So I'm continuing my streak of failing to update anything and instead just starting a new story – because that makes oh so much sense. I'm dying. No Doctor Who, an endless pile of homework, and River could be gone forever. *cries* I know every character has their time but River was my favorite . . . so until I become more convinced she's actually gone I'm always gonna hope. (Speaking of which, I do think she should be in Eleven's last episode somehow – like Rose had to be in Ten's. She's Eleven's great love – and don't deny it, there's more evidence in for them than against them)
If you don't like River/The Doctor, you probably shouldn't ready – but The Doctor/Rose is a ship too! (just not as you think – just read it, no matter which of those couples you ship) – just no Whouffle, sorry.
Warning: Lots of angst – I live in the angst/hurt and comfort world, also, I'm ignoring paradoxes because I can.
(For this story, TNotD takes place around April 5-10.)
They had left Trenzalore nearly two months ago for Clara and the Doctor hadn't come back to her. He'd simply dropped her off with a sad smile, promising to be back next Wednesday. She'd tried to keep busy – talking to the kids, trying to perfect her soufflé (with little success), and looking through thousands of pictures.
She wanted to know who those people she'd seen in the Doctor's time stream were and if there were pictures of her – there had to be pictures of them. It had been surprisingly easy, really, to find them. Rose Tyler shown from the page – always laughing, always hand in hand with the Doctor and he fascinated Clara more than all the companions combined. His ranging faces which were constantly changing their age – he looked so young at times and then, on rare occasions, a picture would catch him looking like the ancient man he was.
But she hadn't found the woman with the space hair, she had found her Doctor with the red headed girl and the Roman but he was facing away, preoccupied with whatever was off to his left. Clara sighed in frustration. She'd found everyone but that woman – the woman he'd called his wife.
It wasn't that she was jealous – well, maybe a little – but she couldn't imagine the Doctor opening up like that. Most of the pictures where he looked so happy and full of life just saddened her. He wasn't like that anymore, he'd withdrawn from the world. Flashes of Victorian London flashed through her mind – how distant he had been, far worse than anytime she'd ever seen him and that included when Ten lost everything.
Clara was just about fed up with trying to find the woman when she saw it – a faded picture of River and the Doctor posing on a bench, or at least trying to. River was laughing at the Doctor who had a cocky, proud smile on his face. They looked so young, so assured with themselves and their place in the world. Her fingers traced his features, wishing she could find a way to bring back that careless joy.
A crash echoed through the house and Angie and Artie clambered over themselves to get to her.
"Your boyfriend's here!"
"Do you think he'll take us on another adventure?"
"I want to see the Tardis again!"
Clara jumped up and ran to the door; the Tardis was there but it had definitely crashed and he'd never crashed it coming to her. "Stay here."
"What?"
"No!"
"We like him – we'll be good."
"Oh c'mon! Let us come!"
Clara glared at them, "No. Not yet."
She darted through the door and banged on the Tardis doors. "Doctor!"
The doors swung open but there was no sign of the man himself. The interior of the Tardis was dark, with the small hum as the only sign of life. Clara rubbed her arms – the whole situation reminded her of the wreckage they had climbed through only months ago. She brushed her fingers across the Tardis console and the various levers.
"Where is he?" Her voice echoed across the hollow room but there was no reply – no reply but the slamming of the doors behind her and the sound of the space vortex.
"DOCTOR!" Clara yelled, holding onto the railings for support, where was he? She stumbled across the console, fully intending to lose herself in the Tardis trying to find him when it stopped suddenly. The whole room went black with only the floor lights illuminating the path.
"Ok, where are we?" Clara glanced at the scanners for an answer but not one flickered on.
A banging echoed in the empty room and Clara jumped at the sudden noise.
"Doctor! Please open up!" followed by what sounded like a couple kicks. But Clara knew that voice. That voice belonged to Rose Tyler – the girl with the ability to pull the Doctor out of his sadness after the Time War. An irrational jealously shot through Clara, followed by hope. If Clara couldn't put the Doctor back together (or even find him) then maybe Rose could.
She darted to the door, "Rose!"
The blonde girl recoiled, "Who're you?"
"Rose!" A man with spiky brown hair and wearing a trench coat ran up to her.
"Wait, who are you? And what are you doing in my Tardis?" He glanced at Clara before pushing past her into the poorly lit room, "What have you done to my Tardis!"
"I- I," Clara stumbled, this was Ten and Rose, not the people living in the parallel world. This was before that – long before that. "This isn't your Tardis – well, it is but it's not – DOCTOR?!"
She swung her head around – where was he?
Ten stared at her like she was crazy for a moment before realization dawned on his face, "Oh! You're from the future, aren't you?" He laughed right out loud, taking in the room with new, excited eyes.
"Look, Rose! Look at the Gallifreyan! And all these extra levers on the side! I wonder what they do . . ." He rushed over to the side and absentmindedly started fiddling with them. At his touch the lights burst on, fully illuminating the room.
Rose grinned back at him but concern lit her eyes, "Isn't this a massive paradox, though? Shouldn't we leave?"
"No!" Clara's tone brought their stares again and she inwardly kicked her self, "It's just . . . Could you stay and see him maybe, my Doctor?"
"Ah, I really shouldn't," Ten stood tall putting his hands in his pockets, "Rose is right, we should probably just go."
"Wait! Just, wait." Clara bit her lip, "Could you help me find him, at least? The Tardis brought me here and the universe hasn't collapsed yet so . . .please?"
Ten looked over to Rose, concern written on his young face but she nodded and smiled at Clara, "Of course we'll help, I'd love to see future him."
Clara nodded absently before darting into the corridors, the Doctor and his companion close behind her. They wandered seemingly endless corridors for hours before Ten groaned in frustration, "Clara, why am I so difficult to find?"
"I don't know! I haven't seen you – I mean, him – in ages."
"Wait," Rose reached out to Clara, "You don't travel with him?"
"No, I do," Clara pushed on, ignoring the lump in the back of her throat. Rose had never been left behind or neglected, "Just only on Wednesdays."
Rose opened her mouth to ask why the Doctor didn't ask her to travel in a more permanent sense with him when Clara caught sight of a slightly ajar door. "There!"
The three darted into the room – a bedroom – to find the Doctor curled in the corner next to the bed with his head downcast, a purple bowtie wrapped around his hand, and a blue book at his side. Clara rushed over to him, ignoring the room itself for the moment and lightly slapped him.
"Doctor!" The man woke with a start and stared at her in surprise.
"Clara!" He smiled but it didn't come close to reaching his eyes, "How did you get here and –"
He caught sight of himself and Rose looking at him in general shock. Ten had a slightly disgusted look on his face at the sight of himself just moping around but Rose knelt before him, eyes full of pity, "Hey."
"Rose . . ." Eleven mumbled and reached out to touch her, only to pull back and shake his head, as if to clear it. "Clara?"
"The Tardis came to my house and then brought me here – to them." She gently took the bowtie away from him – she did have a rough idea of what it meant. She hadn't been needed on that day anyway but she would bet it had to do with his mood.
Eleven nodded, his face still highlighted by that 'care-free' smile, and tried to stand, only to slump back down. Clara shook her head and pulled him up so he was resting on her shoulder. She winced at how bony and malnourished he looked now that he was out of the shadows.
"Doctor, have you been in here for two months?" She looked around the dimly lit room, "What is this place?"
The room was lit to give it a cozy feeling, with a burgundy color scheme. The main focus was a four poster unmade bed against the center of the back wall with the drapes pulled messily to the sides. The walls were lined with beautiful paintings, pictures, and frames turned towards the wall so they couldn't be seen. The vanity was scraped up with the contents of the top scattered across the floor.
"It's just a room." Eleven said curtly, glancing at his feet. Clara nodded, mentally trying to figure out what it had really been but when she reached for one of the photos facing the wall, the Doctor nearly fell.
"When was the last time you ate? Or slept?" Clara forced him to look at her and then rolled her eyes, "Let me guess, not since before Trenzalore?"
He nodded and Clara began to half-carry him out the door when Ten seemed to snap out of his daydream, "What's Trenzalore?"
"Spoilers." Eleven muttered and then winced at the word. Neither Rose nor Ten failed to notice but, at a pointed look from Clara, neither of them questioned it.
Eleven and Clara hobbled out of the room – presumably to visit the kitchen – but Rose knelt down to pick up the bowtie and the book. "What do you think this stuff is?"
Ten turned over one of the photographs to reveal a smiling woman with crazy hair who was looking at the person behind the camera with a loving endearment. No longer even thinking about the possibility of paradoxes, Ten flipped over a few more pictures to reveal the same woman – often accompanied by the version of himself Ten had just seen only in the pictures the man seemed years younger and much more boyish.
"I think it has to do with her. . ."He gestured to the photos and Rose stood to get a better look at them.
"Who is she?" Rose looked between the photos and the items in her hands and sure enough, the blue diary was present in many if not all of the pictures of the woman. Curiously, Rose opened the blue book to be bombarded with a variety of dates, drawings, photos, and entry's.
"You really shouldn't look in there." Clara grabbed the book from Rose, stashing it without a second glance inside a drawer.
"Why not?" Ten gave her a little glare, this had been a troublesome glimpse into his future. He didn't want to be that broken. Ever.
Clara looked at him patronizingly, "Because it's the future – your guy's direct future. You can't just read it. You have to live it."
"Where is he?" Ten's voice had an edge to it that almost scared Clara.
"He was falling asleep on me so I laid him down in my room – he can't sleep here, why?"
Ten pushed past her into the corridor but she darted ahead of him, "Why?"
"I have to stop this from happening."
Rose's eyebrows shot up and she grabbed his arm, "You can't! It's the future, you can only change the future a little bit. You can't fix or avoid everything that's plaguing him!"
Ten pushed on anyways, ignoring the paradox – from what he could tell, he would lose almost everything; he would lose Rose. Clara stood firmly in his way, "You can't! It would destroy so much good and prevent only a little bad."
He ignored her, pushing past and Clara and Rose tagged along behind through winding passage after winding passage. The Tardis was working against them, she knew not to let him reach his future self – not now anyways.
"Who is she?" Rose asked suddenly, "The woman with the crazy hair?"
Clara looked down, "She was his wife. She's dead."
Rose's mouth opened in shock, "He got married?"
Clara nodded but stayed silent while Rose simply gasped for a moment before rushing up to her Doctor. "Did you hear that?"
The Doctor stopped, his eyes on the ground, "I have no idea why – how . . . I can't imagine marriage."
The little group stood in silence for what seemed like hours while Ten and Rose processed the information and then a scream tore through the air. Clara bolted upright and rushed down the hall, followed by Ten and Rose. Of all the damaged parts of Eleven they'd come across, this one made the most sense to Ten. It was only with Rose there that he managed to keep the nightmares at bay himself so without her, and without Clara staying every day and night, Ten understood.
The Tardis directed them through the corridors (helpfully, this time) but before they reached the door, the screaming had stopped and only a few weak sobs echoed through. Clara pushed it open to reveal two figures on the bed. The woman with the large hair hugging and rocking the Doctor back and forth as he clung to her like she was a rock keeping him from being swept to sea.
"River?" Clara stuttered, "But you're –"
"Spoilers."
So, what do you think? One shot or no? This one's up to the reviewers but if it does become multi chapter, don't worry Eleven won't always be so OOC and weak. And one day I might learn how to write everybody in this show so they actually seem like themselves. This was just because I wanted to experiment with how he'd feel after truly losing River (and in this version, right before their anniversary). This is also how I think he may have reacted (maybe not this extremely because I think it's quite possible he was 'hallucinating' her being there but maybe not quite in the way people think. More in the 'River would say this' 'River would do this' way) after losing her before the Snowmen.
So, continue or no? Because I can think of where to go with it but if you don't want me to continue that's all good as well.