itsjustkind:

｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ masterfulxrhythm:

     “You miss the point. I don’t want your apology: I want your faith.”  

The Master draws so near the Doctor that his breath stirs his friend’s hair, like a thousand hot scarlet birds disturbing the drift of a cumulus cloud.  He holds his bloodied hand jealously.  It’s as though all he has left is his pain, all he has left to claim as his alone, and he won’t relinquish it just yet.  It’s his sole bargaining chip.  

    “I want you to  … to understand that it’s nothing unique to Missy or me that divides us as a person.  It’s how we’ve been treated over time. Environment over innateness, and all that.  She might’ve thrown Bill in a meat grinder to get at you if she still had fresh wounds from seventy years of abuse and neglect! And maybe if I’d spent the same!!! Identical!! Amount of time!!”

He pounds his other fist insistently; redness spreads to his other palm.

“Then I might be the one knocking me out to untie you–oh yeah, you think I don’t know she’s on your side? I know–and weeping with remorse… hell, shit, I wish I had a companion to give you now, to show you I don’t want to always be the one hurting you.”  

He has no idea Clara exists, beyond the vague outline described by Rassilon during his torments ( “the Doctor will come to Gallifrey to save that human, but not you!”); he has no idea he’s predicting his own would-be future, when Missy was new.  

But he looks down at his hands, and he knows now that they’re both in agony.  He knows that he’s becoming more and more disturbingly self-destructive lately.  

Almost sheepishly, at last, he offers his hands to the Doctor’s, and to its sunset glow.

    “I’m fine,” he growls. “Don’t overdo it.”  

I love you. Please see me. Please.

“You say that as though you and I are two opposites, forcing her to choose between us — but that’s not…it’s not what I intended. I didn’t mean to make it like that. It’s not what I wanted. I never wanted to fight you. I don’t want to fight you now. You are her. Can’t you be on my side, too?”

He realises the prediction of the future, but knows that even if the Master might not retain his memories, he can’t say anything. Whatever he might think to say probably wouldn’t be of any use anyway; the neural block is still there, and attempting to think about the companion whose face he can’t remember has become really quite painful. There’s a flash of something in his eyes there; grief, or regret, or sorrow. It’s gone the moment he’s able to hide it.

The Doctor takes his hands and closes his eyes. The glow surrounds their joined hands, and his expression settles into one of absolute focus. He must be so careful now, to let out only what is required. One slip and he’ll stumble into regeneration before he’s given his body a chance to heal on its own. He knows he can heal, with time. 

His plan works,mostly. It’s successful in that he’s able to mend the physical damage to the Master’s hands, which is his main goal. Healing the Master releases enough of the energy to relieve the pressure, and he no longer feels so restless. The pulsing of the energy under his skin has faded, for now. It’s not as painful to hold back.

The only problem now is that he feels very, very tired.

“I know you don’t want my apology, but I am sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t give you the time you deserve. As for faith… well, I’ll give you what’s left of my time but I can’t promise it’ll be long or what you hoped for. And I need you to answer a question for me first. It doesn’t have to be now. You can give it time.”

His eyes are half-closed already, but he fights to keep them open long enough for this. 

“Why did you do it? She deserved so much better from the universe. And from me. She was my student. All she wanted to do was learn, and all I wanted to do was teach her. Help her. Show her the universe. Why did you take that away from her?”

The Master seethes a sigh through his teeth.

     “That’s what I just said: I am her, and given the same circumstances as she experienced, I would react the same way as she did. Or at least in a comparable vein.”

They’re in agreement, then. What a strange sensation. Strange enough that he falls inert long enough for the Doctor to successfully mend him.  

The words that follow pierce him through with a deep existential sorrow that he knows will never mend.  Not so long as he lives.  The Doctor, dying, even to live again: even when he was the one to fling this intergalactic legend from a high precipice, to force regeneration, there was that gaping maw of self-annihilation involved in seeing his best friend destroyed. Now is one such moment: like watching a monument crumble, or a star collapse.  

It makes him willing to answer the crucial question immediately.  

      “Because I wanted there to be one case, just one, in all the universe, where you couldn’t save someone. And what better person than me? What better revenge for being left behind, than to leave you right back?”  

His smile is filled with bitterness and rue.

     “I wanted to be past saving, and I got what I wished for, now, didn’t I?  So I guess it makes sense. Missy lobbing me on the back of the head.  I guess I am self-destructive after all.  Anything to end you.  And it’s only recently become … . apparent to me, how mad that is.  How …”

Stupid.  

    “It won’t bring you peace to know this, but I didn’t think of her. Of Bill. I judged it all … worth the loss that anyone in between us would suffer.  I don’t value the lives of others the way that you do, Doctor.  Perhaps you’ll be motivated to live a little longer if I express interest in learning.”  

He places the same hand the Doctor healed on the forehead of his perennial savior.  

    “I’m not going anywhere.”  

Just sleep.