Hey y'all so here's chapter two.
I'm trying to keep in the canon of the show except in the ep that last aired, "Flatline", Danny and Clara are together but in this story they are not. So, in this story the events of "Flatline" happened but the phone call with Danny didn't.
Usual disclaimer: I don't any of this yadda yadda.
Alright here goes, enjoy this chapter and leave a review please!
Chapter 2
"What does that mean?" Clara asked as she walked into the TARDIS. "'Goodness had nothing to do with it.' What do you mean by that?"
"It means exactly what I said it means," the Doctor replied. "You saved the day. You were me. There isn't a lot of goodness involved in that."
"Don't say that," Clara said. "You save people. I saved people today."
"A lot of people died, too," the Doctor said.
"That happens," Clara said.
"You just dismiss it so easily?" the Doctor said, voice rising.
"Of course not!" Clara shouted. "Of course I am not dismissing it! It is terrible and it is awful but I am accepting it. This is what we do, we travel and we save people. But we can't save everyone. Accepting that makes it easier."
"You shouldn't have to accept it," the Doctor said. "Where is your humanity? How can you watch someone die?"
"That's what you do," Clara reasoned. "You watch people die. You let people die for you. These are the things you have to do in order to keep saving other people."
"Yes, that is what I do," the Doctor said. "It is not what you do."
"Oh really?" Clara asked with a bitter tone to her voice. "Do we have to talk about what happened on the moon again? Because I recall you, someone I trusted, putting me in the position to choose who lives and dies. And that is not the first time you've done that and it is not the last. At first I couldn't handle it, I couldn't choose. I didn't trust myself to. But now I trust myself to make the best damn choice I can."
"You do make good choices," the Doctor said. "From the options available to you, that are usually all bad, you tend to pick the better ones. But those are not your choices to make. You don't know what it does to you, having to choose who lives and dies."
"I know now," Clara said. "It's like I told you after we were on the space train, it's like an addiction. Making choices that get people killed hurts you in a way you don't recover from. But making choices that save lives, that is a feeling that nothing else can top."
"We don't travel so that you can get your fix of happiness," the Doctor said. "This isn't a game."
"I am well aware that this isn't a game," Clara said.
"What we do has consequences," the Doctor said.
"I know that," Clara said. "We come in and we save the day and we make things better for some people but for others we make it a lot worse. I understand that, and don't you dare tell me that I don't."
"That is what I do," the Doctor said. "I asked you if thought I was a good man and you said you didn't know. Do you think you're a good person?"
"Do you think I am?" Clara shot back. "I know what I think of me and what I've done, but what do you think? Am I good person?"
"I don't know," the Doctor replied. "You aren't the person you were when we started traveling together."
"Yeah, well neither are you," Clara said. "And admit it, you're glad I'm not who I was when we started traveling. When we started out, I was a mystery. I was impossible. Now you've solved me and you can carry on like the most clever man in the universe."
"I am the most clever man in the universe," the Doctor said.
"And I'm the girl who lives to die saving your life," Clara said. "So what does that make me?"
"I won't let you die for me," the Doctor said. "Not this you."
"It seems to me that you don't really have a choice in that," Clara said.
"Do you, right now, think I am worth dying for?" the Doctor asked. "Would you throw away everything, your life right now, all your potential, to save me?"
Clara stared at him with an expressionless face for a few moments. "I don't know," she said finally. "I don't think I'll know until I'm in a position to make that choice."
The Doctor broke eye contact and started fiddling with the TARDIS console.
"I have some work to get done on the TARDIS, make sure she's back in working order," the Doctor said. "But I can drop you off at home. You probably have a date with Dan the Soldier Man, don't you?"
She was quiet for a few moments. "You're not the only clever person in the room, you know."
The Doctor looked up from the console. "I'm sorry?"
"You won't admit it, but I know you recognize Danny from that children's home in Gloucester," Clara said. "And you recognize Orson Pink. You know they're related somehow and you know that we visited Danny when he was a kid."
The Doctor stood up straight and looked at her. "I know that, given the fact that the TARDIS was linked in to your timeline and we ended up in his, that Danny plays a big part in your timeline. Orson does, too."
"Why did you give Danny a dream about being a soldier?" Clara asked. "You hate soldiers, why give a little boy a dream that he becomes one? That soldiers protect him? That they are something to look up to and aspire to?"
"It made him comfortable while he slept," the Doctor said. "I wasn't about to give a terrified child a nightmare."
"You changed his life," Clara said. "That dream is why he became a soldier. He spent his life after that night trying to be this big brave soldier that he dreamt of. You did that."
"I assure you, it was not on purpose."
"You change peoples' lives without even knowing it," Clara said. "It isn't all life or death all the time."
The Doctor didn't say anything.
"I don't have a date tonight," Clara said. She started walking towards the stairs. "I'm going to sleep here. Good night, Doctor."
"Good night," the Doctor said quietly, too softly for Clara to hear since she was already in one of the TARDIS's many hallways.
-DW-
"Doctor!" Clara shouted, running down a hallway. She reached a fork in the hallway, giving her two options to go in. "Doctor! Maya!"
"Clara!" came a girl's voice from the hallway to the left.
Clara immediately sprinted down that hallway. She and the Doctor had traveled to a faraway planet that Clara didn't even remember the name of at that point. All she knew is that a lost Dalek had landed in the queen's palace and the Doctor was trying to stop the Dalek while Clara tried to find the princess who had run off.
"Maya, where are you?" Clara shouted.
"Clara, stay back!" Maya shouted back.
Clara turned another corner and almost ran right into the Dalek. Past the Dalek was Maya, holding a large contraption that was emitting a green glow. The Dalek was pointed at Maya, closing in on her.
"Exterminate!" it moaned. "Exterminate!"
"No!" Clara shouted. She took a few steps so that she was directly behind the Dalek. "Oi! Hey, Dalek! Come over here, shoot me!" She looked past the Dalek at Maya. "Maya, I'll distract it, run!
Clara continued, futilely, in trying to distract the Dalek, ignoring how ridiculous she must have sounded and looked as she jumped around and tried to make herself a more appealing target than the little girl on the other end of the hall.
"Clara, duck behind the wall and stand back!" Maya shouted.
"What?" Clara asked. "No!"
"I'm going to shoot it!" Maya yelled. "Stand back!"
Clara finally registered the fact that Maya was holding a large object.
"Right," she said, a bit flustered but still listening to Maya. "Okay!" she yelled when she was safely ducked behind the wall.
She heard a loud laser sound and a bright flash of light came from the hallway.
She ran back into the hallway and past the Dalek to Maya.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Maya said, grinning. "My gun worked."
"You built this?" Clara asked, looking down at it.
Maya nodded proudly. "I like to tinker with things. I've heard of Daleks before, though I've never seen one. I've always wanted to figure out if I could find a way to remotely power down its armor."
"Well it looks like you have," Clara said. "How long will it be powered down for?"
Maya made a face. "That's the thing. I have no idea."
"Right," Clara said. She thought for a moment. "Well, this castle has a dungeon, yeah? Every castle has a dungeon."
Maya nodded. "You want to lock it up in a dungeon?"
Clara nodded. "Why not? Dungeons are the most secure places in a castle. It won't find a way out."
"I've done a lot of research on Daleks," Maya said. "Maybe we can keep it locked up, so it can't hurt anyone, until I find a way to get it back to its home."
Clara thought about it for a moment. She knew the Doctor hated Daleks. She'd encountered Daleks and had heard a lot about the Doctor's encounters with them, but never thought of saving one. She knew the Doctor wouldn't approve.
"Let's do it. Where's the dungeon?" Clara asked, standing up and helping Maya up.
And so they went about rolling the Dalek down the halls until they reached the dungeon.
They were very near the dungeon when they heard a scream.
"Stay back!" the voice yelled.
Clara recognized it and popped out from behind the Dalek.
"Doctor!" she said. "It's okay! Its armor is disabled."
"Disabled?"
"Yes, temporarily," Clara said. "Maya figured out how to do it remotely."
The Doctor faced his angry eyebrows toward Maya.
"Why would you do a stupid thing like that?"
"We can't kill it!" Maya said. "It didn't do anything wrong! It came here and it was confused and scared, that's why it tried to kill all of us. We can lock it up in the dungeon until I figure out how to get it home."
"You are going to figure out how to transport a Dalek back to its people?" the Doctor said with a scoff.
"Doctor," Clara scolded.
"Good luck with that," he said, still with cruel laughter in his voice. "No, it's a Dalek, we have to destroy it."
"Doctor!" Clara said. "This solution, Maya's solution, ensures that no one dies. How can you say no to that?"
"Daleks can't be trusted," the Doctor said. "There is no guarantee that if you lock it up it won't kill anyone."
"There's no guarantee that it will," Maya pointed out. "Our dungeons are the most secure ones in this star system. That Dalek won't get out until we let it out, and no one will enter. It came here by mistake, we shouldn't hold that against it."
"Daleks are evil creatures," the Doctor contended. "They are full of hatred!"
"That doesn't mean we react to it with hatred," Maya said.
Clara smiled at Maya then turned to the Doctor. "You heard the girl," the older woman said. "Now are you going to help us move it or what?"
"No," the Doctor said curtly. "I'll meet you at the TARDIS, Clara."
He turned and stormed off.
Clara looked after him, a look of anger quickly taking over her features.
"It's alright, Clara," Maya said. "We're almost at the dungeons, then you can go home."
Clara looked at her and smiled again. Within a few minutes they had safely reached the dungeons and secured the Dalek.
"You really think you can get it back to where it came from?" Clara asked Maya as they walked back down the hall.
Maya nodded. "I think so. I've been studying space travel in addition to Dalek history."
"You're quite clever, aren't you?"
Maya grinned. "When you talk about Daleks, people say that they are full of hatred. But I don't think that can be true. No one can feel only hatred. There has to be more there."
"Maybe, yeah," Clara said. "So what, you're on a mission to save the Daleks?"
"No," Maya said. "But I respect them. I don't want to kill one just because it's here."
Clara nodded, accepting this. "You know, the Doctor and I, we travel through time and space. We try to save people. I think you'd be good at that."
Maya took a deep breath as she thought about that. "I don't think I'd want to travel with him," she admitted.
Clara's walking slowed as she looked at Maya.
She saw a girl that was so incredibly clever. She figured out a way to stop a Dalek without anyone getting hurt. She was going to figure out a way to return the Dalek to its people without anyone getting hurt. This girl, Maya, was clever and intelligent beyond belief, but she was didn't want to be around the Doctor.
"Why do you travel with him?" Maya asked, noticing that Clara was lagging behind.
"Erm," Clara started, picking up her pace and catching up. "It's sort of…complicated."
"What, are you his conscience or something?" Maya asked.
Clara opened her mouth to speak but didn't say anything. She knew she essentially was but didn't want to admit it.
"You deserve better," Maya said. "You said I'm clever but you, you are too. Your first instinct was that I needed saving from the Dalek but when I showed you that we could help it, you went with it. Who knows how long that sort of reaction will last when you're traveling with someone whose first instinct is an unshakeable desire to kill Daleks."
Clara broke eye contact with Maya. "He isn't just that. He's got a history with them."
Maya put her hands up defensively. "I'm just saying, you deserve better than being someone's conscience."
Clara sighed. "How are you so wise? You're what, sixteen years old?"
Maya laughed. "No, I'm not an infant. I'm three hundred and four years old."
Clara made a surprised face. "Okay." She looked Maya up and down. She looked no different than Clara's students at home, aside from her purple skin, blue hair, and spikes on the backs of her hands.
"I'm almost done with what you humans would call high school, though," Maya said.
"You study humans, too?"
Maya nodded. "That's required in schools. Based on your clothes you're from, what, the early twenty-first century? Right now it's the fortieth for you lot. You've expanded into the universe a lot, you tried to take over this planet a few centuries ago. It did not go well."
"Sorry about that," Clara said.
Maya shrugged. "I don't mind. It wasn't really a big conflict. A bunch of humans came and tried to take things over, but they realized that we didn't have any of the metals they wanted so they left."
Clara made a face. "Humans are weird."
"Yeah, how have you survived so long without hand spikes?"
Clara laughed. "Yeah, clearly that was an evolutionary fault on our part."
They turned a corner and arrived at the TARDIS.
"Well, travel safely, and all that," Maya said.
"I will try to," Clara said. She reached out and hugged Maya. "It was really nice meeting you."
"You too," Maya replied. She pulled back. "Don't let all the traveling change you. Today you were the kind of person who'd save a Dalek."
Clara nodded but had an expression that didn't strongly portray any emotion. She just seemed pensive.
"Goodbye," Maya said.
"Bye," Clara said, opening the door to the TARDIS and going inside.
She walked in and saw the Doctor flipping switches and turning dials on the TARDIS console.
"I'm taking you home."
"Why?" Clara asked. "Because I saved a Dalek?"
"Because it's time for you to go home," the Doctor said. "Don't want to keep Danny boy waiting."
"One, I do other things in my life aside from go on dates with Danny," Clara said. "And two, I especially don't do that anymore because we broke up."
"What?" the Doctor asked, disposition going from angry to concerned. "Why?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Clara said.
"But you and Danny…" the Doctor stammered. "Then Orson Pink happens…"
"Yes, thank you, Doctor, I am aware of that part of my timestream," Clara said angrily.
"Is Danny aware?"
Clara shook her head. "What was I supposed to say, don't break up with me because we have a great-grandson?"
"So he broke up with you?" the Doctor asked with pity in his voice.
Clara rolled her eyes. "That is not the point!" she exclaimed. "We are not discussing me and Danny, we are discussing you. Why wouldn't you help us save the Dalek?"
"Because Daleks are beyond saving," the Doctor said. "Why were you so keen on trying to help it?"
"Maya was right, it hadn't done anything wrong. It was just scared," Clara said. "And I felt sympathetic to it. I felt like I knew it."
"Yeah there's a reason for that."
"And what's that?" Clara asked quickly.
The Doctor sighed. "The first you I remember meeting was on a crashed space ship to the Dalek Asylum. She called herself Oswin and baked soufflés. She was the last survivor from her crew and we thought she was stranded in her ship, but she wasn't."
Clara looked down. "How'd she die?" she asked in a low voice.
"The atmosphere on the Dalek Asylum had a nanocloud that turned people into Dalek puppets," the Doctor said. "Once she was left on the planet, she didn't stand a chance."
Clara didn't say anything. She didn't look at the Doctor, either. She stared at the floor of the TARDIS.
"She saved me," the Doctor said. "And Amy and Rory. Helped fix their marriage, too."
"You've had companions who are married?" Clara asked. "Where are they now?"
"They got stranded in 1920s New York City."
"Can't you visit them?" Clara asked.
"No," the Doctor said simply.
"You're right, it is time for me to go home," Clara said.
The Doctor dutifully returned to starting the TARDIS take-off sequence.
They travelled in silence until the TARDIS jolted to a stop.
Clara walked towards the door then stopped before opening it. She turned to the Doctor.
"Why couldn't you save me?" Clara asked. "Dalek me, Oswin. Why couldn't you save her?"
"She was a Dalek," the Doctor said. "They are beyond saving."
Clara looked away from him and at the door for a short minute. Then, she opened the door and left without a word.
-DW-
The next day Clara was at work. She was walking down the hallway with a stack of tests she had just printed out. She slipped and managed to drop them all over the hallway floor.
"Great," she muttered as she bent down to pick them all up.
A familiar figure bent down and helped her gather them up.
"Here," he said, standing up once all the papers were collected.
"Thanks," Clara said, now standing as well and accepting the papers from Danny. "How've you been?"
Danny shrugged. "It's been a busy few weeks with exams coming up, but you know that. How are you?"
"Tired," Clara said, knowing that the word was loaded.
"Right," Danny said. "Give the Doctor my regards." He started to walk away.
"Mr. Pink!" Clara called after him.
Danny turned. The few students who were in the hallway all turned to Clara when they heard her call after Danny, but after receiving some stern looks they carried on.
Clara walked up to Danny and spoke in a hushed voice. "I'm working on it. It's taking some time, but I am working on it."
"Clara, you don't need to give me updates on this," Danny said.
"You're important to me," Clara said. "I don't want you to think you aren't-."
"I've got a date tomorrow night," Danny said.
"Oh."
"It wasn't something I sought out," Danny said. "A buddy of mine is going out with this girl and she wanted him to find a date for her friend who is coming to town tomorrow. He knew that we…that we're not…he knew about us and asked me to come."
"And you said yes," Clara said.
"Yes," Danny said.
Clara nodded. "I hope you have fun," she said, trying to sound supportive.
"Clara-." Danny began.
"No, no it's fine," she said. "We broke up. You should go on dates."
"I'm not telling you this to hurt you," Danny said. "I just didn't want you to hear about it from someone else."
"It's fine, really," she said. She looked him in the eyes. "It's fine. Have a good time, yeah?"
She gathered her papers into a neater pile then walked around him and left without another word.
That's it for this chapter, y'all. I hope y'all liked it; please leave a review letting me know how you feel!
Also, I am a huge fan of Clara and as such it is very important to me that she and the Doctor discuss (or at least acknowledge) the fact that she jumped into his timestream and saved his life a gazillion times. That's very important and it's like never brought up at all so in pretty much all the fic I write about Clara I bring it up (pssst that's your cue to read the rest of my fic I have two other Doctor Who stories on here and one is very Clara/11 if you're into that). I think it is very important to understanding her as a character and it is a very important aspect to her relationship with the Doctor.
My headcanon is that she knows that she did it and knows that she got out of his timestream somehow but doesn't know what happened to her echoes aside from the fact that they all live to save the Doctor and probably die in the process.
Also yeah this chapter was a lot about dismantling Clara's life, so to speak. If it made you feel feels, awesome! This was hard to write in that it left Clara in a painful place on multiple levels and I really like to explore that as a writer. The next chapter will have her explore what she's feeling and I haven't written it yet but it'll probably be pretty good so look out for it to come up. :D
Cool thanks y'all for reading this chapter and please check out my other fic on here! Also please leave a review telling me what you think, where you want this story to go, what you don't like, etc. Feedback from y'all makes me super duper happy!
Thanks again and have a wonderful day/night/life!
