My Last Duchess
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive.
I call That piece a wonder now.
-Robert Browning
Hell is replete with flaws.
I suppose that's part of what makes it hell. I can't imagine there's any room for error in Heaven. Not a book out of place, not a dirty stained-glass window or a stray fingerprint or a single out of tune choir boy.
I never had any expectation I'd end up in anything that passed for Heaven. The question never was whether or not I was in Hell. But rather whose Hell was I in? Was this someone else's creation or one of my own making?
This place supplies me with everything I need. Chairs upon which to sit. Dry clothes with which to cover myself. A bed to sleep upon. A meal with which to sustain myself. And a very personal nightmare; a rotting, loping corpse, the stuff of my little boy horrors...and my old man horrors as well, so it seems.
There is little here to comfort me except the refuge I carve out in my own mind. The safety and hum of the TARDIS I've recreated, a blackboard and her. But only her back...and her words. Or my words I suppose in her script. Because, you see, she isn't really here.
There is little here to comfort me except one incongruous thing. One enormous flaw.
Her.
There, hanging on the wall staring at me as I stare back. A portrait of youth. A portrait decaying.
She shouldn't be here. There is no reason she should be here. And though she gives me comfort, she also tells me this is hell.
There are strands of canvas on my clothes. No, not my clothes. Rather the clothes that were drying by the fire. Whoever's clothes they are they also smell vaguely of paint. Thick, rich oil paints. There's a smudge of lavender on the lining inside just above the shoulder. A careless grab, perhaps, one telling finger fingerprint that hand scrubbing missed?
I don't know. But I wear the clothes of the Artist and wonder what became of him. Is he still here? Is he one of the skulls below? Does the same fate await me?
If the age of the painting is any indication he may very well be long dead.
But perhaps not, perhaps he's here, alive and well and taunting me. Maybe he is the author of all of this.
The bedroom is a base of operation. It's where I reset. Though the rooms shift, it is always at the farthest end of the castle. 82 minutes away. 81 minutes to sleep. Or not. I set my internal clock to wake me, not that I could sleep through its approach. I know when it's close.
But I don't always sleep. At times I only stare at her face.
If it was put here to taunt me the Artist misjudged. It gives me comfort.
If it was put here to distract me, again, he misjudged, it helps me focus. Clara always did.
If the Artist thought it clever to leave this image of her here for me as a symbol of failure, death, futility then he hasn't been paying attention.
I speak to her sometimes and in my mind she answers. I seem to only have parts of her now. When my eyes are open I can see her face but she's silent. When they're closed she talks to me, writes to me, rather. But I never see her face. That's lost to me.
I can choose how to spend my minutes. They're mine to use as I like just as they are in any other place. There are times I just spend standing before it. Staring at her. Once I ran my fingers across the surface once but part of her flaked away and I never dared again. I've taken too many parts of her already.
And still...I want to take it with me. Peel it away in strips and place them gently in my pockets. To be reassembled once I found my way out of this place. If I found my way out.
I would put her back together again.
Then perhaps I could mourn her properly.
It occurs to me at times; she asked me not to be alone. They all ask me not to be alone. And I nod and promise and before they're cold in the earth I break my word.
Perhaps this is my punishment. Perhaps this is what I deserve for lying to their faces. Her face. Perhaps this is my earned eternity; running and alone just as I always said I wanted.
Except I was lying then too.
What happens on that 83rd minute? What would happen in I just lay in bed and let it take me?
My compass is all wrong and I no longer know what's brave and what's cowardly. Clara would know.
Even her portrait tells me to go on. Maybe against the Artists will, that message is captured there; all her stubbornness, her belief in right and wrong, her trust in me.
He's leaving clues for me. I believe he's what I'll find in room 12. Maybe he has answers. Maybe I'll take pleasure prying those answers from him. Maybe I'll indulge in that sweetest of sweets...revenge.
Maybe is all that I have to keep me going now. Maybe and her face.
So, for tonight and perhaps just for tonight as I lay my head down on the pillow and set my mind for 81 minutes (I only need a minutes head start) I promise her one more day.
For you, Clara and only for you, one more day in this. One more day where I try to win.
But I don't know how much longer I can bear it.
I talk a good game...but I've no stomach for eternity.
A/N:
From Steven Moffat's Interview Regarding Heaven Sent
1) The Doctor was in the castle for several weeks. So from start (waking, coughing in that chamber to crawling back to it after the Veil touches him) to finish takes three or so weeks, maybe a month.
2) By the time Heaven Sent starts the Doctor has been doing this loop for 7,000 years.
3) The castle provides what he needs, food, a bed and the first set of clothes he had to change into.
4) The most important part; he painted the portrait of Clara. He is the Artist. The direct Moffat quote is "Of course it was him, the soppy old fool."