A/n: I apologize for the wait. I hope this long chapter makes up for it at least a little bit! The next chapter might take a while again (I have company visiting for the rest of this month), but I promise to do my best. Thank you all so very much for the reviews! Happy reading :)
For Clara, the seeds of love were planted in laughter, watered with trust, and harvested with care.
It was not a simple process. Frankly put, she didn't fall in love a lot, at least not romantically. She fell in love a hundred times a day in a lot of other ways—she fell in love with her friends, with her favorite mug with a chip in the handle, with the way Artie always had to hug her at least once before leaving the house for any amount of time, with Melody's laughter and Angie's sass and Jenny's loyalty and Vastra's cleverness. All she loved she loved strongly, but there were few that she felt romantically towards. At the age of twenty-seven, she could only say she'd been in love one time. And even that love felt weaker and weaker as the memory of it faded.
It was funny to Clara how quickly something that was once an enigma could suddenly make sense. After her only true, functioning relationship ended, she wandered through the weeks confused at what had happened. The memories of her relationship seemed tinted and stretched, overtly emotional and not-at-all trustworthy, and so she left it feeling like maybe she would never love like that again because maybe it had never actually happened in the first place. Maybe it had been a fluke, a misstep, a beautiful trip.
But she stayed with the Doctor that night, and she found it all making sense. She could understand those distant memories—once so drenched in vivid color and feeling that she couldn't make head nor tail of them when she was detached from it—and found that they were clearer than before. She held the Doctor's hand when he cringed in pain and tucked the blanket around his shoulders when he shook and she acknowledged that she loved him, and that it was rash and mad and wild, but true. A little like him.
And so when he pulled her close, his body finally cooling after a day of being wrung out by fever after fever, and murmured nonsense about her hair and her nose and her eyes, and how much he liked those things, she could finally admit the other fact she'd been too careful to. That perhaps he was starting to make sense of those old memories too.
The Doctor's skin stung upon waking.
He felt like he'd been severely sunburned, to the point of blistering, and almost any movement made him grit his teeth. He had a headache knocking around behind his eyes and his heart seemed to be beating oddly, but he knew he was okay despite. The past day was a mixed up jumble in his mind, a jumble of ClaraPainClaraBathClaraMedicineClaraBedClaraClara, but he knew the basics. He'd been infected and he'd been saved, and now he was going to make Dr. Gillyflower pay for what she did.
He carefully lifted his eyelids at that thought, determined to get to the hospital as soon as possible to help Melody, but he soon realized that it was still the middle of the night due to the lack of light outside. He lifted his head a bit and glanced around the room, and he was softly stunned once he did. He remembered that he asked Clara to stay. He remembered her taking care of him throughout the night, pressing wet washcloths to his forehead and smoothing back his hair and telling him silly stories from unknown origins, but the night ended in a faded blur for him. He hadn't thought to consider where she might sleep if she stayed the night, but he did remember that the last thing he could recall was his arms pulling her to him. And now he was looking at her almost thoughtfully as she slept gently on the other side of the bed.
He didn't mean to stare, because he knew that looking at someone while they slept was pretty creepy, but she looked beautiful in a way he hadn't seen before. She was always beautiful, even in that redundant blue, but there was a fragility to this beauty, an innocent, unexpected quality that the Doctor couldn't look away from. He stared at the way her hair fanned out behind her on the pillow, light brown silk puddled on the sheets, and the calm lines of her face. There was no worry to be seen, no sorrow, not even any teasing. There was only her clear, peaceful face, and it was stunning in an almost spellbinding way.
Perhaps it was because he was still fighting off the disease, but his impulse control wasn't up to par. He had only just thought of the urge—I want to hold her-and then he was sliding across the sheets. He tried to tell himself he was only doing it because he felt a tenderness towards her for saving his life, but he knew that was a lie, and a huge one at that. He wanted to hold her simply because he cared deeply for her.
He rested a hand against her warm lower back and pulled her close gently, with movements that leaked affection. She stirred a little, and he worried for a brief moment that he was entirely out of line, but she slid closer, closing the gap between his chest and hers, and held him in turn. Her hand was a pleasant weight between his shoulder blades and he felt his heart thumping a little more rapidly, and he wished she was awake to tease him for it. She shifted again, this time pressing her face against his chest, and then drifted back off. The Doctor played with the ends of her hair and rested his chin against the top of her head, his soul uncurling in the way it only did when he was with her. And he hadn't slept well in a very long time. He hadn't been freed from nightmares in over a year. But when he drifted back off to sleep, there wasn't anything on his mind but Clara, and that influenced his dreams.
There was an understood difference between them when they woke up, but neither of them spoke of it.
When the Doctor woke up the second time, he could tell by Clara's breathing that she was awake too. The battered clock he'd recently added to his desk informed him that it was only five that morning, even though his body felt like he'd been sleeping for days. And he knew that she knew he was awake as well, but neither of them made a move to separate. The Doctor stroked her hair and she leaned into him, pushing him from his side to his back for the sake of curling up halfway on top of him. The soft pressure of her body on his torso was the most comforting thing the Doctor had ever felt, and if he thought for a moment that she wasn't aware of that fact, he would have told her. It was the most solid proof that she was there. He could feel her heart beating against his chest and he held her close, with both his arms around her, and it just felt right, like they were made to be doing that.
The Doctor could sense when Clara woke up completely, because her muscles tensed underneath his touch and she sat straight up like she'd been shocked.
"Melody. We have to get to the hospital, we have to call Jenny and Vastra, we—"
The Doctor gently cupped her cheek. Her brown eyes were wide with panic, her skin paler than it'd been only moments ago, and the Doctor missed the gentle freedom of her face while she was sleeping.
"It's five in the morning, Clara. Visiting hours don't start for a while, Dr. Gillyflower won't be anywhere but bed, and I still need to think of a plan."
Clara frowned. "You don't have a plan already?"
He smiled and dropped his hand from her cheek, only to grab her hand instead.
"Not yet. But I will." He tapped the side of his head. "I can feel it baking."
It took a few more moments of soothing, but after a while Clara realized that there was nothing they could do to help in the current moment but relax. Once she knew she couldn't help Melody, she seemed even more determined to take care of the Doctor. She refilled his water and forced him to eat some Jammie Dodgers (the only food in the house by this point) and took his temperature. She gave him his injections and then stood almost anxiously beside the mattress, wringing her hands and practically swaying on her feet from exhaustion. The Doctor frowned.
"How many hours of sleep did you get last night, Clara?" He asked gently.
Clara shrugged her small shoulders. He took from that that she'd definitely gotten less than three.
"When was the last time you went even six hours without taking care of someone?" The Doctor wondered.
She sighed and avoided his gaze, like he'd just stumbled upon a deeper issue by accident. "Dunno. Seems people always need to be taken care of."
He patted the mattress.
"Come on. We have time to kill. I'm as comfortable as I could be and nothing needs cleaning. The only thing to do to help Melody is to let me lie here and think. Let yourself relax for once." He invited.
She took to fiddling with her hands like she always did.
"It just feels so wrong to lie there while Melody's scared and in pain." She said. "It feels wrong to indulge while she's suffering."
The Doctor couldn't help but feel a little shock of pleasure at the idea that Clara thought of lying with him as indulging herself. He knew that there was a good chance she just meant resting in general, but he liked to think that she enjoyed being held by him as much as he enjoyed holding her.
"It's okay to be happy when someone else isn't." He told her. "You suffering or depriving yourself won't help the other person feel any better. Happiness can alleviate pain; pain can't alleviate pain." The thought seemed to be a foreign concept to her judging by the way her eyebrows rose slightly. "You spend so much time watching those kids. Do you ever do anything for fun?"
She seemed a little defensive at that comment. She sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress, her eyes locked on his.
"Sure I do." She answered. He knew he'd convinced her when she slid her legs underneath the blankets once more. He grinned.
"Oh, really?" He asked as she lied back down against the pillows. "Like what?"
She turned on her side to face him, her hand wedged underneath the pillow. She had a sly grin on her face that the Doctor didn't quite understand, like she was laughing internally at an inside joke only she understood.
"Stuff." She replied, her eyes flitting away from his at the end of her sentence, almost guiltily. The Doctor hoped sincerely that the guilt wasn't from having fun. No one should ever feel guilty for having fun (unless, of course, their definition of having fun was hurting other people. In that case, that rule must be different, although Clara would never be one of those people).
"Well, I'm glad you do 'stuff'. You deserve to relax and have fun." He replied. Something in the slight curve of her secretive smile was so beautiful to him that he had no desire push for more information, lest it might go away. He couldn't help but cherish the quiet mysteries hiding inside this woman.
She shrugged, almost indifferently. "Stuff is stuff I guess. Could be better, could be worse. Has been both." Before the Doctor could even make sense of that statement, she pressed on. "How are you feeling?"
The Doctor reached over and tapped the tip of her nose.
"You see? I ask you about what you do for fun, say you deserve to have more of it, and almost immediately you're switching the topic to me and trying to start taking care of me again."
"No," she started stubbornly, "taking care of people is fun." There was a brief pause, and then she continued. "I need to know, because you scared me to death yesterday."
The heaviness of her words was unexpected. It dragged the Doctor's heart down.
"Better." He replied almost immediately. He remembered telling her that he was going to kill himself with a rush of embarrassment and regret. "Clara…about what I told you last night—"
She cut him off by sliding closer to him and touching his hair. It was a light touch, innocent and simple, but it rendered the Doctor speechless for a moment.
"Don't say you didn't mean it, because I'll know it's a lie." She started. Her eyes were serious. "What do you do for fun, Doctor?"
He faltered. Honestly? Before her, a whole lot of nothing.
"Currently? I talk to you." He answered honestly. She hadn't been expecting that answer, that much was obvious. Her smile was surprised and pleased. He continued, bringing up her previous topic a little reluctantly. "I meant what I told you last night. About how I wouldn't now."
He couldn't remember much of what was going through his head at the time, only that he was committed to the promise he'd given her.
"Me too." She replied, and it took him a moment to realize that she was saying that she had meant what she said last night, too.
Nothing could make someone live who didn't want to anymore. But sometimes, a lot more frequently than those burdened with sadness could see, someone came around who made you realize that some part of you still wanted to. There were no words to describe the feeling of knowing that that same person wanted you to want to live, too.
The Doctor was verbally stunted and he wasn't sure if it would pass anytime soon. He opened his arms, and he didn't have to say a word. She was against his heart in a moment.
They rested together for a while. The Doctor thought about the day, about how they were going to pull off what needed to be done, about Clara, about the way his skin tingled when he touched her. It was another fifteen minutes before either of them did or said anything. The Doctor had never been one for simply lying with someone. The only woman he'd ever spent many mornings with was River, and she wasn't one for lying about either. It was sex and sleep and then back to work for them. The Doctor understood that love came in so many different shades and variations. His love with River had been crazy and nonstop and erratic and jarring and, sometimes, unsettling—but the affection he felt for Clara was different. It was tender, gentle, protective, loving, magnetizing, reassuring. It was the flipside of the coin, and he loved that.
When Clara finally spoke, it wasn't anything like what he'd been expecting.
"If Jenny and Vastra could see us now…" she murmured tiredly, her voice muffled against his shirt. The Doctor chuckled at that, instantly amused by that mental image. They'd probably assume the two had been making love all night by their current positions, when in reality it'd been pretty much as far from that as you could get. The Doctor had to admit that he would have much rather been up all night for those reasons than for the ones he was, not that he'd ever tell Clara that.
"It'd be a dream come true for them." The Doctor agreed. He took to isolating the different scents in her shampoo as they fell into a comfortable silence once more. He had just decided it was a mixture of raspberry, vanilla, almond, and jasmine tones when she spoke up again.
"You're a fantastic cuddler, do you know that? I keep saying I'm going to get up, but the thought seems so unappealing I can't get myself to do it." She told him, her tone playfully accusing.
The Doctor tried not to let the compliment go to his head, but it did. Hearing from Clara that being held by him was that enjoyable was probably one of the best compliments he'd ever received, and so he grinned into her hair like a fool, so hard his face ached.
"I can practically hear your ego growing." Clara teased.
The Doctor attempted to humble himself. "I'm only this good of a cuddler because I'm holding someone very huggable."
He knew he was a great hugger, but he also knew that a great bit of it came from the fact that Clara just fit so perfectly in his arms. She was so small and warm and her head rested perfectly in the middle of his chest.
"I'd like to do this for fun." Clara murmured, answering a forgotten question. The Doctor didn't know why he was surprised at her brashness; he had no reason to expect anything else from her at this point. But he still blushed happily.
"We could. Must be better than jigsaw puzzles or whatever it is you do, anyway." He said.
For some reason, she found that statement a lot funnier than he did. She laughed into his shirt, her body shaking slightly against his, and all he could do was chuckle in bewilderment and rub her back.
"It is better." She said, and then she lifted her head to look at him, her eyes wide and her cheeks flushed. "Oh my stars." She murmured, more to herself than anything. "It actually is." She almost sounded afraid and humored by that at the same time.
The Doctor felt once again that he was missing a joke, but he just smiled at her in slight confusion. They fell back into a comfortable silence together and the Doctor spent the next hour playing different scenarios out in his head. When he finally crafted a plan that had the best calculable chance of success, he squeezed Clara closer in a brief hug.
"It's all going to be okay, because I've got a plan." He told her.
She sounded hopeful. "A man with a plan. Just what I like."
They shared a grin.
It was almost ridiculous how quickly Jenny, Vastra, and Strax showed up at the Doctor's house after Clara called and explained the situation to them.
Strax was a stocky, bald man who shouted everything he said. His first statement upon entering the Doctor's house was that the doors must be barricaded against the enemy and the weapons must be counted. It took a few quiet reminders from Vastra to convince him that that wasn't entirely necessary.
The five sat on the kitchen floor for twenty minutes and talked. Strax mostly interrupted with stories of the war, which took up a considerable amount of time, but the Doctor had to admit that the man had guts, and guts were what they were in need of.
"What I don't understand is how she got to you, Doctor." Vastra muttered, after listening thoughtfully to the Doctor's plan and Clara's explanations of what had happened the day prior.
The Doctor had to admit that he didn't have that many clear memories from before she attacked him. He did remember a knock at his door, and her asking to speak to him, but the rest was a confused blur. He guessed she injected him almost immediately upon entering.
"She ambushed me at the door, I believe." The Doctor admitted.
"Cowardly! Spineless! Human scum!" Strax interjected. They all waited patiently for him to calm down and then continued.
"But how did she know you were here?" Vastra pressed.
The Doctor wasn't sure of that. He'd wondered that at the time, as well.
"I think I know." Clara spoke up. The Doctor turned to look at her. "I'm assuming Dr. Gillyflower delivered the cupcakes to my house herself—my address wouldn't be difficult to find seeing as though she spent the morning presumably pouring over my records and brainwashing my boss—and it's very likely that Angie or Artie told her that I was next door at the Doctor's house. I'm guessing that she headed over there sometime after I left."
The four mulled over that. The Doctor was starting to feel more and more upset over what had happened. He hadn't been that terrified at the time, oddly. He'd always known Clara would save him, somehow. But now he was realizing just how dangerous of a situation he'd been in.
"But why?" Jenny demanded. "Why would she do this to you two, to Melody?"
That was a question that no one had the answer to.
"I don't know why she's ultimately infecting everyone, but I know why she came after Clara and I. Because we were the ones asking questions." The Doctor offered.
"Never attack an enemy when his back is turned! Or go after small offspring! The female will pay!" Strax exclaimed. The Doctor had a brief moment of wonder at the fact that anyone trusted this man as their doctor.
"Thank you, Strax." Vastra said, her tone clearly implying that he needed to be quiet.
"So now we have to get past security, cure Melody, somehow keep Dr. Gillyflower from coming after all of us, and expose her to the authorities." Clara summarized.
"Easy." Strax said firmly.
Jenny and Vastra shared a less confident look.
After going over the plan once more, the five of them began to exit the Doctor's house. On the way through the living room, Vastra stopped and observed the room thoughtfully.
"Quite a small space for two to sleep." She acknowledged, almost coyly. The Doctor saw Jenny smiling to herself. He shared a private look with Clara, both of their eyes swimming with mirth and slight annoyance, and then looked at Vastra.
"I found it pleasant." He said lightly. Vastra's eyes rose so high they practically disappeared at that. Clara and the Doctor shared a discreet high-five before filing out of the room after the others.
The Doctor spent most of the ride to the hospital doing everything but what he should have been doing. He should have been nervously going over his plan in his mind, but instead he spent the ride silently congratulating himself on the effectiveness of his cure (his pain was all but gone, only reemerging a few minutes before the next injection was supposed to be administered) and helping Clara tease Jenny and Vastra. They were all shoved together in the Doctor's car with the Doctor driving, Clara shoved between Vastra and Strax in the back, and Jenny in the front. As they drove, Vastra and Jenny would ask sly questions about them and Clara would meet the Doctor's eyes in the rearview mirror. They had an unspoken agreement to drive Vastra and Jenny mad for their meddling, and so they made a point to answer just vaguely and suggestively enough to make them both squirm.
"How have you been, other than all of this drama, Clara?" Jenny asked, obviously trying to herd her towards mentioning the Doctor. Clara sidestepped her efforts easily and made them her own.
"Lovely," Clara said immediately. "The Doctor and I have been spending a lot of time together. It's been very good for me, a great stress-reliever."
The Doctor bit back a smile. Her words were true, and innocent, and yet they could mean something completely different to those looking for certain answers. That vagueness was exactly what drove the two wild.
"How splendid!" Vastra said. "What have you been doing? Have you done anything particularly fun together?"
"We don't really get out much. We just entertain ourselves." The Doctor spoke up.
"It's great fun." Clara added.
The Doctor could practically feel the frustration rolling off the two.
"Well, that's great!" Jenny chimed in.
As they got nearer and nearer to the hospital, Clara got quieter and quieter. The Doctor watched it happen through the rearview mirror. Her smile melted off her face and she began nervously fiddling again, staring off through the window with her lips drawn into a tight line. Even stranger, no one else seemed to really notice the shift in her. Jenny and Vastra kept talking to her as they had been before, seemingly indifferent to the change in her. It became painful to watch her struggling to keep up with the conversation and give sufficient answers, and the Doctor had a brief moment of wistful thinking where he imagined pulling over the car and making someone else drive so he could pull her into the circle of his arms in the backseat. So he could whisper threats to whatever voices were yelling at her in her mind. So he could keep her under his protection, even if the threats were herself.
He did the next best thing he could: he drew the focus of the conversation off of her. For the rest of the ride, he endured personal questions and answered them honestly enough just for the sake of freeing her. He was a very private person, and some of the questions they asked (how did you know Melody's birth parents again? What happened to them?) made his chest ring with hollow aches, but he was glad to do it. That's when he fully realized just how bad he had it for the woman in the backseat.
When they arrived, the Doctor carefully retrieved the ice box with the medicine from Clara's lap. While the other three milled about on the sidewalk, waiting, he took a small moment to kneel down beside her and out of their view. She was still buckled in, like she hadn't even realized they'd arrived.
"Do you trust me?" He asked her.
Her brown eyes met his, nervous and frenzied at first, but then gradually shifting to something akin to affection. He shifted the cooler to one hand and held out his other, and she wordlessly placed hers in it. He pulled her out of the car and to her feet, and that was when he knew he could do it. When she was by his side.
The plan started simply enough. Jenny ventured into the hospital while they all waited outside, taking inventory of what the floor Melody was on looked like. While they waited, Clara's shoulder pressed against the Doctor's, and he made sure to stand tall to offer her whatever support she needed. After all, hadn't she done that very same thing for him every day?
Jenny returned with good news and bad news. The good news was that the guards seemed relatively unthreatening. The bad was that Dr. Gillyflower was roaming the hall. They all exchanged looks and the Doctor quickly counted the probability of success up in his head once more. By his estimations, they had a fifty three percent chance of successfully completing what they came to do, assuming that everything went according to plan. Well, it was over a half, and that was all the Doctor needed.
"Geronimo," he suggested, almost jokingly, and then the plan was put into action.
Like all good plans, the Doctor and Clara remained together. They darted into a vacant bathroom on the floor below the pediatric ward, leaning back against the door silently. They were quiet as they waited for Vastra to send them the message that it was okay to go up. While they waited out, with the medicine, Strax and Jenny were currently subduing the guards. The Doctor had been surprised to find out that Jenny was trained in hand-to-hand combat (from where he could only guess) but believed it enough when she had suddenly removed her scrubs to reveal a black leather catsuit. Strax he had no doubt would be able to take down a couple guards, the question was only if he'd be able to do it neatly and quietly.
While Strax and Jenny took care of the security on that floor, Vastra was busy trying to get Dr. Gillyflower into her office for a legal consultation. This the Doctor had no doubt would work. The only thing that he worried about there was that Dr. Gillyflower would infect or harm Vastra as well, but he had a feeling she could take care of herself. She knew to be on her guard, anyway.
And so the Doctor and Clara—armed with a weapon arguably more powerful than any security could have—could do nothing but wait for instructions. They were the ones who had to sneak into Melody's room, administer the cure, and then bring her out to the car with them without anyone catching on.
"We have a fifty three percent chance of success, if everything goes the way we've planned." The Doctor informed Clara.
They were still waiting for instructions from the other three. The Doctor was growing nervous because, ideally, it shouldn't have been taking that long.
Clara looked at him. "Is that supposed to reassure me?"
"It's not zero percent!" The Doctor pointed out.
She smiled. "No, I suppose it's not. Who would have thought that my Doctor was a secret optimist?"
He smiled back at her, his softening the longer he looked at her anxious eyes.
"Are you okay, Clara?" He decided to ask. He figured he might as well, seeing as though they didn't have much else to do but sit here and listen to the rapid pounding of their heartbeats.
"Just nervous." She replied. She leaned the back of her head against the door and shut her eyes. "I can't believe this is happening. Hospitals are supposed to be safe. I thought she was safe here."
"Unfortunately, there aren't many places that are truly safe." The Doctor said gently.
Clara turned her head to glance up at him. "Why do you suppose she's doing this at all?"
The Doctor's response was cut off by the chiming of Clara's cell phone. She quickly lifted it up and opened the text message. The two of them read it together. Go.
The Doctor extended his hand.
"What do you say we go save Melody and then ask Dr. Gillyflower ourselves?"
She grasped it. "Geronimo, as you say."
"Geronimo!" He agreed.
The stairwell was devoid of people. Clara and the Doctor climbed the stairs quietly and deliberately, their eyes locked on the door above. The Doctor felt keenly aware of every spot on his body and noticed things he never had before, like the dirty grout between the tiles on the walls and the distant dripping of some sort of pipe. All his senses were occupied with the task in front of them: drawing as little attention as possible.
When they stepped out into the fifth floor, where the pediatrics ward was located, it was clear to the Doctor what the hold up had been. Papers were scattered all down the hallway, some with dirty footprints on them, other rumbled like they'd been trampled over. Jenny and Strax must have had a more difficult time than they had originally planned.
The Doctor and Clara stayed close to the wall. The hall was eerily empty. The Doctor stopped a few feet into the hallway and reached out to grab Clara's arm, stopping her progress as well.
"Where are the nurses?" He asked her.
His eyes scanned up and down the deserted hallway. Clara's followed his gaze.
"Better question:," she started, sticking her head through a doorway, "where are the patients?"
The Doctor stuck his head through the doorway as well. The bed was empty. He looked back at Clara and they shared a concerned look. They traveled down the hallway, peeking in each door they passed, but they didn't locate anyone else. Somewhere after the fifth empty room, one of them had taken the other's hand again, although the Doctor couldn't recall who.
"What if she's not there?" Clara asked him, her voice edging on desperate, and the Doctor wasn't sure what to say to that.
When they reached Melody's door, Clara let out a gasp of relief.
"Melody!" She cried.
She ran past through the doorway, everything else forgotten. The Doctor stood in the doorway, the cooler heavy in his hand, and felt relief saturate him as well. Melody looked terrible, but she was there, and she was alive. She didn't even fake a smile; she started crying the moment she saw Clara. It was enough to break the Doctor's heart, so he wasn't sure what it was doing to Clara.
Clara gathered the girl in her arms immediately, cradling her frail body to her chest.
"I'm so sorry, Melody." She whispered, "I'm so sorry."
The Doctor peeked out into the hallway one last time before closing the door to Melody's hospital room. He locked it and then pushed one of the metal tables in front of it for added security. He listened to Melody's muffled sobs as he placed the cooler on top of the table and began readying the medication.
"Dr. Gillyflower makes it worse," is all Melody managed to say through her crying. As Clara removed the wires and tubes from Melody's body, the machines around her bed started beeping in protest. By the time the Doctor had the injection ready, the room was filled with the sound of Melody's crying and the incessant, overlapping beeps from three different machines. It was enough to set his nerves on edge. He wanted them out of there as soon as possible. He had a bad feeling.
Clara had managed to tuck the blankets around Melody's shaking body, get her freed from the machines, and carry her over to the Doctor in only one minute. Melody had both arms looped tightly around Clara's neck, like she was afraid she'd be taken from her again if she so much as lessened her grip, and the Doctor wished he didn't have to make her move. But he needed her arm.
He gently touched her shoulder.
"Melody, dear, I need your arm,"
Melody only held onto Clara tighter. Clara rubbed her back and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
"Melody, I'm not going anywhere. We're taking you home. But first we have to give you some medicine, okay?"
It was a long, painful minute before Melody finally lowered her arms. She shifted slightly in Clara's hold, so she could see the Doctor, and he felt her eyes on him as he quickly injected the medicine.
She flinched a little, and immediately latched back onto Clara, but the Doctor knew it would help with her pain soon enough. He quickly packed the cooler back up and set a hand on Clara's shoulder.
"Let's go." He said.
This time, they all but ran. The Doctor kept a guiding hand on Clara's shoulder the entire time, partly in fear of her falling behind, partly in fear of her outrunning him. They took the stairs two at a time, and by the time they reached the main floor, Clara's legs were shaking from exhaustion. She'd had to run twice as fast as he had to keep up with his long legs, plus the added weight of Melody. The Doctor stopped before exiting the stairwell into the main lobby.
"Let me take her." He offered.
Clara freed a quivering hand long enough to wipe some sweat away from her eyes.
"I don't know if she'll let you." She admitted.
"She's just going to have to. We need to get out of here. I have a bad feeling." He told her.
He passed the cooler to Clara. He reached forward and pried Melody from her arms, forcing himself to be deaf to her shrieking and protests, and he felt worse than he'd felt since he detonated those bombs as he restrained her in his grasps. She thrashed wildly, her arms reaching over his shoulder towards Clara, but he knew they didn't really have another choice. Her small fists pounded into his back as they began running towards the exit. He'd given up on being subtle; he just wanted Clara and Melody out of this place.
He briefly acknowledged the fact that the lobby was completely empty, but he didn't have time to wonder fully why. He felt uneasy not having Clara close to his side. He wanted to reach out and grab her hand, but he was using all his strength to keep Melody from diving from his arms. He purposely ran just a little behind her so he could keep her in his sight.
When she reached the glass doors, she froze. He came to a stop behind her a moment later and watched as she pushed futilely against the doors. After a moment of angry shoving, she backed up a few spaces and stared at the door, her fingers tapping her chin nervously.
"Okay, not good. I'd say this significantly lowers our percentage." Clara said.
The Doctor passed Melody back to Clara wordlessly and hurried to the doors. He pushed against them with all his strength, but they wouldn't budge. He searched around for some sort of lock, but he couldn't locate it.
"Should we break it?" Clara asked.
He looked back at her. She seemed so small suddenly, standing there gripping Melody almost as desperately as the small girl was gripping her. The Doctor felt the back of his throat begin to ache at the sight of them, and he knew he was going to do whatever it took to get them out. No matter what the consequences were. Before the enemy was manageable; it was just Dr. Gillyflower and her poison. But now something else was going on. Where were all the people? This hospital was bustling with activity only an hour ago, and now they were the only ones. It wasn't right, and he couldn't think much beyond that.
"Yes. We're going to break it." He decided.
He hurried over to one of the main desks and jumped over it. He sat down in the chair and opened the drawers, rustling frantically through the items, hoping he'd stumble upon a hammer or something akin to that. When his searches turned up nothing but files and paperclips, he slammed his hands down angrily on the desk top.
"Doctor!" Clara called. He looked up at her. She pointed at him. "The chair!"
Oh. He rose from the wooden chair and lifted it, carrying it over to the doors. He shifted it so he was holding it with the legs forward and was about to begin running full-force towards the glass doors when he heard the PA system turn on. It made a fizzy crack and the Doctor stilled, just for a moment, and then a voice filled the lobby.
"Paging Doctor Smith and Nurse Oswald. You're needed in the cafeteria." The woman, who the Doctor instantly recognized as being Dr. Gillyflower, began almost hysterically laughing after that announcement. The Doctor turned and exchanged a confused look with Clara. "I'd recommend you hurry. The air's running out. We're all here waiting for you!"
There was a loud click, and the room was silent again. Melody was shaking after hearing Dr. Gillyflower's voice and squeezing Clara so tightly that the Doctor wondered how the latter could still breathe.
"I want to go home! I want to go home, Clara! Clara, I want to go home, please!" Melody begged.
Clara stroked Melody's hair and shushed her. She hurried over to where the Doctor was standing and looked up at him, her face paler and her eyes wide.
"What does she mean the air's running out?" Clara asked. The Doctor didn't reply, because he had no idea. "Doctor! What does she mean?!"
"I don't know!" He finally exclaimed, and that fact made him pull at his hair. His eyes scanned the room. There was no way for her to actually remove the air, so that could only mean she was somehow making it so that the air wasn't breathable. How? Why? He spotted two giant ventilation ducts on the right side of the room and then felt it all begin to make sense.
"Oh," he said. "Oh no."
He lifted the chair again. He barely felt the resistance of the glass as he slammed into it, barely heard the glass as it shattered, barely saw the shards fly out across the sidewalk. He heard Melody yell out in panic and the sound of Clara's footsteps as she hurried over to him, but he didn't have time to explain. He rose to his feet and fished around his pocket for his car keys. He pressed them into Clara's palm and then closed her fingers around them. He pressed a kiss to the back of her hand and then let it fall to her side.
"Go. I'll explain later. Bring her home and lock the doors. You know what to do about the medication."
Clara faltered, her fist squeezing the key.
"What's going on?" She demanded.
He shook his head and then reached forward, taking her face in his hands. Melody had her face buried against Clara's shoulder and was still shaking.
"Clara, when you're holding onto something precious, you just have to run with it. You have to run as quickly and as far as you can, before it's too late."
She nodded, her eyes slightly watery, and he knew she trusted him still.
He didn't look behind him as he ran back into the hospital, even though he wanted to. He was afraid that, if he did, he'd turn back around and leave with them.
The laminated floors of the hospital squeaked underneath this feet as he sprinted down the hallways. He followed the signs and pushed through the cafeteria doors without considering anything. He just knew that she had a lot of sick, innocent people in here, and he couldn't leave.
He was greeted by an alarming sight. The room was packed with people. Everyone was standing still, practically motionless, and saying nothing. His eyes scanned the room, but he didn't see enough people to account for all those who were missing. So where were the missing patients? He noticed that a lot of the people in the room were children and adolescents. There were only a few adults. And as he took notice of all these things, he finally spotted Dr. Gillyflower in the far right corner of the room.
She was standing beside a phone on the wall. She gave him a fake wave and then lifted the phone to her ear. Her words rang out through the PA system again.
"Hello, Doctor! Nice of you to join our party. But you're missing two."
"Leave them out of this. What are you doing? Why are you doing this?" The Doctor demanded. "Someone's already called the police I'm sure! They'll be here any minute. You're mad!"
His voice carried easily over the silent, motionless crowd. Dr. Gillyflower rolled her eyes at his words, and this made the Doctor's blood boil.
"I'm holy!" She spat out. "You're just jealous because you have nothing but evil coursing through your veins. I was chosen by God! This is my duty, this is my purpose." She said. "All of the people in here were chosen by me. Once I send this toxin through the air, we'll all be headed to Eden."
The Doctor's mind immediately began narrowing in on the causes to her insanity. Mental disorder? Brain tumor? Cranial swelling? She was clearly delusional.
"Can you even hear what you're saying?" He asked. "You're killing innocent people. That's all you're doing, Dr. Gillyflower. There's no righteousness in death. There's no nobility in murder."
He would know. He watched her lip curl up and felt his anger rising. He hadn't been properly angry in a long time. He wasn't sure what he might do. He was a frightening man when provoked.
"I am not murdering!" She said shrilly. "I am saving! I'm taking them from this world back to their real home!"
The Doctor spotted the container that presumably held the toxin in gas form. It was on a table beside her. He was trying to gage how long it would take to dart across the room for it, versus her average reaction time and speed, when he spotted something from the corner of his eye. It was only a flash of shining brown, but immediately he was calmer. His anger was gone and in its place there was confidence that everything was going to be okay.
"They already have real homes. Look around!" He told Dr. Gillyflower, hoping to keep her attention on him. "Everyone you see here is someone's child, someone's sibling, someone's friend. You aren't doing anyone a favor. You aren't doing God's will." His voice grew softer. "How often do you hear voices?"
She stood up taller, her shoulders tensing.
"I don't hear voices. God whispers to me. God tells me what he wants and I do it!" She shrieked.
The Doctor spotted a swish of fabric near the corner Dr. Gillyflower was standing in. He raised his voice.
"You're unstable!" He yelled. "You've hurt so many people, Dr. Gillyflower. How many? How many people have you killed?"
"Saved! Saved saved saved saved saved!" She stomped her foot after each word, looking completely mad. A second later, the Doctor saw Clara quietly grab the container from behind Dr. Gillyflower. But the currently deranged woman didn't notice. He couldn't help but smile.
That smile quickly turned to a look of shock. Clara set down the container gingerly, calmly, and then tapped Dr. Gillyflower on the shoulder. She jumped in surprise and turned around to see the shorter girl. Clara didn't waste a second. She lifted her hand and slapped Dr. Gillyflower so hard across the face that the sound ricocheted throughout the large room for a few moments afterwards.
The Doctor winced. The children and people crowding the room, previously stunned into silence by Dr. Gillyflower's threats of poisoning them, began murmuring amongst themselves and rising on their tiptoes to get a better look. The Doctor didn't remember deciding to run to them, but a second later he was darting past people and leaping to them. When he reached them, he arrived just as Clara began speaking. Her voice wasn't even loud in volume. If anything, it was quiet, but the way she spoke made even the Doctor feel uneasy.
"You hurt one of my kids. You made her suffer for weeks. She would have died if you had it your way. She is under my protection, do you understand? I've never hated someone so much that I began to understand the urge to kill, but I suppose there's a first for everything, right?" Clara was shaking. "The police are almost here and I'm sure you'll hate whatever they do to you, but trust me, whatever they do to you won't be terrible enough."
Dr. Gillyflower's eyes were wide as she stared at Clara. Her eyes darted quickly to the container resting on the floor, but the Doctor dived forward first and grabbed it before she could even think about it. She looked at him, her eyes filling rapidly with tears.
"But it was my duty," she whispered.
Maybe she would have said something else, something more to make them understand why she had caused so much pain. But at that moment the doors to the cafeteria busted open and police authorities began sprinting in, weapons raised. The Doctor grabbed Clara's hand and pulled her back against the far wall, away from the shuffle of paramedics and police personnel. He glanced at the doorway and saw Vastra standing there, talking to some high-ranking official, and Jenny who was holding Melody. He smiled at them.
A man wearing an orange hazmat suit pulled the container from the Doctor's hands. He was accompanied by an officer.
"You're Dr. John Smith?" The officer asked asked. The Doctor nodded.
"We're going to need to talk to you afterwards. You and Miss Oswald." He said, turning his gaze on Clara. She said nothing.
The Doctor waited until they were gone, and then he turned to Clara. He was about to ask her if she was all right when she leaned into his chest and began crying.
It was different from the last and only time he'd seen her cry. This was sobbing that couldn't be contained for pride's sake, although he felt that their relationship had changed so much since that day that she wouldn't even feel the need to hide it from him any longer. He held her with a fierceness he hadn't known he felt, so close that, if he focused long enough, he could count her heartbeats. He stroked her hair and pressed his face into the crown of her head, his throat too swollen to make room for any words.
The rest of the day was a confused blur for the Doctor. Patients were assisted back to their rooms by some of the nurses and doctors who had been locked in a conference room two floors above. Dr. Gillyflower was handcuffed and escorted off the premises. Men in hazmat suits entered sometime after that and cleared the room. Jenny, Vastra, Strax (who was sporting two black eyes and a fractured arm), Clara, the Doctor, and Melody all sat together outside the hospital, waiting for further instructions from the police. Melody was just as upset as before and refused to leave Clara again, except for the two minutes that Clara walked off to talk to Mr. Maitland on the phone. After briefly explaining what had been going on, he came by and picked Melody up, half-hysterical and deeply confused. The Doctor vaguely remembered pressing the now-battered cooler into his hands and explaining the protocol for the medicine, but the rest was a tired jumble. He did remember that he hated being away from Clara about as much as Melody did, though. They spent almost all of the time leaning against each other. They were called into a small room one by one to make statements to the police, and the Doctor remembered that they were the last two to be called back, probably because theirs would take the longest. Clara sat with her face pressed against arm and didn't say anything, but the Doctor knew she'd be coming home with him that night. She didn't have to ask, and he didn't either. He could tell in the way she clung to him that his presence was something she needed right then.
He spent thirty minutes with the police, answering their questions and providing all the information he could. He was almost glad that Dr. Gillyflower had caused such a scene, because it meant he didn't have to worry about the police thinking he was just making it all up. He waited outside for Clara (she was the last to go in) for over an hour, and when she finally emerged, she just looked beaten down.
"Come on," he told her, his arms around her shoulder. She was quiet on the ride back to their homes.
Before she walked into the Maitland's, she gave his hand a squeeze.
"I'll see you soon." She said, but it was more of a question than a statement. He squeezed her hand in return.
"I'll wait up." He promised.
He sat in the dark living room, waiting for her. He knew she was explaining the full story to George Maitland and taking care of Melody, so it could take a while. He planned on giving all his research development thus far to the medical research facility in Wales as soon as possible. They could deal with licensing and distribution.
When Clara knocked on his door, he was helpless to do anything but smile. He knew that, for once, she was going to allow herself to be taken care of. And she deserved that.
She sat on his mattress while he made them both a cup of tea (with borrowed tea bags and mugs. He was still living like a pauper). When he brought the mug out to her, just the way he knew she liked it, she pulled the blanket over both their legs and leaned into him. She inhaled the smell of the tea and let her eyes close.
"How's Melody?" He asked quietly.
She smiled, briefly, her eyes still shut.
"Much better now that she's home. She's sleeping in Angie's room tonight because she's still scared, but she said she's feeling so much better." Clara stopped talking suddenly and looked at him. "Doctor, do I need to go get some of the medicine from my house? You weren't done with your treatment."
He shook his head. "I've already taken care of it. I've got some here. I'm fine."
She let out a nervous sigh. Now that she had nothing to take care of but herself, she seemed to grow more and more anxious.
"I've never been so angry before. It was like I wasn't even in control of myself." Clara murmured. She turned to look at him. "What the hell just happened?"
"Near-tragedy. It always sneaks up on you."
He knew she was thinking about her mother then. He wrapped his arm around her and felt contented when she leaned her head against his shoulder.
"What can I do to help?" He asked her, because he knew that she was upset, as she had every right to be. It was unsettling to know that people like Dr. Gillyflower were out there. It was even more unsettling to know that they could get to the people you cared about with almost no struggle on their part. He suddenly longed for Clara to feel as she had that morning: safe. He realized that he always just wanted her to feel safe and happy.
She looked up at him, a ghost of a suggestive smile on her face—that's my Clara, the Doctor thought with affection—, and curled up closer to his side.
"This. I just want to be with you. I want to talk and be held." She said.
He wondered just how long it had been since she had last admitted that she needed or even wanted to be taken care of. He decided that as long as he was her exception, he'd never do her wrong.
"Luckily for you, I am an expert at talking and holding people." He smiled.
Tragedy and near-tragedy sneak up on you, but so does love. And of those two, only one lasts.
