A/N: I have no idea where this came from, but when I watched "Heaven sent" I immediately thought of this alternate scene. I do by no means intend to disregard Clara and truth be spoken I feel somewhat bad for writing this little story as the series finale has rightfully honoured her. On the other hand, considering I haven't been able to create anything in half a year I am happy about putting this one down on virtual paper at all. Also this is my first time writing Capaldi's Doctor. I desperately hope I have done him justice, and that you'll enjoy the read! TK
Heaven sent
There is remarkably little even a brilliant Time Lord mind registers when the body it inhabits is drowning.
Words that seemed so clear before are fading, swallowed by heartbeats that are violent like the drum of milliseconds in his head. It's a deafening cacophony of howling wind and breaking water, strangely mesmerising and frightening at the same time until at last there is but silence.
.
Warm.
He is somewhere warm. That's the first thing he can feel. He is somewhere warm and dark and peaceful.
A place calm, empty, probably familiar and it takes him a long moment to remember that it is nothing like wherever he has been but a breath ago.
The soft hum of his ship soothes him although for a while he cannot fathom why he appreciates the sound so. She is in a low-power mode, his TARDIS, and maybe that should bother him.
Just, it doesn't.
He stretches. Two arms, two legs. His neck. All still there.
Good.
He rolls his shoulders, oh, and here's a thing: he, a Time Lord, aches. And hasn't he just talked to Clara?
A sigh. The world should be alright. It always is when Clara travels with him. Except for that somewhere in his mind he remembers how it isn't.
Far on the outskirts of his consciousness remains a loss so heavy it well could be a palpable burden, but he is quick to push it away.
Painted on walls of stone too dark and grey for him to dare and take a closer look that shadow followed him into a cage built to break and keep him where his monsters ruled. No place to run, nowhere to hide. Victim of his demons, and he never liked to face them.
Now though, there is a thought.
Has he not been trapped? Held hostage to endure his torture? He is free of the prison now albeit he fails to recall how that came to be.
Perhaps it matters little anyway. He is safe now, and sometimes even his kind need to rest.
"I think you're missing something rather important."
The voice comes drifting from someplace to his left but it is quiet, muted and somewhere between the engine's steady song and the whirr of toned down lights he believes he only imagined it.
"You weren't in the TARDIS when you fell."
This time a little louder and he shrugs, unimpressed by the disturbance. "Doesn't mean I can't be here now."
"Right. But how did you get here?"
He frowns because why does he feel like he is being challenged?
"There's trouble, I get out of it. I'm smart, it's easy." Not knowing where it comes from or what prompts the unwarranted reaction he grunts, "Do I always have to know?"
"Bit full of yourself, aren't you?"
Suddenly what she says sounds so important, her voice strong and brimming with amusement. It clears the fog around his tired thoughts, moves something within him, cuts deep until he thinks he does remember.
So long ago.
What little time it takes to open his eyes is painful because to him it feels like eons.
"It's always the same with you, Doctor. You're just not good at being alone." Now it seems to come from every which direction, as if it has no origin and yet he is certain that if only he is brave enough to turn around...
No.
His head shakes of its own account, causing the world around him to waver slightly. He is going insane, or dying. Probably both if of all beings he does imagine her.
Where there was a smile in a Cockney accent, there was sadness as well and it's the latter that has him set his jaw. Because it hurts – always has - and there also is another option. One he doesn't like at all.
"Oh, you would know," he grinds out lazily, suddenly very much awake and all too aware of his surroundings and the little ways in which they can't be real.
Fingers flexing, he works a muscle in his arm. Maybe his escape plan wasn't quite so brilliant after all. "Not very clever of you to play with my memories. A bit boring, actually, but do go on. Your choices are almost intriguing."
"I'm not playing with anything."
It sounds so innocent and to his own surprise he finds he wishes that he could keep himself from finding out what he will see once he takes a look.
If he were free to choose he would not turn; falters since a part of him will probably back down if whatever shadow haunts him now is wearing her face, too. But in the end he ceases running. He reckons it is futile anyway.
"What else is this then if not a game," he dismisses, equally parts bewildered and exhausted. At least though, this one's talking. "I don't know who or what you are and how you manage to get in my head like this, but if I were you I'd stop it right now."
He steels himself, and spins around.
Only to see her propped up on a worn jump seat so distinctly out of place in a console room that is made of blue and silver, and it startles him.
Curly blond hair falls past her shoulders, meets clothes that seem to be profoundly torn and yet are whole. She wears the colours of the desert and a look on her face that he has never known; still he feels a spark of recognition.
She blinks, appearing puzzled. "I am who I was before, and I cannot undo what has already happened. Why should I anyway?"
He balls his hands into fists, brows furrowing in growing irritation. "What do you want from me?"
The question has the smile vanish from her face. "You think this is the castle taunting you. That I'm an illusion, another ghost."
Hazel eyes narrow in sorrow before she straightens up without warning. The movement has something feral to it and when next she jumps off her perch to advance him he recoils just a tiny bit.
Because he can see the gold start within her gaze.
"I create myself", she declares and suddenly any trace of London has vanished from her voice, "I am so much more than even you can see. No one can use what is protected by the Vortex itself, so do not make the mistake to believe that the Wolf could be captured."
It could be an eternity or just split seconds, for once he cannot tell, but he simply stands there, processing and trying to understand - to unmask the projection or whatever else she is.
It takes its sweet time, his brain, until it continues working.
"Let's say I do believe you." Maybe he can gain more information, find the truth or at the least a weakness. "That you are, indeed, who you claim to be" he takes notice of how her eyebrows rise yet he cannot bring himself to say her name. Unconsciously he takes one step to the side, attempts to corner her - the entity - as he struggles for control. "Then why are you coming to me now?"
He means to prove it is but a scheme - needs to unmask the obvious lie but she will not let him.
The glow subsides as quickly as it came and with it gone there is only the girl, a pink and yellow human shining through the exterior of an untamed Goddess.
She looks at him sadly. "You're alone, and that has always been a dangerous thing. For you more than anyone."
"And yet I am still alive." A desperate attempt to argue, and none she does allow.
"Because you have always had someone to remind you," focus solely on him, she moves forward, "of what you promised to be."
Absent-mindedly he notices that her clad feet produce not even a shuffle on the floor. Another hint, but why then does it feel like his resolve is weakening with every word she speaks?
"You are so much like him. My Doctor. You try to hide it but you're hurting." Another flare of gold and she sighs. "It is dark inside you now that she is gone and I am sorry for that."
Silently a pale hand lifts, palm nearly hovering above his left heart - she lets it fall when he draws back like he thinks her touch would burn him. "Clara meant so much to you."
"No, don't you dare to do that." At once his own accent thickens, the Scottish bleeding into his words just like the Northern bass had done three lifetimes before. It has always been a sign of his agitation.
"You don't get to wear her face and pretend to know who I am. You want me to think I can trust you, to believe that you are 'more' but why," he waves with his hands, "why should she come here when there have been a thousand opportunities to be more useful?"
He is becoming hostile, a small part of him realises, essentially accusing her of something that – were she real – he would forever feel guilty about saying. But she isn't, he reminds himself stubbornly and that gives him enough justification.
"I am here now because you're falling. Because you think that you are lost, alone; that no one's there to catch you when the waters are too deep. You gave a promise and you need help to keep it."
Her lips bend in a rueful smile. "I am burning, Doctor. The Bad Wolf can see the past, and the future. Some things can be changed and the universe will adapt; others are bound to remain as they have always been. You know that better than anyone. She had to face the raven, just like you have to continue now."
"Clara's death was no fixed point in time." The bark is instinctual. Just like his denial.
"It is important though. Will be, one day." There is so much knowledge in the golden hazel when she answers that for a while it seems like a physical weight she is leaving for him to carry. "We all are a lesson you need to learn, Doctor. We all have to die." Almost like an afterthought she adds, "Someday."
"Stop it right now!" He is very nearly growling, grey eyes dark with a gathering rainstorm. He doesn't want to be reminded of everyone he lost, doesn't see why she is doing it but of course no version of her would ever be frightened. Not of him, not when he is so much like the one she looked into the Vortex for.
Copying his stance she purses her lips and he realises with a start that, again, he cannot see the deity in her anymore. "I won't, because you have to see. We are human, you are not. We stay with you for however long we can and sometimes something lingers." The corners of her mouth twitch upwards as if she knows something he has yet to learn, "But in the end you will always have to move on. Giving up - that's not what Clara wanted for you. And it's not what I wanted either."
Reflexively he snorts at that, failing to notice that he doesn't care anymore whether she is real or not. "What you wanted?"
She is a face he knows, someone he sees no reason to hide from, monster though she still might be and it allows him to give his frustration free reign.
Her facial features shift and she looks so much younger now. "I only ever wanted you safe, my Doctor."
Uttered so quietly it still travels the air; lingers in the stale drought even when the sound itself dies shortly after.
Eight words that steal his breath away and have his hearts throb painfully. This is far too much like her.
"Who are you?" This time there is no accusation, no defence - nothing but the overwhelming need to learn the truth.
Her answering smile is gentle, maybe even forgiving. "I am the Bad Wolf. I am an echo and the Heart of the TARDIS itself."
"You're a projection."
She nods since finally he begins to understand. "Built from what is and what has been, but not of this castle. I have seen so much, Doctor and I saw this moment. I wish I could have done anything about it but we create and she knows so little of the power that she holds."
The Doctor listens, though for once he is not able to follow. Lost in the sheer impossibility of whatever is just happening to him he barely even registers the change of pronouns, the way she all of a sudden speaks about herself as if of different people.
"Rose. Your Rose. She means to help. She is giving life but she doesn't know it will be forever. She is shaping you a guardian, not realising she decides her fate."
He tries to ask what exactly she means with 'his Rose' but she sees the question in his eyes before his lips can do as much as move.
"The one you stole and then attempted to return, the one who trusted and knew nothing of the dark. She does the only thing she thinks will protect you even after she is gone." A tilt of her head and she seems to look straight through him.
"She is giving you a guardian. The Bad Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood. Two parts of the same story and all it needs is a leaf. Oh, she is clever, your human."
"Clara-"
"Clara has been where we could not go. We-" Together with a gasp dark brows furrow as if in concentration, and her focus is on him again. "Time is running short. She can't hold out much longer. I am fading because without her I cease to be."
"But I'm taking the Vortex from her." Where the momentary panic in his voice comes from he doesn't dare decipher. He also feels it at her words though, white and hot in his chest – as suffocating as it has been hundreds of years ago, and it reminds him of that there is always some part that survives, something that stays because in the end he is still the same man.
And he always remembers.
"Of course you are." Now she chuckles like she has sometimes done when she thought he was being particularly daft. "You are burning in her stead, in mine. Yet even now she holds on to what we are together, scatters our name because Doctor," she exhales, and he winces because her breath once more is golden, "You mustn't ever forget. Why you chose this title, and the promises you made. Forsake them and you lose the battle."
"This is no battle," he counters but his hearts too obviously aren't in it. He doesn't doubt her anymore. She bereft him of his fury and his anger, leaving him exposed.
No one else could ever do that, though a few came close.
"Life always is." She smiles again, albeit it is a pained one. It makes him wonder how much else she sees in his future. And it makes him think how he is grateful that his old self didn't know of all the things that were to come.
"Why now though?" at last he breaks the quiet that starts falling over them. If nothing else he has to know this one.
"I already told you," she shrugs, taking him in. "You and he are so much alike. You hurt too much as that we could let go."
"So what is it that you think I should do?" Maybe, if he doesn't know the answer she will. She had always had a talent for that anyway.
"Be the Doctor Clara died for, so many times. Don't give up even when you're scared, and angry. "
His mouth opens, to form words that he would never speak.
"You have always found a way. Even the smallest creature can make a change, and sometimes it's the slow path that we need to go." Grinning just a little, she suddenly leans forward and this time she does reach out for him. "If there is anyone to solve the riddle, it is you."
Even with the Vortex clawing at her mind her faith in him is implicit. The notion somehow pains him.
"And Doctor?"
He can see the golden spark in her eyes the very second her pale hand ghosts over his hearts, her face just inches away from his, and somehow he knows that whatever will come next it won't be pleasant. Reflexively his back tenses, his body frozen with apprehension and a long forgotten fear of losing her yet another time. Her voice rings out again, bright and ancient and he doesn't want to return.
He cannot stop it though. And she knows.
"Wake up."
.
His lungs ache with the need to draw new air as his respiratory bypass is quickly reaching its very limits of sustaining him.
Oxygen-deprived muscles protest when he demands them to move against the current. Grey eyes, burning and tired, search for the surface and finding light that is promising enough he forces himself into action, gasping and wheezing when finally he breaks through the water to breathe.
Disoriented he turns, automatically keeps his head above the surface, feeling like he ought to remember something – a dream, a vision, someone – but all he recalls is running scared.
Although.
There is a memory just out of reach, so close and yet it just evades him. He thinks it might be of importance; then though there are many things that are.
He continues swimming. Water drips from him in little rivers as, at last, his feet are one the shore.
The castle, he notices, looks even more menacing from down here. Like a fortress. A prison, something he would rather run away from though that urge is strangely fading.
It is curious, he notes, and maybe it is just the fact that he doesn't really have a choice but he finds that he is moving – straight towards the shadows.
There are promises he needs to keep and if his Clara was brave enough to face the raven, then maybe it is time for him to confront his demons.