Timeline: after «The End of Time».
Music: «Молитва» by Би-2.

You're such an idiot, Doctor. What did you want to show me with that — or, better to say — prove to yourself? Looking back on my whole damned life I'm stumbling on you time and again through my memories.

And when I do that — I don't hear the drums.

A foolish boy, ridiculous and too much confident. Who have you become after the Academy? You rejected my friendship and disdained my ideas, and you did the same to your own bents and dreams — until your imprudence won over your mind again.

And you flew away. You flew from Gallifrey — ran, like you did in childhood while you didn't know what to do and how to move on. And I waited this for so long. I waited and hoped that one day, maybe, you could get me right. But you remained true to yourself by choosing Sol-3 and savages that live on it instead of me.

And what's next, Doctor? What's next?

I punch the wall. Blood, dried on my face, constricts the skin unpleasantly while the sky above me keeps on burning. Welcome home, Master. I laugh, throwing back my head. Doctor, stupid-stupid Doctor — after all this time, all these centuries, you understood nothing.

I came for you on Sol-3, Earth, as you like to call it. I knew that you would be totally bored even with your dear tellurians if you're deprived of the possibility to move. Or, better to say, to fly? I relieved your tedium, Doctor, I gave you amusement. I asked you to go with me, again. And you rejected me, Doctor, again.

I punch the wall — again and again, hurting the knuckles.

Tango is the love dance. Or the one of them to be more exact — a human disease that expanded through the galaxy. You have never danced with me, Doctor. And why after all? So I had only to fence with you, to fight you — time and again, time and again, fancying it to be a dance. A dance of my passion, Doctor, the one you chose not to notice over and over again, closing your eyes and turning away, keeping your sight on me only for a moment — a moment of comprehension that you denied then so willingly. Time and again, time and again.

How many times have I sworn to kill you, Doctor? And how many times I was afraid I could succeed. However you look, wherever you are, Doctor.

Doctor-Doctor-Doctor.

The Rani was right by calling it an obsession. There was no need to tell anything — she was always clever enough to get more than you. Or even more than me.

I even killed you once — but that happened because I just didn't know that this your incarnation would turn out so fragile. Or were you just too shocked by what had happened? We were fighting again — but this time I was pursuing quite a definite aim. Have you got it when my lips covered yours as if by accident in the heat of the fight? Have you got that it was exactly what I tried to do, Doctor?

Doctor.

Doctor.

DOCTOR!

The stone begins to crumble under my ceaseless blows. Because my fist is harder than stone, Doctor. Because I've returned to life — again and again — in spite of all the laws of the Universe. Because I want to live forever? That too, of course. But the main thing is — because I want you, Doctor. I want you — and I suffer a defeat over and over again.

I was after you, I put you to danger — because I know how much do you like, do you need it. How much do you like our fighting, our perpetual confrontation that makes your hearts go faster and blood boil in the veins. You need me, Doctor. But why don't you want — over and over again — to confess to the obvious?

A blow and another blow. I throw back my hair from the forehead like wincing in pain — laugh and tears are mixing on my face. But I know that you can't see me now. Nobody sees. And I may give vent to it — to all I was keeping inside for so long.

Oh, I remember your — so much touching — fifth incarnation. It was like your present one — but lighter, more kind, less confident. Without that fire in your soul, in your eyes that burned out both of your hearts when you did something that left you all alone in the Universe.

I built a whole world for you, Doctor. A whole world — for you alone. A trap made of calm, clever books — all as you like — and peace that you needed so much. My lovely trap for my lovely Doctor.

And what did you do?

A blow and another blow.

WHAT DID YOU DO?

You ran. Just ran, leaving me alone. Again. Locked in my own trap made for you. For us.

And all over again. Tellurians. There're always these lowdeveloped creatures which with you're rushing through time and space, lapping up their admiring glances and dejecting folly. As if your mind needs such a poor setting. Really, Doctor, have you indeed carried that Academy-time diffidence through all your life?

I laugh, leaning my forehead against the cold — notwithstanding the neverending fire all around — wall.

And being aware that I'm smarter than you, did you really think each time that you defeated me by yourself by blowing up my plans? Yes, some of them weren't adjusted in every detail, but... each time, Doctor? Do you really believe it?

And fencing again. Fencing-fencing-fencing. I know, sometimes I was going too far — because rage prevailed. At times I wanted you to kill me, Doctor — to kill and stop torturing me at last. Or that you couldn't kill me, that you stopped fighting against me, that you realized that you just can't kill me.

Oh, I was so wrong. You — with all your contradictions — still are a mystery to me, Doctor. You cried, cuddling my dying body then, on Valiant, and you were standing and watching me burn into the fire of Sarn centuries earlier, as well. I remember you stepping towards me — begging, almost pleading. You stept and froze up. Your eyes — there were so many things mixed up. For a split of a moment I could bet I've seen in there what I wanted to see all that time. But you turned your back on me — and just left.

Left, Doctor!

Yet how could you?

HOW COULD YOU?

My eyes smart as if instead of tears it was acid streaming down.

Did you know how much time I spent with Kamelion before you "set him free"? Has he told you how did I spend it?

I laugh, biting my lips, looking at the burning sky above my head again.

He could never reproduce everything to a tee, Doctor. Because you're the only one. One — in all this blasted Universe, a third of wich I deleted once by mistake. But what is this third to me if it brought you to stay with me then, on Logopolis?

As if to spend some time with you I have to blow up each time a couple of galaxies or to attack your beloved Sol-3.

WHAT THE HELL, DOCTOR?

Or however do your monkeys swear?

I laugh again, closing my eyes. My shoulders are shaking with harsh wheezes bursting from my throat.

You do always choose humans over me, do you, Doctor? Well, I tried to destroy everything dear to you about them. To make you see what they are. To make you get it, Doctor — get that you've made a wrong choice. The Master — 1, humans — 0.

But you chose them again.

Whatever I did. However I tried to catch your interest. You choose them over and over again. And what is left to me? Pity?

I do not need your pity, Doctor.

I need you, not your pity.

All but that.

How many times I tortured you to take this loathsome feeling out of your heart — at least one of them. But it seems to be as tough as your fondness for tellurians.

I remember your admiration, your esteem, Doctor — when we were young and not yet badly injured by the war. Look at us now. What has became of us?

Time Lords feel every single change in time tissue that subtly, that clearly, that painfully. And you know what, Doctor? When I concentrate very hard on it I realize that there hadn't been that drumming before. The drums, the drums, the drums, driving me mad since childhood. They hadn't been there before. You know it too, right? You know that our timeline — our memories were rewritten. But I remember. I remember that my other self — now gone — that had never existed.

But you — you're all the same, Doctor. The same compassionate, the same contradictory and stupid — stupid, Doctor!

I got the last resort, you know. To win that losing battle for the place in your hearts. For me it's not enough to own just a little piece of one of them, Doctor! When will you finally realize it?

And I made the Master race. I replaced every human, every stupid monkey that you have weakness for with myself — with a copy of me.

Everyone on your place would catch my cry, Doctor. Anyone but you.

Scare, despair, fear — and none comprehension.

I'm tired, Doctor. I'm tired of you. I'm tired of your unwillingness to understand. Of your unwillingness to confess that you got it very long time ago — when we, such children, were lying on the red grass, watching the sunset. I found your palm with my fingers, holding it, and looked you in the eyes — silently. And you got silently embarrassed, as well. Or were you thinking that I haven't noticed that, Doctor?

And I left you alone again. That's your retribution for all that pain I suffered because of you, Doctor. I don't want to be someone who's simply chasing you upon your heels, I don't want to know that I suddenly became dear to you just because you haven't touched the other Time Lord's mind for so long. That I could be anyone.

I'm not just anyone, Doctor.

Do you hear me?

I'M NOT JUST ANYONE!

Doctor.

Doctor-Doctor-Doctor.

And even when I tried to help you or to protect you from yourself or... If only you could know how many "if"'s are being gathered, Doctor.

If only you could know.

That even if I want to own the Universe, not just see it like you — still all the Universe worth nothing for me

without you.