Chapter 2: Tea and food cubes
The food machine is used! For the first time since 1964! Which I don't own, on top of Doctor Who and it's characters. The story is set between NiS and tNotD because I didn't even know how the time stream would have affected Clara, let alone determine how the swap how have changed that. The Maitlands appear in the next chapter, thank you so much to everyone who fav and followed this story. Have a penguin - (").Updates will be about a week apart from now, but probably less. Anywho (geddit? who?), on with the tale of woe...
Luckily, the TARDIS was only a few feet away and Clara could easily carry the doctor back. However, the strain caused her to drop to the floor in the console room and curl up in horror.
When the Doctor awoke, he saw his own tall, lithe body lying opposite him, whimpering slightly. He stood up and pulled a lever on the console, then tapped some buttons on the keyboard. The room around them dissolved into the TARDIS kitchen, eerily similar to the chamber from earlier, pristine and high tech.
He staggered over to the kettle and flicked the switch, not bothering fulling it with water - the TARDIS took care of that.
Next, he walked over to the food machine and pushed the main button. Did that thing still work? It must have been 500 years since he used it last. Luckily, it gurgled and bubbled before a pair of white cubes the size of mars bars dropped out of the bottom.
He scooped up Clara and hauled her onto the chair, sitting down himself next. Nibbling on the edge of the food cube, he was delighted to find that it was jammie dodger flavoured.
When Clara came around, the Doctor had finished his food cube and was half way through his tea.
"Years? Not weeks, or months, or minutes, or seconds?" Clara asked in a mad panic. The doctor nodded grimly. "I'll be 72 when I'm me again," she finished with a look of sorrow.
"Clara, I'm sorry. The machine was set to years; I thought I had changed it, but apparently, I hadn't" the doctor replied sadly and apologetically. "What about Artie and Angie? Or Mr Maitland? Or my friends? Doctor, this is my life!" Clara ranted in a state of misery. When the Doctor tried to speak up to console her, his companion burst out
"48 years. That's a lifetime to me, but it's only a moment to you, a blink of an eye. How is that fair?"
"Well, I could rig up a time destructor and age us both 48 years, but we can't be rejuvenated from there. It's up to you, Clara,"the Doctor whispered, still in terror of her booming voice.
"I'd rather age normally for 48 years. But I'm going to see Artie and Angie and tell them first," she finished, brandishing her finger as she walked out of the room. Her tea was untouched and stone cold.