A/N: Hello and welcome to the final chapter. This one contains a description of violence. *I* don't think it's terribly graphic, but I have a *very* high tolerance for such things. If you'd like a spoilery version with a better warning, check out the note at the end of the chapter. Other than that, enjoy!

Chapter 4: Loving and Healing and Choosing

"You flew it single-handed?" Theta's mother exclaimed for the third time.

"Technically, he used both hands. And his foot. And a big mallet," Koschei listed, flopping down on Theta's bed and interrupting his video call with his parents. "Hi, Thete's mom," she added, waving cheekily and looking at the couple upside-down.

"Still," Theta's father sighed, rubbing his head in shock. "I didn't even know that was possible."

"Well…" Theta hemmed, "until now, it wasn't. Leastways, nobody knew it was possible. Apparently, I'm the first to do it successfully."

"That's… that's something," his father exclaimed, clearly having no idea what to say.

"That's incredible," his mother supplied. "But incredibly dangerous."

"Yeah, maybe," Theta grinned, "but if there's ever an emergency, I'll never be stuck anywhere for want of copilots."

"Plus, he can fly me places," Koschei added, rolling over onto her stomach. "Since I can't pilot my way out of the dining hall."

"In fairness, you won't need to pilot in the Strategic Division," Theta reminded her.

"In fairness, you could fuse the controls so I could at least get from point A to point B without crashing," Koschei responded.

"In fairness, that's cheating," Theta's mother snickered, "and therefore not fair at all."

"Killjoy," Koschei stuck her tongue out, before closing her eyes and rubbing her temples. Theta saw the movement, and knew where it was headed from so many times before.

"Well, speaking of killing joy, we've got finals in the morning," he said lightly, "so we should probably study. I'll see you both at the naming ceremony," he added. The family exchanged their goodbyes, and he quickly switched off the screen just in time to avoid transmitting Koschei falling into a seizure.

As he had so many times before, he quickly scooted forward, wrapping his arms around her and bracing her head against his shoulder so she wouldn't bash it against anything. Her flailing limbs beat harmlessly against Theta's mattress, but she did manage to elbow him rather painfully a few times. When the fit passed, she lay limp in his arms, struggling to breathe.

"Have they looked at your—" Theta started, but Koschei cut him off with an exhausted sigh.

"Yes, Thete, they've looked at my everything. Twice. The best doctors on Gallifrey have given up on me. You're the first person to fly a TARDIS alone in Gallifrey's history, and I'm the first hopeless case in Gallifrey's medical history." She laughed humorlessly, trying to maneuver herself so she was sitting up unaided. Theta had to practically lift her off of him, but between them they managed to balance her in a vaguely sitting position.

"You can't be," Theta assured her instantly. "No one's beyond fixing. I don't believe in hopeless cases, especially not with you, Kos."

"Of course you don't," Koschei laughed. "You're the eternal optimist. Always reaching out for the stars, dreaming of the impossible."

"And how often have I been wrong, eh?" he responded with a light dig at her ribs. "That you can prove," he added quickly, eliciting a laugh from his exhausted friend.

Later he would spend so much time—centuries, in fact—kicking himself for not noticing the hardness in her eyes, or the disgusted set of her mouth. He would wonder his whole long life how things might've gone differently if he'd talked to her longer, if they'd had a real conversation that night, if he'd asked how she saw the future, if he'd only seen… but even a Time Lord couldn't go back on his personal timeline, so he would never know.

What did, in fact, happen, was that after Koschei had her breath back, she'd returned to her room and fallen asleep, and Theta had rearranged himself on his bed and did the same. They took their final exams and passed them with flying colors, partied with their friends the night before graduation and got up uncomfortably early the next day to welcome their families for the ceremony.

"So, Traveler or Wanderer?" Illori asked as she took a seat beside Theta, notebook with her name-choosing speech clutched in her hands. Rassilon was ascending the platform, preparing to make his customary boring address.

"Star-Chaser or Sky-Weaver?" he returned with a smirk.

"Duckling," Koschei muttered from his other side.

"Shut it, Kos," Illori shot back, sticking out her tongue.

"Aren't we all so mature," Theta chuckled, grabbing his friends' hands and lacing their fingers together.

"Oh, so mature," Neryon snorted.

"Obviously ready to pick what we're going to do with the rest of our lives," Allon added.

"You must remember," Rassilon droned, "this is a time of humility. You are entering the next phase of your lives, but you by no means know everything. The learning process has only just begun."

"What a rip-off," Allon grumbled. "Isn't the whole point of this ceremony to prove we're done with school, and worthy of recognition by the 'real adults'?"

"They never will," Koschei whispered. "Not unless we make them."

"Yeah, well," Theta responded, "that's the point, isn't it? That's why we do things like fly a TARDIS without copilots or become the youngest Seer ever appointed; to prove that we can."

Koschei rested her head against Theta's shoulder.

"I love you, you ridiculous optimist," she murmured.

Then she stood, and as Rassilon left the stage, she ascended it.

This wasn't exactly unusual—no one called them, they just stood when they were ready. What was unusual was that she carried no notes. Theta realized she'd never once said what she was planning on calling herself; was she about to make arguably the most important speech of her life off the cuff?

Koschei stood in the center of the stage, surveying the watching crowd with an air of looking down her nose, observing others on high. It was a mode she'd adopted more and more during presentations and such in her later years—somehow, even though both she and Theta were, more often than not, the cleverest people in the room and confused their listeners, Theta usually managed to do it less haughtily.

"Years ago, I looked into the Time Vortex," she began. It was a surprisingly normal beginning. Inspirational visions from initiation often inspired Time Lord's chosen names. "And the Time Vortex looked into me. We gazed upon each other, and we knew one another.

"And it chose me." The crows rustled uncomfortably.

"Since that time," she continued, unperturbed, "it has always been with me. The drums of war, inside my head, part of me. Time itself is sending me on a mission—to make those drums a reality. It is my destiny, and it has been on my shoulders for oh, so long.

"I will be Master, of all the universe," she declared, spreading her arms wide. "And someday you will all bow down before me. I have seen it. I still see it—burned into my eyes and pounding, pounding, pounding in my head!

"This world, and every world…" she whispered, but her voice carried through the shocked silence, louder and clearer than a shout. "I am the one who will conquer it. I will hold the vastness of creation in the palm of my hand." She lifted a shaking fist towards the audience to illustrate her point. "And I will be its Master."

For a long moment, one could have heard a pin drop as everyone held their breath, waiting for the punch line, the explanation, the part where they all woke up from such a hideous, dreadfully un-funny dream.

"Wouldn't it be The Mistress, Kos?" Illori joked finally with a nervous laugh, clearly hoping that this was just a poorly planned joke on Koschei's part like so many things before; tasteless, but harmless. It was just such a shame that nobody had noticed just how not harmless she really was.

The next eight seconds would replay in Theta's head for the rest of his life, incessant and maddening as Koschei's drumbeats.

Koschei reached a hand into the pocket of her robes, and pulled out a small black object. Theta recognized it—a souvenir she'd taken from Earth. It was a 19th Century Smith & Wesson six shooter, to be precise.

She pulled back the hammer with a heavy metallic click, and looked each of her friends in the eye.

She smiled, and the blazing madness in her eyes that Theta had been missing, ignoring and rationalizing for years burned bright.

She lifted the barrel of the gun and pressed it to the side of her head.

Her eyes flicked over the crowd, and she pulled her head back a little, lifting her chin proudly again, looking down at them, her face haughty and beautiful and whole for the last time.

She pulled the trigger, and in the tense silence the resulting bang was so loud that for a split-second Theta thought his own skull had shattered, but it was only hers, hideously smashed outwards, a violent fountain of red spilling out from the left side.

Then, face frozen in the mad, haughty expression, but a bit distorted from the holes in her skull, she crumpled backwards, landing in an ungainly heap on the floor.

The silence after the gunshot was deafening. It reverberated through the space like a wave of energy, and it was followed by an actual blast of energy as Koschei's first regeneration cycle began.

After that, events unfolded with dizzying speed. The Master's legs lengthened and his hair shrank back into his skull—what little of it there was to begin with. Horrified whispers flowed through the crowd, gaining volume and anger. By the time Theta could convince his stunned brain to move his legs and stand, the voices had swollen to a general roar of outrage. Such disrespect for such a solemn ceremony! Such a disgrace for the family!

But then Theta was vaulting onto the platform, falling to his knees beside her, his robe slowly wicking up blood where he was kneeling in the pool of it as he pressed his ear to first the left, then the right side of the Master's chest, listening to the healthy twin heartbeats and nearly fainting in relief when he felt the young man beneath him stir and draw breath.

As The Master's new eyes blinked open for the first time—warm brown, framed by thick lashes, yet still alight, nearly feverish—somewhere in the background, Rassilon was ordering for the young Time Lord to be removed, taken away and committed. Theta's hearts pounded painfully against one another, and he was glad he was already kneeling—there was no strength in his legs—but he still managed to brush his fingers against his friend's newly intact temples, checking that the internal damage had healed. The Master's synapses were firing perfectly; minus the drumbeats, his brain was perfect.

Of course, what theta saw inside of it as he pulled away was another story. The pain of realizing just how damaged his friend had become, right under his nose, cut him to the bone. He'd failed him. They were meant to be the best of friends, they were meant to support each other… everything The Master had done for him, every time he'd been there for him, and this… He'd missed this. Probably because of how very, very much he'd wanted her to be okay, in spite of everything.

Stupid, stupid optimism.

His foot moved, and something clattered. He'd nudged the gun; the cold metal felt like a vicious, malicious living thing even through the toe of his boot, and he kicked it away in revulsion, nausea gripping him just from having touched it. Guns may have been primitive, nowhere near as destructive as other weapons throughout the universe, but in that moment he knew he'd never be able to touch one without pain again.

Then there were footsteps, guards ascending the stage, and he remembered what Rassilon had just ordered. He wasn't sure how exactly he managed to stagger to his feet, but suddenly he was standing, words boiling up from his mouth.

"Can't you see she's sick?" he demanded furiously. "She's been ill since she was a child, overwhelmed by the Time Vortex. Perhaps she's mad and perhaps she's dangerous but she needs help, not jack-booted thugs hauling her off because you can't handle her!" His voice echoed and boomed in a way it never had before, filling the chamber and drowning out all of the others.

"We have all failed her." His voice nearly broke at that, but he managed to keep going strong. "The Master's actions are the product of a sick and broken world," he insisted. "And the sick and the broken don't need to be punished—they need to be fixed. And that's why…" he gulped, somehow finding his mother's eyes through the crowd, knowing this was madness all of his own, that it was the most important moment in his young life and it was not remotely going as planned.

"That's why I will forever be called The Doctor. Because I will always be there to fix it, to heal the hurt and put things right."

There was more uproar of course, but it was like The Doctor's declaration had created sort of shield around them. As he half supported, half lifted The Master and helped him off the stage, the hubbub continued without them.

He didn't look back, but he got the strong impression that his mother was smiling, nearly glowing with pride. Perhaps his outburst hadn't been unexpected to everyone in the room.

"'Master,' really?" he muttered as they headed to the infirmary. Behind them, Rassilon was ordering everyone to settle down, getting someone to clean the stage, and trying to proceed with the ceremony.

"It's not half so silly as Doctor," his friend slurred, but gripped his shoulders tight with unfamiliar hands. In that moment, The Doctor allowed himself to believe that everything would still be all right.

Stupid, stupid optimism. But he couldn't bear to have it any other way.

-0-

"That noise… the drums, Doctor. Would they stop, then?

"All these years," The Master mused quietly, his voice weaker than it had been since childhood, and choked with raw emotion. "I wonder… what would I be without that noise?"

The Doctor's eyes bored into his old friend's; Koschei's hadn't changed since they first looked into the vortex. They still burned with the light of madness, even in moments like this one when he was on the verge of tears.

"I wonder what I'd be," Theta responded wistfully, "without you?"

A/N: Well, that's it folks! I hope you enjoyed it.

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The warning mentioned at the beginning: Koschei shoots herself in the head, knowing that she will regenerate (so it's not suicide as such. It does, however, indicate a severe issue with her mental state, which is directly and publically addressed by the Doctor immediately after). As far as the level of graphic-ness, there is a lot of blood and mentions of distortion to her skull.