Freezer Burn - a Doctor Who fanfic
Rating: Strong T
Word Count: 6,479
Summary: The Doctor and Clara are stranded in the Scottish countryside in the dead of winter after the TARDIS disappears on them. They try to warm each other up and stumble upon some rather effective “antifreeze” techniques in the process.
Also on ff.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9937666/1/
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“How much longer?”
“Umm…about an hour, same as the last time you asked.”
“What? But that was a while ago, wasn’t it?”
“Actually it was about seven minutes ago.”
Clara groaned, stamping her feet a bit as they trudged on. “Why can’t the TARDIS decide that she needs to defend herself or repair herself or whatever she’s doing when we’re someplace warm? Like Adexia or the Caribbean or I dunno – even Scotland in the summer would probably be warmer.”
Somewhere off to her left on the frigid, windswept moor, a sheep baaed loudly.
“See? He agrees with me.”
“Actually, she was just saying that the grass tastes better on this side of the hill than it does round the other side. I doubt she knows too much about the climate – or notices, for that matter.” The Doctor was fiddling with the sonic, aiming it out in an arc around them. “Still not getting any technology readings. Either she dropped us in some year that is decidedly not 1989, or we really are in the middle of nowhere.”
“I could’ve told you that.” Clara clapped her hands together, rubbing them back and forth before blowing into them. “Of all the times I decide to leave my gloves in the TARDIS…”
“The cold is invigorating, though!” His cheery tone prompted a glare from her, making him shrink back as though she might shoot laser beams out of her eyes. Lasers might actually have been quite handy at the moment, if only for starting a fire. “Don’t you think it’s invigorating?”
“Not the word I was thinking of, no,” she intoned, trying to warm her hands under her armpits instead. “Can’t you sonic us some heat or something? It does practically everything else.”
The Doctor wobbled his head back and forth, which Clara could just make out from how his pale skin cast a faint glow in the moonlight. “It’s got the antifreeze setting, but I don’t think that would be particularly useful.”
“Antifreeze? So…what? It could prevent us from getting frozen?”
“No, it only melts things that are already frozen. Though perhaps that’s a useful setting to think about for the future…”
She huffed, stamping her feet again, then came to an abrupt halt. There was the outline of a light-coloured rectangular fixture just ahead. “Doctor – what’s that?”
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