A/N: I hope you're ready… Remember: Eleven's the best!

Chapter Eleven: Suspense and Sincerity

Their plan was simple. Not simple out of choice, but because they didn't have the resources to come up with an enormously elusive plan. All they needed to do was split up, meet in the middle of the courtyard and a single punch would start it all off.

Joshua's cape was darker than many of the others in the town, so the Doctor could easily distinguish him from the crowd. For Joshua, he could spot the Doctor's brightly coloured purple coat underneath his disguise. They were walking towards each other, slow but on a certain path. All they needed to do was attract the attention of the entire group of guards. Create chaos, unavoidable chaos.

When they were only a few metres apart, Joshua started to run. Fist outstretched and raw scream escaping from his throat, the Doctor watched the burly man storming towards him and did all he could not to flinch. Joshua's fist was inches away from hitting his chin when the Doctor took hold of his arms and threw him to the side. With intentional emphasis, Joshua fell back, falling in the nearby stall selling fruit and vegetables. The thin lanky stall owner yelled out in fury. Joshua pointed to the Doctor. "It was him! Blame him!"

The stall owner picked up his fallen produce and started to throw it at the Doctor. Everything from Satsuma's to pineapples came flying and rolling his way. Joshua charged at the Doctor again, the pair pretended to struggle in each other's grip, until they both fell into a stall selling perfume. The bottles crashed to the ground, some of them even breaking, and before they knew it, another discontented civilian and joined in the fight.

Now the guards were paying attention and watching the events unfold. The man selling fruit had started to shout at his neighbouring stall owner, in response to him complaining about the mess getting over his precious jewels. A passer by tried to help the woman with her fallen perfume bottles but now she was yelling out, "Thief! Thief!" Nearby sellers were shouting at them, telling them all to be quiet, and that was now causing disputes further in the gathered stalls.

The Doctor and Joshua got to their feet. With a firm grip on one another, they flung themselves into the deepest gather of stalls, spinning around aimlessly, trying to hit everything they could. The effect was almost instantaneous; it was unavoidable to get out of it. Now and again an orange would come soaring their way and someone's rough hands would try and grab them, but the Doctor and Joshua only shared a swift agreeing glance before running off in different directions. The guards were in the mix now, using their fists to calm people down while others shouted loudly for who had started the whole scene.

Joshua ran around the back of the castle while the Doctor attacked the front door. He used his sonic to easily break through the security. Now he had to find the panel containing all of the controls to each of the entrances, let Joshua in and while he found the control room, the Doctor would manipulate the speaker grill to announce there is a serious malfunction with the interior software within the building. Joshua would turn off the electrical shield and the Doctor would already be halfway to Clara, ready to get her out. After ten minutes, Joshua had to put the shield back up and escape through the unlocked window on the ground floor, which the Doctor conveniently unlocked while he manipulated the controls.

At least, that was the plan.


Simeon, President Simeon, was watching the commotion from his bedroom window. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back while his head was completely levelled, nose in the air, and eyes piercing the town below. His lips tilted downwards ever so slightly, turning into a rigid straight line. Uncompromising, defiant and vengeful.

"Sir, they are turning against each other. What should we do?"

"Let it happen," barked Simeon in a power-packed punch. "Hostility. That's what we want. When you have no friends or anyone to turn to, people seek comfort in their superiors."

His eyes flicked to the large screen hovering above the civilians. Agent Oswin. Her taunting face was staring back at him, and his nose shrivelled up in distaste. "In fact," he said, "Send out a search crew. Heighten tension. Look out for anyone suspicious. I know she's out there somewhere, Mansfield, all I need is a lead to go on."

"But sir," objected Mansfield, a tremor in his tone. "I thought we were waiting until tomorrow to send out a search crew?"

"I want fear; blood-curdling, heart wrenching fear, Mansfield." Simeon turned on the spot, his polished shoes never leaving the floor. His sly cold eyes lingered on the commanding officer. "Those scrolls could cost us our government. The weapon is half finished – imagine if Oswin reaches the Revolutionites before we capture her?"

Mansfield bowed his head. He redirected his gaze; he had never been able to meet Simeon in the eyes – there was something haunting about them due to the lack of anything there. They were blank canvases, promising no mercy or forgiveness. No heart. No soul. They were empty. Someone with no conscience was always ten times scarier than someone with a bad conscience. One understood limits and wanted to cross them anyway, while the other… had no limits in the first place to cross. Mansfield shivered at the very thought.

"Sir," he acknowledged before escaping towards the door.

"Mansfield," Simeon called back. His face remained emotionless, impassive, uncaring as he reminded, "Don't hesitate to use force."


When the armed guards marched through the castle, the Doctor quickly hid in an indent on the furthest wall and crouched out of sight. Too many guards for one street riot, he thought to himself curiously. They really meant business with the zero tolerance policy. Then again, they always do. He waited a good few seconds before creeping out just in case another batch bumped into him.

The castle might look traditional on the outside, but inside was the complete opposite. The walls and floors were lined in metal and stretched on as far as the Doctor could see. His hearts were beating unsteadily in his chest as he removed his sonic and scanned the architecture, searching for some pattern of wiring which all led to the same place. He found nothing on the left wall, so turned his attention to the right. His screwdriver picked up on something straight away: bingo! At least he now knew he was on the right path.

He followed the wiring like it was a trail of breadcrumbs, leading him directly to the witch's house.

Meanwhile, Joshua was crouched against the back entrance which was completely boarded up in all types of security measures possible. He desperately hoped the Doctor's sonic screwdriver thing was up to the challenge, because it looked nearly impossible to break through by hand. His hand tapped edgily against his thigh, beating out an uneven rhythm, with no other purpose than ease his nerves. Come on, come on, Doctor.

Joshua had to admit he missed the thrill of a mission. It was three months ago he had his last assignment from Vingols. After that his life was in danger and Vingols didn't want to lose anymore men. Nothing could get your heart racing or make you feel alive quite like the risk of being captured by the enemy. Some people liked it and to others it was their worst nightmare – Joshua had always been a reckless child. Clara used to say he had never grown out of boyhood.

Clara.

He chanced a glance around the side of the castle, just a quick second glance. Then, upon recognising the uniform of the soldiers, Joshua pressed himself to the ground, eyes wide and every sense more alert than before. Those were real soldiers. Used for war and combat. Not casual guards, but proper trained men, intent on creating masses of destruction.

They were raiding the houses. That could only mean –

Clara!

Joshua didn't even think about what he was doing. All he could register was that he was on his feet and running – running as fast as he could towards the front of the castle. Towards the Doctor.


Clara was pacing in a large circle around the hidden lair. Her fingers were fumbling with her mother's ring, twisting it and turning it, pulling it off and putting it back on again. Then her hands brushed away her fringe in a nervous twitch, finally resting on her lips where she started to trace the outline and prod and poke. Another fifteen steps. And another, she counted in to herself. Her arms dropped from her face and started to swing at her sides, eyes now closed to ease the building tension rising like steam in her abdomen.

It was too soon – far too soon for the Doctor to be back here yet. He and Joshua mightn't even be at the castle. She went through the route in her mind again, estimating and re-estimating where they should be now and trying to figure out what they were doing.

Her mind could focus on nothing but the sound of her own lonely footsteps, the pumping of her heart echoing throughout her body and the remaining traces of the Doctor's kiss on the corner of her mouth.

Therefore, it was only natural when she heard a disturbance directly above the lair. She stopped pacing in the middle of the room, completely frozen, and her head sharply glanced upwards. A few clumps of dust fell from the ceiling and landed at Clara's feet. What was happening?

Clara knew she should stay where she was, but her curiosity had always gotten the better of her, even when she was little. Her mind drifted to the Doctor; what if it was him? What if he needed her help? And she knew there was nothing else for it: she had to have a quick look outside.

Especially when she heard a woman scream out in protest from somewhere in the distance.

Clara sprinted up the stairs and heaved open the trapdoor. Her breathing hitched in her throat when she reached the top and she had to squint at the bright daylight. There was movement all around the wooden cabin; through the cracks in the wood Clara could see men in blue uniform, a short way away in the distance, running around with guns, pulling people from their houses and she could hear shouts, yells, fights combined with a terrible crashing from behind the walls. They were raiding people's homes.

And where she was standing was their next target.

Clara flinched as she heard two male voices shout loudly to each other from the side of the hut:

"This? It's just a food storage thing!"

"Simeon said search everything."

Clara's beating heart was so loud in her eardrums that it might as well call out her exact position to the searching soldiers. Her hair whipped around her face as she looked for something to help her – but the hut was empty, all except the hidden trapdoor. What if they noticed it? What if the disguise wasn't good enough? They'd find her and drag her away instantly and she'd probably never see the Doctor again.

There was nothing else to do; she had to hope for the best. As fast as she could possibly manage, Clara swept away the footprints around the trapdoor and brushed extra sand over the top before pulling it back with shaky hands. Was she breathing? She'd forgotten to breathe, her mind was numb, her heart was screaming and her adrenaline had reached a peak higher than Everest. She almost fell down the stone stairs in her haste to lock the door behind her, grazing her hands as she grabbed for support against the hard rock. Any second now –

With only a second to spare, the hinge creaked as the soldiers stepped through into the wooden hut. Clara sat, as flat to the stairs as she could get, listening to their footsteps.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Tap.

The footsteps had stopped directly above her. Clara's breathing was too loud, she was sure they could hear her – she pressed the palm of her hand over her mouth and nose, squeezing her eyes shut from the apprehension.

Another moment of deadly silence.

"Empty. Just like I said."

Clara's eyes shot open, wider than they'd ever been in her entire life.

"I don't know. I see an old man come here now and again. Why would he come here when this place is empty?"

One of her shaky, sweaty hands covered her heart as Clara felt a stab of fear pulse through her veins.

"Probably just a homeless old man looking for somewhere to sleep. We better go – the boss won't be happy we haven't found anything."

One pair of feet loudly padded over to the door and roughly pulled it open. He swore when the flimsy wood snapped away from the rusty hinge.

"Wait," called the second soldier.

Clara's heart abruptly slowed to a stop.

Dust fell onto Clara's hair as the second soldier walked away from the trapdoor. "What's that?" the man gruffly asked.


The guards were still struggling with the stall owners when Joshua came flying around the front of the castle. His feet barely touched the ground as he sprinted through the silver corridors, eyes squinting to look for a sign of the Doctor. He wanted to shout out but he knew it would attract needless attention and would definitely do more harm than good. Seconds were ticking away, precious seconds, ones that might be irreplaceable – it would only take a fraction of a second for something undoable to be done, and there was no going back from that. It took less than a second for a cold bullet to leave a gaping hole in Clara's side and now that one second was always running through his mind, clouding his every action and would haunt him for the rest of his life. Time belonged to the moment and not to the person, and some moments you couldn't heal. Some moments consisted of tears and blood and gut-wrenching selfish fear as the love of your life died in your arms.

But his thoughts weren't making sense; they were muddled, confused, and unnecessarily abstract in his chaotic mind. Find the Doctor, find the Doctor, find the Doctor.

Joshua skidded to a stop as he turned the right corner.

The Doctor was cornered; his hood was down, his face revealed and his sonic screwdriver pointed at the three guards holding massive, bulky guns.

Joshua didn't have time to think of a proper rescue. He took a running leap and crashed into the middle guard, knocking them both to the ground as he grabbed onto the man's back and punched him squarely in the face. The Doctor pointed his screwdriver in the air, and all of the bullets fell to the floor of the metal corridor, sounding like heavy rain on a thin window. Rendering the guns as useless, the guard on the left launched himself at the Doctor, kicking him in the stomach and sending a harsh strike to his face. The third guard jumped on top of Joshua, who now had two opponents; in a frenzy of limbs, and down to nothing but pure talent, Joshua clambered out of the scruff, kicked the third guard and pushed him down on top of the previous. The Doctor knocked his own guard out of the way, to which Joshua then took hold of his back and hit him against the iron wall.

As the man crumpled to the ground, Joshua shouted, "Doctor! They've sent out a raid party!"

The Doctor's face fell and he glanced towards the direction of the exit. "Clara!" he realised.

In one fluid motion, the Doctor jumped over the two scuffling guards, Joshua not too far behind. One of the guards made an attempt to run after them, but his colleague pulled him back. "We have to tell Mansfield or Simeon," he snapped, wiping away a trickle of blood from his hairline. "We might have a lead."


Joshua grudgingly suggested to the Doctor that they take the long route back to the hut to avoid anyone following them. The Doctor agreed. Neither of them slowed down. As the wind blew their cloaks behind them, the Doctor surged onward, steely determination keeping him firmly routed to reality. Otherwise, his mind was going to drift with the wind, into dangerous and dark territory; territory where he's let Clara slip through his fingers.

The Doctor's hearts sank when the hut came into view. He slowed down to a brisk walk, Joshua still by his side every step of the way.

The door was off its hinges and pushed roughly against the outside of the hut. Large footprints were scattered over the dusty ground.

Joshua and the Doctor shared a long, mutual stare, each man lost in their own form of fear. Each dreading to look under the trapdoor.


Note: Oooohh, cliffhanger. You know what would solve a cliffhanger? Reviews. Can we reach 70 by the next chapter? Thank you for all the support!