Part 4: '...To Heal Its Own...'
Where she was and how she had got there, Clara did not know.
A bleak and tempestuous sky loomed above while the cracked and ivy-draped bones of a once great cathedral stood all around. Inexorably drawn to where the alter once would have stood, she carried on alone. A ghost drifting through the ruins.
The wind howled in lament and lightening crackled as she climbed the steps and discovered a low stone pillar at the centre of the Apse. Feeling she should, Clara drew near and began to read the eons-old text engraved across its face.
'In eternal memory of...'
The Time Lady's gasp choked on the shock that had birthed it. Her knees trembled as a lifetime of memories hit her and the very foundation of her meaning crumbled. Beneath a name that mattered, but didn't, and a pithy sentiment that could never justifiably encapsulate all she knew, there were written the simple, shattering words:
'Survived by his most beloved Clara.'
'No...' she squeaked, for that is all that she could manage as her legs gave way and all reason fractured.
Off in the distance, twin sets of bells peeled, their doom-laden herald echoing off of each other.
'No,' she repeated, quavering as her hearts broke and a century of repression gave way. 'Don't leave me behind. Please...'
The Tardis refused to translate what was upon that stone, but Aylish knew when she was watching somebody's world come to an end. She watched from off-stage of the half-real scene as Clara quietly wept, her tears pooling on the cold stone beneath her huddled form, and even though scant seconds had past, she couldn't take any more.
'Stop it! Stop it!' the waif-like lass cried and flung herself at the monster beside her.
He knocked her aside with little effort. 'You know what to do! Or do I need to turn the Still on your sister too?'
Aylish went for the bracelet without thinking while Chase turned to monitor his hellish machine. 'Forgive me,' she whispered and attempted to remove the Time Lady's safeguard... but couldn't.
'Maybe it's you're lucky day after all!' the agent recanted with glee as he watched digital needles rise and turned the 'inflow' to full. 'I don't know what she is, but this babe's kicking out some serious juice! I couldn't make a score like this off five of you!'
Aylish turned back to the inconsolable victim with tears running down her own cheeks as she realised what the Time Lady had done for her.
She flinched as the face of a unit exploded and Chase reflexively covered his head. He didn't bother as the second dial blew, or the third–panic overcoming instinct. 'No!' he yelled and tried to lower the flow. 'NO!' A fourth blew–the current too strong, and wild, and furious, and distraught. The e-batteries went next and the agent battered the flames that gushed from the console with all the abandon of a madman.
Neither had noticed that the other half of the room was now plain old turret space, but as Clara began to stir, she caught her friend's attention. With slow deliberateness, the impossible girl looked up at the man who would destroy her, and in the dark depths of her red-rimmed eyes, Aylish saw such terrible, silent fury, that it brought to mind something that had always been. A stray notion of no origin that seemed to have slipped in from a time before she was.
'The Hybrid...' a voice not her own chuckled within the deepest recesses of thought. '...Will break a billion billion hearts to heal its own...'
'YOU!' Chase howled bitterly and turned as Clara was struggling to her feet. 'WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!'
'I never said that doing something stupid was a mistake,' she rasped and thrust out her screwdriver as he flourished his pistol.
He growled and hammered the defective weapon while she changed the settings on her trusty device. As an admittance of defeat, he reached for his vortex manipulator, but the Time Lady was again the quicker and it spat sparks while her screwdriver sang happily. Tweak and hit, it did not matter: the device was dead.
Agent Chase looked up with rage at his meddling enemy, just in time to see the small, clenched fist hurtling toward him.
Two girls stood atop the castle steps, watching the milling of the military. One was mystifyingly sullen while the other was filled with the child-like glee of balance restored. Both were unusual.
'You ok now?' Aylish asked as she sheepishly prodded the Time Lady's arm.
'Yeah,' Clara said with a slight smile, but she looked ever so tired.
Below them an agent out of time, head bowed and broken in defeat, was shoved roughly into the back of a truck by a pair of equally rough looking troops.
'Why'd you hand him over to UNIT?' the lass asked, Clara having given the impression that UNIT were about as useful as a chocolate teapot.
'Because it's a kindness,' the Time Lady said darkly.
They listened to the chatter and orders. An owl hooted in the forests below, unperturbed.
'I know what you did,' Aylish said and offered her wrist to the traveller.
'What did I do?' Clara replied, a little brighter than before as she removed the bracelet.
The lass gave her a look of gratitude that words could not deliver, and turned to the approaching twins.
'It is you, isn't it?' one of them asked.
'Yes,' Clara sighed. 'It's me...'
'But, Trap Street,' the other remarked while passing the inhaler to the first. 'That must have been some clever trick then. We-'
'I never left,' Clara confirmed and the first Osgood froze mid-breath. The thrice dead girl peered thoughtfully at the smudgy horizon, eyes still raw. 'And there weren't any clever tricks. They'd run out.'
There is a certain subterranean cavern that is mostly empty and nearly always lonely, but if you visit it at just the right time you might find an American diner with the friendliest service around and a tall tail or two if they think you can handle it. This was one of those times...
Clara sat at the bar alone, sampling the always-local strawberry milkshake. It was good, the best, even. 'Don't Tell Me That It's Over' by Amy MacDonald played on the indieGlasgow station–a good sign that everything was getting back to normal in Port Gloam.
She looked up at the cavern beyond as she jabbed the straw absently at the ice cream floating about in the bottom of the glass. Aylish was hugging Keldray and neither were saying much. She was only happy to let them have a private farewell, and she was glad that she too had had such time to let go all those years before.
The wound that Chase had inflicted earlier that night suddenly flared, sharp and ragged. Stifling fresh lachrymosity, she returned to her milkshake and the music that the extremely chill, extremely early-morning DJ was playing. Maybe she could finally move on to Victorian London once all of this was over?
At one point a fluorescent light flickered–really? Why? And Clara looked up at just the right moment to catch the dragon pointing at her with one of his huge talons. Aylish turned to look at her with puzzlement and the Time Lady waved casually.
'Yes,' Clara had previously said to the dragon.
She stepped out of the glass finished door as they approached. Keldray looked even sicklier than before and Aylish smiled, but her demeanour as a whole told an entirely different story.
'Are you guys ready?' she asked.
The dragon and the lass looked at each other for a long moment and Aylish quickly shook her head. 'We are,' he said, regardless.
'But, will I ever see you again?' Aylish asked and clung to his arm.
'I have no doubt that our paths are supposed to cross again my child,' he purred and pushed her away with the gentle curve of his claw. 'Now run along and live dreams of your own without this old man to slow you down...'
She nodded, once, and stepped back.
'I'll meet you back at the Ring and Sword,' Clara confirmed.
'Kay,' Aylish replied and reluctantly turned away. She couldn't watch as the engines sounded and a precious part of her life faded away, but upon reaching the threshold she looked out over the now empty cavern for what felt like the final time.
Jeremy was still snoring as Aylish wiped around him. The bar top wasn't going to get any cleaner, but she just didn't know what to do–she'd swept the glass, dumped the broken furniture out back, and UNIT were dealing with everything else (including persuading the Police to drop the case).
The TV was back on with the news channel covering a spate of disappearances in Edinburgh, and absolutely nothing on the strange happenings in their own town. The Osgood twins at least seemed interested–which was a nice change from them staring at her in a humanly inappropriate way.
Over the drone of the irritatingly emotionless newsreader, a comfortingly familiar wheezing heralded the return of the Time Lady and she perked up–as did the twins.
Clara stole in from the rear and offered a smile to Aylish, who waved uncertainly while the Osgoods rose from their stools in unison. The traveller seemed to know what they wanted as she graciously accepted the folded note they had to offer her and ignored the girl behind the bar in order to skim over its contents.
'With my mother?' she whispered and one of the two advisors nodded solemnly.
'It's on the certificate as Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome,' the other tactfully added. 'That's the closest match we could make.'
'Thank you,' Clara replied with a melancholy sort of gratitude and placed her hands on their shoulders. 'Osgood. Bonny. Whichever either of you are.'
The traveller turned back to the bar and leaned on the ridiculously shiny surface with folded arms. 'So...'
Aylish retrieved her vibrating mobile from her left jeans pocket and scrutinised the alert as she started to walk over. Suddenly, she stopped, and Clara knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.
'We leave this story to bring breaking news,' the newsreader chimed grimly. 'A passenger plane carrying over five hundred and twenty four people onboard has disappeared over the Atlantic on it's way to Glasgow International Airport...'
The phone hit the floor, its screen shattering on impact.
Eternal seconds passed as the reader rambled on in the periphery of noise and the two girls stared at each other. The sharp edge of reality then came roaring through numb shock and Aylish blinked while the back of her neck prickled.
There was confusion in that place too–a place not visited in over seven years. Why was her Time Lady so sad? Why was there such indescribably apology in her eyes?
As if she could sense her thoughts, Clara closed them as she turned and slipped away.
Clara's hand was trembling, but she somehow managed to get the key in the Yale Lock. The Time Lady pushed the camper door open, revealing the eldritch space beyond and waited until Aylish plucked up the courage to ask, 'You're going to save my dad, aren't you?'
To see such hope melt away and devastation be left in it's place as the words, 'The Universe doesn't work like that...' left her lips? Every fibre of the Time Lady's being shuddered with hate–hate that she'd felt before on the edge of a fiery precipice.
'By going back to save him we would be preventing the very reason we went back,' Clara continued, trying not to sound as dull and cold as the rules so often seemed. 'I'm sorry,' she added, 'but we could destroy everything. Some things can't be changed. I know, I've been there.'
She put her arm on Aylish's, unsure of what else she could do.
The lass was quiet for uncomfortable moments as she clearly tried to fight back the tears and piece everything together.
'Can me and Darcy come with you then?' she whispered with all sincerity as her eyes met the Time Lady's once again. 'I... We don't have anything left here.'
Clara so achingly, desperately wanted to say, 'Yes! Of course you can! My home will be yours until you find a place where you belong...' but the rule of her 'better judgement' forbade it, and there was a betrayed glint of cunning in Aylish's gaze that was all too familiar...
''Do I have your attention?'' Clara had asked so long ago, the words ringing through her memory. She could still feel the warmth of the key between her fingers. Hated herself for it. Wanted to give them all back, but... ''You will never step inside your Tardis again!''
The Time Lady recoiled as the line between good and rational intentions blurred. 'I don't take people with me, either,' she replied sharply and slammed the Tardis door shut in Aylish's face.
Aylish stepped back as the fires of disbelief ignited within her. 'So that's it is it?!' she yelled at the ship as it began to groan and fade. 'You're just going to run away?! Leave me like everybody else does?! You promised, Clara! You promised Keldray and you promised me! LIAR!'
Then the ship was gone and she was alone with her grief...
Clara steadied herself against the console as if she might collapse without its aid. Why was she shivering? Why couldn't she stop shivering?
''This is my own fault,'' her mentor, the mad man with a box had admitted. ''I like adventures as much as the next man, if the next man is a man who likes adventures. But even so, don't… don't go native.''
''What do you mean? I'm not,'' she'd defended at the time.
''Look. There's a whole dimension in here. But there's only room for one… me,'' the magician had then warned, followed by that sad, obvious truth that she'd realised much too late: ''But I'm less breakable than you...''
Where she'd gone she did not know and did not care. Far away, hopefully.
As a stifled sob rippled through her, she reached forward and struck a button on the console. Almost in immediate response to her silent outcry, a harsh Scottish voice–disembodied, but ever more real than the voice that persisted in her thoughts–filled the air around her, surrounding her, comforting her, embracing her.
'If you are listening to this then it is because you doubt yourself, something you have done, or, perhaps, even something you will do. The life you chose so long ago is a difficult one–I should know, I've been living it a whole lot longer!–and with the weight of all that you now know its seems more than you can bare... So burn the rule book! Go on! Throw it out the door! But never, ever stop following your hearts–especially the one I trust in–and always remember who you are... My Clara...'
The Tardis chirped uncomfortably, having detected something unusual, and as Clara gazed up at the monitor through bleary eyes–she always found it best to humour it when it wanted to show her something–the misery and loathing of dejection was swept away by profound interest.
Aylish stared at the wallpaper-peeling ceiling as a drunken round of Auld Lang Syne drifted up from the bar below and Darcy watched a DVD on a pokey little TV in the corner.
This was life now, these four walls. They'd lost the house–how does a student pay a mortgage? She had money now, but not that much–and university was out of the question if her little sister were to have a shred of stability. Her laptop had even gone and got itself a virus!
The lass let go a sigh. At least Helen had given them somewhere to stay, and maybe, just maybe, the next year would be better.
Her thoughts returned to the Time Lady–which seemed slightly appropriate given the time–and the life changing night she'd visited. It wasn't with malice–that had long since faded to indifference–as she clearly must have had a good reason for leaving like she did, but Aylish often found herself wondering what the lonely wanderer was up to.
Almost as if by summoning, a groaning, wheezing commotion filled the air while a strong breeze gathered up out of nowhere and a pulsing light danced across the walls.
Aylish sat up with a sudden jolt of excitement while Darcy stared with complete astonishment and a Police Box came into existence at the end of the bed.
Of everything she could have thought at that moment, the question most prevalent in the lass' mind was, 'Why a Police Box?'
The door creaked as it opened and Clara leaned out, almost silhouetted by the radiance of the time rotor. 'You're father isn't dead,' she hurriedly stated without so much as a formal nicety. 'He's disappeared, and we will find him...' The Time Lady then shot them both a grin and disappeared back inside.
Aylish and Darcy looked at each other for a moment in complete befuddlement, their lives changed yet again in the moment between heart beats.
'C'mon then. Pack a bag. I've got the kettle on...' Clara urged as she leaned out of the door again, completely ruining her entrance.
Next Time: Graduation Day
A special history lesson for Darcy, but the Sontarans are being disruptive. How many rules will Clara break to save time itself?