-REMEMBER ME-
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The First Battle
A crack...a crack in the wall...a crack in the skin of the universe...How could this happen? And there were voices coming out of it...all sorts of strange, strange voices...screams, shouts, entire races calling out...Prisoner Zero has escaped...Doctor Who? …EXTERMINATE! … on and on they went, voices tumbling over one another, he could barely make them out...But he could hear… Look at you. The three of you. The Warrior, the hero...and you … Tell me what am I because I don't know...Be what you've always been...Be a Doctor…
Clara! Clara! He could hear her voice! How could she be behind this crack?! He touched the crack, ran his fingers over it, whirred his sonic over it...what was this? He'd never seen anything like it… It was old, and new...and expanded beyond his perception of Time...he couldn't see...he couldn't see…
The impossible girl… "Identify Yourself," Silly old Doctor...Prisoner Zero has escaped...What's up above is down below...we all depend on the beast below...The angels have the phonebox!... "You will be deleted!" … I'm...I'm...Oh, what do you call me?! I think you call me-Sexy!" and that constant whir...woo-whoo...whir ...woo-whoo...
He was missing something...again...he hated it when that happened.
"Identify yourself."
Ah. That was it.
"Hello, again, old friends," he said without getting up from where he was kneeling on the ground next to the crack. "And I wonder how you could have possibly gotten here? Through a crack in the skin of the universe, by any chance? Same with the Daleks, I suppose…"
"Identify yourself," the Cyberman said again. The Doctor rose and turned to face it.
"Haven't you figured that bit out yet?" He said, grinning. He held out his hand. "Jelly Baby?"
"What. is. This?" said the Cyberman in it's robotic voice, looking down at the Jelly Baby and lowering it's weaponed arm. It was all the diversion the Doctor needed. He plucked a piece of gold he'd nicked from Trexalore from his pocket and smacked the Cyberman in the face with it. It powered down, giving him just enough time.
"Run!" he yelled to himself, and so he did. Back into the tunnels again, weaving, roaming, and the whole time he could hear the cybermen flying behind him...flying Cybermen...after all, where there was one cyberman a dozen more were to follow. He ran towards the rumbling, because he knew that was where the center of the action was. That was where Clara was sure to be. Louder and louder it grew, till he could hear the cries of "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
God, he'd hoped they didn't exterminate Clara... please, please let her be alright…
He picked up the pace.
"DELETE! DELETE!" He looked behind him. They were hot on his tail...he could see them...flashes of silver...When suddenly his front foot, which he had expected to make contact with the ground, met with...nothing. He barely caught himself. He'd found a huge hole in the ground, beneath him extended a deep dark pit, and above him swarmed the Daleks, with their battle cries of "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
He was trapped.
"DOCTOR!" He heard a familiar voice shout. He looked up. There she was...alive and beautiful and whole, and dangling off the edge of the cliff.
"Clara!" he shouted, grinning. "What are you doing up there?"
"Doctor!" she scolded.
"I suppose you want me to save you, do you? You companions are always wanting to be saved…"
"DOCTOR!" she scolded, louder this time.
"Oh, alright, but if you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit trapped at the mo-" he fell silent.
"Doctor?"
"Alright, I've got a very bad idea...hold on a minute Clara, have you out of there in no time!"
"DOCTOR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?"
He'd ran back the way he came, surprising the Cybermen that had been flying hot on his tail. He dodged their shots and-in a amazing feat of agility for such a lanky man-grabbed the cyberman round the chest, and, quite before the Cyberman had realized what had happened, the Doctor had hacked into its navigation systems with a quick wave of his sonic.
"WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?" shouted the Cyberman and Clara in unison. He was free of the tunnels, could feel the air on his face as he sped through the air up to where Clara was. Swiftly, he grabbed her by a swinging ankle and she screamed louder than he'd ever heard her scream before, but he had ahold of her tightly and would not let go.
"PUT ME DOWN!" she screamed. "DOCTOR!"
"GET OUT OF MY SYSTEMS," intoned the Cyberman. "MALFUNCTION...MALFUNCTION…"
The Cyberman shot sparks and began to fall out of the air.
"Hold on, Clara!" the Doctor shouted at her.
"TO WHAT?" she screeched, arms dangling.
The Cyberman took a steep dive-headed right for a falling tower.
"Hang on!"
And the Doctor let go. For a brief, terrifying moment he felt himself fall through the air, and then thud!
They'd just barely landed on soft, wet ground. The Doctor looked up-and watched as the Cyberman smashed right into the hard rock face of the tower before it, too, fell with a loud THUD! That made the ground shake beneath them.
"IF-YOU-EVER-DO THAT AGAIN-" Clara was screaming, struggling to get up out of the mud-which was what she was now covered in.
The Doctor was suddenly overcome with chuckles, which turned into giggles, which turned into outright laughter-at Clara, who looked so endearing and silly at the moment he couldn't help but laugh. He was willing to bet it was the adrenaline-but Clara looked so genuinely angry at him he couldn't help it. Control Freak Clara looked absolutely furious, and things were so far out of her control she was at a breaking point-threw herself at the Doctor and started hitting him.
"Clara!" The Doctor shouted through laughter-because somehow her act of violence had made the situation even funnier-tried to grab at her fists to stop her from hitting him-because it did actually hurt quite a lot. "Clara, stop!" he giggled.
Finally she couldn't help it, and a snort of laughter escaped her own mouth. And then there they both were-laughing so hard it hurt, in a pile of mud, in the middle of a battle.
No one paid them any mind...the Doctor doubted they could even see them what with the mud and the commotion, but that theory was disproved as soon as a Cyberman shot a beam a foot to their left. The Doctor rolled over on top of Clara to protect her, sobering immediately.
They both struggled to get up, grabbed each other's hands, and then they ran for cover. Clara led them towards the tower that had just fallen, and they both slid under the small space between tower and ground. They were temporarily hidden.
"What are we going to do?" said Clara.
"We have to get back to the TARDIS," said the Doctor. "As quickly as possible. It's time we were leaving."
"We're just going to leave this planet to the Daleks?" said Clara indignantly.
"It's too late, Clara, it's a fixed point in Time-can't you sense it? This was always going to happen, no matter what."
She could, in fact, sense the fixed point, warping into existence. There was no way they could stop it now. It was written in the fabric of the universe. This planet, these people, would die, with little to no survivors...but then...something...something...the past was hidden from her.
"We have to get to the TARDIS," he said again.
Then, suddenly, there was a loud, high-pitched burst of sound. They both covered their ears. They felt Time warping around them, and then, quite suddenly, there were a thousand other people on the battlefield that appeared with a pop!
"Time Lords," said the Doctor.
But they were not Time Lords as they knew them. They were covered in armor, ready for battle. And for each Time Lords soldier that was killed, they shot down half a dozen Daleks.
"Well this just became a much larger Battle," said the Doctor. Clara was inclined to agree. "They're from the future...Gallifrey's future."
"Why are they so armed? Gallifrey is peaceful."
"Are we?" muttered the Doctor pensively. "It's time to go. This will sort itself out and I'd rather not be here when it does."
"Agreed," said Clara.
So they ran-trying to be as quiet and unnoticeable as possible. They ran, following the whir of the Sonic the Doctor had out to home in on the TARDIS's location. Away from the battle, out of the city, into the forest, they ran, searching for that blue box.
Finally, just when Clara's legs were beginning to wobble, just when she thought she could run no more-they saw it. Less than a few meters away. The Doctor let go of her hand to grab the key. Suddenly she felt a pain in her foot and her face made contact with the ground-she'd tripped. The Doctor turned back. As Clara started to get up, she saw The Doctor's face fill with fear-and she looked around.
There it was-The Angel, the Doctor Angel, and she blinked in surprise. She felt cold, sinister stone touch her leg, and everything disappeared.
Run, you clever boy, and remember me