Hello everyone! Thank you to all the new viwers, faves and follows!
Chapter 31 is on! So, I must admit, there's quite a lot of setting up in this episode! things I can't cut without taking away some things making sense in the episode. So once again, this is mostly rewriting, just changing a few bits I hope you'll like.
Turlte, as always I'm so happy to have your comments! You're not "rushy" in any way, I'm ok writing my fanfiction. I follow deadlines, yes, I work 50 to 60h a week, I have like... 4 different lives to manage (good lord, what am I?), but if there's something that gives me satisfaction right now, it's my story. (And a bed with a guy, but shhhh, that's not a thing to say. *covers the ears of youngests*)
Thanks to Freya Astrid Nova for the proofreading! Again, apologies for any typo that would have got through the proofread, we are both very tired.
Enjoy!
Melody - x.
Chapter 31
"Don't come looking for me, forget about me, you understand?" said the Doctor as he dragged Clara back inside the carriage.
"We should warn people about the snow though."
"Not my problem." he only said, closing the door. As a last goodbye he put his hand on the window and wished her a: "Merry Christmas." before telling Strax to take her back where they found her.
As soon as he turned his back, the woman frowned and opened the door on the other side, stepping on the snowy sidewalk before Strax made the carriage drive on, clearing her view.
She saw the Doctor walking away, already on the other side of the road and started to follow him at a good distance so he would not notice her sneaking around.
She followed him until he arrived at a park and jumped over the fence, whistling 'Silent Night' which echoed in the almost empty, cold and snowy streets. She observed him, looking around him making sure no one was watching before jumping and get hold of something, hidden in the shadows of a tree. A second later, a clicking was heard and he got down, pulling down a ladder and then climbed it and disappeared from view. As the ladder was getting pulled up, Clara fought to pass over the fence with her dress. When she finally managed it, she walked up to where the ladder was hidden and tried to grab it, jumping but fell on the ground, missing it.
Hell that was high! She was too short to reach it. Though determined not to give up, she got up and dusted off her dress before trying again, jumping as high as she could this time.
As she felt something cold and hard against her palms, she clenched her fists around it, holding it tight, making her being suspended more than a foot over the ground. The clicking like before was heard and the ladder came down, allowing her to climb up.
When she reached the top of the ladder, stepping on a platform she turned around and watch the streets. The few people passing by did not notice a girl over the top of a tree. She looked up at the incredibly high spiral staircase heading to the clouds above her and started climbing.
Few minutes later, she reached the top. She was on a cloud! An actual cloud! She looked up and saw a big blue box: a police box.
The box was humming softly. Well, she thought she was the one humming, but she could not have said whether she was hearing the sound from her ears or from inside her.
Clara stepped closer to the box, cautiously, and when she was standing just at the doors, she held up a hand. Slightly trembling, with a soft grin on her face, her fingertips lightly touched the blue wood. It was warm, so warm and so soft.
She set her hand on the door and, closing her eyes, she rested her forehead against the box.
After a few seconds though, the humming changed and suddenly a loud sound that seemed like an exclamation echoed, making her jump in surprise.
Clara stepped back and ran to the staircase, climbing down as fast as possible, not noticing her shawl had fallen to the cloudy ground as the doors of the box started to open.
The Doctor stepped out, looking around.
"Is anybody there?"
He walked around the box before noticing a dark red cloth on the cloud. He took it and smelled it. It was Clara's.
At the Great Intelligence Institute:
Walking up to a big glass globe in which the snow was swirling as if there was wind, Doctor Simeon was holding a new sample of snow. He opened a small round hatch and threw some fresh snow in it. A voice rose from nowhere, and yet from everywhere:
"Tonight the thaw, tomorrow the snow will fall again, yet stronger. The drowned woman, the dreaming child and the new governess will give us form at last. Tomorrow the snow will fall and so shall mankind. She is coming!"
At the Darkover house:
A carriage stopped in front of the front door of the house. All the snow had thawed in the night, yet the pond was still frozen.
A young woman stepped out of the carriage dressed as a proper lady. Taking her handbag, Clara dressed as the governess walked up to Alice waiting for her at the door.
"Alice, how smart you look today." she said with a perfect accent and a smile.
"The governess should enter by the back door, unless accompanied by the children." the maid answered, serious.
But then they exchanged a knowing look and smiled.
"And how are the children? excited about tomorrow?" asked Clara.
"Francesca same as ever. Digby says he missed you every day. Captain Latimer wants to see you."
"Of course." She walked towards the entrance but then stopped, looking back over her shoulder at Alice. "Every day?"
"Twice on Saturdays."
"That's better." she smiled, heading towards the Captain's study. She knocked on the door and after a few seconds entered the room. "Captain Latimer."
The gentleman turned around:
"Ah, Miss Montague, you're back."
"In time for Christmas! Apologies for my brief absence, family illness is so unpredictable. You wanted to see me?"
"Francesca has been having nightmares."
"Oh young girls often do." Clara said softly.
"Every night this week, she says. Won't tell me about them."
"Perhaps if you asked her in the right way, there's no one she'd rather tell."
"Children… are not really my area of… expertise." he said awkwardly.
"There are, however, your children." said Clara, pointing out the truth.
"You have, if I may say, a er… remarquable amount of wisdom in these matters for one so very pretty, Miss Montague." he said, distracted, leaning on the fireplace mantel. "Young! I mean."
After a smile, Clara turned on her heels and walked out of the study.
"I'll see to the children now."
As she arrived to the garden, two blonde children were playing chase on the crispy grass. When they saw her, they rushed to her, calling her name.
"Ah-ah-ah!" she stopped them.
"Goodmorning Miss Montague." said Digby.
"Goodmorning Miss Montague." said Francesca.
"Goodmorning Francesca, goodmorning Digby." she greeted them shaking their hand politely. "Christmas Eve is the most thrilling day, don't you think? Now what you two have been up to while I've been away?"
"I did seven drawings, and we saw a dead cow!" said the boy.
"Well. How exciting!"
"Do your secret voice!" asked Digby.
Looking up at the windows, making sure their father could not hear her, she took back her real accent:
"Hello mates!"
After catching up with them, Clara and Francesca sat on a bench, the governess wanting to know more about the nightmares she had been having.
"They're not exactly nightmares, just dreams."
"About our old governess." said Digby. "The one who died, she's haunting Frannie from beyond the grave. Do you want to see where she died?"
They followed the boy to the front of the house, to the frozen pond. Clara observed it closely, and tapped her finger on the ice.
"She fell in there, and then it froze, she was in the ice for days and days." he related. "I hated her, she was cross all the time. In Frannie's dreams she's still down there, waiting to come back."
"Everything else has thawed but this pond is still frozen…" The voice of the Doctor was going round in her head, words flying, reminding her the more they would think about the snowmen the more they would appear. She turned around sitting on the wall around the pond and took the girl's hands in hers. "Frannie, this is important: you dream about her, what do you dream?"
"That she's cross with me." she answered with a little voice. She says I've been bad and she's going to come out of the pond and punish me."
"When?"
"She said she'd come back for Christmas… Tonight."
"I think Frannie has gone mad, don't you?" said her little brother, quite worried about his sister. "I think she needs a doctor."
At this word Clara looked up, her eyes sparkling.
At the park:
Walking up quickly to the park where she followed the Doctor the last night, her feet creaking on the iced grass, Clara looked up at the shadows in the branches of the big old tree. No ladder was to be seen.
"Doctor!" she called, making some heads turn to look at that strange woman talking to thin air. "Doctor!"
Well, this was not an appropriate behaviour for a lady.
She tried to jump to reach the ladder, making people question her mental health, but she was too short and this dress too heavy.
"Doctor!"
A young woman, dressed in black came up to her:
"Oi! Madam! That's enough noise! We don't want to attract attention, do we?" said Jenny, making Clara turn around surprised.
"I'm looking for the Doctor." she answered, looking again at where she knew the ladder was hidden in the shadows of the tree.
"Doctor who?" asked Jenny knowingly making Clara turn her head back to her, a knowing smile appearing on her lips.
I hope you liked it, let me know :)