The Master laughs; it starts quiet and becomes a singularly diabolical rumble. Despite how wicked it sounds, he holds no ill intent, only deep amusement.
“I know you’re legendary for drinking others under the table, Thunder God, but you do realize, don’t you, that without ginger, a Time Lord’s body metabolizes alcohol indefinitely? If this is a competition, you will literally die before I’m even inebriated.”
Of course it’s not a competition, but trust the Master to make such a brazen assumption.
“ … hey. Hey, you’re the best person I’ve ever met, too.”
Granted, there’s the scrambling of jealous insecurity fueling his words, but also, far purer, the desire to reassure the Doctor that someone who’s known her longer than a handful of days agrees with Yasmin Khan’s evaluation.
“I know coming from me that’ll sound like a joke, given what I’ve put you through in the past. But I was … directionlessly angry. And frankly, that anger, it wasn’t wrong. But how I carried it. How I used it. That was.”
A shift of weight, a shuddering, dogged sigh.
“What I mean to say is you deserve happiness. You deserve … you know. To be admired. And treasured.”
God knows I did, do. God knows the sight of you puts me in secret raptures. God knows I’m infatuated and always will be.
“ … hey. Hey, you’re the best person I’ve ever met, too.”
Granted, there’s the scrambling of jealous insecurity fueling his words, but also, far purer, the desire to reassure the Doctor that someone who’s known her longer than a handful of days agrees with Yasmin Khan’s evaluation.
“I know coming from me that’ll sound like a joke, given what I’ve put you through in the past. But I was … directionlessly angry. And frankly, that anger, it wasn’t wrong. But how I carried it. How I used it. That was.”
A shift of weight, a shuddering, dogged sigh.
“What I mean to say is you deserve happiness. You deserve … you know. To be admired. And treasured.”
God knows I did, do. God knows the sight of you puts me in secret raptures. God knows I’m infatuated and always will be.
He’s keeping his hands busy, running maintenance checks for the fifth or sixth time that were fine by the first or second; for his whole existence he’s prided himself on his impermeability, his capacity to be self-sufficient, to need no one. Expressing that in reality, he feels everyone and everything intensely, never has a thought or feeling of his own that he doesn’t suspect comes from outside himself, is humiliating.
When she approaches him, and talks to him, with her habitual enthusiasm and joy, he can’t help but smile at her with all the wry wisdom of someone who has studied the same single subject, in this case, a person, for every day in conscious memory, and finds, without a doubt, that he does not measure up in worth to that subject, but will go on loving and admiring it anyway.
When she’s done reassuring him, when she’s kissed him, he doesn’t answer directly. He only continues tightening valves and grinding gears, quiet and companionable, and then he quotes Antoine de Sainte-Exupery,
“ ‘You—you alone will have the stars as no one else has them…In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…You—only you—will have stars that can laugh.’ ”
A pause and a rueful smile.
There is every reason to be sad, because he will never, ever, ever measure up to the woman he loves, or any of her revolving door of incredible, beautiful, dynamic friends. To say this, however, is to admit defeat, and he is terrible at admitting defeat, always has been. It would also entrap her in guilt and worry. So instead, the poetry of love, reassuring her that his devotion to her has not changed.
Oh, but he’s a pathetic, needy thing, isn’t he?
You become responsible forever for what you have tamed.
He’s keeping his hands busy, running maintenance checks for the fifth or sixth time that were fine by the first or second; for his whole existence he’s prided himself on his impermeability, his capacity to be self-sufficient, to need no one. Expressing that in reality, he feels everyone and everything intensely, never has a thought or feeling of his own that he doesn’t suspect comes from outside himself, is humiliating.
When she approaches him, and talks to him, with her habitual enthusiasm and joy, he can’t help but smile at her with all the wry wisdom of someone who has studied the same single subject, in this case, a person, for every day in conscious memory, and finds, without a doubt, that he does not measure up in worth to that subject, but will go on loving and admiring it anyway.
When she’s done reassuring him, when she’s kissed him, he doesn’t answer directly. He only continues tightening valves and grinding gears, quiet and companionable, and then he quotes Antoine de Sainte-Exupery,
“ ‘You—you alone will have the stars as no one else has them…In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night…You—only you—will have stars that can laugh.’ ”
A pause and a rueful smile.
There is every reason to be sad, because he will never, ever, ever measure up to the woman he loves, or any of her revolving door of incredible, beautiful, dynamic friends. To say this, however, is to admit defeat, and he is terrible at admitting defeat, always has been. It would also entrap her in guilt and worry. So instead, the poetry of love, reassuring her that his devotion to her has not changed.
Oh, but he’s a pathetic, needy thing, isn’t he?
You become responsible forever for what you have tamed.
The Master’s not surprised by the Doctor’s joyful onslaught; he is still thrilled, and his eyes still crinkle in the corners, and his stomach still flurries, and his hearts still dance hopscotch, and his cheeks still burn.
He is so in love, and so very aware that while for her there are many, ever-increasing, numbers of loved ones, because she is wonderful, she is light and innovation and curiosity and compassion, but for him there is only her, and there will only ever be her, and it’s a terrible tragedy in its own way, yet he can’t even bring himself to be sad when she’s kissing him, and smiling at him, and declaring her affection.
“To me,” he murmurs, soft, prayerful, worshiping her with the words of The Little Prince, “you will be unique in all the world.”
Had the Master a farthing for every time a British citizen approached him with this question, he would be richer than Jeff Bezos, and possibly, God.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Can’t imagine why.”
Thank the stars for this bloody beard.
However, he doubles back round to consider, they’re both currently in the Doctor’s TARDIS, and she’s already introduced him as “her oldest friend.” Very little to lose.
“So! Who’d you vote for in the last generals?”
He waits. Patiently.
“Oh, I don’t really want to talk about that, mate. Politics and polite conversation, they don’t mix.” That was how they knew this bloke was from Earth. Money and politics weren’t topics for discussion, that was what Graham’s mum had always said. It just wasn’t polite – and it was especially impolite to actually ask who somebody actually voted for.
“You’re not from the TV, are you? Do they let aliens on the television now?”
The Master’s head lulls back. He snorts a luxurious laugh, flashing beatifically straight white teeth, and wheezes a weary version of his ordinarily obnoxious laugh.
“You have no idea,” he sighs, and then, looking Graham square in the eye, relents, “I’m Harold Saxon.”
His expression is wan. He awaits either complete horror, or the rugged disinterest common to many Northerners well after the fact of MP appointments.
“You do look awfully familiar, you know. Anyone ever tell you that?”
Had the Master a farthing for every time a British citizen approached him with this question, he would be richer than Jeff Bezos, and possibly, God.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Can’t imagine why.”
Thank the stars for this bloody beard.
However, he doubles back round to consider, they’re both currently in the Doctor’s TARDIS, and she’s already introduced him as “her oldest friend.” Very little to lose.
“Oho. Thor, darling, are you certain of that? I’m a self-avowed narcissist, and I fully live up to my daily quota of attention-whoredom. I have literally committed mass homicide before, and though the carnage was reversed, I did it to punish and garner the attention of one person.”
Icarus 