She flops down on their (BRILLIANT) purple couch after the latest adventure, as has become the new custom. However, she’s not buzzing with excitement this time, she’s curled up in a melancholic ball, waiting for him to come wrap himself around her as he always does.
“Koschei,” she says quietly. “Tell me I did the right thing.”
Other TARDIS passengers have made the Master aware of what transpired with Yasmin’s grandmother in the Punjab of the 1940s. Certainly not Yaz herself, who was melancholy, and then insisted upon a visit to her nan’s which even Koschei, with his dearth of natural empathy, could readily comprehend.
Ever since that moment, he’s been waiting for the Doctor to come to him; going to her would seem too much like gloating, which, for once, is expressly against the Master’s aim.
The instant she joins him, he places aside his book. He glances askance at her. And when at last she talks, he turns and collects her close. His answer is yes, but he cloaks it in a hard truth:
“What is right is rarely if ever what is easy.”
When I resisted your overtures, over and over, for peace between us, I thought it was what was right. And nothing was more excruciating.
The words come out like ripping off a scab, even though the Master strives with every fiber of his independence-loving, ire-filled soul to appear intimidating.
“After all,” and even less successfully, to look smug and dark, “it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
“What?”
The Doctor turns, her goggles perched on the top of her head. Her expression is filled with confusion and something like hurt that has not entirely processed.
She isn’t sure what brought it up, what brought him to this conclusion, but… whatever it is, her hearts ache at the very thought of it.
“Koschei, I–” She licks her lips and clears her throat as she tries to force her mind to work, to understand what he’s saying and why.
“I love Yaz, ‘course I do. But… don’t you understand? Love… it comes in many forms. It’s… it’s the one thing I believe it, the only thing that I am absolutely certain in.”
There aren’t many certainties in our lives, but what we have… I have certainty in us. Love. In all its forms. Love is a form of hope. And like hope, love abides. In the face of everything. We’ve found love in each other. We believed in it, we fought for it, waited for it…
“Oh, love… Yasmin is wonderful, and I do love her, but to say that I should be with her and give you up is saying I should die of thirst if I’m to breathe air to live.”
She sets her work aside and approaches him, her hands held out, palms up.
“I love you. I belong to you. I don’t want anything but you.”
He doesn’t have the reservoirs of hope, faith, or natural compassion that she has.
Koschei of House Oakdown has only ever known how to loathe or adore, with every ounce of his being, and stay the course until ever last atom he can commit to a cause or person has disintegrated. He only knows how to commit himself fully, how to overpower, how to eclipse.
All that he has going for him is his devotion.
I cannot bring you what a human can. I cannot give you their folly or their innocence. I cannot be good for you, the way they can. I cannot be a novelty to you, a new stimulation. I can only endure, and wait, and love you.
That I can do, with every broken piece of my two hearts.
I belong to you, too.
He takes her hands–little hands, housing such a powerful being. She’s an angel. She’s achild. She’s acomet.
Hope-Bringer. Life-Bearer.
Everything, his everything. His only everything.
She always will be.
“You’re my hero, Hearts.”
And he speaks the one remaining wish of his hearts, the one thing missing from their perfect life, that he knows he will never, ever achieve:
Icarus 