Clara's gaze shifted from Danni to the Doctor, her brow furrowing slightly in confusion. She had expected a much different reaction, after all she had just come back from the dead. She'd expected Danni to be happy but then pretty dismissive as, after all, they were breaking her free from a prison on Gallifrey. She had expected warmth, and joy, and then all of them getting back to what they did best; running.
She hadn't expected Danni to just freeze, staring at her with a mix of horror and pure surprise. Her eyes were wide and she hadn't moved since she'd stepped into the room.
"Um, shouldn't we be, you know?" Clara started, nodding her head out the door. "We still have a lot to do."
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, yes, we know," he snapped. He looked down at his wife. She seemed to have calmed down, that hatred already ebbing away and he knew he'd done nothing but fan it further. He had failed because he knew that, no matter what, he would do anything for her. "How about we…"
She waved her hand, cutting him off without even looking at him. She struggled to find the strength to move her feet but she did, walking straight over to Clara. She reached out, taking her by the arms to see if she was real. After all, she'd been fooled many times before with people who weren't there.
But she was and Danni knew that. Clara was standing in front of her. Her best friend was no longer dead and Danni couldn't find any words at all to express herself. She was so happy, of course she was happy. She was absolutely baffled, and a little intrigued, but mostly all she could think about was how she'd seen Clara drop to the floor, dead, and the next thing she knew Clara was trying to get them back on track in their adventure like nothing had changed.
She couldn't speak, so she pulled Clara close and wrapped her up in the tightest hug she could. She buried her face in her shoulder and felt her solid in her arms. She ignored her anger, and her hate, and just focused on how she was back.
Clara, whilst incredibly happy at the hug, still felt rather concerned as Danni clung to her like she was about to disappear again. "Alright, this is… this is nice," she stated. "A little concerning, but nice."
Danni pulled back, her eyes searching her face as if she was looking for a million answers. Clara wished she had any to give her, but she still wasn't quite sure what had happened. She knew that she was supposed to be dead, and that the Doctor had done something he really shouldn't have to bring her back, but the hows and the whys were still so confusing.
"I…" Danni started before, turning around, one hand on Clara's arm just to make sure that she didn't disappear. The Doctor didn't even look surprised to see her. "Did you do this?" she asked him.
He shrugged. "What? Bring your friend back to life?" he asked, like it wasn't anything at all. "I might have, it's been a busy day."
Danni laughed in pure delight at his dismissive answer. She let go of Clara and rushed over, chucking her arms around him and practically tackling him with a hug of his own. "You are amazing," she told him. "I missed you so much."
He held her close, taking a moment to enjoy the relief of having her in his arms again. He'd missed her so much when he'd been trapped that it had almost driven him mad. He had just wanted to see her again and time had been all counting down to escaping and saving her.
Then he'd found her and almost instantly given in to his anger at the situation to make her happy. He had to be better for her, he had to be better for himself. He knew he was better than that. Clara had been right; he needed to be stronger because she wasn't ready to be yet.
"I missed you too, my Pet," he replied softly. She looked up at him and even though she looked calm and happy, he knew that hatred was still simmering behind the scenes. He needed to get her off the planet and back to travelling the universe. Perhaps they needed to visit her family some more. Perhaps he needed to admit that he was still healing himself.
There was a lot of perhaps that he couldn't quite deal with just yet. Instead, for now, he took her lips in a quick kiss that Clara rolled her eyes at. Honestly, no matter what, they could never keep their hands off each other.
She cleared her throat pointedly. "We're supposed to be escaping!" she pointed out.
Danni broke the kiss off, despite not wanting to. "I'm so glad you're alive, sweetie," she said. "We'd never get anything done otherwise."
"Well, I'm not quite alive…" Clara started and Danni frowned.
"What do you mean?" she asked. She looked up at the Doctor, suddenly suspicious. She wasn't quite as sure as she had been that they were real anymore. "What does she mean?"
He watched her close off again and the panic set in. He didn't want her to fall back to her default anger unless there wasn't anything else he could do. "She died," he reminded her. "It's just going to take a while for her body to reacclimatise to being alive again. Humans, they're so delicate. Once we're back in a TARDIS I can sort it."
She nodded, believing him instantly due to her happiness and, internally, he sighed in relief. It wasn't exactly a lie, because when they got to a TARDIS then he was going to make everything right with the universe again, even if it didn't agree with him. And it wouldn't do her any detriment to not know the exact nature behind Clara's resurrection.
He linked his fingers with hers, still not feeling like she was firmly by his side, then he began running. "We don't have time for nattering. Miss Oswald, follow us!"
Clara did as she was told. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"Down," he explained. "Into the bowels of the city. We're going to the Cloisters."
"The Cloisters?" Danni repeated. "Is that where the bells were coming from?"
They rushed back up the stairs to where the Doctor and Clara had broken into the prison, then they dove into the elevator to take them down.
"They ring when there is signification danger," he explained.
"Like you?" Clara bit out, shooting him a look. He'd killed a guy right in front of her. That was so unlike the Doctor that she still couldn't believe that she'd seen it. She knew he'd do anything for Danni but he'd never out-and-out killed like that.
Danni didn't miss the look. "Well, he is a formidable foe," she pointed out.
"Or both of us," he replied. "You were biting them."
"Yes. And then they chained me up like Hannibal Lecter. I think we're even," she retorted.
"What I don't understand is how any of us are here," Clara piped up. "I thought you said Gallifrey was frozen in another dimension?"
"Well, they must have unfrozen it and come back," the Doctor replied, a little short.
"How?"
"I didn't ask. It would make them feel clever," he retorted. The elevator door opened onto a dark, damp, and rather dank looking area. Cobwebs and wires seemed to cover ever pillar and there seemed to be no end to the twists and turns in it. Danni grimaced slightly, wondering if she had any sanitiser in her pockets. Why did everything bad have to be gross?
The Doctor pulled out a gun from his pocket, startling Danni. He chucked it away from him as far as he could. He hadn't liked having it on his person at all, but it had all be a necessity. He was almost at the end, he didn't need it now.
"Hang on, you have a gun?" Danni asked him. "Since when did you carry a gun?"
"Since when did you?" he questioned.
"Since I was kidnapped and…" Her eyes narrowed slightly. "What, exactly, did they do to you?"
"It doesn't matter," he dismissed. "I told you, I don't remember it." He began walking away, looking for the exit. He knew there was one somewhere and he knew no one would dare following them down into the Cloisters. They'd have to be mad to.
"If it doesn't matter then you wouldn't be carrying a gun," she retorted, jogging slightly to keep up with his large stride. "What else aren't you telling me?"
"Nothing," he retorted. "We don't have time for this. You can get angry when we get out."
"No, I'm not having that. We don't keep secrets from each other."
He stopped his strides, turning to her. "Yes, we do," he stated. "You've still not told me a fraction of what happened with Missy. You've never told me about how you knew up to the end of the Ponds. You have no idea what I did when I fought in the Time War. We keep secrets when it's too painful for the other to know."
"And this is too painful for you for me to know?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged. "It's happened to me. The pain is fresh but it's happened. It's too painful for you to know and neither of us would intentionally hurt the other."
"If it hurt you then I want to know," she hissed. "I-I don't care about how much it will hurt me."
"Well, I do," he snapped. "When the pain lessens, I will tell you. But until then we don't have time to argue over it."
Danni pressed her lips together, trying not to feel hurt because she knew he was right. She did keep stuff from him because she wasn't sure how he was going to react. She didn't want to hurt him and she sure as hell didn't want to relive anything. She shouldn't have to relive it.
But they were supposed to share with each other. They always had done. As he looked away from her, she felt her chest tighten. When had they lost that? She had been trying to open up more and let him into their time apart. She still didn't know much about how he'd spent that time.
Clara could see how upset she was getting, so she stepped forward, trying to pull the Doctor's attention to her as they continued through the maze. "What is a neural block?" she asked.
"Never mind," he replied. "It's-It's just a thing, it doesn't matter."
"It mattered enough for you to kill a guy over."
Danni slowed down slightly. He killed someone over a neural block? He'd actually killed someone?
"We're on Gallifrey. Dying is like a bad case of the flu. He'll be fine." He sharply turned a corner. "This way. Keep up."
Danni hung at the back, looking at the back of her husband's head, feeling like he was a stranger. They had both done questionable things in their time, but he felt a lot more closed off than he normally did. But if Clara had been there, it had to have been after he'd saved Clara. And she had a pretty good idea what a neural block was.
"How did you save Clara?" she asked quietly.
The shadows moved, something drifting around them, patrolling the area, shrieking loudly. The Doctor's arm shot out to stop them where they stood. "The Cloister Wraiths," he explained to them both. "Sliders, we used to call them. They guard the Matrix."
His panic was terrifying. Outwardly he seemed fine, ignoring questions and explaining the situation like it was a normal adventure, but Danni could feel the change in him. There was always a sense of enjoyment in their more serious and dangerous travels. Both of them, to an extent, enjoyed the thrill of running away, but that wasn't what was happening. His flight response was fully kicked in and he was running as fast as he could. And that was terrifying.
"We're safe in here," he continued. "They only attack if you make any attempt to leave."
He started walking again, in the opposite direction of the Wraith. "How long are we planning to stay?" Clara asked.
"Or, actually, if you try and stay."
Clara looked to Danni, checking that she had heard his words the same as she did. Danni looked a little confused, so she assumed that it hadn't been the strange way her ears were reacting to not having a heartbeat.
"You realise how well that conversation went, right?" she asked.
He looked between the two. Then he looked a little sheepish. "I'm starting to, a bit, yeah." He nodded his head. "This way."
Clara did the dutiful thing and went to follow him when Danni's hand reached out and grabbed hers tightly. She looked at the other woman, who looked ready to either destroy the world or break down crying.
"How did he save you?" she asked. Clara looked down at their hands. She really didn't want to think about how great it was to be holding her hand again. She didn't want to lose that just yet.
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "They did explain but I can't really remember. It was all a little chaotic."
Danni's eyes searched her, looking for the lie in her words, then she nodded. She didn't let go of her hand, though, as they caught up with the Doctor. She didn't say anything and she really wasn't thinking much about Clara at all. She was still waiting for the Doctor to show off his cleverness around bringing her back to life. Everything felt so wrong.
~0~0~0~
"Exterminate!"
The Doctor was still rambling, telling them both the stories of the Cloisters in an attempt to keep his own worries at bay. He had been rash when he'd saved Clara, with only the want to make Danni happy again driving him forward, but now he wasn't sure what to do next. His claim that the TARDIS would be able to bring her back to life was only an educated guess at best, and the neural block felt heavy in his pocket because he knew that, even in saving her, Danni couldn't be her friend anymore. Clara couldn't remember them anymore. Just like Donna; he was going to have to do it again.
What Danni and Clara had mistaken as vines were, actually, cables that fed data around the database they were currently trying to escape. In those vines, unfortunately, things got caught. The Dalek in front of them was one of those things.
"What the hell is that doing here?" Danni hissed. "I thought we were out of the Time War?"
"Don't worry, it's been neutralised," he reassured her. "Those aren't vines. They're like fibre optic cables, but they're alive and growing. We're in the biggest database in history."
The Dalek struggled weakly against the cables. "Exterminate… me," it begged.
"That's horrible," she whispered before scrunching her nose up. "It's making me feel sorry for a Dalek."
"Sometimes people are stupid enough to break in."
"And?" Clara prompted.
He looked at her, exasperated. "It's a database," he reiterated. "They get filed."
"Exterminate… me…"
"Maybe we should," Danni suggested. "Nothing deserves that, not even a Dalek."
The Doctor shook his head. "There's nothing we can do," he quickly replied. "Come on." He started walking before she could question him further. He couldn't let her kill something. He couldn't just keep enabling her. They both needed to be better.
Around them were Weeping Angels, all trying to escape and catch the pair. Cybermen were reaching out from their vine-like prisons but all they could do was follow the Doctor through the twisting, winding path that he seemed to be on.
"What's to defend in a crypt?" Clara asked.
"The Matrix isn't just a crypt. It's a giant data slice, like Missy set up on Earth to- to capture me," Danni explained. "Time Lords are uploaded to it when they die. This is the summation of Time Lord knowledge and history. A lot of species would do a lot of bad things to get hold of what it contains."
The Doctor turned his head. "Where did you learn that?" he asked.
"Missy," Danni replied, twisting so she didn't get hit by a large hanging cobweb. "I-I convinced her I was finally ignoring my human ways and trying to become like her for a little while. She used to give me history lessons."
"That's my job," the Doctor grumbled to himself. "Nothing wrong with a bit of humanity."
"If it got me free I was willing to become a bloody Slitheen," Danni retorted. "She was a rubbish teacher. She barely ever told me anything useful. And she made herself appear in everything. It was like a kid playing superheroes. She had to have every single superpower."
"He was always the same. When we were children he always had to be the most powerful whatever we were playing," he replied.
Clara shook her head to herself. One minute they were fighting, next they were bonding over the woman who had kidnapped Danni. To be honest, it felt rather normal for them.
The Doctor was about to continue when something on the ground caught his eye. Something seemed to be shining from underneath the dirt and dust that covered the floor. "Oh," he stated, stopped and turning around. Danni's gaze followed his and she saw the Gallifreyan pattern that they were all stood on.
"Oh," she repeated. She stepped off. "What is that?"
"Looks like the primary service hatch," he explained as he started to clear it off. "Just have to work out the key." He waved his hand over it, trying to both read what it said and feel the energy it was giving off. "The Matrix can predict the future, generate prophecies, out of algorithms, ring the Cloister bells in the event of impending catastrophe."
"So the Sliders are just like a firewall, right?" Danni asked him. The wailing still echoed through the halls and it was more unnerving than the dark and the monsters around them.
"They're projections for inside the Matrix itself. The dead, manning the battlements."
Danni grimaced slightly as she reached into her pocket. Now they had stopped she could finally try and find something to clean her hands with. Everything felt dusty and she could feel it on her skin. "That sounds very Time Lord-y," she muttered, squeezing a blob of the clear liquid she found onto her hands and rubbing them vigorously.
Clara looked between the two. Once upon a time, long ago, she had been given a large amount of knowledge about computers. But then she had been flooded by the Doctor, and grief and grading scales and it had all started to fade away. "Was I supposed to understand any of that?" she asked them.
The Doctor rolled his eyes. He didn't have time to stand there explaining everything to her just because she didn't pay attention. "The Time Lords have got a big computer made of ghosts, in a crypt, guarded by more ghosts."
Clara looked around, suddenly feeling like she was walking through a graveyard. "Didn't hurt, did it?"
"Yes," was his sharp reply. He moved to the ground, kneeling in the dirt as he cleared more of it off the pattern on the floor. He was sure he remembered what to do, but it took time and he wasn't sure how much they had left.
"Why would a computer need to protect itself from the people who made it?" she asked, curious.
"Have you met the Time Lords?" Danni retorted. "We're running from them right now, why would a computer be any different?"
Danni didn't join Clara and the Doctor on the ground as he worked on trying to open the hatch. Her mind wasn't in it, even though she knew very well the importance of focusing on an escape. He was still panicking, and running, and the fear of what would make him that terrified tightened in her own chest. He wasn't telling her that he was afraid and that hurt, because he always told her. He always held her hand and told her he was frightened when he was. He was purposefully keeping it away from her, which was the most scared she had ever seen him. She didn't know what to do with that information because, despite knowing he needed her by just looking at him, she didn't know why. She didn't know what he had done. She didn't know what happened when he wasn't with her, she hadn't for a very long time.
Clara always enjoyed watching the Doctor work, but she couldn't help a little glance up at Danni. She had been so sure she'd never see her again that she didn't want to waste another moment of it by being too distracted.
The first thing she noticed was how her breathing seemed erratic. How her eyes were starting to shine, even in the darkness, and how she was looking at the Doctor like he was going to disappear. She frowned. "Danni?"
The Doctor heard the concern in her voice and looked up at his wife. He paused his movements, pushing up so he was kneeling rather than hunched over. "What is it?" he asked. "What's wrong?"
She gave a slight shake of her head, not as an answer but as if she was begging him not to ask the question. But she swallowed. "Before-Before I came here, back to this universe, there was this television show," she started. "That… um… It chronicled your life from when you met Barbra and Ian to, at the very least, when you met Clara. I don't- I don't know if went past that, it probably did, it was- people loved it. There was-there was books, and a movie and comics. I think there were comics, anyway, and from when I was a teenager I absolutely adored it. I watched it on repeat and I spent those five years jumping around trying-trying to make sure you were in the right place at the right time and watching people die that I knew were going to die and I just- all I could do was keep you on track."
The Doctor stared, blindsided by the information drop. He glanced around, as if he could feel a hundred pairs of eyes now all watching him at once and was only pulled from that by her sniffing as she tried to keep her emotions at bay.
"You knew everything?" he asked. "You knew about- about the Master, and the drumming, and everything? You watched it all and didn't mention anything?" She shook her head. "Why not?"
"Because I wasn't in it," she replied softly. "The Doctor I watched loved Rose and never said it. And-And married River and River loved him more than anything. I was the anomaly, I am what is wrong with everything. It was why I couldn't stop Rose being Bad Wolf, or-or save Donna, or even stop the Master in the first place. I knew what came next and I'd seen enough movies to know that just by being there I would fuck everything up. All I had to go on was how I knew it happened and every breath I took, every moment that I spent with you, was another step into total chaos and I didn't know what would happen if I changed anything at all. I just knew where you had to be."
It made a lot of sense. The Doctor had considered her perhaps studying his life, especially during the times he'd been angry at her, but she had always seemed to know the bad rather than the good. The adventures where someone got hurt, where there was danger and not when he took her to somewhere nice. Where they could just explore and learn and enjoy each other's company. Back then, back when she had known him time line, she hadn't known everything. That was because she only had the episodes to go on. Because, in some universe, his life was entertainment.
It didn't feel like entertainment.
"And now, even now, hundreds of years after the fact, I still know I'm doing so much damage to your time line," she continued. "Just because I exist your life is wrong, but I fell in love with you and I was too selfish to let you go."
"Why?" he asked. "Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because you're right," she said. "We hide our secrets from each other because, no matter the pain we feel, we never want the other to feel it. So we hold it tight, keep it close, so only one of us has to suffer. But do you know what's worse than the pain of keeping the secret?" He shook his head. "Watching you, running through a crypt of dead Time Lords just to get away from the pain of what's happened, obviously terrified of everything. A pain that you won't share with me. So, I'm sharing mine with you first." She, despite the fact she hated dirt, knelt down in front of him. "Missy and me had a lot of sex," she stated. "It was never by choice, but it wasn't always by force. She was very good at tricking me into thinking I wanted it. But, by the end, I always knew I didn't. I knew I just wanted you, but it happened away."
The Doctor felt the pain in his chest, horrified at the thought of his wife being forced into anything she didn't want to do. "And I've killed people. More that I care to think about. And I'm still very happy to let this planet burn and I don't think my conscience will take a hit from it."
He looked down at the hatch underneath them. He needed to get them free. Time was running out and he couldn't remember the key. He could work it out, he knew he could. He needed to save her. "Danni, stop," he begged.
"No," she said apologetically.
"This isn't the time for this," he insisted. "We need to get out of here…"
"There isn't a right time for this," she countered. "That's why we've bottled it up all inside. You're keeping something from me. You never answered my question."
"You're question?" he repeated.
"How did you save Clara?" she asked again just to watch his eyes widen, almost like just the question was sending him into a panic. "And why did you kill a guy? Because regeneration or not, killing a people just like that isn't like the Doctor. And don't think I haven't noticed that your coat is missing."
"Maybe-Maybe I just don't feel like being the Doctor right now," he protested. "I don't have to be the Doctor all the time."
Danni looked up at Clara, who shared her concerned look. Clara could see it just as much as Danni could, which meant it had to be really as bad as she thought it was. "I'd never make you be anyone you don't want to be," Danni replied softly.
He lowered his gaze, running his hands over the pattern yet again. It let out a confirmation noise. "I think I've almost got this."
She reached out, placing a hand over his and his every movement stop. He looked up and met her gaze and he could see not just the pain, but the kindness in them. The kindness he wasn't sure he deserved anymore. "Please, I'm asking you Theta, not the Doctor," she told him. "Tell me what you did to save Clara."
He sat back on his heels, taking hold of her hand tightly. "A television show?" he asked and she nodded.
"BBC," she replied with a little smile. "Best seat in the house."
He chuckled slightly before taking a deep breath. "They trapped me in my confessional dial," he explained. "Alone and afraid. I was-I was chased by the monster who would only leave me alone unless I confessed to it. They wanted information."
"They?" Clara asked. "Who are we talking about?"
"The Time Lords," Danni quickly replied. "And that's where you had to-to keep dying to be replaced?" He nodded.
"I have to break through a wall. Twenty feet of pure diamond. Harder than diamond," he continued. "With only my…" He looked down at his hand, which still throbbed. "With only my hand. It took me billions of years. They wanted information about something I wasn't willing to give."
"The Hybrid?" Danni guessed. His gaze met hers, eyes wide.
"You know about the Hybrid?" he asked. She shook her head.
"I know it was why they locked me up," she offered. "They wanted you and they wanted information on the Hybrid."
"The Hybrid is a creature made up of two warrior races," he quickly rambled. "One that will burn Gallifrey to mend its broken hearts."
"Oh," Clara breathed, looking to Danni again. It wasn't hard to work out what that could possibly be referring to. "That's why you fought," she continued. "You didn't want to give them information on her."
Danni frowned. "On-On who?" she asked. She looked back at her husband. "Theta, on who?"
He looked apologetic, and a little pitying and she hated that look. "On you," he replied softly.
She scoffed slightly. "I'm-I'm not…"
"A hybrid of human and Time Lord, ready to burn Gallifrey to the ground for hurting the ones you love," he cut in as gently as he could. "Because they had killed Clara."
"Not-Not just because of Clara," she protested. "They've done some terrible things, Theta. They hurt you! They hurt everything they touch!"
"And when you saw Clara you calmed down," he pointed out. "She may not have been the only reason, but she was a big enough one that I had-I had to save her because I knew you would need her. I knew that I couldn't stop you. I was too angry, too upset. And I would do anything to make you happy."
She swallowed hard. "You- You killed yourself to protect me?" she asked. "Theta, I never- I never wanted, you know I didn't…"
"I know," he quickly insisted. "All you have ever asked of me is to save Clara."
She pressed her lips together. Why did that sound like such a bad thing? Why could she no longer look at her best friend without a feeling of dread washing over her?
"And-And saving Clara made you not the Doctor, anymore?" He nodded. "Because saving Clara meant you had to kill someone?" He nodded again. "Theta, what did you do?"
There was the sound of a door opening and, from the other side of what had looked like a wall, stepped the three people. Danni didn't recognise any of them, but from the armour she guessed the woman in the middle had been the General that had been with Rassilon. The man she had first bit.
"Oh, look, the cavalry," she muttered to herself, wiping her eyes with her free hand. "Don't even think of bothering us, now. We have bigger things happening than you and I don't really want that interrupted by you lot."
"Time Child," the General started. "Miss Oswald…"
Clara saw Danni's gaze harden as her anger spiked and she glared over her shoulder. "You heard her. Stay back!" she snapped. She turned her back to them, interested in the Doctor's answer almost as much as Danni was. She knew a little, she remembered some of what he had said, but it was all such a blur of adrenaline and emotions.
The Doctor had used the interruption to go back to go back to work. He just had a little bit of work to do, he knew it. They could steal another TARDIS and fly away. He just needed them all to leave him alone until then. He needed Danni to just leave him alone.
He paused before Danni could even grab his hand. He never wanted that. How far had he fallen?
"Theta, please," she begged quietly. "What did you do?"
He glanced over at the Time Lords who were, to be fair to them, doing what the two women had asked of them. He moved a little closer to them, to his wife, who he never wanted to go away.
"I made them believe that Clara could help me with the Hybrid, that she had vital information," he whispered. "I then extracted her from between one heartbeat and her last, at the very end of her time line. I knew they were responsible for it all, for everything that's happened to us. For Trap Street, the Time War, Missy. The least they could do was save Clara before she died."
"And?" she prompted quietly.
"And they were going to put her back," he replied. "I couldn't let them. I promised you I would- I promised I would save her. I couldn't let them break my promise."
"And so you killed them," she finished. Her voice was small and he could see how upset she was becoming.
"It's okay, it's okay," he promised. "Look, Clara's almost alive. Once we break out and get a TARDIS, I can fix that too."
She shook her head. "Why would you do that to yourself?" she replied. "Why would-would you keep fighting?! You could have made something up, anything. I never wanted you to die for me!"
"No, you wanted me to save you. You waited for me to save you," he snapped. "And I thought I could do that right. I thought I could do that without breaking time. But I couldn't, and I didn't, and I let you down. I'm not letting you down, not again!"
Danni pulled away at his sharp reply. He ignored it, moving back to the puzzle in front of him. He didn't feel like the Doctor anymore and it was all because of her. Because she'd made him promise and he'd gone out of his mind trying to keep it. She'd done that. He'd torn another person from their good death because of her. Because Missy took her. Because she had been weak once and it had cost them lifetime after lifetime of pain.
"Listen, I'm nearly through here," he continued, the hatch making more unlocking noises. "If I'm right there should be service duct under here." He looked to her and she could see on his face he was begging her for more time.
She pressed her lips together. She could do that. She could give him a little more time. She stood up, sniffing slightly. "Clara, with me."
Clara glanced at the Doctor, who wouldn't even look up from the floor as his wife walked away. She never wanted to come between them, not really. They were her friends, her family. She just wanted them to be happy. She had never meant to become a point in their lives they could never turn back from.
She followed Danni over to where the three new people stood. She took Danni's hand, knowing that she was there for support. She couldn't bring herself to say anything else.
"You are reprehensible," Danni told them all. "Old, tired and full of hate. If it wasn't- if it wasn't for my husband and my best friend you would all be burning where you stand. And I'd enjoy every minute of it. You've broken my hearts so trust me; you don't want to be in my way."
"Time Child…"
"Do not speak to me," she hissed. Even Clara was surprised by the venom in her voice. "You do not get to speak to me. Do you-Do you have any idea what you have done?"
"He could have left at any time," the old woman said.
"And he could have never been in there in the first place," she replied. Tears gathered in her eyes. "You deserve to rot where you stand." She then turned to Clara, taking her other hand. "I'm so sorry, sweetie," she whispered softly.
Clara had listened to everything the pair had said and she agreed with every angry word Danni had hissed at the Time Lords. "For what?" she asked.
"For everything," she replied. "For you being caught in the middle of this mess. For-For Danny Pink." Clara's heart clenched just at the mention of his name, that familiar grief washing over her as Danni's eyes filled with tears. "For everything that came after. For you having to leave the TARDIS. For-For leaning on you too much." Clara could feel herself crying as Danni started to as well. "For loving you so much, but not the way you'd like me to."
Clara laughed awkwardly. "If I had known I was going to see you again, I probably wouldn't have told you that."
Danni chuckled along with her. "I figured," she replied before her face fell solemn again. "And for you being robbed of your good death. I never wanted to lose you, I was never going to be ready to, but I'm sorry that, because of me, that's gone wrong too. I'm so sorry, Clara."
"It's okay," Clara promised her. She pulled her close, giving her the hug she obviously needed. They both needed it. Danni didn't pull back.
"And I'm so sorry that, even though I'm actually really upset, I'm using it to distract them," she finished. Clara quickly turned to look at the Time Lords, who did look surprised at her words. "Because I knew they would be paying attention to us and not him."
She looked behind them, to the open hatch where the Doctor had obviously been and gone through. She let go of Danni, amazed she hadn't seen that coming, but then grinned. "That's genius," she praised. Danni sniffed, nodding and wiping her eyes.
"Oh, I know. I told you; I'm brilliant."
"You need to tell us what the Doctor is going to do now," the General commanded. Danni rolled her eyes while Clara scoffed.
"You really are thick, aren't you?" she retorted. They all looked rather offended and she loved it. "The Doctor is back on Gallifrey. Took him billions of years to get here. What do you think he's going to do now?"
The sound of a materialising TARDIS started to fill the air. Danni couldn't help but smile; still kept the breaks on. Oh, how she loved that sound.
"Why, he's stealing a TARDIS and running away," Clara finished. Slowly, around them, the white walls of a brand-new TARDIS came into view.
"Bye!" Danni called as they both gave them a little wave.
It was very bright. Too bright, Danni thought as she looked around the interior of the new TARDIS. It was so clinical and empty and she really felt uncomfortable in it. It was the second TARDIS she had ever been in and she already missed her home.
She just wanted to go home.
"What do you think of the new wheels?" the Doctor asked them as he flew around the console, flipping switches and pressing buttons.
"I don't like it," Danni stated bluntly.
He chuckled. "I thought you might say that," he replied. "Don't worry. Once we're sorted here I'll take us home."
"And do what with this one?" she asked. He shrugged.
"I'm sure we can find a worthy home. Maybe River," he offered and Danni would have been surprised if she hadn't still been so upset. "Check your heartbeat again," he told Clara as the whole room shook. "I think you'll find you have one."
Clara grinned. "Yeah?"
"It should have restarted when we brock free of Gallifrey's time zone." Clara pulled up her sleeve, pressing her fingers against her wrist. "You're alive!" he crowed, ecstatic with himself. It had all worked. Now he could get them home and, with Danni in a safe environment, he could start over again. Not be so impulsive, not put them both in so much danger. He could make sure he never made her cry again. "Now we just have to shake off the Time Lords," he continued. "There's only one place we can do that." He spun around the console, manically piloting the time machine much like his old body used to. He turned to Clara, smirking. "What do you say to lunch, followed by breakfast?" he asked. "Because we're time travellers and that's how we roll."
Clara didn't know why he was suddenly being nice to her, maybe it was the high from a successful escape, but while she enjoyed it, it felt rather unnerving. She kept her fingers pressed against her wrist, but nothing happened. There was no pulse.
"Then cocktails with Moses. Then I'm going to invent a flying submarine," he continued. Danni watched Clara as her face fell in concern. "Why? Because no one has ever and it's annoying. And maybe we should…"
"Oh will you please stop?!" Danni shouted, her nerves shot and her hands shaking. He did pause mid-sentence and even Clara, through her own worry, looked to her. "Theta, you have to stop this!"
His brows furrowed. "Stop what?" he asked, confused.
"All of this!" she exclaimed. "The-The running away from everything you've done!" She motioned to Clara. "It hasn't worked! Her pulse hasn't restarted." She walked over to her best friend, roughly brushing her hair out of the way. "The numbers are still on her neck. She's still out of her time line!"
The Doctor walked over, pulling his sunglasses out and put them on, scanning the back of her neck. Evidently, he didn't like what he saw because he chucked them onto the console, discarding them.
"The numbers are a side effect," he dismissed. "We just need to go farther, that's all. Give it a bit more welly."
Clara checked her pulse again but, as they flew away, nothing was there. "They said, your lot, that if you saved me, time would fracture. What does that mean?"
"Oh, they were just exaggerating," he replied in a voice that fooled neither woman. "They exaggerate all the time. History will be fine. Time will heal. It always does."
"You-You see," Danni started, following him around the console as he paced around it, as if he couldn't quite stay still. "That isn't something that you say when you're confident in your decisions!"
"It'll sort itself out. It'll be alright."
Danni grabbed his arm, holding onto it firmly. "Look at me," she instructed. "Look at me and tell me that like you truly believe it."
He shifted on the spot, rolling his eyes like he was exasperated. But still, he met her eye. "Everything will be okay," he told her. "We've got further forward in time. To the last hours of the universe."
"What for?"
"The Time Lords won't be able to track us there," he explained. "We'll just be there for a minute." He moved out for grasp.
"And then everything will be okay?"
She was trying to find out if he truly believed his words, but he knew she was asking him for reassurance. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the neural block he had grabbed. He ran his thumb over one of the two pads that were on the surface of it. "I just need… I need to make an adjustment," he explained. "Then everything will be as it should be."
The TARDIS landing seemed to surprise him just as much as it did them. "Check your heartbeat again," he told Clara. She did as he asked, but still felt nothing. Danni shook her head.
"This isn't going to work, is it?" she asked.
"This is going to work," he snapped. "This, this has to work!" He chucked the neural block onto the console, next to his glasses. He rubbed his hand over his face, trying to calm himself down.
"What if one last heartbeat is all I've got?" Clara asked. "What if time isn't healing? What if the universe needs me to die?"
"No!" he shouted, scaring Danni into stepping back one step. "No one else is allowed to die," he exclaimed. "No one else, not again, not ever! I won't-I can't sit back and watch someone else die."
"But I was already dead!" Clara protested. "I was gone!"
"And now you're not," he snapped.
Danni didn't like how they were ganging up on him. She loved him so much and to see him in so much pain hurt her as well. But she knew where it came from. She knew where every single thing stemmed from, because it was just the same as last time. Just the same as Ashildr. His motives were always the same; they came from his grief.
"She died, Theta!" she exclaimed.
"And I brought her back!" he shouted back. "Me! I'm the Doctor and I can do what I like. It's the end of the universe, I answer to no one!"
"Not Clara, me!" she corrected. "I died. There was a Danni and she died and you weren't there to stop it!" Her words took her own anger away and he seemed wounded by them. She sniffed, tears in her eyes again. They were starting to sting. "Bringing Clara, or Ashildr, or any other person back to life isn't going to change that! And it isn't fair," she continued. "It isn't fair that you didn't get to say goodbye and it isn't fair that I didn't, either. But we didn't. We didn't get to say goodbye and nothing is going to change that." She pointed at Clara. "All that has happened is that you've used Clara to try and make it better, but nothing ever will. It will never change. Nothing will make it better."
The glanced at Clara, who looked nervous at being brought into their argument, but even more nervous as she felt for her pulse. "They should never have let Missy go," he said softly. "They should pay for what they've done."
"No, you're right, they shouldn't have," Danni agreed firmly. "But we can't keep living like this. Looking for the next person to take our anger out on. The universe doesn't owe us anything, it never will. This is the second time you've brought back someone who shouldn't be here, and I love Clara to pieces," she looked to Clara, "I love you to pieces, but it should never have happened. And now she's half-living and time is never going to fix around her."
He glanced between the two, his panic rising as his breathing quickened. His panic felt heavy on his chest, his mind felt full of thoughts and yet he felt like he was reaching out into a void if he tried to grab hold of one. All of them, all three of them, deserved so much better.
"Danni," he whispered and she saw the heaviness of what he'd done finally coming through. "I'm-I'm so…"
"I know, I know," she quickly said, walking over and hugging him close.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," he whispered. "That's all I wanted."
"Me too," she whispered.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
The four knocks on the door made Danni's hands clench on his clothes, bunching them up in her hands and all of his anger flared up again. All of that fear at that noise came from Missy, not the Master, and that was all the Time Lord's fault.
Clara looked at the door. "How can there be anybody there?" she asked, clearing her throat. "I thought we were at the end of the universe?"
She headed for the door but the Doctor let go of Danni, rushing over to her. "No," he commanded. "You-You stay here. Comfort Danni, she needs that and it's something you're good for."
"Is-Is that her?" Danni asked and he nodded.
"I won't be long," he told her. "Just-Just stay inside."
He headed out the door, closing it behind him and Clara looked to Danni. "Who is it?" she asked. "Missy?"
Danni shook her head. "No," she replied. "It's Me." She moved to the console, hoping it worked the same as the one at home.
"You?"
Danni shot her a lot, confused for a moment. "No, not me. Me," she replied. "Ashildr."
"Oh!" Clara rushed to her side as the screen came on. Outside was dark, as was to be expected, and Ashildr was sat just outside the TARDIS at a small side table that had a chess board on it. She could tell they hadn't moved, though. "She's quite the show off, isn't she?"
Danni chuckled. "That she is," she agreed.
Clara watched her watch her husband. "Are you okay?"
"No, not even a little bit," Danni replied. "But I will be." She turned away from the screen and the two ancient beings having a back and forth. She cupped Clara's face. "I'm so happy to see you again," she said sincerely. "I just wish it was under better circumstances."
Clara reached up, holding her hand against her cheek. "At least it's happening," she replied. "He tried his best, you know?"
"I know," Danni replied softly. "I just wish he knew that too."
They turned back to the monitor but Clara couldn't keep her gaze off the small device the Doctor had discarded on there. "What is that?" she asked, picking it up. "He called it a neural block."
"I'm not sure," Danni replied, taking it off her. "I mean, the name suggests it is going to block something." She turned it over in her hands. "Memories, perhaps?" She turned it over again in her hands. There were two pads on either side but otherwise it looked pretty plain. "It looks like two people are supposed to hold it," she explained. "One side for the person operating, the other for the person it's being used on." She looked a little closer at the pads. "DNA readers, maybe? So it knows what it's blocking? That seems… Well, horrifically brilliant." She shook her head and chucked it back onto the console. "Very Time Lord," she muttered.
Clara, on the other hand, had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that really wouldn't go away. "He asked for a 'human compatible' one," she pointed out. "What's he blocking? What memories?"
Danni's brows furrowed for a moment. "I guess…" Her breath caught. "No, not again…"
"Not again?" Clara repeated. "What do you mean 'not again'?"
Danni shook her head, purposefully turning back to the monitor and giving it all of her attention. "It doesn't matter," she replied shortly. "I'm not going to let him do it. Don't you worry."
"Has saying that ever made anyone feel less worried?" Clara retorted.
Danni shook her head. "No, not really," she admitted. "I think it might be to wipe your memory."
"Of what?"
"Of us."
~0~0~0~
The Doctor didn't like the Cloisters, and he certainly didn't like having to spend his time talking to Ashildr. He didn't need to listen to her talk to him like he was some child, just because he was compared to her. He'd lived billions of years too.
Well, technically while it had taken him billions of years to get back to Gallifrey, he only really lived through the same few over and over again. He was glad about that. He only remembered the one run-through, he just knew more had taken place.
"You were barely more than a child. You broke in here and the Wraiths spoke to you about the Hybrid," she was saying, in her annoying voice which just frustrated the Doctor even more. She sounded like she was trying to be his therapist. Five minutes to the end of the universe and she wanted to analyse him. "Why did that story make you so scared?"
"I don't know. I don't remember it," he dismissed quickly and tiredly. Why had he come out of the TARDIS? He should have just stayed inside. He didn't want to talk about the Hybrid. His wife? He could talk about her for the rest of time – all five minutes of it. But why did everyone suddenly care about the Hybrid?
Ashildr scoffed slightly. "Sometimes you do," she said. "It's always the way with things we'd rather forget. You remember now, though, don't you? Tell me, Doctor, who is the Hybrid? Who threatens all of Time and Space?"
"Oh, but that's easy. That's very, very easy." He walked over, towering over her. "The Hybrid is you."
She didn't look surprised. In fact, she looked bored. It was infuriating. "I'm human, with a little bit of Mire inside me," she pointed out. "The Hybrid is supposed to be half Time Lord, half Dalek."
"No, it isn't. The actual prophecy specifies only two warrior races. The Daleks and the Time Lords have made assumptions," he rolled his eyes, "of course. And they would. Humans and the Mire, both warrior races. It fits perfectly."
She nodded along. "It's an interesting theory."
"Do you have a better one?" he counted.
"By your own reasoning, why couldn't the Hybrid be half Time Lord, half human?"
His eyes narrowed, his anger flared. "You leave her out of this," he snarled. "You will not speak about her."
She shifted, smug. "I've hit a nerve, I see," she drawled. "Tell me; if not for Danielle, why did you fight?"
"That's your best theory?" he retorted. "That Danielle's the Hybrid and I ran from Gallifrey because I was afraid of my future wife?" He let out a laugh of derision. "Let me tell you something. Danni can be angry, and she can be fierce, and she has done damage to the universe but when it came down to it, if it came down to herself or anyone else, she would sacrifice herself in a heartbeat. She wouldn't let the universe burn to heal herself."
"No, I guess not," Ashildr replied. "It doesn't quite fit, does it?"
"No," he bit back.
"That's fine." She stood up from her chair. "Because I have a better theory."
"Really?" he asked.
"What if the Hybrid wasn't one person, but two?"
He frowned. That didn't make any sense at all, did it? The prophecy only ever mentioned the one creature. "Two?"
"A dangerous combination of a passionate and powerful Time Lord and a young woman so very similar to him," Ashildr suggested. "A woman he could never see upset. A woman who he would burn the universe for."
"You think it's both of us?" he asked, scoffing slightly.
"Did you not just tear the universe apart to save Miss Oswald?" Ashildr countered. "You say it's because Clara deserved better, or that you are grieving for her yourself. But it's not, is it? It's because Danielle was upset and you can't stand not being able to fix it."
"No, that's not it," he insisted.
"Yes, it is," she replied. "You can deny it all you like, Doctor, but everything you have done is because you want to make her happy. And look what you did. And you would do it again. She doesn't need to burn the universe to heal herself because you're very happy to do it for her."
He shook his head. "I know I went too far. I get it. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing."
"And what would that be?"
She looked at him expectantly and he tried to not look at the TARDIS. He knew Danni knew how to work the controls enough for her to see outside. "I'm taking Clara back to Earth. Somewhere safe, somewhere out of the way. I'm going to wipe her memory of every last detail of us," he replied softly and sadly. "It'll be like our friendship never happened."
"That may not be what she wants," Ashildr pointed out.
"I've done it before. Usually, I do it telepathically, but this time, I've got something better. It's quite painless."
"And Danielle? Will she understand?"
"She will, when I explain," he replied. "She won't like it, but it's better than the alternative."
~0~0~0~
Clara picked up the neural block as Danni shook her head. "Theta, no," she whispered, horrified. She turned to Clara. "I-I wouldn't, I would never…"
"I know," Clara replied offhandedly as she looked at the device in her hand. "He's done this to both of us." She picked up the sonic sunglasses, slipping them on with a shaking hand. "Think and point," she muttered to herself.
"Clara, don't," Danni cried as she sonicked the neural block. "You don't know what it's going to do!"
"Doesn't matter," Clara retorted as she turned the monitor off. "When he finds out what I've done to it, he won't use it." She looked at Danni. "No one is taking my memories," she swore. "Not while I have a choice!"
Danni nodded, her insides turning at just the thought. Her memories meant so much to her, the good and the bad, that just the idea made her panicky and nauseous. She looked to Clara; she never wanted to lose Clara, and now it seemed worse. At least when she had died, they'd died best friends. Maybe she was better off dead.
The doors opened as Danni felt her blood run cold at her own words. What had she become? What had they both become?
The Doctor seemed to spot that almost instantly. "You okay?" he asked her, glancing at Clara to see if she had upset his wife. She shook her head as Ashildr stepped into the TARDIS after him.
"I-I still don't have a pulse," Clara answered for her whilst also making sure that he thought they hadn't heard anything he had said.
"Yeah, we'll fix that somehow. I promise," he replied before motioning to the new woman. "You remember Ashildr, of course."
"Yeah, sure," Clara replied. He frowned, looking between the two. Something wasn't right.
"I thought you'd be more surprised to see her," he said lowly.
"We used the monitor," Danni spoke up. "We heard everything, Theta."
He glanced between them again as Clara picked up his sunglasses. He had been right, she had worked out the controls. He grabbed the neural block off the console and Danni shook her head. "No, Theta, you can't! Not again!"
"I have to," he replied sadly. He turned to Clara, who took a step back and away from him. "It won't hurt, it'll be nothing. You'll just pass out for a moment."
"And then?" she challenged.
"When you wake, you'll be fine," he reassured.
"But…"
"Clara, just listen to me…"
"Just say it," she interrupted sharply. She didn't appreciate the soft words. If he was going to try and attack her memories he was going to tell her. "Say it. Come on. Tell me."
He sighed heavily. "When you wake up, you will have forgotten us," he snapped. "You'll have forgotten we ever even met."
"And why would I want that?"
"You don't, you never will," the Doctor countered. "But it's the only way to keep you safe. To keep the universe safe."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
"If you don't remember us, then we can finally break away," he explained. "Because as dangerous as I am, as dangerous as we are, you're just the same. You're not alive, so you're not dead. You can't die, your death is a fixed point you're going to have to return to. And you've got a lot of me still floating around in your head. Tell me, if I was hurt, if I died and couldn't return, could you stand to see her cry?" He pointed over at Danni, who was already shaking and crying. "What would you do to make sure that she didn't hurt anymore?"
Clara knew exactly what he was hinting at. "Oh no, you are not putting your bad decisions on me," she snarled.
"Say it," he retorted, throwing her words back at her. "What would you do to make her smile again?"
Clara shifted on the spot. "I would find a way to bring you back," she muttered and he nodded.
"Like pulling me out of my timeline at the point of my death?" he asked. "Or, maybe, jumping into my time line completely and scattering yourself across it?"
"That's not fair," she snapped, upset. "I did that to save both of you!"
"Exactly!" he exclaimed. "Clara, you did that with just your own determination. Can you imagine what having me mixed up in there will do when it gets bad? You might even push the woman you love into a volcano."
"I-I didn't mean to hurt her," she said. "You know I didn't!"
"I do know," he agreed. "Because I didn't mean to either." He deflated slightly, turning the device over in his hands. "You don't deserve my irresponsibility," he told her gently. "But now you have it and I know you well; the only way to keep you safe is to wipe your memory."
Clara hated how he was making sense, and she hated how out of control she was feeling. She didn't want to forget either of them, she didn't want to lose her memories or the best part of her life. She held out the sunglasses.
"I, er I used these."
"On what?" the Doctor asked in reply, sure he knew the answer.
She nodded towards the device. "That."
"What did you do?"
"What do you think?" she countered. "You're right, you know? We're too alike."
"Tell me what you did!" he demanded.
"What else? What else do you think I did?" she challenged. "I reversed the polarity. Push that button, Doctor, it will go off in your own face."
"You were trying to trick me?" he asked and her outrage spiked. How dare he be upset?!
"What were you doing to me?" she replied.
"I'm trying to keep you safe," he explained, like he was annoyed at her. He was always annoyed at her. Clara knew he didn't like her anymore and he knew it was because he saw too much of himself in her. But she was her own person. She was Clara Oswald and he wasn't going to take that away from her.
"Why? Nobody's ever safe!" she exclaimed. "I've never asked you for that, ever. These have been the best years of my life, and they are mine. Tomorrow is promised to no one, Doctor, but I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that. It's mine."
He turned, ready to walk away, to form some sort of argument that would make her see that he was right. But instead he saw Danielle. His wife, who hated the thought of losing a single memory, who had just wanted to keep her family close. His wife, who was crying, all because of his actions.
This had to stop.
"Oh, Clara Oswald," he sighed. "What am I doing?"
He walked over to Danni. "I'm sorry," he told her, taking her face in his hand so he could tilt her head. He placed a kiss on her forehead. "Look what I've done in fear of you hurting." He turned the device in his hand. They couldn't go on like this. Whatever relationship they all had was destroying the universe, and each other. He had to break it. He had to be the one to break it.
He let her go and turned to Clara. "You're always, always right," he finished. She shot him a suspicious look, trying to work out if he was bluffing or not.
"So what happens now?" she asked. "Hey? Me and you two; what do we do now?"
"I'm not sure you managed to reverse the polarity," he replied, walking over to her. "I'm not even sure that you can. It'll do something to one of us. Better than flipping a coin."
Clara realised almost instantly what he was suggesting. "Doctor?"
"This has to stop," he replied as he held it out to her. "One of us has to stop."
She held out his glasses to him and he put them in his pocket. "You really don't know which?" she asked. He shook his head.
If he was willing to do this, willing to wipe his own memory for the safety of everyone – and, if she was honest, it was mainly his wife with the rest of the universe coming a close second – then she knew he was serious. He wasn't just trying to get rid of her. He wasn't just trying to sweep his mistake under the rug. He was truly concerned.
She took the other side of the neural block. "Well them," she declared. "Let's find out. Let's do it like we've done everything else. Together."
Danni had stood there silently, listening to them arguing because she knew when to stand back and let Clara Oswald win a fight. She was the boss, she was in charge, Clara knew what she was doing whereas she felt like an emotional mess. She didn't want to lose her best friend, she didn't want to even think of a world where Clara didn't know who she was. She didn't want to lose another person from her life.
She wouldn't be able to stay away. The only reason that they'd never gone back on Donna was because, at the time, Danni was jumping around and could see Donna at any given moment. She had eventually made her back to Jack, and River, and Martha. The Ponds were her grandparents! She was always somewhere close to the people she was scared to losing. Just because she wasn't meant to see Clara again didn't mean that she wouldn't be able to go see her at the drop of her hat.
She looked to her husband. And that was the issue, wasn't it? It wasn't the Doctor, and it wasn't Clara. It was her.
Danni rushed forward, grabbing the device at of their hands before dashing away from them, cradling it close to her chest, as if she was protecting it from them.
The Doctor took a step towards her. "Danni?" he asked, concerned. "What are you doing?"
She knew that she was staring with wide eyes because her eyes were stinging. She was shifting slightly on the spot. She couldn't stay still. "You can't do this," she told them both. "You-You can't."
Her brain was racing and screaming at the fact they couldn't see that it just wouldn't work. There was only one way that it would, and she knew exactly what it was and she was trying to think of any other way.
The Doctor and Clara shared a look. Neither of them was happy with losing their memories but the effect they were having on the universe was bigger than them. The Doctor hated the idea of losing anyone from his life, especially someone he used to consider a friend. Clara knew that along with the loss of the Doctor came the loss of Danni, and that hurt so much deeper. She has already lost one person she loved, she didn't want to forget the other.
"Danielle," the Doctor started as kindly as he could. Her pain was all his fault. "This is the only way."
She shook her head frantically. "No, no," she repeated, as if he was talking about the only solution she had come up with rather than the one he was trying to push. "My-My memories are all I've ever had that was my own," she explained. "The TARDIS is my home, but she's your TARDIS. My-My family isn't really mine. I call my mum and dad by their actual names because they will always be my friends first. All that has ever been mine is my memories and I-I—" Her teeth clenched and she jabbed at her temple. "I don't know which of them is real or fake, anymore," she growled, "because of some evil woman who just couldn't leave me alone. But they are mine. They are all I own. They are mine."
The Doctor could see her panic, her heartache palpable. Clara's eyes were filled with tears at how much her friend, the woman she loved, was hurting and she couldn't do anything about it. "This has to happen," she told Danni as gently as she could. "I wish it didn't, but it does." Danni shook her head again.
"No, no, it doesn't," she insisted. "There's no point."
Clara frowned. "Why not?"
"Because it won't work!" she exclaimed, but the pair still seemed baffled. She was shaking. Her biggest fear had always been losing her memories because it made her who she was. She had almost forgotten that on a few occasions, especially when she was on the run from Missy, but her experiences shaped her and she didn't want to have it any other way.
The Doctor's brows furrowed slightly. "Why not?" he asked curiously. She obviously had thought of something he hadn't, which wasn't unusual. Her frustration was coming out in her protest. He wasn't sure it would work, but she obviously needed to let them know even if she couldn't put it into words.
"Because you don't like her anymore," Danni replied bluntly. "You could turn and walk away right now and very easily never go back again." She looked over at Clara. "You were friends, once, but now you're not. If it-If it was just the Doctor you wouldn't have wanted to leave, but you could have. You have found a life without him on Earth and it's done nothing but good for you." Her gaze jolted between the two. "This, all of this, has nothing to do with either of you. It's me."
"Danielle, you're panicking," the Doctor said, holding his hand out. "I understand, I do. But you have done nothing wrong."
"There is a Clara who is walking around that shouldn't be because of me," she insisted. "I never want Clara to die, the thought breaks me, but the reason she is here and not dead is because you can't leave me to hurt again. And, given the chance, I would keep her by my side forever." Her voice broke. She met Clara's gaze. "I love you so much. I might not be in love with you, but I love you more than practically everyone else. I was ready to torture an immortal woman to the end of time for hurting you. I still am. The Doctor didn't save you for himself. He did it for me." She swallowed hard. "All of this is because of me."
She looked down at her hands. At the device she held, ready and poised to wipe the one person from another just by a touch of a button. One where she had, very deliberately, not touched where Clara had held onto it. "If the Doctor lost his memories, I'd never be able to stay away," she said softly. "If you lost your memories, I'd never be able to leave you alone. This has to end with me."
The Doctor took sharp intake of breath as he realised what she was doing. "Danni, don't!" he exclaimed as Danni pressed the button on the device. He rushed over, yanking it out of her hand as if it would make any difference. Nothing seemed to happen, but Clara felt it like a punch to the gut. "What did you do?!" he shouted.
With shining eyes and a sense of numbness, Danni looked up at him. "You would have let the universe burn before doing to me what you had to do to Donna," she said softly. "Even though you know it wouldn't have worked any other way."
He shook his head. "Your memories…"
"Are not more important that the people I love," she finished. "I would never force you to make that choice. I would never let you bear it."
Her eyelids fluttered as her gaze went out of focus. She looked over at Clara, who seemed really blurry. "I would never make you bear it," she said to them both before her knees gave way. Clara rushed to her side, openly crying.
"No, no, don't," she begged. "Danni, please don't forget me."
Both the Doctor and Clara held her, keeping her propped up as her mind filled with fog. "You're brilliant," she told Clara before she couldn't anymore. "You are brilliant, Clara Oswald. Run." She giggled faintly as one of her first memories of Clara floated through her brain. Her Clara. Victorian Clara. Where it all began. "Run, find your Danni-Girl, and remember me."
~0~0~0~
Danni didn't remember moving to her bedroom. In fact, as she slowly sat up in bed, she realised she didn't remember a lot at all. Or, rather, she remembered everything and yet it felt foggy. Like the memories were piecing themselves together. Had she been drinking? It felt like she had been drinking.
The bed dipped and her head shot around to look see the Doctor. He wasn't wearing his jacket and he shirt was ruffled, like he'd been sleeping in his clothes and he'd not bothered to get changed when he'd woken up again. She glanced at his hair. She did like it messy. His expression was soft, and comforting as he stroked his hand through her hair, smoothing it out.
"Hey," he said softly, with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
She wasn't sure if she liked how kind he was being. She can't have been drinking, she only drank Coke these days. She didn't get drunk anymore. "Groggy," she replied. "When did I come to bed?"
"You didn't. I brought you here," he explained. A flash of panic ran across her face. "You've not been out long. Twelve hours, maybe. Nothing at all."
"'Out'?" she repeated. "What happened?"
He shifted, moving to his was sat on the bed next to her, long legs stretched out to the end. He motioned her over and, even though she was still slightly confused, she moved so she was resting against him. He wrapped his arm around her.
"Let me tell you a story," he started. She shot him an incredulous look.
"Theta…"
"Shh, just listen," he replied. "Once upon a time there was a girl with fiery red hair and a temper to match. She travelled far and wide, fighting people, finding love and building a family she was proud of. Then, one day, she died. And her world expanded. Her universe became infinite, and she became the first of her kind. The Time Child."
She smiled slightly. "The one and only," she agreed a little smugly. He gave her a squeeze.
"She spent a lot of those first moments being scared. Scared of her love, scared of the evil of the universe. She didn't know what to do until she met a nanny."
Danni frowned. "A nanny?" she repeated. "When did I meet a nanny?"
"A nanny that brought her out of her shell, showed her great lost but also great strength. The Time Child moved on with her life, and found a best friend. A girl who would sacrifice her life for others, a girl who was stubborn, and kind, and fiercely loyal."
Danni really couldn't remember who he was talking about, but it was making her head hurt. She tried to find the nanny in her memory, she tried to find the friend but all she found was a blur of missing moments. "Theta, what happened?" she asked again.
"The Time Child loved her dearly, perhaps too much. The other woman certainly loved her too much in return. They were happy friends until the greatest of evils pulled them apart."
"Missy," Danni muttered but the Doctor shook his head.
"Her husband," he corrected. Danni pushed up, twisting on the spot.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "What did you do?"
"The Time Child…"
"No," she cut in. "No more stories. Tell me what happened? What happened to the nanny?"
He had hoped to tell her in story to stop the panic that was starting to take over her. He had wanted to break it to her in the softest way possible, and fairy tales were always kind.
"We had a friend called Clara, who died," he explained. "And I brought her back to life, but at a terrible cost. I pulled her out of her time line at the moment of her death, between one heartbeat and her last, and in doing so started a prophecy that needed to end. And you, my Pet," he took her hand and brought it to his lips, placing a kiss on her palm. "You paid the price for my mistake. I was going to wipe her memory to keep her safe. But you-you were cleverer, and braver, than both of us. You saw what I refused to believe, and you knew that the only way that we could be stopped wasn't if she couldn't remember us, but if you didn't remember her."
Danni shook her head. "I wiped my own memories?" she whimpered. "Why would I do that?"
"Because you loved her very much," he replied almost instantly. "And you loved me too much to make me do it myself. You knew," he looked down at his lap, "quite rightly, that the best way was for you to forget her. She was in your life, on and off, for pretty much its entirety. She was your best friend and you did it to save us all."
Her hand was shaking as she ran it over her mouth. The lump in her throat was building as the devastation washed over her. She tried to think back again, over her life, trying to pull up moments she could remember, like the time they went on the Orient Express. There was a mummy, and Perkins, and… and someone else, wasn't there?
"There's a hole in my life," she whispered. She looked to the Doctor. "What did you say her name was? Clara?"
He nodded. "Clara Oswald. Your memories are reforming. You'll know she's there, but she just won't mean anything anymore."
"I-I wiped away my best friend," she whimpered. "Just like that?"
"No, no, definitely not," he reassured her, pulling her close. "It wasn't just like that. It was hard, but you were so strong, my Pet. You did what you thought was best and it hurt, but I couldn't be prouder of you." He placed a kiss on her hair. "You did it so no one else had to suffer."
He held her close as she cried, terrified of her own choice and what it meant. He comforted her the best he could, but he knew that it was partly down to him. He'd made some terrible choices and she had suffered the consequences. But no more. Never again. He could make it up to her, and the universe. He had been so obsessed with not letting her down again he hadn't seen the catastrophe he had been heading for. He would do better this time. He would be the husband she deserved. He could show her the goodness of the universe and help her heal. He could be the Doctor.
"Where is she now?" she asked. "Did-Did it work?"
He could tell the difference. The way she didn't seem overly concerned, just curious. It broke his hearts that she'd lost that love in hers. "Yes, it did," he promised. "She's just fine, and you will be too."
~0~0~0~
Bumper-sized chapter for y'all. Please let me know what you think, reviews mean a lot to me :D
Reviews -
Blue-tail the Cyber Hybrid - There is a couple Thirteen drabbles in the Outtakes story if you're interesting, and I do occasionally muse about it on my Tumblr, which is DanniFielding :)
Midnight Alley - Yeah, she doesn't do well, does she?
serenitysaiyan - I thought so. When I first saw the episodes and started hearing the mentions, there was only one way I could see it going.
Oh yeah - Thanks sweetie! :D
bored411 - Thanks, sweetie! It's all a bit of a crazy mess, but I like to think it works XD
BlueFlames27 - Aww, thanks sweetie! I just couldn't help but see Danni's first reaction to Rassilon being one that was violent. It doesn't come out often, but it comes out to those who deserve it!
Authora97 - I guess you liked it? Danni always loved Clara almost as much as she loves the Doctor, it felt fitting XD