-CHAPTER ONE-

-GALLIFREY-

I don't know where I am. I just know I'm running. Sometimes it's like I've lived a thousand lives in a thousand places. I'm born, I live, I die. And always, there's the Doctor. Always I'm running to save the Doctor. Again and again and again. And he hardly ever hears me. But I've always been there. Right from the very beginning. Right from the day he started running.

It began on Gallifrey.

My name is Clara. I was born on the continent of Wild Endeavor, in the shadow of the mountains of Solace and Solitude. The second sun rises and the mountains shine every morning, making my bedroom glow with light. Framed in my window, between the branches of a tree with shining silver leaves, I could see the shining citadel of the Time Lords.

My parents were Gallifreyian, and they were lovely people. Neither went to the Academy, and they weren't as stodgy as all the other Time Lords. But they raised me. My mother died when I was young. I was only fifty years old. She was a remarkable women. There was this recipe she always used to make. She called it a soufflé. It was the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. I never could quite get the hang of making soufflés.

"The soufflé isn't the soufflé. The soufflé, is the recipe," she used to say. She was deep on puddings. Remarkable woman.

She still called me Soufflé Girl, though. I loved it when she called me that. It almost felt as though that were my name.

She said the recipe came from Earth, a far away place in a far away system. I loved hearing tales of Earth as a child. Some part of me imagined it to be home. I dreamed of that blue and green Earth. I dreamed of one day going there in a TARDIS of my own.

At the age of eight I was taken from my family, to enter the Academy. I stood before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality. I stared into Time itself. What I saw was impossible. What I saw was a million lives, spread across Time. I saw a million of my own deaths. I saw a million times I saved a man called the Doctor. I saw myself dying to save him, over and over again a million times. I saw that I was born to save the Doctor. I saw that I am the impossible girl.

Run, you clever boy. And remember.

I was born to save the Doctor.

I remembered who I am.

And then I ran away.

I never remembered what I saw in the Untempered Schism. No one ever does. But the impression stays with you forever. I've seen Time itself, I saw my future, my past, my present. I saw the truth of who I was. The truth stays in your hearts forever.

Truth enough to know that I had to save the Doctor.

I was never important in the Academy. I was never destined to become anything special. I kept my head down, and worked to not be noticed. Even if I was dead clever and was able to hack into anything. The impossible girl, they called me. It should be impossible to hack into everything, but not for me.

I was good with the children who came to the Academy. While the others teased them for their youth, I helped them. It was my room the children could come to if they needed an ear to listen or a clever mind like mine to help them understand a complex Time Lord theory.

I graduated from the Academy at the age of 80, in the Prydonian chapter. My father watched with an unashamed pride as I received my honors. A full Time Lady.

I passed my TARDIS driving exams with little difficulty. It was easy enough to hack into the system and learn all of the answers. I never got a TARDIS of my own, though. A part of me knew I had to stay on Gallifrey. I had to save the Doctor. And the Doctor was on Gallifrey.

I knew who he was. I had been watching for him. He never saw me, but I saw him. I never knew why it was, but he seemed so familiar. Like I knew him. Like I'd met him before. I knew he was important. A renegade Time Lord who could barely pass his own driving exams. But so important, no matter what the other Time Lords thought.

After I graduated, I worked below the Citadel, in a repair shop for faulty TARDISes. I had worked there for nearly a year. I got the job on behalf of a friend, who was returning the favor of my being a nanny to his children in their young years.

I knew I was meant to be there when I went to the hall of TARDISes that day. I knew I was meant to be there when he and a young girl tried to steal a faulty TARDIS. Not to stop him. But to save him.

"Doctor," I called to him. "Doctor."

His young eyes in his old face met mine across a row of broken TARDISes.

"Yes, what is it? What do you want?"

"I'm sorry, but you're about to make a very big mistake," I informed him. He looked afraid, as though I would stop him. I leaned against an old junky Type 40 TARDIS. A TARDIS that seemed very familiar. I smirked. "Don't steal that one. Steal this one. The navigation system's knackered but you'll have much more fun."

And he stole an ancient Type 40 piece of junk TARDIS. Because of me. I showed him the one with the unlocked door. I listened when he touched her console for the first time. I heard him say she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever known. I watched with a smile as it disappeared with the Doctor and a girl called Susan inside it. I said to the thin air, as though the Doctor could hear me as he ran away from his home to see the stars.

"Run you clever boy. And remember."

My story as a Time Lady is not over yet, but there are so many more stories to tell.

I don't know where I am. I just know I'm running. Always I'm running to save the Doctor.

-?-

A/N:Don't worry, we'll come back to Time Lady Clara. I love this Clara and I've got a bunch of ideas for her.

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