He is not really Koschei – that man died centuries ago – but he is not the Master either, and the other name seems a bit more appropriate. He is not in a crisp suit with a gleam of power-lust in his eye. He wears torn black jeans encrusted with mud, a black duffel coat too large for him, and black fingerless gloves that are an oddly sweet note, like those belonging to a gentle hobo from the Great Depression or a production of Rent. His hair is matted with grime and he looks more tired than anything.
This battered Time Lord preferably thought of as Koschei reaches for the console. "I know this," he says slowly.
The Doctor gently takes his hand to prevent him from touching it. "It'll burn you. I set it so that I have to explicitly authorize another pilot."
"Did someone steal it?" His brows furrow. "Oh. I think I did. Why did I do that?"
The cracked ring on Koschei's finger catches the light. The Doctor wonders how bad a job human technology did resurrecting what was left of the Master's consciousness and form. First, though, Koschei needs a shower and a change of clothes.
"You did a lot of things. It doesn't matter now," the Doctor says, lightly he hopes. Now that the initial rush of seeing his friend alive, at least in some fashion, has ended, a new kind of sadness is creeping in.
Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry,
You don't know how lovely you are.
I had to find you, tell you I need you,
Tell you I set you apart.
When the Doctor takes Kochei's coat, he breathes in sharply. His charge's forearms are covered in cuts, smoothly curved ones in deep vermillion scabs (humans scab brown, Time Lords scab red) that are clearly Gallifreyan sentences. They say, roughly, "Gallifrey is lost. So am I. Lost forever. The drums are my only companion."
"Why did you do this?" he asks, running his fingers along the macabre writing. Each circle is perfectly round, each whirl impeccable, meaning that incredible focus was required to carve it with a knife.
Koschei, now in a grey undershirt that reveals how thin he has become, stares at his arms. "I don't recall."
"Can you read it?"
"Yes. The bathroom is to the second right, you say? Do you have clothes?"
"I'll go to the wardrobe and get you some. You should wash up. I'll take a look at you in the med bay afterwards." He knows he needs to go inside Koschei's mind. See what the damage is. Though this has made him more manageable (he hates himself for thinking the word "tame"), the Doctor does not relish the thought of seeing the wreck of a once-fine mind, no matter how twisted it had been.
Koschei gives him half a smile and kisses him on the cheek. "Thank you."
Tell me your secrets and ask me your questions,
Oh let's go back to the start…
Running in circles, coming in tails,
Heads on a science apart.
Koschei showers for nearly an hour. How long has it been since he last took such an opportunity? The Doctor sits by the door with neatly folded black silk pajamas in his lap. Koschei should be comfortable.
They are hanging safely in the Void, and the Doctor decides he won't answer any distress calls for at least a month, no matter how urgent. Unless they're from Martha or Jack. He owes them that, especially Jack, who could have easily killed his former tormentor in revenge or kept him locked up, away from the Doctor. He doesn't deserve that unfortunate immortal's devotion. He is grateful for it all the same.
He is good with cosmic responsibility but has again and again failed at personal responsibility. This needs to end.
He finds himself stroking at the silk as he thinks.
On the one hand, Koschei's state may allow the Doctor time away from the TARDIS, accomplishing his customary feats of derring-do. He is unlikely to attempt world conquest again, no matter how misanthropic he remains to everyone but the Doctor, whom he seems to have imprinted on. On the other hand, if Koschei is injuring himself, some things in his head are even more wrong than they look, and the Doctor may need a long time to sort it all out.
Eventually Koschei opens the door a crack and peeks out. He is wrapped in a towel. "Clothes?"
The Doctor hands him the bundle. "Should be your size."
"All right."
I was just guessing at numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart -
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my hearts.
Shortly after, the Doctor is running a series of tests on his much-altered old friend and lover. Koschei does look a good deal more relaxed now that he's clean. The results show that he is suffering from nutritional deficiency, incipient pneumonia, and head lice.
"I am going to examine your mind," he says to Koschei, who is half-lying, half-sitting on the bed with the blanket he requested wrapped around him. "It won't hurt. If there is anything you don't want me to see…"
"You can see everything." He sounds disconnected and dreamy. "I'm glad you're here, Theta. You'll stop the drums."
"I hope to, eventually. Right now you need to rest." The Doctor chokes back the lump in his throat and places his fingers on Koschei's temples.
And tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh, and I rush to the start;
Running in circles, chasing at tails
Coming back as we are.
It's like walking in a gutted building. The only other Time Lord is still a genius, but one without purpose or impulse control, without many of his layers of self. Though not exactly lobotomized, the haphazard resurrection has rendered him a troubled adolescent again in capacity, with only the sound of drums knitting the fragments together.
And everywhere the Doctor goes he finds himself reflected back. At some deep, primordial level, Koschei sees his Theta as the only real person in a world of shadows he holds in contempt. The longing for Theta flows through his consciousness like a breeze stirring life into stagnancy.
The greatest pang comes when the Doctor discovers this: said feeling was part of the Master too, but was buried so deep under megalomania that it had warped into rivalry and sadism. It took breaking his psyche for anything like love to surface.
When he emerges, the Doctor realizes he's kissing Koschei. He makes a mental note to do something about that lice later, because a mutual infection would be embarrassing and unromantic, but for right now they cling like their lives depend on it. Which they do.
Nobody said it was easy
Oh, it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be this hard
I'm going back to the start.
