Clara opened her eyes and scrambled to her feet, coughing and peering through the hazy room. One hand found a railing and she followed it as quickly as she could, staggering through the door and on down the TARDIS corridor, turning corner after corner in her desperation to get away.
It wasn't until she stopped to catch her breath that she wondered what the hell she was running away from.
The Doctor told you, idiot, she said to herself. The Possibilities have the TARDIS land-locked, and trying to take off ruptured the casing on the dematerialization circuit. The time vortex aura is leaking out and it's poisonous. Don't breathe it.
Clara glanced back at the door and took a few more cautious steps away.
Hold on, though, where's the Doctor?
It's not poisonous to Time Lords, her memory reminded her. He told you that, remember?
She laughed a bit, weakly. Right. Of course. When she'd woken up, the Doctor had been at the controls already, dealing with the problem like he always did.
"No, but wait," she said aloud, her voice falling flat in the empty corridor, "he's got extractor fans for that, hasn't he? Or something? Those doors don't seal, do they?"
Do they?
How much of what I'm thinking is mine and how much is because of the Possibilities?
The Doctor, she decided, was her anchor. She could trust this, now - what she was experiencing at that exact minute. The moment was what she could count on. And for the moment, she needed to find the Doctor.
With renewed determination, Clara turned around, planning to trace her route back. It was at that moment she realized she had no idea where she was.
"Close down some extra hallways, huh?" she muttered. "And I suppose by extra you meant all of the ones I've ever been in."
Presumably, in trying to conserve power, the TARDIS had tightened itself in, compacting everything and changing the internal layout completely.
Cautiously, hoping for something that looked familiar, Clara walked back in what she believed to be the direction she had come from.
"Oh no. No no no." All that she found was an intersection of four identical and equally unfamiliar corridors. In her earlier desperation, she had already forgotten her series of turns, and she wasn't sure she trusted what memories she had.
Okay, calm down. You're overreacting. Just pick one.
With a breath and a prayer, Clara set off to the left, hoping to end up somewhere recognizable.
Where she ended up was a locked door and another corridor that led to an intersection of four, so similar to the first that it might have been the same one.
Breathing hard, Clara stared with wide, anxious eyes at her options. She'd gone left the first time… but which way had been left? Which corridor had she come through the first time?
Clara closed her eyes, forcing her mind backwards through the route she'd just taken. A left, another left, past the door, and then… Left or right? She could remember both.
If you remember something twice, ignore both ways, the Doctor had said. Not terribly helpful in this situation.
At least it confirmed her suspicions: her mind was definitely being tampered with.
"Alright," she said under her breath, "I'll play your game." She took one shoe off and set it in one of the doorways, then walked down that hall, her gait awkwardly uneven.
Unsurprisingly, she found herself back in the same room, her shoe sitting innocently across from her.
With a sigh, Clara took off her other shoe and set it in the doorway she'd just come through. Then she stopped. Should the shoe have gone in the one she came from or the one she was going to next?
Groaning, she realized she could remember it both ways.
"I've got to keep trying," she told herself, grabbing the shoes. They'd do her more good on her feet. "There's nothing else to do. I have to get the right one eventually."
Mustering up as much determination as she could, Clara set off down another path, losing herself in a maze of corridors.
The Doctor woke to find himself alone in a dark, hazy console room. He squeezed his hand, momentarily wondering what was wrong with it, then realized: he was on the ground, and it was empty.
"Clara? Clara!"
Immediately, he staggered to his feet, using the console edge to pull himself up. A quick glance around was enough to show Clara definitely missing.
Waving a hand in front of his face to clear the air, the Doctor decided that there was a limited amount of trouble Clara could get into within the TARDIS. So long as she could keep her memories straight…
No. The best plan now was to get off this damn planet.
The Doctor darted around the console, peering at monitors and twiddling dials. "What's wrong, old girl?" he murmured. And then, "Oh. Of course!"
He laughed, perhaps a little manic, and rubbed his hands together. "The Untempered Schism, that's what they're using, that's what they're after! The bit they've each got, the swirls in their eyes, is calling to the TARDIS's power source. It's in their DNA. The magic in them is overriding my tech. Seniority." He sniffed. "Rubbish."
A jet of sparks flew from the console in response to his button-pressing, as if scolding him.
"They've each only got a tiny bit, but there's enough of them together that their combined pull is enough to keep me on the ground." He raised an eyebrow. "For now, anyway.
"The thing about magic, though," he added, "is that you really have to concentrate. You can't let anything distract you."
He grinned in dangerous delight. "Lucky for me, I'm amazing at distractions."
With unabashed glee, the Doctor dashed around the TARDIS, flashing lights, revving the engines, and even lobbing a series of small fireworks and a rubber chicken through the door.
"A bit lackluster," he admitted to himself, shrugging as he pressed his back to the door, feeling the slight impact of the explosions, "but I'm on short notice." He grinned dryly. "Clara would have loved this."
Now stop it, he told himself. No point in dragging up old memories. It just hurts more. Clara's been dead for ages, it's time to move on.
"Right. Of course." With a touch more solemnity, the Doctor went back to the console, searching for some other unexpected distraction. "No. Wait. Hang on. Back up."
Stopping mid step, he put a hand to his head, sifting through his thoughts. Something wasn't right, something didn't click…
Clara's been dead for ages. Clara's been dead for ages. For ages. Dead?
"Oh, very good," he said aloud, "very clever plan. I'm almost impressed."
A slight disturbance outside, a slight lessening in the hold on the TARDIS. The Doctor smiled grimly. Someone was listening.
"Clara's dead? Is that what you're trying to tell me?" He snorted. "Well, joke's on you, because I remember every bit of her coming here, alive. She's off somewhere in the TARDIS right now."
A tide of overwhelming grief, a feeling he was all too familiar with.
Give up, it seemed to say. Give in. No matter what you do, you lose in the end. Save yourself the pain.
"As if," he snapped. "I've put way too much work into this life, I'm not going to lose it now."
Be broken, Doctor. Just once. For her.
"You think the death of one of my friends will break me?" he cried. "I fought in the Last Great Time War. I saw my comrades cut down, my family murdered. I watched planets burn by my hand. I heard the screams and saw the panic of mothers as their children burned to death, and I see the faces of people despising me, blaming me, every time I close my eyes. And you think one more bad thing will break me?"
Images - memories - flashed through his mind: Clara dead, Clara dying, Clara broken, mangled, mauled. Over and over again.
"I have lost so many people I care about, in so many ways, and when I think about them it hurts so much I can't breathe, and yes, you're hurting me, and yes, of course I care. Of course I wish it would end." He was shouting now, raging, letting the grief and anger pour through him.
"Beaten, yes. Scarred, absolutely. Beyond help, maybe so, but I. Am. Not. Broken!"
In one fluid motion, the Doctor pulled out his sonic sunglasses, slipping them on and aiming straight up. He could feel the frequencies in the air around him, could sort out what belonged to what. In seconds, he had found the telepathic signal coming from the uncountable Possibilities.
"Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow," he muttered. "Hasn't failed me yet." And he tapped the side of the glasses.
As the familiar sonic sound filled the room, the Doctor brought to the surface all his losses, all his guilt and sorrow and rage. He traced every scar the centuries had left on his soul, feeling afresh the weight of time and the burden of lives that rested constantly on his shoulders. He held all of this for a moment, sinking to his knees under the weight.
Then, with a gasp, he let everything go, sending all the raw emotion back through the telepathic link to crash into the open minds of the Possibilities outside.
The result was utter chaos. The Possibilities, so unused to feeling individual pain, were completely overwhelmed. The link shattered in an instant, all concentration broken completely.
The Doctor wasted no time. Throwing himself at the console, he slammed down the leave for takeoff, sighing gently at the reassuring whirr of the engines. As the TARDIS began to dematerialize, he allowed himself to sink to the floor, his back against the console and his head in his hands, giving himself just a few moments to be broken.
A.N: Well that was fun. I was up way too late writing that, but I just couldn't stop. Happy New Year, all. It's my sister's birthday today, so greetings to her.
A question for you all: do you actually read these? The author's notes, I mean. If so, what do you think? Are they useful? Interesting? Annoying? Do let me know, because I really have no idea. Honesty is appreciated. And if you wanted to leave a chapter review along with it, that would be fabulous...
-Forever the Optimist