#embracetheraven

Clara had, thankfully, offered to accompany him to school the next day. To ensure he didn’t get lost on the way, she said, but Adrian wondered privately if it might not be more than that. She was his friend, certainly, and his work colleague, undoubtedly. But when he looked at her, he couldn’t help but feel that there was something more. Something important he had forgotten. There was something about the way she watched him when she thought he wasn’t looking, how close she stood to him, the sadness that crept into her eyes when they talked...

But perhaps it was just wishful thinking, he told himself, given that she’d left him alone for the evening with nothing more than a jaunty wave and a cheerful, “See you tomorrow!” Perhaps he was reading too much into it. Perhaps this was the disorientation Dr Jones had warned him about.

Or maybe— maybe he was the Darcy to Clara’s Elizabeth, the Gatsby to her Daisy, the Cyrano to her Roxanne. Maybe it was all on his end, and she was just trying to be a good friend. Maybe he’d been hit on the head harder than he thought.

And more than maybe, he ought to keep his mouth shut about it. At least until he was sure he had his head on straight.

The clothing he found hanging in the wardrobe the next morning felt familiar, at least, and the one thing his hands seemed to remember all on their own was how to tie a bowtie, so by the time Clara arrived to collect him for school, Adrian felt marginally more like himself. And Clara’s presence was reassuring in a way not even bowties managed to be.

The disorientation crept back in throughout the day in small ways that he tried to ignore, jarring though they were. He attempted to focus instead on the places it didn’t exist: His students knew him, and knew the reading they’d been assigned as homework, the day he’d had his accident. Mr Armitage, the headteacher, seemed relieved that Adrian had returned to work so soon, and the other teachers were similarly kind to him. Something about the school felt exactly right, like there was nowhere else on Earth he could possibly be.

But none of the doors opened in the direction he expected them to. He got lost frequently. He couldn’t remember how he liked his coffee. He spent a good portion of his prep period at the end of the day searching his classroom for his lesson plans and student files, only to have them all turn up in his flat inexplicably that evening, as though they’d always been there, perfectly organised and neatly stacked.

Clara laughed it off, when she came over to his place on Saturday on his insistence that he cook her dinner in thanks for all the help she’d been since his accident two days prior.

“You say it like it’s some big conspiracy,” she said, shaking her head, laughter still in her voice and that tinge of sadness in her eyes. “But I know you too well for that. You’d hardly be you if you hadn’t misplaced half a dozen things in any given day.”

Adrian glanced around his too-clean flat and forced a laugh as well. Yes, that must be it.

“Which is also how I knew that you were destined to burn whatever it is you’ve forgotten on the stove,” she added with a nod towards the smoke starting to emerge from his kitchen. As he scrambled to try to save their dinner, she called after him, “Not to worry, you ridiculous man, I ordered us delivery before I even left home.”

His laughter then was as genuine as hers, though his cooking was indeed ruined, and Adrian wondered all over again about the exact nature of their friendship. He didn’t wonder at all about the nature of his feelings for her, far more obvious to him than whatever arcane organisational scheme was at work in his kitchen.

By the end of the school day on Monday, he had decided that it was pointless to try to pretend to himself that he wasn’t in love with her. The disorientation of his concussion had mostly faded, though his memories still felt foggy — totally normal, Dr Jones had assured him, when she phoned to check on him on Sunday — so he couldn’t say for sure exactly how long he’d been in love with Clara. Months, perhaps, maybe years. When he tried to nail it down, it felt like he’d always loved her, like it had always been an intrinsic part of his soul. And really, it didn’t matter how long it had been going on, because there it was every time he thought about her, utterly undeniable, more certain than anything else in his life: Adrian Smith was in love with Clara Oswald.

When Tuesday afternoon rolled around, he’d nearly convinced himself that he ought to tell her. She had been so sweet to him since his accident, always there when he needed her, always happy to see him, always able to lift his spirits, absolutely perfect for him in every way. His feelings could hardly come as a surprise to her. And maybe, just maybe, she might feel the same. Maybe his accident had been the push they needed to try being something more than friends. Maybe this was the beginning of something grand, a love story for the ages.

Maybe, he thought that night, unable to sleep. Just maybe.

On Wednesday, Coal Hill’s absentee caretaker John Smith finally showed up for work, and everything Adrian thought he knew went right out the window.

--

He hated the man, Adrian was ashamed to admit, even to himself. He hated everything about John Smith. He hated his arrogance, the way he strode around Coal Hill as though it was his personal kingdom. He hated how his lip would curl when he caught sight of Adrian, the way he rolled his eyes at nearly everything Adrian said. He hated his accent, and his jumper full of holes, and his overly-pronounced eyebrows.

But mostly Adrian hated how he talked to Clara. How he always seemed to be lurking about, whispering in her ear, sending her significant looks that Adrian couldn’t hope to decipher. He hated how John Smith said her name, the possessiveness in his tone that only Adrian seemed to be able to hear. And most of all, he loathed how Clara turned towards the abrasive Scottish caretaker, like a flower seeking the warmth of the sun.

Adrian had managed to convince himself, in that magical window of time when he’d somehow forgotten the existence of John Smith, that Clara was, at the very least, not indifferent to him. But he was forced to admit that he had not truly known what love looked like on her face until he saw her with Coal Hill’s caretaker. She looked at him like he’d hung the moon and stars. Adrian lost count of how many times he caught her watching John, the emotion plain to see. She stood too close to him, smiled at him too broadly, listened to his every word.

And Adrian was sure he’d never been so miserable in his entire life.

Which meant, naturally, that Clara could never know a thing about it.

--

“Heya,” Clara greeted him, leaning in the doorway to his classroom at the end of Friday, “I’m meeting a friend for drinks after work, feel like coming along?”

Adrian fiddled with the red marking pen in his hands rather than meet her gaze. “Is John Smith going?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual.

He could tell without looking at her, just by the shape of her silence, that she’d raised her eyebrows in confusion. He hated that he knew that, when he still hadn’t found where pre-concussion-him had stashed his laundry detergent.

“No,” she said finally, voice upturned like it might be a question. “No, John wasn’t planning on joining us. Just you and me and my friend Osgood. You’ll like her, she’s a bowtie aficionado, like you.”

He cracked a smile at that in spite of himself. “Hard to say no to a fellow bowtie enthusiast.”

When he didn’t continue, her silence shifted to the eyes-narrowed sort. “Did John say something to you?” she asked.

Adrian glanced up at her, and found he was right about her expression. “No, it’s just... You seem close,” he said delicately.

She dropped her gaze to the floor and folded her arms, shrugging. “No point denying it, I suppose.”

He cringed inwardly but found his resolve to end this rather than prolong his heartache. “Clara,” he said gently. “You’ve been so kind to me this last week since the accident, but you don’t have to keep doing this. You don’t have to keep an eye on me. I can get on fine on my own.”

When she looked back up at him he was startled to see tears in her eyes. “You ridiculous man,” she said, a waver in her voice. “I asked because I want you to come along. Because I like spending time with you. And don’t be afraid of John Smith, he’s not nearly as prickly as he seems.”

“I am not afraid of John Smith!” he sputtered, offended.

“You know what I mean. You don’t have anything to worry about from him.”

And just like that, Clara Oswald turned his world upside down again.

--

The pub was dim and comfortable, and felt utterly unfamiliar to Adrian, despite being so close to Coal Hill. When he stared in confused silence at the bartender, Clara ordered him something with more sugar than alcohol, and reminded him of his long-established hatred of wine. That, at least, rang true, and he did enjoy the drink she’d chosen for him.

Her friend Osgood arrived shortly after, her paisley bowtie set off by embroidered question marks on the tips of her shirt collar, both of which he complimented. She thanked him profusely, smile wide and eyes bright, and Clara hid her own smile behind her wine glass.

They were lingering over their second round, debating the pros and cons of waistcoats versus jumpers, when the pub’s door slammed open with enough force to draw their attention from across the room. Like a storm blowing in, John Smith strode through, all gruff arrogance and bushy eyebrows, his gaze landing on Clara without giving the rest of the pub so much as a passing glance. He beckoned her over with an urgent, imperious hand gesture that set Adrian’s teeth on edge, but he made no move to come towards their table.

Clara winced and set down her wine glass. “I’ll just be a mo’. Talk amongst yourselves,” she added, waving at Adrian and Osgood as she got up from the table and crossed the room.

That hatred was back, roiling in his gut. Adrian forced his gaze away from Clara and John, only to find that Osgood was watching them as well, her expression contemplative and wistful in a way he couldn’t quite understand. Well, she and Clara were friends, maybe she was more aware than he was about the exact nature of Clara’s love life.

“Do you know,” he asked, his voice carefully neutral, “are the two of them...?”

“Wish I knew,” Osgood said ruefully, still watching them. “I’d win the office pool, if I knew that.”

“Your office bet on if Clara is secretly dating Coal Hill’s caretaker?” he replied, confused.

She snapped her gaze to his as though only just realising what she’d said. “Anyone who sees them together has to wonder,” she said, quick to recover. “Clara knows a lot of the people I work with. We try not to gossip, but, well,” she nodded in the direction of where they were still speaking quietly, bodies inclined towards each other, heads bent close.

“It does make one wonder,” Adrian agreed, trying valiantly to keep any bitterness out of his tone. So he wasn’t the only person who saw it — but it also wasn’t an open secret he alone had been unaware of. “What is it you do for work?” he asked, dragging his gaze off of Clara and John and flailing for a change of topic.

“Boring government stuff,” Osgood replied, waving it away. “How about you? Clara said you teach English at her school?”

He smiled and puffed up a bit at the thought of Clara telling her friend about him. “Yes, going on five years now. Inflicting literature on young minds.”

“What are you covering in your classes right now?”

“Shakespeare! Not nearly as exciting as seeing it performed live, but there is something painfully authentic about teenagers reading Romeo and Juliet aloud.”

Clara returned before Osgood could reply, her motions quick in a way that made Adrian’s heart sink.

“There’s a— thing, a minor emergency, nothing to worry about,” she said, scooping up her coat and purse. “But I have to dash. Will you be alright?” she asked, gaze skittering over him to land on Osgood.

“Yes, of course, I know how this goes,” Osgood replied after half a second of apparent surprise. “I’ll make sure Adrian gets home alright,” she added, flashing a smile in his direction.

“Thank you,” Clara said, perhaps a bit too emphatically for Adrian’s taste, but then she was looking at him again and the thought was crowded out of his head. “You,” she said, pinning him with her gaze, “don’t get into any trouble. I’ll phone you tomorrow.”

“Anything I can help with?” he asked. “Minor emergencies are sort of my speciality.” He resolutely did not look behind her, where John Smith was still waiting by the pub’s door, shifting his weight restlessly.

“Nah, no reason to ruin all our evenings,” Clara said easily, but with enough force behind it that Adrian knew she wouldn’t be moved. “You two bond over bowties and your shared hatred of wine, I want to hear all about it later.”

She left with a parting kiss on the cheek for each of them, the glow of which lasted only until Adrian saw her take John Smith’s hand on their way out the door.

“Are you sure they aren’t...?” he asked Osgood again.

“No idea,” she sighed, with an emotion uncomfortably close to his own.

--

The Doctor chewed idly on his forefinger as he looked at the stone slab before them. It was taking a while for the translation microbes to kick in this time around, and he was beginning to become concerned. Nothing was fitting in correctly, meaning this glyph was fuzzy and that was just scribbles, and it wasn’t looking promising.

“Anything yet?” Clara asked. She couldn’t see anything translated either, meaning it needed to take something a lot more long-lasting and powerful a translation program than normal.

“Not a thing,” he replied.

“Pretty close to thinking here that we might have just run into a language the TARDIS just doesn't know,” she shrugged. “Of course this would happen in such a romantic place.”

“Clara, this is a tomb.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

It was true—they were in the final resting place of some empress of… something… on some far-flung planet. The Doctor had said it, but Clara had forgotten, and it was giving her definite haunted vibes. She glanced around, seeing if there was any bit that the TARDIS was willing to take pity on them and translate anyhow, but no such deal. It was that way not only with the writing that looked like it should have been there, as well as the stuff that looked as though it was merely graffiti, bragging about how far deep the writer had traveled inside the tomb. None of it was very impressive, or elicited any sort of reaction at all, in Clara, so she was doomed to sit there, bored out of her mind until further notice. It wasn’t as though either of them had any chance at reading the glyphs, so she sat on the flagstone below her feet in an effort to get comfortable.

Before long, Clara had tuned the Doctor out, as it didn’t seem as though he was going anything much more than verbalizing the issue out in order to solve it. Sometimes this took hours, and so she decided to trace her pointer finger along some symbols carved into the wall next to her. As she did, the glyph began to glow in a pale blueish color, first gently, then brightly when she stopped mid-symbol.

“Uh… Doctor…?”

“Yes, Clara…?”

“I think you might want to look at this...”

In a moment he was by her side and observing the glowing glyph. He placed his finger on it and traced it backwards, allowing the symbol to grow dark.

“Is that what you did?”

“Yeah, just the other way,” she confirmed.

“Then it looks like we’re getting somewhere,” he grinned. “I knew I kept you around for a reason, Clara Oswald.”

“Is it because you don’t know what you’d do if you got your finger stuck in something?” she teased. He scowled at that.

“That too, but… you know what I mean,” he replied. After partially tracing the glyph back and forth, the Doctor completed the symbol, which made the carving glow brightly. The glow began to spread to all the other surrounding characters, which made him grin. “It’s like backlighting your keyboard,  but for wall carvings.”

“Are you so sure about that?” she asked, pointing at one of the glowing glyphs. It was a soft green color, prompting her to raise an eyebrow. “Did the species that built this suffer from any forms of color blindness?”

“Only the women,” he noted. The Doctor touched the green symbol and it had a ripple effect, turning the surrounding symbols green as well. His face fell and alarms went off in Clara’s head.

“Doctor…? What did we just do…?”

“I think what we just did was activate something that was supposed to prevent the Empress’s retainers from coming in and taking her out of the tomb,” he posited. “The TARDIS has finally caught up, and it looks dicey.”

Clara looked at the original glyph she traced and watched it shimmer and wobble until it became words in English: beware all who enter here, or suffer the wrath of the Watchers.

“Uh, Doctor, can we start running now?”

“You didn’t like me then, either,” he shot back. “But for once we can actually use that to our advantage. The Tu’kavari are a telepathic conglomerate, many minds but all thinking in unison. We establish contact between the two of us, and then we let the Tu’kavari in—”

“Willingly let them share our minds?” came the sharp reply over the radio. “Did something go wrong with the Chameleon Arch? I know I wasn’t this much of an idiot before!”

“Are you getting forgetful in your old age,” the Doctor demanded of his other self, “or do you not remember what you said to me barely half an hour ago: they don’t know there’s two of us. We can use that to confuse the hivemind, push them past the point of endurance.”

The radio was silent for a moment, and when the older Doctor spoke next, it was more thoughtful. “They’ll perceive us as one person, with wildly divergent thoughts. The Tu’kavari won’t be able to keep up without shattering.”

“Precisely. Clara and I will keep our TARDIS in sync with yours, continue drawing them away from Earth just in case. But their attention should be completely fixated on us.”

The radio made a harsh sound of his disapproving scoff. “You’re going to juggle two levels of telepathic connection and try to match your flight path to mine? I can’t imagine how that could go wrong!”

“I’ll be doing the flying,” Clara spoke up, her tone leaving no room for argument. “Stay focused on the Tu’kavari, Doctor, don’t worry too much about your trajectory. Just fly erratically and I’ll match your movements,” she went on, addressing her words to the radio. She paused, then added, “Wherever you go, I’ll follow.”

The Doctor caught her gaze when she looked up at him across the console, her expression grave. He offered her a little nod of reassurance, knowing she meant what she said, not just in this moment, but always.

“For the record, I think this is a truly spectacularly bad idea,” his older self informed them, “but as it’s the best plan we’ve got, I don’t see that we have much of a choice.”

“Noted,” the Doctor huffed. “Ready?”

Clara stepped over to him, pressing herself in between him and the console, her fingers brushing his as she took over the navigation controls. “Ready,” she confirmed, her attention already focused on mimicking the other TARDIS’s chaotic movements.

“Ready,” the radio crackled.

“Okay, then.” The Doctor looked to Clara, and when she glanced back at him, he grinned and said, “Geronimo.”

“Oh, for god’s sake,” the other Doctor said. “Contact.”

He felt the connection between their minds spring to life instantly and echoed, “Contact.” He'd done this before, countless times, but usually with a Time Lord other than himself. Sharing his mind with an older version of himself was an odd sort of feedback loop, like mirrors facing each other — if the other mirror was cross and Scottish and more anxious than the Doctor had thought to expect.

I assume you know how to open telepathic communications with the Tu’kavari? that Scottish voice demanded in his mind. Get on with it.

Distantly he was still aware of the console room around him, Clara standing near his elbow, and the TARDIS’s monitors flickering with information about their current location in real space. The Tu’kavari ship was close on their trail, and he reached his consciousness out towards them, feeling his older self respond in kind.

Oy, Tu’kavari! he projected at them, repeating his words from earlier — what felt like a lifetime ago but could only have been barely twenty minutes. Looking for me?

The hivemind roared through the psychic connection, furious, covetous of his mind and desperate for revenge against him for evading them so long.

This is what you want, isn’t it? he asked, sending a sharp ripple through the telepathic link in a show of strength. Well then, come and get it!

The Doctor felt the TARDIS shift around him, as Clara completed a particularly abrupt manoeuvre to keep them on top of the other TARDIS. He braced himself against the console and refocused on the Tu’kavari.

Enough of your tricks and illusions, Doctor! came their icy, multilayered collective voice. Surrender!

There is no illusion, the other Doctor put in, smoothly mimicking him, pretentious Scottish accent temporarily hidden away to complete the appearance that they were one mind.

In sync first, and then the split, he reminded himself, keeping his connection to his older self as steady and unobtrusive as possible. Can’t fake a TARDIS, he told them in the same tone. Perhaps you’re just confused.

We are not confused! The Tu’kavari know all, see all. We see YOU, Doctor!

Ah, but what is it that you see? his older self asked.

A madman in a box? the Doctor added.

The Oncoming Storm? The questions were overlapping, one coming half a second after the other, and the Doctor felt the hivemind flinch in confusion.

Do you think you can keep up? he projected at them, listening as the other Doctor asked the same a moment later in a disorienting echo. Catch me if you can!

The TARDIS swooped again, and suddenly his mind flooded with thoughts of Donna Noble as his older self paged through his memories of her. Time for the split. He shifted his focus, letting the recollections of Donna tumble through his mind unimpeded while he called up his memories of Martha Jones. Not just how brilliant she’d been today, giving him the courage to face down the Tu’kavari on that rooftop, but how brilliant she’d always been, clever and resourceful and compassionate, from that very first day, when he was barefoot on the moon.

The hivemind recoiled and then shoved hard against the Doctors’ shared consciousness as though trying to discern reality from illusion. In unison they shoved back, listening as the hivemind reverberated with it. It was working. It would work. They just had to keep one step ahead, keep the Tu’kavari guessing.

He switched his thoughts to Amy. Mad, glorious Pond, oh how he missed her. Amy, who had run away the night before her wedding to go on adventures with her raggedy Doctor. He’d held onto her as long as he could, but in the end she had chosen Rory, as he had known she would. He’d mourned them for years, swearing off forming that kind of bond with anyone again, until Clara had come into his life.

Through their connection the Doctor felt his older self turn his thoughts to Osgood, replaying memories of her that he didn’t yet have — something about Zygons and the Boxes and narrowly avoiding near-certain death. Petronella. ...Let’s just stick with what we had.

For just a moment, the Doctor aligned their thoughts again, adding in his own recent moments with Osgood, bonding over bowties and laughing at late night telly. It was at such odds with the other memories of her, overlapping and rebounding in the Doctors’ shared mental voice, and he could feel the Tu’kavari’s frustration and confusion grow. The hivemind snarled and pressed in on them, but the Doctors held firm.

Enough! the Doctors thought in unison, flinging their thoughts in opposite directions.

When the older Doctor thought of River, he instead called up every memory of Rose, keeping up the discordant harmony that was slowly but surely breaking the Tu’kavari. Each shift Eyebrows made, the Doctor pivoted as well, drowning the hivemind in a flood of contradictory memories at a relentless pace as the minutes ticked by unchecked. He countered thoughts of Peri with thoughts of Sarah Jane, contrasted Romana against Leela, Jo against Jamie, Tegan and Nyssa and Turlough versus Barbara and Ian and Susan. With every dissonant pairing of their shared memories, the Tu’kavari howled and thrashed within the psychic connection, unable to make sense of the Doctors’ mind.

Around him, the TARDIS shifted violently, and he felt his arm knock against Clara’s just as she muttered tensely beneath her breath. How long had they been at this? How long had Clara been flying his TARDIS unassisted, unable to even witness the telepathic struggle the Doctors were engaged in? All without a word of question or complaint, even more self-assured and competent than the younger version of her he travelled with.

She had always been capable, always ready to throw herself straight into the deep end to save him, right from their very first trip off-world together, when she’d commandeered that flying moped to come after him rather than leave him to face the Old God of Akhaten alone. Clara had led soldiers against the Cybermen, faced down an Ice Warrior alone, convinced the TARDIS to enter a collapsing pocket universe to find him. She had jumped into his timestream to reverse the damage done by the Great Intelligence, tearing herself into a million pieces all for him, with no expectation that she would make it out alive.

And that fateful day in that barn on Gallifrey, she had looked at him with tears in her eyes and reminded him to be a Doctor.

The only thing Clara has ever asked of us, his older self had said, after his attempt to give him back some of his lost memories. And of course he had known the magic those words would carry, the way they would wake up the Time Lord hidden within Adrian Smith. For his Clara, he could do anything.

My Clara the other Doctor echoed through their telepathic connection, and with a start the Doctor realised that their thoughts were once again running in tandem, his memories of Clara pulling his older self in.

My Clara, he couldn’t help but think as well. It wasn’t possessive, as he’d thought when Adrian Smith’s jealousy had made him so critical of the Scottish caretaker who seemed to hold Clara’s heart. It was merely a statement of fact — that out of all the many Claras the universe over, out of all the echoes of her strewn across his timeline, this one was his Clara. The one he knew best. The one who had saved him, time and again.

The one he loved.

And he did love her, the Doctor realised. Adrian’s feelings for her hadn’t been an artefact of the Chameleon Arch, or some shallow human approximation of his affection for Clara. He loved her. Like she’d breathed life into the stars and spun the filaments of galaxies that gave the universe its form. Perhaps he simply hadn’t truly realised it until now, until living as Adrian had stripped away all the other endless noise in his mind, allowing him to finally understand his feelings clearly.

Clara’s love for him was what had driven her to jump into his timestream, and his love for her is what had allowed him to pull her out again, whole and unharmed. Her love for him had challenged him to be better than his past choices, to choose another way to end the Time War. His love for her had sent him racing for the safety of her care when the Tu’kavari were bent on destroying him and assimilating him into the hivemind.

It was a love so strong, regeneration had only deepened it, he knew. His older self echoed the sentiment, sharing the memory of the first time he’d seen her face with his new eyes, the way he had both craved her touch and feared it in those first months after his regeneration. He’d gone to hell and back because of his love for Clara — Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference? he had asked her, as Clara stared at him, her eyes overlarge with tears. Because he loved her, he had left her to live a happy human life, and because he loved her, he had come back to her when the universe gifted them another chance.

The Doctor could hardly make sense of the flood of memories from his older self, moments he had not yet lived, emotions that were all too painful in their familiarity. He let them fall through his mind like rain, until everything was Clara, the Doctors’ minds in perfect sync. The Doctor loved Clara Oswald, a truth so simple and profound it might as well have been the organising principle of the universe.

On the other end of the telepathic connection, the hivemind stilled, as if sensing his weakness, poised to strike.

Because I love Clara, the other Doctor thought in their shared telepathic voice, the singular pronoun somehow encompassing both of them, I must leave her.

Ah, and here it was, the moment of truth, the thing that would finally break the Tu’kavari. With a flicker of insight, he knew what his older self planned to do. Clara would not be happy about it, but it was the only way.

Because I love Clara, the Doctor echoed, their words running together as though it was one unbroken thought, I must stay with her.

I must leave her, the older Doctor projected through the psychic link, not a shred of doubt in the certainty of the outcome.

I must stay with her, the Doctor repeated, just as sure.

I must leave her.

I must stay with her.

I must leave her.

I must stay—

He felt the moment the Tu’kavari hivemind shattered, its billions of minds ricocheting into discordant chaos like so many shards of glass. Each had once been its own entity, its own life, before the conglomerate had consumed it. Suddenly every mind could think for itself again, and a cacophony of memories poured through the psychic link, lifetimes full of love and loss and joy and sorrow that had been silenced beneath the weight of the hivemind.

Quickly both Doctors pulled their minds back, breaking their connection as well, and abruptly he was once again standing in the TARDIS, his knuckles white where his fingers gripped the edge of the console.

“What happened?” Clara demanded, glancing away from the controls to find his gaze.

“The Tu’kavari—” the Doctor started, his throat dry.

“We broke the hivemind,” came the terse response from over the radio. “They’re divided, leaderless. Weakened but not defeated.”

“So what do we do now?” she asked. “How do we defeat them?”

I must stay— I must leave— echoed through the Doctor’s mind in the beat of silence that followed. How could he possibly tell her what they planned, what had to happen now?

“Get Clara to safety,” his older self commanded gruffly. “I’ll draw the Tu’kavari away, find a way to contain them, if I can.”

“No!” Clara cried, abandoning the flight controls to speak directly into the radio. “No, you do not leave me!”

For a hushed moment, no one spoke, and then the radio conveyed his last instruction: “Look after each other.”

“No!” Clara yelled again, but the line had already gone dead. “No. We have to go after him, we have to—”

Despite the plea in her voice, the Doctor reached over and pulled the lever that sent the TARDIS into siege mode, cutting them off from any further communication and blocking Clara from the flight controls.

“I’m sorry, my Clara,” he said quietly, unable to meet her gaze, “but I’m taking you home.”

--

“Or dogs, or hamsters, or—”

“Your argument being that you didn’t want to deal with pet hair on your fancy frock coats. I think we can both agree that isn’t going to be an issue when it comes to Shadow.”

“You named it already?”

“Of course I named him!” She turned her gaze to the adorable soot-coloured creature perched on her shoulder, its large eyes tracking the Doctor’s every move with curiosity. “Look at that face. How can you say no to that face?”

“Like this: No.”

“Doctor,” Clara started, a pleading tone working its way into her voice. “Please?”

“No, don’t, not with the eyes,” he said, covering his own. “How do you do that with your eyes? It’s like they inflate!”

“Shadow will be my responsibility,” she said, sensing she’d gained the upper hand. “You won’t have to feed him or walk him or clean his litterbox.”

The Doctor dropped his hand to shoot her a dry look. “It’s a dragon, Clara. I don’t think it’ll use a litterbox.”

“He’s only a small dragon! And he’s quite intelligent, I’m sure he can learn.”

“He’s small now,” the Doctor pointed out. “What if he gets bigger?”

“The man in the bazaar said he was fully grown.”

“Salesmen being known the universe-over for their honesty.”

At the Doctor’s elbow the TARDIS console beeped cheerfully, and Clara looked to the screen to see an article from the Galactic Hub on Shadow’s species of flying dragonoids, helpfully scrolled to the homecare section.

“Oh, don’t you go taking sides in this,” the Doctor groused.

“It’s just one teeny, tiny house-dragon,” Clara said, aiming for a soothing tone. “You’ll hardly even notice he’s here. Please, Doctor?”

For a moment he looked like he might argue, but then his shoulders sagged. “Oh, alright,” he sighed. “But remember, he’s your responsibility. He’s your dragon, not mine. I don’t want to find him sleeping on my favourite chair, or nesting in one of my jumpers, or— or setting fire to the library.”

“I don’t think house-dragons breathe fire, Doctor,” she replied reasonably, just as the TARDIS scrolled the Galactic Hub article to the section debunking the myth of fire-breathing house-dragons.

On her shoulder, Shadow trilled deep in his throat, his eyes shifting colours like a mood ring, as though sensing that Clara had won the argument, and he a new home.

--

Clara pulled her robe tighter around her as she turned the last corner between her bedroom and the console room. She’d retired early with every intention of finishing the novel she was reading before she slept, but only realised after she’d climbed into bed that she had left the book in the gallery above the console room, next to Shadow’s little plush bed.

The TARDIS was quiet and dim around her as she walked, the lights in the corridor lowered to something that felt restful and cosy. Not that she expected the Doctor was sleeping. In the weeks since she’d moved into the TARDIS full-time, he seemed to fill the hours she spent sleeping with reading, or research, or small maintenance tasks, anything to amuse himself during the hours she had declared off limits for adventures. So long as he didn’t wake her up in the middle of the night with a pressing need to visit some planet or other, she supposed she didn’t really mind how he whiled away the time.

The console room was similarly hushed, the rotors barely a murmur in the distant unlit regions of the ceiling. Clara climbed the stairs to the gallery more by memory than by sight, her hand trailing along the bannister as she turned towards her usual reading spot, the comfortable armchair wedged between a bookshelf and the corner that had been devoted to Shadow’s needs. In the low light, it took her a moment to realise what it was she was seeing, and when she did she came to a stop, a bemused smile curling her mouth.

Her book was not where she had left it, but instead was now wedged open face-down on the arm of her reading chair. The chair was occupied by none other than the Doctor, his face relaxed with sleep, and as she listened a soft snore escaped him. It wasn’t really all that surprising, Clara told herself — he had to sleep sometime, after all, even if it was in her favourite chair. And after reading her novel, no less.

No, by far the most surprising piece of the entire tableau was the small house-dragon contentedly curled up on the Doctor’s lap, his leathery wings folded primly against his sides, which rose and fell in a rhythm that told her that Shadow, too, was likely asleep. The Doctor had one hand curled gently around the dragon’s hindquarters, and the other, Clara noted with amusement, had been appropriated as a makeshift pillow for Shadow.

She approached on tiptoe, loath to wake either of them. As she silently lifted her novel from the armrest, Shadow lazily opened one opalescent eye to regard her. He purred, low and deep and contented, his eye sliding closed again. In response the Doctor ran his hand over the soft scaled ridges of the dragon’s spine and murmured some sort of comforting nonsense, apparently still asleep. Shadow nudged affectionately at the Doctor’s other hand and huffed a relaxed little sigh before settling back to sleep again.

Biting her lip against making any involuntary noise at how unreasonably adorable they were, Clara carefully retreated back towards her room, book in hand.

“I did,” he agreed. “I wasn’t lying to you, Clara. It started out just as I’d hoped it would, we were able to create a feedback loop between our minds to confuse the Tu’kavari. They perceived us as one person following two separate lines of thought, completely outside anything they could understand.”

Clara angled her body to look at him, her arms still clasped around herself as though it was the only thing keeping her upright, her eyes large and her face tearstained. “Then why didn’t it work?”

“It did, at first,” the Doctor said, staring down at his hands braced against the console, unable to meet her gaze. “We flooded them with conflicting memories, the duality of it was breaking them, little by little. But then...” He trailed off, thinking of the moment when their divergent thoughts had aligned entirely against their will. “But then we thought of you,” he said, barely a breath in the stillness of the console room.

“Me?”

“It was like— gravity, nothing we could do to stop it. Our thoughts converged, we didn’t mean for it to happen, but once we started, we couldn’t stop. Every memory we have of you, building off each other. The Tu’kavari thought they had us, thought they’d found our weakness, the way to bend us to their will. The only thing, the only thing that could save any of us in that moment was my future self’s decision to leave.”

Clara snorted damply. “How could leaving me be any help?”

He finally looked back up at her, holding her gaze. “What the Tu’kavari thought was a weakness was our greatest strength, and it was the last weapon we had left. Because our feelings for you are so strong, one of us had to stay with you, and one of us had to leave. The hivemind couldn’t comprehend the contradiction, and it broke them.”

“But if it’s done now, why did he— How could he just—”

“Hey, hey,” the Doctor said, quickly crossing to Clara and gathering her in his arms as her tears began to fall again. “He didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t give them a chance to reorganise the hivemind. This is our best shot at defeating the Tu’kavari for good, and Eyebrows knows it as well as I do.”

“If something happens to him...” Clara said, pressing her face to his chest. “I can’t lose him now, I can’t.”

The Doctor hesitated, then said softly, “Because you love him.”

“I—” Clara faltered. “I love you too,” she finally said, her voice muffled against the tweed of his jacket, her arms around his back holding him tighter. “And I did fancy you, when we travelled together. But with him, it’s different. If I lose him now, it’s the end of everything.”

“Brave heart, Clara,” he said, kissing the top of her head in a comforting gesture. “Your Doctor is clever, and wily, and doesn’t want to be separated from you any more than you want to be separated from him, believe me. You’ve got to have faith in him, that he’ll find his way back to you. We always have, haven’t we, he and I? We’ve always found you again, one way or another.” He remembered what Clara had said earlier, the implicit promise she’d made just before their confrontation with the Tu’kavari. “Wherever you go, we’ll follow,” he murmured, repeating her words. “You have to believe that.”

She hiccupped against him, clutching him tighter, and the Doctor held her closer in response. He would offer her whatever solace he could, but a guilty part of him wished this hug had come under better circumstances. As much as she was undeniably the woman he loved, she wasn’t really his Clara anymore. Somewhere out there was the Clara that fancied him, but he couldn’t ignore that the one in his arms was very much in love with his older self.

For just a moment, he felt like Adrian Smith again, heartsick over his best friend falling for someone else. He thought of the hug she’d given him that morning he’d brought her coffee, and how he had resolved not to dwell on the might-have-beens between them. It was all so different now that he could see the full picture of who Clara was to him, but he couldn’t help the way his hearts ached, both for her pain and his.

“He’ll come back to you,” he whispered. “I know he will, because he and I are the same. We both love you, Clara Oswald. Nothing is ever going to change that.”

A sob escaped her, and the Doctor stroked his hand against her hair, soothing her the only way he knew how. He was a poor imitation of the man she loved, but until his older self returned, he would try his best to be what she needed. He could do no less for his Clara.

“I love him,” she breathed, as though speaking the words might bend the universe to her will. “I love him, and I can’t lose him now.”

He held her close, words failing him. He didn’t want to even consider the possibility that the other Doctor might not come back. The Tu’kavari had been weakened, but a wounded animal could be vicious in defence of itself. They were still dangerous, and now Eyebrows was out there facing them alone. He knew the depth of his older self’s feelings for Clara, and knew that nothing besides ensuring her safety would keep him away. Nothing short of death could keep him from returning to her, and even on that point he expected he might well find a loophole.

And after all, the Doctor knew that someday in his future he would have to find a way to escape death, a way to cheat the old rule of thirteen faces and somehow regenerate into Eyebrows. He had no doubt that when that day inevitably arrived, it would be his desire to stay with her that would allow him to accomplish the impossible. Anything for a little more time with Clara.

“If this is going to go on awhile,” a familiar Scottish voice called from the doorway, “I can come back later.”

Clara jolted in his arms and took a startled step away from him. Together they turned to look at the open door of the TARDIS and the figure standing just inside. To the Doctor’s quick eye, there were subtle signs of how much time had passed for his older self — the length of his hair, the lines of fatigue around his eyes, the wrinkles pressed into his clothing. But Clara stared at him like she couldn’t quite believe he was really there, like she didn’t know what to do with herself now that her hopes had been answered.

The older Doctor returned her gaze for a long moment, his expression as anxious and heartsick as hers, then looked over his shoulder, listening to someone outside. “No, they’re alright,” he replied. “Just post-alien-confrontation jitters, you know how it is.” He turned back to them, gaze sliding past the Doctor to land on Clara again. “You are okay, aren’t you?”

She nodded shakily, still unable to tear her eyes away from him.

Osgood appeared at the older Doctor’s shoulder, peering around him to see further into the TARDIS. “Oh good, you had us worried,” she said as she crossed towards the console.

Martha was close behind her, but she hesitated for a fraction of a second between one step and the next, her gaze quickly cutting between Clara and each of the Doctors. She was clearly aware of the tension drawn taut between them, and she quirked one eyebrow at the Doctor in silent question.

“Are the Tu’kavari gone, then?” Osgood went on, seeming not to notice.

When neither Clara nor his older self so much as broke eye contact with each other to acknowledge the question, the Doctor said, “Ought to be. We were really very clever, Eyebrows and me. We used a telepathic feedback loop—”

“What did you do?” Clara demanded of the other Doctor, interrupting as though no one had spoken. “You left. Was that really the only way to defeat them? Really?”

“I led them away,” he replied quietly, utterly focused on her. “When the hivemind split into factions, I managed to trick the more aggressive of them into a pocket universe. Should hold them for a great long while. The rest have sworn off conquering other telepathic races, so I don’t think we’ll encounter any trouble from the Tu’kavari again. Only took me a month or so.”

“A month,” Clara repeated flatly.

He bit his lip as though trying to decide what to say. “I figured that was enough of a win to come back and check on you, make sure you got home safe. And here you are,” he said more briskly, gesturing at her with both hands. “Safe and sound. I don’t know what I was worried about.” He looked away, losing some of his bravado. “If you— if you like, I could clear off for a bit, leave you and Bowtie to travel together for a while. I can always erase his memories later, make sure the timeline stays intact.”

Still standing close beside her, the Doctor watched Clara’s face as she absorbed this offer, the flicker of confusion and the flash of pain she quickly hid away. It was undeniably selfless of the other Doctor, in a way he wasn’t sure he would be able to match if their places were reversed. Anything for a little more time with Clara, he had thought only moments before his older self returned. But could he do this to her, steal her away from her Doctor, claim days and years out of her short life that weren’t rightfully his?

If it was what she wanted, he didn’t think he would have the strength to tell her no. But watching her reaction, he didn’t think it was what she wanted. Perhaps Adrian Smith had been more right about John Smith than he’d known, perhaps his future self was blind to Clara’s feelings for him, despite the depth of his feelings for her.

“You came back,” she said finally, her voice carefully controlled to betray no emotion, “just to tell me you’re leaving again?”

“You’ve missed him, Clara,” he replied, like the rest of them weren’t in the room as well. “That much is obvious. If this will make you happy—”

“Oh, you ridiculous man!” she seethed, bursting into motion and crossing the console room in a few long, quick strides. Without hesitation, she grabbed the older Doctor by his lapels and pulled him into a passionate kiss.

For one long moment the Doctor watched them, too stunned to pull his gaze away. Despite the many hugs and little kisses he’d exchanged with Clara over the years, he’d never really thought anything like that was possible for the two of them. The same jealousy that had so defined his time as Adrian surged within him again, but he pushed it away. Clara had been offered a choice between them, and she’d chosen who she truly wanted. His happiness for her and his future self had to balance out any lingering envy.

“Did we say five quid?” he heard Martha’s voice ask quietly, and he turned to where she and Osgood were still stood on the far side of the console.

“There’s a kiss, it’s definitely ten quid,” Osgood muttered in reply. “Pay up.”

He cast one last look back towards Clara and the older Doctor, completely absorbed in each other and utterly mindless to the conversation on the other side of the room, then forced his feet to move towards Osgood and Martha, rather than continue to stand staring in consternation at the sight of Clara snogging his next face.

“UNIT leadership placing bets on the Doctor-companion relationship?” he demanded of them. “Really?”

“It’d hardly be the first time,” Martha smirked at him.

He laughed at that as he joined them. “Oh, Martha Jones, you are a star,” he told her, just to see her smile widen. “Chief Medical Officer of UNIT, hm? With the two of you and Kate Stewart in charge, it seems that science certainly is leading, these days.”

“We do like bossing those solider-types around,” Osgood said conspiratorially.

“No one better than you to do it,” the Doctor said, grinning at her. “Thank you both, for looking after me,” he said, sobering a bit. “Couldn’t have made it through this without you.”

“No hard feelings about the whole ‘drugging and kidnapping you’ bit, then?” Martha asked.

“Well, don’t make a habit of it. But exceptions can be made for a situation like this. And if anyone’s entitled to a bit of leeway, it’s you, the only human to survive a Chameleon Arch’ed Time Lord twice now.”

“Three times, if you count Professor Yana,” Martha pointed out.

“Oh, the Master,” he groaned. “I suppose we do have to count that.”

Osgood opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. “I don’t even want to know,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “If the Master has come back again, whatever he’s up to in the future is Eyebrow’s problem, not mine. Let me live my peaceful Master-free existence a little while longer, will you?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Fair enough.”

“So what do you say, Martha Jones?” the Doctor said, turning back to her. “Fancy a spin around the universe, for old times’ sake? You’ve certainly earned it.”

“Well, if you can promise to get me back on time. I have missed it,” she said with a sly smile.

“Osgood, how ‘bout it?” he went on. “We could hit up a few planets, find a few historical figures to prank. All of time and space, anything you like.”

She smiled and dropped her gaze. “I’d love to. But I can’t leave Earth. I’m needed here.”

“Ah,” he said, putting the pieces together. “The Osgood Boxes are working as intended, then?”

“Yes,” she said, but didn’t elaborate.

“Good,” he replied. “Well, not good, but better than not working, I suppose.” He considered her a moment, thinking about the weight on Osgood’s shoulders, and the grace with which she carried it. “You are saving the world right here at home, aren’t you?”

Osgood smiled at him ruefully. “All in a day’s work.”

“I’m glad I got to know you,” he told her, “over popcorn and pizza and bad late night telly. Thank you for that. And here,” he added, untying his bowtie as soon as the thought occurred to him. He pulled it from his collar and held it out to her. “To add to your impressive collection.”

She accepted it with an awed look, carefully coiling it up in her hand like a precious object. “It’s been my honour, Doctor,” she said sincerely. “If you need anything— from your flat, or help from UNIT, or anything, really— well, you have my number.”

“Indeed I do,” he laughed, pulling her into a quick hug. “And keep an eye on the two of them for me, would you?” he added when they parted, tilting his head towards Clara and the older Doctor. “I hate to think what trouble they might get into from here.”

“On it,” Osgood replied with a nod. With one last smile and a wave at the Doctor, she turned and made her way outside.

He watched her go, his gaze inexorably landing on Clara and his future self, still wrapped up in each other near the entrance to the TARDIS.

“Honestly, I thought they’d be finished by now,” he muttered, shooting Martha a pained look.

She laughed quietly. “Wanna bet on how long they can go before they realise we’re still here?” she suggested. “I’m out ten pounds, might be nice to recoup my loses.”

“Yes, yes, very funny, but I know better than to bet against you, Martha Jones. And I am in no way convinced that they’ll come to their senses without a bit of nudging, so I suppose I’ll just have to—” He grimaced at the task ahead of him, but made himself move. “Oy, lovebirds!” he called as he crossed towards them. “How am I meant to leave with the two of you perched in my doorway?”

They finally stepped away from each other and turned to him, though they continued to stand so close their arms were nearly brushing. “Ah yes, I’d almost forgotten we were still in your TARDIS,” the older Doctor said. “Can’t imagine why we’d want to stay,” he added, curling his lip in distaste. “There’s a reason I redecorated.”

“Oh, ha ha,” he shot back. “You’re awfully opinionated for someone who shouldn’t exist! Twelve regenerations, thirteen faces — I’ve spent the last few hundred years clinging to this face, knowing it’ll be my last. And yet there you stand, in violation of all the rules.”

“Yes, well,” his older self replied, shrugging self-consciously. “We ought to have died, but then Clara did a clever thing.”

“She often does,” the Doctor allowed, directing his smile towards her. “It’s good to know my future is in safe hands. Keep a tight hold on it, Clara.”

She grinned back at him, clearly catching his reference to the comment his last face had made, that day they saved Gallifrey. But as he watched, her smile faltered and fell. “It must be nearly Christmas, for your Clara, back in your proper time,” she said carefully.

“I suppose it is,” he said, frowning at the shift in her tone. “I hadn’t really thought about it.”

Clara nodded shakily, blinking back tears.

“Hey, what’s this then?” he asked, taking a step closer to her. “Christmas ought to make you happy, not... whatever that face is.”

“It’s a rough one, that year,” she said, managing a fragile smile. “We get through it, but...” She swallowed down her tears and then found his gaze. “She loves you, your Clara does. I know you’re going to forget all of this, timelines out of sync and all of that, but try to remember that much, at least.”

He looked away, smiling though it was tinged with melancholy. “I think I already knew. And even if I won’t remember, it’s good to see that we’ll get there eventually. The long way ‘round.”

“Yeah,” Clara said, gazing up at her Doctor with a soft expression and reaching over to clasp his hand in hers. “The long way ‘round.”

--

The door to the cabin sat closed, its windows dark and uninviting, and an air of neglect permeated the place. Carefully, the Doctor raised one hand and knocked on the door. It swung inwards on groaning hinges in response to the faint pressure, but the room beyond was too dark to make out more than vague shapes in the gloom. Clara held her breath, straining to see any evidence of movement within, or hear, over the sounds of the wind and the rain, any indication that they were not alone. But the cabin gave up none of its secrets.

Lightning flared behind them just as thunder crashed overhead, startling Clara and briefly illuminating the interior of the cabin in a harsh contrast of light and shadow. She turned a wide-eyed look towards the Doctor and found him watching her with a similarly frightened expression.

“Right,” he said, swallowing in apprehension. “Safer inside than out, at this point.”

Clara nodded her agreement and followed him into the cabin, feeling the old wood of the floor creak beneath her feet.

The inside was dry for the most part, only a few small drips working their way in through the shingled roof. Between flashes of lightning she was able to make out a small table and two chairs in the middle of the room, a collapsed bedframe in one corner, and piles of dead leaves swept in by the wind.

“Better than nothing, I suppose,” Clara said dubiously, grateful to be out of the rain but still uneasy in the darkness of the abandoned cabin.

The Doctor had stopped in front of a low bookcase near the remains of the bed and stood fumbling in his pockets for something. Curious and feeling as though they ought to stick together in the unfamiliar place, Clara crossed the room towards him. As she reached him, a flicker of lightning glinted off the slender glass globe of an oil lamp, grimy with soot but otherwise intact.

“I think I’ve got a book of matches in here somewhere...” he said by way of explanation, still rifling through the contents of his bigger-on-the-inside coat pockets.

Clara reached into her own completely-ordinary-sized jacket pocket and immediately found what she was looking for, the smooth metal shape cool beneath her fingertips. The Doctor looked at her in surprise when she clicked it to life, the wavering flame casting strange shadows across his face.

“Since when do you carry a lighter?” he asked as he pulled the globe from the oil lamp and held it out for her to light the exposed wick.

“Confiscated it from a student a few days back,” she said with a shrug once the lamp was lit. “Forgot it was in there until the situation demanded fire.”

The Doctor carefully replaced the curved glass over the flame, then handed Clara the lantern so he could adjust the wick length until the warm orange light filled the single room of the small cabin. Though the storm still raged outside, their little sanctuary felt immediately more welcoming and safe in the lantern’s glow. Clara looked around as her eyes adjusted, noting all the little details she hadn’t been able to pick out in the brief flashes of lightning. The bookcase was full of well-worn books, and there were framed pictures hanging on the walls. And in one corner by the door sat a pot-bellied stove, the light reflecting dimly off its matte black iron surface.

“Do you suppose that still works?” she asked, nodding to the stove as the Doctor closed and latched the door, shutting out the worst of the storm.

He glanced from her to the stove and shrugged. “It ought to, if the pile of wood there is dry enough. Give me your contraband lighter and I’ll see what I can do.”

Clara pulled it from her pocket again, cautiously balancing the oil lamp in one hand until he’d taken the lighter from her. Thunder cracked overhead as a bolt of lightning cast the shadows of the window frames on the floor, but the prospect of a fire made it almost possible to ignore her damp clothing and still-dripping hair.

“Who do you think lived here?” she asked as she picked her way around the perimeter of the room, careful to avoid puddles and piles of leaves as she inspected the belongings left behind by the cabin’s last resident.

“Someone who preferred to keep their own company, I would think,” he replied from the direction of the wood stove. “Someone fond of walking — I didn’t see any roads leading here, and nothing resembling a stable — and fond of reading, by the look of it.”

She quirked a smile at his description. “So basically Elizabeth Bennet, is what you’re saying?”

The Doctor sighed noisily but didn’t look up from where he was gingerly stacking kindling into the belly of the wood stove. “You’ve got the pudding-brains’ essays on your mind again, haven’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter what my students are reading, Elizabeth Bennet is never far from my mind,” Clara said solemnly, not quite managing to control her grin.

As she paced around the edge of the room, she leaned in to examine one of the framed pictures. It was a photograph, the colours faded with age, depicting a woman in a long dress standing in front of the cabin, smiling at the camera. Confronted with a strange feeling of familiarity, Clara raised the oil lamp closer to the photo and peered at the long departed woman — and found herself staring into her own face.

A chill ran through her, one she couldn’t blame on her rain-soaked clothes or the thunder crashing outside. The woman in the photograph was clearly her, and yet it couldn’t be her. She’d never been to this planet before, had never even heard of the civilisation that made its home here, before the Doctor suggested they visit. It all suddenly seemed like something out of a nightmare: stumbling into a decrepit cabin in the middle of a thunderstorm only to be confronted by a dead stranger wearing your face.

But then her rational mind reasserted itself over the spookiness of their current circumstances, and Clara took a long, steadying breath. Unlike most people, she knew there were women out there in the universe who looked just like her, who shared some variation of her name and personality. When she had jumped into the Doctor’s timestream, millions of echoes of her had been strewn throughout time and space. One of them must have ended up here, on this forgotten backwater planet.

Once she had control of her voice and was certain her surge of fear had passed, she called over her shoulder, “Doctor, come look at this.”

She kept her gaze on the photograph as she listened to the sounds of him closing the little door of the cast iron stove and crossing the creaking floor towards her, almost worried that the evidence of one of her echoes would disappear if she were to look away. He stopped at her shoulder, leaning in to look at the photo, then cast her a quick glance.

“Been here before?”

Clara shook her head, though she knew he wasn’t asking in any sincerity. “She must have been one of my echoes. And look,” she held the lantern up higher, casting flickering light across another of the framed photos, this one showing her echo standing arm in arm with a man, her head on his shoulder. “That’s one of your faces, isn’t it?”

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, considering the man in his green frock coat and unfashionably long hair. “From a very long time ago,” he said finally, his voice low, “before the Time War.”

“So you actually have been here before,” Clara pointed out, looking up at him in the flickering lantern light. Behind them, she could hear that the fire in the cast iron stove had caught, the crackling of the wood shifting the atmosphere of the cabin towards something more cosy and homey.

He met her gaze and nodded once in concession. “I suppose I must have been, though I can’t say I remember it at all. It’s been more than a millennia and a half for me since I wore that face. And memories of my encounters with your echoes seem to have a tendency not to stick.”

Clara paced away, looking at the cabin with new eyes, trying to imagine what it would have been like when it was well-kept and lived in, what it must have been like for her echo and the Doctor, so long ago. Walking in the woods together on warm summer days or gathering wildflowers in the meadow, watching the long slow sunsets this planet boasted, and reading books to each other by lantern light, warmed by the same little iron stove that even now was bringing much-needed heat to their temporary sanctuary.

“It’s kind of sweet to think of the two of them here,” she said as she set the oil lamp on the table and crossed towards the stove to warm her hands. “Hiding away in a little cabin, letting the universe pass by unnoticed.”

The Doctor joined her at the wood stove, the light of the lantern casting their shadows in a flickering blur on the wall beside them, dancing over more photos of Clara’s echo and the Doctor she had known.

“If I remember anything about that time,” he said slowly, “it’s only that— for awhile, I had peace. The Time War was starting up in earnest, spilling out to darken everything it touched, but there was a place I could go... Somewhere far away from all of it, where nothing else seemed to matter. Where I was happy.”

Clara reached out and clasped his hand briefly. Her echoes had been born to save the Doctor, but she supposed there was more to saving someone than just preventing their death. Knowing that some version of her had been able to be that for him, so very long ago when he needed it most, warmed her even more than the fire could.

“Although,” she said after a moment, glancing around the room, “I suppose it does beg the question—” she returned her gaze to his with a mischievous look, “—how exactly did the bedframe get broken?”

“He said not to let you follow him,” Adrian told her, wondering if he had any hope at all of stopping her, when she clearly knew how to fly the TARDIS and he currently did not.

Clara snorted damply. “Self-sacrificing idiot,” she muttered, throwing a lever on the console with more force than necessary. “As if I’d leave him to face this alone. He ought to know better by now.” She raised her eyes to Adrian’s and held his gaze through her gathering tears. “I’m sorry it’s happened this way, Adrian. This isn’t how I wanted any of this to go for you. But we’re out of time, and I need the Doctor back.”

“But I’m— I am the Doctor,” he said uncertainly. “Aren’t I?”

That seemed to be the wrong thing to say, because Clara flinched and closed her eyes, a tear slipping from beneath her lashes as he watched. “And you always will be,” she told him, her voice tight. “But he’s the Doctor too,” she went on, looking up at him again, “and I refuse to lose either of you. I need your help to save him, I can’t do this on my own.”

She reached into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew a silver fob watch, balancing it in her open palm to hold it out to him. The cover was engraved with the same sort of intricate lines and circles as the siege mode TARDIS had been, and somehow Adrian knew that if he were to open it, he would be able to read the markings on both. A chill ran through him, a sharp desire to be as far away from the fob watch as he could get.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” he said, looking from Clara to the watch and back again. “That’s the death of Adrian Smith. Of this whole... life that’s been mine, teaching at Coal Hill, and going to the pub with you and Osgood, and, and forgetting where I put my laundry detergent. That’s all over now, if I open that watch.”

“I wish there was another way,” she said sincerely. “We didn’t do this to trick you, we didn’t have any other choice—”

“No, I know,” he assured her, his voice soft and detached as he stared down at the watch in her hand. “John — older-me,” he amended, shaking his head, “he tried to give me some of my memories back. I understand, a little. But I think I liked being Adrian Smith,” he said, finding her gaze again. “I liked being your friend.”

With her free hand, Clara reached out and took his, curling her fingers around his as though they’d done it thousands of times before. “That’s not going to change,” she told him, her voice fierce. “You’re not going to lose me. Not today, not ever. I promise.” She pressed the fob watch into his hand as she stared up at him with wide, pleading eyes. “Please, for me, just this once, don’t even argue.”

Adrian gazed at her for a long moment, then nodded reluctantly. “For you, my Clara,” he murmured. “For you.”

Before he could lose his nerve, Adrian took a deep breath and thumbed open the latch, feeling Clara’s fingers slip away from his. Golden flight flowed out of the fob watch, and he was suddenly lightheaded, like he’d stood up too quickly, though he hadn’t moved. The light reached out to him, encompassing him until it was all he could see, all he could feel, tingling across his skin and crackling inside his brain.

Adrian Smith was no more, there was only the golden light and the warm metal of the fob watch, still clutched in his hand. All that he was, all that he had ever been, lived there in that light. He could feel his mind rapidly expanding, the memories John had given him rearranging themselves and slotting back into their proper places with an odd kind of relief.

With a surge of vertigo, he realised abruptly how few memories John had given him, how much more there was to be remembered, summoned back into his mind through the light pouring out of the fob watch. Not just Clara, but Amy and Donna and Martha and Rose, back and back through all the long years of his life — to the first time he’d seen the TARDIS, the first time he’d met Clara, there at the TARDIS doors, and before that the vibrant orange sky of Gallifrey, calling him away into time and space. Millions and millions of memories stacked neatly into place, well worn and well remembered, twelve faces and more than a thousand years since he had first taken up the title of the Doctor.

And then the last memory before the Chameleon Arch, crisp in its newness, abruptly urgent in its importance to the current moment:

With the Tu’kavari close on his trail, he had jumped forward in Clara’s timestream, keying in on a recent spike in artron energy and landing the TARDIS in her flat some two years after he’d last seen her. The artron energy could only mean one thing, and he would need the cooperation of another version of himself, if his plan was to have any chance of working. And until then, who better to trust his safekeeping to than Clara Oswald.

Thank you for being my safe place to fall, he had told her, holding her close in a hug he’d refused to think of as desperate. Clara, my Clara. I surrender myself into your care.

And then the Chameleon Arch, the supposed ‘accident’, and the weeks living as Adrian, all leading to this specific point in space-time, standing in his TARDIS once again, staring down at the open fob watch in his hand as the golden light receded, dimmed, then faded.

He clicked the cover closed and read the phrase engraved in Circular Gallifreyan on the case: the infinite cosmos within us. It was a fragment of an old poem, far too sentimental for something as practical as the Chameleon Arch, but he had chosen it because of the comfort it always brought him, in this first moment after returning to himself. For the space of two heartbeats, he stared at the words written in a language all but gone from the universe, and felt that infinite cosmos within him unfurl and settle comfortably back into place.

“Doctor?” a voice asked hesitantly, and he looked up to find Clara watching him, her brown eyes large and worried. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Clara,” he breathed. It wasn’t quite like the sensation of the First Face, seeing her all over again for the first time, but it was as close as he would get without regenerating. “My Clara.”

“Your Clara,” she agreed, nodding and blinking away tears. “I missed you, Doctor.”

He pulled her into a tight hug, revelling in the familiar feel of it. “Thank you for looking after me,” he murmured into her hair.

Clutching at the tweed of his jacket, she nodded again. “I had help,” she laughed, though he could hear her tears in it.

“Yes, of course. Remind me to thank Osgood and Martha, too. I couldn’t have made it through this without the three of you on the job.” He gently pulled back and dropped a quick kiss on her forehead, spinning away towards the console before he could spot her reaction. It wasn’t really his place anymore, to go around kissing Clara Oswald, not with the way he’d seen her look at his older self.

And really, that other version of him was entirely the point of all this. As much as Adrian Smith had hated John Smith, none of that mattered now. He was the Doctor again, and whatever jealousy and spite he might still harbour for his older self, this new Scottish face was the Doctor too. If there was one place in the universe he ought to be, it was at Clara’s side.

“Now then,” he said, his hands already finding the familiar patterns of the TARDIS’s controls, “I hear we have a certain rogue Time Lord to rescue.”

“We’re going to go after him,” Clara said as she joined him at the console, anticipation clear on her face. “Even though he told us not to do.”

“Clara Oswald, when have you and I ever done as we’re told?” he asked, shooting her a conspiratorial look.

She watched him knowingly for a long moment, her eyes still red-rimmed but a smile beginning to curl the corner of her mouth. “You have a plan, don’t you? I can tell by the way you’re practically radiating smugness.”

“I do have a plan,” he agreed, “and a good one. Save Eyebrows, keep you safe, and take down the Tu’kavari all in one go. But I might need you to fly the TARDIS for part of it. Think you’re up for it?”

“Just tell me what you need me to do,” Clara replied with a confident smirk. “I’ve learned a few things in the last few years.”

“Ah, yes, and now who’s radiating smugness?” the Doctor laughed, circling the console to find the control panel he needed. “First things first, we need to find the other TARDIS,” he said as he punched in the commands to do just that. “Ah ha, gotcha.”

Clara had followed him around the console, and he angled the monitor towards her so she could see the tracking information. This required more than just locking in on the TARDIS at any point in her timeline, he specifically needed to find Eyebrows just as he’d begun to lead the Tu’kavari away. Once they came out of the Vortex, they’d be part of the forward flow of events again. They couldn’t risk getting this wrong.

“The time-space coordinates look right,” Clara said, nodding. “Today’s date, moving out of Earth’s orbit. And that bit there,” she added, pointing to a cluster of Gallifreyan that referenced relative time from the perspective of the TARDIS, “that means that it’s a future version of the TARDIS, right?”

“More or less,” he allowed, not wanting to let his surprise show. She certainly had picked up a few things. “So that’s Eyebrows,” he went on, “flying erratically to keep the Tu’kavari guessing. We’re going to materialise right on top of him, and then try to match his course as best we can — two TARDISes occupying the same space, just like earlier, right?”

“And then what?” she asked, her forehead creasing in confusion.

“And then...” He winced, already dreading the inevitable. “And then I make contact.”

“With the Tu’kavari?”

“With Eyebrows, first,” he explained. “Telepathically — it’s a Time Lord thing, messy but effective. Especially for our purposes: two TARDISes, two Doctors, the same but different. We open up our minds to the Tu’kavari...”

“And confuse the hell out of them,” Clara finished for him.

“Exactly,” he said, grinning back at her.

–