DOCTOR WHO – THE WOMAN WHO FELL TO EARTH ⤷ Sonic screwdriver. Well, I say “screwdriver,” but it’s a bit more multipurpose than that. Scanner. Diagnostics. Tin opener. More of a sonic Swiss Army knife, only without the knife. Only idiots carry knives.
She steps up to him, taking his hands and bringing their faces together, rocking up on her tiptoes to rub their noses together. That’s the closest he’ll get to his request before she looks up at him with those impish hazel eyes, glittering with mischief and daring.
“Catch me first.”
Then she whirls around and takes off running.
He snatches for her the moment her expression shifts to that of a mischievous changeling.
“Don’t you d–!”
She eludes him anyway, fair hair tossing with her dash, and she’s sun skipping across water on a clear March morning, just as warm and just as terrifyingly intangible. That’s what he’s afraid of, but what can he do? Hoard her? What good will that do?
So he gives chase, and tries not to let it seem desperate, with his limp flaring up today, and his face that he knows is older than hers now, a brash male-presenting hasbeen. Seems such a short time ago he was Peter Pan, confidently cruel, clean-shaven and pleasantly sharp like a costly aftershave. But life happens, and despite the Doctor’s irrepressible outlook, life inevitably diminishes some people.
Still, catch him dead admitting a drop of this to her. When she’s this happy. When she’s this free.
He struggles out of his coat, taking advantage of her lack of coordination, and tosses it at her, grazing her retreated back.
“HA!” he pants. “It’s touch-tag! I GOT ya! I WIN!”
The Master’s voice carries a heavily spousal wryness.
The screwdriver in her hand sparks once more.
“…It’ll be fine.”
She has the good sense to turn around and run away, stupid grin on her face and sparking hazard still in her hand. Unfortunately, she hasn’t yet gotten used to having shorter legs, and doesn’t manage to run nearly as fast or as gracefully as she thinks she can.
He exhales and it turns into a snarl of incomprehensibly frustrated affection. He snatches a few levers, wrenches and assorted power tools into his arms and gives chase.
“Look, at LEAST let me run a few tests! Doctor! DOCTOR! I know you can hear me … Hearts, you look like a drunken baby giraffe, slow DOWN … ! I SEE you smiling, damn it!”
Imperiousness swift becomes desperation.
Sounds of the Master facepalming because he was the first person she ever said this to and exactly in that fashion and it’s familiar and it’s utterly cosmically unfair how lovable she is.
Icarus 