〖 THE LAST OF THE TIME LORDS 〗
ONE LONG, TERRIBLE, year had passed. Valarie had spent a year of her life as a servant, having to bow before the Master and his wife. Suffer the humiliation, verbal abuse, and anything they felt like subjecting her too. She was the girl they chose to make examples out of. But she took it with courage. Valarie had promised Martha she would ensure everyone's safety. Even if that meant she took the fall.
She had even celebrated a birthday in this year. She wasn't allowed to see her family, as her mother begged to see her too much so the Master decided the best form of torment for her was to ban the family from being together. They only communicated in notes the Jones family helped pass along. Valarie had grown very close to them, passing notes along the way and attempting to comfort one another.
When her birthday came, she chose to not say anything about it. The only person who knew was Jack, who had pried it out of her when she came to feed him the day before and she seemed quiet. She had spent her birthday with an immortal who was chained to a wall in the underbelly of a ship. The Master had bored of constantly killing Jack after the first few weeks and had kept him chained here since. Jack and Valarie had also grown close, his daily comments and humor the only thing keeping her from walking the line of mental sustainability. The day of her birthday was October eighth. When she had greeted Jack that day with his meal he had sung happy birthday to her. She wanted to cry.
In the passing weeks, messages from Martha had made it to them. Valarie wasn't sure how. But Clive, Martha's father, had been the one to pass it too her.
"Power of a name. She said you'll understand."
Power of a name. It took Valarie time to remember back to her time with Shakespeare. Names give power.
It was launch day. And a plan had been devised. Valarie had not seen the Doctor but a scarce few times. The Master only let her look at him to torment her. But they communicated. Through the Jones, they communicated. On this day Valarie had retrieved Jack's breakfast, noticing the three fingers Francine placed on the tray as she gave it to her. Valarie saw it and cut her eyes at her in acknowledgment.
"Morning Val! Ah, smell that sea air." Jack greeted as she passed his guard into where he was held. She lifted the bowl full of oatmeal, holding a spoonful up. "Makes me long for good old fish and chips. Which, this hotel sucks. Last time I book online." He then opened his mouth for her. She fed him and placed her hand against the bowl out of the guards view, showing him the three fingers. He winked. At fifteen-hundred, they would take action. They would attempt to force a surrender. The plan was shaky, but it was the best they had came up with.
Valarie had been asked to come back to the main deck, something the Master only asked of her when he had a problem. She had taken care of what was left of Jack's meal and went up there. She stood near Francine, eyes on the clock as Francine eyed the Master's coat, containing the screwdriver. The alarm blared, altering them to a code red. Jack had escaped, and Clive had messed with the vents as planned.
Francine grabbed his coat, rushing it to Tish who rushed it to the Doctor. The Doctor rose as fast as his body would allow, aiming the screwdriver at the Master. When he tried to use it, it failed. The Master looked at them all, and laughed.
"Isomorphic controls." He plucked it from his hands and struck him, sending him to the ground. "Meaning only I can use it. Like this." He shot with it at Francince, who it barely missed.
"Say sorry!" He commanded of her.
"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" She screamed through gritted teeth. Valarie rushed to her side, holding her.
"I can't wait to see you-" He fired another shot at Valarie who it barely missed.
"Next time, Ms.Scott, I don't plan on missing. You have been a pain in my side since day one." That had been true. Valarie had been the problem child of his staff. Not that she really did anything at first. The first few months he just loved to torment her. But she did have her occasional outbursts. Most of them rooted from the few times she had seen the Doctor and the sadness in his old eyes. Or when she would watch the Master mock him. Her heart almost physically ached.
"Don't any of you learn anything from the blessed saint Martha? Siding with the Doctor is a dangerous thing. Take them away. Except her." The guards moved to remove Francine and Tish as the Doctor pulled himself back into the wheelchair. The sight was pitiful and heart wrenching. The Master's wife helped him place his coat back on. Valarie's stomach lurched with the idea of what he wanted with her.
"Oh, I remember the days when the Doctor, oh that famous Doctor, was waging a time war, battling Sea Devils and Axons. He single-handedly sealed the Medusa Cascade. Now what's he doing? Stealing screwdrivers? Playing games with these, these weak, stupid, pathetic humans?" He motioned to Valarie. "What brought him to this? Oh! Yeah, it was me."
"I just need you to listen." The Doctor begged.
"No, it's my turn. Revenge, best served hot. And this time, the message is for miss Jones." He motioned for two guards. They came behind Valarie and restrained her. The Master wheeled the Doctor before a camera. He had used it to broadcast frequently.
"My people." He began. "Salutations on this eve of war. I have heard of the whispers, down there on Earth. Of a child walking the Earth and giving everyone hope. But," he brought the Doctor better into view. "How much hope does this man got? Except, he's not that old. He is an alien with a much greater lifespan then you stunted little apes. But what if it showed?" Valarie wanted to vomit. The Master was going to age him further.
"You'll kill him!'
"Oh, no my dear. What if I locked his ability to regenerate," he pointed his screwdriver at him, "and allowed us all to see what those nine-hundred years looks like?" In a second the Doctor began to convulse violently. He seemed to vanish into his own clothing, slipping out of the chair. The Master only stopped when there was nothing but his seemingly empty clothes on the floor. The Master stepped over it, almost unsure himself if anything of the Doctor remained. Stirring became visible under the shirt, and a head poked out. A smaller, wrinkled creature. But that was the horrifying part to Valarie; the Doctor was unrecognizable. He didn't look human nor time lord anymore. But something much different. Even the Master looked shocked, looking around at the silent room. It seemed no one had expected what came of it.
"Received, and understood, Miss Jones?" The Master asked the camera before shutting it off.
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Valarie had been relocated. She no longer served as staff, but was now chained as Jack. She was quite literally chained; in the same room. Her arms were suspended above her head with a tight metal clamp. A guard stood at the door, ensuring another escape would be difficult. Valarie kept her eyes on the ground, thinking.
"Do you know what they are?" Jack looked up at her, with squinted eyes and a heavy expression. She looked to him.
"What?"
"The Toclafane. Do you know what they are?" He asked her again. She slowly shook her head. She had never took the time to think about what was within those metal shells. His expression fell.
"Word is, they are human."
"Human?" Valarie asked in confusion.
"The Master could only travel between now and the end of the universe. Those humans we sent to Utopia. That's what became of them."
"But, the human race came back to kill the human race?" She asked. Then it clicked; the paradox machine. It allowed for this, for this paradox to happen. Valarie had been complicit in that plan. The door opened and the guards approached, two of them. They began to unlock the prisoners.
"What's going on?"
"Martha Jones has surrendered herself." One explained.
"The Master wants you to bear witness to her execution."
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Martha walked into the flight deck as much confidence as someone who knew they were to die would. Valarie and Jack remained together on one side of the room with a armed guard next to them. Martha's family was on the opposite with a guard. In a cage towards the end of the long table was the Doctor. Valarie hadn't seen Martha in a year, and the first time she got to she would watch her die.
"Your teleportation device. In case you think I forgot." Without hesitance Martha pulled the vortex manipulator out and tossed it to him. "Now kneel." Martha lowered herself to her knees and looked up at him.
"Down below, the fleet is ready to launch. Two hundred thousand ships, set to burn across the universe. Now bow your head, and you will be must first blood of this war. On this day, I, the Master of all, will establish a new order of Time Lords!" He was so confident in what he was doing, with no falter. Until Martha began to laugh quietly.
"What?" He asked. "What's so funny?"
"Don't you want to know what I was doing down there? Traveling the world? Aren't you curious?" She asked with a smile.
"Oh, I don't know. Trying to find a way to kill me." The Master replied sarcastically.
"I told them stories. About the Doctor. I used words. And I told them to pass them on, so everyone of the world would know of him. And I gave them one instruction. When your countdown ends, they need to think of one word. Just one."
"Oh, so your weapon is prayer?"
"Yes, but with fifteen satellites!" The power of a word. Martha was using that and the Masters Archangel network against him. If thinking of Harold Saxon through the archangel network brought him to be truth, why couldn't humanity push it back on him? "You connected humanity with one giant telepathic field!" The countdown behind him reached zero, and it began.
The screens the Master had used to watch major cities began to erupt with shouts and chants. One word the only distinguishable thing. Doctor. Valarie closed her eyes and prayed harder then she ever had before. And through this prayer the Doctor's form began to change. with a glow what the Master had done began to reverse. His small body shifting back to the old man form, before slowly morphing back to the Doctor Valarie had meet so long ago. He was surrounded by a powerful wind. The Master shot at him with the screwdriver desperately. But it something protected his body from the shots.
"Tell me the human race are weak and pathetic, when they can do this." He began to approach the Master. "You know what happens now." He warned him as the Master frantically backed away, down the stairs and into a wall were he sank. The winds calmed as the Doctor met his cowering frame and did something unexpected. He held him.
"I forgive you."
"My children." The Master referred to the Toclafane. Outside they began a decent on the Earth to protect the paradox machine. The Doctor let go of him and stood.
"Captain, the paradox machine!" Jack motioned for the guards to follow, who followed. No one who had been on the Master's ship liked him, after all. Martha had regrouped with her family, holding them in an embrace. She looked to Valarie and motioned her over. Valarie rushed, tucking herself under Martha's arm as she held her tightly. The Master retrieved the vortex manipulator from his pocket.
"No!" the Doctor wrapped his hands around it as the Master made his escape. They were both gone, to who knows where.
"Your family. I know where he kept them." Tish told Valarie, now not afraid to tell her.
"Go get them, we are about to have about six billion of those things coming at this ship to protect that machine." Valarie told Tish as her and Martha moved to the main window. They watched as the Toclafane came for them.
"Valarie!" A voice cried. She turned to see her parents, dirty and sad. She rushed them, practically leaping into their arms as they held their child tightly. The joy swelling in her chest only grew when she heard Martha shout.
"Look!" Outside the Toclafane began to vanish. Jack had been evidentially successful in destroying the machine. In a flash the Doctor and the Master reappeared as the ship began to shake. They were all throw to the ground with a violent one as it suddenly felt like the entire ship spun. Valarie, on the ground, crawled her way to Martha and the Doctor who had reunited on the floor. She took both of their hands.
"Time's reversing!" He told her. They all began to laugh loudly, in triumph. When it stopped, the Doctor sprung.
"It reversed back one year, one day, two minutes past eight."
"How come we remember it?" Valarie's father asked as he climbed to his feet.
"Eye of the storm. We are the only ones who ever will." The Master attempted to make a run for the door only to be intercepted by Jack. Jack caught him, turning him around and taking a guards cuffs.
"So, what do we do with him?"
"Execute him." Valarie's mother suggested.
"No, that's not the solution." The Doctor responded. Francine raised a gun to him, eyes swelling with tears. Lucy, the Master's wife, watched her closely. Almost as if she wanted her to.
"Oh, I think it is." She began to cry. "All of the things I watched him do." The Doctor stepped to her side and placed his hand on the top of the gun.
"Francine, you are better then him." Those words were enough to get her to lower the gun. She dropped it on the ground and turned, meeting Martha. She cried into her chest.
"So, what happens to me?" The Master asked.
"You become my responsibility. The last time lord in existence." Jack turned to him, and began to argue as to why that was a bad idea. No one saw Lucy move. Valarie was with her parents who clung to her daughter like she was a priceless jewel. Then there was the gun shot. Lucy stood holding the gun, in a daze. The Master crumpled backwards, the Doctor rushing to his side.
"Come on, come on I got you. It's just a little bullet. Regenerate."
"No." He replied defiantly.
"Come on. You have too! It's just the two of us. Please, just regenerate." The Doctor begs became sobs when the Master made it evident he would fight the process. The Master's eyes blew wide and he laughed with the little air he had left.
"Look at that, I win."
His eyes rolled back and closed. The Doctor held him to his chest and cried. He even screamed.
Now he truly was alone.
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Life went back to normal, for everyone who was not on that ship. The four had made their amends with what had happened. Valarie's parents had to be pried from her practically, and made to swear they wouldn't tell their other children and relatives of what they knew. If they did, Valarie may just get conveniently lost in the future with some man and never come home.
"Time was, every single one of these people knew your name. Now they've all forgotten you." Martha said, overlooking the water of Canary Wharf. They had returned to where it had all began.
"Good." The Doctor seemed satisfied with being an anonymous savior.
"Back to work."
"I really don't mind, though. Come with me." He asked Jack. He had missed his company despite how much he had verbally denied it.
"I had plenty of time to think that past year, the year that never was, and I kept thinking about that team of mine. Like you said, Doctor, responsibility. " Jack sighed. Valarie rubbed his arm.
"Keep in touch with me, okay?" He winked to her and smiled.
"Defending the Earth. Can't argue with that." The Doctor sighed, satisfied with the new Torchwood he had built for him. A Torchwood that actually served it's purpose. He reached for Jacks wrist and exposed the vortex manipulator. He held his sonic over it. When Jack recoiled, he noticed how it was broken, again.
"Hey, I need that." He complained.
"I can't have you walking around with a time traveling teleport. You could go anywhere, twice. The second time to apologize." He remarked. Jack smiled as he knew it to be true. He turned to walk away, but quickly turned back.
"And what about me? Can you fix that? Will I ever be able to die?" The Doctor shook his head and sighed.
"Nothing I can do. You're an impossible thing, Jack."
"Been called that before. Sir. Ma'am. Ma'am." He turned to leave again. Then, he turned back with a concerned expression.
"But I keep wondering. What about aging? Because I can't die but I keep getting older. The odd little grey hair, you know? What happens if I live for a million years?"
"I really don't know." Seeing what nine hundred years did to the Doctor's body had spooked him, it seemed. Jack raised his hands and laughed.
"Okay, vanity. Sorry. Yeah, can't help it. Used to be a poster boy when I was a kid living on the Boeshane Peninsula. 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. Hmm. I'll see you." With that Jack left them to resume his duties at Torchwood. The three stood there, mouths agape at the mention of the name.
"No." Valarie shook her head. No way Jack became that giant head, it just didn't seem right in her mind.
"It can't be." Martha gasped.
"No. Definitely not. No. No." The Doctor laughed, wondering how Jack would feel knowing his possible fate.
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Martha had went to her family home on request. She spoke to her mother as the Doctor and Valarie hung around in the console. When Martha slipped in her face was sad.
"Right then, the open road. There is a burst of starfire over the Masta Sigmafolio. Or back in time. How about Agatha Christie? I love Agatha Christie!" When Martha only looked down. "Okay."
"I just can't."
"Yeah." Was all he could muster.
"Spent all these years training to be a doctor. Now I've got people to look after. They saw half the planet slaughtered and they're devastated. I can't leave them." Valarie, teary-eyed, moved to Martha and hugged her tightly, knowing too well for this to be a farewell.
"Of course not. Thank you. Martha Jones, you saved the world." He smiled at her.
"Yes, I did. I spent a lot of time with you thinking I was second best, but you know what? I am good. You going to be all right?" Martha asked towards them both.
"Always. Yeah." She pulled her phone, and tossed it to him. "If that rings, and it will, you better answer." She warned. She then took Valarie's hands and gave her a knowing smile.
"And you, call me. Please. And don't keep chasing things that don't see how wonderful you are." Valarie nodded, knowing Martha knew. The Doctor took notice in the exchange, finding it odd.
"Right then. Bye." Martha left before she could change her mind. The TARDIS was silent. The Doctor went to the console and began to enter coordinates silently.
"What are you doing?" Valarie asked, leaning against it. He looked up at her, eyes locking. They hung there for a second before he tore away. The TARDIS whirred, before landing. Valarie hesitantly moved for the doors, opening them. There sat her flat, restored from the previous year. She turned to him.
"Why are we here?" He shut the TARDIS door behind him and looked at her. His harsh gaze said everything. It was the same look he gave those he let down.
"You need to take time here." He told her. She shook her head.
"But a minute ago you were so excited to-"
"What Martha said, made me think." She shook her head and tried to push past him back into the TARDIS. He pressed his palms against her shoulders and pushed her back out.
"You rarely listen, but this one time please." He laughed. She sucked in a shaky breath.
"Will you come back?"
The question hung in the air. To Valarie it was a scary truth that he may not. She felt fearful this was a goodbye forever. To him, it was a ridiculous question. He laughed again.
"No, now what kind of question is that, Val? Take, oh" he looked up and thought. "Six months. Take six months to yourself." He decided on. She bit her lip, cheeks flushed as she tried to stop the tears. He cupped the sides of the her and placed a kiss against her forehead.
"Please, just be human for a while. For me."
He recoiled and she wiped her face on her sleeve.
"Alright." She jabbed a finger into the middle of his chest, landing it on a button of the blue suit coat he wore. "But so help me, in six months if you are even a second late, I will-"
"I won't be late. Not by even a millisecond." She stepped away from him. Before waving gently and laughing. She feared if she spoke anymore truths she didn't want him to know would tumble out. He waved to her back, and stepped in the door frame.
"In six months, you better be ready." He warned her.
"Of course. I'm always ready to go somewhere with you. Even if it nearly kills me." She laughed. He gave her one last toothy smile before shutting the TARDIS door. The TARDIS made that sound that made her so happy to hear typically. The TARDIS faded in ANS out of reality, before she was left alone on the side walk with only the winds it brought to be with her. His words played over and over again in her mind.
Just be human for a while. For me.
There on the sidewalk where he had first whisked her away, the Doctor left the starry-eyed girl.
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END OF ACT I
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There it is. The conclusion to season 3/act one. Also a back to back update. Valarie will return shortly, possibly before Christmas :) thank you all so much for following me this far through so much.