I started this right after season 8 finished. I figured it was time to finish it and post it. I may rework it again later.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of the characters.
The Doctor's Mistress
He's living a lie.
He's developed a bit of a routine, a pattern he follows. By day he travels with Clara, picks her up in the morning and travels the universe with her. They spend bright, sunny days visiting distant planets and seeing the wonders of the universe.
His nights are dark. Night finds his lips locked onto hers and hands roaming hot, sweaty skin. Not Clara: the Mistress. His mistress.
Clara doesn't know. Who knows what she'd do if she ever found out, probably slap them both. No one knows. It's their little secret, a clandestine rendezvous.
It started off less than a month after his disastrous (his words not hers) birthday gift. Instead of ending up somewhere amongst the rings of Saturn, the TARDIS veered off course and ended up 12 000 light years away. As soon as he stepped out of his TARDIS she was on him, hands in his hair and lips ferociously attacking his. No one could say her greetings package was delayed this time. But this time he had his wits about him and was ready for her. He used the weight of his body to push her backwards, backing her up against the TARDIS. He was angry, sick of her lies and her games. She simply hooked her leg around his hip and pulled him closer. Their lips never separated.
When they finally separated for air, she whispered the one word that finally broke him: "Doctor".
It was both a greeting and a question, a request and a message of forgiveness.
It broke him because he didn't deserve her forgiveness, just as she didn't deserve his. But she had it all the same, sort of. He was still angry, but he was also still there, tongues clashing and hips pinning her to the wall.
By daybreak he'll be gone, returned to his crisp, clean image with a fresh shirt and all traces of her lipstick removed from him. It's always the way. His night time adventures are a sharp contrast to the platonic, family-friendly day time ones.
He'll feel guilty, of course. He's just too good to do this with no regrets. But that won't stop him from seeking her out again and crushing his lips to hers.
Every night they'll dance their dance and when sundown comes they'll do it all again.
There's an element of danger to the whole affair. He's not just playing with fire; he's making fire and spreading it haphazardly around the room. He's playing in a minefield. One wrong step won't just blow up his world; it'll obliterate whichever planet they're inhabiting and probably seven of its closest neighbours too.
Yet night after night he keeps coming back.
One day he ponders upon this. Alone in the TARDIS, he speaks aloud.
"Why her? Why the Mistress?"
He doesn't get an answer. Any answer he might get would surely scare him.
So he keeps going back to her. Time and time again.
"Always," he hears in her voice.
She's always in his head.
She likes to give him the illusion of control and then, suddenly, she will snatch it away. It's fun, for her. She likes to play with her victims and her lovers. Sometimes the Doctor wonders if there's much difference between the two.
She could crush him. Both intentionally or by accident. Stand too close to fire and you get burned. He knows this and it only makes him push himself closer to her. Let her crush him. Let him crush her too. He could do it, he tells himself.
When he slips out at dawn, leaving behind her naked form, soft in slumber, he debates leaving for good. It's his backward glance that refutes this: the doubt, the regret, the loneliness, the nostalgia, the pain. He knows he'll be back. He'll always be back. Or she'll come and find him. It's their way. They always seem to make their way back to each other in the end. To do otherwise would be to admit defeat. To admit defeat would be to fail a friendship nearly as old as time itself. Again. Both have a silent agreement that this couldn't happen. Not again.
He tells himself that this doesn't mean anything. It's completely normal for too old friends to meet like this. There's nothing strange about the way their bodies greet each other, about the way her fingers wind their way into his hair and hold him to her, the way his lips always know exactly where she wants him, the way her nails seem to dig in just a little too hard, the way she draws the pain from him with her tongue, the way she worships him with her body and the way he does the same to her, the way he always feels like there's something more just out of reach, something more to say, something more to do. There's nothing between them. His hearts don't love hers.
He's living a lie, but the truth will surely destroy him.