"You."
The Doctor looked at Jack with a sense of shock and annoyance. Every time he saw the Captain, he was reminded of saying goodbye to Rose, and leaving Donna behind. And he was even less happy to find the notoriously concupiscent man with his dead wife.
"Long time, Doc," Jack acknowledged.
"Come here," River commanded. "Let me see you."
The Doctor reluctantly stepped out of the TARDIS, shutting the door behind him, wary of the other people in the room -he recognized River and Jack, and was a bit surprised to see the Osgoods. He stopped a few inches from River, and she lifted her hands to his face, examining him.
"You got old," she observed. "Look at those lines. And your eyebrows. Those are attack eyebrows . . ."
"Are you quite finished?" he seized her wrist, pulling them down to look at her. She looked the same as always – radiant, confident, and totally and completely . . . well, wonderful, really.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You're Scottish!"
"Your hair is still big," he said, grabbing her hair and ruffling it. She grinned.
"I'd much rather kiss this face than that of a twelve year old man child," she said, standing on her toes and giving him a tender kiss on the cheek.
"Why aren't you dead?" he asked bluntly. "Not that I'm not glad to see you, but I don't understand. You were dead."
"Yes," she agreed. "And now I'm not. Funny how that works with us, isn't it?"
"You sent me an emergency signal. Why? Who are these people?"
"Well, I believe you're familiar with the good Captain . . ."
"Who's better looking, now?" Jack grinned.
"And of course the Osgoods. And these two strapping young men are Sam and Dean Winchester."
"I don't understand. What's the emergency, River? I'm not supposed to be here . . ."
"Be where?"
"On earth."
"Why?"
"I can't explain, but it looks to me as you've got everything covered here." He started back towards the TARDIS. "Give me a call next time you're in deep space, I'll take you to a movie."
"Doctor, it is an emergency." River grabbed his arm, and Jack leaned against the TARDIS door, keeping it from opening.
"This guy is him?" Dean looked confused. "I thought he'd be, you know. An alien. Green skin, big head. Like the other ones I met."
"Those were fairies," Sam reminded him.
"Yeah, but they looked like aliens. Look, anyway, Doc Brown –"
"I resent that!"
"We got a big problem and it's about to be your problem, too."
"Well, I highly doubt that," the Doctor assured him.
"Sweetie," River said, glancing at him. "It's about Clara."
Something in his face changed. "What about Clara? Is she alright? What's happened?"
"She's in a very serious, very dangerous situation," Jack said.
"No, not Clara. She doesn't have any enemies on Earth. Well, besides Missy, but she's –"
"Beside the point," River finished. "Clara has been locked in Hell with Lucifer."
The Doctor scoffed. "Lucifer was locked away centuries ago. He hasn't been a threat in a very long time."
"You don't pay much attention to Earth anymore, huh?" Jack asked.
"He doesn't have a vessel," the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Even if he could get out, without a vessel strong enough to permanently hold him, he couldn't do too much damage."
"Good point," Jack agreed. He nodded at one of the other men in the room, the tall one with the hair. "Doctor, meet Sam Winchester. Clara's boyfriend and Satan's true vessel."
The Doctor turned to Sam, wide eyed and in shock. Sam spread his arms in a "yeah, I know" kinda way, and the Doctor stared, dumbfounded.
"Boyfriend?" he spluttered.
"Oh for God's sake," River muttered and rolled her eyes.
Sam frowned. "Uh, yeah, but also there was the part where I'm the vessel for Lucifer?"
"The Winchester Gospel isn't due to come out for hundreds of years, I remember checking just . . . about . . . three hundred years ago . . . oh." The Doctor scratched his head.
"I'm getting you a planner," River swore.
"You read the Winchester Gospel?" Osgood frowned.
"Of course not," the Doctor scoffed. "I don't read trash like that."
"Can we please get back to the matter at hand here?" Dean demanded.
"There is no matter at hand," the Doctor said. "The only way Clara could get into the Cage, would to be to go into Hell with a higher up demon and be taken into the Cage by Lucifer himself."
"All of which happened last night," Jack confirmed.
"But . . . Clara doesn't know any demons!"
"We do," Dean said. "Ever heard of a demon called Crowley?"
"I knew his mother once upon a time," the Doctor frowned. "Why?"
"He let Clara in," Sam said. "And can't get her back out. He's working on it now. Our relationship with Hell is . . . complicated."
"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded.
"Dean Winchester," he said.
"Of course. And the one in the nice coat?"
"That's Cas. He's an angel."
Castiel waved.
"Right, I want to hear exactly what has happened here," the Doctor demanded.
They quickly explained the situation, the Doctor frowning the entire time. Occasionally he'd point at someone else, say "Go" and listen to their side of the story. This kept on for about a half hour, until he finally took a deep breath. But instead of saying anything, he just whirled around, pulling the door open.
The Doctor entered the TARDIS, ignoring the noise of the Winchesters babbling on, trying to understand the dynamics. Jack was doing his best to explain, but to no avail.
"Right," the Doctor said, pulling the screen on the console towards him as River stood behind him. "Clara has a tracking device in her arm. We should be able to find her on a universal scale and pinpoint the exact location of the Cage. I've never used the TARDIS to get into Hell before."
"Do you implant a tracking device in all your companions?" River demanded.
"I started with Amy and Rory," he replied. "They were always running off."
"Do I have one?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Guess."
River's eyes widened as she grabbed her buttocks. "You said that was an iron injection!" she hissed.
"Did you find her?" Sam joined them, pushing the idea of the whole bigger-on-the-inside thing from his mind to concentrate on Clara.
"See this?" the Doctor pulled up a satellite image of the earth. On one side of the geoid was a large red circle; on the other side was a large blue one. He pointed at the red. "That's hell. Like I said, never been. Never wanted to. It's a limited space – I could track something from in there, that's why it overlaps with earth, but I'd not want to enter it. Due the compression from its direct line with earth it could potentially destroy the TARDIS and anyone inside."
"Alright, lesson learned," River said. "We need to stay out of Hell, which is exactly where we need to go. Do you have a plan to get in and out?" River asked Dean.
The elder Winchester hesitated. "We're having some trouble on that end."
"You have no plans, no ideas, nothing? My God, you humans are all the same, aren't you? Funny little people with funny little brains," the Doctor snorted.
"Well you're the alien with the time machine, just go back and save her before she goes in!"
"Of course you have no idea of how time works. It's a straight line, you imbecile! The only one here who even remotely understands what I'm saying is the man who thinks he's a higher celestial being!" He pointed at Castiel.
"Hey, he's a higher being than you!"
"Oh, is that right?"
"Boys!" River clapped her hands, stepping between Dean and the Doctor, who glared daggers at each other. "Put the rulers away, it's time to spend less time arguing and more time coming up with a plan."
"There's only one plan," the Doctor said after a moment of silence. "I'm going in the TARDIS."
"What?!" River followed him to the console. "Sweetie, you're forgetting everything you just said about limited space and compression – we'll all die!"
"Maybe. Maybe not. But this is Clara, and I'll do anything before I let her die," the Doctor replied.
"Is that why you left her?"
The Doctor glared, then changed the subject. "You all need to stay here," he said, typing something into the console. "All of you. That means you, River," he said before she could argue.
"No way," Dean said, taking the words right out of River's mouth. "You're not her only friend. We love her, too."
"And what makes you think you can handle it?" the Doctor demanded.
"Because Sam and I have both spent our share of time in Hell!" Dean snapped.
"I'm not staying behind," Sam said.
"I'm with the boys," Cas agreed.
"I owe Clara," Osgood said, and the other one nodded.
"You can't make me stay, either," River agreed.
"What the hell, you only live once," Jack said, grinning at his own little inside joke.
The Doctor looked helpless. "You can't possibly understand how dangerous this is. If this machine explodes with all of us in it, we'll be erased from history."
"Peace at last," Jack said bitterly. "When do we leave?"
She couldn't remember her name.
She thought maybe it was Oswin. Or Clara. Or Oswald. She was very sure it was one of the three, but she wasn't quite sure which, because they were all her, but they were all different people.
A person has a lot of trouble remembering simple things when they're in pain. The only thing they do remember is that they are in pain. Names don't matter. Faces or places or things don't matter. But they all still flash in front of you.
The funny thing is, she thought as she watched her skin catch on fire, is that she was quite sure she had more names and faces and places and things than most people should. Because her life already had flashed before her eyes. And then again. And again. And again.
But they were all different. They were all her lives but they were different.
She lives in an orphanage on Gallifrey. She listens to stories about Time-Lords in awe. She goes to school. She graduates. She guards the time machines. She sends a man into one. She gets married. She has a family. She gets old. She gets sick. She dies.
She is a little kid. She goes to school. She has a crush on a girl named Nina. She kisses her on the playground. She goes to college. She talks to her mum. She boards a spaceship. She crashes. She bakes soufflés. She talks to a boy named Rory. She finds a funny man with a big chin. She's crying. She's a Dalek. She dies.
She lives in London. Her mother is reading to her. She is being taught by a governess. She is tending to tables in a pub. She serves drinks. She's a governess. She finds a funny man with a big chin. She finds a lizard and her wife. She saves the world. She dies.
She is a leaf. She grows up. She loses her mum. She is a nanny. She travels with the man in the box. She seems to puzzle him. She is his best friend. He is hers. She goes to Trenzalore. She enters his timeline. She is in a million pieces. She dies. But then she doesn't. She goes back to him. He changes. She is a teacher. She is in love with a man. He dies. She grieves. She travels. She goes to the alley. She takes the number. She steps into the street. The raven finds her. She dies . . .
But wait. What was the last part of that second one? Not a past.
A future?
No time to think when you're in pain, she reminds herself.
This entire time she has been screaming.
But suddenly it's over, and she's curled up on the ground and she's very, very cold. She's Clara Oswald and she doesn't know what she just saw.
"That was more than I was expecting." Clara wasn't startled by Lucifer's voice. His was the only name she remembered as she was in pain.
"I was expecting some boring little life," Lucifer admitted. "Not a thousand different ones. You've lived and died over and over again and I want to know how. What are you?"
"It doesn't matter," she breathed, wanting to sit up, but too tired and sick to do so.
"Well that's a lie. Everything matters." Her stomach turned at the actual devil saying something so Doctor-like.
"I noticed the same man in every life," Lucifer continued, sitting beside her. "An alien. The Doctor? What's that all about?"
She didn't reply and Lucifer nodded.
"That's fine. I'll figure it out when I finally get into that pretty little head. Feeling like helping me out yet? Just one word, Clara. One little word and it's all over."
One word. That's all it would take. Just one word and the pain would be over and the overlapping memories would be gone.
"Alright," he sighed when she didn't reply. Without any warning, Clara was positive her bones had been snapped. The pain was sharp and then dull, over and over, getting worse and worse. Her brain had to be bleeding. Her nose bled heavily, and her face contorted with agony. Spots on her body were bruised black.
She knew it wasn't her actual body. It was her soul being bullied. But she still couldn't stop it.
One word.
She opened her mouth, and Lucifer stopped her torture. She took a deep breath, and he smiled, gesturing for her to go on.
But there was a dull, throbbing light, appearing in the middle of the Cage, getting brighter, and brighter, and then were was the noise, the sharp, familiar wheezing. The image began to form as the TARDIS fully materialized.
The door opened, and the silhouette of a man stood in the door way, light streaming around him as he held his hand out towards Clara.
One word was all she needed, and now she had it.
"Doctor," she breathed, and smiled weakly as the tears rushed down her face.
"What the hell," Lucifer started quietly, and was surprised when Clara stood, holding her rib-cage and looking as broken as she possibly could, but still smiling.
"You wanted to know what I am," she laughed. "I'm the Impossible Girl. And my ride is here."