The Mirrors of Midas Mens

By: DemonClowSorceress

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

This is my first foray into the fandom, and I hope you like it!

"Clara!"

The Doctor's voice bounced off the steel walls of the hallway as he raced towards the door on the far end. He yanked out his sonic screwdriver and beamed the lock open, stumbled through the doorway and kept running.

"Clara!"

This should not be happening. He'd meant to go someplace nice and safe, far away from danger and trouble. He really did. But for some reason, the TARDIS had materialized aboard a huge medical frigate, where they were subjected to full body scans and questioning. As the last of the Time Lords, of course he'd been deemed a curiosity. But when the orderlies suddenly came with orders to take Clara away, the Doctor had fought tooth and nail to keep her beside him. His own captors had sedated him, and when he woke up, the Doctor managed to break his restraints, reclaim his screwdriver, and take off in search of his young companion.

"Clara, answer me!"

The events following Trenzalore had made him overprotective of Clara, and with good reason. She suffered from debilitating headaches, flashes of memory and identity confusion among her many lives, and it had only been a fortnight since he'd rescued her from his time-stream. The Doctor knew it would get worse before it got better, if she ever did at all, and decided to avoid anyplace remotely adventurous until Clara could go at least half a day without mishap.

But now she'd been taken from him. On a medical frigate, of all places. The Doctor poured on more speed as he scanned for any sign of Clara's unique bio-sign. He could only imagine how she felt, alone and scared in this cold place. Her terrified cry of I don't know where I am still haunted his mind.

A curse slipped from his lips as he found that he'd run into a dead end. The Doctor backtracked to the last junction, recalling that he'd seen a door labeled LAB 11. A quick scan found Clara's life sign to be behind it. He beamed the lock and threw the door open. "Clara!"

The circular room was dimly lit, with sterile steel floors, metal-grate stairs and steel handrails. Hanging over a thousand different shapes and sizes was a hodgepodge collection of Earthen funhouse mirrors. The center of the room was sunk in like the pit of a lecture hall, and there was a chair resembling one seen at the dentist's office. Strapped into the chair, unconscious, was Clara.

"Clara!" the Doctor yelled, leaping over the railing to reach her. He pressed two fingers to her neck and almost laughed when he felt the weak pulse there. "You're okay. Yes you are." He pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled out his screwdriver. "I'll have you out in a tick."

"So glad you could make it, Doctor."

The Time Lord felt his anger rise at the sound of that voice. "Midas Mens," he almost snarled as he looked up.

"Professor Midas Mens, if you please," said the impeccably dressed man standing on the catwalk. "It has been a long time, Doctor." A cruel smirk touched his lips. "You look quite awful."

The Doctor could barely contain his rage. Midas Mens was a brilliant brain-doctor in the Vega system, but he was also a sociopath with a God complex and no regard for boundaries or decency. Many of his experiments were downright inhumane, and a confrontation with the Doctor long ago had resulted in Midas being banned to practice, research or experiment. The fact that he was aboard this medical frigate and allowed to command a lab was in violation of that ban, and the Doctor briefly wondered how he'd managed to circumvent it.

Then the moment passed, and he didn't really care. All he wanted was to get Clara away from him.

"I thought you'd come for her sooner," said the mad professor. "Was the sedative too much? I would've thought with your bicardiac nature that it would've metabolized sooner..."

"What have you done to Clara?"

"Very well, to business. I had you both scanned when you arrived, you recall." He held up a medi-scanner and waved it at the Doctor. "Now you, I'd expect to see a thousand years of memories. Time Lord regeneration, TARDIS and all that. But my initial scan of her brain showed far more memories than a child of her years should possess. So I did a little research." Midas started to walk along the balcony, a hand skimming along the metal rail. "I found her face scattered throughout time and history. Different names in different places and in different times, but undoubtedly the same girl. All with one thing in common." He smiled, a dark and sinister thing that made the Doctor's two hearts skip a beat each. "Each girl died before the age of thirty. Died saving one of your former faces."

The Doctor felt his stomach clench. He'd suspected as much, but he'd hoped he was wrong. He'd hoped at least one of Clara's selves had saved him and lived to a ripe old age afterwards. Midas could have been lying, but the Doctor knew he wasn't. Midas enjoyed hurting people, and the truth hurt the Doctor far worse than any lie.

"Now as far as I could gather, despite their remarkable resemblances, none were related or even aware of each other's existences. So what would make all these women selflessly throw their lives away for you, a veritable stranger?" Midas's grin widened. "Then I saw this girl, and I saw the way she looked at you, and it struck me. What if this girl is at the heart of it? So I decided to test my theory."

The machine powered up with a loud hum, and a spotlight bathed Clara's body in pure white light. The Doctor reached for her, but the light burned his skin like acid and repelled him. "What are you doing?" he demanded.

Midas stopped at a control panel and flipped a few switches. "I've been developing a process whereas I take the conscious and subconscious selves of a sentient lifeform and psychically trap each within a separate mirror." The professor pulled one more lever, then gestured around as the main lights engaged. "I've used it on human schizophrenics, on the twin-minded Villavori, and on several centuries-old Daxan brain parasites. But never on this grand a scale."

The spotlight on Clara slowly swiveled off to beam on the mirror-covered walls. Shafts of light reflected off each surface to hit another mirror, bouncing and refracting until the room was almost as bright as the sun. The Doctor shielded his eyes from the intense light. Then, suddenly, the spotlight blinked out and the ambient lights returned.

The Doctor grasped Clara's hand, but it was cold. Panic flooded his veins when he couldn't find a pulse. "No no nonono," he mumbled, checking to see if she was breathing. When it proved futile, his panic turned to rage. "Midas! What have you done to her?" the Doctor roared, losing his composure at the thought of losing Clara once again.

"Just an experiment, Doctor, to show you the true cost of your continued survival. Behold." Flipping one last switch, Midas spread his arms. "The thousand lives of Clara Oswald."

The Doctor slowly turned his head as images of Clara appeared in every mirror surrounding him. Different clothes, different styles, different hair and trappings, but all definitely Clara. All disoriented for a brief moment, looking around until they noticed him.

And then the voices started.

"Doctor!"

"Doctor, over here!"

"Doctor, run!"

"Get out of there, Doctor!"

A thousand Echos crying out across space and time, a thousand hands beating against their psychic prisons as they tried to get his attention. To warn him. To save him.

"Fascinating, isn't it?" Midas remarked. "My other experiments usually went off on useless tangents, random thoughts and ideas, or they argued with each other. This is the first time a subject's divided selves have devoted themselves to a common cause." He chuckled cruelly as he looked down at Clara. "This girl must love you something fierce, Doctor."

"Oy! Don't pick on my Chin Boy, you fat old codger!"

That remark, dripping with familiar protective snark, made the Doctor look to the full-length mirror at his right. Standing there with her hands on her hips was an Echo in a short red dress, red high-top sneakers, and a belt loaded with tech. He didn't recognize the outfit, but the name she called him stirred his memory... "Soufflé Girl?"

"I told you, m'name's Oswin," she corrected him. Her hair had more curl in its ends than Clara, and she spoke with more snark than Clara did. But the same protective fire blazed in her dark eyes as she glared up at Midas. "And you, tosser! Leave him alone and pick on someone your own size!"

The professor merely reached over to the control panel and flipped a switch. The edges of Oswin's mirror crackled as plasma energy shot across the glass. Oswin shrieked in agony and dropped to her knees, clutching at her midsection.

Her pain spurned the Doctor into action. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and beamed the mirror, but the device proved resistant to his sonic technology. "Stop it! Stop hurting her!" he pleaded.

Midas leaned over the railing and laughed. "You can't be serious. This is too much fun!"

"I don't much care for your type of fun, sir," said an Echo wearing flowing silver robes and a green eye visor. "Computer, override command RYCBAR." She pronounced the word ryke-bar and pointed to the console, where the letters flashed across the screen in green block letters. "Manual control lockdown. Disengage all external output." The control panel whirred and powered down. The electrical current ended as well, allowing Oswin to get back on her feet.

"What have you done?!" screeched Midas, running his scanner over the machine.

"You shouldn't ever cross a technopath, Professor Mens," giggled an Echo wearing the garb of a member of the Shadow Proclamation. "Especially not one of the Copernicus system technopaths. Don't you wish you had a big friendly button to fix it?" A few Echos snickered at that.

The Doctor saw his chance. Running up a nearby set of stairs to the upper level, he almost flew to the control panel and slapped the scanner from Midas' hand. He grabbed the lapels of Midas' lab coat and hauled him off his feet. "Reverse the process," he ordered, rage giving his voice a sharpness that would make honed blades seem dull in comparison.

Midas shook his head. "Reverse it? You're joking."

"You took her mind apart, so put it back together, now!"

"Back? Look around you, Doctor. Do you see your precious Clara anywhere?"

The Doctor looked around at the trapped reflections, desperately seeking the plucky young woman he'd come to know and care for. When he couldn't find her in the mirrors, his eyes returned to the body strapped in the chair. "Clara?" he called out, voice breaking with hope and fear.

"Doctor?" came a hundred replies. But none came from his Clara.

Midas cracked up again, gasping for breath between peals of laughter. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor," he taunted. "Face it. Your Clara is gone."

"She's not gone!" the Doctor raged. He dropped Midas and raced back to Clara's side, chafing her wrist to try and bring her around. "She can't be gone...She can't be!" His head whirled around to look at every mirror. "You're all Clara, all Clara Oswald!"

"Neither of those names are mine in the least," said one Echo with pink streaks in her chocolate hair. She had a circlet on her head and was dressed in a glimmering gown. "My name is Soufflé, third princess of Veskalax Prime."

Another elegantly dressed Echo cleared her throat. "I am Oswin Ravenwood, heir to the Ravenwood estate of Seventh Vega."

A Clara in uniform snapped to attention. "First Lieutenant Oswald of U.N.I.T."

"I am Elle Oz," said the Copernican technopath.

The albino Echo from the Shadow Proclamation waved. "I am Raven, assistant to the Shadow Architect." And on and on the names poured in. Claras, Oswins, and Oswalds there were, but some had her mother's name, some used her nicknames, others had letters mixed together and omitted to create new names, new words.

"Face it, Doctor..." Midas' voice betrayed his pleasure at the Doctor's despair. "Your precious companion is no more."

The Doctor reeled, then fell to his knees. He'd known the scope of her dispersion, but underestimated the sheer complexity. She'd been split right down to the subconscious level. Each girl had been a part of Clara Oswald once, but none were actually Clara. He covered his face with his hands, fighting the urge to scream in frustration and pain.

The real Clara Oswald, his Clara, was gone. He'd lost her again. Forever.

Doctor.

A warmth touched the Doctor's mind, brushing his defenses like a feather against skin. A voice whispered in his mind, calling out to him.

Doctor.

Midas' laughter abruptly stopped. "What is that? Who did that?" he demanded, every trace of amusement gone from his voice. "Who did that? What does it say?"

Puzzled, the Doctor dropped his hands to see golden lines of glittering energy spiral along the floor, spinning and weaving together to form symbols. Circular symbols, the universe's most archaic language. You've run too far to give up now, clever boy.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Midas roared. "Answer me, Doctor!"

"I didn't do it," he replied, deeply shocked at what he was reading.

No. But I did. The circular Gallifreyan characters shifted to form new words. Look up, and remember me.

The Doctor looked up at the mirror before him. In front of him was another Clara, another Echo, but this Echo was dressed in a fashion he hadn't seen in several hundred years. Time Lord fashion.

Memory came back to him - long ago, he'd snuck into the repair shop on Gallifrey, ushering Susan into a TARDIS. He'd been called out to by another worker, a Time Lady with Clara's face, and she'd shown him the right TARDIS to take... "You're the one who showed me the right TARDIS to steal," the Doctor breathed. "The first Echo of Clara I ever met."

She smiled, the same smile that his Clara gave whenever he was being particularly mad and brilliant. "The first to know the first of you," she said mysteriously. "The eldest, and the youngest. The first and the last, but still my own self." She smiled at his confusion. "Clara Oswald is not lost, Doctor. She's still with us." Her hands reached up to rest over her twin hearts. "A spark of her is in all of us."

"Exactly!" shouted the Doctor, jumping to his feet. "You're Clara. Every one of you is Clara Oswald. So to bring her back, you all have to become her again!" Finally, someone who understands!

But the Time Lady shook her head. "It's not that simple, Doctor. You're asking a thousand individuals to give up their individuality for a girl they've never known. Not an easy thing to do."

"But you are her! You all owe your existences to her!" the Doctor insisted. "If she hadn't sacrificed herself, none of you would even exist!"

"And if she hadn't, you would be dead."

"That doesn't matter now! Just all of you, squish back into her head and be Clara again!"

"But why, Doctor?" countered the Time Lady. "Why should this Clara survive? She's going to save you, has saved you, will save you, all through time and space until you find your final rest on Trenzalore. As you say, we are all her. Why must you have this Clara?"

The Doctor swallowed nervously, feeling exposed and on edge by her penetrating gaze. "Because she's Clara," he said lamely.

"But I'm also Clara." Clara Oswin Oswald appeared beside the Time Lady's mirror dressed in her Victorian governess attire, speaking in her "secret" voice. "You saw me first, asked me to travel with you first. Why save 'er and not me?"

"When you were coming to rescue me from the Dalek Asylum, you promised to show me the stars, remember?" Oswin moved into a nearby mirror, hands on her hips and jealousy in her eyes. "You promised. Why save her and not me, Chin Boy?"

He looked between the first two Claras he failed to save, his words broken from guilt and anguish. "That's not what I - you're - you're not - "

"Not what, Doctor? What is she that we are not?" Unlike Oswin and Victorian Clara, the Time Lady spoke without rebuke. She raised an arm to gesture at the rest of the silent Echos. "We all love you. We did, have, will die to save you. Why can we not take her place at your side?"

"I - " The Doctor's hearts broke as he looked around, landing on every Echo that sacrificed herself to save him. Each had her own life, her own existence, and each was important.

But so was Clara.

"I'm sorry." In the silence of the lab, his words carried up to the ceiling and bounced off every wall. "I love her. I love Clara Oswald, the real Clara Oswald. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but you're only copies of her. Of my Clara. And I want her - I need her back."

The Echos glanced at each other, their expressions curiously blank. It was as if they were speaking telepathically with each other; heads tilting as if listening to another, micro-expressions, slight twitches when irritated or in disagreement. The Doctor helplessly looked around the mirrors, holding a faint hope in his hearts that they would do the impossible. After all, they were all a part of Clara, his Impossible Girl.

"Please," he whispered as his eyes met every Echo's gaze, "please give her back to me."

"And you call me mad, Doctor?" Cackling like a Carrionite witch, Midas met the Doctor's eyes. "Each mirror holds a singular, fully formed consciousness. Bringing them together would be like mixing water and Nexian sludge - impossible."

The reaction from his words was practically instantaneous. Copies of Clara's trademark smile appeared on all the Echoes, with the widest decorating the lips of the Time Lady. "Well then, since he's presented us with such a lovely challenge," she remarked, sending a wink at the Doctor. Turning to face Midas, she gave a mocking actress's bow. "I am a Time Lady of Gallifrey. The name I chose to bear is "the Phoenix." And I am Clara Oswald."

"Oswin Oswald, Junior Entertainment Officer, Starship Alaska," said Oswin, jauntily cocking her hip to the side with a saucy wink. "And I am Clara Oswald."

"Clara Oswin Oswald, barmaid at the Rose and Crown and governess to Digby and Francesca Latimer." Victorian Clara gave an elegant lady's curtsy. "And I am Clara Oswald."

One by one the separate Echos gave their names and declared themselves Clara Oswald. The Doctor gaped in shock. Unanimous unification of a splintered consciousness - once again, Clara Oswald had done the impossible.

When the last Echo's declaration was done, the Phoenix smiled at the Doctor once again. "I am the eldest of all Echos," she announced, raising her hands like the branches of a tree. "I was the first to cross the Doctor's path, the first to save him." Her eyes closed as she intoned, "Come, and let us unite again."

The Doctor watched as each Echo raised a hand. Time Vortex energy collected in every palm, trickling in from the Echo, until every one was glowing with power. The young women began to dissolve one by one, streaming across the mirrors into the Phoenix's outstretched hands. The more she gathered, the brighter the nimbus around her body grew.

"We are the saviors of the Doctor," she said in a million identical voices blended into one great chorus. "In the shadows, unseen and unknown, throughout all of time and space, we have been running. Running to find him, running to save him, and we remember. We remember 'me'."

When she opened her blazing eyes, the Doctor paled in horror. They forcibly reminded him of when Rose became the Bad Wolf and when Donna became the DoctorDonna. If you can hear me, please don't break Clara, he pleaded with the universe. Please don't make me do to her what I did to Donna.

Golden TARDIS-matrix eyes fixated on the pale body lying on the chair. "We are the Impossible Girl. We are Clara Oswald. And through her we are known and loved by the Doctor."

The Doctor watched in wonder as the combined essences of all of Clara's selves poured out of the Phoenix's outstretched hands in a golden cloud. It collected in front of her mirror, then sent small streams that arced around the Doctor like serpents. He smiled as he felt the thoughts within the cloud - happiness, regret, love, and farewell - and said, "Thank you. Thank you all, so much. I won't forget you, I promise."

A whisper-thought of Thank you, Doctor brushed against his mind as the arcs moved away and slipped down Clara's throat. A point of light began to grow in her chest and spread across her body, making her skin glow slightly with the energy of the matrix. Slowly, her deathly pallor lessened.

Her body arched in pain, and she exhaled a cloud of golden hand grasped her wrist and checked for a pulse. A faint throb at his fingertips made the Doctor release a deep sigh of relief. She's back. She's alive.

"You did not kill me." He started at the Phoenix's voice and looked back at her sad, forgiving smile. "I did not perish in the Time War. I heard a distress signal from beyond the universe and thought it was from you. I was tricked by a being called House and my TARDIS was devoured. I died thinking I had failed to save you." Her eyes slid shut as she began to glow gold. "But now, I can set things right."

She threw her arms out as her body exploded into a thousand particles of golden dust. Instead of dissipating, they focused into a single shot of power and rocketed towards the machine that had separated Clara Oswald's psyche. For one brief moment, the Doctor thought he saw a majestic bird amid the particles, thought he heard a burst of song. Then Midas screamed in rage as the golden stream struck his machine and caused it to explode, spewing black smoke and knocking the mad scientist into a nearby bulkhead.

A series of explosions raced along the ceiling and walls, causing klaxon alarms to sound off in frenzied howls as the medical frigate's power grid reported system failure. The Doctor quickly shielded Clara's prone body as every mirror broke in unison, large shards falling like icicles to shatter around them. Glass pieces pelted his back and legs, and he could hear Midas screaming in agony from above them, but he kept his head down and his body shielding Clara.

When the ruckus died down, he dared to straighten his frame. Clara's lips moved again, and the Doctor strained his ears to hear. "Run," she whispered in the layered voices of her thousand Echos. "Run you clever boy, and remember us."

"I will," he whispered. "I promise. I won't forget any of you." And he couldn't. Their names and faces were forever burned into his brain. He raised Clara's warm, wonderfully alive hand and kissed it. "Thank you."

Clara's eyes opened slowly. Time vortex energy glittered in their depths, fading like a sunset to leave confused hazel irises. When her mouth opened again, it was only her voice that spoke. "Doctor?"

"Easy, Clara," he murmured softly as he undid the restraints at her waist and ankles. "Don't move too much. You've been through quite a lot just now."

"What happened to me?" Clara looked up at the Doctor, then around at the broken mirrors hanging around them. "What happened in here? What'd I miss?"

He shrugged. "Are you okay?" he redirected, raising his hand to cradle the side of her face and look into her tired eyes.

"I think so." She reached up and brushed bits of broken glass off his shoulders. "Seven years."

"Sorry?"

"Earth superstition. It's seven years' bad luck if you break a mirror..." Clara looked at the glass-covered floor and winced. "Did you break all the mirrors?"

"Weeeell..." the Doctor said, shrugging. "Technically the machine broke them, so it's Midas who's got the bad luck coming." Saying the man's name drew his attention to the unconscious body lying on the catwalk above them. "I don't think it's enough, personally. Not nearly enough."

A tug at his jacket brought his focus back to her. "Let's just go," she asked softly. "Let someone else take care of him."

"But Clara, he - "

"It won't change what's happened. It won't do me any good, either. I just want to go." Tears glistened in her eyes despite the strong look on her face. "I just want to go back to the TARDIS."

The Doctor glanced back up at Midas. He wanted to be sure this time, sure that he'd pay for his crimes. But Clara needed him more, and he couldn't bear to see her broken again. He lifted her up into his arms and started back through the frigate towards the TARDIS. "Are you okay?"

"I..." Clara frowned, then her eyes went wide in surprise. "Yes," she whispered. "My head...it doesn't hurt anymore. The headaches have stopped."

The Doctor gave her a relieved smile and kissed her forehead again. "She did it," he murmured against her hairline. "She saved me again, and she will never know what she did."

Something in his tone had Clara ask, "A friend?"

"A very old friend. I only met her once, but she's a dear friend all the same." His arms tightened around the young woman's form. "Let's get out of here."

Not another word was exchanged as the Doctor and Clara traversed the ship's darkened corridors towards where they'd left the TARDIS. She opened her doors wide for the Time Lord and his companion, engines softly whining as she dematerialized from the medical frigate. When the Doctor set his destination, for once, she went where he wanted to go.

The planet should've been a gloomier place. Gravestones and mausoleums stretched out as far as the eye could see, but Clara didn't find it creepy. After all, ghosts didn't frighten her. "What is this place?" she asked.

"Memoria. A planet devoted to preserving memories of the dead." The Doctor stood up and brushed his knees clean of grave dirt. "What do you think?"

Clara pulled her jacket tighter around her slim frame. "I think it's perfect, Doctor."

"It's the least I can do. They deserve so much more." He stared at the tombstone and the two shadows cast against it. "I don't deserve their sacrifices, Clara. I've only ever hurt everyone who's ever tried to save me."

"Stop it." She reached out and wrapped her arms around his bony arm. "I can't speak for the others, but I know that if I had the choice, I'd do it again. I'd jump into your timestream and save you all over again." A tight hug was all she needed to give in order to bring his eyes over to meet hers. "And it really is a fitting tribute, Doctor."

A weary smile found its place on the Doctor's face. He leaned down and kissed Clara's forehead. "I really thought I'd lost you," he whispered against her hair. "I didn't see you among all those Echos. I thought - I thought that - "

"Shh, shhh," Clara soothed. "It's all right. I'm here, I'm fine. You saved me, Doctor."

"But - "

"No buts. It's okay."

"No it's not! I almost couldn't tell you I - " The Doctor bit his tongue before his declaration flew free, unwilling to heap more stress on her still-healing mind.

"What? That you love me?" Clara giggled at his thunderstruck expression. "Silly, you essentially confessed to me a thousand times when you confessed to all the Echos." She kissed his cheek and smiled reassuringly. "Same goes for me, by the way."

His openmouthed shock quickly morphed into a goofy grin. "Well then, Clara Oswald, whaddya say we have a little holiday? I'll make sure we go someplace nice this time." Slinging an arm around her shoulders, the Doctor guided his companion back into the TARDIS. The light on top flashed white, then blue as the police box dematerialized.

Now that the gravestone was unobstructed, the evening sunlight beamed directly onto the carved words. Circular Gallifreyan symbols glowed brightly, as brightly as the energy and spark of the women they were left for.

Never forget the Echos.

Jesus, this made me cry and I'm the damn author!

Review please!