Thank you for the reviews :) I see you survived the cliffhanger (which won't be the last one), so let's see how they get out of this one.

Chapter 6

Clara swallowed hard as she wrecked her brain for a solution to their apparent problem. She didn't need a lot of imagination to know that Donna had sold them out because there was no other reason for an employee of Missy to be here. And if Missy was an assassin she had a hunch about what was going to happen to them.

"Maybe get out the back door?" Clara suggested hopefully, her voice hardly audible.

The Doctor bent down to whisper into her ear. "There is no back door."

She could hear his breathing when the Doctor brushed her ear and at his words her heart was racing just a little bit faster. They were trapped.

"Stay right behind me," the Doctor ordered her sharply and reached for her hand. Before Clara had a chance to react he pulled her in the direction of the office, straight into danger.

Donna and the man stared at them as soon as they entered and Clara could see a hint of a smile on his face. He wasn't what she had expected, young, dark hair, a sort of idiot look to him that made her think of a school chess champion rather than an assassin. But maybe that was the trick.

"Doctor," the man put on a bright smile, "Fancy seeing you here."

"Seb, isn't it?" the Doctor half growled. The man nodded in reply. "You're a long way from home."

Seb gave a small shrug, that idiotic smile still stuck on his face and Clara wondered if it would ever come off. He really didn't seem like a cold-blooded killer. "My boss would like a word with you, Miss Oswald," he turned his smile directly towards her, "It will not take long and I will personally escort you back to London."

"Over my dead body," the Doctor said sharply, glaring at the young man.

Only now Clara again became aware of the other person in the room as Donna rose from her office chair. She threw Clara an apologetic glance.

"You stay where you are!" the Doctor ordered her angrily, "You still have me to answer to for this."

Clara flinched at the sharpness of his voice and hid further behind his back. Never before had she seen the Doctor angry and it was a frightening sight to behold. She genuinely did not know what he was going to do next.

"I'm sorry," Donna mumbled and to her own surprise Clara believed her, "You know my family needs the money. You know how things are. When Missy put the word out I-"

"Enough!" he shouted in reply.

Suddenly Clara's eyes wandered to the edge of the desk where she saw their passports lying. She had no idea whether they were finished or not but if they got out of this somehow they would need them. Maybe she could grab them when no one else was looking?

"Now, now," Seb smiled at them and suddenly produced a gun, waving it in their direction, "Let's not make this harder than it is. You're free to go, Doctor. Missy just wants to talk to Clara. Hand her over. This doesn't have to be complicated."

Clara couldn't see the Doctor's face, so when he hesitated to speak she was scared for just a tiny little moment. Until he reached for his own gun and pointed it straight at Seb. That was her moment, the moment everyone else was too busy being shocked. She reached for the passports and stuffed the into the back pocket of her trousers.

Seb snorted. "Please, Doctor. Everyone knows you're not a killer," he laughed, "Let's just quit this game and give me the girl."

"Clara," the Doctor said calmly, "Stay right behind me and do as I say."

She watched Seb's expression when the Doctor continued to point the gun at him and slowly but surely the smile was fading from his face.

"You're right," the Doctor said, taking a step towards Seb, "I am not a killer. But I am a man of my word. You know that, too, right?"

The man nodded, swallowing, but he never lowered his gun. Clara noticed how his hand was beginning to shake.

"I swore that I would keep Clara safe and I am willing to die to keep that promise. Make no mistake, if you shoot – and you're a lousy shot – I will still have time to put a bullet right into your eye and Clara will still get away. Are you willing to die for a lost cause?"

His voice was calm but still as sharp as a knife and Clara knew that he absolutely meant what he was saying. Right now she was only praying it wouldn't come to that. She needed the Doctor, she depended on him and she really, really couldn't lose him now.

Then suddenly a shot was fired and for a moment it seemed as if her heart had stopped until she realized that it was the Doctor who had pulled the trigger. Right into Seb's foot. The man dropped his gun and yelped with pain but she didn't have time to see what else was happening as the Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the office and back to their car. He fired his gun once more, aiming at the tire of the other car parked next to theirs before they both jumped into their seats and he drove off.

He didn't speak for the longest time, he just stared at the road ahead, pushing the pedal down and driving them out of the city and for a while Clara was even thankful for it. She needed to gather her thoughts, make sense of what had happened and calm down. Now she knew one thing for sure – she could trust the Doctor to protect her, even if the lengths he would go to to do that terrified her once more. After a while however the silence became sort of unnerving.

"You shot him," Clara stated and was surprised at how small her voice sounded.

"In the foot," he replied coldly, "He'll live."

A part of her wanted to thank him for saving her once again but something told her that the Doctor wouldn't appreciate that right now.

"It was all for nothing," he suddenly cursed, hitting the steering wheel with his flat hand in his anger, "We needed the passports."

It was only then that Clara remembered they were still in her trouser pocket and she had no idea whether Donna had had the time to finish them or not. She lifted her butt off the seat and pulled them out, holding them up for the Doctor to see.

"I took them while you boys were playing with your weapons," Clara smiled and suddenly felt a stab of pride when the Doctor's eyes widened in amazement. She opened her passport and couldn't spot a difference to a real one. "Seems like Donna finished them after all."

The Doctor let out a sudden laugh. "Clara Oswald, I could kiss you," he turned his head towards her, smiling broadly, "You really are clever, aren't you?"

Clara gave a small shrug of her shoulders but couldn't hide the smile. Of course she was clever and she was well aware of that, even though she had learned to hide that from her acquaintances at university.

"So, what now?" she asked him, "Missy knows roughly where we are, so I guess we should go somewhere else."

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Yes. Probably. Find a quiet place to hide for a while," he snorted, "Missy is going to search the entire UK for a man named John Smith."

The last comment made Clara laugh. "Well, that will keep her busy for a while. But hey, since we're both Smiths, what are we now? Husband and wife?"

The Doctor frowned at her. "Or I could be your father. I'm old enough."

His last statement made Clara flinch. "Don't say it like that, that's just weird."

"Why?" he asked but Clara never answered him. This wasn't the time to make a pass at him. They both had better things to worry about now.

"Did Missy kill my father? I mean, if she sent people out to find me-"

"I don't know," he replied abruptly, "And she won't be the only one looking for you. Everyone knows how much your father loved you, everyone has seen the photo of you he kept on his desk."

"They know what I look like?" Clara asked, suddenly horrified. If they just happened to come across someone who knew her all the fake passports in the world wouldn't help them. Then she spotted a hair salon they were passing. "Pull up here!"

"What?"

"I want to get my hair cut."

"Clara, this is hardly the time to do that," the Doctor tried to reason with her.

"If they know what I look like I better change the way I look. The least I can do is make it a little less easy for them," Clara replied determinedly.

Finally the Doctor seemed to have seen the sense behind her words and he turned the car around to stop at the salon. Clara went in on her own while he waited in the car and she kept staring at her own reflection while the hairdresser cut her long hair up to her shoulder. There was something odd about it, even though Clara couldn't quite put her finger on it. It was as if there was more than hair falling away from her, as if it somehow symbolized her losses, her life slowly slipping away, disintegrating. She had lost her father, her home, the people she had called friends and she only now realized how little she had actually cared about them. She struggled to keep away the tears as the hairdresser showed her the finished result and she paid without saying another word before Clara headed back to the car.

"It looks nice," the Doctor commented as she buckled up, "I like it."

"Just drive," she replied absent-mindedly and leaned towards the window, watching the towns and the trees fly by until it was too dark to see anything.