A/N – Hello and welcome to a compiled version of Deep Breath, this episode was originally posted into three chapters from October 26th to November 6th, 2014. I also want to point out, you should read the stories which I will list. The Real Origin; The Time Lord Who Travelled the Universe; The Time Lord Who Married the Girl Who Waited (earliest one and first ever story for me); A Time Lord's Sorrow & Dreams Of Two Time Lords (which I make a reference to early on).
Deep Breath
Something large disturbs the people of Victorian London, it's a dinosaur from the perestroika times, it roars as the bells of Big Ben chime at 3pm. Meanwhile on the banks of the river, there is a crowd of people with policemen telling them not to cross over the river. In the crowd is the Silurian, Madame Vastra and her wife, Jenny Flint with their butler, Strax the Sontaran.
"Madame Vastra, thank god. I wage you haven't seen anything like this before?" An inspector asks Vastra about the dinosaur.
"Well, not since I was a little girl." She replies while taking off her veil.
"Big fella, isn't he?" Jenny ponders.
"Well, dinosaurs are mostly this size. I do believe it's a she."
"No they weren't, I've seen fossils." Jenny tries to correct Vastra.
"I was there." Vastra tries to close the argument
"Well that's all well and good but what is this dinosaur fella doing in the Thames?" The inspector asks.
"It must have time travelled."
Jenny gets out a glove typed gadget to scan the dinosaur while the inspector is pondering over Vastra's explanation of time travel. The dinosaur tries to roar but it now has problems like it is choking on something in it's throat.
"Is it choking?" Vastra ponders.
"It seems to be something lodged in its throat." Jenny explains as she still scans with her glove gadget.
"How can it time travel?" The inspector still asks Vastra.
"I don't know, perhaps it was something it ate?"
The dinosaur tries to roar again but it then vomits the Tardis out of its throat, the Tardis then lands on the sandy beach near the London crowd.
"It's just laid a egg!" The inspector chuckles.
"It's dropped a blue box marked Police out of its mouth. Your grasp of biology, it troubles me." Vastra corrects him.
"It's the Tardis." Jenny shouts to reveal the name of the box.
"It would seem so." Vastra says.
"We'll take care of this, Inspector." Jenny orders the Inspector.
"But what if that thing goes on the rampage?" The Inspector asks.
Vastra takes balls with three legs out of a sack.
"Place these lanterns on the shoreline and bridges, encircling the creature at twenty foot intervals." Vastra tells the Inspector.
"What will they do?" He asks.
"They will emit a signal that will incline it to remain within their circumference. Jenny, Strax. With me." Vastra explains to him as they start to go down the stone stairs to the river bank.
"So it's him, then, the Doctor?" Jenny asks Vastra.
"A giant dinosaur from the distant past has just vomited a blue box from outer space. This is not a day for jumping to conclusions. Strax, if you wouldn't mind?"
Strax knocks on the Tardis door. It is smeared with sputum from its previous location.
"Hello? Exit the box, and surrender to the glory of the Sontaran empire." Strax asks the owner while a tall grey-haired man opens the door and looks out. Smoke comes out as well.
"Shush." The Doctor says as he shuts the door again.
"Doctor?" Strax asks who the hell this new man is from the Tardis as the door opens again.
"I was being chased by a giant dinosaur, but I think I managed to give it the slip." The Doctor responds to Strax, also explaining the dinosaur apperance as the door shuts again, but then is opened slowly. As the Doctor tries to figure out Strax's name.
"Sleepy?"
"Sir?" Strax asks the Doctor, as he is also annoyed at being called one of the seven dwarfs.
"Bashful? Sneezy? Dopey? Grumpy." The Doctor checks through more of the seven dwarfs before he sees Jenny and Vastra and walks towards them.
"Oh, you two. The green one and the not-green one. Or it could be the other way round, I mustn't prejudge." The Doctor says to Vastra and Jenny as Clara appears, much disheveled. She is wearing a black fitted jacket with an 'outline of bow tie' motif and tartan mini-kilt and Adam, fresh from his last appearance in the same clothes.
"Oh, you remember, er. Thingy. The, er, the not-me ones. The asking questions one and that nerdy one. Names not my area." The Doctor figures out something to reintroduce Adam and Clara.
"Clara." Clara reminds him.
"Well, it might be Clara. Might not be. It's a lottery."
"It is Clara." Clara repeated, also raising her voice.
"Clara… Don't try to shout at him." Adam tells her, trying to carm her down as the dinosaur bellows.
"Oi, big man, shut it. Oh, you've got a dinosaur too. Big woman, sorry." The Doctor shouts at the dinosaur, also apologizing to it for calling her a man.
"Doctor, listen to me. You, you need to calm down." Adam tells the Doctor.
"I'm not flirting, by the way." The Doctor shouts at the dinosaur again.
"I think something's gone wrong." Clara asks everyone.
"Wrong? What's gone wrong? Have you regenerated? I remember you. You're Handles. You used to be a little, a little robot head, and now you. You've really let yourself go." The Doctor says to Clara also remembering Handles as the dinosaur bellows again. "Reduce the frequency."
"I'm sorry?" Clara asks the Doctor on why he said to reduce the frequency.
"Your sonic lanterns, turn them down. You're giving her a headache." The Doctor explains.
"Giving who a headache?" Jenny asks the Doctor on clarification on whom 'she' is.
"My lady friend. Just an expression, don't get any ideas." The Doctor explains, pointing to the dinosaur.
"How do you know?" Strax asks him.
"Come on, Clara. You know that I speak dinosaur." The Doctor tells Clara, not knowing that Strax said the question and not her.
"He's not Clara. I'm Clara." Clara tells him.
"Well, you're very similar heights. Maybe you should wear labels? Why, why are you all doing that? Why are you? You're all going dark and wobbly. Stop that."
"I don't think we are." Clara reminds him.
"Never mind. Everyone take five." The Doctor orders before he closes his eyes, sways, then falls over with Adam running over to catch him.
"I don't understand. Who is he? Where's the Doctor?" Jenny says, also recalling lines from The Christmas Invasion.
"Right here. That's him. That's the Doctor." Adam reminds everyone.
At night, with a full moon. At Vastra's house, the Doctor is now wearing a full length night shirt. Clara and Jenny are listening at the door.
"It's simply misunderstandable to me. I don't know what it is. Who invented this room?" The Doctor shouts.
"The person who owned the house before them!" Adam roars at him as he opens the door and Clara and Jenny nearly fall inside.
"Doctor, please, you have to lie down." Clara asks him.
"It doesn't make sense. Look, it's only got a bed in it. Why is there only a bed in it?" The Doctor asks about what a bedroom is for.
"Because it's a bed room. It's for sleeping in." Adam reminds him to jog his memory.
"Okay, what do you do when you're awake?" The Doctor asks.
"You leave the room." Clara explains as Adam starts banging his head to the wall.
"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. It's absolutely furious." The Doctor asks again to Clara.
"Doctor, please. You have to lie down. You keep passing out." Clara orders him.
"Well, of course I keep passing out. There's all these beds. Why do you keep talking like that? What's gone wrong with your accent? Why" The Doctor tells her.
"Nothing's wrong with her accent." Jenny reminds him.
"You sound the same. It's spreading. You all sound all English. Now you've all developed a fault." The Doctor explains to everyone except Adam who is still banging his head.
"Doctor, I need your help with something." Vastra asks the Doctor, in a Scottish accent.
"Finally, someone who can talk properly." The Doctor comments.
"I'm having difficulty sleeping." Vastra tells him.
"Oh? Oh, well, I wouldn't bother with that, I never bother with sleep, and I just do standy-up catnaps." The Doctor explains.
"Oh really, how interesting. And when do you do those?" Vastra asks him about this new information.
"Well, generally whenever anyone else starts talking. I like to skip ahead to my bits. It saves time."
Vastra gently leads him to the bed and they sit down.
"Save me time, Doctor. Project an image of perfect sleep into the centre of my mind."
"What, do you want a psychic link with me? The size of my brain, it would be like dropping a piano on you." The Doctor asks Vastra.
"Be gentle, then."
"I'll try. Brace yourself. Piano."
They put their fingers to the others temple. The Doctor falls back onto the bed, sound asleep and Adam walks away from the wall.
"That hurt." Adam said, after he left from the wall.
"I love monkeys. They're so funny." Vastra remarks.
"Oh, I see. So Time Lords are monkeys now, are they?" Adam shouted at her.
"No, dear. People are apes. Men are monkeys." Vastra reinstates him as they tuck the Doctor up in bed.
"So what now?"
"He needs rest."
"So what do we do? How do we fix him?" Clara asks everyone.
"Fix him?" Jenny asks for clarification on Clara's certain words.
"How do we change him back?" Clara reminds her.
"We can't Clara, I've changed as well over the times and even I can't." Adam tells her.
"Jenny, I will be in my chamber. Would you be kind enough to fetch my veil?" Vastra asks Jenny.
"Why, are we expecting strangers?" Jenny questions Vastra.
"It would seem there's already two here." Vastra explains, meaning Adam and Clara as she leaves.
"What have I done wrong?" Clara says as she hears the sound of a sad dinosaur drifts into the room.
"The dinosaur doesn't seem very happy." Jenny says.
"What's wrong with it?"
"I dunno. The Doctor's the one that speaks dinosaur. Excuse me, ma'am. The wife doesn't like to be kept waiting." Jenny tells Clara as she leaves.
"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." Clara says.
"It's still him, you and I saw him change." Adam tells her. "No matter if he was looking like a teenager, he would still be the Doctor."
"I know. I do. I, I know that." Clara says.
Clara then goes to the window and hears the moaning dinosaur.
"I am alone. The world which shook at my feet, and the trees and the sky, have gone. And I and alone now. Alone." The Doctor starts to speak to himself.
"Doctor, are you translating?" Adam asks him.
"The wind bites now, and the world is grey, and I am alone here. Can't see me. Doesn't see me. Can't see me." The Doctor continues to speak to himself.
"Boy and Girl? Madame Vastra is waiting." Strax orders Clara. "I will convey you to her chamber."
Adam throws a newspaper at Strax, annoying him slightly. Later, at a conservatory. Vastra is sitting in her peacock chair. A fountain is playing.
"And then?" Vastra asked for more of the information about the recent events.
"And then we got swallowed by a big dinosaur. You probably noticed." Clara explained.
"How did it happen?" Jenny asked.
"I can explain." Adam started.
Back at the Tardis, Adam is working at the controls while Clara is trying to keep the Doctor away from breaking the Tardis.
"Right, it seems I think I know why we are crashing." Adam said.
"What?" The Doctor and Clara asked him.
"Erm, it's you Doctor. The Tardis was wacked from your explosive regeneration back at Trenzalore and it must off messed up the controls." Adam explained. "Don't you notice?"
"What?" Clara, angrily asked him again.
"We're talking like "this". I used to like the old ADAM: talk. It was so easy back then." Adam explained more and made a fourth wall refrence.
"What the hell are you babbling on about?" Clara shouts at him.
"Something that 'someone' hasn't noticed for nine months." Adam babbled on more.
"He's not gone. He's upstairs." Jenny reinstated Clara.
"Okay, he changed." Clara told them.
"He regenerated. Renewed himself." Adam told her the right way to say 'changed'.
"Renewed. Fine." Clara huffed.
Up in the guest bedroom, the Doctor wakes and sniffs the air. He gets out of bed and crawls around on the carpet, sniffing. He goes to the radiator and finds a piece of chalk which he uses to make marks on it. Then later, The Doctor is writing on the floorboards. He stands when he hears the dinosaur, then goes to the door and opens it.
"Door. Boring. Not me." The Doctor says, offending the door.
He goes to the window and opens it.
"Me."
Back in Vastra's chamber.
"Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor. Last of the five good 'uns. Stoic philosopher." Clara explains Marcus Aurelius (referenced back in 'The Day of the Doctor).
"Superlative bass guitarist. The Doctor really knows how to put a band together." Vastra explains more.
"And the only pin-up I ever had on my wall when I was fifteen. The only one I ever had. I am not sure who you think you're talking to right now, Madam Vastra, but I have never had the slightest interest in pretty young men. And for the record, if there ever was anybody who could flirt with a mountain range, she's probably standing in front of you right now. Just because my pretty face has turned your head, do not assume that I am so easily distracted." Clara shouts at Vastra, telling her that she cannot be distracted at a whim.
Vastra is no longer wearing her veil. Jenny applauds.
"Whoo. Whoo. Sorry." Jenny shouts, applauding Clara for her performance.
"Don't ruin the mood, Jenny." Adam tells Jenny.
"Well, goodness me. The lake is ruffled at last. I often wondered what you'd be like when you lost your temper." Vastra compliments Clara for the speech.
"Oi. Married." Jenny snaps at Vastra.
"The Doctor needs us, you two more than anyone. He is lost in the ruin of himself, and we must bring him home." Vastra tells Adam and Clara.
The Doctor has climbed onto the rooftops and is making his way towards the river.
"Oi. Oi. Oi, big, sexy woman. Oi. Sorry. Sorry, it's all my fault. My time machine got stuck in your throat. It happens. I brought you along by accident. That's mostly how I meet girls, but don't worry, I promise I will get you home. I swear. Whatever it takes, I will keep you safe. You will be at home again." The Doctor tries to tell the dinosaur.
The dinosaur suddenly bursts into flames. It roars in pain before collapsing.
"Stop that. Who's doing that? No, don't do that." The Doctor snaps.
In Vastra's chamber, everyone hears the crying roar.
"That came from the river." Vastra says.
"The dinosaur, it's crying out." Adam explains.
"Strax! Bring the carriage, now!"
The Doctor leaps from a roof into a tree. The upper bough breaks under the strain, dropping him down. He finishes hanging upside down from the lowest branch by his knees. A hansom cab, or growler, trots into his view.
"Halt. Sorry, I'm going to have to relieve you of your pet." The Doctor orders the cabbie.
"You're what?" The cabbie asks.
"Shut up, I was talking to the horse." The Doctor reminds the cabbie as the Doctor somersaults on to the horse's back and uses his sonic screwdriver to sever the traces and reins.
"What are you doing?" The cabbie asks the Doctor.
"Forwards." The Doctor tells the cabbie as he gallops off. Madam Vastra's carriage driven by Strax goes past the stranded cabbie.
"Out of the way, human scum. Hi-yah. Jurassic emergency. Yah." Strax orders the cabbie
The Doctor is cantering along the cobbles.
"Left. No, no. Right, right, right, right. Sorry, it's my new hands. I can't tell them apart." The Doctor explains.
Vastra's cab is still behind the Doctor's.
"What do you think's happened?" Jenny asks everyone in the cab.
"I don't know, but I fear devilment." Vastra tells Jenny.
"Should we not have told the Doctor?" Clara asks.
"I don't think he's ready to leave his bed." Adam tells Clara.
"Watch it on the corners, it's a bit slippery up here." The Doctor reminds the horse of his carriage. Vastra's is still far behind.
"Strax."
Strax is urging on the horse.
"Come on, Strax." Vastra orders Strax as he cracks the whip.
"That's better."
The Doctor dismounts himself off his carriage and stands on the parapet of Westminister Bridge over the burning remains, muttering to himself. Strax brings the carriage to a halt behind him, and the ladies and Adam get out.
"Whoa."
"Steady on, Strax." Adam remind Strax.
"The Doctor." Jenny says.
"What's he doing here?" Clara asks as Vastra secures her carriage using the remote control in her hat.
"There is trouble. Where else would he be?" Adam remarks.
"She was scared. She was scared and alone. I brought her here and look what they did." The Doctor explains.
"Who or what could have done this thing?" Vastra asks.
"No." The Doctor replies.
"I'm sorry?" Vastra asks.
"No. That is not the question. That is not where we start." The Doctor explains what question.
"The question is how. The flesh itself has been combusted." Strax explains.
"No, no, shut up. What do you all have for brains, pudding? Look at you. Why can't I meet a decent species? Planet of the pudding brains." The Doctor responds.
"Doctor, I defiantly know you're upset, but you need to calm down and talk to us. What is the question?" Adam asks him.
"A dinosaur is burning in the heart of London. Nothing left but smoke and flame. The question is, have there been any similar murders?" The Doctor explains more.
"Yes. Yes, by the Goddess, there have." Vastra reminds herself
"Look at them all, gawking." The Doctor responds. "Question two. If all the pudding brains are gawking, then what is he?"
One man is walking away calmly.
"He seems remarkably unmoved by the available spectacle." Vastra says.
"Do you think that is whoever…" Clara asks The Doctor.
There is a splash. The Doctor is no longer standing on the parapet.
"What he's doing? He'll drown." Clara shouts.
"I very much doubt it. Time Lords can survive a bit longer than humans, Clara." Adam explains.
"There has been a murder. The Doctor has taken up the case. If we are to see him again, we must do the same." Vastra explains.
The next morning, Clara pours water into a bowl on her washstand.
"Come on, Earthling scum. Position it here. Easy now. That's it. Careful." Strax orders some workers as Adam opens the window onto the courtyard. A cart has brought the Tardis from the river bank. "Don't get it scratched or you and all your bloodline will be obliterated from time and space."
"Very good, sir." A footman congratulates Strax as Clara and Adam lean out.
"Strax!" Clara calls out.
"Ah! Morning, Miss Clara. You're awake at last." Strax says.
"You got the Tardis, then?" Adam tells him.
"Military tactics. The Doctor is still missing, but he will always come looking for his box. By bringing it here, he will be lured from the dangers of London to this place of safety, and we will melt him with acid." Strax explains to them.
"Okay, that last part?" Clara suspiciously asks.
"And we will not melt him with acid. Old habits. The Times. Shall I send it up?" Strax tells her correctly while asking if she wants the morning newspaper.
"Yeah, why not?" Clara agrees.
"Hah!" Strax roars as he throws the rolled-up newspaper, hitting Adam squarely between the eyes and knocking him down.
Later, Clara is dressed and coiffured in the late Victorian style. She meets Jenny coming up the stairs.
"Jenny." Clara asks for Jenny's assistance.
"Ah, good morning, Clara." Jenny responds.
"Morning. Er, so, what are we going to do? Are we looking for the Doctor?" Clara asks.
"We've got the Paternoster Irregulars out in force. If anyone can find him, they can. Meanwhile, Madam Vastra is slightly occupied by the Conk-Singleton forgery case, and is having the Camberwell child poisoner for dinner." Jenny explains.
"For dinner?"
"After she's finished interrogating him. Probably best to stay out the larder. It'll get a bit noisy in there later." Jenny tells her.
"Also, it stinks in there." Adam comments as he walks up the stairs.
Strax is mopping the kitchen floor.
"Ah, Miss Clara. You look better now you're up." Strax compliments Clara.
"Thank you, Strax."
"Oh, sorry. Trick of the light. You still look terrible. Can I get you anything?" Strax asks Clara.
"Er, no, thanks. Maybe just some water." Clara requested.
"Of course." Strax spoke as he puts the mop bucket on the table. "Well, don't hold back. I've nearly finished anyway, it's perfectly all right. I washed in it myself."
"All of a sudden, I'm not very thirsty."
"Really? Perhaps it is time, then." Strax responds as he takes out a monocle like device with three lenses, and shines a green light into her eye. "For your mandatory medical examination. Say ah."
"Ah." Clara says.
"You didn't move your lips." Strax tells Clara.
"You're looking at my eye."
"Oh. Oh yes, there we are. Easy mistake." Strax says as he now aims the light at her forehead. "Now that's interesting."
"What? What's interesting?" She asks Strax.
"Deflected narcissism. Traces of passive aggressive. And a lot of muscular young men doing sport." He explains.
"What are you looking at?"
"Your subconscious. Is that sport? It could be sport." He explains.
Clara flicks down the lens.
"Well, stop looking." Clara orders him.
"Moving onto the thorax, such as it is." Strax says as the green light makes Clara's ribcage visible. "Ah, excellent. Enviable spleen. Well done. Twenty seven years old, with a projected lifespan of exactly."
"Stop right there." Clara snaps at him. "Why would we be serving together? The Doctor's going to come back, isn't he? He's not just going to abandon me here."
"You must stop worrying about him, my boy. By now, he's almost certainly had his throat cut by the violent poor." Strax explains.
Near the Clink and Southwark Cathedral. The Doctor, still in his now very dirty nightshirt, is rummaging in the rubbish. He is watched by a smelly tramp in a thick coat, who is holding a beer bottle. The Doctor finds a broken mirror. He turns at the sound of the tramp throwing away his bottle.
"Bitey. The air, it's bitey. It's wet, and bitey." The Doctor complains.
"Oh, it's cold." The tramp responds.
"That's right. It's cold. It's cold, I knew it was a thing. I need um, I need clothes. I need clothes, that's what I need. And a big, long scarf. No, no, move on from that. Looked stupid. Er, have you seen this face before?" The Doctor asks the tramp, going also over his fourth incarnation's clothes.
"No." The tramp glares at him.
"Are you sure?" The Doctor asks again.
"Sir, I have never seen that face." The tramp responds.
"It's funny, because I'm sure that I have. You know, I never know where the faces come from. They just pop up. Zap. Faces like this one. Come on, look at it, have a look, come on, look, look, look." The Doctor explains to him as he pulls the tramp over to look in the mirror on the ground. "Look, it's covered in lines. But I didn't do the frowning. Who frowned me this face? Do you ever look in the mirror and think I've seen that face before?"
"Yes." The tramp says.
"Really? When?" The Doctor requests.
"Well, every time I look in the mirror." The tramp explains.
"Oh, yes, yes, yes. Fair enough. Good point. My face is fresh on, though."
The tramp moves away from the nutter in the nightshirt.
"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? I'm not just being rhetorical here. You can join in." The Doctor says.
"I don't like it." The tramp tells him.
"What?"
"Your face." The tramp responds.
"Well, I don't like it either. Well, it's all right up until the eyebrows. Then it just goes haywire. Look at the eyebrows. These are attack eyebrows. You could take bottle tops off with these." The Doctor makes up.
"They are mighty eyebrows indeed, sir." The tramp compliments the 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. That's Scot. I am Scottish. I've gone Scottish?" The Doctor asks the tramp.
"Oh yes, you are. You are definitely Scots, sir. I, I 'ear it in your voice." The tramp tells him.
"Oh no, that's good. Oh." The Doctor refuses as he practices the long rolling Scottish 'oh' sound.
"It's good I'm Scottish. I'm Scottish. I am Scottish. I can complain about things, I can really complain about things. Now, give me your coat." He asks the tramp for the coat that the tramp is wearing.
"No." The tramp refuses to give him the coat.
"I am cold."
"I'm cold."
"I'm cold. There's no point in us both being cold. Give me your coat. Give me your coat. No, wait. Shut up, shut up. Shut up. I missed something. It was here, it was here. It was. What was it I saw? What did I see?" The Doctor says as he picks up an old newspaper. "This is what I saw. Spontaneous combustion."
The article reads the death of Margaret Roberts occurred on Friday, outside her home address in London, in what the police are describing as a curious case of spontaneous combustion. She was aged 68 years.
"What devilry is this, sir?" The tramp asks the Doctor.
"I don't know, but I probably blame the English."
In Vastra's chamber, Vastra is working at a large wood backed panel on an easel while Jenny holds an awkward pose in her corset and a shawl. Also Adam is asleep in a chair.
"Hmm. Spontaneous combustion." Vastra ponders.
"Is that like love at first sight?" Jenny asks her.
"Hmm. A little. It is the theory that human beings can, with little or no inducement, simply explode." Vastra explains.
"You don't need to flirt with me. We're already married." Jenny reminds her, this marriage happened during the events of Demons Run – Two Days Later and The Snowmen.
"It's scientific nonsense, of course." Vastra says.
"Marriage?"
"Hush. There have been nine reported incidents of people apparently exploding in the last month." Vastra explains.
"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." Vastra ponders as she turns the easel to reveal newspaper cuttings, a map of London, and lines linking them up.
"I thought you were painting me." Jenny asks, embarrassed how the way she is dressed for nothing.
"I was working." Vastra tells her.
"Well, why am I posing then?"
"Well, you brighten the room tremendously. Chin up a little."
"Oh, I don't understand why I'm doing this."
"Art? Now, why destroy the victims so completely? It's difficult, it draws attention. What advantage is to be gained?" Vastra questions her new facts.
"Well, tell us, then." Jenny asks
"Concealment, perhaps." Vastra says.
"Concealment?" Jenny requests a answer.
"It's a fanciful theory, but it fits the facts. By destroying the body so completely, you conceal what is missing from it." Vastra explains.
"Missing from the body?" Jenny ponders.
"Madame Vastra!" Clara calls for her as she bursts into the room. "Look."
Clara shows Vastra the Times newspaper.
"Advertisements, yes. So many. It's a distressing modern trend." Vastra says.
"No, look. Look." Clara utters, revealing a one advert in the personal column says - Impossible Girl. Lunch on the other side.
"Ma'am?" Jenny requests
"The game is afoot. We're going to need a lot of tea." Vastra speaks to everyone as she rings the bell as well as alerting Adam. Later, Strax is pouring it out.
"There appears to be nothing of significance in the rest of the newspaper. Not even in the agony column." Vastra informs.
"We can't know it's from the Doctor." Jenny aforementioned
"Of course it's from the Doctor. The Impossible Girl, that's what he calls me." Clara leaks.
"I have been noticing that." Adam says.
"He says lunch, but not when or where?"
"On the other side? The other side of London? Bit vague." Jenny makes a suggestion.
"The other side of regeneration, perhaps, once he's recovered?" Vastra makes a suggestion also.
"So what am I supposed to do, guess where we're meeting?" Clara inquires.
"Perhaps that's the point. Perhaps you're supposed to prove that you still know him. Think what that must mean for a man who barely knows himself." Vastra expresses
"It doesn't makes sense. He doesn't do puzzles. He isn't complicated. Really doesn't have the attention span. So, keeping it dead simple. On the other side." Adam confesses as he holds the page up to the light. There is another advert directly behind his, so he turns it over to read it. Mancini's Family Restaurant, the Best Dinner in London.
Clara and Adam cross the street and Clara looks up at the building, which is just as depicted in the advert. They both go inside and sit by themselves on a curved bench seat in a wall alcove, with a small round table in front of it. The restaurant has other customers, but is very quiet. Clara examines the advert again, then sniffs. Then she coughs as she fans the air with the paper. The Doctor is wearing a noisome coat.
"What's wrong?" The Doctor buzzes Clara for why she wafting the newspaper.
"I don't know. Maybe the smell?" Clara says.
"I know. It's everywhere." He responds.
"Where did you get that coat?" Adam requests an answer.
"Er, ahem, I bought it." The Doctor quickly makes up a answer to lie about stealing it earlier from the tramp.
"From where?" Clara inquires.
"Er, a shop?" He tells her. "Might have been a tramp."
"You don't have any money." Clara reminds him.
"Er, I had a watch."
"No. That watch was beautiful." Adam flatters.
"It was my favourite."
"You swapped your favourite watch for that coat. That's maybe not a good deal."
"Well, I was in a hurry. There was a terrible smell." He describes them the scene.
"Okay."
The Doctor smiles and laughs a little.
"No. No, don't. Don't. Don't. Don't smile. I will smile first and then you know it's safe to smile." Adam warns him.
"Are you both cross with me?" The Doctor asks.
"I am not cross. But if I was cross it would be your fault and. Yes, I am cross." She sarcastically lies.
"I guessed that." He tells her.
"I am extremely cross." She starts to raise her voice.
"Oh god." Adam murmers.
"And if I hadn't changed my face, would you be cross?" The Doctor inquires.
"I would be cross if I wasn't cross."
"Why?"
"Why? An ordinary person wants to meet someone that they know very well for lunch. What do they do?" She explains, still with her voice being raised.
"Well, they probably get in touch and suggest lunch." The Doctor chooses an answer for her.
"Mmm hmm. Okay, so what sort of person would put a cryptic note in, in a newspaper advert?" Clara asks him.
"Well, I would say that that person would be an egomaniac, needy, game-player sort of person." He insults Clara.
"Ah, thank you. Well, at least that hasn't changed." She agrees.
"And I don't suppose it ever will."
"No, I don't suppose it will, either."
"Clara, honestly, I don't want you to change. It was no bother, really. I saw your advert, I figured it out. I'm happy to play your game." The Doctor tells her.
"No. No, no. I didn't place the ad. You placed the ad." Clara points at him, placing him guilty.
"No, I didn't." He replies.
"Yes, you placed the ad, I figured it out. Impossible Girl, see? Lunch." Clara explains
"No, look, the Impossible. That is a message from the Impossible Girl." The Doctor corrects her.
"For the Impossible Girl." Clara corrects him.
"Well, if any of us placed that ad, who placed that ad?" Adam questions both the Doctor and Clara
"Hang on. Egomaniac, needy, game-player?" Clara picks up the insult from before.
"This could be a trap." Adam tells her
"That was me?" Clara still picks up on the insult.
"Never mind that."
"Yes, I am minding that."
"Clara." Adam calls for her.
"You were talking about me?" She reminds the Doctor.
"Clara, what is happening right now in this restaurant to you and me is more important than your egomania." The Doctor scolds her.
"Nothing is more important than my egomania." Clara tells him.
"Right, you actually said that." Adam says.
"You never mention that again." She commands them.
"It's a vanity trap. You're so busy congratulating yourself on solving the puzzle, you don't notice that you're sticking your head in a noose." The Doctor explains.
"What are you doing?" Clara asks as the Doctor pulls a hair from his head.
"And that isn't the only grey one, if you are, er, having a cull." She adds to his conversation.
"What, do you have a problem with the grey ones?" He inquires her answer.
"If I got new hair and it was grey, I would have a problem." She explains to him.
"Yeah, I bet you would." He replies.
"Meaning?"
"It's too short." Adam responds as he pulls a hair from Clara's head.
"Ow." Clara responds
"Sorry, it was the only one out of place. I'm sure that you would want it killed." Adam explains, giving it to the Doctor.
"Ooo. Are you trying to tell me something?" She asks the Doctor.
"I'm trying to measure the air disturbance in the room." He explains to her.
"Right. Moments when you know you are boring." She mummers.
The Doctor holds the hair below the table edge and lets it go. It falls slowly downwards.
"There is something extremely wrong with everybody else in this room." The Doctor gives her the correct answer.
"Mmm. Basically, don't you always think that?" Clara ponders.
"Look at them. Don't look."
"You just said to look."
"Look without looking."
"In the corner of your eye." Adam repeats a previous saying.
"They look fine to me. They're just eating." She explains.
"Are they?" He reminds her.
A soup spoon is repeatedly brought up to the mouth and lowered again, still full, Knives and forks lift and fall over plates.
"Okay, no. No, they're not eating." She gets to the point.
"Something else they're not doing." Adam reminds her as another short grey hair falls to the floor.
"Breathing." The Doctor tells her.
"What do we do?" Clara questions The Doctor for a answer.
"Well, you don't want to eat, do you?"
"Hmm. Slightly lost my appetite. Ahem. How long before they notice that we're different?" Clara inquires.
"Not long." The Doctor explains.
"Anything we can do?" Adam asked him.
"How long can you hold your breath?" The Doctor responded.
"We could just casually stroll out of here, like we've changed our minds."
"Happens all the time."
"Ha. Course it does."
Clara and the Doctor stand. The other diners stop and stand with a clatter of clockwork. They take a step, the diners move towards them.
"We could take another look at the menu." Adam sparks an idea.
So the Doctor and Clara sit down again and the diners return to their tables.
"What are they?" Clara asks.
"I don't know. But don't worry, because that's not the question. The question is, what is this restaurant?" The Doctor replies.
"Okay, what is this restaurant?"
"I don't know."
They look at the small menus. A waiter appears at their table.
"Er, no sausages? Do you? And there's no pictures either. Do you have a children's menu?" The Doctor questions the waiter.
The waiter shines a small green light at the Doctor from the tip of his pencil.
"Any specials?" The Doctor continues.
"Liver." The waiter says.
"I don't like liver." The Doctor responds.
"Spleen. Brain stem. Eyes." The waiter says more organs.
"Mmm. Is there a lot of demand for those?" Adam asks.
"I don't think that's what's on the menu. I think we are the menu." The Doctor tells them.
"Lungs. Skin." The waiter lists even more organs.
"Excuse me." The Doctor says as he reaches up and pulls off the waiter's face. There is a metal mesh beneath with a flame behind it.
"Okay. Robot in a mask." Clara explains.
"It's a face." The Doctor says.
"Yeah, it's very convincing." Clara responds as the Doctor puts it over Clara's face.
"No, it is a face." The Doctor says.
Clara throws it down.
"Yes." The waiter says.
"Yes, what?" The Doctor asks.
"Yes, we have a children's menu." The waiter explains.
Metal arms come out of the back of the bench and hold them tightly around the arms and legs. They are very nice arms, with hands on the end to clasp together firmly. Then the bench descends.
"You've got to admire their efficiency." The Doctor tells Adam and Clara, complementing the robots.
"Is it okay if I don't?" Clara asks.
H"It is Clara." Adam comments.
Clara and The Doctor scream out as they go down. Adam starts to put a bored face on
The interior of the spaceship is a large steampunk circular place, all brass and rivets. There are various people standing still in small alcoves around the wall, and the half-face man is seated in a chair in the centre.
"Hello? Hello, are you the manager? I demand to speak to the manager." The Doctor commands.
"This is not a real restaurant, is it?" Clara asks.
"Well now, it's more a sort of automated organ collection station for the unwary diner." The Doctor explains to her.
"Sweeney Todd without the pies." Adam remarks.
"So where are we now?" Clara asks.
"Factually? An ancient spaceship, probably buried for centuries. Functionally? A larder." The Doctor tells two different ways to her.
"So why hasn't somebody come for us?" Clara asks.
"We're alive." Adam tells her.
"We're alive in a larder." Clara says.
"Exactly. It's cheaper than freezing us." The Doctor explains.
"Okay." Clara realises.
The Doctor has shaken his sonic screwdriver out from under his coat.
"Are you ready?" The Doctor asks Clara.
"Go for it." She responds.
"Don't let it roll away." The Doctor reminds her.
"No." Clara understands.
"We've got one shot at this." Adam explains.
"Next time, make one that doesn't roll." Clara responds.
"Go." The Doctor commands Clara.
The Doctor manages to shake the sonic screwdriver onto the floor near Clara's feet.
"Have you got it?" Adam says.
"I can only just about reach it." She tells him.
"Oh, it's at times like this I miss Amy." The Doctor remarks, mentioning Amy Pond.
"Who?" Clara asks.
"I'll explain later to you." Adam says.
Clara gathers the screwdriver between her feet and aims upwards it at the Doctor.
"Ready?" Clara tells him.
"Don't miss." The Doctor commands.
She flicks it up into his lap. He winces.
"Sorry, did I hit something?" She asks.
"Oh, the symbolism." The Doctor explains.
He gets the screwdriver into his hands and unfastens his and Adam's bonds with it, then Clara's.
"You should make that thing voice-activated. Oh, for God's sake, it is, isn't it?" Clara metions.
"I don't want to talk about it." The Doctor tells her.
"Doctor?" Clara asks.
There is a Chinaman in the nearest alcove.
"Dormant." The Doctor explains to Clara.
"How do you know?" She asks him.
"I don't. I'm just hoping." He answers as they tiptoe away.
"So, is it these guys that killed the dinosaur?" Clara asks.
"Well, if they're harvesting organs, a dinosaur would have some great stuff." The Doctor explains.
"Why would robots need organs? Burke and Hare from space?" Adam ponders.
"No, but that's a good theory. Droids harvesting spare parts. That rings a bell." The Doctor applauds Adam for his theory.
The Doctor then stares at the Half-Face Man in the chair in the middle.
"Captain, my Captain." The Doctor recites a quote.
"Can he see us?" Clara asks.
"Dormant." The Doctor says.
"Hoping?" Clara asks.
"Yep. Oh, look. He's recharging. He's asleep. Doesn't even know we're here." The Doctor explains.
"Are you sure?" Clara asks.
"Sure. Not sure. One or the other." He explains.
"Okay. So, half-man, half-robot. A cyborg, yeah?" Adam mentions.
"Oh." The Doctor says.
"Oh?" Clara gets confused.
"Look at the hands." The Doctor tells her.
"What about them?" Clara asks.
"Look at them." The Doctor repeats.
"I'm looking." Clara tells him.
"They don't match. These hands don't belong to the same body." The Doctor explains the hands.
One of the hands is large and fleshy, a workman's hand. The other is slim and dainty, never scrubbed a floor in its life.
"I don't understand." Clara says.
"Well, I don't blame you. See this, this is not your normal cyborg. This isn't a man turning himself into a robot. This is a robot turning himself into a man, piece by piece." The Doctor tells her.
"That's what the restaurants for." Adam reminds them.
"Well, it would need a constant supply of spare parts. You can tan skin, but organs rot. Some of that metalwork looks Roman. Wonder how long it's been around, how much of the original is even left? The eyeballs look very fresh, though." The Doctor explains.
The arms then start to move. The Doctor, Clara and Adam jump back. The robot takes hold of the chair arms, and clockwork whirrs.
"Is it awake?" Clara whispers.
"It's waking up. I think. Okay, let's go." Adam assures them.
The trio tiptoe away, then run through a doorway into a brightly lit corridor. The Doctor turns back.
"I've seen this before. I'm missing something." The Doctor says.
"Doctor." Clara calls for him.
"It's the brand new head, rebooting." The Doctor explains.
"Come on." Adam starts to call for the Doctor.
"I've seen this before." The Doctor keeps reminding himself.
"Oh, hurry up. Get out." Clara commands him.
Clara returns and pushes the Doctor through the doorway as the Half-Face Man raises his arm and touches his palm. The door comes down between the Doctor, Adam and Clara. He tries to sonic it open.
"Doctor. Quickly." Clara shouts.
The door lifts a short way. The Half-Face Man is unplugging himself from his chair.
"Sorry, too slow. There's no point in them catching us three." The Doctor tells her.
"Well, give me the screwdriver." She asks.
"We might need it." Adam tells her
The Doctor then closes the door fully and leaves her with Adam running with him.
"No. Doctor?" Clara asks.
The Half-Face Man goes to the bench seat, then turns and looks for its occupants. Clara tries standing very still in a recess as the other occupants of the alcoves become active. One man opens the door and stands next to it.
"Something else they're not doing. Breathing. How long can you hold your breath?" The Doctor in Clara's memories tells her.
Clara takes a deep breath and holds it as the Half-Face Man walks towards her. He stops and tilts his head as the gears grind, then turns away. A tear rolls down Clara's face. The other robots move, so she imitates their stilted walk and goes through the open door into the bright passageway. She runs around the corner but just sees more robots waiting and the passage going on and on. Her lungs are bursting, so she takes a breath and falls to her knees. She passes out.
"Bring her." The Half Faced Man commands a other robot.
A bald robot picks her up. Clara dreams about her first day teaching at Coal Hill School. The class were completely out of control and laughing at her.
"All right, stop. Stop. Stop it, all of you, now." She commands in her memory.
"Ha, ha. It's her first day." A boy smirks in her memory.
Out of her dreams, Clara is laid on the ground in front of the Half-Face Man in his chair.
"If you don't stop it, I'm going to have each and every single one of you kicked out of this school." She shouts at them.
A dark girl's face looms.
"Go on, then. Do it."
Then Clara wakes up.
"Where are the other two? Where is they? Where is the others? You will tell us, or you will be destroyed." The Half Faced Man commands Clara.
"What did you say?" Clara asks him.
"You will tell us." The Half Faced Man commands her.
"Yeah, I know. Or what?" She still asks him.
"You will die." He finishes.
"Go on, then. Do it." Clara remembers.
Clara stands.
"Go on, then. Do it. I'm not going to answer any of your questions, so you have to do it. You have to kill me. Threats don't work unless you deliver." Clara tells him.
"You will tell us where the other two is." The Half Faced Man orders her.
"Nope." Clara tells him.
"You will be destroyed." He warns her.
"Destroy me, then. And if you don't, then I'm not going to believe a single threat you make from now on. Of course, if I'm dead, then I can't tell you where the other one went then. You need to keep this place down here a secret, don't you? Never start with your final sanction. You've got nowhere to go but backwards." Clara explains to the Half Faced Man who starts to feel different.
"Humans feel pain." The Half Faced Man realises.
"Ah. Bigger threat to smaller threat. See what I mean? Backwards." She says to him.
"The information can be extracted by means of your suffering." The Half Faced Man warns her.
"Are you trying to scare me? Well, cos I'm already bloody terrified of dying. And I'll endure a lot of pain for a very long time before I give up the information that's keeping me alive. How long have you got?" Clara asks the Half Faced Man.
The clockwork whirs, then the Half-Faced Man stands up.
"All you can offer me is my life. What you can't do is threaten it. You can negotiate."
The Half-Face Man removes his big right hand and clamps it onto his lapel.
"Okay, okay, okay. Okay, yes, yes, yes, I'm crying and it's just because I am very frightened of you. If you know anything about human beings, that means you, you're in a lot trouble." Clara warns the Half Faced Man.
The robot has a flame-thrower where his hand was, ready to go.
"We will not negotiate." The Half Faced Man responds.
"You don't have a choice. I tell you what. I'll answer your questions if you answer mine." Clara warns him.
"We will not answer questions." The Half Faced Man commands her.
"We'll take turns. I'll go first. Why did you kill the dinosaur?" Clara asks him.
"We will not answer questions." The Half Faced Man repeats.
"Why'd you kill the dinosaur?" She asks the Half Faced Man
"We will not answer questions!" The Half Faced Man roars back.
"Then you might as well kill me, because I'm not talking again till you do." Clara tells him.
"Within the optic nerve of the dinosaur is material of use to our computer systems." The Half Faced Man explains.
"You burned a whole dinosaur for a spare part? No. No, hang on. You know what's in a dinosaur's optic nerve, which means you've seen them before." She figures out.
"Where is the other two?" The Half Faced Man asks.
"How long have you been rebuilding yourselves? Look at the state of you. Is there any real you left? What's the point?" Clara inquires.
"We will reach the promised land." The Half Faced Man promises.
"The what? The promised land? What's that?" Clara asks him.
"Where is the other two?" The Half Faced Man repeats.
"I don't know. But I know where he will be. Where he will always be. If the Doctor is still the Doctor, he will have my back." Clara tells him.
Clara reaches behind her.
"I'm right, aren't I? Go on. Please, please, go on, say I'm right." She says.
A hand grabs hers and pulls her back. Then the bald robot removes the skin from his face. The Chinese robot does the same. They reveal to be the Doctor and Adam.
"Ah. Hello, hello, rubbish robots from the dawn of time. Thank you for all the gratuitous information. Five foot one and crying. You never stood a chance. Stop it." The Doctor explains as he looks around the interior of the spaceship then onto describe Clara.
The Doctor pulls the flame-thrower arm down and puts his sonic screwdriver into the recharger in the chair. The lights go out.
"This is your power source. And feeble though it is, I can use it to blow this whole room if I see one thing that I don't like. And that includes karaoke and mime, so take no chances. See, Clara? That's how you disguise yourself as a droid." The Doctor then continues to explain and then warns the robots.
"Yeah, well, I didn't have a lot of time. I'd been suddenly abandoned." Clara shouts.
"Yeah, sorry. Well no, actually, I'm not. You're brilliant on adrenaline. And you were out of your depth, sir. Never try and control a control freak." The Doctor compliments Clara.
"I am not a control freak!" Clara whines.
"Yes, ma'am." Adam follows.
"Why are you here?" The Half Faced Man asks him.
"Why did you invite us? The message, in the paper. That was you, wasn't it? Oh." The Doctor ponders the newspaper.
He takes back his screwdriver.
"I hate being wrong in public. Everybody forget that happened. Clara, say the word." The Doctor tells the robots before commanding Clara.
"What word?" She asks.
"They never sent you in here without a word." The Doctor reminds her.
"I don't want to say it." Clara tells him.
"I've guessed already." Adam comments.
Clara touches her top button, which glows bright blue.
"Geronimo." The trio say in unison.
Two ladies in tight leather catsuits descend from the ceiling by means of long pieces of fabric wrapped around their waists, then pull large swords from the scabbard on their backs.
"Remain still, and lay down your weapons in the name of the British Empire." Vastra commands.
"Argh." Strax screams.
Their short but robust companion didn't have fabric long enough. He just falls to the floor with his great gun.
"Strax." Vastra says to him.
"Sorry." Strax apoligizes.
"I've told you before. Take the stairs." Jenny tells him.
"Oh, look. The cavalry." Adam remarks.
"I burned an ancient, beautiful creature for one inch of optic nerve. What do you think you can accomplish, little man?" The Half Faced Man asks.
"What do you?" The Doctor asks then shouts "Vastra!"
Vastra blocks the flame-thrower with her sword.
"The establishment upstairs has been disabled with maximum prejudice, and the authorities summoned." Vastra explains.
"Hang on, she called the police? We never do that. We should start." Clara comments.
"You see? Destroy us if you will, they're still going to close your restaurant. That was going to sound better." Adam warns the Half Faced Man.
"Then we will destroy you." The Half Faced Man tells him.
All the robots have swords for arms.
"No, you won't. You're logical. You have restraint. You killed to survive. You're not a murderer." The Doctor says.
"He's not a what? This is a slaughterhouse." Clara says.
"And how does that make it different from any other restaurant? You weren't vegetarian the last time I checked. This is over. Killing us won't change that. What would be the point?" The Doctor asks him.
"To find the promised land." The Half Faced Man mentions again.
"You're millions of years old. It's time you knew, there isn't one." Adam says to him.
"I am in search of paradise." The Half Faced Man says.
"Yeah, well, me too. I'm not going to make it either." The Doctor tells him.
The Half-Face Man knocks Adam down.
"Adam!" Clara shouts.
"I will leave in the escape capsule. Destroy where necessary." The Half Faced Man explains.
"Escape capsule? This ship is millions of years old. It'll never fly." Vastra comments.
"It has been repaired." The Half Faced Man explains.
"What with?" Clara asks him.
"You." He responds.
"Defensive positions, everyone." Strax orders.
"Doctor. Adam. He's getting away." Clara points out.
The Half-Face Man goes up on the bench seat while the rest of the robots encircle our heroes.
"Your friend is intelligent. He'll know better than to follow me." The Half Faced Man remarks.
The Doctor is holding on to a convenient brass handle on the underside of the seat, Adam is holding on beside him.
Outside the restaurant, Gregson has brought two uniformed policemen with him.
"Right, here we are. This is the place. Come with me." He orders the other two as he goes inside.
Inside the restaurant, there is overturned tables and deactivated robots.
"Dear Lord, what has she landed us with this time?" Gregson asks himself.
The Half-Face Man arrives on the bench seat and stands up.
"The restaurant is closed." The Half Faced Man tells them, scaring the policemen away from inside the restaurant.
"Keep everyone out. No one goes in there." Gregson orders once he is outside.
The Doctor pours three glasses of whiskey.
"What are you doing?" The Half Faced Man asks.
"I've got the horrible feeling I'm going to have to kill you. I thought you might appreciate a drink first. I know I would." The Doctor explains.
The Half-Face Man turns back to the control panel in the wall and pulls down a small lever. There is a grinding sound. Meanwhile, outside the restaurant, the roof opens. Back in the interior.
"Fifty first century, right? Time travelling spaceship crashed in the past. You're trying to get home the long way round." The Doctor explains.
"I go to the promised land." The Half Faced Man says.
"So you keep saying. Okay, so your restaurant is made out of your old ship. But you're wasting your time. It can't ever fly." Adam tells him.
The Doctor picks up a posy that had been on a table.
"The escape pod is viable." The Half Faced Man comments.
"How? You can't patch up a spaceship with human remains. You know, this really is ringing a bell." The Doctor says.
The room shakes.
"Okay, that's clever. How are you powering it?" He asks.
"Skin." The Half Faced Man replies.
Outside, A giant pink balloon rises out of the building.
"Get to the station. We need more men." Gregson orders.
"What shall I tell them is happening?" One of the policemen asks.
"Go!" Gregson shouts at him.
In the basement, Vastra and the rest of the Paternoster Gang with Clara included are still trying to fight the robots.
"How many do you estimate, my dear?" Vastra asks.
"More than upstairs. About twenty, thirty?" Jenny responds.
"The ones upstairs were mere decoys. These are battle ready. I anticipate a challenge." Vastra explains.
"Don't worry, my boy, we shall die in glory." Strax applauds.
"Okay. Good-o." Clara comments.
The escape pod upstairs is the main room of the restaurant, carried aloft by the pink balloon. The Doctor removes a fuse from the board and reads the inscription.
"SS Marie Antoinette. Out of control repair droids cannibalising human beings. I know that this is familiar, but I just can't seem to place it." The Doctor explains as he reads the fuse from the board.
"How would you kill him?" Adam asks The Doctor.
"Sister ship of the Madame De Pompadour. No, not getting it." The Doctor reads the smaller print as he still does not guess the reference to an earlier Steven Moffatt story.
He then sniffs the posy then throws it aside.
"How would you kill me?" The Half Faced Man asks.
"Why don't you have a drink first? It's only human." The Doctor requests.
"I am not human." The Half Faced Man says.
"Neither am we." Adam tells him.
Inside the interior of the spaceship with the robots.
"Why can't you stay dead, coward?" Strax shouts.
The robots keep getting back up.
The balloon and its gondola float over Saint Pauls Cathedral.
"What do you think of the view?" Adam asks The Half Faced Man.
"I do not think of it." The robot explains.
"I don't think of it. I don't. Droids and apostrophes, I could write a book. Except you are barely a droid any more. There's more human in you than machine. So tell me, what do you think of the view?" The Doctor explains as he then repeats Adam's question.
The Half-Face Man gets up and draws back the net curtain. They are heading towards Westminster.
"It is beautiful." The Half Faced Man flatters.
"No, it isn't. It's just far away. Everything looks too small. I prefer it down there. Everything is huge. Everything is so important. Every detail, every moment, every life clung to." The Doctor tells him.
"How could you kill me?" The Half Faced Man repeats his question.
"For the same reason that you're asking me that question, because you don't really want to carry on. What'll happen to the other droids when you die? You're the control node, aren't you? Presumably they'll deactivate." The Doctor explains.
"I will not die. I will reach the promised land." The Half Faced Man mentions again
"There isn't any promised land. This is just. It's a superstition that you have picked up from all the humanity you've stuffed inside yourself." The Doctor tells him.
"I am not dead." The droid dismisses it.
"You are a broom. Question. You take a broom, you replace the handle, and then later you replace the brush, and you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer? No, of course it isn't. But you can still sweep the floor. Which is not strictly relevant, skip that last part. You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There's not a trace of the original you left. You probably can't even remember where you got that face from." The Doctor explains to him.
The Doctor holds up a silver plate between himself and the Half-Face Man. The droid takes it, looks carefully, and then drops it. He then grabs knifes from the tables as Adam stands back. He throws them as they hit Adam's hands, making him start to bleed. Adam falls to the floor.
"It cannot end." The Half Faced Man tells him.
"It has to. You know it does. And there's only one way out." The Doctor says to him.
The Doctor opens the doors.
"Self-destruction is against my basic programme." The Half Faced Man explains.
"And murder is against mine." The Doctor tells him as they struggle in the doorway.
Downstairs, the women's arms are held firmly by the droids, and Vastra's sword is forced from her hands.
"Jenny!" Vastra shouts for her wife.
Sword points are at everyone's throats.
"Hold your breath. They're stupid. Everybody hold their breath." Clara orders.
They do. The droids pause then lower their weapons. Clara picks up the sonic screwdriver and crawls through the droid's legs on her hands and knees.
"Be brave, my love. I can store oxygen in my lungs. Share with me." Vastra says to Jenny in her mind.
Vastra and Jenny lock lips. Clara sonicks the door. Upstairs, the Doctor and The Half Faced Man battle while Adam takes care of himself.
"You are stronger than you look." The Half Faced Man comments.
"And I'm hoping you are too. This is over. Are you capable of admitting that?" The Doctor asks.
"Do you have it in you to murder me?" The Half Faced Man says.
"Those people down there. They're never small to me. Don't make assumptions about how far I will go to protect them, because I've already come a very long way. And unlike you, I don't expect to reach the promised land." The Doctor explains.
The Half-Face Man turns off his flame thrower. They release each other.
"You realise, of course, one of us is lying about our basic programming." The Doctor says to him.
"Yes." The Half Faced Man responds.
"And I think we both know who that is."
Downstairs, Strax is about to fire his weapon before he passes out.
"Stop." Vastra shouts
They all breathe. Clara can't get the screwdriver to work for her. As the sword tips are about to pierce their skin, the droids suddenly bend forward at the waist, deactivated. Jenny faints. A top hat falls past a giant clock face at twenty five past one. A droid is impaled on the cross at the top of the tower. The Doctor looks straight at us. Clara runs up the stairs as she comes to the upstairs and see's Adam in trouble.
"DOCTOR!" Adam shouts. The Doctor runs over to him.
"It looks like you were stabbed. Can you do something?" Clara asks The Doctor.
"Yeah, I'm doing it now. Time Lords have this little trick, it's sort of a way of cheating death. Except it means I'm going to change, and I'm not going to see you again. Not like this. Not with this daft old face. And before I go, I just want to tell you Clara. Be magnificent." Adam says to her, as the regeneration energy starts. "Now, stand back."
Clara and The Doctor do what Adam says, he sheds a tear and jolts his head back with his arms glowing in the light. It was violent enough to blind someone's eyes and then it stopped as Adam stepped forwards. He looked 31 now, 15 years younger. He looked like a boyfriend to Clara. His hair was back to brown again.
"What is the hair colour? New voice!" The newly regenerated Adam spoke.
"Brown, like mine." Clara commented, she smiled.
Later, Strax drives the women home in the carriage.
"You're sure he'd come back here?" Jenny asks.
"There's no trace of him in the wreckage. They searched all Parliament Hill. Where else would he go?" Vastra explains.
There is a square space in the straw where the Tardis had been stood.
"I fear we have missed him."
Back in Vastra's chamber.
"Please come in." Vastra greets Clara who is back in her mini-kilt.
"I'm not interrupting?" She asks.
"I should be glad of your company. What can I do for you?" Vastra says to her.
"Ah, well, that's exactly what I was going to ask you. Seems like I'm stuck here now. Got a vacancy?"
"You would be very welcome to join our little household, but I have it on the highest authority that the Doctor will be returning for you very soon."
"Whose authority?" Clara asks.
"Well, the person who knows him best in all the universe." Vastra comments.
"And who's that?"
"Miss Clara Oswald. Who perhaps has, by instinct, already dressed to leave."
"I just wanted a change of clothes. I don't think I know who the Doctor is any more."
They hear the sound of an ancient set of time rotors outside.
"It would seem, my dear, you are very wrong about that. Clara? Give him hell. He'll always need it." Vastra tells Clara.
Clara gets outside and walks towards the old blue box, the dinosaur sputum has gone from the outside.
"You've redecorated." Clara remarks. "I don't like it."
Nice straight-forward console, a frieze of roundels on the wall and a high-backed chair for the Doctor. There is even a bookcase.
"Not completely entirely convinced myself. I think there should be more round things on the walls. I used to have lots of round things. I wonder where I put them? I'm the Doctor. I've lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time that I did something about that. Clara, I'm not your boyfriend." The Doctor explains.
"I never thought you were." She says.
"I never said it was your mistake." The Doctor tells her
He sets the Tardis flying then shows off the red silk lining of his dark blue Crombie coat.
"What do you think?" Adam inquires.
"Who put that advert in the paper?" Clara asks.
"Who gave you my number? A long time ago, remember? You were given the number of a computer helpline, and you ended up phoning the Tardis. Who gave you that number?" The Doctor interrogates her.
"The woman. The woman in the shop." She mentions again
"Then there's a woman out there who's very keen that we stay together." The Doctor says.
The Tardis lands.
"How do you feel on the subject?" The Doctor asks her.
"Am I home?"
"If you want to be."
"I'm sorry. I'm, I'm so, so sorry. But I don't think I know who you two are any more."
Her mobile phone rings.
"You'd better get that. It might be your boyfriend." Adam remarks.
"Shut up. I don't have a boyfriend." Clara reminds him.
Clara goes outside to answer the call.
"Hello? Hello?" Clara asks the caller.
"It's me." A male voice breathes.
"Yes, it's you. Who's this?" Clara asks him.
"It's me, Clara. The Doctor." The voice introduces himself.
"What do you mean, the Doctor?" She questions him.
"I'm phoning you from Trenzalore. From before I changed. I mean it's all still to happen for me. It's coming. Oh, it's a-coming." The Doctor explains the near coming events.
Back then, Clara replaced the Tardis police phone back on its hook.
"Not long now. I can feel it." He whimpers.
"Why? Why would you do this?" She asks.
"Because I think it's going to be a whopper, and I think you might be scared. And however scared you are, Clara, the man you are with right now, the man I hope you are with, believe me, he is more scared than anything you can imagine right now and he, he needs you." The Eleventh Doctor explains.
"So who is it?" The Twelfth Doctor asks.
"Is that the Doctor?" The Eleventh on the phone also asks.
"Is that the Doctor?" The Twelfth repeats his predecessors words, like he is talking again.
"Yes."
"He sounds old. Please tell me I didn't get old. Anything but old. I was young. Oh, is he grey?" The Eleventh inquires.
"Yes."
"Clara, please, hey, for me, help him. Go on. And don't be afraid. Goodbye, Clara. Miss ya." The Eleventh Doctor ends his phone call.
Clara is sniffling in the street.
"Well?" Adam says.
"Well what?"
"He asked you a question. Will you help me?"
"You shouldn't have been listening."
"I wasn't. I didn't need to. That was me talking. You can't see me, can you? You look at me, and you can't see me. Have you any idea what that's like? I'm not on the phone, I'm right here, standing in front of you. Please, just, just see me." The Doctor explains and asks.
Clara walks forward and studies his face carefully. Then she smiles a little.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"Phoning."
She throws her arms around his neck.
"This isn't my home, by the way." She explains.
She lets go.
"Sorry. I'm sorry about that. I missed." The Doctor says.
"Where are we?"
"Glasgow, I think." Adam inspects.
"Ah. You'll fit right in." Clara responds.
"Right. Shall we, er. Do you want to go and get some coffee, or chips, or something? Or chips and coffee?" He asks.
"Coffee. Coffee would be great. You're buying." She tells him.
"I don't have any money." He says.
"You're fetching, then." Clara tells The Doctor
"I'm not sure that I'm the fetching sort."
"Yeah, still not sure you get a vote." Clara tells him.
"Clara?" Adam shouts.
"Yep?" Clara responds.
"Can I work at your school?" He asks.
Then the realization hits her. A Time Lord working at her school?
A/N – And that is Deep Breath, done and dusted. So! Adam regenerates and yes, I planned this since August. So! He's played by Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man.) in the eight incarnation. Also, I wanted him to work at the school because of some certain episode. The Caretaker. He's a history teacher not a science one. Why? Because I think History teachers are terrifying!
Just to remind you guys for later on… Adam is not going to be in Time Heist or a possible Mummy on the Orient Express. Time Heist is because… Adam needs a break off the Tardis and Mummy is a strange episode for him.
Anyways, final words! WE'RE GOING TO GET A GIANT CROSSOVER for 400, 000 words achieved now! The last time I achieved this kind of thing was back in March!
See you guys soon!
BattleOfDuty.
13th November, 2014