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Missy was sitting on a low rock, the only feature visible for miles. She didn't offer any help freeing Clara from the ropes she’d tied her up in, but then again Clara wasn’t sure she’d have accepted. Part of her mind insisted she was dead, shot through with Dalek lasers. It couldn’t quite accept the relentless beating of her heart in her chest. It couldn’t quite accept that Missy - Missy! - had saved her.
The object of this disbelief was amusing herself by sharpening a stick with a knife. God only knew where Missy had found that stick, it wasn’t like there were any trees nearby. The presence of the knife was less surprising.
Idly, she listed everything Clara really didn't need to hear.
“The Doctor’s trapped in the heart of the Dalek Empire. He is a prisoner of the creatures who hate him most in the universe. Between us and him is everything the deadliest race in all of history can throw at us. And we’re stuck on the wrong side of Skaro, about to starve to death.”
A pause. Missy cast her a sidelong glance.
“Well, I'm not. There’s enough sandwiches in you to last me there and back.”
Throwing the last of the rope off, Clara stood up.
“Please stop joking about eating me.”
She wasn’t sure it was a joke; Missy certainly wasn’t laughing. If Missy had saved her life only so that she could then have afternoon tea, she'd- well, she'd be too dead to care. Nevertheless, the idea grated.
“And we’re not about to starve to death. We’ve only just gotten here. After, I might add, your teleportation trick landed us about as far away from the Doctor as it's possible to be on this place.”
Missy ignored her second point.
“So we both venture out. It would be weeks of journeying but Time Lords are hardier than humans - I’d still be fine. You’d be a skeleton before we made it. You’re not self-conscious about your bone structure, are you?”
Exasperated, Clara threw up her hands.
“Is there any end to this where I don’t die?”
“You eat me.”
“Stop suggesting cannibalism!”
Missy tutted. She’d started drawing lines in the sand with her stick. Her other hand still held the knife loosely and she gestured with it as she spoke.
“It’s not cannibalism, dear. We’re different species.”
Not even deigning to reply, Clara instead stared out into the desert. Surely there must be an oasis nearby, or a village, or some sort of travelling caravan. Deserts weren’t wastelands; maybe they could hunt for lizards by night and drink cactus water to stay cool.
Oh god, what was she thinking? She was going to die out here.
This was where the Doctor should’ve swept in with a grand plan, but the Doctor was in the Dalek citadel at the other end of the world and the Doctor believed she was dead.
A sharp point pressed suddenly into Clara’s back. The stick? The knife? Her heart began to pound.
“Missy-”
How had she gotten so close so fast? Her lips brushed Clara’s ear as she murmured:
“No sudden movements. I don’t want you on a kebab just yet.”
Clara let out a slow, shaking breath, not trusting herself to respond.
“So you can follow orders,” Missy said, and even that quiet Clara could hear the slight smile. “Good girl.”
The heat must be getting to here. Clara's head swam.
“What are you doing.”
The words came out flat, unable to form themselves into a question.
The point drew itself away from Clara's back. Screwing her eyes shut, she braced for the–
Impact?
Missy pressed the handle of the knife into Clara's hand, wrapping her fingers around it.
The Doctor would've dropped the knife- wouldn’t he? Images flashed behind her eyes: Missy and the Doctor, years ago, millennia ago, trapped somewhere entirely unlike here, exactly like here. The same blade in his hands. Missy's fingers lingering on his wrist like they lingered on Clara's now.
Clara's breath caught in her throat. Nothing felt real.
“If I kill you,” she said quickly, “I still won’t leave this place alive. I’d just die slower, with your corpse for company.”
Missy laughed sharply. She stepped back and circled Clara, no hiding her disdain.
“There is exactly one person in this universe that I’d let kill me and you, my dear, are not him.”
She took Clara’s hand, not gently at all, and pressed it to her chest.
“Two hearts. We cut one of them out and have a little snack to keep us going. I've got a backup until it regrows.”
Th-thump th-thump. Th-thump th-thump. The rhythm was hypnotic.
“That's not how the Doctor said it worked.”
She pulled Clara closer, never breaking eye contact. Her voice was low now, deadly.
“What he doesn't know can't hurt him.”
Under the intensity of Missy's stare, Clara felt herself flayed alive. Layer after layer of herself peeled back for inspection. To be so seen was intoxicating.
The rational part of her mind tried for one last defence.
“Why your heart? You’ve got two of loads of things, why not a leg, or a hand?”
“And why are you so desperate for my fingers in your mouth?”
She laughed as Clara spluttered. Leather jacket in a desert. Terrible idea. Clara’s whole body was burning.
“The heart is symbolic,” Missy said, teeth clicking on every syllable. “It's camp. Eat me like you mean it, darling.”
Her hand was still on Missy's chest. Th-thump th-thump. Body temperature colder than a human's. Th-thump th-thump. Flesh just as soft.
She had travelled long enough with the Doctor to know how it all worked. Dive in knowing you’ll win. Make the biggest splash you can and maybe, just maybe, the universe will sit up and pay attention. Symbolism and stories. This wasn’t the one where they died arguing semantics in the desert and she had to prove it.
The knife was heavy, Missy’s gaze heavier still. Clara forced herself to look up. Her mouth was dry. Her skin prickled. So little space between them.
“Do I just… stab?”
“And tear my lovely blouse? Don't be stupid. Do you want me or not?”
Mutely, Clara nodded. She did. Oh god help her, she did. She wanted to bite deep into Missy, let warm blood fill her mouth. This wasn't about survival anymore - it never had been. They hadn't tried to hunt, they hadn't even set off for the citadel yet, there was no world where there was any justification for what Clara wanted to do. There was just the hunger. Just the way a smile played on Missy's lips as she watched the thoughts race through Clara's mind.
The knife, heavy. Clara swallowed.
“Lie down,” she said.
“Correct me if I’m wrong Clara, but you appear to be telling me what to do.”
“I have the knife. Lie down.”
It felt good to turn the tables back on Missy. Remind her who was in charge here.
Control freak, muttered some inner part of her.
So?, she shot back.
Slowly, gracefully, like it had been her idea all along, Missy slid her jacket off, turning to fold it neatly by the side of the lone rock. Still facing away, she unbuttoned her blouse too, adding it to the pile.
A scar stretched from the lower left side of Missy’s bare back, curving round her stomach and disappearing from view. Even so, it was obvious how deliberate it was, how neat.
“Missy, turn to me.”
In the middle of trying to get herself comfortable on the rock's flat surface, Missy sat up, twisting towards Clara. The scar stretched until her belly button then turned sharply upwards, ending just below her breasts. Far, far too neat. Jealousy crawled up Clara's throat.
“Who did that to you?”
It was obvious what she was referring to. Missy traced a finger down it.
“Oh, this old thing?” The smugness was tangible. “The Doctor and I were in a similar situation once. Well, no, not at all really, he took far longer to get to this point. It's amazing how months of hunger can change your views on kidney steak.”
It made her sick. It made her giddy.
Hurriedly, with none of Missy’s grace, Clara shrugged her leather jacket off, throwing it to the floor. She knelt astride Missy on the rock and, almost copying her, Clara ran one finger lightly along the scar, upwards this time, Missy's breaths turning shallower the higher she went.
“I thought I told you to lie down.”
As Missy silently complied Clara couldn't resist it:
“So you can follow orders then.”
At once something flashed in Missy's eyes and sharpened in her smile. It only intensified when Clara, unsure despite herself, rested the tip of the blade between Missy's collar bones.
“You don't know what you're doing with that thing.”
“No? Well, you're going to tell me.”
“No,” Missy repeated mockingly, “you're going to ask me.”
“You wish!”
An instinctive response, a weak argument. Like the sand all around her Clara felt control of the situation slipping away from her.
“I have the knife.”
“Because I gave you it. All of this is because I told you so. You're even on your knees.”
With a sudden motion Missy threw one hand up as high on Clara’s arm as she could reach, dragging her nails down bare flesh. Involuntarily, Clara gasped.
“What do you want? Say please.”
“I want to dig this blade into your chest.”
Once the first words were out, the rest tumbled easily after.
“I want to make you feel the way you make me do. I want you open beneath me so I can find out what the Doctor sees in you. Tell me what to do, Missy. Tell me how to do it."
And oh didn’t it feel so freeing to admit that, even as she heard the desperation creep into her voice. Remind Missy who has in charge here? Yeah, right.
“What’s the magic word?”
Let go of the need to be in control, the need to be right, the need to be good. Feel Missy’s heartbeats racing even as she tried to pretend she didn’t want this too. Imagine sinking your teeth into her.
“Please. Missy, please.”
And Missy wrapped her hands around Clara’s, pointed the knife into her chest, and pushed . It slid into her like returning home. Blood welled up from the wound, sticky and glistening in the sunlight.
“Cut down in a straight line. Stop before you reach the top of my other scar.” Missy still had enough presence to sound like she was giving orders rather than gasping them.
Clara, though, Clara's world had narrowed to her hands and the blade and the flesh that waited so hungrily. Missy was so beautiful with her chest gaping open.
She took the knife and pressed it against Missy's exposed sternum, but Missy shook her head.
“Not this part.”
Breathlessly, Clara tried to protest - protest what she didn't know - but Missy was already digging her hands into the cut, grabbing something inside and twisting.
One, two, three awful cracks .
“Broke my own ribs for you. I think you humans call that reaching second base.”
Her voice was strained now, face pallid, hair stuck to her scalp where it had come loose. Hands, slick with her own blood, guided Clara’s back to the open wound.
“Go on, cut it out.”
It was one thing to know Time Lords were far stronger than humans, another to feel the evidence of it herself, as Clara reached into Missy’s chest and felt her hands scrape along the sharp edges of snapped bones. She could break Clara in half without even thinking twice, if she wanted, and yet here Missy was beneath her, eyes fluttering shut with every slice she made.
Clara was outside herself, watching her own motions, fascinated. Sensations came through a haze - Missy, so warm on the inside, so wonderfully alive. Her fingers ran over surfaces soft and fatty, muscular and elastic, sharp and bony. The heart was easy to find and it pulsed gently against her. Shining golden light spilled out of Missy’s chest.
“Regeneration’s setting in,” she muttered between ragged breaths. “Better finish fast before I heal with you still inside-”
Her words were cut short with a grunt as Clara severed the final artery, pulling her heart free. It still beat in Clara’s hand, blood dripping between her fingers, onto Missy’s chest.
Th-thump th-thump.
“Can I-?” Clara asked, voice hoarse, unsure what she was really asking. Can I take you inside me? Can I feel you beneath my teeth? Can I hold this part of you up to the sun and sear this moment into my mind forever?
“Take a bite.”
Almost reverently, Clara brought the heart to her mouth- but then she stopped. Some part of her had snapped awake from its reverie.
“Can I eat it raw?”
“Are you calling me infectious? I said take a bite.”
Missy’s tone brooked no argument, but Clara wouldn’t have fought back anyway. She sank her teeth in deep, tearing away a chunk of meat.
Still warm with body heat. Chewy, a little bit salty, a little bit fatty. It wasn't about the taste though, the meat was merely the means to an end and the end was eating Missy whole.
Another bite, or at least she tried to, but Missy's hands tightened vice-like on her forearms.
“It's polite to share,” she said pointedly, so Clara lowered the heart to her mouth, let her rip a chunk from her own heart, and that's how they continued, trading bites between them, no need for words as they tore it to pieces.
Clara only surfaced when the heart was gone, bloody hands empty. Where had the knife gotten to? Thrown away, skittered off the edge of the rock. Her shirt was stained and splattered with gore, her mind hummed with adrenaline. A piece of meat was stuck between her teeth.
Missy, beneath her, stared off into the middle distance, idly licking the blood from her fingers. Clara didn't know if she wanted to kiss her or open her up again. She settled for running a hand up between Missy’s breasts, along the line of the wound. It was already beginning to knit itself back together. She pressed into it and relished how Missy hissed.
“It'll be a few days before that's back,” Missy said, “so do try not to keel over until then. Go fetch me my shirt, there's a good girl.”
Clara's vision blackened momentarily as she stood up. How long had they been out here in the desert heat? There wasn't any part of her that regretted it,
“I cut out and ate her heart,” Clara whispered to herself, to prove it had all been real, to laugh at taste that lingered on her tongue.
“What was that?” Missy asked, which meant hurry up and they both knew it.
Clara was going to throw the blouse at her but it felt somehow impolite. Instead she gathered up the whole pile of clothing, not caring how she stained the fabric.
Missy had sat up by now, blood dripping from her chin and rolling down her chest. Letting the buzz through her veins quieten, Clara watched her dress in silence.
“It’s a shame,” she frowned at her blouse as she buttoned it back up, “blood stains are a bitch to get out. The Daleks are hardly known for their laundry skills.”
“Why?” Clara asked. A sudden topic change, but it was obvious enough what she was referring to. Or at least, she thought so.
“Use your words dear.” Missy didn't even look up.
“Why did let me do that? Why were you so eager to have me eat you?”
“Because you were starving. We can’t have you collapsing before we reach the citadel.”
“No, I wasn’t. Neither were you, it’s not even been a day since you teleported us out here. Tell me the truth.”
A slow smile curled across Missy’s face. Jacket still abandoned on the floor she shuffled over, dragging one hand down Clara’s face and leaving smears of blood in her wake.
“I wanted to see how far I had to push you before you’d do it. Not far at all, it seems. You’re just like the Doctor.”
The way she said it made it clear it was no compliment but Clara took it as one regardless. Except–
“You said it was months of hunger before he ate you.”
It felt like a hug, but the arms that held Clara were much to tight to be anything but a restraint. Missy giggled softly in her ear, then whispered something, so quiet that even this close Clara had to strain to hear it.
“I lied.”