"Clara, got this period free, yes?"
The Doctor looked up to see a young, handsome man walking towards him and Clara.
"No. Yes," Clara responded quickly.
The Doctor looked at the man. His hair was curly, an unruly mop of curly hair. He was slim, his features angular. And around his neck…a bow tie.
"Great. Shakespeare," the man replied.
"Sorry, what, Adrian?" Clara responded, confused. But the Doctor was anything but confused. A smile grew on his face, a small smile. He missed that bow tie.
"Oh, I see," he said quietly.
"You see what?" Clara demanded, still confused.
"Nothing," the Doctor replied enigmatically. "Nothing at all."
And then the man, Adrian, started talking again, babbling on about "The Tempest." He and Clara began to walk and the Doctor couldn't help but follow, watching as the man's hands danced around as he talked, listened as he used non-existent words, like "not-finishedness."
At a certain point, he stopped and watched the two walk off together. He grinned again. "Oh, Clara."
He knew that they would never be together, not like that, and he didn't want it to be that way. He liked the way they worked now, how straightforward their relationship was.
But he could see now that she missed him. Missed him so much that she'd found someone who spoke with his hands, whose hair was absolutely mad, who favored the same neck ware. She missed the old him. Him before he changed.
And if he was being honest, to some degree, he missed him too.
The stupid soldier.
He had, in true soldierly fashion, messed up the Doctor's plans, and now Clara was defending him. She'd been going on and on about her surprise play, and for some reason, she was even calling the soldier her boyfriend. Didn't she know that he'd seen her real boyfriend?
"Oh, it's a roller coaster with you tonight, isn't it!" he called, frustrated. "What about the handsome one, the one with the bow tie?"
He'd expected her to nod in agreement, with sudden understanding, to confirm what he'd said. Instead, there was that confused look again.
"Who? Adrian? No, no, no, he's just a friend and not my type," she dismissed.
The Doctor didn't have time to react, no time to process. But he felt himself twinge, a forgotten part of him wince with pain, and he retreated into silence, no longer angry, no longer shouting. Just listening.
It wasn't until they showed the soldier the TARDIS that the Doctor realized why he felt so hurt, so betrayed. As he looked at Clara, waiting anxiously for the soldier's reaction, he realized how different she was. How different she was from the girl who had traveled with the Raggedy Doctor.
She was no longer the wide-eyed, mystified girl she had been, off to see the universe. She had sacrificed herself for him, loved him, and yet still she had lost him. She was different now, of course she wouldn't surround herself with reminders of the man who'd left her.
And then there was the soldier himself, her "boyfriend." The Doctor had disliked him as soon as he'd seen him. Disliked all soldiers on principle. And this one…well, he saw the Doctor for he really was. A fellow soldier.
He missed his last self. The darkness had been there, without a doubt, but there had been a lightness, a whimsy that made it all bearable.
But it was clear Clara didn't. Miss him, that is. She had moved on. Well, she hadn't forgotten him. He didn't think she ever would. But she had moved on, to Danny Pink, the soldier. A man not unlike himself. And that terrified him, because a man like him was the last thing he wanted for Clara.
But, he realized, there was one difference, one thing that separated him and the soldier. For Danny Pink, the world centered around Clara Oswald. He would protect her, no matter what. The Doctor could never focus himself upon one person, not now, not as his past reincarnations. And so, in that one regard, Danny Pink was better than the Doctor, better for Clara.
And that was all that really mattered. What was best for Clara.
So the Doctor put away his anger, his hurt, his immediate liking for the men in the bow ties. He would always remember that part of him, when he had been that Doctor. But it was time to move forward.
Clara had, and it was about time that he did too.
Just watched "The Caretaker" (I'm a bit behind this season). I didn't realize why the Doctor was so fixated on Adrian until "The Sad Man with a Box" started to play, as Danny looked in on the TARDIS. I had to stop the episode because I started crying (I'm very emotional). 11 is my Doctor, and so I don't think I'll ever stop missing him, but this is the saddest I've felt since 11's phone call at the end of "Deep Breath."
If you're reading this right now, I really appreciate it. Geronimo!