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One Moment in Time: Chapter 3

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ONE MOMENT IN TIME

Chapter Three

The Master and Tejana slipped stealthily out of the door and found themselves faced with a featureless grey corridor.

"We're in the holding cell complex beneath the Citadel," the Master said in a low voice. "Come on, this way."

With that, he began to weave a path unobtrusively through the seemingly endless passageways without hesitation. Tejana shadowed him closely, wondering how he knew so unerringly which direction to turn. Either he was extremely familiar with the complex or he had memorised the progression when they had brought him down here, despite the beating they had given him. Knowing the Master, either theory was possible.

They were very fortunate that the corridors seemed to be deserted. Every now and then, another huge explosion could be heard, far above them on the surface of Gallifrey, as the Daleks scored another direct hit on the Citadel Dome. The walls shuddered as though in pain, bleeding showers of dust and chunks of stone to litter the floor. Tejana supposed that most of the Dome's personnel, both Time Lord and ordinary Gallifreyan, must be occupied trying to somehow stave off the annihilation of their civilization.

Their luck could not hold forever though. Before they could reach a place of safety, a high-pitched nasal voice rang out behind them, "Halt in the name of Gallifrey!"

Both Tejana and the Master turned, to see a thin, sallowly-handsome man in the bronze robes of a Councillor. He was holding a side-arm pointed directly at them.

Oh stars, Tejana thought savagely, What is this, old home week?

She knew the man. His name was Tabor and he had been in her class at the Academy. He had been one of the more popular, if less intelligent students, largely due to his impeccable family lineage. He had also been an inveterate bully. Once the Doctor had been exiled to Earth for interfering in the affairs of the Universe and her family had fallen into disgrace, Tabor had done his best to humiliate her in every conceivable way. It was too much to hope that he wouldn't recognise her. His eyes gleamed in a triumphant, predatory way as he looked her up and down.

"My Lady Tejana, what a surprise! How lovely to see you again!" he leered. "But who is your companion? Surely not the Lord Master, the most wanted criminal Gallifrey has ever known? You wouldn't be assisting him to escape, now would you? Such an act would be high treason!"

"Trust you to be skulking below ground while everyone else is defending our planet, you little worm!" Tejana hissed contemptuously. "Go to hell, Tabor!"

Tabor's eyes narrowed in murderous fury as he trained his weapon on her. "You're going to be VERY sorry I came across you, my Lady," he snarled.

Unfortunately for him, in his fixation with Tejana, he had made the massive and fatal mistake of overlooking the Master. A blazing lightning-strike of blue-white energy caught him in the chest, blasting him backwards to sprawl further up the corridor. The Master laughed softly, even as his skin became transparent once more, the awful skull super-imposing itself across his features.

Tejana shuddered. "I wish you would stop doing that!" she complained crossly. "You're killing yourself!"

"Maybe if you gave me back my laser screwdriver I wouldn't have to!" he snapped back, his expression surly.

"What, this one?" she asked sweetly, producing the slender gold and silver device and displaying it to him. "Wouldn't help you. Isomorphic controls...which means, this time, it only works for me! Like this...."

With that, she pointed the device back the way they had come, just in time to stun two guards who had come running to investigate the commotion.

The Master, recognising the words as his own from their time on The Valiant, rolled his eyes sarcastically. "Oh, ha ha!"

"There's going to be more of them," she said. "Let's go!"

A low moan from Tabor's crumpled form indicated that he was beginning to regain consciousness. The Master quickly squatted beside the other Time Lord, flexing his hands, the sparkles of life energy still fizzing and crackling between his fingers. Tabor looked up at him in fear.

"This is just to make sure she's not sorry you came across us..." the Master said conversationally.

Then he stood almost casually and kicked Tabor brutally in the head with his heavy work boot.

"Now we can go," he told Tejana, as Tabor's body went limp once more.

"You didn't have to do that!" she protested.

The Master was already moving up the corridor. "Yeah, I did," he tossed back over his shoulder matter-of-factly. "I didn't like the way he looked at you."

Tejana shook her head incredulously. The Master had been trying to kill her and the Doctor, on and off, for most of her life, and now he was taking offence at the way someone looked at her! Honestly, she didn't think there was anyone more unpredictable in the entire Universe.

Close by, she could hear the pounding of feet as more guards began to close in on them. Rassilon must really be ticked off with the Master, she thought wryly, as she began to run again. They were both going to be in serious trouble if they were caught.

They rounded the corner into another passageway, only to hear more pursuit up ahead, coming towards them. Tejana held the screwdriver in front of her defensively, turning this way and that, trying to think of a strategy. There were too many of them to fight off with a single laser device and the Master couldn't afford to squander any more life energy. The corridor was long, doorless and well-lit. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

"Uh-oh!" she breathed, realising they were trapped.

The Master had other ideas. With another well-aimed kick from his booted foot, he loosened a panel in the wall and it fell to the floor with a clang, revealing the dark, gaping maw of a ventilation shaft. Without hesitation, he swung himself inside.

"Come on!" he ordered, disappearing from view.

Tejana followed him, snatching up the panel as she went, swiftly tugging it back into place behind her. Not a moment too soon, as the patrol of Citadel Guard skidded around the corner and thundered up the corridor.

"Find him!" their Captain ordered sharply. "He's here somewhere! My Lord President wants the Master's head, now!"

The patrol moved off down the corridor, marching quickly, obviously very motivated by the thought of Rassilon's displeasure. Tejana breathed a sigh of relief.

"We'll follow the shaft," the Master's voice came softly out of the darkness. "They won't think to look for us in here."

Tejana held up the laser screwdriver, its pale white light gently illuminating the narrow metal tunnel. The Master was already crawling along the shaft a fair way ahead, not bothering to look back to see if she was coming. She shivered a little. She wasn't good with enclosed places, but in this case she had no choice. The Master was her ticket out of here and she had to stick with him.

The situation was spookily familiar, she thought with cynical amusement as she began to move. Following an irritable Time Lord without question into a ridiculously dangerous set of circumstances while being pursued by angry people with guns. How many times had she done that before? The only really surreal difference this time was that it was the Master she was following, not the Doctor. And, unlike the Doctor, she could never trust the Master, she had to remember that. She had to watch her back at all times.

The cold metal hurt her knees and a dull sense of claustrophobia made it difficult to breathe. Doggedly, Tejana put the glowing screwdriver between her teeth and continued to push forward as fast as she could, careful to keep the Master in view up ahead. The journey seemed to take forever. It could have been hours or merely minutes, Tejana never knew.

At last, however, the Master stopped and she caught up with him. In the dim light, she saw that he had located another inspection hatch. He put his fingers to his lips to indicate silence and they both listened. There was no sound or movement from below, so the Master shoved the hatch open. They appeared to be above a small administrative office of some kind, furnished with a desk piled high with papers. It was empty. The Master dropped lightly into the room, with Tejana close behind him.

"This will do nicely," he approved. "As long as we barricade the door, I should be able to summon the Gate without interruption."

Together they seized the desk and heaved it across the floor to jam the door shut, piles of paper scattering everywhere.

"Now, give me the Key!" he commanded peremptorily.

"A 'please' every now and then wouldn't go astray," she commented acidly, handing it over.

The Master ignored her and stood in the middle of the room. Slowly, he stretched his neck muscles by moving his head in a circle. Then, holding the Key of Rassilon in both hands in front of him, he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, concentration written across his features.

Tejana watched in fascination, her eyes reluctantly drawn to the strong, lean column of his neck. For an instant she had a flashback to the attraction she had felt for him on The Valiant, only to squash it immediately once more. Damn the man, why couldn't he have regenerated into another old professor type or someone as unattractive as in the Fifth Doctor's day? That beard back then had been really, really bad! But no, he had to go and regenerate into good-looking "Harold Saxon". And now, if she was really honest, "Hoodie Master" was even more attractive than "Saxon Master" – that blonde hair really gave him an edge.

The Master frowned and Tejana jumped guiltily, praying he hadn't somehow read her mind.

But something else was troubling him. "The Time Lock is resisting me," he muttered. "This isn't going to be as easy as I thought."

Tejana tensed, all her previous musings forgotten. Their plan was all very well in theory, but what if it couldn't be put into practice? What if they couldn't escape into The Matrix?

The Master planted his feet more firmly and pushed his mind harder, the muscles in his neck cording with the effort. The ghastly, grinning blue-white skull flared across his features again, frightening in its intensity.....once, twice, three times. Tejana took a step forward, every instinct crying out to stop him before he killed himself. But if he couldn't summon the Seventh Gate, they were both dead, so she forced herself to hold back. Out of nowhere, wind began to blow in the small room, faster and faster, swirling the papers into a cyclone of confusion. Tejana grabbed on to a desk to keep her feet as a howling, screaming noise filled the air.

Still the Master concentrated, his arms flung wide now, his face fluctuating with the dreadful skull at an alarming rate.

At last, just on front of him, tiny blue sparkles seemed to coalesce, forming and reforming, until they solidified into the recognisable shape of an old wooden door. The wind and the high-pitched noise disappeared and the Master slumped forward, bent over at the waist, hands on his knees, gasping for air.
Without stopping to think, Tejana ran to him and supported him, just as she would have for the Doctor.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine!" he growled breathlessly, pulling away from her to stand unaided, clearly not wanting to show any weakness.

Tejana gazed at the door in wonder. "You did it!" she said in sheer relief. "But...it looks just like an ordinary door!"

"What were you expecting, pillars of fire?" he inquired sarcastically.

She shot him a withering look, all her momentary sympathy completely dissipating. Apparently recovered now, he stepped forward to the door, holding the Key of Rassilon, which he fitted into the lock. The Key turned easily.

"Ready?" he asked evenly.

"Do it," she responded.

With one quick motion, he flung the door wide. All Tejana could see beyond the opening was darkness. The wind had begun again, only this time it was a sucking vortex, drawing everything into the innocuous-looking doorway. Tejana resisted the pull, an ominous premonition assailing her. Something bad is waiting in there, she thought with a stab of fear. Suddenly the warm, lighted room on doomed Gallifrey seemed a hundred times safer than that unknown darkness.

The Master stood on the threshold, struggling to hold the door open. "Come on!" he yelled. "The Time Lock is trying to force the Gate closed. I can't hold it much longer!"

Still Tejana hesitated, paralysed by the sense of evil coming from the doorway.

"ANA!" the Master screamed. "NOW!"

That got her attention. Making a snap decision, she threw herself across the room towards the Gate. The Master reached for her, she felt his arm around her waist and then they both tumbled through the doorway into blackness. The last sound Tejana heard was the old wooden door slamming behind them with ominous finality, before she lost consciousness.
Doctor Who fan fiction: Simm!Master/OC. The Doctor's daughter, Tejanakaturadilena (Tejana for short) was a child in the Academy when he was forced to leave Gallifrey. She's travelled off and on with the Doctor and has known the Master all her life. So what if she ended up with him on Gallifrey on the Last Day of the Time War and they both needed each other to escape?

NB Cover-art by SlytherinPrincess123

Link to Chapter Four: [link]
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Davidwoodfx's avatar
This story is AWESOME!