AN: It's finally here! I'd like to thank so many people, but I'll stick to the basics -the three friends (you know who you are) who read this story and assured me it didn't stink, as well as betaing, YOU ROCK! And thanks to Jonn Wolfe, Sara Eleanor Rose, and Zoe Alice Latimer, for {though they don't know it (although I guess now they do)} giving me inspiration and courage to rewrite the heck out of Doctor Who. They are awesome writers, and if you don't know their stories, you should!

Disclaimer: I suppose it's flattering that anyone would ever assume this, but I don't own anything to do with Doctor Who except a couple of seasons on DVD.

Part I of the Way through the Worlds Trilogy:

The Freedom to Refuse

"You came along and my Heart went –pop–"

Grabbing a book off of her bookshelf, the blond woman dodged out of the side door of her family's sprawling mansion to avoid the inevitable confrontation. She could still hear her sister Roxanne yelling at one of the servants, insisting that everything be perfect for her birthday celebration in just four hours. The woman rolled her eyes in disgust.

Walking barefoot through the gardens, she avoided the gardeners trimming the last bits off of the hedges and bushes. Her sister's twenty-sixth birthday and garden party was tonight, and she absolutely knew she would hate every second of it. Roxanne was a charmer and a flirt, beautiful and entertaining. She herself wasn't dull or plain, but when she stood next to Roxanne… she just looked washed out.

She pursed her mouth and walked through the rose garden toward the large fountain with a maze just beyond it. The garden was her escape, a remnant from her childhood days of hide and seek, tag, and playing pretend.

Plopping down on the rim of the fountain, she opened her book to the correct page. The fountain wasn't spraying, so there wasn't any danger of wetting the pages. She glanced into the still water and saw what most people would see: the reflection of Lord Cole's twenty-something year old second daughter, Lucille Penelope Cole, with long blond hair, grey eyes, and a wry smile.

The noise of her sister's shouting penetrated the afternoon breeze; someone must have opened a window. Lucy winced, attempting to bury herself in her book. But something was making a really odd noise. She looked up. It was a sort of a whirr…no, more like vwhorp. What appliance did the house have that sounded like that?

Lucy frowned. It wasn't coming from the house. It was coming from the maze. She dog-eared her book to save her spot and walked the familiar path through the maze to the center. Perhaps one of the gardeners was using some sort of yard tool to clear the maze? But she was sure one of them had done that yesterday…

Lucy arrived at the center of the maze, stopped, and stared. What on earth was a blue box –no, a blue police box –doing at the center of the maze? It certainly had not been here last week. She knew her father collected the oddest things, but they weren't nearly this large, and he didn't put them outside, for heaven's sake –

Lucy gasped as something she couldn't see groaned. The bench at the center of the maze, combined with the box, had blocked her view. Hesitantly coming around, she could see that the box had doors, they were open, and there was a man lying on his stomach on the ground.

"Oh, no," she muttered, kneeling down. "Can you hear me?" she asked. Never mind the box, where had he come from? And what was he doing in clothes that looked like throwbacks to the Victorian era? She grabbed his shoulder and rolled him over, belatedly thinking that if he was injured that might not be very good for him. He groaned.

Lucy stared down at his face, which was scrunched up in pain. He was young; she couldn't say how young because guessing ages was something she had never been good at. His hair was brown, and he had the beginnings of a five o'clock shadow. "Hey!" she said.

He groaned again. "Mmm… where am I?" he said as his eyes snapped open and captured her gaze.

"You're in my maze," Lucy said, rather incredulously. "How did you get here?"

He ignored her. "Be more specific," he snapped.

He sounds fine to me. Lucy sat back on her heels and dusted her hands off. "The Cole Manor, near London, the British Isles, the European continent, the Earth," she said sarcastically. "Shall I continue?"

He frowned and attempted to sit up. "This is Earth?" he asked, in a horrified tone.

"I hope so." Lucy stared at him in odd fascination. "Who are you?"

"The Doctor fused the coordinates; I'll have to take apart the whole TARDIS to fix the circuitry," the man said, and then cursed.

Lucy flinched. "What are you talking about?" She was slightly worried that she had an insane person who appeared out of thin air on her hands. And on her sister's birthday… Roxanne will not be happy about this, Lucy thought. She wasn't sure whether that was a bad thing or a good thing.

He actually seemed to see her for the first time. "You're human."

"Yes, I am. Thank you for noticing," she said dryly. "Would you mind telling me your name, and explaining?" she gestured toward the blue box.

"My name is the Master," he said, and then he said, "Oh, I like the way that sounds. Just the right timbre for a new voice. At least that came out right."

"What?" Lucy said, pretty sure she must have heard him wrong.

"You wouldn't understand; your brain is too small. That's your race's problem, too stupid. Not enough brains to fill a teaspoon –" he gasped and curled into a ball, grimacing.

"What's the matter?" Lucy asked, tensing.

"It's going wrong. Did he do this, too? I'm going to really make him pay for that, just as soon as I stop –" he suddenly gasped and then went limp.

She stared at him for a second, and then tried to discern whether he had died or not. She decided that he hadn't, since his chest was rising and falling, and he had a pulse…a really weird, rapid pulse. "What do I do with you?" she asked, but got no response since he was unconscious. Glancing over at the open doors of the blue box, she actually looked for the first time, and did a double take. Getting to her feet she stood in the doorway of a massive room full of dim orange lights and machinery. "But that's not possible," she whispered. "This box is only a few feet around!" To prove it to herself, she walked around it. Then, with her hand held out in front of her, she took three large steps into the box. She didn't hit anything. Lucy backed out again with her grey eyes wide, and knelt down beside the man. "Who are you?" she whispered, letting the tips of her fingers just graze the side of his face.

Thinking, she stared down at him and ran a hand through her blond hair. There was no way she could let Roxanne know. Either she would throw another screaming fit, or she'd steal him. Honestly, the reason Lucy didn't date anymore was because Roxanne thought it great fun to steal her boyfriends. That, or men wanted to date Lucy to get closer to Roxanne or to make Roxanne jealous after having been dumped by her.

She was just so sick of it.

This man was a mystery, and his box… she wanted answers. Besides… keeping secrets from Roxanne was something she was very good at by now.

Shutting the doors of the blue box carefully, she nodded once and then hurried through the maze. She couldn't carry him by herself.

"Thank you, Joe," she said, smiling at the old man who had taught her the names of all the flowers in the garden.

He laid the unconscious man on her bed and frowned at her. "I don't know where he came from, Miss Lucy, and if you ask me…"

"It's fine," she said. "I told you, he's a friend who's a little under the weather. Don't worry about it. And don't breathe a word to anyone."

"Why would I?" he asked, adjusting his cap. She knew he didn't believe her, but that was all right. He believed things that weren't his business weren't his problem, and let things well enough alone. "Better get back to work, or 'her highness' will be up in arms."
Lucy grinned at the name for her sister. "Yes, and goodness knows we wouldn't want that." They shared a conspiratorial grin. "Oh, and Joe?" Lucy said, as he was about to leave. "Try to keep people out of the maze," she added.

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing and left.

Lucy turned her gaze to the man on her bed and crossed her arms over her chest as she thought, biting her lip. She crossed the room and placed a hand on his forehead. It was warm; not feverish, but it had the possibility of becoming so. She undid the string tie and a few buttons on his vest and shirt, which were of very nice material. Pulling off his shoes, she tucked her coverlet around him and bit her lip again. She had an unconscious, possibly ill man in her room that came out of a box with much more space inside it than there should be –if he got sick, how would she even treat him?

His eyelids twitched, like he was dreaming, and he mumbled something unintelligible to her. "Hey," she said softly, smoothing back his hair, "can you hear me? Are you alright?"

He breathed in very suddenly and exhaled a cloud of gold smoke. Lucy got a face full of it; she coughed, and her eyes watered and stung. She rubbed them –for an instant, her right eye felt like it was burning –but it passed, and she watched the rest of the golden cloud dissipate into the air. "What are you?" she whispered.

Let me know what you think! {I may not be able to get back to you right away because I'll be traveling C:}