Belshazzar's Eternal Rainbow, never alters, never changes, never fades: it is the perfect picnic spot for Clara to reflect on her relationship with the Doctor.
"Clara, this really is the most delightful spot," Ashildr said looking up at the rainbow arcing above them through a blue sky. It was the biggest rainbow either one of them had ever seen, and filled a full third of the sky with sweeping swathes of colour, a merry dance of reds chasing oranges and yellows across the sky, sweeping through green into shades of blue and purple at a melancholy edge. Clara and Ashildr sat on a picnic blanket spread across springy cobalt blue grass and the air was clear and fresh like a pine forest after rain.
"Why did you pick this place?" Ashildr asked, propped upright on the flats of her hands, legs stretched out in front of her. Clara shrugged.
"Just thought it would be nice." She was on her back, hands neatly folded over her chest looking up at the rainbow and the sky beyond.
"You're sad again," Ashildr said. Clara looked straight ahead and squinted a little, perhaps at the sun as it edged out from behind a wispy billowing cloud.
"I think a bit of me will always be sad," she said still looking up, "But not all of me, not all of the time." She paused, drummed her fingers against her knuckle and wiggled her toes inside her Clarkes shoes. "Why did you do it, Ashildr? Sell him out to the Time Lords?"
How could anyone hope to unravel it? It began in a Viking Village with a single domino: a Mire Chip, a sliver of good intentions from a passing magician. Click click, a line of dominoes trickled through the ages, doubled by heart break, spiralled by sorrow, re-doubled again by rejection and time marching dispassionately and relentlessly on and click click click, they are on a trap street in London with a million dominoes scattering the magician's good intentions to hell. Ashildr plucked a handful of blue grass from the edge of the blanket and rubbed it between her fingers. The smell was bitter and it jarred with the freshness of the air and the cascade of colour overhead.
"I'm not angry and I'm not bitter. I'd just like to know," Clara added mildly. Ashildr crossed her legs one over another, and sighed.
"I thought I had no choice. I thought I was being clever. I thought I was paying him back for trapping me in a thousand lifetimes I didn't ask for. Take your pick." The two women continued to not look at each other; they found the intricacies of the chasing colours, or the fall of the hillside, or the clouds dancing with the sun fascinating distractions. "I am sorry, Clara. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I didn't think anyone would get hurt," Ashildr offered at last.
"Except him. You didn't think the Time Lords were inviting him on some kind of Transcendental Retreat." There was irony in her words but no ire, she was past that. Clara opened the picnic basket and passed Ashildr the caritas bread.
"He created me," Ashildr said taking the bread and breaking it in two pieces, "Then he left me like a crumpled message in a bottle drifting in the ocean for a thousand years."
"Ashildr…" Clara said sadly. She nearly always called her Ashildr, reserving 'Lady Me' for occasions when they really needed to impress or intimidate someone. Clara thought 'Ashildr' located the human in her: she was completely Ashildr right now. "I'm sorry too," she said, and accepted the bread that Ashildr passed back to her.
"What was it like, travelling with him?" Clara smiled and thought of the Doctor; the floppy bow-tie Doctor, flirting and whirling and showing off; her velvet Doctor with his spikiness and soft-layers, not-hugging yet holding her close to his hearts. She remembered all of him, every lifetime she had the privilege to glimpse.
"It was the most amazing and wonderful, and quite often terrifying adventure any one could ever have. I've seen the most unbelievable things and been places most people only dream of,' Clara sank into her story. Vivid pictures came into her mind, a living journal of a thousand and one places. "Once we spent hours trapped on a nuclear submarine, with three hundred pounds of hell clanking around trying to kill us and start World War 3." Ashildr raised a questioning eye brow. "Grand Marshall Skaldak. Vengeful Ice Warrior. We talked him round," she explained, "And have I ever told you I've been inside a Dalek? Twice!" Ashildr stopped chewing, and stared at her.
"We went on this mission: proper 'inner space' style, miniaturised and injected right into a Dalek." She mimicked a plunger with her thumb and shot an imaginary syringe into Ashildr's leg.
"That sounds stupid. Why would anyone ever agree to that?"
"Because the Doctor thought he could help, thought maybe it was worth it to find a good Dalek," and maybe just for the hell of it she added silently. "That wasn't the worst time though. That first time I thought I might die. The second time I thought he would." Clara sat up and took two glasses and a bottle of wine from the picnic basket. Ashildr looked questioningly at her. "I was tricked, tricked into the casing of a Dalek. Believe me that was much worse." She shuddered at the memory. The claustrophobia was terrible and the smell of rot and devastation sickened her. The endless whirring and pulsing gave her a headache she would never forget. But the very worst part was the feeling of being out of control and helpless and on the verge of killing her best friend. She had nightmares for weeks after Skaro. She'd wake up sweating and shivering and fighting for breathe at the sheer terror at what had almost happened. She took hold of the neck of wine bottle and forcefully pierced the cork with the corkscrew. "I never, ever want to feel like that again," she said, punctuating each word with a twist. She tugged out the cork and held it in her hand for a moment. "The Doctor got me out though."
"Sounds to me like he was always getting you nearly killed. He's reckless and arrogant."
"Yeah, he can be,' she conceded. 'But he can be kind, and tender too. He tries really hard to be a good man," she added as she poured the wine. She pictured him: black coat and loose grey curls, playing the song of the universe with his fingertips, a magician with an electric guitar. "He always had my back, always, from the first moment to the last." She handed Ashildr a drink but left her own untouched and lay back again to face the sky.
"You loved each other, didn't you. You and the Doctor." Clara turned her head abruptly towards Ashildr and put a hand over her eyes against the glare of the sun. She wondered whether to answer this question or not.
"Yes, very deeply," she said finally and turned back to the sky.
"But you weren't lovers." Clara was not sure if this was an impertinent question, idle curiosity, or merely a statement. If her heart was beating it would be thumping a merry rhythm now. She continued to stare at the sky and for a long time silence filled the space between the blue grass and the rainbow.
"Friends, just friends," she said at last. Sometimes it felt like a mischievous story-teller was scripting their lives and taking delight in pushing them together but keeping them apart. She sighed deeply and sat up to take a sip of wine. It was a mellow red with hints of cherry and clove and left a warm glow in her throat. Ashildr had another question and was waving her hand expansively at the sky.
"What is Belshazzar's Eternal Rainbow? How does it always stay there?"
"I don't know. He did tell me but he was talking all Doctory and I think I zoned out."
"Ah," said Ashildr, as if she had caught Clara in a little deception. "You came here together then."
"Yeah, we did.' It was right after that business with the Zygons. He'd said they both needed somewhere to relax after the pods and the parachuting and the Osgood boxes. "We drank this very wine actually.' She held up the bottle for a moment, reading the label, Tantalus Cluster Vineyards, 2412, then put it back in the basket. 'He said it was a vintage year." She held her glass up to Ashildr and to the memory; a small clink of glass on glass rang in the air. She could still picture that afternoon under the rainbow, in fact she cherished the memory. They stretched on a blanket in a friendly 'T,' and she rested her head on his chest listening to his voice and to his hearts drumming their fourfold rhythm. Both of them captivated by the endless rainbow.
"Clara," he'd said, rolling her name to the sky and sweeping his hand the full length of the rainbow, "there's so many things I haven't shown you yet." He had ghosted his hand across her hair as he spoke and a small shudder crept down her spine.
"I think he knew a storm was coming," Clara smiled a confiding smile at Ashildr over the top of her wine glass. "That day I wished we could step right through the rainbow into an alternate universe where rules and reasons and bad timing never get in the way." Ashildr laughed kindly.
"That universe sounds lovely Clara, but sadly we are forced to live in this one."
"Yes we are." Clara swirled her wine around the glass and took a deeper sip, "And you know what? Our story got cut short. That hurts like hell some days. But I'm never sorry I met him."
Ashildr and Clara sat together a long time that day enjoying the wine and the bread and one of the wonders of the universe painted in a glorious arc over their heads: Belshazzar's Eternal Rainbow; never alters, never changes, never fades, and like that unchanging rainbow some stories are eternal too.