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…and it’s just like they’re kids again; making riddles for each other, exchanging ‘special codes’ only the two of them can understand, waiting impatiently, wondering when she’ll finally solve it, wondering if she even will, thinking that maybe she’ll finally give up this time. She doesn’t. Of course, she doesn’t. She never gives up. None of them do. Giving up is against their rules.
They do fail sometimes, though.
The Doctor, for example. Oh, she definitely fails the moment she trusts him, the nice, friendly ‘O’. The Master watches her walking around his house — his TARDIS — and hardly believes his own eyes.
It’s just like they’re kids again. He shows off his tech, shares everything he knows (‘Human disappearances, sightings of unidentified objects, mysterious beings, possible alien incursions going back centuries, ’ — he lists, barely managing to hide the impression of pride on his face when she turns around) and keeps looking at her, waiting for her reaction. And then, then they are surrounded, back-to-back, working together, listening to each other — ‘retreat’, ‘find the blueprints’, ‘re-route the charge’ — and there’s no usual bickering, just the harmony of fighting side by side he never expected to feel again. And it’s so natural. It feels like they’ve been doing this for ages.
The Master lets her in his TARDIS, and the Doctor lets him in hers. And while the ship spins across space and time, he watches her spinning ‘round the console panel lit in golden light, pressing buttons and pulling the livers and chattering about something — his mind can’t quite register exactly what she’s saying — and everything around her is just a mix of blue and gold, just like stars in the distant depths of space, and… And he feels something else apart from the joy of outsmarting the Doctor. He feels… another sort of joy.
The joy of pretending all of this is real.
The way they’re travelling together again. The way they spend ridiculous amount of time trying to find the wardrobe ‘somewhere downstairs’ because her TARDIS obviously thinks it’s hilarious to make the Doctor look for her clothes for way too long, which is a usual thing, too. The way the Doctor pats his shoulder, points at the bowtie he’s just picked and happily announces she finally has somebody who’s got a sense of style on board.
He shouldn’t feel happy about any of this. He shouldn’t feel happy about anything else other than the fact that he’s winning.
But that’s the sort weakness he allows himself to have. Just this once.
She’s just the same. Winding people around her little finger, fooling around during serious missions, running a lot. Being next to her feels just the same too. Breathtaking. All you need to do is to run fast enough to keep up. Which he doesn’t. He quite literally doesn’t, falling behind and almost failing his plan, but then she grabs his hand and pulls him on the plane just the moment before it takes off.
She’s so stupid, he thinks.
Astonishingly stupid.
Astonishing.
Ah, he finally finds the right word.
The Master keeps looking at her, wondering why he came back. He’d destroyed their home on Gallifrey and got rid of everything that could possibly remind him of it, and then he came back… here. Where his last reminder about home is chattering happily about the stupid bowtie and instantly pulls him into another adventure. He tries to convince himself he came here to get rid of her too.
But next to her is where he feels at home, feels like they’re kids again, like they’re back to those times when there were no lies, no war, — nothing but the two of them and the giant wonderful universe.
And, in fact, he’s almost happy to hear she survives.