Vastra was still calling after him as he launched himself up the stairs and into the bedroom and he could hear Jenny question what was going on and he could hear Strax scream something about backup and grenades, but he pushed into the Tardis and closed the door with a crash. And then he froze. He pressed his forehead to the inside of the door and there were murmurs outside, but he couldn't make out what they were saying, his hearts were thudding too loudly in his chest.

He could really do it, he knew. He could simply seek her out and fly to her and introduce himself and take her up into the stars because he knew it was in her 'programming' to want to seek him out and fly with him. Vastra, he knew, was absolutely right, and the conflicting thoughts turned his stomach and sent a warm surge of adrenaline through his veins.

"Just one," he told the Tardis as she blared her warning bells. "Just one, just once, just one bloody time, the universe is going to give me what I want."

It was wrong.

The thought slammed through his head and he shook it out, flipping a lever and typing quickly into the screen and waiting, watching the Gallifreyan that flew back up to greet him, to tell him it was searching. To tell him it was obeying. To finally tell him where she was.

2430 London.

He laughed because they were supposed to go to 2398 London just the next day. It was their next trip. To meet with world leaders and show Clara the plans that would usher in wonderful things, or at least interesting things. He smirked, she would merely point and laugh at the prime minister's hat. He looked up at the image that flashed up on the screen. It was a color photo of her smiling face dated the third of August 2424.

Her hair seemed darker, just a bit longer, and her skin slightly more tan, but it was her. A part of her, he thought as his finger absently reached up to touch her cheek on the screen. "I'm so sorry, Clara," he whispered, because he knew his Clara would disagree. His Clara would tell him to pick a day and pick a time and find another someone to travel with.

His Clara would understand though.

"After her," he promised, eyes closing against the cheerful face staring him down. "After I save her."

He pushed at the buttons in front of him, listening to the engine roar, and the lights flickered around the room as the Tardis shifted into the time vortex. He generally felt the passing of time in interesting ways, but in that moment it felt frozen, just as his hearts felt, and as the Tardis landed, it all shifted back into normal speed. The lights around him slowed and the engine quieted to a hum and he looked to the doors, making his way towards them slowly.

If the Doctor had to describe 2430 London in one word after stepping out of his Tardis and onto the rubble, he would say it was loud. Loud. Just that one simple word for the whistling that ripped through the air and the grumbling pops of explosions in the distance, the cascade of bricks and cement ricocheting off each other and landing loudly onto the ground. He would say that the gunfire was deafening and he would say that the shouts of soldiers and civilians were distracting, but he would sum it all up with one word.

Loud.

He searched quickly, spotting a place to take refuge for the moment, and as the Doctor breathed in the exhaust of vehicles that seemed to permeate the air, mingled with the smoke of dead fires smoldering around him, he stumbled forward and towards the remains of a building, working his way through a half broken door to stand inside. The sounds of the outside world were muted, but still there – a reminder of the war that raged on – but he chose to listen to the sizzle of dust working its way through cracks in the ceiling to the carpet greyed out beneath him; to watch it sparkle and swirl in the beams of the dwindling light from just outside. To be fascinated by that simplicity before considering his surroundings and wondering whether or not it'd been the best idea to exit.

Vastra had been right to tell him it was an insane idea. Of course, he smiled, deepening the lines on his old face, wasn't she always right? Of course, even sanity wouldn't have stopped him – shouldn't she know, he thought to himself, that the Doctor was a jump to the left of all sane thought? He managed a chuckle; one that sat heavy in that empty space as he dropped his eyes to the ground, seeing the even coating of dust, undisturbed save for a few light footsteps that lead further inside.

He pulled the Sonic from his breast pocket and gave the air in front of him a quick wave, scanning the room before glancing at the results. There were several life forms, mostly small rodents, he knew, but he detected one human. The single human whose face he longed to see. The single human he knew he should probably stay the furthest from. Because the single human he detected had to be an echo of Clara Oswald and, as such, as soon as he came into contact with her, he knew this single human would do everything in her power to keep him safe.

It was her vow.

An unfair one that generally left her for dead, but her name was on his lips before he could think. Her face was smiling in his mind and pounding against his hearts, urging him to step softly through the stiff air towards a corridor cut into the left wall – one that lead into the next building where she was probably hiding from his presence. Because this echo had apparently been raised in an era of battle and this echo would see him as a threat.

Rightly so.

He chanced to utter her name aloud, listened to the two syllables bounce through the silence and he imagined it might have frozen the woman ahead of him to a spot, wondering whether it'd be safe to expose herself to a stranger who knew she was there. Knew exactly who was there. The Doctor knew Clara would want to know just how he held her name in his mouth and he knew his voice would pick at something in the back of her mind. That unconscious desire to draw closer to him.

It was utterly unfair, he realized. But his selfishness drove him towards her, chancing to speak again and listening for signs of movement as he entered the darkness. His hands gripped carefully at the jagged edges of drywall, avoiding the bits of lumber tinged green in places with mold. Stepping over the threshold made of door bits and discarded office supplies, he hissed as he set his foot down, eyes immediately rising to scan the space.

The windows had been painted black, efficiently – he noted, light peeking in through just a few strategic spaces. Spaces, he grinned, that were just about her height. He imagined this was where she chose to make her stand. For whatever reason it was this building, something about the building, the placing, seemed the right place. He smiled because he thought maybe it was the least bombed location, a safe zone; he chuckled because maybe it was where the most enemy soldiers entered, a spot she could pick them out, one by one.

Then he frowned, the notion of Clara becoming a murderer striking a painful blow at the center of his chest. It might have become a necessity, he knew, mind working over the details of this particular war. Except he couldn't find the source of it. He went through time, time and time again, and he had no recollection of a war in London at that particular time, but he could tell it was terrible – could smell it in the air.

Millions of lives were lost in this war, he knew. A war over what? Why couldn't he remember? Watching his shoe send a small chunk of drywall rattling a path over the dust, he offered the silence a chuckle just before the sound of a gun charging burned his ears.

"Wait," he stated, both hands coming up at his sides, his Sonic still tightly clutched in his right. "Just wait, I can explain."

She didn't offer him a single word in response then, merely moved closer, the humming of her gun growing louder as she approached. He narrowed his eyes against the beam of light trained on him, seeing the sparks of rainbows around the silhouetted figure he could barely make out.

"Clara," he called, watching the woman in front of him as she considered him. "Clara Oswald," he finished. Then he groaned, "That's your name, isn't it?"

"Orders," she barked lowly.

His head tilted and he asked, "I'm sorry, what?"

"What are your orders?" She groaned, then added on a shout when he didn't answer, "Are you slow? What have you been sent here to do?"

He laughed and his hands flapped slightly as he spoke, incredulously shouting back, "Oh, I see. Oh, this is grand. So, you've become a soldier."

The light wavered slightly, lowering just an inch, and she replied angrily, "It wasn't really a choice."

The Doctor stopped and his arms fell away as he told her, "You're Clara Oswald and you would never make a choice like this."

Even though he knew the ridiculousness of what he'd just said. Of course she might choose this life, given the circumstances. Her echoes could, and would, run the gamut of Clara and the Doctor knew there was a soldier in her somewhere – he'd seen that soldier on the fighting field far too many times, mostly at his command. Taking orders and following through to save the day.

Only to save the day.

"Who are you?" She questioned. He could hear the doubt in her voice. He could almost see it in her eyes, except the light still cast an odd greyish opacity over her that frustrated his vision as he nodded slowly, considering his words.

And he knew it was just best to tell her, so he said, "I'm the Doctor."

"The Doctor," she responded. There was a hint of recognition and it brightened his spirits, except that she didn't lower her weapon. She kept it steadily trained on him, raised back up even so that the light struck him squarely in his line of sight, gun aimed at a spot directly between his eyes, making him wince painfully. "The Doctor is gone," she finally told him.

"Gone," he spat. "I'm right here, what do you mean I've gone."

"Stopped helping ages ago," she informed him.

"Ah, so you do know of me," he affirmed on a nod, narrowing his eyes just enough to see her outline again. That slender tiny frame that belonged one of the most powerful women he'd ever met. That slender tiny frame he'd held in his arms as she'd taken her last courageous breath.

The weapon lowered slowly then, the light making a trail over his chest and landing against his stomach. He could see her, even in the dim light. Could see how very much the same this echo was and also how very different from his Clara she was. And he imagined, looking into the anger in her eyes, that if he'd been able to read her mind, she was as different as he could possible imagine.

Her dark hair wasn't layered in a shower of colorful browns, but a dull darkness that sat heavily atop her head. Wet with sweat and grease, it was pulled tightly into a pony tail, only the wisps of her shortest bangs hanging limp against the sides of her face. Her skin was pale, ghostly even, and he frowned at the way her pants were held up by twine, as though she'd lost enough of herself in a short time and had been unable to replace them.

Inhaling a short breath, he looked her over again, thinking back to the photograph he'd seen in the Tardis, trying to reconcile the differences, trying to find anything in the stare she was leveling at him that belonged to his Clara, but all he found were deadened eyes that revealed nothing. He lifted his left hand, gesturing lightly at her and he repeated, brow dropping, "You do know me, don't you?"

Letting her gun hang at her side, she smiled then, but it did nothing to alleviate the unease creeping coldly up the Doctor's back. It sent a wave of gooseflesh over him as he waited for the response he could see, readying itself in her mind.

"Of course I know you," she told him on a nod. "I killed you."

And in a flash, she ripped a smaller gun from her waistband and fired.