Present Day - in the Tardis
"Clara, Clara, Clara." The Doctor smiled happily as Clara jogged into the Tardis.
It had been a while since she had seen The Doctor after accepting his invitation at Christmas to see the universe once again. The Wednesday arrangement she had with The Doctor's previous face was all but banished now, as The Doctor came round a lot more because of Clara's recent loss. She was happy that even if Danny Pink was dead and gone, she'd still have a remarkable man in her life, in form of The Doctor.
"Hey, Doc!" Clara skipped over to the console and pecked the old alien on the cheek. She had grown more accustomed to tiny habits like this since the pair realised just how much they needed each other at Christmas.
"Where to today?" She asked, bending over and resting her elbows on the edge of the Tardis' console, her chin on the edge of her small palms.
"Well..." The Doctor began, "I don't know where we should go. Where should we go Clara?"
"Well it's good you asked because I already had somewhere in mind." Clara raised her eyebrows.
"Ah. Okay then, Clara Oswald." The Doctor straightened up and smiled. His thick Scottish lull became faster when he got excited, "Where do you wanna go?"
"Well, I feel all historic all of a sudden," Clara continued, fingers dancing lightly over the controls as she circles the console.
The Doctor's face fell and his silvery eyebrows suddenly became very prominent.
"No, no. Not a repeat of Laughy McLaughlin of the tree kingdom and his Sniggering Sidekicks!" The Doctor shook his head firmly and pointed a bony finger down at Clara as he protested.
Clara sighed and rolled her eyes. "Oh come on, Doctor. I haven't even said where I wanna go yet!"
"Fine," The Doctor sulked and repeated his first question.
"Where'd you wanna go, then?"
"Well I've always liked the 50s..."
"So..." The Doctor nodded, urging Clara to continue.
"So," Clara continued smiling, "Take me to 1950s... Somewhere like America."
"Not too bad a suggestion." The Doctor said, raising a brow. "Funny story, I tried to take Rose to 1950s America once. That was my tenth face, wore a really tight suit, ended up in London, as per usual..."
"Doctor." Clara sighed, sensing the beginning of a rambling session, unique to only his eleventh incarnation so long ago.
"...the TV's, like, sucked peoples' faces off. Like through the screen... Put me off Eastenders for a year..."
"Doctor." Clara tried to interrupt again, but to no avail.
"...it was actually your Elizabeth II's coronation day. Everyone bought a TV to watch it, so just must imagine how hectic of a schedule that was for me..."
"Doctor..."
"They even got poor Rose's face, but I fixed it... I did, didn't I? 'Cuz I fix things... I'm a fixer-upper..." he popped the p's excitedly, "The Doctor, master of fixing things..."
Clara had had enough of this alien's ever expanding ego problems, "DOCTOR!"
The old alien, lost in his thoughts quickly snapped his head round, and raised his silvery eyebrows.
"Oh sorry, yes Clara?"
"Just press the stupid button," Clara groaned in exasperation.
"Hey, nothing on this ship is stupid! You planet of the pudding brains create an appliance that burns bread and think you're so high and mighty." The Doctor scowled. "Call me back when you creatures find a way to make a time AND space travel machine that GROWS ITSELF!" The Doctor made short and snappy gestures with his arms to punctuate his sentence. He then pushed the button that turned on the engines as the rotors on the ceiling spun rhythmically. After stabbing in some coordinates, The Doctor shut the keyboard with a flourish.
"Whatever, Doctor. I'm gonna see what outfit the Tardis has picked for me." With that Clara left the room in pursuit of her wardrobe.
Once Clara was no longer in view, and the click of her heeled boots had become distant, The Doctor muttered to himself, "Pudding brains..."
To his surprise, Clara's petite form emerged from the entrance to the console room.
"I heard that," she said with narrowed eyes and stared at The Doctor for a few seconds, watching his face go red from embarrassment and fear. His eyebrows were climbing into his hairline as his lips formed an 'o' of surprise.
Smirking, Clara turned on her heel and made her way back to her room on the Tardis.
"We aren't all pudding brains, y'know..."
The grey Scotsman couldn't help giving in as a smile tickled his lips and sent the corners pointing upwards.
"No, Clara Oswald, you aren't..."
It was banterous moments like these in which The Doctor couldn't help but smile as he thought about his impossible girl. Ever since he had met his companion he had forced himself to run away from his feelings, hiding them in and masking them with his sheer curiosity of her mystery. After him and Clara had both figured out just how significant she was to him, their bond had grown stronger into something almost unbreakable, but The Doctor still couldn't bring himself to open his heart to another companion, only to lose them so cruelly like many friendships - and even relationships - he had to let go of before. And then when he couldn't hold in his emotions any longer it became too late. He was a dying man in the last minutes of a war that had taken up his entire lifetime on a planet named Trenzalore, letting go of Clara and accepting defeat. But then Clara, that ever shining glimmer of hope, the impossible girl, did the impossible yet again. The girl who saved him time and time again saved him at Christmas, spoke to the Time Lords who granted her wishes to give him life. Additional lives to surpass the old regeneration cycle that was ending for The Doctor.
But of course, that had come at a cost. He knew it would. And he had to accept that it would be that way, a Time Lord would know that better than anyone: he had to change. His life, his feelings, would stay the same, but his face, his whole personality... would be rewritten. He would be a different man to Clara and to himself and he couldn't deal with it. The Doctor didn't even expect to get such an old angry face this time around, his personality matching, and his steely exterior was impenetrable. Except to Clara, who always found a way into his thoughts and his heart and he knew that even though he had a new body, those feelings towards her did not and would never change and he hoped with both his hearts that she felt the same. Because before his regeneration, he had seen it when he looked adoringly into those big, shiny, brown orbs of hers, he saw that emotion being reciprocated.
The joy of each other's company swirling around the room. And whenever he had hugged her, they would melt into each other and time would stop around them as they clung desperately to each other's every being. But that was taken away from them cruelly, with a life lost, despite a new one gained.
And then there had been Danny Pink.
The soldier that had loved Clara and had made sacrifices just to make sure Clara was okay, that she was happy. He was the man that The Doctor could never be, the person that could give Clara a life The Doctor would never be able to give her. But on that fateful day, when The Master had emerged from the shadows, after thousands of years, Danny was taken from Clara in the most mundane way possible, yet resulting in something far worse: watching the one you love suffering against their will and being controlled. But Danny Pink, being the soldier he was, of course, defied that and lived for Clara 'til the very end.
This left The Doctor that responsibility to be Clara's shoulder to cry on. He could offer her the universe, even if he couldn't offer her his hearts, as it would always end badly that way. He would be there for Clara, to show her just how similar he was to the man she first met.
"Penny for your thoughts?" Clara smirked and tilted her head as she re-entered the room. "How do I look?"
It only took seconds for The Doctor to register the beautiful way Clara's brunette locks curled in a never-ending spiral up to her shoulders and her red and navy blue skater dress fell just above her ankles. The look was finished off with black and white Converse and frilly white socks.
The Doctor ducked underneath the console and swallowed his lovestruck grin, to replace it with furrowed eyebrows and a low growl.
"I've seen better looking Zygons."
Clara feigned offence before The Doctor continued with a wave of his hands, "And they take the appearance of other people..."
Clara sighed and rolled her brown eyes, "Thanks skeleton man."
For a few seconds, The Doctor looked about expectantly, "So can we go now or...?"
"Sur-." Clara replied shortly but was stopped when there were two seemingly apprehensive knocks on the door.
"Huh?" The Doctor frowned in confusion. "I swear I fixed the chameleon circuit ages ago, how can someone see the Tardis?"
He beckoned Clara over as he sauntered to the doors, quizzical expression on his face.
"Let's see who it is the-"
The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis and froze when he came face to face with something impossible in the glow of the moonlight.