“ … 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.
“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.”
“What possible travesty could bring you to SAY that? You know, Doctor, you can’t muck about anymore throwing yourself in front of buses and cars and sundry catastrophes for some ‘greater good’ when there are people who love you whose lives you would SHATTER if death claimed you. No, NO. I’M talking now, it’s MY turn! You’re bloody SELF-ABSORBED when you think like that!”
The Doctor’s jaw clenched tight when his response came. It both was and wasn’t what she expected in return but none the less on he spoke. She refused to look at him for the first half of his little speech, half curled in on herself. Sure the body was new but the soul within was old and weary, beaten down by endless years of suffering. The Doctor had seen so many of her friends, her family, slain and she was forced to move on. So no, death no longer was frightening when death has taken all you love time and again.
Whipping her head around she scoffed, unable to keep tight lipped forever, especially not with him. “Wha’ possible travesty? Really? Are you that thick Koschei? Look. Jus’ because I’m not scared of it, doesn’t mean I’m gonna go off and chuck myself into deaths arms with no regard for anyone else. Aside from you, who or what exactly would miss me? The apes and their planet that can’t EVER stop getting itself into trouble? They’d miss their advantage, not the strange alien.”
“ … Does sadness really blind you so much?”
He scrubs hands down his face, and resists the urge to seize her into an airtight embrace; it would seem forceful, controlling, and not comforting. It’s begun to rain around them, and despite his vexation, he strips of his black jacket at once and drapes it over her head and shoulders, while he stands sopping in the torrential downpour.
“Follow your OWN wisdom here! How many times have you told me, ‘Koschei, it’s not the BIG things, it’s the SMALL INCREMENTS’ … AGH. When you save a life, just because you don’t see –! Crikey. I can’t believe I’m saying this … I could! I could manipulate you here and now against them, could say, ‘yeah, WOW, yeah, Doctor, those earth apes, they dont appreciate you, time to dump them and focus SOLELY on me!’ God, my life would be made, but it wouldn’t WORK, it wouldn’t … it wouldn’t work, because you would be miserable and I … I LOVE you, I can’t … be happy if you’re not, so, bloody hell, LISTEN. When you save a live, just because you don’t see an instant ripple effect, doesn’t mean you haven’t done lasting good.”
He fingers the collar of his jacket, then, tugging her close, toward dryness and warmth.
“I’m not …! I’m not the only one who loves you. Who would miss you. I’d love to say I am, so I could monopolize you, but Doctor, it would be a lie. You are so adored by so many people in so many eras and so many sections of this galaxy, let alone this universe. They are small and stupid and self-absorbed and they never learn from their mistakes but that’s no measure of your worth. It never was. Small everyday efforts. You put good things into the universe, you just …”
His hands form into claws and he rests his forehead on top of hers. He closes his eyes as the deluge grows louder. And then, with epiphany, they snap open.
“Okay. Okay. A human. I’ve been reading oop on human ethics, and… for you. For you. And there’s this Jewish Rabbi. Rabbi Tarfon. He says, ‘It is not you responsibility to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.’ You know? You get … what I’m saying, yeah?”
Icarus 