A/N: I'd like to thank Carrie ( centuriesuntold) for letting me borrow her headcanon of the Twelfth Doctor's human name and Valentina ( marshcapaldi) for her support with this fic. This is probably my fluffiest work in progress so far. Not my best, admittedly, but it's mostly set up so please do forgive me.

Still working on "touch me not" and "TARD(IZ)", though. Yay!

Feel free to yell at me on owedbetter_ on Twitter or owedbetter on Tumblr, if you want. Or not. You do you, friend. Comments are appreciated. :)


Every beginning
is only a sequel, after all,
and the book of events
is always open halfway through.

- From 'Love at First Sight' by Wislawa Szymborska


Neither of them believed in love.

She was cheerfully cynical.

He was a grump – but a dreamer, an optimist.

She was kind.

He was too.

She was the type of person who stayed.

He ran away. Once.

She wanted to go.

He had nowhere else to go.

She was selfish, but selfless when it mattered.

He was selfless, but selfish when he was afraid.

She was a control freak.

He was the kind of man who should never be controlled.

She was bossy.

He was argumentative and always, always right.

She loved to prove him wrong.

He fell in love with her on their twelfth day.

She did too.

Because the truth is – they did believe in love.

They do.

No matter the lies that they tell each other, other people, or themselves.

And this was where their story began.


Clara Oswald did not believe in love.

She did not believe in fairytales; grew out of them, she'd say. She was not a romantic, she'd swear by it. But by God, she was good at pretending that she did, wasn't she? It was part of the program, after all. You were not the child of two people who could not be more in love with each other and not know what it was supposed to be like, what it was supposed to look like. You didn't pursue her father's line of work without having an eye, an imagination, and a heart for that sort of thing.

It was either you had it or you didn't – and hers was a heart made for falling in love.

Even if she didn't believe it was real. Absolutely not.

Well… maybe she did.

Because she believed in love – she just didn't want it to ever happen to her.


Gillechrìosd Jardine – otherwise known as The Doctor – did not believe in love.

It was a lie told to children so they could sleep better at night or so he's read and saw in pictures, which was pretty much his only evidence that it even existed in some fashion, he would say. Bedtime stories, love was, or something like that; a template for what a happily ever after could look like; fuel for hope that he had long since given up on. What else was he supposed to base it on?

He grew up in an orphanage with nothing as his but a name left on a card that no one else could read or pronounce. Nobody knew where the title he eventually took as his name came from – a play at pretend that went on for too long, maybe, or that one time he saved his friend from drowning – but it stuck and it is what he has always been called since.

Like he'd done something once and now he had to keep doing it forever – like he'd made a promise before he knew what keeping it meant.

He broke that promise exactly once.

Still, he loved so much that it was enough to fill two hearts and then some – but he was always afraid.

He was afraid he might do the wrong thing when it mattered most of all. And he did once; now he paid for it.

So yes, he did believe in love – he just didn't believe it could ever happen to him.


"I'm not working for free, Linda."

This phone call just had to happen to today, didn't it?

She was going to book her flight details today – as she had planned to do weeks and days before. Her itinerary was all set up in the first place. She knew which hotels to look into and what trains and cabs she needed to book. It was all planned out and she was going to do it for sure this time. But things had always come up – the Maitland kids needed babysitting, Coal Hill needed their favourite on-call substitute teacher, someone's friend needed a new profile photo for Tinder and 'hey, I have a friend who's got a camera and I could pull in a favour she owes me, it'll be fine' would happen – and these vaguely defined things just kept on piling up.

But she was really going to do it today, she was; Linda just had to choose today of all days to call. It wasn't her fault, she'd cry out.

It wasn't.

"I'm not asking you to work for free but—"

Clara rolled her eyes and, in her heart of hearts, she was certain that Linda would be able to hear it on the other end of the line.

"Why can't dad do it for you this time?"

"You know why. Don't be such a child—"

"Oh, I'm sorry that letting what I want, for once in my life, be a part of the bloody equation—" she snapped. Two fingers rubbed circular patterns against her temple.

"And it's Rose Tyler!" Linda interrupted. "I mentioned you to the mum, Jackie — she and I go way back —"

"Way, way back, I'd bet," she muttered. Ignored, to no one's surprise.

"—and you two went to primary school together!"

"Not in the same year. She was a year older than I was. Never properly met her or her bloke so why is this part of the begging?"

"Because she's my friend, Clara. Now apart from what you may think of me, ruining your life—"

"Which you did," she mumbled again through grit teeth. Though whether her blasted stepmother actually heard her or not, she couldn't really care less. This was not especially reserved vindictiveness towards the blonde woman, after all, and this very rarely ever happened. Hardly ever did she have the chance to allow herself to be so petty and difficult (at least, intentionally so) and she had to admit that there was something satisfying in winding Linda up.

"—I'm asking you as a planner to photographer," Linda continued, "Professionally. I told them I'd take care of it since they've hardly made heads or tails of the whole deal in the first place and contacted me so late. Besides, a bit more money can only help your trip, right? It isn't like you've booked anything yet—"

"Oi, I'll have you kno—" But Linda didn't care. Linda never cared for her opinions or feelings, Clara would say.

"Please, Clara. I'm on my hands and knees here."

"So not a mental image I needed right now."

"Clara—" she warned.

"Isn't like I'm the only wedding photographer in the business," she reasoned.

"Yes, but you and your father are the only ones I trust to do this right." (Translation: I already asked all the other ones I know so please don't be so damn difficult; I wouldn't ask you if I weren't this desperate.)

"God, I hate myself for this," Clara said under her breath. She sighed and let her head slack backwards as she groaned. "Fine. Fine! I'll do it!"

As an afterthought, she added, "No discounts."

"Ta, love," said the voice on the other end of the line. A few faint clicks on a keyboard later, the voice quipped again, "Sent you the email. I knew you wouldn't let me down!"

"No, you didn't," Clara said to absolutely no one as Linda didn't wait for her stepdaughter to answer as she'd already agreed.

She glared at her phone for a good long second before the notification for the email popped onto the screen. She rolled her eyes at herself and let her head fall - towards her desk this time. Her forehead met the keyboard and her iMac's monitor sprung to life. The background photo was of a canopy of trees in the middle of autumn; leaves were as red and golden as crackling fire. In the middle was a married couple and the groom had his arm extended with a polaroid camera attached to the end as he took a photo of himself with his bride. Smiles, permanently frozen in that one, perfect moment.

Clara groaned and muttered to the only person in the room who was listening (otherwise known as herself), "God, yes you did. I'm such a bloody sap."

With little choice but to acquiesce, she clicked on the appropriate app. Watched it bounce like it was mocking her will. She got to her email and, sure enough, there it was. Forwarded with nothing else in the body of the email but the need to know contents of what everyone else in the staff needed to know. It was a rush job by the looks of things with very little time to prepare. A week, at most, and that was the bare minimum for her to get all of her equipment and necessary staff in gear without going prematurely grey.

She clicked on the attached wedding invitation and skimmed over the initial, tasteless script at the top of the mock-invite.

You are cordially invited to bear witness to the union of John Smith X and Rose Tyler…

It took reading twice to realise the date that was put into the invitation and the prep list - and just how royally fucked over she'd become.

The wedding was in three days.

The keyboard met her forehead once again.


The Doctor stood unnoticed behind the noticeably arguing couple in front of him as he held a freshly washed apple in his hands. John Smith X - otherwise known as Tenth - pulled at his hair as his voice rose. His brother - adopted younger brother, technically speaking - was almost as red in the face as he had ever been. There was something of a smirk on his thin lips as he watched the little spat unfold before him.

"He's already done it nine times, I don't see why—"

"Didn't you say it was practically tradition at this point?"

Rose, of course, expected nothing less, he knew. Good girl, Rose was. Kept Tenth honest and could dance around the man's wit like his labyrinthine though process were nothing but a child's chalk-drawn hopscotch map on the pavement. She kept her voice level with her arms crossed against her chest.

"Doesn't mean I want him to do it at ours!"

"John—"

"No, Rose. Never." He sounded firm. Like nothing in any known universe that would ever sway him.

"Then who else could be up for the job?" she challenged.

"Mickey?" was his first answer.

"You really trust Mickey, my ex, to do the best man speech at my wedding?"

"Your dad?"

"Are you serious?"

"But—"

"But it's your own fault for forgetting about this in the first place!" she argued.

"That's not my fault! What with your mum planning everything—"

"She's hired a planner now," Rose added but he wouldn't have it.

"—it isn't like I had much room to think about it all!"

"John, we're getting married in three days. You don't have a best man. You said it yourself, the Doctor's done it nine times. You're like his little brother and they call you Tenth. It's kind of fitting, especially with Evan's one coming so soon."

"She's right," the Doctor, upon hearing his name finally being uttered in the conversation, said as he took a bite out of his apple.

"Oh, shove off," replied the younger man as he turned his head to sneer at him.

"I've already asked him," she broke in before the two of them could have a proper go at it.

John could have broken his neck in the whiplash with how quickly his head spun back around to look at her.

"What?" He turned his head back to his brother as he pulled his hair back and kept his fingers firmly holding it there. "What?!"

"She did," the Doctor answered for her as he swallowed. He shrugged his shoulders and took another bite of his apple as he added, "Told her I would."

"What?!" He turned around to face the older man now with his hands at his sides. Incredulous. Scandalised. "What'd you do that for?!"

"'Cause I knew you'd be pissed off as hell."

The Doctor didn't even try to hold back his wolfish grin this time - so much so that it made his hurricane eyes gleam. Rose had to tuck in her lips to keep herself from laughing but as John was about to start off again with his tirade of denial, she spoke up again. For good measure, she held his arm back too.

"And he's the most experienced at this. He won't even have to think about it; won't you, Doctor?"

"But Rose—!" John complained as he looked to her with his saddest eyes that were replied to in kind by her full lips that pressed together in a smile that said that the decision had been made long before she even asked him. He groaned and the next thing he knew was that his older brother had his arm around his shoulders

"Oh relax, Tenny; you'll get frown lines." John only frowned even more. The Doctor was nearly blathering on in a sing-song Scottish brogue as he gestured about with his half eaten apple that he took another bite out of. "Now, come on! It's your stag night!"

"No, no, no. Don't do that," John pleaded but was only given that same wolfish grin as before.

"I'm your best man now, junior," he said as he manoeuvred to put on his sunglasses that had been neatly hung onto the lining of his shirt as he added, "and what I say goes."

John turned his head back to his fiancée to give her a pained look, one that said that he would probably get back at her for this. Rose only grinned.

"You are so lucky I—"

"Go!"