Danni grimaced as they walked through the underground tunnel. She was open to all creatures of any colour, shape or appearance, but did they really have to make everything so slimy? Bits of flesh hung off the ceilings and the floor squelched underfoot. It felt really untidy.
"Does everything have to be so gross?" she commented lowly. "I'd hate to be the janitor here."
"Different species work in different ways," the Doctor replied. "Some like metal computers, some like organic ones." Still, even as he defended it, he pulled out some hand sanitiser and handed it to her. She took it gratefully despite carrying her own, putting a splodge of it in one hand before rubbing it in.
He'd noticed that this regeneration really liked to keep her hands clean when she was worried. Even if she wasn't in a particularly worrisome situation he knew that when the hand sanitiser came out she was worrying about something. He knew that the Zygon created tunnel wasn't what was really bothering her, nor the pods that were stacked against every surface. It was the fact that Clara was in one of them.
"Well, they do like a good cave, don't they?" he commented. "How many of these pods are occupied?"
"We don't know."
Danni shone her torch over a rather large and obvious gap in the collection of pods. "I'm going to guess that was Clara?" she asked lowly.
"Well, that's strange," Kate commented, walking over to shine her torch in each corner, as if very lazily trying to spot where it could have gone.
Danni's eyes met with Osgood, who seemed to be having the same thought as both of the Time Lords. "Doctor, I think they're Zygons," she said, moving away from the two soldiers she had been stood by and to his side.
The two soldiers turned back into their Zygon forms but Kate did not. Danni still moved away from her though, pulling out her gun ready.
"Oh, you cheeky little monkeys!" the Doctor said. He should have known. Danielle hadn't been worried about Clara – well, no, she probably had been – but it must have been her picking up that Kate wasn't quite herself. She had known instantly that the Clara who had rung her hadn't been her best friend, and she'd always been good a picking up little things that he missed, even if she wasn't sure what she was picking up. He should have paid more attention to her hand cleaning.
Kate purposefully walked in between the two soldiers, proudly staring down the three captives. Without saying a word to them she pulled out a Zygon communicator, holding it aloft in front of her.
"The Doctor is here," she told the person on the other side.
"Don't kill him. We need him alive," Clara's voice replied. Danni's hands clenched angrily. The Zygon was still impersonating her best friend. Why did they think that was going to end well for them?
Kate looked confused. "What for?" she asked, which was what they were all thinking.
"Because I just found out why it's called an Osgood box," she replied and Osgood and Danni shared a little, smug look. "There's two of them."
"Two Osgoods, two boxes. Operation Double. What did you expect?" the Doctor replied with a little shrug.
"What's in them, Doctor?" the Zygon asked. "Tell me. Now!"
The Zygon soldiers began advancing slowly and the trio tried to back away. Danni didn't drop her aim, but she didn't want to shoot unless necessary. "One box normalises all the Zygons."
"And the other?"
"Destroys them."
There was a long pause. "Which is which?"
"Ah, that would be telling," he replied as they continued to be advanced on. There was another long pause filled with the snarling of the angry Zygons and the sound of footsteps from the communicator.
"Which box normalises the Zygons, Danielle?" the Zygon asked her. "Tell me, or she dies."
It was an incredibly clever play, the Doctor realised. He watched as Danni's eyes widened in horror at the idea of Clara dying. The Zygon had been in Clara Oswald's mind. Not only would it have seen how Clara cared for his wife, she would have seen just how much his wife cared for her. Or, rather, how much the relationship between himself and Clara had deteriorated. There was a better chance that Danielle would have answered than he would have.
And that chance paid off. She just didn't know that it was something they had planned for, and they all had a prepared response.
"The blue one!" Danni exclaimed in panic. "The-The blue one normalises the Zygons!"
"Are you lying?" Bonnie asked. "Are you lying to me, Danielle?"
"Would I ever lie to Clara?" Danni replied. "Blue's my favourite colour, it always has been, everyone knows that. I'd never allow the one that killed everyone to be in that box."
There was a pause as Bonnie weighed up the option that Danni had given her. Danni looked over at the Doctor and he shot her a reassuring smile. She took a little comfort in it, but until she knew Clara was okay she couldn't return it with her own.
"Doctor?" Bonnie cried after she'd opened the box. Just as they'd all expected, she wasn't happy. "Doctor!"
The Doctor smiled. "Yeah, I know."
There was a loud crash from the other end. "Bring him to me!"
At the order the Zygons snarled, reaching out for the trio. "Don't," Danni warned. "You're not as good as aim as me, I promise."
The nearest Zygon dropped at the first gunshot, and then the other quickly followed with another fire. The Doctor's first instinct was to look to his wife to see if she was alright, and if she was the source, but apart from looking absolutely blindsided by the sudden attack she seemed fine.
Kate lowered her gun. "Sorry, Doctor. Self-defence," she said. He looked over.
"You're you," he said in realisation.
She didn't even nod. "I'm me."
"How did you survive?"
A small smirk appeared on her face. "Five rounds rapid," she replied.
Danni grinned. "That's my girl," she praised. Kate blinked at her, still surprised by the new Danni. Danni, on the other hand, put her gun back.
"Why does peacekeeping always involve killing?" the Doctor asked.
"That wasn't peacekeeping," Danni replied, as if she was justifying it. "Killing them was a bit unnecessary, but their anger would have only exasperated the situation." She turned to Kate, who was currently crushing her communicator underneath her heeled foot. "Are there more Zygons around?"
"They were the nearest," she offered before looking to Osgood. "You're you?"
Osgood nodded. "I'm me."
"But human or Zygon?"
Osgood's face hardened. "Me," she replied firmly because it wasn't up for discussion. As if she'd had to reaffirm that she was exactly who she said she was, that she wasn't just human or Zygon, one too many times for her liking that day.
"What are we dealing with?" Kate asked the two Time Lords, taking Osgood's answer at face value for now.
"Twenty million Zygons about to be unmasked. You don't know whether they are human or not. And you can't fight them, not with soldiers," the Doctor quickly explained.
"Which leads me to a very big question," Kate said. The Doctor rubbed his forehead, like the thought alone was painful to him. It was. Between the humans determined to commit genocide and Danni trying to justify the death of the Zygons on the floor, he really didn't know what was best.
"Oh, I was really hoping that it wouldn't," he muttered.
"The Zee-67, Sullivan's gas, the gas that kills the Zygons. You took it," Kate pointed out.
He almost rolled his eyes. It was all so predictable. Every time. "Well, you know how it is. Daddy knows best," he retorted.
"That's what's in the red box, yes?" She nodded her head once, continuing on before he could even answer her. "Of course it is. If I remember rightly, it causes a chain reaction in the atmosphere. Turns every Zygon on Earth inside out."
"Let us negotiate peace," the Doctor begged, motioning between himself and his wife. "You can't commit mass murder…"
"Then why did you leave the gas with us?" Kate interrupted.
"The boxes are safeguards for both species," the Doctor explained. "You agreed to that."
"I never agreed to that," Kate scoffed
"Yes, you did, then I wiped your memory." He pointed at her. "And you agreed to that, too. But that's why there were two Osgoods to police the ceasefire. One human and one Zygon, to keep the secrets and keep the peace."
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Kate replied. "Truly. But the peace is failing already." She turned, heading out of the tunnel. "Come on."
"Do you get asked that question often?" Danni asked Osgood curiously as they followed her. "Which one you are?" she clarified at Osgood's confused look.
Osgood looked like even the idea of being asked annoyed her. "More than I like," she admitted. "Why?"
"It's just so rude," Danni replied. "You explained to the Doctor what it meant, I assume that's not the first time you've had to either?" Osgood shook her head. "And they still ask?" Osgood nodded. "Did they ask before your sister…" Danni came to a stop, realising that her curiosity had brought up the one thing she'd hoped to avoid. Osgood almost came to a stop slightly in front of her, still a little confused about the conversation.
"I am- I am sorry, you know?" Danni told her, shifting slightly on the spot. "About your sister. I know that…"
Osgood smiled fondly, knowing exactly where her train of thought was heading. That was also a known character trait of the Time Lords. Taking the guilt of others on because they didn't stop something from happening.
"You didn't kill her, Missy did," she interrupted. "It wasn't your fault."
Danni scoffed, still unable to look her in the eye. "Isn't it?"
"No," Osgood replied. "Missy killed my sister. Missy converted the dead into Cybermen. Missy did all of that horrible stuff, not you. It wasn't your fault."
Danni raised her gaze, brows furrowed just slightly. "Do you really believe that?" she asked.
"Of course," Osgood replied like it was everyone's belief. Like no one thought Missy's attempt at turning the planet to Cybermen was her fault. Like not once did Osgood or anyone else believe that Missy's plan had been her fault.
This was somewhat of a revelation to Danni. The Doctor had told her time and again it wasn't her fault. Clara had too, but they were her friends and family so of course they'd be on her side. She'd spent so long being told and believing that it was her fault that it just had to be, they were just being kind.
She surprised them all by launching forward, pulling Osgood into a tight hug that the other woman hadn't been expecting. Osgood froze for a moment before giving her a hug in return, part of her happy that Danni had decided she was who she needed comfort from, and part of her squealing like the fangirl she was because she was being hugged by Danielle Fielding.
Danni pulled back, cupping her face in her hands. "I'm so glad you're okay," she said in the sincerest voice she could muster. She tilted Osgood's head down, placed a kiss on her forehead then let her go to stride purposefully through the tunnel. "Now let's go save Clara!"
The Doctor had watched the entire exchange with a grin on his face and quickly jogged to catch her up. Kate walked up to Osgood, who wasn't moving.
"Inhaler," she instructed. Osgood pulled her inhaler out and took a deep shot of it with a deep breath inwards. "That's it."
~0~0~0~
Clara had spent too much time locked in her own head that, when she had been taken out of her pod she had been a little disorientated. She had been aware of what was happening and had done exactly as was needed of her, but still suddenly appearing in the Black Archive when she'd been in her living room only a moment ago did screw with her head slightly.
It did give her time to think, though. Bonnie seemed to be rather set on ending the ceasefire but she knew that it wasn't going to happen. She remembered all the other times that the Osgood Boxes had come into play. She remembered the Doctor and Danni talking Zygons down. All logic said that, statistically, it was more likely that they'd do it again and everything would be fine.
Of course, logic didn't mean anything when you were being held back by two red creatures covered in suckers who just seemed to keep on appearing in your life. It also didn't mean much when the one masterminding the end of the ceasefire was wearing your face and doing a rather good job of it.
Still, she had to hold onto the idea that Danni was on her way, the Doctor in tow, and everything was going to work out the way it always worked out. She was the boss of everything, after all, and that included her own fears.
"It's no good, Bonnie," she said to her doppelganger. "You can't win."
Bonnie looked over from the table where the two Osgood boxes sat. "I don't care," she replied, which actually was a little bit terrifying.
"Hi!" Clara sighed in relief as the Doctor walked into the room, Osgood and Kate behind him and Danni to his side. "Hello! Hello!"
Clara's attention was, naturally, pulled to Danni. It was the skirt, Clara was sure of it, but she looked like she was ready to take on the entire room if she needed and that she would win that fight if she did. It was the same air that both River and Jack gave out whenever they were in the room.
Clara had almost kissed Jack once. She'd managed to stop herself, but she had been pretty close to doing it. Maybe she was just attracted to the whole family. Maybe she just had a thing for unique, immortal time travelling aliens. At this point in her life Clara really wouldn't have been surprised.
"Are you alright?" Danni asked her as the Doctor asked Bonnie to step down. She was rather touched that Danni's first thought had been for her and not the safety of the rest of the planet. She gave nod in reply but didn't say a word.
"Let me take both of these boxes away," the Doctor requested. "We'll forgive, we'll forget. And the ceasefire will stand."
"No," Bonnie replied firmly. She turned, staring Kate down as if she was daring the UNIT commander to call her bluff.
She did. Kate walked over to the red box, looking between the two buttons that were on the top. One was labelled 'Truth', the other 'Consequences'.
"Doctor, which of these buttons do I press?" she asked the Time Lord. "Doctor, which one? Truth or consequences?"
Bonnie moved to stand next to the blue box. "Truth or consequences?" she echoed.
The Doctor looked at the two women who were both looking to him for the answer to start the war they were looking to fight. He was always the one they looked to, the one they always thought had the answers they were seeking. He glanced to his wife, then to Clara. He had, once upon a time, thought that this was the only way. He'd been shown differently. He just had to show them what they needed to see, not what they thought they did.
"This is the moment we've all been waiting for," he said lowly, ominously before his voice picked up and he put on a ridiculous American accent. "Make your mind up time!"
He skipped around the table. "My wonderful assistant, what's behind door number one?" he asked, waving his hand dramatically at the red Osgood box Kate was stood by.
"Well, Doctor, one of those buttons will destroy the Zygons with Sullivan's gas and the other will detonate the nuclear warhead that we're all currently stood on," Danni replied. Her own voice already had an American twang to it, but the Doctor just saw it as her getting into character with him.
"And door number 2," he continued, moving over to Bonnie's side. "Bonnie. Bonnie, sweetheart! One of those buttons will unmask every Zygon in the world. The other one cancels their ability to change form. It'll make them human beings for ever." His happy-go-lucky demeanour suddenly dropped. "There are safeguards beyond safeguards. I did this on a very important day for me and this ceasefire will stand."
Bonnie looked up at him like she couldn't believe was she was hearing. "This is wrong."
"No, it's not," he replied simply.
"You are responsible for all the violence. All of the suffering!"
He shook his head. "No, I'm not."
"Yes," she insisted.
"No."
"Yes," Bonnie repeated. "You engineered this situation, Doctor. This is your fault."
"No, it's not," he replied calmly as Bonnie's voice rose in anger. He pointed at her. "It's your fault."
"I had to do what I've done!" she retorted.
"So did I," the Doctor replied with a shrug. They were all arguments that he'd heard before, all things he'd thought himself until he'd been made to just think about it for a moment.
"It's not fair," Bonnie declared, sounding almost wounded and the Doctor couldn't help but roll his eyes.
"Oh, it's not fair! Oh, I didn't realise that it was not fair!" he mocked. "Well, you know what? My TARDIS doesn't work properly and I don't have my own personal tailor."
"The things don't equate," she replied.
"These things have happened, Zygella. They are facts," he corrected before pointing at her accusingly. "You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you; you're just a whole bunch of new cruel people," he declared in judgement. "A whole bunch of new cruel people being cruel to some other people," he turned, walking over to where Clara was stood as prisoner of the two Zygons who were in their true form. He looked her straight in the eye. "Who'll end up being cruel to you," he said and she looked away. It was cruel of him too, made him feel a little hypocritical but he turned and looked at Bonnie without thinking too much about it. Clara would understand. "The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive," he explained. "Why don't you break the cycle?"
"Why should we?" she countered.
"What is it that you actually want?"
There was a long pause where Bonnie looked to Kate, then to Osgood as she weighed up the room. Then her face fell into a look of anger. "War."
"Ah. Ah, right." The Doctor nodded along. "And when this war is over, when you have a homeland free from humans, what do you think it's going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you're very close to getting what you want." Bonnie looked down for moment at the box and it was painfully obvious that she hadn't thought past this moment. She just wanted people to pay for the injustice she saw around her.
"Let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and when it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you?" Again he pointed at her, staring her down, looking for the answer he knew she didn't have. "The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?"
"We'll win," she replied confidently.
"Oh, will you?" the Doctor countered. "Well, maybe, maybe you will win! But nobody wins for long."
That was certainly true. Eventually someone would feel displeasure, or unfairness, in the hand that they were dealt. Eventually someone wouldn't be happy with the way they were being treated just like Bonnie wasn't happy and the arrogance that came with her answer just said that she had no idea what she was doing.
It was an arrogance that Danni and the Doctor had seen too many times. It was an arrogance they had both felt at different points in their lives and it was arrogance that neither of them wanted to leave to linger.
"Do you know what I see, Doctor?" Bonnie asked him before turning to face Kate. "A box," she said. "A box with everything I need. A fifty percent chance." Her hand immediately went to hover over the 'Consequences' button.
Kate quickly mirrored her actions, hovering over her 'Consequences' button. "For us, too."
He looked between the two and saw that he was a crucial tipping point. He saw that Bonnie was defensive, and Kate was reactionary and saw two very different fights he had to win.
He backed away, arms out at his side and put his stupid American accent back into place. "And we're off! Fingers on buzzers! Are you feeling lucky? Are you ready to play the game? Who's going to be quickest? Who's going to be luckiest?" He placed his arm around Danni's shoulders, pulling her a little closer to gain the comfort that she was there and was still on his side.
She didn't have anything to add to what he was doing. It was best that they both stayed focused on him as adding too many people into the equation would make an unstable situation practically catastrophic. She tilted to the side, giving him a quick side hug, she knew he would appreciate because at that moment she appreciated the touch she was getting from him.
"This is not a game!" Kate shouted and the Doctor nodded.
"No, it's not a game, sweetheart, and I mean that most sincerely," he replied with a horrid grin, letting go of his wife to step back towards the table.
"Why are you doing this?" Bonnie demanded.
"Yes, I'd quite like to know that, too," Kate agreed. "You set this up. Why?"
All of his bravado dropped and the fury on his face scared everyone who saw it. "Because it's not a game, Kate!" he shouted. "This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does until what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk!" He sighed heavily, trying to calm himself down. His hand flexed and Danni realised that he was looking for her hand. That, perhaps in the past, she would have stepped forward and taken his hand in support. He was still looking for that reassurance, but Danni couldn't move. His passion, his words, his conviction in what he was saying was keeping her in her place and no matter how she willed herself forward her legs wouldn't move.
He clapped his hands together, rushing towards Bonnie. "Listen to me. Listen, I just, I just want you to think," he pleaded. "Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind."
"I will not change my mind," Bonnie said forcefully.
"Then you will die stupid," the Doctor replied bluntly. "Alternatively, you could step away from that box, you can walk right out of that door and you could stand your revolution down."
"No!" she exclaimed. "I'm not stopping this, Doctor. I started it. I will not stop it. You think they'll let me go, after what I've done?"
Kate's head tilted as she realised that part of this was down to her. That the reason that they were so close to the destruction of a lot of innocent people was because Bonnie was scared of what would happen because of her, because of UNIT. It was a revelation she obviously didn't see coming.
"You're all the same, you screaming kids," the Doctor said with a chuckle of disbelief. "You know that? Look at me, I'm unforgivable. Well, here's the unforeseeable. I forgive you. After all you've done, I forgive you."
His words made Danni stand up straight, something Osgood didn't miss. She had been listening intently to her husband try and convince the two warring races to step down and she knew that he was the best person for the job. She had been to war, but he had personally gone through what was happening in front of them. He'd been the one with the big button to press, the man who had thought there was no other way. At lot of terrible things had happened to her in her lifetime, but she'd never had anything that had rivalled his choice before.
Still, it wasn't his pleading that had made her sudden listen a lot closer than she thought possible, it was the small promise in his voice. He'd really, truly forgiven Bonnie for everything she had done and she'd tried to start a war against all of humanity.
Would he forgive her too?
The reason she hadn't been able to step in on his speech wasn't because it was better for him to talk. He'd always had the gift of the gab, after all, so it made sense that she'd reasoned it like that in her head. It was because, on some level, those words were being directed at her. At a scared woman who, even now, still couldn't get the feeling of being watched off her skin. Who had come to see the universe as something to fight not something to live in. The woman, his wife, his constant, had slowly become more and more like the woman who had captured her that she didn't know where she stood anymore. She was even fighting telling him everything. Everything in her mind had become a war, and she needed to get away from it.
She had hidden so much from him. So many secrets, so many things she had kept inside. Even just earlier she'd not told him about what she'd dreamt when she had been unconscious, she'd just kept it to herself. There had been the tavern with Me, her time on the run, her regeneration. All these secrets that she had kept to herself because she was sure he wouldn't forgive her. Bonnie had just tried to start a war with humanity, Danni had a hundred or so years of badness. Could he really forgive that?
"Danni, are you okay?" Osgood whispered and Danni shook her head. She could feel the tears in her eyes. The Doctor was never going to forgive her for keeping her life secret from him. He was never going to forgive her for what she'd done.
She didn't cry, she just reached out and grabbed Osgood's hand and held it tightly. If he forgave Bonnie, then he'd forgive her too. And if he didn't… well, then at least she'd know. If the Doctor couldn't forgive her then no one could.
"You don't understand. You will never understand," Bonnie said, hurt.
"I don't understand?" he asked derisively. He looked around at Danni to see if she was just as offended by Bonnie's words as he was and saw her upset. It was both horrid and a relief to see. No matter what happened, she always felt so much.
He turned back around, though, becoming more and more worked up. "Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine." His voice sped up as he brought everything that made him want to stop this to the surface. "And when I close my eyes—" He turned to compose himself. He needed to be the strong one here. It always fell on his shoulders but if he could stop one person fighting a war that didn't need to happen he would happily take the weight. "-I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight till it burns your hand, and you say this." He held his fist close and tight as he stared Bonnie down. "No one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!"
There was a moment of silence, then Kate slowly closed the lid of the red box and stepped away. The Doctor's shoulders sagged in relief and Danni's eyes stung with unshed tears.
"Thank you. Thank you," he whispered to Kate.
She hung her head, ashamed. "I'm sorry."
"I know. I know. Thank you," he replied just as softly before turning to Bonnie. Everything rested on her shoulders. "Well?"
Nothing happened. Bonnie's hand hovered over the button and she didn't move it away. She didn't lower it. She stood perfectly still and the time seemed to stretch forever. There was no sound, no one moved and it was unbearable.
Danni couldn't help it. She'd spent almost a century schooling her own emotions to stop Missy using them against her. She'd spent years on the run trying to stop anyone seeing how scared she was so they wouldn't have the advantage. The Doctor had slipped past every single wall she had in place with ease. The heartbreak in his voice, the pain, hurt her so much.
She whimpered, quickly pressing her lips together. Immediately both the Doctor and Bonnie looked back at her. In that moment there was no difference between her and the young ginger woman she had once been, crying because he also about to press a button that he really shouldn't have.
"It's empty, isn't it?" Bonnie spoke up quietly. "Both boxes. There's nothing in them. Just buttons."
"Of course," the Doctor replied, turning back to her. "And do you know how you know that? Because you've started to think like me."
Bonnie lowered her hand. "You wouldn't have put anything in the box that would have caused harm because it's her favourite colour," she reasoned. "You wouldn't want war to happen in her name. You wouldn't want war to happen in anyone's name."
And that hurt, because it was entirely correct. Danni knew that the Doctor had never been able to grasp that there were placing in the universe that trembled when they heard her name. For a while she had found it baffling as well, but now she didn't. It hurt so much because it was entirely correct, but entirely too late.
"It's hell, isn't it?" the Doctor replied knowingly. "No one should have to think like that. And no one will. Not on our watch." He smiled at her. "Gotcha."
"How can you be so sure?" Bonnie asked.
"Because you have a disadvantage, Zygella," the Doctor replied. "I know that face." Both she and Clara were very surprised by his words. He was sure Clara would have questions for him later. She always had questions.
"This is all very well, but we know the boxes are empty now," Kate pointed out. "We can't forget that."
"No, well, er," he shot her a sheepish smile, "you've said that the last fifteen times." He pulled out his sonic sunglasses, put them on and looked upwards. Kate's gaze followed just as he set them off and she and the two Zygons dropped to the ground.
Danni didn't even wait for him to turn around. The moment the tension was broken she rushed forward and chucked her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. He wrapped her up tightly, holding her just as tightly as she cried into him. He knew that this was big for her, but he was just glad that she felt safe enough with him to let it out. And, if he was honest, he was glad that even after everything she heard she still wanted to hug him. He had always been worried whenever the Time War was brought up that it would turn her away from him, but every time she proved herself so kind and forgiving.
But then she didn't stop crying. He expected a scolding for putting himself through that, or for the stupid American accent that he wasn't sure where he'd pulled it from. But she didn't. She just kept crying silently and he began slowly rocking her.
"Shh, it's okay," he promised. "Shh, I've got you. It's okay."
But Danni knew differently.
~0~0~0~
Danni pulled Clara in for a hug that surprised the other woman, but one that was very highly welcomed. Clara wrapped her up in right back and the pair stood together for a moment, just happy to alive and safe.
Danni pulled back. "You did really well," she commented. "Definitely deserve a promotion."
"I think I deserve to run the team after what happened," Clara retorted. She glanced over at the Doctor, who was saying goodbye to the two Osgoods. Or, rather, the one Osgood who he was with and the other that was about to appear. She'd already been briefed on the new implementation of the ceasefire. She rather liked it. "Are you okay with me working for UNIT?" she asked.
Danni could have laughed. "Clara, for the briefest of moments I thought you were dead and I couldn't bear it," she explained. "I was ready to kill everyone and everything that came into my path. Bonnie wouldn't have needed the Osgood box because I would have gotten there first with something that would have actually worked and I would have done it gladly." Clara blinked, surprised at the casual mention of violence coming from her friend's mouth. "If you're happy then I am. If that is UNIT, then that's UNIT. Are you happy?"
Clara thought back over the day. How she'd been kidnapped, duplicated then held hostage inside her own head. She couldn't lie, she couldn't hide, and she'd had to use her own wits to not only survive but carry on the plan as normal. It had been terrifying, and exciting and absolutely amazing.
She smiled. "Yes," she admitted. "For the first time in a long time, yeah, I am."
"Then why would I care?" Danni replied. She reached out, taking both of her hands. "All I ask is that, to the best of your abilities, you keep safe. I am not ready you lose you yet."
"Trust me, I'm not ready to die yet either," Clara promised. Danni didn't let go of her hands, but her face fell from the smile that had been on it to a more sombre look. "What's wrong?" she asked softly.
"I have a lot to tell you," Danni explained quietly. "A lot of bad things. I want to tell you everything, and I will," she glanced over her shoulder, "but I need to- the Doctor said he'd forgiven Bonnie. I need to see if it holds true for me too."
"Of course it will," Clara replied, trying not to scoff as Danni was obviously worried about it. "And you don't have to tell me anything."
"I want to," Danni replied quickly. "I just-I need to check first. I'm-I'm scared, Clara. Really scared."
And she was. That was obvious enough that this time Clara pulled her in for a hug before she'd even thought of doing it herself. "Don't be," Clara told her, keeping her voice kind so Danni knew she meant it. "He will forgive you, and I forgive you. There is nothing you can do that I wouldn't forgive."
"Danielle!" the Doctor called over, impatient and not liking how much they were hugging. "Time to go."
Danni giggled slightly despite herself and pulled away. "Love you, sweetie," she said sincerely. "Keep me updated if the end of the world comes again."
"We'll have cocktails," Clara retorted. She watched Danni walk off, slowly moving to join the two Osgoods to watch the TARDIS disappeared.
"What now, then?" she asked them both. They shared a look.
"Ice creams?" the Osgood dressed as Danni suggested.
The one dressed as the Doctor nodded. "Yes, ice creams," she agreed. "Then back to work."
"What's today?" Danni!Osgood asked.
"Oh, you know, same old, same old. Defending the Earth."
Clara rolled her eyes. "Are you two going to start finishing each other's sentences?" she asked. "Because we don't need that sort of thing at work. Keep it strictly professional, eh?"
"Oh, we will," Danni!Osgood replied cheekily. "When you stop oogling Danni at work."
"I-I wasn't oogling anyone!" Clara protested. One Osgood looked at the other.
"Of course she wasn't," she replied sarcastically.
"Very unprofessional," the other replied.
"Oh, stop it," Clara retorted. "It's not funny and you're not clever."
~0~0~0~
So... not a lot changed in this chapter from the episode, that is true. It's much more of a setting up type of chapter. Next chapter is where it's all going to go down :D
Quick life update - I'm off to London Film and Comic Con at the weekend (not to brag, but I'm meeting Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi). I'm going to go as Danni as it's cheap and cheerful and it's mainly for the photos. If you see a large ginger girl in a blue dress, black cardigan and wearing a vortex manipulator it's probably me and you should say hi if you're there :D :D
Reviews :)
serenitysaiyan - Me too! I love his face at finding out her real name. Always makes me giggle XD Yep, Dream Crabs actually happened. Oh, wait til the next chapter. We're getting a LOT of Danni knowledge :D x
bored411 - Hehe glad you liked it!
BlueFlame27 - Thanks sweetie. I hope you liked this chapter too :)