"Am I safe now?" Rupert asked from his bed.

Clara sat on the edge while the Doctor played with Rupert's orange robot.

"Nobody's safe, especially not at night in the dark, Anything can get you. And all the way up here, you're up here all alone."

Clara smacked the Doctor in the head, causing Elise to smile.

"What was that for?" he asked.

"Shut up, leave this to me," Clara told him. Clara picked up a box of plastic soldiers. "These yours?" Clara asked Rupert.

"They're the home's."

"They're yours now."

"People don't need to be lied to," the Doctor said.

Elise hit him on the arm and gestured for Clara to keep going.

"People don't need to be scared by a big gray-haired stick insect, but here you are. Stay still, shut up." Clara started to set the toy soldiers around Rupert's bed. "See what I'm doing? This is your army."

The Doctor started to stand up. "Plastic army."

"Sit!"

The Doctor sat back down.

Elise smiled. Clara commanded him like River once did. Elise could only imagine having that much sway over a person.

"And they're going to guard under your bed."

Clara held up one in particular. "You see this one? This is the boss one, the colonel. He's going to keep a special eye out."

"It's broken, that one. It doesn't have a gun."

"That's why he's the boss. A soldier so brave he doesn't need a gun. He can keep the whole world safe."

Elise noticed the look on the Doctor's face and wrapped her hand around his arm, giving it a light squeeze.

"What shall we call him?" Clara asked.

"Dan."

Clara's head snapped up. "Sorry?"

"Dan, the soldier man. That's what I call him."

"Good. Good name."

"Yeah. Would you read me a story? It'll help me get to sleep."

"Sure."

The Doctor stood up and walked over to Rupert. "Once upon a time..." He touched Rupert's forehead and he fell back on the bed, asleep. "The end. Dad skills."

Elise frowned. "You never did that to me."

The Doctor shrugged. "Never had to."

They went back to the TARDIS.

"So is it possible we've just saved that kid from another kid in a bedspread?" Clara asked.

"Entirely possible, yes. The bigger question is, why did we end up with him, and not you?"

"I got distracted."

"But why that particular boy? You don't have any. You don't have any kind of connection with him, do you?"

"No. No, no, no. Of course not. Why do you ask?"

The Doctor tinkered around with the console. "The TARDIS was slaved to your timeline. Theoretically, there should have been some connection."

"Will umm, will he remember any of that?"

"Scrambled his memory. Gave him a big old dream about being Dan the soldier man."

Clara sighed and put her head on the console, letting out a pitiful whine.

The Doctor carefully approached her. "Are you okay?"

Clara raised her head. "Doctor, I am sorry to ask, and, you know, I realize this is probably against the laws of time, umm. Er, could you do me a favor?"

They stepped out of the TARDIS. They saw past-Clara walking away.

"Is that what I look like from the back?" Clara asked.

"It's fine," the Doctor told her.

"I was thinking it was good."

"Really?"

Clara walked back into the restaurant and they watched Clara interact with a man.

Elise sighed wistfully. Ever since Trenzalore...

"Oh, not you too!" the Doctor groaned, "I don't need two starry eyed girls on my TARDIS."

Elise would never understand why the Doctor made falling in love sound so horrible. The older Elise got, the more she wanted someone to spend her time with.

"I've got an idea. Come on," the Doctor said.

"Wait, what?"

The Doctor wrapped a hand around her arm and pulled her into the TARDIS.

"Oi!" Elise tried pulling away from the Doctor, but his grip was too strong. She was a second away from biting him when he let go of her.

"Now, the TARDIS is still slaved to Clara's timeline, so..." He threw a lever and the TARDIS took off.

Elise missed the days where the TARDIS would shake and sway as they traveled through the vortex.

The TARDIS landed and the Doctor left, coming back with a man in a spacesuit. They landed back at the restaurant and the Doctor sent the spaceman into the restaurant to find Clara, while he disappeared somewhere into the TARDIS. The spaceman returned a few minutes later, Clara following.

"I am trying to have a date. A real life, inter-human actual date! It's a normal nice, everyday, meeting-up sort of thing. And I would just like to know, is there any other way you can make this anymore surreal than it already is?"

The spaceman took off his helmet. He looked exactly like the guy Clara had been on a date with.

"Hello," the spaceman said.

The Doctor re-entered the control room. "Ah, Clara! Well done, you found her. Now this is really a bit strange."

"Danny?" Clara asked, with wide eyes.

"What's gone wrong with your face? It's all eyes! Why are you all eyes? Get them under control," the Doctor told her.

"Er, who's Danny?" the spaceman asked.

"This is Colonel Orson Pink, from about a hundred years in your future," the Doctor explained.

Clara let out a nervous laugh. "Orson Pink?"

"Yeah, I laughed too. Sorry. Do you have any connection with him?"

"Connection?"

"Yes, maybe you're like a distant relative or something?"

"How, how would I know?"

To someone like Elise it was glaringly obvious.

"Right. Okay." The Doctor turned to Orson." "Er, well, do you have any old family photographs of her? You know, probably quite old and really fat-looking?"

"I don't," Orson said.

"How did you find him?" Clara asked.

"Well, you left a trace in the TARDIS telepathic circuits. I fired them up again and the TARDIS brought me straight to him. So he is something to do with your timeline," the Doctor explained.

"Okay."

"And you'll never guess where I found him." The Doctor fired up the TARDIS and they landed in a capsule.

Clara walked over to one of the windows and looked out onto a desolate wasteland. "Where are we?"

"The end of the road. This is it, the end of everything. The last planet," the Doctor said.

"The end of the universe?"

"The TARDIS isn't supposed to come this far, but some idiot turned the safeguards off. Listen."

"To what?"

"Nothing. There's nothing to hear. There's nothing anywhere. Not a breath, not a slither, not a click or a tick. All the clocks have stopped. This is the silence at the end of time."

Nothing could be heard except the sound of Orson transferring things from his locker to his backpack.

"Then how did he get here?" Clara asked, "If he's from a hundred years in my future."

"Pioneer time traveler." The Doctor sonicked one of the computers to show some news footage. "Rode the first of the great time shots. They were supposed to fire him into the middle of the next week."

"What happened?"

"He went a bit far."

"A bit?"

"A big bit. Look at him now. Robinson Crusoe at the end of time itself. The last man standing in the universe. I always thought that would be me."

"It's not a competition."

"I know it's not a competition. Course it isn't. Still time, though."

Clara looked over at Orson, who was still stuffing things into his backpack. "He looks like he's packing."

"He's been stranded for six months, just met a time traveler. Of course he's packing."

He ran over to them. "You can do it, then? You can get me home?"

"I just showed you, didn't I? A test flight to a restaurant," the Doctor told him.

"Yes, but to my family, to my own time?"

"Easy. I can do that, can't I, Clara?"

"He can, yes."

"Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, fine. I'm fine."

"Do I know you?"

"No. Nope." Clara was still staring at Orson with wide eyes.

"Is she doing the all eyes thing? It's because her face is so wide. She needs three mirrors," the Doctor said.

"Doctor!"

"We can't leave immediately, though. The TARDIS needs to recharge."

Elise looked at the Doctor. The TARDIS doesn't need to recharge.

Of course she doesn't.

Elise rolled her eyes. You're curious about something, aren't you? Of course I am.

"Oi. Stop doing that Timelord mind thing," Clara said.

"Overnight, that should do it, shouldn't it, Clara?"

"Overnight?" Orson asked.

"One more night. That's, that's not a problem, is it?"

Orson hesitated before answering and it made Elise think that maybe the Doctor was onto something. "No. No, no problem."

"It's a shame, isn't it?" the Doctor asked.

"What's a shame?"

"There's only four people left in the universe, and you're lying to the other three. It was the first thing I noticed when I stepped in here. You must have seen it, too, Clara. You've got eyes out to here."

"Seen what?" Clara asked.

"The universe is dead. Everything that ever was is dead and gone. There's nothing beyond this door but nothingness forever. So why is it locked?"

"Please, don't make me spend another night here."

"Afraid of the dark? But the dark is empty now."

"No. No, it isn't."