Hi all! Thank you very much for all your great feedback! :)
zaramcmillan30: The first phase is making him a hugging person, then we'll see what happens next…. hahaha
Spydur1: Thank you! I try to write twelve as I see him: an idiot with a screwdriver! ;)
Paige who: I'm worried about you. Do you need a heart transplant? Thanks for your review!
Nint3ndozzzz: Save your tears because you'll need them ;)
Calgarry: Thank you very much as always! You were pretty fast beta reading this one ;)
It hurt him to know that she would never have dared to ask him that question if she'd known it was his real self. But he understood her, because he would never have answered her if she had been conscious.
"You were the first face this idiot face saw. I trust you so much, I regenerated in who I really am… more or less. I know, it wasn't the best choice, but somehow, I knew that you would accept me as I am." He stroked her hair. "You'll always be important to me, Clara Oswald."
Chapter 11: Four minutes
The peace and tranquillity were perfectly balanced. So…that was what she had after death? Not feeling anything in the middle of the infinite darkness? She was disappointed. She had always thought that it would be nothing, but being in the nothing was a different thing.
Death was always represented in some way as another place, so she was expecting a green meadow where the sun always shines, and the birds sing merrily. Well…it might seem a bit cheesy, but in the darkness she couldn't see anything green and she wasn't hearing birds… To be precise, she was hearing something else, something weird, like a giant balloon that inflated and deflated with a slow and steady pace. What would that be? It intrigued her as much as it bothered her.
"This is ridiculous," she thought.
At first, the noise sounded far away, but soon, it grew as if the thing was approaching her. How she would know what it was if she couldn't see anything? Then, a new one joined that sound, a slight beep that repeated every so often.
With great effort, she managed to open her eyes. At first she saw nothing, and everything was blurry. As she gradually regained clarity, realized where she was: in UNIT's hospital room.
The slight beeping sound was the monitor, which was displaying her vitals. She should have known that…but the irritating sound wasn't coming from there.
Looking around, she saw the Doctor curled into a ball in a nearby chair, in a position that should be ridiculously uncomfortable. She tried to imagine how he might have ended so, but there were many possibilities to choose from. He was snoring, and certainly, they must have been space snores because they had managed to wake her.
The girl wasn't sure if he was sleeping, but in case, didn't want to wake him. Silently, she watched him. He looked awful, as if had been awake for many days. Knowing him, she was sure that he had been complaining every single second that he would have to wait. If he was exhausted, she didn't want to imagine the rest of the humans who had had to suffer him.
She smiled, and then tried to focus. She could barely remember much and wasn't able to calculate how long had been sleeping. At least the pain was more bearable, but with each passing minute, she hated the Time Lord's snoring more and more.
"Doctor, are you meditating or something?" she whispered. He didn't react so she tried it again out loud. "Doctor…!"
Startled, he opened his eyes and jumped on alert. "Just reverse the polarity!" he said, looking around. "Oh…" He looked at her. "The sleeping beauty is awake."
"So are you."
"How many times I have to tell you that I don't sleep. I was meditating."
"Yeah, right. And since you were snoring, I must assume that it was about something very important."
"Super Mario," he said, pulling out a Gameboy from his pocket.
"Sorry, what?!"
"Yeah. Always struck me as the dark story of an Italian plumber who eat mushrooms, and try to find a princess through pipes. Honestly, it seemed so sinister that I write it down on my list of things to investigate. I need to make sure that it doesn't have a destruction code or something like that."
She raised her eyebrow. "And did you solve it?"
He smirked. "Yes. It's explained in the collector edition from 2040. Look…the turtle and the princess…"
Surprised, she interrupted him. "Sorry, did you play all editions of Super Mario? Including those of the future…while I slept?"
"Not all. The haunted house of Luigi was pitiful. But other than that, I have also made seven claims to the factory of these stupid chairs. They are the most uncomfortable ones I've had."
"Perhaps it's a Machiavellian plan to condemn the human race to die of exhaustion," she said ironically.
"Perhaps. But since time is passing at normal speed, that is, boringly slow, I did call your school. I know a good friend of mine there, and you don't have to worry because now you are on vacation." He winked at her.
"You did what?! How much time I was out?"
"You are welcome. And you'll have to specify that. During treatment you've been waking up and fainting continually, probably because of the fever five days ago."
"Fever…I can't remember that. Wait...five days?!"
"What is the last thing you remember?" he asked casually.
"Hmm…not much…I remember being in a beach, but nothing more…"
"Good," he said flatly, pulling out his screwdriver and using it on her. "It seems that the treatment is over now." Then he glared at her with concern. "How are you feeling?"
She ignored his question, still thinking about the last five days. "I just can't remember…how could I forget what just happened in the last few days?"
He put his screwdriver into his jacket and leaned over the footboard of the bed. "Oh, don't worry. You didn't miss much, only the idiotic things of cupcake-brain Smith and believe me, you are very lucky if you forgot that."
Then he changed his face into a very serious one. "I need to know something."
She smiled. "Don't worry, I'm fine…I think so…but hey, you are the doctor here."
He just remained serious. "Clara, are you…scared of something? Or someone? Or someone with something?"
"You're really weird now. I think you need some rest… properly rest…and not that ridiculous thing that you call meditating."
"Oh no no…don't turn on your 'control-freak mode'. Just answer me."
She glared at him, and then knew that something had happened, and what was worse, he was hiding it to her. "Doctor?"
The door of the room opened, so he avoided answering her.
"Oh, so our favourite patient is awake!" said Smith, entering the room alongside with the brigadier.
The Time Lord rubbed his hair annoyed. "Oh great … who let you two out of the nursery school?"
Smith ignored him as he approached the bed. "I'm sorry Doctor, but it's my job to check my patient."
The Time Lord just rolled his eyes and pointed at the Brigadier. "And you what…did you come with him so he doesn't get lost?"
The military man looked concerned. "I'm afraid not. The second expedition that we sent to the alien ship had returned. We need your help with…something really strange."
The Doctor seethed and crossed his arms. "Whatever it is, can wait. I'm busy."
Smith just did a funny face. "With what? Are you investigating Sonic the Hedgehog now?"
"Oooh…don't try to give clever remarks. Doesn't suit you…cupcake," said the Doctor, and then looked at the brigadier. "I'm not going to leave this room, so you can bring me 'the thing' or began to describe it. Or better…try to solve it by your own. In that last case I'll make sure to bring popcorn."
Clara was surprised that despite having a 'mysterious thing', he wasn't willing to leave her alone.
"Doctor…what is more important: me or the world?" Of course, it was a rhetorical question, but soon she realised that he actually was thinking about that. "You can't be serious, are you even considering the answer?"
Of course he was considering the answer. He did have plenty of time to think about that in the last few days "Why it always has to be the world?" he thought. The only thing it gave him in return was pain and misery. He'd almost lost Clara to save the universe, when the universe didn't care at all.
"To hell with the world."
Everybody in that room looked surprised at him, but in that moment he only cared about the girl, who turned her shocked expression into a warm smile. "Doctor, as you can see, I'm not going anyway soon, so just…go with Wilson, insult all the pitiful humans you find on your way while you save the world again and please, bring me something hot to drink. I'm pretty sure you can do that in only five minutes."
He glared at her eyes as if he was trying to find something in them. She was aware that he was making sure she was fine, so the girl tried to seem strong. After a long pause, he spoke again. "I can do that in four. What about hot chocolate?"
"Hot chocolate would be great."
Then he nodded and pointed his finger at Smith "Cupcake brain…stay with her or I'll fire you."
The young man just made a funny face as the other men headed for the door. "Ok. But you can't actually fire me."
"Of course I can. I'm the president of Earth so I'm your boss."
Clara checked the clock on the wall again. It was a long time since they had left. She looked at the door, while Smith was writing down some results on her file. She bit her lip, aware that she was missing something. It was about time to discover what it was.
She started to talk casually. "I'm a bit worried…about what happened last days."
"You aren't supposed to remember anything. You were had a high fever."
"Yes. All of it, and I'm very sorry about it," she lied. "I want to apologise for what I…said?" She was trying to guess what happened, she probably had been weak to do anything, so it must had been something she'd said.
"Well…in that case, it isn't me who you should apologize to. But don't worry, it's perfectly understandable."
She looked at him surprised and then he just realized what she was doing. "Oh, clever girl…"
She looked down. "Sorry, but I need to know what happened and the Doctor just wouldn't tell me."
"And hasn't it occurred to you that maybe he has a good reason for not doing so?"
"John, please, I really need to know what happened," she said with pleading eyes. "I'm sure if you were in my situation you would like to know."
"And I'm also sure that if the grumpy alien finds out that I've told you, he'll throw me to a black hole or something like that!"
"But he doesn't have to know that, does he?"
He exhales heavily. "Are you always so persistent? I suppose I'm going to regret this but… In the last few days, you were having a lot of panic attacks, and they were just getting worse…it seemed that you were terrified to death, for some unknown reason."
Clara was lost deep in thought, and her tension was visible on her face. Had she said something embarrassing to the Doctor? And why did he was so concerned about her fears?
She looked down, her voice was a whisper now. "He wasn't supposed to see me like that."
"Why not?" The man asked while he began to clean her wound on her shoulder.
"Because… the Doctor can't avoid being the Doctor. The man who has to save everyone." She smiled sadly. "I'm afraid that maybe he's thinking about leaving me safe at home. He did it once, thinking it was the best for me. I'm really scared that after this, he's going to do it again."
"Well…I don't know too much about you two, but I can tell you what I saw. He didn't leave this room in the last five days, like a guardian dog. For heaven's sake, I even thought he was going to bark at me if I got too close to you. I really think that you shouldn't be so worried about what he thinks. After all, he's the lucky one for having you at his side," he said, winking at her.
Clara watched silently as the man applied a new gauze to her shoulder.
"Thank you," she finally said.
"No problem. It's my job."
"No, not for this. For trying to cheer me up. And…sorry for all the Doctor's comments about you, sometimes he just has a…difficult temper."
"It's a very creative way to describe it." Smith raised an eyebrow but then just looked at his watch. "Speaking of the devil. Whatever they found, it must be really important, because it's been a while since they left."
"So… you don't know what is it?"
The man shrugged his shoulders. "No idea. The brig didn't want to tell me. Said it was top secret."
The door opened again and Clara smiled. It faded, however, when she saw that it was Kate.
"Have you been running?" asked Smith, worried to see his boss breathless.
Kate just looked at him. "Where is the Doctor?"
"He went out with the Brigadier. I thought that you three would all be together."
The blond woman seemed scared. "Oh my God. We need to find them…NOW!"
"What happened?" asked the man, unnerved to see her so terrified.
She gave him a file. "It's easier for you to see it, because I wouldn't know how to actually explain it."
Smith flipped through the file until he saw a photo attached to it. "But…" His face seemed surprised and terrified at the same time. "But…what?!" He looked away from the image. "How is this possible?! I mean…what?!"
"Yes. I thought the same. How long have they gone?"
He looked at the clock. "I don't know. An hour or so."
Kate took her phone, very nervous. "Red code. This is a direct order. The base is close; nobody can leave it, no exceptions! I repeat. Nobody can leave!" She hung up and looked up at Smith. "I hope it's not too late."
Clara was confused. "Is anybody going to tell me what the hell is happening?"
So… what do you think what would happened next? Please, let me know your thoughts on this : )
