Never Again

After the events on the moon, Clara is finished with the Doctor and vows to never talk to him again. Danny, however, encourages her to follow her heart and do what she actually wants to do. Set between the events of Kill the Moon and Mummy on the Orient Express.

"I'm done, I'm done! I am finished with it. I am… I'm done!" Clara almost yelled at Danny as she was pacing the floor in front of him, hoping that if she said it loud enough and often enough, she would finally convince herself as well. "It's over. I'm finished with him and I told him that."

Looking at Danny for reassurance, she found a strange expression on his face. At this stage, after everything she had told him, Clara had hoped for relief or compassion or anything - but not the look he was actually giving her, a look that said he didn't believe a single word of it. Right now, she hated him a little for that look.

"You're never finished with anyone while they can still make you angry," Danny said with a hint of a smile on his lips. That smile, that knowing smile - Clara wanted to wipe it from his face, but she refused to give in to her anger. Danny had nothing to do with it. It was the Doctor she was angry at, no, furious.

Her boyfriend knew her too well and he could tell exactly what was going through her mind, a thought that made Clara want to burst into tears. She had just said goodbye to someone who used to be her best friend. More than that, she had said goodbye to someone she had once been in love with. It took her a moment to realise that she had lost the Doctor, her Doctor a long time ago. The Doctor, whoever he was now, was not her best friend any longer and she certainly wasn't in love with him. Given a suitable weapon, Clara was more likely to murder him than anything else.

Maybe there was a truth in what Danny was saying because Clara struggled to ban the thoughts about the Doctor from her mind even now, even after everything he had done, but she refused to admit that he was right.

"No, I'm done," she reiterated right before the tears started running down her cheeks and she flung her arms around Danny's neck. She was done with the Doctor.

"Have you called him yet?"

Clara turned her head away from the window and focused on Danny again. The noise of the café had annoyed her to the point that she had felt the need to zone out for a moment and let her thoughts wander and apparently, Danny had noticed. Next time, she would ask him to find a less busy café even if it meant walking a little further.

"I'm sorry, I was just thinking about work. You were saying?" she asked and lifted her coffee cup to have a sip. Somehow, the beverage had turned cold already.

To her surprise, Danny chuckled. "No, you weren't," he said and Clara felt as if she had been caught. "You were looking at that old police box across the road and wondering what your friend is up at the moment."

"He's not my friend anymore," Clara retorted, her voice sharper than she had intended.

"So you admit that you've been thinking about him?" her boyfriend asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at her.

With a clang, Clara put her cup back down and it made a noise as it hit the saucer. "I will not have that conversation in a café."

"You refuse to have that conversation no matter where we are!" Danny argued loudly. There was no anger in his voice, but Clara could feel that he had been sitting on it for quite some time. "It's been two weeks since you came back from a trip and started sobbing in your classroom. I think it's time you called him to talk about it because it's obviously still bothering you."

"Of course it's still bothering me!" she barked back at him, not caring that anyone else in the café heard it. If Danny was dead set on talking about it, then who was she to deny him the argument? "He did something utterly horrible and yes, I'm still mad, especially because he never apologised!"

"If that's what you want, an apology, then call him and demand one!" Danny said determinedly. He leaned forward a little to look her in the eyes and even made a move to reach for her hand, but Clara pulled it away before he had a chance to reach it. "He owes you one."

"Damn right he does!" Clara yelled in response. "So he has to call."

Once again, Danny's eyebrows were raised. "You told him to go away."

She had. She had done that. It was her own fault that the Doctor would forever owe her an apology because she would never be the one to pick up the phone and call him. Clara would rather take this anger to her grave than to be the one to call first.

When she realised that the people around them were beginning to stare, Clara knew that she had had enough. Angrily, she reached for her purse and jacket and rose from her seat.

"That's his problem, not mine!" she announced and stormed out of the establishment.

"Hey Danny," Clara greeted him sweetly. She tucked the phone under her cheek as she unpacked the groceries, but she still couldn't wait to give him the good news. "I just came home from the shop and I bought all the ingredients for your favourite meal."

"Oh?" Danny asked back and she could tell by the tone of his voice that he was still mad at her - and rightly so.

To be fair, a part of it was his fault because by now, Danny should know. He should know that she didn't want to talk about the Doctor and yet he kept bringing it up in the most inappropriate moments like during their lunch break or on the way home from the cinema. Last night, he had mentioned it during their Saturday night movie date and of course, it had turned into another fight, one Clara was now ready to apologise for.

"Yes," she said with a sight. "I'm sorry about the way I acted last night and I want to make it up to you. So instead of Saturday movie night, we can have Sunday lunch with pot roast. What do you say?"

The silence on the other end of the line was almost deafening and from his hesitation, Clara could tell that he wasn't quite ready to accept her apology yet.

"I might even throw in a soufflé," she added sheepishly. Danny had never been able to resist a soufflé.

"I'm sorry, Clara, but I think you've got something else on your schedule for today. I wouldn't want to get in the way of that," he replied.

Clara frowned, not understanding what he was talking about. "No, I don't. It's Sunday. No one has plans on Sundays."

"Yes, you have plans. You're going to call the Doctor."

As soon as he said the words, Clara realised that she should have seen it coming. Why hadn't she? She uttered a groan at her own inability to read her boyfriend's mood. "I don't know how many time I have to tell you-"

"Stop it, Clara!" Danny suddenly barked at her and the sharpness of his voice took her by surprise and made her flinch. "You have to call him. It's been a month and you're still angry. You two need to talk and I won't go on another date with you or come around for dinner until you do."

"Danny-" Clara attempted to say, but her boyfriend didn't let her finish.

"I know it hurts your pride to call him, but that knobhead probably feels the exact same way. You know I don't like the guy one bit, especially not after the way he treated you, but he meant a lot to you and this anger you're harbouring right now is starting to hurt us."

Clara opened her mouth to protest, but she decided to keep her thoughts to herself when she realised that, of course, Danny was right. She hated to admit it and to hear these words from him cut deep, but he was right. Danny was always right. Well, almost.

"I don't even know if he's going to answer his phone," Clara protested. "Sometimes he doesn't answer for weeks."

"Then I guess we won't see each other for a while."

"Danny, please-"

"Talk to him," he repeated sternly. "Call him. Yell at him. Tell him exactly what you think of him. Try to settle the matter. Stop thinking about your wounded pride and start thinking about what this could do to us if you keep having a go at me every time I so much as mention a police box."

Clara replied with a sigh, knowing that she couldn't postpone the phone call any longer even though she would have preferred a quiet Sunday with Danny instead.

"Now hang up on me and call him," Danny told her.

"Fine," Clara hissed in response. "Speak to you after."

When her phone call with Danny had ended, Clara stared at the device in her hands for a long moment. She even considered lying to Danny and making up a story of how he had apologised and how she would never see the Doctor again, but she knew that her boyfriend wouldn't buy that in a million years. Danny was too smart for that. Not seeing another way out of this dilemma, Clara opened her list of contacts and called the Doctor.

As soon as she heard the dial tone, however, Clara's heart suddenly started to beat a lot faster and her hand was shaking a little as she withdrew the phone from her ear and hit the red button. She wasn't ready. She hadn't prepared a speech. She had no idea what to say to the Doctor.

Determined to wait until her heart rate returned to normal, Clara put down the phone, but it didn't take long until it started to play a familiar melody and the photo of a stick insect popped up on her display.

The Doctor was calling her.

The Doctor was calling her and Clara just kept on staring at the phone, unable to move her hand to pick up. She wasn't ready.

Of course, Danny asked her about it the following Monday and Clara found herself lying right into his face once again.

"Like I said, he didn't pick up," Clara replied with a shrug. "He's probably out on a moon somewhere with no reception."

"He lives in a phone box! He's the definition of a mobile phone!" Danny argued, but Clara had already turned around and left him on the corridor where a couple of students gave him some odd looks.

Clara knew that there was a word for what she was, for what she was doing and that word was 'coward'. By now, four weeks after she had parted ways with the Doctor, it wasn't so much the anger that held her back even though it was still part of the reason. Because her anger was starting to fade and that was something Clara couldn't let happen. Was she still mad? Yes, she absolutely was. But what if he was nice to her and offered to pick her up for another fantastic trip? Would Clara have the strength to say no to all of time and space?

When Clara got home after a long day at school, her first instinct was to call Danny and ask him to stop by for a relaxing evening, but as she remembered the recent conversations, Clara knew that it wasn't likely to happen. Not until she had spoken to the Doctor. Her head immediately started to make excuses again: she was tired after a long day, the timing was bad, the Doctor probably wouldn't pick up anyway. But that was all they were, excuses, and at some point, Clara would have to suck it up and call him. She decided that it was now or never and picked up the phone.

The dial tone sounded just as impatient as she felt and the Doctor took a very long time to answer her call, but when he picked up, his rough, Scottish tone almost startled her even though it was gentle in comparison to their last conversation.

"Clara?" he asked carefully. "Did you, um, did you sit on your phone or-"

"We need to talk," Clara blurted out, eager to get it over with. Whatever happened, whatever turn this conversation was about to take, she would not accept any kind of offer from him. She would not step back into that blue box ever again. It was something Clara needed to remind herself of.

The Doctor cleared his throat on the other end of the line. "Uh, sure. I hear the weather in London is nice. Not that I know for sure because I'm certainly not there right now. I'm on Tivoli. Dreadful place. They tricked me into enslaving them and now I'm sort of king because I overthrew their master. But I heard the London forecast was sun-"

"Shut up, Doctor," Clara hissed impatiently and then drew in a long breath. They needed to talk about what had happened on the moon. They needed to talk about their fight. And above all: "I need an apology."

There was a long pause from the Doctor and for a moment, Clara thought she would never hear the words she needed to hear. She knew the Doctor very well even though she claimed that this new version was foreign to her, but if she understood one thing about him, it was his pride. He swallowed first, but his reply came more hesitant.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, his voice suddenly very quiet and small, very much unlike him. "What I did on the moon, that, um, that was uncalled for."

"You think?!" Uncalled for were not the words Clara would have used. Maybe he still didn't understand it.

The Doctor inhaled sharply and she could hear his breathing through the phone. "I was trying to make you see what it's like for me, choosing, always being in charge, making the decisions-"

"Are you still trying to justify what you did?!" Clara barked at him in response. She couldn't believe it. She couldn't believe that he still didn't know.

"I, uh-" he broke off, sighing. "No. I'm sorry."

This time, it sounded sincere and even though he might not fully understand the extent of her anger yet, it was definitely a start. At the very least, the Doctor knew that he had hurt her and he felt sorry.

"I want to make it up to you," the Doctor suddenly continued. The reluctance had left his voice now and he sounded almost excited. "I received an invitation to the Orient Express, I mean, the one in space. It's amazing. Perfect replica of the original Orient Express. Takes you all across the galaxy and from the windows, you're supposed to see all the wonders of space. What do you say?"

For a moment, Clara allowed herself to picture it. A train that went through space, a beautiful interior, nice guests, a couple of days off. She could really use a holiday after the day she had had. But then Clara remembered her vow, she remembered what she had sworn to herself: that she would never travel with the Doctor again no matter how tempting he made it sound.

"Clara?"

She sighed audibly. "I can't," Clara admitted not without a hint of regret. "That last trip, it showed me that I can't do this anymore. I can't travel with you. It's been wonderful and despite our fight, I'm grateful that you chose me out of every human on this planet. I've seen so many beautiful and terrible things, more than most people ever will and I will never forget that. Thank you for that."

"So, uh, you don't want to come?" the Doctor asked carefully. "Not even for one last trip?"

Clara's fingers were itching, her stomach was turning over with excitement and every cell in her body wanted to accept, wanted to see the Orient Express in space. She only just managed to suppress the urge to agree because she knew what would happen. Either the trip would be terrible, the Doctor would be rude and she would regret her decision five minutes after stepping inside that box - or, and that option was even worse, she would love it. She would love it so much that she would never find the courage to leave. That was what frightened Clara the most because despite the dangers, despite the way the Doctor sometimes treated her and other people, she loved it. Clara loved the thrill, the adventure, the dangers, the only just escaping with her life and if she didn't quit now, she knew that one day, Danny would wait for her in vain because she would not come home. Clara knew about the Doctor's other friends, his companions, and so far, it hadn't scared her so very much. Now that she had Danny, her boyfriend, her anchor, she knew that the worst thing that could happen to him was losing her. If she continued to travel with the Doctor, she was afraid that one day, she would die or get lost and she couldn't do that to Danny.

"I can't," Clara replied. "But send me a postcard from space, will you?"

She waited for the Doctor to respond, but when he didn't reply even after a minute, Clara hung up. After receiving the apology she had wanted, Clara thought she would feel relief or happiness or some kind of other feeling normal people felt after closing a chapter of their life, but she felt no such thing. The only thing Clara really felt was a nagging idea of what if…

"You're very quiet today," Danny noted and Clara instantly realised that she had been pushing her food from one side of the plate to the other instead of actually eating it. She wasn't particularly hungry because her thoughts were miles away, somewhere out in space, wondering whether the Doctor had already left for the Orient Express. "I thought you talked to the Doctor?"

"I did," Clara admitted with a sigh. "I got my apology and that's it."

Danny arched up his eyebrows curiously, waiting for her to continue. He knew exactly that she hadn't told him the entire story.

"Alright, fine, he offered me one last trip," Clara finally confessed. She reached for her wine glass and took a sip, hoping that her boyfriend would finally drop the matter.

"Where to?"

"I'm sorry?"

Danny chuckled. "Where does he want to take you?" he asked and to her surprise, he sounded neither mad nor particularly surprised.

Clara uttered a soft groan. "The Orient Express. In space. But I told him I'm not going."

"Why not? It sounds like a wonderful trip."

Once Danny's words had sunk in properly, Clara started to frown at him. "Excuse me, but you're making it sound like you actually want me to go?"

To her surprise, Danny nodded. "If you want to go, then go. I mean, it's the Orient Express. I didn't think you would say no to that."

Finally, Clara placed her cutlery aside, knowing that they wouldn't eat before they had finished this conversation and it really wasn't helping her appetite. "You don't like the Doctor. You said all those horrible things about him. You encouraged me to leave when I thought I couldn't handle it anymore and now you want me to go back just because he was nice on the phone?!"

His laugh was soft when he reached for her hand across the table and squeezed it gently. "Just because I don't like him doesn't mean you can't. I mean, you've been friends for a long time and you didn't exactly get to say goodbye properly. Don't get me wrong, I hate the idea of you running off with another man, especially because those things you told me about sound like they're very dangerous and I worry about you. But the Orient Express sounds harmless enough. Maybe that would be your chance to have one last adventure."

Still, Clara continued to frown at him. Why was he encouraging her when she had only just managed to decline the Doctor's offer, something she had done for Danny?

"He offered to do something nice which was probably meant as an apology. And a train in space, I mean, how dangerous can that be?" Danny asked, chuckling.

Clara hated to admit that he was right. It was the Doctor's way of apologising and making it up to her. Maybe it was what she needed. One last hurrah. A proper goodbye to close that chapter. Maybe that was why she still couldn't move forward with her life.

To her surprise, Danny let go of her hand and instead reached for her phone that she had placed on the edge of the table. He handed it to her with a smile.

"Call the Doctor," Danny told her. "Tell him you're going. I know you want to."

Clara tried very hard not to, but she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face as she unlocked the screen and typed a message.

"I changed my mind. Let's go see the Orient Express."

When Clara returned home from the restaurant and stepped into her flat, she felt a sense of accomplishment. Even though the Doctor hadn't replied to her message yet, she just knew that she had one last adventure to look forward to and finally, she could admit to herself what she had been trying not to over the past few weeks: that she had missed it. Clara had missed the sight of the blue box, the particular smell of metal and old books from the console room, the sound of the TARDIS taking off, the thrill of adventure that made itself known in her pulse. She had missed looking into the Doctor's silly face and suddenly, she felt her heart brimming over with joy at the prospect of experiencing it all again so soon.

However, there was something odd about her flat this evening, something that wasn't quite right, something out of the ordinary. Clara couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she felt it like a light wind on her skin, a soft tingling and a smell that hung in the air which wasn't her own.

She recognised it only when she stepped into her bedroom and her eyes fell on the dress that hung outside her wardrobe, a dress that hadn't been there when she had left for her date with Danny. It couldn't have been there because there was no way Clara could afford such a magnificent piece of clothing on a teacher's salary, so she knew it must have come from the TARDIS wardrobe. As she stepped closer and trailed her hand over the detailed beadwork, she spotted the note attached to the hanger.

To our last hurrah. Pick you up on Wednesday.

The Doctor

Clara smiled to herself and she could feel her heart skip a beat when she realised that Wednesday couldn't come soon enough.

"To our last hurrah," Clara whispered, smiling to herself as she vowed that this time would really be the last time. And she was going to enjoy every minute of it.