Chapter 12
She knew he was up. He had risen at the same time as her. He had got dressed and sat on the sofa about nine o'clock. It was now nearing three and Clara was certain that he hadn't moved. The tea she had made him was stone cold and the sandwich laid untouched. She had been marking all day and hadn't realised his behaviour until now. She thought he was getting better.
She took the chewed pen out of her mouth and placed it on the side. She really should get out of the habit. She ended up throwing most pens away because of it had broken in her mouth rather than they had run out.
Clara walked over to him and knelt in front of him. His gaze was fixed on his hands in his lap. She took them gently into hers.
"Hey, are you forgetting that you need to eat again? Look you didn't drink the tea I made you this morning either."
She let him take his time and couldn't help her eyes 'inflate', as he would call it, as he looked at her with tear-filled eyes.
"What's up Doctor?"
"Ponds." He said after a while.
Clara closed her eyes. She knew how much he was affected when they left him. She didn't want to start to think how he would be if she left him.
"Why did I just call them Ponds?" He said, voice full of emotion. "They should have been Williams. Well that was Rory's surname. I don't know how he just took it. I mean I stole his fiancée on the night of their wedding and took her off to show her the universe. She kissed me and I almost allowed it. I mean Amy would always love Rory, he had no competition but he must have felt a little jealous." He paused for a moment. "Do you think that is why PE wanted us to stop travelling together? Did he see me as a rival?"
She just shrugged. It was a plausible assumption to make. Maybe Danny was jealous.
"Chinny wasn't for tradition at all. What was he even? I must have gone through a mid-life crisis. They say regeneration is a lottery but … He was a manchild. A fashion disaster of a toddler. Bowties were bad but the fez. Why did I think fezzes were cool? And he was always tripping over things. I don't know how I didn't regenerate by tripping over."
Clara smiled. "You still do sometimes. I have seen you." She tapped their hands on his legs. "It is because these are too long."
His smile got wider when he saw hers.
"I know that you said that I shouldn't but I do remember some of the things that happened to my echoes, one of them being Oswin. That must have been when I met you the first time. You were with Amy and Rory. I distinctly remember telling Rory that the first boy I ever fancied was called Rory." She paused when the Doctor raised an eyebrow at her and allowed a small giggle to fall from her lips. "Then I told him that actually, she was called Nina. I was going through a phase. I really don't know what she was on. She was bonkers."
"She was a dalek." He laughed.
"Thinking about it now, that is why you are so angry all the time. And it is not just your attack eyebrows."
"Why? Go on then tell me your theory." He said, his voice becoming more Scottish in places.
"That."
He looked at her trying to work what she meant.
"I told Amy, as Oswin, … or did I ask you. Details don't matter. I said that Amy was too angry and she said that someone had never been to Scotland."
"I did say that not long after I regenerated. That I could really complain about things now that I was Scottish."
"You still miss them don't you?"
The Doctor moved his gaze back into his lap and gave a series of short nods.
"It is okay to still miss them. Amy was a big influence on Chinny. She was the first face that face saw."
"As you are the first this one saw."
She saw his eyes glaze over at the statement. He was the one to say it but she could tell that he had to say it at a worse time. Maybe it had something to do with the Thal. He didn't really go into much detail about him other than he was the bully of the prison when he arrived.
He had told her little bits but she could tell he was still keeping the majority of it hidden. She didn't understand why. She always knew that it would be best for him to talk about his time. She could see that he was and still is ill because of it. His mental state was and always would take longer to heal than his body but she just wished that he would open up a little more.
"Maybe that is why you are Scottish. Because of Amy."
The Doctor smiled widely. "Oh Clara Oswald, how you can always make me smile."
She brought his hands up to her lips and kissed his knuckles without thinking. She rubbed her thumbs along the part she had just kissed.
"Because that is what friends do."
"I don't deserve you."
"I am sorry but I am exactly what you deserve."
They both smiled at the memory.
"Those were easier times weren't they?" She asked.
"Maybe. Maybe not."
"I like to think that they were easier."
His smile dropped and Clara realised what he was thinking. It may have been easier with his younger face. She never once argued that he wasn't her boyfriend with that face because it was easier to think that way. It took her a while to realise it but she loved the Doctor. Whether the face was young with a bowtie or sandshoes or old with a war torn face or attack eyebrows. They were all the same man underneath it all. Same alien underneath it all. Same man, different face.
Maybe what Vastra said to her did hit home a bit. The Doctor did wear his own veil and she was glad that he felt so safe with her that he could lift it. She had always regretted her actions and words that followed his regeneration. She hated it took her that long to see it. She had even been in the same room as three of them at one stage.
"I … I met a descendant of the Ponds while I was … you know." He started. "He isn't or wasn't blood related, I will get to that part later. But he was good as."