Clara and Ashildr stood in the pristine white TARDIS console room, contemplating where to go next, when all of a sudden, an alarm blared, and a warning light began flashing on the console.
"What's that?" Clara asked, frowning.
"I...don't know," Ashildr said, inspecting the console closely. "This is the first time I've ever flown a TARDIS, I don't know everything!"
"You know how to fly it," Clara pointed out.
"Must be the plot," Ashildr shrugged.
Suddenly, the time rotor started to move, and the familiar wheezing, groaning sound began.
"Oh no," gasped Ashildr, "It's the Time Lords - they've managed to lock onto us. They're taking us back to Gallifrey!"
"Can't you stop them?"
Ashildr shook her head as she desperately mashed buttons, flicked switches and pulled levers. "They've overridden all the controls. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."
A final shudder, and the time rotor ground to a halt.
"I'm sorry," Ashildr said again.
"No, no, no, don't be," Clara said, giving her a small smile. "At least we tried."
There was a high, electronic whine, and the next second the doors were forced open. In marched the General, surrounded by members of the Chancellery Guard, and another Time Lord, dressed in black and white robes.
"Stop!" Clara shouted. "You might want to think long and hard about what you're about to do. The Doctor just went against everything he ever stood for to make sure I survived. What do you think he'll do when he finds out you made sure I died?"
"What makes you so sure he'll find out?" the man asked.
"I'll tell him," Ashildr said determinedly. "If you take Clara, then I find the Doctor and tell him."
"The only place you'll be going, Immortal," the General said, "is back to where the Doctor picked you up." She looked at the man. "Narvin, grab them and bring them to the extraction chambers."
"Certainly, madam. Guards!"
The guards moved forwards and grabbed Clara and Ashildr.
"You have no idea what you're doing," Clara said dangerously as she was pulled past the man, Narvin.
Narvin bristled. "I am the Director of the Celestial Intervention Agency, Miss Oswald. I have every idea what I'm doing. You were extracted from your timeline a moment before your death - a fixed point in time, I might add. I am merely returning you to that moment so as not to fracture the web of time."
"But the Doctor - "
"The Doctor cares little for the delicate balance of the web, despite being such an integral part of it," Narvin tutted. "We spend half our time going round fixing it up after him. This is one such occasion."
~8~
Clara and Ashildr argued the whole way to the extraction chamber, but nothing they said would convince either the General or Narvin that the Doctor would find them and hunt them down.
"Timeline open," a Time Lord technician said, operating some controls. A portal to Clara's past opened in the room.
"In you go," Narvin said.
Clara attempted to give the Time Lords one final warning, but Narvin interrupted her.
"Miss Oswald, I can assure you that we have other means of ensuring that you die where and when the web of time specifies. It is down to our respect of the Doctor that we are giving you the courtesy of choosing to walk calmly and, I will admit, bravely, to your fate."
Clara clenched her fists. "He will find out, you know. He will find out and make damn well sure I'm avenged. After all the things you did to him...this is the worst."
"Whatever you say, Miss Oswald."
With a final glare at the Time Lords she so despised, Clara turned and walked through the portal.
"There. That wasn't hard now, was it?" Narvin turned to Ashildr. "Your turn next, Immortal." He raised an eyebrow and gave her a once-over. "The Doctor never knows what he's doing, does he? Making a human immortal? That's two, by my count. And you probably won't be the last."
Ashildr shook off the restraining hands of the Chancellery Guard. "You will regret this," she said fiercely, as the portal reconfigured itself, now displaying the final minutes of the universe.
Narvin sighed. "As I've told you, your threats mean nothing."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Ashildr coldly replied, before walking calmly through the portal, head held high.
The portal snapped shut behind her.
"One day's crisis solved," Navin said, satisfied. "Now, where are the Sisterhood of Karn?" he asked the General.
"We've given them quarters near the Academy," the General replied.
"I'll go and have a word with them," Narvin said. "I'm rather curious as to how they got here...and send a TARDIS to bring the President and the High Council back. Now that the Doctor's gone, I don't see why we can't rescind their banishment."
"At once, Director."
Clara took a deep breath and positioned herself in front of the raven, arms outstretched, eyes squeezed shut. For a second, nothing happened. Then the raven hit, and all she felt was pain.
Ashildr sat back down in her chair, staring straight ahead as the universe collapsed around her. She'd almost escaped, almost had a second chance. Still, one hundred trillion years was quite an achievement. Not getting herself killed for all that time...Shame Sam Swift hadn't managed it. He'd barely lasted a century. Then, in a split second, reality shrunk around her, collapsing to a singularity, and she knew no more.