FIXED! He did it! He bluffed having ANY sort of medical expertise, and he fixed his stepchild’s shoulder! Why, this is the most glorious day in the Master’s life! He could become a bloodyparamedic! He could do ANYTHING he set his mind to!
He–!
Oh.
“Oh, golly. Yeah, sorry about that. Anesthesia, right.”
He scurries to draw a syringe full of aspirin-free painkiller, which he injects into Ophelia’s vein.
“Er, that’ll take the edge off.”
Ophelia watched his expression change and couldn’t help but smirk through the pain. “Now you’ve realized it. Bit too late. That’s suppose to go before you do the painful bit.”
The girl winced as the needle was put in her vein, glancing away until it was gone.
“You know… we don’t have to tell Dad about this. We can just say I just walked into a door or something. I don’t want you getting in trouble because I’m not coordinated.”
“Oh, right, SURE, brilliant scheme, and then later he’ll find out because on a good day he’s cleverer than either of us, and then it’ll compound his grouchiness tenfold that we kept a secret!”
Though the Master is indubitably terrifying, but right now he comes across as a fussy fishmonger’s wife. He pushes gently on Ophelia’s chest.
He pulls one of Zinnia’s blankets, left behind in this particular workshop, off the bench and dons it as a kind of talisman of protection from his own ailment. He drags himself, and the blanket, to the laboratory door. He sits on the floor and coughs violently into the back of his hand.
Tonight he feels inert with the futility of his smallness.
Tonight he can’t shake off the ghosts.
Tonight he can’t stop the stomachache.
Tonight his faults are loud as klaxons.
Tonight he sits at the edge of his bed and stares at his hands and wonders why he bothers to do anything but smash things together and kill.
She can feel his sorrow, the knot in his stomach identical to the one in hers. She can hear the whispers of the ghosts in his mind, taunting him with past mistakes and blood on his hands. She understands the thoughts he is harboring, likely better than anyone else, yet it is her job to help him let them go.
The Doctor walks quietly into their bedroom, a place that has become a haven of comfort and love. A place of laughter and affection and memories that might just be loud enough to drown out the lies his own mind is fueling.
Crawling on all fours onto the bed, she settles behind him, wrapping her legs around his waist and hugging his back like a koala. She presses a kiss to the back of his neck and holds her hands over his hearts, nuzzling closer and letting her mind seep into his like a cool, calming breeze.
“I know, hearts. I know, my dearest friend. My Kookaburra, my husband. But listen to me, listen and take my words to heart. You are so much more than the destruction in your past. You are so much more than a weapon, so much more than what they made you to be. You are a MIRACLE, a creator, a force of nature like the most beautiful storm. You helped create our daughter, you create such joy in our lives, such happiness. You are kind and loving and protective. You are my strength. You are so much more than smashing things and killing. You’ve moved beyond that and I am so proud of you, Koschei.
“You’re allowed to hurt, you’re allowed to ache, but I pray you don’t lose sight of the truth we’ve created together. I love you, Koschei. Master of my hearts.
I love you and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do if it made you see yourself through my eyes.”
Thawing him takes very little time once she’s present. Koschei takes his Theta’s right hand, and places his palm on her left leg. He fondles her calf and kisses her knuckles. The distant look caught halfway between nauseated rage and grief ebbs.
He exhales and leans back into her. He turns his head and catches her eye with a knowing look, a look of affectionate reprimand, how dare you know me so well, how dare you ruin my mope so quickly and skillfully?
He manages a grunt of laughter even then.
“You make me feel it’s all worth it. So easily.”
And then he’s smiling.
“Saved the day again, Doctor.”
He uses her title with the fullest understanding of its literal and ironic connotations, loaded with respect for the crisis of identity she’s long undertaken.
Sometimes he thinks maybe her entire life has been a desperate attempt at recompense for leaving him. The thought both breaks and warms him; it makes such blissful sense that he would reassure her, soothe her, by dedicating himself to being better.
“Hhhhah. Are we really a separate person, she and I? Are you quite sure?”
The Master removes his outer coat, the black hole hued one lined in blood red. He removes it ritually, ceremonially. Beneath it is a charcoal gray button-up, which he loosens down to the collarbones. He rolls up his sleeves, and then, thusly vulnerable and free, he continues speaking.
“She is … my wife. Mother of my child. My best friend. My oldest friend. My first friend. My friend, more than anything else. That may not seem particularly important to someone with a plenitude of acquaintances. But you see, where I come from, nobody could stand me until the Doctor met me. I was shy, and frail, and too sensitive. I was too eager to cling to others, particularly in the physical sense. I was too dependent. Then I met someone who not only valued my opinion, but enjoyed my company. Someone who taught me that connections were not only encouraged, but also safe. I suppose that’s when it began. The bonding that’s … I think, a fusion at the molecular level, at this point. Deeper still, even.
“The Doctor’s Thirteenth Face has circled back to that point in time when we met. When we were boys, and happy. Happier than we ever were thereafter, save in fugitive, fleeting moments. I can’t explain it to you, only that something about what she has just been through, in her Twelfth face, and what I have foreseen of my next face, has placed us in the … the unique position, to compromise for each other. She is the boy I met, only with the advantage of hindsight, and experience, and wisdom. We are both contrite, and it has broken the constant loop of misunderstanding.
“I don’t think I can articulate to you, what it does to me, when she smiles, and I’m the cause. It’s exultant. I feel as if the immortality I’ve connived and killed for is mine without an ounce of effort. I want to take her and squeeze her and burrow her into my marrow, I hate ANY distance between us, though I tolerate it, if it means I can stand back and watch that joy unfold from a front-row seat. I am wrapped around her moods and humors. I … I orbit her. Always did, it’s just I don’t care to pretend I don’t anymore. We know each other better than we know ourselves. No one can make her happy like I can. I know it. She’s told me, and I believe her. I believe anything she says, she’s never given me reason to doubt her. And I’ve. I’ve never felt so free, to exist without …without posturing. Of any kind. You know, the other day I wore an old sloppy gray jumper the whole day and all I accomplished was giving our daughter a bath and I felt completely fulfilled. It’s so strange.
“I want our daughter to grow up free of the pressures that were exerted upon us on Gallifrey. I want her to know it’s not shameful to touch and hold the person you love. It’s not shameful to feel biases and emotions. It’s not shameful to have self-serving wishes and passions, to care about your own welfare, independent of your family line and your legacy. But I don’t want her to become me, someone who … . who overcompensated for centuries by being a … despot and a lunatic . . I … I want her to make her own decisions, but not forced, not to prove something to her enemies, and not … not bloody WORRY about being ‘good enough.’ My God, I. I’ve perverted my own mind and will so long toward the goal of being … unforgettable, cheating, conquering death and obscurity, and it’s made me miserable. I don’t want that for her. I think only Theta can help me secure that future for our girl.”
As the moon kindles the night As the wind kindles the fire As the rain fills every ocean And the Sun the Earth So your heart will kindle my heart Take my heart Take my heart Kindle it with your heart And my heart cannot be Kindled without you Your heart will kindle my heart
The Master watches his wife with an expression of astonishment as she transparently hoards him, steering him away from the woman ogling his shirtless form at the shaved ice stand. He doesn’t stop her from seizing about thirty napkins–about which he’d been asking aid in locating–and dragging him back to their beach towel.
He sits down beside her steaming form wordlessly.
His gobsmacked expression slowly melts and is replaced by the wickedest grin.
“ … . Well, WELL. What a MARVELOUS role reversal.”
“Oh, do shut up.”
She wipes her hands of the sticky blue syrup and lobs the crumpled napkin at Koschei’s smug little face.
“You totally knew she was flirting with you, didn’t you?? Oh, you TRAMP! You were just trying to make me jealous!”
The Doctor throws herself at him with a wild squeal and tickles his sides as she pins him down. Truth be told, the woman at the shaved ice stand has been forgotten already. She peppers Koschei’s face with little kisses and hovers over him.
“You’re a complete arse, Koschei. You’ll pay for that later, I hope you know.”
His laughter is riotous, blissful, unhindered. It’s the very sound of a woman taking off a corset after a long day and rubbing the indentations on her skin. It’s the sound of pressure released, a lifetime of pressure, crushing and mad, with the exonerating love of a best friend.
He holds up his hands, begging for mercy, tears sliding down the corners of his eyes, down the sides of his fat flushed cheeks.
He looks absurdly cherubic; it’s precisely what used to make him so dangerous.
“If this is payment, I’ll gladly go bankrupt,” he softly wails.
The Doctor snorts and kisses him once more firmly on the lips before rolling off him. In the mere moments her parents were distracted, Zinnia has managed to smear sticky sweet red syrup all over her hands and face, squealing proudly as her mummy turns around to see what she’d done.
“Ooh, look! Look at my colorful little girl, just as sweet as sugar!”
She laughs and kisses her daughter’s face loudly, kissing the sugar syrup right off her.
“She’s just as impossible as you are.”
The Doctor’s words are pointed and playful at her husband, but each syllable is filled with such adoration and happiness, there’s no chance to even imagine that she’s still upset.
“Come on, you two. Let’s go take a swim. Can rinse off all the stickiness while we’re at it, hm? Kosch, I know you won’t want to miss Zinny’s first time in the ocean!”
“JUST AS! Right, my own daughter, threatening my nefarious reputation!”
The Monster of Gallifrey stands and snatches up a package of wet wipes, opening them–ever the pragmatist between the two adults–to clean off wife and daughter’s cheeks and fingers, and honk both their noses.
“I shall have to don black and white stripes and rob a bank, or conquer a small moon, to regain my brand.”
He tosses the wipes in the rubbish bin, then pivots 180 degrees and straight toward the wardrobe.
“Swim trunks it is!” he thunders.
Moments later, as soon as the TARDIS materializes on an obliging beach, Koschei flings open the door, clad in black trunks with a single red stripe down each leg. He points a finger intrepidly at the shore, heavily sunscreened baby tucked across his other arm. “TO THE WATER, ZINNY!” he roars.
@julielilac for this photoset I elect you president of the galaxy.
Opehlia had a bit of free time as her father was busy tinkering in the console, so the girl decided to finally explore the bigger on the inside box. It was much bigger than she anticipated, and not expecting for her to get turned around as easily as she did.
She sighed, trying to remember exactly where she took the wrong turn and how to at least get back to somewhere that looked familiar. Problem was, the hallways started to all look familiar.
Hearing something nearby, the young Gallifreyan ventured cautiously towards it before opening the door timidly. Poking her head inside, she was surprised to see another person. She didn’t realize anyone else would be on board but her and her father.
“Hello?” She asked, poking her head inside. “Sorry, I got lost and… you are?”
The Master is hard at work on deep-space armor fittings that can be donned at the molecular level. It’s legitimate nanotech, but the “large” parts require work using surgical instruments of immense precision.
So when Ophelia comes blithely bumbling into his sanctum sanctorum, he holds up one, free hand, with one index finger, sharply, while speaking in an ill-matched tone of supreme calm,
“Juuuuuuuust a moment, please. And then I’ll decide whether to study, welcome, or murder you.”
The laser tool he’s using bevels the accurate dimensions into the salt-grain sized component, and Koschei sits back from the mirrors, LED strobes, and laser nodule, lifting his goggles as the instruments power down.
He tidies his short-shorn pale hair into order, and focuses his sharp black eyes on his guest.
“ … AHHHH, it’s the prodigal daughter! Welcome to my workshop slash think tank slash laboratory, Miss Ophelia. I’m the Master, but family refers to me as Koschei. Or dad. Dad’d work. I’m your dad’s lifelong best mate, and we’re definitely, you know, involved, so you can think of me as your stepdad. Drink? Cocktail? Wait, bloody hell, are you of age?”
He’s loud, charming, warm and expansive, a touch intimidating, but his claws are fully retracted for this particular person.
“The sun isn’t bright just because I say it is. It just is. It was bright before I even knew the word for bright. I didn’t decide what it is, I just acknowledged what it is.”
She ducks her head, but glances up a moment later, a smile on her lips.
“You aren’t worth something just because I say you are. You just are. You were worth something before I even said anything. I didn’t decide that you are, I simply acknowledged that you are.
This is what I mean when I say you are worth it.”
“ … . are you really so selfless?”
The Master shifts weight where he stands, trying to convert restless emotional energy into kinesis. He rocks weight from one hip to the other, even bounces. Ultimately the attempt fails, and he growls, and then laughs, throwing his hands overhead, lacing his fingers at the nape of his neck.
“You would free me from all emotional obligation to you, just to ensure that I know my intrinsic value? KNOWING how long I’ve railed against you and every other damned Time Lord, railed against what the Untempered Schism showed me, against my own smallness, and EVERYONE’S?”
“Are you really so PERFECT for me …as I’d always believed? Yes, Doctor. My Theta, I know I could, theoretically, live without you. I know I could, theoretically, have merit, be worth something, worthy of love even, without you there to guide me. I need depend on no one. Theoretically. So thank you, Hearts.
But I’d rather see myself through your eyes anyway.”
Icarus 