The next morning dawned to the sizzle of sausages and hash browns and a delicious aroma that wafted down the corridor from the kitchen to the nose of Craig Owens, who stood outside the bathroom door. Mouth already watering, he knew not for the first time that he wouldn't regret taking the Doctor on as a lodger. However, as he shifted from foot to foot outside the door, he could hear over the running shower the voice of his second lodger quietly humming and singing to himself.

"Disco dancin' with the lights down low-ohh…"

"Kaiser?" Craig knocked hesitantly on the door. "How long are you going to be in there?"

"Beats are pumpin' on the stereo-ohh…"

"C'mon, mate." Struck by an idea, Craig raised his voice to be heard over the splashing and the perky pop song, and knocked again. "Breakfast's nearly ready."

"Neighbours bangin' on the bathroom wa-a-all…hm? What's that?"

"Breakfast," Craig repeated with another final knock. "Food – sausages, bacon, hash browns."

That ought to do it, he thought to himself, turning to head back to the kitchen. Suddenly, a series of dull thuds pounded from the ceiling, followed by a heavy crash that sounded like it might have been furniture toppling over.

"What the hell was that?" he murmured, frowning upwards. Reluctantly, he bypassed the kitchen and peered up the stairs towards the closed door of the upstairs flat. "Hello?" he called cautiously. "Hello – are you O.K. up there?"

...

Alone at last…it was a small mercy, but a welcome one. The door was locked, the shower curtain was drawn around him and the Master stood in the water, feeling it wash over him like pouring rain. It irked him to admit it to himself, but the Doctor had been right – without the TARDIS, his energy was quickly breaking down, his life force becoming steadily more and more unstable. Closing his eyes, he was taken briefly back to the first night after his resurrection – it had rained that night; he remembered the icy water on his skin, but very little else – just a fragmented blur of light and darkness, numbness and pain, the silence of a stilled heartbeat and the pounding of the drums. A shudder shook him and he quickly opened his eyes, allowing the glaring white light of the bathroom to dispel the haze of memory that menaced him from the edges of his subconscious. Still, though, the perpetual drumbeat hammered in his ears, and the nagging hunger was returning, growing stronger by the hour, aching in the pit of his stomach.

A rush of dissipating energy coursed through him and he winced, fighting it down with gritted teeth. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he found that he had placed one hand flat against the smooth wall – and in a moment of weary relief, he allowed himself to rest his forehead against the cool tiles, wrapping his other arm around himself.

At the crash from overhead, his head snapped upright and his hands dropped to his sides, curling into tense fists. Craig's voice sounded distantly – at the end of the corridor, he estimated – followed shortly by the Doctor's voice. Now alert, the Master switched off the shower and stepped out, listening intently over the persistent rhythm of four.

"…I can do them sunny-side-up, if you'd prefer…" The Doctor again, still jabbering on. Rolling his eyes, the Master picked up a towel. "…and I've always quite liked them with mustard. How about you, Craig?"

"Hang on a tic – I'm just going to see if he's all right…" The Master had barely finished pulling on one of the lurid socks when he heard the distinct creak of a foot on a wooden stair. Seized with panic, he snatched up the towel and made a dive for the door.

"Don't go up there!" he bellowed, fumbling with the lock. "Don't touch it, Doctor – it's mi- oww!" His feet slid on the damp floor and he stumbled, catching his elbow painfully on the corner of the sink – and biting back a curse, he missed the sound of the front door swinging open. "Doctor – leave it alone!" Frantically, he flung open the bathroom door and hurtled down the corridor, clutching the towel. "Do you hear me? You will ob-" He skidded out into the hallway and stopped short, the sparks that had crackled to life in the hand not gripping the towel dying abruptly as three pairs of eyes turned to face him.

"Ah – Ma- …Kaiser!" the Doctor chirped, brandishing a spatula with an unruffled grin. "There you are! You'll be wanting breakfast, of course." Craig recovered first from his surprise and let out a somewhat embarrassed laugh.

"Bit keen, aren't you?"

The owner of the third pair of eyes was a young woman, who had averted her gaze and covered her face with her hands. Shyly, she peeked between her fingers, and Craig noticed with some disconcertion as her eyes travelled slowly down from Kaiser's face, past the towel, coming to rest on the single sock that the man appeared to have hastily pulled on – Craig was sure he had seen that absurd pattern before.

All at once, Kaiser appeared to mentally shake himself; he drew the towel around his waist, securing it in place, and his eyes darted between the three of them. Briefly – although Craig later thought it could have been his imagination – something flashed in the man's eyes that sent an inexplicable chill down his neck, and then he was gone, sidestepping quickly back through the door. A few seconds later, the bathroom door could be heard slamming with what sounded like enough force to splinter the doorframe, and Craig turned back to Sophie.

"And…uh…and that was Kaiser – I told you about him, right?"

"Y-yeah…" Her cheeks were flushed pink; Craig couldn't help thinking what a lively glow the blush brought to her face, and the phone must have been on its second or third ring before the sound registered in his ears.

Miraculously, the Doctor hadn't burned one of the sausages in the frying pan, and he began expertly scooping them out onto plates – four plates, Sophie noticed as she deposited her armful of groceries on the kitchen side, but she certainly wasn't going to object.

"No – Don's in Malta – there's nobody around," Craig was saying on the phone, and Sophie rolled her eyes with a small smile – Craig and his football… He shuffled towards the Doctor and tried to catch the man's eye with a muttered "Hang on a sec," down the phone. "We've got a match today – pub league," he said, and the Doctor raised his eyes from the crispy-golden hash browns he was now drizzling with tomato sauce, a bottle in each hand. "We're one down, if you fancy it?"

"Pub league…" the Doctor said pensively. Flipping both bottles closed and spinning them deftly, his expression brightened with apparent comprehension. "A drinking competition!" Sophie giggled, quickly covering her mouth as Craig glanced at her over the Doctor's shoulder and covered the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand.

"No – football. Play football?"

"Football…" the Doctor murmured. "Ah! Football! Blokes…play football! I'm good at football…" In his relief, Sophie thought Craig might have missed the uncertain "…I think" that the Doctor added, as he clapped him on the back and the Doctor returned the gesture with a fraction of a hesitation.

"You've saved my life!" Craig exclaimed, and the Doctor beamed, returning to the plates and pans. "I've got somebody. Yeah, all right, see you down there…"

"Again, Doctor?" Apparently, the earlier incident had not been enough to deter Kaiser from joining them for breakfast, now clothed from head to toe in black with a hood drawn up over his head. "What did you do now – make a fibrillator out of a frying pan?" With his hood partially concealing his features, it wasn't hard for Sophie to avoid his eyes as he stalked past her, picked up a plate and grabbed a sausage.

"Nope," the Doctor replied happily, handing a plate each to Sophie and Craig, who seated themselves at the table. "We're going to play football." Kaiser had remained standing, and Sophie saw with some surprise that he had already half-cleared his plate. He raised his head, flipping back the hood to glower at the Doctor, incredulous.

"What?"

"Football," the Doctor repeated. "I think it's the one with the sticks."

"I know what football is," Kaiser retorted, although he quickly lowered his eyes back to the plate. "'We?'"

"Yes – we're going to be normal blokes today."

"You're not expecting me to-"

"No – it's O.K.," Craig spoke up, and Sophie found herself feeling a little relieved. "There's only one kit. Bottom drawer, by the way." This last to the Doctor, who flashed a quick thumbs-up, handed his plate to Kaiser and made for the door to their bedroom.

"Bit of a mess," he excused himself, slipping through and shutting the door at his back before Sophie and Craig could catch a glimpse past him. Kaiser was now setting into the Doctor's barely-touched breakfast as if it were his first meal of the week, and Sophie glanced anxiously at him and then at Craig, who squinted curiously at Kaiser.

"You all right, mate?" The hazel eyes were lifted questioningly to meet his, and held his gaze for the longest pause before Craig managed to find the rest of his sentence. "You look a bit…peaky this morning, that's all."

"Peaky." Kaiser's rough voice was flat and expressionless, eyes still fixed on Craig, almost expectantly.

"Well, it's just…you don't have to come to the football match if you don't want to," Craig shrugged. "I mean, you can, if you want to support the Doctor…Sophie's coming – she's my mascot – but…you know, if you don't feel up to it…no-one's expecting anyone else to bring a date."

"You said mascot," Sophie put in, her voice breaking the hold Kaiser's eyes seemed to have on Craig as though she had cut an elastic band.

"Mascot?" Craig blinked. "No – I meant da- no, I…yeah, mascot. I meant them – they're da-"

"Oh, don't worry." Kaiser placed the empty plate on the side and strode towards the bedroom door. "If I feel 'peaky'…" he turned his strangely penetrating gaze on Sophie, "…I'll borrow your spare key." And with that, he slipped through the door and was gone, leaving Craig and Sophie to once again exchange uncomfortable glances.

"How…how did he know I have two keys?"

...

The small bedroom was more cramped than ever – the Doctor hadn't been exaggerating when he said it was a "bit of a mess", the Master thought as he picked his way carefully across to the bed. The Doctor, now dressed in a pair of black shorts and a baggy blue T-shirt emblazoned with a large number eleven on the back, was edging his way around the room, poking at his hair with a brush in one hand and adjusting the volume control of his earpiece with the other.

"So," he was saying to Amy. "We're going out. Can't hang about the house all day – him upstairs," he nodded upwards, "might get suspicious." Folding his hands behind his head, the Master lay back and closed his eyes. He remained like that for several seconds, fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his feet, before grimacing and sitting up. With a disgusted glare at the Doctor, he began moving about the room collecting up the various items cluttering the floor and replacing them carefully in the trolley that he pushed back into a corner.

"Football," Amy replied in the Doctor's ear. "O.K., well done, that is normal."

"Yeah. Football." The Doctor tossed the brush back in the direction of the dresser; it missed by a good half a foot, but the Doctor ignored it, along with the withering look the Master shot at his back. "All…outdoorsy and…stuff."

"Doctor?"

"Yes, Amy?"

"You have no idea what football is, do you?"

"Ah…" It was as close to a confession as she was going to get, and the Doctor heard her seat herself – was she putting her feet on the TARDIS console?

"What about Mister Rugby Blue Harold Saxon?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows in surprise and he turned to the Master, now straightening the tools scattered on the dresser.

"You never told me you played-"

"I was joking," Amy interrupted. "Neither of you know the first thing about Earth sports, do you?"

"I'll have you know I was quite good at cricket in my day!" the Doctor grumbled. "Right then, Pond. Football. Talk me through it. How do you hold the racket?"