A/N: Hey there whovians! This is probably my favourite fanfiction for 11 and Clara that I have written so far, so reviews would be very nice! I'm only doing this in one part because I think it's easier and I'm too lazy to upload it part by part so special treat, it's all here! None of that bothersome clicking of "next"! enjoy! :D
"Right then, Miss Oswald!" The Time Lord clapped his hands together, "Where do you want to go? I do believe that the Chagardid Planet has some lovely beaches! Or what about the Forgogen Nebula? Great people, awful smell! Or-"
The Doctors newest companion cut him off mid-lecture. Knowing him, one of those places was probably in the middle of a civil war.
"You know what I hear? That LA is nice. Best keep it safe, if you know what I mean." Clara Oswald winked at the doctor, and the pair remembered their last trip on the TARDIS resulting in some nasty burns and an angry Emperor.
"Well, I'm sure the pair of us can make even LA interesting!" The Doctor laughed and then sprinted around the room in a blur, pulling levers, pushing buttons, a manner of all things that Clara was yet to get used to. She'd been travelling with the Doctor for a few months now, and whilst she thought at first that the excitement of never knowing where you were going next and visiting new worlds in distant galaxies would lose its novelty, it never did. Nothing beats the rush of adrenaline she got every time she left those blue doors.
The TARDIS gave a huge lurch, and they were off, flying through the time vortex to reach modern day LA. Another jolt signified that they had arrived, so the Doctor took Clara's hand, and led her outside.
It was a scorching hot day. The sun beat down on them, its rays warming even the shade. Clara, who was dressed for, well, England, started to overheat, so rushed back into the TARDIS, to pay a visit to the huge and seemingly unending wardrobe. The Doctor, who never seemed to get hot in his outfit, waited outside. He leant against the TARDIS, ignoring the odd looks that the Americans were giving him and waving to a few, and waited. He had never understood why women, no matter what galaxy they lived in, took so long to get changed. It was a concept that even Time Lords, supposedly the smartest beings in the universe, could never grasp.
Eventually, Clara emerged dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, complete with a pair of rather large sunglasses. That was another thing the Doctor didn't understand. Why did human women feel the need to wear such large sunglasses? It's not like they were Cargongrads, beings from the furthest reaches of the universe with abnormally large eyes and no manners.
They left the Blue Box in the street, and followed a large crowd of tourists through the famed Los Angeles. It was early evening, so the sun, whilst still burning hot, had started to acquire a faint orange glow to its usual amber.
"So, LA huh? Meh." The Doctor said as he smiled down at Clara, who was quite a bit shorter than him.
"Meh? Just meh? C'mon Doctor! It's LA! One of the best places in America and you just say meh?!" Clara said, a slightly annoyed tone entering her usual calm voice.
"Well, LA only gets really interesting in 2150, after an earthquake devastated the place so it needed a complete revamp. Then and only then am I impressed by LA" The Doctor said in a slightly smug voice, and it was only then that Clara remembered that this man had been to the end of the universe and back, so Earth must seem pretty boring.
They walked on in comfortable silence, the Clara contemplating what the most beautiful place in the universe could be and the Doctor remembering the most beautiful place in the universe, a place that he could never visit again.
A loud rumbling broke them from their thoughts. Suddenly the ground around them started to shake, violently throwing the time-travelling pair to the floor. They looked around, expecting to see the people of LA reacting and looking scared, but they walked on, oblivious to the earth that shook beneath them. Clara shot a worried and confused look at the Doctor, and once the shaking had subsided they got up, brushing the creases from their clothes.
"Doctor?" Clara said slowly, recognising the look that the Doctor wore, a look he wore just before they were about to run around the planet, saving everyone's lives.
"I think this visit may take a while. C'mon, let's go to the earthquake centre, take a look at the readings and so on and so forth." The Doctor said, before turning on his heel and running back to the TARDIS. Clara took off behind him, sighing internally. Would they ever be able to visit a planet without something happening?
Inside the TARDIS once again, the Doctor took up his usual position by the control panel, running around the room pulling buttons in what seemed like a random fashion.
When they next opened the doors, they were in what looked like a basement. Pipes and cables clung to the walls, obscured by assorted boxes and filing cabinets. The Doctor led them to a service elevator, and the pair stepped inside.
"Hmmm, I'm gonna say….level 4" The Doctor smiled at Clara, and pushed the button respectively. As much as Clara should have hated it, she loved when the Doctor started guessing. Probably because his high intellect meant he was nearly always right. A female American voice announced their arrival on level 4, and they stepped out into a room filled with computers and scanners, boards with charts and graphs. A man in a white lab coat approached them.
"Sorry, but who are you?" He drawled , his voice thick in accent.
"Ah, right well I'm Doctor Smith and this is Clara my, uh…" The Doctor glanced down at Clara, silently allowing her to come up with her own cover.
"Boss. I'm …I'm his boss. I'm supervising him here." She winked up at the Doctor, who glared at her slightly then proceeded to take out a leather wallet.
"Yes, well here are our papers" He handed the man a blank piece of paper, which Clara had come to learn was Psychic Paper.
"Yes, uh, Doctor Smith, well I'm Doctor Pierce. Please, follow me. You can take a look at the readings on this computer here" He led them to a computer at the back of the room.
The Doctor hung back a bit, distracted by some other readings. Clara followed Doctor Pierce, who showed her a graph with the readings for the recent earthquake.
"Uhh, Doctor?" Clara called out after looking at the readings. The Doctor rushed over. "I may not be an expert, but those readings look…really bad" She muttered as the Doctor leant over the computer, studying the graph intently.
"What's wrong? Those are just some normal readings. I mean, there was no earthquake." Dr Pierce asked, his voice conveying his sincerity. It proved the Doctors theory that he had been working on. Clara and he were the only ones who could feel and see anything about the earthquakes.
"This is all wrong, Clara." The Doctor muttered so only Clara could hear, then took her hand.
"Well then, Dr Pierce! Lovely to meet you! Have a great day! We must take off, important things to do, people to save." The Doctor said the last part under his breath, making Clara chuckle.
He gave Dr Pierce a parting wave, and then took off in the direction of the TARDIS.
"Doctor? What is it? What's wrong?" Clara said as stood in the elevator.
"Hmm? Oh yes, the earthquakes. Well I believe we are the only ones who know about it. Which makes me think that this sort of …how to put it…amnesia technology can only come from one of two races. Megalyds or Krakapods. And I think it's the latter." He spoke confidently, as if he honestly thought Clara had any idea what he could be talking about.
"Okay" She said slowly, as they ran out of the elevator, "So if these, Kraka-whatsits are here, why haven't we seen any?"
"Well, Krakapods aren't the most…attractive things. Huge ears, tiny legs but long torsos, red skin that looks like it's covered in a really bad case of acne" The Doctor gave a very obvious, and overly dramatic shudder. "So they don't want to come out in the open. Now…where would they hide…basements? No someone would find them there…Subways? Again, too frequently used."
"Sewers?" Clara offered, not expecting the Doctor to have heard. He never usually heard anything when he went off on a ramble.
"Oh Clara! Brilliant! Well then, let's take a trip to the Sewers!" He gestured to the TARDIS, where they had just arrived. They rushed inside the blue doors and the Doctor got straight to work, pushing buttons that Clara could not for the life of her work out why she sort of remembered what they did. A bang brought Clara out of her thoughts and the Doctor pulled her out of the TARDIS.
The first thing they were met with was the most horrific stench. The odour stung their eyes, making them water. The Doctor got out his trusty Sonic Screwdriver and scanned the area.
"Right, seems like we have an abundance of life forms off to the north, and I'm pretty certain that sewer maintenance teams don't come in groups of hundreds." He grimaced at Clara, obviously not pleased by the thought of hundreds of these creatures.
They made their way through the winding tunnels, the Doctor babbling on about goodness knows what, whilst Clara tuned out. She was trying to figure out the odd thoughts she had been thinking back in the TARDIS, and why on earth she could remember those buttons. But a sharp pain in the back of her head prevented her dwelling on the matter. Her vision clouded and darkened, and the Doctor's voice sounded distant as she fell into the arms of her attackers.
"And, you know, since then I really don't think I'll ever go back. Something about talking plants just creeps me out- Clara are you even listening? Clara?" The Doctor spun around and saw his companions' feet turning a corner. Clara was being dragged off, and the Doctor had been so immersed in his story that he hadn't even turned around to check on his Impossible Girl.
He followed in the direction that Clara was being dragged, checking each corner before he turned, in a desperate attempt not to reach the same fate as his companion. He checked behind him once every so often, certain that an attacker would not want to go head first into battle, and rather take a more stealthy option.
He knew this had to be the Krakapods doing. But why would they want a human girl? And why now? It seems they must have been down in those sewers for years now, so why not take one before now? Something just wasn't clicking. What could a human girl do for them? As much as the Doctor loved the human race, they weren't exactly the ones to help a stranded spaceship. Even Clara would be no help. So it must be something that humans have no control over, not intelligence. The Doctor racked his brains, but came up with nothing. He had absolutely no idea.
The sewers seemed to go on forever. It felt like hours before his sonic screwdriver made a high pitch noise which signified that he was near the Krakapods. He walked forward slowly, careful to make his footsteps as quiet as possible. He did not want to be discovered. He wanted to utilise the element of surprise, one of his favourite weapons.
He turned another corner, and a strange red light filled the corridor. The light was of Krakapod doing, he was certain of it. The sound of marching footsteps filled the air, and the Doctor slid into the shadows of an alcove. He held his breath, careful to not make a single sound. Krakapods had exceptional hearing, but Time Lords were brilliant at keeping quiet when they needed to. When the Krakapods had gone, the Doctor walked in the direction they came from and eventually found the source of the red light. A huge cavern, filled with hundreds of Krakapods, stood before him. They had placed down their own technology, obviously salvaged from the wreckage of the huge ship that lay in the background. It emanated the same red glow that filled the room. The Doctor recognised it immediately as the light of a dying ship, similar to the dying breaths of a human. This ship would never take off again, not on its own anyway. It needed a rescue ship to jumpstart the engines, because whilst the engines were off, that ship would die. Krakapod technology made their machines have almost lives. Whilst not alive, they could still die and once dead the machine would never turn back on. With that ship dead, all of their communications would die with it, and those Krakapods would be stranded forever. But it still didn't explain why they needed Clara. They were not just kidnapping her for the fun of it, if that were the case he would have been taken too. No, they had a reason for Clara. A reason that the Doctor could not quite fathom.
A scream from the corner of the room broke the Doctors train of thought. Clara was screaming, trapped in a cage surrounded by Krakapods. She smashed her hands against the glass that held her, crying out for her life.
For her life…her life…That was it! Her life was what the Krakapods needed. They had obviously developed some sort of transfer device, one they could use to transfer Clara's life into the engines and start them up again. It would kill Clara, but she was just a disposable human to them, nothing special.
But she was special. To them, she was the most special human being there was. She had lived a thousand lives; she had more life than anything on the planet. Except for the Doctor. He knew what he had to do.
"Right then! What do we have here, hmm? Krakapods, from the Trigladon Galaxy. You are a long way from home, aren't you? And you're stuck? Crash landed in LA? And you want to get home. Well, of course you do! We all get homesick! But…sometimes we get stuck for good. I should know. And stuck for good means stuck for good. Your ship is dying. It's too far gone. And Clara's life is not enough to restore it." The Doctor paced up and down the large room, watching as the fear in Clara's eyes turned to faith.
A Krakapod in the centre of the room, enrobed in gold material signifying his leadership, spoke up.
"The girls life is not what is important. It is the memories. If we can unlock the memories then we can harness that and it will be more than enough. And if it isn't, then we kill this planet, and everyone in it." It said in a raspy voice, its face contorted into a smile.
"Memories? You have developed technology that turns memories into life fuel? Boy, you're cleverer than I thought. And she has more than enough memories. Except for one small fact" The Doctor said slowly as he brought out a silver tube from within his coat pocket.
"Clara's memories are not in her brain. Yes, there are traces, but all of her past lives live in here." He held up the tube, admiring his handiwork. "And you are not getting this. And you are never going to kill the human race. You know why? Because I'm here." He placed it back into his pocket, just as twenty Krakapods advanced on him. He backed away slowly, careful not to run into their huge muscular arms. He glanced over at Clara and winked. This was going to be…reckless. But reckless was how the Doctor liked it.
He ran forward, pushing past each Krakapod, using every ounce of strength to push their immensely heavy bodies out of the way. He had to get over to the energy transfer machine. If he could plug himself in, then he could give the Krakapods just enough energy to send for help, and then he could send for the Shadow Proclamation and leave with Clara. Well, that was the plan anyway.
Clara banged on the glass of her cage, screaming for her release.
"I'm sorry Clara, I'll get you out, I promise" He smiled at his impossible soufflé girl, then plunged his hand into the machine. Pain coursed through every atom of his body, as second by second everything he had lived was taken from him. He only had to lose a year. Just one year. Just one…Just… The room around him darkened, and he slowly fell to the floor, memories flashing before him.
Not finishing his goodbye to Rose.
Martha leaving him.
Removing Donna's memories.
Rory being taken.
Amy being taken.
Clara stepping into his timestream.
He couldn't watch it any more. It was killing him.
"Don't you dare make me. Don't make me relive it. Please. You can't." The Doctor didn't know who he was talking to. He just had to do something, anything to stop it.
And then, something brushed his hand. He slowly turned his head, to find Clara at his side. But something was different, she was different. He let his eyes wander over her body, only to find Victorian attire adorning her body. It couldn't be. This was the Clara he had lost, the Clara who fell to her death.
The world around him was moving in slow motion, all except for the Doctor and this truly impossible Clara. She placed a finger to her lips, then moved fast, removing his hand from the machine. He winced as his now mangled hand moved. She then brought her face over to his, and looked down to where his pocket, holding the silver memory holder. That was it! She was one of the echos of Clara, yet somehow it had leaked and she was here now. Doing the one thing she was meant to do, protect him.
"Run you clever boy, and remember" She whispered in his ear. And with that, the world around him returned to normal speed. The light from the dying ship gradually changed, from red to a healthy green. The Krakapods boarded the ship, leaving all their work in place, staring in awe at their newly living ship. The Doctor got up slowly, wincing slightly at his hand, and made his way over to Clara's cage. Using his Sonic Screwdriver, he released her and pulled her into a shaky hug, continually kissing her hair. His Clara had saved her again.
Suddenly, the Doctor remembered the Krakapods, and their crimes. They had modified with the memories of a level 5 planet, and then threatened to destroy it. These offenses had to be paid for.
He made his way over to the ship, and couldn't help admiring the strange technology.
"Krakapods! Don't think this is it! You have done some crimes and you are not getting away with it!" He fiddled with his sonic, sending up a signal that was bound for the Shadow Proclamation. "They're coming and, oh look at that," the sonic made a loud noise, "They locked on, how lovely! So, bye bye!" He waved at the bemused looking Krakapods, grabbed Clara's hand and took off through the sewers.
Running through corridor after corridor, the Doctor kept looking back at Clara. She had done so much for him, but he had made her forget her past lives. She would remember jumping into the time stream, but never what she saw in there. It was too dangerous for a human mind.
Eventually, they turned a corner and found the TARDIS, almost gleaming in the dank sewers. He unlocked the door, and gestured for Clara to go in first. Once inside, he collapsed on a seat, and attended to his injured hand. Clara sat next to him, smiling softly.
"You know, Doctor, you do some really extraordinary things sometimes. You really are a genius." She said, then kissed his forehead appreciatively and left the control room, presumably for her room.
"Oh, Clara. If only you knew." He smiled wistfully, and set the TARDIS back for the Maitlands'. This really would be some story for her to tell.