"Like a ghost town," Donna laments.
The Doctor wants to reassure her somehow, to tell her he'll fix this, but he can't muster the words. There's a sinking feeling in his chest that overtakes everything; paralyzing even his thoughts, which should be racing with ideas on how to stop this, but there's simply nothing. It's just dread.
"Sarah Jane said they were taking the people," he says, because he knows that. It's all he knows. "What for? Think, Donna, when you met Rose in that parallel world, what did she say?"
Donna shrugs uselessly, still casting her eyes across the deserted street. "Just... the darkness is coming."
He sets his jaw. "Anything else?"
She's staring over his shoulder, and he's ready to scream, because they have nothing. Absolutely nothing. Davros has all of them, every single one, and he can do nothing. He's stuck here. No plan. No nothing.
There's a flicker of... something in Donna's eyes, all of sudden, then she utters, "Why don't you ask her yourself?"
His hearts stop.
Donna is still staring behind him, so he turns, and there's no mistaking the brilliant blonde hair standing at the end of the street, beaming at him like she's the sun and everything else wonderful.
He doesn't think. He just runs. She does she, straight towards him.
That dreadful feeling in his chest becomes a lump in his throat as he imagines what it's going to feel like, throwing his arms around her again.
"Doctor!" she yells suddenly, and oh, it's so wonderful to hear her voice again–
A Dalek appears in the corner of his eye. He stops, it screams, "Exterminate!" and then it bursts into flames. Rose runs straight into him, but he's still staring at the Dalek, and then at Captain Jack Harkness, who is holding a massive gun.
"Doctor? Doctor! Oh my god, I've travelled so far, and you're actually here–"
"Rose," he says, tearing his gaze off Jack, and finally– finally looking at Rose. She was here. "Rose. Rose Tyler. You're here."
"Yeah," she says, and then laughs. "Yeah, I'm here. I found you."
"You found me," he repeats, breathlessly. "Rose Tyler. You found me. Oh, you wonderful, beautiful human being." She's draped across him, but now he grabs her properly, squeezing her tight. "You're here," he says again, as a whisper in her ear. "And you– you! You know! About the Daleks! Yes!"
He steps back, she grabs his hand, and he drags her off towards the TARDIS shouting, "Come on, you lot! We have a planet to save!"
"Nicked it on some broken glass, probably," Rose says, thumbing the weeping cut on the inside of her arm, in a moment's peace, while they scrub up a battle plan for assaulting Davros's base.
The Doctor smiles up at her, and wants to brush back a piece of that wonderful golden hair which has strayed from behind her ear, but she lifts her face to meet him and he forgets about it entirely.
"Let me," he offers, when he's found his tongue.
Her mouth spreads into a smile, and she looks down, where he's taken her arm gently. Then, a hum of electricity dances through the air, to complement the eerie yellow glow touching his fingertips. He touches his fingers softly to her arm. "It tickles," she gasps.
The Doctor smiles again, warmly, and then watches as golden wisps of light escape his fingertips, gravitating towards his hand, which sits under the console.
"A little regenerative energy," he explains. "Harmless. For both of us. See, anything excess, goes in there." He nods to his hand. "Handy hand. Always handy to have around."
Rose grins.
"You'll call, won't you?" Clara makes a phone with her hand, holding it up to her ear, looking at him expectantly.
He leans against the door frame. "Of course I'll call. I always call," the Doctor promises. A smile touches her face, the sort where her eyes crinkle at the sides, and she gestures at him with a finger.
He gives her a one-fingered mock salute. "Catch ya' around, Miss Oswald," he returns, and disappears inside the TARDIS, with the door snapping shut behind him.
He eases her into the vortex, but thinks twice about it, and settles her on the edge of Kasterborous instead, where he sits in the doorway and watches the stars twinkle, with his feet dangling into the endless vacuum of space.
Somewhere, out there, among all of those stars, is Gallifrey.
He lingers for a while, and eventually utters a long sigh, watching as the twin suns burned eons away. "Where do I start, old girl?" he asks. "There's all of the stars, then the darkness between those stars, and all of those pesky shadows, too."
She hums something unintelligible in response, and he huffs, lowering his head to look at his hands. When he looks back up, the expanse of space is still there. It's empty, and so very, very lonely.
"Right!" He jumps up suddenly, and pulls the doors closed, sweeping himself backward. "Gallifrey! Where to start? Anywhere in time and space, any star, any space. Gallifrey. Somewhere. Definitely not here. We're sure on that. Good. Great. One spot down." Approaching the console, he smiles up at the time rotor. "We're making good time, old girl. Though, it's all relative, so I suppose it's a matter of opinion. What do you think? Are we making good time?"
Of course, she doesn't answer. Nobody does. Clara's not here. She's got her own life, in her own world, where she's at home. He just pops in, with his TARDIS, and takes her on adventures.
He gives a sigh as he programs the coordinates.
"I do have somewhere we can start, though. The very beginning. A very good place to start." He darts around the console to set the stabilizers, almost skidding on his feet. Then, he twirls on his heel and flicks on the navigation computer, before throwing up the big lever.
Turns out, the very beginnings of the universe are actually quite dull, despite being the start of everything wonderful and beautiful. The planets are primitive, with only basic flora and fauna at most, and anything sentient is simply the trees, nothing more.
Gallifrey isn't here. The trees tell him that much.
He resigns back to the TARDIS, and doesn't see the creature hiding in the corner of his eye because he's too busy lamenting about the sinking feeling in his chest, already.
He keeps looking. He keeps going. "Making time, making time, old girl," he mutters, and pulls the lever again, and steps outside again, and asks again, and Gallifrey isn't here, again. "One spot at a time."
"Or we could call in some old favors," he wonders at one point, on a planet full of sentient purple balloons who feed off the helium gas emitted from the planet's hydrogen core. "Ask around. Do some of that–" He adjusts his bowtie. "–old fashioned investigating. I think I'd make a good sleuth. What do you think, old girl? With a monocle and everything! Oh, and a top hat! Can't be a detective without a top hat. Or actually, maybe a fedora. No, no, a fez. I'll start a trend. Fez-wearing detectives. Yes, I like that. Remind me later!"
"Destroyed," the Yhag queen tells him.
"Destroyed," a farmer tells him, on Mooba Prime.
"Destroyed," a knee-high centipede tells him, telepathically.
"Destroyed," he repeats to himself, muttering under his breath. "Destroyed. Destroyed? But that's not right! Somebody has to know! I mean, I did engineer it perfectly, so that it looked like it was destroyed, but that doesn't mean it was destroyed. It can't. It's not destroyed. It's somewhere. Old girl, it's somewhere. Home is out there. At least we know it's definitely not here." He pulls up the big lever, spinning around on the spot, his coat flying out around him, like a mock skirt. "Onwards!"
Something smells off when he steps onto the planet, quite literally.
It's a small moon base, used for collecting psychic messages transmitted by the Uut. It's one of the species's first instances of interstellar colonization. There is only basic life support on the small moon for a three-man team, who take double shifts to monitor the listening post.
And it smells a little bit like burned toast, which is wrong, because all accounts describe the Uut as smelling like porridge oats tinged with honey and apple.
He finds these accounts are correct, and in fact, the Uut are actually quite good company. He comes away smiling, but with little information about the Time Lords; they'd picked up the drumbeat, when Rassilon transmitted it through the Master's timestream, but little after that.
His smile quite quickly fades when he sees the enormous claw marks scrouged into the TARDIS doors. They have splintered the wood deeply, from one corner of the window panes and down to the pull to open panel, and they smell distinctively of burned toast.
He scans them with his screwdriver, and puzzles himself at the readings, because simply, there's nothing. Well, there is something, but nothing which is recognizable to the screwdriver.
He's tempted to take a look around, but she sends a thrum of fear through his bones with a telepathic prod. Get out of here, it says.
"Where's your sense of adventure!" he accuses in return. "A new form of matter, this looks like. The screwdriver doesn't recognize it. Quite interesting. Exciting! A whole new brand of life, old girl, and it's put its claws through you. Are you alright, and what kind of readings are you getting?"
Burnt toast wafts past his nose. He's still facing the TARDIS, and she's humming something in his ear, but he's too intrigued by the mystery of whatever's behind him.
He puts on his best grin, spins around on his heel, and exclaims, "Ah, hello! I'm the Doctor. This is the TARDIS. You'll have to excuse her, I believe you offended her, with the... ah..." He brands his hand into a claw shape, and scrapes it through the air. "Thing. She's taking it personally."
Blinking back at him, is Amelia Pond. Then, it's Clara, then Rory, then his tenth face, then Rose, and finally, a big blob of black nothing, morphed into a vague humanoid shape.
He scans it with his screwdriver. "Interesting. Psychic interface, yes? That's what you're doing, isn't it? You're taking forms out of my mind. And that's why you're here, too. A lot of psychic feedback emulating from this place. That's why I'm here too, you know. Maybe we could help each other."
It stares at him, then all of a sudden, it lunges with a clawed hand straight at him. He ducks, and feels the razor sharp talons brush over the top of his head.
"You could have just said no!" he cries in return, and dodges another swipe, which hits the TARDIS again. It criss-crosses over the existing marks and he gasps. "And my TARDIS! That was definitely uncalled for! I would understand an accident–!"
The creature stops mid-swipe. "TARDIS," it says, in monotone, telepathically. The Doctor winces at the raw power behind it. "TARDIS."
"Yes, yes, TARDIS. What you're offending with those lovely claws. Really, though, you have offended her. She's quite cross. She worked very hard on that paint job."
"TARDIS," it says.
"Yes," the Doctor replies, again. "My TARDIS. Do you need it? Do you need help?" The blob's talon, which has formed out of its exterior, is still suspended in the air. The Doctor cautiously takes a step closer. "What can I call you? Because I would call you big, beautiful, complicated, wonderful thing, but I think that's a bit too long. Don't you think? I mean, you are quite wonderful, but I would much like to hear from you. You need my TARDIS. Yes, okay, done. I can help. I'm the Doctor. I'm good at helping. But I would love to know what it is exactly that I'm helping."
The claw retracts into the humanoid blob, and the Doctor lets himself exhale in relief. Then, it stretches out again, quickly, and it pierces through the Doctor's right shoulder at a downward angle, slicing through his right heart.
He's not sure if it's him or the TARDIS which screams. Regardless, he sinks to his knees in shock, and the creature pulls its talon from his chest. Blood spurts from the wound.
"Artery, then," he grounds out, and then gasps, doubling over. He presses his face into the dirt, eyes squeezed shut. "Now that," he wheezes, "was uncalled for. I– argh!"
He must have blacked out, because when he opens his eyes, he's staring up at the stars. The blob is looking down at him curiously.
"TARDIS," it says. "Save them."
"Yes, yes–" he hisses at it, and grimaces. His jacket is a horrible mix of purple and red. "I can help, but you– you..."
"No," it returns. "You cannot help us. You destroyed us, in the very beginning, with all of this. Now we will destroy you."
"Wha–? I don't– argh! I don't understand!"
It steps away, towards the TARDIS, and the Doctor manages to roll onto his stomach, still clutching at the gaping wound in his shoulder. The blob is at the TARDIS door.
"You will unlock the machine," it says.
He bites out a laugh. "I'm having a bit of a bad day," he grounds out, and then grimaces as a wave of pain hits him, and he realizes it's because he's suddenly on his feet, somehow. "You'll have to... oh..." The world tilts sideways, but he's righted again, by something. "I don't..."
A talon pierces him again, this time on the left-most side of his stomach, and he's slammed into the door.
He blacks out.
When his eyes flutter open again, there's a hole in his stomach, with an exit wound and all, and blood gurgling from his shoulder. He gasps for breath, but no air enters his lungs.
With the last ounces of his strength, he reaches out telepathically, and there's no one on the moon. In fact, there's not even a moon; he's propped against the outside of the TARDIS in the endless reaches of space, with something drawing him towards the closed doors.
"Oh," he gasps. "Thank... you... old girl..."
She screams in his mind, something urgent, and he squeezes his eyes shut. Somehow, he slides his thumb and finger together, and then doors open. He remembers falling, but not hitting the ground.
When he wakes, Clara is screaming.
It's not intelligible, but he replies anyway, "I'm actually quite hungry." At that, she chokes off into silence, and then just starts sobbing. He moves to quiet her, but nothing is working. His arms and legs refuse to respond. "Clara? What–?"
"Shut up," she cries breathlessly, and he feels her press down on his chest, but nothing else.
"Sorry," he apologies.
"No," she gasps. "No– I– What? What do I do? You're... oh my god... you're..."
"Clara," he shushes. "You don't have any fish fingers, do you? I must have woken up with a craving, because blimey, this is deathly–"
Warmth rushes up from his fingertips, his hands, his arms–
"Clara," he says. She's sobbing. "Clara. Get back. Now. And Clara. For the love of Einstein, don't tell the neighbors I regenerated in your bedroom."
The warmth explodes into burning, and then nothing.
The Doctor wakes up feeling rather cozy, and there's a body curled up next to him, their arms secured firmly around his waist.
"Oh," he says.
Clara stirs, and is up on her elbows in an instant, brushing back long hair from his face– "Doctor? Doctor? Oh thank god–"
"Hair?" he whispers to himself, and raises a delicate, feminine hand to brush back the red curls falling into his face. They're soft against his fingers. "I have..." He trails off. "Oh."
"Doctor?"
"I'm a woman," the Doctor says. Clara is staring at her, like she's gone mad. "This is new. Different." She frowns, testing the tongue against her top teeth. "I don't know if I like it, actually. It tastes funny. And all of those white blood cells, they're awfully heavy, aren't they?"
"You're alive," Clara gasps out, from next to her.
"Of course I'm alive," she confirms, and Clara is still staring, so she smiles. "Oh, did I ever explain regeneration to you?" she asks next. "I swear, it was on the to-do list. But, you know, two thousand years. The list gets kind of long. You lose track."
Clara is shaking her head, staring at her in disbelief.
"I'm okay," the Doctor says.
Clara swallows. "I called Kate Stewart," she replies, and her voice is airy, like she's not all there. "You change your face, when you're dying. A Time Lord thing." She looks her up and down, of what is visible from underneath the covers she's buried underneath. "You died. Oh my god, you died. You died. Alone. Oh– oh, I'm so sorry, Doctor. I should have–" Her eyes suddenly flash fiercely."How did it happen? Who was it? Because I swear to you, Doctor, I will have someone answer for this–"
The Doctor interrupts loudly, "Kate hopefully didn't forget to mention I'd be fine, yes? Because I am. Fine. That's what regeneration does. The body dies. I don't."
"But you... you bled all over my carpet. Now you're..." She gestures vaguely, towards her, and then tears well in her eyes. Clara pushes her the heels of her hands into her eyes.
The Doctor's hearts, both of them, melt.
"Oh, Clara," she laments, and reaches a slim hand out towards her companion, and settles it against her cheek. "I'm so sorry. I'm so very sorry. It wasn't supposed to happen. Especially not like that."
"What happened?" Clara whispers.
Admittedly, she was still figuring that out.
But Clara doesn't need to know. But, for whatever reasons that are well and good, the TARDIS bought her here, and Clara saw it. She shouldn't have been put through that. She owes it to her, to explain.
"I was looking for Gallifrey," she explains slowly. "I had been for quite a while, for a few months. I got to a psychic outpost, on a remote moon, and there was a creature there. It... well..." Clara lowers her hands, to see the Doctor gesture down her horizontal form vaguely, and then shrugs. "It was... something. I've never seen anything like it."
Clara takes a deep breath, and then sets her hand against the Doctor's cheek, too, cradling her face gently. She swallows thickly. "When you changed... I... You wouldn't wake up. You just... lied there. I called Kate again, she sent someone–"
That makes a smile cross the Doctor's face. "Sullivan?"
"How did you–"
"Doesn't matter. But what does matter, Clara, is that I'm so sorry. The TARDIS bought me to you. And you... you didn't need to see that. You didn't. I'm so sorry."
Clara gives her a smile, and it's so full of pain she wants nothing more than to wrap her in her arms and never let go.
That's what she does.
Regeneration sickness was awful, like always, but she takes Clara the nicest places she can remember, following that ordeal. It's in that time she looks for information surrounding her attacker, too. She turns up some interesting things.
The TARDIS matches the data collection from the screwdriver as something predating the universe, if that were possible.
"Okay." Clara has a piece of white chalk in her hand, and she's annotating. "So, you're on the moon."
"Uut Moon 11, yes."
"Uut Moon 11," Clara says as she scrawls. "And then, you talk to the Uut at the outpost. You... uh..."
"Commute," the Doctor offers.
Clara gives an exaggerated nod. "Commute," she agrees, and then continues, "then you return to the TARDIS. It's waiting for you. It's scratched those marks in the door–"
"Matter pre-dating the universe," she supplies.
"I thought we settled on pre-matter."
The Doctor waves a dismissive hand. "Whatever. Pre-matter. Different matter. Doesn't matter. Ha."
"So, there's pre-matter marks scratched into the door when you get back, and then you smell... burnt toast? That's right, isn't it? Yeah." She scrawls 'BURNT TOAST' in block letters and circles it.
"Yes, then we talk, it dismembers me, and then says, 'You cannot help us. You destroyed us, in the very beginning, with all of this. Now we will destroy you.'," she continues. "I remember every word of it. Loud and clear. It was like it wanted me to."
Clara writes 'destroyed in the beginning', draws an arrow, and scrawls 'revenge' next to it. She turns around.
"But that's easy," she claims. "See, I don't know why you didn't ask me sooner, that's elementary, dear Doctor." She turns back around again, to the black board.
She scribbles 'PRE MATTER' messily in the middle, and then draws an arrow to revenge. She taps the chalk on the board. "Pre-matter. Beginning. This thing is from before the universe, Doctor. Which was destroyed when the universe came into existence. Now it wants revenge."
The Doctor has been grinning the entire time, with her arms crossed, observing Clara's handwriting scattered across the board. "Clara Oswin Oswald," she says. "You're the smartest woman I've ever met in all my lives."
"At least take me to dinner first," Clara returns, also grinning, as she writes 'PRE-UNIVERSE SCARY MONSTER' across the top of the board. 'ANOTHER MYSTERY SOLVED BY CLARA OSWALD, NOT THE DOCTOR,' she writes, and underlines the last bit.
"One more thing," the Doctor adds, stepping up the black board. She grabs a piece of chalk, and starts drawing the TARDIS, complete with the claw marks. "She wanted the TARDIS. I know that, too. It's all it said, besides the rest of it."
"That's easy too," Clara returns. "It wants to go back and save all of them." She turns around, throwing a small smile the Doctor's way. "Sound familiar?"
Clara is still smiling, but the Doctor is remembering when she stared into the creature's eyes as it wore her face.
"Okay, okay, in all seriousness," Clara says, leaning back in her chair, interlocking her hands together behind her head. "You're still going to look for Gallifrey, aren't you?"
The Doctor looks out to the sunset, and then sighs. "Clara, Clara, Clara," she says.
"You're giving up."
She wets her lips, and then looks to her companion, her eyes heavy. "How am I any different to that creature?" she asks. "I'll save you having to think about it– I'm not. You were right, Clara, we're exactly the same."
Clara leans forward again, concern welling in her eyes. "No, no, I didn't mean–"
"I don't need Gallifrey. That's what it will turn me into." She scrubs a hand down her face, and sags back in her chair. The sunset is being reflected in Clara's eyes from this angle. "I can't become that, Clara. I can't."
"You're not."
"I sure scared you," she returns. "And I can't express how sorry I am–"
"No, no, shut up. You don't get to say that. It's nobody's fault but that... thing. It was the one who did that to you."
The Doctor lets a small smile cross her face. "I'm still sorry," she says, and Clara opens her mouth to object but she cuts over her, "But, Miss Oswald, I think you're my lucky charm. I am finally ginger."
Clara's face contorts in confusion, and then amusement. "There's a story behind that, isn't there." She sets her elbows atop her knees, and then leans forward, interlocking her fingers under her chin. "Tell."
"Anything for you, Clara."