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Chapter Text

It was no wonder given the life she had led that most nights, she had dreams about murderous apparitions or bloodthirsty creatures chasing after her with bloody intent. Those dreams Clara could have dealt with, no problem. Not when there was always a familiar hand grasping onto hers tightly, while a faraway, know-it-all voice explained away their danger.

The dreams where everything was normal again - those were the real nightmares.

Sometimes, she’d find herself sitting in the teacher’s lounge next to him, gossiping about their coworkers or about their students.

Or.

She’d dream about Sunday mornings when she’d make two coffees, cream in one, too much sugar in the other, before she brought the steaming mugs back to bed.

Always, always there would be a point when she’d realize how much she had missed those moments, and she’d wonder why she was missing them at all when Danny was right there beside her, and nothing had changed. He was warm, solid and breathing, smiling down at her.

On those nights, when she awoke, she would turn to her side, reaching for a warm body to snuggle herself against. Clara always liked telling Danny about her ridiculous dreams no matter the hour, and he had always mumbled something that sounded vaguely like irritated acknowledgment in response.

On those nights, she’d find herself waking up a little more when she realized she was alone in her bedroom. She’d stop and wonder where Danny had got to.

And then she would finally remember.

Those nights…those were always the worst.

***

“Are you alright love?” her father had asked the first time she had gone around for dinner after. “Are you getting enough sleep?”

“Yea,” she lied as she played with her food.

“Good,” he had smiled without meeting her eyes. “I’m glad.”

“It’ll get easier,” his girlfriend said sympathetically. “Would you like to go shoe shopping sometime this week after work? Take your mind off things.”

Clara hadn’t been sure how to answer. She wasn’t sure how a new pair of shoes was supposed to help.

“You’re a young woman,” the older woman continued when no response was forthcoming. “You’ll meet someone else.”

It wasn’t as if she could have a drink, Clara thought longingly as she watched her father pour himself a second glass of wine.

***

He had spent days, weeks even, drifting around in the cold and the dark, incapable of doing much else aside from nursing a glass of shitty scotch.

It was easier. So much easier than giving a fuck, he reflected with every sip.

He supposed he should have known better than to have paid any mind to Missy. Somewhere at the back of his head, even as he keyed in the coordinates she had provided, he had expected to find at the very least, some ill-conceived trap that had been set for him.

The fact that he had simply found empty space hurt more than he would have cared to admit, but he supposed that was her ultimate and petty plan in the end.

There was a part of him, a very large part of him that had wanted to believe Missy, not just because he was homesick. He wanted for a second to think that there was still a part of her that cared, which hadn’t rotted away under layers of bile and rage, bitterness and vengeance.

He wanted there to be a part of Missy who was still the friend he had grown up with, who had gazed out at the stars with him as they plotted their escape from a lifetime of strict rules and unchanging order.

Of course, he should also have taken the opportunity to kill her when that had been presented, the Doctor reflected as he emptied his glass. If he knew how these things played out, she was probably far from dead, sitting like a malignant spider in some dark corner of the universe, spinning her next convoluted web of intrigue.

Clara was absolutely right on the matter: allowing Missy a continued existence was a threat to everything anyone had ever held dear.

Clara.

Just thinking about her stung.

There was a pile of schoolwork sitting on his desk downstairs, half of it still unmarked.

“Can you even read your own handwriting?” he had asked one day as he peered over her shoulder while taking a break from ship-repairs.

“Har har.” She answered drily, barely even pausing.

He had reached for her mug with his grease covered hands and taken a sip of its lukewarm contents.

“Yech,” he had grimaced. “I’ll put on a fresh pot. This is disgusting.”

“Less sugar in my coffee this time please,” she muttered as she kept on scribbling in the exercise book in front of her. “Not all of us are immune to diabetes.”

“Yes ma’am,” he replied sardonically as he stomped his way up the stairs.

Nonetheless, he had added about five cubes of sugar to her next cup purely out of habit, and she had finished her coffee all the same.

Alone in the darkness of the silent TARDIS, the Doctor refilled his tumbler, hoping that this was the drink that would do the trick of helping him forget, while knowing that it was doomed to fail.

He had barely set the glass down on his console when the universe came knocking. Literally.

Arseholes.

Couldn’t a Timelord mope in peace?

***

“Listen, I’m not trying to be mean or anything,” Dana said one day at lunch. “But you need to snap out of it. It wasn’t as if the two of you were married.”

Clara stared at her coworker. “I’m sorry?”

“Danny. It’s not like you were married to him.” the Geography teacher stabbed at her salad. “It’s not like you’re a widow.”

Forcing herself to breathe, Clara put her fork down carefully.

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion,” she managed at last, standing up and pushing her seat away from the small table.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend…” Dana looked up apologetically. “It’s just, we can’t bear to see you like this anymore…we all care about you.”

“Thanks.” Clara said stiffly. “It’s…it’s kind of you.”

Turning, she left the lunchroom behind, resisting the overwhelming urge to reach into her pocket for her phone in order to dial a number she knew by heart.

She doubted she could have made it through a sentence without crying. Bloody hormones - if she’d been feeling like herself, she’d have told Dana exactly where to stuff her ‘care’.

***

He was tired, and he missed her, so much it was like a living ache inside his chest. Although the pain probably had something do with with the exertion he was putting his body through.

The Doctor was running on burning feet, searching for a way out of the mess he had managed to get himself into. The hallway he was in was long, dark and cold, and his footsteps echoed deafeningly. Behind him, something with very long legs skittered against the cold floor as it followed far too close for comfort.

If he lived through this, he thought as he strove for some manner of escape, he would go to her. He’d sit through her boring human dinners with her boring human lover, but he was not going to die without seeing her.

The Doctor ran with everything left inside him.

***

“Have you considered a change in scenery perhaps?” the woman named Martha asked as they strolled through the park. “We could use someone like you with your experience on our team.”

“What would I do?” Clara asked as she sipped on her coffee. It wasn’t sweet enough; she had gotten used to coffee so sweet, her spoon could have stood in it.

“UNIT always needs personnel who can advise on dealings with alien encounters,” Martha smiled. “From what I understand, you’ve got some exposure to that.”

Clara shrugged, unsurprised at the implied offer. Doctor Jones wasn’t wrong about needing a change. The awkward conversations, the nosy stares disguised as pitying looks at school…she was starting to get really sick of those. On the other hand, the notion of being a soldier wasn’t exactly what she would call appealing either.

“I’m not sure I’m the kind of girl who could fire a gun,” she answered truthfully.

“I didn’t think I was either, once.” Martha sighed.

“So…the Doctor…” the taller woman said after some silence. “How is he? The last time you saw him, anyway.”

“He’s good.” Clara nodded. “He found Gallifrey, so…I assume he’s having a great time, wherever he is.”

“Gallifrey.” Martha laughed. “That’s wonderful.”

“Have you met him before?” the schoolteacher asked curiously.

“We have more in common than you think Clara Oswald. I used to travel with him too.” Martha looked away. “If I know him, he’s probably never mentioned me.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence as Clara realized she might have accidentally triggered something painful for the other woman.

“If it helps,” Clara said gently. “And I’m sure you know, he’s a little emotionally retentive, and incapable of discussing matters that might be…distressing, I suppose.”

“Retentive?” Martha snorted. “You’re being much too polite about it. He’s emotionally stunted is what it is.”

Clara would have responded if at that moment, a sharp pain wasn’t suddenly blooming in the lower half of her body.

The sensation had been utterly unexpected, and her fingers loosened its hold on her cup as she clutched at her abdomen in agony. The hot beverage fell to the ground with a loud splash.

“Clara?” Martha asked, everything else forgotten. “Clara talk to me, are you alright?”

“Oh God,” Clara looked at the UNIT doctor with wide, terrified eyes. A warm wetness began to trickle down her thigh. “Help me…”

“Shitshitshit,” Martha cursed, pulling out her cell phone.

“Please…” Clara pleaded to no one in particular as the world began to swim.

Her world went dark.

Chapter Text

Images of Broken Light

It hurt. Oh God but it hurt.

The girl moaned into her soaking gag, her head lolling to the side in the darkness of the stinking room they had locked her in.

She’d always joked with her mates about getting a tattoo, but if she had known how painful it was…and those people had done it to her body. Even her cheeks hadn’t been spared. Blood and pus oozed from where her wounds hadn’t healed; they would probably never heal.

But perhaps the worst part was the strange heat that was building under her skin, like liquid fire threatening to burn right through her very being.

Without warning, the room suddenly became flooded with light, causing her eyes to water and sting.

“Tonight’s the night,” a familiar voice announced, one that caused her to flinch away as much as she was able. “Are you excited girlfriend?”

“You’re scaring her,” the other one said as he approached her slowly. Gentle hands reached out to stroke her scarred face.

Whimpering, she shook her head in futile protest.

“Please,” she tried to beg around the gag.

“Nothing to be scared of,” the bigger one said, reaching to hoist her weakly struggling form over his left shoulder. “Nothing to be scared of at all.”

“Your fate will be glorious little one. Oh but how I envy you.”

***

Clara’s current companions were mostly stories pressed between the pages of old books, tales spun from the bottomless pit of human minds. Occasionally, she would pick up a tome and allow herself to get lost in an impossible tale or two, although those moments were far fewer than she would have liked.

Where before, her life had a never-ending and frenetic journey, her days now consisted of wandering amidst bookshelves, organizing collections and returning volumes to where they belonged.

It was a quiet life, one she was quite satisfied with. Barely anybody spoke to her, and if they tried, she had the perfectly courteous option of lifting one slim finger to her lips, reminding people that they were after all, in a library.

Of course, leaving the confines of the stacks meant entering a world of chatter and noise, and much as she would have preferred to spend all of her time in silence, unfortunately, that wasn’t a permanent luxury.

“Did you hear? The killer struck again last night,” Jemma said the moment Clara walked into the librarian’s office. Her coworker’s expression was a mixture of fascination and horror. “They found another body in the woods.”

“Ugh.” Clara made a face. “I don’t understand your fascination with this sensationalist garbage.”

“It’s not garbage Clara,” Jemma persisted. “It’s happening right here, and anyone of us could be the next victim.”

The former schoolteacher sighed as she settled behind her desk. “How do you know it’s the same killer anyway?”

“The tattoos,” Jemma shuddered. “They found the same tattoos covering her body. And her eyes were burned out just like the others.”

“Poor girl,” Clara murmured, switching on her laptop. Peering across the room, she checked to make sure that the other girl wasn’t paying attention before sliding a manila folder out from a locked drawer.

Flipping it open, she studied for what felt like the hundredth time, the photocopied historical drawings and photographs laid out within. Tattooed dead faces looked back up at her in blank incomprehension from empty, burned out sockets.

Everything would be so much easier, she thought, if only she could have accomplished living the quiet life she had set out to achieve.

***

In hindsight, perhaps he should have called first, the Doctor thought as he slowly climbed the stairs up to her apartment. There was always the chance she was at the store, or she was out with P.E. or perhaps she had gone parasailing or something.

Downstairs on the lawn, the roof of the TARDIS - where he had just spent the better part of an hour perched, hesitating - glinted slightly in the moonlight, as if telling him that it wasn’t too late to turn back. There was still time for him to duck away, rather than having to explain to Clara why he was back, and how there might have been a slight chance that he hadn’t been altogether honest with her during their last conversation.

As he made his way down the hallway leading to her home, he reflected that he could have materialized in her bedroom the way he used to do. But the possibility that he might accidentally interrupt an intimate moment between herself and the soldier man was simply too much to bear. That was a sight he could absolutely do without.

Stopping at her front door, the Doctor took a deep breath and rapped on the painted surface with his knuckles. It took a long time, but eventually, the entrance swung opened and he found himself gazing into the wrinkled face of an elderly lady.

“Have you completely abandoned make up now?” he blurted out in surprise.

“Young man, do you know what time it is?” the woman was furious and showed no signs of recognition. It took him a moment to realize he was speaking to a complete stranger.

“I’m so sorry, I’m looking for Clara Oswald,” he said with the temerity to look embarrassed. “Is she in?”

“Who? Wait, I don’t care, because IT’S THREE IN THE MORNING. Go. Away.” the woman shut the door in his face.

He stood there, stunned. This wasn’t a scenario he had prepared himself for.

Turning back towards the stairs, the Doctor found himself face-to-face with a wholly unexpected, but extremely familiar smile.

“Hello Doctor,” Martha said from the entrance of the stairway. “How have you been?”

***

Clara shuffled impatiently in the doorway of the laboratory. Both astrophysicists she was staring at seemed oblivious to the fact for over two minutes, she had been staring at them, waiting for them to notice her presence.

Finally, realizing that she was going to continue being ignored, Clara cleared her throat pointedly, and said very nicely, “Hello,”

“Yes. Hello to you too.” the tallest astrophysicist stated. “Please leave.”

“Gary, that’s rude,” the slighter of the two said, looking up from his work with a sweet smile. “How can we help?”

“If he’s Dr. Gary Saunders, you must be Dr. Benjamin Peters,” Clara smiled, hoping she didn’t sound too nervous.

“Please, call me Ben,” he said, walking over to her. “And you are?”

“Clara,” she said, extending a hand to him. “Clara Oswald.”

“Ms. Oswald, as I’m sure you’re aware, the university provides us with a large amount to funding to research the nature of black holes.” the one named Gary drawled. “Not to waste precious time on post-graduate fangirls.”

“Kerrist Gary, what crawled up your ass this morning?” Ben rolled his eyes in his lab partner’s direction. He turned back to Clara. “Perhaps it’s best we step outside before Gary gets any ruder.”

Obligingly, Clara backed out of the room together with Ben, who closed the door behind him.

“You both don’t sound like you’re from around here,” she observed.

“No, we’re both from the University of British Columbia,” he replied. “We’re here on a research project funded by the University of Sheffield…for some reason, they think we’re brilliant and we really didn’t feel up to arguing. Well I didn’t. Gary insulted them before he took their money.”

“Fair enough,” Clara nodded. “I’m…I’m a student of Historical Linguistics. Actually. And I’m writing an essay on the significance of astronomy in old texts. I found some references that were quite interesting, and I was wondering if one of you would be able to help me out. I was told this was the right place to come for answers.”

“Yeah for sure,” Ben responded with interest. “If it’s something I can help with anyway.”

“I was wondering if the phrases I’ve recorded here were all referring to the same point in space.” Clara fished out a folded sheet of paper from her purse. “I found them from several different sources from various time periods.”

“Huh. Cool.” Ben skimmed through the contents as he dug around for a pen in his breast pocket. “I’ll take a look at it when I have a second. Why don’t you leave me your email or something?”

Clara smiled winningly at the astrophysicist before she scribbled her email and phone number down for him on a corner of the sheet she had given him.

***

“Soooo.” Martha broke the silence between them when they reached the ground floor. “How’s the weather in Gallifrey these days?”

“How did you know I was here?” the Doctor asked abruptly, turning to stare at Martha with narrowed eyes.

“I received reports of a blue police box landing in this neighbourhood.” she shrugged, shoving her hands in the pockets of her sweater.

“Reports?” he frowned. “Last time I checked, you were an independent alien hunter. Do you have a team now? Are you and Mickey running your own army?”

“UNIT wanted me back.” her smile faded slightly. “The price was right.”

“The price.” he repeated, staring hard at her. Martha held his gaze without flinching.

“I received a report that you had landed in an area we…I…had been keeping an eye on.” she said.

The Doctor took a deep breath, reminding himself who he was talking to, and why he should not lose his temper.

“What do you mean you’ve been keeping an eye on this place?” he asked tightly. “Where’s Clara?”

“Clara’s fine. For now.” Martha walked further out into the open field in front of the apartment complex, leaving the Doctor to follow in her wake. “She might not be for long though, if I’m guessing right.”

“Stop speaking in riddles Martha, I’m not the man you remember and my patience is at an end.” his voice lowered to a growl. “Where is she? Has UNIT does something to her?”

“Of course not,” Martha laughed, though there was no humour in the sound. “Clara left on her own free will. Can’t say I blame her.”

“Ah.” he said after a few seconds, his steps faltering. “She’s moved away to be with Danny I suppose.”

“Danny?” Martha sounded miffed as she turned to look at him. “Of course not. Danny Pink’s dead. Been dead since last November.”

The Doctor couldn’t do much else aside from gawping at his former companion.

***

In front of them, a basket of chips cooled rapidly, untouched and dripping with stale fryer oil. The booth they had settled in was one of the few occupied spots in the dingy twenty-four hour establishment, which smelled mostly like old grease and bitter coffee. At the bar, a lone waitress was perched on a shaky stool, sucking hard on a cigarette as she stared unseeing at the television that had been installed above the liquor shelves.

“She tried to tell me.” The Doctor said as he stared down at the cracking linoleum table surface where his hands were resting. “She was trying to tell me what happened while I was busy making up some ridiculous story, right before I abandoned her. I really am Doctor Idiot.”

“She didn’t correct your…misconceptions.” Martha reached across the table to touch his arm, but at the last moment, she hesitated and withdrew. “Sounds like the two of you were trying to make each other happy. By torturing yourselves of course…and I suddenly understand why you and I would never have worked out.”

He peered up at her with a bemused expression.

“Are you’re telling me that on top of everything, she’s possibly managed to get herself involved in some ridiculously dangerous situation all on her own?” he questioned after a beat. “What is she thinking?”

Martha sighed. “What do you think we do when it’s all over and we set our feet back on the hard ground? What do you think happens when we step out of the TARDIS and leave the stars behind?”

“What?” he asked.

“We have to find some way to get our fix.” she replied with a bittersweet smile on her lips.

***

“Gary?” Ben’s eyes rapidly scanned the sheet in front of him.

“What?” the other astrophysicist snapped testily without looking up from his work.

“Gary you’re not going to fucking believe this,” Ben’s voice rose in excitement in a manner that caused his peer to finally give him his full attention.

“I think we’ve found her.” he looked up with an ecstatic grin. “I think we’ve found the perfect vessel.”

Chapter Text

She found herself walking among broken headstones, some with her own name chiselled into them; others bore names that were strangely familiar, although she was sure she had never met anybody named Amy Pond or Rory Williams in her life. Not that she recalled anyway.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a comforting blue shape standing on the other side of the open graveyard gates, waiting.

“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” Danny asked, standing a few paces in front of her, resplendent in his silver armour.

“Why are we here?” she asked, though she was sure she wasn’t going to like the answer. Tilting her head up, she stared at dark clouds that were beginning to gather, spoiling what had otherwise been a perfectly blue sky.

“Well, you’re currently dreaming on your couch. You just passed out after drinking a bottle of wine while going through old murder cases.” he sounded reproachful as he absentmindedly wiped away a sluggish trail of blood trickling down his face from places where thin metal claws dug into his grey skin. “Babe, I think you’ve been drinking too much lately.”

She stopped in front of him. “You don’t get to lecture me like I’m one of the kids.”

“That’s true, I suppose. I’ve never been able to stop you from making bad choices,” he agreed, bowing his head briefly. “You shouldn’t be here. There are things that should stay buried lingering in these parts. Old, ancient and hungry things.”

“Those girls weren’t buried.” she reached a hand up to caress his face. “They were tossed aside like used up dolls. Someone needs to speak for them.”

Danny stared up at the rapidly fading sunlight with milky-white eyes.

“There’s a storm coming.” he said. ”For your sake, I hope it gets here soon. Even if I still don’t much like that arrogant prat.”

“Don’t go,” Clara pleaded as the shadows deepened, reaching out to hold him.

“I can’t stay love,” he whispered gently as he stepped back into the gloom, out of her reach. “I’m dead, remember?”

Somewhere in the distance, something roared in unbridled fury, sending a shiver up her spine.

Clara’s eyes snapped open in her dimly lit living room.

***

“Clara asked us never to contact her again,” Martha said as she drew her laptop out from a locked briefcase in her backseat and rested it on the roof of her car. “But she doesn’t know UNIT has been keeping an eye on her movements anyway. She’s far too valuable for us to lose track of her.”

Her car was parked in a lonely alley, shielded by tall, windowless walls. Long and unlit passageways led out towards the main streets. Any other woman would have been afraid to walk down such a road in the middle of the night or wee hours of the morning, but the Doctor pitied the man who thought Martha might have been an easy target for a mugging.

Observing intently the data which the UNIT doctor was pulling up, he skimmed through Clara’s files and records. Without quite meaning to, he caught sight of a bullet point on one of the documents which caused his breath to hitch.

“Doctor are you listening?” Martha asked, drawing him out of his reverie.

“I…” he stared uncomprehendingly at the woman who huffed a little impatiently.

“She’s been researching a serial murder case that we’ve been following in South Yorkshire. Her web history is littered with searches on historical precedence, and it seems she’s been connecting the dots on our behalf.” Martha smiled. “She’s a smart girl that one.”

“Why is she getting involved in a murder case?” he furrowed his brows. “For that matter, I didn’t realize UNIT is interested in crime solving these days.”

“We’re not.” Martha agreed. “But this one’s different. All victims found were covered in multiple tattooed characters. At last count, the characters contain at least ten alien languages. Some letters were written in ancient Sumerian, others in versions of Latin that haven’t been spoken for centuries.”

Photographs of victims popped up on her screen, one after another like a macabre parade of death.

“Clara seems to have linked these murders to similar cases that have occurred throughout recorded history,” Martha continued grimly. “And they’re not confined to one civilization either. There are oral and written texts documenting these ritualized killings in various places all across the globe.”

“Result of a shared consciousness perhaps,” the Doctor murmured, though there was something about the tattooed corpses that nagged at him.

“Whatever it is.” Martha shrugged. “It’s dangerous. I think Clara is closing in on something big, and without back-up of some sort…Doctor, I don’t want to see her get hurt and something tells me you don’t either.”

“What are we waiting for then?” the Doctor said. “Let’s get aboard the TARDIS and get ourselves there.”

“You…want me to come with you?” Martha asked slowly.

“Of course.” he frowned. “Why wouldn’t I? Just because you appear to be willingly employed at a spy agency intent on monitoring unsuspecting citizens, doesn’t mean I don’t want your help.”

Shutting her laptop and locking it back up, Martha said flatly, ““I think I preferred you when you were a lovesick dandy on the rebound.”

“Why, did I say something that wasn’t true?” he asked almost challengingly.

“You don’t reach out for years. You don’t even try.” she slammed the car door shut and locked the vehicle before striding in the direction of his TARDIS. “So you don’t get to judge.”

“Where is Mickey by the way?” he asked mildly as he followed her. “I can’t imagine him being the military type.”

“Does it matter?” she asked as they exited the alley. Dawn was breaking over the city slowly. “Do you care?”

“Yes.” he said quietly. “Both of you matter to me, even if I can be a crusty old man who is phenomenally bad at managing his interpersonal relationships. Just because I’m a shit friend doesn’t mean I don’t want to try being a better one.”

Martha sighed as they walked down the still empty street. “Let’s go get your girl. If we have time when all this is over…maybe you can say hi to Mickey.”

***

“Morning. Or should I say ‘afternoon’?” Jemma called out from behind her desk as Clara entered the office, clutching a cup of coffee as if it were the only thing standing between herself and utter destruction. Behind her eyelids, a tiny little man was hammering against her skull viciously and repeatedly.

Grunting a non-committal greeting in response, she turned to her own desk and settled in. However, no sooner had she plugged in her laptop when a knock on the office door interrupted the quiet of the office. Given the state of her hangover, she decided to ignore the visitor and let Jemma handle whatever asinine inquiry that was bound to be forthcoming.

“Clara?”

Looking up in surprise, the former schoolteacher blinked. “Ben. Hi!”

“Hey,” he stepped further into the office, waving awkwardly at Jemma as he passed her. Her coworker looked over with raised eyebrows. “I checked out your profile in the university directory and found out you worked here. I hope its ok, me showing up like this. That is, I hope I’m not being a creepy stalker. Of course, now that I’ve said it, you probably think I’m a creepy stalker. I should maybe stop talking.”

“It’s ok,” Clara found herself smiling. “I don’t mind.”

“Good. Awesome.” Ben smiled in relief as he approached her desk, hands stuck firmly in his jean pockets. “I…uh…I checked out the stuff you passed me yesterday. It was rather fascinating…I was wondering if you wanted to maybe grab a coffee or something so we can talk about my findings? Though, I see you already have a coffee…”

“Right now?” Clara asked through clenched teeth, cursing the bottle of pinot noir she had finished the night before. “We could have lunch.”

“Sure, yeah, totally.” he grinned.

“You just got in!” Jemma piped up from across the room.

“I won’t take long,” Clara shook her head. “Jemma, this is  Dr. Ben Peters, he’s helping me on a really important project.”

“Fine,” the other woman looked annoyed, ignoring the introduction. “But I’m not covering for you if anybody asks,”

“Great. Just…great.” Clara refused to let her smile falter. Turning to the astrophysicist, she asked, “Shall we?”

***

Stepping carefully across the TARDIS threshold, Martha looked around her with a small grin on her face, a smile that seemed to shed years off her tired face.

“You’ve redecorated.” she observed.

“Let me guess, you don’t like it,” the Doctor asked from the console, hurriedly pushing buttons and pulling levers.

“Actually I think it’s quite nice. Love what you did with the lighting and the bookshelves,” she closed the door behind her.

“Oh,” he paused for a second. “That was unexpected. Thank you.”

Shrugging, she strolled around to stand beside him as the ship rocked.

“I missed that sound,” she said over the noise of the TARDIS taking off. The Doctor looked at her with the tiniest of smiles.

The journey was over quickly, and when next they opened the door, they were in a slowly filling courtyard as students milled past dispiritedly on their way to class. A few teenagers stopped and stared at the blue box, blinking in confusion.

“Physics experiment,” Martha said loudly with a wide grin. “We can offer a free lesson to anyone interested. The equations are really quite easy to understand.”

All lingering bystanders immediately dispersed.

“Good job,” the Doctor smirked. “Now where do we start?”

***

The library was bright, large and airy, which wasn’t necessarily something he liked. If he was going to spend time anywhere feeling sorry for himself, he preferred dark and cloistered spots, just to really add to the flavour of misery.

Until of course, he met Jemma, Clara’s coworker. That was when he understood why this had been the perfect place for her to torture herself.

“…never comes in on time, and good god, could her hemline get any higher?” the woman had started complaining the moment they walked in and introduced themselves as local police. “It’s not as if she’s got the legs for those outfits - she’s much too short.”

“Er…” Martha glanced at the Doctor who appeared on the verge of saying something unpleasant at the very least. “Ma’am, if you don’t mind, we’re here on official business and I have some questions for you. Would you be so kind as to step somewhere private with me?”

“We can talk here can’t we?” Jemma looked around. “There’s no one else here. She hasn’t been back since her lunch date yesterday and I have no idea if she’s even going to come in today. Frankly officers, I’m not surprised you’re here investigating her - I have no idea what she gets up to outside the workplace.”

“Ma’am.” Martha’s voice was firm and brooked no argument. “Please step outside with me while my colleague investigates her workspace. Thank you.”

The Doctor gave her a grateful look as she led the chafing librarian out of the small office. When the two of them had disappeared, he strode over to the neat and uncluttered desk that was so painfully and obviously Clara’s, his hearts thumped painfully at the sight. The fact that she hadn’t been seen by her coworker for over a day did not escape his notice.

There was nothing on her desk aside from a pen holder and a table lamp, and the single drawer was locked. Looking around to make sure no one could witness what he was about to do, he drew his sonic screwdriver out of his coat and activated it. The latch snapped open with ease.

Keeping away his sonic, he slid open the drawer carefully. There wasn’t much within aside from a few hastily scribbled notes, including a set of numbers on a yellow post-it note - star coordinates, he identified - that seemed painfully familiar. At the very bottom of the drawer, he found a printout listing out the academics within the Astrophysics department.

Lifting the document, he studied the contents before him, especially where she had underlined the names of two faculty members. Apparently, she had paid special attention to a Dr. Benjamin Peters and Dr. Gary Saunders, both of whom were focusing in a ground breaking research of Black Holes.

He looked hard at the brief descriptions paragraphed under each name, and stared again at the coordinates she had jotted down in her messy handwriting.

The photographs of the corpses Martha had shown him flashed through his mind.

“Clara, my Clara…” he whispered as his eyes widened. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

“Doctor?” Martha asked from the doorway. Jemma walked into the office, muttering something about arrogant civil servants and taxpayer money. “Is everything ok?”

“What did you find out?” he asked abruptly, ignoring the other librarian.

“That she went for lunch with one Dr. Ben Peters yesterday. And her high heels make too much noise,” the UNIT Doctor said drily.

Dropping the papers on the desk, he hurried out of the office, Martha in tow.

“Doctor, what’s going on?” she asked anxiously.

“We need to find her now. Especially if she’s with Ben Peters.” the Doctor looked down at her with dread in his eyes. “I know what we’re up against.”

***

Her head was killing her as she came to. These hangovers were getting truly awful…she really needed to stop drinking the way she did.

Opening her eyes, she looked around and breathed in sharply.

Not only was she not home, she was beginning to recollect some of the more recent events that had transpired.

“Shit,” she muttered, gazing in panic at the familiar symbols covering the floorboards, walls and ceiling.

The place stank of sulphur.

I’m in so, so much trouble.

Chapter Text

Inciting and Inviting

2003

Martha was in hell. Or, possibly, the closest thing to it anyway, she thought as she stared blankly at the page before her.

In the last twenty-four hours, she had slept a total of six hours, which sounded impressive until the hours she had spent poring over her textbooks were stacked up against them.

Groaning, she let her head crash lightly onto the desk in front of her, wondering vaguely if there was technology available where information could be transferred based on pure physical contact with a textbook. Someone ought to invent that if it didn’t already exist.

The mobile phone beside her began to vibrate. When it didn’t stop after a full minute, she answered it with a defeated air, already knowing who it would on the other end - because honestly, who else called her these days?

“Hi Mom,” she said, hoping it would be a short conversation.

There was an update about Aunt Millie and her Pomeranian.

Another about Tish and her new boyfriend (Must be nice having time for boys, Martha thought bitterly).

There was a report about her American cousin Janice and how she’d gotten her migraines cured by a preacher during a healing session under a tent in some field in Kentucky.

“Show me a faith healer and I’ll show you the devil,” Martha muttered. “Ruthless con artists, all of them.”

“What did you say dear?” her mother paused.

“Nothing,” Martha shook her head. “Not funny enough to be worth repeating.”

Her mother made an irritated noise.

***

2015

There was no point letting panic cloud her judgement, Clara thought, desperately attempting to quell her panic. At this stage, all she could do was her best to escape, because the alternative was…well. There wasn’t one was there?

There were only a few pieces of knowledge she had about her current status:

1. At some point over lunch, she had been drugged

2. The person who had drugged her was Ben Parker, who was obviously involved in the killings in some way, if the interior decorating of the room was anything to go by

3. She had a small hunting knife stashed inside her left boot, one she had been carrying around since she’d started the investigation. If her time with the Doctor had taught her anything, it was that she was going to get in trouble sooner or later.

As far as knowledge went, that wasn’t very much to go on. Even the small knife didn’t offer much comfort, because if she were honest, she was almost certain that she was more likely to end up stabbing herself by accident. She had lost a fight with a filing cabinet only a few days ago.

She had no idea how long she had been locked away, but she was quite sure her captors were not the least bit worried about her retaliating - they hadn’t even tied her up, a fact which could either be a very good thing, or a very bad thing.

Breathe Clara, breathe, a voice whispered in her head. It was comforting, gravelly and Scottish, and it made her stomach twist.

Footsteps approached the doorway, causing her to start and back away.

“I just want to see check and see if she’s awake,” one muffled voice said.

“Don’t see the point.” Another replied.

She considered trying to reach for her knife, but before she could make a move, the door was already opening.

The two men, Gary and Ben, stopped and stared at her.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” Ben said after a few moments.

“That’s a relief to hear you say it. I must have been confused by the part where you drugged and kidnapped me.” she replied sharply.

“Can I gag her please?” Gary asked, looking down at Ben.

“Dude no. I hate it when you do that to them.” Ben shook his head in disgust. “It’s so degrading.”

The smaller scientist approached Clara carefully. “We don’t have to gag you right? You're not gonna scream or anything?”

Clara considered her options once again.

“No.” she said finally, shoulders slumping in defeat.

“Good.” Ben smiled his sweet smile, the one that she had found so endearing less than twenty-four hours before. “Look we’re going to need you to help us with something ok? Something important and special. Something that we can’t do ourselves because we need to be the ones monitoring the process.”

“I’m honoured.” she said drily, trying not to think of the pictures of corpses she’d been staring at for weeks.

“You should be,” Gary admonished, leaning against the doorframe.

“We’ll start in a few hours.” Ben’s face seemed to redden in embarrassment. “We didn’t realize we ran out of some supplies. You know how it is…rituals…”

“If its more convenient for you, I can come back later.” Clara found herself quipping. Her voice shook only a little.

“If there’s anything I can do to make your…um…stay more comfortable, let me know ok?” Ben backed his way out the door.

“I’ll ring down to front desk, don’t you worry.” Clara snapped.

The door shut, leaving her alone. She waited until she could no longer hear their footsteps before she sank to the ground, burying her face into her knees as tears coursed down her cheeks.

***

“There are a million and one Benjamin Peters,” Martha murmured as she scrolled through addresses on her laptop. “You need to be a little patient.”

“Right. Of course. I need to be patient while Clara is getting her liver cut out as a sacrifice to some alien creature masquerading as Satan.” The Time Lord snorted.

“There’s never been a case yet when the liver was cut out.” Martha said mildly.

“Oh. I feel much better now, thank you.” the Doctor almost snarled as he paced behind her. “You know what, we’ve done it your way. My turn.”

Stalking around to the other side of the TARDIS console, he slipped his hands gingerly into the  spongy slots on the dashboard, remembering as he did so, the last time they had been put into use by another pair of slender hands.

Closing his eyes, he forced his mind to settle and collected his thoughts. The Doctor tried his hardest to concentrate on telling the TARDIS to search for Clara Oswald, the schoolteacher from Coal Hill. But try as he might, he couldn’t stop himself from remembering the the smooth fall of her hair, how the corners of her eyes crinkled each time she laughed, how her small hands somehow fit perfectly within his larger ones.

Unbidden, his mind recalled the shape of her face as she leaned back to look at him, the softness of a smile that was a confusing mix of joy and mourning.

“Will there be dancing on this space train of yours?” she had asked, fiddling with her hair as he arranged his bow-tie. “Will you finally show me if you know how to twirl?”

“I absolutely do not do twirling,” he stated sternly, although right before they stepped out of the TARDIS, he had conceded by saying, “I suppose there may be some sort of live music situation.”

Please, he thought. Please…just be safe.

***

“You’d have made a terrible soldier,” Danny leaned back on his elbows. They were on a hillside, staring down at the graveyard where she had last spoken with him. He was wearing a plaid shirt this time, though his face looked as dead as ever.

“Well I’m not a soldier am I?” she brushed her hair out of her eyes. The wind was picking up, and the picnic mat they sat on flapped wildly.

“Whatever,” he chuckled, looking at her. “We don’t have  a lot of time.”

“Why not?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. There was a horrible smell all around them.

“They’re coming back very soon.” he said, eyes darkening. “You're wasting time right now, you understand that right?”

Clara closed her eyes against the bright day, and knew that he spoke the truth.

“What do I do?” she asked quietly.

“You need to use that big brain of yours.” he said gravely. “You need to strategize. You’re armed - they don’t know that. You have reflexes, trained from dozens of different encounters with a hundred different enemies.”

“I have the element of surprise.” she laughed mirthlessly, opening her eyes to look at him. “Cliched, don’t you think?”

She was surprised to see that he was suddenly looking as vibrant as the day she had met him.

“Clara…” he reached for her hand. “If…when you get away, I need you to do something for me.”

“Don’t.” she shook her head frantically.

“I need you to let me go,” he continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I need you to try and live your life. Please.”

“I don’t know how,” she whispered.

“I can’t rest until I know you’re fine.” he traced his fingers along her bare arm.

“I’m sorry.” she choked out.

“And I love you,” he told her. “No matter the lies you’ve told me or yourself.”

Clara awoke with a sob.

***

“Hey, you ready?” Ben asked in a way that could almost have been mistaken for concern.

“Do you know why I moved out here?” Clara asked softly, looking up at him from where she was seated on the ground, her hands clasped under her knees like she was a little girl.

“No.” Ben shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t think we ever got around to having that conversation.”

“My boyfriend…he died.” she said. “He died, knowing that I lied to him the whole time we were together, about who I really was.”

The astrophysicist said nothing and simply stared at her.

“And then after he died, I lost our baby.” she continued. “Just…out of the blue. I was already a few months along.”

“Fuck.” Ben said with what sounded like sympathy. “I’m sorry. That’s…that’s pretty awful.”

“Yeah.” she nodded, looking down. “It really was.”

Slowly, he approached her. “Listen, if this works, everything will be better. You’ll be elevated, far beyond all these problems.”

“You sure?” she questioned. “Do you promise?”

Ben knelt down in front of her and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Yeah. I promise.”

She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye. “Thank you.”

In one swift movement, her knife was buried into his side. He barely had time to scream, but instead, he let out a thin, reedy protest of shock.

Without hesitating, she pulled her arm back before plunging the blade back into his body. Despite the fact that the hilt was slicked with his blood, Clara held on tight as she yanked the weapon out for the last time, allowing his body to collapse to the ground with a loud thump.

“Ben?” Gary called from somewhere downstairs.

Avoiding the puddling blood, Clara scrambled to her feet and stepped around the fallen scientist, hurrying to the open doorway. Ducking into an adjacent room, she waited as the larger astrophysicist ran up the stairs. The moment he was past her, she wasted no time in dashing to the stairway, willing herself not to look back even as Gary began to scream in rage.

Her feet were sure and her steps were quick, but still, she could hear him closing in on her as she fled through the house, which seemed impossibly large.

The front door was too far away, she realized when she got to the first floor. Quickly, she turned to her right and stepped into a bedroom, locking the door behind her.

Turning around, she took a good look at her surroundings, and found that she couldn’t stop a scream from slipping past her teeth.

***

They stepped out onto a street filled with identical brown houses.

“You couldn’t have been a little more specific with your directions could you?” Martha asked.

“Hush.” the Doctor cocked his head to the side. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Martha was instantly at attention.

The Time Lord didn’t answer, choosing instead to run towards one specific house in the middle of the block.

Chapter Text

Across the Universe

There was a chair splattered with dried blood in the room, with broken pieces of rope strewn all over from where they had been cut. A fresh coil waited on the ground - presumably, Clara guessed, for her.

Various needles and blades and bottles of ink sat on a side table, right beside massive, old tomes that were filled with handwritten text which she couldn’t hope to, or want to understand.

Yet despite the fact that she now knew this was where so many victims had faced their final moments, despite the understanding that there was a good chance this room was the last thing she might ever see, Clara found herself terrified most of all by a large pane of glass propped in a corner.

More specifically, she was afraid of what she could plainly see lurking impossibly within.

It was like a window, staring into the worst of her nightmares, reflecting stars and flame…and something ancient and furious lunging silently at her, its bellows unheard.

The creature’s face, though animated, was not alive. Rotten sinews clung to bare bone, while a stripped jaw widening into a bottomless maw snarled at her in boundless rage. In the depths of its empty sockets, she could see nothing, nothing at all except an endless blackness, and perhaps that was the most horrifying part of the tableau.

Her weapon fell from her limp fingers just as the door shattered behind her.

“Ben said you were special,” Gary said from behind her. “Ben said you’d be worthy of our Master.”

He strode across the room, reaching out with one hand for her throat. Clara spun, attempting to move out of his path, but she simply wasn’t fast enough.

Thick fingers wrapped around her windpipe as she felt herself being lifted into the air, her feet losing purchase of the ground.

“You’re just another dumb bitch.” he spat, not hearing the creak of the front door.

***

Cold wrath filled his veins as he stumbled onto the scene. Clara’s feet kicked under her as her small hands scrabbled vainly to loosen the merciless chokehold on her slender neck. Her complexion was already turning purple and her eyes were beginning to roll.

Driven purely by instinct, with every last iota of grace and strength gifted onto his kind, the Doctor sped forwards, reaching for the human male’s shoulders. Gripping tightly with murderous force, he yanked the man back, sending Clara tumbling. Brutally, the Time Lord flung the man across the room.

“You dare?” the astrophysicist howled, his face made inhuman with anger.

A shot rang out, causing him to spasm and screech. Red blossomed where his left kneecap used to be. The Doctor looked up to see Martha pointing a gun down at the murderous and unhinged man.

“Stay down.” she ordered. “Or next time, I shoot to kill.”

“Fuck you,” he swore, attempting to stand despite her warning.

Martha lifted her weapon and fired again.

***

He cradled Clara against his chest as Martha performed a cursory examination.

“She seems fine for now…her breathing seems to be normalizing.” she frowned, keeping her weapon out of sight, for which the Doctor was grateful. “I will need to get a better look though.”

He looked over at the fallen body crumpled not too far away. “Somehow, I doubt he was the only culprit.”

Unfolding herself, Martha held her gun in both hands. “I’m going to make sure the place is clear and call for a clean-up team.”

“Do you need help?” he asked, although he wasn’t prepared to leave Clara. Especially not alone with that thing residing in the corner, which neither himself nor Martha were addressing.

The medical doctor seemed incapable of looking at it directly or acknowledging its existence.

“I’ll be fine.” she promised, and slipped out of the room as Clara’s eyelids began to flutter.

“Hey,” he greeted softly.

“Doctor?” she sounded confused. “Am I dreaming?”

“No,” he shook his head, allowing himself against his better judgement to cup her cheek. “But you should rest.”

She whispered, leaning into his touch, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

As she fell asleep, he tried not to think about how that was almost true, and would have been true if he had arrived only a minute later than he did.

With great care, the Doctor picked Clara up and set her down on the ground outside the charnel room as gently as he could, before slowly walking back in. The creature eyed him warily, almost unmoving as it studied the Time Lord.

“I know who you are.” the Doctor said as he casually stooped to pick up the hunting knife Clara had dropped, which was still smeared with blood. “Or at least, I know the names others have bestowed upon you. They’re mostly overwrought, ridiculous and obnoxious titles. I mean, Teufel. Really? Sounds like a range of non-stick pans.”

The rotting thing twitched.

“People will forget you. People are already starting to forget you, like some bad fairytale - like the bogeyman under our beds.” the Doctor paused, tucking his hands behind him. “Would you want to know what happens to you?”

Dark pits glared at him.

“You will become so desperate for anyone to listen to your voice, for a way to escape your little prison, that you will get careless. You will call out, and keen and wail, and eventually…eventually someone will heed your begging.” he continued.

“To be precise, I will heed your call. But when I come to you, you won’t know me. You will not recognize my face, nor my voice. But mark my words, when I get to you …you will become nothing more than a nasty vestige of human lore, doomed to be forgotten in the aeons of time. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it…the deed is already done.”

The red monstrosity lifted its head and howled in the vacuum of space.

“Be seeing you.” the Doctor bared his teeth as he lifted the bloody blade, smashing the knife’s hilt into the glass. In one move, the window gazing into the darkest corner of time and space became nothing more than useless shards.

Dropping the knife, he went back to Clara’s side, kneeling down beside her.

Martha looked grim as she descended down to the first floor. “Peters is upstairs. He’s in no condition to move on his own, but I’ve restrained him anyway. Your girl did some serious damage.”

“You’re going to want to burn everything.” He stated. “Starting with those books they’ve got in that room.”

She nodded with a slight shiver. “We should get Clara to the UNIT medical facility just in case. She’s probably dehydrated at the very least,”

The Doctor didn’t argue. Rather, he slipped one arm under Clara’s shoulders and another under her knees. Effortlessly, he hoisted her up and walked out the front door, in the direction of his ship with the other woman beside him.

***

Clara was being tugged from under a heavy, black wave; sleep ebbed away slowly as she found herself becoming aware of her surroundings. Blinking, she glanced around and realized that she was in a hospital room of sorts. Turning her head, she gazed at the man sitting close by, who was staring out the window beside her head.

“Hello,” she croaked. “It seems I didn’t dream you up after all.”

His head whipped around.

“Didn’t know you made house calls from Gallifrey,” she joked weakly.

“Clara Oswald,” he started. “For all the times you called me an idiot, I hope you remember that you damned near got yourself murdered by a couple of incompetent satanic worshippers, because you thought you could handle them on your own.”

“In my defence,” she said. “I appear to be alive. Which means I clearly had everything under control.”

The corners of his lips twitched.

“What happened?” she asked, hoisting her body up with effort.

“Well, you did something pudding-brained, so naturally, I had to step in to save the day,” The Doctor scooted his chair closer to her. It didn’t look like a comfortable seat in the least.

She studied his features carefully. “Why did you come back? I thought you’d be having fun doing Gallifreyan things right about now. Thought you’d watching a Gallifreyan football match, before enjoying a Gallifreyan beer with your Time Lord mates down at the local pub.”

“Time Lords don’t play football, although we do enjoy a good spot of badminton,” the Doctor said drily. “I have to confess something, and it’s embarrassing.”

Clara looked inquiringly at him.

“It seems – and try to look surprised please – Missy might have… er…lied. About Gallifrey.” The Doctor sounded sheepish.

“Must be a Time Lord thing,” she said quietly, although her words held no rancour. “Because so did you.”

“Human thing too, apparently.” He nodded knowingly, his eyes never leaving hers.

“Ah.” She leaned back into her pillows, understanding that no explanations were required of her for the moment. “Right.”

They sat in silence, listening to the sound of the world passing outside the window. Wisps of canned laughter drifted through the thin walls; someone in the next room was watching a sitcom.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Whatever you want boss.” he straightened up.

“Do you still want me to come with you?” she allowed herself to hope.

“Clara,” the Doctor’s expression was serious. “I’m not abandoning you. Not again. If you decided to go back to work in that miserable library – although to be honest I think you might have gotten yourself fired during your absence…”

“Bloody Jemma,” Clara interjected in irritation.

“…I will come to your office every single day and request for your help in searching for books nobody except the supremely dull ever looks for.” He grinned smugly. “How does that sound to you?”

“Awful, is what.” She fought back tears, though for the first time in a long time, the urge to cry was for something other than grief.

“I’ve got all the time in the universe Clara,” he said patiently. “So don’t think for a second I’m lying. Not this time, anyway.”

***

Dragging her tired feet down the deserted wing of the UNIT medical facility, Martha rubbed at her eyes, longing for sleep. The damned paperwork from the most recent fiasco had taken her hours to complete, and she was ready to call it a day.

Rounding a corner, she approached the door on the very end of the hall and twisted its cold handle.

“Hey babe,” she called in greeting, before she realized she wasn’t alone in the room. To be precise, both herself and Mickey were not alone in the room.

“They told me this is where I’d find Mickey Smith,” The Doctor said, eyes trained on the man behind the ten inch bulletproof glass wall. The latter was on all fours, pacing the length of his enclosed space like a feral animal. His clothing hung in tatters as if they had been clawed to shreds.

“Whoever told you,” Martha said. “Is about to get seriously demoted. I’m talking janitorial duty for the next ten years.”

“Don’t you dare,” the Doctor sniffed. “I might have threatened her a little bit.”

“Of course you did,” she sighed resignedly.

“So.” The Doctor stared at Mickey who was hissing at him, his body coiled as if ready to spring. “Want to tell me what happened?”

Martha closed the door behind her and leaned against it, staring at her husband forlornly.

“A few years ago, we were hunting something in an industrial complex outside the city. We never caught whatever the hell it was that was sending patient after patient to emergency,” Martha explained. “But it appeared to have left something behind in Mickey. X-rays show that an unknown organism has been fused to his lower spine…one which cannot be removed without killing the host.”

“UNIT called. Offered me all the resources and help at their disposal, in return for my resumed employment.” Martha finished. “That pretty much leaves us here.”

“You could have called for me.” The Doctor murmured, squatting down to look at the man who had been Mickey; if the time traveller was disconcerted at the sight of cold yellow irises looking back at him, he barely showed it.  

“I didn’t know if you would have answered.” She laughed bitterly. “Like I said, you stayed away from our lives for so long.”

“Then you don’t know me at all Martha Jones,” He said shortly.

Martha had no response to that.

“You have my help.” The Doctor stood up and turned to look at his friend with a firm tilt of his head. “For what it’s worth.”

Pushing herself away from her place at the door, Martha stepped close to the Time Lord, and tiptoed close enough to kiss him on the cheek.

“Thank you. Your help and your friendship - it’s worth everything.” She said sincerely.

“I don’t do pecks on the cheek.” The Doctor shook his head awkwardly.

“Yeah.” Martha’s smile widened. “We definitely wouldn’t have worked out in the end.”

On the other side of the glass, Mickey’s jaws snapped angrily, even as Martha turned to look at him with all the tenderness in the world.

***

Something had changed inside the TARDIS, he thought the moment he entered his ship. The lights seemed to glow warmer, the air seemed less frigid. If he had to guess, it probably had to do with the girl wandering around the bookshelves, letting her fingers hover over spines and covers.

The TARDIS was as relieved to have her back as he was, it seemed.

Noisily, he shut the door behind him and cleared his throat.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, turning and walking down to meet him by the console.

“For once in my long life,” he said as he slowly ambled to stand before her. “Yes.”

“There’s one last lie.” She said. “One last thing I didn’t tell you at least. Haven’t told you.”

The Doctor was quite sure that he knew what her last secret was, given what he had glimpsed in the files Martha had shown him. But it wasn’t his place to speak it aloud.

“I…Danny and I…” her words became stilted. “We were going to have a baby.”

Carefully, breaking his own rules even as he did so, he reached an arm out and drew her tightly into the circle of his embrace.

“I lost our baby,” her voice was muffled, but he could hear the tears in her voice nonetheless, feel the shudders of her body as she cried against his chest. “I couldn’t…I couldn’t hold on to either of them.”

“It’s not your fault,” He murmured into her hair, one hand settling at the nape of her neck.

They stood like this for a very long time, not moving, or going anywhere; the Time Lord and his Impossible Girl, standing together on the shores of time and loneliness, stemming the tide for long as they were able.

Chapter Text

Epilogue: Nothing’s Gonna Change My World

Ah, Dr. Peters. I see you’re just about healed. Lovely. Perhaps now you can get started on some of the work you will be undertaking for us, hmm?

We have here, a laboratory set aside for your use - only the best for a mind such as yours. And in case you were worried, here are all your books, which we salvaged for you.

Dr. Gary Saunders? Oh my. Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m sorry to break this to you, but Dr. Saunders didn’t quite make it.

I’m so sorry for your loss.

Well nothing quite cures grief like hard work eh? That’s what I always say anyway.

You might wonder why we’re asking you to continue in your efforts of reaching your Master after everything that’s transpired. Well, that should be rather obvious.

A creature like your Master, or whatever it is you call him - its ability to influence so many minds across time…don’t you think that sort of power is dangerous, should the wrong people harness it somehow? Don’t you believe it should be in the care of responsible, moral individuals such as your own government?

If you don’t think so right this second, I’m sure in time, you will come to agree with us.

Just one last note before we part ways, though you can be sure I will be checking in every so often to obtain updates on any progress you will have for me.

It’s regarding your previous behaviour.

We absolutely do not condone that sort of violence against those whom we consider innocent civilians, especially against young women. That is absolutely not allowed and will not be tolerated under our roof.

However, as we know that you’re accustomed to working with a certain standard of…materials…don’t you worry. Here at UNIT, we have everything taken care of. There is always a steady stream of specimens that while…undesirable for regular use…will work perfectly for your purposes. Yours and ours, that is.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I believe it’s time for you to get going, as they say.

There are incentives you know, if you succeed in finding out how we can leverage the creature you worshipped for our purposes.

We’re not in the end, cruel. As you can see, we are working to support your work despite your recent transgressions.

If your stay here proves uncomfortable…well. I suppose that last part is rather up to you isn’t it?

Welcome to UNIT Dr. Peters.

I know you won’t let me down.