2014, London, England
"No, I don't have time to go out with you tonight," Clara sighed, shoving past the Doctor as he frowned at her.
"I'm a Time Lord, and you can have as much time as you want," he protested, his bushy eyebrows knitted in frustration.
"Maybe I don't want to go out tonight at all!" she retorted, throwing a soapy sponge at him. She sighed, staring down at the stack of dishes. They were mocking her.
"I suppose this is about some student or other?" the Doctor blurted rudely.
"Maybe I'm just having a bad day, okay?" Clara huffed, rubbing her temples. "You may be outside of time and space but my world is messed up in the slow, long march of time or however you want to think of it. There's scary stuff that happens, okay?"
He pursed his lips, eyeing her sharply. "And what, exactly, has troubled your mind today?"
She sighed shakily, clutching the kitchen counter. "I don't know. Something called Hydra. It was all over the internet. It's spreading like… like poison from a wound. Whatever it is, it's horrible. That Captain that defeated the aliens in New York City is believed to be dead, trying to fight it. They were going to kill millions."
"Humanity disgusts me sometimes," the Doctor hissed through clenched teeth.
"Yeah, me too. But you know what would have been nice? You," she poked him in the chest, "could have stopped this. You could have warned humanity! I'd like to know why you didn't!"
"Time is changing, Clara," he sighed, avoiding her gaze. "And besides, I may protect Earth from outside forces that it's not prepared for, but it's a good deal harder to protect it from itself…." He trailed off, about to speak something else before she interrupted him.
"But it's not impossible," Clara huffed, pulling the drain from her sink. "So no. I don't want to go with you today. I'm a little disgusted with everyone, frankly."
"We don't have time to be disgusted, Clara," the Doctor sighed, rubbing his temples. "Look at your paper."
"I don't want to look at my newspaper; I already know-"
"LOOK AT YOUR PAPER!"
She huffed again, snatching up her folded newspaper and glaring over the headlines. Or, at least she would have glared… if there had been any headlines. It was blank. Her stomach flip-flopped inside her.
"Time has been changed, Clara. It's changing right now. And there's a Cyberman causing it."
She stared at him, her stomach knotting nervously. "What do we do?"
"What we always do. We fix it." He extended his hand, and Clara knew it was worse than she had imagined. The dishes would have to wait.
2014, Washington D.C., USA
Slosh, slosh.
Winter sighed heavily, leaning down against a stump and pulling off his water-filled boots. He stared around him at the forest, listening carefully for any sound of trickling water. He needed to wash off his scent as soon as possible. The pain-givers would be looking for him. Any moment now, they'd find him.
And he'd be in pain again.
"Bucky Barnes," he mouthed the words aloud. They tasted strangely familiar. The face had seemed even more familiar when he'd seen it at the museum where the red, white, and blue man had stared at him from photographs.
The End of the Line.
His exhaustion coursed through him. Slumping down against the ground, he promised himself five minutes of rest. He didn't even get that much when he was with the pain-givers. But today, today he just needed a moment. It felt oddly exhilarating to decide. His mouth twisted strangely. What was that called?
A smile.
Winter drifted off into sleep, his fists slowly relaxing as he dreamed about a flying red car, and dancing the night away, and saying goodbye. It was a good dream.
He didn't wake up in time to see the silver figure appear by his side.
1943, New York City, Central Park
Something was whooshing and wheezing, and it hurt her head.
Connie Oswald opened her eyes, blinking up at the ceiling in the dim light. "Where am I?" she croaked.
"Oh, well that's fantastic, that is," an annoyed voice sighed in the distance. "Just when I was going to put you back home."
