Series 9: What We Deserve
Warnings: dark themes, violence, torture, m/f, f/f & m/f/f relationships, explicit scenes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did…damn you, Moffat!
Summary: The Oncoming Storm reawakens. Our trio plus one finally make it back to the Tardis.
Outside, the first rays of the dawn were spreading across the sky. Clara inhaled the stale air deeply, feeling its chill as it raced down into her lungs. She'd spent months in the darkness and half-light of the Dauntless compound, training, fighting, surviving. Like a chrysalis, metamorphosing her into the woman who stood there now, adrenaline the only thing keeping her upright but her mind was clear, alert. Focussed.
"Where are we, exactly?" she asked, glancing around for any sign of the train tracks.
"Factionless sector," Osgood replied. "What are you looking for?"
Clara smiled as she found what she was looking for. "We need to get to Dauntless fast if we want to avoid any Bureau agents," she began, striding off as fast as she could, feeling the others fall into line. They'd rescued her, now it was her turn. "We're going to catch a train."
If Clara recalled correctly, the trains started up at about five in the morning, ready for the first Dauntless patrol switchovers and the Amity supply train. She thought of Andrew, who'd given her the train times schedule for her to memorise, and flinched away from it.
As expected, the stairs to the platform with dangerously derelict, so she shrugged apologetically at her companions. "You'll have to climb the support girders," she told them. "Up you go, quickly."
Clara had purloined a gun and a knife from one of the dead guards they'd passed on their way out, knowing that someone needed a weapon and better her than a trigger-happy Missy. She suspected Osgood had never held a gun properly in her life, let alone fired one, and the Doctor didn't like guns. She was fairly certain they'd hadn't been followed and that the Bureau couldn't have discovered their escape yet, but just in case she fished out the gun and raised it, eyes scanning the area.
"Won't it be dangerous?" Osgood asked, eyes wide. "What if there are Bureau agents on the train?"
"Probably," Clara shrugged, not looking at her as she continued to scan the vicinity. "Maybe there will be, maybe there won't. It's the fastest way to Dauntless, we don't have a lot of time, and we don't have a lot of options. Think it through!"
Osgood didn't object after that, tentatively grabbing hold of the girder and starting to climb. The Doctor paused beside Clara, looking down at her as she regarded him impassively. Waiting, only waiting.
"You ok, Clara?" he asked gently.
"I'll be fine, now get up there!" she replied firmly. "We don't have a lot of time before the train comes."
With a squeeze of her arm, a troubled look in his eyes, the Doctor turned away and started to climb. Missy was next, regarding Clara through those familiar, icy blue eyes. Just as her heart had warmed at the feel of the Doctor's hand on her arm after so many weeks of distance and coolness between them, so Clara's entire body thrilled to the look in Missy's.
"Hey, nutjob," Clara murmured quietly, under the noise made by Osgood as she huffed her way up the column. "Hurry it up, we need to get going."
For an answer, Missy reached out and clamped her hand around the nape of Clara's neck, pulling her in for a kiss. Clara went eagerly, shivering slightly, as Missy's tongue licked sensually along hers and for a moment, their minds brushed through their telepathic link. A promise and a warning.
Clara felt her arms forced down, then she was plastered against the girder behind her, Missy's body pressing into hers. When Missy drew back slightly, Clara gasped for air.
"Just a little reminder that a certain conversation needs to be had," Missy whispered against her lips. "I don't appreciate my pets acting up."
Clara rolled her eyes. With a telepathic bond, she'd have thought that Missy would have given up on the whole arrogant, disdainful Time Lady act, at least in regards to her. "Oh, we'll have a conversation alright," she replied quietly, refusing to tremble under the heat in Missy's eyes. "But don't think for a minute that I'm your's, or anyone else's, pet."
"But you are mine," the Time Lady retorted, but before Clara could reply, she was kissing her again. Trust Missy to get distracted by kissing.
Their minds merged again, and Clara moaned into the kiss, wanting more, needing more. She could feel the reciprocal need in Missy, not that she would ever admit it. Feeling it was enough. They broke apart with an annoyed shout from above.
"Oi!" the Doctor yelled. "Enough with the snogging, we've got a train to catch!"
"Up you go!" Missy said cheerily. "I'm the one in a dress."
"I'm the one with a gun," Clara retorted. "Besides, with those boots on, you're going need your eyes front and centre."
"They always are," Missy drawled, smirking, eyes running over Clara's toned figure.
"Mine aren't," Clara replied as Missy went to ascend the column.
"Cheeky!" she shot back over her shoulder, before nonchalantly climbing the column. Clara darted a quick glance around her, before stowing the gun in the waistband of her trousers, and starting up behind Missy.
Clara was only slightly out-of-breath when she made it to the top of the platform, the Doctor hauling her up as she panted slightly. "What time is it?" she asked. Osgood looked down at her watch, but Missy beat her to it.
"5:28am," she told her, as Osgood stared.
"How d'you know that-?" she began to ask.
"Time Lord," the Doctor interjected curtly, eyes fixed on the horizon as he waited, impatiently for the train.
"Time Lady, thank you very much," Missy replied disdainfully, eyes barely sparing Osgood a glance before looking to Clara. "What now?"
"When the front carriage of that train reaches the platform, just do as I do," Clara replied, before glancing down. "If you can actually manage to run in those things."
"51st century cobbling, dear. Practically standard issue uniform for female Time Agents, or they used to be," Missy told her with a wink. Clara just shook her head. The Doctor rolled his eyes, not without a hint of fondness.
The train's horn sounded as it got closer, and Clara could see its headlights. The sky was still a dim grey colour, so it lit up the tracks in front of it, as it sped closer.
Her hand curled into a fist, as she waited. "Get ready," she muttered, preparing her body to run.
Just as the train reached the further end of the platform, Osgood gulped nervously. "Ready to do what?"
"Now!" Clara shouted, turning and running along the platform. She pushed herself into a sprint, before keeping level with the carriage door as it reached her. Not allowing herself to think, Clara flung herself at the handle and foothold, levering herself up and slamming the button to open the doors. She hauled herself inside and swung back to help the others.
Missy made it inside with no problem, jumping up as lightly and gracefully as a ballerina. Clara let herself hang out the door to reach for Osgood, who was struggling along in front of the Doctor. The edge of the platform was approaching.
Clara grabbed Osgood's arm and yanked her inside, the human losing her balance and kicking at thin air, until she managed to crawl inside on her stomach. "Doctor, come on!" Clara shouted, reaching for him.
He grabbed her hand, and jumped just as the carriage cleared the platform.
Osgood was slumped against one of the poles in the centre of the carriage, gasping for breath. Even the Doctor and Missy were breathing hard.
"Do Dauntless…do that…all the time?" Osgood asked, her expression half-awed, half-terrified, as she looked up at Clara.
Clara felt the extra spike of adrenaline, her heart thundering, as she watched her three companions. And couldn't help a slight grin of anticipation. "If you thought that was bad, just wait until we get to Dauntless," she grinned, as Osgood groaned.
It'd take twenty minutes to reach Dauntless. While Osgood sat as far inside the carriage as she could get, Clara stood at the doorway, the wind ruffling her hair. Her skin had goosebumps from where she'd lost her jacket and the air was cold, but she didn't care. She felt the Doctor take a place by her side, watching her watching the city flash by. Missy stood on her other side, hand entwined with hers.
"Why did you run?" he asked her, at last. The silence between them had stretched far enough.
"I think you know," she breathed, glancing down to where her hand was clasped in Missy's, then looking up at him with knowing doe eyes. "You know, Doctor."
He sighed, looking down as he cleared his throat. "I do know. We need to talk, properly this time."
"We do," Clara agreed. "And we will. But right now is not the time or the place."
"Why Dauntless?" Missy asked on her other side, her voice so soft underneath the rushing wind that Clara had to strain to hear her. "You didn't choose them just because you suspected the Tardis was there, you could have chosen Abnegation and found it just as easily. What did you need from them?"
"Space," Clara replied truthfully, meeting the Time Lady's eyes before looking to the Doctor. "And I needed to learn how to be brave again."
They lapsed into silence after that, Clara stood strong and firm at the door of the carriage, her feet just poking out over the edge, Missy and the Doctor at her side, one tightly holding her hand, the other close enough to brush her arm with his jacket. Connected, bound.
Osgood didn't have a huge amount of experience in that sort of thing. She'd always been too focussed on her work and her studies to worry about romance, or relationships. And logic told her not to extrapolate any conclusions from the evidence of her eyes, as she watched the trio standing so close to each other, that a human woman from another universe and two aliens older than her civilisation probably defied any category she could attach to them. A bit like the Divergent.
She found herself envying that closeness, that synchronicity she saw in the three. But it didn't take a genius to recognise she wouldn't find it with them. They'd agreed to take her with them, but it was clear that their bond was exclusive. Missy hated her, for some unknown reason, she wasn't sure how the Doctor felt about her and Clara treated her like a ghost. She wouldn't find any sort of home with them.
Osgood sighed. She hadn't felt like she belonged anywhere after finding out about her Divergence. Suddenly, she'd felt like an impostor in Erudite, despite her intellect. How could she be smart and brave? The two didn't compute, as far as Osgood was concerned.
In the end, she'd decided to embrace her Erudite side, immerse herself in her studies and hope that would be enough. She'd thought that would prove that she was no Dauntless, that her Divergence was a fluke. Surely taking the easy way out was proof she wasn't brave? So she'd thought, until the strangers came and Jamie contacted her. Before the Doctor, and the hope he gave her.
Osgood held on to that hope, hope that she could be more than simply clever, that she was brave. That she could find somewhere to belong.
Her body ached. Scrambling through stinking sewers and train jumping was not in her usual daily routine. Osgood really hoped there would be a bed and a shower wherever they ended up.
"Get ready," Clara called back over her shoulder, as she recognised the flash of the Pire in the distance and the approaching roof. "Again, just-"
"Do what you do, yes we know," Missy rolled her eyes, mockingly. Clara gave her a slight shove, and took a few steps back, finally meeting Missy and the Doctor's gaze.
They were wide and stunned as they realised what she was about to do. She felt Osgood scramble to her feet behind her, yelling something but the wind snatched her words away. Just as Clara saw the corner of the roof flash past, she took a deep breath, sprinted forward and jumped off the train.
Unlike last time, she was prepared for the jolt as she landed. She sprinted a few metres, then skidded to a halt, hearing multiple thuds behind her as the Doctor, Missy and Osgood all landed behind her. She paused, jogging over to Osgood to give her a hand, where she'd fallen hard on her knees. "Hey, you ok?" she asked, as Osgood brushed herself down.
"Fine, just…" Osgood panted. "How did you know this was here?"
"Welcome to Dauntless initiation," Clara replied dryly, before turning and leading the way to the other side of the roof, glancing over the side and into the dark hole below. "And our way into Dauntless. Don't worry, there's a net at the bottom. Don't think, just jump," she told the others, clasping her gun in one hand as she stepped up onto the side. With a deep breath, she let herself fall.
Clara really wished Osgood hadn't screamed so loudly as she fell into the net. She grabbed the net and reached a hand to the hyperventilating Osgood, pulling her from the net. "You alright? Did Missy push you?" she asked, jokingly.
"N-no, I jumped. I can't believe I did that," Osgood replied, shakily.
"Then congratulations," Clara laughed, as Missy appeared next, falling in a blur of purple into the net. "You made it into Dauntless initiation."
Osgood stared at her, then laughed too, as they helped to pull Missy off the net. "Enjoy the ride?" Clara asked, innocently while the Time Lady glared at her.
"You're crazier than I thought," she muttered between gasps, looking almost adorably dishevelled in Clara's opinion.
"Yep," Clara replied, turning back to the net as the Doctor landed with a grunt. "Did you really think otherwise?"
Once they were all assembled, and had got their breaths back, Clara turned to the Doctor. "Where is the Tardis? Did you get a location?" she asked, folding her arms.
"Lower levels," he replied. "I can use the sonic to hone in on the source of their surveillance. Apparently they've been conducting their surveillance in the same place they've kept the Tardis."
"Shoddy work," Missy sneered.
"Right, let's go," Clara nodded, gesturing to the Doctor to go first, then Missy and Osgood, while she brought up the rear. Silence reigned, bar the Doctor's sonic beeping softly in the darkness, and their footsteps. The sonic led them deeper into Dauntless, away from the Pit and the living areas, deeper underground so Clara could hear the rushing of the underground river not far away. They had to be close to the sewers.
This was so far underground, it went below even the restricted levels Ginny had told Clara about. She thought about her mad, crazy Dauntless friend waking up as if nothing had happened, as if it were a normal day with no memory, no inkling of the violation done to her. No memory of Andrew, of Clara. Those memories deleted like so much rubbish. The thought sent a wave of grief through Clara, but she refused to allow it to show.
Suddenly, Missy stopped in front of her and Clara collided with her back. "Missy…?" she hissed, but the Time Lady shushed her.
Cautiously, realising something was wrong, Clara edged forward past Missy and Osgood, to peer around the Doctor's arm.
There she was. At the end of the tunnel, in a large, square chamber, stood the Tardis. She gleamed ethereally in the dim lighting of the chamber, surrounded by computers and strange machines that Clara couldn't begin to guess the purpose of, but she already knew they were useless. For all the Bureau's technological prowess, they could never hope to discover the secrets of the Tardis.
Then she realised the problem. Two people in lab coats were working away on computers beside the Tardis, but even from a distance Clara could discern the telltale bulges under the arms of their lab coats. Apparently even Bureau scientists carried guns.
Two weren't insurmountable. The other three were. Five on one, the odds weren't good.
Clara eyed the three guards, clearly some sort of security detail. With a shock, she realised they were all Dauntless but there was something off about them. She scanned them frantically, trying to work out what when Osgood grabbed her arm.
"Their eyes," she whispered. "They're under simulation. I've never seen a simulation last so long."
"Adam told me that the Bureau's technology surpasses anything the Erudite have developed," she breathed. "Maybe they've found a way for the simulations to last longer, or even permanently."
"It must be some kind of permanent transmitter embedded-" Osgood began excitedly, before Missy cut in, impatience ringing in her voice.
"Might I suggest we curtail this discussion for a more appropriate time?" she hissed. Clara eyed her companions, thinking fast. She couldn't take out five armed guards by herself, not while she was just waiting for the adrenaline in her system to wear off and then she'd crash.
While she knew both the Doctor and Missy probably had some idea of how to fight, the Doctor never used a weapon if he could help it, and the other would turn it into a bloodbath. Osgood would be worse than useless in a fight.
"So," Clara breathed. "We need a distraction."
Osgood suddenly spun around, eyes searching the darkness. "These must be power cables," she murmured, hands drifting across several wires snaking along the wall. "If we disrupt these, the lights should go out."
"But we don't have anything to cut through the cables-?" Clara whispered furiously, but Missy held up a hand, her brooch cradled in her palm.
"We can use this," she murmured. "Dark star alloy, could cut through armour plating like a knife through people. Isn't that right, Doctor?"
The Doctor sighed. "Just bring up ancient history, why don't you?" he muttered. Clara stared at him, then at Missy."
"He gave it to me millennia ago, in the olden days on Gallifrey. Gave it to me when my daughter-" Missy began to explain, when the Doctor cut her off harshly.
"We don't have time for this!" he snapped quietly. "Even if we shut off the lights, how are we going to get to the Tardis? Crawl past?"
"That still doesn't solve the issue of the guards!" Missy interjected, with an edge of annoyance and hurt in her voice. "If they're already under some kind of control, their perceptions warped, then my hypnotism won't work on them!"
Clara raised her gun. "Don't you dare," the Doctor abruptly snarled. Clara eyed him narrowly.
"That won't be necessary but thank you for that show of faith," she replied sarcastically. She detached the magazine, showing them the contents. "Tranquilliser darts," she told them. "Clearly the Bureau doesn't run the risk of drawing attention to itself with gunfire. And they wanted us alive."
"They must have some kind of backup power," Missy mused, eyes on the cables. "We'll have seconds of darkness, at most."
"Seconds is all I need," Clara replied, confident in her new abilities. They might be Dauntless soldiers, far more experienced than her, but they were trapped under simulation. Their actions would be decided, predictable. She had the element of surprise. "I'll tranq the two scientists first, then go for the other three. You cut the lights if I don't get them all."
She only had five shots. She couldn't afford to miss, and if she did then it'd be hand-to-hand.
Clara edged past the Doctor, refusing to look at him. She raised the gun, took a deep breath, and threw herself round the corner.
The corridor was only twenty metres long, and the Tardis another five metres beyond that. Her aim was sure and steady, the two scientists dropped before they knew what had hit them. The three guards were another matter.
The dissipating adrenaline in her system was another.
Clara felt the first returning wave of weakness and fatigue as she raised her gun to fire at the first guard. She hit her target, as he dropped like a stone, but her hands were shaking. She dived for cover behind a crate, mentally cursing under her breath. Gunfire erupted above her head, and she shot a glance at the others still hiding around the corner.
During a lull in the gunfire, Clara grasped her chance. She flung herself upright, fighting to ignore the weakness in her body, and squeezed off another two shots. The first miraculously hit its target, digging into the thigh of the second guard. The other went wide, impacting with the wall as Clara snarled in frustration.
Time to play dirty. "Now!" she cried, and she heard a fizzing sound as Missy used her brooch to cut through the cables.
Clara threw away her empty gun, and rushed towards the last guard standing, just as the lights went out. She collided with something tall and hard, bringing it down with her momentum. Blind in the dark, Clara let her Dauntless-honed instincts take over, ensnaring her opponent in a lock, holding him tightly with all her might.
By the time Clara had got a tight grip on the last guard, dim blue lighting flickered into life in the chamber, illuminating everything with a dull, icy glow. She dimly saw three figures rush past, just as her captive surged upwards with a grunt and delivered a punishing blow to her midsection.
Clara cried out and fell backwards. Spotting a boot flying towards her face, she rolled, bringing herself up onto her knees, blocking a punch to her head with her elbow.
She forced herself upright, her heart pumping with adrenaline all her own this time. Despite being in a simulation, her opponent had apparently anticipated her game. She feinted left, then right, trying to skip around him to reach the Tardis but he blocked each time. He reached down and pulled out a knife from his boot, his face eerily blank.
He swiped at her face, and she brought up her arm to block him below the wrist, getting in a punch to his ribcage but it didn't deter him. Clara felt desperation eke in at the edges of her consciousness as she tried, and failed, to get around him and reach the Tardis. In the dull lighting, she saw only the cold sheen of the blade as it swiped towards her, again and again.
Clara glimpsed Osgood and Missy disappearing into the Tardis, and breathed a sigh of relief. Her opponent saw her split-second distraction and used it, ducking below her guard to slash an angry incision across her right thigh. Clara screamed at the pain, going down onto one knee as she panted for breath, trying to focus, trying to get her guard back up despite the burning sensation in her leg and the fatigue just waiting to snatch her under.
Abruptly, the guard dropped, like the proverbial stone as Clara glimpsed the tranq dart nestled in the back of the man's neck. She looked up, panting, to see the Doctor stood over her, a gun in one hand, aimed at her assailant.
Wincing, her leg burning every time she tried to put weight on it, Clara forced herself to her feet. Behind the Doctor, Clara could see Missy watching them intently, an odd expression in her eyes that she could discern even in the poor lighting.
The Doctor, however…
He wore a look of such desolation on his face, and his hand shook slightly. But his eyes met hers, and that desolation hardened into something Clara thought was acceptance. Resolve, maybe.
Clara bent down, painfully, and checked the guard's pulse. Weak, but there still.
"He's still alive," she breathed. "He's not dead."
Shock replaced resolve in the Doctor's eyes, and Clara realised he couldn't have known, when he picked up that gun, whether the magazine held tranq darts or real bullets. He hadn't known if he would kill the guard by shooting him, and Clara rather suspected he thought he did kill him.
Killed him for her.
"Doctor…" she breathed soothingly. "It's ok, I'm alright. Everything's alright, you can drop the gun now." The burn in her leg was killing her. "Umm, Doctor?" she whimpered. "A little help here, please?"
That finally snapped the Doctor out of his mental fog, as the gun fell from his hand, and he rushed to Clara's side. He draped her arm over his shoulder, letting her put all her weight on him. "Clara," he said gruffly, staring down at her. Clara's heart raced.
Suddenly Missy was there too, taking her other arm and distributing their weight more evenly.
She just smiled at them both as they limped into the Tardis.
To be continued…
A/N: So what did my fellow Twissy/Twisswald/Misswald/Whouffaldi shippers think of that episode then? On a similar note, I've got two projects to announce which might interest you. My muse is strong after that serie opener.
One, a Twisswald, set in a Regency AU in which the eligible young socialite Miss Oswald is all set to make a respectable marriage to Mr Pink, until she makes the acquaintance of the mysterious and infamously scandalous Doctor Smith and Lady Saxon.
The other, pure Misswald/Missfle/Misffle (whichever you prefer), is one I'm still working on with a few ideas to develop. It'll be canon-compliant, to an extent, set after SOE1&2 of Series 9, and will run tandem to the new series, with Missy popping up in Clara's life as she sees fit, with the two caught in a kind of twisted love/hate, push/pull relationship that neither particularly want in their lives but can't imagine being rid of, in the end. So any ideas? Prompts? Things you'd like to see, scenes you'd like to read?