In Her Eyes (A Whouffle Fanfiction)

Chapter 3- So Close, Yet So Far

The speaker faded to static. The Doctor quickly searched the corridor for clues but came up empty-handed.

"Come on Clara, need a little help here." He whispered urgently to the empty passageway. He began to pace, hyper aware of the seconds that were ticking away. If he was Clara, what would he have done? She wasn't the type to just stand around while being kidnapped. She would fight, hard. The Doctor imagined her being dragged away, her fists and feet lashing out at random in the hope that a stray slap or kick might land and she could tear herself away from her captors. Now what if, what if, one of these blows had connected with one of the walls and left a mark? The tiniest of imprints that, at first glance, could be easily overlooked by somebody who wasn't specifically searching for it. The Doctor popped on Amy's reading glasses, looking at the crossroads with fresh eyes. His vision slid from wall to wall until-

Bingo.

Halfway down the corridor directly in front of the Doctor, at knee height, was a faint muddy print left by Clara's boot. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and ran towards it, pocketing the glasses as he does so. Now he's found the first clue to Clara's whereabouts actually finding her should, in theory, be fairly straightforward. All he had to do was follow the trail that she had left for him. Simple. But the Doctor had a niggling feeling at the back of his head that it wasn't going to be that easy.
   ***
Clara watched through heavy lidded eyes as the man sauntered into her cell waving a remote at her.

"Good morning, Miss Oswald. And how are you today?" he asked brightly, pressing a button on the remote. A section of the wall in front of Clara began to slide into the ground.

"Mmrph urgh uff ruff." Clara said angrily, her voice muffled by the rope gag that was stuffed in her mouth.

"Just a moment." The man rummaged in his pockets, whipping out a pen knife and cutting through Clara's gag.

"What did you say again?" He asked casually, running one finger over the blade of the knife emphasising its razor sharp edge. Clara either hadn't noticed or didn't care, because she fixed him with one of her steeliest glares.

"I said, just you wait until the Doctor comes for me you little-"

The man jumped up from his chair so suddenly that Clara barely had time to register it happening before he grabbed a fistful of her hair, shoving her head back and pressing his knife to her throat. Clara's heart thumped in her chest and her feet scrabbled the floor for footing. 

"Be very careful what you say to me, girl." He hissed in her face. "I may enjoy your company, but please remember that you are a hostage and I can to whatever I want to you." He cocks his head to one side, tracing her facial features idly with his knife. 

"It would be a shame to ruin such a pretty face. Such a waste of youth."

Clara sat as still as possible and clamped her mouth shut. Now was not the time for a witty comeback, no matter his badly she wanted to give one. She had no doubt that, if given an excuse, the man would not hesitate to do more with that knife than just wave it about.

Turning away from her kidnapper, Clara diverted her attention from the man and back to the wall, which had now stopped sliding to reveal a flat screened TV. The man removed his knife from her face and grinned down at her. From crazy murderous lunatic to over excited schoolboy in less than a minute.

"Like it?"

Clara shrugged, trying to get her still pounding heart to calm down to its usual rate.

"Its alright."

The man tutted then turned it on and flicked down the channels, which, Clara realised, were all live feeds from security cameras.

"You'll love it in a minute." The man promised her, pausing at a particular channel and winking at her before selecting it. Clara threw him the 'don't-mess-with-me' look which she usually saved for Angie then directed her attention back to the TV screen. Her heart leapt in her chest when she saw the Doctor haring through the passageways. He was coming for her. Not that she hadn't thought that he wouldn't, but when you're locked in one room with a psychopath for too long you do begin to question what's real and what isn't. Clara gazed at the screen, drinking in the wholeness of the Doctor, the very sight of him beginning to chase away the loneliness and abandonment she had felt. He was here, he was coming. She wouldn't be stuck here for much longer. Her smile grew even wider when she realised how close he was to finding her. How long had it taken him to get this far? Five minutes at the most, surely. The smile that had appeared on her face disappeared. This was too easy. If the man, whoever he was, had fought the Doctor before, he must know that a maze, however complex it may be, wouldn't stop him for long. What was he playing at?

She glanced up at the man, who was now leaning against her chair with his arms folded, a smug smile on his face. There was something else going on here, and Clara didn't like it one bit.

***

Back in the never-ending corridors of the Testing Facility the Doctor was having much the same thoughts as Clara. Even without the sonic and the TARDIS he was finding it much too easy to find her. Her trail, though hard to find and even harder to follow, was too obvious for it to have been overlooked by the man, whoever he is. Something sinister was going on here. The Doctor could only hope that he would reach Clara before the man could implement the rest of his twisted game.
The Doctor ran on for a few more metres until he realised that Clara's trail had gone cold. He doubled back, fighting the rising tide of panic that was threatening to submerge him, and found the last clue that he had seen before he lost it. The Doctor used up one if his precious minutes to comb the corridor, right up to the dead end at the bottom.

Nothing.

Not even a hint, the slightest trace, of Clara anywhere. In a rare moment of fury the Doctor punched the wall with all the force he could muster, barely noticing the pain that lanced through his knuckles and the hollow ring that echoed through the passage. He had come so close to finding her.

So

Punch

Damn

Punch

Close

Kick

The Doctor blinked with surprise as his foot punctured the wall, flying in so far that by the time the Doctor managed to stop his forward momentum he was in the wall up to his thigh.

"D-D-D-Doctor?" A voice, weak and tired but full of hope, floated through the hole. His hearts lifting the Doctor wiggled his foot out of the hole and pressed his face against it instead.

"Clara?"

The brunette lifted her head, hair falling away to reveal a cloth gag which had just been shoved roughly back into place. Behind her the man fiddled with something on a trolley.

Clara's eyes widened when she saw the Doctor and she began to wrestle with the cuffs on her chair, causing the chair to squeak loudly. The Doctor placed one finger against his lips, signalling for her to be quiet. He needed to get her out of her cell stealthily so her captors wouldn't notice her leaving.

Clara quietened down, trusting the Doctor to come up with a plan to get them out of there alive. She still reckoned that this was all a trap, but as to what it was and why the man was doing it she hadn't the foggiest idea. That was until the man turned from the trolley and grabbed hold of her arm, twisting it so the underside was showing and dabbing it with a piece of cotton wool.  She looked between it and the man until it finally clicked.

He was prepping her for an injection.

Clara was strapped down and very effectively gagged, so she did the only thing she could to get the Doctor's attention: scream.

She filled her lungs with as much air as they could take without bursting and let off the loudest, glass shattering scream she had ever done.

Needless to say, it definitely got the Doctor's full attention.

His head popped back through the wall and, upon seeing Clara's predicament, abandoned any thoughts of being subtle. He had to get to Clara as quickly as possible before anything happened to her that he couldn't fix. The Doctor backed up against the opposite wall, cracking his neck from side to side.

"Geronimo."

A/N
71+ reads! Already! Thankyou to everybody who takes the time to read this. Tons of love!
The next update will be on Tuesday (fingers crossed) and will be full of Whouffle. So stay tuned :)
Please vote/comment!
-Jazz xx