#first second of eternity

This time around, I decided to subvert personal expectations and write something that was really angsty and avoid kidfic. Since I don’t do straight-up angst all that often, only time shall tell I guess. Ialso was supposed to post this on Valentine’s Day, or at least closer, but we see how well that worked out lol

The students know that Wednesdays are when Miss Oswald sees the Doctor, because she’s always different on Thursdays. [3107 words; fic about the Hybrid and the fallout that follows]

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Explosions were going off all around her, to the point where her ears were going to be ringing later. She ran as fast as she could, making it so that she could barely stop to ingest what was going on around her. The planet she was on happened to be in the middle of war… a war no one but her could escape.

Something grabbed her by the ankle and she fell, landing solidly in the loose dirt below. She looked back and saw a hand poking out from the ground. It hissed as she kicked it with the heel of her other boot, it letting go and glaring at her with the large eye sitting inside its palm. As she scrambled to her feet and continued running, she heard it squeal in agony as something else unseen lit it on fire. She could feel the heat encroaching on her back and she knew that whatever it was, it was burning more than just the sentinel…

“Miss…? Miss…? What’s wrong?”

Clara blinked and was suddenly transported back to the present. She was sitting at her desk, a student standing in front of it with a worried look on her face. The rest of the class was also staring at her, concern plastered on their young faces.

“Oh, nothing,” she lied.

“You didn’t move for ten whole minutes.”

“I was thinking.”

“No, Miss, it’s like you were frozen solid. Like Mister Freeze.”

“Mister Freeze is the one who freezes people, you dummy!” another student chimed in. The one at the desk flipped her classmate her middle finger and turned back to their teacher.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” Another lie. “Now let’s get back to our silent reading…”

“…which ended five minutes ago.”

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Clara realized that the student was, indeed, correct. She plucked a small stack of papers from her desk and handed them to the student in front of her. “Since you’re here, I take it you’re volunteering to pass out the worksheets?” The child grumbled and took the papers, realizing that she was trapped. Her teacher watched as the kids all put their mobiles away and reached for something to write with—it was time to, unfortunately, do their coursework.

‘How long was I lost in there?’ she wondered to herself. She watched the students went through their work, filling out the answers as well as they could. They at least behaved and, for the most part, only pulled out their mobiles after they were done, which she knew couldn’t be said about their behavior with other teachers. She wondered what brought that on, and how come she supposedly froze in place, according to the kids. Her thoughts began to race until she felt a hand on her shoulder—the student—with a stack of papers as the rest of her classmates filed out.

“Rule Number One,” the tween said, “Miss Oswald lies.” She gave Clara the papers—the finished worksheets—and the classroom emptied. The sheets had all been done and peer-marked, ready for her finalization and entering into the grades software.

It felt, nearly, as though the papers were mocking her, and she stuffed them into her bag quickly before the next set of students could walk through the door.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The short Human stood there in the middle of the dimly-lit room, with her head held high and her shoulders squared. All around her, the irritated inhabitants of the planet she was currently visiting were gathered, staring at her. There were many whispers about her ugly hair the color of dirt and the pathetic-looking limbs she possessed instead of tentacles, which was what they knew was the superior method of locomotion. To the Human, she was being threatened by a roaming pack of appetizers, though these appetizers also happened to possess the most disturbingly Humanoid faces she’d ever seen.

“You seem to not fear us,” the largest one said. The Human was referring to it as King Calamari. “This is most curious.”

“What’s curious is how you became beakless squids,” the Human said coolly. King Calamari seemed more than a smidge unimpressed.

“Then, with such an outlook, you truly do not fear us,” a Lesser Squidling mused.

“A little unnerved, to be honest, but fear? Not really.”

This seemed to irritate the appetizers. They murmured amongst themselves, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, King Calamari went and quickly approached Clara, with fire in his eyes and looking like a force of nature. Some of his tendrils wrapped around her neck, waist, and wrists, though she remained perfectly still…

…the hold was light—it didn’t want to touch her…

It was disgusted.

“I’ve been threatened by worse,” the Human said. “You’ve forgotten the most important thing.”

“WHICH IS?!”

“When you’re the hostage, you’re the most valuable person in the room. I have nothing to fear.”

King Calamari glared at her, bringing his tentacles back to his sides.

“You are still Clara Oswald,” the appetizer scowled. “Legend states that the being that calls itself Clara Oswald is a bad omen, that it will destroy civilizations at a whim. Why do you think you would be safe, calling yourself by such a name? Do might think we might fear you too much to kill you, but for us to be saviors? The ones who put the demon Clara Oswald to the sword once and for all? I think you’re in more danger than you believe.”

The Human considered that and shrugged. “I don’t know if you really are thinking this all the way through.”

King Calamari stared at her. “How so?”

“Why am I so dangerous? How am I so dangerous? I’m just a Human.” She shrugged and turned around, making sure she made eye contact with each of the unnerving beings. “We are notoriously killable, Humans. What makes me so dangerous? Am I armed?”

No response.

“Am I strong?”

Nothing.

“Am I quick or cunning or devious?”

Again, nothing.

“I’ll tell you why there’s such a warning about me, about why I am feared throughout the galaxy.” She rested her fists on her hips and gave King Calamari a smile. “I might be a measly Human, but I have a Time Lord on speed-dial.”

Right on cue, the VWORP VWORP VWORP sound of the TARDIS began to filter in through the air. Clara grinned as it materialized around her, popping her safely in the control room. She looked over at the Doctor, who seemed a bit waterlogged, but otherwise fine.

“Say the word,” he told her, hand resting on a lever. She considered it, and grinned.

“Now.”

He threw the lever and the console room began to rumble as it began to take off, ejecting some of the spent energy within King Calamari’s domain. Once the ship was in the vortex again, the Human and the Time Lord found their way towards one another, the latter seemingly checking over the former.

“Good, nothing I need to pay another visit to them for,” he said. “Not many people I’d ask to face a Potajibia Council to give me enough time to orchestrate an escape and rig the colony to crash onto a desert planet. I don’t think they’ll try to colonize anyone’s moons without permission ever again.”

He put the ship in idle and she sat down at her desk on the upper level to do some marking, serenaded by the sound of his guitar. Everything was as it should be.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“Does anyone know the answer?” Clara asked. She looked over her classroom full of bored tweens and raised an eyebrow. “You’re all acting like I’m asking you to pull out your own teeth.”

“Might as well,” a student grumbled.

“…and why’s that?” she wondered. “What’s so different about reading Animal Farm now compared to earlier in the week?”

“It’s just not the same.”

“What’s not the same?”

“It just is.”

“Now that’s not giving me a lot to work with,” Clara said. She frowned as she looked at her students, wondering what it was that bothered them so much. “Work with me here; you know you can tell me things.”

“You’re not the same. Every day on Thursday, you’re not the same.”

Clara tried her best not to laugh, though she could not help but crack a grin. “What do you mean by that?” The tween shrugged. “I’m still the same old Miss Oswald, aren’t I?”

The looks in the children’s eyes told her that was entirely from the truth.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Later on that week, a student goes missing.

She disappears somewhere between the school and her parents’ restaurant, where she was supposed to work a shift for the Friday night rush. The last place anyone saw her was outside an abandoned storefront, and then, horrifically, nothing. Clara called off the following Wednesday in order to keep up with the massive amount of reassuring and comforting she had to do with the other kids. The police had even gotten involved, and yet there was nothing—all signs pointed towards a trafficking-related abduction, having snatched her off the street because she was small and alone and had an accent not from the British Isles.

Once things began to calm and more parents were around to walk unaccompanied children home, Clara found one of the child’s papers and folded it up, placing it in the TARDIS’s psychic controls.

Nothing.

Couldn’t even do that, as grand and mighty as the ship was.

What good was a space-time ship then?

She and the Doctor had a row and there were no more Wednesdays for a month.

They found one another again as complete wrecks; he disheveled and twitching and having not spoken the entire time he’d been gone, while she was cranky and neurotic. First order of business was pulling themselves through a star system, burning their way across the skies, putting so much distance behind them that their time apart—and the reason—were a respectful and somber memory.

Life is dangerous when we dwell.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

There was more than a fair distance between the two travelers and Earth when they finally had another proper adventure. They were continuing to run, this time from some trigger-happy Judoon, hiding anywhere they could on the backwater spaceport. Ducking into a dimly-lit room, they tried their best to not giggle as the beings stomped right past them, effectively securing their safety.

“Miss Oswald…?”

The overhead lights turned on and, once their eyes adjusted, they saw that they were in something akin to a studio flat, though more office-like than anything. A woman was sitting up from what looked like a nap on the couch, sleep still heavy in her eyes. She looked at the two intruders with confusion, terror, and grief—she knew them.

“…Mina…?”

“Oh, it is you!” she gasped. The woman scrambled to her feet and hugged them both. “I’ve been wondering if I’d ever see the two of you again!”

“I… uh…” The Doctor pointed at the strange woman, with her brown skin and black hair in a long braid, over to Clara, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. “What’s going on?”

“That’s what I’d like to ask you,” Clara said to the woman, Mina, who merely shrugged.

“I accidentally found myself on a spaceship that was camouflaged as an abandoned storefront. No one found that I was even aboard until after we passed the Ventress System and couldn’t turn back.”

“How long ago was that…?” Clara wondered. Mina shrugged.

“Fifteen years…? I think…? It’s tough to tell time in space on occasion.”

“Why was a spaceship that powerful hiding itself as an abandoned storefront?” the Doctor wondered.

“They were looking for you two,” Mina said. “They wanted to see how powerful you were.”

“…did you tell them…?”

“Not a word; instead I act as sort of like a guide to life on Earth here, on this station, and at the very least it keeps me safe and alive.” It was then that there was a small, croaking wail coming from behind the desk. Mina went towards it and plucked a magenta-skinned babe from its cot, bouncing it in her arms. She kissed its forehead and it calmed, cooing possessively.

“You have a tiny one,” the Doctor noted. Clara shifted in place, not sure how to fully broach the topic.

“Did you have it, or adopt it?”

“Yes.”

“…that doesn’t answer the question.”

“This is my child—I’d say I’d go back to Shoreditch with the two of you, but there’s no place for this baby there. Not in my family. Not on my home world. I don’t know how long I’ve been gone to you, but it’s been too long for me. I can’t.”

“Then what do you want us to do?” Clara wondered. Mina considered that before shrugging.

“It’s hard to say. I don’t want you to tell my parents where I am, because they will want to bring me back, and I’m no longer a little girl. There is the fact that they should stop worrying, though, and that’s worth something as well.” She shifted the baby to rest in her other arm before patting its back. “I guess this is what I get for trying to be as brave and fearless as Miss Oswald, isn’t it? With any luck, it made the community come together, and that’s worth something, after all.”

There was not much that Clara could say to that; the worth was still there, yet did it justify the pain?

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

At the next candlelight vigil, where the ever-shrinking gaggle of mournful students gathered to remember their missing friend, Miss Oswald shed the most tears any of them had seen her cry since one of the other teachers died. It was another part of her left somewhere, they knew, amongst the stars that the Doctor took her through in his blue snog-box. She was different each Thursday because each Wednesday another piece of her shattered, and there was no way to tell which part until she tried to pick up the pieces afterwards.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

“My mother warned me about you.”

Clara and the Doctor glanced at the blue-skinned extraterrestrial and simultaneously raised their eyebrows. The old man before them snapped the flints together until sparks came out and he was able to grow a spark into a flame, giving them the start of light and warmth. The suns were rapidly setting, making the need for a camp more urgent on the clear-skied desert planet.

“I didn’t know we came with warning labels,” Clara snarked. The man shrugged.

“She didn’t think it was a warning either, just a fantastic story to tell her children as they nodded off towards dreams,” he explained. “My brothers, sisters, and I were all told tales of our mother’s home world and the people from it, and you were certainly one to feature often and prominently.”

“Are you sure about that?” the Doctor frowned. He sniffed at the large stockpot readied for the coals, curious about the contents. At least he knew they could trust whatever was in there—all three of them needed to camp together that night to survive, and the only things that were available to eat would come out of what was soon to be stew. “I don’t know if we’ve been to your mother’s home world.”

“You have, many times,” he said. He glanced at Clara and then went back to tending the fire. “You even taught her.”

Clara stared at him. “…Mina…?”

“We Minanni learned from a young age that trouble follows Clara Oswald and the Doctor—two people as one, a force capable of destroying the universe on but a whim. She told of your tales until her dying days.”

“We don’t destroy, and not on whims,” she frowned.

“Tell that to the Potajibian wreckage three clicks south of here.” He watched as her expression darkened. “As I thought—Clara Oswald remembers those whom she took down with vengeance and fury.”

“…but… I…”

“…are a force to be reckoned with, the Mercurial Human and the Time Lord at her beck and call. At what point did you give into the allure of the TARDIS and the hubris that it gives? Do you even know if you can stop?”

“That’s enough,” the Doctor growled. He glared at the man, whose hospitality seemed to come at a quickly-steepening price, and contemplated his next course of action. “You don’t know what this life is, what it gives us.”

“You’re correct, and I’m glad I don’t,” the man replied. He dug into his pack and brought out a kettle, holding it out towards them. “There’s a spring just beyond those rocks—juvenile Drashigs frequent it at night—get there and back before twilight hits. Take a canteen with you for more.”

Taking the kettle and a couple canteens, the Doctor and Clara wordlessly went over the rocky ridge to where the freshwater spring sat. As they filled the containers, her hands began to shake as she held the canteen under the water’s surface. Her fingers trembled as they secured the stopper; she had to continue on.

Continuing on is what the Doctor does.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-

The students could tell that Miss Oswald was hit particularly hard by their classmate’s disappearance, even if she didn’t show it outwardly at first. It was another piece that was left in the stars—another part of her destroyed over the course of a Wednesday evening—and they knew that it was simply how she was grieving like the rest of them. In how rough of shape she was on Thursday morning seemed to give them an idea of how the following week was going to go, and how that went dictated how much coursework was liable to be levied on them, of course.

Until, they noticed, that it wasn’t just Wednesdays anymore. Sometimes the blue box appeared on Mondays, or Fridays, or any day, really. There were some times that she left with him every single night, headed off in the snogbox with great aplomb. At least, they figured, he kept her busy and unworried, that the Doctor was how Miss Oswald coped with life, that he helped her process the presumed death of one of their own, and that he was what was best to keep her from going too far off the deep end. Even if they wanted to joke about standing in the street like their cousins with not-dead teachers, it wasn’t something they were keen on another of their adults accidentally doing.

Until, one day, Mister Coburn called an assembly, and broke the news to them.