Hi Folks,

Thanks for taking the time to read my first story! I'm new so please be gentle.

I guess this is also the part where I let you all know that none of these characters belong to me and are the property of BBC.

Cheers.

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"Hello?," an anxious voice calls out into the darkness. "Is anyone there?"

"Doctor, where are you? Please come and find me," the voice pleads again into the void, breaking slightly on the last word as the voice's owner tries to hold back a panicked sob. The voice's owner waits and waits, certain that one person out there, outside of the void, can bring them back into the light.

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"Doctor who?"

"Just, the Doctor," replied the odd man wearing the tweed jacket and bowtie. Maggie gave an exasperated huff. This 'Doctor' had just walked into the clinic a few minutes ago with a purposeful gait and proceeded to insist that he needed to meet with Dr. Reynolds. Maggie had tried asking what time his appointment was and when he deigned to offer her a response, she tried asking him his name so she could look up his information in the computer. Typing 'the Doctor' into the search bar produced no hits.

"Well, 'just the Doctor', I'm afraid you'll have to wait in the seating area along with everyone else," said Maggie, who was beginning to look rather annoyed. "If you don't have a scheduled appointment then it's first come, first serve."

The Doctor turned to look over at the far wall where a row of mostly occupied and highly uncomfortable-looking chairs represented the waiting area. He looked back at the secretary with a desultory glance and sauntered off down the hallway.

Maggie watched the strange man take off down the hall with a small shake of her head. "What an odd man indeed," thought Maggie as she turned back to her work.

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The Doctor rounded the corner and came to a lobby in which a young woman was leaning against the wall. She was short in stature, with brown hair and was wearing a red dress with a black leather jacket over it. She saw him enter the room and kicked off the wall, meeting him as he walked in.

"Well?" asked Clara, "That was quick. Were you able to see Dr. Reynolds?"

"No," responded the Doctor with a slight hesitation, "the secretary wouldn't let me in to see him, she said I had to 'wait'."

Clara paused before speaking again. He's really not very good at this sort of thing, she thought to herself.

"Okay listen Doctor, I'll go and see about Dr. Reynolds. Just wait here for me to get back."

"I suppose I can do that," replied the Doctor. "Be careful."

Clara gave the Doctor an affirmative nod and headed down the hall towards reception, in the direction the Doctor had just come from. He watched her round the corner and then took a moment to consider his surroundings. The clinic was spartan in its décor, with off white walls and a well-polished grey tile floor. The lobby he was standing in was a small area that had one entrance and a list of services on the far wall next to the elevators. On either side of the central elevators, hallways branched off towards rooms that offered a variety of medical services. One tired-looking potted plant sat next to the elevators. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. In fact, there was nothing really remarkable about the clinic at all. The Doctor began to wonder if they had come to the right place.

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It all started about a week ago. Clara had been getting Angie and Artie ready for school and out the door.

"I'm telling you Angie, Mark says it's a miracle," insisted Artie, pulling his coat on over his school uniform.

Angie didn't look too convinced about her younger brothers' story.

"Listen Artie, it's simply not possible to fix someone's eyesight with a drop of some magic liquid. If a medicine like that had been invented we surely would have heard about it in the news at some point."

Artie wasn't deterred by his sisters reasoning. "Well," he said, "all I know is Mark was wearing glasses with lenses like coke bottles on Friday and now he's got perfect vision."

Clara walked over from the kitchen and offered each of the kids their respective lunch bags. Spiderman themed for Artie, and blue and purple striped for Angie.

"You never know Angie," she offered, "they're making so many medical and technological discovery's nowadays, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some new miracle cure for bad eyesight."

Artie gave his sister a knowing smile and hitched his backpack over one shoulder. Angie turned to open the front door and the kids headed out to wait for the school bus. They gave Clara a wave and wished her a good day.

"See you after school," said Clara. She watched them walk down the front path and closed the door as she saw them head around the corner.

"Hello Clara".

Clara gave a violent jump as she turned to see the Doctor standing in front of her with a bright smile on his face. She tried to calm her racing heart as she took in the sight of the Doctor standing in the hallway. He was wearing the usual attire, black pants with a jacket and bowtie. He had his hands in front of him and was rubbing them together as his smile became hesitant and his brow knit together.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to give you a scare."

Clara suppressed the urge to smack him.

"Honestly Doctor, you almost gave me a heart attack."

She gave him a half-hearted glare before suddenly jumping forward and throwing her arms around his neck. The Doctor stood ridged for a moment, caught off guard by her sudden change in mood, then gratefully returned her hug with a chuckle.

"I missed you," she said into his shoulder before pulling away to look up at him. The smile returned to his face.

"I missed you too, Clara Oswald. How long has it been?"

"About a month, give or take. How's a cup of tea sound?," she asked, already slipping past him and moving towards the kitchen.

"That would be lovely," the Doctor said as he followed behind her, casually looking around the hallway as he did so. There were a few family pictures scattered on the wall, and a painting of a meadow with a red barn in the background. One picture, which may have been about five years old, showed Angie and Artie standing in front of what seemed to be a large aquarium tank with brightly coloured fish. A woman, whom judging by her resemblance to Angie must have been their late mother, had an arm around each of their shoulders and a bright smile on her face. Angie and Artie were smiling right along with her. The Doctor realized he didn't know how long it had been since Mrs. Maitland's passing and he was reminded suddenly of Clara, and the time when he had visited her mother's grave, unbeknownst to her. He stepped into the kitchen and watched her filling the kettle with water from the tap. When the kettle was full she turned off the water and brought it over to the stove.

Clara glanced up to see him watching her and gave him a smile. "You don't have to just stand there," she chuckled, pointing to a chair with a nod of her head. She turned to a cabinet on her left and brought down two mugs, bringing them over to the table as the Doctor pulled out a chair and hitched his pant legs up before taking a seat. He crossed his legs and leaned back, feeling at ease as he watched her open a tin on the table and pull out two tea bags. She plopped one in each of the mugs. When Clara had finished with all the tasks she could to occupy her attention, she looked up at the Doctor and took in his appearance. She had been worried about him lately, although she would have never said as much to him. The last time they had been together was on Trenzalore, and Clara was still reeling a little from everything that had happened there and the secrets that had been uncovered. It was funny, she thought, that she had always felt a kind of need to protect him, and while before she had simply chalked the feeling up to being a response to his casual recklessness, she now realized that her feelings of protectiveness were much more inherent. The sound of the kettle whistling brought her back to the present and she got up to turn off the stove. She poured water into each of the mugs and placed the kettle back on the stove then returned to her seat at the table. The Doctor murmured a thanks and held the mug loosely in one hand.

"How have you been?," she asked casually as she grabbed a sugar cube from a small pot on the table and dropped it into her mug before picking up a spoon and giving her tea a stir. "Oh, you know me," he said looking at his lap, "I'm always good, eh." He gave her a sidelong glance. "And what about you Clara Oswald? What's been going on in your life?"

"Well," she said," I've decided to go back to school in the fall. Teacher's college actually." Clara brought her mug to her lips and blew gently on her tea. Gingerly, she took a sip of the hot, slightly bitter drink.

"Ah, a teacher. Good job, that is. Taking the impressionable minds of the young and showing them the wonders of the world," he said nodding to himself, "but what will become of Artie and Angie then?"

Clara lowered her mug. "I've been talking with their father and he's going to try and change around his hours at work. Hopefully get more time off. I've always told him that Angie and Artie need to spend more time with their dad and I think he's finally taken my advice to heart. I'll still come and visit of course but I think they'll get on just fine without me," she told him with an air of certainty.

The Doctor smiled at her. "Yes, I'm sure they will," he said, before looking down. He took a drink of his tea and placed it back on the table. Something in his tone sounded like a hint of sadness. Or was that remorse?

Clara thought perhaps he was worried that she was moving on. That she would go to school, get a job, and grow tired of running away with him to Neverland. She reached across the table and placed her hand on his wrist. The contact caused him to look back up at her immediately. "Don't worry Doctor. No matter how busy school becomes, I'll always have time for our adventures," she said, watching his face. He merely nodded before casually pulling his hand away to take another drink of his tea. Clara brought her mug back up to her lips so she could hide behind it, and tried not to feel disappointed at being not-so-subtly brushed off.

"So where are we going?," she asked him, feeling the need to change the subject.

"Were not going anywhere," replied the Doctor.

Clara looked confused.

"What do you mean? Aren't we going to go on some grand adventure? To the moon of some planet where the sun rises only once a year. Or a galaxy that doesn't even exist yet?"

The Doctor listened to her list off some truly wonderful ideas about places to visit. He made a mental note to write those down so he could remember them for later.

"Yes, those do sound like wonderful ideas Clara but I'm afraid we can't go anywhere just yet. I've received a distress signal through the TARDIS interface from some unknown person. I can track it down to this version of London, but I'm still not sure who sent it. As far as I can tell the signal is coming from a medical clinic in Wembley."

Clara gave the Doctor a confused look. Perhaps there was something else to his melancholy mood today that she did not know about.

"So we're just going to wander about this clinic then until we find something that seems strange?" she asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Yup, that's pretty much the plan."

Clara crossed her arms in front of her and leaned back in her chair, considering him for a moment. He offered her a hesitant smile.

"All right then. Let's go play detectives."

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