A/N: Hey all, hope you are all well! I will be heading back to work later in the week and I am a bundle of nerves. The nightmares have already started and over the weekend I had a terrible bout of sickness. Been much better today, which is a relief. Apologies if there are still a few spelling mistakes, I'll make sure to weed them out later. I hope you enjoy this chapter and start of the next part of Kari's adventure with the Doctor!
Kari's mind was a whirlpool as she tried to ignore the pain and breathe properly. She would have much rather stayed where she was for a little longer, but no, she had to go and be pulled through all of time and space. She had to go and find another Doctor, who was most likely already out and rushing about, meaning she would not get any rest or any food.
After a few more calming breaths, Kari slowly opened her eyes and instantly recognised the flooring of the TARDIS. As her eyes came into focus, she looked up to see her silver haired, Scottish Doctor standing in front of her. "Well, wasn't that a grand entrance." He said, before reaching down to help Kari stand.
She simply frowned at him, curious about his words. "What do you mean? That's normal, Doctor. That is what always happens." At least she assumed it was normal, from her perspective it really was. She didn't ever actually get to see what happened, or what she looked like, when she left or arrived somewhere. She could only see it through her eyes, and that was a golden glow with a banging headache to go with it.
"You almost blinded me just a few moments ago when you left, then as soon as I turned my back, you appeared right in front of me. Trying to blind me with your Time Vortex light display." The Doctor said, not sounding annoyed, but not sounding quite right to Kari.
"Uh, o…kay…" She stuttered, not sure what else to say. "So… what's been going on then?" Kari had no idea where he was up to, and she hadn't seen Clara anywhere yet.
With his hand entwined in one of hers, the Doctor bounced over to the console. "Oh, nothing much. The normal running from monsters and aliens. Trying to save the whole universe a few more times. Just a normal day." Something about the way he was speaking was putting Kari off, making her think twice about what was really going on. "Anyway, we're just waiting for Clara, then we will be off."
Just as he said that, the magical blue box opened and Clara stepped inside. "Start her up!" The woman called, hopping down the steps and towards where Kari and the Doctor were standing.
"Where are we going?" The Doctor asked, still holding onto Kari's hand, only a little more tightly.
Clara's reply was short and simple as she wandered around the console. "Away."
"From?" Kari frowned when the Doctor said this, watching as Clara continued to move. Something didn't feel right, but she wasn't able to put her finger on it.
"Just away." Clara called back, heading down the steps and under the main console, where the Doctor liked to have his tea and read a book.
By now the Doctor was frowning a little as well. "Well, normally you say work or kids or dishes or what's happened?" Even he was trying to figure out what was going on now.
"Something isn't right, Doctor." Kari called to him, a huge wave of dread washing over her. There was something there, at the back of her mind, scratching away, but she just couldn't reach it. The Doctor just looked at her and nodded, a worried expression on his face. He had sensed it as well, the moment Clara had walked into the TARDIS.
Suddenly Clara's voice called up to them. "A volcano." The Doctor wasn't sure he had heard her right, and neither was Kari. "I've never seen an active volcano, do you know one?"
"What's so great about seeing a volcano?" He asked, giving Kari's hand a squeeze as Clara continued to wander around out of their sight. "It's just a sort of leaky mountain."
"I've never seen lava." The woman replied, finally coming back into view so that Kari could see her. She noticed that Clara had just put something in her pocket, and it made her even more suspicious about what was going on.
"Yeah, you wouldn't want to. Very hot, not a nice place to be. Super messy to clean up." Kari was racking her brains trying to figure it out, trying to work out what was going on, what had happened to Clara. She couldn't help but watch as she continued to walk around, saying the most random of things as she went. All throughout, the Doctor kept a tight grip on her hand, as if trying to reassure her, even while he was tinkering with the console.
"Do you still have those sleep patch things?" As soon as Clara said that, things started to fall into place for Kari.
The Doctor hadn't noticed, and continued this back and forth with Clara. "You can't have one."
However, she acted as if she hadn't heard him, although in truth she probably hadn't as she was currently snooping around in another part of the TARDIS, clearly looking for something. "I'm having trouble sleeping."
Kari was feeling herself getting more and more worked up, Clara just wasn't listening. "You still can't have one Clara. So no, you can't have one. Stop asking already." There was a hint of irritation in Kari's voice now. She was annoyed at herself for not releasing soon what was going on. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the woman, taking something out of the draw from the unit up the stairs and next to the bookcase.
The Doctor now gave her a worried look, but Kari simply shook her head a little. She knew what was going to happen now, and it wasn't going to be nice. "So, volcano. What's so good about lava?"
Kari watched as Clara went to press something against the Doctor's neck. "Just play along…" The Doctor told her through their bond, before the whole scene before her changed.
Kari found herself laying on the ground outside of the TARDIS, the Doctor next to her, heat pouring over her. She saw Clara standing there before her with such a sad, lost look on her face. Of course she knew why, as soon as it had all clicked it came flooding back to her.
"They're on your necks." Clara said, her voice distant and completely void of emotion.
The Doctor was the first one to try and get up, helping Kari as he did. "Don't panic, everything is fine, I promise you." He called to her, reassuring her that everything was going to be okay. Kari already knew it was going to be fine, but she nodded at him slightly all the same.
With them both now up and on their feet, Clara opened her hand. TARDIS keys lay there. "You told me once what it would take to destroy a TARDIS key. That's what's so good about lava. All seven. From all of your hiding places." Kari knew that wasn't true. She knew that there were more keys hidden around. More than even the Doctor probably remembered about. He had her key, the key that glowed just like she did. Clara didn't have that key, and she was rather glad about that.
"Clara, what are you doing? Don't." The Doctor said, not entirely sure what Clara was going to do but having a very good idea what was going on inside her head. He just didn't understand why. "Be very, very careful with that. Those are very, very…" Before he could finish Clara had tossed one of the keys over the side and into the river a lava below them.
"Do I have your attention?" There was still no emotion in her as she spoke. Nothing. Just emptiness. Kari hated to see her friend like that, she hated to see anyone like that. The Doctor answered, letting her know that she did have his attention. While Clara thought this was good, the Doctor thought otherwise. He wasn't impressed with the way she had decided to get his attention. "Danny Pink." She said, just confusing the Doctor even more. "Is dead."
Kari knew that the Doctor was just going to be even more of an alien and completely oblivious as to why this was having an impact on Clara. "I'm so sorry, Clara. He was a good man, he didn't deserve what happened to him."
Clara's gaze suddenly fixed on Kari. "You knew. All that time you knew. You always know, so you knew this was going to happen." Yes, Kari did know, but she didn't know when it was going to happen for her, she had no way of getting there to stop it from happening. "Fix it. Change it." Clara added, her gaze now switching from Kari to the Doctor and back again. "Change what happened. Save him. Bring him back."
Another TARDIS key was between her fingers, and ready to be tossed into the lava. Then the Doctor answered. "No." This time the key was tossed with a little more force and joined the previous one in the hot molten lava.
"Five left. Everytime one of you says no to me, I will throw another key down there. Do we understand each other?" It was pretty clear that Clara was serious with her threat.
"Well I understand you." The Doctor told her, grasping Kari's hand just a little tighter than before. He knew that while Clara was showing no emotion, Kari was bursting with it. He could feel the sorrow, the sadness, all the pain she was feeling for her friend. "Let's not get carried away."
Clara wasn't giving up. "Time can be rewritten."
Now the Doctor was starting to get a little worried himself. "With precision. With great care. And not today. But you know that of course, otherwise you wouldn't be threatening us." Another key was now at risk of being lost. "If I change the events that brought you here, you will never come here and ask me to change those events. Paradox loop. The timeline disintegrates. Your timeline. And yes!"
"Yes?" She wasn't sure. Was he saying yes he would rewrite time for her, or yes he was telling her no.
"Yes. I did just say no." He told her firmly. "Throw away the key."
It was an endless battle, one that Kari really didn't want to watch. She wanted to block it all out, to drift off into her own little world until it was over. Yet she couldn't, something was keeping her there. "I have seen you change time. I have seen both of you change time. I have seen you break any rule you want."
"I know when I can, I know when I can't. Kari knows when we can and when we can't. She can see everything, Clara. Don't you think there are so many things she wished she could have changed? That she wished she could have rewritten, but knew that she couldn't. She had to watch her best friend die because she couldn't change the timeline." The Doctor replied, tugging Kari just a little closer towards him. "Throw the key."
For a moment, Clara's face faltered, and there was a hint of emotion. But only for a passing second or two. "I know what you're doing. You're trying to take control."
"I am in control." He replied firmly. "Throw away the key. Do as you are told." Kari closed her eyes and took a deep breath as Clara shouted at the Doctor, letting him know that she was not going to follow his orders. "Well, either you do as you're told or stop threatening me. There really isn't a third option here."
Kari just wanted it all to be over. The whole thing was just too intense, not just emotionally, but also because of the heat. They were in the heart of a volcano after all. Before she was able to say anything, to try and defuse the situation and make it all just a little better, Clara was speaking once more. "Do you know what, Doctor? When it comes to taking control, you really are out of your depth." The hand where 4 TARDIS keys rested swiftly moved, and they soon disappeared into the red hot lava. "One last chance." There was now only a single key left. "And I don't care about rules, I don't give a damn about paradoxes. Save Danny. Bring him back or I swear you will never step inside your TARDIS again."
The bickering continued, the Doctor and Clara going back and forth, until finally the last key she held was tossed in as well. Kari watched as her friend sank to her knees, the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Oh, I'd say I'm sorry but I'd do it again. I'd do it again."
"Of course you'd do it again, Clara." Kari spoke, her voice calm and quiet. "Danny Pink meant everything to you, everything. There is nothing in this universe that you wouldn't do to get him back." She knelt down in front of her friend. "I know what that's like, Clara. Believe me, I know exactly how it feels. You would tear the universe apart to find him and bring him home." The Doctor looked at her with a worried gaze at this point, wondering who she had lost that made her feel that way. There was still so much missing, for both of them. The Doctor knew that Kari was good at hiding things from him, that only made him worry even more. "I'm so sorry, Clara."
Instead of answering her back, Clara threw herself towards Kari, hugging her tightly while still crying. "What have I done?" Clara managed to mutter in between her sobs. "Do you understand what I have just done?"
Kari pushed her away a little so that she could look at her. "Oh, I understand what you've done, Ms Oswald. You've thrown away 7 TARDIS keys while we are all outside of the TARDIS. The 7 keys that the Doctor keeps hidden all around the place. He has a habit of losing things, keys, phones, planets, people, so he likes to keep a few spares lying around." She said, knowing full well that even without a key they would still get back into the TARDIS. For one thing, she had her magic touch, she didn't need a key to unlock the doors to the magical blue ship. "And now you think we're all stuck here, you're wrong."
"Kari's right." The Doctor chimed in, having watched the pair closely. "Clara, look in your hand.'
"There's nothing in my hand." The woman replied, not actually looking.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes, yes, there is. Look." This time she did look, and she saw a circular patch in the middle of her hand. "Did you seriously think that was going to work on us?" He asked her, while Kari helped the woman to stand. "They're not sleep patches. They induce a dream state." He informed her, before peeling the patch from her palm.
The scene around them all shifted, and Kari felt a little light headed for a second as it happened. "Ugh, hate that." She muttered, holding onto the side of the console for support while her head settled down.
"Makes you very suggestible." The Doctor announced, before picking up all the keys that were scattered on the floor. "I allowed the whole scenario to play out just as you planned. I was curious about how far you would go."
Clara simply stood there in the TARDIS. "Well, now you know." She responded, her voice completely void of all emotion. She was like an empty shell and Kari hated it.
"Clara…" Kari managed to say, while the Doctor scanned the woman standing before them both. "I know how much you love him, and I know how much he loves you." She said, reaching out to her and hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry. If it was something I was able to change then I would. I swear to you I would. But Clara, I can't." And it was true. Kari wished that she could change it all, that Danny didn't die. But then other things would change. For every action she made, there was a ripple effect.
"I know." Her friend mumbled through the final few tears and wiping them away as Kari released her and took a step back. "So, what now? What do we do now? You both and me, what happens?" Clara asked, looking between the pair. Her eyes were so empty now, and it broke Kari's hearts to see her like that.
The only sound that could be heard was the whirring of the magical ship. Kari glanced over at the Doctor and saw the look on his face. He was gazing back at her, a question there in his eyes. She gave him a simple nod, very slightly, but he saw it. "Go to hell." The old Time Lord finally said, looking over at Clara.
A moment of silence passed, before the TARDIS made that familiar thump, the noise it makes when she lands. "Fair enough." Clara managed to say, nodding her head and accepting the Doctor's words. "Absolutely fair enough." The woman made her way away from Kari and the Doctor and towards the door.
A frown formed on the Doctor's face as Kari gave him a very firm look. "Doctor, she is hurting. As far as she is concerned you want her out. Gone. She thinks all this," Kari said, opening her arms wide and gesturing to their special ship, "is over. If you're planning on fixing it, say something. Please."
The Doctor got the hint. "Clara?" He called, getting her to stop and turn, just as she had reached the door. "You asked me what we're going to do. I told you. We're going to hell. Or wherever it is people go when they die. If there is anywhere. Wherever it is, we're going to go there and we're going to find Danny." Clara just stood there stunned as the Doctor grasped Kari's hand and pulled her with him towards the broken woman. "And if it is in any way possible, we're going to bring him home. Almost every culture in the universe has some concept of an afterlife. I always meant to have a look around, see if I could find one."
"You're going to help me?" It was clear to see that Clara was utterly stunned. It was the last thing that she was expecting to hear, considering what she had just done.
"Of course we're going to help you Clara. Even after all of that." Kari told her softly while the Doctor headed back to the console and started working away at it. "You betrayed us. Our trust, friendship, everything that either of us have ever stood for. The Doctor especially. You let him down." She didn't feel that Clara had let her down, because if she was completely honest, she would have done the same thing.
Clara still didn't understand. She just couldn't fathom why the pair would still want to help her after all she had done. "Then why are you both helping me?"
"Why?" The Doctor asked, leaving what he was doing and going to stand beside Kari. "Do you think we care for you so little that betraying us would make a difference?" He asked,taking Kari's hand now and giving it a gentle squeeze. He knew that she was bubbling with just as much emotion as Clara was. He wasn't sure he could deal with two emotional women at the same time. "Stop it with the eyes. Don't do that with the eyes." He suddenly said, pointing a finger at Clara and her tears. "How do you do that anyway?" His eyes turned towards Kari. "It's like they inflate."
Kari simply rolled her eyes at him before turning her attention back to her friend. "Come on, Clara. We've got work to do. This is it, one of those moments. One of those moments that I absolutely hate because it means that everything is going to change. Oh, I wish I'd stayed in bed. Now get to it! If you want us to find Danny, then you need to do exactly what we say. Got it?" The whole time Kari had been talking, the Doctor had been working away at the TARDIS, getting everything all set up. "Safeguards off?" She asked, causing the Doctor to nod. "Nav-com off? Lovely. Listen Clara, you and Danny are strongly linked. Your timestreams are intertwined, like me and the Doctor. Well not exactly, but you get the idea. Anyway, we can use that link to find him."
Clara nodded a little as Kari finished her little rambling. "I don't deserve friends like you."
"Clara, I'm terribly sorry, but we're exactly what you deserve." The Doctor replied, before Kari shoved her hands into some orange coloured goo that was in one of the panels on the console.
"Just think about Danny, Okay?" Kari told her friend softly. "Think about him, everything about him. The good times, the bad times, the pain, the laughter. Just think about him and only him. Then ask yourself one simple question. Where is Danny Pink now? Where is he?"
All of a sudden the TARDIS engines started up and Kari couldn't help but smile at the whirring noise it was making. Even though she knew what was coming, just hearing that sound made her calm down just a little. For those few moments, everything felt okay. "Well, the TARDIS thinks he's somewhere." The Doctor then announced, a slightly surprised look on his face.
Eventually, the TARDIS stopped, the thud letting them all know they had landed. "Where are we?" Clara asked, having calmed down a lot since stepping in the TARDIS and causing a little bit of chaos.
"The nav-com is offline." Kari announced, going over to the Doctor and slipping her hand into his before gripping it tightly. "We'll have to do this one old school." She knew where they were, what they were going to find, and what was going to happen. She was feeling a big mix of emotions.
"But this is where Danny is?" Clara asked with hope, as the three of them headed towards the door.
The Doctor stopped and turned to face her. "Almost certainly not. It's where there's a connection with Danny. According to the TARDIS, this is where it's most likely that your timeline will re-intersect with his." He announced, before pointing to Clara's face. "And that won't do." Clara had no idea what he was talking about. "You won't. Look at you. I need sceptical, clever, critical. I don't need mopey. It puts years on your face. And what if people see us together? It looks like you've been melted." Kari couldn't help but roll her eyes. She was actually really glad to have arrived with this Doctor, and to see that he was in a pretty good mood.
"Are you forgetting why we're here?" Clara really didn't appreciate the way that he was speaking to her, and she hoped that Kari would defend her, but she wasn't.
"We're here to get your boyfriend back from the dead, so buck up and give me some attitude." The Doctor responded, before turning back towards the door.
Kari already had her free hand on the latch and she was quick to get the door open. "Oh, it's a bit dark." She called, resulting in the Doctor pulling a torch out from one of his many impossible pockets. "That's handy." Kari said, smiling up at her Scottish Doctor. A moment later he was giving one to her, and then a third to Clara.
The first thing that they saw was an obelisk, with some kind of logo on it and the words 'Rest in Peace'. Although she tried to suppress it, Kari shivered a little. Even though she knew where they were, it just felt wrong. It was really creeping her out, especially the sound of running water.
She wasn't the only one to have noticed the sound. "Fish tanks?" Clasra asked, noticing how worried and freaked out her friend was looking.
The Doctor wasn't so sure. "In a mausoleum?" He held onto Kari's hand just a little bit tighter. He was still feeling her emotions, and he could feel the fear waving off of her now.
"Oh, I really don't like this." Kari muttered, shining her torch around and letting it land on the big urn sitting atop a plinth up some stairs. "I really, really don't like this." This time the Doctor and Clara both shared a glace, they were definitely worried about the way Kari was acting.
Without a word, the Doctor let them up the steps to take a closer look at what seemed to have freaked Kari out so much. "What does that mean?" Clara asked, having read the words 'rest in peace. We promise' from the base of the plinth.
Now even the Doctor was getting a very bad feeling. "It means those are definitely not fish tanks." The Doctor told her, before carrying up the steps. They needed to investigate more, they needed to find out what the TARDIS had brought them there when they were looking for Danny Pink.
They carried on walking until they came to a corridor which seemed to explain the noise of running water. There, sitting in a tank, was a skeleton. Kari shivered, while Clara just looked at it. "Why?" She asked, not understanding why someone would keep a skeleton in a tank filled with water.
"I don't know." The Doctor ended up saying, looking around him, trying to work something out. It really didn't make sense, and there was no point in asking Kari for any help, he could see how distracted and nervous she was. There were hundreds of those tanks, all filled with skeletons.
Clara really didn't know what to think. What she was looking at was really disturbing to her, and she had seen plenty while travelling with the Doctor and Kari. "Okay, I'm assuming they didn't actually drown in there."
It wasn't the Doctor who answered her. "No." Kari said, her voice very quiet. "They were placed there, after death. These are tombs. Water tombs, some sort of fluid, anyway." The truth was much more horrible than that, and Kari knew it.
"With chairs?" It still didn't make sense to Clara. She didn't understand why anyone would do that, and what the point in having a chair would be.
The Doctor continued to look at the different tanks, Kari right beside him. He didn't like how quiet she was going. "With chairs, yes. Extra comfort for the deceased. It pays to die rich." He told her, noticing the name plate under one of them. They all had names.
That was when it suddenly dawned on Clara. "Oh, God. Am I going to find Danny now? Is that why the Tardis brought us here? I don't want to see him like that." She said, her voice filled with fear and panic.
While the Doctor wanted to reassure her, he knew that he couldn't. He had no idea what they were going to find, but he knew that they needed to find out. "Good point. Tombs with windows. Who wants to watch their loved ones rot? Why would anyone go to so much trouble, just to keep watch on the dead?"
They trio carried on down that corridor until Kari spotted a book sitting closed on a lectern. She nudged the Doctor and nodded to it, bringing it to his attention. Straight away he walked over to it, opened it, and swiped the blank pages with his fingers. Kari just stood beside him watching as he drew something out of the book before flinging it off to the side. Suddenly a holographic programme was running.
"3W. Death is not an end. But we can help with that." A voice called, as the words that were being spoken scrolled in front of the Doctor, Kari and Clara. "Ever since 3W encountered the truth about the death experience, 'we have been working hard to find a better life for the deceased. At 3W, afterlife means aftercare." Once it ended, the 3W logo appeared before them.
"Okay. Bit strange?" Clara said. There was no way she was not freaked out a bit now.
"Uh, yeah, that was very strange." Kari said, looking at the Doctor and then back to where the logo was still being displayed. "Why have the scrolling and a voice? Is it difficult?" She knew that she needed to pull herself together, otherwise the Doctor would do one of two things. He would even worry, or get suspicious. She didn't want either of those things to happen, so she needed to get herself back together.
Clara had no idea what she was talking about. "Is what difficult?"
The Doctor, however, did. He had spotted it as well. "Reading all those words back to front. Come on. We've come a long way."
That was when an older woman began to walk towards them from behind the logo, making it vanish as she walked through it. "Hello. I hope you're well. How may I assist you with your death?" She said, stopping right in front of the Doctor and Kari. The woman looked a bit like Mary Poppins, just not as bright and colourful, and a little bit older.
Kari could feel her hearts pounding in her chest and she had to stop herself from shaking. The woman looked at her, with both amusement and concern fluttering in her eyes. It wasn't easy for Kari, to be standing there, knowing who she was, what she had done. After everything that had happened before, and what it did to her, she was finding it very hard to keep it together. Kari was finding it very difficult to stop herself from simply running back to the TARDIS and staying there. Instead, she just grabbed the Doctor's hand a little tighter, no longer caring if it was going to make him worry even more about her. She was terrified.
A/N: I actually started writing this in December 2018, but things didn't go very well for me back then and it sort of… got left behind. Then I went and started writing School Reunion instead, so again it got pushed back. But then my inspiration really hit me and I went for it. This whole story line has been completed and I have started the next adventure as well, which I hope you are going to enjoy.
Thank you to everyone who has left a review, I really do appreciate your comments and critiques. They have always helped me to become a better writer over the years.
Until the next time,
Pippa.