Title: My Moment
Fandom: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, "Romance" if you squint
Character(s) or Pairing(s): The Master, Master--Doctor or Master/Doctor if you squint, though it's not exactly pairingish if you don't want it to be
Rating: PG
Warnings/Notes: Spoilers for The End of Time. My own character interpretation without a lot of old-canon knowledge.
Continuity: The End of Time (4.17-4.18)
Word Count: 674
"Get out of the way."
A plea.
A battle cry.
A moment.
That's what the Time Lord lives for—a moment.
And this was the Master's moment.
His moment of glory, his moment of splendor.
Would it stop then? The noise in my head?
The drums, the drums, the never ending drums.
Louder, louder, louder.
Always louder.
But now the drums were more than a noise, more than a call.
They were real.
And the Master would destroy them forever.
The Doctor, always the Doctor. It had never been anyone except him—it never had been, never would be, never could be, anyone except him. The Doctor had always been the one taking all the credit for everything they had done across the stars—together.
"We could travel the stars. It would be my honour."
But we did travel the stars, didn't we, Doctor? the Master thought as he sat on his knees, staring at the floor. All across the stars, all across time, throughout the millennia they had traveled, fought, torn one another apart. All leading up to here, to now, to this moment.
The Master's eyes—brown this time, the last time—darted up toward the Doctor, ran up the line of his body, past him and to the President, to Rassilon.
"You'll die with me, Doctor!"
"I know."
The Master then realized that this was the moment. The Moment he had been chasing after all these years. The Doctor had promised that he could help, he had promised that he would help him find it—that noise, the never ending, never ceasing, never dying noise. The drumbeat, the Doctor said they would find the drumbeat, and here it was. The soldier's march, the heartbeat.
This was HIS Moment.
The Master could feel the burning, feel the dying inside his body. It burned, it ached, and the hunger would never, ever cease.
But no more.
Gathering his strength into his limbs, his arms, his legs, the Master rose to his feet in a smooth motion.
This would be the Moment.
This would be spectacular.
This would be...
"...beautiful."
"Get out of the way."
The Doctor's eyes met his one more time, but he didn't look back, only past.
Only toward Rassilon—only toward his final moment of glory.
Life flowed through his fingers, out of his hands, and into the President.
Life, the ultimate destroyer.
There was one thing the Doctor had never understood about life—or perhaps he did.
Life was the destroyer of everything.
There had been a Time when the Master had not known the drums. Life had taken that away.
There had been a Time when the Doctor had not been running away. Life had taken that away.
There had been a Time when the Master had not been chasing after. Life had taken that away.
There had been a Time when every moment, every breath, every beat of each of his hearts, had not been leading up to this. And Life had finally, ultimately, managed to take everything away.
Everything except the Moment.
"You did this to me! All of my life! You made me! One! Two! Three! Four!"
The Final Beating of the Drums.
Everything faded to white. Bright, white light.
The Master had never expected to see a bright, white light at the end of his life, at the end of his reign of the Wastes.
The Master had only ever managed to expect what came after, the Hell that was to come, never knowing of the glory he was to achieve.
But as Life, the world above, faded back to the nothing it had always been, the Master harboured no regrets.
Now there was no looking back, no turning away, no more never dying.
No more need to say goodbye.
He had said all he had needed to say, and for once the Doctor had listened.
No more need to say goodbye.
Only the need for the five words he had said:
Get out of the way...
And the one he had not:
...Doctor.