Writing to Reach You
There was once a beautiful girl who wandered through the stars, with a Prince from a far-off land.
Not only was this girl lovely to behold, but she was also courageous and kind of heart, willing to sacrifice her life for the sake of those whom she cared about. The last part was no exaggeration - indeed, she had almost destroyed herself once, in order that her Prince could live.
That part of the story had a happy ending however, as her Prince was very, very clever, and rescued her from certain death.
Albeit, not before she ended up cutting up portions of herself, spreading her essence throughout all of Time. Indeed, there is said to be a version of her in every generation since the day of the Prince's birth, all the way to the day he died.
That last part proved to be kind of iffy.
"You're not looking so well," the Doctor observed as Clara trudged in. He was standing in front of one of the many bookshelves lining the upper section of the TARDIS console room. "Have you thought about going back to that make-up stuff?"
"Very funny. Have you considered retiring from Time-lording to take up comedy?" Clara responded irritably, shutting the door behind her.
"Aren't we grumpy today." the Doctor's eyebrows were raised. "I wasn't aware that 'Time-lording' was a verb,"
"Ugh," she pronounced eloquently, slumping down into one of the chairs he had placed by the edges of the TARDIS main deck. She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to gather her strangely scattered thoughts.
Of late, she had been finding it harder to concentrate on anything at all. Teaching her students and grading their papers was becoming an exhaustive effort. Sleep was hard to come by. When she did manage to drift off in the deep watches of the night, her dreams were strangely muddled and confusing, leaving her with a sense of wary unease each morning when she awoke.
"Seriously, are you ok?" the Doctor asked, his voice coming from right beside her.
Her eyes snapped open - she hadn't even heard him approach, didn't sense that he had crouched low to study her up close.
"I'm fine," she said, annoyed, feeling a little sneaked-up upon. Realizing he was still looking at her in genuine and unwavering concern, her voice softened. "I promise you, I really am. I just haven't been resting very well."
"Are you sure you want to travel today?" he asked uncertainly.
For a man who believed he was the smartest being in the universe, he certainly had a lot insecurities, Clara thought as she looked at him with deep fondness. She resisted the urge to run her fingers through his curls.
"Yes," she said simply. "Wouldn't miss it for the world. Where are we going?"
The Doctor grinned.
The girl had not only the adoration and loyalty of her clever Prince, but also the affections of a noble soldier, one who had thought that he could never love again after the horrors he had witnessed on the field of battle. When he gazed at her, he saw the future generations of his own lineage, saw the warm and lovely home they could build together within the kingdom which he served.
For a time, she loved them both, and because they both loved her, they refused to give her cause for distress with their petty differences.
To be clear though, they hated each other guts.
Clara awoke from her mid-afternoon nap, not feeling any more rested than when she had climbed under her sheets at two in the afternoon. Outside, the sky was dark. It would appear that she had slept for the better part of the day.
There was a message on her cell phone, she noticed, from Danny.
"Hey, it's me, wasn't sure if you wanted to grab a bite, seeing as it's Saturday night, and we didn't manage to get together earlier…if I don't hear from you, I'm just going to assume you're busy. Doing…something else." There was a pause before he continued. "Promise you'll be careful ok? I love you."
She ought to call him, she thought to herself. She ought to explain that no, she hadn't been up to anything else at all. Hadn't even seen the Doctor, as he was so clearly implying.
Although…didn't she just see the Time Lord? Wasn't she just running down a long dark tunnel with strangers, hiding from two-dimensional monsters? The TARDIS had become small - sweetly small, something for her to protect and cherish.
That sounded like a dream, actually.
She could always call the Doctor and ask him, she supposed. That was always an option.
Instead, Clara sat on her bed staring off into nothing for a long while, shivering only very slightly.
There was a terrible secret the girl held, which neither man knew about. Although at first, it was such a secret that even she did not know that it existed.
You see, a seed had been planted inside her soul without her knowledge, on the day when she had so selflessly sacrificed herself for her Prince. The seed grew and grew within her, until it became a sinister offspring of shadow and bitterness. The Beast ate away at her voice, replacing it with it's own cruel octaves.
Life can be a real bitch.
Clara felt…odd.
A forest had sprung up in the night throughout London, and there were hungry creatures lurking within. She was worried - deeply so - about the children in her care: they were young and weak, vulnerable and frightened.
Predators liked that sort of thing.
But for some reason, she could not seem to be of much use.
Instead of calling their parents, she called the Doctor first, to gloat about the situation no less.
Instead of trying to find a way to bring everyone to safety, she was flirting with Danny.
It was almost as if she wasn't quite able to control her body, or her words, and when she did manage to bring herself around to focus on a situation, she was always a step or two behind.
Perhaps the strangest moment was when she found herself trying to persuade the Doctor not to save the children or herself.
This isn't right, she thought, blinking stupidly in the bright sunlight as they stood beside the TARDIS.
The Doctor's next words though, they cut through her thoughts like bullets through rotten fruit.
"I walk your earth," he said earnestly, looking at her as if she were the only hope left in the universe. "I breathe your air."
What she wanted to do was to reach out and touch him, to offer him the comfort he so very obviously craved, Danny's jealousies be damned.
"And on behalf of this world," Clara heard the words coming out of her mouth with a growing horror. "You're very welcome."
Something was terribly wrong with her.
She wanted to tell him to save the children, to save as many of them as he possibly could, because that was the right and logical thing to do. Instead, she was persuading him that it wasn't fair to subject all of the children and herself, to the fate of becoming the last of humankind.
So what if we are the last of our species? At least we would bloody survive, she mentally screamed at the nameless force which thought to speak on her behalf.
A faint echo of a giggle rebounded in her mind.
Alone with the Doctor in her apartment, Clara felt her hand reach out to touch the Doctor's as they stood on the balcony, watching as the trees disappeared into countless sparks.
"Clara…" he said, not looking at her. "Today…when I thought I was going to lose you…I…um."
"Doctor?" her imposter asked, sounding amused. Inside, Clara's rage went unnoticed. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
"I'm trying to say," he sighed, turning his body to look at her. "I'm trying to say that you mean…a lot to me."
She could feel her facial muscles stretch as her smile grew bigger. Her fingers squeezed the Doctor's hand more firmly.
"I feel the same." she heard her voice tell him.
Those should have been my words, Clara seethed.
Doctor, she called desperately in her mind. Doctor, please.
For a moment, she caught a puzzled look in his eye and she felt a rush of joy - he can hear me!
"You should know…" her voice continued, dipping into demure consonants, tinged with artificial guilt. "I've been thinking a lot about you lately. About us."
"I'm afraid I don't follow." the Doctor shook his head, looking away as he shuffled awkwardly.
Had Clara control of her body just then, she would have been breathless in panic.
Her shadow child could not remain an offspring forever. To her horror, the Beast gnawed its way out of her heart and spread its dark wings, calling down the heavens to destroy everything the girl held dear.
It was like watching a movie that played all the time, except she couldn't look away, couldn't shut her eyes or her senses. Clara was well and trapped in her body, incapable of affecting the world around her.
The worst part of become nothing more than a marionette was that she had no idea who was doing it or how it had even happened. Countless hours spent screaming in her mind at her silent captor drew no response. Occasionally, she caught the whispers of strange conversations, and sometimes, she heard that same, high pitched tittering laugh that seemed hauntingly…familiar.
Her body made love to Danny, all coos and sighs and sweet moans.
Her eyes stared longingly at the Doctor, watching as he gazed back at her with the same yearning.
They're mine, Clara declared furiously but to no avail. Every look and every touch - they're mine. You have no right, no fucking right.
Resentfully, she stared out at both the unwitting man and the Time Lord, men who were supposed to know her best. How could they not see that she had been replaced? That she was being used like a meat puppet?
And one of them was probably psychic, for crying out loud.
The Doctor's weight was on her, mouth pressing against hers like there was no tomorrow. Technically, she supposed, that was accurate. They were currently facing down the possibility that there was a massive creature under the surface of the earth, attempting to eat out its core.
She could feel her body responding, her face tilting up eagerly to receive his bruising kisses. Clever, clever fingers dipped under her clothes, drawing out throaty moans from her chest.
Not like this, Clara thought. It shouldn't have been like this.
Hot tears gathered in her eyes.
"Am I hurting you?" the Doctor asked, pausing in his ministrations when he realized she was crying.
"No," her voice replied. "I've just wanted this for so long…Doctor, please."
Clara couldn't stop her tears from drying up, and she couldn't stop the Doctor from taking her roughly against the console, his hands gripping at her body possessively.
It should have been my choice, she screamed, even as she could feel her flesh responding to his touch.
"Clara," he breathed against her skin.
Vainly, she tried to stop the creature she had nurtured against her will. She watched as it tried to harm her Prince, who steadfastly refused to hurt her for the Beast wore her face as a mockery of everything she had once stood for.
It wasn't very long after that Clara found herself staring out at the Doctor, fighting with every last ounce of her energy to stop her hand from pressing the button that would destroy his ship, and a large portion of humanity with it.
For the first time, her resolve seemed to be working, although she wasn't sure how long she could hold on to what little control she had won. Nearby, she could hear the sounds of soldiers shouting and shooting…people dying. All because of what her puppet master had done.
"You bitch," her own voice snapped out loud at Clara.
Carefully, the Doctor approached her and spun her around, tugging her away from the dashboard of lights and buttons.
"No," her voice protested indignantly, like a child deprived of its plaything.
Yes, Clara thought with some triumph.
The Time Lord pressed his hands against her temples, a look of concentration on his ashen face.
"Come back to me," he pleaded urgently. "Clara, I know you're still in there."
"There's no possible way you can…" her imposter started haughtily.
"Silence," he thundered. "I have heard enough from you, whoever you are. Give her back to me now."
he Prince, himself of no mean skill, fought to release her from her invisible bonds, to rescue his girl from the grips of a madness that had rotted out her core.
In desperation, he remembered the tales of old, of how other Princes had broken the enchantments of other Princesses.
Clara could tell from his expression that he was growing desperate.
"Please," he begged, a bead of blood trickling down from a cut in his forehead. "Come back."
Softly, the Doctor pressed a kiss on her lips. As their lips connected, a current of something deep and powerful swept through her, pushing all mental restraints aside like a wave.
"Doctor," Clara rasped, working her vocal cords for the first time in months. "Doctor please, while I'm in control…"
"Clara," his relief was evident in the sagging of his shoulders. "My Clara,"
"Please…" she wept. "End this now. I can't…I can't stop it. It's creeping back."
It was true - she could feel her grip on her body beginning to slide away once again. She could not - would not - go through it once more; she could not bear the thought of becoming a prisoner in her own flesh for even one second longer.
"I can save you, I just need some time," he implored, his face ravaged with grief while his hands held on to her tightly as if that were all it took to keep her close. "Trust me,"
Someone else was in the room with them; she could hear the soft tapping of leather boots on the ground.
"Remember me Doctor," she said, echoing her words from another time. She pressed one final desperate kiss on her Doctor's lips. "Remember me as I was…you owe me that much,"
Clara shoved him away, hard enough that he fell backwards onto the ground with a loud crash.
"Step away from the Doctor," Danny's voice rang out as he turned a corner, both hands on his gun, his finger on the trigger.
"Doesn't matter," Clara forced herself to laugh the way she remembered her imposter did. "It's too late anyhow,"
"Clara, no!" The Doctor called out in horror as he began to understand what her intentions were.
"Poor man's lost his wits," she said carelessly, staring down at him. Only the Doctor was close enough to see that her eyes were shining with tears. "Lovesick fool. She fucked him you know. She thought of him every time she was fucking you too,"
"Shut up," Danny growled as he approached, his skin smeared with soot and blood. "You don't get to talk about her."
"Listen to me," the Doctor tried to stand. "Danny…"
Knowing that all his efforts would be for naught, for she was no Princess, the girl sought out her other lover - she sought out her Soldier.
The Doctor realized later that he was always going to be too late; that there was no move he could have made that would have prevented what came next.
There was a loud bang.
Clara's head snapped back. A red and spreading wound blossomed quickly across her forehead as her body wavered where it stood, like someone had just cut the strings off a puppet. She collapsed very soon after, into a boneless heap.
The back of her skull was a mess and her blood splattered the room in wet red streaks.
"Clara," the Doctor stumbled towards her, his mind refusing to register the scene before him.
"Doctor, we have to go," Danny strode towards the Time Lord. "It's not safe here, the enemy is moving."
"I can't leave her," he said stubbornly, trying to reach the unmoving woman. Danny had other ideas however, as he scooped the Doctor back and away.
"Stop it please," the Doctor said. "Just let me go to her,"
"She wasn't Clara," Danny's eyes were shadowed. "Not anymore."
"I had almost gotten her back," the Doctor insisted, staring up at the soldier with wild eyes. "I could have saved her,"
Danny didn't pause in his efforts of dragging the Doctor bodily out of the room.
His sword slashed and fell as he followed her bidding. Though he loved the girl, the Soldier was above all, loyal to his kingdom.
With that one heroic act, an act that tasted like ashes in the Soldier's mouth, the conflict saw the beginnings of its end.
The dead beast's armies were defeated. But there were those who retreated into the shadows, waiting…
The Doctor could not remember the last time he had launched into an endeavour with such hatred fuelling his every move. Not since the Time War.
It was such a short time ago, he recalled, when he had abhorred the use of violence as much as was reasonably possible.
"Perhaps you should take some time to rest," Captain Kate Stewart said very carefully after a skirmish. "I think UNIT has things well under control at this point."
"This will only be finished when blood has been paid in blood." the Doctor answered coldly as he wiped at his bruised knuckles with a dirty rag.
He found the Woman in one of the pods of her smoking ship, apparently still attempting to work out an escape plan. As he stepped through the burnt hatchway, she stopped what she was doing, and for a moment, the two of them simply stared at each other in silence.
"Hello my love," she said, her lips curving in a sharp smile as she flirtatiously swept her dark hair back.
"I am not your love." He moved closer, hiding his shaking hands behind his back.
"Oh but you are," she giggled, although there was a nervous edge to her laughter. "I still remember the things you whispered to me only a few days ago…"
"I wasn't talking to you then," his face flushed in anger. "Why did you do it?"
"Pardon?" she backed away from him, her smile beginning to take on a manic edge.
"Why Clara?" he asked, voice dropping dangerously low as he advanced upon her. "You could have picked anyone else to do your dirty work. Why her?"
"Why…" she paused. "Because I love you. Because I've loved you since the day…she…I met you, and it wasn't fair that you've only ever wanted her. She sent me so far away, and I could no longer bear it."
"You did this out of love?" he was incredulous. "You hurt and threatened everyone and everything I cared about because you…love…me?"
"I wanted you to hate her," the Woman's back was against the wall now. "There was never going to be room in your heart for me, otherwise,"
"But you slipped and showed your hand." He had almost closed the gap between them.
"I was tired of pretending to be her." She sneered. "I couldn't take another ounce of that simpering goodness for another second. More than that - I wanted you to see me."
They stood inches apart; her lips parted slightly as her breathing became uneven.
"I can make you happy if you'd just let me," she murmured, eyes wide. "You and I, we're the same. We do whatever it takes to get what we want,"
"Do you really think so?" he asked, tenderly cupping her familiar face.
"I made my way through the fabric of time just to find you," she looked into his eyes. "And I didn't even have a TARDIS,"
Clara's Echo nuzzled into his touch trustingly, but gasped in shock when his grip on her tightened painfully. His thumbs dug into her cheeks with cruel strength.
"My love, what are you…"
She never got to finish her sentence. Without warning, the Doctor shoved her body against the wall and twisted her head sharply to the right.
There was an audible crack.
"I told you," he said to no one. "I'm not your love."
Letting her lifeless body fall to the ground, he turned around and walked out of the burning ship, never once looking back.
The deed done, the soldier disappeared from the world, unable to face the fruit of his efforts.
The Prince was quick to follow suit.
Danny, he was told, had been posted to South America, in a secret bunker somewhere in Paraguay.
"He's leading our operatives on a mission," Kate told him as she walked him to the TARDIS. "I hope you hadn't wanted to say goodbye…it's hard to reach him where he is,"
The Doctor was relieved - he hadn't much in the way of words for the man who killed Clara Oswald, even if he understood the man's motivations.
"Are you…are you going to be ok?" Kate asked, stopping at the front doors of the Police Call Box.
"I'll be fine," the Doctor had one hand on his door handle. He gave her a wan smile. "I don't have a choice do I?"
"I suppose not," she said. "Please, take care of yourself Doctor. You were a good friend to my father…I would like to know that you are well, wherever you are,"
"I…" The doctor realized he didn't know how to continue. Instead, very simply, he said, "Thank you."
Wrenching open the door of the TARDIS, the Doctor stepped in and closed the door firmly behind him.
Life fades into memory, memory fades into stories, and stories themselves change each time in the telling and retelling of tales. Dragons hatch out of ordinary glass mirrors; magical swords appear in stones where there was only a pebble before.
Even knowing the nature of stories, because he loved the girl (even if he would never say it for fear of what it might do to to the enchantment he had laid on his own heart) the Prince told her story, over and over to anyone who would listen.
Over time, people forgot the beast, but remembered her for the woman she was. Even the Prince himself eventually, although never completely, forgot more about the beast, and remembered more about the girl.
"For the lack of a better word…OW." the Doctor groaned. He had been chasing a scaly creature in downtown New New New Singapore, right up to the moment when he had run headlong into another living body.
"Oh gods, I'm so sorry!" a feminine voice exclaimed.
His squinted upwards, and his green eyes landed on the person who had crashed into him.
"Are you ok?" she asked anxiously, reaching down to help him stand up. The Doctor accepted her hand in a daze.
"I'm great," he said finally with a large, goofy grin. "I'm so very good right now,"
"Good…" she seemed almost satisfied by his self-assessment. Her hand remained in his. "My name's Clara by the way…do I know you from somewhere?"
He couldn't help but laugh.
And here, dear Reader, is where we end this tale. As a wise man once said, there are no such things as happy endings - only where you stop telling the story.
The End. Ish.