A/N: This is my first Whouffaldi/DW fic! I'm in deep with Whouffaldi, its causing me major angst and feels.
Clara in this fic is somewhere between end of S8 and beginning of S9. The Doctor is post Hell Bent. Prepare for FEELS and ANGST, oh and fluff. Mostly canon compliant. I'm taking liberties with what exactly Clara said to him in the Cloisters. Minor spoilers. All page break titles are from the song War of Hearts by Ruelle.
And I can't sleep, cause thoughts devour…
When the neural block breaks he knows it can only mean one thing. Clara has felt her final heart beat, set the timeline straight, and taken her last breath.
When the neural block breaks it's like a knife through his hearts, tearing them apart piece by tiny piece. Memories come flooding back, bombarding his synapses with the smell of her, her haunting touches and her smile, god her beautiful face and big brown eyes. He sinks to the floor, a hand clutching his chest and a sickly feeling settling in his stomach and suddenly he is homesick for piece of yesterday and someone who died long ago.
It comes in a rush, the realisation of just how long it's been. The moments lost, the years forgotten, the time he's spent wandering alone. He's never been good at being alone but something inside him held back from seeking out another.
I can't help but want oceans to part, cause I'm overcome in this war of hearts…
He wakes sometime later, face against the grate of the Tardis floor, with an ache in his chest and still feeling queasy. Thoughts of Clara haunting him in a jumbled mess. He sits up gingerly, resting his back against the console and looks up at the chalk board in front of him. He feels that familiar pang in his chest, forlorn and wanting.
It takes a while for him to rise, his brain racing with solutions on how to fix this. He's avoided pain like this but somehow it always finds him, somehow they all leave but not Clara. Never Clara. His impossible girl. He turns toward the console beginning to flip switches and press buttons, the Tardis protests loudly but he overrides her without a word. His mind consumed with nothing but the woman he's lost. It aches low in his belly rising to spread a mild panic through his chest.
Stay with me a little longer, I will wait for you…
When the Tardis touches down and he opens the door, it's summer time. Deep greens and blues of land and sky filling his vision, he shields his eyes from the bright glare, the warm sun touching his pale skin. When he sees her for the first time, he almost doubles over and it takes everything he's got not to run to her and sweep her into his arms. She's smiling, not the smile that she reserves for him but she's smiling back at a group of children. Dressed in a summer dress, the smooth skin of her shoulders bare, glowing a golden brown from time spent in the sun. Her hair is longer in soft curls, curling around her shoulders and what he wouldn't give to sink his fingers into it. She's absorbed in the chatter of children, sunglasses covering her eyes and for a moment he wishes she would take them off so he can see her eyes. She's happy, he can see that but he's not sure where in her time line this is, if she's met him or if this is before him.
He waits, for how long he doesn't know. He's rooted to the spot, his eyes never leaving her until she turns to leave. Rallying the children as her voice echoes on the breeze. His breath catches and the rising need to run to her, embrace her almost overwhelms him. He's breaking almost every rule he's made just by being here and yet he can't seem to leave.
He watches until they are ready, until they begin to leave, fighting the urge to follow with every shallow breath. She takes up the rear of the group, a delicate hand against the back of one child. Her hair swept across one shoulder and he can see the muscles contract in her back. He watches until they are out of sight, swallowing the rising lump in his throat. He waits even longer before his feet will move inside. He clings to the railing inside the door, his knees buckling under the weight of pent up emotion and allows a sob to escape his lips. The Tardis starts by herself, echoing his pain and takes him away.
I can't help but love you, even though I try not to…
He visits her again over how many weeks or months he doesn't keep count, the Tardis protesting loudly every time and yet after every time she takes him away unprompted, soothing his pain the only way she knows how.
Sometimes it isn't enough just seeing Clara, sometimes it isn't enough just knowing she's out there somewhere, alive and happy. Today is one of those days, it aches in his gut, a permanent ache that ebbs and flows. In an attempt to keep the timeline intact the Tardis tries to keep him in a time before they met or at least before she met this face. He's taken to following her, unable to grasp just how creepy this might seem. She has never noticed, she has never seen this face or so he believes.
Today as he steps outside, it's autumn, the leaves have already begun to drop in an orange and crimson carpet against the dull coloured green of the grass. She favours this park, visits regularly and he wonders briefly if this has any special significance he hasn't quite recalled. He sees her alone, sitting reading a Jane Austen book on one of the many benches and his hearts thumps loudly in his chest, squeezing slightly in a sudden pang. She's alone, is all he can think about, how easy it would be to slide in next to her, breathe in the scent of her hair. He steps closer, pretending to be absorbed in the pond to her right. Her hair is shorter under the woollen hat she wears, bobbing just below her ears, all of the curl cut out of it. It registers in his brain somewhere, her hair like this but being this close is scrambling his brain and he can't quite focus. She seems absorbed in her book, wrapped up with a thick scarf woven around her neck, gloves against her delicate hands. He inches closer, close enough now for her scent to drift into his nostrils, a heady mix of cleanliness and elegant perfume, a scent he's only vaguely remembered until now. He's not in her eye line but she fidgets for a moment as if sensing something but dismisses it and goes back to reading.
His mind begins bargaining, a game that can be never won but all the same it battles against him every time. Why shouldn't he just go to her, ask her to come away with him and never look back? Why shouldn't he talk to her, ask about her book and hear her ramble about how much she loves Jane Austin? That smile lighting up her face, right to her beautiful brown eyes. Why shouldn't he just sit down next to her? Answers to all of these seemed to evade him as he gazes pensively out across the water, clenching his teeth, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
The sun, watery in a grey sky begins to sink, casting orange hues over the edges of the tree line. A chill has crept in and he hunkers down in the lapels of his velvet coat. Deep in thought, still clenching his jaw; he doesn't notice Clara begin to move, tucking the book back in her bag. She sits forward, elbows on knees gazing out toward the pond, the sun sinking slowing and the light it casts across the water.
And want grows stronger, deeper than the truth…
It's then she notices him, a pensive figure held stiffly with his shoulders tense. She would know that coat anywhere, she would know him anywhere but why was he staring out across the water so immersed in thought?
She rises quietly, taking her hat from her head and placing it with her gloves into her bag. She slings it across her shoulder and takes the steps towards him. Still he doesn't seem to notice her. She's behind him now, torn between throwing her arms around him or just saying hello. He doesn't like hugs but it seems appropriate the two of them standing there without prior arrangement and judging by the length of his hair, it had been sometime for him. She watches him for a moment, he tenses and visibly swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing. Surely he knows she's there. Gingerly she reaches up, something is wrong that much she knows.
"Doctor?" She asks softly and searchingly, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her touch is light but he jumps, a small anguished cry escaping his lips as he whirls around to face her. She steps back when she sees his stricken white face, tear soaked with red rimmed eyes. Her own become wide, her brows knit together as they fill with her own tears, unaccustomed to such pain written across his face. He stares at her, their eyes locking unable to speak for fear his voice will crack. This is wrong, she shouldn't know this face and yet here she is, standing in front of him with searching eyes.
Finally when he says her name it is breathy, released on an exhale he didn't know he had been holding. She smiles then, that smile she only reserves for him and he can't contain it any longer. He sweeps her into his arms, lifting her small frame off the ground and burying his face in her warm neck. Her arms slide up his shoulders, enveloping him in a tight embrace. And god how he has missed this. For a moment everything heightens, the ache in his belly, the forlorn wanting before everything seems still, like time itself has held its breath. For the first time in god knows how long, he allows himself to relax, he allows her love to seep into every pore, allows her touch comfort him like he has never done before and he allows the warmth of her safety to wash over him.
"So we're hugging now?" She whispers softly against his ear, her words echoing from another time, another place far from here. He lets out a shuddering breath and grips her tightly, tears dripping against her neck. She frowns, confused sinking her fingers into his soft grey curls soothing his pain in a gentle caress.
After a while she loosens her grip, pushing gently against his shoulders to be let down. He doesn't acquiesce and she feels his reluctance but she also knows why.
"Let me see your face, Doctor?" She asks wriggling slightly as he places her back on the ground. He won't meet her eyes, afraid of what she might see there. His hearts hammering wildly, the blood still drained from his face and his stomach clenching. She cups his face, her thumb brushing away an errant tear.
"Look at me…" She prompts softly, tilting his face towards her, his eyes downcast. He seems to come to his senses then, taking her hand and holding it while he takes a step back.
"If I look at you… I may never want to stop…" He whispers gruffly, turning away from her to gaze out across the pond but not letting go of her hand. She frowns again, squeezing his hand lightly.
"Tell me what's wrong then?" She asks gently, stepping closer, her other hand squeezing his arm. He grinds his teeth, his jaw flexing but he doesn't allow himself to speak.
"Doctor?" His silence unnerves her. He closes his eyes, a tumult of emotions rampaging behind his closed lids.
"Do not ask me that of me…" He breaths after she squeezes his hand again. After a moment she lets go of his hand, stepping even closer. She grips his arms, turning him to face her, his body supple in her hands. Still he refuses to look at her, she places a hand, palm flat against his chest between his two hearts and feels the wild thumping beat. Her eyes travel upward, searching his face for a glimpse of something. She cups his face with both hands, warmth seeping into his pallid skin like water flooding an arid land. It's then he looks at her, his eyes filled with abject sadness, his stomach flips then drops as she meets the torment in his eyes with the soft brown of her own.
"Tell me…" She asks again holding his face as he tries to squirm away, now unaccustomed to such intensity.
"Clara…Please…" He begins, almost begging for supplication. He blinks, swallowing hard as he reaches up, wrapping his long fingers over her slim wrists. This isn't him, this isn't the way he is, she knows that. She also knows not to push despite wanting to so, she takes his hand instead.
"Come on, let's go for a walk" She pulls on his hand, taking a step on the path around the pond. She notes his reluctance, his eyes darting toward the tree line to where she suspects the Tardis waits for him. He is silent and pensive but he takes a step and then another as he falls into step with her, their fingers entwined. She pulls him closer, wrapping her other hand around the crook of his elbow and holding tightly.
After a while of walking in silence, she feels him relax, feels a shift between them. Clara looks up at him in the twilight, his face still white but his hard rectangular lines seemingly softer around the edges now.
"How long has it been for you?" She asks softly unsure whether this is something he will admit. He sighs, tension forming across his face as his brows crease together.
"I don't exactly know, too long I fear…" He replies distantly, stopping and turning away from her again. She knows then that is not her Doctor, this is not the man she saw last Wednesday. This man is broken, broken by time and space, broken with love and longing. It slowly dawns on her, the realisation that he is alone now and has been for quite sometime.
"You don't do well alone…" She whispers in a small and equally distant voice. He turns towards her suddenly, his eyes brighter and a small smile plays at the edges of his lips. Of course she knows, how could he have possibly thought he could hide it from her.
"Oh Clara…" He breathes, his brows knitting together, his head tilting to the side. A silent sob rises within him as he takes Clara's shoulders and pulls her into a fierce embrace. "My Clara…" He breathes again, encircling her small waist he pulls her closer, one palm flat against her upper back and the other around her waist with her coat bunched up in his fist. He feels her exhale, a small breath as he nuzzles against her warm neck. He feels her hold him tightly, her hand reaching up to bury her fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck.
"I remember Clara…" He whispers into her hair, "I remember everything" He moans stifling a sob that threatens to overwhelm him and squeezes his eyes shut. Clara freezes in his arms, her hands slipping from his hair to his shoulders, she presses slightly but he is reluctant to let go, reluctant for her to see him like his.
"Okay…" She almost stammers, her mind racing with thoughts of him before regeneration. What exactly he could remember that would cause him such pain. She pushes again, equally reluctant for him to see her face. He has never brought this up before and suddenly she is at a loss to know what to say. He looks tired when she finally faces him, weary as he reaches to smooth her hair away from her face.
"You were different then, we were different then…" She begins but pauses when his brows begin to gather. He looks as though he wants to say something but instead purses his lips.
"What happened on Trenzalore... It changed us both." She says, still holding onto his shoulders. He's still holding her against him, his arm wrapped around her waist. They are inches apart and he can feel her breath against his cheek. His eyes flick down to her lips then back up to meet her gaze, studying her face for a moment, a puzzled expression consuming his own.
"Trenzalore?" He whispers distantly, his voice gravelly with emotion and a frown still consuming his face.
"Yes, what happened between us then. It was meant to happen, all of it. I don't regret one second." She says trying to appease his anguish. He visibly swallows, swallowing down his emotions before suddenly letting her go.
"Yes… It was…" He chokes out, coughing to clear his throat. His stomach sinks and a shiver begins to creep up his spine, the blood draining from his face once again, when he realises she's taken his words out of context and how could she not?
"Doctor?" Clara questions, suddenly cold as he takes another step backward and turns to face the pond. "Isn't that what you meant?" She asks again, shivering at the loss of his warmth. He's silent for a moment, jaw clenching as he watches the last of the light fade.
I can't help but want you, I know that I'd die without you…
This was too much, a mistake. He should have left long ago before she even saw him and now he was here, having said too much. His entire body aching for her, aching for something that he couldn't possibly have now. The only way he could think to escape was to be distant and cold but after all of this he couldn't have his last words, his last moment with her watching the tears gathering in her beautiful brown eyes.
"Doctor…" She says, beseechingly taking hold of his shoulders. This time he wasn't so pliable. He resisted her touch, almost flinching but she dug her fingertips into the fabric of his coat. "Don't do this…" She begs, his silence scaring her, this whole encounter scaring her because this isn't about his regeneration. This is about something much worse and the fact that he was now silent, his walls closing in around him is more terrifying than facing a thousand Daleks. She reaches for his face, his eyes closing battling his silent emotions within. His face is wet when she touches it.
"Clara…" He almost moans, turning to face her and he sees then what this is doing to her. He takes her in his arms again, pulling her close as her arms come up around his neck. For whatever reason he's hugging her and she doesn't care if its to hide his face, she doesn't want him to let go because she knows this is all they have left. She knows he's going to leave and she knows this is goodbye, at least for him.
When he speaks, she's not sure she's heard him. He clears his throat and begins again, "I'm going to go in a moment but I want you to remember something for me…" She nods against his shoulder, her nose against his neck and he can feel the tears flowing freely now. He steels himself before continuing,
"When you and I are in the Cloisters together, remember that with all my heart I want to say the same thing back to you. Remember that Clara, for me, for this me…" She doesn't understand but she pulls back to gaze up at him, nodding slightly, eyes round with emotion. His eyes flick to her lips and she knows what he's going to do before he lowers his head, pressing his lips against her own. Its chaste, hesitant and full of question. Her eyes slide closed, her stomach somersaulting, sending tiny shock waves up her spine, heat pooling between her thighs. She doesn't want him to let go but she knows its coming. She slides her fingers into his hair, tugging gently. He mirrors her fingers, his own sliding up the nape of her neck, strands of her hair webbing between his fingers. As if answering his unspoken question, her tongue slides across his lower lip and on instinct he parts his lips, her tongue slipping into his mouth.
For one moment, time itself seems to stop. His brain scrambles, tries to command him to stop but can't remember why. He's lost in her, lost in the scent of her, lost in her arms and he isn't sure if he ever wants to be found. The aching loss dissipates into a tingling heat low in his belly, spreading a warmth through his body that he thought he would never feel again. Clara pulls away first, breath heavy. She touches her forehead against his before nuzzling against the side of his face and into his neck. She knows its coming, knows that he will say he has to go. He inhales slightly and she thinks that moment has come, she pulls back, looks him in the eye, her eyes full of arousal and places one finger against his lips.
"Take me with you…" She asks simply, her finger still against his lip. His face drops, his eyes darkening and she knows he can't or won't. It constricts in her chest that he's waited this long, waited for some catastrophic event before giving into this. He takes her hand from his face and gives it a squeeze, his other hand still wrapped up in her hair.
"You know I…" He begins, his eyes pained with regret of his own. She pulls him abruptly towards her, capturing his lips with her own before he can say any more. She can't hear it, she can't hear those words of rejection, not after this. So she kisses him, fiercely, passionately, can feel his arousal blossoming through him.
In the distance, he can hear a familiar ring. It feels as though it's in his head at first, becoming more insistent the longer they kiss but then Clara pulls away, frowning, listening to the persistent ring.
"Isn't that the Tardis phone?" She asks as he loosens his grip around her but still holds her against him and she knows it's time.
"Yes…" He whispers, closing his eyes against the thought of leaving her here in the dark. He embraces her again, taking a breath trying to commit to memory everything she is right now. Full of promise, full of hope, full of love. He steels a moment, taking it in and feeling his hearts begin to crack all over again. He doesn't do goodbyes but for her he would do anything.
"Don't say it…" She preempts, holding her palm flat against his cheek. "You don't say goodbyes, so don't say it…" He takes in her face, the way her brow wrinkles slightly, the way her eyes are filled with tears making them seem impossibly round, the poise of he lips. She smiles then, that special smile she reserves just for him and he feels that familiar pang well up in his chest. Despite her tears, she continues to smile.
"I'll see you on Wednesday…" She says as he places her down. He takes her hand and presses it to his lips.
"Run you impossible girl and remember…" He says, smiling back at her as if nothing in the world has happened. She closes her eyes, her own heart beginning to crack at the weight of him leaving. Knowing that this is still to come, whatever it is.
And he is gone, the phone dying out as she hears the familiar whooshing of the Tardis...