The Hybrid, a doctor who fanfic

Inspired by the episode Listen and set between season 8 and 9, after Last Christmas. Clara and the Doctor are an established pair, you can read as much into their relationship as you like… or as little. This is my headcanon for the Doctors background based on some bits and pieces I've read in various metas and reviews of audiobooks etc. Just go with it…. I'm not claiming to have all the answers.

It was obvious from the first day. No-one should have tried to convince him otherwise; it would have come as less of a shock that way. Just accept it, they will always know, they will always judge; you will never be good enough.

It was obvious because when the boy arrived he arrived smaller, paler, lacking the bravado of the others. The others who had known for years this was their destiny, that they were entitled to what lay ahead, that no-one could stand in their way.

It was obvious because no-one cheered him on. No proud family to escort him up the stairs to the old halls above. He had been sent alone, on the overnight transport to the remote school outside the capital, no-one to hold his hand, no-one to reassure, not that the others needed reassuring, just him, nervous to the core.

His father had picked the school. It was the only way, he had said, the only way the boy would ever gain acceptance in a culture which looked down on him from the day of his birth. If he could submerse himself here, prove himself, learn and grow and adapt and embrace everything that was offered then maybe, just maybe it would be enough. Enough to cover his roots, enough to hide the shame.

The boy's father had attended this school, military school, a harsh grounding before the Academy, before he became a Time Lord. The boy would have to do it to. And if he managed then maybe his father would accept him completely at last, the way his mother did already.

His mother. The boy stood before the gates and thought of her. She hadn't been allowed to come. To the school, to the Capitol, the huge city at the centre of the continent. She'd wanted to, unlike his father but her kind were unwelcome here. They would remain unwelcome for hundreds of years yet and even then, when admitted, would remain second class.

And he was half of her and almost as unwelcome. His father had fought for his place and eventually won, his half of the boys blood still holding some influence along with his cash and his position. His father toiled when it came to the boy, resentment and affection in equal measure. A son born from passion that soon turned sour when love wasn't enough to sustain a marriage forged in the disapproval of others. A hybrid of two species who looked so similar but were worlds apart. His parents had thought they could make it work, that their differences didn't matter. Their youthful optimism was a bright light against the darkness of tradition, but it had soon been extinguished. So now his mother was kept from him and his father deposited him here, out of the way, to be transformed into something more acceptable.

It took two thousand years.

XXXXXXXX

The time rotars finally stopped and the TARDIS descended into thick silence. She was waiting for him to move but the pause was playing havoc with her nerves.

'Doctor?'

Silence.

'I think… well we're here….' Clara flicked her gaze between his bent head and the door. He was leaning over the console perfectly still, his eyes closed. 'Doctor?' she pushed.

'I know Clara,' his voice was strained and she kicked herself. Slow down, this is huge, he needs to take his time. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and picked at her nails. She looked back at him, anxiety fluttering in her muscles and tried to calm herself, smoothing her skirt with her palms, chewing her lip.

He never really thought they'd reach this day. He'd told her as much. He'd given up on hurting for a while and thrown himself into their adventures, more relaxed, more dynamic than ever. He'd stripped himself of his magicians coat and worn t-shirts and plaid trousers, grown his hair, picked up a guitar, laughed. Their destination had become a faded pipe dream, a fantasy he entertained no hopes of realising. He'd moved on.

Except he hadn't. When they had got the news she saw all of his fear flood back, saw his muscles tense and the haunted look return to his eyes. He debated with himself, with her, about whether he should even go there at all, perhaps the past was best left alone, and his expression had been so pleading when he'd asked her.

'What do I do, Clara?'

It took the wind from her. The great Time Lord, the master of futures and pasts and everything in between, uncertain if he could face his own history, create a new future. And a part of her wanted to tell him to keep running, just like he always had, just like when she had always known him, run and run and run and keep going until the end of time. There were plenty of other places to go, nothing had to change.

But it had changed, already. Just by knowing, just by the knowledge of its existence and its location, everything had changed and he would never be the same until he laid eyes on it himself, until he touched it. So she'd swallowed and put on her brightest smile, her best reassuring expression and told him.

'Go. Go home.'

He'd moved from the console, a few steps to the side, his eyes fixed on the door and his fingers fiddling with the cuffs of his strangely formal attire. She'd grown so used to the relaxed version of him that the waistcoat and dress trousers seemed stiff and so unlike him. Only the softness of the red velvet coat giving away the new side to the Doctor she had found. He fiddled and swallowed and chewed on a nail, edged closer to the door, glanced back at her. He didn't look like the Saver of Worlds now.

Clara nodded encouragement and tried to bite down her own nerves. He had his hand flat against the wood now and she wondered if the TARDIS was trying to sooth him through their connection, she could hear her hum in the panels of the ship, his constant companion through all of time and space now taking him these last few steps. What lay on the other side of that door would change everything, Clara knew, so much history, so many events and feelings and individuals, so many memories which had to be flooding through him now. She felt her heart begin to ache for him, watched as the hand which now grasped the handle shook and felt herself drawn closer to him.

She stood at his shoulder, carefully touched his back, listening to the shake in his breath.

'I don't think I can…' he started.

'Shhh, take your time.'

The Doctor lifted his chin a little, swallowed hard past a lump forming in his throat.

'What if…' his voice sounded rough.

'No,' Clara said, 'One step at a time. Don't rush ahead, no what ifs… just… just open the door…. Just look.'

He nodded shortly, clinging hard to her guidance as his mind raced.

And then the door was open.

XXXXXXXX

'This is your dormitory,' the Guardian gestured to the long room. She was formidable and starched, the opposite of his mother, no colour to her features, no smile. The room was the same. Grey floor, grey walls, high windows with little light. Everything clad in stone and cold to the touch. Dozens of beds, lined up neatly, a few inches off the ground, grey blankets, a chest at the end of each one with the child's belongings. The other boys were already there, unpacking and dressing, new uniforms, shining with buttons and medals, little achievements already reached in the year before. 'And this is your bed…'

Right in the corner, squeezed in at the end, cold wall above the bedhead, and one to the right. Grey blanket folded at the foot of the cot, chest open and empty. The boy put down his case, looked up at the woman for instruction. 'What do I do?' he asked uncertainly.

'Unpack. Dinner is in an hour, then you wash, in there…' she pointed beyond the end of the dormitory nearest his bed to an equally grey open wetroom, 'Then study. Then bed. Make sure you're prepared for tomorrows first classes,' he felt her eyes rake over his small frame, 'You only have one chance, don't let your poor father down after all he's done for you, you should be thankful you're here at all, your type aren't admitted under… normal circumstances. Remember what you are.'

And she turned and left. He stood looking at his case, his arms still aching from dragging it in, and fighting the urge to cry at how alone he suddenly felt, how unwelcome. He wanted his mother, he wanted to go home. He couldn't. Stay busy, stay occupied. He bent and opened the catches, started to unpack, dropping neatly folded clothes that smelled of home into the chest.

'Hey,' the voice behind him sharp and confident. The boy looked up to find the others had wandered over, curious at the new pupil.

'Hello,' he said and smiled. Be nice, always be nice, his mother had advised, there's no reason the other boys shouldn't like you for who you are, it shouldn't matter about your heritage.

'Hello!' a tall blonde boy mimicked in a high pitch. 'Listen to him! What a girl.'

'You're new,' the confident voice said. The voice was attached to a broad boy with dark hair.

'Yes,'

'Where were your parents? When you got dropped off?'

'They… they couldn't come.'

'Liar,' another boy spat, 'They always come, it's the proudest moment of their lives, their sons on the road to being Time Lords…. All of our parents came…'

'They… they were… busy.'

'Why couldn't they come?' the confident boy folded his arms, 'What was so important they just dumped you here?'

'They didn't dump me…' he felt his lip quiver and saw his new companion scoff, cast a knowing glance at his friends.

'Didn't they? Looks like they did,' the tall blonde boy observed, 'Dumped, like rubbish.'

A few of them were surrounding him now, pushing back against the walls, trapping him between the bed and the corner.

'Let me think…' the dark boy said, 'Why wouldn't someone have their parents here…. Unless their parents weren't allowed…'

A murmur of agreement.

'We heard matron talking…' someone piped up. 'Didn't believe it at first… one of you lot… here…'

More murmuring.

'Disgusting,' someone said.

'No right to be here… you're not one of us.'

'Never be one of us…'

'Hybrid.'

The boy looked quickly from one face to another, from the dark boy to the blonde, to a row of their friends behind and to the ugly expressions that now surrounded him.

'Wonder how much your father had to pay, to hide his dirty secret…'

'Not a secret anymore…'

'Not now we know.'

A hand at his shoulder shoving and then his body caught by another set of arms. He was quickly propelled back again, and again, pushed back and forth between the boys, rebounding off their taller frames and firmer muscles, their tanned skin and their wide smiles thick with white teeth flashing in the corner of his vision. He stumbled and they pushed him down, in the tiny gap by the bed and on reflex he curled into a ball just before the first boot struck his belly. At the end of the bed hey tipped open his chest, threw his belongings to one another, ripped the cloth of his new uniform. The shining buttons flew across the grey slate floor.

'You shouldn't even have a uniform,' the first button pelted him, then another and another, their aim accurate and the metal sharp when it stung his cheek, his arms raised in protection. He felt blood trickle from a cut above one eye and with it the tears started in earnest. He'd never been hurt before, not like this, not out of malice. He could feel their ridicule and hatred in the waves coming from their minds. Why did they hate him? It didn't make sense. He'd only just arrived.

Eventually they stood back, sweat on their faces and breathing heavily, casting him a final look before returning to their own business. Minutes passed and then the boy peered over the edge of the bed, found the matron guardian standing over him, idly holding one of his shirts by her fingertips. It had been thrown on the ground, torn by his dorm-mates.

'You made such a mess,' she said, 'You're revolting. Clean up.'

XXXXXXXXX

It was every bit as beautiful as he had always described and beyond the swirling clouds, above rich oceans, Clara could see the dual orange suns. The TARDIS hung just outside its atmosphere but close enough to pinpoint cities and mountains, huge lakes and vast deserts. It was real, it was there, the place he had thought he had destroyed, the people he thought he had lost, the home he had been searching for. Her heart was bursting for him, he deserved this.

The Doctor was leaning against the door and Clara could see the reflection of the seas below in his eyes. She slipped her arms around him and rested her head against his shoulder, squeezed his middle gently, tried to convey that she understood just a little of how hard this had to be, that she was there if he needed her, that she was proud of him. She could feel his heartbeats growing faster under her hands and his valiant attempts to slow his breathing.

She kissed the back of his coat, nuzzled him. 'Does it look the same?' she asked

'Yes…. sort of… yes…' his voice was distant Clara pressed her lips together and looked at his profile, not releasing her embrace. She could feel him tremble, the core of him, each limb, she wondered if she should sit him down in the doorway, let him take his time and absorb the sight. Or maybe he needed more, needed to feel its suns, its grass, its snow.

'Do you want to go down there? See what it's like on the ground?' she asked.

'I don't know… I don't know what's left down there after… everything….'

She nodded, stroked his arm gently. His eyes were fixed on a single spot on the planet's surface and she wondered what it might be.

'Well whatever you want to do, whenever you want to do it that's OK,' she said. 'You've waited a long time…. You need to do this your way.'

'What if I don't want to do it at all?' he asked quietly.

Clara frowned and leaned forward to look better into his face but he ducked, a fluid motion that let him slip from her arms and cross the floor of the console room, the TARDIS door spinning shut behind him. She hovered for a second and in that time he had made his way to his chair on the balcony above.

XXXXXXXXX

They knew, they all knew and it made his every weakness an even bigger target. It made perfect sense now, why he was smaller, thinner, paler, weaker. Why they all stood at least a head taller than him. Why he couldn't keep up in lessons quite as well. Why when they were made to play sports he was exhausted and panting long before they were. They were in training, in training for the Academy, in training for becoming Time Lords. They came from the very best of families, from generations of Time Lords previously and even though they were yet to look into the schism their physiology was already better, stronger, faster than his hybrid body.

They were on the verge on manhood, he was still very much a child. And they saw it.

He was so tired. The others needed so little sleep. They'd study, then play and talk and dream of future adventures. They'd lie together on the bunks and whisper about far away planets and times. They had endless energy. They climbed and ran and jumped. They never fell.

He fell all the time, his body a testimony to each accident, a multitude of bruises on his skin. He was no good at the things they made him do. He was no good at military school. He still wanted his mother. He hated it but he couldn't avoid it. Everyone here was bigger, everyone here hated him, why couldn't he go home, why couldn't he just be allowed to be who he was? He didn't want to learn to use weapons, he didn't want to march in time, he wanted to learn how things worked, look at the tiny animals that lived in his garden and the birds in the trees.

He wanted to sleep.

When he had been at home his mother had put him to bed, warm and safe, in thick pyjamas with a favourite toy and a hot drink. She'd read him stories, left on a light, stroked his cheek and soothed him when the owls shrieked at night and the other creatures noises made him jump. And he would sleep, sleep for hours until he was good and ready, until she woke him. Because she understood, she understood because she needed sleep too, because she was like him in that way, he took after her.

The other boys had soon seen his weakness. Every time he dozed off under the coarse blanket of his cot they would wake him. At first with noises, whoops and cackles and laughter. Then other more sinister sounds, the imitations of unfamiliar wildlife chilling him and setting his imagination alight. It wasn't like home, the noises his mother explained as nighthawks and birdsong. When he became too tired for the boys shouting to work they would crawl under his bed, grabbing at him or leaping from the darkness, land on his body, wrestle with his frightened half awake and puny frame, press the pillow to his face while he fought them. They'd hide insects and rats under blankets with long legs and claws, pour water in his mouth or further down the sheets, tell the matron he had messed himself, point and laugh at his disgrace and her anger.

He grew afraid. He stayed awake.

But he was a child, on his mother's home planet he would have been considered less than that, an infant barely old enough for school. He needed rest and safety, so gradually he sought out safer places, roamed the school and its grounds, checked the closed rooms adjacent to the dormitory and squeezed himself into the smallest nooks. Dark where no-one would look, too tight for the other boys to fit, curl himself up and try to rest. A few minutes, maybe an hour before they came looking.

Eventually the delight the other boys had in disturbing him caused too much disruption. Though no one cared what happened to the boy his friends were becoming altogether too rowdy, weren't focusing on their work, they were mildly chastised but it seemed so unfair. Sensing things would not improve the boy wandered further and found a hiding place out of range. A barn became his bedroom. At the end of the land which joined to the school, near to the farms beyond, near to more familiar countryside, he would walk there each night after supper, climb the ladder to the loft and try to sleep.

Alone. It was dark and exposed and he was frightened and the tears came more easily here because the others couldn't hear. The empty space in his mind where telepathy usually lived made him nervous, he was too far from the others to sense them. When he had been with his family he could feel his mother there, watching over him. When he'd been in the dorm he felt the presence of others whatever their intent, malicious or disinterested. Now he felt nothing, and it hurt. And odd prickling pain at the base of his skull. He'd rub at it and scratch at his hairline, squeeze his eyes shut and try to will it away but it wouldn't shift. So each night would feel the same, curled up by himself on the platform above the hay bales, the pain nagging him, until it became no longer pain but strange comfort, something familiar in the emptiness around him.

The tears never really stopped, they only dried.

XXXXXXXX

'You can't sit there forever,' Clara called up to the balcony, 'It's been a week. I know this is going to be scary, but this isn't the way to tackle it….'

She heard a shift in the darkness above her and a small sniff. She sighed.

'Doctor?'

'How do you suggest I tackle it?' he asked drily. 'I spent long enough thinking I destroyed my home world only to discover I hadn't but it was missing and now it's there and…'

'And this is a good thing.'

'Is it? Is it that simple? Clara you have no idea.'

'Then tell me, talk about it. What are you thinking? What are you frightened of?'

Silence.

'I'm not saying there won't be things to… address…' Clara pursued, 'but there's so much good that could come from this. Forget being Queen… forget all that 'important official' stuff. Your family are on that planet, your friends, your people…'

'My people…' he echoed slowly.

'Yes! All that time you thought you were the last. Well you aren't now…. They're all there just waiting… waiting to…'

'Welcome me?'

'Yes!'

A short laugh.

'What?'

'Waiting to welcome me…' he singsonged without humour, 'I doubt that.'

'There's history I know… with the Time War…. Its complex…. But you can address that…. They'll want to address that…. But they haven't given up on you…. They want you back. Remember Trenzalore… they sent you another set of regenerations. If they were that mad at you they could have just left you to die. I told them, if they loved you, they had to save you…. And they did. Doesn't that mean anything?'

Slowly the lights above her started to increase, the utter darkness of the balcony now falling into shadow and a faint glow. The Doctor's silhouette came into view first and then the detail of his body emerged. His coat undone, his shirt collar too, hair ruffled. There were dark circles under his eyes and his face fell in weary repose. But it was his posture that caught her eyes, a position of defensive defeat, huddled in the chair, closed in upon himself. He had one hand at his mouth gnawing at his thumb and she could see even from where she stood that his eyes were unusually moist.

'They don't love me,' he said. 'They've never loved me… it's too little too late,'

'Don't…' she tried kindly.

'Don't? Don't?!' he rose from the chair suddenly, 'What you think it'll all be fine now? We've sorted the Time War and the little problem of the missing planet. They've given me a nice new set of lives? Do you think we can let bygones be bygones and move on, build a better world?'

Clara stood stunned. Wasn't that what he had always wanted, to go home? To start again there? To find his children? To stop running?

'Doctor I understand this is emotional, that you've been hurt over the years, that the whole thing has been a total mess but maybe it is time to see past all of that and start again for everyone's sakes.'

'No.'

'Doctor!'

'No Clara… you weren't there… you don't know…. These people will take from you when it suits them, use you if it helps their cause. Oh I'll be a hero now I'm sure, welcomed back with open arms, made crown prince or president or… or…'

'Doctor what are you getting at?'

'I'll never be enough!' he exclaimed and he stopped at the top of the stairs, hand resting on the banister, energy seeping from him. His who physique drooped and his voice became soft. 'I will never be enough, never be good enough…. It doesn't matter what I do. And I don't want to live under that judgement again…'

'What judgement, what are you talking about?'

'They never wanted me to become a Time Lord in the first place, tried everything to stop it happening, made my life a misery…. All because…. Because I wasn't like them…'

'Weren't like them how?'

The Doctor paused, looked down at the hand that rested on the railing, examined the delicate intricacy of the fingers, bones, nails. Simple flesh and skin. 'I'm half human, Clara, in their eyes I was a joke from the start. An inferior, second class citizen, reviled, mocked, at best tolerated. I was joke.'

XXXXXXXX

They lost interest, the other boys, once he moved to the barn. Out of sight, out of mind. Disconnected and alone. Disconnected from them, from his guardians and from his family; physically and telepathically isolated. Once they all discovered his secret, took some time to play on it, jeer at him, break his spirit, they lost interest and moved on, absorbed in their own lives.

But the damage was already done and he believed himself to be less than them, worthless, weak and pitiful. He would hear the Guardians come to the barn from time to time and stare up at him irritated and perplexed. Why was he up there? Why didn't he just sleep in the dormitory? Why did he keep crying all the time? Didn't he know he had to be a lot braver than this to get anywhere? It was laughable, his father's ambition. A Time Lord? This creature? He wouldn't even make it out of the school in one piece. The army was as far as he would get and even then… he was a coward, a snivelling, crying coward and there was nothing they could do for him. They should tell his father really, that his embarrassing hybrid child was failing, they should have him removed, but then his father had money and status and the child didn't take up much space or time. Let him lie there in the loft and cry, it was all he was good for.

They walked away and left him to his tears and his loneliness and the nightmares that came with it.

XXXXXXX

'You're half human?' Clara's eyes were as wide as her smile as she watched him fidget. 'That's what you're worried about?'

'Yes,' he snapped, 'You've got it out of me, half human, weak, unfinished, barely telepathic, barely able to use what I learned at the Academy, barely passed the Academy in the first place. I'm a Time Lord… just... but I'm not who you think. And if I go back down there…' he hesitated, 'If I go back down there…. You'll see exactly what I mean, you'll see them and then you'll look at me and see that I…. I'm not what you….' He deflated, shoulders slumping.

She stood at the bottom of the steps and looked up at him.

'Do you honestly believe you aren't good enough?' she asked levelly.

'I was supposed to be so much better.'

'Half pudding brain?' Clara's lip quirked and he glared at her. 'That's what all this is about?'

'This is exactly why I don't tell you things,' he said, 'I'm serious! There's a reason I've been running all this time, a reason I've been avoiding it, I'm dreading it Clara, I'm dreading that feeling, I'm dreading being made to feel like I did then….' He stopped, took a quick breath and tried to stop tears from spilling, blinking briefly at the ceiling. Clara softened a little.

'When? Like you did when?'

'When I….' he looked away, embarrassed. 'When I was a child, when they first took me.'

'Took you?'

'To school, away from my mother….' His eyes flicked up warily to check her reaction, to check if she was laughing. Clara looked back at him steadily.

'It was awful for you wasn't it,' she said. A nod.

She nodded back, took one of his hands. 'You're not a child now, you've more than proved yourself, you don't need to fear them, you're better than them, always have been.'

'No Clara, I've made many, many mistakes, done some awful things.'

'I know, but you aren't like them, you aren't, you're right. You're better.'

His uncertainty still fell from him in soft waves but she could feel him lingering outside of her mind desperate to believe in her belief in him. Clara climbed the stairs until she was better level with him and ran a hand through his dishevelled hair, touched his face. 'You're worried, I can feel it, so you're not that terrible at transmitting Mr Time Lord…' he gave her a sad smile. 'And you're human… partially…' she said and laughed at his grimace, 'But that means humanity, you're humane, however you want to term it, and that's what makes you different from them, that's what's precious.'

'I'm not sure that's enough.'

She looked at him then, held his gaze firmly as her fingers traced his cheekbone.

'Do you remember a dream?' she asked, 'You've mentioned it before now, a creature under the bed, a fear that kept coming back?'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Fear has everything to do with it,' Clara said, 'Listen. I know you're afraid, but being afraid is alright…. If you're very wise and very strong fear doesn't have to make you cowardly and cruel…. Fear can make you kind. Just like your humanity; fear is part of what makes us human. And you are always going to be afraid even if you have learned to hide it, fear is like a constant companion and fear can do good. Fear can bring us together, you…. And I…' she looked deep into his eyes and took his hand, raising it to her lips to press a soft kiss to his knuckles, 'Do you see?' she asked, 'Fear can bring you home.'

'Clara…' she saw him realise, she somehow felt him remember that night in the barn and suddenly there was no difference between the boy she had comforted and the man before her now. He was just as afraid, he needed her just as much.

And she had stopped his tears.

'I changed it a little…. But the sentiments the same,' she admitted and watched him smile, 'Now… come on, I'm right there with you.'

Clara snapped her fingers and the TARDIS doors opened onto the orange-gold planet beyond. It was orbiting the dual suns and as such the angle of the light had changed, streaming unfettered into the console room, resting on the Doctors face for the first time in a thousand years.

'Fear can bring me home,' he whispered, and squeezed her hand.