She was already on her way out of the TARDIS, which was now parked outside her flat, and Clara was sure it had been nothing. Of course it was. Definitely nothing.
Well, probably nothing.
"Doctor?"
"Yes, what is it?" he said absently, fiddling with the controls on the TARDIS.
But Clara's courage failed her, and she shook her head.
"Never mind." She hurried towards the door again.
The Doctor shot her a look of impatience, his eyebrows furrowed together, and went back to twisting some knob high on the panels.
"It's just…," she said, turning back to him. "You're not angry, are you?"
He waved the sonic screwdriver at her with another motion of impatience. "No, I told you before, the eyebrows just make me look like…"
"No," she said, stopping him. "Angry about Danny."
He stopped, unmoving, then began switching the controls again, a little more violently.
"Of course not," he said gruffly. "Why would I be?"
Clara shifted uneasily. "It's just, earlier today when Danny was on speakerphone, you sort of… spilled your tea when he said…"
"That was an accident!" he cut her off. "And…. entirely a coincidence!"
She frowned a bit. "You told me never to trust a coincidence."
"Well," he sputtered, "clearly I am older and wiser now." He pulled at his hair. "See? I've even got the gray mop to prove it."
Clara paused. "So when Danny said 'that's my Clara' and you sent hot tea pouring all over yourself that was just…"
"Look, I am….probably… arthritic now!" he nearly shouted at her. "And not some young footballer with perfect reflexes!"
She lowered her eyes, nodded, and turned away. "Right," she said slowly. "Sorry."
The TARDIS somehow felt colder, as though his irritation was coming off him in waves. Clara moved slowly to the door, then paused with her hand on the doorknob.
She shouldn't have said anything. It probably had been an accident just as he said, and she was being ridiculous. She shook her head at herself, trying to clear it.
It was just…
She'd been taken aback too, when Danny had said it. Because as much as she was getting to know and admire him, the phrase had jolted her mind back to the voice and face of another, the one who had called her "my Clara" in a way that made her blood rush faster. The one she was supposed to forget.
Clara closed her eyes, her hand on the door of the TARDIS. She had forced herself to smile and bounce alongside the Doctor, as though nothing had changed, hoping that if she did it long enough, she might even be able to convince herself it was true.
He needs you, she so often told herself. So be what he needs. And she knew the last thing the Doctor needed was to see any break in her sunny, optimistic armor. But in the end, that's what it was, if she was going to be honest.
She had been trying so hard to let go, acting as though she was fine with their new, formal friendship, to smile as though she never thought about the days when he had been someone else, someone who was never rude to her, whose face had lit up at the sight of her, and in whose arms she had felt much more than she wanted to admit.
But her in quiet moments, when she was alone, she let the truth take hold of her.
She'd been ready to run from this stranger until he'd asked her to stay. And for him, for her Doctor, she'd found the strength to pretend. She wasn't sure if he knew how often she was pretending. He always kept himself so carefully distant, and they both seemed determined to act as though everything was fine.
But then, just when she thought she was able to forget the man in the bow-tie, the new Doctor would do something that was so utterly like his old self- a fling of his arms, or smacking his own head at some new idea- that she would be pulled back into a flood of memories of him, and the pain would return. Like spilling tea all over himself just because another man had innocently called her "his Clara".
Now the Doctor was standing only a few feet from her, and yet she suddenly felt so alone, so Doctor-less, that tears began to well in her eyes, as she turned the handle of the door because she didn't want him to see her cry.
"I can't let go if you don't," she whispered, so lightly she hadn't meant for him to hear her.
"Clara."
She stopped and turned to face him. The Doctor's arms were spread across the console and his head was down, hanging between his thin shoulders so that she couldn't see his face.
"Clara, you've got to," he said softly.
She felt her breath come faster and she slowly walked over to him. Once, they had been able to almost communicate without speaking. With just a touch or a glance, she had known what he wanted, as he had known with her. But he almost never touched her now. He went out of his way to avoid any physical contact with her. So she stood a few feet from him, giving him the space he obviously wanted.
"Why?"
"Because he couldn't," he said, and she knew, of course she knew, exactly who he meant.
His head lifted and suddenly, she could see him. He was there, swimming up from the surface of the cold, gruff manner that hid him far better than gray hair and a lined face ever could. She saw pain in his eyes, and for a moment it was like looking into the eyes of the Doctor she'd lost, the one she still loved.
For that one moment, her Doctor was written all over him. And then he was gone, as the older face turned away roughly.
"Look, this is not a conversation we need to have," he said quickly, going back to the controls. But Clara would have none of it. He couldn't look at her like that, bring back the memories and then snatch them away again.
"Yes, we do," she protested, because now that the door was open, she found she couldn't bear to go back to pretending. It was killing her.
"It won't do any good," the Doctor said angrily. "What we're doing is… it's working. We're fine!"
Clara shook her head, wishing she could shake him until she could see that glimpse of her Doctor again, just for one more moment. "I'm not fine. And if you ever knew me at all, you'd know that, too."
He ignored her, and now anger bubbled inside of her.
"But that's you all over, isn't it? The Doctor who forgets? Who wants me to forget that you ever meant anything to me, to let me care about you and then act like …." She sputtered, "like you're my bloody headmaster giving me a scolding."
"Well, you need a scolding!" he countered, still not looking at her, "You're an absolute pain in the-"
"Do you think this has been easy for me?" she nearly yelled. "Do you think it's been some picnic in the park, acting like everything's the same, when I haven't changed at all, and you…" She stopped and shook her head, breathing deeply.
The Doctor stilled at the controls. After a moment, he said coldly, "I'm sorry I no longer live up to your expectations."
Clara's eyes closed. She'd wounded him, she knew it. But he couldn't even begin to understand how much she was hurting, and how much every smile and chirpy comment had been a mask that she'd been wearing for his sake.
She didn't know how much longer she could do it. Because he wasn't the same man, no matter what he told her.
Everything about him felt more alien than he ever had when he'd actually said he was an alien the first day they met. He was angrier, now, slower to trust, quicker to scowl. It wasn't his outside, it was his inside that was so entirely different. It was as though everything that had once made him joyful, full of hope, had been stripped from him, leaving only the bitter parts of him behind.
Why had he become this, she wanted to scream. And, more than anything, why had he been snatched away from her so cruelly, after all they'd been through? Could fate not have waited the span of one paltry human lifetime, so that she could have loved him until the day she stopped breathing?
Why had he become this?
And suddenly, she remembered something he'd once told her, that part of his regeneration came from choice. The answer was right there. He had become this because he had chosen to do it.
And she needed to know why.
Clara felt herself slowly walking towards him, and though he looked up at her, scowling, he didn't move away. She put a hand out to his face but this time he drew back, as though her touch might burn him.
"Why did you change so much, Doctor?" she asked.
His gaze never left hers, even while he was perfectly still, as if holding his breath. It seemed to take a very long time for him to decide if he was going to answer, but finally he did. "So that you'd look at me differently."
"I wasn't talking about your face."
"I never said you were." He tilted his head at her. "I do know you, Clara," he said, then began to fiddle a bit with the controls of the Tardis, and said softly, "I never thought looking old would be what did it." He frowned as though the realization had just hit him, "I don't even think I was trying to look old." She drew her brows together, confused, and he went on. "Back on Trenzalore, both times when you came to me, I looked even older than I do now," he said, then met her eyes. "And you didn't even seem to notice. You still wanted to be with me. You even asked me to never send you away again."
"Which you did all too easily," she said, her voice full of hurt and anger, even now.
The Doctor let out a mirthless laugh. "You think that was easy? To send you away and live 1300 years knowing you hated me for doing it?" He looked at her steadily. "Well, let me tell you something, Clara Oswald. Easy would have been letting you stay, the way I wanted you to."
He turned away and began banging at controls, so harshly that the TARDIS whined at him. Clara touched the console, almost apologetically, even though she hadn't been the one hitting anything.
To stay with the Doctor, her Doctor, back on Trenzalore, she thought. What she wouldn't have given for that, for just a few decades, a year, a day even, just to be with him.
"Why didn't you, then?" she whispered.
"Because I didn't want that for you," he said angrily, and she could tell he was fighting hard, so very hard to keep himself in control.
"Didn't it matter what I wanted?" she said, her voice rising with his.
The Doctor flipped another switch heatedly, and waved her away, "No, it didn't! It mattered that you stayed alive! You can't want things if you're dead and buried in my back garden on Trenzalore!"
"You don't know that's what would have happened!"
"That's exactly what would have happened!" he countered. "The planet was on the brink of war every second of every day! I watched you die in a million ways already, Clara. Do you really think I could have stood by and let you, the real you, die again for my sake? I didn't want that for you!" he shouted again, forgetting all pretense, facing her at last, his eyes blazing at hers.
"Because it was easier to hurt me than get hurt yourself?"
"Because I loved you too much to let you throw your life away for me!" he roared, his voice breaking.
Silence filled the TARDIS, the only sounds the soft hum and wheeze of the engines, and the Doctor looked away from her, leaving her with his words hanging in the air.
Clara's heart pounded in her chest, and she felt her legs might give way underneath her. In every moment from his life before, when he'd stroke her face, or hold her just a little too long, or gaze into her eyes so intently he seemed to be peering into her soul, she'd felt her breath hitch and wonder how it would ever be possible to not fall in love with him. And always, she'd firmly remind herself that the way to not fall in love was to know that there was no way he would ever love you back.
And now, it seemed, he had. He'd loved her all along, this man from the stars, and the knowledge of what could have been, what they could have been, made her grief come crashing through, as though she was losing him a second time.
She turned away, overwhelmed with fresh loss, and tears fell down her cheeks until she buried her face in her hands, crying, alone.
She heard him come closer, and, although he still wouldn't touch her, she heard his voice, still gruff with age, but now drained of anger. "Clara, don't cry, please."
"I'm not crying," she said stubbornly, tears falling down her cheeks.
He laughed softly. "Always brave," he said, as though it was something he'd always thought about her. From the corner of her eye, she saw him ball his hands into fists, then he sighed finally and leaned against the rail of the Tardis.
She gazed at him, and his soul looked older than its 2,000 years. The Doctor looked away and whispered, as though he wasn't sure he should go on. "When I told you every life I saved by staying on Trenzalore was a victory, it was your life I was talking about. Your life, and your children's, and grandchildren's, and all your generations that could exist if I had the strength to let you go. That was my victory."
"What about your life? Didn't that count?"
He smiled resignedly. "I told you I thought about that every day," he said, and sighed. "And what it would have been like to retire to those watercolors," he admitted softly, making her remember his words right before they'd landed at Trenzalore. "And an endless supply of failed souffles."
She bit her lip because he was talking about the life they might have had, the life neither of them had dared to acknowledge until now.
The Doctor sighed again and looked up, as though the images were playing in front of him. "I wanted that happy life for you, even if I couldn't be in it. So when I'd go up to my roof on Trenzalore, I'd look down at the people in the village, people who grew up, got married, had children, grew old…," he finally faced her, and she could see it was costing him everything to say the words she hadn't even known she needed to hear. "They were all you, Clara, every one. That's what I was protecting. It was why it was so easy to love them."
She gazed at him, feeling the words wash over her, as though some grain of peace was being planted in the dry, parched earth her heart had become.
Her Doctor had loved her. He hadn't just sent her away without a second thought. He'd loved her as she had loved him, and if only the universe had been a bit kinder, they would have had more time to show it to one another. And now, it seemed, all their time had run out, because she knew that the man she had loved really was gone; it was only his echo speaking now.
She knew he was giving her this one last gift, this last time they would ever speak the truth to one another. She took a deep breath and told him what she should have said long, long ago. "I loved you, too," she told him.
The Doctor exhaled slowly, as though he, too, was being overwhelmed with every moment they could have had, back before he'd changed. And then, he smiled, and it was the smile of her doctor as he told her, "Well, of course you did. I was very cool."
Clara laughed and so did he. The tears were drying on her cheeks.
"So what do we do now?" she asked finally, amazed that they still could not bring themselves to touch, even the tiniest bit.
He took a long while replying. When he did, the sound came out like a whisper, as if he was afraid of how the words would affect her. "I can't be him again," he said. "Even if I wanted to."
She felt something inside of her break, and let another tear slide down her cheek. "I know," she said. And she did.
"You're human, and I'm the Doctor and there's only so much we can ever be to one another." He said it as though it was something he'd repeated to himself, daily, hourly, until it had been drilled into his being.
"I know," she told him, because it was no longer her pain that she was trying to lessen, it was his.
He turned sharply, his eyes watching hers, as though he knew exactly what she was doing. "I never want you to hurt, Clara."
For the third time, she told him the truth. "I know."
"It's why I…" he stopped and looked down at his hands, flexing the fingers into fists again. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Does it hurt you to still be here with me?"
Clara found herself smiling, wishing she could hold him. Not like the embraces they'd once had, full of caresses and tender promise and forbidden longing, even from the smallest touches. She wanted to let him lay his weary head in her lap, the way he'd once done as a child, so that she could stroke his hair and drive the demons away. To remind him that she knew he wasn't cruel or cowardly, and that she would always love him for it.
And so she gave him more of the truth she knew he deserved, and needed to hear. "Sometimes it hurts," she said, for there was no point in pretending, now. "But not always. Sometimes, being with you, now," she stopped, and gave him a smile, one that was for the man he was now, "it has its moments."
A light seemed to switch on from behind his eyes, and for a moment, he again looked as though he might pull out a fez and plop it on his head with a manic grin. But then he frowned, as though catching himself. Still, he managed to give her a sardonic smile. "Even though I'm old and cranky?"
"You were always old," she said, grinning. "Even when you looked young."
"Just wasn't cranky, I see," he observed, his eyebrows raising. "Well, that couldn't be helped," he said, and then his face changed as though he'd regretted saying it. She peered at him, and the Doctor sighed. "If I was going to change into a Doctor who might not have Clara Oswald by his side, he'd have to be a man who didn't hope quite as much as the last one."
Her heart squeezed at this unwilling confession, at how much she truly had meant to him, and she finally understood why he had changed so much, on the inside as well as out.
He had made the choice to no longer hope for love, and in doing so, to try and set them both free. Without his love for her, it was a harder, fiercer man that had been left behind. Her Doctor, the one who believed, who spun her around the TARDIS with joy and laughter, had died just as surely as if he'd been human.
But it didn't mean she had to abandon all the parts of him that remained- the parts that still felt fear and uncertainty, that still needed her, even if they no longer loved her.
"You do still have me, though," she said gently, and the Doctor gave her a wan smile.
"For today," he replied, and she felt her heart clench again.
"For as long as you need," she promised him, but he shook his head.
"No, Clara," he said, and this time, he finally touched her, taking her hand. His skin felt rough and thin, much as he was, now. "For as long as you need. Just you, do you understand?"
She nodded slowly. He was looking intently into her eyes, not the way he used to, with wonder and the smallest hint of desire behind the irises, but with something tender she couldn't quite define. It wasn't what they'd had once. But what they had left was something almost as precious. It was devotion, and it was enough.
That was when she knew she'd stay. Once, he had simply done whatever she asked without blinking, like an eager puppy who couldn't bear to disappoint her. But it was different now. He was too afraid of losing control, and hardly ever agreed with anything she said. Now, she'd learned, it was better to just agree with him, and then do what she wanted, anyway. And she was going to stay as long as he needed.
"Yes, Doctor," she said, smiling, then nudged his elbow. "Only no more cracks about me being short."
"You are short," he said stubbornly.
"No, I'm travel-sized," she retorted, wanting to make him smile, as well.
"I'll say whatever I want about your wee legs," he huffed.
"Then I'll say whatever I want about your suit, Dracula" she quipped back, and he shot her a look.
"My suit is…" he stopped and narrowed her eyes at her. "Stylish!"
"It makes you look like a vampire."
"I do not look like a vampire!"
"Fine," she said airily. "Just don't be surprised if Danny and I start wearing turtle-necks, that's all I'm saying."
"You really live up to the name impossible, you know that, right?" he shot back, and Clara smiled.
He hadn't even noticed that he was still holding her hand. But she wouldn't let go of him just yet. She knew part of her would never let go of the man he'd been, whose floppy hair and mischievous grin and warm, electric embraces would always own a small piece of her heart no matter how long or short her life would be.
But she would, for him, try to move on with her life when the time came. It was the least she could do for the man she had loved, the man who no longer existed, and who had given up so much for her sake. Being happy, that would be her last gift to him.
Clara smiled to herself as the Doctor released her hand and started complaining about her tendency to be too short, or too mouthy, or too often not next to him when something interesting was happening. She let him list off her faults, his new favorite activity, and she listened to the sound of the TARDIS, for once, whirring gratefully at her.
- The End-