Rupert Anthony "Tony" Clare was a resident of 107 Baker Street. Formerly a scientist at UNIT, where he had met his husband, Ron Winters, and forged a relationship with him with the help of Andy Davidson, he had retired and moved with Ron to a flat inside 107 Baker Street by the time the Eighth Doctor, Liv Chenka, and Helen Sinclair arrived. Tony viewed the group, especially the Doctor, with suspicion until an attempt on the Doctor's life by time-travelling assassins made clear the Doctor was the same person he had worked with at UNIT.
Tony's memories began to act up. Seeking out Liv and Helen for help, Ron learned the Doctor and Andy, visiting the UNIT of the 1970s, were responsible. Though the trio were unable to get the Doctor to stop, they did create a stop code which limited the damage caused by the time loop that was also affecting Tony's past.
In the original 2020, Ron caught COVID-19 and eventually died. Tony coped with his grief with the help of the other residents of 107 Baker Street. When the Doctor, Liv, and Helen departed the following year, Tony wished them well.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Rupert Anthony Clare was named by his parents after Rupert the Bear. Embarrassed by their choice, he decided to go by an abbreviation of his middle name. (AUDIO: UNIT Dating)
In the 1970s, Tony was hired by UNIT as one of their scientists. He felt he was a terrible fit, finding his work too routine, perceiving that he was being shouted at by Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, and wishing that more people talked to him than Ron Winters, a lance corporal who had taken a fancy to him.
Almost a month into his tenure, Tony was ordered by the Brigadier to get a haircut, being told he was "not in Soho now." While testing "scraps of PVC" in his lab, he was pranked by Ron. He vented his frustrations about his job to Ron, who responded by flirting with him, vouching for the Brigadier, Third Doctor, and Jo Grant, and showing Tony a machine he had found "half-buried down the side of an old church." Seriously intrigued, Tony failed to notice that Ron was in the process of asking him on a date.
Ron's request was interrupted by the Brigadier, who wanted him to supervise Gron, an Ogron who had been captured in a Hackney supermarket. Gron's clumsy attempts to use the machine, which turned out to be a time machine that could return him home, trapped him, Tony, Ron, the Brigadier, the Eighth Doctor, and Andy Davidson in a decaying time loop. The Doctor rebuilt Gron's machine, resolving the loop and sending him home.
After the Doctor and Andy departed, Tony was asked out by Ron on Andy's advice. Tony readily accepted, foreseeing a relationship with Ron as being one of the few positives of his job. They began to make out, but were caught by the Brigadier, who requested that their romance occur outside the workplace. (AUDIO: UNIT Dating)
Life on Baker Street[]
By 2020, Tony and Ron were married and had been living in a flat at 107 Baker Street for a few years. They often argued with their neighbours Aisha and Zakia Akhtar, redirecting their ire towards their landlord, the Eighth Doctor, once tensions had settled. Their feud with the Akhtars was briefly reignited by the Pandora Bolt, which the Doctor had brought home on the assumption it could help repair his TARDIS. (AUDIO: Lost Property)
Tony was addicted to watching television at a loud volume. One of Ron's attempts to turn down the volume ended in him and Tony discovering a camera feed featuring older versions of them. Seeking the Doctor's help, they learned that as was the case for the house's other residents, an alien surveillance camera had been placed inside their television. They were urged by the Doctor to dispose of the television, Ron asking Tony to dance with him instead. (AUDIO: Must-See TV)
Ron and Tony heard Liv and Helen celebrating the Doctor winning You Either Know It or You Don't. They explained he deserved it given the circumstances, the details of which they could not yet tell the Doctor, Liv and Helen. They went to Wakefield's with the rest of the residents, returning home in a taxi after Teeja and Bourakai attacked the restaurant in an attempt to assassinate the Doctor. (AUDIO: Divine Intervention, Dead Time) They wondered if they should reveal their pasts to the others and what the Brigadier would have made of the day's events. (AUDIO: Dead Time)
Tony began to struggle with his memories, particularly those involving the Doctor and UNIT, and experienced a change in his personality. A concerned Ron begged Liv for help, learning with her and Helen that Tony's memories were in flux thanks to the time loop surrounding his and Ron's meeting in the lab. Liv and Helen used their TARDIS keys and Tony's transistor radio to send a message to the Doctor to stop; this ended up acting as a stop code that kept the time loop's victims from being sent too far back in time. A recovered Tony and Ron reaffirmed their love and danced to the song playing on Tony's radio during the lab meeting. (AUDIO: UNIT Dating)
Some time later, Tony was visited by Helen and Aisha—who a future Helen, watching through a time window in 107 Baker Street, realised had come to check on him. Sharing Ron's scones and yellow-sticker doughnuts bought by Aisha, the trio discussed Tony's hearing loss and Helen's efforts to teach Robin history. In his passion, sparked by his musing on counterfactual stories, Tony did not realise he had upset Helen by reminding her of her pain around Albie Sinclair's disappearance. Following Helen's hasty departure to, per her, prepare for her next lesson, Tony and Aisha voiced a mutual concern for her well-being. Tony remarked that she needed to stop obsessing over "things long-gone that she [couldn't] control [and] start telling her own story." (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)
Alternate timelines[]
Possible 2035[]
In a possible 2030, Tony died. Ron scattered his ashes at a beach in Norfolk. (AUDIO: Snow)
Original timeline[]
In the original version of 2020, a lockdown instituted to manage the initial wave of COVID-19 kept the residents of 107 Baker Street at home. After Ron caught the virus, Tony was visited by the Akhtars, who ordered him groceries. He declined Zakia's offer to teach him to use a smart phone and thanked the Akhtars for looking out for him. This prompted a discussion of the changes, good and bad, brought by the lockdown. Ron was confident he could make it through the lockdown's two-week length, considering it a pittance compared to what he saw at UNIT, and that Ron, with his ox-like constitution, would recover from his bout with COVID.
Ron's condition deteriorated. He went to the hospital, where he was cared for by a team that included Liv, before eventually dying. Tony retreated into his flat. Sorting through Ron's things with the Doctor, he related to the Doctor his brief visions of the alternate 2020 and wished the Doctor had not repaired the timeline. The Doctor told Tony Ron was not gone just because he was dead—in fact, he was still alive in Tony's memories. Tony longed to take Ron's place, the Doctor responding that Ron would, in turn, take his place and that everything ended in time. Tony acknowledged this, but desired for Ron's time to have come later.
Some time in the fall, Tony, watched by Liv, maintained his garden. He successfully kept her from helping out, but could not stop her from expressing the other residents' concern about his mental health since Ron's death. Tony acknowledged he had felt poorly in the past, but knowing Ron would not want him to wallow in his grief, had decided to push on. He repeated what the Doctor had told him about Ron's presence in his memories, something Liv, having lost her father, knew very well. They agreed that Ron had been "a lovely man," although Tony believed Liv did not know him on as deep a level, and that it was worth feeling pain to keep loved ones alive. He bemoaned the oncoming winter but to Liv's concordance, noted life would return in the spring.
In early 2021, the Doctor gathered the residents of 107 Baker Street to announce that he, Liv, and Helen were departing in the TARDIS. Tony shook the Doctor's hand and wished him well, being glad to have met him so long after their time at UNIT. He and the Doctor were in the same mind about Ron thinking likewise. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Personality[]
Tony perceived the world with an analytical mind. He was insistent on the value of reason, believing it a "logical supposition" that Ron was good for good. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever) His armour of thought was not without its cracks. Though it was important to him that he was not bogged down by the past, (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) he voiced his annoyance with contemporary phones being used for texts and "Insta-Pinta stories" instead of just calls. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever) He was fond of snow in a magical way, claiming that a blanket of snow could make even patches of waste ground beautiful and appreciating that snow days brought life to a stop and allowed him to stay in bed. Such was Tony's passion, in the possible 2035, Ron believed it solely snowed in their garden after Tony's death to remind him of Tony. (AUDIO: Snow)
Tony was a little socially inept. He missed that Ron was asking him on a date, instead focusing on the machine Ron had found, (AUDIO: UNIT Dating) needed Aisha to tell him he had upset Helen, (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) and did not quite understand that the Akhtars appreciated seeing people cross the street when encountering them for non-racist reasons. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Age blessed Tony with perspective and wisdom. He believed a life did not have to be happy to be worthwhile and that one could learn something from all kinds of stories, even those which were sad and difficult. (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street) He was hesitant to make "rash promises" at his age, fearing that good intentions could be undone by "a surprising verge." He appreciated having the freedom to spend time outside, lamenting to the Akhtars about his inability to do so during the initial COVID-19 lockdown. (AUDIO: Best Year Ever)
Tony enjoyed drinking milk with his morning coffee, leading Ron to ensure it was always on hand lest he face Tony's wrath, (AUDIO: Lost Property) and red wine (AUDIO: Divine Intervention). He liked watching Antiques Roadshow and disliked dancing to the point Ron had to force him to watch Strictly Come Dancing. (AUDIO: Must-See TV) He loved to garden and was stubborn about doing so alone, wanting to look out from his window and think, "That's me. I did that." (AUDIO: Best Year Ever) He was fascinated by Dennis Sever's House and its "glorious fiction," urging Helen to take Robin so her history lessons could bear fruit. "A little theatrical archivist," he said, "can reveal a lot, you know. Sometimes, what could have happened is just as important as what did." (AUDIO: The Keys of Baker Street)