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He does try to look for her at first, but God, it’s hard. The consequences of using a human-compatible neural block on a Time Lord become more and more painfully obvious the more he tries to remember. He can get close, so close to picturing her face, her eyes, to picturing her, leaning against the railing in the control room, smiling, saying something to him—but then it all falls away, like a word on the tip of his tongue that he just can’t say. It’s infuriating in a way that makes him wish he’d just been blasted with the full strength of a neural block intended for Time Lords, to spare him this halfway hell of almost remembering, but never quite getting there.
At some point, it occurs to him that this woman was, in fact, a human. She had a life and a job and friends (oh, how he remembers the Maitlands and P.E. and Courtney Woods all too well) that she probably ate curries with or went bowling with or whatever it is humans do with each other for fun. Surely a woman that left such a hole in his life when she vanished must have left some marks on Earth, too. So he sets his sights there, as well.
Logically, the best place to begin his search would be somewhere with people who are very keen on keeping track of him and his friends, people that he knows for a fact keep detailed records on his life, so his first stop is the Tower of London. He parks the TARDIS on the grass outside and waits for someone to notice. Within a minute, he can hear UNIT troops gathering outside the doors, and a minute after that, he opens the door to find one Kate Lethbridge-Stewart waiting for him.
“Hello, Doctor.” Kate greets him warmly, hands in her pockets.
He decides to bypass the pleasantries. “Is all that really necessary?” He says, gesturing at the troops with all their armor and guns.
“Well, I do think it’s rather reasonable to assume that you, showing up at our doorstep unannounced might indicate a threat to Earth’s safety, don’t you?” she replies.
Well then. It’s quite difficult to argue with that, so he doesn’t.
“So are we just all going to stand out here and stare at each other, then?” He says instead, probably more bitingly than is necessary.
Kate, bless her, ignores his remark and says, “Why don’t you come inside? I’m sure you’re here for a reason.” She then waves to the troops in a gesture that apparently means to go back to wherever they came from, because they quickly vacate the area, leaving the Doctor alone with Kate to walk into the Tower.
Once they’re inside, she leads him to a room that he doesn’t recall being in before, with a table and chairs and a fake plant and some filing cabinets in the corner. This isn’t what he would’ve expected from UNIT—it feels more like a place where one could sip tea and do paperwork than a place where one could prevent the downfall of humanity.
“Would you like some tea?” Kate asks as he seats himself at the table.
“Yes,” he replies, and Kate sticks her head out the door to delegate the task to some poor soul far enough down on the ladder to still have tea-fetching as part of the job description.
“Interesting room,” the Doctor remarks as Kate seats herself opposite him. “Cozy.”
“This seemed like it would do,” she says. “If there was an urgent threat, I’m guessing you would’ve told me by now.”
He supposes that a far-fetched search for a near-immortal woman might not fit Kate’s definition of the phrase “urgent threat”.
“Fair enough,” he says, just as a curly-haired young man with glasses stumbles through the door holding a tea tray and sets it on the table.
“Thank you, Tim,” Kate addresses him as he leaves, “and close the door, if you will.” After he does so, she turns to the Doctor. “Well, if the world isn’t ending, then what brings you here?”
The Doctor takes his tea and begins adding sugar cubes, one after the other. He’s not quite sure how to say, “I need all of your information on Clara, not sure what her last name is, but you know the one, yeah?” without getting into the whole Trap Street and Gallifrey and breaking-the-laws-of-time thing. He has a feeling that might be a bit of an awkward conversation, so instead, he puts on his most serious eyebrows and stares Kate in the eye. “I need access to the Black Archives,” he says simply, hoping she won’t ask too many questions.
“And what exactly would you need that for?” She replies, stirring her sugar in.
Ah, well that makes things more difficult.
“Oh, nothing, you know,” he fibs, “just this and that.” He knows the words sound flimsy as they come out of his mouth, and he knows that Kate is too smart to let him get away with that.
“Doctor, I’m afraid I can’t give you access unless I know exactly what you’re going to be doing,” she says, proving him right.
“All right, all right,” he relents. “I need information. Files. It’ll be in there, I know it will. I won’t touch anything else, I’ll just get what I need and go.”
Kate sips her tea. “Files on who?” She asks.
The Doctor is ready to spout off some more flimsy lies, but then the full impact of Kate’s words reach him, and he raises an eyebrow. She certainly was quick to assume that he needed information on a “who”, not a “what” or a “where” or a “how”. And her current expression is very much one of a person who knows that they’ve said something wrong, but is desperately hoping that the other person won’t notice (he’s worn that expression enough over the years to know what it looks like), so he puts two and two together and comes a conclusion: Kate is hiding something from him.
Sensing that he now has the upper hand, the Doctor presses her. “Files on who?” He asks, leaning back in his chair. “Now, what makes you think that I’m looking for files on a person? I mean, I’m sure you have files on lots of things—aliens, suspicious looking bees or whatever-”
“Look, Doctor, you can’t have any files on Clara.” Kate cuts him off, ripping away both of their facades at once.
The Doctor stops in his tracks, unable to form words for a moment.
“How did you-”
“She came round here, a few weeks ago, told us everything that happened,” she says.
He’s silent for a minute. Clara was here, not long ago. He can almost picture her sitting at that same table, with her round face (ooh, round face, there’s something to remember), telling Kate all about what had happened—and then the image slips away.
“So you do have information on her,” he finally says, almost in a whisper.
“No,” she shakes her head, and all his remaining hopes plummet. “I’m sorry, Doctor. She asked us to delete all UNIT files pertaining to her. As far our databases are concerned, she never existed.”
“In case I came nosing about,” he says, a bitterness coming to settle in his mouth.
“If it helps, she saw it as more of a when than an if,” Kate replies.
The Doctor just scowls and pushes back his tea. He’s done here. No point in sticking around if they don’t even have the information he wants.
“Well, I really must be going.” He stands from his chair. “Tell Jim or whatever his name was not to let it steep for so long next time,” he remarks scathingly, gesturing at his cup.
Kate takes a sip of her tea, not making any move to stop him. “Will do,” she replies. “It is a bit strong. And Doctor,” she addresses him, making him pause as he heads for the door, “For what it’s worth, she made her own decision. And God knows if you’ll listen to me, but I think the best way to honor her would be to respect that.”
He walks out the door without replying and makes his way back to the TARDIS in what he knows is a bit of a childish huff. Un-stuffing one hand from his coat pocket, he flings open the door and slams it behind him, stomping around the control room until he plops down on a step, shoulders hunching and chin coming to rest on his hands.
The TARDIS makes a concerned beeping noise at him, and he sighs.
“It’s easy for her to say,” he mutters. “She’s not the one stuck in this state of almost.”
A pause. His ship is silent, so he continues, mostly to himself.
“I can almost see her face, almost hear her voice” He closes his eyes, picturing. “But nothing I imagine stays, there’s nothing concrete,” he finishes, eyes opening as the image falls away.
The TARDIS beeps again, but this time, he’s aware of something materializing next to him. He lifts his head to see what it is—a small journal, with a sleek blue cover and leather binding.
Huh.
“What are you trying to tell me?” He mutters, reaching for the journal. “Did Clara keep a diary of some sort?”
The answer to that question is quickly revealed to be “no” when he flips through the pages of the journal.
“It’s blank,” he says, standing up and turning to face the console. “The entire thing, it’s blank. I don’t understand. What am I supposed to do with this?”
The TARDIS’s response is a series of flashing lights and beeps, and then the Doctor understands.
“Something concrete,” he says, reopening the journal to the first blank page and pulling a pen from his inside pocket. “Thanks, old girl.”
The TARDIS acknowledges his gratitude with a buzz, and he stares at the page, waiting to think of something to write down.
“Come on, Doctor” he says, tapping the pen against the page, “Surely there’s something.”
His gaze drifts across the room, to where she’s almost standing by the doors, round face smiling at him—
There’s something. He scribbles it down at the top of the page—round face—and then looks back up. She’s not smiling anymore, instead it’s almost like there are tears in her eyes—
Big eyes.
She’s taking off a helmet now, and then he remembers—
Rides motorbike.
The helmet leaves her hair a bit ruffled, and it’s—
Brown hair.
He stays there for a while, frantically writing whatever he can remember before the image fades away, and when he’s done, the first page is nearly covered with snippets of information about her. He can’t picture her anymore, but everything he saw is there in ink, staring him in the face—his own record. Perhaps not as comprehensive as UNIT’s would’ve been, but something to start with.
He mentally thanks his ship once more as he slips the journal into his inside pocket, a tiny seed of hope beginning to grow in him again. Maybe he needn’t remember Clara all at once, he thinks, fiddling with some buttons on the console.
His gaze shifts up for a bit to admire his impossible ship with all her flashing and humming, and the Doctor feels that tiny seed of hope take root.
Maybe, he thinks with a small smile, if he’s patient, he’ll be able to put her back together, piece by piece.