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CLARA’S JOURNAL, 712th ENTRY: The two Doctors
I almost left the Doctor today.
Yes, I know I said I’d never do that. You don’t have to throw my own words back at me. But it’s hard when he’s an adorable goof who forgets his clothes and thinks that fezzes are cool one moment and then an angry, confused Scottish man who looks twice my age the next. Academically, of course, I knew that it was still him, but my brain wouldn't accept it. And if he wasn’t the Doctor I’d come to know and trust, then there was no point going on with him, was there? It didn’t help when he told me that the first thing he was going to do was correct a misconception about our relationship, that he wasn’t my boyfriend. I mean, I knew that, but it still hurt, like the idea wasn’t worth even considering. I'd never been rejected so directly by anyone before, much less him.
Instead of regenerating, I felt like my Doctor had actually died.
And then…he called. From before he’d changed. And it was like my heart was breaking into pieces all over again, listening to his slow, exhausted voice, even though I knew he was calling from the past, and I was in the present. He told me to give his new self a chance, but it was like he was talking about a completely different person. So much so that when the tall Scot in his snazzy brand-new suit asked if I would help him, just as the voice on the phone had said, and I shot back that he shouldn’t have been listening, it never occurred to me that he would already knew about our conversation because it had been him talking on the phone. My Doctor, the bowtie, and now here in front of me, the eyebrows. The same person.
And just like that, I could see him again. It was like a veil had been lifted from my eyes. I even hugged him, though he kept protesting that he wasn’t a hugging person anymore, because I knew that deep down, he still liked it. He couldn’t have changed that much, surely.
And you know what? I’ll just keep hugging him until he shows it.
CLARA’S JOURNAL, 720th ENTRY: The Worst Thing in the Universe
I slapped the Doctor today.
I couldn’t help myself. He was just being so infuriating. So smug, so self-righteous, so convinced that he was the most intelligent person in the room and that everyone else was just a blithering idiot. I mean, yeah, he usually is the most intelligent person in the room, but that doesn’t mean he’s always right. He’s so damn shortsighted about his enemies that he couldn’t see what was right there in front of his nose. Barely cared that we were about to die inside the rusted innards of an insane Dalek where we’d been miniaturized, being bombarded by lethal amounts of radiation. Hardly noticed that the Dalek was systematically exterminating the rest of the humans in the Aristotle. All that mattered to him was that he’d been vindicated of his prejudices. I was so angry with him I could scream.
To be fair, he owned up to his mistake. Even wondered why he didn’t pay me for keeping him on the straight and narrow, which I found hilarious, particularly because he was being half-serious. Imagine being paid to care so that the person you're with doesn't have to.
But, like I told him, he couldn’t afford me. Besides, it’s kind of fun being his conscience. Not everyone gets to boss around a big bad Time Lord.
CLARA’S JOURNAL, 725th ENTRY: The Impossible Hero
Okay, I realize I haven’t done anything but whine lately, so I’m glad I have something positive to write this time.
We met Robin Hood today, like the real Robin Hood, Earl of Locksley, and outlaw of the Sherwood Forest. I had to beg the Doctor to take me to the twelfth century, as he was certain that Robin Hood didn’t exist.
Well, guess who had to eat his own words.
They clashed immediately, of course, two arrogant alpha males vying for the same territory, and even had a duel on a log spanning a river with the Doctor wielding nothing but a spoon. The Doctor won, of course (rather badass, that), but Robin still got the better of him with an impromptu dunking in the end.
Never try to trick a trickster.
What really tickled me was that the Doctor could only see how they were different, not how they were the same. He asked me several times how I could believe in old-fashioned, impossible heroes as if he weren’t the epitome of one himself. I guess it all ties in with how he keeps asking me if he’s a good man, like a gorgeous girl or a guy who doesn’t know how good-looking they are, all self-deprecating and completely unconscious.
I think it’s rather sweet.
CLARA’S JOURNAL, 729th ENTRY: The Boogeyman
Okay, so get ready to have your mind blown. Something just happened, something I can’t quite explain, and something I can never, ever discuss with the Doctor because doing so can break the space-time continuum.
Whew, I sound all Star-Trekkie when I say that.
Anyway, I arrived home from a disastrous date with Danny Pink to find that the doctor had parked his TARDIS in my bedroom. He was blathering about these creatures that no one has ever seen, that hide in the dark and are always there, every minute of every day. Frankly, he sounded insane, but that's nothing new. And then he started talking about this dream that everyone who’d ever lived must have had—that of a hand reaching out from under the bed and gripping them on the ankle. Honestly, I don’t remember ever having that dream, but I just said yes so that he’d stop yammering about it.
Except he didn’t. He took my hands in his own, inserted them into the mushy telepathic matrix of the TARDIS, and accidentally flew us to the orphanage of a little boy named Rupert Pink. The kid was cute; he melted my heart, and by the end of that night, the Doctor had unknowingly set him on the path of becoming Dan the Soldier Man, the one I’d just had a fight with at the restaurant decades in the future. Weirded out yet?
Wait, it gets even better.
Right after that, we met another guy, a much older-looking Danny lookalike named Orson Pink, who turned out to be my date’s time-traveling descendant, except he’d overshot his destination by a hundred trillion years and ended up at the very end of the universe. I tried to get him home using the matrix again—the Doctor had been knocked out in his quest to confront his unknowable creatures of the dark—but I got lost again and blundered into a completely different timeline. The Doctor’s past, back when he was just a scared little boy hiding in a barn in Gallifrey. And that was how I found myself under his bed, clutching his ankle and urging him back to sleep.
He will never know that I, Clara Oswald, am the boogeyman of his thoughts and nightmares but also the one who told him that fear is a superpower that can make someone stronger, faster, and braver than they’ve ever been. That fear isn’t necessarily something to be ashamed of if harnessed properly.
I only hope he remembers what I’ve told him when he needs it the most.
CLARA’S JOURNAL, 733rd ENTRY: The Leaning Tower of Pisa
We’ve had a breakthrough today. Well, we had to break into a bank, but I’m not trying to be punny. Oh my God, he’s catching. Stop me!
Ahem, anyway. I’d been on my way to a date (what is it with the Doctor and my dates? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was trying to sabotage them) when the Doctor arrived with a full agenda for Brighton, of all places. Then, the external line of the TARDIS rang. The next thing we knew, we were sneaking into Karabraxos, the most secure bank in the universe, with no idea how we’d gotten there, and accompanied by an augmented human named Psi and a mutant named Saibra in a heist engineered by an unknown entity only known to us as The Architect. To make a long story short, by the end of it all, we’d retrieved a cure for Saibra's mutation, a chance for Psi to recover his lost memories, and given the last two of an alien species their freedom. Okay, those things are great, but that wasn’t what grabbed my attention.
Before taking our two new friends home, the Doctor insisted that we get some Chinese takeaway for everyone. Not only that, he made a joke. Like, a real joke, and a funny one, too, because everyone was laughing hysterically, not just me.
It felt good to watch the Doctor let loose like that. I’d missed it. I wanted to explore his newfound comedic side a bit further, except I had a date to get to.
And I found myself wishing—half-guiltily—that I didn't have to leave.
CLARA’S JOURNAL, 740th ENTRY: The Big Question
I’ve been trying to keep my two lives separate for the past few years now. What happens in Coal Hill remains in Coal Hill, and what happens in the TARDIS remains in the TARDIS. It's become nearly impossible lately, though, and it’s all the Doctor’s fault.
First, he showed up at my school, pretending to be the caretaker. And then, he thought Adrian was my boyfriend, just because Adrian has longish hair and wears a bowtie! I mean, sure, Adrian’s cute, but I’m not the type of girl who only goes for appearances.
The Doctor should know better by now; I mean, isn’t that exactly why I’m still with him? Because I can see beyond what’s skin deep?
And then, he met Danny, who the Doctor wouldn’t even believe could teach anything as complex as Maths just because Danny was a soldier, and boy was that a disaster. I was forced to make things quite clear between the two of them to avoid what seemed to be brewing into a fistfight--that they were both a big part of my life, but neither of them needed to worry because they weren’t occupying the same role. I’m not sure they accepted my statement, though. When I told the Doctor that I loved Danny, a turmoil of expressions exploded across his face: shock, hurt, betrayal…maybe even jealousy? But why would he be jealous? He was the first one who’d sworn off any romantic attachment to me, even though I hadn't done the same with him. It's his own stupid fault that I had to start looking outside the TARDIS for any scrap of affection.
Later, when Danny and I were alone, and he asked me about my relationship with the Doctor, Danny came to a similar conclusion: that I loved the Doctor, and it wasn't purely platonic. I assured him that he was being paranoid, but he didn't seem convinced.
Why are they both thinking this? It's ridiculous for them to be jealous of each other. I know my own mind better than the two of them, don’t I?
Don’t I?