“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.”
“ … 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.”
“ … 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.
Icarus 