Clara sat at the bar, dragging out the last sips of her gin and tonic before she decided to call it a night. She'd enjoyed her evening work drinks, but was becoming disinterested with the conversation and wanted to indulge in her own company.
Clara made an excuse to leave, saying some polite goodbyes, took her coat with her and walked out into the cold February evening.
She was at the school's local pub, ending up in there most Friday nights after work if she wasn't seeing the Doctor. Tonight she just wasn't feeling it, maybe the music was a notch too loud or something. She walked down back streets from Shoreditch towards Liverpool Street station, a faint hint of rain and chill in the air.
She turned into Finsbury Avenue Gardens, looking at the bright criss crossed strip lights in the floor glowing a fluorescent bright purple. Clara liked this place at night, the lights were almost blinding in the expanse of black around her. She looked up at the imposing buildings above, framing the faint stars in the orangey black sky.
She sat on one of the benches around the outside of the square and watched the lights phase from purple to blue very slowly, looking over at the stream of people walking briskly towards the station, interrupting the lights.
She got her phone out of her back pocket and idly browsed Facebook, scrolling through pictures of people's children, Friday nights in and holidays away. A few memes. Some pictures of cats. Nothing interesting. The lights were now bright green, the change of colour too slow to notice.
She stood up, still looking at her phone and turned towards Broadgate Circus. As she did she bumped heavily into someone, knocking a bag down onto the floor and scattering numerous items around. Clara dropped her phone to the floor, it landed on top of the misplaced bag and clattered to the ground amongst the belongings.
"For fuck's sake!" shouted the stranger angrily. It was a woman about a similar age to her, brown hair, smoking a cigarette. "Do you not look where you are going?"
"I'm so sorry," said Clara, unconsciously crouching down to help the woman collect her things. "Let me help you." Clara picked up her phone and put it into the left pocket of her dark blue trench coat, gathering up a few stray belongings to pass over.
"No, it's fine," she said, "just the way my fucking day is going." The stranger knelt down, putting her cigarette between her lips and filled up her bag, pausing to take a breath before standing.
Clara held out what she had in her hands, some mascara, lipstick, a pen and a compact mirror.
"Thanks," she said, taking the items and stashing them into the yellow leather bag. She looked upset, wiping the corner of her eye with the end of her sleeve, removing the cigarette from her mouth.
"Look, I'm sorry, it's my fault, I should really look where I am going," she smiled, "instead of looking at pictures of cats on Facebook."
"Yeah," the stranger let out a small laugh fighting back tears. She flicked ash from the top of the cigarette to the floor.
"Well, I'm going to-" Clara started to head towards the station.
"I'm late so," the stranger said, walking in the opposite direction away from her.
Clara looked back to see her hurrying across the square in the direction she had come from. She walked slowly towards Liverpool Street, looking up at Broadgate Circus illuminated in the building lights.
She felt her phone vibrate in her front left jacket pocket. Odd, she thought, her phone didn't usually vibrate.
She pulled it out, noticing it was a white iPhone, a large crack on the right hand side of the screen, a battered screen protector hanging off the bottom two edge. This was not hers. She had a pristine white Galaxy, with the Doctor's special SIM card in it.
"No no no," she said in resigned realisation. She turned around, jogging slightly to see if she could catch up with the stranger, but she was gone.
Clara looked down at the phone, catching the incoming WhatsApp message on the screen before it faded to black. She pressed the home button and the message popped up underneath the time and date. It was 19.15, on Friday 19th February. The wallpaper on the back was a black and white picture of a bridge, it looked American.
The notification was from someone called Will.
Will Fenchurch: Where are u babes? X
There was no was to reply as Clara didn't know the unlock code, glad that she had the same thing on her phone. She weighed up her options, turning the phone top to bottom in her hand subconsciously.
Should she wait here and see if the stranger returned? It was unlikely she'd come back, and it was beginning to get too cold to just sit around. No, she'd go home, she could use her computer to find her, there was a name she could search. It seemed simple enough. She thought back to the time when she sat on the balcony of the Sky Bar in St Paul's and managed to locate all those people on the 65th floor of the Shard. It was all about the people. She smiled to herself and sighed before putting the phone in her bag and heading off in the direction of the station.
...
Clara arrived home and threw her keys down on the side, they clinked against the side of the porcelain change pot. She fixed herself a small glass of red wine in the kitchen, changed out of her teacher clothes and sat on the sofa. She retrieved the lost phone from her bag and pressed the home button again. The notification now said 'Three new WhatsApp messages from two chats.' There was no other information to glean.
She turned on her laptop, sitting cross legged on the sofa, sipping the wine intermittently. She challenged herself to see how long it would take to find the woman. Ten minutes? Five minutes? She went with seven, mentally making a note of the time. 20.21.
If the Doctor was here she could have got him to go back in time and follow the woman, but, grateful for the night off she was going to have to do this the hard way. She chuckled to herself, realising how stupid it was to see time travel as the easy option.
"Right then," she said to herself but directed at the laptop. "Let's find you."
She went onto her Facebook and searched for 'Will Fenchurch' finding twenty matches. There were five people in London with that name, so she systematically worked through the profiles. The first two she looked at were a 13 year old boy and a 72 year old man, she immediately ruled them out mainly due to the word 'babes'. She hated it when the girls at school used it.
The third profile was blank, nothing on it apart from a generic photo and minimal details.
The fourth profile was the one she needed. She saw a picture of the stranger from about one hour ago tagged in a gallery in Hoxton, she knew it, but had never been. The photo was her with four other people, including a person she presumed was 'Will' based on the profile picture, they looked at the camera smiling, each holding a glass of champagne. The update with the picture said 'First exhibition! So proud! Love these guys!' tagging in four girls with him. She worked through the tags, eventually finding the profile she needed: Emily Fitch.
She looked at the time. 20.29. Eight minutes.
"I am losing my touch," she said to herself, disappointed, shaking her head.
Clara went back to Will's profile, sending him a message.
: Hi Will, I accidentally picked up your friend Emily's phone earlier, and think she might have mine. Send me a message and I can return it to her. Thanks Clara
She was about to hit send when the phone rang, it came up as Will. There was an option to slide to answer.
"Or I could have just rung it," she said resigned, realising that would have been a much easier option. She pressed send anyway and answered the phone.
"Hello?" she said.
"Hello?" said Clara for a second time when she got no answer. She could hear pounding electronic music in the background.
"It's answered," said a muffled male voice. There was a thudding crackling sound through the speaker which was loud enough to make Clara take the phone away from her ear momentarily.
"Hang on," came a faint female voice, "I just need to speak to some woman about my fucking phone," the volume increased before the voice shouted, "Hello?" The music was loud still but began to fade into the distance.
"Hi, yes, hello," Clara said, nervously, stuttering her words.
"Are you the woman from earlier?" the voice came.
"If you mean the woman who knocked all your things on the ground and kinda accidentally stole your phone, then yes, that's me-"
"Yes, it's her," the voice muffled, "she's got it, thank fuck for that," she said.
"Do you have mine?" asked Clara.
"Yes, your doctor keeps on ringing you, had to turn it off."
"Yeah... he does that," Clara laughed, breathing a sigh of relief her own phone hadn't been lost.
"Whatever, look, I need my phone back, yeah" said the stranger, "but I have to get back to what I'm doing."
"So how do we-" Clara started.
"Umm," the stranger paused, "what's your code?" the voice muffled over ánd the music volume increased slightly, "can I borrow that pen? Thanks."
"Sorry?" Clara was confused.
"Your lock code, for your phone," she said, "I'll send myself a message."
"Oh I see," Clara said, initially reluctant but then realising that was probably the best idea, "it's 4452... What's yours?"
"Ok, got it, mine's 0521," the stranger said. "I have to go," the thumping music got louder and then the line disconnected. Clara took the phone from her ear and stared at it, watching the screen fade to black. She set it down on the coffee table debating in her head what to do.
Clara's curiosity was piqued, she had an overwhelming urge to look through the phone, just because she could. Nobody would ever have to know. She picked the handset up, held it in her hand, going to type the number before thinking better of it. She did, however, notice the phone was desperately low on battery, remembering that she had similar cable for her iPod she dug out the charger from a cabinet on the living room and connected it just in case.
A couple of hours later, as she was about to head off to bed, a message came through from a number she recognised as her own.
: Are you free tomorrow to give my phone back?
Clara didn't have any set plans but couldn't guarantee the Doctor would not rock up and sweep her away for a day or a week at a time. Not that it mattered, he was getting much better at dropping her off.
She typed in the lock code on the phone and it sprung to life. She tapped on the message and typed a reply.
: Hi, yes I am...
She didn't want to sound like she was doing nothing, so changed it.
: Hi, not doing anything I can't rearrange, where would you like to meet?
Clara decided to let her choose as it was her fault for not watching where she was going earlier. The phone vibrated.
: Where are you coming from?
: I'm in Clapham, how about you?
: Whitechapel heading to Spitalfields during the day. Can you meet me there?
: Yes, I know it, what time would you like to meet?
: After 12pm OK? Ring me when you get there and I can tell you where we are.
: Yes, of course, thank you for not stealing my phone!
: That doctor ring you like 20 times, btw.
: It's ok, he can wait, just turn the phone off and ignore him, that's what I do.
: Bye, see you tomorrow.
Clara put the phone down, but picked it up again swiftly to browse harmlessly through the photos.