“What sacrilege. Would you ask a mother to choose one of her favorite children?”
The Master pauses.
“I suppose you can’t go wrong with Tinky-Winky.”
Please let it sink in that the most dangerous Time Lord ever to exist, shy perhaps of Omega himself, said the words “Tinky-Winky” out loud, without humor or irony.
“Because if they DO know the Doctor and they take it back to the Doctor, saying, for instance, ‘oi, Doctor, a fiendishly handsome person with magnetic charisma and charm asked for you by name,’ then the Doctor will be tipped off, and my dramatic evil self-reveal will be spoiled.”
“You know, that’s a fair question, really, because the dullness satisfies the sadist in me, as it exerts maximum pain per slice, but I’m afraid the pragmatist in me realizes it’s also terribly messy, and inefficient, compared to, say, a surgical blade, or to a gun or, my favorite, a laser.”
A million potential verbalizations of the Master’s abject shock flurry through his mind like a cognitive blizzard. He grasps the side of his chair, and sits down.
And stands.
And looks around.
And sits again.
“That’s. Highly. Significant! Well done! In the. Womb department! Does your father know? Shall I fetch the, ah, defibrillator now? You know, preemptively?”
Kelsey eyed the man in front of her with a glint of fear in her pupils. She didn’t expect him inside the TARDIS, she was expecting her friend, her teacher, her mother figure. It was shocking to her, as her eyes then darted behind him to see nobody else in the console room.
“I’m sorry- I was expecting the Doctor,” the blonde teenager quickly blurted out before placing a gentle hand on the TARDIS’ door. That ship was like a mother too- a very energetic mother. Wait- no. That was also the Doctor.
“Do..you know where she might be? And I thought only she could fly the TARDIS, except if there was another Time Lord. But you a-….Are you?”
“Oh, don’t tell me my oldest friend has yet again neglected to introduce me to her various copilots and … . cohorts and … companions and …”
The Master, five feet, nine inches of quixotic will incarnate, saunters around the console and flings up his hands in feigned surrender.
“Well, I’ve rather run out of terms for ‘mate’ beginning with c, so … what might you be again? Her illegitimate child, maybe? Not to put too indelicate a point on it, but you’re what, sixteen years old? Oh, anyroad. If she says you’re oop for the task of traveling with us, fine. I’m the Master. Basically, no one’s known the Doctor longer than me. Call me Koschei. Everyone finds it less abrasive these days.”
He strikes out a hand, and kisses the girl’s knuckles, debonair to a fault.
“The tired isn’t something that can be fixed with a seat, mate,” Graham replied with a sad chuckle. But yes, he was tired; he had been ever since Grace had died. God… That made him a widower, didn’t it? That hadn’t occurred to him before.
Still, he took the seat on the bus. It was being offered so nicely that it seemed rude to decline. “Thanks,” Graham said. “I used to drive one of these, you know. Maybe my body’s just used to sitting down on one.”
“ … .”
At length, the Master smiles wistfully. He examines the Sheffield horizon; so ordinary, so unremarkable, this planet full of one-hearted apes. Yet the longer he spends in a kind of ethical rehab alongside his oldest friend, the more she manages to hone his skill at seeing poignant beauty through rubbish.
Iridescence in oil-drained water. The vibrant red of a plastic ribbon tied to a dead sapling in a neglected park. The light on urban gravel, or against the broken windows of old factories.
The network of battle-weary wrinkles on the face of a widower.
He sits beside Graham, allowing the retiree the window seat. Life on Britain’s political fast-track made him exceptionally skilled at earning the trust of the masses. But right now he’s not trying to manipulate. Not in that sort of way, anyway.
The Doctor told him about all her new friends: with breathless awe, and a joy he’s not seen her sport since well before he acquired this face. Since childhood, perhaps. And as she catalogued their various tribulations, the Master made a tacit, silent vow to do his utmost as a source of nourishment to each one. For the first time, with hideously rusty “good guy” skills. But hey, start somewhere.
“I’ve been basically married to the same person since we were eight years old.”
He catches Graham’s eye.
“You met her. Five foot six. Blonde. Talks a mile a minute about forty disparate subjects. Yorkshire accent. Committed to meddling and occasionally helping. Yeah, her. Since she was a little boy … ehr, sorry, that’s an … alien thing. We don’t. Do gender like you lot. Anyroad, if I were, ah. Where you are right now, I doubt I’d be doing so well. Despite my tendency to claim I’m invincible. Cheers. You might just be braver than you think.”
Icarus 