A/N hello everyone! How's it going? I'm good, thanks for asking.
I believe that last chapter left some of you a little confused...and I'm glad, cos that's what I was aiming for. Clara was so confused her mind was splintered so of course you guys will be haha. everything will be explained in time, pinky swear!
Special thanks today goes out to all my guest reviewers, because you're all so nice and lovely and just aaaaaah people must you be such amazing people? Speaking of reviews, if you review this chapter I will literally hug you. Or hug the computer. Whatever. But just know that if you do I will be ecstatic and probably send a very capslock-y pm about how awesome you are. Cos it's true. And it will make me write the next chapter really really fast if I get a lot.
Anyway, hope you like this one. :)
•••
THE DOCTOR
"Next Wednesday, I suppose? And no more running off for eleven months to find freaky alien creatures?"
Clara raised an eyebrow at him. "I should hope not. But why don't we make sure? Say hello to Angie and Artie. They miss you."
"Do they? Well, might as well drop in for a minute or two..." he straightened his bow tie and followed Clara out the door. More domestic? He had always thought that wasn't his thing. But he couldn't stop himself.
He rang the doorbell himself, even though he knew that Clara had a key, pressing the brass button to the rhythm of "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree".
George Maitland, to his surprise, answered the door.
"Ah! Greetings!" he exclaimed.
"Hi, George. Mind if the Doctor comes in for a cuppa?" Clara added.
The man scrutinized them both, perhaps checking for signs of another food fight, and eventually replied with an, "Of course, of course!"
It was only when they took a seat at the kitchen table that the Doctor realised he had his arm around Clara's shoulders, and reluctantly extracted it.
"Milk? Sugar?" George asked from the kitchen.
"No milk, four sugars please." Perhaps his usual five might come across a little rude in this situation.
"So, I haven't really had a chance to get to know you, hey? What do you do for a living?"
"I...I travel. You know, here and there. This and that."
"...right. I'm in law, myself." George returned to the table just in time for Artie to burst in from the backyard.
"Doctor!"
"Artie, hello!" he ruffled his hair. "How's chess going? Win any tournaments yet?"
"No," Artie's mood changed from excited to downcast in an instant. "I was hoping you could help me win."
"Ah, Artie, it's not about winning, it's about the game! But," he lowered his voice. "Who doesn't love winning, eh? One tip, keep your queen safe, don't risk her, she's a handy thing if you're stuck in check."
•••
Three hours later, and the Doctor had used up any and all excuses he had to stay longer. A couple of chess games, dinner and awkward chatting with Mr Maitland had allowed him most of those spare minutes with Clara. Usually he wouldn't be as tolerable of such ordinary events and small talk, but...he couldn't seen to find the part of himself that declared anything remotely ordinary 'boring'.
"See ya later, Doctor, hey?"
He looked down at her smiling face, and was struck with the sudden thought that he really, really did not want to go. Well, didn't want to leave her.
"Yeah, suppose so...you know, Clara, it's a nice day, and I know you don't want to go on any more adventures today but it is a nice day, a beautiful day, a walk-y day, don't you think..." How to ask her, how to ask her? How did humans do this kind of thing?
"Doctor, it's February and about four degrees."
"Oh, oh, well, sorry, don't worry, I'll just be-"
Clara rolled her eyes and ducked back into the house. "I'll get my coat, alright?"
•••
The Doctor had absolutely no idea what he was doing.
Walking along some ordinary street he hasn't even bothered to find the name of, in an ordinary London suburb, on an ordinary 21st century day, on an ordinary four degree afternoon.
Except the person beside him was very much extraordinary.
He could barely even remember what they had been doing for the past half hour, only that it involved one of his old stories about cybermen and Clara teasing his fashion taste.
"Fezzes, no, fezzes are cool," he pointed at Clara with finality. She simply laughed- again, that laugh?- and shifted under the weight of his arm on her shoulders.
He looked at her, and felt inexplicable tears prick at his eyes.
Happy crying. Humany wumany.
Of course then he had to spin wildly to avoid walking into a tree.
She was looking at him more intently now, with a fierceness that was undeniable. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong, now?"
He sighed. He had to, didn't he? He'd wanted to protect her, keep her as far away from the Silence as possible. But Clara wasn't one for letting these things pass.
"The Silence," he began, "as I said before, are a religious order. Ancient, and very powerful. Their main objective and belief is to bring about the silence...my silence...my death. I tricked them once, oh, quite cleverly, I might add. It involved an alternate reality and a robot duplicate, not to mention some very messed up time lines. And...I thought I'd shaken them off. If not forever, then for a while yet. I suppose not."
"Where did you go, when you were gone? What did you do?"
"I ran. As I always do. I searched. Couldn't find them, barely a trace, in fact. But they're there. Hovering at the edges of human evolution. Watching for me. They'll come for me, when the time is right."
"And that time is now?"
"Near future. Very near, if they are being careless enough to let me catch a glimpse of them. I just hope..." His words faded, it was hard to say them with Clara looking up at him with such concern and intensity in her eyes.
"That you can trick them again?"
"Well, yes, that too. But...I hope that they don't find you." He looked away, watching the path of a blackbird pecking at a bucket of chips on the footpath.
Clara was silent, and the Doctor felt like there many things she wanted to say to him -and a few of them involved heated arguing and witty remarks to show him how stupid that statement was- but she wasn't saying them.
He loved her for that.
They turned the corner, and there was the Maitland house, the TARDIS parked neatly outside.
"I'll see you soon, right?" Clara saw him off at the door.
"Er, yes. Yes, of course. Back in a jiffy, well, for me. Perks of living in a time machine."
"That wasn't an invitation, was it?"
"No! No, no. I mean, um," he stuttered. Why couldn't she stay in the TARDIS? It would mean he could be with her all the time, and it wasn't like that was a gloomy prospect. Not in the slightest. "If you want to, I suppose. I mean, I'm not forcing you, and it's not like I care that much but, um, you know..."
Clara laughed. "Don't think so, sorry, chin. In this case, loving someone doesn't mean I'm going to abandon my life to run off to god-knows-where with them."
No.
Oh no.
He stood there with his mouth gaping open, staring at her as she began to realise what she had just so inadvertently revealed.
"Bit keen, I mean, don't you think? Normal people wait at least a few years, but I don't know, maybe that's the nature of you Time Lords? A little too eager?" she smiled playfully, but her eyes wavered and her words were much too rushed to cover up her previous statement as something meaningless, as something between good friends, not...whatever they were.
"So, I'll see you next Wednesday," she muttered, creaking the door closed.
"Bye," he said. That's all. Bye. Idiot. Over a thousand years, you'd think he'd manage something slightly better. But no. Just bye.
He slapped a hand to his forehead.
You dull, thick idiot!
Perhaps she hadn't meant it like that, perhaps she'd meant it like she'd say to Angie and Artie, or to her best friends; like he'd say to Martha, or Donna, or Amy.
But he knew she hadn't.
Oh, for the love of Rassilon.
Bye? She just told you she loved you, why didn't you say something else? Something intelligent, something witty, maybe, but said with just the right tone of voice that it showed his own level of care for her. Or, at least, something more than a simple three letter word.
Why didn't he just say it back?
No.
He couldn't. He hadn't said it before, not ever, and for good reason.
He had come close, sure. But he still couldn't say it.
It was like a curse, those words. A broadcast to his enemies, of whom there were so many: here is my weakness! Come and get it!
Like a signal, to all the universe, everyone he might so meet. The Doctor has fallen in love.
He had lost everyone he had ever loved, as friends, as family, in the most cruel and violent ways imaginable. He was loath to think how the universe might tear away Clara if he loved her.
If. It wasn't so much an 'if' as a 'because', now. But he still couldn't say it. Not now, not after all the others before her.
Listen to yourself, Doctor. Worrying over superstitions and fate, pretending to know the whims of the universe. All because you are too scared to say three short words. The Time Lord Victorious, the Predator, the Oncoming Storm, felled so easily by the prospect of falling in love.
He could have laughed, long and loud and humourless, right in the Maitlands' front yard.
He turned back to the TARDIS, a snap of his fingers swinging the doors open.
Love. Did such a thing even exist? Pure, and simple, unhindered and not frightening? Maybe just not for him. Not for the Doctor.
He smiled grimly. What a nice way for the universe to repay him, for saving it so very many times. But, as he had learned before, you couldn't make bargains with it.
Not even for Clara.