Author's Notes: I don't own Doctor Who. If I did, then Rose would have stayed with the Doctor forever, and Donna would not have had her mind wiped.
"Welcome to Poosh, Clara! Used to have a lost moon. Not lost, anymore. A friend of mine helped restore it." His eyes are wistful as he says this, and she in turn frowns. After regenerating, her quirky, brunette Doctor with a penchant for bow ties and fezzes had become a serious, ashen-haired man who liked reminiscing. A lot. He is forever speaking about past companions and old faces, and she is even, on occasion, lucky enough to collect names of long ago—Amy, Rose, Rory, Donna—he mentions River more often than not (she thinks because it is a commonality between them), and quite a few of his funniest memories involve a woman named Sarah Jane. All of these people he spoke of with such reverence and adoration; it is clear that he loved each and every one very dearly, and misses them just as much. She wonders, now, if she will one day become one of his memories that he casually mentions to new companions. She likes to hope so.
He is speaking to her about another adventure when he still wore leather and a scowl that involves Rose and a flirt named Jack, when suddenly, he stops. Jolted by the immediate halt in his otherwise deep and gentle voice, she glances at him, and is surprised to see his face pale, as if all the blood in his superior circulatory system forgot where it is meant to go. His eyes are wide, mouth turned down in an open frown. It is unnerving. "Doctor?" she says, placing a hand on his dark blue coat. "What's wrong?"
He does not reply, simply continues to stare off into the distance with a look of utter shock. She has rarely seen such looks on his face, and each time they frighten her. She follows his gaze and her eyes land on a young woman with a bright face and kind eyes. Her blonde ponytail swings prettily as she turns to smile at something her companion is saying. The companion offers her a trinket from the booth which they are currently perusing, and she nods in approval. Coins are exchanged for the bauble, and the man places it inside his coat. They walk to the next stall and she slips her hand in his, looking around with avid curiosity, as if she was seeing the world through new eyes. Noticing the strange couple gawking at her from several feet away, she nudges her companion and, when he looks at her, nods at her spectators. This seems to shake the Doctor from his reverie. "Come, Clara. Let's move on. Quickly, now, before—well, before."
Fingers tighten on his sleeve as the Doctor begins walking briskly in the opposite direction from the couple staring in confusion. Feeling nervous, Clara says, "Doctor, who are they? Is it dangerous?"
"Not now, Clara," he replies shortly.
"But—"
"No, Clara." His pace quickens and she is forced to jog to keep up with his long strides. Clara glances behind her in time to see the man tug on the woman's hand; she allows him to pull her in the direction of the next stall, pausing only once to look back at the Doctor in confusion, but also with a twinge of recollection, almost as if she knows him from somewhere, but she cannot place his face. The Doctor, in his haste, does not see; he is entirely focused on fleeing the woman's presence. Minutes later, Clara is struggling to catch her breath in an alley full of alien trash while the Doctor furrows his brow. He pulls out a pocket watch, which recently replaced his previous wristwatch. She has seen him use it when things go awry in their travels, which frankly is quite often, just to confirm their position in time and space. Twiddling the dials furiously, he lets out an exasperated huff.
"This can't be correct. Right place, wrong time. It's always a millennia off. Every blasted time. Meddling ship. Can't let sleeping Barcelonian dogs lie, can you, eh old girl? Still…." A pensive look grows on his face as he taps the now closed watch against his cheek. He seems to engage in a war with himself, if the turmoil on his face is any indication, all the while muttering angrily. "No—but…perhaps? No. It would—damn it—not fair. Not right. Hm…I wonder, though. Resilient, she was...but, the possibility?" He glances at Clara pensively. "But there was Clara, so it is possible…I wonder." His voice fades, and she is left gaping at him with bewilderment.
"Doctor? Any chance you could explain…erm, any of it?"
Confused, he looks at her as if he had forgotten she was there at all, but then smiles with excitement. It is a look she has not seen before, not with this face. She remembers not too long ago saying, while the TARDIS was afire all around her, that she didn't know who the Doctor was anymore. But this look reminds her starkly of her bow tie Doctor with no eyebrows. She misses him. The new Doctor pulls her from her memories of fezzes and a youthful face by saying, "Clara, the TARDIS has taken us somewhere I never thought existed."
"Oh? But I thought you'd been here before, with…ehm…" She scratches her head as she struggles to recall. The blonde one? The one he speaks of with such love and pain, that she is certain something more happened between them. "Rosa, wasn't it? No! Rose, that's it. Didn't you run into a flesh-eating centipede here, or something?"
He grins. "Yes, I did come here with Rose, and it was a flesh-eating slug, not unlike the ones seen in Harry Potter. Apparently, some mad scientist came up with the idea from reading the second book. Interesting." He pauses. Sometimes, his earlier reincarnations pop up with their personalities and quirks. He never loses his taste for literature, though, something for which he is immensely happy. "But I don't mean the place, Clara." He glances at the watch again, this time with even more perplexity. "I meant the circumstances. We're at a point, around a time I once visited with Donna and Martha, but we never came here. And the woman back at the market," he glances back with mounting anticipation, "well, Clara, that woman really shouldn't be here."
"But who is she? And why shouldn't she be here? Is she dangerous?"
"Well, no, I don't believe she is. But she shouldn't be here because she died, not less than two years ago, according to this time." He taps his watch and she glances down, trying to make sense of all of the circles. She knows the patterns are a language of their own, but she has never been able to understand any of them.
"So," she replies, wanting to comprehend, "is she like me? Or does she just look like someone you knew?"
"No, she definitely is the same person. I can feel it."
Clara notices that he is avoiding the question of the identity of the woman in the market, and wonders if she is a past lover. She grins; she never met Rose (she doesn't think he will ever take her to visit, and she is afraid to ask) and she only met River Song in a dream-state during a tumultuous time. It would be interesting to see the other side of the Doctor, the one who loves, who dances. But, she doesn't think he would ever admit it; he would probably say his kind did not do that sort of thing. To push her luck, she asks once more. "Doctor. Who is she?"
The Doctor finally meets Clara's eyes and heaves a great sigh, one that seems full of regret and sorrow, emotions she is used to seeing with this ancient alien. "She's my daughter."