Fluorescent Adolescent

6

"There it is," Clara pointed to a deceptively small bar on a street corner, with a black façade and a glittering sign reading 'VIADUCT SHOWBAR'. There was a gay pride hanging above the entrance, bristling in the light breeze that had rolled in during their journey through central Leeds. Clouds had appeared by now, dark and threatening, and there were faint rumbles echoing through the humid streets. A thunderstorm would start soon.

"Are you sure it's open?" asked Mattie, "It looks dead. Shouldn't it be packed on a Friday night?"

"Hm… you're right, it's weird," said Clara. The sign was turned off, too.

"You could see if they posted anything online? On Facebook?"

"It's 2006, there's barely Facebook," said Clara. "Maybe she's got it to close for the night and she's holed up there alone."

"Maybe."

"Alright. I'm gonna go in and have a look around, and you can wait out here."

"Is that your whole plan?"

"Well, what would you suggest?"

"I don't know, go through the back door, at least?"

Clara nodded, "Alright, I'll do that. Give me half an hour. If I don't come out within thirty minutes exactly, call Rose, tell her what's going on. And if you see any droids, also call Rose." Clara indicated a gloomy phone box on the street next to them; it was identical to the one they'd been in that morning, except some of its windows had been smashed.

"You just want me to hang about in a phone box? For half an hour? What if someone needs to use it?"

"Pretend you're using the phone. Act like you're calling the police, even – say someone got stabbed around the corner."

"Do you prepare these lies ahead of time?" asked Mattie. Clara shrugged. "I just don't like this. It's a bad plan. We should call Rose now."

"No. We don't call Rose unless we need to," said Clara, "If we're in real danger."

"We are in danger!"

"We're fine. I'm sure this won't take too long."

"If this ends badly, it's your fault. I wanted to call for help."

"Okay, I take the blame," Clara conceded, which wasn't what Mattie wanted; Mattie wanted Clara to take the safe, sensible option, since she was used to Clara being the safe, sensible person when compared to the Doctor. But maybe Clara was just as bad.

"I don't even have Rose's number."

"Take my phone," said Clara, "It's got all the numbers in it, and Helix will unlock it for you without needing any biometrics. It's still got enough battery. Here, I've got some spare change from buying sandwiches in the corner shop." She rifled through her pockets and dropped a smattering of coins into Mattie's hands. People in the 2060s did not use change, and as such – though she had been born in 2014 – she viewed it as if it were an alien artefact. "It's just coins, it's not magic."

"How does the machine know what size the coins are? Like, I get it when it's digital-"

"By weight," said Clara, interrupting her, "If you call Rose, tell her we're at the Viaduct on Lower Briggate, in Leeds. She won't know where that is so tell her to google it. It's June 16th, 2006, getting on for ten o'clock at night. She'll be able to find you with that."

"Half an hour?" asked Mattie.

"Yes."

"What if you get hurt? What if she does something to you and you can't heal?" Mattie implored.

"Rose will get you home. Call her if you see any trouble. If she doesn't answer, ring Jenny, they'll have to bring the TARDIS." Clara wasn't worried about this; Rose always answered her phone to her goddaughter, without fail.

"Alright." Mattie was still not happy, but Clara was bent on going into the bar on her own. And that was exactly what she did, saying goodbye and walking off just as the air began to crawl with electricity and humidity. There was another thunderclap. At least the phone box would keep Mattie out of the rain.

True to her word, Clara didn't enter the bar through the front doors. Instead, she used some knowledge from her youth and crept around the back to the fire exit through a small alley between buildings. She phased through the door and found herself in the cramped, backstage area, full of dressing tables, clothes, and some crates of alcohol kept in storage. It was also completely empty, though the lights were on. Very odd.

She proceeded, working her way through the backstage rooms and pressing an ear against the door into the bar. She heard music, very faintly, but no patrons or customers. Still, she wasn't yet feeling bold enough to go in, not without a proper lay of the land, and so she lingered, conscious of Matilda's thirty-minute deadline.

Then she heard what she needed to.

"Putain!" a woman cursed loudly, "Are you an idiot?" No response. "I ask you to do one thing: kill a nineteen-year-old. A child. And you fail."

"Pardonne-moi, madame," said a robotic voice, speaking very stilted French.

"You're useless. Unfit for purpose. They should melt you down into scrap."

"Oui, madame la reine."

"I will melt you down when we're done here, mark my words. You should have been decommissioned a century ago, at the very least; no wonder I found you all alone on that wreck. The four in such poor condition they weren't even worth being scrapped by the rest." This time, the droid said nothing. Clara wondered if they could get upset, and then she felt even worse about mangling three of them that day – especially if what the Queen was saying was true.

"I know when I need to change course, at least. I shan't be sending you out to do my dirty work. Imbecile. If you want something done, do it yourself – I coined that phrase, you know." Clara rolled her eyes. "If you can't find the girl, I'll bring the girl to me, and kill her right in front of you. Show you just what a waste you are, Leclerc. And to think, I kept you back here because you're my favourite. You don't even deserve his name. I should have called you Max, le tyran. Although, that would be giving you too much credit. Maybe I shouldn't have bothered to name you at all."

While she monologued, Clara heard something large thunk down on a hard surface. A whirring sound began.

"Hier sind wir. I didn't want to use this, but needs must. What's a safe date? Das war sieze octobre last time, today is Sechzehnter Juli, so how about… the sixteenth of January. Split the different. Partially. The evening should be good. And I'll optimise it for two, see if I can catch them both…" she betrayed her machinations to the android, unbeknownst of Clara's presence. "Twenty-sixty-five…" she murmured quietly.

The whirring grew louder and louder and a glow began to pool underneath the door at Clara's feet; it was a very ominous, sickly shade of yellow. It increased in intensity, as did the noise, until a rippling but dulled sound, a little like a siren but only for a second, spread through the bar. The glowing quickly stopped and the Viaduct went silent.

But of course, it wasn't going to work. It wasn't going to work because whatever technology the Queen was using was imprecise or broken. Clara did, however, realise that she had witnessed the temporal scoop that had brought herself and Matilda to 2006 some twelve hours ago.

"Was zum Teufel!?" she shouted, enraged. She swore again in her fourth, unknown language and then a glass shattered. "Of course it didn't work! Worthless! This archaic technology is failing me – much like you.

"It should have brought her here, right here! It works on DNA, bon sang!" There was a long pause and Clara could feel the frustration oozing from beyond the door. The Queen broke the silence, "Verzieh dich. Take yourself into the bathroom and stick your head into the toilet until I tell you to stop, Idiot."

The droid's heavy footfalls approached backstage and then veered off into a different direction; it really was going to go into the toilets as she bade. The door swung open and closed again, and a few moments later the footsteps stopped. Marie Antoinette grumbled to herself, a quiet alternation between German and French with a few other words Clara couldn't identify thrown in for good measure.

Clara straightened up, sorted out her clothes – though they were extremely grimy with sweat, blood, and other summery debris – and tried to make her hair look at least somewhat presentable. She braced herself and phased soundlessly through the door, coming out next to the stage and the runway for drag shows. The long bar began alongside the runway and continued far down the wall, decorated like a vaudeville theatre with plush, red seats.

The only person in the room now was the Last Queen of France herself, complete with a poofy, Georgian dress and foppish, powdered wig; the dress was baby blue with gold tulle and trimmings. She certainly looked better than the last time Clara had seen her – though admittedly, few people would look good after they'd been reanimated in a Parisian sewer. Clara walked over as quietly as she could. Antoinette reached over the bar and pulled up a bottle of merlot.

"Pour me a glass, would you?" she asked, standing on the edge of the runway behind the Queen. She did not jump but turned very sharply to look at Clara; a little too sharply, in fact, as Clara thought she saw her head wobble precariously. Marie was wearing a ruff that conveniently hid the place where it had been sewn back on, leading Clara to believe that the wound was not one that would heal.

"Excuse me?"

"That's a 1998 Bordeaux, quite a good year." She stepped down off the runway and went to lean on the bar between two chairs. She was just out of stabbing range. "Sorry, I thought you were expecting me? Isn't that the purpose of your whatsit?" On the bar in front of the Queen was byzantine hunk of clockwork with the hue of an alien alloy, which Clara assumed was her temporal scoop device.

"Where did it put you? In the back?"

"Five minutes down the road and twelve hours ago. So, if you were wondering what kept happening to your robots…" She did a small, mock bow.

"I see."

"One of them got me, actually," she indicated the bloody tear in her clothes from her stabbing earlier that day, "Right in the guts. Nasty. Did you tell them to do that?"

"What should I have done?"

"Not made me suffer?" she suggested, "I know it's the Doctor you're really after. Not me." While she was already holding her winter coat open a little to reveal the injury, she decided to take her Marlboro Reds from the inside pocket. "You don't mind if I smoke, do you?"

"Go ahead." While Clara lit her cigarette, the Queen pulled another glass from behind the bar and poured out two, generous servings of the Bordeaux. Clara put her lighter away and blew out a thick stream of smoke as Marie Antoinette slid the glass towards her.

"Danke," said Clara.

"Where is the Doctor, then? The 'whatsit', as you so elegantly called it, was configured for two."

"Oh, she isn't here. Only me. You caught me when I was visiting a bookshop on my own. She was too enraptured by a broken pinball machine to tag along."

"No bookshop patrons?"

Clara shook her head, taking another drag on her cigarette. "I was loading books into the camper. Even they didn't make it. Probably getting ruined in a puddle somewhere."

"A shame. I suppose she'll never know what happened to you."

"Would you like her to? If you take the block off my phone, I'm happy to call and let her know," said Clara, "How did you do that, by the way?"

She smiled a little, "I've plenty more tricks up my sleeves."

"And what tacky sleeves they are."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I mean, just look at those gold sequins," said Clara, "Stamped on by a machine. Mass-produced. I bet you took this out of the back, didn't come here in costume at all."

"I did have to walk here, through the streets."

"Why become the Queen of France if you don't like the attention?"

"It wasn't my plan. I knew very little of your Earth history when I arrived."

"Then why pick France? The Revolution? Why choose to be a Hapsburg?" Clara questioned. The Queen did not say a word, merely sipped her wine. "You really won't tell me a thing? Even when I assume you're about to kill me?"

"I'm savouring the moment. Much like a fine wine. Which this is not."

"You must have a bad palette," said Clara, who knew a little about wine and hadn't been lying about the vintage; to the best of her knowledge, it was a good merlot. "Something to do with having your head cut off, maybe? How's that wound healing?"

"You're very amusing. I suppose that's why she likes you."

"She loves me."

"Is that what you think?" Clara narrowed her eyes, waiting for Marie to go on as she so desperately wanted to. "You're nothing but a plaything to her. A way to kill time. She'll leave you in the end, like all the others."

"A lot of those 'others' are still big parts of our lives," said Clara seriously. "Who's a big part of your life? You won't even tell me if you're really the queen or some alien imposter."

"Would it really matter, ma chérie?" she leant towards Clara, who did not move an inch. "I spent a long time in Vienna."

"Did you kill her and replace here? The real Marie Antoinette?"

"If I were you, Clara Oswald, I would talk to your wife. Ask her about the last one. River Song. How did she come to Earth?" Off the top of her head, Clara was no longer familiar with that story. She thought it had something to do with the moon landing. "I suppose she's never even mentioned Professor Song."

"Funny, River said the same thing the first time we met. Except she was right, and you're not. I've met River lots of times. We even lived with her for six months." During the Dimension Crash.

"Then you know the story. That's good. Because you won't have the chance to ask her yourself."

"I've forgotten, but honestly, if you're not willing to tell me before you kill me, I doubt it's that interesting," Clara shrugged. That really pissed Marie off. She wanted Clara to be desperate for information, desperate to survive, but that wasn't going to happen. Clara would survive. She had the home advantage.

"How did you break my robots?" the Queen asked sharply, "It was a lot of work to put them back together."

"Pushed one off a roof, hit another with a brick – wasn't too difficult."

"There's something you're not telling me."

"You mean there's something you don't know?" Clara feigned surprise, "Because you seemed like you knew everything about me, sending cryptic messages to my place of work, finding my address, giving me lavish gifts."

"Did you like the necklace, then? You're not wearing it."

"Of course I'm not. We donated to the Louvre, anonymously. Caused quite a stir."

"She made you do that?"

"No. It wasn't mine to keep. It belongs to France."

"You have no sense of fun."

"I have integrity."

"A silly thing. Truly pointless. Go to war, liebling, and see how long your 'integrity' lasts."

"You've been to war, then?" said Clara, still trying to wheedle information out of her.

"I've seen things."

"Haven't we all?" she said wistfully. Then Clara moved on, trying to take control of the conversation a little more. "So, this entire scheme really is just about punishing the Doctor. It's not about me at all."

"You're the easiest way to get to her. The only thing she seems to care about."

"She cares about everyone, something you might not understand," Clara retorted. Marie laughed very coldly.

"Clara, I've been learning about you. I already knew plenty about her, but you? I'm sorry to say, the universe is in agreement. You're a good time at night. You don't have much else to offer."

"Well, fuck you, too," said Clara, legitimately offended by that.

"That's why she rescued you, isn't it? Why she jumped into her own timestream, jeopardised her own life? Her own history? I'm sorry to report that that history will soon cease to be. Once I kill you here, I'll go find your younger self and finish the job. The Doctor will die a thousand times in a thousand places, and you won't be there."

"If that's what you think."

"All I need to do is kill you in 2013, and she's erased. Everything she did will be erased. The universe will continue."

"You're kidding? The universe will end."

"A small price to pay to undo the scourge she's wrought."

"God. What could she possibly have done to you?" asked Clara.

"You have no idea. No idea who she is." Marie was getting angry now, spitting on some of her words. Clara leant away a little. "Do you know how many she's killed? How many civilisations have fallen? How many sparks of life she's wiped out, eradicated?"

"I know everything about her."

"You don't believe that."

"I choose to."

"Then you're a fool. A fool who's going to die for a woman who would move on from you in a heartbeat. Centuries with River Song, and she moved on in an instant with a child from Earth, nonetheless. It's appalling. And you still trust her so absolutely."

"You're the one who doesn't know anything," said Clara firmly, "You don't know a thing. Not a thing about me, barely about the Doctor, and certainly not about River."

"This is a woman who wiped out her own species. A woman who views you as nothing. You're going to die, Clara, in this bar, in this filthy city, with nobody by your side. If I succeed, which I will, she won't even know. Is she even worried about you?"

"She shouldn't be worried about me at all, really."

"Is that right?" Now, she played her hand. She drew a gun, another large piece of alien technology. "I've spent hundreds of years looking for her. The right Doctor. Your Doctor. Number Twelve."

"Why?"

"You should ask her yourself."

"Sorry to break it to you, but she honestly has no clue who you are. All we know is you have a vendetta, and I've got news for you, that doesn't make you unique. Not at all. A lot of people want revenge on the Doctor for this or that, and it never helps. Revenge never helps anybody."

"That's what your culture teaches you, on this planet. Mine is different."

"And where is it? Your planet?"

"Only a few clicks south of Alzarius." Clara didn't recognise the name. "Do you know what kind of gun this is?"

"A big one?" she suggested.

"Cute. It's from the twenty-third century, modified to fire fifty-calibre sniper rounds." It looked a little like a revolver, but the cylinder had only one, enormous chamber, and into it she slowly loaded a bullet that would obliterate most of Clara's head with its exit wound. Too much brain tissue damage for the nanogenes to be effective. "Makes quite a noise, but luckily, we have the place to ourselves. I heard somebody lodged a complaint about asbestos."

"I wonder who that could have been…" said Clara dryly. "You're really going to shoot me, then? You can't think of anything more original?"

"I'll succeed. That's all that matters. You'll be out long enough for me to damage your body beyond the repair of those rudimentary nanogenes – a primitive technology, in truth. I think I'll throw you into a star to finish the job."

"Ooh, exciting. Do I get to pick which one? I've always liked Tabby's Star."

She smiled, "It's the least I can do."

"Thanks, I suppose, for honouring my dying wish. You'd better get it over with, though; no doubt the TARDIS will be homing in on your location right now, ever since you discharged that scoop."

"A silly name for a very complex device."

"What do you call it?"

"Nothing a human mouth can pronounce. Do you have any last words?"

"How about, 'Pardon me, I didn't mean to'?"

"I believe the exact quote was, 'monsieur, je vous demande pardon, je ne l'ai pais fait exprès.'" She pulled the trigger, aiming the gun directly at Clara's head.

The sound of the firearm was tremendous, an explosion that produced enough force to make Clara lose her balance. But when the smoke curled away from the muzzle, Clara was still there, and completely intact. She looked behind her to see where the bullet had gone.

"God, would you look at that," she said, pointing out the fresh, scorched hole in the back wall of the stage, "You must have missed. Here, try again, I'll put my head right on it this time; promise I won't move." But she had finally, truly surprised Marie, who had no idea how Clara had just survived a fatal gunshot wound to the skull. "Sorry, I should have explained – it's solid objects, you see. They don't always agree with me."

"How did you do that?"

"Just a magic trick. It's quite sad, actually – I think I'd like to be shot to death by a headless, Marie Antoinette impersonator in a drag bar. How many bullets have you got for that thing, then? Or will you call the droid back in, have him stab me again?"

"What are you?"

"What are you? Sewing your own head back on? Walking around like nothing happened?"

"I have a regenerative trick of my own."

"The Gloves?"

"In a way."

"We destroyed them."

"They're not the only solution."

Clara decided to give up, stubbing out her cigarette on the bar, "I'm a Manifest," said explained, "Sort of like the X-Men. It's a mutation, means I have superpowers. My particular situation is irreversible."

"So, you can walk through walls? I could still throw you into the sun."

"Oh, you could try, but I don't think you'd get very far."

"And why is that? I know your secret now."

"I have more than one secret," said Clara, deathly serious, she raised her hand and Marie Antoinette became completely frozen. "I'm telekinetic, too. A very powerful telekinetic. And with more than enough dexterity to just take those stitches around your neck out one by one. I know they're still there even with you hiding them."

"You wouldn't."

"Wouldn't I? I could rip you limb from limb. No gloves left to reanimate you another time. Throw you into the sun. That's the truth about how I killed your droids, I bent the clockwork pieces of shape, one by one, until he seized up and imploded. So, you see, you're not going to kill me." She removed the gun from Marie's hand. It went floating through the air until Clara, with only a small sliver of her powers, bent it out of shape so that it would never fire another bullet. She let it drop to the floor with a clatter.

"We have a lot of friends, too," Clara went on, "Other Manifests. While you were researching the Doctor, did you come across Rose Tyler?"

"She burned to death. The time vortex ate her alive."

"No. She survived. And now the time vortex lives inside her, with all its power, and it has done for decades. She's the Bad Wolf, and if you hurt me, she'll come after you. She doesn't like me too much, to be honest, but she'd still chase you across time and space until she could turn you into dust. She once did that to an entire, Dalek invasion fleet. So, I don't know what chance you think you stand with your motley crew of clockwork men.

"The fact is, you're not the enigma you think you are. I mean, you are, I suppose, but you're very dull. You don't have the right charisma to be a real threat. You're just another coward who wanted to pick a fight with the Doctor and decided the best way to do that was to kill a defenceless, human girl. That's revenge you can really be proud of, the one that involves you murdering a child, taking on no risk whatsoever. Hats off to you for being so uniquely pathetic, madame la reine."

"You don't know me."

"Is there really anything worth knowing? I feel like you'd be more forthcoming, if there was. Anyway, I think we can agree that going after me is a bad idea. In future, if you decide to continue with this scheme, you should go to the Doctor herself. She might actually respect you if you do that.

"But, look, this is how it's going to happen. You're going to let me take this thingamajig," she indicated the temporal scoop whatsit, "And you're also going to give me your vortex manipulator."

"What vortex manipulator?" Her mouth was the only part of her body Clara wasn't keeping stuck tightly in place.

"The one you had stashed in the Tuileries to escape Robespierre with. That one. I know you have it, you're too much of a pragmatist not to. So, where is it?"

"You won't get any use out of the 'scoop'. It needs genetic information."

"Where's the vortex manipulator?" Clara repeated firmly. She was doing her 'teacher voice'.

"It's around my ankle. You should let me get it."

"That isn't going to happen. We don't want you making a 'French exit' now, do we?" Clara smiled at her own joke. "Which ankle? I'll get it for you. You can't say I'm not romantic." It was the left one. Clara stood up from where she'd been leaning on the bar and squatted down to remove it, simply phasing it through Marie's leg instead of trying to fumble with layers of stockings and polyester. It looked like it was in full working order. "Thanks muchly."

"Eurgh. You English. You say such stupid things."

"What does the thingamabob need, then? Fingerprints, saliva, something like that? You're going to tell me exactly how it works or I'm going to pull off your head and bury it in a landfill. There are some nasty ones around Leeds."

"You're a wretch."

"Just tell me how it works."

Clara had been right. The Last Queen of France was too pragmatic, too self-important, to let Clara pull off her head and chuck it into a rubbish dump. Even when she had meticulously explained the process by which a temporal scoop could be executed, giving Clara some quite specific coordinates – which Clara was sure to input ever so slightly incorrectly – and also explaining how to reconfigure it so it was a journey for one, it was still hard to remember all the steps. But Clara got it in the end, just about. Inputted some of the Queen's own DNA to ensure the scoop found its mark.

"She's moulded you into a soldier, like all the others."

"No, a soldier would probably kill you. I'm being a lot nicer. Giving you a chance to reconsider, and to leave me alone."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't return to this city for anything."

"Bit rude. I always liked Leeds."

"I thought the stories about your filth were an exaggeration, but I see now, you're as bad as her."

"You're still throwing around a lot of classism for someone who's already been executed by working class revolutionaries at least once in her lifetime," said Clara. "Now, have you got any last words? Last requests before I send you on your way?" Clara stood up, vortex manipulator around her wrist, stepping backwards to put some distance between them.

"The Doctor will answer for what she's done. I'll take your advice, ma chérie, and take the direct approach next time. Perhaps it will be her I kill in front of you."

"Wonderful. I can't wait." Clara activated the scoop.

A steady whirring began, building over a matter of seconds until the whole Viaduct was enveloped in the vomit-coloured glow she'd seen creeping underneath the door earlier. The clockwork mechanisms inside the device span wildly and Marie Antoinette disappeared, warping out of existence and leaving a shimmer in the time-space she left behind. The whirring stopped as the machine calmed down again. Clara remembered the droid was still in the bathroom.

"Shit…" she mumbled. Tentatively, she walked towards the bathroom and pushed the door open, peering around the side for the android. She needn't have worried. The droid had taken Queenie's instructions literally and stuck its head in the toilet as bade. Its glass body was partially filled up with water as it slumped over the bog; it must have a crack.

Outside, Matilda had been religiously checking the time on Clara's phone, counting down the minutes until she could call Rose. She trusted that Rose would be able to sort everything out and was still steadfast in her belief that Clara's plan was ridiculous and reckless. Her hand hanging over the receiver with less than five minutes to go, she was just about to throw caution to the wind and pick it up – when Clara stepped out of the Viaduct's front doors carrying a very large, golden object. Mattie stumbled when she left the phone box to meet her.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?" she asked, "I heard that gunshot, I was about to call Rose, I was-"

"It's fine, Mattie," Clara assured her calmly, "It's resolved."

"Resolved how? What did you do? Shit. You killed her."

"I did not. I just returned the favour and sent her to some other place and time. This thing is the temporal scoop she used," Clara held it up.

"Can't she home in on that, get back to where you are?"

"I don't see how. And we could always break it, we broke the gloves; it's not like we need to scoop people out of time," said Clara, indifferent to this worry, "She's gone. She won't be coming back."

"How can you be sure?"

"We came to an understanding."

"Jesus, do you have to be so cryptic?"

Clara began to walk down the street away from the bar. It had started to rain while she was indoors, and it had already grown quite heavy. Mattie followed her.

"I had to threaten her a bit," Clara admitted, "Told her I'd pull off her head and put it in a dump."

"Isn't that healed?"

"No, it's still sewn on there," said Clara, "I could have ripped it off again. Wouldn't have stopped her talking, though."

"Did she tell you who she is?"

Clara sighed, "No, not really. But we were right, it's all about revenge on the Doctor, nothing to do with me."

"You got her to leave? Just like that? Didn't she have any more robots?"

"Just one, but she told it to kill itself before I got in. She mustn't have thought it would actually do it."

"I still don't get it. You just talked to her?"

"I realised something," said Clara, "When we met her, when we were in France, I never used my powers until after she pissed off. She didn't know I was a Manifest, hadn't prepared for it at all. Now she knows I'm actually harder to kill than the Doctor."

"And what was the gunshot?"

"Well, she shot me," said Clara, "But I phased. Bullet went in the wall. Those tricks won't work again, though."

"Again!? So she will come back?"

"Probably, but not like this. She'll give it a rest trying to kill me, I bet."

"Why are you so relaxed? Some alien lunatic wants to kill your wife, and you're-"

"Matilda," Clara stopped walking to look at her, "A lot of people want to kill the Doctor. Just look at Halloween and those elaborate murders, that was the exact same thing."

"Do you at least know where she went?"

"She gave me some coordinates and I put them in wrong on purpose, so no, not really. Maybe she'll never even find another time machine. But the important thing is that I took her vortex manipulator, so we can go straight home. Hold this for a second." Clara gave her the whatsit, which really was quite heavy, so that she could program the vortex manipulator. The rain battered the ground around them, abysmal in its humidity. It made her feel even dirtier than she already did.

She had the place and time punched in – a return to the sixteenth of January only an hour after they had left – and touched Mattie's arm as they teleported home. Though time travel without a capsule was always nasty, the vortex manipulator was far smoother than the remote scoop.

Never in her life had Clara been happier to be plucked out of the muggy, horrible summer thunder and into a frostbitten, English winter. The sheer relief of finally being free from the heat and dampness that had pervaded since the morning, made worse by the layers of muck she'd accumulated and the stress of being dragged through time and murdered, was exquisite. They were enveloped in the freezing cold, a forecast of snow on the horizon, in the street outside the very same bookshop they had started the evening by visiting.

"Holy shit," said Mattie, almost collapsing against the side of the camper van as soon as she'd given the scoop back to Clara. "It's so cold. I never want it to be summer again."

"Summer's a lot more bearable when you're not running around trying to stop murderers," said Clara, though she agreed completely with Mattie in that moment.

"I thought it would never end."

"Well, here we are," she said "Brighton. Thank god."

"You were loving being back there."

"…Alright, maybe I was. It was a simpler time. Found my books." The books were on the floor where she had dropped them. In the last hour, nobody had stopped to pick them up. They were still in relatively good shape, at least. Clara loaded the time scoop into the back of the van and went around picking up the books as Mattie got inside, rolling down the mechanical windows.

Clara got in the driver's side and left the books stacked precariously on the seat between them. It was finally time to go home.

"What if something bad's happened?" the Doctor paced up and down her kitchen, "What if she's been hurt, or worse?"

"She'll be fine," said Jenny, the same thing she had been repeating over and over for the last hour since Clara had called with her poisonous stab wound.

"You're not taking this seriously. We need to go there. We need to take the TARDIS-"

"No. She told you not to do that, so you're not going to do that."

"You can't stop me."

"I think you'll find I can," said Jenny, who was leaning on the counter right by the back door. The TARDIS was still in the garden outside, staring at the Doctor tantalisingly through the window.

"She could be dead, Jenny! What if she gets killed in the past? Her younger self?"

"Then we'd all cease to exist, wouldn't we?" said Jenny. "I think we'd notice if we ceased to exist."

"No, you wouldn't notice, because you wouldn't notice anything, you'd become a void."

"Yeah, but you'd notice if you became a void."

"Are you understanding me?"

"You're panicking, mother," said Jenny, "It's Clara. She'll be fine. She has nanogenes and a hundred superpowers."

"She hasn't called."

"She said her phone wasn't working."

"It's 2006! There are payphones everywhere!"

"She's probably just distracted trying to avert her own assassination. She's sensible, she will be fine."

"Sensible! You don't even know her."

"I do know her, I think you'll find," Jenny grumbled.

"I need another coffee."

"That's the last thing you need."

The Doctor made her way towards the kettle, but Jenny blocked her path.

"I'm just making a fresh pot."

"No. You've had enough."

"Jenny-"

"Seriously, I'll break your arm if you make any more coffee." She reached for the kettle and Jenny grabbed her wrist. "Don't test me."

"This is my house."

"It's in your best interest."

"It'll calm my nerves."

"Your nerves? You're the 'Oncoming Storm', I thought you don't get nervous?" Jenny challenged.

"You're being very cruel." The Doctor finally stepped away from the kettle and Jenny let go of her arm.

"I'm just looking after you. Why don't we get back to the pinball machine?"

"My wife is dead, I can't think about pinball!" she threw up her arms in frustration.

"She's not dead!" Jenny argued, "She's-"

"Shh!" the Doctor held up a hand to Jenny's mouth to stop her talking and Jenny immediately hit her hand away. "Do you hear that?"

"What?"

"Shh!"

"I just hear the fridge."

"It's the van!" The Doctor took off, tearing through the house to get to the front door. Resigned and thinking the Doctor was utterly mistaken and possibly trying to run around the back to get to the TARDIS, Jenny followed her. But Jenny was glad to be wrong. It was the van, Clara's blue Westfalia, with Clara and Mattie inside.

Clara was barely able to stop the van and get out before she was beset by the Doctor, who threw her arms around her and nearly knocked her clean over. They went spinning around on the driveway, tumbling and turning, and Clara hugged her back as tightly as she could.

"I've been so worried," said the Doctor.

"You don't have to worry about me. I'm me. I'll be alright."

"Are you hurt? Where were you stabbed?" She let go of Clara to search her body for gory wounds, but Clara pushed her away.

"I'm fine. They stabbed me right here," she indicated the hole in her clothes and the blood stains, "All better now, though."

"How long were you gone?"

"Twelve hours."

"How did you get back? What happened? You need to tell me everything."

"There's not much to tell. I found her hiding in a drag bar, she… made a big show of how much she hates you. I threatened her a bit-"

"You threatened her!?"

"A bit," Clara reiterated, "Nothing that bad. Then I zapped her away with her own temporal scoop. She won't try that again. I'll get it for you if you'd stop touching me."

"I thought you were dead!" The Doctor was still checking her obsessively for injuries.

"I kept telling you she wasn't dead," Jenny argued, "You never listen to me. Are you alright, Matilda?"

"I'm boiling," said Mattie now she'd gotten out of the van too, "It was awful. So hot. I hate the noughties."

"Mm, I see that," Jenny nodded, "You know what you need? Mango sorbet. I made some fresh this morning, brought it along with the pinball machine – it's in the freezer right now."

"Seriously? That would be amazing."

"Come on, I'll get you a bowl." Jenny led Mattie back into the house while Clara retrieved the scoop, leaving the books in the front for the time being. She handed it to the Doctor.

"Oh, wow, I've never seen technology like this. Very compact for a remote time machine. How unusual."

"Listen," Clara lowered her voice, not wanting Mattie to hear her, "She tried to play some mind games with me. Went on and on about how many people you've killed, how many wars you've been involved in-"

"Coo-Bear. You know me. You know everything about me."

"Yeah, but… it just… she really hates you. You, specifically, she said you were the 'right Doctor' she's been looking for, the Twelfth Doctor. But you said you don't remember her."

"Clara, I've never left your side the entire time I've been the Twelfth Doctor. Did she say anything else? Any hints?"

"Only one thing."

"Go on?" the Doctor was dying to know.

"She wouldn't tell me much. But she said her planet was a 'few clicks south of Alzarius', whatever that means."

"Alzarius? Are you sure?" the Doctor frowned.

"Yes. Why? What does it mean?"

"It's just a planet," the Doctor took the scoop and headed inside. Clara hurried to shut the van doors and lock them, following her before she started ranting to thin air, as she did sometimes do. "I only went there once, hundreds of years ago."

"And… what did you do?"

"Helped some people fix their spaceship and leave," she said, "It's where I met Adric. But it's not in this universe, it's in E-Space, a pocket universe. The Great Vampires went and hid there after the war."

"So, that's where she's from?"

"No, the Alzarians didn't have technology anything like those Gloves, or this thing," she set the temporal scoop down on the kitchen table now, very perplexed by its existence. "But if she's from near Alzarius, that means she's from somewhere in E-Space. I haven't been back there since my seventh regeneration."

"What-space?" asked Jenny.

"Pocket universe," said Clara.

"Is that where she's from? The Queen?"

"It must be some kind of hint," said the Doctor.

"I don't think she was hinting, she only mentioned it when she thought she was going to kill me."

"So it's more than a hint, it's the truth! That's that settled. We're going to E-Space!"

"Excuse me? I don't think so," said Clara.

"We need to get to the bottom of this before she tries to kill you again," said the Doctor. "You don't have to come, I'll take Jenny."

"We don't have to go now," said Jenny, "Won't you two want some 'alone time'?"

"Jenny, the Last Queen of France told Clara she's from a pocket universe where I happen to have a very old friend who can almost certainly help us out. What if it was your Clara being hunted relentlessly?"

"She's not after me, she wants you," said Clara, "I think this is a bad idea."

"No. We'll just drop in and be back before bedtime. Trust me, my friend will help us out."

"'Friend' – what friend have you got hanging around in a pocket universe?" Clara questioned, very unhappy about this turn of events.

"Clara," said the Doctor, "I know what I need to do now, to protect you."

"Don't act like you're protecting me," she said sharply, "This is for yourself, we all know it."

"…Coo," the Doctor was disheartened by this tone, "I… I need to know. I need to know what would possess her to do this."

"I don't want you to," said Clara.

"…It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission," said the Doctor, making up her mind. Jenny could hardly believe it; only a few minutes ago she had been going mad being separated from Clara, and now she wanted to disappear to visit a different universe.

"Is it really?" Clara challenged, "You're going to come back here and ask me to forgive you in the middle of the night? Can't this wait until the morning?"

"I'm going. I'm sorry. I love you. Are you coming, Jenny?"

"I suppose I'd better," Jenny gave in. The Doctor picked up the temporal scoop. Clara looked at Jenny in desperation, wanting her to convince the Doctor to stay behind. "I'll look after her," she promised.

"I don't need looking after, I'm the Doctor," she said determinedly. "To E-Space we go! Allons-y!" And she left, carrying a useless time machine into a less-useless time machine and vanishing.

As Jenny went after her, picking up her coat from the back of the chair, she mouthed, "Sorry," over her shoulder at Clara, who only shook her head. There were barely five minutes between her getting home and the Doctor deciding to run towards what was almost certainly going to be a very bad situation.

"This isn't good," said Clara, watching the TARDIS vworp away.

"I don't like it when you two fight," Mattie admitted.

"I know, sweetheart. It's not how I… she'd better be alright." Clara didn't speak for a while, eyes fixed on the spot in the garden where the TARDIS had just been. Mattie didn't know if it was rude to continue eating her sorbet. "I'm gonna go have a shower. I stink."

"Yeah, you do."

"I'll be back down in a bit. Let me know if… just if there's anything you want to let me know." She peeled off her own coat, which she'd barely removed all day in spite of the terrible heat, and left it on top of the pinball machine that was still taking up space in the kitchen.

"Hey, Clara…" Mattie said as she was about to leave the room.

"What's up?"

"Thanks for… you know. Everything."

Clara smiled a little, though she was still sad about what had just happened, "You don't have to thank me. I'm always here for you, Matts."

"I know, but still. Thanks."

"It's my honour."

AN: The next storyline will follow on directly from this one with Jenny & the Doctor. And as a teaser, yes, the Doctor's E-Space friend is indeed Romana, and her presence will not contradict any of the canon lore.