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!

24. The Clone Killer Rewrite

DAY 132

Rewritten June 2024

969: The Case of the Clone Killer: Part One

Esther

"Awful weather, isn't it?" said Sally Sparrow, staring out of the car windows as rain poured down around them. Esther clenched her phone tightly in her hand.

"That's the third time today you've said the exact same thing about the weather."

"I haven't got anything else to talk about. And you're being antisocial."

"I'm just reading. There was a big ransomware attack on a hospital in Bangkok, and the code has been leaked online. It's very interesting." Sally leant back against the passenger seat and sighed deeply, nursing an empty travel mug of coffee as if it might spontaneously replenish itself. "You didn't have to come."

"I fancied a day out in Nottingham," she said.

"Uh-huh." She just didn't want to miss out on getting to do something exciting with the TARDIS crew – not that hunting a serial killer was Esther's idea of exciting. "They'd better not have gotten the date wrong. I was very clear."

"Why did you want to come here at all?" said Sally. "I'm sure they can handle it on their own now you've tipped them off."

"All the information about these murders has been classified, and I can't work out who or why," said Esther. "That's what I want to find out."

"I might know who's classifying it," said Sally, sitting up as a sleek, black car glided past and parked up just ahead of them.

"How?"

"Because that's James Elliott's Lexus," she nodded at the new car. "Undercoll." Esther rolled her eyes. Obviously, he'd spotted Esther's bright blue Mini, because when he got out of the car he made a beeline for them, rather than for the crime scene over the road flanked by two uniformed officers.

He knocked on the window, Esther's window, because the car had left-hand drive. Begrudgingly she rolled the window down as he hunched his shoulders against the rain.

"Bore da, how's it going?" he said.

"Fine, but I almost didn't recognise you without the frogs," said Sally.

"I've actually got a tattoo of one, but it's in a place that's not usually visible."

"How intriguing," she said. Esther wanted to curl up into a ball rather than listen to this. "What brings you to Nottingham today?"

"I'm still stalking you."

"But you can stalk me at my house, there's no reason to come so far out of the way to do it," she said.

"I think the better question is what brings you to my crime scene," he said, having to raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the rain.

"Just get in the car if you're gonna keep talking," said Esther, unlocking the doors.

"Thanks," he said, climbing in the back and trying to shake the rain out of his hair and his beard, which was coming in properly – when they'd last seen him, it had been stubble.

"Undercoll's covering up these murders, then?" said Esther. "Who does your computer work?"

"Bloke called Jacob Lowe."

"Tell him to fill in his holes. These absences created a pretty obvious trail," said Esther.

"I'll pass it along. And I wouldn't say it's being covered up – we're just trying to stop it from getting into the papers?"

"That's the definition of a cover-up," said Esther.

"But how does it look? Four identical women, murdered. People have enough to worry about with manifests and alien invasions, how do you think they'll feel about clones being brought into the mix?" he said. "The last thing we need are the world's governments having cloning technology. They'll be able to wage endless ground wars by just growing new people." Through Clara Ravenwood, Esther knew how Jenny had been created, from a military cloning machine and a sample of the Doctor's tissue. Elliott was right about the dangers cloning technology posed, but he was wrong about whether it existed in the 2010s.

"Luckily, they're not clones," said Esther. "Not like that, anyway."

"Then, what are they?" he asked.

"They…" Outside, over the rain, the unmistakable sound of the TARDIS thrumming interrupted them. "Why don't you ask yourself? Here come two of them now."

"Two of…?"

"You met Oswin, didn't you?" said Sally. "In Cardiff. I was there."

"They're all Clara's duplicates," said Esther.

"And you've brought them here? To the very city where we know a serial killer hunting people who look like each other was just active?" he asked.

"Well… When you put it that way…" Esther felt like she'd made a mistake. Maybe she shouldn't have called Oswin – maybe the twins should've been kept in the dark. Jack could have helped and brought the Doctor, too.

"When you were with Torchwood, did you spend a lot of time cleaning up the TARDIS's messes, too?" Elliott asked her pointedly.

"I was only there during the Miracle," she said.

"Sometimes, it's better that they don't get involved."

The twins disembarked the TARDIS ahead of them.

"Better go and say hello," said Esther, a pit forming in her stomach.

"Sure, but I want it on the record that I think that you lot being involved is a bad idea," said Elliott, getting out of the car and shutting the door behind him.

"When he said, 'you lot', do you think he meant me, too?" asked Sally.

"Somehow, no, I don't. Maybe he's right and we should just drive back home and leave him to it, though."

"But then we'd miss everything. Come on." Sally got out and Esther was resigned to follow her, joining Elliott and the twins in the rain. They caught up with him just before he reached them, and Esther took it upon herself to make the introductions since she wasn't sure Sally knew which of the twins was which.

"What's going on? Have you made a friend?" Clara asked.

"Kind of," said Esther, apologetic. "This is Elliott, he works for Undercoll – that's New Torchwood."

"New Torchwood? Fascinating," said Clara.

"This is Clara, this is Oswin," Esther pointed them out. It was easy enough; Oswin was the one in black.

"I believe we've met," said Oswin, scrutinising him.

"But we haven't; hello," said Clara, giving him one of her smiles. Then she turned to Sally. "And hello to you, too."

"Care to explain why dead girls who look exactly like you keep turning up?" Elliott got straight down to business, immune to Clara's charms – probably because he was so enamoured by Sally's. "Esther says they're your duplicates."

"Erm, yeah," said Clara. "It's complicated, you know? Wibbly-wobbly, time-wimey, spacey-wacey, er, stuff…" He crossed his arms and said nothing. "It would take too long to explain it all."

"She jumped into the Doctor's timestream and made a thousand clones of herself," said Oswin. "We call them 'Echoes'. Unfortunately, I'm one of them, from the future. No idea about the murder part – they're meant to save the Doctor at key points in his timeline."

"…Right," said Elliott.

"See, this is why I didn't try to explain it," said Clara.

"I think the important thing is that there's no cloning machine and no conspiracy," said Esther. "Other than the cover-up Undercoll is propagating."

"I suppose that explains why all the victims are drastically different in age," said Elliot. "One of them was ninety-eight."

"Is there an MO?" asked Oswin. "How do you know it's the same killer?"

"Other than the similarity in victims? Every location suffers massive electronic interference at the time of the crime. Our ninety-eight-year-old had a medical alarm that didn't work, and any and all CCTV we try to pull is corrupted. But they all died of severe seizures, despite no medical history of them. And they had blood and brain matter samples taken post-mortem, according to our pathologist."

"Brain matter? Eurgh," said Sally. "Grisly."

"Look, none of you are professionals, except possibly for Esther, and now that Undercoll knows the common link, we don't need TARDIS help to find the killer," said Elliott.

"Really? Because you haven't had TARDIS help so far, and it doesn't look like it's got you anywhere," said Clara coolly. "Don't test me. You can't stop me from going into that crime scene, I'm a manifest. I can walk through walls."

He clenched his jaw. "Fine. The four of you, wait here a minute." At that, he crossed the street to talk to the uniforms outside a nondescript building.

"Who is he, again? How do you know him?" Clara asked Oswin.

"That thing in Cardiff a few weeks ago, when Amy and Donna had their brains removed via an interdimensional portal," said Oswin. "He was looking into it – but isn't he just a detective? A Welsh detective?"

"New Torchwood head-hunted him because he's met the Doctor at least once," said Sally. "Didn't head-hunt me, though."

"You don't want to work for a clandestine government organisation anyway," said Esther.

"It's the thought that counts," said Sally.

Across the street, the uniforms dispersed, heading back to their car. Elliott waited for them to leave and then beckoned the others over.

"Sent them on break to get bacon sarnies," he said when they crossed to meet him. "They think you're my groupies."

"And I bet you loved that," said Sally.

"I couldn't say. Come on, if you all have to. But don't touch anything, alright? You're not wearing gloves. You're lucky I'm not getting the CSIs back down here to make you all wear paper suits." He led them up two flights of stairs to a small flat with yellow police tape around it. Of course, he'd brought latex gloves and opened the door tentatively to let them in.

The smell of death hung in the air, but the body was long gone. Esther spotted the chalk outline on the floor next to the bed, the bedroom door left ajar.

"Killed in her sleep, looks like," said Elliott, spotting this, too. "Same as all of them. Do they know that they're…?"

"My duplicates? No," said Clara.

"They see it sometimes in dreams," said Oswin quietly. "This different life. Your life."

"…You've never told me that," said Clara.

"You don't really ask. What was her name?" Oswin asked Elliott.

"Cara Oswald. Do you not have some kind of list?"

"No," said Clara. "But maybe I should, then I could check in on them."

"You condemned them all to die the moment they were born," said Oswin. "You've got some nerve trying to play guardian angel now."

"I don't think that's true," said Clara. "I know you died, and the Victorian died, but if they were all destined to die to save him then these murders would have destroyed him by now. Maybe most of them just have to do small things, give him a clue or point him in another direction. Maybe only you two died, and that's why he finally noticed."

"Baseless," Oswin muttered. Clara sighed. "We've met her, you know. In the desert. With the Finj." Clara stared at her blankly. "Zoriak?" Still nothing. "The Chupacabra?"

"Oh, Zoriak, I remember. He was nice. Until he died, but… You're right, that was Cara."

Esther felt like an intruder in that poor woman's life. The flat was small and sparsely furnished, with a cluster of sticky notes on the fridge listing things she needed to do. Call back Liz; buy more eggs; tell Penny I'm sorry. She wondered who Penny was. There was a picture of Cara in a red bathing suit along with half a dozen others similarly dressed, at the side of a pool.

"Was she a lifeguard?" asked Esther.

"Think so," said Elliott.

"Maybe she was gonna stop him from drowning," said Oswin.

"Don't be ridiculous, the Doctor wouldn't drown," said Clara.

"Or will he? Without your lifeguard here?" she said. Clara just shook her head, still looking around herself. Elliott's phone went and he took himself into a corner to answer, peering out of the front window.

"Alright, Cohen, how's it going?" he said. "What do you have for me?" Esther could just about hear that it was a woman on the phone, but she was speaking in either a different language or an absurdly strong accent – so much so that Esther couldn't make out a word. "Christ, that's nasty… Alright. Might be that's what he wants, then." A long pause while she talked to him. "Well, as it happens, I've got Clara Oswald with me here, along with a few others… I did tell them to clear off, aye, but they're stubborn – not that you'd know anything about being stubborn." She clearly told him to 'eff off' when he said that. "Listen, get yourself back to London, I think. Didn't you have a date today?" Pause. "Did it? Sorry to hear that… I see." He went a bit cold. "As it happens, no; I don't think someone not liking Siouxsie and the Banshees is a good reason to dump them." She said something else. "I don't care, Meredith's lovely. I hope you were nice about it, at least."

"I'm always nice!" Esther heard her shout down the line.

"That's the last time I try to set you up with anyone. Have a safe drive back to London; I'll update the team if I need back-up." He hung up.

"You're setting people up on dates, then?" asked Sally. He just shook his head.

"Sorry about that. Cohen's our pathologist, she's… She's an acquired taste. Moans about being single and then does that. Anyway. She had bad news, I'm afraid, about Cara."

"Oh?" said Clara.

"The killer's escalated. Her face was severely mutilated, and she had a message carved into her," he said, immediately serious again.

"A message?"

"Yeah. Just one word. 'Clara'. Cohen says the constables reckon it's a spelling mistake and the bloke's an idiot, but it's not a mistake, is it? It's for you."

"I imagine it is, yes," said Clara. "Just like this is a message for me." Using her telekinesis, she coaxed a photograph from under the coffee table. They all gathered around to look. "This isn't Cara, this is me, with my dad. He has this in his living room." Elliott, the only one wearing gloves, took it. "Or had it – Christ, I have to call him…" Clara shot out of the room, phone in hand.

"Do you know anyone who might want to target her?" Elliott asked Oswin, still holding the photo of the Oswalds.

"Clara's very grating, she's pissed off a lot of people," said Oswin. "Try working your way through her back catalogue until you find the lover she's scorned the most and start there. Or it could be the Great Intelligence, trying to find a more uninspired way to kill the Doctor."

"You think this is about the Doctor?"

"I really couldn't say. I don't know enough about the cases."

"How did you find out about this and alert everyone?" Elliott turned his questions on Esther again.

"Adam Mitchell asked me to keep an eye on the Echoes."

"So, there is a list?"

"No, I just have access to some search tools to trawl through internal police reports. It's Torchwood stuff. I imagine Undercoll used the same methods to come to the same conclusion."

"You couldn't find the others, then? So that we can find a way to protect them?"

"Look, if you want a computer genius to work that out, there's your computer genius," Esther pointed out Oswin, who didn't seem to be listening, her eyes on the door Clara had left through. "Not me. I just dabble."

"The killer clearly has a way to find them," said Elliott.

"Artron energy," said Oswin. "It gets into your DNA, twists it around, that's all you need. How long is the time between the murders?"

"A few months."

"Process of elimination, then. Find the women you suspect online – through social media, most likely – and visit them in person to confirm who they are. Using artron energy is beyond humanity, but detecting it isn't. The Echoes are imbued with it because of how they were made. How we were made. More than you'd pick up by ambient time vortex or rift exposure. It's that or you track them through the empathy bond, but I'm not sure how you'd manage it… Did you say blood samples were being taken?"

"And brain matter," said Elliott.

"Hm… Well, I'll think on that."

Esther wasn't listening to them discuss this anymore. She'd seen something on the TV stand, next to a snow globe with the Tower of London in it. It had glinted in what little sunlight came through the windows and the cloudy sky. A ring. Not just any ring, either.

"Are you okay?" asked Sally quietly. Without a care for contaminating the crime scene, Esther crossed the room and picked it up. She was still wearing gloves, but they were her insulating gloves to stop her from zapping people.

"This is my mom's," she said, picking up the ring. "It's an engagement ring. It was my grandmother's first."

"Excuse me?" said Elliott. "Why would something of yours be here? Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure, I've seen it a million times," she said, her heart racing. "I had to stop Sarah from selling it a hundred times, but…"

"But what?" asked Sally.

"How would it get here? And…" She looked at the snow globe again. It was pristine, but the surrounding TV stand was covered in dust. Slowly, she lifted it up, and found just as much dust underneath. The ring wasn't dusty, either. "This snow globe was just put here recently."

"You think the killer left a snow globe?" said Elliott.

"It's the Tower of London. That's where they were holding me captive. This is twisted – who'd want to do this? Killing those girls to get Clara's attention – to get mine! Why does it have anything to do with me? And how do you induce a deadly seizure in somebody, anyway!?"

At that, Clara returned.

"Dad's fine, thank god," she said. "He thought I took the picture without telling him. Doesn't remember anybody coming into the house."

"Whoever the killer is, they clearly have a way to get in and out with no one noticing," said Elliott. Surprising them all, Oswin laughed.

"What's funny, Os?" said Clara.

"I just thought you were all playing dumb, but you really don't know who it is, do you?" she said. Clara stared at her.

"And you do? Based on what? Seizures and a photograph?"

"No, based on the fact I have a memory that's at least slightly better than a goldfish," said Oswin. "You don't remember Liam Kent? Kidnapping you, kidnapping one of your echoes – I believe this echo – less than two months ago?"

"These murders have been going on for nearly a year," said Elliott.

"Time travel," Sally whispered to him.

"I…" Clara froze. "Shit, you're right."

"Obviously, he wants you to know it was him and to go looking," said Oswin. "Hence the messages, and hence the escalation to mutilating them when you weren't getting them."

"Who's Liam Kent?" asked Elliott. Sally just shrugged; Esther didn't know, either – nor did she know why someone obsessed with Clara's echoes would want to send her cryptic messages, too.

"He said he was in charge of this thing, the 'Paranoia Agency'," said Oswin. "Adam looked into it, they had a website."

"I have heard of them, now that you say that," said Sally. "Just, you know, online. Conspiracy nuts, I think."

"Bigger than you?" said Esther.

"Yes."

"Hm," Elliott thought. "Well, I've got a name now, so why don't the four of you go back to what you were doing and let Undercoll handle this?"

"Absolutely not," said Clara. "They're my echoes, it's my responsibility to protect them."

"And three of them are dead now. If you want to help, go find a way to track the others so that we can intercept him when he targets the next one," said Elliott. "I'm going to go talk to her colleagues and see if they can give me any information after I find out what this bloke looks like."

"He's right about you two," said Esther. "I'll come and talk to the colleagues."

"You'll what?"

"You're Undercoll, I'm Torchwood – it's my business as well as yours. More my business since these are my heirlooms that he's leaving behind at crime scenes," said Esther. Elliott clenched his jaw.

"…Fine. But you two definitely can't stick around here. What if someone sees you? Both of you? You look like their murdered co-worker."

"We will be more useful on the TARDIS," said Oswin, touching Clara's arm. "I'll come up with a way to track them so that nobody else dies. That's better than traumatising people." Clara didn't say anything. "We'll keep the ship grounded and liaise via Esther."

"Sure," said Esther. Oswin nodded and pulled Clara out of the flat by her elbow, leaving just the three of them. Elliott looked to Sally.

"I suppose you want to come, too?"

"Well, I'd rather not wait in the car all day," she said.

"Alright, then. But first thing's first: since it doesn't look like anyone's in any immediate danger while this nutter waits for Clara to find a way to contact him, I need some breakfast."

---

Sally

"That's the ticket," James rubbed his hands together as a full English was set down in front of him. Sally and Esther had both ordered identical plates of scrambled egg on toast, except Esther had gone for a coffee with hers instead of English breakfast tea. "Almost as good as a full Welsh, this."

"What's in a full Welsh, pray tell?" said Sally. They were gathered around a small table in the corner of a greasy spoon around the corner from the leisure centre Cara Oswald had worked in, Esther with her new laptop out on the table so that she could research.

"Almost identical, but we add laverbread and cockle pancakes," he said.

"Cockles? In pancakes?"

"Oh, it's lush, you've gotta try it, and the laverbread – that's made of seaweed. Divine, so it is."

"Never let it be said that the Welsh aren't innovative," said Sally as he dipped a slice of toast into his fried egg and burst it.

"Aren't you from London? You eat jellied eels down there, don't you?"

"They… They're traditional," she said. "I'm not a huge fan, I won't lie."

"Revolting."

"I think eating either eels or seaweed is weird," said Esther, barely listening to them, deep in the internet.

"…So," Sally said when the brief silence went on too long. "Here we are, having a drink like I said I wouldn't."

"Don't worry about it," said James. "I'm not trying to trick you into anything. This is just a convenient breakfast."

"I appreciate that." He smiled at her. "Tell me something."

"What?"

"Do you actually speak Welsh? I've been wondering."

"I do, as it goes," he said. "A lot of people don't – most people, really – but I'm one of the lucky ones. And it's coming back, more kids each year learn it – no thanks to you lot." English people. She didn't argue with him, just started on her eggs while Esther typed.

"How's your mum doing? Did you say she had gallstones?" asked Sally while she ate.

"Ah, she's fine now. Just a big faff going to Cardiff and back," he shrugged. "She needs to eat better and stop smoking, that's what the doctor said. Mind you, I've been telling her the same bloody thing for years, and she doesn't listen."

"It's good she's on the mend, though," said Sally.

"I think she's only doing it to get to me, anyway."

"You think she gave herself gallstones to upset you…?"

"No, she just didn't want me to move to London. She needs to look after herself better, that's all. Bethan tells her the same thing – that's my sister. And London's not that far, I'm happy to drive and visit. That is, when someone doesn't stop me."

"I couldn't let you drive in the state you were in," said Sally.

"I do appreciate that. Mam would've given me an earful if I drove all the way back that day about road safety. Family, eh?" he said, looking for common ground with her. She forced a smile, biting into her toast.

"I don't really have any family anymore," she said.

"Oh. God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-"

"No, it's fine. I suppose it's honest enough to assume that someone does have one – most do," she said. "I don't really have anyone. Except Esther. And I'm not sure she likes me."

"I like you just fine," said Esther, who was listening, at least a little. "And I don't have much family, either, so we have him outnumbered." She only had her nieces who believed she was dead. She kept up with their lives and told Sally about it from time to time.

"I am sorry," he told her seriously.

"It's fine. Now you know."

"What did you do with the hat, by the way?" asked Esther abruptly – not that the change of topic was unwelcome. Sally returned to her eggs.

"Destroyed it," he said. "Darling wanted to salvage the technology, but I insisted on it."

"Darling?" asked Sally.

"Aurelia Darling. I suppose she's our Jack Harkness. Odd woman, honestly – not sure where they found her," he explained. "But the hat's gone, incinerated. All of it."

"How poetic, after it spent its life incinerating others," said Sally. "So, did you have no suspects for these murders until Oswin worked it all out for you just now?"

"Not really. Some enemy of the Doctor's? Cohen thought maybe Clara was doing it herself, but she does often go to dark places," he said. "It's not an easy job. We don't have anyone with the Doctor's expertise, or Jack's."

"You admit that you're underqualified, then?" said Sally.

"I wasn't gonna pass up a job opportunity like this," he said. "I needed to get away from Cardiff, anyway. Got spotted by two constables outside a gay bar a few months ago, and that's not the kind of thing that sets you up for an easy career path in the force."

"Why join the police at all?" said Sally.

"Helping people. Obviously. Trying to make a difference."

"And did you make a difference?"

"I'm not gonna debate the morality of police work with you," he said.

"Well. I'm only messing. You're not the first policeman who's asked for my phone number, or the first I've let have it," she said.

"Oh, really? Who was the first?" He cut up his bacon, raking the pieces through egg yolk and baked beans.

"This guy called Billy Shipton, with the Met," she said. "He was working the Wester Drumlins case."

"Weeping Angels?" asked James. Sally nodded.

"That's what happened to him. They sent him back to the sixties. He died in hospital, the same day I met him, an old man," she said. "He'd been leaving me messages all that time, thanks to the Doctor, so that I could stop them. Me and Larry."

"This is why I left," said Esther quietly. "Tragedy, all the time. Do you think today will be any better? No." She sipped her coffee.

"I did read up on that case – on what we have in our records," James said. "Which isn't an awful lot. Missing people, missing cars, all centred around this old building, and then one day, it just stops."

"That's because we tricked them," said Sally. "It was the Doctor, really. He tricked them so that they were looking at each other. They're probably still down there now, in the cellar. At least…"

"What?" asked James.

"If the lights went out and it was dark, they'd be able to move again. I think about that sometimes, about if they're gonna come looking for me. I suppose it doesn't matter so much if I can actually contact the TARDIS, though," said Sally. "And that's what they wanted, anyway. Not me. Just the TARDIS key. I still look over my shoulder sometimes, but… If they don't want you to see them, you never will." She was about done with her eggs, pushing a sliver of toast crust around the plate with her knife.

"Okay," said Esther, picking up her computer and turning it around to show them the screen. "This is the Paranoia Agency's website."

"Is that all you've been doing this entire time?" said Sally. "Looking up one website?"

"No, bear with me here. This is their website, but it has no mention of 'Liam Kent' by name – though it does have a page dedicated to a long-running cloning conspiracy. They're saying cloning has been possible since the nineteenth century, something to do with salvaged alien technology being covered up by the government. Which, I guess, is plausible enough, but we know that's not what's happening here. Luckily, there are no pictures of Clara or any echoes on the site, just a vague description that I don't think anybody could identify her from.

"While this website's still around, every mention of Kent himself has been scrubbed from the internet. I say that because Oswin has this search tool she calls an 'RTA', Remote Temporal Archive. It's a kind of quantum system that lets you put the computer in different time periods – an archive nobody can delete anything from. When I search through there, suddenly, he's everywhere." She brought up pages and pages of evidence: police reports, social media profiles, his university transcript, blog posts – everything. "He's scrubbed the entire internet clean, everything digital, in a way that isn't usually possible. I've only really seen Torchwood do this, but even that leaves a trace, it leaves blank spaces – like Undercoll when it's been covering these murders up."

"So, he's a computer genius," said James.

"To write a virus like this? Sure. But it's not a virus. It's not anything I recognise, the way all of this has just disappeared. And it seems unlikely, given that I have his college results and he studied Poli Sci and flunked it. Or, he would have flunked it, if he didn't get kicked out of school after a stalking incident."

"Stalking?" asked James.

"Yeah, twice he was arrested for stalking this girl, she filed two reports. And there's a third report for someone else, a woman. This is all years ago, but it does make it more likely that he's the right guy. But I've managed to find a picture, from his old socials." She brought up an image of an average, non-descript young man, a boring selfie taken outside a pub on a warm summer's day years ago.

"He's our murderer?" said Sally, frowning. "But he looks so… ordinary."

"Serial killers often do," said James. "There's nothing smart or special about it, any of it. It's one part hating women, one part luck. But now we have a picture. I've got an instant printer in the car; can you send me that so I can make a copy to show to her colleagues?"

"Sure."

"A portable printer?" asked Sally. "Really?"

"Very useful in this line of work."

"A line of work where you apparently don't care about image quality."

"Well, if you've got a way to develop the picture to your standards quickly, I'm all ears," he said, leaning towards her. Of course, she didn't. She didn't even have a real dark room, she had to use her bedroom and cover the windows.

"You'll have to pay me if you want to develop pictures for you," she said.

"And what do you take pictures of? Usually?" he held her gaze. All thoughts of serial killers went out of Sally's head; in fact, all thoughts of anything went out of her head. She could smell his pineapple cologne and see where his hair had been mussed up from the rain.

"Anything," she said. "I'm very good." He nodded, scratching his throat, and then sat up.

"I'm just gonna nip in the back before we leave and go to the leisure centre. But when this is done, maybe I'll book a photoshoot. My Grindr could use an update." She clenched her jaw and tried not to laugh as he left, heading off into the toilets at the back while she watched him. Esther stared at her.

"What?"

"Are you gonna put him out of his misery?" she said.

"Maybe, if it gets unbearable." Esther made a face. "You did ask."

"I guess."

"Look, flirting's one thing, but I just got out of a six-year relationship. I'm not going to jump into anything else, no matter how hot he is." Which was very hot, and she only noticed more about him each time they ran into each other.

"Okay, but he's nice, too. And he makes you laugh."

"Why are you suddenly interested?"

"It's not that I'm not interested – we're friends, aren't we? If you want to talk about this stuff, we can talk about it. I'm not a total prude."

"I just think, logically, that it's a bad idea to get involved with someone else so soon," she said. "He knows as much. I'm not leading him on. Do you not like him, though?"

"I just said he's nice," she shrugged. "I don't know anything else about him."

He didn't take long to come back, and they'd all about finished. He paid, despite Esther arguing, and then they decanted from the greasy spoon and back into the bad weather. The rain had turned to snow but the ground was too damp for it to set. It was only a short walk to the local leisure centre, though, and James took the lead once they were inside.

He took out his badge, which was vague but enough like a normal policeman's badge that he wasn't questioned much by the receptionist.

"Detective Inspector James Elliott," he said, even though he kept insisting to Sally that he wasn't technically in the police anymore. "I'm here to ask some questions about Cara Oswald."

"Is she alright?" asked the receptionist, whose name badge betrayed her as Penny, presumably the same Penny for whom Cara had been meaning to apologise, according to the sticky note on the fridge.

"I'm sorry to tell you that she's died," said James quietly.

"She – what?" said Penny. She was only in shock for a moment, and then she started to cry. "Since when?"

"She was found this morning," he said, speaking softly. He had a packet of tissues in the back pocket of his jeans, and he gave one to Penny. "I'm sorry for your loss. Is the manager in today? I have a few questions."

"For Liz? Um, I… She's in, but… Oh, god… What happened?"

"I can't say, and the body hasn't been formally identified. But it's imperative that I speak with her boss as soon as I can, for the investigation."

"What is there to investigate? Did – did someone do this to her? Was it that man?" said Penny.

"What man?"

"Her stalker."

"She had a stalker?" He took out a notebook and started writing quickly.

"I never saw him, but she's been terrified the last few weeks. I think Liz knows more about it."

"And where can I find her?" He circled back to the manager again. Teary, Penny pointed to some windows overlooking the pool in the next room.

"Stairs are through that door," she said, wiping her nose on the tissue.

"Is there anyone who can cover for you? Maybe you should take a few days off," said James.

"Johnny's just on break, I'll…"

"I'll go find him. Johnny, you said? Be right back." She directed him to the break room behind the desk and he disappeared for a minute.

"Are you police, too?" Penny asked Sally and Esther.

"No, we're, erm, consultants," said Sally.

"Consultants?"

"Yeah, with forensics," she said. "You know."

"Oh, right."

"Yeah."

They waited awkwardly for James to come back, bringing Johnny with him. Penny burst into tears and Johnny set about comforting her, while James led the way to Liz's office on the upper floor. He didn't say a word, staying resolute as he knocked on the door, opening it before being invited to.

"Excuse me, are you Liz? The manager here?" he asked. She was sitting at a desk covered in knickknacks, with a big box of lost and found in the corner of the room.

"Er, yes, who are you?" she said.

"Detective Inspector Elliott," he said, showing his Undercoll badge again. "I've just got a few questions about-"

"It's Cara, isn't it?" she said.

"I'm afraid so."

"I knew it." She put her head in her hands. "I knew it when she didn't respond to any texts last night, that he must have… And you're with the police?"

"Special ops."

"What's that when it's at home?"

"Major incidents," he said.

"This is a major incident? God, that's rich. She reported this months ago and nobody took her seriously. Now she's dead, and it's a major incident?"

"Whatever happened, it wasn't reported to me. Can I sit down?" he nodded at the chair across the desk from her.

"Fine. Who are they? They don't look like police."

"They're not, they're special ops, like I said. This is my forensic computer specialist and newly qualified criminal profiler." He pointed at Esther, then Sally. "Try to forget they're here, though. Now, what was it that Cara reported to the police?"

"Her stalker," said Liz. "She had a stalker, this bloke. He was hanging around here for months, watching her, trying to contact her. I told her a dozen times to go to the police, and she finally did, and they did nothing. Less than nothing, if you're saying it wasn't even filed properly."

"I can only apologise for how the system has failed her," he said seriously. "I'll take this up with Nottinghamshire Police personally after I'm done here." Sally saw him write all this down in his notebook, too, so that he didn't forget. Maybe if it had been reported properly, Kent would have been caught months ago.

"Is she really dead?" said Liz.

"I'm afraid so. And we suspect foul play, so anything you can tell me about this stalker would be a huge help. If you have a name, a description – most stalkers are known to their victims," he said.

"I don't have a name. He was blonde, I saw him once. Average height. He was arguing with her in the car park out there, that's why I convinced her to report it. But…"

"But what?" he asked, his pen poised and ready.

"We wanted to show the CCTV to the police, but I couldn't get the cameras working. It's like they were corrupted."

"Do you still have the footage?" Esther interrupted. "Is it saved anywhere?"

"Yeah. I had my nephew take a look at it, he's good with computers, and he couldn't make heads or tails of it."

"Do you mind if I use the computer? I'll take a look," said Esther, ejecting Liz from her own chair rather unceremoniously. "Sorry, I just really wanna get this guy, y'know?"

"You're American?"

"Yes."

"Don't mind Esther," said James. "She's a computer whiz, she'll do her bit with the footage. But in the meantime, does this man look familiar?" He produced his printed-out image of Liam Kent, done from the portable printer Sally was tempted to steal and throw into the nearest river.

"Christ, that's him," said Liz. "Why are you talking to me if you know who he is?"

"I'm just trying to corroborate another witness statement," he said. "Thank you for looking at the picture, that's really helpful. Do you know when the stalking began?"

"About the time she won that cruise."

"Cruise?"

"Out of the blue, two months ago, she won a cruise and disappeared for a few days. She didn't sign off from work and only said it was a cruise afterwards, but when I asked her about it, she didn't seem to know a thing, it was like… It was like something had happened to her, and she didn't remember," said Liz. No doubt the effects of whatever the TARDIS crew had done to Cara to make her forget Kent had kidnapped her.

"Is it this clip?" asked Esther, eyes glued to the screen. Liz glanced down.

"Yeah. It's corrupted, see."

"Uh-huh," said Esther.

"Can you fix it?" asked James.

"I don't think so, but… Hm." She said nothing else. Politely as he could, James asked Liz to vacate her own office. She was so dazed by the news about Cara that she didn't argue too much, and then it was the three of them. "If I look through the metadata, the file isn't actually corrupted at all."

"How can that be?" asked Sally, peering over Esther's shoulder. On the left half of the screen was Cara, arguing with someone outside, and the right half of the screen was static and pixels like the image had degraded.

"Whatever distorted this was happening in real-time," she said. "I've only seen these kinds of disturbances in signal jammers, but even then, you'd expect the whole frame to be disrupted."

"All the other CCTV to do with these murders has been corrupted in the same way," said James, crossing his arms. "Jacob wasn't able to clear it up, either."

"Well, it's like I said, it's impossible because it's happening externally to the camera system," said Esther.

"Mm. But the strange thing is, when Undercoll tried to look into what happened to you, when an ex-Torchwood agent's body was stolen from a cemetery, the security footage was corrupted in a similar way."

"That's just me, it's electrical interference," said Esther. "It doesn't happen now that I can control it."

"But he sent you a message, didn't he? That snow globe?"

"Are you saying I'm involved?" she said. "I haven't killed any of Clara's echoes, why would I want to do that? It's awful."

"I don't think you killed anybody. I'm just pointing out the connection."

"Maybe he's a manifest," said Sally. "You said it's like a signal jammer, so, maybe it's a power to do with signals or electricity, a bit like yours. He does break into places without leaving a trace, maybe this is how."

"You're making leaps again," said Esther.

"I'm usually right, though," said Sally. "I was right about the hat, wasn't I?"

"That's completely inconclusive, it-"

"I don't want to talk about that hat again, thanks," James stopped them.

"Even the seizures," said Sally. "Seizures are electrical, aren't they? That could be how he's killing them. He could have the same powers as you."

"But I'm not a manifest, remember?" said Esther. "I have these powers because of alien technology bringing me back from the dead. Technically, I'm still dead."

"And where did that ring come from?" asked Sally quietly. "You said it was your grandmother's, underneath a snow globe of the Tower of London, where you were held prisoner for years."

"You think I killed them, too!?" said Esther.

"No, I think that this nutcase who's killing Clara's echoes is the same nutcase who dug up your grave and brought you back to life," said Sally. "Think about it. That ring. I bet you were buried with it."

"Why me? And why Clara?"

"I told you, he founded a website for conspiracy nutters. What's a bigger government conspiracy than Torchwood? I used to try and find out what they were up to before I knew how depressing it all is," said Sally. "Not that I'd ever become a serial killer, but maybe that's the link."

"No, it… No, I don't…" Esther rubbed her forehead, frustrated. The lightbulb overhead flickered.

"I didn't mean to upset you," said Sally. "We know someone did it, though. He's out there somewhere."

"Okay," said James. "There's no need to speculate. When we catch him, we can ask him. If he's sending messages, I'm sure he'll confess without much trouble. Does that sound alright, Esther?"

"It…" Esther didn't finish. Her phone started ringing. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to take it out of her pocket. "It's Oswin. You answer it, I can't." She gave it to Sally.

"Esther's phone, Sally speaking."

"Okay, the good news is that I'm very clever and I've worked out a way to use the TARDIS's perpetual superposition to home in on the empathy bond Clara has with all of her echoes that exists as a kind of, simultaneous, cross-temporal reverberation," said Oswin, Sally putting her on speaker in the hope that somebody would understand what she was saying. "So, I've found the next echo. It looks like he's moving south systematically – this is the fourth murder, going from Inverness to Edinburgh to Newcastle and now Nottingham."

"If that's the good news, what's the bad news?" said Sally.

"I've found the next one. She's in Nottingham, too. She's called Clarissa Carson; I have her parents' address. I'll text it through now and we'll bring the TARDIS to meet you."

"That's bad news?"

"No. The bad news is that she's only six. And he's already found her."

---

Rewritten June 2024

970: The Case of the Clone Killer: Part Two

Clara

"I'm just saying, there's a lot more legroom in my car. And it's discreet," said Elliott, sandwiched in the backseat of Esther's Mini between Clara and Oswin. She and Sally were in the front.

"Isn't being in the middle of identical twins every man's dream?" said Sally, catching his eye in the rear-view mirror.

"I think that's a very uncharitable view of men," he said. "Aren't you allegedly attracted to them?"

"Oh, but imagine if there were two of them. And they looked just like each other," said Sally.

"Is that what I have to do to get you to go for a drink with me? Multiply?" he said.

"It's a good start."

"Could you two tone it down?" said Esther. "We're out here trying to stop a guy from murdering a child."

"…Sorry," said Sally.

Clara barely listened. She stared at the dark house through the car window, waiting. They'd used the TARDIS to skip ahead to nighttime, when all the murders took place, and were banking on Kent reappearing as soon as he could. He'd already been stalking his next victim, police reports already filed by Clarissa Carson's parents about a sinister man fitting Kent's description lingering outside of her school. If he was getting more erratic, not covering his tracks properly, he might strike again very soon.

Oswin had Esther's computer in her lap, the brightness turned right down as she scrutinised all of the damaged footage they had of Kent around his victims.

"I think Sally's right," she said. "I think he's a manifest and he's manipulating electromagnetic energy."

"That's not exactly what I do, though," said Esther quietly.

"I didn't mean that you were killing people," said Sally.

"It's what you said." Sally didn't respond. "Oswin, do you really think he's a manifest? Or could he be like me instead? If Sal's right about him being the one who brought me back to life, what if the Zuar technology affected him, too?"

"I believe it may have done," said Oswin. "You need a big jolt of something to activate the powers – to force your brain to make all the new connections. A lightning strike could do that. We still don't know what kind of genetic markers, if any, determine what powers people get, though. If it's more nature than nurture. Have you ever tried to give anyone a seizure, by any chance?"

"Of course not."

Oswin lowered her voice. "Have you ever done it by accident?"

"No!"

"What about travelling through wires like he seems to?"

"Isn't coming back to life enough for you two? Why do you think I should be able to perform all these party tricks?" Esther grumbled. "And even if I could, I wouldn't be taking tips from a serial killer on how to use my powers."

Oswin shut the computer and the car went quiet. They were parked just across the street from the Carson house, waiting for a sign. Clara was not going to let that girl die.

"…Is it true you're all manifests on that ship, then?" asked Elliott.

"All the humans are," said Oswin. "It doesn't affect Time Lords, and I'm a hologram. Nios is a synth. Other Clara's a vampire."

"A vampire?" he said. "Vampires aren't real."

"They're a race that reproduces parasitically," said Oswin. "Very interesting, actually, the ability to permanently metamorphose one species into another through mutual blood transfusion."

"You sound like the Doctor," said Clara.

"And I bet you find that very sexually confusing, don't you?" said Oswin. Clara only shook her head.

"I haven't got any superpowers," said Sally. "You'd think they'd want you to have them at Undercoll, though. Wouldn't it be useful?"

"Not as useful as going under the HCC's radar when they're rounding people up," said Elliott. "I'd love to be able to fly, though."

"I suppose I'd like to do something with plants," said Sally. "But I don't know. I've never been interested in superheroes. They're Esther's thing." Esther shook her head.

"I don't like any of this."

"No," said Clara. "Me neither."

There was no guarantee Kent was going to show up that night, but Clara had a feeling that whatever his powers were, he was using them to watch. He'd have seen the TARDIS, she was sure. She could only hope he went straight for her and ignored the echo asleep in the house completely.

This didn't happen.

"Do you feel that?" said Esther, blinking and shaking her head. "It's like a sound that's too low frequency to hear."

"No," said Clara.

"I can," said Oswin. She frowned. "Shit. I think it's-" Just like that, she disappeared. The Sphere materialised in the car and fell, landing on Elliott's leg. He swore but managed to stop the Sphere from rolling into the footwell, where Oswin's now detached prosthetic leg remained.

"Oswin!? Are you okay?" asked Clara, reaching across Elliott to grab the Sphere and tapping on it. It was only dead for a moment, soon illuminating.

"I'm fine," said Oswin's voice. "Some kind of interference – mainly visual, like a power draw."

"I feel it, too," said Esther.

There was a flash inside the house, in the living room. There was no discussion. All of them – bar Oswin, still trying to get her Sphere to work – shot out of the car. But Clara was faster than the others, phasing through the front door without a thought for how they would get in.

She caught him on the stairs, Liam Kent, halfway up them. She threw out her hand and wrenched him back with telekinesis, throwing him to the floor at her feet in the hall.

"Oh, hello, Clara," he smiled at her. He smiled. After killing all those people. Her blood boiled.

"You don't hurt any more of them," said Clara through gritted teeth, holding her hand out, ready – but ready to do what? Crush his skull? Squeeze his heart until it stopped? Break every bone in his body in an instant?

"You can just make more of them," he said. Then he melted away, into pure, bright light, like a prism splitting a sunbeam into a rainbow. The light streaked into the living room and Kent rematerialized in front of the television. "I'll leave her alone if you insist. But they're not safe."

"They'll be safe when I'm through with you," she said.

"We'll talk about it. Us and your electric girl." He didn't give her a chance, though. He morphed into light again, absorbed by the TV, shooting off the same way he'd arrived. Esther had said something about a noise she couldn't quite hear; when he left, Clara realised she'd been hearing it, too. The silence struck her profoundly.

There was a piece of paper on the floor; Kent had dropped it. Clara picked it up and unfolded it. It was an address, somewhere nearby with a Nottingham postcode. The others were still trying to get in through the front door. She heard footsteps upstairs and a light came on. Quickly, she phased back through the wall, leaving the house almost completely untouched.

"Away, all of you," she said to Esther, Sally, and Elliott. "He's gone."

"Is she alright?" asked Elliott.

"Yes. I stopped him, he's left. Gave me an address, see?" she showed him the paper. "The Carsons are awake, get out of sight." She ferried them back to the car, fidgeting with the paper in her hand, as Esther started the engine and drove them away and around the corner, parking up somewhere else.

"What did he say? What happened?" asked Elliott, now relegated to holding Oswin's Sphere so that it didn't roll around too much while she complained about the projection matrix being on the fritz.

"Not much," said Clara quietly. "He was going to kill her, though. That little girl. I know it."

"Nasty piece of work, if he's carving messages into them," said Elliott quietly. "I haven't dealt with many serial killers."

"He said hello, though. Called me by name. 'Hello, Clara.' And he mentioned you, Esther," she added quietly. "He gave me this address and said we'll talk about it. He called you my 'electric girl'." Esther pressed her fingers to her temples.

"What's the plan, then?" asked Elliott. "Are you going to call in back-up? Your ship full of manifests? Or should I contact my people?"

"I don't know," said Clara. "It depends if Oswin knows a way to stop his powers from working."

"Did you see him use them?" asked Oswin from inside the orb.

"Yes. He transmutes into light - energy - and travels through wires, by the looks of things," said Clara.

"Not sure how to dampen that," said Oswin. "EMP, maybe?"

"Oh, great," said Esther. "We'll just drop a nuke to trigger an EMP over middle England. Great idea."

"Not like you to be sarcastic," said Sally.

"It's not like me to be hunted by a serial killer! To be brought back to life! I mean, who am I? Esther Drummond, from DC. I'm nobody. I wasn't important to anybody when I was alive, I was barely important to Torchwood – Useless Esther, that's me, and now this! I don't-"

"You're not useless, and you're not nobody," Sally interrupted her, facing her in the passenger seat. "You're important to me, Esther. And to Jack, since he spent all that time looking for you."

"I quite like you as well, for the record," said Oswin from the back. "And so does Mitchell. He loves it when you text him about video games and comic books." Esther didn't say anything, just did deep breathing in and out.

"This address is for an abandoned, old office block," said Elliott, on his phone to look it up. "That's where he's making his base? There's a local newspaper article about it being bought up by some shell company called PA Incorporated a few months ago. They thought it would be converted into flats, but nobody's submitted anything for planning permission."

"PA," said Clara. "Paranoia Agency. His thing. Spoilt rich kid, you know the type. No offence, Sally."

"Yeah, thanks," Sally mumbled. "I'm not rich, by the way."

"I think we should call for back-up," said Elliott. "I'm not arrogant enough to think I'll be any use against a manifest."

"It'll be fine," said Clara. "I'm here, and so's Esther. Not to mention, the smartest girl in the universe. Oswin doesn't need arms and legs to be clever."

"Elliott might be right," said Oswin. "We should get Jack, at least. He'll want to know since this concerns Esther. And Martha and Rose will be-"

"No," said Clara. "I can handle it."

"Clara, I don't think you can," said Oswin.

"And who are you to say that?" said Clara. Oswin went silent. "I thought so. Esther, if you're not up for driving, I'll do it. I'm a good driver."

"I'll do it, just give me a minute, I… I need a minute," said Esther.

"Who knows how long he'll wait around for?" said Clara. "Get out, I'll drive."

"You're not on my insurance."

"Who cares about that? He might be getting away!"

"I said no," Esther insisted.

"How far away is the address, then?" said Clara. "Can I walk?"

"I'll drive," said Sally. "Come on, Esther, we'll swap. I've got contacts in."

"Why do you-" Clara began, but Sally cut her off coldly.

"I'm on the insurance," she said. Esther was unsteady, but they managed to get out and swap sides of the car. "Lucky it's an automatic and I don't have to do the gears with the wrong hand."

"Most countries drive on the right, you know," said Esther.

"In that case, most countries are wrong," said Sally, but Esther didn't laugh. Sally sighed and started the car, Elliott offering to give her directions from the back. This made for quite a fraught journey, and Clara counted down the seconds until it was over, turning over her plans for Liam Kent in her mind. But she became more and more aware of Oswin, trying to intrude.

"Stay out of my head," she said.

"You're thinking loudly."

"And you think that you think quietly?" Clara countered. "If I can avoid listening to you while you try to concoct new ways to kill yourself, you can pay me the same courtesy, can't you?"

"Clara, that's not funny," said Oswin.

"I'm not joking."

Other than bickering over directions, the rest of the drive passed silently. Kent's abandoned office block was out of the way, in a desolate retail park somewhere east of the city proper. It wasn't the kind of place Clara had expected a serial killer would make his lair, but they pulled up into the empty car park and Sally cut the engine.

"He's in there, then?" she said.

"Yes, and I'm going in," said Clara. "You four stay in the car."

"Like I'm not coming," said Esther.

"And me," said Oswin, who still hadn't managed to switch her projector back on. Or maybe she didn't want to.

"I'll accept Esther, but no to the rest of you. If he's messing around with signals and electricity, I don't know how safe you'll be, Os. I'll heal from one of those seizures, but you might not."

"But I'll be fine in here, will I?" said Oswin. "I suppose since I'm a hologram, there's no chance of me turning on the engines and letting the fumes take me away. I could probably drive into a river, though; is there one nearby?"

"Oswin-"

"No, no. Enjoy your crusade. I'll be here in my ball." Clara looked at the Sphere, clenched her jaw, and then got out of the car, leaving Oswin to it.

After Esther quickly ordered Sally and Elliott to stay put, too, she followed, catching up with Clara as she approached the building.

"I told them not to come," she said. "Not if the guy can just think and make somebody have a seizure."

"Uh-huh," said Clara.

"Hey, what's going on with you?"

"Someone's killing my echoes, that's what," said Clara.

"I know, but-"

"Are we close like this, Esther? We haven't spent that much time together," said Clara, cold again.

"Well, no, I guess not, but I talk to Other You. Clara Ravenwood."

"Great. I'll let you know when Clara Ravenwood and I decide to unify and join our brains together so that we actually do count as the same person," Clara snapped at her.

"Okay, maybe this is a bad idea," said Esther, trying to step in front of her as she approached the front doors. "I think Oswin might be right, and-"

Clara turned on her. "If you don't want to help me, don't help me. Go wait in the car with the others. I promise, I'll ask why he ever-so-kindly decided to bring you back to life before I…"

"Before you what?" asked Esther. Clara said nothing. "It's like that, then? We're a kill squad? You don't want to do this, you're not that person."

"Says the one who's friends with the vampire version of me. You know she drinks human blood, don't you?"

"She doesn't hurt anybody for it."

"And what if someone took the blood away? Then do you think she wouldn't hurt anybody? If she was desperate enough?"

"I don't think she'd have a choice."

"And I do? He's killed four people – four of my echoes. They're me. I made them. And if you're not with me on this, you're against me."

"I'm not gonna let you kill the guy, Clara."

"Who said anything about that?" Clara walked away from her, waving a hand and blasting the automatic doors into the building telekinetically. They crumpled like they were nothing, letting her walk right in, Esther behind her.

"That's what Oswin was talking about, wasn't it?" said Esther. "It's what you don't want her seeing in your thoughts."

"Oswin needs to learn some boundaries."

"Do you care about the echoes, or don't you? Because you've just shut her out completely."

"You don't know what it's like."

"What? Having a sister who's more like a kid you have to babysit? Actually, I do," said Esther, still trying to get in front of Clara. "And I know what it's like to have a bone to pick with this guy, as well. I don't want to kill him."

"Again, nobody said anything about that."

"No, because that would be admitting it, wouldn't it?" Esther argued with her. Clara stopped. The whole building was leaking, the cheap tile ceiling sinking in the weight of water from rain and burst pipes. They kept walking through puddles, searching aimlessly. "You can't say things like that to her. Even for a joke."

"How many times? I'm not joking."

"Clara, you need to take a beat and think this through."

"I'm protecting them."

"No, you're not! She was right, this is a crusade."

"Leave, then."

"I-"

There was a bang on one of the upper floors. A burst of pain erupted in Clara's head as she disappeared, spirited away in a cloud of black smoke towards the source of the noise. When she dropped onto the floor, wobbly on her feet, she was alone. She could hear Esther shouting after her from somewhere else. The pain from the teleport quickly subsided; maybe one day she'd learn to control it properly, but it had worked for her well enough that night.

She didn't walk through the building. She lifted herself up with telekinesis and hovered, not wanting her footsteps to give her away. She just had to get to him before Esther found her in the maze-like office building, and then she could…

It didn't matter what she would do when she found him. It was something to worry about later, with or without Esther.

"You know…"

Clara jumped. The voice was coming from her phone. She nearly dropped it when she took it out of her pocket.

"Human brains emit all kinds of signals – all those waves flowing through it." It was Kent, talking through her phone speaker without being connected. "It doesn't matter what you do, Clara. I know exactly where you are."

"And where are you?" she asked.

"Waiting. At the end of the hall."

She found him nesting, cross-legged on a table and surrounded with televisions and radios. Half of them looked like they'd been pulled out of the tip, shattered and dirty, and all were humming. When she looked closer, Kent, bathed in the glow of the television static, was levitating.

"You wanted my attention," said Clara, ready. "So, you've got it."

"You're going to tell me what you are, what they all are," he said. "Somehow, it traces back to you. But I can't find any information anywhere online, and believe me, I've been everywhere. There are people pointing out your doppelgangers going back at least two hundred years, but nobody knows why. Nobody knows what they're for. And I had you, I had you in my hands, and you wouldn't tell me."

Clara shook her head. "That's why you killed them? To know this? What do you want to do? Clone yourself? Is that why you were taking brain and blood samples – you're trying to reverse-engineer something?"

"I want to know what the government is planning to do with this technology," said Kent. "I want to know what else they're hiding."

"You're going to be disappointed then, aren't you? Because it's nothing to do with the government," said Clara. "It isn't even technology. It's time. They're just me, all of them, little splinters of my consciousness planted on Earth, growing, waiting for the right time."

"The right time for what? They're sleeper agents?"

"It's all for him. The Doctor. My husband. To save him."

"Your husband. The man with no name, the man who doesn't exist."

"Oh, come on. You must have read about him if you've really been researching. The man with the bowtie and the blue box. Christ, the fact that you're hung up about the clones and not the time travel is pretty bloody damning," said Clara. "And what about your gang? Your 'Agency'? What happened to them?" Kent didn't speak. "I see. The money ran out. Is this what you spent the last of it on? This building?"

"What are they?" he asked again. "Why are they being covered up? None of these murders have been reported, do you know how that feels? To go unnoticed like that?"

"Christ, you're a fucking serial killer, and you're complaining about anonymity? Undercoll's covering it up. New Torchwood. Best that the public doesn't hear about things like this, or they'll panic."

"But why?" he hissed at her, dropping down onto the table.

"Because I fell in love and tried to help him and made them in the process. But that doesn't mean they're not people. It doesn't mean they're not mine. And you hurt them – you killed them, my daughters. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? Coming from the woman raising an army of minions because she wants a shag?" he said.

"Bloody hell – you're actually trying to take the moral high ground here?"

"What happens to them, when they save him? Your mystery man? A lot of them died young. Lots of redacted files, lies told to families. I found a coroner's report from 1892, a woman who died after falling into a pond, on Christmas. No mention of drowning. Only falling."

"She… She saved his life," said Clara.

"And she died to do it?"

"No. I mean, yes, she-"

"How are you worse than me, then? You condemned her to die. At least I've got a reason – cloning technology like that could help millions. You could clone new organs, clone blood, clone – clone new children for people who lose theirs-"

"Oh, yeah, people like the Carsons, you mean?" said Clara. "Who cares if you kill their six-year-old daughter and rip out pieces of her brain, just grow a new one in a fucking test tube! God, you're sick."

"And you sent them out to die. Like cattle to slaughter."

"You're all over the place," she shook her head. "You're killing people. Innocent people. There's never an excuse for that, there's never-"

"Oh, thank god, I found you," Esther burst into the room behind her, nearly slipping over. "I've been all over this building – are you okay?"

"No, I'm not okay, thanks, I've got a serial killer here trying to play mind games with me," said Clara.

"Esther Drummond," said Kent. "We've met. But you were preoccupied, at the time."

"Yeah, with being dead," said Esther. "You are the one who robbed my grave, then? I've been trying to find you for months."

"Not as long as I was trying to find Torchwood, get them to take me seriously," he said.

"Well, you found me. Went to all the trouble of bringing me back to life, and then ran away," she said.

"Not on purpose. I didn't know I was a manifest. I'd taken the serum – there are ways to get it – but that lightning strike activated my powers. It sent me through the radio waves – I couldn't reform for days," he said. "You'd already left, but look at you now. You've found me."

"I just want to get some answers," said Esther.

"She has all the answers," he nodded at Clara. "Cloning. The possibilities are endless – nobody would ever have to die again. With just a small piece of DNA, we could raise the dead – your sister, she could be with you again."

"My… Sarah was very troubled," said Esther. "You don't know what you're suggesting."

"But it's more than that. With the technology Torchwood has at its disposal, we could perfect humanity. Cloning, gene-editing-"

"That's just eugenics! And you had the technology do that before, but you used it in a lightning storm and destroyed it," said Esther.

"Torchwood has more," he said.

"I can assure you, it doesn't," said Esther.

"Then what about the Captain?" Kent challenged. "Can you put him in touch with me? He'll want to hear what I have to say."

"Jack's gonna think you're even crazier than I do," said Esther. "And he's not being kept alive by any cloning technology, either. But, sure. Why don't you come with us, and you can talk to Jack. I know where he lives." Kent stared at her, then narrowed her eyes.

"Hand myself over? No. He comes here, or not at all."

"Alright, I'll call him," said Esther.

"No," Clara cut her off. "He's mine. Jack's not taking this away from me, he's not going to try and talk me out of…"

"Talk you out of what?" said Kent.

"Don't, Clara," Esther hissed.

"The fact that you can do that to them, to those girls, and try to justify it," said Clara. "You're a monster. You're disgusting."

"And what is it you call them? Echoes? You try to treat them like they're nothing, too."

"They're not clones. It's not a process that can be replicated, it can't help anybody, it can't-"

"Can't help anybody except your husband?" said Kent. "It's selfish, then. Just like I said. They're a means to an end for you."

"You're wrong," said Clara, holding out a hand towards him. She grabbed him by the throat telekinetically, lifting him off his feet.

"Stop!" said Esther.

"They were all people. Carla was twenty. Orla was thirty-one. The other Clara, fucking hell, she was ninety-eight. And Cara… I knew Cara. I can't believe I was so stupid that I didn't stop you when you first kidnapped her. I could have saved them, if I'd only been strong enough."

His face turned red. He tried to claw at the hands that weren't around his neck, and then she saw him shimmer, trying to transmute. But she wouldn't let that happen. Intense enough pain could put a manifest out of action for a while. It was as easy as blinking for her to snap one of his femurs in two, constricting his throat so much that he couldn't even scream – nor could he escape.

"Clara, stop," said Esther. "I know you were planning on doing this, but you can't. You can't kill him. You don't know how it changes you, it – I killed someone, once. It was self-defence. And sure, he deserved it, he was burning people alive, but I see it every night before I go to sleep. And it'll be worse for you because I was here, telling you not to."

"He's just going to keep hurting them," said Clara.

"He's not, we can stop him – see, he's unconscious, don't-"

Kent flopped limply in the air, but Clara didn't stop. She kept pressing. There was enough force that it was a miracle she didn't crush his spine.

"It won't bring them back," Esther went on.

"I failed them, and this is what needs to happen," said Clara through gritted teeth.

"It doesn't! We've stopped him! You'll give him brain damage, you – revenge doesn't help!"

"You don't understand it! They're my fucking children, Esther! And he killed them! He ripped them away from everything – pieces of me! People in their own right!"

"Suddenly you're in favour of capital punishment!?" Esther argued with her. "Because that's what you're doing! You don't even have the excuse of it being state-sanctioned, it's just murder!"

"I see – this is because he brought you back to life, isn't it?" said Clara as Kent went limp, his face going blue, veins looking like they were going to pop.

"What?"

"I'm sure you were too young to die, but that's no reason to give the bastard a fucking thank you card!" Clara shouted at her. Esther stopped arguing and took a deep breath.

"You'll survive a seizure, then?" she said.

"I – what?" Clara frowned.

"In the car. You said you'd survive one of his seizures."

"It's the nanogenes, they heal me, they-"

"Then I hope to god you'll survive this."

"I'll-?" She didn't have a moment to react. Esther had already removed one of her gloves, and she grabbed Clara's wrist and sent every volt of electricity she had into her body. The last thing Clara remembered was the realisation, which happened surprisingly slowly, that her heart had stopped.

---

Sally

"Don't you think we should've gone with them?" asked James, leaning forward so that he could talk to her as she slouched in the front. Oswin had come back out of her shell, literally, and was sitting with her arms crossed, staring into the night sky with her eyes glazed over.

"I don't know that we could have helped," said Sally. "They're right, neither of us has any superpowers. And I don't fancy dying of a seizure today. I'm worried, though, Esther's… I suppose she's my best friend. Which is silly, because we haven't known each other for long at all, but…"

"But your life is very sad?" said James. "Like you were trying to tell me in the café earlier?"

"If something happened to her, it would be like it was before, with just Dylan," said Sally. "And Dylan's a bit of a wanker, to be honest. Do you think this bloke's really that dangerous, though?"

"He's killed four people, that we know of."

"Yeah, by sneaking in when they're asleep and inducing seizures, including in a nonagenarian. Sounds like a coward to me. I'm not sure he could hurt someone face-to-face."

"Don't underestimate someone who's been cornered," said Oswin quietly. "You don't know what they're liable to do."

"I suppose. Are you okay, though? She wasn't being very nice."

"She's lashing out because she's upset, about this and about something else," said Oswin. Sally turned in her seat to look at Oswin, raising her eyebrows. Oswin deliberated for a moment, then sighed. "It's the Doctor – Thirteen, the woman. She's gone back to the future, where she came from. Clara's very put-out."

"Oh. She doesn't usually talk to you like that, then?"

"No. I'm not a doormat, I wouldn't let her get away with it," said Oswin. "She only has a go at me because I know what's been going on and I love her unconditionally. As opposed to her husband, who might love her, but who has no real idea."

"Sounds messy," said Sally.

"And what's going on with you two? Isn't that messy?" said Oswin.

"Me and Esther?" she frowned.

"No, you and tight jeans over here," Oswin nodded at James.

"I don't think it's messy at all, considering, to my knowledge, he isn't going to randomly time travel to the future and disappear," said Sally. Oswin shrugged.

"My jeans aren't that tight," said James.

"Sure, if spontaneous castration is the aim," said Oswin.

"It is, actually; how did you know?" he said. Oswin smiled a little.

"Alright. Maybe you're not as boring as I thought. What was your name? First name."

"James."

"Mm. On second thoughts…" She cleared her throat. "Then again, my boyfriend's called Adam. I keep telling him to change it, but he won't listen."

"What's he like, anyway?" said Sally. "You're talking about Adam Mitchell, right? The tech billionaire?"

"I had no idea he was so famous," said Oswin.

"He's notoriously reclusive," said Sally.

"That's just because he's on the TARDIS. Although, he does still spend a lot of time hiding from everybody else," she said. "He's very sweet."

"And men do love it when you call them 'sweet'," said Sally.

"I don't mind," said James. "Men say it to me all the time."

"Really? I can't imagine why."

"Can't imagine that it's men who say it, or that they say I'm sweet?"

"Second one."

"Ouch. How would you describe me?"

"I'm not sure you're worthy of being described at all," said Sally. He laughed and she felt her cheeks turn hot; hopefully, he couldn't see in the dark car. She found herself wishing that Oswin had gone into the office block with Clara and Esther so that she could talk to him without an eavesdropper. Not that she had anything she particularly wanted to talk about, it would just be nice.

James cleared his throat.

"So. Seen anything good on telly lately?"

"Catching up with Downton Abbey," she said. "And before you say anything, no, it wasn't my idea, Esther-"

There was a brilliant flash of light from inside the building and a shriek from the backseat of the car. Oswin's Sphere fizzled out again, landing down on the seat, and all the buildings Sally could see went dark.

"That doesn't look good," she said, copying James when he got out of the car. He didn't go towards the building, though.

"Should we go in?" he said.

"I don't know," said Sally. "If Oswin went off like that, what if something's happened to Clara?"

"Call someone, call the TARDIS," said James.

"I don't think I have any of their bloody numbers," she said, taking out her phone, hands trembling. The only person she had in her contacts list who'd be able to call the ship with Oswin out of action was Clara Ravenwood – she hadn't had the chance to get Jenny's number yet. She wasn't even sure that Jenny had a phone.

It was a pointless exercise, though, because she got an incoming call from Esther, answering immediately.

"Esther? What happened? We saw the lights from out here," said Sally.

"It's Clara – both of them – it – she – you have to believe me, she was going to kill him, I had to stop her," said Esther, her voice thick with tears.

"Alright, breathe, try and calm down," said Sally. "It'll be okay."

"It won't! I had to shock her! I don't know if she survived!"

"You… Okay. And you're in there with both of them?" said Sally.

"Yes, and I don't know what to do, I don't-"

"Just send me Jack's number," said Sally. "I'll get the TARDIS here; he'll know what to do."

The next five minutes were completely absorbed in space admin, as she struggled but finally managed to get hold of Jack and summon him and the TARDIS to their location, Oswin still locked away in the Sphere. He stepped out of the blue box with Rose Tyler at his heels.

"What's going on, then?" said Rose.

"I think Clara's been hurt, Esther's in there with her," said Sally, pointing out the building.

"Has she died again?"

"Um, I don't know. Maybe?"

"Typical," said Rose. "Right when I was about to win Monopoly. Do you know, I think she does this on purpose. That door, is it?"

"That's the one…"

"You said something about the guy who brought Esther back to life?" said Jack.

"He's in there, as far as I know," said Sally. "You two had better go and check, though. We'll wait out here with, erm, Oswin."

"Oswin? I don't see her," said Jack.

"In the ball," Sally nodded at it in the back of the car. "There was a flash of light, and then she disappeared."

"Doesn't bode well," said Jack. "If Clara's been hurt badly enough, that damages Oswin, too. But Rose and I will go assess the damage. You two wait here."

"That's what I said we'd do," said Sally.

Jack and Rose left, heading into the doors Clara had broken down. Sally went to lean on the side of Esther's car, trying to use the cold air to calm herself down; it was still snowing, getting thicker and thicker.

"Christ," said Sally. "What if she is dead? Why would Esther have… I can't imagine. Esther doesn't even like it when I kill the woodlice that come up from the cellar." He joined her leaning on the car. "She calls them pill-bugs, too. Did you know that?"

"I've heard it before," he said. "How heartless of you to kill them, though."

"I don't want them getting into the bread."

"Do they eat bread?"

"What else would they eat?"

"Wood?" he suggested. "Clue's in the name."

"Do you think Oswin's okay?" said Sally, looking at the Sphere in the backseat of the car. "Should I get her out to take back onto the ship? Probably, right?"

"Unless you want to keep her in Esther's car and take her home with you," said James. She nodded and opened the backdoor, lifting out the Sphere and trying to hold it the right way up, with the projector facing outwards.

"Do you think she can hear us in there?"

"Ask her when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up," said Sally, also picking up Oswin's fake leg before she shut the door. She gave this to James to hold.

"Why does a hologram have a fake leg? I've been wondering."

"Another thing to ask, I suppose," said Sally. "I'm afraid I don't know them that well. I know Esther, obviously, and the Other Clara lives up the road, but the others are just as alien as the aliens. And now, if we've got one of them killed…"

"It might be alright yet." He put an arm around her shoulders while they waited. She let herself lean against him, listening for the Sphere powering back on, just in case. But it all stayed quiet, other than the distant hum of traffic.

Soon enough, Esther emerged, mid-apology to Jack, who had Clara in his arms. Rose followed behind carrying Kent over her shoulder in a fireman's lift, which looked very odd indeed.

"Esther, it's fine," said Jack, his voice carrying on the wind, along with a sickening burning smell. "She's got a pulse, she's healing, and he's still alive, too. When she wakes up, she'll thank you." James left Sally's side to intercept Jack on his way back to the TARDIS.

"Undercoll has cells and special dispensation from the Crown for the holding of dangerous criminals," he said quickly. "I'd like you to give Kent up into my custody. I'll take him back to London." Jack stopped when James stood in front of him, as did Rose. It was like watching two male peacocks fighting, the clenching of jaws and puffing out of chests.

"…Well," said Jack. "Considering the alternative is keeping him in custody on the TARDIS, that can be arranged. We've got anti-manifest technology that might be of use to you, though, if Oswin…" He saw the Sphere in Sally's arms. "When she gets back. But the TARIDS is the best place for now, and she needs medical attention." James stepped aside. In the moonlight, Sally caught a glimpse of Clara's injury, and the source of the burning smell; her left coat sleeve had disintegrated, and the skin showed a grisly injury, peeling skin and inflammation in a pattern like a tree branch.

"She was choking him," said Esther once Jack and Rose had vanished into the ship. "With telekinesis, like – like Darth Vader! I panicked – I didn't know what to do, and I'm so bad at controlling how much energy gets released at once, I just… I sunk it all into her, to stop her."

"Jack said she's alive, though," said Sally.

"I know, I know, but…" Esther paced, tears in her eyes. Sally wanted to hug her, but even without the risk of electrocution that carried, she knew Esther didn't like being touched. "I was right. We should have gone home today."

"And then she'd have found him on her own and possibly murdered him," said Sally. "But if they've done something to her that stops her from dying-"

"Then it'll be the second time in my life I've killed someone who didn't die," said Esther bitterly. She took a deep breath, then noticed the Sphere. "Is Oswin okay?"

"I don't know. When we saw that flash, she just switched off," said Sally.

"We'd better get her to Adam, then. Come on."

"Onto the TARDIS?" said Sally. "Am I…? Is that okay?"

"They're too preoccupied to complain," said Esther, stepping inside.

Tentatively, Sally and James followed, carrying pieces of Oswin with them. Esther led them through the console room into a big, white living room; so, this was how the other half lived. She'd always wondered whether they just infested the space around the column, but no. They had a real kitchen, and presumably, real bedrooms, too.

While Jack took Clara into a room off to the side with Martha Jones, Rose dumped Kent's body on the floor, propping him up against the back of one of their sofas. The Monopoly board was spread out on one of the tables, occupied by Donna, Amy, and an icy blonde woman Sally had never seen before. Jenny was in the kitchen eating a very potent jar of pickled onions, and unlike the last time Sally had seen her, there was no cast on her hand.

"She's died again?" said Amy, seeing Clara disappear into the next room. "I thought she was on a good streak."

"She'll be fine," said Rose. "She's got a long future in front of her. Lots of choices she hasn't made yet – some of them fixed."

"What happened?" asked Donna.

"Esther electrocuted her," said Rose. "She was gonna kill this bloke." She nodded at Kent. "Serial killer, apparently."

"He's killed four of her echoes," came Oswin's voice from the Sphere, making Sally jump.

"I didn't think you were at home," said Sally.

"Barely," said Oswin. "I'm going to find Adam. Leave the leg in here, he'll get it later." Sally let the Sphere go and it floated away, out of the living room and into a door on the opposite side. James put the prosthetic leg down on a chair of one of the empty tables. Amy soon excused herself, too, saying she was going to go find Eleven.

"She's okay, Esther," said Jenny quietly, seeing the way Esther was still panicking. Sally couldn't tell whether Esther heard her or not, but she sat down in the nearest chair and put her head in her hands, shaking. Jenny turned her attention to James. "I don't think we've met."

"James Elliott," he said. "I was a detective in South Wales Police until recently."

"What happened 'recently'?" asked Jenny. He was then made to explain to them about Undercoll and recap the day's events, during which time the Eleventh Doctor appeared and, without saying a word, cut through the room to join Clara next door. After that, Jack was unceremoniously kicked out, rejoining them in the living room.

"You've been replaced, then," Donna said to him. "New Torchwood. Strange."

"It isn't officially called New Torchwood," said James. "It has its own name."

"New Torchwood…" said Donna thoughtfully, completely ignoring him.

"You've got cells for him, then?" said Jack. "And doctors?"

"Yes. It's like I said, we just need to do something about his powers." Jack nodded.

"Where did Oswin go?"

"To find Adam, she said," said Sally.

"I can find what you need in her lab," said Jenny. "She said something the other day about an inhibition field generator that should do the trick." She put her pickled onions down and left. Without Jenny, Sally began to feel unwelcome.

"…Esther," she said, pulling out the chair by Esther's side. "Do you want to stay here or leave? I can drive us home."

"I should wait and talk to Clara – I have to say I'm sorry," she said.

"The healing will take a while," said Jack. "Martha did a CT scan, there's a lot of brain damage. But she's been through worse. Did I tell you about the time she and I were eaten by a giant worm?" He was trying to cheer her up, but it didn't work. "I promise, I'll call as soon as I can and keep you updated."

"Alright, just… Tell her I'm sorry, will you?" said Esther.

"I will."

"And what about him?" said Rose, still there, nodding at Kent again. "Are you taking him with you?"

"I've already called in for an urgent pick up for him," said James.

"Did you?" said Sally.

"Well, it – it's just a text," he said. "They're bringing a helicopter. Shouldn't take too long." Esther got to her feet shakily.

"It'll be okay," Sally assured her. "You'll calm down on the drive home."

"Should've just left the prick outside if you want me to keep carrying him around for you," said Rose, picking up Liam Kent again as if he weighed nothing.

Jenny found them in the console room, delivering to James a silver, metal bracelet and a device that looked like a burglar alarm, both designed to stop a manifest from being able to use their powers. She promised she'd check in on them once they were back in Hollowmire, and then they were back in the snow, Sally's brief sojourn into the real TARDIS over and done with. Rose didn't linger, Jack didn't linger, and Jenny didn't linger.

"I suppose we'd better wait for this helicopter, then," said Sally. Kent was left slumped against the Mini on the snowy tarmac, handcuffed by James to stop him from removing the bracelet if, by some miracle, he both woke up and didn't have serious brain damage from what Clara had done. That seemed doubtful, though. Esther got into the passenger side to wait, but Sally stayed outside, with James.

"We really have to stop meeting like this," she said, walking a few feet away from the car and the unconscious serial killer. He came with her, checking his phone for an update on the helicopter.

"Maybe Undercoll really will make you a job offer one of these days," he said.

"Thanks, but no thanks. I'm only just managing to get back into it with the photography, I don't want to spend all my time doing things like this. Esther was right to leave the TARDIS. They made her kill a cow, you know, and watch a bloke fall into a meat grinder. It's why she's vegetarian now."

He sighed. "I know you've been making fun of me for being unqualified for this job, but… I think you might be right. I really don't know what I'm doing."

"I don't think any of them know what they're doing, either," said Sally. "If they did, Clara might not have got herself killed today. They're just people the Doctor picks up – him and his haram of, shall we say, suspiciously young women."

"Suspiciously?"

"He's, like, a thousand. Don't you think it's odd?"

"How old were you when you met him?"

"Twenty-one. He never asked me to travel with him, though. But he's married to Clara, she's only in her twenties," said Sally. "She's younger than me. And what do you think they've done to her to keep her alive?"

"I don't know."

"She died in a parallel universe," Sally went on. "Now she lives in the village, up the road."

"What's your point?"

"That I'm no longer annoyed that I'm not in their clique. That's all it is. Reminds me of being at school."

"Just without the government-mandated silly accent," he said. "How long does it take to learn how to talk posh?" She tried to think of a retort but settled for just shaking her head, fighting back a smile. "Maybe you could teach me."

"And erode all of the carefully cultivated mystique of the upper classes? They might strip me of my title if I do that."

"Oh, yeah. You're a duchess or something."

"Countess," she corrected. "Which I know you know because you'd been researching me when we spoke last."

"I actually have amnesia, specifically for toff jargon. Come to think of it, I've forgotten your name already."

"You're hilarious."

"Thank you. Remind me, though; what's the full title? How am I supposed to address you?"

"I'm not telling you that," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like it. I don't want to have a title."

"Humour me," he said. She looked up at him, with his dark beard and hazel eyes, doused in the scant moonlight that broke through the cloud cover.

"…Alright, fine. I suppose, technically – and I'll kill you if you ever do this – I would be Your Ladyship, Sally Sparrow, the Countess of Hove. And then you would call me 'my lady'. But, please, don't. As I've said many times, there's no way to get rid of the bloody thing. In fact, go ahead and forget it immediately."

"Sure, I'll do that, my lady." She clenched her jaw.

"I just said I'll kill you."

"Go on, then. I think I've lived long enough."

"You're an arsehole."

"Didn't you tell me earlier that I'm not worthy of being described? And now you've described me."

"As an arsehole."

"It's better than nothing."

"Is it, really?"

"Mm."

"And how would you describe me?"

He laughed. "Do you think I'm an idiot? I'm not gonna answer that."

"I see, so I can add another adjective to my list, along with 'arsehole'. Coward."

"You really don't want to know how I'd describe you."

"Why?"

"Because I'll say something nice, and you wouldn't like it, would you?" he said, catching her out. But her eyes didn't leave his and she felt herself blushing again. At least he didn't point it out.

She stayed quiet. It was ridiculous, to want to kiss someone this much with a serial killer to babysit and a traumatised flatmate waiting for her in the car, in the snow and slush with her ears slowly going numb. But she did want to, for the first time in years. He reignited something in her that she thought had died for good when she'd cancelled her own wedding, and after all, he'd already slept in her bed.

He read her mind and leant down towards her, Sally finally giving in and letting herself kiss him. His lips were cold from the night air. It didn't last long, but not because of her, because of him. After only a few seconds, he took an entire step back from her, then put his hands on her shoulders in a strange, awkward way.

"Is everything alright…?" she asked.

"Don't get me wrong, obviously, I've been wanting to kiss you for ages," he said. "There's just… Ah, shit."

"Don't tell me you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a secret family, or something," she said, heart sinking.

"No, no. It's just… I have to tell you something, and it always sounds presumptuous. But there's never really a good time, and I do like you and I do want to go for a drink sometime when there aren't any aliens or murders or cursed hats around," he said.

"Presumptuous? How do you mean?" she asked.

"I, theoretically, would like this to go further. At least to a real date."

"Okay?"

"But you have to know, I'm positive."

"Positive about what?"

"Um, no. HIV, Sally."

"Oh… Oh. God, I'm sorry, that's-"

"No sympathy, please; I take all the suppressants, I'm fine. I do everything properly. I just want to tell you before, erm… It's like I said, it sounds presumptuous."

"Yeah… But you're fine, you said?"

"Medicine's come a long way, and it's undetectable at the moment. I just wanted to give you time to think about it," he said. "If you, um… Well, I'll give you my number, how's that?"

"I've got your number."

"No, you've got my work number – I mean my personal number," he said, taking out his policeman's notebook and scribbling onto a page. "I'm sure we'll run into each other sooner or later, anyway. But it's up to you." He tore off the page and gave it to her, though she was still reeling from this news. "And, you know, if you have questions about-"

"Are you sure you're fine?" she said. "Won't it turn into AIDS one day?"

"That might never happen," he told her calmly. "It…" He stopped. The wind had picked up, and with it, the sound of Undercoll's helicopter. "I think that's for me."

"You left your car up here, will you be alright?"

"I'll just get a train up and drive it back later," he said, seeing the helicopter descend through the clouds. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the blades, the wind whipping around them violently and displacing all the snow. "Let me know about that drink, though!"

"I will," she promised, walking away from the helicopter, Esther watching through the car window.

James picked up Kent, throwing him over his shoulder as Rose had done, and hauled him over to the chopper as it landed, met by a group of soldiers with red berets. UNIT offering an assist. Esther shrank down in the passenger seat so that they wouldn't see her, but there was no need; they were so preoccupied with Kent they didn't spare a glance for the Mini. Sally waited until the helicopter was safely away before starting the car.

"How are you feeling?" she asked Esther, doing a three-point turn and leaving the empty car park. It was, by now, the middle of the night.

"Awful."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"What is there to say? I'm not gonna feel better until I know whether she's forgiven me or not," said Esther.

"There's more than that, though. He brought you back to life."

"He barely had a reason for that. Something about wanting Torchwood to use technology is doesn't have to build an army of genetically pure beings who can't die."

"Garden variety eugenics, then?" said Sally.

"Yes."

"Maybe he'll talk more sense in a few weeks," she said. "He can still answer questions."

"Hopefully. I don't know, though. He's alive, but she might have hurt him so badly that he… But maybe that's what he deserves," said Esther with a sigh. "I don't think playing god suits me."

"Probably for the best."

"What about you, though?" said Esther. Sally frowned, her eyes on the road. "I saw you kiss him, Sal."

"Oh, right."

"What happened?"

"He's got HIV, that's what he was telling me," she admitted. "He gave me his personal phone number and told me to think about it."

"…Medicine's come a long way since the eighties," said Esther. "If he takes all the right stuff-"

"He says he does."

"Then he'll probably be fine."

"But what about…" she began. "I do like him, but I don't want to catch it. And I feel horrible for even saying it like that."

"I think there are things you can do to stop that from happening," said Esther. "There are pills you can take, and condoms."

She sighed. "I appreciate this, but if I'm going to talk to someone about it, it should be him. And I've got his number now, anyway."

"That's true," said Esther. "What a day, huh?"

"Mm…"

"How long's the drive back?"

"An hour and a half, just about," said Sally.

"I'm gonna try and get some sleep, then. But wake me up if you stop for food anywhere."

"Sure," said Sally.

Esther bundled up her coat into a makeshift pillow and leaned against the car door and her seatbelt, shutting her eyes. Sally doubted she'd be able to sleep but wasn't going to complain. Between serial killers, Clara's near-death experience, and most of all, James Elliott, Sally had a lot to think about, and a long drive in which to do it.

---

Rewritten June 2024

971: Other Halves & Counterparts IV

Oswin

"Esther did this to her?" asked the Eleventh Doctor quietly, sitting at Clara's bedside. With the immediate damage assessed, he'd brought her through from the medibay himself, back into their bedroom, where she remained unconscious and wired up to a portable EEG and a patient monitor Martha had set up. All the signs were good, and Helix provided periodic updates via the nanogene data, but Eleven still wrung his hands, getting out of his chair every so often to pace at the foot of the bed and then sit back down again.

"Yes," said Oswin. She was in the armchair on the other side of the bed, watching Clara, hardly blinking and hardly speaking. "She was going to kill him. I was watching. She kept trying to shut me out."

"Does she do that a lot?" he asked.

"No. But I'm not surprised Esther had to resort to this. Clara wouldn't even listen to me, she wasn't going to listen to Esther," said Oswin. "But he's alive. She doesn't have his blood on her hands."

"And he was killing them?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes," she said. Again, they'd already spoken about all of this.

"Did you see it happen?"

"Kind of… She was thinking a lot about kids. Daughters. Avenging them. It wasn't rational. And don't tell me I should have called you in for help, I know I should have done. I'm sorry."

"…It isn't your fault, Oswin," he said, surprising her. She thought he'd be quick to blame her.

"She told me to wait in the car and I did what she said. I always do what she says. If I can't trust Clara to know what's wrong and what's right, where does that leave me?" she said, barely audible, speaking mostly to herself.

"Oswin," he turned towards her. "You can still trust her. She knew it was wrong. That's why she told you to stay behind."

"And now she's put Esther through this," said Oswin. The Doctor didn't have an answer for that. He leant back in his chair again and the room fell quiet.

They didn't speak for a while. The Doctor kept pacing. Sometimes, people arrived to check in; Adam Mitchell came by more than once to ask if he could make anybody a tea, Martha came to see what the monitors were showing, and Jack updated them on how Kent had been officially taken into Undercoll custody. But Oswin was far too used to time passing around her while she barely moved, and she had no motivation to answer any of the questions she got.

Hours later, and after they'd rehashed their conversation half a dozen more times, Clara stirred. Martha's prognosis that she'd be mostly healed by the next morning was coming true. Oswin didn't move, but the Doctor pulled his chair over to be right next to the bed.

"Clara?" he asked. She groaned. He went to take her hand, but it was still covered in fresh burns, all on the cusp of blistering. He hovered uselessly and waited for her to say something. Oswin watched and listened, trying to determine whether Clara was completely conscious.

"Where 'm I?" she mumbled eventually. A coherent sentence; that was good.

"On the TARDIS, in our bedroom," said the Doctor. "We brought you here, after…" She groaned again and tried to lift her left arm, the burned one, but she could hardly bend it. This frustrated her to no end. "Don't try to move too much."

"What happened?"

"You've been electrocuted," said Oswin. "Someone was killing your echoes, do you remember? We were in Nottingham. It was snowing." Clara was silent, but Oswin could see into her head; she did remember. "He survived. Undercoll has him. They've borrowed some of my gadgets so that they can put him in a special cell where he can't use his powers."

"Survived?" said Clara.

"You tried to strangle him," said Oswin. "Esther stopped you." Clara scrunched up her face and again tried to move her left arm and found it lacking. Finally, she resorted to the other one, uninjured, and covered her eyes as best she could.

"I'm sorry," she choked out, thick with tears. "I'm sorry, Oswin."

"It's okay," said Oswin quietly, though in truth, she didn't know if it was.

"The important thing is that you didn't," said the Doctor. "Nobody else died."

"But I would have. I remember. All I wanted was to… to crush him. Break every bone in his body," said Clara.

"Don't sound too disappointed," said Oswin bitterly. "He might have permanent brain damage yet. Esther's distraught, by the way." Clara was crying, and Oswin didn't feel guilty. She shouldn't have done that to Esther – she should have listened.

"Is that necessary?" said the Doctor. Oswin glared at him.

"Tell Esther I'm sorry," said Clara.

"I will," said Oswin.

"Jesus Christ… How could I… How could… But he was hurting them, Oswin," said Clara.

"I know," said Oswin. "But you still can't kill him. It's wrong. And…" She decided to repeat what Eleven had told her. "And you knew it was wrong, because you didn't let me come with you."

She cried for a while. The Doctor was there to stroke her hair and tell her, over and over, that it was going to be alright. Oswin took out her phone to text Esther, who was probably back at home by now, letting her know that Clara had woken up and she was going to be fine. She could have some psychiatric damage from what she'd almost done, but nothing lasting from the electrocution.

Finally, Clara calmed down enough that she sent Eleven away to make her some tea. He said that this was a good idea and left, promising to also bring her something to eat. She clearly wasn't up for eating, but it was more of a gesture.

"Oswin," she said hoarsely when he was out of the room. "I want you to stop them. The nanogenes."

"Excuse me?"

"Not completely, just… This. On my arm." She raised it just enough that she could see it, the red, branching scars snaking their way from a huge wound on the back of her wrist, up her arm, and out through another wound on her shoulder.

"What do you mean?" said Oswin.

"I can't ever do that again," said Clara. "I was so close to… And who would I be, if I had? If I'd crossed that line?"

"Then don't do it again," said Oswin.

"I just want to live with it, Os. With the consequences."

"You want me to let it scar?" she asked. Clara nodded. "No. That's ridiculous. Just-"

"And why don't you fix your leg?" asked Clara. Yet again, she silenced Oswin completely. "I know you were lying about River's biological lock. That you've been lying the entire time." They both knew why she didn't fix her leg; it was a reminder of what she'd done. "If I change my mind, you can reprogramme them again, can't you?"

"…I suppose," Oswin admitted.

"Then, for now, I want to live with it," she said. "I need something to…" She stopped, then changed tact. "I failed them, too. The four who died. And you. I'm still failing you right now."

"It won't be a pleasant scar," said Oswin. "And I don't think you need a scar to remember that you have echoes out there."

"Oswin."

"Fine," said Oswin, bringing up her screens, going through the sub-menus to interface with the nanogenes properly. Clara had had them for such a long time that Oswin had completely overhauled the programming; it was completely bespoke now, nothing Chula left. "You're telling your husband. Not me. I wash my hands of it."

"I'll tell him," said Clara.

"I'll have to get Martha back in here to bandage it up properly, then," said Oswin, sending Martha a text to that effect. She edited the nanogenes to avoid skin injuries, even ones deep in the dermis.

"Oswin, I'm sorry," said Clara.

"I know you are. But I'm going to need a few days. Enjoy your scar, I'm going to bed."

She stood up, but she still waited around until Eleven came back with the tea, leaving it up to Clara to tell him what she'd done. In the Bedroom Circle, she ran into Martha, pulling on her dressing gown. It was after midnight TARDIS-time.

"Where are you going? Did you say she needed something?"

"She's insisting I don't let the nanogenes heal the burns," said Oswin. "You'll need to dress them properly."

"She's what?"

"Look, try and talk her out of it if you like. I don't care. It's superficial damage. I'm not speaking to her for the moment; I'm too angry," said Oswin. Martha sighed.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm just pissed off that she put Esther through that. It's selfish."

"Killing someone is always selfish," said Martha. "Maybe the scar will stop her from trying it again."

"That's what she hopes."

"That's probably good then, isn't it?"

"That she's torturing herself?"

"Isn't that what you're doing?" said Martha. Oswin clenched her jaw.

"She's supposed to be better than me. Who can I listen to if I can't rely on her?" said Oswin.

"Maybe you need to work on trusting yourself a bit more?" Martha suggested. "Or, you know. There's always me." She smiled at Oswin. "Get some rest."

"That's what I'm trying to do." Martha squeezed her arm and then left, going into Clara's bedroom to tend to her wounds.

Oswin shook her head and retreated through her own door. Adam was still up, playing video games. He paused it and nearly fell off the sofa when she came in, and she repeated everything she'd just told Martha about Clara's insistence on the scar.

"It'll be a cool scar, at least," said Adam. Oswin gave him a look. "What? I'm just trying to find a silver lining. Come over here, it's been a long day." He pulled her into his arms. "She's alright, then?"

"Mostly."

"Did you tell Esther?"

"Yes. I hope she stops beating herself up over it."

"I'm sure she will eventually," he said. "Do you want to go to bed? Because I want to go to bed."

"More than anything."

"And I want to tell you about my day," he said, switching off the TV and following her into the bedroom. She collapsed on the bed, using all her willpower to remove her fake leg and let it drop to the floor. He climbed in next to her and she curled up in his arms.

"How was your day?" she asked, since he'd invited her to.

"I bought a yacht."

"I excuse me?"

"…I was bored without you. And I've actually always wanted one."

"Do you know how to sail it?"

"Well… no. I'll learn. How hard can it be?"

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "Whatever makes you happy, Mitchell."

"It's down in the ship, I had the Doctor put it in his dry dock."

"I didn't even know he had a dry dock. What on Titan does he keep in it?" said Oswin.

"Hovercraft."

"Typical. That reminds me, though; I didn't know you were so famous."

"Excuse me?"

"Sally Sparrow knows who you are, she asked me about you. I believe her exact words were that you're 'notoriously reclusive.'"

"Because I'm always here with you, aren't I?" he said.

"That's what I told her."

"What do you care if I'm famous, anyway?"

"I don't," she nuzzled against him. "Just trying to come up with more things to make fun of you for." He laughed and then rubbed her shoulder, kissing the top of her head.

"Get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning. And maybe Clara will change her mind about letting it scar, especially if Martha's gone to talk to her."

"Yeah," said Oswin, though she was unconvinced. "Maybe."

"Do you want me to stay awake and make sure you're asleep first?" he whispered.

"Would you?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks. I wish you'd been with me today; you always make everything make sense."

"I'm here now, and I won't go anywhere," he said, holding her tightly against him. "Again, things will get better in the morning. I promise." Against all odds, she believed him.