She was scared and he was just terrified, only he kept it all inside him. Always good at hiding his real feelings, this incarnation was, quite a useful skill to calm her down.
"We'll get through this, won't we?" she asked him, her lower lip shaking with fear.
It was nothing. One of their adventures went wrong, that happened every time actually. With only one exception.
Clara Oswald had always believed in him, believed that he will save them even if it meant at the last moment. Well, she didn't believe in him right now, that part was quite clear in her eyes.
"Of course, we will." The Doctor smiled at her, screaming internally. "Together. I promise."
4 months later
The yellow dust was drawn through prisoners' nostrils. Four suns were blazing down this piece of hell, and all of them were aiming strictly at them, the chain of unluckiest of unluckiest. Or so it felt like suns were heating only them. She was certain of one thing, if she was still alive, she wouldn't survive this place. Not for two months. Not for two days. A human could never live here.
Shackles serenely screeched on her ankles.
They were transported somewhere far away from their place. They hadn't been told much. Jailers had stormed into her cell this morning, shouting something, escorting her to the other prisoners who were, just as her, uprearing their heavy legs higher to touch broiling sand less. Where were they going? To another segment. To extract commodities instead of rocks. Or so she was told by another prisoner.
A person was crumpling somewhere behind the chain, hurt and injured, and Clara tried not to think about him. She tried to forget how he had moaned when wardens had kept leashing at him. Until they stopped. He was slowly but becoming a hazy dot.
Two people were already lost.
"Water… please…" pleaded a woman in her thirties behind Clara.
Wardens were generous enough to let her drink, it seemed they were afraid to lose another workforce.
She felt dread overcoming her.
That woman was lost from their sight in an hour.
Now there were only five of them and they were approaching something yet too far away from their reach.
She'd been looking for the Doctor ever since they had been separated but to no success. She didn't know where he was, maybe he was on a different planet, maybe he was in the same place she'd left some hours ago and now they would never meet each other together. It was hard to say. She didn't let herself to slip an idea that the Doctor might be there, in a yellow prison settlement they were approaching. She could wait. They had all of the time for that, they were immortals after all. They'd definitely be together again, but maybe not now.
Yellow sand, hot sand, a smell of sweat and seclusion on the faces.
Yes, she could be patient…
They let her have a shower, they gave her brand new clothes in a strong blue colour. They led her to her new cell which had two neat beds across from each other, and she appeared to be the only occupant. For now.
And it was a free time on the courtyard, almost evening.
She felt whacked out and decided to stay in her cell. She approached a bed at the right wall, sat down, gave it a try. It wasn't as comfy as it looked like, mattress appeared too rigid, and blank got a few tears. She lay down on her spine. The pillow was just fine. Closed her eyes, tried to force herself to doze off.
Clara couldn't. The Doctor and she, they used to save people from wars, from catastrophes so massive it was hard to count victims and damage if they actually had happened. And today, three human lives had stopped on her just because they'd been too devastated and weak to cross the desert. She didn't know anything about them but she felt that if the Doctor had been in that transportation chain, he would have saved them, he would have thought something up.
The idea of saving them had been nagging on her all the time. She could have at least told something to wardens, make those three poor souls' lives valuable to them.
But she just hadn't. She was immortal, she could have pleaded wardens to punish her instead of them. She could have done something, she could have played the Doctor, not a frightened little companion of his.
She hadn't said a word.
She had been frightened, that's the word for it, and cautious. She wanted to get out of this planet, and that meant not to draw much attention.
But hadn't it just made her selfish?
She could have had it under control. She could have saved them. It was her fault that they had died, no matter for what they were sent here.
Shit, she was so bad at saving people!
"Are you Clara Oswald?"
A voice gave her a fright, and she quickly swept a tear or two on her face.
"Yes?"
There was a big bald man in the doorstep. Despite his massiveness and quite impressive muscles, he looked almost shy to enter her cell properly.
His voice was brute and gruff, you would expect it to thunder through prison but instead, he kept it as small as possible. "Here. I've been told to deliver you this."
It was nothing. Just a piece of a metallic junk, no bigger than a finger pad. Or so everyone would believe except her.
"What is it?"
"A message." The man shrugged, his whole body became a massive muscle to do that. "I've been told that you'll figure it out."
He's been told.
A beat.
"Thanks," Clara whispered to him.
She rolled to the wall and bent her knees to her chest so that anyone coming wouldn't see what she was holding in her hands.
A little thing.
She knew it was from the Doctor. It smelt like him, it felt like him.
It was a bit roundish with hard unpolished edges and got several wires stuck in random directions. Looked like a primitive handicraft for junior school, but she thought against telling that to the Doctor when they met.
Clara tried to comprehend what it was. It definitely wasn't meant to open. To add more confusion, it was made in haste. It didn't have a button, it lacked moving parts. The only thing that was there were three little holes. Maybe she had to shove something pointy in them. Like a needle.
She sneaked the message into the mattress quickly when she heard someone at her doors.
"Look at ye. A babydoll and sleeping."
She cast her glance to the voice.
Another male except skinnier and with no shyness in his hungry eyes. And no idea of privacy, for what it seemed.
He was towering her at the bed, smiling with all his teeth except for one lacking. Some kind of tattoo was under his left eye.
"Wow, I see you have a tattoo too here," he chuckled lifting up her hair between his fingers.
Clara snapped at them. "Don't you dare!"
"Zero, zero, zero? What's that suppose to mean, luv?" He looked at her with a quiz. "Don't get me wrong, I love it when it has a deep background in it…"
"Is it your cell?"
"No–"
"Then get out."
"So, you're a beasty one, heh. I love that. Friends call me Pepe. You can call me that too. And what's your name?.."
"Get lost, Pepe."
"So cheeky. I haven't seen you before. Are you a fresh blood?"
She didn't say anything to him.
"You are," Pepe smirked. "Well, you're probably just tired. I'll see ya tomorrow, babe. And I hope I'll learn your name." He gave her a blow kiss and was gone.
As soon as he was gone, Clara took out the message from the Doctor. But when she did so, a siren went out. "Fuck," she swore into the pillow. Her cell shut automatically with a loud bang. She hid the message back into the mattress and didn't move.
It was about midnight when wardens stopped checking cells and she felt it safe to investigate the message further.
She turned it that and that, but it was hard to see anything in the dark. Until she got it close to her face and heard something incomprehensible. She put it closer to her ear and heard him.
"…don't know for how many times I have to repeat this, not like I know if you're hearing me now or have heard me an hour ago… gosh, if Barney mistook you for someone else I… sorry. Clara, meet me in the library at any time possible. Just… go to the library, Clara. I'll wait for you there… Library. It's about time we met in the lib-ruh-ree. It's also about time to sleep, but I don't think I can. Can you? I think after transportation you might be a bit dozy. And…" she heard a gulp on the other side. "I'm really sorry that three people died on you… I really am. Have I told you to meet me in the library? I think I have. Have you heard it? No idea. But if you're Clara, go to the library… I won't stop the translation until the morning. You should rest. Go tomorrow. And, Clara, if you received my message, which is 'go to the library', destroy the earphone. That's how I'll know that you received it. But you might think," and here he pitched his voice, very poorly mimicking her, "if he's so handsome and genius, why hasn't he inserted a microphone in it as well so I can speak to him? Because I'm still blind, Clara. If that thing is even working that would be a miracle… Funny. But I have to repeat it all again… Clara, go to the library. I'll wait for you in the library. Lib-ruh-ree–"
As far as she was pleased to hear his voice, as it was soothing her soul, she did what she was told. Clara put the earpiece on the floor and smashed it with her heel.
She hoped that somewhere out there the Doctor smiled.
The next day was just exactly like previous days she had at mining. But this time it was not some plain stones, it was precious metals.
A monotonous clunk-clang echoed through the walls, and she was walking with a trolley, collecting what others had found. When the trolley got full, she would push it back to the entrance which was far on the North from the depth. People would give her one hell out of a look which was saying they wanted to be in her place. She forced herself not to linger too long at difficult upsurges. The trolley was bigger than her, and it had slid down several times when she did.
"Need an extra hand?"
Clara had almost lost the trolley when she heard him.
She gathered her thoughts together, made a thin smile and shook her head once.
"No-pe."
Pepe put his pickaxe in the trolley anyway, moved Clara and pushed it up the corridor.
"Hey! Are you deaf?!" She grasped to his forearm and tried to pull him away to no avail.
"Don't freak out, babe. I'm only helping ya."
"I told you I don't need help from you!"
"That's because you don't like me. But I can see you're tired." He chuckled lightly, which made her only irritated.
"Am not." And it was true.
"Yeah, you are," he sang out. "If you want, we can push it together. What's your name?"
They were getting looks from the workers, and Clara felt a chill down her spine. What if they would call for a warden? She would be sealed in a custody with this brainless idiot and she had other plans for tonight.
"Don't you have better things to do? I think you're supposed to mine."
"I'll call it a break. So?"
She could see there was no point in arguing with him, a wampus.
"Clara."
"Didn't hurt, did it?"
"Tiny bit."
"Oh, you'll totally fall in love with me, Clara. Just give it a time." And he winked.
She winced, not of physical pain but of internal. Gosh, that was soo cheap!
"I think I can manage on my own from here, Pepe." It wasn't too far from the entrance.
Surprisingly, Pepe let her go, picking up his pickaxe from the trolley. "See you around." He turned his back and ran back to his position before a warden noticed him missing.
Yeah. Sure. Whatever.
A free time, finally. She found the library easily enough on her own, and surprisingly there was no one messing up with her.
Now she was standing in front of the wooden door with a 'library' sign. Behind it was the Doctor. If only she had a heartbeat, her heart would beat so hard it would be literally heard for him, Time Lords and their biological tricks.
She turned the metallic handle and entered the library.
"Clara?"
Here he was. Somewhere. And he knew that it was her, somehow, by the way she walks or breathes, or maybe it was just that no one went to the library in this prison as often.
She heard his hoarse voice and almost wept.
Finally, it was him, someone familiar to anchor. Four months with a desperate feeling riding on her back but no more. But where was he?
She noticed Barney, a massive bald muscle who had brought her the Doctor's message yesterday, in the corner of the room. He was reading something that looked like a comic book. He cast her a sideway look and nutated his head to the left, where another door was.
Clara cautiously entered a small darkish room, which almost looked like a cupboard with a table and two chairs, there was a lamp glowing a warm light. But its occupant didn't need that, it was probably lit for her.
He was there, sitting behind the desk, in the same stupid blue prison clothes she wore, he got his hair cut shorter than the first day after regeneration, his face lit. He looked much better than they'd previously met, all damages from Strakokkonians were healed. And his eyes were looking straight at her.
She dared to move closer, moving a sideway a bit, and his eyes moved with her. But could it be so? Or was it just she imagining things because of the lack of light? Was it a trick of darkness?
"It is you, yes?" He asked a tremble in his voice wasn't misheard by Clara.
"Yes."
"Good."
A beat. And then…
She swiftly encircled the table and took the Doctor by surprise, waltzing him in a firm hug. Almost knocked him out of his chair, he gave it a small chuckle.
"God knows how I got here, but I'm just so glad to see you again." She said in his ear, those words only for him, desperate to be said. She clenched for him tightly to be closer for him, her bum fell on his knees in the process but none of them minded. His neck smelt of salt and sweat and something alien she always referred to him.
Her hair smelt of home. He dived his nose deeper into her hair, his stoned arms moving to her spine at last.
"Well, I wouldn't call myself a god, it'd be a blasphemy, but I'm also happy that you're here." She could practically feel his smile hidden under her chin.
Clara put her hands on his cheeks and looked at him properly.
"It was you?"
"It was me." He wiggled his eyebrows, making her laugh. The laugh he so much missed. "I'm working in the library, after all. Sometimes they let me work with papers."
"But–" How?
"I've got Barney, he's helping me after I taught him some Venusian aikido movements. He's got eyes, I've got mind and writing skills."
"They don't–" Know?
"No. Except for Barney, he had some questions." He enveloped his hands around hers and, dare she say, leaned closer into her touch as he shut his eyes and just breathed in. "But now you're here I might just make you my assistant, all we need is to convince the jail manager you can't work in mines."
"Then what?"
"Then we'll… plan our escape. I need maps and schedules but they don't trust me with them. Yet. We need to achieve that trust."
"We'll get through this, won't we?"
He smiled sadly then, recalling something from their happy days, a promise he'd given her once which was on her mind right now too. She couldn't stop feeling how her body felt right sitting on his knees, embracing him, breathing almost in unison loudly. She was looking straight at him and waiting for his answer. He, well, wasn't looking at anything. He expected her to stop him, after all, he was leaning into a dangerous area, but she didn't and he almost wondered why.
When he kissed her the second time after their little reunion, she had almost expected it. He had been, after all, getting closer and closer to her face a millimetre after a millimetre while she'd been scratching the nape of his neck nervously and waiting for him.
"Doctor…"
"Sorry, I… I'm sorry." He whispered only for her ears, scared that outside Barney could hear him and guess what had just happened. "I needed that." He embraced her closer to him, fearing that she might fade away. "You have no idea what it is to be locked inside your mind alone. The pain. It's… No, sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Forget what I've said. I-I-"
"Shh. I know. You don't have to tell me." She answered him in the same low voice. "I know. But I'd rather we don't do that again, okay?"
"Okay… Can I kiss you again and after it we won't do that again?"
Clara smiled sadly and put her lips to his forehead like he had used to do in his previous incarnation.
"Save it for the day we escape. And I want to hear your story."
"Wh-which one?"
"All of it."