Stars wheel overhead, ever his comfort. These skies are familiar; constellations old friends smiling down.

There is a terrible pain in his right arm and a hole in his memories where the last eight hours should be. The distant stars hold no answer to the immediate questions: how, why, and most importantly where is Clara Oswald?

He sits up, wincing, taking in crudely improvised manacles that bind his wrists. Gryf, grey faced, is seated across from him. She meets his eyes but does not smile, moving her pistol slightly to show she is armed.

What happened? he wants to say, but somewhere on route to his mouth it turns into her name. "Clara?"

Gryf can no longer hold his gaze. She shakes her head, the flickering campfire casting her face into shadow.

No. Wrong. He cannot accept her answer. Clearly faulty. Transfers his attention to his bonds instead. The chain of the manacles is looped through a sturdy seeming peg, tethering him to the ground. He gives it an experimental tug. The peg remains solid, as excruciating pain knives through his arm. Broken.

"Why am I captive?" he asks.

Gryf speaks to the ground. "She says you'll run away."

"Run away where?"

"To try and find her."

"Oh." Well, whoever she is, she certainly has the measure of him.

Resources, options. None and none.

"What happened?" he asks.

The AG skips over the sand, overladen, a bitch to pilot. There's no fear anymore, though. Just leaden certainty. A cold dread. In her mind's eyes the scene plays, over and over.

"Clara?"

He knew of course.

"Doctor, I'm sorry." The wail of the child in her arms, of that awful alarm.

"No," he said, "No." Face creasing in disbelief, in fear. Behind him, Sen taking aim. The crack of her rounds; a body cartwheeling across the cabbages. "No, I have to-"

And Sen's fist in slow motion, unstoppable as a planet. Cold-cocking him with the handle of the gun. "I'm sorry," Sen said, swinging him up and onto her shoulders. "But I've lost too many people."

Cora blinks.

"Where are they?" asks Sen, in the here and now.

"Next ridgeline."

"Can't see their smoke."

"That's probably a good thing."

Gryf stands as they approach. The AG slews to a halt, threatening to topple the last of the supplies hastily loaded from the ruined TARDIS. "He's awake," the young Lord says.

"Great," mutters Sen.

"Did he say much?"

"Asked a few questions. I don't think he remembers."

"I'll talk to him."

"Are you sure that's -?"

"I said I'll talk to him!"

Gryf nods, defeated, and she knows another pang guilt.

He is sitting calmly on the sand by the fire, straight backed; appearing remarkably unruffled by his predicament. She folds next to him, cross legged, eyes on the flames.

"Doctor."

"Cora."

Silence. Her mouth quirks in spite of herself, in spite of everything. He's waiting for her to get bored and continue the conversation. Ridiculous.

"I'm sorry about the manacles," she says eventually.

"Yes. Sorry enough to remove them?"

She shrugs. "Sure. But if you try to escape with an AG, Sen will shoot you."

"Why would I try to do that?"

"To rescue her."

"Gryf told me she was dead. Why would I rescue a corpse?"

Brown eyes find blue and she sees it; the first crack in his armour. Distaste in his mouth at those words, the feigned callousness. "You don't believe that she is dead."

He shrugs, and grimaces. "I can't."

"Doctor… the Meanwhile… There's no way that she could have escaped."

"We did."

"No! We didn't!" She finds that she is on her feet. "Doctor, they killed…"

"Miri. Horas. I know. I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean Clara is dead too."

She balls her hands into fists, nails biting into her palms as she fights for control. "He knows, Doctor."

"What do you mean he knows? Who knows?"

"The King. He sent a message through the remains of the TARDIS communication system. A warning."

Those bloodied faces on the monitor. Awful, hungry mouths. Speaking as one. "We are coming."

"So you ran."

"Yes we ran." She is pacing back and forth. "Sen knows some places that we might… where they might not be able to find us. We can keep moving…"

"And then what?"

She could punch him. Right in that ridiculous nose. Square between his bristling eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"And then what?"

"Keep surviving! What else do you think?" She stops pacing. "What? Why… why are you smiling?"

"Because I know you," he says, more softly now.

"No you don't, Doctor. You don't have the first idea about who I am. Just because I share her face doesn't mean-"

"Yes, it does. Because I know that face. And I know when you're lying."

She sighs, anger draining, taking her energy with it. She curls up on the sand next to him again; waves her sonic screwdriver. The makeshift manacles around his wrists fall away. "About what?"

"Surviving."

Her fingers trace patterns in the sand, aimless sketches. "What else is there left to do?"

"Stop him. The King. Find him and beat him."

"Are you out of your mind?"

He chuckles. "Probably. Never let it stop me before."

Silence stretches between them for a while, the crackling of Gryf's fire filling the quiet. "I can't let you take the AG," she says eventually. "Evin's cut up pretty bad and the boy… well, we need to move quickly. There's already too many of us."

"Exactly."

"No… don't-"

"Why, because you know what I'm going to say? You're clever Cora. You know what's going to happen with the AGs."

More circles and lines in the sand as she weighs her words, stony mouthed. "They'll divide the group. Cause conflict."

"Come with me," he says, eyes shining. "Help me stop this."

Her stomach swoops sickly at those words, the naked need in his voice. "I want to," she says slowly.

"Then why not?"

"Because… I'm not her Doctor. I'm not her understudy. Not her replacement, for when you find that she's really dead."

He looks genuinely wounded by her words. "That's not why I-"

"Yes, Doctor. Yes, it is." And in her mind's eye she sees his face, in that wretched cabbage field. Knowing the truth of her identity but asking anyway, daring to hope that Cora has fallen so Clara might live.

"What will you do?"

She shrugs. "Keep them safe. Or try to."

"I'll come back-"

"No. You won't. You'll die out there. Don't make promises you can't keep."

To her very great surprise he takes her hands in his larger ones, drawing her gaze back to his grave face. "I'll come back," he repeats, "for all of you. For Galllifrey."

And she believes him. Like the fool she is, she trusts him. After everything.

"You'll have to make it convincing," she says.

"I know."

"Good luck." The words emerge a squeak, through her tightening throat.

"And to you," he says, embracing her awkwardly. His breath is warm again her ear as he whispers. "I promise you, this won't hurt a bit."

She feels his fingers press against her cheekbone, the fleeting sense of his presence insider her skull, before the world goes dark and quiet for a time.

Gryf has been watching. As Cora swoons, she is running. "What have you done?" she shouts, waving her gun. He does not reply, firing instead a stunning shot with Cora's stolen pistol.

Gryf topples as Sen stands. She doesn't waste time shouting, but takes aim calmly and fires, no stun setting required. Only the reflexes of a Time Lord save him from disintegration. His own shot catches her full in the chest.

"No!" Evin, dragging himself to his feet as Sen thumps into the dust. Bandages form macabre streamers around his mangled leg. He limps towards the AGs. "No you can't. We need it, I need it." His hands are bloodless claws, grasping tightly the handles of the fuelled machine.

"Get out of my way," the Doctor replies roughly. The young Lord has lost a lot of blood; too much, perhaps, for stunning to be safe.

"No," he wails, "No I won't! You won't kill me. You're the Doctor."

"Yes, I am the Doctor. The Butcher of Skaro. The Oncoming Storm. The Bringer of Darkness. Are you sensing any kind of pattern here?"

"Please… please. Please no." Only the whites of Evin's eyes are showing.

"The Great Exterminator," he continues, hissing into Evin's face; pressing his gun hard into the young man's temple. "The Living Death."

It is enough. Evin goes limp. He lays him gently aside, tucking the stolen gun into the man's desert suit. "Sorry about that," he says, shamefacedly, before mounting the speeder and kicking off into the desert night.