Run
He'd made her promise, crouched down in the mud just outside the forest, to run and not look back. He'd catch up. He'd be right behind her.
He hadn't, and he wasn't, at least not yet.
Sighing, Clara pressed her back harder into the dirt behind her. The cold seeped in through the thin material of her shirt, but she ignored it. She had to stop. She had to catch her breath. Cupping her hands, she exhaled heat over them slowly. They still felt numb, stiff, when she lowered them back to her side.
She hadn't dressed for this. They'd been on their way to a beach. She'd been promised a few too many drinks, and water stretching out farther than she could see. The TARDIS being pulled off course, being handed execution orders without a trial, hadn't even seemed like a possibility.
She'd remember for next time..
Assuming she survived for a next time.
Leaning out from underneath the rocky ledge, Clara listened. Silence now. Probably too silent, really, but even thinking it added to the bad horror movie feel.
And the endless forest, with its perpetual fog, didn't need any assistance from her.
Keep moving
His soft words echoed in her head. For once, she'd do as he said. She'd take another step, she'd find the TARDIS-take the longest and hottest bath in her personal history-and they'd put all this behind them.
Drawing in a breath, she hoisted herself up over the ledge. The rocks dug into her palms, would leave fresh bruises on her shins, but she barely noticed the new pain. Her body felt like hell- too tired, and too cold to still be functioning.
Clara ignored the stiff muscles, and the way her head fogged up more with movement, and started off in the direction of the sun-which didn't seem to produce any heat at all.
Or move. She'd started to judge day and night by her personal exhaustion level. She slept only when she could do nothing else.
Her footsteps were silent. The trees bare above her, no evidence of a spring or summer along the forest floor. No twigs. Or animals. No breeze.
She, and the river, seemed to be the only things that had enough life in them to move.
When she'd stumbled, for at least the third time, she'd given up pretending. With a sigh, she changed direction, and headed for the river. She'd drink, and eat, and sleep as many minutes as she could afford the added vulnerability.
The forest stopped abruptly there, opened out onto the bank. A thin, slow river, separated it from its other half. Clara hadn't ventured over there, couldn't bear the thought of getting her feet wet for the same scenery-the same amount of hope of ever coming across the TARDIS or the Doctor.
Instead, she walked to edge. She dropped to her knees in the mud. Cupping her hands, she dipped them below the surface. The ache spread at once, through her hands, up into her wrists, but she pulled the mouthful of water up anyway. She swallowed, and took another.
Despite all odds, she hadn't frozen to death. And alien bacteria had fallen surprisingly low on her list of worries. Water, though. She knew she needed that. Basic survival. Water, food. She lacked shelter and warmth, but she did have a tasteless energy bar in her pocket. Several actually.
(The Doctor had avoided her questions about her newly endless pockets, and Clara had let it slide because it was sweet, and odd, and very him)
When the cramping ache became more unbearable than her thirst, she scooted back to a tree. Clara tucked her hands beneath her shirt, the bare skin of her ribcage flinching away from the icy feeling of her fingers.
She pressed in harder, trying to steal warmth from herself.
Eventually she gave up, dug into her pocket and pulled out a bar. She fumbled with the wrapping, finally opened it and took a bite of the chewy nothingness it provided. Still, it eased the ache in her stomach.
It was the one in her chest, she hadn't found a cure for.
Probably, she was getting sick. Coughs rattled through her from time to time, and her breathing had felt more labored the last time she started off again.
She couldn't be bothered to worry about it at the moment though.
Clara finished the bar, shoved the trash into her pocket-because littering still felt wrong, somehow. She leaned back against the tree, and allowed herself to relax, to think of him.
She missed him. Terribly. More than she could have imagined, more than when she'd sent him off in anger. More than she had ever missed anyone else in her whole life.
She'd give anything to be in the warmth of the TARDIS, the warmth of one of his rare smiles. For him to shoo her off to bed, muttering about humans and unbearable sleep schedules. But he'd be there when she woke up, sometimes with breakfast- more often with a problem.
One only she could solve.
And of course he needed her. He was an impossibly old Time Lord, whose moral compass sometimes swung anywhere but north. More importantly...he wanted her. Like no other human would do.
And maybe, she hoped, he missed her now, too.
DW
He missed her.
Right in the middle of running for his life-probably unsuccessfully, if he were being honest-he realized he'd never missed her quite this much.
Separating had seemed the most logical course of action. The one most likely to keep her safe, when they'd escaped from the underground base. Two targets instead of one, and then he had tried-his loudest and hardest- to turn that into one again. Him.
He hadn't expected it all to take so long. Had thought, if he'd made it this far, he's surely run into the TARDIS or Clara-anything that felt like home still.
But he hadn't seen her in one hundred and seventy hours. Give or take a few seconds.
Too long. She had to be alive. He'd know if she wasn't. He'd feel if she wasn't. Still...he hadn't seen any sign of her.
The Doctor glanced at the river.
He kept with it, walking towards the ever sinking sun. The path felt exactly the same here, as if he'd done it all before. As if he'd been right here exactly. He told himself that it was illogical, of course. His feet kept moving, he must be putting distance between them and him.
The thought refused to leave him alone anyway.
The Doctor shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, curled up his fingers.
The cold didn't seem to care about his layers, reached through them all, until even his bones ached with the effort of moving. Clara...his poor Clara, she must be freezing.
Guilt stabbed at him. Fire hot. It ballooned up in his chest, and forced out the chill for the briefest of moments.
He had promised her a beach. A festival. She'd been so happy, so full of life- as if she'd never, ever, burn out. When the TARDIS shook, he'd grinned at her.
An adventure.
It hurt him, scared him now, how she'd smiled back.
She'd been so ready to follow him. So ready to run, to learn...to die.
No.
He refused to give the thought any credit. Not here, not now. He had more time with her. Not the lifetimes he wanted. Minutes in the end, but they were his minutes to collect, and they weren't gone yet.
The Doctor shook himself, looked behind him.
He couldn't even say for certain that they still chased him-that they hadn't just let them wander off to freeze to death. They'd have to wait a very long time in his case. Clara, though...
Pulling out his sonic glasses, he slid then on and scanned. Nothing. In any direction.
That blip he'd gotten, the one he'd hoped was the TARDIS, hadn't been seen again. He, and Clara, might be headed in wrong direction entirely.
Sighing, he shoved the glasses back into his pocket, pulled out a cup. He headed for the river, kneeled down. The cold mud soaked in through the material, and he grimaced at the feel.
Love these trousers...
The Doctor dipped the cup beneath the surface of the water, pulled it up again, drank.
When they got out of this-when he finally came up with that brilliant plan that hadn't stumbled into his brain yet-he'd stuff Clara's pockets full. He should have done it when he'd given her the food, should have seen something like this coming round the corner.
He should have taken care of her.
She'd roll her eyes.
The thought made him smile, gulp down another mouthful and shove the cup away again. He pushed himself to his feet, turned in every direction. He longed to call out for her, even if only to feel her name inside his mouth, but he didn't dare.
If anything broke the silence of the forest, it wouldn't be him. The Doctor moved back inside the tree line, kept pushing himself forward. Past the same tree-no, it just looked the same.
An important difference.
He let Clara burn inside his head, and the air lost its chill.
He'd see her again.