What was Clara going to say to Danny?
Guest contributor Michael Conway takes a look at some theories.
At the start of Dark Water, Clara phoned Danny, and in-between telling him to “shut up” in an agitated state said:
“Things to say… Not all of them good… Oh, Danny, everything is… better when you’re here, but maybe… Maybe not this. OK. Um… OK, before all of that. Before all of the stuff… that I did wrong… I love you… Danny, I’ll never say those words again. Not to anybody else, ever. Those words, from me, are yours now.”
Finishing with:
“OK, Danny? Er, there’s more but that’s kind of the headline. OK, Danny, please speak to me, This is, this is killing me… I love you. And you are the last person who’s ever going to hear me say that.”
Clara never of course got to finish this conversation due to Danny’s sudden death. So what was Clara going to say, and why did she want to say it on the phone when Danny was only around the corner and about to be there in person? And what was she going to say when he arrived?
1. That she was pregnant
There was much speculation that Clara might be pregnant, producing a child with Danny that would lead to Orson Pink, as Listen hinted that Orson might be their descendant (though never actually confirmed this). The “3 months” post-it-note was taken as a clue to this, along with various ‘references’ to babies during the series, and a scenario where a pregnant Clara would bow out at Christmas was some people’s expected way for Clara to leave the show.
At the time I was a bit sceptical, as surely this would have been the ‘headline’ rather than the ‘there’s more’ bit of the conversation, and why would she need to phone him anyway when he was just around the corner? Jenna, in the lead up to Last Christmas when asked about this, seemed genuinely surprised by speculation that Clara was pregnant (though she has become as much an expert in keeping show secrets as Steven Moffat now, so could have been pretending to be surprised!), but when Last Christmas was aired, she (seemingly) wasn’t pregnant, and as this episode was set several months after Death in Heaven, it’s most unlikely that she could bear Danny’s baby. Moffat has also suggested an alternative way that Orson could exist, one not involving Danny or Clara.
2. That she was dying
“3 months” might mean 3 months to live? This would tie in to the “you are the last person who’s ever going to hear me say that” comment, though again why would Clara phone Danny up to say such things when he was about to arrive anyway?
Her subsequent joy at being reunited with the Doctor at the end of Last Christmas suggests that she is in fine fettle, which rules that option out!
3. That she was going to tell him that she was leaving the Doctor
Clara would confess her lies on the phone, and tell Danny that it was over with the Doctor. That certainly is what the Doctor thought would ultimately happen, as he pretended to find Gallifrey to enable Clara and Danny to be together.
“You and Danny are together now. That’s great. That’s how it should be. But the old man and the blue box, that’s never going to fit in. So no more flying around. No more lying.”
Again, why would Clara tell Danny this on the phone instead of waiting for him to come over first? Maybe it would be to pre-warn him, as while Danny knew that Clara was still travelling with the Doctor, he might have been surprised by how much she had been travelling with him! Whether he would have believed her giving up the Doctor is another matter!
This all assumes that Clara could give the Doctor up like that, or even that she wanted to, as after all she could have had a clean break after Kill the Moon, but chose to have a farewell trip…
4. That she couldn’t give up the Doctor, and was giving Danny up
In this scenario, Clara wanted to make sure that Danny knew she loved him first, before telling him the bad news, which would be easier for her to do on the phone than in person. Certainly Clara’s addiction to Doctor life was very strong, so this was a possibility, that she would decide on this course to be fair to Danny. And telling Danny that he was the last person she’d say “I love you” to was to make it clear that her feelings for the Doctor weren’t romantic.
On the other hand, she clearly loved Danny, and the way she betrayed the Doctor to try and force him to get Danny back didn’t look like someone ready to move on. Or was that just her guilt at not being able to tell him the truth? And telling him on the phone, rather than in person, would seem a rather cowardly thing to do to someone she clearly loved. Unless she felt that by phoning him first it would give him the choice of whether to come over or not?
5. That she would tell Danny all about her and the Doctor, without actually choosing between the two of them
In which Clara would tell Danny on the phone that she had been travelling with the Doctor, and apologise for the lies in advance of him coming over, but not actually choose between Danny and the Doctor. This seems most likely to me, with the phone call being advance warning of what she was going to say in person, as the post-it-notes on her bookcase would come as a massive shock otherwise! Presumably in her flat she would have given him a full history of her times with the Doctor.
Maybe she hoped that Danny would then understand the Doctor better, and that she could then engineer a truce between Danny and the Doctor? Or that by telling him of the exciting things she’d done, and how wonderful the Doctor actually was, that she could change Danny’s mind and get him to want to travel in the TARDIS as well? In such a scenario if Clara had insisted to the Doctor that she wanted Danny on board as well, it’s unlikely he would have said no, and S9 would have taken a very different shape. Personally I’m glad this didn’t happen, as the couple in the TARDIS would have been a bit of a retread of the Ponds’ storyline, and I found the Clara Danny relationship far less interesting than the Clara Doctor relationship, but others may disagree.
We may never know of course, unless Moffat spills the beans! In the meanwhile, any other theories as to what Clara might have said?
