Scattered Thoughts From Across the Cosmos

by CJ-1021

Part of "3 Doctors 9 Companions" series / Discarded drafts, excerpts, short short stories and long short stories, one-shots, drabbles, REWRITES, and other pieces of flotsam and jetsam that just don't quite fit within any of my other fics - but they're still as good as they can be!

7. The Infinite

AN: It has taken me far too long to finish this. Retrograde will be next to get an update.

THE INFINITE

a novella

There was always live music in the Loop. It was smoky and sweaty and you couldn't see the band over the heads of the patrons, jammed in there and fighting over a handful of small tables and climbing over each other to get to the bar for more drinks, but that was all part of the appeal. The music wasn't always good, and sometimes Jenny wouldn't even call it music, but it did add something to the mood; and in a place like that, it didn't need to be good, just loud.

"Didn't I always promise I'd show you Akwana?" said Jenny. There was no danger of being overheard; her business was her business, same as everybody else, and that was that. There was honour among thieves, after all, and she was hiding in a smuggler's den the best bandits in the galaxy called home: the Blacklight Society.

"And I can see so much of it inside that bar," Oswin quipped in the earpiece Jenny was wearing. She had that and a pair of glasses with cameras for lenses, so that Oswin – hiding on Jenny's flying saucer outside – could see what was happening and offer the necessary guidance.

"Give over, you can look out the window," said Jenny, "Or do I have to do that for you, too?" She cast a glance through one of the bar's small windows, no bigger than portholes, glassless and carved into the walls of the maze-like canyon the Society's headquarters occupied. The jungle foliage outside was glowing vivid shades of indigo beneath the ultraviolet light of the system's star; that was where the name came from: all the foliage glowed like that. It was a beautiful, but deadly, planet.

"Keep your eyes on the punters. I've seen it once; I don't need to see it again – you know my feelings about the outdoors."

"Mm…" said Jenny. She wasn't there for the drinks; they were searching for somebody specific. A two-bit criminal who thought he was a hotshot claiming to be in possession of information Jenny needed. He could supposedly be found hanging around the Loop looking for jobs, but that was all they knew. Jenny's cup of juice had been empty for a long time. "Show me the picture again." In the lenses of her glasses, a mugshot flashed up. The only name they had to go on was 'Ringo.'

"Still nothing?"

"Yep."

"Lucky you've got me to keep you entertained." Jenny didn't answer, just kept her eyes on the room. "So, how exactly does one join a thieves' guild?"

"Why? Do you want to sign up? You could send Sprite in to nick things for you."

"I'm merely taking an interest in your life." Oswin's voice was still the loudest thing of all in the bar, drowning out the music and chatter. "Do you have to pay a fee?"

"They take a cut of the commission, for jobs," Jenny explained.

"But – you're just stealing, right? You can't do that on your own?"

"Blacklighters get all the best work. You want something stolen, you talk to the Blacklight Society."

"But who's in charge? Is there some kind of board who sit around and deliberate who should get what job?"

"You're asking the wrong person – I've been out of this line of work for nearly a century. As far as I can remember, if you hang around here for long enough somebody will hire you for something. Getting into the Loop is the first step."

"Have you tried asking around for this boy?"

"No, I don't want to spook him. We got our tip-off from the Shadow, that means he'll be here sooner or later. I trust the Shadow."

"I find it hard to believe that the Shadow frequents bars."

"He goes drinking at the Maldovarium sometimes, when he's looking for Beanie Babies."

"Completely ridiculous," Oswin dismissed. Jenny sighed, bored, but then something caught her eye. Oswin began talking in her ear again, asking another idle question to pass the time, but she wasn't listening.

She was lingering close to the door, in prime position to spot anybody coming or going she might want a word with – which happened to be Ringo that day. But some newcomers quickly absorbed her entire attention; she recognised them, and they shouldn't be there.

"Jenny? Are you listening? I said-"

"Shh," Jenny hissed, putting her empty cup down on the nearest table. She slipped through the crowd to try and eavesdrop.

"Nobody else can hear me, you maniac." Jenny didn't respond. "What is it? Is it him?" It wasn't Ringo, but she overheard his name. It was the Beta Doctor – or Astro Doctor, as she had been renamed after their last (and only) encounter when Jenny had been brutalised by a drugged-up and violent Will Smiles – and who Jenny assumed must be a new companion at her side. A young woman.

"I thought you said this place was exclusive?" the girl asked. "Looks like any old pub when the footie's on."

"Trust me," said the Doctor, "Everyone in here is a career criminal." She wasn't wrong. "Now, you go ask at the bar, I'll talk to people listening to the band. Remember, Yaz, we're looking for Ringo."

"I know, I know," said Yaz. Jenny remained unseen in the crowd. They split up, the Doctor going one way and Yaz going another. Jenny was briefly torn on who she should follow: the Doctor would recognise her straight away and might be persuaded to explain what she was up to, but Jenny might have more luck trying to trick Yaz into spilling the beans on whether they were really looking for the same thing.

"Jenny, what's going on? Why are you following that girl? I don't think she's Ringo."

"That was the Doctor," she whispered.

"What? Who? When? Where?"

"Work it out yourself, genius." She picked to follow Yaz and easily slipped through the crowd after her. The Loop was small enough, the patrons packed in like sardines, so it didn't take long for Yaz to start trying to hail down the bartender to ask a question. Jenny pushed past two people deep in conversation about how they could find a getaway vehicle this side of Zeta Reticuli, and took up a spot leaning on the bar nearby, just close enough to listen.

"Excuse me?" Yaz called, "Could I just… hello?" Jenny leant on the bar and watched her for a few seconds, until Yaz briefly met her gaze, then looked away for a moment. She looked back, confused, and Jenny smiled, then raised her hand to wave at the barman, whom she knew.

"Dante!" she called. He looked up. "Girl here wants your attention." Dante, a scaly alien with six arms who was simultaneously able to clean the bar, shine the glasses, and pour a drink, came sliding back down to the other end, past Jenny, to meet Yaz.

"What can I get you?" he asked amiably.

"I just wanted to ask you a question," she said.

"We don't ask questions here."

"It'll only take a-"

"She'll have a glass of glow worm," said Jenny, "With no alcohol. And so will I, for that matter."

"For your tab?" he jibed.

"As always," Jenny smiled. Oswin didn't say a word. Dante poured two glasses of 'glow worm', which was in fact fruit juice that glowed faintly blue, just like everything else on the planet, and gave them both to Jenny. Customers stepped back to let her pass and talk to Yaz, who evidently didn't know what was going on. It was probably a good thing they hadn't met the last time the Astro Doctor had been in town. She held a glass out to Yaz.

"Thanks, but… what is it?"

"Just juice," she said, "You can't come to Akwana without having a glass of glow worm."

"Why is it called that?"

"Comes from these big, long fruits, like, uh-"

"Cucumbers," said Oswin in her ear.

"Like cucumbers. Only bigger. Giant, blue, glowing cucumbers that sort of look like worms," she smiled and, to prove it was safe, took a sip of her own drink. It was delicious, and she had half a mind to ask Dante to make her up a bottle so she could take some back for Clara. The UV radiation was much too dangerous for a vampire to step foot on Akwana normally, but Jenny wanted to share the juice. Yaz finally bit the bullet and tasted it for herself, eyes widening as she did.

"This is nice… but, who are you? Why are you buying me a drink? And – is that a sword?" It was a sword; she had it in a scabbard slung across her back.

"Yes. I'm Jenny. And because you don't look like you're from around these parts. And now I know you're not, if you've never had the juice."

"Do you know a lot of the people who come here?"

"Not necessarily. Hasn't been my regular haunt for a long time, I'm just… catching up with some old friends."

"Lying? Nice."

"What about you? Why are you here?" Jenny inquired as casually as she could. She'd lost sight of the Doctor by now. The band was still playing.

"She'll rollover if you flirt with her," Oswin continued to give unsolicited advice.

"Just here with my friend, we're looking for someone."

"And who might that be?"

"Someone called Ringo. Do you know him?" she asked quite seriously. But the Doctor couldn't know more than they did about what Ringo had that was so valuable, could she? If Jenny was in the dark, she didn't see how the Doctor wasn't.

"Not personally. Do you know Lon?" Jenny asked, pointing out a nearby alien, more than a foot shorter than her who'd been trying to sneak around the bar unnoticed. Lon froze when Jenny pointed him out. Yaz was surprised. "I only ask because he just picked your pocket."

"He – what?" she patted herself down. Jenny held out her hand towards Lon. He clicked his mandibles in annoyance and gave Jenny what he'd stolen. A mobile phone from the early twenty-first century.

"You should know how to do a simple lift by now, Lon," said Jenny as he scurried away back into the crowd. She shook her head and gave Yaz her phone back, taking another sip of her juice.

"I'm normally good at spotting pickpockets."

"That's alien pickpockets for you – different MO. But you should really keep your wits about you, everyone in here is a thief."

"Including you?"

"Tell her you're gonna steal her heart," said Oswin. Jenny only smiled.

"Maybe. Depends on which way the wind's blowing."

"You really do ooze all over the place, don't you?"

"So, who's your friend?" asked Jenny.

"What friend?"

"You said you were here with a friend."

"Oh, she's, um… she'll be around."

"What do you need Ringo for?"

"How am I supposed to know you're not trying to protect him?"

"Does he need protecting from you?" Jenny questioned, "What are you planning on doing to him?"

"We just want to ask him some questions."

"She doesn't trust you," said Oswin, "You should tell her who you are." Jenny deliberated this, but the decision of what she should or should not tell Yaz was taken out of her hands when the music died and the chatter with it.

"Excuse me! Could I get everyone's attention!? I won't take up much of your time, promise!" At the far end of the room, the Doctor's head appeared over the crowd as she climbed up onto a table. Jenny almost swore, spilling her juice on the bar as she put her glass down and taking off through the crowd after Yaz. "Hi, sorry about the interruption – I'm looking for somebody who goes by 'Ringo', can anybody help me?" Silence. People in the Loop wouldn't rollover on each other for a stranger.

Jenny reached the front of the crowd and decided to throw decorum out of the window, grabbing the Doctor's elbow and dragging her down from the table. People stared at the Doctor, and the Doctor stared at Jenny, alarmed to see her there.

"Show's over," said Jenny, then she addressed the band, "Keep playing."

"You got it, Zero," said the band leader, and the music began again.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jenny hissed at her when the music got back to where it had been before her interjection, and the people closely by returned to their conversations. She was one of the Blacklight Society's biggest names, after all – practically a celebrity in those circles – which meant people stayed out of her business even more than they usually would.

"Jenny!" the Doctor exclaimed like she'd only just seen her, still stunned. Jenny only scoffed.

"Are you trying to get yourself stabbed?" she countered.

"Do you know each other?" Yaz asked.

"No," said Jenny coldly, "No, I don't think we do."

"Don't be like that," said the Doctor. Jenny clenched her jaw, thinking.

"My advice to you is that you stay out of my way."

"So that's the new Doctor? She's hot," Oswin quipped as Jenny, already tried of it all, decided to take her leave and return to where she'd been lurking before the Doctor's rude interruption.

"What? No, wait," said the Doctor, trying to touch her shoulder to get her to stop. Jenny flinched like she had been burned. "Maybe we can help each other."

"She was asking me questions about Ringo," said Yaz.

"See?" the Doctor jumped on this, "We're looking for the same thing. We should work together."

"Yes, except I'm the one with all the pull here, not you, so what, exactly, do I gain?" Jenny challenged.

"A better chance at keeping people safe," said the Doctor, "Isn't that what you want?"

"You know what? I'm sure you can handle it without me."

"Well don't leave, this is important," said Oswin, but Jenny didn't care. She had made up her mind and turned on her heel to push her way out of the Loop and into the humidity of the glowing canyon the pirate cove was nestled within. Irked, she stuck her hands in the pockets of her jeans and skulked away.

"Jenny! Come back! We can talk about this!" The Doctor was pursuing her, still not explaining to her companion what was going on.

"Nothing to talk about; goodbye!" she called without looking back.

"You're very petty sometimes, you know. She could help."

"How could she help?" Jenny muttered in response, "If we need the Doctor to help us, I'll call mum. As it stands, she has no more information than we do."

"I know, but she has a reputation – she can get people to talk."

"I can get people to talk," Jenny argued with her, "I'm-"

"Zero?"

She stopped dead. Three people stepped out of the shadows underneath a grassy overhang of the canyon, with the man of the hour in the middle. Ringo. And he and his two friends were all brandishing knives.

"That's my name, don't wear it out," said Jenny.

"Heard you were looking for me," said Ringo.

"…You have information I need," she said, "Put those away, we can come to an agreement." The Doctor and Yaz were a few metres behind her, lingering, watching the scene unfold.

"No. The way I see it, you're my competition," he said, "And I can't have that."

"Competition for the Infinite? Come on. Be reasonable. We could split it. I'll do the legwork; you can have the profits."

"Why would I trust you? After what you did to Pasznoxo, and the Tanabe-kai?"

"Ringo. We both know, if you were capable of finding the Infinite, you would have done it by now. You wouldn't be waiting to jump people outside bars. Your best bet is to trust me."

"Mm, but the thing is, I don't."

"This guy really thinks he's hot shit," said Oswin.

"You shouldn't even be able to show your face around here," Ringo continued.

"Oh, come on."

"You welched on a deal. That's grounds for ostracism."

"I didn't have a deal, I was being blackmailed – and Pasz isn't even part of the Society, he's a middle-man, he has no sway. But if you want me to leave, that's exactly what I was about to do, so I'll be on my way." She tried to step forwards and one of them jabbed a knife in her direction. Too far away to do anything, but it did get her to pause again. "Really? You're going to try and mug me? For what?"

"I don't know – do you still have the rock?"

She laughed, "No."

"Then – we'll start with that jewellery. Then you can give us the keys to your ship. A Time Lord must have something flashy hidden away somewhere."

"My jewellery? You mean my ring?" It was the only piece of jewellery she was wearing, that she ever wore. "It's made of wood, it's worth nothing."

"Well, whatever. Give it to me, and then let that be a lesson to you."

"What lesson?"

"A lesson that you shouldn't mess with me!"

"I wasn't trying to mess with you, I'm trying to leave," she continued to argue, "But, fine. Have it your way. I'll just get another one."

"Hands above your head."

"Okay, okay." Jenny lifted her hands and made to pull off her ring, but she still had the advantage; those idiots hadn't noticed she had a giant sword on her back, and by raising her hands she was primed to grab it by the hilt and pull it sharply from the sheath.

"Fuck!" Ringo shouted when she did just that, brandishing her sword.

"Just let me through, and maybe I won't cut your hands off." Behind her, she could hear the Doctor and Yaz arguing about whether or not they should intervene.

"What do you think, boss?" said the goon on Ringo's left.

"She's full of it. She wouldn't cut someone's hand off – the Doctor wouldn't like it. But guess what? The Doctor's not here."

"Surely that means I can cut your hands off?" Jenny said.

"The Doctor is here, actually," said the Doctor herself, interjecting and stepping forwards. "I'm the Doctor."

"Ignore her," said Jenny, "I will cut your hands off."

"Is she the Doctor!?" asked Ringo's second goon.

"Yes, but-"

"Run, Bolter!" he said, and the two of them took off.

"See?" said Oswin, "I told you she has a reputation. You just can't stand it when I'm right."

"Where are you going!? Cowards! You know they don't kill!" Ringo shouted after them.

"Give me the chit, Ringo," said Jenny. "I know you've got it."

"Or what? What will you do?"

"What will I do?" she asked, stepping forwards. Ringo hadn't pulled a knife, he'd left that to his lackeys. She didn't even need the sword; she drew back her free hand and punched him as hard as she could in the mouth. He staggered backwards.

"You're crazy!" She kicked him sharply in the ankle and he fell to his knees.

"Give me the chit or I'll start pulling out your teeth. It's not very hard, it just takes a pocketknife."

"You're pretty sexy when you're being violent. I know Clara disapproves, but I think it's hot." Jenny tried to ignore her.

"That's it," said Jenny when Ringo just made noises on the floor. She sheathed the sword and then dragged him by the arm to the edge of the canyon passage. A luminescent, indigo river ran nearly two-hundred feet below them, and there were no fences or railings.

"What!? No! NO!" Ringo protested, but it was too little too late. Jenny pushed him so close to the edge he would have fallen off if it wasn't for her grip on his arm.

"Where's the chit?" she implored.

"You won't drop me."

"Oh, really?" she let her grip slip and he tried to grab onto her.

"Jenny," the Doctor warned, stepping closer, "Don't hurt him."

"Why shouldn't I? He's clearly a waste of space, not doing anything with his life. Thought he'd try and pick a fight with me to get into the Blacklight Society, is that it?" she asked him.

"Please, please – I'll give you the chit."

"Well, maybe I don't want it now. Maybe I'll just-?" She threatened to let him go tumbling down the cliff again and he screamed. She lowered her voice, "Here's what's going to happen, Ringo. You're going to tell me where the chit is so I can get it myself, and then I'll think about maybe not letting you fall to your death."

"You won't-"

"Is that really a risk you want to take?" she questioned, "Because we can stop playing this game right now and I'll just castrate you, or something. It really makes no odds to me which part of you gets mutilated."

"Fine, fine! It's in my back pocket! Just let me go, don't castrate me, please – the women of Akwana would never forgive you."

"Yeah, sure they won't," she muttered, then glanced over at the Doctor, "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You want to be useful – get the chit. I'm using both my hands."

"Oh, right…" the Doctor stepped over and reached into the back pocket of Ringo's trousers and dug out the data chit. It looked like a thumb drive. Ringo was too scared to even make a quip as she did this. "And you're sure this is the location of the Infinite?"

"I don't know! The data's junk, I can't make sense of it, okay? I can't find the ship."

The Doctor thought, then looked at Jenny, "You can let him go now."

"Yeah, let me go, listen to her," Ringo pleaded.

"Let you go? Off the cliff, you mean?" asked Jenny.

"No! Please! I don't want to die, Zero, you can't – I'm sorry. I'll never show my face on Akwana again, I swear."

"Well. I suppose that's a start." She pulled him back from the ledge and he collapsed to the ground, breathing deeply. "If this chit isn't what you told me it was, then I'll find you and cut out your eyes. That's why they call me 'Zero', because I cut out people's eyes and the sockets are big, empty holes. Do you understand?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he crawled away from her, then stumbled as he got to his feet. She shook her head.

"Because it's so easy to build a career doing this…" she muttered.

"What was that?" the Doctor asked seriously, "Would you really have thrown him off?"

"I can't believe you would even ask me. Now, give me the chit," Jenny held out her hand, but the Doctor didn't move. She lowered her voice, "I said-"

"Don't threaten me."

"If you give me the chit, I won't need to."

"So, how many enucleations do you need to perform until you get a nickname?" she asked sarcastically. Jenny clenched her jaw. Yaz lingered nearby, unsure of what she could do and oblivious to the intricacies of this conversation.

"That's not why they call me that. He's just an idiot."

"Why is it, then?"

"If I tell you, will you give me the chit?"

"I'm not giving you it no matter what you do."

"Why?"

"Because. If I've got this, you need me. We'll have to work together to find the Infinite."

"Is that right? What's stopping me from just shooting you and taking it?" She drew her revolver, which she'd had stashed in the back waistband of her jeans, hidden by her leather jacket.

"You won't shoot me. I know you."

"You don't, and I will. Not fatally, but I'll shoot you in the leg, or the shoulder. Maybe through the wrist."

"Clara won't like that."

"Say her name again, and I'll pull the trigger," Jenny threatened.

"Nobody needs to get shot," said Yaz.

"I agree," said Jenny, "So just give me the chit."

"Doctor… we can't trust someone who pulls a gun."

"We can trust her, it's fine," said the Doctor, "This is Jenny. She's my daughter." Yaz was stunned.

"I am not," said Jenny firmly, "I have a mother, and I had a father. Go bother the Jenny who lives in your own universe, why do you have to bother me? Give me the chit."

"Let us come with you."

"Maybe you should let them tag along," said Oswin.

"What?" asked Jenny, "Why?"

"Because-" the Doctor began.

"I'm not talking to you," she snapped.

"In case things get hairy, I don't know. I can't exactly come swooping in to rescue you. Maybe it'll be useful having more people, we did ask the others." And they had said no. Jenny stayed silent, and Oswin resumed. "Plus, she seems nicer than the last one."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"I want to meet her."

"Why?"

"To build rapport! You know we run into them constantly. And besides, she knows Ravenwood is alive now. There's no point left in being aloof."

"Maybe I like being aloof."

"That's obvious." Jenny was still quiet, thinking. Oswin sighed. "Fine, whatever, shoot her in the face if that's what you want. What do I know, after all? I'm only the most intelligent human who ever lived. Cut her head off, piss on her, maybe then you'll feel better."

"Would you-? Shut up. I'm not – urgh…" she muttered. Even more annoyed than she had been before, she put her .38 away again. "Fine. Oswin says she wants to meet you."

"Tell them they're in for a treat, because I'm in a good mood."

"Oswin?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes, why? Does that dissuade you? You don't have to subject yourself to her, if you don't want. You can just give me the chit, and I'll go."

"No. It's fine. I can handle Oswin."

"She can handle me all day, if she wants. Tell her I said that." Jenny said nothing.

"So? Do we have a deal? Find the Infinite together?" the Doctor prompted.

"…Fine. I'll see you on the other side."

"Other side of what? Where are you going? … Jenny? JENNY!"

Without hesitation, Jenny had jumped from the cliff she had been threatening to throw Ringo from just moments ago, much to the Doctor's horror. She landed lightly on top of the flying saucer, which de-cloaked upon her arrival, its silver body rising so it was level with the ridge they'd been arguing on. The hatch in the middle opened to meet her.

"Are you coming or not?" she asked.

"It looks a bit slippery," said Yaz, "And that's a long drop."

"Okay. Give me the chit, and I'll take care of everything myself."

"No. Go on, Yaz, it'll be fine." Yaz was still a little sceptical.

"I'll catch you if you slip," said Jenny.

"How romantic of you," Oswin quipped, "You're gonna seduce another of her companions at this rate." Yaz jumped from the ridge and landed on the edge of the ship, which didn't so much as wobble.

"You have to climb in, though, because of the gravity," said Jenny as the Doctor followed suit.

"What do you mean?" asked Yaz.

"The ship's upside-down. This is the bottom. I'll show you." With no effort at all Jenny dropped forwards and did a handstand, then pulled herself into the hole in the ship's hull. No sooner was she letting herself fall in than she was dragging herself up by the floor as the world rotated, pulling her in both directions at once until she was all the way into the ship and sitting on the floor.

"Can't you spin it?" the Doctor called from outside.

"No, you can't get in from the top," Jenny explained, then she left them to it, getting to her feet. Oswin had already filled the cockpit of the narrow flying saucer with bits and pieces of junk, all the projects she was working on that were relatively easy to transport. Jenny wasn't sure what most of them were. Oswin herself was sitting in the co-pilot's seat, still with the feed from Jenny's glasses pulled up on a holoscreen. But she turned it off now.

"You're a show-off, you know."

"Should've shot the chit clean out of her hand…" she muttered, taking off her scabbard and leaning it against the console before sitting down in the pilot seat. She lowered her voice and leant towards Oswin, "And what does she want with me, anyway? She has a Jenny of her own somewhere out there."

"Ah, but you're the best one," Oswin smiled. "And you're cute when you're brooding. Which is basically all the time." Jenny held her gaze for a few seconds, then sighed and moved away, leaning back in her chair as Yaz crawled up through the floor. It was a very bizarre thing to watch. "Welcome to the fuck bunker!" Oswin greeted her.

"Don't say things like that," said Jenny.

"Clara?" asked Yaz.

"I'm Oswin, Clara's more intelligent, better looking, younger, funnier twin," said Oswin. "And you're Yaz. I've been on the other end of her earpiece the whole time, feeding her lines so she could seduce you." The Doctor hauled herself up. Yaz clearly didn't know what to make of Oswin, but no one ever did.

"Don't you usually apologise for her ahead of time?" the Doctor questioned. It took Jenny a moment to realise she was talking to her.

"That's Clara's job," said Oswin, "But she's not here."

"Where is she?"

"Brighton. You know that; it's where you and your new 'friends' ran into her."

"No, I mean…" but she stopped mid-sentence. Jenny was watching her with an indecipherable expression. An atmosphere was growing.

"Couldn't trouble you for that chit, could I?" Oswin said when the silence threatened to deafen them.

"…Sure. If we're allowed to tag along."

"You're here, aren't you?" said Jenny.

The Doctor stepped forward and gave the chit to Oswin, who span around in her chair so that she could plug it into the ship for analysis.

"Always erotic, stuff like this," she said, "Opening up a file for the first time to get a look at some raw data. Actually, raw data in any context gets me off."

"Why?" asked Yaz, alarmed.

"All those ones and zeroes. They're just dying to fuck each other."

"She's this inappropriate with everyone, just ignore it," the Doctor advised.

"Actually, I can be much worse if I put my mind to it," to Oswin, "You're just lucky my attention is divided and I can't be as charming as I'd like."

"You're never charming," said Jenny, turning her seat around so she was facing away from everybody.

"Then why does everyone like me?"

"So? What's the data?" the Doctor asked when Jenny didn't reply.

"It's encrypted," said Oswin.

"Do you want me to give it a go?" she offered, "I'm good with encryptions."

Oswin laughed, "No, thank you," she was typing commands onto a keyboard faster than Yaz thought was possible, "You forget, I'm much more intelligent than you are." Yaz found that hard to believe, the Doctor was a genius. "See, I've done it now."

"And?" asked the Doctor, "What is it? Is it the Infinite?"

"It's… hm. I was kidding about raw data, but I think that's what it is, piles of readings from a spectrometer survey conducted by some research organisation…" she said, skimming through reams of figures.

"So, the spectrometer must have found it," said the Doctor.

"What's a spectrometer?" asked Yaz.

"It's an instrument to measure the chemical makeup of astronomical objects," Oswin said before the Doctor had a chance, "You can point it at a star and it'll tell you, roughly, what elements are in that star, and so on. Not that stars are particularly interesting – all hydrogen – atmospheres are what you want, but anyway…"

"And is that what it's looking at? Atmospheres?" asked the Doctor.

"I don't know…" she said quietly, mid-thought. Then she closed the data and opened a different window, beginning to type very quickly.

"What are you doing? Just let me have a look at the data."

"Trust me, this is quicker, I'm just writing a program to sift through it and identify the known elements."

"Can't you get your pet AI to do that? What's it called?"

"If you mean Helix, he's not an AI, he has no sentience, and because this will still be faster. What I'm writing should…" She trailed off again, typing. The Doctor went closer to see what she was doing, apparently enthralled by the data analysis. But Yaz's attention was elsewhere.

They had bumped into the inhabitants of this parallel universe only once before, and only now when she strained could she dimly recall mention of the Doctor's daughter. At least, when the news that Jenny existed was delivered again, she didn't find herself as surprised – more surprised by the fact she hadn't asked more questions the last time. So far, Jenny was not what she had expected. She had been friendly enough initially but had an odd coldness about her when she spoke to the Doctor, and Yaz wasn't entirely convinced that she wouldn't have thrown Ringo off that cliff. Even so, she couldn't picture the Doctor so much as thinking about threatening someone's life like that, so directly and violently. She didn't know why, but she had almost been expecting a carbon copy of the Doctor.

"Don't you have a TARDIS?" Yaz asked. She didn't know which of them she was asking (whichever bothered to answer) but it was Jenny who stepped forwards. She'd been slumped, listening, in her chair, but now she sat up.

"This is my ship," she said. "The TARDIS is elsewhere."

"Technically, the TARDIS is yours, for the moment," said Oswin, still skimming through her data while the Doctor leant over her shoulder to read the numbers.

"For the moment. This ship is mine."

"I think it's mine, actually. I did build it."

"You built a spaceship?" asked Yaz, amazed.

"I'm a genius. Did I not mention I'm a genius?" Yaz shrugged. "That's strange, it's usually the first thing out of my mouth. I'm the smartest human who ever lived. Smarter than these two combined, probably." Yaz couldn't believe what she was hearing, but neither Jenny nor the Doctor disputed her. Oswin flashed Yaz a grin, then returned to her computer. "Ah-ha! There you go!"

"What? What is it?" asked the Doctor.

"It's… fuck me. They've found an isotope, Neon-99, very sexy. It's been newly fused by a neutron star collision in some desolate star system with nothing interesting nearby."

"I thought we were looking for a treasure, or something?" said Yaz, "'The Infinite.'"

"Alright, well, infinity is really a bullshit concept," said Oswin, "A value of infinity means that you're missing a piece of the physics. Mathematically, it's not infinite, but contextually? Depending on how much of this isotope has been fused, you could have a power source on your hands capable of powering an entire galaxy for a billion years. That's not infinite, but it's close enough. Well, it's not close at all, because one is a limit and one isn't, but it's… nobody's gonna read the fine-print, so they'll just slap the name 'the Infinite' on it. It's all PR."

"So, it's a power source?"

"It could be. It could also be a bomb strong enough to make the galactic centre supernova. Although, frankly, sticking it in a reactor is almost the same as building a massive bomb regardless."

"So, what do you think they wanted it for? A bomb or a power plant?"

"Power's more important," said Oswin, "But I suppose it depends on how it behaves, how easy it is to neutralise. Cheaper to build a bomb than a reactor. Anyway – that's where we come in, stop them from having to make that decision."

"Aren't isotopes dangerous on their own, though?" asked Yaz, "How do we get rid of them?"

"Storing them is more of a problem. But, assuming the crew of the extraction ship we're tracing had the results of this survey, they knew exactly what they were searching for. So, their ship probably has the necessary containment equipment on it already," said Oswin.

"But we don't know where the ship is," the Doctor reminded her, "We know where the isotope formed, but the extraction crew disappeared."

"Yes, probably because their ship was carrying a volatile, radioactive isotope on it," said Oswin. "So maybe they didn't have the necessary equipment…" She spaced out for a few seconds. Jenny nudged her with her foot. "Anyway. My suggestion is that we head over to this star system and see what's what. For all we know, it's just out there drifting through space, like a single, lonely spermatozoa in the tepid, vaginal cavity of the wider cosmos – just itching to be detected on any rudimentary radar system. Helix!" She didn't let them pause for thought after her latest epigram, "Plot me a course for Khufu a-b 1279-000-642 Upsilon," she read the long designation from the screen.

"Affirmative, Miss Oswald."

"You can't say they don't give stars catchy names…"

"Miss?" asked the Doctor, "Thought you got married." The ship took off gently, with barely a jolt; smoother than standing up on a train.

"I did, but I don't want to be Mrs Mitchell and I can't be Mrs Oswald, because that's Clara. So, I just left it. Helix calls everybody else 'Tits Ahoy' though."

"He-? Why?" asked Yaz. Oswin shrugged.

"It's funny. Where are the other two, then? The blokes. I saw them when you ran into Esther."

"Saw them how?" said the Doctor.

"Through the fancy visor. You don't really think she does all that superhero-ing on her own, do you? I do the behind-the-scenes stuff. Like I was doing for Jenny earlier, watching. Voyeurism is one of my many passions."

"Esther… the Lightning Girl, you mean?" asked Yaz.

"Yeah. Where are they, then?"

"On the TARDIS," said the Doctor, "Didn't realise we'd be out for so long. I'm sure they'll be fine for a few hours on there without me… how is Esther, anyway? She was in a bad way when we saw her last."

"Oh, she's fine," said Oswin, "She's very resilient."

"And where are your better halves?" asked the Doctor.

Oswin spoke very carefully when she answered, "They're on our TARDIS. Watching romcoms, I think. But he always cries at romcoms."

"He cries at everything," said Jenny.

"You leave him alone. He's sweet. You're just jealous."

"Of what?"

"That you can't have me, obviously."

"Do you mean Adam Mitchell? The tech mogul we saw on the telly?" Yaz was still trying to put the pieces together when nobody offered her a concise explanation (including the Doctor, who obviously knew a lot about them).

"Yes, him. You saw him on TV? I can never watch those interviews. He gets so nervous." 'Nervous' was the overriding adjective Yaz would use when recalling Adam Mitchell, that was for sure. "Enough about us, though – tell us about you. What's your deal? Where'd she find you?"

"On a train, I was working," said Yaz.

"You worked on a train?"

"No, I'm a PC, I was investigating something. Alien stuff."

"You're in the police?" Jenny's interest was piqued, and she turned around in her chair.

"Yeah, in Sheffield."

"Does seem fitting to have an actual police officer on board the TARDIS. It is a police box, after all," said Oswin.

"I'm an actual police officer," Jenny argued with her, "Sort of."

"Really?" Yaz was intrigued.

"I was a DI at the Met, until I quit."

"Why'd you quit?"

"I realised I don't like policing."

"She got in trouble for beating the shit out of suspects," said Oswin. In retaliation, Jenny kicked the corner of her chair and she went spinning around. "Oi! Don't do that!" Jenny didn't say a word, but Oswin picked up a black walking cane that had been leaning on the console and thwacked Jenny's leg.

"Hey!" she grabbed the end and pulled on it like they were playing tug of war. Jenny was much stronger and took it from her easily. The Doctor, observing, shook her head in disappointment.

"Did you see that!?" Oswin exclaimed, "I need that to walk."

"And where are you walking, exactly? Into another room so I don't have to speak to you?" said Jenny.

Oswin scoffed, "You're such a shit sometimes." Jenny put the cane down purposely out of Oswin's reach, who crossed her arms huffily. But it wasn't like she was going to get up anytime soon anyway.

"So, you were in the police, but you're a thief?" Yaz continued to be intrigued by Jenny.

"I'm the best thief in the Blacklight Society."

"Is that why they call you 'Zero'?" asked the Doctor, "What does it mean? If it's not about eye-gouging."

"It's how many witnesses I've left."

"Because she kills them all," said Oswin, "With her bare hands."

"Because I never get seen," Jenny countered, kicking Oswin's chair again. "Zero people have witnessed me. At least it's not a name I gave myself. Not like 'the Doctor.'"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested.

"'The Doctor' is a good name," Yaz defended her, "I've always liked it."

Jenny said nothing, but Oswin glanced between them, frowned, and asked, "Are you two sleeping together?"

They blustered immediately, and Helix interrupted.

"Miss Oswald, we have arrived at Khufu a-b 127-"

"You don't have to say the whole name. I'm re-christening the star Khufu… Stacey."

"Khufu Stacey?" asked the Doctor.

"With a hyphen. That's important."

"Why?"

"I don't think anybody's named a star 'Stacey' before. Makes it unique. More than a bunch of numbers."

"It's easier if you just don't argue with her," said Jenny.

"Miss Oswald, I have detected the presence of a deep space array 0.81 lightyears from Khufu-Stacey."

"Oh, really? Is it currently transmitting?"

"A low-frequency beacon signal is being emitted. I detect no other transmissions."

"Beacon signal?" asked Yaz.

"It's like a lighthouse," said Oswin, "Ships can follow the signal just like you'd follow a lighthouse at night or in a storm. Has to be low-frequency so it doesn't interfere with high-band broadcasts for actual messages. They dump these things along trade routes or frontiers."

"Why would there be one all the way out here?" asked the Doctor.

"I don't know, why don't we go and find out? If there was a ship that came through here to harvest the isotope, I would say that investigating the array would be the best way to find out where it might have gone. Critical thinking, Doctor," she tapped head knowingly.

"Take us in to dock at the array, Helix," said Jenny.

"Another thing deeply erotic," said Oswin, "Docking procedures. Before you ask," she turned to Yaz, "Yes. There is something wrong me."

"I wasn't going to ask that."

"Mm, but you were thinking it." Yaz looked at the Doctor, but the Doctor didn't know what to say. The ship glided smoothly through space and Jenny pressed a button to open the windows. Yaz hadn't even realised the ship had windows; the silver visor slid away, holographic screens hanging, static, in the air in front, and revealed a space station accelerating towards them. She'd been expecting a simple satellite, but it looked more like a base; she could see walkways and hubs as it rotated with a centrifuge at its heart.

"Why is it so big?"

"That's what she said," said Oswin.

"Stop that," the Doctor told her off, then shook her head, "Sorry. They build them that size to make maintenance easier, and in case there's a major fault in a ship. You can isolate certain areas completely."

"Can you see if everything's in working order, Helix?" Jenny asked.

"Affirmative, Tits Ahoy."

"…Is that 'affirmative' that you'll see or 'affirmative' that everything is in working order?"

"Everything is in working order."

"No need for EVA suits?"

"Negative, Tits Ahoy."

"Can't you make him call me something else?" Jenny asked Oswin as the ship pulled into the station's hangar (though, it was quite small for a hangar, only big enough for one ship at a time.)

"Which of your many aliases would you prefer? 'Zero'? 'Major Young'? 'Mrs Ravenwood'? 'Miss DeLacey'? 'The Blonde One Who's Desperately in Love with Oswin But Won't Admit It'?"

She scowled, "'Jenny' is fine."

"The ship is secured, Jenny."

"Great, thanks. I'll go investigate the space station, and you three can stay here and let Oswin tell you about how deluded she is where other people's feelings are concerned," she said, standing up.

"What? No, you're not going out there alone," argued the Doctor.

"It's an empty space station. I just need to check a few computers."

"Can't Helix do it?"

"Helix isn't connected to the space station," said Oswin, "You'd have to take a dongle and install him manually."

"But he just said everything on the station is working," said the Doctor.

"No, he just detected the 'all is good' signal. That same lighthouse signal that we used to locate the station. He's not magic, you know – he's not even an AI."

"So the signal could be wrong. It could be dangerous out there. Which is why Jenny shouldn't go alone."

"Fine," said Jenny, "Yaz can come with me. She's a police officer, which makes her miles more useful than you. You can stay here and watch Oswin. She'll tell you all about her computer – tell her about your computer, Os."

"I'm building a computer," Oswin began, grinning.

"I find that deeply troubling," said the Doctor.

"There, see? You're dying to know what she's doing now," said Jenny.

"…Urgh, alright. You're up for going with her, Yaz?"

"I, uh – if you say so," said Yaz, Jenny walking between them again so she could open the floor hatch. She jumped down and landed lightly on the metallic floor of the hangar; it was only a four-foot drop or so.

"Don't eavesdrop on me! I'll call you if I need anything!" Jenny shouted up as Yaz followed.

"Whatever you say, Jen-chan." Yaz landed in front of her and the ship's hatch slid closed.

"I'm worried about her already," Jenny sighed. "Come on, then. Let's look around." Yaz found already Jenny's guarded demeanour was slipping a little when the Doctor wasn't there.

"Why did you tell her not to eavesdrop?" Yaz followed Jenny out of the hangar doors, into a bland corridor that looked exactly like the corridor of every other space station she'd ever seen. "Wasn't she listening to everything that was going on earlier?"

"It's the Doctor I don't want listening."

"Listening to what?"

"Anything I say."

"…Right, then…" Yaz gave up and deferred to following Jenny through the snaking, identical corridors of the space station. Space stations all looked the same. They built them out of kits, the Doctor always said; flat-packed bases. "What are we looking for?"

"A computer, any computer. They'll all be connected to the base's local network, easy enough to break through – I won't even need Oswin's help to do it. Then we're just looking for a legacy ping."

"A what?"

"You know when mobile phones connect to cell towers and they 'ping'?"

"Of course. We can use it to track people, help solve murders."

"Well, it's the same thing. Spaceships that come nearby will automatically ping, and that'll be in the system, and it'll leave a signature. Then you just take the signature and search through the station's logs for communications, if there are any communications. At the very least, you can use the position of various pings to estimate a course," Jenny explained.

"…Is it meant to be empty on here?" Yaz asked as they walked. It was almost completely silent, just the humming of the centrifuge and their footsteps echoing against the hollow-sounding, metal floor.

"It might not be," said Jenny, "They could just be asleep. You don't need a lot of people to operate a station like this."

"You didn't bring your sword this time?"

"It's just for show, so I had some backup in the Loop." She did still have her revolver.

"Can't Oswin be backup?"

"Oswin?" Jenny laughed, "No, she's… she's not very intimidating. She can't even really walk."

"Can't she?"

"She can limp, but she's normally in a wheelchair. She only has one leg, and it's not exactly functional."

"…She said you're in love with her," Yaz pointed out.

Jenny glanced back at Yaz over her shoulder, then shook her head, "Oswin thinks everyone is in love with her."

"…Were you flirting with me in that bar?"

"I think there should be a computer in here," said Jenny, ducking into a room on her left that was open. Yaz followed her in.

It was somebody's office, full of personal effects. On the top of a computer screen that looked a little out of place to her, owing that it was a physical computer rather than a hologram like everything else in the future always seemed to be, was a post-it note reading: 'fill in door repair request.' Jenny tapped the keyboard and the screen lit up, showing a poorly animated logo for the deep space array's manufacturer, 'SpaceComm.'

"Very original name," Yaz commented. Jenny said nothing.

Yaz ran a finger across the office desk's surface: no dust. It had been cleaned recently enough. So, the station probably was occupied, somewhere? Jenny pulled out the chair at the desk and sat down, typing on the computer's satisfyingly clunky keys.

"Were you, though?"

"Was I what?" asked Jenny absently.

"Flirting with me."

"I'm married."

"You are?"

"Is that surprising?"

"Just… you don't take after the Doctor? Because she's not the marrying type, really." Jenny could not suppress her laughter at that. "I know she is married, in your universe, to Clara-"

"I think I've found our ping, but…" she paused, typed in something else, and brought up a big table. "Here you go, personnel roster. There are currently two people on the station and the local time is currently set to five-thirty in the morning. So that'll be why nobody's around, they're asleep."

"Doesn't one person have to be awake at all times?" asked Yaz.

"No. Then how would they socialise? You need to socialise when you're stationed in deep space. Anyway, the ping…" She closed the crew schedule and opened another file, a list of numbers to scroll through.

"Do a lot of ships come by here?" asked Yaz.

"No, these are nearly all supply drops from SpaceComm. The signature they leave has the same first four digits, that means they all belong to the same company, and they arrive and depart on the same day – so, every day where there are two proximity pings, coming and going, is just a supply run. They have a run every month. There are only three pings here from different ships that don't belong to SpaceComm," Jenny explained as she read.

"You said we take the signatures and look through the communications log?"

"Yes."

"And – what? They'll just tell the people in this array they're looking for an extremely deadly and valuable isotope?"

"Probably not. This is a commercial installation, there's no obligation for anybody who comes near to explain what they're doing unless they're requesting to dock," said Jenny, opening more files on the computer.

"Won't they know that this isotope formed nearby?" asked Yaz, leaning down to look at the screen over Jenny's shoulder.

"Not unless they have a spectrometer that they were pointing over there. The spectrometer survey was conducted by… hang on a minute," said Jenny, then she tapped her ear to switch her earpiece to Oswin back on, "Oswin?"

"What's up, hot stuff? Do you need me to tell you how to work the computer? It's got this thing called a mouse-"

"Who commissioned the spectrometer survey?" she cut her off.

"Um…" Oswin paused, presumably to dig up the information for her, "EEC. Exo Extraction Company, just a mining company – they're a dime a dozen. But the results were withheld."

"And you said it was commissioned? They didn't do it themselves?"

"No, they hired Sattler Spectronics to do it. Then they withheld it and distributed the results to your favourite corporate military, the Homeworld Alliance. I think the Alliance must have been the ones who sent a black op ship out to investigate the isotope. If I got into their system, I doubt there would be a paper trail," said Oswin, "Are you a high enough rank to see things like that?"

"No."

"What have you found?"

"I'll let you know when I'm done." She switched her earpiece off again. "So, Oswin thinks the Homeworld Alliance-"

"What's that?"

"The body responsible for governing all human colonies and managing human interests. It's mainly military. She thinks the independent scientists who were hired to do the survey on behalf of a mining company told the Alliance instead. Which they're legally obligated to do because this isotope is potentially a WMD. Or a near-infinite power source. Technically that's still just a theory, though – but Oswin's usually right."

"We're looking for a military ship, then?"

"Erm… maybe not…" she thought, "Just, this would probably be a very secretive operation. Showing up in an Alliance-branded ship – even a sloop or a brig – would draw too much attention."

"They're spies, then? Outer space spies?"

"More or less. Ah, there," said Jenny once she'd identified the pings she was looking for, "I've found a log for one of these ships. This one is a freighter with a skeleton crew carrying construction materials to an exoplanet another five-thousand lightyears away from us here."

"What did they want?"

"They… had a scrips night. Wanted some company, I suppose. Cleaned the array out of dehydrated cake bars," said Jenny, "That was five weeks ago, so they've restocked their cake bars since then. The outgoing ping matches the trajectory for the destination they said they were aiming for, so I don't think this is what we're looking for."

"One down…" said Yaz. "What's scrips?"

"Space poker. I'm very good at it. Hm…" She reached a roadblock on the communication log. "No record from either of these. Logged attempts to communicate from the array, but no responses."

"Maybe they sent two ships?" Yaz suggested, "If the first one went missing."

"The coordinates would suggest they weren't on a similar course," said Jenny, still deciphering numbers. It would take Yaz a lot longer to mine this data for everything it was hiding.

"Why wouldn't they communicate with the array? If they were just at risk of being invited to a space poker game?" Yaz asked.

"Any number of reasons. Could be criminals hiding what they're up to; their comms system might have been broken; could have been a ghost ship; could've just been in a really bad mood that day."

"That ship is on a public wanted list put out by the Alliance, there's a bounty on it," said Oswin a moment after the earpiece clicked back on.

"I told you not to eavesdrop."

"I'm not eavesdropping! I'm… eaves-watching. Through the glasses. I can't hear what you've been talking about."

"What's the crime?"

"Guess."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to."

"You're no fun."

"Well?"

"Live animal smuggling, out to frontier towns. It's mostly pets."

"Pet smugglers? Seriously?" she sighed, "I suppose that only leaves this last one – that must be the right ship."

"They'd really smuggle pets all the way out here?" asked Yaz.

"You'd be surprised what people can do for animals. Clara used to have this awful cat that attacked me every time I saw it, and she wouldn't get rid of it even when I moved in. Had to wait for it to die."

"You moved in with Clara?"

Jenny realised she had misspoken and let slip details about her life she hadn't wanted to. She shut up and stuck to finding the coordinates of the two pings and then estimating a course it would have taken.

"Couldn't we have just looked at the coordinates to guess which direction they went in the first place?" asked Yaz.

"Well, yes, but now we know that the ship is still here. In the star system, I mean."

"How do we know that?"

"Because there are only two of these pings recorded. One when it approaches the space station, one after it passes it and is leaving range," said Jenny, "If it recovered the isotope and left the system, it would have come back the same way, so there would be four."

"Couldn't it have gone a different way?"

"It could have, but spaceships don't do that. You go the shortest and easiest possible route every time, especially if you're carrying something so volatile. They would have left the same way they came in, and nobody would be any the wiser. I keep telling you, these arrays aren't police – to find this information, you'd have to decipher those spectrometer results and then come all the way out here on the off-chance you'd find some data, just like we did. That means that even though this is a black operation, this data doesn't really compromise the Alliance. We can't even prove that this is an Alliance ship we're following, Oswin's just guessing."

"It's an educated guess," Oswin quipped. "Look for any reports of space debris." Jenny did, but only found a log from eight months ago of an anomalous, alien object drifting through the system that ultimately turned out to be a funny rock.

"Nothing."

"So, the ship is still in the system, but hasn't been identified as debris, and while scanning now I can't pick up any traces of the isotope except for the stuff fused in the star, which was what they came looking for."

"You're saying it disappeared? Into thin air? You can trace isotopes across the entire universe."

"I think it crashed. Luckily, there are only three planets in this entire system, and two of them are gas giants with no moons. So, our best bet is taking a closer look at the one terrestrial planet close to the red dwarf."

"There's no record of the array picking up a distress call."

"When was the ship here?"

"Two months ago. Seventy-one days."

"So, we can do a sweep and trace the distress call that way. They might not have even sent it in this direction."

"A sweep?"

"We fly around in a big circle seventy-one light-days away from that planet – specifically from where it was when the hypothetical call was made – and we should just be able to intercept it," said Oswin.

"That's…"

"Very clever, I know, I'm a genius. We do it this way and we can pinpoint exactly where it came from, saves us from having to investigate an entire planet."

"Great," said Jenny, closing the various programs open on the computer to erase her presence. "See? Nothing dangerous here whatsoever," she said, standing up and making to leave the room through the broken door. "We're perfectly…" In the corridor, she paused.

"What?" asked Yaz, following. Then she saw.

A snake.

An eight-foot-long, brown-patterned snake slithering towards them through the halls.

"Oh my god," said Yaz.

"Wow," Jenny was merely amused, "Get a load of that boa."

"What if it tries to eat us?"

"Nah. It's too small. Boa constrictors eat rabbits and big rats. Maybe a baby."

"Let me get a look at the snake!" Oswin exclaimed down the comms.

"I'm literally staring at it," said Jenny.

"How does a snake get onto a deep space array!?" asked Yaz.

"Pet smugglers," Jenny realised, "They probably just wiped the log clean."

"If you had any computer skills at all, you would've been able to retrieve a deleted file like that," said Oswin. Jenny ignored her. The boa constrictor continued on its way, slithering right past them.

"Well, there he goes," said Jenny, watching the snake wind away. "I wonder what they find to feed him out here," she mused. They were heading in the opposite direction to the snake, anyway, leaving it behind them. "I hope he has a good day, at any rate. Come on."

"A snake in space… now I've seen everything," said Yaz. "What did you mean about Clara, earlier?"

"Nothing. Doesn't matter."

"Does that earpiece not have a speaker function?"

"No, it's supposed to be covert," said Jenny, "Besides, you really don't want a direct line to Oswin."

"What was it she told you, then? I didn't catch everything."

"She has a way to track the ship, she thinks," said Jenny.

"Why do you hate the Doctor?"

Jenny was taken aback and stopped walking. So did Yaz.

"I don't want to talk about that."

"She's your mother."

Jenny lowered her voice, "You don't want to get involved."

"Can't I decide what I do and don't want?" Yaz countered, "You don't even know me."

"It's my life, alright?" And she began to walk again, resolving to get back to the ship as soon as possible to avoid further interrogation.

But Yaz wasn't done with her questions, even if she did resolve to adopt a different tactic and ask about something other than Jenny's fraught relationship with her parents.

"How old are you?" she asked next.

"Two-hundred and fifty-eight."

"Wow," said Yaz, who hadn't been expecting her to be quite that old, "You've been travelling with the Doctor for that long?"

"No."

They finally got back to the docking hangar and Jenny quick-marched towards the flying saucer, desperate to escape further questions. It wasn't information she had easily offered up to Clara, let alone someone she'd only met that day. The porthole on the hull slid open to greet her. The steps didn't descend, instead Jenny jumped up and grabbed the rim with both hands, easily pulling herself through the gap.

"Out of my chair," she said to the Doctor, who was sitting in the pilot seat.

"I told you she wouldn't want you to sit there," quipped Oswin, spinning herself back and forth in her own seat. The Doctor got up and moved out of her way.

"Did you plot the course already?"

"No, I've just been masturbating for the last thirty minutes."

"Eurgh…" said the Doctor, helping Yaz climb up through the floor hatch.

"What are you complaining about? You watched me," said Oswin. Then she gave up with her bit, "Yes, I plotted the course. It's ready to go."

"And what's she been doing?" Jenny didn't look at the Doctor, instead focusing on flying the ship out of the hangar and jumping to warp speed so they could circle properly.

"Asking me about my computer, like you suggested."

"I'm not sure it'll work," said the Doctor.

"Isn't that all part of the fun?" said Oswin, "Makes things interesting. Usually everything I build is completely faultless – I guess that's the big problem with being a genius," she did a fake, forlorn sigh, "Well, that and my suicidal tendencies."

"You shouldn't joke about that," said Yaz.

"I wish I was joking. I'm as mentally ill as I am good-looking. Which is devastatingly," she winked at Yaz.

"You know, you could probably get done for sexual harassment if you carry on like this with everybody."

"You can do me right now if you've got a pair of handcuffs," she quipped.

Jenny groaned, "Don't encourage her."

"You've probably got handcuffs stashed on here somewhere," Oswin said, "I've seen all that rope you collect."

"The rope is for trapping," Jenny said defensively.

"Trapping women."

"Trapping animals. Although, that reminds me…" She stopped talking and got up, brushing between the Doctor and Yaz to get to the small, galley kitchen just behind them, where she opened the fridge.

"I forgot, you haven't eaten for at least two hours – you must be starving," said Oswin sarcastically. Jenny ignored this and tried to work out what she wanted out of the limited food she actually kept on the ship. "I bet you've only got crap in there. Watch, she'll pull out a raw steak."

"I will not," said Jenny. She pulled out a plate covered in tinfoil and took it back to her seat, unwrapping it to reveal a half-eaten roast chicken she had cooked the night before to bring out as a snack. There was still a whole leg left, and it was this she tore off to eat, not even considering using cutlery. Oswin shook her head. "What?" asked Jenny, mouth full.

"Here's my question for you, sugar-tits," said Oswin, putting her hands together very seriously, "What does she see in you?"

"What does she see in me? What do you see in me, Oswin, hm?" she prompted after she finished chewing.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, we've been doing this dance for a very long time, what's say we just dump these two in outer space and go to bed?" she challenged. Oswin faltered, unable to think of a quick retort. "Seriously, the bedroom's right there, I'll carry you in, how about that?" Still, Oswin said nothing. "No? Not tempted?"

"I was joking," she grumbled.

"Great. Now everybody knows you're completely full of it." She returned to her cold chicken while Oswin grimaced next to her.

"That's not actually funny."

"Oswin. I love you. Don't flirt with me today."

"Fine, whatever…"

"Are you two seriously having an affair?" asked the Doctor, "You'd do that to Clara?"

"Excuse me?" asked Jenny, furious, "You're one to talk about having an affair after you broke into Sally's house in the middle of the night to bother my wife while I was bedridden."

"Sorry, you did what?" Yaz questioned. The Doctor was now in a very uncomfortable position, but she was rescued from it by Helix, who cut in to say he had located the distress signal and traced it back to a spot on the lone terrestrial planet in the star system. They now knew exactly where to look, and the silver spaceship warped there immediately, descending into the atmosphere before Yaz had a chance to continue the conversation. Jenny simmered while she polished off the chicken, and the Doctor didn't even try to defend herself.

The entire planet – little more than a great ball of ice – blossomed beneath them into a vast, white sheet with no discernible landmarks. Harsh winds had worn it down so much it was almost smooth, with no distant mountains or great seas anybody could see. Unless everything was just so bright it blended together.

"I didn't bring my coat," said Yaz.

"You can borrow mine," said the Doctor.

"What? No, that's your coat, won't you need it?"

"Nah. Doesn't look too bad."

"This planet's surface temperature is currently negative thirty degrees Celsius," said Helix.

"See? Just a bit chilly," said the Doctor, taking her coat off for Yaz to put on over the leather jacket she was already wearing. Watching this, Oswin exchanged a telling look with Jenny. It usually took quite a lot to separate any Doctor from their coat. Jenny wasn't too interested, however.

"I'd better go get my coat," she decided, leaving her plate on the seat to disappear into the back.

Helix took them into land and finally the crashed ship they'd been looking for all along came into view. A smouldering wreckage, it had a fine coating of snow but was still clearly recognisable as a modest spacecraft. Their ship landed gently a few dozen feet away on a flat plain of ice. Jenny promptly returned wearing her old wool coat, expertly tailored with leather elbow and back pads.

"Erm, what's that!?" the Doctor demanded, pointing at the sword Jenny had also brought back with her; it was her heat cutlass, replacing the purple, meteor sword she'd taken with her to Akwana.

"Heat cutlass," she said bluntly.

"No. I'm putting my foot down. No more weapons."

"You can stay here, then."

"I'm serious. Put it down, or I'll…"

"You'll what?"

"I once bested Robin Hood in a swordfight, you know. Him with a sword, me with a screwdriver."

"How phallic," said Oswin.

"And Clara was there watching, wasn't she?" said Jenny quietly, then she took one step closer to the Doctor and practically whispered, "Who are you trying to impress this time?" The Doctor stood her ground and didn't say a word.

"I'm coming too, by the way," said Oswin, "I'll be more useful if I'm actually on that ship myself."

Jenny didn't wait for the Doctor to answer, walking right past her towards Oswin. She was about to hand Oswin her cane back so that she could walk when the Doctor made a lunge to try and grab the cutlass from the scabbard Jenny had across her back. Without even looking through, Jenny stepped to the side and dodged, leaving the Doctor fumbling impotently. She returned Oswin's cane and helped her to her feet. "Very good," was all she said to the Doctor.

"Are you sure you should come?" Yaz asked quickly, "We usually end up doing a lot of running."

"If I wasn't planning on walking anywhere today, I wouldn't have put my leg on at all," she said, knocking her left shin with her cane so that it clanged a little. "If anyone shouldn't leave the ship, it's probably you," she pointed out to Yaz.

"Why?"

"Radiation."

"There are only trace elements of Neon-99 in this vicinity," said Helix, "The average human would be unharmed after limited exposure."

"You need another patch," said Oswin, "How would you define 'average' or 'limited'? Have I taught you those things?" Helix didn't respond. "That's what I thought. And anyway, you're being obtuse."

"Why argue with him?" asked Jenny, but Oswin didn't answer.

"Obviously the reason there are only trace elements of Neon-99 is that the radiation cladding on the ship is still working. The traces are from flying through it when they collected it. That's why we couldn't find it." Jenny and the Doctor stared at her. "See? I told you I had a sexy theory. You two are so slow. The radiation will have negligible effects for Time Lords-"

"According to who?" asked the Doctor, "We don't know enough about the isotope."

"Correction," Oswin pointed at her, "You don't know enough about the isotope. I've been doing calculations all afternoon and, quite honestly, you should be ashamed of yourself for not doing the same. You do claim to be a physicist, after all – it's not like this is my specialty. Come on." She limped through all three of them to get to the exit, Jenny following to help her down the steps.

The icy cold was unlike any Yaz had previously experienced, a chill accompanied by a biting wind she felt was tearing at her skin after only a brief exposure. Already she felt guilty about accepting the Doctor's offer of giving up her coat as the Doctor wrapped her arms tightly around herself in an effort to ward off the foul weather. Jenny, on the other hand, had spent the first two years of her life roaming the frozen wasteland of Tungtrun – and fourteen years chained up and beaten in a cold cell until she agreed to murder people – so the cold bounced right off her. And as for Oswin? Oswin didn't feel the cold at all, she'd altered her programming long ago because of Adam Mitchell. Her Sphere was hardy enough to survive much lower temperatures.

"You can have your coat back," Yaz offered.

"N-no," said the Doctor, teeth chattering, "I'm seriously f-f-fine."

"But it's so cold."

"I hadn't n-n-noticed."

"They do have a thing," Oswin whispered to Jenny, whose arm she was clinging to as she limped so that she didn't slip on the ice. The wind was too strong for Yaz and the Doctor, a few feet behind, to hear.

"So what? It won't end well."

"You're being a real negative Nancy today, you know. You usually at least pretend to be in a good mood." Jenny only scoffed.

When they got close enough, it was clear the downed ship had already been halfway buried in the snow, which made it a little difficult to find a way in. Jenny left Oswin wobbling precariously on the ice, walking around the edge and digging around until she found something noteworthy. The Doctor was too cold to join her in her search.

"What is it?" Yaz shouted up.

"Get ready to move out of the way," said Jenny, taking out her sonic screwdriver. The ship still had power, clearly, because she managed to trick the escape pod she'd found into launching. With a hiss and a bang, it lurched out of the hull and blasted a passage through the ice, tunnelling about a hundred feet until it ground to a halt, smoking. Left behind, however, was a sealed airlock they could use as a way in. Before opening it, she took another device out of her pocket: a small, portable Geiger counter Oswin had built a long time ago. It had originally been intended for the Doctor, but the Doctor preferred to use her large and decrepit counter she had stolen from a Soviet installation once upon a time, so it had fallen into Jenny's hands instead.

Holding both the meter and the screwdriver she was able to get the airlock to open. Immediately the counter began to hum as the readout increased, the ship's radioactive interior finally exposed to the open air.

"What does it say?" Oswin asked, ambling over.

"Two-hundred CPM," said Jenny.

"Is that bad?" asked Yaz.

"It's not great. Maybe you should wait on the ship?" she suggested.

"Well, how many counts is fatal?"

"It doesn't really work like that," said the Doctor, "It's counting the number of radioactive particles it detects in a minute. I don't suppose you two have a dosimeter to hand?"

"I wish, our Doctor stole my dosimeter a few weeks ago," said Oswin, "God only knows what she needed to measure. Maybe they were using a uranium rod as a dildo." Ignoring that, the Doctor looked at Jenny for answer.

"She stole the dosimeter I keep on my ship, too," said Jenny, "Something about a nuclear reactor problem on an alien moon."

"I'm sure that's what she told you," Oswin jibed.

"If you're worried about the radiation, you can stay on the ship," Jenny suggested again.

"I go where the Doctor goes," said Yaz.

"Alright, then…" sad Jenny, resolving that she wasn't going to take any responsibility if Yaz got sick from the radiation; and the Doctor didn't try to talk her out of it, either.

Luckily for Yaz, the amount of radiation didn't increase by too much once they were actually on the ship; it climbed to 225 but then held steady. If they didn't hang about, she might get away with only minor nausea, if that. The ship's slanted, slippery hallways, coated in ice and condensation that had crept in from outside, were unsettling to walk through, with the ship planted into the alien ice at such an awkward angle. Before long, though, they came across the real reason the ship had fallen off the map – and it wasn't radiation.

A mutilated human corpse was half sticking out of a maintenance duct on the wall. It was impossible to tell what gender the body was, with its jaw ripped off, a hand missing, and little discernible features; whoever they were they were totally unrecognisable.

All four of them stopped when they saw the body, Oswin grabbing onto Jenny again for stability. It was Yaz who went closer, Oswin's Sphere producing all the light they had to see by from its invisible pedestal in the air nearby.

"Do they have any kind of nametag?" asked Oswin.

"I'm not sure," said Yaz, gingerly examining the body. It was when she tried to lift the arm with the missing hand to see the injury that they were in for a scare; it began to move, coming closer as if it were attacking Yaz. Trained police officer as she was, she was still startled enough to move away, kicking the wall accidentally in the process. It clattered and the body was disturbed even more. Finally, it slid forward enough that it was freed from the vent, crashing down onto the floor in a bloody mess. It had been ripped in half from just below the ribs and had barely been able to keep its position; when Yaz had moved it slightly it had come tumbling out, almost landing on top of her. "I don't know a lot about radiation," she said, "But I'm sure it can't do that."

"Maybe somebody got here before us?" Oswin suggested, "Looking for the Infinite?" Jenny didn't say anything, prising Oswin's hand from around her arm so that she could look at the crime scene for herself. She peered into the duct and thought she saw something.

"I don't think you should do that," said the Doctor as Jenny half climbed into the duct herself after taking out her phone. As always, she completely ignored the Doctor's advice, crawling in just far enough to get a good look at what she'd spotted from outside: a very strange mark on the wall. She took a picture with her phone, the flash turned on, and then pushed herself back out of the vent, careful not to step on the body and disturb it even more.

"Look at this," she said to Oswin, breezing straight past the Doctor and Yaz to show her the picture, "It's like a handprint, or something." It looked human enough, except for an additional thumb – one on each side – and another finger, making for seven digits overall.

"Hm…" said Oswin. Yaz peered over Jenny's shoulder.

"Probably an alien," she said, "It hasn't been smudged, so it can't just be a messy, human handprint."

"Not very big to say whatever it was, it ripped them in half," said Oswin, "Unless it has loads of arms. Or it could just have freakishly dense muscles, like someone I know."

"They're not 'freakishly' dense," said Jenny defensively, "Just denser than human muscle tissue."

"But you could you rip someone in two with your bare hands? That's what we need to know."

"Why? Because you think I killed him?"

"Maybe you did," Oswin shrugged, "You can never trust a time traveller."

"No," said Jenny, annoyed, "I couldn't rip someone in two with my hands."

"I bet you split people in two in other ways, though."

"Why are you making jokes like that next to this dead body?" said Jenny, "That's insensitive."

"You put your tongue inside a dead body every night, so I'm surprised you care."

"That's repulsive," said Jenny.

"Then why do you keep doing it?"

"Stop now, children," said Yaz loudly, "I can't take anymore. There's a dead body and you're making jokes."

"She's making jokes," Jenny mumbled. Oswin smiled at her.

"Alright, let's take stock of what we know," said the Doctor, "There's a radioactive isotope on here somewhere, and some kind of creature that crawls through vents and rips people in half."

"Maybe it's a mutant," said Yaz, "From the radiation?"

"That's not how radiation works, you'd just get cancer, not superstrength," said Oswin.

"No," said Jenny, "What about that guy? With the spider?"

"Oh my stars, how many times do I have to explain to you that Spider-Man doesn't exist?" said Oswin. Jenny only shrugged. "Honestly," she tutted, "Time Lords."

"We need to make a plan," said Yaz, "What do we do if this thing finds us, whatever it is."

"I'll kill it," said Jenny, "I have a sword."

"That's your whole plan?"

"What else is there?"

"Come on, let's keep going," the Doctor finally got sick of them being stagnant and simply began walking, forcing the other three to follow her or stay hanging out with the dead body that had slid onto the floor.

Luckily for all of them – but in particular Oswin – the escape pod they'd jimmied open wasn't too far away from the bridge, and once they found the bridge, both Jenny and Oswin were right at home. There was another dead body slumped against a wall in there, this one clad in a radiation suit, but it clearly wasn't the radiation that had killed him; he'd been disembowelled. There were bloody, alien footprints and drag marks all over the floor and another vent hanging open.

"…This is fun, then," said Oswin, limping over to the captain's seat in the middle of the room so that she could use the computer, "The last thing I expected was that we'd be hunting a yeti."

"It's too small to be a yeti," said the Doctor, "And besides, they live in Tibet, not on whatever planet this is."

"Yetis are real?" asked Yaz, shocked.

"Of course! They used to have one in London Zoo, in the '80s. They named it after Thatcher."

Yaz shook her head, "Is this like that time you told Graham you were Banksy?"

"You're not Banksy," said Oswin, "I've met Banksy. He was at one of Clara's weddings."

"Or maybe it was a ruse," said the Doctor seriously. Oswin ignored her. "Anyway, the Great Intelligence also has a habit of building robot yetis."

"I used to live on an ice planet just like this," said Jenny, "Had a lot of small, aggressive fauna as well."

"And what did you do? Kill it and eat it?" said Oswin.

"Yes."

"…Well, keep an eye on that vent, we don't know if it'll come back," Oswin advised.

"I should've brought Emmett…" Jenny said quietly to herself, "Maybe I should go back and get him?"

"You keep that thing well away from me," said Oswin, "I'm not big on weapons, either." Jenny didn't argue, though she still believed Emmett would be invaluable. "Help me with this, stupid thing is in some kind of failsafe mode, I can't brute-force it without a manual server reset."

"You can't brute-force something?" said Jenny, watching Oswin struggle with a login screen that was just one, white text bar on a totally black screen. It didn't have a single message on it, it just flickered every so often.

"You must have some kind of code," said Oswin, "You're a Homeworld Alliance Officer, aren't you?"

"Uh… yes," she said after thinking, leaning down next to Oswin so that she could type a long string of characters out. She got it on the first try, which wasn't difficult because the codes didn't change; they were designed to work when a ship was completely cut off from getting updated codes from the Alliance's intelligence sector, either on purpose or by mistake, to let a rescue team do their job. The screen immediately showed them a full crew roster, but unfortunately every single person was marked deceased. Yaz and the Doctor were hovering behind them so that they could see the screen, too. "Can you get more information from this? Their bio-monitors should have in-built dosimeters."

"Access denied," said a female, computerised voice overhead, "This ship has no commanding officer. State your name and rank if you are a suitable commanding officer."

"Oh, for… hate these things," Jenny complained, "This is Major Jenny Young with the HAGF and Commodore Jenny Young with the HASF, I'm the highest-ranking living officer in this entire star system. I'm on an unlisted extraction mission, you won't have any records about it." There was a long pause until the computer finally accepted her.

"Access granted, Major Young."

"That's your naval rank? Commodore?" asked Oswin.

"Yes. Higher than Commander."

"Who's a Commander?"

"Ashildr."

"Of course. I suppose you just love the idea of being on top of Ashildr."

"No."

"Sorry, you know Ashildr?" asked the Doctor.

"Unfortunately. Show me the dosimeter readings."

"Well, they have higher doses of radiation, but nothing fatal, and nothing that leads me to believe the containment around the isotope has ruptured… or my simulations about how the isotope decays is wrong and it's not as dangerous as anybody thinks…"

"You're saying you're wrong?" asked Yaz.

"I love being wrong. Keeps things interesting. Besides, I don't know how I could have predicted there would actually be a yeti on the loose, that's a very anomalous data point."

"Can you check the integrity of the containment system from here?" asked Jenny.

"Erm… no," said Oswin after inputting a few keystrokes and looking through some windows, "The data can't be retrieved. I can see a warning of an electrical failure in the ship's hold, which is presumably where it is."

"Great, so we have no idea how radioactive it really is?"

"It looks to me like a good deal of this ship's innards have been physically destroyed," said Oswin, "So, no, we have no idea – but if the personal dosimeters are anything to go by, I'd say the containment system is still working, more or less. But just leave me and Yaz here if you're so worried, you two gone on ahead."

"Good idea," said the Doctor quickly.

"What?" said Yaz, "You want me to stay here with her?"

"I think all three of you should stay," said Jenny, "I can get the isotope on my own."

"That's ridiculous," said Oswin.

"Let me come with you," the Doctor implored, clearly desperate for the opportunity to talk to Jenny one-to-one – and Jenny wanted to do anything in her power to stop that from happening.

"I'm more than capable-"

"I don't care," said Oswin firmly, "If Clara was here, she'd tell you not to put yourself in unnecessary danger. And if you go off on your own and get mauled by whatever this thing is, I'm the one who's going to get in trouble with her, and with your mother."

"I don't like being told what to do," said Jenny coldly.

"I couldn't give a shit. First of all, I'm not scared of you, you're not capable of doing anything to hurt me; and second of all, I'm not letting you get yourself killed because you're too proud to put up with the Doctor for half an hour when you're basically the same bloody person. Now piss off, go get me the isotope, the two of you." She pointed them to the door. Jenny wanted to argue, desperately, but Oswin was right on every count. And it probably wasn't worth doing anything that would upset Clara.

So, Jenny finally relented and – after handing Yaz her plasma gun as a last-resort if the creature returned to the bridge, much to the Doctor's ire – trudged off back out of the room with the Doctor right behind her. She may not have Emmett, but she did still have her heat cutlass that could slice off a limb like cutting through warm butter.

"What's the deal with you lot?" asked Yaz as soon as the door to the bridge had closed behind them.

"You're stepping into fifty years of history, Yasmin, and not all of it nice," said Oswin, "But I'm friendly enough." She flashed Yaz her best smile – which was a very good smile indeed if she did say so herself – before going back to the computer, pulling up more personnel records.

"What are you doing, then?" Yaz crossed her arms and decided that if she was going to be stuck in there with Oswin, she might as well try to be friendly.

"Just downloading these files onto Helix's database," she explained.

"Why?"

"This is a black op. All these people are KIA, and their families will never get closure from the Alliance because it's all too classified. If I take all their names, I can find out who they are and then have someone more… personable than myself inform the families. Maybe you could do it – coppers are trained to do that sort of thing, aren't they?"

"Yeah, but you'd send a family liaison officer. I'm not actually trained in that – not yet, I'm just a PC."

"How old are you, exactly…?" asked Oswin, getting a little serious.

"Twenty. Or thereabouts. It's hard to tell in the TARDIS."

"Twenty, god. That's typical. You know, Rose was only nineteen, and look what happened there."

"What happened?"

"They got married." Yaz just laughed, but Oswin looked at her incredulously.

"What? Come on, you're not being serious. She's the Doctor."

"All I'm saying is it worked out alright for Clara," Oswin shrugged, "In one universe, at any rate. I suppose maybe your Doctor, who regenerated to stop herself being in love with Clara, might have a different perspective on the whole thing."

"That can't be what happened."

"You mean you don't know? Well, I've got a lot to catch you up on, then…"

---

"Can we please just talk about Clara and what happened?" asked the Doctor as she and Jenny ventured further into the ship. Since it was crashed into the ice at a very unpleasant angle and most of the lights weren't working, it was very difficult to navigate; Jenny was convinced they were going around in circles on their hunt for the cargo hold, and the Geiger counter was being more or less useless at tracing the radiation source.

"This will go lot smoother if you don't speak to me."

"What is this you're doing?" asked the Doctor, stepping in front of her quickly and blocking her path. Jenny stopped; this Doctor was taller than her, and she wasn't too happy about it. "Trying to scare me? Prove you're tough? I just want to talk to you properly, like adults." Standing still, Jenny thought for a while. Their mission wasn't time sensitive since the Geiger counter was still far too low for it to ever affect a Time Lord, so she could mull things over a little.

But it struck Jenny that she was caught between a rock and a hard place. She had never been very good at talking about her feelings, or herself at all; she usually talked everything through with Clara, but Clara wasn't there. What would Clara say if she was, though? … She'd tell Jenny to go slowly and sort through her emotions, find out what was the most important thing. This was what Jenny tried to do, and the Doctor surprised her by being patient.

"You need to understand that it's very difficult for me to be around you," said Jenny eventually, "For two-hundred years, I had this loss, this absence. And sometimes I can forget about that when I'm with mum, but then when you or another of you assumes that I should be grateful if you so much as look at me, there it is again. You… you simply don't have the right to be a part of my life if that's not what I want. Somebody already fills that role for me." She spoke quietly and very deliberately.

"…I'm sorry for pushing you," said the Doctor after a minute, "And I appreciate all that. But I still want to talk to you about Clara."

Jenny shut her eyes, incredibly frustrated.

"I can't talk to you about Clara when she isn't here. It's both of us, together, or neither. Do you have any idea how upset she was – how upset we both were – after what happened at Sally's? No. Because you never think. You just make a mess and leave."

"Jenny-"

"No. You told her she killed herself, and then you left. That's the thing I can't forgive you for."

"That's not what I said."

"Isn't it? Because it's what it sounded like."

"She – she was being heroic! She was saving somebody else's life!"

"I don't want to hear it!" Jenny shouted back at her. There was a clanging sound from elsewhere in the ship and they froze. Jenny slowly lifted her hand to the hilt of her cutlass, ready to draw it. An animalistic chirping sounded, followed by footsteps that began to grow fainter; whatever it was had knocked something over and run away. "It's like I said. You talk to both of us together or not at all. I'm not passing messages back and forth."

"And you're actually gonna let me talk to her?"

"That's rich. You're saying I'm the reason you had to sneak into Sally's house? You couldn't just knock on the door – why? Because I would've stopped you? Me, bedridden, with my broken bones? You're a coward. And I hope Yaz realises that before she ends up going the same way Clara did, and the same way as me before that." Jenny had succeeded in what she had wanted to do; she had wounded the Doctor enough that she stopped talking.

In complete silence they finally found their way to the cargo hold, which was relatively small but had been retrofitted with a claustrophobic amount of equipment all designed to protect the isotope. The door they came through was on a higher level, the same height as the exceptionally thin catwalks, with a metal staircase on one side.

The first thing that hit Jenny was the sight of the isotope; it was being held, still in its gaseous form, in a glass vat right in the heart of the room. Tubes ran into it, and it was clearly rigged with a dozen different alarms.

The second thing that hit Jenny was the smell. Evidently, this was where the strange creature – whatever it was – was making its nest. There were bodies all over the floor underneath the isotope tube, which was suspended just a few feet off the ground so it could be better braced in the event of a crash. This had clearly worked since the containment unit was completely intact, but the Homeworld Alliance hadn't account for hostile, alien lifeforms.

There was a noise. Something had snarled. She saw a shadow scurry across the floor and moments later it was illuminated, bathed in the soft blueish light of neon-99. It was mostly white, just like she'd imagine a yeti would be, but it was the size of a chimpanzee. It also had four exceptionally long arms that, despite its smallness, looked capable of dismembering someone. It must have dragged all the bodies into the room with the isotope for warmth; the container was giving off a lot of heat.

"We need to disengage it from the containment unit," whispered the Doctor.

"I know that," said Jenny, who was looking for a panel or a button or any kind of control system that would allow this to happen. Below, the yeti snarled again and then started chewing at one of the corpses.

"I've got the systems information," said Oswin over the earpiece, "There's a manual override, but it's a two-man switch."

"Great…"

"What did she say?" asked the Doctor.

"One of the switches is behind you, the second is on the other side of the room. There's another balcony on the far side just above the cargo bay doors, for maintenance only."

Jenny looked behind her and saw what must be one half of the two-man switch, shoved into the wall behind a 'break glass' panel.

"There's one switch," she pointed it out, "Oswin says the other is on the opposite side of the room."

"One of us will have to go down there, with that thing," said the Doctor, peering over the balcony to see it. "I'll do it."

"What?"

"It's only fair," she said firmly, "Since-"

"Since what? Since you want me to like you? Don't be an idiot. You'll stay here and I'll climb over all this stuff."

"Jenny," the Doctor grabbed her arm as she made to get onto the catwalks, "You can't just 'climb over' the containment unit for a volatile isotope!" Jenny pulled her arm free.

"I definitely can." She didn't fumble as she climbed up onto balcony and then stepped out onto the exceptionally narrow walkways. She realised once her full weight was on it and it creaked a little that it wasn't actually designed for humanoids; it was for small maintenance robots and had been sheared in two to make room for the isotope containment rig, which had been installed presumably before the Alliance crew left on their mission. This made it wobble quite severely.

"It doesn't look like it'll hold," the Doctor hissed behind her, not wanting to attract the attention of the four-armed monkey while it ate. Jenny ignored her and went on her way, pausing at the edge of the walkway as it swung side-to-side, trying to find a route over or around the containment unit itself. She settled for around. There were a lot of tubes and metal cables all mixed together, so it was tricky to get her footing without pulling something out.

Too tricky, it turned out, because she put her foot in the wrong place – leaning too much weight on a wiry suspension cable – and the clips attaching it to the rig came undone. The cable shot across the room like a whip and struck the far wall. It lost its momentum after that and dropped, swinging over the floor. The monkey screeched in rage at this disturbance, and Jenny decided to speed up what she was doing.

On the other side of the room the Doctor stood rigidly still by the switch, waiting for the right moment to push it. She could no longer see Jenny now she was behind the enormous containment structure, but she could see the monkey scurrying about below and yelping. For once, she wished she had the earpiece to Oswin; instead, she was alone, and didn't want to shout to Jenny across the room because then the monkey would get very upset.

There was a clatter; Jenny had jumped across to the other walkway. The monkey heard this again and in one quick movement leapt onto the wall. It was able to climb up easily and was going straight for the source of the noise.

"Jenny! It's after you!" she shouted, feeling she had no choice. The monkey stopped and looked in the direction of her voice, then it met the Doctor's eyes and snarled. "Never mind! It's alright! It's after me now!"

"What!?" Jenny shouted. The monkey was torn again; which way should it go? But the Doctor couldn't let it go for Jenny. She grabbed the first thing she saw and pulled it from the wall: a fire extinguisher. She didn't think a fire extinguisher would do too much good against a violent primate, but it was better than nothing. It clanged and echoed when she slammed it against the wall.

"You want to come this way, don't you?" she said to the monkey, trying to hold its attention. It didn't yet move, and then the switch next to the Doctor beeped. "What did you do!?"

"I pulled it! Weren't you ready?"

"You didn't tell me you were ready!" the Doctor shouted back.

"I'll pull it again!"

"No, wait-" The monkey had finally jumped, crashing onto the balcony opposite the Doctor. "Now, listen," she began carefully, "You've already got quite a lot of food here, haven't you," she cast a glance at the corpses on the lower level, "So, you don't really need to kill-" The monkey screeched again and leapt for the Doctor. She lifted up the fire extinguisher and, miraculously, got it to work in the nick of time; she blasted the giant monkey in its gore-covered face with cloudy chemicals.

"HIT THE SWITCH!" Jenny shouted in the few seconds the Doctor had when the monkey was disoriented. She dove to the right and pulled the switch, and this time they got it: it dinged and the little light above it turned green. But she was still face-to-face with a highly aggressive, feral alien. It wailed and went for her.

She shot it with the fire extinguisher once more, but this time it tried to battle through the onslaught of mist and swipe its four, elongated arms at her. The fire extinguisher eventually stuttered out and she was forced to dodge the monkey's attack – but there wasn't much clearance on the balcony. The thing grabbed at the Doctor, and she was forced to bash it in the face with the butt of the extinguisher. This only made it angrier.

Its arms were beginning to tighten around her; she vividly remembered the severed body hanging out of the vent. She struggled as much as she could, but the monkey was strong enough to actually lift her up from the floor, causing her to drop the extinguisher. Her last resort would have been using the sonic screwdriver to deafen it, but she couldn't actually reach the sonic in her pockets with her arms clamped to her sides. It was squeezing her so tightly she was barely even able to cry out for help.

Something came flying towards the Doctor and her attacker from the direction of the isotope, heralded by a glowing, orange object, and then – just when she thought the crushing was going to change to tearing and she'd be gutted and pulled to pieces – the monkey went limp. There was a thud, and its head went rolling along the slanted floor, forward past the Doctor's feet and then away over the edge of the balcony.

Jenny pulled the monkey's body off the Doctor with some difficulty; it had been trying to crush her with all its strength, which turned out to be quite a lot of strength. The Doctor staggered and collapsed against the railing once she was free.

"What did – what did you do?" she panted, barely able to speak.

"It's a heat cutlass, I told you," said Jenny, indicating the white-hot sword in her hand. She switched it off and put it back in its sheath (which was heat-proof to stop it from burning her). The isotope cannister was sitting in the middle of the room now, disengaged from the containment unit, waiting for someone to grab it. But she couldn't do that while the Doctor was on the brink of fainting. "Are you okay?"

"I'm…" she stopped, then let out a hacking cough and spat some blood into the palm of her hand. She tried to stand up and collapsed again, leaving Jenny to catch her.

"You're alright, I've got you," said Jenny.

"What happened?" asked Oswin.

"That thing – the monkey – tried to crush her," Jenny explained, "Seems like it's done some damage. Can you get to the ship on your own, Oswin?"

"Um… probably, why?"

"Send Yaz down here, I need her to keep an eye on the Doctor while I get the isotope. Then you go back to the ship and get it ready to leave; we'll have to take her to the TARDIS and get her looked at."

"I… my own… TARDIS…" the Doctor said breathlessly.

"This is faster, don't argue with me," said Jenny.

"Yaz is on her way."

"Good. No, you can't sit down," she said when the Doctor stumbled again, "It's gonna be a nightmare to get you back up again if you do."

"Use your phone, Helix can do a superficial medical scan remotely," Oswin advised. Keeping the Doctor upright with one hand Jenny did just this, asking Helix's app to perform the scan.

"The Doctor has received trauma to the chest and abdomen," said Helix.

"I know that, can you be more specific?" asked Jenny.

"Negative. I am not equipped with the tools to conduct an x-ray."

"Thanks, Helix…"

"You…" the Doctor tried to talk, "Saved me."

"Obviously I saved you, who do you think I am? You think I'd let that thing crush you to death? Crush anyone to death? Besides, what if you regenerated into someone even worse?" The Doctor coughed again. "I'm sure you'll be fine soon." But in the meantime, she was far from it; she suffered through a very intense and painful coughing fit up until Yaz got there a few minutes later, who conveniently had some tissues on her.

"Whoa – you cut its head off," Yaz said upon seeing the monkey.

"I did say I had a sword and I would kill it," said Jenny. Vaulting over the balcony and landing lightly below, she retrieved the isotope in its large tube and carried it on her shoulder back up the stairs. "You've got her, haven't you? Or do you want to carry the tube?"

"You can have the radioactive tube, thanks," said Yaz, trying to keep the Doctor upright. "What did it do to her, again?" Yaz asked.

"Squashed her. Probably just winded. Broken ribs, punctured lung – very similar to the injuries I've been recovering from since the last time she showed up," said Jenny, "I still have a bruised rib."

"What happened to you?"

"Thrown across the room by a lunatic with superstrength."

"Am I gonna get sick from being around that tube?"

"You'll be fine. I'll get you some anti-rads."

"It's just – am I radioactive now? My clothes? Because we have someone on our TARDIS – Graham – who's a cancer survivor. And Oswin said earlier large amounts of radiation give you cancer-"

"We can decontaminate you. I'm not convinced carrying on in the TARDIS is a good idea for a cancer survivor, though."

"Well, he's been cleared for a while," Yaz explained, "I just don't want to put him at any unnecessary risk."

"You're not worried about your own cancer risk being around this thing?"

"I suppose. Now you mention it."

"That's interesting."

"Okay…"

Oswin was waiting for them at the hole in the ship's hull they had entered through, leaning all of her weight on her cane.

"I thought I asked you to meet us on the ship?" said Jenny.

"I can't cross the ice on my own, I'll slip," Oswin reminded her. Jenny sighed.

"Alright. Stay here, I'll load the isotope and then come back and get you."

"You're so romantic."

Jenny did just that, dumping the isotope in the bedroom at the back of the ship – which was more of a storage room at the moment anyway – and then helping Yaz bring the Doctor up the steps. Once that was done, she returned to Oswin.

"I've got the names of everybody who died on that ship," said Oswin when she took Jenny's arm, wobbling through the snow and ice, "So that we can let the families know what happened to them. Do you think we can retrieve any of the bodies?"

"No. That thing ate most of them, and what's left is too radioactive," said Jenny, "But I'll tell them. And then we need to do something to stop anybody else coming out here to get at that isotope."

"I've already written a worm that can scrub it from the Alliance's computers. You might have to grease some paws to find out who actually knows about it. We can probably retcon them all. But that's a job for tomorrow."

They didn't have to fly the ship back to where their TARDIS was physically located (which was somewhere within walking distance of Sally Sparrow's townhouse); the flying had a built-in teleporter that would take it straight home. In part of Jenny's renovations to the TARDIS, much as her mother disliked them, she had taken the liberty of doubling the size of the console room, adding a circular alcove where the flying saucer could neatly dock itself. It saved her from having to walk all the way down to one of the hangars to get to the ship which, though it was more limited than the TARDIS itself, she did actually prefer. They weren't even aboard the saucer for a minute until they were disembarking again, Yaz and Jenny dragging the Doctor out while Oswin limped behind them.

"Are we just leaving the thing in there for the moment?" asked Oswin.

"It's got radiation cladding, I'm sure it'll be fine," said Jenny dismissively. There were far deadlier things aboard the TARDIS than a cannister of Neon-99, after all. The Doctor started violently coughing up blood again. "The medbay is just around the corner." They burst into the living room, still attached to the console room by just one door as it had been since the Dimension Crash had forced Eleven to redesign the domestic spaces, with the medbay immediately to the right.

"Oh my god," Clara Ravenwood exclaimed, "What happened?" She dropped her cup of coffee in shock and it shattered on the floor, "What's going on?"

"Had an unfortunate run-in with the parallel universe set," said Oswin, "The Doctor has almost been crushed to death by a giant monkey with four arms."

"It wasn't a giant monkey," said Jenny, "It was smaller than a gorilla."

"But it did have four arms. It was trying to rip her in half. This is Yaz, by the way, you haven't met," Oswin continued.

"Tried to rip her in half!?" said Clara, following them all into the medbay where they could finally drag the Doctor onto one of the gurneys in there.

"This is a very unfortunate time to get yourself attacked, you know," said Jenny, "We don't have a real doctor on board anymore."

"I wouldn't say that," said Oswin, "You have field medic training. I'm me. And Yaz is a police officer, that's… similar."

"I'm… fine," said the Doctor, then started coughing again.

"Maybe in a few hours," said Oswin, "Rapid healing and all that." Clara crossed her arms and gave the Doctor a stern look. The Doctor held her gaze for a few moments and then rolled her eyes before coughing. Clara tutted and the Doctor tried to wave her away.

"Typical," said Clara. Jenny dragged an x-ray machine over from the other side of the room.

"I told her I could deal with it on my own," said Jenny, "She insisted on coming along. I had to chop its head off."

"Whose head, sorry?" Clara was alarmed.

"The monkey. It killed the whole crew of the ship before we got there."

Clara sighed, "I knew I should've gone with you instead of staying in and darning socks."

Midway through setting up the machine for an x-ray, Jenny stopped, "Did you darn my socks? You didn't say you were going to."

"I thought it would be a nice surprise."

"Very sexy," Oswin interjected, "Darning socks. That's what marriage does to you, Yasmin. You want to stay well away." Only now did Clara actually start paying attention to Oswin and Yaz, still in the room; Oswin had already found the nearest chair and dropped herself into it.

"Hi," said Clara, "You're… Yaz, right? That's what she said? I'm Clara. Ravenwood. Um…" she paused, "What do you know about me, exactly?"

"Oh, don't worry, I've been keeping her informed," said Oswin, smiling at the Doctor, who glared at her through another coughing fit. Jenny pushed the Doctor back down onto the gurney and angled the x-ray machine correctly over her chest.

"What?" asked Jenny, "What have you been saying?"

"Nobody else has told her a thing!" Oswin protested, "I can't just let her live in ignorance, I have a conscience. I just told her about your fuck buddies arrangement. And the vampire thing. And the stuff about what happened when she broke into Sally Sparrow's attic a few weeks ago."

"You weren't even there for that," said Clara. And then she gave Jenny a look Jenny pretended she didn't see, because Clara hadn't known Jenny had told Oswin all this. The x-ray machine beeped. "I hate to be rude, but don't you have medical equipment on your own TARDIS?" she glanced between Yaz and the Doctor.

"I brought them here, it was my decision," said Jenny, pushing the machine away again.

"Why?" Clara asked, evidently taking the Doctor by surprise. Before Jenny could answer a holographic image of a chest x-ray was projected into the air in front of them all from Oswin's Sphere; the data from the machine had been relayed through it by Helix.

"Wow," said Oswin, "Five broken ribs? That's an achievement. And a punctured lung, by the looks of things." The Doctor glared at her. "Seems like we'll be keeping you in overnight for observation," Oswin winked.

"What's going on?" Clara asked Jenny seriously.

"I'm gonna go find the decontamination equipment," Jenny announced rather than answering. On her way out she took Clara's hand, "Come on." Clara followed her out of the room, still confused.

"Decontamination for what?"

"Radiation," said Jenny, "You remember we said we were going to look for a treasure this morning? It turns out it wasn't a treasure; it was a highly valuable isotope in a faulty containment unit. I did tell them to stay on the ship. I'm fine, before you ask, radiation doesn't really affect me."

"I still don't understand why they can't recover from radiation sickness on their own TARDIS," said Clara as they headed deeper into the ship.

"Because I don't trust her," said Jenny, "I'm not letting Yaz out of my sight until I know she's alright, otherwise she's going to end up the same way as you and me. Not to mention, they have a cancer survivor on their TARDIS who didn't come out today. I can't in good conscience expose somebody to radiation like that. And to be honest, I didn't think you'd… I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Jenny," Clara stopped walking, "I don't like seeing her, either. And I can tell she's upset you."

"Of course she's upset me," Jenny complained, "She just comes swanning into things expecting me – of all people – to want her in my life. And I don't. But she still won't listen."

"Do you want me to say something to her?"

"No."

"She'll listen to me."

"I know that, but she should listen to me. She should have respect for me, not just do things because she doesn't want to upset you. Maybe I should've just let the monkey tear her in half."

"Well, maybe she will listen to you, now you saved her life?" Clara suggested, "How did they even get involved in this?"

"We just ran into them inside this bar and she wouldn't leave me alone," said Jenny, ducking into a room she hoped was the correct one where her mother had left the equipment they needed. "It's like," she stopped, surrounded by junk, "She says she wants to talk to me, and then she just has a go and tells me how I should be behaving."

"She's the Doctor. She tells everyone how they should be behaving all the time."

"And it drives me mad!" she started searching through stacks of junk.

"What are we looking for, exactly?" Clara asked. The room seemed to have an entire scrapyard crammed into it.

"A pesticide sprayer," said Jenny, "But it's been retrofitted to spray neutralising agents. We'll have to spray all their clothes. By the way…" she started picking her way through the refuse, "Oswin, uh… she's been having some thoughts."

"She has far too many thoughts, in my experience."

"About the Doctor. And Yaz."

"Like, she's fantasising about them?" Clara wasn't entirely following because Jenny didn't want to be crude.

"No, she thinks there's a mutual… interest."

"Oh. I don't think we should get involved in all that."

"But… shouldn't we?" Clara put her hands on her hips and looked at Jenny questioningly. "It's just-"

"I don't think it's a good use of anybody's time trying to sabotage relationships that may or may not exist, Jen."

"People suffer when they get involved with her, though."

"And they're adults who make that choice. Just like you were an adult who made a choice to get involved with me when everybody told you not to," Clara pointed out.

"That's different."

"Why? Because it worked out? Even my neighbour Rita warned me about you in case you were a heartbreaker."

"I'm not a heartbreaker…" Jenny grumbled.

"All I'm saying is that people are free to make their own mistakes, if you're right and if it even is a mistake. Maybe you and Oswin are wrong, or maybe it'll miraculously work out this time."

"I have a bad feeling about it."

"Jenny," Clara approached her and touched her shoulders, "You don't want her in your life, so don't waste energy thinking about hers." Jenny thought for a few seconds, agitated, and went to speak again – but Clara knew exactly what she was going to say. "I know, you're worried, I understand that. But we shouldn't get involved. If it makes you feel better, we can… pass along a phone number."

"Whose phone number? Yours? To the Doctor? So that she can ring you?"

"To Yaz. And yes, mine. They're from my universe, after all. Besides, you barely even answer your phone."

"I answer when it's you," she defended herself.

"C'mere," Clara pulled her into a hug, "You're always so tense when you've had a bad day."

"Isn't everyone? And I'd be less tense if you hadn't been telling me off."

"I'm giving you sage advice you need to hear. But listen, it's gonna be alright. I'm here now. If she upsets you anymore, I'll threaten to bite her and turn her into a vampire. I know she won't like that."

"I thought you don't approve of threatening people to get what you want?"

"This is different, my wife is upset, so I'll defend her." After Clara let her out of the hug, Jenny stood looking at her for a few long moments. "What?"

"Nothing. I just feel like I've been away for weeks, rather than hours." She paused and then swallowed her feelings, unsure of how to properly word just how much she had been missing Clara that day; she forced a smile Clara didn't buy for a second. "Anyway. I suppose I'll have to make dinner for everybody once we've dealt with this. What do you fancy?"

"Why don't you ask Yaz?" Clara suggested, "She's the one with the radiation poisoning. And it doesn't hurt to build some bridges with them. I'm one of them, and you certainly built a bridge with me."

Oswin's voice pierced the air from Jenny's earpiece; she had taken it out, but Ravenwood was still able to hear: "Would you to stop flirting and hurry up? Radiation sickness is time-sensitive." Ravenwood scowled.

It didn't take long – once they actually started looking – to find the retrofitted sprayer and drag it back to the medical bay. Clara was the one who carried it, citing the fact she was stronger than Jenny and that Jenny had been out all day already.

"So, this thing's empty," said Clara when they re-entered the room, "I'm not sure what you're planning on spraying."

"I'll whip something up, it's a very simple chemical synthesis," said Oswin immediately, "A big batch of detoxicant for the sprayer – after I have Sprite sterilise it, lord knows how long it's been back there gathering dust – and some shower gel. So that you can decontaminate yourselves thoroughly, too – probably in the morning, once your ribs have healed," she spoked to the Doctor directly.

"You're the one who's really in charge around here, then?" said Yaz, looking between them.

Oswin laughed, "Oh, no. I shouldn't be in charge of anything at all, really. I'm just an ideas man. It's just that Jenny isn't particularly adept at chemistry."

"My chemistry is fine," said Jenny.

"Mitchell will help me, wherever he is."

"Around, somewhere," said Clara, who hadn't seen him for about two hours (not that that was unusual).

"There, then," said Jenny, "Everything's arranged. You leave in the morning, first thing. We'll get you some spare clothes in the meantime, there's no shortage of clothes on here. I'm going to make dinner, though; is there anything you want?"

"What? Me?" Yaz was surprised she'd been asked.

"Yes."

"Well… what do you have?"

"I just brought a bucket of fresh mussels up from the pond downstairs this morning, I was going to cook those. Steam them with bacon and leeks. Maybe parsley, or allyl-free garlic paste."

"What's 'allyl-free garlic paste'?"

"It's for me," said Clara, "It's garlic paste without allyl."

"Obviously," said Oswin.

"The allyl is the component in garlic that I'm… allergic to." Clara tried to smile politely but betrayed her two pairs of sharp fangs – the canine replacements – and thought she might have come across badly.

"I can make anything, though," said Jenny, "There's a garden and a greenhouse."

"I don't want to cause any fuss."

"It's no fuss. I like cooking. We can have the mussels. They'll go bad soon otherwise." She turned and left, leaving Clara to manage the situation.

"Yaz needs the anti-rads," Oswin reminded her.

"Didn't you get them?"

"They're in there." With her cane she indicated a medicine cabinet on the wall. "I can't reach from the chair." Clara rolled her eyes and went to retrieve the anti-rads.

"Which bottle is it?"

"That one, middle row, far left," said Oswin. Clara pulled it out and read the label, but it was just a complicated, bogus-sounding drug name she didn't recognise. "It's the right one, I'm not going to have you poison her." The Doctor made a noise. "She'll be fine, don't worry." The Doctor, regardless, held out her hand for the bottle. Sighing, Clara crossed the medbay again and gave it to her. After examining it for a second, it got her seal of approval.

"Four," said the Doctor hoarsely as she handed it to Yaz. Clara went to the medbay sink to fetch her some water in one of the disposable cups they had in there – the sink was usually used for cleaning up viscera – and she took four of the large, green-coloured capsules in quick succession.

"I'll just babysit this one, then," said Oswin, nodding at the Doctor, "I could dress up a nurse and let you call me 'Clara'."

"Alright, that's enough of you," said Clara sternly. "Shouldn't you be in your lab? Doing chemistry?"

"I'm just waiting for Mitchell."

Clara shook her head, "Fine. I suppose I'll go dig out some clothes; do you want to come?" she asked Yaz, "I hate trying to pick out clothes for people. Oh – where do you want to sleep, by the way?"

"Excuse me?" asked Yaz.

"Well, there's another bed in here. If you don't want to spend the night on your own." Behind Yaz's back, the Doctor was giving Clara an absolutely furious look that Clara ignored completely. "We don't have any guest bedrooms in circulation at the moment, we'd have to bring one out of storage."

"Or you can stay on my sofa," Oswin offered, "Y'know, if you're not already worn out from my conversational talents."

"I'll just stay in here, thanks."

"No worries." Clara led her out of the medbay, back through their living room and off into a corridor. Jenny wasn't in the kitchen, but Clara assumed she'd just gone to get something from somewhere else on the ship. "I'm sorry about this lot, by the way," said Clara, "They're often not particularly friendly to people from your universe. Our universe. I don't like talking to them much, either."

"You don't like talking to Jenny? Aren't you married?" Yaz had to admit, of all the things Oswin had told her, the Clara Oswald who died in their universe being married to the Doctor's daughter in secret was the most unbelievable.

"Two years ago, the Doctor and Clara – the other Clara – decided they were leaving the TARDIS, and the Doctor wanted Jenny to come and look after it. Before then, we lived on our own, moving around," she explained, "Jenny likes to stay in one place for a while, she only moves every ten years, or so. And I never wanted to live on the TARDIS in the first place. But I try to avoid them because of the inherent weirdness of… you know."

"You being married to Jenny's mother in a different universe?"

"Exactly. Honestly, I'd rather be back in London again." She went into a door that held the TARDIS's wardrobe – or rather, Jenny's version of the TARDIS's wardrobe. She had redesigned that much like everything else and locked everything else away in storage. It was now an endless, walk-in wardrobe, as opposed to the cathedral-like wardrobe the Doctor used to use.

"Our wardrobe's a lot bigger, it's claustrophobic in here."

"Jenny likes smaller spaces. She grew up in a shack in the middle of a swamp, you know."

"I didn't know. She didn't want to tell me anything about herself."

"Mm… sorry about that. Again."

"Why did you ask that about the bed? In there? In front of the Doctor?"

"Honestly?" said Clara, "I want to know if there's something going on between you two. Going by the way your heartrate increased…"

"You can just sense my heartrate? From the other side of the room?"

"It's one of the skills that comes with vampirism. But, listen, I'm not going to tell the others. I just wanted to know because, well, you should be careful. People close to the Doctor get hurt often and easily. That's what happened to me, it's what happened to Jenny, Oswin, Rose…"

"What is with you lot thinking I don't know how to take care of myself? Do you have any idea how bloody condescending you all sound?" Clara didn't respond. "I'm sorry, it's just doing my head in. You don't know me."

"You're right," said Clara after a minute, "I shouldn't have intruded."

"I'm a police officer and a grown woman."

"Police? Really?"

"Yes. And I know Jenny was in the police, and a higher rank, with the Met, before you point it out."

Clara crossed her arms, "Why're you sticking up for yourself to me and not to them? You can tell them to piss off, too; it's fine."

"I know you already. The other you. You have the same…"

"Affect? Demeanour? Face?" Clara suggested.

"One of those."

Clara paused for a moment, "Can I borrow your phone?"

"Why?" asked Yaz guardedly.

"I want to give you my phone number. In case something happens. Maybe you need some help in a pinch. Or maybe you'll delete it as soon as you leave and won't ever use it. But it'll make me feel better. See it from my perspective; I'm an eighty-year-old woman worrying too much about the kids."

"I'm not a kid."

"Phone? Please?" she asked as nicely as she could. Yaz sighed and handed her the device. "And don't tell the Doctor about this, unless it's an emergency. I don't want her to contact me herself."

"Why? Nobody will give me a straight answer. Wouldn't you want to talk to the Doctor again, after so long?"

"It's a bad idea," Clara returned the phone, "There's this prophecy, about the end of the universe, and it might be about us. That's why we all tried to hide that I was alive for so long. Not that I am alive, technically."

"And what happened there, then? How did you become a vampire?"

"Oh, well, I was attacked-" she began, but then the ship rocked slightly. It wasn't a big movement, barely enough to knock her off-balance, but she knew what it meant: the TARDIS had landed somewhere. And the only person on board in a position to fly the TARDIS anywhere at all was Jenny. She narrowed her eyes. "Excuse me. I need to go see what that was. I'll knock before I come back in, in case you're getting changed." She disappeared out of the wardrobe and made a beeline for the console.

She met Adam Mitchell in the living space en route, him coming from the direction she was headed.

"I thought you were hiding out and playing your games?" she asked.

"Oh, no, I was in the lab, one of Sprite's legs came off and I had to repair it," he said, turning a little so that Clara could see Spite – giant, mechanical centipede that he was – clinging to Adam's back. At that, Sprite dropped to the floor and scuttled off towards the medbay where Oswin needed him for the sprayers. "Um…" he began.

Clara sighed, "She's gone, hasn't she?"

"Yeah… I just ran into her on my way out. She told me something about mussels?"

"Where did she go? Did she tell you?"

"Brighton."

"Alright," said Clara, a little relieved. Sometimes when Jenny was especially upset, she'd drop the TARDIS in the middle of nowhere on some uncharted world and retreat into the woods for a day or so. But she had only gone to see the Doctor. "I can't say I blame her."

"What's going on?"

Clara didn't answer, instead marching right into the medbay, where Oswin was talking the Astro Doctor's ear off about something or other. She shut up when she saw the look on Clara's face though, as Clara drew up to the foot of the Doctor's bed.

"This is your second warning," she said seriously, "If you crash into our lives and upset Jenny like this one more time, you'll never see me again. Not for any reason. She didn't want me to tell you off because I shouldn't have to, but I don't have a choice."

"What?" croaked the Doctor, "I haven't-"

"No. You upset her, and she's left. You have a daughter in your own universe, I suggest you give her the time of day instead of doing this… posturing to get the attention of my wife. Do you understand me?"

"Yes."

"Good. I'll be in London, if anyone needs me. And that doesn't include you," she added to the Doctor sharply, then left.

"God," said Oswin when the door slid shut, "You've really fucked up, haven't you?" The Doctor glared at her. "I suppose you just get to hang out with me and Adam all evening, then. That'll be fun. We were planning on watching westerns tonight. Unless you and Yasmin want some privacy to entertain each other?"

"Who's that?" asked Adam.

"Her companion, she's in the wardrobe. We should go check on her, actually," she engaged the motor on her wheelchair to go trundling through the room, "Now Clara's run off as well."

"Sure," said Adam, "What's all this about mussels, though?"

"That's what you're cooking for dinner tonight, baby."

"Oh. Alright, I suppose…"

---

Hours later, in the clinical gloom of the medbay, the Doctor lay awake staring at the ceiling. She didn't have anything to do, not even a book to read, while her ribs continued healing – and even if she did, she wouldn't want to put the light on and disturb Yaz. Yaz was in the room's only other bed a few feet away and until that moment, the Doctor believed she was already asleep.

"They all seem like they hate you," she said suddenly, into the humming silence. Yaz had barely talked to her for hours, still grappling with all she'd learnt that day.

"I know. I want to make amends, if they'll let me."

"Amends for what?"

"I thought they said they told you everything."

"I'd like to hear it from you. Your side."

"That's your police training coming out. You're wanting to interview me."

"So what if I am? You wouldn't want to travel with us if we were hiding things from you. Big things. And what were you doing, sneaking around?"

"See it from my perspective."

"I'm trying to, but I don't know what your perspective is."

"I travelled with her for a long time, and then she died. I wiped my own memory of who she was. When I regenerated I got it back, but didn't… I didn't know what happened to her. And then she was just there, with Jenny. I needed to see her alone. I handled it wrong, I know that now – but it wasn't as bad as they're making it sound. I didn't want to… I wasn't… I hadn't thought of… it's not like I… I didn't want her to come back to me. Nothing like that."

"Are you in love with her?" asked Yaz bluntly.

"No!" said the Doctor, "Not… No."

"But you're married to her in a different universe."

"I'm not in love with her. And for the record, it was both of us they didn't like. Hated my last regeneration and hated my version of Clara. Hated their own version of Clara, too, come to think of it. Even Jenny, for ages, wasn't nice to her when we had to see them. I'm not even sure how it all started."

"Seems like without you, she wouldn't have gotten married."

The Doctor actually laughed a little, "I don't think she looks at it that way. Besides, as far as I remember, she was already married. To Jack. You've met Jack."

"Sorry – Captain Jack? Him? Isn't he gay?"

"Jack's not that fussy – it's anything that moves with him."

"She cheated on him?"

"If I know anything about Jack, he'd have been cheating on her, too. Not that I was kept abreast of those sorts of details. Especially not from Clara, apparently, running around and hiding… I actually found Jenny in her flat once, and they passed it off as Jenny spying on her."

"And you believed that?"

"I suppose so. I didn't think Clara would lie to me, or carry on with my own married daughter behind my back." She sighed, "The whole situation was a mess, I suppose."

"…So, what did you do to Jenny that made her hate you so much?"

The Doctor finally decided she had best tell the truth, or as much of the truth as she rightly knew.

"She came from a machine, grown from a tissue sample that was taken from me unwillingly. She died, stepped in front of a bullet meant for me. I didn't think she would regenerate, but she did. Hours later. When I'd already left.

"The one in our universe is… different. She's happy. She doesn't have this weight she's carrying around with her. I don't know what happened that made them so different, but… Clara's right. It's not my place. And maybe I'm better off if I don't know why Jenny's this way, with all her darkness." She didn't say it out loud, but this Jenny reminded the Doctor a lot of herself when she let anger and grief bubble to the surface; and she knew what had happened to her to cause that, the loss of her entire species in a catastrophic war and didn't think that what had happened to Jenny would be less significant.

"You need to tell Ryan and Graham about this. All of it. If you don't, I will." Yaz offered an ultimatum the Doctor wasn't too surprised by.

"I'll think about it."

"They keep warning me about you, too. Saying people get hurt when they travel in the TARDIS."

"They do. You saw what happened to Grace, the day we met." Yaz said nothing. "I'm sorry. Try and get some sleep. When you wake up, we won't be radioactive anymore, and we can go home. Maybe we'll never run into them again."

But somehow, Yaz doubted that this would be the case.

AN: I would just like to clarify for the record that though this storyline doesn't seem like it, I do actually like Jodie Whittaker's Doctor (even if Jenny doesn't). Though I also don't watch the show anymore, but not because I have a vendetta this time, I just don't care about the canon anymore. I am still working on the next storyline of Retrograde, too, which this will directly feed into when you will see Jenny arriving in Brighton immediately after running off here.