Series 9: What We Deserve
Warnings: dark themes, violence, torture, m/f, f/f & m/f/f relationships, explicit scenes.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. If I did…damn you, Moffat!
Summary: The trio land in their first universe and Missy and Clara get into a spot of trouble.
A/N: For the alternate universes, some will be of my own creation and some will be crossovers with other fandoms. I had the idea for a few which suited story arcs for the characters which had no way of fitting otherwise. Hope you enjoy!
The atmosphere in the console room was as thick as treacle. Clara wasn't sure even a lightsabre would be enough to cut through it. She sat on the gantry steps as the Doctor and Missy prepared the Tardis for the first jump into the space between dimensions. The Doctor had told her it was called the Void. Her question had brought such a haunted expression to his features; she hadn't dared ask any more.
As she watched the two Gallifreyans move about, she noticed how jumpy the Doctor had become around Missy, the way he flinched whenever she brushed past him, and the Mistress's gleeful delight when she noticed. Did he regret their little interlude?
She reflected that anyone else would have felt betrayed and disgusted after witnessing it, and so she might have as well, if she hadn't known some of the story beforehand. The Doctor's words to her in the graveyard, telling her she didn't have the right to judge him, came to mind and she knew them for truth. She didn't have the right to judge, but that didn't mean she wouldn't keep a closer eye on Missy from now on. Whatever game she was playing, she wouldn't let her win.
He hadn't said a word about the incident, and Clara wondered if he really hadn't realised she'd seen them. Missy had, had locked eyes with her while in the throes of their passion, and she seemed to be taking a wicked delight in flicking lascivious, heated looks her way, running her fingers down her arm, or flicking her hair as she walked past. Her attentions were…unnerving, but not unendurable. The Doctor had offered, again, to take her home but staying with them was preferable to going home.
Remembering the invitation in Missy's eyes as she'd lain beneath the Doctor on that console, Clara shivered.
The Doctor noticed her shiver, glancing at her in concern. It was almost enough to distract him from Missy's intrusive attentions, constantly touching him, caressing him, whenever she got the chance. Flaunting it in his face, and Clara's.
He still cursed himself for his lack of control. It should never have happened, regardless of the history between them. Imagining Clara walking in to find them like that, imagining the look of revulsion in her eyes, the already fractured trust between them obliterated, it made him shudder. He'd pondered if that had been Missy's plan, but no. He wasn't sure what Missy's plan was, but somehow he sensed it didn't involve splitting him and Clara apart.
He made his final preparations, just checking the controls one last time, as Missy stood by his side, tapping her foot impatiently. "You don't have to check everything again. I've already double-checked it all," she huffed in exasperation. He rolled his eyes as he gently moved her arm aside, reaching for a lever. The contact sent another shiver down his spine and, he noticed, through her too, as she smiled innocently.
"I think I'll just check again, if you don't mind," he replied curtly, and she raised her hands in mock-surrender. He might have given in to his body's unnatural urges, but that didn't mean he trusted her.
"If you must, darling," she purred with a raised brow, and he mentally growled at her. Her amusement filtered through the remnants of their telepathic link, as she turned away. He heard Clara stand from her seat on the stairs, coming to his other side and leaning on the console.
"So, we're off then?" she asked softly, meeting his questioning look. Her eyes were still so sad and dark, but there was a spark of her usual vitality there now. Slowly, incrementally, she was recovering. He knew he should have sent her home, sent her back to her family rather than drag her along with him and Missy, but he'd been so cravenly grateful for her desire to stay, that he couldn't bring himself to take her home against her own wishes.
"Yep," he nodded. "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more!"
"Or close up the wall with our English dead!" Missy quipped from his other side, as he exhaled raggedly.
"Trust you," he muttered, eying her glaringly. Then, to his surprise, Clara joined in their informal recital.
"I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot: follow your spirit and upon this charge, cry God for Harry, England and Saint George," she recited in turn, a cheeky smile quirking her lips. It made her look like the old Clara again, the one who hadn't been torn between his life and an ordinary one, his Impossible Girl, who hadn't seen the man she loved taken from her so horrifically. Her eyes flicked to the Mistress, and a hint of mischief bloomed in her sad eyes. "Seems oddly appropriate. And ironic."
He chuckled, as Missy pouted on the other side of him at the mention of her previous incarnation's alias. He looked down at his hand on the lever, tight and pale, the tendons standing out starkly from the force of his grip. This was it, he was finally going home. He was finally going to find Gallifrey once more. This was it.
He watched as a slender hand, as pale and cool as his, nails painted blood red, touched his almost tenderly. He looked up, into Missy's understanding eyes, gentle for once as she nodded. She understood.
He looked to Clara, and she smiled softly, showing no sign of disgust or disquiet about that display of familiarity. After watching Missy throw him against a wall and kiss him like her life depended upon it, he supposed hand touching wasn't much to worry about. But her eyes showed the same understanding.
With a deep breath, he pulled the lever. And the rotor began to rise and fall, the familiar rasping sound of the Tardis' engines filling the console room.
"So this is the Void," Clara remarked, staring at the scanner. "Didn't think it'd be so…literal."
The Tardis hadn't particularly enjoyed being thrown through a newly made dimensional fissure and into the Void, and he could feel her discomfort in his mind. He stroked the console soothingly, mentally promising her it would be worth it when they finally found Gallifrey. His old girl responded with a gentle wave of warmth, and he knew she understood. There seemed to be a lot of that going around today.
"The Eternals used to call it the Howling," Missy said, looking over Clara's shoulder at the scanner. "Heavens knows why. There's no sound, no air, no light, no dark. Just…nothing."
"Yeah, thanks for that. Worked that out for myself," Clara retorted coolly, but her voice lacked any venom. She was too transfixed by the nothingness displayed on the scanner screen, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. "How long will it take us to get through?"
"A week," the Doctor told her. "We're following the residue trail left by Missy when she travelled this way before," he continued, frowning slightly. "Actually, that's a fair point. Where's your Tardis?"
"Now he asks me," Missy sighed dramatically. "Safe. Extremely well-hidden and booby-trapped should any of your UNIT pets stumble across it. Never fear, Doctor."
"That wasn't exactly what I meant," he grumbled, eying her darkly. She shrugged with an innocent smirk and flounced off, skirts swirling around her.
"So this is it?," Clara asked him.
"Yep. It'll take a week to traverse the Void to the next universe calculated by the Tardis," he explained, with a grudging glance in Missy's direction, who curtsied coquettishly in reply. He turned back to see a wicked smirk dawning on Clara's face as she eyed him. "Oh no, don't you dare say it," he growled.
"Are we there yet?" she asked, ignoring his warning entirely. He groaned and slapped his forehead with his hand, rolling his eyes. Missy laughed on the other side of the console. "I'm going to make some tea. Fancy a cuppa?" Clara announced from beside him. "Unless you've got a crate of champagne buried around here somewhere?" she added questioningly, with a mischievous smirk.
"He used to keep a very nice store of Bollinger in one of the storerooms off the kitchen," Missy called up as she walked down the stairs to the lower levels.
"Deleted it years ago," he called back, repressively, as Clara giggled. She raised a brow in question, and he nodded. "Seven sugars-"
"Yeah, seven sugars. I know," she sighed, rolling her eyes as she disappeared into the corridors towards the kitchen. The Doctor listened until he was sure she was long gone, before following Missy down to the underbelly of the console. He needed to have a word with her.
He wasn't entirely surprised by the hand that appeared from behind the mass of cables to grasp his arm, yanking him into her arms. Her lips met his, and before he realised it, they were kissing passionately and he was backing her into the cables, pressing against her damningly.
Her cherry red mouth tasted of triumph and exhilaration, as she raised one hand to his hair, raking her nails against his scalp teasingly. He groaned, rocking his hips into her, drawing a moan from her lips in retaliation.
With a growl, he forced his lips away from hers. "We're not doing this again," he told her firmly, but she just laughed and twined one leg around his. She undid his coat and slipped her hands inside, sliding them around and up to curve over his back. She raised her lips to his ear, taunting him with her warm breath as he was forced to bend slightly to her level. He inhaled her perfume, and shut his eyes against the temptation to press his lips to her neck.
"Worried your sweet little Impossible Girl might hear us?" she whispered. He swallowed, his voice reduced to a harsh moan as she rolled her hips into his.
"Don't involve Clara in this," he growled warningly, but she just chuckled against his ear.
"Silly boy," she murmured fondly. "She's already involved. She not only heard us, but saw us as well. She knows."
The Doctor felt desire quashed by horror, as he drew back as much as she'd let him to stare at her. She looked delighted and ruffled, her curls mussed by his own hand. She smiled, a lioness' smile when she spots the antelope, and caressed his back fondly.
"B-but…she…" he began to stammer, but Missy cut him off, pulling him in again. She pressed a kiss to his throat, before laying one on his nose and trailing round to his ear again.
"And she liked it," she whispered. "She was aroused at the sight of us there, she wanted to be part of it. I could smell it the moment she stepped into the room."
He continued to stare at her in disbelieving horror, and she shook her head in exasperation. "Men," she continued. "It wasn't until I regenerated that I realised how utterly unobservant men can truly be. Did you really not know?"
"Know what?" he demanded, regaining the use of his tongue, shoving away his emotions. For now.
"That she wants you. Has always wanted you, regeneration or not. And she wants me," she pronounced delightedly. "Oh, it's all mixed up with hate, a fair dose of confusion and self-loathing in that tricky little mind of hers. But it's there."
She leaned up and kissed him again, deeply and aggressively, and he had no choice but to fall into the caress, mind suspended by the feel of her body against his. "We're all going to have to get along," she added, when she pulled away from him with a teasing smirk. "Just something for you to consider…"
And with that, she walked away. Leaving the Doctor flabbergasted and utterly confused. And aroused.
The week passed peacefully enough for the three travellers. They co-existed easily enough, Missy constantly teasing and taunting the Doctor, Clara watching them intently, and the Doctor utterly confused by it all.
It seemed to be a near constant state for him, nowadays.
He still didn't understand Missy's plan, or her motivations, and he'd taken to avoiding her as much as possible. Their confrontations had a tendency to end with her lips against his and his self-control disappearing out the proverbial window. It didn't help that her words about Clara, and her still apparently lingering attraction to him, wouldn't get out of his head.
And he was worried about her. He had no doubt that she still hated Missy, and was still mourning for Danny, but the glint in her eye when she and Missy clashed, most often over chess while he did maintenance work on the Tardis console, pointedly ignoring Missy's remarks about how to repair his Tardis, that unnerved him. It was like she was relishing the game Missy had embroiled her in. She was changing before his eyes, and he wasn't sure he liked who she was changing into.
He always forced aside any such thoughts when they entered his head. Clara, his Impossible Girl, hadn't changed. She couldn't change, he wouldn't let her. He wouldn't lose her too.
So when the Tardis rotor finally came to a halt with a deep clang of the engines - and no he hadn't left the brakes on- he was relieved to see the old excitement rising in her features as she rushed to his side.
"Have we landed?" she asked with a smile. "Where are we?"
He checked the scanner, curious himself, and sighed. "Earth, apparently. Or an alternate version of it," he told her. Missy sidled up on his other side, and he restrained a now habitual shiver at her warmth pressing into his hip.
"Curious," she mused. "It was the same when I first travelled through. Always the same miserable little planet."
"Hey!" Clara snapped, but Missy just winked at her teasingly. The Doctor chuckled despite himself, and glanced at Clara. The same old impetuosity was rising in him, and he was glad not everything had changed.
"Can we take a look?" she asked, glancing at the scanner.
"I think so," the Doctor replied, checking the outside atmosphere was breathable first. You could never tell with alternate realities. "After all, we're stuck here for a week…"
He trailed off as he realised he was talking to an empty console room, and there was a draft. With a curse, he turned and followed them outside.
"What do I always say?" he stormed as he stepped out and spotted the two women standing atop a rise a few metres away. They were parked atop a cliff overlooking a barren quarry, the sky darkened by fog. "Rule Number One! Never wander off!"
"You do realise, honey, that almost none of your companions ever listen?" Missy quipped, with a sharp smirk. "And I hardly count as one of your companions."
"And what do you think you do, all the time?" Clara interjected, a teasing look of her own on her face.
"I'm a Time Lord, I'm allowed to wander off," he replied archly. "I don't need babysitting."
"That's debatable," his Impossible Girl scoffed, as Missy laughed. Realising he was outnumbered, he gestured to the cliff in front of them pointedly.
"Shall we take a walk then?" he muttered. "Since you were so insistent on coming outside."
Missy and Clara wisely remained silent as they followed the sulking Doctor down a trail cut into the side of the quarry, staring out over the lifeless landscape.
"It's all so empty?" Clara remarked, wonderingly. "Where are we on Earth, Doctor?"
"According to the scanner, somewhere in northern France. Or what should be France," he explained. "Who knows in this reality? Maybe the Saxons invaded France instead of the other way around. Maybe the Roman Empire never fell. Maybe it never existed in the first place. Who knows?"
"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction," Missy added, as she passed the Doctor and stopped by Clara's side. "For every universe, there is an equal and an opposite. But it is bleak, even for my tastes."
"Well, now that is saying something," the Doctor quipped, drawing a laugh from Clara and a scathing glare from Missy. A whizzing noise suddenly filled the air, and he frowned. "What's that-?"
The rock face above them exploded into shards, as they ducked and flung themselves sideways, missing the collapsing rock by a hair. The Doctor rolled over onto his front, eyes scanning the landscape. He quickly found their attackers in the form of twenty people, all clothed in black combat gear, strange rifles he didn't recognise in their hands.
"Quick! Back to the Tardis!" he barked urgently, as he scrambled upright, dragging Clara and Missy with him. There came more shouts and more gunfire as the rounds impacted the rock around behind them. Their pursuers clambered up the rock behind them, right on their tail.
Just as they reached the top, Clara stumbled. The Doctor heard her cry and turned back, but Missy was already there. She dragged the human upright, her intricate hairstyle ruffled and sagging from their mad dash up the quarry, and the Doctor heard that familiar whizzing sound as his eyes met Missy's.
The familiar icy blue orbs widened, as she shoved Clara away from her, just as she was hit in the neck by some kind of dart. Different ammunition to the previous shots.
She jerked, a hand rising to her neck, as Clara scrambled to her feet. "Ooh," she gasped. "Somehow I doubt I'm going to enjoy this…"
And she collapsed at their feet, boneless, as the shouts and the gunfire drew ever nearer.
To be continued...