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A week into traveling with Clara leads the Master to several conclusions.
One, she is different from when they last met. Fundamentally the same, but no longer brimming with the uncertainty and ignorance that comes with such a short lifespan. Her steps are smoother, words less seeking for validation or to impress. Roaming the universe alone takes a grit and potency beyond what tagging alongside the Doctor offers. At second glance, she’s a far cry from the naivety displayed on Skaro.
Yet when he looks at her, he sees the opportunities to exploit. Nerves to brush against, exposed points to poke at or dig into. The insecurity of her youth faded with time, bolstering into confidence without so much of the fearful need to control. He notices it in her sometimes, when they take a wrong turn or something stumbles into their path and bares its teeth. A quick instinct to pull back or jump forward, whichever gives her the most power. For someone under the cool nonchalance and unassuming guise of just a traveler, she takes no hesitation in slipping into authority; it might have been irritating if it weren’t so interesting.
With this he realizes she won’t take kindly to resuming his past antagonism. How much fun he had teasing her, keeping her confused and unaware of where his loyalties lie. He can’t bring himself to feel any remorse over how their brief bout of teamwork ended, not when it led him here, welcomed onto her ship without any of the bad blood anticipated.
And here is still the most baffling truth. Clara wants him here. It’s the main reason he restrains himself from the tactics he’s so accustomed to in a partnership: manipulation, threats, power plays. If he asks her to do something within reason, she just… does it. Not because he forced her to, but because she likes him. Some twisted instinct, the one that notices all her vulnerabilities and flaws urges him to take advantage. Shift the balance in his favor; but when she grins at him or excitedly tugs him along into a new world, the impulse dies. Her presence is the warmest he’s experienced in centuries, and he isn’t inclined to give that up just yet.
So she looks up at him, leaned against the console with eyes still dazzling from their recent excursion. For a moment, he thinks she’s about to suggest another destination, somewhere else to get her kicks because she is so full of exuberance, honestly, the puppy metaphor worked pretty well. Then she settles back on her hands, shoulders relaxing.
“Mmmm, I’m exhausted,” she says, “I’m feeling a couple nights in. Unless you’ve other ideas,”
“You have a lot of energy for a millennial,” he admits, “denoting lifespan, not birth year. Though I suppose you’d fall into that as well,”
“I take that as a no,” she replies. “Unless… I don’t think I’ve given you an official tour,”
When he consented to more exciting endeavors, he didn’t expect the whirlwind of action and sensation she was about to pull him through. Whether that’s her normal existence or she intends to impress he’s not entirely sure. What he does glean is that whether alone or with company, she seems keen to keep a steady stream of just going—as if looking to distract more than anything.
So no, she didn’t leave much time to examine her ship. “Since you’re so tired, would you rather I explore alone?”
Clara pauses. “If that’s what you want, sure. She won’t let you get lost, so wander as you like. Tell her if you need me, I’m off for a bath—and you get some rest too, yeah?”
She lingers on the last bit, perhaps realizing she didn’t allot much solitary time over the past several days. Some hours on board for sleeping, and then back into the universe for breakfast and a brush-up with quarreling Vespiforms or misplaced broods of Adipose. Surprisingly, nothing overwhelmingly dangerous. Enough to semi-keep them on their toes, but hardly anything worth its own novel.
The Master has yet to see her insistence that they could walk away from a crisis come to fruition, but he keeps the promise tucked away, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Curiosity of whether she truly means it sits unfulfilled in the background, and though he doesn’t intend to outright manipulate her he does want to know where that line is. Get a fix on her ethical boundaries, how he might push them just enough to define it.
He lets her linger long enough to see it morph into hesitance, and then breaks the tension. “Enjoy,” he offers.
When he doesn’t continue, she gives a little nod. “You too,” and she narrows her eyes in one last look of scrutiny before pushing off the console and walking into the main hall.
Alone in the control room, he sighs. The mild culture shock of spending years in bitter isolation—free to anger and violent outbursts without repercussion—to living with someone else and not actively desiring to kill them. Clara’s certainly her own creature, not the clingy, annoying companion whose world revolved around the Doctor and nothing else. Ergh, just by association he’s glad he was dead for some of those.
Free from observation, he walks up to the console and slides his hands along the rim. The main room is, for lack of a better word, cozy. More organic and obviously human than a typical TARDIS. Bookshelves and sofas to lounge on, both contrasting and complementing the glowing circles along the walls and metal arches. The ship’s initial purple lighting faded into a softer yellow, proving herself both attuned to her guests and specifically welcoming in introduction. Welcoming to him, which is already an intriguing sign. He taps a pattern on the central board and the column flares up in response. So reactive to his presence, he barely knows what to make of it other than she seems as interested in him as he is in her.
“What are you seeing?” he asks. No reaction. “Alright. Show me around, then.”
Stepping away from the console, he exits the space and enters the hall. Lights flicker as he walks along the path, dimming and then brightening into a healthy glow. From what he’s seen so far, she isn’t nearly as difficult and labyrinthian as, ahem, some other ship that absolutely does hate him. His own TARDIS was rather neutral up until… Paris. And then the one he escaped with on Gallifrey was about as deranged as he was, broken and spiteful from the impact of the Death Particle. He did what he could to fix it, but it’s not an easy task when most of the required equipment could only be found on the desecrated remains of its original planet.
The Master wanders through the halls, sometimes trailing his fingers against the metal walls, then pausing at a door before moving on. Floor plans never stay constant in TARDISes with such personality, but he’s curious how deep she’ll let him go. A few minutes in and he feels far enough to get to something interesting. He pushes open the door to the left.
And finds… an indoor tennis court. Alright. Not much for sports this round, so he closes it and moves on.
Behind the next door he discovers a large cinema fit with recliners and a massive screen. Off to the side is a self-serve concession stand, complete with an old-timey popcorn maker and a beverage cooler.
“How often does she use this?” he muses, and receives what he interprets to be an amused hum. Closing the door, he walks further down.
The hallway curves, winding like a river to drift on. He doesn’t care to open everything, but certain things catch his attention. He moves up to a tinted glass panel, sliding it open to step inside.
A fresh breeze cools the air. Shaded glass filters artificial sunlight into the greenhouse, and it’s with genuine interest that he moves further over the concrete. Flowering plants hang down from baskets and vines twine around poles. Elaborate rows of shelving form a circle spiraling inwards, upon which a tree grows in the center. The flora isn’t only from Earth; some obligatory succulents on one patch, but most of it seems to be herbs from different planets and regions. Everything looks well-pruned, each plant deliberately attended to. The work of someone who undoubtedly cares—not the standard grooming of a TARDIS, unless she really enjoys gardening.
“I was more into mushrooms,” he tells the ship, briefly reflecting on his most recent time on Earth. For a moment, he wonders why he’s talking to her, but she’s obviously listening so he continues. “Gave that up in the seventies. You try to jump-start the mycoprotein revolution and the mycelia gain a consciousness. Ridiculous,”
The low frequency of the ship raises in pitch, and that’s definitely amusement. Her reactions are surprisingly gratifying—so unusually vocal. It’s an odd encouragement to continue exploring, and—conversing? Whatever this is.
With a final glance around the conservatory, the Master steps back into the stagnant, chilled air of the halls. After shutting the panel he spins around, unexpectedly renewed. The encroaching desire to sleep edges away—it’s been some days, he doesn’t need as much as Clara and it’s too difficult anyways. When she first led him to his room he passed out for hours, absolutely exhausted from weeks, months of batting away rest. Too much hidden in the dark, the recesses ready to surge up and ravage his dreams. On her TARDIS, after innumerable nights of haunted restlessness in his own, he slept and sank into nothing.
It was glorious. As he paces down the halls, he realizes that the ship must have meddled. No coaxing could have persuaded his to intervene, not that he ever considered it; but that slight telepathic buzz hovering around his mind would have had no trouble abating the subconscious fears and settling out the insomnia.
“Hmm,” he hums, “you’re not very subtle. Don’t know if I like you interfering.”
No change in pitch for that. Guilty? Contradicting? Not sure. Trying to discern the emotional response of a TARDIS feels mildly absurd, considering the early instillments of proper pilot-ship relationships at the Academy which was essentially… boring. Nothing interesting there. An intelligent vessel, not much more—wasted potential.
A door to the left catches his eye. Purple and gleaming, encrusted with little jewels. Almost tacky, but rather his style so he pushes on it and enters.
The walls, floor, and ceiling are pitch black, allowing for a contrast with the absolute abundance of color and sparkle. On pedestals and behind glass displays and towering in different arrays, gems and minerals of various sizes gleam under white lighting. Low platforms hold massive cracked geodes, quartz formations, and other structures.
It’s a very elaborate collection of precious stones and shiny things and while he has little love for geology, he does have a penchant for shiny things. Not in the extravagant, must-have-diamonds-and-gold boring rich people way, but rather like a distinguished crow that might have tripped museum alarms too many times to be healthy. Healthy for others, not him, because in this metaphor he’s also a crow with a tissue compression eliminator.
Walking further into the space, he peers into one of the glass displays. Common minerals and rarities alike and similar to the conservatory, a collection from both Earth and definitely not Earth; again he’s not a geologist but he’s been around enough planets with gem-based mythology to know that yellow Vivarius crystals aren’t actually cursed and Umlatian peryite doesn’t grant all-knowing wisdom, yes, even the opalescent shards. Lots of power grabs founded on the divine right of jewels. And in his younger days, a decent amount of them snatched for his own use before inevitable disillusionment.
Moral of the story, people love a pretty diamond and in the right conditions are foolish enough to believe the legends.
Aside from that, Clara’s collection is fairly impressive. He assumes she accumulated it over the years, likely with a little more deference than him. Walking up to a large, glittery crystal spike rising from the ground, he pauses and touches it for no real reason other than indulging an instinct. Mmm, he’s not so idiotic to go reaching around for any random substance he comes across—not in unfamiliar environments, anyways—but there’s something undeniably satisfying about ignoring past elders’ look, don’t touch rule that seems to be unfairly universal.
He slides his fingers down the crystal. “I bet she fancies herself quite the curator,” he says. “Show me what else she has.”
Her TARDIS seems suspiciously content with giving him a behind-the-scenes tour of all Clara’s little habits and interests. Without her presence, it feels a bit like rifling through her personal files or journals. Back in the hall, he opens a door to reveal a tiny library, small walls covered in books and a sunny window with covers and pillows on the wide sill. Other nooks scatter throughout the halls among the larger rooms.
As of yet there’s two kitchens: a homely yellow one with white wooden cabinets; and that of a professional restaurant, expansive and all stainless steel. There’s a dining room with an inordinately long table—suited for a banquet, but it looks largely unused. He swipes a trail of dust off the surface, and glances up.
“Making a point?” he asks, receiving an innocent whirr in response.
Obviously there’s an agenda here. How long did Clara say she’d been alone? Ten years? Since she landed on Gallifrey. Why didn’t she take up a companion? That’s oddly restrained of her, and with a contemplative hum, he walks back out.
Another door uncovers the dark clearing of a forest. Soft ferns and grass underfoot, thick trees forming a barrier from further exploration. In the blue of artificial night, leaves covering any potential stars above, the Master feels the pit he pushed aside at the beginning of this returning. He steps further inside, listening to sounds of owls and crickets.
There’s no denying the irony of living alone in an endlessly large spaceship. All these empty rooms, possibly untouched for decades. How many bedrooms does she keep buried away? He never cared for any companions—not in the lasting sense. Honestly, he barely understands why he agreed to come with her in the first place.
Which brings him back to the all-consuming despair threatening to rise again. There’s another reason he hasn’t entirely minded spending so much time with her. Enough silence and it crawls back, claiming his mind. He’s so tired all the time, at least with Clara he can push it away long enough to join her on some adventure or or whatever she has planned. Not because he cares about the destination, or what exactly they do, but for a little bit he doesn’t feel so suffocated.
And when he’s with Clara—even though sometimes it feels like stepping around a minefield of misery and rage, careful footing to prevent an explosion—he doesn’t have to think about her all the time.
The Doctor is never far behind. She haunts him, eating his hearts and burning a writhing sun inside. So much anguish on his ship, suffering privately and tearing him into ribbons until everything eclipsed and only the hollowness remained. Shredded, lost, and drifting—right. That’s why he agreed. Because there was nothing else.
The TARDIS clangs softly, stirring him out of the spiral. He blinks, coming back to the forest floor, and closes his eyes because it’s not the same but it’s familiar and it’s not helping.
Pressing a palm to his forehead, he breathes, resolves not to fall apart tonight, and backtracks out of the room. “Perhaps something less personal?” he suggests. He looks around the halls, watching the lights dim and flicker. “Do you know? Surely you see… considering you’ve no qualms of rummaging through my mind.”
A low hum in response. So, yes. She does know—and it’s both stifling and freeing. An omnipresent, telepathic entity pervading his memories and thoughts because apparently just being on board counts as consent to that. He could try and shield himself better; but nobody else knows what happened—what it’s been like—and if they do they don’t care. At least this way he doesn’t have to talk about it or try to justify himself.
So he follows along the path, occasionally opening doors but trusting he isn’t missing anything particularly special. Sickbay, laboratory, more gardens, zero room—actually, he takes note of that one. And a little further down, a blue-lit space of constant rain pouring onto a mossy floor. Somewhere to destress, he imagines. Or sulk. It looks entirely too easy to get absorbed in wallowing, and as tempting as it is to walk in, he’s not interested in drenching himself.
After finding a dizzying maze of mirrors, the entrance to a glowing hexagonal warren, and what seems to be a system of pool tunnels, he pauses to regard the TARDIS. “You’ve quite a penchant for labyrinths… or maybe that’s hers. Regardless, I don’t have any thread. Not interested in a classical reenactment tonight.”
He takes another moment to consider why Earth mythology is his first reference. Too much time spent on that wretched planet, its peoples and ideas infesting his mind. The most recent decades truly gripped him. Was all of it horrible? No. He refused to remain in total misery, not after that was so clearly the Doctor’s intention. Her own indulgent retribution. What he admitted to Clara barely touched the impact of those years. Again, he doesn’t want to spiral; so he bats away the memories, never quite able to package them completely.
It always comes back to him—why that time in particular refuses to fade is only half a mystery. He called it his gap years; insufferably tedious at times, obnoxiously archaic, and antagonizing beyond belief. It’s also the last period he was given any respite. Maybe that’s why his thoughts land on K’vo or Major Surikov so inordinately often. Because despite how it ended, for a brief moment he found himself in welcoming company.
The Master sighs. He presses a hand against the wall, feels it thrum under his fingertips. “Show me something you’re proud of,” he says, “and then take me to my room.”
A circular door at a bend of the hallway slides open. That sudden, sharpened burst of energy from earlier is fading, but not enough to kill his intrigue. He steps down the hall and into a wash of turquoise lighting.
The floor is simple metal, opening into a glass dome. Crystal clear water fills the space all around, seemingly expanding endlessly in every direction. Even the door behind appears disembodied, now sealed off from the hall and entirely immersed. Rising from somewhere below the platform, pillars of rock and coral and other sea-flora brighten and occupy the openness. They tower over, giving the impression of being at the bottom of a steep valley—how daunting a cliffside seems up close, and how quickly it forces you to confront your scale.
Oh, but sharks. Swimming alongside and above, casting shadows onto the sleek surface he walks over. Hundreds of them, moving together or drifting in solitude. Smaller and larger types but nothing overwhelming. Schools of other fish flit around, weaving amongst the predators, and he walks up to the glass to look closer.
It’s not that he hasn’t seen aquariums before. Marine creatures all across the universe, put on display for profit, research, rehabilitation, and in culinary anticipation. Some of them he even appreciated. Despite the little regard he has for romantics, this does feel different. Realistically, TARDISes shouldn’t be able or willing to fulfill such an unnecessarily massive request. The kind of care and upkeep a space like this requires—even she has limits.
He presses his hands against the glass, cold and solid under his fingers. A hammerhead drifts by, and then a flurry of yellow fish. Somehow they’re all cohabitating in relative peace. Artificial ecosystems can be a nightmare to manage if even one species is incompatible with the others, so the logistics of this entire exhibit honestly baffles him. How did she get the sharks? Begin any of this? He’s tempted to ask Clara next time he sees her.
The Master watches as sharks and fish swim past. “You should be proud,” he tells the TARDIS. “I’m impressed.”
He’s many things, but ingratiating has never been one of them. Yet the low pitch in the air raises in apparent gratification and he can’t help but feel pleased with it. Several minutes pass in silence as he contemplates. This is one place he’ll likely return to—there’s a living space in the center, a few lounges in a circle. Under the soft blue glow, he imagines it could be calming.
After some moments he steps away. Surprisingly, the sight managed to settle his unease, stifling the tap before the basin overflowed. Back in the hall, he isn’t entirely sure which way she would have set his bedroom. Further along or back way he came? Clara said she wouldn’t let him get lost, so he shrugs off the apprehension and continues in the unexplored direction.
And yet there’s one more door that calls out to him. Unmarked metal, nothing particularly interesting and yet—he opens it. Then stops.
It’s the engine room.
Of everything, this unnerves him the most. No disguises, no camouflage or misdirection. Only the pilot and those the TARDIS trusts should be able to even approach without impediment. It’s the most guarded room on the ship, and she’s letting him walk right inside.
He doesn’t—just stands at the opening, looking around with an irrepressible sense of confusion and hesitation. There’s no reason to show him this. Not with his ledger—and she’s rifled through it. So why is she? If there’s any such thing as vulnerability with a TARDIS, this is definitely it.
“This is… unexpected,” he says slowly, “you would trust me with such knowledge?”
He listens for a change in pitch, anything to indicate doubt or perhaps scrutiny. Does she want him to enter? He asked to go to bed and she rerouted him here. No doubt that it’s intentional, something she wants him to see or learn. Is it a test? He might be overthinking it, but the realization of the night is that as responsive and revealing as Clara’s TARDIS may be, she’s also deliberately calculating.
She hums in anticipation, and he realizes why exactly he feels so dreadful at the sight.
“You’re putting faith in me,” he says, “in traveling with Clara. This isn’t a test, this is… an offering. To my commitment. Or is it an assurance? If you’ve seen in my mind then you must know something I don’t… are you proposing or telling? Asking me not to hurt her or certainty that I won’t?”
Either way she seems to be advocating for him—or warning? It’s unsettling in reasons he can only half-identify. Still, the ultimate answer is clear. Treat Clara well. Whether it’s a definite pulled from his mind or a requisite suggestion; it begs loyalty of him.
The only person the Master has ever truly been loyal to is the Doctor—and that fractured and mangled itself ages ago; twisted its fingers into him and strung them together, so that despite every attempt at ruining the other it always pulls him along, never too far behind. Entangled in lifetimes of chasing and mending and breaking again. Even now, at their most vicious and volatile, he can’t truly tear himself away. Everything is a distraction. What he wants, really wants, he can never have.
But Clara is a good distraction. Not a substitute, nothing is. No one will ever match the Doctor; or surpass the intensity of their relationship. Despite Gallifrey, that isn’t over—more than the feelings, it lurks in the anticipation that likely they’ll meet again. It’s a day he’s fixated on, thrown away, and glared at in a corner. He can only wait and wonder of what’ll happen.
Until then—a bit of commitment shouldn’t be too difficult to manage. He glances around the engine rooms one last time, then nods. “Don’t worry,” he says, and after a moment’s hesitation: “She’s safe with me.”
The TARDIS thrums with… perhaps acceptance, or content. Closing the door, the Master turns back to the hall. Unease settled into a strange certainty. He follows along her path, ignoring the other rooms. What she finally leads him to isn’t exactly what he hoped for, but he enters anyway.
In the main library, aisles of books stretch out away from the circular space in the middle. Galaxies glow from the glass ceiling above, the view taken from what he now knows as one of Clara’s favorite destinations. It’s warmer here than other parts of the ship, softly lit and almost sleepy.
The arrangement of furniture in the center isn’t the only reading space in the room; but it is the one that Clara currently occupies, curled up on a sofa with a book and cup of tea. Dressed in a tank top and leggings, hair still damp, she looks up as he approaches.
“Hey,” she says softly, and pats the seat next to her. “Come sit.”
He obliges, settling into the other end of the sofa. There isn’t much space between them; if he wanted he could reach out and touch her ankle. She probably wouldn’t even mind, considering how quickly she fell into offering casual affection. What should bother him is how easy it is to accept it. He faces her, and she tilts her head expectantly.
“Find anything interesting?” Clara asks, taking a sip of her tea.
He pauses to consider. “Your TARDIS revealed to me you’ve all the natural tendencies of a magpie.”
Her lips quirk into a smile. “Ooh, looking through my collections? Any scandals?”
“Yes, your arsenal of human skin suits was mildly unexpected.”
Her eyes widen. “She showed you that?”
The Master pauses, somewhat taken aback. That’s not a thing, is it? Serial Killer Clara would be quite a sight. Shift around some unnecessary morals, and she’d likely be good at it.
She notices his hesitation, and quickly says, “Kidding! Sorry to disappoint. Did you see the bone museum?”
“Human bones?”
“Mmm, more like fossils and roadkill. Anything Me found lying about, it was her obsession. Hit a vortisaur in the time vortex once, poor thing. He’s hanging in there,”
“We used to ride those,” he recalls, “at the academy. You’ll have to show me.”
“You and the Doctor?” she ventures.
It’s funny to him how careful she is. Surprisingly thoughtful. Every time he mentions them, she seems caught between an irrepressible desire to ask more and a caution that he might respond poorly. Which is… fair, he never knows how he’s going to react either. Yet, the way she holds on to every tattered bit of thread, scrapping together pictures of something lost. The water-starved desperation that comes from a drought of absence. How eager you are for a single drop of rain. It’s a feeling he understands, and so he indulges.
“And a few others. Soaring over fields of red grass… rushing above silver trees lit like fire under twin suns. He had the better tricks, always able to make us laugh—until he fell off, of course, and Borusa’s fury caught up.”
Clara stifles a laugh. “God, your poor teacher. I thought enough about quitting at Coal Hill, a bunch of unruly little Time Lords might’ve done it. Then again, couldn’t be much worse than parent night…”
He raises his eyebrows. “You think you could do it? Control a classroom of insufferable Gallifreyan children, the Doctor and I included?”
She takes a moment, sizing him up. “Yep.”
“Hm,” he replies. The image of her, five foot two, dressed in red robes, and attempting to reign in his younger self and peers is almost enough to make him laugh. “I suppose of any human, you would be the one who’d manage it.”
“Oh,” she says, a little pleased, “was that a compliment?”
“If you like. Where did you get the sharks?”
The sudden shift in subject surprises her. “Oh, um. Rescue centers, nurseries, et cetera. What did you think?”
He listens for the ever-present humming, low frequencies through the air and on the surface of his mind. Perpetual and gently invasive. “That your ship is rather special,” he says softly, “and she cares you for deeply.”
“She’s amazing,” Clara agrees, quieter to match his tone, “my truest friend. And she likes you, a lot more than I thought she would. D’you feel it?”
“Unexpectedly. Does it help?”
“In which way?”
“Trusting that I’m not going to kill you.”
Her dark eyes are pensive, scanning his own. “In case you haven’t noticed, she tends to meddle. It’s saved me a lot of trouble over the years, listening to her intuition. If she likes you, genuinely, then… yes, it helps.”
Then it’s settled. Further confirmation of what he realized in the engine room. There’s the bit of spite, the internal mutiny that drives decisions of self-sabotage and carnage simply because it’s unexpected. The fluid nature of his desire is that as quickly as it can be cupped, it slips through fingers and puddles into chaos without remorse. If he so chose to, turning the tide would be easy. Spontaneous betrayal, a trick always veiled in his sleeve.
It’s the antics of younger days. Deception for the hell of it. There’s no gratification to be gained; he’s certain she’s anticipating it, internally, subtly, because the only sort of predictability he gave her in the past is that he isn’t to be trusted.
But she is putting faith in him, just like her ship; reflecting the pilot into an image he kind of wants to cringe at, just a bit, because if he was her he wouldn’t be trusting himself. That’s not something the Master ever receives, or deserves. Yet here she is, at ease, and he doesn’t want to disturb it.
“You’re a funny girl, Clara,” he finally says, shaking his head.
“Am I?” she replies, eyebrows raised.
“You find yourself in company of some of the worst people in the universe, and instead of saving your sanity, you invite them to live with you. It’s baffling how you’ve managed this far.”
Clara shrugs. “Maybe I have a type,”
“Immortals that undoubtedly played a hand in your death?”
“Did you?” she asks, casually taking a sip of her tea. “Plan my death, I mean.”
“Would it matter at this point?”
She inclines her head. “Just curious.”
The Master sighs. “Your union with the Doctor was very carefully orchestrated. Every time you drifted apart, something pushed you back together. The universe is rarely so generous. I couldn’t have known exactly how it would end—but I knew how the Doctor would react. So no, I didn’t sic the Raven on you, but… without my influence, you never would have stepped foot in that alley.”
A couple seconds pass before Clara replies.
“Makes sense,” she murmurs.
They fall into silence. After a few moments, she returns to her book. He casts his gaze to the ceiling, stars amidst nebulae in shining colors. The implications of his answer loom heavily; so much hidden in that admission. She must be curious, if not upset, but for each page flipped it becomes apparent that this isn’t the night she’ll ask.
When the stars dull in his tiring eyes he blinks, stretches off the sofa and stands up. Any longer and he’d stay til morning—her concept of a morning, there’s no such thing in the time vortex but Clara is human and that implies a necessary cycle.
“Leaving already?” she asks, looking up.
“Disappointed?”
“The company is nice,” she admits, “but go on.”
They shouldn’t, but the words make him want to stay. Curl up a little longer and stave off the lurking loneliness. Falling asleep in front of her, though—a line of vulnerability he doesn’t quite want to cross, even with all the time they spent together this week.
Instead, he gives a slight smile. “I’m sure you’ll manage. Talk to your ship, she’s keen on listening. Or go to bed. I’ll see you in… eight to ten hours.”
“Right,” she says, offering her own little smile, “night, then.”
“Night, Clara.”
Turning, the Master steps into the corridors. Lights dim with his presence. Having not one but two entities on his side—genuinely desiring his inhabitance. It’s a sentiment unfamiliar to him for quite a long time; but one he could get used to. The air thrums gently, guiding through the winding paths, and it feels… like walking with a friend.