Hello! This is my first serious Doctor Who fanfiction, and the second Who fic in general.
The idea for this one-shot came from a dream. I dreamed I was watching Doctor Who and was legitimately scared when Capaldi acted all strange and cruel, and then I realized he was playing the Valeyard.
When I woke up, I decided to write it down, and write it from Clara's point of view because in the dream, she was still the companion but looked terrified. Thought it'd be a nice idea to try and convey her thought process.
Also, there's some theories saying the Valeyard would come after Twelve... What d'ya think?
Doctor Who is owned by the BBC.
Enjoy, and constructive criticism/pointing out little mistakes is always welcome!
I stand there numbly as the dying screams of a wounded soldier being tortured echo around a small chamber of a battlefield.
The familiar Reeeeeee now no longer gives me comfort but haunts my ears like the screeches of a ghost. The tall gray man looks on mercilessly with a cold indifference as his tool is used to cause pain like it did with so many others today.
I can only watch wordlessly as the last moan escapes the soldier's lips and a trembling hand falls to the floor to stay still forever.
It didn't use to be like this.
I hold on to the memories.
"Why the long face, Clara?" he laughs.
I don't laugh back.
He scowls and hammers away at the Tardis console. The ship produces a low whine as one of its circuits fall onto the floor, smoking. He swears audibly as he shoves the circuit back into place, none too gently.
The ship groans and shakes, the vworp-vworp sounds of its brakes reminiscent of a wounded animal being dragged to do its master's bidding; I feel as if it is just as confused, helpless and scared as I am.
I can do nothing.
A fallen woman calls for aid...
He kneels down next to her broken body.
"You want to be free of this pain, do you not?" he asks.
A faint whimper.
Shivers run down my spine as the gray man's resolute face gives way to a sneer.
"Why should I care?" he whispers and rises, when the woman grabs his ankle as a desperate final attempt.
The man's face yet again changes. He takes out his sonic screwdriver.
Soon, the iconic buzz - no, a mechanical, withering shriek - once again reverberates in the air, before it is drowned by the lady's howl.
He laughs derisively as his tool that once healed, fixed, mended, now takes the life of yet another someone he would have once protected.
"You lot with your liquid brains, you naive apes. I wouldn't have thought you could be so entertaining."
His laughter joins the dying rattles of the wounded in bouncing off from one wall to another.
I can't say anything. I only stand there, my eyes painfully open to take in everything that has happened, is happening, and will happen.
The gray man that I once so cared for.
He hated it when others laughed around him. He thought it was a stupid thing to do.
Grumpy old man he was, but he still cared.
Now look at him, laughing away...
But there is nothing left of him in that laughter, mocking his foes with that hollow, maniacal laughter always ringing in his wake.
That is not the man that I once knew.
"Am I a good man?" he once asked me.
I wasn't sure, but I knew that he always tried his best, and that's what I told him.
Now, I figure that he has stopped trying.
I was the girl born to save him, scattered across all of time and space, and I tried to stay loyal to my cause.
I stayed with him even when he started murdering first those who fought for what they thought was right, then those who fought for hope and light, then finally, those who did not fight but stayed truly innocent.
I stayed with him even when he made threats; even when he meant significant harm to others I cared for; even when he carried out his words.
But I feel that this cannot go on for much longer.
For he is no longer the Doctor.
For he is the Valeyard.