Gravity Well
A Story of the Doctor and His Companion, Clara Oswald
Prologue
Arrivals were always a noisy affair. What with the atmosphere shrieking around super-heated metal sounding more powerful than the worst storm on the most storm-ravaged planet, and the inevitable tooth-aching sonic boom that followed, it was the sound of a billion billion souls screaming in damned torment – if one's imagination went in that direction.
Served up alongside the entry-sounds was a tremendous shuddering blow upon the earth that shook the entire continent and, a moment later, a thunderous roaring detonation of the arriving ship impacting against the ground.
An elderly man, partly balding and white of hair where it still clung desperately – shaped somewhere between portly and simply fat – held a paintbrush in his unsteady hand. He shook his head slowly, before apparently addressing the air around him.
"Well, my dear, any transmissions before impact?"
A sharp tone came from high above, and to the old man's left a panel flickered to life.
It was a view screen – old, cracked, and more than a little dusty. There had been some time since the last arrival, and the old man wasn't much of a housekeeper. He pulled out a pair of round spectacles and squinted at the screen.
"Feh. Dalek distress call. All that fuss and bother for another bloody Dalek ship."
The fact that the Daleks were a genocidal, insane species of alien that wanted to destroy all forms of life that were not like them was just an irritation at this point. He'd have to stop painting to take care of any possible survivors, or he'd be up to his armpits in their metallic screams of rage. Again.
"Bother and damnation. Can't just one bloody member of my own species wander along? Just one?" he complained to the world at large as he pushed himself to his feet. The world gave no answer, and the nearby view screen went dark.
The old man put down his paintbrush with a soft sigh of exasperation and took a moment to look over the damage wrought upon his creation. A thick slash of crimson ran from one corner up, diagonally through a field of red grass and a beautiful twin-sunned amber sky. Ruined.
"Well, that's another Gallifrey destroyed." he grumbled.
Chapter One
Clara Oswald was getting good at recognizing the sounds that the TARDIS made, and a close approximation of what they meant. For example, the wheezing and groaning sound that had become just white noise in the background indicated that the craft was in-flight. There were a miscellany of chirps and blips and sproings and the occasional dong that indicated that attention was needed in one place or another, and of course there was the cloister bell – a deep chime of deeply ominous portent that signified dire events and dangers.
Right now, along with the sound of bring in flight, a series of little pings indicated that the TARDIS was following the wake of another ship through the time vortex – by its own choice, rather than any sort of decision from its occupants.
Yes, even if she was still less than adroit at actually piloting the TARDIS, Clara was becoming more and more adept at knowing how things worked on the time traveling blue police box. This was probably a good thing, considering that the other occupant of the craft seemed almost completely ignorant about it – and willfully disinterested in remembering how to fly the thing.
The TARDIS itself – or herself, Clara corrected inwardly – seemed (for lack of a better word) petulant about the whole thing. The interior lights were never as bright as they used to be, the controls sticky and the thingamy that went up and down in the middle of the console was sluggish and almost apathetic. What was it called again? Clara turned to the Doctor, who was leaning against a railing giving his attention to the thick book in his hands rather than where the TARDIS was going.
"Doctor, the thingamy that goes up and down in the middle of the console – what's its name?" she asked. She'd remember eventually, but over the past few weeks Clara had been trying to draw the Doctor's interest into his home and traveling craft, only to be repeatedly shot down with almost aggressive apathy.
"I don't know, just call it the up and down thingamy." The Doctor muttered, eyes not looking up from his book. Clara, in an attempt to remain even tempered with her Time Lord traveling companion, refrained from throwing something at the man. Instead, she flipped a toggle on the console that made the TARDIS shudder in complaint. This drew the Doctor's eyes to her momentarily.
"You need more practice." he said to her. "It's like you're piloting a whale."
The TARDIS gave a secondary shudder – this time all on her own, objecting to the comparison. Clara seized upon the Doctor's distraction from his book to approach him.
"You could just remember how to fly her yourself." she reminded him. "Instead of standing about being cranky and reading...what's this one?" Clara turned the book in the Doctor's thin hands and looked at the title. "A History of the Egg. Volume seven."
"I'm busy." the Doctor said shortly. "Anyway, you're passing close to competence, so why should I?"
"Because! You're the Doctor! It's your TARDIS! The Doctor and the TARDIS! It's like peaches and cream or peanut butter and bananas or...or..." Clara groped around for another comparison.
"Fish fingers and custard?" suggested the Doctor. His thin face twisted into a disdainful sneer.
That was an expression he'd worn more than once over the past weeks since his regeneration. It was one that would have been very out of place on his old face – the one with the wide chin, floppy hair and eyes that sparkled with childlike mischief – but seemed quite comfortable and at home on this new one.
Clara was quite aware of certain quirks about Time Lord physiology such as when one body had taken sufficient damage or, well, died, it would renew itself in what was called a regeneration – every cell, every atom of the Doctor's body would refresh and renew itself. The results, for the most part, ended up having a completely different look and – as she was continuously being reminded by the Doctor's abrasive attitude – a wholly different set of personality traits.
The Doctor – her Doctor, the one that she'd dived head first into pure and raw time energy to save – had been fun and funny, gentle and playful. Certainly, he had a righteous tantrum every so often, and made decisions that seemed morally questionable to her at the time, but the man himself was kinder. Nicer. This new face, this new body and new Doctor was, well, more than a little abrasive.
Still, he hadn't told her to leave. That was good, right? The Doctor hadn't punted her out of the TARDIS to go swanning off by himself or, worse, with someone else. He'd allowed her to stay. True, he hadn't actually asked her to stay either – the topic had very carefully been avoided, and Clara was more than a little worried about what the response would have been.
Clara noticed that the Doctor's eyes – cold eyes, hard and angry – were still on her. She took a breath and tried again.
"Look, I get it – you died and are in a new body." Clara began, "That ought to tick off practically anyone. But you're alive, Doctor! Embrace life! Show an interest in more than useless books! You have a whole library of Gallifreyan-"
"Embrace life!" the Doctor exploded, his voice a roar in her ears. The book hit the floor as he advanced upon Clara, causing her the need to step back several paces. Anger boiled from the Time Lord. "Spare me your inept human psychology! I've been embracing life for hundreds of years!"
"Well then you should be pretty good at it then!" Clara shot back, frustrated.
The Doctor, realizing that his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, shook his head sharply and let out a heavy breath. The pair eyed each other for a few long moments before the Doctor spoke again.
"Do you know how old I am?" he asked, voice low and serious.
"Sure. Well, approximately. Around fifteen hundred or so." She'd experienced every one of them, when she had been lost and falling through time. Sometimes she even remembered bits of it. Blurred, dark memories that weren't hers.
"Close enough." The Doctor hissed, "And do you know what that is, to me? To a Time Lord?"
"A jolly good run?" Clara asked weakly.
"You know nothing." The Doctor snarled. "Nothing."
"Then enlighten me!"
"My species is a secretive one." The Doctor said to her, still not breaking eye contact. "We hoard secrets like dragons keep gold. When asked a question about ourselves, we deflect or ignore it or often downright lie about it. But you...you..."
At this point, the Doctor looked incredibly frail, still angry but so...lost at the same time.
"You, Clara Osgood-"
"Oswald." Clara corrected absently, "or Oswin, if you want to - "
"You, Clara, ferret out my secrets one by one. You poke and pry and find your way into my library no matter how many times I hide it." The Doctor's voice was rising again, eyes starting to bulge. "You, in collusion with this...TARDIS, are going where you are not wanted."
"Doctor, if you don't want me to - " Clara began, but was cut off again.
"I've said that middle age for a Time Lord is in the seven hundreds. I think." The Doctor paused. "I lied. I do that."
"Well, fine." Clara shrugged. She was used to it, and generally found out the truth through midnight wanderings with the help of the TARDIS and her ever-shifting interior.
"A Time Lord has thirteen lives. Twelve regenerations. And I lost them all."
"Right, but the Time Lords gave you a whole new set. You're in factory condition again!" Except, Clara thought, for the attitude. That needed a warranty return.
"You're missing the point, " The Doctor growled. "But I'm not surprised. So limited. So small."
"So rude. So bitter." Clara shot back. "Not trying to keep friends this time round?"
"By the time one of my kind reaches their last regeneration, they can have lived thousands and thousands of years. We age differently – each body has its own rate of decay – and if it wasn't for the Time War, you would see Time Lords passing naturally into their fifth or sixth millennia before they run out of lives."
"Then, of course, if they had earned in some way the benevolence of the Council, they could be given a whole new set of regenerations, and continue on essentially as long as they wanted or needed to."
"Like they did to you." Clara repeated. "They gave you new regenerations."
"So early. So bloody early." The Doctor seemed torn between anger and regret. "I've thrown away so many lives, so many times. Over and over again, injured to the point of death, everything jumbled back in together and spat out anew to face the universe. Want to know why?"
"Because you're a good man." Clara offered. "Mostly."
"Because of THAT!" The Doctor pointed a long, thin finger at the TARDIS console. "So many lives, so many futures wasted because THAT took me into danger, time and time again. And do you know what that makes me, Clara Oswald?"
"What?" Clara asked, her mind thinking furiously. He blamed the TARDIS?
"I'm not a Time Lord." he said simply, shaking his head. "Time is the lord of me. And it keeps running out."
"Doctor, I - " Clara wanted to argue, but her gaze was still following the Doctor's finger and she noticed that the time rotor (Yes! That's what it was called! Clara thought.) had stopped moving. The lights still shone their wan illumination over the console room, but all movement from the time rotor had ceased. The familiar wheeze of travel had also vanished, during the argument. They had stopped.
"We've stopped." Clara said, unnecessarily.
"Yes? And?" The Doctor scowled again. "We were having a talk. That is, I was talking and you were supposed to be listening."
"But we've stopped, Doctor. In space."
"How do you know we're still in space?"
"No ca-chunk." Clara said, waving a hand vaguely. Even if she hadn't been paying attention at the time, she knew the TARDIS sounds. Arrival somewhere solid ended with a ca-chunk sound.
"No...ca-chunk." The Doctor echoed, shaking his head. "A technical term I obviously don't want to become familiar with."
Clara ignored the remark, and approached the TARDIS console. She peered at the small viewscreen and frowned in confusion.
"Unhelpful." She muttered, addressing the console itself. "One day you have to stop displaying things in Gallifreyan, sweetie. Or someone could get around to teaching me how to read it."
"Never in a million years." snapped the Doctor.
"Then get your skinny bum over here and tell me what this says." she poked at the screen. "You may not want to remember how to fly her, but you can still be of use."
The Doctor bristled at this comment, but strode forward. Muttering under his breath about being more use than a girl in a horrible cardigan, he ran his eyes over the viewscreen. Then he read it a second time.
"Well?" Clara asked.
"It's malfunctioning." the Doctor said shortly.
"Why do you say that?"
"Why are we here?" The Doctor countered.
"Well, the TARDIS was following another ship through the time vortex." Clara explained. "I'm not sure why."
"What kind of ship?"
"If you'd been paying attention..."
"Clara, what kind of ship?"
"I don't know. Just a ship! What am I, a volume of Jane's Time Machines?"
"Your ignorance is dangerous!" snapped the Doctor.
"Too bad, we're here now. So why is the screen telling you impossible things?"
"Because it says we're parked just outside a black hole. And that's impossible."
"You've done it before." Clara countered. "That one time, with Rose and the thing that said it was the devil."
"Completely different circumstances." the Doctor muttered. "And I didn't tell you about that. Been prying again?"
"Always." Clara shrugged. "It beats being snarked at by a skinny silver haired streak of woe."
The Doctor looked at her for a long moment, and then surprisingly nodded – just once, but an acknowledgment nonetheless.
"I am angry." he told her. "But not with you. And I'd apologise, but I don't do that sort of thing anymore."
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
"Fine. So, impossible?"
"Yes. We're in space. Above a massive gravitational pull, but with no mass to cause it. It should be a black hole but..." the Doctor tapped the screen lightly, "It's not pulling things in."
"Is it spitting them out?" Clara asked. "Because that would be a neat trick."
"No. It's just sitting there. A hole in space with a massive amount of gravity to it – if something was to enter, it had better be pretty bloody sure it wanted to go because it isn't getting out in a hurry! It's a mystery."
"And you like mysteries." Clara smiled. The Doctor looked at her sharply.
"Don't you start. Not now, not today. The TARDIS has dragged us here for whatever reason, and that's a good enough reason to leave."
"Oh come on, Doctor!" Clara exclaimed, "This is what you do! You investigate mysterious things, save lives, pretty much be a marvelous bloke and all that."
"And I die." The Doctor shook his head. "Thanks you, but I can leave this mystery alone."
Attention! Attention please!
The voice cut through the air, vibrating around the pair. Both the Doctor and Clara looked around for the speaker, but none was to be seen. The communication system crackled to life.
This message is being broadcast to all space/time capsules in range. Gallifreyan space/time capsule registration 6771-Aleph requesting immediate assistance. Lives in danger. Message repeats. Attention! Attention Please! This message...
The Doctor and Clara exchanged another look as the short message continued in a slightly higher volume. It seemed to be the day for meaningful looks.
"Immediate assistance requested. Lives in danger." Clara raised an eyebrow. "Can't argue with that."
"Gallifreyan capsule." the Doctor murmured,brow furrowed. "Gallifreyan capsule? Gallifreyan capsule?"
"Where's the message coming from and – more importantly – can we turn it off?" Clara asked, wincing. The voice was growing louder. It was mercifully cut off on its own – evidently the TARDIS had regained control of her communication system.
"Where do you think?" the Doctor sighed. "Down."
"In the black hole?"
"In whatever it really is."
"Then we need to go in. Lives in danger, remember? Chop chop!" Clara clapped her hands in a businesslike manner. The Doctor vacillated, obviously not wanting to get involved but feeling the pull of not only the mystery but also of the message itself.
"You said we were following a mystery ship. It could be going in to save whomever is down in the...the...gravity well."
"Or it could be the one sending the message."
"There are no Gallifreyan ships flying about space/time willy-nilly! You should know that."
"So they might be rescuing someone you know. A Time Lord."
With a baleful glare at the TARDIS console and a short, explosive exhalation, the Doctor nodded to Clara.
"Apparently so." he said coldly. "Take us in."