AN: I don't own Doctor Who. This is me trying to make sense of The Time of the Doctor, which I honestly had some issues with. I feel like all of my questions about the previous two seasons were answered, and yet somehow I seem to have even more. Anyway, my brain kinda exploded afterword and I wrote this at twelve pm in a frantic rush of free-flow thought. At twelve pm it made a lot of sense. Now that I'm actually coherent, not so much. Oh well, I decided to post it anyway :) Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

Silent Night

Rule 1) The Doctor lies.

This is what River constantly reminds anyone who ever has the misfortune to encounter the Doctor and share in his adventures. It's a necessary warning, as the Doctor will never admit to it, except when he does, and even then there's always a chance he's not being honest.

Unfortunately for Clara, River has been long dead when she first comes aboard. There is no one to tell her, no one to teach her the most basic tenant of time travel within the TARDIS: the Doctor lies.

History repeats itself, they say.

(Clara doesn't read the history books.)

The first time is…not easy.

Of course, he's mislead her before, but never quite like this. Never quite like tricking her back into the TARDIS and attempting to leave her at home. It doesn't work this time, oh no, because she's too quick for the dematerialization to quite finish and she manages to get the key into the lock in between phases.

And then she's lost.

In the cold, dark, emptiness and it's Christmas, this shouldn't be happening for god sakes, it's not fair! and oh my stars…she can see the universe laid bare before her in her peripheral line of vision, a waterfall of incandescent orbs rushing by her skin and through her hair, the lights of the universe falling past her eyes and into the abyss. And she wishes she could turn her head to watch the Universe live and die in a single heartbeat, because that's what the time vortex is (time) but she is locked into this position of desperation, facing the blue of the TARDIS door, falling into eternity just like before.

And when she lands it's only been a second.

It takes her a moment to process (I'm back! I'm cold. I'm alive! How am I alive?) but she can't finish these trains of thought because she feels a rather rude bump on her back and hears a rather grumpy voice, and she staggers away from the wood.

He's angry at her, that she's back.

"I was in space," she cries, except it comes out as a bewildered whisper instead of a scream.

I was in space, because there is no way she can describe what has just happened; she doesn't have the words (on this battle ground, words are everything) and there are only two people in the universe that could possibly understand. (Both were once immortal. Both are now dust.)

I was in space, she says, and those words don't do it justice.

The second time is…much harder.

He makes her a promise and seals it with a kiss. Leathery lips brush against her cheek, reminiscent of times past (or future?) but it's only been one day for her, one single Christmas day that's gone horribly wrong, while it's been three centuries for him. Promise me she asks and he says promise and then the turkey's ready.

At least he doesn't insult her intelligence. He mixes it up and does it a new way, stepping out while the distraction of cooking occupies her mind (she could never resist a stove, no matter what life she was in) and when she walks out to find him the snow is gone and so is Trenzalore and she's back where she started: family waiting inside, and no fake boyfriend. (She has the turkey though, that must be something.)

What's that old saying? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

She was never told that the Doctor lies. She's never read the history books.

Clara prefers the fairytales.

It's been centuries when she's finally brought back to Trenzalore, and not by the Doctor. She remembers how she was here only hours ago. She remembers when they came here in the morning. She remembers seeing the sunrise.

This Doctor is old, so old, but he's still her Doctor. And she's still in…she will always be…well…it's…never mind.

But this Doctor has lived for centuries in a blur of one long never-ending Christmas, and though he hasn't forgotten the story, the details are all fuzzed around the edges.

In his time stream, she has always been a detail.

In the future (or the past?) he will ask her why she still believes him after all this time, when it's been proven, time and time again, that the Doctor lies. It's history.

And she'll smile and say it's because she's never much liked history (there's a reason why she's a literature teacher) and that time and time again, she'd rather write her own stories, her own endings. Because the Doctor's taught her enough for one lifetime, let alone a billion: Everything ends. Even love. Always.

What she doesn't say, but keeps tightly locked behind her lips, is this:

I must believe the best of you because I've seen the worst.

Oh, and she knows that she will never see Christmas the same way again, that it will always be what took the Doctor away from her, that it will hurt, but this Universe has never been fair and it only makes bargains when it has the upper hand.

So she thinks screw this bloody silent night, and rests her lips against a crack in the wall that could very well kill her and whispers not what was asked but what needs to be heard: help him change the future and because you love him.

(because you love him)

And the rest is history.