A quick drabble after the new episode!
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They were one in the same.
Always were, always are, always will be. A thief and his box. A box and her thief. If destiny truly existed they would be a prime example. They were constant companions for each other while everyone else came and went.
They were both old and past their prime, built on memories and driven by sheer force of will and time and all it encompassed. They were both the last of their kinds. They could remember when Time Lord was plural and TARDIS didn't have a "the" in front, for it was just a ship. A simple ship.
But they chose to forget those things.
They were one in the same. Where one ended the other began. When he was a mess and in danger of becoming nothing more than the broken edges of a man, she was standing tall and firm and the bluest blue you could ever see. And when she was at her wit's end, nearly dead or on fire, he was young and vibrant and clever. They saved each other, always had. It was a bad habit of the two of them, to keep themselves going for one another.
But habits were breakable things.
And right now he was broken. His mind was broken, his memories. The brothers were dead, too slow to outrun time. Clara knew things now. There were no secrets to hide him, he was all the same as the fast talking molds of flesh he had become accustomed around: vulnerable.
He was vulnerable, yet again, and looking at the fragments suspended all around him, he knew there was no chance that she could be strong.
She has been a constant rock before now brought to shards, barely holding on. The balance was out of order. Where one side should've been raised to accommodate for the weight of the other, there was an even greater amount of force. The scales had been snapped in two.
("She's just always been there for me and taken care of me...")
("My TARDIS?")
("My Doctor!")
(" I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough.")
And although things would be set right in the end, it would just be a cover to protect their secrets, of events that had happened but then didn't. They were shells, looking magnificent and beautiful on the outside but among all of that they were fragile. Because even if they stood tall for each other and even if they conquered worlds, even if one was man and one was machine, it didn't matter. Even if the cosmos shuddered and their names, even if one carried the other, even if one could talk and touch and the other was stoic and silent, it didn't matter.
Because at their core, at their center, they were the same.
They were broken.