Note: I've been watching "The Time of the Doctor" over and over and over again and it is so infuriating, so painful, so wonderful that I couldn't help but turn my thoughts into words. This is my own (rough and terribly drafted) interpretation of Eleven's regeneration, both adapated/changed from the original episode, from Clara's POV.
I
He stood as he always stood, suspended between two worlds: reality and the impossible. Alone.
His clothes, the fabric permeated with dust and memories, were ragged and torn, yet his eyes remained the same; alive with colour and intensity, Clara had always thought they held entire galaxies of their own rather like the ones they explored together. She looked at him now, silently pleading with him to look at her, but his gaze remained elsewhere entirely.
"Doctor?" One word, a single word, a name in fact, and yet it caused her voice to tremble.
Finally, he glanced at her as if only just realising her presence. Immediately, his face appeared to flood with colour. Noticing this, she could not help but smile and feel her own heart pulsate with happiness.
"You…" He gazed at her as if she had appeared from thin air, a vision, a sudden apparition. The corners of his mouth curled into a familiar half smile. "You."
"Yes, Doctor." Clara said, almost breathlessly, walking towards him. "I'm here. Everything is okay. You're…not alone anymore."
When the distance between them both had finally dissipated, she stopped and allowed her hands to fall awkwardly by her waist. She was unsure with what to do with them, where to put them, as she always was. A trait he had always picked up on. He seemed oblivious to it now, though, as his eyes bore into her own. Clara frowned slightly, noticing that his irises were slightly clouded, as if veiled by fog. She had never seen them look this way before; colour burnt beneath the fog, like fireworks, though it did not appear to be strong enough to break the surface. It remained beneath, faded and distant. Weak.
II
"You," The Doctor continued, oblivious to her concern, allowing his hands to trace her skin.
His fingertips brushed her cheeks and charted her lips. He gazed her as if she were not of any of the worlds he had ever known, as if she were something else entirely. "You, are impossible…"
Clara closed her eyes momentarily, savouring the touch of his fingertips as they rested upon her cheeks. "I am impossible. Your impossible girl, remember?"
The Doctor remained unfazed by the words, almost as if he had not heard them at all.
"You waited…all those years…the nights, even when they grew cold, you waited…"
She frowned slightly, concerned by his delirium. "Waited for what, Doctor?"
Still, he ignored her. Lost entirely in his own thoughts.
"I thought you would forget about me…I thought you would choose not to remember."
"How could I ever forget you?" Clara shook her head. "Forgetting would be impossible."
"Impossible." The Doctor breathed.
Clara had never seen him look upon her with such intensity before. They had never stood so close before. She could feel the movement of his chest, sense his ragged breathing.
"Let me hold you," He whispered. "Just let me hold you."
Clara felt her heart ache. He had embraced her so many times, yet the contact had always ended a moment too soon. She yearned for his touch; in fact, she was afraid that if he ever held her again, she would cling to him.
III
He enclosed her in his arms, then; she fell into an abyss of what she had always thought impossible. Skin against skin, she was surprised to find him cold.
"You're the girl who waited." He whispered into her ear. "You're…mine."
"Yours," Clara whispered. "Always."
"Mine." He said, closing his eyes. "My Amelia."
It was only a word, a single word, yet it had the ability to cause so much. Clara felt as if the air had suddenly and violently been knocked out of her lungs. Her heart caved in completely.
"Amelia?" She stared at him with wide eyes, silently begging him to correct his mistake, but the Doctor still wore a faraway smile.
"I'm…I'm –" Clara's words evaporated into empty air. The Doctor was disorientated. She knew that he didn't mean to have forgotten her, to have replaced her with someone else in his memory, yet it still cut like glass. She stared at the being that stood before her and swallowed hard, her throat dry.
Amelia Pond. A fairytale name. A flame-haired girl. The girl. The girl who waited.
Clara had listened to the Doctor's stories of his very best friends, Amy and Rory. He remained haunted by memories of them, yet he would never speak of the deep pain that lingered within his blood. He had travelled many new and unchartered worlds since then, met endless new people, seen universes destroyed and new onces begin…and yet…and yet…he would never forget them. Or rather, her.
Clara had loved the Doctor for as long as she had known him; she had never been in love before, but she was sure that this was what she felt for him. She almost smirked at the thought. Nice one, she told herself. Never been in love before and yet the first person you do fall for is a time-travelling alien, one without a true face or real identity.
But the Doctor did not love Clara; he loved Amelia. It would always be Amelia.
IV
"You're all I have now," She murmured. "Please, remember me."
But the Doctor's clouded vision did not falter.
She began to breathe deeply. Don't cry, she told herself, not now. Not yet.
"Doctor, please." She said, shaking him as gently as she could. "It's…it's me, Clara."
"Amelia…" He whispered, his face growing ever more vacant. His eyes closed, almost as if he were dreaming. "Ah-me-li-a…"
"No," She shook her head, desperately, but her voice had begun to crack. "She's not here anymore. Doctor, please. I'm not her. She's…she's gone."
His eyes remained closed, but a look of unmistakable sadness began to flood across his face until it crumpled completely.
"Amelia…" He began to weep heartbreakingly softly. "My Amelia."
Clara could not bear it anymore. She wanted to scream as loud as she could, anything to wake him from his painful reverie. She shook him, but he barely moved an inch. And then it happened.
One moment she was holding him complete in her arms, the next his skin became infiltrated with a translucent glow. Sparks flew and exploded like fireflies. He was fading, he was –
"No." Clara shook her head, this time more slowly, as if she were struggling to hold up its weight.
Her body grew weak and she had to lean against the wall of the TARDIS to prevent herself from losing her balance completely. In doing so, she let go of the Doctor and it almost seemed that this only intensified the process of his regeneration.
"Doctor, no!" She cried, her chest had beginning to ache from sobbing so hard.
She flung herself away from the cold metal she had leant against, and staggered over to him. She tried to grip his shoulders with her hands, but they brushed the air. It was like trying to hold onto smoke: impossible.
"Doctor, please, listen to me." She exclaimed. "I don't want you to go…I don't want you to leave. Not now, not yet. If you go…if you leave without remembering who I am…"
He had almost faded completely, now. He was a ghost. A memory of what once was. And yet she could still make out the unmistakable smile that now stained his lips. She knew that he was changing, turning into a different face, but that he would fundamentally remain the same. She knew this, yet her heart still ached.
"Please," Her voice became a strangled whisper. "Remember me."
"How could I ever forget you? Forgetting would be impossible." His eyes, those deep expanses of time and space filled with planets and constellations, were the last to fade. They twinkled as he repeated the words she had spoken. "You're my impossible girl."
Clara clasped a hand to her mouth. "Doctor, I…"
He placed a finger to her lips. "Goodbye, Clara Oswald."
And he faded completely.