Running and Remembering

Chapter Four

I spend the day with Nina and Artie, they try to catch me up on the happenings of things while I try to battle the incoming memories and headaches.  They tell me everything, they don’t hold back at all. My name is Clara Oswald, I met the Doctor two years ago, and within the first two weeks of travelling with him I became his girlfriend (which I doubt happened, because Nina and Artie were giggling wildly when they told me), and at one point they came along with the Doctor and me and encountered Cybermen that almost killed us all. When they’re finished they look at each other then look back at me and almost simultaneously say, “We have something to show you.”

They take me upstairs, and then to the top level of the house. Before they open the door Artie tells me to close my eyes. I hear the door open and Nina say, “Okay, walk.”

I take a step, onto what feels like carpet.

“Keep walking!”

I walk into the room, it smells nice, and the carpet is soft. I can see why the kids took me up here, it’s a nice room. 

“Take off your blindfold.” Says Nina, a little excitedly.

I place my hands to the back of my head and fiddle with the knot placed there. I take the black piece of fabric off and look at what’s directly in front of me.  A bed with a small table next to it, and a bookshelf that’s built into the wall behind the bed. Is this my room? And with that simple question, comes a million memories.

“I- Um- I need to sit down.” I say, placing my hand on my head.

“Clara, are you okay?” asks Artie

I manage to stumble out a couple words, “memories- coming – back...”

I sit down on the floor, trying to calm my headache but it ponds against the walls of my skull and brings memories of the Doctor.

“I need the Doctor, Artie, call the Doctor.”

He jumps up and grabs Nina’s phone from her hands.

“Where is the Doctor in your contacts?!”

“Give my phone back, you pig!”

“Nina! This is not the time for name calling! Just call the Doctor!!” I scream, the headache getting worse.

Finally Artie finds The Doctor’s contact and phones him.

I hear the Doctor’s voice in the phone’s small speakers, and he sounds panicked.

“Hello? Nina? Is Clara okay?”

“This is Artie, and she says she needs you.”

“Artie, tell me everything that happened, I’ll be right over.”

“We took her up into her room and I think she saw the book her mom gave her.”

The memory of my mother brings me physical and emotional pain and suddenly everything is too bright and too loud.

“Doctor, please hurry! She’s starting to yell!” Says Angie, grabbing her phone from Artie’s small hands.

Downstairs there’s a knock on the door, and then there’s feet pounding up the stairs and hands hugging me and picking me up. Then everyone is running down the stairs, the Doctor carrying me.

“Clara, “ he yells, “are you okay? Is everything alright?”

“Doctor, stop yelling.”

“I’m whispering, Clara.”

I cover my ears, it’s all too much. I want this to end.

When we’re down the stairs he doesn’t stop running. He runs out the door and down the street, around a corner and into an alleyway where we’re met by the TARDIS. The Doctor snaps and the doors flip open. He runs into the TARDIS, passing through the console room and down the stairs off to the side of it. A door opens and he takes me to a room filled with contraptions and liquids of all colors, shapes, and sizes. I’m placed on a chair in the middle of the room while the Doctor grabs a pocket watch and pulls over a hat-cage-thing from the back of the white walled room.

“Clara, this is the Chameleon Arch. Time Lords use it to extract all their memories and make them human, until they open this pocket watch,” He hands me the strange looking pocket watch and continues talking, but in a more somber tone, “The Arch will allow me to take all your memories and put them into that watch, meaning that you will completely forget me and your friends and family again, but, once you open that watch all of your memories will come back at once. The process is all very painful, but it will end all of your headaches and may make you a time lord.”

“What was that last part?”

“It will end all your headaches?”

“No, after that.”

“The process is very painful?”

“Doctor, you know what I’m talking about. After all this I’ll be a time lord?”

“If you consider time lord to be big brained and two hearted than yes.”

“Two hearts?”

“And 27 brains.”

“Really?”

“No, well, yes. The hearts, yes. The 27 brains, I was lying.”

“One brain, Two hearts and anything else I need to know about before you extract all my memories into a pocket watch?”

“Oi! It’s a special pocket watch! Time lord science!”

“How does it work?”

“I’ll tell you once you’re a time lord, then you’ll be able to understand.”

“Did you just call me stupid?”

“No, I called you human, now sit back and put your cute little head into that contraption thing.”

“Wait, won’t having two hearts be a little awkward at the Doctor’s office?”

“I’m your Doctor.”

“No, you’re the Doctor, it’s your name, kind of.”

“How do you know about that not being my name? And I am completely certified to be a normal Doctor.”

“It came with a group of memories about you. And on what planet?”

“Raxicoricifalipitiorious.” He mumbles.

“Bless you?”

“It’s a planet.”

“That’s not earth.”

“Fine, I’ll go and get certified to be a human doctor!”

“Oswald always wins, Doctor!”

“Okay, back to the Arch. Are you ready? It’s going to be very painful.”

“Do you happen to have any pain medication?”

“No. Now stop distracting me.” He pokes my nose and places the Arch on my skull.

“Okay, let me do some last minute tweaking to accommodate for the human brain and one less heart than a time lord,” He says, taking out his screwdriver from his waistcoat,” Aaand done.”

I hear a button click and the Doctor grabs my hand.

“Everything is going to be okay, just don’t think.”

“Well that will be easy for a hu-“

I’m cut off by an excruciating pain in the back of my neck. It travels up into my brain, and I can feel it working at my memories. The pain increases as I forget where I am, who is holding my hand, what my mother’s name was, who I was with earlier that day, and who I am.

Then I am greeted by darkness, death itself, and I remember nothing, I only know one thing. I am dead.