"You don't need to do this, you know."
Sen ignores him. He can hear her breathing, fast and shallow. Her aim, however, is steady. He tries another tack.
"Who's so important to you that you would kill for them? A friend? A lover?" He considers the options. "…A child?"
"It's none of your business," she replies flatly.
"No, but you see, you've made it my business," he snaps, stopping and turning to face her. "When you sent Clara away from me-"
"And what's Clara to you, Doctor? What's so important that you would do this? Risk all our lives?"
Words seem to congregate in his throat. He swallows the first of them. "She's my best friend," he says, "and Gallifrey is my home. Isn't that reason enough?"
Her lip curls. How ridiculous a tableau they make, snarling at one another in amongst the cabbages. "Time Lords don't have friends. And they call the Citadel home. They don't care about the rest of the planet."
For a moment his teeth grind so tightly together his jaw aches. "Not all of them," he growls. "Not this one."
"Well, we'll see, won't we?" She gestures with the pistol towards a scruffy looking hut a few hundred metres away. "Irrigation control point."
An awkward cabbage rolls his ankle as they reach the perimeter; he stumbles slightly. Sen catches him, preventing his tumble headlong into the defensive force-field.
"Idiot," she hisses, fingers digging painfully into his bicep. "Have you ever done anything like this before?"
"I'm highly experienced in idiocy," he snaps back, brushing away her hands. Catching her look he rolls his eyes. "I can take down the shield with my screwdriver."
"Hmph."
Crawling static dissipates as the energy shell falls. "Should show on their sensors as an energy blip. Can't stay too long. Raid the data-core and go."
"What are you looking for?"
"What are you?" His patience has worn thin. "The time for this game is over."
"I told you, it's none of your business."
"Fine. Good with computers, are you? Because until you tell me why you're here, I'm not taking another step."
She raises her gun once more, finger closing around the trigger. "I will shoot you."
"How will that help you get what you want? Think about it-"
"I want my friends safe!" she hisses. "My brother. I don't want anyone else to die at the hands of a Time Lord! Don't try me Doctor; shooting you is a good option as far as I can see."
He shrugs. "Go on then. If you're so sure. Do it."
She makes a noise of frustration, face a mask of rage as she focuses. Aiming straight for his head. "I will. You think I won't… but I've had to before. I will do again." The tip of her tongue flicks over suddenly dry lips. "I will," she says; to herself or to him he's not sure.
He remains impassive, waiting. Her eyes flicker, escaping his gimlet gaze, drawn to the barrel of her gun. Realisation dawns, sad and hopeless on her face.
"Omega damn you," she breathes. "You drained it. When you stumbled…"
"I'm not your enemy, Sen. I'm here to help." A long sigh. "Always… here to help."
She lowers the gun. "His name is… was Roben. He saved me. And Kas. More than once. And not just us." Her eyes are screwed shut now; he recognises her pained expression. Has worn it on his own face, many times before. "There was a… a fight and he tried to give us enough time to escape. Wasn't quick enough to save himself." Her eyes open, and he finds he is the one squirming uncomfortably for a change. "He's gone Doctor. I know that much. It's just a question of whether they killed him or… did something far worse."
"Meanwhile," he says. There were rumours, of course, that reached the cities in those final hours. All of time and space on fire around them, not much time to establish their credence. After facing the ruin of the Nightmare Child he's prepared to believe them.
She nods. "Gallifrey is Hell, Doctor. But Meanwhile are what make it so. All the rest of it… all the rest of it we could live with. But Meanwhile…"
"What are they?"
"The reason we're tied together. To never have been is one thing. To fall through time and space and lose sight of yourself like they have is quite another. All they want to do is take."
"Take what?"
"Your life," she says simply. "Your blood for their hands, for their mouth. Your suffering for themselves." She shudders.
No, he wants to say, because that isn't how it works. The Neverwere are a miserable by-product of temporal physics as he understands it, but Meanwhile don't make sense. A rare few might be made a monster by crossing their own timelines, but not the majority. Sen, however, has been pushed far enough.
"Okay," he says. "I'll do what I can to find out what happened to him. Give me your gun."
"What for?" she asks, but offers him the handle anyway, defeated.
He presses a few buttons, rearming the device. "Reloading," he says, returning it. "I need someone to watch my back while I work."
She weighs the weapon in her hand for a moment, considering what this means.
"Okay," she says. Together, they step inside the control point.
"Shouldn't we have seen something by now?"
Cora shrugs. "No idea."
Cabbages, as far as the eyes can see. It lends a faint ridiculousness to proceedings; so mundane; so far removed from their precarious existence in the desert.
"Over there." She points. "Can you see?"
Cora squints. "Might be a control point." She checks her watch. "We've not got much time left. Worth a shot!" They turn south, picking their way through the neat rows of brassicas.
"He must have a hell of a workforce," Clara observes.
"What makes you say that?"
"This," she says, indicating the vast field with her arm. "How long would it take to plant, to weed, to harvest? And this is just cabbages. I'm guessing-"
Her guess is cut short by the sudden blare of an alarm. Trumpet-shaped speakers rise up out of the earth at intervals like deranged flowers. "Citizens!" they announce, over a howling siren. "Civil disobedience in progress. Return to your counting house immediately. Citizens!"
"Did we do this?" Clara shouts over the din.
"I don't think so!"
Which presumably means the Doctor and Sen have somehow tripped the alarm. "We should head back. In case we need…" Doesn't finish the sentence; doesn't need to in the face of her clone copy. Not to run (never to run). To save him.
They throw caution to the wind in their return flight, pounding across the fields as fast as they can. Cora is quicker (a binary circulatory system has its advantages) and spots the other runners first. Stops, throws out an arm to catch her human counterpart. Clara, head down and sprinting hard, would have run on.
"It's not them."
"Then who?" Clara gasps.
"I'm not sure."
"They're coming… this way." She grabs hold of Cora's hand. "Come on." It feels dangerous to turn their back on the doorway home; more dangerous still to simply stand and wait for the runners to reach them.
They are very quick. The first of them, a rangy older man dressed in rags, draws level after a few minutes. Not even a sideways glance at the twin women as he outpaces them. His eyes are fixed on the mountains massed on the distant horizon; his expression one of crazed determination.
Cora's hand tugs insistently in hers, dragging her onward, though her lungs are burning now. Another runner draws level; a woman this time carrying a bundle. A baby, Clara realises, as she sprints past. The thin wailing of the infant cuts through the bang of blood in her ears.
They have reached the structure; more like a greenhouse now they come to see it properly. Clara tugs on Cora's hand, indicating they should stop.
"You want… to hide?" the engineer manages.
Clara nods. "I'm too… too slow. Compared…"
"Save your breath, it's ok. Let get inside."
The airlock doors admit them without question. Inside is tropical hot and humid, the glass walls running with condensation. There are rows of tables, covered in pots full of young plants.
"Propagation," Cora explains, as Clara wipes sweat from her brow.
"Uh-huh." She points further down the glass house. "Better cover over there." Older plants, growing in neat rows. They crouch amongst the stalks, waiting.
The door opens again. A child this time, sobbing. They exchange a glance; but no version of Clara Oswald exists in the multiverse that would deny comfort to a distressed child.
"Over here," hisses Cora, standing to reveal their hiding place.
"Come on, we're not going to hurt you," adds Clara, smiling at her side.
The child, mud splattered and pale, stares in horror for a moment. The hiss of the airlock behind makes a decision for them; with a wail they start forward, stumbling into the crops.
"Not like that," whispers Clara, kind and gentle despite her fear. "They'll see the path. Step carefully look, like me."
They are hidden by the time the airlock opens fully. What steps inside looks almost Gallifreyan. For a brief moment Clara wonders if it is the child's father. Something about the eyes, however, gives pause. The man turns his head and she can see blood, crusted on one side of his face; on his hands that reach forward, grasping reflexively. At her feet the child has collapsed, wheezing, only the whites of their eyes showing.
"Meanwhile," breathes Cora.
She's still not sure what that really means; other than bad, bad news. Does not relish the prospect of finding out.
The creature steps forward, keening horribly. It sniffs the air, turning its head to look directly at where they are hiding. Clara dares not even breathe, still as a stone. It takes a step, another. Sniffs again.
There is only one course of action. Cora is faster. Cora might be able to out run it, even carrying the child, given enough of a head start.
Clara's lips brush her counterpart's ear. "I'll distract it," she whispers. "When I go, run like hell."
Cora shakes her head vigorously. "Dead!" she mouths.
"Better option?"
Another shake, slower and sadder this time.
"Thought so. Good luck!"
With that she is moving; more time, more thought and she might lose the courage to play decoy. She crawls away, on hands and knees, fast as she dares through the rows of crop.
The Meanwhile has stopped, clearly sensing there are now two targets rather than one. He turns his head, this way and that, from Cora to Clara; back again.
Clara stands up. "Hey," she says, "hey you! I'm right here. Come and get me!"
The creature bolts forward; she jinks sideways, sprinting as fast as she can, her life surely dependent on how fast she can move. She vaults a table; sees, out of the corner of her eye, Cora and the child dash for the airlock.
The Meanwhile has clattered into the pots and plants, ripping its way through the tables rather than jump. She picks up a pot and throws it hard. The smashing of ceramic over the creature's head masks the noise of the airlock as the others escape. Clara picks up another, lobbing it into the face of the Meanwhile. Blood spurts from a broken nose. It howls like a demon, but continues inexorably towards her.
She throws a third pot and runs, diving into the taller crops again. Tries to drown out the mounting realisation that she cannot outrun this creature, cannot bring it down with the weapons around her. Why, oh why did I not take a pistol? But she knows the answer; because he didn't, and there were few enough to go around.
Don't think, don't think. If she accepts she is beaten this is all over. She crawls, keeping low, through soft mud. Blood has run into the creature's eyes, temporarily blinding. It yowls, rubbing away at this last defence.
The airlock is ten feet away, directly in front of her. At a sprint, can she make it before the creature? How many seconds does it take to open?
Her question is answered by the hiss of hydraulics. The doors peel back to reveal another three Meanwhile, standing between her and freedom.
Oh, fuck, she thinks. Time's up.
She won't die in the mud. Finds her feet; shoulders straight; jaw proud. If Danny Pink can do it, so can I.
"Come on then," she says, and as one the creatures leap.