Chapter 22- Everything Goes Wrong

We should have been thrilled we found a way to beat the Daleks. We should've been euphoric. We'd found a way to stop them from taking the planet- my planet- and turning its inhabitants into robots. We should've been ecstatic.

Instead, a feeling of dread settled over our hearts. The fact that I know we should've been happy illustrated just how impossible our odds seemed. We found a way, but we didn't know if it would work.

Leaving our drinks half-finished, we urgently made our way down the hall, eager to put Clara's idea into action. Halfway there, River stopped us and gestured to a door that had opened on its own. A brief glimpse inside revealed the weapons room Clara and I could've used when we'd gone to rescue River and the Doctor.

"I'll just get some things," she said. "You three go on ahead."

"I'll help you," Clara volunteered.

River gave her a cursory examination, determining if she would allow her to help. "All right," she said. "Clara and I will meet you at the console."

I nodded somberly, gently tugging the Doctor's elbow to get him walking again. He didn't like to use guns—no, he didn't like the thought of anyone needing a gun because he put them in that circumstance.

"We might need them, you know," I said once we'd turned a corner.

"You brought along an innocent," the Doctor said. "She didn't need to be involved with this."

That's when I knew that this wasn't about the guns anymore. This was about Clara.

"Doctor, I needed help," I said. My heart wasn't in it to be defensive. "Clara volunteered to help me rescue you."

"You should have stayed in the TARDIS like I told you to," he replied, his low voice angry. He had a careful anger, like he only just held it back. "Instead, you involved an innocent woman."

"An innocent woman who, if not for her, you'd still be helping the Daleks!" I retorted. "She's the one who knows how to use a gun. And let's not forget that she's the one who came up with the idea to hack the nanogene diffuser. We need her, Doctor, and she's not shrinking away. She wants to help."

"She could die," the Doctor said, his jaw thrusting forward like it always did when he was angry. "She could die because of us."

"You think I don't know that?!" I exclaimed. Some of the anger disappeared from his eyes at my declaration. "You think I don't know that this could cost her life? It almost did, a couple times. But she still stuck through. She knows she can die—and no, I'm not all right with that, but she is. And you know what?" I stood up on my tiptoes just a little bit, making my eyes level with his. "If anyone's going to survive this, my money's on her."

I backed away from him, clenching my jaw. I gave him one last look and stalked down the TARDIS corridor, leaving him in my wake.

I understood the Doctor's disappointment in me. I'd completely disregarded his orders and come to rescue him, dragging in someone who didn't need to be dragged in. And now that we knew just how dangerous the Daleks' plan was, Clara had essentially signed herself up for a death match. It was my fault that she was involved, but I'm glad she is—I couldn't have gotten the Doctor and River back without her. Earth couldn't be saved without her.

I found myself in the console room, too angry to remember how I got there. I glared at the knobs and dials that I had no idea how to use until I heard footsteps approach behind me. I leaned on the console, hiding my face as much as possible. I didn't want anyone to talk to me, not yet.

"Well, we've got as much as we can carry," Clara's voice piped up behind me. I turned around and found Clara standing there, holding two massive guns and wearing a huge utility belt. The whole ensemble looked odd on her cocktail dress. She handed a gun to me, saying, "River's coming up, she's just looking for a few more grenades."

I took the huge weapon, as big as a machine gun, and tested its weight in my hands. Slinging it over my shoulder, I glanced up at Clara, who busily checked all her weapons.

"Are you sure you want to get involved?" I asked. "It's just…it's dangerous."

She paused in her final checks to look at me, biting her lip thoughtfully. Finally, she answered, "I've always wanted to see the universe. And yeah, parts of it are ugly and dangerous. But what's the point of seeing everything if you can't help fix it?"

I held back a smile—Clara truly knew what she was doing. It's a shame that I didn't.

"Clara, when all this blows over," I began, "do you…do you want to get drinks later?"

Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "…As friends?"

"No." I'd suddenly forgotten what to do with my hands: I clasped them, I rubbed them, I folded them behind my back. "As a date."

"You're lesbian?" she asked. Her question wasn't accusatory, just seeking clarification.

"Bisexual, actually."

She swallowed nervously. "Erica, I…I don't like girls. I'm sorry."

We shared a heavy pause as I processed her answer. "Right," I said, smothering my disappointment with understanding.

"If it helps," Clara said, "you would be my first pick if I did."

"It does," I replied honestly. I could still see the worry etched on her face, so I added, "Don't feel bad. Can't help who you love, can you?"

She smiled appreciatively. "Besides, we don't have time for drinks. We have a planet to save."

"Yeah, we do, don't we?" I said, a chuckle coming into my voice. Clara's smile broadened into a grin.

"Are we good?" she asked, echoing my words from my first adventure with the Doctor.

I repeated his answer as mine. "Yeah, we're good."

Footsteps echoed off the corridor walls as River and the Doctor appeared, the former laden with weapons and desperately trying to convince the latter to take one.

"At least take a grenade," River pleaded. "For your own safety!"

"Oh, I'll be fine," the Doctor brushed her off, heading to the console without looking at me. Addressing all of us, he said, "Now I'm going to need everyone's help on this. The TARDIS is powerful, but the Daleks have designed ways to keep her out. And there's actually supposed to be six pilots to a TARDIS at once, so it's going to be even more difficult."

"No wonder it's always such a jaunty ride," I observed.

"River, I need you on the Evasion Switches," the Doctor ordered. "They're right—"

"I know where they are!" River interrupted, moving towards a row of five or six levers right alongside the Doctor.

"Clara, get on the Vortex Loop, the pump on your left," he continued, pointing to a long, thin lever on the floor. "When I say go, start pumping and don't stop."

"That could be taken any manner of ways," Clara quipped, wrapping her hands around the lever.

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Erica, you need to get to the Signal Follower, which is—"

"I got it!" I cut across him, going to the rickety bronze crank the Interface had shown me before. "We're all waiting on you."

He glared at all of us, childishly angry. "You're all just full of it, aren't you?" he said, beginning his calculations. Typing wildly on the typewriter, he pulled the computer screen over to him, watching it carefully. "Okay, setting the coordinates now…Clara, GO!"

Clara yanked the Vortex Loop up, causing the signature vwoorp to echo through the room.

"Take the brakes off, they'll hear you!" River yelled.

The Doctor ignored her. "Erica, go!"

I wound the Signal Follower like there was no tomorrow (and there might not have been), a jolt rocking through the TARDIS as I completed the first wind. The Doctor wildly slammed buttons and typed out calculations, River waiting anxiously. After a few more seconds, she began throwing the levers back and forth, keeping her eyes on the computer screen.

"No, not yet!" the Doctor exclaimed, throwing one of the levers back. An unpleasant grinding noise filled our ears, only stopping when the Doctor flipped the lever back. "Okay, never mind."

River read aloud whatever was on the computer screen. "Milky Way…our solar system…Earth…2142—"

"At eight-oh-five at night!" the Doctor finished excitedly.

River glanced over to me. "Erica, turn that in the other direction!"

I obeyed immediately, reversing direction. The TARDIS quaked again, nearly sending us all to the floor. River desperately tried to make sense of the readings. "They're…they're…what?"

Suddenly the vwoorping stopped, even though none of us had ceased our assigned actions. "Oh, no. No, no, no," the Doctor chanted with dread, yanking the computer monitor towards him.

"What happened?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"They've brought us right back to where we started," River explained venomously. "We're back in their Underground Base."

Clara and I looked at each other, blatant fear in our faces. We'd had enough of the Daleks to last us a lifetime.

"Why the hell would they do that?" I said, nearly yelling.

"Because they still need me," the Doctor answered through his clenched teeth.

A Dalek voice suddenly echoed through the TARDIS, making us wince because it was so shrill. "The Doc-tor and his com-pan-ions will present them-selves to the Da-leks!"

We all looked at each other, varying emotions on our faces: Clara was afraid, River disgusted, the Doctor angry, and I…I was probably a mix of all three. Silently, unwillingly, we made our way to the TARDIS doors. What use was surprise when they knew we were there?

The four of us trickled out of the TARDIS, holding our hands up in surrender. The Daleks stood in a semicircle around the TARDIS, all eyestalks pointed towards us. The nanogene diffuser sat behind them, a mess of metal and wires.

"Re-move your wea-pons!" the center Dalek, the white one, ordered. Slowly, River, Clara and I took our guns off and set them on the floor, glaring back at the foul creatures.

"Is the door still unlocked?" Clara whispered to the Doctor. She looked at nothing but the diffuser, her stare hardening. "Doctor, are the TARDIS doors unlocked?"

"Yes," he breathed back, glancing sideways at her. "Why?"

"Get inside and get away," she ordered. "Now." Her hand, previously in her pocket, now withdrew, and I saw a grenade wrapped in her fingers.

Before any of us knew what she was doing, Clara pushed past us and the Daleks, pulling the pin out of the grenade. She slid to a stop by the nanogene diffuser and shoved the grenade inside before the Daleks had even swiveled around. Clara's gaze slid over us one last time, coming to a stop on the Doctor as the white Dalek turned around.

"Run, you clever boy, and remember!" she exclaimed just before a Dalek bolt hit her square in the chest, burning the image of her skeleton into my retinas.