Clara Oswald is going the long way round (alwaysbeenthere) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-25 07:41:00 |
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Because there was going to be a Christmas thing at her dad’s, it had made sense to Clara that she would go over on Christmas Eve in order to help set up in the morning so it wasn’t just her dad doing all of that. No. That would end poorly. So after a nice Christmas Eve with just her and her dad, Clara had turned in for the night so that she could wake up early and help with preparations.
Perhaps she should have been concerned about what she would dream. She even knew that some of them could be more upsetting than others. But if that were the case, she wasn’t alone. And really, who wanted to worry about what might happen in the dreams before Christmas? Really. In the year she had been in Orange County, she had come to be apprehensive about the holiday thanks to her dreams. It was like death haunted her. But that was just the dreams.
It had started off normally enough. A call from Rigsy about an emergency. A tattoo which was ticking down. Ashildr had shown up, which Clara hadn’t expected though had been pleasantly surprised by. And then finding out what was really going on. Rigsy had been accused of murder and had a death sentence. Then trying to absolve him (especially after seeing it play out), to save him. It’s what they did after all. Save people.
Really, it had been simple enough. Stall for time. Never tell the real plan. It would all be fine. But of course it wasn’t fine. The murder was a ruse to lure in the Doctor. There had been a contract, Rigsy would have been fine but Clara had broken the contract when she’d taken the marking herself. How could she not though when Rigsy had a girlfriend (or wife, she wasn’t sure actually) and daughter to go home to? Because it was supposed to be fine. The Doctor would save her, they’d reverse it and…
They couldn’t. And Clara had realised there and then it was the end. You can’t run from death. And maybe, just maybe, it was what she wanted, maybe all the increasingly reckless behaviour had been leading to this moment. She needed the Doctor to be okay and she knew he wouldn’t be. She knew what he was capable of and it was why she gave him an order instead of making him promise her. Her death would not be the cause of pain and suffering for others. Only his because she couldn’t stop that.
“Don’t run. Stay with me.”
If Danny Pink could die right, then so could she. “Goodbye, Doctor…” A hug. And facing death in the form of a Raven. Alone, because in the end, wasn’t that how everyone faced death? Walking towards it, always repeating Let me be brave. Let me be brave… She would not fear death. She would not run. She couldn’t stay with the Doctor but she wouldn’t run. She just hoped some part of him would be proud of her.
It hurt when the Raven flew into her. It was like everything was being torn apart, incinerated, even her soul. She opened her mouth to scream. Scream in pain. Scream in defiance. Scream in determination. If sound came out, who knew. And as the shade left her body, Clara’s body collapsed to the ground.
It had been her choice. Her reckless choice. But wasn’t it just? She was born to save the Doctor and then she died by following his rules and saving a friend, a companion from when she pretended to be the Doctor when he’d been unable to be there. She had come full circle, and in the end, it had been her choice, she’d had some semblance of control.
Clara Oswald had died.
In the waking world, Clara didn’t wake up. Not this time. Instead the shade seemed to leave her body here as well, dissipating into the air above her. No vitals. Her body temperature dropped. There was just peace, darkness and nothingness.
It was that time of year again. Christmas. While Duncan had been one to enjoy Christmas, in theory, he had never quite liked being around the extended family during it. Too many people, too many inane questions, especially from the relatives you only saw once a year. He felt he could handle the Christmas Day celebrations with the family, it would most likely just be him, Clara, Troy and John anyway. Though things could always devolve into the three Doctors arguing about some inane thing and Clara having to keep the peace.
But ever since he had begun dreaming, Christmas had taken an altogether different meaning to him. The normally joyous holiday had become one synonymous with pain and loss. And, more recently, regeneration. The Tenth Doctor had become the Eleventh at Christmas. The Eleventh Doctor had become the Twelfth at Christmas. Some companions were lost, left behind or died at Christmas. Clara had died once in the Victorian era. So to say that Duncan was not excited for actual Christmas was perhaps an understatement. He just had to wonder if his dreams would start again, or if something would happen in the waking world.
As it was, he slept fitfully at best. Finally, he just gave up attempting to sleep altogether and got up.
“Master?” K-9 chirped upon hearing Duncan moving around in his bedroom.
“Shush, Clara’s sleeping in the other room. Don’t you have an inside voice setting you can use? Perhaps I should program one into you.”
“That is not necessary, master. I can be silent.”
“Then be silent.” Duncan said, and ensured K-9 would remain silent before he opened the door of his room and poked his head out. Mostly just to ensure Clara was still sleeping. Even with the worry he felt, Duncan was still going to indulge in pretending to be Santa. Just without the suit. He still had a couple gifts for Clara that he couldn’t resist slipping one into her stocking, and the other went under the tree.
Though as soon as both presents were in place, something didn’t feel quite right. Duncan stood up completely straight and all of his senses came alive. Was it his Doctor senses pinging him? Or was it his dad senses? Sometimes it was difficult to tell, but considering his dreams and the tradition Christmas had taken for him in them, he wasn’t going to try and figure out what part of him was suddenly driving him to see if Clara was alright.
He moved over to the door of the spare bedroom and before doing anything, he pressed his ear to the door. He didn’t hear anything that suggested she was in distress. That was both good and bad. So then it was quietly opening the door and poking his head in. He saw her form in bed, but he didn’t hear any sounds of breathing. Well, not loud ones, anyway. So he crept closer.
“Clara?” He asked carefully, not wanting to jar her awake if he could help it. He kept trying to tell himself she was perfectly fine. “Clara, wake up, it’s Christmas morning!” Because clearly that was a good way to cover up the fact he was in her room at an ungodly hour. Because this was an hour far too early for even opening gifts yet, but it was at least an excuse. Though no matter what he said, and he tried another couple sentences to try and get Clara to wake up, she still remained asleep. So he reached out and gently pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, wondering if she’d fallen ill suddenly and was just in a fever-induced sleep. But almost as soon as his hand came in contact with her skin, he drew it back in shock.
Her skin was cold. The kind of cold that could only mean one thing.
All at once, he turned the lamp on to cast some light in the room and he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and took a scan of Clara.
“No. No no no no this can’t be happening.” He set his sonic screwdriver aside and sat down on the edge of the bed, hands on either side of Clara’s face. “Clara please, come back. You’re supposed to stay with me.” Perhaps he could give her some of his regeneration power and heal her. He’d done it before, he’d even had it done to him. “I am not losing you.” And, of course, the pain was quickly being overtaken by anger, because anger was easier to feel.
“K-9!!!” He barked. He tried to focus himself, to see if he could transfer some regeneration energy to Clara and bring her back. Because he needed her, and he was definitely not going to accept her dying. Not now, and not ever.
Through the darkness and nothingness, something started to happen. As if every part of her was on fire. Energy crashing and pushing throughout every fibre of her being relentlessly. Fixing and healing the damage she had sustained from the dreams as much as it could, where everything had been seemingly eviscerated. It hadn’t been a peaceful death, it had been agony and to undo that was agony as well. Agony she was acutely aware of this time.
Time was something she couldn’t tell. Was it eternal burning or was it over in an instant just like when the Raven had gone through her and destroyed everything?
Gasping awake, Clara wasn’t aware of her surroundings and just started coughing violently, struggling to breathe. At that moment all she was aware of was pain.
He hadn’t done this before outside of his dreams, but Duncan had managed to focus and willed the regeneration energy forward. With his hands on either side of her face, the gold glow passed from him into her. It seemed like an eternity to him, wondering if it would work, afraid that it wouldn’t while at the same time hoping that it would.
So when Clara finally woke up and started coughing, he pulled his hands away, the golden glow fading as he stopped the flow. He then helped Clara sit up.
“It’s alright, try to breathe slowly. Your system is in shock.” Which was probably an understatement, but it was more than accurate. Clara had died, and the regeneration energy had gone through and healed her.
And yet even with the violent coughing and the fact he was both Duncan and Doctor at the moment, the Duncan part won out and pulled Clara into a tight hug. “Just focus on me and it will fade.”
Breathing slowly was easier said than done. It was like her lungs were desperate for air as if they’d been deprived of oxygen. Which they had been. What it led to was her body trying to compensate which then led to more coughing. In shock was definitely an accurate description for what her body was going through. On top of the fact that she’d been dead, she didn’t have Time Lord physiology and so it seemed to be adding to the stress on her.
Then her dad was hugging her. Of his own choice, and tightly at that, and all Clara could do was return it. She was in shock, distressed even if she couldn’t quite place why as the dream was currently a haze, not registering or telling her what had happened for her to make sense of what was happening.
“I have no idea what’s happening, but the hug is nice….”
Her voice was weak, strained. It was as if she’d screamed in agony while being torn apart, only she hadn’t. Not here at any rate. But right. Focusing on her dad, focusing on… whatever was happening. She was shaking even though she didn’t know why. She really had no idea what was happening or how to respond. So hugging her dad it was.
That was perhaps the downside of using the regeneration energy, Clara was human, not Time Lord. Healing the physiology of someone who wasn’t Time Lord would certainly take its toll. So it was needing to wait for Clara’s body to come out of shock and stop struggling against itself so she could breathe easier and calm down.
“I can explain once you’ve calmed down,” he said, one hand gently rubbing her back. It was strange because he was so used to being either more Doctor or more Duncan, but right now? He was equal parts both. He’d never been smack in the middle with this before. It was...strange, to say the least.
And he wasn’t breaking the hug, not until he was certain she was going to be okay. And not after having found her dead. Really, he hated Christmas from the Doctor’s standpoint. Some tragedy always seemed to happen on it, and now Clara had died for a second time. Which to him meant she must have had a dream in which she died. Or at least he was hoping that was the case and not that she’d just suddenly died in her sleep for no reason. That was very uncommon for someone her age who was in good health after all.
And he may currently be trying not to cry. But there definitely were tears in his eyes. And possibly just one of the reasons he was hugging her because hugging was just a way to hide your face. And he didn’t want her to see the tears in his eyes yet.
Forehead resting against his shoulder, Clara just nodded weakly. She could wait. Especially since she could pick up something in his voice. A thickness and fighting of emotion that she was well tuned into picking up regardless of how Duncan held himself. This wasn’t him being happy and relieved. This was something so much more and a small part of her that was a bit more aware was worried.
Clara had no idea how long it took for her body to stop fighting itself and to come out of the shock as her dad had put it. To calm down. Eventually though, breathing seemed easier and she didn’t feel as weak or jittery. Her mind also wasn’t racing while wading through a haze, a complicated sensation that left her dizzy and she had a flash of a sentence in her mind. Let me be brave. A glimpse of a memory of a dream.
So the dreams had struck again. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. She was still confused but she pulled back just slightly to get a look at her dad and noticed the red around his eyes. Don’t run. Stay with me. Another whisper in the back of her mind, tugging at her memory to come out of the darkness and remember.
“What happened? What’s wrong?” She had a feeling, an inkling that was growing but she needed to hear it. She didn’t know why, but she needed to hear it.
Duncan didn’t keep track of how long it took Clara to calm down. He was more focused on holding her, on the emotions he felt over what had happened. By the time she’d calmed down and pulled back enough to look him in the eye, he had calmed a bit, but the evidence was still clearly there on his face. And he couldn’t try to lie about why his eyes were red. Clara would be all over that.
“I had woken up and gotten a bad feeling. I came to ensure you were alright. You weren’t.” He paused a moment, trying to remember the notecards Clara had given him. But there was no nice way to tell someone they had died. Especially when that someone was Clara.
“You...you were dead. I brought you back with regeneration energy.” Because of course he wasn’t about to just leave her being dead. She was his daughter, his companion, and he wasn’t going to let the dreams kill her and take her from him. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
And it was just as she thought. Hearing it though? It brought back the specifics in their entirety. The decision, why, the fact she that it would have worked if the facts had been just as they’d been presented. Accepting it. The pain. Momentarily stunned, Clara looked at her dad, not processing at first that he had said he’d used regeneration energy to bring her back.
But when it did?
“Why would you do that?!” Yes she was mad. It was stupid and reckless and if she was dead, maybe she was supposed to be dead. They all had to face the raven at some point. “I was dead! Why would you put yourself at that risk!? You could have hurt yourself!”
Because that was what upset her the most. Not that she’d been dead and perhaps in a way, wanting it or at least ready. It was the risk he had taken. They didn’t know how much regeneration energy he had. They didn’t know if it would hurt him and Clara didn’t want him hurting himself just to save her. So she got upset while trying not to cry at that. God, why did he have to be so sentimental?!
He hadn’t known what to expect her reaction to be, but he hadn’t expected it to be anger at him. Anger for him putting himself at risk. Which yes, it had been a risk because Duncan hadn’t actually done that sort of thing before. But the Doctor? The Doctor had done it before. The Doctor had also received it once from River Song to keep him from dying.
“I had a duty of care. I am your father, do you really think I wouldn’t try anything to save you if I could?” Not to mention there was that little fact that children should not die before their parents. Clara still had her whole life ahead of her. But him? He wasn’t young anymore despite his saying otherwise. Sure he was a Time Lord now, but if he regenerated? He wouldn’t be this version of him anymore.
But the point was that he was not going to simply let Clara die if he could do something about it. No matter what the dreams may dictate, this world was not their dream world. They had different lives here, a different timeline. Yes there were plenty of parallels and crossovers, and even dreams bleeding into their reality. But at the end of the day, they had both been born and lived on Earth. Their dreams of another life were simply that. Dreams of another life.
She should have expected that response really. She should have known. So she just took a breath as if to calm herself, fighting the tears. “I never asked that of you…” Even if he was her father so of course he’d try, she had never asked him for that. In the dreams, or here. She had never asked him to adopt her. To care….
But there was something else. More flashes. And the realisation that something was wrong. That things sounded off. That she wasn’t hearing something she had trained herself to hear all her life.
A heartbeat.
Needing to check and not wanting to alert her dad that something might be wrong, Clara just hugged him again. Hugs hide your face. And well, she had just died and been brought back so it would make sense that she was confused and hurt and seeking comfort. It wouldn’t be strange. And in a hug, she was able to check her pulse.
Nothing.
The inability to breathe had been because her body and mind were acting on instinct and yet she hadn’t been getting air as her lungs were no longer functioning. She hadn’t noticed her heart rate slowing to what should be normal because it had never started up again in the first place.
Between one heartbeat and the last is all the time I have.
All the memories of the extraction chamber, learning about what the Doctor had suffered through all for his duty of care. Stealing a TARDIS and running away. The Doctor no longer the Doctor. The memory wipe--
And she realised three fundamental truths at the exact same time.
Number one, the regeneration hadn’t saved her, not completely. It had only acted like an extraction chamber in fixing the damage to the point before she died and so she was frozen in time, not aging. Living but not technically alive.
Number two, it was something she could not let her dad, John or Troy know about. It would lead to far more over protective actions even if it meant she couldn’t die until she faced the Raven.
Number three, there was a very good chance that one day her dad would wake up and not know her. And the worst part was a part of her felt that it would be better for him that way because even if it hurt, it meant he wouldn’t see her dying and feel that pain whenever he looked at her.
It broke her heart and yet…. So she hugged him as she struggled to get her emotions under control again.
At her response, his face softened a bit more. Which wasn’t that difficult given the emotions raging through him currently. “You never have to ask nor should you ever need to ask.” Because when one cared about someone, they didn’t need to be asked to do those sorts of things. They were simply given. Yes, Duncan hadn’t been asked to adopt Clara after he first met her, but he had because he had cared. He wanted her to be happy, to not cry as much and to know she wasn’t alone in the world.
And she wasn’t. As long as he was here, she would never truly be alone.
So when she hugged him again, he just hugged her back. He didn’t fight it, didn’t try and make some quip about what a hug represented. No. This hug was needed for more than one reason. He was unaware of Clara’s ulterior motive for the hug, but he still knew that they both needed it. Something calming and reassuring that they were both still here.
Clara was too emotionally raw at the moment. There had been hope in the dream before the reality had set in. Here she knew all of the details, what it meant, what was to come and so in the jumble of coming back to life, she also knew what the future would hold. It wasn’t pleasant.
Letting herself calm down, the brunette just rested her forehead against her dad’s shoulder, always maintaining the act of breathing since well, she already made the decision that she was going to keep that information to herself. She would go to Martha, just to make sure, but otherwise….
Once again, she lost track of time before pulling away some to wipe at her eyes.
“So. Now what?” It was Christmas and they were supposed to be having John and Troy over later in the day for a family thing. Somehow she doubted that would be happening now and for once, Clara was fine with that.
This was not how he wanted to spend Christmas. He well knew there had been a trend in the dreams for horrible things to happen on Christmas, he had hoped Christmas in this world would be different. But he’d been wrong. So very wrong. Clara had died, nearly died, but he had saved her. He didn’t know the truth of the matter, and he wouldn’t for some time. Whatever had caused it was clearly in the future of their dreams.
And for once, Clara knew what was coming before he did. And Duncan wasn’t certain if he liked that or not.
Once Clara finally pulled back, Duncan looked at her. “Perhaps we should cancel Christmas.” He, for one, wasn’t in the mood to deal with people today. And for once, he had a feeling Clara wasn’t either. Even if it was only Troy and John.
This definitely was not how Clara had planned on spending Christmas. In fact, she had been adamant that everything would be perfectly fine in order to combat the dreams and the running theme of things always going wrong on Christmas. So much for that.
Oh she knew what was coming in the dreams and she was worried. Because she knew how her dad was. She had seen what the lengths the Doctor had gone to. She knew that he would forget her and knew that it was highly likely he would do so here.
“Yeah… Might be a good idea.” Not like that would actually stop Troy or John from coming over. Clara doubted that would happen, but cancelling the whole Christmas dinner and all of that? That was definitely a good idea.