The Twelfth Doctor: The Moment the Whole World Slept By Andrew Kemp

Prologue - 39 Minutes

England - 3rd November 2015, 8:28am

Harry checked his wristwatch one more time, hoping that by some miracle he now wouldn’t be running late for work. But alas, as he’d expected, time had indeed decided not to freeze in place or reverse to give him some chance of not getting a yelling from his boss. ‘Ah well, nothing I can do about it now,’ he said to himself before wolfing down the second slice of toast he’d rushed to prepare whilst simultaneously trying to get dressed into the formal clothing he was required to wear in his office. Once his tie was tied and sleeve buttons fastened, Harry grabbed his smart jacket from the coat rack and slipped it on. Trudging gently up the stairs, he walked back into his bedroom and walked over to his half awake wife.

‘I love you Kelly,’ he smiled at her as he kneeled down, leaning over to her and placing a gentle kiss on her lips, which she reciprocated as best she could in her current state. Then he leant over to the bump she was currently holding protectively, placing a kiss on it and standing back up. ‘I love you little one.’ Quickly, he jogged as safely as he could down the stairs and headed back into the kitchen to grab the last piece of toast, shoving it into his mouth, and then heading for the front door, stepping outside for the first time that day and enjoying the feeling of the cool air on his slightly flustered face.

Once he was certain he had his keys, phone, wallet and work ID, Harry locked the door to his house and climbed into his sleek blue car, the engine revving to life without a hitch. After taking a moment to run his comb through his trendy-styled brown hair, making sure there wasn’t a strand out of place, he adjusted the gear stick, put his hands on the steering wheel and slowly pushed his foot down on the pedal. Slowly crawling to the end of his driveway, he checked to make sure there were no oncoming vehicles before pulling out onto the smooth road, turning to the right and beginning the half hour drive to work.

Wanting to try and distract himself from just thinking about the anger he knew he was going to have to face from his boss when he arrived, Harry turned on the radio and cycled through the various stations until he came across some pop music he could at least tolerate. Little Mix if he remembered the group rightly, he liked this song. Allowing the music to linger in the background, he focussed on the road, stopping when he had to at traffic lights and junctions, allowing drivers or pedestrians with the right of way to pass.

As he sat in the infuriating morning traffic, Harry could feel the anxiety of the impending yelling he was going to be receiving welling up inside his throat, trying his best to swallow it down so his mind wouldn’t drift from paying attention to the busy roads. On the pavements he could see gaggles of school kids remorsefully walking to school, girls grouped together giggling and boys being boisterous and joking with each other, as kids do.

Once he entered central London the roads were even more clogged up with cars, if that were possible. But Harry didn’t find himself caring as a large yawn escaped his mouth. He knew he shouldn’t be yawning behind the wheel but he didn’t pay too much mind to it, he had too much to think about already, especially with him now approaching one of the busiest crossroads in London. But the yawn came again, bigger this time and Harry felt his eyes begin to become heavy. Jolting himself upright, he forced his eyes open. But he didn’t know how to stop it. It was as though something had taken over his body and unable to fight it, Harry’ eyes fell shut and his head slumped into the wheel.

Unbeknownst to him, everyone around him was experiencing the same bizarre sensation. The school kids dropped like flies on the pavement, collapsing onto one another in big groups as the slumber took them as well. Harry’s foot was firmly pushed onto the accelerator and with no one else awake to stop it, his car smashed into the cars of fellow sleeping drivers, glass and metal shattering and splintering, flying through the air before clattering all over the ground, littering the cross-road. Vehicles careened into each other as well as people and buildings, totally out of control. Some shards of glass and varying metals sank themselves into some of the sleeping children, with some of the punctures being merely minor whilst others would prove fatal.

A sleeping Harry, behind the wheel of his nice car and desperate to not be late for work, died upon impact with the other cars who crashed into the cross-road pile up. All around his body, chaos and carnage had ensued as the entire city of London succumbed to the sudden plague of sleep. At 8:39am on the third of November 2015, one of the worst human catastrophes to affect England struck, killing an inconceivable percent of the population. Some say 19%. Other sources say closer to 40%.

-

Los Angeles - 12:36 am

As her dorm buddy slept not too far away, nineteen year old Amber could feel her stomach rumbling. She always struggled to sleep when she was hungry and given her and her coursemates had thought it would be a good idea to sneak some bottles of vodka onto the campus and proceed to drink all of them between the group, the hunger pangs were worse than she was used to, granted she thought the alcohol was an understandable coping mechanism for trying to work towards being able to graduate. Resigning herself to her fate, Amber got up and walked into the dorm kitchen, looking for something she could make that wouldn’t require much effort.

Unfortunately for her, she hadn’t bothered to do her grocery shopping for the week yet and therefore had no quick meals she could microwave or throw in an oven. But she needed to eat, so she decided to just do the quick and easy American classic grilled cheese. Grabbing a pan from the cupboard, she slammed it a bit too heavy-handedly onto the hob and lit it, allowing it to warm up before she began to look for bread and cheese. A yawn hit her quite suddenly and she hoped that it was a sign she might sleep well tonight, but first she needed food.

Without warning, a large flame burst up from underneath the pan and Amber reacted as quickly as she could in her currently inebriated state, clumsily jolting over to the stove and taking off the pan to realise there was some oil still coating the underside. Removing the pan, she began running it under the cold water tap, the fire luckily subsiding almost instantly. Another yawn left her body as she left the sink to go back to the hob to make sure there was no oil left to potentially ignite and burn down her dorm room, or worse.

But as the final yawn hit her, Amber’s eyes quickly fell shut and the sleep took her before she could even register what was going on. At 12:39am, She slumped to her knees, her head and face, along with her gorgeous, long, wavy brown hair falling straight onto the open flame. And as the fire began to scorch her flesh and singe her hair, the sleeping teenager didn’t even know she’d never wake up to make it to graduation.

-

Beijing - 4:31pm

Claire stared out of the small, almost circular window of the plane at the clouds, admiring their soft shape and pure white fluffiness, and especially the way the sun shone on them, creating the impression that the plane and its passengers were flying through an entirely different world they could never step foot on. Claire loved plane flights. She understood the fears that many people had about flying and the dangers that could very possibly happen. But she’d flown out on business trips like this too many times for those fears to rule her life and besides, nothing relaxed her more than the light humming of the plane jets accompanied with a view like this.

Claire adjusted her thick, black rimmed glasses to sit onto her nose again properly, allowing a yawn to escape her mouth. She knew the flight would be coming to an end pretty soon, they were only ten minutes away from landing in Beijing but she couldn’t help but feel tired. She noticed how everyone around her seemed to yawn at the same time as her, which she for a moment thought was a bit weird, but given the odd human reaction to yawn in response to another yawn, she just assumed she’d set everyone off.

Wanting to look as good as she could before getting off of the plane, Claire made sure the slimming grey suit she was wearing was free of creases and checked her jet black hair out in her locked phone screen. She’d picked out this suit to compliment her olive skin and was happy to say she thought she looked as attractive and in charge as she felt. Taking the bobble out of her hair, she let the long locks flop down past her neck and her chest before running them through her hands, pulling them back and re-tying the bobble and arranging them into a large but neat bun on her head.

Finishing that task, Claire let another yawn past her lips as the plane hit a spot of turbulence, causing the pilot to announce he would be turning off autopilot in order to safely navigate but that there was nothing to worry about. Claire believed him, even though once again everynone within her field of vision seemed to yawn in unison with her. She’d been on enough flights to know this was nothing to be worried about.

Realising she clearly must have been more tired that she’d realised, Claire fell asleep, her body slumping down into her seat. Unbeknownst to her, every other person on the plane to Beijing had fallen asleep with her, including the two plane pilots. At 4:39pm, the commercial flight to Beijing crashed into the city, killing all on board as well as many in the area.

-

Sydney - 7:35pm

Oscar had been enjoying his holiday to Australia with his brother and their group of mates. He was however sad that their flight back to Manchester was tomorrow and was desperate to squeeze as much fun out of what was left of their time here as possible. That’s why they’d decided it would be fun to go out to the dimly lit Bondi beach and go swimming. It was too dark to really tell how far out they were into the ocean at this point but none of them cared, they were having a fun time and that’s what counted.

Oscar happily splashed about as waves crashed over him and his buddies, enjoying the sensation of the cold, refreshing water causing them to bob up and down as if they were mere feathers in the breezy air. He was so determined to have fun that it didn’t even occur to him that yawning whilst swimming in the sea was maybe a sign that he should get out. Nor did it occur to anyone else in his group.

‘How are you feeling bro?,’ Oscar’s brother Gregg asked as he playfully slapped him on the back, flopping his arm over Oscar’s shoulder ‘you ready to head home tomorrow?’

‘Not really,’ he responded with a melancholic sigh ‘but what can we do? Let’s just make the most out of the time we have left.’ As he said this he smiled at the group of lads messing about, splashing salt water around and dunking each others faces under the cold water.

‘I love you man. I’m glad we got to have a good holiday together before I’m stationed in Cyprus,’ Gregg smiled at Oscar, pulling him into a brotherly hug, well as best as he could whilst they were treading water in the Tasman sea. As they hugged the pair yawned again and they realised this time that maybe that was a sign they should head back to their villa to get some sleep before the flight.

The brothers announced to the group their intentions to head back, their friends protesting that they could stay out a little longer but eventually giving in. The pair began the swim back to the shore, the group following reluctantly. Until an overwhelming exhaustion washed over them like the waves had been doing previously. At 7:39pm, seven young men fell into a deep sleep in the middle of the Tasman sea just off the coast of Sydney. And as the currents and rough waves turned the sleeping bodies through the water, the seven young men wouldn’t be waking up again as the ocean prevented air from refilling their lungs.

-

Chapter 1 - The Drawing by the Terrified Boy

As Clara’s eyes began to open, she didn’t register what her surroundings were straight away. The sound of car horns blaring loudly were muffled, as were the crackling of flames. But as the need to sleep that had rapidly come over her began to fade away, allowing her to fully wake up, she realised something was up almost immediately. She was in form period, why would she have fallen asleep at work? And why was every single student in her form room seemingly waking up simultaneously with her? And why were there so many car horns beeping wildly outside? And was that...burning she could smell?

Instantly worried, Clara jolted out of her seat behind her desk and towards the window behind her, parting the blinds that were blocking out the glaring sunlight and let out a gasp of horror as her eyes took in the sight of the destruction outside. Cars had crashed all over the road, into houses, into people, fences. One was about 2 inches away from having smashed through the wall of her classroom. Then there were the bodies. Countless bodies, littering the pavements and the streets and those were just for as far as Clara could see from this window. Judging from the amount of noise and the way cars were piled up past her field of vision, she was willing to bet whatever had happened hadn’t just affected this road.

Alongside the cars, the bodies and the flames that licked excitedly at both the wreckages and some of the corpses, beginning to set them alight, Clara saw people starting to wake up amongst all the dead, screaming in horror as they realised what surrounded them. ‘What happened?’ Clara asked aloud, but quietly enough so that her students wouldn’t hear and begin to panic.

‘I’m just going to be out of the room for a few minutes okay everyone? Stay here, all of you,’ she ordered her students as she could see they were beginning to become restless ‘do you all understand?’’

‘Yes Miss Oswald,’ they all said back.

Satisfied that they’d do as she had asked, Clara walked towards the classroom door and left the room, quickly heading for the classroom next door and knocked, not wanting to intrude without permission.

‘Come it,’ said a gruff male voice from the other side.

Clara opened the door and stepped inside. Normally she’d just poke her head through and ask to speak to whomever she needed but in this instance politeness could wait. Instead she walked straight over to the large, rotund man behind the teacher's desk who she could tell just from his yawning and grogginess had also just woken up. ‘Mr Coulson, have you looked out of the window yet?’ she asked him rather abruptly.

‘No Miss Oswald, why?’

‘Just do it,’ she snapped back at him.

‘Ok if you insist but I find your tone to be rather…’

‘Mr Coulson I don’t know how to explain this to you without sounding crazy but I don’t have the time to work it out so please just do the both of us a favour and look out of the window.’

Looking annoyed, Mr Coulson reluctantly got out of his chair and turned around, stepping up to his classroom window and parting the blinds. As the gasp passed his lips, Clara joined him at the window and began talking in a hushed tone as to not scare the kids in this class. ‘I don’t know what’s happened but I’m worried for the children.’

‘Should we try and send them all home? Surely they should be with their parents and guardians,’ Mr Coulson suggested, but Clara quickly shook her head to that idea.

‘No,’ she responded ‘whatever happened hasn’t seemed to have caused any damage here, but who knows where everyone’s parents are. If any were out during all of this they could well be dead.’

‘What even happened?’

‘I don’t know exactly but I have an idea. Did you fall asleep at all during the last five minutes or so?’

‘I...yes but please don’t report this to the headteacher…’ Mr Coulson panicked.

‘I’m not going to. Because I did too, along with all of the kids in my form,’ Clara explained ‘and it looked like the kids in here were all waking up when I walked in here too.’

‘So you think that everyone in the school fell asleep?’

‘No, I think everyone in the area fell asleep, possibly all of London. I saw people waking up amongst the wrecked cars and the victims when I looked out of my window. I think everyone in London fell asleep at the exact same second. That would explain how all these cars crashed in the space of mere minutes. Everyone driving fell asleep at the wheel and their cars went out of control.’

‘All of London? But how is that possible?’

‘I don’t know. I have to go and make a phone call. Go around and make sure all the other classes are ok.’

After getting a hesitant nod of agreement from the man, Clara turned on her heels and quickly headed to the store cupboard a little ways down the corridor from her classroom. She needed the Doctor but didn’t want to have to answer any questions about him if anyone heard her talking to him or saw the TARDIS materialising in the school.

Once she’d done one last check to make sure no one was around to hear and was sure the door to the cupboard was locked so no one could walk in on her, Clara frantically fumbled to get her phone out of her pocket. However as she was about to go through her contacts and find the Doctor’s number, a call came through. The number wasn’t saved in her contacts but she’d had conversations with them enough to recognise the number by now.

‘Kate,’ Clara answered the call immediately ‘please tell me you’re calling about what I think it is.’

‘Clara thank god you’re alive! Yes, we need the Doctor now!’ Kate’s voice shouted over the other end of the call.

‘What’s happened Kate? How did the city fall asleep?’

‘The city?’ Kate replied a bit baffled ‘Clara, it isn’t just London.’

‘What?!’

‘Clara it’s the whole world. Everyone on the planet. Everyone fell asleep at the same time.’

As the realisation of the scale this catastrophe must have had on the planet, Clara took a moment, leaning her back against the wall and not stopping tears beginning to gently and silently roll down her cheeks. ‘But all those people…’ she finally spoke down the phone again, sniffing back a sob mid sentence ‘outside the school. That has happened everywhere?’

‘Yes,’ Kate answered professionally, although even over the phone Clara could detect the fear and sadness in her voice. ‘Grab your stuff and come to UNIT HQ. I’ve already got a helicopter heading to Coal Hill. We need the Doctor. You know he’s temperamental and might not come if we ask but he’ll come if you ask Clara.’

‘I understand,’ she answered before she heard the sound of the call being hung up.

Clara wiped her face of the tears she’d cried before taking in a deep breath and composing herself. She had to be strong in front of her class, panicking would just make them worry more than they already might be. She unlocked the door to the cupboard and straightened her top as she reached her classroom door.

‘Sorry about that,’ she apologised to her class when she walked back in ‘are you all ok?’

‘Miss Oswald,’ one girl put her hand up with a scared expression on her face ‘what’s going on? I’m scared.’

‘It’s ok, it’s ok, we’re going to sort it out ok,’ she addressed the whole class as opposed to just the girl who’d put her hand up. ‘I’ve got to go, I've been called into my other job.’

‘What is your other job Miss Oswald? You never tell us what it is?’ another of her students piped up now.

‘I’m not allowed to tell you, that’s why. I’m sorry,’ she responded, trying to gather her things quickly, throwing her jacket on and putting her bag on her shoulder ‘I’ll get Mr Coulson to look after you all while I’m gone so behave for him.’

‘Yes Miss Oswald,’ all but one of the kids said in unison.

Clara noticed that the boy who hadn’t answered, Martin, had seemed very distant since they’d all woken up earlier, and was currently manically scribbling something in the drawing pad he never failed to bring to school everyday. She walked over to his desk, wanting to make sure he was feeling alright before she left.

‘Martin,’ she spoke to him gently as she knelt next to him ‘is everything ok?’

‘Yes Miss, I’m just a bit scared,’ the brown haired year seven responded as he put his pencil down, seemingly done with whatever he’d been drawing ‘I saw...something.’

‘Saw something?’ Clara asked ‘where?’

‘In my dream,’ Martin said, clearly more shaken up by whatever he’d seen than he wanted to let on, maybe because he didn’t want to seem like a coward in front of all the other boys. However Clara noticed tears had begun forming in the boy’s eyes and his hands were shaking quite violently.

‘Hey hey look at me,’ she told him caringly, putting her hand under his chin and gently moving his face to look at hers ‘it’s ok. Do you want to come with me outside for a moment? Tell me what happened.’

Martin didn’t reply out loud but nodded slightly, standing up from his desk and picking up the drawing he’d done whilst sniffling and wiping away the tears that had started welling in his eyes. Clara took his free hand and walked him out of the classroom, making sure the door was shut behind him before she knelt down to be at eye level with him.

‘What happened? What did you see?’ she asked him calmly.

‘I fell asleep in form…’ the boy started to explain, worried that he’d get in trouble for falling asleep without realising it had happened to everyone.

‘We all did, it’s ok,’ Clara reassured him ‘keep going.’

‘When I was asleep I saw this,’ he told her, handing her the drawing he had scribbled ‘in the dream. I was lying in my bed, but everything felt wrong. I couldn’t move. And I saw this. But it came right up to me, like it was looking into me. Inspecting me…’

Clara took a look at the drawing Martin had given her and felt terror begin to well up within her. The drawing was of a slender, bony, humanoid figure with angular features, soulless black eyes, nostrils without a nose and a creepy, thin smile, fangs peeking from under the top lip. Pointed ears were under its wispy, scraggly strands of hair and what looked to be large bat-like wings were furled up on its back. ‘Could this have caused all of this?’ Clara thought to herself before focusing her attention back on Martin.

‘It’s going to be alright, don’t worry,’ she comforted the boy by pulling him into a hug and allowing him to cry on her for a minute or so. ‘Now, I really do have to go, but go back into class, stay with your friends and Mr Coulson is going to take care of you all. Am I ok to take this drawing with me?’

Martin looked a bit confused as to why his teacher would want to keep the sketch of the creepy monster he’d done, but he didn’t want to look at it anymore so decided he may as well let her have it if she wanted it. After opening the door and gesturing the boy to go back into the classroom, Clara quickly marched her way out of the school and towards the sports field where she saw a jet black helicopter bearing the UNIT emblem, climbed on board and mentally prepared herself for what was sure to be a short flight to the UNIT Headquarters.

-

Chapter 2 - The Moment the Whole World Slept

The Doctor knew him and Clara had an arrangement. She couldn’t travel in the TARDIS constantly since she had her job and her life on Earth to live, but he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t lonely in the TARDIS without her. It felt pretty empty when it was just him, and he couldn’t help but selfishly wish she could just stay in the TARDIS on more of a permanent basis.

So needless to say when the TARDIS phone began to ring whilst he was tinkering around with the controls, admittedly one of his usual pass times when he was a little lonely and wanting for company on his adventures, he was pretty happy. Especially since he was already certain who it was. ‘Clara!’ he greeted his closest friend with a beaming smile, granted she couldn’t see his delight at her calling him, ‘what can I do you for? Bored of being back teaching and itching for an adventure?’

‘Doctor,’ her worried tone called out over the line.

‘I was thinking we could go to 19th Century Chicago and see the rise and height of popularity of circuses…’

‘Doctor…’ she repeated.

‘Or if that’s not something you’re up for maybe…’

‘Doctor please just stop and listen to me!’ she snapped, a little more aggressively that she’d intended.

‘Yes Clara, I’m sorry. What’s wrong?’

‘Doctor, something’s happened. Here, on Earth. And we need you urgently,’ he could practically hear the quiver in her lip over the call. Something must have severely shaken her up.

‘Doctor please, we wouldn’t be asking you if we weren’t desperate,’ the Doctor heard Kate’s as authoritative as ever voice this time.

The Doctor paused for a moment. He wasn’t as fond of getting involved with UNIT these days since whenever they were involved, destruction or a stupid mistep by them which could cost them the planet theyre working to correct was usually sure to follow. But Clara was asking. And there was no way he was going to not help her when she needed it. ‘I’m on my way, hold tight Clara.’

-

Inside the tower of London, or more specifically the UNIT Headquarters, the loud vwoorping sound that Clara and the head staff were all so used to rang out loudly, serving as a beacon of hope for them. As quickly as it had started, the sound ended. The pair waited in anticipation until after around five minutes, the Doctor burst through the doors and into the room where Clara and Kate were watching a wall of monitors, each one broadcasting a different news station from around the world.

‘Clara, what’s happened?’ he asked his brown-haired companion, hearing his heavy Scottish accent in person acting as a strange comfort blanket for the young woman. However before Clara could respond, Kate had already jumped into her leadership role.

‘We’re calling it ‘The Moment the Whole World Slept’,’ Kate began to explain, gesturing for the Time Lord to look at the monitors. ‘At exactly 8:39am Greenwich Meantime, everyone across the world who wasn’t already sleeping, fell asleep simultaneously for two minutes, causing an untold amount of damage and resulting in more casualties than we’ve been able to begin counting. Cars crashed all around, anyone in water drowned, planes crashed back to earth, it’s impossible to know everything this incident has done.’

‘Everyone at once? That would take an unimaginable amount of power, do you have any idea who it is and how they could have done this?’ the Doctor questioned Kate as he looked at all the monitors, shocked by the sheer amount of chaos could happen over a mere two minutes.

‘No we don’t, and we’re no closer to finding out either. We don’t even know they managed to do what they’ve done,’ Kate looked at the Doctor, an extremely worried look beginning to crack through the stern, strong and unshakeable visage she wore at all times. ‘Doctor please we need you more than ever. We don’t know what we’re up against or how to stop them, but if this happens again we have no idea how many more people are going to die.’

‘Kate it’s ok, we’ll figure out what to do and stop it from happening again,’ the Doctor looked at her with deep-set, earnest eyes, trying his hardest to reassure her. Then Clara walked over to him and pulled him into a tight hug, managing to conceal the tears that had started forming in her eyes as the reality and fear of the situation had begun sinking into her more and more.

‘Thank god you’re here,’ she said with a sniff as she tried her best to hold back on crying.

‘You called, why wouldn’t I be here Clara?’ he responded in a caring manner. He still wasn’t really one for hugging in this regeneration but he’d learned he’d just have to get used to this kind of show of affection from Clara, and he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t started to find some form of comfort in the hugging. Not that he’d ever allow it with anyone else other than his friend.

As Clara pulled away from the hug she heard a rustling in her pocket, making her put her hand in to see what the source of the noise was. Upon pulling it out she saw the folded up paper she’d asked Martin to let her keep and remembered the drawing the boy had done. ‘Kate! I forgot!’ she announced, walking back over to the blonde woman who was going back over some of the news footage, scouring for some form of clue as to what might have caused all of this. ‘One of the boys in my class drew this after everybody woke up, he said he saw this in his sleep.’

Kate took the paper off of Clara politely, unfolding it to reveal the horrific sketch drawn by a traumatised child. ‘You say he saw this? Did he explain how?’

By this point the Doctor was now looking over the drawing, inspecting it trying to work out what species it could potentially be but not having any ideas so far. ‘He said when he was asleep he could see himself lying on the ground somewhere and that whatever this thing was came right up to him and looked him over,’ she explained to Kate while the Doctor continued to examine the sketch, turning her attention to him ‘Doctor do you have any idea what it is?’

‘No. I don’t. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like this.’

‘But I thought you had knowledge of everything in the universe?’

‘For the most part, yes I do. So the fact that I don’t have the faintest idea what this thing is is worrying,’ he told the two humans, unable to hide his concern.

‘Well at least now we have an idea what we’re looking for, we can examine through all the news footage and see if we can spot anything that looks like this anywhere,’ Kate suggested, taking the drawing off of the Doctor and looking at it next to the scene of hundreds of cars crashing into each other on the M25 around London, some even careening over the edge and crashing to the ground below.

However as the trio began to analyse and compare, the task was cut short by one of the UNIT guards bursting into the room, dragging a kicking child with him. ‘Miss Stewart, this little boy was found sneaking through the grounds outside and trying to break in. He claims to be associated with Miss Oswald.’

-

Chapter 3 - Stowaway

‘Martin!’ Clara shouted at the boy, pacing quickly over to where the young boy was being currently restrained ‘what are you doing here? How did you get here?!’

‘Miss I…’ he began to explain, intimidated by the four pairs of adult eyes currently looking at him ‘I followed you through the school and hid on the helicopter.’

‘Martin! Why would you do that?’ Clara went into teacher mode ‘I told you to stay in class where it was safe, Mr Coulson was going to look after you all while I was here.’

‘Where exactly is here? Do you work for the government? Is that why you’re not allowed to tell us where you disappear all the time?!’ Martin let the excitement at the thought of having a bad-ass secret agent teacher get the better of him.

‘No...I mean...it’s hard to explain. And you really shouldn’t be here. Have you tried calling your mum and dad?’ she asked him, trying not to be too angry with the kid. The world was in a state of madness right now, and she could only imagine how terrifying it was for someone his age to have to witness so much death and destruction.

‘I did but they…’ his voice hitched in his throat ‘they didn’t answer. It just kept going straight to voicemail and I know they were driving to work this morning…’ the tears started to cascade down the boy’s face as he spoke, causing any annoyance Clara had to fade as she pulled him into a hug, trying her best to make him feel better despite what she thought was the inevitable reality that Martin’s parents had died.

‘Kate, could you check the names of confirmed deaths for Henry and Julia Greenwood? Maybe they didn’t go out to work this morning…’ Clara asked the UNIT Chief Scientific Officer.

After a few minutes of complete silence, Martin clinging onto Clara like a barnacle on the hull of a ship, Kate looked at Clara with a solemn look, shaking her head slightly before looking at the young boy. ‘I’m sorry, your parents are listed amongst the dead...I wish there was something we could do.’

‘It’s *sniff* ok. I kind of already figured out they were,’ Martin sniffled heavier and Clara noticed the tears beginning to fall once again, even harder this time.

‘Hey Martin, it’s ok. You have other family members you can live with, once this is all over we’ll try and get a new living arrangement for you. In the meantime, stay with me and I’ll look after you,’ Clara tried to reassure the child, not really sure what else she could do or say to comfort her student ‘right Doctor?’

‘Right what?’ the Doctor replied perplexed, apparently having zoned out part way through this entire interaction.

‘We can look after Martin on the TARDIS until we get this all sorted and then we can sort out a new living arrangement for him?’

‘The what?’ the boy asked, not sure what exactly his teacher had just said.

‘Why would we do that? He’s a child, I don’t want him on the TARDIS. It was bad enough when that girl came with us to the moon.’

‘You mean Courtney?’

‘Ah yes! The disruptive influence?’

‘Doctor! That is not the point. Martin needs someone to look after him…’

‘And I’m sure Kate will be able to find someone to mind a child while we try to save the Earth, I don’t need a little boy taking up space in the TARDIS during all of this ’ the Doctor said abruptly.

Clara looked at her friend furiously before dragging him by his arm, much to his protest, into the corridor outside, slamming the door behind her before letting him go and turning around to glare daggers into him.

‘Doctor, this is not a joke,’ Clara snapped angrily at the Time Lord, him being surprised he wasn’t being scorched by the fire of fury he could see burning in her eyes ‘Martin, that twelve year old boy just found out that his parents are dead, and we are no closer to working out who, what or how this all happened. All we have is a drawing, that the same boy made as he was being terrified by whatever it is in his sleep. For all we know, he could be a way for us to find out what is doing this. So for the love of god, show some respect!’

The Doctor paused for a moment, taken aback by Clara’s sudden lashing out before he lowered his head like a dog who had just been told off for messing up the house. ‘I’m sorry, Clara.’

‘It’s ok. Now let’s work out what’s going on,’ she forgave the time traveller before walking back into the screen room, the Doctor following behind her quietly.

‘Kate, we’re going to head to the TARDIS and see if there’s anything we can do from there, if anything happens here call me,’ the brunette addressed Kate before turning her attention to her young student. ‘Martin, can you come with us for a moment?’ Clara told the boy rather than asking, gesturing the boy to follow the Doctor, which he did without being asked again with Clara following close behind him.

The trio trekked through the UNIT Headquarters, the Doctor and Clara knowing the building like the back of their hands by this point, but Martin was a different story. The young boy was marvelling at all the technology and equipment that a bunch of the different rooms held, as well as all of the armed guards dressed smartly in official looking army uniforms, embroidered with the UNIT emblem. He was tempted to go down the stairs and follow the sign that pointed towards somewhere called ‘the Black Archives’ but decided against it when he noticed the men with large guns guarding just that one stairway. If that was just for the stairs he couldn’t begin to guess what the security was like outside whatever the Black Archives were.

Not that it really mattered once his teacher and the man she seemed awfully close to lead him to a large blue box stood in the middle of the grounds. ‘Are we going in there?’ Martin asked them, very confused as to why his teacher and the old man were unlocking and stepping inside of the blue box which he was pretty sure wasn’t big enough for the two of them, nevermind three. He quickly put this thought out of his mind however when he followed them inside and saw the amount of room inside of the box. ‘What the....how? What is this thing?’ he asked them in shock and awe at the impossible architecture.

‘Martin, before I say anything you have to promise me that everything you are about to see and what I am about to say, stays between me and you ok? No one else at school can know about this,’ Clara told her student with a stern but pleading voice ‘ok? Promise me.’

‘Yes miss, I promise,’ he responded with a firm nod.

‘This is called the TARDIS. This is the Doctor’s ship, it travels through space and time and before you ask, yes this is where I keep coming when I have to leave classes early. Because I’m the Doctor’s friend I often get asked by UNIT, they’re the people we were just with, to help them with some investigations,’ she explained to Martin as concisely as she could.

‘You mean...my teacher’s like a secret agent or something?’ Martin asked her, a grin on his face.

‘I mean, not exactly…’ Clara went to respond before she was cut off.

‘Wicked!’ the boy cried out. Clara was just happy that this new information had seemingly taken his mind off of the news of his parents death even if just for a few moments.

‘Right, Martin?’ the Doctor turned to the boy, holding what looked like electrodes, one in each hand.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ he replied, looking at the old man and a little intimidated by his stern face with deep set wrinkles.

‘I just need to put these in your head, hold still,’ the Doctor informed him before beginning to attach them to either temple, Martin looking at Clara with a worried look slowly creeping onto his face.

‘Miss Oswald...am I going to be ok?’

‘Yes Martin, don’t worry,’ she reassured the boy with a warm smile ‘the Doctor just needs to connect your mind to the TARDIS so we can get a better look at what you saw in your dream.’

‘Ok, now just place your hands in here,’ the Doctor gestured to the bizarre rows of fleshy material on the central console. Hesitantly, Martin sank his fingers into the weird console, immediately feeling some strange force touching his brain, trying to access his mind and sift through his memories.

‘Gotcha!’ the Doctor announced triumphantly, pressing a button on the console so that the memory came up on the screen. Sure enough, a gangly limbed, terrifying looking creature that looked awfully similar to what the boy had hastily sketched earlier in the morning appeared on the monitor. They watched as it crawled right up to the screen, or what they assumed had been Martin when he was asleep, on all four slender, bony limbs, hearing a cracking sound as the bones of its wings seemed to stretch out of its back and unfurled to reveal large, pale bat-like wings. The creature inspected the boy with small, beady black eyes, licking its lips hungrily and baring its fangs slightly.

‘Doctor, whatever that thing is, it’s terrifying,’ Clara admitted, a chill running down her spine as she watched it crawl around.

‘You can pull them out now Martin,’ the Doctor told the young lad, smiling at him for the first time since they’d been interacting as he pulled the electrodes off ‘you were very brave, thank you.’

‘Do you know what that thing was?’ Clara asked hopefully.

‘No idea,’ the Doctor replied honestly.

‘Great, so we’re no closer,’ she said annoyed before her and Martin simultaneously let out a loud and long yawn.

‘I’m trying to input the coordinates for wherever Martin was in that dream, see if we can somehow go to where that creature was but nothing’s coming up. The TARDIS isn’t even registering that whatever we saw was a real place.’

‘How is that possible? We saw it, we know it exists,’ she queried before her and Martin once again yawned.

‘I don’t know Clara…’ the Doctor started to respond until his companion and her student collapsed to the floor asleep.

-

Chapter 4 - Teacher, Lover, Soldier, Die!

The bright morning sun filtered in through the blinds and cast its rays upon Clara, who yawned and stretched as her eyes fluttered open and began to adjust to daylight. She knew she was working today so should get out of bed, but couldn’t resist the temptation of five more minutes snuggled in her comfy duvet, head resting on her plump pillows.

‘Clara…’ a familiar, slightly husky voice spoke gently next to her. Clara was too lost in her comfort to take much notice.

‘Clara, wake up,’ the voice said, ‘we have to be at the school for eight, it’s almost seven.’

‘Give me a minute Danny,’ she responded, yawning once more ‘not all of us are used to getting up at the crack of dawn like you…’ her voice trailed off at the end of the sentence as she realised who she was talking to.

‘Ok but don’t blame me if you fall back to sleep,’ Danny chuckled as he got out of the bed, the sunlight hitting every bump and crevice of his bare torso as he walked over to the set of drawers by his side of the bed and took out a shirt to wear. He slipped his arms into the sleeve and pulled the garment up over his shoulders before beginning to button it from the bottom up.

‘Danny...’ Clara began to speak but was unable to find the words to ask the question.

‘Clara?’ he replied with a warm smile, waiting for her to say what she wanted to.

‘Danny how…’ once again she found herself struggling to form the question but pushed on ‘how are you here?’

‘What do you mean how am I here? I’m your boyfriend,’ he replied a little bewildered.

‘I know but...you’re here,’ she continued, now sat up in bed with her long bob of cocoa-colour hair messily cascading down her neck and head, gesturing to the now half dressed Danny.

‘Well yeah I’d expect so since we moved in together,’ Danny laughed at Clara’s confusion and continued buttoning up the rest of his shirt before choosing a tie to match.

‘But we didn’t…’ Clara said a little more bluntly than she intended ‘Danny you…’

‘I what?’ he cut her off quite abruptly, a slight menace in his tone.

Despite having had a good year or so to process what happened to Danny at the hands of Missy, and feeling like she was doing pretty well now all things considered, Clara suddenly found herself unable to say the word, as if facing it head on would open up the wounds she’d worked so hard to stitch together thanks to her travels with the Doctor. ‘Danny you’re dead.’ Danny’s face dropped, almost like a puppy who’d just been told off for messing up the carpet, and stopped putting his tie on, leaving both ends just hung loosely over his neck. ‘You died Danny. A year ago. You were hit by a car and then you…’

‘Were turned into a Cyberman,’ Danny finished her sentence off for her when it became clear that she wasn’t going to be able to ‘yeah I know.’

‘Then how can you be here?! Where even is here? I was in the TARDIS,’ Clara shouted as she flung the duvet off of her and shot up out of bed, standing opposite to Danny who just stared at her.

‘They thought you’d prefer me looking like this. Like how you remembered me. How you loved me,’ Danny explained, a tear forming in the corner of his eye which he quickly wiped away, taking a deep breath in and out to compose himself.

‘They? Who’s they?’ Clara asked, getting more and more concerned by the second.

‘But if you’d prefer I can look more like how I was when I died. Would you prefer that Clara?’ Danny asked as he stepped around the bed and towards the now scared brunette, his voice becoming more sinister.

‘Danny what are you doing…’ Clara asked her dead boyfriend as she backed up, feeling her back begin to press up against the wall.

‘Giving you what you wanted,’ he growled as his body twitched and began to spark. Slithers of sharp, silver looking metal began to form and snake around Danny’s head, digging and burying their way into his skull and making him cry out in pain. The left sleeve of the shirt he was wearing slowly developed a more steel like texture and started to fuse down into the flesh of his arm, crunching through the bone and causing him to scream even louder as Clara looked on in horror, unable to comprehend what she was witnessing. The metallic transformation spread across Danny’s chest and expanded throughout the rest of his body from there, every bit of flesh, bone, organ and blood being destroyed and converted until only steel and wiring remained. Except for Danny’s face, which looked like the mangled, wired up and lifeless form it had been before he’d given his life to stop Missy.

‘Danny…’ Clara cried out as the tears began to fall, unable to stop them as she collapsed onto her knees and buried her face in her hands ‘i’m so sorry Danny. I never meant for that to happen to you!’

Danny didn’t respond however. He just stepped forward and with one cybernetic arm grabbed Clara and lifted her off the ground against the wall with ease, his strength enhanced Cyberman hand clamping itself tighter and tighter around her neck as she cried. Clara kicked and screamed whilst fighting back more tears, screaming for the Doctor, for anyone to help her. As she felt her breath weakening, Cyber-Danny’s grip around her throat cutting off more and more oxygen supply, she saw a glimmer of hope as the walls of the room she was in began to collapse and crumble, exploding into nothing but dust and drifting away upon hitting the ground.

The floor followed suit as the Cyberman that had been her boyfriend disintegrated into dust also, ending up as nothing more than atoms blowing in the breeze. She felt herself falling as the floor beneath her feet crumbled away, panicking for a few seconds until she hit the ground below. Her fingers dug into the grass to reassure herself she was safe on solid earth. Once she was certain, Clara stood up slowly, regaining her balance and brushing her hair out of her face with her fingers and noticed that what had been the morning sun was now nighttime. ‘Hello?’ she called out, hoping she wasn’t alone.

When nothing called back, Clara decided to check her surroundings to see where she was. She seemed to be in a large field, an empty street behind her with a couple of streetlights that flickered and dimly lit the area. The field seemed barran at first, until Clara realised a couple of bizarre stone formations pushing up out of the ground, soil tumbling off onto the grass as they grew taller and taller, getting to about three feet in height before stopping. It took Clara a moment to realise what they were and by that point more had started emerging randomly around her, some with more ornate carvings whilst others were different shaped such as crucifix crosses.

‘Graves…’ she said breathily, preparing herself for whatever this nightmare had planned next. There was an uncomfortable silence as the last of the graves pushed their way upwards out of the earth. Clara looked around. She was surrounded by sporadically situated graves, although they all looked remarkably old to say they’d just come out of the ground around her. For what felt like forever but could have only been about a minute there was nothing. Just a gentle breeze and the moon casting its cold light, the stars twinkling beautifully.

That was until an unearthly screeching and squawking could be heard all around. Clara braced herself anxiously before jumping back in shock as what looked to be glossy black clouds surged upwards out of the graves and into the sky, squawking loudly, the sound of thousands of wings flapping and beating the air. She watched on as what can only be described as an army of midnight black ravens cried out, mingling together in a surging mass of black before synchronising their flight and veering back, turning and diving straight towards Clara.

She instinctively held her hands up to her face to protect it, screaming as he birds swarmed around her, talons scratching at her pyjamas and tearing shreds of clothing, the sharp claws dragging through her fragile skin, drawing crimson blood which looked stark against the total black of their bodies. The birds continued their assault, now using their beaks that glinted in the chilling moonlight to peck at her exposed flesh, attacking her in any way they could. Clara began to wildly flail her arms around, trying to make the ravens back off and leave her alone, but this only provoked them more.

One of the ravens flew back and stood still, perched on a gravestone for a moment, before flapping its wings and launching through the air straight as Clara’s flailing form. She screamed in agony as she felt the impact, the birds pointed beak puncturing her stomach as it hacked at her with talons, flapping its wings to try and bury itself as deep into her as it could. Clara felt the air leaving her lungs and exhaled, believing this would be her last breath. That was until a shimmering light surrounded her body and dispersed into the air, leaving nothing behind but the ravens, squawking and flying around confused.

-

Chapter 5 - Wake Up

The Doctor panicked upon seeing Clara flop onto the ground. He ran over to where she was laying on the cold TARDIS floor and checked her vitals, holding his cheek over her mouth the feel the breath on his face whilst looking down her body to make sure her chest was still rising and falling. All good. Next he grabbed her wrist gently and pressed two fingers to her pulse point. Beating normal.

‘So you’re just asleep,’ he said to himself before leaning over her face and using the thumb and index finger on his right hand to open the eyelids of her left eye. He was surprised to notice her brown eyes were rapidly and randomly darting around. ‘REM sleep?’ he mused aloud once more, now beginning to be more worried ‘you shouldn’t be entering REM sleep immediately. Unless…’ he made the correlation between the image Martin had seen during the time he was asleep in class and the fact that Clara had seemingly entered the deepest stage of the sleep cycle not even a minute after collapsing to the floor.

‘They’re being forced to dream…’ he said as he walked back over to the TARDIS console ‘but why? What would that do?’ As he asked questions that no one was able to answer, the Doctor began going over the memory they’d extracted from Martin’s mind, trying to analyse the creature and see if there were any clues as to what they were and why they’d do this. He watched the creature’s interaction with the sleeping Martin on a loop, unable to spot anything, although he wouldn’t have to wait long for things to begin to make sense.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a strange glimmering white light sparkling around Clara’s temple. Before he had a moment to examine the light and work out what was going on, bony fingers began to push their way out of the light, long menacing claws at the ends of the twitching fingers. With each second more and more of the arm came through and the Doctor noticed the same was happening to Martin.

‘Portals…’ he realised.

The Doctor ran back over to Clara’s sleeping form, having to avoid the creature swatting its clawed hand at him as more of its body came through the portal, a second arms soon joining the first followed by its slender torso, just as bony as its arms with skin so thin and taught its bone structure was visible. ‘Clara, wake up!’ he yelled loudly, trying to wake up his companion. The creature lashed out with its arms, trying to grab the Doctor with surprising strength for something so slim, but he managed to wrestle his arm free and back off.

After a minute or so more, the creature’s full form was free and stepped out of the portal, taking a moment to gain its bearings in a new realm before standing up and stretching, its true height towering over the Doctor when it wasn’t hunched over. It chattered its teeth like an animal before unleashing an ear piercing screech, a sound that was mimicked by the identical looking creature that had come out of Martin’s mind, the boy sleeping peacefully and none-the-wiser.

The Doctor stood still for a few moments, wondering what they were going to do as they seemed to get comfortable back on all fours, their backs producing loud bone snapping sounds as their wings grew out and unfurled, adding even more intimidating to the already imposing size and look of the creatures. He waited a little bit more and still nothing. It wasn’t until the Doctor made a move towards Clara that the one stood over her sleeping body lunged forward and screeched loudly, fangs bared and wings stretched out to add to the terror of the sudden act of aggression.

The Doctor quickly ducked and rolled out of the way, the bat-like thing slamming into the TARDIS wall and slumping to the floor momentarily before it got back on all fours to regain its balance. Using the brief moment of opportunity, the Doctor practically dove onto the ground over Clara and checked her eye again. Her eye was moving even more wildly than before. ‘She’s stuck in a deep dream…’ he said aloud before closing her eyelid and placing a hand on either side of Clara’s head.

Seemingly aware of what the Doctor was about to do, the horrifying being made one last desperate lunge at the Time Lord, grasping his leg and sinking its razor-sharp teeth into the calf muscle. The Doctor grunted in pain through gritted teeth but didn’t relent. He knew he had to concentrate. Clasping his hands firmly on either side of Clara’s he focussed hard on a phrase and transmitted it telepathically into her brain. ‘WAKE UP!’

Almost instantaneously Clara shot upright and gasped to catch her breath, running her hands panicked all over her body to check for injury. ‘Doctor, Danny he tried to hurt me, and the birds…’

‘Clara it’s okay you’re back, it was just a nightmare,’ the Doctor reassured his companion, holding her close in a caring hug before he turned his attention to the creature writhing on the floor. Upon noticing it, Clara jumped up and clenched tighter onto the Doctor’s arm. ‘Doctor, what is it?’

‘I don’t know but I think it’s leaving,’ he announced as a glittering white light surrounded the flailing alien, spreading across every part of its body before silently exploding into a fountain of shimmering specs of light.

‘That’s what happened to me…’ Clara told the Doctor ‘at the end of the nightmare. I was surrounded by that light…’

‘That’s because I just pulled you out of the dream realm,’ he explained.

‘The dream realm? What do you mean?’

‘Where do you think your mind goes when you sleep Clara? How do you think dreaming is possible?’

‘I thought dreaming was a side effect of your body processing the memories of the day,’ she responded now more confused.

‘Remember what Vastra told you back on Trenzalore? About time travel being possible in dreams?’ the Doctor enquired, making Clara jog her memory back quite a while.

‘Yeah…’ she responded slightly hesitantly as she vaguely remembered that interaction.

‘Well that’s where you had that conference call, in the dream realm. Your minds and souls were transported there as your real bodies slept.’

‘So why did the same thing happen to that creature?’

‘Because I think I just sent it back to the dream world by pulling you out.’

Clara stood still for a moment completely confused, but soon snapped back into action upon realising they weren’t out of the woods yet. ‘Doctor, what about Martin?!’ she asked worriedly as she saw the creature leaning over the young sleeping boy, seemingly protecting him after seeing what the Doctor did to Clara.

‘I need to wake him up too,’ the Doctor explained before beginning to cautiously circle around the TARDIS slowly to get closer to the kid.

‘Why is it not attacking us?’ Clara asked, tentatively skirting around the edge of the TARDIS console room along with her friend.

‘Because right now we’re not important,’ the Doctor said as Clara could see the cogs whirring in his brain as he began to figure out what was going on ‘i’ll explain in a moment but right now we need to wake Martin up. I need you to get the creature away from him.’

‘Right okay, how do you want me to do that?’ Clara asked.

‘Just go near him, get it’s attention and I’ll wake him up ok?’

Clara just nodded before taking a deep breath and stepping forward towards Martin. When the creature did nothing, she took another step but jumped backwards when it spun around and screeched loudly at her, spreading its wings wide and using them to propel itself forward at immense speed, pummeling into Clara and pinning her onto the ground.

Whilst the creature screamed in Clara’s face as she tried her best to fight it off, the Doctor placed his hands on either side of Martin’s head and repeated the process he had done with Clara.

‘Doctor hurry up!!’ she yelled in a panic as she was losing the fight to keep the creature at bay. Luckily for her, Martin soon woke up panting and sweating in worry. Clara used all of her remaining strength to push against the creature who was quickly weakening off of her as it collapsed, adn roll it onto the ground next to her. The same light that had appeared over the other one swallowed it up before it disappeared from the TARDIS.

Clearly traumatised at what he’d just witnessed, Martin stood up slowly and walked over to his teacher, wrapping his arms around her waist before burying his head into her and beginning to sob, all the emotion of the day hitting the poor boy all at once. ‘Miss Oswald, I’m scared!’ he cried out before his cries became more muffled in Clara’s shirt.

She protectively held her young student in a hug with one arm whilst the other gently stroked through his hair. ‘I know Martin, it’s ok. Everything’s going to be alright, we’ll sort this all out ok?’ she reassured him as she pulled the boy off of her and held his shoulders to make him look at her, putting on a brave, warm smile despite knowing there was nothing she could do to bring his parents back. Martin sniffled and wiped his running nose with his sleeve, nodding slightly before sniffling again, clearly trying not to cry in front of Clara anymore.

‘So Doctor, what do we do? What’s even going on?’ she asked the Time Lord who was frantically pressing buttons on the TARDIS console.

Seemingly having found what he was looking for the Doctor turned to Clara with a stern look that she recognised all too well. This was his ‘we need to do something now’ face. ‘We need to get into the Black Archives, and for that we need Kate. Come on we’re going to go and get her, I’ll explain what I know on the way.’

‘What about Martin?’ she asked, gesturing to the boy who was currently sitting in one of the chairs along the railings, looking at the pair anxiously.

‘He has to stay here,’ the Doctor replied looking at Clara, quite coldly not directing his response to Martin ‘he’ll only slow us down, plus this will be easier without having a kid to protect.’

Clara was a little annoyed with her friend’s blunt answer initially but quickly decided that as much as he could have said what he said a little less rudely, he was right. They were in serious danger and with the creatures seemingly banished from the TARDIS, it was the safest place for him to be.

She nodded at the Doctor once, approving of his plan before turning and walking over to her young pupil, kneeling down to be on eye level with him. ‘Me and the Doctor need to go back into UNIT and it’s not safe for you outside of here. So you stay here and I promise you we’ll be back soon, okay?’

‘Okay,’ Martin answered after a brief pause, wiping a tear away from his eye and sniffling once more.

‘Don’t touch anything while we’re gone, that’s important,’ the Doctor piped up by the doors, causing Clara to scowl at him. Still Martin nodded in understanding.

Clara stood upright and headed towards the doors which the Doctor opened. The pair stepped outside and locked the doors behind them, leaving the confused twelve year old to sit and worry.

-

Chapter 6 - The Dreamcrawlers

‘Doctor what is going on, you said you’d tell me,’ Clara said a little snappily as they made their way across the UNIT grounds and towards the tower of London.

‘Whatever these things are, they're using you all like bridges. They’re not creatures of our realm which explains why I haven’t seen them before.’

‘Like bridges? To do what?’

‘Cross over into our realm. Like I said whenever you sleep your minds and souls travel to the dream realm whilst your physical bodies remain in this one. And luckily for those things, you humans sleep everyday, it’s really quite a biological flaw on your part. A whole period of time every 24 hour cycle where you’re all completely vulnerable to whatever the universe decides to throw at you, pretty pathetic really.’

‘Doctor!’ Clara shouted, gently slapping his arm in annoyance ‘how are they doing that?’

‘An extremely strong psychic connection. Whatever they are they must’ve been building this connection for a very long time which explains why I didn’t fall asleep when you both did,’ the Doctor explained.

‘Because you’re not on earth for any long period of time,’ Clara clicked on.

‘Exactly so they clearly weren’t expecting there to be anyone able to wake you up.’

‘But how did waking me and Martin up send those things back to the dream realm? I still don’t understand that.’ she enquired.

‘Maybe the transfer into this realm wasn’t stable yet…’ the Doctor replied as he pondered ‘passing through into another realm that you’re not meant to be a part of takes a lot of power and a lot of time to stabilise within the balance of the universe.’

‘Sorry i’m still not fully getting it.’

‘It’s like when you use a harddrive to transfer data from one computer to another. If at any point the harddrive is unplugged during the transfer, the data can be corrupted and the transfer fails,’ the Doctor explained in a way he knew Clara would get.

‘Wait so these things put us to sleep, crawl through our dreams in the dream realm in order to make a connection between their realm and ours, open a portal and break through? We’re like human harddrives transferring them from one computer to another?! And waking us up before the transfer is fully stable corrupts the data like unplugging the harddrive part way through the process?’

‘Crawling through dreams, I like that! The Dreamcrawlers…’

‘Doctor!’ Clara shut him up whilst pointing towards the entrance to the building. He followed her gaze to notice the guards asleep on the gravel all around the grounds, a Dreamcrawler standing guard over each of them.

‘What do we do?’ she asked him nervously, knowing they were going to have to walk past them.

‘Right now the transfer is unstable, their priority is protecting their connection until everything’s stable and they can disconnect for a lack of a better word. They can’t risk the person they’re using to bridge over waking up or dying.’

‘So how long do we have until the transfer is stable?’

‘Trying to safely allow an entire species to cross over into a realm they don’t belong already requires an obscene amount of power. And they’re managing that just fine so...I don’t know. An hour? Maybe less?’

‘And if it does become stable?’

‘Then it might just be the end of the human race,’ the Doctor responded with a furrowed brow and dark tone ‘come on we need to get to Kate. Just walk for the door and don’t make any move to wake the guards up. If the Dreamcrawlers perceive anything we do as a threat to their bridge, they’ll attack, and dealing with two was difficult enough. There’s going to be hundreds inside.’ Clara nodded, doing her best to hide how terrified she was behind the brave face she’d learned to put on when travelling with the Doctor.

Determined but wary, the pair calmly and slowly walked towards the main doors, trying not to glance at any of the sleeping guards or the monsters hunched over them for more than a second and risk triggering an attack. Clara felt her breath hitch in her throat when one of the Dreamcrawlers let out a high pitched screech and extended its leathery, almost translucent wings, stretching its limbs to reach its full, imposing height when she looked for a little too long. Luckily for her it seemed to only be a warning cry before it went back to its hunched over position, not taking its cold, black, beady eyes off of them.

Luckily they managed to make it to the entrance without an attack, although the Dreamcrawlers were obviously wary of them. They walked through the corridors and hallways of the UNIT headquarters, becoming more and more anxious seeing all of the sleeping staff members, all of the bat-like nightmares protecting their unconscious bodies for their own malicious means. Before long they managed to make it to Kate’s office, after getting through rooms and rooms of sleeping people, each with a Dreamcrawlers snarling and guarding them menacingly, where she was slumped over her desk, head resting on some reports she must have been in the middle of reading.

The Doctor didn’t immediately go over to Kate. Instead he walked over to the wall and knocked on it, much to Clara’s confusion, whilst making sure not to get too close to Kate or the Dreamcrawler that was by her sleeping body. ‘Soundproof, perfect,’ the Doctor said, passing Clara the sonic shades from out of his inside jacket pocket. ‘Set these to setting seventeen,’ he ordered as she fumbled with them, trying to adjust the setting.

‘Ok, done,’ she declared, waiting for the Doctor to give her her next instruction.

‘Now, activate them!’

She nodded and immediately pressed the button on the top of the rim, a loud blast of supersonic noise beginning to resonate around the room, causing the batlike Dreamcrawler to screech and clamp its long hands and spindly fingers over its ears, desperate to block out the sound. Clara herself did her best to limit the pain in her own ears whilst keeping the sonic blast on.

With the creature vulnerable thanks to the sound, the Doctor leapt into action and sprinted across the office to the slumbering Kate, grabbing her head and placing his hands on either side of it as he had to Clara and Martin before. ‘Wake up!’ he commanded telepathically, causing Kate to jolt upright in her chair and freak out for a moment, breathing heavily as she turned to see the Dreamcrawler writhing on the floor, slowly being eaten up by a blinding white light before dispersing into particles. Clara let go of the button on the sonic shades.

‘Doctor, what the hell is going on?’ Kate asked with a worried tone to her voice.

‘We need you to get us into the black archive, and we don’t have much time left,’ the Doctor replied ‘I’ll explain on the way.’

-

Chapter 7 - The Black Archive

The group left Kate’s office and were greeted by the sight of all of the sleeping UNIT staff members on the floor, the bat-like Dreamcralwers standing guard over each of their gateways.

‘Doctor, explain to me right now what is going on,’ she demanded him, her tone laced with authority.

‘They’ve spent years weaving a psychic connection into you all so they can put you to sleep and use your dreams to travel through the dream realm and pass over into our realm which they usually can’t inhabit,’ the Doctor explained as quickly as he could, covering the main details.

‘They’re using the human race to invade our planet?’ she responded with fury beginning to boil in her blood, moving her jacket away from her hip to grab her gun and taking aim at one of the Dreamcrawlers.

‘No Kate don’t!’ Clara and the Doctor yelled in unison, but it was too late. She fired a bullet, puncturing the torso of one of the Dreamcrawlers, causing it to screech out and fall to the floor dead, purple blood splattering around the ground. The UNIT worker who it’d been guarding, shot upright and was about to speak until the surrounding creatures dove onto him. Clara looked on in horror as she heard cries of agony and the sounds of flesh and bone being torn apart, devoured, blood pooling around the poor man.

‘Run, now!’ the Doctor commanded, letting Kate take the lead as they headed for the Black Archive. ‘Now they know we’re a threat and killing us is priority number one,’ the Doctor explained as they ran, the Dreamcrawlers in hot pursuit behind them. They surged through the corridors, leaving their precious gateways behind in favour of devouring their assailants. They crawled along the walls and floor, screeching and crying out continuously, some even spreading their wings to try and fly after the trio, although they quickly learned that the confined space made that more challenging than anticipated.

One of the creature’s lashed its arm forward, managing to grasp its bony hand around one of the Doctor’s legs, managing to trip the Time Lord up onto the ground, his face hitting the floor with a hard smack. Its claws dug into the Doctor’s leg, tearing through his trousers and digging into his flesh. He growled in pain through gritted teeth, beginning to panic when he realised the other Dreamcrawlers had sensed his vulnerability and turned their attention to attack, like pack animals pouncing on a wounded bull.

‘Clara!,’ the Doctor yelled above the sound of flapping wings and loud screeching ‘setting seventeen!!’

Clara realised immediately what to do, taking the sonic sunglasses out of her pocket and quickly changing the setting to the correct one. ‘Cover your ears,’ she warned Kate before activating the sonic blast once more, not really giving her a chance to protect their ears. Just like what had happened in Kate’s office, the creatures let out ungodly cries of pain, crippling over onto the floor or keeling over against the walls, clasping their hands over their heads to try and protect their sensitive ears as best as they could.

With the opportunity to escape from certain death having arrived, the Doctor leapt up onto his feet, hobbling a little thanks to the pain he was feeling from the gashes in his legs, blood beginning to stain the fabric of his trousers. The trio began to make their way further down the corridor, trying to withstand the pain of the supersonic rattling their eardrums until they couldn’t anymore. Clara released the button, handing the sonic glasses back to the Doctor who slipped them back into his inside coat pocket.

‘Right, go!’ Kate spoke, the three of them quickly turning on their heels and sprinting down the hallway towards the staircase with the Dreamcrawlers quickly recovering and restarting their aggressive pursuit. Kate led them through a door and into the large squared spiral staircase. The Doctor slammed the door shut and used the sonic sunglasses to lock it, although they knew that wouldn’t hold their enemies for long. They began their mad dash down the stairs, pausing for a moment in worry when they heard the sound of the door at the top breaking, the creatures beginning to follow them down, some flying down through the space in the centre of the stairwell.

The Doctor, Clara and Kate sprinted their way down as quickly as they could, having to duck and use the bannisters for cover whenever one of the Dreamcrawlers got too close and took a swipe at them. This continued until they managed to make it to the ground floor, once again slamming the door shut behind them and the Doctor locking it as best he could with the glasses. As they managed to lock the door, one of the creatures slammed into it, splintering and cracking the wood slightly and making the trio jump back and dash towards their destination. The Black Archive.

-

‘What are you looking for?’ Kate asked as she activated all of the security precautions in the room to prevent any of the creatures breaking in for as long as possible.

‘I need a realm jumper,’ the Doctor replied a little gruffly as he hurriedly searched through different sections of the archive, currently to no avail.

‘A realm jumper? You know I can’t allow you to use that,’ Kate responded sternly, trying to talk reason into the Time Lord ‘it’s unstable, unreliable.’

‘And it’s also the only hope we have of saving humanity!’ he snapped back aggressively, clearly not in the mood to be talked back to. ‘I need to get to whichever realm they’re coming through from.

Kate paused for a moment, letting out a huffed breath before giving in. ‘I’ll get it for you,’ she said reluctantly.

As the head of UNIT walked away to go deeper into the archive to collect the realm jumper, Clara slumped back against one of the shelves, breathing heavily before turning her attention to her best friend who was clearly irritated. ‘What’s your plan?’ she asked him bluntly.

‘I need to get into their realm and try to break their connection to everyone,’ he responded as he joined Clara against the shelf, avoiding looking at her directly.

‘How are you going to do that?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘And if you break the connection which is the thing allowing them to cross over here, surely that will shut that connection down? Like unplugging the harddrive before the transfer is complete, as you put it earlier.’

‘Yes that’s what I’m hoping,’ the Doctor replied, seemingly knowing where Clara was about to take the conversation but not caring to go down that path of his own accord.

‘And then what? How are you going to get back?’ Clara asked him, having known the Doctor long enough to know how he was going to respond.

‘I don’t know, I might not,’ he told her whilst still coldly looking ahead, refusing to look at her.

‘I won’t let you,’ she snapped, feeling tears beginning to form but fighting them back.

The Doctor sighed and lowered his tone. ‘You’re not the boss of me Clara I thought you’d have learned that by now,’

‘What am I supposed to do if you never come back? You’re my life Doctor. The only thing worth living for. If you’re going to leave then I might as well leave instead.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ he snarled at her, although he meant it caringly.

‘I don’t ever plan on leaving you,’ she said earnestly, allowing her emotions to pour out of her heart ‘you’d have to drag me out of the blue box kicking and screaming to get me to leave.’

‘I just might,’ the Doctor chuckled a little, both of them knowing he’d never do that.

‘You,’ she grabbed his face to look at him in his old eyes ‘are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I could never give you up, and you know I’ve tried. I’ll die before I let you go,’ she said, trying to show her affection for the Time Lord. ‘So you promise me that you’ll come back. No matter how the odds are stacked against you, you’d better come back to me. I know you can.’

‘Clara I can’t promise you that…’

‘Then don’t. I’m not asking for a promise, I’m giving you an order,’ she rebuted.

‘Clara you’re not the boss of me…’

‘Doctor!’ she spoke, making him look at her directly ‘do as you’re told.’

The Doctor sighed before allowing a slight smile to form across his face. He pulled Clara into a hug, holding his best friend as close to him as he could. They both knew what it meant however. Both of them were hiding their faces. ‘I’ll try my best,’ he told her, trying to sound genuine.

‘You’ll do better than that,’ Clara chuckled ‘I know you will.’

The pair broke the hug and looked at each other, both knowing that he probably wasn’t going to be able to get back but refusing to acknowledge the fact. As the silence was beginning to get slightly awkward, Kate came back with a small contraption. ‘Here,’ she passed it to the Doctor ‘but don’t blame me if things backfire.’

‘It’s the best shot we’ve got Kate,’ he told her, not wanting the daughter of one of his oldest friends to be angry with him.

‘I know,’ she admitted ‘but you’ve been such a big part of my family Doctor. My dad often spoke about you before he passed. And I know that without you, we wouldn't stand a chance in the future.’

He let that comment hang in the air for a moment before dropping his guard. ‘I’ll try to get back, but i’m not promising anything.’

The pair exchanged light smiles before they heard a loud bang against the main doorway into the black archive.

‘Can they get in?’ Clara asked Kate.

‘No but we have to get to the TARDIS, which means we have to go out of that door,’ the Doctor revealed, causing the women’s faces to drop.

‘What do we do? Sonic them again?’ Clara suggested to the Doctor.

‘Yes but we have to be quick. I can’t risk those things getting access to the TARDIS, there’s no end to the devastation they could cause with the power of the TARDIS at their disposal.’

-

The Doctor activated the sunglasses as they opened the door to leave the black archive, Kate scrambling to lock the door behind them and reactivate all of the security protocols whilst her ears were being assaulted by the blast of noise. Once done they ran down the hallway, getting a fair amount of distance between them and the Dreamcrawlers before their ears couldn’t take it anymore. Once recovered, the creatures chased after them, quickly closing the gap.

Surprised she wasn’t out of breath, Clara kept up her pace as the adrenaline pumped through her system, her hand tightly intertwined with the Doctor’s. She braced herself when she saw the exit fast approaching with the Dreamcrawlers right on their heels. They opened the door and stepped outside as quickly as possible, the cool cloudy weather feeling refreshing on Clara’s face. But before the three of them could close and lock the door behind them, a horde of the monsters crashed into it, forcing it to swing open fully and allowing them outside.

The Doctor, Clara and Kate raced across the ground of the UNIT headquarters, the Dreamcrawlers now spreading their wings and taking flight now that they had the free space to do so, making their hunt of the humans and the time lord even easier. With the TARDIS beginning to loom into view, the trio quickened their pace in a last ditch effort to outrun their now flying assailants.

The Doctor fumbled around in his inside pocket to find the TARDIS key, struggling to fit it into the lock on the door whilst the Dreamcrawlers got ever closer. The door swung open just in time, the Doctor letting Clara go in first, followed by Kate before he stepped inside himself, slamming the TARDis door behind him and listening to the sounds of the Dreamcrawlers screaming and crying out outside, ramming themselves into the blue box and trying in vain to break their way in.

Martin jumped up at the sudden arrival, immediately running over to Clara. ‘What’s going on Miss Oswald?’

‘It’s ok Martin don’t worry about it. This will all be over soon, right Doctor?’ she reassured the boy before addressing the Time Lord who was already working to connect the realm jumper up to the TARDIS console.

‘Yes, hopefully,’ he replied ‘but I’m going to need Martin’s help.’

-

Chapter 8 - Wake Up Call

‘So explain to me again why hooking Martin up to the TARDIS and putting him back to sleep is going to help?’ Clara said, scared for the safety of the pupil under her care.

‘When he was asleep this morning one of the Dreamcrawlers came up to him in the dream to inspect him, which logically means that wherever his dream was in the dream realm was close enough to where they were hiding for it to get to him,’ the Doctor explained without taking his attention from finishing up attaching electrodes to the young boy’s head.

‘A…am I going to be ok?’ Martin asked, panicked, his hands shaking from fear.

‘I’ll be there with you,’ the Doctor did his best to reassure him, although it came off a little cold given he was more focussed on the task at hand ‘that’s why we got this from the Black Archive,’ he said holding up the small device which he’d also wired up to the TARDIS. ‘With this I can go into the dream realm with you without having to be put to sleep.’

‘I really don’t want to go back in there,’ Martin’s lip stammered.

‘Well I need to save the world so you’re going to have to,’ the Doctor retorted with little regard for the child’s emotions and lack of understanding.

‘Doctor!’ Clara snapped at her friend, walking over to her student and gently running a hand through his hair. ‘It’s ok Martin. I know you’re scared, I am too. But the Doctor needs to do this and he needs you to help. I’ll be right here when you wake up, I’m not going anywhere.’ She smiled at the boy who returned it weakly, putting on a brave face for her.

‘Doctor, are you sure is this going to work?’ Kate piped up.

‘No but it’s the best chance we’ve got,’ he replied gruffly ‘and we’ve only got I’d say about eleven minutes before the transfer is fully complete so I really don’t have time to keep talking.’

‘But you don’t even have a plan! It’s not like you can just waltz into their realm and wire up an alarm clock.’

The Doctor paused for a moment before a cheeky smile came across his face. ‘Kate Lethbridge Stewart your dad would be proud.’

‘For what?’

‘Doesn’t matter. Just trust me ok. All of you.’

Clara looked at her friend, her big eyes glazing over as she pondered the thought that if he didn't come back, this would be the last she saw of him. ‘Always,’ she spoke lightly.

And with that the Time Lord placed both hands on the side of Martin’s head. ‘Sleep’ he said gently, the boy almost immediately beginning to doze off and within seconds, was in a deep slumber.

‘Right ok,’ the Doctor said, picking up the realm jumper before turning to look at the two women. ‘Kate, keep saving the world,’ he nodded lightly to her ‘and you. Clara.’ He paused briefly, the pair sharing a moment of silence in which no words were said but everything they wanted to say to each other was expressed through their faces. ‘Try not to miss me too much if I can’t get back.’

He pressed the button on the device, activating the realm jumper and disappearing in a sparkling stream of glittering light, the device dropping to the floor with a metallic clang as it hit the glass. Clara sniffed and wiped her eyes, not wanting to cry in front of Kate but knowing full well that she may never see her best friend again.

-

The Doctor jumped up off of the ground he’d landed on, taking in his surroundings. A room. A little boy’s room to be precise. And sure enough in the bed to the side of him was a sleeping Martin, snuggled up in deep blue duvet sheets patterned with dinosaurs. He stepped over to the bed and sat on the side, placing his hands on the boy’s shoulders and shaking him lightly.

‘Martin,’ he said loudly ‘I need you to get up.’

The young lad bolted upright and looked at the alien. ‘Doctor! You’re in my dream?’

‘Yes, and I need you to show me where you saw that alien come up to you ok?’

‘What’s that light?’ the kid asked, pointing at the blinding white oval light behind the Doctor.

‘That’s the portal the realm jumper opened, it will close in a moment.’

Martin processed what the Doctor had said and his request for a moment before nodding. He threw off the covers and slipped on some slippers, walked over to his bedroom door and opened it to reveal an eerie light filtering in through the windows around the entire house.

‘Is this where you live?’ the Doctor asked.

‘Yes but it doesn’t feel right.’

‘Dreams never feel fully correct. There’s always something slightly different or some detail not quite right.’

‘Martin?’ a voice called out from down the stairs ‘Martin who are you talking to?’

‘M...mum?!’ he responded, almost tearing up immediately upon hearing the voice of his mother who just that morning he’d been told had died in the incident.

‘Martin who’s in your room? You know you should be asleep by now it’s one in the morning.’

‘Dad!’ he cried out joyfully, racing down the stairs to see his parents.

‘Martin stop!’ the Doctor shouted after him, running down the stairs as quick as he could to follow ‘Martin this is a dream they’re not real.’

When the Doctor walked into what appeared to be the living room, Martin was already being embraced by his parents, sandwiched between them as they held him and each other lovingly. But the Doctor knew better than to trust a dream.

‘Martin,’ he spoke softly ‘they’re not real. Please, come here, you can’t trust them.’

He didn’t acknowledge what the Time Lord had said, too happy to be being held by his parents who he’d thought were dead.

‘Who are you?’ Martin’s mother directed at the Doctor with a pointed tone ‘how did you get in here?’

‘Why were you in our son’s room?!’ his dad asked now, anger boiling up in his face.

‘Martin this is a dream, you need to come with me!’

‘Do not tell our son what to do!’ his dad yelled, letting go of his family and walking over to the Doctor to try and size up to him and intimidate.

‘Whatever the hell it is you’re trying to do is not going to work on me,’ the Doctor replied with a deep tone, not even flinching at the man’s attempt to scare him.

‘Get out of our house, whoever you are! Leave our son alone!’ his mum pleaded loudly, clutching onto her son.

‘Mum, dad...I thought you were dead…’ Martin said, overwhelmed with emotion.

‘We are dead honey,’ his mum responded with a creepily warm voice ‘you killed us.’

‘What?’ Martin said back, all the happiness he was feeling having been destroyed in an instant.

‘You killed us when you were born. Keeping us from achieving our dreams and instead having to raise an ungrateful little waste of space like you,’ his mum replied, still smiling.

‘Exactly! If we hadn't had to get married and raise you, we wouldn’t have had to go to work together this morning and wouldn’t have died in the car crash. This is all your fault Martin!’ his dad added, turning back to look at his son with a creepy smile.

Martin began to slink backward and towards the Doctor, who reached out to grab the boy’s arm. ‘We need to go now.’ he told the boy, beginning to back them out of the door.

‘You killed us Martin, so I think we should kill you too,’ they both spoke in terrifying unison, producing large, sharp looking kitchen knives from seemingly nowhere.

‘Doctor,’ Martin cried in horror as his parents began chasing them down brandishing the weapons.

The pair ran as fast as they could outside of the front door and through the yard, continuing until they seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, the house and its surroundings seeming to have completely dissolved into nothingness.

‘Doctor my parents were going to kill me…’

‘No they weren’t, they weren’t real. This is all just a nightmare,’ he tried to reassure the kid, although he wasn’t exactly comfortable with comforting people, let alone children.

‘I miss them. I want my mum and dad back,’ the boy began to cry, clinging onto the Doctor’s leg who tried to shake him off but ultimately just put his arms around the kid and patted him awkwardly.

‘It’s ok, this will be over soon.’

The pair then walked in silence for the next few minutes, seeing nothing but blackness for seemingly miles around. There were no sounds to hear, no smells or tastes, nothing to touch. Just black, eerie, emptiness. That was until they saw a faint glowing in the distance. The Doctor ran over to the light, the young kid being practically dragged along behind him.

Before long they came upon the source of the light. Eight of the Dreamcrawlers sat in a circle holding their bony hands together, a faint spherical golden glow that looked like the earth spinning slowly in the middle of them.

‘So they’re the source,’ the Doctor said calmly, walking around the circle to inspect it ‘this is how desperate they were to break into our realm. Eight of them stayed behind knowing they’d be stuck here just to ensure their species survival. I’d almost feel sorry for them if they hadn't killed millions of people today.’

‘What are they doing?’ Martin asked the Doctor, sticking to his side like glue.

‘They’re combining their psychic abilities to make an immense amount of psychic power and using it to put everyone on earth to sleep. Takes years to do this kind of thing, I saw it on a smaller scale in my previous regeneration but this...this is something else.’

‘Regeneration?’ Martin questioned.

‘This is extraordinary,’ the Doctor declared out loud, not caring to answer the boy’s inquiry. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this.

‘So what can you do?’

‘This,’ the Doctor smiled at the boy before clamping his hands down on either side of one of the Dreamcrawler’s heads ‘tell Clara she was amazing.’

‘Huh? Why can’t you tell her yourself.’

‘Because once I do this I’ll be closing down the physical link between this realm and ours that the Dreamcrawlers made,’ the Doctor explained ‘I’ll be stuck here on the other side.’

‘But...Miss Oswald...she needs you!’

The Doctor paused and swallowed down his sadness before choosing not to respond and instead just focussing on the task at hand. He pressed his mind into the Dreamcrawler’s and saw into their connection, the power they were using, the spell they were creating, and once he was as deep as he could go he said the two magic words.

‘Wake up!’

-

Clara jumped back in surprise when Martin suddenly took a sharp intake of breath and woke up, seeming to panic for a moment and checking everything around him to make sure it was all real.

‘It’s ok!’ Clara comforted the boy, walking over to kneel in front of him and make sure he knew he was safe. ‘I’m here, just like I promised.’

‘Miss Oswald…’

‘Where’s the Doctor,’ she asked hopefully, even though she was certain she already knew the answer.

‘He…’

‘I know,’ she cut him off quietly, walking over to the console and leaning onto it, hiding her face in her hands as she felt herself begin to cry. Frustrated and devastated, she angrily slammed her fists down into the console. ‘You bloody idiot Doctor. Now what am I going to do?! You had to go and get yourself trapped.

‘Clara, look!’ Kate told her as she opened the TARDIS door. Across the UNIT grounds they could see people waking up whilst all of the Dreamcrawlers were dissolving into the familiar shimmering white light, dispersing and disappearing. ‘It worked. He did it.’

Clara knew she should be happy. The world had been saved once more. But the Doctor wasn’t here, and without the Doctor then she didn’t know if she had a reason to live anymore. She turned back and walked up to the TARDIS console and ran her hand along it, assuming this would be her last chance to interact with the sentient ship. Then she saw Martin picking the realm jumper up before he looked at her solemnly.

‘Martin, what are you doing?’

‘You need the Doctor.’

‘Martin no!!’

He activated the machine.

-

Chapter 9 - A Duty of Care

The Doctor was astounded to see a portal tear open in front of him just as the billions of Dreamcrawlers were becoming a surging mass charging towards him in fury. Martin stepped out of the portal with a surprisingly confident facial expression. ‘Martin, what are you doing? Get out of here!’

‘No, Miss Oswald needs you!’

‘But that portal won’t support both of us! Go back now before it’s too late.’

‘I’ll get to be with my parents again.’

Martin used all of the force his twelve year old body could muster and shoved himself into the Doctor who hadn’t been expecting such an action, stumbled backwards and fell through the portal which snapped shit behind him. Martin stood still, watching the creatures coming towards him, snapping their teeth ravenously. ‘Mum, dad. I’ll be with you soon. I love you.’

-

The Doctor was stunned, laying on the glass floor of the TARDIS in shock at what had just happened.

‘Doctor! We have to get him back!’ Clara yelled, grabbing the realm jumper herself.

‘It’s too late,’ he replied with a dour expression ‘the Dreamcrawlers were about to attack me when he appeared.’

‘I can’t just let that happen. I have a duty of care, Doctor. He is my pupil, this is my job.’

‘Was your pupil,’ the Doctor corrected her, only angering her further.

‘Doctor my pupil just sacrificed himself to bring you back and you can’t even be thankful for what he’s just done?! He was twelve! Twelve years old. Did you even try to stop him?!’

‘Yes,’ he answered ‘I did. He pushed me through before I could stop him.’

Clara stood silent for a moment, Kate just staying quiet behind them and letting them have this moment between just the two of them. She looked at him with emotions running wild through her body. Devastation that she’d just lost her pupil, relief that her best friend was back, anger that he hadn’t put up a fight to stop Martin from sacrificing himself. In the end she didn’t know how to process all of this so just did the one thing she really wanted to do in the moment. She walked over to the Doctor and pulled him up onto his feet before embracing him in the tightest hug imaginable, sinking her face into his shoulder and letting her emotion flow out.

‘Never. Ever. Do that to me again. That’s an order,’ she said into his shoulder, blinking back more tears.

‘I can’t promise you that,’ he replied.

‘I’m not asking you to make a promise.’

-

‘How are we going to sort out all the mess that’s been left behind?’ Clara asked Kate as they entered the main UNIT office, all the staff milling around collecting data and working out how to mitigate the damages the incident had caused.

‘Leave that to us. First of all we’ve got to find out the identities of everyone who died and inform their next of kin,’ Kate informed them ‘are you ok?’ she asked Clara, concerned for her.

‘I’m fine,’ she responded, whilst meaning the exact opposite of fine, something both Kate and the Doctor knew but chose not to press her on the matter. After discussing the details with Kate and being reassured that UNIT would be able to cope without the Doctor to deal with the aftermath, the Time Lord and his companion walked back to the TARDIS in silence, not speaking until after they were both inside of the spaceship.

‘Should I drop you off home?’ the Doctor asked Clara as he began fiddling with the controls.

‘No, please no. I don’t want to be on my own right now.’

‘Where do you want to go then?’ he tried to sound more upbeat and positive, determined to cheer up his friend even if he was pretty bad at social interaction in this regeneration.

‘I don’t know,’ she replied ‘just. Anywhere. Somewhere fun. Just anywhere that isn’t home.’

‘I’ll try my best,’ the Doctor gave Clara a weak smile before he set in a random destination and activated the flight mechanism. The column in the centre of the console began to move up and down whilst the whirring noise familiar to both of them began ringing around the room.

‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ Clara spoke over the noise as she walked over to the alien and hugged him from behind.

‘I’m glad you’re safe,’ he replied, allowing her to keep hugging him since he knew it made her feel better.

THE END