AN: This has been the hardest storyline of all the fics I've yet written, almost every chapter is a third or fourth draft, which is why it's taken eight months to get it right.

Fluorescent Adolescent

1

"Alright, so," Clara began, coming into the living room having just put on her shoes while sitting on the stairs, "I've got a big list of what books I'm looking for." She picked up her keys from the crowded coffee table, almost knocking over a mug of cold tea in the process, "I'm honestly lost where contemporary fiction is concerned in this decade, so I definitely need to get some books, y'know, of the time…" She picked up the dirty tea mug to bring it into the kitchen with her, taking out her phone to see her list of books. "I'm hoping you'll point me in the right direction, since you're…" She stopped dead when she almost walked into the dining table, which was not where she remembered it being some twenty minutes earlier when she'd gone upstairs to get ready to go out.

The Doctor was grinning like a Cheshire cat and waiting expectantly for Clara's opinion on her latest 'acquisition', a decrepit husk of a machine that would only fit in there because the table had been shoved towards the laundry room. Jenny – who also hadn't been there twenty minutes ago – was leaning on the kitchen counters, the back door ajar and the TARDIS visible in the garden outside.

"Do you like it?" asked the Doctor, nodding at the machine as if Clara hadn't seen it yet.

"Why have you put a pinball machine in the kitchen? That's not staying here, is it?"

"Of course not, I'll put it upstairs. I thought it'd look nice in our bedroom." Clara stared at her. "I'm kidding, obviously. It wouldn't fit."

"And that's the only reason?"

"What other reason is there?"

Clara instead turned her attention to Jenny, who spoke before Clara asked her anything, "I found it in a scrap heap a few days ago, kept meaning to bring it over for mum, to add to her collection."

"This is gonna look great next to Polybius and my original Space Invaders cabinet. Once I get it working," said the Doctor.

"It's broken?"

"We'll fix it," said the Doctor indifferently, indicating Jenny, "Another project. Like the chicken coop."

"Except I did most of the work on the chicken coop," said Jenny. They still hadn't got any chickens to go in said coop.

"I'm sure I can get it going by the time you're back from the bookshop sale tonight. Which I'll have to miss because Jenny didn't give me any warning she was coming over."

Clara only sighed, "Well, alright, but could you still read this list and tell me which books you think I should definitely buy? If you're not going to be there to advise me in person."

"Of course, Coo; it'd be my pleasure." Clara handed over her phone and went to examine the pinball machine closer. It said Orbiter 1 on the top and was decorated with a burned-orange nebula.

"Is it supposed to be empty?"

"The obstacles are magnetic, they pull the ball in," said the Doctor absently as she read the list, "It's a very rare collector's item. Not that you have any appreciation for the finer things in life."

"The finer things like a broken, rusty pinball machine?"

"Exactly!"

"Sorry," said Jenny, "I would've brought it over tomorrow if I knew you were busy."

"No, it's fine, it'll just be me, I suppose." Some way to spend the last Friday night before mocks began; going to a bookshop alone.

"And me," said Mattie from the doorway behind her, making Clara jump.

"I didn't hear you come downstairs."

"I tiptoed."

"You've never tiptoed in your life. And I thought you didn't want to? I asked you this morning, you told me about your revision and that buying books is boring," Clara reminded her.

"Yeah, I know, but… I changed my mind," she looked at the floor.

"Are you sure? It's just books, and there's a broken pinball machine here you could entertain yourself with instead," said Clara pointing it out.

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Wow, you'd rather be with me than Jenny, I'm flattered," said Clara. Mattie glared at her. "Put your shoes on and we can leave, sweetheart." Mattie disappeared to do that after saying a brief hello to Jenny, whom she was always pleased to see.

"Here you go," said the Doctor, returning Clara's phone. She had placed asterisks next to most of the books on the list, "The more asterisks means the more I recommend it."

"Thank you."

The Doctor kissed her goodbye, "Have fun book shopping, Coo-Bear. I'm sorry I cancelled."

"I'll never forgive you. And this thing better not be in the kitchen when I come back, alright? It's in the way," she said as she left.

"Oh, if only you could walk through solid objects…" the Doctor lamented dryly.

"Very funny!" Clara called back as she approached the front door, "I'll see you later." She left the house into the winter night and Matilda followed her out with only one of her shoes done up. Once in the van, she had to lean her muddy shoes on the dashboard – much to Clara's disdain – to finish tying the other one. "You've got gunk everywhere now."

"Well, so what? It's dirty in here anyway."

"It's not that bad," Clara said, switching on the electric engine which hummed gently, "It's just cluttered." As she said that she knocked over a dashboard ornament, though 'ornament' was being generous; it was a 1999 Cubone collectable keyring from a series of Burger King toys. He fell onto his side and Clara set him upright again.

"Why do you have that?" asked Mattie.

"It's the Doctor's, she put it in here," she shrugged, reversing out of the driveway.

"Are you gonna listen to depressing music again?"

"The Strokes aren't depressing," said Clara, switching on the archaic CD player once they were on their way into town. "They're timeless. You'll learn that one day."

"All their songs sound the same."

"That's why they're so good!" Mattie wasn't amused by her enthusiasm. "Did you really not want to stay at home and talk to Jenny, then?"

"No, I wanted to ask you something."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, um… what do you think are, like, the main themes of Macbeth?" she asked. Clara frowned, keeping one eye on the road.

"Excuse me?"

"Just, y'know, the main themes. Core themes, whatever."

"Uh…"

"Do you not know?"

"No, I know what the main themes of Macbeth are, I'm just sceptical about whether I should actually answer you with your mock exam on Monday."

"It's not like that's a question on the paper. Or is it? What questions are on it?"

Clara laughed a little, "I'm not telling you that."

"Come on, why not? It's not like it matters. It's a mock."

"If it doesn't matter, why are you asking me?" she countered, "Look, why don't you tell me what you think the main themes of Macbeth are?" Mattie scoffed.

"I still don't really get what you mean by 'theme' in an exam."

"It's just, what subjects the text wants to tackle, what it wants to talk about and make you think about by reading or watching it," said Clara, "Have you asked Tom about this?" Tom Miller was Mattie's actual English teacher, since top-set year eleven was his class and not Clara's.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it seems like a stupid question."

"Well, it's not a stupid question," said Clara, "And it's his job to teach you about literature. He's a good teacher, you can talk to him."

"I know, but if I ask a question, people have a go because I live with you," said Mattie. "And I don't understand the point of the ghost, either."

"Well, Banquo's ghost is symbolic of Macbeth's guilt," said Clara.

"But why did he kill Banquo if he feels bad about it? Aren't they friends?"

"Ambition gets the better of him, because of the witches' prophecy and then Lady Macbeth pushing him to take the throne from Duncan. Macbeth is corrupted by the prophecy at the beginning. It's really a parable about what happens when you try to outsmart fate – or try to outsmart God and his plan, I suppose."

"You 'suppose'?"

"The thing about English is that you can really say whatever you want as long as you find quotes and evidence to back what you're saying up," said Clara, "So, if I were looking at, say, guilt as a theme, I would look at when Macbeth says, 'the time has been that, when brains were out, the man would die, and there an end. But now they rise again.' I mean, I'm reaching a bit by bringing up religion, but you could use just that to say something about how Shakespeare saying 'rise again' invokes the image of Christ's resurrection. So, Macbeth is a Judas-like figure."

"I think you're talking shit, though."

"I am, that's the art of it," said Clara, "But I'd probably get some pretty good marks by talking about a Christ allegory in a high school exam paper even if I did pull it out of a hat."

"But unlike you, I haven't memorised the entirety of Macbeth."

"'What, will these hands never be clean? No more of that, my lord, no more of that; you mar with all this starting. Here's the smell of blood, still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.'" She cleared her throat, "My iambic pentameter's a bit rusty."

"I can't just memorise an entire play."

"Don't worry about that," said Clara, "The exam gives you a passage in there, it's just your job to annotate it."

"And you know what the passage is?"

"I do, indeed. And I'm not going to tell you. Is this the only mock you're worried about?"

"I have French, too, but I know I'll fail that, so I'm not bothered."

"Mattie," said Clara sternly, "You'll regret it later in life if you don't pay attention."

"I'm fifty years old and I've never missed out by not speaking French. And you don't speak French."

"I know, and honestly, I wish I did," said Clara, "Do you know how much easier Jenny and the Doctor find things because they speak, like, every language?"

"French is just one language, not 'every' language. So, I'll never be like them, anyway; I may as well just give up now," she said forlornly. Clara gave up, too; she sensed that she was never going to get Mattie to be interested in French, and it certainly didn't help that she was a complete hypocrite who'd never got a good grade in her own language GCSE.

"Is Sarah really that shit of a teacher?"

"Urgh. Yes. I don't even know why you're friends with her, she's a twat."

"She's…" Clara began but found herself unable to actually come up with anything nice to say about Sarah Pickman, "Well, she talks to me."

"She makes you look less annoying by comparison, is that it?"

"I just feel bad for her, that's all, I think Kyle is her only friend and he's a piece of work."

"You can't just be friends with someone because you pity them," said Mattie, "It's disingenuous."

"Some people don't have anyone," said Clara, "She lives alone with two cats, I've never heard her mention her family, and she's single save for one prick of a science teacher who doesn't actually respect her."

"What about Mr Baxter? There are rumours he fancies her as well. So she can't be that lonely with two blokes trying to shag her."

"The number of people someone shags – or has trying to shag them – doesn't correlate to how lonely they might be," said Clara. "It's fine to show people empathy and kindness – it's not like I'm trying to get anything from Sarah by being nice to her."

"I don't know how you have the patience to be nice to everybody."

"I'm turning eighty soon enough. That's a normal lifespan for most people, and it flies by in an instant. How can I waste precious seconds of somebody else's life by being cruel? Plus, you know what Jesus said. 'Do unto others'."

"You've been talking a lot about Jesus today for a gay person."

"Hey," said Clara, though she laughed a little, "Jesus liked the gays, I'm sure. It's the other fanatics you need to watch out for."

"How do you know? Have you met him?" Clara didn't answer because they'd reached a junction she needed to watch out for, but Mattie took her silence to mean something else, sitting forwards and asking, "Have you?"

"What? No, I haven't met Jesus. I'm watching the road."

"Will you teach me how to drive?"

"Hm… I believe there are reasons you don't know how to drive right now," said Clara, "Something about you accidentally steering a car into a ditch?"

"Dad exaggerated that story," she said, "It wasn't that big of a ditch."

"Didn't Martha try to teach you how to drive as well?"

"I just don't understand the clutch! You have to keep your foot on it all the time. Who can be bothered?"

"Well, I think this attitude is why your parents stopped trying to teach you," said Clara, flipping the indicator because they were about to pull in on a street near the bookshop. "And where would you drive, anyway?"

"It's just a good skill to have. You drive all the time, and you're always going on about how you like it."

"It's a burden, really," said Clara, switching off the engine, "Who do you think always gets the call to be a getaway driver?"

"What are you getting away from?" Mattie questioned, "You commit a lot of robberies?"

"You'd be surprised," she said as she opened the door.

"Would I?" asked Mattie when she, too, got out of the parked van. Clara walked around the front to meet her, and they began their walk to the bookshop on the next street over (a street unfortunately rife with double yellows).

"There was this time I was a getaway cart driver when my good friend Jesus needed to get away from a group of Roman soldiers for trying to organise the poor to resist taxation by Judean officials," she said. It was bitingly cold outside, with frost crawling around the pipes and drains, freezing up the windows already.

"Ha, ha."

"Honestly, travelling with a Time Lord, you'll get used to having to run away very quickly. Look what happened when we went to Paris, we had the entire Convention nationale chasing after us."

"I'd rather not have people chase me," she grumbled. "What's so special about this bookshop sale, anyway? Don't you have enough books?"

"You can never have enough books, sweetheart. It's totally impossible. And it's a good shop. They actually built it in the location of a Waterstones that went bankrupt fifteen years ago," Clara explained, "How's that for an ouroboros? Waterstones swallowed up independent bookshops, and now it's getting swallowed up itself. The Crooked Nook is a real part of twenty-first century, Brighton history."

"I still don't understand why you like Brighton so much in the first place; isn't that a betrayal of your roots?"

"We can move to Blackpool, if you like?" Clara offered.

"And run into all the old people you slept with when you were at school? No, thanks." The bookshop was a few doors ahead of them, projecting a welcoming glow into a half-frozen puddle on the roadside.

"It's not like I've never slept with anybody from Brighton," Clara joked, "One of my exes was from Eastbourne. Nora."

"Wow, and you actually remembered her name," said Mattie. Clara shook her head and then pushed open the Crooked Nook's front door. The old-fashioned bell overhead tinkled and the comforting warmth of an ancient heating system washed over her.

"God, it's freezing out there tonight."

"It's January in England, what do you expect?" said Mattie.

"Global warming? Climate apocalypse?" she suggested, then she heard the song playing overhead, "Ooh, I love this song…" She sang along softly, mostly to herself, "The last time I saw Paris, her heart was warm and gay… We once danced to this in 1944."

"In Paris?"

"Liverpool," said Clara, "There was this dance hall, for 'undesirables.' You know, people with immoral, sexual proclivities."

"I'm familiar with the concept of gay bars. Wasn't Liverpool being bombed in 1944?"

"No, the Blitz had ended by then. People were rebuilding. And with all the men still at war, the women needed some way to entertain themselves," she said wryly.

"And I suppose you went around seducing them all?"

"I would never – you know I'm happily married," she said, "They were very efficient at seducing each other, besides. We were only there for an evening."

"Who goes to World War II 'for an evening'?"

"There was some stuff going on involving a potential German landing enabled by a faction of Irish fascists – there were a few of those at the time. Anyway, they drowned in the end – the Nazis – before they even got out of Belfast Lough," Clara explained, "Not that I'll ever go back to Belfast to investigate," after the Eleventh Doctor had drowned in those very same, treacherous waters, though significantly later in history.

"Anything I can help you with, Clara?" asked a shop assistant, turning to Clara once she'd finished organising a table stacked with best-selling paperbacks that were all at least five years old. Clara was a regular in that particular bookshop and the staff knew her by now; she was frequently there without the Doctor in tow.

"No, thanks," said Clara, flashing her a smile, "I've got a list already picked out with recommendations from the wife." It took Clara a few moments to remember that her name was Violet; she wasn't wearing a badge.

"And she's not here?"

"Not tonight, she's busy playing pinball. But I've got Mattie to keep me company, haven't I?" she asked this of Mattie herself.

"Do you need keeping company? Are you going to get lost if somebody isn't with you?"

"Very good," said Clara, then turned back to Violet, "I think I can find my way around by now. But I'll let you know if I need anything." Violet eventually drifted away to go worry another precariously stacked bookshelf.

Mattie lowered her voice, "She fancies you." Clara didn't say anything, perusing a row of spines. "You're always oozing all over the place."

"I'm just being polite."

"Oh, yeah, 'polite'. That's what they call it."

"This is what I've been looking for…" she slid an old book off the shelf that was already battered and yellow.

"What is it?"

"Poems, by Shelley. I don't have this edition. Come on, let's look upstairs; that's where non-fiction is, and that's what I'm after today."

"You're so boring; who reads non-fiction?"

"I'm in the midst of a sordid love affair with the history and politics section of every bookshop in a twenty-mile radius," said Clara, climbing a spiral staircase to get to the first floor.

Where the ground floor was relatively open and she would even say sparse – which helped the place look more welcoming from the outside – the first floor was a tightly-packed maze bursting with paperbacks and that smell of old books Clara had always found completely delicious.

"It's still cold in here," said Mattie, hunching her shoulders and keeping her coat on.

"Really? I don't think it's so bad. Just wait until summer, then you'll wish it was this cold again," said Clara. "Oh my god. Get a load of this." She picked a hardback volume off a stool it had been lying on, which also contained another stack of books. It was The Collected Short Stories of C.R.O. Fantoma.

"These are your short stories?" asked Mattie. There was almost nobody in there to overhear them.

"No, Ravenwood's. The poems are mine, I don't write short stories. This is good, though, I've never seen this cover; I'll send her a picture." While she took her phone out to do that, Mattie looked around the stuffy upstairs.

"This is what you want your house to be like, isn't it?" she said, "You just want to live in a big nest made of books."

"Am I really so obvious?"

Clara spent the better part of the next forty-five minutes poring over the shelves and the long list on her phone until she'd gathered around a dozen books and was carrying them around awkwardly. When she decided to call it a night, though she highly doubted that the Doctor had either fixed or moved the pinball machine, she took her stack down the precarious staircase to pay. Of course, Violet came swanning over to man the tills as soon as Clara returned from the first floor.

But it wasn't to be. Somebody stepped in front of her.

"Fancy seeing you here," said Tom Miller, holding his three-year-old daughter in his arms.

"At a bookshop sale I told you about, you mean?" said Clara.

"I distinctly remember it happening the other way around."

"Then you're remembering wrong. This is my regular bookshop, I'm here all the time, Violet knows me." Again, she smiled at Violet when she said this, and Mattie just rolled her eyes. "Why did you bring Aarya out here? Isn't it past her bedtime?"

"She'll be okay. We're about to go home. Sanjay's just – well, there he is." Sanjay, Tom's husband, had been in a corner of the shop somewhere behind Clara.

"I found it: an edition of Tagore I don't have yet," he said, then noticed Clara and smiled at her, "Tom didn't say we'd be running into you here."

"In my defence, I do try to forget she exists," said Tom, "I've had enough at work all day today. Thank god it's the weekend."

"I barely saw you today," said Clara, "But while you're here, I have a question: what would you say are the main themes of Macbeth?" Tom paused and glanced between Clara and Mattie – the latter of whom was mortified.

"You're hilarious, Clara, you really are. But we need to be getting back, I think."

"Actually, um, I had something to ask you about," said Clara, growing more serious. Tom matched her change of tone.

"What's up?"

"It's a bit embarrassing – but have you talked to Fiona recently at all?"

He narrowed his eyes, "This is about the school play, isn't it?"

"Look. Lorna wants more of a collaborative environment between-"

"Fiona hates me almost as much as she hates you."

"I know, but if we take the friendly approach and try to offer a truce, then Lorna won't be able to blame the English department," said Clara, "And it doesn't help that I still have Debbie trying to undermine me."

"You know, there's a rumour they're in bed together," said Tom, "Fiona and Debbie."

"Tom, there are rumours like that about us, I really wouldn't put any stock in it," Clara dismissed him.

"Less of this in front of the kids, please," said Sanjay, who'd paid for his book while they talked about the ongoing Drama/English feud.

"Listen," said Tom, "You know I want your job. But I'm always on your side where the Performing Arts department is concerned."

"Thanks."

"It was nice running into you," said Sanjay, "We'll have to arrange dinner sometime soon. I remember something your wife said last time about lobster rolls?"

"I'll talk to her," Clara promised. She did love those lobster rolls, though they were entirely Jenny's recipe that the Doctor hadn't modified in the slightest. They left promptly to get Aarya off to bed and Clara walked up to pay, waving to them through the shop window for a second.

Violet once again did not make a secret of writing her phone number on Clara's receipt and hoping that she would give her a call, and Clara didn't want to embarrass her by outright refusing; she had a policy of simply pretending it hadn't happened, though Mattie clearly didn't think too highly of the practice. Regardless, she took her stack of books and carried them out of the shop with Matilda still behind her.

"Do you need a hand with those?" asked Mattie as they re-entered the night. She'd thought the shop was chilly, but she'd been wrong; it was horrendous outside. It was going to start sleeting soon.

"Nah. Telekinesis."

"You never use your powers for anything useful," said Mattie, lowering her voice even though there was nobody around.

"Like what? It's a secret, and we're not exactly in a life-or-death situation right now," said Clara.

"You need to tell that girl in the bookshop you're not gonna get with her, by the way." Clara sighed. "I mean, how does it look?"

"It's harmless," said Clara, "I've no interest in her. Besides, if she really tries it on, I'll just, y'know. Telekinesis."

"What? You'll kill her? Like Carrie?"

"Anyway. Do you want to do anything else while we're out? Pick my brain some more about Shakespeare?"

"I don't know."

"There's a cakeaway on the way home," Clara tried to tempt her, "We could get milkshakes? Ice cream? I'll take one back for the Doctor."

"Isn't it a bit cold for-"

Mid-sentence, the air was sucked out of Mattie's lungs. She was wrenched violently in every direction once like a tornado had knocked her off her feet. The world blurred and distorted, and a stabbing migraine ripped across her head; the puddles on the pavement, the clear night sky above, frost-bitten cars and windowpanes – all of it melted into something different, corrupted until it was unrecognisable and distinctly, above all else, extremely and sickeningly blue. All the while, she was dimly aware of Clara's continued presence next to her, but little else. It felt as though the universe was collapsing inwards and on top of her.

And in another instant, it was over.

She was dropped out of the midwinter air and down into the blistering heat of a vicious summer's day, a cloudless sky beating down above. Some cosmic force had chewed her up and spat her out with no thought for how unpleasant it would feel.

"MATTIE!" She was dragged off again, but this time by Clara, who almost knocked her to the floor. A bus roared past, and she was just able to glimpse the driver swearing at her from the edge of the road. "You were right in the middle of the street! Oh my stars, are you okay?" Clara was in her face checking her over.

"I'm… what happened?"

"I'm not sure – but are you alright? That bus almost hit you! Bloody hell! And on my watch – it – shit. Shit."

People were walking past them and staring. Mattie felt sweaty already, in her winter clothes out there in the heat. Clara was panicking and looking around. It wasn't a street Mattie recognised at all, certainly nowhere in Brighton, and it reeked. All she could smell was petrol fumes which were almost as loud to the nose as the traffic was to the ear.

"Where did your books go?"

"Dropped them," said Clara shortly. Mattie didn't see the books anywhere on the road they were standing next to, or the pavement. Clara frowned. "Hang on…"

"What? Where are we?"

"It's… it's Leeds." Clara didn't think she'd ever been so confused in her life, and that included the time she'd had her brain absorbed by the Great Intelligence over the wi-fi, where she also struggled to tell where or who she was. But after a few moments of taking in her surroundings she realised she recognised the high-rises, the shop facades, the buses, the monuments, and the exact road, because she'd visited bars, restaurants, and caught buses from New Market Street more times than she could count.

"Don't know where you are? You wanna drink less," said a random pedestrian who overheard.

"Yeah, alright mate, leave it out," Clara retorted angrily. He laughed at her and went on walking. "Twat."

"How are we in Leeds? And why are we in Leeds?" asked Mattie.

"That's a good question…" There was now a whole row of commuters at a nearby bus stop staring at them. Clara tried to smile, but it didn't make them stop. "I suppose they saw us materialise."

"Yeah – what was that? My head's killing me." She was still barely able to reconcile that they'd spontaneously teleported. "Was it you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You can teleport."

"In a radius of about thirty feet in any direction, and not through time," said Clara, "No, it wasn't me."

"Why is it a different time of day?"

"Temporal shift, must be. Right to the Corn Ex bus interchange, of all the places. And it's… well, it definitely isn't 2065, that's for sure. See? That bus over there has an ad on the side for the second Pirates of the Caribbean."

"What? That movie came out in 2006," said Mattie, staring at the bus. But Clara was right. "We're in 2006?"

"Not necessarily. Could be an old ad they haven't changed in a while?" she suggested, "I know. There's a newsagent down here." The newsagent in question was a small kiosk installed in an alcove in the brick wall behind the long strip of bus stops. Peering around commuters at that day's issue of the Daily Mirror she could just about see that it was Friday the 16th of June 2006. Exactly fifty-nine years and six months in the past; it was even the same day of the week when they'd come from.

"This isn't good," said Mattie, "How did this happen? Did we go through a rift?"

"We'd be dead if we went through a rift without some kind of protection," said Clara. A car, for instance.

"It felt like – like we got pulled," said Mattie, "Like something brought us here."

"Maybe it did," said Clara, thinking. "Can't be a complete coincidence; I'm here right now."

"Where?"

"In Leeds, at uni. I'm nineteen."

"Are you kidding? That's completely suspicious. We need to leave," Mattie was very serious. Clara didn't say a word, just stood still in the street with her hands on her hips for a few moments. "Clara."

"Yeah, yeah, okay," she took out her phone.

Though it initially seemed like it was all in working order, when she went to make a call to the house's cross-temporal landline she got an ominous, automated message in response: "This device has been disconnected due to suspicious activity." She tried again and the same thing happened, it didn't ring once. Then she went through her contacts list one by one as Mattie grew increasingly restless. She tried Jenny next, then the TARDIS itself, then Rose, and then Oswin's phone. It eventually became clear that she was wasting her time and she wasn't going to get through to any of them.

"Let me see your phone," Clara asked Matilda.

"I didn't bring it with me."

"You didn't-? But you're a teenager – your phone should be grafted onto you."

"Well, it's not, alright? I wanted a break from my messages. Steph's been harassing me and Aki's getting really worried about the exams. What's wrong with yours? Is it broken?"

"I don't know, it won't make any calls." She sighed, "We've got the date, at least. It's time for some creative problem solving."

"Which means what?"

"We'll use a phone box."

"Do you think someone's done that to your phone? On purpose?" asked Mattie as Clara began to walk. She did not remember where the nearest phone box was as she'd had a mobile for the entire time she'd lived in Leeds in the noughties, but knew that if they wandered for long enough there would be one close by.

"Maybe."

"Who would want to bring you to meet your younger self in 2006? And stop you from being able to call home?"

"Dunno," said Clara truthfully, "Missy? Just to mess with me?"

"I've got exams, you know. I can't go gallivanting through time and space on a whim."

"Mattie, we'll be fine. It's just a bit of time travel. And it's to a place I know very well which is relatively safe. Look, see," they reached the junction at the northern end of New Market Street and Clara spied a phone box on the pavement running alongside the market itself. "Phone box right there. Couldn't be easier."

"I don't like this at all."

"Seriously," said Clara, cutting across the street through the gridlocked traffic, "There's nothing to worry about."

Clara had the silver telephone box in her sights when somebody stepped across the pavement and blocked her.

"Sorry, mate," she said, assuming it was a simple accident, "Could I just-" She tried to step around him, but he matched her footwork, totally unapologetic in trying to bar her path.

She was about to step back and take the long way around when he punched her sharply in the gun, too quickly for her to even register what had happened, sending a white-hot and strangely lingering pain throughout her abdomen.

It took Mattie a few moments long to realise something had happened when Clara stopped moving and her hands went to her stomach.

"Clara?" she asked, glancing at the man. The sunlight bounced off something shiny underneath his hood.

Clara gasped and the stranger pulled his hand away, revealing that she had not been punched at all, but stabbed. She stared down at the blood on her clothes and hands as she reflexively pressed down on the wound.

"Why did…?" she began, already looking woozy.

"Longe vie à la reine," said the stranger in a robotic, stuttering voice. He turned to leave, heading off in the opposite direction, and Clara was just about able to lunge and grab hold of his hoodie. She pulled the hood down and revealed that in place of an ordinary, human head he had a skull-shaped transparent dome with golden, clockwork gears glimmering within. Mattie didn't know if she had imagined hearing a ticking.

He was only exposed for a second, pulling the hood back up and getting out of Clara's reach, Clara whose knees then buckled, sending her to the floor.

"Clara!" Mattie got hold of her, just about able to keep her upright. It wasn't a large knife and the wound wasn't bleeding excessively, but she clearly wasn't with it. "Fucking hell, are you okay!? I mean – you're not – but – you'll be okay, right? Nanogenes? Healing?" Clara only stumbled forwards, groping for the phone box.

"Phone," she mumbled.

"Yeah, we should call an ambulance, definitely," Mattie nodded, "I know it's the past, but they'll be able to treat a stab wound, won't they? People must get stabbed all the time in Leeds."

It was an ordeal to reach the phone box with Clara putting her entire weight on Mattie and almost going completely limp, but she managed it, and the narrow, glass walls worked well enough at keeping Clara relatively upright.

"999 is free, isn't it?" Mattie asked, picking up the receiver.

"The Doctor," said Clara.

"I don't know the number." Clara took some deep, pained breaths and was able to take her phone out of her pocket again, giving it to Matilda after she'd unlocked it with a bloody thumbprint. "Are you sure? I really feel like I should call an ambulance, that's the sensible thing to – no, don't fall down." She had slipped and almost tumbled over, half leaning on the phone box and half on Matilda. "I'm dialling it, I'm dialling it," she assured her, inputting the number for the transdimensional phone line. Unlike Clara's mobile, which immediately cut off, the phone actually started to ring. "Are you sure this will work without a sonic screwdriver?" Clara nodded. Mattie waited as it rang, getting desperate. "Nobody's-"

The phone clicked: "Tranquillity Base, Mark speaking," said the Doctor.

"It's me," said Mattie, "It's an emergency – Clara's been stabbed."

"She's WHAT!?"

"Don't panic," said Clara, shutting her eyes and flinching to deal with the pain.

"She says not to panic," Mattie repeated.

"How did that happen!? Where are you? I'll come right out!"

"Leeds, there was a thing."

"What thing!?"

"Time travel thing, I don't know! It's June, in 2006."

"And somebody stabbed her!?"

"Yeah! A robot, I think."

"It – what? Mattie, you need to – get off, I'm using the-" There was a kerfuffle at the other end of the line and then Jenny had the handset.

"Can you tell me what happened, Matts?" Jenny asked calmly.

"Okay, we were just leaving the bookshop and we were teleported and now we're in Leeds in 2006. In summer."

"June 16th," said Clara weakly.

"June 16th. And Clara's phone wasn't working to call, so we walked to a phone box, and then a robot stabbed her."

"You're in a phone box right now?"

"Yes. Look, should I call an ambulance? She's in a state, I think she should go to a hospital. She can barely talk."

"Really? How big was the knife?"

"Not that big."

"Hm. Alright, don't call an ambulance – is her phone working at all? I need you to get Helix to interface with the nanogenes, he can tell you what's going on."

"It's working, it just won't connect to the internet or do anything."

"Helix will still work enough to talk to the nanogenes for you," Jenny assured her. Mattie opened the Oswin-designed Helix app on the phone.

"Do you require assistance, Miss Smith-Jones?" Helix asked smoothly.

"Yes, I need you to tell me what's wrong with Clara. Talk to the nanogenes. Interface. Something like that."

"Affirmative," said Helix. A small loading icon appeared on the phone screen for a few seconds. Mattie was gripping the kiosk handset so tightly her hand was getting sore. "Mrs Oswald is suffering from an abdominal stab wound which has let a modified tetrodotoxin compound into her bloodstream."

"What!? Will she be alright?"

"The nanogene cloud will be able to eradicate the toxin. The toxin will impede the healing process; it may take longer than expected."

"But it'll happen? She'll heal?"

"There is no reason why she should not. Nanogene software version 56.10.9998 was installed on the tenth of January, two-thousand and sixty-five, and no problems were detected."

"What did Helix say?" Jenny implored, "Your speaker is awful."

"It's a public phone! Helix said she'll be alright, but she's been poisoned with tetrodotoxin. What does that mean?"

"It's pufferfish venom," said Jenny, "But it usually takes a bit longer to act."

"Helix said it was 'modified'."

"Fast-acting tetrodotoxin, then? Alright, she'll be okay, put pressure on the wound, and – yes, fine," she said to someone else, "Mum wants to talk to you." Before Mattie could say a word, the Doctor was back.

"How is she? Is she okay?"

"She's turned grey. She's not really talking. Can you still hear me, Clara?" Clara made a face but didn't say a word. "Helix said she'll be alright."

"Tell me about the robot."

"It was clockwork. Had a see-through head. And it said something in French."

"French!? What did it sound like?"

"You know I'm no good at French."

"Matilda, please, try your best."

"It… it sounded a bit like 'long vee ah ren', or something," she did her best to repeat the French phonetically.

"Longe vie à la reine?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes."

"It means 'long live the Queen'. Must be a message. And clockwork droids wandering around Leeds – why Leeds?"

"Clara's at uni here, she said, in the past."

"She wants to stop Clara from jumping into your time stream," said Jenny faintly in the background, "Kill her before you met. Wipe you from history and destroy the universe."

"Why would she want to do that?"

"She seemed like she had a problem with you when we met her," Jenny pointed out, "In any case, we shouldn't take the TARDIS. She might want that. She must have pulled Clara – present Clara – there with a temporal scoop for a reason. Maybe she was trying to grab you, too, in which case you're playing into her hand."

"My wife has been stabbed! What would you do?"

"The thing that won't endanger the entire universe?" said Jenny.

"Look, just tell me what I should do," said Mattie, "People are staring at us inside this phone box." And the summer heat was really getting the best of her cramped in a little, glass box.

"Just stay calm," Jenny had the phone again, "Wait for the wound to heal. If anybody asks what you're up to, say she's got very contagious stomach flu and they'll leave you alone," said Jenny. "We'll see if we can trace anything about the scoop from our end – do you know where you were when it got you?"

"Outside the van. The van's still there."

"Okay, good. You can call my mobile if you need anything."

"Give me the phone," the Doctor yet again stole it out of Jenny's hands. "Mattie, can you put Clara on?"

"She's not really talking."

"Just hold the phone up. I need to speak to her until she feels better. I've got to know she's alright."

"Yeah. Sure." Mattie relented and held the phone up to Clara's ear. She couldn't hear what the Doctor was saying down the speaker, but Clara looked like she was in a little less pain as the monologue went on, so it must have been something good.

All they had to do now was wait.