SuperWhoLock: Demons Run [COMPLETED]

Chapter Sixteen

Clara clung to the flashing console with all of her armstrength. She could feel the entire TARDIS shaking under her feet. The still-open TARDIS doors admitted the shrieking wind inside, causing her eyes to water fiercely as it stung them relentlessly.

The entire console was lit up in red. Clara reached over and slammed her palm down on a large button, hoping against hope that it would do something. All of the knowledge that the Doctor had taught her on how to fly the TARDIS had instantly left her mind. There were just too many different things to think about - the buttons, the cogs, the levers, the knobs, the screens...

Clara hesitated, then went against her better judgment and dove back down to where the Doctor clung to the doorstop of the TARDIS. "What do I do!" she screamed into the wind.  "The entire thing is flashing red!"

"Pull the huge silver lever first!" the Doctor yelled at her. "Then press the buttons in the sequence I taught you!"

"What sequence?" Clara screamed desperately.

Then the TARDIS lurched and the Doctor almost lost his grip on the doorstep. Without waiting for his reply, Clara scrambled to her feet and ran back to the console. She located the silver lever and flung it downwards, praying that the Doctor was right on this count.

The TARDIS shuddered and stabilized. Some of the buttons stopped flashing red, though it was still hurtling through the sky over Manhattan at incredible speeds.

Clara hit the floor, crawled over to the doors, and hung her head out of the TARDIS to look at the Doctor. "What button sequence?" she demanded.

"The panel of buttons directly across from the silver lever!" the Doctor replied. "Hit them in this order: right, left, right, center, left, left, center!"

Clara returned to the console, repeating the pattern under her breath. She found the panel of buttons that he was talking about and pressed them in the order. "Right, left, right, center, left, left, center!"

The red lights stopped flashing. Clara let her shoulders slump in relief.

Something clattered on the floor next to the doors. Clara looked over, pushing hair out of her face, and saw that it was the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. Both of his hands were gripping the doorstep now and he was struggling to pull himself into the TARDIS. Clara left the console and went to help him, grabbing him by the elbows and hauling him inside.

"Thanks," he said breathlessly, hurdling the railing to the second floor and landing crouched like a cat. Almost instantly he popped back up and ran under the console.

"What do I do now?" Clara hollered at him from her braced position against the console. The flight of the TARDIS seemed a lot steadier than it had been before, but they were still hurtling through the sky among skyscrapers of Manhattan, and she still had no idea how to steer.

The Doctor stumbled up the stairs with a huge brown sack slung over his shoulder. "The TARDIS can take it mostly from here," he informed her, staggering under the unsteady footing and the heavy weight of the sack. "Just keep watch for any anomalies!"

And with that, he darted out the doors again and plummeted to the air below.

"God help me," Clara said quietly to herself, but the wind was so loud that she couldn't even hear herself. Every time the Doctor performed that stunt, she felt her heart nearly stop.

Clara looked at the flashing console. Everything seemed to be in order, and according to the Doctor, the TARDIS could fly herself without slamming into any of the hundreds of skyscrapers that towered high above the streets of Manhattan.