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“It’s been a long time since this Testimony has left storage.” The glass figure sat down in the bare white room and motioned for Clara to sit on the other side of the table.
Clara pulled the chair out and sat. “I thought this was a kind of afterlife. Shouldn’t she be off having adventures and snogging every historical figure she fancies?” She looked around. This table and the white light that surrounded it sat in a small alcove. It created a sense of separation, but she knew that beyond the light was the massive room full of apparently stone arches and innumerable records.
“Testimonies spend much of their early years active enjoying the paradise we’ve built for them, but almost all eventually choose to retire to storage, activating only to give Testimony.”
“Choosing storage?” Clara raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t sound at all like me.”
"We can only report what is. The Testimony is the Testimony." The glass figure held up a hand and a screen of text appeared in the air before it. "The Testimony does not allow premature access to recorded testimonies that have potential impact on the researcher's time stream. Special dispensation has been given in the case of Clara Oswald's access to the Testimony of Clara Oswald. Please review and sign the risk acknowledgment form prior to retrieval of aforementioned Testimony."
"Sparkling conversationalists you lot are." Clara gave the text the merest glance before signing her name in the air.
The text vanished and the glass figure said, "Are you ready?"
Clara was shocked to realize that there was hesitation. Because this was it. Hundreds of years of traveling the breadth of time and space and it came down to this: a conversation with herself and then an end or a beginning.
Clara nodded.
A momentary blur where the glass figure had been and there was Clara, exactly as she appeared in the moments before the raven.
Clara had long gotten used to seeing herself. Honestly, finding herself across all of time and space had been part of the fun. Before coming here she and Me had just come from the Council of Clara’s semi-regular birthday bash. Now, that had been a good week.
But this wasn’t a splinter, scattered across the Doctor’s timeline, living a complete life just to be there for a moment when she was needed. This projection over a glass frame, dressed in a gray jumper and a white blouse, hair exactly the same length as it was now, was Clara’s past and future—her personal past and future. Where she was running from and where she was running to.
The Clara across the table beamed. Best to call her Clara's Testimony. “Hey. Come to ask the question?”
“I think so. Do you remember being me?”
Clara's Testimony nodded. “I also remember the party. We weren’t going to top that one.”
“So this is it?”
“That’s up to you.”
“Helpfully cryptic. Is this what I sound like all the time?”
“I could pretend you don’t, but I’ve given up lying.”
“That sounds rather boring.”
“Well, only in the company of strangers. I’m happy to lie to good friends.”
“Rule one.”
Clara's Testimony nodded.
“So you remember being me? It doesn’t all go away when I go back?”
“It all stays here,” said Clara's Testimony, tapping her head, “Every last piece of it.” She paused. “This is when you ask the question."
Because that was why Clara was here. By all accounts, she could travel forever, becoming just like Me—the old person slipping away with each memory until she was completely rewritten—nothing constant but immortality … and whatever it was that formed the hard core of that immortality. For Me, that was a calm heart of anger and she could never tell you why. She was who she was because of how she lived, but what that life had been was lost to her except for the few remains of her diaries. Clara had decided long ago that she wanted to remain Clara. And one day ....
“Do you remember Mum’s face?”
Clara's Testimony hesitated, the knowing smile running away. “Would you like me to lie?”
“Not particularly fun if you let me choose. Now I’ll know either way.”
“If I don’t lie about lying." The smile was back. "Come now, you’re much better than this.”
Clara insisted. “Do you remember?”
“No.”
In that moment, Clara knew they were perfect mirrors. What was it? From the early days: “Would you trust someone who looked at you through your own eyes?” You would if you looked back at them through their eyes.
“So it doesn’t come back?”
“No. I hoped. Just like you. I didn’t know how any of this worked. I thought I might forget all of—” Clara's Testimony waved a hand wildly at the world. “—this and it would come back. They’d return me to my last moment and it would be like I never left. But I remember all of it from the moment the Doctor pulled me out to the moment I stepped back in place. And also forget."
"Me said this was how it started with her, at least as far as she can tell from her scraps of diaries. I’ve probably lost other smaller things, but the first time you notice, it’s something big. For her it was her mother’s funeral.”
“And?”
“And I think there’s not room enough for two Mes in the universe.”
“Not room enough for two egos that big, you mean?” The mirror was broken, the face on the other side of the table retreating into cleverness.
“Was I always so self-deprecating?" asked Clara.
“I don’t remember being self-deprecating, said Clara's Testimony, "just right.”
“I can’t imagine being immortal would help me think less of myself.”
“I can’t either.”
“So that’s it then?
Clara’s Testimony gave a shrug with a side of a smirk.
“Fat lot of help you are.”
“You always say that.” Clara’s Testimony sparkled and dissolved into a glass figure that said: “Testimony concluded."