Chapter 12: Never Alone
Something unbearably hot and surprisingly cold prodded Clara to consciousness. She groaned and stirred slightly. Everything ached, as if she had been temporarily sunburned, and something cold and flat was pressing up into her body beneath her.
Clara stirred slightly and bit back a gasp. Sharp pain arriving in pounding waves stabbed into her mind. Her skin felt as though was being eaten alive by ants, a side effect from the teleport, no doubt.
'Am I dead?' she winced, trying to asses her situation with her temporarily dulled senses.
Clara finally gathered up enough will-power to squint her eyes open, and well, at least she wasn't dead. Not yet. She appeared to be imprisoned in a dark, dismal cell with a rough stone floor and walls with questionable stains. The only source of light came from a single dirty lightbulb in the far corner of the cell, but it was enough for Clara to scope out her surroundings.
A heavy metal door with a sliding hatch to see through was the only interesting thing in the room. The cell itself was barely large enough even for Clara, measuring only about the size of a queen-sized bed in area.
The cell was completely bare save for a small empty bowl. The toilet, she assumed. There were barred windows on her left and right for communication with other prisoners, but both sides were dark and lifeless. Liquid stains of varying colors and viscosity crept from the walls, oozing slowly to drip onto dried puddles on the floor. One of the stains looked and smelled exactly like human blood, and Clara had to resist the urge to retch in disgust.
Clara leaned back against one of the cleaner stones that made up the wall and breathed in the stagnant air. A blaring headache raged in her mind, stifling any other coherent thoughts. She squeezed her eyes shut against the painful light. With a small whimper, she attempted to raise one of her hands to press against her aching temples, but found that her wrists were restrained with heavy Dalekanium chains.
"THE HUMAN FEMALE IS DETAINED!" a sharp mechanical voice echoed just outside of Clara's door.
Clara nearly jumped at the sudden voice and a pool of dread suddenly flooded her mind. Daleks. She was in a Dalek camp. She knew the evil mutated robots and their methods. They would certainly torture her and either kill her or convert her into a Dalek.
Clara's breathing picked up, but she dared not make a sound. She fruitlessly searched around the cell for the hundredth time for any kind of object that could serve as a weapon. Finding nothing, she eventually curled into a ball to appear as small as possible and hid in the corner. She sobbed softly and leaned against the coarse stone for support.
"This is it. I've finally done it. I'm going to die here, and God knows what will happen to the Doctor." she whispered, her silent tears slowly turning the fine grime on the floor to thick mud.
"Oh, do cheer up, Miss Clara. We haven't even started yet."
Clara reluctantly peeked an eye open against the blinding sterile light flooding into her room from the open door. She put on her most frightening face, which was hard to do with the tears still streaming down her puffed up face. Clara growled threateningly and tensed herself under Missy's scrutinizing gaze.
"What have you done to him? Where is the Doctor?" Clara attempted to sound fierce in her tone, but her voice cracked halfway through to give away her true emotions.
Missy put on a fake sympathetic face and placed one hand over her hearts as if Clara's words had touched her. "Aw, aren't you two adorable, always searching for each other."
Missy huffed and swung her umbrella around her arm. "Ever since you left, all I've heard from your sweet Doctor is, 'Clara, Clara, where is Clara?' and threatening jibber-jabber. So, I came here to pay you a visit to escape his incessant demanding, and what do I get? The exact same thing from you. I should have seen this coming." Missy sighed and shook her head in false disappointment.
"Still," Missy grinned, suddenly kneeling to Clara's level and showing all of her teeth, "I'm not going to let that spoil my mood. I have a party to throw." she snickered, reaching out to touch Clara's cheek.
Clara recoiled and nearly bit Missy's fingers. "Get away from me! The Doctor will find me, and you'll be sorry! If you lay so much as a finger on me, he will make you wish you had stayed in hell."
Missy withdrew her hand just barely fast enough to escape Clara's snapping teeth. Her eyes widened in surprise briefly, but the evil smile quickly returned. "Oh, you are a feisty one alright. And a biter." she said thoughtfully, "I wonder if the Doctor has found that out by now."
Without giving her time to respond, Missy suddenly bolted up and stabbed at a button on her umbrella which Clara could have sworn wasn't there before. Bright orange lightning arced from the round Dalek orbs embedded in Clara's chains and snaked up her arms. The tendrils of light curled around her body, setting every nerve they touched on fire.
Clara screamed with a surprised yelp. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and gritted her teeth against unbearable pain. She strained against her restraints desperately and cried out over the crackling sound of the lightning searing her delicate skin.
The energy pierced beneath skin and muscle, traveling up her bones, illuminating her skeleton briefly, and shined through her teeth bared in a silent scream. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, and she found herself praying for unconsciousness or even death. This striking agony was even worse than the pain from her fatal wounds on Aluereygo XI.
Clara managed to open her eyes somehow, perhaps involuntarily. Even through her blurry haze, she could not miss the way the bright orange arcs of savage energy danced manically in Missy's sadistic eyes like hellfire.
Just as suddenly as the onslaught had begun, it was over. Missy released the button with a satisfied smirk and twirled her umbrella daintily.
Clara collapsed with all her weight, her small body limp against the wall and the floor. Rivulets of blood streamed slowly like tears from the corners of her eyes, leaked from beneath her nails, and bubbled liberally from her mouth.
She choked on the blood in a silent sob, coughing forth a copious spray of the scarlet liquid to spatter on the stained walls. She could feel streams of the warm fluid racing down the contours of her face, traveling down her neck, and flowing down her outstretched arms, dripping to join the dark mud on the floor. Angry red scars had branded themselves into her soft skin, forming vermillion patterns not unlike the cracks in a pane of shattered glass. The stifling pain was nearly intolerable, and it was all Clara could do to gasp out strangled sobs against the searing waves.
"Oh, you're making such a mess, dearie. It'll take me forever to get this place clean." Missy whined, kicking dirt over the pool of blood on the floor and into Clara's face.
Clara sputtered and spat out the dirt weakly with another spray of blood. She groaned faintly and felt her mind reeling. She used up almost all the rest of her strength to call out to the Doctor through their telepathic bond. They could be a hundred miles, or a million light-years apart, but Clara knew, no matter where he could be, that he would always be able to hear her cry.
"Do you remember your encounter with my lipstick zapper on Christmas Day?" Missy announced, but almost as if she were talking to herself as she admired her new toy, "Well this is the big daddy version of that."
Missy showed off the new button on her umbrella, tilting it in the sharp light, "There are no freezing or hibernation effects for this bad boy. It takes no prisoners. That blast should have killed you on the spot, but I wanted to prove a theory." Missy cooed, gazing at Clara's crumpled form with mock pity.
"What...theory?" Clara gasped out quietly and with great effort. Her voice was rough and cracked, and her breathing was labored against her scarred ribcage. It was all she could do to refrain from passing out. She wasn't going to show weakness to Missy. To her last breath, she would fight. She swallowed her pain and braced her less injured arm against the rough stone floor for support.
"See? Just look at you. What a trooper you are!" Missy beamed at Clara patronizingly. "You should be as dead as a fish on a slab, but look at you go, still flopping about without even losing consciousness. I'm proud of you, girl."
Missy kneeled to Clara's level again, carefully avoiding the muddy pools of blood lest she ruin her newly tailored dress. She crooked a gnarled finger beneath Clara's chin and lifted her face roughly to make direct eye contact with her.
Clara made a face and let out a small groan, but other than that she no longer had the strength to fight back. "You see," Missy explained, "I had a hunch that the Doctor's so-called 'sacrificial' act for you had to have changed you somehow. He poured his entire life and soul into yours, fusing his DNA together with yours- saving you and killing him."
Missy eyed Clara up and down critically, "However, that is a Timelord consciousness you have bumbling around in your tiny human brain. Your head should implode from the weight of the knowledge of time and space. He has tried to do this before, with some sassy ginger-haired woman, and human-Timelord hybrids just don't work."
Missy leaned forward, so close that Clara could have head-butted her to hopefully knock the Master out, but at this point, Clara was content to use all of her strength to will herself to keep breathing against the agony tearing her limb from limb.
Missy hissed and continued, glaring deep into Clara's pained eyes as if she could find an answer there. "So, what's the deal with you? What's so special about you, Clara? Why don't you just die? How can you even reach into my mind, how can you tolerate these levels of Sikron Energy?" Missy wondered aloud.
"Anyway!" Missy suddenly announced, shooting up and leaning against the doorframe, "I hope you enjoyed this visit as much as I did, Clara, dear," she looked at her bare wrist as if reading the time on a watch, "But oh, look at the time. I think it's the Doctor's turn now."
She smiled widely with her needle-sharp teeth, "Goodbye, sweetie. It's been a pleasure. It's going to be so fun breaking you, Clara."
Missy stepped out into the corridor, slamming the door shut with a heavy metallic clang, and sliding the viewing hatch open. She chuckled crazily and called out, "See ya!" in a sing-song voice before slamming the hatch shut and leaving Clara in the stagnant dimness of the cell.
When she could no longer hear the clacking of Missy's heels against the metal floors, Clara breathed out a sigh of relief. She slumped against the rough stone and could feel the soft embrace of unconsciousness enveloping her.
She continued to cough out blood, but the flow had mostly stopped for now. She wiped the now sticky red fluid from her face and dropped her arms in exhaustion. Her chains clattered loudly against the floor and she groaned.
Clara edged away from the raunchy-smelling mud as best she could and curled up into a fetal position. Missy would surely be back tomorrow, or even earlier, to torture her further. The pain had subsided slightly, but Clara couldn't tell if that was due to her body getting used to it, or by her numb mind slipping into the abyss. She licked her lips with thirst, and her stomach complained loudly. She hadn't eaten or had anything to drink since lunch yesterday at school.
'Clara?' a soft voice called in the back of her mind.
'Doctor?' Clara weakly replied. She could feel him light up temporarily that she was still alive, but then sink almost immediately once he realized her condition. She could feel his shock in her mind, followed quickly by sadness, guilt, and finally rage.
'Oh, Clara. My Clara. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me.' he reached out for her, wrapping his glowing yellow tendrils comfortingly around her dimming consciousness. 'I should have had a plan against Missy. I knew that she would pull something big like this, but I swore to protect you, and now you are trapped here because of my failure.'
Clara telepathically leaned into the embrace. It felt like he was there, holding her tightly against his chest while she nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder. She whimpered softly in response, and the broadcast of pain and hopelessness she was sending out through her mind was almost too much for the Doctor to bear.
'Let me ease your pain, Clara. Please. You need to sleep.' He couldn't physically protect her from whatever Missy or the Daleks had in mind for the days to come, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let her suffer it alone. The Doctor completely encompassed her in his soft tentative hug, guarding her against her own body.
Clara was too tired to carry on a conversation with him, especially telepathically, but she broadcasted her permission, and the Doctor immediately lifted most of the agony from her body and into his. He gasped in shock, and Clara could feel his mind crying out briefly against the new pain before he silenced it from her. He curled his soul around hers once again, desperately holding on, his golden light pulsating softly with the odd erratic flicker as her pain coursed through him.
Clara beamed at the Doctor in weary gratitude and wrapped herself back around him, her own gentle light glowing significantly brighter. Their souls fit perfectly like missing puzzle pieces, and they shared the pain together.
Soon, the levels were tolerable for both, and Clara allowed herself to finally begin to drift to unconsciousness in his safety. She had no idea where he was and what state he was in, and she was still lying shackled against the wall in a Dalek Camp where her days were surely numbered, but nevertheless, she knew that they could never be separated.
The Doctor and Clara were bonded for life, and neither pain, nor death, nor distance could ever truly force them apart. As long as their souls would carry on, long after the universe meets its end, they would never be alone.
And in that dark bloody cell, in the minds of the Impossible Girl and the Impossible Man, the two soulmates both drifted off into sleep, knowing that if Missy didn't get what she wanted, the next day to come could very well be their last.