Oh. How to summarize this one. This is a ship that I can't ever remember *not* shipping (along with Doctor/Bessie, another ship that it just seems like I always believed in.) I'm a second-gen Who fan and I probably overheard adults talking about the show in such a way that I knew what I liked even before the adults realized I was old enough to listen. I didn't actually watch any episodes, to my knowledge, till I was 10 or so, but I already knew the basics before then somehow.

The basics are: once upon a time (for a certain definition of 'once' and 'time'), two young people went to school together, and they were the best of friends: they were learning about all the wonders of all of time and space, and also how they were never allowed to go out and experience it themselves, and they promised each other that one day they would run away together and visit everywhere. But somehow by the time they did, everything had gone wrong; somehow they were no longer in alignment with each other: one of them stole a timeship and left with just his granddaughter (leaving the other behind), and the other one, with no reason to stay, or to do anything else, without his friend beside him, stole another ship and left too.

By the time they met again, one of them had become the Doctor, living in a different body, recaptured by his people, stripped of part of what made him himself, and trapped on an insignficant planet named Earth. The other one, who had become the Master, turned up to keep him company in his captivity. I mean, came to conquer Earth! That's definitely why he's there. To conquer Earth, and to defeat the Doctor, and also to rule the galaxy with him side-by-side as consorts? if that's a thing he'd want? No? Are you sure? He can ask one more time if it helps??

And things went from there. The Master comes up with evil plans in order to get the Doctor's attention, but he can never keep it; the Doctor seeks out evil plans all over the galaxy in hopes that the Master is waiting for him on the other side of them. Are they ex-spouses? Is the whole thing just an extended, millennia-long Time Lord courtship? Are they bound by some sort of destiny beyond time? Difficult to say. Probably they don't even remember the real story at this point. But that never stopped them before. They are the enemy ship of all enemy ships, older than time, and really, really bad at talking about feelings.

Doctor/Master is sort of like Star Trek movies, except it's the odd-numbered Doctors that get the good foeyay. (But you have to count the War Doctor, so it skip to evens starting with 10). If that made no sense to you, good, get out while you still can.

I did a recs set for this pairing once before! In 2008. So have some very old recycled recs for some 13+ year old fics about One, Three, Five and Seven. I have not reread some of them in at least a decade.

• Killing the Groundhog: A Controlled Outcome by x-los
  Notes: Mid-length; Three/Delgado; PG; time-loops
  Summary: "In which the Master does not enjoy time paradoxes, Jo's opinions on fashion, Agatha Christie's later works or the Doctor's proclivity to resort to date-rape drugs to get out of talking about their past. In which the Master does enjoy pungee pits, Pimm's Cups and winning."
  Notes: Awesome, sweet, hilarious, evil, and so very them. Only about two notches up from the wacky things they did to get each other's attention in canon, though with a slightly higher proportion of kisses to marriage proposals.



• Waterloo by aralias
  Notes: Mid-length, Five/Ainley, PG-13 for the Master being the Master, blatant hurt/comfort fluff.
  Summary: "Ainley!Master nursing Five back to health with chicken soup."
  Notes: So ... yes, it's more or less just what the summary says, but yet stays very much in-character, because really? Five and Ainley!Master had basically this for their onscreen relationship, only with slightly less kissng, at least up until the point they let the angst get out of control. If it weren't for the giant otters, this could have slotted into canon right before "The King's Demons." (Five held the title of "The Pretty One" until Tennant took it, btw, so he gets a lot of the fluff and h/c in this pairing, but he wears it so *well*.)



• The Monster in the Dark by Nemo_the_Everbeing
  Notes: Long, Seven/Catboy!Master, Ace. PG-13 for violence and mental illness, no sex
  Summary: "Some things must be dealt with, and Ace put off dealing with the cheetah virus until it was almost too late. The Doctor must enlist some unconventional and unwanted help to pull her through."
  Notes: No out-and-out slash, but lots of chewy Doctor and Master relationshippy stuff, which is close enough. The Doctor and the Master have to fight their way through Ace's mindscape, and learn some things about themselves on the way. Heavy on the Seven plot-spoilers, but you don't need to have seen the episodes. And Ace is awesome. And so are Seven and Catboy!Master (Catboy!Master is canon, which is why canon is awesome.)



• Over Time by evilawyer
  Notes: Long; Master/Rani, Master/Doctor, Doctor/Rani; R for sex and general dark themes.
  Summary: The Doctor ruins you. If you let him.
  Notes: This story spans the whole history, from school days on Gallifrey to post-LotL, and it's the epic story of figuring out how you recover from ever being loved by the Doctor. Bringing in the Rani, the missing third leg of the Time Lord Renegade Trio, who has a wonderful, terrible relationship with the Master in this fic. Which has single-handedly turned me into a Rani shipper.