What if Rani didn't wait for Clyde to say he loved her?
She couldn't take it anymore.
Rani Chandra had been waiting for Clyde to tell her that he loved her. They'd been through the worst experiences that anyone could possibly imagine. Saved the world countless times.
But she still hadn't heard Clyde say those words.
She knew he felt that way. She could see it.
As Rani saw Sky whizz up to the stars above, back to wherever the strange girl had come from, the young woman turned her back on the others celebrating and went indoors.
Standing in the kitchen of 13 Bannerman Road, Rani gripped the door handle, her chest squeezing tight.
Almost. He almost said those words. When they were being torn from Earth's atmosphere in that great big spaceship, Clyde's lips had mouthed those words. He had been close to unconsciousness by that point, but Rani knew he was telling her how much he loved her.
Rani didn't notice the figure standing behind her until he was inches away.
"I never expected the Doctor's friends to be so strange. Well, his friends on Earth, anyway."
The man she saw was a tall Indian with a wide smile. He wore a tweed jacket, just like the Doctor had the last time Rani had seen him, but this man didn't have a bow-tie. Regardless, he was a stranger in Sarah Jane's house and Rani was on full alert.
"How did you get in here?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes. Her hand still gripped the door handle, ready to run if things got to it.
The only thing he did was stare into her eyes. Rani tried to look away, but he seemed to be saying something.
She barely heard Luke call her name from the garden. It was as if she was standing inside of an empty train tunnel and he was at the other end.
The man in front of her seemed briefly surprised. But then his smile grew wider, if that were somehow possible.
"Oh," he chuckled, "this is perfect!"
Whatever the stranger had made Rani do to Mr Smith, it made the supercomputer revert to his former wicked self.
Sarah Jane, Clyde and Luke didn't notice until the next day. Rani had gone home and lay awake in bed for hours, staring at the ceiling. The only thing Luke knew was that the stranger – the man he saw talking to Rani outside of her house the next morning – must be an enemy.
Luke had gone to see Rani that afternoon. But as soon as he stepped through the open front door, he saw a horrific sight. Mr and Mrs Chandra were lying dead on the kitchen floor, the blood sticking to Luke's trainers. The drawers and cupboards had been ransacked and what remained of Mr Chandra's toolbox was smashed on the tiles beside him.
When Luke tried getting back home, he found that the forcefield was up. Mr Smith must have done this. There was no reason for Mum to lock Luke out.
Worried for a brief moment that the Trickster had returned, Luke saw Rani at the front door. She then turned her back on him and walked back inside.
The Master always did enjoy to gloat, but this time had been too easy.
The Earth girl, she was fun to hypnotise. Turns out that when you have a broken heart it can be easier. The Master was curious, however, as to how much of her anger was his doing. Poor little Rani was juicy pickings and her emotions made her anger more powerful.
The second he had heard her name the Master knew that he had chosen the right time and place. Out of all the Doctor's friends, scoured from UNIT files, the thought of one with a formerly evil computer was tempting. His original plan had been to hypnotise Sarah and hold her friends hostage, but the Master always preferred challenging games.
As Rani tapped away at Mr Smith's keyboard, the Master stood beside her. "You do have all of the files uploaded?" he asked.
"Certainly," she answered before she stopped clicking and looked up at him with a hopeful smile.
"You do know that you're under my control, don't you?" the Master half-joked.
"I suppose," Rani sauntered over to the attic door, "But I think maybe this wasn't for me. I wanted to be a journalist! Hunting aliens would just hold me back. And trust me, when I saw the Blathereen explode, a little bit of me inside felt glee."
"Chess is more my thing," the Master put an arm around her and she grabbed his hand.
At that moment the door swung open. Clyde stopped in his tracks, blinking quickly. He'd come up to see why a bolt had rendered Sarah Jane unconscious, but now he saw Rani with a weird older guy.
Hugging.
Rani glared at Clyde as if he were something on the bottom of her shoe. "You finally show up. The village idiot puts it together."
"Rani – Why –" he began, but Rani tilted her head.
She didn't care.
Why had she ever been so stupid to fancy this moron? Brilliant, quick, beautiful, she could do far better.
Perhaps, Rani said to herself, she already had.
Clyde turned to look at horror at the lights and steam emitting from the supercomputer. "What happened to Mr Smith?" he stammered.
Rani grabbed his cheeks and dug her nails in. "Face it," she snarled, "The Doctor's friend showed me what I can be. I have – waited – years – for you to tell me that you love me. Oh, don't look so innocent. I know your feelings. While we're locking up Sarah, when we finally let Luke in, he and K-9 are going to provide us with some valuable intelligence. Unfortunately, Clyde, you're just dead weight."
Rani pushed Clyde out of the door with one swoop, letting him fall down the stairs. At the same time, she tightly embraced the Master and kissed him passionately.
CRACK!
The last thing Clyde Langer saw, as the house wobbled around him, was the girl of his dreams kissing another.