Chapter Text
"If it works get out as fast as you can... And spare me a thought now and then."
She moved closer to the infinite light replacing the TARDIS' control column. It mesmerised her. (Ever seen a child focus on an object or a toy so beautiful, it almost seems…. Magical?)
The girl, now impossible, somehow felt she belonged there, amongst the time winds. So many versions of her…. She wasn't going to die. No. She would live as different people all over time and space. But not die for good.
"CLARA!!!" The Doctor, even if he was still in much pain, he couldn’t stop thinking about her, his companion. They both knew she had to do it… for both their sakes. He did not think about how he was going to live or how he was going to save lifetimes' work. The time lord would let no one die in his place. But she had already done it millions of times throughout time and space; through Oswin, Clara Oswin Oswald, and so many other echoes.
So that was why he had called her Clara Oswin Oswald the first time they met on the Maitland doorstep…
"In fact, you know what?" Clara said in a matter-of-fact tone. She turned to look at him one last time. Her Doctor she will die to save, who was depending on her to live, even if he didn’t want his Impossible Girl to jump. But that is how she becomes the Impossible Girl.
By this sacrifice.
"Run you clever boy. And remember me."
She made sure she smiled at him.
Clara didn’t want the Doctor to remember her final image having tears of fear in her eyes.
She wanted him to remember her…. In this final moment, having the same old smirk on her face.
She was scared to make the first jump into the Time stream, to die so far from home. She couldn’t deny it.
But she had to jump, for the Universe's sake.
So she took the leap.
She began twirling round and round like a spinning top, seeing so many events and echoes around her. Clara felt like she was being ripped… just like how the Great Intelligence was killed, after all.
As each time wind whirled her, she felt another echo being torn from her….. different time, different place, different face to save. But it’s always him.
Always him…..
Victorian London…..
Gallifrey….
Time War….
Dalek Asylum….
Everywhere…
All her…
All Clara…
She experienced each life in a split of a second.
I have to save the Doctor.
From birth to death. To their heroic death.
Running every second… just to find him.
Brave even in the face of death, however tragic or torturous it might have been.
I always know it’s him.
But every life ended with the same words.
The same phrase….
Run you clever boy, and remember.
And so will hers.
They were the last words Clara said to the Doctor.
And he will remember her.
Clara crashed against the cold floor.
Reality hit her.
She was in an unknown place…. An infinite timestream.
Wasn’t she supposed to disintegrate? Wasn’t she supposed to turn into confetti amongst so many memories and lives of the man who called himself the Doctor?
Where am I?
What do I do?
Where's the Doctor?
Who am I?
A million voices buzzing around, poking her brain. It felt just so surreal. Clara started to hyperventilate as she started feeling dizzy and tired. Sweat beads began forming on her forehead and back.
Wasn’t she supposed to die?
Or was this just the beginning of her untimely death?
She panicked. "DOCTOR!!!!"
If it were not for the shrieking voices of the Doctor's echoes in the Time Stream there would have been absolute silence.
You're about to make a very big mistake.
Doctor?
I didn't listen
Do you read me?
Run…..
Helloooo the Chin...
Isn't that basically Twitter?
Eggs….
Doctor!
Will you go back... to your cloud?
I’m human!!!!!!!
All those memories in her head.
All those lives.
She felt her head was going to explode with the pain.
She became even more desperate. She felt tired but fought. Clara curled up, trying her best to shield herself from the haunting memories.
"Please, please, I don't know where I am!"
Hey! Scarfy boy!
Please….
Exterminate!!!!!
I don’t know where I am!!!!
She was called….
Take me!!!!! Not him!!!!
I’ll hold them back!
Her tears fell to the earth beneath her. She prayed… hoping that they would be answered as she trembled; with every tremble, her joints hurt even more. But she couldn’t stop.
"Clara."
That name... The name repeated in some form or another throughout time and space to save the Doctor.
Just to save the Doctor.
The name boomed throughout the Time Stream.
Clara stopped crying. She untangled, sitting up.
"You can hear me... I know you can..."
The Doctor... The voice she would follow... The voice her echoes waited to hear when their hour was close.
"I can't see you." Clara feebly sat up. Her heart hoped just a little more with each tick.
Just before it nearly failed.
Every time.
Because after all, she wasn’t supposed to live.
"I'm everywhere. You're inside my time stream. Everything around you is me." She heard the Doctor’s voice echo throughout the empty, infinite space.
She feels a sudden breeze as the Doctor... his first body, zooms past through the thick fog.
The Impossible Girl felt more hope as she was surrounded by the Doctor's echoes, running away or towards…. She couldn’t tell.
A wide smile formed on her face.
She was going to survive.
"All your different faces, they're here." Clara’s voice trembled with emotion. And yet… it had hope.
And with every Doctor that passed from through the mist and haze, every face that passed, memories of different echoes saving that face aroused in her mind.
"Those are my ghosts. My past. Every good day, every bad day. "
And she was always there, always guiding him. If it weren't for her, all the bad days would collapse on his shoulders like a pile of bricks. He would have lost his sanity, or even die; killed for good by the GI.
But she was his sanity.
His death was spared by her sacrifice.
Each and every time.
Clara suddenly heard a loud shout and felt the grave tremble and collapsed to the ground as if a horrible thunderstorm was approaching. She groaned as every joint, every bruise, every wound cried out in pain.
But something was very terribly wrong. Something that was not supposed to happen. She saved the Doctor; that was it. But it looked like the situation was much more complicated.
"What's wrong? What's happening?" She cried out with as much energy as he had left.
"I'm inside my own time stream. It's collapsing in on itself. " The time lord’s voice boomed across the area. Clara’s eyes flashed open as she felt her heart speeding up and breathing with much effort, dreading the worst.
If it were to collapse, the Doctor would die, the Universe would have unravelled.
And she would have sacrificed herself in vain.
It was much better for one person to be lost than the whole Universe.
"Well, get out then!" Clara shouted with the only energy she had.
She would have wanted to collapse against the cold ground and sleep. The voices wouldn't stop. The Time Winds had whirled her like a spinning top. And she was scared.
"Not until I've got you."
She heard the determination in the Doctor's voice.
He wasn't going to leave her behind.
Not now.
Not ever.
She didn't even argue. Clara was too frustrated and tired to do so.
"I don't even know who I am." She cried, helplessly curling into a ball, trying to shield her from… herself. The Impossible Girl held her temples. All she could hear was buzzing sound of her own voice. No…. they were her echoes.
But the echoes were her.
A part of her.
All those lifetimes whirling around her head... Reminding her of a different life she had to live because of the man she loved most.
"You're my Impossible Girl." The name echoed through the time stream; through time and space.
That name.....
Impossible...
"I'm sending you something.” The Doctor continued. ”Not from my past, from yours. Look up. Look."
Clara, still on her knees, palms and fingers feeling the Earth underneath her, looks up as tears flooded her eyes. She saw a light object dancing harmoniously with the wind, delicate and fragile, camouflaged against the orange-brown background.
The Leaf.
The Leaf she had sacrificed to Akhaten.
The Leaf that defined her.
The real Clara Oswald.
She heard the Doctor’s consoling voice once again. "This is you, Clara. Everything you were or will be. Take it. You blew into the world on this leaf. Hold tight. It will take you home."
The Impossible Girl slowly tried to stand on her weak legs and reached out for the dry Leaf.
She felt new hope. She was Clara Oswald.
Was
Is
And always will be.
No one else...
She had to find the Doctor before it was too late. The companion began stumbling forward through the misty and abandoned battlefield. The voices hadn't stopped, but Clara tried to keep herself sane, remembering her own memories.
The Leaf
Clara's ankle was crying out in pain, shuffling on the trail.
That was when she heard it.
"Clara!”
The Doctor's voice.
Her Doctor’s voice.
But was she Clara? Or was she Oswin.. no, Elle… no…..
“Clara!” She heard again. “Come on. Come on, to me, now."
She stopped in her tracks and turned to look behind her, where the Doctor had just landed from the same spinning and tumbling the girl had witnessed beforehand.
She was…. Clara.
His Impossible Girl.
"You can do it. I know you can." He encouraged her with arms open wide, ready to hold her close to him.
But she was scared.
She was hurt.
Clara felt that the Doctor was so far away...
"How?" She saw the Doctor through the veil of tears in her eyes. But he was there!! Her only hope to remain sane.
Her sanity.
"Because it's impossible. And you're my Impossible Girl."
She was impossible...
She could do it.
The companion stumbled slowly towards the Doctor, scared, almost giving up.
But that small hope...
The Doctor...
Clutching the leaf even tighter...
The Doctor...
"How many times have you saved me, Clara? Just this once, just for the hell of it, let me save you.” He cried desperately as Clara continued to make her way through the void towards the one person she knew would take her to safety.
Let me be your sanity… just for once….
He was determined to get her back. And once the Doctor is determined to do something, nothing and no one can stop him from getting it; even if it meant sacrificing the Universe to save her. “You have to trust me, Clara. I'm real. Just one more step."
Clara threw herself into the Doctor's arms.
Her arms flung around the Doctor, still holding the Leaf while still holding him, crying in his blazer.
She never hugged anyone so hard, holding his blazer even harder in her hand’s grip, sobbing heartily.
"Clara, my Clara." She felt the Doctor’s hand, his kisses and his hot breath in her hair.
Her ordeal was over... She was with the Doctor, the safest place to be when in trouble.
Clara felt the Doctor's hug loosen and his hearts beating anxiously.
The Impossible Girl looked at her Chin Boy. His eyes flashed in alarm.
The Time Lord was scared… No….
He looked terrified.
She turned to find out what the Doctor couldn’t get his eyes off of……
“Who's that?” She asked weakly. The Doctor’s arm was still wrapped tightly around Clara’ shoulders…
“Never mind. Let's go back.” He replied.
She didn’t give him a chance…… “But who is he?” She insisted.
“He's me. There's only me here, that's the point. Now let's get back.” Clara felt the Doctor guiding her with his hands away from the war-battered figure….
Yet, she refused. “But I never saw that one. I saw all of you. Eleven faces, all of them you. You're the eleventh Doctor.” Her voice trembled in weakness.
“I said he was me.” The time lord said hastily. “I never said he was the Doctor.”
“I… I don't understand.” She answered.
The Doctor hit his forehead with his palms, “Look, my name, my real name… that is not the point. The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it's like….” Her view drifted from the unknown figure to the Doctor, trying to understand. “….it's like a promise you make.”
The Doctor moved her shoulders so she could face the unknown figure….
“He's the one who broke the promise.” He continued.
Clara looked at the mysterious figure. She knew every single thing about the Doctor from her echoes. But this regeneration was hidden from her memories. She could remember him from a very turbulent period on Gallifrey… but it was all… blurred. Just one whole blur.
Hidden by her echoes.
It was all too hard to register what the Doctor had just said…. The echoes kept on tormenting her, her head hurt even more and her breathing became faster and more laborious. And at the same time, her mind was working hard trying to remember who he was. Everything was going all misty… and not just because of the tears which were already present in her eyes.
Her knees gave way, slumping against the Doctor, but felt his arms catch her, protecting her from yet another fall whilst shouting her name, trying to wake her up. But it was too difficult to wake up; the journey surrounded by time winds had taken its toll on her.
Hearing him groan as he heaved her up, Clara whimpered in pain. She wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close.
‘Thank you, my Doctor….’ She thought, as the Impossible Girl could not speak with the exhaustion.
She held the Leaf tighter in her hand, desperate to keep herself sane, desperate to stay who she was, is, and always will be.
Clara Oswald.
“He is my secret….”
She felt herself slipping away in his arms…..