As usual, a big big hug to my wonderful beta NoPondInTheForest :-D
It was completely dark by the time the same guards that had arrested Clara by command of Robert Cecil and escorted her out of Old St Paul's Church locked her up in the Tower of London.
They had not been particularly kind to her, neither had she been as stupid as to expect them to be, but neither could she have imagined that they would say their goodbyes the way they did – by violently throwing her inside a dungeon. During her slow-motion descent, she even had time to make the decision of not letting those men leave without hearing one or maybe two really very rude words coming out of her mouth. Unfortunately, the impact of her forehead against the floor was such a violent one that she lost consciousness afterwards.
She ignored how long she had remained unconscious when, one at a time, her senses started to come back slowly. However, she refused to let them take control over her mind or her body.
Not yet. Not quite yet.
There was, in fact, something strangely comforting about the cold stone floor.
The vision that her subconscious mind had created was having a trance-inducing effect on her. A bright glow, orange and yellow, like a fiery sunset, was painted in her mind's eye and shining all around her, keeping her warm and making her feel safe, taken care of, and loved. She could even feel a delightful sense of warmth which somehow seemed to be emanating from the stone underneath her.
"S'alright now," an unexpected voice suddenly said. "Ya just need some rest."
Had that been her mother's talking?
She wouldn't open her eyes, just in case, knowing that for as long as she kept them closed she would be able to see her as vividly as anything or anyone she had ever seen in her waking hours, looking beautiful and radiant, while a calming and incandescent amber-coloured gleam bathed every inch of her.
When Clara finally opened her eyes she found out that she was not lying on the floor anymore, but comfortably resting in a four-poster bed. As she tried to sit up to take in the dark and large room that had just become her cell, she instinctively took a hand to her forehead and noticed there was a bump right where her head had touched the ground – and a rather painful one.
"Ouch!" she shouted, closing her eyes in pain.
It was then when the unforeseen voice of the woman she had mistaken for her mother became audible again.
"S'okay, you're fine. Must hurt, I guess, but it's just a bump."
A startled Clara who had definitely not been expecting anyone to speak at all turned to take a look at the other woman in the room, but she couldn't see much. The moonlight entering through the window right opposite left little else than a shadow to be seen.
"Ya want some water?"
The woman was sitting on the bed right next to her, but the room was so dimly lit that Clara found herself unable to study her features. The tone of her voice, however, had made it obvious that she was a very young girl, perhaps in her late teens or early twenties. It was also easy to realise she was extremely thin – and unhealthily so. Her long fair hair was dishevelled and dirty, and she was wearing a long white gown which was even dirtier.
"No, thanks. I'm fine…" Understanding that her own face was being made visible by the same moonlight that was preventing her from seeing her companion's, Clara took her hand off her forehead and gave the girl a shy but grateful smile. "This is the Tower of London, right?" she asked, not really sure why, since she already knew the answer.
"Yeah. Doesn't seem so when ya see massive beds in the cells, does it? It's quite something, really. Ya'd never think they'd want to make anyone feel comfortable in 'ere."
"How long have you been here?" Clara asked.
"About a month or so? I don't really know."
"But this is… Not right," Clara said, a bit confused. "You shouldn't be here at all."
"Of course I shouldn't, an' I bet neither should you," the girl replied, now taking a hand to her mouth and starting to bite her thumb.
"I really mean it! Don't you know?" Clara asked with wide-open eyes. "Everywhere you go, it's being said there are no prisoners in the Tower anymore. That they've been… Disappearing." She stopped at this point, thinking that she was probably scaring the girl with her words. However, as the girl didn't show any signs of fear, she went on. "It's all people will talk about in the streets, so how come you can still be here? Who are you?"
"Who am I?" the now suddenly upset young girl asked with a frown. "Guess I might as well ask, who are ya?"
She had a temper then. Good.
"Have you ever met the Queen, or are you in any way related to her?" Clara asked.
"What kind of question is that? Course not! Why would I be?" the girl said, the surprise in her voice clearly showing how much she had not expected that question.
"And have you ever met a man called the Doctor?" Clara asked then.
"Doctor who?" the girl replied with even greater surprise.
"Nothing. Just the Doctor."
"Nope. 'fraid I haven't. You're talking nonsense, ya know that?" The girl suddenly became silent, and as Clara sensed some hesitation in her, she put a hand on her shoulder to try to make her feel at ease. "But you're right about one thing, I guess."
It had long been glaringly obvious, by the time the girl said those words, that she belonged in that time and place exactly as much as Clara herself did, but she just wouldn't say it. And yet, the idea of pushing her in order to find out more didn't even cross Clara's mind. After all, the Doctor and her had often met other time travellers in their adventures.
"Okay, fair enough!" said Clara then. "I don't need to know who you are, and believe me, who I am is not important either. But we are together now, right? That's what really matters. You can trust me, okay? You can tell me everything. I have friends who can help! They'll get us out of here and we'll be fine, but you must tell me everything you know or anything you may have seen."
"Well, so as ya know, I don't know a thing and I haven't seen anything. But I've noticed…" the girl added, licking her dried lips before she went on. "The silence, I guess. I've noticed the silence." She got up from the bed and sauntered towards the window. Looking up at the moon, she continued to talk. "It'd be impossible not to notice that. When I got 'ere, I'd hear people screaming and crying, day'n'night, for days on end… Then one day all the noise stopped. It didn't take long to understand what was going on."
"And what was it?" asked Clara, holding her breath.
"That everyone was bein' taken away to be questioned and then never came back," she replied, raising her eyebrows as she marked the word 'questioned' to make it absolutely clear that it was a euphemism for 'tortured'.
Not only did she have a temper. She was also really clever.
"So you've been here while all this has been going on, right? And have you ever noticed anything… I don't know how to put this… Maybe strange, or uncommon?"
"If what ya mean is something really weird, then the answer is… Like all the time!"
"Then tell me!" shouted Clara.
"Forget it, you wouldn't believe it."
"Believe me, I really would."
"This is crazy, alright?" the girl said, shaking her head and crossing her arms over her chest as she turned from the window to look at Clara. "I've got nothing else to say. I'm sorry! All I know is that I wanna go home with my mum. I don't even know why I'm 'ere!"
"I'm sorry about that, I really am!" said Clara, pushing the coverlet away from her and turning to the side of the bed where the girl had been sitting minutes before. "I don't want to put you under any kind of pressure, I promise! I'm just trying to understand... Why would everyone disappear, except you?"
"Don't 'ave a clue," the girl replied before she instinctively took her hand to her mouth one more time and started to bite her thumb again.
The moonlight was now betraying the shape of the girl's body underneath her worn-out and filthy gown. Much to Clara's surprise, she was even thinner than she had guessed at first, but it was exactly in that moment when an unpleasant smell reached her nostrils, which spread as she inhaled. She then turned her head to a corner next to the door, and suddenly it all made sense. There was a bowl of food that had been left untouched in the corner, as well as a half-empty glass – the evidence to confirm her suspicion that the girl hadn't been eating much lately, if anything at all.
The girl was still standing by the window in the most absolute silence. Taking her thumb away from her mouth, her right hand started to play with her hair while the tips of her left-hand fingers kept delicately touching the wall to the left of the window frame, her eyes fixed on the particular spot her fingertips were brushing.
"I dunno," she suddenly added. "Maybe it's just that my turn to be questioned hasn't come yet."
Clara had always been good at reading between the lines, and if the girl had previously left no doubt about what the implications of being questioned were, the tone in which she had uttered those last words had made it perfectly clear how she was also well aware of the fact that, regardless of whatever might be going on in the Tower for the time being, torture was often followed by execution. Still, not for a single second did her voice show any trace of fear.
Clara herself was probably more scared than the girl, as her mind couldn't help but picture several grotesque varieties of Elizabethan executions she had seen in films.
"Well," she added with determination, quickly trying to lock those images in the most inaccessible corner of her brain, "that being the case, I suggest the two of us get out of here before it does. And then once we get out we'll decide whether we want to stick around and find out what the hell's really going on here, okay?"
"Sounds good," the girl replied, a discreet smile suddenly on her lips. "But getting out of 'ere first sounds even better. How we gonna do it? Are your friends coming soon?"
"Well, not really," said Clara. "To be honest, I wouldn't count on them just yet. Last time I saw them they were so busy playing their idiotic 'but-I'm-cleverer-than-you-are' game that I wouldn't be surprised if they still hadn't noticed I'm gone."
"Oh," said the girl, whose initial excitement cooled down all of a sudden. "Some help, huh?"
"Don't worry about that. We'll manage." Clara took a look around her then to study the room. "There must be a way out! This looks more like a bedroom than a cell, doesn't it? There must be some other door somewhere..."
"There's nothing," the girl said categorically. "'How do you think I've been spending my time 'ere? I've looked and looked, and there's nothing. Well, maybe there's one thing. Just one little thing. Come 'ere and take a look," she added bitterly, pointing at the spot of the wall she had seemed to be caressing just moments before.
Clara finally got out of the bed and walked towards the window, and stopping between the girl and the wall, she turned round and looked at the place the stranger's forefinger was still pointing at. Then she spent a few seconds silently observing the very familiar name carved in the stone wall.
Anne Boleyn's.
And then, realisation finally struck her. She and that girl were nothing more than prisoners in a dungeon after all, and the carving that had been keeping them company seemed to be indicating there was no chance of escaping at all.
"Oh," she whispered.
"You're telling me," the girl added. "See? There's no way out. There's just that door behind me. And I seriously doubt it'll be unlocked."
"Oh, you'd be surprised," said Clara.
She had meant it as a joke at first, but soon enough she realised the implications of her words. She suddenly remembered the looks on the three Doctors' faces when she came to their rescue after teleporting from twenty-first century UNIT HQ to the sixteenth century Tower, then found them making calculations with their sonic screwdrivers with the purpose of unlocking a door that had never been locked in the first place.
A big smile parted the lips that had been tightly pressed until then.
"Oi, what's happened?" the girl asked as she noticed the change in Clara's expression.
But Clara wasn't listening. She had turned her back on her and, going with her gut feeling, was now walking towards the door, absolutely certainly that, if she only just pulled, it would open.
She felt really disappointed when she found out it would not.
"Well, this time the Queen's not interested in what we might do upon escaping," she said angrily.
And then, out the blue, realisation struck her for a third time.
She froze for a moment, unable to understand how such a recent and decisive memory had not crossed her mind until then, and when she eventually rolled up the left sleeve of her tunic, her big round eyes became even bigger as they saw the vortex manipulator she had taken from the Black Archive. Strangely enough, she had completely forgotten that in between teleporting to sixteenth century London and finding the Doctors inside the Tower, she had put it on and was still wearing it, but what was even stranger was the fact that she could still remember the code that would activate it and take her to the Doctors.
1-7-1-6-2-3-1-1-6-3.
Her exhilaration at discovering that the key to her freedom had been attached to her wrist all this time was soon tainted by the thought that it would only set one of them free. Suddenly, she felt sick and furious, probably the same way the Doctor felt – though he would never let it show – every time a difficult decision had to be made, and much to her regret, this time the responsibility of making one was falling upon her, which made the pain in her stomach gradually become more unbearable.
But how could she possibly abandon that poor girl to her own fate? Getting out of there was one thing – she obviously needed to get back to the Doctors. But not coming back for her? That was absolutely out of the question!
Clenching her fists, Clara turned and walked towards the girl, who was looking at her with inquisitive eyes.
The dark blanket of the night was finally dissolving into the atmosphere, and with the help of a timid ray of sun, the two women could finally take a proper look at each other's faces for the first time since they had been brought together inside that room. Had any of them wanted to share their impressions with the other, they would have found them to be quite similar. They both thought the other to look brave and trustworthy. However, where Clara looked hopeful, there other girl looked terribly hopeless.
"Look," Clara finally said, "I've just found a way out. Problem is, I can't take you with me, or at least, not yet."
"Ya kiddin' me?" the girl asked, her jaw dropping. "I've been looking for a way out for weeks. Looking in vain, 'cause I never found one, now you've been awake in 'ere for ten minutes and you're tellin' me you've found it?"
"Trust me, I really have!"
"Yeah, ya really have, but not for me! And we were in this together, didn't ya say so?" the girl added as she turned her back on Clara, deception clear in her voice.
"Listen to me!" said Clara as she grabbed the girl by the arm before she could get out of her reach. "I'm being serious, okay? Why should I lie? I said I'm coming back for you, and I will."
"And why would ya do that?" she asked bitterly, a tear falling from her eye. "Ya don't even know me! Why would ya care for me when nobody else does?"
"Because I do!" shouted Clara, grabbing the girl by the shoulders and locking eyes with her. "Because I care, that's why! My name's Clara Oswald, and I swear that, before anything happens to you, I'll come back! I'll get you out of here and then I'll take you home to your mom. I'm giving you my word! All right?"
The girl was now looking down. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but Clara's words had sounded so true and so sincere, that all she could do was believe she'd really come back.
"Don't worry about me, I'll be fine," she said, giving her a delicate but reassuring smile. "Off you go now. I'll be alright."
The girl was a bit taller than she was, so Clara had to stand on her toes to plant a kiss on her forehead. It was the kind of kiss that a mother would give to her child, to make them see there was absolutely nothing they wouldn't do just to protect them.
"This is not goodbye, okay?" she said as she brushed away the tear on the girl's cheek with her thumb. "I'll see you again soon, I promise. I'll be back when this is all over and then I'll take you away from here."
And having said that, Clara turned away from her and rolled her sleeve up one more time, then pulled up the flap of the vortex manipulator and carefully started to introduce the activation code.
1-7-1-6-2-3-1…
Come to think of it, she had no idea where she could possibly materialise once she had vanished from the Tower, but there was nothing she could do about it, except hope that it would be by the Doctor's side.
…1-6-3.
She turned her head to take a final look at the girl before pressing one last and crucial button.
'I'll come back for you, okay? You remember that!"
"Thank you," the girl said as she smiled again, and ignoring that Clara was about to disappear, she started to say something else. "Clara, listen! Just one thing before you g…"
But the moment the girl called her by her name for the very first time, Clara pressed the last button, and so she dematerialised within a flash of white light before the surprised girl had the chance to say to her that her name was Rose.
