Fear Her, Part One
"Clara." There was a soft knock at Clara's door, but she didn't feel like answering it. She didn't want to talk to the Doctor right then. "Clara, please let me in."
"Go away," she muttered, flipping angrily through the magazine she had found in her room. The TARDIS hummed at her, obviously telling her to talk to the door.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." The Doctor said. "I shouldn't have blown up at you."
"Yea, you shouldn't have." Clara was determined to stay in a bad mood. He held out the pocket watch to her. Without a word, she took it and threw it across the room. She didn't want it anymore. The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets and sat on the edge of her bed. She scowled, but said nothing.
"I'll make it up to you." He spoke up after a minute or so in silence. "Come on." He jumped up, running to the console room. Clara rolled her eyes, not moving. She eyed the fob watch on the floor; it had popped open again when she threw it, and had a brand new crack in the glass.
The TARDIS jerked, causing Clara to fall back on her bed. She groaned, wondering where he was taking her. No matter how mad she was at him, she knew she'd go with him wherever he went. She loved him and couldn't stay mad at him for too long.
The TARDIS stopped jerking, so she sighed and walked out of the room. As she made her way to the console room, she police box jerked to the side suddenly, and she bumped her head on the wall.
"Damn," she mumbled, rubbing her head as she continued walking.
"Are you alright?" The Doctor asked, concerned, when he noticed her hand on her head. She nodded shortly, ignoring the throbbing pain it caused.
"So, where are we?" She asked. "And when, as well?" The Doctor opened the door for her and she stepped through. They were on a street in a neighborhood in London.
"A little in your past," he replied. "I thought you'd like it. 2012, the Olympics!" Just then, Clara saw the giant sign for the Olympics waving in the breeze. Despite her attempts to stay angry, she grinned. She had been so disappointed when she wasn't able to see the Olympics live, so this was great. Sneakily, the Doctor slipped his hand in hers while she marveled over the sign.
"Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood around baying," he said. He paused a second. "No, wait a minute, that was Club Med." They began walking down the street, and the Doctor swung their arms back and forth. Clara tried to be annoyed by it, but she couldn't. "We're just in time for the opening doo dah, ceremony, tonight, I thought you'd like that. Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much, I went back and watched it all over again. Fella carrying the torch. Lovely chap, what was his name?" The Doctor was rambling, but Clara didn't care.
Despite all the time travel she did with the Doctor, the thing that always got her was when they went only a little in the future or past. It was strange to see things so similar, yet not quite right.
Clara watched as a man taped a poster to a lamp post. The Doctor continued to talk, not even noticing that she wasn't paying attention.
"Mark?" He was listing names. "John? Matt? Legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet." Clara's eyes widened when the man stepped back and she saw what was on the poster. It was a Missing poster for a child.
"Doctor," she said, halting. The Doctor stopped, but kept talking.
"And in those days, everybody had a tea party to go to." She didn't even know what he was talking about by then. Clara yanked gently on his arm.
"Doctor!" She started dragging him towards the lamp post with the poster. He looked down at her, smiling. He was probably happy that she wasn't angry with him anymore.
"Did you ever have one of those little cakes with the crunchy ball bearings on top?" He asked randomly. She gave him a weird look.
She nodded to the poster and said, "You should really look at this."
"Do you know those things? Nobody else in this entire galaxy's ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings. Genius." Clara rolled her eyes. She had spotted a second Missing poster on the same lamp. There was a third on the other side.
"Doctor!" Finally, she had his attention. "Look at this." He looked at the posters, furrowing his eyebrows.
"What's taking them, do you think? Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this." He murmured. Clara shivered. She was freezing! "Why's it so cold? Is someone reducing the temperature?"
"It says they all went missing this week," Clara commented, reading the posters. "Why would a person do something like this? How could you just take a kid?" The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her.
"What makes you think it's a person?" Clara bit her lip, looking around the street. There was no one but some road construction workers out.
"Whatever it is, it's got the whole street scared to death." Clara looked back at the Doctor to see that he had run off, running to a front lawn. He inspected the goal on the lawn. "What are you doing?" She asked, jogging over to him.
Just then, a car driving down the road stopped. One of the road workers went over to help.
"Fifth today. Not natural, is it?" The worker said, helping the driver out of the car so they could push it. The driver shook his head.
"I don't know what happened, I had it serviced less than a month ago."
"Nah, don't even try and explain it, mate. All the cars are doing it. And do you know what? It's bonkers. Bonkers. Come on then, pal. I'll help you shift it. Quicker you're on the way, happier you'll be." They began pushing it, with little success. Clara watched them, then looked at the Doctor. He was in his own little world, so Clara walked over to the two men.
"Do you want a hand?" She offered.
"No, we're all right, love." The worker said, groaning from the effort to push the car. Clara shook her head.
"You're not. I'm tougher than I look, honest." Without letting either of them protest, Clara began pushing the car as well. Just as she did, the engine roared back to life. The worker, in surprise, fell over. Clara helped him back up as the driver hopped into his car and drove off.
"Does this happen a lot?" Clara asked, wiping her hands on her jeans. The worker shrugged.
"Been doing it all week." Clara raised her eyebrows, connecting the dots.
"Since those children started going missing?"
"Yeah, I suppose so." The worker went back to his work and Clara looked over at the Doctor, who was still inspecting the goal. A man had come out of the house that the goal was in front of.
"What's your game?" He asked the Doctor suspiciously. The Doctor looked confused.
"Snakes and Ladders?" He guessed. "Quite good at squash. Reasonable. I'm being facetious, aren't I? There's no call for it."
"Every car cuts out." The worker told Clara from his spot. "The council are going nuts. I mean, they've given this street the works. Renamed it. I've been tarmacking every pot hole. Look at that. Beauty, init? Yeah! And all that is because that Olympic Torch comes right by the end of this Close. Just down there. Everything's got to be perfect, ain't it? Only it ain't." A female worker stopped what she was doing at turned her attention to Clara.
"It takes them when they're playing.," she confided quietly. Clara walked closer, interested.
"What takes them?" She asked, arms crossed. The woman shrugged.
"Danny, Jane, Dale. Snatched in the blink of an eye."
Clara took that in, when suddenly everyone was arguing. The Doctor was trying to convince everyone that he and Clara were police officers, then they were being blamed for what's happened. The man that had been talking to the Doctor was getting angry. It was clear that he was in denial about what was happening.
"Look, kids run off sometimes, all right?" He insisted. "That's what they do." The woman worker shook her head firmly.
"Saw it with me own eyes." She said. "Dale Hicks in your garden, playing with your Tommy, and then pfft! Right in front of me, like he was never there. There's no need to look any further than this street. It's right here amongst us."
"Why don't we-" the Doctor began, only to be cut off by some woman.
"Why don't we start with him?" She pointed to the worker that Clara had helped. "There's been all sorts like him in this street, day and night." He looked offended.
"Fixing things up for the Olympics." He told her. The man with the goal in his yard snorted.
"Yea, and taking an awful long time about it.," he muttered. Pretty soon, everyone except the Doctor and Clara were yelling back and forth. Finally, the Doctor had had it. He pressed his finger against his lips.
"Fingers on lips!" He yelled. He eyed everyone, even Clara, until everyone had their index finger on their lips. "In the last six days, three of your children have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right?" The female worker moved her finger from her lips slowly.
"Er, can I?" She raised her finger, awkwardly indicating that she wanted to speak. The Doctor nodded and she gestured to the neighborhood. "Look around you. This was a safe street till it came. It's not a person. I'll say it if no one else will. Maybe you're coppers, maybe you're not. I don't care who you are. Can you please help us?"
Clara, a bit distracted, noticed a young girl peering down at them from a window. She watched her until the girl left. By then, the people had gone and the Doctor was- strangely enough- sniffing around the house with the goal.
"Want a hanky?" She offered dryly. The Doctor stopped sniffing, standing straight. He looked at her.
"Can you smell it?" She inhaled deeply through her nose. "What does it remind you of?" Clara scrunched her nose, trying to place the smell.
"Sort of metal?" She guessed. The Doctor nodded. "Oh." Clara had smelled that before.
The next thing she knew, they were walking between two lots of back gardens. Both were sniffing, searching for the smell.
"Danny Edwards cycled in one end but never came out the other." The Doctor told her. His eyes widened. "Whoa, there it goes again! Look at the hairs on the back of my manly hairy hand." Clara ignored that comment because she smelled it.
"And there's that smell. It's like a er, a burnt fuse plug or something." The Doctor nodded.
"There's a residual energy in the spots where the kids vanished. Whatever it was, it used an awful lot of power to do this." Clara bit her lip.
What was happening?
A/N: Does this chapter make sense? I feel like parts of it don't make sense, especially since I skipped a bit of the dialogue. Then again, I never really liked this episode. I'm only writing it since I already skipped The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and Love and Monsters. Otherwise, I would have skipped this one.
Let me know what you thought in a review!