A/N: My dear readers, thank you so much for the messages (since the site is still being glitchy with posting reviews- sometimes they get through, sometimes they don't) letting me know that you've been loving this story as much as I've loved writing it. I feel like I've finally brought them full circle, the way that "Dinner" and "Laws of Attraction" were meant to be completed.
This final chapter is a long one, but it felt like it needed to be posted in its entirety in order to feel whole. I couldn't seem to break it up. Like the Doctor and Clara, all the parts belonged together.
Mostly, thank you all for riding yet another Whoffle wave with me, and letting me know along the way how much you enjoyed it (and if this darn glitch ever gets fixed, I really would love if you would let me know in a review)! No matter what ever happens on the show from this point on, I hope you know that getting to write for these characters, and for you, has been a joy. Thanks for all the smiles, and may you all have a very Happy New Year!
"Please, Doctor," the girl says, while he stands outside, scanning the sky with the sonic.
"I want to see them again, too!" says the boy beside her, her twin brother. "Flying snow-men are cool," he cajoles, scratching his knee.
The children are both sitting on a plank of wood that makes up the little fence around his front garden, their legs swinging back and forth. They've grown, both of them, the Doctor notices, since he and Clara have been here. When they'd arrived, he realizes, both of these children had been in prams, still babbling and cooing. Has it really been ten years already?
"Look, can't you two see I'm busy? There's a war on up there, in case either of you cared to notice," he replies sharply, but the children merely shrug.
"Clara says you just like to look busy," the boy informs him.
"So that people won't notice that your brain is actually up to something else," the girl finishes.
"Oi!" He snaps up, his mouth open and his index finger pointed in the air to deny it all.
The children giggle at him, and he feels his mouth working as his enormous brain that actually is always up to something fails to come to his rescue.
"Doctor?"
The voice that belongs to the person who has rescued his soul fills his ears, and he forgets everything else. Daleks, Sontarrans, Slitheen, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, the Papal Mainframe, the town of Christmas, and every Time Lord behind that crack in the wall…. they all melt away.
He turns and sees the reason for his complete happiness, standing in the doorway of his house that could be blown away at any second, and his hearts beat faster, no longer under his control.
Clara holds out a china cup and smiles at him. "Did you know saving the universe does come with a tea break?"
The Doctor smiles back. "Does it, really?"
Her mouth tilts into a smirk, and he loves the way it looks on her face. "Mmm. I checked the employee manual."
"Ha," he says, then pockets the sonic, pats the children on the heads (he'll think about where the last ten years slipped away later), and hurries towards her. "That's because you," he says, taking the tea and kissing her cheek, "are a clever, clever clogs."
"Yes," she sighs, smiling and making him feel ten feet tall. "No wonder you keep me around."
"No wonder," he agrees, following her into the house, because he'd follow her anywhere, to the ends of time, through the Cloisters of Gallifrey, through his own worst nightmare, he'd follow her, and never stop to think twice about it.
The first thing he sees when he walks through the door is Clara's rocking chair, overturned on its side, the light of Gallifrey spilling through the spindles as it lays on the floor. A quick glance around the room and ice fills his veins, as he sees drops of blood on the table, a knife beside it, and an upturned bowl of flour.
Images of Clara being attacked in their make-shift kitchen, by any number of enemies above, zoom through his mind and the nanoseconds before the Doctor sucks in a breath to scream her name feel like eons.
"Clara!" He can barely hear his own voice.
"Yeah, what is it?" Clara's head pops around from the other side of the blue door of their basement.
The Doctor breathes again. And then notices the speck of blood on her cheek. Along with a few…. fish scales?
"What..." he manages to croak, "….what are you doing?"
She frowns at him. "Trying to make your Christmas present," she tells him, "which I thought might be easier in the TARDIS II's kitchen."
He gapes at her as she holds up the skeleton of a fish that's only been partially gutted. "Do you know how ruddy hard it is to make fish fingers from scratch?" Clara says, huffing at him. "And don't even get me started on the custard. Couldn't you build a Tesco in the basement, too?"
She might be saying something more, but he doesn't hear it, because he's already scooped her up in his arms, his hearts beating again, relief flooding through him.
Only two decades with Clara Oswald, and his whole eternity can be contained in the frame of her small, human body.
"My stars," she says against his ear, laughing softly. "If I'd known fish fingers would make you go all grabby, I'd have started making them years ago."
The Doctor pulls back, his forehead falling against hers. "When am I not grabby with you?"
She smiles, and he lives again. "Fair point, that."
He breathes in the smell of Clara's warm flesh and the sound of her beating heart and tamps down the bottomless rage and revenge that had threatened to erupt when he'd thought someone had dared to take her from him. He squeezes her harder.
Mine, he thinks, unable to help it.
But Clara's hands are already on the buckle of his belt, and her mind is sending waves of desire to his brain that make his knees weak in an entirely different way. For the millionth time since he'd joined with her, he is smugly pleased at how brilliant he'd been in deciding to make this beautiful, tender, feisty, annoyingly danger-prone soul a part of himself.
Clara's soft mouth curves as her fingers nimbly undo the button of his too-tight trousers, the fish fingers project utterly forgotten, and the Doctor amends.
He's a bloody genius.
"Do you know what I find fascinating?" he asks softly, his green eyes watching her.
"No, Doctor," Clara says, and her voice is thin, whispery. "What do you find fascinating?"
He takes her hand and she feels her bones ache at the touch. She glances at where their fingers are intertwined and sees the frail hands, more than lined, with ripples of veins and skin that hang like loose paper over her tiny bones. The Doctor lifts her hand and kisses it, as though it's fresh and plump and soft. He beams at her.
"That after sixty years on this planet, you still haven't learned to bake a proper souffle."
Clara smiles, her face hurting a little from the movement. She's lying in bed, and the Doctor is sitting beside her, holding a stack of Anniversary cards from the children of Christmas.
"Also," he adds, as if it were an afterthought, "that you are rather beautiful."
"You say that every year," she tells him in her thin voice, and he brings a hand to her cheek, stroking it.
"That's because it's true," he says simply.
Clara looks down at her own limbs once again. "I don't suppose Tasha was able to source that hand cream from the Aphrodites?"
The Doctor looks at her, puzzled. "What would you need that for?"
She sighs. "No reason, I guess." She manages not to roll her eyes at the way he constantly ignores her aging. She used to think he truly couldn't see it at all, but once he let something slip that told her he did indeed see, he just didn't care.
Many years ago, she'd been combing her hair at her dresser and frowning, because more gray hairs were sprouting all over her head. And it wasn't until she'd averted her gaze from her own reflection that she'd realized the Doctor had been sitting on their bed, watching and positively beaming.
She'd turned around, confused. "Alright, why do you look like the cat that ate the canary?"
His grin had only gotten wider. "I was just thinking how nice it is that you're finally becoming more my type."
Clara had let out a feigned offended gasp and thrown her hairbrush at him, laughing. "I'll have you know that I'm perfect for you already."
He'd shaken his head skeptically. "I don't know. If Mrs. Harper hadn't already been taken…"
She'd leaped off her chair, tackling him on the bed, and he'd smiled and pushed the hair away from her face as she lay on top of him. "You are perfect for me, Clara. I just meant that you're becoming more how I really am on the inside."
"Ah, you're saying I'm becoming a daft old man?" she'd teased, and he'd rolled his eyes at her.
"Impossible girl."
"Impossible old lady to you," she'd smirked, and he'd scoffed in return, kissing her nose.
"Bodies are boring, how many times have I told you?"
"Ah," she'd replied silkily, "but there are so many interesting things they can do." Her mouth had reached down to nip the side of his throat, and when she'd pulled back, his eyes had been slightly unfocused.
"Do you know, I'm suddenly thinking of quite a long list of things they can do."
And she'd laughed again as he'd flipped her over with a growl.
Now he sits beside her, decades later after she'd still been able to jump on top of him, when strength was still a normal part of her body. And Clara knows that, apart from anything physical, he's been secretly glad of every year she's aged simply because each one has been the proof that he's kept beating fate.
To the Doctor, every year she's stayed alive has been his own victory against the universe.
His face brightens. "So, for our anniversary, you told me you wanted to see inside the Library of Alexandria, so that's what I programmed in the sonic for you." He kisses her hand again. "And speaking of insides," he says, leaning down and dragging his lips, still young and full, across her frail jaw, "I so want to be inside you, Clara. Do you think you feel well enough today?"
She feels herself sighing happily, remembering the nights and days of pleasure they've had for six decades. It's the ultimate irony to her that her aging body has seemed to fill him with more passion than even her younger self ever had, and he's become more lustful the older she's gotten. She knows that part of it is growing love, but there's also the indisputable fact that the older she's become, the less time they'll have together. The clock has been ticking, Clara knows, and it's as though the Doctor has wanted to spend every possible moment physically loving her while he still could.
Eagerly, she lifts her head from the pillow, but then falls back, suddenly exhausted. She's not twenty-eight anymore. She is very, very sick, in fact. And while her mind has been free of nightmares for decades, her body can only fight for so long.
His face falls for only a moment, and then he smiles. "You know, on second thought, I'd rather have a lie-in," he says, sitting down on the bed beside her. "Now, you can nag me all you want, but I have to rest sometime, after all," he tells her, and she wants to laugh at his thinly-veiled subterfuge, even though the one she thinks he's most trying to convince is himself.
His arms, strong as they ever were, gently bring her tired body against his chest, and he rocks her gently. Clara inhales the scent of him, that wonderful combination of male skin and sugar that is so uniquely him. She thinks of how that scent will change one day, when he'll become another man, one she'll love just as much, and he'll smell of the leather of his arm-chair and the sharp tang of whiskey. She wishes so much, this moment, that she could tell him of what's to come. How she'll love him, even when she tries not to, and how nothing in the universe will be able to keep them apart, not even those whispering voices from Gallifrey.
Her eyes close and she can still feel the golden light from the crack in the wall, radiating on her face. She no longer hates the Time Lords, though there was a time she thought her hatred would burn till the end of her days. But she understands them too well now, perhaps. She can never forgive them for what they will one day do to her Doctor, but she will also never be able to thank them enough for saving his life when no one but they could have done it.
And part of her thinks that after sixty years of telling them of what the Doctor has meant to the universe, and to her, they understand her, too. She's done all she can to ensure his future, so that when the time comes, the Time Lords will impart their gift of life to him, keep him going, keep him running.
Run for me when I'm gone, Doctor, she thinks as he holds her. Oh, run for me, you clever boy.
As if he can hear her thinking of his home-world, Clara hears the Doctor idly humming some long-forgotten Gallifreyan lullaby. To her ears, it sounds like the music of Heaven.
At the sound of his voice, she can almost feel her body come alive with strength, as though all the blood of youth is surging back through her veins, the lines falling away, her hair growing dark and thick, as though she is once again becoming the young woman that he will always see. She brings her hand to his smooth cheek, watching the smile play across his mouth.
And Clara Oswald, frail, imperfect, human, nearly feels another heart growing inside her chest, and they both belong to him. This life he has given her, this wondrous, magical life was nothing like what she thought it would be, and yet has been everything she ever wanted.
In their little house with a view of the lake, with the children of Christmas crawling in and out of their home, all of whom were so dear to the both of them, with death and birth and renewal in the town, with frightening battles from the sky and mundane fights in their sitting room over why he had to leave his clothes strewn all over the place and after 1200 years didn't he bloody well know what a wardrobe was for, and the way he'd give her a crooked smile so that she didn't even care. He'd given her everything she'd wanted in that ordinary life, in the most extraordinary way possible.
"We could also go see the waterfalls on Parkon," he whispers, still holding on to her as though determined not to see how tired she is. The Doctor gives her a winning smile. "It's Wednesday tomorrow. Any adventure you want."
But Clara merely smiles at him. "Doctor, didn't you know," she tells him truthfully, "you have always been my greatest adventure."
His head bows, then, and he says nothing, but merely drops to press his cheek against her temple, his hand resting near her heart as though the sound of her heart beating is the most beautiful music in the universe. She wishes, not for her own sake, but for his, that it would go on beating forever.
She knows what losing her will do to him, she's watched it happen already. He will be so very lost, for so long. But he won't be alone forever. The people of Christmas will be help him, one generation after another. He is, after all, so easy to love. She smiles quietly to herself because she knows that a person who loves him more than anyone will also one day appear. A younger Clara, the girl she'd once been so many ages ago, will come back to him one day, and will help him move on from this life of his to the next one.
And what adventures they'll have together.
They'll be in love, then, too, she knows, even if neither of them will ever be able to admit it. And oh, how he will make her yearn for him every bit as much as he yearns for her. It's all still coming for him, she knows, and she wishes so much that she could tell him that death is not the end.
Not everything ends. Not love. Not always.
And with Clara and her Doctor- not ever.
He has so much more life to experience, so many more adventures, and with other companions, too. But she also knows that they will always be part of one another, as they were meant to be. To know that he will be safe, and loved, and hopefully happy- it's all she can want. Because this Time Lord, this god and idiot and alien with two hearts…he has made her so much more than safe, and loved, and happy. He has given her a life of infinite, beautiful wonder.
And Clara Oswald, who knows she is dying, far away from the planet of her birth, is so very, very thankful for every single moment of it.
She is more than thankful, she thinks, as the man she loves holds her tenderly in his arms.
She is blessed.
His young body can't move, because the weight is too much.
He's alone in the graveyard, because he just screamed at the villagers of Christmas to leave, to leave him the hell alone, and when they'd stayed and one of them had tried to split the ground with the spade, to begin to dig so the Doctor wouldn't have to do it, he'd yelled in fury and had split the young man's lip with his fist.
The Doctor, the Predator, Oncoming Storm sits, broken and alone on Trenzalore, and for one wild moment, he wishes the armies in the sky would just finish off his worthless life, because death would be better than this.
Clara, he wants to wail. Instead, he looks down at the hard ground, knowing he must bury her beside the spot that will one day hold his own grave, because that's what the Whispermen had predicted long ago, that fixed spot from which even he could never run.
The girl who dies, he tries to save
She'll die again beside his grave
How often had he cheated Time and Space, Fate and the Universe to keep Clara alive, the real, heart-beating original who had spawned a million echoes that died for him. Until today, when she'd finally slipped from his grasp, from the simple act of her body giving out from age.
He stares at the spot where she will lie, where his own TARDIS is also destined to die, with him inside it. Their graves, intertwined, he thinks, like the vines that will one day cover his ship as the life finally leaves it.
What will be left to live for then? What's left, now?
His hearts thunder in his chest, a steady four-beat that quickens as a thought, sweet and sure, forms in his head: he could end the pain, right now. He could end it all so easily. Just let them in, the Cyberman, Daleks, all of them- just let them kill him. He's out of regenerations, so he can't even be tempted to try to prolong his miserable existence. And he no longer wants to, anyway. With Clara, beside her, that's where he belongs. He'll dig a hole for himself, too, then crawl inside and wait for one of them to come finish him.
He actually does it, he begins to dig the grave, not for her, but for himself. His hands tremble and his own tears make it hard for him to see what he's doing, but he digs on. But it will be alright, he thinks. Someone will find his body beside hers and then they can lie together for eternity, as they were meant to do.
It will be a release from hell, at last. And he'll see her face again….
His breath stops, and he pauses with the spade because he remembers, from very long ago, when Clara had promised him that he would see her again. She'd never told him the whole story, but he'd gleaned enough to know that some past version of her, or even one of her echoes, had met up with him in his future, when he'd been much, much older. She'd never said how much older exactly, but, in her own way, she'd made sure he understood that her death wouldn't be the last time he saw her.
He looks at the spade for the quickest of moments, and swallows.
Another Clara is coming.
An echo? He thinks wildly but then dismisses it. Everything in his soul told him that she'd meant herself, her true self. Which meant… a past self, the Clara that had existed during that period when she had aged years in between leaving Trenzalore and returning only minutes later.
His Clara. Coming back…..
He clings to the two words like a lifeline, a buoy in the storm of his grief-stricken mind. Coming back, coming back.
But for how long? Would he have more years with her? Or would it only be days, or worse, mere minutes? Was he supposed to give up an eternity with her in this grave just for a few measly moments of seeing her face again in some far-off future that could be centuries from now? What kind of solace could that possibly bring when his hearts were now dead in his chest?
Another tear slides down his jaw and he grips the spade tighter, as an image of Clara's face, so perfect and real, forms in his mind that he actually gasps with need.
Clara.
Oh, yes, it would be worth it. To see her again, warm and alive….
The Doctor turns back to the Tower, where he has loved Clara Oswald for more than 60 years. His body has hardly changed since the day they arrived, and yet his mind has aged more in the last few days than it has in all those years.
His arms can still flail with ease, his legs can still skip, but they have lost their reason for doing so.
He squeezes the spade in his hand, glances over at Clara's body laying peacefully on a raised bed inside the horse-drawn cart. The young women of the village, who had been like grand-daughters and grand-nieces to them both, had dressed her this morning, tenderly wrapping her in her favorite red velvet gown, and crowning her silver head with a holly wreath. They had wept as they'd dressed her, and hugged the Doctor, who had simply sat beside Clara's body like a broken toy.
Even Tasha had sent down word that the Papal Mainframe would mark the day with offerings and prayers for the soul of Clara Oswald, that the earth woman would be remembered as the life companion of the Doctor for as long as Tasha Lem governed the church.
His eyes roam over the small, human body that contained the most beautiful soul in the universe, and he thinks, as he does every single time he looks at her: Mine.
His Clara, his wife, his love, his friend, his reason for living. She's leaving, and yet she's coming back. She'd promised him. He breathes deeper, willing himself to believe it, because she had told him it was true.
Clara is still coming for him, alive and real and out there, a world away, finding her way from her path to his.
All he has to do is wait.
"Doctor," comes a soft voice behind him.
He turns soberly and sees it's the man with the split lip, dried blood on his chin. He's surrounded by his neighbors, all the young villagers of Christmas. Only this time, they've brought something with them- Clara's rocking chair.
It's the one in which she sat, every day of their lives here, facing the glowing crack in the wall and never telling him why it held such fascination for her. The young man puts his hand on the back of Clara's chair and takes a deep breath, and the Doctor understands.
Slowly, he walks over to Clara's chair, lets his weight fall into it, and somehow he feels her spirit all around him.
Rest now, my warrior.
He sees the young man silently take up the spade and walk over to where the Doctor had begun to dig, as the rest of the villagers sit on the ground, surrounding their beloved Doctor, giving him strength as the work to create Clara's final resting place is resumed.
He knows they all think it's not fitting that her husband should have to be the one do it.
But they don't know she's coming back, of course she is, she's his impossible girl. It's the thought which sustains him, keeps him from losing his mind entirely. Clara is coming back to him.
He sits silently as other young men help dig the grave, and the young women sniffle and wipe their eyes at the Doctor's feet, holding his hands. He watches mutely, a strange sort of numbness creeping over him. Tonight, he will go back to the Tower, and sit in Clara's rocking chair, putting it back in front of the crack in the wall. She'd thought it belonged there, and so now, he does, too.
He'll tape up some of the cards the children have left for him, and he'll let his new life begin. And he'll wait for Clara to come back to him.
He can still feel her kiss on his aging cheek, can feel the words he'd promised her hanging in the air.
He'd meant every word. He will never send her away again.
He knows she'll go back eventually, but it must be something else that causes it, because the Doctor is not about to lose Clara Oswald again, not after living for centuries with only her memory.
It had been all that had kept him going, that promise she'd made to him long ago that he would see her again. And now, here she was. The thought that he might have years ahead with her makes him nearly want to skip around the TARDIS control room, despite the pain in his leg.
He has to be right. Clara had aged more than just a few days in between those minutes when he'd sent her back the first time, and when she'd shown up on the doorstep of the Tower. And though they still couldn't leave the planet while the siege continued, that simply meant she must have gotten to stay with him for years here on Trenzalore before she'd gone back in his timeline. He nods to himself.
Yes, he'll get to keep her for a long while, maybe even years, with many more sunsets on the roof, many more nights of holding her in his arms, making her laugh, making her happy.
His hearts lift with hope, and his brain can only think one thing:
You're back, you're back, my Clara, I love you, you're back, and I'll never send you away again…
He catches sight of the view-screen, seeing young Barnable sitting outside the TARDIS, and suddenly the Doctor remembers something else- something that makes his stomach drop.
When she'd come to Trenzalore to stay, Clara hadn't known her way around Christmas.
In fact, she'd spent the first few weeks getting lost at every turn. She'd recognized nothing and no one, as though… he swallows, closing his eyes as the truth grips at him.
Wherever she'd been in that missing chunk of time, it hadn't been on Trenzalore. It hadn't been with him.
The sickening realization washes over him. She isn't meant to stay with him. She isn't his to keep. The girl below is not his Clara, but a ghost come to torment him.
And that means, he thinks with cold dread, that she can't stay, not for another second. She has to go back if she's ever to finish her timeline, so that she can eventually find her way to his past, where he'll love her, make her his wife, watch her grow old, watch her die…
He pushes the view-screen away roughly, wanting to scream.
No!
It isn't fair, he's owed. He's owed this! Just another day with her, another minute, anything. But he already knows that it's hopeless.
If he keeps her now, he'll be re-writing the one part of his timeline that he doesn't dare change- getting to join with her and love her for the rest of her life. He'll erase the best and happiest years of his own life, and maybe hers, too.
His hand slips inside the pocket of his vest and he takes out the ring that Clara had put on his finger nearly three centuries ago. He'd been planning to put it back on, with her at his side once more. Instead he clutches it in his hand and his eyes squeeze shut, knowing that this is what he must protect, that life with her.
The TARDIS whirs softly at him, and the Doctor lets out a shaky breath. Quickly, he tucks the ring into a compartment on the control panel, because wearing it now will only torment him further. His wife is gone, he tells himself. She's gone and buried beside the spot where he, too, will one day lie.
But as he hears her voice down below, calling out that the turkey is done, his fists curl in desperation. His wife or not, it doesn't matter. He only knows he loves her, and he now must do something that will make her hate him for it.
He must trick her and send her away. Again.
"Smells great," he calls back, and hopes she can't hear the agony in his voice. Because it's at that moment he programs the TARDIS, his eyes closed, his hearts in such pain he's not sure he can keep standing.
And just like last time, he won't be able to say good-bye. He can hear her closing the door to the Time Winds and the sound jolts him into action, because the moment he sees her again, he'll never have the strength to go through with what he knows he must do.
Forgive me, he thinks, and hurries out the door before she can come up, knowing that one look of her dark eyes, alive and beautiful, and he'd be lost forever. He doesn't even look down at Barnable, or back at the TARDIS. Limping on his cane, he moves as quickly as he can and goes straight to his house, collapsing in Clara's rocking chair in front of the glowing crack.
Only the Time Lords will witness him screaming with helpless rage at losing her again.
When she'd stepped into the Tower, he'd been sure she was a dream. He was dying, he knew it, so it wasn't even all that surprising that his failing senses would fabricate Clara's ghost, young and beautiful and perfect, coming back to help him pull a Christmas cracker, a fitting bang of an end to his very long life.
She was still the first thing he thought of upon waking and before sleeping, despite her being dead for nearly 800 years. And he'd been glad that he'd get to spend his last moments with her, even if she did seem curiously real and solid for a ghost.
It's only now, after he's begun to regenerate, and pieces of hostile alien ships are falling from the sky, raining down on Trenzalore, that he realizes what's actually happened.
Not a dream. Real. With real Clara, from the past, the Clara whom he'd sent back the last time, who had been cooking a Christmas turkey in the Time Winds of the TARDIS. And Tasha Lem, who had watched him love and mourn Clara Oswald for century after lonely century, had fought against the Dalek inside her broken body and brought his wife back to him, so that he wouldn't be alone when the end came.
But because of Clara, the end was now the beginning.
This was what she had meant, he realizes with a shock so big it makes his legs weak beneath him. When she'd promised him she was coming back, it wasn't just that brief day they'd had together, eating marshmallows on top of the roof and lying to her in the control room while his hearts broke into pieces before he'd sent her back. It had been this. As the regeneration energy flows through him on top of the Tower, with Clara somewhere below, he knows now what she'd meant.
He was going to live on, with more adventures in the TARDIS. And she was going to be with him. This was the gray area of the future she'd known, the one that had puzzled him for so long. More lives, more running.
He staggers at the realization, and at the regeneration energy that's already coursing through him. He sees the TARDIS and knows Clara will be heading there soon, waiting for him.
Oh, Clara, he thinks desperately. Why did you do this to me? Why did you save me when I was so ready to follow you into death, my grave beside yours, remember?
He shuts his eyes, because the Clara inside the Tower knows nothing of what's to come, had only acted to save him. Because that's what she always did, she saved him.
He sighs heavily, and then jerks as a surge of regeneration energy pulses in his body. This Clara isn't the Clara he married, the one he buried. She doesn't know. She has no knowledge that she's his wife, that he loves her so much he's ached for her every day for centuries, and that his soul is forever linked to hers.
She'd just wanted to save him. And now, he knows, he must beg her to save him again, after he regenerates. He has no idea what kind of person he'll be, what kind of body he'll get, but he knows that whatever happens, the new him will still be bound to Clara Oswald, and will need her more than he'll possibly be able to explain.
The regeneration energy surges once more, this time so violently that he feels his body change. For a moment, he thinks the regen has already happened, but then looks down and sees the same knobbly hands, the spindly legs, but less lined with age.
Reset, he thinks, and realizes he's only got moments left before the real change happens. He begins to panic. How will he explain it to her? How will he get the words out when he knows that as soon as he sees her he'll long to touch her so much that it will overwhelm him. And touching her is something he mustn't do, because he could burn her up with the slightest brush of his skin. He'll have to keep his distance, distract himself any way he can.
So how can he say the goodbye, the pleading to stay, that he needs to say?
He looks around wildly, and then spots the phone on the TARDIS. He moves quickly, grabs the handset and staggers inside his beloved ship, pressing a hand against her door in the control room.
"Hey, sexy," he whispers affectionately. "In a bit of bother."
The TARDIS groans softly and he smiles. "You helped her save me before, remember? I need you to help her save me one last time."
His ship wheezes back and he sighs in relief. "You'll know the right time to call, won't you? Just let me talk to her when she needs to hear me. Just one last time."
He puts the phone to his ear, waits as it begins to ring, sending silent thanks to the TARDIS. But when he hears her voice, hears Clara's cheerful, "Hello?", all the breath leaves him and he slides to the ground, his head against the TARDIS for support. He can tell, just from the timbre of her voice, that she's only a few days older than the Clara here on Trenzalore. That means that the moment she's ready to leave him is almost immediately after he regenerates. What can he have changed into that would make her want to leave so soon? Panic fills him, and he blurts out:
"It's me." His voice is scratchy, and he bites his lip to keep from adding, your husband.
"Yes, it's you," Clara says casually. "Who is this?"
His eyes squeeze shut. It's the man who loves you, he wants to yell. Please don't leave me already, Clara. Instead he tamps down the words, despite the last remnants of the truth field ebbing away.
But the sound of her voice nearly brings tears of relief to his eyes. Even now, he hears the hope in her voice, the bravery. He loves her so much it burns through him, a fire more dazzling than even the regeneration energy coursing through him. He'd been so afraid of having to face a new life, tethered to her when she didn't know who he was, what he was to her, how much he loved her. But he's suddenly not afraid anymore. And it doesn't matter how much it's going to hurt to see her, now. He's going to live, and Clara is going to be at his side, for years if he's lucky. He's cheated the odds and won, again.
He knows her so well, and he knows what to say to convince her to stay with him. Because this Clara, even if she doesn't know it, yet, loves him, too.
He simply needs to remind her to be brave once more. And Clara will never let him down.
He straightens his shoulders, and goes inside the TARDIS. He doesn't have to remove the clothes that are sagging on his body, but suddenly, he makes his way to his wardrobe and fishes out the things that will fit him better. Somehow, he wants to look well for Clara before this version of him disappears forever.
He hopes briefly that the new body isn't too much of a shock for her. It had sounded so much older than this body, the one she'd loved for over 60 years. And even though he knows Clara well enough to know that she'd hardly care about him looking older, she'd most definitely worry about him being in a body that was more fragile and prone to getting hurt. He wishes against reason that he could change the future and stay the same for her, to save their time together. But even the Time Lords can't give him that miracle. Times change, and so must he.
The only thing that won't change, he knows, is what he feels for her, despite the fact that he'll have to let go of her.
But not today, please, please, not today.
Whoever he becomes, he orders his brain, he must remember one thing:
No matter the cost, let me be the man who will always save Clara Oswald.
He finishes the bow tie just as he hears her come skidding into the TARDIS control room above him.
I love you, my Clara, he thinks. I'll love you as long as you breathe, and even after. And when I dream at night, it will be of how you loved me under the stars of Trenzalore, and made me the happiest man in the universe.
He squares his shoulders and climbs the stairs, and every step is like an echo through time, of days when he laughed with her, fought with her, pulled her from disaster, sank inside of her body and felt more loved than a wretch like him deserved to feel. He reaches the top of the stairs, and his breath nearly leaves him when she spins around.
Joy explodes inside him once more, just seeing her, her eyes and her fear and her kindness. And for the first time, the thought that flits through his brain isn't "Mine." It's something else that he should have known all along. When he sees the woman he has loved for a thousand years, and would love for billions, if he'd had them, who has saved him over and over again, the thought he has is this:
I am yours.
For he knows that the moment he saw her face, his life could begin again. He's ready to begin. Because Clara Oswald and the Doctor in the TARDIS…
That's how it was always meant to be.
The End
