Author's Note:
Thank you so much for your feedback everyone, I really appreciate the reviews! Please please continue, I absolutely love to read what you think of the stories.
Just an update on my updating, I recently took on another job so I may not be able to update every day like I have been. I will keep updating very regularly, just perhaps not every day. I did appreciate the concerned messages I received from some of my readers, but unless it's been a few weeks since I've updated I promise I'm still okay.
Thank you guys and happy reading!
How To: Survive the Worst
Traveling with the Doctor was a dangerous game to play. It was a game of liars and cheaters, of perilous consequences and very little rules. But oh, how Clara loved to play that game. She loved to run with him, to hide and plan and cleverly save world after world. She loved to watch his eyes light up when the final piece of the puzzle clicked. She loved to watch his smile ('that beautiful broad smile—') spread across his face. His smile, the one that could warm a freezing room or send the most delightful shivers down Clara's spine. She lived for that smile. She played this dangerous game just so she could follow that smile.
But sometimes they lost that dangerous game. Sometimes the days were dark and the Tardis quiet. Those dark days were the ones that broke Clara's heart the most. The days where the Doctor didn't smile. ('On the days where he was the loneliest creature in all space and time,' Clara would think with a frown. 'The days that break him.')
(He had been silent for hours. The Doctor sat on the floor of the Tardis, his legs hanging off the side with the doors open. Below him, a great ball of fire was burning; a planet turning to ash. The Doctor had been watching it for near three hours, just sitting there with a blank expression as the planet smoldered beneath him.
Clara had sat beside him a while ago, but she doubted he noticed her there. He just stared at the inferno with wet eyes and his jaw locked. Twice Clara looked over at him and leaned forward just a little, just to see his eyes. How sad they seemed, and how lonely.
"The last time I was here I was in the Garden of Words. The trees actually communicate; they could speak to you and tell you the most amazing stories. Incredibly old stories, so much older than the earth. Older than so many earths. And the fragrance they gave off, the most incredible thing, the air always smelled like your favorite scent. The last time I was here it smelled vaguely of mint and jelly babies," the Doctor spoke with a sad affection. He did not smile at the memory, but instead pursed his lips as he tried to will the tears that were steadily slipping down his cheeks away. "They're all gone now. The garden, the trees, the air…all gone."
Clara could not bear the sadness in his eyes. She smoothed a hand through his hair before she wrapped her arms around him and held him tightly. The Doctor made no moves at first, but eventually he lowered his head to bury his nose in the crook of her neck. The warmth there and her closeness comforted him.
"A wise man once told me nothing is ever truly gone," Clara whispered as she ran her fingers through his hair, "but everything has an end."
The Doctor moved to wrap one arm around her, fingers splayed at the base of her neck. He held her close just to keep her with him.
"Not everything," the Doctor cried quietly into her shoulder. "Not always.")
