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The doors of the TARDIS open, and the Doctor storms out, a thunderhead, into the choking smoke. Her eyes water, and she coughs – but it takes her no time at all to spot him. He cuts a dark silhouette against the burning building, and when he turns, his teeth glint with the flickering flames.
“Didn’t know if you’d come, love,” the Master grins, extremely coy for someone who has spent the last hour trying to get her attention in multiple different ways. She strides over to him, and throws down the three holodisks and her own phone – which bears about ten unread messages from one number – on the ground between them. A gauntlet, cast into the ash.
The burning building is just another way to get her attention.
“Didn’t exactly leave me much choice,” she snaps. Her mind is still ringing with contact, like a tuning fork struck against her skull that just won’t shut up. But she makes no move to silence it either. “Care to tell me what you want so badly?”
“Can’t an old friend make a social call?”
She scoffs. “We’re hardly friends.”
No. The Master hums, amused, like he knows exactly what she means. She glances at him, meeting his eyes, mapping the way the firelight dances on the contours of his face. She’s so enraptured by it that it takes her a moment to realise that her staring is reciprocated.
“Maybe I just wanted to see you,” he murmurs, reverent.
You could have just texted. But he did. So, moot point.
“Maybe I didn’t,” she replies, forcing herself to look away. To feel the full heat of fire on her face.
The Master laughs. “Oh – sorry. Is there someone you’d rather spend the evening with?”
“Yes.”
“And yet,” he says, simple victory, “you came.”