A/N: Just to clear up the timeline of this story for anyone who may not have caught it: Clara was twenty-four when she caught the Doctor. Three years before that, the Doctor took Oswin to the beach as a twenty-one-year-old. Four years before that, they met in the cemetery. We'll switch to present tense at the end of the story.


Chapter Two: Confess

1696 words


Oswin

Oswin was in a better disposition to create conversation off of that impression rather than her awkward, stumbling apology, so she did. They sat down on the bench in the park across the road and learned about one another. The more they learned, they more they wanted to learn about the other person. She liked English; he liked Science. She liked police siren red - he liked deep, deep, deep blue. The bluest blue she'd ever seen in her life. When her father called her home, she couldn't help but feel disappointed, even as she smiled at her new friend and said that it was a pleasure to have met him.

She waltzed into the house with her usual bright smile, making it her mission to cheer up her grumpy old man.


Clara

Clara would tell you herself that she had led a relatively nondescript life until she turned twenty-one. That was when she made the unprecedented move of enrolling in two years of training to become a police officer with the City of London Police. Yes, she did turn out to be one of two females out of how many hundred males that made it through to be an actual officer, but she didn't mind. They all discovered in their own time why you shouldn't mess with a skinny little brunette who likes to bake soufflés (or tries to; but no one quite had the heart to tell her to give up).

She was your perfectly ordinary extraordinary woman. Catching the Doctor was just the icing on her proverbial cake (she wasn't going to be trying her hand at those anytime soon after last year's Christmas delight).

The Doctor grinned at her across the table, almost as if he could read her thoughts. "Prison doesn't scare me now. I know I deserve it," he said with more confidence than he had. "I know even your kid apprentices think I deserve it. I do, I really do. I just want you to know, even now that it's too late, that I never on my life thought it would turn out this way."

Clara had taken in Angie and Artie, brother and sister, after they were let out of juvenile detention for a small shoplifting stint, as her apprentices. Artie was still tagged with a GPS tracker, but Angie had served long enough to be rid of hers. She loved the job anyway, so she wouldn't run away if she could. No doubt Artie had taken a fancy to the eccentric Doctor. Who wouldn't? She mentally slapped herself again. No emotional attachments, just talk. "Enough of that," Clara began sternly. "You have already been informed of your convictions. Do you wish to plead guilty or innocent?" He looked down at his shoes quite sadly, and shook his head. "Just give me the paper, I'll plead guilty and maybe... we can be done with this," he murmured. Angie stared at him doubtfully through the CCTV monitor. "That's bulldust," she whispered viciously. Artie shrugged.

"I don't know, he looks pretty sad..."

"You know what your weakness is? You always take pity on the wrong ones. Honestly, just listen to Clara and detach yourself. Criminals are not your mates."

Artie pouted sorely at his older sister. "Alright!" he snapped. "I'm not five. But look at him, Angie. Look at what he's doing. He's led a life of crime and drug-induced mistakes that he'll probably regret for the rest of his days. Of course he's pleading guilty. Just look at his face."

Angie pursed her lips, but nodded. "I suppose you have a point. Everyone he's ever loved has either thrown themselves off a cliff, died or he's killed them for one reason or another. But we'll find out soon. Clara's a good interrogator." Artie nodded enthusiastically at that statement. Clara was the kind of woman who could make you confess nicking a lollipop from your aunt as a child.


Oswin

It was six months with John when he told her why he was called the Doctor. And really, it made too much sense. He was in the inner circle of an illegal drug ring that stretched across the UK. He wouldn't reveal how or even why he got into it in the first place, but he did tell her this: they were called the Time Lords for the specific kind of LSD they sold. One pill and you're dreaming of a future (or a past) that you could never have. Sometimes their customers would take so many that those little trips blurred into their lives, a world of fantasy bleeding its sadly false wonder into the mundane reality of the every day. He had 'tested' the pills for them many times, rendering his imagination somewhat boundless. Every now and then he would slip up a little on a memory, trying to convince her that they'd been able to go back in time to change the future. Oswin loved him and all his silly habits too much to persuade him differently. So when he said he'd given up working with the Time Lords, she believed him.


Clara

Clara raised both her eyebrows in disbelief. "Really?" she asked incredulously. The Doctor grinned at her across the table, eyes full of a hope that shouldn't be there. "W... well," she stuttered, "I suppose we have to hear your story anyway. Start from the very beginning." He continued to stare at her, totally enraptured by her iron manner, eyes twinkling away like a young star. "That's a very good place to start," he replied smoothly, not breaking eye contact. Clara rolled her eyes and chose to ignore the childish The Sound of Music reference.

"You see, it all started with an old friend of mine named Amelia Pond - girl with ginger hair and a name taken straight out of a fairy tale..."


Oswin

John shuffled excitedly in his position on the park bench next to her, and squeezed her shoulder in earnest. "So then I told him," he continued breathlessly, "to bugger right off! Just like that, eh?"

She grinned at him nervously. "Just like that," Oswin chirped, resisting the urge to roll her eyes at her boyfriend, too good-looking for his own good. He'd made up another story about travelling back in time in a – a blue 1960's police box, of all things, really – and defeated some kind of evil villain of his imagination. She snuggled into his shoulder, ignoring the thoughts in her head. He loved her, and she loved him. And that was all that should matter. The birds in the tree overhead seemed to tweet delightfully in agreement. Actually, she didn't mind too much that half of what he told her was drug-induced nonsense. It was kind of endearing, really. It was what made him so unique in this world of uniformity and theatrics.


Clara

She nodded sharply, breaking her reverie of staring into his ancient green-gold eyes. "Continue," said she in barely a whisper.

"She was really beautiful, you know. All fiery, silky hair to match her persona; Scottish, too. Lovely accent. I love Scottish people. Anyway, we met when we were kids, and as we grew up, she started to notice a boy called Rory. Delightful fellow, really, quite the nose, he had. Like a real Roman! Rory the Roman, we called him. Wonderfully alliterative..."

Clara didn't have her usual confidence to tell him to cut to the chase, and let him continue babbling.

"Anyway, he started taking a fancy to her. Awkward, since I clearly was the one she was after. I don't know; we were fifteen. She kissed me and then I ran pretty far away from her. So my beautiful Amelia – Amy, as she had started to call herself at that point – finally asked out Rory, presumably for texting and scones, or whatever they did back then. Young people things, I suppose. Not that I didn't do them too. But that year, Rory told me he wanted to try something. He was horribly nervous about it, so I agreed to look at whatever it was with him. Oh dear, you must be thinking. Rory the Roman, afraid? His uncle, not much of a man really, so many transplants that there was hardly anything left of the original him. We called him a Patchwork Person. Well, I did, he just sort of laughed nervously. Back to the point - Uncle had given him two special little pills. He'd said that Amy would love him if he took them, but naturally, he was afraid. So we both took one together. He was so afraid of what his mother would think if she found out. Timid chap, our Rory."

He stopped to inhale sharply. The memories were painful for him. Clara placed her hand over his in a rare act of sympathy, encouraging him silently to continue. Angie frowned at the monitor. "What the bloomin' heck is that woman doing?" the young policewoman-in-training scowled at no one in particular. Artie shrugged in response. The Doctor opened his mouth to continue, but nothing came out, just an empty choking noise. He shut his mouth in surprise, frowning at himself in confusion. "I..." he whispered, tears pooling in his eyes, "I... Clara, I can't... I don't know why..."

Clara's heart broke for him in that moment, and before she knew it, she had crossed the half metre's distance between them and wrapped herself around his muscled torso in a quiet embrace.