Chapter Text
The Master was greedy, in the way he wanted the Doctor. He'd thought, for a long time, that if he could just get enough to satisfy himself, to sate his stinging pride and curiosity, then the fascination would wear at long last. He'd once wondered what it would be like to have the Doctor on his knees, put there because the Master had won, weak and finally wanting him in return. He'd somehow imagined seeing it would mean his own freedom from obsession.
He'd been naïve.
If anything, it was worse now that he'd lived the reality of that idle fantasy. He took voraciously from the Doctor because he couldn't get enough. He wanted everything - every thought, every secret, every orgasm, laugh, idea, flash of pain and flare of brilliant temper. He wanted to be the keeper of his pride, for it to stand in towering monument or shattered at the Master's feet according to his whim. He wanted to crack his mind and hearts open like lockboxes, glut himself on whatever he found inside, unconcerned with whether it was 'good' or 'pleasant' or 'pretty'. He almost wanted the dark, ugly things more; to be the only one who got to own them.
The Master didn't know what to do with the craving, the sheer overwhelming need of it. It was weakness in him. He kept waiting for the Doctor to grow tired of giving, to finally deny the Master's ceaseless demands for more and in doing so cut the supply of his ever growing addiction.
He didn't know what he'd do, when that happened. Nothing good, most likely.
She could touch things now. The Master hated that.
He sat at the kitchen counter, watching Clara and the Doctor navigate round each other as they organised breakfast. The Doctor took bowls and mugs down from the higher shelves, passing them to the shorter human to place inside the replicator, which she did with a casual familiarity that offended the Master. The two kept bumping into each other during the little tasks, and every single time they shared stupid grins at the reminder that she was a real girl now.
The Master wanted to put a fork through her chest, see how 'real' and 'alive' she was then.
He had to curl his hands in his lap to stop himself fondling the cutlery in temptation, fully aware of just how well his notions of homicide would be met by the other Time Lord. The Doctor was positively chipper to have a pet human back onboard again. Well. An almost-human. It was sickening, like he'd woken up to find he'd been gifted a puppy. A particularly yappy, messy, mutilated-by-Time rat of a puppy. The Master clenched his jaw, restlessly pressed his fist to his mouth as he listened to their meaningless happy chatter and the clink of dishware.
"So this version of the TARDIS really doesn't have the spinny thing?"
"What spinny thing? You keep saying that to me like it's supposed to mean something, and I'm telling you -"
"Oh come on, the other you loved the spinny thing!"
"Apparently he wasn't the only one."
"I'm just saying, it's going to take some getting used to, is all. There I was, thinking I had you all figured out, and now it's like starting all over again."
- and oh, really, this was just too much.
The Doctor chose that moment to place a mug of tea in front of him, deftly interrupting his reach for the waiting silverware. His hand rested on the Master's shoulder like he could sense the building tension. The Master slid a look across at Clara, wanting her to note the contact. She wasn't paying attention, though, busy settling herself on the opposite side of the counter with a plate of jam toast and a cup of black coffee. She bit into a slice of the toast, looked across at them brightly.
"So. Where are we going first?"
The Master bristled even further, shrugging the Doctor off him and levelling a glare at her. "We aren't going anywhere. You're sodding off home, first stop we make. You weren't invited."
Sighing, the Doctor pulled out a chair next to him with his own plate of unspeakably boring plain toast, looking like he was settling himself in to mediate.
Clara shrugged helplessly. "Well what do you want me to do? Go back to London and start running into myself every time I do the weekend shop? Thought that was against your... Time Code, or whatever."
"I rather think we're a bit past good and proper 'Time Code', don't you?" the Master hissed, shooting a scandalised look between her and the Doctor, aberrations that they both were now. The Doctor a law unto himself in changing and forcing timelines, and Clara... well. Frankly, he didn't know what Clara was, and had no real desire to find out.
"She's right," the Doctor commented mildly. "She can't cross paths with... the other Clara. We don't know what would happen."
"Oh isn't that convenient," he snapped, turning on him. "Perfect excuse for you to go picking up strays again."
The Doctor made an incredulous expression. "Yeah, you got me. I orchestrated a universe-altering paradox just to win this one argument. So glad it paid off, that sure would have been embarrassing."
"So I can come with you then?" Clara prompted, eyebrows up hopefully.
"No, you cannot," the Master insisted again. "Fine, you can't go back to Earth, you can get out at the first hospitable rock we pass."
The Doctor rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Alright, let's be reasonable."
"I am! I said 'hospitable'!"
Clearly, they didn't quite appreciate his magnanimity in such an offer, as Clara just scoffed and the other Time Lord largely ignored him.
"Where do you want to go, anyway?" the Doctor asked, visibly warming to the idea that he got to play tour-guide again and beginning to gesture excitedly as he spoke. "Could show you Arcadia? Or the Alpha Centauri colonies are nice this time of year. Oh! What about the Festival of Offerings, that's always a bit special -"
"On the Rings of Akhatan, yeah it was gorgeous." Clara sipped her coffee, nodding enthusiastically. "Met the Queen of Years there. You got your memories eaten by a sun."
Both Time Lords stared at her blankly. After a few moments, looking a little crestfallen, the Doctor lowered his hands back to the counter. "Oh. Well. Somewhere else, then."
"Sure. How about you surprise me?" She stood up, pinching the last slice of toast from her plate to take with her. "Alright, Time Losers, I'm going to go find where the TARDIS keeps the nice bathroom these days - oh. Bubblebaths. There's a luxury I've missed..."
Bouncing slightly in her excitement, she turned and disappeared from the kitchen with the obvious confidence of someone who'd woken up on the TARDIS frequently enough to know her way around. She'd probably sat and eaten breakfast with another version of the Doctor more times than she could recount, the Master thought bitterly, in whatever sweet little morning routine they'd enjoyed together -
The current version of the Doctor eyed him surreptitiously, reaching over and wordlessly prying loose the fork that had appeared in his clenched fist. He replaced it neatly with a spoon, and slid across a bowl of the cereal the Master preferred.
"Just... eat. No murder. It's too early in the morning."
"She is not coming with us."
The Doctor looked like he'd been naively hoping to defer the whole conversation. Resigning himself, he set down his piece of toast and drew a breath, holding it as he visibly tried to plan an answer the Master wasn't going to like.
"I can't just... leave her."
The Master shook his head, annoyed but not remotely surprised. "Yes you can. She's not your responsibility."
The other man lifted a shoulder dubiously. "She really is."
"Why, because you would have met her, maybe, in some hypothetical future that never actually happened?" It was a useless rhetoric, he knew, even as he hissed it in frustration. The Doctor felt responsible for half the civilised universe already, regardless of whether he'd personally met them or not. That Clara had dared to stake claim on his friendship had trapped him as effectively as if she'd handcuffed them together.
"It's more than that," the Doctor pointed out reluctantly. "You know she can't go back to Earth, right? There's two co-existing Claras. Not alternatives, but two actual timelines that are running completely parallel. As far as I'm aware, that's never happened before. We've got no idea what happens if they cross over."
The Master shrugged concession. He didn't particularly want to watch the universe implode from sheer impossibility either - personal growth, if he did say so himself - but that didn't mean they had to subject themselves to her.
"So let's take her somewhere," he tried. "Take her a few galaxies away, take her to a future date. It can even be somewhere nice, I don't care - one of the New Earth colonies, she'll fit right in. And then we can be on our way, with your bleeding-heart duty fulfilled!"
The Doctor glanced across at him, trying and failing not to look guilty. "Yeah. Maybe, if she wants."
"...But you're not going to make it happen."
"Well I can't just - kick her out. It's my fault she's in this mess."
Infuriated, the Master pinned him with a glare. "And what about me?" he demanded through gritted teeth. He put one hand flat on the counter, middle finger tapping out the beat of the drums. "We had plans. Don't I get a vote?"
The other Time Lord opened his mouth, stalling helplessly on an answer.
Sneering, the Master didn't bother waiting for the attempt. He shoved back from the kitchen counter in a way even he recognised as petulant, snatching out of reach of the hand that reached for his sleeve. He didn't look back as he left the Doctor to the remains of breakfast.
She'd just... been there, suddenly. Wandering the TARDIS with no idea why she was back and no comprehension of the damage she was likely doing just by existing. The Master had made his one mistake by not reacting quickly enough. He'd been so stunned by her reappearance that he'd just stood staring in astonishment and mounting horror for a few valuable moments, trying to decide what to do, what had gone wrong, how to get rid of her.
But then had come the revelation that she was... physical, now, and he'd known with sinking dread that the Doctor wouldn't let him neatly dispose of her again. Like somehow that was the moral boundary.
Sure enough, the other Time Lord had touched her like he couldn't believe it, like he was afraid she'd disappear in a wisp of smoke if he wasn't careful enough, and then suddenly there'd been hugging and incomprehensible screeching and really quite unnecessary displays of emotion from both of them - and the Master had lost his chance to kill her unnoticed.
So now here they all were. The Doctor and Clara acting like they were long-lost family, sickeningly; no one but him seeming to question how and why she'd reappeared, despite the sheer impossibility of it; and all quite obviously expected to pretend like this was normal, this was nice, they were just casually sharing space with this not-human thing that made him uncomfortable to look at. She might be flesh and blood now, somehow, but there was still something... immutable about her. She didn't move properly in the flow of Time, and reminded him of the Freak in the way she made his skin crawl.
He didn't understand how it wasn't the same for the Doctor. He must see it too. But it was like he didn't care, too busy pretending that they were friends. It was infuriating. He didn't know her, and she certainly didn't know him. The Master wasn't sure what they'd been to each other in that other timeline, but in this one the Doctor had already made his choice.
And it wasn't supposed to be Clara.
He found her in the nice bathroom.
Bypassing the privacy lock, he slipped quietly inside. She was already submerged in the bubblebath she'd promised, hair pinned up and head tipped back, eyes closed. Earth pop music drifted from the TARDIS sound system and reverberated round the spacious tiled room. She obviously hadn't heard his approach so he stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching her for a few seconds, and then pointedly cleared his throat.
Clara startled badly enough to accidentally slide down in the bathtub, dunking herself to the shoulders and sloshing water over the edge. She threw a scandalised glare at him, one hand frantically gathering bubbles towards herself, the other clutching at the rim of the bath.
"What - the hell? Your lot really don't do personal space, do you! A little privacy, please?!"
He didn't bother dignifying that with a response, glancing instead around the room. There was a gilded vanity table against one wall, and he walked over to take hold of the matching upholstered chair. Lifting it, he turned and set it down near the bathtub, settling himself in so he was facing her.
She frowned at him incredulously, arms now crossed primly over her chest and eyes pinned impossibly wide. "Sorry, can I help you with something?!"
There seemed little purpose in lingering over pleasantries, so he got right to the point. "You're not wanted here."
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Excuse me?"
"You're a liability, and a responsibility, that we don't need. I'm still not sure how or why you... reappeared -" He paused to eye her dubiously, still somewhat convinced she knew more than she was telling about being returned to a state of living. "- but I can assure you it was nothing to do with either of us. The Doctor won't come out and say it, obviously, so let me be clear on his behalf: you should go."
For long seconds the only sound in the room was the faint lap of water and the jarring peppy music she'd been listening to. She stared at him in wordless shock, not quite guarded enough to keep the hurt look off her face. Then she blinked, and he watched curiously as that expression shuttered, to be replaced by something keener.
"If the Doctor wants me to leave, don't you think he should tell me that himself? It's his TARDIS."
"He's being polite."
Clara snorted dismissively. "Since when does he know how?"
Which was, admittedly, a fair point. The Master rolled his eyes. "He feels obligated, then, if you're going to be picky about it. My point is, it would be easier on everyone if you volunteered to make yourself scarce. Ask him to drop you off somewhere, you have the whole of time and space bar one tiny planet. Go wild."
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Nah. I'm good here, I think."
"I just told you, you're not -"
"Pretty sure I know him well enough to judge that for myself, thanks."
He sneered. "You? What the hell do you know? You're a blip on the radar, less than. You've known him - what - all of five minutes?"
She tilted her head, nose wrinkled in pedantic disagreement. "Well... Not really, though."
"Oh you can't be serious."
Clara shifted, water splashing lightly as she folded her arms on the edge of the bathtub closest to him, eyes raised to his in challenge. She had nerve, he'd give her that. "I'm just saying, technically, from my side of things... I've known him all his life."
Annoyance shot through him and he scoffed, over-exaggerated. "Your imaginary, fever-dream, pointless 'memories' hardly count -"
"Why not?" She tapped a finger to her temple. "These bad boys go back nine hundred years. All those lives, all the times we met. Hell of a long time to get to know somebody."
"I know," he snapped through gritted teeth, leaning forward in his chair and lowering his face towards hers. "I lived through it, I was actually there! You weren't real, you delusional lunatic bitch."
"Sure about that?" She grinned sharply. "Wanna give me a pop quiz?"
"Are you... Are you actually trying to compete with me?" He laughed softly, almost breathless with outrage.
"And why exactly would I want to do that?"
He sat back, fighting to keep the stab of irritation from showing in his expression. "You should run away, very quickly, for everyone's sake. Especially yours."
Clara flicked her eyebrows sceptically. "That your sales pitch, is it? Vague threat, moody glare? I was expecting better from a politician." She lounged back again in the bath, fussily making sure the bubbles still covered her modesty, although one bent knee broke the surface of the water. When the silence stretched on, she cast him another sidelong look, all coy amusement. "What, you think I didn't recognise you as the British Prime Minister?"
The Time Lord closed his eyes in exasperation. He'd rather hoped she didn't, actually, seeing as they'd picked her up in 1890's London. But he'd overheard her tell the Doctor that since being aboard the TARDIS her disjointed, fragmented memories of the many lives she'd had scattered through Time had started to grow clearer, sharper. They'd settled in her brain like some impossible tapestry of moments, and now it seemed she remembered a thousand things she rightfully shouldn't.
"PM. So how did that work, exactly?"
"Badly. For everyone involved."
She snorted. "Harold Saxon, right?"
"Yes," he admitted stiffly, exhausted at the reminder. "But my name is the Master."
"Yeah, no. I don't know what you have going on with the Doctor, but I won't be calling you that, Harold."
She wouldn't dare. He stared at her, unblinking, waiting for her to waver. She just went on wearing that vaguely amused expression which seemed to be her default, and if she had the good sense to be afraid of him it didn't show. He wondered if she mistakenly thought she was untouchable under the Doctor's implicit protection, or if she was just too stupid to realise the consequences of pushing him much further.
At length, he stood up without saying anything else, smoothing a hand down the front of his waistcoat and rolling his shoulders to rid the tension that had settled there.
"While you're up - pass me that towel, will you?"
The Master paused, going still except to arch a faintly disbelieving eyebrow at her. She held his gaze, wet arm held out past the bathtub expectantly.
Slowly, he looked round at the nearby stack of pristine white towels, considering. He took the top one from the pile, holding it for a moment in his hands, then returned to the bath and offered it out towards her, his expression politely neutral. Her fingers closed on the soft material, but he didn't quite let go when she tugged.
He was going to drown her, he realised calmly. The towel would do nicely over her mouth to muffle the scream, and then he was going to put his hands on her chest and her tiny breakable neck and he was going to hold her under the water while she thrashed - and he was going to enjoy every damn second of it.
At last, she must have noticed something of it in his face. The slight smirk finally dropped away, her eyes going wide. She snatched the towel from him, clutching it against her chest as she sat up straighter, grabbing at the edge of the bath as though to get some leverage.
"Get out." Her voice had gone strained. "Right now, get out."
He lingered another few moments, sliding his hands into his pockets as he regarded her, slowly playing out the fantasy a last time in his mind. It would be so easy, so quickly done. She could disappear without trace. They still didn't know how she'd been brought back, there was no reason they should know why she suddenly vanished again just as quickly. An unsolved mystery of the universe and the paradoxical meddling they'd done to it.
But eventually his gaze flicked reluctantly up towards the far corner of the ceiling, where he knew from experience that the TARDIS kept steady watch on things through the camera system of the ship. He wouldn't put it past the old cow to stream evidence of his activities direct to the Doctor's personal laptop, just to piss him off.
"Your bubbles need topping up," he advised at last, voice cold and soft, before strolling from the bathroom.
He'd never bothered to claim his own room within the Doctor's TARDIS. There'd never been a need, and he'd always been oddly standoffish to stake out space that was solely his own aboard the temperamental ship. Part of him suspected that if he tried, the TARDIS would only relish deleting it. He slept much less than the Doctor anyway, irregular in when he could manage to settle, and often enough struggling with the sound of the drums whenever he made the attempt. So when he did succumb to the need, making use of the Doctor's bed for brief periods just seemed... easier.
They'd grown accustomed to the practicalities of sharing space during their recent stint on Earth out of sheer necessity, but now that they were back aboard the TARDIS, and the issue had become somewhat optional, the Master still experienced moments of hesitation on those occasions their sleep patterns aligned and they got into bed together, sometimes without even sex to mitigate the surreal sense of domesticity. He suspected it made him nervier than lying down to sleep had any right to, but he'd be damned if he admitted as much.
Which was how he found himself lying tense and awake in the Doctor's bed, turned away from the other man and entirely unable to still the turn of restless thoughts in his head. The Doctor never appeared to have the same difficulty, sitting relaxed and reading somewhere behind him. He clearly knew the Master was still awake, as every now and then he'd quietly read out a line which interested or entertained him. At first the Master had wondered irritably what the hell he was supposed to say in response, sharp sarcasm lingering on his tongue. Eventually he'd realised he wasn't expected to say anything at all, and had cautiously settled into waiting for the next snippet, more interested in determining what it was the Doctor deemed worthy of sharing than the content itself.
"'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.' I like that."
The Master huffed as he recognised that one, finally deigning to turn onto his back. "Don't you ever get tired of Shakespearean tragedies? It's morbid."
The Doctor smiled faintly, not looking up from the pages. "The man had a way with words."
"Preferred Marlowe."
"Marlowe wrote tragedies too."
"Depends on your perspective."
The Doctor snorted, lapsing back into peaceable silence. The Master glanced across at him, dubiously eyeing the soft cotton T-shirt of his pyjamas, and the thick-rimmed reading glasses he insisted on using rather than correct the visual defect of his current regeneration. Yet another aesthetic cry for attention, the Master thought privately, resolving once again never to admit he quite liked them. For a few moments, he indulged the idea of reaching over, getting rid of book and glasses and pyjamas and all that irritating restraint.
He didn't, though. He still felt too tense, too unsettled, to make the attempt.
Unbidden, he thought again of Clara insisting she actually knew the other Time Lord, and felt his lip curl in automatic disdain. The idea that she had any real familiarity with one of their kind was laughable at best, and downright offensive when he thought back to the mocking way she'd dared him to test her, to compete. The implication being, of course, that she had ownership of moments of the Doctor's history that the Master didn't. Moments she'd been there and he hadn't.
Unhappy, he shifted restlessly on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
It wasn't something he'd ever given much consideration to, before. Humans had always come and gone around the Doctor, a never-ending procession he liked to trail behind him. Mildly irritating when they got in the Master's way, admittedly, but so trivial and fleeting that he'd never cared one way or another what the other Time Lord got up to with them. Besides the obvious.
Now suddenly it was lodged in his head: the idea that Clara had her grubby little fingerprints all over a history he considered as rightfully belonging to him alone. Gallifrey was gone. The Time Lords dead. He'd thought there was no one left in the universe to own knowledge of their past, beside himself and the Doctor. He'd secretly quite liked it that way.
He picked at a loose thread in the covers, frowning.
"Tell me about something I don't know."
The Doctor's mouth twitched vague amusement, still not looking up from his book. "Teletubbies aren't a real species."
Momentarily stopped short, the Master squinted, trying to decide if he was being serious or not. "...I meant about you, prat."
"You already know everything about me," the other man muttered distractedly, sparing him a brief glance and a faintly confused expression.
He bit down on the snappish response that sprung to mind, unwilling to betray the turn his thoughts had taken. It was humiliating enough to acknowledge in the privacy of his own mind, he couldn't bring himself to give voice to the growing paranoia he could feel starting to take root that perhaps he didn't know the Doctor best, as he'd always assumed. They'd been separate for long spans of their timelines, after all; hostile whenever they were together, no matter how the Master had tried to persuade him to join in his plans. If the Doctor had ever even once shared his ambition, they could have conquered whole galaxies together. Instead he'd been dismissed each time, so the other Time Lord could continue playing hero to his human pets.
That thought only brought with it the return of exactly what had been bothering him in the first place. He scowled at himself, glaring upwards.
"Do you want her?"
Caught off guard by the query, the Doctor looked across at him sharply. "Who? Clara?"
The Master shrugged, studying the play of shadow across the ceiling. He hated this. Hated having to ask the question like he cared remotely about the answer. "Is that why you're so determined to keep her here? You want to fuck her?"
There was silence. He could feel the other man's surprised scrutiny, but didn't look over. Eventually he heard the sound of the book closing, the Doctor taking off the reading glasses.
"No."
The Master twitched a sceptical eyebrow. "Why not, she's your type, isn't she? All full of wonder and nerve. Young, pretty, human - well, mostly."
"Stop."
"Go on, you can say it. At least I could make sense of that."
"That's because you're only ever focused on one thing..."
He narrowed his eyes. "And of course you're far too noble for all that."
"I'm not -" The Doctor stopped with a sigh. He set book and glasses on the cluttered bedside table next to him, and then shifted down on the mattress, turning on his side to face the Master. He was frowning. "Are you jealous?"
The Master shot him a venomous look. "No. But I made peace with your ingrained little fetish a long time ago, so let's both be upfront about it, shall we?"
The other man's mouth slowly twitched up at the corner. "I suppose I made peace with enough of yours -"
The Master was moving before he'd even finished the sentence, turning for the side of the bed, throwing the blankets off himself in a surge of irritation. He didn't need to subject himself to this, he could find another room on the TARDIS. Better yet, he could -
The Doctor lunged after him before he managed to sit up properly, getting an arm round his waist and hauling backwards. Bemused, the Master found himself practically clawing at the sheets as he was dragged back to the centre of the bed, the other man's stupidly long limbs hooking over him to keep him there.
"Stop, I didn't mean it." He was laughing, of all things, the Master could hear it in his voice, could feel the grin pressed against the back of his shoulder. "I didn't, I'm sorry."
"Unwrap yourself from me right now."
"No." The Doctor nudged his nose into the Master's hair, if anything managing to settle in closer against him. "I like when you're here. Stay."
"So you can ridicule me some more?"
The Doctor snuffed another laugh against the back of his neck. "Sorry," he said again, mouth pressed against the very top of his spine so the word shivered through him. The flat of his hand smoothed repeated motions over the Master's ribs and chest. If it hadn't felt vaguely pleasant, he'd have slapped him away in fury. "That's really not what it is, with Clara."
The Master tensed further, glaring at the wall opposite him. "Then what?"
"Just what I said. I think she could be a friend. And let's face it, she's only stuck here because of me, because I chose this instead." He shifted, propping his chin up on the Master's shoulder. "I think I owe her."
The thing was, the Master mostly believed him, and that only made it worse.
He thought he'd have cared less if the Doctor did fancy her in a fleeting, physical kind of way. It would have been decidedly better if she was just another instance of that guilty little pleasure the other Time Lord had always taken in human women, a passing interest that could be satisfied and forgotten. That the Doctor insisted otherwise was not the comfort he thought it to be.
Because the truth of it was this: in another life, Clara and all those other precious 'companions' had been the first choice. The life the Doctor had picked for himself, given the option. All of this - travelling with the Master, the disasters that had resulted, the wreck of broken timelines in their wake - all of it was incidental, the unintended pivot of a single rash decision. The Master could feel it building in his chest; an uncomfortable, racing feeling he couldn't quite give a name to. He wanted not to care. He wanted to take it for granted that of course the Doctor preferred this lot in life, he had to. He wanted desperately for it not to make a difference to him, one way or the other.
But then, that had never quite been the case before, had it.
And now the ghost of Christmas bloody Past, Present and Future wanted to take up residence with them, a daily reminder of how things should have played out, the life the Doctor could have had without him. Worse, she came ready-made with manufactured history, full of memories she had no right to, and which he didn't share. How else was he supposed to view that but a threat?
"Let her stay for a while," the Doctor murmured, mouthing softly at the back of his shoulder in so transparent an attempt to creep round him that the Master almost sneered. "Just for a bit, see how it goes."
He should be insulted the Doctor evidently thought he was so easy to manipulate, really. But if that was the tactic he wanted to try, the Master had no intention of stopping him. He reached down, taking hold of the Doctor's hand where it rested on his stomach and pushing it lower. He could try all night, if he really wanted to put the effort in. It didn't mean the Master would change his mind.
If Clara insisted on lingering, she'd have to leave the safety of the TARDIS's watchful gaze at some point. And there were, after all, so many tragic accidents that could happen while travelling with the Doctor. The Master intended to make sure of it.