Chapter 2

The Doctor sat there staring at Nina as he wondered if time had shot forwards, or frozen partly for a moment, and then he hoped it had and he hoped he had heard her wrong.

Clara could not be pregnant, she would have told him...

At least, he hoped she would have told him – why would she not have told him?

"I think you might be wrong about that."

"Her blood test was positive, Doctor. She is in the early stages of pregnancy. I'm sorry if this news was unexpected."

The Doctor was still staring at her.

"Clara is pregnant?"

And Nina spoke again.

Her lips were moving but white noise cut through the air and drowned out the sound of her voice.

"I can't hear you!" the Doctor said, and the hissing static noise stopped.

" - and I will let you know as soon as she is stable."

Nina had finished talking.

The Doctor stood up, feeling strangely disconnected from everything around him as he looked hard at her.

"What was that sound?"

"Sound?"

"That static noise that cut off your voice!"

Nina looked at him thoughtfully.

"Doctor, I fully accept that your girlfriend's injuries were caused by an attack on your vessel. But your behaviour is somewhat bizarre. Are you certain you feel all right? You look okay but it doesn't mean you are okay, you had a blow to the head."

He reached up and felt a sharp pain as his fingertips slid through his hair and touched a minor cut to the side of his head.

"It's nothing, I'll be fine."

She stepped closer and paused for thought before speaking again.

"I fully accept you and your partner have been through a frightening ordeal but Doctor, you have described symptoms to me that I can't blame on mild concussion...time speeding up and slowing down, hallucinations... I would be more inclined to think perhaps these are they symptoms of drug use?"

He glared at her.

"Drug use?" he fumed, "What are you suggesting, that I popped an E while I was flying my Tardis through time and space?"

And she looked intently at him, and as she did so, the Doctor's gaze darkened.

"I get it. You're saying I got high, maybe it was ecstasy...or what about cocaine? Perhaps you think I did a couple of lines and then what, shot my girlfriend in a quarrel when she told me she was up the duff because I was angry about it?"

"I don't know," she replied, "You tell me what happened, or what you think happened?"

And he drew in a sharp breath and looked at her in horror.

"I would never hurt Clara!"

Nina kept her gaze locked with his.

"I know that. And you need to listen because I only have a short window of time."

The Doctor leaned in closer to her, staring at her in shock as her voice travelled towards him floating above the hiss of static as she spoke out of sync with the movement of her own lips.

"What did you -"

"There is no time! Do not react, they can see you!"

"Where?" he said in a hushed voice, and then he remembered just in time not to look around, because if surveillance was trained on him, it was invisible...

He kept on watching as Nina's lips moved, but no sound could be heard. Then she spoke again, her voice above the hiss of returning static:

"Think back. Remember what you told him to do for the best when they called UNIT!"

The Doctor looked at her with a bewildered expression.

UNIT? She was going back a very long time, and he had not long been in this new, Twelfth regeneration. Asking him to remember back so far to a lifetime so long ago was a tall order...

Her lips were still moving.

Nina was talking but the sound was drowned out over static that relayed the other, distant voice of Nina...the real voice?

"In 1989 a teenage boy is alone in a churchyard after dark with a 12 gauge shotgun using stone angel monuments for target practise. His name is Raymond Lethbridge-Stewart, think, Doctor!"

The name Lethbridge-Stewart brought back a flood of memories, all distant, but clearly there...and the Doctor could not recall the Brigadier having a son named Raymond. A daughter called Kate, yes...but a son?

"I don't understand what this has to do with here and now," he said, looking to Nina, "What is the relevance?"

"Timed out," she replied, and the voice over the static faded, and then the statistic hiss faded, and Nina's lips were moving without sound and suddenly her voice caught up with her lips again.

"I need to get back to my patient, Doctor. I suggest you wait here until I can give you more news."

The Doctor blinked.

"What did you just say?"

"I said," she replied, "Sit down and wait, Doctor. And I still think you're behaving strangely. Like I said, maybe drugs are involved? You look a bit out of it to me. Maybe you are."

And he sat down.

"Good idea," he said to her, "I'll shut up. I'll just sit here and wait. Thank you."

As she walked away he stayed in his seat, slowly rubbing his hands together as he thought deeply about all he had learned.

And then, it started to make sense:

"Who is he?" he murmured, "And why statues? And why does she keep saying..."

He fell silent, hit by an idea that he knew he could not voice aloud.

Then he got up and walked a few paces, with his head down as he reached into his pocket, drew out his sonic screwdriver and quickly ran it along a small section of the wall. He put the screwdriver away and then touched the wall. A mild electrical charge crackled and the surface of the wall rippled, and for a split second he saw what lie beneath:

A steel wall...

"Oh yes very clever..." he muttered, "Very clever indeed but why..."

And then he turned and looked up the corridor, and for a moment the end of it shimmered and he caught sight of people moving in slow motion, blurring into silver shapes...

Then time rushed with a jolt and once again, the strange images disappeared.

And his head was aching and a lot that had not made sense now did, and the more he thought about it, the more uneasy he became:

All that talk of drugs... it made sense now.

But this had nothing to do with street drugs.

This was more to do with hallucinogenic smart drugs that interacted with a separate highly advanced system. It was feeding him this world around him, and feeding something back from him to that system..

What was it taking from him?

Not his thoughts, because the real Nina had communicated over the hacked channel...

The Doctor sat down again, resisting the urge to pace the floor like crazy in time with his racing thoughts as he remembered he was being watched.

They couldn't read his mind, or they would have been on to him by now.

What did they want?

As it dawned on him, he wanted to ball his hand into a fist and smash it against the veneer of the fake wall. He wanted to shatter the shell around him and then rip apart the real place that was hiding behind it and the beings that had invented it...

The Doctor tried to be a good man.

He rarely had murderous thoughts cross his mind but they were there now, and he had to stop the flow of those thoughts fast before they picked up on it, because that was what they wanted.

The bastards wanted his emotions.

They were using him in a sadistic game, studying his reactions...

Was this an experiment designed to find a new way to torture sentient beings?

He drew in a slow breath, silently vowing that soon, very soon, all who caused this would be scattered to the stars as their vessel burned up in space...

As he thought of Clara his twin hearts ached and he blinked away tears and the irony of it was not lost on him:

He was giving them what they wanted, his suffering, and he had no choice about the matter until he found a way to break out of this situation, because he did not know where Clara was...

As he thought of her and his vision blurred with tears, he understood much but still had many unanswered questions:

Was she really here?

Was she injured, and was it true that she was pregnant?

He looked down at the floor as he stifled a sob, his feelings swirling with fear and anger:

He got it now.

They had given him a hallucinogenic drug that drew out his hopes and dreams and then set about shattering them.

He knew it for sure, because no one knew how he had felt when held Clara in his arms, and then as she slept his hand had slid down to her belly as he had secretly longed for this human woman to carry his child...

He wanted Clara to be pregnant, he secretly longed to be the father of her child, he ached for that fulfillment. Was that part of their game, to make out that she was pregnant to add to his worry for her safety?

He hoped it was all part of their game, who ever they were.

The Doctor hoped it was all untrue, because it was terrifying to think Clara could be seriously hurt, and even more terrifying to think the life of their unborn child was also in danger.

"Please," he whispered, "Let this all be a lie..."

Then his vision blurred and his head ached again and he closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath, fighting off a wave of dizziness.

Whatever they had given him was potent. Maybe even fatal...

"Doctor..."

He jumped up from his seat, looking around the empty corridor as his twin hearts raced.

That had been Clara's voice, whispered like a distant echo.

"Clara..." he said softly, "Can you hear me?"

And then he listened.

"Doctor," she said again, "I'm here... you're safe now..." and then she gave a sob.

"I love you so very much," she said tearfully, "Please don't die!"

And then the voice was gone.

Her words echoed in his head and he drew in a sharp breath as he understood everything now:

Clara had not been shot.

Clara was back there, where ever there was.

She was reaching him through a system that had hacked the transmission.

He had been right first time – he was the one who had been shot, he had been shot in the head by some kind of device that leaked a drug that made him see this other time and place, while at the same time digging through his dearest hopes and dreams to create a scenario that would cause him suffering so they could study his reactions.

He was dying, and they were torturing him at a distance while the device inside his head sent back all the data...

He didn't know exactly where his body was, only that it was with with Clara and he hoped the people who were hacking the transmission also knew how to remove the device inside his head, because he didn't doubt his time was running out...

The Doctor sat down heavily once more and wiped away tears as he stifled a sob. He knew he was giving them what they wanted again, but at that moment he didn't care:

All those nights he had laid beside her, holding her in his arms as he thought about how he cherished her and how he longed to make her pregnant...

She didn't know it yet, he had kept that wish silent, and he blamed that on his reserved nature, he had kept it back, every time he looked at her and she smiled and made his hearts race and beautiful emotions washed over him, he had wished for her to carry his child. He had imagined holding her in his arms and running his hand over her swollen belly, feeling that baby move inside her, that child they had made out of their love...

And some alien bastard race had raided his hopes and dreams and turned them into this nightmare.

Was it personal?

It felt like it.

This felt like more than random chance, this felt like he had been tracked down to be toyed with as some form of revenge.

This had to be the work of an old enemy.

They would be a dead enemy when he got his hands on them...

Then he wondered if he would live long enough to take revenge.

He hoped his anger would be enough to keep him alive long enough to wipe them out.

The Doctor 's eyes had blurred with tears again as he thought of Clara, and wondered if he would ever be reunited with her again.

Then he let the feelings of distress swamp him as he sat and wept, knowing he was giving them what they wanted, but for now, it was all he could do...

This was definitely Earth, and definitely 2060.

But Clara's reality was outside of the world where he was trapped with a vivid hallucination. She didn't doubt that what ever was going on inside his mind seemed real, and maybe in that other reality, maybe the Doctor thought she was dead – or maybe he was taking to her right now, a convincing copy of her...

Had he understood when Nina had hacked through the transmission?

She didn't know what the late '80s and the son of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart had to do with any of it, but she hoped the Doctor got it, because Nina said it was relevant...

"Are you okay?"

Clara turned her head and saw Nina standing beside her. Nina had been such a source of strength since the Tardis had landed in the underground complex where secret Earth Defence workers scanned the airwaves of space to watch for possible threats to the planet.

It was Nina who had been the first to arrive on the scene when she had flung open the Tardis door and screamed for help, then sunk to her knees as she cradled the Doctor in her arms as blood ran from the wound to his temple.

Now Clara was at his bedside in the medical centre, and it was only thanks to their doctors and scientists that she even understood what had been done to him:

He had been shot in the head with a cybernetic device of alien origin, it had leaked a drug to shift his sense of reality while it drew information from his mind and then used it to cause emotional distress and send back the results to a ship somewhere out in deep space just past the radar.

The drug was slowly killing him.

His only chance was surgery to remove the device, but it was embedded deep in his brain and no one could promise he would survive.

For now he remained deeply unconscious, and as she sat beside him she wondered if she would ever look into his eyes again, or hear his voice or speak to him...she had tried to talk to him but no one could be sure if he could hear what was happening around him.

As Clara looked up at Nina, sorrow filled her eyes.

"I cant see past this hour, even this minute," she replied quietly, "I love him. I can't imagine losing him. I thought the Doctor would live forever."

Nina placed her hand on her shoulder.

"We're getting a team together, some of the best doctors we have. He stands a good chance of surviving. I don't know if he will make a recovery, but all we can do is hope for the best."

"I know," she replied, and she took hold of the Doctors hand and continued to watch him as he lay there deeply unconscious.

As Nina left the room, Clara spoke softly to the Doctor.

"We have to hope," she said to him, "I'm going to keep on hoping, because I love you and I didn't throw myself into time and space to save your life over and over just to lose you now. I'm also going to keep hoping because we have something worth living for, and I know you can fight this."

Then she leaned over him and kissed his cheek, and the Doctor slept on, unaware of her presence.

In the artificial world, the Doctor had not heard her voice, nor had he felt her kiss. He had been sitting in the waiting area, but he felt very different now to the way he had when he had first arrived:

In this reality, Clara had been shot instead of him.

But he knew that had not been Clara, just a convincing copy – although he also knew that when he saw her it would still break his heart to see Clara so gravely injured, even if this was just a sadistic game that was being played out that had no basis in reality...

He managed to contain his anger as Nina walked back up to the waiting area, because he remembered her warning, and he knew there would be time for anger later, when he was free of the tracking device that was recording his emotions and responses, that was when he would take revenge on the enemy that had raided his private hopes and dreams...

"You can see her now," Nina told him, and the Doctor rose from his seat.

"Thank you," he replied calmly, and as he followed her down the corridor, he suppressed a smile as he made his decision:

No more of this.

He was not going to allow them – who ever they were – to toy with his feelings or his dearest wishes.

They wanted emotion?

They could have it, but not in the way they expected to get it.

Now he understood what was really going on, he knew exactly what to do about it.

He was about to spoil their little game...