She stood in the shadows, watching, waiting.
Of course, she was always watching, though sometimes through the gaps of her fingers.
She was always hungry.
The energy of a touch, a single touch, could feed her indefinitely- but as she was inherently greedy, she craved contact. A stare could delay her feast but, in the end, they always looked away, always blinked…
In these ways, she was normal for a weeping angel.
But then, oh but then, there were the thoughts that ran through her head, those pesky thoughts. The long running commentary of her past, the exact details of which blurred into swirly vortexes of images- and she knew she was not born an angel. No, very few were.
She was an angel made.
Sure, she flocked to the abandoned house with the others, consumed the energy of her fair share of unwitting humans, but all the while a sick feeling flooded the hollow where her hearts should have been. She craved time too much for her own good, both then and now.
Tonight, she couldn't join in the frenzy of excitement, even as a jolt rippled through time, a jolt that only meant one thing- Time Lord, better yet, the last Time Lord in the last TARDIS. The others called her to prepare an attack, but she couldn't hear their signals, not with the flurry of thoughts running through her mind.
Memories of a vague trial in the darkest days of the Time Wars, when tyrants freely dealt horrendous sentences on a daily basis. She received the worst sentence one could receive- and she was still living her eternal punishment, a living thing less than a ghost, trapped in stone the moment any living thing laid eyes on her.
Of course, this punishment backfired on the Time Lords in the greatest way possible: the sentenced did not fade away, did not crumble. They adapted, perfectly, to destroy what they once were.
But something else stirred inside her. Another nagging memory that never seemed to leave her alone… a purpose. The trial had been unjust- that fed her unrelenting hunger, her burning hatred for the Time Lord who she felt walking through the door that very instant… and yet…
She froze to stone instinctively when she saw a movement in the next room- a shadow shifted across the wall, but when nothing came through, she resumed being.
She could hear them now, downstairs, two voices clattering through the empty house and the hunger started to gnaw away at her, she longed to join the others in their ambush… but something else came to her first and she solidified.
Whatever is was, its tall, gaunt shadow blocked out the light from the window. It struck a match, illuminated a horrifying sight. Instead of a face was a white blank slate, with only a black slash of a mouth and a nose. She unfroze, it clearly had no eyes, but when she reached out to touch it… nothing. There was no substance to it. She recoiled as she realized it was drawing power from her. It was draining her, she felt her life start to crumble to dust, and she did the only thing she could- fled, in the fraction of a blink, to another part of the house.
She was weak, probably dying. That thing had drained nearly all her energy, nearly erased all her being. Her memories were stronger, as if they had started to break out of the stone crypt they were locked in.
She had not done anything to deserve this. She was young, foolish, driven by some mysterious purpose. She had aided the universe's greatest fugitive, its most dangerous threat. For that, the Time Lords cast her in stone.
Now she could hear the angels' intended victims coming up the stairs.
"…But that's what's so strange," he said, flashing his sonic screwdriver around the room. It lit upon an old, crumbling statue. It must have once been an angel, but one wing had fallen off. "No trace of struggle, and no signs of any aliens at all!" He sounded extremely put out.
"Hey, but we've got a few rooms left! There's bound to be something there!" Martha. She glanced over nervously at the angel, paused, and leaned in closer. "Doctor, look at this one's face. It's… different."
"Well, that is something," he said. He leaned in, nearly nose-to-nose with the statue.
The distance between them burned her, but it wasn't from hunger. Her purpose was clear now. She had saved him once, and been made into a weeping angel for it. Now, she knew she had to save him again, even if it were her undoing.
"It's almost like… a real person. In stone," Martha added.
There was a creak from the next room, and their heads snapped around.
It was the creature, still in the shadows, waiting to kill the Doctor and doom the universe, but she wasn't about to let that happen. She reached out with both hands, and with the smallest brush of her fingers their energy flooded her.
The Doctor and Martha were gone, and she now stood before the angry monster, alone.
But her thoughts ran clear for once.
I've done it again, he's safe now. And now, the moment is here for me to die. But I shall die as I was: a Time Lady, her thoughts screamed, and she saw the creature flinch at their power.
I will be reborn, Great Intelligence. You will burn, but do so in the knowledge that I, Clara Oswin Oswald, became an angel to save the Doctor.
It was her last thought before she was scattered through time and space again.