A/N: I wrote this fic shortly after I discovered the incredibly beautiful song Misguided Ghosts by Paramore. It's such a Doctor song, and it's what I imagined him playing during this story. This fic was definitely a challenge for me because there's not a lot of dialogue and there was so much emotion I wanted to convey. I hope it turned out all right! Enjoy!
Clara abandoned the TARDIS controls and watched the Doctor trudge up the stairs. A metallic clunking echoed throughout the room as he dragged his feet. Even as he made it to the second floor, his shoulders remained slumped and he kept his eyes downcast.
"Doctor?"
He didn't even glance up as she said his name. Instead, he made his way around the room at a slow, measured pace. He came to a stop at a bookshelf, where his electric guitar was leaning against the side. With a sigh that Clara could hear from the console, he grabbed the instrument and pulled the strap over his shoulder.
The TARDIS jolted and Clara grabbed the edge of the console for balance. The time and space machine's materialising cacophony was this time joined with a minor chord from the Doctor's guitar, each note plucked slowly.
Clara glanced at the monitor. The TARDIS had landed in her flat.
Another minor chord bellowed from the amp on the second floor. Though the Doctor's back was to her, Clara could see his hand moving up and down the neck of the guitar as a melancholy progression of notes and chords followed.
Clara glanced at the TARDIS doors. She knew that the Doctor could just sit there playing sad songs for hours and not say a word to her. She looked back at the Doctor, who was now sitting on the amp and had his head turned toward her just enough that she could tell his eyes were closed.
She couldn't leave him like this.
Clara made her way silently up the stairs, watching the Doctor's body sway in time with his music. She reached her hand out as she approached his back, ready to place a hand on his shoulder, but then a low hum came from the Doctor's throat. Clara curled her fingers back into a fist and pressed it against her lips as the humming grew louder. He probably didn't know she was there. He might have even forgotten that she was in the TARDIS altogether.
Walking on her tiptoes, Clara slipped past him and pressed her back against the wall next to the bookshelf. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the ground and pulled her knees up to her chest. She let out an inaudible sigh, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. Then she closed her eyes, and the world disappeared. She felt herself pulled into the Doctor's music, a realm of sadness, loneliness, and regret. A throbbing ache settled in her chest, and somehow she knew she was feeling the Doctor's pain when he had heard the words "Clara's dead."
The Doctor began murmuring words in place of his humming, but Clara was too enveloped in the emotion of the music to find it comical that the Doctor was singing. As his voice strengthened, she realised that he wasn't even speaking English, but a language far more ancient and far more dear to him. However, she didn't need to understand his words. As his voice became saturated with sorrow and regret she could see a younger version of the Doctor who didn't even think he deserved his name after all he had done. She saw him faced with an impossible choice he knew he could never make as his hand hovered over a red button. Then pain streaked his voice and Clara imagined how many people he had lost. She felt his loss of Gallifrey like it was a hole in her own heart.
Suddenly the Doctor's words stopped altogether but he played on, the notes slowing down to a dirge-like pace. As the music continued, an all too familiar hollow feeling settled itself in Clara's gut. Loneliness.
Clara opened her eyes to find that tears blurred her view of the silver floor beneath her. She blinked and let the tears trail down her cheeks freely. Finally she looked up at the Doctor, who was staring straight at her, his eyes soft and filled with tears.
"Hey," she said, her voice faltering on the single syllable. She pushed herself to her feet and stood next to the Doctor, resting her hand on his shoulder. He looked down at his fingers, still meandering slowly across the frets of the guitar. "You're not alone, Doctor."
The Doctor ended his song with a strange chord, almost like he had added a question mark to the end of a sentence. He looked up at her with a different emotion in his eyes, one that she had seen before he had picked up his guitar.
"You don't have to be afraid. " She squeezed his shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere."
His eyebrows raised the tiniest bit, as if challenging her statement. Clara sighed. They both knew that she couldn't stay with him forever, no matter how badly she wanted too.
"Oh, Clara Oswald," he muttered, his voice barely more than a deep, Scottish rumble. He shrugged her hand off and raised the guitar over his shoulder, standing it up against the railing.
Clara opened her arms as he stood. "Come here, you." Before waiting for a reply, she hugged him around the middle and rested her head against his chest. She could feel the steady beating of his hearts against her ear.
The Doctor sighed, and Clara felt his muscles relax underneath her fingertips.
"Feeling better now?"
His arms wrapped around her shoulders and his chin brushed against her temple as he sighed, "Yes."
Clara chuckled half-heartedly, trying to ignore the painful ache in her chest that remained from the Doctor's song. "See? Hugs aren't all bad." She waited a moment for a reply and loosened her arms from around him so that she could pull away and see his face.
His eyes were dark and morose, and he looked at her for only a moment before pulling her back into a hug. "What will I do without you?" He whispered it so softly that Clara didn't think she was meant to hear it. Her eyes stung with tears once more at the forlorn note in his voice.
The Doctor started to pull away from the embrace, but he kept his hands on her shoulders and leaned forward to kiss her forehead, just for a moment. Clara squeezed her eyes shut against the tears threatening to fall. It was almost if, in that moment, she could read his mind. She could see how finite her life really was, how it could be ended so easily in a moment. She could sense his ever-increasing fear of loneliness. She could feel the weight of the universe on his shoulders, and yet somehow, in the center of it, stood her.
Clara remembered a long time ago, when she had thought that the Doctor's companions, herself included, were nothing more than playthings that rose and fell with the sun. But now she knew the truth, that the humans he traveled with…that she was everything to him.
Maybe that was one of the Doctor's faults. Maybe he cared too much. Maybe one day all his grief would finally catch up with him.
Clara shivered. She knew that her thoughts surely echoed his.
The Doctor's hand enveloped hers, warm and reassuring. Clara opened her eyes and saw the corner of his mouth turn upward in an encouraging smile. With a sigh, Clara felt her sadness dissipate. She looked at him, and he nodded, as if silently agreeing with her. Now wasn't the time to grieve; now was the time to live.
The Doctor tugged her toward the stairs, his steps much lighter than they had been minutes ago. "Time to get you home," he said as they reached the console. He looked at the monitor and nodded in affirmation.
Clara laughed and nudged him out of the way, pressing a series of buttons and knobs in order to send the TARDIS back into flight. "Don't you know, silly old man?" She grinned up at him and pulled on the final lever. "I am home."