The Master is having a bad day.
The drums are louder than usual, and more insistent. They whisper things to him between beats, strange, hissing things.
Time stretches between them, eons between each pulse. A beat. Empires rise and crumble. He plans, schemes, rejects his ideas, starts anew. Universes spin. Stars collapse. A beat.
There is no space between them at all. They are too fast, too loud. He can't think. There's a woman there. Her lips are moving - she's talking to him. He can't hear her. He can't remember who she is. She seems familiar.
As if from a distance, he realizes he must have answered her, because she smiles and curls her arm around his. He remembers - Chantho. No, the other one. Lucy.
She's talking again. Why? He can't hear her, not over the drums. Doesn't she realize? Stupid Lucy with her mouth moving, moving, moving.
He shrugs her off - he must have made some excuse - and slips into his office. Sinks into a chair and tries to relax, closing his eyes and summoning up his favorite daydream.
Everything has gone according to plan. He stands in triumph in a room of his own design, flying high above the Earth. After a moment, he adjusts the image. He pictures one corner of the room enclosed in glass, then puts the Doctor behind it, looking very familiar and very put out.
He frowns. That's not right. The face isn't right. The Doctor doesn't look like that anymore.
The image flickers as he tries to remember, until it settles, his face now as it was most recently. The imaginary Doctor pounds on the glass, but it is quite unbreakable. He shouts something, but the Master can't hear him through the glass or over the drums.
Something's not quite right. The colors are too bright, too vibrant. Lights dance at the edges of his vision. The sound of the ship's engines synchronizes with the drumbeats. Then a Teletubby dances by, and he realizes he must have fallen asleep.
For a beat or two, the Master considers waking himself up, but the Teletubby has found its way into the glass enclosure and is poking the Doctor, who is looking thoroughly uncomfortable, and he figures there are worse dreams he could be having.
The next morning, he is surprised to wake up in his bed. He realizes, with a rush of something curiously like affection, that Lucy must have had him moved there some time in the night. As he climbs out of bed, he begins to plan his day, and the rest of the week. Pausing to listen, he notices that the drums are softer today, an eager beat in the back of his head. He can handle that.
The Master is having a good day.