Clara's Tardis

Clara Oswald couldn't sleep. So Clara Oswald counted sheep. One, two, three, four...

No seriously. Clara must not go to sleep now! She slapped herself awake again, cursing. She'd nearly dozed off! She mustn't sleep now! She had to keep a close eye on the Tardis. What she'd said earlier, about the Other hacking into the Tardis - that was all too possible. She was in the white, airy console room, and she was supposed to be keeping watch. She glanced at her wristwatch. Four hours until Lady Me would take over, finally allowing Clara to get some shuteye. You might think, what with Clara being technically dead now (in a strange sort of way), rituals such as sleeping and eating and drinking would all go out of the window. But no. Her body still thought it was alive. It still demanded food and water. It still liked to sleep. It's like her heart had stopped, but nobody had thought to tell that to her brain. She was a fixed point, but she wasn't immortal like Jack. Nor was Lady Me. Both of them could be killed for real (and one day soon, Clara would need to return to Gallifrey and face her own death). Not...not yet, though. She was sort of thinking that she'd allow herself to live to eighty. Ninety, even. The sort of lifespan that she would have had, had she not died so young a few years back. She wasn't greedy. She didn't really want a huge great lifespan. All she wanted was a normal human one. Then she'd go back to Gallifrey with dignity, and face her end with pride. Best of all, she wasn't ageing. So even at such an age, she'd still be beautiful.

So what...how long had she been travelling with Lady Me now? Oooh...well, she died in 2015. Yeah, she was in 2020 now, but she didn't think she'd been doing this for five years. She could work it out easily enough by checking the Tardis calendar, but she couldn't be bothered to get up from the chair in which she was slumped. She reckoned it might have been two years or so...sounds about right. Not long, is it? But she'd changed a lot in that time. She'd become rather like the Doctor, so said Lady Me. She took that as a compliment. And they'd seen a lot! They'd been a busy two years, that's for sure. Never stopping, never going back. Just forwards. Forwards all the time. Seeing, enjoying, moving on. And don't forget, she'd seen a fair bit of the universe before she died. When she used to travel with the Doctor. Those times, combined with the years she'd spent with Lady Me, had given her so many memories! Sometimes she felt that she'd seen everything. And then, out of the blue, new experiences! New places, new people. New rules. It never ended. The universe was so wonderfully bizarre! Nothing surprised her any more.

"Hey."

"Cripes!" Clara yelled, leaping out of the seat and wheeling around. Amy was hovering behind the seat, looking apologetic.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, "didn't mean to frighten you..."

Clara raised her hand, laughing nervously. "Don't worry. Just as well you did really, I was nodding off. What's up?"

"Couldn't sleep," Amy said. "Thought you might like some company."

"Yeah," Clara said brightly. She walked across the console room and dragged another chair over towards the one she'd been sitting in. "How's Rory?"

"Better than he was," Amy said, smirking. "Still a bit queasy I think."

"It'll wear off," Clara assured her. "Go on, sit down. Want a drink of anything?"

"Got anything strong?" Amy said, sitting down. "It's been a stressful day."

Clara sat down in the other chair. "Tell me about it. I think there's some red wine left over from Christmas. Want a tipple?"

"Try a vat," Amy laughed. Clara disappeared through into the living area for a moment, leaving Amy alone in the glowing white console room.

"If that console makes a noise," Clara called out from the living area, "shout for me, yeah?"

"Will do," Amy said happily, leaning back on the chair. It was pleasantly cool in the console room. Just the right temperature for sleeping. The room Amy and Rory were in (a two minute walk through Clara's Tardis) was a little warmer. But a decent sized glass of wine would help her sleep. She'd be out of it in no time.

Clara returned with two glasses. One of them had substantially more wine inside it. It was a thick, dark colour. More black than red.

"Thanks," Amy said, taking the fuller of the two. She took a sip at once and then gagged. "Wow."

"Oh yes," Clara said, taking a sip of her own, "when I said Christmas, I meant Christmas in the year 1548. They were a little more easygoing regarding alcohol content in those days."

"I noticed," Amy said, coughing. It wasn't unpleasant, but it was jolly strong.

The two of them were quiet for a moment. They sipped their drinks, lost in thought. They were both thinking of exactly the same thing, though they didn't know it - they were wondering about tomorrow. About the Doctor. More specifically, who the Doctor would be when he got here.

"Tell me more," Amy said suddenly.

"About what?" Clara replied politely, taking another sip of her drink.

"Earlier you said that the Doctor got older. What happened? What happened to my Doctor?"

"He was fine," Clara said. "At the end. He was ready to go. Ready for a change."

"Yeah, but...what happened? Why did he go?"

Clara sighed. "You really wanna know?"

"I do," Amy said. "He meant a lot to me. My stupid little raggedy man..."

"Come again?"

"Nothing," Amy said at once, "but come on...you were there. I know how regeneration works. What made him change?"

"Old age," Clara said, "but he spent years fighting. Years and years. It all got too much. And get this, that was supposed to be his last body. He was saved at the last moment."

"He's got a charmed life," Amy laughed. "So he was saved. Then he turned into the old guy?"

"Yeah," Clara said, giggling. "He wasn't that old really...fifties or sixties by our standards. But a lot older than bow-tie boy. Scottish, you know."

"Your kidding?" Amy said, beaming. "Good on him!"

"Yeah," Clara repeated, "he couldn't really have been more different...he was hard as nails, Twelve was. Pretended to be anyway. It was all a front."

"Do you think...well, do you think it will be him still? Tommorrow?"

"No, I shouldn't think so," Clara replied. "I mean...it might be. But I doubt it. You see, it's been very hard to pinpoint the Doctor. I've been trying to contact him through the Tardis' telepathic circuits. What's more, I'm getting through. I know he can hear me a little. He just can't reply. But..."

"...but?" Amy urged. "But what?"

"Well," Clara said, "fact is, it's not been hard to pinpoint him. It's been impossible. I've got through, I know that. But I don't know where. I'm getting through to him somewhere on his timeline, but..."

"But you don't know where?" Amy said quietly.

"No. It's definetley in the future. I know that. I mean, it could be Twelve in theory. But I don't think so. I think it's later than him."

Amy shrugged. "Ah well! It's still the Doctor, isn't it! That's the main thing!"

"Sure is," Clara agreed, but in truth she only half meant it. Yeah, the Doctor was the Doctor. Whatever face he had. But oh, she'd love to see Twelve again. She missed him a lot sometimes. She'd love it to be him, although she didn't think it would be.

It had been the Twelfth Doctor who first told her the story of the Other. A shortened, simplified version of it, anyhow. Clara suddenly looked down at her drink. She'd been drinking back then. That Friday night, she'd been out drinking with Danny. Heavily. For a woman as small as Clara, it's all too easy to drink a little too much. Oh boy...she felt awful the next morning. Truly horrendous. She remembered waking up in bed, sprawled out on top of the covers. Early morning sunlight pouring in. She felt as if her brain had been removed, shaken up in a giant cocktail shaker (urgh...cocktails) and then rammed back into her head.

Then he'd turned up! She'd totally forgotten that it was a Saturday. With a metallic throb, the Tardis had materialized in her living room. Clara

/

groaned. Oh dear...there was no way she could go on a trip today. She felt awful! With a fresh wave of dismay, she realized that she was still in her clothes from last night. A black dress and tights. She was still wearing her high heels and all of her jewelry!

She heard the smooth creak of the Tardis door opening. "Clara?" A deep, gravelly Scottish voice called her name from the sitting room. Clara groaned again. This was so embarrassing. Here he was, expecting her to be up and ready for a few trips (like she usually was). But here she was this morning, too intoxicated to even rise from bed.

"Clara?" The Twelfth Doctor called her name again. Clara smiled, despite her pain and embarrassment. He had a funny way of pronouncing her name. Not "Claahhra" like the Eleventh Doctor had pronounced in his public schoolboy voice. Twelve was more sort of; "Claaa". The "r" was there if you listened close enough, but there was barely any emphasis on it. She liked how he said it - nobody else had ever pronounced her name that way.

There was a sharp knock on her bedroom door. "Come in," Clara moaned weakly, looking at the door out of the corner of her eye. It hurt too much to move her head.

The door burst open. The Twelfth Doctor stood in the door frame - a thin, gaunt man, in a black Crombie coat and dark trousers. Today, he wore a black shirt beneath his coat. He changed his clothes a lot. His curly hair was an iron grey, cut short. His nose was hooked over and his eyes were small, round and watery. By all accounts, he should have been ugly. But he wasn't. He was a handsome older man. His face shouldn't work, but it did. All the not-so-good points - the big nose, the wrinkles and the shifty little eyes - somehow came together to build a good looking full picture. She'd once told him he was a silver fox, but he didn't remotely understand what she'd meant. He was like that. Totally ignorant of any type of slang or social norm.

"Clara!" He exclaimed brightly, walking past her bed and throwing the curtains open wide, "I thought we'd start by visiting Midnight. We can have champagne cocktails on the diamond balcony! Then, after that, I'll take you to the distilleries of Fenbatten Four. The wine is to die for! Then we'll go Cardiff, if you want? I fancy some good old British fish and chips, with a lovely greasy frankfurter, doused in ketchup and yellow mustard! What do ya say?"

"I'm sorry." Clara said, standing up and hurrying out of the door, her stomach churning. "I'm gonna be sick."

Amy burst out laughing as Clara relayed these events to her. "But he doesn't drink!" She exclaimed. The Eleventh Doctor had always hated alcohol.

"The Twelfth did a little," Clara said, "only very rarely. I think he probably did it on purpose. Saw the state I was in and thought it would be a laugh to make me feel worse. He was a right git sometimes. I don't think he meant for me to throw up though. He was unusually nice to me afterwards."

"Guilt." Amy chuckled.

"Well probably," Clara grinned. "Obviously I wasn't up to taking a trip, so he just sat with me for a bit instead. Made a brew. And he told me a story. The story of the Other..."

Clara sat on the sofa with her legs curled under her, clutching her throbbing head in her hands. The Twelfth Doctor was bustling about in the kitchen, making tea.

"Where do you keep the milk?" He barked.

"In the fridge," Clara replied sullenly, "where it's traditionally kept."

"Oh yes...sugar?"

"Two," Clara said.

The Doctor walked back into the living room with two mugs of tea. He handed one to Clara, who took a reluctant sip. She wasn't feeling well, and she didn't entirely trust the Doctor's tea making skills...but to her surprise, it was great. Just the right strength and sweetness.

The Doctor sat himself down in Clara's armchair, taking a sip of his own tea. "So no trip today?"

"I'm sorry," Clara said miserably, "I feel awful."

"You look awful," the Twelfth Doctor remarked. "Shall I go? Let you sleep?"

"No, stay for a bit!" Clara said. "We'll just hang out here shall we? Have a chat."

The Twelfth Doctor's eyes widened. "Oh? A chat? Uh...all right then..."

He trailed off, suddenly transfixed on the contents of his mug.

"So..." Clara said awkwardly. "How...how's things?"

"What things?" The Doctor replied sharply.

"It's a saying," Clara replied desparatley, "it means how have you been?"

"Oh." The Doctor shrugged. "Fine. Fine. Yeah."

"Good," Clara replied helplessly.

"Hmm..." the Doctor trailed off again.

The silence dragged on for the longest ten seconds of Clara's life. Finally, unable to stand it any more, she was struck by a brainwave.

"Hey! Since we aren't going anywhere today, why don't you tell me a story? One of your stories?"

"A story?" The Doctor repeated, his eyes lighting up a little. "A story! Good idea. Anything in particular?"

"Not at all," Clara said brightly, "whatever you like."

"Okay," the Doctor said, flashing a rare grin, "how about one from Gallifrey?"

"Suits me," Clara said.

"The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes?"

"How old do you think I am?" Clara demanded.

"Er...haven't a clue." The Doctor replied bluntly.

"I meant a proper one. A true story."

"Oh Clara...all the best stories never really happened. But all right. I happen to know a rather good one..."