“My DEAR Rose,” the Master drawls, over their shared fish and chips: monopolizing the chips, of course. For all his snobbery, his taste in food has never been particularly pretentious. “When was it you first noticed?’
The Master, who leaves nothing alone–who is known across the cosmos for his fanatical obsession–has difficulty wrapping his mind around the notion of stopping. Of closing a chapter. Ofwalking away. In that sense, he has always been the Doctor’s perfect opposite.
He cocks his head at Rose, then, utterly perplexed.
“ … you sure?”
He studies the erstwhile Bad Wolf head to toe, then, soft features, girl-next-door attire combined somehow with a darker sophistication, and he can frankly see why the Doctor might have fallen in love with her. The realization strikes him like icewater; the only way to combat it is to make a pact.
So,
“Not even to give her a little heartsburn at the existence of our new friendship?”
And he smiles, diabolically.
“well… ” therein lies the rub because right now? she’s NOT. not the way she used to be, when the doctor’s current life was a ( very intentional)mystery&. the TEMPTATION of making her sweat a little at this interesting new duo wasn’t even an inkling of a thought in her mind. the decision to stay away had been easy before. now it wasn’t.
rose couldn’t help but wonder why exactly that was.
“ ‘s BETTER than her knowin’ i ‘ad to watch the metacrisis she left me with die, isn’t it?”
happy endings… rose had a feeling those were a bit rare in the doctor’s line of work ( ‘just this once, rose, everybody lives’ — had that stayed TRUE, even ‘til now? rose hoped not; the doctor deserved another win like that ), &. as far as she was currently concerned, rose still had one.
then again, maybe it’d be fine. if the doctor was too busy worrying about her newfound friendship with the master then maybe she wouldn’t have to worry about avoiding those hard questions.
or maybe it’d open an even BIGGER can of worms. there was no way of knowing, really.
“ could be worth it, though, ” she muses. “ i bet her reaction would be even BETTER than when i met sarah jane. might not even ask if she’s too busy worrying about what we’ll do now that we’re friends. ”
“He DIED? Oh dear.”
Despite overly enunciating the crucial verb, the Master’s reaction to Rose’s news is remarkably self-contained. This is game-changing information, because it directly impugns the Doctor’s ability to leave her loved ones in a better place than she’s found them.
“Well now, I confess I’m rather indecisive. And that’s not a typical look for me. And I feel terribly cross for it.”
He tsks.
The Doctor has known exultant times since that night that “everybody” survived, and that’s precisely what makes the Master guard her hearts’ welfare with the tenacity of a junkyard dog and its rawhide bone.
“D’you think you could keep a lid on that particular bit of information? Because if it’s too tempting, I might just suggest we waylay a reunion, and … well, muck about just the two of us.”
The magma in his eyes dims. In its place there’s a soft kindled hearth glow, which belies his truest, innermost feelings. He averts his eyes to the ground, because he knows how predictable his turns in mood are, when the Doctor is the subject of discussion.
“ … she’s my best friend. No one’s ever understood me but her. Sentimental drivel, but every syllable the truth. Yes. I’d do it all again. A thousand times.”
He shifts weight, a tiger on its haunches crammed in a cage by its own affection. And he breathes a laugh, examining Rose again sidelong.
“You’ve a disarming aura. Normally that’d raise my hackles. I hope you recognize the privilege here.”
It’s his aloof, arrogant way of voicing what she’s already thinking.
“But seriously. I’ve read all about you, Rose. Years back, when I did the whole Harold Saxon schtick. ‘Know thine enemy’ and all that. But we’ve no need to be enemies now, do we? She doesn’t forget anyone she leaves behind. She just … thinks they’re better off without her meddling, or that what they have to teach her, or she to teach them, has run its course. And she’s restless. Perpetually kinetic. But she misses you. All of you, I know, I’m up enough nights with her agonizing over it, her psyche just … writhing in pain and guilt … but you were special, believe me. You should come ‘round sometime. Pop in for a drink. Call me for coordinates, if you see something unusual on the telly, and wonder if it’s the Doctor’s doing. I can be a buffer if you get awkward. I’m quite good at ‘blowhard,’ you might imagine.”
He smiles wryly.
“You’re wondering why I’d do this. Share her. Because I love her, Rose. Just like you said.”
And because honestly?
I’ll outlive the lot of you.
“ little bit, yeah. ‘s sweet, though. ”
but was he really trying to HIDE it, though? it wasn’t just evident through the VISIBLE changes in his mood ( though the expressiveness in his eyes&. his body language helped to make it a bit more obvious ). even in the way he talked about the doctor — his bestfriend &. the ONLY one who ever understood him in his own words — it was clear how he felt.
was it sentimental?MAYBE, but ‘drivel’ or not, it was no less endearing.
“disarming, hmm?” huh. rose didn’t really know what to make of that particular… was it a compliment? an observation? he, of course, throws in his own arrogant flairto the comment, but it’s vague enough that she isn’t entirely sure what he’s even commenting ON.
her aura? did that have anything to do with the SUNNY smile that was currently beaming at him? some weird time lord sense for what was left of BAD WOLF in her? the ‘know thine enemy’ schtick he mentioned had her leaning toward the latter, &. that left her with a very uneasy feeling. if he could pick up on it, then that meant the doctor would be able to as well, &. if the doctor ever figured out just how different she really was now…
well THAT was the whole point of staying away now, wasn’t it?
“ do you really think you NEED to?” share the doctor… there’d been a time when rose had been equally as willing to do just that. multiple, actually. jack. donna. neither were in quite the same way as she imagines the master was currently suggesting — both of them LOVING the doctor &. knowing ( on some level, probably) that the doctor did ( at some point, at least ) feel the same way. awkward was MORE than just an understatement. rose could only imagine how well revealing a (tentative, for now ) friendship between herself &. the master would go down with the doctor because of it.
…funny. THAT mental image suddenly made taking up his suggestion MUCH more appealing. “ ‘cause you don’t. i dunno about bein’ ‘special’ or anythin’, but ‘ve had a LONG time to get used to livin’ without the doctor. there’s nothin’ to share. whatever life she’s made for ‘erself, ’s good without me. as long as she thinks ‘m in pete’s universe, ‘m the LAST person she has to feel guilty about. ”
“You think it’s better left alone, then?”
The Master, who leaves nothing alone–who is known across the cosmos for his fanatical obsession–has difficulty wrapping his mind around the notion of stopping. Of closing a chapter. Ofwalking away. In that sense, he has always been the Doctor’s perfect opposite.
He cocks his head at Rose, then, utterly perplexed.
“ … you sure?”
He studies the erstwhile Bad Wolf head to toe, then, soft features, girl-next-door attire combined somehow with a darker sophistication, and he can frankly see why the Doctor might have fallen in love with her. The realization strikes him like icewater; the only way to combat it is to make a pact.
So,
“Not even to give her a little heartsburn at the existence of our new friendship?”
“She always has me. She always did, she always does, she always will.”
No matter what; that’s my blessing and my curse.
“Rose, I killed myself for her. She’s dangerous. She has power over people that I, with my ‘pretentious’ title and my crimes, things that I KNOW you know of, from the look on your face when I said my name, could only DREAM to possess. She makes people think they can be ‘heroes,’ doesn’t she? She ‘inspires’ them to suicidal acts–trust me, I KNOW–because she’s ever so eloquent, ever so clever, and then once she’s transformed them such that they don’t fit the mold they were born into anymore, she turns ‘round and RUNS, and leaves them to be hurt, like exposed nerves, like … planting a flower in winter and expecting its beauty to last when you set it outside the greenhouse. And THEY clean up the mess, don’t they? DON’T they?”
Don’t WE?
But it’s in that moment that the Master realizes none of this is Rose’s fault. Rose is collateral, like he is collateral, like the constellation of bright faces from the Doctor’s long twisted history with Earth are collateral.
A peculiar sense of camaraderie sprouts from that epiphany: this girl is owed what information he can provide.
“Yes, she’s a woman now. Five foot six, blonde with brown roots, hazel eyes, dresses like a bloody hipster, has the whole Holzmann from Ghostbusters vibe.”
“yeah. they DO. ”we do. it’s an odd sort of camaraderie they’ve built from being burned by the doctor — tentative&.fragile(&.oh, she can already imagine the looks of judgement from her coworkers if she ever made the mistake of mentioning that too ). it was a jaded way of looking at the doctor’s influence on people, sure, but that didn’t make it any less TRUE or painful to experience firsthand. “ she picks you up &. makes you FALL IN LOVE with her &. then drops you back off when you can’t possibly go back to who you were. ”
&. the WORST part?it was worth it.
sarah jane was right too. some things were worth the heartbreak. the doctor was one of those. “ tell ya what, though. i wouldn’t change any of it. dangerous as she is… as much as it hurts when she picks up &.LEAVES… something tells me you wouldn’t either. ” hell, he’d just as much said so himself.
god, they really were quite the pair together, weren’t they?blondes( of a sort ) with brown eyes who were both hopelessly GONEfor the doctor. rose had never expected having so much in common with the infamous master, but knowing it all put so much into perspective.
&. his description of her now makes her SMILE — really smile.
“sounds about right. ” that made it her third regeneration, then, if clive had his order right. remembering the picture of her running away from a giant frog in front of buckingham palace, rose stifles a giggle &. the urge to ask if that’s happened yet or not. NOT THE TIME. teasing, on the other hand, there was ALWAYS time for. “ could be worse, really. at least she’s not dressed like a picnic this time around. ”
“Hoh, GOD. Am I that transparent these days?”
The magma in his eyes dims. In its place there’s a soft kindled hearth glow, which belies his truest, innermost feelings. He averts his eyes to the ground, because he knows how predictable his turns in mood are, when the Doctor is the subject of discussion.
“ … she’s my best friend. No one’s ever understood me but her. Sentimental drivel, but every syllable the truth. Yes. I’d do it all again. A thousand times.”
He shifts weight, a tiger on its haunches crammed in a cage by its own affection. And he breathes a laugh, examining Rose again sidelong.
“You’ve a disarming aura. Normally that’d raise my hackles. I hope you recognize the privilege here.”
It’s his aloof, arrogant way of voicing what she’s already thinking.
“But seriously. I’ve read all about you, Rose. Years back, when I did the whole Harold Saxon schtick. ‘Know thine enemy’ and all that. But we’ve no need to be enemies now, do we? She doesn’t forget anyone she leaves behind. She just … thinks they’re better off without her meddling, or that what they have to teach her, or she to teach them, has run its course. And she’s restless. Perpetually kinetic. But she misses you. All of you, I know, I’m up enough nights with her agonizing over it, her psyche just … writhing in pain and guilt … but you were special, believe me. You should come ‘round sometime. Pop in for a drink. Call me for coordinates, if you see something unusual on the telly, and wonder if it’s the Doctor’s doing. I can be a buffer if you get awkward. I’m quite good at ‘blowhard,’ you might imagine.”
He smiles wryly.
“You’re wondering why I’d do this. Share her. Because I love her, Rose. Just like you said.”
Rose can’t know that her words are a sharp backhand across the face. Or perhaps she can, and she conceals her schadenfreude considerably well, but that’s the rub: the Master highly doubts she has any notion of how dismissive she’s being. Her compassion is legendary.
No, she can’t know what she’s confirmed. While the Doctor literally crafted the Master like a chisel to marble with a single childhood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) selfishness, and another single adulthood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) abandonment … . in the reverse, the Master is just one of many important people in the Doctor’s orbit, relegated to a place of convenience when all other options have grown too angry, disillusioned, or hurt by the Doctor’s actions. The slight owes little to the Doctor having thought himself the last of his kind in Rose’s company. After all, who can justify failing to ever mention an old friend, or a notorious enemy? Even once, over a fire, for nostalgia’s sake?
God, there are moments when the Master can fool himself that the Doctor is as infatuated with him as he is with her.
This is not one of those moments.
So wounded is he by Rose’s casual brush-off that he scarcely registers the intentional insult that follows. He staggers for dignity, scrambling for a riposte, cheeks on fire.
“Well, my dear, that … happens to be the currency of Time Lords: we are affected and vain.”
He smiles thinly.
“It would seem that you could ask her all these things inperson.”
oh.
it occurs to her ( rather too late to properly do anything about it, of course ) that she’s just said entirely the WRONG thing to him. worse than that, even, she’d gone beyond the sort of cheeky rudeness that had ( for the MOST part ) been intentional &. ventured into the cruel. his deflation is visible, &. the sheer amount of emotion &.history that he confirms in that one-word response tugs at her heart.
she knows exactly what it’s like to be &. feel abandoned by the doctor. she remembers looking at sarah jane &. realizing that THAT was the sort of future she had to look forward to — being left, forgotten, &.never mentioned again — &.lashing out at the woman as a result of it. while she by no means knows the full extent of the master’s relationship with the doctor, it’s fair to say that there’s even MORE history there than there had been with her&. the doctor, &. she’d just put him in the same position.
sarah jane. france. pete’s universe. the metacrisis. if there was oneDARK TRUTH that she’s been forced to confront about the doctor, it was that they had a nasty little habit of leaving people &.never looking back.
rose itches to apologize for the unintended slight, but since she doesn’t know how without putting the master in even MORE of an awkward position already, she dons a tentative ( if slightly forced) smile &. opts for the only other route she can think of.
pretending it hadn’t happened ENTIRELY.
“ ‘m probably the LAST person she’d want to see. you know how the doctor is. doesn’t like to look back. ”&. even if she did, there’d be questions that rose just didn’tknow how to answer. they’d made their choice in leaving her with the metacrisis. wasn’t it for the best if that was where the doctor thought she was, still?god knows the TRUTH would break her heart.
“ ‘sides. she has you now… doesn’t she?” at least, that was the vibe she’d gotten from the brief interaction. whatever issues they’d had before, rose imagines they’d resolved MOST of them already, at least besides the ones she’d unintentionally dredged back up. “ you’re very different than wha’ i expected. unit talks, but you’re… ”
softer. not something so black &. white as ‘good’ now ( even the doctors she’d known hadn’t been all good, though she liked to think they at least tried to be ), but the master SHE’D been told about would have lashed out at her for her slight, not deflated as if disappointed but resigned to a rather harsh reality.
“ ‘m glad she has you. ”
He laughs bitterly now.
“She always has me. She always did, she always does, she always will.”
No matter what; that’s my blessing and my curse.
“Rose, I killed myself for her. She’s dangerous. She has power over people that I, with my ‘pretentious’ title and my crimes, things that I KNOW you know of, from the look on your face when I said my name, could only DREAM to possess. She makes people think they can be ‘heroes,’ doesn’t she? She ‘inspires’ them to suicidal acts–trust me, I KNOW–because she’s ever so eloquent, ever so clever, and then once she’s transformed them such that they don’t fit the mold they were born into anymore, she turns ‘round and RUNS, and leaves them to be hurt, like exposed nerves, like … planting a flower in winter and expecting its beauty to last when you set it outside the greenhouse. And THEY clean up the mess, don’t they? DON’T they?”
Don’t WE?
But it’s in that moment that the Master realizes none of this is Rose’s fault. Rose is collateral, like he is collateral, like the constellation of bright faces from the Doctor’s long twisted history with Earth are collateral.
A peculiar sense of camaraderie sprouts from that epiphany: this girl is owed what information he can provide.
“Yes, she’s a woman now. Five foot six, blonde with brown roots, hazel eyes, dresses like a bloody hipster, has the whole Holzmann from Ghostbusters vibe.”
The Master applauds Rose–be it her spunk, her wit or her existence that spurs this, one cannot be certain. But he radiates satisfaction.
“You are. You absolutely are Rose Tyler. Oho, oi, you and me, mate, we’re a pair of blondes with brown eyes, and look, the aesthetic’s on par. Lots of glam, heavy eye makeup, I’m living the dream right now. I’m this close to incorporating pink into my wardrobe because of looking at you.”
He offers a hand smugly.
“If you’re as dear to the Doctor as she says, you’ve heard of me. I’m the Master. Congratulations on being you. Because I like you, and I can count the people I like on the fingers of one hand.”
“ ‘s FUNNY. your name never really came up… ”
the master. he’s right, she has heard of him, though despite what he seems to think, it’s NOT because the doctor has ever made mention of him. her colleagues on the other hand… MOST of it was only in passing. sometimes she’d hear the name mentioned whenever someone wanted a doctor story to rival the plethora of her own. none of what she’d heard was particularly GOOD, at least as far as which side of trouble he was on.
it makes sense, she supposes. despite his current, jovial demeanor, she had a sneaking suspicion that something DANGEROUS was lurking there, underneath the surface. just what sort of trouble would she be in for if he didn’t like her?
“ so ‘s tha’ supposed to sound impressive, then? ‘the master’? ‘cause between you &. me, mate, tha’s a bit pretentious, even for a time lord. ” if nothing else, it was definitely the sort of name that gave off EVIL MASTERMIND vibes, so perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to be roasting him for his self-naming choices.
if he really liked her so much, he could put up with it.
still, rudeness was much more up the doctor’s alley than her own. she starts to reach out her hand to take the one offered to try &. temper it out, but something about the way he’d phrased everything makes her pause.
as she says. as SHE says.
“ actually, ‘ang on. she? as in: THE DOCTOR? ” faint memories of the pictures clive had shown her years ago spring to mind. knowing what she knew now about regeneration, there was no doubt that clive had been right in his theory that all of them were the same person. shame she could never tell him that. shame she’d missed them all herself too. she’d quite liked the ones in between… “ so, blonde again, then?yellow braces? or is she the TALL one now? ‘m no’ sayin’ it matters or anythin’, it jus’… puts things into PERSPECTIVE. ”
they were what — three? maybe even four regenerations in since parting? &. the doctor was saying she was dear to her? that was MORE of a confidence boost than the strange shower of compliments the master had given.
“ … ah.”
Rose can’t know that her words are a sharp backhand across the face. Or perhaps she can, and she conceals her schadenfreude considerably well, but that’s the rub: the Master highly doubts she has any notion of how dismissive she’s being. Her compassion is legendary.
No, she can’t know what she’s confirmed. While the Doctor literally crafted the Master like a chisel to marble with a single childhood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) selfishness, and another single adulthood act of (understandable, so bloody understandable) abandonment … . in the reverse, the Master is just one of many important people in the Doctor’s orbit, relegated to a place of convenience when all other options have grown too angry, disillusioned, or hurt by the Doctor’s actions. The slight owes little to the Doctor having thought himself the last of his kind in Rose’s company. After all, who can justify failing to ever mention an old friend, or a notorious enemy? Even once, over a fire, for nostalgia’s sake?
God, there are moments when the Master can fool himself that the Doctor is as infatuated with him as he is with her.
This is not one of those moments.
So wounded is he by Rose’s casual brush-off that he scarcely registers the intentional insult that follows. He staggers for dignity, scrambling for a riposte, cheeks on fire.
“Well, my dear, that … happens to be the currency of Time Lords: we are affected and vain.”
He smiles thinly.
“It would seem that you could ask her all these things inperson.”
“Are you her? DO tell me you are. Oh, it’d be delicious that I stumbled across the Doctor’s most super-powered contraband Companion.”
There’s something undeniably charismatic about the Master’s voice, something terribly charming about his comportment and his convivially intrigued face.
“am i ‘her’?” well this is NEW. not the whole ‘bein’ recognized by total strangers’ bit — she got MORE than enough of that working with unit. being referred to as the doctor’s ‘most super-powered contraband companion’ on the other hand… that one set off a few ALARM BELLS, though the charisma &. charm that exuded from the man certainly did its part to try &.offset that.
what sort of person referred to a companion as contraband anyway?
“ gonna have to be a bit more specific than THAT, mate. ”
“HehHAHHHH!”
The Master applauds Rose–be it her spunk, her wit or her existence that spurs this, one cannot be certain. But he radiates satisfaction.
“You are. You absolutely are Rose Tyler. Oho, oi, you and me, mate, we’re a pair of blondes with brown eyes, and look, the aesthetic’s on par. Lots of glam, heavy eye makeup, I’m living the dream right now. I’m this close to incorporating pink into my wardrobe because of looking at you.”
He offers a hand smugly.
“If you’re as dear to the Doctor as she says, you’ve heard of me. I’m the Master. Congratulations on being you. Because I like you, and I can count the people I like on the fingers of one hand.”
“Are you her? DO tell me you are. Oh, it’d be delicious that I stumbled across the Doctor’s most super-powered contraband Companion.”
There’s something undeniably charismatic about the Master’s voice, something terribly charming about his comportment and his convivially intrigued face.
Icarus 