A/N: Wow! I'm writing a lot of fan-fic today! I'm snowed in and have a slight toe problem currently involving a missing layer of skin on my big toe, so I won't be leaving the house or moving from my computer for a while! (Check out my recent chapter in Flaws in Flatline and Dimension Cross Drama for the whole toe story in that A/N!)
This is a one-shot comprised of all my theories of season 9 I thought up in bed to explain the cliffhangers they left us off on. The A/N at the end of this one-shot will explain how I thought up these theories. If you haven't seen season 9, DON'T READ! Major spoilers! This takes place right after Hell Bent. Enjoy...
Missing Memories
It wasn't long after the Doctor flung the TARDIS into the vortex that he started feeling depressed. How many companions has he lost? Just since the Time War there's been eight, and before the Time War so many he'd lost count. How many more had to die or be lost? He couldn't even remember Clara! Yes, he remembered their adventures. He remembered how Clara jumped into his timestream to save him from the Great Intelligence, he remembered her when forests took over London, when 2D creatures from another dimension threatened the world.
He remembered how brave she was when she faced the Raven.
But he couldn't remember the way she looked when she glanced back at him and said, "Run you clever boy, and remember me," before jumping in his timestream, he didn't remember how she handled the school children she took care of when the forests grew over the earth, he didn't remember the way she laughed when she saw the mini TARDIS in Bristol, and he didn't remember what she sounded like when she whispered those words, "Let me be brave..."
Well, the last thing he shouldn't have heard anyway, but his superior Time Lord hearing let him hear Clara's last words to sooth herself.
Which weren't her last words now, because who knew how long she would travel with Me before she faced the Raven?
Would she run with Me? The Doctor knew Clara was brave, he remembered all the times she put her life in danger for the sake of himself and the world (occasionally the universe). But would she run?
He didn't know.
He didn't even know Clara.
He sighed and picked up his guitar. The strumming soothed him. A slow tune began to form, the same one he played in the diner. The one he named Clara.
The soft gentle sound of the song calmed him.
Maybe forgotten memories did turn to songs.
He played the guitar so long that his fingers got ripped up from the strings and bled. He kept playing through the pain. He didn't care. Nothing mattered anymore.
As soon as that thought crossed his head he set the guitar down. Things did matter. Everything mattered. Every little moment good and bad mattered. What had gotten into him?
No, it wasn't what had gotten into him, it was what got out of him.
If he just had his memories, maybe he would feel better!
Or maybe it would make him feel worse. He would remember the friend he lost.
But he had some memories. He knew what Clara looked like now. It had to be that waitress at the diner. And he had been in it once before. He had been in a TARDIS a few thousand years ago and didn't even realize it...
Had it really been two thousand years since he sat in that diner with Amy and Rory? And River... Nope. Don't think about River. Too late, the image of her lifeless form in the library flickered to the front of his mind.
Two thousand years, that was right. 4,500,002,000 years if you counted the time he spent in his own confession dial...
And he couldn't remember most of his time spent there either...
He couldn't remember anything.
He was totally worthless.
No! Stop thinking that!
Oh, he was arguing with himself now.
Great.
An idea occurred to him, he should write everything he remembered down. Everything he remembered about Clara and the adventures they had together. He might be able to piece together enough information to form a clear picture on who she was in his mind.
Racing to the library, he found shelves full of empty notebooks. Why he kept blank books in the library, who knows. They're books so he guessed they belonged.
Start at the beginning.
The Dalek asylum.
The first time he met souffle girl.
Within an hour he had the first few pages filled with that adventure. What came next? Victorian London. The great intelligence. The Snowmen.
Soon stories were flying from his mind into ink on the page. Akhenaten, the time they stopped World War three, Trenzalore, when he regenerated, the time he became the Caretaker, Cybermen, the base under the lake, and Zygons.
Until he got to the Raven.
It hurt to write how she died.
It hurt more to write how he brought her back.
It hurt the most to write how he lost his memories.
It felt the best when he was done.
He fell asleep right there in the library with the book on his lap.
o-O-o-O-o
What time was it? How long had he slept? Was Clara cross with him?
No, Clara wasn't here anymore.
He was all alone.
Like the dinosaur in Victorian London.
All alone.
The Doctor looked at the book still clutched in his hand. It still needed a title.
He opened to the first page and scribbled in the top corner: Stories of the Impossible Girl.
The Doctor fingered the pages and opened to the back of the book. He still had one thing to do.
He drew what he remembered of that lady in the diner. It was Clara. He was sure of it.
The Doctor sketched Clara in perfect detail, from her outfit to the way her hair was pulled back in a bun.
His masterpiece.
His Impossible Girl.
Smiling the Doctor reread some of the stories he already wrote before he fell asleep.
Huh.
Weird.
He had written everything in extreme detail in this story, when Ashildr died and he placed the chip in her head that healed her. There was no detail. No imagery on how she looked. In fact, the Doctor couldn't even remember what Me looked like!
Why couldn't he remember! Only Clara had been erased from his mind!
It didn't make sense!
Unless... No... Not possible...
It made sense, though...
Nope... It couldn't be...
But it made sense! It had to be!
Me was Clara.
It made sense.
When Clara jumped into his timestream she was sent to every corner of his life, but they had never come across her when the real Clara was traveling with him.
But what if at one point the real Clara couldn't save him? What if he really needed two?
"Mother, I hear thunder. Mother, I hear shouting. You are my world, but I hear other worlds now. Beyond the unfolding of your smile, is there other kindness? I'm afraid. Will they be kind? The sky is crying now. Fire in the water. Fire in the water?"
Clara thought that he was staying because he was curious about fire in the water or because he wanted to save the baby, but he was thinking about Ashildr. She was so ready to fight for what she believed to be right, to help her family and friends. It reminded him of himself to be honest. And he wanted to help her, because Time Lords can see bits and pieces of the future, and he knew she could grow up to be great if he gave her the chance to live. So he did. He helped the village.
She helped him devise a plan to defeat the bad guys. She was brilliant, but it struck him that she might have been a little overly brilliant for a viking girl. It made him want to save her. And he did.
But the souffle wasn't the souffle, the souffle was the recipe. And Ashildr was the recipe. He helped save the village because of her. And though it wasn't saving him from death, it was helping him see who he really was.
The Doctor. And a Doctor saves people.
How could he have not seen it before? It was so obvious! Clara had told him once that when she saved him she would immediately die or simply disappear. She jumped into his timestream to save him, no point in sticking around if he was safe. Ashildr died when she was safe. That helmet shouldn't have killed her! She died because he was safe.
Me is Clara.
And now both were erased from his memory.
Gone.
Forever.
Two Clara's flying around on a TARDIS, he wondered if they would ever realize it.
He gave himself a moment to reflect on this until he got up from the library. Time to go somewhere, do something.
The Doctor went to the console room and fiddled with some of the buttons. The TARDIS hummed softly in his mind trying to help him through his loss.
Well he didn't need her sympathy.
This was the Time Lord's fault. Yup! That's who he was blaming. If they didn't want that stupid information on the Hybrid, well, hmm, were was he going with this?
The hybrid. An ancient power of unknowable power, part human, part Time Lord.
The perfect warrior.
It was funny how many Time Lords made the assumption that the Hybrid was part Dalek, part Time Lord. Indeed, he recalled so many times he heard the story. Always Time Lord and Dalek. How proud were the Time Lords to just assume that?
But he immediately assumed it was Me, so who was he to talk?
And Me had immediately assumed it was himself and Clara.
The Doctor thought back to Scaro, when he had almost made all the Daleks part Time Lord. Millions of Hybrids, they'd take over the universe!
And that's just what the Time Lord's were afraid of.
Just like how they were afraid of him, they didn't want someone more powerful then themselves.
And if he was the Hybrid, he was way more powerful than any of them.
Take that, stuck up Time Lords!
The Doctor briefly wondered what a part Time Lord, part Dalek would look like. He got a strange image of himself with slimy tentacles instead of arms and legs. Gross.
Then he stopped dead in the console room.
No, not possible.
But totally possible!
Today was just full of new revelations!
The Hybrid was part Time Lord, part Dalek!
And the Hybrid was him.
Me was wrong.
When he gave the regeneration energy to all the Daleks on Scaro, it had been a two way transfer. He had felt it when he was released. The hate and anger boiling inside of him. How he had laughed in spite of the death of Davros and all of Dalek kind.
He was part Dalek.
Not half Dalek. Just a little.
Oh, Rassilon.
He was part Dalek.
What was going on?
Ok, slow down. He wasn't going to sprout tentacles or something.
His hearts were thumping like mad. Part Dalek. He was part Dalek.
Oh my god, he was part Dalek.
But was it such a bad thing? Hate had always been a part of him. Everyone had that part of them that loathed something, that furnace of hate that lived inside of them waiting to be released and fill the world with choking flames.
It had always been a part of him. Everyone was part Dalek in a way. What more were the Daleks then a pile of slimy tentacles and hate? Yes, he may be a little more Dalek than everyone else in the world, but inside everyone there was a bit of Dalek.
All Daleks are is hate. An emotion. Everyone has emotions. If you count having an emotion as being a Hybrid, then everyone in the universe is a Hybrid.
And after all he had seen, all he had to endure, everyone he watched wither and burn, the Doctor could handle keeping this extra hate under control.
His double heart rate returned to normal and he punched in some coordinates. Just a nice relaxing trip to one of his favorite planets.
o-O-o-O-o
Ok, take back relaxing. Everyone turned to lizards and a piano fell on him. Not relaxing. Who cares about being sure? The Doctor set the TARDIS to random and ended on Mendorax Dellora, a human colony in the 51st century. And it was Christmas day. Well, seemed a good place as any to get some rest.
Knock knock knock!
The Doctor whipped his head around to the TARDIS door which had been knocked upon.
"Hello?" he asked opening the door.
"Hark! The Herald Angels sing. Glory to the newborn king! Peace on earth and mercy mild. God and sinners reconciled. Joyful, all ye nations, rise. Join the triumph of the skies-"
"Will you shut up?" the Doctor requested, "I hate Christmas Carolers!"
The Carolers looked offended and backed away from him.
"Sorry, sir," one man said, "But we're just tryin' to spread some Christmas spirit. There's many groups o' carolers comin' round. If you don't want 'em to sing, you should put up a sign."
The group trooped away and onto the next door.
The Doctor found a sticky note and a red marker. Carolers will be Criticised, he wrote. The Doctor stuck it to the doors of his TARDIS. There, now he could brood in peace.
A/N: Yay! There you have it! Like promised here's the explanation for my ideas.
Many will recall the poem from the name of the Doctor:
The trap is set for the Doctor's friends,
They'll travel where the Doctor ends.
His friends will be lost forever more,
Unless he goes to Trenzalore.
This man must fall as all men must,
The fate of all is always dust.
The man who lies will lie no more,
When this man lies at Trenzalore.
The girl who died he tried to save,
She'll die again inside his grave.
Did anyone else just get goosebumps?
Anyway, the last two lines is what gave me the idea. The girl who died, is referring to Clara. What's the episode's name? The Girl Who Died. I jumped to a conclusion before The Woman Who Lived came out.
And then the Doctor being the Hybrid and the Dalek thing being a two way transfer, I got that idea after Heaven Sent. When the Doctor said "The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins... Is me." Everyone assumed (including me at first) he was referring to Me/Ashildr. I thought he was referring to himself.
Since Moffat wrote that episode, and he has a habit of tying all of his episodes together, and he wrote the first two episodes of the season, I thought that the regeneration energy was a two way transfer making the Doctor the Hybrid.
Are you still with me? Good.
I also had a theory about the Minister of War, but since he was mentioned once in this season and they didn't follow up on it (yet), I'm not touching it with a ten foot pole.
Thx for reading! Drop a review if you have time!