DAY SEVENTY-FOUR

Clara

The Case Of The Ambiguous Isotope

Hangover-free was how Clara welcomely awoke the following day. Her eyes were still heavy though, and she kept them firmly closed and buried herself further into her cocooned duvet and clutched onto the pillow she hadn't noticed she'd been hugging, the sonic screwdriver held in her hand underneath it in a tightly-balled fist, so much that her fingers ached. It reminded her of awakening in the Dream, clinging onto the last shred of Doctor she could find while blinding her sadness with nicotine and sisters day-in-day-out. The sunlight was hidden from her eyes.

Was it the fifth day now? Five days away from the TARDIS, five days of faux-rivalry disguised as humorous warfare and lack of spouse-ly company. She curled her knees up closer to herself so that her knees were partly-off one side and her feet were pressed against the wall. She tightened her arms around the pillow and yawned silently, trying to push her face into the covers and go back to sleep. But she'd slept for too long already.

Something hit her in the forehead. It was small, and didn't hurt, and it made her frown. She refused to open her eyes though, and tried to forget about it. Until it hit her again, and she flinched in anticipation of a third strike. And then the third strike came when another, identical projectile bounced off her forehead.

"What?" she asked darkly, opening her eyes and glaring straight at her baby sister. Of course it was she who was irritating Clara. And she was clearly reloading a pea-shooter. Clara didn't want to know where she'd found peas. She was surprised her sister even knew what peas were, after yesterday's carrot comments. Shamelessly, Oswin shot another pea at her head.

"I'm bored," said Oswin, leaning back against the bunk behind her from where she was sitting on the floor and twiddling her thumbs as the straw and the peas vanished into non-existence and Clara realised she hadn't actually found any peas anywhere. She wondered where the others were, since the bunks seemed to be empty. Maybe she was up late and she didn't realise. She didn't know what time she'd gone to bed.

"Oswin," began Clara dryly, "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to amuse the smartest girl in the universe?" Oswin did not say anything, she just pouted slightly and stared at a space above Clara. "Actually, that's a lie. Last week you spent about three hours playing with a swivel chair." That was very true, Clara remembered it exactly. She'd been trying to watch a film – but trying to watch a film turned out to be quite tricky when a clone of yourself kept drifting across your peripheral vision going, "Weeeee!" as though they didn't have chairs in the Fifty-Second Century. Oswin smiled faintly, but it vanished quickly.

"Do you even have any idea how much of your life you spend asleep?" Oswin asked, "I mean, just think about how much more stuff you could do if you didn't sleep. You could lead a full life, and not become one of those people who say they lead a full life on their deathbed when really they're regretting things like not having enough sex, or not reading every book by a certain author, or never explaining to your brothers why you have to leave all of a sudden so that people stop getting bombed."

"I think they're quite case-specific, sweetie, don't you?" Clara pointed out. Oswin sighed, and blew hair out of her eye. Oswin was talking about the Dust War though, which could only mean that they were alone on the top floor and there wasn't anybody in earshot, because her sister was highly careful of saying anything about herself that might give something away about her muddy past. Clara yawned again, but finally relinquished the screwdriver from her grasp and shoved it to the corner of the bed next to the wall so that she could put both of her hands above the pillow. "…Can I smell coffee?"

"Of course you can smell coffee, Clara," Oswin said, "Being as I live in your head – basically – I have some inkling to how close you are to waking up." Oswin leant forwards and lifted a coffee mug off of the floor to hold it in front of Clara's face, who watched it hungrily, but did not dare attempt to drink from a mug lying down (that had never gleaned positive results in the past for her). She forced herself to sit up and prop up pillows before gladly taking the coffee from Oswin.

"You two are great," Clara said eventually, much to the confusion of the genius.

"We two who?"

"You and the Doctor," said Clara, "He makes me Morning Tea, you make me Morning Coffee. Actually, no, I prefer you – you teleport to Starbucks and bring me mochas. I love mochas. I love you for bringing me mochas. And you inherited my gift for hot beverages."

"That I did, Clars," Oswin nodded, "But I'm still bored, and you're still being lazy."

"Where's everyone else?" Clara asked, sitting up properly and crossing her legs, leaning out of the bunk so that she could look up and down the corridor, which was completely empty. Somebody had opened the curtains though – not that that made any difference. She could see sky, and then the ragged, orange horizon in the distance, which was that same no matter which direction you looked.

"I broke the radio," Oswin said, and Clara couldn't help but think that wasn't an answer to her question at all, "Because I sort of, broke open the door frame to try and figure out what kind of gadget was being used in it to stop the boys getting in. And then I broke it too much and we can't put it back, but I did some stuff to the radio that involved pulling it out of the dashboard so that it interfered with the other door frame. So now they're downstairs brainstorming."

"And why am I awake so late?" Clara asked her next. She didn't know what time it was, so she found her phone in the mess of sheets where it had ended up being buried, and she saw she had a lot of texts through the night from Rory. Though, they were most definitely from her husband, since they mainly comprised of nicknames. She scrolled through them as she sipped coffee.

"You're not," Oswin said, "Me, Jenny and River were awake through the night anyway; Martha and Rose went to bed very early because they were super tired, as you know; and Donna only went downstairs ten minutes ago, Amy half an hour. Somebody's got to be the last up. But we are at the coolest place!" she said excitedly.

"Which is where..?" Clara asked slowly, "We're not at a salt factory, are we? I'm not going to one of your imaginary salt factories." Oswin looked like she was trying to resist swearing.

"No, they don't have salt factories on Preyonov, Clara," Oswin said through gritted teeth, "We're at a junkyard. A space junkyard. In the future. Full of crap!" she squealed.

"…Please don't tell me you're going to drag me around a rubbish tip all day…" Clara groaned.

"It's different, this doesn't have, you know, refuse in it. No organic waste," Oswin said, like that was somehow better. Well, actually, Clara supposed, it was better, but traipsing around an old scrapheap all day wasn't her idea of a good time. "Do you ever think that we bring out the worst in each other?" Clara was taken aback and nearly choked on her coffee, frowning at her sister and waiting for any kind of explanation.

"You overthink a lot when you're on your own, don't you?" Clara asked her carefully. Oswin hadn't been looking at her, but she did then, a little sadly, "Of course we don't. I've seen you when you're hanging around with your boyfriend, you're so much worse than hanging around with me."

"Worse how?"

"Relentlessly insulting. But, you know, if he's into that who am I to judge?" Clara said, hiding her smirk in her mug when she drank again. Oswin gave her a look, then her eyes seemed to light up as though she'd remembered something.

"Rose and Martha bonded yesterday," she said, pulling her knees up in front of her and propping her feet up on Clara's bunk with her back on the one opposite.

"Oh no. Girls are friends. Call the police," Clara said dryly.

"No, but they really bonded. Like, bonded."

"I don't know what you're trying to tell me right now. Did they have sex?"

"What? Ew, no, that'd be super weird. I just mean, that pretty soon we're not gonna be the ones getting asked if we're secretly sleeping together," she said, nodding with a knowing look in her eye. Clara raised an eyebrow – it was clear this was entirely speculation, and it was also clear that being in that specific environment for a good few days was not good for her sister. It was their fifth day on the bus, which meant Oswin had been away for about eight days, which was a long time of separation from the TARDIS.

"Are you kidding me? I'd love for people to not think I was sleeping with you," Clara said.

"No you wouldn't," Oswin told her firmly, "Because you're an attention whore and you think it's hilarious. And we're not even sleeping together. We don't even hug, Clara. How could they think that?"

"We do hug," Clara pointed out. She could list a lot of separate occasions where she'd hugged her sister.

"Since when!?"

"You literally randomly hug me all the time. Like, it's a regular occurrence. Donna's pointed it out before."

"That isn't hugging. That's… Happy touching," Oswin said. Clara pulled a face at her.

"Are you okay!?"

"Yes!"

"You can hug people when you're sad, you know," Clara said.

"Then that's sad touching." Clara stared at her, lost for words and weighing up what the next best thing to say to her deranged sister was, but Oswin got there first, "See? I've got you now, because you're debating whether or not it's acceptable to accuse someone with serious emotional problems of having serious emotional problems with a joking undertone. But it's not. So who comes out on top?"

"Yes, clearly the one of us with serious emotional problems is better off in this situation," Clara shook her head, "Look. I'm not going around a junkyard, Oswin."

"Whyyy?" she whinged, and Clara made a nonsensical noise right back at her, and then kicked her as well as the icing on the mocking cake, "You totally owe me!"

"What? No I don't," Clara said, "Oh wait. No. This is bribe coffee, isn't it!? Again! Why do I always fall for this? Why do I fall for your bribe coffee but not my husband's bribe coffee!?"

"When does your husband bribe you with coffee!? That's my thing. I'm gonna have to start bribing you with biscuits instead…" Oswin said, crossing her arms and clearly thinking.

"I'm not a dog!" Clara objected.

"Bourbons."

"I don't even like bourbons."

"Yes you do," Oswin said, calling out Clara's blatant lie instantly. Clara scoffed and held out her coffee so that her distracted sister automatically took it and she stood up and stretched on the empty floor as Oswin carried on thinking about biscuits.

"Whatever. I am going to shower."

"You showered last night," Oswin reminded her, "And if you'd been doing anything inappropriate with that screwdriver you've been hiding, I would know. Unless you've shat yourself or something."

"Wow. You are the most charming human I've ever met. I'm going to the toilet, find me some clothes."

"What did you last slave die of?" Oswin snarked.

"She sacrificed herself for the greater good," said Clara, over-acting severely, "It was very heroic." Oswin stuck her tongue out as Clara vanished into the bathroom to brush her hair and her teeth and get ready for traipsing around stacks of other peoples' discarded husks of scrap. It didn't sound fun, but searching through a clone of hers' house for lost earrings hadn't sounded fun, but it had turned out to be. Until they found the wedding album, and those hideous, disgusting leis and the mismatched colour scheme that made her want to retch every time she even thought of the memory.

"Oh my god," Oswin said through the door a couple of minutes later. Clara sighed. Not one second of freedom she had, "Clara – I had the best idea in the entire universe. Ever." Clara was sure it wasn't the best idea in the entire universe (ever), but she was forced to humour her sister.

"Yes?"

"Duh! We should be identical!"

"I really hate to be the one to break this to you – but we're sort of the exact same person."

"Honey, you're not listening. Clothes and everything. How funny would that be? If people couldn't tell the difference between us at all?"

"I'm sure that people can tell the difference between us," Clara told her flatly, shaking her head a little.

"I bet they can't."

"…Bet what?"

"A working lightsaber."

Clara opened the door and leant on the frame for a moment, eyeing Oswin carefully, who gave her a quick, reckless smile.

"…You're on."

They got far too many stares from the other six girls at breakfast that morning when they sat around wearing identical clothes. They spoke to each other as normal though – except for switching the names around enough times to confuse the others (they didn't call each other just the opposite name – sometimes they would refer to each other by the correct name), and Clara had been forced to take the extra precaution of taking off her wedding ring. But it really was worth it for the reactions.

"You do realise this means you don't get a lightsaber?" Oswin pointed out, since nobody could tell the difference between them. Was it worth it, Clara wondered? She didn't know. She'd love a lightsaber, but she was also very entertained by the idiocy of the other members of the crew. They were both having to eat food though, because if Clara was the only one to do so then they'd instantly give themselves away. This just put Oswin in a bad mood over breakfast because she was reminded of the fact she couldn't taste.

"Oh yeah…" she said, a little annoyed. 'I'm not going to give you a dangerous piece of weaponry, Clara.' 'You are a filthy liar. I'm a responsible adult, okay? People trust me with their kids.' 'And people trust ME with YOU.' 'No they don't, they all think I'M the responsible one.'

"Clearly not, because nobody can tell the difference anyway," Oswin said out loud.

"I can," Rose said, drifting over and half-listening in to the conversation.

"I thought we weren't going to be abusing the time vortex anymore, hmm?" Martha heard. Martha hadn't been listening. Was she only listening when Rose spoke? Clara caught a flash from Oswin's eyes.

"Told you," she said. Clara rolled her eyes.

"It's not abusing it," Rose said, "What do you know?" Martha ignored her.

"Wow, she's like your mother," Clara commented.

"Just like Clara's yours?" Rose retorted. The Twins exchanged a look.

"She DID give birth to me," Clara said knowingly, eating the last spoon of Coco Pops. At least, she thought they were Coco Pops. Similar enough.

"So you're Clara?" Rose said to Clara.

"What's it to you who we are?" Oswin asked, "Maybe one of us is the Victorian."

"Wait… Then YOU'RE Clara? Oswin always calls her the Vict-whore-ian," Rose said. Which was true enough.

"Yep," said Clara.

"Unless we're being clever, what with our combined IQ of something or other," Oswin said. Rose looked between them and narrowed her eyes, but they both smiled.

"Just leave them, they're not worth trying to deduce who's who," Martha told her.

"Oooh, someone's bossy," Oswin said, "The old ball and chain?"

"Just leave them," Clara copied what Martha had just said with a minor rewording and addition, "It's not worth trying to deduce what's going on. It's probably very complicated."

"What?" Rose asked, frowning.

"Well! We're going out," Clara said, "Alone."

"For alone-time," Oswin added, standing up after Clara and going over to the door.

"Creepy, twin alone-time."

"Who knows what might happen? But – if one of us gets pregnant, at least you'll know which is which," Oswin held the door open and Clara jumped down onto the sand, the door telekinetically swinging shut behind them. And then Oswin resumed being herself with less ambiguity. "I told you – didn't I tell you? Bonding."

"After one day? Come on."

"Maybe they went through a lot?" Oswin argued on their behalf, "We went through a lot."

"Not after one day. I mean, yes, but we weren't getting along very well."

"I saved you from a serial killer!"

Clara walked ahead, leaving her insulted sister to stay behind as she approached the big, futuristic pile of waste, all netted in by old metal fencing. But it was huge. Giant, even, it must have been a mile wide. How big was Preyonov to need such a huge space for waste disposal? At least none of it was food-waste though – it definitely didn't stink. Clara begrudgingly admitted to herself that maybe it was looking more entertaining than it had originally seemed, but it was still boiling hot, and anything metal would be completely scorching to pick up. Nevertheless, she traipsed past the other bus (there was shouting coming from within, but Clara wasn't interested in what the boys were arguing about) towards what was some kind of building, where they would hopefully find someone to ask for access.

"Oh hang on," Clara said, pulling her sister by the elbow (Oswin was ahead of her) to indicate she should stop and wait for something as Clara tried to get her hand into the stupidly small back pocket of her jeans, "Psychic paper," she held up the wallet.

"You nicked that too? You just don't stop – totally klepto," Oswin shook her head, but took the wallet anyway, "Do I not get the screwdriver?"

"No, of course you don't," Clara said, "My husband would never forgive me if I let you use the sonic."

"Your husband is a whiny brat," Oswin shook her head.

"That isn't very nice," Clara told her, "You don't have to be jealous of my amazing husband anymore, Oswin. You have… You know, whatshisface. I bet whatshisface isn't nearly as good in bed though…"

"You started the conversation!" Oswin exclaimed, "Now you have to rate him. Out of ten. And don't worm out of accuracy by saying 'eleven' and being all 'faithful' or whatever. Tell me the truth."

"Hmm…" Clara stood back in over-exaggerated thought, "Out of ten? Well, there's really a lot of things to take into consideration… Or, an awful lot of just one thing – if you catch my meaning," Clara said with an erotic glance, "But you know, all in all, nine."

"A nine!? Seriously!? Wait, hang on – why not a ten?"

"Because there's still things I have left to teach him," Clara whispered as she walked past her sister with a childishly daredevil air.

"But a nine. For a man. Where do the girls rate on this scale of yours?"

"Don't be so sexist, shush, go play with your scrap," Clara motioned her sister to go over to the door. Which she did, finally, after they'd stopped speaking. And people wondered how they ever got anything done, or how they stopped arguing without a third party there to actually end the row for them. In spite of everything, they did get along, they were both intelligent, and they were adults.

"Hi!" Oswin said brightly to the person (human) sitting back with their feet propped up on the desk flicking idly through a ragged looking magazine. He frowned at the pair of them, and then his frown just turned to staring, "Can we look around your scrapheap?"

"…Who are you..?" he asked, looking from the happy, excited one to the bored, grumpy one.

"We're agents from the Galactic League Special Ops team," Oswin said.

"The Galactic League doesn't have a 'Special Ops' team," he said in a drawl.

"Not that you know about," she snapped, then she waved psychic paper in his face, "But look, ID. The thing is, there're a lot of weird gamma wave readings we're getting from this general area, so we were sent here to just make sure there's nothing bad going on."

"Gamma waves?" he raised his eyebrows, "Wouldn't we all be dead?"

"I'm not obligated to share any information with an inconsequential scrapyard guard," she said coldly, "Just let us in to look around."

"She'll shag you if you let us in," Clara said, amusing herself with her sister's instant rage and mortification.

"I'm gay," the guy said, shaking his head at them.

"Well great! There might be some boys following us," Clara began, "Don't let them in the junkyard. Keep them out here. They're not allowed in, they're enemies of the state."

"I didn't say you could go in," he said, "Normally, people pay. I get a lot of business from Scav-Drives."

"Well you'll be paying in a minute! With your life!" Clara threatened.

"So melodramatic," Oswin sighed, "Whatever, um, I have this gun-" Clara looked over in alarm to see some sort of futuristic pistol materialise itself in her hand ('That better not be a real gun…' 'And now you see why you can't have the lightsaber. It's fine.') "-So if you don't let us in, I will shoot you, because I have diplomatic immunity from the Zadrey Brethren and a teleport link to an orbiting spaceship."

"Whatever, if you're so desperate to look around some pile of old crap," he shook his head.

"We are," said Oswin, "It's very important. Let nobody else in after us."

"Who's gonna follow you?" he asked, Oswin holding the door open for Clara.

"Assassins, duh. We're… The Wonder Twins," she said, "…Don't tell them I said that."

"As if anyone was still in doubt about your sexuality, you go saying things like that," Clara sniggered, walking out into the sun. The door clanged shut behind them, and they were faced with towers and mazes and walls and tunnels and avenues of rubbish. "Wow."

"I told you it was totally cool," she said, staring around at the mountainous heaps of metal.

"Who's gonna follow us..?" Clara asked, wandering around to peer at all the stuff. She didn't know what any of it was, but it seemed to be rusty. Oswin seemed to know though, but she got distracted when her phone rang.

"Oooh, look at this," she said wryly, "I suppose Mitchell's tried to shower."

"Just answer it."

"Hey!" Oswin did, "… Really? … Showers? ... I don't know anything about that…" Clara kicked her.

"Speaker!" she mouthed. Oswin obliged.

"How can you not know anything about it!?" Adam demanded, "Don't you all plan together?"

"No. Anyway, even if it was me, I don't see why you're calling. I can't do anything about it now," she said.

"Well, I…"

"You just wanted an excuse to talk to me, didn't you?" she sighed, "Mitchell, it's Prank War."

"I don't get it – what happened?" Clara asked.

"Somebody switched all the taps," Oswin said, and then she rolled her eyes and mouthed, "Pathetic."

"How'd they do that?"

"Sonic screwdriver," said Adam.

"…But… Mmm, no, that doesn't make sense," said Clara.

"Maybe you're not the only one with sticky fingers, Clars," Oswin said, "Mitchell, how many sonic screwdrivers are there on your bus?"

"Only the Tenth Doctor has one."

"Oh, right… Well then I don't know who it was. Are you going, then?" Oswin said, "This isn't a private conversation – Clara's listening."

"Oh, brilliant… Right, whatever… I'll see you when I see you…" he hung up.

"I don't think being split apart like this is good for anyone," Oswin said, staring at the phone screen, "It's like the Dream. Stuck. Trapped. Forever."

"The Dream lasted for two weeks, not forever, stop being a drama queen."

"I don't want to spend two weeks in the desert. I just think that if this Prank War goes on for much longer out here, split like this, the feud will remain back on the TARDIS. But if we left, say, right now, it'd all be fine," Oswin said. There was a pause, a moment of anticipation, where they just waited to see if they were going to be beamed up into the TARDIS any time soon, if the machine had somehow been listening to Oswin's advisory words. Yet nothing happened. Clara kicked a pebble on the floor and it banged off something and rang out a little in the silence. "Well, what a heart-warming moment that was."

"Why didn't we just walk through the fence?" Clara asked.

"Have you never heard of manners?" Oswin said like she was personally insulted by Clara's brashness, "Anyway, be careful around here. There's a lot of weird gamma radiation."

"Wait, wait, wait – that was true!?"

"Of course it was true!"

"There's something in this scrapheap giving of deadly radiation and you didn't think to warn me!?"

"I just warned you! Literally just then! That was a warning. That was me, warning you about the deadly, dangerous gamma radiation flooding this area," Oswin said, and Clara gawked at her, "What? You'll be fine, you have nanogenes."

"I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about the fourteen other people back there!"

"…Well, Jack'll be fine. And River."

"Oh, bloody fantastic, we'll just go spend their rest of our immortal existences hanging out with the Fifty-First Century sex pests, shall we!?" Clara exclaimed, "What are you gonna do with this emitter of 'deadly, dangerous gamma radiation' once you find it? Blow it up? Let's just nuke the desert, shall we!"

"Nobody said it was a bomb! It probably isn't! In fact, it's most likely that it's not a bomb! It'll be… Something else…" she said, "That doesn't explode. Hopefully. Rose can deal with it."

"Oh, great, let's turn to Rose Tyler to solve all our problems! The god of space and time, clearly," Clara practically shouted, and Oswin flinched.

"What's with you? You're being temperamental," Oswin said.

"I'm not being anything!" Clara said quickly, and even she had to admit that it sounded like a complete lie.

"I get it. I remember five days into the Dream. When we were in the desert, too, coincidentally – what if there's a Chupacabra? I hope there's not… Unless it kills more goats… What was he, again? A Finj… They're not native to this planet, obviously, it's oxygenated. What was I saying? Oh, right. You're in a mood because you haven't shagged anybody for five days. Do you ever look at yourself and think about how totally pathetic you are?" Oswin joked, but Clara wasn't laughing.

"Well sometimes I look at you and think that," Clara snapped, skulking off. Oswin dropped whatever thingamajig she'd been messing with and followed her.

"Exactly as I thought – Abstinence Blues."

"Oh god, you have a name for it…"

"So you admit it," Oswin said, walking next to her, "You're a lesbian."

"I – what!? Are you trying to trick me into admitting I'm sexually frustrated or gay? I have no idea anymore," Clara said grumpily.

"Well are you!?"

"Am I what!?"

"What are you!?" And Clara just groaned in response to that. And then she groaned again when her phone rang, and triple-groaned when she saw the caller ID was Rory. Because she could guarantee that it wasn't Rory at all, it was just the Eleventh Doctor being awkward. She braced herself and answered, going to sit on the floor.

"Hello..?" she asked carefully.

"WAS THIS YOU!?"

"Calm down, bit angry! No need for shouting! No, it wasn't me," Clara said, "I don't know who it was, I slept for ages." She crossed her legs in front of her with them stretched out and leant on something metal behind her. Everything was metal. She never thought she could be so pointlessly annoyed at metal.

"Well it needed a sonic screwdriver…"

"You lot only have one between you, any one of the girls could've done it. You did turbo charge the engine – we could've crashed and died," Clara told him, "All whoever-it-was did was switch the taps."

"No! There was cellophane on the toilet!"

"Was there? I didn't know about that, see? I've had no part in any of these pranks, you know. You've got Martha, Rose and Jenny after you. Which is your fault for spunk-dunking them," Clara said, adopting Jack's 'lingo'. She could practically see Eleven scowling at her language, "I'm an innocent bystander getting accused of all sorts of things she didn't do."

"What about your sister!?"

"What about her? She's not done anything, either. She's been with me," Clara said, "But you know what? With this attitude, maybe I will get involved, hmm? Maybe I'll fill the whole bus with pears. Or other things you hate."

"Well that isn't very nice…" Clara said nothing. "Clara..? Are you still there? … Coo?"

"I love you and I really miss you and I hate this stupid Prank War," she blurted out, giving Oswin a dark enough look that she made a mime to zip up her mouth and then wandered off to pick something up that was some kind of wrist-gizmo – like a vortex manipulator, but Clara had seen enough of those to know that it wasn't one. Eleven didn't answer, "Sweetheart?"

"Aren't there people listening in to this conversation to make sure you don't give away any valuable secrets? Or war plans?"

"Chin, I'm not privy to the war plans. I spent all of yesterday watching some stupid sitcom from the thirty-whatever century," she said, "And the day before that, I was with you. And before that I was out in the middle of nowhere with some crashed spaceship. Rose and Martha are such super-best-friends that they're giving my sister and I a bad name. They're trying to screw you all over."

"I take it they're not listening to you? So you're not on the bus? Where are you?" Clara frowned. Why was he trying to badger her location out of her?

"That's not important," she said, and he had a long pause before he next spoke.

"I love you too, Mrs Oswald," he said, and she smiled, "More than anything in the universe. But I think I have to go now."

"Alright, okay. Can't you Time Lords do something about getting the TARDIS back? I don't want to be stuck here for much longer – it's grim. And I don't like having to sleep in the same space as seven other people."

"I'm technically eleven other people."

"That's what I mean – it's not enough," she joked, and got a weird look and eye roll from her sister, who was still clearly listening to everything she was saying.

"I DO have to go, though," he said, and she could hear him smiling, "I'm sure if we're away from the TARDIS for much longer, the Prank War will get called off anyway."

"Hopefully. We could just lock Jack and Jenny in a cave together until she murders him enough times to satisfy herself," Clara suggested.

"Definitely a good idea."

"…Are you going to say goodbye?"

"I was waiting for you to say it."

"I don't want to."

"Neither do I." They were at a stalemate.

"…Fine, bye…"

"Goodbye, Coo." She finally brought herself to hang up on him, and her sister sprang upon her with piss-takes.

"You hang up – No, you hang up – No, YOU hang up – You hang up!" she said, turning back and forth to indicate she was playing two people. Clara got back to her feet and glared at her, "I didn't think anyone had actually ever done that in the history of ever."

"Well, maybe when you and Adam Mitchell get married, you will," Clara said smugly, knowing what reaction she was going to get out of her sister for saying that.

"I am not gonna get married to him! He is disgusting!" she argued.

"Shall I call him and tell him you said that?"

"What?! No! Don't do that, Clara!"

"Because you know I could," Clara said, holding up her phone to toy with her sister, who made a desperate lunge for it, but Clara turned intangible and she fell straight through, "I could just ring him…"

"Don't!" she pleaded.

"…Alright! No need to get so uppity about it – I'm not an idiot," Clara put her phone away and her sister grimaced, "What is that thing you have there?" she nodded at the wrist-device Oswin was holding. Oswin frowned and checked her hand, like she was surprised to find something there. But she remembered what it was as soon as she saw it.

"It's just a vitals monitor – I thought it might be useful," she shrugged, "It can be altered and stuff… I thought I might do it up so it measures adrenaline."

"What are you still doing messing with adrenaline?" Clara asked.

"The superpowers are fascinating. I'm just not going to give them to any of that irresponsible lot on the TARDIS," Oswin said, holding it up and squinting at it, "A shopping basket would be useful. If you see one, let me know…"

"How are you and Mitchy getting along, then?" Clara asked.

"'Mitchy'?"

"Yeah – I thought I'd try out your thing for giving everyone stupid nicknames. At least I didn't call him Itchy Mitchy."

"Stars, it really is like the fifth day of the Dream… But the narrative isn't as descriptive or well-written this time," Oswin said.

"What?"

"What?"

"You said… About…"

"I didn't say anything."

"I thought..?"

"…Are you alright?"

"…Yep… Really though, are you getting serious yet? You do stay in his room more than yours, Os," Clara pointed out, "I feel that, as your loving sister, I should know about how your relationship is going."

"My relationship is going nowhere near your ear holes, Clary," Oswin said, and Clara pouted.

"That isn't fair, you know everything about my marriage," Clara said, "Were we not talking ages ago about the fact you have to open up and talk about your feelings? You just didn't have proper friends who were girls when you grew up, did you?"

"Just because we're out together doesn't mean I have to talk about my boyfriend."

"Yeah, but I'm bored," Clara said.

"Bored and horny – what a devilish combination," Oswin muttered. Clara grimaced.

"I'm not…"

"Not what? Bored?" Oswin raised an eyebrow, and Clara shuffled uneasily until her sister went back to examining the trash walls for hidden gems. "What's with that Tanya girl Rose kidnapped?"

"I don't think she kidnapped her," Clara said.

"As good as. And everyone was lapping up that 'tragic backstory'. Dead parents, slave for life, lost hand…" Oswin grumbled. Clara was actually shocked at her – she would've thought that her sister, of all people, could empathise with the girl's rather extreme struggles. She crossed her arms.

"That isn't a nice thing to say, Os," Clara told her, "Don't be jealous of other peoples' sympathy." Oswin mumbled something incoherent because she didn't have anything to say in her own bitter defence. She was being a baby, and she knew it, and Clara wasn't going to take her side. But Oswin had more things to say.

"It's just," she began, "All of what she said could be bullshit. She could've just lost her mind and gone to live in a cave, if it wasn't for that hand. But then everybody believed her."

"That's… A really strange thing to say, Oswin," Clara said, puzzled, "…Her hand?"

"It just – it bothers me. I don't know. The same way those clockwork cyborgs in the 1800s bothered me – aesthetic amputees is what they are," she complained. Clara could see her point about Kohg's legs, but she really didn't see what issue she was taking with Tanya's hand.

"Are you alright?" Clara asked seriously. Oswin sighed and put her hands over her face, until moving her fingers to her temples and shaking her head slightly while keeping her eyes closed. Then she turned to walk off and kicked something that looked vaguely like a clunky, artificial arm – but she could be wrong. Clara followed after her through the narrows of the scrapyard.

She didn't know what her sister was thinking about without being intrusive and exploiting the mind-patch, but their emotional link (which was weird, and definitely annoying now that her sister had a boyfriend) she couldn't switch off or dampen was telling her Oswin was upset and angry. So she took the path of trying to distract her, which worked quite well, and for the following hour or two they ended up talking quite happily about this that and the other, though she couldn't really remember what by the end of it.

The heat of the day wore on, and the time could be guessed by the increasing empty space in Clara's bottle of water. She was sticky from the heat and knew her skin was burning and could very well blister since she hadn't managed to top-up her suncream. Eventually though, she had the innovative idea to find a sheet of metal and telekinetically float it above her head to shield herself from the sun.

It struck her that Oswin was saying something, and that she was rubbing her forehead because she had a headache.

"Sorry, what was that?" Clara asked, "I didn't hear."

"…You okay, Clars?"

"What? Yeah, fine. Headache," Clara said with a deep frown, "Came out of nowhere…"

"Wonder if that's anything to do with this, um, gamma radiation," Oswin mused, "You're not mutating, are you? Not growing a third-eye or anything?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm like a spider," she said sarcastically, then winced, "A spider who really needs some aspirin or something right about now…"

"Well if you just wander around and tell me when your headache gets worse, we'll be able to pinpoint where the doodah is," Oswin told her.

"What am I – a radiation radar?"

"More like a rad-ar… Oh that doesn't work, does it?" Clara shook her head.

And then they heard voices. Male voices. Familiar male voices. Definitely those of the Eleventh Doctor, and either Ten or Tentoo. But there could be more that they couldn't hear.

"Shit!" Clara cursed, "I thought they weren't gonna follow us!?"

"Well it's been, like, two hours!" Oswin hissed, "I guess they got past Mr Gay back there!"

"Mr Gay!?"

"I'm panicking! I couldn't think of anything witty to say!"

"Well I can see that!"

"Just turn invisible!" Oswin said, and then she disappeared.

"Oswin? Oswin!?" Clara hissed, "I can't turn invisible!"

"Then intangible!" Oswin said from somewhere near Clara, then she felt herself getting dragged towards the junk wall, so she pushed Invisible-Oswin away and phased into the crap, which didn't actually smell nice. But the sheet of metal over her head tried to follow her and banged into the scrap, then fell to the floor and clattered about. "Brilliant, Clara…" Oswin grumbled.

"What was that?" Rory asked. Apparently he was there too, which made three. Perhaps four, if both Ten and Tentoo were there, but Clara doubted they would be together in the same place. 'If the Ten-clones were friends would everyone accuse THEM of sleeping with each other?' 'They're not friends, they don't like each other because the Tenth Doctor can't get over Rose.' 'You should've just given in and been a rebound.' Clara then braced herself for some kind of infliction of physical pain upon her, until she remembered she was phasing and couldn't get hit by her angry clone. 'I am not going to be anyone's rebound. Not when I'm aware of it, at any rate.'

"Maybe it was a mutant from the gamma radiation?" Ten suggested. 'Shit! They know about the radiation!' 'So!?' 'SO they're hunting whatever's emitting it! That could be dangerous! We have to get it first.' 'Oh, brilliant…'

"Or just Clara. I'm sure she's here somewhere," said Eleven. 'JUST Clara now, is it?' 'Don't be such a baby.'

Clara looked around for cracks of sunlight she could use to see out and spy, and finally found one, and was thankful there were only four of the blokes there (though that was still half). There were the Doctors, Rory, and Adam Mitchell skulking seemingly unwelcomely at the back.

"Hopefully she's not grown anything extra while she's been here," Ten joked. It was then that she saw Adam Mitchell roll his eyes a little and smile to himself, as though he'd thought of something funny to say but had decided against saying it.

"I'd love her anyway," he said. 'See? I have such a sweet husband.' 'I think he sounds like a twat.' 'Shut up.'

"Bit sappy," Ten commented.

"Well if I say anything bad, you'll tell her," he said. 'Not so sweet now, hmm?' 'Shh.'

"Bad like what?" Ten coaxed.

"Bad like… Well, you'll tell her!" 'What is bad about me!? I am perfection in a bottle.' 'What do you mean "in a bottle"?' 'It's an expression!' 'I've never heard it.' 'That's because… You're from the future. And an idiot.' 'Not because you just made it up now?'

"Come on, just one thing," Ten said.

"…Why are you trying to make me speak negatively about my wife? What if she can hear me?" 'Damn right I can hear you.'

"She can't hear you! She's probably not here."

"If I had a problem with Clara, I would just tell her. Because I have a problem-less relationship. At least I don't fancy her sister," Eleven said. 'He said "fancy" instead of "want to shag", isn't that cute?' 'Clara! They're talking about me!'

"I don't fancy her sister," Ten said. 'Wow, I can't believe he doesn't fancy me!' 'Why do you care!?' 'I'm just generally insulted!' "Why would I?"

"I can think of a few reasons," Adam muttered from the back of the group. And then his phone seemed to buzz, and he checked it, frowned, and glanced around. 'What did you just text him?' 'That if he says anything about me, he dies.' "Why d'you keep asking people to say negative things about their whoevers? You've already had Mickey and Rory going at it."

"I was not joining in!" Rory protested. 'This is stupid. We should go. Cut through the walls, straight to the middle to look for this-'

"Are you saying that neither of you two have anything to complain about? Neither of you?" Ten looked from Eleven to Adam, "Come on! When are you going to get another girl-free opportunity for a man-to-man about women?" 'In the female community, we would call this being two-faced and talking shit about people behind their back.' 'It's a man-to-man, Clara. They're so manly they have to have the word "man" in every sentence.' 'I don't care how "manly" it is, it's a bitchfest, simple as.'

"What about how much time they spend with each other?" Rory said, and Eleven and Adam exchanged a look. 'Uh-oh.'

"Well, um…" said Adam. 'Don't talk! Just shut up!' Thank god he listened to his girlfriend's texts and did.

"No," said Eleven, "Of course not! We're friends and we spend time together," he motioned between himself and Ten, "We're just less… You know…"

"Aggressively homosexual?" Rory suggested.

"Yes, that," said Eleven. 'How dare he!' 'Oswin, to be fair, you DO keep trying to convince me to pretend to date you.' 'I'm perfectly aware! But he isn't allowed to make those sorts of judgements about other people! None of them!' 'Go tell him then.' 'ME!? Why don't YOU go educate your husband about labelling other people!' 'It wasn't even him, it was Rory!' 'He still agreed! Go!' She felt herself get pushed, didn't know how in the hell that happened, and would definitely demand an explanation at the next possible opportunity. But as it happened, she was thrown out into the sun where she crashed into Rory Williams, who'd been quite close to the wall.

"Bloody hell!" he exclaimed when she pushed him.

"How dare you, Rory Williams! How dare you go around accusing people of being 'aggressively homosexual'!" Clara shouted at him.

"Who is that?" Ten asked.

"Check for wedding rings," Eleven advised, and Clara purposely hid her lefthand behind her back.

"Ah, but how do you know that, whoever I am, I – or she – isn't smart enough to know to take off any wedding rings?" Clara said, "What's all this about us being aggressively homosexual, hmm?"

"H-how long have you been listening..?" Eleven asked.

"Long enough! You are all repugnant. Except him," she pointed to Adam Mitchell with her thumb.

"Must be Oswin," Eleven said.

"Or possibly Clara?" Clara suggested, "Tricking you. Hmm – it's a puzzle, isn't it?"

"Sounds like Oswin," said Ten.

"Just ask her something only one of them would know," Rory said.

"They can talk psychically! She'll either refuse to answer any questions or answer all of them perfectly," Adam said.

"See? You should all listen to him," Clara said, "He'a clever. Cleverer than you, sweetheart."

"Ah! She called me 'sweetheart'. It's Clara," Eleven said.

"An 'it' now, am I? Whoever, or whatever, I am?"

"She called you an idiot," Ten pointed out.

"Yes, but she slipped up," Eleven said.

"Because obviously Clara would slip up," Clara said, "Clara can't maintain a front or anything."

"Now she's talking about herself sarcastically in the third person," Eleven continued.

"Or I could just be taking the piss out of my sister," Clara shrugged, "Anyway – the labelling? Who're you calling aggressively homosexual?"

"You're both… Just a bit…" 'Say super into each other.'

"Super into each other?" Clara took Oswin's suggested.

"Well now she sounds like Oswin," said Adam.

"As a half-gay, I am offended by your notions," Clara exclaimed.

"Oswin," said Eleven, "Obviously."

"How'd you get that?" Clara asked.

"Yeah, how?" Adam joined her. Maybe he thought she was her sister.

"Because," Eleven said to Adam, "She just admitted to being bisexual. Which means she's Oswin."

"What?" he frowned.

"Clara's not bi," said Eleven.

"…Yes, she is," said Adam, "They both are."

"…What?" he looked like he'd been punched in the face.

"Did you seriously not know that?" Adam looked to be on the brink of laughing. 'I was telling you through the WHOLE DREAM! Tell him your sexuality! And you still didn't!' 'I thought he guessed!' 'Of course he didn't guess, he's a moron!'

"I have to say I'm even more offended by you not knowing that about me than calling me an aggressive homosexual," Clara said

"She's Clara," Adam said, "Mystery solved."

"Are you?" Eleven asked carefully, probably praying she said she was actually her sister or something. But she had him exactly where she wanted him, and she wasn't going to let him get off the hook for not knowing these things about her any time soon.

"Yep," said Clara, "That I am. But that doesn't matter, because we're both dressed exactly the same today, so the next time you see either of us, you'll be back to square one." She bowed a little, "Oh, and, I'm not aggressive with my half-homosexuality."

"You were quite aggressive the other day when we met Sally Sparrow," Oswin then stuck her head out of the junk wall and made the others jump. Clara glared at her.

"Wait – what? Sally Sparrow? THE Sally Sparrow? With the Angels?" Eleven asked, Clara now furious at her insolent baby sister.

"Yeah, your wife was all over-!" Clara clamped a hand over Oswin's mouth.

"We're leaving n – Ew! Don't lick my hand you freak!" Clara retracted her palm away.

"It never usually bothers you," Oswin seemed like she would've shrugged, were her shoulders visible.

"Sorry?" Eleven asked.

"Doesn't matter – bye!" she said, pushing Oswin back into the scrap and phasing herself so they were both vanished into the towers of metal. Until Clara stuck her head back out two seconds later and said, "But for the record – Sally Sparrow is really attractive." And then Oswin wrenched her back in. 'Okay, serious question: How are you touching me since we're BOTH intangible?' 'It's, you know, that thing. I mean. It's different. It… Cancels itself out.' 'Does it?' 'Yeah, duh, why wouldn't it?' 'If we were both organic matter, then maybe, but-' 'It's very complicated, Clara! Just accept it. It makes vague sense. Do you want me to show you the equations?' 'Not particularly.' 'Then stop whining.'

Oswin dragged Clara by her hand in what the latter presumed to be a straight line for a ways, occasionally bringing her out into the sunlight in one of the 'streets' before they were sucked straight back into darkness, until finally she was allowed to be released (other than brute force, there was no way she could free herself from the clasp of her sister, since she had to remain intangible in order to continue passing through the trash mounds), and then she also guessed that they could talk, as well.

"Right then, where's this thing that we have to find?" Clara sighed, "I still have a headache."

"Well that's the fun part. I still don't know what it is, where it is, how dangerous it is or what it does," Oswin said.

"Sometimes I'm really glad that my best friend and twin sister is the smartest girl in all of time and space," said Clara dryly.

"Oh, thanks Clars!" Oswin refused to bend to her sarcasm.

"And other times I'm not," Clara added, and Oswin scowled.

"Ah-ha!" they heard coming over the wall. Clara felt like she might, possibly be dying from heatstroke or some other warmth-related ailment. It had been hours. She didn't know how many, but she was sure it was a lot, and she had to keep checking the sky to watch for it turning to orange as the sun set. She and Oswin had been rummaging through heaps of other peoples' wasted shit looking for something emitting deadly amounts of radiation for the whole time, and twice a huge portion of wall had collapsed down onto them. It was tedious, dangerous and dreadful work, and Clara was starving, and didn't know how far away from the door or any kind of exit they were. They were lost.

"Who was that..?" Clara whispered to Oswin. Her face and skin and clothes were filthy by that point, and she was in a bitter mood. Oswin looked at her and shrugged, but they both stopped moving to listen.

"Found it!" the voice said again.

"Tenth Doctor," said Oswin, his voice easily recognisable now they were actually paying attention to it, "They've found it. Which is bad. Because it's dangerous. It might hurt someone. Like us. He might make everyone on the TARDIS mutate – and if the body recognises the mutations as part of itself, the miracle medicine won't heal it. Because as far as it knows, Donna's third arm is supposed to be there."

"Why are you dragging Donna into this!?"

"Um, do you want the smartest girl in all of existence to help avoid this catastrophe, or not?" Oswin asked.

"It's your idea!" Clara exclaimed, "It's nothing to do with me! You just dragged me here this morning! Just go through the wall!" Clara pushed her, and they were entombed in darkness for a few seconds, until coming out into an area where the four men were gathered around a strange object. It was shaped like a large pill, and it was clearly made of metal, and was just lying there.

"Hide the thingy," Ten hissed when he saw the two girls, and the four of them rushed around it. Well, three of them. Adam Mitchell seemed to know that going too close to objects emitting highly dangerous radiation was a bad idea. Unfortunately, Clara couldn't say the same for her husband.

"We were here first," said Oswin, "It's our thingy."

"You don't even know what it does," Ten accused.

"Neither do you!" Clara said, "And we do know what it does, actually, it… Gives off gamma radiation." 'It also gives off ionising radiation.' "And also ionising radiation."

"Why do you two have more right to it than we do?"

"Because one of us is definitely a genius," Oswin said.

"Our combined IQ is definitely higher than yours," Eleven said.

"He is right," Adam Mitchell said, "I did the maths." He was just stood around looking at his phone. 'What's he doing on his phone? Who is he texting? I thought he only texted me?' 'Paranoid, much. Calm down.'

"Ah, see? Trust boyfriendy, Oswin. Whichever one of you Oswin is," Eleven said, and Clara rolled her eyes. 'You know, he's always telling me that he can tell the difference between us.' 'Well apparently not. Sorry disappoint you. Your husband is stupid.' 'Yeah, but he's looking a lot hotter than he usually looks right now…' 'Clara. He hasn't showered. You sicko. Or were you planning on-' 'Do not suggest I'm going to shag him in a shower.'

"Anyway, we're less violent than Oswin, so it's in our best interest to keep this S-A-I away from her," Ten said.

"SAI?" Clara asked the same time her sister said, "Oswin isn't violent!"

"Shape Alteration Inducer. Call yourself the smartest girl in the universe," he shook his head at Clara, who he clearly thought was her sister, though she didn't feel like telling him he had the wrong twin, so she just scoffed. 'Wait, does that mean it… Makes other people change shape..?' 'Yeah, you know, mutations. But extreme ones. There's probably a lot of other harmful stuff in it that the gamma radiation is just hiding for now.' 'Change shape into what, exactly..?' 'Oh, anything. Animals, other people, you know.'

"My god, what if they make me look like you!?" Clara exclaimed, looking at her sister, horrified. Oswin gave her a grim look and kicked her in the ankle, "Ow!"

"Seriously, don't start fighting," Adam Mitchell said, when Clara was about to retaliate.

"Please spare us," pleaded Eleven (a little insensitively, if you were to ask Clara, but nobody was).

"We'll settle this later," Clara said, "But seriously, I don't want to be a hideous, disfigured mess, like this thing here," she waved a hand in her sister's general direction, and Oswin hit it away. 'Okay. Teleport, grab it, teleport out.' 'What about you!?' 'I'll be fine.' 'I'm not leaving you here in this hellhole!' 'Oswin. It's like, a fifteen minute walk if I just go through the fence and around the scrapyard.' '…Oh yeah. Okay.' Oswin flickered over to the device, but it was then that Ten had apparently caught on and lunged for it, grabbed it and holding it so tightly that she couldn't get it to escape.

"AH! You gave it away!" Eleven shouted, and in retaliation for that, when he went to go help Ten, Clara telekinetically tripped him up so he fell over. Adam Mitchell was still staying out of things.

"Sorry, sweetheart! You know I love you!" Clara said, going and pushing the Tenth Doctor over. He fell, dropped the pill-thing, and Oswin caught it, but then did nothing. "Oswin! Leave!"

"I can't! There's a limit on how much I can teleport away with me, it's too big!"

"That is exactly why she can't teleport me," Adam said snidely.

"Your over-inflated ego doesn't count!" she shouted at him, and then Ten had grabbed the whatever-it-was again and they were fighting over it, and by that point, the Prank War's tensions seemed to be culminating into an explosion, and all hell broke loose between the Twins, the Doctors, Mitchell and Rory Williams.

Clara collapsed, face first, onto one of the bus sofas when they finally returned. Empty-handed. She didn't know how they'd lost in a fight with a bunch of weedy, complete idiots, yet there they both were. Downtrodden.

"…You're Oswin, right..?" Rose asked the correct twin, who was standing next to Clara, "I can tell because she's mucky and exhausted, and you're totally clean."

"Yes, you win," Oswin said, and then when Clara looked over, Oswin shimmered and returned to scarlet perfection, as usual, "And what you win is absolutely nothing because we have just lost a very dangerous device." Clara yawned quite loudly then.

"Is that smoke?" she asked, tasting something peculiar in the back of her mouth when she did so.

"Yes," Rose answered, "One of the sofas upstairs was on fire."

"Why!?" Oswin exclaimed.

"Also, Amy has a really bad burn on her side," Rose said.

"Again. Why!?" Oswin repeated herself.

"The boys somehow managed to slip igniting agents into our deodorant. It meets with oxygen, it combusts," Rose said, "Which explains the smell, and the sofa, and also one of the pillows we used to put the fire on the sofa out with until we ended up using quite a lot of our water."

"How much is 'quite a lot'?" Clara asked.

"All of it."

"Excellent…" she muttered, "What a fun day we're having."

"But Jenny got them back," Rose said.

"Where's the TV?" was Clara's next question.

"Jenny took it and made it into an IED," Rose said, and Clara felt a flash of some unpleasant emotion through her sister at that moment, and hoped the subject would pass away, "And then threw it at Jack when he came outside. There was a lot of blood they've been cleaning."

"Oh, fun then," said Oswin meekly.

"Yeah."

"…What's the other smell?" Clara then asked, cringing a little, but forcing herself to sit up properly. It was only Rose downstairs, she didn't know where the others were right then.

"Cheese," said Rose, "They had a lot of cheese, and they filled up our water tank with them. The sink is full of cheese."

"Is this worse than the dream, Os? I can't tell," Clara asked.

"Well, so far I haven't had my foot half-ripped off or my leg cut open with a crowbar, I haven't nearly drowned, been attacked by a werewolf, got sucked into a swamp, or been abducted by aliens, so I don't think it's too bad," Oswin said sardonically.

"That is a fair point," Clara nodded, "But I really do think I am in hell. How are we getting them back for the cheese, then?"

"Jenny and River have figured out how they rigged the spunk-dunk, so they're gonna do that. Only instead of gunge, they might've… You know… Emptied the boys' waste collector into a bucket…"

"Well, hopefully that one'll get your boyfriend, Jack, or Nine. All of them have experience in being covered in crap," Clara said.

"That sad thing is that that is entirely true…."

AN: The story continues in 4 Doctors, 12 Companions, What Could Possibly Go Wrong? right where this leaves off exactly, and I'm writing this extra author's note nearly a year and a half after the original conclusion of this part, right when 4D12C has 482 chapters and is nearly done, and will very soon lead into the third and final part of the saga. If you managed to read the first 500 chapters of the whole thing, then the next 500 chapters should be a doozy, because they get a ridiculous amount better, just like this one did. And it's still getting better, I like to think. Carry on reading for such fun as run-ins with Xenomorphs from Alien, the arrival of a female Doctor from the future, the Twelfth Doctor returning, Beta Clara, Ashildr and Sally Sparrow becoming major supporting characters, the Salem Witch Trials, a kraken, a sinister fertility resort, a haunted house, vampires, Roswell, Missy, an undead ex-Torchwood agent who shoots lightning bolts, a deranged synth with a heart of gold, Chernobyl, killer plants, an AU where they all live in a block of flats, and much more. And, finally, I will achieve balance between all the characters, and they will ALL have interesting subplots and complicated dynamics.