I've actually got another two stories written (including the second part to this one) so you shouldn't have to wait too long for the next update. Not really sure how I feel about this chapter...but please follow favourite and review! It literally makes my day :-)


He couldn't really remember how on earth they'd ended up in this position – one moment they were happily picnicking on a beautiful beach on Deva Loka, the next, some Raxacoricofallapatorians – namely the exiled Slitheen family, turned up, surrounded them, and took Clara. The impossible girl – his impossible girl. To be blunt, they'd ruined a pretty tasty meal, one he'd spent all night preparing with surprising delicacy considering his usual clumsy demeanour. Anyway, none of that mattered. He had to find her. And that was all he let himself think about, because he couldn't lose her. Not again.


"Deva Loka," said the Doctor with a twist of a lever. "Beautiful planet – once part of the Manussan Empire, did you know? Anyway, native planet of the Kinda race – lovely people. Very peaceful – excellent cooks,"

Clara raised an eyebrow. "And we'll really get there this time? Remember when we went to 'Vegas' and ended up – oh yeah. On a Russian nuclear submarine with a mental Marsian soldier ready to kill us!"

Admittedly, he did get a bit huffy then. "Of course we'll get there! I can't believe you'd question my ability to fly my ship." He did give her a wink, though. Because he couldn't ever get huffy with her, not really.

"Your snog-box, you mean." But she was grinning too.

He chose to ignore her teasing comment (very mature of him, he thought) and instead dashed over to the doors and dramatically flung them open to reveal...(he did check, quickly, and thankfully they had landed on) Deva Loka. He momentarily congratulated himself on his exceptional location accuracy before grabbing Clara's hand and whisking her onto the sandy coast.


He slapped the back of his hand with the sonic, then cringed slightly. Note to self – screwdrivers hurt.

Note to self – do not get distracted.

Shaking his head he hurriedly altered the settings on the sonic, frantically pressing random buttons until he managed to set it to the homo sapien detector frequency (quite a useful addition, he recalled, one that got him out of a rather uncomfortable scrape on Brus). Turning in a wide circle, he pointed the sonic in front of him until-"aha!" the sonic emitted a high pitched buzzing. Of course! They'd taken her to the one place with the most cover – the rainforest. As he approached the trees the sonic began to squeal, and not a good squeal. It got worse and worse and finally completely cut off as he entered the dense, leafy labyrinth.

The rainforest, made of trees, made of...wood. "GAH!" he exclaimed, hitting himself on the head in frustration. "Stupid, STUPID! It doesn't do wood!" He adjusted the settings to a different, less complex frequency that would hopefully not be affected by the surroundings – this time producing a sound only possible to be heard by Raxacoricofallapatorians. It would hopefully be painful enough to them to at least hold them off for enough time for him to find her. If the frequency was powerful enough it could even force them to leave. He really did need to sort out the settings on the sonic, though. It was simply juvenile to have such an advanced piece of equipment and not be able to impinge on wood in any way. And frankly, he didn't want to relive a time like when he'd encountered Queen Elizabeth the 9th and locked them both in her bedroom, his sonic having been thwarted by her hairdryer – he didn't think he'd ever been so embarrassed in his life.

After what seemed like hours but was probably more like minutes, he heard a distant yell – "DOCTOR! DOCTOORRRR!" The voice broke slightly. "Please, Doctor." All thoughts of hairdryers and Queens completely vanished – the only thing he could even contemplating thinking about was rescuing her.

Blindly shoving his way through the warren of vines and trunks that continuously appeared in his path, he desperately tried to locate the source of her voice, a new found hope pushing him on. She was alive – he would find her and then they could find another planet and have another adventure and probably end up in just as much danger somewhere else. But none of it mattered if they were together.

All of a sudden the trees gave way to a sort of clearing and there she was; tied to the trunk of a tree by some vines, her delicate wrists bound tightly together. The distress she felt was evident in her face but it relaxed as soon as she recognised him. He could almost see the panic leave her as she sighed in relief.

"They've gone – they left a few minutes ago. Something about their ears-"

The Doctor only briefly registered what she was saying as he rushed over to her. "Are you hurt?" He took her face into his hands, gently cutting her free from the plants that dug into her skin. "If they wounded you, I..." his voice broke off but his face darkened.

"No, no, I'm fine. They weren't planning to hurt me – they do this a lot, apparently. Take a human or two and demand ransom or sell them to a collector..." she trailed off as the Doctor tensed and his eyes turned to stone. He slowly walked to the middle of the clearing, looking up at the sky.

"DON'T YOU DARE COME NEAR MY CLARA AGAIN. DON'T YOU DARE MESS WITH MY FRIENDS. OR YOU. WILL. PAY." he screamed, shaking with rage, his voice cracking.

"Doctor," a gentle voice came from behind him. "Doctor, I'm okay, really."

He turned around and her hand immediately found its way to his cheek. Her thumb stroked softly up and down. "Thanks for coming to save me," she smiled.

"No problem," he said, almost sardonically, but he couldn't help smile back. "You're worth it - you're always worth it." He gave her another look over, just making sure she didn't have any injuries she was hiding from him. She did that an awful lot – hiding things. So many secrets, so many mysteries. She wasn't really one to get particularly emotional either, at least not when he was around. But she truly did look fine. Well, she looked more than fine. Pretty. He'd always thought she was positively beautiful. Not that he'd thought about it much, of course...and not that she wasn't beautiful, but he couldn't think that. He tried not to. To distract himself, he pressed his lips to her head – one sweet, chaste moment that carried a lot more feelings than he'd originally intended. "You're really fine," he mumbled into her hair, vaguely acknowledging her arms wrapping around him. Relief coursed through him from those 3 simple words – he hadn't lost her. She was safe. They were together.

"I really am," she replied simply. He pulled his head back and smiled softly at her, his hands – hang on, when did his hands make their way to her shoulders? Abruptly he was overcome by the startling intimacy of it all, standing very very close to Clara Oswald, so close their chests were practically pressed together – not that he wasn't enjoying it. He was enjoying it...altogether far too much and his mind suddenly went blank – what should he do? What does one do in this sort of situation? Kissing?! Should he kiss her? Did she want him to kiss her? She was looking at him in a very strange way but that could just be shock – she had just been kidnapped by the Slitheen...

So he cleared his throat and spun around to face the TARDIS which was materialising in front of him, breaking the spell between them. "Right then. Back to the TARDIS. Off we go then. Where next? I know a fantastic planet where..."

He sauntered through the blue doors of his ship as a stunned and rather annoyed Clara Oswald raised her eyebrows in disbelief.