wrongkindofsith | The Park, Thursday Morning

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The Park, Thursday Morning

In this particular corner of the park, on this particular morning, the air was cool, crisp and still. Not that that last one was true for very long as first a breeze, then a wind picked up, scattering leaves in its wake.

The source of this sudden meteorological change was not a mystery for very long. A shining, shimmering portal appeared, hanging in the air as a red-clad figure didn't so much tumble out as was flung from it with great force.

Then, as soon as it had appeared, the portal closed, and was gone.

[For one.]

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Coincidentally, or maybe not, the red-clad lump had landed in the vicinity of a big blue box. The Doctor had been busy with experiments related to working out how Fandom broke all of the laws of reality that he knew. FYI, this whole Iceland thing was not his fault. Probably. He was almost finished (or almost ready to go do something more interesting) but decided on a cup of coffee. He hadn't been anticipating Cara being on the ground almost underfoot when he opened the door. "I told you those shoes would get you into trouble!"

So all those times in the Doctor's class that Cara hadn't betrayed the slightest sign of distress or concern about, well, anything?

This was nothing like that.

"Clark?" She didn't even acknowledge him as she scanned the park. "Clark!"

All good humour was gone. The Doctor stepped out and the door closed behind him. "What's happened? Where's Clark?"

Cara turned in place, nearly tripping over her feet, as if hoping he'd be there standing just out of view.

"I don't know," she said voice as unsteady as her stance. "There was snow, and ice, everywhere."

The Doctor stepped closer, infringing on her personal space a good deal. He needed to know that she was okay, in one piece, and not about to die first of all. "You came out of a portal." In an instant, his sonic screwdriver was out and he was scanning where the portal had been.

At this single moment of time she might have preferred that simplicity and finality. Death held very few mysteries for a Mord'Sith.

"I tried to hold on." Cara stared at her hands, unseeing. "We both did."

He knew that look. He hated that look. That was a look that should never come from Cara. The sonic screwdriver reading yielded no conclusive results. He stashed it away in his jacket and reached for Cara, cupping her face in his hands to draw her chin up so she would look at him. Any other day and he knew he'd end up with a fist to the jaw for doing that. Today he knew it wasn't as likely. After all, he knew that look.

"Look at me."

Cara let him. She didn't see any point in fighting or resisting, not right now.

Tears trickled slowly down over her cheeks. Not that she seemed to notice them, given how still the rest of her face was.

"You're here and you're fine," he said, more quiet than before. "Clark isn't here. You said you tried to hold on. Tell me what happened."

Cara's hand found its way to the hilt of an agiel, the familiar pain shooting up her arm, blanking everything else out.

When she spoke, her voice was steadier, but also duller. "Clark's mother rang, last Saturday, she needed him back home." She paused. "Graduation was last Saturday?"

The Doctor was here, so it probably wasn't sixty years later. Probably.

Was it? Come to think of it, there was all that commotion a while ago. Had that been graduation? Had it really been that long ago?

And what was that buzz behind his eyes?

Cara probably didn't need uncertainty at this point, and she certainly didn't need to hear about the buzzing going on in his head.

"Probably. Get to the part just before you came back here."

Cara was getting there, but the only way she knew how to do that was handle this like a report. "Clark's birth father. His spirit was trapped in a cave there." Spirit hadn't been the word they used, but it was the closest concept that worked. "He wanted Clark to find three stones, ancient, filled with power. Before anyone else used them."

He was still cupping her face, trying to keep her focused. His voice lowered. "What happened to Clark?"

Cara closed her eyes, her jaw working. "We found them." Calling it easy wouldn't have been accurate, but compared to looking for the Stone of Tears, it hadn't exactly been an epic quest. "Took them back to the caves. They changed, became one crystal, there was a light, and we weren't in the caves any more."

"Tell me the rest."

Edited 2011-05-06 01:35 (UTC)

"There was nothing but snow, everywhere, as far as you could see, it was cold." Cold enough she hadn't put up more than a token protest when Clark had offered her his jacket. "Clark threw the crystal. Hard and far, and something grew where landed."

"Is that where Clark went?"

Cara nodded. "We both did. It was a fortress, made of ice and crystal. It was beautiful." Dull as it was, there was still a trace of awe in Cara's voice.

"And he didn't come out?"

"No, that's not what..." Cara shook her head. "We went in. A group of crystals started glowing. Clark's father's spirit started speaking. He was there instead of the cave."

"You're going to have to speed this up." He wasn't unsympathetic. "The suspense is killing me." This was how other people lived, not him.

That Cara didn't even bother shooting him a dirty look for that should have told him a lot. "He said that the fortress was there to train Clark, to prepare him for his destiny," she said, tightening her grip on her agiel. "That he couldn't have anything distracting him."

His hands moved to her shoulders, the blip of humour gone again. "That he couldn't have you distracting him."

"Clark was angry. He said he wouldn't let Jor-El do anything, that he wouldn't even have found the crystals without me, that he l-" Cara's voice cracked. "Jor-El said it didn't matter."

"Omnipotent spirits rarely think anything but what they want matters. He kept Clark there," the Doctor assumed.

"He must have. I tried to hold onto him, when the portal opened. For as long as I could." Under the pain of the agiel, Cara was starting to feel a telltale throbbing and stiffness in her arms and wrists. There would be finger shaped bruises along them by the evening. "It wasn't enough."

The Doctor reached down and placed a hand on her arm. He'd realised where the buzzing was coming from and what it was doing. He didn't let the pain show. "Let go," he said softly.

"I can't," Cara said, quietly. The pain was the only thing keeping her grounded right now... and she deserved it.

"Cara." He kept his voice even and remained quiet as he spoke. "You have to let go now. If there's any chance of Clark coming back, he'll find a way, or you'll find a way to him. But not like this."

Slowly, so very slowly, Cara loosened her grip, letting her hand hang down by her side.

He slid his hand down to grip hers. "There you are." He pulled her into a hug. "Hey, there you are."

Face pressed against the Doctor's shoulder, back stiff, Cara cried. Tears rolling down her face to soak into his clothes.

Cara cared about Clark more than he suspected, but then he wasn't that great at that sort of thing. Losing him was enough to make her break down like this and there was a good chance it was going to leave more of a mark than the agiels ever would. "Come on. You need tea. Let's get you some tea."

Cara couldn't really see how tea would help in the slightest, but she was too far past caring at this point to argue, so she simply nodded and let the Doctor lead her.

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The Park, Thursday Morning

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