"The Angel… I can still feel it, inside my head."
"It's not an Angel," the Doctor told Michelangelo. "It's an ant. Change how you see it and it will change accordingly."
"I cannot change my beliefs…"
"Then you're not really open-minded, are you?" The Doctor was starting to lose his patience now.
Clara helped Michelangelo to his feet. Her eyes averted, and his shut, because the Doctor had told him to starve the Angel for a while. The eyes are the instrument by which we perceive reality, the light the paint by which we form thoughts and images in our head. What is a painter without paint?
"When can I open my eyes again, Doctor?" Michelangelo asked. "Doctor?"
Silence. When Clara dared to turn her head, the hooded figure had gone. She still hadn't seen his face, and a part of her started to wonder if this really was the Doctor at all. He never dressed in a hood and cloak before. He stalked the ruins of ancient Rome like a ghost.
"Stay here," Clara said, guiding him to solid ground. "I'll be back soon. I just need to…"
Torn between helping Michelangelo and finding the Doctor, she wavered for a moment. Someone had to bring this poor man home. This man with a monster inside his head. This immensely talented man, who had no-one else to help him in the entire world.
If the Doctor gets sick, who takes care of the Doctor?
She stumbled down from the amphitheater, and found her way through the maze of columns and debris and buildings wracked by time, with only the moon to light her way. The ruins were doused in blue. The night had never looked so sharp before. Then a cloud drifted through the sky and cast a shadow on the ground. Clara couldn't see.
There was some kind of shed close by her. There were tools lying abandoned on a worktable covered in dust and cobwebs, and the roof had collapsed and turned into a heap of stone and rotten wood.
"Don't turn around."
Clara froze. This was her friend, so why did she feel so scared?
"Doctor, what happened? Why can't I look at you?'
"It's complicated," the Doctor said.
"Is it you though? I mean, it could just be your voice. How can I know it's you?"
"Clara, Clara…. My impossible girl. Still afraid of the dark. Well, you should be."
Clara turned around. The doorway was empty. She went to check and heard someone sneak up behind her.
"Doctor?"
"I told you not to turn around. How many times do I have to say it? You can't see me. That's the point. You're the one who knows me best. If you see me, you'll take all of me. Those are the rules of the game now. A game of Angels, which I can't possibly win."
Clara didn't turn around this time. She heard the Doctor move around the shed. He moved something on the worktable.
"What do you mean? I don't understand. There has to be something we can do, Doctor. If you'll just tell me…"
"They broke the quantum lock, and they did so, by stealing my essence. I fell right into their trap. It was stupid of me to endanger you like that, and I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Clara said.
"I wasted a tremendous gift. All my regenerations. All my possible futures. They took it. They've taken my reality and left me nothing but a shell, and I'm fading. I'm turning to stone, and once it overtakes me, there's no turning back. I'm fading, Clara. I'm scared."
Hearing the words come from his mouth terrified her more than any Angel. A tear welled up in her eyes. Slowly she stumbled backwards, reaching her hand to find the Doctor…
"I'm here for you, Doctor. You know I am. Always."
Her hand trembled in the cold air. Then, just when she thought he had already left again, his fingers wrapped themselves around hers and closed tightly.
"Whatever they stole, we're going to get it back. I promise."
"I'm like the Angels now. Not real. A figment of the imagination. A form without essence. Nothing but a lead on the wind."
Clara smiled. "That's what I was, remember? Let's be leafs together."
The Doctor squeezed.
"This isn't really my hand even. It's abstract. I'm using all my remaining energy to sustain this form, but it's not really me. Not fully. I'm stuck between dimensions, between time and space and reality. I'm the difference between the scarecrow and the farmer."
"I know what I am. I'm a Picasso. A drunk Picasso. I wouldn't want to guess where my nose is right now."
"Shut up, Doctor."
"You'll remember me, won't you?" the Doctor said. "I know you will."
"I think the universe will remember you, Doctor."
His hand slipped away from her grasp. She heard him shuffle in the dark and pick something up.
"But this isn't the end, Doctor. I know you. You'll figure out the Angels' plan. And you'll use it against them. I know you will. You'll defeat the monsters as you always do. You'll save the world. And I'll be by your side. If an image of an Angel is an Angel, and an image of the Doctor is the Doctor, then that is the image I choose to carry. That's what I believe in. That is what I'll always see. No matter what. In my dying breath."
"You can look now," he said.
When she turned and looked again, she saw the back of a hooded figure, holding a scythe, leaving the other side of the shed.
"You look like Death," she said.
"Death?" he said, and he examined the scythe. "I can work with that."
Clara closed her eyes and saw the Doctor. She always sees the Doctor.
The gambler and the priest climbed down the ladder. He held the candle in front of him as he stepped on to a cold stone floor. It looked like some poor man's house, with a small living room, kitchen and a bedroom on the side. But that's not what drew their eyes.
There was a family sitting at the table. A man, woman and child. Yet their faces….
The table was set for three, clay bowls with cold soup and blunt forks and knives set on a stone table. There was a dog by the master's side, begging for scraps. Accept it did not move. None of them did.
Their faces were white and eyeless. The child's smile was captured beautifully on the white stone, except the gambler knew it wasn't. It was a moment frozen in time. A tableau fit for a family grave.
"Don't you like them?" the voice said, cheerful. "I think they're pretty. Won't you join them?"
As the gambler moved his candle, the shadows moved too, and stone Angels appeared where before the room had been empty. First one on either side, until the shadows moved again and two others joined them on the other side of the living room. Then they noticed the table had been set again, two more clay bowls added and two chairs readied for two more guests at the family table. One of the Angels pointed. They were meant to sit.
As they sat down together, the voice laughed. "Now we can play! And I love to play."
"Please let me go," the gambler said to the darkness. "I have a wife and child. They rely on me. Please don't kill me."
The priest prayed, clinging to the cross on his neck, while eyeing the statues surrounding him.
"They didn't spare this family!" he told the gambler. "Why'd you think they'd spare yours? There's no point in pleading to demons! But I have Christ on my side!"
"Please!"
"You two make me laugh so much! Come on, let's play!"
The candle's flame flickered as a new figure joined the shadows. It danced around her fellow Angels while they stood motionless and silent. She was laughing and smiling and careless as a child. Her wings seemed to float after her, weightless and beautiful. But every time they thought they had a good look at her, she disappeared into the shadows again.
"This one's a riddle," the Angel spoke. "Answer it, and I might let you go."
A bag of the gambler's previous winnings was thrown on to the table, clattering amidst the tableware.
"Keep it!" he said to the shadows. "I don't want it anymore! Keep it all! Just let me go!"
The priest ignored the voice, repeating the same mantra over and over again. "As I walk through the Valley of Death, I fear no evil. The Lord will keep me safe."
"So if I answer this riddle, I can go?"
The Angel laughed. "Maybe."
"Then what is it?!"
"Oh, it's easy. Just tell me which one of you I will kill first."
The priest stopped, locking eyes with the gambler.
"Which one of us you will kill…first?" the gambler repeated.
"Oh, we're going to have so much fun together!"