Clara

The Plot Thickens

The air was thick and wet and full of fog and rain pellets, choking on darkness and the thick trunks of black trees surrounding a bastion-like red glow - an oasis of capitalism - marking the site of an all-night diner. A closed down all-night diner, Clara noted, as she kicked her feet absently in the air and watched the sullied, checkered tiles glow with every passing car in the storm. She was sitting on one of the tables, swinging her feet back and forth in the air, but she had better things to he worrying about than them breaking into a recently-closed eatery to fry some lunch. She was very tired, as well, as she peered into the stormy gloom of Washington (the Doctor had told her that was the state they were in, but she didn't think that was particularly important when they were just lounging around in the middle of some dreary woodland).

"What was it you said to me?" Clara called through to the kitchen, "Something about all of time and space outside those doors? Runaway all I like and still be back in time for tea?" She didn't get an instantaneous response, "Remarkable. All of time and space. We could go to some restaurant on the edge of the galaxy, we could go to the Ritz in the Sixties, or Paris in the future. And where do you take me?"

"I think it has charm," the Doctor responded to her eventually. The last time she was in any sort of diner, it'd been in the Dream, and her sister had gorged herself on burgers while she had the opportunity. God knew what the Doctor was cooking in the kitchen, but she had to admit it smelt good.

"If 'charm' is Gallifreyan for 'dirt and grease,' then yes, sweetheart, plenty of charm," she said, glancing around, "Wasn't Rose staying at Jackie and Pete's for a while?" Clara asked after a momentary silence.

"Yes," the Doctor replied, and she jumped down from the table and trotted over the dirty tiles, around the grim bar and into the kitchen, where he appeared to have sliced up a few bananas and was frying them, for whatever reason. "Why?"

"So... Then..." she was perplexed, but the brief confusion passed without incident and she leant on the counter next to him. He tried to flip a burger (banana and beef? What a combination), but glanced over at her and it landed funny and spat oil at his hand.

"Ow! That's your fault," he declared.

"How is it my fault that you can't flip a burger!?" she demanded to know.

"You distracted me," he said, "What was it you said you wanted again, that you made me bring you all the way here for?"

"Sorry?"

"...You were asking for some specific type of junk food," he replied, but he, too, seemed puzzled.

"I didn't ask for anything," she said, "You declared we were going out for a 'fancy meal' at a 'five star establishment'," she told him.

"...I don't remember saying that," he said, "...Where's the TARDIS? Didn't Rose have possession of it today?"

Clara and the Doctor both looked through and past the bar, out of the windows, into the darkness. They saw - though visibility was low - no blue box. And Clara was beginning to notice something; she plainly had very limited recollection of the recent hours. On a day like that one, with so much going on at home, her husband wouldn't forcibly take her out to eat at a dingy, out-of-business American diner. But he seemed just as confused, if not worried, as she was.

"If the diner's closed, where did you get fresh ingredients?" Clara asked, and though she certainly didn't have a culinary mind, she thought this a perfectly valid and reasonable question. But Eleven couldn't answer, he just fumbled. And then dropped the fish slice on the grill and shut it off, staring around. She saw that, though there was sliced banana sizzling away, there weren't any peels around. If she didn't know any better, she'd say it was a plot hole.

"Don't wander off," he told her coolly, staring at the door, like she was, neither of them moving.

"I won't," she said, "...How did we get here?" That, he didn't even try to answer. They stayed still in the kitchen as the sound of cooking food died down, now there was no heat. She didn't remember deciding to come out anywhere, or asking for food, or going to sit on the table and leave him to cook. She just remembered being all-of-a-sudden aware that she was there, and that there was food. But something was most definitely afoot.

There was a bang, and she yelped a little out of fear and backed into the Doctor, who was staring around looking for the source of the noise. All she could hear was her heartbeat in her ears and the rain lashing on the windows and the roof, however, and the breathing of the Doctor behind her. Then there was another bang, and movement. But the movement came from a door they hadn't quite noticed before in the corner of the room, and it was moving as though something on the other side was hitting it. It shook again, like knocking, almost.

"What is that..?" Clara breathed taking a hold of his hand, if for no other reason than making sure he definitely didn't walk off and abandon her in the middle of a creepy, lonely diner with no idea how either of them had arrived.

"We can smell the food!" a voice yelled.

"Martha!?" Clara exclaimed in bewilderment. It had sure sounded like Martha Jones, shouting from the other side of the dead-bolted door. The raucous attack on the door ceased.

"Clara?" Martha asked, "Let us out of here! What are you playing at!? Where are we? I don't remember how I got here!"

"Like us," Clara whispered to the Doctor, though she was never one naïve enough to blindly trust voices emanating from behind closed doors. It could be anything out there - though she had been recognised. "What do you mean 'we'?"

"I'm here too!" Mickey shouted. Both of them down there? Was it likely or unlikely that an alien trickster would know the finer aspects of the inter-TARDIS relationships enough to know Mickey and Martha were married?

"I'm opening it," Eleven declared, beginning to walk off.

"What!? No, what if it's a trap!?" she hissed, keeping hold of his hand, until he sighed and pried her fingers off himself, and she stood there hopelessly a few feet away from him.

"What's life without a few risks, eh?"

"Safe! That's what it is! No - Chin - Doctor - what're-!?" but he had already twisted the key sitting in the padlocked door. Which was odd - because Clara was sure that a few seconds ago it had been a deadlock. What on Earth was going on?

Mickey and Martha seemed, as best as she could tell, to be themselves, however, when they were freed from what must be a storeroom or a cellar of some kind.

"Why did you lock us down there!?" Martha suddenly soured, and came for Clara looking almost vengeful, but Clara ducked out of the way, and tried to go through the wall, but instead crashed into it.

"I haven't locked anyone anywhere!" Clara said, not knowing what was happening at all, "We were just here! I don't know what happened!"

"If you two didn't lock us downstairs, then who did?" Mickey challenged, and Clara didn't have an answer for that. Mickey frowned and looked outside though, "Where's the TARDIS?"

"We don't know," answered Eleven, "We don't remember, like Clara said. I just remember being here. Do you two remember anything?"

"We woke up in the basement, then we find the way out and you two are up here talking about food," Martha said.

"Why would I lock you in a cellar?" Clara asked.

"Why wouldn't you?" Martha countered, crossing her arms. But then the Doctor tapped Clara's arm, and she looked around at where he was looking.

"Was there always a chain around the door handles?" he asked her quietly.

"I..." she was at a loss, but she didn't think so. She was sure she would have noticed.

Two bodies, complete with splayed out palms, threw themselves at the glass of the door, seemingly out of nowhere, and all four of them jumped, staring at the ghostly-pale faces glaring into the room.

"Is that the Ponds!?" Mickey exclaimed after a few moments. Clara frowned. Because it was the Ponds, seemingly furious, both banging on the door to be let in. Eleven and Mickey instantly went over to help them and try and unlock the chain on the door, Clara and Martha loitering awkwardly in the kitchen. Clara did not like the fact the walls were all windows. Behind her even, in the kitchen, was a glass sheet giving them a view to the black forest behind the diner. She didn't like having her back to it - she felt exposed - so she followed after the other two quite quickly.

"Can't you sonic it?" Martha suggested, when they both struggled to unlock the chains and let Amy and Rory in, who were looking dishevelled and windswept in the coldness of the night.

"Oh, yes, let me..." Eleven reached into his pocket and frowned, then turned a disapproving gaze on his wife, "Did you steal it again!?"

"I haven't stolen anything!" Clara defended herself, "I gave you it back when we got to Rose's Torchwood, remember? You were mad at me?"

"Yes, I do remember, but you could have easily stolen it again," he argued.

"I haven't," she said, "My intangibility isn't working either, though. Or my telekinesis, look," she nodded at a ketchup bottle on the table next to them and waved a hand at it, and it remained completely still.

"Strange..." Eleven mused. Mickey had left by this point, he'd slunk off into the kitchen, but at that instance he returned wielding a fire extinguisher. Clara and Eleven stepped away from either side of the door as Mickey ran at it with force and shattered one of the windows, only just giving the Ponds a chance to duck out of harm's way. Glass shattered in shards and dust onto the floor.

"What the hell is up with you lot!?" Amy roared when she marched across the threshold, "We've been out there braying on the windows for hours! Why did you lock us out!? And chain up the door!?"

"We didn't!" Martha said, "We didn't do anything! We were stuck in the basement with those two up here!" she pointed at Whoufflé, neither of whom appreciated being blamed for this. They were just as baffled as everybody else.

"Did you do it?" Rory asked.

"No! We let them out when we figured they were downstairs! Plus, his sonic screwdriver is missing, and I don't have any of my superpowers, so something totally weird is going on!" Clara said.

"How did we get here?" Rory asked a second later, "Where's the TARDIS? I didn't see it?" They all glanced outside at the old, small carpark, bathed in the electric blue of the neon sign above them.

"I could've sworn the sign was red ten minutes ago..." Clara breathed.