The Time of Change

A Less-Than-Angelic Confrontation

I move away from Tasha and stand, peering at Clara. Her face is flushed, her eyes wide, her breathing irregular. I take a step forward. "Are you okay?" I inquire, concerned. Her gaze snaps to me, and at once the fear is drained from her dark brown irises. But this time is different than all the others: this time, when she looks at me and her discomfort dissipates, it's not because of me or because of my reassuring gaze. It's something different, something deeper. I recognize that look from the other times I've seen it, the countess things forgotten. And I see the thin black tally mark on her arm, starkly contrasting her white skin. And I know.

"Fine," Clara says breathily, looking confused now. "Fine, yeah. Sorry."

Tasha clears her throat and I look down at her. She stands and makes her way toward the opposite side of the room, touching something that looks like a confessional. There are two of them, side by side. "Right," she says, seeming to completely brush off what happened between us a moment ago and Clara's sudden interruption, "this is my personal teleport. I can put you down just outside the town. Find the source of the message and report back to me in one hour. And on your life, Doctor," she adds, and the stern look she gives me fills me with amusement, "you will cause no trouble down there."

I step into the confessional and grab the red curtain hanging from the top of the door-less threshold. I smile at Tasha mischievously and reply, "When do I? No, wait. Don't answer that." I draw the curtain and am momentarily absolved in total darkness. It's a very short moment, though, because Tasha pulls it back once more and holds her hand out expectantly. "What?" I ask in confusion.

"I'm not an idiot," she replies, half annoyed. "Everyone in this church is trained to see straight through holograms."

"Ah!" Clara sighs, folding her arms over her chest evasively. "Great."

"Give, now," Tasha orders me. "You are taking no technology of any kind down there." I roll my eyes and touch the key to the TARDIS, sitting in my holographic pocket. "What can I possibly do with a key?" I ask. Now I point to Clara. "You, in. Now."

"You could summon your TARDIS," Tasha objects, keeping a firm hold on the curtain so I can't move it. Clara walks up to the teleport, still looking extremely uncomfortable with the fact that Tasha can see through the hologram. I scoff at her statement. "The TARDIS doesn't work by remote."

Still the Mother Superious glares at me, and I know that I'll never be able to go down there if I don't do as she wants. I sigh dramatically and pull the key out of my pocket. "Fine. If it'll make you feel better, there we are." I place it in her outstretched hand, and she nods once, smiling a little. I watch Clara raise her eyebrows a smidgen, and now she gets into the cubical right next to mine. Tasha moves to press a few buttons on the podium-like control panel.

"Remember," she warns me. "I want you back in one hour."

I salute her dutifully, and a bit sarcastically, and the last thing I see before I pull the curtain to is the amused look on her face. It doesn't reach her eyes, though. Those are still kind of cold, not like I remember them to be from so long ago. I just realized that. Her eyes have changed since then. Changed quite a lot.

I close my own eyes and don't let any part of me touch the confessional box. Within seconds, the compact closeness of it disappears and I'm surrounded by a fierce, biting cold. My feet sink into numbing snow. I let myself look around now, my gaze falling on whitewashed evergreen trees and snow that comes up past my ankles and flakes gently floating to the ground, landing on my shoulders, my head, in my hair. I breathe in, and the exhalation comes out in a fog, misting in front of me in wisps that disintegrate after a moment. I flex my fingertips, trying to bring feeling back into them.