Hey! This is my first of many Dr. Who fanfictions! (I say many because I have many planned because my friend Eli and I have just spent long time just brainstorming headcanons) So props to Eli for the idea of this! I don't own Dr. Who, but there are parts of this that follows closely to the Season 9 finale, Hell Bent because it wouldn't make sense without it. I hope you like it!
There was a man that walked into the empty diner, an older man with a guitar and sunglasses. He looked worn from his travels or whatever he had been through. Whatever it was, it seemed like a lot. The diner may have been empty, but he wasn't alone.
There was also a girl, with brown hair and gentle brown eyes. She was full of life and walked up to the man to keep him company. It was like they had never met, but they have.
"How did you get here?" The man question her, to which she responded, "Magic."
After a pause she included "Or maybe I just went to an airport, got on a plane." And when she questioned him about the same thing, he responded exactly the same, "Magic". The man was fairly interesting, said he had been traveling from time to time.
Maybe he really was magic, because when the guitar was strummed there came noise. The girl looked to him, her gentle eyes turning sad. "Is that a sad song?"
"Nothing's sad till it's over." He responded, "Then everything is."
"What's it called?"
"I think that it's called... Clara."
There was a beat of silence. "Tell me about her." She suggested, leaning on the counter.
"No I really don't-"
"Tell me about her." The girl insisted, going back and grabbing some lemonade. "Please, I'm always up for a good story."
The man sighed, nodding his head. He then began his story, and it would've seemed strange to the girl if she hadn't heard it before. The man told how he went back to his hometown in space, and how a huge space boss was determined to kill him.
Even though she knew all about it, she found it in herself to ask, "Is it a story or did that really happen?"
"Every story ever told really happened." The man informed. "Stories..." He paused. "Are where memories go when they've gone."
He continued with his story, and she listened intently, adding little things like "That Clara person you must really like her." And "The thing that you took, what was it?"
He looked up, and told the girl, "In order to protect Clara, I needed to wipe some of her memories. Of me."
She became quiet and he got eyes of sympathy before the story continued to grow, and the more he continued the more she realized how much he really cared about this Clara. He finally got to the part of the story that was most painful for her to listen to, how he was going to get rid of his memories of her, or delete her memories of him. Either way, it would leave a hole in one of their hearts.
He let her know the things he knew about Clara, and the things he forgot. You could tell from the emotion on his face that losing this person so close to him was devastating, though he wouldn't say it.
The girl couldn't help it. "Are you looking for her? She can be anyone right? You don't know who you're looking for, you know. She could be me."
"There's one thing I know about her, just one thing. If I met her again, I would definitely know."
"I was here with her once." He continued, but then remembering it was another one of his lost companions. She would know he's lost many.
With that the girl turned back, and mentioned the TARDIS, and after a small discussion about that, the man got up and started playing again.
"You say, memories, they become stories when we forget them. Well, maybe some of them become songs." She mentioned, walking towards the door.
"That would be nice." The man said, focused on sadly strumming his guitar.
"Yeah, it would be, wouldn't it?" She responded, smiling at him for one last time before she slipped in the door.
Realizing he was alone again, the man stopped strumming and shook his head, looking at the door the girl left from. "Oh Clara... If only I could remember you." He muttered to himself, as the diner setting disappeared and he stood there, looking around at the empty place he was in. By then he noticed something, his blue box. The TARDIS. He walked to it slowly, with the mural of someone who's face he didn't know on it. Gently pushing it open and walking inside, there was a note on his chalkboard reading "Run you clever boy, and be a doctor". There was also his other coat. He didn't know what had drawn him to that coat, but he slipped it on knowing there was something significant related to it that he forgot.
Grabbing his new sonic screwdriver, he pulled the lever and started going on a new journey into space, but alone. Like the beginning, no companions just him and the TARDIS.