Doctor Who and The Plan's Master Plan: A Target Novelization

Part One: Come Sail Away

“ANSWERS WILL NOT BE GIVEN.”

The Doctor was having a dream. She knew she was having a dream. She could tell. Colours were too vivid or too dull. The location swept away from familiar location to familiar location. There was a severe amount of disconcertion.

“IT IS ALL DIFFERENT NOW.”

The grotesque feeling of familiarity would not abate. Grocery store, now. She was in one.

The shelves were all empty, every single bit of them, but the freezers weren’t off. It was cold. Cold for a dream.

“OLDER. OLDER. WE GROW HARDY, STRONG, FROM THE WEATHER. IT DOES NOT UPROOT THAT WHICH IS AND NEVER IS.”

Who was talking to her?? They were ancient, guttural, the voice of someone who smoked too much in their youth. No more grocery store. Now she was in UNIT, her old laboratory. Jo Jones (at this time, Grant) was sitting on the desk, not at it, on it, young and beautiful, wearing her hair down in a frizzy knotty mess. Jo Jones whispered to her, in a voice uniquely unlike her own:


“WE ARE NOT WHO SAY WE ARE ANYMORE. THE PAST IS A DIFFERENT COUNTRY. AN EAST WIND IS COMING. IT WILL ROCK THE BOAT.”

“Jo??” The Doctor questioned, but Jo was lying dead on the floor, her eyes plucked out. This was one of the nightmares, the Doctor thought with disdain. What a joy. This is why she didn’t sleep often. Jo wasn’t dead, was she?? She panicked, but Jo’s body wasn’t there anymore.

“THE TASTE ON THE BREATH OF NOSTALGIA. A WARNING: SECLUSION BEGETS SECLUSION. SECLUSION MAKES YOU EASIER TO SEE.”

And then the body wasn’t Jo’s, it was Danny’s, and predictably, The Doctor woke up - to the sound of blaring alarms.

* * *

“Report,” The Doctor said, all business, stepping out into the main console room in her pyjamas. Roman was at the console, guiding the TARDIS across spacetime. He had been up all night. This had been the first time the Doctor had ever trusted him to put him in charge while she got her first sleep in months. And of course, Roman had already found disaster. Did she have to do everything herself?? She grumbled into the room with her stomping registering her distaste.

“Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed or something??” Roman commented, half-paying attention.

“No! What’s going on! What’s going on?! I want to know!!” The Doctor shrieked, irritably.

Danny, entering the room now in a frilly dress that the Doctor presumed was sleepwear as well, began to nervously babble. “Is everyone really tense here or is it just me?? What did I miss?? Should we all take a deep breath?? I think we should all take a deep breath.”

The TARDIS took a moment to shudder aggressively. The Doctor also shook with rage. “Are you flying the TARDIS poorly??”

“I’m flying it quite well, thank you.” Roman said curtly. The Doctor grunted wordlessly in response.

“What’s going on?!?! What’s going on!?!?! Why are people mad?? What’s going on?” Danny babbled. “Could someone say something??”

“Distress call.” Roman finally explained. “It’s a distress call.”

The Doctor felt herself perk up a bit. These were always interesting. Distress calls could be some of her best work, she thought. She was very good at distress calls.

“Are we serious??” Danny asked, slightly rhetorically. “Are we actually serious? We go to random, RANDOM places, and horrible death and destruction seems to find us out of nowhere. Why on earth would we go to somewhere that is already in severe trouble??”

“Kindness, mostly.” The Doctor concluded.

Roman looked at Danny with sympathies. Kindness could be a real bitch.

* * *

The art of reverse psychology: Soon a blue police box appeared upon a peaceful cruise ship deep in the Caribbean.

The Doctor stepped outside, and looked at the gorgeous scenery, beginning to twitch uncontrollably. “Roman, you promised me danger and death.” She blurted..

Danny stepped outside once more in a T-Shirt and shorts, followed by Roman in his usual red trench coat, which had gotten remarkably dirty over the past few weeks.

“Are you okay, Danny??” The Doctor asked. “I don’t mean to budge, but What are your pronouns? I don’t want to misgender you,” She said very politely.

“NERVOUS,” Danny shouted angrily, quite possibly because he was nervous. That was that.

It was night, and the bright white cruise ship was duller with the misty night air. It was decently dark, though not to the point of it being uninviting. The ship’s lights were friendly, happily illuminating the darkness, and there were the occasional people strewn about. The occasional people looked occasionally at the Doctor, Roman and Danny, sometimes out of a sense of awkward obligation, sometimes genuine and full of smiles. It was all fairly ordinary.

Roman looked at the ship. Glossy and curved with futuristic white fibreglass, with a high power transmaterialization circuit, this was clearly one of the more advanced Virgil models. He had read about them. Decently rich tourists - the upper middle class mainly, travelled on these cruises. They would sail the seas of one planet for a few days, and then high-power transmat themselves to the next planet on the tour, where they’d keep on cruising.

Gratuitous waste of energy, but it was very profitable, and gave the decently rich a little bit of an ego trip, that they were like all those other rich people too, weren’t they?? Roman wanted to scowl, but he couldn’t really manage it precisely. It was wasteful, yes, but it was a nice place. The three of them had certainly been to much worse.

“Distress call,” Danny blurted to the Doctor. “This is a distress call.”

The Doctor shrugged.

“Do you think, like, we’re a tiny bit off course and the distress hasn’t happened yet??” Danny asked, displaying his increasing sense of ‘getting almost okay at time travelling.’ He paused, looked at the Doctor for approval. It did not come, she was just sort of out of it, thinking. “Doctor, what do you think is happening??” He asked, once more trying to push a bit for validation.

The Doctor just shrugged again. She wasn’t thinking much about it. “I’m going to go get a Margarita,” she said. “I’ve not had one.” She casually began to wander off.

“Doctor!” Danny whined. “You’re a children’s icon! You aren’t meant to like Margaritas!”

* * *

Captain Barry Beth Hayes is captaining very well this evening. He’s in ship shape condition. Forgiving the puns, everything is going according to plan as he steers the ship across the emerald seas of the planet Argos Infini-Tie.

Barry Beth Hayes is a stoic and stolid man, a beacon of masculinity, at least this year. He downloads a new personality from the web every few years or so, and uploads it through a port in his neck. Likes to shake things up, he tells his Mum.

His helmsman is at the loo, and so he and the ship’s chief engineer are just sitting around, watching the autopilot really go at it. The boat practically runs itself, but you have to have people in case it goes wrong, or to steer away from any lobster pots. Even in the future, lobster pots are the bane of all good boating.

The door opens with a futuristic hiss, as a small man enters, furiously scribbling on his notepad. He is wearing a monocle, and he is investigating. Everything is not as he would like it. It rarely is. He fusses around the cabin, moving towards the seat where Hayes is sitting. He makes eye contact - a glowering fear-ridden motion- and then turns off from where he stood, marching away and leaving the bridge quite suddenly. Hayes is filled with the sudden and incontrovertible feeling that he will never understand who that man was.

The distracting notion has left Hayes completely unaware of a blinking red light on his desk.

* * *

Erin and Neil are at the Margarita stand. Erin and Neil are both Monks, and exist in complete and utter servitude to that which is holy. They mustn’t think of lust or greed or anything particularly interesting. They are, however, allowed to have Margaritas.

It’s a vice, but their particular church doesn’t say anything about vices, it’s just incredibly strict about everything else. Erin and Neil are of the opinion that everything is holy, everything is right, and everything is marvellous. This, for the record, especially includes the Margaritas.

“Hello,” The Doctor says, sitting down next to them. They are bemused by the appearance of her frilly blue collar - they haven’t seen anything like it, not ever. This is because the Doctor is wearing very fashionable pyjamas. They are so outrageous and avant-garde that you would not know they are pyjamas either, unless you were a Time Lord and had travelled to the Eighty-Third Cerulean Ion-Gestalt.

“Hello,” Erin says politely, stirring his Margarita. Neil does not say hello, Neil waves, his mouth currently slurping down his Margarita.

The Doctor raises an eyebrow (conspiratorial) and whispers: “Excuse me, but do you happen to know anything about imminent doom??”

The Monks both nod. They know plenty about it: the Good Book says all sorts about imminent doom, that every day it gets closer and closer and one must be truly penitent to survive the cataclysm that is to come.

“Good,” The Doctor muses. “What can you tell me about it?? Ours in particular, mind you. I don’t very much care about random imminent doom. I just want to know if there’s a general foreboding sense of it, or if everything is nice.”

At this, Neil and Erin are very confused. Imminent Doom is always coming, but there’s nothing foreboding about it. Imminent Doom is a few years off, and rather Perpetually. Things have the frustrating pattern of keeping on going.

“Today’s a very nice day, I think.” Erin says. Neil would say something too, but his drink is that good, and when he opens his mouth to say something, he decides against it and fills it once more.

“Thank you,” The Doctor says, taking the Margarita Pitcher in her hand. “You’ve both been very helpful.” She walks away, pitcher still in hand.

“Charmed!” Erin says cheerfully, and he turns back to Neil. He was confused about that, but it was nice. Erin is used to being confused about a lot of things, namely his feelings, so this isn’t quite atypical. Erin thinks Neil is a very pretty man, for instance. Erin is about to do something about this, but then remembers that he’s supposed to be incredibly repressed, and so he doesn’t. He reaches for another Margarita.

* * *

Roman is walking around the ship. He knows a good deal about it, and he is comfortable among these tourists – as comfortable as a grumpy man like himself could be on a ship like this. He is quite aware that the bustling tourists want nothing to do with him, and he is fine with this. He doesn’t want anything to do with them either.

He bumps into a strange monocled man, and then suddenly, he isn’t there. As the man strolls by, a flickering that no one can see, because no one is looking, begins to shimmer.

* * *

“Excuse me,” Danny says, tapping a man on the shoulder. “Where exactly are we going??”

The man, who is helpful – so helpful he has changed his name to Engineer, because being referred to as a function saves time, nods. “Let me just check our schedule,” Engineer mumbled. “Won’t be a tick.”

“Thank you,” Danny smiled.

Engineer checked his computer pad. “Nowhere Fast,” He says eventually. “At least according to our schedule, Nowhere Fast is our next destination. We’ll be entering transwarp in … ooh, five seconds.”

Danny is in a good mood, relatively, but he is still Danny, and therefore still nervous about the whole Distress Beacon thing. He’s also incredibly nervous about what ‘transwarp’ is, because neither the Doctor or Roman have deigned to explain to him how the fricking ship works.

“DOCTOR!!!!!!” Danny yells.

* * *

Danny’s screaming echoes around the ship as the transwarp initiates. It bounces here and there, and a sound like it hasn’t ever really been heard in this universe. The ship is glowing blue, bright light, like it’s going to beam up, and wham–

The ship is suddenly somewhere else. The people are gone. The atmosphere changes – quite literally too – it’s a different atmosphere. Different planet, different ecosystem. Danny coughs a bit at the shock to the system. Most frightening, of course, is that Danny is suddenly very alone.

Engineer is gone. It’s like he was never here. So are hundreds of the other people aboard the ship. The decks, once bustling, are suddenly and very noticeably empty. The blank space is all-consuming. Before now, Danny hadn’t really been able to see down the ship’s side… what with his height, and there being so many people. But now, Danny can see quite far, quite far into the nothing.

There’s a lot of the nothing. There’s also a lot of fog. It’s misty, thick, spooky even. “Hello??” Danny asks, metaphorically shitting his pants. This couldn’t be any more jarring if it was on the X-Files.

Eventually, the Doctor approaches out of the mist. This is startling in itself. “We’re alone.” She admits. “It’s just us on board.” She’s a little too sullen looking, and Danny examines her for a second, letting the paranoia get the better of him.

“Whatcha staring at??” The Doctor asks, and Danny wonders how he could be so stupid. She’s not sullen, she’s old!! She’s just plain The Doctor, not some creepy thing.

Danny is so relieved to see her, that he hugs her, and accidentally spills himself with Margarita.

“Danny!!’ The Doctor sighs. “I didn’t get to do my Iris Wildthyme impression!!”

The joke doesn’t land for Danny – he’s too scared of the emptiness, and the fog, and the agonizing sense of sheer fucking mystery that’s going on right now. Danny is processing quite a lot of trauma from the past few trips in the TARDIS, he doesn’t want it to get any worse. He slowly lets go of the Doctor.

He doesn’t want anything bad to happen. Not today.

The Doctor, wordlessly understands. She extends a hand to him. He gingerly takes it… just to know she’s there, in the mist. His weird space Grandma is here to protect him. It helps - slightly. But even that isn’t truly enough.

There is no wind. The fog is getting thicker, moving in, now that the ship’s molecules are no longer displacing it as much. It isn’t night, at the least. The fog is glaringly bright, for something so completely and utterly grey.

Without warning, The boat stops. It is still – as are the waters. You can hardly even hear them lap against the hull quietly. The bell of a buoy rings in the distance, letting out an ominous toll.

Dongggg.

The ship, as if by magic, is at port. But they aren’t getting off, and nothing is coming on. There’s just something around the corner. Isn’t there always??

A silhouette in the fog is approaching. He’s far off, the other end of the ship, and it’s a long ship, but he’s there. The strange short man’s shape comes from the mist. His monocle catches the light for a split second, as he slowly approaches, dropping his clipboard onto the ship’s deck, because it doesn’t matter, none of the notes mattered. It rattles awkwardly.

“Who’s there??!” The Doctor shouts. There is no answer. It is almost like he cannot answer.

Danny catches a closer glimpse of the man, who looks like a security professional, some sort of adjudicator. Health and Safety, maybe?? That certainly looks right, but Danny certainly doesn’t feel safe as the man plods forward. Each step can be heard clearly, deafeningly so, not because the steps are loud, but it is so quiet.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. The Doctor tenses up at the noise.

People say things metaphorically, like the tension could cut through you like a knife – Danny understands this metaphor, and thinks of several others about this man, and also hopes that he isn’t going to die, die before he sees his friends and family again.

The man opens up, doors opening out of his face, casually, as if this is an every-day thing. He stops being a person and becomes a location, an object, as something else climbs out of him. The man is bigger on the inside – likely with a functioning chameleon circuit.

The something else climbing out of him, is a smug looking asian woman. She is wearing a flattering Black catsuit – it is not particularly attractive despite this: She is remarkably, remarkably thin looking, you can almost see her ribcage. Danny is more frightened of her now than he was of the monocled man. She has the look of a hunter who has not fed for several days.

She flicks her dark brown hair back. “My dear Doctor,” She began.

The Doctor knows who it is from these words alone. “Master,” she whispers.

Part Two: I’ve Got To Kill You (I’m Really Sorry)

Then, the unexpected: “Thank you so much for coming.” The creepy looking villain lady who is evidently called the Master, is apologising. Danny thought about this. It didn’t seem to compute.

Danny was very confused. “Who is she exactly?” He asked, hoping to generally understand what was going on again.

The Doctor examined the Master’s new body. It was sharp looking and bony. She wondered if this Master was the kind of Master who changed their name depending on their gender, had a nickname or something. They didn’t look like that kind of person – they looked like The Master, no frills attached. She looked at Danny, and she struggled to even begin to summarize. “My…friend?? She, um… she kills people. Long story.”

“Oh.” Danny nodded.

“This is your newest one, right??” The Master said, casually pointing at Danny. “Does it have any special features??”

The Doctor sighed. “What do you want??” She grumbled.

“I’m sorry, that was rude. Old habits. Etcetera. Etcetera. I’m doing my best.” The Master said.

The Doctor raised the question again, this time a bit more politely. What did the Master want?

“Dinner.” The Master blurted, without hesitation.

The Doctor felt worried and embarrassed. “Dinner??”

“Dinner.” The Master repeated, oddly humble. “I’d like to, if you will have me, have dinner with you and your friends.”

The Doctor fidgeted. What was the catch here?? The Master killed for fun. The Master overthrew civilizations for fun – actually no, they both did that, but the Master would install a dystopian regime afterwards. The Master was duplicitous, and a liar, and absolutely not to be trusted, not ever really, every time the Master tried to change (and this was often,) they would always return to the status quo with frustrating frequency. The Doctor had learned over thousands of years not to have hope about the Master. The Master did not change.

“Let’s have dinner then,” The Doctor said, her mouth saying what her brain wasn’t.

“Thank you.” The Master noted meekly. “I think there’s some deck chairs over there. What do you want to eat??”

The Doctor did not think they would have gotten this far. “...Salad??”

Danny looked at the Master again, who was setting silverware down on the plastic table. She was, like the Doctor, remarkably odd. He didn’t know why she was so seemingly indifferent about everything. The Doctor was outrageous, and relished in being odd, this woman was just so meek and awkward.

“Mac and Cheese.” Danny says eventually, when he realizes the Master is staring at him.

“Okay.” The Master mumbled. She did not stop staring at both of them. She didn’t seem to realise it made them both uncomfortable.

Thousands of thoughts ran through the Doctor’s brain, absolutely loads of them. The thought process of a Time Lord is exceedingly difficult to transcribe when it is running at maximum capacity. The Doctor herself, rarely reaches maximum capacity. The Doctor doesn’t have to put that much effort into doing something clever and stopping alien invasions.

The Doctor, right now, is overthinking everything.

“Hold on,” The Master’s hushed voice rang out, as she tried to remove something from her pocket. They were three dolls. She placed them onto the ground and shot them with some sort of device that seemed to inflate them.

Roman, Erin and Neil appeared before their eyes.

“Sorry, I should have had all your friends here before I started anything.” The Master said, agreeably.

“YOU SHRUNK ME INTO A MISERABLE HELLSPACE,” Roman suddenly bellowed.

“Sorry.”

The Doctor looked at Erin and Neil. “I - I hardly know these people.”

“You were talking to them.” The Master calmly explained. “They were your friends. You like the humans, don’t you?”

The Doctor looked awkwardly at Erin and Neil sipping their Margaritas once more. “...Sure.” The Doctor said.

“Doctor, WHAT the devil is going on around here??” Roman growled like a bulldog. “That’s the MASTER. They destroyed Gallifrey. They burnt Earth to a crisp in the Year that Never Was. They tortured innocents to learn mastery of the Divine Signus. They’ve tried to kill every friend you’ve ever had, including themself.”

The Doctor cautiously nodded. “They want dinner, though.”

Roman harrumphed viciously.

The Master stepped inside the Monocled Man, and came outside with a plate of salad, a plate of mac and cheese, some alcoholic jello for Erin and Neil, and a plate entirely covered with mustard, which she deposited in-front of Roman.

Roman scowled at the Master, unwilling to admit to anyone around him that he yearned to eat the plate of mustard whole.

“Dinner.” The Master said, and the Doctor thought that the Master might be about to cry.

* * *

One Billion Years Earlier

(Possibly)


“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” He asked.

This might have happened. Time swirls around these two like a boa constrictor. There are things that always have been, and there are things that were that are not, that will be again.

The Doctor and the Master — not the Doctor and the Master yet, of course, they hadn’t chosen names, they were only children — they were talking.

Even for Time Lords, the future can be scary, especially the young ones, especially when in a sense, you are aware of it, an itching at the back of your skull. Tomorrow is important — it’s the naming ceremony. It is when you decide who you want to be to everyone. Most people choose alien sounding and otherworldly derivatives. Some take the names of ancestors, or names plucked from their own futures. Some choose titles, and some make promises, but every Time Lord goes through the ceremony, and every Time Lord does not go through the ceremony. It is the way of things.

“I am nervous about tomorrow, yes,” the boy and girl who will one day be The Doctor says. “I don’t have a name yet.”

“Neither do I.” The future Master agrees. “It’s a lot of pressure to live up to. Choosing a name by such an arbitrary deadline. Surely the almighty Lords of Time or whatever could recognize the virtue of giving us the required time and retrospective to understand yourself.”

“Stop using big words to make yourself sound smart,” the young Doctor says. “It makes my head hurt.”

“You’re smarter than me,” the young Master says… (and they don’t know, but it’s the only time they ever say it, even though deep down, they will never stop believing it) “You should understand big words.”

They’re sitting in a cave underneath Mount Perdition, waiting until the morning. There are other children, other Time Tots in the room, but they’re asleep and these two are whispering to each other. Waiting for the moment of understanding to come at the allotted time.

The gravity of the moment, the slow anticipation of what is coming is dreadful. Two boys or girls lying together in the dark, hoping morning never comes, even then, warring against sleep.

“I’d like to be someone important.” The one day Doctor says. “Not too important, mind you, no one likes being too important.”

“Yeah,” The Master agrees, though they aren’t actually sure if they want to be important. They don’t know yet. They don’t know anything but the vague sense of dissatisfaction, which (of course) will go away tomorrow.

The two of them look at the room of their sleeping peers, their fellow students all around them. All without names, but already figured out. The girl who will one day be The Rani is devoting her life to science. Future Padrac is going to be a librarian. Braxiatel will go into politics. The Eleven wants to be a prison warden. Iris is playing hooky, and nowhere to be seen.

Everyone’s gotten themselves figured out, haven’t they??

“There was a girl under my bed the other night,” The Doctor said, “possibly, of course, and she said something to me, and I think I should tell you it. It was quite dreadfully important, and I’d really like you to know it. I think it would help you.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t seem to remember it right this second, but it was really very reassuring.” The Doctor said. “It made me think that everything was going to be okay. This girl knew that it was all going to be figured out just fine.”

The Master didn’t get much out of this, but the Doctor really did. They rolled over and began to drift off to sleep at the thought of the Misty vague memory. The thought really did seem to help them. The Master lied there, looking at all of their friends, no, their peers, around them. All so damn perfect.

At least they would know what to do tomorrow. They should be able to understand themself then.

* * *

The next morning, Borusa might have taken the Master to the Untempered Schism, and the Master might have looked in and saw his own sad and alone face, sitting in the muck, in his empire of dust and ashes, looking at himself made of nothing.

The next morning, The Master might have looked at their brethren, looked at the Doctor, and felt jealous of the Doctor, understanding that they wanted to help people, while they didn’t know what to do.

The next morning, The Master might have felt nothing at the naming ceremony and cursed Gallifrey for all it’s pretension and apathy – how they would never understand them. The Master might have ran away then.

The next morning, The Master may have realised that there was no point to any of it, that if time was an endlessly changing and winding branch of infernal purposelessness, then he might as well simply kill them all.

The next morning, The Master might have taken up the name Koschei and chosen a different purpose, at least for a while.

The next morning, the Master could have found themselves at the River Lethe and had to watch the Doctor save them from brutal old Torvic. The Master might have realised in that moment that they never wanted the Doctor to ever have to do anything that difficult again.

The next morning, the Master could have snapped and taken their first victim right there in the hall, where all of those other Time Tots were so peacefully sleeping. The Master could find understanding then.

The Master was a troublemaker and a rule follower, always taken in comparison to someone else. One of Two. The Master was entropy, the world, the last person to live in the empty universe at the big crunch, long after all of the Futurekind had worn into dust, the Needle was broken and even the Divergence were long dead and buried. The Master was, and what they could be, all of it was there and gone, wasn’t it?

Superiority and Inferiority, and Dreams of Selflessness and Avarice, lost to history, lost to the east wind.

* * *

Far later – in the now, relatively:

It’s Dinner. It’s still Dinner. Awkward plastic forks scraping on paper plates. The Master isn’t eating much of her meal. None of them are, not Danny, not Roman, not the Doctor – Erin and Neil happily have cleaned their plates several times over, mind you. They don’t have the slightest worry that it might be poisoned or it might have a tracker inside or this could all be an elaborate ruse for a super evil game.

The Doctor and Master are staring into each other's eyes, The Doctor fierce, and the Master answering the challenge. Eventually, the Doctor has to ask. “How many of them did you kill, when you moved this ship of course – to wherever we are now??”

The Master breaks eye contact. “Some of them, I think. Maybe. I’m sorry, I don’t think I paid much attention.”

The Doctor is deeply disappointed. Even the Master at her most jovial and open is dripping in blood. It’s how she works.

“I think most of them are fine.” The Master admitted eventually. “When I warped the ship to this planet, when I left everyone behind so it was just us, I left lifeboats for everyone, I really did my best. I just can’t remember how many of the species on the boat can survive in water. Did I mess up??”

The Doctor was confused. The Master never tried this hard. The Doctor had thought – was certain – that the people the Master teleported elsewhere – the “‘unimportant’” people were dead. But what if they weren’t? What if??

“I want you to help me,” The Master said, cautiously. “I’ve come across something that seems very very important.”

Roman rose to his feet. “Absolutely not,” he said, interrupting the conversation. He had been stolid and respectful so far throughout dinner. He had not said a word – this was not necessarily atypical – Roman either spoke endlessly or said nothing, one of the two – but now he was livid. “You are not to be trusted, Master.”

“That is fair, Mr. Romana, that you think that,” The Master said, trying to be respectful as well. “I am very very sorry I’ve disappointed you previously. I seem to do that to a lot of people. I sent dinner invitations for this whole thing to dear Leela, Jo and Nyssa, but none of them responded, it was so odd.” The Master earnestly seemed to be confused on the subject. Roman snorted in derision.

“Look, the point is, I’ve docked us on an unnamed island on an unnamed planet, that for the sake of conversation, the locals call ‘Loch Ness.’ It’s mainly uninhabited, with a few locals. There have recently been ruins discovered on this island,” The Master explained.

“Okay…” The Doctor mused.

“These ruins are older than the rest of the universe.”

Part Three: Heartache to Heartache We Stand

“Older than the universe??” Danny asked. “Surely that’s impossible.”

“A scarily ominous notion,” The Master agreed. “It suggests many things, none of them particularly pleasant. Or altogether possible.”

“I was there at the Big Bang,” The Doctor noted, although she didn’t clarify whether it was number one or two – or whether she was referring to one of Lord Byron’s parties again. “I didn’t see any ruins older than the rest of the universe.”

“Occam’s Razor.” Roman said, not explaining Occam’s Razor. Danny looked at him, a bit irritated at his pretension. “The likeliest solution is that the ruins don’t predate the universe, and are simply flotsam and jetsam. Plenty of factors could explain anomalous carbon dating, from technological failure to the ruins being in a time loop to the ruins being War in Heaven nonsense.”

“Well, I invited you here to help me find out.” The Master said, extending a hand.

The Doctor hesitated. The Master did not do this. This whole day was filled with things the Master did not do. The Master was not a friendly neighbourhood Time Lord. The Master was not the kind of person to show up on your doorstep with a box of roses. This was so sickeningly out of character that the Doctor really had a hard time getting behind it. It would have been easier to trust if the Master had just told her that she had stolen a nuclear warhead.

“Well??” The Master rolled her eyes.

“...It’s not like I ever just leave after showing up at some mysterious place.” The Doctor concluded eventually. “It would really eat away at me.”

Roman began to massage his temples, stressed out of his mind. The realisation was sudden, pure and aggressive. Oh no. We’re doing this.

* * *

Captain Barry Beth Hayes comes to. He is alone. The cabin is empty. The sky is different, a dark twilight purple. Atmospheric Controls have been adjusted. The tide is different. Looking out the window, and craning his neck, he can account for a second Moon. Something is really, really quite wrong.

Captain Hayes grunts. This was not a planet they were planning on visiting. They were going to go to Nowhere Fast, and then to Women Wept, ending the trip at Planet Cat. It was a nice voyage. Wherever they were now, it was none of these. Captain Hayes urgently checked the interstellar coordinates.

They were out far. Really far, like, cosmically far. He wasn’t aware that the Human race was out this far. Science teaches you that the Universe is constantly expanding, but you’d never expect to be on the edge of that expansion, metaphorically teetering on the rim of existence. It’s not like you could fall off – the universe expands too quickly – but out here, you could actually see it. They were on the border of what could happen. Evidently, it was called Loch Ness.

Grabbing a flashlight, he stepped out onto the Ferry’s deck. Everything was damp. He could see a group of people exiting the ship now. A woman with a shock of white hair, a bald man in a trenchcoat, a short man with thick glasses and an asian woman in a catsuit. And hey, those two Monks that kept drinking out his stock. He wouldn’t be able to get to them in time, but he could follow them, couldn’t he?? Figure out what was up??

[[MESSAGE.]]

What was that he heard??

It was behind him. A man in a monocle, standing there, divided into many pieces, so you could walk into the man itself. He was starting to rot, a bit - just the red fleshy bits inside didn’t look too appealing, although when you looked further in, you could see a friendly white console. It was impossible, and Captain Hayes didn’t much feel like walking inside it.

[[MESSAGE.]] It was speaking. It was actually speaking, even though it’s face was divided into four. Although the mouth was in multiple sections, pieces of skin flapped into a vague simulacrum of lips.

“Hey, who the hell are you??” Hayes barked. He wasn’t polite to fleshy bigger on the inside abominations that had a single mouth working in conjunction in four different places. It just wasn’t something he was willing to do.

[[MESSAGE FOR CAPTAIN BARRY BETH HAYES.]]

“You’ll have to hold it.” Captain Hayes scowled. “I need to go figure out where those people are going.”

[[MESSAGE: YOU ARE NOT LEAVING.]]

“Oh? And what do you mean by that??” Captain Hayes was filled with misplaced bravado. He had no interest in arguing. The monocled man in four tilted to an impossible angle, seemingly out of confusion, or quizzical amusement. It was so simple, why did the organic not understand??

[[THE CAPTAIN GOES DOWN WITH THE SHIP.]] The Monocled Man said.

* * *

The island is basically a glorified fishery. There’s also something very deeply wrong about it, and you instantly know it, instantly, as soon as you take a step off of the boat.

Danny’s first step onto the stone docks features some uncontrollable trembling, which he is not responsible for - as does Roman’s first step, and indeed, the Doctor’s. The whole island is desaturated, Danny eventually notices. The purple sky is closer now to black as they step off of the boat, and everything seems to operate slightly closer to grayscale.

There are dirty bearded men, some cloaked in shadow, milling about the docks. Most don’t notice them. Some stare.

Roman seems lost in thought. “How large is this island??”

“Small.” The Master notes.

“Then how do those moors stretch out so far??” Roman questions, pointing to the impossible moors. They stretched out quite far. Danny peered, trying to see how far they stretched out, but he could only really conclude that it was far, which didn’t make sense, considering the island, in island terms, was small, only a few miles wide, yet the moors stretched out irregardless like twisted fingers.

Roman began to stroll off to investigate the moors. Danny considered following him, because he didn’t want to leave him alone, but he didn’t want to leave The Doctor alone with the Master either. And surely, The Doctor was far more accident prone than Roman.

Everything was compressed in the little port. The houses were ramshackle and pushed together, and there weren’t many of them, but they were all in close vicinity, seven or so huts around the fairly thin peninsula, so close to the water that they had to be held up by wood and iron beams.

The men sat at the edge of the huts, and fished, and in the black, they looked older than sin. Lobster traps and fishing gear were in big junky piles, strewn about in madcap disinterest. You could pick it up, anywhere, all off the ground, there was just a lot of it, and a lot of wooden boats – no engines. This was a bastion of luddites.

It was oddly peaceful. Likely due to the silence, which in contrast to the junk strewn everywhere, made it all feel empty.

“Over the hill this way,” The Master said, pointing, and Danny knew that there was something more over the hill than what she was saying, than what she had told them, because he could already feel it, the palpable sweeping dread, which was thick and damp.

* * *

Over the hill, the attempt at a stone street tapered off, and it was beginning to be the edge of the Moors. Lying on the side of the hill, half embedded in the rock was an obsidian pylon, some form of a monument. Glowing white text was inscribed on it’s edges, and there were black jewels on the black rock, which facet’s still managed to shine.

Ever since he’d joined the TARDIS, Danny had been able to read pretty much anything, and he’d been too sheepish to ask about it really, but these he saw as nothing but symbols. They exuded that feeling of dread, which he was well aware wasn’t his own at this point – his own felt entirely different, a frustrating additive he was also dealing with. At the spire’s base, it was completely desaturated, static and fizzly like a decayed Black and White film.

“Well,” The Master said, expectantly. “What does it say??”

* * *

The Doctor felt sheepish, a bit pointless. She was also intrigued, of course, but the overwhelming feeling of Apathy coming from the Stonework was frankly difficult to ignore. She knelt down, looking at the object once more, wishing she could remember precisely what good old Benny had told her about this particular sort of thing. Ominous Spires were not her forte. It was indeed, almost comical. She imagined a Monkey hitting the damn thing with a rock until it turned into a space baby. Hopefully a Kubrick film didn’t have anything to do with this, but that was how her mind worked now, immediately leaping to the closest reference point.

What was wrong with this regeneration?? She’d felt so especially violent lately, and while she was getting better at dealing with all of the insane urges her head would generate, while she was trying remarkably hard to Doctor Who correctly, it sure was an uphill battle.

She leaned a hand onto the spire, breaking a lot of archaeological rules, and tried to sweep off some of the darkened dirt.

Removing her Sonic Screwdriver from her pocket, she began to slowly scan for anomalous readings. Archaeology was slow. All the while, she became more and more nervous… because there was absolutely nothing here that the Master did not know quite well how to do already.

“What’s your theory??” The Doctor asked, eventually. The Master would enjoy being asked to talk – she loved being the smartest person in the room.

“My theory, oh, well, that doesn’t matter much.” The Master mumbled.

What was going on??

“What’s happened to you??” The Doctor suddenly barked. “When did you get so… weirdly … meek?? You never act like this!”

The Master bit her lip in clear irritation. The Doctor hoped that she’d annoyed the Master enough into doing something rash, but the Master began to ramble in a sort of rhetorical chant:

“Do you know that feeling when you cut yourself on accident with a piece of paper, when you’ve skinned your knee and the blood hasn’t welled up yet, or like when you’ve got a bunch of bug bites, but they’re just so so damn tiny that you can’t see it, you can’t see where the pain is coming from?? You just can’t - - see it??”

“Of course,” The Doctor said, trying to be empathetic. It was so hard for her – she was usually so good at this.

“I’m not sure you do.” The Master said quietly.

Danny was beginning to feel like a third wheel, and not in a wheelbarrow. He began to back away, but he didn’t know what to do. Everything was escalating. He remembered how he felt on the boat – was that just a few minutes ago?? This day was so much worse than just a distress signal.

The Doctor had thought this regeneration was some sort of an experiment, initially. Her brain saying: How far can you go and still be the Doctor? She had then thought that it was clearly due to the infection from the Maroth’s surreal dimension’s existence. She believed that was why she had been acting like this, because the world was wacky now, and so was she.

Looking at the Master now, she wondered if that was true. If this regeneration was really the next coming of the Valeyard, some moment in her subconscious sticking out, if it was the effects of the Maroth’s manipulations, the destruction of Gallifrey, if it was all part of some evil being’s malevolent plan, or if this whole thing was just some sickly dream?? She wondered if it was anything.

The Master was different now too, like her. Was it sheer dumb coincidence? She didn’t like believing in coincidence. Maybe it was the effect of this monument, maybe this monument was the normalcy, the fear, as opposed to the surreal madness she had come across.

“This could all be the Maroth’s doing,” The Doctor said, lying to herself.

“It could,” The Master said, and it was also laced with the slightest scent of lies.

“Guys??” Danny worried. “What’s going on??” He had no clue what to think about any of this. The Master made him nervous, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. The Doctor made him feel comfortable, made him feel safe, but she was a lunatic, and clearly emotionally compromised about something.

“Danny. Poor Ordinary Danny.” The Master said, and it was like she had switched codes, just for a moment. “The Doctor’s best friend, and he doesn’t know who he is?? Wouldn’t he like to know who he used to be?? His real name?? Silly old Danny. I could tell him. Oh, I could tell him, couldn’t I, because I know these things–” and then the mocking stopped. She had switched back, and realized that she was doing something she shouldn’t. “Sorry.” She said, immediately. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

What was happening. What was happening! What was happening?? What was happening??

Confusion seemed to now pour out of the dark black spires as the lights continued their dull glow.

* * *

Roman was on the moor now, deep into it. He was walking, and he wasn’t quite sure why. Eventually, he noticed that Erin and Neil were following him.

“What are you two doing here??” Roman unpleasantly mumbled.

“We don’t know.” Erin eventually remarked, as Neil slurped the margaritas, which he was beginning to run out of.

Inch by Inch, as Roman paced, thoughts were occurring to Roman about the two imbeciles, but it was at least better that they were with him and not that damned murderous Master woman. At least Roman could look at the moors, and try and figure out a way off this island. Separated from the Master, he could make a plan. He could go back in at just the right moment and rescue the Doctor from her heinous scheme.

He stepped on something sharp.

Stepping off of it, slowly, he saw what he had stepped on. The tip of some kind of spire, some kind of Pylon thing. It was dark as night. Darker than night. Blacker than VantaBlack. Impossibly empty. He leaned down to examine it’s facets, only to find something lying in the dirt. Some sort of lens. It began to glow, and with it, a shimmering spiral of light in front of them.

A lovecraftian figure was in the spiral. It was infinite. Everything. You could hardly begin to sort the real thoughts of the matter into your head, it was filled with the most colourful dark you can - you can’t imagine. Tentacles spiralled around them, but then, tentacles were far too easy to understand, and they became gigantic protruding growths of fur, before twisting back again. They turned, and Roman could see the formations orbiting a levitating man.

Something struck Roman sharply on the head, and he fell unconscious, his head going into a much lighter black than what had been surrounding him.

Part Four: They Call Me Hell They Call Me Stacy

Erin and Neil left the moors and slowly walked back into town. It was a glacial pace they worked at, like they were carrying many bags of Airport Luggage. One step at a time, like they were distantly remembering how to walk. It was a far away memory, wasn’t it? Eventually they sat down at a long decayed picnic bench near the water, careful not to sit on the rusted and twisted screws. They remembered everything that had ever happened to them for every second of their lives. They could distinctly recall every single moment, even the pointless ones where they were sleeping or waiting, every dream, every vague conversation. It was overwhelming.

Erin remembered when he first knew he was going to commit himself to God and her great endeavours, May 7th, 2971. Erin remembered when he was waiting at the bus stop on June 14, 2987. Erin remembered trying to fall asleep on December 22nd, 2990.

Neil remembered when he was dreaming about a cartoon witch with a soda bottle - October 3rd, 2969. Neil remembered his first kiss and how awkward and horrible it was, 2978. Neil remembered the traffic lights at Cosmic Interjection 80N, March 16th, 2980. Neil remembered a glass of water on June 6th, 2986. Neil remembered popping out of his mother as a newborn, February 11th, 2961.

Erin and Neil had been granted basic time awareness. It was a gift that their minds could not contemplate: Their cerebral functions would give out in a matter of days.

An ancient man stepped off of the Moors, and sat down next to them. He was dignified and professional, wearing a suit the color of asphalt. He looked like one of those familiar old people actors — Charles Dance, or Michael Caine, that kind of refined “Old Guard” so to speak.

“Are you doing well??” He commented mildly. “I certainly hope I could be of some help.”

January 12th, 2965. October 1st, 2983. September 7th, 2974. July 9th, 2973. August 24th, 2991. December 25th, 2988. Every day in August, 2968. May 30th, 2976.

The Old Man removed a thick cigar from his breast pocket, and slowly began to smoke. Lovecraftian and toothed tentacles formed around him, which sucked the smoke out of the air before any pollution could occur. It wouldn’t do to be messy.

Behind him, Erin and Neil shook. The centuries, the decades, every day and moment on Shuffle.

In a strange and different sense, but yet more than anyone, Erin and Neil were having the time of their lives.

* * *

The spire pulsed dimly. Wind was picking up on the moor, and it wasn’t strong, but occasionally a bit of dark sand would whip into your eyes.

Danny was sitting in the dirt, looking at the two of them and how odd they were. Danny usually enjoyed the act of observation, even if it sometimes seemed creepy (Rear Window was one of his favourite films), but he didn’t enjoy it when he felt like he was really intruding. He definitely was now, He wanted more than anything to leave.

The Doctor scraped at the ancient words, interrupting his thoughts.

He couldn’t leave the Doctor, though, something was wrong, and he felt like he needed the Doctor right now, she was a silly old security blanket.

A deep echoey chime went off in the distance. Almost like a cloister bell, but off. Inexact. You could almost hear distant fire. That time was moving, that something else was on the island. The Doctor innately sensed it. The Master did too. An ominous droll voice.

“A TASTE ON THE BREATH OF NOSTALGIA.”

Roman was in danger, Danny realised. He turned to run. He had to go save Roman, brilliant old Roman, he had to. He left without thinking.

* * *

The dialog began soon after. It was hard not to speak, especially for two people who love to talk.

"This is about something,” The Doctor concluded.

“Is it??” The Master asked, rhetorical.

“Of course it is.” The Doctor said. “You have a reason for acting like this, and it isn’t just the regeneration.”

“Do I have a reason??” The Master said, still rhetorical, still trying to avoid the confrontation they both knew was coming.

“You do.” The Doctor said, cajoling. They knew each other too well.

“So what if I have a reason??” The Master snipped. “You won’t ever accept it. You won’t get it. It wasn’t even anything you thought about.”

The Doctor was really confused now. “What’s your plan??” She hissed. “This island, this ominous pylon, dinner, what’s the point of it?? What’s the evil twist?? There’s always an evil twist.”

“There’s no evil twist,” The Master said, without any particular intonation. “Can I ask you something??”

“Shoot.” The Doctor said, scribbling a rune from the pylon onto a scrap of paper.

“Do you think something ruined us, at some point??” The Master asked. “Do you think at one point, some random point, we just stopped being what we used to be?”

“No,” The Doctor snapped again, and she didn’t know where this rage was coming from. “We’ve never been normal.”

“You don’t want to be normal.” The Master sighed. She stood up, dusting the dirt off of her.

The Doctor sighed, and crumpled the paper up. It wasn’t going well.

“Are you bored??” The Master asked. “This is very important.”

“Just wondering what the twist is,” The Doctor mumbled. “There’s got to be an evil plan.”

“There’s no evil plan.”

“You always have an evil plan,” The Doctor repeated.

The Master narrowed her eyes. “You think all of this is me??”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.” The Doctor said. The Master smirked in turn, but she was irritated.

The Master was irritated, and she quickly took a rock from the dirt, not betraying any particular movement. “There is great evil on this island, you know that. It’s your bread and butter. This is what you do.”

“And I’m just saying what you do—” The Doctor began, not really thinking.

The Doctor had a sudden realisation at the back of her skull. A little whispering she knew quite well. It had a different connotation now, but the meaning was similar. Oh, my Dear Doctor. You Have Been Naive. And it was right, she had been very naive indeed.

“Oh?” She snarled. “You want me to do what I do? Maybe I didn’t want to hurt you this time. But if it’s about what you want, okay.” Her voice dripped with venom. “This is the part I try to kill you then, isn’t it?” She without warning swung the rock viciously at the Doctor.

The Doctor moved quickly, stepping out of the way. The Master swung again, furious.

It was small. It wasn’t an evil plan, it wasn’t a catastrophic showdown, it was a rock. The smallest way that they’d ever tried to kill each other.

The Doctor grappled the Master’s arm, trying to wring the rock from her hand. The Master kicked back, ferocious, the same look in her eyes. She had been trying. She had been trying so hard to be good. Without Hope, Without Witness, Without Reward. What had that ever gotten her??

The kick let off a dull pain in the Doctor’s chest, as they began to struggle in the dirt. The Master swung the rock again, but the Doctor moved her head out of the way just in time.

“We change so much, but we never change.” The Master said, hissing cruelly. “You never get it!”

The Doctor wrung the Master off of her with a halfhearted punch. When the Master swung back again, the Doctor had to hit back harder. There was no grandiosity to any of it. There was no dramatic rain. There were no immediate explosions, or proxy armies. There were two Time Lords, and they were in the dirt. That was how it was.

The Master had dropped the rock at some point, but continued to swing intensely at the Doctor, trying to claw at her face. The Doctor tried to clamber away, forget the voice of this stupid regeneration that so desperately wanted to hit back, to bash heads, to be chaotic and violent and maniacal.

Eventually, it stopped. They just sat there. It took quite some time to get out the words.

“I can’t say what this is about.” The Master said.

“Sure you can.”

“No, I really can’t.” The Master said. “It’s not over yet. What I brought you here for.”

“So there is a plan??” The Doctor said, sadly.

“There’s always a plan,” The Master mumbled. “It just hurts that you think that, all the same.”

The dialog is over now. They’re just in the dirt. Sitting there. Thinking.

* * *

Danny ran up the hill, and he saw him. First off, the town was empty, but not in the typical sense. All of the Fishermen, the mindless Fishermen who just seemed like part of the scenery, were gone. The town was still filled with rubbish.

He was sitting in the rubbish, refined and perfect, and smoking his cigar as classily as possible. The seclusion around him made him easy to see.

Danny immediately disliked him. People who smoked cigars for the social status of exhaling poison were regrettably stupid. But this man didn’t seem stupid. He didn’t even seem in danger of being hurt whatsoever.

He puffed at it some more, as Danny approached him. Danny was immediately aware he wasn’t human. There was something about him, the same ethereal beauty that he saw in The Doctor, Roman, even the Master.

“Hello, chap.” The Man said. “Come sit with an old bloke.”

Danny felt like standing. “What are you??”

“I’m why you’re all here,” he said, “I also chose my name a long time ago. I’m sometimes there, and I’m not. It’s just how it is.” He was immensely relaxed. Danny didn’t think it had much to do with the Cigar.

He raised his hand, and flicked the Cigar, and it was gone, like it had never been there. “I’m trying all the human sensations,” he explained. “I’ve only found a few good ones so far. Have you seen Star Wars? It’s bloody good.”

“I do like it, yeah.” Danny said, sitting down on the bench next to the man. “What’s your name??”

“My name, like your friend the Doctor’s, doesn’t quite collate to this universe’s laws,” he said. His voice was throaty, like he needed to blow his nose. “I suppose, if we are to translate, although it is messy and imprecise in comparison, you could call me Velldorthahyrdriantloomsvellistarico. The One Who Plans.”

The One Who Plans took a book from nothing, a book with a cover that Danny couldn’t get a look at, and read through the book in a single moment, before depositing it back where it came.

“These are my ruins.” The One Who Plans said. “They are a link, a small needle and thread to where I come from. They are very difficult to find, I must applaud you.”

“I didn’t find them.” Danny said, cautiously.

“Well, regardless, one and the same. I appreciate you.” The One Who Plans said, mildly. “As I do, You may ask me anything you choose. I know all that is.”

Danny only longed for one thing, one real answer. “Does the Master really know my real name??” He asked. “What is it???”

The One Who Plans laughed, the tentacles at the foot of his suit swaying. “Names, names. I told you mine, at least its equivalent. A name is a suggestion given. It can be upheld, taken away, but only by its owner. Whatever your name was before — and indeed, I do know it — it is not your name now, Young Danny. You must uphold the one you have now, or find another. If you continue to seek out the old one, it will only end in tragedy. Remember that.”

This mildly infuriating unanswer was enough for him, it seemed, and he rose to his feet.

He then had a life, a fast life, in front of Danny’s eyes. He appeared as an infant in a stroller, grew into a toddler, a boy, a teenager watching a television, a young adult, a basketball player, a man gyrating into a nude woman, a 30 year old accountant throwing back beers at a bar, a man taking his wedding vows, a sleeping man, a middle aged adult changing a toddler’s diapers, on a vacation to Disney World, his son’s first day at school, middle school, high school, college, he retired and took up painting, before being an old man at rest in a nursing home, moaning out a final last breath. He was then still there, as he was, the man in the suit, no longer any of what he was less than a second ago. He had planned it out precisely,

Danny was without words. What could he even say?? It was surely the most ridiculous, marvellous thing he had seen in his time in the TARDIS. The charming man, The One Who Plans, chuckled in response.

“Life In The Fast Lane, I believe.” he grinned, so friendly, but his aged eyes did not shine in the same way his smile did, he was doing an approximation.

“They’ve spent enough time here,” he said eventually. “It’s time to take them back, I think.”

Danny raised an eyebrow in confusion. He felt so young in comparison to this man, something he never felt anymore in the overweight old flabby body he was trapped in. “Take who back??”

“You’d call them The Doctor. I come from another comprehension. I am, in the simplest term, I think — their father.” The One Who Plans said. “It is time for their little digression in this world to end.”


Part Five: (Hello) I Love You, Won’t You Tell Me Your Name??

It smelled like static on rotten meat. The Pylon, the Spire, whatever it was, was now moving up and down to the tune of an inaudible song that wasn’t playing. The Doctor felt the dread from the damn thing more closely than ever. Something was coming.

“When I heard about this island, and realised what it was, I - I had to bring us here.” The Master said. “It’s going to make everything all right again, or it’s going to make it stop. It’s a place… like the one the Time Lords found you on. Way back…then…”

The Doctor looked forlornly into the distance. “That’s why this thing isn’t translatable?”

“It’s certainly from back then. I was sure you’d be able to crack it.”

“Why do you care so much about my past??” The Doctor asked. It was such a sore subject. What was the truth?

“Because every day is the same but worse,” The Master said, calmly, like it was a fact.

The Doctor couldn’t stand this fatalism. “You can talk to me,” she said, beginning to try to forge the gap.

“Later.” The Master said. “You have a thingy to stop.”

The Doctor didn’t want to stop the thingy. She wanted to run. She wanted to run from it as far as she possibly could. She didn’t need more responsibilities. She didn’t want to hear what it had to say. She just wanted to be her. She had enough revelations.

But despite herself, the Doctor turned, and began to walk over the hill and back towards the ramshackle town.

* * *

The Doctor was thinking about who she was. Thinking about what this meant. If the Timeless Child stuff was true — and she did have evidence that it was, at least some of the time, a valid part of her twisted origins, then this island was a gate at a boundary. Like the place Tecteun had found her, might have found her. This island was… something. Something that made her afraid.

She rounded the corner and stepped onto the top of the hill, looking down into the town. She saw an unconscious Danny and an even more unconscious Roman, lying on the bench next to an ancient, unknowable man.

“So you have come,” The One Who Plans smiled. “The daughter of Leela and Andred.” Time flickered around him and then he said something different. “Human fleeing from The Enemy.” Once more. “Son of Penelope and Ulysses.” Once more. “Last of the Vampyres, origin of the taint.” Once more. “Reincarnate of Merlin,” “Child born of Lungbarrow”, “Tsuro the Hare,” “Progeny of Bel and Vinder," “Prisoner of Tecteun.”

He extended a hand, elegantly. “My daughter.”

This did not seem to impress the Doctor in the least. She rolled her eyes, and adjusted her pyjamas to seem more dignified. Regardless, they were still rumpled and tarnished from rolling around in the dirt. The Doctor scowled. Enough playing around. She really needed a change of clothes. “Is Danny alright??” She asked.

“He still has more to do.” The One Who Plans ominously intoned. Most of what the One Who Plans said was an ominous intonement. It seemed to be his deal. “You are a princess, you know. The most important of my kind. A royal child of my dimension. You must return with me. You have spent your time here, waffling through a semblance of eternity without daring to exercise your true potential.”

The Doctor huffed. This — no — she would not allow this. This was her home. This was where everyone that mattered to her was. “Are you kidding me??”

The One Who Plans seemed offended by the response. It was likely because he was. “This is not an act of heroism, child. There is nothing here worth protecting. I have experienced it all. As have you, by now. You have spent billions of years here, and most of it punching at a wall at that. You have used your time and fulfilled everything that is to be seen here. It is time to let go.”

Without thinking, the Doctor blurted. “I haven't seen Milwaukee.”

“What?” The One Who Plans ominously intoned yet again. He was closer to shouting than ever before.

“I haven’t been. I don’t know if it’s nice or not.” The Doctor said, purposefully as mildly as possible. Trying to piss whatever it was off. The usual way she did what she did — talking the heads off unbeatable death gods. She felt very scared this time, though.

“It is a human settlement. Nothing more. You have destiny to come to.” The One Who Plans hissed. “Become everything with me.”

“No,” The Doctor said firmly. “I am not interested in you. I am NOT your child, I am not a Timeless Child, I am not the daughter of Ulysses and I am not anything you try to classify me as. I am not those titles, because you forgot the most important one. I am myself. I am a person. I am not your mystery.”

In saying the words, the Doctor began to glow, and time reasserted itself. The One Who Plans yelled, as the ancient Gods always do in these circumstances, and furiously clawed at reality to gain another foothold, but before he could blink, he was torn out of existence, and sent back to where he came with nothing but a thought.

The Doctor collapsed.

* * *

Several things might have happened. The Doctor might have called upon the ancient princess power of another dimension, her complete mastery over time to rewrite everything, everything that ever was — to use that power to make her not of that power in the first place, and thus, The One Who Plans was not there. The denial of contradiction, of every origin, forced him into nothing.

The One Who Plans may have left out of anger and cowardice, unwilling to deal with such a regressive child. He was a figure driven into this world purely by feeling, and he left the world completely ruined by it.

The One Who Plans may not exist in a remotely linear perspective, and he might not have given up at all. He may have gone to a different time to try again, to try and shape things in another way. There are always choices for those like him.

There is another possibility as well. Patience.

But for now, the Doctor checks Danny’s pulse, makes sure he and Roman are alright, and goes back to the Pylon — because she has to talk.

* * *

The Doctor sat back down in the sand and the dirt, next to the Master.

“It’s gone,” The Doctor said, sitting down. “I’ve beaten the thingy.”

“You tend to.” The Master mused. She was almost completely covered in sediment, and a red wound dripped from her neck. She made no effort to tend to it. “Do you understand now, why we had to be here?? Do you get it??”

“Maybe,” The Doctor says, exhausted, not even thinking about the full picture anymore.

“Do you remember the plane, the crashing plane over London? With those three humans, Ada Lovelace and Paris??” The Master asked.

“Yes. It was just before you blew up Gallifrey, when you killed almost our entire species over a hissy fit.” The Doctor said slowly.

“Yeah. I did.” The Master said. “It wasn’t a hissy fit, though. You were the one who got hissy about it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Whatever.” The Master sighed. She was so tired looking, the Doctor thought. She looked so miserable. “I had just such a sense of nostalgia, I really wanted everything to be how it was. Our good times. Of course, the Timeless Child changed everything. I…I had thought we were the same before that.”

“We are the same. Nothing’s changed.” The Doctor said, with a hint of hesitation. What should she say?? What could she say??

“Yeah.” The Master chuckled. “Nothing’s changed.” She said this with a tinge of bitter contempt. “No, I understand, we all like to know our pasts, we’re entitled to them. In the Matrix, what’s that you said??” She began to quote in reverie. “I contain multitudes,” she said, in a perfect imitation of the Doctor’s old voice. “More than you ever thought or knew. you wanted me to be scared of it. Because you’re scared of everything. But I am so much more than you.”

The Doctor didn’t even remember saying that.

“You know, I really believed it?” The Master laughed, sadly. “Ohh, I still do.”

“It’s not true. I was angry, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean it at all.”

“I know.” The Master said, smugly looking at the Doctor. She chuckled to herself. “We do fall into patterns don’t we?? Every day is the same but worse.” The Master sighed.

“You surely don’t believe that.” The Doctor said, calmly.

“I do… I really do. How I miss your stupid old friends. It was never the same without the good old Brigadier, Sarah, oh, and Miss Grant. I really rather appreciated them. And back then we talked all the time. Now I never see you. And I really need to try and kill you now and then. Otherwise there isn’t a point.”

The Doctor smiled at the memories, however briefly. She looked at the friend who had been there all along, who had been there almost as long as the blue box. “You matter.” She said, “And I did miss you, in a strange sense. But why all this??”

The Master laughed, and the Doctor realised it was a real laugh, not a fake one, like she had been doing all day. All the other laughs were pale imitations, this one was a raucous belly laugh, deep and full. It went on for some time. “Oh, my dear Doctor,” she smiled. “Because I needed to hear you say that.”

* * *

Another possibility:

Roman awoke in the middle of town, feeling something in his ribs. He was confused and tired. Something had hit him — and it had dragged him from where he had been before. What was that pylon he uncovered, part of the ruin?? Some hyper-advanced transmitter? Roman slowly got up from the bench he was lying on, to see something which perturbed him deeply. Some sort of highly advanced projector. He would never have seen it if it were not that it poked him in the ribs while he was unconscious — and looking for it, around town, he began to see several more of the devices. Why were they here, in such an unadvanced culture?? Where was that culture?? Where were Erin and Neil?? Where was everyone but Danny?? He couldn’t begin to contemplate.

“What’s the deal, Roman?” Danny asked, removing himself from his bench.

“It just occurred to me, Danny, that all of the abilities of the fellow who attacked us — well, at least that I have seen — could be possibly attributed to a sophisticated holographic array.”

Danny rolled his eyes. “You can’t possibly be serious. The One Who Plans was not a hologram. There’s no way.”

“No, it does seem to be rather far fetched,” Roman eventually agreed, placing the holographic array back on the bench. He hadn’t seen much today, and wasn’t really able to theorize.

It was irrational beyond words that the One Who Plans was a hologram all along engineered by some other force, Danny thought. For one, he had seemingly magical powers, and for another he killed Erin and Neil, who Danny knew were real, because they were back on the cruise ship, where he hadn’t seen any hologram generators at all. There was no way everything on the cruise was fabricated for their benefit by some external force either. Danny was convinced that everything they’d seen was real as it could be, especially considering the very real emotion he had felt all day. There was no way that kind of dread and paranoia could be faked. This was the realest day he had ever had with the Doctor, Danny told himself.

Right?

Danny resigned the thought to the back of his mind. It wouldn’t be long before travelling with the Doctor drove him crazy. Besides, what would even be the point?? There wouldn’t be a benefit to anyone.

It was time to go back to the TARDIS — and to finally get some real rest. He needed it.

* * *

Possibly, the whole thing, all of the One Who Plans’ special effects, could be achieved by a hologram, as could the disappearance of all of the ship’s passengers, as could any perceived Timeless Child power the Doctor demonstrated to defeat the One Who Plans. This could have been intensified with hard light holographic receivers, and could all have been organized by a TARDIS. Possibly, this could all have been engineered by the Master. Just like how, possibly Borusa took the Master to the Untempered Schism, or, Possibly, The Master could have felt nothing at the naming ceremony, or Possibly could have decided the point of their life because of Torvic.

Answers will not be given. The years of weather change us, and we grow hardy or we wither. Temporal conflict and contradiction is not Temporal Incompatibility.

What is true, however, regardless of the possibilities – whether he left, was defeated by the Doctor, or was never there, one thing can be certain, outside of the vague basic facts of the endeavour. The only verifiable information from the events can be summarized as such:

The One Who Plans was rather fucking dogshit at the whole “Planning” thing.

* * *

In the TARDIS, Danny wasn’t sleeping. He was tired, but he wasn’t. His body was physically exhausted, to a breaking point, even, but despite this, his mind bounced and jittered around his skull like a Kangaroo with a cocaine addiction.

It was a mad cycle, all of this. He got out of bed, and half-awake, went to the bathroom. It was a long and winding road to the bathroom in the TARDIS – the TARDIS was so large it became inconvenient, and the TARDIS did indeed reorganize itself rather frequently in ways that only a Time Lord could navigate by instinct. One time he met an old woman who had apparently spent her entire life wandering the corridors. Due to the TARDIS’ state of temporal grace, the woman was six thousand years old and would not die. She had rabies and a pair of scissors.

Danny found himself, soon enough, in the butterfly room, where the Doctor was sitting alone, in thought. A room of a billion Butterflies, Danny thought. He’d never get used to it. Every butterfly was just as vibrant as the next, and the air was thick with them. Danny almost found himself a bit uncomfortable. He liked butterflies, but even so, they were still insects, and he hated the feeling of hundreds of them fluttering into him as he walked over to the Doctor.

“Hello??” He asked.

“You know, we must stop meeting like this,” The Doctor joked. “Late night conversations are becoming a bit of a tradition.”

Danny chuckled. “I – I just wanted to know something. That guy – I know you don’t want to talk about him, but – but he said something about choosing names.”

The Doctor nodded solemnly. “A name in the right hands is a promise. Not to say that I’m the right hands. I’m just a girl in a box.”

“I just wanted to know… how did you choose yours??” Danny asked.

The Doctor smiled sadly to herself. And she told him.