*Hey peeps. Blimey I can't believe we're here already, on the home stretch. Only five more chapters after this one and we're done! This chapter is another helter-skelter action one, which most of them will be from here on out. There's plenty of fluffy Whouffle moments, but it's more a mad dash to the end then a relaxing stroll. I really hope you guys enjoy this chapter and don't crucify me for another cliffhanger ending (there's still more of them to come) and as ever, please keep on favouriting, following, reading and reviewing. You guys have been amazing thus far and I hope that I can do the ending of this story justice to the support you've given me. So, here we go. And one word: Run. TPD*
As Clara woke, she felt a chill run down her spine. It was that day. The 5th March. The day she liked to pretend didn't exist. The day she ignored. The day she wanted nothing more than lie in bed and pretend that the world wasn't happening around her. But she couldn't just lie there, helplessly. She had a job to get to and a wedding to prepare and a universe to see. She glanced at the Doctor, who was still asleep. She wondered if he'd remember. Probably, she thought. He had been there after all, at the funeral. Whether she'd known it at the time or not. She felt an odd feeling of unease at the idea of the Doctor stalking her as she grew up, popping up at various times in her childhood. What made it worse was that she joined him some of the time. Her childhood memories were fragmented, but he was definitely in there somewhere. Clara climbed out of bed and had a shower, leaving the Doctor to doze for a little while longer. She felt the hot water cleanse her and she tried not to cry as she felt her legs weaken. She sat in the shower for about ten minutes before the shower door slipped open and he joined her. She was grateful for the company in truth and they sat in silence for a while, the hot water still falling on their heads as the Doctor wrapped his arm around her.
"Are you okay?" he asked as she stood and turned off the hot water, blinking away tears.
"Fine," she replied unconvincingly. "It's always a tough day. Dad's meeting us at the graveyard at 1, during our lunch hour yeah?"
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Are you sure you want me there?"
"Of course I want you there!" Clara choked. "It'll be nice to have a shoulder to cry on for a change. Everything between me and Dad has been so detached these last few years. I dunno, I just think it'll be nice to have a new face at the graveside. Plus, she'd love to meet you and know that I'm happy," Clara smiled and pushed past the Doctor, grabbing a towel. "Just be ready to leave for school in half an hour and don't worry about me."
Both elements of that proved to be impossible for the Doctor. He spent a good fifteen minutes in a wrestling match with the toaster that he inevitably lost and despite his best attempts, he couldn't stop Clara from being miserable. This saddened him and when they reached school, her hug and goodbye kiss were at best half-hearted. The Doctor found himself distracted that morning and after setting his desk on fire for the third time, he realised that practical experiments probably weren't such a good idea. At least, nothing involving fire. He met Clara at 12:45 for lunch and she was unsurprisingly quiet as they walked to the graveyard, meeting Dave outside. They strolled in, small talk almost non-existent as both men kept an eye on Clara, who was sombre but not crying.
"Hi mum," Clara said quietly, with Dave on her left side and the Doctor on her right. "I brought you some flowers. The usual mix, just like last year. It's been another year now and there have been times in the last 12 months where I've missed you more than ever." She paused. "Everything's changed mum. I've got a fiancé now. I'm engaged," she choked, laughing at the thought. "He's different. So different. He's an alien, a madcap alien who wears a lot of bow ties, is over 1000 years old and travels time and space in a blue snog box. But he's good to me and I love him. So much. I know you'd love him. Sometimes, I wish I could go back in time and see you again, show him off. But, I can't. Sometimes about paradoxes and time falling apart. But I just need you to know that I still love you. And I still miss you. And…" Clara was streaming tears now, her voice cracked. "I still need you. Every day. There are so many times when I'm lost and alone and confused and even the Doctor can't save me. And I need you. I always need you, to tell me that it's going to be okay. I need my mum to scoop me up and make everything better."
Clara slipped to her knees and buried her head in her hands. The Doctor stepped forward and put his arm around her. He kissed her cheek and whispered in her ear: "Everything's going to be alright Clara. I'm here." She threw herself into his arms, sobbing on his shoulder. The Doctor guided her away from the grave, giving Dave a few moments alone with his wife. Clara looked up at him through misty eyes and smiled tearfully.
"I love you," she whispered. "And I know my mum would love you too."
"I love you too Clara," the Doctor replied. "And I'm sure I would have loved her too, given the chance. Do you want some more time with her?"
"No," Clara sobbed. "I'm ready to go now. As soon as Dad's done."
"Oh hell…" the Doctor hissed. "Clara, stay here."
Clara frowned but obeyed as the Doctor leapt to his feet and ran over to the path, where he was examining something, his face grave. He had pulled out his sonic and his face turned from grave to angry and she heard him yell angrily. He came storming back a minute later, his face thunderous.
"Clara," he said quietly. "We have a serious problem. The path, over there? The stones in the path are different. They've been aligned somehow. Almost like a ritual of some sort. That means that something terrible is going to happen. The sonic indicates that there are some powerful energy signatures coming from several locations nearby, and they all converge on this graveyard. We need to get out of here, now. We need to call U.N.I.T and seal off this graveyard."
Clara was struggling to comprehend it all but before she could respond, there was a knocking noise. The Doctor frowned and pressed his head to the ground. His eyes lit up with panic and horror and he ran over to Dave, pulling him away despite his protests.
"What the hell are you playing at?" Dave yelled.
"Sorry Dave, but you need to move away from that grave," the Doctor ordered. "I am so sorry Dave, but something terrible is about to happen."
As if on cue, the knocking got louder and then what remained of Clara's mother punched her way from out of the ground. Clara screamed and Dave stumbled back, horrified. He looked like he wanted to vomit as the Doctor guided them both away from Ellie's grave. The plots around Ellie began to rumble and as they ran through the graveyard, arms began to erupt from the ground all around them.
"Doctor, what's happening?" Clara yelled as they stumbled out of the graveyard and looked back to see the dead rising from their graves. "How is this possible? They're dead! You can't bring back the dead, you told me that yourself."
"No," the Doctor agreed. "You can't bring back the dead. But they aren't the people who died. Not really. They're just empty shells, reanimated with no real consciousness, just soldiers to be controlled. That's what the signals are, they're a calling to the skeletons of the long dead, summoning them."
"Why?" Dave asked desperately. "What for? What kind of monster would summon up an army of the dead?"
"An army that needs bodies…" the Doctor pondered. "An army that doesn't care where it gets the bodies from, or even that they be anything other than bones and limited flesh." His face lit up but the next words sent a chill down Clara's spine. "A desperate army. A Cyber army."
"A Cyber army?" Clara whispered. "Doctor, did you say Cyber? As in Cybermen?" he nodded grimly. "But…" Clara pulled him in, glancing at her dad and hoping he wouldn't hear. "The last time we fought a Cyber army," she said, keeping her voice as even as possible, even though she was shaking. "We had to blow up the planet."
"Yes we did," the Doctor agreed. "But we won't this time, I promise Clara. Right," he clapped his hands together. "Those bodies won't take long to get out of the graveyard, and then they'll try to head to the Cyber facility. Luckily, U.N.I.T will be here any minute. Dave, take Clara back to school, I'm going to trace the signals back to their locations and take down the Cybermen."
"If you think I'm going anywhere," Clara snapped. "You're sorely mistaken."
"Clara..." Dave butted in. "The kids will be…"
"Bugger the kids," Clara rounded on him. "I'm not letting my fiancé go up against a Cyber army all by his lonesome, are we clear?"
The Doctor was filled with a mixture of pride and agony. He wanted more than anything to protect Clara but he couldn't imagine leaving her behind. At that point, a series of Jeeps pulled up from all directions.
"Kate Lethbridge-Stewart!" The Doctor grinned. "You got here just in time. Quickly, you need to seal off this cemetery and probably more across the city, we don't know how widespread this is."
"More widespread than you think Doctor," Kate replied. "The Cyber invasion is already underway."
"Oh dear," the Doctor smiled warmly at her and then took Dave and Clara to one side. "Run!" he yelled and dragged them after him as Kate raised her hands.
"Bring them in alive," she yelled. "The Cyber leaders will want the Doctor taken to central command!"
Clara didn't even have time to consider what was going on as they ran, the jeeps swirling around them as the Doctor dragged her along with him, down the streets. They cut through alley ways and skidded round corners. After a few minutes, they'd found themselves a back street that was completely deserted. They walked briskly, Clara ready to bombard the Doctor with questions but he was already talking.
"The Cybermen must've been here a while," he mused. "They've infiltrated U.N.I.T. Odd, must've evolved from ear piece technology, some kind of neural link. Oh of course, Cybermites. They're probably in all the soldiers. The raising of the dead was stage two. They gain control of the city through U.N.I.T, then they start raising the dead. The dead go to the factories to be converted, then they already have a Cyber army when people start attacking them. They'll eventually convert U.N.I.T but they need a human military presence to uphold calm while they shepherd the people into the conversion factories."
"So they've turned all of those soldiers into puppets?" Clara asked. "Just like they did with you?" the Doctor pulled a face. "Sorry, but you know what I mean. So what, they'll start converting people next?"
"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "Once they have some working Cybermen, which those bodies will provide them, then they can seal off the city and convert the populace. U.N.I.T are just another way to make it run smoothly. Human guards, nobody suspects aliens when there are human guards involved."
"So what do we do?" Dave asked desperately. The Doctor bit his lip.
"Three factories," he muttered. "That's just in this area. They must all be connected somehow, there must be one centralised base, they can't have that many conversion centres." He fiddled with the sonic. "Aha!" he grinned. "The signals are coming from various points across the city because they're being bounced off of aerials. The Cybermen have hijacked military satellites and are bouncing their core signal around, making it almost impossible to centralise the source."
"So we're screwed?" Clara groaned. "Unless we could trace the signals back? But surely if they all have a common source…"
"Scanning all three sources of the signal would give us an edge," he admitted. "Can you help?"
Clara nodded and pulled out her own sonic, grateful as the Doctor flicked his, transferring the necessary data patterns. Clara focused on one of the signals as the Doctor focused on another. They kept walking deeper into the city, resulting in more and more satellites becoming active as they kept walking, slipping through back routes and desperately avoiding any soldiers.
"We should go back to the house," Dave said quietly. "We shouldn't be out in the open."
The Doctor and Clara exchanged a look. Dave raised an eyebrow at this but they kept walking and sonicing, neither of them willing to budge as they shot each other exasperated and annoyed glares. Dave seemed to want to interject but their silent argument carried on as the sonic gave Clara an increasingly clear mental image of where they were going.
"We can't go home dad," Clara said eventually. "U.N.I.T know where we live. They'll already have commandeered the TARDIS; they'll be waiting for us to show up. The second we do, they'll arrest us and take us the Cybermen. They'll convert us, turn the Doctor into their leader, access his knowledge of time travel and infinite knowledge of the universe and then they'll…"
"They'll be able to sweep across the cosmos," the Doctor picked up. "They'll have the power to travel anywhere at any time and invade. Imagine it Dave. Daleks? Invade their planet before they're even born and convert the entire race into Cyber creatures. Cybermen. The name is apt. They're robots. Human beings, well almost any species, sliced to bits and chopped up and what's left on them encased in metal. Never feeling, all emotion removed. No pain, no anger, no joy, no love. The entire universe with a heart of stone. And then they'd stop. The entire universe would be an emotionless, metal pit. With nothing left. That's what the Cybermen want. And if they get their hands on my brain, that's what they'll do with it. So no, we can't head home. We need to find their base, sneak in and stop them, preferably with the option of saving all the people that they haven't yet converted."
"And what about Ellie?" Dave asked, very quietly. Clara went pale, so pale the Doctor thought she might faint for a moment. But of course she didn't. She was Clara, his Clara, she didn't faint. Even at the idea of her mum becoming a Cyberman. But he didn't know what to say. There was a good chance she'd already been converted, her skeleton now housed in that metallic shell, waiting for her former daughter and husband to turn up so she could convert them. The sheer thought of it made the Doctor want to wretch. But he'd tackled the Cybermen before, he knew what horrors they were capable of. He had no intention of losing Clara or Dave to them.
"If Ellie hasn't been converted, then I'll personally bury her again," the Doctor promised. "I'll use the DNA system in the sonic to identify her and I'll leave her back where we found her. If I have to, I'll use the TARDIS to jump back and remove the coffin before the signal hits, so she isn't desecrated. I will do every single thing in my power to help her escape eternity as a Cyberman. But first, we have to find that factory and stop them converting people who are still alive. Clara," his voice was tender but firm. "Have you got a lock? I've got it narrowed to somewhere in Central London."
"I've got it down to Fulham," Clara informed him. "If we keep walking that way, will that help?"
"The signals should start to converge on themselves, loop over," the Doctor admitted. "We're only about an hour away. Dave, you should stay here, find somewhere to hide. The closer we get to that factory, the more likely we'll be to run into soldiers or worse." He bit his lip. "Clara, we have no weapons that would work against Cybermen. Only U.N.I.T do and as you might have guessed, they won't be sharing them. So if you see a Cyberman, run. If you can't escape, surrender. I won't let anything happen to you, I promise."
"How?" Dave snapped. "How can you guarantee her safety? How can you think for a second that I'm going to sit here and wait whilst the two of you run into God knows what mayhem against metal men?"
"Because," the Doctor said quietly. "I'll surrender if they let Clara go."
"What?" Clara snapped. "What happened to: they'll spread across the cosmos, turning everything to metal? You'd be prepared to let that happen, just so they wouldn't convert me? That's madness Doctor, it's worse than madness it's…"
"Would you do any different?" he cut her off despairingly. "Clara Oswald, the universe is nothing to me without you in it. So, for God's sake, don't get caught or we may find ourselves living in a very metal world, very soon. Dave, I take it you're joining us?" He nodded. "Okay then, prepare yourselves, because I don't know about you Clara, but I have a fix." Her eyes widened, she flicked the sonic and they locked eyes. "Geronimo."
The heart of Fulham was almost deserted, despite the fact that it was still just about daylight. They'd been walking for hours, so dark had almost fallen. Clara had resigned herself to the fact that it was too late to save her mother but neither her nor her father had said a word about it as they walked. The Doctor had also been strangely subdued and she suspected that that had something to do with the fact that he was feeling angry and guilty about what had happened to her mum. As ever, it hadn't been his fault, but he was silently raging at the Cybermen and Clara suspected he would be merciless when it came down to it. She was very nervous about the fact that her father was with her but she supposed that it was better than letting him stay behind, where she'd never be sure if he was alive or dead. At least when he was with her, the Doctor could protect him, as he'd always protected her. As they could see the Cyber factory in the distance, jutting out between two skyscrapers, almost forlorn, by this point, there were soldiers on almost every street and slipping past them became increasingly difficult. It didn't help that they would all know what the Doctor looked like and probably would have had a good chance at identifying Clara as well.
Then, about two streets from the factory, they heard it. A rattling, clanking sound, horrifically loud against the dead of night. The Doctor and Clara exchanged a look. Cybermen. They had begun to upgrade then. A tear slipped down Clara's cheek and the Doctor wiped it away for her. She nodded her thanks and they kissed softly. They gazed out into the street and saw them, a platoon. Fifty Cybermen, all marching down the main road. The Doctor's face was white. They waited until the Cybermen had passed and then they kept moving. By this point, they were no more than a few hundred feet from the factory. Then, the Cybermen turned. And they marched back towards them.
Clara's breath caught in her mouth, Dave swore and the Doctor stepped back. The Cybermen moved towards them at an astonishing pace and the Doctor yelled to run as they legged it, the Doctor pushing Clara and Dave ahead of him. They were running towards the factory, but the doors opened and more Cybermen came pouring out, forcing them down a side road. They ran and there was a small gap in the fence, opening out into the huge car park on the other side. They were cornered. The Doctor turned to Clara and kissed her forehead. She frowned.
"You have to go Clara," he whispered. "Now. You're the only one small enough to fit through the gap." She went to protest but he put his finger over her mouth. "Don't argue, just do it. I promise, I won't let them harm your father. Go, escape. Don't come back for me. Clara, I know you want to, but get out of here. Find somewhere to hide and I'll find a way to end this nightmare. I'll come and find you Clara. Go! Now!"
By the end of his speech he was pleading, almost begging for her to go. She kissed him one final time and then the Cybermen were upon them. Clara backed away, crawling under the wire fence and into the car park, she slipped out of sight and held a position to watch what unfolded.
"You know who I am," the Doctor said quietly. "Scan me; you'll see what I'm capable of. I'll come along quietly if you let this man go. If you hurt him in any way, you'll find me less than cooperative. And, if your archives are anything to go by, the one thing you'll want me to be is cooperative. Because if you don't release him, I will grind your entire species into the dust, metal man by metal man until not even one tiny Cybermite is left. Do you understand me?"
"Confirmed," a Cyberman said. "You are the Doctor. You are designated level 4 being, you are an enemy and as such you will be taken to Cyber Command. The other is dispensable."
"No," the Doctor snarled. "He is not."
And then the Cyberman shot Dave.