When he pushed open the door to the kitchen, he saw the Master sitting on one of the bright red bar stools, munching on some crackers. Wilf was working around the stove, speaking animatedly and repeatedly gesturing to a large book that sat open on the counter. They saw him before he caught on to the conversation's topic and quickly fell silent.
"Have a seat," Wilf said after a moment's hesitation. "Beans on toast? I'm heating up some chicken too."
"Brilliant," he answered.
The Master grabbed his crutches that he had leaning against the counter and moved them to his other side, clearing the space for the bar stool next to him. There was no invitation or question—he had always been very good at silently telling the Doctor exactly where he belonged.
As he slid onto the stool, the Master pushed the plate of crackers over so that it sat between them.
"I was just telling Harry about some of the things I've been learning from that book," Wilf began as he filled up the kettle. "I've barely glanced through it and I'm already amazed. Two hearts, three different ways to give birth, shared thoughts and dreams, and there was a diagram of a tongue with about a million little notes on it! And what on earth is a narin? I've only properly read the introductory chapter and it mentioned something called narin twice but didn't say what it was."
The Doctor took a cracker off the plate and nibbled at it. "It's a chemical that opens up and connects the mental pathways between two people. It's usually found in saliva."
"You don't usually taste it," the Master added. "But once a girl kissed me in school, and her narin tasted like old pickles with bits of fish."
Wilf laughed. "Needed to use mouthwash, eh?"
"I don't know why you gave him a big book like that when you can just explain most of it. It takes him two hours to get the garbled version of something you could tell him in two minutes." An elbow jabbed him in the side. "Show him your shevra."
He nearly choked on his cracker and tasted a fresh spurt of blood in his mouth.
Wilf raised an eyebrow. "Do I want to see a shevra?"
"Oh sure, there's nothing to it. The Doctor's just secretly an old prude on the inside."
He waited until the Master had stood up and turned away from him to wipe his mouth, finding a little streak of blood on the back of his hand afterwards. Wilf tossed him a dish towel without a word and carried on watching as the Master removed his shirt as if nothing had happened.
"See this funny pink bit of skin that looks like a scar?" the Master asked, bending his arm to point out the pink, knobbed skin in the center of his lower back.
Wilf nodded and began dishing out beans onto plates. "It looks like you've had some spinal surgery."
The Master shook his head and pulled his T-shirt back on. "It's a shevra. All of our people had them—it's a bit like a nerve hub that handles most of our sensations regarding time. It tells us when the car is changing direction, if you will."
"If that's all it is, why wouldn't the Doctor show me?"
"I would have. It's just kind of considered a private spot."
"Listen to him! He's meant to be a doctor," the Master scoffed. "You want to teach this man the science behind a Time Lord's body but you're too embarrassed to show him your no-no places? Honestly—"
"The shevra is private because it's very sensitive," he explained, speaking very loudly to stop the Master from carrying on. "It connects straight to the brain, so if you touch it carefully it feels rather nice—"
"Very nice."
"But if you hit it just right and hard enough, you can force a Time Lord into regeneration. The brain is convinced that there is irreparable damage while the body knows that there is no damage. The fight that occurs between the two means that it's incredibly painful," he shuddered slightly at the thought. "Naturally, a man feels a little protective over it."
Wilf pushed some plates their way and looked at the Doctor with raised eyebrows. "Have you had it happen?"
Before he could answer, the Master spoke up. "You can't complain if you had it coming to you."
"You weren't there! That was the biggest mockery of a trial I've ever seen in my life."
"At least yours was quick," the Master responded with a shrug. "I've had it happen to me, but whenever I'd start regenerating, they gave it another good wallop just to delay the whole thing. I wound up shrieking like a banshee for a good hour before they finally let me regenerate."
He'd never heard of a council using that kind of cruelty before. "Why would someone do that?"
The Master met his eyes for a brief second before shrugging. "Stole some stuff, didn't pay child support, that sort of thing." Then he shovelled a heaping spoon of beans into his mouth.
He shouldn't really be surprised. He could think of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would be thrilled with the idea of torturing the notorious Master for an hour, but he had never thought that it might have actually happened. Whenever they crossed paths, the Master always seemed so nonchalant and in control that it was difficult to imagine that he had ever experienced true fear or devastation.
On the other hand, a lot of people probably thought the same thing about the Doctor.
"You'll have to tell me about it sometime."
The Master looked at him carefully, eyes squinting a little as he thought about it. After a few seconds he gave a quick nod and turned back to his food.
"Nice to see you two kids playing nice," Wilf said cheerfully as he took the kettle of the stove for his tea. "I'd like it if the three of us could sit together like this more often."
"It's a good change," the Doctor agreed. "One of many, I hope."
He glanced over at the Master again, peeking at him from the corner of his eye. He hunched over his plate and devoured his meal in a way that suggested food was the only thought on his mind, but the Doctor was watching his eyes. He knew those eyes. Though they had changed shape and colour many times, he still understood the look in those eyes perfectly.
"Here," he reached into his jacket and pulled out the little bottle of pills he had stored in his inner pocket. "One with every meal."
The Master took the bottle from his hand and looked at the bright pink capsules carefully as he chewed. "What about the yellow ones?"
"Your last two blood tests came back clean. Lucy's poison is completely out of your system."
He had hoped that this would cheer him up and stop him thinking about whatever old memories he was thinking about. He thought presenting an easier form of medication, a sign of trust, and the good news that his body was no longer being attacked could only make him happy. He hadn't expected to see the Master's expression go from somber to pained. He certainly never thought it would cause tears to well up in his eyes.
Before the Doctor could even react, Wilfred had taken one of the Master's hands in his own and put his other hand on the Master's shoulder. "What's the matter? Oh, what's wrong, Harry?"
"I don't know. Sorry, I'm—I'm just over due for it then, aren't I?" The Master shrugged it off and carefully removed Wilf's hands. "I get a bit funny if I don't do everything right on time, don't I?"
He popped open the bottle with a word of thanks and quickly swallowed one of the pills. Wilf and the Doctor exchanged a quick look before murmuring words of agreement. It was hard to tell when it really was just the Master's mind or body reacting badly to something or if he was simply using it as an excuse, but the Doctor felt pretty suspicious about this.
"How about a cup of tea, Grandfather?" the Master asked, pulling off a rather believable smile.
"Oh, of course!" Wilf jumped to attention immediately and went to put the kettle back on the stove. "Tell you what, I brought a lovely vanilla and cinnamon tea in my bag—supposed to be good for the nerves. Let's give that a try, eh? Back in a tick."
Wilfred scurried out the door as fast as he could, and was especially careful to close the door properly behind him. He heard the Master chuckle to himself.
"What do you want to bet it takes him ten minutes to find that tea? He's not exactly subtle, is he?"
"No, not really," he couldn't help but chuckle as well, but also realized he couldn't miss the opportunity Wilf had given them. "...Did you want to talk?"
"We have been talking."
"You know what I mean."
"Did you want to talk?" The Master looked him in the eyes, fearless and challenging. "We're not the talking kind. Not about that anyway."
"You don't have to tell me what happened," he answered, being sure to meet the challenging gaze without reacting to it. "You can just talk. Like we used to."
"Back when we were friends." There was bitterness in his voice.
"We talked about this, remember? We can be friends again, in time."
"What if we don't have time?"
He could sense the other Time Lord's emotions radiating off him. He could feel the stress in him intensifying, and felt rolling waves of a desperate kind of loneliness that he was all too familiar with. It was slightly unstable, so he knew that part of this really was to blame on the late medication. But he also knew that the root of it was real.
He wondered how much the Master knew about the things he said when he slipped into instability. He wondered if he knew what he had told Wilfred as he shook and got sick the day the Doctor explored his mind without permission.
The kettle was whistling, so he slid off his bar stool to tend to it. He thought carefully over what to say as he removed it from the burner. This was tender ground, and saying the wrong thing could be devastating. He leaned against the counter, face to face with the Master now, and spoke.
"The other night, when you were sick, you were talking to Wilfred," he began slowly, carefully, watching for any cures from the other to stop talking. "And you told him that you didn't want to die."
His eyes widened slightly. He was surprised. He didn't know he had said it, and that meant that it was a real fear.
"I won't let you die."
Tears welled in his eyes again, a shock of strong emotion rippled through the atmosphere, and he immediately turned his face away. "Can you wait for the damn drugs to kick in before you say stuff like that?"
He couldn't help but smile a bit. "Sorry," he carefully stretched out his hand and rested it on the Master's shoulder, feeling the skin tense beneath his fingers. To his surprise the Master reacting very suddenly. His elbows moved onto the counter so that he could drop his head in his hands, effectively hiding his face.
"It all made sense at the time," he blurted out quickly, his voice quivering slightly. "It was almost like it wasn't happening—like it was a game or something—and it just made sense to do what I was doing. And now . . ." he stopped for a moment to breathe, and the Doctor was able to feel his psychic aura stabilizing a little. "I just fucked it all up."
Guilt. He was familiar with guilt. He felt it glowing from the Master's mind like an old friend waving at him from a distance. But guilt was good. Guilt was genuine. Bad men don't feel guilt.
He gave the Master a little tug on his ear lobe to get his attention, a sign of affection they once shared centuries ago. "I want you to take one of these." He pulled another bottle from his jacket pocket, this one containing two grey capsules. "I can't keep nanobots on the ship. The frequent solar storms I run into jumble up their programming too much for them to be worth the work, but these should do just fine. When we're both back in one piece, we can work on making up for things."
He was surprised that the Master didn't immediately grab for the precious little pill, especially with the fuss he'd been making over his leg. He had to open the bottle himself and hand one to his companion, hoping that this at least would cheer him up.
"We'll feel like hell for a few hours," the Master muttered quietly, looking at the pill in his hand. "Especially you, all banged up like that."
"Then we'll feel like hell together, and Wilfred can make us soothing vanilla cinnamon tea to calm our nerves."
"If he ever finds it."
"Oh, he knows exactly where it is."
The Master sniffled a little and rubbed at his eyes, trying to bring himself back to a normal state. The Doctor felt his emotional vibes quieting down and stabilizing, but he wasn't sure if it was thanks to the medication or simply because he'd gotten something off his chest. Either was good news, he supposed.
"I really wanted to catch that amphibian, you know. If it was an amphibian, that is. I might never know now."
The Doctor grabbed some glasses to fetch them both some water. His throat was far too raw and painful to take a pill without it and the last thing he wanted was to choke and spit it up with another fresh spurt of blood. In the beginning, the pain was just something solid and real that he could hold onto, reminding him of his sanity and that he was, in fact, still alive. Now, however, with his fresh jostling and new, nasty bruises forming from the Master's assistance earlier, he decided it would be foolish to deny himself medical treatment any further—especially now that his companions knew about it.
"The time streams are all slowed down now," he said as he pushed a glass of water across the counter. "It will still be there tomorrow, after we've rested. You'll even be able to chase after it if you need to."
"That would feel good," the Master raised his glass to the Doctor. "Bottoms up."
The Doctor raised his glass in response and they both swallowed the little grey pill. He felt it scrape the sides of his swollen, irritated throat all the way down and winced but luckily didn't choke. He quickly drank the rest of the water to make sure everything stayed down.
The Master pushed his empty glass back when he was finished and took a deep breath. "Don't tell Wilf I cried."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see you cry."
"Good, because I didn't."
"Shall I bring him back in then?"
The Master nodded quickly, wiping his eyes once more just to be sure. "Go on then."
The Doctor looked toward the kitchen's door and spoke in a loud, clear voice. "I wonder what's taking Wilf so long? Maybe we should go help him look?"
Wilfred was at least smart enough to wait a good thirty seconds to come through the door so as not to look like he had been hovering just outside it. Everyone knew that everyone knew, but that wasn't the point.
