The TARDIS thrummed through her feet and Clara padded down the corridor barefoot, trying not to disturb the Doctor as she hurried to the bathroom. Her mental plea was heard and the TARDIS materialised one around the next corridor. Clara all but stumbled into it, heaving her guts up and sitting down hard on the cold metallic floor. A fluffy mat materialised beneath her and she patted the floor gently, appreciating the gesture.
"This isn't possible." She whispered, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand and staring around at the four walls as if the Box would have an answer for her. "I'm just sick, space flue or something." The TARDIS thrummed a negative response through her and Clara dropped her head, glancing at her stomach which was still rumbling with nausea. "It can't be the other thing, I know it's not possible." She whispered, knowing full well that Time Lords and humans just weren't compatible, this had to be something else.
"Don't tell him about this." She pleaded with the TARDIS. "Not until I'm sure." The TARDIS made an irritated sound and Clara felt the distinct instructions to move, to be sure. Rolling her eyes Clara stood, putting one gentle foot in front of the other, not in the least bit surprised when console room all but presented itself to her around the next bend. Climbing the stairs Clara didn't need the insistent buzzing in her ear to know what the TARDIS wanted.
"You want to do this now?" she hissed, but her hands were trembling as she pulled the touch screen towards her, she was certain, it wasn't possible, she was human he wasn't, there DNA didn't match up. Which meant she was sick, the TARDIS needed to run its tests and if she was she'd just get medicine, it would be fine. "Just do it." She muttered, the words had barely left her mouth before she watched the lights blink on and the outline image of a human female appear on it. A beam of light passed over her, it scanned from head to toe.
The text flashed across the console for her benefit. 'No contaminants detected. Vitals normal.'
The scanner started up again and Clara dropped her head as it centred on her stomach, holding for a few seconds before cutting off. The words flashed on the screen and Clara felt that wave of nausea again.
'Pregnant. Positive Test.'
To say it was a shock would have been an understatement, Clara stared blinking at the words for a whole minute before she felt her brain click back on again. It wasn't possible. Even if it was she'd been careful, using birth control. Although right now the idea that human birth control might work against alien biology seemed at best a little optimistic, at worst down-right idiotic. But that didn't change the fact their species weren't compatible; knowing what she did of Time Lord biology it didn't even seem probable, but then she'd never been good at biology, not in any life.
"Can you do a DNA analysis?" Clara prompted needlessly, it wasn't like she'd had any other sexual partners, she supposed there was always some freaky space pollen that maybe she could have inhaled. The TARDIS was already feverishly working away at it before the words had even left her mouth it seemed the images displaying for her unprompted, but Clara didn't need to see the result; the way the helix wound through the display screen was all the answer she needed. And yet it shouldn't be possible, he had certainly never considered it so.
'Embryo detected. DNA analysis complete. Species Time Lord.'
The words seemed to etch themselves onto the back of her eyelids. The warning signs had been there she realised, the TARDIS had been far too careful with her recently, far too... involved. Which of course Clara supposed she should be, looking at those strands now it seemed obvious that a human-Time Lord was an impossibility, her genetic code was simply not equipped to give an unborn child everything it needed to pair with his more complex one.
The brush of telepathic information as the TARDIS explained she had done what she always did, she'd looked after him.
"Did you do this?" Clara asked, "Did you make this possible?" Clara managed unable to keep the shake from her voice. The TARDIS had done something like this before, it had added something of itself to make sure River survived conception inside the temporal vortex, giving her the capacity to become a Time Lady in a limited fashion. But this... this wouldn't be like that Clara felt the answer, watched as the TARDIS pulled apart the DNA strands, showing her quite clearly that whatever this was, it was most certainly her and the Doctors, not a child of the TARDIS. It just didn't make any sense, Clara felt like her head was swimming as she stared at her human DNA strand perfectly interwoven with his... human plus, but plus what and where had the plus come from in her? And how? But whatever or however, the outcome it was undeniable, this pregnancy wasn't some hybrid of the two species, the developing foetus was a Time Lord.
There was a more pressing concern however, "How am I supposed to tell him?" Clara dropped her head to the console. "If he's overprotective now what is it going to do to him to have a fragile human carrying what might be the last Time Lord ever?" The TARDIS tried to sooth her, she felt the distinctive brush of its telepathic touch. The memory of an image that Jack, as the Face of Boe, had shown her lingered and she hastily shoved it away, prophecy never had been something she'd been comfortable with, even if it might prove to be unnervingly accurate.
"Can you hide this from him, at least until I can figure out the best way?"
The console beeped in an affirmative and Clara sighed, one more thing to wall up behind that 'private' sign inside her mind, it was the only place he wouldn't pry without a damn good reason. At least until the signs became obvious, he was expertly familiar now with her body attuned to its every curve and dip, he'd notice this soon enough.
"Hide what from me?" his voice rang out; he might have been older but his hearing was bat like this regeneration round.
Clara lifted her head in surprise from where she'd dropped it to the console. The TARDIS was suspiciously quiet as the Doctor stepped onto the platform and Clara shot up, trying to hide her panic. "Nothing, just girl talk. Don't be so nosy." Clara bit back, smiling and dancing towards him, her hand going to his chest as she tried to distract him.
He caught her hand deftly his gaze narrowing as he took her in, those sharp eyes working through the puzzle with ease. His eyes flickered to the screen, it was blank and Clara tried to look merely confused rather than guilty.
"One chance." He offered, but his voice had that deceptive quiet quality it got when he was masking real anger.
Clara felt the air escape her in a rush, he knew, which meant there was no point pretending, he was offering her a way out.
"I wasn't sure. We wanted to be sure before we..."
"Neglected to tell me?" his eyebrow quirked up in what she recognised as irritation, his hand drew her in and she relented as the length of his body seemed to envelop her as his hand lowered almost instinctively to her stomach. His eyes closed and she merely waited, watching as the TARDIS flicked the screen back on again, the image of the interlocked DNA strands unequivocal. The Doctor opened his eyes onto hers. "You'd have hidden this from me?" His accusation stung and Clara looked away. Wondering how he knew and suspecting the TARDIS had something to do with it despite her promise. Or maybe she herself had just done a terrible job of keeping her mental turmoil hidden from him.
"I don't know." Clara sighed, trying to pull out of his grasp and failing. "I didn't want you to do what I know you're doing right now."
"And what am I doing?" the scorn in his voice lashed her and she steeled herself as she turned back to those eyes.
"Catastrophising." She muttered. "Right now your thinking of each and every way this could go wrong. Of every danger out there that is suddenly a looming threat over us." That image Jack had supplied loomed and she shoved it away and locked it down, not willing to let fear rule her. Something had flipped a switch within her Doctor, she couldn't pin point exactly when it had happened but he'd become over protective again almost overnight; like he'd suddenly remembered that she was in fact human. She can't say she appreciated the change or the route it might lead him down if Jack was right.
"And you're not?" he snapped, his arms going around her biceps, but his grip didn't tighten as it once would have.
"No... I'm not." She snapped. "Because I'm too damn scared to think of anything outside of me and what's happening to my body right now. In case you hadn't noticed, this most definitely shouldn't be possible. That DNA test, does not say Species, human-Time Lord. It says Time Lord." She pointed at the console with more than a little panic creeping into her voice.
The Doctor for once looked speechless. Score one for her she supposed as he released her and she turned to the console, feeling the comforting swell of the engine as it enveloped her in what she could only describe as a maternal hug.
"Clara." He approached her quietly, the irritation in his voice just about giving way to contrition.
"Don't Clara me!" she snapped "Not when I know how proper good and furious you are with me for trying to hide it at all." His hand flattened against her back and she tried not to just succumb to the insistence that she wrap herself in his arms. "I don't know if I can do this." She whispered, bowing her head and feeling the maternal glow of the TARDIS pooling over her stronger now than before.
The Doctor tutted gently at her, "You have been looking after other people's children for years. Every life you've ever lived you've been drawn to them. You'll be a wonderful mother." His words were trying to be kind, trying to comfort but he just wasn't getting it.
Clara turned over her shoulder to look at him, she couldn't help it, the moment the possibility had raised its head she'd had one thought. "But what about you Doctor? Will you be a wonderful father?"
It was a blow she knew she shouldn't have dealt, knew it the moment it left her lips, but she had to say it or it would eat her alive, and like all her secrets, he'd prise it free in the end, no doubt at the absolute worst moment. His expression waivered and she almost thought he staggered at the implication as he all but fell into the console, his knuckles white as he wrapped his hands around the edge for support.
"How dare you ask me..."
"I do dare." Clara barked back, sensing him building a head of steam and cutting him off, Jack had said that image wasn't fixed, she had to believe that, maybe if she could confront him with her fear; she could dispel it. "And don't try and pretend this is some hang up about Eleven," she added all but dismissing the idea with a sharp gesture. "I'd have been even less sure about him." That at least seemed to shut him up as she cut off his old fall back accusation of her and she turned hands on her hips to face him.
"You can't stay still for even five minutes." She accused. "You don't just have enemies you have proper mortal enemies; entire planets of them, galaxies even!" his eyebrow raised and he opened his mouth to argue she raised her finger to his lips. "The TARDIS is a minefield of potential accidents for a child." He looked around and she could see him adding that to his list of things to stress over. "When were you last a father Doctor... 1400 years ago give or take?" she pressed seeing his eyes cloud with memories that on rare occasions he had let her share, not that she needed them, one of her first incarnations had been right there as his teacher, guiding his young mind. "And let's be honest, Time Lord's weren't exactly great parents, the hands off approach didn't exactly do you any favours. They barely even take responsibility for their offspring which is easier I'm sure when you don't have to carry them yourself, just hook them up to a genetic loom and let it run."
"Stop, just stop!" he barked and she perfectly understood his frustration, she knew him too well and it rankled; all these years of being the mysterious all knowing alien and now the one time he needed to pull the wool over a companions eyes and he couldn't. "Clara?" he almost pleaded and she stared up at him, a sob almost escaped her when his mouth crashed into hers. The desperation in it as he clutched her to him was palpable.
"I can do this. We can do this!" He pleaded his head against hers and she desperately wanted to believe him as he held her close, as if he could press the understanding into her.
"And then there's me." She muttered. "I'm human Doctor, no matter what fancy architecture and memories I've got crammed in here." She tapped her forehead pointlessly pulling back to look at him, knowing he was fully aware of the same biological facts she was. "This isn't possible. The TARDIS... she's done something to me." It was a sickening thought but one she couldn't shake.
"Clara, the TARDIS would never do anything without your permission or mine." He whispered using that quiet tone again, he approached and she didn't protest when he took her face in his palms angling it up to his. "This... this is not something I was expecting either." He admitted, but as far as she could tell beside the mild shock, he was excited by the prospect.
"We should have." Clara muttered, "The TARDIS made it happen with two humans in the time-vortex, what did you think she'd do with us?" Particularly when they'd given her so many times to get it right Clara mused.
The Doctor gave the TARDIS matrix an unfathomable look that Clara didn't want to interpret because she really didn't think it was annoyance, before he turned his attention back to her. "Can my body take this and if so why?" Clara asked him gently, knowing that he was more rattled than she was and a scared Doctor was always a dangerous one.
The Doctor pressed a kiss to the top of her head before releasing her and turning back to the console, "Your right it shouldn't be possible at all." He muttered, perfectly echoing her early thoughts as he pulled the view screen towards him and examined it quietly; his expression darkened and she felt her blood run cold. "Ah. I see." The way he said it wasn't encouraging, and the look he gave her she knew she wouldn't forget in a hurry, whatever he was about to say, he thought it might be the end them.
"The TARDIS has been spiking your food." He said it so calmly that she almost didn't take it in.
"What?" she hissed, stalking up to the console and slamming her hands down on it, demanding the machine explain itself... if it even could.
"Well this might be the first we're hearing about it, but I'd say the Old Girl has been planning this for a while." The Doctor spun the viewer back to her and Clara eyeballed it, the scrawling numbers didn't mean a lot to her. "This isn't like River," he whispered, clearing that up right away as he gave her a pained look, "River's parents were human, they needed the TARDIS to directly intervene after the instability of the time vortex impacted on the developing foetus and Kovarian's sect worked very hard afterwards with their genetic manipulations to make sure River was all that she could be."
"Just tell me." Clara bit out. "What has she been giving me?" Clara stepped closer to him her stomach knotting and threatening nausea again.
"Huon particles." He explained, his fists clenching as he dropped his head for a moment, staring at their linked hands as if memorising it.
Clara reached out and grasped his arm, fearing he might be about to tear into his old friend. "Why would she poison me?" She knew enough to know that they were bad news... toxic, even the Time Lord's limited their use to the heart of the TARDIS despite their energy potential. They had nearly destroyed Donna when the Ragnaros had made her an unwitting host.
The Doctor snorted. "Oh the Old Girls not poisoning you, not in the traditional sense. She's 'fixing' you, combining it with her own residual Artron energy." The derision in his voice made Clara think he thought about as much of that as she did.
Clara realised when he didn't elaborate that he'd assumed she'd understood the implications of that; she didn't. "What does that mean, in English Doctor?" She snapped, properly nervous now.
"She's been making you compatible with me... biologically." His voice was flat, like he was terrified of letting emotion bleed into it because he wasn't sure which one would present itself.
Clara understood that just fine. The Old Cow was making her more Time Lord, which meant she had probably conceived naturally; no need for the TARDIS to have intervened with the foetus at all. A Time Lord was created by exposure to the temporal vortex, thrived on it, it would be fine. But did she feel different? She'd been making love to a time travelling alien with the ability to quite literally blow her mind... she wasn't sure she'd remember what it felt like to be the Clara that had opened the door to a mad monk anymore. "How far along has she gotten? Given the current predicament I'm assuming it's pretty far right?" her Doctor, he looked so torn. She wanted to offer him some comfort, tell him that she wasn't breaking apart right now; but it was impossible for her to lie to him right now, because she wasn't ok with this. Pregnant was one thing. This... well it was something else.
The Doctor turned the monitor back towards him, the eerie calm of him throwing all of her senses into overdrive, primed and waiting for the explosion she knew was imminent. "I assume that she began sometime after the Reapers at a guess." He replied. "She has been blocking the sensors inside." he flipped a few more buttons staring hard at the monitors and pulling out his sonic with a dark look. "And she's encoded a patch that has made it undetectable to our sonic's," he turned to give her a pleading look. "I didn't know, I swear if I had..."
Clara reached for his hand squeezing it tightly, recognising his rambling for avoidance. "I know. Just tell me, how bad?"
The Doctor blinked, glancing back at his monitors as if he needed to check, his face looked ashen. "Biological conversion is at 47%." He whispered and Clara stared at him in disbelief.
"How?" she exclaimed, grabbing the scanner herself and checking, 47% Time Lord." Clara dropped the scanner and backed away from both him and his damn Box. That meant there was only 53% human left, a few more weeks, maybe even days and it would have tipped over into half.
Only half human.
Her stomach gurgled unpleasantly and she felt a wave of nausea again, had she even noticed? Or worse, had he?
"Nanogenes." The Doctor muttered, "She must have retrofitted the ones the Sisters used to repair your neuronal damage, they should have left your system harmlessly when they completed their task by now, but I'm detecting them, or rather she's letting me detect them." He tossed the scanner aside, grasping the console and glaring furiously at it, but Clara knew he was torn between the feelings of betrayal and the idea that the TARDIS might have fixed a problem for him without him needing to take on a shred of guilt for it. Clara prided herself on being able to keep up with him on occasion, but she loathed where her mind led her now. The Doctor drew his fingers across his brow and Clara felt the bristling of his telepathic walls snapping into place, his comforting presence retreating almost entirely into his shell.
"Doctor, don't." She ran her hand over his as he gripped onto the console tightly. "It's ok, I know what you're thinking, what that thought is doing to you, even if you're trying to hide it."
"I can't help it." He admitted looking utterly broken at the admission and she opened her arms to him, letting him hold her as she placed her head against his chest, listening to the steady thump of his tripping hearts.
"You're happy about it, all of it." She acknowledged and she heard the sob he couldn't hold back. It was hardly a surprise, the man had been alone for a millennia, not a single one of his species left alive. It must have been soul destroying. Even the idea of having that back, particularly if you could do that and keep the fragile human woman you'd come to love at the same time; well she could hardly blame him. The TARDIS on the other hand...
"Forgive me." He pleaded swapping their positions as he slid to his knees, pressing his head to her stomach and holding her tightly to him. Clara let her hand rise to stroke through his hair offering him a comfort that wasn't as forthcoming to her.
"There's nothing to forgive." She breathed and there wasn't, not of him, he couldn't help that even a machine would love him enough to do something like this, but the machine itself? "I can't promise the same for the Old Cow though." Clara muttered and he tightened his arms reflexively around her. "If I get the chance I'm going to turn her into scrap. Because she had no right!" Clara snarled, staring up at the walls. "I've had more than enough Time Lord crap to deal with in my head without my body going into revolt against me as well."
"She was just doing what she thought was best." The Doctor admitted and Clara resisted the urge to shove him away from her, was it too much to bloody ask for him to take her side, just once against the damn box! But he looked so retched, truly now torn between them.
"She was doing what she thought was best for you... always you! And I can't even get damn well mad with her about that because I was the idiot that programmed that into her damn software in the first place." She hadn't meant for that to slip out but she supposed now was as good a time as any for it.
The Doctor lifted his head slowly meeting her eyes the surprise in his evident. Clara rolled her eyes relieved to finally let that little secret out, it had certainly explained a thing or two when she'd found it in that top draw of one her filed lives memories.
"One of your Time Lady Echo's?" he connected the dots.
Clara rolled her eyes, feeling a hint of irritation creeping in. "Oh please, don't tell me you didn't notice that the TARDIS was more than a little bit possessive of you?" he frowned, clearly wondering what the connection was. "Of course I didn't know I was technically programming her for you, I was just playing about. She was a museum peace. I wanted to see if I could heighten the sentience, make a more... sympathetic machine." Clara stepped away from both of them and he slowly got to his feet. "I gave her the ability to feel something, but it was you she formed the attachment to. Which makes this whole damn thing in a roundabout sort of way my own bloody fault."
Clara couldn't help it, she kicked the centre console hard, hurting her foot more than she hurt the machine, but it beeped and rose angrily back at her anyway. "Oh bite me, you meddling machine." Clara snapped at it. "I should have followed my orders and had you recycled for parts, you owe me."
Clara turned her back on them both, not sure what to say or feel; coming to that little revelation about her past self and the Box had been a surprise she'd been holding on to as she hadn't really been sure what it meant, after all if the Doctor hadn't insisted on storing all her Galiffreyan lives so close to the surface she'd never have remembered. Although she was quite certain half the TARDIS's initial animosity originated from that little mishap they'd had with her Navigation system when Clara, or rather her Echo, had accidentally fallen asleep with the temporal welders still active. Possibly it was why the Box had been so against her getting a good night's sleep; the machine could certainly hold a grudge Clara noted.
The Doctor slid closer until he was in her eye-line. "Have you ever considered that maybe this is her trying to pay you back the favour?" That was exactly the problem she realised, they both thought of this as a 'gift' like the idea that the loss of her humanity could be anything other than a tragedy, hadn't even occurred to them.
Clara ran her hands through her hair, a nervous gesture she seemed to have picked up from him. "She stole my humanity and she didn't even stop to think if she should. Like right now, the only thought probably going through that warped metal skull of hers, is 'ungrateful stray'!" Clara kicked the centre panel again. "You Cow." She snarled, properly mad now.
"Clara, calm down." The Doctor tried, his hands going to her shoulders.
"Make her stop. Right now." She insisted turning this over to him. "47% less than human is all she's getting." The Doctor didn't say anything, didn't protest, just leant into the console and started pushing buttons. Clara watched his rigid posture, the pain masked in every movement and she reached out placing a hand over one of his and stilling its movement against the mechanism. "Is 47% enough to get this baby all the way through?" Ok so she hadn't meant to call it a baby, but her mouth had other ideas; and she had to know, a baby after all was innocent in this, it hadn't asked to suddenly pop into creation because a sentient Blue Box was screwing with its mother's DNA. But what would it need? How much more of herself of her humanity was she willing to give to see it born?
The Doctor didn't look at her, which meant she knew he was going to try and lie, not something he did especially well these days. Her hand squeezed his. "Give me a number." The Doctor gave her a sideways glance, she realised his hands were trembling beneath hers as he fought to hold onto his emotions, his opinions on this a topic so desperately close to his heart.
"I don't know." He admitted, pulling away, retreating to the other side of the console.
Clara sighed, everything the hard way. "Activate TARDIS voice interface." A hologram flickered into life... Eleven's face, clearly she the Old Cow thought she was being cute. Clara glared at the apparition, turning her back on it and looking straight at the console. "Nice face. It's not going to work though." Clara muttered. "Give me a number. I know you've been calculating, so tell me, just how much more humanity am I going to have to give up for this to stand a chance of working."
"None." It wasn't Eleven's voice, Clara glanced back to find a woman was stood there, a woman in a tattered mismatched Victorian outfit and mad hair.
"Idris." The Doctor whispered and then he hastily looked away, his hands flat on the TARDIS console. Her heart would have gone out to him as he was quite literally torn between the two women in his life, but she was too pissed off or possibly just in shock right now to give it more thought.
"None?" Clara snapped, her mind trying to process what she meant by that answer, hoping she'd interpreted correctly that 47% was indeed enough.
The woman that Clara realised was probably the closest thing the TARDIS had to a face cocked her head at her, as if observing. "Viable conception was successfully achieved after 21% conversion, the developing foetus at this point had everything it needed to reach a natural gestation term." Clara held her breath, feeling the Doctor radiating tension beside her.
"Then why am I at 47%?" Clara whispered, knowing with an odd certainty what she had suspected all along.
The TARDIS in this Idris form smiled at her with what seemed like most definite fondness despite her words. "My calculations indicate that a 53% conversion is required to ensure sufficient retention of Artron energy for you to sustain a successful regeneration cycle."
"Regeneration cycle?" the Doctor all but rasped but Clara was reeling.
Idris, or the TARDIS, whatever the apparition was, nodded that fond smile turning on the Doctor. "Yes, limited though the cycle would be; my calculations are accurate. A further 5% biological conversion is required to ensure a species designation of Time Lord for Clara Oswald." They seemed to share a moment, the mad man and his Box... and Clara had a dawning realisation that she was currently just being used as an instrument for the TARDIS to demonstrate its unending devotion to him.
Clara blinked taking a moment to digest what that meant and not liking the answer, needing to vocalise it, to scream it into the air. "You didn't do this for the baby at all, that was what? Just a bonus, a coincidence, the more you changed me the more possible it became for me to get pregnant?" The Doctor was suspiciously quiet and she glanced at him, he was staring his eyes wide and fixed on the TARDIS. "You did this entirely for him." Clara nodded, furious and devastated and utterly lost all at the same time. "What to get the man who has everything, all of time and space, everything that ever was or will be? How about a Companion he doesn't have too lose."
"Yes." The TARDIS replied succinctly although Clara wasn't sure which bit she was responding to, the voice interface flickering. "Then you understand?"
Clara felt her lips purse. "Yes I understand." She sighed, wishing she didn't. "But I don't forgive." She pointed her finger at the voice interface. "This was wrong, to do it like this, without giving me a choice. You were wrong!" Clara shouted, feeling satisfaction in the way the sound bounced off the metal walls.
Idris blinked slowly, the face the TARDIS had picked turning up its mouth at the corners into a dark smile. "Impossible, I have seen it work." Then she vanished, just blinked out of existence and left her staring and silently fuming in the silence. For this conversion, the length it had gone to, for it to have been for the sake of a baby she could have possibly understood it, forgiven this betrayal; but she wasn't quite so sure the same applied when it had been solely to prevent its father from being alone.
"I need to get out of here." Clara managed quietly. "Put us down somewhere." Clara approached the door, not bothering to check that he'd do as she asked, the mood she was in had him flipping buttons and landing them on the nearest habitable spot he could find. She wrenched open the doors and strode out, not caring where she was, so long as it wasn't inside his damn Box.