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This was inevitable, really. Bound to happen at some point, and the Doctor had no one to blame but himself.
It was also one of the reasons he tended to avoid the 1980’s.
Specifically, Earth’s 1980’s. Lots of other planets had a great nineteen-hundred and eightieth decade. Come to think of it, at least three of his favourite Kravisian marmalades came from their quaternary system during that time. Great decade for marmalades, that. And the turn of fashion on Celbsi-4? Unbeatable...
The Doctor was buying for time, thank you very much. And well-aware of it. Because the longer he distracted himself, the longer he could look away from the man in front of him. And the longer he looked away, the longer he could put off responding to—
“Doctor,” the other man urged, with a tone that offered nothing remotely close to patience. “Clearly you’re not from my present, but I cannot imagine you’re from so far in our future that I’ve learned to enjoy being ignored.”
Across from him sat the Master. Not his Master, or Mistress, Missy—but one whose face he hadn’t seen for a very long time. One, who had caught him off-guard by slinking over and sinking decisively into the plush armchair adorning the teashop table across from his own. The resulting shock from which had made the Doctor jump so violently that he'd spilt his cup of what had been a rather nice Darjeeling.
He didn’t even usually like Darjeeling, but he certainly wasn’t going to let the Master off the hook on a technicality.
“Eh—" the Doctor rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. Missy’s fury at his latest refusal crossed his mind, uninvited. “No, I think it’s fair to say you never will. My apologies.”
“You? Apologising? My dear Doctor you are from a distant future, aren’t you.”
Coward. You can’t avoid him forever. The Doctor forced himself look at the Master, gaze drawing up his form. Black trousers, black gloves, black jacket too? Typical. Absurdly sized lapels, period-acceptable but just bombastic enough to make a statement? Doubly so. Beard? Well-trimmed. Eyes—
Blue, obviously. As he remembered them. And yet, they held significantly less maniacal glee than his memory recalled. There was something hardened there that he hadn’t expected; some vestige trace of coldness he hadn’t attributed to the Master until the man’s later selves. “You're looking..." Subdued? Dejected? "…Well?” the Doctor finished, lamely. “Less ornamental than I remember you though. Don’t tell me that high-collars and gold trim finally fell out of style?”
The Master’s face pulled tight. “That was a while ago for me, I’m afraid.”
Not rising to the bait? Now I really am worried—
“And last time I saw you, my you,“ he added casually, buffing his nails with all pretence of grace, "you were wearing something that could only be described as a kaleidoscopic mistake.”
Ah, there he is. “That would be my sixth body then. Curly haired and loud—curlier and louder, thank you,” the Doctor amended defensively as he saw the Master give him a pointed once over. “Younger-looking too. Tell me, have we gone through all that trouble with the Valeyard and the High Council yet?”
The question seemed to evaporate all goodwill from the Master, who had stiffened up once again. “Yes, a few weeks ago now.” His eyes were locked on the Doctor with a gaze that verged on accusing. Pointedly so.
The Doctor broke the moment by turning away from him, peering out the window over his shoulder at the crowds rushing to escape the late afternoon rain. They sat in pregnant silence for a time, underpinned by the ambient sounds of the café’s other patrons that trailed into their corner of the shop. The Master took advantage of his distraction to signal to a waiter who had been ambling their way with two new saucers of Darjeeling in hand.
So, the Master had been here watching him long enough to observe his initial selection and pre-order his own to their table, before announcing himself. Presumptuous. More than a little invasive, even. It was so classically him (especially this him) that the Doctor felt absurdly and overwhelmingly fond.
More so, he decided, as he watched him dig into the sugar bowl with determination. Who else would attempt to look stern while imbuing no less than four sugar cubes into a single cup?
The Master thanked the waiter and brought the mug to his lips, blowing gently into the steam. Waiting for an explanation from him, clearly, but the Doctor refused to break the silence first. Instead, he took a fortifying gulp of his very hot, really scorchingly hot tea that concluded in a series of graceless choking heaves as he scrambled to relieve his burnt tongue.
The Master watched his struggles impassively through the steam, neither helping nor interrupting. He started only once the Doctor’s gasps began to subside. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
“Accident—” the Doctor wheezed, straightening up and wiping at watery eyes. “Complete accident, running into you. At all, but especially on Earth, much less in a café. I was following an emergency signal here before I knew where here even was. A waste of time, as it turns out. A false alarm, just temporal disruption from some non-terrestrial debris left accidentally transmitting an SOS on repeat.
The Master raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “An emergency signal from this teashop?”
“No not from inside the shop, just down the way a bit. I wandered over here afterwards, had some time to spare and I thought..."
Come to think of it, the Doctor didn’t know what he had been thinking. He had been alone for a while now. Clara was home, citing that she needed some space to recover and—well, he supposed he needed some as well, some time to process things alone. But the solitude had started to wear on him. He had found himself aimlessly roaming the city centre for over an hour before coming to a stop outside this café. The comfort of ambient chatter and promise of tea might have drawn him in, but there had been something scratching at the back of his mind that had made him choose this particular spot.
“—And I thought, there’s never a bad time for a cup of tea,” the Doctor recovered, before turning the interrogation around. “But what about you? This doesn’t strike me as your scene.”
“No? I’ve found myself coming here quite often, as of late.”
On second thought, the Doctor could see why. The shop was small, cosy even, but far from spartan. Heady leather armchairs circled intimately around elegant glass and oak tables. Seat clusters were distanced far enough to allow groups to speak without being overheard, while just crowded enough to provide some privacy to their occupants from passers by the glass storefront. Dark burgundy walls were accented by lush vines that sprung from planters around the baseboards, and their particular table was positioned next to a grand fireplace that crackled defiantly into the winter air.
Opulent. Indulgent. Albeit a little impractical, but not without strategy or style. He felt that insidious fondness returning, creeping up the back of his throat and threatening to send him choking once again. Days later, the Doctor would find himself mortified to realise exactly whose psychic signature had likely drawn him into that spot in the first place. After all, despite years spent protesting the sheer concept of tea, Darjeeling had always been his favourite.
“So this is where you based yourself in your time, east Bristol? I—" had always wondered. Where did you go? So many years I didn’t see you, and you were right here all along. “I would have thought you’d jump at the chance to be away from Earth. Or at least, out of the twentith century.”
“Oh, I venture off Earth as well; this spot is only temporary. But it never hurts to keep a secure property on Earth, and someone needs to keep an eye out for any hostile alien activity.” The Master raised his eyebrows in a pantomime of innocence. “They get quite a lot of that around here, or so I hear.”
The Doctor snorted. As if he wasn’t (as if they both weren’t) the cause of a significant portion of that activity. “A secret lair then? How very Hollywood of you.”
The Master gave a faux-benevolent smile, spreading his gloved hands expressively. “Of a sort.”
“Tell me you don’t have something to do with this misplaced emergency signal?”
“Doctor, I like to think I wouldn’t be so foolish as to leave behind debris, much less trip an emergency beacon.”
“Right, didn’t think so. Had to ask, of course.” The Master cocked his head in acceptance, and in ownership of the fact that most disruptions within a hundred-mile radius of his presence were usually his work.
“Well then,” the Doctor sipped his tea. A lovely flush too, far superior to his initial cup. He donned a guileless expression, eyes fluttering. “Want to tell me what you’re up to these days? Any schemes cooking away that you’re bursting to share? Up to no good?” He felt some pride at the rolling chuckle that evoked from the other Time Lord, more comfortable with levity than with the severity that seemed to haunt them both. Wide-eyed and innocent coercion had lived and died with his school days (although admittedly, his fifth body had given it a brief re-run). But both present Time Lords were far past the age where the ploy could be interpreted as anything more than comical.
“Good? Certainly not. And more than a few schemes in the works. But..." the Master’s mirth died down again and he stared off into the fire. As he spoke, both hands that were clasped around his mug visibly tightened their grip. “No. No immediate plans.” He appeared momentarily lost in thought until he caught himself, sneering. “Am I not permitted a break, Doctor? A single moment without some you questioning my motives?”
The Doctor was growing steadily less and less comfortable with the emotionality of the conversation. He’d grudgingly admit that he had always been the less 'emotionally available' of the two of them, and he had a creeping suspicion that getting out of this discussion unscathed would require tact he didn’t possess. For lack of better phrase, the Master seemed depressed. Fed-up, maybe. He had seen this Master frustrated numerous times (having cheerfully been the cause of that frustration on most occasions) but this seemed to run deeper. This particular stolen body had always seemed indomitably optimistic, always bouncing back after every roadblock.
Right until their last run-in, that is.
Somewhere between this body and Saxon’s, a degree of civility had been lost and replaced by something cruel. But this body? This body and the ones before it had been something akin to earnest. Sometimes malevolently so—but downright vivacious, regardless. The Doctor tried once more to push the tone towards banter, falling back on their usual script and absently swirling the remaining liquid around the base of his cup. “Well, your motives are so often questionable. So, forgive me if I don’t clamber over myself to believe you.”
This was apparently the wrong thing to say. The Master just stared at him, unwavering, with an expression that was positively glacial. A moment of silenced passed before—
“Must I?”
“What do you m—“
“No tell me, really. Because I’m very curious to know. Must I forgive you?” An icy anger fortified his every word. “It would make it easier for you Doctor, wouldn’t it? If my motives were always malicious? You always were so comfortable casting me as the villain of every piece.” The Master set his cup down on its saucer with a thud, rattling the table.
The Doctor had a bad feeling that they were currently having more than just this one conversation. “Really? Are you really getting worked up that I’d accuse you of anything? After everything you’ve done?”
“No Doctor, I take ownership of what I do, with pleasure. I’m asking,” the Master continued, through clenched teeth now, "how long. I’m expected. To forgive you?”
You’re not. The thought swam across his mind unprovoked. I don’t forgive me either. But he couldn’t help feeling defensive. In light of Missy’s recent ‘gift' army and all that had transpired, this particular tangent struck a nerve. “I expect you’ll do whatever it is you want to do, for as long as you fancy. Isn’t that always how it goes?”
“What I want?” He chuckled again, a derisive thing that held none of the warmth from before. “When was the last time I got anything even resembling what I wanted?” It wasn’t really a question, and the Doctor didn’t dare answer. The Master stared into the distance as if grasping for strength before swivelling back to face the Doctor, neck cracking from the strain. “No, but that’s exactly the problem, isn’t it? I didn’t used to want to forgive you—I didn’t have to want it. Despite your constant betrayals, purposeful misinterpretations, and near-constant pig-headedness, forgiving you came naturally.”
The Doctor just looked on, muted. The Master paid him no mind and continued, like a man with the floodgates cracked open and no intention of repairs.
“Then—oh but then your fifth body came along and brought a new meaning to the word betrayal. And I began to have to want it, just to stay sane. I wanted to forgive you every time, and so I did. But then—oh no you don’t!”
The Doctor had turned away reflexively. He knew where this was going. But the Master’s hand shot across their small stretch of table and dishware and grabbed his chin, firmly redirecting him forward to hold his gaze.
“But then you let me die. My failsafe might have brought me back, but you didn’t know that. As far as you knew, you let me die and watched. And you know what?” The Master glanced at his own hand in something like surprise, as though he had just noticed its position on the Doctor’s cheek and withdrew it in a flash before continuing. “After that, for the first time, I didn’t forgive you. Nor did I want to. But then, even then, do you know what I did?”
The Doctor did know, of course. But the Master was not to be deterred.
“I heard about your Valeyard, and your trial, and I still came to help you. I didn’t even want to look at you, but I spoke on your behalf nevertheless. And you stood there thankless, and thoughtless, and positively guiltless, despite having killed me so recently before. And then you fled again, of course.” This time it was the Master who turned away. His profile was thrown into sharp relief by the window’s light, and in that moment he looked desperately tired above all else. He took a sip of his tea, now almost certainly cold. “So it occurs to me, my dear Doctor,” he spat out the endearment, with none of the warmth that this regeneration had so enthusiastically wielded. “Why should I forgive you? Why should I even want to? Because I no longer believe that I do. Until now, I know that you’ve relied on me to ‘pull my punches’ during our engagements, so to speak, and I have. More than you will ever know. But why should I even try when you’ve made it abundantly clear that you have no intention of ever forgiving me?”
The Doctor was momentarily struck by memories. His memories; this Master’s future. Echoes of what was to come for the Time Lord in front of him. Saxon, hell-bent on dismissing his forgiveness. Missy, well—
'I want my friend back'. She had said as much, right before he’d let her down again. The fact that he hadn’t had a choice, that she’d started it, didn’t make it any easier. This Master’s grievance was the initial stage of a common theme that the Doctor saw reflected in his own version’s every move. One that had yet to find any semblance of resolution.
For a moment, the weight of their history and what was still to come threatened to overwhelm him, and the Doctor despaired for the man in front of him. For them both. For all that they had in common, this Master glaring at him from across the table was so unbearably young. And somewhere out there (he was sure he could remember exactly where, if he put his mind to it) there was an equally young Doctor. Brash and loud, arrogant to cover up the fear and frustration that grew in him by the day. By contrast, the Doctor's current body felt ancient; weighted down by what he knew awaited them both.
But—age has its benefits. For starters, it allows for a kindness that his younger selves had never been able to afford.
He slowly reached out, his hand settling softly on the Master’s cheek in equal opposition to the Master’s own action moments before. He felt as the warmth imbued from his teacup seeped into the chilled face. For his part, the Master sat stock-still, as one would while trying not to spook a rare and particularly flighty animal. The Doctor supposed he deserved that. “Thoughtless? Too often. I recently claimed to be an idiot, but in your days, I was doubly-so. Thankless? Well, you didn’t exactly present yourself as entirely benevolent at my trial, but I was thankful. And it was churlish of me not to say so. So,” the Doctor allowed his fingers to stroke gently, “thank you, Master.”
The Master’s eyes widened and the Doctor pretended not to hear his breath catch. He had nearly forgotten that, how back then his younger selves had gone out of their way to deny him the satisfaction of using his name openly.
“But guiltless? You couldn’t be more wrong. Would you like me to tell you how my fifth body returned to his TARDIS and spent the rest of that evening sick on the floor of the zero room? Or—how I died shortly after you, and for the first time in all my regenerations I was so thankful to be let go?” He let out something soft, caught between a laugh and a sob. “I still dream of you in that fire, you know. It’s been over a thousand years for me and sometimes I still wake up screaming. Wishing I had done any different, anything at all. Would it help to know that?”
The Master’s own hand raised to clasp his wrist and the Doctor braced for pain, to be pushed aside. But the gloved fingers only anchored him as he turned his face into the Doctor’s cupped hand and drew his lips across the sensitive skin of his palm. The pads of the Doctors fingers continued their journey across the soft skin beneath his eyes, towards the firm bridge of his nose. For a moment the Master just held him there, letting his breath fall across the Doctor's skin with eyes clenched tightly shut. His lips pressed against his palm in what might have been a kiss before pulling away and pressing the Doctor’s hand gently, yet decisively, back down to the table.
“It does help, but it’s not enough.”
The Master gave his wrist a final parting squeeze before withdrawing his own. He rose gracefully from his chair and buttoned his coat. “Age suits you. Or at very least, it seems to have brought you down a few pegs. I suppose I can only hope to be the cause of that.” Fully fastened, he straightened up and smoothed over the fabric before continuing. “But one day Doctor, one day soon, I’m going to find myself with my hands wrapped around your throat, and squeeze. And for the life of me, I’ll forget why I should ever let go. I trust you’ll understand why.”
Flashes of the Cheetah planet crossed his mind. The virus eroding all self-restraint. This very Master, so very soon in his future, forcing him down and climbing onto him. Those same gloved hands choking him against the dirt—
“I know,” the Doctor whispered hoarsely. “I know you will.”
The Master nodded to himself, taking the Doctor’s response as an affirmation. He made to walk past their table towards the exit.
“I forgive you.”
The Master froze, poised at the door with his shoulders tensed and back staunchly turned away. Hands that had been raised to open the café door paused, before slowly returned to his sides. "That’s gratifying to hear. If only you had done so sooner, whilst I still forgave you.” He turned back to face him but made no move to step closer, opting to remain hovering by the closed door. He opened his mouth as if to continue but then shut it wordlessly, reconsidering. Eyes glittering as instead, he chose to take in this Doctor one last time. His gaze fell to the teacups, sat in their saucers and glinting in the firelight. “You don’t even like Darjeeling.”
“No?” The Doctor quirked an eyebrow and locked his eyes as he drank the final sip, smiling into the cup as he watched the Master’s eyes darted to follow the movements of his throat. “I found this cup rather lovely. Granted—it can be too dark for some, and a little overbearing when left to stew. But there’s something distinctly decadent about it that I find comforting. Can’t imagine why.”
A corner of the Master’s lips upturned. “Rather heavy-handed,” he admonished, approvingly. “Until next time then.” And with that he stepped out into the cold.
The Doctor’s eyes followed him through the glass storefront as he made his way down the street, his dark figure cutting a path through the evening crowds until he faded into the dusk. “Goodbye, Master,” he whispered to himself, swallowing back the unexpected emotionality of watching this particular form go. Knowing intimately what was to become of him.
Still...
“I’ll have a satchel of the Darjeeling to take away, thank you,” he said to the cashier as he brought up their saucers and readied himself to leave.
All things were bound to change, given the time.