THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE
( PROLOGUE )
CLARA: It's hard being left behind… I wait for him… not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay… It's hard for me. Being the one who stays.
Instead, I keep myself busy. That way, time goes faster.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks in the streets of London. I work until I'm practically dead. It's so bizarre. Why does absence make the heart grow fonder?
Many years ago, in the times of war, men would set sail for new lands and fight for their countries. Their wives would wait for them. I know, now, how it must have felt. It pains me, it truly does.
Because now, I wait for the Doctor.
THE DOCTOR: How does it feel to be absolutely normal? With nothing wrong with you… without all this… nonsense. I know that it's nonsense. Yet, every single time, whenever that old girl, the big, blue box, appears before me… I can't help but explore the world inside. The infinite abyss of the bigger-on-the-inside wonder. I, to this day, haven't a clue about how I can stop myself, even though, I know, one of these days, it's going to cost me very dearly.
Sometimes, it's not a matter of appearing at some point in Clara's life… sometimes, it's a matter of finding myself hauled off to jail. Finding myself witnessing my parent's death. More times than others, I'll be running. I have to. People find me; they hunt me. Natural instinct, I guess. You see a man step out of an anonymous blue box… what do you do? Do you ignore it – walk right past it? Do you comment on how the young man – me – must be very extraordinary to pull off such a magic trick like a disappearing police box?
I always feel like such an ass, leaving Clara alone. I can't help it – the temptation. The idea, that one day, I might appear at the scene of my parent's death, like I have a million times before, but this time… I would be able to stop it.
How does it feel?
How does it feel not to wake up one morning, that blue box calling to you? It was almost like nicotine… a drug that I have never been able to shake. Even when I try.
My record is three days without traveling.
Somedays, I'll be reading The Sun with Clara sitting next to me telling off Angie and Artie (the kids she babysits) for spilling coffee on the pure white carpet, and then, the next moment, I'll find myself in 1999, watching my thirteen year old self going to the cinema on his own for the first time.
All I ask for is for it to stop; for me to resist it. A week. Three weeks. Then a month. Then, hopefully, a year. I'll be free of that blue box forever. I want to settle down. Being able to see Clara lay down to bed next to me, being absolutely certain that that box won't come for me in the night.
She too, once upon a time, would follow me. Adventures. Traveling everywhere and everywhen. We had it all. Until, she decided that it was time to stop. It was time to hang up my keys, and then I would finally be somewhere I wanted to be: with her.
