Characters: The Master, the Doctor (sort of)

Pairings: None (only slash if you squint really, really hard and turn your head on one side.)

Summary: Locked safely out of harm's way inside the TARDIS, the Master has a lot of time to think, to reflect, and to plan ahead.

A/N: Slightly AU. OK, very AU. It's the usual one. The Master didn't die, the Doctor is 'keeping' him as he promised, et cetera. No real spoilers, except vague ones for LotTL.

Evil!Scheming!Master, oh how we love thee.

You think you can tame me, Doctor.

You think that you can keep me locked away, where I can do no harm to any of your precious humans, for as long as it takes for you to make me better.

I can see it in your eyes every morning, when you bound in through those double-doors like an excited puppy, telling me about all the places you've been and all the places you're going - all the places you won't let me go with you - and always with that cheerful camaderie that sets my teeth on edge. The desperate hope, the mad belief, that you can fix me.

Perhaps, with all your loving care and attention, you think that I will be healed completely. You want me to reform, to become a new man.

Well, I can't do that, now, can I?

The drums would never allow it.

Besides, even if I did have a choice in the matter, do you honestly think that I would want to?

I would be just like you, then.

-----

Look at you.

You, with your pretty companions and your irresistable curiosity and your old wreck of a time ship, slowly but surely falling to pieces. Wandering the Universe in search of a purpose that died in the ashes of Gallifrey, the home that you abandoned all those years ago.

Looking for a reason why you still exist.

So you save people, just as you always have done. The helping hand in a crisis, the friendly face on the battlefield. But it's not the same any more, is it? There's always something missing. No amount of sanctimonious self-sacrifice will bring back what has gone, and you know it.

Why would I want to become as lonely as you?

That's the only reason you want me fixed, anyway. It's nothing to do with kindness, or generosity. You can't stand the thought of the last remnant of your people slipping into madness, slipping away from you. You want me whole.

Whole, and captive.

Is that to be my life from now on? A slave to the man I despise most, above all others? Am I to be nothing but a souvenir, to be taken out of the box for nostalgia's sake every once in a blue moon, then carefully hidden away again?

-----

I offered you the Universe.

I would have done it. The New Time Lord Empire. The Master and the Doctor, ruling together, just as it should be. Like it was always meant to be. It would have worked.

It would have been glorious.

But no, you weren't having any of it, were you? You stuck with your beloved planet Earth and your stupid little humans when you could have stood by me. You called your little team together and blew my dream to pieces. You ruined everything.

And now you expect me to mend my wicked ways just for you?

You really are naive.

-----

Will I tell you what I am going to do?

I'm going to get out of here, Doctor.

I'm going to wait for the moment, and then I'm going to escape.

And then?

Then you'll be sorry.

Then you'll wish you had never scorned me.

Because you know what I can do, you know that I will do it, and you're terrified.

And then you'll know what it feels like to have your life ripped apart. Oh, yes. You'll know all about it. Just give me one chance, and everything you've done to me will be repaid. Every foiled plan, every crushed hope, every bitter rejection. I remember them all.

And I've waited a long time to pay back what I owe.

-----

You think you can tame me, Doctor

You're wrong.