Chapter 5
It started as soon as he surrendered his laser screwdriver. A whisper of fear, faintly hovering just at the edges of his consciousness. He was aware that he couldn't quite control himself. He accepted that he needed help, and who else in the universe could relate, could hope to understand, except the Doctor? It was normal to be frightened when handing over your weapon to someone who hates you, especially when he looked afraid to take it.
The Master let himself be led into the Zero Room. He even allowed the Doctor to touch him, though the gesture was confusing, more alien than a slap to the face. The Doctor was radiating an unusual energy, and he lied blatantly about its source, but even this wasn't enough to send the Master into an all-out panic.
It was the sound of the door being sealed that penetrated his numbed state. The moment the dead-locks slid into place, the Master was hit by a wave of terror unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He glanced frantically around the room. No clocks, no communication system, no windows. Absolutely no way to mark time or call for help. In an instant, he realized that he'd willingly walked into a trap, the most comfortable prison cell the Doctor could manage. He will help. It's his nature to help, thought the Master, trying to ignore the aura that threatened to descend, and the increasingly hard quadruple beat of the drums, which seemed to repeat the question over and over, Can you be sure?
"I have to trust him," said the Master, like a mantra against his rapidly rising fear.
The Doctor lies.
"He wouldn't lie about this, not to me."
Can you be sure? repeated the drums, more insistently than before.
"Yes!"
Can you be sure?
"Yes," said the Master, with less assurance as the seconds crawled by. They may as well have been days or years, as far as he could tell.
He's not your friend. He does not care. He won't come back. You are alone.
The Master desperately wanted to believe that the Doctor's intentions were pure, but as he contemplated the phrase 'as soon as I can' it became completely meaningless, a hollow promise. The Doctor's platitude 'I hate to lock you in here' also fell apart, considering that he had locked away the entire Time War and its participants, with no intention of ever looking back. What was one more wayward Time Lord, compared to all of them? The Master certainly wasn't a larger threat, especially in this pitiable state. He was nothing, lower than nothing, something so inadequate it deserved to be locked away and forgotten about.
The Master felt the shell he'd thought was himself begin to crumble inwards towards an inescapable void.
Get out of here.
Fear flooding every fiber of his being, he ran to the door. It would require a sizeable portion of his regenerative power to break the locks, more than he would've liked, but he couldn't see another way out, and it was a price he was willing to pay for making such an incredibly stupid mistake.