Equinox
It's almost the Spring Equinox here in the northern hemisphere (21st March), the time when due to the sun's position over the equator, the hours of night and day are equally matched, 12 and 12. Some think it's a bit magical. What might happen if the Doctor and Clara find themselves there together?
Summary
Seemed like a good idea at the time: a visit Stonehenge during the spring equinox to renew his sunken spirits. Soak up the fresh air, maybe chat to a few friendly druids. What could possibly go wrong? And why, when the sun rises and marks the beginning of the equinox, does he hear a voice he doesn't recognise?
Chapter 1: Prisoner in the Circle
They dragged him through the darkness and slammed him against stone so hard it knocked his breath right out of him. Figures flitted forward through the shadows, twisted rope that bit into his arms and bound him tightly against the stone. A sea of hooded faces hovered just out of sight. No way to wiggle out of this one, then. No-one waiting in the wings to step in and do something brave or clever. No one to ask questions later to make him feel clever; no one to bother being brave for. It's been that way a long time now, and he's just about done with it all.
A priest stepped into the moonlight in the centre of the circle and jabbed a finger at him. 'He dares take the name of Alaunus.'
He was struggling for breath, but couldn't resist the opportunity for a snarky comment, even then. 'I never actually said that. You just assumed.' Some days, damn psychic paper's more trouble than it's worth.
'We have ways to reveal the truth,' the priest said. 'If you're Alaunus, there will be a sign. If you're a deceiver, you feel the sting of our blade.' Great. Mistaken identity will be the death of him. There's so many more interesting ways to go, but when your time's up, well, it's up.
The priest turned to the figures lurking in the shadows. 'The last sacrifice was years hence, and we are grown weak.' He held a dagger in front of him. In the moonlight it didn't even look that dangerous, an old battered bronze handle with a chipped blade. But the end was sharpened to a point for the occasion. A hard enough thrust would surely slip it between his ribs and right into that gaping hole where his hearts should be. The priest droned on, 'Those who serve the goddess will be made strong again.' He turned to the Doctor and pressed the edge of the dagger into his cheek, wafting rust up his nose. He breathed right at him as he spoke, never a pleasant in an age before toothpaste. 'When the sun appears between the mother and the father,' he waved at two of the taller stones in the circle, 'the truth will be revealed.' He turned back to the figures around the circle again and held the knife triumphantly in the air. 'There is power yet on Salisbury Plains. We hide in shadows no more!'
Although it's obvious which way this is going, the Doctor looked up at the stars and the full moon, and down again and searched the shadows, but of course, there's nothing there to help. It was cold, dark and he was alone with a bunch of crazy druids who thought he'd tried to trick them. A longer life's not always a better one and he'd never felt it more than he did right then. He slumped against the stone. Maybe this is what he wanted, a ticket to eternity, to let the gold light take him; let a new face deal with it all. Give these jokers a show to remember, at least.
A woman's voice echoed a single word. 'Remember.' He raised his head and looked around. That didn't come from the shadows or the stones, it was seeping between the cracks in his mind. 'What did we learn, you clever boy?'it came again, and stung a sliver of hope into his heart. Who was that? She said, Assume you are going to win.' He took a breath and looked around again: still nothing, but alright, I'll give it a shot. Can't wait to see how I get out of this one.
Chapter 2: A debt
'Is something bugging you?' Clara asked Ashildr.
Ashildr squinted, crinkled her nose and paused before answering. 'Yes, actually. That monolith on Junten 4 made me think of Stonehenge. Now I can't shake the feeling that there's something important I should remember.'
'Swiss-cheese memory?'
Ashildr snapped, 'With a billion years of data and only 100,000 Gigabytes of RAM, are you surprised?'
She was used to Ashildr's irritable moods, but that didn't make them any less annoying. Still, she tried to be patient. 'We could go to your library and pick up some of your journals.' She cocked her head to one side and smiled. 'Would that help?'
Lady Me's Home, Commonwealth England, 1653
'This one's got stuff about Wiltshire in it.' They'd been riffling through dusty books for ages, there's no search function for parchment. But something had rattled Ashildr, and she seemed determined to rummage through her history until she found what it was. Maybe they should take this lot back to the TARDIS. No, disrupted timelines and all that, 1653's Me would be sure to notice. But they needed a plan. 'Can't you narrow it down any more?'
'Shush, you'll wake me up.' Ashildr jerked her thumb at the stairs where she -1653 she – was fast asleep. She grabbed the book and flicked through the pages. 'I don't think it's this one, but it should be near it on the shelf. I moved around a lot.' She stalked over to the book case the volume came from and ran her fingers over the leather bindings.' These were not happy years. I don't much like to think of them.'
'But you're thinking about them now.'
She pressed her lips together. 'Maybe there's a debt hanging over me,' she said airily, and didn't look Clara in the eye. 'Perhaps it's time I paid up.' She pulled a book from the shelf with "Salisbury 1509-1556" embossed along the top of the spine. They laid the book on a table and opened it, then flashed a torch at the pages.
March 22nd, 1549.
Faces from the past haunt me still. Tonight I heard tell that Malkin's druids planned to sacrifice a traveller, and that he was saved by strange magic. I went straight to Salisbury to see if it was him, but I was too late, by the time I got to the Hunch of Venison all I saw was backs disappearing down the passageway to the cathedral. But later I asked Bellamy to sketch the traveller, and I'm pretty sure it was him.'
The ancient page crackled as Ashildr turned it over. There was a faded picture of a tall thin man, bound to one of the stones at what could only be Stonehenge. In front of him was a robed figure holding a knife in the air. Clara clenched and released her fists and Ashildr let out a satisfied, 'I knew it.' The bound figure was clearly the Doctor.
Any teacher worth their salt knows a successful lesson is 50% preparation and 50% making it up on the spot, and Miss Oswald was prepared to deliver a corker. She'd smothered herself in a brown shapeless rough woven robe, with carefully placed slits so she could get to her pockets. She put the copy of "History of Celtic Lore" aside and checked her resources: copper dust and phosphor mixed with a healthy dose of crossed-fingers, pressed in three little packets and stashed away in her pocket, and a sturdy torch.
She turned to Ashildr. 'Sure you're clear on the plan?'
Ashildr nodded and placed two gold coins in her hand. Clara's eyes widened. 'What's this for?' She narrowed her eyes. 'Are you trying to say something?'
Ashildr broke her aloof distance, and put a hand on Clara's shoulder. 'I owe him that,' she said, 'and you too.' Clara squeezed her hand and looked closer at the gold coins, one large one small. King Henry VIII on the larger one, easy to recognise, all belly and arms akimbo. She flipped the other over and saw a woman's profile. This was Jayne Seymour. She'd seen pictures, and coins very like this one, on a trip to Windsor Castle with year 9. A cosmic irony she'd explained to her students, complications of childbirth stole Jane away from Henry when he had chopped so freely at the necks of his other wives. She was the one he really mourned. It was Jane buried alongside him in the chapel. Doesn't the universe like a good joke.
Chapter 3: Roll Back the Shadows
Doctor's pov.
The Doctor tested the ropes binding him to the stone. They were solid. The moon looked on and didn't care a damn, and the stars twinkled prettily in the paling sky and had no interest at all in a lonely Time Lord about to be slaughtered over a misunderstanding. The druids gathered in a circle and watched him in silence. Cheat death enough times and it will surely catch up with you in the end.
The druid said to one of his followers, 'Bring the cup.'
A figure stepped forward hesitantly with a battered chalice in his hands. 'Malkin,' he said, 'are we needful of this?' The Doctor tried to get a look at the man's face. Maybe not everyone here was set on his death.
Malkin sneered, 'You're weak, Bellamy,' he jabbed a finger at the Doctor. 'He destroys the balance with lies.' He snatched the cup from Bellamy's hands and lifted it in the air. 'When the sun rises between the mother and father all things must be equal. The goddess holds the scales.' He waved the cup at the Doctor.
The Doctor coughed. 'I'm really not very thirsty right now, thanks all the same.'
Malkin didn't smile. 'Aquifolium and mandragora,' he said, raising the cup and sweeping it around the watching druids. His voice rang out through the night air, 'To roll back the shadows.'
Malkin wafted the cup right under his nose, leaving a familiar bitter tang. This wasn't his first go-round with a poison chalice. 'Crushed holly leaves and mandrake root? Sorry to disappoint you but that's not going to do much more than give me a light head.' Hopefully true, although in combination some chemicals do have decidedly strange effects.
Malkin turned to his followers. 'Who serves the goddess this night? Who acts in Damara's name?' There was a long silence. Maybe Malkin's losing his grip.
Then a figure stepped forward. 'I will.' The Doctor's hearts sank. He didn't even get a good look at the man before he yanked his head back and drained the chalice into his mouth. A burning liquid seared his lips, clung to his tongue, then slid down his throat, just like the honey from bees raised on the fire-fields of Archon 12. No humanoid who valued his taste buds would eat that stuff voluntarily. Except maybe a curious Galifreyan child with fingers that wandered into the honey jar, and boxed ears to match his burning mouth when cook caught him retching in the kitchen sink. He choked again now, and tried to spit what he could but Malkin clamped his jaw and forced the rest down. He knew, hoped, his body would produce a surge of neutralising chemicals to purge the poison. Any minute now. Although, his vision was already blurred at the edges. And his head pulsed in time with his pounding hearts. Malkin was talking again, through fog. He slumped forward. Even the heat in throat didn't dull the ache in his chest.
'He is no god!' Malkin lifted the Doctors head. 'Just a man. Damara will bind us and make us strong,' he poked the Doctor's chest with the blunt end of the dagger, 'if we restore the balance.' He stalked the clan of druids, and even through the gloom around the stone circle it was clear he was a man trying to hold onto power. That made him dangerous. He shouted, 'Who will serve the goddess?' There was a long silence.
A druid slipped from the shadows, took the knife from Malkin, and walked toward him. It's all very well assuming I'm going to win, he thought through a layer of mist, but these ropes hurt like hell, my throat's on fire, and the sun's coming up. He gabbled out loud, 'The solar terminator is perpendicular to the equator,' and it didn't make much sense even to him. He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate. He stared at the small druid baring down on him with the big knife. If he was going to die alone here at Stonehenge, from some primitive chemicals and a rusty blade, during the spring equinox of all times, he would at least look his killer in the eyes. Big brown eyes stared back at him. His hearts lurched into double time and pummelled his ears, and his vision cleared. He saw the face that was burned onto his soul. He blinked twice: 'Clara?'
Clara's pov
Chapter 4: Under my Protection
She didn't expect him to recognize her. She'd come here to save him whether he knew her or not - but here he was, looking into her eyes and saying her name. Holding his eyes with hers for a moment, she cocked her head at him, winked, then turned back to the druids. She closed her hand around one of the little packets in her pocket and boomed as best she could into the darkness, 'Your goddess doesn't need blood! Damara brings life...and the spring…' and slammed a packet as hard as she could into to the grass in front of them. A crack of blue light flared in the darkness and the druids stumbled backwards. 'She's sending you lot a message right now!' She turned briefly back to the Doctor, flashed a smile she hoped he could see in the dim light, then shouted at the quaking druids, 'He is UNDER MY PROTECTION!' in the best narked-goddess voice she could muster. She turned back to the Doctor, sliced the ropes, and grabbed his hand. 'Run!'
They hurtled out of the stone circle down the open plain and toward the trees, and when they were sure no one was following them, stopped at the edge of the woods. The sky was changing from grey to pale blue as the sun crept back into the world.
The Doctor was panting, and Clara, having perfected the art of running away without the need for mundane things like oxygen, waited for him to catch his breath. He leant against an oak and wound his fingers through the ivy leaves twisted around it to touch the trunk as if he needed something solid to hold onto, looking at her, then bowing his head again as if he couldn't quite believe it.
Clara stood beside him, and laced her fingers through the cool ivy leaves. Hedera Helix: Dad's nemesis, he'd fought a losing battle against the raging pest in gran's garden, trying to stop it smothering her delicate saplings. He'd cut it away in autumn, but by summer it was back, stealing the nutrients from the soil, climbing and twisting, strangling and smothering the young apple trees. This mature oak though, was in its prime: a lonely guardian on Salisbury Hill, battling the elements and the creeping enemy: still standing after an eternity of days and nights. She wound her fingers into the ivy and toward his hand and looked up at her. He looked older, weary, deflated somehow.
She asked, 'How is this possible? Has the equinox done something to the neural block? Or was it the poison? Or both?' She was gabbling a bit, and didn't care. He remembers me.
'The equinox is dampening the sub-liminal neural field here, and the poison is doing something,' he rubbed his throat as he spoke, 'but I'm afraid it won't last.'
Cut to the chase then. 'How long?'
'At the rate my body is metabolising the poison I'd say two and a half hours, maybe a little more.'
Long enough. Enough time to breath some life back into him anyway. She pulled him closer, tip-toed and tried to kiss him. He pushed her away. 'Clara, we can't…' It was like a slap to the face. After all that bad timing, and then Orient Express. Did he think all of that was a mistake? She turned her back on him and stalked away.
'Clara!' He caught her hand and pulled her to a stop. 'They gave me poison,' he said, 'it's on my lips. I need to rinse my mouth out properly before I kiss you.' His arms wrapped her into a place where there was only his hearts pounding against her cheek and smell of him, sandalwood and stardust, in her nose. She closed her eyes and relief swept through her. They had time, and he wanted her. She looked up at him. 'Should we go back to the TARDIS?'
'If I step on board a TARDIS - yours or mine- it will cut me off from the dampening effect of the equinox. The neural block will reassert itself.' He ran his fingers through her hair. 'I am not going forget you yet.'
Her mind was working overtime. 'We need to find somewhere, get a drink or something, for your…poison lips.' She felt the gold coins in her pocket, and silently thanked Ashildr. 'Maybe …get a room?'
He whispered, 'I couldn't agree more,' into her ear.
'There's a village not far, and a pub, the Haunch of Venison. Ashildr thought she saw us there.' She threaded her fingers through his and dug the torch out of her pocket, and they strode along the path into the woods.
'Ashildr,' he said sharply.
She rattled the coins in her pocket. 'I think she was extending an olive branch. She might be a bit stuck up, but I'm warming to her.'
'This doesn't make us even,' he said quietly, 'I don't think I'll ever forgive her.' They began walking again by torch light. The first light of the dawn was seeping into the woods, but it was still too dark to pick their way safely without some extra light. His face was still dark, and the pain in his voice was unmistakable.
'For betraying you?' He stopped in his tracks and shook his head. 'No. For what she did to you,' he said, almost indignantly. As if that time in the confession dial was nothing important at all.
Clara said, 'I've made my peace with what's happened to me.' And it wasn't so bad, being trapped between one heart beat and the last, if she kept running. If she didn't stop too often to think about what she'd lost.
'You may have. I haven't,' he said.
She still couldn't figure out why he'd done it, put himself through four and a half billion years of hell. She would never have asked him to do that, never. And why was he here alone? It wasn't good for him to be alone.
'Why'd you come here?' she asked in the end, because that seemed a much simpler question than the ones tumbling around her head.
He sighed and waved his hand at the daffodils in the pool of torch light, nodding non-committedly in the breeze. 'I don't know, spring air? A new hope?'
She smiled. 'I've seen that movie. Gets a bit hairy for them, but it ends well.'
'Not really. I've seen the sequel. Darkness wallops them again. And the hero gets stuck in carbonite, if I remember.' His voice was flat, it was painful to see him like this.
She swatted him on the arm and said, 'Yeah, and in the next one his girlfriend saves his ass,' and grinned up at him.
'We've just done that bit,' he said a bit sheepishly, then laughed, and it lifted the shadows from his face. A chattering dawn chorus cheered them on, and as the light grew stronger it pushed away the raven and the confession dial, the robes and the rusty dagger, and poison in a battered cup. This lighter England was a welcoming swathe of green, flecked with colours of early spring. They walked on, and little blue flowers, the ones that made her think of blue bells but weren't, lined the path to the Haunch of Venison. She flicked the torch off, and put it back in her pocket beneath the robe. She'd be glad to ditch the scratchy beast when they got inside. The air was fresh and cool on her face, and his hand was warm in hers. If there was wiggle room in eternity, then this was it.
'Any trouble from the Time Lords?' he asked.
'Nah, we keep our heads down,' she said. The she shook her head at herself. What was she saying? 'No, wait, that's totally not true. We turn up, muddle through, do something brave or stupid -depending on your point of view- then run like hell.'
He nodded approvingly. 'And pears…?'
'I've been hoping to have a word with you about that…'
Chapter 5: Two Gold Coins at the Haunch
She hammered on the door of the Haunch of Venison until a bleary-eyed night-shirted bar-keep, still in his nightcap, opened up grumbling, 'Don't' ya' knows what time 'tis?' He scowled and looked the two of them up and down.
'We know it's early, but we really need a drink, and somewhere to…' several words crossed her mind but she settled on, '…rest a while.'
He growled, 'Get off with ya,' and started to slam the door shut, but found the Doctor's size twelves jammed in the way.
'And our friend is asking so nicely,' Clara said.
The bar-keep looked over their shoulders. 'What friend?'
She got one of the coins out of her pocket and held it up between her forefinger and thumb. 'Our friend King Henry.'
His face cracked into a wide smile. 'Why din't ya say? Friend's with the King's noddle stamped on's always welcome at the Haunch!' He stood back and let the door swing open. If money talks, then a gold sovereign says, "Let nothing be too much trouble."
'Get you anything else, sir?'
The Doctor shook his head, raised the tankard of mead and said, 'Just this and the room is fine.' He followed Clara up a flight of dark uneven stairs and as soon as they closed the door he took a swig of the mead and spat it a wash bowl on a set drawers. 'That's better,' he said. 'That was foul. The poison I mean, not the mead, that's actually not bad.' He swilled again and rubbed his teeth with his fingers.
This was the best room, tucked away at the top of the three storied Haunch, but best was relative. It had a bowl, draws and a bed and nothing else but bare floor boards and a drape over the window. Clara didn't care about the lack of comforts. 'We ought to thank that poison,' she said, 'can you really remember everything? The Orient Express?' His grin meant he did. She wiggled out of the druid robe and threw it on the bed.
'I remember I enjoyed our second visit several orders of magnitude more than the first.' He offered her the mug of mead. She took a swig the honey-sweet drink, it slipped down easily and left a warm glow.
'Why was that then?' she said impishly, and handed the tankard back.
He set it down and tracked her. 'The breakfast bar was very disappointing,' he said as he pulled her to him. 'The pillows were quite uncomfortable,' he stepped her backwards until she tumbled beneath him onto the bed. 'But the sex, that was...' he kissed her full on the mouth, and when he came up for air he said, 'the sex was extraordinary.'
The mead was sweet on his lips, and he was fumbling madly with the tiny buttons of her shirt. Two hours, we've got two hours, that's time enough. She scrambled herself out of her clothes while he struggled with his layers; the last scraps of fabric between them floated to the floor. Skin on skin, best feeling in the universe. She kissed his mouth, his chest, and worked her way lower. She liked what it did to him when she kissed his belly, nuzzled his thighs, tripped her tongue across his tip. She looked up at him, with his eyes wide, letting go of what weighed on him and surrendering to her tongue as it flicked along his shaft, and her mouth as she took him in.
He closed his eyes. 'Clara,' he snatched at her name, sent the sound shivering through the air, as if it was all that mattered. She closed her eyes and gave in to the rhythm and his needy small thrusts, and the creaking of the bed as she sucked and was lost in the intimacy of it all, until she could taste he was close to tipping. Wouldn't mind it ending that way, if that's what he wants.
He gasped, 'Clara, stop, stop.' He was as vulnerable as she'd ever seen him, eyes closed, breathing fast. She slid up his body planting kisses as she went on his belly and chest, and on his throat, until they were eye to eye, and she thought her still heart might burst. 'I love you.' Damn it. Did she say that out loud? It slipped past her lips while her brain wasn't watching. She squeezed her eyes shut and flopped back onto the bed. Really, what did it even matter if he didn't say it back? But she was on the trap street again, saying goodbye with all the bad timing in the universe crashing in on her and the raven waiting outside. She clenched her fists tight and kept her eyes firmly shut.
He touched her face. 'Clara,' he said, 'surely you know. You must know why I spent four and a half billion years in that confession dial?'
She spoke quietly with her eyes still closed. 'Duty of care.'
'That was Doctor Idiot talking.' He scoffed at himself. 'I stayed in there because I love you, and I don't regret a single minute of it.' She opened her eyes and stared at him. 'I've been walking around with my insides torn out not knowing why.' She bit her lip. The universe was a bastard, there was no other word for it. He was smiling though, and said, 'On the Orient Express you told me we shouldn't waste the little time we have feeling sad, and you were right.'
'Sometimes, I am quite wise,' she said, settling herself down into the lumpy pillow. He pressed his palm between her breasts and felt what he must have already known, no breath, no heartbeat. The sheets were coarse linen beneath her but she didn't give a damn about that, because when he slipped his hand over her belly, and his fingers inside her he found silk, wet and ready, and all she wanted was him inside her. She tugged at him until he hovered over her, elbows to the side of her face, kissed her again and pushed in. For one moment she cursed every second wasted spinning each other in circles. But, shove that thought away, here and now that's all that matters. And he remembered exactly how to drive her crazy. Rub and stroke, a little extra friction from his fingertip, and thrust into spiralling ecstasy, all self-control gone, a frenzy of clenching -don't stop, please don't stop- and he breathes so fast and thrusts so deep he couldn't stop if he tried and the whole world's shuddered and spilled to an end, on the creaky bed with itchy sheets, top room of the Haunch, Salisbury, Wiltshire, spring equinox, 1549.
They lay for a moment, connected, and neither move. If there ever was a hybrid, it is in the room now. Eventually he kissed her cheek and rolled next to her, and lay on his side with his face close to hers and his arm over her belly She shifted a bit to one side and looked around. Not a tissue or towel anywhere. What kind of hotel was this? Oh yeah, a Tudor one, authentic as they come. At least, she thinks ruefully, she isn't going to have to try to sleep in the wet patch. 'We haven't got much time. Don't let me doze off, but let's lay here a bit longer,' she said, with her eyes closed. She is in a warm soft place, somewhere between the cracks of reality. They are under a cosy quilt, heads on soft pillows, perhaps in a cottage, yes a cottage, and it's a warm spring morning. Sun streams past yellow cotton curtains and dances with the dust in the air. There are small blue flowers in the garden outside, the ones she can never remember the name of, and two gold coins on a dressing table set with three mirrors. Nothing bad can happen here, because there's no raven or confessions to be made, no druids and no need to move one inch from where she is. There's a rattle of carts on the road outside, and she opens her eyes. That warm soft place slips away and this is the only reality they have to live in.
She asked, 'What's life been like for you?'
He smiled sadly. 'Same old thing. Idiot in a box.'
'But it's not the same, not on your own.' She searched his eyes. Just how long it had been for him since the raven?
'Better that way,' he said, 'Safer.'
'No, it isn't!' How could he think that? 'Druids…' she exclaimed, tapping his chest, 'with poison cups and pointy knives! And you all tied up and no one's got your back. That's not okay.'
'Clara, it's been like there's something in the corner of my eye I can't quite see, I know it's there, but when I turn around it slips away. I keep thinking if I look hard enough, search long enough, I'll find what it is, but I just don't. The fight's wearing me down.' He smiled sadly, and stoked her hair. 'Then you find me, twice now. The Orient Express, and here. But quite soon now, I'm going to forget you again.'
'Look, we don't give up, you don't give up, remember? We can go to the Orient Express again, in 2017, and probably as long as the train goes that way, through the quasar Hawking wotist field.' He opened his mouth, ready to offer a convoluted explanation for the quantum effects that dampened the neural block. She put her finger to his mouth. 'Hush now. Point is, we can go there when we like. I left you a note and I can get a message to you on the psychic paper anyway.' She looked thoughtfully at him. 'This equinox thing, and that poison, well, there has to be a pattern, right?' She felt a flush of excitement. Maybe there was a pattern. 'Common threads.' She said. And what do you get if you gather enough threads and patiently weave them together? A rope: and if you knot that rope cleverly enough, you have a net. A net to catch them both and let the danger to the universe slip through the gaps.
He got out of bed, pulled his trousers on then rummaged in his pockets and a took out a note pad. He scribbled: synchrotron radiation, Hawking radiation, aquifolium (holly leaves) and mandragora (mandrake root). 'Common threads,' he said with a grin. Then he frowned and went to the window.
'Clara, get dressed, quickly.' Pulling the blanket off the bed and around her she jumped up and looked out of the window. Robed men, hoods covering their faces milled in the street, and one, with his hood down, banged furiously on the door of a nearby house. It was Malkin.
They scrambled into their clothes and tore downstairs. 'Bar-keep!' He poked his head up from a trap door in the floor. 'Passage to the Cathedral, where is it?'
'It's secret.'
'Well clearly not a very good one. Where is it?' The Doctor demanded.
The bar-keeper was petulant. 'Secret.'
Clara pulled King Henry out of her pocket again and bar-keep's eyes lit up. 'Henry loosen your tongue?' He held out his hand, and looked down, a little bit in awe at the shining coin that she placed there. Probably never been that close to a sovereign before. He opened the trap door wider.
'This way.' They made their way into the cellar while a thumping started up at the door. Bar-keep shouted up, 'Girl, see who that is, and get rid on' 'em.' Not hard to guess that girl's name. The universe really is a very small place.
Chapter 6: Lessons and Common Threads
They tore along the tunnel. Clearly getting rid of the druids at the door had not a success, because Clara could here scuffles and shouting not far behind them. 'If this brings us to the Cathedral, how far's your TARDIS?'
'Close. But what about you?' He was breathing heavily again. Clara flashed her torch at his face. He had a misty look in his eyes she didn't like at all. He stopped and leant on the wall, and she grabbed his hand and pulled him forward.
'Ashildr's going to lock onto your TARDIS, and collect me a few seconds after you dematerialise. We just have to get there in one piece. Come on.'
'What?' He looked at her through squinted eyes and pulled his hand away.
She bit her lip and swallowed hard. No, not yet, it's too soon, please don't forget me yet. 'Doctor,' she said sternly, 'keep focused. You can hold on a bit longer.'
He blinked and said slowly, 'Clara Oswald. Impossible girl…my Clara,' then glanced back along the passage. He grabbed her hand. 'Run!'
The passage narrowed and swept upwards to a small door, no match for the sonic screwdriver, that opened into a vestry, empty but for the priestly apparel hung all around. They pushed their way through a deep layer of cassocks and choir robes, stepping back out of the wardrobe after a magical adventure in Narnia. She ran her hands over an ornate green Bishop's cope embroidered with gold thread woven into intricate patterns.
'Why's there a secret passage way between a church and a pub?' she asked.
'Why indeed?' the Doctor replied, raising his eyebrows. 'I suspect the Haunch of Venison was not always a reputable establishment.' Clara had to laugh, despite the angry druids on their tail.
'Vicars and tarts?' He just grasped her hand, pulled her out of the vestry and up the aisle, past pews of blissful worshippers and a bemused Bishop, under the graceful arches and stained glass, dodged around the font, through the porch and out of the door into the full light of a spring morning.
Tucked between the gravestones and the wall of the chapel was the TARDIS. Seeing the blue box again hit her almost as hard as seeing him did. That box started it all: the running, being brave and clever; a snog box that wasn't a snog box at all, but a doorway to adventure. And the snogging, well that would have to happen outside the box, because he was going to forget her the minute he got back in it. They stood at the door of the TARDIS and could already hear a commotion inside the cathedral.
'Clara, I don't know if I can do this, go back to how I was…' She tiptoed up to her full height and caught hold of one of his lapels.
'Yes, you can. You listen to me this time. Run like hell, because you'll always have to, but promise me you'll find someone to run with.' She took his hand and said, 'Keep hold of this,' as she pressed the half sovereign into his palm. 'I'll find the common threads, I promise. We'll beat it.'
'Common threads!' He frantically searched his pocket and shoved the paper he'd written on at the Haunch into her hands. She pulled him into a kiss and he wrapped her so tightly in his arms that if she'd needed to breathe she'd have been in trouble.
'And when I do figure it out, your new friend -with the greatest of respect- won't be invited.' A mist began to take his face; he was starting to slip away. 'I love you,' said.
'I know.' Then he stared into the distance past her, and blinked twice. She pushed him firmly back through the doors of the TARDIS and closed the door, then shut her eyes for a long moment. She could do this. She could deal with these damn druids, and then she'd deal with a bloody universe that thought it could steal him from her. She set her jaw and turned around.
There was a whoosh as the TARDIS dematerialised against her back. The druids, Malkin in the lead, were trailing across the graveyard and stopped a few yards in front of her. Face-off: a gang of druids against one short but determined English teacher. 'You lot,' she swept her finger at the druids behind Malkin, 'should know better.' They shifted uneasily from foot to foot and some of them even looked at the ground. Miss Oswald stepped up. 'If he told you to stick your head in the oven would you?' They looked blankly at her. She muttered, 'Bad analogy for this time period.' Then she said firmly, 'It's about time you stopped blindly following this idiot and learned to think for yourselves!'
'Look at her, she doesn't breathe,' Bellamy said to his neighbour.
'Remember the blue fire last night…' another voice added.
'Perhaps she is the goddess…'
'She's no more a goddess than I am,' Malkin sneered.
She pulled herself up to her full five foot one and thwacked the two packets of exploding dust into the ground. Bathed in blue light she boomed as best she could - all the time silently praying Ashildr was on her way - 'I bring the spring, and life and hope. No more sacrificing! Do you hear me? No more!' The druids fell back from Malkin, slowly at first, then at a stumbling run when a strange shimmering started around her and a rush of warm air rustled their robes and an unearthly wheeze rang out across Salisbury.
Malkin was left, grey faced and quivering, to face the goddess alone. 'Malkin,' Clara rumbled, moments before Ashildr materialised the diner around her, 'I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on you.'
Epilogue: 7
The Doctor stood in the TARDIS with a gold coin in his hand. He looked down at it and frowned. Where did that come from? And for that matter, how had he got back here? He'd been reckless once too often. He'd ended up tied to a stone in the dark and having a foul drink poured down his throat. He touched his throat, which felt fine. So that was obviously a while ago, then. There was definitely a small druid with a big knife. And now here he was, back on the TARDIS. He sighed. He probably should find someone to pal around with because it wasn't good for him being alone. Common threads, he thought, inexplicably, with a small smile and a perplexed shake of his head. He looked at the coin and words echoed from somewhere, I'll find the common threads, I promise. We'll beat it. It made no sense at all but he replied anyway, 'Alright then,' he blinked and closed his hand tightly around it the coin. 'I can do that. I'll assume we're going to win.'