NOTES: This makes a little callback to Thorns and involves an OC. There's Whouffaldi in this, but I make you wait for it a little. ;) Also, look at me ignoring Face the Raven completely! Woo!
* * *TRIGGER WARNING: Autistic readers may be upset by a brief discussion of stim suppression.
Nobody becomes an autism expert by working with or caring for autistic people. The only true autism experts are autistic people themselves. If you're a non-autistic parent/relative and an autistic adult offers advice to help your autistic child/relative, be quiet and listen. Non-autistic "experts" can only guess from observation, but actual autistic people know from experience.
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Spectrum
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Even time travelers liked to relax and be sometimes. Which was exactly what the Doctor did on a sunny Sunday afternoon early in November. Stim days, he called them- entire days set aside specifically to relieve the tension of putting up with constant sensory input.
The Doctor's favorite place for this was a woodsy area at the park near Coal Hill school. It had untamed grass perfect for lying back with a hand behind his head. If he positioned himself just right, he could track the sun's westward sweep by the intensity of its sparkling through the green canopy.
He rubbed at his fluffy gray hair and casually popped the stem of his No Gloom 'Shroom into his mouth. Biting it felt as soothing as breathing the neutral smell of his pocket chalk. He chewed the food-grade silicone stim toy like a piece of steak without caring about slurping noises or politeness. Nobody was around to complain about it.
Something to chew and something to smell- the ultimate calming combination. This incarnation craved oral and olfactory stimulation the most. Did Clara realize this chewy mushroom-shaped thingie became one of the greatest self-soothing tools outside of his chalk? It literally gave his mouth something to do besides chewing on himself. No more gnawing his nails until they bled. No more biting the insides of his cheeks and bottom lip until he tasted blood. No more painful guitar playing and no more misery when eating food. He still nibbled on himself a little out of habit, however the damage he did wasn't anywhere near what it was before.
A breeze teased the leaves and his hair. Crows cawed in the treetops. Just a family disagreement over food.
More rustling broke the quiet. Too regular to be the wind. Actually, it sounded like somebody running.
The Doctor sat up in time to see a young girl jog into the clearing. At first he thought it was Courtney Woods, but wasn't Courtney Woods taller than that? The dark-skinned girl wore her hair in cornrows that stopped just above the neckline of her pink hoodie pullover. Her blue jeans had dirty knees and her black Velcro-closure tennis shoes were muddy. Purple ear protector headphones concealed her ears and something rectangular hung off a white strap slung around her neck.
For a split second the only sound was the girl's panting. She grabbed the purple doughnut-shaped pendant resting against her chest and stuck it in her mouth.
Then she dashed straight into the TARDIS!
"Oi! You!" The Doctor scrambled upright and bounced off the door as it slammed into his face. It might have nailed him in the nose if not for the No Gloom 'Shroom still clutched in his teeth. It made for a nice mouth-guard.
The Doctor slipped his No Gloom 'Shroom onto his wrist and shoved his way into the TARDIS.
"Courtney?" he called.
No answer other than faint whimpering sounds. His unwanted company left muddy footprints trailing up the stairs and past the console. He followed them until he found the girl huddled on the floor between his easy chair and the wall. She rocked furiously back and forth, both hands slapping her knees.
It wasn't Courtney. Courtney would've said something snide.
"Is there a reason you ran into my TARDIS?" asked the Doctor. He folded his arms and frowned.
A long fifteen seconds trickled by. The girl touched the iPad slung around her neck and it lit up with dozens of different icons. She selected a few in sequence before going back to rocking. The device spoke with a young woman's voice.
"Are you Doctor?"
Her question took him aback. He expected her to comment on the TARDIS being bigger on the inside, not point blank seek his identity!
"That depends on who's asking," said the Doctor.
Again, the girl tapped her iPad screen. She emitted a growling noise as if fighting with her own fingers. But, finally, she replied, "My name is Twila Woods."
More selecting of icons and wiggling, "My big sister Courtney and Miss Oswald both say they traveled with Doctor and that his blue box keeps people safe. I was hiding in a cabinet in my classroom when they talked about riding in it and they don't know I heard everything."
She smacked her lips when her iPad finished with, "I saw the box and I ran in it hoping to see Doctor."
Both the Doctor's bushy eyebrows went up. He crouched so he wasn't towering over the girl and looked at her eyes even though she didn't look at his. They were brown, bright and inquisitive.
"Well, young lady, you found me. I'm the Doctor." He licked his lips, trying to hide his own discomfort at how abruptly his peaceful day changed. This young girl sought him out specifically, and in good conscience he couldn't turn her away without at least hearing her out. "What are you running from, Twila?"
Twila's face contorted. She scrolled through two screens of icons and tapped one. The cheerful iPad voice did not match her expression. "People who don't see me."
He frowned, cocking his head. "I see you just fine. Two arms, two legs, ten fingers...presumably ten toes, and a head with a face. Everything's there."
She covered her eyes and made chirping noises. One hand slipped down to the iPad screen. "My body is all there, but people think my brain isn't. People see my problems. They see reactions and behaviors and not feelings and thoughts."
Many moments passed. The Doctor waited quietly for Twila to compose what she wanted to say. She paused many times to wave her fingers near her face and continued to do so when her reply finally emerged.
"My body does things by itself when I feel. I get told to be quiet, sit still, stop yelling, that isn't appropriate, do as you're told. Nobody treats me like they treat everybody else. Nobody talks to me like they talk to everybody else. I want to yell I am more than what you see. I am more than my behavior problems.
"I love botany. I want to stop people from hurting forests. I want to plant a forest someday to replace what we cut down. I want to find new flowers. I want to love plants and take care of them. I can do those if I have help, but I get told I'm talking nonsense and should try for something simpler. I am not simple. I am more. I am more. I am more. I try to show I am more and nobody understands. I feel like an alien. I want to go away. Take me away."
And the Doctor's tense expression tightened just a little. Nervous energy thrummed within his body. He clasped his hands together and wiggled his fingers to release it. Closing his eyes for a breath let him see his and Twila's timelines crossing at this exact moment, and he immediately knew what to do.
"Twila," the Doctor found himself breaking into the most ridiculous grin of his life, "I understand exactly how you feel."
"How? How? How?" Twila touched her iPad three times.
"Because I am an alien, and you're inside my space ship-slash-time machine." He pressed his palms against each other. "Now you have all of time and space at your disposal. You don't want to be here, so we won't stay here. Where do you want to go?"
Twila pushed herself to stand. The crown of her head barely reached the bottom of his chest. She peered askance at the central hexagonal console. Then her eyes swung to focus on his shoulder. The Doctor noticed she didn't look at anything directly and immediately knew she couldn't. Not without a struggle, anyway.
Her thin eyebrows arched upward. She took a sharp intake of breath and brushed her iPad screen. "I get to pick?"
At that, the Doctor's hearts skipped one beat each. This was a girl so accustomed to people directing her because they always assumed she didn't know any better. Even when they didn't mean to imply that. Society taught her to shrink herself, obey and stay invisible for its comfort.
Why, why, why were humans so closed-minded?
"Yes," said the Doctor, "Anywhere in time and space. What is the one thing you've always wanted to see? What's the one thing you've always wanted to do?"
Twila hummed softly, rocking her weight foot to foot. She stuck her doughnut-shaped chew necklace in her mouth again and tapped her iPad, "Can you show me the biggest tree in the universe? I want to sit in the biggest tree in the universe."
The Doctor's brow relaxed as a grin lit his face. Excitement created a knot somewhere in his stomach when he pranced down the stairs to type on the console keyboard. "I know of a tree that makes this planet's Hyperion look like a toothpick. A tree so huge-" he spread his arms in a sweeping gesture, "-that its top rises above the clouds even when it's raining below. This is a tree civilization will never touch."
Twila's quiet footsteps clunked on the stairs and approached the console.
"I give you..." He spun one of the external monitors towards her. "...Gargantua."
Onscreen was the image of a planet with a tree growing amidst mountains. Its giant brownish-purple trunk filled a valley and its sprawling deep green crown spanned half the mountain range. It looked like a twig growing from a crack in cement on a titanic scale.
Planet Susan- the Doctor named it after his granddaughter- was a small, rocky world that orbited well within the habitable zone of a blue supergiant star.
"This is a planet only I know about. You will be the only other person in the universe to see this place besides me. Think you can keep it a secret?"
"Yes."
For a moment Twila stared at the corner of the screen. Then she turned to look directly before glancing away again. She did it several times, processing. An emotion flickered in her eyes, one of a few the Doctor recognized no matter its form.
Wonder.
Suddenly, Twila let out a screech. She began jumping up and down and flapping her hands. A huge smile appeared on her face like the first rays of dawn. She clutched the console with another squeal and stamped her feet.
Humans could be so secretive about their emotions. Twila wasn't. The Doctor felt the same excited ripple move through him, too. He snapped his fingers to shut the TARDIS doors, took a skipping step to his right and wrapped his hand around the locking mechanism.
Twila stopped flailing. She rubbed her fingers along the exposed skin between her cornrow braids.
The Doctor found himself scratching at his hair, too. "My TARDIS makes a bit of a noise, Twila. I'm not sure how loud it will sound to you. Are you ready?"
She touched a green icon on her iPad. "Yes."
He pulled the locking mechanism towards himself. Twila gazed upward at the rotating tiles as the dimensional stabilizers ground away. She took her ear defender headphones off, grinned and twirled around.
The sound wasn't scaring her. She was dancing to it! That meant she could hear the undertones to its grind! It didn't just wheeze, it also emitted a harmonic tri-tone thrum at frequencies too low for average ears to detect. Clara couldn't hear it.
Twila's spinning came to an abrupt halt. Now she sensed the time vortex. Like riding an elevator upward. The Doctor could tell she felt it by the way she gripped the console like she didn't want to fall off the ground she stood on. Maybe it had occurred to her that she didn't need to twirl- moving through the time vortex created enough vestibular sensation on its own.
The Doctor absently wiggled his No Gloom 'Shroom off his wrist and put the stem in his mouth while he monitored the TARDIS' progress. This was a big jump of over a billion years. Normally he charged full blast through time, yet for Twila's sake he only went to seventy-five percent.
"Your box is like Narnia," Twila typed on her iPad.
Well that came from nowhere!
"What?" asked the Doctor.
"It looks like a box until you go inside. Like the wardrobe, except it's a spaceship instead of a snowy place."
"My TARDIS is a 'Narnia' that can go anywhere in time and space."
Twila stuck her fingers into the telepathic circuits. She couldn't affect the TARDIS at the moment, so he let her explore them. He noticed her glance his direction, step sideways and reach for a knob on the circular glass of the manual adjustment panel. That was when he swatted her hand aside.
"Don't. You'll throw us off course," he spoke around the No Gloom 'Shroom still in his mouth, "You don't want us to land in the beam of a quasar, do you?"
She giggled and touched the phone without picking it up. Then she looked at the central time rotor, watching it rise and fall. Her hand returned to her iPad.
"You don't make me look at you when you talk."
"Since when are eyeballs and ears linked?"
Her retort, "People say I'm not listening if I don't look at them."
"Hmph!" He glanced her way, eyebrow raised.
Twila emitted a chirping noise while typing, "You say you are an alien. You don't look like an alien. Why?"
"Heh, heh, because the things that make me alien are inside my body. I have two hearts."
He sensed the movement of Twila's hand before he saw it. Sometimes humans got so touch-touch feel-feel. He caught her wrist and guided her small, brown hand to feel each of his heartbeats in turn.
"This is Leftie, and this is Rightie. Rightie sometimes beats faster than Leftie," the Doctor switched her hand back and forth, letting her feel the different rhythms of his hearts. Both beat like jackhammers, a natural reaction to the time vortex. They would slow down again once he landed.
"Your skin feels like you were outside in snow." She patted his hand after he let go of hers, and the searing sensation of her light touch made him pull it towards himself as if burned. Not realizing her mistake, she went on, "Are you always cold?"
Funny, the iPad voice wore itself familiar so fast. No, not the iPad- it just produced the words for someone whose mouth could not. That device was Twila's voice.
"Mmhmm. I have a lower body temperature than yours."
"How old are you?"
"How old do you think I am?"
"Old." Twila's eyes squinted with mischief, "An old fart."
A snicker burst free before he could stifle it. He ducked his head, letting his eyes focus on the space between her eyebrows. "How old are you?"
"Eleven."
"Mm, good number. I'm over two thousand years old."
Twila gasped and peered at his shoulder again.
"Yes, now you see it," The Doctor cleared his throat, "I am the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord from planet Gallifrey. I've lived so long because of my ability to regenerate."
"Like Piccolo in Dragonball Z?"
He arched a brow. "Uhh...who?"
"He is..." Twila scrolled past a screen of icons. Her frantic movements indicated she was used to being interrupted before completing a thought, so he stayed quiet until she finished, "He is a green alien who grows back parts that get cut off."
She loaded a picture on her iPad and held it up. There stood a gruff, pointy-eared green alien wearing purple Arabian-looking attire capped off with brown shoes, a blue belt, a flowing white cape and a turban.
The Doctor folded his arms, unintentionally imitating the alien's pose while Twila lowered her iPad again.
"Regenerating doesn't work quite that way for me. It's...imagine going to sleep and waking up with a whole new face and body. Everything is a bit different for me each time I regenerate. I have to get used to new hands and feet, new teeth, new taste buds...sometimes I get taller or shorter. Some things get harder, others get easier, a few occasionally stay the same...actually there's one thing that always stays the same. Something we both share."
There went his brain bouncing off what he wanted to say with his mouth. He took his note cards out of his pocket and thumbed through them. The one he wanted had two words on it, but they acted like a magnet to collect the scattered iron filings of his thoughts. He tucked the cards away again.
"I'm autistic like you, Twila."
Twila blinked slowly. He could tell she was listening by how still and quiet she tried to be.
"Autism presents uniquely in each individual born with it. Now try this- every regeneration transforms my physical body into a unique person while my mind and memories stay the same. Everything changes, including my brain. I've been thirteen people throughout my lifetime. I've experienced a variety of autistic traits each time. So, when I say I understand how you feel, I mean it."
Lights flickered on the console when the TARDIS neared its destination.
The Doctor went on, "I remember when I had trouble seeing things properly whenever I looked straight on at them. That was two incarnations ago, actually. I don't get it as much now, unless I'm ill or tired. Simple everyday objects drift apart as if the pieces aren't a cohesive whole. It's impossible to listen to someone talking when they start looking like a Picasso painting, isn't it?"
Laughter shook Twila's shoulders. She triggered her iPad to speak and waved her hands in the air. "Yes. People look like their body parts are not attached to their body if I look at them too long. Inanimate objects separate, too. The adults tell me to use my eyes anyway."
The Doctor leaned over, not quite touching her with his shoulder. "How about words on a page floating apart? Ever get that?"
"Always." She rippled her fingers in front of her eyes, only stopping long enough to type more, "People think I'm stupid because I see chaos. They think their way is the only way to see. They say my way is wrong. What if mine is right and they are wrong?"
"I've never heard a truer question asked." He eyed the external monitor, which displayed a landing countdown, "Ah, here we are."
The TARDIS vibrated slightly as it materialized. Its grinding dimensional stabilizers gave a satisfying series of thuds before all fell silent. Hearing the cloister bell ring indicated a safe, successful touchdown.
The Doctor reached under the control panel and pulled out a pair of sunglasses with white frames and mirrored lenses. "Here. The sun above this planet is very intense. These sunglasses will protect your eyes."
Twila accepted the shades and slid them on. They also emitted a low level UV repellent force field to block the sun's harmful rays. Dark skin or no, she would burn to a crisp in under a minute.
The Doctor donned his sonic shades, which emitted their own protection field.
"Gargantua is fed by underground rivers. The valley here wasn't cut by water, but by its gigantic roots. Roots that could fill subway tunnels and sewers and rip apart a city! You will never see a bigger tree than this, Twila. And you're about to sit in it. Are you ready?"
A high pitched squeak escaped Twila's throat. She ran in place. Her eagerness traveled to him. He practically leaped down the staircase to open the TARDIS door.
Cool air and a line of brilliant sunbeams flooded in. Outside looked much like a forest, except forests didn't have jagged red mountaintops at the "ground" level. The brownish-purple branch the TARDIS rested on made Earth's Tule trees seem like a skinny little stick. Its bark had vertical scaly ridges as broad as his waist in some places. Deep green leaves and branches stretched further than the eye could see. Bright sunbeams stabbed between the leaves.
"It's all right to come outside," said the Doctor. He exited the TARDIS to show her it was safe. "Watch your step and you'll be fine."
Twila's mouth dropped open as she emerged into the alien sunlight. She made a noise in her throat that anyone could translate into wow!
A breeze sent the branch swaying very, very slightly. Twila walked a few steps past the Doctor and stopped dead. She peeked over her shoulder. The Doctor noticed her hesitation and once more buried his anguish at how people inhibited her curiosity by demanding she stick close to grown-ups.
"Explore all you want." He kept his voice serene, "No one is here to stop you."
Twila flashed a smile and scampered forward to the leaves not far from her. She moved her fingers frantically against her iPad screen and it began spitting out a litany of botanical terminology. The Doctor padded closer to better hear it. This mattered to her even though he wasn't a botanist.
"Petoliated compound leaves. The edges are sinuate. The leaves themselves have an elliptic shape. There are a lot. Does this tree grow fruit?"
"Mm, we're not in the right season, but yes. The fruit looks like black pears, has to be peeled like oranges and tastes similar to peaches. The inside is bright blue. Actually...stay right where you are. Hold on."
He dashed into the TARDIS. First, he flew it to the lowest branches where it flowered to grab a blossom. Then he jumped forward from spring to summer and picked the ripest piece of fruit. Returning landed him at exactly the moment he left.
Twila made grabby motions at the flower first. She held it tenderly and turned it over in her hands. Gargantua's clustered blossoms looked exactly like baby's breath...except each blossom was the size of Twila's head.
Next, the Doctor set the large, rubbery fruit on her palms and helped her peel it. Inside, the juicy blue lobes formed spiraling patterns. Each lobe had a large peach-pit like seed.
"They splatter when they fall, which sprays the seeds everywhere. Better not eat the seeds, though. They cause a bit of a bellyache."
He worked a section free, showed Twila how to suck the pit out of the center and ate the juicy sweetness left behind. Twila jumped up and down after her first taste. She consumed half before passing the fruit to him. He finished it off and loudly slurped the stickiness off all ten of his fingers. The peel got tossed away to be the wind's toy.
The Doctor propped his foot on a ridge in the bark, stuck his hands in his pockets and peered over the side to watch the fruit peel fall. The barely-visible trunk of the massive tree was a landscape in itself. Puffy white clouds drifted past it. Between them, the distant canyon looked like a pavement crack.
This definitely wasn't a place for anyone with a fear of heights.
Everything seemed great until Twila let out a screech. It didn't sound like fear. The Doctor's hypothesis confirmed itself with her rushing up to him, grabbing his coat sleeve and pulling him several hundred meters along the branch.
"Aha! Ah!" she exclaimed with her voice.
The source of her excitement was an iridescent, translucent chrysalis the size of an American football dangling off an adjacent branch. It looked like a glass swirl.
He squinted at it. Oh, it was a chrysalis all right- a chrysalis about to hatch!
"Ohh, look, look!" The Doctor moved behind Twila and pointed over her shoulder at the large crack in the bottom. She turned her head a few degrees to the side. Not to look away, but to watch with her peripheral vision.
Faint sloshing noises hinted at the insect's movements. The bottom of its shell split open along the 'seams' as it stretched its legs. Its antennae looped through the crack and waved around, sensing the air for the first time in a long while.
The Doctor found himself holding his breath while the butterfly pushed its way out of the opening it created in its shell. Its head, thorax and bloated abdomen were white, but it had shiny black compound eyes. Shriveled wings hung like useless appendages at its sides. They weren't much now, but in a few minutes they would unfurl into transparent iridescence that reflected the entire visible light spectrum.
"That," he murmured near Twila's ear, "is a spectral butterfly. Its wingspan is wider than I am tall. They pollinate the flowers and help the tree bear fruit. Isn't it magnificent?"
Twila touched her iPad. "Yes, It is a miracle." She wiggled her fingers. "Can I take this flower home? I have a plant book that nobody else sees because I'm afraid it will get taken away from me. I keep pressed flowers and leaves in it. Will it hurt anything in history to keep this flower?"
"Not if you keep it completely secret. Here, take some leaves, too."
He picked a thumb-sized leaf and sniffed it. They were small compared to the huge flowers lower down. Gargantua's soft, silky leaves smelled like mint. Twila pulled a zip-lock bag from the belly pocket of her pink hoodie. Inside, a strip of cardboard and a roll of clear tape.
The Doctor took the flower from her and held the leaf up, "I'll hold it while you tape it down. Otherwise the wind will blow it away."
They knelt together. Twila meticulously taped the leaf to the cardboard strip before placing it in the baggie. She squished the air out of the bag, sealed the zip lock and concealed her new treasure inside her hoodie pocket. This procedure repeated itself for the flower, albeit without the cardboard and tape.
Her delighted smile put the painfully bright sun to shame as she tapped her iPad. "Thank you."
She sat down to gaze straight ahead towards the mountains. The Doctor scoffed that it wasn't a problem as he sat beside her, hugging one knee to his chest. It occurred to him that he only ceased gnawing on his No Gloom 'Shroom long enough to eat.
That became the moment the spectral butterfly took flight. Sunlight reflected off its iridescent wings to create a halo of rainbows. Twila flapped her hands, imitating the butterfly until it glided out of sight. Its dull, empty chrysalis shell waved like a forgotten sail in the wind.
Twila exhaled noisily, both hands gently touching the bark she perched upon. The Doctor didn't muddy up her moment by attempting pointless conversation. He clasped his hands together instead and rippled his fingers simply to feel it. Seeing him start stimming seemed to offer her a tacit okay to rock back and forth herself.
"I never get to do this." She waved her fingers by her face, "This is when somebody makes me do something else. Sometimes I want to sit and exist with my thoughts. I am not doing nothing when I sit and think, but that is what people assume. It never happens to other kids. They are always allowed to sit and think."
The Doctor barely swallowed a bitter laugh because he understood far too well. "Because a lot of humans look at disability as something to be miserable about. Then they say 'smile, it can't be that bad!' What a confusing message."
She turned towards him. "Yes. I hate it. Can I show you another thing I can't stand?"
He shrugged, "All right."
Twila reached over and covered his wiggling fingers with her hand. She took the No Gloom 'Shroom out of his mouth and leaned far into his personal space. Memories of adults doing that to him during his childhood flooded back only to retreat again.
"Me, too," said the Doctor. He frowned behind his sunglasses, "My non-favorite was the adults who grabbed my shoulders and insisted I sit perfectly still. Isn't it remarkable how people who don't understand want us to shrink ourselves for their comfort?"
A wry grin spread across her face. She gave his chewy stim toy back and let go of his hands as she shifted away from his personal space.
"'Be yourself,' the world says..."
"...'but not like that.'" He finished the phrase.
They fell silent again. A silence that wasn't awkward or strained. Almost in unison they both tilted their heads back to watch the brilliant sun sparkle between the leaves.
Twila began flicking her fingers near her eyes. The Doctor closed his own and absently chewed on his No Gloom 'Shroom. His ears registered distant thunder. He listened intently only to hear it again. A fourth clap sounded closer. Scanning the area with his sonic sunglasses helped him pinpoint the storm. The clouds were hidden by the bulk of Gargantua. This storm was heading straight in their direction and they were sitting on a giant lightning target.
"Twila, we need to go."
A faint whine escaped her. She typed, "I feel scared."
"Of thunder?"
"Yes."
The Doctor slid his No Gloom 'Shroom onto his wrist and stood up. "We'll be safe in the TARDIS."
Another thunderclap bounced off the mountains as Twila scrambled upright. She pressed both hands to her ears as if the sound caused pain. She looked frozen in place. A familiar posture he knew all too well because it happened to him, too.
He laid his hand on the small of her back and prompted her forward with gentle pressure. Together, they walked slowly towards the TARDIS and climbed inside. Plucking the sunglasses off her face and applying deep pressure to her shoulders helped her begin calming herself. She curled into him with a whimper. He carried her up the steps, set her down beside the console and secured her ear protector headphones over her ears again.
Twila's response kept escalating. She screeched a true I'm scared screech and slapped the side of her head. The Doctor reminded her of her chew necklace as he rhythmically squeezed her shoulders and upper arms to help her overexcited senses settle. Being in so much physical contact felt uncomfortable for him, but his discomfort didn't compete with how much worse hers would be if he stopped now.
Being on the razor's edge of a meltdown felt like killer bees buzzing in his muscles. Pressure was the only thing that helped relieve it. He couldn't stand by and let Twila go through it without help.
"Breathe, sweetheart," he murmured. For that split second he'd forgotten he wasn't comforting little Susan.
The combination of deep breaths and the soothing massage worked. Twila's meltdown died before it grew out of control. Her frantic head-slapping ceased. She quit whimpering and sucked on her doughnut-shaped chew pendant.
Praise the universe for dad skills. The Doctor exhaled a relieved sigh. Meltdowns were no fun and he wouldn't wish them on anyone.
"Twila," he remarked once her breathing regulated, "You did it. You sat in the biggest tree in the universe."
A moment ago she was on the verge of screaming. Now, she laughed. She laughed, jumped up and down and waved her hands in the air. He smirked at her refreshing exuberance. Seeing her reminded him of how much he censored himself when in the presence of other people. He even did it with Clara.
Because when all the adults say 'do this like this' when you're young, you don't question it. You think it's supposed to be that way. Then you get older and notice it doesn't feel right to sit still...and two things can happen. You become so afraid of others' judgement that you stifle yourself forever, or you rebel and listen to your body's needs to move. Twila, I hope you rebel.
Clara witnessed a complete meltdown and later saw a fever-induced shutdown, and she still looked at him with love written all over her face. Sure, she called him out when he acted like a total dipstick and warned him if he came off rude...but not one time did he feel like less of a person in her presence.
All at once Twila stood beside him. Very close without actually touching. She reached over to grasp the ring on his hand between thumb and forefinger. He resisted the impulse to yank his hand away because she wasn't hurting anything and he didn't want to stifle her curiosity. The ring's yellow-green stone glittered under the lights.
"It's a piece of stone from my home planet," said the Doctor, "and that is the TARDIS locking mechanism." He typed a few keys before glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Go ahead, give her a tug."
Twila wrapped her fingers around the locking mechanism and yanked it towards herself. The TARDIS sprang into action. She made little cooing noises in time with the grinding dimensional stabilizers. He could tell she sensed the falling sensation of journeying backwards in time by the way she clung to the lever.
Vibrations coursed along the floor. The Doctor dragged one of the console monitors towards himself while typing on the keyboard below it. Going backwards through time let him literally Google things throughout history. He sucked on his bottom lip as he read three interesting headlines.
Then he adjusted a dial to bring the TARDIS up to full speed within the time vortex. Twila let out a whoop like someone riding a roller coaster. He chuckled to himself at her infectious laughter.
"Here we are. Twila, push."
Twila shoved the locking mechanism into the upright position. The dimensional stabilizers emitted a series of tell-tale thumps ending in a boom. And there they landed, barely a minute past the moment she bolted into the TARDIS.
She let go of the locking mechanism. Her face morphed into an unreadable mask of pursed lips and knit eyebrows. She shifted her gaze to the iPad.
"I wish everyone treated me how you treat me," she typed.
Unable to help himself, the Doctor spun around and knelt to look up at the young girl. She stared over his left shoulder, and he focused on the space between her eyebrows. There was still a connection between them. Something far more tangible than eye contact.
"Twila, people are going to tell you what you can't do all the time. They'll say you can't talk, you can't understand, you can't this, you can't that. People are always going to enforce limitations on you. And they're all going to look silly when they do it. Do you know why?"
Twila shrugged and shifted her weight. Over her shoulder, the monitor displayed three headlines from the year twenty forty-five.
Twila Woods, Botanist, Halts Deforestation Project.
Twila Woods, Botanist, Discovers New Flower Species.
Twila Woods, Botanist, Plants First Tree For Reforestation Project.
The Doctor raised both eyebrows and grinned at her, "You flew an alien ship through time and space. You played in the biggest tree in the universe. You watched an alien butterfly hatch from its chrysalis. You're the only kid on this planet who can say they did those things. So every time somebody tells you that you can't do something, remember that you did things they will never do."
Her face brightened. She covered her eyes and chirped while gnawing on her doughnut-shaped chew necklace. He stuck his No Gloom 'Shroom into his mouth in solidarity.
"Can I please take a picture with you?" Twila typed on her iPad. "I forget faces if I don't see them for a long time. I don't want to forget yours."
"Ehhh...why not? But let's do it outside. Better light."
Better light and no tell tale alien spaceship in the background.
The Doctor followed Twila outside among the speckled sunlight and trees. There was a good spot under a big old oak. They gathered underneath it. She switched her iPad to the backwards facing camera, trying to get them both in frame. Amused, he knelt behind her and took hold if it. He used his longer arms to prevent the tops of their heads from being cut off.
It wasn't until after the Doctor snapped two shots that he realized he forgot to take the No Gloom 'Shroom out of his mouth. He looked so serious until his gaze got to that. But Twila had her purple doughnut-shaped chew necklace in her mouth, too, although she grinned around it for the second shot.
"Here you are," the Doctor gave Twila her iPad back. "I had fun today. Did you?"
Twila pressed a yellow dandelion flower into his hand and closed his fingers over it. Such a response went beyond words. She cupped his pale fist between her dark hands, cooed softly and walked away without looking back. Just like that, she headed towards the distant shouts of her name. Those calls ceased once she emerged into the sight of whoever sought her.
The Doctor laid back in the grass exactly where he'd been before this all happened. One fantastic thing about time travel- the ability to pick up an interrupted day right where he left off. Except, now, he spun the tiny dandelion flower between his thumb and forefinger while absently chewing on his No Gloom 'Shroom. He donned his sonic shades to wirelessly connect with the TARDIS computer and re-checked those future articles.
Something new popped up on the last one. The exact two photos he took with Twila less than five minutes ago. Her caption underneath both: Somebody like me said I can do things others can't. You were right. People told me a lot of rubbish. I didn't believe them. Thank you, Doctor.
"Pff," the Doctor huffed at the silly sentimentality even though the message was touching. He wiped the articles off his search history and ran a wireless moment restore point to remove the muddy footprints from inside the TARDIS.
.o
Grinding noises marked the TARDIS landing in Clara's bedroom. It was Wednesday- though the Doctor called it Clara day- and he arrived at it feeling calmer than he had in a long time. Those stim days did wonders for his stress levels. Now the ripple in his stomach became the anticipation of seeing the woman he loved.
Or, rather, what she was about to see.
The Doctor switched on his amp, checked his tuning and played a few arpeggios to warm up his fingers. His No Gloom 'Shroom prevented him from chewing his bottom lip to shreds.
External monitors picked up Clara's arrival home. He ran a mental countdown matching the seconds it took her to unlock her front door.
Cliffs of Dover, a guitar instrumental originally by Eric Johnson, was his song of choice for this. It had a nice beat with an intensity that surrounded him like a musical forest.
Quivering guitar strings provided awesome tactile feedback to match the sound feedback from the amp. Outside awareness slowly faded away. Only sensation and emotion remained. His eyes drifted shut and his long, pale fingers moved nimbly to keep the music going. Rocking back and forth began on its own without conscious will. He inhaled the whiffs of his pocket chalk. Nothing else mattered besides this.
Creak went the TARDIS door. The Doctor willed himself to stay inside his own head, to not spoil or lose this moment of being utterly consumed. He kept shredding even though he sensed Clara's eyes watching him. Fluttering sensations in his stomach energized his playing and his rocking movements. Some chords sent ecstasy ricocheting through his bones, and his body reacted of its own accord. The notes he played became richer, more passionate, more real, as if he could send his emotions to her through sound alone.
His expression morphed to match the music- by God his eyebrows were all over the place- and he didn't care how he looked! The guitar in his hands acted as an extension of himself. He played it for her, though she didn't know that.
And then the song was over. He didn't open his eyes yet, choosing instead to continue rocking a moment more while hugging the guitar to his chest. Silence rushed into the space like thunder. It couldn't match the roar of his pounding hearts if it tried. He chewed on his No Gloom 'Shroom to reign his reaction back in.
Clara shifted her weight. Her knee cracked. The Doctor 'noticed' her then and opened his eyes to her grinning visage.
"Oh, Clara!" He took the No Gloom 'Shroom out of his mouth when he smiled back, "I didn't hear you come in. Were you there long?"
"Mm, long enough to see your one man show." Her big brown eyes gleamed. She'd colored her eyelids indigo to match her attire. Light from her phone shone on the shimmery gold threads woven throughout her purple blouse.
"Well, I hope you aren't planning to heckle me." The Doctor switched his amp off and set the guitar aside.
"Why would I do a thing like that?" Clara sat sideways in his lap. "Anyone who heckles somebody for being themselves should be kicked off the planet."
His body tensed itself at the unexpected weight settling on his thighs and against his chest. Peach-lavender-coffee scents overpowered the faint chalk smells from his pocket. The shimmery threads on her silk blouse felt like a cheese grater to his unprepared hand.
Everything hit with the effects of firecrackers going off in his brain. He had no choice but to feel it all at once. Sometimes Clara forgot he needed a bit of warning before initiating such a sensory bombardment. Her half-gasped 'sorry' showed she realized her error. She stayed still to let his jangled senses settle rather than make it worse by scrambling away. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders to let her know he'd recovered, to forgive the oversight and to welcome her presence into his personal space.
Clara relaxed to show him the video she took on her phone. The Doctor watched himself on the tiny screen. Man, his eyebrows were going all over the place. They couldn't compete with his rocking motion or the way he kept tossing his head back whenever he hit those ecstatic chords.
His own movements reminded him of Twila. All he needed was the right circumstances to bring that part of himself out. He covered Clara's phone with his hand after watching for a few seconds. Seeing the experience from the outside wasn't the same as feeling it.
"Autistic humans who behave that way are shunned and stifled because it looks so different, so they censor themselves. I'll admit to falling into the same trap myself."
"Why?" she asked, and he could tell her curiosity was genuine.
"Look 'normal' to be taken seriously. Obey these social rules that change on the spot. Say this, say that, be tactful, don't be tactful. Say what you think, but lie so you don't offend. Be yourself, but not that way. Sit still and look tragic while we talk about what's wrong with you. It's...it's like- like-"
And his voice cut off. He grabbed at his gray curls and scratched his scalp. Sometimes he hated how he started talking before he formulated a full idea. Either he ran out of words, or the words didn't parse into spoken language properly and jammed together as an incoherent mess. It made for awkward pauses that he usually filled in with things that sounded smart so people didn't notice the lapse.
Thankfully, he didn't need to hide this from Clara, so he let himself stop mid-statement. She nodded with a mouthed 'it's all right' and waited patiently for him to finish collecting his thoughts.
"I've got it!" He resumed like a pause never happened, "Life's a play and you're the poor bloke in the audience the cast dragged on stage. You've got no script, no sense of your relation to the others and you better hope you say something that sounds important because you don't want the audience to know you're different from the cast. How do you do it?"
Clara arched a manicured eyebrow. "Is that really how humans come across to you?"
"Anyone who isn't autistic comes across like that to me." The Doctor nudged her with his shoulder to prevent her from feeling guilty, "You're making a better effort to understand my difficulties than most. And that's only because I let you see them. Now, Clara..." He pitched his voice low and took full advantage of his Scottish brogue, "It's Wednesday. Pick your poison."
Her expression morphed through several emotions ending in a nose-crinkling giggle. "I picked last time!"
"No, I did. Italy, nineteen-sixty. You fell asleep on the gondola and missed it all."
"Because you showed up at three in the morning and shagged me senseless. So," Clara licked her lips to flirt back. She'd colored them dark pink, "Doctor, it's your turn."
Wicked glee flashed across his blue eyes. "That New Year's party is still going on..."
Clara's face alighted with a grin. No words were needed. They uncurled in a flurry of limbs and scrambled towards the console. Clara got there first and blocked his path to the locking mechanism. The Doctor playfully reached around her to type in the Epsilon coordinates.
"Do you think we'll ever find my sunglasses?" asked Clara.
The Doctor waggled his eyebrows. "We'll find out, won't we?"
"Guess so." She grabbed his coat lapels to pull him closer. "Now c'mere, I want my hello kiss."
He released the locking mechanism as their lips met. The TARDIS wheezed into action while they kissed amidst its twinkling lights.
.o END o.