Health and Safety: Chapter 10 - Once More Unto the Breach
The Doctor pushes open the stable door, and climbs up onto the wagon where the TARDIS has been hidden. Vastra and Strax appear almost silently behind us as he pries the tarp off of his moody blue box. We watch him fumble for a few moments with his key, before the doors of the TARDIS fall open, she can't have appreciated that...
"Get in you two; we'll be right behind you." He says, leaping back down to the ground and almost landing on his pretty face in the process, regaining his balance again only at the last possible second.
They clamour up into the box, dropping down through the doors, leaving us alone in the quiet stable, with the only sounds coming from the sleepy horses, whickering softly at us. No matter what we do tonight it seems to disturb someone's sleep.
"Clara, I'm so sorry about this." The Doctor whispers.
"I'm okay." I tell him quickly.
"No you're not." He scoffs.
"Better than I was…"
"Better than you were isn't saying much."
"You're worried about Jenny aren't you?" I say, trying to change the subject. I don't want to go where this conversation is headed, we can't do this now. Strax or Vastra could come back looking for us any moment; I don't even think the door is closed.
"I'm worried about you Clara." He says, full steam ahead and not distracted in the least.
"I'll be fine, just promise to stay out of my head okay? You'll need to use your hands for something else anyways Doctor, flying the TARDIS I mean of course. We don't want to accidentally home in on some bloke named Estevan do we?" I try to tell him playfully, which doesn't work at all, he is still looking at me with those damn eyes.
"So you can jump into my time stream to protect me, but I can't shield your mind to protect you?"
"Doctor…" I try to interrupt but he doesn't let me.
"Clara, did you not hear me when I asked you to let me save you? I meant it; let me help you, please! I don't understand why you are so bothered by this. I promise that I won't touch your memories, no forgetting; all I want is to keep you from getting lost in them. What else do you want? What else can I do, what else can I promise? Because I can't say I won't help you, I could never say that."
He is being absolutely relentless, fine, if we are talking about his time stream, I still have questions.
"What did you mean Doctor, that 'he was the one who broke the promise,' I know your name is your promise, but how did you he-you break it?"
He closes his eyes and his mouth thins out into a strained expression.
"Doctor, what happened? You won't call him you, you've separated yourself from him so much I never saw him, but he is still you, I know he is, because whatever it was that happened, he didn't give up. That could have been the end of you, but you chose to keep going Doctor. It doesn't matter if the universe doesn't care, because you do, you always do, even when you try not to. What did it mean, what did you have to do 'for the sake of peace and sanity?'"
His eyes remain shut tight, his mouth a tense line as his hands are clench into fists seemingly of their own accord.
"See, I can get scattered across your whole life, and you still have things in your head you don't want me to know about too." That came out as more of a lament than I meant it to…
His face lights up into a curious expression though, taking in what I said. In seconds, he has gone from painfully withdrawn to curious, weighing what I said as his lips twitch almost into a smirk.
"So that's the problem then? You're worried about me tripping across something in your head? What could be so bad you want to hide it from me Clara?"
Well that was a slip…
He steps closer to me, more cautiously than normal, though normally there wouldn't be any caution at all. He stops right in front of me, not actually touching me, just being close, just looking down at me.
"You do trust me, don't you?"
"Always." I whisper, unable to tell him anything but the raw truth while he is looking at me like that. Is this what Emma meant? When she said he had ice in his heart, did she mean that man? The him that is not the Doctor? Or at least the him that he won't call the Doctor, I'm not convinced he isn't yet.
The Doctor sighs as he pulls me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
"What about our guide?" I ask, slightly muffled by the fact that I'm pressed against him. For some reason I had assumed she would be right behind us, on our heels, but it has been a while now and there is still no sign of her.
I can feel him chuckle as he pulls away slightly.
"She is dealing with a motherly Hikaru, a stubborn Daniel who will be trying to prove our theory wrong and a Walt who has a lot more tender feelings for her than his gruff demeanour belays. She'll be delayed, oh, another thirty seconds, give or take." He tells me, looking confident, before holding up his wrist watch so we can see the time pass together.
Once again I'm in awe as the most powerful force in the universe ticks away on suck a small trinket. Though knowing the Doctor, that watch is made of an alloy unique to one mine in the universe or something, so maybe not such a small trinket after all.
The tiny second hand flits away, and twenty-nine ticks later, the door starts to open before a hand slams it shut again. The Doctor chuckles again, quite smugly.
"Walt! Give it up will you?" Ria's frustrated voice sounds from the other side of the door.
"Honey, listen to him." Hikaru cautions.
"For once I agree with my partner Ms. London, what do you even know about these people?" Daniel says slowly, voice dripping with the patronizing tone from earlier.
"I know that even though they are all battered and bruised, they would leave in the middle of the night to save a friend. I know that Doctor Smith is willing to lie through his teeth among other things to keep Clara safe and vice versa. I know that they insisted on helping me even when I tried to shrug them off. And I know I don't want to sit here and be useless until someone finds work for me." Ria replies, and the door moves a little again before snapping shut.
I hear footsteps move away from the doors, taking the four of them out of earshot for a minute or two before the door creaks, only to the halted yet again, though less sharply than the other times.
"Take this, stay in touch, if you need anything go to Estevan Enforcement, and if they don't help they can answer to me. Keep yourself safe." Walt begs.
The door opens just enough for Ria to step inside, which she does with some hesitancy. As soon as she shuts the door behind her, the Doctor's face cracks into a grin before he steps away from me, making a sweeping gesture towards the still sideways TARDIS.
"After you Ms. London." He says grandly.
"It's not right way up, and how will we fit? It's tiny; we'll be jammed together..." She is staring at him like she is trying to figure him out, a look I can very much understand. It is odder when I get the same inspection though.
"Trust me, you'll understand once you're in there." I tell her, before I notice that I'm grinning too.
Now I understand why the Doctor loves this moment so much. We are standing here, in the middle of the twenty fifth century, about to forever change how someone sees the world. The limits of reality as most people know it are about to be shattered for her. There is something that is just so… hopeful about that. Not that whatever limits she placed on the universe are wrong, but that she is about to see that there is so much more than that, so much more than she probably would have dared to believe.
When Ria doesn't move from the spot she is planted in, the Doctor climbs back onto his box again, offering me a hand up so I'm sitting at the edge of the open door with him.
"Geronimo." I give him a wink before I let myself drop through the doors with him right behind me.
The gravity field rights us immediately. Well it rights him immediately. I end up in a heap on the ground; it would appear that an afternoon in a hot stable hasn't made the TARDIS any less of a cow then.
Almost as soon as we are clear of the doorway, Ria drops down behind us, landing on her feet just like the Doctor. Her eyes spring wide with both confusion and wonder as her mouth hangs open uselessly.
The Doctor grins like a madman and laughs, spinning around which makes his coat tails fly out behind him, forgetting his distress about bringing me in here for the minute.
"All right everyone, time for a plan then. Vastra and Victoria, oh, that has a good ring to it, not too often you get two 'V' words in one sentence. Anyways, you two, wardrobe is three rights a left and a straightaway down that corridor. Twenty fifth century casual city apparel should be on the third floor. Find something nice with a hood; bring stuff back for Clara and Jenny as well for when we find her. Don't want to offend the locals or stick out too much and I've always loved a hood, only handy bit about being a monk I found, now off you pop."
Ria is looking around still, seeming to not have heard a word he said. One of her hands has curled around the railing, like she is afraid of what will happen if she lets go.
"But it's… how is it..? The outside is wood and the inside is metal. In here is almost cold but this box has been baking in the heat for hours. We should be on our sides but we're right ways up-"
"Question everything later, short hops are difficult." I tell her as the Doctor begins flipping switches.
"Come dear." Vastra calls to her; Ria looks at me instead, eyes begging for answers or at least reassurance.
"It's okay, I think she likes you." I tell her, easing her hand off of the rail and giving it a bit of a squeeze.
"Vastra likes me?"
"No, the TARDIS, that's what the ship is called. You landed on your feet and of all the Victoria London's she could have picked, she chose you, so I think you're in her good books."
She leans into me slightly, still looking rather shocked. After a moment she takes a deep breath, straightens herself up and follows the lizard lady down the corridor, her footsteps echoing off of the metal floor.
"Sir, requesting permission to join the camouflage preparations in order to be better equipped for potential combat in enemy territory?"
"Go for it Straxy!"
The Doctor's hands glide over the controls, turning switches I have never seen him use before, and setting one dial very carefully, lowering his ear to it like someone trying to crack the combination of a safe. He lets out a sigh of relief when he hears whatever it is he was listening for.
"Now, off to the big city, I have the TARDIS searching for Jenny, she should be trackable, just not by the usual convention. Time travel always leaves its mark on a person, time energy or rather Artron energy, humans absorb low levels of it, its undetectable to most but not to you eh old girl! Now, Clara, come over here and-"
He doesn't finish whatever he meant to say, instead dropping to his knees before collapsing to the ground.
"Doctor? What's wrong, Doctor!"
His face looks oddly peaceful considering he just passed out. I try to shake him, but my own head is starting to feel really funny… Luckily I was already kneeling next to him, so when my legs give out I don't have far to fall. The last thing I see before my eyes flutter shut is the material of his vest close to my face.