I don't know why we had to lose
The ones who took so little space
They're still waiting for the east
To cover what we can't erase
I'm not holding out for you
I'm still watching for the signs
If I tried you'd probably be
Hard to find
The National - Hard To Find
It was supposed to be a routine mission. He was just supposed to help. Assist them with the task which was too heavy for their little, inexperienced shoulders.
But it always works this way – small things that lead to much bigger, sometimes even impossible, ones. Some call it a twist of fate, others claim it is only a stroke of luck, he, in turn, finds it the only real justice in the world of endless unfairness.
"Once again thank you for your help," a youngster, called Charlie, says as they walk along the narrow corridor which smells like a combination of floor polish and fried food- a common trait of every school in this part of the Galaxy. The building is almost empty, a strange thing taking into account the hundreds of teenagers entering its walls every morning, but quite common in the late afternoon.
"Do you do this often? Catch monsters like Denebians?" The boy keeps talking not minding entirely the fact his conversationalist isn't even given a chance to chime in to his tightly-packed monologue.
"Funny thing I've read recently a book about a man who travelled from one place to another and earned his keep by killing monsters. I even tried to watch its screen adaptation, but it was just so bad. It's hard to believe how much the movie industry has changed in the last decade. It's much better. Sometimes, I like to speculate how much better it will be in next ten years. Will they create 5D cinemas and stuff," the boy buries him with words. They leave his mouth like water leaves a fractured dam.
From time to time, the Doctor turns around and only nods. He isn't eager to start another conversation today. Not after so many hours of patiently answering to their every, even the dumbest question. Sometimes he can't understand the people of this planet. More specifically, he can't catch on why they couldn't just leave a person alone if they showed all signs informing them about their reserved nature. Instead they felt an unexplainable and utterly ridiculous urge to involve them in conversation, sometimes at any cost. For a society that relished in psychotherapy and talking, they were particularly ignorant.
Guided by the boy, he reaches the last corridor separating him from the main entrance and the red shed in which the Tardis was parked.
"They'll never create 5D cinemas, if you must know," he tells the boy with hint of enthusiasm in his voice. It's a genuine one – a way of showing his just born buoyancy. He is going home.
"Strange, I thought it was a safe bet." The boy wrinkles his nose.
"You may disbelieve but I'm from the time-" He starts to smart off but breaks mid sentence when he spots an inscription on the glassy doors leading to one of the classrooms.
"Oswald?" He blurts.
"Yes, Miss Oswald. She's my English teacher." The boy shrugs his thin shoulders. "She seems nice but can be very unforgiving if she's crossed. Better not to give her reason to dislike you."
The Doctor looks up at him. His eyes are likely in the size of the Pollux, if not the Arcturus.
"Is?" He chokes up as if he was electrocuted.
Thousands of memories and feelings are waking up in his brain as he reads the short name over and over again. How long has it been since he has last seen her? Or rather since he let go of her.
"I think so. At least she was in the morning when she gave me a D on my latest test," the adolescent murmurs, but his words only ring in the Doctor's head. In that very moment he is back in the middle of a desert in Utah. He sits at a red bar table in a lonesome diner and makes the biggest blunder in his entire life. How could he not realize it was her?
"You know her?" He reiterates when his mind comes back to the here and now. Slowly his pulped brain starts to work again. "What's today's date?" He almost whispers.
"June 12th 2016." The boy answers and gives him a blunt look of utter confusion at the same time that he starts to feel first droplets of salty fluid forming in his eyes. Normally, he would never let anyone see him being emotional, but today was different.
He didn't care anymore. Today reminded him about itall over again.
June 12th – a week from now they'll go to the Trap street.
A week from now will take him to Gallifrey and he will run away. Again.
Only this time with her. Then almost intoxicated he will see her in the Diner. He won't recognize her. She'll leave and he won't see her ever again.For almost three hundred years he had not once come across her.
"I need to check one thing. I'll find my Tardis myself. Thank you, it was my pleasure." The Doctor says with a wide, fake grin at his face. He must look like a loony – all smiles and devastation at the same time. Deep down he wishes the adolescent is clever enough to notice his subtle begging to get off his back.
Without another word, the boy turns on his heels and leaves.
Only for a second- he tries to salve his conscience as his hand reaches for the screwdriver and starts to work on the old lock blocking the interior of the room from him. To his luck or maybe it was exactly opposite, the door opens without a bigger struggle. He's in.
He passes the threshold of the room and quietly closes the door after himself – witnesses of his small crime are the last thing he wants. He can't tell why he needs to be here. Nor does he want to know his own reasons. Nonetheless it feels almost right. He almost feels her presence when he takes a seat in her chair and stares aimlessly at the space around him. She's everywhere.
She's in the tones of the folders and binders segregated according to their colour on wooden shelves. In the red mug in white dots she keeps on her desk and in the thin cardie hanging from the chair. He unpegs the latter and buries his face in it, breathing in the sweet smell of her – a wonderful mixture of cotton candy, some exotic flowers, and her.
He had not once thought he would miss this place. For most of the time he loathed it for its impersonal and clerical character, yet today he would give up everything to one who could give away how to visit it more often.
His hearts skip a beat when he hears a metallic sound of the key in the keyhole.
"Do I sneak up to your Tardis to scare you?" Clara whines as she enters the room and stops next him. She stares at him with her arms crossed and eyes fixed on him so intensely that he can almost feel the skin on his forehead burn.
She's so perfect. Much more beautiful than the silhouette he sees sometimes when he closes his eyelids and dares to dream about her.
He wants to scream at the top of his lungs. Tell her about everything he wished he could share with her over the last few centuries. About every time he had seen something breath-taking and looked over his shoulder only to once again remind himself that there was no one by his side, and each time he was horrified. He wants to tell her how much he was panting for her company; instead he just stares.
"No. Why do you keep doing that to me then?" She continues while he gazes at her in amazement. His eyes shift around nervously between her face, high-heeled shoes, and dress in white and black stripes.
"Clara-" He finally breaks up. Almost in agony.
"Don't you dare try using your tricks on me!" She tells him with a serious expression on her lovely face. There are other words leaving her mouth too, but he can't hear them. His mind is way too distracted with her red as a raspberry in the summertime lips. Were they always like this- the shabby neurons are trying to clinch.
Totally unexpected she takes another step forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders from behind.
"It's good to see you, though. And I'm glad you showed up. I really doubted you would when you promised me to come with me to that wedding," she breathes out while he feels her chin dig in his skinny neck.
What wedding –he thinks to himself for good moment before his mind starts to recall an event to which they never attended so long ago. He promised her he would take her there but eventually chickened out telling himself they would only regret it. Now he sees his motive clearly. He knew where their relationship was heading and got scared. It's funny because right now he would die to take that chance.
He's about to tell her he can't. His clever mind whispered thousands of lies she would likely accept without questioning them even for a moment. It seems so easy, but yet he never uses any of them.
"Your ship awaits," he answers and joins his hands with hers.
If he has to repent of something, at least he will have a really good reason.