At the End of the Tunnel

The battery on Callie's phone was dying, which had never happened before. She wasn't sure if it was just bad timing or an omen of some sort. Or maybe something about this place was sucking the life from her phone. But, whatever the reason, the flashlight grew more and more dim with every step she took, and soon she would be left in total darkness.

She'd never really liked the dark.

Doctor? She tried, reaching out once more. She had to be getting close— she'd been walking for forever!

She listened, but he didn't speak back. Still, she could feel his mind, his presence. At least that told her he was still alive.

"Just a little bit more," she muttered. Her breath caught as she heard movement behind her. She whipped around, but saw nothing. Her hands shook. She clenched them into fists and kept moving.

It was so damp and claustrophobic in the hall, dirt walls encircling her and dripping on her as she walked. It kept her on edge. Kept her alert when she grew more and more exhausted.

It had been a long day, and it was about to get even longer.

She slowed to a stop as her phone finally gave out, leaving her in such darkness that she couldn't see anything. Not even her hand in front of her face. She bit her lip, but trudged on with one hand in front of her.

Keenly, she was aware that anything could sneak up on her and she would be none the wiser.

It was slow going from there, as the tunnel kept making sharp turns. More than once, she almost ran face-first into a wall of dirt. She was going to need a seriously hot shower after all this.

Finally, finally, she came upon a wooden door. The string tugging her along was so bright, so strong in her mind's eye, that she just knew the Doctor was on the other side.

"Doctor?" she whispered, pressing her cheek against the door. A soft brushing came from the way she'd come, but nothing from the other side of the door. Experimentally, she gave the door handle a sharp tug.

It opened easily. She frowned, but opened it all the way and walked inside. As soon as she did, the door slammed shut behind her. Lamps flickered to life on the walls, illuminating the space she'd walked into.

It was a basement like the one she'd just left, minus the giant bugs. Clearly, they were under another building and the tunnel had connected the two. This one was furnished, though, with chairs and desks and… lab tables.

With a startled gasp, she saw him strapped to a table.

"Doctor!" She shouted it without meaning to, but ran to his side. His hair was gray and curling, his face older than she'd ever seen. Twelve groaned, eyes fluttering but never opening as she brushed his cheek gently.

"Callie… no…" He muttered, his Scottish accent thicker than Amy's.

"I'm here," she told him, eyes watering. Her hands fluttered over the straps holding him down. "I'm gonna get you out of here."

"No," he muttered, sounding half-asleep. "Go."

She looked around for something to cut the straps with, feeling the outsides of his pockets to see if his screwdriver was around. She walked over to the closest desk and started to open drawers at random.

"It's gonna be okay, I've got you now," she told him as he wriggled in place. She yanked drawer after drawer open, looking for something that could be of use. "You're gonna be okay."

Her hands paused when a distinctive clacking came from the stairwell in the corner, one just like the one she'd descended. She ducked down behind the desk, eyes just barely peeking out.

"Oh, come now," a slithery voice simpered. The figure stepped into the basement, leathery skin shining in the lamplight. "There's no need to hide. I already know you're here, child."

It looked like a human-shaped roach, with antennae sticking up out of its head and pincers for hands. It wore a lab coat, which was almost laughable, but the mandibles on its neck clicked and clacked as it walked further into the room.

"Come now, Calliope."

Callie stood, more in shock that it (he?) knew her name than anything else.

"What have you done?" she asked. Her right hand slowly grabbed the pair of scissors she'd found, holding it like a weapon. "How do you know my name?"

"Oh, I've been watching you for quite some time, Calliope Foster," he crooned. "The Child of the Time Vortex. The Golden Child, some might say. You're a scientific marvel, you know."

She pulled the scissors close to her chest, pointed outward like a knife.

"What have you done to the Doctor?"

"Time Lords are a rare breed nowadays," the roach said softly. "But their life force is unparalleled. Well— almost unparalleled. It's been a process, finding a way to extract the Time Vortex from him. It didn't yield as much results as I would have thought."

His beady black eyes glittered in the low light as he turned to face her. "I imagine you'll do much better, Calliope."

He lunged, pincers pinching wildly as they reached for her. Callie yelped, scrambling backwards and slicing at the air with her scissors. She missed over and over.

"Who the hell are you?" She cried, kicking as the roach tried to grab her ankles.

"You can call me Lynch," he said. "Now, hold still. Agh!" Callie landed a kick straight on Lynch's chest, knocking the wind out of it and cracking his exoskeleton. She rolled and jumped to her feet, running to the Doctor.

"You little cretin!" Lynch roared, rubbing his chest. Callie whirled around, stabbing as it came closer. She managed to dig the scissors deep into Lynch's shoulder, but he pulled back before she could pull them out. With a hiss, he yanked the scissors out and threw them towards the wall.

Lynch stalked towards Callie, pincers reaching and grabbing at Callie's arms and legs. She fought them off, but Lynch was bigger than her, and stronger. With a yelp, she lost her balance and was dragged across the floor by the foot.

"I put all this work into this experiment, and you're behaving so childishly," Lynch clucked, his pincers cutting painfully into her ankle. She cried out, and he tightened his grip.

Quicker than she would have thought, Lynch got her strapped to a table and wheeled so she laid next to the Doctor. She tried to reach out, to hold his hand, but the straps held her firmly in place.

"How have you been watching me?" she asked as he strapped her head down. Lynch clicked disdainfully at her, poking deep into her arm with a needle. Bright gold pulsed up the tube connected to it and into a machine in the wall. The Vortex was literally being removed from her veins.

"I have my ways," he said evasively. He licked his lips, mandibles on his throat clicking audibly. "Luckily for me, I knew you would be coming to this war-torn time, so I prepared for your arrival." He smacked her arm when she tried to wiggle, chiding her harshly. "Hold still! I was surprised when the Doctor showed up days before you did, but it gave me time to test my work. Gave me the perfect bait to get you here."

She could literally feel the energy being drained from her body, feel it rushing from her veins. And the more the Vortex was sucked out of her, the weaker she felt. Her attempts to break free of her bonds lessened as her limbs became leaden and lethargic.

Soon, she could hardly keep her eyes open. Her eyelids felt heavy as a brick, weighing down and urging her to drift off into slumber. She felt herself sinking lower and lower…

She was almost unconscious when a loud CRASH woke her. She started and tried to crane her neck, but the strap kept her against the bed. Helplessly, she just laid there.

Lynch cried out, stumbling through her line of vision for just a moment. There were more crashes, some grunts. It was almost torturous for Callie, having to just lay there and listen as the action happened around her. Her heart pounded loudly— who was attacking Lynch? More bug-like aliens? They never full came into her line of sight, so she had no clue.

Lynch let out a pain-filled scream. Finally, there was a loud thud and everything went quiet.

Callie held her breath, unsure of what had happened. Someone had clearly been fighting Lynch— but who? Another roach-alien-thing? Those centipedes? Her skin crawled at the thought.

"Callie?" Clara leaned over her, eyebrows furrowed. Callie could have cried, she felt so relieved. Clara quickly got to work, undoing the straps holding her down and ripping the needle out of her arm.

"Clara! What are you—"

"You screamed," Mickey said. As soon as Callie's head was free, she saw that Mickey was cutting the Doctor's straps off him. "I called Clara and we followed after you, like you said."

Callie let out a hysterical laugh, tears streaming down her temples and into her golden curls. The Golden Child, Lynch had called her.

Clara tugged on her arms, pulling Callie up so she was sitting. Callie's eyes crossed, the world spinning horribly .

"I don't feel so good," she mumbled. Not for the first time that night, she felt like she would be sick.

"You don't look so good," Clara replied lightly, pushing Callie's hair back from her face. She slung Callie's arm over her shoulder. "Let's get back to the TARDIS. You'll feel better then."

"But how are we gonna…" Callie tried to ask, but she could hardly keep her head straight. She tried to ask how they would walk all the way back to the TARDIS— the Doctor was still unconscious, after all— but her speech slurred as she fell forward. Her vision blackened, going in and out of consciousness.

When Callie came to, she was inside the TARDIS. Though she was in a room she'd never seen before, she knew it was the TARDIS. The TARDIS felt like home, like a warm hug on a cold night. Like safety. She would know it anywhere.

She blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust to the warm lighting. Then, she pushed herself up with shaky arms until she sat up. Carefully, she looked around.

She was lying in a hospital bed of sorts, and right next to her was the Doctor. He was still asleep and hooked up to some sort of machine, but he was alive. Callie's shoulders slumped in relief. It made sense that he was still unconscious— he'd been hooked up to Lynch's machine a lot longer than she'd been.

Callie's ankle burned a little. With a shift of the blanket, she saw that her ankle was wrapped up tight with bandages, the jagged cuts from Lynch's pincers covered fully. They seemed to be freshly changed, still pristinely white in color.

Over by the wall, Clara was slumped in a cushy chair. She snored lightly, resting her cheek on a fist. Finally, Callie's gaze landed on the figure across the room— the Doctor.

Nine.

She sucked in a breath. "What?"

He whirled around, eyes wide. He sighed in relief when he saw her, hurrying over to her side. "You're awake! Thank god."

She grabbed his arm as he neared her, pulling it until she was hugging him. He held her tight for a sweet moment, then pulled back.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded harshly. It would have made her flinch, if she couldn't literally feel how worried he was.

Callie looked back to Twelve, then to Nine. "I'm so confused," she said baldly. "How are you here?"

The Doctor settled next to her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her. His leather jacket, well-worn and comforting, rubbed nicely against her cheek. She leaned against him, listening as he explained.

They'd been waiting for her to text Rose back, but she never did. They'd grown increasingly worried, the longer it went without a reply.

"I was just about to try tracking your phone when Mickey called," he told her with a small laugh. Mickey had called Clara, just like Callie had told him to, but he also called the Doctor— his Doctor.

"I took care of the mess upstairs while they went down and found you," he said, squeezing her closer to him. "I don't know what the hell was going on there—"

"He was after me," Callie said in a small voice. The Doctor stilled, tensing.

"What?"

"Lynch— the roach scientist guy. He said he'd— that he'd been watching me, somehow," she said, pushing off of him so she could look him in the face. "I don't know how. But he came here because he knew I'd end up here, and then used you— Twelve, I mean— as bait to get me there."

The Doctor's eyes widened, horrified. His mouth opened and closed, but he couldn't form words for a long moment as this sunk in.

"You should have never gone in there," he said hoarsely, much less harshly than she would have expected. His voice shook with emotion. "You could have died."

"You would have died if I didn't!" It was the only thing she could think to say, and the message behind it was true. She'd willingly gone in there knowing she could get hurt, and she would do it again and again if needed.

The Doctor gave her a look, his eyes so deeply sad that it wounded her. He nodded towards Twelve's sleeping form. "Do you think he would have ever wanted you to put yourself in danger for him?"

"I don't care, I couldn't just leave him there!" Callie insisted desperately. Helplessly, she added, "And I didn't know it was a trap specifically for me until it was too late."

The Doctor hugged her again, opening his mind so she could feel just how worried and stressed he'd been.

I'm sorry, she told him. How did Lynch watch me?

I don't know, but I'll figure it out, he promised.

"What about Mickey?" Callie asked after a long, comforting moment. "He— he must be confused, right?"

The Doctor huffed. "I had to explain regeneration to him. Apparently, after you passed out, he barely believed that he was me and kept looking for me somewhere. I had to explain everything."

"He can't tell the others," Callie whispered into his shoulder. "They didn't know— in the future. They didn't know about regeneration."

"I'll make sure he doesn't say anything." He paused, then nodded at Clara's sleeping form. "Clara's pretty mad at you, by the way."

"I'll have to apologize when she wakes up." She paused. "Is Jack holding up okay?"

The Doctor scoffed, rolling his eyes. "He adores the TARDIS already. I have a feeling we're never gonna get rid of him."

He said it as a joke, but it made Callie think about how Jack was somehow still traveling with him after Satellite Five. Belatedly, she gave a small laugh.

"You'll grow to love him," she promised. He raised a single eyebrow, disbelieving.

Gold crept into her vision once more, the accompanying headache piercing her like a knife. Each time was worse than the last, and this one felt like her head might split in two. She groaned, leaning forward and burying her face in her hands.

"What?" the Doctor asked quickly, holding her so she didn't fall off the bed. "What's wrong?"

"My head," she moaned. "I— I've been pushing off the jump all night," she admitted after a moment.

"What?" The Doctor's voice pitched upwards with shock— or maybe, panic?

"It started when we were in the hospital," she muttered, shutting her eyes tight. The lack of light did nothing to help the headache. "It started coming in but I couldn't leave yet! You needed me. So I just… pushed it back. But it keeps coming back and it— it hurts."

"Callie," he said seriously. He cupped her cheeks in his hands and forced her to look at him. "You can never, ever do that! I don't care if we need you, if the jump comes you have to let it take you."

"But—"

"Callie, it will kill you if you push it off like this."

"What?"

"The jumps— they're an accumulation of the Vortex in your veins. You always have some, but over time more and more builds up inside you. The jump is what expels the Time Energy. It's what keeps you from burning up from the inside out. If you put it off, it will keep building and burning until you're burnt to nothing."

All Callie could do was give a strangled, "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'." The Doctor sighed. Callie imagined him frowning at her, but the gold clouded her vision so much she couldn't see him anymore. She wondered if the gold was visible from the outside or not. "I wish you could stay, but you need to let it take you. Please."

"Okay," she choked out. "Tell Clara I said 'sorry'." With a sigh, she relaxed her muscles and gave in, allowing the Vortex to consume her and throw her into the unknown.

A/N: I hope you liked how this little interlude went! I'm pretty happy with it, and I'm really excited for what is coming in the next chapter. Please leave a review letting me know what you think!