A/N: This story takes place from Clara's point of view after she steps through the time stream. I chose to write it as though she can remember all her past lives with the Doctor. I'm thinking about rewriting the entire episode like this, so let me know if that is something you might be interested in.
Disclaimer: I obviously own nothing involved in Doctor Who. Any dialogue is from the episode "The Snowmen" written by Stephan Moffat.
The metal object feels cold in her hand. She takes in its foreign shape as the Doctor wraps her fingers around the key he has just given her.
"What's this?" she asks him, even though she already knows.
"This is me. Giving in."
In all her many lives, this was all she ever wanted.
She remembers her echoes. Every single one of them. In the order in which the Doctor met them, starting when she told him which TARDIS to steal.
She remembers her original life as well. From the day she met the Doctor to the day she stepped into his time stream to save him, ending her own life in the process, but at the same time, beginning her many echo lives. None of these echoes were really her, but they were enough. She lived these lives for the day she found the Doctor again. She knew she had to save him from whatever the Great Intelligence had done. These events usually meant the end of her current form, but she didn't mind too much. She never had anything else to live for after the Doctor was saved. She felt better knowing he was safe and knew that dying meant that she would see him again soon.
But this time is different. She knows of this echo, as well as her previous form in the dalek asylum, from before she stepped into the time stream. These were the only echoes the Doctor had known when he met her. The echoes that caused him to go looking for her and paved the pathways for her to become his next companion.
She didn't think him not knowing who she was would hurt her as much as it did. It hurt when she met his earlier faces and they didn't notice her, but when he was in the form she travelled with, it stung beyond belief. She often wondered if that had something to do with why it was only in his eleventh iteration that he actually heard, and now saw, her. If there was a bond that existed between them without his knowing.
She was barely used to him interacting with her again after he had spoken to her in the asylum. Being able to see and touch him again after living so many lives where he ignored her turned out to be more than she could resist. This was the main reason she had kissed him earlier in the night.
Even in her real life, the Doctor had never given her a key. Although back then the TARDIS had disliked her so much she'd probably have changed the locks if the Doctor had given Clara Oswald a key. But now she is Clara Oswin Oswald. She likes to keep the name Oswin in all her echoes. A name the Doctor introduced her to the first time she met him.
In any other circumstance this would have thrilled her. Obtaining a key to the TARDIS was the dream of anyone who met the Doctor. It had taken her many lives, but she had finally done it. But she knew how this ended. The Doctor had told the original her that they'd met in Victorian London, and she had died saving him. Not that this surprised her. She always died for the Doctor. However, he had also told her, or at least suggested (it was so long ago for her, she could no longer remember the original words), that this was his last meeting with her before he met the original Clara Oswald. Meaning this was the last time she would meet him.
This thought fills her with a mix of emotions. On one hand, this means her job is finally done. She is relieved that she will no longer have to live any more lives and that the Doctor is finally safe. And soon he will meet the real her, a person she knows this broken Doctor is in great need of. But then again, this means she is never going to see him again. A greedy part of her wants it never to end. Wants to shut the doors to the TARDIS and run away with him. After all, you never walk away, but when you're holding on to something precious, you run. This key is precious. Her Doctor is precious.
This isn't an option. She knows that. She knows she has to die here so he will go looking for her and, once again, she canstep into his time stream and save him. She knows it has to happen that way. For the Doctor. For the world. For the universe. But it still hurt.
She feels a tear run down her cheek.
"I don't know why I'm crying," she blurts out, figuring her sudden portrayal of emotion might confuse him.
"I do. Remember this. Remember this right now. All of it. Because this is the day, this is the day. This is the day everything begins!"
Oh, Doctor. For you, yes. But not for me. For me, this is the day everything ends. She watches him, smiling, as he runs around the console flipping switches and pulling levers, as excited as a schoolboy. How she has missed this.
Just then she feels ice cold hands grab her under her arms. She gasps in surprise and the key, the key she had waited lifetimes for, slips out of her hand and drops to the TARDIS floor. As the ice lady drags her backwards, she knows what is about to happen. This condensed vapor cloud can only last for so long before they both reach the edge and crash to the ground. She can only hope that this destroys the ice lady as well. As she goes over, she takes one last look at the Doctor. Takes in what she believes will be the last time she ever sees him, thankful she was able to see him happy one final time.
She feels herself start to fall. It reminds her of how this all started. When she stepped into the time stream, she also felt as though she was falling. But then is was hot, as though she were falling through flames while being ripped into a billion pieces. Falling was the last thing she remembered before she was a time lady on Gallifrey and guided the Doctor towards his TARDIS. This time the fall is quite the opposite. Now as she falls, she is freezing. More than can be explained by just the weather. It seemed fitting that this was how her lives would end.
The ice lady loses her grip on Clara. She hears what sounds a lot like crashing glass and knows the ice lay has come into contact with the hard, frozen ground. She knows her time will not be far behind.
"Goodbye, my Doctor," she whispers as she closes her eyes and hits the ground.