Dull throbbing. Pounding. Trapped and hidden from view, words twisted, heart beating fast. Alive, alive, alive, and yet so very dead, dying.
Clara Oswald scrunched her eyes open to gaze at the scene of Skaro collapsing around her. Sighing, she rubbed her temples; desperately trying to ignore the pain that was resurfacing after the adrenaline was wearing off following the Doctor and her having to go on the run.
The Doctor. Clara looked around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Time Lord and his TARDIS. Sadly, there was no Doctor to be seen. But he would come back for her, Clara knew. A year ago or so, she would've been unsure, still holding that hand behind her back. But that was then, and now, well- Clara was certain that her Doctor would never leave her. She was Clara Oswald, after all, and what mattered was that they were in the TARDIS, together.
A smile crept onto her face as she heard the said vorping noise from the blue box in question. Gathering herself, ignoring the shooting ache throughout her bones, Clara sat up from the dusty sand of the Dalek home planet and stepped nearer to the time machine, snapping her fingers. The doors shot open, and she bounded inside.
"Where'd you go off to then?" Clara asked, tracing her fingers along the console as she brought herself nearer to the Time Lord occupant. "You dashed in quite a hurry."
"Back in time, to right my wrongs," the Doctor replied, softly chuckling. "I'd wondered where Davros got his mercy from. It just took me to show it to him."
"See, you always strive to be a good man." Clara Oswald beamed, now close to the Doctor, she rubbed his hand, slack on the gears, slowly. "But you are- okay, right? I mean, you feel fine and everything? Can't imagine being with Davros was too fun," she worried.
"Yes, Clara, I'm fine. Really." The Time Lord sighed, patting her hand in response to her ministrations before stepping back to judge her whole being. "I'm a tad worried about you, however." He paused, eyeing her warily. "Are you okay?"
"Of course, yeah, totally," the Impossible Girl answered, rolling her eyes to the obviously absurd question, overlooking the part of her head that had suddenly decided to erupt on fire. "Don't worry, Doctor, I'm good." She yawned, drawing it out, before glancing sheepishly at the Time Lord. "A little sleepy though, I suppose." She wasn't tired in the least, not really, the throbbing traveling through her veins a tad bit distracting and painful, but it was better to hide the damage from the Doctor in her room than have him fussing over her for the greater part of an hour.
"Okay then, go wash up and sleep. You deserve it," The Gallifreyan eventually answered her back, after a few minutes of pointed glaring. "Let me know if you need anything, alright?"
"Absolutely," Clara nodded, already heading down from the console to the rooms in the lower half of the TARDIS. "See you later, Doctor."
She had been half hoping that the soft orange lights in her bedroom (firefly mode, she liked to call it), would somehow help her to rest more, but Clara instead found herself tossing and turning across her bed, trying to find a position to read some Jane Austen and catch up with her lesson plans for the rest of the week. After spending more than thirty minutes realizing she had more bruises in more places than she would like to admit, Clara abandoned her lesson planning altogether and, miraculously coming across a spot on her side that didn't send her whole entire body into spasms of pain, decided to go to bed. Sighing, she reached for the light switch above her four poster and soon, too exhausted to keep fighting anymore, fell into a deep sleep.
The Dalek again, the telepathic controls driving into her brain, attempting to make her one of the hive mind. Sowing out all the love in her brain, and replacing it with hate. Her name, becoming lost to her, echoed out in the resounding sounds of "Exterminate!" She plugged her ears, willing the music of "Carmen" to drown out the endless noise.
Then the Doctor came, back in his old body, bowtie, chin, and all. She helped him navigate the Dalek Asylum with Amy and Rory. It was what she was born to do, in the end- save the Doctor. She wanted to travel the stars, but she was a Dalek, he said. Still, she dragged down the shields, willing him to remember.
He ran, and ran, and there was death, right upon her. But she was human, yes, so, so human.
She screamed as her world fell apart, but knew nobody would listen; nobody was going to come-
Oh god, there was just a void, nothingness- Even he wouldn't be able to recall her name one day-
Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Manger. Starship Alaska.
"CLARA! CLARA! CLARA? Wake up!"
The Impossible Girl shot awake, breathing heavily, surprised to see the Doctor looming above her, her head in his hands. Jolting backwards out of his grip, Clara exhaled deeply as she reconfirmed with herself that she was in her bed, absolutely safe. Now time to address the elephant (or Time Lord) in the room. "Doctor- what? What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Clara, you were screaming. So loud in fact, I could hear you from reading A Brief History of Time in the library." The Doctor frowned, attack eyebrows in all their glory. "Do you feel better now?"
"Yeah," Clara shook her head. "I just had a dream… a nightmare, or whatever. Really, Doctor, I'm fine. I'm good."
The Doctor wringed his hands, still glaring. "The Dalek… Telepathic controls… Clara, I wouldn't be surprised if it had some adverse effects." He studied her, trying to confirm his hypothesis. "I can't imagine Missy was that kind to you either," the man reflected, sighing. "Are you sure that you don't wish to tell me anything?"
Her whole body practically resounded in pain to tell the silly old man yes, but Clara could not bring herself to worry him further- he already looked as if he had aged fifty years in just the past few seconds of their conversation. "I'm wonderful, Doctor. I promise. Everyone has a nightmare from time to time. I just need to keep sleeping; I'll be right as rain tomorrow." She pointed to the door. "So go, okay, and stop worrying yourself over me, big bad Time Lord."
"Very well then," the Doctor nodded to her request as he picked himself off her bed and moved back to the entryway of her bedroom. "Goodnight Clara," he said, before exiting the room and back to the library to finish his book.
"Goodnight, Doctor," she softly replied, wondering what it would have been like to have him next to her in bed, his arms wrapped around her waist in comfort- Stop thinking about things that will never happen, Oswald, Clara admonished herself, before rolling on her side again and turning off the light, plunging the space into darkness.
If there ever was a hell, Clara Oswald surely felt it in the next week at Coal Hill.
Since leaving the TARDIS the morning after her embarrassing middle of the night moment with the Doctor, she had honestly expected things to only go up from there. But if anything, things were worse. Not only did the nightmares and headaches increase in number and worsen in pain over the course of the nighttime, but the continual numbness and throbbing of her mind was slowly stretching into the daylight hours, and certainly not made any better with the already mind-boggling chatter of her schoolchildren. Only her bruises appeared to be healing in any form.
Memories, but somehow not, seemed to also come from nowhere at any time. A T.S. Eliot poem in class caused her to think of being run over by a New York subway in the 1920s, flapper dress on after attending a jazz concert in Harlem. A mug of beer reminded her of a Victorian governess moonlighting as a barmaid, and a yellow 1960s convertible caused her to think of an old curly-haired gentleman glimpsing a sight of a girl in the rearview mirror of his beloved vehicle, Bessie. A crimson red outfit that she purchased in the shops after school even brought to mind the setting of red dual suns against an orange sky, and days spent in a corridor fixing time capsules.
Of course, she could never truly hold onto these fleeting moments of her consciousness. They only lasted for seconds at a time, but always caused her head to combust in flames. Especially in trying to remember any specific detail, her body would react violently, a large shudder echoing through her bones.
Even worse, Clara's senses seemed to be going haywire. Sights, sounds, smells, and particularly touches triggered intense reactions. They overwhelmed her, and instigated so much pain at times that she was convinced she was about to fall to pieces. Skin on skin contact, predominantly, was the worst. Emotions, regrets, and memories flowed about into her mind from all corners of human interaction, leaving her so overwhelmed that she spent an entire Thursday pressing herself desperately into the worn leather sofa in the teacher's lounge, trying to avoid the onslaught of discomfort. This happened to be such a worrying act to her colleagues that the head of school himself had insisted that she return home to her flat.
Clara barely got to the hallway of the flat that afternoon before she fell over onto the carpet of her living area, clutching her aching head, tears coming to her eyes. Love, loss, hope, kindness, anger, erupted all around her from the other human beings around her. She couldn't stand this anymore, couldn't take the pain any longer. This was ruining her life, and all she wanted was help. Help from the only person she knew that possibly could.
"Doctor, where are you?" she whimpered through her mind. "Please, it hurts. Oh, Doctor-"She echoed, falling asleep and slipping into darkness until-
The miracle sound reached her ears of the TARDIS landing in reality.
"Clara, I don't how, but you're brushing up against my mental shields- are you- Oh."
The Impossible Girl looked up from the floor, embarrassed at being woken up from her nap, at the Time Lord next to her. His eyes were wide, his eyebrows practically about to drop off. "I'm so sorry, Doctor," she whispered, pushing her forehead even more into the softness of the material on the ground.
"Oh, Clara, my Clara," the Doctor sighed, shaking his head as he got on the carpet with her, gently coaxing her up from the floor with a sense of gentleness that was rare to see in this regeneration. "You don't have to be sorry." He gestured to her as she still clutched her head in her hands. "How- how long has this been going on?"
"Since Skaro," the woman shook her head. "And it's not just this- there have been- memories, echoes, I don't know what- racing through my brain too." Clara glanced at him pleadingly. "Doctor, what's wrong with me?" She choked down a sob. "Oh god, Doctor, what's happening to me?"
"Clara, it's okay," the Time Lord soothed, awkwardly but kindly rubbing her back in an almost sickeningly sweet manner. He placed his hands on her shoulders. "Like I said, being trapped in that Dalek, with those telepathic control cords plugged into your brain- They must have some adverse effects."
"But what's going on?" Clara questioned.
"The telepathic controls require binding to telepathic centers in a subject's brain," the Doctor began to explain, still massaging her back. "Humans usually don't have much of these, and they predominantly lay latent, even in the chance of them being activated- but you, Clara Oswald, are special." The man closed his eyes, faltering in his rubbing motion for a while, before shaking his head and continuing on. "How much do you recall of Trenzalore, Clara? The first time, at my grave?" the Time Lord asked.
"Not much, I suppose," the woman thought. "I remember making the decision to fall into your time stream, you saving me- but, that's about it," she admitted. "I had to erase the memories of your echoes, those splinter Claras scattered by the time winds in order to save me, afterwards," the Doctor replied, lowering his head a little so as not to meet Clara Oswald's eyes. "They were plaguing you. If I hadn't, well, it would've been too much for a human to handle. You would have died in days." He sighed, continuing his tale. "But the Dalek- connecting to your telepathic centers, must not have only unlocked fleeting glimpses of those lives, but also set charge to the hidden secret of telepathic power in your brain- made even more prominent in the wake of some of your echoes being telepathic. And it was too much for you. I'm sorry, Clara," the Time Lord finished, meeting her gaze once again.
"But you can help fix me, right?" Clara asked. "You can go into my mind again, take out my memories?"
"Yes, I can let your mind just barely remember your echoes again, and I can tamper down your emerging telepathic abilities," the Doctor returned. "But for erasing every hint of an echo, or completely dampening your telepathy- I don't believe that I can without serious damage."
"Then do it," Clara Oswald urged. Seeing the hint of discomfort on the Gallifreyan's face, she heaved a sigh. "Doctor, please. I- I don't care about you going to in my mind, seeing everything. There's nothing much to hide. And I know, I know it's an intimate gesture, I know there's a lot of danger in doing it, but please, Doctor," she looked him in the eyes. "I need you to help me." She could see that he was hesitant, but the Time Lord eventually cracked in the wake of the sad smile of his Impossible Girl.
"Alright, Clara," he agreed finally, holding up his fingers to her temples. "Just place anything you don't want me to see behind a closed door."
Clara nodded, closing her eyes, sitting up from the carpet. "I'm ready."
As his fingers met her forehead, nothing could have prepared her for the onslaught of otherness that assaulted her brain. Pure adoration, worry, intelligence, kindness, and righteous anger flowed through her. Planets and galaxies and times that she would never even be able to see flittered into her brain, and knowledge that could control civilizations battered her from all sides. Stars were born, and shined and supernovae in instants, and moments as simple as a dewdrop sliding off a piece of red grass seemed to last for eternity.
And then he was there, softer, gentler, soothing. A beautiful blue ribbon blanketed the throbbing madness of yellow in what Clara recognized resembled her own mind. She sighed with relief as the aching pain that had she had become so accustomed too since her dealings with the Daleks floated away, still there, but much duller- controllable.
Her heart fluttered as she felt his happiness in her discomfort subsiding, and her breath caught in her throat as she sensed a deep, caring need inch through every part of her being, red hot and pink soft and forever, blinding her but making her see all at once. Her echoes again were brought to the forefront of her memory, but they no longer scalded and burned. Instead, all Clara managed to feel was the Doctor's appreciation, his gratitude at having her there to save him, again and again, keeping him alive, him tucking them, those splinters of Clara, into a safe corner of her consciousness.
She couldn't let this be one-sided anymore. Although unsure of how to do so exactly, Clara focused on sending her Time Lord the same exact emotions, and even more- happiness in their adventures, in their soft touches, her utter devotion absolutely deserved in his always coming back for her. Though she could sense that he was startled at the feelings coming his way for once, the Impossible Girl knew that he was pleased, elated, beatific, even, basking in the warmth of the glow from his Clara.
Suddenly, reality meshed with the communion in their minds as the lips of the Doctor met hers. Surprised for a second, Clara then beamed and melted into his arms, the saltiness of their tears mixing with the sweet tastes of their tongues. They were folding over and over against each other, like waves lapped up against the seashore, the pleasure of the water beneath their toes urging them along, making them never wanting to stop.
After what seemed like a forever, the Gallifreyan broke away from the kiss at last, glancing back at Clara, smiling. "Oh, Clara Oswald," he shook his head. "I will always be here to help you."
Wiping the last of her tears off her face, Clara nodded, grinning as well. "It is a promise, I suppose, isn't it?" she replied.
Laughing softly, the Doctor brought his lips to hers again, and their minds exploded in the overwhelming sensation of completeness, unity, commitment, compassion, dedication, and understanding, further leading them, like icebergs, to melt in the warmness of the ocean.
Some silly humans might even dare to call it love.