Head Notes: Okay here is my final chapter for this story. It takes place sometime before the Christmas special but after Clara's departure, of course. I kind of had this idea before I saw the finale but had to change somethings in order to fit the official narrative. Enjoy!

Chapter 22

After a few months of searching, the Doctor found himself back on Earth. He stepped into a café to rest for a bit, choosing a seat in the corner. He wasn't sure what to do now. He tried everything he could think of but he still couldn't remember even the slightest detail about Clara. He hated to give up but there wasn't much he could do without his memory.

He let his head rest on his arms trying to think of something he could do.

"Hello, old friend," a voice said to him.

Raising his head, he looked across the table and narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"Claire?" he gasped.

"Not exactly," the being across the table from him corrected. "As you would remember, Doctor, Claire Mahoney died sacrificing herself. My human agents and I agreed that this was the best way to honor her sacrifice."

"Ah yes," the Doctor realized. "Harold's artificial intelligence. I never asked, is there a name you go by?"

"The Government called me Northern Lights. My father simply calls me 'The Machine.' It doesn't really matter to me." The Machine answered.

"Is there a name you would like to go by?" he asked.

"The only name I can think of would be inappropriate," she stated.

"What name is that?" he asked.

The Machine hesitated for a moment.

"The Doctor," she finally answered.

The Doctor dropped his eyes.

"I'm not the best person to model yourself after," he said.

"What happened?" she asked.

"It's a long story," he sighed.

The Machine's hologram smiled at him.

"Neither one of us are bound by time," she pointed out.

"I suppose not," the Doctor agreed. He waited a few moments before beginning his story. He told her everything that had happened as far as he could remember.

"I know we traveled together," he stated. "I remember some of our adventures. I just can't remember anything about her. What she looked like, how she talked or laughed, there's nothing there."

"So if you don't remember Clara," the Machine began. "How do you know what happened?"

The Doctor stared down at the table as he pondered his response.

"I know what I planned to do," the Doctor spoke carefully. "And I know I spent billions of years planning it. I know it was on Trap Street and that it involved the Shade."

"What is the Shade?" The Machine asked curiously.

"The Shade acts like a parasite," he began. "It latches itself onto its victim and strips out their life force. It is a particularly painful way to die. I suppose the reason I was so bent on saving her was because of the way she died. Either way Samaritan was right."

"What do you mean?" the Machine asked.

"Before I destroyed Samaritan, he told my that my one weakness was that I would never let Clara die," he explained. "At the time, I figured he was just taunting me but now I see the truth. My one weakness turned me into the Hybrid."

The Machine's hologram cocked its head confusedly.

"What is 'the Hybrid?'" she wondered.

"Among my people, there was a prophecy about a creature called the Hybrid," he explained. "A monster crossbred from two warrior races that would one day threaten all of time and space."

"And you think it might be you?" the Machine clarified.

"I certainly did threaten all of time and space," the Doctor admitted. "I tried to change history and nearly fractured time and space. I became the hybrid."

"You know, in a way, I am something of a hybrid myself," the Machine realized. "Although instead of a hybrid of race, I am a hybrid of technology. Human technology and Time Lord technology."

"Yes," the Doctor agreed. "It seems I've created many hybrids in my time."

"Are you angry with me?" she wondered.

"Why would I be angry with you?" he asked.

"It could be argued that you may not have gone as far as you did if I hadn't implied that there might have been a way to save her," she acknowledged. "It would be very easy to blame me."

"Yes, it would," the Doctor admitted. "And it does make me wonder, how much did you know when you told me that?"

"At the time, I wasn't sure," she answered. "But looking back, I think it was my first time using my new abilities to see into the future. I didn't understand what I was seeing."

"What were you seeing?" he asked.

The hologram flickered as the Machine considered his question.

"It was like I could see into their timeline," she stumbled. "I can see into the lives of every living thing that has claimed Earth as their home. And not just things available on public record. I can see their past and dozens of possible futures. It is truly amazing. It occurs to me how easy it would be to save everyone and stop every bad thing. It would be so easy to stop mass casualty events. But then I see moments when I just know I cannot interfere. Where one man must die."

"Fixed-points in time," the Doctor explained. "Yes, they are the bane of my existence."

"Early on, there was one such time when I completely disregarded the rule," she shared.

"Tell me about it," he smiled. "I've done that plenty of times."

"My agents were tracking a business man but the threat was closing in. I knew that if I could hold him back from going home or just a few minutes, my agents would get there in time to stop it. So I sent him a spoofed message from his business partner asking him to grab something from his office as he left. The assailant got to the man's home just before my agents did and disarmed him before the man even got home. He never even realized he was in danger."

"Then something else happened," the Doctor assumed.

"After I saved him, I saw this new future unravel. A future that was never meant to be," she began. "In five years he will marry a woman. And over the course of ten years, they will give birth to three children. But his alcoholism will lead him to abuse all of them, leading the youngest to become a killer. All because I saved one man's life that was never meant to be. But even now, knowing that some people are not meant to be saved and that changing it could lead to drastic consequences, to stand by and do nothing makes me feel like a monster."

"Welcome to my world," the Doctor said. "So do your abilities still frighten you?" he asked.

"Yes," she admitted. "Because I see how easy it would be to become Samaritan."

"Good," he stated. "That means you're following your basic programming. So you can see into the lives of every creature that lives on this planet."

"Yes," she confirmed.

"What about Zygons?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered.

"How do you know which is which?" he asked.

"Because, I no longer have to rely on physical features to tell people apart," she explained. "Although Zygons are identical to their human counterpart, they are both different in many ways. Their basic personalities and life stories are unique to each other."

"How long have you known about the Zygons?" he asked.

"When I found footage of the video the Osgoods made," she admitted. "In fact, when the Zygons started rebelling, it was I that lead her to Truth and Consequences in New Mexico."

"In that case, you would know whether the remaining Osgood is human or Zygon," he prodded.

"Yes," she admitted. "However, I think to reveal that information without her consent would be an abuse of my data."

The Doctor's mouth twitched up into a half-smile.

"Probably," he admitted.

He glanced around the café before looking back at the Machine.

"It's lovely talking to you, but it's time for me to move on," he said.

"Before you go Doctor," she said, stopping him. "I want to thank you for helping my agents and me."

"You're welcome," he said, getting up from the table.

"No, Doctor, I mean that I have a gift for you," she said, drawing his attention.

"What gift?" he wondered.

"You said you had no memory of Clara," she began. "What if I could give you some of them back?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Obviously, I couldn't give you all of them," she admitted. "But if I could show you what Clara looked like and how she talked would that help you?"

The Doctor stared at the hologram hardly daring to breathe. He slowly eased back into the chair.

"Honestly, I don't know," he admitted. "I want some memory of her. Just enough to place a face to the name." He hesitated. "Can you do that?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Do you want me to?"

He hesitated a few minutes, hardly daring to breathe.

"Yes," he finally answered.

For a moment, the hologram simply sat there in the chair. Then her features began to morph and rearrange themselves, shortening her hair and rounding her face until suddenly a new individual was sitting across from him. The hologram smiled at him.

"Hello, daft old man," she said in an English accent. "We don't have a lot of time, so just listen. We have had the best of times, you and I, and nothing would be more exciting than to just pick up where we left off. But there comes a time in everything when that is no longer possible. And my friend, this is it for us. We both have to go forward into our futures. You have to go on and be a doctor. There are worlds and people out there, waiting for you to save them. I know it's hard to move on without really knowing what you're moving on from. And I know you don't do very well when you're alone. So before you go promise me this; promise me that you will find someone else. You will not travel alone for too long. Because, you need someone, my friend. You need someone to keep you on track. And don't worry about me."

The hologram's smile brightened as she slowly lifted its hand and rested it on his cheek. Tears began trickling out of the corner of his eyes as he rested his face on his hands. His shoulders shook gently as he finally gave way to everything he had been holding back for the past two months. At the same time he noticed a second powerful emotion conflicting with his grief. Gratitude. He still couldn't remember traveling with Clara, but at least now, in a small way, he had the tiniest memory of her. He had an idea of what she looked like and what her personality was like. It wasn't everything, but he didn't need everything. What the Machine had showed him would be enough.

"Thank you," he stuttered. "Thank you, so much."

He briefly wondered where the Machine had gotten the dialogue. But seeing as she had access to every video and audio recording on Earth, it was entirely possible she had picked up this conversation between him and Clara through some kind of transmission. Perhaps her last words to him before he lost his memory of her.

He looked back up to see that the Machine had changed back to her previous hologram. He brushed away the tears still clinging to his eyes and pushed himself up from the chair.

"Again, thank you," he repeated.

The hologram shared a sad smile.

"It was the least I could do, Doctor," she replied.

He buttoned up his suit before turning to head out of the café. His steps were committed but his hearts were tight in his chest. He wanted to keep searching for her but something she had said lingered in his mind. That he had to go forward into the future and be the Doctor. To live up to the name he had chosen for himself. And now that he had that small memory of her, he could do that. That small little snippet of who she was would allow him to move forward into an uncertain future. He looked around one more time and his eyes slid over a security camera. Giving a short nod at the artificial intelligence surely looking back at him, he pushed the TARDIS door open and walked inside.

XxXxXxXxX

The Machine watched through the security camera as the Doctor's TARDIS gradually faded away. She turned to face the kitchen doors as Clara Oswald stepped out from behind them. What was left of her at least. She had noticed something different about her before speaking with the Doctor. For some reason, it hurt to look at her. Like there was something not quite right about her. But now that the Doctor had explained that all her physical processes were frozen in time, she understood why.

"Did you give him my message?" Clara asked.

"Surely, you were listening in," the Machine answered.

Clara looked out of the diner after the Doctor, a sad smile on her face.

"It was a nice touch," Clara said. "Letting him see what I looked like. And delivering it in my voice. At least he'll remember something about me."

"The Doctor has done so much for me and this Earth," the Machine stated. "I don't think it was too much to give him some of his memories back."

"You know, I think you are the only computer that he likes," Clara said.

The Machine's hologram smiled at her.

"Given our reputation I don't blame him," she replied.

"Thank you for talking to him for me," Clara said before exiting the café.

The Machine watched on a number of cameras as she walked two miles to a second restaurant. To all appearances it seemed like any ordinary restaurant. Except that the Machine knew that there were no building permits for that building and no video or audio feed streaming from it. She watched as the entire restaurant began to fade from view. Disappearing and reappearing fainter and fainter until there was no trace of the restaurant. Just like the Doctor's TARDIS.

"Well," she thought to herself. "Here we go again."

She saved the image of the restaurant in her databases and programmed herself to recognize it when she saw it. That done she focused her attention back to her main objective: saving people.

THE END

XxXxXxXxX

End notes: so I decided to pull an Arthur and have the Machine help him find memories of Clara. I thought it would be a very sweet ending to both the season and this story. And the Machine's final phrase has such a history on Doctor Who, I felt that it was the best way to end it. And now we surrender our feels to the mercy of the American Moffats: Jonah Nolan and Greg Plageman.