Regenderation: Part Five

Clara

"Okay. So. To get through a locked door, we need… we need… what do we need?" Clara opened her mouth to answer when the Doctor clapped her hands. "We need a sonic screwdriver. And my sonic screwdriver is…" she looked down at her clothes and thought very hard about where her sonic screwdriver was. Clara crossed her arms and waited. "Why haven't I got any pockets? I used to have loads of pockets, to put all sorts of things. Oh my god." She grabbed Clara's forearm and gasped. "I finally understand how Donna felt that time I abducted her at her wedding. How are we supposed to get into this basement now?" She let go of Clara and leant down to squint at the doorknob. "Do you have a lock-pick?"

"No."

"How about explosives?"

"Yes, hang on, let me get my C4 out – oh wait," Clara stopped when she had been pretending to search herself, "I haven't really got any pockets either." She only had pockets on her jacket, and they did not have any screwdrivers in them, just her phone and her cigarettes.

"If you haven't got a pocket where are you keeping the C4?" Clara couldn't tell if she was being serious or not. "Whatever. Look, I've got a plan, all we have to do is find the head librarian and seduce her and steal the keys to the building."

"Well. You go do that, and I'll just phase through the door and meet you on the other side."

"Phase?"

"Yeah."

"As in… uh… what?"

"You still haven't managed to remember my cool superpowers?" Clara questioned her. To think, she had been under the impression that quite a lot of the Doctor's memories were returning. The Doctor clearly did not have a clue what Clara was talking about, and Clara loved to showboat, so she took the Doctor's hand and took the Doctor herself quite by surprise, then dragged her through the door marked 'BASEMENT: STAFF ONLY' with a very large padlock on the handle. The shock of moving through a solid object meant the Doctor fell into Clara when they were on the other side in the dark, and Clara had to try and steady her.

"What the hell was that?"

"I can pass through solid objects," Clara reminded her, "Give me some space now." Clara searched her aforementioned pockets until she found her flip lighter, which startled the Doctor when she lit it so that they could see where they were. It was just very dark and musty, full of books and cobwebs and a narrow staircase; predictable.

"Why do you smoke?" the Doctor asked abruptly upon seeing Clara's lighter, "I don't get it. Like, I guess it doesn't hurt you because of those nanogenes, but what's the benefit?"

"Familiarity," Clara said, beginning to walk down the stairs.

"But why?" Clara stopped and sighed, turning to look at the Doctor, whose face was a very well-defined silhouette in the flickering light of the flame Clara held up at her own eye level. "And why do I let you?"

"'Let' me?"

"Not let, just… well… you know what I mean. Why do I put up with it? I hate it, it stinks, and I don't remember ever liking it."

"I don't like telling this story…" Clara said quietly. The Doctor said nothing; she couldn't decide if she ought to press Clara on it or not. "Okay. Do you know what happened on the 11th of March 2005?"

"No."

"That was the day my father and I buried my mother," said Clara, "And it was the first day I ever smoked, because my dad let me have one of his cigarettes, and it calms me down. Just like the libraries. And at that point in my life I didn't care if it was destructive, and as soon as I did care I quit, when I became a nanny. And now… it's not destructive. And it still calms me down. And being married to you, there's a lot of things I need calming down about. I don't even smoke that much, I smoke like, half a pack a day, and that's on a bad day, it's usually less."

"But the other one, she doesn't smoke. Does she?"

"Not anymore, but she does consume human blood at an alarming rate," Clara said, "You think me having to donate my blood to a vampire doesn't warrant me being allowed to smoke? And anyway, you make me use e-cigarettes on the TARDIS. I've got a bubble-gum flavoured one on the go at the moment."

"I could go for some gum. Have you got any gum?"

"No, sorry." Clara, again, began to descend the steps deeper into the bowels of the library, and this time the Doctor actually followed.

"Is this why girls care so much about bags? Because they never have any pockets?"

"More or less."

"God. It must be some sort of artificially created demand for a relatively unnecessary product perpetuated by the fashion industry just to earn more money. Can you believe they would do that? It's totally immoral." Ah. She had forgotten about that. Thirteen's whole… political thing. "We should do something about it."

"Maybe later, we still have to get your ring adjusted."

"Well, after that," said the Doctor, "Then we'll go back in time and have strong words with Coco Chanel." Clara definitely didn't want to do that, so she tried to change the subject. The Doctor had the jump on her though, and was skipping between topics quite quickly. "Did you really not get any more information about this 'monster'?"

"No, she said it's been eating pets and it lives down here, and that she'd rather send me to deal with it than one of her soldiers. It's always better to just do what she asks, anyway, sometimes it comes in useful having Kate on our side," Clara said, "Until she lost nearly all of her power."

"Why would a monster that eat pets live in a library?"

"I haven't got a clue."

"And why did you lie about Kate about us being divorced?"

"I didn't want her to know you'd regenerated. You're still in your regeneration cycle because you haven't healed yet, I don't know that she doesn't have any dodgy ideas of what she could do with a Time Lord still regenerating. Harvest the energy and leave you a husk, maybe. Besides, it might come in handy one day, you can go incognito."

"So… it's not because you're thinking of getting a divorce?" she asked quietly. Again, Clara had to stop. They were now in between stacks upon stacks of old books and already the dust was making it an upward battle not to sneeze everywhere.

"I am most definitely not thinking about getting a divorce," Clara assured her, "I was just trying to annoy Kate. And I annoyed her really well, so it worked. I'm also pretty sure she didn't believe me, since I'm still wearing my ring."

"…Are you sure?"

"Well I'm pretty sure we don't split up, considering we were definitely still married in the future," Clara said, looking around at what some of the books down there were. She had assumed they would just be the same as the books upstairs but extra copies, though upon closer inspection they looked a little more suspicious than that…

"Clara," the Doctor took her hand and startled her, making her jump and knock into the pile of books she had been looking at. Lucky they didn't fall over, "I'm still worried." Clara froze and looked into her eyes.

"…That's nice," she said.

"What?"

"I – erm – don't be worried," she said awkwardly, trying to pull away from the Doctor, but the Doctor would not let her.

"C'mon, you won't even look at me," she touched Clara's cheek to stop her from turning her head away. And her hands were so warm and soft and she really did look worried that for the tiniest second Clara felt herself giving up. That was when the sensible part of her managed to teleport a few feet backwards, which scared the Doctor. Another talent of Clara's she had forgotten.

"…I'll totally look at you. From over here," said Clara, half-smiling and looking at her feet.

"Did you just teleport?"

"I do that sometimes."

"You teleported away from me!?"

"Well don't get angry! It's a reflex, it's not on purpose!"

"What's the deal. And don't say 'there is no deal' because there is totally a deal, and I'm not gonna walk another inch until you explain whether or not you're even, like, into me."

"Excuse me? Did you just ask if I'm into you?"

"You won't look at me, you won't let me touch you, you ran away to the bathroom earlier to hide from me, what am I supposed to think?"

"Okay, you want to know the truth, then? The truth is that I am unbearably attracted to you," Clara declared, still holding up her flip lighter, "I am so into you that it's taking basically every tiny shred of willpower I have not to jump you in this gross cellar that may or may not be home to an alien creature and a bunch of dead animal parts. You are literally the hottest girl I've ever seen in my life and you're all over me so can you please just give me some space?" The Doctor had not been expecting Clara to say that. Even Clara hadn't really been expecting it. But she couldn't lie to that face, it was impossible. "See? Now you're speechless. You don't even know what you're asking for by trying on all this flirting, you haven't got a clue. I bet you don't even know what to do with a girl when you haven't got a penis."

"Well that's not true!"

"Go on, then. Tell me. What's your scheme for when you finally get me into bed? Tell me."

"…No!"

"Because you can't. Which is nothing to be ashamed of, but you should really stop trying to force yourself on me when you don't know what you're doing," Clara said. But the Doctor looked sad. "Don't be upset. It's just… you know."

"What?"

"Well, when we first got married, it was because we were drunk, neither of us even remember it. And, the first time we slept together, I was drunk and down flirting with random people at the bar next to the swimming pool of that hotel and you didn't even know I was drunk until way later."

"So… what are you saying?" Thirteen crossed her arms and frowned.

"I'm saying that… the first time we, y'know… it would be nice if it was, well, nice. Not drunk or angry or trying to prove something or win an argument. Or in a gross basement. And, also, why should our stability as a couple be defined by how immediately we screw after you die and come back to life? We're both adults, we can have a day together without it being all about how quickly we can take our clothes off." The Doctor just stood there huffily, because Clara was right.

"…But you do think I'm pretty, right?"

"You're ridiculous, of course I do, you're unfathomably gorgeous and it burns my eyes to look at you. It's like staring into the sun. Now, can we stop having our lover's tiff and actually try to find whatever Kate sent us down here looking for?"

"Right. Right, yeah, you're right, I'm sorry," she shook her head, "I'll hold the lighter."

"You just don't want me to light up."

"I don't want you to burn your hand," she said, holding out her own. Clara let her take the lighter.

"Well, bring it over here. I was looking at these books before you started getting frisky." The Doctor was displeased, but came to hover at Clara's shoulder and hold the light up for her while she used her telekinesis to slide a book out of a stack without knocking the whole thing over. "Do you see what this is? It's an ancient text. I recognise it from, uh, my studies, it's a valuable sacred book belonging to a lost civilisation speculated to be Iram of the Pillars." The Doctor was totally buying it as Clara flipped it open and the Doctor got a face full of nudity from a very old photograph.

"Eurgh!" she exclaimed, staggering away from it while Clara burst out laughing.

"Oh my god, you totally believed me."

"Why wouldn't I believe you!? What is that really?"

"It's a collection of Nineteenth Century pornography," Clara explained, "In fact, almost all of these books down here are about porn. Which is probably why they're in the basement. As if you think there'd be a random lost text about Iram of the Pillars down here. 'That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die.' Kind of fitting given the current situation."

"What's that from?"

"It's Abdul Alhazred's unexplainable couplet, from Lovecraft. The Nameless City, that one."

"Guess I'd better make a mental note to go and find Iram of the Pillars after this, then."

"Maybe there are porn goblins down here."

"…Excuse me?"

"You know. Porn goblins."

"Again. Excuse me?"

"I can't believe you don't remember the porn goblins. They live in cellars and come out at night and steal women's underwear and they have swords made of dildos and they shoot butt-plugs out of slingshots." The Doctor narrowed her eyes at Clara for a while, until Clara broke and ended up laughing again.

"Stop doing that!"

"Stop being so gullible then!"

"I didn't believe you that time."

"You totally believed me."

"Shut up, Clara. Pay attention." She went skulking away with the lighter.

"Are we allowed to check out these books, do you think?" Clara asked, "I'm very interested in porn."

"I don't think porn is going to help us. Maybe you should focus on coming up with an idea of what's going on?"

"I have ideas," Clara said, putting the book back down on the floor because she couldn't remember where she had gotten it from in the darkness, then hastening to follow the Doctor, who was walking cautiously through the maze of books and shelves. "But, you know, you go first. If you've got an idea."

"My idea is just that there's a lost alien and a library is a hub of learning where you can probably find out anything you want and learn the language. Well, anything you want about sex, apparently, since that's what's down here."

"No, it's probably all banned books and stuff. Probably a few copies of The Satanic Verses and The Anarchist Cookbook down here. Old cult relics. Spell-books."

"Alright then, wifey, what's your idea?"

"Ooh, there's a few rattling around," said Clara, "Apart from the porn goblins. Could be a cult, sacrificing baby animals. Could be a lost alien, of course. Mostly I was thinking about sphinxes, though. Incredibly ravenous monsters, guardians of knowledge, et cetera."

"Sphinx guards one place, it wouldn't leave to go get food."

"That's why it's just an idea. And maybe it would, I doubt there's much good to eat down here. Maybe it just got bored of rats and librarians. Kate never specified what the pets were that were getting eaten."

"So, UNIT deal in missing animals now? That's a downgrade."

"UNIT is a husk, probably just there to keep the UN happy that it still technically exists, and they left Kate in charge to seem like they're protecting some kind of legacy," Clara said, "But she can't be hanging around in a public library with armed guards without having a good reason. Plus, she sent me off alone, and as annoying as she thinks I am, she also doesn't trust me, or you. So she wouldn't do that without a good reason." The Doctor stopped and looked at her, suddenly worried. "What's wrong?"

"She must be lying. Armed guards to deal with something that only eats pets? Why didn't you try to get more information about it out of her? It's a totally disproportionate response. You said 'monster', why did you say that?"

"That's what Kate said. Which, yeah, is weird… she's a soldier and a woman of science, she wouldn't just call something a monster… I don't think she does know anything. Just that it's dangerous, and – shit!" Clara slipped and everything went dark. She heard the clatter of the flip lighter landing on the floor and going out as the Doctor caught her.

"Are you okay?" Clara could see nothing, but knew Thirteen was very close.

"Yeah. I slipped on something, that's all. Totally just remembered I have a torch on my phone." The Doctor moved while Clara dug her phone out of her pocket. When she turned the light on she nearly blinded the Doctor, who was now crouched on the floor, with the bulb. "Sorry. Whatcha looking at?"

"Either strawberry sauce or… fresh blood."

"Taste it and find out."

"Uh, no thanks. You can if you want to."

"Wow, the woman has grown out of her gross habits."

"Still married to you, aren't I?" she said, only half-listening. She was looking at the blood. Clara spotted something else, though, something shiny, glinting from the light of her phone torch. She stepped around the Doctor, who had reclaimed the flip lighter from the floor, and went to pick it up. When she realised what it was she held it in front of Thirteen's eyes. It was a shell casing from an automatic weapon; there were maybe a dozen scattered around. Clara crouched down next to her and spoke in a whisper.

"I bet this is how Kate figured out it was dangerous, and the reason she doesn't want to risk losing any more of her men."

"Because whatever it is killed them, and dragged them away," Thirteen cast her gaze across the bloody streaks on the floor, "Must have happened in the last few hours. They probably came in here during the night to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves."

"And whatever this creature is, it showed up right here. Where we are."

"Yeah."

"And killed a soldier."

"Yep."

And then they heard a growl.

Clara and the Doctor met each other's eyes, and then very slowly looked upwards. When they did, they were met with the looming face of a grotesque creature – a monster, for definite – and it looked like it was made of pure shadow when it struck them from above with a force so tremendous Clara didn't even have time to scream before she was knocked out cold.