4 days before the escape
His hand ghosting Clara's hair, while she was dreaming, her head laying peacefully on the table. Barney warned administration they were going to stay late, so they'd been doing stuff for them, just checking lists and fixing errors when she dozed off.
The Doctor was thinking quietly.
He managed to piece together Clara's bruising, and rumors about her meeting with Pepe. He wasn't an idiot, even a Time Lord from High Council would have guessed it right too. The brightest sign of all, of course, was her fear. Clara was frozen between time, and yet the man made her so afraid for her life that it leaked through the crack between worlds of reality and unreality. He tried to make himself concentrate on that little piece of information – what would that mean? Can he use it to get his Clara back? Maybe she wasn't frozen completely or the nexus got weaker from her little adventures back to Gallifrey? But, the Doctor smirked, "there's always one 'but' around the corner, always", he couldn't stop one thought that would pop in his brilliant mind like a spam banner, with neon flashes and big arrows pointing at it.
She was hurt.
His other hand clenched in a fist. She was hurt and he knew who'd done it. That man who beat her just because his brave Cara had told him 'no' ¬¬¬– he knew exactly what Pepe had been asking her to do and it made him want to do things the Doctor should never do, should never think about. What sort of type would hurt another person? Especially if that person was a short funny woman named Clara Oswald?
His hand froze as he heard Clara whimper. Had she caught some of his unpleasant thoughts? She did it again and it made him worried. He placed a tip of his bony finger on her temple, just to ease her pain, Clara, his Clara must have had so many nightmares since they'd parted, he would just help her have a good one night. A tip of his bony finger on her temple, that's all that it would take.
Except, when he touched it, he stared at black pitch nothingness in the place where should be a tertiary of corridors with doors behind where must be memories.
And it might have given him a proper scare if he hadn't been used to it already. Instead, it made him even more worried about the woman in his arms.
Oh, Clara Oswald. What had he done to her?
He brushed an importunate lock from her face and put it behind her ear.
There was only one way to figure out what the darkness was about.
"Clara, wake up," he said.
He heard her breathing change and he let his hand hang awkwardly in space where her head had used to be.
"Oh, sorry! We were checking lists of prisoners, yeah?"
"What were you dreaming about?" he inquired.
"I won't tell you. Why?"
"Can I check something?"
"Why do you look like that at me?"
"Like what?" asked the Doctor.
"Like I am a very interesting exhibit in that old museum."
"Because you are? Interesting and mesmerizing and –"
"Stop it." She cut him before he could finish – not like he intended to. "Your flirtations have always been odd, and I will not be compared to a dinosaur bone scale. What did you want exactly?"
"Oh, you know, just a mind probe. Very quick mind probe. I won't look at your thoughts."
"Doctor?.."
"You trust me, right?"
"Okay."
"Okay? That's easy?"
"Just do it fast before I change my mind… I suddenly feel very tired."
There were colors, all of a sudden, greens and yellows, mostly darkish blues as if at his first touch, he had been colorblind and only now he could see so many different colors in her mind. He couldn't interpret them for his touch was quick but those were real thoughts, just one slip in his mind, so recent, yesterday perhaps, someone hitting Clara in mines again.
Turning off her mind while she's asleep and turning them back on when she's awake? That rang a bell to him, but he couldn't put his finger on what exactly it did sound like. Or he did if Clara hadn't given out another whimper.
"What's wrong, Clara?" he asked her gently, touching her by her forearm and pulling just a bit closer.
"N-nothing," she lied, snatching her forearm from his grip. She sounded… hurt? Definitely from the new bruise she'd got yesterday.
"Why are you lying to me?"
"I must have reasons."
"I know. You never lied to me just to be cruel… What are you protecting me from, Clara?"
"Your arch enemy. Yourself. Your curiosity in particular."
Why was she not telling him the whole truth? That Pepe was hurting her and hit her recently? That when he had asked her about bruises she had lied? Why can't she just tell him the truth?
"Fair enough." The Doctor nodded, trying not to give away his real thoughts. If she was hiding new bruises from him, then okay, he'll think of a way to unveil them. Then, something downed on him in an unexpected way, and he knew,
"Twenty-four hours have passed."
As he said that sentence, her heart sank. She glanced at her arm and inspected it, watching sideways as a tiny smirk crept on the Doctor's thin face. The bruise was still there, and that was wrong, that never had happened before. If anything, it got new shades, as if there was a blood circulation.
She darted to try and find her pulse, anticipating something horrible and desirable at the same time. She felt a cold knock in her stomach. If there was a slight chance, her timeline corrected itself miraculously by itself... A small hope rose. Of course, she wanted to live, how could she lie herself so much time! She placed two fingers gently on her wrist, pushed a little into the skin. Held her breath, if she had any.
He was waiting for her answer but there was still none. Clara cleared her throat.
"It looks better," she told him about her bruise. "and there's still no pulse…" The Doctor's smile spread wider, showing his teeth. "Have you done something to me while I was sleeping? Is that it? What was it, regeneration?"
"I haven't done anything." The Doctor put his hands in the air and confessed. "Which means…"
"Which means?" Clara inquired.
"I don't know… yet. You, keep your eye on that bruise and tell me if it's different."
"Doctor, what can it mean?" He sighed, his smile suddenly gone somewhere. "I really don't know. Maybe you're being tuned into this planet time regime. Or you've been dead too long so the link starts to weaken. Hard to tell right now… Aren't you cross?"
"What?"
"You left a certain impression your life ended and that's how it should be. Aren't you unhappy?"
"I – I don't know." She glanced at her bruise. The Doctor's hand gently wrapped around it, as if he could sense where it was.
"I want you to live, Clara. If it still counts." He added dubiously.
"It does, but you know I can't-"
"Of course you can just be with me; it's all I can ask of you."
"Wasn't it exactly what almost destroyed the universe? Me being with you? Me being irresponsibly dragged from my last breath just because you missed me?"
"I won't stop looking for the way to cure you, as long as you're by my side, I promise you. Just give me time."
"Cure yourself. I'm not the one who's ill." Clara snatched her hand back away from him.
"Clara," he chuckled. "Oh, Clara. Can you imagine how glad I am to hear your voice…"
She decided she had enough time with him for tonight and darted to the door.
"Clara," she could only hear when she closed the door.
She felt angry, for him giving her these thoughts of being alive again, and for being dead walking to hear him still missing her. It was painful and she wanted to give it a cry.
"Hey, Mrs. Oswald? Can I have a word with you?" Barney spooked her, even though being exactly in front of her.
"What do you want?"
"I've recommended you as the former teacher for my role of the Doctor's assistant," he told her. "We're being swapped, so now I'm working in mines instead of you. The Doctor was trying to find a way where I wouldn't be sent to mines, but there's no such way. He knew it too but was stubborn to admit." Very much like him, Clara noted.
"Thank you."
"You had a fight with him, yeah?" He glanced over her shoulder.
A fight, he was standing here all the time. He must have picked some of it.
"Oh no, it's temporal, really. We'll be okay in no time." She smiled politely.
"Well then. Keep an eye on him, won't you?"
"Sure. And thanks again. For looking after him."
Nardole needed tea. A very strong one. The finest one from ancient China. Or India. Or very much something stronger than that – a shimmied fizzy water right into his face.
Clara Oswald. He had never heard of her. Ever. The Doctor had never told him about her, never as much mentioned her name; there weren't any pictures of her in a frame. The TARDIS might have had on her something but when this little funny woman told him what the Doctor and Clara had been to each other a little quiet "shit" escaped his mouth.
They were in so much trouble indeed. And his hands were sweating.
"And just when I wanted to save them on my own, just pop in on prison planets and check for them – of course, it might have taken myself a little time – the TARDIS sent me here, to, what I must say, is a very interesting place for the Doctor to be grounded to." Me, a very strange name indeed, ended her little story.
"So let me check it again… the Doctor is with someone he loved, who is not River Song, who is dead, who also is his obsession, a little secret he hid very well from me… oh dear."
"Yep. That's the story. But I guess we have to be fully armed to make these two get apart from each other. If my calculations right, the Doctor started to figure out how to revive her from the moment he saw her."
"He's blind today, actually."
"It doesn't change a thing. The Doctor and Clara are together, and it's our duty to prevent it. Are you in?"
"Yeah? Count me in?" He said dubiously.
"Good. I'll try to find anyone at Trap Street. Do you know anyone who can help us too?"
"If you really know the Doctor that much, then you won't like my answer."
"You mean Missy?"
"Yeah. That one."
"Good. If you've got her contact that's first good news I've heard. She's absolutely nuts but she's the only one who truly knows what's at the stake."
"Maybe you should talk to her yourself. She's downstairs."
"Is this some kind of joke?"
"Yep, the one I don't like and which makes me cry at nights. I'll show you."
She was sitting in one of her comfy armchairs, sipping on her blood-colored wine and looking at the point on the wall.
She was bored. Very much. She thought it was some kind of punishment the Doctor came up with after she had made one of her wrong answers – just to entertain herself and pull his leg a bit. It must have been month already, the only one who was visiting her was Nardole and he wasn't much fun at all. She wasn't asking him what the Doctor was doing, not like her pride would let her and there was no need – Nardole told her he was busy with something. Or…
A peculiar smile crept on her lips.
He was hurt from one of his last little escapades, and afraid she'd use a moment of his weakness to mischief. Poor Doctor, he was so damn right.
But there was something in the air. A slight change in time, which had started to shiver two or three days ago. It smelled… interesting, new.
She ended her third bottle of wine, the last one from her collection the Doctor had left for her. A spot on the wall hadn't changed at all, perhaps she should have asked the Doctor for more toys to play with.
Speaking about toys…
"Containment field, please! A-and don't you dare to make tricks!"
About time.
Intertwining her fingers with a leg of the last goblet, she moved her light body to that little island with the piano in the center of her prison. Placing gracefully herself at the piano and crossing her long legs, she asked to come in.
Nardole was shy as ever, and – oh, what a surprise – he brought a friend this time. That was new, that never happened.
"Hi, my name is Me," the short little woman said. She looked young but Missy could see through her veil. She must have been older than the universe, which was nearly impossible.
Still, she didn't try to look impressed.
"Not very talkative today, aren't you, Master?" Nardole hushed at his little friend and made a little bow to Missy, which pleased her just a bit. "We, er, kind of need your help."
"We're on the verge of Armageddon, I presume," inclined Me.
That's interesting, they were asking for her help without the Doctor. My, my… what had he done this time?
"Do you happen to know Clara Oswald?" Me asked.
Missy smiled and quivered her goblet. Well, wasn't she a bit dead – according to some rumors, the Doctor hadn't got guts to tell her - to cause so much trouble?
"Yes, I do," she sipped viciously.
"What else you know about her?"
"She was a fantastic woman with a maniacal need to be in charge of everything. Oh, and she used to sleep with the Doctor. The poor boy is missing her terribly; he flinches so funnily every time I mention her."
"Well, he and she are together right now, locked at one of the prison-colony planets."
"Is she not dead?" Missy tried to sound bored.
"Not yet, frozen between one heartbeat and the last. For over 50 years already."
"Ni-ice." She grinned through her gritted teeth. "My girl is kind of dead but no, for over 50 years, and with the Doctor, who has a somewhat unhealthy obsession with her. Very nice indeed. But I don't see what you are asking for."
"The Doctor would want to resurrect her."
"So what?"
"Well, she's dead. Certainly, that can't be good." Missy smirked at their naive nature.
"She was dead for over 50 years and not dying, pulling her frozen moment of death across the time. That is what is very nasty for the universe. The faster she's dead or alive, the better, but I think the damage has been already done, so you might as well leave these happy idiots alone and me, like really me, too."
"What do you want, Missy?" Nardole asked gently.
"Ah, now we're speaking my language! I want a quick trip with the Doctor. Just the Doctor and his Mistress, no one else."
"But–"
"Okay." Me agreed. "We don't have time to haggle, Nardole. And she might be our only chance." Missy smirked, that girl was clever after all, but not clever enough. And god or whatever ultimate creature they believed save them from the Doctor's furiosity.