Clara felt nervous, and it wasn't something she particularly wanted to feel. She wanted to feel confident. She wanted to feel strong, and independent and totally not falling apart at the seams. She wanted to be desirable and needed and something people couldn't live without.

Seeing Danni had shown that she wasn't as necessary in their lives as she thought she would be. Time kept ticking, the Time Lords kept travelling and it had really hurt. She just wanted to be wanted. She wanted to be important.

She sat at the table in the rather posh coffee shop, smoothing her skirt around her legs and trying her best not to seem nervous. It was stupid to be nervous. She was perfect for the job and she knew that. Her confidence in her abilities had been shook but it was still there. She was good. She was pretty damn good.

She should have chosen somewhere where she could have gotten a glass a wine, but she settled for a latte. She had just managed to calm herself down when Kate Stewart and Osgood walked in. It was strange, seeing one Osgood without the other, and her heart broke slightly for the woman. She was still styling herself as the Doctor, but she could see the heartache behind. She felt so terrible for her, although she knew she'd never understand just what she had lost. She just knew that she knew loss very well.

Kate sat down in front of her, Osgood to the side. "I hope you don't mind, I already ordered," Clara said, motioning to her cup.

"Not at all. This place does wonderful coffee," Kate replied as a server appeared at the table. She placed a cup in front of Kate and then one in front of Osgood before leaving.

"How-You just came in," Clara said, bewildered.

"One of the many perks of working for UNIT," Kate explained in amusement before taking a sip of her own drink.

Osgood leant slightly forward in her chair. "You said you had good news," she prompted. "Did you find the Doctor? Is he alright?"

Clara tried not to grimace too much, feeling a little guilty that she'd not thought to contact them sooner. "The Doctor is fine," she reassured. If Kate felt any relief she didn't show it. Osgood did that enough for both of them. "Um, well, Missy took us back and as we suspected, the Doctor was throwing a party. He was expecting to go to his death and so… well," she shook her head, "the details of that aren't important. Daleks showed up and we were taken to Skaro where Davros was waiting."

"Davros?" Osgood repeated. "The creator of the Daleks?"

"You've heard of him, then?"

"The earth has had previous dealings with him," Kate replied. "Davros wasn't there for a friendly chat, I should suspect."

"Actually, by the sounds of it, that's what it started as," Clara replied, much to their surprise. "I've only heard it third hand, but apparently Davros was dying and had called the Doctor in to talk to him. It didn't turn out that way, obviously, but we escaped and the Daleks and Davros were stopped."

"I've heard that more than once," Kate stated cynically. "So the Doctor escaped again?" Clara nodded. "And now he's back looking for Danielle. Does he need our help?"

Clara, again, shook her head. "On that planet was more than the Daleks and Davros. Danni was there too."

"You found her?" Osgood breathed, pushing her glasses up her nose. If she leant in any closer she was going to fall off her chair, Clara was sure of it.

"She found us," Clara corrected with a smile. She'd not recognised Danni to begin with, but seeing her confident and cheeky, and a little bit flirty, wasn't something she was going to forget. It had been one hell of an image. "Missy came to me not because the Doctor was dying, but because Danni had escaped and she didn't know where she'd gone. Luckily Danni got to us first and she's back on the TARDIS. She's safe."

There was a moment of pause as the two processed the new information. "That is good news indeed," Kate agreed. "Definitely cause for a nice coffee."

"Most definitely," Osgood agreed with a nod. She seemed slightly less heartbroken, which Clara was very glad about. It really was good news and it was nice to be able to share it with people who cared almost as much as she did. "I'm not sure what that has to do with your job, though."

For a moment Clara had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. "Our intelligence tells us you handed your notice in for your job two weeks ago," Kate continued and Clara understood completely. "I'm not sure how we can help you with your teaching career."

"That's because I don't want to be a teacher anymore," Clara replied. "I was- Well, I was hoping you might have a job for me."

Osgood looked surprised. Kate did not. "You want to work for UNIT?" the officer asked. Clara nodded.

"I-I think I could be quite valuable," she said without a single stutter. "I'm not sure what as. I don't know what you positions you have available. If you have any available. But I think—" she shook her head, "-I know I would be useful."

Kate didn't reply for a moment. She looked over Clara, who was slowly becoming convinced she was trying to be intimidating on purpose. "Our intelligence also suggests that you haven't been travelling with the Doctor for a while," she stated. "You're due a trip away any day."

Clara shook her head. "I no longer travel with them," she said, which she was sure Kate had been trying to get her to say. She took a deep breath and sat up straighter. "I have no personal life, no boyfriend or girlfriend, and next Friday I will have no job. What I do have is a lot of off world knowledge and a direct line to the most important alien in the universe."

"We can contact the Doctor any time we please," Kate replied. "You know as much as I that getting him to answer is the issue."

"I'm not talking about the Doctor, I'm talking about Danni," Clara said. "I may not be travelling with them anymore, but Danni is my best friend and I know I'll always be hers. I can contact her at any moment and she will answer. And she will come if I need her."

Kate smirked, as if she had been waiting for that very piece of information. "That certainly would be useful," she confirmed, much to Clara's delight. "The Doctor has never been fond of soldiers."

"The Doctor isn't very fond of me at all," Clara retorted before straightening slightly, flattening the skirt she was wearing. "Plus, the bravest man I knew was a soldier. I don't see anything wrong with it."

Kate shared a look with Osgood. "I think that's all we need to hear," she stated. She took another sip of her coffee. "We cannot promise you a position right now, you understand Miss Oswald."

"But we can definitely arrange something today," Osgood finished for her. She'd pulled out a tablet from her bag. Clara smiled. For some reason Osgood just seemed to be more herself when she was doing something science-y. "We've already got all of your background checks on file, so that shouldn't be an issue. We'll have to contact you once we've found something appropriate."

"For now, though," Kate said, effectively ending the impromptu interview. "I feel we should celebrate Danielle's safe return." She held her hand up, motioning for some more drinks.

Osgood looked up from her tablet, eyes eager. "Oh, yes, do tell," she encouraged. "What happened? How did she find you?"

~0~0~0~

The Doctor knew Danni was worried about him. Even though she did her best time hide her emotions from the universe just in case someone saw them who wanted to use them against her, she was still shockingly awful at hiding her concern for him. As always it was conflicting because he loved having her concern but hated concerning her.

But he couldn't help but concern her. He knew that he'd been behaving a little strangely since they'd left Ashildr and Sam Swift together. He just wasn't sure how to process all of the information he'd been given over the short amount of time they'd spent with the Knightmare.

Danni was worried about not caring about people, or the universe anymore. He understood that concern well and it had overcome him when he'd regenerated to his current body. Good men cared, but all he cared about was being with his wife again? Did that make him a bad man?

It had taken him a long time, and a few nudges in the right direction, to find his way. She hadn't had that help so he was there to show her that she still cared, that she still was a good person. She needed that just like had needed that, and they had always helped each other.

She had killed someone. More than one, it would seem. That she even knew of.

That was conflicting as well. She was his Danielle, she was good. And yet she'd taken lives. Hadn't he taken lives as well? Hadn't he spent one lonely, dark, horrid night when she had been jumping around his timeline and he'd felt truly on his own counting the children he'd killed on Gallifrey? Her low count of people was nothing compared to the death he left in his wake.

But she didn't kill. She stopped him, she saved him, she never hurt people unless there was no other option. Maybe that's where her count had come from. Necessity. Maybe it had been her or them.

Missy had sold her. That still sat strange. Missy had wanted no one but herself near Danni, so he knew there was more going on there than was showing on the surface. Just the thought of Danni being in that situation, one where she was at someone's mercy enough to be sold, made his blood boil.

He knew Danni saw those moments. When his hands clenched and he had to refrain from ranting and raving. She would shoot him a look that said that, for a moment, she was working out just how much of a threat he was. Then it would disappear and the concern would replace it. She never asked what was wrong, though. She was just try and distract him from his anger.

Oh, how she could be very distracting.

But what could he do? He wasn't there and Danni wouldn't share. He'd kept what Ashildr had told him to himself and Danni wasn't exactly being forthcoming with the information. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, and not one of them he wanted the answer to. Not really.

What if she'd killed the man because she wanted to?

What if she'd killed anyone because she had wanted to?

What if Missy had much more of an influence on her current regeneration than either of them would like to admit?

It was a thought he hated to have, especially seeing her distress at even wounding Leandro. She had been so terrified that he thought she had, for one moment, tried to kill him that she still didn't know that she actually had. He couldn't hurt her with that information. It would bring no benefit and it wouldn't change anything. And Ashildr had been convinced that she hadn't wanted to hurt anyone.

So why wasn't he?

It was because he just didn't know. He'd given her the space to tell him and, while he'd learnt about some things, there was so much he knew that she wasn't saying. So much he knew he wasn't ever going to know because he hadn't been there, and she couldn't spend the next however-long telling him about every single moment. And even if they did, even if she told it to him like a bedtime story, he still hadn't experienced it. He couldn't pretend he knew what it felt like, or how it changed her. All he knew was how it had changed him.

He remembered, long ago, when she had been ginger and incredibly young he enjoyed learning every single thing about her like it was new. She was out of sync, but she surprised him even centuries in with little pieces of the puzzle that Danielle Fielding had been. Then, when they were settled and together for the long haul, he enjoyed the moments where he could look at her and know exactly what she was going to do next because he just knew her that well.

It was with a strange start one day that he realised that he hadn't lost her. She wasn't this stranger in the guise of his wife that he had to sort into the good or bad pile. She was Danielle Fielding. He was just back at the first stage and there was nothing wrong with that. Danielle Fielding had always been some sort of an enigma to him and there had never been a point in his life he'd wished that not to be true. Sure, there had been that rocky year where she'd stayed with Clara, but even then, it wasn't her mystery he had wanted to change, it had been the way he looked at her.

Maybe she had killed the man because she wanted to, but he very much doubted it and everything he had seen and knew about her so far suggested that nothing had changed in that regard. There was so much he didn't know but, instead of being scared of it, he was excited. He was eager. He was ready.

When he'd come into the workshop she had looked at him, once again, like evaluating the threat he might have been. Then, once again, she looked at him in concern. She placed her sonic screwdriver on top of the dining table she had been looking to take apart and turned to him.

"Is everything alright?" she asked. He nodded, shutting the door behind him. There it was; she was still looking out for him. He knew that hadn't changed, and yet it suddenly became another item on the list of things he knew about her.

"Let's go on a date," he declared. She blinked, surprised.

"Excuse me?"

"When's the last time we went on a date?" he continued like her surprise was what he had been expecting. "Dinner, dancing, the whole cliché nonsense."

His words could have suggested that he didn't particularly want to go on a date with her, yet his grin and enticing look said that he was incredibly keen to do just that.

"What about flowers?" Danni asked to test the waters.

"I'll even get you a box of chocolates in one of those heart-shaped boxes where you chuck half of them away because of the horrid flavours," he promised. She nodded as if that was exactly what she had been looking for.

"I'll have to find an appropriate dress," she warned him. "It'll take time to find one with the right number of petticoats. Will we get a limo?"

"The longest I can afford," he replied. They stared at each other for a moment before he laughed in delight, striding over and pulling her in for a kiss she readily returned.

He pressed his forehead against hers. "I love your sense of humour," he admitted proudly. "And everything new thing I learn."

Her brows furrowed slightly. "What's gotten into you?" she asked, flattered but confused by his words.

"Nothing," he said. "Just so happy to get to know you." He caught her lips once more before backing away. "Find that dress. We're going out!"

~0~0~0~

Clara's first day at UNIT started with her walking up to the Tower of London, butterflies in her stomach and a fantastic new haircut. The shortness really suited her. As did the pantsuit that she'd chosen to be both practical and good-looking. She wanted her first impression to be 'smart yet completely on top of her life'.

Of course, that relied on the people she encountered not knowing who she was. Most of them did. Not only was she the former companion of the Doctor and Danni, and best friends of one of them as well, but she had been to UNIT headquarters on a number of occasions and had met pretty much everyone she was going to encounter already.

Still, she strode in like she was new and yet owned the place, making sure that everyone knew that she knew exactly what she was doing, although no one had really given her much of a clue in that regard. She'd just been told to come in on Monday morning and someone would show her the ropes.

What ropes, again, she had no idea.

But it was nice to feel excited for once. To be greeted with a smile and know that she was going to see something new, something very few people had seen before. She had enjoyed her time teaching children, now it was time to learn herself. She had a wealth of knowledge ahead of her and, as she was taken into the laboratory underneath the Tower of London and greeted by both Osgood and Kate, she knew it was going to be amazing.

"Good morning, Miss Oswald," Kate greeted.

Osgood offered her own little nod. "Hello, Clara."

She smiled brightly at the both. "Morning," she greeted in return. All around her were computers, and monitors, and everything looked incredibly science-y. People were rushing around slightly, but nothing seemed particularly frenzied.

"Ma'am," said someone in a white coat. Kate turned to them and they handed her a tablet. "First reports are coming in."

Kate nodded before turning to Clara. "I'm sorry I can't help you settle in more. You'll be shadowing Osgood for the next week or so. She'll have to show you around."

Clara barely had time to wave off Kate's apology and she was gone. "Must be important," Clara commented.

Osgood nodded. "You've chosen to start on a very busy week," she replied, as if Clara had chosen this Monday on purpose. "We've had some reports of a few rogue Zygons trying to throw the ceasefire into chaos."

Clara frowned. "That doesn't sound busy," she retorted. "That sounds dangerous."

Osgood shook her head. "Nothing we can't handle," she replied, glancing to her side as if expecting someone there. Clara felt a twinge of sympathy as she realised she was looking for her twin. She seemed to recover quite quickly from it, though. "This happens from time to time, but it means we're on red alert for the next few days. I've not been home since Saturday."

"How close are we to the Nightmare Scenario?" she asked.

"Very far," Osgood promised. "It'll just be a few teenagers, nothing to be too concerned about. We've been in contact with a couple of the High Council members around the city. They've not reported anything worrisome yet."

That was reassuring. Clara really didn't want the end of the ceasefire between the humans and the Zygons to end on her first week in a new job. She was going to have enough trouble getting used to the change of pace as it was.

She clapped her hands together. "Show me what I can do to help," she declared.

Osgood grinned. "That's the spirit," she praised before pulling out a few pieces of paper from underneath her own tablet. "We're going to check on the reports from the US, then you have a full day ahead of you."

She handed Clara an itinerary that, on even just the first glance, showed Clara the worst part of any job; introductory training.

"Is this… Is this really Health and Safety over the ravens in the gardens?" she asked Osgood. "What could there possibly be apart from 'leave them alone'?"

"It's part of a broader 'don't touch any tech you're not familiar with' group of lessons," she replied. She must have seen the distain on Clara's face because she shot her an apologetic look. "Don't worry, it's only for the next week or so. Then you'll be dropped straight in it without any help from anyone."

"I hope so," Clara grumbled before she realised how she sounded. "I-I mean, not the no help bit, that sounds a bit mean. I meant more of the 'getting stuck in' part of that."

Osgood just looked amused. "I know," she replied. "Come on, let me show you around."

~0~0~0~

Clara was tired. So tired. So amazingly tired that her bed felt like the best place on the planet and yet so entirely too far away. She was only in the doorway of the bedroom, she could see her bed and yet it felt too far away.

UNIT was… well, UNIT was busy. She hadn't realised just how busy it was going to be and she had gone in with overconfidence that she was just be able to wing it. Then she'd had training, more training, and a couple of attempted hostile takeovers and she realised that winging it really wasn't an option.

Danni had once told her that an old Prime Minister had taken drastic action to stop word of Earth getting out into the cosmos in fear of being attacked. Harriet Jones had tried to do her best, but Clara had quickly learnt that even by then it was much too late. Earth was overrun with aliens. It really was like Men in Black. Clara had loved that movie. She had a soft spot for Will Smith.

Now that she was living it, though, she really wished that Hollywood had just kept their stupid mouths shut. No one wants to see their work on the screen. It was why she never used to like movies about teachers. Now movies about alien bureaus just annoyed her.

Will Smith didn't, though. That man could do no wrong in her eyes.

Clara almost jumped out of her skin as her phone rang in her pocket. She'd, apparently, been leaning against the doorframe to her bedroom, drifting off to thoughts of Independence Day. She really needed to get to bed and she had a horrid feeling in her stomach that it was going to be work asking her to come back in. Perhaps she should have held 'direct phoneline to the TARDIS' back for later on her in career.

She pulled her phone out and almost dropped it in surprise at the name. It woke her up and she turned to her mirror, checking her hair and makeup to make sure that she didn't look too sleep deprived. Then, when she realised just how ridiculous that was, she answered the phone.

"D-Danni!" she greeted happily, her heart racing slightly. "Hello!"

"Hey. Is everything alright?" Danni asked, sounding rather concerned.

"Of-Of course it is," Clara replied, walking over to her bed to sit down on it like she was cool and collected. She slipped off the very edge but caught herself before she fell to the floor. "Why? Shouldn't I be?"

"No, you just took longer to answer than usual," Danni reasoned. "I was concerned something was happening."

"Oh, I'm just heading to bed, that's all," Clara explained while also wondering just how long she had been checking herself over in the mirror. "Is everything alright your end?"

"Yes, why wouldn't it be?" Danni replied shortly.

"Because you're calling me. And you said it in that voice," Clara replied knowingly. "What's wrong?"

Danni sighed, like she had thought Clara wouldn't have seen through her clever rouse. "We ran into Ashildr again," she explained. "She saw me with Missy and I know she told the Doctor about it, but he's not asked me about it."

"Oh," Clara replied a little redundantly. "Is-Is it bad, what happened?"

"It was Missy, what do you think?" Danni retorted and Clara grimaced slightly.

"Yeah, sorry, stupid question," she agreed. "Is it bad, then, that he's not asking?"

"I-I don't know," Danni admitted. "I want to ask, but at the same time I don't. I was just… Is this normal behaviour, you know, for him not to ask?"

Clara frowned. "You're asking me about your husband?" she asked slowly. "You know he doesn't like me, don't you?"

"Maybe not, but you know him very well. I've missed loads of time. I'm just… I'm not sure, anymore, you know? And you're the only person I can ask for help from."

"I'm just going to tell you to ask him, you know that right?" Clara replied.

"I know," Danni replied. "I was just hoping that I wouldn't have to do that."

"Why? It's what you actually want to do."

"So?" Danni countered before hesitating slightly. "I-Well, I want to, but I also don't. And I was hoping that my best friend, the woman who walked out on this wonderfully beautiful personification of time travel…"

"Yes, yes, I get it," Clara interrupted. "You love me, I left you, it's a tragegy. This is the last time you get to pull that card."

Danni sighed. "Fine," she conceded. "But you've got to admit, I'm a pretty pefect beautiful personification of the time travel experience."

"Sure," Clara replied, glad Danni wasn't there to see the way her cheeks darkened just slightly. "He's probably not talking to you about it because he's scared of upsetting you. You know what he's like; even now he thinks you're made of glass. If you want to know what he knows and what he thinks, you're going to have to do it yourself."

"You're right. I know you're right," Danni replied. "I'll get onto that. How about you?"

Clara frowned. "What-What about me?"

"How's your life going? How's work? School keeping you busy?"

Clara's eyes widened. She hadn't told them she'd quit, or that she'd gotten a new job and she still wasn't ready for them to know she was starting to work with UNIT. Danni had worked for UNIT, and she'd enjoyed it, but for some reason that felt different to actively seeking them out to work for them. The Doctor and Danni had a strange relationship with UNIT, and they had a strange relationship with her, so keeping them separate seemed a good thing at that moment.

Of course, that was what got her in trouble with Danny Pink.

"Oh, yeah, very busy. Exams and stuff, you know?" she dismissed.

"That's what you get for working with children. It's your own fault. Missing us?"

"Nah," she replied. "Why would I miss you two? You can't leave me alone."

"You're the boss, we still need to check in on occasion," Danni said cheekily. "Need to know we're doing a good job. I gotta go, sweetie. I'll call you next week."

Clara stared at her phone for a while after Danni had hung up. Sometimes it was like she had never left, and sometimes it was so obvious Danni had changed that it hit her in the face. Danni loved children and she'd loved working at the school. And she would talk on the phone for hours if given half the chance.

She seemed more confident with her place on the TARDIS now, though, which was good.

Clara had a lot more thinking to do with Danni, but for now she had a date with her bed, a long night sleep and perhaps a visit from Will Smith.

~0~0~0~

"For all our apprehensions, we have no choice but to press ahead. We must do so, first, in the name of compassion. By turning out backs on technological change, we would be expressing our satisfaction with current world levels of hunger, disease, and privation."

The Doctor paused in his soft strumming, looking rather annoyed by the passage she was reading out. "And this is in an engineering book?" She nodded. "But that's not about engineering."

"Yes it is," she replied. "He's just being very poetic about it, that's all." She shifted on her chair. She'd taken perch on his favourite chair in the console room and now it was her favourite as well. If the Doctor minded he didn't say. "Plus, you know what the Americans are like. It was for the Bicentennial, it was bound to be a bit over the top."

"A little over the top," the Doctor replied. "If you're interested in engineering I'll take you to San Francisco to the construction of the Golden Gate bridge."

"You've already done that. Remember, with Donna? You thought it would be funny because she wasn't a fan of heights and then we ended up chasing that blue dogite down the bay?"

The Doctor did remember, and he remembered it being his awful attempt at getting some time with Danni in somewhere slightly remotely romantic to test out whether he was really starting to fall for her. He had been, but it wasn't exactly what he'd call a proper date.

Still, he wasn't happy that she didn't remember it like that, so he went back to playing the guitar, this time getting into a rather rock-heavy version of Amazing Grace. It was an easy song that packed a bit of a punch, if he said so himself. Well, he didn't say it, he just played it.

Danni looked over the top of her book, smiling in amusement to herself. She knew the Doctor in a sulk, and that was a Doctor in a sulk. He obviously wasn't too happy that she'd shot down his idea. Next time she'd play along regardless.

Speaking of playing along…

She stood up, heading down the stairs and back up the ones he was sat on. She reached out, stilling his hands on the strings. He frowned, tilting his head to one side. She was smiling and she was obviously enjoying herself, so her stopping him from playing any further made very little sense.

"Is everything alright?" he asked. She nodded.

"Never better," she promised. "I have a request."

His eyes lit up with amusement. "Oh?"

She nodded. "Do you know anything by the Killers?"

He should have known. No matter what the body she seemed to have a love of that particular 21st century band. Luckily for him her love for musicals involving green ogres seemed to have waned slightly, but he was happy to know that some things persisted.

When he'd first picked the guitar back up and realised just how much he actually enjoyed playing he hadn't known anything by the Killers. As Danni's absence grew longer, however, he ended up teaching some of their songs to himself. It had felt like if he'd known something he knew she loved, he'd find her even quicker. It hadn't worked – obviously, why would that have worked? – but he was glad that the effort hadn't gone completely to waste.

Danni grinned as he gently moved her hands out of the way, starting to play a song that he knew that she would love. The recognition was instantaneous and she leant up to place a kiss on his cheek before heading back to her book.

It started with a low light

Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed

"And then they took my blood type. They left a strange impression in my head," Danni sang softly to herself as she continued to read. She really enjoyed listening to the Doctor play, even more than she'd enjoyed music so far in this regeneration. It wasn't something she sought out anymore. For a long time, it used to annoy her because it would drown out anything that she needed to pay attention to. Now that she wasn't so concerned with being aware of things she needed to run from, she was enjoying it a lot more.

Plus, as she looked up over the top of her book, he really knew how to take on that 'musician and genius' persona. It really suited him. She loved it.

She frowned as she heard some faint beeping through his guitar. He didn't seem to even notice from his perch on the other side of the stairs from her, but she heard it almost immediately. It seemed that she still was listening out for anything even slightly out of the ordinary. She paused her reading, placing her book flat on the side table so she didn't lose her page, and headed down towards the console.

The Doctor didn't move from his spot, nor did he stop playing, but he watched her with furrowed brows as she reached for the monitor and pulled it towards her.

[Incoming Message…] Osgood

NIGHTMATE SCENARIO

"Doctor!" Danni called up, voice low and he immediately stopped playing. He placed his guitar down and hopped down the stairs to her. "It's happening again."

He watched the message flash on the screen, telling him everything he needed to know in two little words. "We can't leave them alone for five minutes, can we?" he said to his wife.

"Yeah, well, they're only human and Zygon. They can't be expected to play nice all of the time," she replied, looking up at him. "Off to find Kate, then?"

He shook his head. "We need to find out how bad it's going," he countered.

"So, ground work first?" Danni asked and he nodded. "How about Fred and Holly at the bank? They will probably have a good idea what's happening?"

"Nah, Fred's dull," the Doctor dismissed. He was already piloting the TARDIS, a destination firmly in mind. "Jemima and Claudette will know more. They were promoted a while ago, they're now the Zygon High Command in their school."

Danni shifted slightly on the spot. "Really, a school?" she asked. "Do we have to?"

"We're not going to the school," the Doctor promised, although he wasn't sure why she didn't want to go in the first place. "They'll have the intelligence we need. Then we'll go to Kate."

That made Danni smile slightly. "I haven't seen Kate or the Osgoods in forever," she said happily. "It'll be nice to catch up with them. You know, once the impending doom is taken care of."

"Ah."

Danni looked at her husband, who had paused in his movements. "Ah?" she repeated. "What's 'ah'?"

"I never told you about Osgood, did I?" he asked. He felt a little guilty, but he also really didn't want to bring it up with her now. He didn't want to upset her just before they went to save the Earth again – something was bound to upset her there anyway so he really hadn't wanted to pre-emptively hurt her.

"What about them?" Danni asked, her eyes narrowing slightly. "What haven't you told me?"

He turned, leaning against the console. He knew a lot about his wife and was learning a lot more about her current personality. He knew how she was going to take the news which he had forgotten to break to her at a better moment. She was just as attached to their friends as he was, and she held almost as much guilt as he did when it came to them.

"It wasn't your fault," he stated. "Remember that, alright?"

Danni pressed her lips together for a moment, hiding the sharp intake of breath that came just before the anger. There was only one reason he was saying that.

"It was Missy, wasn't it?" Danni asked in reply.

He nodded. "We had her captured for a short while. One of the Osgoods was with her, trying to work out what she was doing with the Cybermen. She killed her."

Danni let out one short, angry laugh. "And Missy was messing with the Cybermen to get hold of me," she finished. "Great. Osgood must hate me."

"I'm sure, much like the rest of the universe, Osgood hates Missy," the Doctor replied, which Danni couldn't necessarily deny.

Danni sighed. "It's always going to come back to her, isn't it?" she said softly. "It's always going to be Missy, no matter what. I'm never going to escape her."

"You already did," the Doctor pointed out. "And it will take time but you will stop seeing her in everything." Danni couldn't look him in the eyes because she didn't believe him, not really. He reached out and cupped her face, lifting it up so she was looking at him properly. He gave her the softest smile he could. "You will," he promised again. "You escaped from her and I will keep her from you. The aftermath may be longer than we both like, but that's just what it is; an aftermath. She's gone."

Danni wanted to protest. Missy had escaped which meant, eventually, she would track them down and try and take her again. Danni was Missy's pet, after all, her property. She wasn't going to allow the Doctor to keep Danni whilst she was still alive to take possession again.

She didn't say anything, though. She just shot the Doctor a half-arsed smile and he leant forward to place a kiss on her forehead. It made her feel slightly better, as did the little nudge of his mind on hers to remind her that he was very much her Theta, and not some mind trick or dream. She pressed up, catching his lips before he could get too far away, the soft kiss helping solidify his presence with her even more.

She could tell it helped him too, because he looked distinctly happier when they broke apart. "Now, then, shall we go see if these children can play nicely?" he asked her.

She let out another sigh, although this time she sounded much more like an exasperated parent. "Honestly, we can't leave them alone for five minutes," she said.

~0~0~0~

Hi everybody!

I just wanted to thank everyone who joined in for Danni's 5th Anniversary! Check out Tumblr for more. And there's a story in the Outtakes you may all want to take a look at if you haven't already. The Story of Danielle Fielding is live :D

Reviews :)

Midnight Alley - Thanks sweetie!

BlueFlame27 - Hehe yeah, I thought people would like that part :P I'm glad you picked up on that, I thought it added a little something.

Authora97 - Yeah... Face the Raven is going to be fun :D

bored411 - Thanks sweetie! I thought it would be confusing, considering that he was always so against it XD