Disclaimer: I don't own it. I also don't have any money, so sueing me over something I already said I don't own would be pointless anyway.

Warnings: Sex happens off screen (Jack/Master). References to rape. Something that could look like domestic violence if taken out of context. I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have to say this, but since she acts as the narrator I will; the Master's morals and opinions are in no way a reflection of the author's.

Author's Note: I'm not dead yet! Nor are any of my other fics. I've just been getting more involved in real life stuff. I currently have about seven jobs (all small, volunteering ones, but they do add up). I do still intend to keep writing as and when I can, but it's not as easy as it used to be to find the time. Please be patient with me.

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Chapter 1: Freedom

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She couldn't believe her ears, as the Doctor talked Little Miss Clara down from murder, only with the promise to do it himself. To kill her. After all they'd been through together.

As he turned on her she backed away a step at the look on his face, "Seriously?"

He didn't answer, and he really didn't need to. That look. That look said it all.

"Oh, Doctor." she didn't entirely believe it, wanted to laugh in his face. But that look. "To save her soul?" That silly little mayfly. She'd be gone before they knew it, humans did tend to just drop off like that.

Oh, come on, he has to have something up his sleeve. Neither of them ever wanted to outright kill the other before. Sure, she joked about it, but she was meant to be the evil one! She turned to run, but only made it two steps before she realised... she really didn't want to be shot in the back. That would be too kind to him.

She stopped between two gravestones and turned to smile at him, "But who, my dear, will save yours?"

He didn't really want to. She could tell. She was sure of it. But then Little Miss Clara had her claws in. Couldn't disobey the human, he liked them too much.

And she had pulled her second-last ace with Gallifrey's coordinates. Sure, they weren't entirely accurate, but close enough. If he had taken her with him, she could then have admitted to the discrepancy.

Well, to hell with it. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of real information that could save lives, when he could just listen and then kill her anyway. Better to take it to her grave.

"Say something nice." she asked hopefully, irony very much intended. He stared at her with confusion for a moment, and then shrugged. Really? Not even one little thing? "Please?"

He looked right through her for another half-second, then, "You win."

Close enough. "I know."

He aimed the disintegrator at her.

She closed her eyes. Didn't want it to end like this.

Then again, there were worse alternatives.

But where she expected an unfamiliar and probably painful sensation from the disrupter in his hand, instead she felt the familiar shiver of the teleporter. Like ice up her spine. Hard to forget what that felt like.

She didn't even see where it came from.

And then the pain began.

It wasn't physical. No, this pain was all in her head, but that didn't make it any less real.

It was a void, an emptiness. Something was gone, but it hurt so much she couldn't process what or how. Couldn't even think to understand why she was alive or where she was. All she could do was curl up into a foetal position and whimper at the agony. It completely overwhelmed her, and what few conscious threads of thought she could conjure merely wished he had killed her, instead of leaving her to this torture.

She had no concept of how much time had passed before she began to recover a sense of coherent thought.

She was pretty sure she wasn't dead. Pretty sure that real death - not her playthings in the Nethersphere - didn't hurt, once you got there. Also, pretty sure there was no real afterlife, but she had no evidence for that one. None that she trusted, at any rate.

The searing pain in her mind had dulled to a just barely tolerable ache, and she began to try to figure out where it came from. It took some time for her to realise what it was. The telepathic equivalent of having been stabbed by a barbed blade... then waited long enough to tolerate its presence, before ripping it out.

She had lived with an open wound in her mind for centuries, and now it had been torn apart again.

Tentatively, so not to hurt herself further, she probed for the familiar telepathic connection. The unwanted presense intruding on all she dared think, so old now she had almost learned to accept it. It was gone.

Sense of utter relief. She was free.

But then why was there an echo in the silence in her mind? She didn't understand. Something else was wrong as well. Something else missing, and this time she really couldn't place it.

It was too quiet. Like the rest of the universe just didn't exist.

Like she was cut off.

Cut off from all external telepathic influences. Really? But how?

It was at this point that she began to take account of her physical body, and in fact, physically she was quite comfortable, nestled among soft pillows and blankets. She cracked one eye open, only to be greeted by darkness. When she tried to sit up, her head span, vision swam, and she fell back at once.

She let out a soft groan at the pain in her mind. Maybe she could just sleep for a moment.

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