"If he escaped the Time War then it's the perfect place to hide," Jack raced over, giving the Dcotor a key which was the last thing he needed for the shi to take off. "The end of the universe."

"Think of what the Face of Boe said. His dying words. He said..." the Doctor turned the key and the station shook, the rocket started to take off. Nina had met with the face of Boe a few times, a couple regenerations ago. There was a peofecy about the Face of Boe telling a secret to a traveler before he died. And he did, he topd her these exact words : You are not alone. Nina froze as she looked at the screen. Yana. You are not alone. It appeared the Doctor had realised the same thing, going by the look om his face.

Nina went on to stabilise the footprint mechanism as the Doctor called the rocket, asking them if they had done it. As soon as Lieutenant Atillo comfirmed it, the Doctor wished him good luck and grabbed Nina's hand, sprinting out of the room.

They ran through the halls, Martha and Jack not too far behind. As soon as they reached a door, it closed itself off right in front of them.

"Oh, come on!" Nina yelled out in frustration.

"Get it open!" The Doctor yelled at Jack. They had never seen him so desperate, so Jack did his best to open the door. It took them some time, but it opened and they continued their running.

They reached a corridor and as soon qs they turned the corner, hundreds of futurekind were waiting for them. They halted and ran the other way, having to make a full circle around the lab before reaching it's door. Obviously, it was locked.

"Professor!" The Doctor yelled, hiting the door with force to try and catch the pprofessor's attention.

"Professor, let us in!" Nina shouted. They froze when they heard growls coming from behind them; the futurekind had caught up.

"Jack, get the door open, now!" The Doctor yelled out. "Professor, are you there?! Please, I need to explain! Whatever you do, don't open that watch!"

There was a gun shot, and at the same time, Jack hit the door panel and it opened up. Yet, it couldn't close back again. Nina and the Doctor stepped into the room as Martha and Jack stood and helt the door shut. Nina locked eyes with Yana, realising he had already opened the fob watch.

For a second, Nina thought she recognized the man. Not the face, no, but the way he looked at her. The Doctor took a spet forward, and it was one too many, making the professor step into the TARDIS and lock it from the inside. Nina shivered as her vision started to become true. She was still frozen on the spot as the the Doctor banged on the blue wood, realizing the man had deadlocked his own TARDIS.

"She's dead," Martha realized, as she kneeled down next to Chantho's body.

11

"Let me in!" The Doctor yelled at him, taking a step back from the TARDIS. "I'm begging you, everything's changed! It's only the three of us, we're te only one's left!"

They heard some muffled talking from the inside of the ship, and suddenly, it became cleared and cleared, as if the TARDIS was trying to help them, trying to let them listen to what he was saying, discover who he is.

"The master, reborn!" They heard from inside. Nina felt her body go weak and she slowly reached for the Doctor's hand, looking for the support she needed right now. It was all clear now. It made absolute sense: why the fob watch had been using her time energy, her own DNA to bring the master back to life. Why she could hear it, but not the Doctor. It made perfect sense.

"You know him," the Doctor realized as he looked down at her, feeling her hand shake in his. "How do you know him?" Nina opened her mouth to tell him, but nothing came out. She could bring herself to say it. He had been dead for so long.

They were interrupted by the a pained scream coming from the TARDIS, followed by a blinding light. Yet, Nina and the Doctor stared right at it. Soon enough, they heard laughs, and then he hit the intercom button, meaning he was ready to speak to the two.

"Now then, Doctor -- ooh, new voice!" The master exclaimed. He proceeded to test his new voice by repeating the word 'hello'in different pitches until he realized what he was doing. "Anyway, why don't we stop and have a nice little chat where I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me -- I don't think!" He suddenly yelled.

"Please, just stop!" Nina found the courage to speak up. "Think about this!" There was a silence.

"Oh, yes, Nina," he spoke up, his tone almost calmer. "Long time no see. Now, you've been gone a long time. And.. well, I'm over it, so no heart-felt reencounters, please, because I don't really care."

"I didn't expect you to," Nina told him sadly.

"Properly think!" The Doctor interrupted desperately. "Please!"

"Use my name!" He yelled.

"Master," the Doctor was barely able to whisper. "I'm sorry."

"Hm, tough!" He exclaimed. Suddenly, the TARDIS engines started themselves up, and they realised that the Master was leaving. The Doctor raised his screwdrived at it, messing with it. Explosions could be heard. "No, you don't!" Despite the Doctor's efforts, the engines started up again. "End of the universe, have fun! Bye bye!"

The TARDIS dematerialized, leaving them behind.

"Who was he?" The Doctor asked Nina anxiously, his hands on her arms. "How did you know him? This could be important."

"He's... he's my brother," she mumbled quietly in astonishment. The Doctor frowned and repeated the words she had told him silently. Before he could say or ask anything, Jack yelled their names. They turned to the two, holding -- with difficulty -- the door. As soon as they realized the dange rof the situation, they ran there and the Doctor soniced Jack's vortex manipulator.

"Hold still!" He yelled at the man. They were still teying to keep rhe door closed.

"I'm telling you, it's broken. It hasn't worked for years," Jack said through heavy breathing.

"That's because you didn't have me. Martha, Nina, grab hold!" He yelled at the girls. When all of them had their hands over the Vortex Manipulator, the Doctor activated it and they were pulled through the time vortex itself.

♧♧♧

They appeared in an alley, all of them groaning in pain. Nina immediatly fell to her knees, grabbing her head. Martha leaned over a wall as the two man straightened and cracked their backs and necks.

"Ooh, time travel without a capsule," the Doctor groaned. "That's a killer." And then he remembered how unstable Nina was in this place, this universe. He crouched down in front of her. "You alright?" He asked. Nina frowned from her headache, but nodded slightly.

"A little warning next time, please," Nina asked him. "I do this kind of time traveling quite frequently." He granted her a short laugh before pulling her up on her feet.

They walked through the streets as Jack made it clear that his Vortex Manipulator was the saviour of their situation. They reached a pedestrian's only road and sat in the middle of the sitting area.

"The moral is, if you're gonna get stuck at the end of the universe, get stuck with an ex-Time Agent and his vortex manipulator," Jack bragged. Nina scoffed at him. His machine was broken and the Doctor fixed it, thats how they got out of there.

"But this Master bloke," Martha started, ignoring Jack's comment. "He's got the TARDIS. He could be anywhere in time and space."

"No, he's here. Trust me," the Doctor told her. Martha shrugged.

"Who is he anyway?" Martha asked them all. Nina tensed up at the question. How could she tell them the truth? Luckly, she asked them another question, one they could answer. "And that voice, at the end, that wasn't the professor," she asserted.

"If the Master's a Time Lord, then he must have regenerated," Jack took it upon hismelf to explain.

"What does that mean?"

The conversation became somewhat of a blur to Nina's ears as she strated to hear it again; the drumming. The drums in her head. Yet, this time, they weren't in her head, because by the looks of it, the Doctor had heard it too. They looked over at homeless man sitting on the ground on the other side of the street. He had a metal cup in one hand and a coin on the other, and he was tapping one into the other, tap-tap-tap-tap. Nina tensed up once more, the sound sending her over the edge. The Doctor's touch on her hand briught her back to reality.

"Then how are going to find him?" Martha asked.

"I'll know him when I see him," Nina mumbled loud enough for them to hear.

"But hold on," Martha intereupted again. "If he could be anyone... we've missed the election...but it can't be."

Nina inhaled sharply as she noticed a face on a screen. The Doctor stood up slowly, not takinf his eyes off it. It was a big screen talking of some Harold Saxon, the new Prime Minister. It showed his face and Nina immediatly recognized it.

"I said I knew that voice," Martha claimed. "When he spoke inside the TARDIS, I've heard that voice hindreds of times before." The trio followed the Doctor to the crowd that was begining to form in front of the screen. "I've seen him, we all have. That's the voice of Harold Saxon."

"That's him," the Doctor observed.

"He's... Prime Minister," Nina said in realisation, but also confusion. "The Master is Prime Minister of Great Britain," she had to repeat. They watched as the Master kissed a beautiful woman on screen. "The Master and his wife?"

"This country has been sick. This country needs healing. This country needs medicine. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that, what this country really needs, right now... is a doctor," the Master said, a creepy smile on his face.

Nina felt a shiver go down her spine.

"Oh, now that's proper creepy," she commented.