CHAPTER NINE

DETENTION

"Who were those people?!" Clara asked.

"The founding fathers of Gallifrey?" replied the Doctor, clicking buttons on the console.

"Founding fathers? Like the people who made Gallifrey 'Gallifrey'," whispered Clara is shock.

"Yep," retorted the Doctor.

"But they just vanished into nothing," stuttered Clara, attempting to piece everything together, "what's the point of having a TARDIS if Time Lords can just disappear within thin air."

"Fair point."

"Wait, can you vanish and appear too?"

"Of course I can't," laughed the Doctor, "no, they've done something to their bio-structure. No doubt after I locked them away, saved them awayshould I say, in the pocket universe, they concocted something to rewrite their DNA …"

"How could they do that?" asked Clara, leaning against the Console Platform railing. "A question we need to ask River. You said she had figured it out," replied the Doctor as Clara nodded her head, "I assume her connection hologram has deteriorated because she left the Library in the TARDIS. That's why she vanished earlier in the lobby."

"Probably why she was all pixelated and glitchy when I saw her upstairs too," added Clara.

The Doctor pulled a lever and leant again the Platform railing opposite to Clara. "I don't understand," he said softly to himself, "the Time Lords keep going about this 'Plan'. All they say about it is that it worked."

"Ooh!" piped up Clara, an idea shooting through her head, "The bio-structure thing you said?"

"Maybe," muttered the Doctor, "but what would be the point of vanishing and appearing?" Clara thought for a moment and replied, "Well, it's quicker to travel than in the TARDIS, right?"

"You'd get ripped to sheds in the Time Winds," responded the Doctor, pacing around the Console Platform, "they said they threw the Nightmare Child into Vortex, causing him to break through in this universe …

"But that would mean they'd have to split the skin of the pocket universe open too, like opening the doors of an airlock. How could they have opened an entry the Time Vortex? That's impossible. Well, not impossible. I mean they have the Untempered Schism. But the Nightmare Child was huge, gigantic in his true form. The little boy is his disguise. He wouldn't have changed back into his disguise form willingly. If he broke through, the tear in the skin of universe would have to be enormous. But they'd have had to rip open the wall of the pocket universe first …"

"Could they have detonated a TARDIS in the pocket universe?" said Clara, walking across the platform, "that's what the Cracks are, right, Cracks in Time, exposing the Time Vortex because of the exploding TARDIS?"

"Couldn't have," the Doctor replied, "all the TARDISes were destroyed in the Daleks' first wave of attack. Cut off our potential escape into the Vortex."

The TARDIS engines became silent and the Doctor checked the monitor, "Strange …" The camera view from outside the TARDIS was pitch black. He tapped the side of the screen, however it did nothing.

"Is the Library's core usually like this?" Clara asked, glancing around at the monitor.

"No …"

"River did say there were Librarians everywhere down here."

"Clara," the Doctor said, "there's nothing outside."

"Well, obviously."

"No, there is nothing outside. No light, no dark, no up, no down, no left, no right. We can't be in space, there's no stars."

"But," Clara smacked the side of the screen, however it did nothing, "you're talking like we're in –"

"The Void," answered the Doctor, his voice full of worry, "this is impossible. Completely impossible."

"Well, you know what goes hand and hand with impossible," said Clara, a small grin appearing on her face, "me." Clara hurried around the Platform and up the stairs, pulling the police box doors open.

"Clara!"

"Whoa …"

The Doctor walked up behind Clara and gazed through the doors. It was exactly like the monitor. It was pitch black. The area the TARDIS had landed in was a vast mass of emptiness – no light and mass, nothing of anything.

"This isn't the Void, Doctor," Clara whispered, glancing around in disbelief, "this is the computer core."

"The Crack's absorbed it."

Suddenly, the Doctor jumped out of the TARDIS and landed on what seemed to be a solid surface. He laughed loudly, "the great space of darkness. Amazing."

Clara could see the Doctor perfectly, staring around the spacious and eerily quiet place with a look of confusion upon his face.

If it wasn't the pure emptiness that made Clara uneasy, it was the booming silence that echoed around her. Not a sound, not a whisper, nothing of anything that could make a slightest amount of noise is what feared Clara the most. She had only experienced this kind of fear once before; the day her mother passed away. She arrived home from school and found her father sitting in the lounge-room of their home. He spoke not a word, not a whisper, not even a sound when Clara sat opposite him and asked him what was wrong. He was frozen, unable to process the passing of his wife and in turn, cutting himself from reality that continued on around him.

"I don't understand …" the Doctor whispered, waving his hand in front of his face, "no pixilation," he just up and down twice, "perfectly solid ground with a gravity pull beneath us."

Clara took a step out of the TARDIS and felt for the ground. Indeed, there was an invisible surface below her feet. "Wait a minute," whispered the Doctor, "Omega got out of the anti-matter universe. Oh, wonderful."

"What?" cried Clara, walking across to the Doctor.

"Turn around," he gasped, his left eye twitching slightly.

Clara gulped and slowly turned on the spot.

"Oh, no …" All she could around was darkness, except for the Doctor, "where's the TARDIS?"

"Good question. Perhaps it's cloaked itself somehow."

"You said anti-matter universe."

"Yep."

"Anti-matter, Doctor. The TARDIS is matter!" exclaimed Clara, running back to the spot where the TARDIS had been. She felt nothing but empty space. It was gone.

"Oh, God," shouted Clara, turning back to the Doctor, "we're going to die, aren't we?"

"What makes you say that?"

"Seriously?! Doctor, we're both matter! Atoms and molecules bound together. We're going to blink out of existence!"

"No," replied the Doctor calmly, "an anti-matter universe removes everything around a being, except the being itself. Perfect place for punishment. Time Lord schools, back on Gallifrey, used anti-matter universes as detention rooms."

"Great, so you're back in detention. How the hell do we get out of here?!" snapped Clara, folding her arms.

"I think I just found Omega's escape door."

The Doctor began walking towards Clara, however focused on something behind her. Turning around, a bright light blinded her. As her eyes adjusted, the source of the light became clearer – it was a Crack, hanging in the middle of the darkness. "This is how he got out," explained the Doctor, "he would have seen this light and without knowing what it was or where it came from, walked into it. He escaped the universe."

"How long was he here for?" asked Clara.

"I don't know … millions and millions of years, probably. The strength of this light would have been so powerful, his eyes are probably still trying to adjust," said the Doctor, walking closer to the Crack, "he tried to punch me upstairs. Would have missed me by a mile, with the direction he was throwing."

Clara held her hand up against the strength of the light, "So where will this take us?"

"Back to the Library, hopefully."

"Why did we end up here anyway?" asked Clara.

"All these Cracks are interconnected to the Library. Somehow, the TARDIS landed here thinking it was the computer core," the Doctor said, "It's strange, though. Omega runs through this Crack, he lands in the Library. The Nightmare Child somehow is thrown through another and lands in the Library. What's so special about this planet?"

"If we jump through this Crack, will it rip us apart?" asked Clara.

The Doctor paused, "Assuming this was an after-shock crack of the Nightmare Child breaking through, it shouldn't. It'll simply act as a teleport, a link back to the Library core, possibly."

"Let's find out," Clara took the Doctor's hand, "On three."

The Doctor smiled, and nodded.

"One … two … three!"

They jumped into the blinding light.

BANG!

The emptiness of the anti-matter universe suddenly vanished and soon, the Doctor and Clara were standing in the middle of large garden with lush green grass. A footpath led from the garden to a white, old mansion with a sign posted into the ground with the letterings C.A.L. written on it. Walking towards them along the winding path was a woman dressed in a white, flowing dress and had blonde, fizzy hair.

"Hello, sweetie."