She was halfway through dinner when a screw appeared at the door of her cell.
"Inmate RY2227, you're due in the Senior Prison Officer's office."
She looked across the cell to Vastra. The woman shrugged and returned to her meal, but Clara caught the slight lift of her eyebrows. And it frightened her.
She set her tray to the side and rose up from the bed, quickly pushing her socked feet back into her shoes. She followed after the screw (who seemed intent on keeping at least a foot of distance between them at all times, as if Clara were contagious) and ignored the whistles and disgusting comments that flittered her way from the cells in the men's wing. She wanted very much to lift her head and shout equally crude things back at them, but she was worried she was already in trouble somehow. Perhaps they'd found out about the phone call.
The screw gestured towards an opened doorway, turned, and left. Clara hesitated outside of it for a long, pulse-pounding moment, but then she lifted her chin and walked through. There was an ornate wooden desk, a plush armchair, and a rickety folding chair. She didn't have to be told which was for her.
Once she was seated on the flimsy seat, she looked up at the officer. He didn't offer her the same respect. He kept his eyes on the screen in front of him as he spoke.
"Your visiting numbers have been voided. Your phone call privileges have been revoked. You are no longer welcome to join your fellow inmates during lunch in the servery. You will remain in your cell during the outdoors hour and during rec."
Clara shifted as her heart plummeted painfully to her feet. The chair she was sitting on creaked. She could feel a broken piece of it digging into her back.
"But—"
"There will be no discussion and there will be no bargaining."
Clara heard the sound of a screw approaching. The backs of her eyes stung and her throat began aching.
"Why?" She demanded. He ignored her. She took a deep, calming breath. "You have to tell me why. You have to!"
He looked up at her for the first time. His eyes were cold, mechanic grey.
"You are not the one giving the orders here, RY2227. But I hear you've had problems with that before."
The screw had arrived, but Clara was not moving. She squared her shoulders. Inside her contained panic and disappointment, she found strength.
"And I'll have more problems with it unless you tell me what I'm being punished for. I haven't done anything!"
She was sure the threat would only get her in more trouble, but he snapped his eyes to her once more, as if panicked. The emotion faded as quickly as it'd arrived, but Clara learned something. She was not as powerless as she thought.
"You are being punished for associating and conspiring with another high risk inmate." He bit out. He set his hands on top of his desk and looked at her with acute loathing. "I've heard about your little chats with 'the Doctor'. Don't think I don't know what you two are up to."
Clara had truly had no real intentions of causing any sort of rebellion here, but the Senior Officer's actions to her in that office were quickly changing her mind. Her anger simmered and her feeling of insult grew, but she maintained a calm face on the outside. Her mind scrambled about, searching for some sort of excuse, and the minute it snapped onto an idea, she went for it.
"That's not what I was doing with him."
His laughter sounded like barking.
"Oh, I'm sure. Tell me, inmate. Do you think I'm an imbecile? Because I'd have to be to believe that."
"I think you probably try very hard to not be an imbecile. But I'm not so certain whether you succeed." She shot back. She licked her lips and shifted in her seat so she was sitting up straighter. "I'm his companion."
"That much was obvious from the observations of my guards."
She fought back the urge to turn around and shoot a dirty look at the screw. She tucked her tone so it was just nearing suggestion.
"No. I mean we're involved."
He stared.
"Involved in what, exactly?" He asked. But Clara noticed the way his eyes had widened slightly. She folded her hands in her lap and decided blunt would be the best way to handle this.
"Hmm…how should I put this…fucking?"
He laughed again, but it was less bark and more questioning.
"What are you trying to admit to?"
A lesser crime, she thought. She heaved a sigh.
"We fancy each other. I've always had this thing for older men. When I saw him, I just knew I wanted to be his prison wife. I promise that when we're together, we're not doing much talking, much less planning some sort of…fallible rebellion." She had to work hard to make her eyes soften. "I'm happier here with him than I've ever been. And he feels the same way. Why on earth would we want to leave?"
She'd thrown him. He couldn't seem to look anywhere but her face now.
"Sexual relations with another inmate are strictly forbidden!"
Clara knew feigning ignorance would get her nowhere.
"I know. But if it's making two high risk inmates content, is it really something that's detrimental to your prison?" She asked. She cleared her throat lightly. "I mean, after all. You must know what happens when I get bored. You've got my entire life story on your computer there."
She nodded towards the monitor. He glanced to it once and then looked back to her, hooked on to her words.
"Egomaniac, narcissistic, borderline sociopathic tendencies…those are all words in my file, right? Those are the words they attached to me forever." She stated. "Would it be wrong to assume they're also in his?"
He stared into her eyes for an awkwardly terrible period of time, but Clara refused to look away. She waited until he broke it. He looked to the screw.
"Andrews, take her back to her cell. Inmate, you're on probation. If I have any reason to believe what you're telling me is a lie, all your privileges will be revoked, and you'll be moved to solitary. And trust me: that isn't a place you want to go."
She kept up with the screw's pace this time. She walked beside him, and he seemed too unnerved by it to lash out at her. She looked down at her hands. She'd left out the biggest word to describe herself. Manipulative.
They'd taken her tray away when she returned to her cell. Vastra watched her as she curled up on her side on top of her blanket. She counted her breaths until she felt herself calming down. She could maintain an image of serenity, but on the inside, she was frenzied. She wasn't sure why she'd done what she just did. She knew the majority of it was because she wanted to see Danny. She felt if someone took that away from her, she'd rip along her many creases. But she also knew it was because, from the moment he'd refused to look her in the eye and refused to call her by her name, she'd begun to entertain the idea of mutiny. Just to get him back. Just to put him back in his place. Just to regain her control.
"What happened?" Vastra asked her. She'd been patient for a while, but it was clear she couldn't wait for Clara to come to her. She was openly curious.
"Nothing." Clara lied. She searched the top of her blanket blindly, her eyes still shut. Her fingers curled around the spine of Meditations. "Just had to clear something with my bank."
She carefully cracked opened her book. She traced her finger down the pages and she read until something touched her within. And then she kept staring at those words until she'd sucked every possible bit of comfort and advice from them that she could.
The secret of all victory lies in the organization of the non-obvious.
When she'd planned out what to do in her head, she'd thought she'd have a bit of time to talk to him first.
She'd rehearsed the quickest way to explain what had happened a million times. She'd gotten it down to eight words. But when she finally saw him during recreation hours, it was too late for any of those words. They locked eyes across the library. And Clara could feel at least two sets of eyes on her from the corners of the room.
She ignored the screws as best she could as she headed straight towards him. He was leaning against a row of books, seemingly unaware of the shift that'd taken place. She could do nothing to heed her heart's frantic beating; she didn't have a choice. If she wanted to see Danny, if she wanted to have her privileges, and especially if she wanted to get revenge on the Senior Prison Officer, she had to pull her charade off perfectly. It couldn't be too flimsy. It couldn't be too fake. She had to play it like she believed it. Even if she was terrified out her wits. Even if she wasn't yet entirely convinced that he wouldn't kill her himself.
He parted his lips to say something as she approached, but she didn't give him the chance. Her palms pressed against his shoulders, pushing him back against the row of books. His eyebrows lifted and his eyes widened—and then she carefully turned them so they were just barely out of the screws' sight. She might've been able to get a word in then, but she was panicking internally. She curled her fingers around his bony shoulders and lifted up onto her tiptoes. And then she pressed her mouth to his before she could give into her panic.
Her words were frantic whispers between each caress of her lips against his.
"Go with it," she breathed. She moved her hand up to the base of his neck. She pushed her fingers up into his hair and she parted her lips, tasting him without tasting a thing. In his shock, he was thankfully unresisting. "Trust me."
It wasn't exciting or thrilling at all. In fact, it was terrifying and strange. Until he reciprocated. Either he figured it out startlingly quickly or he'd already known, because he reached down and grasped her hips tightly without another moment's hesitation. He was bold as he brought her body flush against his, turning them so he was pressing her back into the books, his body pushing intimately against hers. She could feel the bite of the cold, metal shelf through the thin material of her shirt, and the book spines were digging into the back of her head, but she was suddenly indifferent to everything but the burning of her lips and the surprising pleasure of his tongue on hers. If his fingertips had left her skin hot and tingling before, she was burning now. When she pulled her lips back to pant, it was not because her panic had rendered her breathless. It was because she suddenly wanted to shove all the books on the middle shelf to the floor, so she could sit on that shelf and wrap her legs around him, so she could feel every effect she might've been having on him (every effect she unexpectedly wished he would have). And she could've done it, too. She was senseless and alarmed by her body's response, even in that stressful moment. But the screws had obviously seen more than enough to satiate their spying duties.
"Back away! Get away from each other!" They barked.
A screw grabbed Clara's arm tightly and yanked her hard to the side, pulling her out from between the Doctor and the shelf. She went off balance and fell, landing hard on her side. Her hipbone slammed painfully into the concrete floor, so hard the pain sent a shock traveling along all her bones. So hard she cried out.
"Don't touch her!" The Doctor ordered. It was as much a threat as anything. Clara heard the sound of something crashing to the floor. "Don't you ever touch her again!"
And because he was the Doctor, they listened. When Clara pushed herself upright and turned, they were staring down at the two angrily. But they made no move to touch them.
"That's a citation for both of you." The taller screw declared. "You're off canteen for this week. And I'll be reporting this to the Senior Prison Officer."
Good, Clara thought. She rubbed her hip. It was already extremely sore to the touch. You do that.
"You're both done with recreation today. You'll be escorted back to your cells. Come along."
The Doctor shoved past the waiting screw. Clara stared at his outstretched hand. His back was to the screws, so he could've offered her any facial expression in the world. And he chose concern.
She set her hand in his, surprised for a moment at how soft his palm felt. How comforting it was to hold it. He pulled her to her feet and reached down. His fingertips grazed lightly over her hip. She moved back from his touch with an involuntary hiss of pain.
"They hurt you." He stated. Clara shrugged, suddenly feeling sheepish. He lowered his hand and turned.
"You hurt her." He informed them. "You shouldn't have done that."
It was chilling. The screws' hands went to the phones clipped to their sides uneasily, like they expected the Doctor to charge at them at any moment. But he merely turned back to look at Clara.
"I'll be there at our time." He told her cryptically.
That was the last thing he said. They were both escorted from the library and back to their own cells.
Clara spent the rest of the hour staring at the floor, her cheeks pink and her mind spiraling.
"What's happened to you?"
The question flew over the roaring of the shower. Clara looked to Jenny and followed her line of sight. She found herself looking down at her own sweeping bruise.
"Screw." She answered shortly.
She turned back to her shampoo bottle. She was trying to carefully ration out what she used, since she wouldn't be able to buy anything for the entire week. She hadn't even gotten the chance to purchase anything yet. She stared at the blue puddle of shampoo in her palm and wondered with a flash of anxiety if she'd done the right thing. Could she have done something less extreme to have persuaded them? Hugged him? Kissed his cheek?
Her regretful thoughts were severed by Vastra.
"They're good at causing those. I once got smacked so hard in the mouth I lost a tooth." She shared. She grinned widely and moved her cheek to the side, showcasing a missing tooth. Clara was still naïve enough to feel a flash of shock.
"A screw hit you? For no reason?" She demanded.
The two women laughed. They shared a look, the one they used whenever Clara was being particularly inexperienced.
"It's not in any official records, but we've had an inmate die because of their brutality." Jenny shared. She stepped closer to Clara out of concern. "Did they hit you? Or shove you into something?"
It occurred to Clara—not for the first time—that Jenny would've been one of her very best friends had they met in school. She smiled back automatically. Even if nothing was truly funny at all.
"I was shoved down." She shared. She turned to look at Vastra. "Has anyone reported it to those outside the prison?"
Vastra's smile was sardonic.
"Oh, Oz," she started. She reached over and set her hand underneath Clara's, catching the dripping shampoo that'd begun to slide off her palm. Clara hadn't noticed. Vastra ran her palm over Clara's, scraping the shampoo back where it belonged. "No one cares about us out there."
Jenny offered her her new bar of soap. She hadn't even used it yet, since she'd been finishing up an old one. Clara was hesitant to take it, even though she didn't have one and wouldn't for the next week at least, but Jenny pushed it into her palm with a firm nod. Clara closed her hands around it and managed a grateful smile.
"That's why we've got to care about each other." Jenny added.
She looked into Jenny's warm eyes, and she almost told her about the Doctor and the situation she'd gotten herself into. But she couldn't translate the words into something they would understand. She couldn't find a way to say I liked it without them thinking her mad.
She was fairly certain their time was the night.
He arrived only a few minutes after Vastra fell asleep. Clara had been expecting him; she hadn't even taken her shoes off. She waited expectantly inside her cell as he opened the door.
"You coming?" He asked.
She approached him slowly.
"Where are we going?"
He closed that strange device and stored it back in his pocket.
"On a walk." He declared.
Clara walked by his side, peeking up at his blank face every few moments. After a longer silence than she would've liked, she decided to take control of the conversation.
"Earlier, when I ambushed you like that…well, I kind of told the Senior Prison Officer that we're involved. A screw had spotted us talking outside earlier and told him. He thinks we're planning a rebellion."
He looked down at her.
"Are we?"
They walked from the wing to a room she'd never been in. She lost her train of thought completely when they walked in.
"…where are we?" She asked. She took another few steps in and turned on the spot, taking in the plush carpets, luxurious sofas, and state-of-the-art built in kitchen. Compared to the drab surroundings she'd been living in, it looked like the height of luxury.
"Screws' lounge. This is where most the prison money goes, if you were curious." He replied. He walked forward and sat on a sofa. She met his eyes in the dim light and stared for only a moment. She joined him, but she kept a respectable distance between their bodies, for fear of scaring him off somehow.
"It's rubbish." She voiced. She looked around once more and then glanced up at him. "The way the screws treat people. The conditions of the prison. It's terrible."
The Doctor's eyes studied her.
"It is." He agreed. "Do you want to do something about it?"
She looked forward as she thought.
"I would've said no just this morning. But…maybe. Maybe I do." She admitted. She thought about the way she'd been able to almost control the Senior Prison Officer. The way he'd been frightened of her. "And I think we might be the only two people in this prison that are equipped to."
Their eyes found each other's. She fell into the shared look and felt her stomach flutter, but she pushed it aside.
"I think you're right, Clara." He admitted. She looked away from his eyes when she spotted his hand rising. He reached up and touched her lips like he had before, softly, curiously. But there was a glowing in his eyes she hadn't seen before. "And I've decided that, as much as I love the feel of you, the taste of you is infinitely better."
Her veins felt hot. She licked her lips once he dropped his fingers from them.
"Oh?" She asked lightly. "So you're not angry with me for getting us stuck in this charade?"
He smirked, but it wasn't mocking. Clara resisted the urge to grin back at him.
"Well, I'm fairly certain we proved enough earlier today, but if we have to do it again, I think I'll survive." He responded.
We could give it another go, she almost said. Practice makes perfect, after all.
She settled on a small smile instead.