Another new world…another gift for his Clara…something wonderful, and beautiful, and amazing, just to make her smile. The line had blurred in his mind as to how much of this was for her - a sort of compensation for the terrible ends her other two selves had met, and how much was for him - to assuage his guilt for not having been able to save her either time. So very many of his friends saw the very darkest side of the universe - betrayal, destruction, and war - he wanted this time to be different. He wanted to show her as much loveliness and wonder as he possibly could. The bad stuff would catch them up eventually. It always did. But for today, the sun shone brightly in the skies of New France as they explored the formal gardens of a recreated Loire Valley chateau. And…hell, blast, and damn. She'd found the rose garden.
Clara noticed that he'd fallen behind, and turned back. "Doctor? Aren't you coming?"
"You go along," he replied, forcing his voice to a normal tone. "I think I'll have a bit of a sit down."
"You all right?" she asked, her bright smile fading a bit.
"I'm fine. I don't much fancy roses. Go on."
"If you're sure," she answered uncertainly.
"Perfectly," he told her, squeezing her hand. He kept a smile fixed firmly on his face as she meandered down the well manicured paths. Clara turned once and waved. The Doctor waved cheerily in return, waiting until she was out of sight to let his head fall into his hands. He was never quite sure afterwards how long he sat there, lost in his thoughts.
"Hey," Clara said softly. She sat down beside him and slid her arms around his, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "Tell me what's wrong?"
The Doctor cleared his throat, but his voice was still suspiciously off kilter. "Nothing…really. Go on and enjoy yourself."
"Not without you."
"I told you, I -"
"- don't fancy roses, yeah. I don't believe you."
"Clara, please."
"All the wonderful things you've shown me…d'you really think I'm just going to stand by and do nothing when something's hurting you?"
"There's nothing to be done."
"I can listen. I can hold your hand. I can just…be here."
The Doctor sighed and straightened up. He reached out and picked up a pink rose petal that an errant breeze had deposited in Clara's hair. "There was someone very dear to me…her name was Rose."
"You never talk about the people who traveled with you before me."
"It hurts too much. D'you know how much capacity for pain one accrues over a thousand years?"
"Probably about the same as your capacity for love."
"Perhaps," the Doctor answered slowly, "but sooner or later, everyone leaves me. They don't all meet bad ends, mind you. Some have left me for love, or to pursue a calling of their own, which is as it should be…but it still hurts. And each time it happens, I swear it's the last, but somehow…"
"Someone finds you? And that's as it should be. No one is meant to be alone. Not even you."
"Sometimes I wonder what my friends' lives would have been like, if I hadn't crashed into the middle of everything."
"That I can answer. I wouldn't trade what you've shown me for the world. I suspect they'd all say the same."
"Even the noisy, crashy, not so well planned out bits?"
"Especially those. They were…enlightening, shall we say."
"That's a word for it."
Clara reclaimed the Doctor's arm, then asked, "What happened to your friend, Rose?"
"She ended up trapped on a parallel world, with a parallel me, eventually."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
"Maybe not for her. Not now, anyway."
"I'm sorry. Doctor, I -"
"No," he hushed her with his hand on her lips. "Don't make me a promise you might not be able to keep."
"You make me one. Promise me that when I'm gone, you'll remember me, and tell the stories of our adventures to whomever comes after me. Promise me that."
He swallowed hard, thinking that that particular loss might just be the one that would break him, but he looked into her bright eyes and said, "All right. I promise."
Clara smiled up at him. "Good. Now you can practice. Tell me a story. One that had a happy ending. One that's old enough for you to just recall the good bits."
"Blimey. That's a tall order."
"A thousand years of history," she reminded him.
The Doctor screwed his eyes shut to block out the sight of the pink rose petals drifting on the wind. That particular wound was still too raw. The view of the chateau also stirred bittersweet memories. Further back, then. Much further back, to memories of someone decidedly unsentimental, who would have been as out of place in a formal castle as she was in…well, just about every other place he'd taken her.
His face relaxed into a smile, and he opened his eyes to see Clara staring at him intently. "Have I ever mentioned someone called Leela?"