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‘I’ll make it easy,’ the Doctor said finally, ‘Shut it down to basic mode for you.’
He was at the console, fiddling with the controls, directing an embarrassing amount of affection towards his machine. Clara was stood looking over his shoulder, or as close to looking over his shoulder as was possible, given their height difference. This had become their usual position of late; the Doctor engaged in something with the TARDIS and Clara standing off to one side. That fact worried her a little bit and annoyed her an awful lot more.
‘Basic?’ She pretended to be offended, playing her and the Doctor’s little game without really noticing. ‘Because I’m a girl?’ she added as a joke, though the rules of the game dictated that she said it like she meant it.
‘No.’ The Doctor said quickly - a bit too quickly, Clara thought, as if he meant the exact opposite. Maybe he was playing games too. She kept her eyes on the console, trying to work out the sarcasm and bluffing and double bluffing at play while acting like she didn’t have to think at all.
The Doctor smirked to himself. Clara saw him, reflected in the control panel. Did he mean for her to see him? She couldn’t tell. She wanted to assume that they were playing and he didn’t really mean what it looked like he meant, but for some reason she wasn’t quite sure.
For the briefest moment, Clara considered confronting him. She thought about whether he’d even admit to all the secret one-upping they’d both been up to, whether he’d say it was all a big joke and she’d misunderstood. She wondered if the games would stop, and what her and the Doctor would be left with if they did. Maybe everything the Doctor said and did was exactly as it appeared, maybe Time Lords just thought women were rubbish drivers. Maybe Clara was over-thinking things - she was almost certainly over-thinking right now. And if she let the Doctor know just exactly how much she’d been over-thinking, the games would be over (Clara would lose, of course) and replaced with... Well, nothing at all, she feared.
Giving the Doctor one last look of mock-contempt, barely distinguishable from the real thing, Clara stepped up beside him and took the controls.
***
‘If you don’t have a plan we’re dead.’ Clara tried to keep the fear out of her voice, with limited success.
Clinging to a ledge that felt a lot smaller than it was, stuck on the side of an impossibly huge cliff face that was somehow also at the centre of the TARDIS, Clara was at the end of her patience. She trusted the Doctor more than was sensible, but that trust had already been tested more than once today, and now he was pacing up and down as if he had something more important on his mind than their impending destruction.
‘Yes. We are.’ The Doctor came up close to her. ‘So just tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’ Clara was lost, but with the Doctor that usually just meant he’d nearly figured it all out.
‘Well, there’s no point now. We’re about to die. Just tell me who you are.’ He sounded completely serious. Clara was supposed to know what he was talking about.
‘You know who I am,’ she said, utterly bewildered.
‘No I don’t! I look at you every single day and I don’t understand a thing about you,’ he shouted. ‘Why do I keep running into you?’ The Doctor sounded as desperate and confused as Clara felt, which really was frightening.
‘Doctor, you invited me,’ she said firmly, ‘You said that-’
‘Before that!’ he interjected, ‘I met you at the Dalek Asylum! There was a girl in a shipwreck and she died saving my life and she was you!’ He yelled at her with absolute conviction, and Clara thought back to when this had all first begun. He had intruded all over her past, she had made it clear she was nobody’s ghost. It was like the pieces of some twisted puzzle slotting together in Clara’s brain, and though she had no idea what the answer was, she knew all too clearly that she was trapped here.
‘She really wasn’t,’ Clara promised. But the Doctor was still ranting.
‘Victorian London. There was a governess, who was really a barmaid, and we fought the Great Intelligence together. She died and it was my fault and she was you!’
‘You’re scaring me,’ Clara said, and she meant it; she felt sick with it.
‘What are you, eh?’ The Doctor was much too close, he had her completely cornered. ‘A trick? A trap!?’ He yelled down at her; Clara was so much smaller than him and she felt every inch of it.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ she shouted desperately. The Doctor stood over her for a very long moment. Clara refused to break eye contact for the entire time. He pulled back a little.
‘You really don’t, do you?’ The Doctor said softly. Clara wanted to ask what exactly the clue had been, but she was far too jittery for sarcasm.
‘I think I’m more scared of you right now than anything else on that TARDIS,’ she said truthfully. The Doctor barely seemed to notice; he was still occupied with his revelation.
‘You’re just Clara, aren’t you?’ the Doctor said happily, though to Clara it still sounded a bit sinister. He threw his arms around her and pulled her close, absolutely delighted for reasons she couldn’t fathom and feared were unfathomable.
‘Okay, I don’t know what the hell this is about but the hug is really nice.’ Clara held on to the Doctor, letting the adrenalin run out of her body, glad that he was back and happy to not really think about anything else for the moment, but leave it all for later.
Later, Clara forgot all about what happened on the cliff face. She remembered her diminishing trust for the Doctor, and his for her, because that had mostly happened long before. She remembered to be a little cautious of him, if not completely fearful, and she held on to the smallest inkling that he might be in trouble and might possibly need her help.
‘Do you feel safe?’ the Doctor asked her, back in the console room.
‘Of course,’ Clara lied smoothly, because it didn’t really feel like a lie at all. It just felt like the right thing to say.
***
‘See you next Wednesday,’ Clara called as she walked towards the police box doors.
‘Well, a Wednesday, definitely’ the Doctor corrected, ‘Next Wednesday, last Wednesday...’ Clara stepped outside. ‘One of the Wednesdays.’ All was quiet but for the rumble of the TARDIS.
‘Impossible girl.’ the Doctor muttered to himself. ‘A mystery, wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a skirt that’s just a little bit too...’ he paused, smiled. ‘Tight.’
The Doctor jumped up, shook himself, his face wrinkled with concern. ‘What are you?’ he asked, with purposeful aggression, turning to slam some levers on the console as a gesture of control.
‘Excuse me?’
The Doctor span on his heels. Clara was stood inside the police box doors, arms folded, moving towards the Doctor.
‘Er...’ he said, stepping backwards away from Clara.
‘What did you say?’ she asked with the air of a well-practised child-minder.
‘Nothing. Just talking to myself. Not about you.’ The Doctor was scrambling backwards around the central column now, Clara pacing unwaveringly after him.
‘Something about my skirt?’ Her anger was obvious but just about restrained.
‘Ah,’ the Doctor confessed, ‘That wasn’t me. It was the Cyber Doctor.’
‘The Cyber Doctor?’ Clara repeated, unconvinced.
‘Just the echo of it. Still in my head. It’s gone now though, look,’ he grinned awkwardly, ‘I’m fine!’
‘How would a cyberman know to comment about my skirt?’ She almost spat the last word.
‘Er, good point. It wouldn’t,’ the Doctor said quietly, ‘Just the Cyber Doctor.’ They stopped now, having completed a full circuit of the console. He backed against the control panel.
‘So... the skirt part came from you, right?’ Clara reasoned, still bubbling underneath.
The Doctor just looked at her. ‘I wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t for the cybermen,’ he said carefully. Clara laughed, though she obviously didn’t find it funny.
‘You see, I don’t think that’s true.’ The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, ready to be outraged, but Clara cut in first. ‘You might think that’s what made you say it, but I’m not sure you wouldn’t have done anyway.’ She was pacing around the central column by herself now, the Doctor still sat against the control panel knowing better than to interrupt. ‘And I’m not sure that’s the point,’ she added, looking at the Doctor with just a hint of sadness.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked suspiciously. Clara sighed.
‘Even if you never would have said it, it was obviously sitting in your head waiting to be said!’ she cried.
‘That’s not fair!’ the Doctor objected, ‘It’s not true!’ he added, ‘You can’t start making up stuff about what’s in other people’s heads!’
‘It is fair,’ Clara said, and she really did sound noticeably upset now. ‘You’ve been acting weird for ages. Forever maybe,’ she added, a little harshly.
‘What?’ the Doctor wailed, shaking his head at no one in particular. ‘What are you talking about, Clara?’
‘There’s been loads of times,’ she began confidently. ‘Like... Like when you said I couldn’t pilot the TARDIS because I was a girl,’ she blurted, inwardly kicking herself for picking such a weak example.
‘What?’ the Doctor was repeated, ‘I didn’t even say that, I said the opposite!’
‘I saw your look!’ Clara responded, frustrated by how petty she sounded.
‘What look?’
‘Like you said no but meant yes.’
‘I don’t even remember. I must have been joking.’ The Doctor spoke softly, almost kindly, and Clara hated him for turning the tables on her. She made a renewed effort to be calm and confident.
‘There’s more to it than that,’ she promised. He shook his head.
‘Clara, I’m sure there isn’t.’
‘I’m really sure there is.’ She looked at him with absolute concern and completely without anger, knowing that this way he would be forced to listen. He looked back at her, a little concerned himself. Eventually, he relented.
‘Alright then,’ he fiddled with the lock on a panel beneath the console, ‘If it will make you feel better, we’ll ask the TARDIS what she thinks.’ The Doctor pulled out a little black skull cap, covered in wires that trailed back into the nook it came from, and a large tub of what looked like jelly. He opened the tub, grimaced, then scooped up a large blob and smothered it reluctantly over the top of his head.
‘Is that hair gel or something?’ Clara inquired.
‘Helps with the conductivity,’ the Doctor replied, wrinkling his nose in distaste as a globule dripped onto his shirt. He dusted his hands off as best as he could, which wasn’t very well, and then carefully placed the skull cap on top of his slicked-back hair. Clara watched in silence.
The TARDIS made a strange sound, somewhere between white noise and the buzzing of a distant beehive. The Doctor watched the monitor intently, flicking dials and adjusting levers with what appeared to be extreme precision. He continued in this manner for a few minutes. At one point he frowned, scratched his head, dislodged a large amount of goo that proceeded to drip onto his nose, then swore a lot in Ancient Greek. He then looked up at the screen and said a few more swearwords he’d recently learnt from River.
‘What’s up?’ Clara asked, too tense to be very amused.
‘I think I moved the cap too much and messed up the readings,’ the Doctor grumbled. ‘My brain looked nothing like this last time. Hang on, let me see if I can make it make sense.’ He moved the dials and levers more urgently now, like he was chasing after a fading picture. ‘I’ve lost it!’ he whined, still moving the dials and staring at the screen with increasing intensity. ‘This can’t be ri-’
The main lights dimmed, the TARDIS glowed red, and an almighty siren began to sound that made both Clara and the Doctor clap their hands to their ears.
‘What’s that?’ Clara mouthed, crouched on the floor with the Doctor in an attempt to escape the noise.
‘Intruder alert!’ the Doctor yelled back.
‘Where?’ Clara shouted, peering around the console to check the main doors. The Doctor pulled her back so she could see him speak.
‘In my head!’ As he shouted, he pointed at his dripping, hat-covered head with one finger, and immediately regretted moving that hand away from his ear. He slammed both hands tight against his head again, then got to his feet and tried to use the console with just his his mouth, elbows and feet. In the end he gave up, and managed to turn the alarm off swiftly with the additional aid of one hand.
‘There’s an intruder in your head?’ Clara asked quickly, sounding more than a little panicked.
‘Yes,’ the Doctor confirmed. ‘But we’re fine, I mean according to you it’s been here for ages and it hasn’t tried to kill us or eat us or take over the TARDIS yet...’
‘No, it’s just been taking over you!’ Clara yelled. The Doctor didn’t respond. He was thinking hard.
‘When did this begin, Clara?’ he asked carefully, ‘When did you first notice me behaving strangely?’ She raised an eyebrow.
‘Do you really want me to answer that?’
‘Clara,’ the Doctor urged.
‘Well I don’t remember inviting you to my mother’s funeral,’ she said coldly. The Doctor sighed and ran a hand through his gloopy hair.
‘I’m very sorry, Clara, but I fear that may have been me.’
‘Oh for goodness sake!’ she cried. ‘How am I supposed to tell the difference?’
‘No,’ the Doctor said, stepping closer to her and looking at her seriously. ‘No, Clara, the skirt thing and the silly jokes and me being a rubbish friend, that’s not me. I’m a brilliant friend,’ he joked incongruously. ‘Well I hope I am,’ he added, wearing the pained expression he always wore when he was forcing himself to be sentimental, ‘I hope I’m not like that.’
They looked at each other for a few moments, the Doctor silently pleading his integrity while Clara slowly gave in. Her face softened, still frowning but out of concern rather than anger.
‘The running thing,’ she mumbled.
‘The running thing?’ the Doctor repeated.
‘The running thing without legs,’ Clara said more confidently. The Doctor thought for a moment.
‘The... the running thing without legs!’ he said triumphantly, dashing over to the control panel.
‘It was dying and it was chasing you and then it disappeared and we thought it had died,’ Clara continued. ‘Maybe it didn’t die. Maybe it got into your head.’
‘Maybe,’ the Doctor agreed. ‘It was a subjectively anatomised creature, didn’t really have an objective form at all, not in any dimension we could see at least, hence no need for legs to run around on... Death and sneaking into my mind would look exactly the same, the form would just disappear.’ The Doctor took a breath. ‘Luckily it couldn’t resist messing about so it left a very real, physical, neurological imprint on my brain... Did we ever find out what it was?’
Clara shook her head. ‘Nope.’ She was excited now, excited about solving the puzzle, excited about the parts they still had to work out, excited to go on future TARDIS trips with a few less niggling doubts.
‘I’ll look it up.’ The Doctor grinned at Clara and tapped the keyboard. Clara grinned back.
‘Pooshian Poltergeist!’ the Doctor read enthusiastically. He turned to Clara. ‘Fancy a trip to Poosh for brain surgery?’
‘What?’
‘Me, not you! It’s cool, they put a little robot in your ear...’
‘What else is cool about Poosh?’ she interrupted quickly. The Doctor thought for a moment.
‘Lost a moon once. They’ve got it back now.’
‘See you next Wednesday,’ Clara said gently. The Doctor laughed as she walked over to and out of the police box doors.
‘One of the Wednesdays,’ he corrected under his breath.
***
A few Wednesdays away, the Doctor bounded through his police box doors, cannoned towards the console and grabbed a handy pair of shoulders. He had intended to skid smoothly to a halt, perhaps even gracefully, but he overshot and toppled over onto the floor.
‘Doctor!’ yelled Clara. She was going to add ‘get off me!’, but the Doctor was already sprawled out pathetically before she had a chance. Instead, she glared at him, but stuck out a hand to help him too.
‘Sorry,’ he grumbled, like he knew he was going to have to say it eventually so he might as well get it out of the way. He took Clara’s hand and got to his feet. She was glaring at him properly now, with her arms folded too. The Doctor tried his best to only sigh inwardly, then countered Clara’s glare with his best boyish grin. She rolled her eyes and peered up at the screen. The Doctor waited with baited breath.
‘It’s gone. Well done.’
Yes! thought the Doctor. He wasn’t in trouble with Clara. He grinned again. She raised an eyebrow, but her face had softened already.
‘It’s gone!’ the Doctor realised, a few seconds later. ‘Oh, brilliant!’ Clara laughed at him, but only in her head; she was too used to the Doctor’s fast-then-slow mental pace by now to find it that funny.
‘Is it definitely gone?’ she asked seriously.
‘Oh yeah, I should think so. It was pretty weak, on its last legs really. Or it would’ve been if it, you know, had legs...’
‘It didn’t look that weak.’ Clara interrupted.
‘Well it didn’t want us to think it was. Spent its last reserves of energy trying to hunt me down, must have been hungry I suppose,’ the Doctor scratched his chin, as if contemplating his suitability as a meal. ‘Anyway, he was just trying it on, you know...’ he searched for the word. ‘Fronting.’
Clara laughed out loud at that, forgetting any lingering bad feeling completely. ‘Fronting?!’
‘What?’ The Doctor was mock-affronted. ‘That’s right out of your era that is!’ He straightened his jacket self-consciously for a few moments, tugged his bowtie into a better position. Then he smiled at Clara, just a little, out of the corner of his eye. She smiled back. Partly because of the Doctor’s silliness, partly out of relief for the end of an adventure, they began to laugh, and they continued laughing for a very long time.