The Doctor spends a lot more time sleeping, these days. Almost as much as a human needs, and even in his time awake, he'd rather be asleep. Now he understands why one of the symptoms of clinical depression in humans is excessive fatigue and oversleeping. It's so much better than being awake -- especially when one is being woken up by a disturbingly cheerful Master.
"Doctor, Doctor, rise and shine! Or at least as much as you're capable of -- you're not very shiny now, you know."
He briefly debates whether or not to make a snappy comeback, and reluctantly decides not to. It won't do him any good to antagonize his old enemy, not when he's currently this powerless. Rassilon, he's really feeling his years now, and not just because the Master aged his body a century.
So he restrains himself to sighing, "What is it now?" He remains seated in his spot against the wall, and keeps his eyes closed. There's nothing he wants to look at.
"You could try to show a little more enthusiasm," the Master chastises. "Here I am, trying to be a nice guy, thinking of giving you your hearts' desire, and here you are, being rude to me!"
"That's one of the salient characteristics of this regeneration," the Doctor retorts, changing his mind about the snappy comebacks. Maybe they won't do him any good in the long run, but they make him feel better now. "Don't you want me to be myself?"
"Just as much as you want me to be myself," the Master replies, smoothly. His fingers start tapping out a rhythm on the tabletop, one that the Doctor is very familiar with by now. "You're not giving me much incentive to be nice to you, you know."
"'You keep using that word,'" the Doctor quotes, a corner of his mouth quirking. "'I do not think it means what you think it means.'"
"Now that's what I'm talking about! The inconceivable!" the Master exclaims, proving himself far more conversant with twentieth-century Earth pop culture than the Doctor would have thought. "Or perhaps just impossible. Or not. And true love, specifically yours."
Oh, he does not have a good feeling about this. "What are you talking about?" the Doctor asks, warily. He has an idea, but hopes he's wrong.
His eyes are still closed, but he can hear the pout in the Master's voice when he says, "You're getting slow, Doctor. You sure you don't know what I'm talking about? Ah well, I'll even give you a clue. What -- or rather, who -- by any other name would still smell as sweet?"
He can't help it; his eyes pop open, and he glares at the Master. He'd thought that might be it, and he's not happy to be proven right. "You can't get to her," he says, fiercely. "She's in another universe, and safe. You can't get to her!"
"By myself, no," the Master agrees. "A single Time Lord cannot safely cross the Void, and you're all about safety, aren't you, Doctor? No matter how much you want her with you, you won't risk two universes to get her back. But Doctor...hasn't it occurred to you yet that there are two of us now?"
The Doctor closes his eyes and leans his head back against the wall, trying not to give the Master the satisfaction of a reaction. Yes, it had occurred to him. It was one of the first things that had, the discovery of the Master coming as it did on the heels of telling Jack about Rose. But he will never, ever agree to the idea, much less ask for it. Giving the Master access to Rose would be worse than never seeing her again.
"I'd really like to meet this Rose of yours," the Master says, sounding thoughtful, and the Doctor tries not to be sick at the very idea. "The girl who could make you break your rule against getting too emotionally involved with your companions. Tell me, Doctor, what is it about her?"
"What about you?" the Doctor asks swiftly. "You actually got married to a human!"
"Ah, Lucy," the Master sighs. "You do realize how telling your subject change is, don't you? As you said, I can't get to her, so what's the harm in telling me about her?"
"What's the point?" the Doctor counters. "There's really no good reason for me to, and a host of reasons why I shouldn't."
"You're no fun." The finger tapping suddenly stops, and the Doctor opens his eyes to see the Master leaning forward in his seat and smiling. It's not a reassuring smile, nor even particularly sane -- but then, the Master is neither reassuring nor sane at the best of times. "I imagine she is, though." There's a gleam in his eye that the Doctor really doesn't like. "A human girl who can swallow the whole Time Vortex and come out alive, turn half a million Daleks into dust with a wave of her hand, and bring a dead man back to life, for good? I could have such fun with her."
The Doctor starts a moment, but then remembers -- he must have overheard that conversation with Jack, back when he'd still been Professor Yana.
"Did you like kissing her, Doctor?" The question is asked with such innocence that it takes the Doctor a few seconds to realize what he's asking, and then his eyes widen.
"How did you know about that?" he asks, trying not to let his voice shake. "I didn't tell Jack about that."
The Master laughs. "You've been alone too long," he chides. "Your telepathic skills have gotten rusty -- including your shields. And you sleep too much. It takes hardly any effort at all to see your dreams." He grins. "You dream about kissing her so often. Kissing, and more." He laughs again.
The Doctor's hands clench into fists, but he resists the impulse to start throwing punches, though he has to remind himself that he doesn't like violence. He also immediately starts shoring up his mental shields; he's not about to be thankful, but at least the Master has brought the matter to his attention, and now he can fix it.
"It's none of your business," he says, once he's brought himself under better control.
"Are you sure?" the Master coos. "It's so easy to tell how much you love her and want her back. I could help you with that..."
Yeah, you'd help me save Rose from the parallel world, the Doctor thinks angrily. Then you'd do everything you could to break her, and you'd make me watch. Then you'd do to that universe what you're doing to this one. "Thanks, but no thanks," he says, and is glad that, as much as he can't go through the Void without the Master's help, the Master can't do it without his. His TARDIS, even back to her usual self, would never help the Master through the Void unless he said it was all right.
"Well, if you're sure..." The Master shrugs. The grin slips from his face, and he raises an eyebrow. "She's fought so hard to get back to you, twice. What would she think if she knew you had a chance to get back to her, and refused it?"
And with this parting shot, the Master turns and walks away. But with his back turned, he doesn't see the Doctor's slow smile.
She'd tell me I was doing the right thing, he thinks, absolutely secure in that knowledge. When he hesitated over risking her life for the sake of the world in Downing Street, she told him to do it, and in Utah, she chose being trapped with a Dalek over letting it loose to kill more people. Rose would be appalled if he ever chose to let danger overtake another universe just for the sake of seeing her again, to say nothing of the danger to her specifically.
His hearts give a pang at his decision -- though he knows he's made the right one, the only one he could have made, it still aches that he was offered the chance to get Rose back, and had to turn it down.
As horrible as it is that the Master violated his mind, the Doctor has to be glad that he obviously didn't see deeper than dreams. If he had, he would have known better than to taunt him with Rose. As the Carrionites in Elizabethan England found out to their detriment, thoughts of Rose just make him stronger, even when she's not with him. Give him a reason to keep fighting.
And oh, he's going to keep fighting. Rose would never want him to give up.