Chapter Text
1. Broken Toys.
The Raven watched curiously, head cocked almost perpendicular to the line of its neck. A figure dressed in purple slipped out of the shadows and approached the body of the young woman crumpled in the center of the street. The lady in the purple coat strode a wide circle around the still form on the cobblestones, tightening the circumference with each revolution in the manner of a hunting shark. Finally seeming satisfied that the prone form was not likely to sit up unexpectedly, she stopped. The woman placed her hands on her hips, lips pursed. She clicked her tongue in a dissatisfied manner and nudged at a grey-clad shoulder with the toe of her boot. No movement. She gave a great sigh, looking entirely put upon.
“This simply won’t do, Puppy,” the woman in purple stated almost conversationally to the body. “Look at you, dead from your own foolishness.”
The Raven cawed loudly, and the lady turned to look at it for the first time.
“Yes, I know what you are,” she said, sauntering away from the body and over to the where the Raven sat in its cage. “I’m afraid I’m going to quite ruin your day.”
The Raven cawed again, mantling in warning as the lady pressed her face in close to the bars.
“Squawk at me all you like; no one gets to kill my Puppy but me,” she continued, ice-blue eyes leveling a challenge at the bird. “I don’t appreciate people playing with my toys without asking. It’s quite rude, you know?”
She jerked back, narrowly avoiding a vicious stab from the Raven’s beak. The lady tutted and shook her finger at the bird. Smirking, she danced back over the body. She knelt carefully and hefted the young woman into her arms before rising. The Raven screamed at her, throwing itself against the bars in a flurry of angry feathers. The lady in purple offered the bird a mock-sympathetic pout and vanished in a short flash of light. Her laughter echoing long after she was gone.
***
Missy had set her vortex manipulator with the coordinates of one of the myriad bolt-holes she had scattered throughout time and space. This particular one was an abandoned iron mine on an asteroid in the 53rd century. It had been some time since she had visited this particular hide out, certainly not since the Time War. Missy wrinkled her nose at the amount of dust her sudden arrival kicked up. The room had likely been a processing station for the mine at one point, but anything valuable left from the mining operation had been long since striped. Now it held only a long metal table along the far wall and a dessicated humanoid skeleton slumped near the door. Both were coated in thick layer of dust. Missy grinned at the body; a new addition since she’d been here last.
She didn’t come back often, but that didn’t mean she was going to let anyone help themselves to her space.
She moved over to the table, depositing her burden on it. Missy sneezed as Clara’s body disturbed more of the dust. The Time Lady glared at the body in annoyance. She hated sneezing. The mine wouldn’t have been her first choice of places if she had been only looking to lay low for a while, but she had stashed certain pieces of tech here that she would need if she was to fix her toy. Missy bent to heave a large metal chest out from under the table, sneezing several more times in rapid succession. She had full intentions of making the Puppy work off each and every inconvenience that she incurred while fixing things.
Missy opened the chest, pulling out several of the gadgets inside, before letting the lid bang shut again with a too-loud clang. She hummed absently under her breath as she set each instrument next the the body. A Sontaran Med-Scanner, a Chula battle-standard medical kit, and a rather nasty bit of ancient Gallifreyan tech from the days before regeneration, were laid out one by one across the table’s dusty surface. Death was something reserved for idiots too noble to be creative. It was not something that ever troubled the Mistress for long.
“Well, Puppy, tired of playing dead?” Missy mocked the body on the table.
She picked up the Sontaran scanner first. Clara wasn't physically wounded, so it should be a simple matter of restarting her electrical processes. Stupid fragile Humans. Missy was quite looking forward to the look on Clara’s face when she came to. A soft whirr of sound issued from the scanner followed by a string of angry beeps. Missy frowned and banged the device sharply on the edge of the table. She tried again. Another string of angry beeps.
The Mistress tossed the device aside with a disgusted sigh. The dust must have gotten into it.
“No matter, Puppy, can't expect quality from the Sontarans can we?” Missy tutted as she reached for the Chula med kit.
A flick of a switch and a swarm of nanobots surrounded the body. They hovered for a few moments before glow of the nanobots suddenly cut out. Another cloud of dust eddied up as a million tiny robots settled broken to the floor.
Missy snarled in rage, flinging the useless med kit at the skeleton by the door. It slumped sideways, sliding down to block the threshold. Leave it to the Puppy to make everything difficult. Missy was definitely keeping a tally, and the Puppy would pay her back in full.
“Worthless sub-standard technology,” Missy muttered, smoothing her skirt to calm herself. “It only serves to prove the superiority of our technology doesn't it?”
Missy picked up the last bit of tech on the table. Unlike the nanobots, which could only repair damaged tissue, or the scanner, which was designed to jumpstart the major electrical processes of the body, this device acted on a cellular level. It wasn't perfect, and it certainly wouldn't be a pleasant experience for the Puppy, but Missy figured the human would be in no position to protest.
She’d likely be too busy screaming.
Missy twisted a couple tiny dials on the side of the oblong device, pleased when it hummed instantly to life. She spent a few minutes making minute adjustments as the display flashed different numbers at her. This wasn't something that had ever been adapted for human use before. The Time Lady suppressed a cackle as she envisioned the looks on the faces of the High Council if they could see what she was doing. Gallifreyan tech being wasted on a nano-brained human. The knowledge of their sure disapproval only egged her on.
Once satisfied with her calibration, Missy pointed the device at Clara.
A high-pitched whine, sounding like a thousand of the Doctor's infernal screwdrivers, filled the air. Clara’s body bowed up off the table, limbs jerking uncontrollably as the device continued to shriek. Missy watched, waiting for the moment Clara’s eyes opened and the human became aware of what was happening to her. A minute passed. Another followed. The ancient tech continued to scream. Clara’s body jerked and seized on the table.
Her eyes remained closed.
Missy threw the device against the wall so hard it shattered. Pieces of the ancient, priceless tech skittered off into the dusty fringes of the room, the Time Lady panting heavily in the ensuing silence. Missy stalked over to Clara’s body. She grabbed a fistful of dark hair near the base of the human’s skull and hauled her up so she was snarling directly into the unresponsive face.
“Listen to me you ungrateful little bitch,” Missy hissed. “You will not thwart me. No one gets to kill you but me, so you will cease this stubborn nonsense this instant!”
The Time Lady released her grip. Clara’s head made a satisfying thunk as it fell limply back to the table. Missy sighed, placing her hands on her hips. It was wildly obvious that technology wasn’t going to fix this particular problem. There were two options left, both equally distasteful in the Mistress’s opinion. She could admit defeat, plot new coordinates in her vortex manipulator, and leave the Puppy to rot here with the skeleton of the trespasser. Missy knew that the sour taste of failure would linger with the resentment that she’d been one-up by an insubstantial bird. It made her furious to even have to contemplate.
The other option was, in it’s own way, worse. Regeneration energy would be enough to release even the iron grip of the quantum shade, but Missy wasn’t the Doctor. She had never been inclined to self-sacrifice which was exactly what using regeneration energy would be. True, the amount needed to bring a single human back would hardly equate to more than a few years off her own life. Her own life was the part that Missy kept getting stuck on. She wasn’t a charity, giving away her belongings for hugs and sweets and she certainly wasn’t afflicted with the Doctor’s bleeding hearts. The Time Lady circled the make-shift bier in the same shark-like manner as before, weighing the options in her mind.
Was it really giving anything away though? Afterall, the Puppy was hers to begin with. The loan to the Doctor notwithstanding, it wasn’t like she was really giving something away. It hardly counted as more than a change of location if she considered it in that light. She was entitled to do what she liked with her own belongings.
Missy hesitated, fingers hovering talon-like over Clara’s head. The Puppy would be paying off this debt until the end of the universe, Missy would make sure of it.
Regeneration was never a comfortable process. It felt a bit like dipping every atom of the body in essence of poison ivy, an itch that went beyond pain into some other sensation entirely. It was better than dying outright, but the Mistress didn't enjoy the feeling of calling up her regeneration energy. Hands glowing golden, she placed them on Clara’s temples. The energy sank into the human’s skin and Missy stepped back, shaking her hands slightly to relieve them of the after-echo of sensation. Eyes narrowed, she watched for any sign that what she’d done had been effective.
Clara did not open her eyes, but her chest rose and fell. A single human heart began to beat, a steady, double-count sound in the Time Lady’s ears. Missy took a deep breath of her own and relaxed slightly.
There, all is as it should be, was the Time Lady’s first thought. That no one could ever know exactly what she’d done was the second.
“I won't have anyone thinking this sets a precedent, Puppy,” Missy told the unconscious human.
The uncomfortable feeling of having changed something irrevocably still lingered, an itch in the back of her mind. Missy cast about for something to distract herself. Her eyes drifted between Clara on the table and the skeleton slumped across the threshold, a wicked smile curving her lips. Nothing wrong with making her own entertainment while she waited for the Puppy to wake.
***
Eyes still closed to the world, Clara awoke with the bone-deep knowledge that she’d forgotten something desperately important. Every muscle in her body was stiff and screaming at her, each indrawn breath tasted of stale air and dust and nothing familiar. She was laying on something cold and hard, head turned the side at an uncomfortable angle that she felt too weary to change. What had she and the Doctor been doing? Last thing she remembered was climbing back into the TARDIS after the lake. She’d been exhausted and emotionally overwrought from the fear of the Doctor being dead but certainly not like this. Reluctantly, as even her eyelids protested movement, she opened her eyes.
Clara screamed.
Shadowed, empty eye sockets stared back at her from less than a few centimeters away. Clara tried to scramble away from the sight, unresponsive limbs succeeding in pitching her off the table she’d been lying on and down to the gritty floor. She lay there, horror and agonizing stiffness locking up arms and legs despite her desire to get far away from the decaying body she’d woken next to. Clara turned her face away from the rictus grin of death. Even that move to sent fresh agony shooting through her.
A delighted and wicked laugh echoed through the air at her flailing and Clara felt her blood run cold. She knew that voice. Black boots and the hem of a purple skirt entered her field of vision. Clara forced her head to turn again and looked up at where the Mistress stood above her.
“The look on your face,” the Time Lady cackled.
“What the hell, Missy? Where am I? Where’s the Doctor?” Clara gasped.
She struggled into a sitting position, trying to ignore Missy’s continued laughter. She was in a dim and dust-covered room, empty except for the skeleton in a spacesuit on the table and the amused Time Lady. No sign of the Doctor, TARDIS, or how she’d ended up here. The certainty of forgetting something grew.
“Aren't you pleased to see me, Puppy?” The Mistress mocked.
“Where. Is. The Doctor?” Clara repeated firmly.
There would be no further discussion until Clara knew he was safe.
Missy pouted slightly. “No sense of humor at all,” she scoffed.
“Missy!”
Clara wanted to get up and throttle the answer out the woman, worry for her best friend overriding everything. Everything except the ache of her muscles. She hurt so much. Why did she hurt so much?
“Please, is the Doctor okay?” Clara hated to beg.
Something that actually resembled genuine worry flashed for the briefest of moments in Missy’s eyes. Clara felt her heart leap into her throat. She tried to remind herself that the woman before her lied as easy as breathing, but some instinct had her believing that momentary glimpse of concern.
“Missy, tell me he’s okay.”
“I don’t know.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” the Time Lady enunciated slowly. “You cornered me, raving at the top of your lungs about the Doctor being kidnapped, and then you fainted. Terribly rude if you ask me.”
“Kidnapped?” Clara repeated. “I cornered you where exactly?”
“Not here, obviously,” Missy replied. “Or you’d be looking more like your bunk mate there.” She gestured at the skeleton.
Clara struggled to her feet, shaking from the effort. She hated how weak she felt. She wasn’t sure she could defend herself right now, and she was staring at the one being who probably scared her the most in the universe. The Time Lady was watching her closely, assessing her every movement. Ice-blue eyes with a predator’s focus all directed at her.
“What happened?” She growled as threateningly as she could.
Bluster was all the defense she had at the moment and they both knew it.
The Mistress rolled her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. “Do you listen to nothing said to you? I don’t know. You begged me to help you find the Doctor, and then passed out. Completely useless. Typical, I suppose.”
“Found you where, Missy? How?” Clara pressed.
Something didn’t add up. Nothing was adding up. Where was the Doctor?
The Mistress was the last person Clara could have imagined going to for help. Except, of course, if she was stranded out of her own time and there had been no other option. If the Doctor really was in trouble. Had something happened after the lake? Clara remembered crawling into bed on the TARDIS that night, not ready to leave the Doctor just yet with memory of his hologram ghost still fresh in mind, and then nothing. How much time was she missing?
“Well, alright, not found me, precisely. I was bored and following a signal and there you were, all alone and frantic.” Missy conceded.
“WHERE?” Clara yelled.
The Time Lady frowned at her.
“There is no call for shouting, dear, I can hear you just fine,” Missy chided. “Space station, 38th century, completely deserted save for you. I was hoping you’d be able to share the details when you regained consciousness, but I should have known better than to rely on your faulty nanobrain.”
Clara wanted to be offended, but mostly she was just scared. “I was on the TARDIS, the last thing I remember was falling asleep on the TARDIS.”
Missy titled her head to the side, pursing her lips in consideration. “And where were you before that?”
“Earth,” Clara replied. “We’d been in an underwater military base. It was 2119 the Doctor said and there were ghost that weren't actually ghosts, but we’d fixed that. Everything was okay.”
Missy shook her head. “That adventure was months back, my Clara. Admittedly I haven’t been keeping as close of tabs on you lately, with the Doctor still sulking from my little joke on Skaro, but that certainly wasn’t where I found you. You obviously have more holes in your brain than I thought.”
Clara wasn’t sure what to think about that revelation. It wasn’t surprising to learn that Missy was basically stalking them, but it didn’t exactly fill her with joy either. Missing months was another concern entirely.
“Okay, I’m going to ignore how creepy it is that you know that, and skip to asking where is the last place you know that we were?” Clara replied.
She was scared and exhausted and she really felt like she hurt too much to keep standing, but she wasn’t about to give Missy the satisfaction of looking up at her from the floor.
Missy opened her mouth and Clara held up a hand.
“Before the station you supposedly found me on,” Clara added.
Missy smirked at her. “Some silly mess with vikings, I believe. Really, Puppy, I’m not your datebook.”
Clara tried to swallow around the lump in her throat. “Okay, so take me back to where you found me. There has to be a clue there, right? Or maybe I’ll remember something.”
The sensible thing to do would be to demand to be taken home. The longer she was alone with Missy, the worse her odds of survival were likely to become. Except that quickly shuttered moment of concern kept popping into her mind. Clara didn’t have the Doctor here to rely on but if there was any truth to what Missy was saying, he very well could be relying on her. She could trust Missy only about half as far as she could throw her, but, Clara knew she had little choice in that at the moment.
“You think I didn’t look?” Missy asked, arching an eyebrow at the human. “There was nothing. No TARDIS, no Doctor, no clues. Just you and a big empty station.”
“Why should I believe you?” Clara asked. “Why should I believe anything you’ve said to me? Last time I believed you about something you locked me inside a Dalek!”
Missy chuckled. “Yes, that was quite funny. Really, Puppy, I could care less about you believing me or not. I’ll drop you home right now, if you like, since you will obviously be no help in finding the Doctor with your memory.”
“No!” Clara bit her lip. “Lets just go back to the station. It might jog my memory, or we might find something to explain why I feel like I got hit by a lorry.”
She had to take the chance, for the Doctor’s sake.
Missy grinned devilishly, clapping her hands together and dancing a little in place. “Well, won’t this be fun? Another adventure with just us girls!”
Clara rolled her eyes. “Don’t expect me to braid you a friendship bracelet.”
“I’ve got one of my own,” Missy replied without missing a beat, holding up another vortex manipulator. “Sadly, it’s an older model than the ones we used on Skaro; has a four hour cooldown between hops. Substandard really, but what's a girl to do?”
The Time Lady sauntered over to Clara and slipped it on her right wrist. Clara tried not to flinch at the proximity. She had a feeling Missy caught it anyways, judging by the vicious delight in her eyes. She wound an arm around Clara’s waist in a move that Clara was sure was purely to make her uncomfortable.
“Deep breath, Puppy,” Missy sing-songed, and slapped her palm down on her own vortex manipulator.
The world seemed to twist in on itself as Missy sent them both spinning into the time vortex. Clara would have screamed again if there was air left.