Memories Become Stories
A/N: Collection of Whouffaldi one-shots that revolve around the Twelfth Doctor, Clara Oswald, their adventures and their relationship. All prompts used for this collection of short stories are taken from the book 712 More Things to Write About, by the San Francisco Writers' Grotto, San Francisco: Chronicles Books LLC, 2014.
Prompt: Write about something that is true at first light, false by noon.
A Brilliant Liar
6:00 – the alarm clock beside Clara's bed goes off.
"Okay, I got it, shut up," the sleepy young woman grunts, sticking her arm out from under the blankets to turn off the alarm. She stares at the ceiling for a few seconds, gathering the strength to get up, and gets off the bed.
She reaches the window, opens the shutters and peers out, breathing in the chill morning breeze. The sky is still dark, but the sun is beginning to rise, and the first rays of lights start to colour the outline of the estate. Clara mentally curses Mr. Armitage for having put her down for 8 a.m. classes on Monday mornings, and forces herself to close the window and get ready for work. But the images of the dream she just had are still flashing before her eyes, distracting her.
She dreamt of traveling with the Doctor, as she frequently did. They were visiting an alien planet and some creature appeared out of nowhere and she suddenly found herself running through some corridor that closely resembled to her flat. The monster was about to catch her, but then the Doctor jumped in front of her like a rabbit out of a hat, protecting her with his magician-like coat, shining the green sonic screwdriver against the alien, which shrank and disappeared.
Clara sits at her dressing table, staring at her reflection on the three mirrors, and sighs deeply. She has to concentrate and remember her special trick. She has to focus on not falling in love. She's good at that trick, she does it all the time, sometimes twice a day.
She doesn't love the Doctor. She repeats that sentence in her mind, and she truly believes it. She is not in love with him, she's convinced about that. That is the truth.
Actually, she doesn't even like him much. He's overbearing, annoying, stubborn, childish, and arrogant beyond belief. The list of his flaws goes on and on, she even tried to write it down for reference once. The Doctor knows how to irritate her like nobody else.
She starts applying her make-up, trying not to miss any bit, thinking about the stupid remark the Doctor said after one of her dates. God, sometimes she hates him.
Luckily, her first class is about Jane Austen. At least she always knows how to cheer Clara up.
8:25 – Clara takes her helmet off and leaves her motorbike in front of Coal Hill School. She walks quickly towards the main entrance, fixing her brown hair, trying not to be late.
"How's your Doctor, Miss?" Courtney laughs, hanging out with her friends beside the door when Clara approaches it.
"Go to class now, Courtney," Clara scolds her, ignoring the giggles. Then, entering the building, she adds under her breath, "I wish I knew."
She hasn't seen the Doctor in three weeks. It isn't particularly unusual, sometimes the Doctor just loses track of time and disappears for a while, reappearing weeks later as if not a day has passed.
She isn't concerned about the Doctor. And she's most definitely not in love with him. She just misses him, a bit. Tiny bit. She just wishes they could spend more time together, she just wishes he was more reliable and they could schedule their encounters as they used to do before he regenerated. But last time she tried to bring the subject up, he complained about her being a control freak for hours on end so she just gave up.
But she doesn't love the Doctor. That is a certain truth. She just can't wait for him to return to her.
10:15 – Clara's students rush out of her class, resurfacing from the boredom of the lecture. They don't seem to have appreciated the analysis of Pride and Prejudice much, except Angelina, who is very passionately firing away questions to her teacher about the text.
"But what are the motives behind Darcy's actions in this passage?" the girl points at an excerpt of the book, "why did Elizabeth reacted in this way? What does Austen implies?"
Normally Clara would have been very happy to have made such an impact on one of her students, and would be gladly discuss all questions with Angelina. But now there is something else that is catching her attention. She has heard a familiar sound among the noise caused by the kids.
"Sorry, Angelina, we discuss this tomorrow, okay?"
Clara leaves the classroom and walks along the corridor, suspicious. The door of the supply cupboard at the end of the corridor is slightly open, weird beams of light coming from inside. She opens it, cautiously, and finds a familiar blue telephone box in front of her.
"Come on," the Doctor simply tells her, popping his head out of the TARDIS and outstretching his hand.
"Where the hell have you been?" Clara frowns.
"I've found a planet where people have eyes bigger than yours, come and see!" he replies, all excited.
"No, Doctor, I've got assembly in five minutes!"
"Time machine, remember? We'll be back in four!"
He brings Clara to a planet, whose name she can't pronounce or remember, where it's always night. The planet orbits so distant from its small parent sun that the light coming from it is never really bright. Even during day time, the light is at best very dim and the sky still very dark. You can see the stars all day long.
The Doctor tells Clara that, living in such conditions, the humanoid inhabitants of the planet evolved really big eyes to be able to catch as much light as possible and see perfectly even in the dark. They don't even have the concept of electric light. Their big eyes are half creepy, half cute, Clara thinks, and she has to resist the impulse to point at them, but the Doctor comments that her eyes are inflating so much they'd probably mistake her for a native so she gets angry and punch his shoulder.
There's something evocative about living your whole life under the stars, Clara ponders while they walk. It's quite romantic, and she can't help but grasp the Doctor's arm and squeeze it despite his complains.
But she doesn't love the Doctor, and that is the truth. Okay, she has to admit that maybe she likes him, but the Doctor is just her friend. Her best friend. She's not in love with him, never, not ever.
And until they can walk together under the stars it doesn't even matter.
10:19 – The Doctor drops Clara back at Coal Hill.
Clara speeds towards the assembly room, trying to make her way through the crowd of students that are filling the corridors, hoping to make it in time for the meeting. While she's stuck in the crowd, someone plucks at her sleeve to get her attention.
"Miss Oswald?" Meabh calls her name in her soft, high-pitched voice, "I have to hand in my essay." The girl hands out her homework book to her teacher.
"Maebh, you've already given me your essay an hour ago."
"I felt inspired so I've written another one on the same topic," the girl smiles.
"Okay, great," Clara sighs, "like I didn't have enough homework to mark already," she mumbles, "thank you Maebh, glad to see your creativity is working at full capacity as ever."
"You're welcome," the little girl grins naively. "Say hello to the Doctor for me when you see him!" she waves, running to the other end of the corridor.
"Yeah, I will..."
The Doctor. God knows what he'll be up to before she sees him next. She hopes he'll be safe and take care of himself. But he's the Doctor, so he probably won't. It's not that she's worried about him, but sometimes she wonders, what if something happened to him? What if he was trapped on a distant planet or died before he could regenerate? She wouldn't even ever know. He'd just not ever come back to her, and she'd just keep on waiting for him her entire life, not knowing what happened to him. That's the thought that scares Clara the most.
But she doesn't love the Doctor. She just cares about him. A lot.
11:30 – Clara sits in the staff room, alone. Her head is bowed over the homework book of one of her students, her brown locks falling on both sides of it. Clara raises her head to look at the pile of marking she still has to do and emits a long, frustrated groan. She rests her shoulders against the back of her chair and hopes they're not all that bad.
Suddenly, an equal sound of groaning comes from the back of the room. Clara turns around, surprised, to check if there's somebody else in the room, but no one else is there. The groaning sound repeats, becoming louder each time, until Clara recognizes it.
The TARDIS materializes in the corner of the room as the wheezing sound stops.
"What are you doing?" Clara yells at the Doctor, as he gets out of his ship, "what if there were someone else here and they saw a big wooden box appearing from no where?!"
"I've got to show you something," he simply replies, trying to sound mysterious enough to intrigue Clara, looking even more excited than before.
"We've just been to... some weird alien planet like an hour ago!" Clara complains, standing up.
"What?" he mumbles, confused, bringing his eyebrows together, "is it still the same day for you?"
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry, but you really have to see this," he shrugs, grabbing Clara's hand and trying to drag her in the TARDIS.
"But I have to finish the marking!" she protests, but she's quite happy to have a distraction.
"You'll do it later," he says back, "we'll only be away for five minutes!"
Clara groans again, pretending to be huffy. "I'll have to work over lunch break, thanks to you," she snorts, following the Doctor inside the TARDIS.
She just can't say no to him. No matter how bad his timing is, she never denies a new adventure. Not even in the middle of dinner. She even ate two meals in a row, once.
But she repeats in her mind that she's not in love with him. She doesn't love the Doctor. Not in that way.
But in what way then?
12:00 – Clara is back in the staff room. She sits by herself, correcting the written exercises from her students while all her colleagues are eating in the school canteen. She'd feel lonely if she had the time.
Then, somebody knocks on the door. The door opens, and a lined face crowned with gray curls that Clara knows a little too well peers in.
"Oh God, Doctor, not again!" Clara sighs, "I'm busy!"
"I brought you chips from the takeaway," he replies, stepping inside the room and offering her a steaming white paper bag full of hot chips, "since you said you had to work over lunch break because of me."
She takes the chips, wide-eyed. "Thank you," she mumbles, astonished, "you shouldn't have."
"I parked outside this time, followed your instructions," he winks, suggesting that he's not in a hurry.
Sometimes she forgets that, behind all the grumpiness and professional detachment, the Doctor can be caring and kind. He takes a sit next to Clara, steals a chip from her bag with his fingers, and starts telling her about some adventures that she can't tell whether they really happened or are just stories. She smiles, eats a chip too, and returns to her marking, listening to the Doctor's story.
The Doctor keeps company to Clara while she works. She has an afternoon of grading and teaching ahead of her, but as long as they sit in the staff room alone, sharing the bag of chips, time is frozen. When Clara is with the Doctor she doesn't need a time machine.
And she keeps saying in her mind that she doesn't love him, but now she knows it clearly isn't true. She can lie to herself, but she can't deny it. Her trick doesn't work anymore.
She says she's not in love with him, and she knows that it's most certainly false no matter how hard she tries to convince herself.
6:00 – the alarm clock beside Clara's bed goes off. She smacks it with her hand to make it stop.
She doesn't want to wake up. She's just had a dream about the Doctor. They were having an adventure in space and were in the middle of some very dangerous situation, as always. The details of the dream eludes her, but she remembers the Doctor taking her hand and whispering to her ear, "I need you". And the best, and worst, part is that she knows he really does.
Clara gets up and sits on the bed. She breathes in deeply and exhales slowly. Her routine is about to start again.
She doesn't love the Doctor. That is the truth. That has to be true. She just has to focus harder on her trick.
Don't fall in love, she thinks, don't fall in love. She fears it might be too late.
A/N: Thank you for reading. Reviews, opinions, and constructive criticism appreciated.