Clara stood in front of her daughter, gently tugging the little girl on her feet by the hands. Ellie giggled.
"Yeah, it's nice to be up, right?" Clara said. "Want to make Daddy jealous? We can learn to walk like grown-ups while he's away being a spoilsport, yeah? Yes, yes we will, won't we?"
The Doctor had begun to take longer trips with the TARDIS again, but no matter how long he stayed away he was always back before Ellie could wake up. Clara was starting to worry, since he was running so late.
Clara smiled, tickling Ellie as she talked, just to hear her giggle again and see her smile. Ellie fell back on the fuzzy blanked Clara had laid down together with toys and pillows and her eyes met Clara's: in all her six months of life, Ellie's eyes had only become more and more aware, intelligent, attentive. Clara knew the girl probably already had an IQ higher than hers, but her eyes were just proof of that. They weren't the blissfully unaware, happy eyes she'd seen in kids Ellie's age. It was evident that Ellie just knew more.
"Do we want to try one more time?" Clara asked, glancing at the phone she'd adjusted on the shelf to film Ellie's first time walking. "Don't think I don't know you're ready to walk and are just making fun of me trying everything I know to make you."
Ellie's mouth opened in a big O, then she covered it with her hands, brown eyes wide.
"Oooh, gotcha!" Clara cheered. "I knew it!"
"Aaah!" Ellie exclaimed in what was probably indignation, judging by the way she was the spitting image of the Doctor's indignant face.
"Mum's smarter than you think, you little… Dalek!"
Clara reached out to playfully catch Ellie and trap her in a hug, but the girl was faster: Ellie got up lightning-fast and ran just out of Clara's reach. Ran. Stumbling, yeah. Almost falling, sure. But she ran.
"I did it!"
Clara grinned. Ellie stopped dead on her tracks, turned to face Clara, looked at her feet, then back at Clara. Her mouth became O-shaped again.
"Ah!" Ellie said, offended that Clara had managed to make her walk with a trick.
"Caught," Clara said, feeling very proud of herself. "C-A-U-G-H-T," she spelled out smugly.
"Buh!" Ellie stated crossly, sitting down and grabbing the nearest toy as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.
Clara saved the video to show to the Doctor later and was about to go console her daughter's wounded pride when the doorbell rang.
"Stay here like a good girl, Ellie, okay? I'll just check who's at the door. Maybe it's Grand-Gran, eh? You'd like that?"
Her family would have phoned before coming over, though. Weird. Perhaps it was actually just the mailman. Or Courtney. She came over sometimes. She seemed to like kids, but most of all she seemed to miss Clara as her teacher. Clara smiled at the thought and aimed for the front door.
"Aaah?" Ellie called.
"Mum is just going to answer the door. Three steps away. Watch me," Clara assured.
Ellie got up to watch. She seemed worried for some reason. Perhaps Clara left her alone too little and she was starting to get fussy whenever they were inches apart.
Clara went to open the door and turned the doorknob, but to her surprise there was no-one there. Instinctively, she looked down: on the steps outside someone had left a purple envelope with "to the neo-parents" written on it in a flowery, heavily tilted handwriting. Okay, very late "congrats on your baby" card, then. Clara opened the envelope.
It contained a very colourful card with a cartoon-styled reddish-purple baby devil on yellow background printed on it, complete with pointy tail and horns, diaper and a rubber dummy in its mouth. "Good luck with your little devil!" was written in big round red letters around the picture.
Clara laughed softly. Ringing the bell, running away and ridiculous card? Definitely Courtney's style. Clara opened the card to see if it was signed.
The card fell from her hands as the world seemed to slow down and stop spinning.
The signature read, in blood-red pen,
With love (not really),
the Mistress. xoxo
"So, what do you think of the makeover?" a female voice with a Scottish accent asked, freezing the blood in Clara's veins. "Not that you've ever met the old me, but I bet he told you aaall about me." Clara turned slowly, so many emotions inside her she could barely distinguish them. Fear, anger, desire for revenge. They all melted into horror when she finally faced Missy and saw that the Time Lady was holding Ellie tight in her arms. Clara felt like air had been punched out of her lungs.
"Seriously," Missy continued, "is it too evil-Mary-Poppins? I'm not sure I wanted to go for that. Didn't want to go all the way Maleficent either, though. See, that's the problem with the Big Golden Boom, you don't know yourself, y'know?" She spoke as though to a comrade, as though they were bloody mates. Clara was shaking with anger. "I'm never sure about anything after regeneration. And boy what a ride this one was! I'm not really sure about the missing body parts and acquired ones yet, if you know what I mean. Gods, it is good to talk to another person again! Not that you're an actual person, mind you. More like… a pet ape or something. And don't get me started on the accent-"
"Let go of my daughter. Now." Clara wanted to sound threatening, but her voice was shaking, shaking, shaking, with rage and fear, no, God, no. Actual terror at the thought of any harm coming to Ellie…
"Or what?" Missy taunted, smiling a false smile and bouncing Ellie in her arms as the child started crying, feeling something was horribly wrong. "You'll punch me with your weak human hands? I could break your wrist with three fingers, darlin'." She paused, lost in thought for a second. "Or I could break hers, what do you say?" she asked, a dangerous spark in her eyes, pointing to Ellie.
"No!" Clara yelled before she could tell herself to stay in control of the situation. "Don't hurt her. Please don't hurt her."
"Oh, Clara, my Clara. I just knew we'd reach an accord," Missy laughed darkly, stroking Ellie's wayward curls.
"Don't touch her!" Clara screamed. Her feelings were too raw, too intense. Control, which she tried to maintain at all times, was slipping from her hands by the second.
"Bit late for that," Missy said, pinching one of Ellie's cheeks.
Clara felt tears start to run down her cheeks. "Why are you doing this?"
"Why, because I came to take back what's mine, obviously. This little Gallifreyan here is my doing. You took decent care of it, I'll give you that, but now I want my toy all for myself. And the Doctor, of course."
"It was you!" Clara spat.
"Who made sure the dear Doctor could get you up the duff? Oh, aye, all me. Queen of genetic engineering," she said, winking and making a vague, self-acclaiming gesture. "Can't for the lives of me get how neither of you figured it out till now."
"I won't let you take her," Clara hissed.
"You don't have a way to stop me, Clara. Be reasonable, I know you're smarter than that."
"The Doctor will stop you."
"The Doctor will get here too late, I made sure of that. Poor dear, that's all he seems to be able to do, isn't it?"
"He'll find you," Clara swore on behalf of the Doctor.
Missy did an exaggerated confused expression.
"You seem to be under the misconception that I don't want him to find me. But that's exactly what I want. He'll find you here, crying your pretty little eyes out, and he'll come right after me without you, because he wouldn't want to put his fragile tiny human pet in danger, would he? Once you're apart and he's alone with me, convince him to ditch you for me will be a piece of cake."
"He'd never-"
"He'd never what? Leave you?" Missy asked in a mocking tone. "You'll be together for-evah and in luv? That's what you think? Because last time I checked you had a handful of decades and he had all of eternity. Surely he'll see that his heart is safer in my hands… that this girl should grow up with those of her own species."
"I'm her mother!"
"I made you, Clara. I shaped you every step of the way since you met the Doctor, made sure you met him, made sure you'd be the perfect match for him. And through you I made this baby, for me and the Doctor to keep. You, Clara, were just a surrogate. You both are my toys to play with as I please."
The satisfaction and the will to destroy her emotionally, assassinate her certainties were evident in the Mistress voice.
And Clara would almost have believed her, if it weren't because she knew better. Her mother had raised her. Her losses had shaped her, made her stronger, took away her innocence but never her imagination. She had always been the perfect match for the Doctor. Clara didn't believe in God, but she did believe in destiny and what the Doctor had with her she knew he wouldn't find with anyone else, and vice versa. They shared something, a piece of their souls, something that bound them together. What Missy had done had only bound them tighter. If only Clara could think of a plan to get her daughter back! She couldn't outsmart the Mistress, that was for sure. She had no TARDIS, no weapons but the basics of taekwondo and nothing to blackmail the Time Lady with.
"I can see that pretty head of yours working, Clara, but believe me, it's over for you." She grinned deviously. "You've managed to build yourself a happy little family, but all good things come to an end, sweetheart," she said condescendingly. "You're gonna lose your baby girl and the luv of your life." She pouted, faking sadness. "For eveeer." Smiling, she added, "Give. Up."
Clara took a deep breath to stead herself before speaking.
"I'll have you know, I've never really been one for giving up. And I'm never, ever going to give up the Doctor, or Ellie." She swallowed thickly, but kept her chin up, shoulders back. "So you might as well kill me, 'cause I'll never stop searching for them if you take them away from me. I'll never stop searching for you. And make no mistake, when I find you, I will kill you."
The rage, the hate, everything was mounting inside her again, for the person who hadn't let Danny Pink rest in peace, who had killed thousands, who had hurt the Doctor countless times. Who had touched her daughter and wanted to take her away from her.
"That's my girl! I'm really proud of my little experiment with you Clara! Which brings me to the question: why would you ever think I'm gonna kill you, hmm? I can't wait to see each and every one of your pathetic attempts to get your little family back. It could easily become my favourite past time for the next three decades or so," she mused with a smile.
"Do you have any other emotions, except desire to amuse yourself to the sufferance of others?" Clara asked dryly.
"Why, yes, I'm pretty skilled at anger and wrath too, but there's no fun in that, is it?" She winked, taking out the same device Clara had seen her use at the graveyard, now almost two years in the past. "Catch me if caaa-aan," she sing-songed, disappearing with a press of a button.
"No!" Clara shouted as her daughter disappeared with the Mistress.
Clara couldn't breathe for a moment as she looked around frantically, around her, out of the window, on the street. Anywhere Missy could have reappeared. But she had to have a TARDIS, Clara told herself, she wouldn't be able to follow- a TARDIS. Clara's eyes fixed on the red public phone box across the street, right in front of her house. The phone box that had appeared overnight a couple of weeks after the Doctor had returned. The phone box that had always been out of service, from day one.
In a rush of hope, Clara bolted out of the door and ran across the street.