How hard do you have to try, and for how long, until it's all right to give up?
They say there's always something better out in the distance, some shining light to make up for the darkness that has taken refuge in your bones.
But he'd been that far and found nothing when he arrived but a pocketful of black.
He followed the road on quivering legs until he couldn't walk another step. He tasted blood and dirt when he collapsed down onto the pavement, the same pavement he'd scraped his knee on the first time he ever rode on a bicycle. This time he had scraped his heart to the point of disintegration.
He gripped onto the rubble beside the road, now just twisted jungles of metal from destroyed vehicles that were now the graves of their drivers, and heaved himself back up. His feet were bleeding and his legs could no longer support himself, but he kept at it anyway, repeating the pattern of falling and rising until he just couldn't rise anymore.
And he stared off into the distance, his eyes following the road until it disappeared.
They say there's always something better out in the distance, but that something better wasn't always far. It had been with him, by his side, in his heart. They took it away from him.
When he made it to the distance, he found he was right. There was nothing at all. And then he collapsed into a world of black.
He woke up in a hospital, woozy and panicked.
He was reaching to rip the IVs out when he felt a hand grasp his tightly. He looked up and met a doctor's eyes.
"Wait a second." He said firmly. "What's your name, sir? Do you remember what happened?"
The Doctor had brief flashes: Clara's blood stained front, her paling face, the way her bloodsoaked hands shook. He began gasping, his hands pulling once more at the IVs.
"I've got to go, I can't stay here, I have to go!"
He was too weak to struggle when he was restrained.
"We can't let you go yet. You were severely dehydrated. Not to mention you rubbed off a good layer of skin on the sides of your feet. What were you doing on that highway?"
The Doctor looked up at the man wordlessly, his chest filling with acidic pain. He felt his eyes burn.
"I was walking." He admitted, his voice strangled.
The nurse and doctor exchanged confused looks.
"Walking? For how long?"
The Doctor had brief memories of the sight of the sun rising and setting each day, sinking down and rising up, over and over again while he walked and walked and never found what he was looking for. He never found his light.
He could feel the tears leaking from his eyes, hot and stinging.
"I don't know. Three days. I don't know. Please, Clara. I have to find her. Please." He begged. "I love her."
He watched through blurred eyes as the two exchanged knowing looks. They immediately softened their posture, their shoulders tucking in and their hands settling open-palmed on top of the blankets.
"You've been walking for three days?" The nurse asked gently, her tone one of condescending disbelief.
He was started into a momentarily silence. Out of all he had said, that was what they were most concerned with?
"Yes. To find Clara. I have to find her."
When the man said his next words, the Doctor realized that as much as he wanted to give way to his panic, he couldn't. He couldn't explain to them what he was really talking about, because if he said two men had kidnapped his girlfriend, the police would be phoned. And the police would only need to hear the words "I blew up Gallifrey" and they'd have the Doctor behind bars, assuming Clara was either a figment of his imagination or one of his own causalities. They wouldn't bother looking for her, not until they had several reports of her missing, and even then it would take them years to even get an idea of where to find her. The Doctor knew that if they let him go, he could find her. He would find her. But he just had to go, he had to do it. So when the man spoke, he had to let him believe what he did.
"Mate…sometimes the people we love are at different places in their lives. You know? Are you following me?"
They believed Clara left of her own freewill and he was a hysteric ex, bent on getting his love back. They looked at him with pity-filled eyes, like this was some trivial matter he was too pathetic to cope with.
"I'm following." He said softly, even though it hurt to say it.
The nurse reached forward and gently set her hand on his forearm.
"Dr. Jones is right. People walk out of our lives all the time, but that only leaves a place for someone new to fill."
She immediately grimaced.
"Oh, wait, no—that's not—hold on, let me start again." She took a deep breath and then smiled. "Okay, so anyway, people walk out of our lives, but there's other fish in the sea, right? Like…um…look at Nurse Sara over there. She's beautiful, right? And single, too, by the way." She gave his hand a squeeze. "Carla isn't ever coming back, but that's okay. You can always find someone better."
When he began sobbing, he heard brief bits of their next exchanges.
"For God's sake, Mandy! Do you actually have a heart in there?!"
"What? I tried, didn't I! Anyway, it's true!"
He reached blindly for the IVs, trying once more to rip them free and bolt while they were arguing, but he was restrained once again. He looked up into their placating faces, trying to figure out how to explain to them the urgency without actually explaining to them what was happening. It probably didn't help matters that he was weeping, but her words had suddenly made it all so real to him. She'd made him realize that there was a very good chance that Clara really would never be back again. He might never hold her or kiss her or listen to her animated laughter again, and that was enough to make his head spin and his stomach church.
"There is no one better!" He yelled at them finally, as if that might show them how much he needed to leave. As if, if he could convince them of Clara's worth, they'd let him go save her. "Do you hear me? Do you understand? I'm not just saying it as a lovesick fool! No one anywhere is better than her! She's hurt and it's all my fault and I'm going to—if you don't let me go, I'll kill myself! I'll—oh, Christ, I'm going to be sick!"
They jumped back a couple feet at those words, clearing way just in time for the Doctor to lean over and empty the sparse contents of his stomach onto the floor. He heaved when there was nothing left to throw up, his body desperate to get rid of some of the aching pain inside of him, but of course it didn't help. Nothing could help. They were going to hurt his impossible girl (they already had) and he was here and not there and he didn't know where she was. He didn't know what to do. And it was all his fault, once again. Because he was the Doctor, and because once upon a time he'd noticed something no one else had and was forced to make a decision, he'd never be able to keep anyone safe. They'd killed Rory. They'd killed Amelia. And now they were going to kill Clara, he just didn't know if it would be emotional killing or physical.
"We really aren't allowed to let you go once you threaten to kill yourself, mate." Dr. Jones pointed out. "So how about we rewind the day about two minutes—" he pulled an invisible tape recorder from his pocket and grinned idiotically and reassuringly at the Doctor as he pressed the "rewind button". He made a click with his tongue and then stowed the recorder safely away. "There. We'll pretend that never happened. But hear me out, Romeo. You've got to stay on fluids for another forty-eight hours, maybe more. You aren't just woozy from heartbreak. We can't let you go until your levels are back up and you've actually eaten something."
The Doctor glanced around once again, making a quick chart of which escape route had the best chance of success. He deemed disappearing into a bathroom and climbing from a window to be the safest route, but he wasn't sure if he could do that yet. He frowned and looked up at the two.
"Fine. Can you leave me alone now?" He asked. This time, it helped that he still had tears leaking down his face. They exchanged sad looks and nodded, backing out of the room slowly.
Once they were gone, and the person they sent to clean up the vomit on the floor had left, the Doctor carefully sat up on his bed and examined the saline bag. He then held onto the rolling cart with the bag attached and traveled shakily to the other side of the room (his feet screaming in raw protest inside his hospital socks and thick bandages).
He rummaged around the cupboards lining above and below the sink. He searched the nurse's cart still tucked away in the corner until he located a couple of white packets, labeled oral rehydration salts. He filled the plastic pitcher on his bedside table with water from the sink, but by that point, his legs were already shaking from exhaustion. He dumped the packet into the water and stirred it around with a wooden tongue compress, watching the power dissolve. And then he sat on the edge of the bed, held his nose shut with his right hand, and lifted the pitcher with his left. As he drank, he couldn't help but think about what he'd found out only days ago now. He almost wished he hadn't known. Everything in his life had never been more than a beautiful potential. It had all ended with bloodstained pavement.
He waited a few hours, and then twelve, and then a day. His impatience faded to paralyzing horror at what had happened to his Clara, and once again, he found himself wishing for death. The only reason he'd even care a little if he died would be because of Clara. He had to stay alive because he had to save her. Just this once, he had to save her, after all the times she'd saved him. His tears started up again at that thought. She'd saved him from the Crimson Horror that night, she'd saved his life by giving it meaning again, and then she'd jumped in front of him. What was her reward for all her selfless acts? Imprisonment. Torture. (Miscarriage?). He wondered if he'd be sick again.
With his self-medication, his blood tests showed rapid improvement. The doctor told him he'd only need to stay another day, to help his feet heal, but he was climbing out of the window only ten minutes after they left his room. The only reason he'd stayed was to lessen his dehydration, because he couldn't walk very far if he could barely handle standing for a couple minutes. But now that he was hydrated and rested, he wasn't going to let anything stop him. Because when had Clara let anything stop her? Never. She hadn't ever. She'd always kept going, always pushed forward, always did more where others simply gave up. He'd never be like that. He'd never be as strong or as determined as her. But he would try. He would give it all he could, because he loved her more than anything. The world needed Clara Oswald, it was true, but he needed her too. More than the world did. More than anyone did. And he had to save her.
With all his brilliance, what did it get him, really? A top spot on a cult's hitlist. A few dozen revolutionary inventions. What good was all of it if he didn't have Clara? What good was it if he couldn't even figure out how to find her? He walked the streets and resisted the urge to slam his head into the pavement. What was the point of him? If he couldn't save her, what was the point of his intelligence? He hated himself more than he ever had.
He withdrew money from an ATM and rented a car. For weeks, he drove the car around and around the roads and towns surrounding the road he'd last seen the car on, around Gallifrey. He interrogated anyone he came across that seemed a little too cold, a little too emotionless. He walked around and showed everyone pictures of Clara on his now-cracked iPhone, a picture he'd taken of her in the sun in Australia, still so happy and alive and there, but no one had seen her. No one knew her. No one understood what she meant. And still their lives went on. He watched haggard mothers go grocery shopping and teenagers mill about at night. The clock towers chimed and people went to work. All the while the Doctor stopped and stared, wondering why no one was crying, why no one was standing and screaming. He wanted to shake everyone with a smile by the shoulders and ask them how they dared to smile when Clara Oswald was probably dead. Didn't they know what kind of person she was? He wanted to tell them all. He wanted them all to know that a beautiful, intelligent, good person had died, or was suffering, or was about to die. He wanted them to know all about her because then maybe they'd be more willing to help. If they knew that she had lost her mother—who was her very best friend—and then immediately moved into another family's house and took care of their grief, perhaps the busy man on his way to work would have been less cross when the Doctor asked for a moment of his time. Maybe if the few dozen private detectives he'd tried to consult with had known that Clara spent almost an entire year sick and sleep-deprived with grief over Melody's illness—and still managed to work two jobs and hold her when she cried—they would have been slower to write it off as a lost cause. Frankly put, the Doctor needed someone who cared about people as much as Clara did. He needed someone like her to find her, but there wasn't anyone else out there like her. That was the problem. Who saved the one who always saved? When the time came, who would be the one to mend the one who always mended?
It would have to be him. There was no one else.
A month had passed—a month of sleeping in a car wanting to die again, funny how he always found himself this way—and the Doctor had to admit that he was lost. He realized this halfway between Gallifrey and Trenzalore, a neighboring town he'd visited a million times. He pulled over onto the side of the road and slammed his head into the steering wheel once, twice, three times. And then he had to admit that it was very likely she wasn't even in the country anymore, if she was even still alive. There was a good chance he'd never see her again. There was a good chance she was dead, and that she'd died a horrible, gruesome death, and that she'd been alone when she took her last breath.
He shook. He couldn't even cry anymore. The thought made him physically unwell to the point that driving his car into a ditch sounded sensible.
It was with a heavy heart and a soul aching with desperate helplessness that he did what all people did, when they didn't know what else to do. He headed towards home.
He couldn't go near the Maitland's house or the home he'd shared with Clara. What would he tell them? I'm sorry, but the woman who lived with you for almost seven years is gone. She's disappeared and I don't know what else to do. The last time I saw her she was bleeding. She might have bled to death. She might not have. She might have been tortured. She might not have. I don't know anything. I'm fucking worthless and I've led Clara to her death. Kill me. Would you kill me? No, I suppose I don't deserve that. I suppose I never did.
He went to the only place left to go, to the only people left to go to. He knocked on their front door, listening to the muffled sound of a baby crying with a sick heart. He never would have told Clara until he knew what she wanted, but he'd wanted that baby. He had wanted it enough to ignore the signs that it existed. He'd begun suspecting maybe even before she had, but he hadn't wanted to let himself think about it, he hadn't wanted to open his mind to that possibility only to have it disappear. He was a foolish man, always attempting to protect himself. He should have been there for her. Perhaps if he had been there more, she would have been able to talk about it with him sooner. Maybe they could have figured out what they wanted to do before all this happened. Instead her choice had been taken and everything he loved or would have loved was gone. He'd watched it bleed out and he had been helpless to stop it. He wondered how many nights he'd have to wake up in a cold sweat, sick to the point of vomiting over the last vision he had of Clara, her clothing soaked with dark blood, her eyes filled with fear and pain.
How could he have left her there?
How could he?
When Vastra opened the door, he couldn't do anything but stare at her, his face white and his legs shaking. He felt the hysteria building and building and—
"Doctor! Where have you been?! We've rung you loads of times! We've been by the house—no one's ever been in! George is pissed, Dave's phoned the police, we—" Vastra stopped her rant, leaning slightly to the side to peer behind the Doctor. She looked back up at him, her eyebrows furrowing. "Doctor? Where's Clara? Isn't Clara with you?"
He broke. He was crying so hard he couldn't stay upright. His hands grapped at the doorframe as he tilted forward.
"Oh God, Vastra, I left her," he choked out, senseless with grief. "I left her there and now I can't find her and I think—I think she's dead! I think she's dead!"
He stumbled forward, his knees giving out from underneath him, and Vastra caught him quickly with surprising strength. She held him underneath the arms and began tugging him back into the living room, quiet and shocked.
"Jenny!" She screamed, her own voice weaving with panic. "Jenny!"
The Doctor couldn't see much through his tears. His entire body quaked as he cried, and soon he was sitting on Jenny and Vastra's sofa, the same one he usually sat on with Clara leaning against his side. But he was alone and cold and he knew that this was all his fault.
He heard the sound of rapid footsteps and heard Vastra's quiet voice as she explained all she knew to Jenny (which really wasn't much). He felt Jenny's hands, soft against his shoulders, and when he looked up, she was kneeling in front of him, her face distressed.
"Doctor, start from the beginning." She urged gently. "What happened? What do you mean you left her? Were you in an accident?"
The beginning? The beginning was over ten years ago now. The words were about to spill from his lips—secretive and creased from being hidden for so many years—when he noticed an unfamiliar face. A woman of average height, with a blonde bob, nose piercing, and slightly panicked eyes, was standing in the doorway, holding a baby the Doctor knew was Jenny and Vastra's. She hadn't been the mother they were adopting from, he knew that because he'd met her, and the presence of a stranger momentarily screwed his lips back shut. Would she run and tell the police whatever he said? If she did, she was wasting Clara's time. If he couldn't find the Daleks, they definitely couldn't. That is to say if the police station hadn't already been infiltrated with them, which it very well might have been. No, he couldn't say anything in front of someone he couldn't trust.
Jenny turned behind her to glance at the woman when he didn't speak, her eyes following his line of sight. She turned back to him a little impatiently.
"That's just my sister. What happened?" When he said nothing, his chest compressing with panic and his breathing becoming more labored, she snapped quickly in his face to regain his attention. "Doctor! What happened?!"
He felt a tear drop off his chin and watched the small circle of moisture it left on top of his torn and dirty jeans. He heard Vastra murmur something else to Jenny, but all he caught was Clara's name.
"Clara?" Jenny's sister's voice was sharp and commanding from the corner. "What about Clara?"
He looked up again, catching the woman's face just in time to see the mute alarm that overtook her expression. He knew from that look that, whoever she was, she cared about Clara and she wasn't going to do anything to put her in more danger. So he began speaking, his voice bobbing and choppy. He spoke of Gallifrey, of the Daleks, of the secret he'd kept hidden for years. He didn't look at their expression after he told them, afraid he'd see disgust in their eyes. He couldn't seem to breathe right as he told them about what had happened in the ruins. When he told them Clara jumped in front of him and took the bullet, he started gasping, his chest suddenly too narrow to accommodate the expansion of his lungs. He briefly noticed Jenny sitting down beside him and hugging him to her side, but it did nothing to soothe his panic.
He couldn't even open his eyes as he told the rest because he was so ashamed of himself. He knew why she'd wanted him to do it. It had made sense at the time, it had been the only logical way for it to go. But he should have gone with her. He probably would have been able to find her easier if he was locked up somewhere else, too. He had no idea where to look now. He had no plan of action. He'd exhausted all of his ideas.
Everyone else was in disbelief when he finished. He buried his face in his hands and gasped, trying to come to terms with the idea that maybe he wouldn't be able to save her. Maybe he'd left her to die that day.
Jenny's voice was sad and worried when she spoke up.
"She was pregnant." She admitted to everyone. Those words made the Doctor look up in surprise. He was briefly and foolishly injured that she'd told Jenny before she had told him. Of all the things to be hurt about, and yet it made his heart twist.
Vastra and Jenny's sister looked shocked enough to show that they didn't know. Jenny only had eyes for the Doctor, most likely trying to gauge whether or not he knew.
"She told me. Sort of." He admitted thickly. "Where they shot her—I don't think—" he stopped.
Vastra walked over and took Jenny's hand, providing her with some comfort. But Jenny's sister, still holding the baby, was looking at them all in shock.
"Yes, it's very sad about the baby, but what about Clara?" She demanded. Her voice was pinched. The Doctor sat up straighter and peered more intently at her, suddenly figuring out exactly who she was. "We don't know where she is or if she's even alive. So what are you going to do about that?"
The Doctor didn't know what to say. Did she think for a moment that he hadn't realized those things, that he hadn't spent every godforsaken night since she left sick and distressed because of them? He summarized all his efforts of the past few weeks but had no new ideas to offer. Jenny switched seamlessly from herself into a concerned sister, and the Doctor watched as she crossed over to the blonde and pulled her into her arms. He turned to Vastra.
"I need help." He admitted. "I need…" he stopped. Of course he needed Clara.
"Right, of course." Vastra reassured him. "Of course we're all going to help. The police are out of the question. From what you've said about these Daleks, I've got my own suspicions about a lot of the officers now. We need…a map. Nina! Can you give Conan to Jenny and go print off a map of the areas surrounding Gallifrey? Better yet, I'll come with you. I'm going to search recent missing persons reports. Perhaps the highest concentrations are in areas there are Dalek lairs."
Vastra rose from the couch immediately, a solid source of confidence, and headed out of the room. Nina—still pale and perhaps a little angry—handed the infant to her sister and followed after her.
Jenny was quiet for a moment. She settled Conan into a baby swing in corner. Then she looked nervously at the Doctor.
"It's been a long time." She began, her voice heavy with implications that suggested things the Doctor didn't want to think about. "Maybe we should go to the police. They have more people, anyway. Maybe they can help. They could, you know, put out posters with Simeon's face on them or something."
The Doctor wished he could have still had a sliver of faith in other people. That had long disappeared.
"They won't find her, Jenny. If anyone has a chance of finding her, it's us, but we don't even have that great of one. I've looked over every inch of the cities off that road. I've followed it out of the country. I've stopped hundreds of people and shown them her picture. No one has seen her, it's like she didn't even exist at all. And no one's heard of Simeon either."
Jenny wrapped her arms around herself. Her lips trembled.
"Maybe—I mean, have you checked Simeon's office? Maybe there's something there. Or at the least you could find a home address. There's got to be some sort of record, some sort of indication of where they could be."
The Doctor hadn't thought of that. The rush of affection he felt towards Jenny at those words was astounding. He wanted to kiss her he was so relieved. Of course there had to be something. He'd all but written the Great Intelligence out of his memory with all that had happened, connecting it foolishly to the idealistic life he'd been living with Clara, and not the destruction of Gallifrey. But it was all intertwined. Everything he did for the Great Intelligence was really for the Daleks, and that meant—
He was a fool for hoping. But maybe that meant that, wherever she was, they were using his medical developments to help her. Maybe she was all right physically, at least. But if the Doctor was being honest with himself, he was almost more concerned about the emotional pain they might be putting her through. Clara was tough. She could handle great amounts of both physical and emotional pain. But he felt she could handle the physical easier.
When Vastra and Nina returned, Vastra was practically sizzling with discovery.
"I've put dots over the areas with a high number of missing persons reports." She announced. She came over to join them, sitting on the Doctor's other side on the couch, the piece of paper falling frantically into his lap. She leaned over and pointed at the dots.
"Do you see how they're circled like that? There's an almost dizzying amount of missing people in all these towns here," she gestured towards the circle of black dots on the map, all surrounding two cities. Gallifrey and Trenzalore. "But there's only a handful of missing persons reports in those two towns. Almost all of Gallifreys are from when the bombs went off. In the past year, there's been only a few dozen. Same with Trenzalore. They almost seemed too specific, too staggered. There's an average of three each month, like clockwork."
The Doctor only had to glance at Vastra's green eyes to know that she was thinking the same exact thing he was.
"But I was in Trenzalore for weeks." He argued, his heart falling. "I searched the entire town. I practically knocked on every door I didn't see people walking in and out of."
Jenny spoke up.
"Then maybe they're hidden in plain sight. Or underground, or something like that. Either way, something isn't right about Trenzalore. We should look at his office and then his home like we said, and then go from there."
The Doctor almost didn't want to believe that she could be there, because that meant he'd been walking past wherever she was for weeks. He'd been that close and he hadn't saved her. He wasn't sure how much guilt he could carry.
"Great idea, Jenny." Vastra gave her wife a proud smile, momentarily at ease. But then she seemed to remember their situation and switched back into her normal, directive mode. "We'll need to take the van, so there's enough room for all of—"
"I'm not going."
All three stopped speaking and looked up at Nina. She was still standing, having refused to sit down on the couch like the other three, and had her arms crossed across her chest. The Doctor felt his first flash of anger at someone beyond himself for the first time in a long time.
"What do you mean you aren't going?" Jenny asked. "It's Clara. Of course you're going. She could be hurt. We need you."
Nina shook her head resolutely. "No. I'm not going. I'll stay here and watch after Conan, but I'm not…I can't…I don't want to—" She stopped and bit her bottom lip nervously, searching for the words to express herself. "I'm not throwing myself into the line of fire. If you two want to, that's fine. But considering the magnitude of what we're dealing with…" she trailed off. "She's probably already dead. They say if you don't find an abducted person within the first week, it's too late."
The Doctor wondered why he was surprised to hear those words from Nina's lips. He'd known all along that this was the same woman who'd woken up one morning and left a longterm relationship without a single word. He guessed he had hoped people changed. He'd always been a dreamer.
"We can get Jane to watch Conan." Vastra argued. "You can't really mean that, Nina. You don't know what's happened to her. She could be perfectly fine."
Nina shrugged uneasily and avoided their eyes. "I can't just leave and go on a mad hunt for someone. I've got, you know, a job. A life. I'm sorry." She looked up again and met the Doctor's eyes, hers pleading. "But if you do find her, tell her I'm glad she's okay."
He was burning.
"I won't." He promised Nina. His voice went from shaking distress to firm resentment, at both Nina and himself. "It seems Clara has an unfortunate history of falling for selfish people."
Nina didn't recoil like he'd hoped. She merely curled her lip up at him, her eyes narrowing slightly at the corners.
"I'm glad you're an expert on every other relationship Clara's had." She spat sarcastically. "And for the record, you're the one who's screwed her over. You're the one who's probably gotten her killed."
He sneered right back at her, her attempts at injuring him falling short. He'd been yelling those same things at himself for weeks. None of it came to him as a revelation. Only a miserable and sinking truth.
"I'm not judging the relationship. I'm judging the person I see right in front of me. And you think I don't know that I'm to blame? Because I do. But at least I'm trying. At least I don't walk out on the people who need me any time things get just a little bit too real."
The double meaning behind his words was understood, he could tell that from the further narrowing of her eyes. He knew that his opinion on this woman was forever tainted. The minute she said she wouldn't go, she was dead to him.
She rolled her eyes. "That's great. Fucking A. Where does Clara always find men like this? I've got to get the address, just in case I ever need someone to tell me all about myself."
Vastra cut in angrily.
"This is not the time. This is the furthest thing from the time to argue back and forth like teenagers. Nina, if you're not coming, fine. You know where Conan's formula and diapers are. The pediatrician's number's on the fridge. Doctor, Jenny, we should go. Now." She ordered.
The Doctor watched Vastra and Jenny kiss their son goodbye—Jenny getting a bit weepy—and had a newfound respect for them. They were perhaps the only people that deserved to call Clara a friend. He shot Nina an ugly look before walking from the door, his heart still heavy with resentment for her selfishness. They were halfway to the car when they heard her calling after them.
"Wait! Just—wait a moment!"
The three turned around impatiently. Nina teetered nervously on the stoop, gnawing nervously on her thumbnail.
"I'm not coming, but I have something that might help."
She walked out the door and then past them, heading towards a rather outdoorsy vehicle parked on the road. The Doctor stared at her in shock when she suddenly opened the trunk and produced three rifles. He was, however, the only one shocked in the least. Vastra took it a little hesitantly, but muttered that it was probably a good idea. Jenny held it with a familiarity the Doctor hadn't expected.
Nina stared at him, holding the last one out, and he didn't want to take it because every time he saw a gun, he thought of what had happened to Clara. But Vastra gave him a rather rough shove forward and he took it begrudgingly from her.
The last he saw of Nina before they drove off was the brief flicker of doubt that shadowed her face. He knew he would never see her ever again. It seemed she ran from her mistakes.
The problem was that the Great Intelligence building was bustling constantly, day and night. The Doctor now knew these were Daleks, and therefore he would be most likely shot and immobilized as soon as he was spotted. The three stayed in a motel for a week and scouted out the comings and goings of the Daleks as well as poured over the layout of the building. At the end of that week, Jenny singlehandedly weaved her way through security and into Simeon's office. She spoke to Vastra and the Doctor on the phone as she riffled through his belongings. She too was freaked out by the strange objects in the office, objects that the Doctor now knew must have been salvages from his hometown. Jenny went through his entire desk and filing cabinet and found no address to indicate where he might be. The Doctor talked her through hacking into his computer for an hour, and then she searched his email for another, trying to find something that wasn't in code. Most was in some sort of shorthand that the Doctor had never heard of before. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make head nor tail of it. It wasn't until she got to an email, received a month prior, that referred to one of the recent medical developments the Doctor had created that they had any leads at all. It wasn't much, but the email was a delivery confirmation from TGI's private pharmaceutical company, and it had an address listed at the bottom. An address, much to Vastra's delight, in Trenzalore.
He knew what that drug did. It'd been the hardest thing to create because he understood how it could easily be misused. If used correctly, it was a life-changing and miraculous thing, but used by the wrong hands and it could easily cause misery. He couldn't help but think about what Simeon wanted with it. He couldn't help but realize the only logical purpose for it. And he couldn't help but feel selfish, short-lived relief when he thought that maybe they had helped Clara. But the important question always came back to the front of his mind: Did Clara want to be helped? Did Clara want the baby? If not, it wasn't help. It was an imprisonment. And he'd helped. Not to mention his worry over what exactly Simeon wanted with the child, if the drug really was for Clara. He didn't want to theorize. He couldn't.
He tried to explain to Vastra and Jenny what the drug did, but he didn't want them to understand. He didn't want anyone to know what he'd created, because he regretted it. Regeneration using stem cells. Figuring out how to create a drug that isolated and mobolized the cells was his ultimate lightbulb moment. And now that lightbulb was catching the curtains on fire.
The three spent the next day traveling to Trenzalore. And then they spent the next attempting to locate the address they'd found, but no matter how many times they circled the city, there was no street named Stream anywhere. They bought three updated versions of city maps and desperately searched those. They rented a room and spread out all the maps on the floor, taking turns combing over each with a magnifying glass. But the simple fact was that there was no street there with that name. The name given had to be a code name for a street already in existence. The Doctor was back to doing what he'd already done dozens of times: searching Trenzalore aimlessly. It was better with two extra set of eyes, but soon a couple weeks had passed, and then two months, and he could tell Jenny and Vastra were getting anxious to go home for good. They loved Clara, he knew they did, but they had a new son at home. Babies developed so quickly; they had probably already missed out on one or two huge developmental milestones. He didn't want them to miss anymore.
"I want you to go back home." He told them. It'd been over two months. They took turns going home—Jenny would go stay with Conan for a week, then Vastra would the next, and so on and so forth—but he could tell it was wearing on them. They had made hardly any progress on Clara's whereabouts and things were looking hopeless.
They exchanged a brief look and then glanced back at him.
"No way." Jenny insisted. "We aren't leaving you. Clara could still be out there, we don't know—"
His body ached when he said his next words, like the pain was too grandiose to be contained just inside of his heart.
"That's exactly it. We don't know. For all we know, she could already be dead, and you could be missing out on Conan's life for nothing." He pointed out.
The words struck a nerve in both of them. He knew it was something they'd thought and talked about frequently, and the guilty look they exchanged made him aware of just how much they understood what he was saying. He set them free.
"I want you to go. Please. I can't stand the guilt of knowing another innocent life has been changed because of this tragedy. I won't give up. I'm so thankful for your help thus far and I promise to let you know if I find anything. But go back to your baby. Please. Go back because he's still there to go back to."
When Vastra's normally bone-dry eyes welled with tears, the Doctor understood. They both believed Clara was dead and were grieving her accordingly. They didn't believe he'd ever find her.
Jenny pulled him into her arms, but he was so distraught he couldn't get himself to hug her back.
"We miss her too." She told him, quiet and choked, "We loved her." And he had to leave the room right then because he was going to lose it. He gave them a short wave as he ducked back into the bathroom, his breathing erratic and pained. He leaned against the sink and buried his face in his hands, attempting to calm his panic, but he knew nothing would work. Hearing them refer to the woman he loved in the past tense made him deteriorate.
Vastra stood outside the door before she left and admitted something to him.
"Doctor, there has to be a cut off time where you throw in the towel. You can't spend your entire life chasing a ghost. Soon you're going to have to tell Dave what happened to his daughter, so he can grieve in a little more peace than he is in right now. And Melody. For Christ's sake, Doctor, please go see Melody. She'd be thankful even to see you. We love you too, you know. You're a great friend and we're always going to be here for you. But we'll be there for you at home, where you should be sometime soon. I'm so sorry."
Her words were meant to both crush and rebuild him, but they accomplished only one of those feats. He crumpled, his knees digging into the bathroom tile as he sank.
"I won't ever stop looking for her." He admitted to Vastra through the door, sick and shaking. "Don't you get that she's the only reason I kept living in the first place? I can't—I can't do it without her, okay? I can't. And I won't."
There was a long pause, and then their last words came, sad and tired.
"Goodbye, Doctor."
It was always goodbye.
He became well known around Trenzalore.
He was known frankly as the Madman. The town had adapted to his presence and went so far as to make him one of them by naming him. He was expected to show up at different streets each day, where he would spend the entire afternoon examining every building and alleyway and basement he found. The city reacted initially with annoyance and distaste for him, but that soon grew into curiosity. He told whoever asked him exactly what he was doing: looking for his girlfriend who was abducted. Soon many people were coming to him and sharing their own stories of abduction, and how the police never helped. He became their symbol of struggle and was pampered accordingly. People would purchase him cups of tea on rainy days to warm his hands, a woman once bought him an entire new outfit when she noticed how threadbare his clothes were getting, the Laundromat gave him free credits and the children sometimes helped him peek in basement windows. He earned the town's trust simply by being broken. He was the man unafraid to show how broken he was. He was the one revealing bravely the problems with the town, and people loved and admired him for it. It also helped that he was the Doctor. He couldn't help but give free medical consultations in his motel room each Saturday because he felt the score to even was impossible now. He'd lost Clara and therefore he'd have to spend the rest of his life helping everyone in the entire world twice in order to make up for that to the universe. But still the universe would punish him even as he punished himself.
Because they all knew him as the Madman, and not the Doctor, it was many, many months before he knew the Daleks must have begun getting suspicious. He knew they were around by the way the government in Trenzalore operated. It was entirely clean cut and effective. Everything was by the book, there were no exceptions, there was no empathy. He could sense the Daleks' presence on every corner, but still he had no idea where they could be. Almost everyone in the town actively helped him, some by letting him suspiciously examine their attics and basements during a visit for tea, some by dropping names of odd neighbors or odd establishments around town. But no matter how many leads the Doctor followed, he found nothing at all.
And he cried a lot. In private, in public. Sometimes he wasn't even aware that he was doing it until a stranger settled a gentle hand on his shoulder. He knew everyone must have really believed him mad, because he was starting to believe it too. He was affectionately called a "mad genius", but he didn't feel like such a genius at all anymore. If he was so smart, why hadn't he found Clara yet? Why hadn't he saved her?
He missed her so much sometimes that he almost believed he was already dead. He felt unable to make connections with anyone or anything anymore. He saw her in everything. Her eyes were the shade of his morning tea, a stranger wore her favorite red dress, a little girl had her nose. It killed him inside each time he saw these pieces of her because he knew it was very likely that he'd never see the real her ever again. He was doomed to encounter these bits of her, scattered all around, but he'd never save her. And that was all he wanted from life. Just to save her.
There was a family that had taken a special interest in the Doctor, simply because they were missing two people. The Doctor promised to keep his eye out for the mother and the daughter, but he didn't have much hope even though they, strangely, had a lot of it. He told them about Clara only once, over a cold mug of tea that the Doctor kept crying into. When he finished, the son—a boy of around eight who reminded the Doctor a lot of Artie—gave the Doctor an odd look and said something he hadn't expected.
"What makes you think she needs saving?" He wondered.
His father scolded him for being rude, but the Doctor was past social rules. He looked at him in question.
"She's been abducted. She was shot. I don't know where she is." He said miserably.
The boy shrugged. "Just seems to me a girl like that would immediately start trying to figure out a way to save herself. Seems like you're the one who needs help."
The things the Doctor would have given for that to have been true. His Clara was a fighter, but had they left her anything to fight with? It was the question that kept him up at night.
And the boy was right, because he did need help. He needed a lot of it. But no matter how many kind citizens offered him their time and looked (for the hundredth time) at a picture of Clara, no one knew what to tell him. And he didn't either.
He had a dream about Clara one night that stuck with him for weeks.
In contrast to his nauseating nightmares of her being tortured or murdered, it was soft and calm. It was simple where everything else was wrought with confusion. Clara was sitting with him in a rowboat they'd joked about renting on one trip or another but never actually did, and she was so happy. She laughed and smiled and emitted light. She'd stood up halfway through the dream in the rocking boat, clad in a white dress he'd seen on a mannequin a few days prior, and dove straight into the churning sea. He'd gripped the side of the boat in a panic, leaning over the edge and screaming for her. He'd circled the spot over and over again, peering down into the depths, trying to catch sight of her. But then he'd stopped—mid-row—and realized that he was wasting time. In order to find her, he had to go in after her. So he dived straight in, sinking further and further down, until suddenly he was awake.
And for an intelligent man, it'd taken quite a lot for him to figure out how to find her. Perhaps in the end the Daleks were right about something. His emotions had kept him from thinking clearly. It was only when he forgot to feel that he was able to understand what had to be done.
He walked straight into the police station a few mornings after that, the hunting rifle of Nina's held with an odd confidence. He stood in the middle of the precinct; the weapon pointed forward, and made an announcement.
"I'm the Doctor and I want to see Dr. Simeon. I don't care if I die and I don't care if you shoot me. I'll take out as many of you as I can before I die, and I won't care. I have nothing left to lose."
He fired the gun at the wall near someone's shoulder, just to illustrate his point. His lips were pulled into a firm line.
There were hands fumbling for weapons and startled expressions and muffled shrieks, but suddenly everyone fell immobile as a door opened. The man who came forward from the doorway was both imposing and feeble. He was in a wheelchair and his face was lined with age, complete with a false eye that couldn't seem to focus correctly, but something about him put off a commanding aura. One strong enough that everyone he passed immediately rose from their desks and stood to attention, ready to do whatever it was this man wanted.
The Doctor held his gun and expression firm. When the man finally stopped his chair in front of the Doctor, he peered at him with interest.
"I wondered how long it would be before you gave up." He began. "Your attempts to locate our community have been pathetic at best."
The Doctor felt nothing. No anger, no frustration. He only wanted Clara. That was all. He just wanted to see her again.
"I want Clara." He told the man. "I want her back. You give her back to me now."
He wasn't sure where his power came from, but he suddenly realized that he was holding an audience just as well as the other man was. People were exchanging startled and frightened glances. Maybe it was true what they always said. A good man with nothing left was infinitely more terrifying than a bad man with everything to gain.
The man looked at him with bemused humor. "And who says there is anything to return to you?"
He leveled the gun and aimed it squarely at the man's shoulder. He wasn't himself as he pressed the trigger down, a darkness seeping into him. Everyone screamed as the bullet made contact where the Doctor was aiming for, just barely ripping through the man's top layer of skin. His eyes traveled from his wound to the Doctor's eyes, his eyebrows pulled up a little in surprise.
"Stop playing games with me. I want her back and I want her back now. I know she's still alive. You would never have killed your only bargaining chip against me. Give. Her. Back." He bit out the last words slowly and lowly, his eyes drilling holes into the man's tranquil expression. The man ignored the flurry of activity behind him and lowered all their raised weapons with a mere gesture of his hand. He shooed away the people approaching with first aid kits, indifferent to his wound that was now staining his front with blood. All scurried away except for one young man.
"Davros, you need to let me—"
Davros. The Doctor's eyes filled with recognition for a brief moment, and then he just resisted the urge to laugh. This was the man who created the cult? This was their Father, their leader? He didn't mean to chuckle. But the laughter left him without permission.
It was only that laughter that earned him a brief flicker of emotion in Davros' eyes. He watched the momentarily flash of embarrassment fade to fury. The Doctor thought he'd kill him, right then and there, but soon that fury leveled out and Davros smiled coldly.
"You want to see Clara Oswald?" He asked him. He cocked his head to the right slightly, his eyes twinkling like a man who knew he had the upper hand. "Or maybe you'd like to see your daughter?"
He could feel his hands lowering, inch by inch, until the nose of the weapon was pointed towards the floor and he was struggling to breathe. The man's words filed into his mind quickly, knocking into each other and stumbling about, and in the middle of that chaos the Doctor could only shake his head.
"No. I don't have that. I don't have a daughter. Stop…playing these bloody mind games! Stop. Give me Clara or I swear to God, I swear on Gallifrey's ruins and the ashes of all my loved ones I killed, I'll make you suffer."
Davros pushed the control pad on his wheelchair, inching closer to the Doctor. He peered up at him with confidence.
"You won't. Because I'm the only one who can show you where Clara and the child are."
The weapon was raised again.
"There is no child!" He shrieked, his voice breaking and edging towards hysteria. There couldn't be. His heart filled with so much regret and pain at that thought. What had they done to Clara? Forced her to give birth alone? She'd had to be pregnant all alone, she'd had to do it all by herself, and what were they doing to the baby if it really existed? The Doctor took a second to calculate how much time had passed exactly. The baby would already be seven months old. Seven months of what? Of being locked in a room? Of being ignored, neglected, studied? And what about Clara? What must this have done to her?
Davros ignored his outburst.
"If you want to see Clara, I will take you." He told him.
The Doctor's finger was back on the trigger.
"Why? Why would you take me?" He wondered.
Davros blinked. "Why wouldn't I? With you and her and your child all in the same place, we could use you to our benefit. We could make you create whatever we wanted." He grinned abruptly, his cracked teeth showing. "Oh, she's a brilliant one, isn't she? You should see the software she's created. Beautiful too. But you'd know all about that."
The second bullet missed his other shoulder, due to the Doctor's shaking hands. It lodged into the giant clock on the wall behind them, shattering the glass and halting the ticking. A few people stooped underneath their desks, worried the Doctor would begin a killing spree, and he didn't feel far from it. It was only the knowledge that he might be able to see Clara again that stopped him from losing it completely. He could feel his strength leaving him, bit by bit, and sadness strangling him once more.
"I want her back." He pleaded. "Please. Please, I just want to be with her again. I don't care. I don't care what I have to do. I just want Clara."
Davros nodded.
"Then follow me."
They rode an elevator to the very top of the building. When they walked out onto the roof, the Doctor was momentarily confused.
"Where is she? I don't see her." He fretted.
He didn't see anything at all except the open expanse of roof. Davros merely pointed up towards the sky, and the Doctor followed his gaze, thinking foolishly for a moment that he was saying she was dead. But then he noticed what he never had before.
"No. That's not possible." He tried to say, but of course it was. He'd searched Trenzalore for almost a year now. He'd either been inside or looked inside every building and every basement. He'd mapped out the sewer and underground passage ways. And he hadn't found anything, because what he was looking for wasn't hidden below. It was hidden above.
The bottom of the aircraft (if one could even call it that—it appeared to be a cross between a blimp and a flying saucer. It was silent and practically invisible, due to the strange paint coating the underside that seemed to mirror its surroundings) began lowering a long ladder. The craft was immobile and the Doctor couldn't determine from where he was exactly how it was staying afloat. There were no propellers or motors to be seen nor heard, and no helium keeping it up. It was likely that those on board had no idea that they were in the sky, due to the fact that there were no windows that he could see. Not even one for pilots to look through, which meant it really didn't move at all. The Doctor watched as the ladder descended towards them until it came to a halt a mere inch from the roof.
"After you." Davros offered. He motioned towards his wheelchair. "I won't be joining you today. But I'm sure I'll see you soon."
The Doctor didn't hesitate. He didn't stop to think that perhaps it was a trick. He let the rifle fall to the ground and traded it for the ladder, taking a couple steps up and then holding tight as it began to lift him into the air. After all, what else could they do to him that was worse than what they had already done? Nothing.
From his spot in the air, he watched medics crowd Darvos, applying a bandage to his minor gunshot wound. Before the Doctor was pulled up through a hatch at the bottom of the aircraft, Davros glanced up and gave him that look again. The look that meant he had won.
The Doctor wasn't thinking of anything but Clara as the ladder came to a squeaky halt. The floor surrounding him closed back in, engulfing the space that had been there just a moment ago and sealing it off. The Doctor stepped off the ladder hesitantly onto the metal floor, finding himself in a small room with nothing but a heavy set of double doors in front of him. And so he did the only thing left to do at this point. He walked through them.
He was met with a sight not altogether unexpected. The doors opened up into a large room that was clinical and cold, with the bare minimums all in whites and blacks. There was no color to be seen anywhere in the large room, which the Doctor could best describe at the moment as a lobby, save the lightly shaded shirts and dresses he saw different people wearing. He figured it was some sort of ranking determiner or perhaps occupational uniforms. He'd only taken a few steps into the lobby when heads began turning towards him, the people stilling and staring. He saw brief flickers of emotion—relief, delight, surprise—and then he heard Simeon's voice booming out, and all evidence of emotion vanished, like it had never been there at all. Perhaps it hadn't. He had long ago begun entertaining the idea that he really was a madman.
When he met Simeon's eyes, he was shaking and torn. He knew then that if he didn't see Clara within the next day, he would die. He couldn't take the world without her any longer.
"I need Clara." He begged. "Please. Please, let her go. Please don't hurt her. Please tell me she hasn't been hurt. Please, I want to see her."
Davros must have contacted Simeon somehow, because he didn't seem surprised to see the Doctor in the slightest. He walked slowly towards him, hands clasped behind his back, and smiled almost reassuringly.
"And see her you shall." He promised. He nodded to a man and woman standing in the corner, both in black clothing, and they hurried over and restrained the Doctor. Even though he was hardly even breathing. "I'll be back soon." Simeon promised.
"Wait!" The Doctor fought against their hold for a moment, panic reemerging. "With Clara? You'll be back with Clara?!" He demanded.
Simeon stopped and turned, giving the Doctor a strange smirk he didn't quite understand.
"Sure. With Clara." He said, and then he was walking onto an elevator.
The hold on the Doctor loosened considerably once Simeon was gone. He nervously shuffled his weight from foot to foot, keeping his eyes locked on the elevator, thinking that at any moment his impossible girl would be there, smiling and fine and alive. He had to believe that. He couldn't entertain the dark worries in his mind that painted pictures of a very different situation.
It hadn't been long at all when the elevator chimed again, which meant Clara must have been staying somewhere close to this main room. When the doors slid back slowly, the Doctor was at first confused. He had the urge to say but that's not Clara, because the woman he saw holding Simeon's hand looked different to him. It was that stunning difference that kept him from running towards her. As they walked forward, the Doctor's eyes trained on her, he began to realize that it wasn't many physical difference that made her look different, rather it was her expression. Her hair was much longer but nothing else had changed, except her eyes, which looked right through the Doctor without a hint if recognition or care.
His heart went from steadily swelling with joy at the sight of her to withering. He stared into her eyes, the same he looked into a thousand times and told her that he loved her and heard those same words back, only to see nothing at all.
Simeon pulled them both to a stop right in front of the Doctor. He looked between them, at Simeon's smug face, their linked hands, and Clara's empty eyes. It was like someone had reached into her and scooped out her soul.
He stumbled back against the wall to his left, his body reacting to this horror quicker than his mind could. It knew what had happened before he did, before Simeon even said the words.
"She's the best Dalek we've ever had."
He couldn't breathe. He gasped and shook his head, weighted down by pain that seeped into every pore.
"No," he argued. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes and shook his head, hoping the harder he pressed the more the image of her would leave his memory. "No, she's not a Dalek. She's human. She's—my Clara. Oh God. Oh God. What have you done to her?"
His distress gave way to hysterical fury as he lowered his hands and straightened, pinning an accusing look on Simeon. He wished then that he still had his gun. His heart bent slowly underneath the thick pain, and then it snapped, and he was barreling towards Simeon. He pushed Clara out of the way, ripping her hand from Simeon, and once she was a safe distance away he began pounding his fists into Simeon's smug face. The sharp crack his knuckles made against Simeon's teeth was satisfying, but the blood that dripped stickily onto his hand was better. He punched his mouth again, feeling the brief tension of his teeth giving way as they popped free, and then he leveled blows to Simeon's chest, hoping he could feel even a sliver of the pain the Doctor was feeling and had been feeling for the past year. The Doctor was so frenzied that Simeon's attempts to defend himself were pointless and laughable. He had just begun wondering why all the surrounding Daleks weren't interfering, thinking he might actually beat this man to death right here, when he heard Clara's soft voice murmur something he couldn't catch. And then he was being pulled back from Simeon and restrained.
Chest heaving, he couldn't help but move his eyes to Clara before even glancing at the damage he had done to Simeon, because he was always trained to seek her out. In a room full of people, she was always where his eyes would land. Her eyes met his briefly, and then she was lowering down beside Simeon and mopping up his blood with her own dress, her face devoid of all feeling. And as he began gasping through full-bodied, debilitating sobs, he saw the briefest flicker of something in her eyes that screamed agony, and then she was lost again, staring indifferently at him as he slowly lowered onto the floor.
With his face in his hands, he spoke to her. He couldn't bear to do it when he could see her because he couldn't take the emptiness in the eyes that had once been more alive than anyone else's.
"Clara, please, Clara, come back. This isn't you! You aren't—you're my impossible girl! I'm so sorry! I'm so—" He gasped, his last word too huge and hollow to make it through.
"She will never come back. She's ours now." Simeon said, his voice thick from all the blood in his mouth. He seemed to know that, for the Doctor, those words were an equivalent to the beating he had just received.
And he waited and waited for Clara, his Clara, to exclaim that she belonged to no one. He waited to hear her voice, but when she did speak, it sounded nothing like her. It was monotonous and indifferent where Clara had always been animated and caring.
"I think perhaps it's time for Dr. Smith to be taken to his room."
The disgust in her voice—probably from his display of emotion, judging by what they had done to her—was paralyzing. He just didn't care anymore. About anything. He crumbled fully into himself, his face pressed to his knees, and cried like a little boy. Because in that moment, he felt like one. He felt like a child again, suddenly the killer of all he loved, forced to accept the fact that he'd be alone for the rest of his life.
The two Daleks restraining him lifted him back up and yanked him along with them, pulling him somewhere, and he didn't care where. Because he'd found Clara only to realize there was nothing left to find. He'd been too late, too stupid, too fucking pointless. He'd destroyed her when all she had ever done was heal him.
He didn't pay much attention to the white surroundings in the room he was thrown into. He found the bed and collapsed on top of it, wondering vaguely why he'd ever even bothered in the first place. If he had just killed himself after Gallifrey—or better yet, died during it like he'd wanted—everyone he had loved after would still be alive. Amelia and Rory would be happy, probably starting another family somewhere. River wouldn't have run off to Egypt for good. Clara would be with the Maitlands, happily doing what she did best. And he'd be dead. It was what should have happened from the start.
He couldn't feel anything for a long time, and then it all hit him at once, the terrible nature of it. What they'd done to his Clara, the possibility that they might have also taken his child, all the terrible things they'd done to all the people here. He started crying again and this time he couldn't stop.
When he heard the door open, sometime later after he'd been there for hours, he expected Simeon. He turned around on the bed to tell Simeon that he had won, he'd destroyed what he'd wanted to break, only to find himself staring at Clara, her face shadowed from the lack of light out in the hallway. He froze, his heart stilling and his mind stalling for a moment in time, a moment where he only stared at her. She took a small step into his room, his door closing them off from the dark hallway, and he wasn't sure if it was all the light that was now touching her face, but immediately she looked just like Clara. Worse, she looked like Clara on the worst day he'd ever seen her live.
"Turn from me." She ordered, her voice teetering and thick with oncoming tears. The Doctor was confused and upset. She raised her voice. "Don't look at me! Look at the wall! Pretend I'm not here!"
She pointed up at the corner, and when the Doctor reluctantly turned his eyes from hers and looked towards where she was pointing, he understood. A surveillance camera. Abruptly, he felt like laughing. His understanding was slow and it started with a gradual lightening on his heart.
Clara edged along the wall, just out of sight of the camera, and then quietly pulled the chair from his desk over beside the camera. He watched as she climbed up and began pulling open the side panel, revealing a mess of fine wires and a tiny keypad.
Her voice was still shaky as she began speaking.
"Normally you can turn them off from the main servers," she started, her eyes intent on what she was doing. Her fingers moved quickly and precisely, like she could have done it with her eyes shut. The Doctor was stunned even more, trying hard to reconcile that sight with his memory of Clara trying to figure out how to work the Wii remote. She began punching in a series of numbers into the keypad, her fingers quivering slightly. "But he's put you in the one of the high security rooms—clever of him, of course. Only these security cameras are all grouped on a separate power circuit and are sent to private feeds on a separate server. They're impossible to deactivate."
A brief smile flickered across her face as she let out an ah-ha! Her hands fell from the camera as the little red light went out. The Doctor found his voice and he wasn't sure how.
"If it's impossible to deactivate, how'd you do that?" He asked, because he couldn't ask the things he needed to. Like what was going on or what they had done to her or if she'd really had the baby or if she even still loved him.
She spun on the chair so she was facing him. There was light back in her eyes and color to her cheeks, and the Doctor wanted to weep with joy. He watched as she leapt off the chair, energy practically emitting from her.
"I've got insane hacking skills now." She informed him cheekily, her eyes sparkling. She tapped the side of her head. "I've got computing stuff in my head." It was only his ongoing confusion and remaining slight suspicion that kept him from running towards her and kissing her a hundred times in acute relief.
He was an idiot, a big, fully-grown baby, because he felt his eyes prickling with tears once more. It was just—he'd never thought he'd see this again, not really. He'd never thought he would see Clara alive, and yet she was here, after he'd seen her as a supposed-Dalek only a couple of hours ago, and he wasn't sure what the hell was going on, but he figured it was Clara somehow saving him again. She was always saving him.
She fiddled nervously with her hands from across the room, her teasing look melting to one of uncertainty. But as long as she was looking emotional—no matter what the emotion—he was glad. He had just registered the itching in his arms, the overwhelming desire to reach out for her, when she began walking slowly towards him. It was as if once she allowed herself to take that first step forward, she couldn't stop her feet, because her pace increased with each step until she was hurrying towards him. He opened his arms by instinct, enveloping her warm, familiar body and holding her tightly against him, his heart hammering loudly in his head. He pressed his face into her shoulder, his breaths leaving him in wild, thankful gasps.
"Clara," he breathed, the word leaving his mouth like a prayer. She was holding onto his shoulders so tightly that he felt her nails biting into his skin. He loosened a hand on her dress for the sake of reaching up and brushing his fingers through her hair, his throat narrowing as he did so, because he'd thought he never would. There was no way to explain the worth of doing something you never thought you would ever again. "Oh, Clara, my clever Clara. I missed you so much. So much. Are you okay?"
Her grip didn't loosen for a moment. It was only the dampness against his neck that tipped him off to her tears. She had perfected the art of crying silently.
"Why didn't you come?" She asked, and it was so like her to cut right to the chase. Her words were heavy stones, dropping one by one into his stomach until it was sagging underneath the weight. "It's been a year. It's been—hell. Doctor, it's been hell. And I needed you."
He punctuated his explanation of the past year with I'm sorrys. He couldn't seem to apologize enough, because he knew there would be no way to make up what he'd done. He rocked her back and forth as she cried into his shoulder, his own face wet, and all he could do was tell her how lost he'd been without her and how much he loved her and how his heart had ached when he'd thought she was gone. He knew she wouldn't blame him, even though she should have. He knew she had already forgiven him before he'd apologized. Even though he didn't deserve it. It was enough to make him want to beg her to leave him because he didn't deserve her. But he was far too selfish for that.
She stayed in his arms crying for a very long time. The Doctor didn't want to think about how long it had been since she was hugged or comforted in any way. He didn't want to think about how long it had been since she'd even had a simple conversation where she was allowed to feel something. He could figure out by now what she had managed to pull off, and he couldn't imagine the difficulty of what she had done. Months of denied emotions tumbled from her now. It was all pouring out of her at an alarming rate, like a floodgate had burst open. She shook and sobbed and held him tight, and just the act of comforting her soothed his own pain more than anything else could have. Being able to help her, to hold her, to feel the reassuring thumping of her heart was the best remedy of all.
After a while, she began sharing details of her year with him, in erratic bursts between weeping.
"I'm not a Dalek," she started with, her voice a bit desperate like she thought he wouldn't believe her, and the Doctor chuckled sadly, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. As if he could have ever thought she was after all this.
"I know." He reassured her. "You're human as they come."
More crying, and then—
"I've fucked over Simeon. They're all human again. I converted them all and he doesn't even know it." She admitted. She laughed hollowly at that and then gave a watery hiccup. That statement seemed to give her enough strength to take a shaky breath and sit up properly, her arms slowly sliding from where they were hooked underneath the Doctor's arms. She wiped at her cheeks and seemed confused for a moment. The Doctor assumed it was from all the emotions currently bombarding her.
"That's my Clara," the Doctor said with pride, his lips pulling up into an affectionate smile. "I'm not surprised in the least. If anyone could do it, you could."
He could see that there was something that Clara needed to say, something that had been perched right between her lips the entire visit, but she seemed terrified to say it. The Doctor didn't push her. He didn't ask any questions and he didn't beg for answers. He knew he'd get them all eventually. Instead, he held her and marveled at the fact that he hadn't seen her in an entire year, and yet his heart still felt the same for her. His love had only grown with her absence and he thought it likely that she felt the same judging by her refusal to completely let go of him, as if she thought he'd disappear again. He supposed he shouldn't have been that surprised. He'd known for a very long while that what he felt for her was special. It was there to stay forever.
She leaned back against his pillows and tugged him down with her, pulling him back into her arms. He wrapped his arms around her in return, pressing his face against the top of her head. Her hair smelled different and not at all like he was used to, but her body fit against his the same way it always had. If he ignored the fear still gripping his heart and Clara's slight shaking, he might have been able to convince himself they were back at their home and the past year had been a terrible nightmare.
"I've got to go." Clara told him sometime later, her voice pained and pinched. "But I don't know if I can bear to. I shouldn't have come so soon, but seeing you cry hurt too badly to stay away."
His body reacted immediately, pulling her closer and shaking his head.
"Please don't go." He begged, panic already squeezing him. "Please don't. Clara, don't go. Please."
He knew it was ridiculous, but he couldn't handle the idea of watching her walk from him again. Even if she was only leaving until the next night. He knew they had to get out of here somehow, that all of this would have to reach an end, but at the current moment he wasn't thinking about the future. He was thinking about how he didn't want anything more from life than to keep Clara in his arms like this forever.
"I've got to." She told him, but her words trailed off like she had more to add. He waited, noticing that neither of them made a move to loosen their hold on each other. Finally, her fingers slackened and she began backing up a little, just enough to look up at his face. They both smiled at each other when their eyes met, even though the Doctor was filled with paralyzing fear at the idea of her leaving again. The sight of her still made him impossibly happy. Her eyes studied his, her smile faltering a little and falling into a serious look. "I've got a daughter." She told him. Her eyes fell from his briefly, looking instead at his neck. "We've got a daughter. She's sleeping now and she'll be frightened if she wakes up and I'm not there."
It took him a few moments to process those words and how they made him feel. He decided, more than anything, they made him desperately sad. She'd had to do everything alone. He had missed it all. He hadn't seen his own daughter born and he'd never even met her. No telling what kind of life she'd had. Not to mention the emotional turmoil it had put Clara through.
"I…" but he stopped, because he wasn't sure what to say. I'm sorry for not being there for you? I'm sorry they took your choice away? I'm sorry this happened at all? What was there to say that he hadn't already said a thousand times? Beneath his sadness he could feel anger at Simeon and wonder and curiosity, but those couldn't come forward just yet.
She seemed to understand his emotions even if he failed to speak. She met his eyes again and gave him a reassuring nod, a small smile gracing her face once more.
"It's okay. It really is. She's…oh, I've never been able to talk about her out loud before." Her smile grew gradually and naturally into one of pure joy, her eyes lighting up. "She's the most wonderful little person I've ever known. I love her more than I can say and I wouldn't have been able to do any of this without her. She's so smart and sweet and beautiful, Doctor. She really is. She's seven months old and she's already starting to say mama. She can sit up and scoot across the floor and she's so happy all of the time. She doesn't even know that we're in hell, and when I'm with her, I even forget for a moment too." Once she started, it was like she couldn't stop, and the Doctor found himself spellbound by the image she was painting of his daughter that he hadn't even known existed. "And she's got your eyes and your smile. I see you in her every day—especially in some of the expressions she makes. She's absolutely perfect in every way." Her smile fell then, her forehead creasing with worry. "And that's why we have to be careful. We can get out of here easy, but we have to make sure the escape happens on our own terms. We can't have Simeon find out that I'm not really under his control while she's by herself because he might find her. He might hurt her. And I would die."
He hadn't even met the child, but those words turned his own heart to ice.
"No. Nothing will happen to her, Clara." He said immediately. He knew it was true, because their daughter had two of the most fiercely protective people in the world looking out for her. And he wouldn't let them hurt her. "I want to see her. I want to meet her. I want…I want this. This is what I've always wanted. With you. A future, a life. A family. And God, I won't let them hurt you or her ever again."
Her eyes were sparkling once more, but this time it was with tears. The slight curve of her lips expressed a slightly hesitant joy.
"I was worried." She admitted. "That maybe you…I don't know."
She stopped, her words trailing off self-consciously. He searched frantically for some hint to what she was feeling, his eyes combing over her expression, and it was in the fearful purse of her lips that he finally saw it.
"That I didn't love you anymore?" He asked gently. "That I forgot all about you? That I would find out you had a baby and decide I didn't want either of you?"
Her body curved back from his slightly, like she'd just been delivered blows to the stomach. Her arms began winding around herself, as if to shield herself from pain, but his hands were quick to cradle her face. He brushed his thumbs over her cheeks and couldn't help but chuckle at little at the absurdity of it all, at the absurdity of their life together.
"Being with you has always felt like a blessing. Knowing that you also wanted to be with me was a miracle. And knowing now that you're okay, that you're still you, that I haven't lost you, that our daughter is safe somewhere and somehow happy in this middle of all this shit…it's like the universe is apologizing for everything bad that's ever happened to me. Like you—no, you two—are an impossible gift." He touched her wet eyelashes gently, caving into the impulse to briefly and gently press his lips against hers. The kiss was warm and yearning and the feeling of her being so close lingered even after he pulled back. "And if so, if your happiness and safety is my reward for putting up with all I have…it's all been worth it by far. Just to know that you're still Clara. I guess I'm just realizing…I've made it to the end and all I see is light after all."
It was as if he could see her trust in him restoring. Her shoulders lost their tension, her expression grew lighter, and then she nodded resolutely like she'd just made a decision. But her words were taunt with emotion that her firm nod didn't reflect.
"I want you to meet her. Now. I can't wait another moment. I wanted you there when she was born so much and I've gone mad wanting you here with us every day. And I'm done being cautious, I'm done letting their brainwashing get to me. I'm done with all this. We're leaving. We're going to get our daughter and then we're leaving. I can't stand to be here another moment. I can't stand the coldness. And I can't fucking stand one more moment of pretending that I don't love you or her. I can't be here one more day." Her words trailed off, heavy and serious, and then she turned to him and admitted one more thing. "I had to pretend to be a Dalek even when I gave birth to her. I had to look at her, hear her cry…I had to hold her and not show an ounce of emotion. I think I'm still aching from the strain of it. He held our daughter and he smiled that smug smile and he tried to take her away from me. I had to hand her over to him, like a fucking charity donation. And I can't forgive him for that. He took that day away from me. He made her enter the world unloved and I'll never forget that."
She was at the end of her rope. He could see it clearly now, even more clearly than when she'd cried for hours in his arms. At that moment, he knew that she would kill Simeon without a second thought and that she wouldn't feel guilty for it either. Simeon had programmed hate into her all right—but he'd failed to direct it where he wanted it. And the Doctor was suddenly certain that she held the right to do whatever she wanted to Simeon.
If he were Simeon, he'd be terrified. But if he were Simeon, he never would have done what he did to Clara Oswald, either. He never would have been that stupid.