After the Titanic.

Why was it everywhere he went in the universe someone always wanted more and was willing to do what it took to get what they wanted? Still dressed in his tux - he was convinced by now the damn thing was cursed even if it made a nice change from his usual suit- the Doctor walked around the TARDIS console, checking the controls and the displays to see if the ship was alright; after rebuilding herself from the paradox machine that the Master had built around the console which ripped the Heart of the TARDIS, and the collision of the Titanic - he still could not believe that another race of humans had constructed a replica of the Titanic for space flight - the TARDIS didn't need the stress of being caught in Earth's gravitational pull, but she was safe enough. Sure she would need some work but she would be fine in the long term.

Now the adventure was finished, even if he hadn't wanted it, the Doctor could at last concentrate on everything that had happened and he felt numb. He had just been on a replica of the Titanic, fresh from the planet Sto and also a vital component in Max Capricorns' plan for revenge against his own board who kicked him out because of his being a cyborg. The Doctor had seen many prejudices in the universe, and cyborgs were just another example in the long list of people to judge rather than understand the anger they went through, so he could understand though he himself was prejudiced against a few things that came with his Time Lord nature. He remembered how he had just run away from Jack when the former Time Agent was brought back to life after Rose had used the Time Vortex against the Daleks, and it made him feel ashamed but he couldn't do anything about it now. He didn't know for sure if his actions had damaged his friendship with Jack, but only time would tell.

But the difference between Capricorn and Jack was his old friend hadn't had the prejudice thrown into his face to the same extent Capricorn's board had. The Doctor could understand his anger, but surely he could have simply left his life and just retired quietly, maybe even embezzle his company's remaining fortune? No. He had to have revenge, and used the Titanic full of innocent passengers to get it. Why he couldn't have just stolen the money and framed his former associates he did not know. But a handful of space passengers was nothing compared to the murder of millions of humans on Earth who would've been wiped out when the Titanic's nuclear storm drive exploded on impact.

When he had heard the plan he remembered how Cassandra had tried to destroy Platform 1 on the day the sun expanded on his first trip in the TARDIS with Rose simply for the insurance money, he remembered the way the TARDIS console had taken him into that parallel universe where the Inferno project was more advanced than it had been in his universe, and he would never forget the sight of molten lava spilling everywhere around the little hut where the console was hidden, parallel versions of Liz, Greg Sutton and Petra Williams standing there, knowing they were going to die and yet aware they had helped him escape so then the project in his world would be shut down whilst aware their own world was dead because of their collective stupidity.

Cassandra, Professor Stahlman and Max Capricorn. Three people who wanted more out of life, three people who were so alike it was horrifying, but the Doctor had met dozens of people like that over the years, but after seeing the planet enslaved for a year in an alternate timeline which no longer existed by the Master, the Doctor had needed to get the whole mess sorted out. But when he'd confronted the insane cyborg he hadn't expected or intended for Astrid Peth to have followed him. The Doctor bowed his head out of guilt at the thought of Astrid. It was so rare for the Time Lord to meet someone who was a kindred spirit, someone who merely wished to move beyond their routine lives and go on to experience something better. Even some of the renegades back home hadn't really been kindred spirits and wanted to explore the universe to see what was beyond Gallifrey. No, some of them like the Monk or the Rani had either been exiled or left so they could pursue their own philosophies, while some like the War Chief and the Master wanted to conquer it because of the boredom back home in a time where Gallifrey still existed.

Thinking of the Master made the Doctor sad, but he pushed those thoughts aside for later while he considered Astrid, trying to stop himself being made more depressed at the thought of the kind and excited woman's passing. She had been so….enthusiastic about being on a street, feeling the concrete under her boots, listening to Mr Copper and his continual mistakes about relaying Earth and its culture to the others. The Doctor smiled at the thought of Mr Copper. Like him and Astrid, the physically older man had felt like his life was a waste of time, and he had worked so hard on his home world but had received nothing. He didn't even have a house for heaven's sake, and it was no wonder he believed planets like Earth were exotic. But he'd needed a legitimate excuse to visit them, so he lied on his application.

The Doctor grinned, remembering how he himself had stolen his TARDIS, though he called it borrowing, and he had intended to return her when he was sure he was dying, or when his final life was nearing its end. But with his people gone, the chances of his TARDIS just dying a peaceful death became more remote, and his smile slipped off his face.

He returned his thoughts to Mr Copper, and he hoped the man was using his newly found fortune wisely; he made a mental note to pop by to check up on him, but he doubted the man would cause any trouble, though his misconceptions of Earth might cause problems. He would make a call to Martha and Jack to let them know, to keep an eye on him and to educate him. The last thing he wanted to hear was Mr Copper opening his mouth and saying something he really shouldn't. He had wanted to travel in the TARDIS, but after everything that had happened with Martha and the mess he had made of her life, and the recent pain of seeing what had happened to Astrid had made the Doctor say no. In fact he was rethinking his stance of people travelling with him. What was the point when all it did was make people suffer? Rose had been sentenced to a parallel universe with Mickey and Jackie, Martha had had to walk around the whole planet after the Master had conquered it and had to deal with the mental grief her parents and sister had endured, and that was only his more recent companions. What about the previous ones? He had been clever, manipulated lives like you couldn't believe, and he knew he had no right to invite anyone to travel with him again. The Doctor wondered if it would be safer for him and everyone else to just travel alone…..

Thinking of Martha made him depressed and he once again thought of Astrid. She had sacrificed herself to save his life when the Heavenly hosts had tried to kill him, and she had gone over the side to fall into the nuclear storm drive. The Doctor hated it when people sacrificed themselves for him because it meant another life over because of him and his actions. He was still annoyed by that LINDA group Elton Pope co-founded and had poked their noses into things they shouldn't, and it made him more determined to keep a low profile, but at least things had been sorted out, though he didn't like the way Elton had pried into Jackie's life like that. The Doctor knew Jackie was still hurting from Pete's loss at the time, but he hoped she was happy with his parallel self, and she had seen men to fill in the void (no breach pun intended) Pete had left behind after his death.

But Astrid deserved more than what she had received. She was now travelling the universe, but as atoms after he'd managed to save something of her essence after she'd used one of those advanced teleports to help save her life, but it was too late. All her life Astrid had dreamt of visiting other worlds, and she had gotten the chance on the Titanic - she had joined the crew to visit other worlds and set foot on them, but they weren't allowed - and she had been truly unhappy with her job as a waitress, she'd been unhappy about putting up with the verbal abuse she'd received. The Doctor remembered the look on her face after being shouted at by Rickston Slade.

The Doctor knew that in her current state Astrid would be free to travel anywhere she wanted, but he didn't feel that it was a good bargain; he'd wanted her to travel with him, see the universe in a way that Max Capricorn's corrupt company couldn't allow, and never have the fear of being a waitress ever again. But he hated that she had lost her life the way she had, she should have jumped out of that forklift truck after picking Capricorn's life support system up and threw him into the same engines the cyborg had wanted to fail so it wiped life on Earth out when she was sure she would be safe and he would fall to his death. All to save him! The Doctor would miss Astrid, miss the opportunities to finally have someone who was a kindred spirit travel with him for as long as she wanted. He wondered how Martha would've taken that. The beautiful medical student had fancied him, even going as far to love him, but he hadn't reciprocated. It had nothing to do with Martha. He had remembered the way she had talked about her cousin, how she missed her, and when the Doctor had taken her with him, he was afraid that he would have another Rose even if Martha had never shown any signs of wanting to chance a change to her personal or mainstream history despite her questions about it.

But even when he was reassured by the fact Martha just wanted to travel with him and see the sights and experience the past and the future, he had learned from his mistake of not thinking to tell her about his former companions so she didn't become as conceited as Rose had, but it was Rose the Doctor had been worried about.

He hadn't wanted Martha to become like Rose. He wanted her to be her own person, but unfortunately he went about it wrong. Instead of accepting her feelings and maybe showing affection back to her, he'd shunned her because he didn't want Martha to become an arrogant, self absorbed, smug girl like Rose had been. But he had treated her badly and he'd gone about it the wrong way without properly explaining to her about Rose and her history and all the things she had done simply because she'd thought she could get away with it all, he had told her about Rose, but he hadn't bothered to really tell her about the blond girl's history and what he wanted to avoid. Why had he done that? Because it genuinely hadn't occurred to him, not until later, but when it did Martha had had to deal with little tidbits dropped here and there about her, and she would always look as though she had a bad taste in her mouth. He hadn't meant to do that to her, but by the time he realised it he was too late. And besides she had suffered twice from the racist bigotry of the early and middle 1900s, not to mention his lack of care on both occasions. But why had he done that, why had he hurt her so badly? Was it because Rose had made him fear for his sanity and for his TARDIS's welfare after all the messes the girl had dragged him through that he had become so cowardly and jaded towards other women and what they might do?

The Doctor knew that his regeneration into his current self with Rose nearby hadn't helped; he'd become attached to Rose during his former life but he hadn't loved her. But what made it worse was the fact he had continued travelling with her after that disaster in 1987. He had dropped Adam Mitchell home after the so called 'genius' had tried to use Satellite 5's resources to change history, he had laid down the law history was concerned, but he had been so damaged by the war and the knowledge he had been responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent Time Lords, though Rassilon and the High Council had been anything but, the pompous self obsessed megalomaniacs, that he'd become so attached to the presence of a girl who truthfully shouldn't even be with him.

But Martha was different. She was smarter than Rose, effortlessly smarter, and she had higher ambitions than Rose ever had; becoming a professional doctor was something only really hard workers with a lot of patience could aspire to, and the Doctor knew that Jackie had always encouraged Rose to work hard and get a good job. The blond girl was content to just sit back and let life come to her without lifting a finger to do anything about it, and she had no aspirations into becoming something better than what she was; it was that lack of interest that bothered him the most. Rose had the mental power needed to work hard, she just didn't. The Doctor didn't know and frankly did not care about what Rose's ambitions were, all he knew was she was a child in a woman's body and didn't seem to learn from her mistakes. She had dropped out of school to be with the most popular boy, and look where it had gotten her, nothing. Why was it that the other women he'd met after the war - Jackie, Martha, Francine, Tish, Donna and Astrid even - had always tried to do what Rose never did, which was to move on and try to be something better, and good lord many of the people he'd met before Rose had grabbed life and held onto it with passion. He had read Rose's mind during their second meeting, and he had seen the nonchalant and uncaring way the girl had felt about her future, the way she had been indifferent to the prospect of getting another shop job like she was above it all. He agreed with Jackie that she had 'airs and graces' but people like Donna and Martha didn't. They worked hard, and even if Donna didn't have the same luck as others, she didn't let it get her completely down. Besides working as a temp was useful in his mind since it allowed people to gain whole new skills.

The Doctor didn't feel that Rose would've liked either Donna or Martha, she would've found fault with them, their careers paths and their very personalities, but she wasn't any better.

He remembered, during their final travels, he had been planning to sit Martha down and tell her what had happened with Rose, but he hadn't had the chance with the return of the Master, and the subsequent mess that the other Time Lord made when he arrived in 21st century Earth - he still wished he had found out how the Rani had discovered such a way to control a TARDIS by remote, there were so many benefits and he wished he had managed to lock the Master out of more of the TARDIS's systems after the Time Lord had regenerated and tried to escape Malcassaro at the end of the universe, and succeeded.

If there had been one thing he hated about his 7th life it was how he had treated his companions, using them to achieve his aims even if the end result had been worth it. The Doctor's later incarnations had sworn never ever to do the same thing again, but when the Master had taken over after having 2 maybe 3 years to get his plans into place - entering politics, brainwashing the human race to get him into a position of power, turning the TARDIS into a paradox machine, and possibly even pushing the final human survivors at the end of the universe into becoming the murderous Toclafane (the Doctor refused to believe that the humans there had been so desperate they would even think of slaughtering their ancestors, not without outside influence), and then beginning the invasion that would open up an alternate timeline where the human race would be enslaved - he hadn't had much choice but to use Martha. He would have been happier if she had been with Jack to help her, to keep her company and safe, but the former Time agent had been too weak after being shot by the Master. The Doctor knew that although Martha had followed his instructions to the letter, even letting out false information and rumour for the Master to soak in and believe, she had become bitter towards him, and he didn't blame her. He had screwed up another person's life. He had hurt Martha and he was unsure how he could create a more amicable relationship with her in the future. It may be impossible.

The Doctor let himself think about the Master properly for the first time in a long while. He hadn't really thought of his old friend who had become so evil and corrupt, but now he had no choice. He supposed it shouldn't have been a shock the Master had survived the Time War, what did surprise him was the other Time Lord had hidden himself as a human. After so long denigrating and hating humans for their supposed inferiority, the Master had hidden himself as a human, and he hadn't changed a bit. He was still unoriginal when it came to his schemes for power. The Doctor had been annoyed with him when he'd sent out that broadcast as Harold Saxon and claimed to have been contacted.

That was it?

That was his plan? How many times had the Master tried the same basic plan of bringing in another race - or so he thought with the Toclafane, but at the time he hadn't known the truth of the spheres or indeed of the paradox machine - and getting them to do his dirty work. Oh, how original for him? It was amazing to the Doctor how the Master was able to promise a race into doing the work for him, while all the time reaping the rewards and dreaming of finally subduing the universe before it all collapsed around him. But even the Doctor hadn't expected the paradox machine built into his TARDIS. He had thought the scale of the Master's latest plan had been bad enough with the Archangel network but seeing the caged form of the console, the walls blood red, steam turning the room into a sauna and the cloister bell toiling….. and he realised he was out of his league. He felt so stupid, and he realised he should've programmed better safe guards into the TARDIS console but he hadn't because he hadn't seen another member of his race since the end of the war. The last Time Lord who had been in the TARDIS had been Karlax, but that had been a fleeting moment - the Doctor had made sure of that when he had dematerialised and left the corrupt little bastard who had thought himself a rival but was more of a good for nothing nuisance than the type of problem he usually got from Time Lords like the Master.

The Doctor with Jack and Martha had tried to stop him, but they failed and the Master took control of the Earth, but now the only thing anyone knew was the president of the USA was dead. None barring the people who had been enslaved for a whole year by the psychopathic Time Lord would ever know what had happened. But the Doctor would never forget the screams and the pleas from the hopeless humans when the Master's paradox rift opened and the Toclafane had emerged to wipe out a tenth of the human race, and he doubted the Jones family would either. But that wasn't the worst of it - mass enslavement, destruction of cities, those damn statues erected to appease the Master's ego, and those war rockets powered by black hole converters to launch a war against the universe, all to build an empire for himself. The Master may have called it the New Time Lord Empire out of respect for their race but he and the Doctor both knew that the Time Lords had nothing to do with the name of the empire. The Master had never respected their people, but his recent plan was just a celebration he no longer had to fear the justice of the Time Lords who would have severely punished him and the Toclafane for their attempt to alter universal history. The Doctor missed his people, but he felt that what the Toclafane were going through was punishment enough. He felt sorry for them, sorry that they had been reduced to that state, but that did not justify what they had become under the Master's so called guidance and rule.

The Doctor had long since accepted the rule that the Master had once told him, centuries and lifetimes ago during that time during the Doctor's exile to Earth and the Master had tried to gain control over the super weapon on Uxareius. He didn't agree with it anymore than his Third self had about the Master's point, but after regenerating so many times and being through so much and putting his 'innocence' away after the complex mess his people had pushed him into with the Valeyard to say nothing of the time between then and the end of the Time War, he had seen for himself that the worst people followed the philosophy of his old friend. But the Master's cruelty to the humans, using the paradox machine to bring the twisted future down on them was too much.

A small part of the Doctor could understand the nonchalance of the people the Master had held prisoner onboard the Valiant for a year, could he blame them for being delighted the evil Time Lord had died? Even a part of him was relieved that it was over, even if he hadn't wanted the outcome of seeing the only member of his race left, the only Time Lord he had met since that mess with Rassilon in the final days of the war before he had been pushed so far he had decided his people needed to fall to save the universe, die and he knew he would be haunted by the Master, in his arms, smiling even as he fought the urge to regenerate after Lucy had shot him. He knew why the Master had done it, so did everybody else, after a year of being imprisoned with him the humans especially Martha's family had heard of what had happened to the rest of their race, but they didn't understand the mental connection he had with the Master. Hearing the voice of the Master, the only voice he had left which had been smothered by the myriad of voices from other Time Lords, had been the only thing keeping him going. Now it was gone forever, and everything the Master knew, everything he had been, was now lost.

When he had met Yana at the end of the universe and when he heard words relating to the Time Lords and when he'd found out from Martha he had a fob watch similar to the one he'd used to hide himself in when the Family of Blood hunted him down to steal his remaining lives, ironically similar to the Master's plan in the first days of his eighth incarnation, he had hoped, truly hoped, the Time Lord inside was not the Master but even then he'd known it was a forlorn hope. It was unlikely to be someone different. The other Time Lord had survived the battle in San Francisco and had gone on to fight alongside his war time incarnation against the Daleks.

And the moment he was out of the watch he had shut down the base's defences which had kept the cannibalistic future kind out and the final human survivors safe, and then killed his unfortunate assistant who had been devoted to his other self. Chantho had shot him in the chest, and he'd regenerated. Why was it every time he met the Master, the other Time Lord was completely unreasonable? He had tried to plead with him, knowing the Master wasn't ignorant of the lack of other Time Lords since he was aware at all times when it came to the mind, but he would not listen; that was one thing he missed the most from the incarnation that had fought his third incarnation for so long, that incarnation was more reasonable and more practical than others. But he had lost that aspect of his personality as time went on - he certainly hadn't been social during that time he'd spent as a charred husk, and when he was in his 'Tremas' incarnation he'd been too interested in megalomaniacal and bombastic speeches to spend time chatting, and that unfortunate ambulance driver whose body he'd stolen had been too interested in survival to care about conversation.

The Doctor leaned against the console. He was deeply exhausted and he wasn't sure if he could take much more. He looked around the room, wondering if the Master was the only one to have managed to get out of the Time War. Nothing was impossible - he knew that, but it was just so hard to imagine and he couldn't work out why. During the final days of the Time War the Daleks had proven their supremacy by battering the Time Lord fleets backwards, destroying ships and TARDISes, until only Gallifrey was left. The Doctor closed his eyes as he tried not to remember those families trying to get to safety from the relentless onslaught as the Daleks got passed the transduction barriers which had locked the Time Lords away from the universe for so long yet had shredded them like paper, and all the time the High Council who were yes men fawned over Rassilon and his plan to rip the vortex open while it happened.

It had been…..virtually impossible for anyone to escape from such an attack like that, but not completely impossible. It was strange but for a war where both sides fought over countless centuries, no one really used time travel for anything other than transport. It was an unspoken sort of deal between the Daleks and the Time Lords to never use time travel as a weapon, both sides knew the dangers since the war was making the vortex more malleable, the Time Lords knew from centuries of experience the dangers of meddling with history and the Daleks had become more aware of the dangers of alternative timelines since their invasion of the alternative 22nd century after that paradox created by Anat and her fellow guerrillas who were trying to prevent their world being invaded by the Daleks by killing Reginald Styles the man who they believed was responsible for so much pain. Even under conditions like that where you'd need to be careful, it wouldn't be impossible for a Time Lord to have managed to run away and hide. The Master had done it so why couldn't other Time Lords like the Rani, the Monk, Romana, Drax, the Clocksmith, Berenyi, and…Susan? But it had been years since he'd caught so much as a whisper from another Time Lord other than the Master. It was just so unfair others hadn't managed to get away, and looking at how he'd found the Master, the Doctor was having to rethink his previous belief other Time Lords hadn't managed it, and the list of renegades he'd just thought about were composed of really smart people who were in many ways more cunning than the Master. Would it be so hard to imagine one of them couldn't return? It was a running joke amongst the renegade Time Lords that renegades were the smarter of the Time Lords than those who lived in stagnation on Gallifrey, and if the Master could prove it by hiding with the chameleon arch then others could as well.

His thoughts returned to Max Capricorn, and he wondered what kind of accident or incident had reduced him to that state - the Captain had been put back together by Xanxia as part of her scheme for immortality, but at least he'd retained enough of his human form - before he decided he didn't want to know. When he thought about it, the Doctor could work out for himself why the board members had kicked him out. In their eyes the business had broken down because of their boss, after a century of running the business and he was kicked out. The Doctor wondered if the cybernetic enhancements had begun early, or if humans of Sto had a longer lifespan than humans on Earth, but he pushed that out of his head. They didn't have much in the way of originality or they had only chosen to copy the name and design of the original Titanic because since it was an Earth cruise, it had to have an Earth hame and form, but none of the passengers knew the history of the real thing. If they had they probably wouldn't have been so enthusiastic, and all that time dear old Max had been lurking below, ready to escape in the impact chamber where he'd live his life in luxury, well as much as he could with only his head linked to a cybernetic engine, and watch from afar as the board are imprisoned for mass murder. It was a sick plan, and he didn't want to picture the human race being slaughtered so needlessly.

Alonzo and Rickston would be picked up, the only survivors with Astrid and Mr Copper gone, and they would have to give answers to what had happened and there would probably be a black box or a home box on the ship that would give more in-depth recordings about the damage the Titanic suffered during that meteor collision, where it would go the Doctor didn't know, and he didn't know if this incident would make things better or worse for cyborgs on Sto. He had no idea if the prejudice came from the galactic wars against the Cybermen, but it was a probable one. It was hard and soul destroying fighting against a race of what appeared to be robots but in fact turned out to be people who had had undergone a truly invasive procedure to either remove the body parts or the brain while all the time suppressing the emotions to stop them screaming in madness at what was being done to them, but while some aspects of Cyber technology and implants had dozens of benefits for medical professionals, too many people were wise enough to see the dangers, and too many people had repeated Mondas's mistakes. Then again he didn't know enough to judge the people of Sto about the cyborg prejudice - it could simply be they didn't like the idea of someone having an implant to make themselves stronger and faster. The Titanic had had two cyborgs - one a compassionate passenger who had helped them defeat the Heavenly hosts and another who wanted to crash it.

The Doctor shook his head, deciding to simply put his mind off the Cybermen, the Captain of Zanak, Capricorn, and Bannakaffalatta and just focused on the TARDIS as it hovered over the Earth. He had set the controls to scan the planet in case any radioactive material had fallen to the planet from the Titanic's reactor; he knew it was an outside and remote chance since the Titanic's nuclear storm drive had been intact during his talk with Capricorn, but after seeing the state the space liner had been in it wouldn't be hard for some other part to have fallen to the planet's surface. The Titanic had sustained severe damage from the meteor strike, and so much was exposed to the vacuum of space, and he had no idea if the engines had leaked anything.

But he wanted to give his ship the chance to heal; after spending a whole year sustaining a temporal paradox as the Toclafane were brought back into the 21st century and feel free to wipe out their ancient ancestors, and being hit by the Titanic's bow after that cross temporal meeting with his fifth self because he had been so stupid to not put the shields up, the TARDIS was lucky to still be able to move through the vortex. There was only a small amount of radioactive waste from the Titanic, but it was safely above the planet's atmosphere, but he would keep an eye on it to make sure it wasn't harmful. The Doctor knew he would be bored out of his mind before long, but he felt it was worth it while the TARDIS repaired herself - this was the type of thing that had worried him since that disaster when the TARDIS fell through that gap in time and crashed in that parallel world he'd later call Pete's world, and it made him more than a little worried his TARDIS could eventually be ruined beyond his skill to repair. The paradox machine was the latest example of a temporal related nightmare that could have destroyed or ruined his TARDIS. His ship was tough enough to withstand the pressure and the reality bending insanity of a paradox, but the type of paradox the Master had induced would have eventually destroyed his ship if left alone for too long.

When he had seen the TARDIS console room after the Master had died….. he had been terrified his oldest friend (the Master didn't count since the TARDIS had helped shape his life and everything about him since he had left Gallifrey all those years ago) would never recover, but luckily the whole thing, the so called New Time Lord empire had been foiled before it ever really started, and the Doctor was happy for that. In the long run he wasn't sure if the Master would've succeeded in the end - the Time Lords may have had the monopoly over time travel, but there were others. It wouldn't have taken long for them to find out who the Toclafane were and deal with them, so the paradox machine would've been rendered useless. The Doctor closed his eyes as dozens of horrible alternatives came to mind.

He hoped the next few years weren't going to involve things like this.

Author's note. The Titanic episode is one of my favourite stories since it only has a few minutes on Earth, and I hope you enjoyed the afterthoughts of the episode.