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: Clara finally lets the Doctor into her head, if not quite under the best circumstances. Osgood wonders exactly what she's gotten herself into, as the Tardis does the impossible, and even the Doctor and Missy discover they're out of their depth.
A/N: If you can't bear the thought of Twisswald, or its composite parts: Twissy, Missfle and Whouffaldi, then stop reading now.
Clara groaned as she slowly regained consciousness, aware of a slow, throbbing ache in her temples. She was lying on something soft and warm, but beyond that simple observation, she was in too much pain to think further.
Can't we go even 48 hours without some kind of emergency? The thought managed to puncture the agony in her brain, as Clara tried to get a hold of herself.
"She's waking up," a soft voice breathed. "Clara? Can you hear us?"
"Clara?" a second voice spoke her name questioningly, with a gentle urgency. Unlike the other, it sounded hoarse and gnarled, distinctly male.
She fought to answer, to say anything, but even the notion of moving or using her voice filled her with dread. Pain was her master at that moment, and Clara couldn't see a way past it. Nothing, not even her training and suffering in Dauntless, could help her.
But she was damn well going to try her hardest.
The first attempt overwhelmed her with nausea. The second was a little easier, as her body was rocked by waves of pain. Finally, she managed to open her mouth and speak. "Can't…speak….hurts," she croaked weakly.
"Should I go get some painkillers from the medbay?" a third voice filtered through the pain, a familiar sound but something was off about it. The accent, a broad Chicago accent, didn't match the image in her memory.
"Those won't work, not with this type of pain," the second voice replied tersely. "Clara was attacked psychically; her neural pathways were nearly obliterated."
"But I thought that she was linked to-?" the third voice asked in confusion. The first voice returned, softness giving way to scorn.
"Yes, she is, ape-girl," the first voice drawled. "But her telepathic abilities are only just developing. Too much too soon, and it can trigger a neural implosion, especially if her mind was attacked against her will by a stronger telepath."
"You sound like you have firsthand experience," the third voice observed.
"Oh, yes," the first voice purred. "I've known the exquisite pleasure of crushing a mind beneath mine. It is quite intoxicating."
"Missy!" the second voice barked harshly. "Stop winding Osgood up, and help Clara!"
"Sir, yes sir!" Missy replied snidely. Clara felt an overwhelming sense of comfort as she remembered that voice, as the pain became a little less all-encompassing. It was comforting that, even while her brain was apparently turning to mush, Missy could still be her usual insufferably obnoxious self.
Obnoxious? You always pay me the sweetest compliments, dearest…
Missy?
I'm here, Clara. Just relax now, and let me repair the damage.
Even as Missy's voice echoed in her head, Clara felt her there like a black mist tinged with amethyst purple at the very edges, curling into her own mind and sealing off the pain. She felt only blessed relief as the pain ebbed and then weakened altogether, and thinking became less painful.
I can…see you?
I'd have been surprised if you couldn't at this point. I know thinking is quite the novelty for you at the moment, but try not to. Just relax.
Can you ever say something without insulting someone? Clara demanded grumpily. Nevertheless, she did as she was told and the pain continued to recede until it ceased altogether. Warily, Clara opened her eyes, cognizant that the very fact that she could meant whatever Missy did was working.
The Doctor's worried face swam into view, and just beyond him Osgood stood, looking scared and concerned, still in her pyjamas. Clara took a deep breath, realising the soft weight she was lying on was actually where Missy had propped her up against her own body, her hands clamped gently but firmly to her temples. The strength in those delicate-looking hands made Clara shiver, knowing that Missy had the ability to crush her skull with barely a flick of her wrists.
"Clara?" the Doctor breathed, a careful hope in his eyes.
"Hey," Clara whispered with a wan smile. Despite her newly regained ability to think and talk without pain that made a hangover feel like an irritating niggle, she felt weak as if she'd been beaten over the head several times. "Can't catch a break, can we? Isn't it someone else's turn to be tortured?"
"With that interminable peppy smirk of yours, I think the universe has got it in for you," Missy quipped, making Clara groan.
"Again with the insults," she muttered. "Next time, I vote we draw lots for whose turn it is to take a battering. I'm voting Missy."
"Charming," Missy retorted wryly.
"Yep, if they're bickering with each other, Clara's alright," the Doctor stated, with exasperation. Clara chuckled weakly, before frowning slightly. "Clara?"
"What happened?" she asked. "The last thing I remember…" Falling asleep in the Doctor's arms, Missy nestled against her. Cold. Pain. The river. The two boys. The name. Clara shivered, glancing past the Doctor to the gleaming roundel on the wall behind him. They were in the console room. She glanced down, and saw a 'V' of pale skin framed by black cambric. Her head snapped up.
"Clara, what is it?" the Doctor asked worriedly. "What do you remember?"
"Why am I naked? How did I get here?" she asked, suddenly terrified of the answer. She felt Missy take a deep breath against her back, as she looked to the Doctor. She swallowed hard at the fear buried deep within his eyes, but forced it away. She wasn't going to run from fear anymore. "Somebody better tell me what happened before I get really cross," she said firmly.
It was Osgood who answered, to Clara's surprise. "I found you. I was woken up by the Tardis Cloister Bell, she made me rush after you. I found you sleepwalking, changing the co-ordinates on the console. I tried to stop you, but you pushed me away and then tried to walk out of the doors into the Void…" Osgood faltered, her eyes sliding to the Doctor and Missy. The Doctor's face hardened.
Clara's brow furrowed, before she took the Doctor's gaze and held it. "You know what happened, so tell me," she breathed. "Whatever happened has spooked the hell out of everyone here, so will one of you oh-so-exalted and advanced Time Lords please tell me what the hell is going on here!"
"All three of us suffered a psychic attack, in the form of a collective dream, a memory from mine and Missy's childhood," he finally explained, giving in. "You spoke a name…"
"Torvic," it fell from Clara's mouth before she realised, and she started. She saw pain flash through the Doctor's eyes, and felt her heart constrict. Try as she might though, she couldn't consciously remember anything else. But something whispered that there was more, more that the Doctor wasn't saying. "What else?"
"You said something else, or rather something spoke through you," Missy interjected quietly. "Something that's latched on to the singing in your head, hijacking the signal for their own ends."
Clara twisted her head round to look to Missy, taking in her thoroughly dishevelled appearance. "What did I say?" she asked.
"You said, 'Come to me. Mother's waiting.'" Missy told her unflinchingly.
"I don't remember any of this-" Clara murmured uneasily, but the Doctor cut her off with an impatient wave of his hand as he rose to his feet.
"Of course you wouldn't, you were deep in an almost trance state when Osgood caught up with you," the Doctor barked, before he began to pace back and forth. "But why? And how? And what?" he mused. "Nothing can survive in the Void without the aid of a Void ship, so is it something else, using one of the billions of infinitesimal cracks in the fabric of reality to pull us to them, through you?"
"But how?" Clara asked. "Like Missy said, my telepathic abilities are minimal, why would they use-"
"Because you're vulnerable," Missy answered. "Even the Doctor's minimal telepathic shielding would be enough to keep them out, and as for my own…let's just say there was a reason I came top of my class at the Academy."
"Show-off," both the Doctor and Clara muttered in unison. Missy ignored them graciously.
"You, on the other hand, yours are barely functioning. In telepathic terms, you're the equivalent of a toddler that's just learned to stand. You haven't learned how to shield your mind yet," she finished imperiously, before looking to the Doctor as if struck. "Nevertheless, it still pierced our collective defences-"
"And the Tardis defences," the Doctor nodded grimly, pausing in his incessant pacing.
"- enough to find an…unpleasant memory to distract us, while they took control of Clara. Only a handful of species in the universe are even capable of such a feat, and even fewer of them still exist," Missy continued. "In fact, only one springs to mind."
"That's impossible!" the Doctor muttered through gritted teeth. "They fled in the aftermath of the Time War."
"Maybe not all of them," Missy shrugged.
"Excuse ME!" Clara snapped loudly, irritated by the two Time Lords' oblivious conversation. "If you've quite finished the pow-wow, who are 'they'? Whose powerful enough to do this?"
"They're called the Eternals," the Doctor sighed. "We've both tangled with them, numerous times. They're beings of great power that inhabit a different realm to our own, unbound by the strictures of Time."
"They sound a little like gods," Osgood observed nervously. "They're not, are they?"
"They've taken the roles of ones, on many worlds in their infancy," Missy took over the story, with a sneer at Osgood. "Playing with primitive peoples until they grew bored. You see, Eternals have only one real limitation to their power; they have no imagination, no creativity, of their own. They relied on the minds of Ephemerals for a continuous flow of new ideas, new life, unable to exist without them."
"But they disappeared eons ago," the Doctor cut her off dismissively. "They looked on the carnage of the Time War and seemingly fled from all the known planes of existence."
"Maybe not all of them," Missy interjected forcefully. "Despite your penchant for delusion, my dear, not even you can dismiss the fact, that without a Void ship, only Eternals have the power to survive the Void and the ability to break through our telepathic defences and take Clara. It only need be one."
"This is all very interesting conjecture," Clara cut in. "But I think you're missing the point here. The question is not what's coming after us, it's how can we stop it? What did I do to the co-ordinates while I was under?"
"Changed them," the Doctor told her with a shrug. "But to what, or where, I don't know. Another alternate universe?"
"We'd have a better idea of what they want with us if we knew which Eternal it was," Missy mused. "I've only come across a handful in my time."
"The Black Guardian, the White Guardian," the Doctor scratched his head, eyebrows furrowed fiercely, in full-attack mode. "The Eternals Striker and Marriner aboard the Shadow. Captain Wrack, and some others. And…"
"What? Doctor?" Missy frowned, as the Doctor paused, face strained as if fighting something. "What is it?"
"Something I'm missing," he replied in a hiss. "A feeling like something's missing. The dream, Torvic, an Eternal…feels like déjà vu."
Missy stopped, as struck, as Clara watched both Gallifreyans uneasily. "You feel the same," she guessed, eying Missy guardedly. She flinched, as if struck by something, but her lip curled defiantly.
"Eternals have the power to erase memories," she conceded. "But they leave behind an imprint. What do you think déjà vu is?"
"It's possible we've both met an Eternal, and promptly forgotten about it," the Doctor nodded.
"But how can you be sure it's an Eternal?" Osgood asked, incredulously. "Your gut instinct?"
"If we have to, ape-girl," Missy sneered, but Clara was watching the Doctor closely. She saw the brief flash of guilt as he felt her eyes on him, and guessed the truth.
"There is a way of knowing," she murmured. "You just don't want to use it."
Silence fell as the Doctor avoided Clara's gaze, and Missy snorted. "Of course he doesn't!" she exclaimed. "I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you moral types and your boundary issues. You're enough to give a girl a hernia."
"Missy!" the Doctor snapped, exasperated but Clara's soft, determined whisper cut him short.
"Do it," she said. "Just…do it."
"Clara, are you sure-?" the Doctor began, as she stood shakily, clutching Missy's coat tightly around herself.
"I'm sure. But I'd rather go get dressed first," she smiled, a little tightly. "Don't want to catch a cold."
As she limped out of the console room with Missy in tow, the Doctor reflected once more that it wasn't the first time his Impossible Girl had surprised him, and it wouldn't be the last time either.
Osgood watched the two other women disappear into the depths of the Tardis, and looked to the Doctor inquisitively. "What does she mean?" she asked.
"Like Missy said, Eternals might have great power but they also leave behind an imprint, markers in the mind, invisible to most people, even those with telepathic abilities," he began to explain stiltedly. "Missy and I have both encountered Eternals before, we know what to look for."
"So you're going…to join with Clara?" Osgood asked, as the Doctor blanched and almost stumbled. "Telepathically, I mean," she added hastily.
"Uhhh, yes, in a manner of speaking," the Doctor cleared his throat in embarrassment. "You'd better go get dressed, Osgood, since I don't know where we're going or what we'll find when we materialise. Thank you for all your help."
"No problem," she shrugged with a slight smile. She found the Doctor's embarrassment rather endearing, considering his continuing lack of awareness about the state of his clothes. She jogged lightly down the stairs, and just hoped she could find her way back to her room without getting lost.
In her bathroom, Clara inspected the bruise on her abdomen. The healing balm had done its work, and it had already faded to a faint yellow, and the pain was minimal. Within a day, it would disappear entirely. The laceration on her thigh was all but healed, an angry pink line that felt a little tight and sore, but nothing she couldn't handle. She discarded the dressing in a basket on the side, before reaching for the fresh clothes she'd retrieved from the drawers.
She was just tugging her jumper into place when Missy appeared behind her, one arm slung around her collarbone. Clara rolled her eyes wearily.
"You really don't like boundaries, do you?" she muttered in annoyance.
"Clara, I've literally seen every inch of that admittedly delectable body of yours, and am permanently linked to your mind, every dirty corner of it," Missy replied tartly. "I think we're past boundaries, don't you?"
Restraining the urge to roll her eyes again, Clara instead let herself lean back into Missy's body, the contact soothing as the Time Lady pressed a kiss against her neck. "It won't just be the Doctor, will it?" she asked, her eyes tightly shut. "You'll be in my head too."
"Not at first," Missy said quietly. "A second bond must be established without interference from the first, initially. But yes, I'll be there. No getting rid of us now."
"You said bonds are only temporary unless they're regularly reinforced," Clara frowned, reluctantly opening her eyes to find Missy had shifted in front of her, holding her gently about her waist. She lingered at the periphery of Clara's mind, clearer than ever before to her limited human senses.
"That is true," Missy replied, with a wry smirk. "But once you have the Doctor, do you really believe you'll ever want to let him go?"
Clara blushed, as Missy laughed. She slowly sobered, before regarding Clara with an unusual amount of calculation that she hadn't seen in her eyes for a long time. It made Clara uncomfortable, squirming in her hold. "What?" she demanded, a little testily. "Regretting your decision to prod us in this direction after all?"
"Hardly," Missy scoffed. "But be prepared, Clara. A triumvirate is not an easy thing to bear, especially for such an unprepared, untested novice. Your telepathic muscles are still developing, that part of your brain still awakening. It'll be easy to feel overwhelmed."
"I get that," she replied. "But this was inevitable anyway, wasn't it?"
"You should be terrified," Missy stated, cocking her head to one side as if in puzzlement. Eying Clara like she was a mystifying lab specimen.
"According to you two, I've got some inter-dimensional signal driving me insane, which someone or something of unknown power and motive is using to piggyback into all our minds, and is drawing us to it, and now I've got to worry about not one but two crazy renegade Time Lords in my head," Clara listed nonchalantly. An exhilarated smile crossed her lips. "What's to be scared about?"
Missy stared at her, stunned, then burst out laughing. Clara felt desperate giggles well up in her throat too, but held them down. Needing something to distract her from what was about to happen, she leaned in and kissed Missy, stilling the Time Lady's laughter for a moment as she returned it.
The Doctor looked round as he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the gantry stairs. While the others prepared, he had seized the opportunity to get dressed himself, needing the armour of his favourite velvet coat to steady himself.
It should have been an occasion of joy, of bliss, when he and Clara finally let each other in. In a way, Clara was already in his head, seared onto his hearts, the first face he saw in this body, the voice in his head, the woman who had guarded his life from the moment he started running, all those years ago.
It irked him that they were being forced, bounced into this by some unknown assailant. Hadn't they earned at least a little reprieve in this insane journey of theirs?
The Doctor was beginning to sympathise with Odysseus. As much as he thrived on danger and excitement, he needed the still moments too, the moments where he stood watching a hyper nova from the doors of his Tardis, and lay watching the stars on some far-flung moon. He needed the stillness to restore his thirst for adventure, his need to run.
And now he had another person to worry for, to care for. He'd taken Osgood on perfectly willingly, impressed by her quiet determination and bravery, but now he wondered if she mightn't have been safer back in her original universe. He cursed the foolhardiness of his decision, but it was too late to rescind it now.
The Tardis whirred and hummed against his hand, where it lay on the console, and he smiled a little. That's his old girl, his Sexy, always trying to keep him going, to keep him happy.
In truth, he'd only connected telepathically to his companions a handful of times. Donna, of course, which he'd rather not think about, Rose to suppress her memories of the Bad Wolf, to drive out the Mara from Tegan's mind and other incidents that had grown dim in his memory in the thousands of years that he'd lived. They'd been driven by necessity and the threat of death, and he didn't remember any of them with pleasure. On Gallifrey, a telepathic bond was only enacted with those on intimate terms, for Gallifreyans anyway, and with absolute trust. There was no doubt he trusted Clara absolutely, but it wasn't the way he'd imagined it happening.
Oh well, needs must… the Doctor supposed. With Missy's aid, they would be able to trace back the telepathic signal and discover who was at the centre of this latest threat. If the upshot of that was that he and Clara would finally bind themselves to one another, he couldn't complain. He'd tamped down his fierce possessiveness and jealousy over PE, but it was never fully eradicated. It still slipped out when he wasn't careful.
With any luck, that possessiveness would now be assuaged. Jealousy was redundant now, PE was dead and Clara was with him. She was with them. He ruefully admitted, feeling the edges of his bond to Missy flex in his mind was she came closer, that this was no doubt exactly what Missy had intended from the moment she stepped onboard, and now they were both too far in over their heads to break free. And even that went for Missy too.
He turned around to see Clara stepping up to the console, clothed in a soft dove-grey jumper and untucked white shirt, her legs encased in black skinny jeans. Her hair shone softly in the warm light of the console room, and her eyes were serious and determined.
Missy followed behind, once more immaculately coiffed and suited, this time in her usual purple suit. For once, her usual manic energy was restrained and controlled, as she followed close behind their Impossible Girl. Not touching, not holding, but there was a synchronicity to their movements that betrayed their bond. A bond the Doctor would soon share in.
"Hey," Clara called, with a gentle smile. "Ready?"
"As I'll ever be," he admitted, straightening from the console and tugging his coat back into place. "Before we do this, are you absolutely sure about this, Clara?"
Clara looked thoughtful for a moment, before she visibly squared her shoulders and drew herself up. "When are we ever sure about anything, Doctor?" she asked, her smile turning sad. After a pained moment's silence, her smile turned impish. "But where would the fun be, otherwise? Let's do it."
Ineffably touched by her trust and certainty, in the face of the unknown, the Doctor moved into her. Sensing what he wanted, Clara stepped into his arms and hugged him tightly. With every embrace, it got easier, the awkwardness giving way to familiarity and easy affection tinged by growing desire in both. Clara raised her head, and drew his lips to hers.
Their second kiss was just as gentle as their first, untouched by the fury that coloured Clara's passion for Missy. Clara took the lead, turned teacher, as she taught him the exact right pressure, the most enthralling way to coax his mouth open and return the pleasure, as his hands tightened around her waist, a light moan welling up in his throat.
He was pressed tightly against her length, making Clara shudder. He'd always reminded her of a stick insect with his spindly slenderness, but she felt the strength and power belying that physical fact, as deceptive as a chameleon. It excited her, made her wonder what else he was hiding, if the hardness against her stomach was any indication. Sensual images from the time she'd walked in on Missy and the Doctor in the console room flashed across her mind's eye, making her moan against his mouth.
They broke apart by mutual consent, both knowing exactly where they were headed but acknowledging that now was not the time. Soon, though.
"Phew, you do know how to get a girl hot under the collar, my dears," Missy purred from behind them, perched on the jump seat. Clara glanced at her with a cheeky smirk.
"Down, girl," she replied saucily, seeing the barely restrained heat in Missy's eyes. She turned back to the Doctor, placing a hand against his cheek, seeing the same heat in his eyes. But unlike Missy's, which would consume her and her will utterly, the Doctor's would bend to her, obeying her every whim if it brought her pleasure, and achieving his own in the process. It made her shudder, as the Doctor pressed a kiss against her palm, before folding her hand around his and pressing another to her knuckles. His lips and breath warmed by her human heat. "So, what happens now? Do you just…do it, like Missy?" she asked, her voice slightly hoarse after their kiss.
"No," he replied, his Scottish brogue turned even huskier. Clara hadn't known it was possible. "Missy formed her link with you because the neurotoxin in the dart made her lose control of her telepathy, and she's powerful enough to initiate a link without physical contact."
Clara glanced at Missy, who just studied her nails with self-satisfied smirk. "Told you I was top of the class," she trilled in a singsong voice.
"For others, touch is required," the Doctor continued, ignoring Missy for the time being. "Some areas on the body are primed for telepathic contact: the inside of the wrists," he trailed his fingers up from Clara's waist to her wrists, caressing them with the very tips of his fingers sensuously. Clara felt the first tingles of psychic energy, like electrical feedback juddering over her skin, and shivered violently. He trailed his hands up her arms to her neck, then to her temples, brushing his fingers across the line of her cheekbones. "The temples," he continued, that same heat still raging in his eyes. Despite the necessity driving the act, Clara was enthralled to its erotic pull, feeling anticipation swell, washing away fear. His hands, those slender, elegant hands that Clara had admired from the start, traced back down her cheeks to her jaw, before reversing direction, sweeping below Clara's hair to the nape of her neck. "And the nape of the neck," the Doctor finished, his voice a bare whisper. Clara sucked in a breath, every cell electrified by his touch, touch augmented by psychic energy. Novice she might be, but even she could feel it.
Through her bond to Missy, Clara could feel the lascivious weight of her thoughts, could sense the way she was watching her lovers. She held back, allowing them their moment with a kind of exasperated affection for them both, but only for so long.
"So, when they wrote Star Trek," Clara choked out, desperate to relieve the tension building, if only for a moment. "Did they realise they were basically writing Time Lord porn, just with Vulcans instead?"
They had to admit, the parallels were striking. The Doctor looked struck, his eyes wide as Missy laughed behind them. You only just cottoned on to that now? Missy exclaimed in her head, but it wasn't aimed at Clara. With a thrill, Clara realised she could sense the Doctor in Missy's mind, and vice versa.
"Clara," the Doctor's harsh burr brought her back to herself, as she focussed back on his voice and his eyes. "Are you ready?"
"Do it," she breathed firmly, her voice too weak with anticipation to be loud. But every cell in her body felt energised, like she wanted to burst out of her own skin. The Doctor's eyes closed, and Clara followed suit, utterly trusting in him.
She felt Missy retreat slightly, just enough to let the Doctor free rein. With a shudder of excitement, Clara realised she could feel him. Unlike the insidious black cloud, tinged with amethyst, that was Missy, the Doctor felt like a storm entering her very being, all silver and cold steel but at its centre lay a still place, warm and heavy. In her mind's eye, Clara realised that she could see her own consciousness, sense its edges, its texture. It was cracked and fractured but still strong, midnight blue shot through with rich gold. With a jolt, Clara sensed the same gold running through the Doctor's and Missy's consciousnesses too, like a living reminder of the bond they all shared, through the Time Vortex.
Slowly, the Doctor lowered himself into her and Clara gasped. Just as before, she was overwhelmed by his memories, his thoughts and emotions, the relic of over two thousand years. Pain, rage, hate, excitement, curiosity, restlessness, love, desire, need, compassion and so many more that Clara could scarcely name. His mind was vast and unending, making her feel so small and breakable compared to him. She realised how carefully Missy had concealed her own from her, realised how vast Missy's mind would seem too. She understood what she meant by being overwhelmed now.
Easy, Clara. Hold onto my voice. Let it anchor you, like you did before…
Clara remembered that strange place she'd fallen into, after she jumped into the Doctor's time stream on Trenzalore, when she'd felt so lost and scared. The leaf, his voice…
Immediately, she felt steadier, no longer caught on the eddies and whirling pools of his memories. His emotions still washed over, some making her blush and heat, others making her afraid, but she refused to cower, to retreat.
Okay, Clara? the Doctor's voice in her head, apologetic and urgent. He needed to know she was alright.
After that intimacy, how could she truly be anything but alright? She felt a smile on her physical body, but in her mind it manifested as a flash of bright gold. I'm okay, Doctor.
Mind if I cut in? Missy's voice joined the storm, the black and purple and gold cloud drawing closer once more. Clara felt her reach out and lay her hand over the Doctor's at her nape, and shuddered at the burgeoning sensation in her head. As Missy's mind laid itself over hers and the Doctor's, she felt ready to explode.
It was more intimate than sex, more consuming than love. She felt the Doctor's wonder at the remnants of her echoes, and the realisation that she had been the monster under his bed as a child. She felt Missy's satisfaction at seeing her carefully chosen gift excel in her task, fulfilling her plans with ease, even if she didn't know it. She felt their pain at her own, when she jumped into the time stream, when she hurtled through the Time Vortex, clinging to the Tardis, at losing the Doctor and finding him again. At losing Danny, twice over. There was nowhere to hide, even though Clara did not yet possess the skill to see everything in her lovers' minds as they did hers.
Clara! And I thought I had a depraved mind! Missy exclaimed, with a salacious delight as she caught flashes of Clara's darkest, most sensual fantasies.
And? She fired back, unrepentant. You're no better.
I at least have some excuse, it comes in the job description after all…Missy purred. Clara felt the Doctor's amusement, tinged with discomfort. Nevertheless, she could feel his own desire as if it was her own, and it made her abdomen clench hard in anticipation.
Holding tight to her psychic anchor, Clara felt in no danger of succumbing to the chaos in her mind. Slowly, it calmed and settled, not in stops and starts as her bond to Missy did, but in one gentle unravelling, until something felt like it snapped into place, the storm died. The clouds remained, permeating her own, but they no longer drowned out her own thoughts, her own memories. They were one and three, together and separate. It was all-encompassing, and Clara felt a tear escape her closed lids and trickle down her cheek.
It brought Danny to mind, and despite the acceptance he'd shown in her delirious dream on the verge between life and death, she couldn't feel anything but betrayal for his sake. He could never have shared this with her, and in truth neither could she. There were parts of her that he would never have accepted, and yet they were intrinsic to her, as part of her as her eyes and her heart. But where Danny would have felt fear, the Doctor and Missy felt only acceptance and something so nebulous and terrifying, that Clara knew they couldn't ever give voice to it. But that didn't mean they couldn't feel it, regardless. And Clara knew. Oh, she knew now.
With a shuddering breath, Clara forced all thoughts of Danny away. What now?
Now, we follow the trail of breadcrumbs…the Doctor said. Suddenly, Clara was back by that riverbank, and she felt dread crawl up her spine, as nausea filled her throat. She watched the boy hold the other underwater, while the other picked up a rock. That name, Torvic, reverberated around them, and she felt herself tremble in the Doctor and Missy's arms.
Stay with us, Clara…Missy soothed her.
What is this? Clara asked.
The day…I killed for the first time…the Doctor admitted, shame echoing across their link.
To save me…Missy admonished him. Torvic was a sadistic bully, he'd have killed us both!
Doctor, you did what you had to…Clara breathed in empathy. This time, you had no choice.
There should always be a choice…the Doctor replied grimly. Just then, the screams stopped, drowned out by a now familiar sound. Clara tensed in readiness for the pain, the skull-splitting agony that usually hit her like a tidal wave, but it was absent this time. The singing overwhelmed all else, but Clara was safe in the mental embrace of her lovers.
She could feel the Doctor and Missy focussing single-mindedly on the signal, and did the same with what strength she could. She felt their absentminded approval, and dug deeper for strength. Now she wasn't screaming in agony, Clara could hear the plaintive melancholy of the voice, urgency and terror and a desperate, desperate plea, echoing across time and space. To her.
Clara shivered, as a kind of reflexive horror filled her.
Abruptly the scene before them dissolved and changed, and the singing was cut off. They stood on a desolate plain beneath a black sky, a noisome, eerie light illuminating the ground beneath their feet.
A new voice spoke this time, and Clara felt that horror build as she realised she was stuck fast, unable to move, her will crushed beneath that of a far older, far more ancient being. The Doctor and Missy were similarly incapacitated.
It sounded feminine, but it made Clara want to throw up. It sounded like the dry rasp of rotting shrouds against old bones, like the heavy stench of decay, and the rattling gasp of a death cry. It brought to mind every death Clara had ever witnessed, rendering her impotent and sick with fury and revulsion. Everything in her yearned to get away, but she was stuck fast.
You took your time. Come to mama…
She felt the shock and fury lance through Missy, and dawning realisation and horror struck the Doctor like a physical blow, as they were transported back to that bleak riverside, back to the struggling boys.
Back to Death.
Except this time, a hooded figure stood over the boy who knelt cradling his friend, beside the bloodied, drenched corpse of Torvic. She heard Death's words, in that same horrific voice, echo through her soul.
I want you to be my champion. Death's Champion…
With a shock akin to being doused in cold water, Clara was suddenly back in her own body, freed of that dreadful paralysis, shaking and icy. Beside her, Missy knelt panting against the metal gantry, while the Doctor was slumped against the console.
"I…remember…" Missy panted.
"As do I," the Doctor agreed grimly. "It's her."
Still reeling from their newly formed connection, and the sudden invasion they'd all suffered, Clara didn't need to wait for either of them to explain. "It's Death," she whispered.
The console room was filled with the sound of the time rotor abruptly coming to a stop, the groan of the engines silenced as a deep boom echoed throughout the Tardis.
They'd landed. Somewhere.
"Impossible," the Doctor breathed, as the shock drained away, and he forced himself upright.
"That word's used far too liberally around here," Clara groaned, as she hauled herself up off the floor, just as Osgood came rushing into the console room, and Missy stumbled to her feet.
And then felt their terror, magnified threefold, as that ancient voice once more echoed in their ears, but this time even Osgood could hear it.
Come to mama. I'm waiting…
To be continued…