"Stay-stay the night?" Danni stuttered out. She looked to Amy and Rory, who looked just as surprised at the suggestion as she felt. The Doctor never wanted anyone on the TARDIS longer than was necessary. His whole plan had been to take the Ponds back as soon as possible. "I-I don't know if they…"

"Can we?" Tony asked excitedly, cutting in before she could point at that Amy and Rory probably also just wanted to go home. Tony turned to his parents. "Can we? I'll be good and I won't pester about going anywhere and it can be another birthday present. Please."

The Doctor clapped his hands together. "There. It's all settled." He nudged Danni forward with a hand on the small of her back. "Why not go see if the TARDIS can't whip him up a bedroom? I'm sure he'll want to see what she can create for him."

Tony was practically dancing on the spot, clinging onto the small beetle Danni had given him tightly with one hand as he reached out and grabbed Danni's other. She didn't have much of a choice but follow as he dragged her into the hallway. "Do you think she'll give me bunkbeds?" he asked as they disappeared from view. "And a television? I know someone who has two televisions, I want one too!"

The Doctor watched them leave with a smile on his face. "That'll keep him busy for a while," he commented.

Rory sighed. "I guess we're staying, then," he replied. The Doctor nodded.

"You're staying until you fix your mess," he said. His voice was light, but there was a definite edge to it.

"I thought that was what this was about," Rory muttered. Amy seemed confused.

"What mess?" she asked, looking between the two.

"You telling Danni she wasn't family," her husband reminded her. "Remember?"

"I told you; I didn't mean it like that!" Amy snapped. She turned to the Doctor. "She knows she's family. This is ridiculous!"

The Doctor's smile faded away. "Do you know how hard it was for Danni to come to you?" he replied. "She fought to get back to us. She died trying to get back to us. If you do not want her to be part of your family that is your right, but how dare you throw it in her face in an argument."

Amy was, understandably she felt, absolutely outraged. No one was listening to her and she hated being ignored. She had, over her life, lost too much of her family to count. Her mother and father were erased, her daughter stolen, and then she had to say goodbye to everyone she held dear to be with her husband. Her family meant everything to her, it always had.

"Don't you dare suggest that I think of her as anything less than family," Amy raged. "You think you can gang up on me to make me apologise for something that didn't happen?"

"We're not ganging up on you," Rory replied, patient as always. "I just don't think you understand what you said might have actually hurt her."

"You two may be unable to comprehend this, but if Danni had a problem with what I said she would have said something," Amy snapped.

"No, she won't," the Doctor replied.

"Yes, she will!" Amy insisted. "We're family, yes, but we're also friends. If Danni felt like she needed to talk to me then she would. If something was wrong then she would have said. She didn't say, so nothing is wrong. You are being your stupid, overprotective self again."

He didn't know what to do. A large part of him was seething in rage. He knew that, in the past, he had been rather overprotective of Danni. But this wasn't him being overprotective, this was him standing up for his wife who was too wounded to stand up for herself.

"She wouldn't tell you a thing," he said. "You may think you are close, but she is frightened and she doesn't always fight back anymore. You might not be able to fit this into your wonderful, rose-tinted view of us, but she is scared and you've just added to it."

Amy straightened, looking him dead in the eyes. "She isn't scared of me."

"She's scared of everyone," the Doctor exclaimed. "You don't- You don't have any idea, do you? She opened up to the Roman, do you know why she didn't tell you? Because she's scared." He pointed to the hallway. "Danielle is incredibly strong, but she is only one person. There is only so many knockbacks she can take. Hearing her oldest friend, her own grandmother, tell her she isn't welcome isn't something she can take and not fall down from it. You may not be able to see it, Amelia, but I can. Her recklessness, her dismissive attitude, is just her hiding away."

"That's not her," she replied. "We're her family. She doesn't hide away from us."

"Yes, she does!" he exclaimed. "We change and she has changed. Just like I did before we met and I did again after you chose to leave. That is part of who we are, and if you cannot handle that, then you need to let her down gently. You may not be able to see the hurt you have caused but I see everything." He stood over her, eyes blazing. "Not all change is bad. Danielle is still my wife, she is still Melody's daughter. If you cannot see that, then that is your problem, not hers. You are not leaving until you fix this."

Amy scoffed slightly. "You won't keep us here forever."

"There is nothing I won't do for Danielle," he warned her darkly. "Do not challenge me, Amy."

There had only been a couple of times in her life where the Doctor had genuinely scared Amy. The times where the anger wanted to make her step away. Where he couldn't hold it back and she knew she had just become someone in his way.

This was not one of those times.

She stepped closer, poking him in the chest. "Don't you talk to me like that," she exclaimed. "I'm not just some alien threat you can threaten into doing what you want! She is my granddaughter. I don't care that she's regenerated. I care that she'd not being herself and if you see everything, like you claim, then you should be able to see that too!" She growled in frustration. "So, Mr Raggedy Man, don't you dare put words in my mouth! She is part of my family."

She didn't even look at her husband. "I'm going to find Tony!" she called as she stormed out. "When you want to apologise, come find me!"

~0~0~0~

Danni didn't step into the console room. She peeked around the corner, checking to see if the coast was clear.

Amy had, rather forcefully, stormed into Tony's bedroom and declared that her husband was being an arse. Tony had rolled his eyes at her behaviour – proving that he was very much used to Amy's outbursts – and told her off for swearing. Danni took it as her cue to leave, otherwise she would have started laughing and something told her Amy wouldn't have appreciated it.

She also had a rather large inkling to why Amy had been so unhappy to begin with. The Doctor had, already, scolded her grandmother over her words. Danni didn't see the point but she knew what he was like. When she was showing Tony his room, she was sure he was arguing with Amy over her.

She didn't want to be the subject of any argument. She just wanted to be left alone. And, apparently, Amy's words might have suggested that was coming sooner rather than later. It was probably for the best. Who needed family when you had a magical blue box and an impossible husband?

She was avoiding him too. He was going to be all supportive and try to make her feel better. She didn't want that. She didn't feel bad. She just wanted to be on her own.

When she realised that the console room was empty, as was evident by the dimmed light, she stepped inside. She walked slowly to the middle of the room, dragging her fingers across the console to feel the metal underneath her fingers. Even now, even though she felt like she was past the point of feeling like she was in a simulation, she still liked to feel things with her own hands. She just wanted to make sure the things around her were solid and real.

Then she walked over to the TARDIS doors, opening them up to look at the space outside. When she had been young – really young – sitting in the doorway and looking out in the cosmos was her favourite thing to do. Looking out into the universe and seeing how small she was used to be strangely comforting.

That wasn't really the case, now, but she still sat down and dangled her legs out. Now it was more of a place to look out and not think of anything at all. Being held in captivity for so long made everything incredibly beautiful to look at. She'd almost forgotten what true space looked like. It was surprisingly colourful considering it there was large expanses of black. She had no idea where they were floating, or when, but she spent some time plotting out paths of exploration, deciding that she'd visited a few planets in the distance with no knowledge at all about them.

Her mind was very much not on the words Amy had snapped out when she was angry. She was thinking of not much at all.

Amy sat down next to her, dangling her legs out just like she was. "You still sit here, then?" she asked.

Danni shook her head. "Not really," she replied. "Wanted to try it on for size again. I probably should try it more."

The silence was incredibly tense and Danni really wished Amy had just left her alone.

"And you're keeping the tiara?"

Danni's hand immediately went to the tiara in her brown hair, adjusting it slightly out of reflex. "It's a different one," she explained.

Amy frowned. "You have more than one tiara?"

"I like tiaras," Danni said, a little defensively. "I've got a little collection now. Ever since that one I wore on my birthday."

"Oh yeah," Amy replied with a fond smile on her face. "That said 'Birthday Girl' on it, didn't it?"

"How else was everyone supposed to know it was my birthday?" she countered. "I loved my birthday, everyone needed to be informed."

Amy laughed. "We got so drunk that night," she said. "You made us sing so many songs."

"I made us sing?" Danni retorted. "I believe I tried to get off the stage at the end, but you were insistent that we finished." She smiled slightly. "I haven't thought about that night in forever."

She looked out into the cosmos again. It had been so many centuries since she had been to karaoke with Amy. She'd only spent five or so years jumping around the Doctor's timeline, but she still vividly remembered the emotional and physical exhaustion of that time. Never knowing if the Doctor was going to love her or hate her. Trying not to think about jumping into the middle of the space that gave her comfort and suffocating. Wondering what was going to happen when she had reached the end of the Ponds.

"Missy used to make me travel around with her with a vortex manipulator, you know?" she told Amy. "Once I woke up and it wouldn't come off. I started panicking, tearing at my arm, doing lasting damage to myself, and she just laughed and laughed. She only took it off when I'd calmed myself down. She didn't try and help. She loved it."

Amy felt a lump in her throat as the fondness fell from her face and was replaced by actual pain. Pain she'd only ever seen in the Doctor's eyes before. "Even now, even after everything, I genuinely think that could be the worst thing that could ever happen to me, being forced to jump around anyone's timeline. I don't know how I survived and I don't know if I would again."

"Do you-Do you even remember it?" Amy asked. "It's been hundreds and hundreds of years for you, hasn't it?"

"I don't remember everything that happened," Danni explained. "But I remember the feeling. I remember the pain of the manipulator setting off and how it broke my heart to be settled and feeling secure only to know, just for a brief second, that it was about to be ripped to shreds. Jumping from being with the man you love when he loves you to when he wants you dead and back again was…" She swallowed hard. "I think it's why Missy would always mix him up when she played him in my head. To emulate that heartbreak. It had started to make me exhausted back then, when Missy did it, I just couldn't always fight back. She wanted to use it to break me."

Her question had been stupid, Amy knew that. She supposed she was just looking for a unrealistic reassurance that Danni hadn't been affected too deeply by her experiences. Deep down she had known her words had not come out correctly when she'd been shouting at Danni in the pyramid. She wasn't sure why she'd separated Danni from her family but she hadn't meant it. She would never mean that.

"Danni, look, about what I said…"

"You don't have to apologise," Danni interrupted, sensing where she was heading. She'd been expecting this conversation one way or another. "You were not wrong."

"Yes, I was," Amy insisted firmly. "You're part of this family. You always have been."

"I'm not. Because I'm not Danni," she replied. She looked down at her hands. "Or, rather, I'm not the right Danni. I don't- I don't feel like Danni. I feel like some imposter. Walking around in her shoes, taking her name, her place in history. I don't think I've felt like me since I regenerated." She looked up at Amy and smiled softly. "You always were very perceptive, Amelia. I'm not your family because I'm broken. I'm not your Danni."

Amy didn't reply straight away. Instead she stared out into the cosmos, at the expanse of darkness filed with planets and stars. That hadn't been why the words had tumbled out of her mouth. She didn't look to Danni and see someone else. Listening to Danni reminiscing made her sound just like Amy had always known her; as a woman who valued her memories, the good and the bad. The Danni she had seen with the gun and the dismissive concern for Tony wasn't that same woman, but she had also seemed more uncomfortable.

"I don't believe that," she told Danni. "I don't believe you don't feel like yourself. I think you do, and that's what scares you."

Danni frowned. "That doesn't make any sense," she stated.

"I think it does," Amy replied. "Being Danni has hurt you. Missy wanted you because you're Danni. Anything that reminds you of what she wanted hurts you so you push it down behind guns and snarky comments. So when something happens that makes you feel like who you actually are then you run as far away from it as you can."

"Or, maybe, being around her changed me enough that those parts of me are genuinely gone," Danni reasoned. "Maybe I like my gun just because I like it, not for some hidden reason."

Amy shook her head. "No, that's not it," she corrected. "Because you could have just saved yourself, but you saved all the people on that planet. I saw her; she was wearing a tiara and showing everybody she was just as smart, if not smarter, than people give her credit for. She went for her husband's hand rather than the gun, and she was the only one to ask the guard his name. What made me mad wasn't the fact that you're not like I remember you, it's that she's in there, screaming to get out and you're purposefully pushing back. That's why you think you wouldn't survive jumping around the Doctor's timeline again. Because you know you would, because you always survive, and I think that's what making you run headfirst into situations without thinking. You don't want to survive because Danni Fielding always survives."

What was Danni supposed to say to that? She knew Amy was right, deep down, but she didn't want to admit it. To admit that she wasn't acting like herself meant that everything she had done wasn't who she wanted to be.

Amy just seemed rather smug at her silence, though. "Hey, guess what?"

"What?

Amy grinned, nudging her with her shoulder. "Gotcha."

And Danni laughed.

~0~0~0~

"Was he hard on you?" Danni asked Amy. They'd moved slightly. While still in the doorway, they were now sitting back to back. Amy found it a little harder than Danni to fit into the area, but she wasn't that old. She refused to be beaten by a doorway.

"Your husband?" Amy asked and Danni nodded. "Oh, he went all 'Oncoming Storm' on me. Tried to scare me into submission."

"And it didn't work?"

Amy snorted. "He's never scared me," she replied boldly. "He thinks he can but he forgets that I've seen him stroking the TARDIS when he thinks no-one's looking."

"People who know him know that, most of the time, he's not a threat," Danni replied. "It's just that one time when you know he's angry you've got to be afraid. Once you've seen it, you're never scared of him again."

"Usually that happens because of you," Amy retorted pointedly. "Or because you're not there. You never saw him on Mercy. He missed you and that was scary."

"Neither of us do well on our own," Danni replied. "Look what happens." She waved down herself, illustrating her point. "Once we have each other we're fine."

"And your friends," Amy added. "And your family."

They were silent for a moment, looking out at space and the stars. "Do you miss this?" Danni asked her. "The adventure and the sights?"

"All the time," Amy admitted guiltily. "But if I had to make the choice again, I'd still turn away from the Angel. I love my life. I've had a good life, and it's just going to get better."

"Yes, it really is," Danni said softly. She couldn't help but feel like, as she stared out of the TARDIS door with her grandmother, that it was really true. She was free and healing and she had everyone she loved in her life. It really was going to start getting better again.

There was only one thing missing.

~0~0~0~

Clara picked up her handbag as there was another knock on the door. "Coming!" she called out, checking herself over in the mirror. This was quite a normal start to her mornings these days. If she was being driven to work rather than making her own way then the driver would come up to her flat to escort her down.

She wasn't sure how UNIT had access to her apartment building. At this point she'd given up trying to find out.

There was a third knock and she rolled her eyes. She still had plenty of time to get to work before she could even start to be considered late. Clara really didn't like being anything but punctual. It made it seem like she had complete control over her life, and even she thought the driver was being a bit too paranoid.

She opened the door. "I'm here, I don't know what…"

She trailed off as, instead of her driver, she found Danni stood on the other side of the door. "Danni? I…" She suddenly realised she was going to be very late for work. "I didn't expect…"

Danni moved forward, hugging Clara close. Her grip was tight and Clara's worry moved from being late to her friend. She dropped her bag instantly, wrapping her up in a hug in return. She knew that Danni had been "Alright," she said softly. "You're okay, Danni-Girl."

Danni didn't let her go for the longest time because she really didn't want to. Throughout the entire time she'd been with the Ponds – from the moment she'd felt rather overwhelmed by the gang of children right up until she'd dropped them off – all she had wanted to do was go see Clara. She had just missed her terribly and being more open and honest with everyone had brought that right to the surface.

As much as she loved any hug with Danni, Clara was worried so immediately took charge. "Okay, loving the hug," she told her friend. "But let's go inside." She slowly detangled herself from her grasp. "I've got a cabinet and a broken tablet, both with your name on them."

Danni immediately brightened at the prospect of being able to build and fix things. She darted inside, looking for the items in question. Clara didn't tell her that she'd bought both the flat-packed cabinet and the broken tablet off the internet with Danni purely in mind. Instead she picked up her handbag from the floor and pulled her phone out.

Danni's here.

She shot the text off to Kate before hanging her stuff back up and following Danni into the living room. She'd chosen the tablet first and was sat in the middle of the room like the giant child she was, cross-legged, already trying to take the back off it.

"It's a bit early for wine. Do we need tea?" Clara asked her. Danni nodded her head.

"And-And Coke," she said, gritting her teeth as she struggled with the plastic casing. "I like Coke now."

"I know, I've got some in," Clara said. "Do we need tea, though?"

"Probably," Danni replied. "I-I think you might- what the hell?! Is this glued on?!"

Clara headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on, but she paused when the door shut behind her. Her lips turned up into a smile. She hadn't seen the Doctor or Danni since the Zygon almost-invasion and she had missed them both terribly. Work was keeping her busy, but her time alone was just that; alone. She had friends, she had hobbies, she had days where she just watched TV and scrolled through the internet, but she missed wondering what her next adventure would be.

She made the right decision, though. She was becoming too harmful to herself and those around her, those she loved, and she was not going to help by being another source of worry for Danni. Seeing her chuck herself into fixing what was broken, or needed building, around her was just seeing her running away from fixing herself.

Plus, she loved a hug from Danni. Both bodies she had known were wonderful to hug. So warm, and she could feel the shape of her body under her clothes just for a moment…

She cleared her throat as she felt her skin heat up. She didn't need to think about how she wanted to kiss her best friend. She did that enough after a couple glasses of wine. Now she needed to make the tea.

"Clara!" Danni called through, also startling her. "Do you have a spatula? Not the wooden ones, one of the plastic ones?"

Clara frowned. "What do you need a spatula for?"

"I-I want to get- I don't know what you've done to this tablet, Clara! I think the spatula will help."

Clara chuckled to herself. Even when she was worried about Danni, she couldn't help but be slightly amused by her. "Fine!"

She took the spatula and the can of Coca Cola in first. Danni practically ripped it out of her hand and began jamming it into the edges of the tablet to try and get the back off. Clara fetched the tea, sitting down on the sofa and just watched Danni break apart the electronic device she'd bought for that very purpose.

"Where were you going?" Danni asked her suddenly, startling her out of her not-so-innocent thoughts.

"Oh, um, I thought I was supposed to be in work today," Clara lied. "I was rushing around but when you appeared and not the driver, I realised I just hadn't woken up properly."

"Good thing I came, then," she replied. "You get to spend the day staring at me like I have two heads, instead."

Clara didn't want to admit to what she had been thinking, so instead she threw the focus back on her friend. "You hugged me when I opened the door, with no 'hello' or anything," Clara reminded. "You're not- Well, you're not like that anymore, really."

Danni shrugged. "Maybe I am," she said softly. "Maybe I'm—" she trailed off, grunting as the back came off, finally. "Maybe I'm finally acting like myself, now."

"And you weren't before?" Clara countered, sounding a little incredulous. Danni shrugged.

"I don't know," she replied. "I mean, it's hard to believe that I wouldn't want to be myself. I mean, I am beautiful, charming, incredibly smart—"

"Okay, I get it."

"And you should see me dance. And, I've been told, that I'm an incredibly good kisser…"

"Alright!" Clara exclaimed, cutting her off more forcefully this time. She didn't want to think of Danni kissing anyone, especially considering it wasn't going to be her. "So, you're fantastic. I think we all know that."

Danni nodded along. "Exactly," she agreed. "I'm brilliant. Why wouldn't I want to be myself?"

She looked down at the tablet in her hands, trying not to meet Clara's gaze and instead focused on all the little pieces that made the hand-held gadget. It seemed so incredibly basic compared to what she had become used to fixing, but that also was what held her attention. She did briefly wonder if that was what people who fixed up old cars felt like.

Clara could only watch her with furrowed brows, her mind running over what would make her voice go so soft. For a moment she looked almost ashamed, but she pushed it down as quickly as it came up.

"Does this tablet have AR?" she asked, turning the tablet around as if it would reveal some sort of secrets to her. "I'm not seeing the chip for it."

"I have absolutely no idea," Clara replied. "I doubt it, though. I bought it broken so you could fix it for me."

Danni looked at her like this was a revelation. "You can buy them broken?" she asked, amazed. "Why on Earth would anyone buy them working? You're going to have nothing to do with them."

"Except, you know, use them."

"Well, if you want to be boring," Danni muttered to herself. Clara shook her head.

"How long have you been this you?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Danni asked in reply. "Oh! You mean- Since I regenerated?" She looked to Clara for clarification. "Um… About forty years, I think. I don't know, I don't really keep track of time anymore." She pulled a face. "People put so much stock in time. It just gets in the way." She pointed the spatula at Clara. "Spend a large chunk of your life with nothing to do but wait and you'll realise that. Perhaps everyone should be captured for a while." She shook her head. "Nah, that's a terrible idea."

She spoke quickly, rambling the thoughts as they appeared in her brain and Clara let her get them all out. "You're only young, then, relatively," she said as if Danni had given her a simple answer. "In reality you're really old—"

Danni pointed the spatula at her again. "Oi!" she exclaimed. "I'm not the old one!" She turned back to the tablet. "The Doctor's the old one," she grumbled.

"But regeneration takes a while to get used to," Clara continued. "So, I really wouldn't put too much stock into what you're like now. You'll get it."

Danni felt a conversation coming that she really didn't want to have again. Everyone was trying to get her to open up and talk about her feelings, and each time it seemed to work and Danni hated it. It was scary and exhausting and she didn't want to fall into it yet again, especially because she knew Clara would get whatever information she wanted out of her.

"Yeah, totally," she replied with a little noise of dismissal. "The Doctor's much older than me and he still has no idea. It's changes all the time."

She sounded incredibly unconvincing but Clara was kind and didn't point that out. She wasn't sure what had happened but Danni, even now, seemed unable to hide her mood from her. Clara had the feeling that she came to see her when she couldn't talk to the Doctor. It had been trailing off as well, which was both great and horrible. She wanted their marriage to strengthen after the horror of Missy, but she didn't want to lose Danni to that either. It was very confusing.

"You're still doing it," Danni said softly.

"What?"

"Staring at me like I have two heads," she clarified. Clara flushed slightly. She wasn't sure why she was staring so much. It went beyond concern. Maybe she needed to look into dating again. "Why does everyone do that? If they're not staring at me they're—" she pulled some wires out of the back of the tablet, "-they're avoiding me."

Clara frowned. "Who's avoiding you?"

"The Doctor," Danni replied. "But I'm not sure if that's because he shouted at Amy or because Amy convinced him that her worries about me were valid and he doesn't know how to process it."

"What does that mean?" Clara asked bluntly.

"Oh, Amy thinks I'm hiding my real self because Missy wanted Danni, so I don't want to be Danni anymore," she explained with an air of dismissal. "And, along with that fact that I told the Doctor I don't like myself, I suspect he's hiding from me so we don't have to talk about it anymore. Which I appreciate, to be honest. Even this is too much talking about it." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "He didn't really object to me coming here, which is very unusual considering how much he still doesn't like you."

"Thanks for that," Clara grumbled to herself.

"Hey, I don't like it either," she retorted. "You two the best thing in my life, I don't like you fighting." Danni said it so sincerely that Clara felt like all the breath left her body. "I pretend I fought to save myself, and that I was running to Jack and River and Amy with everyone else, but I wasn't. It was just you and the Doctor. I still…" She swallowed hard, realising she was rambling again. "I still can't get over you not being on the TARDIS, and I know it's selfish, but I never saw you… I never saw you not being part of my life." She shrugged. "Let's talk about something else," she declared. "Where's this cabinet of yours? I think I build this tablet into it and turn it into a smart wardrobe."

"A smart…" Clara started, confused before dismissing the question. Whatever it was, she was sure Danni would explain it afterwards. "I'm always going to be part of your life," she said. "Just because I don't travel with you anymore doesn't change that." Danni shrugged again, obviously quite uncomfortable with the conversation. "And you can tell your husband that," she said firmly. "While you still want me, I'm still here."

Danni did smile slightly at that. "Well, who can blame you?" she replied boldly. "Have I told you about how fantastic I am lately?"

"Yes, you have," Clara said. "How about you tell me about how fantastic I am? Look at all the entertainment I buy you!"

"You know what would be entertaining?" Danni asked as Clara stood up to fetch the box with the cabinet inside. "A proper adventure. You know how many I've been on lately where I've had to pour my hearts out? I just want something simple. It's exhausting, I don't understand how you humans can be so emotional all the time."

"Yes, because we're the emotional ones," she said sarcastically. "Are you complaining that you don't' have to run for your life?"

"Says the woman who joined UNIT the moment she could," Danni countered. "Is it so much to ask for a monster trying to kill everyone rather than being thrown in the deep end with feelings?"

"Only you could want to actively be looking for something to kill you."

"I'm not looking for something to kill me," Danni exclaimed. "I'm looking for something to almost kill me. You know, your common-or-garden Dalek or something." She smiled to herself. "You know, we went to this garden before we went to Amy's. It was the second most beautiful garden in the universe. The Doctor wanted to show me all of these flowers, but as he was this plant-thing decided that the Doctor was just too delicious to not keep. It wanted to marry him." She looked positively furious for a moment. "My Doctor, my Theta! Can you imagine?! How bloody dare it!"

"Uh huh," Clara said offhandedly as Danni began to rant and rave about how everything was after her husband. It was a little sickening, and only a little part of Clara wished she was talking that way about her instead of the Doctor.

It seemed like the universe always ignored Clara. It never listened to her when she begged for Danny Pink to come back, and it certainly hadn't listened when she begged for Danni Fielding to be safe and returned either. She'd asked for the Doctor when he had gone missing, and she'd asked for her mother when she had died too. Clara found that, more often than not, the universe never listened to her.

But, it seemed, it did listen to Danni.

Her phone ringing wasn't exactly surprising as she'd been expecting Kate to contact her about her brief text message. But the number wasn't one in her phone nor one she recognised. She picked it up, motioning to Danni to keep quiet.

"Hello?"

"Clara? Finally, it's Rigsy."

That was surprising. She'd almost forgotten the younger man existed. "Oh. Rigsy. Hey. How-How did you get this number?"

"You gave it to me. Said it was for emergencies?"

She had given him the TARDIS phone number, which was immediately worrying. That meant that the TARDIS had re-routed the phone call to her.

"What's wrong?"

"So I have this… er, it kind of looks like a tattoo."

Clara frowned, glancing over at Danni, who seemed as concerned as she had felt a minute ago. "And-And that is an emergency?"

"It's an emergency, trust me. Just… Just come and take a look at it. Please."

"Look, no matter how bad it is, we cannot take you back down your timeline just to fix a tattoo."

"A tattoo?" Danni asked, her nose wrinkling up. "Clara, I know I used to be a pushover, but we're not a taxi service!"

She shushed Danni with a wave of her hand.

"That's just it. I didn't get a tattoo," Rigsy replied. "And it's… It's counting down."

"Sorry, what?"

"The tattoo. It's a number and it's counting down to zero."

Many things came to Clara's mind at that point. Like how she had absolutely no idea what would cause a tattoo to mysteriously appear and what it could be counting down to. However, the main thing was that it sounded suspiciously like something she could show off to Danni.

"Hang tight. We'll be right there." She hung up the phone and turned to Danni. "So," she started leadingly. "Want to see something really weird?"

Danni dropped the tablet immediately, jumping up off the floor. "I'll call the Doctor," she declared. "He can give us a lift."

For the first time in a while, Clara was actually excited. Her two best friends and their space ship were going to be properly in her life, even if it was just for one adventure. She had really, and truly, missed that.

~0~0~0~

So... yeah, apologises. I just... I think you can tell how bad this is, but I was struggling and I just...

Anyway.

Happy Holidays to everyone who is celebrating, and well-wishes to anyone who isn't either. I hope your lives are well.