There is always some confusion after a regeneration.
The fire of it licks through ever cell, every pore, every organ, until he's new and he's fresh and he's different, and although he seems fine, he really, really isn't.
Clara (he thinks her name is Clara, but everything is so muddled and confused in his head, a jumble of faces, and panic, and pain and so many, many people, and this impossible girl has popped up quite a few times) had looked so terrified when she'd first seen him. He wonders what he looks like now. His voice is different-Scottish, he likes that-and his bones creak a little more than usual as he jumps around his TARDIS.
TARDIS.
She hurts.
She screams and shoots sparks in his face, and he finally hears her. "Sorry!" He shouts, to Clara, to the TARDIS, to anyone who will listen, because God knows he's probably about to do something awful and incredibly stupid.
Clara is screaming to, a wonderful, sweet, human scream. He watches her from across the console as they crash.
He hasn't really had any time to catch his breath.
It's all been constant running and crashing and then being swallowed by a dinosaur of all things...
His head hurts, and it's still so very new.
He mixes up names and forgets things and gets so very distracted and it is really the most terrifying thing he has ever experienced.
He doesn't feel like the Doctor. At least, not how he remembers himself. He doesn't feel young and wild and reckless. He just hurts, and he's angry and he just wants to find something and fix it, because he chose this name for a reason.
Clara has been very patient with him, and although he's stil trying to remember how to read emotions, he knows she is angry. She's angry that he's changed.
He's not quite sure how to confront her about it.
She's seen all his other faces. She's fallen through space and time, broken herself into a million tiny echoes and pieces to come and help him. But for some reason, this face, this new, fresh, old face, is different.
Maybe it's because she'd seen it happen. She watched him die, and she watched him come back, and he's not the young man she'd first met, so very long ago.
But he's never been young. Not really.
He thought she knew that. Trusted her to know that.
He's always been so very old and so very young at the same time, but maybe Clara only really loved him because of his younger face. His last face of bowties and tweed, and wild dark hair and no lines.
He wants to show her that he is still the same person. That she's still his Impossible Girl. But this body is new and awkward and his head is still pounding with the echoes of eleven other lives, and everything he says comes out sharp and raw.
He has her back .
Obviously.
But she's still absolutely furious, and it is so wonderful to see. His Clara. Her cheeks are wet with tears, and she is trembling with terror, but she still knows exactly the right words to say to make a robot-monster give her what she wants.
And oh, it's just so fun.
Running with her, fighting with this strangely human creature and then feeling the familiar twist in his hearts as they grapple. He sees so much of himself in these monsters, especially now, when everything is dark and his mind is still seething gold with regeneration energy and quick bursts of pain.
Then it happens.
Clara is looking up at him and she's biting her lip, and she's saying, "Im sorry. I'm so, so sorry," which is something he used to say so often, a few faces ago. Her eyes are sad, but firm, and he looks away because God, he knows.
But she isn't going to be like Martha when she leaves. Because Martha still loved him. She still knew him.
Clara doesn't think she knows him anymore. She's scared of him, and although she really has every right to be, it hurts.
It hurts, and it shakes him down to the marrow of his bones with a kind of searing terror that makes him want to scream.
Still.
He clears his throat to disguise the fact that it's closing with tears and says as her phone rings, "Better get that. Might be your boyfriend."
She's not looking at him.
She runs from the TARDIS and out into the street, and he leans his head back against the TARDIS doors and sighs.
But.
Memories. Always so hazy and confusing.
But.
Think, Doctor. It's important.
"Hello, Clara."
Doctor.
It's the Doctor. It's him, and he remembers now. He remembers the tingling beginnings of regeneration fire in his fingertips and toes, remembers how breathing was so very hard, remembers his hands shaking as he dialed the phone...
Clara is crying. She's leaning up against the wall, hiding her face, but he can see her shoulders shaking.
He wants to help her, and he wants her to help him. Because he's still trying to figure out what kind of man he is, and he doesn't know who else to ask except her. She's seen all his faces. She's loved him. She knows him.
He steps out of the TARDIS and asks, "Is that the Doctor?" at the same time as his last face, echoing himself, and as he says it, he feels the name settle in his chest, his bones, fill the empty spaces inside him, Doctor.
I am the Doctor.
"Yes," Clara whispers.
The terror is raw in his throat now, and when she ends the call and spins to face him, it comes rising out in spitting, pained words that sound more vulnerable than he thought this new, harsher face was capable of being, ""That was me talking. You can't see me, can you? You look at me and you can't see. Do you have any idea what that's like? I'm not on the phone, I'm right here. Standing in front of you. Please just… just see me." It ends in a bit of a rush, and he takes a deep breath as she approaches.
She watches him like she might a particularly interesting movie or puzzle, her head titled a little to the side, eyes searching. He holds his breath.
She smiles, "thank you."
The words scrape from his throat, "for what?"
"Phoning," she says, and her grin widens and he knows that it is going to be something close to alright now. They aren't quite there yet, but-
Clara lets out something that sounds like a laugh and throws her arms around his neck.
Suddenly he tenses, because this doesn't feel like it used to in his old body. Her arms aren't quite right, his don't fit perfectly around her, his chin doesn't rest on her head...
"um," he says. He's not really sure where to put his hands, so he leaves them outstretched and awkward, "I'm not sure I'm a hugging person now."
She's still smiling. Her cheek is warm against his shoulder. "I'm not sure you get a vote," she whispers.
He thinks that is just fine. Closing his eyes a bit, he lets her pat him on the back and cling to his new body as long as she wants. It's time for a new start. It's time he does something about all those mistakes he's made. Time to figure out who he is and who he wants to be. He thinks of that word he used to love, so appropriate and short; it rolls of the tongue and tastes like smoke and adrenalin.
He whispers that word to himself, once, just loud enough for the TARDIS to hear,
Geronimo.