Hello my dear readers! As I am halfway through the exams, I had the time to write chapter 49! Talking about exams, it would be very nice if you have a look at my short story 'Hide and Seek', it's on y profile and is due on Monday 7th so I'm trying to get feedback for a last minute editing :)
So yeah, after a surprising and interesting finale, I'm posting the first part of Time and Space finale. Yes, yes, we are reaching the end as the next chapter will be the last! I can't believe it! I know some of you might have been getting bored of me with my long and complicated plot, some of you might have lost interest in the story, but i do hope that you will enjoy this and that everything will make sense to you at one point.
Thank you to Freya Astrid Nova for the proofreading and support, you're amazing!
And Turtle, I miss you, you incredible girl!
Enjoy!
Melody - x.
Chapter 49
'My dearest Clara. The Doctor entrusted me with your contact details in the event of an emergency, and I fear one has now arisen. Assuming this letter will have reached you as planned on April 10th 2013, please find and light the enclosed candle. It will release a soporific which will induce a trance state, enabling direct communication across the years.'
Clara did not even take the time to read the rest of the letter that had been sent by Madame Vastra. She walked up to her bed, grabbing the little box of matches she usually used to light up her own candles on the way, and put the little flat candle on a bottle cap.
She lit it up and laid down on her bed, closing her eyes….
… To open them in a dark room. With a quick look, she identified a chinese decor made of ebony, dancing lights drawing patterns on the walls and Vastra, Jenny and Strax already there, sitting at an orthogonal table, and so was she.
"So glad you could make it." Madame Vastra spoke up, handing a warm cup of tea to Clara.
"Hello, nice to see you all again." said Clara with a smile, as she was remembering their adventure fighting the Crimson Horror.
They all nodded with a smile in return.
"Well, we are awaiting only one more participant." informed the Silurian.
"Oh no, not the one with the gigantic head?" said Strax, being faithful to himself.
"It's hair Strax." Jenny corrected him.
"Hair…"
As he finished saying the word, River Song appeared next to Clara.
"Madame Vastra." she said, a hint of surprise in her voice, curious to know why she had been summoned.
"Professor, help yourself to some tea." said Vastra, giving her a cup of tea.
"Why, thank you." River said politely, as she transformed her cup in another puff of smoke into a flute filled with champagne.
"How did you do that?" Jenny asked, surprised.
"Disgracefully…" the woman answered with her usual teasing smirk as she sipped her champagne. By doing so, she noticed Clara sitting at her left. The two women looked at each other for a few moments, an indescriptible look painted on their faces.
"Ah, perhaps you two haven't met: this is the Doctor's new companion." Vastra said. But as the two were still looking at each other, the Silurian felt she might have created an embarrassing situation. "That is, his current travelling assistant..." she added.
To add to Vastra's uneasiness, Strax thought it was a good time to ask her:
"Have you gone a darker green?"
"Clara Oswald." she said, trying to regain her countenance while presenting the young girl.
Suddenly that indescriptible look vanished from their faces and River presented herself with a smile:
"Professor River Song, the Doctor might have mentioned me?"
"Yes, of course he has." Clara answered with a smile. And as both turned their heads toward Vastra, she said: "You said there was an emergency."
Vastra nodded and, waving her hand in front of her, an hologram of a bald man appeared.
"Clarence DeMarco. Murderer, under the sentence of death. He offered us this in exchange for his life." she said. She waved her hand again and the hologram changed to let appear complicated circles. Circles Clara had already seen…
"Space-Time coordinates" said River.
"This, Mister DeMarco claims, is the location of the Doctor's greatest secret."
"Which is?" Clara asked.
"We don't know." answered Jenny. "It's a secret."
"The Doctor does not discuss his secrets with anyone, my dear." started Vastra abruptly. "And if you're still entertaining the idea that you're an exception to this rule then ask yourself one question: what is his name?"
As Jenny was touching her cheek looking confused, Clara sat back with a defiant smirk.
"Well I know it." River spoke up, diverting Vastra's attention from Clara.
"He's still never contacted you?" she asked.
"He doesn't like endings." the curly-haired woman shrugged.
Jenny shivered as River spoke up again:
"So what else did this DeMarco tell you? He didn't just buy his life with some coordinates. how did he prove their value?"
"One word only." the Silurian woman said. "A word I've heard in connection with the Doctor before." She paused. "Trenzalore."
River's eyes widened as she exchanged a look with Clara.
"How exactly did he describe what he was giving you?"
Thinking it would be better to show them, Madame Vastra waved her hand again, and the holographic head of DeMarco appeared and started to talk:
"The Doctor has a secret you know. He has one he will take to grave, and it is discovered."
"You misunderstood." River let out.
"Ma'am I'm sorry, I just realised I forgot to lock the door." said Jenny, looking as if she was not feeling very well.
"It doesn't matter Jenny." Vastra said, focused on River. "What misunderstanding, tell me."
"No Ma'am please, I should have locked up before we went into the trance!"
"Jenny it doesn't matt-" Vastra stopped as she finally looked at her wife who was very pale, her eyes lost in the vague and struggling to breathe.
"Someone's broken in, someone's with us." she said with a trembling voice. "I can hear them. I'm sorry, so sorry. So sorry… I think I've been murdered."
"Wake up. Now!" said Clara. "Vastra you have to wake up now!"
But as she was petrified at the sight of her astral wife fading, River slapped her to wake her up before turning to Strax who had stayed silent.
"You too Strax!" she exclaimed, as Clara was taking her flute to throw the champagne at his face.
The Silurian and the Sontaran disappeared, leaving River and Clara alone. But soon the atmosphere became cooler and darker and whispers came to their ears. Tall figures wearing Victorian suits and coats with top hats surrounded them. The skin of their faces was white, and they had no eyes and you could only discern a bump instead of their noses. They had no lips, just a dark and dirty gap as their mouths was letting crooked and pointed teeth hissing at them.
"Tell the Doctor, tell the Doctor, tell the Doctor." they repeated in an eerie whisper.
"Tell him what?" asked Clara.
As an answer, the hologram of DeMarco changed to let the face of Doctor Simeon, the Great Intelligence, appear.
"His friends are lost for ever more, unless he goes to Trenzalore."
"No you can't say that!" exclaimed River. "He can't go there, you know he can't! The Doctor can never go to Trenzalore!"
As River was saying that, Clara felt something. She could discern something at the border of her trance state.
"Angie? Artie? Am I getting warm?"
He was here.
She looked back at River who nodded, and closed her eyes…
… To open them in her bedroom. She heard the voice of the Doctor downstairs calling for the Maitlands children. As she said to call him if something important required his help, she quickly got up, tottering a bit as blood was banging in her head, before climbing down the stairs to see what happened.
She found the Doctor with a cloth covering his eyes:
"Am I getting warm? Look, I'm sure you've got to tell me if I'm getting warm, I'm-I'm-I'm pretty sure it's in the rules!"
He was such a child! Thought Clara, Vastra's letter in her hand.
"Doctor?"
"Ah! Clara!" he exclaimed. "How are you? Don't worry, everything is under control!"
"What are you doing?"
He turned around, detecting her voice, to face her as she was standing at his height thanks to the steps of the stairs.
"Oh, hum, you forgot your scarf so I came back to give it to you and Mister Maitland went next door so I said I'd look after the kids." he started. "they wanted to go to the cinema but I said no, no no, not until you wake up, I was very firm."
"At which point they suggested to play Blind Man's Buff." she deducted.
"Yes. Where are they?" he said, searching with his hands.
Clara walked up to him and untied the cloth around his head:
"At the cinema."
"The little… Daleks!" he said looking around before looking at Clara. He instantly knew something was wrong. She had that look. That look she had whenever there was something wrong that made an anxious knot in her belly and her heart heavy. "What's wrong?"
Clara poured some hot tea into two cups as she glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor sat in the sofa. He was looking in front of him, his legs crossed, but Clara knew. She could see the pain on his face, in his eyes. She knew this look way too much.
After adding a bit of milk and sugar, she slowly walked up to him.
"River asked Vastra the exact words. What were they?"
"The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered…" her voice faded as she arrived in front of him. He was crying. The Doctor was crying. She immediately put the cups on the coffee table behind her and sat next to him, gently taking one of his hands in hers. "Doctor…?"
"Sorry…" he whispered, his other hand covering briefly his mouth as his green eyes glimmered with tears. "And it was Trenzalore, it was definitely Trenzalore?" he asked, his voice cracking and trembling.
She nodded a yes, broken to see her best friend in so much pain as he broke up in tears. Suddenly he took a deep breath as Clara rested her other hand on his cheek, wiping away his tears. He shut his eyes to stop crying and said to her:
"Sorry, I'm sorry Clara." before kissing her forehead and running out of the Maitlands' house.
Clara followed him, walking to give him a little time to gather his thoughts. As she entered the Tardis she had left only a few hours ago, she looked around. He was not around the console. She looked up at the time rotor as her humming soothed the anxious knot in her stomach. No wonder why the Doctor sought for comfort here. The inner voice that would always lead her through the corridors of the time machine, made her walk down the stairs to go under the console unit platform. There he was, sitting, his hand on his knees.
"Well…?" she shyly asked.
"Trenzalore. I've heard the name of course." he said, getting up and looking through the cables above his head with the sonic. "Dorium mentioned it, and a few others. Always suspected what it was, never wanted to find out myself. River would know though. River always knew."
She smiled as he chose a cable. She walked up to him, giving him her hand, as he was about to ask her to do so, acting like she was an extension of his mind to a point he did not even noticed that he had not said out loud his request. She knew what he wanted. She always knew.
"Right, the coordinates you saw will still be in your memory, I'm linking you to the Tardis telepathic circuit. Won't hurt a bit."
"Liar." she said, looking straight into his eyes. Their eyes locked for a moment.
K-tchunk!
She winced as the needle pierced her palm and discreetly put her hand behind her back before he would ask her to show it to her. After replacing the cable back into its place above their heads, he stretched out a hand, silently asking her to show him her own hand.
She obeyed, only a tiny red dot left on her skin. Concerned that he hurt her, he brushed her palm with his thumb and kissed her forehead before explaining to her:
"When you are a time traveller, there is one place you must never go. One place in all of Time and Space you must never, ever find yourself." he started. " 'The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave, it is discovered.' He wasn't talking about my secret, no, no, no, that's not what's been found. He was talking about my grave. Trenzalore is where I'm… buried…"
They went up to the console unit.
"We all have a grave somewhere in the future, waiting for us." he continued. "The trouble is, with time travel, you can actually end up visiting it."
"But you're not going to? You can't go there!" she exclaimed, walking up to him. As he looked at her she sighed. "You're going to go there to save Vastra, Jenny and Strax, aren't you?"
"No point in telling you this is too dangerous?"
"Not at all." she said with a smile.
He tried to hide the smile that was coming across his lips seeing the support of his best friend.
"Well then, let's break into my own tomb." he said, pulling a lever to make the Tardis take off.
Flying in the Tardis with the Doctor was usually quite bumpy, however this flight was way more bumpy than usual. They tried to cling onto the console unit, but as Clara was managing it quite well the Doctor seemed to be pushed away every time he was touching a control.
"What's that?" shouted Clara over the angry noise of the rotor.
"She's figured out where we were going and she's against it! I'm about to cross my own timeline in the biggest way possible, the Tardis doesn't like it!"
He was fighting with the Tardis to try and land on Trenzalore, but she would not let him touch any control, even producing sparks so he would not approach.
Clara shut her eyes, frowning, and a few seconds later the Tardis was still, only the regular humming could be heard as the rotor was going round above their heads just as usual.
The Doctor that had clung to the rails looked up confused.
"She stopped fighting. She just stopped!" he said as he looked at the screen. "We landed, we landed on Trenzalore, she let us land…"
Though he was not sure about what happened, he headed to the doors, Clara on his heels and they stepped out on the grey and dusty ground where soil was mixed with ash. It was all dark and grey, not a single sun ray to light up this world of graves. Graves, as far as their eyes could see there were only graves. Trenzalore was a planet-scale graveyard.
They went a bit forward, walking through the tombstones.
"Are you okay? Visiting your own grave, anyone would be scared."
"It's more than that." he said in a low voice. "I'm a time traveller, I've probably time-travelled more than anyone else."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning… My grave is potentially the most dangerous place in the Universe." he said. He took a deep breath and slipped his hand in hers. If this place was dangerous, he had to protect her, he had to be able to see her at all times and keep her next to him. "Shall we?"
They went a bit further as they saw bigger and smaller graves depending on the military rank of the people that died on the fields of Trenzalore until they saw a huge mountain.
"That's the Tardis…" Clara whispered, looking at the decaying blue box that was leaking the "bigger-on-the-inside" outside.
"What else would they bury me in?" he said as he went on, walking toward the decaying Tardis.
Clara turned around to see River standing there, as though she had been waiting for her, knowing that she would turn around. She did not speak, but only stepped aside to show Clara the tomb behind her bearing her name: River Song.
The Doctor noticed that Clara was not following him and came back to her:
"Who are you talking to? We need to get-" he stopped when his eyes met the grave of River Song, as he seemed not being able to see the astral River. But Clara had seen his eyes.
"River…" he let out, as he lightly touched her name engraved in the stone.
"That's not right…" said Clara.
"No, she died a very long time ago but her grave can't be here…"
As the Time Lord was focused on the mystery of the grave, whisperings came to Clara's ears. She turned around to see the Whisper Men she had already met coming their way.
"Doctor!" she called.
Immediately he protectively put her behind him, taking out his sonic screwdriver but it was not working on them.
"This man must fall as all men must, the fate of all is always dust." they said with their eerie whisper, stretching a hand toward the Doctor and Clara as they were getting closer.
"Doctor!" Clara called him, getting his attention when he faced at her. "Think about it, what's that stone doing here? They'd never bury your wife here!"
"Of course!" he exclaimed, sonicking the false tombstone, making the ground disappear beneath their feet as they slipped in a tunnel, only the whispers of the Whisper Men following them.
"The man who lies will lie no more, when this man lies at Trenzalore."
"Where are we?"
"Catacombs." the Doctor answered, grabbing a torch.
"I hate catacombs." she said. She looked behind her, River was here and there, present a second, gone in a heartbeat.
There always were whispers running through the stones, escaping from the long-dead mouths of the skulls that are now part of the walls.
As they walked down a corridor between bones and dust, those whispers were catching up with them, slipping in their ears, sipping on their brain. Clara glanced over her shoulder with the waltzing light of the Doctor's torch trying to fight the pitch-black darkness of the corridor. It was as if all the whispers were chasing them.
They sped up their pace, turned left and then right.
But the whispers were still there, right behind her, their ice-cold breath against the back of her neck, making the hair rise on her skin.
And as she threw another look behind her, she could see, coming out of the shadows a white-skinned shape with a top hat.
It stretched out a gloved-hand toward her and the whispers intensified as it opened its mouth with blood-red pointy teeth ready to take the life out of her.
"Clara!" shouted the Doctor, swiftly grabbing her by the waist to keep her safe just under his nose. "Run!" he said, his hand now grabbing hers.
For seconds, minutes, hours they had been running into this endless maze, this labyrinth of death.
They ran and ran, faster and farther from these Whisper Men… but no matter how far they would run, how fast fast would run, they were always right behind them.
In their desperate race to reach the decaying Tardis, the Doctor threw the burning torch at them, trying to strike the undead, well, dead. But it only went through as though it was some kind of wraith.
Now they were even more cross with them.
They finally saw a door of the Tardis corridors and rushed to it, the Doctor pushing the door open.
"Come on quickly!"
"Doctor!" she cried as he felt her dragging him back.
He turned around to see that the Whisper Men had caught her, and were trying to take away as she was holding tightly onto him. He pulled as much as he could and when they finally let go of her, the Time Lord slammed the metal door at their faces.
"Yowzah!" he let out, letting the torch fall to the floor as a dim light allowed them to see quite clearly.
They climbed stairs and walked down corridors, climbed another set of stairs and walked down other corridors until Clara started to totter, the world becoming a waving blur in her eyes.
"Clara, hey Clara?" He took her against him, trying to support her and keep her walking. "Hey, you're okay, you're fine. The dimensioning forces this deep in the Tardis, they can make you feel a bit giddy."
"I know, I know, I remember." she answered, blinking to regain a good sight and chase away the blur.
"Clara, you're fine, it's okay, there's nothing you can remember." he said, putting his hands on her cheeks.
"I remember. I told you I wanted to remember, I remember what happened that day."
"You should not be able to remember it! You-"
"The girl who died he tried to save, she'll die again inside his grave." the Whisper Men cut him off.
"Run."
I hope you liked it, the changes are minor as always but you'll understand soon :) tell me what you think ;)