CHAPTER FOUR:
"Wait… No, no…"
The words had begun tumbling out of Clara's mouth before she even realised she was mumbling. She was struggling sluggishly against a nightmare, tossing her head from side to side until the friction woke her with an electric tingle against her face.
Sliding a hand across her stomach to rest on the surface beneath her, Clara was relieved to find she was no longer strewn in a bed of gravel, but simply, a bed. She brushed the silken fabric, glad for a token of familiarity.
Her pupils took some time to adjust as Clara pried her eyelids open. Through the haze of diffused lights and shapes, she could vaguely make out the outlines of a bookshelf, and a telescope, possibly a candelabrum too. All this strewn in in a full hemisphere forged by a dome of tessellating glass planes that stretched to the perimeters of the room.
Yet it was simple enough to forget about the glass entirely, given the view. "Beautiful," she breathed, her eyes glazed over in awe, entirely transfixed by a purple-blue cloud smattered with millions of orange and white pinpricks of light.
If she thought it would be difficult enough to tear herself away from the cosmic spectacle, Clara could anticipate that regaining her balance would not come without a struggle. She propped herself upon her elbows and wiggled her toes, noticing her boots had already been removed.
When she had summoned the energy to slide forward a little, the soles of her stockinged feet padded the smooth, stone floor. Suspiciously, Clara leaned forward and prodded a cautious toe at what looked to be slate tiling, which responded with a little give and sprung back into place like a sponge. She frowned and edged backward before she spied a dark shape in the corner of her eye.
It was a pair of boots.
Her boots.
Neatly arranged on the ground beside her.
Finally, her memory fully clicked into function.
The garden.
The pear.
Immediately, she shivered and spun around on the bed. Her hair whipped her face as she changed direction, scanning the room carefully.
Where am I?
Have I just been drugged?
How did I get here?
"Doctor?" Clara called out in hesitation.
"Doctor, if this is you, then it's not fair." Her voice was starting to wobble slightly. "And it's not funny."
She thrust her feet into her boots and stood up to scour the room more thoroughly.
"You can't just do this! It's not right and… and I am scared, Doctor."
Clara felt exasperated, and still a little nauseous as she spun around in search of her attacker.
Instead, she had been left alone with an obscure collection of old cupboards, desks, drawers and bookshelves, which lined the edge of the dome. They appeared to seal the room completely, the full circle motif continuing even to the bed she had woken upon, Clara recognised, which was an immaculate TARDIS blue disk, with a small mountain of cushions placed in the centre.
Could this be..?
Not far from the bed stood the telescope Clara had glimpsed earlier. Unlike the rest of the room, it seemed warm and comforting. The telescope glowed gold from the sombre blues and greys that saturated the space, kept company by an ever so slightly worn, amber velvet chair and a small table with what appeared to be a forgotten glass of scotch.
This must be the Doctor's bedroom.
Suddenly, an intense light circled the floor, sweeping around the perimeter of the room.
"Doctor. Please." Clara whispered, squeezing her eyes shut and hoping that by some miracle, that man, that idiot, would walk through a door any moment and lecture her on the human shortcomings in maturity.
Or he might rattle on about an overly elaborate plan he concocted days ago, where he hacked into her subconscious, knew about her intentions and programmed her to find the garden, but knocking her unconscious so she wouldn't try it again.
Willing for her friend, she tried to calm herself.
Count to five, open your eyes, and everything will be fine…
I'll bloody kill him,
But we'll be laughing about it by Sunday dinner.
"One,"
Clara wasn't sure she'd managed to convince herself. She knew that for all the good the Doctor had created, he'd left a path of destruction.
"Two,"
He could be genuinely callous at times, and unaffected, as if emotion just happens around him.
"Three,"
Clara inhaled, and exhaled slowly.
"Four…"
You do this Doctor. You be there for me now. If I am anything to you, you will be there for me now.
"Five."
A heavy click permeated the silence.
The tension from Clara's face rippled with relief, as she opened her eyes and turned around to face the sound.
"Doct-"
She froze in place as mahogany wardrobe door swung open.
"-tor", Clara finished, deflated.
Attached to the inside face of the door, an all too familiar purple jacket hung limp, as an equally familiar bow tie was strung over the lapels.
Her head tilted autonomously as the memory of the Doctor swelled between her heartstrings.
It felt like such a long time since they'd first met, but she had hardly had the time to think of his past regeneration. Nostalgia didn't suit him, he just kept running and she knew that if she paused to look back, he wouldn't wait for her to catch up again.
She stroked the fabric gently, and recognised a couple of the shirts he had been wearing last week suspended from the inside railing.
So this is the Doctor's bedroom, her initial instincts had been confirmed.
She closed the wardrobe carefully, and pressed her forehead against the door, as a bell softly chimed above her. The wood of the wardrobe door dissolved there, against her skin, melting into a vertical pool of silvery, brushed steel.
Recoiling from the textural regeneration, Clara stepped backward as the steel split apart to reveal another, smaller room.
The wardrobe had transformed into an elevator.
Gladly, she immediately stole inside and sunk against the back wall, patting beside her unthinkingly for the elevator buttons. But the interior was impossibly flat and shiny, like a kind of upright marble grave. Clara hesitated when she caught her own reflection in the wall, not looking back at her, but pressing a button in the reflection. In reaction, the elevator doors silently slid shut as Clara's double pressed again and the elevator started lurched into movement. The real Clara glossed her fingertips over the surface where the reflected button should have been, but it was cold and smooth, identical to every other centimetre of the elevator walls.
The other Clara watched intently from the reflection, calmly leaning against the opposite wall and folding her arms together, crossing her ankles leisurely.
In reality, however, Clara Oswald ran her hands through her hair and paced the tiny amount of floor available.
Somehow, she had relinquished all control over her game of 'Hide and Seek', to herself.