Clara shrieked, as she stumbled, and the Doctor grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. Then ducked, to avoid a blast from a laser pistol.
"Does every trip have to involve people shooting at us?" Clara cried, as they began sprinting, again.
"What? No!" The Doctor fished around in his pocket, for the TARDIS key, as the blue box came into sight, ahead of them. "Most of my trips are cool!"
He fitted the key into the lock, Clara jumping out of the way of the next blast of firepower, as the Doctor opened the door for Clara, who raced inside.
But… the Doctor, paused, just for a second.
Licked his index finger, then held it up in the air. "Curious…"
"Doctor!" Clara shouted. Grabbing him by his jacket and dragging him into the ship, just before the next laser blast hit him. "Get in!"
The Doctor found himself a tangle of limbs and Clara, on the TARDIS floor, as they both fell inside and the doors snapped shut.
"Very curious," the Doctor said, his face still bent in a frown — as if Clara had never interrupted him. He looked down at the index finger he had licked. The frown deepening. "And very wrong."
The sound of lasers hitting the outside of the ship reverberated through the console room.
"Doctor!" Clara hissed, getting him up off the ground.
The Doctor blinked. Snapping out of his reverie. "Yes? Oh, right!" He lunged for the central console. "The escape!"
The TARDIS engines roared into life, as Clara tried to catch her breath from their last sprint-for-their-lives. The Doctor, as if the bit with his index finger had never happened, began chatting happily about the whole ordeal.
"That's the thing about nasty dictators," the Doctor was explaining, while dancing around the console and choosing where to go next. "They're bullies. Moment they realize you've overthrown them and made them powerless, they start chasing you down with guns." He flipped three switches, with a flourish. "Now! Iced cream!"
Clara managed to stop gasping for air long enough to shoot him a look. "Iced cream?"
"Planet Gilmaw, 94th century!" the Doctor agreed. "Best iced cream you'll ever taste. And no guns. How about that?"
His cheery disposition flickered for just a hint. Then, suddenly, going back to normal.
"Is this you trying to ask me on a date, chin-boy?" Clara asked.
"What?" the Doctor looked up, flustered. "No! I just…"
He noticed the mischievous look in her eye, and realized she was teasing.
"Oh, shut up," the Doctor muttered, slamming them into materialization.
"…of course, the peppermint's the best," the Doctor was explaining, as he opened the doors and stepped out of the ship. He looked back over his shoulder, at his companion. "Oh, except if you want to be adventurous, and try Gazonga Swirl." He licked his index finger, and held it up in the air, again. "Now. That isn't what I expected—"
"Doctor?" Clara interrupted.
Pointing at the landscape beyond the doors.
The Doctor turned back around. Then froze. And stared.
All around him, where he knew there should be a vibrant marketplace, he saw only ruins. Dust. Debris. Not a single sign that life had been present for many, many years.
"Ah," said the Doctor. Looking back at his index finger, then at the landscape around him. "That explains it."
"Explains what?" Clara asked. "Did you land us in the wrong time and place, again?"
The Doctor pointed at any enormous ruined stone fountain, dominating the center of the marketplace. "The Great Fountain of Gilmaw," he said. "Can't miss it. Fountain jets used to shoot up higher than any other fountain in the universe. One of the wonders of the galaxy." He threaded his fingers together. "No, this is Gilmaw. And the air tastes like the 94th century."
"Tastes like…?"
The Doctor spun back around, and raced into the TARDIS.
Clara running after him, the doors shutting behind her, as the Doctor launched them back into the vortex.
And then landed, again.
Popping his head out the doors.
"Just what I thought," the Doctor said. Opening the doors a little wider, so Clara could see. "The collapse of an artificial time façade."
"An artificial time… what?" Clara looked out the doors.
And stared.
The rubble and ruin she saw, out the doors — no sign of anyone alive — was the exact same planet they'd just left, after toppling that dictator and running away from a bunch of gun-toting guards.
"What happened, between when we left and…?" Clara asked.
"Nothing," said the Doctor. "We landed one second after we left this planet." He gestured outside. "But… as you can see… it's been in a state of ruin for at least a century."
Clara shook her head. "How's that possible?"
The Doctor turned to run back into his TARDIS. "I said — the collapse of an artificial time façade." He pulled a lever, and checked a readout on the scanner. "I sensed the façade, just before we hit the TARDIS, when we were running from those nasty guns. But now… seems whatever was generating it has been destroyed." He waved at the doors. "This is what the planet really looks like."
"But why?" said Clara. "What destroyed it? Was it those Firgo Terrorists?"
The Doctor tapped something into the TARDIS, checked the scanner screen. Shook his head.
"Nothing," he told Clara. Glanced over at her. "This planet was just… destroyed. For no reason."
The look on his face made Clara shudder.
"Oh, but it gets worse." The Doctor threw the TARDIS into motion, again, and — seconds later — landed on another planet.
Stuck his head out the door.
"Dead," the Doctor said, looking at the lifeless ruins around him. The overgrown weeds all across the crumbling city. "Nothing. No life."
Clara stuck her head out the door, too.
"And no reason why this one was destroyed, either," the Doctor said. "Or no central cause that might help us, at any rate."
"That doesn't make sense," Clara said.
The Doctor sprinted back to the central console. Kept plugging in planets in the distant future — planets he knew should still be there! Planets from all across the universe! And every single time he checked…
"No life," the Doctor cried, on his tenth destroyed world. "No nothing."
Clara stood beside him, in the middle of the desolation.
"But… that's not supposed to happen, right?" Clara guessed. "This many planets don't just… disappear or become lifeless for no reason."
"No, it's not," the Doctor agreed. He brushed his floppy brown hair out of his eyes. "Something must have happened, in the past, to change the history of the universe. Drastically." He poked at some more buttons on the console. "And whatever happened… it's destroyed the future."
"But what kind of disaster could destroy half a universe?" Clara asked, as the Doctor raced around the central console. "And wipe out life in a lot of the rest of it!"
"Something big," the Doctor guessed, flipping at switches and poking at buttons. "Something huge!" He spun around, then pressed some more buttons on the panel behind him. "A great big gigantic something that made a whole bunch of others somethings either happen or not happen — depending on your point of view."
"You don't know, do you?" Clara guessed.
The Doctor didn't answer.
Clara cringed, as a nasty thought entered her head. She stepped forwards, grabbed the Doctor's hand. "This… isn't because of us, is it?"
The Doctor looked up at her.
"Well… we did a big thing, right?" Clara prompted. "With… Gallifrey?"
The Doctor's eyes went dark. And he yanked his hand away.
"No," he insisted, turning away from her. "Couldn't be. They… they'd be peaceful, this time around. No more Final Sanction or…"
He trailed off.
His face growing more and more worried, by the second.
Then he pasted a smile on, and returned to the central console. "Right! Time to take you home! End of the adventure!"
"What?" Clara cried. She put her hands on her hips. "You can't just leave me behind."
The Doctor didn't answer.
"If this is about Gallifrey, it's as much my fault as it is yours!" Clara insisted. "I want to help!"
"It's nothing to do with Gallifrey," the Doctor dismissed. He waved her suspicions away with his hand. "If the Time Lords had done this, the destruction would have looked completely different. Believe you me!"
The TARDIS materialized outside of Clara's house.
"Which means I have to go off and do all the boring research bits," the Doctor continued, running over to open the door for her. "And I know you'd hate that. I'll be back and pick you up when we get to the good part."
Clara hesitated.
"I'm not just leaving you behind," the Doctor insisted. "Really! Be back in two shakes."
Clara finally gave in. Figured — from the baffled look on his face — that he really didn't think this was because of Gallifrey. And really did need to do research to figure out where and when this was.
"Two shakes," Clara reminded him, as she left. "I'm holding you to that!"
The Doctor waited until Clara departed the TARDIS.
Then raced back to the central console, dematerialized, and began typing furiously. Trying to get a pinpoint on where, exactly, everything in history had begun to go wrong.
"Ariffildos," the Doctor read off the scanner. "On the 8th of Waget, 983 — according to the Veringan chronology. Which no one in their right mind can figure out how to use." He grinned to himself. "32nd year of the reign of my good friend, King Bob! Hope he remembers me."
He programmed the coordinates into his TARDIS.
Then pulled the materialization lever.
"Time to work out what changed history!" the Doctor announced.