Veils

The arrival of a living dinosaur in Victorian London was clearly the result of the Time Lords – most specifically, the Doctor, as Vastra was fairly certain Adelaide would never let that happen if she was completely in charge. When the Doctor was involved, however, things were a bit more uncertain.

Especially when said dinosaur vomited out a flying blue police box.

Vastra, Jenny, and Strax hurried down the embankment towards where the TARDIS had landed, a crowd of people watching from above. "This is not a day for jumping to conclusions," Vastra was saying, continuing their previous conversation. "Strax," she gestured towards the box, knowing Adelaide's preference for knocking, "if you wouldn't mind?"

The small alien hurried forward, knocking on the door. "Hello? Exit the box, and surrender to the glory of the Sontaran empire."

A tall older man, grey-haired, opened the door and looked out with a furrowed brow, smoke billowing out around him. "Shush." He slammed the door again.

Strax frowned. "Doctor?"

The man reappeared, his Scottish accent much stronger now. "We were being chased by a giant dinosaur, but I think I managed to give it the slip." He shut the door again, but then opened it, frowning at Strax. "Sleepy?"

"Sir?"

The Doctor, for this man was the Doctor, stepped out of the TARDIS. "Bashful? Sneezy? Dopey?" he pointed at him. "Grumpy!" He looked up, seeing Vastra and Jenny. "Oh, you two. The green one and the not-green one. Or it could be the other way round, I mustn't prejudge, Adelaide always says." Clara stumbled out of the TARDIS, looking quite disheveled. "Oh, you remember...er...thingy. The...er...not-me-or-Adelaide one. The asking questions one." He shrugged. "Names, not my area."

"Clara," the human provided.

"Well, it might be Clara. Might not be. It's a lottery."

Adelaide, wearing only a black tank-top, stepped out of the TARDIS. "It is Clara," she told him, running a hand through her hair.

The Time Lord grinned at her before glancing at Clara again. "Well, I'm not ruling it out." The dinosaur roared, making the Doctor spin to look up at it. "Oi, big man, shut it!" He glanced at Vastra again. "Oh, you've got a dinosaur too." He paused. "Big woman, sorry."

"Doctor?" Adelaide said, stepping forward. "You need to calm down, please."

The Doctor, however, frowned up at the dinosaur. "I'm not flirting, by the way. I don't do that. Not unless it's Adelaide, and she doesn't let me do it in front of people."

Adelaide sighed. Clara eyed the Doctor, stepping closer to the woman. "I think something's gone wrong."

"It's a new regeneration cycle," Adelaide told her. "It will be a bit more difficult for the Doctor to get used to than a normal regeneration...not that his regenerations happen that normally." She hadn't regenerated nearly as many times as the Doctor – about half as many times, really – but she did understand how they worked.

The Doctor spun to look at Clara. "I remember you! You're Handles! You used to be a little...a little robot head that Adelaide defended instead of me...and now you..." he looked her up and down. "You've really let yourself go."

The dinosaur roared again. "Reduce the frequency of your sonic lanterns, Vastra, please," Adelaide called.

Jenny shook her head. "Why?"

"You're giving her a headache." She gestured up at the dinosaur.

"How do you know?"

"Come on, Clara," the Doctor said, though it was Strax who'd spoken. "You know that we speak dinosaur."

"He's not Clara," Adelaide corrected. "She's Clara."

"Well, they're very similar heights."

"I'm a similar height."

The Doctor ran a hand through her hair. "But you're ginger. It stands out." He looked at Clara and Strax again. "Maybe you should wear labels?" He frowned. "Why...why are you all doing that? Why are you...you're all going dark and wobbly. Stop that."

Clara glanced at Adelaide again. "I don't think we are."

"Never mind. Everyone take five." The Doctor closed his eyes, pitching forward. Adelaide just managed to catch him before he hit his head. Clara hurried to help her support the man.

"What do we do?" Clara asked her.

Jenny frowned at the Doctor. "I don't understand. Who is he? Where's the Doctor?"

"This is the Doctor," Adelaide told her simply. "Terribly sorry to ask this of you again, Vastra, but I'm afraid the situation isn't ideal."

The woman just smiled. "Here we go again."

|C-S|

It had taken quite a bit of effort for Adelaide to convince the Doctor to change into a nightshirt, as she insisted that he needed to sleep in order to let his body settle after a regeneration, particularly this one. He, however, had suddenly taken offense at the room they were standing in – Vastra's spare room.

"It's simply misunderstandable to me. I don't know what it is. Who invented this room?"

"I don't know," Adelaide said, getting more and more annoyed as time went on. She was normally quite good at keeping calm but...after so long of being stuck on Christmas she didn't have the best patience. "But Doctor, please lie down."

"It doesn't make sense." The Doctor turned, looking around the room. "Look, it's only got a bed in it. Why is there only a bed in it?"

"It's a bedroom," Adelaide told him. "You have one."

"But what do you do when you're awake?"

"You leave."

He frowned. "So you've got a whole room for not being awake in. But what's the point? You're just missing the room. And don't look in that mirror." He pointed at it. "It's absolutely furious." And then he frowned at her. "What's gone wrong with your accent?"

She sighed. "My accent hasn't changed, Doctor."

"But it's developed a fault!"

She pinched the bridge of her nose, hearing someone giggle from the hallway. "Listening at doors is quite rude, you know."

The door opened a second later, revealing Jenny, Clara, and Vastra all looking a bit sheepish as Adelaide was still using her 'teaching voice'. "Sorry," Clara mumbled, making the Doctor point at her too.

"It's spreading!"

"Doctor, it's sleep time now. You keep passing out anyways and I'd much prefer you do it in a bed this time."

"It's because of all these beds!" He took her hands, still almost a foot taller than her. "Why don't I just take a standy-up catnap? It'll be quicker."

She raised her eyebrows. "Since when have you done those?"

"Well, generally whenever anyone but you starts talking. I like to skip ahead to our bits. It saves time." He blinked. "And I told myself I shouldn't tell you that."

Adelaide just guided the Doctor back to the bed, forcing him to sit down. "That's very rude."

"That's why I wasn't going to tell you..." as he spoke, Adelaide put her hands on either side of his temple. A second later, the Doctor fell back, asleep...even snoring.

"Clara, help me readjust him," she called and the human hurried forward to do just that.

"So what now?" Clara asked her.

"He needs rest." Adelaide stepped back.

"So what do we do? How do we fix him?"

Adelaide looked at her sharply. "Fix him?"

Clara nodded, immediately looking uncertain. "Jenny," Vastra said, "I will be in my chamber. Would you be kind enough to fetch my veil?"

"That's not necessary, Vastra," Adelaide said. "I'll explain. I believe Clara's just a bit overwhelmed." Clara had the distinct impression that two people who were much smarter than her were having a conversation as though she wasn't in the room.

Vastra, after a moment, nodded and left the room, though Jenny stayed. Clara looked at Adelaide. "What have I done wrong?" Adelaide just turned to the window, where they could hear the dinosaur still. "What's wrong with it?"

"'I am alone,'" Adelaide started to translate, speaking quietly. "'The world which shook at my feet, and the trees and the sky, have gone. And I am alone now. Alone. The wind bites now, and the world is grey, and I am alone here.'"

"Can't see me..." the Doctor mumbled, making all three women turn to look at him. "Doesn't see me. Can't see me."

"Who can't see it? I think all of London can see it."

"That wasn't the dinosaur," Adelaide said, looking towards Jenny now.

"Excuse me, ma'ams," Jenny caught Adelaide's intention. "Wouldn't it be better to let him sleep in quiet?"

"I think we'll follow you," Adelaide said. "Let the Doctor get rest. Do you have somewhere else that we can talk privately?"

Jenny nodded, leading them both out of the room and towards a small room a bit down the hall, more like a study mixed with a sitting room. Once they were alone, Adelaide leaned back against the desk there, giving Clara the distinct impression of what she must have looked like as a professor, and gave Clara a look that let her know it was time for questions. "Where did he get that face? Why's it got lines on it? It's brand new. How can his hair be all grey? He only just got it." She spoke extremely quickly but went silent when Adelaide held up a hand.

"When Time Lords regenerate, they can become anything: old, young, man, woman, blonde, grey, ginger. With much focus, we can choose our faces – those transitioning from females tend to be the best at that. But, on average, it's a complete lottery, with almost no control over what face you get."

"But he's old!"

"The Doctor is old," Adelaide said. "As am I. We have both been in this universe for centuries." She smiled for a second, thinking of something Vastra had once said to them, the woman prone to poetic language. "We have 'seen stars fall to dust'. The Doctor chose a young face because he knew it was his last. Because he wanted to face his death with as much energy as possible. Because he wanted to hide." They'd had this conversation over the centuries on Christmas before the Doctor had started to forget things. Adelaide had always wondered, and he'd taken the chance to answer. "The Doctor and I, like everyone else, hide behind walls."

"Why?"

"To be accepted, both by ourselves and others." Adelaide crossed her arms. "Do you understand, Clara?"

"I...I think so."

Adelaide sighed. "I'm sorry if I was harsh. I'm finding it quite difficult to keep control of my emotions after Christmas." She shook her head. "I should have run off to the Stoics." She'd had that idea, once, back on Gallifrey when she'd gotten particularly annoyed with the people around her.

Clara smirked. "Had a pin-up of Marcus Aurelius when I was fifteen."

"I knew there was a reason we got along," Adelaide laughed.

|C-S|

The Doctor woke with a start, surprised to find that he was alone in the room. He could have sworn Adelaide was there with him...she was always with him. She would always be with him. Maybe she'd gone to find her sweater, he knew she'd lost it. Yes, that must have been it. She didn't like not having her sweater.

And he could smell something. Something he wanted. He jumped out of the bed, lying on the floor in order to look under it, sniffing. Eventually, he found a piece of chalk underneath the radiator, which was precisely what he was looking for.

Adelaide would likely be quite upset with him about the fact he started to write on the floor and walls, but there were just so many things running through his head. So many numbers, so many facts, all trying to find their place in this new brain.

And then the dinosaur roared outside. He looked at the window for a moment. Adelaide would be quite cross if he went on an adventure without her, but...he opened the door, stared out of it for a second, and then shook his head. "Door boring. Not me." He turned and opened the window, grinning. "Me."

He honestly wasn't quite certain how he managed to get onto the roof, but he had, and he was quite impressed with himself. After all, in order to speak to someone properly, you had to see things from their perspective...okay, so that might not have meant actually attempting to get to their eye level, but it was the thought that counted.

"Oi!" he called, running across the roof towards where the dinosaur was roaming in the distance. "Oi! Oi! Sorry! Sorry, it's all my fault! My time machine got stuck in your throat!" He shrugged. "It happens. I brought you along by accident. That's mostly how I meet people, but don't worry, I promise I will get you home! I swear! Whatever it takes, I will keep you safe." He mimed rocking a baby. "You will be at home" made the shape of a house "again!"

Before the dinosaur could answer, it burst into flames, roaring in pain before it collapsed. "Stop that! Who's doing that? No, don't do that!"

|C-S|

Inside the building, Adelaide froze, hearing the roar of the dinosaur. Without a word to Clara, she ran out of the room, hearing Vastra having a similar realization below her. "That came from the river!"

"We need the carriage!" She called down, hurrying down the stairs.

|C-S|

Meanwhile, the Doctor leaped from the roof onto a tree. The bough he had grabbed broke, sending him tumbling until he somehow managed to get caught, upside down, hanging above the street. Thankfully, transport was approaching.

"Halt! Sorry, I'm going to have to relieve you of your pet."

The driver of the carriage scoffed. "You're what?"

"Shut up, I was talking to the horse." He flipped from the tree onto the horse's back, flashing his sonic behind him to free it.

"What are you doing?" the driver shouted.

"Forwards!" he galloped off.

|C-S|

"Out of the way, human scum," Strax shouted, driving the carriage after where they saw the Doctor going. The man had acquired a horse, somehow, and was making Adelaide very jealous at the moment. "Hi-yah! Jurassic emergency. Yah!"

"What do you think's happened?" Jenny asked, looking back to Vastra and Adelaide.

"Sabotage," Adelaide shrugged, sliding back into the carriage.

Vastra nodded. "Strax!" she banged on the carriage. "Come on, Strax!" they heard him crack a whip and the horses moved faster. "That's better."

|C-S|

The carriage managed to stop very quickly once they reached the bridge, Adelaide one of the first out as the Doctor was standing on the edge of the bridge, watching the burning remains of the dinosaur. "Sorry, sorry," he was mumbling. "I'm sorry, sorry, sorry."

"Doctor," Adelaide said, climbing up to stand next to him, the man instantly taking her hand.

"She was scared," he said, speaking to her. "She was scared and alone. I brought her here and look what they did."

"We brought her here," Adelaide corrected, knowing he wouldn't let her take the blame either. "I was the one piloting."

Vastra looked up at them. "Who or what could have done this thing?"

"No..." the Doctor said.

"I'm sorry?"

"No. That is not the question. That is not where we start."

"The question is how!" Strax provided. "The flesh itself has been combusted."

"No, no, shut up." The Doctor looked to Adelaide. "What do they all have for brains, pudding? Why can't we meet a decent species? Planet of the pudding brains."

"Are you ruder in this regeneration because I kept trying to make you be polite in the last one?"

He grinned and turned to face the trio of women and Strax, Adelaide doing the same. "A dinosaur is burning in the heart of London. Nothing left but smoke and flame. The question is...have there been any similar murders?"

Vastra gasped. "Yes. Yes, by the Goddess, there have."

The Doctor frowned down at the river bank, watching the crowd of humans that had already gathered despite the late hours. "Look at them all, gawking. Question two...if all the pudding brains are gawking, then what is he?" he pointed at the one man walking away from the spectacle quite calmly.

"He seems remarkably unmoved by the available spectacle," Vastra said, frowning.

"Do you think that is whoever..."

"Doctor!" Adelaide's shout made them all turn again. The Time Lady was now standing there looking down at the river as the man had actually jumped into the river. "Really?"

"What's he doing?" Clara gasped. "He'll drown."

"Unlikely." Adelaide sighed. "Especially because I'm going after him."

"Why?"

"The Doctor has taken up a case, and I am not going to let him leave me behind this time, especially this early in his regeneration." Adelaide jumped back down, needing to hurry to get to the river bank to follow him before he got too far away. "Goodbye, stay safe."

Vastra shook her head, knowing that no one else had any chance to follow the Time Lords. "If we are to see them again, we must also take up the case."

|C-S|

The Doctor, who was now incredibly dirty, was in the process of rummaging through the rubbish at the end of an alley. Adelaide, meanwhile, stood behind him looking decidedly cleaner, though that could have been because she was in black instead of his white nightshirt.

He eventually stopped upon finding a mirror, frowning at it, looking as though it had betrayed him. "Bitey..." he mumbled, turning to look at Adelaide. "The air...it's bitey. It's wet and bitey."

"It's cold," Adelaide reminded him. "And you're still wet."

"That's right. It's cold. It's cold, I knew it was a thing. I need...um..."

"Clothes?"

"I need clothes! That's what I need. And a big, long scarf..." he frowned, making a face. "No, no, move on from that. Looked stupid." He stepped forward, taking her hand. "Have you seen this face before?"

Adelaide had found something distinctly familiar about the face of the man the Doctor had become, but she couldn't place it. She had the vague idea it had come from the beginning of her time as Caroline, back when her memories were still extremely hazy. "Maybe?"

He nodded. "I'm sure that I have. You know, I never know where the faces come from. They just pop up. Zap." He demonstrated with his free hand. "Faces like this one. Look, it's covered in lines. But I didn't do the frowning. Who frowned me this face?" He shook his head. "Why this one? Why did I choose this face? It's like I'm trying to tell myself something. Like I'm trying to make a point. But what is so important that I can't just tell myself what I'm thinking?"

"The subconscious can do wonderful things," Adelaide reminded him.

The Doctor held up the broken mirror he'd found, studying his expression again. "It's alright right up until the eyebrows. Then it just goes haywire. Look at the eyebrows." He lowered the mirror. "These are attack eyebrows. You could take bottle tops off with these." She raised her own eyebrows. "They're cross! They're crosser than the rest of my face. They're independently cross. They probably want to cede from the rest of my face and set up their own independent state of eyebrows." He blinked, eyes widening. "That's Scot. I am Scottish. I've gone Scottish! Oh, that's good, oh...it's good I'm Scottish. I'm Scottish. I am Scottish." He was clearly attempting to practice the accent. "I can complain about things, I can really complain about things!"

"Not being Scottish never stopped you before."

He pointed at her. "You're not Scottish."

"No, I'm not, Doctor, I know that."

He switched to holding a bit of her hair, frowning. "Why'd you get to be ginger twice?"

"Because I'm polite." Adelaide stepped backward, pulling the Doctor after her. "Now, let's go find each other some coats."

|C-S|

Vastra, incredibly focused, was standing at an easel with Jenny a bit before her, the woman posing in just a corset and shift. "Hmm..." Vastra hummed. "Spontaneous combustion."

"Is that like love at first sight?" Jenny said, smirking a bit.

"Hmm." Vastra marked something on the easel. "A little. It is the theory that human beings can, with little or no inducement, simply explode."

"You don't need to flirt with me. We're already married."

Vastra just shook her head, rather wishing Adelaide could have stayed so that the two of them could bounce theories off each other. "It's scientific nonsense, of course."

Jenny frowned. "Marriage?"

"Hush! There have been nine reported incidents of people apparently exploding in the last month."

Jenny nodded. "And you think they weren't spontaneous."

"I think whoever killed the dinosaur had at least nine previous victims. All of these perished in the same spectacular fashion." She turned the easel so that Jenny could see it, revealing her map covered in newspaper cuttings and various notes.

Jenny lowered her arms. "I thought you were painting me."

"I was working."

"Well, why am I posing then?"

"Well," Vastra shrugged, "you brighten the room tremendously. Chin up a little." She reached out, tapping Jenny's chin.

"Oh," Jenny sighed, still doing as Vastra had asked, "I don't understand why I'm doing this."

"Art?" Vastra said, but Jenny just moved to study the notes herself. "Now, why destroy the victims so completely? It's difficult, it draws attention. What advantage is to be gained?"

Jenny nodded. "Well, tell us, then."

"Concealment, perhaps."

"Concealment?"

"It's a fanciful theory, but it fits the facts. By destroying the body so completely, you conceal what is missing from it."

Jenny frowned, shaking her head. "Missing from the body?"

"Madame Vastra!" Clara shouted, bursting into the room a second later.

Vastra looked pleasantly surprised. "Clara, excellent. Pop your clothes on that chair there."

"Look." Clara showed Vastra the page of adverts she'd rushed into the room clutching.

Vastra nodded. "Advertisements, yes. So many. It's a distressing modern trend."

"No, look. Look." She pointed at a specific advert: 'Impossible Girl. Lunch on the other side.'

|C-S|

After tea, which Vastra had claimed was necessary to continue, had been acquired Vastra flicked through the rest of the paper, looking for anything out of the ordinary. "There appears to be nothing of significance in the rest of the newspaper. Not even in the agony column."

Jenny shook her head. "We can't know it's from the Doctor or Adelaide."

Clara frowned. "Of course it's from them. The Impossible Girl. That's what they call me."

"They say lunch, but not when or where. Adelaide would never do something like that."

"'On the other side'?" Jenny added. "The other side of London? Bit vague."

"The other side of regeneration, perhaps, once he's recovered?" Vastra offered.

"So what am I supposed to do, guess where we're meeting?"

Vastra shrugged. "Perhaps that's the point. Perhaps you're supposed to prove that you still know him."

"But he has Adelaide, and Adelaide knows that I know him." Clara shook her head. "And the Doctor, he doesn't do puzzles. Really doesn't have the attention span."

"Adelaide does."

Clara frowned, studying the paper. "Notice everything...use your eyes," she mumbled to herself, and then she lifted the paper up so that she could see through it. There was another add that lined up exactly with the one they were studying, and she flipped the paper over to read it.

'Mancini's Family Restaurant, the Best Dinner in London'.

"Found it," Clara grinned.

|C-S|

Clara, after spending a moment studying the building the ad had directed her to, entered. A sign told her to seat herself and, after not seeing the Doctor or Adelaide anywhere, Clara just found a seat in a booth. She studied the paper as she waited, looking for any sign of the particular time the meeting was supposed to take place.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor said, making her jump. The Doctor and Adelaide had appeared in the booth, both having acquired coats, though it was clear neither had dressed like Clara had – for the time period. Adelaide was using a long coat as a functional dress presumably to avoid stares.

"Where'd you get those coats?" Clara eyed them both.

"I had a few coins from Christmas in my pocket that functioned, at a quick glance, as Victorian currency," Adelaide said simply, the Doctor nodding along.

"So you stole them?"

"Adelaide never steals!" the Doctor said, sounding rather offended. "Stealing is rude, and Adelaide's never rude. I'm the rude one!"

Adelaide pat the Doctor's hand. "Yes, Doctor, you are."

The Doctor grinned, seemingly happy at the fact Adelaide was holding his hand again, but that just made Clara shake her head, smiling. "No, don't smile. I will smile first and then you know it's safe to smile."

"Are you cross with me? Being cross is rude and you don't want to be rude because then Ad..."

"I'm not cross," Clara cut him off. "But if I was cross it would be your fault...yes, I am cross."

The Doctor nodded. "I guessed that."

"I am extremely cross."

"Why?"

"Why?" Clara scoffed. "An ordinary person wants to meet someone that they know very well for lunch. What do they do?"

"Well," the Doctor shrugged, "they probably get in touch and suggest lunch. That's what Adelaide would do."

"Okay...what sort of person would put a cryptic note in...in a newspaper advert?"

The Doctor shrugged, glancing at Adelaide. "Well, I wouldn't like to say, Adelaide would probably get cross."

"Go on, Doctor," Adelaide prompted.

"Well, I would say that that person would be an egomaniac, needy, game-player sort of person."

Clara sighed, shaking her head. "Ah, thank you. Well, at least that hasn't changed."

"And I don't suppose it ever will."

"No, I don't suppose it will, either."

The Doctor sighed. "Clara, honestly, we don't want you to change. It was no bother, really. We saw your advert, Adelaide figured it out. We're happy to play your game."

Clara frowned. "No, I didn't place the ad. You placed the ad."

"No, we didn't."

"Yes, you two placed the ad, I figured it out. Impossible Girl," she gestured at herself, "see? Lunch," at the table before them.

"No, look," the Doctor took the paper, gesturing at it, "the Impossible...that is a message from the Impossible Girl."

"For the Impossible Girl."

Adelaide eyed the room...which she was fairly certain was not full of actual people. "If neither of us placed the ad..."

"Hang on," Clara paused. "Egomaniac, needy, game-player?"

"This is a trap."

"That was me?"

The Doctor waved a hand at her. "Never mind that."

"Yes, I am minding that."

"Clara..."

"You were talking about me?"

"Clara," the Doctor turned to face her, "what is happening right now in this restaurant to you, me, and Adelaide is more important than your egomania."

"Nothing is more important than my egomania," she hissed, before both of them blinked.

"Right, you actually said that."

Clara pointed at him. "You never mention that again."

"It's a vanity trap," Adelaide shook her head. "Goodness, I've gotten slow."

The Doctor, quickly, plucked a hair from his head and considered it. Clara eyed him. "And that isn't the only grey one, if you are...er...having a cull."

"Adelaide likes it. Do you have a problem with grey ones?"

Clara raised her eyebrows. "If I got new hair and it was grey, I would have a problem."

"Yeah," he scoffed, "I bet you would."

"Meaning?"

"It's too short," Adelaide called, having taken the hair from the Doctor at some point.

The man just leaned over and plucked one from Clara, making her frown. "Sorry, it was the only one out of place. I'm sure that you would want it killed."

Clara sighed, clearly attempting to keep herself calm. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

"Notice everything," Adelaide mumbled, taking Clara's hair. "We're attempting to measure the air disturbance in the room."

"Right. Moments when you know you are boring."

Adelaide dropped the hair, both Time Lords watching as it fell straight down. "There is something extremely wrong with everybody else in this room," the Doctor whispered.

"Mmm," Clara nodded. "Basically, don't you always think that until Adelaide tells you it's rude to voice your opinions?"

"For the record," Adelaide said, "I also usually think that." Over the centuries, she'd learned that people tended not to like it when you looked at them with obvious dislike and complete non-understanding.

The other children had called her strange from a young age. She'd quickly learned that, for the majority of things, you could think whatever you wanted so long as you didn't actually say it out loud. No one really cared if they didn't how you really felt.

"Look at them," the Doctor told Clara but, when the woman moved to do just that, he frowned. "Don't look."

"You just said to look."

"Look without looking," Adelaide took a menu, looking over the top of it. The Doctor and Clara did the same, all three using them to observe the gathered crowd of diners.

"They look fine to me," Clara whispered. "They're just eating."

"Notice everything. Use your eyes," Adelaide reminded her.

Clara frowned at one in particular, someone eating soup...but not actually, just lifting and lowering a spoon. The room was full of people like that, jerkily repeating the same motions. "Okay, no. No, they're not eating."

"Something else they're not doing," the Doctor took one of his own hairs, dropping it straight down so that Clara could see it fall without wavering again. "Breathing."

A/N: Heard about the Stoics in my Latin class and my first thought was that Adelaide would definitely have wanted to join them :)

Welcome to the sixth story in the series! This will certainly be an interesting ride :)

As a refresher, I picture Adelaide's current regeneration to resemble Julianne Moore. She tends to favor dark pants, dark green/black tank-tops, dark green/black sweaters (though this may be changing shortly...), and black Oxfords. Her Polyvore set is viewable on my Tumblr, if you're curious.

Thanks for coming over, and I hope you enjoy!