The wind whipped up, shivering through the vents of his sleeves. The Doctor hunched against it, pulling his jacket tighter, and peered, blinking against the driven sands. The broiling sun had vanished behind the gathering evening clouds; those same clouds still advanced, their hunger swallowing the stars. In the darkness, he longed for a moon.
The city too was gone, but the passing of the clouds would not bring its return. The power that sustained the city had at last destroyed it, taking everything with it: its dreaming spires, its marvellous wonders, its people. He had tried to save them, but in the end they had saved him, saved and doomed him by stranding him here in this endless desert without food or shelter or ship.
The winds began to slow, then still. The clouds began to part, and the night became suddenly full of stars, brilliant pinprick lights shining down upon the pale dunes. The Doctor rested, leaning back against the sand and staring up, seeing past the forms of constellations to distant galaxies, to star-birthing nebulae. All of starlight is old, older than the oldest life. Sight was the first form of time travel, and remains the purest. Not to travel back, remaking time with every step, but to be still and let time come to him through the eons, and the vast, vast emptiness.
Without the protection of the city, he will burn with the sun. Yet here, he feels only peace. He closes his eyes, but in his mind still sees the stars.
The sky lightens before dawn, and he wakes to a sound he thought he would never hear again. A wooden door creaks open, and a man curses under his breath as he stumbles in the sand.
The Doctor smiles. "Good morning," he greets.
"I only left you alone for a week," the Master says, sounding exasperate and amused. "What was it this time? A secret tyrant? A berserk computer?"
The Doctor shakes his head. "They destroyed themselves."
"They always destroy themselves," the Master says, dismissive. He is unimpressed at the tragedy, but the Doctor expects no less.
"I didn't think you'd come back," the Doctor says, to the fading stars. He never thinks the Master will come back for him, but the Master is ever full of surprises.
The Master decides to ignore the jab this time. "Coming? Or do you want me to leave you here with a bucket and spade?"
The Doctor snorts, then pushes himself to his feet, shaking sand from his suit. He tugs at his shirt, and sand trickles down his back. He plucks uncomfortably at his trousers.
"Shake yourself off," the Master says, walking back inside. "I don't want you tracking sand all over my TARDIS."
"It's not your TARDIS," the Doctor huffs, but the old argument is comfortingly familiar.
He stands barefoot in the doorway and knocks his trainers against the frame. He stands on one leg to put the first back on, wobbles, and loses his balance. But then a hand is on his shoulder, steadying him, making sure he does not fall.
End.
