Authors Note: Content warning for some scenes of graphic violence that some may find disturbing
Spoiler Warnings: As mentioned before but again just to be sure, this will follow an AU version of S8 based on my current character development/relationships, but some of the plots will obviously be spoilerific for all of Season 8.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Clara couldn't sleep, it might have had something to do with the unspecified time she'd spent sleeping in the medbay prior to their arrival in Victorian London, which she suspected was probably longer than 48hours given the Doctors rumpled state. Or it might have been the gnawing gut wrenching feeling that her marriage was failing and her last memory of him and what he'd done, the dark step he'd forced them both to take circling like it was somehow another nail in the coffin of their relationship. That she was somehow failing the Doctor... and that he was failing her. Or it might have been the baleful roars of the T-Rex outside her window as it stomped along the Thames calling out like it was in pain.
The pitch changed and she shot up realising with alarm it did sound like it was in pain, she ran to the window looking out in time to see flames engulf the gigantic body evident even from this distance as smoke billowed into the air with the creatures death cries.
"Vastra!" she shrieked, thankful that she decided to lie down fully clothed on top of the bed she hadn't expected to sleep in, as she shot out of the door and almost bowled Jenny over.
Jenny clasped a hand to her chest in clear surprise, "Clara, Lord you scared me half to death, what is it?"
"The dinosaur just went up in flames, we need to get to the Thames, fast." Jenny to her credit didn't ask her any questions just hurried away with a 'right you are Ma'am' as Strax appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
"I'll get the carriage ready shall I." He grinned wickedly at the prospect of carnage and hurried away, muttering something about incentivising the horses.
Clara felt oddly helpless, she was out of time and place and reliant on Vastra and her group; her eyes drifted to the smoke and glow of flames still visible from her window and prayed that it had nothing to do with the Doctor.
Vastra appeared from within the house all but sneaking up on her and Clara stared evenly at back. "Would it be prudent perhaps to wait for the Doctor?" the lizard woman asked, but the expression on her face was entirely curious and Clara realised with irritation that she was fishing, clearly knowing full well he was no longer in the house and probably a good deal of why too.
Clara felt her own expression harden. "You know the Doctor, if there is trouble, I'm sure he'll find it for himself." Vastra had the sense to at least nod her head in acknowledgement of Clara's unspoken request not to talk about it and to accept the truth in her words. Clara sighed inwardly of course it was too much to ask that Vastra's keen hearing had not picked up on the events between her and the Doctor earlier this evening and she watched her retreat with some trepidation.
The Doctor stood on the bridge watching the smouldering remains of the dinosaur, the heat of the flames close enough that he could feel it prickling his skin. It would be nothing but ash soon, the heat too intense for normal combustion which ruled out a regular human bout of murder in this instance. He felt strangely vacant as he stared at the remains, he was curious yes, but the passing of this magnificent creature even to this particularly violent end didn't even spark a hint of guilt. This creature was here because of him. Its death was his fault and it honestly didn't bother him in the slightest... but that absence of care at least bothered him; which he supposed was something.
He heard the stage coach come to a screaming halt and felt the presence of his wife as they dismounted, dimly also aware of Vastra's little gang. He turned and noticed Clara hung back behind them, her eyes not on him but on the burning corpse. He didn't know if he felt guilty for what happened between them or not, he despised causing her pain, but it was all he seemed to be able to do now. His eyes lingered on her for a moment more as she refused to acknowledge him and he accepted that, because the alternative was making her and he honestly didn't think he had the right. Everything used to be so clear to him, logical, fast but fluid, now it was like there was a cacophony of sound and feelings coursing through him, most of it with her name or face attached to it, confusing him all to hell.
Vastra slid up beside him her eyes wide and reflecting the horror and compassion he knew Clara would have wanted him to feel. "Who, or what could have done this thing?" she posed the question.
"No." He growled suppressing the eye roll at the stupidity and dimwittedness of others, and disappointment, he always expected so much better of Madame Vastra.
"I'm sorry?" Vastra snapped, sounding as confused as he'd anticipated which only dented his nostalgia for the Great Detective stories.
"No, that is not the question. That is not where we start." He snapped, deciding that if there was nothing else he could do until his TARDIS was ready to fly again then he may as well deal with this trifling little mystery. If nothing else it would alleviate the boredom and give his dear wife the distance she clearly needed from him.
Strax grunted, "The question is how? The flesh itself has been combusted." His confidence in his own idiocy was almost laughable.
The Doctor hopped up onto the parapet of the bridge and gazed down at the smouldering remains, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. "No, no, shut up!" he mocked, "What do you all have for brains, pudding? Look at you, Why can't I meet a decent species? Planet of the pudding brains." He snarled furious at them all, at himself and feeling that old peculiar loathing he had for the human race and this blasted planet rear its ugly head as he stared at their ignorant gawping expressions. Ironic that Strax and Vastra had been the once to bring on a bout of it when they were not human, but had clearly chosen to live amongst and emulate the race he no longer cared to understand.
He heard Clara's weary sigh, "There is a dinosaur burning in the heart of London," she came to join their small group overlooking the river, but her eyes were on the people, on the crowds that had gathered to gawp just as his had been. "And these people aren't nearly surprised enough. They've seen this before... maybe not on a dinosaur, but they've seen a body burning like this, and recently."
The Doctor couldn't help the smile that quirked his lips as he stared at her folding his arms in admiration. She never would be anything but perfect he realised, always asking the right questions.
"Oh by the Goddess," Vastra's eyes widened in realisation, "Of course," she murmured, "there have been other murders like this."
"Look at them." The Doctor declared, "Gawking. So if all of the pudding brains are gawking, then what is he?" he pointed to the man in the suit and top hat walking calmly through the crowds, his eyes nor his interest piqued by the scenes all around him.
"He does seem remarkably unmoved by the available spectacle." Vastra remarked her sharp eyes on his form.
The Doctor felt Clara's eyes flicker to him for a moment, and he kept his averted, hopping off the parapet and into the water beneath, a dramatic exit perhaps, but she needed distance and not to be interrogated by Vastra and her team as to his whereabouts and intentions. For once it seemed he could do right by her.
"What is he doing?" Jenny called out after him. "He'll drown."
"He really won't." Clara replied and he smiled to himself as he hit the water, because she sounded reluctantly pleased about that fact.
Clara sat scouring the morning newspaper that Strax had almost lobbed directly at her head this morning, pulling at the Victorian collar of the dress Jenny had leant her. The odd flickering memory of similarly restrictive garments from a very different lifetime refused to budge and she had to focus on the text in front of her eyes. In all honesty it was better than letting her mind dwell on the Doctor and where he might be. God knows the man could be a menace, letting him loose alone on Victorian London was bound to cause a ripple or two, particularly if he had set his mind to fixing this combusting dinosaur problem. She'd asked for space, like everything with this version of him, he certainly knew how to give her what she wanted.
Her eyes caught on the words that were always going to draw her attention 'impossible girl'. She blinked, subtlety never had been his style, she sat there quietly absorbing the rest of the message 'lunch on the other side?' and wondering at the code he was using. It wasn't like him, either him, or any him for that matter. He might have been more into the long game this time around, but his manipulations always tended to have a short term reward of some kind to tide him over; patience really never had been his thing. She could hardly imagine him out there, scouring the streets for clues, taking the time to come up with a cipher she could figure out quickly enough and place it in the morning edition. Clearly he wanted her attention, at least this way he was giving her the choice to come and find him, if she was willing. It was surprisingly mature of him, even if it was masquerading as a childish gesture.
Keeping it simple, because she knew his style she turned the page over and held it up to the light. Mancini's Italian restaurant was on the back. A smile crept onto her face, she supposed lunch was a start if not quite a gesture and the idea of a mystery to solve with him was better than the alternative of stewing quietly to herself over the mess they'd made of everything. Or staying inside and pointedly trying to ignore Vastra's questions.
Unfortunately she ran into Strax in the dining room as she was trying to find Madame Vastra to let her know she had a meeting to keep. The Sontaran gave her an appraising nod, "Ah Miss Clara you look better now you're up."
Clara paused unsure how to take that. "Thank you Strax." She settled on with a tight smile.
"Oh no wait, trick of the light, you still look awful." He muttered, with a smirk that never seemed to leave his lips, she opened her mouth to respond with a spud comment but he beat her to it. "Can I get you anything?" he asked and she considered it briefly before deciding it was probably safest merely to find Vastra and deal with whatever the Doctor had wanted first, with any luck he or Vastra would have found something by now, they had after all had all night to ponder it.
"I'm fine, thank you Strax."
"Eager to get on?" he queried and she lifted an eyebrow as he pulled out a monocle like device with three lenses, "Excellent." He all but cackled with obvious glee, "I would say it's long past time for your mandatory medical examination."
Clara blinked. "It's really not." She tried to skirt around him and found a rather strong hand on her shoulder guiding her none too politely into the seat at the kitchen table.
"Mandatory." He bit out with a half smile that sounded almost like a threat as he waved the monocle again. "If we are to serve together I need to be sure you are in peak physical prowess, eh?" he punched her in the arm and she winced. "Now, say ah." He muttered. Clara obliged. "You didn't move your lips."
Clara closed her mouth and glared into the monocle he was aiming at her eyes. "That's my eye Strax, the mouths down here."
He removed the monocle with a surly expression, "Oh. Yes well easy mistake to make with you humans." He whipped out another device and Clara shifted uncomfortably trying to get up. "Interesting." He blinked dropping the device. Clara didn't even bother to ask just waited for him to enlighten her. "I think my instrument must be faulty, I'm not getting anything from your brain scan... you're human so you can't be blocking it." He tapped it sharply down on the table and she winced as it rattled, probably damaged. She considered explaining that her brain had been rewired a little differently after her marriage to a Time Lord and the inevitable practice she'd gotten keeping his mind out, but honestly it was faintly amusing to see the Sontaran so perplexed. He picked up another device, a full body scanner and she reached up trying to grab it, not in time it seemed as he blinked once at his scanner and then back up at her.
"Miss Clara... you appear to have upgraded your humanity." He tapped the scanner with his finger before narrowing his gaze at her somewhat enviously. "I must commend you Boy for shedding such a weakness for a clear tactical advantage such as cellular regeneration. You will make excellent cannon fodder like this."
Clara dropped his gaze counting to ten to curb the flash of anger, the alien soldier clearly had no idea he was stomping all over her still fresh wounds on this issue. She knew she shouldn't have let him scan her, but in her defence she wasn't exactly used to the idea that there was something off about her biologically that she might need to hide from prying eyes. "Yes thank you Strax, I'm well aware of my current medical status."
"But it would seem that we were not." Vastra's silken voice was almost a welcome distraction at this point as Strax seemed to produce something vaguely probe like and was grinning at her maniacally with it. Clara shot to her feet and hastily put the chair between them.
"Yes well I think that's enough medical examinations for today." Clara turned only for Vastra to block her way. Clara stopped, she was many things but skilled in unarmed combat was not one of them, UNITS basic training aside, Vastra would wipe the floor with her and she had a grim expression that suggested she not be tested.
"Clara my dear, won't you join me, I think it's time you and I had a little chat. Let's call it the psychological portion of your examination shall we?" Vastra smile was thin and her arm held out stiffly to guide her in the direction of her green room. Clara considered breezing past her, after all she did have somewhere to be at lunch time today, but a cursory glance at the grandfather clock she passed in the hall revealed it to be barely 9am, she apparently had nothing but time.
Vastra sat in her peacock wicker chair and looked up curiously at her through a veil Clara was certain wasn't there a moment ago, Jenny stood to her left, looking positively anxious as Clara sighed and took a seat opposite resigned to this, whatever it was.
"Should I ask why you're wearing the veil?" Clara gestured to the dark thing that practically obscured her face.
"Should I ask why you are keeping secrets from us?" Vastra shot back, her tone clipped with anger Clara could well understand.
"And what secrets have I kept from you Madame?" Clara smiled back at her.
"Such a cynical smile." Vastra noted turning to glance at Jenny and she could almost hear the unspoken conversation between them, 'it's worse than we thought'. "The Doctor, he's regenerated, changed." She prompted and Clara merely waited patiently for a point to present itself. "You told Jenny, told us all in fact that he was still the same man, still the Doctor."
Clara glanced once at Jenny who was staring back uneasily at her, faintly guilty. "That is what a Time Lord does." Clara replied, not playing this fishing game.
Vastra harrumphed at the non answer, "It is however apparent that he is no longer the dashing young man who took you as his lover and his wife; he is in appearance at least older and in temperament certainly much less agreeable."
Clara shifted uncomfortably in her seat, tension beginning to pool in her shoulder blades whilst anger bubbled away in her chest, making it ache with the desire to lash out at someone or something.
Vastra continued undeterred by her clear agitation, "But he is still the Doctor... a man that has walked this universe for centuries untold. He who has seen stars turn to dust."
"I am well aware of what he is." Clara bit out. "And might I add that our marital problems are not your concern."
Vastra snorted with clear derision. "Did you really think loving him would be so easy; that he would remain unchanged forever? You might as well give your heart to a mountain range as to the Doctor."
Now she was being deliberately provocative and Clara felt her fists ball, unsure if Vastra meant a word of this or if she was trying to provoke a reaction. Either way the words cut, but then she supposed the truth often did. Clearly she was under the mistaken belief that somehow his appearance was the root of their issues.
"You don't know what you're talking about." Clara bit out coldly trying to keep the anger from creeping into her voice and knowing she was failing if the self satisfied little smirk she could see forming beneath the lizard's veil was anything to go by.
"Why do you think he used to look so young?" Vastra's patronising tone began to grate and Clara found her fingers drumming impatiently against the arm rests.
"Enlighten me, because I'm sure you understand my husband better than I." Vastra actually flinched at that and Clara took a small measure of satisfaction in reminding the woman how close she was coming to thin ice.
"My dear he wore that face for the same reason I wear this veil." Clara merely quirked an eyebrow waiting for the pearl of wisdom Vastra thought she was giving her. "To be accepted."
"Ah." Clara rolled her eyes, "Well I never could have come to such a resounding conclusion as the Great Detective I'm sure." Jenny winced and Clara got to her feet deciding she'd had more than enough of this.
Vastra's voice rose, stopping her from merely leaving the room. "I wear a veil to keep from view what many are pleased to call my disfigurement. I do not wear it as a courtesy to such people, but as a judgment on the quality of their hearts."
Clara snorted with derision, "Are you judging me?"
"The Doctor, your husband regenerated in your presence. The young man disappeared, the veil lifted. He trusted you. Are you judging him?" The ringing in Vastra's tone was enough to have Clara spinning around until she was inches from the lizard woman, glaring down at her.
"You think that is what this is about... I'm angry because he's no longer a young pretty face?" she barked out a laugh that was anything but amused. "You have no idea." She all but hissed at the woman who was daring to call her something so shallow and she too slowly got to her feet until she was towering over Clara's smaller frame, but she'd faced down a Time Lord in his fury, this was nothing. She leant in closer to the concealed face of the other woman, "Remove your veil Madame it seems to be distorting your vision; or has my pretty face so distracted you that it's taken your wits as well?"
Vastra hissed, a truly unpleasant sound that was intended to make her recoil; it didn't work, so Vastra chose to use words as her lash instead. "We bought you into this house in good faith, you told us that man was still the Doctor, we trusted you!" she accused, finally the truth revealed in her flash of anger. This had nothing to do with his appearance and they both knew it, this was about the man behind the masks he wore; it always was and she was momentarily irritated that she had let Vastra con her into thinking otherwise to get a rise.
Clara felt something snap inside of her and she turned away from the other woman before she was tempted to put her hands around her throat; Vastra had been pushing her just to make this damn point, instead she had made it for her, revealing herself instead. "He is the Doctor." Clara bit out.
"The Doctor I knew would never have behaved in the vulgar manner such as I overheard last night, nor would he merely abandon his wife to go chasing after some Victorian murder mystery." Vastra's tone had softened a little but her words had lost none of their bite.
"The Doctor you knew is dead. A changed man remember?" Clara pointed out, turning to look back over her shoulder at Vastra and noting that the veil had vanished and she was staring into pained green eyes.
"No one can change that much and still hope to call himself the Doctor. Secrets are not welcome in this house!" Vastra barked, her point finally made, apparently the lizard woman from the dawn of time didn't appreciate being left in the dark.
"Secrets protect us, secrets keep us safe." Clara murmured the half forgotten words her bow-tied Doctor had once used on her in a mostly defunct time line because there was no way she could tell this woman that the man she'd let into her house might well be the amalgamation of all of the Doctors darkness come home to roost.
"Are we safe?" Jenny cut across the heated exchange with an honest question, her eyes imploring her and reminding Clara that she was still there.
"The Doctor might not be dead, but right now he's lost in the ruin of himself. No one is safe." Clara replied quietly, her piece said as she turned her back on them both and stalked from the room, knowing for all the care they'd taken of their bowtie loving Doctor through his dark days, they weren't equipped to deal with the shadows he cast now.
Mancini's Italian family restaurant looked fairly innocuous, on a relatively nice street; Clara glanced through the murky windows and spotted a fair number of diners already inside. Glancing down the street she hesitated only a moment wondering if perhaps she should have let Madame Vastra know where it was she was going, but then she hardly thought she needed the lizard woman's approval to meet her husband for lunch. Assuming it was the Doctor of course who had left the message, but then who else would it have been?
With a sigh, her decision made she entered the restaurant and picked a table at the far side of the room from where she had a clear view of the door and the other diners. She settled into the generous booth and waited hands clasped on the table, only half glancing at the small menu, her stomach was in knots as it was she honestly wasn't certain she could eat. Clearly the Doctor had rubbed off on her more than she'd realised because in mere minutes she was fighting boredom, and the desire not to think about what she would say to the Doctor if and when he showed up. So with little else to do she watched the other diners.
Clara felt unease tug her gut as she blinked and moved her eyes from one diner to another, her fingers pressing tightly together in her gripped hands as she noted the precise, almost timed movements of their bodies. Their rigid postures and the relative silence, there was no chatter of conversation, just the clink of china and metal. Clara cocked her head feeling adrenalin flood her system as she realised the diners weren't eating at all, just pretending to. Should have known. She mused to herself, wishing she had indeed told Vastra where it was she was heading, given the Doctor's talent for trouble, something he seemed to have shared with her, in hindsight it had been foolish not to.
Clara stood intending on quietly slipping out unnoticed as if she had merely changed her mind about eating. The other diners stood with her, turning to stare pointedly at her in eerie silence in a move far too 'mechanical' to be human. Clara hesitated stepping forwards, "You know suddenly, I'm just not feeling hungry anymore," one careful foot in front of the other, mirrored by the mechanical-seeming diners as they seemed to crowd her in, "so I'll just be..." she hesitated, staring from one blank face to another and she turned on her heel, just as slowly and made her way back to the booth, "sitting right back down to enjoy a fine meal I'm sure." She muttered, clutching the table tightly as the other diners turned as one and resumed their farcical meals.
"Well isn't this lovely." Clara murmured to herself more to calm her nerves than anything else as an equally stiff moving waiter appeared apparently to take her order. He produced a scanner of some sort and proceeded to list off a number of what she considered fairly key organs which she got the distinct impression might very shortly be on the menu. It was all giving her a very Sweeney Todd vibe; and whilst angry... no furious, though she was at the Doctor she highly suspected he wouldn't have deliberately endangered her. Well not again. She thought uncharitably remembering their recent trip and the resulting aftermath, fortunately that line of thought was derailed by a set of metal bindings clamping down hard around her torso and legs, effectively pinning her to the booth as the table began to rise above her head. It took her a moment to realise the table wasn't moving but the whole booth she was sat on was in fact descending.
"Doctor!" she screamed, to hell with being mad at him as she pushed with every straining telepathic neurone she had developed through their bond, to make him hear her from wherever the hell he was sulking at. The trap door or whatever it was sealed over, plunging her into near darkness as she continued her descent into what she sincerely hoped turned out not to be an oven of some kind. She landed with a thunk that rattled her teeth at the bottom of the shaft and glanced around the dimly lit largely metallic, very circular room. There was someone, or something sat impassively in a metal chair... almost like a throne towards the centre of the room, their back was to her so she couldn't gain much from that. Her eyes were slow to adjust to the gloom but she spied several alcoves housing what at first glance seemed to be people... just very still, somewhat alarming looking people. More like the diners she assumed, mechanical. "Robot Sweeney Todd?" she reasoned quietly to herself, her eyes on the impassive seated figure in the middle of the room. "Hello?" she called out tentatively, quietly relieved when he didn't respond, didn't even flinch.
Glancing down at her current predicament Clara wasn't optimistic, she didn't have a sonic, which she was starting to consider a serious oversight in her decision to travel anywhere with the Doctor. He'd at least made himself a new one after she'd disposed of the laser one, perhaps if and when she survived this she'd add it to her shopping list. So she struggled against the bindings, the metal wouldn't budge and worse, the thing in the chair moved, its hands shooting out to grip the arms. And it's waking up, perfect. Clara panicked internally as she squirmed in the booth, as it stood and for the first time as she glanced up she got a good look at him. A Half-Faced man, she paused staring in mild horror and corrected herself, a Half-Faced robot. She was starting to suspect where he'd gotten that half a face from and it wasn't doing anything to calm her nerves as he unplugged himself from the chair and turned to look at her with that vacant stare.
"Afternoon." She called out. "Lovely spot for lunch. Care to tell me why you invited me here?" Trying to keep her tone deliberately light she continued apparently unaffected by the imminent danger as he stalked towards her. She thought the answer to her question was becoming obvious, but what was less obvious was why she'd been specifically targeted, who the hell would even know she was here? The Doctor had only been gone one night, surely even he couldn't piss someone off enough to get her targeted in just one night could he? She closed her eyes briefly in mild irritation; of course he bloody could.
The Half-Faced man stopped in front of her, its head cocked eerily in observation of her. "You were not invited."
"I really was." She smiled thinly back at him, a slow sinking sensation settling into her gut, the robot-man had no need to lie, which means that someone or something had sent her here and odds on it being the Doctor were getting slimmer every moment. Which also meant that unless he'd happened to look at a newspaper this morning and make a similar connection, then he wasn't going to swoop in to save the day. Which meant she had to act.
"So what is this, some sort of Sweeney Todd deal?" he was impassive and she glanced at his body, noticing that his hands were mismatched, "Or not..." she murmured, looking up to the face and the eyes, all too human eyes on a robotic frame, skin that looked real enough to touch stretched across half of his face. "Spare parts... your using people for spare parts, this whole restaurant is a front." She reasoned and he turned away. Clara jolted, it was important that she kept his attention, kept him talking, get him to find her useful anything to stop him doing to her what she suspected had probably happened to every other poor patron that had stepped through those doors.
"Maybe I can help you?" she called out to him and he stopped, and turned slowly back to face her with that vacant yet curious expression again. "I'm not from here. And I know a great deal about alien technology, I assume you're from another world. Are you trapped here, is that why you've resorted to this... to repairing yourself with whatever you can find?" He approached again and she tried not to flinch as his hand delved into his pocket and retrieved a scanner similar to the one the waiter held.
"Why did you kill the dinosaur?" she continued certain these things had been responsible for it somehow, ignoring the scan as he ran it over her entire body clearly trying to assess her use, and possibly her species.
"You are human." He announced and she almost smiled at the reaffirmation of that from a robot of all things. "Yet you are not. Explain the scan data." And there went that pleasant affirmation deflating her just as quickly.
"Tell me why you killed the dinosaur?" She asked again, "You answer my question I'll answer yours. That's how it works."
"We will not answer questions." It all but snapped and she realised for the first time that this thing was perhaps not entirely emotionless.
Clara realised there was little choice but to keep on the offensive, to keep it engaged. "How long have you been here, trapped on Earth, rebuilding yourselves? I mean look at the state of you, is there any of the real you left? What's the point?" she pressed, his predicament oddly sending a chill through her at the thought that one day this might be her, how long would she last, her body regenerating lost or damaged tissue, when would she be entirely gone, replaced every cell in her body 'renewed' by the Doctors tampering. Would she even still be Clara, much like the Doctor, could you still be you if every cell every atom in your body had been re-written?
"We will reach the promised land." His answer was resolute, but it was an odd response to her question and she paused.
"What's the promised land?"
"No more questions. You will die." He raised his hand and without fanfare wrenched off the limb to reveal a metallic contraption that he flared to life like a blowtorch, lowering it towards her with intent.
"I really won't." She snapped back an odd certainty in her answer that seemed to give him pause, the flame came agonisingly close to her face and she flinched her head away, the heat scalding, but she kept her gaze fixed resolutely on him.
"Are you not afraid? Most humans plead for their life." There was nowhere left to retreat and Clara stared back into his half-face, certain that he was almost taking a perverse kind of glee out of this, was he even a robot anymore... or more man now?
"I'm terrified." She admitted staring at the flame for the first time as he inched it closer to her face. "But go ahead, do your worst, but I'm warning you if you hurt me, the Doctor will find you and make sure that you never reach that Promised Land you've been searching all this time for."
"I killed an ancient beautiful creature for one inch of optic nerve" it gloated this time, "this Doctor of yours will accomplish nothing but his own death if he follows you here." The flame hit the skin of her throat and she let out a shriek of agony as it seared her flesh, if it had intended to harvest her body for spare parts then there was no sense in burning it, which meant he was hurting her to prove a point, or because it wanted to.
"You're sick." She grit out past the pain and she felt the heat blessedly retreat as he grasped her face roughly with his free hand, forcing her to see him, to look into the face of this monster. "You're more man than machine, all twisted up with the rot of human flesh, you have no idea why you go on do you...? Or why you're torturing me instead of simply harvesting the organs you need." If he could feel then perhaps he could be goaded she reasoned as the pain retreated and she felt relief as no doubt the all too new changes the Doctor had made to her cells went about repairing her.
The half-faced man blinked, his grip bruising on her face as she struggled against her restraints, desperate now to free herself before the monster in constant need of spare parts realised what he had on his hands... a realisation that had dawned on her all too quickly with no small amount of horror. He turned her head to the side and examined what she knew had to be the healed skin of her neck, before turning back to look at her intently.
"I answered your questions, you will answer mine." It insisted and Clara closed her eyes as his grip went around her windpipe which quite effectively stopped her from answering said questions, but she got the point and the threat just fine. "How to you repair without spare parts?"
Clara glared balefully back at him and he released his grip on her throat enough to talk. "Oh no big man, the time for questions and answers was before the blowtorch, before you realised you couldn't hurt me." She snarled.
He paused and she had only a moment to consider the foolishness of goading a clearly half mad robot before he drew his blowtorch back to her skin and caused her to shriek in agony again, not releasing her this time until she was almost unconscious the smell of burnt flesh assaulting her and causing her stomach to roil with the idea of what he was doing. It took longer to heal the more extensive damage but all too soon she felt the soft wash of the energy through her and the gut wrenching bite of the burns receded into nothingness.
The half-faced man waited patiently throughout, his ruin of a face inches from hers letting her see into the hollow inner workings of his fleshy shell. "You can be hurt." It pointed out and she blanched, unable to argue with the assessment, hurt yes permanently damaged, maybe not. "You will answer." It insisted and Clara sought desperately to pull herself free of her restraints, no longer concerned about damaging herself only eager to be free.
He grasped her chin firmly with one hand, stilling her movements with the threat of the blowtorch, this time he drew it closer to her eye and she couldn't help the tears that leaked free of her face. The idea that he could do this as long as he wanted, as many times as he wanted, she was the toy he couldn't break god help her. An infinite source of information that he could pry free with the threat of agonising pain. What choice did she have? "The Doctor did it." She gasped out and the blowtorch receded. "He made me this way." She added seeing the flicker of interest finally in her words, clearly his mechanical brain was considering the possibility that it could be done to him too, an infinite way to repair itself, no need to harvest spare parts from humans any longer.
"Where is this Doctor?"
Clara grimaced, it was the million dollar question. The man was probably still furious at being dismissed by her, despite his actions. She hoped and prayed he hadn't decided to take the human approach and drown his marital sorrows somewhere. The last she had seen he was investigating the dinosaurs spontaneous combustion. He would turn up here eventually, he had to, after all this was the answer he was looking for. "I don't know." She snapped, "But if I know my husband... and there's some debate about that right now; but I do know the Doctor, which means he'll be here, he'll find you."
"Good." It responded and threw her head away sharply, the shackles holding her retracted and she was suddenly free. It didn't take her body anywhere near as long as her brain to catch onto this fact and she was already out of her seat and running from the Half-Faced man like her life absolutely depended on it. She didn't get far, the more flesh like robots from the alcoves seemed to move as one, until she was encircled in the middle of the room, her eyes going frantically from one to the other as they raised their hands to reveal sharp sword like appendages. 'All the better to cut you up into pieces my dear'. Hysteria set in as she spun trying to keep them in line of site as the Half-Face man sat down on the booth she had recently vacated.
"Harvest her until she gives out. I will await this Doctor." He hit a lever and the entire booth began to rise sharply back up the shaft to the restaurant it had come from. Clara saw her chance and darted forward, slamming hard against the robots and charging at the bottom of the booth, she jumped but her hands fell short skimming the bottom of it and leaving her sprawled in a heap on the floor as it rose steadily overhead, leaving her trapped down here. Thoroughly terrified she righted herself and tried to suppress the ingrained need to scream as the flesh-covered robots advanced on her, the sharp edges of the blades glinting menacingly. She honestly had no idea how long her body could regenerate limbs and organs for... how long she could withstand such torture, but one thing she was certain of, she'd loose her mind from agony long before her body gave out.
It gave her the strength to stand and she turned grabbing the closest thing she could find that looked metallic and weighty, a discarded piece of piping would have to do. "Ok then. You want me, come and get me!" she screamed at the advancing monsters charging full on into them and swinging her pipe hard until it connected, not caring where the blades went so long as they didn't pin her down or cause her grip on the pipe to waiver as she connected with soft flesh over hard metal. But it was pointless, her arms ached and her lungs heaved with the effort as she dropped one after the other in sheer adrenaline fuelled desperation, but it wasn't enough. They kept coming, kept on getting up. They weren't men, weren't alive... and there inner workings took a hell of licking and just seem to keep on ticking.
It was only a matter of time she realised dimly as she screamed, watching in horror as the hand that held the pipe was severed and fell with a thunk to the floor still gripping her only weapon tightly. Instinctively her eyes were drawn to her ruined stump as she felt energy tug from somewhere deep within her and it pooled with golden tendrils around her blooded wrist. If losing a limb was painful, apparently growing one back so quickly was agony. She fell to her knees as waves of it crashed over her and she cradled the offending arm to her chest as it reformed completely. Hands reached for her and she looked up into the expressionless faces of the long dead men and women who had suffered the same fate and prayed with every ounce of belief in her, for her husband. She didn't much care which version of him arrived, the Doctor or the Monster, just so long as he came for her, like he always did.