To Hell

Adelaide had just stepped back into the console when her phone rang. The Doctor glanced over at her as she answered it. "Hello, Clara."

"Hey!" Clara greeted, an aspect of her voice strange enough that Adelaide frowned.

"What's happened?"

"Oh, nothing. You know, same old, same old."

"Then why have you called?" she came to a stop at the console beside the Doctor. "What do you need?"

"I just...I have something that I need to ask you, in person. Can you come here?"

"Of course, Clara. We'll be there shortly." Adelaide hung up.

The Doctor frowned. "What was that?"

"Something's wrong with Clara."

The console made a noise as it finally caught up with relative Earth news. Danny Pink was dead.

"Has a companion ever lost someone while they've been traveling with you?" Adelaide asked the Doctor.

"She's going to do something she'll regret." He looked at Adelaide. "I have a plan."

|C-S|

When Clara entered the TARDIS, both Time Lords glanced at her, the Doctor stepping to the side to put away a bit of machinery. "Start her up."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Where are we going?"

"Away."

"From?"

"Just away."

Adelaide shrugged. "Not to argue with that concept, but previously when we've asked that you've replied with 'work' or 'kids' or 'dishes' or 'dullness'." As she spoke, Clara moved beneath the console, appearing to just be wandering.

The Doctor nodded. "So what's happened?"

"A volcano!" Clara called back up.

"I'm sorry?"

"I've never seen an active volcano, do you know one?"

The Time Lord made a face. "What's so great about seeing a volcano? It's just a sort of leaky mountain."

Clara returned, continuing on her stroll and dipping her hand into the Doctor's and Adelaide's pockets as she passed them. "I've never seen lava."

"It's rubbish."

"Prove it." Clara went up to the upper level of the console, flicking through a book. "Do you still have those sleep patch things?"

"You can't have one," the Doctor told her.

Clara shrugged. "I'm having trouble sleeping."

"You still can't have one." The Time Lords turned to the console, setting them into flight, and neatly turning their attention away from Clara as she found a box of those exact sleep patches.

"Can I have one?"

"No, you can't have one." Clara walked up between them as the Time Lords paused at the same point in the console. "So, volcano. What's so good about lava?"

In unison, Clara pressed a sleep patch to each of the Time Lords' necks.

|C-S|

They jolted awake in unison again outside the TARDIS, surrounded by lava and smoke. Clara was standing a bit away from them both, close to a ledge. "Clara?" the Doctor asked, still sounding disoriented.

"It's on your necks." She held out her hand. "You told me once what it would take to destroy a TARDIS key. That's what's so good about lava." She gestured with her fisted hand. "All seven. From all of your hiding places." She picked one from the bunch.

"Clara," Adelaide said, one hand out, "I would recommend being extremely careful with that."

But Clara just threw it into the lava, her expression empty in a way that was, somehow, the complete opposite of how Adelaide's would go. Adelaide could separate from emotion to make a logical decision, to address a situation that needed addressing, but the emotion would still eventually be there for her to address. It wasn't often that she did it to hide from something she felt, to suppress something. At least, not intentionally. "Do I have your attention?"

The Time Lords nodded, but it was the Doctor who spoke. "Yes."

"Good."

"No. Not good, Clara."

"Danny Pink."

The Time Lords nodded again. "Yeah?"

"Is dead."

"And?"

Clara frowned. "Seriously?"

"And?" the Doctor repeated.

"And fix it. Change it. Change what happened. Save him. Bring him back." Clara held up another key.

"No."

Clara threw it away. "Five left. Every time you say no to me, I will throw another key down there. Do we understand each other?"

"Well, we understand you. Let's not get carried away."

"Time can be rewritten."

"With precision," the Doctor said, the topic a dangerous one for the Time Lords Victorious, a fact Clara was well aware of. "With great care. And not today. But you know that of course, otherwise, you wouldn't be threatening us."

"Did you just say no?"

"If we change the events that brought you here," Adelaide told her, speaking carefully, speaking despite the fact that she wasn't, as she said often, a 'time scientist', "you will never come here and ask us to change those events. It would create a paradox loop. The timeline would disintegrate. The universe would. Your timeline. Your universe."

"And yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. I did just say no." The Doctor nodded to the fire. "Throw away the key."

Clara narrowed her eyes. "I have seen you change time. I have seen you break any rule you want."

"We know when we can, we know when we can't. Throw the key."

"I know what you're doing." Clara pointed at him. "You're trying to take control."

"I am in control. Throw away the key. Do as you are told."

"No!"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, either do as you're told or stop threatening us. There really isn't a third option here."

Clara shook her head at him. "Do you know what, Doctor? When it comes to taking control, you really are out of your depth." In one motion, she threw all but one key into the lava. "One last chance. And I don't care about the rules, I don't give a damn about paradoxes. Save Danny. Bring him back or I swear you will never step inside your TARDIS again."

"No."

"Do as you are told."

"No." That time, the Time Lords said it in unison.

"Say it again so I know you mean it."

"No!"

Clara had started to shake. "I'm not kidding."

"Neither are we."

"I will do it!"

The Doctor shook his head. "Clara, my Clara, our Clara, I don't think you will."

But Clara did it, dropping the last key. "Oh, I'd say I'm sorry but I'd do it again." The reality of her actions seemed to sink in, Clara falling to her knees and crying. "I'd do it again!" she looked at the Time Lords, who were just watching her. "Well, what are you doing? Why are you just standing there? Do you understand what I have just done?"

"Look in your hand," Adelaide told her.

"There's nothing in my hand."

"Clara, look in your hand."

She waved a hand at the lava. "The keys, they're gone. They're down there. They're gone."

"Clara, look in your hand, now."

"There's nothing in my hand."

"Yes, Clara, there is. Look." Clara finally did as Adelaide said, finding a sleep patch on her palm. "There is no possible universe where that would have worked on us."

The Doctor stepped forward. "They're not sleep patches. They induce a dream state." He pulled the patch from her palm, returning them to the TARDIS. "Makes you very suggestible." He bent, picking up all the TARDIS keys that had just been safely dropped on the floor. "We allowed the whole situation to play out just as you planned. I was curious about how far you would go."

Clara swallowed, standing. "Well, now you know."

"Yeah. Now we know."

"I love him."

The Doctor scanned her, mumbling the results to himself. "Yes, you're quite the mess of chemicals, aren't you?" they stepped back to the console, leaving Clara where she stood.

"So, what now? What do we do now? You and me, what happens now?" the Time Lords weren't looking at her, flicking a few switches to pilot the TARDIS. "Doctor? Adelaide?"

"Go to hell." They still didn't look at her as the TARDIS landed.

Clara nodded. "Fair enough. Absolutely fair enough." She turned to the door, ready to leave.

"Clara?" the Doctor called, making her stop. "You asked what we're going to do. I told you. We're going to hell."

"Or," Adelaide added, "wherever it is people go when they die. If there is anywhere."

"Whatever it is, we're going to go there and we're going to find Danny. And if it is in any way possible, we're going to bring him home. Almost every culture in the universe has some concept of an afterlife."

Adelaide nodded. "I had always meant to look around and see if I could find one. Always been curious."

Clara frowned. "You're going to help me?"

The Doctor nodded. "Well, why wouldn't we help you?"

"Because of what I just did. I just..."

"You betrayed us," he said, rather bluntly. "Betrayed our trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything that we've ever stood for. You let me down!"

"Then why are you helping me?"

"Why? Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?" he made a face at her. "Stop it with the eyes. Don't do that with the eyes. How do you do that anyway?" he gestured at her. "It's like they inflate. Cut out the whining while you're at it. We've got work to do." He paused, taking Adelaide's hand for a moment as he stepped forward. "This is it, Clara, one of those moments."

"What moments?"

"The darkest day. The blackest hour. Chin up, shoulders back. Let's see what we're made of." He grinned and turned, joining Adelaide at the console again. "Switching off the safeguards, turning off the nav-com."

"We did this before," Adelaide reminded her. "Plugged you into the TARDIS telepathic interface."

Clara nodded. "We ended up all over Danny's timestream."

She pointed at her. "Because you and he are linked. Aligned. Your timestreams are intertwined, they intersect at certain points. If he's anywhere, the link should hold."

The Doctor turned to the human again. "Give me your hands."

"Doctor..."

"We're in a hurry."

"I don't deserve a friend like you." Clara looked to Adelaide. "Like either of you."

"Clara, I'm terribly sorry, but we're exactly what you deserve." The Doctor put Clara's hands into the telepathic interface, stepping back. "Think about Danny. Think about the man you lost. Let it hurt. Let it burn. But don't bleat. Don't ask – why him? Forget all that. Ask one question. Just one. Ask – where is Danny Pink now? Where is he now?" After a moment of Clara focusing, the time rotor began to move. "Well, the TARDIS thinks he's somewhere."

After a moment, the TARDIS settled to a stop. "Where are we?"

"Nav-com's offline," the Doctor reminded her. "We'll have to do this old school."

"But this is where Danny is?"

"Almost certainly not," Adelaide said. "This is where there's a connection with Danny. This is where it is most likely that your timelines will re-intersect."

He frowned at the human. "And that won't do?"

"What won't?"

"You won't." He gestured at her. "Look at you. We need skeptical, clever, critical. We don't need mopey. It puts years on your face. And what if people see us together? It looks like you've been melted."

Clara frowned. "Are you forgetting why we're here?"

"We're here to get your boyfriend back from the dead, so buck up and give us some attitude." In unison, the Doctor and Clara broke into matching grins.

The group left the TARDIS together. They'd landed between two of the four columns at the base of a staircase, which in turn led to a large urn with an eternal flame. The building was dark, but the Doctor used his sonic as a torch, Adelaide quickly doing the same, and quickly there was enough light that they could see an obelisk with a logo and motto etched on it in gold. They could hear water nearby.

"Fish tanks?" Clara asked.

"In a mausoleum?"

They went up the stairs, the plinth beneath the urn displaying the same logo and motto. "What does that mean?"

"It means those aren't fish tanks."

They went up another set of stairs, coming out into a hallway lined on the right with floor to ceiling tanks. Inside each one was a skeleton sitting on a chair. "Why?" Clara paused in front of one, looking it up and down.

"I don't know."

"Okay, I'm assuming they didn't actually drown in there."

Adelaide paused in front of another. "They were placed there after death. These are their tombs."

"Water tombs," the Doctor nodded, and Adelaide shrugged.

"Some type of fluid, most likely not pure water."

Clara glanced at them. "With chairs?"

"With chairs, yes. Extra comfort for the deceased. It pays to die rich." They continued on down the line, Clara following a moment later.

"Oh, God," she gasped, eyes widening. "Am I going to find Danny now? Is that why the TARDIS brought us here? I don't want to see him like that."

"Good point." The Doctor frowned. "Tombs with windows. Who wants to watch their loved ones rot? Why would anyone go to so much trouble just to keep watch on the dead?"

They kept walking, soon coming upon a lectern with an open empty book on top. The Doctor held his hand out above the pages, making a holographic cube rise up, and he pushed it to the open corridor beyond, turning it into a screen.

The logo flashed, and then text started to scroll, a woman's voice reading it as it went to the accompaniment of some classical music. "3W. Death is not an end. But we can help with that. Ever since 3W encountered the truth about the death experience, we have been working hard to find a better life for the deceased. At 3W, afterlife means aftercare."

"Okay." Clara frowned. "Bit strange?"

"Is it difficult?" Adelaide called.

Clara glanced at her. "Is what difficult?"

"Reading the words back to front." The Time Lady's gaze was fixed on something in the darkness behind the hologram. "Would you mind coming out?"

A woman walked through the hologram, dressed in some sort of Victorian gown and hat. "Hello." She smiled. "I hope you're well. How may I assist you with your death?"

"Well, there is...er...no immediate hurry." The Doctor, subtly, took a step back. "We're just...er...we're just..."

"Browsing," Clara provided.

He pointed at her. "Yeah, yeah, browsing."

"Please, take all the time you need. At 3W, you always have the rest of your life."

"Oh, good," the Doctor nodded. "That's good to know, Clara, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Great."

"Exactly what is 3W?"

"Apologies. Clearly you have not received the official 3W greetings package."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, you know, it's just an unexpected..."

But before he could get another word out, the woman had lunged forward, pushed the Doctor back against the wall, and started to kiss him. All the Doctor could do in his shock was grab at the wall, trying to find some sort of traction.

Adelaide just blinked, feeling slightly frozen in place.

The woman stopped, placing three kisses on the tip of the Doctor's nose before she stepped back with a breath. "Welcome to the 3W Institute."

The Doctor was staring at a spot in front of him quite like he couldn't see it. "Adelaide, is it over now?" he asked, sounding like he couldn't take in oxygen at the moment.

"Yes, Doctor." She stepped to the side, taking the Doctor's hand and pulling him off the wall.

The woman, meanwhile, turned to her. "You also have not received the official welcome package."

But Adelaide held up her free hand. "No thank you. We've all been welcomed enough."

The Doctor frowned at her. "Who are you?"

"I am Missy."

"Missy?" Clara asked, moving slightly in front of Adelaide in case the woman decided she wanted to try kissing anyone again.

"Mobile Intelligent Systems Interface. I am a multi-function, interactive welcome-droid. Helping you to help me to help you."

"You're very...er...realistic." The Doctor coughed as he finished the statement.

"I am fully programmed with social interaction norms appropriate to a range of visitors. Please indicate if you'd like me to adjust my intimacy setting."

"Yes, do that, please."

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "We need to speak to whoever's in charge here."

"I am in charge."

"Well, who's in charge of you?"

"I'm in charge of me."

"Well, who repairs you? Who...who maintains you?"

"I am programmed for self-repair. I am maintained by my heart." Missy took Adelaide's hand, as she was the closest, and placed it on her chest, making the Time Lady's eyes go wide. "Is everything in order?"

"Who maintains your heart?"

"My heart is maintained by the Doctor."

The Doctor frowned. "Doctor who?"

A/N: Why, look who it is ;)