One of the first lessons Clara learned about making threats was that you had to deliver.

Danny saw within her more potential than Clara had ever assumed was inside of herself, and because of that, he became her mentor as she quickly slid up the ranks. She was the first woman to be wing commander since the merge and it would've been easy for those underneath her to undermine her authority. There were plenty with the narrow-minded capability. But she'd started her first day with the promise that she'd demote anyone who refused to follow her orders; three squadron leaders down and she finally had complete compliance. It wouldn't have worked if she hadn't followed through. They would've cracked her spine as they walked all over her.

Unfortunately for Clara, every screw here was well learned in that lesson as well.

They did not bring her a dry uniform. They did not bring her a towel. Clara sat in the slightly-roomier upstairs cell that smelled of mold and shivered so hard it made her muscles ache. After an hour, she realized they were honestly leaving her that way. She stripped her wet clothes off and seethed. She spread them out atop the sink and the toilet and curled up on the thin mattress, shivering underneath the threadbare blanket. She was so thankful for it that she kept her fists wrapped around it all night long, like a child grips onto a favorite teddy bear. She missed her books. She twisted John's wristwatch around and around her wrist and ached.

Being cold didn't seem like such a hard thing theoretically, but in practice, it had the power to suck so much from someone. Clara felt she could've been at least somewhat okay if she could just warm up, but the cell stayed a constant, freezing temperature. The thick cotton of her uniform resisted drying. And that thin blanket—as miraculous as it was—couldn't retain the body heat she didn't even have. She shivered all night long and desperately wished for sleep, but it never came.

Something else did, though.

"It's fucking cold."

Clara sat straight up without a moment's hesitation. Her eyes flittered quickly around the cell. It was late, and she was generously irrational from all the time spent alone, but she hadn't yet started hearing voices. She turned slowly and swung her feet over onto the cold floor. She hesitated.

"Doctor?"

She felt foolish. She lifted the blanket and wrapped it around her bare shoulders, ears twitching from the weight of the complete silence. Her eardrums strained painfully when something broke that silence.

"I mean, I can see my breath," he continued.

Clara felt her shoulders lower with something that felt akin to deep, consuming relief. She resisted the smile that threatened to take over her expression.

"Where are you?" She demanded. She rose to her feet and wrapped the blanket around her. She padded across the dirty linoleum floor and stopped in front of the white door just behind the sink. A thrill of excitement ran through her. "Doctor, are you in the cell connected to mine?"

"Well, technically, yes. But I'm afraid there's no way this door will open. I've been pulling at the nails all night. It's no use. Plus, there's a sink installed right in front of it on my side."

Just the sound of his accent had her beaming.

"That's fine!" She said quickly. "That's totally fine! Because I can hear you!" She exclaimed. Her mind raced. "We have to make them keep us up here. I can't go back down there. I can't make it three more weeks listening to myself talk."

She heard the muffled scratching sound that she'd previously assumed to be mice. She guessed it was him pulling at the nails.

"I heart two screws talking about two hours ago," he began. His voice was huffy. He sounded out of breath. "They're going to have to completely redo the pipes. It's going to take weeks. The basement's going to have to be gutted. I think they're going to have to either leave us here, or let us out of solitary early."

Clara edged closer. She stood in front of the sink and leaned up on her tip toes. She could just barely press the top of her ear against the door. The sink dug painfully into her gut. Sure enough, she could hear the sound of the Doctor pulling at something from the other side.

"I hope you're right." Clara muttered. Her attention strayed elsewhere. "Did they bring you a dry uniform?"

"That's the—thing," he grunted and the door shook, like he'd lost his grip on something he was yanking and slammed forward. "I was trying to give you my dry one, because I knew they wouldn't give you one, but it's frustratingly difficult to pry nails out of wood when you've only got one hand."

The surge of affection was stunted by her curiosity.

"Only one hand? What the bloody hell happened to your other one?" She demanded.

"Nails bite back, apparently." Was his flat reply.

"Doctor!" The reprimand was automatic, like a cross wife who'd dealt with just a bit too many eccentricities from her husband in a twenty-four hour span. "Are you bleeding?"

"Not so much."

"But you are some?"

"The throbbing stopped."

"Throbbing?!"

"It's fine."

"Look," she began tersely. "You can't get yourself injured, because we're the only people in this entire sodding prison stupid enough to plan a half-hearted escape just to get medical attention. Who would do that for us except each other? And I'm locked up here too, in case you've forgotten."

"I haven't."

"Good. Now leave the door alone. My uniform is drying. Everything is fine." She ordered.

"Is it?" He challenged.

Clara's expression twisted.

"Fine as it could be, I mean. Or, well. Fine as—okay, so things aren't really fine at all, but we don't need them getting any worse with you getting caught, or having to get your hand amputated, or any of those."

"I suppose that's true." He relented.

Clara turned and glanced over at the iron bed.

"I'm going to pull my bed over to this wall. So we can chat. Unless you're tired?"

"I don't really sleep much." He assured her.

She pushed the flimsy bed over to the other side of the cell easily. She sat down atop it and buried into the plastic feeling sheet, searching for warmth. She at least felt more at ease now that she knew she wasn't entirely alone.

"I've been wondering something," she began hesitantly. It was easier to ask things like this when she couldn't see his face, but it was still nerve-wracking. And it wasn't even the scariest question she wanted to ask. She wanted to know about what the screw had said (about him murdering a Prime Minister), but she had to work her way up to that.

"And what is that?"

He sounded closer, too, like he'd moved his bed as well. Clara leaned back against the wall and folded her arms over her chest. She stared uneasily around the room.

"Why me?"

There was poorly restrained bitter humor in his tone.

"Because you manipulated multiple soldiers into shooting their superior officers?"

Clara felt the back of her neck tickle uneasily, like it always did when she was faced with what she'd done.

"No, not that. I mean…why me…for you? There's hundreds of people here. Why do you only talk to me? What is it about me in particular? Is it just what I've done?"

"It's impressive, of course, but no. That's not why."

She could hear the way his lips were curled. She shifted, confused.

"Then why?"

She listened to his bed smack against the wall as he shifted.

"Because I like you." He answered, like it was the simplest thing in the world. "I like to look at you. I like to talk to you. I like to touch you."

She resisted the smile that wanted to crop up onto her face. She pulled absentmindedly at a loose thread on the blanket, her eyes dropping to her knees.

"But why?" She pressed. "If you're physically attracted to me, then sure, some of that makes sense—"

He snorted.

"If I'm physically attracted to you?"

She ignored him.

"But why do you like to talk to me? I'm not that interesting. I'm really not." She argued firmly.

She worried he wouldn't reply. Or that he'd get annoyed. Or that he'd change the subject. But after a brief silence, he offered up his words.

"Because I already knew you. All these people…they're strangers. And I don't trust them. And they don't trust me. I'm not looking for a new companion. When you've been alone for as long as I have, one is enough— if that one will have me."

Clara pulled her knees up. She smoothed the blanket over her calves as she processed his admission.

"But…you didn't know me. We'd never met," she reminded him. He was the one who'd said something wrong, and yet she felt foolish, like she'd made the ridiculous comment.

"You'd never met me." He corrected.

"No," she countered impatiently. "You'd never met me."

"Not face-to-face."

"Not…voice-to-voice! Not in any way!"

"You're forgetting the power of stories, Clara. And that's a troubling thing for a woman with a literature degree to forget."

His voice was light, calm. Clara felt on the receiving end of some sort of joke.

"Either get to the point or…" she stopped.

"Or?"

"Or I'll make you."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"Don't rush me." She snapped darkly.

Silence fell over the room. She feared he wouldn't respond.

"When I said John and I used to write, I didn't really mean we wrote about our organization. We had radios for that. We wrote because we were friends, and it was as simple and complicated as that. He told me all about you. He loved to talk about you—you were his favorite person in the entire world. So I learned all this stuff about you before, so much that I feel I was the one who knew you. But you still don't really know me."

All at once, his desire to touch her, to spend time with her, made more sense. Were she not a firm believer in the power of words, she might've dismissed it. Might've said you can't learn a thing about someone through stories of them. But how many times had she fallen in love for a day with a character from a book? To him, she was someone he knew well. To her, he was a complete stranger. Nothing could make someone crave for closeness more.

"Oh."

It was a lame, unsure response. He was waiting for more.

"But I'm not a story." She finally admitted. "I'm real and I've got all the annoyances that come with being a real person. It's like I told you before. I don't want you expecting something from me that I can't give."

"I know. It's not the idea of you I love. And I'm not trying to trick or trap you. I have been very straightforward about what I want, Clara. I want to be with you however you'll allow it."

"That's it?" She asked hesitantly. "Honestly, truly. That's it? Because if you're expecting some…artfully dangerous army girl, with the natural ability to rouse hundreds against their respective leaders—you're going to be disappointed. I hate this prison, too, but I'm not a natural born rebel. It happened once and it just…happened. I don't even remember much. I was upset. I was…not myself."

"I think you were probably more yourself in that moment than you've ever been. And I think that's part of the reason you've been so traumatized by it all." He shot back. His tone turned breezy. "But you needn't worry, of course. The parts of you that you think are most unlovable are usually the most cherished of all."

Clara thought back to those polarizing moments when those parts of herself rose. The moments when sweet, little Clara bowed out. She wondered when she'd fashioned herself into a secret weapon. She supposed it likely happened after her mother died.

"Hmm," she murmured. She lowered her knees and crossed her legs instead. She rested her hands in the dip of the fabric. "I think you're probably very good at getting women into bed."

She could hear the upward curves of his lips when he spoke.

"Yeah?" He laughed shortly after that. "It probably wouldn't surprise you to hear I'm very picky and therefore don't attempt to get many women into bed. Never did."

Going by the fact he only even talked to Clara, she didn't feel very surprised by that.

"High standards?"

"The highest." He affirmed.

Clara thought about the warmth of his breath on her ear. The rough texture of his palm on her navel. She licked her lips and worked to keep her voice unaffected.

"I'm glad to have met them, then."

His responding chuckle was lovely and dark. Clara smiled softly. She looked down and picked at her cuticles as she mulled over her next question. She knew asking it would change the tone of the conversation, but she wasn't sure she could handle not asking. She swallowed against the choking anxiety that was quick to surge within her.

"I want to know why you're here." She said.

She'd thought his anger would be the worst punishment for her curiosity. She was wrong. It was his silence that was the worst.

She waited for a minute, then two, then three. She could feel her heart hammering with anxiety.

"Okay," she broke the silence. Her voice cracked uneasily. "Say something. Please."

She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them to her. She wanted to go back in time and devour her own words.

"There's a lot to it." He finally said. His voice was wary.

Clara let out a quiet sigh. Her eyelids fluttered shut with relief.

"Well, I might have to reschedule some appointments, but I think we can probably fit it in." She responded quickly. She wanted to keep the pace of the conversation going. She wanted to know his stories, too.

His responding chuckle was short, but it made her smile anyway. She rubbed her palms up and down her bare calves nervously as she waited.

"I don't come out very heroic in this story." He admitted. She could hear a bit of nervousness in his tone. It made her wonder if he thought her judgmental.

"Luckily we're both the villains. No need for heroes here." Clara commented airily. She decided to give him a gentle push in the right direction. "She said something about a Prime Minister."

"Yes. The causalities began there." He agreed, a bit reluctantly. Clara felt an unexpected thrill of excitement race down her spine. She was the first person to hear his story in the twenty years he'd been here. She would be the first person to hear it from his own lips. The thought shouldn't have been arousing, but it was. "I'm not sure where to start."

"The beginning. We have all the time in the world." Clara reminded him. But because she could still sense his reluctance, she took a step back. "You don't have to tell me if it makes you uncomfortable. I know it's difficult to talk about things you've buried."

She'd buried a lot of things. First, her mum. Then she buried her in her mind, too. She didn't talk about her for a very long time. She kept her tucked away, secret, hoarded. She felt she was protecting her memory by doing so. She felt she was protecting herself, too. But by refusing to talk about her, or her death, or the abrupt terror of it all, she gave it the power to control her. She let it quietly torment her for years. Learning to open up was the hardest thing. It still was.

It was his silence that forced her hand.

"When my mum was…when she died, I didn't—couldn't—" Clara stopped. She exhaled. "Wouldn't. I wouldn't talk about her. For a really long time. I saw a counsellor who insisted I was doing it because it hurt to remember her. She had no idea what was going on in my head. The truth was that I wouldn't talk about her because I didn't think anyone deserved to hear it. I was angry at everybody back then. I felt no one had the right to hear about my mum, or my grief. I thought they only wanted to hear me talk about it because they were interested in the grizzly details of it all, like people who stop and watch motorway accidents…" Clara trailed off. She licked her lips and looked down at the tops of her knees. "It was so much uglier and…way more selfish than people wanted to believe. They painted this poetic picture of my grief and my silence. When the truth was that I couldn't stand the lot of them. I didn't open up, because I knew they didn't care. And my mum didn't deserve to live in their minds or their memories. I didn't want to be their freakshow. I didn't want to be the shocking, brutal news story told over the dinner table. I didn't want my life and my tragedy to be their entertaining spectacle. It was as cold and as simple as that."

His voice sounded thicker when he spoke.

"Giving people your stories means giving them power."

Clara's heart jolted. She swallowed roughly.

"Yeah." She agreed. "Exactly. Being silent is keeping control." She hesitated. "Was it…like that for you? Did you keep yourself a mystery to keep some control?"

He hummed noncommittally at first. She thought she wouldn't get much else.

"It started as a way to protect myself here." He finally admitted. "I was a scrawy young man. My appearance gave little to intimidation. I made people wonder to keep them away. And then…time went on. And on. And I gained a sort of…tenure. No one bothered me. No one would dare to. I could've made friends…could've opened up about it all. But I didn't like any of them. They were all so dull and repetitive and selfish. They didn't have any fire to them. I didn't feel like they were real."

It was amazing to her that he felt like she was real. She didn't even feel real to herself sometimes.

"I can understand that." She murmured.

A heavy silence fell over them. Clara wished he'd keep talking. She wanted to know so badly it made her skin itch, but she couldn't force him.

"How did your mother die?" He asked. She felt her heart plummet.

"She—died," she stuttered automatically. She felt her anger stir. She wouldn't give him every piece of her when he'd yet to give her anything of his. "How did you end up here?"

"A lot of people died." He said right back.

So that was that. She couldn't help but feel disappointed and incomplete.

"Right." She muttered. She rose from the bed and wandered over to where she'd laid her uniform out. She felt exposed and wanted it back on, but when she grasped the material, it was still heavy and damp. She shut her eyes tightly.

"It's not that I wanted to be this."

She turned, her fist still wrapped around the damp cotton. She stared at the door behind the sink. Tried to imagine the expression such a forlorn tone might come from. She had never seen him wear one like it.

"Like what?" She finally asked tentatively. She dropped her regulation shirt and padded quietly over to the bed. The springs groaned as she sank back down.

"I never wanted to hurt anyone at first. I think we all must start out like that." He commented. His tone was brusque. Whatever she'd gotten a glimpse of before, it was over now.

"I like to think so, yes." She agreed hesitantly. Though she knew there were evil people out there who probably started out wanting to cause harm.

He was quiet. She wished—more than anything—that she could see his face. It was difficult to have conversations through a wall.

"It wasn't really the exact start. The things I did…they spanned over a period of eight years. It started with the Prime Minister. Can't say it stopped there, though." He began. Clara leaned back against the wall, like being closer might help her understand. His voice took on an unsteady quality she didn't expect. "So even though it wasn't the first and only start, the beginning to all of it was with my—" he stopped abruptly. Clara turned so she was fully facing the wall, staring hard at the place he must've been on the other side. Waiting. "I had a daughter," he paused, hesitated. He spoke her name carefully and gently. The heaviness to his words made Clara certain he hasn't said her name in decades. "Susan. That's what we named her."

It wasn't near what she was expecting. Clara sat up straighter. She felt her eyebrows rise in surprise. Her mind immediately flew to the implications of this—that he had a daughter, that maybe she visited him, that he wasn't as alone as she might've thought…and then her mind snagged on the word had.

"Oh." She commented softly. And then she wasn't sure what to say.

"She was born early. Way too early. Her lungs and her brain were underdeveloped. She couldn't breathe on her own. They told us she would never walk. Probably never talk." His voice had taken a detached, clinical tone. Like he was explaining a patient's prognosis to a fellow doctor. Clara's stomach was churning. "Everything that I did...I did it for her."

Clara felt her throat tighten. For a moment, she was back with her barrister. The words please, I was just trying to save him were caked on her lips like dried blood. She looked down at her lap and took a deep, shaking breath.

She didn't know what to say. She didn't know where to start. Thankfully, he continued.

"There were things going on that you wouldn't believe." His tone sounded almost pleading for a moment, like he was begging for her faith. "I joined the Time Lords to stop it. But…in the end, there weren't many good options for us. The things we could do wouldn't be enough. The things that would help were so dangerous and extreme that no one but me was willing to even entertain the idea, even in our group of rebels." His words broke off with a sudden cough. Clara listened, wondering if the stench of mold was as bad in his cell as hers. "I chose what I felt was the lesser of two evils. And then I lost Susan—" he stopped and then his words stuttered as he quickly continued, like he wanted to hide the fact it hurt to talk about it. "A-And then I continued cleaning up the mess. I'd still be out there doing it if I hadn't been caught. God knows nobody else will do it."

Slowly, it began to make sense to Clara. The pieces slotted together and she could understand. He wasn't vying for a rebellion in the prison to make things better. He wasn't vying for a rebellion to escape to be free. He was vying for a rebellion because he had unfinished business.

"I thought that John…" he trailed off, his tone growing apologetic. Clara swallowed roughly and resisted the urge to cover her ears. She knew what was coming. "I planned on him taking over. I can only do so much from here."

"I'm sorry." She murmured, automatically, her voice pained.

"No—" he stopped. His voice was softer as he continued. "No, it's not your fault. I didn't mean that."

She nodded down at her lap, even though he couldn't see her. (And in her mind, the words began spitting. You didn't do enough, you didn't save him, if you'd protected him like you always said you would then—)

"You said he chose me as his successor," she blurted. It was the first thing to crawl to the front of her mind. It was the first thing she could think of to say, and she needed to say something, because she needed her mind to stop.

"Yes. He and I decided you were the best person for it." The Doctor affirmed. He barked out a short laugh. "Only…now you're in here, too. Both my backups were lost. Goes to show."

She was still shaken and weak. Half her mind was trying to fight off the sweeping wave of depression the thought of John's death brought forth.

"Maybe we were meant to work together." She commented. "What were the odds of me ending up here, with you? And it happened. So perhaps..."

She trailed off. The words suddenly felt cheesy and inappropriate.

"I don't know. I just mean that maybe we'd make a good team."

She wasn't sure, but she thought she might've heard a smile in his voice when he responded.

"Maybe we would." He agreed.

She could feel her muscles relaxing slowly, bit by bit. She leaned back against the wall and uncurled her fingers from around her blankets. The tension was leaking from her slowly. She wanted to ask so many more things, but she didn't want to push him too far. She decided to go as far as she felt she could and to be glad with where the conversation ended up.

"Did you have a backup? I mean…before you were here. Besides John?" She wondered.

She listened to the muffled footsteps above her head as she waited. She didn't feel as nervous as she had at the start of the conversation.

"Yes. Missy. Susan's mother." He answered.

Clara dutifully ignored the strange tumbling of her heart. She let it sit in her toes and did not prod her mind. She didn't want to know why those words caused it.

"Did she—"

She didn't even have to stumble for a gentler word than die. He interrupted her.

"No. She betrayed me. She broke my heart and she was glad to have done it." She heard him softly clear his throat. "The best thing about prison is that she's not here."

The coldness of it made Clara shiver. For once, she didn't feel guilty or anguished when she thought of Danny. She felt lucky to have someone so loyal on her side.

"Clara?" He asked.

She sat up straighter.

"Hmm?"

"How did your mother die?"

Clara pursed her lips tightly. She worked the material of the blanket between her fingers nervously. And for the first time since the tearful day she'd told John and Danny, she spoke of it.

"By protecting me."

It was in her blood to protect those she loved at all costs, even if that cost was ultimately her life.

The horrible truth was that it didn't stop there. She was capable of much more. It was in Clara's blood to protect those she loved even at the expense of other people's lives.

In the end, subconsciously, she must've felt she had the right to be god, even if only for a day (or a bloodsoaked hour). Her loyalty was her betrayal. And she didn't have to know the full story to know she didn't blame the Doctor for whatever he'd done. Who was she to blame him? She'd used human beings as weapons to save the life of one man.

Not for the first time, she wondered (and feared) just how far she was capable of going.