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Rupert Daniel Pink, better known as Danny, was a teacher at Coal Hill School and boyfriend of Clara Oswald.
A sergeant in the British Army before he accidentally killed a boy, Danny did not get on well with the Twelfth Doctor, which was a source of conflict for Clara. Whilst he was unhappy with Clara for not sharing her stories of her adventures in the TARDIS with him, he once shared an adventure with the Doctor and accepted Clara's lifestyle despite not having the inclination to do so himself, preferring to appreciate his everyday life.
Danny was hit by a car and uploaded to the Nethersphere before becoming a 3W Cyberman. He had Clara remove his emotions and sacrificed himself to thwart Missy's plan, giving up his chance to return to life to instead allow the boy he killed to be returned to life.
Biography
Childhood
Rupert Daniel Pink was an orphan (WC: Fear Is a Superpower) and lived at the West Country Children's Home in Gloucester in the mid-1990s. He had a room with only one chair, meaning he had to sit on the bed when he had a visitor, and played with toys belonging to the home. Amongst a collection of toy soldiers was a broken one who did not have a gun and whom he named Dan the Soldier Man. He disliked his own first name, calling it "stupid", and planned on changing it.
Rupert would sometimes hear noises that scared him and, one night, had a nightmare of somebody under his bed grabbing his ankle. He saw Clara Oswald out of his window and she joined him, trying to prove that he had nothing to be scared of until a figure with his bedspread over their head frightened the two of them, as well as the Twelfth Doctor when he arrived. The three of them turned their backs on the figure and, after they left, the Doctor put Rupert to sleep and scrambled his memory, giving him a dream about being Dan the Soldier Man. (TV: Listen)
Rupert half-remembered the events of that night as a dream and was changed by the Doctor's remark on how being scared was a superpower. When he woke up, he was no longer Rupert but Dan the Soldier Man. (WC: Fear Is a Superpower)
Military career
Rupert changed his name to Danny (TV: Listen) and joined the British Army, believing that there was more to modern soldiering than simply shooting people. (TV: Into the Dalek) He became a sergeant and served five years in both the United Kingdom and Afghanistan, (TV: The Caretaker) as well as in Iraq. (AUDIO: War Wounds) He performed a number of humanitarian tasks and dug twenty-three wells in total, saving whole villages, (TV: Listen) and loved his time in the army. (TV: Kill the Moon)
Danny served under men who pushed people and made them stronger, leading them to do things that they did not think that they could do and overcome fear in situations where they ought to have been afraid. He knew what it was like to be pushed too far. (TV: The Caretaker) Whilst in the Middle East, he accidentally killed a boy in a football shirt. (TV: Dark Water) He later referred to it as a "bad day" and the reason he left the army. (TV: Kill the Moon) After spending so much time not trying very hard to survive but doing so anyway, he realised that he wanted to see the things in his everyday life more clearly rather than seeing new things. (TV: In the Forest of the Night)
Coal Hill School
Meeting Clara
Danny started working as a mathematics teacher at Coal Hill School in the 2010s and set up the Coal Hill Cadets to teach children the moral dimension of soldiering. In class, he attempted to avoid answering questions about his time in the army and cried when Fleming asked him if he had ever killed somebody who was not a soldier. The school secretary was attracted to him and Frank Armitage believed that he was a "lady-killer", mentioning it when he introduced him to Clara Oswald. (TV: Into the Dalek)
Danny felt that Clara was familiar, although he did not know why. (WC: Fear Is a Superpower) He declined to join her in going to Kathy's retirement party after work, a decision which he regretted. She later invited him to take her out for a drink at some point instead, although he was initially unsure if she was being serious as he thought that she might have a rule against soldiers. (TV: Into the Dalek) Because of "family stuff", it took Danny some time until he was free to take Clara out. (TV: Listen)
Dating Clara
Eventually, Danny and Clara went on a date to a restaurant, (TV: Listen) the name of which he would later forget. (TV: Dark Water) They enjoyed talking about how much trouble Courtney Woods was, but they argued after he was offended by a joke she made about him being a soldier and Clara stormed out after she felt that he was making assumptions about her. Clara returned and they both apologised, but he thought that she was making fun of him when she referred to him by his birth name and left, knowing that she was lying to him about something and noticing that her coat had disappeared. Clara later visited him at his flat and they apologised again before sharing a kiss. (TV: Listen)
Whilst at school, Danny told Clara that he was taking her on a second date that evening and almost kissed her before a student entered the classroom. Clara joined him for dinner, although she had already eaten on the TARDIS with the Twelfth Doctor, Psi and Saibra. (TV: Time Heist) He would later be confused by her showing up to dates inexplicably tanned, soaking wet with seaweed and in a space helmet. Although they attempted to keep their relationship a secret, (TV: The Caretaker) it was well known at school. (TV: The Caretaker, Dark Water)
Danny met the Doctor again when he posed as a caretaker and was suspicious of him, believing that he acted strangely for a caretaker and noticing him wink at Clara. He realised that the Doctor was messing with the electrics and, after unwittingly deactivating the Doctor's chronodyne generators and being attacked by a Skovox Blitzer, Clara was forced to tell him about the TARDIS. He was hurt that Clara had kept her adventures from him and quickly came to dislike the Doctor, seeing similarities between him and the officers he served under the army, and told Clara to tell him if he ever pushed her to do something she did not want to do. (TV: The Caretaker)
Whilst Clara was away, Danny came across the TARDIS in the stationery cupboard and was whisked away to an alien jungle where he was injured by a blast in an airstrike. He was taken to Irena Reagan's medibase where the Doctor saved his life by operating on him and Reagan gave him medication for the pain. He recognised Yesath Uzeg's fear when she was recognised by Nurse Toria and followed her when she attempted to leave, calling for help when she collapsed and later working with the Doctor and Reagan to keep her from being imprisoned due to her former affiliation. Danny impressed the Doctor by choosing not to use a pulse rifle, but the Doctor forgot about the adventure due to the pain medication not being meant for Time Lords. (AUDIO: War Wounds)
When Clara returned from the Moon in 2049, Danny could tell that the Doctor had pushed her too far and got her to tell him what had happened. He was reminded of when he left the army and told her to wait until she had calmed down to tell the Doctor that she no longer wished to travel with him because of his actions. She hugged him and remarked on how wise he was, which he said was because of a bad day that he once had. (TV: Kill the Moon) He spoke with her twice over the telephone during what was supposed to be her final outing with the Doctor, with Clara lying to him about finishing with the Doctor and choosing to continue her travels without his knowledge. (TV: Mummy on the Orient Express)
Danny waited for Clara at a park bench and called her when she failed to show up. She avoided technically lying to him, saying that she was busy helping somebody on community support find his aunt but neglecting to mention the fact that she was being attacked by the Boneless. He called her back later on, but she rejected the call and sent the "I'm in a meeting" text option. (TV: Flatline)
Danny and Clara took the Coal Hill Year 8 Gifted and Talented Group on a camping trip to London Zoological Museum and, in the morning, they found that trees had grown all over the world overnight. Forced by Clara, he helped lead the group to the TARDIS to get the Doctor's help and kept an eye on them whilst the Doctor and Clara investigated the situation. Although he was offered the chance to watch the trees protect the Earth from a solar flare from space, Danny turned it down in favour of getting his class home. He deduced that Clara had been continuing her travels with the Doctor and asked her to go home, have a think and tell him the truth about everything. (TV: In the Forest of the Night)
The Nethersphere
Whilst Danny was on his way to Clara's flat for her to tell him the truth about her continued adventures in the TARDIS, Clara called him to instead have the conversation over the telephone. He was crossing a road when he was hit by a vehicle and died, his mobile phone getting found by a woman who told Clara that he had been hit by a car which "came out of nowhere". (TV: Dark Water) According to another account, he was hit by a milk float driven by Missy. (PROSE: Dismemberment)
Danny's consciousness was uploaded to the Nethersphere, where he was welcomed by Seb, who arranged for him to meet the boy that he killed. He apologised to him and attempted to touch his hand, but he recoiled and ran away. He then got a call from Clara and, to keep her from joining him in the Nethersphere, chose not to try to confirm his identity and told her only that he loved her, getting her to end the call. Seb offered him the chance to rid himself of his emotions by pressing "delete" on a tablet, which Danny considered (TV: Dark Water) but chose not to do. (TV: Death in Heaven)
Conversion and death
When Missy enacted her plan, Danny's mind was returned to his body, which had been converted into a Cyberman by Missy's cyber-pollen. Awakening at Chaplet Funeral Home, he went to 3W and knocked Clara out before destroying three Cybermen who were interrogating her and taking her to a graveyard. He was angered when she referred to the Doctor as the one man that she would never lie to and pointed his gun at her, but he instead removed his faceplate and revealed his identity to her, asking her to switch on his emotional inhibitor.
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The Doctor gave his sonic screwdriver to Clara to activate Danny's inhibitor so that he could access the Cybermen's hive mind and discover their plans. Danny did not harm Clara upon losing his emotions due to, as the Doctor put it, love being a promise rather than an emotion and he revealed that the cyber-pollen would fall again. The Doctor gave him Missy's control bracelet and he used it to lead the Cybermen into the skies to self-destruct and burn up the clouds containing the pollen, saving the human race. (TV: Death in Heaven) As he did so, he remembered his dream about being told that being scared was a superpower. (WC: Fear Is a Superpower)
The Nethersphere deteriorated and, two weeks after his death, Danny used the bracelet to create a portal to Clara's flat and told her that there was only enough power for one trip. He sent through the boy that he killed and asked her to find his parents, apologising to her but saying that he had promises to keep. (TV: Death in Heaven)
Legacy
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Some time after Danny's death, Clara entered a dream crab induced dream where Danny woke her up on Christmas morning dressed as Santa Claus and they spent the day together. The Doctor entered the dream and told Clara that Danny and everything else around her was "anaesthetic" keeping Clara happy while her brain was slowly being eaten and dissolved by the dream crab. Clara said she missed Danny, and Danny told her to miss him for five minutes of every day, while she got "the hell on with it" the rest of the time. He said that this Christmas they had together was their "last Christmas", an "extra", and it was time for Clara to wake up. Clara kissed Danny and she awoke from that layer of the dream. (TV: Last Christmas)
When Clara was asked out by a firefighter called Sam during the Hyperion Invasion, she declined, stating that she had "lost someone". (COMIC: The Hyperion Empire)
While on the planet known as Unnamed BX-4, the sentient computer system known as the Jungle used Clara's memories to take on Danny's image as an organic avatar to gain Clara's trust. When Clara realised what was happening, she slapped the avatar for using the image of her dead boyfriend to befriend her. (COMIC: Spirits of the Jungle)
After two days of solitude courtesy of Matthew Hopkins, Clara experienced a hallucination of Danny brought on by her insomnia. She would also raise funding to have an IT Suite constructed at Coal Hill School in his honour. (COMIC: Witch Hunt)
The name "Pink. R. D." appeared on a list of both dead and missing staff and students at the renovated Coal Hill Academy. (TV: For Tonight We Might Die)
Relationship with the Doctor
The Twelfth Doctor, at least initially, did not respect Danny Pink very much. He refused to acknowledge or remember that Danny taught maths, evidently not believing in his intellect, and instead frequently referred to him as a PE teacher. Danny, on the other hand, was initially jealous of the time Clara spent with the Doctor, but later started to respect the Time Lord. (TV: The Caretaker) On one occasion, Danny compared the Doctor to a general. However, while he pointed out that the Doctor was willing to use him to find out Missy's plans even if it meant sacrificing Danny's humanity, Danny also acknowledged that the Doctor was right in that he needed the information. When the Doctor realised he was just "an idiot in a box", he referred to Danny's calling him an officer as he proclaimed that he was just an idiot who wanted to help before he gave Danny control over the Cyberman army, recognising his love for Clara. After Danny's sacrifice to save the world, the Doctor grew to respect Danny, finally calling him by name and giving Clara the chance to be with him when he thought Danny had returned. (TV: Death in Heaven)
Other references
Colonel Orson Pink, a time traveller who was originally from the 22nd century, bore a striking resemblance to Danny. When Orson took off his helmet, Clara thought it was Danny. According to "silly stories" told about one of Orson's great-grandparents, time travel ran in the family. (TV: Listen) According to the Twelfth Doctor, even though they had the same surname, Orson "[did]n't look anything like" Danny. Clara claimed that he looked "very like him". The Doctor responded, "Does he? I dunno. Who remembers a PE teacher?" (TV: The Caretaker)
At some point, Danny taught Clara self-defence. (PROSE: Deep Time)
While facing incoming death by the Quantum Shade, Clara Oswald said she would "die right", the way Danny Pink did. (TV: Face the Raven)
Appearance
Danny was a tall and handsome man. He had brown hair and brown eyes. After his conversion into a Cyberman, he had Cyber-technology implanted into his cheeks and his eyes were swollen and bruised from the physical trauma of being converted.[source needed]
Behind the scenes
In the script of Into the Dalek, Danny Pink was initially described thus; "Late twenties, a strapping big lad, handsome."