A/N: Bit of a rough reaction piece to what I thought was a beautifully thematic episode.
bravery, and the heart of a fool
bravery.
Clara Oswald is brave.
Clara Oswald is brave.
(no, doctor – clara oswald was brave.)
He stares stares stares at her cold eyes – Ashildr's eyes, of course, never Clara's; hers are warm, big, confusing, emotional, stubborn, dead—
And his eyes are red and dry and can burn holes and light fires and destroy. Can twinkle and dance and sing. Can weep until nobody cares enough to wipe the tears away.
By definition, he fixes things. (Most things.) People, places, the TARDIS, friends. He picks up pieces scattered throughout time and space, argues with countless people about rewriting time, saves whole planets and worlds and galaxies, starts over with a different smile each time someone steps out those doors and never comes back.
And he makes a deal with the universe – if she can be brave enough to die right, then he can be brave enough to live and suffer.
.
promises (and orders).
And sometimes, he wonders what the difference is.
There was once a declaration – love is a promise – spoken amidst the ramblings of a mad man with a box and an entire army of metal men. A soldier with a promise, not an order.
Except now, she was not a soldier, and neither is he. She is a schoolteacher with an order against revenge and monstrosity and the constant war that rages within his own self.
(Fire burns, and he's broken both before.)
.
consequences.
There are consequences, he knows.
Over two thousand years, and a lifetime of mistakes.
It reads like a story he would tell a child—
The Doctor and Clara meet the Vikings. And the hills were green and the sky was blue, and they fought side-by-side with real people – farmers and blacksmiths and carpenters and electric eels – and with puppets and music and dreams, they won. And in the middle of the story, there is a girl. A girl with braided hair and enough courage (stupidity) to stand and declare war against something she knew nothing about. A girl who fought and died, but was saved by a doctor, woke up, lived, lived happily ever after.
—Like any good story, there are lies and consequences.
(And here is another story—
Clara Oswald followed the Doctor through hell and back, all reckless abandon, saved a few (so, so many) people, laughed and lived and died.)
.
lost.
The Doctor is lost.
The Doctor lost.
oh god, clara too?
.
run.
It's what he's good at, dammit.
But this time, there's no TARDIS, no Clara, no small hand fitted neatly inside his, no breathless laughter, no curious life form chasing after them through long and dark corridors.
This time, there's only death and the eyes of a woman who also ran and made herself again.
She presses a button.
(Spinning lights and a rush of air, and the process continues indefinitely.)
.
(and it goes without saying.)
He hugged her.
Does it need saying?
Of course not, he tells himself. She was right, and she knew it (him), and she simply hugged him.
(nothing simple, never that simple.)
But oh, there are words on the tip of his tongue, words that he knows without needing those cue cards, words that will fester for eternity.
The first face that this face saw, and a relationshippartnershipfriendship forged from the depths of volcanoes and daleks and childhood dreams and twisting subterranean bases and forests and space banks and dinosaurs and the goddamn moon and flying trains and winding cobbled streets up until the very very end—
(regret is simple, isn't it, doctor?)
And there are words that float disparate yet certain, words that chase his nightmares, words that won't be said (not like that, and not to her).