2
I don't have time for this, thought Agent Oswald crossly as she marched down yet another gray hallway.
She was the top graduate of the very prestigious Lunar Academy, Class of 2551. She was the head of an Intergalactic Justice Services Squad, projected to be promoted to the position of youngest chair of the Responses Department ever within the year. She had five dozen officers answering directly to her, all of whom she'd handpicked as the most talented and most likely to be on similarly-meteoric career rises.
In short, she did not have to be doing this. This was entry-level stuff. Any new recruit could handle this. Breaking into a private base suspected to be owned by an Enemy Of State, a distinction which ranged from planetary-level terrorists to consummate thieves, sounded like a rather challenging job to outsiders. To Agent Oswald, it was child's play. The only reason she had been assigned to infiltrate this one was because its owner, a rather wealthy and mysterious man not officially classified as an Enemy of State until five minutes before she'd left, was because it was suspected that he had taken several prisoners from the nearby colony for his own purposes. What those purposes might be, no one could guess.
However, after the man who'd shown up in her office two days before had begged her superior to send operatives to Zetakid [1], she had found herself being assigned. How it had happened, she had no idea. While it was true that she was hardly busy, it had simply never occurred to her that the days of rather boring, simple missions weren't yet behind her.
Had she not seen how frantic the man truly was, even from across the hall where she'd been standing, she would've complained louder. She was efficient and high-ranking, but she was most certainly not heartless [2].
Perhaps it also had something to do with the notion that this man could be the mysterious Doctor she knew she had to save. It had been a feeling that had been with her since childhood, always present at the back of her mind.
"Please, general! Please send in a team! I've already tried rescuing him from Zetakid myself several times. If you understood who and what I truly am, you would understand why my failure is so significant, and how very desperate I am indeed."
The man's words returned to her, running through her head as though on infinite loop. The words hardly matched with his demeanor: his clothes were shabby, hair unkempt, stature short, and overall countenance rather like that of a hobo. However, there was something bubbling just beneath the surface, something old and wise and incredibly powerful [3].
Perhaps that was why they were including him in the plan after all. Usually, civilians were kept out of IJS business. Even so, she was the clear leader of this mission. She would be the first to infiltrate the base, and her team would follow within the hour. The strange man would be entering with them, desperate as he was to help out.
She turned to the right, opening the next door with her Laser-MI-188. The pin, most of her colleagues called it, named for its rather specific job of opening locks. Pushing it open, she found the first of the prison cells she'd been sent to liberate.
What was more, there was a prisoner to liberate in it.
He was lying in the corner, legs shackled to the wall, but otherwise unrestrained. He didn't appear to hurt, but was resting in a rather protective position nonetheless. He was young, possibly even younger than she was, with dark brown hair and a rather pleasant face. He was wearing rather...strange clothing, not like anything she'd seen outside of her Earth History classes. She'd seen stranger, though, and was hardly here to gawk at fashions.
"Err, hello?" she asked. Instantly, his eyes were opened, and Clara could see they were hazel. He reached down and drew a knife, pointing it straight at her.
"Are ye here tae torture me?" he growled, Earth Scottish accent making itself plain. "Ye'll find I'm nae going tae go down so easily."
"Oh, no!" she replied quickly. "I'm here to rescue you! Your friend came for help."
"The Doctor?" the man asked, still holding her at knifepoint.
"Might've been. I didn't hear any names." Nonetheless, Clara's breath hitched at the name. Save the Doctor had echoed through her mind since she was young.
"Short fellow, blue eyes, odd clothes?" he offered, slowly lowering his knife but keeping his eyes trained on her and the Pin she was holding.
Odd clothes? You're one to talk.
"That's the one," she agreed, kneeling beside him as she used the Pin to unlock his chains. "He said he'd been trying to rescue you on his own, but hadn't been able to."
"That daft fool!"
Clara didn't flinch at the man's exclamation. She was far too used to truly flinch-worthy things to bat an eye at this.
"He needs tae worry about himself more instead o' me!" he continued his tirade. "The whole point of capturing me was to eventually capture him!"
"What?" she stopped and looked up, last chain slipping out of her hand. Suddenly, this mission was more interesting than she'd originally thought.
"Aye. Somehow, this 'G.I.' Corporations figured out that he'd give his life fer me. He'll be walking into a trap-they told me themselves."
Clara stared at him.
Save the Doctor save the Doctor save the Doctor save the Doctor save the Doctor save the Doctor…
Everything was suddenly falling into place. For the first time all day, she didn't feel even remotely frustrated. All of her progress, all of her prestige, even the bright future she had ahead of her didn't matter. Something had changed. She'd just been given the mission she'd been charged with since birth.
"We need to warn him," she declared. "The team is scheduled to get here in-" she checked her watch, swearing when she realized the team was due in ten minutes.
"Soon?" supplied the young man.
"Yeah. We don't have much time."
"Let's go," he declared, pulling himself up and reaching a hand down to help her to her feet. At the touch of his palm, tightly holding her own as they sprinted out of the cell, she felt a sudden sense of deja vu, as if she'd run with him before, lightyears away in another life...
She brushed the thought out of her head, eager to regain her focus. Her past meant nothing. All it had been meant to do was to prepare her for this single shining moment. Her future was even less certain. She'd been born to save the Doctor. Her goal of bringing peace to this quadrant of the galaxy paled in comparison to bringing safety to this one individual. He would take up the work of saving people, so long as she could do the same for him.
Where was all this coming from? Did it matter? As she was running hand in hand with the young man, everything was so very clear to her. Everything was right in this moment. She'd spent her life looking for her true purpose, throwing herself into work and studies and hoping that missing piece would eventually come about, and now, here it was. She'd found it. What it meant, or why, didn't matter. All that mattered was that she'd found it.
The two humans were stopped as they rounded the corridor by a large group of prison guards. Apparently, she'd been detected.
"Stop!" one yelled. Another held out a weapon. Clara dropped the hand she'd been holding and drew her own gun and aimed at them all even as she backed down the corrider, new ally in tow.
"Go on," she whispered to the young man beside her, trying to remember which direction had the least guards. Strategies she'd studied ad nauseum returned to her even as she was trying to focus on something else. "Get back to the Doctor."
"But I want to stay an' fight with ye!" he declared, drawing his knife again. "Ye need help!"
"One of us needs to get back and warn him that he's walking into a trap. Besides, you've literally brought a knife to a gunfight. Not helpful." She undid her emergency transmat device from her wrist and handed if to him. "Just press that button."
"Why can't ye-"
"It can't bring two people along even if they hold hands. What does this look like, a science fiction movie?"
"But what aboot ye?"
"Don't you worry about me!" she scolded, cocking her gun and listening to the approach of boots that meant her time was up. "I've trained for this all my life. Just get out of here and send agents after me, okay?"
"Aye, but I don't like this."
"The Doctor. Get to the Doctor immediately."
He nodded and pressed the button, vanishing. Agent Clara Oswin Oswald smiled, then cocked her laser gun and fired again. Soon, the young man could get back to the Doctor and warn him against going to Zetakid. Perhaps the IJS would still dispatch a team to rescue her, but if not, it was okay.
She'd protected the Doctor, and those closest to him. Now, her job was done.
Author's note: Since Jamie kind of ended up saving Clara last time, I figured that it was her turn to save him this time. I liked how this played out better in my head...oh well. Hope you all enjoyed it regardless.
And now, as always, a few notes about the chapter.
[1]: I got the name from Spore. As I am rather bad at making up names, this won't be the last time I steal-ahem, borrow-names from Spore. Whoever was in charge of coming up with planet names was a bloody genius. But I digress.
[2]: If Clara seems a bit OOC here, apologies. As seen in a few episodes, however, I think her personality would vary from incarnation to incarnation, depending on what qualities would prove most useful to the Doctor in his hour of need.
[3]: Some people say that Two showed some of the earliest signs of the Oncoming Storm that the Doctor would become in his later years. I agree, and imagine that while he came off as harmless most of the time, he could convey a sense of who and what he really was when necessary. Being Two, having Jamie in danger definitely counts as a necessary time.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who is not mine. If it were, Frazer Hines would be brought back for an epic adventure with Twelve.
As always, please review. I always appreciate help on my characterization.