Double Blind
2
Searching Brighton's gay bars was easier said than done. One wouldn't be wrong for saying Brighton was just one, big gay bar. Every inch of it was dripping in rainbow flags and bright symbols. They were hanging from windows, painted on walls, worn as accessories. It was next to impossible to tell which venues were gay and which were just gay-friendly, and Yaz wasn't sure that in that part of the future those two things weren't one and the same. Suffice it to say, they'd had to split up. Yaz went with Graham, while Ryan stuck with the Doctor, who didn't give them much to go on. Yaz suspected she was withholding information on purpose.
"You'd think she might have a photograph or two lying around," said Graham as they stuck their heads in yet another bar, this one playing loud music that felt like razor blades against Yaz's ears it was so awful. She kept getting ID'd, and her old driving license was confounding all the bouncers. She'd been denied entry in at least one pub for not being able to conjure up believable proof of age. At least she was with Graham, though; he wasn't going to get ID'd.
"She hasn't got any photographs of us."
"The TARDIS has records, I've seen them," said Graham. The Doctor had provided them with a very barebones description; apparently, they were searching for two white women, a blonde and a brunette; the brunette was Clara. Aside from that, she had been foggy on the details.
"Why gay bars? If you were travelling through all of time and space-"
"Which we are," Graham reminded her after they drew another blank in a lesbian bar which didn't take kindly to his presence and escaped into the muggy, summer night again.
"Well, why would you come to a gay bar? On Earth? Here?"
"Suppose we'll ask her when we find her."
"Easier said than done. Looking for a woman with a relatively normal name with brown hair… that's most of the women I've seen out here," Yaz complained, "Do you think the Doctor's keeping something from us?"
"Maybe? But, like what?"
"I don't know. She never talks about the people she used to travel with, haven't you noticed? I forget sometimes we're not the first… she never says why she stopped travelling with them, either."
The conversation ran dry when they went to a male-centric bar indiscriminately named The Back Passage. It was a living, breathing cliché, full of gimps.
"Bloody hell…" said Graham. Yaz braved the bar and called down a bartender wearing little more than a leather harness. Unfortunately, The Back Passage was not a place frequented by anybody named Clara, or the Doctor (or any woman at all) – though she was assured that plenty of the patrons were doctors. One of them offered Graham what might be construed as an inappropriate examination he was forced to decline.
"I can't imagine the Doctor spending a lot of time in a gay bar. Or any bar, for that matter. Or even any place at all for more than a few hours," said Yaz.
"Well, she did say to look for the girl first, and then we'd find this other Doctor with her. You can't pretend you're not interested in meeting another Doctor." Yaz was more interested in finding out about her mysterious companion, but Graham was right; she couldn't pretend. Another Doctor, another woman? It was an exciting prospect.
"Do you think there're versions of us in this 'other universe'?"
"Maybe," Graham said.
"Maybe we've never met the Doctor."
"Maybe Grace would still be…"
"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I shouldn't have brought that up," she said quickly, feeling immediately guilty. It was a sad truth that Grace's death was related to the Doctor's presence in their lives, even if it had been a tragic accident… "Probably won't see ourselves here, though. Not in Brighton, in the future. I've never been a fan of the south."
"I'll pretend I'm not offended by that," he said. She laughed a little.
Eventually, though, Yaz began to wonder that perhaps the Doctor was wrong. Wrong about where to find this woman, because they were drawing a blank in every single place they went. Nobody knew the name, nobody could provide them with additional details, a surname. She was beginning to wonder that they wouldn't have more luck searching through a phone book for anyone called 'Clara', or even searching on the internet like she'd done to find the Lightning Girl. With all the shops closed, it was only social spots they could investigate, many of which were now slowly filling up with people seeking a hearty dinner and air conditioning. Yaz was now glad the Doctor had convinced them to eat some chips.
They found themselves straying further into the suburbs, streets that didn't have as much life as the city centre and only a smattering of night venues.
"Do you see that?" Yaz asked, subtly indicating to Graham a woman across the street standing outside of a run-down building with a cigarette. "I can't believe people still smoke in this day and age."
"Tell me about it. I can hardly believe they still smoke in 2019," he sighed, "The amount of damage cigarettes have done to the human race – makes you wonder if there's any point trying to get us to quit."
"I seriously thought they'd be illegal by this point in time."
"Well, lots of things are illegal and people still get their hands on them."
"I suppose. Come on," Yaz shook her head, disillusioned with the future, and they went on their way. Until the girl with the cigarette started shouting.
For a split second, Yaz thought she was shouting at them, like she'd somehow heard their disapproval of a stranger's cigarette habit, but she'd flicked the cigarette onto the curb where the glowing stub began to burn itself out, turning into the alleyway behind her.
"Hold on, what's going on there?" Yaz said, squinting. It was hard to see in the shadows, the streetlamps not illuminating the area very well.
"Nothing good," said Graham. He looked up the street both ways, then began to cross, Yaz following at his heels. She wasn't sure how he was planning on intervening, but she had police training up her sleeve. Though in a world where people had superpowers, she didn't know how useful that would be; she'd never tried to arrest Superman.
But she was horrified when they came close enough to see what was happening: a police officer, male, tall, and grizzled, was in the middle of berating a teenager girl young enough to still be in school. He had a pair of handcuffs out and ready to use, while the girl was backing away towards the wall. Arguing from a few feet away was the smoker.
"It's the law, miss," the police officer said to the smoker, the girl trapped in the dead-end alleyway, "A Manifest using their powers is intimidation."
"She didn't use any powers," the smoker argued, "You don't know if she's a Manifest."
"I was drugged," the girl said, beginning to sob, "Somebody drugged me, please."
"Typical junkie-talk," said the copper, "Come on, princess. Don't resist arrest or the charges will be much worse."
"Arrest!? You don't have anything to charge with! She hasn't committed a crime!"
"She threatened me-"
"She did no such fucking thing, I've been right there for the last five minutes. You chased her down here and trapped her – it's completely immoral, and illegal. How about I report you for wrongful arrest?"
He laughed at her, "The Xboost epidemic needs to be contained with any means necessary."
"And attacking innocent people you just suspect of being Manifests is a part of that now, is it? And I didn't want to believe the rumours that the government were being fucking complicit – but I suppose since Prometheus doesn't have a private army, somebody has to be marching them to those prisons."
"M.O.C.s are not prisons, they're rehabilitation facilities."
"Really? Because I'm reminded of a regime in the 1940s who had very similar descriptions for what they were doing. I try to see the best in people, but maybe the police really are fascists." Yaz didn't take kindly to that, but under the circumstances, she did not intervene. The stranger talked quite quickly and always had her next sentence prepared, which didn't give Yaz and Graham – powerless voyeurs – a chance to do anything. Neither of them knew enough about the political situation to weigh in, but the girl was growing more and more distressed.
"You're very passionate about Manifests," he said coldly, studying her. She froze up for a few seconds. Uh-oh, Yaz thought.
"There's a difference between being a Manifest and being a person with basic empathy."
"She's a criminal, and if you don't leave, you will be, too. Aiding and abetting."
"Oh, sure. Just rattle off your bullshit charges at me."
"No!" the girl protested as the officer approached her again. She kicked wildly in his direction and managed to strike him in the shin.
"You little bitch," he cursed, wincing. That was all the intimidation he needed. In a second he had unhooked the stocky truncheon from his belt. The girl slipped, fell to the floor, screaming in horror as he raised the weapon. What they saw next, however, they were not prepared for. As soon as he began the strike, the stranger disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, only to reappear instantaneously between the vulnerable girl and the violent policeman. He didn't hesitate, bringing down truncheon and striking the smoker hard in the side of her face, knocking her to the floor. Yaz was sure they had just witnessed a teleport, one the likes of which she had never seen.
It was only set to get more chaotic, though. Upon seeing what had happened to her attempted rescuer, the girl wailed and then lunged for the officer. She grabbed hold of his face before he could defend herself. Yaz knew an attempted gouge when she saw one, but this time it took a much nastier turn. The police officer was suddenly the one in pain, the one shrieking. He collapsed to his knees and the girl let go, revealing a big, blistering wound on his face in the shape of a handprint. The girl's hand shone strangely in the glow from the streetlamp, a greenish substance clinging to the skin.
"Oh, no…" she said, staring at what she had done.
"Go, get out of here," the stranger, crouched on the floor and nursing her face, ordered, waving her arm towards the alleyway exit. The girl did as advised, fleeing, Graham and Yaz dodging to either side lest they meet the same face as the burned police officer.
"You Manifests… you're fucking monsters…" the police officer said, clutching his hands to his face. It was the stranger's turn to escape. She staggered to her feet and also ran off, barely noticing Yaz and Graham. Without a word, Yaz took off in her pursuit. At any rate, she would have knowledge of whatever was going on with the Manifests, and she couldn't stand by and let police brutality fly. It was her responsibility as a police officer herself to stop things like that happening. But being as she wasn't working in the 2060s, wasn't in uniform, and doubted she would command the respect of the violent copper anyway, she thought ensuring the victims were okay was a better use of her time.
She followed the stranger down the road for a very short distance, until she turned into a nondescript, graffitied-on doorway. But Yaz wasn't prepared to see her literally pass through the door like she was a ghost, like it wasn't even there. She almost walked flat into the wood herself.
"Come on, I think he's following us. I don't want to end up in a holding cell with that maniac outside," Graham said, "Who'd hit a young girl like that?" Yaz pushed open the door, hearing the lumbering copper on their trail. It opened onto a thin, crooked staircase with another, darkened doorway at the bottom. The pair of them scrambled down the stairs to get away from the pursuer.
Yet again, they were surprised. First police violence, then superpowers, and now an underground pub. It was very empty, stripped brick walls, a stained bar, rickety wooden tables and a TV not quite as advanced as the one in the café they'd been in earlier. There were two male patrons sitting at a table in the corner with a pint of beer between them, then a blonde girl with an accent in the middle of a very animated argument with the young bartender.
"You're just ignoring all of the inherent problems with Perestroika," she said, "Those economic policies are US-led and only went to further the demise of the Soviet Union."
"And you're ignoring the inherent problems with the entire Soviet Union."
"Gorbachev was – oh my god, what happened to your face?" the blonde, whom Yaz now realised was American, asked the stranger.
"Cover for me," she said, grabbing a jacket from the blonde's lap where she'd had it folded up. The stranger also stole a fedora from on top of the bartender's head. Graham tugged on Yaz's elbow to pull her over to an empty table, while the stranger put on the hat and the jacket and went to lift up the lid on an antique piano standing against the wall. She began to play something Yaz recognised just as they heard the door forced open above. Seconds later, the police officer and his burned face burst in, waving the truncheon around like he was itching for somebody to hit. The girl just kept right on playing the piano, while Yaz tried to work out what the song was.
"Did a girl just come in here?" he demanded.
"A girl?" asked the bartender, "No, I don't think so. Nobody's come in or out for about half an hour."
"You're full of it," he said, "Where is she?" His vision was impaired by the wound, so he only had one eye in working order.
"Haven't seen anybody, big guy," said the American, leaning on the bar.
"…Who runs this place?"
"I do," said the American quickly, cutting across the bartender.
"Do you have a liquor license?"
"A liquor license? What kind of bar proprietor would I be if I didn't have a liquor license?" From the back pocket of her jeans, she took out a black, battered leather wallet, flipping it open and holding it up to the officer. Only, the paper inside the wallet was completely blank. Yaz looked at Graham, eyes wide, and he gave her a look that told her he had seen it too: psychic paper. The officer came lumbering over and squinted at the page. "Take your time. I'm here all night."
"Hrmph…" he grunted, "And you say you didn't see a girl come through here? A Manifest?"
"I wouldn't let a Manifest in my establishment. Too dangerous," said the American coolly, withdrawing the psychic paper and putting it away again. "Is everything in order?"
"…Must've gone somewhere else…" he turned to leave.
"Well, don't be a stranger! I always love a visit from the boys in blue, what with me being such an upstanding citizen," the American called after him. "You might wanna check out a hospital for your face!" They heard him clamber up the stairs pass through the door on street-level and leave. There was still a long pause while everybody in the bar made sure that he was gone. The stranger stopped playing the piano abruptly. "Tainted Love? Really?" the American asked as she got down from her barstool to go and see to the stranger. That was the song, Yaz realised.
"I thought it was fitting," she said, then began to play the first verse again and half-sang, "Sometimes I feel I've got to, run away, I've got to, get away-"
"Lemme look at your face," she said, sitting down with her legs straddling the piano bench, grabbing the stranger's chin and turning it gently so she could see the wound. "Oh, Coo, why did he hit you? What's going on?"
"I merely did what anyone would do."
"Which was what? Couldja get me some ice, Raj?" she called over her shoulder at the bartender.
"Sure, Doctor," he said. Yaz almost gasped.
"Intervening in an act of deplorable police brutality," said the smoker, "He was trying to hit this girl. She burned his face with acid-hands."
"Acid hands? Nice."
"Maybe he saw me teleport."
"Do you think he could recognise you?"
"Um…"
"We'd better deal with that… later." Raj walked out from around the bar and handed the American a tea towel full of broken ice cubes. She held it up to the bloody wound on the side of the smoker's face. "Socked you right by your eye."
"Do you think it'll bruise?"
"Yeah. Sorry about that."
"You should kiss it better." That took Yaz by surprise.
She laughed, "I would, but I don't know where that truncheon's been. Probably covered in bacon grease – damn pigs. Stay still. It's not so bad, luckily. Why didn't you just phase?"
"It all happened very fast, I don't know."
"You never phase when you need to." The smoker grimaced.
"I hope he doesn't come back here and find out we actually don't have a liquor license," Raj mumbled, "Can I have my hat back?"
"You should get rid of this hat," said the smoker, "It gives you a vibe. Like you're a fuckboy from 2010."
"It gives you the same vibe," said the American.
"Ah, but I am a fuckboy from 2010, sweetheart."
"Ain't that the truth," she muttered, knocking off the hat from the girl's head onto the floor.
"Wow," she said monotonously, looking at the fallen hat, "Domestic violence."
"Stay still. Do you have a concussion?"
"Excuse me," Yaz finally interjected, getting up from her table and addressing them. "Are you Clara?"
"Depends who's asking," said the smoker.
"And you're the Doctor?" Yaz asked the American.
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
"Thank god! We've been looking for you all over, both of you," said Yaz.
Raj cleared his throat to talk to her, however, "I'm afraid this bar is for Manifests only. If you're not a Manifest, then-" He disappeared into thin air. Nobody else took much note of this. The Doctor and Clara merely looked at the place where he had been, the Doctor still with her hands on Clara's face so she could nurse the injury. Was she wearing a wedding ring?
"What's happened?" Graham asked them.
"He does that sometimes," Clara explained. They waited, and after a brief interval, Raj reappeared. "Where'd you go?"
"Colombia, 1979. The set of Cannibal Holocaust."
"Awesome!" the Doctor exclaimed, beaming, "That's one heck of a movie."
"I might be sick…" he muttered, shaking his head. A Manifest, clearly – with the power to travel through time?
Behind Yaz and Graham, the doors were thrown open. For a horrible second, she thought it must be the copper returning, but to her immense relief, it was the Doctor – the real Doctor – followed by Ryan. She took one glance around the room, then grinned and pointed at the other Doctor and Clara with both arms.
"Yaz! Graham! You found them! Well done!"
"You didn't say they were a couple," Yaz told her.
"…Didn't I?"
"Wait, what?" Ryan asked.
"We're married," Clara interrupted, standing up from the piano, "But who are you? Why are you looking for us?" They were married!?
"It's me! The Doctor! You!" she pointed at the American, "Only not quite you."
"Wait, you're, like, my future?" she asked.
"No!" the Doctor laughed and shook her head, "Hang on, let me think… Ah! You used to call me Old Twelvey."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa… you're that jerk-off?" the American grew much colder as soon as she was given this news. "And you're here? I think you might be a bit lost. Took a wrong turn at an interdimensional rift, or something."
"You definitely didn't say anything about being married to her," Yaz persisted.
"I was never married to her," said the Doctor, "That's their thing. I wouldn't say I'm the marriage type, they never seem to end well. Eh, no offence. I'm sure you two are going to have a long, happy marriage. I hope you do."
"I don't," Clara muttered.
"Here I am tending to your wounds – and for what?" the American Doctor argued.
"You tell me. Raj – could you get us some drinks?"
"Erm… maybe you should go," he said, "Sorry, but we should probably close up in case that arsehole brings a patrol around."
"What happened?" asked the real Doctor.
"A kid outside got attacked for being one of these Manifests, by a police officer," Graham explained, "Clara stepped in and took the blow for her so she could get away from him, but then he followed her down here."
"Did he have a big burn on his face?"
"That's the one."
"We walked past him," said Ryan, "He was radioing for backup."
"Then we're closing. Nate, Johan," Raj called at the two men in the corner, who hadn't said a word and kept themselves to themselves, "We're closing, to avoid the police. Sorry. Closed for the next week, to be safe."
"Right you are, Raj," nodded one of them. They made their exit while Clara and the American gathered up their things.
"What's this crap?" Clara asked. She'd tried to put her hands in her pockets, the pockets of a hoodie which she had taken from the American Doctor. She opened her palm to reveal a curled-up trading card.
"That's a Shiny Charizard, Clara – it's worth, like, thousands of dollars. Educate yourself," she snatched the card from Clara. "I was wondering where this went! What else is in those pockets?"
"God knows, but now my hands are sticky. Here, you can have it back," she took off the hoodie and returned it to the American Doctor.
"Nice to know my clothes aren't good enough for you anymore."
"Well, I'm actually wearing your underwear right now, so." That was way too much information. None of them had a clue how to react to that throwaway comment. "What is it you four want from us, exactly? Can't you just take the TARDIS and go back to your own universe?"
"We were told to come here," the Doctor explained, "We ran into the Lightning Girl. She told us to come to Brighton."
"Nice of her to give us some forewarning," the American Doctor complained, heading off towards the door. Yaz knew what the Real Doctor had meant about her being unfriendly now. "I guess you'd better come with us, then. Unless you wanna stick around for a police raid?" They hastened to follow the other Doctor and Clara back up to the street, where they began to lead them in the opposite direction of the city centre. Out towards the suburbs.
"So you do know her? The Lightning Girl?" the Doctor asked, keeping up with them while Yaz, Ryan and Graham drifted behind.
"She's a good friend," said Clara, "Comes for dinner sometimes, and for D&D night. I can't believe date night's been cut so short," she addressed this now to the American Doctor, her wife, a revelation which had stunned Yaz (all of them, in fact) into silence. "We were gonna go to the cinema."
"We can go next week."
"It's only the one-hundredth anniversary of Dr. Strangelove for so long, sweetheart."
"Coo, we have a time machine."
"Coo!" exclaimed the Real Doctor. They both looked at her. "I mean… I forgot you called her that. It's cute! Isn't it cute, Yaz?"
"Uh, yeah, sure…"
"Where are we going? To your TARDIS?"
"The TARDIS?" the American Doctor almost laughed, "No. Can't say I know where the TARDIS is at the moment."
"You lost the TARDIS!?"
"No, I did not lose it, it's just… under new management. Jenny has it."
"Who's Jenny?" asked Graham. Yaz couldn't believe the Doctor would trust anybody else with her TARDIS.
"My daughter," said the American Doctor.
"Daughter?" Yaz was shocked, "First you have a secret wife, now you have a secret daughter?"
"You've never asked me if I have a daughter!" the Real Doctor protested, "I don't see her very often. Speaking of seeing people, though, I saw Adam Mitchell, on the TV. He's more of a socialist than I remember."
"He's a dirty commie, and I love that about him," said the American Doctor, "The unmitigated filthiness of leftist political thinking. The degeneracy is exquisite." Clara laughed.
"Is it still going out with your sister?"
"Oh, sure," said Clara, "They've been married for ages, although she still has a habit of calling him her boyfriend."
"Our favourite brother-in-law." So they did know the Lightning Girl, and Adam Mitchell, very well. Here was a Doctor with connections to people, family connections – wife, daughter, brothers and sisters-in-law. It was a far cry from the isolation of their Doctor.
"Yeah – what's the deal with this Xboost thing?" the Doctor pressed them.
"It's a street drug that makes Manifests," said Clara, "But Manifests are… not thought of too kindly."
"Remind me, again, I'm a little foggy on the details."
"Well, to become a Manifest, you either have to be drugged with the Manifest serum and then have an adrenaline boost to trigger the powers to 'manifest', or you have to be a genetic descendant of one of the people who was drugged with the serum," said Clara, "The original Manifest Crisis lasted for, like, twenty years, until my sister managed to come up with a universal cure. Not that everybody took it, and even if they did, the mutation remained latent."
"If she made a cure, why are you still a Manifest?"
"Time vortex interferes with it," the American Doctor said, "Creates an additional strain. Oswin calls it a 'corrupted strain.' She hasn't been able to cure that one, not that anybody's really been asking her too. I guess they've all been grateful that you drugged them."
"What?" Yaz asked.
"Oh…" the Real Doctor mumbled, looking sheepish, "I forgot about that…"
"What happened? What have we missed?" Graham asked.
"There was this coffee," the American Doctor talked over the Real one, "Imbued with the Manifest serum. Clara and Rose took it originally, Oswin gave some to Adam because… well, she's crazy, she does things like that. And then you decided to give the remains that had been soaking in temporal radiation for months to everybody else, remember? Because I'm pretty sure they do."
"Maybe my last regeneration wasn't the best… but, well, who can honestly look back at themselves a few years ago and not be embarrassed?"
"She's got a point," said Clara.
"What?" the American Doctor was affronted that Clara didn't immediately take her side.
"You don't like any of the other Doctors, any of your past selves. Not even Eleven." Whatever that meant, and Yaz wasn't entirely sure, it made her shut up. "Sorry – what are your names, again? I didn't quite catch them – I'm Clara, Oswald."
"This is Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, and Graham O'Brien," the Doctor introduced them in turn, "Graham's a bus driver, Ryan works in a warehouse, Yaz is in the police."
"The police?" the American Doctor said disdainfully.
"Then I'm a teacher," said Clara, ignoring her wife, "We both are."
"Both of you?" the Doctor frowned, "Teaching what?"
"English. She's History because there weren't any science vacancies."
"And, what? You're saying you live here? You actually live in Brighton? You have a job?" the Doctor stared at her counterpart.
"At least I don't hang out with cops."
"Calm down, sweetheart. Jenny worked with the police for a while."
"Jenny has a habit of working with undesirable people. Never had a moral job in her life, apart from the bakery. And even then, everybody in that village is brainwashed," the American Doctor said. They were finally out of the city centre, truly in Brighton's middle-class suburbia. "Why didn't we take the car?"
"Because we don't live that far, parking in the city is a nightmare, and I was planning on drinking," Clara told her. Then she reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, Marlboros.
"I can't believe people in the future still smoke," Yaz said, voicing her complaints from earlier.
"It is quite grim," the Real Doctor agreed. Clara was indifferent, lighting her cigarette with what looked like an antique, silver lighter with strange carvings on it. "What is that?" the Real Doctor said. Clara showed it to her.
"Present," she said, "For our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary."
"You got her a cigarette lighter?" the Real Doctor asked the American Doctor incredulously.
"It's a battle I've given up. She never quits for more than two weeks at a time."
"I've been violently assaulted by an officer of the law, so I'm going have a cigarette, thank you very much," and then Clara blew smoke in the American Doctor's face on purpose, who coughed and waved her hand. Yaz hated the stench.
"Did you say twenty-fifth anniversary?" Graham asked.
"Last year was fifty," said Clara, "Two-thirds of my life, wasted."
"But you don't look anywhere near old enough."
"I'm being kept eternally young," said Clara, "Technological intervention. And before you start on wifey-poo here-"
"Call me that again and you'll regret it," the American muttered. Clara ignored her.
"-it was actually my sister who did it. She's dead, see. A hologram. She couldn't bear the thought of me growing old and dying." It was only then that Yaz noticed Clara had a large scar running the full length of her left arm, a burn spreading from the back of her hand, worst at her wrist, and then up towards her shoulder. She decided not to ask about it, however.
"How is Oswin? She still, erm…" the Doctor began, but was unsure what to say.
"Still what? Broken? Unable to walk or be left alone for more than ten minutes at a time? Very much so. She's okay at the moment, though. Still on the TARDIS, with Adam and Jenny."
"What about everybody else?" the Doctor asked. Clara faltered, but something else caught her attention.
"Ah, here we are," she said, indicating a house they were approaching. It was, on the whole, a very regular looking house. The only notable thing was a vivid blue, 1960s Volkswagen camper van sitting in the driveway. They turned into the drive towards the front door.
"A house!?" the Doctor exclaimed, "A house!? A car!? A wife!? A job!? No TARDIS!?" Yaz, too, could not quite believe that these Doctors were the same person. But neither the American Doctor nor Clara Oswald offered an explanation, Clara taking a set of keys out of her pocket and unlocking the front door. Inside, the lights were on. "Next you'll tell me you have kids!"
"Funny you should say that…" Clara mumbled.
"What? What? Don't tell me – you don't – you can't-"
"Rose?" Clara called when she opened the door, "We have guests, so you better not have eaten all my ice cream."
"I was saving it for later," a London accent called back, "You said you wouldn't be back until eleven. It's barely eight." Clara held the door open for the other four to enter. They found themselves in a living room with two armchairs and a sofa, stacked high with books and photographs (many of Clara and the other Doctor), and a fish tank in the corner. In the armchair closest to the glass television, a young woman was sitting, who looked around in surprise at the interlopers. "Who're these?"
"Rose!" exclaimed the Real Doctor, "It's been so long!"
"Who are you?"
"Old Twelvey's regenerated into a hyperactive Yorkshirewoman," Clara explained.
"Oh, right. And who are they?"
"New blood, I suppose," said Clara, "Where's Matts?"
"Upstairs, she's on the phone, or video chat, something like that," Rose shrugged.
"You do have kids! I can't believe this!" the Real Doctor exclaimed.
"She's not theirs," said Rose, indifferent, turning back to the TV. She looked very comfortable, not wearing shoes and curled up in the chair with a cup of tea in her hands. She was watching Come Dine With Me. Nice to know they still had that in the future.
"Matilda is Mickey and Martha's daughter," the American Doctor said, kicking off her shoes. The Real Doctor, along with Yaz, Ryan and Graham, all sat down in a cramped line on the sofa.
"What happened to your face?" Rose called after Clara when Clara went into the kitchen.
"Got attacked by a cop for being a Manifest. Hit me in the face with a truncheon."
"Probably enjoyed it," said Rose.
"Ha, ha."
"Why are they here? Did they lose their TARDIS?"
"They ran into Esther and Esther told them to come here, or so they say," said the American Doctor. Was that the Lightning Girl's name? Esther?
"We met her on a rain machine," the Real Doctor leant forwards to talk to them, "Someone planted bombs on it, professionally manufactured bombs, she said were designed to detonate when she touched them. And she said it wasn't the first time it had happened. But I'm way more interested in Mickey and Martha's daughter, why is she here? Where are they?"
"Well, they…" Rose began.
"They died," the American Doctor said, "In July. Just a few months ago. We have the house and the jobs in a school, so we were the ones who became her guardians."
"I'm her godmother, though," Rose added, "Jack's the godfather."
"How old is she?"
"Well, she ages slowly, because she's a Manifest," said the American Doctor, "Because somebody gave her parents drugged, Manifest serum coffee, so she inherited the gene from them. She takes about three years to visibly age one year. We call them long-years and short-years. She's fifteen in long-years, fifty in short-years."
"Seems like an inefficient system," said the Real Doctor.
"Do you have a better one?" Rose asked, eyes fixed on the TV, "Oh, mate… that meringue mixture is not set properly…" The woman on the TV tipped a bowl of meringue over her head, and true to Rose's word, it slid out of the bowl and landed on her hair. "She's not gonna score higher than a five from anyone, I guarantee."
Clara returned to the doorway between the kitchen and the living room having retrieved an icepack she now had pressed against the side of her face, "Who's for tea?" she asked.
"Oh, I'll do it," said the American Doctor, "You go find the disinfectant and fix your face – not that there's much that can be fixed when it comes to your face."
"Funny," Clara said dryly as the American Doctor walked past her, casting a smirk in her direction, and went into the kitchen, "I don't know where the first aid kit is."
"It's literally right next to you, near Captain Nemo. Because he bit me again last week? Remember?"
"I did tell you to make sure to wear the chainmail," said Clara, turning towards the fish tank and searching around aimlessly on the floor next to it.
"Who's 'Captain Nemo'?" Ryan asked the Real Doctor in a whisper, but she just shrugged. They were all trying to take in their surroundings. The house's contents were certainly weird enough to belong to the Doctor: the books, for one thing, crawling over every available surface, but there was also a video cassette player underneath the TV. Yaz's attention was drawn to all the photographs, though, mostly wedding photographs, but the strange thing was they looked like they were different weddings.
"Rose, could you go see if Mattie wants any tea?" the American Doctor called through again, "But tell her she has to come downstairs to get it." Rose sighed and didn't respond. For a second Yaz thought she would ignore the request but was alarmed when the girl simply disappeared in a flurry of gold dust.
"What was that!? That's not a normal teleport," the Real Doctor was horrified at what she had seen. Clara had just found the first aid kit, however, a green box that had gotten kicked underneath the armchair and was tearing open a sterile antiseptic wipe.
"Better than my shite teleports," Clara muttered, flinching while she cleaned the bloody wound on her face. It was going to come out in a nasty bruise, Yaz could tell. "It's just Rose, you know how she is. The Bad Wolf, and all that."
"No human being – no living creature at all – should have that much power," the Real Doctor said seriously. Clara only laughed, and then Rose was able to speak for herself, reappearing in the same haze of gold sparkles outside the kitchen.
"Mattie says she'll have tea," Rose said, holding out her own, empty mug to the American Doctor, who disappeared into the kitchen again after nodding.
"The Yorkshire Doctor is questioning whether you've been corrupted by power," Clara remarked.
"What? I'm fine," Rose dismissed her, "I get enough of that from my husband."
"Who's your husband?" Ryan asked.
"The Doctor," she said.
"What?" Yaz stared at the Real Doctor, "The Doctor!? You've been married to two humans!?"
"This is a parallel universe!" the Doctor protested, "I didn't marry Rose, either."
"Just fell in love with her, pining from afar," said Clara, using her phone screen as a mirror while she sorted out her injury.
"I wouldn't say I was pining."
"I would," said Rose, sitting back down in front of the TV. "You haven't told these three an awful lot, have you? Did you tell them about River? Because she's someone you definitely did marry in both universes."
"Uh…" the Doctor faltered, "We haven't really had the time to get into those sorts of details…"
"Wait until they find out about Elizabeth I and Marilyn Monroe," Clara jibed, making Rose laugh. Elizabeth I!? Marilyn Monroe!?
"Hey!" the American shouted through, "Don't say her name! You'll summon her, and you know how tetchy she is." Clara rolled her eyes.
"We keep her ghost in a jar upstairs," she said, like this was any sort of legitimate explanation a reasonable person would accept.
"Sorry, Marilyn's ghost?" the Real Doctor asked.
"Yeah. We thought it was a hoax, but then we tried to watch Some Like it Hot and she went all poltergeist. It's impossible to have a conversation with her."
"And you had a thing for that girl on the space-Titanic, Astrid, right?" Rose continued, "And what about Christina?"
"I wasn't interested in Christina like that!" the Doctor protested.
"Amy tried to shag you," said Clara.
"Well, she was very confused."
"So many young, vulnerable women."
The American Doctor returned to the doorway, "I can hear you, you know. If I was a vindictive person, I'd bring up one of the dozens of other people you've slept with." She vanished before Clara could argue about this.
"Unbelievable…"
"You have shagged loads of people, to be fair," said Rose.
"Forget about this, nobody's interested in Clara's back catalogue," the Real Doctor said. Yaz certainly wasn't. "I'm more interested in you claiming to be the Bad Wolf, again. That power is going to destroy you. You can't handle it."
"God, you're like a broken bloody record," Rose shook her head, "I'm literally a god."
"How can you be a god?" Graham asked.
"I can manipulate all of time and space and the entire universe," she said, "But only the one universe, though. Couldn't do anything in yours. I'm just a… vessel, for the time vortex, though. It doesn't control me, and I don't even try to control it." Rose was saved from having to explain further when an eighth person entered the room, a teenage girl. She absorbed all of the Real Doctor's attention from the moment she appeared, stopping dead when she saw how many people were there.
"What's going on?" the girl, who must be Mattie, asked, "You aren't having D&D night without me, are you? You can't do that – I have all the mana potions."
"No, sweetheart," Clara said, "This is the Doctor. From another universe. And these are her companions."
"Sorry, can I just – you look just like her," the Real Doctor said, staring, "Like a small Martha. If Martha wore glasses and didn't have any tattoos."
"Oh. Thanks. What happened to your face?" she turned back to Clara.
"Got attacked for being annoying, probably," said Rose.
"It wasn't for being annoying," Clara snapped.
"Are you sure? You are quite annoying."
"I got hit by a police officer who was trying to illegally assault a Manifest, I stepped in," Clara said, "The girl got away, thank god. Then he called for backup to raid the bar we were in."
"What kind of dodgy bar was it?" she asked, sitting down on the arm of Rose's chair.
"Illegal Manifest speakeasy."
"What are you gonna tell people at school?"
"Tell them my wife hits me," she said, taking out a plaster. Yaz hoped that was a joke.
"Coo, can you help me with the mugs?" the American Doctor shouted. Clara set the first aid kit down and returned momentarily performing quite the feat. First, she had teleported, then walked through a closed door, and now she held out one hand while eight mugs floated in front of her.
"Whoa!" said Ryan, staring. "How many superpowers do you have?"
"Like, three," said Clara, "Rose has the incredible ability to change her eye colour at will."
"Shut up, Clara," said Rose.
"Ouch," said Clara, "You're in my house." The American Doctor proceeded to pluck the hot mugs out of the air and hand them to everybody individually.
"Doctor-" Ryan began, eagerly addressing the Real Doctor.
"The answer's no," she said.
"I didn't even ask-"
"No, you're not taking the weird superpower drugs."
"Changed your tune about who gets to take the drugs," the American Doctor remarked. There was definitely some kind of atmosphere between them, the American Doctor keeping the Real one at arm's length, trying to appear aloof.
"What's that mean?" asked Mattie, taking her tea. The mug she took had zombies on the side.
"This Doctor is the one who drugged everybody on the TARDIS – except for me and Clara – and made them Manifests," said Rose.
"What? You drugged my parents?" Mattie questioned.
"No – not – I – it wasn't-" the Real Doctor mumbled, "Clara helped me. My Clara. Before… forget about that."
"Right… well, I'm going back upstairs…" Mattie said, her demeanour towards them changing, "I was talking to Aki about Stranger Things, so… you should put a plaster on your face." She left.
"You should," the American Doctor added to Clara, "I'll do it."
"I don't mean to be rude," began Graham, "But – why are all the wedding photos so different?"
"We've had six weddings," said Clara as the American Doctor looked through the first aid kit for a plaster.
"It's to compensate for the fact they were pissed and eloped for the first one, and neither of them can remember it," Rose said.
"I'll be the first to admit how unfortunate it was that I needed alcohol – which I normally avoid at all costs – to tell her how I feel," said the American Doctor, gently putting the plaster over the wound on Clara's face, just above her left cheekbone. "Could you imagine what might have happened if I never told her? What kind of miserable, old wretch I might have become?" An unusual pause spread throughout the room. "And what would have happened to Clara? She might have descended into a self-destructive spiral, tried to be a hero and made herself into a martyr. Only for those events to weigh on my conscience for who-knows-how-many years." These words were clearly being chosen deliberately, and the Real Doctor grew markedly uncomfortable, as well as irritated, but Yaz wasn't sure what to think. It was as though they were all speaking in riddles.
A knock sounded on the front door, loud and deliberate. Rather than get up to answer it, nobody in the living room moved. Clara checked her phone after the American Doctor lightly smoothed down the plaster with her thumb.
"Nobody's texted to say they're coming over," she said. Another knock.
"I know you're in, I can hear you all breathing," a voice shouted from outside, a woman. Rose's reaction was to roll her eyes and then return to the television. It appeared they recognised her.
"What do you want?" Clara asked.
"I need to use the TV," she shouted through the letterbox, pushing it open.
"Don't you have a TV in London?"
"I need the local news," the woman continued. Clara said nothing. "Come on, I won't stay."
"Door's unlocked."
"Ha, ha. Very funny. You have to invite me."
"Invite her? Who is that?" the Real Doctor whispered.
"Who've you got in there?" the woman asked, "I don't recognise the smells."
"You should stop smelling people, Sally," Rose said, "It's creepy."
"Let me in."
"If I let you in, will you shag me?" Clara continued. The American Doctor scoffed like she was used to this. Yaz was alarmed by the comment.
"No," said the woman – Sally?
"I suppose you're not coming in then, are you?" She kicked the door. "Bloody hell! Don't do that!"
"Just let her in," said Rose, "She's more annoying out there than she is in here."
"You can come in," the American Doctor gave up.
"Oi!" Clara hissed at her as the door was forced open, "She was definitely about to let me shag her." Yaz didn't understand it at all; Clara had a wife, so who was she trying to proposition?
"You've got no chance, mate," said Rose.
"Sally Sparrow!" the Real Doctor shouted.
"Person I've never met!" 'Sally Sparrow' copied her tone of surprise exactly, snatching the remote from Rose and standing in front of the TV to flick through the channels rapidly, much to Rose's ire.
"I take it back," grumbled Rose, "She's equally annoying no matter where she is."
"What's going on? Is this a party?" Sally looked around, then addressed Clara, "Have you two finally started swinging?"
"If we were, you and Esther would be top of our list," Clara jibed. Sally glared at her.
"Haven't you gotten sick of making that joke yet?"
"I'll stop if you sleep with me."
"And that one, too."
"I don't get it," the Real Doctor piped up, "How are you not… old? Do none of you age?
"Shh, shh," Sally said, finally finding a local news station. Nothing of note was reported on, though, just the weather and a few cultural events which weren't very interesting. Sally Sparrow was disheartened by what she did, or didn't, find. "Have you heard about any murders recently? Nasty ones?"
"No," said Clara, "Why? Have you been killing people?"
"It's nothing to do with me, but there are these murders in London, and now there's one in Brighton, and the news hasn't reported on any of them."
"Then how would you know about it?"
"Saw it on Esther's computer while she was out." Esther the Lightning Girl, presumably. "Police have filed the reports, but they come back as suicides with no follow-up investigations. I've never known any suicide victim to rip out their own throats, though. She got a notification – which I saw, because she's away – like, forty-five minutes ago, about one being called in in Brighton. It's the same MO, as far as I can see, and somebody's covering it up."
"So you think there's a vampire on the loose?" Cue panicked and horrified reactions from Yaz, Ryan, Graham and the Real Doctor. Vampires!?
"There's no way vampires are real," said Yaz.
"Case and point," said Clara, literally pointing at Sally, who stuck her tongue out in response. "Mature."
"A vampire!? How did that happen!?" the Real Doctor demanded of the American.
"Because-" Sally began, only for the American Doctor to immediately interrupt.
"She was attacked. In the street. What were we supposed to do? Execute her? She's never hurt anybody. Oswin manufactures cloned synthetic blood. No humans required. Sal – this is Old Twelvey's regeneration and her new companions. From the other universe. Don't scare them too much."
"Sorry," she said sarcastically, "Look, if you lot are interested, the body for this most recent murder is locked up in Brighton & Hove's police morgue, wherever that is. It's worth having a look at, to determine if it is a vampire attack."
"Sally has a vested interest in preventing other, more violent vampires from wreaking chaos," the American Doctor continued, "Like… vampire police. Vampire secret police, maybe."
"And it's just you? No other vampires?" the Real Doctor asked.
Sally met the American Doctor's eyes with an impossible to decipher expression, and then said, "Apparently." What on Earth did that mean? They didn't have much time to wonder about what it meant, however, because a robotic voice began to address the American Doctor from an unseen place, which was certainly a cause for alarm.
"Doctor, I have intercepted a phone call to the local police from a woman claiming to have seen a zombie in Brighton and Preston Cemetery."
"Did you say 'zombie'?" the American Doctor exclaimed.
"Sorry, is that an AI? You have an AI in your house?" the Real Doctor interjected.
"Negative, I am a virtual intelligence of Qatar origin, my name is Helix," said the voice, "Any indication of thought is an advanced illusion. Kill all humans."
"Did it just say, 'kill all humans'?" Ryan asked.
"My sister programmes him, makes him say stuff like that," said Clara, "She has plenty of real AIs, though, if you want to talk to one of them."
"But Nios never answers her phone," said Sally.
"Shut up, shut up," the American Doctor shushed them, "Helix, did you say zombie?"
"Affirmative, Doctor. This is the terminology the woman used. She reports witnessing a human being dig their way out of a grave."
"Okay, and what do you mean when you say 'intercepted'? Did the police get the call at all?"
"Negative, I posed as a dispatcher and advised the woman that the authorities were on their way and she should retreat to the nearest point of complete safety," the robot, Helix, continued.
"Good. While I've got you, could you scrub all the CCTV footage around the Silver Room and erase anything that shows Clara in an altercation with a police officer? And if there's another girl in the footage, try to identify her, please and thanks."
"Affirmative, Doctor. I will inform the necessary parties when the task is complete."
"So," the American Doctor said after a moment, "Who wants to go to the police morgue to look at a vampire victim, and who wants to go to the cemetery to find a zombie?"
AN: Happy Pride month! And also it was my 21st birthday yesterday!