Chapter 2: Crash-landing
Clara was feeling nervous. She always felt incredibly nervous when flying the TARDIS, even though she had had a fair bit of practice by now and the Doctor was stood just behind her, waiting in case she made any mistakes. He'd set the controls up only slightly from basic, but it was still a struggle for her to even grasp half of what he was saying. Luckily, he guided her, his arms gently wrapped around hers and he'd occasionally squeeze her elbows for encouragement. Clara felt a rush of blood go to her face whenever he did that.
"Gently now, twist the Tranter Oscillator," came the calm and gentle voice in her ear. Clara remembered this one and twisted it clockwise, earning her a yelp in her ear as the Doctor frantically twisted it the other way. Clara swore to herself. She always went clockwise. "Phew, that was close," he remarked. "Another 90 degrees and we could have burnt out the Sun. I'm kidding!" he added hastily as she shot him a glare.
"You'd better be. I don't want the deaths of billions of people on my hands just because you want to leave me alone with your mother, I mean ship," Clara grinned as he moved away from her, his hands flying in exasperation as he settled a position on the guard rail and started playing with some controls on one of the side consoles. Clara giggled to herself. He was sulking again. He always did that when she made a mistake and nearly ended all life on various planets. Or so he claimed. Clara flicked another lever and he wheeled round like a shot.
"Oh that was right, well done!" he grinned, running a hand through his hair.
"Not everything I do is wrong you know!" Clara snorted, turning to him and straightening his bow tie for him. He winked at her. "Okay so I mainly get even the basic TARDIS flying wrong but she won't let me make any dangerous mistakes will she?"
The Doctor's face lit up and Clara raised an eyebrow. He stepped past her and laughed as he started flipping levers and toggling dials quicker than Clara could keep up. She followed him round the console hurriedly, shooting him looks that clearly meant she wanted an explanation for why he was suddenly so cheerful. The TARDIS wheezed in a way that Clara took to resemble a chuckle and she glared at the console.
"You called her a she." The Doctor grinned. "You always call the TARDIS an It but you called her a she."
Clara smiled despite herself. "Well maybe I've come to like your machine a lot more since she saved us from your time stream. She seems to like me a lot better now she understands what I am. I mean, what I did for you."
The Doctor leant down and kissed Clara's cheek. "Well anyone who's good enough for the TARDIS is good enough for me. I'd like to say vice-versa but there was a nasty incident with a Jamaican I'd rather like to forget. Poor thing never did get home…"
"To Jamaica?" Clara asked with a raised eyebrow.
"To 1757," The Doctor replied. "I dropped her off a thousand years too late. God knows how Lizzie's going to deal with it."
"Lizzie?" Clara laughed. "Who's she? Don't tell me you married another Queen Elizabeth?"
"Haha, look at me, I'm Clara, I'm so funny! Well it's all fun and games to you, but some of us keep forgetting the marriage customs of local time periods because we have the entirety of time and space jiggling about inside our heads!" The Doctor poked her forehead and turned back to the console. Clara was dumbstruck but couldn't help but burst out laughing as The Doctor fumed.
"So that's a yes then?" Clara replied coolly. "You really do have a thing for Queens don't you? Maybe I should find myself a country to rule."
"You could've ruled a thousand galaxies," The Doctor pointed out. "And oh dear. That's not good. That's not good at all." His voice had gone deadly serious. "Clara grab onto the rail and don't let go."
Clara obeyed and there was an explosion somewhere nearby. She screamed and ducked, as The Doctor ran around the console, frantically trying to stabilise the TARDIS. He cursed as he did so, never taking more than an eye off Clara as he did so. She thought it was sweet but really not helpful to their current situation.
"What's going on?" she yelled as the Doctor grappled with the TARDIS controls. "Is this something I did?"
"No, it's not your fault!" he yelled in reply. "I put the shields back up, but we've come across a space-time anomaly. One that shouldn't exist. It's some sort of Dimension Tunnel. If we get stuck in it, the TARDIS'll be dragged into another dimension. The shields should protect us, but if the time-space continuum there is different then she'll be useless. We could be trapped there. Not to mention all the time winds that could rip us apart if they're in the tunnel…" he stopped when he saw the look on her face. "Clara," he said softly, running over to her and cupping her cheek. "I'll get us out of this I promise."
"Why can't you just fly the TARDIS around or away from this tunnel?" she asked over the mini-explosions that were happening around them. "Put on the brakes or something?"
"Because, it's got us trapped in its field. Like a black hole, except it's nothing like a black hole, forget black hole, black hole, that's rubbish. It's like a magnet. Except we're not magnetized. It's positive time, dragging in negative time. Does that make any sense?"
"None whatsoever!" Clara shouted back.
"Of course it doesn't. I'd be surprised if it did. Listen Clara, there's nothing more I can do." The Doctor ran over to her, hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Clara whispered. "Geronimo."
There was a colossal explosion from the console and The Doctor shielded Clara, as the TARDIS wheezed and groaned before going black. There was a thudding crash and suddenly they were stabilised. There was a low level hissing and The Doctor let go of Clara before turning back to the console.
"Is anything still running?" she asked quietly.
"Doesn't look like it. She's completely drained. Well, almost completely. She's still draining. But she's hanging on. We just need some sort of power source to get her off the ground. But there may be no way out. The tunnel's probably closed."
"So we're stranded?" Clara murmured and The Doctor turned to her. All his energy was gone. He seemed resigned. He turned to the door. "Where are you going?"
"To see where we've landed," he muttered. "Stay where you are Clara, the atmosphere could be toxic. We've no way of knowing without the TARDIS scanners."
He opened the doors and stepped outside. He pulled out his sonic and started scanning the area. It seemed to be not working and Clara, lingering by the doors inquisitively, raised an eyebrow.
"Why isn't the sonic working?" she inquired.
"Different energy forms here on this world. Something the sonic hasn't encountered before. It can't scan anything because the entire world, maybe the entire universe is alien to it. It has no understanding of what is standardised and what is strange. It can't even lock on to the energy signatures, they're too different to the sonic's configurations. I could fix it, but I'd need something to lock on, some source that I could use to stabilise the readings…"
"Like what?" Clara asked, but before she got an answer, the TARDIS lurched into life, dematerialising with the Doctor still outside. "Doctor!" Clara yelled but she was already moving. He jumped towards her and then, suddenly, there were in the sky and he was clinging to the edge of the TARDIS like his life depended on it. It might well have done. She reached for him but the TARDIS tipped backwards and she was thrown away from him, rolling back across the console room. She heard him yelp and the doors slammed shut as the TARDIS continued to flail for dear life. She grabbed onto the railing, just as the TARDIS came to a crushing halt.
Clara stumbled to her feet. Everything hurt. She was sure she'd either twisted or broken her wrist and ankle and her left knee jarred when she tried to walk. Her head was spinning faster than she could believe and she stumbled forwards, scrambling for the doors of the TARDIS. They opened before she reached them and she fell through, the doors shutting behind her. She felt strange, very strange indeed. It was as if she had stepped into a dream, the world around her was shaking and wobbling. It was blurry and Clara hurried on. She was in a forest of some sort that much she could figure out. She tilted to avoid trees and thankfully, she came to a clearing. There was a blurred figure there in front of her. Could it be him?
"Doctor?" she shouted, but it came out as more of a whimper. She pitched forwards and the man caught her. "Doctor…" And then she blacked out.