Author's Note:

Hello! Thank you to everyone who reviewed since I posted the previous chapter – Aietradaea, Theta'sWorstNightmare, Lexy Summers, EDZEL2 (x 7), xNinjaxBunnyx, MountainLord-92, mericat, Imorgen, MayFairy, SawManiac211 and Catelly.

So here it is, last chapter – hooray, I finished something! **Goes off to celebrate**

This was written listening to Avril Lavigne's song, "Slipped Away", which I thought was very appropriate. Hope everybody enjoys!

CHAPTER TWELVE

The beautiful, other-worldly golden glow had faded from inside the TARDIS now, leaving behind a dull red light that was difficult to see by. The time-rotor sounded wrong too, sawing back and forth with a distressed wheezing sound, as though it was struggling to keep going at all.

"Hang in there, Sexy," the Doctor said, patting the console reassuringly. "We'll get you to the Rift for a recharge. You'll be back in tip-top condition in no time!"

"Doctor, what happened?" Amy demanded. "Why does the TARDIS sound so sick?"

The Doctor looked at her gravely. "Once, before the Time War, in a situation like this, my people would have been powerful enough to repel the Reapers and repair the wound in Time without even batting an eyelid. Now that they're gone, it's not nearly that easy any more. Fortunately for us, thanks to the Imprimatur of Rassilon – and don't ask me about the Imprimatur of Rassilon, it's too hard to explain – a remnant of that power still remains within the TARDIS. She sensed the disturbance in the space/time continuum caused by a multitude of Reapers converging on one single location in London. That meant she was able to materialise at those coordinates and use her power to mend the damage that had been caused. But it's taken nearly everything she has...a few minutes more and it would have been too late."

"So what do we do now?" Rory inquired, staring worriedly at the sluggish time-rotor.

"We'll head for the Cardiff space/time Rift. It bleeds temporal energy. All I need to do is open up the engines and soak up the energy for the TARDIS to use as fuel. Then she'll be as good as gold!" the Doctor replied, flicking some switches on the navigational terminal. "And after that..." He paused, his youthful face settling into grim, determined lines. "After that, I'm going to put a Time Lock on the Earth Year 2008. Time has already been re-written far too often at that point in history. It's stretched the fabric of the space/time continuum almost to breaking point. No-one can ever be allowed to change things there again, it would be catastrophic."

Amy raised her head and looked down the stairs towards the entrance to the TARDIS. The double doors were wide open again, giving a spectacular view of the Earth as they orbited around her, glowing in the darkness of space like a green and blue jewel. A small, copper-haired figure was seated in the doorway, her shoulders hunched in misery as she stared unseeingly down at the planet below.

"And the Master?" Amy asked the Doctor softly.

He didn't look up, busily tinkering with some more of the TARDIS controls before he answered. "Dead," he said at last in a wooden voice. "Still dead. As least as far as her time-line is concerned. Nothing changed, history carried on just as before."

"You have to talk to her, Doctor," Amy told him. "Properly, I mean. She needs you. She needs her father."

The Doctor didn't reply, still keeping his eyes steadily averted, refusing to allow Amy to see what was in them. But he gave a brief, tight nod of assent.

"We'll give you some space," Amy said. "Come on, Rory, let's go and put the kettle on."

With that, the two of them tactfully retreated, leaving the Doctor standing alone at the console. He fiddled unnecessarily with the controls a bit more, putting off the inevitable. But then, with a deep sigh, he took his courage in his hands and quietly descended the stairs to sit next to his daughter.

He could feel the anguish emanating from her, so great that it was almost tangible, as though something essential was broken inside her. He ached to put his arm around her, wanting to comfort her, but he wasn't sure how she would react. So he just sat close to her, shoulder to shoulder, not saying anything.

A savage pang of regret pierced his hearts. When she was younger, when she had first run away from Gallifrey to join him in the TARDIS, they had often sat like this, after their human companions had gone to bed, in perfect, silent companionship, their feet dangling out into space, looking out over the Universe together. Tejana had always been so eager, so fascinated by everything, so delighted to have escaped her stifling life on their home planet. But he couldn't remember the last time they had done it. Centuries ago, before the Time War, he supposed. Before everything changed. He found himself swallowing hard against a sudden lump in his throat. Where did the time go? How in all the Universe had they come to this?

Tejana turned her head slowly to look at him, her green eyes dark with pain. "I'm sorry," she said stiffly. "I was wrong. So wrong. If the TARDIS hadn't sent that Reaper back into the Vortex..."

"It's OK," he cut in, hating the hard, defeated, empty look on her face. He'd never seen her look like that before, not even when he found her again after the Time War. He was the Doctor, the man that was supposed to make people better. It killed him inside that, of all people, he wasn't able to heal his own daughter when she needed him most. "You're grieving. Grief makes people do strange things. I understand that."

"Do you?" she asked, a faint thread of scepticism running through her voice, as though she doubted it very much.

The question was meant to hurt him and it did, particularly given the edge of bitterness behind it. But it was a chink in her armour of grief, an opening, the first one she had allowed him since her return to the TARDIS. And, in view of the vehemence of his opposition in the past to her relationship with the Master, he supposed he couldn't blame her for doubting his sincerity now.

He chose his next words very carefully, not wanting to shatter the fragile emotional bridge that was suddenly between them. "I once burned up an entire sun, just to say goodbye to Rose. That was wrong too, interfering in the structure and balance of the Universe for my own purposes. But I didn't care, just as long as I got to see her just once more."

The green eyes scanned his face. "Did it help?"

There was a deep pause and then he replied sadly, "No."

She nodded, shifting her gaze away from him, staring blankly out to the stars once more. An inexplicable sense of failure suddenly weighed him down, knowing that his words had been inadequate and meant nothing to her.

Her voice rang in his head, a memory of what she had said to him back in Harold Saxon's office: "If our positions were reversed, if it was me who had died, there would be nothing he wouldn't do to bring us back together, NOTHING!"

Her words sat in his stomach like a stone. As much as he had hated Tejana being with the Master, he knew what she had said was absolutely true. If Tejana had been the one to fall into another dimension instead of Rose, the Master would never have burned up a sun just to say goodbye. He would have searched, ruthlessly and unceasingly, until he found a way to rip open the Universe to get his woman back. And Tejana would have stood on the sand of Bad Wolf Bay and waited patiently, knowing with complete certainty that the man she loved would come for her. How long had Rose waited? How long had she stood there before it had finally dawned on her that the man she loved was never coming? The Doctor felt sick inside. He'd never really allowed himself to think about it before. But all at once he saw himself clearly through his daughter's eyes, through the eyes of all the companions he had ever had, and the image wasn't pleasant – not the man who made people better, but the man who left them behind.

Beside him, a terrible shiver seemed to run through Tejana, wracking her slender body from head to toe. "I...miss...him," she choked out. "So much. It's...crushing me. And I...feel like...I can't breathe...without him."

Then she brought her hands up to her face and, for the first time since losing the Master, she began to cry; deep, awful, shuddering sobs, that seemed to be ripped from her soul, tearing through her entire body. The Doctor reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. She flinched away, as if his touch burnt her. But he had allowed her to push him away too many times before and this time he would not be deterred. He tried again and at last she allowed him to draw her to him. She buried her face in his lap like a little child and wept silently while he held her close and made the small, meaningless noises you make when you know the pain is so vast that nothing you can ever do will fix it.

Everything has its time and everything dies...

His own eyes misted over and, instead of the blue and green panorama of the Earth below, he saw again the glorious orange skies of Gallifrey, stretching above him, so long ago; felt the summer heat from the twin suns beating lazily against his skin; his legs pleasantly aching from running fast, so very fast, through the long, red grass on the slopes of Mount Perdition.

"Best friends, Koschei?"

"Best friends forever, Theta!"

Through Tejana's storm of grief, he could feel the tiny, pulsating glow within the psychic link, the new Time Lord consciousness beginning to unfurl inside his daughter, growing day by day, preparing to take its rightful place within the Universe.

The Master's son. The Doctor's grandson. After centuries of fighting across the constellations, the tiny life that would now always link them together, even after death.

And, unbidden, the hot, painful tears came, streaking down his cheeks.

"I know, Tejana," he whispered, gently stroking her long, copper-coloured hair. "Believe me, I know."

Back in 2008, Harold Saxon pushed his dessert bowl away from him and sat back in his chair, gazing contemptuously out over the crowd of humans seated in the ballroom of the Claridges Hotel.

The last time, he gloated to himself. The very last time I have to speak to this toad-eating rabble before I become their Lord and Master.

Oh, the blissful relief of it. The game had been fun at first, but now he was bored and couldn't wait for it to be over.

Suddenly, he caught his breath, a weird, unsettling feeling seeping coldly through his brain. A small shadow caught his eye at the back of the room, moving just beyond his vision, impossible to clearly make out. At the sight, time seemed to hitch and spin, a crazy, mixed-up surge of sensations assailing him, as if a whole day had passed in a whirling rush, compressed into a few, fleeting seconds – he felt triumph; an incredible, blazing lust; overwhelming shock; intense fear and then an excruciating pain stabbing through his back that took his breath away; then soft, slender fingers gently caressing his face...

"Harry?" he heard Lucy say anxiously, her voice distant and far away. "Harry! Are you all right?"

His hands were clenched tightly before him. Trembling, he forced them open and there, sitting on his palm, was a tiny gentian blue flower with a golden centre. It was a myosotis flower. A forget-me-not. He stared at it uncomprehendingly, an icy shiver racking him from head to toe.

Was this what the humans mean when they say a goose just walked over their grave? he thought wildly, closing his eyes dizzily. Something had just happened to Time, some sort of glitch. As a Time Lord, there was no mistaking it. But what? And why? Could it have anything to do with the Doctor? Had he escaped from Malcaissaro after all?

"Harry!" he heard Lucy say again, this time more urgently, interrupting the frantic questions that were besieging his mind.

He opened his eyes again. His hands were empty. The myosotis flower had gone, as if it had never really been there at all. Like a ghost.

In the background, the fat man with the large, black moustache was introducing him. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, without any further ado, I give you our guest of honour...Harold Saxon."

The room erupted in a storm of expectant applause. With an effort, he pulled himself together. Whatever it had been, everything seemed back to normal now. And Harold Saxon still had a job to do.

"I'm fine," he hissed at Lucy in a savage undertone, before rising to his feet. "Just fine!"

But as he took his place behind the lectern and began to speak, he found his thoughts inexplicably wandering back to his childhood on Gallifrey and the time he had spent at the Academy with the Doctor - all the things they had done together, all the stories they had read, all the hopes and dreams and imaginings they had shared so long ago.

And suddenly, it came to him, in a blinding revelation. At last he knew what he would call the deadly silver spheres he had found at the end of the Universe.

The Toclafane.

It was so fitting, so perfect. And when the Doctor arrived, as he surely would, he would get it, wouldn't he? The bitter irony of it?

Because, in the end, when you came down to it, that's all life was, wasn't it?

Nothing but a twisted fairytale.

- THE END -

"SLIPPED AWAY"

"I miss you, miss you so bad.
I don't forget you, oh it's so sad.
I hope you can hear me,
I remember it clearly...

The day you slipped away,
Was the day I found it won't be the same.

I didn't get around to kiss you,
Goodbye on the hand.
I wish that I could see you again,
I know that I can't.

Oh, I hope you can hear me,

Cause I remember it clearly.

The day you slipped away,
Was the day I found it won't be the same.

I had my wake up,
Won't you wake up?
I keep asking why?
And I can't take it,
It wasn't fake,
It happened, you passed by.

Now you're gone, now you're gone,
There you go, there you go,
Somewhere I can't bring you back!
Now you're gone, now you're gone,
There you go, there you go,
Somewhere you're not coming back!

The day you slipped away
Was the day I found it won't be the same, no...
The day you slipped away
Was the day that I found it won't be the same, oh...

I miss you."

- Avril Lavigne.

Another Author's Note: So there it is, all done and dusted. This will be my last update for quite a few weeks. So, to all my lovely reviewers, I would just like to bid you a fond adieu and to say thankyou, you were magnificent. See you on the other side!