The Doctor could hear Clara scraping the walls of her prison below. She was trying to stay calm, but animal instinct was overriding her control freak tendencies. Her screams were muffled by the 2 floors of ancient, stupid stone separating them, but seemed as loud as an air siren to his ears. In front of him, the statue of Abayomi stared at him, its face stuck in a malicious grin, daring him to move.
But the Time Lord couldn't. And it was his fault. Why did he not he worried more about the large psychic residue in this tomb before took Clara there? Why hadn't he listened to her? She had said that the place felt like "really bad news." He had arrogantly mistook that for normal human paranoia.
"Always jumping at shadows," the Doctor had tut-tutted.
Clara had replied "Well, I'm bringing extra supplies anyway!" The Doctor had shook his head, but those supplies were what had helped her escape the room he was stuck in. Not that it mattered—she had fell into another one of Abayomi's traps—his so called "Coffin Room" and was locked in there with no way out. If the Doctor had just listened to her, he might have realized that Abayomi had been no normal pharaoh—he had ruled over people with an iron fist, crossed may boundaries to stay alive and in power, and gotten help from the Osirians themselves. And Abayomi was just as evil as death as in life.
The Doctor twisted and turned on the floor, trying to move. He pushed himself up yet again, but just as he was almost up, the auto-defenses on the tomb kicked in, and the psycho-destabilizers in the tomb shut down the impulses of the Doctor's motor neurons. The Doctor fell on the hard floor yet again, and pain shot through his face. He wriggled uselessly on the floor. The dust and grime from the floor filled his nose, and he could smell something odd about the dust. It smelled like organic material from a future century...the Doctor guessed he wasn't the only time traveler to have been drawn to this tomb. Eventually, he decided that all his wriggling was stupid, as he wasn't getting anywhere, and to just listen. With his ears on the floor, he could hear Clara below him.
Was that whimpering he heard from Clara's room? No, she was too strong for that. But he could hear her crying softly. The damn pudding-brain was using up her oxygen! The Doctor opened his mouth to call out to Clara, but Abayomi slammed down his psychic control again, and the Doctor's vocal cords hurt as he shouted silently.
The Doctor calmed down, and surveyed his options. Doing his best to ignore the sounds of Clara below, which he knew Abayomi was only using to torture him anyway, he looked for a weakness in the pharaoh's psychic control. Despite the fact that his captor was extremely clever as well as adept in Osirian technology, that captor was still using unfamiliar tech—there must be some weakness in his system. The Doctor called up every mental trick he knew—quantum mnemonics, the hymms of the Logopolitans, chanting the names of his companions—but he couldn't move. He mentally roared, but nothing moved or reacted.
He heard a grinding noise come from Clara's cell. In horror, he realized that those walls were closing in. He could hear Clara whispering, and at first he thought she was whispering the name of that P.E. Teacher. Listening closer, it became clear Clara was actually saying his name. The fact that Clara could have faith in him, even now, should have encouraged him, but it only horrified him. The Doctor would be forced to listen to Clara believe in a rescue that wasn't coming. He didn't believe in miracles, but prayed for one anyway.
"Get up" said a voice. The Doctor opened his eyes to see his eighth body in front of him. It was obviously a stress-induced hallucination, but the Doctor didn't care at this point.
"I'm trying," he said weakly, and then Abyomi shut him up. In the back of his mind, he noted that there was a split second of delay between the action and the effects of the mental paralysis. Below him, he couldn't hear Clara anymore. A part of his mind pointed out that by now, the lack of oxygen should be shutting down Clara's brain, and making her unconscious. If he waited any longer, there wouldn't be a Clara to save.
He closed his eyes in deep thought, thinking up a plan. He calculated how far away the statue was (a few feet), and how fast he could move. The plan would be risky, but it might work.
He opened them up again, and saw a familiar boy standing in front of him.
"Get up. You don't have any time left," said an imaginary Adric.
Although his subconscious was laying it on a bit strong in his opinion, the Doctor got the point, and gathering up his strength, he leaped up at the statue in front of him. Abayomi immediately stopped the Doctor's attempt to move,and the Doctor grimaced as his leg muscles locked in place against his will, his body flying through the air. But even Abayomi's psychic powers couldn't stop inertial motion, and as the Doctor calculated, his body had enough initial acceleration to collide into the statue, shattering it to pieces.
The Doctor slowly pushed himself off the floor. He examined the remnants of the statue all around him He shook his head. Only a human would make the basis of his mental control system tech out of breakable pottery. Pudding brains.
His ears picked up the sound of a sliding door beneath him. The doors to Clara's cell had opened.
Running as swiftly as his stiff muscles would allow, he ran downstairs. It was very likely that Clara was either dead or irrevocably damaged from the lack of oxygen, but he had to check. He just had to.
He found Clara laying in the coffin, with her eyes closed. He pulled her up, and inspected her closely. Her skin was bruised, and her fingernails were bleeding. A grey film of dust covered her face, and her blue tank was slightly crushed.
Wait. A tank?
The Doctor picked up the tank, and tried to figure out when it came from. Wasn't Clara bringing supplies with her...of course! The clever woman must have brought the oxygen tank! The Doctor kissed her mouth in joy (To check her breathing, of course. And indeed, she was breathing lightly.)
Clara slowly opened her eyes, and peeked at him through the wisps of hair over her face. "Dann...y?"
The Doctor's face returned to seriousness, and he said "Be quiet. Your neck has taken quite a rough time. It's intact, but I wouldn't advise taking up smoking anytime soon." He kept his face cool, even though his stomach turned at seeing Clara like this.
"It's...you," said Clara. She was scrunching up her face, trying to remember his name. "The, er, Grumpy Eyebrows Nurse."
The Doctor frowned at that nickname, but kept on inspecting Clara. He felt Clara's back, checking for spinal damage. Thankfully, her spine was intact.
"Good news, Clara-you look basically okay. Well, actually, you look terrible, but you'll live. At your advanced age, your bones should be rather brittle, so you're lucky." The Doctor added that last statement to test if she was still lucid. With relief, her eyes shot open and she slapped him on the shoulder.
"B-bad nurse," coughed Clara,.
The Doctor shrugged, and asked "Can you walk?"
"Sure I can," said Clara, who propped herself up and promptly fell over. The Doctor decided not to comment, and wrapping his arm around her shoulder,slowly helped her to her feet. After taking a few tentative steps to get balanced, he and Clara walked through the jungle.
After a few moments of silence, Clara's eyes suddenly went wide and she brought her hand to her lips. Before Clara could say anything, the Doctor pointed out "I was simply checking out whether you were breathing." It sounded more defensive than the Doctor intended.
Out the side of his eye, he could see Clara smirking at him. For the rest of the walk, Clara was silent, which annoyed him. Had he made a faux pa , or was she just still rattled from the experience in the tomb? Her silence didn't really give him any answers. Then, as the TARDIS came into view, Clara leaned up to the Doctor, and kissed him on the cheek. The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but Clara shushed him.
"Simply making sure you don't have a fever," said Clara, poking him. The Doctor could see her wide smile through her dusty disheveled hair.
"Well, er, sure. Fevers are extremely dangerous, so it was good of you to check," said the Doctor. Inside, he marveled at his young companion. Most humans would have days of catatonia from what Clara went through. Although Clara probably hadn't come out of it completely unscathed (he made a mental note to check for a good therapist on the nearest planet), she still had the strength to laugh and smile.
Clara cleared her throat. The Doctor realized he was staring, and busied himself with opening the TARDIS.
"Oh, and I'm the Doctor, not the Grumpy Nurse," he said.
"I think nurse suits you better," said Clara teasingly. Then he heard her sigh loudly, betraying how tired she really was.
"I'm sorry, Clara. I should have listened to you," said the Doctor. His bones felt weary suddenly, and all he weanted to do was rest.
"Never thought I'd hear you say those words," said Clara.
"You should have recorded it. Probably won't hear it again for another millenia," said the Doctor, opening the TARDIS door. He looked in, watching out for any threats. The ship was usually impregnable, but he didn't want any surprises. Everything seemed to be in order. Out the side of his eye, he could see Clara touching her lips again.
"I can see you looking at me," said Clara.
The Doctor held out his hand "Ready to go?" For a brief second, he was afraid she'd say no, and decide to leave him. Maybe it was too much.
Clara looked up at him with her face, still bruised from nearly being crushed by the tomb, and said "I'm always ready."
The Doctor grinned.