Heart of Gold

Always Darkest Before the Dawn

"And I've been a fool and I've been blind (I've been blind)
I can never leave the past behind..."
- Florence + the Machine: 'Shake It Out' (Ceremonials [2011])

~*~*~

HC Clements office

A very confused and reluctant Lance drives his fiancée, the Doctor, and Katy to HC Clements. Upon getting there, the Doctor immediately set off on his tangent about his discovery of exactly who was running this firm. The only one who wasn't completely confused about this entire situation was Katy, but that might've been because she knew him, and knew that he was prone to talking about topics like this, and expecting people to understand and keep up with what he was talking about.

"To you lot, this might just be a locksmiths, but HC Clements was brought up twenty-three years ago by the Torchwood Institute," the Doctor explains; acknowledging the sour expression on Katy's face as Donna immediately questioned him.

"Who are they?"

"They were behind the battle of Canary Wharf?" the Doctor explained, once again mystified that Donna was clueless about something as important and probably heavily talked about in public. "Cyberman invasion. Skies over London, full of Daleks?" He dropped hints.

"Oh, I was in Spain!" Donna stated, brightly.

"They had Cybermen in Spain," Katy frowned.

"Scuba diving," Donna added using a 'duh' tone, and both Katy and the Doctor felt like face-palming.

"That big picture, Donna. You keep on missing it," the Doctor said, warily. "Anyway, Torchwood was destroyed, but HC Clements stayed in business. I think someone else came in and took over the operation."

"But what do they want with Donna?" Katy asked.

"Somehow she's been dosed with Huon energy," the Doctor explains to Donna and Katy, but doesn't see Lance stiffen when the Doctor mentions this. Katy does, however, and she studies the man suspiciously. "And that's a problem, because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark Times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the Tardis."

"So does that mean, I might have some still in me?" Katy questioned nervously, earning a questioning look from her boyfriend. "After all, I did look into the Tardis that one time..." Katy trailed off, but the Doctor understood where she had been going with that and smiles reassuringly at her.

"No, when I - ahem - pulled it out of you, I left no traces of Huon particles. You're completely safe," the Doctor tells Katy, who looked relieved, but then worried as she looked at Donna who still looked confused. The Doctor tries a different explanation. "See? That's what happened. Say, that's the Tardis..." He picks up a nearby coffee mug and holds it up for everyone to see. "And that's you..." He picks up a pencil. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetised and whap!" He shakes the mug and the pencil, dropping the latter into the mug. "You were pulled inside the Tardis."

"I'm a pencil inside a mug?" Donna blinked.

"Yes, you are." The Doctor grinned. "4H. Sums you up." He turns towards Lance, who looks back at him, very guarded. "Lance? What was HC Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?"

"I don't know," Lance shrugged. "I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager." Then he frowns defensively. "Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?"

"Oh, not to worry. The Doctor'll get an explanation soon enough. He usually does," Katy gives Lance a fake smile, still eying him suspiciously. The Doctor eventually gets a nearby computer screen to work and pulls up a schematic of the building.