Dark have been my Dreams of Late
A/N: Hi guys! This is just something I've been working on in the few times when I've actually had free time. I put a lot of emotion into this fic, so any reviews would be appreciated.
This was inspired by a video by ThePteryx called in the name of the doctor, a fake spoiler about The Name of the Doctor, Time from the Inception soundtrack, and a bunch of other things that I can't remember at present. If you want to know what I think the song that the Towers are playing sounds closest to, then listen to Beneath the Ice from the Skyrim soundtrack.
The title is a Lord of the Rings quote.
Happy River Song Appreciation Day!
All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
Mad World, Gary Jules
The last thought he has of her is, Only River Song would wear white to a funeral.
Then he forgets her entirely.
In retrospect, she realizes that by trying to solve her mystery, he had inadvertently caused it to happen.
Clara snorts when the thought crosses her mind. It's like she's in one of her childhood books, where the villain (in trying to prevent himself from dying) accelerates his own death. The irony isn't nearly as amusing now as it was then, but even she manages to get some kind of morbid humor out of it. It isn't as though she's never thought about it before, much as she tries not to. When there's a pause in the running— a moment to catch her breath— the subject buzzes around in her head like an irritating fly.
She shifts the weight of the sleeping girl in her lap. Lorna, she's called. She hasn't got a mother.
Across from her sits the Doctor. His stare is unnerving at its best. For once, however, it is not focused on her; rather, it's trained on Lorna. It was impossible not to notice his anguished look when Lorna told them her name. Even more impossible not to notice, however, was the memory that shot to the surface when Clara heard it.
They're best friends. They train together. They eat together. They laugh together. They cry together. They lose their virginity on the same night, though not with each other. They die on the same day, but Lorna dies first.
Clara wonders if she's lost the capacity to be frightened. The silence weighs heavily on the three of them, but it does not make her feel the need to speak as it used to. The darkness presses in on them closely, but she does not feel suffocated. There are doubts swimming through her thoughts; she banishes them almost instantly, as easily as she now strokes Lorna's hair.
She thinks it might be because she now knows what it's like to meet someone, and all she can think about is that the day's coming — a day that she cannot change, a day that she cannot erase — when that person will die. It doesn't matter how they're going to die. What matters to her is that they are completely oblivious to that fact, so that while they are pressing through the challenges of their lives, Clara is already in mourning. She has to physically stop herself from wearing black clothes each morning. She's still only human, and she has seen so, so many perish; there aren't enough days in her life for her to mourn each and every one.
Her own thousands of deaths seem insignificant in comparison.
To save the Doctor was worth every bit of agony she went through, except perhaps this one.
Lorna gives a squeaky little yawn. Clara glances at her fondly.
The Doctor is staring at her now. The depth of the sadness in his eyes should be astounding, but it seems normal to Clara. She wonders if she's on his level now. Every terrifying, heartbreaking moment is now hers, too. She wants to know if he feels like he holds out his bleeding, almost-torn-in-two heart every time he attempts to make a new friend. She wants to know if the reason he doesn't sleep often is not because he doesn't need to, but because he can't. She's afraid to sleep now, because she can't control her mind when she does. She can't remember the last time she had a normal dream. The most recent one had been—
—eyes front, soldier.
She's a metal shell, but instead of saying "Delete" she's saying "Run," and to her immense gratitude the blond woman does.
She's halfway through shutting down the angels when the disc catches her in the back.
All around her, her colleagues are dying as the Daleks deem them unfit for testing. Only she is selected, but she throws herself at one and burns to death rather than submit.
She's too late to save Rita, and she screams hoarsely until her mournful cries become small whimpers of "Praise him."
The young woman (older than she looks) is regenerating, only it's not working properly and Clara gives her CPR until she collapses from exhaustion. Even then, it does nothing—
"A project."
Clara starts at the interruption, causing Lorna to grumble.
The Doctor's sitting next to her, limbs sprawled out on the ground messily. She doesn't remember that happening. His head is on her shoulder, like a child in need of comfort. She shifts again so that Lorna is lying across both of them and wraps one not-quite-long-enough arm around his shoulders, drawing him closer. He's staring out at the spot where he was sitting instead of the looking at her, but for the first time the weight doesn't lift off her shoulders along with his gaze. His voice is quiet, with none of his usual energized inflections.
"Wha—" she tries, but she has to clear her throat before she can get it out properly. "What?"
"Give yourself a project to do. You won't feel as much of a need to sleep."
She doesn't ask him about his bleeding heart, but she does say, "They're there when I'm awake, too. Not… prominently, but there."
He replies, "The Kahler believe that when you die, you must carry the weight of those you've wronged up a mountain. It's not exactly the same. You haven't wronged anyone, Clara. But it feels like you owe them the world because you were witness, doesn't it?"
In this moment, Clara realizes how selfish she is. She's not sure what she has with this man. It's not a romantic attachment, but it's not even as simple as being best friends. Whatever it is, however, it was enough to make her split into thousands of echoes, each one made to rescue him. And now, now that she understands what he is— what he feels— she knows that she would do it all over again, without hesitation or doubt.
The thought occurs to her that she might even sacrifice someone else to do it.
Suddenly, Clara understands that she still has the capacity to feel fear after all.
In the morning, they stand. Lorna stumbles next to Clara, weariness and hunger painting shadows on her face. It doesn't stop her eyes from lighting up when they reach one of the largest trees of the Gamma Forests, called a Puchega.
He can recall every detail of last night with crystal clarity. Maybe they were pressed against one another, and maybe that would have helped one or both of them get some rest in the past, but not now. He knows from the way Clara's eyes seem more like holes than lights that she didn't sleep last night. His own sense of time has told him that he hasn't either, though he could have deduced that easily enough from the way it took just a little more effort to lift his feet from the ground.
Once they pass the Puchega (he warns against Gamma snakes in his best 'Doctor' voice, which succeeds in making Lorna shiver and giggle a bit), he and Clara fall into the roles of Doctor and companion easily. He has his long-winded, know-it-all explanations, and she fires back with witty comebacks that are faster than gunshots. Lorna is fascinated by this, but even now it does not completely alleviate the exhaustion that comes from having no mother. He'll give her whatever he can now, in the hopes that it eases her painful passing later.
That's all it is, though— the two of them playing roles. Once upon a time it may have been a reality. The Doctor and Clara in the TARDIS, having adventures. Now, they cling together because they have no one else, and they are both running from themselves as quickly as they can.
They stop at around midday. He senses more than sees that Clara needs to sit down. She's human (though she wasn't at one point) and the lack of sleep has done her zero favors. She doesn't even protest when he sits her down with her back against one of the Cozeleef trees, which has moss that automatically wraps around her like a blanket, leaving her head exposed for air. He watches her while she struggles to stay awake, growing more glassy-eyed by the minute. Even so, the slow descent of her eyelids is inevitable. The Doctor hates to put her through her nightmares, but he has seen the results of refusing to sleep for too long. He cannot lose her. She is the only one left who understands.
"Now, then," he whispers to Lorna. "Let's see if we can't find us some food while she rests. Oh, and before we go: you wouldn't know of any monsters that would want to eat an innocent, sleeping young lady, would you?"
Lorna doesn't laugh. He realizes from the look on her face that he's said exactly the wrong thing. Desperately rooting around for something that can be used to remedy the situation, he blurts out, "Tell you what. If I stay here and guard her, would you maybe be willing to go looking for food for us? You'll be all right on your own?"
Lorna's eyes peek out at him from her black bangs, but they aren't admonishing him. Instead, she hugs him around his middle before trekking off in silence, her back just a tad too straight. The Doctor comes to a realization as he watches her go: she hadn't seemed sad when she was dying because her heart had been broken many years before then. He wants to sob at how unfair it all is, but he settles for gripping Clara's hand instead.
Clara wakes up screaming.
Well, says a mocking voice in the back of her head, that's new. And it's true; she's never before had this violent of a reaction to one of her nightmares. She doesn't know which life it was. All she can remember from her normally vivid dreams is that a woman was falling, and Clara didn't get there in time to save her. She knows what it's like to fall— to hear the wind rushing in your ears and know that any second now the ground will come up too fast and destroy you. But it's a thousand times worse to watch someone else do it and know that she is helpless; throwing herself after them wouldn't change anything.
It takes her a moment, but she registers two things. One: she's babbling about water. Two: the Doctor, rather than trying to help her like he normally would, is clutching at his head as though he's in pain. Instantly Clara's horror at her own dream vanishes; he needs her more right now, so she forces herself up and grabs his hands, holding them in her own and prompting him to say something to her.
He finally looks at her, but he isn't seeing her. Fury rushes through her and she slaps him, hard, growling, "You are not doing this to me. You're not allowed to leave. Not while I'm stuck here."
All of a sudden there's a horrible rushing feeling through her. She feels like she's falling again, only she's falling through her own body, slipping out uncontrollably. A part of her wants to scream again, but she keeps herself from doing so when she sees that the Doctor is coming back to his senses. Still, her legs give out from under her and she lies on the grass, staring at the sky and vaguely wondering why she can't move.
Then something warm is helping her to sit up, and there's someone hugging her close. "It's okay," comes a whisper, but it's not the Doctor. "It's okay."
Lorna.
Oh, how Clara wishes that this little girl didn't have to be the strongest out of them all. She's been nothing but brave this entire time, and her reward is that she gets to die too young.
Gradually, sensation starts to return to her limbs. Once she has enough strength, she is able to crawl over to the Doctor. He seems to be in a similar state, though recovering faster than she is. Soon all three of them are standing. Clara's got one arm over the Doctor's shoulders, while Lorna supports her on her other side.
She has so many questions. What was that? Who was the woman in her dream (because she doesn't remember her, and she remembers everyone she ever saw die)? Why did Lorna have to see? Why couldn't things go back to the way they were before Trenzalore? Why does she fear sleep so much when getting up often feels like just as much of a chore?
After about an hour, she's able to walk on her own. Lorna still stays close to her; she seems to believe that it's her self-appointed duty to keep an eye on Clara and make sure that she doesn't fall down again. The Doctor's sending her looks too, silently asking her how she's feeling and whether or not she needs to stop again. She gives repeated, minute shakes of her head until it hurts her neck to look over at him. Then she opts to ignore him entirely.
Clara's feet ache, but they manage to reach a small village before the sun descends again. They explain where they found Lorna, and how all Lorna told them was that she lost her mother. Near the row of huts in front of them is a little girl, who's staring at Clara with a troubled look on her face. She's about Lorna's age, but that has nothing to do with the twist that Clara feels in her gut when she looks at her. She is loathe to leave Lorna so soon after having just met her, but she has to get away from here.
The Doctor only needs to read her body language once before he is bidding the locals farewell, giving Lorna a smacking kiss on the cheek that has her giggling again (for which Clara will be eternally grateful). They dart around trees and trip over roots in their haste to get back to the TARDIS, because neither of them fancy the idea of spending another sleepless night in the Gamma Forests.
In the end the sheer distance forces them to slow down, and the Doctor and Clara wordlessly lace their fingers together. His palm is cool to the touch and somewhat soothing. Sometimes, she hates how dependent she's become on his presence since Trenzalore. She hasn't been back to see Angie and Artie since then, too afraid to let him out of her sight. Her only consolation is that he's been the same as her since then. Neither of them are completely sure they could function without the other.
Clara feels both relief and apprehension when the TARDIS comes into view. She's—
—leaning up against it, grinning at the young old man in front of her. "The navigation systems are fried, but you'll have much more fun."
Then she's drowning and regenerating, again and again, while someone screams her name from above the surface.
"I'm fine," Clara has to mumble to herself, before she realizes that she's slipped into another memory. They're in the console room, where the blue-green lights dance on the walls around her. The TARDIS makes a noise, but isn't the usual grinding that signifies that they're off again. Instead, it sounds like something a wounded animal might utter. Concern overtakes her in spite of her relationship with the time ship; she leaps up onto the console platform after the Doctor, who dances wildly around, pressing buttons at seemingly random intervals.
"Something's wrong," he murmurs. "There are paradox levels fluctuating, which shouldn't even be possible in here. Maybe if I just adjust the Zig-Zag Plotter…"
It's on the tip of Clara's tongue to tell him not to (because part of her knows that it will only worsen the situation) when she gets the feeling of falling through herself again. Boneless, she crumples to the floor like a marionette with its strings cut, just as the Doctor does the same on the other side of the console. The TARDIS, meanwhile, shudders violently. Clara is thrown up against the railing, but she feels no physical pain. Her senses are occupied by a roaring in her ears and the way her heart is racing far too fast.
Distantly she can hear a voice calling for her, just as the TARDIS gives an ear-splitting screech and the world stops entirely.
Darillium.
He's heard of it before. He hasn't ever seen any particular reason to go there, but the thought has occurred to him. He even debated over taking Clara to see it once, but it never seems like the right fit for her. That is, until now.
She's still unconscious. Whatever has happened to them, it was bad enough that she wasn't able to recover from it immediately. He is slightly faster at gaining the sensation in his body back, and sheer will has allowed him to stave off oblivion for the moment. He automatically checks his bowtie to make sure it is still in place (once he is certain that Clara has sustained no further injuries) before dragging his feet to the monitor to check the stats.
There aren't many things that frighten him, but not knowing something is one of them. In this case: he doesn't know what's wrong with him and Clara. He doesn't know why the TARDIS has taken them here, to Darillium, or why his beloved ship has suddenly gone too quiet. He doesn't know why it seems to have so much more of an adverse effect on Clara. He doesn't know how long she will stay with him, because she's stayed far longer than usual, which means that it's only a matter of time before he loses her (and he can never lose her). He doesn't know… he doesn't know…
He doesn't know how he met Rory.
The Doctor doesn't forget things. He just doesn't. Panic nearly encapsulates him them, but he's able to just barely force it down before he does something completely stupid, like try to move the TARDIS with it in this state. To give himself something mechanical to do in the meantime, he picks Clara up gently and takes her to her room, knowing already that all he will see when he looks at her will be the haunted shade in her eyes from another nightmare.
He hates that look. It's too close to what he sees in the mirror.
Once she is tucked away in bed, he returns to the console. There's a brief moment when he flashes back to when they first met — well, this version of her met him, anyway. He remembers taking care of her after she was almost uploaded to the cloud. He remembers leaving a jammy dodger on a plate on her bedside table. He giggled a bit when he found the quadricycle in her garage. He can see her grin at him from her window as clearly as though it happened the other day, when everything seemed so much simpler.
But Rory… he remembers nothing.
Did Amy introduce them to each other? Knowing her, she would probably want her boys to get along. Or did he drag Rory along on an adventure? It's perfectly possible that he ran into Rory some time during his first visit to Earth after regenerating, when he had to save everyone from getting incinerated by the Atraxi. Either way, whatever manner in which he first encountered Rory, he can no longer recall it.
He tries to focus on the positives. At least he hasn't forgotten his friend entirely. He still knows quite a bit about Rory the Roman: husband, loyal, and unafraid to call the Doctor out when he makes a mistake (which, admittedly, he does often). But then what if whatever's been happening happens again? What if he forgets more and more about Rory until Rory disappears from his mind entirely, nothing more than a ghost? What if he starts to forget about Amy? He isn't sure he could handle that. They have played such a huge part in shaping his life since regenerating.
(What if he forgets Clara? He knows that that isn't an option. He's been afraid to so much as leave her alone ever since Trenzalore, afraid that she'll die before he gets back. She would never forgive him for forgetting her. Never, never, never.)
He decides to take a look outside the doors, in the hopes that whatever Darillium has to offer will distract him from these thoughts. The sight that greets him makes his breath catch in his throat, because he never expected the landscape to be so… wild.
It is vast, stretching away from him endlessly. There are sweeping sandstone formations in every direction, and the world's single blue sun shines through glass ruins of what used to be civilization. Had he chosen to bring Clara here, he thinks he probably would have taken her back to a time when Darillium was still occupied. This place, however stunning it may be, is a shell of what the world once was.
He knows all too well how Clara feels about haunted places.
The melody in the background doesn't help with this impression in the slightest. He isn't close enough to the Singing Towers to be able to hear it properly; instead, it is the barest whisper of music, caressing his skin gently. He can't help but shiver as the notes reach a perfect harmony, with only the wind as the towers' player.
Without thinking, he steps beyond the doorframe.
A loud slam breaks the song. He pivots in a sudden panic, grabbing the door handle and shoving in an attempt to get back in. The TARDIS groans in response, clearly unhappy with him trying to force the issue. He bangs on the door, he roars in frustration, but the Old Girl has never been one for letting him order her about. Still, Clara's in there. Clara, who he can't leave alone. Who he is so, so afraid to go anywhere without.
For the first time since shutting the door on him, the TARDIS gives a soothing hum. She'll be safe.
For some reason, that word strikes a strange chord within him, but he ignores it for now. He trusts the TARDIS like he trusts no other, and he lays a hand against the door and just lets himself be for a moment.
"Thanks, dear," he whispers.
Then he is spinning around, clapping his hands together, straightening his lapels, and begins the long trek to the towers.
"No! No!"
Please, please, please don't connect the cables—
This is wrong. She's the one who should have to die. She does die, often, so why must she always watch other people die first? Especially this woman, whose very existence is so important.
"There's always—"
—a way out. She is staring at her own time stream, too shocked at the gaping wound that's spilling energy to even sob. Then she flashes to the Doctor's, where there isn't just a wound; rather, entire streaks of light are fizzling out and crumpling, making it shrink. Clara knows that this means that scars are closing over and it should be a good thing, but it's not. It just feels wrong.
"You are an echo."
The Doctor's voice. The woman's eyes are accepting of this.
"It doesn't matter," Clara says loudly. "We're already the walking dead. Why shouldn't you join us?"
The woman's smile is sad, sadder than anything Clara's ever seen. "My darling Clara," she murmurs. "You don't know me."
Clara wants to yell at her that yes, she does, but then—
she doesn't.
Gasping, Clara shoots up, spilling her covers on the floor. At least this time her throat isn't sore, so she hasn't been screaming again. Her hands shake terribly; she has to sit on them to get them to stop. The woman's face is an imprint behind her eyes, but once again Clara finds that she has no memory of her, apart from dreams. She recognizes the room she's in as the one she adopted for her stay on the TARDIS. There's no one else here with her.
Terror nearly seizes her, but there is a quiet hum that she doesn't expect. Feeling a bit calmer, she pads to the console room to find it awash in the usual teal glow. The Doctor isn't there either, but the TARDIS is doing its best to alleviate her apprehension, almost cooing at her. It certainly makes a change from the hostility and petulance that she's used to experiencing from the time ship. She goes over to the monitor, unsure of what she's supposed to do next.
The screen is black.
Clara growls. "I can't just automatically understand what you're trying to tell me!"
It happens much, much faster than the other two times. One minute she's standing up, just fine; the next, she's on the floor again, groaning at the effort it takes to pull herself up. Yet now, for some reason she cannot fathom, there is something like a clear bell in her mind, and she knows that the TARDIS wants her to go outside.
She stares up at the rotor suspiciously. "You know what's happening, don't you?"
Go.
Clara does.
It's a beautiful, harsh world, but for some reason she feels immensely unnerved by it. It gives her a feeling similar to the visions she saw in her dream— of her own time stream, and the Doctor's. There is still no sign of him anywhere, though she knows that he must be here somewhere. There is a faint trace of music on the air, but she cannot pinpoint its source. She takes a few cautious steps forward, not noticing that the TARDIS doors have closed behind her. Clara can't help but feel as though she's intruding, though there doesn't appear to be anyone here.
"What now?" she whispers. The TARDIS does not answer.
She starts to walk, footsteps kicking up dust. Clara hugs herself, remembering how it felt to be inside the Doctor's time stream. It is rare for her to feel so lost, but she did then. She does now, too. Squaring her shoulders, she aims to make her stride more purposeful in an attempt to stave off the uneasiness.
This only makes her head spin. Clara winces, realizing that she hasn't quite recovered from her latest bout of… whatever is wrong. An alarming thought suddenly strikes her: what if something had happened to the Doctor, too? He could be unconscious somewhere. In danger. Alone.
Her pace increases.
"Clara."
The voice makes her spin around, expecting to see someone behind her— it's as though it was whispered in her ear— but there's nothing. Despairing, she turns back around and continues on with her journey.
"What is happening?" she whispers.
The Towers are ruined too.
The Doctor cannot help his feeling of apprehension when looking at them. His sense of time is telling him that this is wrong, somehow. Darillium's not meant to be like this. Not yet, anyway.
He'd had a brief moment when the same feeling from before rushed upon him; he's now unable to remember what happened to Amy and Rory. It wasn't something good, like them deciding to stop travelling with him once and for all, because neither of them were ever able to resist the temptation (and he was never quite able to let them go). He is unable to pinpoint the exact time and the exact way they were taken from him. To him, it's as though they were there one day and gone the next.
He stands before one of the largest towers, feeling the breeze on his face. The blue sun is beginning its descent, and several of the planet's ten moons are already showing themselves. The wind flows through the remains of the Towers, creating the discordant song that he can hear much more clearly now. Along with the music, he thinks that he can hear the barest whisper of a voice.
He stiffens when he finally understands what it is saying.
Unable to help himself, he sets off in search of its source. There is a patch of dead grass in between two of the towers, which strikes him as odd. Everything else here has died out so long ago; there should be no life left except for himself, the TARDIS, and Clara.
He bends down to brush his hand against it. It's as he expects: rough, coarse, dried out. The voice is repeating that same word, over and over again, like it's on a loop. He thinks of the day that happened twice, when Clara first had an inkling of what she would one day become, and of what she found in the TARDIS library. But there's no way that Clara can be here, and even then he doubts that she knows his name.
Before he can move on, there's a telltale sensation creeping up his legs. He manages to gasp out, "No," before it overtakes his body entirely and he can sense the memory of Amy's first TARDIS trip with him slipping through his fingers like water. He can recall that they were on Starship UK, then he can't. Soon he can't even remember if they were able to save the day on that adventure. He hopes, for dear Amy's sake, that they did.
"Doctor…" comes a weak voice.
His heart jumps, because this is one that he recognizes. He runs to Clara as she falls to her knees, looking dazed. She must be experiencing the same thing he just went through, only hers seems to be a bit different. She looks up at him through glassy eyes, determined to stay awake even though it's clearly costing her.
"The woman," she murmurs. "The woman from the water…"
His arms tighten around her. "What woman?"
"She needs us. She knows us."
He thinks of the voice that is speaking his name. "Clara," he whispers, pressing his forehead to hers. Confessing his fears has never been one of his strong suits, but in this case… "Please. I'm forgetting things. If I start to forget you, I need you to tell me everything that you can."
He waits for a response, only to find that she's passed out again. He doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Something's wrong. He knows that. He's fading away, and it's not just from depression. The TARDIS has brought them here for a reason, though what that reason is he doesn't know.
He stands on jelly legs, attempting to find out where the voice is coming from, but his efforts seem to be fruitless. He thinks about what Clara said— about the 'woman from the water', and how she apparently knew him. He doesn't know any woman from water, unless Clara's talking about some of the female aquatic species he's met.
He's reminded of when he and Clara went to the Caliburn mansion, and he worked out that the messages weren't, in fact, from a ghost. He wonders if the woman Clara has mentioned is similar in any way.
He carries her words with him as a beacon of hope, even as his memories continue to be swallowed by darkness.
"Wait!"
Clara's running faster than she's ever run before (and she's run a lot). She's in some kind of abandoned home; the walls are covered in frightening messages, and everything is dilapidated. The woman from before— the one that she keeps seeing everywhere, in both waking and falling asleep— is ascending a staircase ahead of her, paying no heed to her calls. Clara follows her relentlessly, for once determined not to wake up. She's going to get to the bottom of this once and for all.
When she finally manages to catch up, she stumbles into a child's room. She can't help but stare at the assortment of items and photographs in it. This room looks more recently occupied when compared with the rest of the orphanage. Clara feels a bitter kind of regret when looking around it, and she can't for the life of her figure out why.
The woman is staring down at one of the pictures. Clara draws level with her, trying to see what she's looking at. There is a beautiful red haired woman with a baby, smiling tiredly but joyfully at the camera. The woman next to her looks nothing like the red haired woman, at first. Then Clara looks again, and she realizes that their mouths are very similar.
"You want to know what's been happening."
The woman's voice surprises her. Clara's heard it before, but she's never had the time to really absorb it. It's rich, a bit like a purr, and surprising in its familiarity. The woman's face isn't visible through the wild curls that surround her head like a halo, but her shoulders are loose and relaxed. Clara takes this as a good sign and lets the tension drain out of her, something she hasn't allowed herself to do since this all began. It seems like it's been months since she and the Doctor guided Lorna to her new home.
Then the woman's head turns, and Clara catches the full force of her eyes. They aren't quite the same as her own; they haven't seem time progress for the Doctor through a thousand different versions of herself. These are eyes who have seen every possibility at every point in time, and have somehow had the strength to survive. These are the eyes of a martyr.
The woman studies her for a moment; if she notices how awed Clara is, she doesn't mention it. Instead, she murmurs, "Survivor's guilt."
Clara blinks. "Sorry?"
She's led out of the child's room and is glad to leave it behind; there is only an echo of terror and pain there.
It's like plunging into freezing water. Memories rush past them, but the woman doesn't stop to examine any of them until she comes to one set in a place that Clara recognizes well enough, considering she was there. Or at least, one of her was.
"Lake Silencio," she murmurs.
"Yes."
Only then it doesn't happen the way she remembers. In her memories, the Silence converge on the Doctor and Clara takes a blast for him, her body sinking into the lake and never returning. Now, however, the Silence only hover on the edges of her vision. Instead, an astronaut rises up like a vengeful demon, squaring off against the Doctor. He doesn't seem angry or confused by it, though. Rather, he seems to be offering it… comfort?
Then the helmet's visor is lifted, and Clara realizes.
"How many times have you wished you could have died in their places, Clara?" the woman asks softly as they watch the terrible scene play out.
"Always," Clara replies.
"And how many times did you die?"
It doesn't matter. Clara knows this. It will never be enough to make up for everything she's witnessed.
The woman sighs. "You still don't understand."
The scene shifts and dissolves around them, building back up to reveal a graveyard. The red haired woman from earlier is standing facing a Weeping Angel, tears streaking down her face. Clara's heart is in her throat. She knows what is about to happen, but as usual she is helpless to stop it.
"Melody," the woman says, and her voice breaks on the name.
The woman is right there with her, and once again Clara doesn't remember it happening like this. Amy says something that Clara can't make out, then she whirls fiercely to face a heartbroken Doctor and says her goodbyes. She vanishes in the blink of an eye, as though she was never there to begin with, and the Doctor breaks.
Clara remembers the Doctor being alone; she would have stayed with him, but the Angel got to her before she could reach any of them. Now, however, the woman is there, holding him while she valiantly tries not to grieve herself.
"You didn't force her to be sent back," the present version of the woman says. "That was her choice. It was always their choice, never yours. Were you going to try and take it away from them?"
Clara's crying now, too. She angrily wipes away her tears, but they keep on coming. "I'm supposed to save people."
"It's hard enough to save the Doctor," the woman says. "Darling, you've become so much like him. No matter how hard you try, you can't run forever. And no matter how much it hurts, you can't save everyone."
"No!" Clara jerks away from her, shaking her head. "How can you just accept that? I know what you've seen! Infinite possibilities at every point in his timeline. And yet they only go one way and you know which way they could've gone to make everything better than it is now. How can you stand it? How can you just watch?"
The compassion in the woman's eyes burns her. "I made a mistake, Clara. I miscalculated, not for the first time. Now neither of you knows who I am, which is the one thing I feared the most. I only survive here because you were there too."
Clara turns around so that she doesn't have to look at her anymore and finds herself paralyzed. There she is— the real her— staring up at the woman with curiosity while the woman sips from a glass of wine. The woman gives her a knowing look. Clara wants to pull her hair in frustration because that's not how it happened. The woman wasn't there. She knows that. She remembers it.
"The Doctor might have mentioned me?"
"Oh yeah, of course," past-Clara says. "Sorry, it's just… I never realized that you were a woman."
"Clara, you can't keep digging through my memories," the woman says. "I've used a few to try to show you the truth, but you won't find what you're looking for there."
Something changes, like she's made an unconscious decision, and suddenly Clara's afraid to turn around because she knows that the final memory is now behind her. She looks at the woman again, who is waiting patiently for her to turn and look. She knows that she can never go back to the way things were before, but (though she is frightened) maybe things will be better. Maybe life will be bearable, and she'll be able to go somewhere without the Doctor for once. Just a quick trip to the grocer's, or to a café.
Taking a deep breath, she pivots.
"How many times have you saved me? Just once— just for the hell of it— let me save you!"
"Oh," she breathes.
The Doctor doesn't react when Clara stirs.
He's clutching his own head, in the grip of terror. There's something missing from his memory— like a gaping hole where something important used to be. He's struggling to even remember the context of it, but he knows that it has something to do with Amy, and he can only remember half of what he used to know about her. He's lost count of the number of times that he's scanned himself with his sonic screwdriver, trying to discern what's wrong, and he still has no idea. Clara's there, but at the same time she's not there, and he's rarely felt so alone.
When a hand falls on his shoulder he jumps, startled out of his stupor. He realizes that he's shuddering and grasps Clara's hand to steady himself. He doesn't remember seeing her stand, but he's grateful for her presence now. He starts babbling as she pulls him to his feet.
"I'm forgetting so, so much, Clara, and I've forgotten something really important— and what if Amy's next? I can't forget Amy, my Amelia, mad woman that she was. I can't even remember a lot of things about her, like how we met, or how I lost her, or whether she was ever truly happy with her life and I just don't want to—"
He stops abruptly upon noticing Clara's facial expression. It's strangely serene, even as she wraps her arms around him in a tight hug. He stares after she pulls away because he can't help it; he hasn't seen her eyes be that clear since before Trenzalore. Her body heat is a small comfort in this cold, abandoned version of Darillium that he knows isn't right (because Darillium is supposed to be beautiful, not haunted). The towers are still playing the chilling melody from before, but it's like Clara is somehow blocking it.
"This way," she says, taking his hand. She leads him to the patch of grass that he noticed before and sits herself down on it, patting the ground next to her. He sits.
"You helped me. You helped me and you didn't even realize it."
He's confused. "Sorry?"
Clara sighs patiently. "You know how my mother died. I know you do. I know you saw it."
Now he wants to sigh, but he refrains from doing so. Yes, he remembers that day— ironically, the very same day he met Rose Tyler, when Ellie Oswald perished because she was protecting her daughter from Nestenes. He remembers the shocked look on Clara's face as her mother's body covered her own, using herself as a shield so that Clara could survive. She succeeded, but the Doctor was well aware that it was probably due to the fact that Clara was so paralyzed by it that she didn't move until long after the attack stopped.
He remembers watching her the entire time, waiting for her to move and praying that she wouldn't. He remembers being perversely happy that Ellie's body hid Clara, and simultaneously horrified at himself for thinking so.
Most of all, though, was the usual sense of self-hatred, knowing that he should've stopped the Nestene consciousness sooner as his ninth self.
"My whole life after that, I blamed myself," Clara announces. His neck almost cracks as his head flies around to look at her. She's avoiding his gaze. "I felt like there was something else I should've done. Like I should've been the one to shove her out of the way. And everyone else was always telling me that it wasn't my fault, but they weren't there. They didn't see how it happened. But you did."
"Is that what made it easy?" His voice is much, much quieter than usual, and he knows this, but he feels that this isn't the time to be his usual, loud self. "Jumping into my timeline, sacrificing yourself over and over again, countless times? Because—"
"—I thought it might help me atone?" Clara closes her eyes. "Make up for my mum diving in front of me? Maybe. Only— and I know we've never talked about Trenzalore to each other, because I know it's not a good subject for either of us, and we haven't exactly been stellar since then, but I feel like I'm… I don't know, finally ready to tell you about this, but I know you and I know you don't—"
"Clara." She looks at him, and he's unsurprised to see her eyes shining. "It's okay."
She speaks then, as though a dam has broken inside her, of everything that he suspected but never confirmed. How while she was able to save him in all of her million, million lives, she watched so many others die around her, too. Lorna (his heart breaks all over again when she says that name), Amy, Rory (who?), and so many others that she wasn't able to save. She explains how much it pained her until now, and that her nightmares were never of herself dying, but rather all of them. All the people she thinks she's failed.
She hasn't, and the Doctor knows this. What he doesn't understand is why she suddenly appears to be more at peace with it.
"She showed me. You knew about my mother dying, and you still wanted to save me." She hugs her knees to her chest. "You still did. I… guess that means I've done something right."
Oh, Clara. His Impossible Girl. Is that what she thought? He'd have told her differently every time, but he's never been good at the whole comforting thing. She's right; they should've spoken about Trenzalore a long time ago, but they both avoided the subject like the plague. Something about her words still nags at him, though, and he reruns them until he finds the strange part.
"Who showed you?"
Her smile turns a bit more knowing— a bit more like the old Clara. "Ah, see that's the problem."
He blinks. "What is?"
"Sorry, in advance," says Clara. "But this may hurt a bit."
He flails a bit, feeling alarmed. "Wait wait wait wait wait—"
She smiles a bit ruefully before whipping her head forward and smashing it against his. He doesn't even have time to yelp before—
"Welcome to my head, Chin Boy," Clara says ruefully. There are murky shapes surrounding the both of them, swirling at their feet. "Don't ask where I learned to do this. Aside from saving you, my life as a Time Lord was… interesting."
"Interesting how?"
"Are you gonna ask questions all day?"
"Maybe not, if you'd answer them!"
She snorts. "How the tables have turned. And anyway, you aren't here to ask me questions about my Time Lord life. I can tell you that I had a wife who turned into a husband, then back into a wife. Long story. But that's not the point of all this."
She vanishes then, like she was never there. He does one of his twirls, discerning that he's in the subconscious part of her mind— the part that activates when she's dreaming. She's brought him here for a reason, though he hasn't got a clue what that reason is.
"People fall out of the world sometimes."
The hairs on the back of his neck rise, because he knows those words (though he doesn't remember why he said them), but the voice that's saying them isn't his. It stirs something within his gut, which is a peculiar feeling for him. He starts walking, watching as his feet kick up old nightmares and half-forgotten memories.
"But they always leave traces."
Because he remembers how the next part goes, he continues under his breath.
"If something can be remembered, it can come back."
"Hello, sweetie."
He gets a thrill when he hears those words, a half-smile slowly appearing on his face. She's not anyone he knows, with her wild hair and sparkling green eyes, but he desperately wants to. He feels pulled to her, as though she is a magnet and he is iron. He can see memories of her own surrounding her, separate from Clara's. She's somehow preventing them from bleeding into each other, so Clara's mind is safe (for the moment). She is the very definition of ethereal in this moment and (though he knows he's being cliché) she could pass for an angel, if he believed in them.
They circle each other as though preparing to dance. He's both fascinated and wary— fascinated because she's most definitely older than she looks, and wary because she's taken refuge in the back of Clara's mind like a parasite.
She laughs, and it's low and throaty and does strange things to his insides. "Oh, my love," she murmurs, and reaches up to caress his cheek. Her touch burns him, but he leans into it all the same and it feels like coming home.
"You can still hear it, can't you?"
She doesn't specify what, exactly, he's supposed to be hearing, but he instinctively knows that she's speaking of the music of the Towers. She offers her hand to him, which he takes, spinning her into the circle of his arms. The Doctor can find no rational explanation for his own actions; the way that this woman is looking at him should frighten him. It doesn't. It makes him flush, but that doesn't stop him from skimming his hand up and down her back as he pulls her into him, their steps slow as they sway together. The intimacy of their position is something he's rarely experienced, but he can't bring himself to care. He shivers when she hums into his skin.
"Your subconscious remembers," she says. "But your mind… the memories aren't there. The wound I made was meant to scar over; time would fix it— not necessarily well— but enough that it didn't fall apart. I guess I underestimated the damage it would do."
"Who are you?" he asks. They spin apart briefly before stepping back together. There's still something missing, but he wants to offer his bleeding heart to this woman.
"I'm nobody," she answers. "I have been for a while now."
"Nobody's a nobody," he insists. "Else they simply wouldn't exist at all."
Another laugh. "Exactly."
He looks down at her, confused, but there is no hint of the truth in her expression. Suddenly she's slipping from his arms, folding back into the murky shadows of Clara's mind. He instantly knows that her stare will follow him everywhere, because it is the stare of one who is already dead. He cries out for her when he realizes this.
Then she is gone, and Clara is beside him again. "She's getting weaker," says the Impossible Girl. "We have to find her, and quickly."
She doesn't hesitate to venture further into her own subconscious, and he doesn't hesitate to follow.
The Doctor is used to multi-faceted minds; he has one himself, after all. But Clara's is a logistical nightmare— and that's putting it kindly. There are far too many faces to keep track of. Too many personalities, too. Memories bloom as they sink past them, some of which he recognizes and others that he doesn't. He has to look away from one which shows Clara thrashing in water, drowning, regenerating again and again because she can't get out. There's another woman on the bank who is screaming for her, sobbing. There's another that portrays Clara and (to his immense surprise) Jenny, adventuring together. He hadn't even known that his daughter was alive.
Like the woman, he is careful to keep his own mind from bleeding into hers. Even more difficult, however, is preventing her emotions from affecting his. Her helplessness, her grief, is palpable this far into her subconscious. It feels like a familiar weight in his chest.
"Who is she, Clara?" he asks again.
"You're supposed to tell me."
"You're the one who brought me here!"
"Because she needs you!" cries Clara, spinning suddenly. "Not me! I think I might just love her a bit for helping me the way she did, but you're the one she needs right now. No one else. I want to help her because I can sense… she's barely holding herself together. I know what that's like. You can make it stop."
If he wasn't afraid before, he is now. He is about to stumble onto something huge; who is this woman to him? Why does she seem to know him? "What will happen?" he whispers. "I don't know her, Clara. If she changes everything—"
"Maybe that's what we need," Clara says quietly. "For everything to change."
Her words dumbfound him. They're still slipping down through Clara's subconscious, following after the woman from the water. He wonders if this is what it was like for Clara to throw herself into his timestream — well, maybe it wasn't nearly as bad as that— but he thinks that the feeling of losing yourself until you don't even know who you are is probably similar.
"It takes a lot for her to project herself to the forefront," Clara explains. "I'm surprised she even managed to communicate with you."
There are memories that can't be Clara's around them now. There's a little auburn haired girl sitting on a bed, legs swinging, gaze blank. Any other questions he's about to ask Clara die in his throat.
It shouldn't be possible, but… he knows who it must be.
"My childhood."
She appears on his other side, as though she was there all along. And maybe she was, he muses. Clara stands off to the side, her eyes flickering between the two of them and a naked expression of hope on her face. When the Doctor looks back at the woman, he finds that her eyes are now on him. There's something in her stare that makes him wish that he knew her all the more, but the problem is that he doesn't. He never has.
Unless…
A memory that wasn't there before slides into place.
"There has to be another way. Use the TARDIS, use something! Save her, yes, but for god's sake— be sensible!"
Her despairing words get no response from him. As he continues to speak to Vastra, Jenny and Strax, telling them to flee if he doesn't return, she bites her lip, taking a step away from him and staring at him. Even as he watches, her expression transforms into something made of steel, and she turns to his time stream.
He feels growing horror encapsulate him as she steps forward. Past him notices too, proving that he was able to see her. They both cry out as she reaches a hand into the timeline and pulls, ripping an entire thread from it. She screams out even as she does it, the shock of her actions clearly more than she expected. Past him shouts for her, reaching, even as she begins to dissolve before his eyes, looking back at him.
The worst part might be that there's no regret on her face. Instead, she looks like a woman who knows she's done the right thing. Past him spins around, and the amount of agony on his face as everything around him starts to swirl away astounds the Doctor.
Then the horrible, tortuous memory of what she's done is over and he falls into her, all but sobbing into her shoulder with relief because he remembers.
"River."
He chants her name like it alone would save him, because when does she not? Her arms come around him, her form fitting against him perfectly. His wife, his lover, his hell, his killer. He does everything he can to be closer to her, until she can be under his skin and next to his bones. It's only when he realizes what he's lost that he understands just how broken he's been since Trenzalore, and he hasn't even known why.
Then he suddenly recalls what she did.
"River!" he exclaims. "Why would you do that? Erasing yourself from my time stream— that's—"
"I said your name to open the tomb," she says. "I said it, and you were about to be an idiot and throw yourself into your own time stream. By erasing myself, I would never have learned your name. I would never have been able to open your grave. Nothing I said would've stopped you, so I had to act. I know— it didn't work. You went in the tomb anyway, you went after Clara anyway."
He doesn't hold back this time— he's done that too many times before, and this is the last straw. Their mouths meet in a bruising kiss, and somehow it's even more desperate than it was in the second version of events at Trenzalore. River angles her head slightly to make the kiss even deeper, hands gripping the lapels of his greatcoat.
"Urgh." They break away from each other to look at Clara, who's wrinkling her nose. "Leaving now. Before either of you start crying. Or shagging in the middle of my subconscious."
The Doctor attempts to snort, except he's already crying. River, meanwhile, says, "Absolutely not," and marches over to pull Clara into a tight embrace. He doesn't miss the way Clara buries her face in River's shoulder, much the way he does himself. He lets them be; as much as he'd like to fully reunite with his wife, he knows that Clara needs this.
"I'm the one who reversed it, aren't I?" Clara asks when she pulls away. "I'm the one who made the second version of events happen— the one where the Doctor acknowledges you, and you decide not to rip yourself out of his time stream. It's nice to know that I was able to save you, for once." Her lighthearted tone is betrayed by the sheen in her eyes.
"You're unique, dear," River says. "What you did at Trenzalore was enough to make you immune to most effects of time travel, including memory wipes. You never completely forgot me. But even so, without the Doctor remembering, the wound in the time stream that I caused…"
It would have eventually destroyed him. Both of them.
Still, they're here now, and he remembers River. She smiles at him, and that makes him giggle a bit because he remembers. Their first kiss (both of them), their wedding, their first date, their first time together (they had somehow managed to be in sync for that one). Her death is still a heavy weight on his heart, but it seems like little in comparison to forgetting her entirely.
He blinks back to wakefulness, aware of Clara stirring on his left. There's a warm weight pressed into his other side that he instinctively curls into, pressing his face into her hair. The grass beneath him is no longer coarse, but soft and new, and the Towers are pouring out joy, not loneliness. The Doctor realizes that it's about one hundred years after he came here with River on their last night together, and while there are no longer people here, it's still beautiful, not barren like before.
"You should go," murmurs River. "Clara's beginning to heal, but she still needs time. You don't need to be here anymore."
He takes her hand and presses his lips to it, shutting his eyes tightly. She brushes her other hand against his arm.
"I'll be there when you get home."
The Doctor feels like a child asking, but he does anyway. "Promise?"
"This time? Yes."
Clara sits next to River on the steps in the console room. The Doctor has run off somewhere in the TARDIS, leaving the two of them to… she doesn't know. Not everything feels right yet, and she still has uncontrollable flashbacks to her echoes, but things are better now. Having River back plays a large part in that, but Clara simply feels more at ease with herself as well.
"Are you going to go back home?" River asks.
Clara shrugs. "I'm not sure I remember what that is."
"Take your time." It's so hard to recall that River's a data ghost when she's right next to her, acting like… well, like her mother. "This kind of thing can't be rushed. You'll never be able to un-see it all, but one day it will seem like… less to deal with."
"Sometimes it still feels like I'm breaking," admits Clara. "If I don't make an effort to keep myself together I'll just… dissolve."
River says nothing, but Clara senses that she understands.
When the Doctor emerges with a black bowtie on, it's the beginning of a return to normality. He and Clara go on adventures together and River's always there, out of the corner of their eye but unable to get involved. Clara's smiling without it feeling like an effort, and her talks with River grow longer until the two of them are laughing and joking. They gang up on the Doctor often, and while he pretends to scowl they both know that he enjoys it.
River, apparently, doesn't mention to the Doctor what she briefly saw while she was removing herself from the Doctor's existence. Clara keeps that secret close to her heart, but she suspects that the Doctor has some idea of what River saw. River later tells her that it doesn't have much of an effect on her, as she's a Time Lord and her mind is capable of handling the information. However, handling information is one thing; processing it without emotion is another.
One day, the Doctor decides to take them to Earth, but to the most remote end of the Grand Canyon. For once, it's a quiet trip; there are no monsters to take care of. Clara steps out to the edge, the wind whipping through her hair as the sun sets in the distance. She turns around to grin at the people who have become her family, while at the back of her mind there are others that nag at her, who she has left behind for too long.
"Don't go getting too close," the Doctor warns.
"I won't," says Clara. She turns back to the sun. "I just want to stand here for a bit."
After that, she finally goes home.
He has River in his arms, but he's still worried.
"She'll be fine," his wife reassures him. "Clara needs this. She needs the chance to prove to herself that she can be on her own again."
River isn't with him all the time. She goes back to the data core often and tells him stories of the adventures she has there. She has, by the sound of it, become very close to Charlotte, who she describes as a bit of a lonely child. The Doctor understands why River would feel drawn to her; he still remembers the glimpse of a frightened girl's face through an astronaut's visor. She's staying with him now, though, because while Clara may be ready to be alone, he most certainly isn't.
They had made love earlier, hips moving together, minds joined in such a way that neither was capable of hiding from the other. He'd proved that he still knew all the right places to make her sing, and she had chanted his real name in his ear as she came, shattering around him. They lie together now, slick skin pressed together, the Doctor feeling whole for the first time in a long time.
"How alone were you?" he asks. "Half-existing, only in her mind. And don't say it doesn't matter. Please."
River gives a shaky sigh; his arms tighten around her.
She places gentle fingers at his temple, silently asking permission that he gives her with a nod. She shows him the confusion she first felt, how at first she couldn't even remember everything about her own life. Bits and pieces eventually came back, through Clara, but it didn't help— watching him, only half-living after Trenzalore and being unable to help him. He knows that she hates being helpless most of all.
But you did, he tells her. You did help. You had something to do with the TARDIS going to Darillium. I know you did.
She smirks. "I may have. I'd hope a mother wouldn't forget her child."
"She never would," he says, and he's not sure who, exactly, he's referring to. As if in agreement, the TARDIS hums.
"Love you too, darling," murmurs River.
"You'll come back, right?" He voices what has probably been his greatest fear since remembering her back into existence. He's been dreading the moment when she tells him that she'll leave him for good this time around and return to her existence in the data core.
River hesitates. "I'll stay as long as you need me, sweetie. But just say the word—"
"Never." He presses his lips to her temple.
Even though she says nothing else, they both know that that is the answer she was hoping for.
He's a mad man with a box, they say.
He's got an invisible wife, they say.
His companion has seen it all, they say.
(Yet they're still a family after all, they say.)