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Oh, Martha! Hi there!

[Her fingers are trembling slightly and she stuffs them in her pockets.]

Hello.

. . . so, did you make a decision yet?

[Her voice is firmer when she speaks.]

Actually, yeah. I'm done. With all of it. With the nightmares and the hate. I want it to end.

So I'm willing to hear you out. I can't promise my forgiveness, but I'll listen.

What do you want to know, then, Martha? Ask and I will answer.

Most of all...I want to know why.

You claim that the Doctor's your friend. If that's true, then why did you torture him, torture all of us?

Because I'm crazy?

Listen, alright? I really don't think the way most people do. In my mind torture is a sure-fire way of getting his attention. It's also revenge for his running off and leaving me behind.

And it makes me feel better. It may have been the drums that made me this way but I am a sadist. People in pain makes me happy because it makes them quieter, but the happiness is real. I need other people screaming to function properly, I can't help it.

[Martha swallows nervously at his words. The man absolutely terrifies her, but she's so tired of years of nightmares and she wants to get it all over with.]

What are the drums like? What do you mean the drums might have made you that way?

They're, well, drums. *He taps them out for a second or two* Like that, over and over in my mind. For a thousand years.

And they get louder when I try to act sane. If I go off and randomly shoot twenty people for kicks they quiet down.

So I have to commit senseless acts of violence if I want to hear myself think.

[She frowns, feeling a stirring of pity inside her. Despite her better judgements, she reaches out to rest a hand on his shoulder for a moment.]

So part of it was just...to be able to think?

Yeah. Or so I could sleep, or remember something, or to make the pain go away--I get headaches sometimes, trying to think over the drumming.

Have you ever had a really bad song stuck in your head? It's like that only a lot louder, combined with a migraine.

Having my fingers and toes mutilated seems a steep price to pay for you to be able to think for a little bit.

Yes, but I haven't been capable of empathizing in . . . a long time. There are maybe two, three people whose points of view I can even get close to understanding and it takes an awful lot of effort.

Didn't you ever fry ants with a magnifying glass when you were a kid? It's like that, only in my case doing it is the only thing that keeps the pain away. Wouldn't you think that was a good solution?

[She's quiet for a long time.]

[Finally] It makes sense.

They're not my fault, the drums. They were sent to me, I can't remove them. And I'm scared of silence now, frankly. I've come to need the drums--they drown out guilt and pain. My thoughts dance between the beats, and what would I be without them?

I killed the bastards who made me like this, though. And I wish that I had never got them.

Who would do that to anyone?

[The anger is starting to be directed away from the Master and now towards the ones who cursed him. If he hadn't been hurt like this, then no one would have had to suffer because of him.]

The High Council, in the last days of the Time War.

They put the drums in my head so I would come looking for the source and open up the Time Lock. And they didn't bother to think about what it would do to me to hear the war drums for a thousand years of madness.

And when I opened it, they scorned me for being broken. So I put them back, and good riddance.

Are you kidding me?!

So the whole reason that a year of my life, which, by the way, never existed, was a complete and total hell was because a handful of self-absorbed aliens decided that it should be so?!

*And have some more, worse hysterical laughter.* Yup!

And if they'd managed it they would've destroyed the universe, there's a reason that fucking war was Time Locked. Idiots! Complete and utter bastards!

*He smiles, and there's a thousand years of madness in that smile.* But it's okay now. They're not coming back. I made sure of it.

[She takes a moment to curse, the most colorful language she knows spewing from her dark lips.]

[Then she starts to think a bit more. If this council has caused her so much pain, then how bad must it be to be the Master himself? It makes her shudder just to think about it.]

Exactly.

Understand now?

[Her whole body trembles as she manages a weak nod.]

It's not your fault.

[Martha's suddenly acutely aware of the earth spinning beneath her feet, every second threatening to throw her off into the dark abyss of space. Hating him kept her together during that dark year, and now that she understood him she was losing what had become vital to her: her hate.]

No, it's not. *He sighs* And underneath it all, there's still some echo of the boy I was. Some little bits and pieces of Koschei.

It hurts, Martha. I'm tired, I'm hungry, I'm old. But I can't stop, the drums don't go away.

And I know how much hate keeps us together, because hate and longing are what keep me going. So I'm sorry for removing that cold comfort from you. As much as this old monster can be sorry.

[Martha nodded numbly, legs giving out and dropping her to her knees. She desperately wanted to hug him but there's something inside her that's still terribly afraid of him and what he's done to her.]

[numbly] It's alright...I needed to know.

And often what we need hurts the worst.

You should know, you've seen the things I need.

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Bed time, sadly. More tomorrow?

But of course, my dear!

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