There were her arms, warm and tight, wrapped about my shoulders suddenly. One set of fingertips curled and pressed into the back of my neck. It was odd. A very odd feeling indeed. New to this body. Was it new though? No, no, there are memories in the noggin – many memories of hugs and twirls and... contact, of some sort or another, but why did it feel so hard now. Hard? Wrong word. What's the word I need for this feeling? Why did it feel... Why did it feel so...
So much.
Was that the word? It's a rather strange word, not fully encapsulating this feeling, but entirely describing it; Clara still swaddling me in this unexpected embrace. Why did it feel so much? So many nerves set on end, shooting cold jolts of anxiety coupled with the warmth of some other vague and somewhat unfamiliar emotion, mingled and mixing straight through both of my hearts. Not bad, not good, but something else, something exciting, intoxicating, excruciating, terrifying.
We get chips and she makes chatter, all the while her fingers find moments to touch my wrist or brush my arm or wipe away a sauce from my chin. She likes this chin, says so with a smile and a tilt of her head. It makes my hearts pound, automatically lifts one corner of my mouth. This new body is bizarre, more so than usual. I think maybe I tell myself the same thing each time to explain away sensations and reactions, justify them in my mind while trying to plug in all of the old memories.
Some were always gone.
Explanations went with them.
Her fingers are smooth and calm when they're against mine, but always crooked and moving when they're adrift, as though unsatisfied with their placement apart. And they're back again, the shock of the gesture is unnerving and yet she does it again and again, recharging against me as though possibly she takes my energy each time; a little sip of regeneration while it's still settling.
Old fool, she's human.
Humans are tangible beings, Clara extraordinarily so.
It takes too long for it to stop frightening my hearts, not days as I had hoped, or weeks as I had accepted, but months as I had feared. In all that time, I imagined she'd see the recoil of my bones, sense the quickening of my pulse, watch the way it put me off balance and perhaps she had and hadn't cared. For a while I thought her cruel for it, subjecting me to this onslaught of something I had no comprehension for how to respond, and then I had an epiphany.
Every touch.
Every caress of my elbow.
Every tap of knuckles against my own.
Every flutter of her fingers over my hair as she passed me, seated on the steps.
Every.
Single.
Hug.
They had all been training me to return in kind, conditioning away the fear I had known for some time, but had refused to name. I had told her once aloud, how I loathed those embraces, how they ached my very soul and she had merely laughed and held me tighter, cheek pressing at my chest as my arms hung limp at my sides, eventually rising to pluck her away, smirking as I did. And it had been that smirk that made me realize it.
That little tickle of the muscles in my cheeks that had wormed its way there from the warmth she'd left at the hollow between my breasts. The smirk vanished when that spot had gone cold, once she'd left to mark her papers and drink her tea and I realized it wasn't terrible when Clara held me. It wasn't terrible when she fiddled with my lapels, or tugged at my arm, or snuck a kiss to my temple when she thought me asleep after a long adventure. It wasn't terrible when she leaned into my side, or rounded my belly from behind with her arms, grasping at her wrists to keep me nestled in her hold.
It was terrible when she let go.
I remember so much of the last version of me. I remember how he saw her in her flirty skirts and floppy hair and how her giggle had made him feel as though he'd just been at war with a fleet of Daleks, victorious gleeful with a set of pounding hearts. I remember the first look at my face upon the first full acknowledgement in this body and this mind of all of the things I had done and said and thought over my two thousand years. I remember how it felt to feel that infatuation with her again as I showed off the outfit I'd chosen just for her, and see the unsure look in her eyes dancing just at the corner of her amusement.
Oh, how I didn't deserve those eyes.
I longed for her to see me as she'd seen me before, but the mask had fallen away and she saw me for who I was, for who I had hidden away behind a mop of hair and a childish face. Behind bow ties and silly quips and a boyish crush on a companion I irrationally though I could keep forever. And when she did see me again – when she finally looked upon me with recognition and reached out with the sort of physicality my predecessor had so readily with her – I realized just how unworthy of it I was.
Every touch was a reminder of my past.
How could she hold hands that had been responsible for so much death and destruction, hands that held so much power and lost so many lives? How could she intertwine her fingers with those that had buried children and punished men? How could she lay her ear to listen to hearts so broken by their time on the battlefield of this universe? It scalded me to my core to feel that affection from her, to know she gave it willingly, fooled by the foolishness of my former self. And yet that very thing made me question the way this new self viewed his history. That joining of her flesh to my own – sullying a skin so pure by comparison – made me question who I had been, and who I was, and who I wanted to be.
That was her lesson, daily given with each purposely sought out bit of contact.
That was her trick, like Pavlov and his bell.
I asked her once, am I a good man? Perhaps it was never her question to answer, but she made it her duty to treat me with a kindness she would slowly teach me I deserved. With a love she insisted on instilling in my hearts to soften them into the man she knew I could be. Perhaps it was the man she knew I was all along, the man who refused to forgive himself for the things he could not control in a lifetime of war against the evils he believed he could.
Like a conservator restoring a painting, her touch erases the scars of battles; her embraces squeeze out the poisons of doubt and anger that had been festering for far too long. I catch her in observance of her work sometimes, satisfied grin settled on her lips after I've held the hand of a stranger, or patted the head of a child. I feel the warmth that radiates from her when I let her hold me for far too long at the console and the shifting of her cheeks when she smiles after I've reached up to take her hand in my own.
My Clara, working so diligently to push aside my uncertainty.
My Clara, persistently encouraging to the point of annoyance at times.
My Clara.
My Clara.
My Clara.
She's never surprised now when I slip my fingers into her hold, nor when I wrap my arms around her shoulders to rest my chin there in exhaustion, in need of her presence, and somehow, neither am I. They're rare moments – I'm still learning – but they're moments I thought impossible when I first emerged from the fire. To know the fabric of the universe could be woven into such a comfort, inexplicably delivered in the form of a single being. To me, of all the people among billions and billions.
I am worthy of her caresses, she assures with the tiniest nods of her head; I am worthy of her tight hugs, she affirms with each one she delivers; I am worthy of her, she asserts every time she walks through those doors. I hold her now with a smile that comes easily, lifting her off the ground on occasion to hear the small exclamation of surprise that usually melts into a chorus of giggles I never know when I join. I set her down and I take her hand and lead her, listening to the gentle laugh she offers like an elixir that settles over me. There will never come a day I don't thank the stars for her.
For allowing me to be her Doctor.
And allowing her to be mine.