The Master says nothing, and has at least the social acuity to know not to stare. So the mercurial scientific prodigy imitates the quiet, no-nonsense bus driver’s exact stance, and waits.
At length, he smiles, and the bitterness is actually not nearly so pronounced as the grief. So perhaps, despite being an intergalactic criminal genius versus an everyman, they are exactly the same person in this moment.
“You think we’re alike … . because we both have a ‘her’ in our lives whose light is indescribable. Yes? But, hhhhah. Graham, I AM the Solitract, to the Doctor’s Universe. The time will come, if it hasn’t already … when she finally sheds me completely, and I’ll have to tell her, too, ‘I will dream of you out there without me.’”
He does regard Graham, now, with muted suffering.
“Your Grace might not be here in tangible form, but she would never have had to willingly leave you. You’re not corrosive and clinging. You’re good. Take refuge in that.”
He’ll dwell on what the Master has said about Grace at another time, because right now, he’s too focused on what the other man is saying about him and the Doctor. And it’s making him proper upset.
“Are you joking with me, mate? After all your high ‘n mighty speeches about how you two need each other, about how you’ve spent centuries bein’ on again, off again but you’re not gonna waste this chance, that is what you have to say? That one day, she’s gonna leave and you’re just gonna accept it?” He shakes his head.
“Nah, I don’t buy that. I’ve seen the pair of you, seen how you two are lighter when the other is in the room. And what you two need right now is to have your heads knocked together so you both understand how much you mean to each other. Yeah, the Doc is better than probably any of us deserve, but she’s also just a person. A Time Lord, maybe, but she still needs people, she still needs you. And deep down, you know that too.”
“Hm! Sounds like the acme of hypocrisy when you put it that way.”
Koschei’s torn between itemizing for Graham the list of the Doctor’s deeds which fall far short of “better than probably any of us deserve” … . and agreeing with Graham breathlessly. Either way, he loves her, in a way that transcends any Companion’s understanding, because he knows what it is to live the span of a life that’s unfathomably long and alinear. And because he knows each of her faults as intimately as each of her blessings. And he loves each one, the way you take pieces of fine jewelry out of an armoire and polish them, and hold them up to the light at every conceivable angle.
He stretches his legs out, and uncurls his toes within his boots. He leans back and really acclimates himself to the comfy seat next to the old bus driver.
“ … . you’re right, of course. Regardless of what she deserves. I’m not going anywhere. But back to you, mate.” There’s a roguish glint in his black eyes. Under other circumstances, it’d be a touch too sharp for comfort. Even frightening. But right now, it’s the look of a friend. “Don’t deflect just because I was having an angst-ridden moment. The Solitract showed you a very convincing Grace, I take it. Dangled the carrot, as it were.”
Icarus 