Clara

Two Can Keep A Secret

The bridge proved invaluable when they finally found it. Emptied of skeletons - thankfully - the backup power systems allowed them to access the data records of the ship, and discover it to be called the HMS Illyria, some royal ship beloging to whatever remnant of Great Britain lurked around in that century. There was little information other than a sudden crash down to some devastating enging malfunction, though after close inspection, both Jack and Eyeball ruled it really was an accidnet. No sabotage involved. Which surprised Clara, because she was so used to foul play being a stone's throw away from every catastrophe they encountered.

Most importantly though, they found a kind of map of the ship that gave them the simplest emergency route. And then Clara examined it further and deduced that, because of the harsh angle of the ship, the quickest escape route was really out of the now-empty, escape pods. There were airlocks down one side of the ship, right by the cockpit, in fact. They ran like a beehive down the whole left side of the ship, and after some exploration the group found one they could jump out of to whatever whimsical 'freedom' awaited them back on Eslilia.

Fatigue felt like nettles on Clara's eyes, only irritated further by the noon sun beating down on her. Her eyes took a few minutes to adjust back to being coated in the emerald quality the sky produced, the green film over everything she saw, after the macabre grandeur of the Illyria. She really had dried off on board, too, and hadn't had a chance to notice that short-lived good luck whilst evading the deadly kitchen staff. Yet as soon as she leapt through the hole the long-gone pod had made upon evacuation, she was up to her waist in swamp again.

"I'm going to wash so much when we get back..." she grumbled, mostly to Jack, who had followed her back onto the planet second of all. He laughed, and nodded in small agreement with her.

And so the trek continued.

The swamp was dense and viscous, and it was like wading through treacle at certain points, and hunger caught up with her. Hunger and tired, thirst and ache, her primary companions above the others as they went. She thought she might sleep for a thousand years, if not more, the next time she found herself in a bed. It had been scarcely two days, yet a bed seemed a pipe dream in her head; an unattainable mirage of false-hope. It was nearly not worth putting faith that they would ever leave such a Hellish Eden. Above all else, it stank. What it stank of, she didn't know, some mix of dung and feet that had been baked in the scorching heat (and now there was the sweat of the four of them swilling around in it too).

"How far is it?" Clara finally asked, not being able to stand being kept in the dark about their journey any longer. But now she wanted to know exactly what was happening.

"About two more hours on foot, but I guess the swamp'll get lighter," Jack told her. Two hours. She could do two hours. "It'll be easier on the way back, we just follow the river."

"We tried that coming," Zachary snarked.

"Yeah? And whose idea was that, huh?" Zachary said nothing, "That's what I thought. Anyway, I found some rope, so we can abseil down the waterfall. It'll be faster, we could get back by the middle of the night if we're lucky. Midday tomorrow if we're not." Just one more night, then, Clara noted. Then they'd be home-free and she could decontaminate herself of about ten layers of grime.

Jack was right; eventually the swamp did begin to ease up. Soon they were trudging sloppily in ankle-depth pools of mush. By that point, Clara didn't know if her clothes were sticking to her from sweat or dirty water. But she was soaked through all over, and there was a humid mist of water vapour descending around them, making visibility terrible. She couldn't see more than three feet in either direction, and she hoped Jack would keep them going the right way with his exalted position as Chief Navigator.

There was some sort of flower partway along that piqued the interest of Eyeball enough to comment it was used as the insignia for some elite sect of the Homeworld Alliance, and she and Zachary were soon engaged with conversation about that. They lapsed behind Jack and Clara, who were more or less alone. And, taking advantage of the lack of interested eavesdroppers, Jack brought up Jenny.

"You think she'll forgive me?" he asked Clara. For a moment, she just frowned, not knowing who he meant.

"..? Oh! Jenny," she realised, "Oh yeah, sure, as soon as she gets over Oswin, like I said. I don't know where this infatuation has sprung from."

"You and me both," Jack muttered, "By the way, I forget to tell you that you're great in bed." Clara paled into a sickly pallor.

"Ew," she said.

"What? What do you have against me that you don't have against Adam Mitchell?" he questioned, and Clara knew that this was a genuine question, though she didn't know why Jack all of a sudden cared about Adwin.

"You and Eyeball are not in love. Adam Mitchell and Oswin are," Clara said, then she made a start and tried to cover her tracks, "I mean - do not tell Oswin I said that. She is an idiot who hasn't realised it yet."

"What, seriously? I thought it was one-sided," Jack shrugged, "I thought one day she'd end up dumping him for the next pink-haired girl to come crashing into her afterlife."

"Not likely," Clara defended her sister's fidelity, "Neither of us are cheaters. And I'm the one with the emotional bond and the psychic link; trust me, she's head over heels."

"Wanna place a bet on that?" he asked wryly.

"No, Jack. I have integrity."

"...But really? She really does?" Clara nodded. "I didn't know."

"She stayed with his family for three days before the Prank War and she lives in his bedroom, Jack. And she made everybody stop calling him 'Creepy Adam'. Go on, watch her when we get back," Clara challenged, "It's obvious with him. If you listen to what he says, he's always about to tell her, but then he stops."

"You're kidding? And she hasn't noticed..?"

"Not at all. It's hilarious. For supposed geniuses, they're not half stupid," Clara sighed pitifully. If only her sister was less oblivious. Then again, Oswin's vain ignorance wasn't harming anyone or anything, and Clara thought it would be resolved before it reached that point, anyway.

"I don't think it's morally right to use them for entertainment," Jack said, though he was grinning, which meant his statement lost a lot weight.

"It's fine, what they don't know can't hurt them. Anyway. How are you going to win Jenny back? Romantic dinner? Lavish gifts? Artistic sonnets? Gondola down the Seine?" The subject matter was rather dull, but Clara was going to cling to every shred of conversation she could get to alleviate the bitter funk she was in.

"Are they all dates the Doctor's taken you on?"

"What? No, I wouldn't tell you those. Speaking of dates-"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Weren't you about to ask me out on a date?" Jack winked; Clara was thoroughly unimpressed, but she did trip over a branch, and that gave him the wrong assumption about her 'feelings'. "Falling at my feet, huh?"

"I was going to say," Clara restored herself and watched the root-laced ground as she now walked, "I made a bet with Theodore that I could take him on a date that would actually impress him. Because he's always the one to decide what to do."

"Fish and chips," Jack said.

"And that's why you no longer have a girlfriend," Clara commented, smirking (her hair was hiding her expression though, since it was hanging down around her face as she watched her footing.)

"Just do him in the shower, c'mon, you and I both know that's what he's after."

"I refuse to do that twice."

"Twice!?" Clara bit her tongue when she realised she'd given up her secret to Jack Harkness, of all people. Whoops...

"Moving on," she said quickly, hastening to get away from the topic of showers and speeding up her pace a little, "I just mean..."

She had broken through the treeline, the green hue of her vision all instantly replaced by an orange one as they stood in front of an awesome, gargantuan sight.