CHAPTER 35

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THE HONEYMOON'S OVER PART 1

The Doctor had searched everywhere throughout time and space, but he still couldn't find her. No matter where he went or who he talked to, he couldn't find a single trace of her anywhere. It was as if Clara had simply disappeared from the face of the universe.

It was on Skaro that he finally found his answer at last though, and it nearly tore his hearts apart.

"Where is Clara? I know you had something to do with what happened to her. Tell me! Where is Clara?!" The Doctor screamed as he confronted the Emperor of the Daleks.

The Dalek Emperor responded with a cold, heartless laugh as it said, "HELLO, OLD MAN. SOUNDS LIKE YOU MISSED ME. TOO BAD I CAN'T RETURN THE SENTIMENT. EXTERMINATE HIM!"

"Clara! No!" The Doctor screamed in anguish just as several Dalek blasts completely tore his body apart.

Then he was suddenly awake, safe and sound, in an unfamiliar bed in a spacious hotel room, and his ears quickly became filled with the sound of cheerful birds chirping away from somewhere nearby. It almost made him wish he was back in that horrible nightmare once again.

Then his hearts fell as he realized that Clara was nowhere in sight.

"Clara?" The Doctor asked in an uncertain voice as he began to wonder if maybe it hadn't just been a nightmare after all.

He quickly searched through his recent memories in order to find some clue as to what was going on and remembered now that he and Clara had decided to have their honeymoon at the luxurious Hotel Nebula on the planet Stellarus Pax sometime in the late 51st century. It was widely known as one of the most extravagant hotels in the universe at that time and, as far as he knew, had never had any sort of alien attack or disaster occur there at any point in its history. In other words, it was absolutely mind numbingly boring in every way possible so he was sure that it would meet Clara's promise to Merry of not going anywhere dangerous perfectly . . . unfortunately.

Now as he frantically searched for Clara with a growing sense of dread in his hearts however, he was beginning to wonder if Clara was about to break that promise after all somehow.

"Oi! I'm right here so would you please stop shouting already? I can't even slip away to take a shower without you screaming loud enough to wake the entire hotel up. Stop that or you're going to convince everyone that I'm killing you or something! What is wrong with you anyway?" Clara said with an angry look on her face as she poked her head out of the bathroom door.

"I – I just . . . I had . . . It was nothing," The Doctor said with an embarrassed look on his face.

Clara's expression instantly softened and she said in a far kinder tone, "You had another dream about losing me again, didn't you?"

The Doctor nodded but said nothing. He merely stared at her as if he wasn't quite sure if she were real or not.

Clara immediately emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her and said in a gentle voice, "I'm alright, okay? I'm just fine. I told you before that this is nothing but your own fears of losing me because of all of the terrible things that have happened in your past. That doesn't make it real though. You worry about me way too much, Old Man. Part of me thinks that's sweet but another part is getting more than a bit annoyed by it especially on my honeymoon. You know I actually can take of myself. I don't need a brave knight in shining sonic sunglasses to come rescue me or have you forgotten how many times it's actually been me rescuing you instead?"

The Doctor smiled as he said, "There's no chance of that ever happening since you constantly seem to mention it every chance that you get."

"Are you saying that I brag a lot, Grimmy?" Clara said with a mischievous grin.

"No, of course not. No more than I do," The Doctor said as he started to move close to her.

"Oh, my stars! Am I really that bad?" Clara said with a horrified look on her face.

"To me you're absolutely perfect and always have been, Clara Oswald," The Doctor said as he started to kiss her.

Before his lips could touch hers however, she suddenly pulled away from him with an uncomfortable look on her face. For a brief moment, she actually looked at him with alarm as if he had somehow overstepped his bounds in some way.

"Did I do something wrong?" The Doctor asked because he honestly was never sure of when he was or wasn't sometimes in this incarnation.

Clara instantly smiled at him reassuringly as she said, "No, you didn't do anything. You just surprised me is all. I wasn't expecting you to do that."

"You weren't expecting me to kiss you on our honeymoon?" The Doctor asked in confusion because somehow that didn't sound right even to him.

Clara frowned at him as she said, "No, Stick Man, I wasn't expecting you to kiss me at that particular moment. I'm just going to have to get used to you giving me an unexpected snog from now on. It's no big deal or anything so stop looking so upset."

The Doctor nodded and said in an uncertain voice, "Alright."

Clara immediately gave him a sympathetic look and said, "It was nothing, okay? Stop looking like I just ripped your heart out or something. We're good, Old Man. We're always good."

The Doctor began to smile now and started to feel more relaxed as he wrapped his arms around her and drew her close to him. He was just about to kiss her when he realized that her entire body had stiffened in response to his touch despite the fact that she was currently smiling at him.

He immediately let her go and said in an apologetic voice, "Clara, if I've made you angry or upset you in some way . . ."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Skeleton Man. I'm just fine," Clara said as she looked at him with concern.

"Your physical reactions to me suggest that you're far from fine however. You didn't act like this last night so I can only conclude that it's something that I've unknowingly said or done since then," The Doctor said in an analytical tone as if he were studying their relationship under a microscope.

Clara sighed as she said, "Nothing is wrong between us, okay? Everything is exactly the same is at was before. You're driving yourself crazy today by worrying about things that aren't even real problems, Doctor. I know you wanted the honeymoon to be perfect after that mess at the wedding, but this is starting to get ridiculous."

"So you're not angry at me for some reason then?" The Doctor asked in an uncertain voice.

"No, I'm happier than I've ever been in my life in fact so stop worrying," Clara said with one of those wonderful warm smiles of hers that he had always loved so much.

The Doctor nodded and then said, "If that's true, then you should have no problem with this."

"What are you . . . ?" Clara started to say just before the Doctor suddenly kissed her without warning.

He immediately pulled away from her with a furious look on his face as he said, "Who are you and what have you done with Clara?"

"What? Have you completely lost it?" Clara said as she stared at him in disbelief.

"You never even tried to return my kiss or slap me for taking you by surprise. The real Clara would have instantly done either one or the other in response to my doing something like that to her. Probably both. You're not Clara Oswald," The Doctor said in a completely certain voice.

"Oh, I can't believe you! I . . . aw, just forget it!" 'Clara' said with an anguished groan as she suddenly stuck him in the arm with a syringe.

"I'd ask you where you were keeping that but the real Clara might misinterpret that as flirting," The Doctor said as he instantly started to feel extremely drowsy and fell forward into the false Clara's arms.

Then he looked up at her with an extremely worried expression as he said in a slurred voice, "Is she still alive?"

To his surprise, the false Clara seemed to give him a genuine smile as she said, "She's fine and she'll stay that way as long as you cooperate with me."

"What are you then? A Zygon? A Rutan? Never kissed a Rutan before. Too bad I can't say the same about a Zygon," The Doctor said with a grimace as he started to ramble.

"How in the world does she put up with you without strangling you? Do you ever shut up? I gave you enough tranquilizers to knock out an elephant and you're still talking!" The false Clara said in an annoyed voice.

"I'm a Time Lord. It takes a lot to finally shut our brains down. They're always working you see even when we're half conscious especially when we're fighting for our lives," The Doctor said through half-closed eyes as he lay slumped against the false Clara's shoulder.

"You're not in any danger as long as you do what I say, alright? Just relax and go to sleep. Everything's fine," The false Clara said in the exact same gentle, reassuring way as his own Clara would have.

"I wasn't talking about myself. I was talking about Clara being in danger. She is my life," The Doctor said as he suddenly flipped the false Clara over his shoulder using Venusian Aikido.

The false Clara looked up at him in complete astonishment as she said, "You should be completely under by now. Look at you. You can barely stand and you're still fighting. You really do care about her don't you?"

"She means everything to me. Tell me where she is," The Doctor said as he desperately struggled to stay awake while trying to pin her to the ground so that she couldn't escape.

The false Clara gave him a soft smile now as she said, "I wasn't lying, Doctor. She's safe. Just relax and let go. You'll see her again soon as long as you cooperate with us."

The Doctor quickly scanned her with his sonic screwdriver now as he said, "You're human. You must be one of Clara's echoes."

The false Clara gave him an odd look as she said, "One of her what? No, I have nothing whatsoever to do with her except of course that we somehow look the same. I think it's simply spatial genetic multiplicity myself though. It's perfectly explainable. At least I hope it is anyway. I'd hate to think that I'm somehow betraying a distant family member or something."

"No, not family. You're a part of her that was scattered through my timestream. Never mind. It would take much too long to explain, and I probably only have a few minutes left before I completely lose consciousness. What is important is that I find out who you are and what you're doing as soon as possible. I'd say judging by the level of knowledge that you have of Clara and her speech patterns and mannerisms but your overall general lack of knowledge of her past history like her echoes that you have to have been carefully coached for a specific mission by someone who really didn't want you to know anything but the bare essentials. That suggests that you're working for a secret organization to me. I can't stand secret organizations. They're always so concerned with following orders that they never even think to question where their orders are coming from or why they're being given in the first place. Most secret organizations are almost always up to something immoral, illegal, or both in my experience," The Doctor said in a voice that was showing obvious signs of severe drowsiness.

The false Clara took a deep breath and then said in a defeated voice, "I see you're not going to stop until I tell you what's going on. Fine, let's do this then. I'll tell you whatever I can. My name is Claire Ravenwood and I'm a Time Agent. I was sent to take Clara's place and spy on you for the Agency. They never said that I'd be going when you were on your honeymoon though or I'd have given them a definite no."

"Yes, you definitely don't seem to be able to pretend to love someone very convincingly do you? Don't feel so bad though, Claire. That's a good thing," The Doctor said in a weak voice as he started to feel himself blacking out.

"Not for an undercover agent it isn't. We're supposed to be capable of becoming anyone in the line of duty. I . . . just couldn't though. When I saw the way that you looked at me when you thought that I was her and the love in your eyes . . . it just felt wrong to take advantage of that," Claire admitted.

"That's the Clara Oswald in you," The Doctor said proudly as darkness began to rapidly fill his vision.

"Doctor, you're about to pass out now. Just relax. I swear to you that I won't harm you or Clara. My mission here was just to watch you and tell the Agency what you were doing. That's all it is as far as I know. Just sleep it off and I'll erase your memory of the last few minutes. I won't tell the Time Agency a thing about this I promise," Claire said in an earnest voice.

"No," The Doctor protested as he struggled to stay awake.

"Hey, don't worry. You already know you don't have to worry about cheating on Clara while you think I'm her. I can't even kiss you much less do anything else," Claire reassured him.

So last night that wasn't . . . ?" The Doctor asked in a barely conscious voice.

"No! No, no, no! That was definitely not me. I knocked Clara out and replaced her an hour ago while she was sleeping. You've got my word of honor on that," Claire said with a look of absolute repulsion on her face.

"Well, you don't have to look so offended at the idea," The Doctor said in a hurt voice.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that. I mean you're pretty good looking really. It's just that you're married and it's your honeymoon," Claire said in an apologetic voice.

"Still got it," The Doctor said with a smug smile just before he finally passed out at last.

He fell right next to Claire with a resounding thump as she finally sighed in relief. She could only be grateful that he hadn't been trying to actually harm her because it had taken far too long for the medication in his system to finally take effect.

"Sorry about this, Doctor, but I can't let my bosses know that you caught onto me. It's better both for me and you that they never find that out," Claire said as she placed a small device on the right side of the Doctor's head.

Then she hesitated for a moment because she had never erased a person's memory before and really didn't like the idea. This definitely wasn't the best way to start out her first case. So far she was really starting to wonder if she should reconsider her current line of work.

"I'm sorry," Claire said in a heartfelt tone as she gave the Doctor a quick kiss on the cheek before she started to hesitantly turn on the memory erasing device provided to her by the Agency.

She never got the chance to however because suddenly she was joining the Doctor on the floor as she was swiftly knocked out cold with a solid right hook to the jaw!

"You know even despite everything I might have actually gone easy on you for not tricking him into cheating on me, but you just had to give him a little kiss there at the end, didn't you?" Clara said in a furious voice as she stood over her unconscious echo in triumph.

"Clara," The Doctor said in a relieved voice as his eyes suddenly opened once more.

Clara smiled and immediately gave him a tender kiss as she said, "Why am I not surprised that you were just playing possum with her, Old Man?"

"I actually wasn't. I'm extremely close to passing out for real any moment now. I just pretended to do it earlier so that I could take her by surprise just before she was about to erase my memory," The Doctor said in an extremely weary voice.

"I notice you didn't stop her while she was giving you that little kiss at the end though," Clara said in a clearly jealous voice.

"That wasn't my fault. She took me completely by surprise doing that," The Doctor protested as his eyes started to close once more.

"Uh, huh," Clara said in a skeptical tone.

"Clara, you need to stop wasting time being jealous of yourself and get us out of here while you still can. Claire was basically too much like you to do anything truly harmful to us, but the next Time Agent that they send probably won't be so gentle. We have to get back to the TARDIS as quickly as possible before they realize that she's been discovered," The Doctor warned even as he felt himself rapidly losing consciousness for real this time.

"What is it with us anyway, Grimmy? Why can we never catch a break even on our honeymoon? Well, at least we had one good night, yeah? I guess I can't complain too much about that, huh?" Clara said with a soft smile as she softly stroked his hair while his eyes slowly closed and his breathing began to slow.

"How . . . How did you escape? Where were you?" The Doctor suddenly said in a soft voice that she could barely hear.

"Does your brain ever shut down, Stick Man? That's really not important right now but I guess if it'll help you relax I'll give you a quick answer. Fake Me made the mistake of picking your pocket and stealing your TARDIS key while we were asleep, and once she knocked me out and tied me up she took me back there and just deposited me on the Console Room floor. Luckily for you, the Old Cow sent me to the Medical Bay and purged the tranqs from my system. She'll do the same for you in a minute," Clara said as she used the Stattenheim remote control that she had thankfully had the good sense to have Ushas make for her before she left Earth to rapidly bring the TARDIS to them.

"My Clara. Always coming through for me," The Doctor said with a warm smile as he began to lose consciousness as soon as he felt the reassuring presence of the TARDIS in his mind while she rapidly materialized around them.

"And I always will," Clara reassured him as she gave him a quick kiss.

Clara quickly rushed to the console now and dematerialized while she still could. Then and only then she finally let out a massive sigh of relief and allowed herself to fully relax at last. That was when she had the TARDIS send the Doctor to the Medical Bay so that he could be back up on his feet again soon just in case the Time Agency weren't quite through with them yet.

"Uh, oh," A familiar voice suddenly said from the floor at that moment.

That was when Clara looked down at her reluctant guest with a determined look and said, "Back with us again, are you? Good because I have a lot of questions that I want to ask you. You're going to tell me exactly what's going on right now or I'll make you tell me. Don't think I won't either just because we happen to have the same extremely cute face. The only reason I'm not pulling it out of your brain by force right now is the fact that you were good to the Doctor, and I get the feeling that you're really not a bad person. Plus I try not to abuse my powers if I can. Despite what you may have heard from your bosses, I really am very nice and sweet."

"Oh, I really hope so," Claire said in an undeniably scared voice.

"Just tell me what you know and I won't do anything, alright? I really do appreciate how you treated us even if I'm more than a bit angry about your sense of timing," Clara said in a much kinder voice.

Claire nodded but still looked more than a bit nervous as she said, "I honestly don't know anything except that I was supposed to keep careful tabs on the Doctor and report back on what he was doing to the Agency. That's all I know. I swear."

Clara could see she was genuinely frightened and helped her stand up as she said with her most disarming smile, "Hey, it's okay. No one's going to bother you. I just wanted to know why the Time Agency is so interested in us all of a sudden, and why they felt the need to interrupt my honeymoon because of it. I'm really going to have a nice long chat with your lot's big boss about that one believe me."

"And I don't blame you one bit. I wish someone had told me about it too really. So you're not going to chuck me out in the middle of the Vortex I take it?" Claire asked only half-joking.

"What have they been telling you about me? You're acting like I'm the female version of Rassilon or something," Clara said with a frown.

"Don't take it personally. I just . . . This is the first time I've ever done anything like this before. I'm kind of a bit scared to be honest," Claire admitted with an embarrassed look on her face.

"Really? I never would have noticed. Let me guess. The Time Agents recruited you just because you look like me didn't they? That would explain why they never even told you why you were doing this because you're not really one of them," Clara guessed.

"Yeah, you're right. They just told me that the Doctor was potentially dangerous to all of time and space and that I needed to help them keep tabs on him for the good of everyone. I tried to tell them that I had never done this sort of thing before, but that didn't seem to matter too much to them. They just said to keep reporting on what the Doctor was doing and that everything would be fine. I . . . I never even met anyone face to face. All of my instructions were given to me over a computer," Claire admitted.

"What did they promise you?" The Doctor asked as he came back into the room looking fully alert once more.

"I . . ." Claire said in a hesitant voice.

"Oh, come on, Claire. They had to promise you something in order to get someone as timid as you to do anything this dangerous. I'm sure you didn't do it just because they told you that I might be a danger to the universe," The Doctor said in a skeptical voice.

"I . . . I did it because they threatened my family. They said that if I didn't . . ." Claire finally said in an emotional voice before trailing off without finishing.

"Thought so. They found one of your echoes and forced her into helping them against her will," The Doctor said to Clara with a triumphant smile.

"No wonder you're so scared. Don't worry. We won't let anything happen to your family, okay?" Clara reassured her as she hugged her tightly.

Then she turned to the Doctor with a furious expression as she said, "Okay, now it's personal, Doctor. Not only did they interrupt one of the happiest days of my life, but they also threatened one of my echoes. I've had more than enough of these people. I don't care how hard they are to find or how deeply they hide themselves they're all going down."

The Doctor actually grinned at her as he said, "I don't doubt it for one second, but we have to be sure that it actually is the Time Agency that we're after first. Somehow I'm not so sure about that. Something about this just doesn't seem to be their style to me. It does remind me far too much of yet another sinister organization far closer to home though that also regularly deals with time-related matters. Maybe a group of people who weren't too happy with the High Council's most recent decision, perhaps?"

"The Celestial Intervention Agency. They sent Claire to spy on what Ushas was up to because they don't trust her," Clara said in a cold voice.

"Or maybe they were even hoping to somehow use her to recruit Ushas in order to further their own agenda. Ushas would think that she was you after all and you are the person who's closer to her than anyone," The Doctor reasoned.

At that very moment, a shadowy figure silently listened in on their conversation via a listening device that they had implanted in Claire's memory wiping device. They now audibly sighed as they realized that the Doctor was getting far too close to the truth for comfort. None of this could be allowed to go any further than it already had so sadly certain regrettable actions definitely had to be taken now.

That was when the TARDIS suddenly began setting a new course for itself as a brand new set of coordinates were remotely entered into it by the Doctor and Clara's unseen opponent.

"What's happening? Clara asked as she sensed this.

The Doctor instantly ran to the console and then looked up at her in horror as he said, "Someone's hacked into the TARDIS' navigational controls and is redirecting her to fly straight into the nearest star. Not even the TARDIS can survive there for long."

"Well, one thing's for sure. I guess we can definitely rule the Time Agency out as being behind this now. They could never pull anything like this off," Clara said with a frown.

Then her hearts filled with regret as she said in a sorrowful voice, "I'm sorry, Merry. I really did try."

Next: Can the Doctor manage to find a way to redirect the TARDIS' course in time? Even if he can, will he and Clara ever truly be safe from their newest mystery foe? Just who are they anyway and what do they want? The Doctor could be closer to the truth than he knows, but even he will never expect what the full answer to that question is when it's fully revealed in the next chapter. It's one that will leave Clara shocked to her very core as her past comes back to haunt her in a huge way.