At first you are aware of the darkness, a black tinged with red that cracks and sparkles with the burning of a distant sun. This sky is unfamiliar, there are no recognisable stars, just the crimson nebula that balloons through your vision. You screw shut your eyelids, were they closed already? And as you open the shutters a crack of light slips through and blinds you. There is a presence behind you that you cannot quite place until your skull erupts with pressure and pain, a vice grip pinning you to the floor.
The floor. A sinking sensation fills your stomach. The urge to regurgitate is almost overwhelming but you fight it back. Why are you on the floor? You force open one eye, lift a heavy arm to shield yourself from the brightness. Relief swamps the feeling of sickness, you have free movement. Not a prisoner then.
A hand grabs yours firmly, a damp hand, female. You're not sure, you can't think clearly yet, but you think the hand is shaking. You grip it automatically and feel her other hand touch your face, wiping something from your eyebrow before resting on your cheek. You concentrate on the sensation but the mind, still clasped in the iron grip of agony, cannot process rationally. There is something about her touch, something reassuring, but wrong, the scent is foreign, like Christmas in June. You frown, a battle to develop functional thought rages behind your forehead.
Your forehead where your eyebrows are. Eyebrows. Thick eyebrows. Thick, bushy, eyebrows. You sink into the floor, the hard, smooth, metal floor. You open the other eye and focus on the distant wall where regimented circles of light run vertically, their faint glow enclosed in dark hexagons. Above them a thin line of white lights runs around the room, the edge of a walkway perhaps. It is dark, oppressively so. The lines are uniform, precise. There is an orange glow to your left and you strain to view it, propping yourself up on one elbow to see an unfamiliar TARDIS console above you, a rats nest of wires and cables hanging down below with a three tiered carousel of Galifreyan writing reaching up into a cathedral arch ceiling. The urge to vomit has returned and you give in, eager for the last strains of regeneration energy to pass from your lips.
Your last meal pools on the shiny metal floor. You slip backwards, startled. An arm reaches behind you, carefully protecting your throbbing head from revisiting the floor.
"Rose?"
There is a strangeness to the sound of your own voice. The arm behind your doesn't waver but you feel it tense.
"Doctor?"
Silence. You do not recognise this voice either. You squeeze shut your eyes and try to focus.
She is speaking again. A London accent, young, clear diction.
"I need to look at your head," she says, concern barely concealed in her authoritative tone.
"You're a teacher," you say, slurring a little.
She leans into view, brown hair, neat white blouse spattered with blood, discreet make-up, nicely presented. Definitely a teacher.
"How hard did you hit your head?" she asks with false humour, a tight smile falling short of her serious brown eyes. Her pupils drill into yours, "Do you know where you are?"
Your instinct is to protect her.
"TARDIS," you respond, she does not need to know you don't recognise it, or her.
She nods, reassured, and presses something against the back of your skull. The pain intensifies for a long moment and you feel her slide carefully so that your body is resting against hers. You feel protected. It makes you uneasy.
"Have I regenerated?" Keep it casual. No cause for alarm.
She laughs lightly, "No, you're the same daft old man I know and love."
"Old?"
She laughs again and places a handkerchief into your hand. "You might want to wipe your face."
"Why?" You stare at her blankly, her last words still rattling uncomfortably around your terribly vacant brain. Love? Old man she knows and loves?
"Because you have blood and grease forming a map of the universe on your forehead," her tone is turning officious and she directs your hand to the offending area.
You inspect your own hand cautiously. Wrinkled skin, long musicians fingers with callouses on the tips. This hand that you do not recognise reaches up and riffles through thick, wavy hair. What did she call you when you opened your eyes? Doctor? Breath catches in your chest, a hiccup of panic. You are you, but not the one you remember. You feel her concern vibrate through the smoky atmosphere. Smoke. You hadn't noticed that before either.
"Is there a fire?" you ask, trying to push yourself upright. Your voice is Scottish, not for the first time, but it is deeper. Darker.
She holds you down with a stronger grip than you expected, her hand firm on your shoulder.
"No fire, just some smouldering. Its under control."
You trust her judgement and nod making the pain at the back of your head ignite once more.
"What happened?" the accent is growing on you.
She doesn't answer for a minute, her fingers prodding the wound at the back of your head. She seems satisfied and moves back into your line of vision.
"What's the last thing you remember?"
The pronounced lines on your forehead wrinkle, "We were running away from an explosion, holding hands. The TARDIS was just ahead of us."
The image flashes through your mind. The earth is shaking, an explosion rips the air behind you. The air is filled with electricity, dust and the smell of chemicals burning. Your companion's hand is in yours, fingers intertwined. You glance sideways, feel a grin splitting your face and see the same broad expression on her features, so bright, so young, so beautiful.
"Rose?" the word rips from your lips before you can censor them, "Where's Rose?"
The brunette's eyes are wide now, scared, a pearl of a tear pooling faithlessly before she brushes it roughly away.
"Doctor," she says, her voice shaking, "Do you know who I am?"
You close your eyes. The old body that you do not know aches through to your soul.
"Of course I know you," you manage an air of nonchalance, "Took a knock to the head, rattled the old brain cells about a bit. Be all right in a jiffy. It's not like I'm running around in my pyjamas talking to dinosaurs, that would be worrisome."
Her eyes do not leave yours.
"How old are you?" she rushes on before you can speak, "Ball park figure. I don't care exactly."
"Really, you shouldn't ask your elders things like that. It could be considered rude."
Her stare deepens, "Answer the question."
You make a conservative estimate, "Ooh about 1000, give or take a decade."
Apparently it was the wrong answer. A fresh tear wells up in her eye and she takes hold of your hand tightly. Her fear manifests itself in you, a lump of lead in your stomach. Your chest tightens. How are you supposed to respond to someone's tears? There is some social protocol for this, one you do not understand. You push the dirty handkerchief at her and stare at a point just behind her left ear.
The woman gets to her feet then reaches down to pull you upright. You are almost a head taller than her but she steadies you as you wobble uncertainly looking down at checked trousers and the edge of a red lined jacket. The jacket is nice. Not so sure about the pants. You wonder just how hard you hit your head and how long it will take for effects to wear off.
"I'm a bit older than that then," you whisper through the lump that's forming in your throat.
"Just a bit," she replies leading you up stairs and out of the console room.
You follow her, half a step behind, her hand on your arm in some form of reassurance. Whether its for you or for herself you aren't sure. In another room, a medical bay, she makes you sit on a bed while she cleans up the sticky mass in your hair.
"Was I fixing the TARDIS again?" you ask her. She still hasn't told you her name. Its a test. Prove yourself.
There's a sniff and an aggravated 'yes' behind you. You are impressed by her attempt at stoicism. You find yourself wondering what you are supposed to do in this situation. You remember being more socially adept, whoever you are now you seem to have a strong aversion to emotions.
"It'll all come back to me in a minute," you tell her confidently, "Concussion, I expect. What do you think?"
"It better had do," she responds dryly, "There are many things I can do but flying your TARDIS is not one of them."
Your head is clearing rapidly now. This companion knows her way around your TARDIS, knows how to use a medi-patch to improve healing. She has applied it carefully, dropped in a local anaesthetic, the pain is almost gone. The room has stopped swimming in several directions at once and is now only circling to the left a few centimetres a second. She is still behind you but her hand falls onto your shoulder. Your fears ebb a little at her touch and you feel the air change as her anxieties lessen with your steadying breath.
"Clara."
You don't know where the name came from but you know it is the right one. She relaxes considerably, resting her chin on your shoulder, your heads touching. Part of you wants to pull away, another part is glad of the contact. Somehow it makes you feel real.
"Clara," you speak softly, listening to your own voice. "If you pass me a cortical stimulator I can prompt a little memory regrowth. Speed things up a little."
Clara crosses to the other side of the room and withdraws a tubular device from a drawer. She hesitates, raises her dark eyebrows and holds the device just outside of arms reach.
"I'm not sure I should let you do this," she says, "After the mess you just made out there trying to tighten a screw with a butter knife are you really qualified to go poking around in brain matter?"
"A butter knife?"
You frown. You like the sensation in causes. This must be an expressive face. An angry face. You scan the room for a reflective surface and catch a glimpse of yourself in the dark glasses that are sitting on the worktop. Older than you imagined. Grey hair. Not exactly distinguished.
"Why didn't I use my sonic screwdriver?"
"You didn't have it on you," she replies evasively, still holding the cortical stimulator out of reach.
You watch her face. The weight of the universe seems to be on her shoulders. You think she looks like a judge weighing out a death sentence. Her hand is clasped tightly around the stimulator, knuckles turning white with the pressure.
"You don't want me to remember."
You speak softly but it is not a question.
There is a pause, she shakes her head a little.
This face does not feel like a smiling face. It has gravity. You go with it, your expression sombre, hoping your eyes reflect the affection you have for this woman that you know you care for but cannot remember why.
Clara puts the instrument on the bed and hops up to sit beside you, not right at your side but close enough. Her feet dangle above the floor but she sits perfectly still. You wait, assuming she will speak when she is ready.
"It's just, there are some things that happened in my past that I would forget, given the chance," Clara confides after a while. "I can't help thinking that you might be…happier… if you didn't remember some of the things that have happened to you."
Your lips jerk into an unnatural smile, this face doesn't wear the boyish grin you remember. Clara seems to recognise the look and she manages a small smile in return.
"Its a very human thing to wish," you tell her gently, "To forget your troubles, move on, become a new person."
"It's foolish," Clara hangs her head, ashamed.
"Yes," you agree automatically, "But you're human, its to be expected."
You cringe at your own words wishing you had couched them better but are relieved when Clara laughs a little and reaches for the stimulator, offering it to you on her open hand. You pick it up and adjust the settings before handing it back to her.
"We are all the sum of our memories, Clara," you adopt a sage-like air, "They make us who we are. Kind or cruel. If we do not remember our triumphs how can we celebrate them?"
"And the… loses?" her voice catches a fraction.
"You cannot love without losing."
She stands and walks behind you again. There is a gentle click, a buzz, and a million spiders wriggle their way across your brain. Fireworks explode spreading light into all the dark places of your mind. You close your eyes as the brightness increases, holding yourself steady, maintaining the appearance of calm.
There is a pause. The stimulator has stopped buzzing. For a moment there is nothing, you hear Clara ask if it worked but you don't respond. Not yet. The final display of the night has not yet been lit. You feel it building, a coiled charge of energy building in your brain stem, a pin ball machine waiting to be sprung.
There is a roar of sound that only you can hear. It fills your head and the biggest fireworks of all blast their way through your mind. 1000 years of memories pour in a waterfall in front of your eyes, love, hope, pain, despair roll in waves. You gasp for breath, drowning in the deluge.
It is over as suddenly as it began. The deafening voices of your past fall into whispers and echoes until all you can hear is the sound of your own breath rattling raggedly in your chest. You feel your age now, understand the long face, the dark eyes, the aversion to emotions. You have seen too much, loved too little, hurt more than you had capacity to express.
As you raise yourself to your feet you feel the aged ache of your bones. Clara is beside you, her eyes questioning, concerned. You can only nod an acknowledgement of the success. You recoil inside as she wraps her arms around you tightly but hug her awkwardly back, secretly glad that she always ignores your protestations. And in that moment she is everyone you ever loved, and you hold her closely your face and damp eyes hidden from view.
You will never tell her that she was right. You may well have been happier without the memories.