Thank you all guys for the comments and kind words. You are really very welcomed!
And again, thanks to misswinterseat for her help and support.
Chapter 4 - I just wanna hold you when you're not enough
Things are confused. Hearts are aching and heads spinning. There are secrets that need to come to surface and a path to healing can be finally emerged from the shadows of a broken heart.
He kisses her. Her lips are soft and taste like spring and wine and peppermint. And for once in a long time, he feels complete. Whole. Clara is his everything and he doesn't need anything else in the Universe. Her hand is on his chest and he can feel the warm touch of her fingerprints even over the fabric of his shirt.
Behind his closed eyes, he sees a soft dance of colorful lights. It is slow and gentle and embraces him, surrounds him and strangely, gets into his mind. There is a rush of different emotions running through him and somewhat he knows it isn't his.
Longing. Passion. Love.
Faded images. Silvery locks. Blue eyes. Fierce eyebrows. The Doctor. Him. His lips. His smile. Heartbeats. Things start to quicken, lights pulsing faster, a spiral of images and hushed sounds take over his mind. The Doctor and everything he is. Planets and books and ancient mysteries. Burning galaxies and rising suns. Danger. Thrill.
Life.
Time.
Images and feelings now explode in his mind. Darkness. Denial. Hurt. Anger.
Light.
Love.
So much love and hurt. It hurts him.
His laughter. Her laughter. Him. Them.
Love.
Fear. Regret.
Everything runs faster and faster, hitting his mind and body like a succession of electric shockwaves. It's overwhelming and he is desperate because he wants it to stop, but doesn't know how. It's too loud. Too quick. Too much.
He wants to cry out for help, but he has no voice or enough air in his lungs. The world is spinning out of control and he doesn't know where he is anymore. His entire body aches and his brain seems that might explode at any moment now.
Then, things finally start to slow down until, everything just fades away. Now, there is only darkness and silence and a dull ache in the back of his mind.
When he finally comes back to his senses, he is lying on the floor and Clara is not there anymore. He runs a hand over his face, trying to understand what just happened, how and why all those images and feelings had just invaded his mind and took control on him.
But that's not all. Somehow he knows she regrets the kiss. And this is the thing that troubles him the most and burns inside his hearts. But he can't think about that right now, his head hurts too much and there is this buzz in the back of his mind, like a faint whisper, calling him, coercing him to stand up and walk to the back of the house. To the creek. No. Not to the creek. To the blue box.
He must go there. He needs to get inside the damaged ship, which some part of his mind knows it will be impossible since she is locked. He shakes his head, but it is useless, the urge is still there, burning him from inside. And so he does it.
He feels so very tired and sick and struggles to get onto his feet. His head throbs with each step, but he keeps walking until he gets to the place where they keep the blue box hidden, under a cover of tree branches and leaves. He closes his eyes for a moment, the calling seems stronger now that he is close to the box, and keeps telling him to push the door open, to get inside. In a last effort, he removes branches enough to uncover the door and pushes it.
Mostly for his surprise, the door opens with a low creak and he tumbles inside, grasping at a handrail for support. It is dark and cold and so very quiet in there. A faint warm, that somewhat seems familiar, welcomes him and he feels embraced, caressed while the low whisper in the back of his mind soothes his fears and eases his pain.
It is comforting and peaceful and warm. Like home.
He opens his eyes and needs to blink once, twice until the blurred images come into focus. It's quite dark where he is, except for the faint blue light that glimmers in the room. He props up his body on his elbows to slowly push himself up in a sitting position, feeling the cold of the metal floor under his hands. His head hurts.
He analyzes his surroundings for a moment before he finally remembers. He is inside the blue box. The TARDIS. He came in last night and must've passed out on the floor.
He looks around. The place is a mess, lots of things scattered on the floor; books, metal pieces, a bookshelf, tools, wires, probably as the result of the crashing. Yet, he has this strange feeling of comfort for being there.
Home.
The word forms inside his head but it doesn't come from him. It is like his mind has just caught someone else's thoughts. A faint brush in the back of his mind, a familiar soothing caress and again, words come into his mind and he knows that he is safe in there.
Slowly, he stands and grabs the handrail, leaning against it until he feels steady on his feet. The faint flow of thoughts is still there, a low murmur, and he can't understand why or from where this is coming.
He would like to believe that it is his memory coming back, but somehow, he knows that the flow of thoughts and feelings don't belong to him.
He walks to the center of the room and runs a hand through the metal console, his fingers tracing the buttons and levers, searching for something that he can recognize, something that can bring a memory, an image, a feeling.
And they are there, floating in the air that surrounds him, reassuring him. He knows that the ship is sentient and connected to him, Clara had told him once, through some kind of telepathic link.
Thief.
He walks around the console, eyes carefully studying the dozen of round symbols written at the top of the central column, trying to contain his own emotions and keep his feet on the ground with the sudden realization. If this is the ship trying to communicate with him, it means that the telepathic link is open again, and maybe, just maybe, he is finally healing.
A touch telepath, Clara's words echo in his mind. He runs a hand over his tired face. That can explain what happened when he had kissed Clara, the stream of rushed emotions and images that assaulted his mind and…
He sighs and leans against the console, closing his eyes, fighting against stubborn tears. If that is true, it means that he had been inside her mind and had seen what she sees and had felt what she feels. For the Doctor. For him.
And for a moment he just can't breathe because it is too much.
He can feel again that brush in his mind, his ship caring for him, soothing him and reassuring him that everything will be fine. He will be fine. But right now, he feels sick and needs to sit down and he does it, on the floor.
Near his foot there is a broken monitor, partially covered by debris. He picks it, to take a look, trying to focus his mind on anything else that doesn't risk breaking his heart over and over again. For a moment he considers if he will be able to fix it. Maybe he can, especially if he can communicate with the ship. Maybe they can work together to fix her.
Then, he sees it, a book just there, under a piece of a metal plaque and wires, its bright blue cover catching his full attention. Slowly, he reaches for it and his long fingers caress the smooth leather cover, engraved with the same kind of round symbols that adorn the ship's central column. His mother language that unfortunately, he can't read anymore.
His hearts just stop when he opens it. Clara.
It shouldn't have surprised him, he should've known by now. Yet, he can't avoid the fast beat of his hearts. Or the pain that takes over them while his fingers slowly flip through the pages. She is on every single page, and even if he doesn't have the faintest memory of doing it, he can recognize the delicacy and precision of his own style in each drawing. His drawings.
There is no sign of him when she comes back from work. He is not at the workshop and the house is strangely quiet. Her mind races and her heart aches, full of conflicting thoughts and feelings.
She knows that she should've talked to him earlier, in the morning, before she had left. But she just couldn't, too afraid of what she would find when she would look into his eyes. She still is. Terrified.
But there is no sense in running away from a confrontation that it is necessary to keep them both sane. They only have each other in this Universe, and she can't feel crueler or more foolish to be avoiding him like that.
She sees it as soon as she opens her bedroom door, the pair of books neatly arranged over her bed and her heart instantly leaps inside her chest. His sketchbooks.
Slowly, she sits at the bed looking at them for a long moment before she runs a hand over the black cover of the one on the top. It's smooth and cold under her touch.
And then everything stops when she flips the first page. Breath caught in her throat, her shaking fingers keep going, slowly, carefully, her eyes don't believing in what she sees. The pages tell her a story of the deep feelings that lie inside his hearts. All the longing, the fire, the love that burn inside him, easily recognizable in his drawings.
She feels the prickle of tears burning in the corner of her eyes.
But it is the second book that finally breaks her. This is not one of those she had given him. It's different. Its cover is bright blue with all those Gallyfrean symbols engraved on it. And her heart, foreseeing what is to come, aches inside her chest.
In the pages she sees her last year portrayed with the same devotion, with the same passion she saw in the first book. She in the long dress she used when they met Robin Hood, her sleeping form wrapped in blankets at the beach after their adventure on the Orient Express, her beaming face at the console room when they came back from Karabraxos.
Her heart beats so loud and so hard that she thinks that it might explode because this is more than anything she could have dreamed to hear from him one day. It's like a letter, a love poem, made of the curves and lines and shadows of his pencil.
If he still can't remember his past, this book in her hands can only mean one thing. Hot tears roll down her face now. She is in every single page of this book in drawings that he had made before the crash. And yet, he had concealed all this from her and pushed her away and kept her in the dark when in his hearts he felt the same like her.
Slowly, with shaking hands, she closes the book and holds it close to her chest, over the place where her heart beats wildly.
She doesn't know how long she stays there, crying alone in the dark of her bedroom, trying to heal the cracks in her heart, trying to compose herself enough to go after him.
She meets Maya at the back door and she casts her an alarmed look.
"Clara?"
"Have you seen him?"
Maya nods slowly, worry all over her face and Clara can't blame her because she must be looking like hell after all the tears.
"He is in the blue box. For a while now."
For a quick moment she is surprised, but then, all the pieces seem to fall into places. Of course the TARDIS is open, he must have fetched the book with the blue cover from there. But she has no time to wonder why the ship have finally opened the doors with so much that needed to be said between them.
"Thanks," she forces a smile but can tell that she fails by the way Maya keeps looking at her.
The TARDIS' door opens with a low creek and the darkness and cold from inside receives her. She stays by the door, giving some time to her eyes to get used with the faint light the ship can produce by now and feels a low hum, like a faint welcome from the wounded old girl.
Clara pats the wall at her back gently while she looks around, searching for him. He is leaning against the console, supported by his hands, head down, his back to her and by now completely aware of her presence in there. The silence is heavy inside the ship and her steps echo while she slowly approaches him, stopping at a safe distance.
He doesn't move, doesn't look at her, doesn't say a single word.
"I…" She feels the urge to speak, to try to mend the things, but she simply doesn't know how to start this. She only knows that they need to talk. Now.