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Of course it happens when he's feeling lonely, of course it happens when he's feeling trapped. It's just his luck, really, that he's now the captive audience of the one person that he hoped never to see again.
Or maybe the one person he most wanted to find again, he isn't entirely sure. They didn't part on the best of terms, far from it, and the Master's attitude now has only grown worse, proving at every encounter why they could never have fulfilled their promise of travelling together. And he's still the most interesting person on this planet, and the only one who can give the Doctor a bit of a challenge.
“I don't understand, if he's just an old school mate, why does the Master keep coming back for you?” Jo asks, interrupting his careful measuring of compounds that can have an explosive reaction if mishandled.
Great timing as always.
“Well, he can't exactly reach any other Time Lord. I suppose there was another classmate of ours… no, but the Rani wouldn't hesitate to kill him if he got in the way of her plans,” the Doctor says, reaching for a neutraliser even though it'll ruin his experiment. He simply can't be sure of how much chlorine he added.
Besides, the last time he heard of the Rani, she was running away on her own TARDIS and was never heard of again. If she's still out there, she's probably in some corner conducting her experiments, not bothering anyone else, except perhaps her lab rats. She was always more practical in what she wanted.
“I take it she isn't a friend who could help you, then?” Jo asks, as only someone who hadn't met the Rani ever could.
The Doctor shakes his head. “A friend? Once. But the Rani helps only herself.”
In that regard, the Master isn't much different. He has a working TARDIS, and means of obtaining spare parts. He could have come and offered to help, and instead he tried conquering the planet just to get on the Doctor's nerves. In a way, he hadn't changed.
“But it's not like you're going to help him either, not with what he really wants. So why does he keep coming after you?” Jo insists, like she's trying to get at something that he doesn't have a clue yet.
What the Master really wants… control over the universe, of course. The Doctor just happens to be the only ally he would respect in that quest. Perhaps, when the Doctor was younger, he might have been seduced into… but no, he never wanted control, just to see the universe for himself.
There was a time that he really thought that they would do it together. Maybe it was that silly crush of him, giving him hope and making him ignore all the mentions of primitive planets needing benevolent control. Maybe it was just him wanting to believe his best friend when he made that promise.
“I told you, he has limited options for allies, and he would only respect another Time Lord,” the Doctor says, despite knowing it's an oversimplification.
There are very few Time Lords that the Master would respect. In fact, it's entirely possible that he's the only one. The Rani might be brilliant, but the Doctor remembers very well what the Master used to think of organic chemistry.
“I don't know, I still think he's only doing all of this because he has a crush on you,” Jo proudly declares.
The Doctor crushes the glass of neutraliser, which will be a nightmare to clean later. He should tell Jo to do it, since it's her fault for distracting him.
“Don't be ridiculous, we're beyond such things,” the Doctor says, refusing to entertain the idea any further.
At one time, perhaps, although he would have noticed something when he was younger and so taken by a school crush that he might have risked his life in more than a few experiments to show off. But that was an old crush, a youth thing, and even then there was never any indication that his feelings were wanted.
“You're right, you're beyond pulling at pigtails and gluing gum on hair. You just try kidnapping instead.”