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He was expecting, foolishly, as he always did, Renaissance Italy, the creation of life, but instead, war came to him, as it always did. It all happened so quickly; he stepped out of the TARDIS and suddenly a simultaneous explosion of sound, lights, and physical force took everything out of him. It was everything at once and then nothing at all. It was the empty darkness behind his eyelids that he ran from, that kept him darting from wonder to wonder, no time to stop and contemplate the emptiness there.
There was all this darkness and then a dream, with that yellow blur that he knew fever dreams had. He always knew when he was dreaming. It was a burden.
He was standing in a sea of silver grass that waved around his knees, dancing to the wind, the sky a flat white above. He scanned the horizon, sensible even in dreams because he knew sometimes they were more dangerous than reality. The only thing he could see other than the endless grass was a blood red figure standing far enough away from him that he could only see the colour. But this was a dream, and there was nothing he could do but move towards it, but without moving his feet. It was if they moved towards each other. As he neared the figure, it became clear that it was a girl, in a red dress that rippled around her thighs. There was something painfully familiar about the girl. And of course he’d known, he’d known as soon as he’d seen that splash of red.
“Clara.”
She stood there, smiling, her arms outstretched to him. That smile, the familiarity of it and the realisation of how much he missed it, hurt him more than anything ever had.
He stepped towards her.
He felt himself being shaken, pulled out of the dream, away from her. His eyelids were heavy and he struggled to open them. All his senses felt blurred, more so than from just drowsiness. Someone was leaning over him.
And, for a moment, he wondered if he was still dreaming because even fuzzy, he would have known that face anywhere. Clara was looking down at him.
Anyone else would have said it was impossible, that Clara was dead, the Raven’s smoke choking her right before his eyes. But he was the Doctor, and time was his play-thing. And she was Clara, and she was impossible.
“Clara,” he croaked hoarsely, his voice weak. It was more of a breath than a word. He tried again: “Clara,” and this time he could hear the faint crackle of his voice.
She smiled and looked over her shoulder at someone across the room and said; “Bless ‘im, he thinks I’m his sweetheart from back home,” and then she turned back to him, those round, caring eyes, that sweet, dimpled smile and said: “It’s ok, love, you’re going to be ok. No wonder you got into an accident, aren’t you a little old to be fighting? It was pride, I suppose, all old men are proud.” Her voice sounded faint too, and everything was wrong – no, not wrong, slanted: here was Clara, babbling on in her usual way, but acting like he was a stranger.
“Clara!” He said again, insistently, stronger this time, needing her to know him.
“Is that your sweetheart, love? Yes, you think of her, let her keep you strong in these dark times.” She reached behind his head and plumped the pillow, the action of which had woken him up before, he realised. “Comfy?”
Everything was slowly coming into focus. Clara was wearing a nurse’s cap on her smooth brown hair, a cross over her heart.
“Why are you dressed as a nurse?” He asked, squinting.
“Because I am a nurse. Makes sense, doesn’t it?” She was still smiling at him placidly, no recognition in her eyes. As if he were just another face she would see and forget about.
“But - “ he tried to sit up but the dull pain in his side flared up and he sank back, groaning.
“Don’t try to get up yet, love, you’re not ready. Just relax, isn’t that nice?”
He tried one last time. “Clara.”
“Would you like to write a letter to her? If you dictate I can write it for you.”
But he said nothing, closing his eyes. He had known after he’d said her name the first time. But there’d been a hope inside him he couldn’t shake off easily, a hope that it had all been a trick and that at any moment she would say “Surprise!” and reveal how she’d done it, trying to be like him up to her last breath.
As he became used to the drugs, which would soon lose their effectivity, made for humans, not molecularly superior aliens, and leave him with the pain, his mind sharpened, picking up speed, taking in every little detail and processing it. This was most probably one of Clara’s echoes, spread out through time, but always where he was. But maybe not. Surprises seemed to follow him as closely as death.
But if she was an echo, a shadow of Clara, that meant that she was as destined to die as she was to meet him. And die young, he knew that now. Her life ripped away from her as a sacrifice to the god that was him. It sickened him. He had lived too many bitter years, and yet she would live none at all, every time, a blink in the life of a time lord. His guilt was the heaviest when he thought of the future Clara would never have, in any lifetime. She had so many dreams and urges. But they would never be fulfilled, because of him. It was if he had taken them himself, a thief of her years. She would die countless times just so that an old man would grow older. Nothing was ever fair.
He might have sat in that bed for years until Clara the nurse came back. That’s how long it felt. Time was always longer when he was alone, and when he was still. With the two combined it barely moved. Time took its time. The torture of the seconds ticking like minutes was much worse than the increasing pain that pulsed throughout his whole body, but more intensely in his side and right leg.
“What’s your name?” He asked when she did return, placing a cool hand on his forehead and frowning slightly.
“Clare,” she told him, but absent-mindedly so. Of course, he thought. Clare was a variant of Clara. He could hear her murmuring to another nurse on the other side of the ward, about his high temperature. A side effect of the pain she thought she’d numbed, he knew. But she had no idea, new, bloodier soldiers coming in every day, all of the nurses rushing around, trying to be miracle workers. They had no time to notice a discrepancy in his heartbeat; that he had two. He knew he would heal quickly, surprising the nurses who would figure they had misjudged the severity of his injuries, and think about it only once more, briefly, in the middle of the night, before forgetting it. But it wouldn’t be quick enough. He could tell, judging by Clare’s skin and her tongue, that she was nearing the age when Clara, his Clara, had died, and that she was older than Clara Oswin Oswald, the Victorian governess who had fallen from a cloud but never blinked as Death rushed up to meet her. He would have recognized her face. Clare did not have much time left. And in a war zone, she would not die prettily.
He did not know Clare, but he did know Clara. Caring, fierce, brave, clever, funny, compassionate Clara, more than anything words could ever say.
This time, he would save her.
He would try. Maybe it would create a paradox, ripping a hole in time, all for a stranger who used the pet name “love” irritatingly often. But maybe. Maybe. Maybe, he could change everything. Maybe this deviant echo would restructure the lives of the Claras who came before and after her, including his Clara, and they would all live. It was a small, impossible hope, but she was Clara, and she was impossible. Or maybe it would just be Clare’s life he saved, one small victory. Which was better than no victory at all.
He had to try. For her.
The next time that Clare approached his cot, bringing a paper cup of water for him, he said: “Well, I feel all better now,” even though the pain was still there. But he could handle physical pain. Physical pain was easy.
She said “Don’t be silly,” in that same tone that Clara had used when he was behaving immaturely, a tone that wouldn’t permit arguing.
“I’m fit as a fiddle,” he persisted.
She glanced at him, once. “I know that you’re not well enough to get up, because I have actual medical training, and you have not.”
There was his Clara showing through again, in the playful bite of her words. “Actually,” he said, wanting to impress her, even though she was silly and not his Clara, “I am a doctor. That’s my name, in fact: The Doctor.”
She smiled to herself. “And here I was thinking you were called John Doe,” she said drily. “Now drink up your water, love, and soon you really will be ready to leave your bed.” And she left him to attend to another patient.
When she came back later to change his bandages, he spoke again: “Look, my injuries really aren’t that bad. I’m sure you have many other patients in need of this bed, so I’ll just be off. Works for both of us.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You have a fever of over one hundred and four degrees and only – well, you’re quite unfit for any kind of exercise.”
“I’m not going to go train for the Olympics! I just want to leave here.” He paused. “And you could come with me.” He held his breath, but watched her laugh and shake her head as she pulled back the covers.
“I think you’re a bit old for me, love, but thanks for the offer.”
He frowned, and as she reached down to pull his pyjama top up, he grabbed her wrist. She let out a little yelp of surprise, and looked down at his face. For the first time, she looked scared.
“Sir – “ she began, but he interrupted her.
“Shut up, and just listen to me. If you don’t let me leave something horrible will happen. To you.”
She laughed shakily. “Something horrible already is happening, Doctor. Now let me dress your wounds.”
His hearts jumped when she said his name. She said it in the same tone Clara always had, as if it was familiar as her own. As if she had grown up with that word in her mouth, always waiting to say it. And he knew that he wouldn’t let anything stop him. He would save her.
He sat quietly as she attended his wounds, pretending not to notice when she kept glancing towards him. She was too busy wondering whether she should be afraid of him to notice that he was healing faster than she would expect. When she finished, she straightened, and he expected her to walk off, go confess her doubts to one of the other nurses. But instead, she came closer to him and said quietly:
“That girl you kept mentioning this morning, Clara. I could tell she was important just from the way you said her name. You keep yourself for her.” And she walked away.
But how could he tell her that she was Clara, from her voice to her walk to the way her eyebrows pulled together when she was concentrating? She would never understand. And she didn’t have to; that wasn’t the point. The point was to save her. Nothing else mattered.
He waited as day relaxed into night, tapping away the seconds, the minutes, the hours. He waited until the hospital was dark, everyone afraid of lights in the darkness and what they would attract, moths to a flame. Then, steeling himself, he sat up. The pain in his side flashed angrily, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. Nothing else mattered. Bracing himself, he slid his legs to the edge of the cot. And blinked, once, twice. His right trouser leg was pinned up to the knee.
He cursed humans who always cruelly did things the easy way, who, when met with an endless supply of injured soldiers would rather amputate limbs than remove bullets. He reached down and unpinned it. He reached deep inside himself, removing himself from the present, removing himself from everything but the pain. He amplified it, clenching his teeth and gripping the edges of the thin mattress as he let the red hot pain ravage him. He remembered all his old selves, and thought of all the new faces yet to come. He thought of his leg as it had been in the past, whole, and imagined it as being whole again. When the pain reached its peak and his mind was consumed by the hauntings of the past and all that was yet to come, his leg shimmered with regeneration energy, building it whole again. The glow pierced through the complete darkness of the ward and before it had finished settling he could hear hurried, worrying footsteps. But now, after that intensified pain, the other pain felt less, and he had both legs again. He couldn’t have used more regeneration energy to heal his other wounds; he wasn’t sure how much he had left, after he had sacrificed it to destroy the Daleks on Skaro. And, despite the fact that he hated Clara continuously ending her own life to continue his own, he worried that he wouldn’t have enough for another regeneration. He worried that he would die.
He judged which direction the footsteps were coming from and began to walk the other way. But getting used to a new leg can not be done in ten seconds, and he felt himself limping, stumbling a little, like a newborn deer on twig-thin legs.
“Come on!” He hissed at his right leg. “You’re a perfectly good leg – muscles, tissues, bones, skin, the lot – just come on! You only have one job! Do it!”
But it was too late. A hand grabbed his shoulder. He turned around and found himself looking down at Clare. Her features were partially obscured by darkness, but he could see that her hair was loose, longer than his Clara’s hair, cascading down her shoulders, and that she was only wearing a thin nightie and a badly-knitted red cardigan.
“Doctor!” She whispered angrily. “What are you doing out of bed? Where did you get that light? Are you a spy?”
He rolled his eyes. “Clare, you don’t ask someone if they’re a spy. Of course they’re going to say no, whether they’re a spy or not. What’s more important is, where did you get that sweater? I think it’s got a fault, no, more than one – look, it’s all wonky and the sleeves are different lengths. And it’s got gaps in it. And the hem is vastly uneven.”
She flushed indignantly. “I made it.”
“Oh.” He ran his hand through his hair. There was nothing he could say to save the situation. And he would probably make it worse if he tried.
Clare put her hands on her hips, her anger smoldering in the same way that Clara’s did. “What do you know, I’ve seen the clothes you came in – dressed like a magician, on a battlefield. I bet you think you’re special,” she said, looking him up and down, and then she gasped and put her hand to her mouth, her fingers digging into her cheeks.
He held up his hands. “Clare, let me explain – “
“How is that possible? Your leg – you lost it, I know, I just rubbed ointment onto the stump earlier! What are you?” She was squealing, stumbling, taking steps back blindly. He could feel her panic, her quickening heartbeat, the pricking of goosebumps on her skin, the heat flooding her.
"Clare, it’s okay, you’re dreaming,” he said, wiggling his fingers in front of her face, anything to make her believe.
She swallowed, taking quick breaths, her hand on her heart now. “A-alright.”
And that was that. He felt a kind of sick pride bloom inside him, knowing that his Clara would never have been so gullible.
So Clare drifted back into the darkness and he went back to his bed, not knowing why he did so, why he did not take his chance to escape. But he felt something telling him to stay, that this was just the prologue. Nothing had begun yet.
~
He pretended to awaken when he heard Clare’s footsteps approaching his bed. He knew they were hers, now, easily. They were Clara’s; he’d just had to get used to the loafers she was wearing.
“Sleep well, love?” She said, when she saw him awake, smiling brightly as if nothing had happened, as if it really had all been just a dream.
“Fine.” He hadn’t slept at all.
“I’ve got apple juice for you today, a bit sour, but, a special treat, seeing as it’s my last day.”
He sat up. She pushed him down again as he said, “It’s your last day?”
“I know you’ll hate to see me go,” she said, smirking. “I’m moving on, going up to the front lines, to tend to the boys who need me most. The ones who can’t be moved, the ones who know the smell of their own blood better than their girls’ perfume.” She sighed. “Angels, they call the nurses up there. Because the men rarely live to see them again, and if they do, it’s like a miracle. But that’s where I’m headed.” She patted his knee, the left one.
He knew what would happen to Clare if she went to the front. He knew that within a day of her arriving there, she would be dead with mud and blood on her face and those words on her lips: Run you clever boy.
“You can’t go.”
“I don’t have a choice, Doctor. This is war. And even if I did, this is what I choose. They need to see a smile more than you buggers who are lucky enough to lose a limb.”
“If you go, you’ll die.”
“Everyone dies.”
“Don’t go.”
“Do you think I deserve to live more than those brave men who’ve sacrificed everything for the greater good of everyone?” She snapped, her eyes fierce.
“Yes,” he said simply.
That struck her. She stood there, eyes wide. He wanted to take her hand. With his Clara, he’d felt urges like that so many times, and he’d almost always pushed them away, and when he didn’t, he felt weak. But now he regretted all the times he didn’t touch her, or tell her nice things, or comfort her after harsh truths.
He reached out and grabbed Clare’s hand. She just looked at him sadly. “Let me go get you some fresh bandages.” She let his hand slip away from hers.
But when she returned, he was gone, and the trunk at the end of his bed which had contained his belongings – his magician’s clothes and a strange wand-like rod – was empty.
~
He was waiting for her when the truck brought her to the front line, but she didn’t see him. He noticed that her dress and cap had been freshly cleaned. As if she wanted to present herself well for Death. His hearts twinged. She was always brave, even when she was silly. He noticed that the soldiers watched her like she was a cold glass of water after a long, dry month. He frowned at that, and his hands curled into fists without his even knowing it. Even though she wasn’t his Clara.
An advance had been planned for later that day. Poor, silly Clare would die on her first day on duty. But he would save her.
He’d borrowed a soldier’s uniform he’d found in a locker he’d unlocked with his sonic screwdriver, where his red-lined coat now rested, folded neatly. The uniform was slightly baggy. He hated it. Where it touched his skin, it itched, but it was not from the fabric nor the ticks that were probably living in its folds. He wanted to rip it off. It was wrong, all wrong, but he had to do this. For Clara. He pulled the helmet over his eyes.
He followed her all morning. But followed was probably the wrong word, as he made sure to stay in front of her always. No one ever suspected they were being followed from the front. She had a smile for everyone. And he felt proud of her this time, of Clare. But always, the upcoming battle hung over them like a leering black cloud.
Until it was time.
It could have been any other battle that he’d been to; he’d seen too many to count, too many than he would have liked to have seen, but for them there was no other. This was it. Everyone was too absorbed by the blood pumping in their ears and the enemy in front of them to notice when he laid his gun down and watched a nurse, the hem of her skirt rimmed with mud, rushing about the field, her arms full of supplies. He could see tears running continuously down her face as she did her job.
He walked towards her. This time, he would be the shadow. He had to stick close to her. That would his only chance of saving her. There was no predicting when and how it would happen; wars were like that; surprising.
She didn’t recognize him, didn’t see his face under the helmet, just saw another soldier in clothes that were just a little too large. She looked at him anxiously when he approached her, but she had work to do, and was soon dashing away again. He crouched behind her back as she knelt over a soldier with another nurse, trying to transfer him onto a stretcher while causing him as little excess pain as possible.
“Let me help,” he said, kneeling beside her.
“You have your own job to do!” She yelled, and even as the tears fell from her eyes there was anger in them as well.
He just shook his head.
She let out an annoyed shout and together they got the man on the stretcher. He followed her and the other nurse as they carried him as fast as they could towards the makeshift infirmary.
“Stop following me!” She yelled over her shoulder at him.
He just shook his head.
She dropped the stretcher off and hurried back to the battleground. Still he did not leave her side. Suddenly she turned to face him and grabbed him by the shoulders, shaking him and almost screaming: “Why? Why are you doing this?” Her violent shaking dislodged the helmet and it fell off his head. Her eyes widened in recognition.
“You.”
He was about to say something when her head whipped around.
Divided attentions are never total. Conversing with Clare and staying alert to dangers toward her could not be shared. She was used to war, to always being vigilant. She saw it coming before he did. And she was a nurse, so she did what was natural: she saved him.
She was in front of him before he even realised what was happening, crumbling to the dirt with a cry as the realisation struck him.
“No.” It was only a whisper.
He sank to the ground beside her. Already blood was blossoming on the front of her pinafore. Already her bright eyes were dimming.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen!” It was his arms on her shoulders now.
But she didn’t appear to hear him. She recited the words like poetry, only choking a little on them: Run you clever boy. And remember me.
He would have preferred ripping time in two to this. He could do nothing but stare at her for a moment, the mud and tears smudged on her cheeks, those blank brown eyes. How many times did he have to see the warmth leave those eyes before it was he that was ripped apart. With shaking fingers, he closed her eyes. For this moment, it seemed like nothing but her existed. He was deaf and blind to the rest of the world. There was only her. She wasn’t his Clara, but she had been a good person. Braver and more aware than him. He wished a bullet would hit him. He would let it sink into his chest and he would never find out if he had enough regeneration energy left. But none came. Of course it wouldn’t. Clare had given her life to ensure that. He slid his arms under her body, limp as a rag doll, and carried her back to the infirmary without looking at her again. He left her there. No one saw him come or go.
He retrieved his clothes, still in a daze, digging for the key in the inside pocket of his coat. It was warm to the touch. And soon the TARDIS, feeling his silent call, was materializing around him, and he didn’t care who saw.
And he was alone again.
He hadn’t saved her. He had failed both her and Clara.
Anger swelled quickly and strongly inside him, anger towards himself, to fate, to the Great Intelligence who had made this happen, even towards Clare, even towards Clara. He ripped every book off the book shelves, one by one, letting them fly across the TARDIS like paper birds, crashing into the walls and the console until the floor was drowning in them. And it still wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.
As he pulled the last book off the shelf, something fluttered out of it. He bent to pick it up, forgetting the book clutched in his hand. It was a photograph. Of Clara, of course.
He remembered the day. It had been a happy one. They had visited Jenny and Vastra, who had just solved a particularly nasty crime and were celebrating by cooking the perpetrator seven different ways. They hadn’t stayed for dinner. They had gone to the beach instead, even though it was cold and rainy and gray. They were the only people there, and they had run along the path, running just for the joy of it for once and not for the need, the wind pushing them forward. They had almost ran right into a man with a camera, pointed out at the ocean, the kind that had a black sheet that he’d pulled over his head. He’d told Clara she had an enigmatic beauty and asked to take her picture. He had fumed, mostly because he wasn’t brave enough to say it himself, but she had laughed and accepted. It had been a simple day. But happy. And here was the evidence: that bright smile and wind-whipped hair. He knew she’d been looking at him, not the camera.
And he remembered another time, Clara saying softly: “Don’t be alone, Doctor.” And he knew if she had been here now, she would also have said to get over himself, to get over her, to leave the past in the past.
He sighed and the TARDIS’ lights twinkled hopefully. He walked slowly down the stairs and waded through the scattered books to the console.
It was time to move on.