Haunted and Hunted

Hunting you, I can smell you—alive / Your heart pounding in my head / Watching me, wanting me / I can feel you pull me down. -Evanescence, 'Haunted'

"Unified Containment Forces! Hands in the air!"

The few seconds of bliss shattered and melted away as if they had never been. In its place was cold, automatic survival instinct. Matt and Mallory both snatched up their bags, and at another time she might have marveled at how easily they synced up with each other when push came to shove.

"Is there a back door out of here?" she hissed to Albert. He gave a curt nod, moving through the kitchen with surprising speed.

The UCF had either not seen or not yet covered the back door, allowing them to slip out unnoticed. Mallory didn't want to dwell on how many times over she'd be dead if it wasn't for her perception filter, though, nor the fact that if they'd been a few seconds later that house would likely have been the final trap she had ever walked into.

Just moments after they reached a small grouping of trees that offered some form of cover in the watery dawn light, three men came around the back of the house, indeed cutting off what had been the pair's exit.

There was a livid-sounding shout from inside, though the words were lost.

A gunshot.

An ear-piercing shriek that was abruptly cut off by another shot.

Mallory shuddered. They had met plenty of trigger-happy UCF before, but this felt different.

She knew the feeling of having her life at risk. She knew the feeling of close calls and even closer escapes.

But never before had she felt hunted.

~~~

Rath had burst into the house with all the finesse of a herd of stampeding buffalo. That had been his first mistake—giving his prey a few critical seconds of warning. It had been a long time since he'd had to use such precise tactics. Once Boston had fallen prey to the Toclafane, all that was really needed was to keep a grip on the city was the air of meaning fatal business, and people fell right into line.

It was clear now that he would have to be much more careful in the future.

He knew they had been here. A blubbering man had mistakenly revealed that fact before his life was abruptly and unceremoniously ended. Rath had immediately ordered Barton to contact the rest of Paducah's UCF through Overwatch, the UCF's command and control network that was one of the only reliable means of contact in this day thanks to being routed through Archangel. It did no good—there were too few agents covering too much ground in this part of the country.

His prey had escaped.

Rath was forced to acknowledge this fact a few hours later, with a trail of bodies in his wake. A man with a competitive streak as wide as his own never took failure well, and such failure left a sour sneer on his face all day.

He would not dwell on it, though. Dwelling led to stewing, and stewing led to wasting time that could be better served tracking down his prey for another attempt.

As the sun crept higher in the sky, he hefted his pistol and tucked it back into his belt. He intended to teach Mallory Everton one thing and one thing only:

He meant business. Ruthless, cold, fatal business.

~~~

Even after a month and a half on the Valiant, Jason had a hard time comparing the withered man in front of him with the fleet-footed alien who had once held all of time and space at his disposal that Matt had told him so much about.

Until he looked him in the eye.

The Doctor's eyes, impossibly young and impossibly old, told a thousand tales of triumph and heartbreak, strewn across the universe.

The other thing that was so hard to reconcile was the mouth Matt had described as 'unstoppable' was now so rarely opened. Jason had never actually heard the Doctor speak, and not for lack of contact. He, along with the other cast members on board the Valiant, were assigned to whatever menial chores the Master's personal guards thought were below them. Almost every day, twice a day, Jason brought the Doctor whatever bland meal was being served that day.

Beyond a nod of thanks, the Time Lord never had any sort of acknowledgment for him.

Jason didn't expect anything different today. The Time Lord sat in his tent in the control room. The fact that the Doctor was not even granted any faux semblance of privacy incensed him—even he had a small room to sleep in, even if said small room was really more of a cell. But no, the Doctor had a tent. Jason wondered if the Master would be so bold as to let his archenemy reside in the control room—even under constant guard—if the Doctor's body hadn't been so frail. Even if, rumor had it, the controls were isomorphic and the captive Time Lord could not use them.

Now, the Master was spinning around in one of the office chairs, not a terribly uncommon sight. What was more unusual was Lucy Saxon standing not far away, the typical vacant look in her eyes even more prominent than usual. She did not look well. Jason wondered just how much she had known she was getting into when she became the Master's wife.

The Master was gloating to the Doctor—big surprise there. Jason had learned to tune him out if he didn't want his brain to dribble out his ears. It was only when a raspy, unfamiliar voice came to his ears that he looked over to them sharply.

"Leave her alone."

There was a beat where Jason wasn't quite sure who had spoken, before the Master gave the Doctor a hard look.

"Why should I?" No response from the Doctor, and the Master continued. "I know you sent her down there for something."

Mallory.

"Rumor has it," the Master said conversationally, "that you sent her down there to find a way of killing me." He raised a brow. "Is that so?"

The Doctor only raised those ancient eyes and fixed them on the Master. "I have one thing to say to you."

"Oh, not this again," the Master groaned, before getting to his feet. "That's it. Come on, Lucy." She didn't respond for a long moment and his tone sharpened. "Lucy."

She looked up, startled. He gave her a patronizing smile and gestured to the doorway.

Once they were gone, Jason glanced back at the Doctor, who had raised a thin white brow in his direction.

"What are they doing down there?" he asked under his breath, casting a furtive look at the guards on the bridge but unable to keep from speaking.

The Doctor shook his head, and, surprisingly, spoke. "Can't tell you. It'll only put you at risk."

Jason bit back a sigh. At least when he'd still been on the planet below he'd been doing something, even if it hadn't felt like much at times. Now he was stuck up on the Valiant doing nothing but labor and chores. He felt like he was going to lose his mind. "There must be something we can do."

The Doctor fixed his gaze on him once more, and said only one word.

"Hope."

It was only later that night that Jason fully realized the depth of what had been said.

If the Doctor couldn't tell him what Matt and Mallory were up to because it would put him at risk... that meant they were up to something.

They must have a plan.

He had always hoped, but now he had the closest he had ever come to proof.

And that thought brought him more hope than ever before.

~~~

A month passed.

Matt and Mallory managed to hit St. Louis, Missouri before swinging down toward Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Both wished they had time to make it deeper in to Texas and bring word to Central America from both the two of them in the north and—hopefully—Mark Spencer from the south, but they knew they simply didn't have the time.

They just had to hope.

As time wore on, the scars left by the Master's reign began to grow more obvious. As they neared the Rockies, whispers of shipyards on the West Coast grew louder, though most people didn't seem to have much clue what it meant.

Mallory did.

The Master was readying for war, right across the universe.

She dreaded reaching the West Coast.

The slave labor force had another, much more frivolous task as well. Statues of the Master—all shapes, sizes, and materials—had begun to crop up all over the country, and, presumably, the world. Rumor was he'd even carved himself into Mount Rushmore.

"Well, we always knew humility wasn't one of his strong suits," Matt had quipped when they saw the first one in person.

As much as they both despised the Master and what he'd done, by then they had a much more eminent and dogged threat.

Rath.

Paducah may have been their first encounter with him and his team, but it was far from the last. As they grew near to Denver, Colorado, they had had over half a dozen encounters that were far too close for comfort. The man was like a bloodhound and he had their scent in his nose. No matter how many times they thought they had shaken him, he always seemed to be right back on their tail a few days later.

They knew how he was doing it, too. He tracked down their old camps, members of the Resistance they had spoken to directly, and cajoled, bribed, or just downright threatened them for information—usually rewarding their cooperation with a bullet.

It was sickening to both of them, because they only thing they could do to stop indirectly leaving a trail of bodies in their wake was to stop spreading the word—the one thing they could never do.

They kept moving. Oklahoma gave way to Kansas, which in turn gave way to Colorado. They had made it so far and yet there was still so much farther to go.

Sometimes, when exhaustion gave way only to sleepless nights, Mallory found herself wondering what would have happened if Matt had not come to find her. The thought of doing this on her own sickened her. She thought the fact that he was right be her side, always, was perhaps the only thing that kept the utter hopelessness from dragging her under.

Whenever those thoughts crossed her mind, she always seemed to end up tangled up with him.

Enemies within and without. Time Lord and human, both interested in their heads on a platter. Mallory wondered how in the world they had made it as far as they had.

By mid-June, they where nearing Denver. Fighting to stay ahead of Rath often meant pulling longer and more unpleasant hours than ever before, and as such it was it was well past dark when they stumbled into an old campground. It wasn't terribly unlike they one in Atlanta that had caused them so much trouble, though this one was definitely occupied. Most everyone was asleep, but the few on sentry duty welcomed them in with open arms.

They just hoped that they had covered their tracks well enough that Rath would miss this place.

Come the next day, they would hope that even more.