The Impossible Future
By mewlk
Description:
She was his Impossible girl to offer him an Impossible future. The Doctor duels with his ego and humanity for a chance at redemption, but it comes at a price. Twelfth Doctor/Clara. Minor Eleventh Doctor/Clara. Slight OOC. Mature.
Prologue: Periphery
What an Impossible girl. He's brooding from behind Amy's tortoiseshell readers, but Clara can't detect his brooding - no one can. He's looking from the periphery of his upper periphery, and he is spinning her and the mystery about her all every which way in the console of his mind. Only to find that she is an impossible girl, not Time Lord eternal, but eternal as long as the history of his time stream.
Now in the relative safety of his own mind, the Doctor is circulating a memory projection of Clara Oswin Oswald, taking in every detail. Every curl and dimple and eager dilation of her pupils as he circles her. A projection created from a million memories of one tiny woman; he sees her human eagerness, her intimate proximity. Her scent lingers in hallways of artificial circulation in the Tardis, cycles into his insides, and he knows.
His affinity towards humankind knows, and yet, he stores it away in cages of his mind. The guilt becomes a guard to lock away his third heart. The Doctor is older than most things, and so he knows the folly of companionship in the Tardis. Friends with their fickle bodies and short time spans - they all end, vulnerable to the order of time.
And so, Clara, in her relative timelessness, a shadow in his life's every corner, is an impossible anomaly. Humans never stay with the Doctor for too long; their fleeting imprint is what made them absolutely… precious. He reaches over to touch Clara's projection by the temples; he knows that the skin there is soft, softer than any other part of her. So Clara to be so open for the taking. He turns her around to whisper in her ear, his hands around the base of her neck. The Doctor can feel her pulse beneath his fingers. Really - how can humans live with just one heart?
"What. Are. You."
Unexpectedly, his dream Clara reaches up to touch his own temples, dragging her fingers down his face. The involuntary shiver makes him feel young and old and very human. This is why he locks up the monsters he can't control in the cages of his mind.
She turns around and tiptoes to reach his face. Dream Clara eyes his mouth and then back up to his eyes.
"I was born for you. To die and suffer so that you will never have to." The egomaniacal side of the Doctor pushes her against the wall of his mind; his arms caging her.
"No more, Clara." He found himself holding her face in his surgical hands. His thumb traces a rough path down her pink flirty mouth. Her tongue reaches out to lick the pad of his thumb, and the Doctor plunges to claim her mouth. He never allows his darker Time Lord to come out in fear of scaring his companions; they were so delicate and skeptical of all things foreign and the dark corners natural to space. He's trying to punish her, scare her away, prove to her that humanity made him forget the laws of survival and war and order.
He roughly makes his way up her impossibly tiny skirt, and he finds her wet and warm and so tight. Always, she always is. He hoists her up and wraps her legs around his waist, and the Doctor enters her as he's done in so many depraved and countless ways in his mind. Today, he is punishing with his thrusts, and she's mewling, moaning his real name over and over again. Every time his name passes her lips, the thrusts become faster, hotter, deeper.
He bends down to lick the side of her neck up to her ear, breathlessly moans, "What." Thrust.
"Are." Moan.
"You." His name.
Her skin is this perfect shade of pink, and he wants to mark her everywhere only to fix her up again.
She looks up with eyes too earnest for a projection. Clara peaks; her honey-coated pussy milking him for all he's worth. She says, "Yours. All I am is yours." His third heart throbs in his chest, and he finds his skin glowing gold. In a panic, a madness, a rage, a heartbeat, he turns his perfect, too-perfect Clara around and rides her without pace. She's clinging on because she's human and he's on his own rhythm, unmatched.
He doesn't want to see her or have her see him. The Doctor wraps her unruly lovely curls around his hand to pull her against his chest and growls, "No, Clara. No more." He is done with her and she takes her beautiful naked projection and walks back into the cage. His hand reaches out to touch the wall that braced her. She is Impossible, but in his mind, she at least adheres to his rules and order, and there's no complications when it comes to his … whims. There's no human chaos to fracture time and reality.
There's just restraint. He looks up, and his hand is raw and cut from clenching his fist.
"Doctor, Doctor." He had thought that he put that projection to rest. The sound of her voice was coming from outside his mind. The Doctor closed the periphery of his periphery and woke up to Clara sharing a seat next to his in the console room of the Tardis.
She was impossibly close; her eyebrows drawn together in worry. The heat of her body pressing against the furnace of his skin. Her hand is reaching out to touch his temples, and he grabs her fingers before she can even touch skin. He might not be accountable for his actions, for his loss of humanity.
"Oh dear Clara, chairs are meant to sit one. Otherwise, they would be called sofas." Ah yes, order, the humor restores the distance between them.
"I was just worried, Doctor. You looked like you were sweating up and moaning something awful."
"God, the educators of Earth need a lesson in basic Time Lord biology." At the implications, Clara swallowed, and he watched her elegant neck bob in anticipation. Her scent began to waft, and his hand twitched and then clenched. He branded a goofy smile and then lifted off to the exit. "Just my time of the month, is all."
He jumped away, but not before turning around to watch her impossible face turn downcast. The scent of her arousal greyed out by sadness. His own eyes gave away too much: he had evaded her affection, an extension of her heart, and it's hard to say why at that moment he found his order a bit flawed. Always, it had been to protect humans from their own indulgent follies, their fantasies of what they meant to the Doctor, never completely requited. Always, it had been to avoid more blood and tears on his hands.
So, why, as he watched Clara Oswin Oswald stare at her hands in a dim console room, did he find that order a bit flawed? Clenching his jaw to prevent words from spilling out, he walked deeper into the hallways of his Tardis to find a room and lock away the Valeyard, the Incoming Storm.
A/N: After a 12 year hiatus, I am fueled by the Fanfiction gods to return and write something dark, moody and a little naughty. As usual, Doctor Who doesn't belong to anyone but the rich proprietors at the BBC.