The Littlest Timelord: The Fall of the Eleventh

Chapter 34

A/N - Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! Here's a new chapter!

The engine room was nothing but a cliff.

"The engine room. The heart of the TARDIS," the Doctor said.

"We're outside," Clara told him.

"No, we're still in the TARDIS."

"There's no way across."

"No, okay, you're right."

"So what do we do? Time for a plan. Do you have a plan?"

"Well, no. No plan. Sorry."

"If you don't have a plan, we're dead."

"Yes, we are. So just tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Well, there's no point now. We're about to die. Just tell me who you are."

"You know who I am."

"No, I don't. I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you. Why do I keep running into you?"

"Doctor, you invited me. You said..."

"Before that. Elise and I, we met you in the Dalek Asylum. There was a girl in a shipwreck and she died saving our lives, and she was you."

"She really wasn't."

"Victorian London. There was a governess who was really a barmaid, and we fought the Great Intelligence together."

"She died trying to save me," Elise told her.

"And she was you!"

"You're scaring me."

The Doctor got in her face. "Elise was right. What are you, eh? Are you a trick, a trap?"

"Hey! Don't go blaming me! I had just regenerated!" Elise snapped.

Clara backed away from the two Timelords. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

The Doctor grabbed her before she could fall off the cliff and hugged her. "You really don't, do you?"

"I think I'm more scared of you right now than anything else on that TARDIS."

"You're just Clara, aren't you?" The Doctor laughed and hugged her again.

"Okay, I don't know what the hell this is about, but the hug is really nice."

"We're not going to die here. This isn't real! It's a snarl."

"What?"

"What does a wounded animal do? It tries to scare everyone away. We're close to the engine. The TARDIS is snarling at us, trying to frighten us off. We need to jump."

"You're insane."

"We'll cross a portal to the engine."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I can't."

The three of them backed up.

"Okay, well, that's watertight," Clara said.

"Hey now, Clara, I have piloted this ship for over nine hundred years. Trust me this one time, please."

Clara raised her eyebrows at him.

"Okay. Okay. As well as all the other times. Ready?"

Clara nodded.

The Doctor looked at Elise, who gave him a smirk.