Hi, my name's Angel this is my first Fanfiction I've published, yay! Surprisingly, I don't yet own any of the characters or dialog or anything really. Not even the computer I'm typing on. If I did I'd be super rich, famous and the entire world would drown in tears. So it's probably best I don't have that power. Oh well, enjoy the suffering with your free cookie ('-')-o

The dull tone of the phone echoes though my head. The metal pole is uncomfortably cold against my back. My body hurts. It hurts so much.

Please just pick up. Please.

"Hello!" Her voice instantly brightens my darkened TARDIS. I have been alone for so long. Alone in a town called Christmas. Alone on the planet of my death. Alone for nine hundred years. "Hello?" She awakens me from my thoughts.
"It's me." Each word, each breath hurts so much. I feel as if I'm shouting, in reality my voice is a whisper in the silent room.
"Yes, it's you, who's this?" It's Clara, my Clara. The young bossy control freak who has no time for nonsense. I haven't heard her voice in so long. Not like this.
"It's me, Clara. The Doctor." A silence hangs on the line. Our breathing combined as one, both filled with a different type of suffering, both as painful.
"What do you mean, the Doctor?" She sounds confused, conflicted. Is it possible that she has forgotten me, forgotten this version of me already? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe she will, no, has understood from the start. Or maybe she doesn't understand how I can be calling her.
"I'm phoning you from Trenzalore-"
"I don't…" she interrupts when I pause for breath. I can hear the tears threatening to roll down her face.
"-from before I changed." I confirm her fear. To her, I'm long gone and won't be coming back. To her, the man she is with now, who I hope she is now, isn't me. Isn't the Doctor. I can hear it in her voice. "I mean it's all still to happen for me, it's coming. Oh, it's a-coming… Not long now. I can," I pause again. Why does it hurt so much? "feel it."

I hear her take her phone away from her ear, clutch it to her chest. I hear her deep breaths as she tries to compose herself. It reminds me why I have to do this.
"Why?" She finally asks. "Why would you do this?
"Because I think it's going to be a whopper and I think you might be scared." I know something massive is about to happen, no Time Lord has ever survived for the fourteenth time. I'm scared. But I need to make her understand. I'm about to be ripped from this body and thrown into another. Everything I am will change. My personality, my beliefs wiped away in the golden light. But I'm still the Doctor. "And however scared you are, Clara, the man you are with right now… the man I hope you are with, believe me, he is more scared than anything you can imagine right now and he… he needs you."

"So who is it?" a muffled deep Scottish voice interrupts.
"Is that the Doctor?" I ask. I can't ask if the voice is me, she doesn't see the man in front of her as me, her Doctor, but as a stranger. A man she doesn't know. But he is me and I am him. We are one.
"Is that the Doctor?" The man repeats my question. There is no pause in his voice, he sounds sure of himself. The intonation is the same as this voice, the only difference being the Scottish accent. I'm sure that voice is mine.
"Yes." Clara replies, not to the man who stands in front of her, but to the voice on the phone. The voice she trusts with her life. I have taken another faith, another pretty young girl who could never refuse my offer to travel through time and space.
"He sounds old." A sudden thought occurs to me. "Please tell me I didn't get old. Anything but old!" I've looked old for centuries and now, my newly regenerated body would be old too. I hear Clara chuckle softly to herself. To her and my companions since the Time War, I had always been so young. So had they, I don't like endings but we all change. When you think about it, we're all different people, all through our lives. And that's okay, that's good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. "I was young. Oh… Is he grey?" My voice is suddenly urgent. I want to be ginger! Why can't I ever be ginger?
"Yes." She confirms, sounding nervous to be the person to break this terrible news to me. I shake my head. That could have been my last chance to be ginger. Instead I'm going to be grey. Again.

But I'm getting off topic and I don't know how much time I have left.

"Clara, please, eh, for me, help him." My voice ends in a whisper, tears of my own blurring my vision. "Go on and don't be afraid." I hear the TARDIS door click shut. I know I'm coming. I'm coming for my Impossible Girl. "Goodbye Clara." I don't know what to say. For her, these will be my last words to her in this voice. So I settle on the truth. "Miss you." I whisper. And I do miss my Clara. Not the one who will be with me shortly, the one who pities me for looking old. Nor the one who's angry for abandoning her. The sadness in her eyes as she realises that I have come to terms with my 'death'. The pain as she watches as I start to lose my mind. No, I miss the girl who's more frightened than she will ever admit but will always do the right thing. Will always be brave. The Soufflé Girl who spends all her free time in the kitchen with flour on her nose or tucked away in the corner of the library. The bossy control freak who talks to me as an equal, while still marvelling at the wonders of the universe. My Clara.

Clara hangs up without another word. I am left alone. The dial tone drones on. She has gone. Back to her version of me. I'm just a ghost now. An echo passed to her. But now, I need to be ready for her. My version of Clara. I stand and the wold seems to spin faster. I move to doors to put the phone back, stopping at the last moment, half though the door. I remember Handles' last words.
You must patch the telephone device back through the console unit.
I drop the phone, leaving it hanging from its cable. I'll see it next time I step out the TARDIS. I'll do it then.
Thank you, Handles, and well done. Well done, mate.
I walk back inside, heading towards the kitchen. I don't think my new self will like fish fingers and custard. Oh well, his loss. I want someone to share them with, Clara despises them. It's at times like this I miss Amy. And Rory. I miss them both. She would understand.

I hear the soft tapping of the hatch closing. Clara must be putting my phone away. I head back to the console room, fish fingers and custard in my favourite bowl.

He's coming. I'm about to start my next adventure.