The whole carriage fell silent at the sight of the dead man. Danni kept her face turned, leaning on the Doctor's arm as she tried not to look at the body. She'd never been good at looking at death. A man in a white coat, an actually doctor perhaps, checked for a pulse but couldn't find one. Moorhouse, who had headed back to the lounge cart after Danni and the Doctor had rushed off, picked up the guard's gun from the floor and handed it to Quell.
Quell took his hat off in quick respect for his fallen man, who had obviously been terrified and seeing something no one else could when he'd died. He'd tried to deny it, tried to brush it off as old age and delusion. But he knew each and every one of the guards that were under his command, and neither of those applied to any of them.
He turned to the Doctor and his wife. Both of them had been with him, and before that had been nowhere near the lounge car. They didn't have anything to do with what was happening underneath his watch, but they were the only ones who had been trying to figure out what that was.
"It turns out it's three," he told them both. He handed the gun to another of his men and, with an unspoken command, the two were released from their handcuffs. "The amount of people that had to die before I stopped looking the other way."
"Thank you," Danni told the officer as the Doctor picked up her hands in his. Once he'd determined that the metal hadn't hurt her, he also nodded his head once.
"Yes, thank you," he echoed.
"Same as the others."
Danni jumped again as Perkins appeared at her side as if from nowhere. She didn't make as big a deal about it, though, as she had the last time. It seemed inappropriate. "You need to show me how you do that," she whispered to him anyway.
Two of the guards picked up their fallen comrade and took him out of the room as the passengers looked on, horrified at what they'd witnessed. Danni looked up at her husband. "We need to get working," she said softly. "Someone else is going to die if we don't figure this out."
"Then let's figure it out," he replied before stepping into the middle of the group where the fallen soldier had been. "Ladies and gentlemen, could I have a moment of your time, please?"
They all turned to him, a little bit of mumbling from a scared crowd but nothing more than that as they gave him their full attention. "There's a monster on this train that can only be seen by those about to die. If you do see it, you will have exactly sixty-six seconds left in which to live. But that isn't even the strangest thing." He walked back over to his wife. "Do you know what is?"
The passengers all waited for the answer. "You. The passengers. Experts in alien biology, mythology, physics. If I was putting together a team to analyse this thing, I'd pick you. And I think somebody has. Someone of immense power and influence has orchestrated this whole trip."
Danni's eyebrows shot up. That was news to her. She guessed that was what he'd figured out while she'd been dozing and he'd been looking over the paperwork.
"Someone who I have no doubt is listening to us right now. So, are you going to step out from behind the curtain and give us our orders?"
There was the smallest of rumbles and Perkins frowned. "The engines. They've stopped."
The lights flickered again and Danni quickly looked around to see if anyone showed any signs of seeing the mummy. However, it soon became very clear that it wasn't that at all. Some of the furniture began to elongate, changing shape into the available space before the whole décor shimmered away. No longer in the style of the 1920's train they had all boarded, the curtains had disappeared and the lights were replaced with stainless steel alternatives. The room was now filled with computers and work tables. Even the carpet was gone and replaced with white flooring.
"It's a lab," Danni breathed as the Doctor nodded.
"What use are a bunch of scientists without a lab?" he asked rhetorically. Around them people suddenly began to vanish in blue light, also shimmering out of existence.
"Teleporter?" Perkins asked as one of the other passengers wiped his hand through where another had just been stood.
"No. Hard light holograms. They were never really here. Fake passengers to make up the numbers," the Doctor explained.
"That was my best guard," Quell commented in amazement.
"If they weren't really here, who put them there?" Danni asked her husband.
There was a 'ding' over the intercom and they all looked up towards the ceiling.
"Good morning, everyone," the voice that had spoken to the Time Lords when they'd tried to release Clara, Gus, announced.
"That answers that," Danni murmured to herself.
"Around the room you will find a variety of scientific equipment," Gus continued and the remaining crowd turned to look around them. Moorhouse approached one of the terminals, but Danni's attention was pulled to the other side of the carriage. On the wall hung a very old piece of parchment, something that wasn't in keeping with the clean-cut and modern surrounding they were now in. She approached it, walking past her husband, with a frown on her face. "Your goal is to ascertain the Foretold's true nature, probe for weaknesses with a view to capture, after which we will reverse engineer its abilities. Isn't this exciting?"
"You said 'capture'," the Doctor commented, "implying that you can't control this thing. And yet somehow you got it on board. How?"
"This," Danni called over to him. A spotlight just behind her fell onto both her and the parchment. "I can't read it, but this is really old. I'd say hundreds, but I'm going to guess thousands based on the myth."
"For reasons currently unknown, the Foretold appears in the vicinity of this artefact," the voice confirmed.
"And kills at regular intervals," the Doctor finished for it.
Quell nodded, angry at the situation but mainly at the computer talking to them. He straightened his back and stormed towards the scroll. "Then just maybe we should throw this thing out in the airlock."
"No! No! No!" the Doctor cried after him. Danni glanced around and reached out, holding her arm in front of the captain. He just dodged around, though, and reached for the scroll. The moment his fingertips brushed against it, though, an electric shock was sent through him and he fell to the floor.
"Looks like they've thought of that," Perkins called over as two men helped Quell off the floor.
"What if we say no? Down tools. Refuse to work," Moorhouse called to the computer.
"That is your choice, of course. But it would be very upsetting were you all to die at the hands of the Foretold."
"So hurry up, before it kills you," Perkins summarised sardonically.
"But even if they agree to this, how are they supposed to study a creature that they can't even see?" the Doctor asked his new friend. "We don't even know what the species is."
"I suspect that's why there are so many of us," Danni commented as the lights flickered. "Test subjects."
The Doctor took a glance at his wife. She was safe, she obviously wasn't seeing anything, but she wasn't moving from in front of the scroll. Sometimes, not all the time but sometimes, something would catch her eye and she'd gravitate towards it. He assumed it was from so many years of adventures and travelling, the same way it was for him. The adventures became formulaic, there was always something in plain sight that could at least aid them in helping the people who needed it. If she was focused on the scroll then maybe she could work out what exactly it was doing to summon a mummy.
However, because she wasn't staring at the invisible mummy, he turned his attention away from her and over the crowd to find the next victim.
"Perkins, start the clock," he commanded and the Chief Engineer did just that.
"Approximately one point eight metres tall," Moorhouse declared and the Doctor turned to him. He was the next victim, and there was nothing he could do. None of them knew anything about the Foretold and he really had no way to stop it. "Actually, seeing it in the flesh isn't nearly as rewarding as I thought it might be."
As the man began to back away from his invisible assailant, the Doctor made up his mind. He needed information if they had any hope of saving anyone else. The more that they could find out about the Foretold the quicker they could stop it killing anyone else. He steeled himself; he hated this part.
"Oh dear, hard cheese," the Doctor commented, following the man as he walked backwards. Perkins was by his side, giving him time updates. "What can you see? Details."
"Yes, yes, of course," Moorhouse agreed. He was terrified, but he still put on his glasses on so he could see the monster more clearly. That was something; if Moorhouse couldn't see it properly without his glasses, then the light waves bounced off it as if it was a solid object. Strange that no one else could see or feel it, though. "Uh Well, it just looks like er, a man in bandages. I…"
"What kind of bandages?" the Doctor pressed. "Old? New?"
"Old."
"Whole? Ragged?"
"Ragged. Falling off in places. I don't know what you want me to tell you!" Moorhouse exclaimed.
"Listen to me! You can see this thing. We can't," the Doctor told him. Moorhouse nodded. "Tell us what you can see. Even the smallest detail might help save the next one."
The professor took off his glasses, looking devastated as he turned his attention to the Doctor. "The next one? You mean you can't save me?"
The Doctor hated this part. When they would look to him in a hope he couldn't possibly fulfil. Professor Moorhouse wanted to be told that everything was okay, but with Perkins hanging by his shoulder and keeping the countdown very much at the forefront of his mind, the Doctor really didn't have time for false hope.
"Well, that is implied, isn't it?" he retorted coldly. "Yes, this is probably the end for you. But make it count. Details, please."
Danni looked over as her husband, away from the scroll that had held so much of her attention. She had been listening to him, but that was the first time he'd said something that had troubled her. It sounded like something he would say when he'd first regeneration, when he really didn't seem to care what she or anyone else thought about him. He'd softened up over the last year and although he proclaimed that it was only towards her, she had seen him be kinder to the universe as well. Not like he used to be, but not so angry. He'd stopped being that cold and distant. It wasn't right.
Moorhouse also didn't seem to appreciate it, but did as he was told and told them what he could see. From what he was giving them it seemed like what he could see really was just a typical mummy; bandages, rotting flesh, nothing new there.
"I want to bargain for my life!" he declared just as they ticked under the thirty second mark. His back was almost against the sealed door that led to the next carriage directly across from where Danni was stood.
"W-w-w-what?" the Doctor stuttered out. That wouldn't help any of them! It wouldn't save the people and it wouldn't save his wife!
"Well, it says, some of the myths say if you, if you find the right word, if you make the right offer, then it lets you go," Moorhouse stuttered out, grabbing onto the hope of a desperate man. Danni lowered her eyes and turned away, unable to watch anymore. There really wasn't anything they could do, because if there was then the Doctor would be doing it. She had no clue how to help, so she turned her attention back to the scroll. The TARDIS wasn't translating it. Why?
Clara could be next. Her last trip with her best friend and she could be killed rather than walk away.
She wiped her eyes, sniffing back the tears that appeared before they actually turned into crying. There was a reason no one had mentioned it to her yet. Crying wasn't going to help anyone.
"Only, please, please, please. No!"
Moorhouse crumpled to the ground, dead, just as Perkins stopped the stopwatch. "Zero."
"We apologise for any distress you may have just experienced," Gus the computer told them as the man in the white jacket rushed over, even though they all knew it was pointless to check. "Grief counselling is available on request. On the bright side, I'm sure you've all collected a lot of data. Well done, everyone!"
Perkins, who had walked over to the terminals, looked at the screen then to the Doctor in amazement.
"It's recording every death."
"Of course it is," the Doctor replied in exasperation, however his annoyance was pointed upwards at the computer rather than at the other man. "That's why we're here. To study our own demise. So," he walked over to one of the worktops, picking up the pile of white coats that had been left there for them to look the part in, "let's get to work. Come on. Chop, chop."
He walked over to Danielle with the one remaining white coat, most likely for himself rather than her, and handed it to her knowing she would rather enjoy wearing it. She took it off him and slipped it on over her flapper dress.
"You need to work on your bedside manner," she told him lowly.
"Being kind can't save them," he retorted. "We need information."
She sighed. "No, being kind will help them, though," she corrected but let it drop, for now. She knew that if he wanted to hear her words then he would. "Why can't I read this?"
He looked at the scroll. The writing was still displaying as cuneiform, which was something he knew the TARDIS could translate. "Perhaps the TARDIS is behind a suppression field?" he suggested. "Again, I can't test for it while the sonic screwdrivers are out of action."
"But you're connected to her all the time," Danni reasoned. "You'd notice that connection being stifled, right?"
She was right, and he felt no more distant to the TARDIS than he normally did. He placed a kiss on her hair. "Keep trying to work it out," he encouraged. "There's something wrong with the scroll. Find out what it is."
"What are you going to do?" she asked.
"Study the data," he replied. "Maybe something will be useful."
~0~0~0~
The doctors, and professors, and experts were hard at work when Danni tilted her head the other way. The Doctor had been walking through them, telling them what they were all doing wrong, but she found it very easy to drown out anything that wasn't relevant to her.
What she did know was that the TARDIS could translate everything but the most ancient of languages, and considering the Foretold was supposedly a legend that was only a few thousand years old she suspected it wasn't written in anything that should be hidden. Which meant one of two things. Either that this was what the TARDIS had translated the words into, which she really hoped it wasn't, or the Foretold was older than maybe they'd been led to believe.
The Doctor watched her out of the corner of his eye as she turned around, looking for someone before slowly walking towards the terminals where some of the experts were working as well. He was tempted to go over, but she hadn't called for his help, so he just watched on as he scolded someone for looking at blood samples all wrong.
Danni poked at the keyboard a couple of times, trying to work out how to search for data. Computers really had never been her strong suit. What was on the screen wasn't much help, either. Just data from a needless death. There was also a little square with a monocle inside of it she assumed was the symbol of the computer speaking to her, or the people who had created it. Either way it was rather fitting. But there was no sign of how to get any useful information out of it. So, she sighed, and looked up at the camera mounted on the wall next to her.
"Um, hello?" she called. "Gus?"
"Can I help, Mrs Fielding?"
She smiled slightly at being addressed by her correct title, then shook her head at how ridiculous that was considering the situation that was in. "I was wondering if you had a store of all the myths for the Foretold?" she asked it. "I'm just trying to work out the scroll."
"The cuneiform on the scroll has been deemed unimportant," Gus told her.
"I'm sure it has," she agreed, trying to keep her voice steady and not as sarcastic as she wanted it to be. "I'm not looking to translate it, though. I want to work out the scroll itself."
There was silence from the computer for a moment, then the spotlight it had shone on the scroll moved around the room and on the table next to her. It illuminated a tablet, which reflected the light off its screen.
"On this tablet there is information on all known references to the Foretold," Gus told her. "I have highlighted it for your convenience."
Danni nodded. She could see that. Once again it was just someone who knew the Doctor was smart, so dismissed her as dumb. She still bobbed her head, though. "Thanks," she told the computer, picking it up and pressing the side button to turn it on. "I'll just…"
She headed back towards the scroll to take a seat. The Doctor immediately swooped down on her, sitting on the chair next to her. "What have you got?"
"Nothing," she replied, opening the first document she saw on the home screen. "Either the TARDIS has translated it, or it's older than we think. I'm trying to work out which one it is."
"Which one do you think it is?" he asked and she shrugged.
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But there's got to be something in here that gives a better clue to what the scroll actually means."
He didn't say anything for a few moments, watching her as she started reading whatever it was she had opened. She didn't seem fussed with him staring at her, but then again she was probably used to it by now. Even more so now that she had come back home to him. He found himself just watching her move about, surprised by just how much he had missed her just existing near him.
"It's unlike you to be so focused on history when the action is around us," he commented. She nodded in agreement.
"Well, my mother is an archaeologist," she reasoned. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."
He chuckled and she shot him a cute little look that had him placing another kiss on her hair before he stood up once again.
"Let me know if you find anything," he told her, walking away and leaving her to her work. She'd work out what was bothering her about the scroll eventually, until then he had to do his own work.
The moment his makeshift phone rang he grabbed it, holding it up to his ear and ignoring the dangling wire. "Clara Oswald."
Danni looked up as Gus proclaimed over them. "Please terminate your call and return to work." The Doctor didn't seem to be paying much attention, though, and continued to talk to Clara.
"Please terminate your call and return to work," Gus demanded again, his light and airy voice rather grating in the situation they were in.
"Doctor, do as he says," Danni called over like she was telling off a child. Again, he didn't and she sighed, getting up off the chair as the voice proclaimed yet again for him to hang up on Clara. She started walking over, only to pause at the window, her eyes wide in horror.
Pots and pans floated lazy past the window out in the space outside. Slowly joining them were the frozen bodies of people dressed in chef clothing. The staff from the kitchens. They floated past, blue and covered in tiny flecks of ice.
She spun around, shaking slightly. "Theta! Hang up the bloody phone!"
He started slightly at the urgency in her voice, seeing the rest of the experts moving slowly towards the window to join his wife. She looked furious, absolutely fuming. Her hands were clenched and he lowered the phone slightly as he joined her to see the same horrifying sight that she had seen.
"Clara, I have to go," he said lowly, sick to his stomach at the death. He was about to hang up when Danni yanked the phone off him, holding it to her ear.
"Clara," she said firmly.
"Danni, what's wrong?"
"One word. What did you tell the Doctor?"
There was a small pause as Clara obviously tried to complete the test that she had never been given, but one that the Doctor had put in place almost a thousand years ago for a nanny who was identical to her. "Failures."
Danni shoved the phone back at her husband, her hands shaking. "Danielle," he started slowly, needing to explain. He hadn't thought that would happen. He never would have pushed his luck if he had known anyone would have gotten hurt from it.
"I'm sorry. I know that must have been distressing for you. But if you are disobedient again, I will decompress another area containing less valuable passengers," Gus told them all. Danni didn't pay attention, looking up at her husband as the word Clara had given her wormed its way through her mind. Failures? What failures? Can't have been their failures, they had all that data there. He didn't need to talk to Clara about them.
She swallowed. "We're not the first," she realised. "There were other trains, weren't there?"
He nodded and her eyes narrowed. He expected her to shout at him, but instead she turned to one of the cameras, glaring at it like it was a real person. "Do you not think that it would have been useful to know other people had tried to work out the Foretold?" she shouted at the computer, startling the people around them. "You know? Perhaps you could have told us that?! We could have used the data! We wouldn't be wasting time of things they could have already dismissed! Maybe, just maybe, you could have shared with the class and not killed some innocent people because you're a fucking moron?!"
"Danielle," the Doctor started again, this time taking her by the shoulders and moving her away from the camera she was shouting at and back towards the scroll. "Getting angry isn't going to help anyone right now," he told her as he sat her down.
"I know, but it makes me feel better," she grumbled in reply. "How dare he kill those people just because he deems them 'less valuable'? They didn't deserve that."
"No, they didn't," he agreed. "None of us deserve any of this, but we're here and we have to try and work it out before more people die." He picked up the tablet and handed it back to her. "Focus on the people we can save."
She nodded slowly but the Doctor frowned, his brows furrowing. "Less valuable passengers?" he repeated and she nodded again. "How does it choose?"
"Well, I'm assuming qualifications," Perkins started, once again appearing from nowhere. This time Danni didn't jump, in fact she rather liked him being there.
"No, no, no, not the computer. The Foretold," the Doctor corrected. "How does it choose who to kill? We've assumed it's random. What if it's not?" He turned back to look out into the room, at the experts who were waiting for him to tell them what to do. "I want full histories on all the victims. Medical, social, personal."
"Well done," Gus said in his stuck up tone. The Doctor shot a look up at the ceiling.
"Don't mention it," he replied quickly back, reining in his own anger. He crouched down in front of Danielle.
"Keep working," he told her. "Anything you can find out is vital."
~0~0~0~
Perkins shook his head, lowering the tablet he had been using in exasperation. The Doctor was hovering around him, although he was sure that was because he trusted the engineers work and opinion over the rest of the room. Well, apart from his wife, anyone could see that.
"Doesn't seem to be any pattern," he told the Doctor. "Their travel history, interests, health. It's all over the shop."
"Health? Are you sure?" the Doctor asked in reply. "Mrs Pitt, the first victim. She was over a hundred years old. The frailest passenger on board."
"But the next to go, the chef, was young and fit," Perkins pointed out. "It's random."
"I think you have a point," Danni called over as she stood up, walking towards them with her tablet in hand. "I found something. There was the race, the Mayonites. Listen to this."
She fell to a stop by them both. "The hunger of the Foretold never abated. Every night a sacrifice was laid at the temple, but every night it called for more. First the old, then the weak. Each were placed as an offering on the slab at night, and each morning the Foretold took their light and left them empty and forgotten. Soon they were all gone, and then it came for the children. We fled the temple, our village, our home. We left a message for any who would be cursed enough to fall upon our old worships. Do not appease the Foretold. Run, we told them. For it will never stop."
"The old and the weak?" the Doctor repeated and Danni nodded. She looked over at the captain of the train, who was looking over the printouts like he could understand them.
"What was wrong with the chef?" she asked him.
"A rare blood disorder," Quell replied and they all walked over to his side. "Not contagious, but we kept it quiet."
"Because he worked with food," the Doctor guessed. "The next one? The guard?"
"He wasn't ill as such, but he did have synthetic lungs implanted last year."
Perkins turned back to his tablet, flipping through the files until he landed on Professor Moorhouse's medical records. "Professor Moorhouse. It seems he was physically fine but suffering from, here we are. Regular panic attacks after a car crash last year."
Danni met her husband's gaze. "It's going for the weak first," she said. "The old, the infirm. Even the children, because even the fittest child isn't as strong as the fittest adult. Even panic attacks would make you seem weak. If you're not up to its imaginary standard of 'full health', it's picking you off. But for what? Is it creating an army? Does it want a fight? Or is it just trying to help?"
"We'll work it out," he told her, almost dismissively. "But this is good news, because it means we can work out who is next. I want the medical records of everybody alive who is still on board. If anyone's had as much as a cold, I want to know about it."
"You really think it can sense psychological issues?" Quell asked him and the Doctor nodded.
"It seems so. Why?" he asked. Quell knew something, he could tell.
"When you said I'd lost the stomach for a fight, I wasn't wounded in battle as such, but," the captain looked around, as if he was checking for anyone listening in. "My unit was bombed. I was the sole survivor. Not a scratch on me. But post-traumatic stress. Nightmares. Still can't sleep without pills."
"Which means that you are probably next," the Doctor broke to him, which obviously wasn't the news anyone would want to here. "Which is good to know."
Quell looked affronted. "Well, not for me!"
"Well, of course not for you, because you're going to die," the Doctor replied as if it was obvious. "But I mean for us, from a research point of view..."
"Doctor!" Danni snapped. "I've told you about this! You can't say things like that!"
He headed towards one of the terminals. He needed to get as much data down as possible about Quell before he died, to see what would happen, what would change between now and when he saw the Foretold. "It's true," he told her.
"It might be, but we've talked about this! Being cold..."
"What?" he asked, spinning around to face her. "Being cold does what?"
"It takes away any hope," she retorted.
"There is no hope," he snapped in reply. "Not while there is an invisible mummy no one can see that seems to be picking off the weak. We need to get to the bottom of this. Being liked won't help."
She crossed her arms. "No, maybe not," she agreed. "But being a dick won't help either. Being kind helps everyone, including you!"
The lights flickered overhead, and Danni briefly had to wonder how she was going to cope without Clara being there to take some of the brunt. The Doctor would listen to his wife more than anyone else, but not when he was acting like this. Not when he wasn't acting like himself. She was sure it was some form of self-preservation, to keep him moving and working when he knew he couldn't help anyone, but she didn't want him to crash on the other side. He didn't need to feel guilty because it wasn't his fault, but he needed to feel something.
"Well, there goes our head start," the Doctor declared before pointing at his new friend. "Perkins, start the clock." The chief engineer did just that and Quell's gaze shot to the back of the carriage, past both the Doctor and his wife. "What can you see?" he asked the captain.
"Almost feels out of focus," Quell told them, squinting his eyes. "Gives me a headache just looking at it." He pulled out his gun and immediately everyone in the carriage dove out of the way.
"Oh no, no, no, no. That didn't work before," the Doctor reminded him.
"What kind of soldier would I be, dying with bullets in my gun?" Quell shot back before he fired. The bullets went straight through the invisible mummy and smashed a flash sat on just near the door.
"Fifty seconds!" Perkins declared.
"Someone shut that man up!" Quell shouted back before lowering his gun. "For the record, it didn't even flinch."
"Where is it now?" the Doctor asked, moving from his safe space and in front of Quell.
"Approximately twenty feet in front of me and closing."
"Forty seconds."
The Doctor darted up the aisle, standing just where he thought the mummy would be. "Am I close?" he asked as Perkins pulled out a scanner, pointing it towards the Doctor.
"It's passing right through you, like a ghost," Quell said lowly.
"It's not a hologram," Perkins told him.
The Doctor took a few more steps towards him. "If you move, will it follow?"
"Do you want me to move?" Quell asked, sounding rather taken on the idea. "Because I can certainly do that."
The Doctor nodded. "Keep looking at it, but back off quick as you like."
Just before he did, though, Quell looked around the room, brows furrowing in confusion. "It's teleported away," he told them before spinning around. "It's behind me!"
"Twenty seconds."
"I think this is it," Quell decided as he gave up on being able to help and stop the creature. "Still, suppose it's not a bad way to go. Blood pumping, enemy at the gates and all that." He turned, looking at the Doctor straight in the eyes. "And thank you, Doctor, for waking me up."
The Doctor didn't feel thankful for having woken him up. In fact, nothing about this situation made him feel thankful. Quell dropped to his knees, and then to the floor dead, and Danni quickly dropped to his side as the countdown reached zero.
"You did well," she told the man, even though he couldn't hear them. "Thank you."
"A teleporter," the Doctor mused out loud. "That means tech. Then sixty-six seconds to do what? Sixty-six seconds. That seems very, very specific. Too specific for organic. So, what, more tech? What? More? A countdown clock? Something charging?"
"Doctor!" Danni snapped. The questions he was asking were not only upsetting everyone who had watched the man drop to the floor, dead, but were just a sign about how worked up her husband was getting. He needed to calm down. "Will you just stop it for one moment? He helped us, but he died and we all need a minute..."
"No. No, no, no," the Doctor retorted, grabbing her hand and pulling her off the ground. "We can't do that. We can't mourn. People with guns to their heads, people with guns to their wives' head, they cannot mourn. We do not have time to mourn."
Danni's eyes widened slightly, staring at him in shock. Any other sentence and she would have been agreeing with him. They were in danger, fine, and maybe being sad over the death was more than they could afford at that moment. But yet again he'd mentioned her. "You're doing it again, aren't you?" she asked. "You can't just stop caring because I could be in danger!"
"Don't tell me what to do," he snapped. "I need to stop this so it can't make its way through everyone else and to you!"
"I'm not the important one!" she screeched back. "We all are important! Quell, Moorhouse, Perkins, the chefs, and everyone else in between! Get your priorities straight!"
He stared at her, at the way she was breathing heavily. This really had become an issue for her. She never wanted him to want to save her. No, that's not right. She never wanted to be saved above everyone else. She wanted everyone safe. Even him, which was why she was getting so angry, really. She was worried he'd put himself in danger to keep her from harm.
He would, but if she was angry about it, then she was more likely to do something reckless and he couldn't afford that. He had to show her that he really did want to save everyone, even if she was his number one priority.
"Everybody, what takes sixty-six seconds to charge up or to change state?" he asked the crowd to show that he was including them all in the saving. No one answered. "Anyone?" Nothing. He wanted to insult them all, scoff at them for not even trying, but again that seemed like a bad move in front of his wife. " If only I could see this thing."
"Don't even joke about that," Perkins scolded.
"I'm not joking about it. One minute with me and this thing, it would be over!"
"You know, Doctor," Perkins started, looking at the man in pure exasperation. "I can't tell if you're a genius or just incredibly arrogant."
"Usually, both," Danni replied for her husband. "He has a point, though. The data we're getting is from the dying. If someone could see it and know that they weren't about to die, they'd be able to notice more than the scary thing that's about to kill them. He could probably work it out in a minute."
The Doctor nodded. Nothing scarier than an ancient, mummified monster...
"Ancient tech," he breathed in realisation. He pointed at Perkins. "This thing has been around for centuries. How? Tech that keeps it alive. Tech that drains energy from the living." He strode over to Quell, past Perkins. "Scanner."
He stole the scanner straight from Perkins' hand, holding over the corpse. At the beep he barely had to look out the readout, chucking it back at the man. "Deep tissue scan. He's been leached of almost all energy on a cellular level. The heart attack is just a, is just a side effect."
"Oh, it's not just a mummy, it's a vampire," Perkins breathed, amazed before realising what he'd said was just ridiculous. "Metaphorically speaking."
"You know," Danni started with a frown, rushing over to the tablet with the notes she had been reading on it. "I saw something about vampire. Let me just..." she flicked through a couple of different documents, looking for the right one. "Here we go. The woman proclaimed to have seen a dead humanoid come to life, swaddled in bandages and reaching for her. As she backed away from the empty spot she was stood, her focus was not on the same plane of existence as everyone. As she died, I could not help but wonder if it was indeed a vampire and not a corpse who stole her soul."
"Phase," Perkins suggested. "Moving energy out of phase. That takes about a minute, doesn't it?"
"That's why only the victims can see it!" the Doctor exclaimed, happy that they now had some answers. "It takes them out of phase so it can drain their energy. You, sir, are a genius!" He clapped his hand on Perkins shoulder as the engineer was handed another tablet. "This explains everything! Apart from what it is and how it's doing it." The Doctor shot him a sheepish look. "Sorry, I jumped the gun there with the you're a genius, that explains everything remark."
"Doctor, I think we know the next victim."
He handed the tablet to the Time Lord, who quickly read it before showing it to his wife. "Ah, of course. That makes perfect sense."
~0~0~0~
Danni smiled at Clara softly as she walked the next victim into the room. Maisie seemed nervous but hopeful, and she couldn't blame her. If she'd been told that she could be saved from a creature killing people, then she would be hopeful as well.
What Maisie didn't know was that it was a giant lie. A big fat lie from her husband, who Danni had watched tell Clara to flat out lie to the woman she'd been trapped in the cupboard with. Everything she had thought that he'd battled through, everything she had thought she had become fine with, seemed to fall away. His anger, his desperation. She had known how dependant she had become on him, but when had it become the other way around?
She couldn't even stand by him, so she moved to Clara the moment you could. "Are you okay?" she asked the teacher lowly.
"I will be when this is over," Clara retorted and Danni's hearts tightened painfully. No wonder Clara was leaving. She couldn't wait to be away from them. She glanced towards the Doctor. Maybe she had moved back home too soon. But then, would Clara even be with them now if she'd stayed?
Everyone always left. People were killed, or trapped, or had terrible choices to make and were taken away from her. Rose was trapped. She'd never be able to talk to Donna again. Sure Martha had walked away, but that had been so long ago and it hadn't been from her and it felt so much different than this did. Clara was choosing to never see them again. Clara was choosing to never see them again, and it was because of things like this. Because she was made to do horrid things in the name of helping the Doctor's wife. She had been left to look after the Dannis, and the Maisies, and everyone in between and she'd chosen that enough was enough.
And no one felt her important enough to tell her.
The lights flickered and she realised she hadn't been paying attention to anything that had been happening. She had been too focused on her own sadness, her own grief at the loss of her best friend that she hadn't heard a word that had been said.
Her eyes widened slightly as she stared at the doorway, panic settling in. Oh no, her grief...
Maisie smiled happily as the lights settled down. "I can't see it," she told them all happily. She looked at the Doctor in relief. "That's good, isn't it?"
The Doctor shook his head, looking around frantically. "No, no, who can see it?" he demanded. "Who can see it?!"
"Um..."
His hearts froze and he spun to look at his wife. She was staring past him into thin air and had her hand raised slightly, like she was answering a question in class.
"What?" he exclaimed. "That's-That's not possible. The simulations..."
"Didn't include us because we're not passengers and our data isn't in the..." she stepped back slightly from the approaching terrifying creature. It looked a lot more rotten than she was expecting, which was a strange thing to think because it was a mummy, "isn't in the system."
"Do we start the clock?" Perkins asked and the Doctor shook his head, holding his hand behind him to signal him.
"Not yet," he commanded. "What were you thinking?" he asked his wife.
"Um..." she started, walking into a table. "About how Clara was leaving us," Clara started in surprise and alarm. She wasn't supposed to know that. "And... and how no one was telling me, and about how dangerous you are around me and how it's my fault you've become so hellbent on letting the universe burn and... and just... oh, it's not very nice, you know?" she told him. "It's really rather creepy to look at..." She shook her head. "Um, and just about how..."
"About how sad you were," he finished for her quietly. He reached for her face, cupping it with one of his hands, forcing her to look at him and not the creature. "I never meant to make you sad," he told her quietly. "But focus on it. Focus on the sadness, on the hurt, on the grief."
"Why?" she asked, her eyes darting around his body to look at the mummy again. She didn't want to take her eyes off it.
"Because now," he quickly raised his other hand, placing a scanner against her temple. "It's mine."
She gasped as the mummy disappeared and the Doctor spun around to face the creature she could no longer see. "What did you do?!" she screamed at him.
"It now thinks I'm you," he told her, chucking the scanner away. He tried not to let his relief flood him at the fact that it now wasn't actually looking for the most precious thing in his life. He couldn't lose Danielle, and now he only had sixty-six seconds to fix this, because otherwise it would move straight back to her after it was done with him. "Start the clock!"
"You're an idiot!" Danielle screamed behind him and he nodded.
"Always," he agreed. "Hello," he greeted the mummy that was now reaching for him. "I'm so pleased to finally see you. I'm the Doctor and I will be your victim this evening. Are you my mummy? But you can't hurt me until my time is up. I think. So are there magic words? Is there a way to stop you in your tracks?"
He glanced over his shoulder at Danielle, who was reaching for the scanner. Clara seemed to see this and grabbed it before she could, chucking it across the room. "Oh, you really are scared for me, aren't you?" he commented, flooded with every bad feeling he'd taken from her. Her grief at the loss of Clara, at the loss of all of their friends. Her guilt at how she'd perceived him as something she'd created, a force that was tearing through people without regard because he was worried about her. Well, he had to admit, that did tend to happen. "You didn't do that, you know? You've always tried to stop me. And Clara loves you a lot, that's why she couldn't tell you about leaving, because she doesn't want to leave you behind. Honestly, it's a little bit sickly."
Clara glared at him, despite being terrified for his life. "Doctor!" she scolded.
"Sorry," he replied. "No, actually, I'm not. Stop eyeballing my wife and stop making her sad."
"I'm not eyeballing her!"
"There's something visible under the bandages," the Doctor continued, trying to study to mummy as he battled with all the thoughts in his head. "And yes, Clara is leaving us," he told his wife. "I had wanted her to tell you herself. How did you know?"
"Because I know her. I took one look at her and knew she was leaving," Danni replied. Clara smiled, touched that Danni had paid her so much attention. She really was her best friend. "Focus, don't you die on me!"
"Right," the Doctor replied, turning back to the mummy. Danielle was right, it was rather creepy to look at. Still, he didn't have time to be scared. His eyes were, once again, drawn to the scrap of flesh he could see. "Markings like the ones the scroll!"
He dashed over to the scroll that Danielle had been drawn to from the start. "A tattered piece of cloth attached to a length of wood that you will kill for."
He shook his head, smiling to himself. She had seen it all along. She had even told him the answer, although neither of them had noticed it at the time. Sometimes they just had to listen to each other. "That doesn't sound like a scroll," he declared, turning around to look at the mummy in realisation. "That sounds like a flag! And if that sounds like a flag, if this is a flag, that means that you are a soldier," he started walking towards the mummy, that no longer seemed so scary, "wounded in a forgotten war thousands of years ago. But they've worked on you, haven't they, son? They've filled you full of kit. State of the art phase camouflage, personal teleporter."
"Ten seconds," Perkins informed him and he realised that he needed to find those magical words after all. Just like he'd told her. He was such an idiot.
"And all that tech inside you, it just won't let you die, will it?" he continued, backing up towards the wall and the flag. "It won't let the war end. It just won't let you stop until the war is over. We surrender!"
The Doctor was wincing, but he didn't drop to the floor. Instead there was a shimmer in the air and the mummy appeared just in front of him.
"Oh my god," Danni breathed, rushing over to her husband's side as it became very clear that he was no longer in any danger.
"I can see it," Maisie exclaimed in horror.
"It's okay. I think we all can," Clara replied, staring in amazement as the mummy raised his arm shakily, saluting the Doctor with its last breath.
"Do I start the clock?" Perkins asked.
"No," he replied softly. "The clock has stopped. You're relieved, soldier."
The mummy disintegrated and Danni chucked her arms around her husband, hugging him tightly. He took a little bit of a moment to get his own comfort from her, before unceremoniously chucking her to the side and picking up a piece of tech that was left in the dust of the mummy.
"Phew. He's not the only one," Perkins remarked. Danni chuckled, moving over to him as the Doctor took the tech to the table, pulling out his screwdriver, that now worked. What a surprise.
"You did really well," she told Perkins. "A real pro, aren't you?"
"Well, I do try ma'am, I do try," he replied modestly. "You were not so bad yourself, if you don't mind me saying."
"Definitely not," she said with a big grin. "And I promise you're not half as arrogant as him."
"Thank you so much for your efforts," Gus declared. "They are greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, survivors of this exercise are not required."
"Ah, well, there's a shocker," the Doctor commented as he continued to work on the tech. Just a little longer and he'd be able to get them all off the train.
"Air will now be removed from the entire train. We hope you have enjoyed your journey on the Orient Express."
Perkins grasped at his throat, falling to the floor as Danni fell against the terminal she had stood by. Just before she passed out, she saw the monocle that had symbolised Gus flicker and turn into an umbrella, then everything went black.
~0~0~0~
Danni woke up in a very uncomfortable position. The air was cold around her, but she felt rather warm. The smell of wet sand reached her nose and she opened her eyes to find herself on a beach. She was wrapped up in blankets, and her husband was up ahead of her, drawing in the sand she could smell.
"Theta?" she called over, sitting up. She was on a load of rather large stones, which explained why she was so uncomfortable. He stopped whatever he was doing and walked over to her.
"Awake?" he asked and she nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around her.
"Yeah, thanks," she replied. "You did it, then?"
"Did what?" he asked, joining her on the stones. He wasn't cold, he was never cold, but she quickly unwrapped herself from the blanket and chucked it over his shoulder so they could both use it.
"Fixed the teleport inside of the mummy and saved us all?"
He nodded. "Oh, that," he replied as if it was nothing. "Yes, that was a thing that I definitely did."
She smiled at him before leaning on his shoulder. He placed another kiss on her hair. "Danielle, I think that..."
"Don't," she told him. "Don't apologise, because you don't need to. I'm sorry I got so angry, I shouldn't have shouted at you."
She swallowed. "I know that I'm the most important thing in the universe to you, because you're the most important thing in the universe to me. But I'm scared that if you keep not allowing yourself to feel then you're going to lose that part of you completely."
"I can't get emotional. When I do, people die. I can't let that happen," he replied.
"There's a difference between not getting emotional and not letting yourself feel. We know that doesn't work. You've tried it before." She felt his head tilt and he looked down at her, confused. She looked up at him. "When you regenerated," she clarified. "You did everything you could to not be like Eleven, so much so you struggled with finding yourself. The bit that cares, the bit that always cares, that's the Doctor. I love that bit. I don't want you to lose it."
He couldn't help but smile. "I will definitely try to keep it, then, if it makes you happy," he promised. "And I'm never going to stop trying to save you above everyone else. But I promise that I'm trying to save them too."
She nodded. "Fine," she sighed, like she was reluctant to comprise. "It's a good thing you're so good looking."
He chuckled before turning, tickling her. She shrieked in surprise and fell backwards against the blanket, laughing heavily. One day she would have a body that wasn't ticklish.
Clara smiled from inside her own blanket as she watched the two. The life they lived was hard, travelling was hard on them all, but it was moments like this that made it all worth it. They'd saved the day, people didn't die, and they were laughing together again at the end of it all. She pulled the blanket close. She didn't want to leave.
~0~0~0~
Perkins hadn't wanted to stay, which was a bit of shame but Danni couldn't blame him. He'd not had the best introduction to the world outside his own, and that was for a man who worked on space trains. Still, she was going to miss him and she let him know this before he'd left the TARDIS behind.
Not as much as she was going to miss Clara, though.
She sat on the stairs that led up to the upper deck of the console room, just waiting for Clara to come over and tell her why she was leaving. There was going to be a long, reasonable explanation and Danni would give her a hug and they would drop her off. Her life would still be extraordinary, she never needed more than her husband. Clara's life would always be extraordinary just because that was how Clara made it.
She would be behind Clara no matter what her choice was. She would make the best for her, and Danni would always support her. They had a life outside each other, that's what friends did. They lived. Not every friendship lasted forever.
But she didn't want Clara to go. She didn't want this friendship to be over. She was tired of losing people, and living past people. So many people had died and their friendship had lasted until the end of their lives, but it was never going to be that way for her. Danni wasn't ready for that to be gone yet.
Clara walked over, her heels clicking on the stairs until she sat down next to her best friend. She had thought she had kept the fact she had chosen to leave a secret, and a well-kept one at that. She had been wrong, it seemed. Rather wrong indeed. She should have just come out and said it and they all would have been spared this rather bizarre experience.
Danni had almost died because of it. She'd known that her best friend had wanted to stop travelling and it had hurt her so much that she'd almost been killed by an invisible mummy-soldier. Part of Clara was rather touched that Danni cared so much about her, but most of her was just absolutely appalled that she'd made her feel that way in the first place. The last thing she ever wanted to do was hurt Danni.
Since waking up on the beach and seeing the pair happy together, she hadn't been able to stop thinking about her decision. Well, actually, she'd not stopped thinking about it since making it, but now it wasn't convincing herself it was a good idea. Now all she could think about was if it was a good idea. None of the three wanted her to leave. The Doctor may or may not have said it, but the fact that she'd woken up wrapped in blankets with the same care he'd given his wife said a lot more than he probably meant it to. Danni was so heartbroken she'd put herself in the line of fire. And Clara...
"I should have told you," she said to Danni. "I shouldn't have kept it a secret."
Danni shook her head, then looked at her with a smile. "No," she corrected gently. "You should have told me when you were ready. I'm sorry you're not very good at hiding it." Clara chuckled slightly and Danni's smile turned sad. She looked away and to the hands she held in her lap. "Was it something I did?" she asked quietly, needing to know.
"No," Clara quickly exclaimed. "No, of course not. This is..." she took a breath. "This is all me. I have these two lives. One with you and the Doctor, travelling and almost dying and seeing wonderful things I couldn't have even dreamed of. And I have this other life, on Earth, with Danny where I go to work every day and have takeaways and do marvellous things like go to the cinema and no one is there apart from the two of us because the movie is terrible and it's our own fault. I knew I'd never be able to keep them apart forever, and that one day I was going to have to choose."
She smiled slightly to herself. "Then do you know what happened?"
Danni frowned. "No. What?"
Clara nudged her. "You left your husband," she said and Danni looked back up at her in surprise. "You came to live with me and suddenly you were there in my everyday life. You were going to work, and you were watching Netflix. And then you would fight aliens and go off in the TARDIS and bring half-naked American men home to my flat and I thought 'This is it. This will work'. And then I found your note, and you'd left and I didn't know what to do. I thought I'd lost you."
"You're never going to lose me," Danni quickly promised. "Never."
Clara nodded her agreement. "I thought I'd lost you and it hurt so much to think you weren't going to be in my life anymore. It felt like..." It had felt like her heart had broken. That she'd lost someone she had truly loved and that feeling was something she was still trying to work on. "It felt like I was forced to make that decision again and I knew that as long as I kept travelling with you then I was always going to have to keep making that decision."
Danni wanted to reach out and give her a hug, tell her that she understood and she didn't need to explain anymore. It was always a problem that the companions had to face. Choosing one life over the other, trying to find a way to have a job and a trip in the TARDIS all in one go and she didn't envy them in the slightest because Danni's choice would have never been the job, but she could understand why people would struggled.
But Clara rolled her eyes. "Of course, then him over there," she motioned to the Doctor, who had been silently working at the console. He didn't look up, but both of them knew he was listening. "He had to go tickle you on that bloody beach."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Danni asked, confused.
"Well, everything, really," Clara replied. "Because you go on all of these adventures. You-You fight invisible mummies, and rob banks, and save people wherever you can. But you also tickle each other on the beach, and go to empty cinemas and do all those ordinary things I didn't think I could do. And the difference between my attempts at doing it, and yours is that you are the one letting it happen."
"Me?"
"Yes, you," Clara replied. "You're the one who lets the Doctor have both. You're the one who moved out of the TARDIS and found a way to make living on Earth work for you. You told me about how you used to jump around the Doctor's timeline, and most people would have lost it at the lack of control, but you took it yourself. You got your man, you changed your hair, and you had the life you wanted without letting anyone make you choose. I've been trying so hard to make the choice when, really, I should have taken a leaf out of your book and just decided I want both, so I'll have both."
Danni let herself smile slightly, hope rising in her chest. "What are you saying?" she asked her friend.
"That I'm not going anywhere," Clara decided happily. "If you two children can pull that off, then I sure as hell can as well."
Danni laughed and chucked her arms around Clara, hugging her and feeling happier than she had since they'd picked her up and she'd seen the decision in Clara's face. Clara hugged her back just as tightly. How could she have possibly thought that leaving Danni behind was a good idea? How could she have thought that leaving either of them behind was a good idea?
"Danielle?" the Doctor called over. "Is everything alright?"
She nodded, pulling back and placing a kiss on Clara's cheek. The teacher's eyes widened slightly at how her skin tingled when her lips had touched her. That was something that only happened for Danny Pink, she was sure of it.
"Of course," Danni cried. "I've got my husband, I've got my best friend, and I've got my blue box. Life is good!"
"That's good," the Doctor replied. "Perhaps it could be great, though, with a quick jaunt into the past."
Danni pushed herself off the stairs, leaving Clara to stare after her with heavy realisation in her chest, and rushed over to her husband's side.
"Nah, I've spent the last couple days digging up the past," she told him. "I've had enough of myths and legends. Let's keep going forward."
The Doctor smirked, then glanced over at Clara. "Hold on tight," he told their friend and they set off to their next adventure.
~0~0~0~
Well, I hope you liked it! Not much more to say about it than that. I hope you liked the little Clara change, after all there's been a lot longer between the two episodes than in the show so I thought her motivation may have changed a bit.
Also there's a new fanfic up. It's called 'The Time Child: Wiped Out'. Go check out the prologue and drop a review. After you've reviewed this, of course :P
Reviews -
serenitysaiyan - Well, she tried to use it, haha! Of course she knew, they were stupid to think otherwise! Thanks sweetie!
Midnight Alley - Thanks sweetie! Hope you enjoyed it.
bored411 - I hope you liked this chapter too. Danni knows her husband enough to know he isn't just being heartless, but he needs to solve the puzzle before too many people die. No Missy bit this time, I'm afraid. The ending of the chapter seemed to fit well without it. Definitely next time :P
Seconds and Stars - Thanks sweetie!