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The first thing you notice is the darkness, black tinged with red that cracks and sparkles with the burning of a distant sun. This sky is unfamiliar. There are no stars in the night, just the crimson nebula that balloons through your vision. You screw shut your eyelids, were they closed already? And as you open the shutters a crack of blinding light flares across your eyes. There is a presence behind you cannot place. Before you can unravel the sensations your skull erupts with pressure and pain and a vice tight grip pins you to the floor.
The floor. A sinking sensation fills your stomach. The urge to regurgitate is overwhelming but you fight it back. Why are you on the floor? You force open one eye, lift a heavy arm to shield yourself from the brightness. Relief overwhelms the nausea. There are no restraints. You have free movement. Your brain notches into the next gear. Not a prisoner then.
A hand grabs yours. A damp hand, slender, fragile, but strong and female. You’re not sure, you can’t see or think clearly yet, but you think the hand is shaking. Automatic responses fire your fingers into action as you return the grip and feel her other hand touch your face, wiping something from your eyebrow before resting on your cheek. You concentrate on the moment but the mind, still clasped in the iron grip of agony, fails to produce rational thought. Her touch is intimate, reassuring, and yet incomprehensibly wrong. The scent is foreign and familiar, like single malt scotch whiskey poured from teapot. You frown, a battle to develop functional thought rages behind your forehead.
Your forehead where your eyebrows are. The fingers that shield your eyes from the light brush along the heavy lines in your skin. Eyebrows. Thick eyebrows. Thick, bushy, eyebrows. You sink into the floor, the hard, smooth, metal floor. You open the other eye and focus on the distant wall where regimented circles of light run vertically, their faint glow enclosed in dark hexagons. Above them a thin line of white lights runs around the room, the edge of a walkway? It is dark, oppressively so. The lines are uniform, precise, austere. There is an orange glow to your left. You strain to view it, propping yourself up on one elbow to see an unfamiliar TARDIS console above you. Below it hangs a rats nest of wires and cables with a three tiered carousel of Galifreyan writing reaching up into a cathedral arch ceiling. The urge to vomit has returned and you give in, eager for the last strains of regeneration energy to pass from your lips.
Your last meal pools on the shiny metal. You slip backwards, startled. An arm reaches behind you protecting your throbbing head from revisiting the floor.
“Rose?”
You do not recognise the sound of your own voice. The arm behind your doesn’t waver but tenses until rigid.
“Doctor?”
Silence. You do not recognise this voice either. You squeeze shut your eyes and try to focus.
She is speaking again. A northern accent, Blackpool perhaps? Or Birmingham? Maybe Bristol? British geography has never been one of your strong suits.
“I need to look at your head,” she says, concern barely concealed in her authoritative tone.
“You’re a teacher,” you say, slurring a little.
She leans into view, young face, no wrinkles yet, brown hair, neat white blouse spattered with blood, discreet make-up. Well-presented. Definitely a teacher.
“How hard did you hit your head?” she asks with false humour, tight smile falling short of her serious brown eyes. Her pupils drill into yours, “Do you know where you are?”
Your instinct is to protect her.
“TARDIS,” you respond, she need not know you don’t recognise it, or her.
She nods, reassured, and presses something against the back of your skull. The pain intensifies for a moment and she moves carefully so that your body is resting against hers. You feel protected. It makes you uneasy.
“Have I regenerated?” Keep it casual. No cause for alarm.
She laughs, “No, you’re the same daft old man I know and love.”
“Old?”
She laughs again and places a handkerchief into your hand. “You might wanna wipe your face.”
“Why?” Your blank stare is hard to conceal, her last words rattle uncomfortably around your vacant brain. Love? Old man she knows and loves?
“Because you have blood and grease forming a map of the universe on your forehead,” her tone is turning officious as she directs your hand to the offending area.
With trepidation you inspect your own hand. Wrinkled skin, long musicians fingers with callouses on the tips. The hand you do not recognise reaches up and riffles through thick, wavy hair. What did she call you when you opened your eyes? Doctor? Breath catches in your chest, a hiccup of panic. You are you, but not the one you remember. You feel her concern vibrate through the smoky atmosphere. Smoke? You hadn’t noticed that before either.
“Is there a fire?” you ask, trying to push yourself upright. Only now do you realise your accent is Scottish.
She holds you down with a stronger grip than you expected, her hand firm on your shoulder.
“No fire, just some smouldering. It's under control.”
You trust her judgement and nod making the pain at the back of your head ignite once more.
“What happened?” the accent is growing on you.
She doesn’t answer for a minute, her fingers prodding the wound at the back of your head. She seems satisfied and moves back into your line of vision.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
The pronounced lines on your forehead wrinkle, “We were running away from an explosion, holding hands. The TARDIS was just ahead of us.”
Images flash through your mind. The earth is shaking. An explosion rips metal and concrete behind you. Electricity, dust and the smell of chemicals burning permeate the air. Your companion’s hand is in yours, fingers intertwined, hands locked together. You glance sideways, a grin splitting your face, and see the beaming euphoric smile of on her features, blonde hair streaming behind her as you run.
“Rose?” the word rips from your lips before you can censor them, “Where’s Rose?”
The brunette’s eyes are wide now, scared and puffing up with unshed tears.
“Doctor,” she says, her voice wavering despite her attempts to control it, “Do you know who I am?”
You close your eyes. The unfamiliar, old, new, body aches.
“Of course I know you,” you manage an air of nonchalance, “Took a knock to the head, rattled the old brain cells about a bit. I'll be all right in a jiffy. It’s not as though I’m running around in my pyjamas talking to dinosaurs, that would be cause for concern.”
Her eyes do not leave yours.
“How old are you?” she rushes on before you can speak, “Ballpark figure. I don’t care exactly.”
“The impertinence of youth," you mutter, looking for a diversion and failing to find one.
Her stare deepens, “Answer the question.”
You make a conservative estimate, “Ooh about 1000, give or take a decade.”
Apparently it was the wrong answer. A fresh tear wells up in her eye and she takes hold of your hand tightly. Her fear manifests itself in you, a lump of lead in your stomach. Your chest tightens. How are you supposed to respond to someone’s tears? There is some social protocol for this, one you do not understand. You push the dirty handkerchief at her and stare at a point just behind her left ear.
The woman gets to her feet then reaches to pull you upright. You are a head taller than her but she steadies you as you wobble uncertainly on alien feet, looking down at checked trousers and the edge of a red lined jacket. The jacket is nice. Not so sure about the pants. You wonder just how hard you hit your head and how much damage has been done.
“I’m a bit older than that then,” you whisper through the lump that’s forming in your throat.
“Just a bit,” she replies, steading her own voice as she leads you upstairs and out of the console room.
You follow her, half a step behind, her hand on your arm in a form of reassurance. Whether it's for you, or for her, you aren’t sure. In another room, a medical bay, she makes you sit on a bed while she cleans up the sticky mass in your hair.
“Was I fixing the TARDIS again?” you ask her. She still hasn’t told you her name. It's a test. Prove yourself.
There’s a sniff, and an aggravated "Yes" from the other side of the room. You are impressed by her attempt at stoicism and are relieved by the lack of histrionics. There was a time when you were more socially adept. The new Doctor, the new you, has a pathological aversion to emotions and your stomach knots in revulsion at the prospect of tears.
“It’ll all come back to me in a minute,” you tell her with a confidence you do not share, “Concussion, I expect. What do you think?”
“It better had do,” she responded dryly, “There are many things I can do, but flying your TARDIS is not one of them.”
Your head is clearing now. This companion knows her way around your TARDIS, knows how to use a medi-patch to improve healing. She has applied it with care, dropped in a local anaesthetic, and the pain is almost gone. The room has stopped swimming in multiple directions and now circles lethargically to port.
She is still behind you when her hand falls onto your shoulder. Your fears ebb a little at her touch and you sense the air change as her anxieties lessen with your steadying breath.
“Clara.”
The name slips from your mouth, lips forming the word without hesitation. She relaxes, muscles loosening as she bends her frame to rest her chin on your shoulder, your heads touching. Part of you is repulsed by her touch and begs to pull away, another part is glad of the contact. Somehow it makes you feel real.
“Clara,” you say again, binding yourself to the present and listening to your own voice. “If you pass me a cortical stimulator I can prompt memory regrowth. Speed things up a little.”
Clara crosses the room and extracts a slender, tubular device from a drawer. She hesitates, raises her dark eyebrows and holds it just outside of arms reach.
“I’m not sure I should let you do this,” she says. “After the mess you made out there trying to tighten a screw with a butter knife are you really qualified to go poking around in brain matter?”
“A butter knife?”
You frown. You enjoy the sensation in causes. This must be an expressive face. An angry face. You scan the room for a reflective surface and catch a glimpse of yourself in the dark glasses that are sitting on the worktop. Older than you imagined. Grey hair. Not exactly distinguished.
“Why didn’t I use my sonic screwdriver?”
“You didn’t have it on you,” she replies evasively, still holding the cortical stimulator at a safe distance.
You watch her face. The weight of the universe balances on her shoulders. You think she looks like a judge weighing out a death sentence. She holds the stimulator in a knotted fist, knuckles turning white with the pressure.
“You don’t want me to remember.” You speak softly, and it is not a question.
There is a pause, she shakes her head a little.
This face does not smile easily. Instead it delivers gravity. You go with it, your expression sombre, hoping your eyes reflect the affection you feel for her, though you cannot remember why.
Clara puts the instrument on the bed and hops up to sit beside you, not right at your side but close enough. Her feet dangle above the floor but she sits perfectly still. You wait. She will speak when she is ready.
“It’s just, there are some things that happened in my past that I would forget, given the chance,” Clara confides after a while. “I can’t help thinking you might be…happier… if you didn’t remember some of the things that have happened to you.”
Your lips jerk into an unnatural smile, this face doesn’t wear the boyish grin you remember. Clara seems to recognise the look and manages a small smile in return.
“It is a very human thing to wish,” your voice is gentle, quiet, “To forget your troubles, move on. To become a new person.”
“It’s foolish,” Clara hangs her head, ashamed.
“Yes,” your agreement is harsh but fair. It does not seem to phase her. “But you’re human, it's to be expected.”
You cringe at your own words wishing you had phrased them better but are relieved when, with a quiet laugh, Clara reaches for the stimulator, offering it to you on her open hand. You pick it up and adjust the settings before placing it back into her palm.
“We are all the sum of our memories, Clara,” you tell her sagely, “They make us who we are. Kind or cruel. If we do not remember our triumphs how can we celebrate them?”
“And the… loses?” her voice catches a fraction.
“You cannot love without losing.”
She stands and walks behind you again. There is a gentle click, a buzz, and you skull is filled by the sensation of a million spiders wriggling their way across your brain. Fireworks explode spreading light into all the dark places of your mind. You close your eyes as the brightness increases, holding yourself steady, maintaining the appearance of calm as sweat dampens your palms and pain tightens your body.
There is a pause. The stimulator has stopped buzzing. For a moment there is nothing, you hear Clara ask if it worked but you don’t respond. Not yet. The final charge has not yet begun. You can sense it building, a coiled burst of energy massing in your brain stem, a pin ball machine waiting to be sprung.
A distant roar of pulsing blood reverberates in your ears. It fills your head as 1000 years of memories pour across your vision in a waterfall of three dimensional technicolor. Love, hope, pain, despair roll in waves and you gasp for breath, drowning in the deluge.
It is over as suddenly as it began. The deafening voices of your past fall into whispers and echoes until all you can hear is the sound of your own breath rattling ragged in your chest. You feel your age now, understand the long face, the dark eyes, the aversion to emotions. You have seen too much, loved too little, hurt more than you had capacity to express.
Draining adrenalin leaves a hole that is filled by exhaustion. As you rise from the bed you find Clara is beside you, her eyes questioning, concerned. You nod in an acknowledgement of success, unwilling and unable to form words as you absorb the last of the memories. She wraps her arms around your torso, her cheek brushing against yours. You return the hug with awkward tenderness, feeling the steady beat of her heart against your chest.
Repressed emotions bubble through your weary soul and you close your eyes, holding on to the embrace. For this moment alone Clara is everyone you have ever known and loved. You hold her close, chin against her shoulder, your face and damp eyes hidden from view.
You will never tell her that she was right. Some memories are best forgotten.