When Clara awoke next, she was still in the chair. But she remembered now. The snow!
It had just turned from November to December. Already the nights were enough to kill. Her own father had shivered through the night many a time. Same with plenty of the drunkards she'd waited on. It was a reminder that in a place like London, weakness and poverty would not be tolerated.
But here she was, warm, in the presence of higher-class creatures. The human servant, the Green Lady (Vastra) and the squat brown man. He looked like he'd been smushed down to size! And the one they talked about, the Doctor. The careless genius.
The snow. Snow that could remember. It was not like ice, which melted into water and gave way again to slicks. Black ice on every cobblestone, like puddles, but waiting to break your neck, cripple you. Ice was patient, but struck quickly. And that was when it was simply a force of nature. But... snow that remembered, that wanted to be snow, even when the sun burst through the smog and was warm and bright and beautiful.
London was dangerous enough as was. She could not bear the thought of it becoming worse. And for that, despite the horror of remembering something stifled within her, she would do everything she could to help.
What if they wipe your memory again when this is done?
Would that be so bad? Perhaps it's better not to know some things.
Codswallop! It'll be the sort of thing you look out for, for the rest of your scurrying little life. You have to remember!
And for all their apparent knowledge in these sorts of things, these freaks of Paternoster were not all too clever about hostages.
"Erm, hullo, could someone untie me, please? I'm cramped and this seat only grows less comfortable!" It was Jenny, the human, who stopped outside the smoking room, came in and untied her, issuing her sincerest apologies.
"Excuse the miss and Strax, Miss Oswald. They're not... let's just say they're more militant than we humans are."
"Evidently! Thank you, though. Sure hope I don't end up tied to a chair again, even in a place like this."
"How do you mean?" The ropes - not normal ropes - were off her wrists, and she was free! Free to rub her wrists, at least. The aches could really set in now.
"Most places in London aren't this nice. Especially not most places one would be abducted to."
Snow. Remember the snow. Everyone is in danger because of the snow.
Jenny smiled sadly. To Clara, it almost betrayed the knowledge that there was something more. If other worlds could come to 19th-century London, where could London go? The stuff of Verne novels, Clara imagined. And she'd read all of his works twice. In original French if she could find them, English where she couldn't.
"It's unfortunate, but the times we live in! Not much we can do about that, can we?"
"Suppose not, no. This Doctor, is he clever?" Jenny was heading to the door, but stopped. She noticed that some of the lights needed to be put out. Vastra, for all her deftness in Victorian poise, still held more utilitarian ideas about fuel expenditure, and Jenny had made equal habit of it. Or, at least, that's what she reminded herself. It had been a while since she'd talked to another woman from... around here. Her own place. One by one, she extinguished the lamps and the bulbs. And she thought up her answer. How does one describe the Doctor, after all?
"Deadly clever. You brush by 'im on the street, your life's changed forever. You'll either live with a new perspective or..."
Clara was pacing, returning feeling to her feet, just as interested in the thud of her shoes against the floor as Jenny's words. But she heard the maid trail off.
"Or?"
"Or you die. I haven't asked, and the miss won't tell, but perhaps that's why he don't get involved no more." Clara heard the improper negative. Jenny was already comfortable around her, letting her natural way of speaking shine through, with neither of the freaks around. And Clara herself could sure relate to that.
"But when he gets involved, can he solve problems?"
"That's easy, ma'am - all he lives for, in fact! Solving problems. Easier that way than saving people, I reckon."
"So we have a problem now. He'll help us, right? Or will he just keep taking his sulking strolls and ignoring the world?"
"Hard to say. Cost him a lot, his way of living. Know I certainly couldn't do it."
I bet I could.
Now, why would she tell herself a thing like that?
Remember the snow. It remembers you.
(Bugger! I forgot that I'm due back!)
...
...
...
...
Vastra was phoning the Doctor. And he was taking his time in picking up. But finally he did.
"I told you, I'll not be there."
"It's changed, Doctor. We hypnotised Miss Oswald, and we discovered something else. Snow. Snow that can remember."
"And? Still not my job. I came here because I knew no matter what came through, the Paternoster Gang would already be there!"
"Indeed we are, sir. But I suspect it's more to do with the girl than even you may realise."
"You listen to me very closely, Madame Vastra. I am a Time Lord. I only made human affairs my problem because Earth was so out of the - "
"And here you stay. Why?"
"You didn't let me finish! By all accounts, this world should be beneath my caliber..."
Vastra caught the pause. For such a wise man, his mouth so often moved faster than his mind. She smirked. Silurian sadism, that pervasive need to be right, and to gloat for it. She could not have picked a better time or place to live amongst humans.
"Doctor, I sense you've been caught up in a 'but'. You're quite right, this world should be beneath you. Yet here you have stayed for so long. Why?"
She could imagine the Doctor rubbing at his eyes, trying to shut down the pain and frustration, to hide the sigh that would inevitably come. it did. She swallowed another smirk. Her palate demanded flesh, she realized. Jenny was a superb cook, along with anything else Vastra could want, but nothing compared to the taste of fresh. Flesh. And in her mind she knew the Doctor's mind was wired the same way: plenty to compare, perhaps. But nothing could beat a good problem.
"...Because, Madame... I have nowhere else to go. Hah, I do hope you can appreciate the irony. All of time and space, and yet nowhere to go."
"I do, Doctor. But think of this: Terra's problems are just as much your home, as are its people and places. And believe me, I think you will want to hear Miss Oswald's testimony for yourself."
"Why?"
"Come down from your cloud and find out." Again, Vastra could hear the silent indignancy. It was unbecoming of a being who'd walked this earth before her own kind invented the wheel. And she was about to do something unbecoming, too: she hung up the phone.
...
...
...
...
He couldn't fight it for much longer. And he hated getting hung up on.
The Doctor could not handle unanswered questions. Especially not this time 'round. Who was Clara? Why did he keep seeing her? And what did she have to say that Vastra found so interesting? For all her begging him to return to action, she would not embellish or fabricate something just to get him off his cloud.
What did she know? Perhaps answers?
No, no. Fight it. You left all that behind. No more.
No more.
No more.
...maybe one more?
It was like a spark. A little spark, a single neuron firing just right inside his big old head, and he stood up from his little chair. Why'd he put the chair here, on the upper deck? No idea, it just seemed like a clever little spot. But now he wanted this chair to be anywhere and everywhere else! He took that stupid chair and its stupid undersized cushions and threw it, hoh-hoh, the beast was out! It clanged against a guardrail and shattered but he didn't care.
Now, he needed to look his best. Focus focus focus focus focus! What's clever and timely? Oh! I know just the thing! But how to get there?
He'd always made these things so complicated. What did he always tell [them]?
Come on, come on, let's see, erm... First right, yes! No no, never mind. First left! And then... where is it where is it... A-hah! Second right! Third on the... left! Straightaway! Under those stairs, past the rubbish bins, and then, oh yes, do I remember these doors!
He counted aloud, banging on each door as he passed.
"One!" Bang.
"Two!" Bang.
"Three!" Bang.
He got to four and stopped. No banging for the fourth door. And probably best not to bang on the fifth door either.
Instead, throwing the door open and letting loose a mad, boisterous cachinnation would suffice. He loved a good cachinnation!
"Here we go, Ge - ...!"
He still couldn't say it. But he would dress smartly, and pray for the best. Not that anyone would answer, not unless 'anyone' was a madman like himself. It would, at the very least, be one last ride. Or so he told himself.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Now, back to the A/N!
Here's a challenge for anyone reviewing: do you prefer the shorter bite-size chapters, or would you prefer something more in the 4,000-5,000 word range? Either way, future chapters will be a bit longer, just taking some time to warm up with the story. But don't worry, definitely taking my time and thinking about the big picture.
Funny story, I also got an idea for a (hopefully shorter) story rewriting Hell Bent, which will probably drop in a few days. It's coming along nicely, got lots of ideas and a mostly streamlined plot.
All in all, that big picture's shaping up to be a sort of trilogy: this story, rewriting episodes of 7B; a Time of the Doctor rewrite giving the story time to breathe; and the Hell Bent rewrite. Together they'll be a sort of Clara redux saga, I think.
And not sure how to post it here while being within site rules, but I have a YT page where I do fanfics too, more like big-picture rewrites, describing story plots in ten minutes or so with slides, that sort of dorky thing. And music! But I have plenty of ideas that get wasted because writing them takes too long and I'm usually onto the next big idea by then. It's really frustrating, y'know?
Anyway. I'll keep ya posted, but stop bugging you for now. Toodles! :)