The man who was once known as the Doctor entered the Council Chambers. Everyone looked up when he entered, some in barely concealed awe, others in open contempt before returning to their conversations. He hadn't made many friends, coming back and taking over the war effort in his usual proprietorial manner, but few were willing to speak out against him. He was, after all, the most experienced Dalek fighter among them all, and they needed all the help they could get.
Two people, a man and a woman, off to the side watched him enter, apparently unsure of where he belonged. "Oh, I see he decided to join us after all," the woman said contemptuously. "About time. Why should the rest of us have to fight and die while he gets off perfectly free?"
"My dear Rani," said the Time Lord still known as the Master. "I didn't know your loyalty to Gallifrey went so deep." His tone was joking; they were both here by force. The Time Lord High Council had called every rogue Time Lord home, or else gone out and found them for the express purpose of fighting in this Time War. The Master, they had actually gone through the trouble of resurrecting. The only one who had so far resisted the summons was the Doctor, and no one had forced the issue. Presumably, the Master thought, because even the Time Lord Council realized they could not force the Doctor into something he didn't want to do. They held no power over him, unlike either the Master or the Rani. Was the Doctor's sudden appearance a sign; were things now so bad that even the Doctor couldn't escape?
The Rani glared at him, interrupting his reverie. "Well, why not? I have to fight in this infernal war, and so do you. Doesn't it strike you as hypocritical that he didn't?"
"That man has always been a hypocrite," the Master said dismissively.
"Nice to see you're not holding grudges," the Rani said. "Oh, damn, he's coming over here."
"Well, this is just like old times again," said their old friend, coming to join them. He seemed relieved to see them, and the Master was strongly reminded of the two lonely young boys they had been, clinging to their dreams in the midst of the disapproval of their entire world.
"If you say so, Doctor," the Rani answered pointedly. "I remember there being a bit less war and a few more pranks, myself."
The Master looked his old friend over carefully, searching for some hint of Theta Sigma. He'd always been able to find something of the boy he'd known in all of his later incarnations, but this one seemed different somehow. Harder, more determined. Less constrained by any sort of code.
"I don't go by 'Doctor' anymore," said their old friend, smiling sadly. "I'm a different man. I'm meant for war, not that sort of...aimless wandering."
"Of all the high handed pronouncements," the Rani said in exasperation, rolling her eyes. "What do you go by, then, if you're not good enough to be the Doctor?"
"Nothing, so far," he answered. "Mostly they all just call me 'sir'." He shook his head, and the Master could feel the confusion and annoyance at being given authority coming off him in waves. There was his old friend. Still the same man underneath.
The Rani scoffed so loudly several guards looked up, "Well, I'm not calling you 'sir,' Theta, so you can keep dreaming."
"I don't want anyone to call me 'sir!'"
"Uh, sir?" The Castellan came over to them. "We need you in the archives, we've just found some records from the Dark Times that might be very helpful."
"Yes, yes, all right, I'm coming!" The new version of Theta Sigma said. "No, don't salute!" He called after the retreating Castellan, before groaning aloud. The Master and the Rani took one look at him and burst out laughing. For a moment, it was just as if they were back at the Academy again.
"What? What's so funny?"
"Come on, Doctor, don't you have an appointment with the higher ups in the archives?" The Master said, heading toward the door.
"I told you, I'm not the Doctor anymore," and he looked so sad as he said it that the Master stopped dead in the corridors, ignoring all the people trying to get past.
"Yes, you are. Do you think I don't know you, Doctor, after all these years?" he asked. "You'll be the Doctor until the universe collapses, no matter what you say."
The Doctor was looking at him in something very close to gratitude, and the Master decided to stop that on the spot. "You didn't think you could be anything other than a sanctimonious, hypocritical do-gooder, did you?" he asked with a smirk.
The Doctor laughed so loudly that all the people passing by stopped, scandalized. It had been a long time since laughter rang through the halls of the Citadel.
"See?" The Master said, raising a knowing eyebrow. It was so much like when they were at school, the two of them breaking all the rules and horrifying the Time Lord elders, he almost forgot the fighting. Both the fighting they were engaged in now and the many battles they'd fought against each other over the centuries.
"You know, I've often wondered if anything could ever have stopped us, were we on the same side," the Doctor reflected. "I suppose now we'll find out."
"Yes, I suppose we might," the Master said. He watched his old enemy accept the sirs and the salutes from everyone else (except for the Rani, who reverted to Theta as if he'd never been anything else). But throughout the entire course of the war, he never called his old friend anything other than Doctor. Both because he could never think of the man as anything else, and because he respected his old enemy too much to call him anything other than his chosen name.
Every time he did so, he saw the Doctor's eyes light up, and smiled inwardly. There would be time for fighting later
If they survived.