THE MASTER, THE DOCTOR AND THE WOLF

Chapter Fourteen

The Valeyard sat in the upper level seat, listening to the rotor while the TARDIS drifted through the vortex. He had considered watching his adversary on the monitor but since the TARDIS was recording the CCTV footage, he decided to take it easy, enjoy being back inside his TARDIS and review the footage later.

Besides, he was pondering a problem. He wanted the Doctor's lives but he also wanted the Bad Wolf power if such a thing existed. Could he combine the two of them somehow and harvest everything he wanted? It would be tricky but he felt sure if he set his mind to the problem, he could solve it. As for the Doctor and Rose afterwards, he hadn't quite decided on that. He thought about enslaving them both, at least enslaving Rose since the Doctor would be trickier. He glanced down at the Master and Xelok who were standing by the console motionless and grinned. Despite the Doctor's dire prediction, the Master was still in his thrall so perhaps he could enslave the Doctor's mind as well. That brought up another question, what should he do with his two mind slaves, add them to the ranks or destroy them. Decisions, decisions…

He was jolted from his thoughts when he heard a loud beeping coming from the console. He got up and walked down the steps as the CCTV footage on the monitor changed over into the circular Gallifreyan writing.

"Distress signal? Pish, I have no time for…"

Then he read who it was from and his eyes widened.

"I have Clara, come and get me if you can, Valeyard. The Eleventh Doctor," he read aloud.

He read the coordinates silently for a moment, processing the date and time.

"Hmm, a year after I left Susan behind. Wonder if she's there as well. More leverage for me," he said to himself. "That alone is worth taking the diversion, even if I really don't care about the other Doctor or little Miss Clara. However, if Clara has found him, perhaps I better immobilize them both. Can't have anyone ruining my plans now. Okay, Doctor, I'll take the bait then and make you sorry you challenged me."

He set course for London and left to check on Twelve and Rose.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Eleventh Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and stepped outside with Clara.

"Hey, she isn't here," the Doctor said, looking around. "She isn't here! You failed!" he yelled at the TARDIS."

"That's because you have to go looking for her," Clara said as she shut the door.

"I don't wanna go looking for her; I have other things to do. Like trying to stop Rose from being violated and killed for one," he said. "Still," he said, looking at London behind them, "I see some progress has been made in the rebuilding."

They were parked by the Thames near the Palace of Westminster. The building looked a little worse for wear since the invasion but he could tell that repairs were being made to it and other buildings around them. But he couldn't see anyone, apart from him and Clara and the city was eerily silent.

"Please tell me some random Daleks didn't resurface and attack again," he said to her. "I have enough problems as it is."

He told Clara to wait a moment before going inside the TARDIS. To her astonishment, the TARDIS vanished from view five minutes after going inside. For a moment, she thought she'd been stranded until an invisible door opened and the Doctor stepped out of nowhere.

"What did you do?" Clara said as the Doctor closed the invisible door.

"Camouflage," he said to her. "When I went back inside for something, I noticed the TARDIS had sent a homing beacon to our mutual friend and since I don't want him having two TARDISes, I'm hiding this one."

"I didn't know you could do that," Clara said as the Doctor pulled a small plastic box out of his pocket. "Why don't you always do that instead of just leaving her sat around where everyone can see her."

"Because it's hard on her. It drains the power to keep her on invisible mode so I use it only when necessary."

"What's that?" Clara said.

"It tracks artron energy, the background energy that people gain after traveling in the TARDIS with me. This frees up my screwdriver in case I need it for something else. Now I programmed it to cancel out the two of us and now…I do see a artron signature close to us. So the TARDIS brought us nearly to Susan's feet. Come on, let's go find her."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

(Nearby…)

Susan yawned and stretched and stepped out of the abandoned house that she and David had been sharing since they started living together. It had been a long, grueling year for them and the rest of the resistance as they tried to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives and rebuild the world along with the rest of humanity.

Susan had volunteered to go to the communal garden and gather a few vegetables while David went to the meat market to get something to eat. The food wasn't plentiful but they had managed to scrape by and rebuild the infrastructure enough that meat was being shipped in from the countryside and vegetable gardens all over London were thriving. It was a good sign that things just might return to normal now. In fact, Susan was sure it was since she had been to the future and saw the Earth repopulated and strong again.

Thinking of traveling with the Doctor made her heart ache. Ever since her grandfather left her, she'd struggled to get over the shock and hurt of seeing him go and find a future with David. But her grandfather had been her whole life up till then and she missed him terribly along with Ian and Barbara. She wished every day that he'd keep his promise to return for her but she somehow doubted he would. She knew him better than anyone else and she had a sense that when he said goodbye to her, that was it and she'd never see him again.

As she hurried away from the white brick house, she caught sight of two people coming towards her. Both were young, except one was dressed oddly in Victorian clothes and holding some sort of plastic box in his hand and the other was a young girl wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt. Susan held her black, wool coat tightly against her to stave off the morning chill and smiled warmly at them.

"Good morning," she said to them. "Going to collect food?"

The man looked up from his box and froze, an odd look on his face. The woman stopped and looked at him and then looked at her.

"Susan?" the woman said.

Susan frowned. She didn't recognize either one of them.

"Yes?" she said hesitantly. "What do you want?"

The man seemed to recover from his shock and walked over to her, a tender smile on his face while the woman followed him.

"Susan, it's me, the Doctor," he said when he stopped a few feet in front of her.

Susan opened her mouth to ask Doctor who, then it hit her when she realized only one person would walk around in Victorian clothes in 2175.

"Grandfather?" she said hesitantly.

"Yes, Susan, it's me."

"You're young," Susan said. "You look as young as David."

"Yes, well, the other body wore out and I regenerated…several times since we last met. It's good to see you again, my child."

Susan grinned and Clara smiled when she ran towards him and embraced him. The Doctor returned the embrace and kissed her cheek.

"Oh my God, Grandfather, you did come back for me," Susan said.

"Yes, I did. However, I need your help and probably David's help as well if he's around. Can we talk somewhere?"

Susan nodded.

"Come inside the house and I'll make some tea," she said to them.

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