3 Doctors, 9 Companions, What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Chapter 129 - CJ1021 (2024)

Chapter Text

Whitby Abbey, 2018

DAY 114

Rewritten March 2024

819: In Loving Memory

Beta Clara

There was Rigsy, and then there was pain. She burned in a way she couldn’t describe – couldn’t even perceive. A red sun erupted inside her and left her with an agonising thirst, writhing as she willed herself to die so that the fever would be over. Her veins were full of blisters and her skin was on fire. Nothing had ever hurt Clara this much, and nothing ever would again.

She could not say for how long it lasted. Hours? Days? Years? She really thought that was it. The end. She’d been ready – but why? Everything was slipping away from her. Rigsy. His was the last face she remembered.

The next face she remembered was Jenny, gaunt but glowing in soft candlelight. Between them was a table with the candles laid across it. There was also a flask, a big bag of onion rings, a mug, and a sheet of paper covered in writing. Jenny had her feet up on the table but nearly fell out of her chair when she saw that Clara was looking at her. She was very unkempt and smelled like she hadn’t showered in days. Not only could Clara smell the sweat sticking to her and the odour from the crisps, but she could smell wood and varnish and beeswax as it melted away.

“You’re – are you here, Clara?” said Jenny. “Really here, I mean.”

“What do you mean?” asked Clara, woozy.

“You’ve been in and out for a few days, barely lucid.”

“Days?”

“Yeah. Days.” It was dim in there, but even the candles hurt her eyes. Jenny had been reading a book about the First World War, but she set it down on the table. “You’re here, though?”

“I was in London. I was with Rigsy.”

“Is that the last thing you remember?” said Jenny.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” Jenny nodded. “You’ve got some gaps in your memory. But don’t worry. I’m here. I’m going to help you to fill them in.” But Clara was getting very worried indeed.

“You can start by telling me where I am,” she said.

“The TARDIS, my TARDIS,” said Jenny. She pulled the piece of paper towards her and squinted at the writing. When she did, Clara saw she had bright, fresh bruises across the back of her organic hand. “Oswin’s got terrible handwriting at the best of times, let alone in this light.”

“What’s going on?”

“I’ve been given a list of prepared questions by her,” said Jenny. “Maybe I’ll just wing it, though. This’ll all be better coming from me directly. You and I, we can just talk.”

“I don’t understand…” She ached with tiredness, and her mouth burned with longing. Longing for what? “What’s this room?”

“Prison cell, on the TARDIS,” said Jenny. “They’ve shackled you. That was after I negotiated them down from strapping you to a chair.”

“They what?” Clara looked down, head spinning, and saw the metal shackle around her foot. They’d given her slippers.

“I know. It’s barbaric. They’re watching, too. There are cameras. Not that you… ignore me.”

“Who’s watching?”

“Oswin, Thirteen, Other You, Martha, and Rory,” said Jenny. “But Rory’s just being nosey. So,” she cleared her throat, “you’ve lost about a week.”

“Excuse me?”

“We think. It’s not entirely clear, given the circ*mstances that led you here, but with us, it’s been a week. Most of that you’ve spent stuck in this room screaming, and I’ve been keeping an eye on you.” She didn’t know she’d been able to scream – thought it had stayed trapped inside her. “Wasn’t the best week before you were in here, though, so don’t feel too bad. But the thing is, you’ve died.”

“I’ve what?”

“We don’t know how it happened. You were dead, though. And now… We’ll get to that. Anyway, you didn’t know; you couldn’t get through to your Doctor, and you didn’t remember it then, either. Even my mother doesn’t know why. But on the bright side, here you are.”

“Yes. Here I am.” It didn’t feel ‘bright’ at all.

“So, I’d better start with how we found you, from what they told me, since I – and I can’t make this clear enough – I wasn’t involved.”

“Right.”

“It all started six days ago, when Oswin and Other You were about to go shopping to resupply the essentials…”

DAY 108

Rewritten March 2024

820: Dead Ringers

Oswin

“I really don’t want to go shopping, Clara. I should stay with Adam,” Oswin argued as Clara led her into the console room to pilot the TARDIS down to her desired supermarket.

“He’ll be fine. We’ll get him some biscuits,” Clara assured her.

“Maybe some fruit and vegetables while you’re at it.” Thirteen was in there, and they both jumped when she spoke. On the other side of the console, neither of them had noticed her. Clara stiffened immediately, and Oswin rolled her eyes.

“Has she persuaded you to come shopping, too?” said Oswin.

“No, no. But I thought I might tag along. I’ve got a list with some very specific items. Which supermarket were you thinking of going to?” she asked Clara.

“We usually go to Asda,” she answered.

“No, that won’t do. You and I are more Sainsbury’s people,” she said, flicking switches on the console.

“Okay, you’re not invited,” said Clara.

“I know! And yet, here I am anyway, getting involved,” she threw a lever and the console thrummed. “I’m thinking Whitechapel. Near enough to Shoreditch, isn’t it?”

“What’s in Shoreditch? What are you up to?” asked Clara.

“Ah, you’ll work it out,” the Doctor dismissed her, the central column creaking up and down. The TARDIS came to a sudden halt, and they all wobbled slightly, Clara steadying Oswin. The Doctor pushed open the doors. “Looks near enough… date and time, date and time…” She checked her watch. “Perfect. A great night to go to the supermarket.”

“Okay?” said Clara. The Doctor stepped aside and held out her arm to point them through the door. They all disembarked, the twins deeply suspicious. “This isn’t a Sainsbury’s.” They were around the back of one of the buildings of the Royal London Hospital; Clara recognised it from when she’d once had to chaperone Artie Maitland to get an emergency tooth repair after half of one of his canines was broken off by a stray football.

“Is it not? Are you sure?” said the Doctor, looking around. “Huh. How strange. Maybe I’ve misplaced it – let’s take a look around, see if it turns up.”

“See if a supermarket turns up…?” said Clara.

“Yes, yes. They’re never where you think you’ve left them.” She went off, walking with more purpose than Clara liked towards the building – towards the entrance to the hospital’s morgue.

“I don’t like this at all,” Oswin echoed Clara’s thoughts.

“I’d be surprised if you did, Os,” said the Doctor. “I don’t think you liked it much the first time, either – although, I stayed behind.”

“Stayed behind?” asked Oswin. “How do you mean, stayed behind?”

“Wait, wait – get over there,” she pushed Clara towards a parked ambulance as another one came around the corner with the blues and twos switched off. The Doctor followed them and all three crouched behind the van. “Okay. I think this is the one.” She took out her sonic screwdriver and waited for the paramedics to unload a corpse, wrapped up tightly in a body bag. As stealthily as she could, the Doctor scanned it from a distance. “Yep. There she is.”

“Who?” asked Clara.

“You.”

“I – what!?”

“Shh, shh,” said the Doctor. “It’s Other You. We’re in the Betaverse. She’s died.”

“She’s-? How.”

“Unclear,” she said. “We’ve never solved that mystery.”

“And we’re here to do what, exactly?” said Clara, furious. “Pay our respects?”

“I think that’s up to you two,” said the Doctor. “It’s not a fixed point in time. Partially fluctuating. Thanks to the Crash stabilising, I think I can make a go of ironing some things out…”

“You mean the Dimension Crash? It’s not stable at all,” said Oswin.

“It is for me. Schrodinger’s Crash,” said the Doctor. “But what I’m doing, it’s mostly admin. You two would’ve found your way here with or without me, albeit it a few days late.” The paramedics returned to their ambulance with an empty gurney and climbed back in, heading out on the next call. “Come on. We have to get there before they make the declaration and call her next of kin.”

“What!? No!” said Oswin. “This is completely out of order!”

“If I’m not here, it’s her decision,” the Doctor nodded at Clara. “I don’t want her to have to make it. You two will thank me. Well, you won’t thank me, because you won’t remember what it was like the other way – but this is better. It’s better you blame me.”

When the Doctor headed into the hospital, they had no option but to follow. Had she gone completely mad? Was her memory too addled from whatever it was that made her forget? Oswin knew that one could not go messing around with time like this, even the Doctor, but that didn’t stop her. She led them into the hospital morgue but ordered them to wait outside. And then she put on a show.

“Clara!? Oh god, oh god, Clara – it’s not you, it can’t be you!” she sobbed. She broke down in front of the coroner, claiming she’d been on her way over when she’d seen the ambulance and followed it in her non-existent car. When she produced a Polaroid photo of the two of them, a photo neither Clara nor Oswin saw, that was proof enough that she was the next of kin.

“I’ll go and fetch a doctor to make the declaration now,” the coroner, a young woman, promised. Fresh out of medical school. She left and didn’t look back once, completely missing the twins – identical to the corpse on the slab – as they waited in the corridor. White coat billowing behind her, it was done. The Doctor composed herself and hid the photograph away before the real Clara could glimpse it.

And there was Beta Clara, sleeping in the morgue.

“You want to take a long, hard look at her,” said the Doctor. “She’ll never be this alive again.”

“Okay, great,” said Clara. “We’ve seen the dead body now; can you just move on to explaining what kind of insane lesson you’re trying to teach me by bringing us here? Bringing me to see my own corpse? This is pretty bloody twisted!”

“You need to bring her back,” the Doctor told Oswin.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve lost your mind. This isn’t our universe; she isn’t our Clara; and she isn’t our responsibility. People die, and you can’t behave like this,” said Oswin.

“She is my responsibility and look – I came along today to absolve you,” said the Doctor. “This is my decision. You’re going to do it for me, and the consequences are mine to bear. And you’re going to do it quickly because we need to pull a switcheroo.”

“How has this happened?” said Clara. “How could she die? The Doctor – the other Doctor – he’s gotten her into this?”

“And we’re getting her out of it. I owe her.” She looked down at Beta Clara fondly, and Alpha Clara frowned.

“For what?” she asked.

“Things she hasn’t done yet. Things she’ll never do, unless Oswin reprograms your nanogene cloud to have a wider range. That’s all it needs.”

“You can do that yourself,” said Oswin.

“Not quickly enough. We don’t have long.”

“I’m not,” said Oswin, growing panicked. “I can’t. I can’t fool around with death like that – you don’t know what you’re asking, you-”

“Hey, hey, hey,” the Doctor approached and touched her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. “I need you to trust me.”

“How could I ever trust you?”

“Find a way.”

“This is wrong.”

“It’ll become right over time.”

“You can’t just do things like this, though! There will be a price to pay – a cost!”

“And I know what that cost is.” As seriously as she could, she pleaded. “Oswin. This is a family matter. And you’re going to do it for me, and you’re going to get angry with me, and I can live with that.”

“What should I do?” Oswin turned to Clara, utterly lost.

“I… I don’t know,” said Clara. “It must be serious if she’s trying to change her own history. She wouldn’t do that on a whim.”

“It’s a ripple, Oswin,” said the Doctor. “It will fade, and it will resolve.” One last time, “Trust me.” Oswin believed that trusting the Doctor at that moment could be the biggest mistake of her afterlife, but she went along with it. It was hard enough to stand by and let somebody else die if she could change it.

And if this was the end for Beta Clara, it would have broken Jenny’s hearts irreparably. So, she did it. She trusted the Doctor and agreed to bring Clara Oswald back to the land of the living – but it wouldn’t be for long.

DAY 114

Rewritten March 2024

821: Sitting On My Crucifix

Beta Clara

“You stole my body from a hospital morgue?” said Clara.

“They replaced your body in a hospital morgue. As I understand it, you weren’t very present. Oswin and the Doctor got you out, and Alpha Clara stayed behind and pretended she’d just woken up. It’s more common than you’d think, living people arriving in morgues.”

“Why did your Doctor do that?”

“I-”

Jenny was interrupted by the prison cell’s large, metal door being pushed open, and in walked the woman of the hour, Thirteen, carrying a tray with fresh mugs and a teapot on it, as well as a plate of toast.

“I’m not sure the toast is really-” Jenny began.

“She wants the toast,” said the Doctor.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“As opposed to starving her? Yes, Blue,” she said, setting the tray down. Clara had tensed up completely though. A smell had followed the Doctor into the room, a hot, salty smell, like fresh meat ready to be barbecued. Honey-glazed bacon. She bit her tongue by accident and winced. The Doctor returned to ensure the door was properly closed, and the smell dissipated. Now it was fresh butter and warm bread in her nose.

“You brought me back to life,” said Clara. “You can’t do that. You’re the Doctor. I begged him to help Danny like that, and he refused.”

“If I didn’t do it, Other You would have,” said the Doctor. “In fact, she did. It was fluctuating. But the good news is that we got to you quickly. Last time, they were too late. You’d been buried in your funeral best and they had to dig you up. Dave had already been told.”

“He… what? Dad?”

“Your dad doesn’t know you’ve died, yeah,” said Jenny. “He hasn’t had to go through that grief.” [1]

“But now I’m your prisoner,” said Clara.

“Between you and I, Smokey,” the Doctor began, pulling out a second chair at the table, next to Jenny, and then pouring some fresh cups of tea, “I’m only entertaining them. They think you’re dangerous, but I’m on your side.”

“Mm, yeah, dangerous, me,” she shook her head. “What’s ‘Smokey’?”

“Oh, that’s you. Smokey and the Bandit, by my side,” she indicated Jenny, who was equally perplexed. “Don’t overthink it. Anyway. Yes, they’re petrified.”

“So petrified they’re out there roasting meat, or something,” she muttered, taking the mug from the Doctor. When she did, their hands brushed for just a second, and she was surprised by how the Doctor felt like she was burning. It was as if Clara had put her hand under the hot tap.

“Nobody’s roasting meat, Clara,” said Jenny.

“Is that what they’re telling you? I can smell it.”

“I’ll bet it smells delicious,” said the Doctor, tearing a slice of toast in half with her teeth and chewing loudly. “Now, I’ve pulled my future cards to get them to ease up a little, but they’re understandably concerned.”

“About what? I’ve died and been brought back to life by nanogenes, and now I’m here. What happened? Had they already started loading me with formaldehyde? Is that what all the burning was?”

“No,” said the Doctor.

“I told you,” said Jenny, “It’s been six days.”

“Is this a prank? Am I a zombie now?” she asked.

“I think you should let Jenny keep going with her story. I’m here for moral support.”

“Uh-huh,” said Clara, unimpressed. The people on that TARDIS were sick; this would all be a joke. A very unfunny joke, where they shackled her to the floor and gaslit her about having an indoor barbecue, but still just that: a joke. “And what are these things I’m supposed to do for you? This favour you owe me? That’s what Jenny said.”

“I’m only repeating it how Oswin told it,” said Jenny.

“I’ll tell you one day, kid,” said the Doctor. “Ask me again in a few weeks and I’ll be more amenable. Enjoy your toast and your story, in the meantime. Pretend I’m not even here.”

“So… yes,” Jenny went on, conspicuously not picking up any toast, even though it was very nice toast indeed. Clara had never seen her turn down food before. “What happened is, they resurrected you and brought you here. Everybody was very angry, for obvious reasons. And by this point, they’d all worked out that you and I were, um… Yeah. And then when you started to come back to yourself, you were angry at me. Or maybe you were just angry generally, because you couldn’t remember what had happened. You were stuck on Rigsy then, too. And, like I said, you couldn’t get through to your Doctor. I tried to help, but… It was a difficult few days. And you weren’t happy about being on this TARDIS at all.”

“I can’t think why,” she grumbled, “when they wipe my memory and keep me prisoner for no good reason.”

“Martha gave you the old once-over,” said the Doctor. “You’ve been the subject of a biological time lock. Frozen in a moment, between breaths, until you eventually died for good.”

“And how did that happen?”

“I don’t rightly know. But I trust you’ll find out sooner or later,” she was cryptic as ever.

“Wonderful. So, I was frozen?”

“Yes. You died, came back in the time lock, died a second time, came back via the nanogenes, and now you’ve made it a hat trick.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” said Jenny. To Clara, “I’m sorry, she’s muscled her way into all this.”

“It all happened so messily the last time,” said the Doctor. “I’m only intervening in the finer details. The broad strokes are all still here.”

“Very comforting,” said Clara, picking up a slice of toast. “You’re telling me I’ve died again?”

“Yes, but let’s rewind, alright?” said Jenny. “Death number two. You’re here on the TARDIS, you’re not speaking to me – or anybody, for that matter – we’ve found out about the time lock, and everybody’s been trying to ignore the Eleventh Doctor parading around like he owns the place.”

“Of course, I own the place,” said Thirteen, “But I’m letting him have his fun.”

“Sure, sure,” said Clara. “Politics.” She bit into her toast and let the butter melt in her mouth, though her teeth felt larger than they ought to. How long had it been since she’d eaten?

“This went on for three days,” said Jenny.

“And then I got a phone call!” the Doctor announced, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed. “Directly into the TARDIS all the way from Paternoster Row. And you figured, why not go and speak to them, since they exist across our interdimensional boundary, and see if they can’t shed some light on what you were doing during the time lock.”

“Do you mind?” said Jenny, glaring at her.

“Sorry, sorry. I forgot how much you love to talk, Blue. Go on.”

Jenny shook her head. “Yeah. As she said, the Paternosters…”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

822: Breaking Dawn

Jenny

Rice Krispies clung together in little, soggy clumps in Jenny’s cereal bowl. The milk had by now gone warm and the food was mushy having taken on too much fluid. With a silver spoon in her silver hand, she thought, very hard, about eating, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. Jenny had subsisted on snacks alone for the last three days, every time her stress and worry subsided just enough that she could get something down.

Beta Clara occupied all of her thoughts. When she came into Nerve Centre, Jenny dropped the spoon back in the bowl. Every morning, she’d tried to start a conversation, and every morning, she’d been brushed off. But it was different that day. Clara made two cups of tea and then, after three days of the cold shoulder, she brought them over to Jenny.

“Peace offering,” she said, holding one out. It brimmed with milk and eight spoons of sugar, just how Jenny liked it.

“I think I’m the one who should be bringing you the peace offerings,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, like leaving a tin of fresh shortbread outside my door late at night,” said Clara quietly, pulling out the stool next to her and sitting down.

“How was it?”

“Very nice, thank you.”

“And it worked?”

Clara sighed. “You cooked for me before, and you’re cooking for me now. That’s something normal, at least. So, yes, it worked; I’m done needing space. And I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.” In the room, it was only them, Thirteen in the kitchen, and Rose and River at the other table.

“Any luck with your Doctor?” asked Jenny.

“No. Nothing. The phone doesn’t even ring properly, it’s like he’s done something to stop me. Have you heard anything? From me, while I was locked?”

“No.” Which, in itself, broke her. “I’ve missed you.”

“You too,” said Clara. “When did you last see me? Before, I mean.”

“A few days ago, when I was caught hiding in your wardrobe.”

“Yeah…”

“You calmed him down?”

“Just about. And then went to see Rigsy, a bit later. I still can’t remember more than that.”

“What did you tell the Doctor about that?” Jenny asked.

“That you must have been playing some sort of sick joke. He bought it very easily, considering that all your friends are lunatics. Maybe now, I’ll never have to tell him the truth.”

“Were you planning on telling him before?” Jenny pushed her bowl of cereal away and blew on her steaming tea. Tea from Clara was the only balm she ever needed.

“I don’t know. Is this my life now, then? Living here with you lot, being ostracised?”

“I’m not going to ostracise you,” said Jenny.

“But you’re not letting me go home.”

“The Doctor says that that’s a fixed point,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, because everybody thought I was dead, and now, nobody does. I’ve just vanished. Why can’t I turn back up?” Clara asked her. She’d already asked this and asked it of Thirteen. But Thirteen was adept at not answering questions.

“Clara, I don’t know,” said Jenny. “Maybe things will change. This is a time machine, though. We can always go back.”

“It’s a time machine I’m not welcome on.” And they were arguing again. Quietly, and in measured tones, so nobody noticed, but it was an argument, nonetheless.

“You’re welcome wherever I am,” said Jenny.

“What are you going to do? Protect me?”

“I… if I have to, I-”

Jack interrupted them. Not on purpose, he was paying them no notice – he’d been largely ignoring Jenny since she’d dumped him – but to make an announcement, coming into Nerve Centre from the console room.

“Doctor,” he called through. Thirteen was the only Doctor in there, and she was chopping up a dill leaf to add to her pickling mixture. Every time Jenny saw her in the kitchen, she was pickling something; that morning, it was celery sticks. She looked up. “Phone, for you specifically. The ‘American one’. It’s-”

“I know who it is,” she put her knife down and wiped her hands on a tea towel. On her way past, she smiled at Jenny. “I won’t be a minute. It’s only Vastra. Can you finish that celery for me?”

“Vastra?” asked Clara, but the Doctor was gone. “You all know the Paternosters?”

“We’ve met,” said Jenny, abandoning her cereal completely and standing up. “I’d better deal with the celery.”

This didn’t take long. She made short work of the dill, sprinkled it into the bottom of the mason jar, adding thyme, peppercorns, the celery that had already been cut by the Doctor, and then poured the boiling water over the top. Clara had followed her.

“You’re not supposed to do it this way,” said Jenny. “You’re supposed to steep it on the hob with the spices already in the water first.”

“Yeah, I saw your fridge is full of pickle jars,” said Clara. “And I can’t believe you were complaining about what was in my fridge when this one is loaded up with cartons of milk, Chinese takeaway tubs, and nothing else. It’s like a student flat.”

“What are you two crazy kids talking about?” asked Oswin, who’d just sat down on the other side of the built-in breakfast bar that separated the kitchen from the rest of the room.

“Pickled celery,” said Jenny, sealing up the jar and putting it in the fridge. Clara had brought over her tea and now passed it back to her. “Clara was just insulting the contents of our fridge.”

“Mitchell and I have our own fridge,” said Oswin. “Feel free to peruse it.” Clara just shook her head. She had refused to talk to either of the twins since arriving, Jenny acting as a go-between where necessary.

“Clara has a point,” said Jenny. “If things don’t change, your Miracle Medicine will start going to curing everybody of rickets and scurvy. I don’t think there’s any fruit in this room.”

“It’s none of my business,” said Oswin. “I’m not eating anything.”

“But speaking of eating,” said Jenny, turning back to Clara, “did you want breakfast?”

“I’m craving a banana, actually, but there don’t appear to be any here.”

“…Maybe I’ll go shopping,” Jenny decided. “Buy some vegetables. Lentils. Normal things, you know? I could find a slow cooker around here and make a stew. Vegetable stew…” She zoned out, thinking of what ingredients she would need to make a very hearty, nutritionally dense stew.

Before she’d fully worked it out, Thirteen came back into the room.

“Okay! Jenny, we’re going out,” she decided, retrieving her bag from the sofa. She paused and talked to herself. “Who do we need, who do we need… You’re coming, obviously,” she indicated Beta Clara, and then moved on to Oswin, “and both of you. Where’s Thing One?”

“She’ll be through in a minute,” said Oswin. “I don’t feel like going out today, though.”

Thirteen clicked her tongue. “Fixed point in time. We’re all destined to catch a train from Waterloo, 1894.”

“A train going where?” asked Beta Clara.

“Whitby.”

“We’re… Sorry? Why not just go to Whitby first?”

“I like a good, long train journey. Plenty of time to talk – to the Paternosters, for instance,” said the Doctor. “Our universes aren’t parallel, they crossover. And sometimes, there are these intersections, where nothing diverges. The Paternosters exist on a boundary like that.”

“Meaning what?” said Clara.

“Your Paternosters and our Paternosters are the same people,” said the Doctor. “They might know what you were doing during your time lock. Maybe you visited them. Worth a shot, no?”

“On Victorian trains, that’s a six-hour journey,” said Clara. “And you’d have to change at York and again at Malton.”

“Why do you just know that?” asked Jenny.

“Because I lived in the north of England for the first twenty years of my life, and I’ve been to Whitby via public transport. Which is a piss-take, by the way, because of Thatcher.”

“This is pre-Thatcher! Pre-cars. It’ll be fine,” said the Doctor. “And the R-team. You’d better come along.” This took Rose and River by surprise.

“Where, sorry? I wasn’t listening,” said Rose.

“Whitby. Victorians. Paternosters have asked for our help. Keep up!” said the Doctor. “The strands of fate have already been woven together, and they say that this is where we’re going, and this is who we’re going with.” Back to Oswin: “Go find your sister, I’m leaving imminently, and she’s required.”

“Is that a good idea?” said River. “All three of them out at once.”

“We’ll just tell everybody we’re a freakshow. Dorian Reid’s Travelling Sideshow of Curiosities, and the world-renowned identical triplets – used to be fused together, if not for some clever knifework,” said the Doctor.

“Who’s Dorian Reid?” asked Jenny.

“Don’t ask me that. Just let it happen. I mean it, though, Oswin; go and get her post-haste. Doctor’s orders. It’s going to be a very strange day.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

823: Being Human

Jenny, Alpha Clara, Oswin

Deciding against donning period attire, they were a gang of oddballs when they arrived under the soot-covered, glass roof of Waterloo Station, joining the crowds as they decanted onto the platforms.

The Paternosters were there to meet them. Jenny Flint, dressed as a maid; Strax, in his coachman’s uniform; and Vastra, veiled and ornate. The February air was frigid, and snow clung to the cobbles outside.

“Blimey,” said Jenny Flint, spotting the three Claras. “You’re multiplying.”

“Yes, it’s rare to see all three of them in the same place,” said the Doctor, and then she pointed them out. “Oswin, Alpha Clara, Beta Clara. Parallel universes, that’s all; you’ll remember Alpha Clara from our Ripper encounter, and Beta Clara from… I want to say it was a T-rex? In the Thames?” Beta Clara nodded. “There you are. Memory’s as sharp as ever.”

“And who are you?” said Vastra.

“The Doctor,” she said. “Wait. Is this our first meeting? You and me? History in the making! I’ll explain it all on the way, I promise – long journey, after all.”

“A long journey with two changes,” Beta Clara muttered.

“No, no,” said Vastra. “We’ve acquired a private train, at some expense.”

“There you are, then,” said Beta Clara. “Just like Thatcher wanted.”

“This one,” the Doctor smiled at her. “Dour. She’s been through a lot lately. Come on, come on; all aboard the Paternoster Express.”

Vastra’s private carriage was as fancy as the rest of her, with velvet upholstery, thick curtains, and gas lamps on the walls. With the smell of coal heavy in the air, the steam engine hissed and they were on their way. There were no booths or benches, just tables, like a dining car. Rose and River took up together, as did Jenny and Beta Clara; Alpha Clara, Thirteen, Jenny Flint, and Vastra occupied another table, and Oswin was left with Strax, whose brain she wanted to pick anyway about her medicines.

“So! Clear something up for me,” said the Doctor. “You asked on the phone about ‘the American’. How do you do that if we haven’t met?”

“We were told to,” said Jenny Flint. “I thought it was just somebody playing games.”

“Who told you?” asked the Doctor.

“I believe it was you,” Vastra nodded at Alpha Clara.

“I haven’t rung you,” she said.

“We were told that circ*mstances would conspire to send us to Whitby on a fresh hunt and that when they do, contact the TARDIS and ask for the American – ‘Thirteen’,” Vastra explained. “By a woman with your voice. Of course, I can’t be sure who it was, really,” she cast a glance at Oswin and Beta Clara, “but she had a message.”

“What message?” asked the Doctor.

“She said that she ‘enjoyed the teddy bear’ but that she’d like you to come home now,” said Vastra. “Then she delivered the message about Whitby and told us to ask you to collect a pint of milk and some lip balm on the way back.” The Doctor thought about this for a second and then scoffed.

“Enjoyed it. Sure.”

“What does it mean?” asked Alpha Clara.

“Nothing you need to know at the moment. It’s just a clue so that I know she’s my Clara, and when she’s calling from,” the Doctor explained. “It’s mostly a joke. A very passive-aggressive joke, at that. What kind of milk?”

“Oat milk,” said Vastra.

“Typical.”

“I did wonder about that,” said Jenny Flint. “How do you make milk from oats?”

“You mix them with water, add enzymes, and mill,” said the Doctor.

“Are you going home soon?” asked Alpha Clara.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” She very much would like to know, but the Doctor said nothing else. She did write ‘oat milk’ and ‘lip balm’ on the back of her hand with a pen from her bag, however. When she put the pen back, she withdrew a packet of salt and vinegar Chipsticks.

“Did you bring crisps?” asked Alpha Clara.

“Always.”

“So, hang on,” Rose got involved, reaching over the Doctor’s shoulder and stealing a few crisps without asking. “Why are we going to Whitby? You haven’t said. What are we up to?”

“Investigating,” said Vastra. “Mysterious attacks, unusual symptoms, people vanishing, lights at night. We believe it’s alien. At the very least, it’s not human. I’m not sure why the Doctor and six of her companions need to come as well, though.”

“You’ve bitten off more than you can chew,” said the Doctor.

“In what way?”

“That’ll become clear later.” She moved her crisps out of Rose’s reach, shuffling the chair along the floor to get further away.

“Have you considered seagulls?” said Alpha Clara.

“Seagulls?” said Vastra.

“Yeah, seagulls. Nasty bastards. They’ll rip you open for a chip.”

“Reminds me of somebody,” said the Doctor, shooting a look at Rose, who glared back.

“Not seagulls, no,” said Vastra. “But are you familiar with John Polidori?” Yes, thought Clara. Yes, she was. “We believe it’s a creature very like that, and that it may have some basis in fact.”

“Sorry, vampires?” said Alpha Clara, getting everybody’s attention. “In Whitby? Isn’t that a cliché?”

“Is it cliché or is it inspiration?” said the Doctor.

“Are vampires real?” said Rose. “Is that what this is about? Real vampires?”

“The Great Vampires,” said the Doctor. “As a Time Lord, I’m sworn to eradicate them – though, I’ll say I haven’t been the best at that, especially not recently. There have been a lot of wars, a lot of bloodshed.”

“And they’re in Whitby?” said Alpha Clara. “Seriously?”

“Well, where else would they be? A bunch of vampires, they’re going to go to Whitby – think about it for five seconds, would you?” she said.

“If you already know what’s happening-” Vastra began.

“Not everything. If you haven’t noticed, my predecessor isn’t here. I don’t have these memories. I’m back from the future if that wasn’t clear.” Then, Vastra’s questions became about that, and the ethics of how she was crossing into her own timeline and interfering with events.

This was where Jenny stopped listening. Beta Clara touched her arm.

“Do you need anything?” Clara asked, staying quiet.

“Like what?”

“Dunno. Something to eat? It’s not like you to be off your food.”

“Do you have anything?” said Jenny.

“Not really. The lollipops?”

“What lollipops?”

“You brought them, didn’t you? Left them outside my room, like the shortbread?” said Clara. Jenny frowned, but the Doctor caught her eye. She didn’t need to say anything, but she must have overheard them, and her expression said it all.

“I think that was my mother. Are they significant?”

“Only for cigarette cravings,” said Clara. “Which I’m having quite severely, with all the stress.” The Doctor was intervening to stop Beta Clara from picking her old habit back up.

“Keep them for yourself,” said Jenny. “Don’t want you to be caught short.”

“I’m just worried you’ll start wasting away if you’re not on your usual diet of eating enough food for three grown men. You’ll lose all your muscles.” Jenny smiled a little. “Then again, if that happens you might fit into that jacket a bit better. Are you ever going to give it back?” She was wearing Clara’s stolen café racer again.

“It looks good on me,” she said.

“A jacket like that looks good on everyone. But it wasn’t cheap,” said Clara.

“I can get you another,” said Jenny. “I know an excellent tailor.”

“Why does that sound ominous?” said Clara. Jenny only shrugged. “My clothes are my clothes, Jen. I pick them out very carefully.”

“Yes, I’ve seen your ridiculous shoes.”

“Excuse me?” said Clara, looking down at her feet. “What’s wrong with my shoes? They’re Ash.”

“I don’t understand them, that’s all. They look like trainers, but do they have a heel?”

“Yes. But they call it a wedge.” Jenny stared at her. “What?”

“Why would you put heels in them? It’s sports footwear. That defeats the point.”

“It’s about how they look, isn’t it?” said Clara. “Great shoes. And they make me taller than you.” Most of the time she’d spent with Clara over the past few weeks, they hadn’t been wearing clothes at all – let alone fashion-statement pairs of sneakers. But she saw the way Jenny was looking at her. “I’m so sorry that I want more variety in my wardrobe than you with your endless array of tank tops, t-shirts, and black trousers.”

“This after I offered to get you a new jacket, and everything,” said Jenny, smiling. “I have other clothes. These are just practical. I’ve had these boots for fifty years, see.”

“Oh, but what’s that on the bottom of them?” said Clara. She gasped. “Is that a heel?”

“Yes, for horse riding,” said Jenny. “Like I told you. Practical.”

“Do you know how to ride a horse?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” said Jenny. Clara shook her head and sighed. From her coat pocket, she pulled out a fresh lollipop, strawberry flavoured, and unwrapped it. Jenny touched her knee and squeezed. “Everything okay?”

“I think it was my birthday yesterday,” Clara admitted, lollipop in her mouth.

“What?”

“I worked it out. I think I died on the twenty-first, so, yesterday was my birthday. I’m twenty-nine.”

“Happy birthday,” said Jenny softly, kissing Clara’s cheek when nobody was looking. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

Further down the carriage, Strax had more serious questions for Oswin about the effectiveness of the Miracle Medicine – so effective that it had brought Beta Clara back to life for a second time.

“I didn’t use the medicine for that,” said Oswin, fidgeting with her prosthetic leg. It was ever so slightly crooked and was making her limp. “Nanogenes.”

“Chula? You’re playing with fire,” said Strax. “But at least you didn’t make a bargain with the Zuar.”

“I don’t know what I’ve made a bargain with,” said Oswin, narrowing her eyes at Thirteen over Strax’s shoulder. “But the Doctor was very insistent about it being her decision. I suppose that makes it her price to pay, whatever the price is.”

“Awfully strange, in my opinion,” said Strax. “And the other Doctor doesn’t remember who she is at all.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’ve seen him – absolutely no recollection. I had to check that the Memory Worm hadn’t escaped. He refused a more thorough physical exam, but it appeared to be irreversible.”

“None of this bodes well,” said Oswin. “And Rose can’t see a thing because it’s a different universe.”

“But the Doctor will know,” said Strax, as if the Doctor’s word was gospel. “He must have his reasons – even if he has turned into a boy.”

“She’s a woman,” said Oswin. “And I don’t care what she knows. I don’t trust her.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

824: Interview with the Vampire

Alpha Clara, Thirteen

The air was all snow and sea spray in Whitby, mingling with the eternal smell of fish and chips. Crawling up a Yorkshire cliffside, the town was crowned with the ruined Abbey, always visible.

After some begging from primarily Jenny and Rose, Vastra floated them the money to stop and actually get something to eat, since the train ride had neared about six aimless hours in total. It was still beyond Clara why they couldn’t have met them in Whitby, but at least they had food now – even if the Doctor did have to give Vastra and IOU. It wasn’t like any of them carried Victorian change.

It was far snowier up there than it had been in London; Yorkshire was in the grip of a cold front, and everybody’s fingers Clara as they picked apart their fish and chips. But it hit the spot; she felt much better.

Waylaid by half an hour, stinking of vinegar, but satiated, Vastra took the lead, following directions she’d written in a notebook to an address. Strax had been sent off to procure lodgings and a carriage, so it was all women on their way to a terraced cottage higher up on the western side of the River Esk. This was the home of the woman whose attack Vastra had been asked to investigate.

“It’s beyond me why you brought so many people,” said Vastra, clipped. “We surely won’t all fit inside this house.”

“They need to be here,” said the Doctor.

“Why?” said Vastra.

“Because they were last time. Maybe some can wait outside.”

“Are you joking? It’s bloody freezing,” said Rose. The Doctor ignored her, and Vastra knocked on the front door. A plump, middle-aged woman answered, taken aback by the crowd on her doorstep.

“Mrs Talbot?” said Vastra. “I’m the detective you summoned. We’ve been corresponding.”

“Oh, yes. Vera?”

“Vastra – Madame Vastra. And my associate, Miss Flint.” Jenny Flint curtseyed politely. “These are my… other associates.”

“I wasn’t expecting so many of you,” said Mrs Talbot.

“Yes, they’re, erm… They’re my irregulars, you could say. And they won’t all be coming in.” Their Jenny and Beta Clara waited outside, along with River and Oswin, who weren’t too affected by the cold. That left Vastra, Jenny Flint, the Doctor, Alpha Clara, and Rose to file inside.

The cottage was modest. White walls, a burning fireplace flanked by two armchairs, and a little dining table crammed into the front room. The kitchen in the back was even smaller, a simple galley, and there was a narrow staircase leading to the top floor.

“My husband’s away at sea today, but he’s beside himself with worry for poor Gertie,” said Mrs Talbot, bringing out a tea tray. “She’s been refusing most food and she gets weaker by the day. Thank you for coming so quickly. If she can’t be saved, I hope somebody can catch the fiend who’s done this to her.”

“I very much hope she can be saved,” said Vastra, who refused a cup of tea as nicely as she could. Everybody else accepted Mrs Talbot’s offer. “Do you believe she will be able to speak?”

“She’s barely said a word in the week since it happened,” said Mrs Talbot. “I’m only lucky you saw our story in the Echo.”

“I have people delivering me the local headlines up and down the country, just in case,” Vastra assured her. “Now, what can you tell me about the attack? Did Gertrude say anything we could use to identify the man responsible? I assure you, any detail, no matter how small, could prove invaluable.”

“She’s very good with numbers, my Gertie,” said Mrs Talbot, sitting in one of the armchairs. Vastra took up the other one; everybody else stood. “For two years, she’s been working with Mr Clevenger at the post office, helping with the books. Last week, she was closing up for him on account of him being taken ill – gout, the poor fellow. It was then. It gets dark so early now, and she was coming up the cliff. She said he had dark eyes and was well dressed, but she didn’t recognise him. And that’s odd for a town like this. Everybody knows everybody.”

“Are there any visitors to the town at the moment? Any strangers? Other than my ilk,” said Vastra.

“That’s the oddest thing, there aren’t,” said Mrs Talbot. “The plod thinks it’s some airy-fairy type from Scarborough or York, come to Whitby in a cab one night to commit mischief. But why should she keep getting worse? The doctor doesn’t know what to do, he…” She stopped, tears in her eyes.

“That’s alright, Mrs Talbot,” said Vastra. “I happen to have brought a very good doctor with me.” She pointed out the Doctor, who managed a reassuring smile. “But is there anything else you can tell us? Anything strange you’ve noticed recently? Even if it seems silly.”

“Well…” She was still fighting back tears. Jenny Flint produced a handkerchief and gave it to her. “You are kind, miss.”

“It’s no trouble,” said Jenny. “Take your time.”

“The only thing I can think of is Mrs Richardson. Her dog, Kipper, went missing, a fortnight ago. She was out at night looking for him, and she said she heard singing from the abbey. And there was some fuss when Mr Jennings, the vicar, wanted police accompaniment to look at the ruins. He said he saw lights. But on those cliffs? In the dead of winter? He must have been mistaken.”

“Yes. Perhaps,” said Vastra. “I’d like to examine the young Miss Talbot, if you’d let me?”

“Of course. But try not to disturb her so. We’re preparing for the worst.” Vastra nodded, solemn, and stood, leading the way upstairs.

With the Doctor right behind her, she turned the handle and headed into the dark bedroom, with the curtains drawn. There was a candle by the bed and a fire going, but it was otherwise very dim. Gertie was wrapped up and had the pallor of a ghost. The Doctor pushed past Vastra and took out her screwdriver to perform the examination.

She used the sonic, took the girl’s pulse, listened to her breathing, checked her temperature, and looked her over.

“Well?” said Vastra.

“No mystery,” said the Doctor. “Hypovolemic shock, as expected. Acute blood loss. Her heart rate’s too fast and her blood pressure’s too low, not to mention the blue lips, see?” She pointed this out to Vastra. “Fingernails should be blue, too, if… oh.”

She peeled back the sheets and found Gertie’s wound. It wasn’t on her neck but on her forearm, black puncture marks, blood seeping through Gertie’s nightgown and into the bed – albeit it very little. But Gertie’s fingernails were blue, as expected.

“What do you smell?” the Doctor asked Vastra. A Silurian’s sense of smell was much stronger than a human’s.

“Blood, mainly.”

“Anything else?” Vastra sniffed the air.

“Fermented plums, or berries. Something sweet. Too sweet.”

“Vampire saliva,” said the Doctor. “That and their pheromones make them compelling when everything else wants you to run away. Still, we should be grateful.”

“Why?”

“It’s an anticoagulant. With this level of blood loss, usually, we’d have to worry about clots. But not if he’s been feeding. She needs a blood transfusion within the next twenty-four hours, though.”

“Transfusions are hardly the safest procedure,” said Vastra.

“Not where I’m from; Martha should be able to manage it on the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “We’ll come back later. But we’d need a blood donor who isn’t a manifest. Screwdriver says Gertie’s A positive. What about you?” she asked Jenny Flint.

“Beg pardon?” she said.

“Your blood type.”

“Does blood have types?” she said.

“Right. Okay, hold still.” The Doctor scanned her. “O negative. That’s lucky. Will you donate some blood later? It’s not dangerous, don’t worry. You might be lightheaded for a while.”

“Will that help her?” asked Jenny.

“Yes. It might save her life.”

“Then, of course.”

“Good, good…” said the Doctor. “Do you think Mrs Talbot has any paint we can borrow?” She approached the window and drew back the curtains, easily opening it on the latch. She closed it immediately when a cold draft came in.

“Paint? Whatever for?” asked Vastra.

“I’m going to paint some crucifixes on the glass. That’s how he’s getting in.”

“Climbing through the window to feed on her? And nobody notices?” asked Vastra.

“You’d be amazed at what people do and don’t notice,” said the Doctor. “Vampires – they don’t react to light properly. It’s why they can’t go out in the sun and don’t have reflections. It also makes them hard to see, like they’ve got a built-in perception filter.”

“Sorry, how do you know all this?” asked Alpha Clara from the hall, she and Rose listening. “I’ve never heard you mention vampires before, other than those Venetian fish people, and now, you’re an expert? And they’re weak to crucifixes?”

“I’ve had a few run-ins. And it’s any religious symbols,” said the Doctor. “Faith affects the transition between the quantum and classical states of physics, which they can’t recognise properly because they’re too similar to us – Time Lords, that is. Luckily, I came prepared.” From her bag, the Doctor drew a wreath of garlic.

“You’re saying they’re averse to garlic, too?” said Clara. “What does that represent in the human mind?”

“Nothing, it has a component called ‘allyl’ in it and they’re all allergic,” said the Doctor. “But we won’t be able to find any garlic in Whitby at this time of year in this century, so I brought it with me. We keep her wrapped in garlic for the rest of the day and paint on the windows and she should be fine – it’ll break the compulsion.”

“What compulsion?” asked Vastra.

“She’s inviting him in,” said the Doctor. “They can’t enter otherwise.”

“That’s very silly,” said Clara.

“So is enjoying Ulysses, but we all have our foibles, Clara,” said the Doctor. Clara scowled.

“Next you’ll tell me they’ll die if they get staked through the heart.”

“Everybody dies if they get staked through the heart,” said the Doctor, carefully draping the wreath around Gertie’s neck, Jenny Flint helping to lift her up. “Poor girl. But I think she’ll pull through. We’d better head out – after I paint the windows.”

“And where are we going?” asked Vastra.

“To talk to the vicar about strange lights at the abbey.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

825: Bite Me

Oswin

“How many steps does one town need?” asked Rose as the group hauled itself up the stonework. It was all of them minus Strax who, after finding a hotel for himself, Jenny Flint, and Vastra, had been left on guard duty at the Talbot house.

“Famously, a hundred and ninety-nine of them,” said the Doctor, at the front. “This is one of the most well-known staircases in the world. Dracula himself comes up here, in dog-form.”

“Covered in bloody ice…” Rose muttered. It certainly was hazardous. Alpha Clara gravitated towards Oswin who, with her prosthetic leg, was having a hard time navigating the ice, snow, and deep, stone steps.

“She’s up to something, you know,” said Oswin as Clara lingered. The others ascended quickly enough, and Oswin struggled.

“Come on, swallow your pride, take my arm,” said Clara. Oswin did, and this kept her steady. It didn’t increase the pace though. “Why do you think she’s up to something?”

“Strax told me the Doctor – the Beta Doctor – has forgotten Other You existed. Somebody’s wiped his memory on purpose.”

“Maybe he did himself,” said Clara.

“Why?”

“Because she died. We don’t know how that happened. Maybe it was so awful he doesn’t want to remember,” said Clara.

“You’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit.”

“I… I know you have issues with the Doctor from time to time, but I thought you and her were getting along. You let her stay on your sofa.”

“I’m keeping an eye on her,” said Oswin.

“I trust her. I trust him. I always will.”

Oswin just scoffed. “You’re blind.”

“And you’re in a mood.”

“God, open your eyes, will you? That woman is playing with life and death, and now she’s leading us all head-first into a vampire nest. All I’m doing is thinking it through and trying to work out her next move, but my head’s too – my head’s too f*cking loud, all the time! But not yours. Think about it. Be objective, I’m begging you.”

“Well, she’s right, isn’t she?” said Clara, stopping. They were miles away from the others now. “If she hadn’t been there, if it had been just us, I would’ve done the same thing.”

“I’d’ve refused.”

Quietly, Clara told her, “We both know that’s not true.” Oswin clenched her jaw, defiant.

“It’s wrong. It doesn’t matter which of you did it, it’s wrong. There’s a woman walking around up there who should be dead – how can the Doctor be alright with that? How can any Time Lord look at her and not be driven mad?”

“You don’t know if she should or shouldn’t be,” Clara went on arguing. “But the Doctor seems confident that she should be here right now.”

“Something’s building, I can feel it in the air.”

“That’s just the sea breeze; you’re not used to it.”

“Don’t patronise me, Clara,” said Oswin. Clara sighed. She didn’t want them to fight.

“I’m sorry. It…” She breathed out. “Say you’re right. Say something’s wrong, say she’s no good. What can either of us do about it? Lock her up to stop her from intervening? She still wouldn’t explain it. If the Doctor doesn’t want to tell the truth, there’s no force on heaven or Earth that can make her.”

“Maybe you can persuade her.”

“How? She doesn’t speak to me if she doesn’t want to,” said Clara. “I sat next to her on that entire journey, and she basically ignored me to talk to Vastra. Look, come on, we don’t want to lose them.” She pulled on Oswin’s arm to get her moving again, and they kept going.

“None of this makes sense, anyway.”

“What?”

“Vampires at a ruined abbey.”

“It’s Dracula.”

“You know as well as I do that Dracula hasn’t been written yet, so why set up camp in ruins at the top of a cliff? It’s not exactly temperate. And in February. I think this might be the windiest and coldest place I’ve ever been.” And then she ranted and raved for the rest of the walk up the 199 Steps, about how she hated Earth, she hated weather, she hated history, she hated Victorians, she hated steps, and especially, in that moment, she hated the Doctor.

When they reached the top of the cliff, nobody was in sight.

“Hm…” said Clara.

“The abbey, surely?” said Oswin. “It’s right there.”

“I don’t see anybody; there’s a clear line of sight,” she said.

“Well, where else could they have gone? It’s just a church and some houses.”

“Uh…” Clara thought. “Vampires can’t go into churches, I assume, based on the Doctor painting crucifixes on the windows. So, they probably went to the mansion first. When in doubt, talk to the neighbours, surely?”

“I suppose it’s not the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

They approached the stone mansion, a big square atop the cliff. Slush crunched underfoot, but the walls of the front drive offered some protection from the serious wind. There were no carriages, though, and no lights on inside, despite the sun beginning to set.

Cholmley House, Whitby

“Looks abandoned,” said Oswin. “Maybe they did go to the church. Didn’t the vicar say he’d seen something? Lights in the abbey?”

“Oh, yeah,” said Clara, looking up at the impressive façade of the coastal manor. It was ominous, with its tall windows and symmetry. “I, um… Let’s go back, then. I’ll give Rose a bell, maybe she’ll…” Clara stopped. She could hear the trilling of a piano, somewhere within the mansion. Something bouncy, familiar, and overwhelmingly out of time. “That’s… That’s Elton John.”

“You think Elton John is a vampire?” said Oswin.

“No, no; the piano, can’t you hear it? Come on.” She tried the front door, much to Oswin’s dismay, and it gave. It looked like the lock had been forced. It creaked and groaned, but they were soon inside the building, which was ice-cold and dark. Nobody had bothered to light a candle, but somebody absolutely was playing the piano. “They must be in here, see,” said Clara. “Only the Doctor would come into a spooky, old house and start playing ‘Honky Cat’.”

“Is that what that is?”

“Of course,” said Clara. In a low voice, she sang along to the melody, “Looking for an answer, trying to find a sign, until I saw your city lights, honey, I was blind… You see?”

“All I see is that you can’t sing – which I already knew.” Clara ignored that.

Together, they crept into the parlour, but they didn’t find the Doctor, nor anybody else they recognised. A tall, gaunt man was sitting at a grand piano in a three-piece suit, the velvet tailcoat gathering dust on the floor next to his stool. The curtains were shut, and his visage was grey and lifeless – despite his fingers dancing across the piano with exuberance. A smell hit Clara; she turned and saw a corpse, a body covered in blood wearing a butler’s livery, propped against the wall behind the door. His throat had been ripped away, but this wasn’t a recent kill. Clara covered her mouth and nose. There was another smell in the air, mingling with the rotten flesh: plums.

The pianist slammed his forearms on the keys, startling them both. He turned his gaze on them, black irises shining in a sunken face. When he grinned, she saw he had fangs, yellowing and stained.

“We’re not used to receiving visitors,” he said. To Clara’s surprise, he had a Welsh accent. “You didn’t ring the doorbell.”

“I thought, um…” Clara began, but there was something in his eyes that made her lost for words. “We were just looking for Whitby Goth Festival. You don’t happen to have directions, do you? You look the type.”

“There are no festivals here,” he said. “Only the dead – and people soon-to-be. Do they strike you as having anything to celebrate?”

“Well, uh, their heritage and culture, surely?” said Clara, glancing again at the body. The pianist stood and put his hands in his trouser pockets. He wasn’t as tall as she’d been expecting. Oswin tugged on her arm, wanting to leave – but Clara couldn’t move.

“Yes,” he said, looking at the body himself. “I suppose, if you had rung the doorbell, Anderson here wouldn’t have been in any condition to answer. And I can’t very well answer the door myself. It wouldn’t be proper.”

“You own the house, then? You live here?” said Clara.

“I’m only a guest. Like you.”

“It’s a bit gloomy, isn’t it? You ought to open the curtains.”

“It’s nighttime already,” he said. “You interrupted my morning routine. Music feeds the soul – what better way to invigorate oneself at the beginning of one’s day?”

“Come on,” Oswin hissed, pulling on her arm.

“Who might you be, who disturbs a man’s private concerto?” he asked, approaching. Goosebumps erupted across Clara’s skin and her heart started beating ten times faster. She needed to escape, but she couldn’t. “Tell me your name.”

“Clara Oswald,” she said, unable to refuse. “This is my sister, Oswin.”

“What are you doing?” said Oswin. Then she took matters into her own hands. “I’m sorry, we have an appointment back in town, and we seem to have gotten lost while taking a turn about the cliffs to look at the abbey, and-

“You’re of no interest to me,” he interrupted her.

“You were playing it wrong,” said Clara.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You were playing the song wrong,” she repeated. “And singing the wrong words.”

“Wrong in what way?”

“The rhythm is off – you’re overcomplicating and trying to play in five-four, but it’s actually four-four,” Clara explained. He started at her like she’d just been sick on his shoes. “And, erm… You were saying ‘Honking Cat’. It’s ‘Honky Cat’.”

“Don’t lie to me. ‘Honky’ is not a word.”

“I don’t think it being a word or not really affects the story Elton John was trying to tell,” said Clara quietly.

“Demonstrate.”

“Oh, no, I’d really rather not – I don’t like playing in front of-”

“Demonstrate.”

She was powerless. She pulled herself free of Oswin’s vice-like grip on her arm and brushed passed the pianist, who watched her every move with a hunger in his eyes. Dimly, she knew she shouldn’t do this, she knew Oswin was right. But she was overcome. When he spoke to her, she could think of nothing else, and she could do nothing else.

She demonstrated, playing the rhythm much more precisely, putting the bounce back into it and not making one mistake. It was a bit sore on her hands – Elton John in his imperial phase – given her lack of recent practice, but still a worthy performance, she thought. A performance she would never give if she was in her right mind.

“Fascinating.”

“Clara,” said Oswin. “It’s 1894. How does he even know an Elton John song? We need to leave. We need to go; we need to get the others – Rose and the Doctor. Clara, please – Clara!” But Clara kept going, and the more Oswin shouted at her, the less Clara noticed. She could barely hear.

“They call me Tarquin,” said the pianist. “Tarquin the Pale. But allow me to introduce you to the rest of the clan; I think you’ll make an excellent vintage.”

There was a piercing pain at the base of Clara’s skull, and she blacked out.

DAY 111

March 2024

826: A Date with Death

Thirteen

Vastra wanted to interview the vicar, so the group, minus the twins and Strax, slid into St Mary’s Church on the clifftop. The Doctor let the other six go in first because she’d seen something: a crow perched on a bench on the edge of the East Cliff, with a panoramic view of Whitby Scar below. She sighed, feeling a chill down her spine when she saw the bird. The sunset was nearly complete and the wind was picking up, snow clouds rolling in.

She disappeared without a word, discreetly leaving the gang in the church to conduct their investigation, knowing that the day was a foregone conclusion.

By the time she sat down on the icy bench, the crow had changed its shape.

“If it isn’t my favourite Bloofer Lady,” said the Doctor. The sun had gone down just enough for her to be out without an umbrella, her irises a glistening black and her skin alabaster and sickly. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to be here.”

“I’m on business,” said Clara Ravenwood.

“Alone, or with your offspring?”

“She’s here. She’s over in Cholmley House, looking for something,” said Clara. Unlike the rest of them, Clara was in period attire, with a black, late Victorian gown, a cloak, and quite an elaborate hat adorned with white lilies. In her lap, she had a satchel. “I wasn’t going to get involved, but you’re up to no good, aren’t you?” she said. The Doctor laughed uneasily, waves crashing to shore beneath them.

“Me? Never.”

“Do you really think I can’t tell when somebody’s messing around with my timeline?”

The Doctor cleared her throat; she’d been caught. “It was only a minor alteration.”

“Mm, I’m sure.”

“You make my blood run cold sometimes; you really do,” said the Doctor.

“That’s just biology,” Clara dismissed her.

“It’s not biology when you’re going out of your way to spook me. What’s with the crow?”

“Best way to keep an eye on you all,” she said. “A bat during the day is too obvious.”

“You’d think smoke would be the most subtle.”

“It’s too windy, I’d get blown away,” she said. She reached into her leather satchel and pulled out a Ziploc bag full of pieces of fried black pudding, chopped up into chunks. “Do you want some?” she offered, popping one of the pieces into her mouth.

“I’d rather not.”

“Are you sure? It’s cloned. Full of protein.”

“No, I don’t want any human blood, Clara, thank you,” the Doctor scoffed. “And we both know you wouldn’t share it anyway.”

“True enough. What have you changed?” she asked.

“I’ve just moved the scheduling around, that’s all,” said the Doctor, guarded. She hadn’t been expecting to be grilled about this by Clara Ravenwood directly – but the vampires and Time Lords were so similar, it was no wonder she could tell that her past was being manipulated.

“In what way?”

“You won’t remember regardless, so it doesn’t matter,” she said. Clara kicked her in the shin. “Hey!”

“You’re a real bastard sometimes,” she said.

“All I did was pick you up a little earlier,” said the Doctor. “No death notice, no funeral, no lying to Dave about witness protection.”

“I never lied to Dad about…” Clara began, and then her eyes widened. She smacked the Doctor’s arm. “You little pest – I can’t believe you would change something like that without even asking, Christ.”

“But it worked, see? It was a mess the other way. The memories will come back to you in dreams,” said the Doctor. “I’ve still brought everybody here; I’m still leading that poor girl to her death – leading her to you, here, pretending to be a bird and eating black pudding made of humans.”

“Cloned cells,” Ravenwood reiterated, shaking her head. “You’re in my bad books now. Don’t think you’ll be getting a Christmas card from me this year.”

“Since when are you able to pick up a Christmas card?”

“There are a lot of novelty ones that are fine,” she mumbled, eating another piece of sausage.

“You should be careful; they might see you – there are four of you here now,” said the Doctor.

“They won’t – they won’t see either of us,” said Clara. “We’re just looking for some relics; a genealogy record that’s been lost, and a tome of family history. The last Gutkeled archivist is here right now, Ursula Rockford.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Over there,” said Clara, turning on the bench and pointing something out to the Doctor. She frowned.

“I don’t see…”

“It’s a perception filter, a very effective one,” said Clara. Squinting, the Doctor eventually made it out, a shape shimmering into view as if it had appeared from the fog. It was a big, grey mausoleum entrance, right there between Cholmley House and the abbey’s ruins.

“Isn’t that too close to the abbey? It’s consecrated ground.”

“Consecration doesn’t matter so much when humans rebel against their own church and burn down a monastery,” said Clara. “That’s the Westenra Mausoleum.”

“Westenra. Funny. That’s where they are?”

“Yes. There are dens like that all over Europe, have been for centuries. Easy for other vampires to spot, not so easy for everybody else.”

“And you’re pointing them out to me why?” said the Doctor. “Isn’t that some kind of crime? You usually take care of business internally; nobody expects the Vampire Inquisition, and all that.”

“I can’t stop you from being involved, that’s all predestined,” said Clara, putting her sausage chunks away, wiping her fingers on a tissue, and then taking a small journal from the bag next. “But this is who they are, if you’re interested.”

“I know who they are – they’re your progenitors, both of you,” said the Doctor.

“No, no,” said Clara, flipping open the journal. She’d wedged in there a dozen photographs. The Doctor had to look away; they were pictures of corpses, all of them, desiccated and drained dry, left on the ground like they were nothing. “Courtesy of the Soul-Reaver.”

“Why do they call her that, again?” asked the Doctor.

“Just because of the camera, it’s a joke.”

“And what’s yours?”

“Clara the Lover, which you know,” she said, still unhappy with her vampiric moniker – as she always had been. “Anyway, this was four years ago, in a village near Cuxhaven in Saxony,” Clara explained, flipping through the photos in front of the Doctor. “A hundred and sixty people, the entire village – children and pets included – wiped out by the Cuxhaven Killers. They call it ‘the Ceremony’. We were looking into it, and it led us here; they’re currently making use of the house and its grounds while the owners are wintering in Torquay – although, they still prefer their den. It’s all very serendipitous.”

“What, crossing into your own timeline? Yeah, it tends to be,” she grumbled.

“Well, as you said, it is usually dealt with internally. But now, you’re going to sort it, aren’t you?” said Ravenwood, putting the pictures away again. “There are four of them and a familiar. You might need this.” From her bag she withdrew a wooden stake, holding it out to the Doctor.

“That’s charming. Signing the death warrant for your own flesh and blood?”

“Look, I don’t know how many more people they might kill – we’ve heard about that girl in the village, too,” said Clara. “But I can’t go in there because I’m their successor, and I don’t think Bessie the Rose-Hungry will like that very much.”

“Bessie the-?”

“Just another vampire nickname,” said Clara. “I don’t know what it means – probably just that she likes to drink blood.”

“How original,” said the Doctor, taking the stake and shoving it into one of the transdimensional pockets of her jacket. “Is that all? I should get back before they realise that I’ve gone and come looking.”

“I don’t know. Have you got any messages you want me to deliver?” she asked. “For your wife, maybe?”

“I’m still getting my ducks in a row before I talk to her next,” said the Doctor, looking out across the North Sea, putting her hands in her pockets, her ears burning from the icy wind. “Just let Jenny know that I’m looking out for her, alright?”

“She already knows that; I don’t have to,” said Ravenwood. The Doctor glimpsed some warmth in her eyes. It wasn’t that she was cold, not really; it was biology, as she said. Any organic creature, every cell in its body screamed to stay as far away as possible from a vampire, whether it posed a genuine threat or not. “Listen, maybe you should take the black pudding. It’s cured and cooked, it won’t go bad for a while if you refrigerate it.”

“No. You’re too far gone; how do you think she’ll react to that? At the beginning? You’re eating people,” said the Doctor. “She’ll need to adjust.”

Clara sighed. “You’re probably right. It did take me a while – it took both of us a while.”

“And now you sleep in coffins and turn into crows.”

“I turn into a lot more than just a crow,” said Clara. “But I wish you people would at least try to understand the sense of peace that sleeping in a coffin provides, just because-”

“I’m not talking about this again; I’m leaving.” The Doctor paused, then kept talking. “You won’t believe me, but it was good to see you, Smokey; I feel like I’m stranded down here. Tell Jenny I miss her.”

“Of course,” Ravenwood smiled, and the Doctor saw her fangs. With a sigh, the Doctor turned. But then she had the thought that maybe Ravenwood would have a flask of blood that might be useful, blood that hadn’t been turned into charcuterie. When she turned, Clara was gone. The Doctor heard the flap of wings as she headed back to the church, night now upon them.

She hummed to herself, hands in her pockets, ducking under the low wooden beam the join the others inside, the floorboards creaking. Jenny looked over her shoulder. Beta Clara had taken her arm a while ago and wasn’t letting go.

“Did you go somewhere?” Jenny asked.

“Clearing my head, that’s all,” said the Doctor, smiling.

“In this weather? There’s a snowstorm coming on.”

“Just trying to remember anything I can about today, in case it’s useful. What did I miss? Something about lights, no?” They’d all been listening to Mr Jennings, the vicar, explain his close encounters.

“And voices,” said Jennings. “Singing. Music. But not music I’ve ever heard before – nothing of this world.”

“Did you go take a closer look?” asked the Doctor.

“No. I begged the constabulary to join me, but they said they had better things to do – looking for Mrs Richardson’s dog, I assume,” he said, forlorn. “When I’ve been there during the day, there’s no trace of revelry and not a blade of grass out of place.”

“Probably just ghosts.”

He straightened up. “I am a man of God, not a fool. Who did you say you were?”

“The Doctor.”

“Doctor what?”

“Just ‘the Doctor’.”

“Apologies for my associate,” said Vastra. “She didn’t mean to insult you.”

“I wasn’t joking,” said the Doctor. “But keep your faith, don’t let it waver. In these parts, it’s the key to a long, healthy life. We won’t be keeping you for any longer, though.”

“I hadn’t gotten through all my questions, Doctor,” said Vastra. Even though she was veiled, the Doctor felt her glare.

“Fine. Finish your list,” the Doctor didn’t argue. To everybody’s surprise, though, she talked to Rose next. “I’d like a word. Outside.”

“With me?” said Rose.

“Yes.Just a friendly tête-à-tête with the Big, Bad Wolf.” Rose frowned.

“Alright, then…”

“That’s a tautology,” said Clara, hanging onto Jenny like she didn’t know what century they were in. “A tête-à-tête is always implicitly friendly.”

The Doctor smiled. “Where would I be without you, Smokey? Come on.” She and Rose left and Vastra kept going, getting more precise details about the nature of these lights, which the vicar said came in an impossible array of colours and flashed violently during the small hours.

“You’re being strange,” said Rose. “Stranger than usual. Everybody’s noticed.”

“I’m only being myself,” said the Doctor, taking her away from the church door and the windows so that they wouldn’t be overheard. “Listen. There are forces at play that you can’t see because they involve the other universe.”

“I worked that out when you brought her back to life and I had no idea,” said Rose, dry. “I look at her, and I can’t tell if you’re right or wrong – if she’s fixed or in flux. And everybody around her is muddy – Jenny’s almost invisible now.”

“She has that effect,” said the Doctor. “I know you like to play coy, but the time vortex lets you have this power because you work for it. You and I both know that.”

“…Maybe,” said Rose. The Doctors didn’t usually like speaking to her about how it all worked; Ten always pretended it wasn’t happening.

“Something bad will happen soon – very soon. Or, rather, something that looks bad.”

“So?”

“So, you could stop it,” said the Doctor. “You’ll see it and you’ll want to intervene, because you’re you, and you don’t have the time vortex to tell you otherwise today.”

“I’m not stopping events from playing out how they’re supposed to,” said Rose, horrified even at the suggestion.

“I’m not asking you to; I’m asking you to do something much harder.”

“Which is what?”

“You need to stand back and let it happen. Things are out of balance, and they’re going to be righted. Do you understand?” Rose did. She nodded. “Good.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

827: Tales From the Crypt

Alpha Clara

Somebody was calling Clara’s name, but all she could focus on was the thick, throbbing pain in the back of her head. Feeling as if she’d drunk her own weight in tequila, the shrill shouting eventually cut all the way through.

“What? What?” she groaned.

“Get up!” said her own voice. Oswin.

“I’m sleeping.” She tried to curl back up in bed, but she wasn’t in bed; she was on the cold, hard, damp ground, and it was thoroughly unpleasant.

“Clara…” She heard Oswin’s voice break, and then crackle, and she felt the emotional turmoil radiating from her. With a gargantuan effort, Clara forced herself upright. There was only one light source in the far corner. Squinting, she saw that it was Oswin’s Sphere, the size of a football and emitting only a very dim light, no brighter than an ordinary torch. Next to the Sphere, the glossy metal of the black, prosthetic leg glimmered.

“Oswin – Oswin, bloody hell,” Clara crawled towards the Sphere, her head pounding. “What happened? I don’t remember anything.”

“Well, we ran into a vampire, and he clobbered you around the head with a walking stick,” Oswin explained, her voice coming from the Sphere. “That deactivated me because of our link, and then he tried to smash up my Sphere for good measure. I woke up like you did.”

“It’s all foggy…” said Clara, frowning. She didn’t remember anything after they’d arrived at the house.

“It was like he was controlling you,” said Oswin.

“Right… Must be hypnosis,” said Clara. “I can’t believe this. We come all the way to Whitby and run into the most stereotypical vampires imaginable. Garlic, religion, hypnosis…”

“Yeah. Don’t want to alarm you, also, but we’re in a wine cellar. And I don’t think it’s wine in the bottles,” said Oswin. Clara turned the Sphere so that she could use the light to look around. “I’m not a bloody lantern!”

“Can’t you switch back on?”

“No, he shattered my projection matrix. I suppose it wasn’t sturdy enough.”

“Christ…” Clara realised that Oswin’s Sphere had been dropped onto a pile of bones, mostly human, but some too small. In fact… “I might have worked out what’s happened to Mrs Richardson’s missing dog.”

“And I was lying in all that!?” said Oswin.

“It looks that way.”

There were wine bottles everywhere with dried, red fluid streaming out of them. She hoped that this was just a very unconventional way to store red paint but knew better. Lifting up one of the bottles, the smell of iron was unmistakable. There were maybe a hundred in that room alone, and they’d all either been used or were still being used to store blood. Deeply disturbed, Clara put the bottle back down.

“Do you think it’s human?” she asked quietly.

“Unless they’re the kind of vampires who only drink animal blood,” said Oswin. “But I think Whitby would be short more than just one dog if that was the case.”

“Whitby should be short of every single human who lives here at this rate,” said Clara. “But even Gertie’s been left alive.” She searched her pockets and to her relief found her phone. First thing was to call Rose, but the number didn’t even ring. She tried three times, and still nothing. “Urgh, I bet she’s blocked me again…” She put it away. “Why did he bring us down here just to leave us?” she wondered.

“I can think of a lot of reasons,” said Oswin. “Maybe the scary vampire has more uses for you than just exsanguination. He might like to play with his food.”

“Don’t be crass,” said Clara. “What do you think we should do?”

“Erm, leave? As soon as feasibly possible?” said Oswin. “Before he comes back and puts you under his spell again.”

“Yeah,” Clara hauled herself upright, head still swimming. “Just… give me a minute.”

“Hang on,” said Oswin.

“What?”

“Full system diagnostic just completed. The projection matrix is broken, but not the hover drive, if I can just…” The Sphere sparked to life and went whizzing through the room. Oswin was still invisible and trapped inside, but she could fly. “This is a bit better, at least.” Clara picked up the leg, holding it aloft by the ankle. “That’s a fragile piece of machinery, Clara.”

“Yeah, and it’s also my only weapon.”

“What!? Don’t use my leg as a weapon!”

“I won’t be able to use my powers until this head injury heals fully, you know that’s how it works,” said Clara. “I’ll get you a new leg if anything happens to it, alright? But you’re fine in the Sphere for the moment.”

“I don’t condone this.”

“Do you condone me being killed and drained of blood?”

“…No.”

“There you are, then.”

Leg in hand, Clara approached the cellar door. It wasn’t locked, but it also wasn’t the way out; it led to an earthen tunnel, dug deep below the ground, not to a staircase back up to the mansion they’d been in before.

“This doesn’t look good,” said Oswin.

“Let’s just hope that he isn’t expecting me to wake up from an injury like that, and we have a head start,” said Clara. “And hope that the others come looking for us before it’s too late…”

Rose

“I don’t understand how you spotted this,” said Vastra. “The perception filter even worked on me. It’s extraordinary.” The Doctor had brought them all to the stone entrance of a mausoleum that shouldn’t exist, a mausoleum for a pretend family who had never lived on the land before. The vicar had reliably assured them that nobody of the name ‘Westenra’ had ever lived in Whitby. But there it was, almost completely invisible.

“I’ve encountered vampires a couple of times now,” said the Doctor. “I’m up on their tricks. But we should split up.”

“I don’t think so,” said Vastra firmly. “If that’s their lair, we should all go in together and put an end to this. We’ve already lost two – for all we know, they’ve been captured, or worse.”

“All the more reason for some of us to stay topside,” said the Doctor. “You three go the abbey and see if you can’t work out what they’re doing there at night.” She indicated Rose, River, and Vastra. “We’ll go into the crypt.”

“You expect me to separate from my wife? At a time like this?” said Vastra.

“I’ve got two sterling combatants with me, don’t worry about that,” said the Doctor of the two Jennys.

“I should go to the abbey, then, surely?” said Beta Clara. “I’ve already died at least once this week; I’d rather it doesn’t happen again.”

“I don’t know,” said the Doctor. “Think about it. It’s night now, and the vicar said they come out and rave in the ruins when the sun goes down.”

“So, you’re sending us into the arms of the vampires?” said Rose.

“For heaven’s sake,” said Vastra. “Distribute the weapons, dear.”

“Right you are,” said Jenny Flint, opening the bag she’d been carrying all day. It was full of stakes, rosaries, hip flasks, and little pouches that smelt very strongly of garlic. “Garlic powder, I’m afraid; can’t get real garlic at this time of year without the TARDIS’s help. And flasks of holy water from St Paul’s.” The countermeasures were distributed among them.

“If in doubt, recite the Lord’s prayer,” said the Doctor. “Or sing Christmas songs. In my experience, they hate ‘Christmas Lights’.” She paused. “On second thoughts, that might not have anything to do with religion.”

“What did Coldplay ever do to you?” said Rose.

“Let’s not get into that right now. Are we agreed?” said the Doctor.

“Do we really have a choice?” said River.

“No, you don’t.”

“Then, we’re agreed.”

So, they split up, the twins still nowhere to be found. Snow began to fall as soon as the Doctor, Beta Clara, and both Jennys disappeared into the tomb – after Rose had loudly broken down the stone slab that covered the entrance with a powerful kick. Stakes and anti-vampire tokens in hand, the trio headed towards Whitby Abbey.

“What did the Doctor want?” River asked her outright. No beating around the bush.

“I shouldn’t say,” said Rose.

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“I don’t think it is good. I suppose we’ll see.”

“She didn’t tell you why so many of you had to come, did she?” asked Vastra.

“No. She just told me not to do something, but I don’t know what.”

“Typical,” said Vastra. “Whatever she’s doing, I don’t believe it’s something any of us would support if we knew the truth.”

“The Doctor turned up to die at Lake Silencio because it was a fixed point in time,” said River. “I think you’re all underestimating her commitment to the untempered schism. It takes a lot for the Doctor to face death – true death. And he ordered all three of us not to intervene, either, when the time came.”

It wasn’t a long walk to the abbey. Through the thickening snow, Rose spotted something perched above one of the destroyed arches. A crow.

“Don’t crows fly south for the winter?” she said, looking up at it. But in the blink of an eye, it was gone, disappeared into the night.

“I don’t see anything,” said River.

“Hm… Can vampires turn into things, do you think?”

“Usually bats, isn’t it?” said River. “He turns into a wolf in Dracula. Not crows, though.”

“They’re bad omens,” said Vastra. “Never take the appearance of a crow lightly. Especially not at this time of year, because you’re right; they do go south. The gulls are all gone.”

In the ruins, they separated, each going a different way through the stone walls and the empty windows. As the vicar had said, nothing was out of place, even if it sounded like the vampires were holding a disco out there during the witching hour each night.

“Find anything!?” Rose called to the others.

“Nothing!” River answered.

“Nor I!” said Vastra. Rose sighed. Her mind kept wandering to what the Doctor was up to, but then she stopped it. She decided that the less she knew, the better. She didn’t see the crow again.

Reaching the far end of the abbey, Rose had all but given up. They were far too early to encounter the vampires, it was barely the evening; she doubted they’d show up until after midnight, at least.

But she was dead wrong. When she made to turn, the hard muzzle of a gun was pressed into the back of her head. She froze.

“Still, now,” said a calm, male voice. How could she refuse when he sounded so silky? Rose relaxed completely. “Tell me. What are your friends?”

“A robot and a Silurian,” she said immediately. She never even thought about not telling him the truth.

“In this decade? How interesting. Turn around, child – slowly.” She did. She took him in; tall, clad in a debonair suit, complete with a capelet around the shoulders and a handlebar moustache curled at the tips. Her skin turned ice cold, even colder than the snow. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for vampires,” she said.

“Rose!” shouted River. “Rose! Watch out! They’re here!” She heard the sounds of a scuffle; they were fighting.

“That will be my associate,” said the tall man. Then he took a step back from Rose, removed his hat, and bowed to her deeply. “Sir Buster Catesby, at your service.”

“Oh, hello,” said Rose, staring at him and the pearly white fangs he flashed at her when he grinned.

“I think you’d better come with me.”

“Yes, I had…” She followed him back into the heart of the ruins, old walls towering around them, where River and Vastra were both in the middle of fighting, quite acrobatically, a man in a leather trench coat wielding a laser weapon. He shot wildly and missed every time.

Sir Catesby coughed loudly, and then pulled Rose towards him and pointed his gun, a revolver, right at her temple.

“Stop fighting this instant, or the girl gets shot in the head,” he said. They obeyed, and the man in the trench coat backed away, holding his gun at them both. River had a gun, too, and had it aimed squarely at him, glancing between him and Catesby. It was a real Mexican stand-off.

“Now, she’s already very kindly told me that you’re some sort of machine, and you are a Silurian,” he said. “Although, I could have gotten that from the smell alone, even without seeing those scales. Eurgh.”

“That’s rich, coming from a vampire,” said Vastra, wielding a sword. Catesby smiled.

“Rose, do something,” River hissed.

“What?” Rose frowned.

“What have you done to her?” said Vastra.

“I’ve merely compelled her to see that the best course of action here is to come and meet our brood-mother. She won’t be able to resist you two – and the girl smells…” He sniffed Rose’s hair and grinned. “She smells like no other human I’ve met. Far more intoxicating.”

“You’re going to take us to your leader?” said River.

“Yes. She’ll be thrilled. Especially when she sees I’ve brought an aperitif.”

“You don’t hurt her, and we’ll come with you,” said River, backing down and holstering her gun. They did want to get into the vampire lair, after all. Perhaps this was the best way to infiltrate it – to truly be invited in by the vampires; wouldn’t that be ironic?

“Dynamite, make sure they don’t try anything.”

“Right you are, sir,” said the man in the trench coat – ‘Dynamite’. His eyes were icy blue; he wasn’t one of them, but he was doing as bade. And he had a gun from the future.

“Wonderful,” said Catesby. “This is exactly the sort of thing we need to liven this place up a little. It’s awfully gloomy on these cliffs, you know.” He dragged Rose away. “Come along, all of you, or the Whitby Ripper will have this dear girl’s head.”

Rose had no choice but to follow him, so River and Vastra did, too.

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

828: Bad Blood

Jenny

“I met them in E-Space the first time,” said the Doctor, leading the way through the tunnels, carved through the cliff with candles lining the walls. She had a large torch she’d brought along in her transdimensional bag; in one hand was the torch, and in the other was a rosary, wrapped up and clutched in her fist.

“What’s E-Space?” asked Jenny Flint.

“Exo-Space,” said the Doctor. “I thought they were just a myth, but they’re pan-universal. Every sapient planet in the universe has a vampire story. It was just three of them we found, but they had an entire society under their thumb. They were trying to resurrect the King Vampire.”

“They have a king?” said Beta Clara.

“The last of the Great Vampires. The Time Lords fought a war, the Eternal War, against them,” she said. “Now, we’re sworn to destroy every single one we encounter.”

“All of them?” said Clara. “Are they all evil?”

“I don’t know.” But her tone of voice made Jenny think that she very much did know. She changed the subject, however. “So, Jenny Harkness. When are you thinking of changing that surname?”

“I don’t care for surnames,” said Jenny.

“You’re preaching to the choir, but here we are with Jenny Flint. We need some way to differentiate, and I don’t think you like being ‘Harkness’ anymore, somehow.” Jenny grunted.

“I suppose I’ll go back to ‘Young’, then,” she said. Her most frequent alias.

“Young?” said Clara. “What is that, a joke?”

“Er, yeah, it is, actually,” said Jenny sheepishly. Clara smiled.

“Perfect,” said the Doctor. “Jenny Flint and Major Young.” Jenny Young tripped.

“What did you call me?” she asked.

“Just by your rank,” said the Doctor. Jenny grimaced.

“That was a long time ago.”

“It doesn’t bother me, Blue,” said the Doctor.

“You were a major?” said Clara. “In what army?”

“I’ve told you; I was in the Homeworld Alliance. I’d rather not talk about it, though.” Jenny was resolute. “Wait, hang on – there’s a dead mouse on the floor there.”

“Is that noteworthy?” said Jenny Flint.

“We just passed the same mouse, back there,” said Jenny Young. “But how can we be going in circles? There are no forks. Is this just a square?” It couldn’t be a square, though; they’d turned too many times and in too many contradictory directions.

“Vampire tricks,” said the Doctor. “This is a non-Euclidean tunnel.”

“Meaning what?” said Clara.

“It doesn’t fit within the normal parameters of perception and geometry. It’s tricking us into thinking it’s a maze when it probably isn’t,” said the Doctor.

“How are we supposed to find anything, then?” said Jenny Young. “How are we supposed to leave?”

“I don’t know… Let’s just keep going.”

“I should’ve just stayed at home and sorted out my stew,” Jenny complained. Clara took her arm again, latching onto her tightly.

“You’ll have plenty of time for stew later,” she said.

“Uh-huh…”

“Is something wrong?”

“You’re being very familiar,” said Jenny, slowing down a little. Jenny Flint and the Doctor kept going.

“Oh.” Clara’s grip on her relaxed.

“No, I didn’t say you had to stop. I’m just surprised.”

“Why?”

“Maybe because you’ve been dead for god knows how long, walking around out there, and you haven’t tried to contact me at all,” said Jenny quietly. “That’s confusing. It makes me… makes me question how I…”

“How you what?” Clara prompted in the softest voice imaginable.

“You wanted to know if we were friends,” said Jenny. “Is that what a friend would do? Die, get resurrected, and then ghost me? What if it’s been months – years, Clara?”

“I can’t answer that,” said Clara. “I don’t remember anything. But I like you just as much as I did before.”

“Yeah, before, when you made me hide in the wardrobe and chucked me out,” Jenny reminded her.

“That… What did you want me to do? Tell the Doctor that I’m shagging his daughter behind his back, and he needs to get over it? Because you never said you wanted that.” She hadn’t, she supposed. “We’ve lost them.”

“What?”

“They’ve turned a corner somewhere,” said Clara, pulling Jenny deeper into the tunnels. They reached a fork, the first one they’d encountered, but saw nobody in either direction; there were no more candles, either. Clara cursed and then took out her phone, turning on the torch.

She shrieked. A face appeared, ghostly white and leering, yellow fangs in a sunken face. He had come out of nowhere. Jenny grabbed Clara and shoved her out of the way, wielding her stake.

“Stay behind me!” she ordered. The vampire menace approached.

“Didn’t I already take you to the winery?” he said. “You were nearly dead.”

“I think you’re confusing me with someone else!” said Clara, hiding behind Jenny. The vampire frowned.

“How can that be? Wait…” He paused and sniffed the air, closing his eyes and drinking it all in. “Ah. Another one. How odd. But you don’t smell the same.”

“What did you do with Clara? The other Clara?” said Jenny, holding her stake out.

“Didn’t I just say? I left her for dead in our wine cellar. She’ll bottle up nicely when I drain her later.”

Jenny pulled out the little pouch of garlic powder she’d been given and flung it at him. It covered his face, and he wailed as if it was pepper spray, collapsing into the dirt wall. When he was weakened, all the candles burst into flame again; how had he brought the darkness with him like that? Could they manipulate the shadows?

“We’re leaving now,” said Jenny.

“You’ll never get out. This entire den is designed to fool your type,” he said, wiping the garlic powder away with his shirtsleeves. His face was horribly burned.

“Meaning what?” said Jenny.

“Time Lords. Do you think I don’t know one when I smell one? I’m Tarquin the Pale; I’m five hundred years old. I taught Henry VIII how to play the lute.”

“Alright? That’s nice?” said Jenny. “Look, me and my – me and her, we’re leaving. You’re going to let us leave.”

“I don’t think so; I can’t let a Time Lord escape. Bessie will so love to get revenge on one of you – especially when we thought you’d all died,” he said. His eyes fixed on Clara. “Take that stake from her hands.”

“Why would she-”

Clara seized the stake. Jenny tightened her grip; she was a lot stronger than Clara, but she didn’t want to hurt her.

“Clara, stop,” she said.

“Take it from her,” said Tarquin. It was as if Clara was under a spell. She fought against Jenny with all her might, trying to wrestle the stake free.

“No! Let go! Clara – if you would only – I can get rid of him right now, you-” She was too distracted. Tarquin the Pale kicked Jenny sharply in the ankle. It didn’t break, but it was injured enough that she fell to her knees, and the stake slipped from her fingers. Clara had it now.

“Bring it to me,” said Tarquin. Clara obeyed.

“You have to fight it!” said Jenny.

“Why don’t I ask her to stake you? Through the hearts?” said Tarquin. “There’s no coming back from that.”

“You-” Jenny lunged for him.

“Don’t let her,” he ordered, and Clara got in her way. Jenny stopped. “You have to get through her to get to me.”

“What?”

“Stop at nothing to protect me,” he said. “I am your master. You will obey.”

“I will obey,” said Clara. She was not herself at all.

“No,” said Jenny.

“It’s almost sad how easy it is to manipulate them,” said Tarquin, twirling the stake in his hands. “Humans are feeble. If I only had a loud enough voice, I could order all of Whitby to walk into the sea, and they would be helpless.”

“What do you want?” said Jenny. He paused and studied her. Already, the burns on his face were healing.

“Odd. You Time Lords are supposed to eradicate us on sight, by any means necessary. And yet, you baulk at doing your duty for this girl? This human?”

“I…” Jenny stared at Clara. For a moment, there was a flicker in Clara’s eyes, a moment of recognition. It wasn’t her fault, and maybe she’d have understood, but Jenny couldn’t hurt her. She didn’t have it in her. “What do you want? For her?”

“You’re bargaining with me?”

“I’ll do anything if you just leave her alone,” said Jenny. “Please.”

“…It must be you,” he said, like he’d realised something. “Oh. Ursula will be thrilled. You had better come with me, Time Lord. I think we can find a purpose for you to serve.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

829: A Murder of Vampires

Rose

A woman sat atop a throne of bones in the squalid cave the vampires called their home. In her lap, she had a tub of Ben & Jerry’s – Minter Wonderland – and her eyes were glued to a tube TV playing Countdown on a videotape that had been rewound so many times that the scratches were all over the screen. The whole room stank of blood and plums.

“Are you listening to me?” asked the shorter vampire, Tarquin the Pale. “She’s a Time Lord.”

“I rather think a Silurian and a complex machine trumps a Time Lord,” said Sir Catesby.

“In what world?” said Tarquin. “The Time Lords are our sworn enemies.”

“And the Silurians are not much better,” said Catesby.

“You’re still bitter about that girl who stole your watch,” said Tarquin.

“It was a damned good watch, and you know it! It was a Blancpain, and every day I am bereft without it, all because of that blasted lizard.”

“Why not just buy a new watch? You do so enjoy reminding us how moneyed you are, Buster. Or can you not simply steal a watch from one of your many victims?” said Tarquin.

“Please,” said the woman. “You know Buster is awfully sensitive about his victims.”

Catesby scoffed. “I have victims to spare.”

“You’ve been sparing them?” said Tarquin.

“That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. I’m the Whitby Ripper.”

“And you haven’t ‘ripped’ a bastard thing,” said the woman. “Other than that dog, poor Kipper. And I thought he was a jolly creature.”

“He was a beast,” said Catesby. “A yapping little mongrel.”

“It is beyond me why you chose this philanderer at all,” said Tarquin. The woman turned and threw the television remote at him with tremendous force. It hit him in the head, and he swore.

“You have brought me five prisoners, of which only two are edible,” she said.

“It is seven,” said Tarquin, rubbing his face where the remote had struck it.

“And where are the others?”

“I…”

“You have misplaced them again, haven’t you?”

“They were in the winery, and I merely got a ditty in my head, Elizabeth. You know that when there is a ditty in my head, there is nothing to do other than rush to the piano and notate it,” he said.

“You are lucky I have nothing else to hand to throw at you,” said the woman – Elizabeth?

This was what it had been like the entire time they’d been prisoners down there. Three vampires bickering with each other, a fourth occasionally poking their head in, and the mysterious human – Dynamite – sweeping their floor and fetching fresh glasses of blood for them from one of an array of wine bottles.

Since they’d all been bound up with medieval shackles and bits of rope, wrists and ankles tied together, Catesby had released Rose from his spell. The same thing had happened to Beta Clara with Tarquin the Pale, and that was how all five of them were in bondage in a corner of the cave, watching the vampires play house from afar.

“’Scuse me,” said Rose. “Where do you get all this stuff from? The telly, the ice cream? There’s a mini fridge over there,” she nodded at it. It was black, of course. Trust a group of vampires to insist on a black fridge.

Elizabeth coughed, bored. “I suppose I will tell you. You smell so delectable, dear girl – as if time itself has touched you – that I don’t believe you’re long for this world. If only we didn’t have so many open bottles already. But we mustn’t waste anything.”

“Right, sure… How do you keep it all powered?” Did they have electricity yet in 1894?

“It’s all down to our good friend, Sergeant Dynamite,” Elizabeth pointed him out. “A worthy familiar if there ever was one; he bestowed upon us a fusion battery that will outlast the sun.”

“Countess Báthory will choose me when she deems me acceptable,” said Dynamite. At that, Beta Clara looked up.

“I don’t believe it,” said River. She’d been staring at Dynamite this whole time. “It’s Kurt, isn’t it? Kurt Regis!” So, his name wasn’t really ‘Sergeant Dynamite’.

“You know him?” said Vastra.

“Hardly,” said River. “We’ve had run-ins. He’s a time agent – or, he was a time agent, and his name wasn’t so silly. Is that where you got your technology? A tame time agent playing delivery boy?”

“He is much more than a delivery boy!” said Elizabeth. “Sometimes, I let him clean my feet. With his tongue, of course.”

“And it’s my pleasure, Your Ladyship.” She smiled at him.

“Did he say Báthory?” said Clara, staring at her. She was wrapped up in Jenny’s arms, Jenny keeping her close after the hypnosis incident. “You’re Elizabeth Báthory? The Elizabeth Báthory?”

“My reputation precedes me,” she said.

“Who is that?” asked Rose.

“One of the most prolific serial killers in history,” said Clara. “They say she lived in a castle and bathed in the blood of virgins – potentially hundreds of them.”

“All slander!” Báthory proclaimed. “I slaughtered barely a dozen girls, and certainly not to bathe in their blood. What is the good of bathing in something when it tastes so divine? I was freed, is the truth.”

“From Hungary? Nearly three hundred years ago?” said Clara.

“Yes! Of course, we’ve certainly killed many since then – but it was the Basarabs who defamed me, I know it. First, it was this appalling nickname – ‘Rose-Hungry’ – and now-”

“What was that?” asked Rose. She was really beginning to think she should ignore the Doctor’s warning and get everybody out of there as soon as possible.

“Did nobody teach you not to interrupt?” said Báthory, fire raging in her black eyes.

“Just want to know about your nickname.”

“It is a great insult to my mistress,” said Dynamite.

“Yes,” said Báthory. “As if I would ever stoop so low as to stock rosé in my cellar. The very idea is an insult; Hungary has the greatest red grapes in the world. The Basarabs are uncultured, but what can one expect from Vlad’s offspring? They’ve been trying to add a little class to their line for years by pursuing the Romanovs, and yet, none of them has managed to turn one.” She sighed. “The cretins simply will not accept that the Gutkeled claim to the Carpathian territory is the legitimate one. Ours is a great lineage, even if Tarquin disagrees with my choices.”

“I do not disagree with all your choices, Bess,” said Tarquin.

“Bah!” said Catesby, throwing himself onto a chaise lounge they’d brought down there, hat in his lap. “Those Basarabs will be the death of me. They have sent more foul letters, you know. One is frightfully cruel – it is me, with my head impaled on none other than young Kacper’s member.”

“You should not have become so intimately acquainted with Kacper Iskrzycki’s member in the first place, then,” said Tarquin. “You knew they call him Kacper the Fancy. He is not known for his… steadfastness.”

“I do not appreciate his drawings, nonetheless,” said Catesby. “We should go back there and kill him.”

“No,” said Báthory. “We are on the cusp of organising another Ceremony, and we will be going to the Faroe Islands before the winter is out.”

“So you say, but I still believe we should return to the continent,” said Catesby. “I long for Paris.”

“Paris does not long for you,” said Tarquin. “The Valois have banned you from showing your face in the city and in Versailles, have they not?”

“You are a terrible bore!” said Catesby. “You never want to let me have my fun.”

“Your fun is desperately tedious and involves tupping everyone you see,” said Tarquin.

“And yet, I have never tupped you.”

“Whatever, whatever,” said Rose. “Why, if you’ve got a time agent and a vortex manipulator, do you stay here? In a dungeon in Victorian Whitby?”

“Why shouldn’t we?” said Báthory. “It is perfectly pleasant. Or do you have some comment about our living conditions?” Other than the horrible smell of corpses, the rotten coffins, and the broken television?

“You’re living here by choice?” said Rose. “And you’re watching Countdown?”

“This is the best thing your society has produced in aeons,” said Catesby. “I think it’s marvellous that a woman has been allowed to do such sums. And only we of fine breeding can appreciate the language games.”

“Everybody in the future watches Countdown.”

“No, no,” said Catesby. “This is for the upper echelons, as you must know how to read. The peasantry can’t read.”

“They’ve been in education for decades, you fool,” said Vastra. “Do you know nothing of this world you haunt?”

“I know all I wish to,” said Catesby. “And I will not take a lecture from a Silurian.” Were the vampires just going to keep them prisoner in there until Countdown finished? On the tiny screen, Rose saw Carol Vorderman placing the vowels and consonants on the board. Soon, the timer was going. When it finished, all the vampires cheered.

“This is a waking nightmare,” said Rose. “Living in a hole in the ground watching old Countdown videos forever.”

“That’s the only thing you lot do, too,” Beta Clara muttered. Rose glared at her.

“Well, we are soon to move on from Whitby,” Báthory announced.

“Why?” said Vastra.

“We are nearly out of blood,” she said. “And it won’t do to stay here at the scene of the crime once our supplies have been replenished. There are over a thousand bottles to fill, you know.”

“That’s sick,” said Rose. “You’re going to kill everybody in Whitby?”

“We must get our blood from somewhere. It’s far more efficient than what Catesby prefers.”

“I still do not know why you won’t allow me to transform Gertrude,” he said. “She is a prize wit. I have never met a woman with such a sense of humour, and such a gift with numbers, other than dear Carol. You don’t think we could use someone like that?”

“I am teaching you a lesson,” said Báthory. “Control your vices, or I will put a stake through your coffin one night.”

“You would never. You like me too much.”

“But she does not like your middle-class girl,” said Tarquin.

“If only one of you would give her a chance!”

Their cyclical arguments and bickering were interrupted by the fourth vampire reappearing again, a middle-aged woman who spoke in an early version of the transatlantic accent.

“It is here, Bessie,” she said, a book in her hands. “I’ve found it, the Love Knot.” They all stopped talking. “It’s here, in red and white.” The book she was reading was bound with human skin and written in blood, of course.

“What does it say, Ursula?” said Báthory.

“It says that the Great Lover will erase the Great Scourge. The Doctor.”

“This Time Lord is not the Doctor,” said Catesby. “Tarquin wouldn’t have stopped talking about it if she was.”

“Perhaps it is a different one, then,” said Ursula. She looked at Jenny. “You. Do you know the Doctor?”

“You’re just assuming that all Time Lords know each other?” said Jenny.

“You will answer me, or we will save you for last,” said Ursula.

“Why does it matter? Are you frightened of him?” said Jenny. “What did you call him? The ‘Great Scourge’?”

“The Great Scourge of the Great Vampires,” said Ursula. “Our mortal enemy. This prophecy is thousands of years old; it was written within the walls of Babylon, by a vampire who could see events that had yet to pass – they were time sensitive as a human. It is clear as day; the ‘Lover’ will be the salvation of the Gutkeled line. She will safeguard our legacy.”

“But the Doctor isn’t here,” said Jenny. “I don’t even know him.” Ursula narrowed her eyes at Jenny and then turned her attention to Clara.

“Does she know the Doctor?” she asked.

“Who’s that?” Clara played dumb.

“Drat. One of you boys ask her; I’ve never been able to compel,” she said. There was a brief argument between Catesby and Tarquin over who would get to do this, which was resolved when Báthory told Tarquin to step down and let Catesby feel useful for once.

“Does she know the Doctor?” Catesby asked.

“She’s their daughter,” said Clara, despite Jenny imploring her not to.

“And do you know the Doctor’s whereabouts?”

“Here, in Whitby,” said Clara. All four vampires cackled.

“Thrilling. And you…” said Ursula, eyeing Clara. “Well. There is a resemblance, is there not?” She turned the page of the tome in her hands and the other vampires crowded around.

“What are you looking at?” asked Vastra.

“Merely a drawing,” said Ursula. Silence fell as the vampires looked from the drawing on the page to Clara and back again.

“Well, well, well,” said Tarquin. “Tarquin the Pale has done it again. I have delivered the Lover unto us. Please, hold your applause.”

“As you told it, there are three of them,” said Catesby.

“One is a mirage – a mere picture,” said Tarquin.

“That still leaves two. How are we to know which is the correct one?” Oh, no. Every member of Vastra’s irregulars turned to Beta Clara, who had heard every word.

“I’m not even from this universe,” she said, the vampires scrutinising her. “I really think it’s probably the other one you’re after…”

“The Doctor would not harm his daughter’s mate,” said Tarquin, then to Jenny directly, “and you would not slay her. You’re too weak. You couldn’t even push her aside to get to me.”

Jenny’s eyes widened.

“N-no – she isn’t my mate, we’re not-” Jenny tried to argue.

“How elegant,” said Báthory. “What better way is there to ensure the future of our bloodline, than by creating a Great Vampire that a Time Lord is devoted to?”

“No! You can’t! I’ll do anything, please, don’t hurt her, don’t-” Jenny’s begging fell on deaf ears.

Báthory barked her orders. “Dynamite, ready the altar; Ursula, draw the blood; Buster, prepare the girl; and Tarquin…”

“Yes, Countess?” said Tarquin.

“You had better put on some music.”

DAY 111

Rewritten March 2024

830: Once Bitten

Thirteen

“You don’t seem all that worried about people disappearing,” said Jenny Flint, close at the Doctor’s side with a stake raised and at the ready.

“I do always tell them not to wander off,” she said. “They’ll turn up sooner or later.”

“You’re not behaving like yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so,” said Jenny. “Sometimes, you have these funny turns, where you start disregarding all your friends.”

“On the contrary, I’m regarding my friends even more highly than usual,” said the Doctor. “And I don’t think they’ve disappeared. I think we’ve disappeared. There’s that dead mouse again.”

“Is there no Time Lord way to counter it? Can’t the screwdriver do something?” asked Jenny.

“No, it’s not electronic. The trickery is all in the construction. Fitting bigger dimensions inside smaller ones – relatively speaking, that is. If I wanted to lose people on my TARDIS, I’d do the same thing,” she said. “We’re waiting for something, that’s all.”

“For what? A vampire to find us?”

Something shone in the torchlight ahead. The Doctor smiled.

“I think a vampire already did, see?”

There was fresh paint on the wall ahead where the tunnel split in two. In TARDIS-blue paint, the torch reflected the letter ‘G’, slathered on the wall.

“Directions,” said the Doctor.

“From who? A vampire?”

“Our friendly, neighbourhood Soul-Reaver, I assume,” said the Doctor. Ravenwood had said that her progeny was in the den, looking for things.

“What’s the ‘G’ for?” asked Jenny.

“Gutkeled,” said the Doctor. “This way.” She turned left, the direction the marking indicated, and saw another one at the far end.

“What does that mean?”

“It’s them, the clan; their name,” the Doctor explained. “Four vampires here, three of them sired by the leader – Elizabeth Báthory, the Bloody Countess. Hungarian serial killer, supposedly.”

“Then, why aren’t they called ‘Báthory’?”

“Beats me. I think they like to take the names from further back. Gutkeled is a much older house, with more nobility under it – not to mention, it’s not as infamous,” said the Doctor.

“And you said friendly. You have friends who are vampires.”

“I don’t believe they’re all bad,” said the Doctor. “I did once. I thought there was something about them that made them innately vicious, but… It’s a condition, and I’ve seen them manage it. And I’ve seen Time Lords be just as violent, and I’d never attack one of them on sight.”

“But you’re the last one. You and Jenny.”

“They have a habit of reappearing, exactly when you least-”

Somebody jumped out in front of her wielding a huge weapon, startling both the Doctor and Jenny, who readied herself to attack.

“We’ve been down here for bloody ages!” The voice was robotic, but intimately familiar, coming from a large, glowing ball in the air. It was the twins, Oswin stuck in her shell and Alpha Clara wielding the prosthetic leg, which she now dropped so that she could fling her arms around the Doctor in a hug that, for once, the Doctor allowed her.

“It’s okay,” said the Doctor, wrapping her arms around Clara. “Did the vampires get you, Coo?”

“Yes, no thanks to you,” Clara squeezed her. “One of them clubbed me around the head with a walking stick, nearly killed me, then left me for dead in their wine cellar. We’ve been wandering around these tunnels ever since.”

“So have we,” said Jenny Flint. “Everybody else is gone.”

“Gone?” said Oswin. “How can they be gone?”

“We split up so that some people could search the Abbey, and now my Jenny and Other Clara have gotten turned around in these tunnels somewhere,” said the Doctor. “But it’s fine. We have a guardian angel leaving us clues.” There was another ‘G’ on the wall behind the twins.

“That paint looks fresh,” said Clara.

“If they don’t want you to see them, you won’t,” said the Doctor. “But I know who it is, and none of you need to worry. Now, come on. I don’t think we have much time left.”

“Time left until what?” asked Oswin.

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

Rose

Clara had been released from her shackles, Catesby hypnotising her and throwing Jenny back with ease when she tried to fight against him. It was breaking Rose’s heart to watch, even more when Jenny began to plead with her to do something, to break the shackles, free them all, and teleport Clara to safety. But the Doctor’s words rang in her head; it was much harder to let this happen than to do something to stop it, and that was how she knew she had to stand back, even without the time vortex whispering in her ear.

Clara was docile. She didn’t understand what was happening, and not a sound escaped her when Báthory bit into her neck to feed, ripping her jugular. Jenny screamed. She screamed enough for both of them, and she hurled what rocks she could find at Rose.

“Do something!” she begged. “Help her, Rose! She’ll die!”

“I can’t,” was all Rose could say. “I think it needs to happen. The Doctor said it needs to happen.”

“I don’t care about the Doctor!”

“Is there nothing to be done?” asked Vastra. She and River had been trying and failing to free themselves from the heavy shackles. Rose could snap hers in half with ease, but she didn’t. She didn’t do a thing.

“It has to happen,” she insisted, trusting the Doctor. The Doctor wouldn’t put Jenny through this if it wasn’t fixed, would she? She wouldn’t vanish and leave them all to watch, as the Countess bit into her own arm, then pressed it against Clara’s mouth to force her to drink?

“Drink, drink it all,” Catesby ordered her. It was disgusting. Rose looked away, and Jenny wailed again, trying to tear the shackles free.

“I’ve found it!” Tarquin announced, pulling out a record from one of his shelves. He said it on a record player and a twinkling, sparkly piano motif rang out. Rose knew it well. [“Wuthering Heights” – Kate Bush]

“Out on the wily, windy moors, we’d roll and fall in green… You had a temper, like my jealousy, too hot, too greedy…”

The vampires sang along with Kate Bush, albeit it all in a different key, as they forced Beta Clara to gorge herself on Báthory’s blood. How much did it take to transform her? Blood poured from her neck; the artery was completely severed. She was drenched in it before long. She had minutes left, maybe.

“Why do you care about the music!” Jenny shouted. “Help her! You need to help her! She’s – my – I – I need her! You don’t understand!”

“Bad dreams in the night… They told me I was going to lose the fight… Leave behind my Wuthering, Wuthering, Wuthering Heights…” Kate Bush sang. Rose would never be able to hear this song again or watch the music video, considering all four vampires knew the dance moves.

“Heathcliff, it’s me, I’m Cathy, I’ve come home, I’m so cold, let me into your window…”

Bleeding, dancing, cackling, horror. Jenny had fallen to her knees. River was nearest and the only one able to comfort her.

“The universe needs to balance,” said Rose. “That’s what the Doctor said. She really shouldn’t be alive anymore…”

“How can you say that!? What’s the matter with you!?” Jenny wept.

“Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely, on the other side to you… I pine a lot, I find the-” The record scratched, and went silent. The vampires didn’t notice immediately, and by the time they did, a different sound had filled the cave. Somebody was playing the organ – not a pipe organ, an electronic organ that Tarquin had set up near his record collection. [The “Toccata and Fugue” in D minor – Bach]

Rose recognised it and frowned.

“Is that McFly?” she said.

“It’s Bach,” said Vastra.

The song continued. It was the Doctor, sitting at the little organ and missing a handful of the notes.

“This really requires three hands, of course,” said the Doctor. The music escalated, staying in minor, and then there was a relief as it opened up into something clear, a small crescendo, and the Doctor stopped.

“Doctor,” said Báthory. “Even when a girl is dying, you insist on making an entrance.”

“She’s been dead for days,” said the Doctor. “The universe is reclaiming her.” Jenny shrieked, no words coming out.

It was then that the Doctor was joined by Jenny Flint, Alpha Clara, and a floating ball – Oswin, presumably. Báthory flew into a rage and shoved Beta Clara to the side, leaving her head hanging from the edge of the altar. This only made the blood loss worse.

“Look at her! Help her! Do something, somebody has to do something!” said Jenny. The Doctor looked at Rose, and she knew. It had happened. It was done. She tore the shackles on her wrists free, then showed River, Vastra, and Jenny the same courtesy. Jenny pushed Rose aside to pursue the vampires, and a fight broke out.

Four vampires, plus their human familiar, against all of them, staked-up with Alpha Clara wielding a prosthetic leg. The Doctor took a UV tube from her bag and used that to weaken them, with rosaries and large crucifixes in their hands. For all the power of those vampires, they had a lot of weaknesses.

Tarquin fell to Vastra; he didn’t even have time to issue last words before he dissolved. River Song staked Catesby clean through the heart, a lecherous smirk on his face.

“Charmed…” he said before he, too, expired.

And Jenny took her revenge on Ursula for bringing the prophecy about Clara to the others’ attention. It was nasty. She jabbed a stake into Ursula’s eye first, leaving her screaming until she pulled it out, coated in black blood, and speared her through the chest.

When only Báthory remained, Dynamite started firing shots wildly. Rose grabbed him and stole the blaster easily, tossing it to the floor and holding his arms tightly behind his back.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. He fought against her, but she had the strength of a hundred men.

“Stop, stop,” said the Doctor, trying to keep Jenny from killing Báthory, too. The Doctor stepped in front of Jenny and took her shoulders. “She needs you.”

On the large, stone altar, Beta Clara hadn’t died. She was convulsing now, out of blood. It looked like a seizure, and she fell, hard, to the ground. Jenny abandoned Báthory to go to her side, whispering Clara’s name and crying as she tried to compress the injury. But the bleeding had already stopped.

Báthory was on her knees and the Doctor crouched in front of her, holding up the UV bulb and casting purple light on everything. Her skin smouldered beneath it. River and Vastra were at her side with stakes.

“Looks like this is the end of your coven,” said the Doctor. “Maybe you should’ve attracted less attention. You can’t blame anyone for hunting down the Cuxhaven Killers.”

“And is that why you came, Doctor?” said Báthory. “To see justice done?”

“Something along those lines.”

“It’s too late. That girl is ours now. It isn’t reversible once the fits start,” said Báthory. “She will burn for days, gloriously. You know how it feels.”

“It’s over a lot quicker for me. Your way is barbaric.”

“Wait – is she regenerating?” asked Rose.

“Nearly,” said the Doctor. “She’s changing. This is how they reproduce, through infection.”

“If you want to stop it, you’ll have to stake her, too,” said Báthory, baring her fangs as she grinned, like she’d won. “But your daughter won’t let you, will she?”

When the Doctor smiled, Báthory’s face fell.

“No, she won’t.”

“And you are pleased?”

“I don’t think they’re all like you. I think you just use it as an excuse, for cruelty that was always there. But answer me one thing, since I’ve given you your wish of an eternal, Gutkeled line.”

“What?”

“The Abbey. The lights and music at night. What are you doing?”

She laughed, “Your final question, and this is what you ask?” The Doctor shrugged. “We are fond of Jamiroquai. It is most enjoyable in the night air. Now what will you do? Take me prisoner?”

“No.” The Doctor took a stake from River, who didn’t say a word. “I don’t want to do this, but it needs to be done. I have responsibilities to bear for what’s happened today, just like everyone.”

“Let me,” said Vastra, touching the Doctor’s arm.

“I can’t let anybody else corrupt themselves with this, Vastra.”

“You say it is your responsibility. Well, it’s mine, too. I brought you here.”

“You didn’t know.”

“I knew enough.”

“I-”

They were both trying to do the noble thing, but the Doctor lowered her UV light by accident. This gave Báthory just enough strength to lunge, seize the stake from the Doctor, and then plunge it deep into her own chest, collapsing back onto the floor.

With her dying breaths, she laughed again. “As if I would give a Time Lord the privilege. Take care of her, Doctor.” She calcified, freezing in place and then disintegrated into ash. Now it was them, Dynamite, and four piles of dust. The Doctor couldn’t move.

“No! My mistress! You’ve killed them all!” Dynamite shouted. In Rose’s shock at Báthory’s demise, she’d loosened her grip on him. He went running, but not for the remains, for Beta Clara, still convulsing wildly in Jenny’s arms. River grabbed hold of him. “You must let me help! I know what to do – she’s my salvation, she’s all I have now!”

“You don’t touch her,” said the Doctor, but her words meant nothing to him.

“She will be greater than she was before! She will be perfect, and I can make her so! You must have faith, you-”

“What did you say?” asked Jenny, her head snapping up.

“Have faith,” he repeated. “In me. In my knowledge of the dark masters, in the power of the bloodline, in-” Jenny didn’t say a thing. She left Clara and approached Dynamite with more anger than Rose had ever seen.

“No, Jenny, don’t-” the Doctor tried to stop her, but Jenny pushed her aside easily.

It happened too quickly. She wrenched Dynamite away from River and punched him in the face with immense force, a sharp jab from her left hand that sent him tumbling to the floor. Then, she was on him, punching and punching and punching, pummelling him into the ground. It was only when she raised her fist again and Rose saw the blood on her knuckles, the Doctor lacking the strength to pull her off, that she realised a killing blow was about to be delivered.

In an instant, the room moved, and Rose was there in a golden cloud to take Jenny’s arm and hold her back.

“He’s not worth it,” said Rose. Jenny’s eyes shone, and she fell, Rose steadying her. Jenny Flint and Alpha Clara went to pull Dynamite away and haul him into a chair, his face a gruesome pulp. He was barely conscious. Rose would not be surprised if Jenny had concussed him so much that serious, permanent damage had been done. She’d never seen such raw violence, even in all her travels with the Doctor.

“Why didn’t you help her?” said Jenny.

“I couldn’t,” said Rose, letting her go. Jenny put her head in her hands and crouched on the floor, screaming into her palms.

“None of you did anything! What’s the point of you!? What’s the point of those powers if you can’t help!? If you refuse!?”

“It’s a fixed point in time, Blue,” said the Doctor softly. “She has to come to Whitby. We all have to be here. She has to be transformed.”

“What have you been changing, then!? This whole time! You should have helped! You should have got there sooner!”

“I can’t change history like that,” said the Doctor. “If I hadn’t intervened, Clara and Oswin would still have found her. I’m… I was saving Dave the grief and relieving my wife of the burden of resurrecting someone. That’s the only thing I changed.” Jenny stayed on the floor, inconsolable. Vastra and Jenny Flint were now at Beta Clara’s side.

“Her wounds are healing,” said Vastra. “It’s begun.”

“She’s going to be like them,” said Jenny. “You should have stopped it. She never should have been brought back, she – the dead should be allowed to rest! They should be given that privilege, instead of this endless horror that people like you and me are forced to endure!”

“Jenny,” said the Doctor. “There’s a chain. We’re all part of it here. It binds her to this moment, to this point, forever. All we can do is make the best of it and look after her, which we will do. They got what they wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“Their prophecy. The Great Lover erases the Great Scourge. I’m no scourge anymore when she’s under my protection,” said the Doctor. “Nobody hurts her. And we need to move her onto the TARDIS before… before the screaming starts.”

DAY 114

Rewritten March 2024

831: Black Mirror

Beta Clara

“Yeah,” said Clara. “Nice try. It’s a good story, very colourful details – but you lost me a bit with some of the plot contrivances. Taking one train all the way to Whitby? That didn’t happen.”

“It’s not a lie, Clara,” said Jenny, quiet.

“Of course it’s a lie. Vampires aren’t real, and if they were real, they wouldn’t sleep in coffins and burn in the sun and hypnotise people and be unable to cross rivers,” said Clara. “That’s ridiculous. It’s more than that, actually – it’s insulting. You insult me, both of you.”

“Okay, well, I’ll rustle you up some garlic bread and we’ll see how you feel,” said the Doctor. She’d had her feet up on the table this whole time, merely watching Clara while Jenny spoke and refusing to explain where she’d vanished off to at certain points in the story.

“Sure,” said Clara. “Don’t tell lies that are so easy to disprove in future.”

“It’s true,” said Jenny.

“No, it’s not.”

“It-” Jenny kept trying to argue, but the Doctor touched her shoulder and she stopped.

“How about a test, then?” she said. “It’s just us here, the others will have gone to bed by now; it’s about three in the morning. Let’s see how you react to some stimuli.” She tipped out the last dregs of tea from her own mug, splashing it all over the floor, and then picked up the flask and began to shake it. “Just trying to stop it from congealing.”

When she unscrewed the lid, the smell from within was like nothing on Earth. Clara had never encountered anything more delicious, more intoxicating: fresh, dripping beef burgers, bacon sandwiches, lamb shanks and spareribs. Red meat on the bone, drowning in honey and crispy fat, all the marrow waiting to be sucked out of it. She needed it with every cell in her body. Every last drop of juice, every piece of fat and drop of grease, she needed all of it, she needed it for days, she would never rest until she had it in her hands and tore it to pieces, and-

The Doctor poured it into the mug. Vivid crimson.

Blood. Human blood.

Nothing else would do.

Clara clenched every muscle in her body. She would not give in; she would not move. It was all a trick. She could just hold her breath. In fact, she’d barely had to breathe at all, not for-

But she was too weak. She couldn’t even hold out for ten seconds. She lunged for the mug and slurped down every last drop of nectar. Nothing had ever tasted so good in her life. Blood was left staining the mug, so she picked up a cold slice of toast and dragged it around the edges, mopping up as much as possible. She didn’t even care about the taste or the stale bread, she just needed all of it and she needed it immediately.

“Feel free to have the rest of it,” the Doctor pushed the flask towards her. “It’s not like anybody else here wants a glass.” Clara couldn’t rest until she had finished it all, chugging every last drop from the flask. The smell was too strong.

And then she had to face Jenny. But Jenny… She wasn’t horrified. She wasn’t disgusted or appalled. She looked more intrigued than anything – if haggard.

“…Whose, um… that’s…” The words wouldn’t come to her. Whose blood is that? There was a person attached to it, and she hadn’t given them a second thought.

“I persuaded Jenny Flint to donate a sample, as the only non-manifest human in our immediate circle,” said the Doctor. “Cell cloning machines for blood transfusions are ten-a-penny in the thirtieth century, so we brought one on board. It saved Gertie’s life, too.”

“Nobody…?”

“Nobody was hurt, no,” said the Doctor. “We’ve been stockpiling while you’ve been in here undergoing your, uh… shall we say, makeover?” Clara was silent. “As I understand it, the hunger subsides eventually.”

“That… that smell, earlier-”

“Barbecue?” said the Doctor. “Real, living humans, I’m afraid.”

“I… I can’t… this isn’t…” She put her head in her hands. No wonder they’d locked her away and shackled her. How could she be around anybody when they smelt like that? “You did this to me.”

“I didn’t,” said the Doctor.

“You could have stopped it. But you didn’t. You let it happen – you told Rose to let it happen!”

“It’s fixed. You have to go to Whitby that day, and you have to become a vampire. Too much of the future of this universe hinges on your continued presence in it,” said the Doctor. “I’m sorry, Smokey. I know it’s difficult-”

“Difficult!? Do you have any idea what they smell like? What this tastes like?”

“No. But it’ll get better.”

“Oh, that’s great!” Clara had tears in her eyes. “It’ll get better! I might want to kill every human being I ever meet, but the Doctor says it’ll get better!”

“It will,” said the Doctor. “Once you’re satiated-”

“I don’t want to be satiated! I don’t want to be here anymore! It’s wrong, all of it – how can I be something like this? How can I be a monster? How can I have a life, have anything? Who gave you the right to-”

“Look, what they said, it’s true,” the Doctor cut her off again.

“What?”

“You, safeguarding their legacy. I’ll never do anything to hurt Jenny, and Jenny will never do anything to hurt you. They got their wish. A vampire under Time Lord protection.”

“Christ, that’s – ah!” she started. “There, you see? How could I have said…” But now, she couldn’t say it, her tongue burned when she tried.

“It’s blasphemy,” said the Doctor. “That’s A-okay with vampires; it’s sincere religion where you run into the quantum problem.” Clara didn’t say another word. She leant her elbows on the table, cradling her head and rocking slightly. “I’ll go and fetch something to eat. Give you two some privacy.”

With that, she left. She was telling the truth about nobody else being up at that time because the all-encompassing smell was no longer present on the other side of the door. It thudded shut and the Doctor locked it from the outside.

“I don’t think you should look at me,” said Clara.

“Clara,” Jenny’s voice was soft. She sounded like she’d never sounded; so much clearer, a voice full of rich tones that Clara had never heard before. “I have to look at you.”

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“Can I have a mirror?” she asked. Jenny took out a phone.

“It’s yours, I’ve been looking after it,” she said.

She put it down on the table and Clara picked it up. On the black screen, there was nothing. The chair was behind her, but the space between was empty. The camera told the same story. She was invisible, and she broke down in tears. She didn’t even cast a shadow on the table.

Jenny left her chair and came over to comfort Clara, but Clara shrugged her off.

“Your hands are too hot,” she said.

“It’s because you’re cold now.”

“I’m a corpse. I’m dead.”

“Undead, technically,” said Jenny. “But we’re not so different, are we? I know what it’s like to be dragged back to life when you think that maybe it’s time to face that oblivion.”

“Jenny…”

“No, I mean it. A lot of what you’re feeling, I’ve felt, too. You have this thing given to you, all this life, stretching out ahead, and all these impulses, you… That machine I was born from taught me how to kill.”

“Have you ever? Killed anybody?” asked Clara. If she’d asked that before, she knew Jenny would have refused to answer.

“Yes. Every single one was a mistake. I know all their names, I know their birthdays, I know who their parents were, where they grew up, their favourite colours. It’s the worst thing you can imagine, but it means I understand more than you think.”

“Maybe you should kill me,” said Clara.

“What?”

“Wouldn’t that be better? Safer? They – they were violent, they were cruel, they-”

“They were probably always violent and cruel. Being vampires won’t have had anything to do with it. Being white, European aristocrats, on the other hand…”

“I mean it. Kill me. If you’re right, if you’re telling the truth, I’m dangerous.”

“I can’t hurt you, Clara.”

“Why not?”

“Because I-”

The Doctor came back carrying a fruit bowl and something else – something that stank to high hell. Clara coughed on the air; it was rancid.

“Would you believe there was some left-over garlic bread in the fridge? It’s my lucky day,” she said. It made Clara’s eyes water like she had hay fever; completely revolving. The Doctor set the fruit bowl down. Bananas. Jenny handed her one and then retreated to the other side of the table, sitting again.

“You said the other day that you were craving bananas,” said Jenny.

“How can I eat food? Normal food?” said Clara, gingerly peeling it.

“You’re not magic,” said the Doctor, chewing her garlic bread. “The blood is only an additional need. You still have to eat and drink food and water.”

“Someone should kill me,” said Clara. “Jenny won’t do it. Will you?”

“No.”

“Somebody will. River, maybe. Or I could find Vastra. Even Jack. I think Jack’s got a bone to pick with me.”

“Why should someone kill you?” asked the Doctor. “Have you done something?”

“I might.”

“I see. And we should just go around and kill everybody with impunity just because they might do something? You know, perfectly ordinary, non-vampiric humans are capable of astonishing violence. In fact, I’d wager that people are statistically far more likely to be hurt by another human than by a vampire.”

“Because there are more. You said those people, those vampires, they killed hundreds. I can’t be allowed to become like that. Right now, I’m still me, I’m-”

“You’ll always be you.”

“How can you know that?”

“How can I-? Honestly, Clara. I’m from the future. I know you; you wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’ve never posed a danger to humans, tasty as they do apparently smell,” said the Doctor, getting through her malodorous garlic bread too slowly for Clara’s liking. “Okay, then, if that’s how it’s going to be.” She dropped a half-eaten slice of garlic bread back onto the plate and set it down, wiping her hands on her jeans. “I’ll tell you the truth, how about that?”

“The truth about what?”

“Where I went, when everybody was in the church. I shouldn’t tell you, but there’s nobody else to hear it, and you’ll certainly find out sooner or later,” she said. “You were there.”

“Excuse me?”

“I went to talk to you. From the future. You turned up, chewed me out for tweaking your timeline, and ultimately forgave me,” said the Doctor. Going by Jenny’s expression this was news to her, too. “If you really want to, you can wait until then and drive a stake through your own heart. Sure, that’s a nasty paradox, but the Dimension Crash can handle it. It’s dealt with worse. So, just do that.”

“Fine,” said Clara. “I will.”

“Great.”

“I’ll stake myself.”

“I can’t wait. Here I am, waiting for you to do it, waiting for you to fade away before my eyes. You should be dead by now, after all.”

“Stop it,” said Jenny.

“No, no. She wants to interfere with events, that’s her decision. She won’t, though. Because she’ll see.”

“See what?” said Clara.

“That this, ultimately, will be a good thing.”

Clara scoffed. “That’s absurd.”

“You’re right, it’s certainly absurd. And yet, here you are, on my TARDIS, under my protection, with me vouching for you and your continued safety around humans,” said the Doctor.

“What was I doing coming back from the future, then? If not fixing all this.”

“Pilfering their relics, borrowing their vinyls, cleaning up my mess – take your pick,” the Doctor shrugged. “But you did point that mausoleum out to me. That’s how I found it. And gave me this, too.” She had her transdimensional bag hanging off the back of her chair, and from it withdrew a stake.

“I gave you a stake?”

“Yes. And now, I’m giving it to Jenny.”

“I don’t want it,” said Jenny.

“Take it. For peace of mind. And, you know, she’s the last in a valuable bloodline. Maybe others will turn up to steal her crown,” said the Doctor. “Sergeant Dynamite could bust out of the time agent jail I took him to and come find you.”

“Just take it,” said Clara. “It’ll make me feel better if you’ve got something. Just in case.” Jenny wasn’t happy about it, but she did take the stake. “That’s a paradox, though. Where did the stake come from in the first place?”

“I told you. The Dimension Crash can handle all kinds of things. Now,” the Doctor leant forward. “Do you have any more questions?”

“Only about a million,” said Clara.

“Well, then, let’s get started. The night is young, after all,” she smiled at Clara. She smiled at Clara and, for the first time, Clara didn’t feel as if she was being lied to. There was so much familiarity in the Doctor’s face. For a moment, she felt normal.

DAY 115

Rewritten March 2024

832: Perfect Situation

Jenny

“Would you look at the time, it’s nearly eight in the morning,” said the Doctor when Clara yawned widely. Jenny saw her fangs when she did. Clara blinked and rubbed her eyes. “It’s a lot like a regeneration, but unlike us, you keep all the burning inside.”

“It felt awful,” said Clara. “Is that how it feels for you?”

“Just about. But it’s over faster. Very exhausting, though.”

“There’s no bed in here, just that,” said Clara, pointing out the medical gurney that had been behind her in the cell. That was where she’d been while they’d observed and treated her. It had shattered Jenny to watch her like that. She flexed her organic hand; it was dark purple with cuts and bruises.

“You can use my room,” said Jenny. “It’s fine.”

“So that you can keep an eye on me?”

“…I will, yeah,” said Jenny. “I’ve been doing that for days. Ever since you caught that cold.”

“Except I wasn’t at risk of going on a killing spree when I had a cold,” said Clara.

“Ah, you’ll be fine,” said the Doctor. “You can’t hurt them if they’re in their rooms, anyway. Not without being invited in.”

“That’s real too, is it?”

“Yes.” Clara shook her head.

“Are you sure it’s safe for me to be let out?”

“I’m sure,” said the Doctor, but Clara wasn’t asking her. She was looking at Jenny.

“If… If she knows you in the future, and she says you’re safe, then I trust her,” said Jenny. “And… I don’t believe you could hurt anybody. Come on.”

Just like that, Clara was released from her cell. The TARDIS had moved the rooms, though – or the Doctor could have done it. Even Oswin, maybe. Jenny found her bedroom door just across the hall, isolated from everyone else.

“I’ll leave you to it,” said the Doctor. “I have more things to take care of. Admin.” Jenny didn’t speak, just watched her leave, and then held the door open for Clara.

It was a new bedroom, only a few days old, but she’d already moved all of her things in there from the room she shared with Jack. All of her knickknacks and personal effects. But the TARDIS had, thankfully, conjured some more candles for her, already lit.

“Why candles?” asked Clara.

“For your eyes,” said Jenny. “The Doctor said you’ll have a hard time with bright lights now.”

“Great…”

“But, you know, seeing in the dark is useful, too,” said Jenny.

“Silver linings.”

“Yeah…” Jenny shut the door.

“I’ve never seen your room.”

“I suppose that’s true.” Clara didn’t look around, though. She took Jenny’s hand and lifted it, examining the bruises that had blossomed across her knuckles.

“Why did you hurt him?”

“I do that sometimes,” said Jenny quietly. “I try not to, but I have all this rage.” Clara pulled Jenny in and hugged her tightly.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. None of it’s your fault.”

“You had to watch me die.”

“Yeah. But you’re here now.”

“And I can’t leave, I assume?” said Clara. “I can’t go back to my old life? I’m not legally dead, the Doctor’s seen to that, but if I can’t be in sunlight… and, god, if the kids at school smell like the humans here, I… I couldn’t imagine.”

“I don’t think you can be a teacher, no,” said Jenny. “But I’m not going to make you stay on the TARDIS, either. We’ll work it out. Together.”

“Will we?”

“I’ll be here if you need me, when you need me, for as long as you do,” said Jenny. Clara released her from their long hug. “You should get some sleep, though.”

“So should you.”

“No. I haven’t slept in… a long time now. But I can’t leave you.”

“You’re not leaving me.”

“I’ll get around to sleeping eventually,” said Jenny. “But really. Rest. Have a shower in the morning.”

“It’ll be the afternoon when I wake up, I think,” said Clara. Jenny managed to smile at her and reached up to touch her cheek and brush some hair from Clara’s eyes. “Do you still like me? If I’m like this?”

“Yes, of course.”

“What do I look like?”

“You look like you,” said Jenny. “You’re paler; your eyes are black, not brown; and you’ve got fangs. But other than that, you… You’re Clara.”

“And you’ll never hurt me.”

“No. Not at all. Come to bed and sleep; I’ll protect you if any of the scary humans show up with stakes and garlic bread,” said Jenny.

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

DAY 115

Rewritten March 2024

833: Daylight

Jenny

Porridge. A big vat of porridge loaded up with fresh fruit and a generous coating of honey. Jenny could think of nothing better as she made her breakfast. Clara was fast asleep, and as soon as Jenny finished making her food, she was going to take it to her room and remain there until Clara woke back up.

As usual, though, she couldn’t have a quiet breakfast, not when it was nearly ten o’clock and the others were all coming to eat, too. At least Adam and Oswin had their own kitchen to use. It was Martha she had to talk to first.

“Did you let her out?” Martha walked right towards Jenny to talk to her over the breakfast bar. “I went to check the containment room, and it’s empty.”

“Yes, I did. She’s sleeping in my room.”

“The dangerous vampire is asleep in your room?”

“I don’t think she’s dangerous,” said Jenny. “She seems fine.”

“She’s stopped screaming, then?” said Martha, pinching one of the pieces of sliced banana Jenny was adding to her porridge.

“Would you like some porridge as well, Martha?” Jenny asked when she tried to take a second piece.

“Go on, then.” Martha pulled out a stool at the bar.

“Yes, she’s stopped screaming, it’s over,” said Jenny. “She’s not like them. She’s still herself.”

“And did she… she’s drinking blood?” said Martha. Jenny nodded, keeping an eye on the saucepan of milk she had heating up on the hob. “Blimey.”

“Look, if it’s bothering you all, just carry a crucifix and a UV torch around,” Jenny raised her voice slightly, aware that the others in the room were listening in regardless. The Ponds and Donna were there, too. “I know they’re frightening, I was there, but they’re vulnerable to a lot of things. I’m sure Oswin can formulate garlic mace, or something.”

“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” said Amy. “They’re proper vampires, then? Not like the ones Rory and I ran into in Venice.”

“The fish people were still draining people of all their bodily fluids,” said Rory, eating bran flakes. “I’d say that’s quite vampiric regardless.”

“They seem to be ‘proper’ vampires, yes,” said Jenny.

“Do you fancy her more now that she’s a vampire?” asked Amy. Startled, Jenny accidentally crushed a handful of banana slices, getting mush all over her fingers.

“Amy,” Rory told her off.

“What? You don’t stay in one room, refuse to sleep or eat, and watch someone have fits for three days if you don’t fancy them,” said Amy. Jenny wiped the banana away and then sliced up the rest of it. When she was done, she stabbed the paring knife she’d been using into the chopping board hard enough that it got stuck.

“Do you… want to talk about anything?” asked Martha.

“Why? So that you can tell everyone on this entire spaceship my business?” said Jenny. “No, I don’t want to talk. I’m making porridge.”

“You’re not usually so quiet,” said Amy.

“I’m out of energy to mask around you. I don’t want to speak anymore.” Jenny kept going with her porridge, and soon enough she had two bowls. A regular bowl for Martha, and an enormous salad bowl full of porridge for herself.

“But is she living here?” asked Amy. “A vampire on the TARDIS. At least Nios would have a friend, then – somebody else who wants to kill all humans.”

“Can you really blame Nios when hardly anybody shows her even a little bit of kindness?” said Jenny. She felt her temper coming on. “You know what? She’s here now, but no, she doesn’t want to live with all of you. She hates it here because you’re all nasty to her, you’re nasty to each other, you don’t respect anyone’s privacy, and you don’t eat fruits or vegetables. It’s no wonder she wants to leave – sometimes, I don’t know why I’m staying, either.”

It was true. She wasn’t with Jack anymore and the Dimension Crash hadn’t grafted her to the TARDIS. She was free to leave, and every day that got more and more tempting.

DAY 115

Rewritten March 2024

834: Blood Ties

Oswin

“What’s this?” said Oswin, Thirteen slamming a creased piece of paper down in front of her while she tried to write code at the breakfast table. Adam Mitchell was making poached eggs for himself and the Doctor.

“I’ve made a list, and I’ve checked it twice,” said the Doctor, pulling out the next chair. Oswin squinted at the page.

“Sunglasses? An umbrella? Are you going to the beach?”

“No, no. It’s vampire stuff. Sun-glasses, with a hyphen.” Oswin stared at her, and she grinned. “It’s a pun. They’re to filter UV rays without humans noticing someone’s going around wearing sunglasses constantly.”

“And the umbrella?”

“Also for the sun.”

“And you want me to drop everything to make you these gadgets?” said Oswin, crossing her arms. “Even though I’m still busy putting the finishing touches on Jenny’s spaceship, and I haven’t forgiven you for forcing me to resurrect her in the first place?”

“Jeez, how many times! If I hadn’t done it, Clara would have made you,” said the Doctor. “My way is better. Marginally. And it’s fine now. She’s dead again, isn’t she? It’s resolved, like I said.”

“You’re twisted, you know,” said Oswin. “You’ve gone doolally.”

“I need your help.”

“And what are you going to do while I’m making magic umbrellas and pairs of silly glasses?” said Oswin.

“Paperwork,” said the Doctor. “Adam’s going to help me.”

“Excuse me?” said Adam.

“We’re just going to move her entire life from London to somewhere else,” said the Doctor. “I already know where, so, we can take a shortcut and get it all done quicker. There’s a cottage that’s the perfect place for a vampire to hide.”

“As opposed to the TARDIS?” said Oswin.

“She doesn’t want to stay on the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Look, it’s easy. We just submit notice to her landlord, make all the changes at the bank – our Clara can help with that – create a new identity under a fake name, and move her into a new place. With a time machine, it won’t take more than a few hours.”

“And… why is this necessary, sorry?” said Oswin. “I appreciate that she probably can’t look after children anymore, but does she need to uproot her entire life and go live in the middle of nowhere? Does she need to change her name?”

“Yes, it… okay, well, there’s this old prophecy, on Gallifrey-”

“Oh, great. A prophecy. Because following prophecies is always a good idea,” Oswin shook her head.

“Look, I’m from the future, and I know a thing or two about the thing or two. We call it the Prophecy of the Hybrid, and the Doctor – the other Twelfth Doctor – believes it’s about him and Clara. Anyway, the details aren’t important, but it’s dangerous and we need to keep them separate. Also, I do trust her, but I’m not sure how much I like her chances in a tower block with a hundred living, breathing humans through the walls.”

“Right. And she’s okay with this?” said Oswin. Adam plated up his poached eggs and toast, setting another plate down in front of the Doctor, who ripped her toast apart and burst the egg yolk immediately. “Shouldn’t you at least ask her first?”

“She’s asleep,” said the Doctor. “And she’ll forgive me, anyway.”

“Okay, you can’t keep f*cking people’s lives up and then saying it’s fine because your foreknowledge of the future means that they’ll forgive you,” said Oswin.

“She’ll be okay,” said the Doctor, internalising nothing Oswin had said.

“What’s this ‘fake name’ she needs?” asked Adam.

“Clara Ravenwood,” said the Doctor.

“Isn’t that… a bit on the nose? For a vampire?”

“It’s her mother’s maiden name,” said Oswin. Adam nodded. “It is very auspicious, admittedly. But you do know that the Twelfth Doctor doesn’t remember who she is?”

“You can never incur permanent memory loss as a Time Lord,” the Doctor shook her head. “He’ll regenerate one day, and then what? He’ll want to know what happened to some girl he knew who was foretold to destroy the Web of Time and then ran away in a TARDIS with a Viking.”

“With… excuse me?”

“Darn it – that’s a spoiler, don’t spread it around… She doesn’t know it yet herself.”

“She had a TARDIS? From where?”

“Gallifrey! Keep up.”

“Gallifrey’s gone.”

“No, only in our universe. It’s complicated and, honestly, I’m foggy on the details; Smokey through there’s never going to remember when she was time-locked to give me a coherent explanation.”

“How do you know any of this, then?” said Oswin.

“Because! I’ve met the aforementioned Viking. In the future. This isn’t important, though. What’s important is that she needs to move to a tiny cottage in the middle of Yorkshire and she needs to do it today, so, vamos.” She was looking right at Adam.

“Um… Can we vamos once I’ve finished eating my breakfast?” he said. “It doesn’t take that long to send a few emails, ring an estate agent, and hack into the Deed Poll Office to change someone’s surname.”

“Oh, sure. Finish your breakfast. And then, vamos!”

DAY 115

Rewritten March 2024

835: The Arrangements

Jenny

Clara had a pulse, but it was immensely weak, and she hardly breathed at all. As she slept in Jenny’s bed, it was like she’d died all over again, she was so pale and still. Jenny tried to keep reading her books, brushing up on nuclear fusion ahead of getting a new ship with a complex engine, but every time she looked at Clara, she worried that she was going to lose her again. So, she did something more absorbing and wasted a few hours doing an obsessive number of push-ups. She did enough push-ups to make her arms ache, which was not easy, and then she heard Clara make a noise, lost her form, and fell.

“Ow…” she groaned. It was about three o’clock. She got back to her feet with carpet burns on her hands. Clara had awoken and was looking right at her. “There’s, um, blood in the flask on the side.”

“What were you doing?”

“Push-ups.”

“You’re very sweaty. I can smell it.”

“Thank you?”

“How many did you do?”

“Push-ups? I don’t know. I lost count around two thousand.”

“You…” Clara sat up in bed on her elbows and frowned at Jenny. With her eyes so black, Jenny felt like Clara could see into her soul. Maybe that had nothing to do with being a vampire. “You do keep finding new ways to impress me every time we talk.”

“I’m just glad we haven’t run out of opportunities to talk,” said Jenny, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What if the last time we ever saw each other was me getting found inside your wardrobe?” Clara looked at her with pity once again, but then she smiled.

“At least it would have been memorable.”

“Every second I’ve ever spent with you has been memorable. Even when you’ve been marking essays or concentrating when you write your shopping list or… or sleeping, even,” said Jenny.

“Oh,” said Clara. Jenny looked away. “Are you alright?”

“Should I be? I watched you die in the most awful way. You being here now doesn’t erase that,” said Jenny. “And especially not when you keep asking me to kill you, which I’m not going to do.”

“You might feel better if you get some rest,” said Clara. “I actually feel better. Slightly.”

“Only slightly?”

“My throat’s dry.”

“The flask,” Jenny nodded at it again, behind her, but Clara ignored her. “Are you embarrassed? About drinking blood in front of me?”

“I don’t want you to think of me as inhuman.”

“What’s wrong with being inhuman?” said Jenny softly. “I’m not a human.”

“But you don’t have to drink their blood.”

“I’m not against it, morally. It’s all just cloned cells from Jenny Flint’s sample. Nobody was hurt.”

“Okay, well, you saying that makes me feel a bit better,” said Clara.

“Because I’m so odd?”

“You are quite odd.”

Jenny opened her mouth to say something else, but Clara got a funny look on her face and shushed her. She stared at the door.

“Is someone out there?” asked Jenny. Clara nodded, then reached over to pick up the flask and drink about half of its contents in one go. “We’re gonna have to get you a bigger flask, I think.”

“It’s Rose and Martha, they’re arguing about who knocks on the door,” said Clara. “They’re whispering.”

“And you can hear that?”

“Yes, and I can smell them.”

“Do you want me to tell them to leave?” said Jenny. “Is it bothering you?”

“No, they’re… they’re talking about moving my stuff, or something, I-”

“I’ll answer, I’ll answer,” Jenny assured her, leaving her on the bed. She opened the door so quickly that she made Rose and Martha jump, out there bickering.

“Oh, hello,” said Rose.

“How’s the patient?” said Martha.

“She’s absolutely desperate to rip your throats out,” said Jenny.

“Don’t say that, it’s…” Clara began, but then she coughed and covered her nose and mouth with her hand, reaching for the flask of blood again.

“You know what? I’ll be outside,” said Jenny. “You can hear me, anyway.” Jenny stepped out and closed the door behind her. She saw that Rose and Martha each had a UV tube lamp in hand, switched off at the moment. “She said you’re arguing about moving?”

“Sort of, I’m just on my way to help,” said Rose. “But I wanted to see if she was awake, so I can apologise.”

“What for?”

“For standing there and letting her die, that’s what for,” said Rose seriously. Clara opened the door, still clutching the flask tightly in her hands. She squinted in the bright lights of the corridor. “I was saying that I’m sorry, Clara.”

“They told me what happened. I know you were just doing what the Doctor told you to,” said Clara.

“I can’t see you,” said Rose.

“Pardon?”

“You’re from the other universe. I can’t see you in the time vortex. And everyone here whose choices you affect, I can’t see them, either,” said Rose. “I didn’t know if she was telling the truth about it being a fixed point in time. I still don’t. Maybe I should’ve risked that the Doctor was lying.”

“…It’s happened now,” said Clara. “The Doctor lies about a lot of things, but not usually about fixed points in time.”

“I’m still sorry,” said Rose. “The Doctor’s in the middle of moving all your stuff – I said I’d help, it’s a lot of heavy lifting, so-”

“Excuse me?” said Clara.

“She said you have to move,” said Martha. “Out of your flat. She’s found somewhere else.”

“What, and she’s packing it up? My flat – my life? Without even asking me? Do you know what – that’s a bit bloody rich, isn’t it?” This she said to Jenny. “That… Bloody hell! I don’t even remember the last week, but it’s been a week of this woman just deciding she knows what’s best for me! Where is she? Are we there now? Is the TARDIS parked?”

“I think so,” said Rose.

“That’s it.” Clara marched away.

“Clara, wait,” said Jenny, but there was no telling her. “For god’s… Alright, alright, hang on, I’m coming with you.” They left Rose and Martha in the hallway, Jenny chasing after her as she stormed out of the TARDIS.

“Did you know about this?” said Clara.

“Get real; they don’t tell me a thing,” said Jenny. “My mother didn’t tell me she was going to bring you back from the dead, I don’t think she’d stop to let me know she was putting a few things in boxes.”

“A few-?” Clara rounded on her. “Is that what you think?”

“I… No. Sorry. I was being hyperbolic.” Clara breathed out deeply. “They haven’t said a word to me. Do you know why? Because I’d have stopped them. I wouldn’t want anybody touching my things, either.”

“I’m gonna give her a piece of my mind when I find her…” Clara kept going. She went right through Nerve Centre, bringing an unnatural chill with her. She didn’t stop to acknowledge the humans, though, the human passengers who all froze when she entered the room.

“We’re just, uh, on the way out, sorry,” Jenny managed to smile at the Ponds, Donna, and the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, following Clara through the console room and then the front doors, into the hallway of her block of flats. “You didn’t even stop to put shoes on.”

“I’ve got shoes, haven’t I? At my flat,” said Clara.

“A shower, though – maybe I should talk to them?”

“No, you’ve looked after me enough. But I’m back now, and I’ve never shied away from telling the Doctor what I really think about anything,” Clara insisted, nearly breaking down the door to her own flat, number sixty-three. She didn’t need to be invited in, and she found the Doctor, Adam Mitchell, and Other Clara, all busying themselves with cardboard boxes. “Right, get out, all three of you.”

“I think you’re overreacting,” said the Doctor. “I’m handling things for you.”

“No, you’re not. You’re being a prick, thinking you always know what’s best. I get it, you know, I do; you’re from the future. That’s nice. But just because you know what mistakes are going to be made, doesn’t give you carte blanche to try and fix everything for other people,” said Clara, enraged. Jenny hovered nearby in case she was needed.

“I did say,” said Alpha Clara. “And you said she’d be fine with it.”

“Well, I don’t know! She didn’t find out we were up to anything until after it had happened the last time!”

“Maybe you should stop trying to change things, then,” said Alpha Clara.

“One thing I changed! This is just the butterfly effect in action.”

“I get it,” said Beta Clara. “You want to help. You’ve found me a new place to live because you know I can’t live on the TARDIS, and I can’t live here anymore because of that Hybrid nonsense the Doctor was always so worried about.”

“The what…?” asked Jenny.

Clara went on, “But this is my home. It’s my life. It’s everything I am. And you haven’t given me the right to say goodbye to it – and it sounds like, in the timeline you changed, you didn’t give me that right, either. Maybe on your third go around you’ll perfect it all, hm?”

“I’m just trying to do better, Clara,” said the Doctor.

“Then leave. Let me do it myself.” The Doctor thought and then decided not to argue. She let go of the box she’d been packing and left without a word, followed swiftly by Other Clara. Only Adam paused.

“I’m sorry. She made it seem like you were alright with it. But, if you want the details of this place, here.” He handed her a piece of A4 paper with the information for a property printed on it and left, too, closing the door behind him.

“…When you told them to leave, did-” Jenny began.

“No, I didn’t mean you,” said Clara. Trembling slightly, she set her flask down on the kitchen table and pulled out a chair. Jenny sat down next to her. Clara couldn’t keep a brave face any longer. She started to cry.

“Come here,” said Jenny, putting an arm around her and pulling her close. “Show me this.” She took the piece of paper. It was a one-bedroom cottage on a hillside, listed for ninety grand. Adam had written a note that he’d gotten it for eighty-five. The map showed it in the middle of nowhere, a ten-minute walk from the nearest, tiny village, which had a name Jenny had never heard of. “Hollowmire. Strange.”

“An old shepherd’s hut in the middle of the Yorkshire moors,” said Clara. “I suppose there’s nobody around there for me to kill by mistake.”

“That’s probably true,” said Jenny.

“Why bring me back to life? Why bring me back to life and do this to me, and then keep taking things away? My best friend, my job, my home… All that, only to send me to live in a hovel in the arse-end of nowhere.”

“I don’t know, Clara. But I’m glad that you’re here. Does that count for anything?”

“We have things to talk about, don’t we?” said Clara after a moment.

“Yes.”

“But not right now.”

“No,” said Jenny, squeezing her. “Not right now. Listen, the TARDIS is still there. Why don’t you go shower, here, and I’ll refill your flask for you? Then we can arrange this packing. I’ll help you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Is there a lot to be done?”

“No. Flat’s furnished, so all the furniture stays, other than the duvet and bedding. And other than the bookshelf you built for me. Mattress stays. I just don’t want those weirdos going through my toys or my Playboy collection.”

“All this fuss over your vintage p*rnography?” asked Jenny, smiling.

“It’s valuable.”

“Okay. Come on,” Jenny helped her stand up. She was very wobbly. “Shower, right? Just like when you had your cold, and I had everything sorted when you got out. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

DAY 116

Rewritten March 2024

836: Another Girl Another Planet VIII

Jenny

It was the small hours of the following morning when they had finished the move. Clara was right, she didn’t have a lot to pack. Maybe ten boxes, all in all, with a few extra bits and pieces. Easy enough to bring into the new house, bought by Adam Mitchell, furnished by him, and being leased back to Clara for the very generous sum of one pound a month.

“It’s like being a kept woman,” Clara complained after they’d rammed her whole life into boxes and moved her across the country, without even a day to get used to it all.

Nobody tried to persuade her to stay on the TARDIS, and the Doctor weakly apologised for what she’d done as she bestowed various gadgets upon Beta Clara. Sunglasses, umbrellas, a complicated fridge for storing blood, a transdimensional flask that could hold gallons at once. Everything a new vampire might need to avoid murdering anybody for their most treasured elixir.

The cottage was small, with an odd layout. An integrated kitchen and living room on the ground floor, with a three-piece bathroom just off the kitchen, and then a bedroom in the cellar. It was pleasant enough, and decently ventilated – if home to a healthy population of spiders, which all fled when Clara approached – but unusual. Perfect for a vampire, though. A little crypt of her own, the fridge down there in the corner.

“It’s quaint, I suppose,” said Clara quietly, fidgeting with her new set of keys. She still had the old ones for her flat, her empty flat, boxes piled up on the floor and the kitchen table. “Windy, though.” Through the window, Jenny could see the scant lights of the village lower down the hill, nestled in the dales. “I’ve never heard of Hollowmire, and I didn’t grow up too far from here.”

“Nor I, although, I grew up very far away,” said Jenny, letting the curtains drop back down. She cleared her throat. “So. You’re all moved in.”

“I guess I am. Not unpacked, though.”

“No, well, you can do that in your own time,” said Jenny.

“Excuse me?”

“Well, do…?” Jenny began. Clara stared at her, waiting. “I don’t want you to think I’m hanging around here because I don’t trust you, or because I’m keeping you prisoner.”

“Oh, right. So, why are you hanging around?”

“I wasn’t going to,” said Jenny. “I was… You know, first night in a new place, and everything.”

“A new place I wasn’t even expecting to have until about ten hours ago. And now I’m here with a new name and a job application to be an assistant in some bloody bookshop waiting for me on the table. Clara Ravenwood. That’s me now, apparently.”

“You do like books,” said Jenny. “Could be good.”

“Yeah. I’m sure it’s just as fulfilling as educating the next generation of young minds.”

“You can educate me, if you like.”

“But you’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“If it’s-?” Clara stopped. “Is it what you want?”

“I just want what’s best for you.”

“…Right, no, fine,” Clara shook her head. “You want what’s best for me. You want to brush me under the carpet and forget I’m here. Keep on keeping me a secret.”

“What? No, I – you wanted to keep all of this a secret, from everybody,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, I – I know, I’m just…” She clenched her jaw. “Fine, then. If you’re leaving, you’re leaving.”

“But-”

“But what? You’ve made it clear enough,” said Clara. “Feel free to visit whenever you need a hole to stick things in for a few hours.”

“When I what?” said Jenny. “That isn’t what I meant, Clara. We’re friends.”

“We’re great friends, yeah.”

“I… Alright, then. I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

“Why not just read the newspapers in a few weeks? See if I’ve committed a massacre? Maybe then people will have heard of this place.”

“That’s not funny.”

“Am I joking?”

“Yes, you are. And it’s not funny.”

Silence. Clara ripped open one of the boxes on the table and started taking things out.

“Clara,” Jenny began, stepping nearer, but she didn’t know what to say. Clara looked up at her. “I just thought you might want to do things on your own. Without me or the people on my TARDIS micromanaging your whole life.”

“Afterlife,” said Clara quietly, and nothing else. Jenny stayed put. “The door’s right there. At least, I think it is, I’ve just moved in.” She removed a stack of books from the box, setting them down on the table.

“…Sure.” Jenny turned, wounded, and left.

The night was cold, and the wind was sharp on her face, the TARDIS windows glowing softly at the bottom of the thin, garden path. Halfway there, she stopped. What was she doing? She’d suggested leaving and clearly upset Clara by doing so. Did she actually want Jenny to go? Jenny didn’t want to leave, not at all. What was she going back to? A TARDIS full of people that, right now, she didn’t want to see or speak to whatsoever.

There was only one person she wanted to speak to. There was only ever one person she wanted to speak to – the person who occupied all of her thoughts, the person she adored beyond reason, the person who haunted her daydreams. It had been weeks, and all she wanted was to make Clara smile – to make her laugh, something that was getting harder and harder to accomplish. She wanted to be with her all the time and felt like she would burn up into nothing if Clara wasn’t in the same room. And they weren’t in the same room, because Clara was up in that cottage, alone, and Jenny was being a fool.

With every cell in her body, she needed to talk to Clara and pour out the contents of both of her hearts – explain to Clara that even though all their circ*mstances meant they shouldn’t be together, it was all she wanted in the universe. It was all she wanted in two universes.

Resolve strengthened, Jenny turned around and burst back into the tiny cottage to find Clara sitting at the table with her head in her hands. She was crying again, but she looked up when a gust of wind slammed the front door closed.

“I’m not going to leave, actually,” said Jenny firmly, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m going to stay right here. And it isn’t because I’m worried that you’re going to hurt anyone, or that I’m worried that you’re going to hurt yourself – even though, admittedly, I am worried about that because you keep trying to convince me to kill you. I’m going to stay here because I want to be here. Because I want to be with you. You said you lost your best friend – well, you’re my best friend. And…”

“What?” asked Clara in barely a whisper, her eyes fixed on Jenny.

“I love you. I’ve fallen in love with you. And I almost lost you – I did lose you – twice, and it’s not going to happen again.” Clara was stunned into silence. Jenny began to regret what she’d said. “…Unless, uh, you don’t feel the same way, in which case, obviously that’s fine and I will go and leave you to it.”

“Well, no, don’t go – don’t run off again, I just… Are you sure?”

“That I’m in love with you? Yes.”

“But… Really?”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t be.” Jenny crossed her arms.

“We’re from different universes.”

“Two good reasons.”

“Your dad is my best friend.”

“Three.”

“I’m your stepmother.”

“Fine,” Jenny smiled a little. “Four. And you can’t say I’m married this time.”

“I’m a vampire.”

“That’s nice. I’m a Time Lord.” Clara looked at her seriously, and then Jenny saw the cracks begin to appear. She couldn’t keep a straight face, trying and failing to fight off a smile.

“I thought I’d be the one who had to say it first.”

“You haven’t said it once.”

“I love you, too,” said Clara, then she sighed, and her smile faded. “Which is the one thing I didn’t want to happen and the whole reason I tried to set down those boundaries in the first place.” Jenny crossed the small room and pulled out the chair next to her.

“Why didn’t you want it to happen?”

“Because it shouldn’t. Because it can’t, I’m…” Clara put a hand to her forehead, thinking. Jenny was none-the-wiser as to what was really on her mind. But when Clara finally confided, she should have guessed. “I told Danny that I’d never love anybody else. That was the last thing I said to him when he was still alive.”

“Oh, Clara,” said Jenny softly, brushing Clara’s hair from her face and looking into her eyes deeply. “Love doesn’t work like that. Take it from me, I’ve been around for two centuries.”

“The last thing, Jenny. He died while we were having that conversation.”

“And what do you think he would say? If he was still in that digital afterlife – if you could ask him?” said Jenny. “Would he want you to be alone, or would he want you to try and be happy?”

“Will we be happy, though?” said Clara. “We’re sad together.”

“We’re honest. And I’m happier when I’m with you than I’ve ever been the rest of the time,” said Jenny, still touching her face. “You’re the only person in my life at the moment who knows me – knows me well enough to tell me off when I need it, too.”

“I…”

“I think you would be happy, and that’s what you’re scared of. But it is what he’d want, surely? Not for you to torture yourself. You can always end things if I’m wrong.”

“Is that your whole pitch? I can dump you if it doesn’t work out?”

“I think that all relationships that don’t work should be ended,” said Jenny. “I’ve had a very recent experience with a relationship like that, actually.”

“Yes, in which you cheated on him, for weeks,” Clara pointed out. Jenny dropped her hand and then scratched her head.

“I suppose… But I’ve left him now. Clara, listen,” Jenny turned her chair to face Clara fully, and Clara shrank. “I want to be with you. I mean it, with both of my hearts.”

“You’re very intense, you know.”

Jenny nodded. “I’ve been told that before. Would you like to sleep on it? Or… I can wait. I’ll wait weeks – months, even – if you need some time. I know it must be – it will be – difficult to adjust to all this.”

Clara frowned. “You’ll wait for me?”

“Yes. For however long it takes.”

“You see, you – this is the issue.” Clara crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. “You come over, you give me toast, you say you want to sleep with me; you shag me like nobody’s ever shagged me even though it’s not your preferred way to do it; you cook for me, you build furniture for me, you – you don’t even seem to care that I’m a vampire-”

“I don’t care that you’re a vampire.”

“This is exactly what I mean. You made me fall in love with you.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

“That makes it worse.”

“I don’t regret it,” said Jenny. “I can’t regret something that makes me feel like this.”

“But did you feel it before?” Clara implored. “Or are you only saying this now because I’m… Because I won’t get older? Because I’m immortal?”

Jenny shook her head. “I felt it before. But I didn’t… I didn’t let myself put all the pieces together until they had you. Until you were there, bleeding, and I realised I’d never gotten the privilege of telling you the truth. I want to keep you in my life because you’re the only good thing that’s happened to me in decades and losing you would be a bigger pain than I could bear.” Clara still said nothing. “Are you going to make me keep talking? I don’t like talking.”

“Do you have more to say?”

“I’m not going to lie and tell you that you being as you are now, forever, doesn’t… Well. That’s how I go through life. We’d understand each other.” Clara touched her cheek. Cold skin. Jenny managed not to flinch. Was this how her mechanical hand had felt to Clara all this time?

“Will you help me unpack so that we can find the kettle and have some tea?”

“Absolutely.”

“Adam left a note on the fridge that he stocked it up when they brought in the furniture,” said Clara, standing. “I’m starting to work out what Oswin sees in him.”

“I would’ve stocked up for you if anybody had told me what was going on,” said Jenny, opening one of the boxes she was sure contained the kettle, since she’d packed them under Clara’s direction.

It took about ten minutes to locate the kettle, the mugs, and the cutlery, and then to actually make the tea. At the same time, Clara worked out how to switch the boiler on and found a large, antique candelabra.

“Where did you get that?” asked Jenny.

“It was a parting gift, from Jane Austen,” said Clara. “We, um, had a bit of a thing.”

“A candelabra, though?”

“She said it was so that she could always light up my world,” said Clara, placing the candles. In the same box as the mugs had been the lighter for the hob; Jenny handed it to her. With the candles lit, Clara switched the lights off.

“See? It’s getting cosy in here already,” said Jenny, rinsing off the teaspoon and bringing the mugs to the table. Clara smelt her tea and then sipped it. “Does it taste better or worse now?”

“Tea in general, or your tea?”

“Are you saying I make bad tea?”

“It’s not the best tea,” said Clara. “It’s fine, though. It’s… I can taste more, but everything pales in comparison to… It’s indescribable.” A moment later, she gathered her thoughts, and they got back to the matter at hand. “You really mean that, then? You want to be with me?”

“Yes.”

“In a relationship with me? A real one? An exclusive one, too – not like whatever you were up to with Jack.”

“Yes.”

“Even though it’s weird and complicated? Even though I’ve died and we’re from different universes?”

“I’ve died, too,” said Jenny.

“I suppose you have…”

“Yes, Clara. I want us to be together. Just you and me. Forget the rest, it doesn’t matter.”

“Then… Okay, I’ll… You might be the only good thing to come out of all this vampire nonsense, so, yes. We can be together.” She wasn’t sure Clara was entirely in the mood, but Jenny couldn’t resist leaning in and kissing her, just once, to set everything in stone. “How was that?” Clara whispered when Jenny broke away.

“Cold,” she told the truth. “But don’t worry; I’ll get used to it.”

DAY 116

March 2023/Edited March 2024

837: The Mourning

Clara Ravenwood

Clara had cried herself to sleep. That hadn’t happened since the weeks immediately following Danny’s death when she’d woken up over and over again wanting nothing else but to hear his voice and had called his voicemail more than once just to listen.

It was different that night, though. She wasn’t grieving Danny Pink; she was grieving herself.

She didn’t remember falling asleep but eventually calmed down enough by listening to Jenny’s rhythmic breathing and double heartbeat. She didn’t have a heartbeat of her own to focus on anymore. But Jenny was there, firm and stable, and Clara was curled around her, clinging on as if she was the only thing in the universe.

Jenny was still there in the morning, fast asleep but half sitting up and holding Clara against her. Clara was relieved Jenny had finally slept, after keeping herself awake for weeks so that Clara was never alone. She hugged Jenny as tightly as she could manage and decided at that moment never to let go.

A short while later, Clara unable to go back to sleep, Jenny shifted. She sniffed, then coughed, then sighed.

“You don’t know your own strength,” she said hoarsely, eyes shut. Maybe as tightly as Clara could manage was too tight now. She relaxed. “Thank you,” Jenny kissed the top of her head. “Have you been up for long?”

“Not really.”

“I was trying not to sleep, so that you wouldn’t be alone if you woke up.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, no. If you’re up, I’m up,” she squeezed Clara. “How are you doing?”

“Not the best. What time is it?” Jenny picked up her phone from the mattress next to her, where it had fallen.

“Ten in the morning,” she said, “I had no idea we’d slept that long. You fell asleep around three, me a bit later. Do you mind if I stretch for a minute?”

“No, of course not.” Clara let her go and she climbed out of bed, aching from being in a funny position all night, so that she could stretch her arms and legs properly.

“Are you just gonna stare at me?” asked Jenny wryly, catching Clara doing just that.

“Am I not allowed now? You didn’t mind before.”

“You can stare all you like,” said Jenny, turning away from Clara and then reaching down to touch her toes. She held this position for a few seconds. “Are you any good at massages? My back’s killing.”

“Well, I’ll – I’ll give it a go,” said Clara, surprised. “You could have moved in the night.”

“I didn’t want to disturb you; you need the rest.”

“So do you.”

When she’d done stretching, she sat on the edge of the bed, Clara cross-legged behind her, gently kneading the muscles between her shoulders. “That’s great, actually. Thank you.”

“I have massaged a handful of women in my time,” said Clara.

“I’ll do you next, if you like?”

Clara smiled slightly. “You’re okay. I was very comfortable in your arms all night. They’re always so big and strong, thanks to your push-ups.”

“I don’t just do push-ups,” said Jenny. “I do pull-ups, too. And sometimes weightlifting, but I don’t quite have the right physique for it.”

“I find it hard to believe that you don’t have the right physique for something.”

“I’m a gymnast, it’s a very different discipline.”

“What do you mean, you’re a gymnast?” asked Clara.

“Oh, I used to be a professional acrobat, in a circus,” she explained. “A long time ago.” Clara stopped her massage. When Jenny looked around, she was being gawked at. “What?”

“Professional acrobat?” Jenny only shrugged. “And you never thought to mention this before?”

“Lots of people do acrobatics.”

“I don’t. I’ve never actually slept with an acrobat before.”

“You have, you’ve slept with me about a hundred times,” said Jenny.

“Yeah, unknowingly. What other things haven’t you told me?” Clara asked.

“About myself? Plenty. I’m over two hundred and most of the time we’ve spent together has just been us having sex, you telling me about your day, or me complaining about my husband. Ex-husband,” she added hastily.

“You can’t give me the highlights, then? Things I need to know about you?”

“I…” she began. “There are things. But they’re not…” She paused, thinking about how to word it. “I’m not trying to keep stuff from you, but there are parts of my life that are hard to talk about.”

“Okay…”

“Do you trust me?”

“Trust you? You’ve been cheating with me for months, that doesn’t give the most trustworthy impression,” said Clara. Jenny couldn’t tell how much of that was a joke. “But, sure, I appreciate that what’s technically day one of an untested relationship isn’t really the right time to share our deepest and darkest secrets.”

“Untested? I wouldn’t say we’re untested.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Clara stopped the massage and sat next to her instead.

“You dying and turning into a vampire is a big test, isn’t it?”

“We’re still dealing with that. It’s just a beginning.”

“…Come on, let’s go upstairs, get some food,” she stood. “You’ve barely eaten for days.”

“I’m not very hungry.”

“I’ll cook. There’s loads in.” Clara resisted, staying in bed. “Come on,” Jenny held out her hand. “If it doesn’t smell good, you don’t have to have any of it. I’ll do bacon sandwiches.” Clara took her hand and got to her feet.

“But what if I stop liking normal food? What if I only want to eat raw meat all the time?” she asked, letting Jenny lead her out of the room and up the narrow staircase to the cottage’s only other floor.

“Then I’ll make you some sushi, or steak tartare.” Clara was a little overwhelmed. Weeks she’d spent pining over Jenny, weeks, and now she had materialised as the perfect woman. It was such a shame everything else in Clara’s life had collapsed, as if it was incompatible.

Jenny slowly relit all the candles on the antique candelabra and put the heating back on. Clara sat, feeling unstable.

“What do you want me to call you?” she asked a few minutes later when Jenny was placing bacon rashers into a frying pan and the room was glowing with candlelight.

“Um, well… My name is Jenny?”

“No, no, I mean, like… do you want me to call you my girlfriend, or something else?”

“Like what?”

“Some people prefer ‘partner’. I’ve known loads of people who’d rather say ‘partner’ than boyfriend or girlfriend.”

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it sounds more adult, maybe?” she suggested.

“I’ll be your girlfriend. Very gladly.”

“That’s not weird to you?”

“Not really. Why would it be? You’re…” she paused, cleared her throat, shuffled the bacon around in the pan. Then she looked at Clara over her shoulder. “It’s like I said. I love you.”

“I…” Clara stuttered. “How – how are you gonna tell the Doctor about this?”

“Oh, him.”

“Yes, him. He’s your father.”

“Are you trying to spoil my breakfast?”

“Jenny.”

“I don’t know, why is it his business?”

“Why is it his business? That’s your line?”

“Well, I don’t think it is his business.” The bacon hissed and spat. Jenny turned the rashers over. “You just look like each other, that’s all.”

“That’s not all, though, we’re the same woman – literally, the same person.”

“That’s not true,” said Jenny. “You have a diversion, and you don’t share your conscious experiences. It’s not like you’re an echo, connected to her, like Oswin.”

“Oswin or those other echoes you tried to sleep with, before me. All to prove a point.”

“We can run away together and never tell him about us if you want,” said Jenny, ignoring her comment about the echoes. “Just disappear.”

“I’ve already disappeared, I can’t do it again.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. Do you want to put things on ice? Wait a while? If you need time to adjust to everything, that’s okay with me. It’s your decision.”

Clara didn’t say anything else while Jenny finished cooking. She left the bacon sizzling, buttered the bread, then made up the two sandwiches to bring and set down on the tiny kitchen table.

“Do you want a drink?” Jenny asked. “Water? Or, um… there’s blood, I could probably warm it up a bit? I’m sure it’ll microwave on a low setting…” She’d never had to warm up blood before.

“I don’t want to drink it in front of you.”

“Why not? I saw you do it already.”

“Yeah, and it was horrific – it’s repugnant. Human blood.”

“I’m not a human. Seeing you drink human blood isn’t too much weirder than seeing you eat a bacon sandwich.”

“Humans are like pigs, you mean.” Jenny ignored that, too.

“If you have some blood, you might feel better.”

“I’ll wait for you to go.”

“I thought you didn’t want me to go?” said Jenny. Clara didn’t speak. As a last resort, Jenny very gently kissed her cheek. “Try and eat something, for me.” She was convincing enough. Clara picked up the bacon sandwich and bit into it, only a small bite, and then breathed out deeply while she chewed.

“This is good bacon.” Jenny smiled and went about demolishing her own sandwich; she was famished. Clara ate slowly by her side.

“I mean it about you being different,” said Jenny when she was nearly done, “You and her. And it’s not like she’s raised me, she’s not my stepmother.”

“But I remind you of her, and of him.”

“Honestly? You don’t.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t,” Jenny insisted, “We’ve spent more time together, you and I, than I have with them. You’re your own person to me, absolutely.”

“How will you tell him?” Clara asked again.

“I won’t, not right away,” said Jenny, “But when I do, I’ll just…” But she didn’t know what she’d do. “Suppose I’ll just say that you and I are in love, and I don’t care what he thinks about it.”

“You and I are in love?”

“You’re being difficult on purpose.”

“Now I’m difficult…” said Clara. “We’re in love, but I’m difficult.”

“Clara,” Jenny said seriously, “I’m not going to dump you, no matter how much you try to convince me to. You don’t want to try this, fine, but I think you’re self-sabotaging.”

“Well – you’re too good for me, aren’t you?”

“Why would you think that?” asked Jenny. Clara didn’t have an answer, though. She made a few noises that didn’t quite form words.

“It – because – I – you just are. You’re too good for anyone.”

“If that were true, I’d be doomed to be alone forever, wouldn’t I? Is that what you want?”

“No, but… I can’t be a person who leaves everything to travel through time and space with you. Not anymore, not after everything.”

“I’m not asking you to. I don’t want to travel through time and space at all at the moment, I’d rather be here with you. Do you know why I kept coming back to you?”

“Because we have great sex.”

“No,” said Jenny, then paused. “Well, partly, but – no. Because you’re nice.”

“Nice?”

“Yes. You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met. You make me feel so… so safe. And warm. And… like nothing can touch us, like nothing else matters when we’re together.”

“Very cheesy.”

“Yeah, well… I haven’t felt a connection like this with anyone for a very long time. Don’t you feel it?”

“You really think I’m the nicest person you’ve ever met?”

“I really do. And the collarbones don’t hurt, either.”

“Of all the body parts…”

“Collarbones are just very sexy, yours in particular. I don’t make the rules. And you know I’m right, anyway – I’ve seen you looking at mine.”

“Yeah, it’s not your bones I’m looking at when you catch me staring at your chest, Jenny. Hate to break it to you.” Jenny laughed at that. Clara took another bite from the bacon sandwich and then, slowly, polished it off. Jenny had already finished.

“I told you you’d feel better,” said Jenny.

“Maybe…”

“You need to drink some blood, though.”

“No, I-”

“Clara. I don’t want you to take offence to this, but you’re being a baby. I really don’t mind seeing you drink blood, and I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide it from me.”

“What do you know about babies? You were born an adult.” Jenny didn’t respond. She crossed her arms and leant on the table, thinking, but Clara couldn’t read her. “…I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“The thing is,” Jenny began. “I have a daughter. Kind of. If you want vulnerability in exchange for vulnerability, well, here it is.”

“What?”

“…A long time ago, when I was in my eighties, I lived in East Berlin,” Jenny continued. “There was a girl, Astrid, she was a prostitute. I was smuggling over the Wall. We met, by chance, because I saved her brother’s life. Fell in love. She got pregnant, from a client… The child isn’t mine, biologically, but…” Jenny trailed off. She cleared her throat. “We had to leave Berlin, go to the West. I had this vortex manipulator. She and her brother had papers, I was supposed to teleport over and join them, but it took me way off course, to the future, this planet.”

“Jenny, you don’t have to tell me things that are-”

“I want you to know. To know me, properly – because then you’ll understand. You’ll understand lots of things. Okay?” Clara nodded. Jenny went on, though her voice shook a little. “I won’t bore you with the details, but… I was away, not by choice, for fourteen years. Everything was taken from me. When I got back to Astrid, the baby had been born. A girl. She called her Jennie – with an ‘I-E’ – after me.”

“And you… stayed?”

“No. I was too different, after all that time. But I visit, every few years, so that they… I don’t want to outlive them.” She stopped talking. Clara stared at her. Jenny didn’t know what she was thinking or feeling. “Should I not have told you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well… that’s everything you need to know about me, for now.” Clara didn’t say anything. “I’ll get you some blood, shall I?”

Clara didn’t stop her as she opened the small medical fridge, on the floor next to the normal fridge, and took out a blood bag. She didn’t try to warm it up, just emptied it into a tall glass and carefully brought it over. Clara was ravenous, though, and chugged it.

“…Do you want another one?” she asked when Clara put the glass back down.

“No, it’s okay.”

“Better?”

“A bit.” Jenny took the glass and rinsed it in the sink, then sat back down.

“My point is, that I’m not perfect, or better than anyone, or too good for you. You’re nice to me, you talk to me, and you… see me. Properly.” She took Clara’s hand. “Sometimes, that’s all you need, isn’t it? Someone who sees you.”

“I might see you a bit differently now. Is this why you’re…”

“Why I’m what?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes, I look at you, and it’s like you’re not quite there. Or there’s something underneath, and you’re so far away.”

“Probably. Is it too complicated for you?”

“More complicated than it was already, with you being from a parallel universe in which your dad is my husband? No, it’s not too complicated. But, Jenny,” Clara began, “I want us to start this on the right footing – and part of that is you telling your dad so that we don’t have to hide from everybody.”

Jenny sighed. “I will tell him. But can this just be ours, please? For a while? He doesn’t have the right to know my good news so quickly.”

“Yeah. Okay. Just us for a while.”

“Perfect,” Jenny smiled again. “What do you want to do for the rest of the day, then? We could go see the village? It’s autumn; it’ll be dark early.”

“Maybe later. I’m still getting used to the house and having you around without the pretext of sex.”

“We can still have sex,” said Jenny.

“Well, yeah, I’d hope so, but I’m not up to it yet. We can just stay in, can’t we? Watch TV. Or do you not do that? Are you too alien?”

“I’ll do anything with you, Clara. Whatever you want, for as long as you want me.”

Clara Ravenwood wanted Jenny to do everything with her, forever.