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[London, 2007, circa The Sound of Drums]
Earth, the Master thought in exasperation. Why is it always Earth?
It just figured. When the Doctor had time-locked the TARDIS on Malcassairo, forcing the Master to jump back to the last place the Doctor had visited, the Master had hoped against hope that the Doctor had just come from a nice vacation. Maybe a sojourn on Rigel VII. Or an intellectually rewarding visit to The Library. Even a brief pit stop in the Shadow Alliance.
No such luck. Earth.
That struck at least three of his potential plans straight off the list. If the Master had been a lesser man, he would have grasped his head theatrically and moaned in despair. As it was, he permitted his lips to twist in a long-suffering smile. The Master had been courting the Doctor for a thousand years (well, nine hundred. or thereabouts.), but he was still no closer to understanding the Time Lord’s love for all things Earth than he’d ever been. And now that it was finally time for the piece de resistance – all the awkward getting-to-know you out of the way, the early dating where they’d both been a bit stiff and rather more proud and each determined to show off, the later outings where they’d managed to relax and enjoy each other’s company a bit more, nothing left to prove – now that the Master was finally ready to pop the question, the Doctor’s latest thwart had landed him smack in the middle of early-twenty-first-century Earth.
“Maybe I should have just convinced him to elope the day after we graduated the Academy,” he muttered to himself.
Then he shook his head. He wasn’t going to second-guess himself now, of all times. He’d decided when he was still quite a boy that the Doctor served the most amazing, most over-the-top, most impossible courtship it was possible for a Time Lord to devise, and he hadn’t put a thousand years of effort (well, nine hundred. eight hundred and fifty. or thereabouts.) into it to give up now. He’d just have to make up a new plan, that was all, since none of the old ones had a snowball’s chance in the Medusa Cascade with the technology available to him.
But if the Master was going to make this work – and he really wanted to make this work – then perhaps it was high time he stopped fighting against the inevitable and embraced the madness instead. The Doctor loved Earth and spent most of his time hanging around it? All right. The Master would just have to deal with that, work it into his plans somehow.
Mind made up, he locked the TARDIS carefully behind him – it had materialized in an alleyway, fairly well hidden behind some skips – and strolled casually out onto a busy street, hands tucked in his pockets, just watching the humans go by. Another thing the Doctor was fond of was having a human travelling with him – a Companion, capital letter very much implied, much to the Master’s amusement. The Master had ribbed him for it in the past, but the Doctor had sworn blind that their instincts were one of his greatest assets and they’d gotten him out of more than a few tight scrapes by having ‘a bad feeling about this’ at just the nick of time. Maybe a Companion of his own was just what the Doctor ordered, then.
It only took a few minutes for the Master to start second-guessing this plan. How did the Doctor manage to deal with so much noise and clutter and hurry all the time? It was giving him an enormous headache. Stockbrokers on their mobiles and mothers with prams and screaming schoolchildren running about, all of them supremely convinced of their own importance and staggeringly unobservant. It was a mess. It was a nightmare. How was he –
Oh. Oh, there was a possibility.
Just around the corner, there was a small park, and a woman was sitting on one of the benches. She wasn’t making any kind of noise or any sweeping movements, which had the effect of drawing the Master’s eyes to her as an island of repose among the bustling crowd. In a moment he had seen that she was dressed much too nicely for the neighborhood, made up very well too, and was smiling back at any man who caught her eye. She was either a prostitute or a hopeless romantic, and the Master had also spotted the Mills and Boon novel sticking out of her overstuffed handbag.
Mind made up, the Master strode towards her.
“So you’ve been courting your lover for a thousand years?” she breathed, the better part of an hour and three coffees later.
The Master nodded, nudging the plate of biscuits closer to her. The woman, whose name turned out to be Lucy Saxon, took one with a grin and a bit of a sideways glance, like she knew she really oughtn’t but had decided to live a little. “Well, technically, about nine hundred years. Eight hundred and fifty. Or thereabouts. But a thousand has such a nicer ring to it, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” Lucy agreed readily. She finished the last bite of biscuit and reached back for her coffee. The Master picked up his own drink at the reminder. Mocha, it turned out, was excellent; he took back all the times he’d said humans had never contributed anything of value to the galaxy. “And this is normal for your people?”
“Well, I’ve gone a bit longer than is strictly standard,” the Master conceded. “It’s a Society thing, you see. The more important the person…”
“The longer the courtship, of course. It’s the same here on Earth.”
“Is it really?” The Master was delighted.
“Yes. And the grander, of course. Bigger presents, and more trips to expensive locales, and… oh, I don’t even know what all, but the point is, you’re showing off your power. And your money, or whatever else you’ve got that makes you…” she waved one elegantly manicured hand, giggling lightly.
“Worthy?” the Master suggested.
“Right.”
They smiled at each other and sipped their coffees. Lucy may have sighed a little at just how romantic it all was.
“And he’s into you, your Doctor? He’s really into you? Because sometimes, you know…” Lucy leaned forward conspiratorially, lowering her voice. “Sometimes you’re just being nice, going on these dates, but really you haven’t any intention of getting married.”
“My dear,” the Master said, affronted. “I’m quite sure.”
She gave him a look that was a careful blend of skepticism, soothing and invitation. Oh, she was going to be very helpful, just as soon as he’d convinced her of the Doctor’s obvious interest.
“Think of it this way,” he said, and then had to stop for a moment because he’d never thought of it this way. “All right. So I take the Doctor on a date. I set up an elaborate scenario that’s tailored to his interests – damsels in distress, threat to the universe, people to save, galaxy to rule, that sort of thing. All right?”
“All right,” Lucy said readily, not batting an eye at some of the more colorful elements.
“Now, if the Doctor wasn’t interested in me at all, he would ignore it. Just never even show up, or mention it. And I’d have to unpack it all and go home. That would be a pretty clear signal.”
“But what if he started going out with you because he thought he might like you, but then he stopped liking you? Or if he likes you but he’s not sure he wants to marry you yet?”
“Ah,” the Master said, once again stopping to think of things in a new light. “Well. If he was interested in me, just the regular kind of interested, like he wants me to come back but he’s not in love – “ he paused to make sure Lucy was following along with him; she nodded. “Then he plays along. Saves the damsels, and the world, and refuses to rule the galaxy at my side, and all of that. That’s ordinary interest, that’s like… like putting on a bit of make-up and really listening,” he added, racking his brain for wherever he’d stored his knowledge of Earth-specific romance novel cliches. (He may have done some research on the topic. Years ago. At the Academy. When it had first become apparent that the object of his affections had a strange affinity for all things Earth.)
“Okay,” Lucy prompted.
“But he doesn’t just do that,” the Master went on, warming to his subject. “He shows up early and starts thwarting before I’ve even got all my plans in place. He gets himself captured and then escapes before the grand finale. That’s like putting on really tight trousers and bending over at every opportunity.”
“So he wants to shag you; not the same thing as marrying you.”
“But I haven’t told you the best part. Every time – every single time, even when he was in that stuffy third body of his that was always so uptight – he banters with me!”
“And…” Lucy looked skeptical. “Bantering is good?”
“Bantering,” the Master told her, gesturing for emphasis, “is like leaving catalogs of wedding rings lying open on the coffee table with a big circle around the one you like.”
“All right, I’ll take your word for it.”
The Master nodded. “Have another biscuit.”
She did.
“So if I understand this correctly,” Lucy said, straightening back up, “you’ve finally got through all of the preliminaries, and now you’re ready to pop the question.”
“Exactly.”
“And that’s where you need my help? What can I do? Are you planning to get a bunch of people to hold up signs or something?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” the Master said, amused. “I suppose human proposals are over very quickly?”
“Oh, yes, mainly. You just ask the question straight out and get an answer, and then you’re either engaged or you’re not. But I suppose, seeing as how it takes a thousand years just to date, your proposals are a more elaborate affair?”
“Rather. The whole thing will take a year, when it’s all said and done. And I’ve got to do something really impressive to keep his attention for the whole time, or it’ll be for nothing.”
“A whole year?” Lucy was starry-eyed. The Master reflected that he may have undervalued these apes heretofore. The way Lucy was buying into the grand romance of the Master’s plan was surprisingly gratifying.
“A whole year. I’ve got a few ideas – been throwing them around since the beginning, actually…” the Master paused here for a self-deprecating look, and Lucy giggled. “But I’m not sure anything’s quite up to snuff. I need something truly massive, something truly global. And it’s got to be as impossible as it possibly can to be a worthy challenge for my Doctor.”
“Something global.” Lucy paused for a moment and seemed to be thinking of something very hard. “You’re an alien, I think you said – ”
“A Time Lord,” the Master specified.
“Yes, yes. Well, we’ve had a couple of aliens drop by before, you know. And whenever they show up, everyone on Earth sort of gets together to see what’s going to happen. You could do something with that.”
“Hmm,” the Master mused.
Lucy set her cup down decisively. “Well, I’ve got a few ideas – not much yet, they’re germinating – but I think perhaps first we’d better talk about what I’m going to get out of this. I love a romantic proposal as well as the next girl, and it’s lucky for you I’m between jobs right now, but if I’m to take a year I want at least a ride in your spaceship.”
“That can be arranged,” the Master told her. He’d been planning on giving her a hop anyway; the Doctor always did it, and these humans seemed to love the ride.
“That’s just the start,” Lucy warned. “I don’t come cheap – ”
“My dear,” the Master said, mildly offended, “I’d no idea that you did.”
[one year later…]
“Fifteen minutes,” Lucy Saxon called, passing by in a flurry of hair and heels. The Master took a moment to look at that red monstrosity of a dress and shake his head. Really, she had no fashion sense. Plenty of organizational skills and loyalty, and this whole thing would have been twice as hard without her enthusiastic help, but the Master wished she hadn’t taken quite so much advantage of her generous compensation package. Or at least that her taste was equal to her credit limit.
He had better things to think of today, though, and the Master found himself pacing the observation room of the Valiant while everyone was assembled – all of the Doctor’s human allies, and his own right-hand assistants (he really had to do something nice for them, fruit baskets or something, they’d been such a help).
He even caught himself holding his breath, because this was it. One full year of dominion of Earth, demonstrating his ability to hold the Doctor prisoner, and keep an impossible paradox machine powered and functioning. No, he hadn’t restrained himself at all on this plot – he’d gone all out, covered every possible loophole, tried to think of everything. Some suitors had been known to deliberately leave an opening for the object of their affections to use to thwart, in the hopes of encouraging a favorable answer, but the Master hadn’t dreamt of disrespecting the Doctor’s intellect like that. He’d give this plot absolutely everything he’d had in himself (and several things he hadn’t – Lucy’s idea about the Toclafane had been positively brilliant), and now he was going to find out if it had been enough.
The Master spent the next few minutes keeping his mind firmly on Lucy Saxon and her taste, because otherwise he was going to run around the Valiant like a madman, triple-checking everything and generally making an arse of himself. Honestly. Pre-proposal jitters? Him?
Still, he jumped a foot in the air when the elevator doors finally swished open, and looked around hastily, hoping no one had seen. No such luck; Lucy was looking at him, equal parts smug and starry-eyed. He gave her a look that meant you had better keep this to yourself if you like your platinum credit card and turned to face his quarry.
“Good afternoon, Doctor,” the Master made himself say jauntily as his hopefully-soon-to-be-blushing-bride was wheeled out of the elevator, cage and all. Just a little farther to go, he promised himself. Almost there.
The Doctor, of course, said nothing. Once the proposal had really, fully gotten underway, there was only one thing he was allowed to say, and not until right at the end. (Well, technically, two things. But the Master was firmly not thinking about the possibility that the Doctor might say no.) They’d both already cheated a little bit; being surrounded by so many humans, the Doctor had been forced to explain on a few occasions that he really couldn’t chatter on. If they’d actually been being monitored by a Society Maven, that would have been pushing things dangerously, but there were benefits to being the last of the Time Lords.
“Bring him over here,” the Master directed, gesturing to a spot next to him, overlooking the big picture window. This was it, and he could barely stop himself bouncing on his toes from the excitement while two of his more competent men arranged the Doctor comfortably. “Well,” he said finally, tapping his fingers nervously, dum-dum, dum-dum, echoing the rhythm of his suddenly racing hearts. He’d had a whole big speech prepared for this moment, something really dramatic and heartsfelt. He had been going to talk about how he’d known the Doctor was the one for him since the first moment they’d met at the Academy, and how he’d started planning this courtship the second he graduated. He’d remind the Doctor of some of their more fondly remembered escapades and wind the whole thing up with a big romantic gesture. Then he’d hold his breath and wait to see what the Doctor’s answer would be. Yes, that was the plan. And a very good plan it was too. It was just that for some reason the Master’s voice wasn’t working right at the moment.
“Master,” Lucy hissed, looking ready to prompt him. He’d practiced the speech on her several times, tweaking it here and there with a bit of romantic flavour, and she could probably recite it if he let her. Of course, that would never do, and he shook his head at her, then looked back at the Doctor, still waiting expectantly.
The Master swallowed, opened his mouth, and finally managed to say, “What do you think, then?” And promptly wanted to throw himself off the Valiant, so he never had to look this regeneration’s face in the mirror again. A thousand years of the most elaborate courtship the galaxy had ever seen, a proposal on a scale that would have been deemed impossible until he’d done it, and that was all he said? The Doctor was going to laugh at him, that was what, tell him to go back to Gallifrey in disgrace. Lucy was shaking her head at him in disappointment.
But the Doctor – he swallowed with rising hope – the Doctor was smiling.
“I’ve said before,” the Doctor said fondly, “there’s only one thing I could ever have to say to you.”
The Master blinked several times as the meaning of this finally, really sunk in – only ever one thing, did he mean – and while he was still trying to process that, the Doctor looked deliberately off to one side and waved his hand.
The Master turned, automatically, and –
“Oh my word,” he breathed. “Martha Jones!”
Martha gave him a quick, fierce grin. She was babbling about the resistance, and the plan, and something else the Master wasn’t listening to because he was too busy exulting at the incredible victory he’d just won. He’d been had! The Doctor had thwarted him! It was almost too much happiness to bear, and he swung around to face the Doctor, watching as he returned to his fully-grown, dashingly handsome current body. The Doctor had even managed to reverse the aging himself, that was quite a grace note, and the Master hadn’t thought it was possible to love the Doctor any more than he had a moment ago but he was proving himself wrong right now.
The Doctor bounded up out of the ruins of the cage, straightened his tie, looked the Master in the eye and said, clearly, “Yes.”
All around them the paradox was unraveling, neat as you please. The Doctor had really outdone himself this time. The whole year was just gone, whoosh, vanished, as if it never was. Everyone was looking at the Master, waiting for him to speak, but he couldn’t right at first because it was all so marvelous and breathtaking that there just weren’t words –
The Doctor had said yes.
And the Master – well, doubtless there had been more elegant celebrations of getting engaged in the past. But as far as being heartsfelt went, throwing his head back and bellowing at the sky had to be pretty good.
He turned back to the Doctor, wanting to go over to him, but found – frustratingly – that he couldn’t get through. The Doctor was being absolutely mobbed by humans, in fact they both were, and the Master was having difficulty moving through the way some of them were hugging him so tightly. Resistance members and the Master’s minions were grabbing each other indiscriminately. Some were laughing, some were crying; they were hugging him – and each other – and kissing each other and, the Master saw with a rush of pride, falling all over themselves to congratulate the Doctor. He couldn’t help but smile; they might be a lot of barely-evolved apes, but their hearts were clearly in the right places. He could see why the Doctor was so fond of them.
When he’d finally got his mind to go beyond the shrieking circles of celebration, he couldn’t help but notice that while the hugging had stopped being quite so tight, which was nice, some of Martha’s minions had started winding chains around him. Was that some kind of quaint Earth custom? He vaguely remembered some tradition about exchanging adornments of precious metal on special occasions, and – yes – he was almost sure that getting engaged was one of the times it was explicitly mandated. Still… “A little looser, if you please,” the Master said to them, trying to be considerate (primitives were awfully touchy about their culture) but beginning to be concerned about his ability to breathe. “A bit looser, there’s a lad.”
Just then the Doctor looked up, probably having heard him, peering over the shoulder of the human woman clutching him and sobbing out her joy. The look on his face was one the Master knew well (though to be honest, he knew all of them well; he ought to, after almost a thousand years). It was the slight bewilderment of a man who wasn’t sure he really deserved what he was getting, and it was one of the (many) reasons the Master insisted on such a dramatic courtship, to show the Doctor just how worth it he was. The Master tried to convey this with a reassuring nod and a soppily besotted look, but he wasn’t sure it worked, given the way the Doctor continued to peer quizzically at him. The Master was distracted from further nonverbal communications by a particularly hard tug one of the minions gave a chain – and when had they gotten his arms involved? “Did you hear me?” he demanded, beginning to feel a little annoyed. “A bit looser, I said, and I think we can do without the arms!”
The Doctor’s brows drew together abruptly, and he almost pushed the crying woman out of his way in his haste to cross the room. It was nice, the Master reflected (distracted again from the chains, or he would have noticed they were starting on his ankles now), to finally be beyond the carefully scripted roles of belle and beau that had dictated exactly how much attention and affection it was permissible to show each other. Not five minutes ago he would have had to scowl or bluster at the Doctor’s approach, but as an engaged man he was free to smile widely.
The Doctor smiled back, and that was really quite lovely, but then the bewildered look returned and he bent his gaze upon the people draping chains around the Master – quite right, too, because tradition or no tradition this had gone quite far enough; any more and he wouldn’t be able to move. The Doctor must have realized the same thing, because he asked them, “What are you doing?”
One of the men, a resistance leader if the Master remembered right, looked up from where he was doing something complicated with two bits of chain. “Makin’ sure he doesn’t get away, o’ course.”
“Get away?” the Doctor repeated incredulously, once again saving the Master the trouble of speaking. “He’s not going to get away!”
“Right,” the man said dubiously. “Just the same, we’d like to be sure.”
“But I’m telling you,” the Doctor said, “he’s not – ”
“Now see here,” the man’s compatriot said, popping up from where he’d been doing something near the Master’s feet. “I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, but this is Earth, and there’s got to be a proper do over this – we have laws, you know – ”
“That’s right,” the first man said truculently. “We’re going to do this proper, we are.”
“Believe me,” the Doctor said earnestly, “We are both very interested in doing this properly – aren’t we, Master?”
“Very much so,” the Master assented at once. “That’s been the whole point right along.”
“There,” the Doctor said. “He’s really not going to run off. At least not without me. And not before we can get in front of a justice of the peace.”
“Hang on there,” the Master protested. “What do you mean, a justice of the peace? I haven’t been chasing you all over the galaxy just so we could have a, a civil service – ”
“Well what do you suggest?” the Doctor demanded, turning to him and leaving the two humans staring. “There’s no one else to do it, unless you happen to have hidden a Valeyard or two under your Chameleon Arch!”
“Well… I don’t know,” he said, taken aback at the challenge. He hadn’t really through that through after the Time War. He’d been hell-bent on getting the Doctor to agree to marry him and had somehow completely forgotten that there wasn’t a single other Gallifreyan left alive to actually perform the ceremony. “Good heavens. Are we really going to have to do it Earth-style?”
The Doctor looked more then a little dismayed himself. “Let me think about it,” he said finally. “I’ll see what’s to be done. Maybe we can get someone in from the Shadow Proclamation to officiate…”
“Look here,” the resistance leader broke in. “That’s all very fascinating, and I’m sure Martha Jones is going to want to have a chat with you about it. Personally I don’t care whether we do it Earth-style or whatever style as long as he gets what’s coming to him.”
The Master shook his head. Clearly not a romantic. What’s coming to him indeed. Although the thought of the Doctor coming to him was a very pleasant one. All pale limbs and wide smiles and absolutely nothing on, oh yes…
The Doctor was giving him an amused look, as if he could sense the direction of the Master’s thoughts. “All right, but the chaining him up really isn’t necessary.”
Martha Jones had come up next to the Doctor at some point, probably drawn by the obvious argument, and patted the Doctor on the shoulder. “Come on,” she said in a conciliatory tone. “You’ve done a lot of work to get him here like this, we all have, and we just want to make sure he stays put, okay?”
The Doctor frowned at this appeal, the look on his face rapidly shifting from annoyance to resignation. The Master opened his mouth to protest, but the Doctor saw him doing it and shook his head. “It’s a silly Earth custom,” the Doctor said to him, “but if you wouldn’t mind playing along…”
The Master really, really wanted to argue – he’d been counting on a celebratory snog at least – but the Doctor was giving him those earnest brown eyes, and that quirk of his eyebrow was promising recompense later. All sorts of wonderful recompense. All right, maybe some of that was the Master’s imagination, but still. Once they were married he could lobby for some of that recompense to come the way he wanted it.
He heaved a long-suffering sigh. “All right, but none of that long-drawn-out, planning for months, invite the third cousins who live in the Tartarus Galaxy sort of thing,” he warned. “I’ve had to chase you across half the galaxy, and if you make me wait any longer I am going to be very upset.”
“Neither of us have got any third cousins,” the Doctor pointed out, “and even if we had, they’d all be dead.”
“So you agree there’s no need to wait for them,” the Master retorted. “How soon can we get this going? A couple of days?”
“Master!” the Doctor protested, scandalized. “I’ll need at least a month!”
“Oh no,” the Master said firmly. “No way. I am not staying locked up for a month while you pick out swatches!”
“Swatches – ”
“I looked into Earth traditions, I know how fond you are of them, I know swatches are involved!”
“I think you’re thinking of something else, mate,” the resistance leader put in, amused. “Not any swatches involved for you.”
“You’re sure?” the Master demanded.
“Dead sure.”
“There you go then,” the Doctor said encouragingly. “No swatches. But I really can’t promise anything in less than – ”
“Two weeks,” the Master insisted, and jingled his chains pointedly, reminding the Doctor that he’d already gotten something he wanted and it was time for giving a little back. Marriage was about compromise, after all.
“All right,” the Doctor relented. “Two weeks.”
The Master smiled. He even managed not to struggle too much as they dragged him off.
Earth must have had a serious runaway bride problem at some point in its history, because not only did they insist on leaving the Master chained up, it appeared that keeping him in a cell was also necessary, as was posting at least two resistance members outside his door at all times. At first the Master had thought they were visitors, since they were all people he knew from the Year That Never Was (quite a catchy name, good show them for thinking it up). But his first attempts at conversation were rebuffed as they made it quite clear that the purpose for their presence was making sure he didn’t do a runner.
“Honestly,” he said in exasperation after his third attempt fell flat. “I’ve been chasing after the Doctor for almost a thousand years, you really think I’m going to pop off now that I’ve finally got him?”
“Looks to me like he’s the one who’s got you,” the woman on guard retorted. She was a motherly lady named Andrea who had clearly adopted the Doctor, and she probably imagined that this was a scathing bit of commentary, but the Master’s mind was immediately transported to the idea of the Doctor having him, repeatedly, often, and whenever they felt like it. It was a lovely image.
“Either way,” he said, returning to reality, “I’m hardly going to go anywhere.”
“He’s told us all about you,” the woman said coldly. “Said you’re a silver-tongued devil, you are.”
“Oh,” the Master said, pleased as anything. “He never.”
“Sure did,” the other guard, a rather nice young man named James, confirmed.
The Master grinned. “That’s one of the nicest things he ever said about me.”
“I bet,” Andrea muttered.
But most of the time, the so-called guards (honestly, he could have gotten out of here any time he wanted, but the Doctor had asked him to abide by this admittedly ridiculous custom so he would) refused to even talk to him. If he had been at any other point in his regenerative cycle, he would probably have found the situation absolutely intolerable. Somehow, though, the thought of finally, actually, really getting to marry the Doctor kept sidetracking him from any emotion more violent than mild impatience.
He was going soft in his old age.
The Doctor tried to drop by several times, but never got past the guards. The Master could hear bits and pieces of the arguments coming down the stairs, when the guards left the door open a crack. Apparently there was some Earth superstition about it being unfair for the Doctor to see him before the big day. They seemed to think the Doctor might influence him one way or another, or get the Master to say something he shouldn’t. The Doctor could have gotten past them just as easily as the Master could have escaped, but he’d decided to follow these traditions and he was apparently determined to see it all through.
Finally, finally the Master’s finely honed Time Lord senses told him that the promised two weeks had passed. Andrea unlocked the door (such a quaint lock – they hadn’t taken his laser screwdriver, but even without it he could have opened it with his jacket lining and a bit of pocket lint) and said, “Come along, then. Big day’s finally here.”
“My dear,” the Master grinned, “It hasn’t come soon enough.”
The guards – he was choosing to think of them as an honor guard – escorted him up several more flights of stairs than were probably strictly necessary (although they would be quite handy if Daleks were still around, and oh, had Earth ever been invaded, was that why?). The Master amused himself taking in the scenery, noticing the vaulted ceilings and lofty arches with approval. The room they ultimately took him to was quite large, much more so than was necessary for the two dozen or so people crowded into the front rows of seating, but impressively paneled and quite obviously a center for important things happening, so that was nice. There was a statue right as he came in of a blindfolded woman holding scales that he thought particularly appropriate, since it closely resembled a domestic goddess venerated on Telga V. Had the worship of Nerada actually spread to Earth or was it a case of parallel deification? The Doctor would know.
The small knot of humans turned to look at him as he entered. It was going to be a smaller wedding than he’d ever envisioned back at the beginning, but the Time Lords were gone and the Master had really been too busy courting to make many new friends, so that was just going to have to be how it was. Hopefully these humans knew how to party. They all stayed sitting at the moment, though all eyes were on him, so the Master turned towards what seemed to be the front of the room. There was a railing separating the crowd from a bit of open space, and two podiums facing a larger box – probably where the officiant would sit – but standing just in front of it chatting was the Doctor, and –
“Ushas!” the Master cried in delight.
The Rani turned around at the call and smiled and waved. “Koschei, you old dog! You finally did it, eh?”
“Seems like it,” the Master laughed, leaving his honor guard behind and coming up to them. “You’re the last Time Lord I expected to see! How in Rassilon’s name did you get out of the Time War?” He took her hands in his, smiling warmly, and they exchanged air kisses.
“Oh, you know,” she grinned conspiratorially. “Bit of a jaunt into the Vortex, as it were, and I may have just happened to run a paradox inverter at the right moment. These things do happen…”
“Brilliant,” the Master told her, “Well done.”
“Wasn’t it, though?” the Doctor interjected, bouncing a little on his toes at how well his surprise was being received. “And now she can preside!”
“Oh, wonderful!” the Master said, seeing the full brilliance of the plan. “So we’re having a Gallifreyan ceremony after all?”
“Well,” the Doctor said modestly, casting his eyes downwards, “I thought you would like it that way, since you’ve been such a traditionalist this whole time.”
“It’s grand,” the Master told him sincerely. “And I see you’ve invited all your friends,” he added, looking around the room. Just about everyone who had been present at the point of paradox was in attendance today as well. There were a few other faces he didn’t remember seeing – a ginger-haired woman wearing too much make-up, and old man who kept muttering something about aliens, and several severely dressed people who were clumped around Jack Harkness and glaring bloody murder any time the Master glanced their way. The particularly pretty one in the suit made eye contact, and the Master smiled and waved.
“I hope you don’t mind,” the Doctor said anxiously.
“No, not at all,” the Master was quick to assure him. “I know I’ve kicked up a fuss in the past about your habit of always having a Companion, but it’s sort of nice to have some people around for something like this, isn’t it?”
“Shouldn’t have thought you’d like it,” Martha Jones said from the front row. Her entire clan was there, even Leo and his family, though they’d missed out on the paradox. It was quite touching, really. The mother looked particularly choked up about it. Mothers always did get teary at weddings. “All these people around who know what you did and all.”
The Master looked at her in surprise. “I don’t know how you do it on Earth,” he told her, “but on Gallifrey we’re quite particular about this sort of thing, and the more people around who know what really happened, the better.”
Martha Jones blinked. “That’s – well.” She looked over to Tish for moral support; Tish just shrugged. “That’s just very just of you, is all.”
“Thank you,” the Master said, pleased to find that she was being a good sport about the whole thing. That was rare in his experience, people who didn’t get all irrationally upset about being part of his grand courtship scheme. Of course, he would have thought they’d be honored, but there was just no understanding primitive cultures sometimes.
The Rani smiled at them both and clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “All right then, shall we begin?”
“Hang on,” one of the gathered humans – Leo – interrupted. He had a habit of doing that. The Master hadn’t been able to pick him up during the Year That Never Was, so he must have been operating on secondhand knowledge; he was certainly spending a lot of time looking nervously around, like he was expecting everyone to jump up and yell “gotcha!” at him. Now he asked, “Hasn’t he – ” pointing at the Master – “got to have a barrister?”
The Doctor and the Master exchanged blank looks. “What’s a barrister?” the Doctor asked.
Leo Jones looked taken aback. “Well, it’s someone who – who stands up for him, you know, during this whole proceeding.”
“I can stand up for myself,” the Master protested.
“No, not like that. I mean, they ask questions of the witnesses, on your behalf, and they try to explain the things you’ve done so you look good, and then they tell everybody else how we shouldn’t think you’re, dunno, a murdering psychopath or something – ”
“Oh,” the Doctor said in understanding, “I know what you’re getting at. A Sponsor, right?”
“Well – ” Leo said hesitatingly.
“Yes, yes, of course,” the Doctor went on soothingly. “And normally there’d be one – we’d really both have one – ”
“That’s right,” Leo said, relieved that they were all on the same page at last.
“But that really won’t be possible in this case,” the Doctor continued.
“Why not?”
“Well, there aren’t any other Time Lords left,” the Master said regretfully. It really was a shame, after the truly incredible job he’d done on this courtship (though he said it himself) that there wasn’t any kind of Time Lord Society left to really appreciate it. But then again, the Doctor had found it good enough to agree to marry him, and that was really the point.
“The Rani is really quite a good judge of these things, you know,” the Doctor added. “She’s been married – how many times is it now, Ushas?”
“Oh, three or four, depending on whether you count that time on Rigel VII.”
“There you go,” the Doctor said to Leo encouragingly.
“But what does that have to do…”
"We’ve just got to work with what we have,” the Rani told him.
“But see here,” Leo persisted. “It’s got to be fair, doesn’t it?”
All three Time Lords considered this for a moment. “Well,” the Master said finally, “the Doctor won’t have a – what did you call it?”
“Barrister,” Leo said.
“A barrister either. So that’s fair, isn’t it?”
“Well…”
“And I think they want to go on anyway,” the Rani pointed out. “Right?”
“That’s right,” the Doctor said.
“Definitely,” the Master agreed.
“There you go, Leo,” Martha put in impatiently. “He’s declining counsel, all nice and legal. Now can we please get on with it?”
Leo looked sideways at the Master, who gave him his most encouraging nod, and finally let himself be tugged back into his seat.
“Right,” the Rani said, and held up both of her hands, switching to High Gallifreyan. “We have come together to this moment in time and space…”
The Master took a deep breath.
They got through the Invocation okay, but as the Recitation of Courtship began the crowd began to get restless, shifting and muttering. The Doctor and the Master shot each other worried gazes, and the Rani started to frown; she hated a rude audience, always had. She pressed on, however, until a particularly loud exclamation finally got to her and she stopped talking, dropped her hands and glared.
The Master twisted round. Martha Jones was getting to her feet, and he shot her one of his most cutting looks. This was his wedding, and he’d waited a long time for it, and he’d really been getting wrapped up in the description of the Axos caper – one of his better date ideas, all told – and, as his glare sought to convey, this interruption was just not on. The Doctor was looking quite distressed, and really, was one day without someone hurting the Doctor too much to ask?
Martha Jones ignored him and addressed the Rani directly. “I really am sorry to interrupt,” she said, not sounding it, “but did you know the TARDIS doesn’t translate High Gallifreyan?”
The Time Lords looked at each other in bemusement. “Well there’s no need, is there?” the Doctor said finally. “The translation is supposed to be for our benefit, and we all speak Gallifreyan.”
“Yes, but we don’t,” Mummy Jones said angrily. “And we’d really like to follow along, if we could.”
Another pause. “Do you mind?” the Doctor asked finally, turning to the Master.
He considered it, still glaring balefully at Martha. “Not really,” he said carefully, and was rewarded by seeing some of the distress ebb from the Doctor’s face. “At least for the Recitation. I don’t know if the rest of it – ”
“No, that won’t translate well,” the Rani agreed. “But I’ve been reading up on human rituals; I thought something like this might happen. And I think if we do the Recitation in English, then we could do the Decision once in Gallifreyan, and then do it over again with the British equivalent. How does that sound?”
“Ushas, you’re wonderful,” the Doctor said in relief. “Martha, that all right with you?”
Martha Jones looked around the room; most people were nodding their heads, or at least not expressing outright disagreement. “That’ll be fine, thanks,” she said calmly, and sat back down.
“Right,” the Rani said. “Where was I?”
“Axos,” the Master told her helpfully.
The Recitation went on from there, describing in careful detail all of the incidents the Master had arranged, and the Doctor’s response to them, laying out clearly the Master’s intentions and the Doctor’s obvious encouragement. The room grew quieter and more still as the list went on. Obviously, the Master saw, they were overwhelmed and awed by the sheer scope of the courtship the Master had devised.
When the Rani finally finished up, describing the Master’s proposal and the Doctor’s acceptance, Lucy Saxon cleared her throat. “Blimey,” she said, clutching a Mills and Boon book so hard her knuckles were turning white. “I had no idea.”
The Doctor blushed a little. The Master couldn’t help smiling.
The Rani cleared her throat. “Now we come to it,” she said. “Doctor, is this an accurate rendition of your actions as they bear on this man?”
“It is,” the Doctor said, teary-eyed and beaming.
“Master, is this is an accurate rendition of all of your actions to date as they bear on this man?”
The silence turned up another notch, some people actually leaning forward in anticipation of the Master’s answer. He nodded solemnly. “It is.”
Something like a sigh went through the room. Ushas looked like she wanted to grin, but managed to keep her face smooth – it wouldn’t do for the officiant to betray emotion, after all. Instead she raised her hands higher and switched back to High Gallifreyan.
“From the heart of stars we were born, and stardust travels in our wake. As your light waxes, let you be the ones who are never blinded to each other; as your light wanes, let you ever shine as brightly as ever in each other’s vision; and when your fires die, may the solar winds carry your ashes together, to the ends of time.”
The Rani reached out and took the Doctor’s hand in her right, the Master’s in her left, and in one swift, universe-shaking movement, joined their hands and minds together.
When the light faded from his eyes, he blinked and saw the Doctor looking back. That spirit was as familiar to him as his own, after all of their years, but now he had seen it from the inside, too, and it was every bit as good and pure and noble as he had dreamed. Their hands tightened on each other’s almost without thought, and then the Master was laughing, and the Doctor was beaming, and they may have been the last of the Time Lords but they were never going to be alone again.
While they were still staring into each others’ eyes like a pair of mooncalves, the Rani was fishing something out of the pockets of her voluminous robes. “Here it is,” she said in satisfaction, flipping through a small red book with an odd sort of symbol on it, two lines bisecting each other along the perpendicular. “All right, you two, I know it’s a lot to take in, but you wanted to do it over again in British, right?”
The Doctor and the Master blinked at each other a few more times before one of them found their voice. “Right,” the Doctor managed to say.
“We’ll keep it short,” she said comfortingly. “I think we can skip most of this… we don’t need the ‘dearly beloved’ bits, right?”
“Hang on,” Martha Jones said, sounding dazed. “I think you’ve got the wrong book.”
“Why on earth are they holding hands?” Leo hissed at his sister, looking more and more like he expected to wake up any minute.
“No, no,” the Rani was assuring Martha, “I talked with one of your experts – very nice man – he walked me through the whole thing, and we could go through it all, but it’s just a formality. The Gallifreyan ceremony’s the one that really counts. But you all wanted to be included.”
“That’s just the sort of person my Doctor is,” the Master said contentedly, smiling at his husband. The Doctor blushed a little.
“But I really think,” Martha said doggedly, “that’s there’s been a mistake – ”
“We’ll just skip to the end, then,” the Rani said, clearing her throat and adopting a more formal cadence. “Do you, Doctor, take the Master, to be your lawfully wedded – um, husband – this really isn’t set up for Time Lords, is it?” Ushas shook her head and shared a grin with them both. The Master saw, over the Doctor’s shoulder, that several of the humans were really into it now. Their mouths were hanging open and their eyes were wide. “Anyway. To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live?”
Martha Jones sputtered, turning a pleasant shade of puce. The Master thought, not for the first time, how really charming it was that all of the Doctor’s pets – er, friends – were so happy for him.
“You bet,” the Doctor said, grinning.
“You’re supposed to say ‘I do’,” Ushas told him.
“Really? What’s the difference?”
“I don’t know, that’s just what Rowan said.”
“All right, well, I do.”
“Doctor!” Martha screeched, having apparently got her voice back.
“And do you, Master, take the Doctor and do all the same things?”
“Definitely – oh, er, I do.”
“Excellent,” the Rani said. She looked back down at the book, blinked, then shrugged. “According to this, you may now kiss the bride.”
Several of the humans were so overcome by emotion at this point they were almost choking. Many others were laughing so hard they were crying. It was an odd way of showing joy – Time Lords much preferred cheering or clapping – but every culture was different, the Master supposed. And judging by the way they all fell silent when the Doctor took two steps forward and pressed their lips together, everyone fully understood the sheer import of this moment.
“I love you,” the Master murmured against the Doctor’s lips, once their respiratory bypasses had run out and they were forced to separate for air.
A shocked murmur ran through the room at this pronouncement. Oh, dear. Was it considered rude in human society to say that out loud? He’d thought that taboo had largely been broken in their seventeenth century, but he would be the first to admit he didn’t keep as close of tabs on Earth history as, say, the Doctor.
“I love you too,” the Doctor whispered back, and there, if he was saying it straight out like that it couldn’t be too gauche. Or he was just too overwhelmed by feeling to care, and that was quite a nice thought, actually.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Master saw the Rani wipe away a tear, and pulled the Doctor back in for another kiss.
“I knew there was a tradition about throwing things at weddings,” the Doctor panted several minutes later, “but this is ridiculous.”
“They can’t seriously do this all the time.” The Master peeped around the street corner, ducking back before he could get his head taken off by the rather large chair that had just been chucked their way. “There’s no way their industrial base can manufacture things fast enough to keep up with this rate of breakage.”
“Usually it’s small, harmless things, like rice or bubbles,” the Doctor told him, throwing a rock at a bush to distract their pursuers, then taking the Master’s hand and tugging him across another alleyway. Only three more blocks to the TARDIS.
“Whatever for?” the Master wondered, slewing abruptly down a side street as another group of humans appeared across the way. The police box came into sight just ahead, and he broke into a sprint, pulling the Doctor along with him.
“Well, you know, they’re symbols of fertility in their culture.”
“Uh huh.” The Master skidded to a stop behind the Doctor and looked around for something to deflect projectiles with while the Doctor fumbled his key into the lock. “Any time now, dear – ”
“Got it!” the Doctor called, grabbing the back of the Master’s jacket and yanking them both of them into the TARDIS. The Master spun and lunged for the door, slamming it shut just in time for it to deflect a hefty tree branch, then slumped against it, panting.
The Doctor gave him a wry smile and sauntered over to the console as if this happened to him every day. Which, come to think of it, was probably the truth.
“So tell me,” the Master said, once he’d got his breath sufficiently back. “What do large wooden furniture pieces and metal trash receptacles symbolize in their culture?”
The Doctor frowned in concentration. “Well, I don’t quite have all the nuances down, so I could be wrong…”
The Master nodded and gestured for him to continue. Maybe it was something impressive. Maybe there was a tradition about the newly married couple proving themselves fit in some kind of barbaric fighting ritual.
The Doctor shrugged a little, apologetically. “I think they mean that Manchester United lost.”