The Doctor (12) (twelfth_doctor) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2018-01-02 13:01:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !log/thread, clara oswald, doctor (12) |
Who: Clara Oswald, the Doctor (12)
What: The Doctor finally remembers who Clara is
Where: The TARDIS' Zero Room
When: December 2017, after the neural block was removed from the Doctor's brain.
Rating: Mentions of death.
The pain was intense - a throbbing in his brain at the base of the spine, in the temporal lobe, where memories are primarily stored, and where that damn neural block was installed. The moment he regained consciousness, he loudly groaned, but then a cascade of memories that had been obstructed came flooding to the forefront. It was enough for him to open his wild eyed and suddenly sit upright in bed with a sense of dire urgency, and loudly shout the overwhelmingly prominent thing on his mind.
“Clara!”
Just as quickly, he regretted doing this, because the action caused his head to hurt more, and he covered this face with both his hands. “Ow.”
Clara busied herself with making tea. Too many cups of tea were scattered around in various places on the TARDIS, cold and forgotten. It gave her something to do. In a few hours, she'd remember all the cups and go around, collecting them to wash. Another thing to do.
And still the Doctor slept.
It was nothing new really. There'd been the first time with this face that he'd slept for so long, and the many times he'd told her about the wonders of a Time Lord sleep. Still, it was hard to fathom any of the Doctor's sleeping this long. An hour a night, sometimes not even that, that's all they needed. And Clara? Well, Clara hadn't slept in days. She'd never need to sleep again, which was something. She felt as awake as if she'd rested peacefully every moment. She didn't even need the tea; it was habit. Something normal.
It was hard to remain indifferent to the lack of heartbeat, and that the Doctor was recovering from the removal of a neural block because of her. Because she'd pretended to be the Doctor. Because she was reckless. So now she sat at his bedside, taking turns with whoever turned up. His hands were cold so she held them between hers to warm them up. She made sure he was properly covered. That his hair was perfectly disarrayed, the way he liked it. His sonic was on the bedside table, waiting for him.
She wasn't prepared when he darted upward, shouting her name. That could mean anything, she reminded herself though her heart leapt that he knew her name. Would he remember her face. Wide, brown eyes stared at him over a mouth that gaped. "Doctor?"
Wide and wild electric blue eyes sharply turned toward her when he heard his name, when he heard that voice. The Doctor stared at the face and there was an immediate reaction, a spark of recognition there that expanded with his eyebrows rising high and his mouth opening to gasp.
“Clara.” His voice was a whisper. Not only could his brain finally make that connection again, but all the memories of his interactions with her, both in Tumbleweed and with her counterpart in Knowhere, came rushing back so quickly that it was overwhelming. He gasped, and looked down at her hands, still holding his own, then back up at her face. “I’ve finally found you,” he muttered in awe. “You’ve been here the whole time.” His grip tightened around Clara’s hands, as if they were the only thing that kept him from falling. Finally, the Doctor smiled. “You’ve saved me again.”
It took several instants before Clara could find her voice again. He wasn't looking at her with unknowing eyes. He saw her. He knew her. Her throat was tight with emotions — all happy ones — and her wide eyes blinked back tears. She had to laugh, however blubbery, through the emotion; it was the only way she could speak.
"My Doctor." She reached out to touch the side of his face, and then flung herself at him, her arms tightening around his neck. Clara felt like she never wanted to let him go.
Without hesitation, the Doctor reciprocated by opening his arms wide to receive her, engulfing Clara in an embrace of his own that was just as heartfelt. Except, Clara didn’t see the flicker of sadness in his face as they held one another. My Doctor, she said. But not really. He wasn’t her Doctor. At least not now, not in Tumbleweed. Her Doctor was now a past regeneration of his, when he was younger, and more handsome, without grey hair, wrinkles and angry eyebrows. So even though they’d been truly reunited, they couldn’t be together. Not the way the Doctor hoped.
“Your Doctor,” he replied, a hint of melancholy seeping into his voice, but he then put on a happy smile as a mask as he drew back to look into Clara’s face. “What did you do after we parted? Tell me.”
Before, even when he'd known who she was for those brief moments, it wasn't quite the same as this. There was nothing holding his memories back, so the strain was no longer evident on his face. And she knew that face like the back of her hand. There was sadness along with extreme happiness.
"Well, I was going to take the long way back to Gallifrey. Me and I had just left to travel a bit when I got taken here." She paused, shrugged a shoulder. "Well, Mount Weather in that other dimension, not this world. It's been a long few years." Seemed even longer without the antics they got up to.
Clara nudged him with her elbow. "I'm more interested in what you did after everything."
“You and Me…” the Doctor’s voice trailed, thoughtfully. “So you became your own Doctor, companions and everything.” His smile was still sad - he didn’t need him anymore, she could do things on her own, with a TARDIS and everything. “Me always wanted to travel the universe. She asked me, but I was unsure about letting her. At least right away.” His countenance fell further; the Doctor had saved Me’s life by essentially making her immortal, but was that the right decision? It certainly felt like a serious mistake, considering how often he complained about having lived too long, seen too much, experienced more life than anybody ought. If it was, then he’d made the same mistake with Clara, and for that matter, Jack Harkness. If he thought about it too much, he was guilt ridden for messing with the lives of those he came across, possibly doing more harm than good.
It was easier to distract himself by telling Clara, “Well, you know me. I got in my TARDIS and zip, zip, zip… traveled here and there, saved the Earth, tangled with Missy, and basically got myself in and out of trouble.” If Clara wanted the Doctor to be more specific, she would need to ask, specifically.
Yeah, she guessed she would become her own Doctor in a way. Me as her first companion. It wouldn't be for very long, of course. Perhaps the long way around was just a few months, perhaps it was longer. Either way, she'd have to go back and face the raven at some point.
"You didn't do it alone, did you? You found someone to travel with, right? You were a Doctor?"
There was a short pause before the Doctor answered. “Yes, yes I’d say I was a Doctor, even though for I hadn’t traveled around for awhile. You might know about the 24 years on Darillium with River? I don’t know what River told you, if anything. After that was over, I had a few adventures, but then I willfully grounded myself on Earth for some fifty years, where I was a professor at St. Luke’s University.”
Clara sat back, blinking at him. He hated sitting still. She understood what had him staying in one place for twenty-four years. That was evident. But fifty years on Earth? She narrowed her eyes at him, as if inspecting him. That meant it had been almost a hundred more years that he'd forgotten her.
(That wasn't his fault, of course, but it still stung to know that she'd been forgotten.)
"What did you teach?"
“What?” the Doctor asked, suddenly becoming defensive. “I know that look. You’re trying to figure something out about me. I started out teaching physics, but by the end, I’d gotten so much street cred that I could go off on amazing tangents, and the students would still pack the auditorium. It was great! A rapt audience!”
Clara crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back. "Fifty years. Fifty consecutive years? No world saving? Just sitting in a classroom?" She wasn't buying that. He had to go off and do other things. He would get so bored without flying off in that TARDIS.
A guilty expression flashed across the Doctor’s face. “I sort of made a vow to guard something very important, which I kept in a vault hidden on the university grounds. I didn’t dare leave it. Besides, I had Nardole around to keep me focused. You haven’t met Nardole, have you? Rolly polly sort of fellow, no hair. Quick with technology. He worked with River before, and later joined me. Wish you could meet him, he’s good people. Anyway, that’s why I’m not as bored hanging around Tumbleweed. After fifty years teaching, this is a cakewalk. At least random weird things happen here to break up the monotony.”
Clara narrowed her eyes further. "What were you guarding?"
The Doctor’s eyes opened extraordinarily wide and shifted to one side as he said in the most casual way he could muster, “Missy.”
Clara's features flattened. Even her shoulders seemed to make an unimpressed droop. "Seriously? Missy? Again? What kind of trouble is she in now?"
“She’s in a constant state of trouble,” the Doctor commented, but then added, “Although, by the end, I think I was actually getting through to her…” His eyes momentarily glazed over, remembering the last time he spoke with Missy, the disappointment that she didn’t join him. He grimaced, then looked at Clara. “MIssy’s sins caught up with her, and she was going to be executed. The way it works, is only somebody that’s the same race as the condemned can actually perform the execution, and since practically speaking, right now Missy and I are the only Gallifreyans around…” The Doctor let his voice trail off, knowing that Clara would get the drift.
“Thing about Time Lords,” the Doctor continued, shifting his position on the mattress to sit more comfortably, “Is that sometimes, sometimes, even after we die, there’s just enough regenerative energy lingering that’ll spark us back to life. These guys who were responsible for the execution didn’t want to take that chance, so I promised to watch over her body for a thousand years. The time came, but at the last moment, I couldn’t go through with the execution. I told them that I would still keep my vow to watch over Missy’s body, but I never said whether that body would be alive or dead.” The corner of the Doctor’s mouth quirked into a smile.
Killing Missy was one of those things that Clara often wondered if it would happen. She was a Time Lord, so she'd just regenerate, but was it the kind of thing the Doctor would do eventually with enough rubbish? If too many people died because of her actions or inactions, would he finally snap? He'd tried to kill her before, to take that duty from Clara when she was distraught over Danny Pink's death. What else would it take?
She reached her hands out to take his once more. It felt like a lifeline that she just couldn't let go of. If she thought about the memories being back, she would get emotional again. Which meant that it was time to tease him. "Did you? Watch over her body for a thousand years?" She paused. "Hang on, are you a thousand years older than I remember you?"
Her hands were soft, but cold. Very cold. The Doctor imagined that was a side effect of Clara’s condition. He rubbed his thumbs across them, content to be this close again, and he sighed out a smile before continuing their conversation. “You know what sort of attention span I have. Fifty years is pretty good, coming from me. But then I happened upon a student at the school…. Not really a student, but she’d attend my classes even though she wasn’t enrolled, she worked in the school cafeteria. Bill. Bill Potts. You’d like her, I’m hoping she shows up in Tumbleweed one day. But she inspired me to start traveling again, though we’d always arrive back in time to make sure the vault where Missy was kept remained safe.” He paused to think, then told Clara, “Not a thousand years. More or less a hundred. Twenty four years on Darillium, with River, fifty on Earth guarding Missy, then a few more years picked up here and there.” The passage of time sometimes eluded the Doctor.
“The point is,” he said, regaining his enthusiasm, “Is that during those fifty years, I was giving Missy good lessons. I really… I really think I was getting through to her by the end.”
Clara never noticed things like how cold she was anymore. Wind and rain barely bothered her. She slept simply because she enjoyed turning off her brain now and again. She ate because she liked the taste. She drank tea because it was her favourite. There were some things she still needed to feel like her. The absence of a heartbeat was terrifying when she really sat and thought about it.
She scooted closer to him, the way she would when they were talking about secrets on the TARDIS. Clara always cried in relief that he hadn't been alone. She never wanted that for him, not even if she was gone a billion years. She wanted him to go on and meet so many new people, and she wanted them all to be changed by him and to change him. That was the whole purpose of life, wasn't it? To be involved and to learn and grow with each other.
But his last words deepened the frown lines in Clara's forehead. "By the end?"
The Doctor froze, giving her an uneasy look. “You don’t know, do you?” It was only then he realized the only people who knew his future fate was River and Nebula, and probably at this point, Rose. The corner of his mouth grimaced in an awkward way, and he took a deep breath before revealing to Clara, “The short of it? I was helping a group of people escape a Cyberman attack, I took a nasty shot. I began regenerating, but kept forcing myself not to so I could continue” He grazed his lower lip with his teeth. “I was in the middle of a battle when I was hit again.. It’s likely that when I return to my timeline, I’ll die.”
So that's what he'd meant about the regeneration on that post when he'd thought he'd just arrived. She'd hated it the first time when Chinboy had regenerated. Clara remembered asking him not to go, remembered struggling to understand how he could be the same person, despite watching him undergo regeneration. She remembered, vaguely, from her splinters all the different faces he had. She'd met Hair and the War Doctor in her own form. She knew would happen at some point, and with as reckless as he was with his own life, it was bound to happen sooner rather than later.
This was why she could never actually be The Doctor; she was stupidly human and all these things that he did often meant changing his face. Hadn't she begged the TimeLords to help him once when she'd thought that Chinboy was the last? And now, here he was about to do it again.
"You've got something up your sleeve though, yeah? Some sort of trick to stop it?"
“Stop it?” The Doctor’s eyebrows rose, curiously, then replied only with a sad, sad smile, which was vague but meant to cover his true answer. “Yes, you could say I was going to stop it.” Permanently, by not regenerating ever again. When he told Clara that it was likely he would die, he meant that literally.
"You're hiding something." Her fingers tightened around his. "What is it? What have you done?"
“I haven’t done anything.” Literally. But he could never lie to Clara, not with the way she was looking at him. Finally, he caved in. “When I’m going to die, I mean exactly that. I’m willing myself not to regenerate again.” He then braced himself against Clara’s reaction.
"You stupid, old man." That wasn't what the universe needed. It needed him, it needed The Doctor. "Why on Earth would you even think about doing something so ridiculous? You'll die. Forever. What would the rest of us do without you?"
The Doctor became quiet, unable to meet Clara’s eye, though the corner of his mouth quirked into a brief smile when she insulted him. Still holding her hand, his response came in a soft, still voice. “There’s a quote from one of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books that keeps coming to mind. 'I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.. It describes what I’ve been feeling, not just now, but for a long while. I think it really started after the Time War, but I remember, even when I was the Doctor you’re now with… Hair… I complained about having lived too long, seen too much. Lost too much. I certainly felt that way on Trenzalore, by the time you saw me old and withered. I only stuck around because of you, and to make sure my enemies were gone and Trenzalore was safe. But when I regenerated into this body, I was glad… no… relieved that body was over.
“But it wasn’t over, was it? I kept going. Living past the normal lifespan of a Time Lord, going into my thirteenth regeneration.” He paused a moment. “My decision not to regenerate wasn’t a spur of the moment deal. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea in my head that when the time came, this was what I was going to do.” Finally, he glanced over at Clara. “You of all people have an inkling of what I’ve been through. Don’t I deserve it? To die? The universe went on before without me. Hell, we’re in a place with people from all sorts of universes where I exist only in fiction, and they’re getting along just well without me. And in our universe, you’ll take over. You have your own TARDIS, your own sonic, your own companion. And you were trained by the best.” Again, he smiled briefly, but just as quickly became somber again. “It’s what you’ve wanted, to be the Doctor. Now I’m handing the mantle over to you.”
"No," and for a moment, it wasn't clear was she was disagreeing with. She understood, though; losing everyone, everything. She understood the desire to just curl up and ignore everything, which was its own little death. "Doctor…"
She wasn't sure how to explain it, but if there was anything — anything at all — that she learned from the Doctor, it was how to improvise. "I never wanted to be The Doctor. I never wanted to take off without you in that TARDIS stuck as a diner. I didn't want to do any of it alone." Sure, she was going to have Me, but it wasn't the same as having the Doctor with you. Especially when he was the one person in the whole world she'd never, ever give up on. She'd fight with her last damned breath (and had) to make sure that he went on. That he was kind, that he fought for people who couldn't fight for themselves, that he didn't give up on himself. "You're tired, I'll grant you that. We had a hellava run, yeah? And before that, when you were Chinboy. And Hair. And Ears. And I know that if you regenerate, it's just you. But it's you anew. Restored. Refreshed. Unencumbered by the past for just a little while, and you would never not want to see things with fresh eyes."
And maybe some of this talk was because he'd lost her. Some part of her wanted to believe that she'd meant that much to him, and she knew she had. He'd spent billions of years in his Confession Dial when he could have left at any time, but he didn't because he wanted to save her. "Besides, the universe is big enough for two Doctors. It's big enough for thirteen of them."
The Doctor never wanted to do what he did alone, either. That was why he was always picking up companions along the way, sometimes against his best judgement. Those who traveled with him, who participated in his adventures, they were his moral compass, pointing him in the right direction, keeping him on the path whenever his mind led him astray. Just like what Clara was currently doing. With deep, soulful eyes, he gazed long at Clara, knowing what she said to be true, while warring with his natural inclination to end it all. His eyes traveled away from her as he tried to assimilate what she said and convince his mind that letting himself regenerate when it came time was the right thing to do.
“Being here in Tumbleweed has given me a break from all the running around,” he conceded. “And it’s nice to see everybody again.” By everybody, the Doctor meant his former companions. A thought caused him to chuckle a little. “You’d get it all wrong without me, anyway. Saving the universe.” He looked back at Clara’s hopeful expression, and lifted his other hand to gently cradle the side of her face in a tender, loving gesture. “Well, I suppose… one more lifetime won’t kill anyone.”
Except me..
“Thank you Clara.”
"We'd muck it all up. Especially me, running around trying to be The Doctor. What's that about anyway?" She'd pretended to be the Doctor and ended up having to face the raven, after all. She'd had to learn the hard way that you couldn't be the Doctor, not really, without all that information he kept locked away in that big brain of his.
She leaned forward then and kissed his forehead. "Anything for you."