Chapter 11:

"Not real?" Amy shouted stepping forward aggressively "What do you mean not real!?" She lunged at him and slapped him in the face.

He turned and looked back up, shocked and offended look plastered onto his long face.

"OW!" He bawled, "That really hurt!"

"Well then see? It hurt can not real things hurt you?" she posed hostilely

Clara was stunned at first and instinctively lurched to the doctor's side. Grabbing his arm, she helped him to steady himself.

"Was that really necessary Amy!?"

She crossed her arms over her chest, and looked off to the side refusing to meet his eyes defensively.

"Well when you say stupid things, people tend to do stupid things in response." She said with an edge in her voice

"There is no reason to be angry," Clara said "Doctor what did you mean 'not real'?"

Before the Doctor could answer, Clara's attention was grabbed momentarily by Amy mumbling "'no reason to be angry' well then someone has never been to Scotland," in a harsh tone.

"Doctor what did you mean?" Clara asked again

"I don't know exactly, but…" he looked around frantically as though he had lost something important "All of this…it feels wrong…"

"Well whoever put us here created a world that isn't real, is that what's wrong?" Martha questioned

"No, not that…I just don't know," His brow furrowed "This is all just too good."

"What do you mean grandfather?" Susan begged, a worried look on her elfin face.

"I don't know, I thought that maybe we were brought here because there was some big master plan!"

'There isn't one then?" Rory guessed

"No it can't be…there are too many inconsistencies." His internal conflict began to manifest externally.

"Inconsistencies?" Rose repeated quizzically "How do you mean? Like contradictions? Something isn't the same as it was before?"

His eyes met hers and he smiled. "Oh Rose Tyler…I had forgotten how clever you were."

She smiled a little, but she was started to seem troubled too.

"Yeah, can anyone tell me where the GENIES went?" The Doctor pointed out, and the room fell silent. Each person tried to listen for its piercing howl, or the scrapping of its sharp talons. A wave of uneasiness spread throughout the room as the idea settled that it had disappeared.

"Well that's not…I mean now how is that possible Doctor?" Martha stuttered, her voice indicating that she didn't know which Doctor to direct her question to.

"I don't know yet, but then there is the TARDIS too."

"The TARDIS?" Clara asked slowly "What do you mean? Shouldn't that be safe back at the TV Studio?"

"TV Studio! Now there is another thing that makes no sense! Why gather us together that way? It makes no logical sense…"

"Well the Master has always been one for crazy schemes." The metacrises said, "We are assuming that the Master is behind this right?"

"I was…" The Doctor said "But now I don't know…he was mad in his plans, but articulate none the less. These holes aren't like him…"

Seeing how he was getting off topic Clara balled her fists and hollered, "What about the TARDIS you said there was something with the TARDIS. What is it?"

"Well its gone." He said, "Have none of you really noticed?"

"Gone? What do you mean gone? Where has it gone?" Clara said urgently

"If I knew that then it wouldn't be an inconsistency!"

"How do you even know it's gone? The studio is miles off."

"Not ours…" The Doctor said looking over and out the front glass window "Susan's."

Sure enough the TARDIS that had materialized not some five minutes before had gone, leaving the streets barren and empty.

Susan rushed forward to the window "Oh no! The TARDIS!"

"Then there is time here too."

"Time?" Clara asked, "You mean how it is falling apart?"

"Is it?" The Doctor asked gesturing widely with his hands "If it were would it still be night? Why has nothing else happened? Time falling apart isn't easily remedied unless it wasn't really falling apart."

"So then it's the Master messing with us! I was right," The Metacrises said

"Yes. No. Maybe. Probably not." The Doctor said hysterically, covering his ears with his palms as if trying to block out noise and distraction. He looked ready to explode, what ever was happening it was a puzzle he couldn't seem to solve, and it was driving him mad.

His hunched shoulders shook for a minute while he turned his back. They stopped shaking and he slowly regained his composure, straightened his spine and turned back to his companions slowly.

His face somehow looked paler and sicker, than before. His eyes were wide and a cocktail of fear, doubt and disbelief. His jaw was locked tight, and he moved mechanically.

"No I knew it." He said softly in almost a whisper, "None of this is real, it can't be. None of this makes any sense."

"So what then?" The Metacrises said "Why are we all here?"

The Doctor looked at him despondently and reluctantly raised his sonic screwdriver. With the press of a button and the costmary high-pitched buzz of the sonic, the metacrises blurred like an image and disintegrated into static.

"We're not."

Rose gasped, and raised a hand to her mouth, to muffle a scream. Her body was physically trembling and her eyes were now pooled with tears.

She unclasped her hand from her mouth, and slowly between sputtered breaths she said, "Bring him back."

Her words were weak and she seemed to be begging rather than demanding. "Bring him back please, where has he gone? What have you done to 'em?"

"Rose I am so sorry, but he wasn't really here." He said in a tone of resignation, before raising his sonic again this time pointed at her "And neither are you I am afraid."

Clara watched again in horror as Rose melted into atoms, and was replaced by nothingness. She watched helplessly and speechlessly as the Doctor—her doctor, the last of the time lords and her hero—did the same to each of his companions and finally his own granddaughter, until only him and her were left.

The silence in that moment was deafening. Tears were far gone from her eyes and they streamed down her face and fear boiled in her chest in a potent compound. Her body trembled and none of her thoughts felt organized enough to form words or speech.

"I am sorry Clara, you shouldn't have had to have seen that." He said softly reaching his long thin arms around her in a tight embrace.

His warmth for a minute was comfort, until it turned burning hot and she couldn't stand it any longer. She pushed him away.

"Why did you do that?" she said "They were your friends, your allies, your family…"

"No they weren't." He said as a single tear fell from his eye and rolled down his cheek "I wanted them to be so badly that I missed every singly truth that told me otherwise. I ignored the obvious mistakes and the inconsistencies, the appearances of the people in the world that I most wanted to see…"

Clara felt no words form on her tongue, but felt a new wave of grief bubble up and it erupted through her in another sharp cry.

"I needed it to be true, it was my fault, I should have seen it earlier."

"Seen what?" Clara asked sharply feeling another sob come from inside her.

"The details, the little things really…it wasn't right and I felt that…I knew it…I just wanted to believe so badly that for a few blissful moments I did."

"It didn't make sense from the beginning, how did we get here Clara?"

"I-I don't know, you said we fell through a rift because of that crack on the TARDIS." She said it unsure, because she no longer knew for sure if she could trust him.

"No I mean before that, what were we doing…what were we doing before we came here Clara?" He screamed urgently

"I don't know! We were just in the TARDIS! We were driving around."

"But how did we get there, how did we get to the TARDIS?"

"You're no making sense!" She said her voice cracking; she felt a wave of dizziness as her knees quivered.

The Doctor didn't speak, he just though, the gears in his mind were turning so fiercely that he didn't seem to even be breathing externally.

For a minute Clara thought back to Rose and the Metacrises and how happy they were and how perfect they seemed. Then she pictured Rory and Amy, their smiles and their kisses and he thought about how loving they were and how caring. Martha snuck into her mind next and her intelligence and confidence felt so real that Clara could nearly feel her presence. Susan was the last one that she could see, her innocence and her ageless eyes, her wisdom and her tenderness. And now they were all gone.

"My time line…" The Doctor said under his breath, before snapping out of his trance. "MY TIME LINE!" He cried, "We were in my time line…you went in to save me…you entered my life and history through the scars that I left behind, you saved me and I came in to save you…"

"Yes but then we left! We escaped your timeline!" Clara bellowed the burden of anguish still fresh on her shoulders.

"How…" the Doctor said, "How did we leave?"

Clara thought of them leaving, she remembered them trying to and she remembered them after they left, but she couldn't remember them leaving…

"How did we leave…?" She whispered, feeling her world come crashing down

"I don't think that we ever did."


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