Heaven Sent

The Doctor: As you come into this world, something else is also born. You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow. Never faster, never slower. Always coming. You will run, it will walk. You will rest, it will not. One day, you will linger in the same place too long. You will sit too still or sleep too deep. And when, too late, you rise to go, you will notice a second shadow next to yours. Your life will then be over.

The Doctor: If you think because she’s dead I’m weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you’re not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So for your own sake, understand this: I am the Doctor. I’m coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.

The Doctor: The equipment in that room, it’s consistent with an augmented ultra-long range teleport. So I’m not more than a single lightyear from where I was. And I’m in the same time zone. When the sun sets I’ll be able to establish an exact position by the stars. Then you’ll have a choice. Come out, show yourself, or keep on hiding. Clara said I shouldn’t take revenge. You should know, I don’t always listen.

The Doctor: What, are you gardeners? I hate gardening! What sort of a person has a power complex about flowers? It’s dictatorship for inadequates. Or to put it another way, it’s dictatorship.

The Doctor: Come on! Chop chop! The Doctor will see you now. Show me what you’ve got! I just watched my best friend die in agony. My day can’t get any worse. Let’s see what we can do about yours!

The Doctor to the Veil: I know you. I’ve seen you before.

The Doctor: I used to know a trick. Back when I was young and telepathic. Clearly you can’t make an actual psychic link with a door for one very obvious reason. They’re notoriously cross. I mean, imagine life as a door. People keep pushing past you. All of the knocking, but it’s never for you. And you get locked up every night. So, if you are just a little bit nice. {the door unlocks…} See, Clara. I’ve still got it. {…and opens to a stone wall}.

The Doctor: I can’t actually see a way out of this. I’ve finally run out of corridor. There’s a life summed up. Now this is new. I’m scared. I just realized that. I’m actually scared of dying. {the Veil stops} Something I said? What did I say? Why did you stop?

The Doctor: When I was a very little boy, there was an old lady who died. They covered her in veils, but it was a hot, sunny day, and the flies came. It gave me nightmares for years. So who’s been stealing my nightmares? What am I here for? And you’ve known about me for a very long time, right? So. What is it? Is it a trap? Is it a prison? No! Is it a torture chamber? Am I right? Somebody real should know better. Anyone who can put all of this together, and steal my bad dreams, they should know better. The secrets I have… No. No chance. Not telling. Not me! I told I was scared of dying, and I wasn’t lying either. Advantage me! Because you won’t see this coming! {he jumps out the window}

The Doctor back in the TARDIS: Sorry I’m late! Jumped out of a window. Certain death. Don’t you want to know how I survived? Go on. Ask me. No! Of course I had to jump. The first rule of being interrogated is that you are the only irreplaceable person in the torture chamber. The room is yours, so work it. If they’re going to threaten you with death, sow them who’s boss. Die faster! And you’ve seen me do that more often than most. isn’t that right, Clara?

The Doctor: Rule one of dying: don’t. Rule two: slow down. You’ve got the rest of your life. The faster you think, the slower it will pass. Concentrate. Assume you’re going to survive. Always assume that. Imagine you’ve already survived. There’s a storeroom in your mind. Lock the door and think. This is my storeroom. I always imagine that I’m back in my TARDIS, showing off. Telling you how I escaped—making you laugh. That’s what I’m doing right now. I am falling, Clara. I’m dying. And I’m going to explain to you how I survived. Can’t wait to hear what I say. I’m nothing without an audience.

The Doctor: One hope: salt. I thought I smelled it earlier when I broke the window, I’m sure. Salty air. The castle is standing in the sea! Diving into water from a great height is no guarantee of survival. I need to know exactly how far I’m going to fall and how fast. Why do you think I threw the stool? Fall time to impact: seven seconds. The wind resistance of the stool. The atmospheric density. The strength of the local gravity. Am I spoiling the magic? I work at this stuff you know. Should hit the water in about… .02 seconds. The chances of remaining conscious are—

The Doctor: {Question 1 What is this place?} Can’t I just sleep? {Question 2 What did you say that made the creature stop?} Do I have to know everything? {How re you going to} Clara…. I can’t lose. {WIN??}

The Doctor: It keeps coming, Clara. Wherever I go, it follows. Why? Why does it do that? {Wrong question!} Always the teacher. What’s the right question then? {Not why. What?} It’s following me. Wherever I go it’s tracking me. Slowly though. Scary lurching. Scary. These screens everywhere. It’s showing me exactly where it is all the time—how far it’s got, how near. Because it’s trying to scare me. Putting its breath on my neck. That’s the point, that’s what it’s doing. This theater! It’s all about fear.

The Doctor: Working hypotheses. We’re in a fully automated haunted house, a mechanical maze. It’s a killer puzzle box designed to scare me to death and I’m trapped inside it. Must be Christmas.

The Doctor: Another spade. Someone wants me to dig. What do you think, Clara? Is someone trying to give me a hint? What would you do? {Same as you.} Yes, yes of course you would. Which, let’s be honest, is what killed you. So. Someone is trying to tell me that’s there’s something important buried in this garden. That’s almost the first thing they tried to tell me. It could be a trick. Could be one of my predecessors. Because I’m not the first prisoner here, am I? All those skulls! Wonder where they all went wrong!

The Doctor: So. It can set traps. That’s okay. I’m good at traps.

The Doctor: So where are you off to? Only one way in, one way out. Well seeing as you’re going… {he goes back to digging}

The Doctor staring at the sky: No no. That’s not right.

I AM IN 12

The Doctor: Well that was another close one. Or it will have been, once I’ve been and got myself out of it. So how am I going to do that? Come on, teacher. Ask me questions. {Tell no lies} {Question 2 What did you say that made the creature stop?} The truth, yes. But not any old truth, Clara. This whole place is designed to terrify me. I’m being interrogated. It’s not just truth it wants, that’s not enough. It’s a confession. I have to tell truths I’ve never told before. That’s the only thing that stops it.

The Doctor: You see the problem is… Clara… there are truths that I can never tell. Not for anything. But I’m scared and I’m alone. Alone. And very, very scared.

The Doctor: I confess. I didn’t leave Gallifrey because I was bored! That was a lie, it’s always been a lie! Not enough? You want more? I was scared! I ran because I was scared! Is that what you want me to say? Is that true enough for you?

The Doctor: It’s funny. The day you lose someone isn’t the worst. At least you’ve got something to do. It’s all the days they stay dead.

The Doctor: Fifty-seven minutes.

The Doctor: This is how my world works, Clara. I tick off the seconds as they pass. My life is a countdown. If I draw the creature to one extreme of the castle and I run to the other extreme, I can earn myself a maximum of 82 minutes. Eighty-two minutes to eat, sleep and work. My work is finding room 12. The castle wants me to. It’s luring me. The numbering is a bit confused. As if the rooms are all jumbled up. Maybe they move around. I saw the whole castle move, when I made the creature stop. Every room, if I leave it long enough, reverts to its condition at the moment I arrive. It tidies up after itself. Automated room service. I think this whole place is inside a closed energy loop. Constantly recycling. Or maybe I’m in hell. That’s okay. I’m not scared of hell. It’s just heaven for bad people. But how long will I have to be here? Forever. It’s always coming. Always closer. The countdown never stops. But the countdown to what?

The Doctor: There are two events in everybody’s life that nobody remembers. Two moments experienced by every living thing. Yet no one remembers anything about them. Nobody remembers being born and nobody remembers dying. Is that why we always stare into the eye sockets of a skull? Because we’re asking, “What was it like?” “Does it hurt?” “Are you still scared?”.

The Doctor: Bird? What’s bird got to do with it? Are there birds here?

The Doctor: There’s something I’m missing, Clara. And I think it’s something terrible. 

The Doctor: It’s a trap, Clara. A lure and a trap.

The Doctor: I’m following bread crumbs laid out for me. This is somebody’s game. And I can’t stop playing it. A game everybody else has lost. I know how to move that wall, Clara, so long as I don’t run out of confessions. What I really want to know is, who’s been playing about with the stars? They’re all in the wrong places. For this time zone anyway. And no, I didn’t time travel to get here. I can feel time travel. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I’ve travelled 7,000 years into the future. But I do know better. So who moved the stars?

The Doctor: Long before the Time War, the Time Lords knew it was coming. Like a storm on the wind. There were many prophecies and many stories. Legends before the fact. One of them was about a creature called the hybrid. Half-Dalek, half-Time Lord. The ultimate warrior. But whose side would it be on? Would it bring peace or destruction? Was it real or a fantasy? I confess, I know the Hybrid is real. I know where it is and what it is. I confess, I’m afraid.

The Doctor in 12: Of course. The last square on the board. What else would it be. The TARDIS. One confession away. Spantium. Four hundred times harder than diamond. Twenty feet thick. The way out. Bird.

The Doctor: That’s when I remember! Always them! Always… then. It was exactly there! I can’t keep doing this, Clara. I can’t! Why’s it always me? Why is it never anybody else’s turn? {Question 3 How are you going to WIN??} Can’t I just lose? Just this once? Easy. It would be easy. It would be so easy. Just tell them. Just tell whoever wants to know all about the Hybrid.

The Doctor: I can’t keep doing this. I can’t, I can’t always do this. It’s not fair! Clara, it’s just not fair! Why can’t I just lose! {NO!} But I can remember, Clara. You don’t understand. I can remember it all. Every time. And you’ll still be gone. Whatever I do, you still won’t be there.

Clara: Doctor, you are not the only person who ever lost someone. It’s the story of everybody. Get over it. Beat it. Break free. Doctor, it’s time. Get up off your ass. And win.

The Doctor: Hello again. No more confessions, sorry. But I will tell you the truth. The Hybrid is a very dangerous secret. A very very dangerous secret. And it needs to be kept! So I’ll tell you nothing. Nothing at all. Instead, I’m gonna do something far worse. I’m going to get out of here. And find whoever put me here in the first place. And whatever they’re trying to do, I’m going to stop it, Clara. It might take a little while. Since you want me to tell you a story. The Brothers Grimm. Lovely fellas. They’re on my darts team. According to them, there’s this emperor, and he asks the shepherd’s boy, “How many seconds in eternity?”.

The Doctor: People always get it wrong with Time Lords. We take forever to die. Even if we’re too injured to regenerate, every cell in our bodies keeps trying. Dying properly can take days. It’s why we like to die among our own kind. They know not to bury us early. I think, in my current condition, it’ll take me about a day and a half to reach the top of the tower. I think, if I’m lucky, I have a day and a half. I have to do this, Clara. It’s the only way. I have to be strong. I should have known from the very beginning. Of course. The portrait of you, the creature from my own nightmares. This place is my own bespoke torture chamber. Intended for me only. And all the skulls, and the water. How could there be other prisoners in my hell. The answer of course is there were never any other prisoners. And the stars, they weren’t in the wrong place. And I haven’t time travelled. I’ve just been here a very, very long time. Every room resets. Remember I told you that? Every room reverts to its original condition. Logically, the teleporter should do the same. Teleporter. Fancy word. Just like 3D printers, really. Except they break down living matter and information and transmit it. All you have to do is add energy. The room has reset. Returned to its original condition when I arrived. That means there’s a copy of me still in the hard drive. Me, exactly as I was when I first got here, seven thousand years ago. All I have to find is some energy. And all you need for energy is something to burn.

The Doctor: How long can I keep doing this, Clara? Burning the old me to make a new one.

The Doctor: If you think because she’s dead I’m weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her and you’re not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So for your own sake, understand this: I’m the Doctor. I’m coming to find you. And I will never ever stop.

The Doctor: The shepherd’s boy says, “There’s this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes. It sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.” You must think that’s a hell of a long time. Personally, I think that’s a hell of a— {the wall breaks.} Personally, I think that’s a hell of a bird. {The Doctor steps through a portal, and the water castle world then becomes his Confession Dial}

The Doctor to the boy: Go to the city, find somebody important. Tell them I’m back. Tell them I know what I did and I’m on my way. And if they ask you who I am, tell them I came the long way around.

The Doctor: You can probably still hear me, so just between ourselves, you’ve got the prophecy wrong. The Hybrid is not half-Dalek. Nothing is half-Dalek. The Daleks would never allow that. The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins… is me.