“If I told you ‘nothing,’ honest as it may be, you wouldn’t believe me, so I think I shall enjoy sitting here on your jumpseat grinning at you, and letting you progressively spiral into a panic.”
He’s stepped out of his TARDIS, currently, flirtatiously, in a shape mirroring the Doctor’s police call box, only red rather than blue. All the necessary components for maintenance and merging remain behind in his own console room. For now, he’s striding across the turf between the pair of time machines, holding a bouquet of bright orange zinnias, and a new plush teddy bear sporting a little yellow bow, for his girls.
The Master chuckles at the Doctor’s appearance of feral glee. He licks a palm and smooths down her blond cowlick, with an indulgent smirk.
“What surprise?” he demurs.
Her grin stretches from ear to ear, so wide that she feels as if she might crack in two from sheer joy. He likes it! And more than that, he understands the gravity of what she was trying so hard to convey. Her mind reaches out to his, having missed his telepathic touch almost as much as she missed his hand wrapped around hers.
I’ve always remembered, even when it seemed I didn’t. Even when I let the universe blind me to it. I’ve always remembered you and I and what that meant to me…
Even Zinnia has gone quiet, their ever perceptive child, clever beyond her age. She can sense the quiet intensity of the moment between her parents, but to her, it simply feels like home and happiness. She has known nothing else, and it is the Doctor’s eternal goal to keep it that way. Domestic as it is, as much as past selves might have cringed, the Doctor has never been happier or more fulfilled. After centuries of running, she’s finally come home.
“I love you, Koschei.”
Her voice is soft and warm as a ray of sun, and she squeezes his hand tightly, pulling herself up onto her toes to kiss his cheek.
“Welcome home.”
Even when I let the UNIVERSE blind me, she says.
God, the implication within that statement! That the UNIVERSE, with all its bounties, wonders, varieties and adventures, was a sand grain, a distraction, compared to HIM.
The thought inspires a great rarity in Koschei: tears. He ducks his head, and shakes it.
“You sentimental fool,” he quietly gasps, and laughs wetly. “So. You’re not so different from me, after all. Owning the universe, that’s nothing to me, as seeing it is nothing to you, when I could have you.”
He won’t let her get away so easily; he pulls her against him, savoring the soft sumptuous feel of her little body, savoring just once being the taller, the bigger, of the pair.
“I’ve been home since you took me back. This is just the icing on the cake, Goose.”
He draws his laser screwdriver and dislodges the switchblade component. Fancy fingerwork boasted, he twirls it in his fingers and reaches up to shear off a strand of silver-blond hair, of moderate length.
He knots it into a small circle and slips it around the Doctor’s left ring finger.
“You said you wanted to marry him. Here he is. Marry me today.”
Each insult is more ridiculous than the last and the Doctor is absolutely gleeful to hear each one. His smile only grows wider and wider as the Master pulls back and litters his face with loud, wet kisses. What was blissful happiness is now boisterous joy, and he grabs Koschei’s hands, nearly hopping in place with excitement.
“I’ve got the perfect place! Ha! I know exactly where we should go, a blissfully married couple as we are. As best friends and husbands and lovers and–!”
He stops, stares down at the Master with wide eyes, as if he’s just realized something of vital importance.
“We did it! Can you believe it!? Look out there, where it all started, is it just me or does it not seem quite so frightening now? Because you’re here and you’re MINE and… HA! Alright, hearts. Alright, you mad silly bastard. I’ve got the perfect place for us. Hang on to your hat!”
The Doctor closed the doors behind them and dragged Koschei to the console. He flew around it with wild abandon, grinning ear to ear as he types in coordinates and pulls levers and presses buttons.
“Think edge of the universe. A time before our people became known across creation. Quite literally a pleasure planet. A bit touristy, maybe, but before it gets really popular. But let me tell you… when the third sun goes down over the horizon, there is nothing like that starscape. You can see things for lightyears. Artificial atmosphere magnifies and enhances the view. You’re gonna love it, Kosch. It’s gorgeous.”
The Master leans in the TARDIS doorway, watching his husband animated with more joyous energy than he has seen since their reconciliation. Ordinarily Theta Sigma’s enthusiasm infects him within milliseconds, but right now, Koschei savors the sight of GOOD that he has done simply by being in the presence of his most beloved person.
“I’M the ‘mad silly bastard,’ am I?” he chuckles.
He unwraps himself from where he stands, saunters over and places both hands on the Doctor’s cheeks, drawing him away from the knobs and levers long enough to stare into eyes as clear and bright as the day they met.
“I’m with you. Don’t you understand? I know. We’ve always gone nutters trying to impress each other. But you’re happy, and I did that. I’ll go to the edge of the universe with you. But you’ve already given me everything, idiot.”
“So what d’you want me to do, darling, boil some newt eyes in a cauldron and cackle? Nab us a black cat? A broomstick?”
It should be noted that the Master, though he conducted a crash course in human history and popular culture to pose as a Prime Minister, may be somewhat unfamiliar with this or that idiom.
“Eugh, probably because you can’t see or hear any of the back-stabbing sycophants who swarm us during daylight hours.”
The Master laces his arm around the Doctor’s waist and draws her close, sipping a glass of brandy. A long pause ensues. Then he clears his throat, uncharacteristically self-conscious, and places the drink on the balcony ledge.
“ … reminds me of that city on the Mondasian ship that I … well, it’s what the humans call karma, isn’t it? The guilt over my own past shit spoiling a perfectly romantic moment.”
the doctor nearly snorts into her wine, resting her head against his shoulder as she admires the city and the way the night has truly cast it into a beautiful scene, a stark contrast from the daylight hours – sometimes the light hits the buildings just right at sunrise or sunset and casts the entire city into red, almost staining it with blood. in the night, the stars reflect against shining surfaces and all is calm. the world is quiet.
when he speaks, she listens. she sets her glass next to his and pulls away from his side so she can untuck her legs from beneath her and face him on the cushioned balcony bench. her fingers find his.
“you can’t let the past define you still.” she says slowly, carefully, as if choosing her words with great care. “we both have things we regret, and the universe has made sure we remember.” there are nights she can’t sleep for the nightmares of her own misdeeds, the blood on her hands. “but you cannot let the guilt eat at you. it will destroy you, from the inside out. use it to shape your actions for the future instead. let it build for you.” a pause. “besides, everyone knows karma doesn’t exist. your life is what you make it, for the good or the bad.”
He’s particularly fond of those blood-red hours. They remind him that destructive power, chaos, have a place in the cosmos; that, indeed, they are agents of change and transition. Fire clears forests for new growth. So, too, can he.
As if reading his mind, his best friend takes his hands and pledges that he can see inroads to the future in his mistakes.
He catches her gaze and tilts his head to the left, a gesture that both implores and thanks.
“Yeah,” he supplies, and nothing more, raising her hands to his lips, to kiss them.
“ … Congratulations,” the Master retorts, aiming for bitter, and landing somewhere on the terrain of feisty: with a perceptible quiver in his tone.
“It’s been too long old friend.” The Doctor said as he approached. His converse squeak on the floor as he did so. “You know I cant let you do this. Right?”
“Do WHAT?”
The word ‘friend’ chafes visibly. The Master strives to conceal it with crisp enunciation and expansive gestures; it’s really very primitive, the urge to make oneself larger at sight of a threat. And what threat the Doctor poses is far more obscure, far subtler, than a gun or a poison. It’s the threat of vulnerability.
“Oh, right. I suppose you’ve no notion of where I’ve been. You’re still a young face. The one who almost had me. The one I MISS.”
He thrusts that last word like a gauntlet, wondering if he’ll ever have the fortitude to tell this young, eager, simperingly apologetic martyr of a Doctor what happened after he stumbled into the Timelock with the intent to murder Rassilon. Does the Doctor even notice the silver in his hair now? The new wrinkles? The more bitterly fermented weariness?
“We are a long way from that Christmas when I made the entire earth into my image, my dear. In your future, I will be thwarted still more profoundly, but not by your hand. No. By my own: in another face.”
By the only person I EVER trusted, after you LEFT me. Oh, Missy.
“I scarcely have the strength to live, much less concoct a scheme to conquer the universe. I’ve lost my touch, darling. So you can relax, and go.”
Damn that porcupine hair; damn those soft dark eyes; damn those squeaky shoes. Damn him whom he loves.
“Okay” It would appear that he had encountered a much later incarnation of is old friend. He was not expecting this response. Come to mention it he did look older than he did before he took on Rassilon.
He missed him in away. Sure he was evil and mentally unstable but they had been through so much together over the ages. He loved him but he seemed to be a shell of his former self.
“Tell me everything”
“To what end?”
The Master balks, though his poisonous edge has dulled. Now his hesitation is borne of wounded vulnerability, more than it is rage. His nostrils flare as he draws temper-steadying breaths.
“Don’t mistake me. I only ask because at this stage of your … development … as … as you, the options you tend to offer me are open battle or surrender and imprisonment, and very little in between.”
He draws his laser, lifts it high, and activates the safety lock.
“Tell me how you hope to walk away from this conversation. What you hope to gain. And if I’m reassured, I’ll give you my weapon.”
Icarus 