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The Master, addled by time and vortex and the devastating closeness to reality, speaks closer to the truth than he ever usually allows himself.
“You are,” he tells the Doctor, “the most beautiful being in all existence, I hope you realize.”
The Doctor laughs. He does not believe the Master, nor wholly understand his meaning. Desperation burns in the Master’s brain like a parasite, bubbles in his mechanical chest like a bad fan, like a virus, like a lag.
“You are,” he says, more emphatically, “the only thing that matters in all the universe.”
That isn’t quite true. What he means is, you are the being that adds nuance to my life. What he means is, when I am lost, you are the beacon of light that guides the way forward. What he means is, I am bigger than my mechanical frame allows me, more than my mainframes and processors will allow, and still, somehow, you make me feel small. What he means is, I love you, and those words aren’t enough. What he means is, look at me, please, like I find myself looking at you, like it is impossible to look away, like the shape of your profile dictates the very rhythm of my imagined heartsbeat, like the barest glance of your gaze and the slightest brush of your eyelids flutter would shatter my world—and it would.
The Doctor shakes his head. He glances at the Master with eyes that are nearly too pale to be blue, and he says, “I know.”
It’s not enough, but the Master knows fully well what the Doctor means, nonetheless. He hears the words, and he makes them enough.
He stands, straight-backed and proud, and makes himself half as grand as he dreams of being, to be worthy. He hopes the Doctor will count the inches of his height, the vertebrae in his spine.
He hopes, beyond hope, to be enough. The Doctor smiles—and that, if not himself, will have to be enough, for now.