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This Wednesday, Clara wants to play games.
“Games!” the Doctor returns gleefully, arms filled with boxes of board games, only to come up a bit crestfallen when he sees Clara dealing a simple deck of fifty-two twenty-first century Earth playing cards. “Games?” he repeats, hoping to be able to convince her.
“I was thinking poker to start,” she says.
“You haven't got any tokens to bet with,” he points out. “Hang on, I've got some Monopoly money in here...”
“We don't need tokens; we've got clothes.”
“Ah. Games.”
***
They eventually compromise on strip Monopoly, which devolves quickly into naked Twister, which makes a brief detour into a bishop in a very wrong place (though the Doctor thinks he has a dildo somewhere that could replicate the effect in a much safer fashion), and has now advanced to what he suspects will be its penultimate stage: naked hide-and-seek. Or maybe naked tag; he didn't exactly stop to ask for the rules.
“Clara! Oh, Clara!” He draws out her name the way he wants to draw his tongue up the inside of her calf. “Where are you?” That is what people say when trying to find each other during a game, isn't it? He doesn't want to miss a vital part of the experience. “Come out, come out, wherever you are?” He wonders if Sexy appreciates the view; well, he has been meaning to finish that holographic clothing project... “Olly olly oxen free!” Let the translation matrix figure that one out, he thinks with a grin. “Where are you, Clara?” Yes, that will about do it, he thinks proudly, just as the staircase ahead of him blurs, shimmers, and changes color. “Oh, dear...” He definitely isn't drunk or high enough for that to happen. “Clara? Clara, where are you?” he shouts, genuinely a little worried. That's when the Daleks appear.
Hundreds of them: gold, black, silver, red, and every color of the rainbow. He grabs for his sonic screwdriver and throws himself to the floor at the same time and winds up pinching his nipple. “Ouch!” Rubbish last words, he thinks as the first Dalek hits him...and passes through him like a phantom. “Okay,” he stands and dusts himself off. “Bright side, still alive, TARDIS not filled with hundreds of Daleks, chance to improve on 'ouch.' Downside, perception-altering alien, no sonic, missing Clara, massive erection.” He rubs his hands together. “Best get moving, then.”
***
“Doctor?” Clara's voice, praise Rassilon.
“Clara!” He turns the corner, and there she is. “You have no idea how good it is to see you,” he adds, wrapping his arms around her.
“I think I can guess.” She takes his cock in one hand.
“Oh, good, you're real. Unless it's figured out how to do auditory, tactile, and,” he takes her other hand and licks it, “gustatory hallucinations in the past eight minutes.”
“Doctor? What are you talking about? Is the TARDIS malfunctioning again? I'm still not sure she likes me, by the way,” she confides. “I haven't been able to find a decent hiding place anywhere, and she led me right to you.”
Thank you, he offers silently. “Clara, in this case, I think that was the best thing the old girl could have done for you.” He looks around and whispers. “There is something else on this ship. Something which is affecting the way I perceive the world.” He grins. “Pretty sure you're real, though.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “Doctor, I thought you said you didn't have anything else on here?” Somehow she manages to make gooseflesh and anger look sexy. Maybe just a quick shag against the bulkhead? Just to relieve the tension?
“Maybe one or two things,” he says, finally responding to her question. “Sort of a little menagerie. And at any rate, it's just as likely that something snuck in without my knowledge. Does happen from time to time. Including a rather startling number of companions, actually.” He pauses to scratch his head. “I think she must leave the door open on purpose.”
“So how do we fight it?” Clara asks, snapping her fingers to draw his attention.
“Let's get to a medical bay so I can run a few scans on my brain,” he decides. “Let me know if I'm about to do something dumb. Like walk into a wall,” he adds, disgusted by her amused expression. “Seems to be affecting me a bit more strongly.”
***
Almost there, Clara thinks. She can see the antiseptic white light of the infirmary up ahead; it would be more comforting if it wasn't so sterile, but she'll take a small victory. Just then the Doctor shouts. “River!? If you hurt her!..” and goes tearing off down a flight of stairs.
“Doctor?” Clara rolled her eyes. Not like she could catch him now, with her short legs on his ship. Might as well scan herself and see if she's working properly. Almost there, she thinks sadly.
***
“River?” he asks the empty air. Damn. Should have guessed it was an illusion. “Clara?” He isn't sure he recognizes this part of the TARDIS. “Anyone?” As if in response, faces of old friends stream by. He knows they aren't real, but the memories they trigger are, and the juxtaposition almost makes things worse. He staggers past playful Vicki and exuberant Ace; tender Rose and steadfast Jamie. Martha and Turlough laugh at him as the room seems to swirl around him.
When he wakes up, he is face to face with the thing that must be inside his head. Well, he would be face to face with it if it had a face, instead it just has some swirly gray smoke where its face should be if it had a face, which it—
“Stop it.” That is the Thing's voice, then. Or what passes for a voice when you're an amorphous gray cloud thing that doesn't have a—not going down this road again, he thinks. Must be affecting the bit of his brain that knows how to finish sentences. That must be it.
“What do you want?” he asks it.
“You. Your mind.”
“Why me?”
“The girl is not compatible.”
“So you want to compat with me, then?” He goes to adjust his bowtie and finds it isn't there. The emotion hits him like a steel spike as he remembers the first time he met River. He wasn't wearing it then, of course. No fashion sense, that one. No idea of what he was getting into, either. He sinks to his hands and knees as the mist fills in around him. Must fight. Can't fight. Too naked, alone, broken. Yes, he realizes, not daring to let it lift his spirits. Use that.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” he asks, voice weak. “You've been through my memories, through my dreams. Is that where you want to make your home? Live out a dozen lifetimes of loss and regret? Play among the countless planets I've doomed to die? Know that everyone you meet will either be a friend doomed to fade or an enemy who will dog you forever? Is that what you really want?” He stays there, on his hands and knees, fog clammy on his bare skin. He tries not to breathe any of it in, but the respiratory bypass is just about at its limit when, wordlessly, the smoke clears.
***
“Doctor?” Clara is kneeling over his chest looking concerned.
“Clara.” He pulls her down, and holds her close. “What happened?”
“You ran off, and I couldn't figure out how to read the scanners, so I came after you.” She giggles, and the vibrations pass through his body. “I think you tripped and hit your head. You were out cold when I found you, and you had a lump on your head.” They share a laugh, and she kisses the bump. “Just because I'm a nanny and you look and act twelve...” The laughter fades to unsteady silence. “Doctor, what was that thing?”
“A nightmare,” he says. “And it's over now.” He breathes in her scent like it is the only thing that will sustain him. “Clara? My brave, beautiful Clara? Will you make love to me?”
“Now?” So many valances in that one word, he thinks. On the floor? After all that? In the middle of the hall? When you've just had your mind tampered with? But she trusts him in this, as in so many things, too many things.
“More than ever, now,” he says, and she slides one leg over him, and reaches down to fit him perfectly within her. They both need it, it appears, between the adrenaline and the dregs of their earlier foreplay, and it is quick, and fast, but tender, and when they are done their eyes blissfully lose focus. He has rarely felt more comfortable, more at home, than this precise moment, he thinks, and he smiles into her hair.