made to be broken

When the Master is snapped back into the time lock, instead of blissfully dying, he ends up lying there smelling burning flesh and feeling slightly tingly. The burning flesh is what's left of the man who tried to end time. As the Master sits up, he sees the others looking upon their fallen comrade in shock, but oddly, not in any kind of grief. It appears very tears will be shed for the departed president.

The Master looks down at his hands. His body doesn't feel so chaotic anymore. He feels more like himself, which will need some explaining. Also, there's a slight ringing in his ears that never used to be there. He frowns some more and then smacks his hand into the side of his head. "It's gone, the sound. It's gone, it's gone, it's gone."

"You killed the man who put it there. Of course it's gone."

The Master jumps to his feet to retaliate that nothing is ever quite so simple and turns to face a woman who is not completely unfamiliar to him, though it has been a while. He smiles, fluttering his eyelashes a bit and says, "Well, hello, mother."

She slaps him. She slaps him hard. "That's for tormenting my son."

The Master shrugs. "Foreplay."

She slaps him again, harder. "That's for running away when you should have been with your people."

The Master rolls his eyes and snorts. "Anything else? Oh, of course there is. I remember you being just as insufferable as your son."

She steps forward and the Master braces himself for another slap. Only she suddenly embraces him. When she pulls away, she gently strokes his cheek for a moment.

"What's that for?" he asks, maybe a little resentfully. Scorn he can deal with. This? This is quite intolerable.

"The boy I knew," she says. Taking his hand, she drags him away from the people and noises around the dead president. "I want to speak with you."

The Master lets himself be dragged along, distracted by the ringing in his ears. After an eternity of drums, it's quite pleasant. Then he remembers the Doctor's mother who is pulling him down a long corridor and into a room. Clearly the Doctor comes from a family that has no sense of physical boundaries.

"What do you think you're doing?" the Master asks with some restraint as she closes the doors.

"Saving my son," she says.

"What do you mean? He's fine. We're the ones locked up." Then he looks down at his hands, frowning. "I should be dead. Why am I not dead?"

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," the Doctor's mother says impatiently. "But we have more important things to deal with."

"More important than why I'm not dead?" the Master asks, making a face. “I hardly think so.”

"Don't you pull faces at me. I remember when you were a baby. I'm not frightened of you," she says haughtily.

"Well, you should be. Like your son," the Master says.

"You never did understand him. Well, there'll be time. After you find a way to help him." She shakes her head. "It wasn't his time to regenerate, not yet. I was so wrong."

"He said there was a prophecy--"

"Prophecies be damned," she says. "We're Timelords. We'll re-write the prophecies." She looks away from him, her expression troubled. "I thought he had to die, to be cleansed of all this so he could move on. But..."

The Master laughs and says, "Then he looked at you like you took away his favourite toy. You think a regeneration would have purged him of what happened today? God, you have been locked up a long time. It never goes away, who you are, the things you've done. The things that have been done to you." Because the drums might be gone, but he still remembers their sound and that's just as bad.

"What do you care?" she asks him.

The Master looks down at his own body and shrugs. "Not that I do care, but it's nice if you compliment your enemy. I don't want to be fighting my epic battles with someone who looks like he's been hit in the face by a bus."

The Doctor's mother looks like she might slap him again. She glares and says, "There is a way to reach beyond the time lock, but I won't be able to do it again. The others have made sure. But you... genius child that you are..." The Master smiles and shrugs, holding out his arms. "Break the prophecy."

"And why would I do that instead of putting my big brain to getting me out of this time hovel?"

"You need him," she says. "You always have."

"He's not dead," the Master says. "In which case, I still have him."

"But you like this one," the Doctor's mother says with an annoying smile. "He compliments you, remember?" The Master gives her a dark look, but it doesn't stop her from adding, "Plus, as a child you always did enjoy breaking toys. What's a little prophecy?”

The Master smooths down his clothes, straightening up. He smiles as says, “Your son could learn a lot from you.”

Jack is in some motel room on a crappy space dock in the middle of nowheresville. Some nice blue fella is doing his damnedest best to suck Jack's troubles right out of his dick. But it's not working. It's at a point where Jack is lying back uncomfortably, grimacing every now, until he just has to push his new friend away altogether.

"You don't like it?" Blue asks, because Jack couldn't be bothered to get a name at the time. Besides, sometimes it seems pointless to learn people's names. They always seem to outlast their owners.

"Yeah, I like. Just not right now," Jack says, mustering a smile.

"I did something wrong?" He gets a frown and a yellow-eyed gaze of curiosity. Blue is so eager to please and it twists like a knife in the middle of Jack's chest.

Jack shakes his head. "No. It's me. I'm the one who's got it all wrong."

Minutes later, Blue is gone and Jack is sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the news screen mounted on the wall. Same shit, different space. The screen buzzes a bit, making an annoying sound. Jack ignores it and flops back on the bed with a sigh. The buzzing becomes louder, like a giant bee has flown into the room.

"It should be working," he hears the words broken into pieces, but recognizes the voice. He sits up and sees the news screen where there is a grinning blonde man. "Hello? Captain Jack?"

"No. He's... dead," Jack whispers, staring at the man who kept him locked up for a year, every day a torture.

"I was dead, but I'm all better now, thanks," the Master says. "You on the other hand, not looking so good."

"This is impossible," Jack says. He laughs. "I've gotta hold back on the cheap booze."

"Look, idiot. I'm alive. Get over it. Let's get to the part where you're actually useful rather than just plain annoying. I need your help."

Jack laughs. "Now I know I'm dreaming. You know why? If you were real, you'd know I'd never help a piece of crap like you."

"What if the Doctor's life depended on it?" the Master asks with a smile. Jack gets up, coming closer to the screen. The Master puts on a pair of glasses and holds up his hands. "Now, steady on. You wouldn't hit a man with glasses, would you?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Where's the Doctor?"

"Earth," the Master says. "And if my calculations are correct, he will die in precisely less than six hours."

"But he can regenerate," Jack says. "Right?"

The Master seems to be thinking it over. Then he pulls a face. "He doesn't want to."

"Why not?" Jack asks, even though he knows how hard it was to accept the Doctor's new face and how hard it would be to let this one go. "And why the hell do you care?"

"I don't," the Master says. "Let's just say if I don't do this I'll be getting nagged to death for the rest of eternity."

"I'll help," Jack says after a while. "But if I find out this is some elaborate plan--"

"Don't flatter yourself. If you can't do this, I'll find another way," the Master sneers. "You're just convenient. Just the freak I need as it happens."

Jack snorts. "Just tell me what I have to do. Oh and by the way, when this is all over, I'm going to find you and kick your ass."

The Master just rolls his eyes as if he's in the safest place in the universe.

Jack runs down the hall, looking at his watch, breathing hard. The Master had the coordinates right, but looks like he had the timing just slightly wrong. Jack skids into the room just as the Doctor reaches for the door.

"Wait!" Jack shouts, lungs burning as he tries to get his breath back.

The Doctor stares, frowning at him. For a moment his face is just scrunched up in disbelief. Then finally he says, "What?"

"You can't go in there," Jack manages. "But I can. I still get to come back looking my pretty self."

The Doctor stares some more. "What?"

"Long story. Involves the Master. Oh, and your mom too apparently."

The Doctor's hand falls away from the door. "What?"

To passers by, they're just two guys sitting on a bench eating ice cream. One of them is dressed slightly peculiar and the other one has a bunch of cuts on his hands and face, but otherwise, they could be anyone. Probably troublemakers, but nothing special.

The Doctor is smiling, looking bewildered. "They reached you from inside the time lock." He laughs. "Oh, that's brilliant. That's, that's... genius."

Jack nods. "Yeah. Let's not dwell on the part where you got helped out by a psychotic monster."

The Doctor tames his smile and nods. “Yeah, maybe not yet."

The Doctor gets up and looks around. "Look at that. Suns come out." He looks at the nearby tree. The leaves are the greenest he's ever seen. And the sky is a perfect powdery blue. And the sun is warm, like a blanket. And the breeze is light, like someone ruffling his hair. He doesn't know how long he gets to have this, on this skin, through this hair, these eyes. But even for a day, it's good.

He looks at Jack who is watching him silently. This is not the same man he spoke to last time. There's a certain brightness missing from his eyes. "I heard about what happened. I'm so sorry."

Jack nods, smiling. "Yeah, me too."

The Doctor looks at the TARDIS. He knows there's a future where he died, where he regenerated. He doesn't have to go there to know it. He can feel it because it tingles on the end of his fingertips, the time to come trying to meet him.

He thinks of how it's unfair that he's standing here, being who he wants to be and Jack is there, having lost so much. The Doctor still can't bring himself to say, 'Let's go, Jack. Let's go and save the people you lost.' And looking at Jack he sees the other man won't ask. He almost seems to be bitterly hanging onto his grief.

"Well, where to next then, Captain?" the Doctor asks.

Jack shrugs. "Anywhere I want."

The Doctor nods. He turns away and walks to his TARDIS which is parked under a nearby tree. Unlocking the door, he pushes it back and turns to face Jack, gesturing with his head. "I need someone to keep me out of trouble," he says, his mind cruelly displaying the faces of all the people he's loved and lost, if not to death, then to some cruel cosmic joke.

Jack grins. "I'm not good at that."

The Doctor nods. "Okay them. I need someone to get me into trouble." He gives Jack his most winning smile. But falling prey to that gentle ache in his chest, the withering of his smile, he then says, "I... need someone."

Jack gets up slowly and makes his way to the Doctor who is watching him silently. Jack reaches the threshold of the TARDIS and says, "Maybe one trip."

The Doctor smiles and nods. Sometimes one trip is all it takes.

In a time lock somewhere, a group of men watch a swirling vortex that didn't used to be there and is now violently crushing itself shut.

"How did he do it?" one of them asks. "How did he escape the time lock?"

The mother of one of Gallifrey's disgraces says, "He said he needed to see someone." She turns away from the angry and somewhat humiliated group, and then she smiles, triumphant.

- the end -