The Parenting Adventure

With a heavy heart the Doctor has decided to move on. He has left Clara after the events on Gallifrey and is ready for a new adventure – when suddenly a girl appears in his TARDIS. Elsie is starting to fade because Clara should be pregnant with their daughter but isn't and Elsie has come back from the future to fix it and bring her stubborn parents together. A plan that sounds a lot easier than it actually is because they are running out of time. Post Hell Bent.

Premise: I've decided to go with my own theory that the Doctor hasn't forgotten Clara at all. I've already made a long post about it on Tumblr and I don't really wanna go into detail again. For this fic the Doctor has pretended to forget Clara cause it was the only way she would have let him go.

Chapter 1

The Doctor pulled down the lever, sending the TARDIS off into the vortex. Where to next? Maybe he should use the randomizer and see where it would take him because right now the heaviness of what he had done was beginning to dawn on him. He needed a distraction. The Doctor had endured 4.5 billion years in his own personal hell just to have a chance to save Clara and even in that he hadn't really succeeded, not as long as she didn't have a pulse. Clara would still have to face the raven eventually but he comforted himself with the thought of her out there, running across the universe until she was tired of it. 4.5 billion years and he had still lost her in the end. There had been no other way, he had had to pretend to have forgotten her – otherwise Clara would have never let him go.

The Doctor suddenly stopped his walk around the console unit and blinked. He opened his eyes again but the vision was still there and no matter how furiously he blinked and shook his head it didn't go away. Hang on, this had happened before. Random girls appearing in the TARDIS. Oh no, not this time. He really wasn't in the mood for trouble.

"What the hell are you doing here?" the Doctor bellowed at the girl. She seemed vaguely familiar now that he came to think about it. Brown, curly hair, large eyes, somewhere between 5 and 15 years old – he could never tell the age of children. No, he didn't know her.

And just like that the girl smiled at him. "I need your help, Doctor," she said sweetly.

The Doctor could have sworn that voice rang a faint bell in his memory but he couldn't quite place it. Why did she seem so familiar when he could have sworn he had never seen her before?

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You know, some write me a message on my psychic paper, some call me," he said warily before his voice took on a stricter tone, "How did you even get here? We're in the time vortex!"

The girl hesitated.

"Well?"

"I came from the future," she blurted out eventually and now she was beginning to look a little desperate, "I didn't travel in space, just in time. I was in your TARDIS, 13 years from now and you sent me back to fix something. Where's Clara?"

The girl looked around, confusing the Doctor only more. From the future. From his TARDIS. Clara.

"How do you know Clara?"

The girl rolled her eyes impatiently and opened her mouth but suddenly seemed to think better of saying what she had meant to say. Instead she took a deep breath. "Listen, Doctor, something has happened and I strongly suspect the Time Lords were behind it cause whoever it was, they've done a pretty good j-"

Her sentence was abruptly cut short when the girl suddenly started to flicker before the Doctor's eyes but in a matter of seconds she was back and seemed solid again. He took a step closer just to see it for sure.

"Sorry, that happens sometimes," she apologized quickly, "And that's exactly the problem. I was in the TARDIS with you and Clara when it started and she suddenly disappeared from one moment to the next. Something's gone wrong and we need to fix it."

The Doctor eyed her with curiosity. He wanted Clara back more than anything in the world but they were the hybrid, eventually they would go too far. And why should he trust a strange girl that had randomly appeared in his TARDIS?

Suddenly the girl held up a shining object. A key. A TARDIS key. Somehow the entire situation made less sense with every passing minute.

"I know you don't trust me but in the future you will. Enough to give me a key. Enough to send me back in time to fix everything."

"What's your name?"

"I'm Elsie," she replied, smiling again. Maybe she was telling the truth? She looked at him as if she knew him.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Well, Elsie, nice of you to visit but there's nothing I can do. Clara is gone and I have no idea where to find her. She could be anywhere in time and space. And you were right, we recently encountered the Time Lords and I can't ever see Clara again. See, together we are the hybrid, a thing so dangerous it could destroy the universe."

Elsie chuckled, though why the Doctor didn't know. "And you believed that? Has it ever occurred to you that they might have been lying to you? That the hybrid is something else entirely? That the real reason they wanted it erased from time has nothing to do with fear but with the fact that they're assholes?"

The Doctor's eyes widened at Elsie's choice of words.

"Sorry," she mumbled quickly and looked at her feet for a moment. When their eyes met again a few moments later however she seemed to have regained her confidence. "We need to get Clara back. Otherwise I'll cease to exist. I'm only here because of her."

Again Elsie flickered in front of his eyes and when she was solid again she stared at him pleadingly. There was something about those eyes, about that look that made his hearts ache.

"Stop it," the Doctor told her strictly, "Stop looking at me like that. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Elsie started to sniff and a few seconds later broke out into tears while the Doctor stood there helplessly, watching her, not knowing what to do. He hated crying in general but Elsie's crying seemed to be a thousand times worse. He couldn't stand to see or hear it. Why couldn't he stand it?

"Alright, alright," he agreed without even wanting to, but she didn't really leave him a choice, "We'll get Clara back. Somehow. Just stop with the crying."

"Oh, thank you," Elsie suddenly beamed at him as if the tears had never happened, giving the Doctor the impression that it had all been a show before the girl suddenly flung her arms around him and he immediately grew rigid under her touch.

"Uhm," he spluttered, "Elsie, I. . . I don't know if future me likes this but I. . . erm, I don't really do hugs."

"Future you doesn't like it much either," she said and squeezed him more tightly, "Clara and I do it for fun to annoy you."

"Yeah," he growled, "That sounds like her."

Finally Elsie released him from her embrace and the Doctor took a deep breath. What on Earth had made him pick up this girl?

"How did you come to travel with us?" he asked her, "Shouldn't you be at home with your parents?"

Something about that question made Elsie laugh. "I sort of happened to you," she replied with a smile before she made her way around the console, stopping in front of the telepathic interface.

"I still don't know how to find Clara," the Doctor told her, "She has her own TARDIS now, she could be anywhere. Maybe if we searched history for unusual events, well, events I wasn't involved in, we could find her. But it's gonna take some time."

"Mh," Elsie seemed to consider his suggestion before she started to flick a couple of switches on the TARDIS console.

"Hey!" the Doctor cried out, "Stop that! No touching!"

"Calm down, I know what I'm doing," she told him with a smile, "And I will find Clara right now."

The Doctor watched in surprise as telepathic interface came to life and started to glow. So Elsie could fly the TARDIS, at least to some extend. She knew how to operate it so she must have travelled with them for a while. Yet as to why he would bring a child on board of his space ship the Doctor couldn't say. Maybe she was one of Clara's students?

Elsie closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before she sank her hands into the interface. The TARDIS started to gurgle in response as Elsie sent her through time and space, a sound of approval and. . . fondness? Was the TARDIS fond of this girl?

Eventually they landed with a thud and both the Doctor and Elsie cringed at the sound.

"Sorry," Elsie muttered, looking sheepishly at the Doctor, "Haven't flown her so very often yet."

"I could have used the telepathic interface, you know?" he suggested.

The girl smiled at him in response. "It's better I did it. Clara and I, we share a special bond," Elsie explained.

The Doctor frowned at her. "She saved your life, right? That's why you're fading from existence."

"Something like that," she cleared her throat and pointed at the door, "Now go and get your Clara back. She's right out there."

Suddenly the Doctor felt as if he was frozen to the spot. Just a few steps and he would be reunited with Clara and even though for him it couldn't have been more than thirty minutes since he last saw her it felt like an eternity and he had no idea what he was going to say to her. After all, he had lied about the memory wipe.

"Go on!" Elsie coaxed him, smiling.

The Doctor turned back to the TARDIS console and pressed a few buttons. "You know what," he said nervously, "I think it was a bad idea. We should leave."

But Elsie put on the handbrake before he even had the chance to fly away.

"Go out there and talk to her," she ordered him, "And don't even think about coming back without Clara or I'll fly away before you even reach the TARDIS."

The Doctor glared at her, growling. "Always the bossy ones," he muttered under his breath before he started to make his way towards the door. Just one more step.