Water, hot water, pounds her head. She's lost track of how long she has stood in the shower. Her skin is flushed with the heat; pink and clean; scrubbed and scrubbed. Some stains don't wash away easily.
Reluctantly she turns off the shower and steps out into the palatial TARDIS bathroom. She has a feeling this room has sprung into being solely for her use. There's something about the white tiles and fluffy towels that sits oddly with the TARDIS's current future-gothic desktop. Scandinavian flat-pack, not leather and steel. She's grateful. It means there's less chance of the Doctor wandering in after a rogue clockwork rodent.
She wipes away condensation from the mirror and looks at her reflection. Pale, perhaps. Worn. But pink and human and definitely not a Dalek-
I am not a Dalek; I AM NOT A DALEK.
Her hand slips slightly on the steamed glass, shaking, stomach filled with lead. The entry wounds from the telepathic controls twinge slightly. The sick fear she recognises, but the surge of accompanying anger is not her own. An echo of the raging shell she wore.
"It'll wear off," she tells her face. "He said… He-he promised." She swallows. "It's going to wear off."
The Doctor lies…
"Not about this." If strength of will can make this true, it is done. "Not about this."
"Ah, Clara." He doesn't look up from the console. "I can smell the soap from here. Where to now?"
"What, it's my choice?"
He shrugs. "Seems like it's your turn."
She can't help but smile. "You mean there's nowhere left in the Universe you aren't barred from after a three week party?"
A muscle twitches in his jaw; good as a guffaw to her eyes. "Something like that."
She crosses her arms "Okay. Somewhere… fun. Somewhere with some food."
"That doesn't exactly narrow it down," he grumbles.
"I know. Does it matter? You and I don't make the big decisions here." Her hands have found the edge of the console, reassuringly solid. Warm to the touch. The TARDIS whirrs, the strange noise she makes like a sigh of welcome.
"Oh-ho, flattery eh?" He meets her eyes at last, but can only manage a second of contact, darting back to the screens of his ship in an instant. "Let's see what she makes of that!" With a flip of a lever the rotor wheezes, sending them spinning into the vortex. Moments later the movement stills, and the Doctor taps at his keyboard.
"So?" she prompts.
He pulls the screen around to better look. "Upstate New York," he replies, "nineteen sixty-nine."
"Huh." She doesn't need to open the doors to know what that means. Perhaps it should have been obvious that this is where they'd come, with the Doctor's head full of electric guitars and conflict, hot on the tail of a party with himself. His rumpled plaid will not look out of place. "Come on then."
Mud and marijuana smoke mingle with the heavy distortion of a guitar. It sings from the stage, the Doctor watching every twitch of Jimi's fingers on the frets. She smiles a little, glassy eyed and exhausted, head slumped against his bony shoulder. Woodstock. No one will ever believe-
There's no one to tell.
The thought stabs like lightening through the psychotropic haze. She frowns.
No, that's not-
There's no one.
When she was a little girl, she liked to tell her mother her stories. And then there was Andrea – misfit mature student, unlikely friend, employer and then-
Gone. Like Danny.
Oh, Danny Pink; how he'd hate to see the things she's done. Complicit with his murderer, to save a man who couldn't see; wouldn't see; how bright and brilliant he really was…
She is crying now, silent tears streaming down her face. The Doctor doesn't notice, enraptured by the unfolding musical spectacle, but the girl sitting beside her does. She doesn't look like a flower child, dressed simply in jeans and a tee shirt, but she reaches out to clasp Clara's shoulder earnestly.
"Hey," she says, "Let it out, chick. Then be happy again."
Clara's shoulders are shaking with the effort of swallowing the sobs; she tries to nod; finds herself peeled from the Doctor's shoulder and into the open embrace of the girl. "Let it out," she says again, "be happy."
"Clara?"
She lifts her head from the girl's arms, blinking away the tears, and tries to compose herself in the face of his confusion. "Sorry," she says thickly, "Sorry, I think. It's just a bit much−"
But too much of what she can't quite get out, standing up; running as fast as she can through the thinning crowd, back to the relative safety of the TARDIS.
She hides in her bed, covered by the duvet, until the tears stop. She hears the TARDIS move, taking them somewhere else in time and space. Doesn't leave until she can trust herself to remain dry-eyed.
She finds him sitting just outside the front doors, noodling on his electric guitar as is fast becoming his wont. They are on a cliff-top. A stunning sunrise is slowly slipping out of the sea.
"I'm sorry," she says, sitting down next to him.
"Don't be." A minor chord. "I should've…" He can't quite think of what it is he should have done, however, impressive brow wrinkling in confusion. "Do you want to go home?"
This is home, she wants to say, because it's true. No one would ever believe where she's been, except for him. He's the only one left to share the stories with. "Not really," she says instead. "I think I want… a distraction."
"Well, there's always plenty of those," he answers, strumming again.
"Mm-hm" She watches the dawn for a while, to the unmistakeable opening of All Along the Watchtower.
"Clara," he says after a while; she's not sure if it's a question or if he's just taking the opportunity to say her name out loud. His fingers still on the strings. "I'm-Ahem. I'm not very good at this sort of thing." He pauses. "At least, not anymore."
He has her attention at least, as he lays down his guitar and awkwardly scoots around to face her, silhouette against the orange sky. "Doctor, what-?"
"No, don't interrupt," he frowns, looking more like the man she knows. "You'll make it even more difficult." He licks his lips and finds what he probably thinks is an appropriate expression of concern. When he speaks it is with the slightly distracted air of a man reading words from an internal script. "Do you need to talk about it?"
She can't help but laugh. "About what?"
His eyes widen slightly, already off the page and into uncharted territory. He clears his throat again, stalling for time. "About… the Dalek. Thing."
She chuckles again. "No, Doctor, I don't want to talk about it." But there is something, bubbling up from a carefully compressed place. Now he has invited it she can't quite stop the flow of her words. "I don't want to talk about any of it."
Mum. Andrea. Danny. Doctor (because I watched you burn too, once, even though you came back).
"Oh," he looks relieved. "Well, that's good-"
"I don't want to think about it," she continues over him, "I just want to-to keep going. To see. To do. With you." She licks her lips, suddenly dry; finds the courage she needs. "You know what that feels like, don't you?"
For once he pulls no face; holds her gaze instead with eyes that burn; that fill her world. "Yes." He sighs, long and sad. "Yes, I know exactly what that's like."
"Good. So let's go."