The Time of Change

Gran's Story

Clara stirs her straw around in her drink sadly, peering into its clearness. A few drops of condensation slide down its glass side and sink into the tablecloth beneath. She holds tears in her eyes, so she does not look at her family as they chat together merrily. She does not hear their conversation, for if she even tried to listen to their words, she would not hear their voices. She would hear the Doctor's.

"... Other fish in the sea, I'm just saying," her mother Linda mutters to Clara's Gran. "Linda, I don't think Clara wants to talk about it right now," her father says a bit sternly. He looks at his daughter with a sort of sad understanding. Clara looks up upon hearing her name, and her mother jumps at the chance of getting her daughter's full attention. "I've got a suggestion, that's all," she says. "A list of suggestions."

"Linda," Clara's father warns.

"You could make a boy band out of my list."

"I hate boy bands," says Clara.

"Oh, nonsense, of course you don't," her mother replies pretentiously, waving her hand as if to brush the statement away physically. "Not at your age." Clara's Gran looks up now, crumpling a wrapper in her bony fingers. "These crackers are rubbish," she declares. "I bought them," Clara's mother informs her.

Gran nods. "I know."

"They're classy."

"They don't have jokes."

"Exactly."

"They've got poems." Gran says the word as if it tastes bitterly in her mouth. Clara cracks her first smile all evening, and her father notices. "They're more dramatic crackers," says her mother, irritated. Gran shrugs her thin shoulders. "I like the jokes," she mumbles.

Clara sits up, pushing her drink away a bit. "Tell us a joke, Gran," she prompts eagerly, almost like a child. "You know loads of jokes." Her mother shakes her head no several times. "I think we're probably talking about my list now -- "

"Probably not," Clara snaps, glaring at her mother. The woman falls silent, sulkily taking a sip of her brandy. "Tell us how you met Dad," says Clara's father after a beat, smiling at his mother. "The thing about the pigeon." Gran's eyes sort of go out of focus as she gazes down at her engagement ring. "I saw him on a pier on a rainy day," she says softly.

"No, no, not that one, Mum," Clara's father laughs. "The one about the pigeon."

"I'd seen him before," Gran continues, as if she had not heard her son's interruption. "Lots of times. But he just looked so beautiful, standing there." Clara is watching her grandmother and barely breathing, fighting the tears she keeps in her eyes like her last battle. Almost worn thin with patience, her father leans forward a bit on the table and says, slowly and clearly, "The pigeon in the restaurant. Do you remember?"

"I wanted everything to stop," muses Gran quietly, reminiscently. She twists her ring around and around on her finger, wistfully admiring the stone. "I wanted nothing to change ever again." Now, tears leak from Clara's eyes and start dripping down her cheeks. She sniffs timidly, still staring at her Gran with a captivated expression. "If he could just keep standing there, so beautiful..." The old woman trails away, shaking her head. "A long time ago." Her voice is a little shaky with her own repressed tears. Clara leaps off her seat and hugs her tightly around the shoulders, her tears falling into the woman's white hair.

"Don't hug me so tight, dear," says Gran gently, amused. "You'll break something."

"Oh, that's nice," grumbles Linda. "Crying at Christmas."

Clara whispers sincerely to her grandmother, "Sorry." The old woman touches her granddaughter's cheek ever so lightly. "I hope you made a wish," she tells her, pressing a cracker into her hand.

Clara blinks a few times, confused, but now she hears it. The sound. The beautiful, wonderfully old sound. She runs to the kitchen window and sees the TARDIS fading into solidity just outside her home. "Clara what is it?" her father asks, concerned. "What's wrong?" With an elated gasp, Clara turns and faces her family. Gran is watching her with shining eyes.

"Everybody just stay put," Clara orders them, her hands outstretched. With that, she sprints from the room, out the door and across the yard. She bursts into the TARDIS, expecting to see the Doctor, but instead --

"You can fly the TARDIS?" she asks Tasha Lem, shocked. Tasha smiles wryly. "Flying the TARDIS was always easy," she replies. "It was flying the Doctor I never quite mastered."

Clara takes a step toward the console as things groan and creak around her with the movement of time-warping. "What's happened to him?" she asks, not really sure she wants to know the answer. Tasha's smile gradually turns into a grimace, and Clara's heart sinks. The Scanner jolts to life above them, and she looks at it, but only sees snowy grounds and smoke. So much smoke.

Immediately Clara turns and runs out of the TARDIS's front doors, stumbling onto the grounds of Trenzalore once again. But this time, it's different. The trees aren't decorated with shimmering lights. The frozen fountain isn't glistening with the stars in the sky. Children don't run about, playing mindless games, and the Doctor isn't around teaching them silly dances or saying odd things. None of this is happening.

What Clara sees is much worse than what she expected.

The town of Christmas is in flames. The tops of the evergreens that encircle the town are burning, many of them crackling in such a way that Clara fears they will come toppling down at any moment. A few homes are up in smoke, and there are entire families fleeing from their houses. Children stumble and fall in the snow surrounding them, clutching onto stuffed animals, pillows, their parents' hands. Anything they can hold that won't go away. Something echoes in the night, like a scream, or a shriek, but whatever the sound, it chills Clara to the bone. She shivers, wrapping her arms around herself, and realizes that the clock tower is the only thing that seems to be remaining relatively untouched.

"What am I supposed to do?" she half-whispers, not thinking anyone will hear her. She is not quite sure who she is asking, anyhow. Tasha hears, though, and replies with a tone bereft of an emotion, sounding neither despairing nor impassioned.

"He shouldn't die alone. Go to him."

And so Clara goes.