Chapter Sixty-Seven: Death's Companion

Storybrooke – Present Day

The Doctor scanned the iron cuff that Regina had been clapped with while standing in the console room with Clara, David, and Mary Margaret. Regina was brought into the TARDIS earlier and placed in one of the many bedrooms inside the Gallifreyan ship. David, Clara, and Mary Margaret had been watching him scan the cuff for minutes and almost growing a bit impatient from waiting on his findings. "Well, Doc?" David finally asked. "Got anything?"

"The cuff is definitely what had temporarily taken away Regina's powers." The Doctor informed. "It was designed to repel magic – and it did its job very well. It not only left her body vulnerable, but her mind as well. Those electroshocks Greg Mendell administered to her have removed my memories – my essence – from her." He appeared to be very defeated upon delivering this update. "Regina will be herself again, but those coordinates to Trenzalore are lost, as far as I'm concerned."

"There has to be another way," said a hopeful Mary Margaret.

"There isn't." The Doctor dejectedly said. "There are only two people in the universe who know how to reach Trenzalore – we've seen what's happened to one of them…the other is dead."

"Dead?" David repeated his last word in surprise. "But the only other person who knows is…"

"River," whispered a stunned Mary Margaret, who put two and two together after reminded of the Doctor's earlier mentioning of River Song's knowledge of Trenzalore. It was an unexpected revelation to both Mary Margaret and David, who had both known and met the Doctor's wife for quite some time. "When? How?"

"Many years from now – on another planet," answered the Doctor. "She'll meet me, only it won't be me. I'll be a completely different man with no knowledge of who she is or how much she means to me – at least not yet. She will have died saving the lives four thousand and twenty-three people, including myself."

The Doctor was practically speaking in riddles to Clara, David, and Mary Margaret; none of what he told them made any sense; they only understood that it meant a lot to him from the melancholic way he recalled the events that had happened (or will happen) between himself and River Song.

After silence had passed subsequent to the Doctor's moment of reminiscence, the sound of the TARDIS door opening and outdoor noises momentarily seeping in directed their attention away from the console platform. There, by the door, was Emma; she was completely disheveled and appeared to be in total shock. David and Mary Margaret, seeing how their daughter was and growing concerned, stepped off the console platform and approached her.

"Emma," David was the first to say. "What is it?"

Mary Margaret then noticed something amiss. "Where's Neal?"

Emma, as if detecting them for the first time upon entering the TARDIS, was almost completely speechless. "He's gone," she managed to say. "She killed him. Tamara killed him."

The Doctor desolately lowered his head as he heard this news. It was a shock to everyone there, including Clara, who had only minutes ago seen Neal alive and well at the cannery. The news of his death unsettled her, but not as much as it did Emma. Clara watched David and Mary Margaret comfort their daughter with hugs. "I'm so sorry," David whispered to her.

Emma stared off into space, caught in a trance brought on from devastation and grief. "I…I have to tell Henry. H-How am I supposed…What…What am I going to tell Henry?"

Mary Margaret sighed, seeing how lost and troubled her daughter was over this situation. "We'll figure something out," she assured her.

David knew the TARDIS – although a very safe place – was not the best one to discuss such personal matters. He turned to the Doctor and said, "Um, if it's alright with you, we'll just…"

"Yes, of course." The Doctor acknowledged his request, knowing what he was going to say long before he even said it. He and Clara both watched as the family departed, leaving them both alone there in the console room.

The sudden mournful moment left Clara feeling disconcerted. "Is this how it's like for you sometimes? When you travel?"

The Doctor sighed. "Sometimes…most of the times…all of the times." He noticed Clara turning to him and gazing at him questionably. "I take on many companions on my journeys. But there are times like this when I believe I'm a companion myself – Death's companion. People die every day, but many do when they're around me."

"Neal's death wasn't your fault." Clara told him. "You heard Emma – it was Tamara who killed him. That was nothing you could've done to prevent it."

The Doctor nodded and recognized her logic with a smile. "I sometimes tell myself that…but I still have a hard time believing it." He turned away from Clara and sadly walked out of the console room.

Clara felt for him; it was the first death to happen to someone close to him that she had known about and seeing how it affected him and everyone else made her feel disconnected from all the wonders she had seen – both in Storybrooke and everywhere else in time and space – during her travels with the Doctor. Between Neal's death and the lost information needed to get to Trenzalore, Clara only hoped that something good would happen soon to bring up the Doctor's spirits again.

There was a knock at the TARDIS door, prompting Clara to go to it. She doubted it was David, Mary Margaret, or Emma coming back after leaving to deal with Neal's death. She wondered if it was any of the townspeople coming to ask the Doctor for help, which they seemed to be prone to doing quite a bit when he was there. If it was the case of a townsperson in need of assistance, Clara would just have to speak on the Doctor's behalf and tell them that it was not a good time. However, when she opened the door, she discovered there to be no one standing outside.

Clara stepped outside to search for the culprit of the supposed prank; it certainly was not a good time to pull one with the Doctor going through a crisis. But there was not a single person on the street corner where the TARDIS stood. She eventually gave up searching for the mysterious knocker and made her way back inside. As she moved her feet, she heard and felt something skid across the concrete beneath her left foot. Looking down and lifting her foot, she found an envelope that had her name and the exact address of the street where the TARDIS was parked on it. Curious as to why the envelope had her name and how it could have been addressed to that specific location, Clara picked it up and opened it as she walked back inside the TARDIS.