Chapter One: Shelter of the Past

A tall, brown haired man sat by a phonebox. There was a small area around him that no one dared to enter. Something about him seemed… dark, sad. It was something that repelled them. A policeman, talking into his radio, noted this man. With a glance down the street to make sure no cars were coming, he walked over to the man by the phonebox.

"Sir, you're loitering and the shop-owners don't appreciate it." The man stood up and looked the policeman over.

"What's your name, officer?" The officer, taken aback by the question, paused.

"Timothy Harbringer."

"Well, Timothy. I think that I'll just have to leave then." The officer, still confused, nodded and walked down the street. He didn't see the brown-haired man walk into the tiny phonebox, and he didn't see the blue box disappear out of time and space, either.

The Doctor walked away from the control panel slowly. He didn't have the will to walk anywhere. He was exhausted. He was all alone in the world of possibilities; a world of time and space. He walked down the hallway that led to the library, unsure of where to go or what to do. The deathly silence followed him through the TARDIS. He opened the door to the library and pulled out a book. It was in Gallifreyan. He's read it hundreds of times before. It was short and yet incomparably fascinating to him. The worn, red leather cover felt flimsy in his hands from the use. He sat down in a familiar chair and began to flip through the introduction. The starting page began with what he would have deemed to be the best line ever written, "Time itself is only labelled by what we care to label it, since there is no strict progression of cause to effect when everything can be changed by small, everyday actions." Something about that brought back so many memories, most of them very unwanted. Childhood and past were blocked out as the Doctor continued reading the paragraph. The further he went, the more it began to remind him of one of his old friends. "To control time is to control everything. Without the ability given to us by the TARDISes we would be nothing. The job of the Time-Lord is to, not only protect, but govern in a way that is considered both fair and duly right in accordance with the species being controlled. To be the lord over all one must be willing to-" The Doctor closed the book at the word lord. It was too much of an old Gallifreyan thought process. The book had lost its appeal and its mysteries. He stood up and put the red-bound book back where he gotten it carefully. He didn't know what to do next. All of time and space lay before him and yet he had nothing to do, nothing he wanted to do. It was so dark to him. He walked to the control room of the TARDIS and set the controls to random.

"Please take me somewhere I'd like." In reply, the TARDIS started up. He hit a few buttons to stabilize her and warm up all of the gears moving around. He heard her usual landing noise after being tossed around for a few moments. He took a step toward to door, wondering what lay outside the doors. A familiar sensation of curiosity rose in him. Naturally, that curiosity had to be sated, so he walked over to the doors and flung them open dramatically. Outside laid a dusty horizon. Dirtily, he glared back at his TARDIS. "I didn't ask for a wasteland." he grumbled to himself, but continued on, wondering why his machine had brought him to a desert planet of all places.

I brought you where you needed to go. the TARDIS said, softly. He ignored the comment and took out his screwdriver. He began to walk toward the single, setting sun in front of him. The sand began to shift uncomfortable under his shoes and the grainy remnants of rocks sifted into his shoes. He sighed and shook them around a little. When the Doctor looked around him, he noted that the entire landscape was not only bleak, but barren. And yet, he knew something was wrong. Something began stirring inside him, a feeling that was so rare and yet… it had only recently been an issue. There was another Time-Lord nearby. The Doctor shook his head.

"I must be sick." he muttered. He began walking back to the TARDIS a little quicker than he had meandered out to the dunes. He went inside and closed her doors tightly. He locked it and looked around. Sitting down, the Doctor took his shoes off and shook the sand out of them. Barefoot, he walked back to the room that he tended to call his own. Sometimes a companion would ask to use it and he would let them. He took off his tie and set it carefully on a dresser nearby. He sat on the bed, staring at the door. He wondered why the feeling had gone away as soon as he noticed it. What was going on? Was it just him? Was someone trying to confuse him? Was there actually another Time-Lord nearby? The last idea was preposterous. The Master had been shot, his body burned and then later he was brought back to Gallifrey. And Gallifrey was lost in a time-lock forever. No one was able to travel in and out of it. The Doctor was sure that it was just him. All other ideas were absolutely outrageous. He closed his eyes, putting his back against the headboard, and fell asleep.

When he woke up, he found that his neck had a crick in it. He cracked his neck slowly and stood up. He took off the suitjacket he had been wearing and walked to the front of the TARDIS. He wanted to go back outside and look around some more, but he wasn't sure what it was that made him think there was another Time-Lord out there. It was insane. Maybe he was losing it. With that thought, he slipped his shoes on, opened the doors, and stepped back outside. He felt strange wearing only his shirt and pants, no tie and jacket, but it was too hot for those anyway. The west seemed to be a particularly pleasing direction to travel, so that was exactly what the Doctor did. He ignored the grit filling the area around his feet and looked at the lighting sky. When something hard collided with his foot, he was sure that it was just a rock, but being as curious as always, he stooped down to get a closer look. He was surprised to see a human gun. He looked at the ground to see something white sticking out of the grey-looking sand. He walked over quickly and picked it up. It was a straightjacket. Another metre or so ahead, there was a red collar sticking out the ground. The Doctor picked them all up, leery of what sort of joke was being played on him. "This isn't funny." he said, softly. In fact, it was painful. The Master, whom he had neglected to save… His friend… his enemy. He heard laughter from behind him. He turned around to see a young girl of maybe seven years looking at him and laughing.

"Hello." he said, smiling.

"You're the Doctor!" she said, smiling back. "You've got the blue box. You save the Earth. And you always have companion to travel with to make yourself less lonely. You destroy whole planets and leave your friends for dead. I know all about you!" Her words bit into the Doctor like a blade.

"What makes you say all that?"

"Mr. Harold, Doctor. He thinks about you all the time." Harold Saxon. The name of the former Prime Minister of England. "He said that you'd be more than happy to see him. He said he saw your box yesterday so he put those there for you. Jokes, he said they were. He called you a word I didn't understand after that. Would you like to see him?" Her words were jumbled together so fast that the Doctor had to take a moment to process what was going one. Surely this was a joke of some sort. A sick, sick joke. "Do you not want to see him? Do you want to leave him behind again?"

"I never-" The Doctor looked at the collar in his arms. "Yes, I would like to see Mr. Harold, please." She jumped with joy and pointed to the south.

"That's where the colony is. Come follow me. It's only a few minutes away." He nodded and put the gun in the back of his waistband. It felt unnatural to be traveling with a weapon. He didn't know how companions like Jack stood having the constant weight. He held the collar and leash in his hand and draped the white jacket over his shoulder. He followed her, trying to organise the thoughts flying through his head. It was impossible! The Master was trapped in the Time-Lock of Gallifrey with all of the others! He was alone, surely! What if he wasn't alone? What if the Master really was back for something impossible reason; what if another death had ben defied? Would the drums be louder? Softer? Would he still be the hungry monster he was the last time they'd been together?

"What is your name?" the Doctor asked the young child, who turned around and smiled. She began walking backward.

"I'm Mesae. From the planet of Rhi. This is where I was born. What's your name? I know that the Doctor isn't your real name. Mr. Harold said that that wasn't his real name. He said that there was only one person alive who knew what it really was." She continued walking, facing the Doctor.

"Just call me the Doctor. It's easier that way. My name doesn't mean anything anymore. Just something I used to be called once, a very long time ago." She nodded, as if that was an acceptable answer, and continued moving to the horizon. She stomped her feet around for a moment and then returned to walking. The collar was beginning to drag the Doctor down. The emotional weight it carried was almost too much to bear.

"And here we are!" she cried, happily. She kicked some sand to the side and held up a piece of rope. She pulled it and a wooden plank flipped up. The Doctor looked at the ladder leading down. "Don't be a chicken, just go down." she chided. He went down the ladder carefully, wondering if this was all some sort of elaborate trap that had been set up by an older enemy that wanted him dead. It was always a possibility.

"So, Mesae, where is the Mast… Mr. Harold?" the correction rolled off of his tongue oddly. They were encased in concrete. The walls formed a tall, wide rectangle. To the sides were some doors. They appeared to be made out of a simulated wood.

"Oh. I took the entrance right by his cell. Just a second and we'll be there." Cell? That implied captivity of some sort. What was going on? The two began to walk down the hallway with the girl leading. She stopped in front of a metal door that was different from all the others. "Feel free to take all the time you want. He hasn't had a visitor ever since he's been here." She walked to the other side of the hallway and sat down.

"How long has that been?" The girl pondered the question.

"A month or two." she said and pulled a small paper out of her side pocket. She looked intently at the Doctor and then back at the paper.

"What is this place?" he asked, trying not to sound too uninformed, but he still didn't quite comprehend what was going on.

"Well, it's a sanctuary, of course. We accept all visitors of a non-violent nature under our care. Anyone who has been hurt or is considered mentally unstable will be cared for until they are safe to be released to the surface where they will then be transported to their respective planets." She smiled at herself as she recited the motto she'd learned by heart perfectly. It gave her a sense of pride to carry on her work. The Doctor nodded to himself and put a hand on the doorknob. Before he could rethink it, he opened it wide. Inside it was dark. There was something wet on the floor. He closed the door behind him and turned the light on. In the corner was a small figure, curled up against the wall. He was muttering to himself. Muttering in Gallifreyan.

"Master?" he asked, not believing his eyes. The other man's head jerked up. His head twitched to the side and he smiled, his eyes were small slits. His body was jerking spasmodically in beats of four. "Master, is that you?"

"My name." he said quietly. "My name." He began to get louder. "My name. MY NAME!" he screamed. The Doctor took a slow step forward. "Say it again!"

"Master." Laughter filled the room and the Master struggled to stand up. He looked gaunt and tired. His features were sunken in and his eyes were drooping.

"It's been so long, Time-Lord Victorious! " He began to tap his foot to the same beat he had been twitching to earlier. He nodded his head to the beat as well. His smiled turned to a pained grimace. He let out a small scream and collapsed to his knees. The Doctor dropped to his knees and brought the Master into an embrace. When he looked at the ground, he saw what was slicking it. There was a red, sticky fluid running from the bed. And there were gashes and cuts all along the Master's too-thin body. He held him tighter.

"Master, Master." he said, softly as the Master cringed away. "What's happened to you?" The older Time-Lord looked up at the Doctor.

"The time-lock, Doctor. You were right. The last days of the war were hell. And I went back with them. Rassalon survived… tied me up for helping you and destroying his plans." He sounded like he was going to say something more, but he began screaming again. Soon he was thrashing so hard that the Doctor had to step back. The door flung open and a young woman rushed in and over to the man writhing wildly on the floor. She grabbed his head and touched her forehead to his gently. He stopped moving abruptly. She stood up and looked at the Doctor.

"Hello. You must be the Doctor that he thinks about so much. I'm Rosealyen. Welcome to the Sanctuary of Rhi." She was wearing a white dress. It went to her knees. On her feet were thick boots that seemed to contrast her looks. She looked at the other Gallifreyan and then at the Doctor. "He needs you." she said simply and led him out of the room. She closed it behind him and looked at the little girl. "Mesae, thank you for finding him."

"Mr. Harold found him. He kept screaming to be let out, that his doctor was here, all last night. We opened the field and let him walk around for a while. He came back and fell back asleep." Rosealyen walked over to Mesae and hugged her.

"You've done your shift. I will talk to the Doctor so you can sleep or play." Mesae hugged her back and waved to the Doctor before she ran down the hallway.

"She's very observant." the Time-Lord noted, smiling after her. Even though the thought of the Master, insane and broken, in the room next to him was overwhelming, he still had to notice the brilliant little girl.

"Mesae is my half-sister. She's worked here at the sanctuary all her life. It's all she knows, but she loves it. She will grow up to be a great nurse someday…" As if reminded that there was something else in the world other than her half-sister, Rosealyen stopped herself. "Mr. Doctor, would you talk to me in the Rest Centre?" The Doctor nodded. She walked down the hallway for a moment before saying anything else. "Mr. Harold has a strong mind and we have not been able to discover all we wanted to. For example, there was only one person he ever mentioned and that person was the only other one of his kind left in existence. This man travelled through time and space itself. There was no way of communicating with the man known as the Doctor…" She took a turn where the halls met at a cross-roads. In front of him, there was a large area filled with trees. It was a humid, comfortable atmosphere. People and species of all ages were wandering around under the shade. Several of them nodded or smiled to the nurse the Doctor was walking with.

"So the Mast… Mr. Harold told you all this?" he asked, not believing the Master would tell anyone about something so personal or sensitive. Rosealyen laughed.

"Oh no, no, no. Everyone from Rhi has telepathic abilities. That is the reason why most Rhians are greatly adapted for this job. We can feel exactly what our visitors need and we can help them in whatever way we can. But Mr. Harold was the first person we've ever come across that was even partly immune to our powers. He can refuse us information, but we can still control his physical state when need be." The Doctor nodded. That explained how she knocked the Master out by simply touching him. That was a formidable power indeed. Rosealyen sat down on a bench and looked up expectantly at the Doctor. He sat beside her.

"Was there anything in particular you want to tell me?" he asked, softly. He didn't want to hear about how much his friend hated him, about how insane the drums had made him.

"Yes. We are only a temporary sanctuary, in most cases. I understand that Time-Lords can live for as long as they wish. In no way, shape, or form am I trying to make you take him. That would be cruel. I just want you to know that this is not what Mr. Harold needs. What he needs is someone who knows him to try to communicate with him. Ever since he came here, he hasn't eaten out of his own free will and he's been intentionally blood-letting. We've tried to stop him, but he has a mind of his own…" She paused, monitoring the Doctor's expression. "I've been through a few of his most powerful thoughts and emotions recently. There's one thing that we're trained to do as nurses- we are supposed to cure the trigger for the visitor. The one thing that always seems to send Mr. Harold into a delirious, destructive state is you. The only way to cure him is to fix that. And that is something that we can't do." The Doctor took a deep breath and looked at the trees in front of him.

"If I were to take him with me, what would you have me do?" She sighed and took a paper out of her pocket. She studied it and then put it back where she got it.

"You would need to make sure that he eats at least three meals a day that live up to the nutritional expectations of your species. You would need to make sure that he cannot harm himself in any way, and he cannot be allowed to wander freely. During that time, it would be best of you could figure out what exactly triggers his attacks and how to stop that. It seems like a lot, and it is, but I think this is what is best for Mr. Harold." The Doctor believed her whole-heartedly. It was just that he wasn't sure he could trust himself with handling the Master. She noticed the look of hesitancy on his face. She brought a hand to his forehead.

Doctor, please, listen.

What is it?

This is what Mr. Harold was thinking two days ago when I had to monitor him after he tried to hang himself- 1-2-3-4… 1-2-3-4….1-2-3-4…1-2-3-4… The drums. They don't stop. They never stop. They won't stop. Rassalon did this. It's all his fault. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor. Doctor, where are you? Dark. It's so dark here. I'm alone. So alone, Doctor. Please help me. Please. Please. You see? This is what he needs. Please at least consider it.

With that, she pulled her hand away. The Doctor sagged forward a little. The other woman's mental presence leaving him was draining. A boy of about thirteen walked up. He was wearing a white, buttoned up shirt with white pants. He had red specks flecked across his face and chest.

"Rosealyen, Matron Hiqon attacked another one of the Sisters of Plenitude who just arrived. Whenever you can, your help would be appreciated." He nodded to the Doctor and then jogged away. The nurse sighed.

"Doctor, just consider it. Feel no pressure or obligation from me, please. If you do decide to take him with you, just open your mental connection to me and let me know. I will be nearby at all times to help you. If you'll excuse me, I have to see if the cat-fight got too bad." The Doctor smiled at her small joke about the cat-nuns' argument.

"Go ahead." She walked away quickly. The Doctor took another deep breath and thought about the Master. He owed this to his friend, that was undeniable. What the Doctor was truly concerned about was what the Master might do under the Doctor's watch. Rosealyen said that he had tried to hang himself. Would he try other methods of suicide? The Doctor was not prepared to lose his friend again… He was pulled out of his thoughts by Mesae sitting down beside him.

"The Master thinks about you a lot. " she said, fiddling with a folded paper in her hand. It was very worn. "That's what he calls himself sometimes, when he doesn't think I'm listening." The Doctor noticed that Rosealyen had been handling a very similar paper earlier.

"What is that?" he asked. Mesae pulled it further toward her body and looked at it carefully.

"It's a drawing." she said. "The Master drew it on our oaths." She handed him the paper. On it was her scribbly handwriting declaring her intentions of becoming a nurse. "We all have to write then if we want to join. When I get enough training, I get to write new ones." Below her scrawl were small, messy drawings of all of the Doctor's regenerations. The current one was larger than the others and of a better quality. "He took them from me and Rosealyen and handed them back the next day. He said that this was the Doctor and this was how we'd know it was him." She pointed to the sketch of his current face. "He pointed out this one in specific. You know that he screams your name all the time? Night and day, sometimes. And whenever we try to listen to his memories, there are always drums in the back." She began tapping her finger to he beat she had heard once. "It's always there, tapping…" she shivered, but didn't notice that she had done so. "Do you wanna know what's weird, though? With the memories of you, the drums are quieter…" she trailed off, watching to little kids chase each other around a tree. The two little boys were laughing and trying to catch each other. Both were running, running as fast as they could.

"Does he ever mention Gallifrey?" The Doctor wasn't sure if he wanted the answer to that question or not.

"Who's Gallifrey?" The Doctor dropped the question. He stared at the two little boys. The shorter one caught up with the taller one and tackled him. They started laughing as they wrestled on the grass beneath them.

Koschei was running through the tall, red grasses. Behind him was Theta. They were both gasping for air and trying to outrun the other.

"I'll get you!" Theta shouted, barely raking in enough air to keep moving. Koschei gave a hoarse laugh and forced his legs to keep moving.

"No, you won't!" he shouted back. Theta laughed and sped up. He managed to get within range of his friend. He lunged at Koschei and brought him to the ground. They were both laughing and gasping at the same time, trying to get enough air to feed their starving bodies and enjoying the moment as it was.

"Doctor, I've got to sleep now." She started away, with less tact than her half-sister had. She stopped when she was a few steps away and looked back at him. "The Master needs you more than he'll ever tell you." she said, and walked away. The Doctor looked back at the two boys who were now trying to wrestle with each other. He made a slow, pained blink and opened his mental connection that Rosealyen forged.

I will take him with me.

Okay, I will be with you in a moment to help.

There was a painful silence for the next minute as the Doctor sat there, trying to push out images of the Master hanging himself or tearing his skin open with whatever he could find. How far the Time-Lords had fallen from what they once were. Rosealyen walked over stood in front of him. The Doctor stood up.

"I'll take him now. The sooner I can try to work with him, the better this will work." The nurse nodded.

"There is no policy dictating when he has to leave, so you can take him now. I can escort you to your phonebox in case he tries to escape or something. We still have mental barriers on him that don't allow him to leave any boundaries we establish." The Doctor nodded and stood up. He began to walk to where they came from. It was silent as the two pondered the Time-Lord in the cell that lay ahead of them. When they reached the door, Rosealyen paused. "We have drugged him to make him more manageable. We rarely use anything physical, but we determined that it was appropriate in this case." She opened the door and turned the light on inside the room. The Master was in a ball under the sink, whimpering. He was staring at something that wasn't there and it was terrifying him. The nurse walked over to him and touched him. He suddenly noticed that the creature him imagination had conjured up was false, but he remained curled in a ball, his knees hugged to his chest.

"Master?" the Doctor asked, getting on his knees by his old friend. "We're leaving now; we're going to my TARDIS, okay?" He held a hand out to the other Time-Lord, who accepted it nervously. The Doctor grabbed the straightjacket from the bed and gently put it on the Master. Then he undid the collar and placed it around his neck. Rosealyen looked at the two of them and then stepped to the side. "Does he have anything else?" he asked. Rosealyen shook her head.

"This was all he had with him at the time." The Doctor began to lead his friend out, one hand on the leash, the other on his back. When they reached the ladder, the Doctor handed the leash to Rosealyen.

"Please hold this. I'll go up first and then you can let him go and follow carefully. I will make sure that he doesn't try to run when he reaches the surface." Laughter erupted from the previously silent Master.

"Run? How can I run? You're everywhere!" The cry was concerning, but the Doctor couldn't think of anything to do, but get him back to the TARDIS where he could be cared for. The Doctor walked up the ladder and opened the wooden plank separating them from the outside. He got to the top and then stood on the sand. He looked down.

"Okay, Master." The Master twitched a few times before grabbing the first rung. With a pained look, he managed to get up by balancing carefully on the ladder with the nurse following him. When all three of them were on the surface, the Doctor closed the wooden plank. The Master began tapping his sides with his hands to the beat of the drums in his head.

"Doctor, you're a very kindly man." she said, watching the Master carefully.

"You don't know him very well!" the Master proclaimed. "He's killed entire planets! Wiped them from existence! He kills! Kills! 1,2,3,4… 1,2,3,4…1,2,3,4…" The medicine was starting to make the drums louder. The Doctor felt it.

"Rosealyen, we need to get him to my TARDIS before the drums get any louder." He noticed the look of confusion on her face as her pace sped up. "My phonebox is called a TARDIS." She nodded at his explanation.

"I only gave him a mild sedative. It shouldn't be affecting him this seriously." The Doctor smiled as he saw a familiar blue colour on the horizon.

"He's a Time-Lord. Medicine can affect us differently than other species. And it also simply could be that it's only a problem for him as well." The Master scoffed and shook his head in patterns of four.

"No. No. No. No." he said, quietly. "No. No. No. No." Rosealyen spotted the phonebox and smiled.

"So that's your TARDIS?" she asked. The Doctor nodded. He would never admit it, but he was proud of his majestic blue box. Sure, it had a tendency to land in odd places at odd times and the Chameleon Circuit was broken, but that was what added to her charms. At least, that was what the Doctor thought.

"She's my TARDIS…" he said, fishing the key out of his pocket. He put it in the lock and turned it. The doors opened. Before he could go in, the nurse put a hand on the Master's shoulder. She put her other palm on his forehead and rested it there for a moment. Both of them seemed to have suddenly fallen asleep. After a few seconds, her hand dropped.

"I removed the mental shields. Now he can travel without barriers." The Doctor backed into the TARDIS, the Master behind him, muttering under his breath softly.

"Thank you for everything, Rosealyen. Tell Mesae that I thank her. And maybe someday Mr. Harold will." Rosealyen smiled brightly and stepped back. She held a hand up to the Doctor.

"May peace follow your steps." she said; it was a traditional Rhian parting statement. She thought it fit rather well. She looked at the Master. "May peace follow your steps as well." she added. The Doctor smiled at her.

"Thank you so much. May peace guide and follow you." he said, and closed the door of the TARDIS. He led the Master, who was beginning to look a little distant, down the halls of the TARDIS. The Master was no longer making snide or insane remarks, just simply staring into the distance tiredly. The Doctor found a suitable room and brought the Master inside. "I'll be right back." he promised, and walked back to his control room after shutting and locking the only way out of the room, so the Master couldn't wander. There was a heavy weight inside the TARDIS. It pressed upon the Doctor, making it hard for him to breathe. There was nothing to do at the controls, so, indecisively; he walked down the hallways to where he had left the Master. He looked in to see that the other Time-Lord was unconscious after the 'mild' sedatives that Rosealyen gave him. In a way, the Doctor was glad because he didn't want to have to deal with his old friend just yet. The Master was on the floor, in a ball, completely unresponsive. The Doctor looked at the objects in the room, trying to determine what he should take out. He walked over to the nightstand by the bed and brought it out into the hallway. He also dragged out the dresser after imagining the Master banging his head on the sharp edges. The bed had poles above it where one could hang curtains. And also themselves. After a moment of consideration, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and undid all of the screws in the bed. It collapsed into a pile with a loud bang. He took his time to remove the timbers. Soon, all that there was left in the room was the mattress, two blankets, and two pillows for the Master. The Doctor walked over to the mess of a Time-Lord in the corner of the room. He knelt beside him.

"Master? What did Rassalon do to you?" There was no response. With a deep sigh, the Doctor picked him up and put him on the mattress. He took off the collar and the straightjacket before pulling the blanket over the sleeping Time-Lord. The Doctor walked out of the room. He moved the remaining furniture into a nearby closet and looked around. He wasn't sure exactly what he wanted or needed to do. There was no driving pressure, nothing making him do anything. The freedom was a little terrifying. He walked back to the Master's room. There was no change in the other Time-Lord's position. The Doctor walked over to him slowly, trying to figure out what to do. He sat next to his friend, on the floor, and watched him. "I promise that we will visit the most amazing places known to Time-Lords. I won't leave you behind ever again. I promise."