Chapter Text
Clara coughed, and there wasn’t even an echo to fill the void it left behind. Just the dark, dead space of her prison.
Enclosure. Remember how you get when you use that word?
Right. Her enclosure. This room, this specially designed shelter that had unwittingly become her home these last…however many weeks. Or was it months? How could she keep track when there was no way to keep time?
Don’t be so hard on yourself for showing up empty-handed. The only reason I ever had anything with me was that my pockets were –
”Bigger on the inside, yeah, I know. Doesn’t mean I don’t think about every handy device I could have brought with me, lying about on my ship.”
Do I need to remind you that I arrived to my torture chamber unarmed? I didn’t even have my spoon.
“Yeah, but at least you had something to do. I’d probably give anything for a nightmare from my childhood to be chasing me through a castle surrounded by water that moved inside a confession dial.”
Be careful what you wish for.
Clara shook her head disparagingly. “That doesn’t even sound like you. I’m getting rusty.”
Rusty! Rusty was what I called that Dalek, remember? That was the first time you slapped me.
“And now I’m getting desperate, if thinking about the first time I slapped you is the best I can do.” Her head fell back against the wall with a soft thud. Gods, she was tired. No – it went beyond tiredness, beyond exhaustion. It was a specific brand of…numbness. That numbness that only prisoners in solitary confinement could sympathize with: alone in a black space with nothing to break the monotony of darkness and complete silence.
How could she have gotten it so wrong?
The course had been set to random, landing her on the lush, green planet of Cantrapallados. If she’d had the chance, she would’ve done a fair bit of sight-seeing: its bustling cities were nestled in between green, sloping valleys, miles upon miles of rainforest in the hotter regions, with a network of sparkling aquamarine rivers running in between. But from the moment she stepped out of the TARDIS, she was swept up into a full-fledged emergency: the Cantrapalladians were desperately trying to launch a full-scale evacuation since their sun had started leaking noxious gas into the atmosphere. The problem was that some had stubbornly refused to leave, opting instead to wait it out in various air-tight shelters scattered across the landscape.
Yet, the projected levels of gas were expected to render the once-impermeable shelters about as effective as hiding under bedsheets. So she had been visiting each, talking her way into them, coaxing the terrified civilians out and loading the evacuees onto her TARDIS to fly them to the designated refugee camps on a nearby planet. Until finally, she had come to this one, far outside the main cities and towns. The Cantrapalladians had protested that there weren’t any registered shelters left, but Clara insisted that they couldn’t discount those who lived outside the system just because they didn’t want to be bothered.
This shelter was different than the others, with no discernible door or entry hatch, measuring a tiny 5x5 meters. It was made of a different substance, too, which Clara figured was probably cheaper, and after receiving no response from banging and shouting on its walls, she started feeling around the outside for any sort of break or dip in the structure that could indicate an opening. A door had suddenly opened, and she’d had the briefest glimpse of the inside before it snapped shut behind her, sealing her inside.
And after that – nothing. No light, no sound, no air. Just the dark. And the silence.
Clara…
But it wasn’t that comforting silence, the one that could wrap around you like a soothing, warm hug. No. This was the oppressive kind. The kind that seemed to take on its own menacing personality, turning into a black, slithery thing that lived in the corner, waiting patiently for the opportune moment to slide across the floor and crawl up her legs, fill up her abdomen, wrap itself around her throat and squeeze, finally putting an end to -
Clara!
She let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob. “You know, it would be so much better if it actually existed. At least I’d have something to fight.”
You don’t think you’d just huddle in the opposite corner, terrified all the time that it was coming for you?
The taunt worked, breaking her dangerous train of thought enough that she whipped her head around to glare at where she imagined the Doctor would be. “Thanks for that vote of confidence. I’m not the one who’s afraid of the dark, remember?” Staring out into the black, she let out a sigh. “I just hate it. I mean, I’ve learned to live with it, haven’t exactly had a choice, but – I still hate it.”
Oh, come onnn. There’s so much about the dark that’s quite wonderful. Have you really forgotten?
“Maybe I have. Remind me.”
Without the deep and lovely dark, you’d never see stars.
Fine. This train of thought was enough to distract her, at least. Above her head she imagined stars, the stars as she remembered them from Earth. Millions upon millions of tiny pinpricks of light and not big, giant, glowing balls of fiery gas that occasionally poisoned the inhabitants who lived on the closest planet.
You were imagining stars?
“Yeah. They were so beautiful back then.” A sadness slowly crept over her. “Remember when they were just beautiful, and you could just...enjoy them?”
They are always beautiful to me. They never stopped being beautiful. Lost enough in this reverie, she could almost hear him settling next to her, the sound of his velvet jacket brushing against the fabric of his trousers. When did they stop being beautiful to you?
“They still are. They’re just...more complicated now.”
Ah. So the beauty has merely taken on dimension.
She shrugged. “I guess. Yeah, you could say that.”
They’re no longer tiny, indiscriminate points of light. They have names and terrains and countries and different colours and atmospheres and inhabitants. All beautiful in their own way.
She was pensive. “You once described the Universe as your backyard. I couldn’t imagine how someone could possibly see all those wonders and grow tired of it all. Where it just became commonplace. Overgrown bushes and some rusty lawn chairs.”
But you’ve only been doing this for 500 years! You can’t be tired of it already!
She rolled her eyes, but it was belied by the quirk to her lips. “Right, I know, nothing compared to your ridiculous timeline.” Her mouth straightened as she fingered the edge of her skirt. “But honestly…did you ever grow tired of it? Did you ever want to stop?”
I never did. I never have. Those last two statements might be lies, of course. A pause. But the important question is - do you?
A half shrug. “I didn’t before. Now…I don’t know.”
She could almost hear his sigh. Well. Two things always kept me going: having someone with me who wouldn’t see rusting lawn chairs –
“Nakbu.”
The name of her former companion came out on a startled whisper, the face rising unbidden to mind.
Those eyes – bright and starry and shining at the beginning –
Then - the desperation, the terror, the light going out –
“Yeah, well, don’t have anyone like that right now.” Her words came in a rush as she pushed the images and memories away.
You did exactly as I would’ve done: you got in your ship, and you ran because you couldn’t take it. She could almost hear his sanctimonious tone. But trust me, it all catches up with you, eventually. You can’t outrun it forever.
If her heart were beating, it would’ve made her blood boil. “I took one trip. One. I didn’t spend four and a half billion years in a torture chamber ‘cause I couldn’t deal with it. Oh, and while we’re on that subject, I didn’t have feelings for her that I was too scared or confused or cowardly to admit so that I buried them so deep that when asked about why I let myself be tortured for so long all I could say was ‘I had a duty of care.’”
This time she could almost feel him sulking. 500 years and you still haven’t let go of that?
“No, I haven’t,” she snapped. “But shut up because you know what? I’ve let go of everything else. I’ve stopped looking for your face in every crowd. I’ve stopped straining my ears for the sound of your voice. I’ve stopped befriending or getting involved with the mad scientist types on the off-chance that it will turn out to be you, re-trained myself not to gravitate towards the quirky personality, the ‘cool’ bowtie or the professor-type jacket, the frenetic energy, the long strings of technobabble, to shut it all off because even though I’d know you anywhere…I had to stop looking for you everywhere.”
Yet, here you are: talking to me after all this time. Successfully steering the conversation from topics that make you uncomfortable. Because you didn’t let me finish earlier.
“What?”
I said that there were two things that kept me going. The first was having someone with you who could still see the wonders. The second was something to fight for. You may not want to admit it, but after all this time, you still want to see me again. That’s why you haven’t gone back to Trap Street.
“Okay – first: dear God, I’m glad that you’re not actually here. This shelter would be way too small for your ego. Second: why would I want to run into you again when it would just make me sad? You wouldn’t be able to see me.”
I have several answers, and you’re not going to like any of them.
She let out a disgruntled sigh. “Do I ever?”
First: because you’re stubborn. Because you think you can prove the prophecy wrong about us being the Hybrid.
“The prophecy is rubbish. Even Me agreed she got it wrong and apologized for posing it ‘cause she didn’t know you’d take it so seriously.”
Second: pride. You want to prove to yourself that you’re not still in love with me five centuries later.
Even alone in the dark, Clara’s face scrunched up, her shoulders caving around her chest like she could physically protect herself from the words. “I’m…not even going to respond to that. Because wherever you are, your ego just grew ten sizes bigger.”
And third: hope. You still have hope.
“Hope?”
Like Pandora’s box, it had been shoved to the very bottom of her consciousness, never once entering any of her conversations or even her thoughts. Deemed too dangerous to think, let alone voice, she had to fight the ridiculous impulse to clamp a hand over her mouth for daring to speak it aloud. Hope that someone would eventually find her. Hope that she would make it out of there. Hope that she wasn’t doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the dark and the silence with only her memories and imagination to accompany her.
Hold onto that, Clara.
Swallowing down the lump that had formed in her throat, she imagined him next to her, her hands curling around his arm, her cheek coming to rest against his shoulder. “Tell me about the Venusian nuns again.”
Ah yes, the Venusian nuns. Very much like the Sisterhood of Karn, but no less intimidating…
-------
Days, weeks, months passed. Time crawled by.
Clara recited passages from favourite books and poems – then tried translating each of them into all the languages she’d learned over the centuries. She sang every song she knew – first by genre and then, as a brain teaser, in alphabetical order. She developed an exercise routine, discovering which ones she could perform best in the dark. Conversations, however, remained the best diversion – not just with the Doctor, but with friends, former lovers, spouses, companions – even some enemies. She tried to keep the conversations lighthearted or intellectual, never once allowing them to stray into what she’d firmly delineated as “emotional minefield” topics.
One morning (or afternoon or evening), she got into a heated debate with a former companion named Eretrio, a Seraphian prince who had run away from his structured, overly-dictated life. His departure had been seasoned with more sweet than bitter, as his reasons for leaving Clara were pure: he fell head-over-heels for a street urchin-turned-hot-shot pilot named Xellender. Before that fortuitous meeting, however, Eretrio had loudly and repeatedly complained about his life as a prince - except for the balls, fancying himself quite the dancer. In her effort to work not only her image memory but muscle memory, Clara had insisted that she still remembered Earth dances and was trying to demonstrate to him the Harlem shuffle. She’d even removed her boots in an attempt to be more nimble.
Unfortunately, she slipped, flying into the air and landing with limbs akimbo.
Normally, said fall would have resulted in sprains, strains, dislocation and even a break. But the rules of the Time Lords were clear: you could not change a body extracted from its timeline. Frozen between one heartbeat and her last, her limbs remained exactly the same. Her skin did not break, her capillaries did not burst and leave bruises, and the loud crack of her head smashing into the floor did not signal any possible damage to her brain. Frozen, almost like she was in a bubble.
Almost. Because in a cruel trick of irony, there was one part of her body that still worked: her nerves.
The pain, the pain – her mind went white with it, and she tearfully begged through her delirium to pass out, to put her out of her misery. But losing consciousness involved blood flow, and that was a mercy that the Time Lord laws didn’t allow. The pain would’ve made her nauseous or even vomit – but with frozen bodily fluids, there was no churning of her stomach, no gastrointestinal juices to swirl around. No blood flow, no bodily fluids, no choices for her body.
There was nothing for it but to scream.
With no one to hear her, she could scream as loud as she wanted.
Without the need for air, she could scream for as long as she wanted.
With the physical pain signals completely overtaking her mind, it wasn’t a conscious choice – not to start, anyway. But as the hours and days passed, her screams changed, taking on a life of their own. The physical pain receded as her circumstances rose to the surface, and for the first time, those carefully drawn boundaries around those minefield topics crumbled, leaving them exposed.
That she had been told to leave as soon as she arrived, but refused, needing to help. Needing to feel useful again, needing to run from the faces of those she couldn’t save –
Like Nakbu.
Nakbu, only 18 years old. Nakbu, with her bright, starry eyes, desperate to escape from a family of 30 on the teeny, cramped planet of Jacinthlo and find her own place in the Universe.
Her eyes.
Clara would never forget them: the desperation and terror in those eyes as she flailed in the waters of the Treacherous Seas of Triktillfania. Delivering the lifeless body of a girl who’d had her whole life ahead of her to her relatives was bad enough. But when it was 30 relatives who had lost a daughter, a sister, a niece, a granddaughter, even an aunt -
If only Clara had asked Nakbu if she could swim before they wound up on a planet covered by water. If only they hadn’t been captured by Fokir pirates. If only she had been less careless, remembered that just because she was virtually indestructible didn’t mean that everyone else was –
Clara, there’s nothing special about me – I am nothing – but I’m less BREAKABLE than you!
And now that she was thinking of Nakbu, other wounds opened. For everyone she’d lost – for other companions, for the few spouses she’d allowed herself, the lovers, the friends – for all the people she’d tried to save over the centuries and couldn’t. For everyone she had disappointed…
Until there was a steady stream, the grief flowing for those she had lost when she was still on Earth, still a normal thirty-year-old human being with her finite life ahead of her. For Danny, who she couldn’t love in the right way. For that mad man who had shown up on her doorstep dressed as a monk. For her mum, a loss that still ached all these centuries later…
With her world narrowed to the torrent of her grief, she missed the muffled voices and the static. She missed the different pitches, the inflection of them, the worry and concern underlying them as they attempted anxious inquiries through the static. She even missed the knocking.
Until finally –
“Hello?? Can you hear me? Are you okay in there? Hello??”
Actual, proper words.
A woman’s voice?