CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Clara took her time to emerge from the kitchen right up until the point where she could hear Mickey and Martha enter the hub, clearly having collected Jack from wherever it was he'd gone to walk off... or possibly drink off the Doctor's words; his dulcet clearly slurred tones making her think it was probably the latter, which left her feeling guilty that she was partly to blame for whatever the Doctor had said to reduce him to that. Sighing heavily she made her way back into the control room, a little surprised to find the Doctor sat in her spot, his feet up on the console, jabbing at a keyboard, looking grouchy but not nearly as furious as when he'd stormed out of the kitchen. She approached him quietly, glancing at the TARDIS, she'd half expected him to take off in it to blow off steam, or just to alleviate boredom. He was obviously aware of her staring.
"She's regenerating." He muttered, not bothering to look up at her but clearly still able to pick up on exactly what she was thinking, even when he wasn't inside her head. She quirked an eyebrow at him, glancing back at the TARDIS and letting out a snort of derision. Of course she was, the Doctor clearly wanted out of here, so the Old Bat would pick now to force him to stick around.
Martha strolled into the control room, Clara looked up and saw her supportive smile... terrific clearly Jack had been talking; if she didn't know any better she'd think Martha was acting as some sort of peace envoy. "So Doctor... long time. You seem improved."
The Doctor swung around on his seat and eyed the young doctor up and down. "See Clara, now here's a woman who can clearly appreciate an upgrade when they see one." His smile was thin and Clara rolled her eyes at Martha's clear and sudden discomfort to realise she was clearly walking into the tail end of an argument.
"I meant from the unconscious comatose state Clara brought you here in." Martha crossed her arms, "But it's good to see you're so alert."
"And you Doctor Jones, so nice to see you again." He gave her an appraising glance that didn't seem to suggest it was nice at all and spun his chair back around, crossing his feet at the ankles on the desk and returning to antagonising the computer.
"Ignore him." Clara sighed stepping around his chair which he seemed to move out almost to block her from reaching Martha's side, "I think his personality is still rebooting. At least I'm hoping so." Martha smiled but Clara could see it wasn't reaching her eyes and she got the impression that what expression had made it was entirely for her benefit.
"Are you okay?" she whispered quietly, squeezing her arm supportively.
"I might look older but I can assure you Doctor Jones that my hearing is just fine!" the Doctor called over, not bothering to look their way but his tone was sharp enough.
"I'll be fine." Clara replied in a normal tone. "Just working out some marital issues." Which was putting it mildly. "He'll be off as soon as the TARDIS finishes her facelift."
"We'll be off." He corrected sharply.
Clara turned to give him a glare. "Oh trust me, right now it's going to be just you!" she snapped. His expression twisted and she prepared herself for a backlash that never quite came, because the surface lift activated startling them all. Their eyes were drawn to it as it descended.
"Are we expecting guests?" Clara asked Martha uneasily.
"No." Martha replied, not breaking her stride as she went for the weapons concealed in the consoles, tossing her one.
"Don't I get a fancy alien ray gun?" The Doctors brash Scottish accent declared and Martha spun on him, her eyebrows almost rising to her hairline as she stared open mouthed in shock at him.
"You want a gun?" she asked sounding as shaken as Clara felt.
He shrugged and held out his hand. Martha gave her a look and Clara turned away, today this was the least of her worries and she had a suspicion he might just be doing it to wind her up, or possibly his old Companion. Martha slapped a gun into his outstretched palm and he inspected it proficiently, resting it on his lap leaning once more nonchalantly back in the chair feet still up.
"Mickey and Jack?" Clara asked, her eyes on the blast doors, no alarms had gone off, which was disturbing.
"Jack is indisposed." Martha muttered shooting the Doctor a look, Clara turned and he had the nerve to actually smirk at her, forcing her to suppress the urge to shoot him herself.
Fortunately the doors opened halting any further thoughts as a wave of soldiers flowed in, Clara held the weapon poised as they filed in before a very distinctive set of heels and blonde head followed behind them. Clara didn't quite lower the weapon when Martha did.
"Ma'am." Martha managed in surprise, "What are you doing here?"
"Maybe it's an inspection." The Doctor muttered with clear sarcasm and Clara took a step back, something leaden settling in her gut as Kate Stewart's gaze lingered on him, the woman was not here for a chat.
"Doctor." Kate's tone was clipped. "I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the console."
Clara turned eyeing the Doctor, noting he flicked the monitor off before she looked back to Kate. The UNIT soldiers hadn't lowered their weapons, which were trained on the Doctor. "Tell me you didn't?" She snarled rounding on him, he gave her a somewhat proud look and she couldn't help it, she clipped him around the back of the head and shoved his feet off the desk, reaching for the monitor and flipping it back on to reveal what she'd suspected. "You hacked them?" she gave him an exasperated look.
"Oh he did a little more than hack UNIT." Kate was using that calm, no nonsense tone she got when she really meant business. "He has taken control of our satellites, our defence systems and erased or corrupted almost all of our data files. Not to mention the damage he has done to NATO, the UN, MI6, the CIA, FBI, Facebook... should I go on?" Kate's eyes hadn't shifted from the Doctor but his gaze was fixed firmly on her as Clara stared back feeling her anger so easily stirred at the challenging unapologetic look on his face.
"We're you just that bored?" Clara hissed at him, trying to absorb just how much damage he could cause if he set his mind to it and not wanting to carry on down that dark thought.
He laughed lightly, "Oh come on Clara, where's your sense of fun." He grasped her hips and pulled her onto his lap wrapping his arm around her and preventing her escape completely ignoring the sudden flurry of movement from the men with the big guns. It was oddly reminiscent of the time Jack had done it, only she hadn't felt nearly as threatened as weapons clicked in both their directions. The Doctor's head shot to them and she could tell his expression was fierce because Kate seemed to pause. She never considered however that he'd placed her on his lap as a human shield, despite that being almost exactly what he'd done, more likely he was supremely confident they wouldn't actually shoot him, or her.
"Are you really stupid enough to point a gun at me?" the Doctor asked Kate tauntingly.
"Several." Kate replied not missing a beat. "But it's hardly what I wanted to do Doctor, you are forcing my hand. I really must insist that you release Ms Oswald and step away from the console."
The Doctor barked out a laugh that actually made Kate flinch and Clara tried to remove herself from his lap, only to be tugged back down with some force, he never did like being told what to do at gunpoint. "Tell you what Clara, why don't we play a game with the humans." He rasped in her ear. "It's called who's the better hacker... me or you." Clara glanced back at him, noting that he seemed to be excluding her from the 'human' bracket.
"All this because of the kitchen?" she bit out, wondering if it might really have been that simple and hoping to God it wasn't, that this was something else, something more. "Older but definitely not more mature." She snapped, trying hard not to feel disappointed that he seemed to be wilfully destroying all their memories of his previous selves. She almost hoped in a way this was a result of the kitchen, he'd had at least 10 minutes by her count to come in here and wreak havoc, she hated to think he might have planned this before their little spat, because that was an entirely different can of worms.
"Oh don't flatter yourself Love, I was bored and my motor wasn't running." He jerked his thumb at the TARDIS which was currently still grounded. "I thought this would be fun, got to test UNITs response time," he glanced over at Kate and her men, "Bit slow to be honest, the Brigadier wouldn't have allowed such shoddy discipline in his day. If I'd wanted I could have launched just about every nuclear warhead on the planet before you'd even realised I'd taken over, or crashed every stock market, that tends to have the same effect."
"Stop it!" Clara snapped at him, her hands clasping over his firmly and squeezing hard in her instance to force some sense into him, because she was almost certain UNIT weren't actually stupid enough to shoot the Doctor, but it meant that there wasn't anyone else to put him in his place.
"You have five seconds to comply Doctor." Kate warned. "I have explicit instructions from the highest levels of authority across the globe to remove you from our systems by force if necessary. I'd rather not give that order."
The Doctor still wasn't looking at Kate or her men, his gaze intent on her. Clara turned, trying to look for a flicker of something that would tell her what it was he was doing here. On instinct she reached out for his chin and locked her eyes on his, pushing with her mind. It glanced off the brick wall of a defence system he seemed to have erected this time around. Apparently it wasn't going to be that easy, she drifted back to what he'd said... he'd laid down a challenge.
"Four Doctor." Kate called, the countdown continuing.
'Who's the better hacker' that had been the game he wanted to play. "What do I get if I win?" she asked an imperious eyebrow arched at him, hating that she was dancing to his tune and she had no idea what the song was, the lack of control sat unpleasantly inside her.
"Three."
"Access." He replied, tapping his temple with a sly smirk.
Clara stared hard at him, looking for the trap she suspected he'd lain, she just wasn't entirely sure why.
"What do you get out of all of this if you win?" Clara asked him
"Two." Kate barked and Clara heard the soldiers take an ominous step forward.
The Doctor twirled his fingers and she didn't react when suddenly his sonic was in his hand and he waved it overhead. The weapons the soldiers were carrying shot out of their hands and to the centre of the Hub that used to house the rift, as if it had suddenly become magnetised to the guns alone. Clara tried to grip onto her own for dear life, but saw it sail away from her at the same moment Martha's did; only the Doctors remained intact in his hand and he placed it rather obviously on the desk. There was a cry of surprise from behind her and she glanced up in time to see the automated targeting system spin out of the ceilings and rise up from the ground, training on the UNIT soldiers; clearly he'd overridden the Hub security protocols as well. A flash of fear raced through her and she felt the blood drain from her features.
"Just the joy of watching you work my dear." He admitted with what she suspected was sarcasm, his hands settling higher on her hips and spinning her back towards the console. "Chop chop though, I might have left something on a countdown." That she really hoped was sarcasm.
"Doctor... please, see reason!" Kate shouted and Clara watched as Martha joined her, the Hub's guns trained on her every bit as much as the soldiers.
"Why?" he mocked as Clara turned to the console, her hands flying over the keys and pulling up the subroutines he'd been working on. He'd coded it in Gallifreyan. Typical.
"Doctor, we are your friends... please." Martha tried stepping forward and the gun turret to her right fired up.
"Ah, I wouldn't do that if I were you." The Doctor warned, and Clara tried not to shiver as his hand smoothed up her spine whilst she worked. "I imagine you being shredded in a hail of gunfire might distract my wife from her task."
"What happened to you?" Martha managed, sounding both horrified and slightly disgusted.
"I'm surprised Clara didn't tell you." The Doctor replied, "She seems so keen to share with her little Torchwood team in my absence."
"Stop distracting me." Clara muttered, her fingers flying as she tried to break his encryption, every piece of impossible hacking skills in her head fighting with what seemed to be his newly discovered ones.
His lips found the back of her neck and she hissed, hitting the wrong key stroke. "Damn it." She growled, hoping she hadn't just launched something. "Play fair or I don't play at all!" She warned him lowering her hands to his and shoving his hands that had started to wander back down. Surprisingly he seemed to oblige, turning his attention back to Kate and Martha. Her brain was working too fast to consider the full implications of all this, she just knew that she had to undo it somehow; he was giving her a chance, why she wasn't sure, but she intended to take it.
"So Martha, how's married life?" he asked glibly and Clara could almost hear Martha's concern shift to her husband elsewhere in the Hub.
"He's fine." Clara cut across the Doctor pulling up the internal monitors and noting that Jack and Mickey were currently locked down in one of the dormitories, Mickey was trying to jerry-rig the door whilst Jack seemed mostly just to be trying to wake himself up. "They're just detained." She added glancing at her friend and seeing relief there.
"Tick tock Love, I wasn't joking about the timer." He reminded, redirecting her attention to the aforementioned rockets which she'd already tried and attempted to disarm, so far she'd managed to just isolate their power grid, but she was sure there was a trip wire somewhere on a secondary power supply waiting to catch her.
"Doctor, why would you do this to us, to Earth," he snorted clearly unmoved by her plea for answers or some kind of empathy, "to your wife...?" Kate tried a softer tack and Clara felt the Doctor flinch in irritation.
"Clara Love, did you hear that?" he was talking to her but not really, so she chose to carry on trying to reclaim the CIA and FBI files from the virtual shredder the Doctor seemed to have doomed them to. "I don't think they think you have a chance; if I were you I'd be insulted."
Clara snorted. "I can handle his hack." She muttered giving Kate a grin that was part bravado part belief, "Trust me, he's all thumbs."
"Now now dear, we both know that's not what you really think." His mind brushed across hers and she let out a gasp at the shocking sensation, and the mental image of his all too clever fingers.
"I warned you." She hissed not looking back at him as she focused on the monitors, trying to wrench back control of UNIT's central processors whilst avoiding his traps within traps. "Or can't you stand a fair fight?" she taunted and she risked a glance back seeing his eyes dancing with amusement. Clearly he was enjoying this.
He sighed and dropped her waist, propping his hands behind his head and relaxing back whilst she worked, "Hardly a fair fight this really Love, you were the Dalek once remember, not me."
There was a sharp intake of breath from Martha and she didn't need to look at Kate to know she'd be wearing an equally horrified expression. But Clara shrugged it off, her memories of that particular life were sealed well away, she wasn't about to let his cutting remark throw her off. But it did inspire her in a strange way she supposed, the Dalek pathweb was like nothing else, even the Doctor couldn't counter it, or recreate it. So that's exactly what she did, she used elements of the Dalek pathweb to reconstruct and reinforce the damaged systems, building in layers of protection as she restored it.
"Now that's cheating." He muttered and she shot him a warning glance but he merely sat there watching her.
"Your idea." She smiled back smugly and his lips drew into a thin line. So at least she'd learnt two more things about this version of him; he was careless when he was bragging and he was a sore loser. The fact that he was wilfully endangering the planet and their friends she was leaving in a special box to be prodded at later as to what it meant about him.
The Hub's turrets were the last thing for her to restore, partly so that UNIT didn't decide just to shoot them both on the spot before she'd fixed their systems and also because he had left a rather unpleasant failsafe in the subroutine which she would also consider later. The turrets spun down and retreated and their stolen weapons dropped to the floor with a clatter, looking distinctly crushed.
The Doctor sighed and then slowly raised his hands together to clap her. "Well done my Love, well done; never had a doubt." He murmured pressing a kiss to her temple, her hands were shaking she realised as she glanced down at the keyboard where they still hovered, as the full extent of the panic she'd been feeling seemed to flood her and she all but shot out of his lap, putting several paces between them. Her hands found a wall and she placed her forehead against it, shutting out the world and just trying to breathe and calm the roiling nausea swirling in her stomach.
There was a beat when no one seemed to quite know what to do and she realised dimly that she had the only weapon in the room currently operational, she didn't quite remember when she'd picked up the one the Doctor had left discarded on the console, but it was gripped tightly in her hand now as she turned back to observe them. The Doctor was oddly quiet merely watching her as if waiting to see what she would do.
Kate recovered first, she approached her and held out her hand. "Clara, the weapon." She instructed.
Clara hesitated, looking back to the Doctor who was still sat casually in his chair watching them avidly, Kate had clearly noticed what she had, that the other weapons would be utterly non functional, crushed by the strength of the force that had specifically targeted and grabbed them. If she handed it over, Kate would surely turn it on the Doctor.
Clara hesitated, her grip on the gun tightening. "What's your plan Kate?" she asked quietly.
"Lock him up." Kate replied with conviction, as she spoke a group of her soldiers seemed to flow as one at the Doctor, manhandling him up out of his seat and slapping some very fancy looking cuffs on him as he barely protested, looking faintly bored now that all the excitement seemed to be over. "He's a menace, always has been, but given as he used to have this world's best interests at heart, it was overlooked. I can't overlook this." Kate replied quietly, almost apologetically to her, rather than the Doctor she noted. Disappointment and no small amount of fear seemed to be warring over the other woman's face and Clara wondered if it was a mirror to her own.
She considered pointing the gun at Kate, at ordering them to release the Doctor and let them simply step into his TARDIS and fly away. Except she knew her threat would be empty, she wasn't going to hurt Kate and they'd know that too. Nor was she entirely certain she was ready to throw her life on Earth away, to step into a Box with what she was seriously beginning to think was genuinely this time around, a madman, one she happened to still be married to.
"You expect to hold him?" Clara asked not able to keep the incredulity out of her voice as the soldiers quite deliberately shoved a black bag over the Doctor's head, like it would help any.
Kate sighed, dropping her hand as if realising Clara wasn't about to hand the gun over. "Clara, there are protocols in place for this, and I'm sorry to say they have been in existence for a very long time. You may not be aware, but one of the primary functions of Torchwood was to defend the Earth against alien threats... specifically the Doctor."
"He's done nothing but help this planet." Clara snapped.
Kate smiled grimly, "I do believe the population of Pompeii would disagree... to mention just one incident"
Clara opened her mouth to argue the extenuating circumstances of that 'incident' but Kate held her hand up stopping her. "I know Clara, I do. But the Doctor is not the only Time Lord we have encountered, I think it's safe to say that we have learnt our lessons well. Whilst the Doctor is an incredible ally, we cannot allow him to become an enemy."
Clara felt like she was grinding her teeth, irritation and anger at both UNIT and the Doctor was warring for control. "For God's sake Kate... he's coming off the back of the worst regeneration he's ever had, after a millennia of fighting a war. He needs time. This..." she gestured indicating the chaos he wrought, "it is nothing more than regeneration sickness screwing with his head. I promise you if you just give him a little time he'll..."
Kate cut her off abruptly. "With a little more time Clara he could easily cripple all of Earth's defences again, bring chaos to our infrastructure and leave us little more than a smoking crater. I don't have the luxury of waiting out his mood swings." There was definite anger there now Clara realised coming from the other woman.
"So you lock him up and throw away the key?" Clara hissed as they began frog marching the Doctor out of the Hub, back towards the surface lifts, her eyes tracked him, her hand tightening around the gun.
"Only until such time as he or someone else is able to convince us that he poses no threat to the Earth or it's people." Kate sighed, sounding weary now beneath the anger, "Trust me Clara I have no wish to see the Doctor as our enemy, because it will be a dark day indeed when that happens. But you yourself warned me that if he came back, he might not be the same man, might not be someone we could rely on."
Clara felt like she'd been sucker punched. She had said that, in confidence, not imaging that Kate would actually use it as ammunition against the Doctor. Granted he had provided them with more than enough of his own to use against him anyway.
"So what about me?" Clara asked, watching the Doctor's back retreat behind the wall of black clad soldiers as a ripple of concern for him and for the Earth passed through her. Because she was torn, utterly, if she had to choose between the two of them, her husband or her world she wasn't certain she'd make the wise choice; the sane choice. She levelled her gaze on Kate, certain some of her dark thoughts were showing. "Do I get a cosy little cell in some UNIT facility too?"
Kate's eyes gave her away in that instant, it was almost as if she hadn't considered the idea that she'd need to. "I don't think that is necessary, you aren't a threat to the Earth's security... are you?" She turned to leave, clearly expecting that to be a rhetorical question.
"You do realise the Doctor always has a plan." Clara pointed out, seeing Martha out of the corner of her eye nod in silent agreement despite her clearly shell shocked state as she eyed the inner hub waiting for Mickey to materialise no doubt now he'd been released. Kate paused and glanced back at her questioningly. "If he's ended up inside a UNIT cell, then it's because that's exactly where he wanted to be." Clara pointed out wondering quietly if this was how the Doctor felt sometimes, exasperated by the short sighted idiocy of those around him.
"Perhaps." Kate acknowledged, "But that's out of my hands now, he forced us into this. Besides I think sometimes the Doctor forgets just how much he has shared with the human race about himself and his abilities. This wouldn't be the first time we've built an impenetrable cell to hold something like him and the American's were more than happy to share the blueprints."
Clara frowned, she didn't know what they were referring to she couldn't recall a time the Doctor went to America, but then it didn't mean she'd been to every point in his past and her memory wasn't the most reliable. The idea was a little unnerving though.
"Lake Silencio." Martha supplied and Clara was none the wiser, but she filed the information away for later.
Kate's glanced at her phone, "I should thank you Clara, it would seem you have managed to restore almost everything that the Doctor corrupted. We are in control once more."
Clara felt her lips purse. "You're most welcome." She smiled thinly with just about as much saccharin in her response as she could and she watched it cause Kate to flinch, as the penny finally dropped, their eyes locked. Apparently the choice wasn't as hard as she'd imagined after all, 'the Doctor or the Earth'.
"You aren't going to let us simply take him are you?" Kate asked her quietly, realising that anyone who could so thoroughly undo the Doctor's work when just about every so called expert on this planet had failed, was indeed a threat.
Clara kept her tone even, so as not to give away that she was terrified and shaking like a leaf on the inside, her eyes drifted to the gun, so did Kate and Martha's as they all seemed to consider it. "You know I've learnt a thing or two from my dear husband, the Doctor as well." Clara told them evenly; surprised at just how flat her voice could sound when she was trying not to fall apart. "Like how you don't need a gun to be the most dangerous person in a room." With that in mind she quietly strode across to Kate and handed the gun over to her with a smirk. "Or how if you're ever inside someone's computer systems, it's probably wise to build yourself a backdoor, just in case."
Kate paled. "Don't make me do this Clara." Her voice wavered and she reached out taking the gun, her hand lingering over hers, but Clara didn't soften her stance at all as the silence seemed to lengthen between them as they both considered the implications of what she was doing.
Martha was suspiciously quiet and Clara shared a look with her that seemed to lead to an understanding between them; 'love made you do stupid things'. Her sad smile seemed to acknowledge that this might well be the last time they saw each other.
"You forced my hand when you declared my husband an enemy of the planet." Clara shrugged, turning Kate's words back on her.
Kate took the gun and held it loosely in her hand, the look of utter resignation on her face growing into a dawning sense of unease that somehow she had lost control of this situation without quite realising it again... it was a situation Clara could sympathise with, this Doctor tended to have that effect. Clara held out her wrists and waited as Kate barked an instruction into her earpiece, which was quickly followed by the sounds of booted footfalls as two soldiers reappeared. Clara held steady as they approached and more gently than they had the Doctor slid their fancy restraints over her wrists. Clara let them lead her away, Kate following quietly in their wake as she followed the Doctor. It didn't matter where they took her, she was certain that her ending up in a cell hadn't been part of the Doctor's plan at all, which right now, taking back this control from him over her own life, it would have been priceless if it wasn't so unnerving.