A/N: So this just kind of…happened. Apparently once I started writing about these two idiots I couldn't stop.
The first two sections take place sometime between Death in Heaven and Last Christmas. The rest is all post-LC.
Also, this is for my wonderful roommate, who wanted a story.
They're at the edge of a crystal blue lake.
It smells vaguely like fish and sand, so she thinks it's possible that they're on Earth, on her territory. But there are twin moons suspended overhead and last time she checked the human race only looked up at one, so there's certainly a chance that they aren't on Earth at all.
She takes a step toward the Doctor, heart thrumming anxiously against her ribs. Her fingers unfurl between them, grasping for the front of his coat. She wants to at least be able to touch him while she tells him the truth. (She should stop dragging this out; she needs to just say it.)
He cuts her off before she can even start, his brow furrowed. He looks perplexed. "The entire history of human desire," he says, glancing down at her and then taking a small step backward, "takes about seventy minutes to tell."
Anything she was going to say before crumbles in her mouth, suddenly stale and useless.
"Unfortunately, we don't have that kind of time."
"Why not?" Clara asks, because he has a time machine and a wonderful penchant for breaking the rules and she is a time traveler; she understands how all of this works.
He looks at her now like she's the silliest pudding brain he's ever encountered. "Because we have to run."
And just like that the lake explodes into a frothing, angry mass that's bearing down on them, trying to swallow them whole. She's sure that she yells, but the sound is drowned out by the water that's rushing in and around them, filling her mouth and ears.
Then the Doctor is at her side, completely drenched, his hair plastered to his skull. He leans down to murmur in her ear. Empty platitudes, she thinks, or ingenious plans or a dying declaration.
He takes her hand in his.
She wakes up.
Clara writes The Road Not Taken in bold, capital letters across her chalkboard, and then spins to face her class, smile in place. "Right, so: Robert Frost's famous poem. Any first thoughts?"
They all stare back at her blankly, a few students dropping their gaze shyly from hers when they realize the question's not rhetorical.
She rolls the piece of chalk between her fingers, trying to outlast the silence by counting to twenty. She makes it to twelve. "C'mon, guys. Somebody must have something."
A small, blond-haired boy slowly raises his hand, glancing around at his classmates as if looking for help. Clara nods, letting him know it's okay to speak. "Well," he starts, pausing to glance down uncertainly at the poem in front of him. "This guy goes on a walk and comes across two paths. Then he chooses to take the one that not everyone else takes and that makes him different."
"All right, good, Allan." She gives him an encouraging smile and then turns to write different path from everyone else on the chalkboard. At the last second, she adds a question mark. "That could definitely be one of the surface level meanings. What happens if we dig a little deeper though?"
After a beat of more silence, a girl toward the back of the room raises her hand.
"Emma?"
"It's about an impossible choice," she supplies, voice clear, her chin up. The word impossible makes Clara's stomach drop unexpectedly.
"Oh?"
"Well, he says it himself," Emma explains, running her finger down the page until she reaches the line she wants to quote. "'And both that morning equally lay.' The paths are exactly the same, but he's still trying to choose one."
Clara nods. "And what happens when you have to make a tough choice?" she asks, moving her attention away from Emma and instead directing the question at the rest of her class.
Another girl, this time sitting near the front, speaks up. "Regret?"
Clara snaps her fingers, a mix of relief and pride flooding her chest. "Right!" There are days when these are the moments she lives for. No aliens, nothing trying to kill her. Just her students and the fleeting, shining moments when they are all on exactly the same page.
A look of understanding dawns across Allan's face. "So he regrets the choice he made?"
Before she can add anything else to this, Emma bursts back in with, "Does that mean he's lying at the end?"
The entire room goes still. Clara taps her fingers along her desk, watching the golden curve of afternoon sunlight streak across the floor. "What makes you say that?" she asks.
"When I regret something I try to make whatever I actually chose seem better, worth it. Maybe he's trying to make his choice seem more special by calling it the road less traveled. Maybe he's changing the truth to make himself feel better."
Everyone gapes up at Clara, eyes wide, mouths open, waiting for her answer. She smiles. "That's a very good point, Emma, and I'd love to explore it a little more, but - " She glances over her shoulder at the clock. "I think it's time for class to end."
The whole class groans in protest, sentences overlapping as the noise in the room becomes that of a general uproar. But you can't - You have to tell us - What's the answer? Please - Just tell us -
She holds a hand up, a wordless demand for silence. Once they've calmed down, she says, "If you guys can promise that you'll be extra good for the rest of today and tomorrow, I'll tell you what I think of the poem." Clara draws an x over her chest. "Cross my heart."
"Can you take me to see Mount Everest?"
The Doctor barely even looks up at her from the console. Which, to be fair, she should expect by now. "Why would you want to go there?" He twists a dial between his fingers and then moves to glance at the readout on a screen. "I could take you to the golden plains of Pekar Five instead or a lovely tea shop in 1920s Paris or we could go searching for the lost treasure of Isilibad. That last one promises to be interesting. Although," he muses, "there will probably also be a lot of snails to deal with..."
When he finally glances up, he catches the look on her face. He shrugs. "No one really has any explanation for that."
"All right," she says with forced brightness, "why don't we stay away from snails?"
He looks thoughtful, as though mentally eliminating all travel possibilities that might get them involved with snails. "I suppose that could be arranged."
"Good, because you know what doesn't have snails?"
"The acid hot springs on Fiexos?"
"No." She flashes him her most winning smile. "Mount Everest."
X
He gives her the summit.
They walk out into a virtual blizzard, the strong wind blowing Clara back against the Doctor. His hands are ready, finding her shoulders and then gently guiding her forward. All she can see is the flurry of snow and the place where Everest meets sky and then he takes his hands off her.
"It's cold," she whispers in wonderment. It's the coldest cold she's ever breathed.
"The average temperature of Pekar Five is thirty-two degrees Celsius," the Doctor supplies helpfully from just behind her. Even the name of their almost destination sounds warm on his lips.
Clara turns to face him, squinting through an abrupt whirl of snowflakes. "Doctor?"
His eyebrows arch upward. "Hmm?"
"Shut up."
He nods once and then mimes zipping his mouth shut.
Not paying him one bit of attention, Clara marches forward, stopping only once she reaches the end of the ledge they've landed on so that she can gape at the steep slope of the mountain. It's then that the altitude sickness hits. There's a dull ache forming at the base of her skull and her lungs feel like they can't possibly hold all the oxygen she actually needs; she wants to enjoy the view, but she also kind of wants to throw up.
The Doctor walks up behind her, his boots crunching across newly fallen snow. "Clara." Even though it sounds like the start of a sentence, he doesn't add anything else, just lets her name hang, sparkling, between them. He reaches for the back of her coat and tugs gently. Instead of standing right along the ledge, she is now two or three steps away.
Good idea, she thinks. I'd hate to plummet to my death down the side of Mount Everest. Instead she says, "Doctor."
Quickly, like her skin might burn him, he touches the pad of one finger to her temple and the beginnings of her headache fade away. Clara bites back a smile, turning around to face him. Her knee bumps into his. "Doctor."
He looks startled, like he's not quite sure how they've suddenly gotten so close and Clara wonders if maybe everything in the universe depends on the two of them, right here and now. The Doctor's gloved fingers flutter uselessly on either side of her body, unsure.
The silence stretches awkwardly.
Finally, his hands settle, both coming to rest lightly against her waist.
Clara puffs out a breath, trying to look nonchalant, trying not to pay too much attention to the way his face softens now that she is almost - but not quite - pressed against him. Then - fascinated by the way the fog suspends in front of her face before billowing away - she puffs out another.
He glances down at her out of the corner of his eye. "You look like a dragon," he says gruffly.
She's not sure, but he might be teasing. It's hard to tell.
"Hey, there's an idea: dragons." Already she can picture the adventure they could have: snug, warm caves and glinting scales. The Doctor speaking Dragon in a steady voice, the ancient words dry and crackling in the air around them. The sound of treasure sliding underfoot. All of it spirals out in front of her, the possibilities dripping gold and green and seemingly endless. "Can you take me to see dragons?"
He gives her a look that says, Really, Clara, don't be daft. "Dragons," he echoes. "Seriously?"
"Right. Sorry." She nods in mock seriousness. "That would be ridiculous. I mean, after the space version of The Orient Express and crabs that induce a hallucinogenic state while feeding on your brain and being shrunk down to fit inside a Dalek, it would be absolutely ridiculous for someone to expect - "
"I've missed you."
Her rant stutters to a halt, heartbeat thudding dangerously in her fingertips. She wonders if maybe the altitude sickness has gotten to him too.
The wind whistles long and low just over their heads, and the Doctor takes a sudden, intense interest in the sky.
Something suddenly occurs to her. Clara tilts her head back, watching him watch the sky. She can feel the beginnings of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "When are we?"
He still won't look at her. "Why does it matter?" he asks, eyebrows knitting together.
"It just does."
He gives a long-suffering sigh and then mumbles a reply.
"What was that?" She pinches the fabric of his coat between two fingers and tugs. "Say that again."
"Nineteen twenty," he says, gaze finally slipping down to meet hers again. "We're in nineteen twenty."
The only response he gets is a wide-eyed stare. She's trying to do some sort of mental calculation, but darn it all she only knows so much history.
He taps out the opening notes to Beethoven's Seventh against her side absentmindedly, thinking about putting an end to her misery and just saying it. Behind them, the TARDIS hums. Not quite angry or annoyed, but it's a nudge. Finally, the Doctor murmurs, "Nineteen twenty-one, in case you're wondering. Nineteen twenty-one is the year of the first expedition up Mount Everest. They won't even make it this far, you know - no proper equipment."
She's still staring at him. "You gave me Mount Everest," she says, a little breathless.
He shrugs. "Well, I don't know if I would say that. I mean, no one's ever going to know that you were the first human here. How would we even explain that - " He stops when he sees the look on her face, all bright and grinning and...proud? She looks like she's known all along that he could do things like this. "Yes," he concedes after a beat, "I gave you Mount Everest."
She hugs him. (Of course she hugs him. How could she not?) "Thank you, Doctor."
Her hair is in his mouth and his nose is really quite cold now, but he smiles anyway. "You're welcome."
"You're quite drawn to that book, aren't you?"
Clara doesn't give him the pleasure of her immediate attention. She takes her time, finishing the final paragraph of Pride and Prejudice only once she's good and ready. By the time she looks up, index finger pressed firmly to the page, he's frowning thunderously. (Here's a secret, listen carefully: he doesn't scare her anymore.) She huffs out a breath that might be a chuckle. "What was that?"
His frown becomes impossibly more frown-y. "I said, 'You're quite drawn to that book, aren't you?'"
She focuses on the books that sit on the shelf just over his shoulder. "It's about love," she says eventually, as though that should be enough. It's not. There's so much more to the book, but she can't find the words to tell him. She tries again. "It's about the error of first impressions."
He shakes his head, looking unimpressed. "The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell."
Before she can even start to say anything in response, he spins away from her and stalks out of the library.
Her nails are painted a shade of burgundy today and, oddly enough, it doesn't make him think of blood. Instead he sees blazing sunsets over the Citadel and black cherries cupped between his palms - daring, dangerous, impossible.
This development is, needless to say, distracting. Especially in a life or death situation.
Which they just happen to be in.
Right now.
He thinks maybe he should straighten out his priorities.
Beside him, Clara tugs at the chains around her wrists. "One day," she mutters, and the words are the beginnings of a promise that they both know she's never going to keep. "One day I'm going to stop getting into situations like this."
"Sweet cheeks."
Clara recoils at the term, head whipping around to seek out the person who would have the complete audacity -
An older woman, one of the only other inhabitants of the cell not currently asleep on the grimy floor, shoots Clara a grin full of crooked teeth. "I used to say the very same thing," she says with a sniff. She raises her manacled hands, mouth twisting wryly. "Look where that got me."
"I...We - I don't think you - " Clara fumbles for an appropriate response.
The Doctor interjects. "You're in prison, just like us." When she gives him a half-shrug in affirmation, he continues, "And a kindly old woman like yourself, surely they put you in here for no good reason. I've heard of the corruption staining the government here - "
"Oh no," the woman shakes her head, "they had plenty of reasons to put me in here. I stole from their precious orchard - "
Clara leans toward the woman, squinting in the barely there light of the cell. "That doesn't sound too bad."
" - and then I eviscerated the first three guards that tried to stop me."
"Oh." Clara's eyes suddenly seem to take up more of her face. She shuffles back a step.
"So," the old woman starts casually, like maybe they're going to share some tantalizing gossip, "what are you two in for?"
The Doctor sighs. He doesn't have to see Clara's face now to know that she's frowning.
"It's a long story."
(This is what happened:
She asked to see something new. New planet, new people. Anything.
So he took her to visit the Hyrosfials, because at the center of their planet is the universe's single largest, self-sustaining apple orchard. And that's exciting, an orchard in space. How many people can say they've visited an orchard in space? Well, all right, how many humans can say they've visited an orchard in space?
In hindsight, he really should have thought more carefully about the trip because the Hyrosfials are a merchant race. In order to do anything, see anything - even to enter the city - certain items must be bartered. And yes, of course, he brought a few baubles to trade, but he'd also forgotten just who exactly he was traveling with at the present moment.
So when they landed at the main gate he was prepared to hand over bottled stardust from Centaurus A or a signed copy of The Sun Also Rises or any number of souvenirs he had stuffed in his pockets. He was most definitely not prepared for them to want Clara instead.
He'd shaken his head at the Hyrosfial guards once they'd made their demand clear. "No." He was adamant. "No, you can't have that."
They'd made a chirruping noise then and he'd realized that they were probably headed into dangerous territory. He'd just started trying to remember what he'd heard of Hyrosfial prison conditions when Clara tugged at his jacket sleeve.
"What are they asking for?"
"Nothing. Something. I don't know."
She frowned. "Doctor - "
The rest of her sentence had been cut off by the sound of handcuffs snapping shut around both their wrists.
So it's entirely his fault that they're in their current situation. Except it's also Clara's because she's too...too - )
"Doctor?" Clara's peering out the very small, extremely barred window that gives them only the slightest glimpse of the city outside. "Something's happening."
He comes up behind her to peer over her head. "That might not be good," he murmurs, breath in her hair.
The world beyond their cell seems to have devolved into chaos. Several buildings have inexplicably caught fire, their glass panes shattering, their wooden frames warping. Somewhere, a high-pitched sound that could either be an alarm or a person in exquisite pain keeps shrieking. Hyrosfials of all ages and genders run through the streets, most stopping to rummage through abandoned merchant stalls. Off in the distance, a large, imposing building is missing one of its towers and spewing inky black smoke into the sky.
The Doctor swears lowly and then spins away from the window. He snaps at the old woman. "What day is it?"
The chains on her arms clink noisily as she counts her fingers and then her toes. "The twenty-third day of the fourth month of the year thirty fifty-five."
"Ah." His face falls. "Right. Well, this'll be interesting." He pretends there's something very interesting on the ceiling. "April twenty-third, thirty fifty-five. The day an incredibly angry sect of the Hyrosfial merchant class rose up against their corrupt king and even more corrupt government."
Next to him, Clara stiffens. "Let me get this straight," she says, and he can tell by the way her voice wobbles a bit that she's actively trying not to strangle him, "you brought me here...on revolution day?"
He winces and that's really the only reply she needs.
She opens her mouth - presumably to threaten the wellbeing of every inch of his Time Lord body - just as a Hyrosfial in tattered robes skids to a stop in front of their cell. The creature cocks its head at them, hisses once, and then turns to run off again.
"Wait!" The Doctor half-runs, half-slides up to the door, jamming a hand through an opening between the bars to get the creature's attention. "Trade! You understand that word, don't you? Trade." He fumbles around in his pockets, the chains on his wrists making the movement difficult. "Clara," he calls over his shoulder, keeping the Hyrosfial in his sight the entire time, "can you reach into my pocket and pull out the jar that should be in there?"
She huffs out a breath, but does as he asks. After a few seconds of feeling around and pulling out an enormous ball of yarn, a feather pen, and a small, Moleskine sketchbook, Clara finally grasps the jar. When she lifts it out of his pocket, the darkened cell suddenly glimmers with swirling pinpricks of light. The Hyrosfial, once cautious, rushes forward, chirping rapidly.
"They're stars," The Doctor whispers, sounding reverent as he takes the jar from Clara, "from Centaurus A, and they're all yours if you'll just let us out." He points to the stars in his hands and then points to the cell door.
There's a long beat as the Hyrosfial studies them carefully.
X
Later, safe on board the TARDIS and spinning through the time vortex, they laugh about it. Because it's a really good thing that his pockets are endless and the guards didn't think to search them. Because of course he brought her to a new planet on the day of its most notorious uprising. Because, upon escape, the old woman they had been imprisoned with had (Clara said) cackled in a perfect imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West and then danced away. But mostly, they laugh because they're still alive.
"Let's agree never to go back there again," Clara declares, eyes bright and dimple showing. The sudden rush of escape is making her giddy.
Her laugh makes galaxies expand in his chest. "Deal," he says. He wants to shake her hand, but her fingers are busy fluttering across the console, brushing levers and traveling the circumferences of buttons, and that somehow seems better, more important.
She glances at him suddenly, looking thoughtful. "What did they want?"
"Who?"
"The Hyrosfial guards. The ones who threw us in prison. What did they want?"
You, he wants to say, he means to say. For some reason it comes out, "They wanted something I could never give them."
"You liked her." Clara tries not to sound accusing but doesn't quite manage it.
The Doctor bristles. Visibly. His shoulders go up at sharp angles. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"The princess. Queen. Supreme seductress over all. Whatever she was. You liked her."
He tuts at her like she is an absolute lost cause. "She was the countess of the outer moon of Salubria, nothing more. Do you need to brush up on your titles?"
Clara scoffs, rounding the TARDIS console so that they can both glare at each other more fully. "That is so not the point," she snaps. Her hand finds a random lever and tightens around it, tugging dangerously.
Somewhere above them the TARDIS rattles unhappily.
"I did not like her." The Doctor spits the sentence out, each breath punctuated by a furrowed brow and an angry jab at the buttons in front of him. He sneers. "How could I like her? Her hair was too yellow and her face was too - " He gestures vaguely. "It's ridiculous to even suggest - "
The answer comes to her, unbidden. She can taste blood in her mouth. "The entire history of human desire," she starts.
He waves a hand at her as though he's trying to push her words out of the air. "I'm not human."
She flinches.
His impressive frown falters. "Clara," he tries, voice careful, a touch away from almost comforting. Strangely, he looks almost apologetic now; she tries not to let that bother her.
"I'll be in the library," she replies tightly, and without a backward glance, she leaves him by himself.
He takes her to see the migration of the star deer, wonderful, quiet creatures with twilight pelts and stars caught in their antlers.
They stand together at the edge of the forest, watching silently as the herd picks their way between the trees. He pretends not to notice when Clara leans into his side.
"They're beautiful," she hums.
"They're rather rare," the Doctor explains in a whisper, trying to focus less on the warmth of her and more on the facts he wants to share. "For some reason there aren't as many females born into a herd, so the average birth rate remains quite low."
There's one doe in the herd they're watching, ears swiveling constantly, searching for sound. In the absence of antlers, the stars trail down her neck, tiny pinpricks of light against dark fur.
The Doctor goes on, "The upshot of such a low birthrate is that they're all very protective of the herd. Star deer can live for ages - much longer than your average deer." He pauses, taking in Clara's wider-than-normal eyes and the upward curve of her mouth. "Would you like to feed them?"
She glances up at him. "We can do that?"
"Of course." He slips a hand into his pocket and it comes back out full of oats. "Here," he murmurs, grasping her wrist and upending most of the food onto her open palm. "Now we just need a deer." He makes a sound in the back of his throat, startling Clara, but catching the doe's attention.
After several slow seconds she begins making her way over to them. When she gets within a couple feet, she stops, surveying Clara's offering of food cautiously.
The Doctor makes another soft sound.
Clara takes a step forward, arm outstretched, before dropping down to her knees. "Hey, it's okay," she says soothingly. "We're not here to hurt you, I promise." Her fingers wriggle out at the doe, a sort of plea. "It's okay."
The deer takes another step, the stars about her neck glittering. She nudges Clara's hand with her nose.
"I'm Clara," Clara breathes, as the doe begins to nibble at the oats, "and this is the Doctor." The doe's ears flick around in what seems to be a sign of acknowledgement. "Don't worry if he looks grumpy," she continues, a barely restrained chuckle tilting her words, "he's actually very excited to see you. He wouldn't shut up about you a moment ago."
Behind her, the Doctor scoffs but doesn't attempt to defend himself.
Clara glances back up at him over her shoulder with a smile. In the dark and shadows of the wood, she can't quite make out his expression, but she thinks he looks like he loves her.
Clara's scanning his bookshelves when she finds it, scrawled across a blackboard that's half-hidden in shadow. She has to pull the thing out in order to read the whole sentence, and she jumps guiltily when one of the wheels squeaks. She almost wishes he would come running in - waving his arms a bit and scowling, probably muttering something about how she shouldn't be sticking her funny nose in other people's business - because if he's hiding this, if it's been relegated to the dark shadows of the TARDIS for a reason, then it must be bad. Right? Dangerous, maybe?
But she's never really had an issue with danger before.
With one more tug, Clara pulls the rest of the chalkboard out into the light, her chest hitching almost painfully when she finally reads the words.
Question: What if I were human?
She's barely had time to register the sentence before her eyes flick downward, looking for the answer. Because there has to be one with him. He just wouldn't bother writing down a rhetorical question -
The rest of the chalkboard is one big smear, like he wrote down several answers but then didn't like any of them. She imagines him swiping angrily at his theoretical options, mouth set and fingertips stained with chalk. She wants to hug him.
"Clara?" His voice drifts in from one of the hallways. She has just enough time to shove the chalkboard back where she found it before he appears, wearing one shoe and looking perplexed. "Do you know what happened to my other shoe?"
"No," she says, the words held carefully in her mouth, "but I'll help you out."