AN: Yeah, that's right! I'm rewriting the regeneration storyline and putting it HERE instead. I was re-reading it, and it's pretty abysmal, I really dislike it. So I hope everybody enjoys a big retcon.

Retrograde

1

DAY 3,794

She didn't know he would drown.

Every other Doctor she knew of had gone down in a blaze of glory. They had given their lives to save somebody else, had been faced with insurmountable odds, and had crucially been given a chance to say goodbye.

Clara didn't get any of that. She got a husband who had disappeared beneath the grey-black waves of the hostile Irish Sea. A husband who had been trying to impress her and had, grinning, vanished. In an instant, the Eleventh Doctor was gone, and Clara Oswald was left impotent and alone on the concrete shore, a shale beach cutting through the soles of her shoes, mist and fine rain.

She did not grieve gracefully. Within a few minutes, she was in the water as well. It became an out-of-body experience. She saw herself thrashing through the sea trying desperately to find him, only for a lifeguard to choose that moment to rescue her. She got rescued, but the privilege wasn't extended to the Doctor.

It was Oswin who found her, of course. Oswin felt the tremendous, gut-wrenching pull of Clara's loss from the other side of the universe. Oswin brought the TARDIS, Oswin came to get her, Oswin stayed with her when she refused to leave the beach no matter how cold it got.

Adam Mitchell did everything else. Clara was wrapped up in a cocoon of emotion that dulled her so much she couldn't do a thing, and she had to be stopped from continually pursuing him into the sea. Adam made the calls, informed Jenny, began the rescue efforts. People rallied. Rose and Mickey were largely to thank for finding him, after almost two days at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Rose, with the TARDIS, was able to locate him. Mickey, with his ability to breath underwater and a submersible propulsion scooter from CyTech, had been the one to actually dredge him up.

It wasn't the Eleventh Doctor who came up from the trench, though. It was a small and slender woman, covered in algae and sea filth. The regeneration happened underwater, out of sight and what felt like a thousand miles away. In his hour of need, the Doctor didn't have anybody.

His – her – pulse was weak, but there. Martha had been working as an emergency doctor in A&E for years now and had been on hand. She did CPR for what felt like hours, alternating between hearts, until the vomiting began. But vomiting was good. It was the first step toward recovery.

And it brought something else, too. A silver band of metal. Eleven had swallowed his wedding ring in his last moments to keep it from getting lost in the sea as well. Clara didn't care one bit for its coating of sickly seawater, she picked it up and slid it onto her thumb regardless. Nobody questioned her. She would wash it later.

Seventy-two hours after he had vanished, they were alone together again. The Doctor stayed in bed in their bedroom and Clara waited dutifully by their side. Rose told her that after the Tenth Doctor regenerated, he had been asleep for a long time as well. But at least they were breathing and both of their hearts were beating.

Clara hardly moved from the chair. Adam brought her food every so often. She ate very little and showered even less, though she did remember to get the ring clean eventually. She was nearly as catatonic as the Doctor and didn't even get into bed to sleep, just pulled up a blanket. Sometimes she read, usually she idly scrolled through her phone and checked them every few seconds. Alone, she peeled off Eleven's ruined tweeds, hung them up in the bathroom and brought clean, dry clothes over. She had cleaned the Doctor up with a sponge and a warm flannel. She hadn't been able to do as much for herself, though.

They started to move long before waking up fully, rolling from one side to the other. Clara watched every single movement like it was the most fascinating thing she had ever seen. Sometimes there was a cough or a stretch. She didn't keep track of time, but was sure it was another few days in this comatose limbo until the Doctor finally woke up.

"Doctor?" Clara asked, unable to hide both how desperate she was feeling and how hoarse her voice was. She hadn't been drinking properly. "Are you there? Are you awake?"

"Wh… where am I?" They were still woozy. Clara heard the accent sneaking in already though. She'd almost forgotten about that.

"On the TARDIS, you're safe." Eyes still closed, they took deep breaths. Then a coughing fit began. There was already a bowl by the bed that Clara lifted up.

"Who – who are you?" they asked between coughs. There was no seawater left to throw up, though.

"I'm Clara."

"What's happened?"

"You drowned, you went into the sea. You've been unconscious for days."

"No, no…" they shook their head and tried to climb out of bed, but they were still too weak. "I was on a planet… there were these trees… radiation… and these machines – Susan. I need to find Susan."

"Susan? Oh, er…" Clara knew very little about Susan, and certainly didn't know where to find her. It looked as though the Doctor had forgotten everything beyond the very beginning of their travels on the TARDIS. "She's fine. She's in another room, recovering."

"Those machines, you don't – it's not safe here."

"Of course it's safe here, this is the TARDIS," Clara told her again, "Your ship."

"I don't recognise it."

"You're… having some memory trouble."

"I don't have memory trouble, I'm… who am I?"

"The Doctor," Clara said, her heart breaking. "Do you want something to eat? What about, uh, fish fingers? And custard?" The Doctor looked as if they would be ill at the mere thought. "Maybe not… um, just… go back to sleep, maybe. You rest and I'll see if Susan is awake yet, how about that?"

The Doctor did lie back down and sank into sleep again very quickly. This left Clara with a problem. What did she do if the Doctor had to relive their entire past? She couldn't find those old companions, she didn't know any of them from before Rose, before the Time War. It was after this though that Clara made the decision to have a bed put into the console room. For once, the TARDIS itself obliged, and the Doctor was moved. It was Eleven's console room and a difficult place for Clara to be, but she thought it would be more familiar. The Doctor would, at least, recognise it as the TARDIS, even if it looked different to what they were expecting.

This did work. The next few times the Doctor regained some lucidity were none so fraught. Clara was still unrecognised, but the Doctor conjured more and more names to ask for every time. First, it was Susan, eventually Polly; Jamie; Jo; Sarah; Romana; Ace… it went on. Clara felt as though she was learning more about the Doctor's past as they fumbled through their own memories than she had in the last ten years.

"You look familiar," they would sometimes tell her.

"We travel together," Clara would say.

"But I don't remember."

"I know, but you will soon. Look how much you've remembered already."

With Adam's help she got the Doctor to eat, though their stomach remained weak for a long while because of how much saltwater they'd consumed. Jenny was there, too. She visited the TARDIS every day, which was stationary down in London so that the Doctor would at least recognise the city if they wandered out, and usually brought something to eat.

"I don't want to talk to her until she asks for me," Jenny said quietly when she dropped the food off, "If she doesn't remember who I am, I'll… I'll be illegitimate all over again."

"I'll tell you as soon as she does," Clara promised each time.

There were days lost to the memories of the Time War. The Doctor wouldn't eat a thing, would barely drink or talk, when she remembered that Gallifrey was long gone and she was almost completely alone.

"The Master is still alive," Clara told them. "Susan probably, somewhere. We could find her, if you like?"

"But how could I ever tell her what happened?" said the Doctor, rolling onto their side and facing away from Clara, who still sat stoically in her chair. She'd been able to shower more regularly now, at least, and her own appetite was coming back. She used Adam and Oswin's bathroom because his clothes were still hanging up, coated in algae and smelling of the sea, in hers.

Eventually, though, there was Rose.

"She helped us get you out of the sea," said Clara, "She and Mickey."

"They split up."

"Yeah, but… we – I – know them." Clara and Rose had never been on particularly good terms, but they were both adults, and Rose had been through a regeneration before. When Clara asked her to visit, she did, just like she had been there to help search for Eleven.

"I haven't seen anyone I recognise in weeks!" said the Doctor, taking Rose by surprise and actually hugging her. Rose didn't really hug back.

"You're having memory trouble," Rose told her, the same thing Clara had been saying.

"It hasn't been 'weeks'," said Clara. "Maybe ten days."

"I'm shorter than I used to be. I used to be taller than you," said the Doctor.

"You're a woman, as well," said Rose.

"Oh, I don't know about all that."

"Have you looked in a mirror yet?"

"Mirrors-schmirrors. I know I'm not ginger, and that's all I care about." Rose spent an afternoon going over their travels together, laughing over old stories, answering questions the Doctor had about what they could or couldn't recall.

It went this way with Martha next, as well. Then Donna. Amy and Rory. Clara couldn't get hold of River the whole while to tell her what was going on, and couldn't say she was too disheartened. She wanted the Doctor to remember her, not River, she was 'the Doctor's wife'. Maybe it was selfish of her to be so increasingly crushed by a parade of women the Doctor could remember coming in and out of the ship, but she couldn't erase her feelings.

Days later, Clara had a laptop out and was watching yet another period drama, the only media she'd been consuming since it had happened. She wasn't sure what it was, maybe an old adaptation of Mansfield Park, but it could have just as easily been Vanity Fair or Howards End.

"You always did like those things."

"Excuse me?" she looked up. The Doctor was sitting up in bed and watching over her shoulder.

"Period dramas." Clara had been a little slouched, but now she sat up so quickly that the laptop went crashing to the floor. She didn't bother to check on it or pick it up.

"Do you remember who I am?"

"Of course I do."

"Of-? What do you mean 'of course you do'!?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You haven't remembered who I am for two weeks, and now you just-" Clara didn't even know what to say. "It just comes back to you?"

"We were in Victorian Yorkshire, weren't we? Is that my present? Did I die and regenerate in that awful room I was locked up in?"

"Um, no, you're… you're not caught up yet. We've got… No. You didn't die in that room."

"You've been sitting there for two weeks, right next to me," the Doctor pointed out. "Just you, in that chair, answering my questions."

"I'm your most recent companion," she said, "What else am I going to do? Leave you to nurse yourself back to health?" We took vows about that.

"You could have, couldn't you, Coo?"

"Why did you call me that?"

"I…" The Doctor faltered, "It felt right. Rolled off the tongue. Do other people not call you that?"

"Only you. It's personal, between us."

She frowned, "That's strange. Have you been sleeping in that chair?"

"Yes. And I washed you, helped change your clothes, helped you go to the toilet, even." She needed to remember the Dimension Crash and everything it had brought. Oswin, Adam, Jenny, even Nios.

"Why would you do all that?"

Clara crossed her arms and slumped in her chair. "I fancy you, don't I?" she said with a sigh. The regressed, pre-Trenzalore, pre-Crash Doctor didn't exactly know how to reconcile this information.

"Uh – that's – people don't usually – I'm-"

"Don't worry about it," Clara told her. "You still have things to remember. It isn't a secret. I haven't waited until you've died to confess my feelings." She didn't know how to respond but did begin to go red. Clara took the opportunity to pick the computer back up from the floor; it was fine. "I can put it back on and you can watch it too, if you like?"

"Do you like soufflés?"

"Yes, very much."

"Your mother used to bake them…"

"She did."

"But you can't cook."

"That's right."

"Who's been making my food?"

"Adam Mitchell."

"Adam-? That isn't right. Not him. I wouldn't let him back on my TARDIS."

"You'll remember soon. He's changed a lot. He's dating my sister."

"You have a sister? I don't think you ever said."

"Well, she's not my sister, I made her when I jumped into your time stream, on Trenzalore."

"You did what?" She was aghast. "You'd die. That's impossible."

"That's what you used to call me, your 'Impossible Girl'. You've met her, Oswin."

"Oswin… she's – that's why you're-? You jumped into my time stream?"

"The Great Intelligence was trying to kill you across your entire lifespan," she explained, "I followed it in, made a thousand Echoes of myself all to save your life a thousand times over. It was one of them who told you which TARDIS to steal from Gallifrey."

"…She died, though. Oswin. In the Asylum."

"Mm," Clara nodded, "She's a hologram now. Solid, hard-light. Retrieved by Jack and Amy just moments before the planet exploded."

"That doesn't make sense. Jack and Amy have never met, I wouldn't allow that."

"You'd be surprised. I've met Rose, after all. And the others, they've all been here recently."

"And I don't understand that. Rose was in a parallel universe with no way home the last I checked. And Donna isn't supposed to remember anything about me."

"I promise, it'll make sense soon." Inasmuch as the nonsensical Dimension Crash would ever make sense.

The Doctor crossed her arms in a huff, "I don't like anything about this."

"Yes, you always did feel that way."

"And I don't like this accent, either. It feels weird in my mouth, like a bad taste. You know?"

"I've never spontaneously changed accents before, so no, not really."

"Did you say you washed me?"

"Who else was going to do it?"

"I think I can wash myself," she grumbled, "I've been doing it for twelve-hundred years. Or is that not how old I am?"

"It is, actually. Thereabouts."

"And how old are you?"

"Thirty-six now."

"Do you mean you saw me naked? If you washed me?"

"You're very hung up on this, aren't you?"

"Well, I feel a little violated, to be honest."

"I didn't think of it like that, you're… it's just something I had to do, as… There was no funny business, if that's what you're worried about. Nurses give people in old people's homes sponge-baths all the time."

"But I'm not in an old people's home."

"Maybe you should be. You're archaic, and you've been bedridden for a fortnight," Clara pointed out. She scowled again.

"How old were you when we met?"

"Twenty-six."

"That's ten years ago. We haven't been travelling together for ten years. I never travel with anyone for that long."

"You saw River for three centuries," she pointed out.

"How do you know about River?"

"We've met. Trenzalore. She's a hologram, too, pulled from the Library I think," said Clara.

"And you know about all that? I've told you this?"

"You kind of had to, when she showed up."

"…You know, you don't seem all that happy about me remembering you," said the Doctor after a moment.

"I am happy. But you still haven't remembered the biggest things. Biggest things where I'm concerned, that is."

"About these 'Echoes'?"

"No, not about that. Look, I'll tell you if you want, but you're not going to believe me. You're going to freak out."

"I will not." She was being haughty. Clara was not convinced.

"You will, and you'll tell me to leave. But we could just talk about something else."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, this console room?" she suggested, looking around, "It's… it's his. And now you're… maybe you want to redesign it, I don't know. Maybe you don't like gold and green so much."

"Do you like gold and green, Clara?" she asked.

"I like it because it's his. But it was blue when we met." The Doctor nodded.

"I might look at it later. It's not urgent. But I like purple."

"Lavender," said Clara.

"Yes, that shade. How did you know?"

"Lucky guess. That with silver. Some white." The Doctor frowned at her. "What?"

"How do you know these things? It's like you're in my head."

"I'm… it's been ten years. Do you want something to eat? I can get Adam to make something."

"I'd like a word with him, actually," she said, sounding annoyed.

"Yes, I believe that's why he's avoiding you until you properly remember who he is. Because he thinks you'll kick him off again. I'd rather you didn't."

"We'll see. I've regenerated, maybe I have less goodwill now."

"You didn't have all that much goodwill for him before, to tell you the truth," said Clara, "But do you want some food? I'll text him. He's a good cook."

"What do you like to eat? Apart from soufflés."

"Anything with mayonnaise in it. What about you? Any cravings? Fish fingers?"

"You keep asking me about fish fingers."

"That's what you told Amy you wanted last time."

"I just want some chips. Or do I have to call them 'fries' now?"

"You call them whatever you like, darling."

"Darling?"

"I-" Clara faltered after taking out her phone to text Adam. The Doctor stared at her, utterly baffled. Clara's face grew hot. "Alright. The thing is – the thing you're not going to like – is that you might be, erm… you might feel a bit like you're in love with me."

"I'm not," she said immediately.

"You might be soon, in that case. Because you certainly were before you regenerated. For ten years, in fact," said Clara.

"I said that to you?"

"You said it to me every single day. And I said it back."

"Well, obviously you're in love with me, I've known that the whole time," she was dismissive. Clara raised her eyebrows. "But I don't know where you get this idea that it's reciprocated."

Clara actually smiled, for the first time in weeks, "That's alright, I suppose. You'll remember, darling."

"Hmph."

"I'll get those chips, shall I?" She didn't respond. Clara texted Adam anyway, an update that the Doctor finally remembered her, but did not yet remember why he was there.

"Wait, hang on, you're saying you love me?"

"You just said that it was obvious, five seconds ago."

"No, but – really?"

"We got married."

"We didn't get married."

"We did."

"Did not."

"We did."

"Prove it, then."

"Do you remember what you called me the day we met? When you landed outside the Maitlands' house after looking for me for years?" said Clara, taking Eleven's oversized ring off her thumb. "You called me 'Clara Oswin Oswald'. 'C-O-O'. Look at the inscription." She gave the Doctor the ring back. The inscription had rubbed off a little over the years, but it was still clearly legible. "That's why you call me 'Coo'. Which you already did, because it 'rolled off the tongue'." She said nothing. "See, I said you wouldn't believe me."

"This can't be right. I would have remembered something like this right away."

"You didn't even remember the Time War."

She was quiet for a while, then held the ring back out to Clara, "Do you have one of these?"

"Yes," Clara showed her left hand.

"What does it say in it?"

"It says 'T-E-D', for 'The Eleventh Doctor'."

"Can I see it?"

"If you promise not to throw it away, or something," said Clara, admittedly a little nervous about giving over what really was her most prized possession to someone who barely knew who she was.

"I won't do that." Very reluctantly, Clara handed it over. "Do you not have one of the other ones? An engagement ring?"

"Oh, I do, I just don't wear it. We were never really, um, engaged. We sort of… eloped. And we were both drunk. Don't expect to remember that, because I have absolutely no idea what happened. But we woke up and we were married the next day."

"And this was when? Ten years ago?"

"Yes."

"What happened after that? How do we go from drunkenly eloping to you refusing to leave my side for weeks?"

"I don't know, really. The eloping thing just forced us to be honest, I suppose. And there we were, married. We just carried on like that."

"Huh."

"Do you believe me?"

"I don't know…" she gave Clara the ring back. "I don't think you would lie to me, though. And you have been there all this time. And it's not like I…"

"Like you what?" asked Clara softly.

"Like I don't enjoy your company. But, wait… I used to be a man."

"That's right."

"And now I'm a woman."

"Yes."

"But you're a woman." Clara looked at her. "You don't seem fazed by that. And you're a human, humans can be weird about those things."

"They certainly can. I'm bisexual, though. Since way before I met you. So, no, I'm not particularly 'fazed' by you turning into a beautiful woman."

"I didn't know that. Did you tell me that before?"

"Where you're at, no, I don't think so. How is it being a woman instead, though?" Clara had been dying to ask this, but the Doctor hadn't been in a good enough frame of mind to answer.

"I'm shorter. I don't like it. It isn't fair; Amy isn't short. She's tall and ginger."

"You want to regenerate into Amy, is that what you're saying?"

"Romana did that once. We met a princess, Princess Astra, and the next day – what do you know? Romana had her face. And her everything else, too. I call that a waste of a regeneration."

"You never learnt how to regenerate properly though, did you?" Clara jibed. "So, it's a crapshoot every time."

"I barely even know what I look like."

"Do you want a mirror? I'll get you a mirror."

"You'll have to leave to do that."

"Only for a minute."

"Don't go," she said quietly. Clara had begun to get up from the chair, but she sank back down and managed to smile.

"Okay. How about my phone? You can look at the screen, or the camera." Clara held her phone out. The Doctor looked at it sceptically.

"Do you have pictures on there of us?" she asked.

"Oh. Yeah. Do you want to see them?"

She thought about this for a while before coming regretfully to her conclusion. "No. Not until I remember things for myself."

"That's alright. Whenever you're ready."

"Have you really been sleeping in that chair all this time?" she asked.

"I'm keeping an eye on you."

"I know, but – if you could bring me a bed out here, couldn't you bring yourself one, too?"

"I'm good in my chair."

"…Where do you usually sleep? Do you live here? I don't remember you living here. We were just in Yorkshire, it was Wednesday – I visit you on Wednesdays."

"I do live here now. Because we got married. And I usually sleep in our bedroom, with you. That's where you were initially, I brought you in here because I thought it would be easier. You didn't recognise anything in there."

"I don't sleep often."

"I know, once a week, just about. But you usually stay there with me anyway."

"Why would I do that?" she was more confused about this than anything else Clara had said.

"You don't know this yet, but I have nightmares. They're very bad. That's why you stay every night, in case it happens."

"Did you have nightmares before we met?"

"Yes. Since mum died, in 2005."

"I didn't know that."

"I don't tell people. I would never have told you, but you've been there when they happen."

"Because I stay with you while you sleep?" Clara nodded. "Every night?"

"Yes."

"You're serious?"

"I'm serious."

"Every night? Really?" They were going around in circles. Clara slouched down even more in her chair, then met the Doctor's eyes.

"What is it you actually want to ask me?" She got a wall of silence in lieu of a response. The Doctor wouldn't even look at her. "Very good, very mature."

"Excuse me?"

"Jesus. If you want to know if we've had sex, just ask me that." She blustered incoherently. Just as bad as Eleven had always been. In her huff, she eventually looked away from Clara. Clara kicked the bedframe and it rocked a little.

"Hey!"

"Just ask me."

"Your intimate business is your intimate business."

"And what if it's yours, too?"

"Is it?" she asked carefully.

"Well, I mean, think about it. There we are, married to each other, talking about our feelings, sharing a bed every single night…"

"You're making fun of me."

"Maybe a little. You seem very embarrassed, though."

"You're talking about extremely private things that may or may not even be true."

"You said you didn't want to see the pictures I have saved on my phone," said Clara innocently. The Doctor glared at her, bright red.

"Is that what's on there?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny. Here you are, asking me about extremely private things that may or may not be true…"

"That's ridiculous. You're Clara. You're Clara Oswald. You're soufflé-girl, live-in-nanny, tea-making, book-reading Clara."

"Never in all my life have I heard you describe me like that. Why does me being a nanny and reading books mean I'm not able to shag you? I'm too busy?" she questioned. "I'm not a nanny anymore, anyway."

"Well, how many times?"

"Sorry?"

"More than five?"

Clara laughed, "Bloody hell. Yes, I dare say, we've slept together more than five times. Basically every single day for about ten years. You do the maths."

"That can't be right. You're messing with me, aren't you?"

"Not really."

"But I'd remember."

"You will soon. And I bet you're excited just thinking about it, aren't you?" Again, she scoffed and looked away. "Filthy. You're a dirty, old man."

"I shouldn't be involved with you like this. It's not right. You're human, and I'm – what's going to happen when you-? I can't even think about that." Clara didn't say anything, which aroused the Doctor's suspicions again. "What? You're going to tell me something else I won't like, aren't you?"

"No. I think I've told you enough for one day. I'll let you work out the rest on your own." She opened the laptop again. "Do you want to watch this with me? It's Sense and Sensibility."

"I'm married to a human girl who's addicted to period dramas."

"Yes, you are." Clara pressed play on the computer again, angling the screen so that the Doctor could also see it. They'd never exactly been a couple who sat and simply watched things together – to busy running away from monsters and saving the world – so it was a little surreal. If Clara had wanted to watch period dramas with somebody before, she would often rope in Adam, who had a soft spot for romances.

"My hands used to be bigger," said the Doctor after a while. She was staring at the backs of her own hands and turning them over.

"In general, woman do have smaller hands," said Clara.

"No, I mean – that ring. It's too big. Why didn't it fall off when I was in the sea? You've been telling me I drowned."

"You swallowed it," said Clara.

"I did?"

"Yeah. We pulled you out of the sea, Martha did CPR for ages, eventually you started puking, and you puked up this with all the seawater."

"You're saying that while I was drowning, with my last breath, that's what I did?"

"I think you didn't want to lose it," she said quietly. "And now I've got it. I didn't even wash it right away."

"You just wore a ring covered in sick?"

"I mean, I wiped it," she shrugged, "What am I supposed to? I'm…" she paused. "You're my…" She couldn't find the right word. She sighed. "We're married." The Doctor went quiet again for some time.

"I don't think I trust this Willoughby character," she said eventually.

"Don't you remember the plot? I'm sure you've read this. It's Jane Austen."

"I don't like Jane Austen."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I just know that I don't." Clara laughed a little. "What's funny?"

"Nothing. But if you've forgotten all these plots, well, we've got a lot of classic literature to get through. We could do Les Mis, or go through Thomas Hardy, or the Brontës. Dorian Gray, obviously."

"Why is that obvious?"

"You'll see. But really, the possibilities are endless. I wish I could forget every book I've ever read so I could read them all again."

"You want to jump into the sea as well, then." Clara said nothing. "Sorry. Is that too soon?"

"A bit."

"…Is she going to marry him?" she nodded at the screen.

"You'll just have to wait and see."