Clara shrieked as she was pulled out the TARDIS and plummeted to some impending doom. She landed with a thud, and lay there, restless, broken, and unconscious.
The Doctor quickly whipped the TARDIS off its cloud and materialized it in front of the Victorian manor. "How could I have lost another one, a friend, a curious civilian, on the first day?" he thought to himself. Still recovering from losing the Ponds, he had secluded himself from the world, parked the TARDIS on a cloud in Victorian London, and had determined to stay away from anyone except, on occasion, Jenny, Vastra, and Strax. He had struggled to block out most of his memories, especially the most recent. However, as of late, some of them momentarily came back to him, which forced him to relive them, and give him another reason to be alone. Yet he found himself drawn to Clara, as she was what brought him out of "retirement". However, the outcome only reminded him of why he stopped being he savior of Earth, because it always ended dead with someone dead. What would become of him?
The Doctor quickly materialized the TARDIS around her, and immediately moved the TARDIS again to inside the house. He grabbed her, held her tight, carried her to the door, and placed her gently onto the table. Immediately, she was surrounded by Jenny, Vastra, Strax, and the Latimer family. He politely pushed them out of the way, and whipped out his always-handy sonic screwdriver. The whirring noise of the screwdriver and the steady green light made him more hopeful for good news then ever. As he moved the piece of equipment across her body, it scanned her vitals and came back with a diagnosis. "Concussion, Internal Bleeding, and Broken Leg" it read. The Doctor swiftly turned to face Strax. "Watch her," he pleaded. "Don't let her out of your sight, and if she awakes, tell her to keep her head down and fetch her a glass of water."
"Roger that, sir. And if I may ask, where shall you be going?"
"To finish this, once and for all."
"May I suggest bringing a grenade?" Strax asked as he leaned slightly over to the Doctor.
"Why not."
Strax finished, "I suggest bringing a grenade."
Before Strax could finish his sentence, the Doctor whisked around the corner and into the TARDIS, and it disappeared into thin air, going only he knows where. He went to Dr. Simeon's office, to defeat the Great Intelligence. Meanwhile, the Latimer family thought they lost their nanny. The kids cried more severely than anyone. Jenny tried to console them, but to no avail.
The Doctor now had a cause to defeat the Great Intelligence, to avenge Clara. He quickly maneuvered the TARDIS inside the Great Intelligence office.
"Hand me the box, Doctor!" screamed Dr. Simeon. The Doctor reluctantly gave it to him.
As Dr. Simeon opened it, the Doctor replied, "Are you sure you want to do that?" Dr. Simeon disregarded this warning, and opened the box that contained fragments of the frozen ice governess. To his surprise, he was bitten by a memory worm, which successfully drained decades of memories with the Great Intelligence from his brain. The Doctor expected the Great Intelligence to be defeated on the spot due to Dr. Simeon's lack of memory. However, it cackled maniacally at the Doctor.
"You thought you could defeat me?" the Great Intelligence retorted. "You thought it would be easy?" The Doctor was visibly confused. During his moment of confusion, the snow suddenly turned to water, and the snow outside turned to rain.
"Of course!" he said dumbfoundedly. "The one thing that change the snow to rain. The only emotion more powerful than hate. Love. A whole family crying on Christmas Eve is enough to drown out the signals."
At this realization, he hopped back into the TARDIS and, before long, he returned to the Latimer mansion. Greeted by a semi-conscious and visibly wounded Clara, the Doctor grabbed her hand, sat gently beside her, and said, "You did it. You saved the world." He was exaggerating a bit, but a dying woman wasn't looking for the truth.
"Run you clever boy, and remember," she breathlessly forced out of her mouth. The Doctor's expression changed. He'd heard that before, but couldn't remember where.
She closed her eyes, as if for the last time, and breathed perhaps last breath. Her chest sunk, and the Doctor panicked. He paced around the room, trying to hold in his tears unlike the rest of the room, and mindlessly thought about his carelessness in letting someone else die. Meanwhile, Captain Latimer, Alice, and the children wept and wept until they cried themselves dry. Their mysterious governess had left them, her secret voice, her name, and her life were all gone.
The only person still focused on her was Strax, who denied the notion the she was dead, and tried as much as he could to bring her back to life.
"Strax," the Doctor called. "What are you doing?"
"Bringing Clara back to life, sir."
"With what, may I ask."
"Top-secret Sontaran nursing equipment. If any human eyes look at it, they burn up." Strax looked at the Doctor, specifically his eyes. "Sir, your eyes. They're not burning."
"I'm not human." The Doctor replied matter-of-factly. Strax went back to work, and the Doctor went to console the family.
Just as the gloominess of the room seemed to have no end, a beep surfaced from Strax's machine. Clara's stomach rose, her nostrils flared, and her eyes partially widened. To the surprise of everyone, she had survived. With all odds against her, she awoke to the aghast faces of the room and a general panic to keep her awake at all costs. In the end, she triumphantly sat up and took a sip of water. At the reluctance of their father, Francesca and Digby stayed at Clara's bedside all night. It even bothered Clara at times. "Oi, could you be any louder? You'll wake up the whole house!" Clara quietly exclaimed to Digby.
"Sorry," Digby replied.
After a moment of silence, Digby asked Clara, "So who are you? Are you Clara, Ms. Montague, or both? Are you really who you say you are?" Clara was surprised at his question. She didn't know how or with what to respond.
"Let's just say that there is a lot you don't know about me," she eventually responded to the children. "Now go to bed." They hustled across the room and scuttled up the stairs.
Waiting for the perfect moment, the Doctor popped his head out the TARDIS and saw that Clara was alone. He casually walked out to check on her. "Doctor, is that you?" she asked the figure that moved toward her side.
"Yes, how are you doing?"
"Fine. So when are we leaving?" Clara croaked out in a hoarse, tired voice. The Doctor's shock could be seen in his face. Why would she want to leave at all, let alone soon?
"Not now." She needed bed rest. They both knew it. The Doctor walked over to her, kissed her gently on the forehead, and went back into the TARDIS. It evaporated into thin air before Clara's eyes, before they shut themselves as she fell asleep.
Clara had a little while to wait before she would be ready for the Doctor's adventures. However, the Doctor had a time machine in his hands, and he didn't have to wait more than a minute. Clara, still lying in bed, was eating breakfast seven days after her death-defying fall. The TARDIS materialized ten feet away, and the Doctor kicked open the door. He was immediately greeted by Clara's question again.
"Are we leaving now?" At this question, the Doctor grabbed Strax's machine and checked on her health. She was perfectly fine, and didn't even have a scratch. At this response, Clara jumped out of bed and strolled over to the TARDIS, opened the door, and was re-mesmerized. The shiny knobs and handles, the sheer size of the machine, and presence of the Doctor all at once almost made her pass out again. The Doctor rushed to the console, grabbed a handle, and shut the door.
"Is it always this dangerous?" Clara asked, visibly shaken.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "Why, does that make you change your mind?"
"No, that's what makes it better." She whipped her head around to check the door for any frozen ice governesses. She turned back and said, "Sorry, force of habit." The Doctor cracked a smile. It quickly diminished, as he remembered what she had said before. Still unable to recall where he had heard it before, he realized that he should mention it to her.
"What you said before. Your 'last' words. I've heard them before. Where? Do I know you?" Clara was wordless. She didn't know what to say. Of course she'd never met him before, she would've remembered. "You're keeping secrets from me," he stated as he anxiously awaited her reply.
"Who doesn't? I know you are keeping more than a few." The Doctor couldn't let this go. She was a mystery waiting to be solved. A puzzle waiting to be pieced together. A girl waiting to be discovered. The impossible girl. Yet, he didn't know what was "impossible" about her. Something was weird about her. Something was familiar about her. He had finally found someone to fill the void in both his hearts, but she was a mystery, which is why he liked her. The Doctor swiftly faced her and, after months of loneliness, asked her as the TARDIS disappeared and flew into the time vortex, "Where do you want to go?" He had finally found her. He finally found his companion.