[Author's Note: Hello my pretties! School is finally out for me, so this will probably get updated more often. BTW, count yourselves lucky, guys. You were so close to getting a chapter so angsty is would kill you, but I got carried away writing it, so it became it's own story (Called 'Blind'. Please look it up if you have a free moment). Anyway, this chapter was written because I was reading the Doctor Who book Shroud of Sorrow (Excellent book), and I was laughing so hard at the beginning of the book where the Doctor and Cara were pulling a ship out of floodwaters, which were caused by Clara doing something stupid. So obviously, I needed to write a prequel for that book.]
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Chapter 11:
Bored (adjective)- A state of mind which causes you to do instantly regrettable things.
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"Ta-da!" the Doctor shouted as he threw open the doors of the TARDIS. Instantly a hot, dry breeze swept over him, blowing his hair back and billowing out the ends of his coat. "Oh, we're going to have alot of fun here!" He clapped his hands and rubbed them together in anticipation.
Clara gave the barren landscape of cracked, hard-baked earth a skeptical glance. "Are we now?" She asked.
"Of course!" The Doctor replied, stepping out onto the planet and walking a few feet around. "We're just waiting until some friends get here."
"Where are we?" Clara asked, stepping lightly out onto the dry ground.
"Venofax." The Doctor responded. "On the Ocean Peninsula to be exact."
"Yep, lots of ocean here." Clara muttered under her breath, scanning the area, that seemed to stretch on flat forever. Louder, she added, "So when are these friends of yours coming?"
"Well, they should be arriving about-" The deafening roar of an engine sounded overhead, echoing across the entire plain. "-now!" he finished chirpily. He raced over to Clara and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her back through the TARDIS doors. "Out of the way!"
With a loud blast of mechanical whirring and growling a small metal spaceship, no bigger than a large car, ascended down onto the hard, sun-baked planet surface, sending clouds of dust and bits of rocks flying. It landed with a loud crashing sound, and the engines slowly hummed to a halt.
"Is that them?" Clara asked, peered around the Doctor, who was blocking most of the doorway.
"I believe so." The Doctor replied, watching as a metal door on the ship slid open and three people hopped out onto the planet, looking around curiously.
"Can you go introduce us?" Clara asked.
"Not until I know them." The Doctor answered, stepping out through the TARDIS doors.
"I thought you said they were your friends?" Clara questioned, confused.
"They will be in a few minutes!" the Doctor smiled. He raised one arm in the air and waved in the direction of the crew. "Hello!"
One of the crew members, a man, turned in their direction. He waved back, then turned to one of the other people, tapping them on the shoulder and pointing over to the TARDIS.
The Doctor motioned for Clara to follow and jogged over to them, smiling happily. "Hello there!" He said once they were in proper hearing distance. "How are you three doing?"
The crew, two women and a man, exchanged puzzled glances. "Fine," One of the women replied haltingly.
"Glad to hear." The Doctor grinned. He pointed at himself, then at Clara. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Clara. Pleased to meet you!"
After a slight hesitation, the person who appeared to be in charge (going by the golden pin on her vest that said 'captain') stepped forward. She was the older woman of the two, with dark blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. "I didn't know anyone else was supposed to come." She said slowly, eyeing the two skeptically.
"Are you part of our expedition?" Asked the other woman, a younger one with short brown hair and freckles.
"Yes, of course." The Doctor agreed, bobbing his head up and down. "You're, I mean we're, looking for signs of why the native population here disappeared, yeah?"
The woman nodded slowly. "Alright, I suppose we could use as many extra hands as we can get."
"Could we get your names?" Clara piped up.
The woman raised an eyebrow, but complied, "I'm Professor Penny Holroyde, the captain here," She said the last part rather proudly. She turned and gestured to the man of the group, a sturdy-looking guy with stringy blonde hair. "That's Dan, my co-pilot." She pointed at the young woman next, "And that is Callie. This is only her second expedition." The girl waved shyly at them.
"Right then! Nice to meet you all!" The Doctor grabbed all their hands one by one and shook them excitedly. He stepped back and clapped in anticipation. "Should we get started then?"
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Two hours later...
Clara was displeased.
As she dug her small shovel once again into the ground, she made a mental note to have another talk with the Doctor about what the word 'fun' meant. Because whatever this was, it wasn't fun.
Sure, joining in on an archaeology dig sounded great. Especially the way the Doctor had babbled on about it in the TARDIS ("It'll be great, Clara! Who doesn't love finding out things no one else knows? Granted, I suppose we could always just pop back a few hundred years and find out ourselves, but what's wrong with every once in a while slowing down and learning things the normal way?"). Clara had actually been rather excited by the time they had landed.
But the truth was, all archaeology involved was kneeling on the hard ground for hours, pounding away at the unyielding dirt with a flimsy metal shovel over and over again. It had taken them half and hour to just break through the crust to the soft earth underneath, and the next hour and a half were spent scooping out shovelfuls of the sandy tan-colored dirt, most of which seemed to end up all over her hair and clothes.
An hour and a half of just digging and throwing soil. And they had found absolutely nothing, save for some special bit of mineral or another that the archaeologists seemed to think was important, but she wouldn't have even been able to tell apart from any other scrap of dirt.
Not to mention it was hot. Apparently, when they had arrived it was early in the morning, so the sun hadn't had a chance to warm the place yet. But now that it was later, and the sun was now almost completely overhead, it felt like the very sand around them was boiling away. Clara's throat was as rough as sandpaper, and she figured she was probably going to wake up the next day too sunburned to move.
The Doctor, who had currently dug himself waist-deep into a hole, seemed to be enjoying himself. He was whistling a tune she didn't know as he gouged at the dirt with the tools, grinning manically all the while. He chatted pleasantly with the crew as they worked, talking happily about subjects that made Clara's head hurt just listening to.
At this point she had pretty much just had enough.
She tried talking to the Doctor about it, but he basically just waved her off with some absentminded answer, like, "It's not so bad, Clara. Hard work is good for you!" Or, "Calm down, a little sun never hurt anyone." Or, "I'm sure alien dirt comes out in the wash."
She figured she could always just go back and wait in the TARDIS without anyone minding much, but she knew the Doctor would just stay out having fun for God knows how long, leaving her alone in the TARDIS for hours, which was something she still wasn't quite comfortable with (Fair enough, given her lovely history with the Doctor's beloved ship).
Giving a sharp huff of annoyance, Clara dropped her shovel down into her hole and stood up, trying to brush the thick layer of dirt from her jeans, only succeeding in smudging it into mud with the sweat from her hands. "Do we have anything to drink?" She asked loudly, to the attention of nobody. She sighed and began to walk off. "Alright, I'll find something myself."
She made her way over to the haphazardly set up equipment, which had been set up a way off from where they were digging. Among it was a large control panel, covered in buttons and levers. It all seemed a bit superfluous for a little archaeology dig. Clara skimmed her fingers over the switches and bits of machinery curiously, looking for anything that might be related to a water dispenser.
Her hand stopped over a large green button marked with a picture of a drop of water. She turned back to where the crew and the Doctor were still digging. "Is it okay if I push this?" She shouted. No response. "Of course." Clara sighed. After a moment of unsure hesitation, she clicked the button. It flashed brightly, blinked a few times, then went still. She waited patiently for a few seconds, but nothing changed.
"Hmm." She muttered, puzzled. She tapped it again, to no affect. Rolling her eyes in exasperation, she began to walk back to the dig site when there was a loud, booming crash that echoed across the land, shaking the ground like some kind of earthquake. Clara stopped walking and whirled around, looking for the cause of the noise.
At first nothing looked different, but then she could make out, at the very edge of the horizon, a dark shape building up, growing higher and closer by the second. A huge, rushing torrent of water.
"Clara, what did you do?" She heard the Doctor shout from behind her.
She turned to face him, eyes huge. "I don't know! I just-" She trailed off, not really sure what she had done.
The other three people were already throwing down their tools and scrambling for their ship, shouting orders frantically. Clara turned to look over her shoulder and squeaked in surprise at how close the massive wave of water now was. A small tide had already overtaken the larger torrent and was rushing out around her ankles.
She felt hands on her arms as the Doctor hauled her backwards, shouting at her to run. She snapped to her senses and turned back, scrambling after him for the TARDIS. A waist-high rush of water slapped against them, bowling Clara and the Doctor, whose arm she was clinging to, to the ground.
The Doctor staggered to his feet and grabbed a wet, sputtering Clara out from under the water, dragging her a short distance before he was able to fling her and himself, along with several bucketfuls of pale green, strangely bubbly water, in through the TARDIS doors. He slammed them shut with a loud crash and fell back onto the floor, panting heavily, sopping wet.
Clara staggered to her feet next to him, coughing and rubbing mud and water out of her eyes. She grabbed a handful of her hair and tried to squeeze some of the wetness out, frowning as she watched what appeared to be soap bubbles spill out onto the floor. "What's wrong with this water? Why is it full of soap suds?" She asked. She raided her hand to her face and sniffed the moisture on her fingers. "And why does it smell like avocado?"
"That's what the ocean here is like!" The Doctor answered, scrambling himself up off the soaking floor. He shook his head like a dog, splattering water and mud everywhere. He brushed himself off ineffectively and stomped over to the console, his shoes squishing wetly with each step.
"The ocean?" Clara questioned. "We weren't anywhere near an ocean! How did it end up trying to drown us?"
"Maybe because someone pushed the button that opened the floodgates!" The Doctor snapped as he flicked switches and pushed buttons to take the TARDIS off.
Clara flushed and was about to open her mouth to defend herself when a loud burst of crackling came from somewhere on the console. The Doctor lunged forward, digging through a pile of metal gadgets and coming up with a small hand radio. He pressed a button the side and held it to his mouth, "Hello?"
More static sounds, then a crackly voice, "Hello, Doctor? It's Captain Penny."
"Good to hear you, captain!" The Doctor yelled enthusiastically. "Sorry about the ocean thing. Where are you now?"
A pause, then, "Under the water."
The Doctor frowned. "Oh. Well, that's not exactly preferable, now is it?"
"No. And if it's not too much of a problem, do you think you could try and find a way to tow us out?"
"Sure, won't be too much a problem. I've got a good, strong ship here." The Doctor replied. He shot a quick glare in Clara's direction. "Especially considering we sort of caused the problem."
Clara huffed and looked away, focusing on trying to wring the water and mud from her hair.
"Thank you." Penny replied, relief evident in her voice. The Doctor clicked off the radio and rubbed his hands together in anticipation, beginning to flip switches and pull levers to turn them back around.
"Well, don't just stand there." He said to Clara. "Third door down the left hall. Get a big chain."
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[Author's Note: ...And, if you want to find out what happens next, go read the first chapter of Shroud of Sorrow (If you don't own the book, you can probably find Chapter 1 online). Hope you liked it! Expect the next chapter either tomorrow or the next day. Pretty pretty please review! :3]