh, I plan to. But you know they’ll catch me.”
“I still don’t get it. Why've you called me here? Why not get a headstart, leave already?”
“I don’t want to.”
“....I’m sorry, still a bit lost here.”
He turned, spinning to face her, making that intense eye contact he reserved for careful monologuing and psychic discussions. “I don’t want to.” He repeated. “I want to stand trial.”
What the hell was he playing at? “They’ll kill you.”
“Not if you vouch for me.”
And there it was. The reason. “You want me to go back and tell them you’ve changed.”
“And haven’t I?” His eyes were pleading. “Didn’t I, as Missy?”
“You haven’t as you.”
He grinned, tension suddenly gone. “Fair point.”
It was the Doctor’s turn to turn away, now, and she did so, staring at the too-close horizon and gritting her teeth. “When will they find you?”
“Six days, five hours, forty-three minutes.”
“And if you run?”
“I get an extra hour at most. Maybe two if I kill someone, which I will.”
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll come to the trial. I can’t promise what I’ll say, but I’ll be there.”
He reached out a hand, brushing his fingers against her knuckle, and projected out. Thank you.
A brief pause ran between them.
“Why did you kill them?” She asked.
“Not telling you.”
“Why not?”
“You wouldn’t believe me. I’ll show you, soon.”
“You could show me now.”
“Yeah,” the Master said nonchalantly, “I could.”
They stood in silence for a while, on a rock in the middle of nowhere. The sky was a midnight blue, with a silver galaxy stretching above them, and The Doctor watched the timelines dance between the constellations.
Six days, seven hours, and thirty-nine minutes later, she felt a stab of adrenaline echo across the remains of their psychic link. Seven minutes after that, she lost contact.
Time to go.
She dropped the fam off in Sheffield - “Go have dinner with your friends, or something. Go to the zoo, that would be fun!” - and then parked the TARDIS adrift in orbit for a bit, trying to find an outfit.
There were a lot of old clothes in this wardrobe that she was sure she should have burnt aeons ago. Faded Academy jackets, a myriad of high-necked shirts and collars, and one ballgown the Rani had leant her just after their graduation. Some of Susan’s old things were there too. They would have fit perfectly, but the Doctor closed the door on them. People had known Susan, and known what had happened to her - the first true casualty of her recklessness.
In the end, the Doctor gave up. To hell with propriety, she thought, they’ll just have to deal with me as I am. She set the TARDIS to the coordinates she had saved a very, very long time ago as “home”, following the millions of faded artron trails that snaked their way to Gallifrey across time.
A few hours out, she started hitting the barriers - snags in spacetime that dragged at the TARDIS and sent it spinning like a top through the vortex. The TARDIS flashed mauve alert after mauve alert, even ringing the cloister bell during one particularly rough patch, as the Doctor was thrown from one side of the control panel to the other, reaching desperately for the controls. Eventually, they broke through into free space, and Gallifrey rose like a burnt-out sun before her.
Landing was tricky, but she locked onto the Master’s signature - right face, right age, so it was either the trial or the massacre - and peered out through the cameras.
The Citadel. Somehow, it was more terrifying to look at alive than burnt. She’d parked on a rocky outcrop just beyond the edge of the dome, near the platinum gates. She steeled herself and opened the doors to the smell of red grass and snow.
She clamped down on her mind as she walked. The citadel was full of people, and the last thing she needed was to be recognised as a renegade. She felt the thoughts of passers-by swirl past her like a stream, and distantly got impressions of curiosity. Who was this stranger? Questions about her clothes, her age (a Gallifreyan could always tell, and she was thousands of years older than most), her lack of identifiable house followed her all the way to the Spires. To her, it was like walking through a sea of inquisitive ghosts. Every now and again she recognised someone - I graduated with them, he worked with me - and it was like staring her former self in the face. Echoes of a life she thought she’d never get to see again.
The Spires were designed to look intimidating, impossibly tall and ever so slightly curved forward, so that they gave the impression of looking down on you as you entered. Inside was a series of desks, each with a harried-looking Gallifreyan monitoring flows of paperwork as it came and went. She strode up to one and stopped before them. “I want an audience with the President.” She said in a tone she hoped was firm.
“The President isn’t receiving visitors today.”
“Yeah, about that-” The Doctor leaned down, resting her elbows on the edge of the desk and lowering her voice. “Been away from home for a while. Not really caught up on recent events. Who is the President right now?”
“Lady Romanadvoratrelundar.” The assistant said, as if this should be obvious even to a traveller. “She’s been President since the Doctor had Rassilon step down.”
“Really? Fantastic!” The Doctor grinned. “Good for her. Tell her I’m here and it’s urgent, okay?”
“Tell her who’s here?” The assistant asked suspiciously.
“Just call me an old friend of Leela. That should do the trick.”
“You know, I’m usually not into this sort of thing until at least the third date- oof,” his rapidfire speech cut off with a punch to the gut as Nameless Gallifreyan #1 and Nameless Gallifreyan #2 used the opportunity to fit a headband over his temples. A Matrix link? “You’ll all be dead in a month,” he said, half panicked, half gleeful. Never stop talking. “I remember killing you. You, the tall one, you’re bonded, aren’t you? To some pretty young thing at the Academy. I remember-”
And then one of them flipped a switch, and he remembered nothing of much at all.
The Doctor was sent to wait on a chair by the wall for an amount of time that, as only could happen on Gallifrey, felt both longer and shorter than it was. After she’d been reduced to tapping out the rhythm to Sweet Caroline on the table before her (to the dismay of the assistants, and the table, who grumbled quietly), she estimated that it had perhaps been twenty minutes. Or two. Either way, this was when a set of sliding doors across the way opened and a woman came tumbling out.
She was tall, with dark skin and endlessly spiralling hair. Handwritten notes in gold ink covered her arms. She looked unlike any Time Lord the Doctor knew, and yet, as soon as her psychic signature unfolded like a shield around her, the Doctor recognised her instantly.
“Romana!” She said, getting up, and for the first time entering the building, she let her mental shields drop a bit. The assistant who had helped her dropped their pen with a clatter.
“Doctor!” Romana surged forward and scooped her up in a hug. She had almost a foot on her in this incarnation, and the Doctor felt her feet lift off the ground for a second or two. “It’s so good to finally see you!” She set her down and stepped back. "I love the new face. You're so short! Nothing like when I last knew you. Is it 'she', now, then, or 'they'?"
"Uh, 'she', I think. Not really fussed."
The assistant was sitting frozen at their desk, staring at the two of them. "Cartap, could you cancel my next meeting?" Romana asked, and they nodded mutely. "Lovely. Come up to my office, Doctor, let's have a proper catch up." She led the Doctor back to what turned out to be a lift, pressing the button for the forty-third level.
The second the doors closed behind her, Romana's demeanour changed from carefree to worried, smile giving way to a concerned frown and shoulders dropping. "They brought him in last night. I assume that's why you're here."
"Yes."
"Doctor…" Romana looked at her with something bordering on reproach. "The Woman has already seen what he's going to do. If we can't change it, we should at least have justice."
"Yeah, about that." The Doctor squared her shoulders. "I think I know a way to stop him."
"We already know about it, it's fixed-"
"Have you seen my TARDIS? As she is, with the upgrades? I've been working on her a good few thousand years, she's really worth a gander."
"I'm not seeing the connection here."
"The connection is that I now possess the most advanced spacetime ship of any Time Lord. And I think I might be able to break through."
"You of all people should know that meddling with fixed points is dangerous-"
"Yes, I of all people. Do you remember what I did in the war? That was lifetimes ago for me. Child's play." She was playing it up a bit - what she'd done in the War had also skated a fine line between success and ripping the TARDIS to shreds - but Romana didn't need to know that.
Romana pursed her lips. "It'll go before the Council." The lift slowed to a halt and the doors slid open with a ding, revealing a cluttered office behind them. "For now, let's talk. I haven't seen you in years!"
More than that, for me. The Doctor smiled. "How's work?"
"Same as ever, I suppose." Romana shifted a stack of papers off an armchair and offered it to her. She sat down gratefully. The room was a mess, but a structured mess all the same - the Doctor could see colour-codes tabs peeking out from piles of memos, and a hum that told her Romana had bothered to outfit the room with a psychic net, to catch mental notes. "I'm back to President, and with Rassilon gone it's actually a lot more peaceful. The Houses are still stuffy, but we've got a few new representatives, which is interesting."
"Who's there for Lungbarrow?"
"Innocet, still. She's on her fourth life now."
"Still addicted to protocol?"
"Oh, you know it." Romana laughed. "The other week she insisted we consult the auguries for a festival day. The auguries."
The Doctor chuckled. The auguries had already been old history by the time she started at the Academy, and she wasn't sure the Citadel even had an augur these days. "Same as ever, then."
"Ugh, politics is boring." Romana leaned forward out of her chair. "I want to hear about your travels! How is Earth? How are you?"
"Earth is good." The Doctor said. "I've been trying to follow their timestream, so they're a fair bit into the twenty-first century by now." She grimaced. "Starting to attract attention."
"Ah. They'll make contact officially quite soon, won't they?"
"In another few decades. Though I think at this point I basically count as first contact. They've appointed me President."
"Of a nation?"
"Of the planet." At Romana's expression, she hurried to elaborate. "I don't actually use the title! It just makes it easier for them to contact me. If they need to."
"You know, Doctor, I've never been the biggest fan of non-interference, but you…" Romana shook her head disbelievingly, "you make me remember why we have it."
"Yeah, well. Never been one for rules, me."
"Understatement."
"Got me."
They talked long into the evening, when the twin suns sank one after the other below the horizon. Romana poured them both drinks, fine rose cordials with just a faint hint of alcohol. This incarnation was a bit more scatterbrained than her last, and seemed to be trying to juggle about a million thoughts at once. She laughed louder than her previous incarnations too, and her smile was wide and joyous.
“I think this is my favourite of your faces.” The Doctor said at one point. Romana grinned.
“My favourite of yours was always the one with the scarf. Though that pointy-hair one, we saw him during the war, all skin and bones? He’s a close contender, he had a lot of pizzazz.”
“Yeah. I only got to be that one for five years.” She lapsed into silence. “He died when Rassilon tried to bring Gallifrey back.”
“That killed him?”
“Yep.” She swirled the cordial in her glass. “Well, I guess it was the Master. Or just an accident. But there was this human, and he was trapped, so- I switched places with him.”
“Doctor, I’m so sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter. He was always too unstable anyway. My next face was a great storyteller."
Romana put her empty glass down on the wooden desk, who shifted slightly in complaint. “The trial will start tomorrow.” She said.
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to say?”
“Don’t know yet. I told him I’d be here.”
“Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“You’re always kind to him. I remember what he did back when we travelled together, and I saw what he was trying to do when we broke through during the war. You should hate him.”
“I don’t hate him.” The Doctor sighed and downed the last of her cordial.
“Why not?"
“Because he’s lonely.” The truth of it surprised her. “He’s always been the one left behind, even when we were all at the Academy. Top of his class, bottom of the pecking order.”
“I think you’ll find I was top of our class.”
“Fair point. Close second, then.”
“So you try to help him because you feel sorry for him.”
“No, I try to help him because I know what that’s like. Always being the outcast, never quite fitting in. Always living in the shadow of something bigger than you.” She set her glass down and leaned back. “We’ve always been friends. I just underestimated how much he was scared of that.”
Vague, glowing images, thrumming in sluggish time with his hearts. Was that the Citadel, maybe? He didn't know. He reached out towards it and was treated to an impression of rage and satisfaction, and the distant smell of burning flesh. Then the thought skittered away, and he was left in the dark.
When the Doctor eventually walked her way back to the TARDIS - as she’d insisted, she refused to stay in the city if she could help it - the stars were bright in the midnight gloom. She made her way to bed, and tried not to worry about the next morning.
The trial started early, before the second sun had even risen. The doors were locked when she got to the courtrooms. The guards at the entrance moved to stop her when she approached, so she stopped limiting her thoughts and flared her psychic signature at them, controlled to the smallest radius she could manage. I’m the Doctor, it said, and I will pass.
The two of them froze. They were young, second regeneration at the most, and had probably been children during the war. They shared a look - ah, they were bonded, this was a conversation - and stepped back. She smiled and nodded politely to each before pushing the doors open.
She strode forward, towards the light ahead, leaving her signature visible. She could see them now, seated in a high semicircle around a single open space where the Master was kneeling, hands behind his back. Romana was in front of him, the High Council to her left and right. Each House was represented, and she saw Cousin Innocet among them. Memories of tutoring at stuffy, opinionated desks came back to her. Innocet looked at the Doctor with an air of careful fascination.
“Doctor,” Someone said, and she focused in on the representative from Lineacrux. “You’ve regenerated again.” He sounded displeased at the idea. He was speaking High Gallifreyan, the language of her tutors and instructors for her earliest centuries. She realised, belatedly, that she was out of practice. “How many faces have you had now?”
Ridiculous. “Fourteen. And I’d like to thank the council and the people of Gallifrey for their aid in that.”
The Doctor was level now with where the Master was kneeling, staring at the floor. Tentatively, she put out a hand and touched his shoulder.
Hello, he said. The words he sent her were calm, but his mind was furious and confused, racing this way and that like a cornered animal.
Hello. Got yourself in a bit of a bind, here, haven’t you?
They were debating forced regeneration until I run out of lives. Or a Confession trap. He shuddered at the idea of either, but there was an air of resignation to it. His mind felt fuzzy somehow, and she reached out to examine the difference. They’ve erased my memories, he said, feeling her curiosity. Whatever I did, it must have hurt. There was satisfaction in that.
I'll tell you later.
“If you’re quite finished,” Romana interrupted with an air of mild amusement.
“Yes, of course.” The Doctor straightened up and met her gaze. “I wish to take full responsibility for the Master-”
“For Koschei of the House Oakdown.” One of the Council interrupted. She felt the Master tense next to her.
“...yes. For Koschei of the House Oakdown.” The Master vented mental fury at her - THAT’S NOT MY NAME! - but she held firm.
“What makes you think you have that right?”
“We’re old friends. We have a secure mental link. I’m sure our history is recorded in the Matrix for those who want to question it.” The Doctor made eye contact with Inocet, moving from her around the room. “Let me reform him. I’ll bring him back to you as a model citizen.”
Next to her, the Master exhaled an almost-silent laugh. Hush, you, she thought, and heard a faint and mocking sorry in response. The Council murmured amongst themselves.
“Handing one renegade into the care of another?” Lineacrux interrupted. “Are we mad? When has the Doctor ever shown any understanding of what it means to be a citizen of Gallifrey?”
The Doctor met his gaze evenly. Time swirled around the elder like it did most of the ancient senators; jerkily, unevenly, caught up in the memories of what came before. It was like looking at something that was just out of focus.
“I was President of this Council once.” She said. “I’ve fought your wars. I’ve led your armies. I’ve saved this world before.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Master tilt his head to look up at her. “You owe me this.”
"We owe you nothing.”
“Representative Lineacrux.” The Doctor returned her focus to Romana, who looked irritated. “I’ll thank you not to insult the Doctor, who has come here both as a witness and as counsel.” She glared until Lineacrux backed down. “Doctor, under any other circumstances I would deny this out of hand, but Gallifrey has weeks to live.” The Master perked up a bit at that. “If you propose a solution, I want one that gets us out of this mess.”
“Done.” The Doctor set her voice firm. “If you let me take the Master with me, I can track his timeline back and stop him from ever coming back here. I can save you all.” A murmur went up at the Doctor’s words, representatives leaning in to whisper to each other.
"Changing fixed points is impossible. No one has that kind of technology.” Innocet said, looking suspicious.
“I can assure you I do.”
“Then we put it to a vote.” Romana said. “Those in favour of this proposed recovery mission, raise their hands.” Twelve hands went up, Romana and Innocet among them. “Those in favour of punishment.” Nine. Lineacrux glared at those who didn’t join him. “Those abstaining.” Two. Romana clapped her hand on the dias before her. “It is decided. The Doctor will take the accused to atone for his crime by undoing its damage. On completion, they will return to the Citadel. This trial is over.” Another slap to the dias, and the representatives started to file out. The representative from Lineacrux glared at her as she passed. Innocet paused, as if to say something, and then hurried onwards without a word.
After a minute, it was just the Doctor, the Master, and Romana in the empty chamber. “Thank you,” the Doctor said.
“This isn’t absolution. I will call a retrial when you return,” Romana said. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Doctor.”
Their brush with Citadel officials didn’t end with the trial. Romana had the two of them taken to a hospital, checked over for injuries and recent regenerations. The nurse who examined the Doctor had his eyebrows by his hairline by the time he was done. “There must be something wrong with the machine, these readings are all over the place.” The Doctor just grinned innocently, keeping a tight hold on her mental shields.
The Master was having a lot of fun at the opposite end of the spectrum, playing friendly until the attendants got too close and then throwing images of the Time War at them in brutal, if harmless, pranks. By the time a young acolyte was done taking a blood sample she was pale as a sheet and he was grinning ear to ear.
“It’s her first life, be nice.”
“Why? Apparently she’ll be dead in a month anyway.”
No she won’t, the Doctor projected to him through their link. That’s the whole point of this.
The Master didn’t answer, but when the acolyte came back to take his blood pressure he didn’t lash out again.
They were cleared to leave, but before they did the acolyte returned with two metallic bands, lit up a faint, glowing yellow. “President Romana asks that you put these on,” she said in a nervous voice.
“What are they?” the Master asked sullenly.
“Communications devices,” she said. “She says they’re time-locked.”
“Give one here,” the Doctor said, offering a grin and holding out her hand. The acolyte passed it to her, and she snapped it on. It moulded itself to her wrist, close-fitting but not uncomfortable, and the yellow glow got a little bit stronger.
The acolyte held the other wristband out to the Master, who smiled his widest, toothiest smile and lunged forward to snatch it from her hands. She jumped back, frightened, and he laughed. “Thanks, love,” he said, snapping it onto his wrist with a click. “Appreciate it.” At the Doctor’s frown, he pouted. “Can’t you let me have my fun?”
“No.” The Doctor turned back to the acolyte, still frozen. “Thank you, uh-”
“Miriana.”
“Thank you, Miriana. Sorry about him, he’s harmless, really.”
“I’m about as far from harmless as it gets!” the Master protested, and the Doctor shot him a glare. Miriana looked between the two of them before obviously remembering her training, snapping to attention to bow and stumbling out of the room.
“So.” The Master said once she was gone. “Clean bill of health, time-locked comms, and I’m betting- ah, yep, there it is,” he bared his teeth, fingers digging into the cuffs. “These can’t come off without a deadlock key, and I’m pretty sure they’ll knock us out if we go rogue.”
“Not a problem if we do what we said we would.”
“What you said we would. If you’ll remember correctly, I promised nothing.”
“Yeah, well,” The Doctor fiddled with her band, feeling the metal stick to her skin like glue. “We’re chained to each other now. Let’s make the most of it and get us all out alive, yeah?”
“...yeah.”
At the end of all that, there was a briefing. The Doctor could feel the Master’s patience starting to wear thin, and sensed images on the outskirts of her mind - him stabbing Romana, him stabbing her, him stabbing himself… they played like an old-timey Earth movie to comical music on a loop in his brain. She’d have laughed if they showed literally anything else. Underneath all that, he was listening carefully. He could feel his memory straining to reconnect its synapses as he listened to Romana’s description of his crimes.
Did I really do that? He asked the Doctor.
Yeah. You really did.
Then what the hell did they do to me? He wondered.
“The bands are a direct line of communication back to us,” Romana was saying. “You’re to go in, stop the previous Master however possible, and then leave immediately. No loitering, no sightseeing.”
“Got it.” The Doctor said. Romana waited for a response from the Master.
“...Yeah, whatever,” he finally said, slumped back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. Romana shot the Doctor a look.
“Keep him in line,” she said. The Doctor nodded. “You’re free to go.”
They wandered out through the citadel flanked by two guards, the Master broadcasting violence for all the world to see and the Doctor still keeping a tight hold on her own thoughts. People scattered out of their way as they approached.
THE WOMAN NEXT TO ME IS THE DOCTOR, he started broadcasting, and she felt heads start turning their way. “Do you mind?” she asked.
"Not at all."
They made it to the TARDIS without too much incident, though the shock of the Master screaming his rage in the streets had a few passers-by ducking for cover. Once inside, the Doctor locked the door. The TARDIS hummed its disapproval and gave her a full readout of their wrist braces.
"They're monitoring our location in spacetime." The Master noted. "And our vital signs."
"To make sure we don't run off or kill each other."
"Planning on it?"
"Considering the former."
"Pity. I quite liked the sound of the latter."
She’d missed this. This easy banter, back and forth, jibes and jabs and jeers and a million in-jokes no one got but them. She let herself smile, just a little. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get moving.”
“Ah. Yeah. Thing about that, Doctor, is I’m not sure I want to.”
She gave him a flat look. “It’s this or they kill you stone dead."
"Can't do that if I've already killed them." A feral grin flashed across his face for a second before disappearing. "Doctor, I was angry, but not that angry. If I burned Gallifrey, it's because they did something that warranted burning."
"Like what?"
"No idea." He bit his lip, lost in thought. "Probably something racist, though, let's be honest."
"Since when do you care about other species?"
"Fair point." He tapped the side of his head. "I can feel it, though, Doctor. Feel that rage, that fury. I was angry when I destroyed the Citadel, but everything beyond that is… fuzzy."
The Doctor touched his forehead. May I? He nodded, letting his barriers down, and she dove in.
The Master's mind was, as always, a turbulent, furious mess. Memories swirled around her in waves, threatening to drag her down, and for a few seconds it was all she could do to tread water. Slowly, the Citadel came into view, and with it came flashes of memory - the Academy, their time together - stars, they had been so young - exams, graduations, battles, war. Stabs of longing, regret, joy, and right at the end, pure and complete fury. She tapped into that, examining closer, but when she reached where those memories should have been, there was nothing but anger and darkness. She pulled herself out of his memories and opened her eyes. "Why would they do that?"
"My guess is I saw something they don't want us to know." The Master looked pleased at the thought. "Must have been something big, too."
"Let's find out." The plan unfurled itself into being as the Doctor spoke. "You want a reason to stop yourself? Let's try curiosity. Don't you want your memories back?"
"You want me to remember the thing that last drove me insane."
“Not the best plan, but it’s all I’ve got right now.”
The Master leaned in close, and paused for a second, considering her. “Okay,” he finally said, “I’ll play the game.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”