A/N- Hello, folks! This is the first fic I've written in over a year, due to life getting in the way a bit (freshman year of university is really, REALLY hard), and also my first Doctor Who fic, so any feedback would be much appreciated! Did you enjoy it? Do you think I should through my MacBook out of the window and never attempt to write anything again? Please let me know! Thanks :)
"Well? Can you fly it?"
The old man blinked, his brow furrowed and his shrew–like face the picture of panic. His hazel eyes were narrowed, their stare piercing through the silence and meeting Clara's wide-eyed gaze. Her tears still stung as she assessed this stranger in front of her. Just seconds before, she'd been looking at the Doctor, her Doctor; she'd been greeted by the sight of that brown floppy hair, that infamously large chin, those eyes that seemed to glow with mirth and excitement like those of a child on Christmas Day… And then, in a flash of light and a surge of energy, he was gone. Forever. And she had no idea who this new man was.
To her, the Doctor was dead.
A loud bang and the sizzling sound of electricity rushing through the air reminded Clara that if she didn't act fast, she might well be joining him. The Doctor's burst of regeneration energy had thrown the TARDIS off course, and it was now careering through time and space with reckless abandon. Since the old timelord seemed to have no recollection of how to fly his own ship- yet more proof in his companion's eyes that this wasn't the same man that she'd once known- it was down to Clara to save their skins and put the TARDIS back on its path to… Actually, she didn't know where they were going, or, in fact if they were going anywhere. They were headed into a great unknown, a place where they didn't even know each other, let alone the direction or purpose of their travels. Clara shivered; the prospect of all of this uncertainty was, frankly, terrifying. As was the slightly irate, very Scottish timelord in front of her, who was tapping his foot impatiently while holding onto the console of the TARDIS for support.
Clara realised that she still hadn't answered the Doctor's- could she still call him the Doctor?- question.
"I- I think I know what to do," Clara stammered, stumbling towards the console. It didn't help that the entire ship was spinning and that a series of minor explosions seemed to be going on around her, but she tried her best to work out which lever she needed to pull, which big red button she needed to press to stop the chaos that surrounded her from sending them both to their doom.
"I know there's a master override button somewhere," she muttered, mostly to herself, "it should shut down all of the TARDIS' power and leave it suspended in its current location…" Clara gulped. She had no idea where that current location was. Here's hoping it wouldn't be in the middle of a crowd of angry Dalek warships.
After a few seconds of scrabbling around the dozens of knobs and switches of the console, Clara finally found what she was searching for; the master override button, which, just to pander to cliché, her Doctor had made very red and very big. It was the kind of thing he'd have found funny. Clara gave a hollow laugh as she slammed her palm down on the button.
Almost immediately, frantic noise turned into deadly silence. All of the TARDIS' lights flickered off; the bangs and explosions finally ceased; and as Clara briefly opened the door of the police box, she saw that they had parked in a fairly quiet bit of space. She thought she could make out the huge, glowing body of Saturn in the distance, its rings hanging there like a dusty crown. They weren't too far from her home, at least.
Clara shut the door and stepped gingerly back into the TARDIS. The new Doctor had sat down on the steps between the console and the outer edge of the control room, his head in his hands and his expression glum. Quietly, Clara wandered over to the timelord and sat beside him. He lifted his head, crossing his arms and resting them on his knees, and smiled ruefully at his companion.
"Thanks for sorting out that little hiccup," he said gruffly. His thanks clearly didn't come easily; the words seemed uneasy and stiff, like they'd been pushed over some imaginary cliff in his mind and forced out of his mouth. "I'm always in a bit of a tizzy this soon after a regeneration. Last time, I crashed into a little Scottish girl's garden." He chuckled to himself. "But then again, last time, I was alone." His face slowly dropped, and resumed a sullen expression.
Clara didn't know what to make of this man beside her. In many ways, he was literally a different man to his predecessor; he looked different, he sounded different, and the air around him…. It just felt different. Clara's Doctor had the extraordinary effect of lighting up any room he was in, whether it was an eighteenth century manor house, a third century mud hut, or a crowded hangar on some far-flung planet. This Doctor was different, more subtle; he seemed quieter, his expression more brooding, his eyes plagued with darkness and fear rather than shining with light and promise.
"Clara." The Doctor turned to Clara, and steadily met her gaze. The fear in his eyes magnified tenfold as he whispered "Clara… Am I a good man?"
Clara was taken aback by the question. Did regeneration always come hand in hand with what seemed like a full-blown identity crisis? And how on earth was she supposed to answer that question? Her brain swam; she remembered everything she had been through with the Doctor, all the lives he had saved, all of the good he had brought to so many worlds…. But then she realised that the man who had done so much saving was not the man sat next to her. The truth was, she didn't know if this new Doctor was a good man or not; I mean, he'd hardly been in existence for ten minutes yet, and hadn't had the chance to prove himself either way.
After pondering all of this, Clara decided to be honest with him. Looking at the floor, she replied "I… I don't know."
Silence. Glancing back up at the Doctor's face, she could see him digesting her words. He was frowning, his eyes distant, as if his mind was trudging through a place far from here in space and time. Eventually, his eyes widened. His voice barely more than a whisper, he replied, "Neither do I."
Once again, silence prevailed, but only for a moment. "You helped so many people," Clara blurted, "when you- when you were him. You saved so many lives."
The Doctor smiled, but there was bitterness behind it. "I know, Clara. I saw them all. When the timelords gave me my new regeneration cycle, it made me relive my old one; they all flashed before my eyes, all my lives, and with them the faces of the people I saved, the lives I bettered…" His expression darkened. "But then I saw the others. The ones I couldn't save. The ones who died right before my eyes. My hearts ache for them, Clara…" He sighed. "I made too many mistakes."
"Doctor…" Clara could see the pain in his eyes. "Doctor… Everybody makes mistakes. You couldn't have saved them all." She almost took his hand, but then she remembered that he was still practically a stranger, and instead crossed her hands in her lap. "You did your best."
"Not always," the Doctor shot back. "There was a time… a dark time, after I'd lost someone I loved…" He sighed, and closed his eyes. "I got sloppy. I didn't care about my own life any more; it seemed meaningless without Rose. So I stopped caring about the lives of others. I left them all, Clara… I should have saved them, but I didn't. I left them." Once again, he placed his head in his hands.
"They're gone now, Doctor," Clara said quietly. The Doctor's head snapped straight back up again, his eyes wide and questioning. "They're gone," Clara continued, "and there's nothing you can do about it. But you know what you can do?" He nodded, inviting her to continue. "You can carry on saving. There will always be people in this universe, in every universe out there, that need you; don't let the mistakes of the past stop you from living your future. Go out there, and save as many men, women and children as you can. Do what you can in the memory of those who are gone." Clara gave him a reassuring smile. "And let me help you."
She saw who he was now; he was a young man in the body of someone beyond his years. He'd been forced, once again, to start his life from scratch, and he was lost; he had no direction, and no faith in himself. He needed guidance; with a bit of care, his gruff features might soften, his eyes might lose their darkness. All he needed was a friend; and, for the foreseeable future at least, Clara had to be just that.
"You're right, of course," the Doctor sighed. "I just need time I guess, time… time to forget all their faces again. They can't live on in this head of mine forever." He stood up, wandered towards the console, and began flicking switches like he'd been operating it for all of his life. In a way, Clara supposed, he had. He was still the same Doctor on the inside; he'd just found a new shell to inhabit, a new face to show the universe.
"So." He smiled wryly, as the TARDIS lights glowed back to life around him, and the familiar whirring began to saturate the air. "Shall we do a spot of saving?"
Clara ran up to join him, smiling warmly. "Yes," she declared, joining him in flicking switches and flicking levers. "But first," she added, "I'd quite like to go home."
"Home," the Doctor agreed, and he sent the TARDIS spinning through the stars towards Earth.