The scream tore him apart. It wrenched his ears in on themselves, plucked all of his hair on end, ripped his eyes wide open, blocked his throat as he tried to swallow, swallow, swallow.
Raven.
It broke his hearts, the scream. As did the broken figure on the street.
Clara.
His Clara, wind and fire and wisdom and strength. Courage. He loved her with as much reckless abandon as she had just displayed. A shared hamartia.
What had she meant when she said that maybe this was what she wanted? Surely she didn't want him here now, numb and fractured, breathing heavily because oh, it hurt him so much. Breathing, deep, frantic breaths, because she was not a memory. She was a corpse, cadaver, carcass, Clara. Cold and limp in his warm, trembling arms.
He nursed her, held her like an infant. Clara. Clara, Clara, Clara. Her skin sank to the pallor of her jumper, which was creased at the point where the raven, that bloody raven, had struck her.
"Nevermore, nevermore, nevermore," he chanted, cradling Clara.
He felt the pain of 2000 years. 2000 years of being saved, over and over and over, by his brilliant friend. And he couldn't save her, he couldn't do anything to save her, she was dead at 28 sad years and no, he couldn't listen. He could only feel a searing guilt - he had brought her here, he was responsible for her, he had a duty of care.
"Which you take very seriously, I know."
So fragile, Clara. How she had shattered as the Raven had, had...
And how he had stood and watched, watched from behind, knowing that he would never see the light in her dark, shining, beautiful eyes again.
Four years of her life she had spent with him. Four years. He had lived four years five hundred times and was destined to live four years many more times.
That gift to him, Clara's first of many. Life, through the Timelords. Capacity for regeneration after regeneration in a perpetuated cycle. Life and life and life and life and life, running faster and further than death would ever be able to.
He could reciprocate.
Sacrifice a few faces in return for the only face which mattered to him. He remembered River Song's relinquishment of her own power of regeneration. He was reathing, still able
Only to lose her again?
But if that was what it took to bring Clara back, a parting of lips and a feat of healing, he could do it. Cure her. Be a Doctor.
A selfish one.