The TARDIS is being mischievous and switches Clara's room with one the Doctor uses to store old mementos Clara stumbles upon a strange book that turns out to be the Gallifreyian version of a family photo album (Think family photos similar to the "Gallifrey Falls No More" portrait.) The Doctor walks in as she's looking at it at first he's upset, but Clara somehow gets him to tell her about the people in the pictures. For the first time since he ended the Time War the Doctor really opens up and talks about his family back on Gallifrey. Just make something up, I'm craving some details about the Doctor's past
AllonsyIdjits: I tried my best, I don't know how it came out. It felt a bit of a blasphemy to make up details of the Doctor's past, so I actually remained as vague as I could. I hope you like it anyway. Sorry again for the long delay.
After the events of Trenzalore, Clara and the TARDIS had come to a sort of understanding. It was a silent agreement of reciprocal tolerance which had grown to what Clara might even describe as friendship. In fact, the TARDIS even let Clara fly her - under the Doctor's supervision of course. But, since they were both control freaks, it was also a competitive friendship. Every now and again the TARDIS felt the need to show Clara who's boss, and to do so she usually dislocated her bedroom.
One night, she was particularly exhausted so she wished goodnight to the Doctor and, when she opened the door to her room, she found an empty closet instead.
"Oh, come on," she groaned.
She stormed through the corridors, bursting open every door and slamming every one of them shut when she saw they didn't lead to her bedroom.
"I hope this hurts," she shouted to the empty corridor. "How am I supposed to find my room? This ship is literally infinite!"
She rapped her arms around her torso and slowed down her pace. She turned a corner and found herself facing a new door. "If this isn't my bedroom, I swear I'll go and tell the Doctor," she told the TARDIS, feeling a bit childish, but desperate times called for extreme measures - and she was so tired.
She took a deep breath and open the door. What she saw was, in fact, a bedroom - but it wasn't hers.
It was a very bare room, small and rectangular, made entirely out of wood, which might have even been bright and elegant once, but which now was just old. The only pieces of furniture were a bed attached to the wall, to Clara's left, and a wooden desk on the opposite corner of the room.
There was nothing special about the room per se, but what she saw on the desk was enough to catch her attention and drag her in.
She stepped inside and carefully closed the door behind her - without pulling it all the way but leaving it ajar. She moved closer to the desk, as if attracted by the object on top of it.
It was a book - big, golden and beautiful, with a Gallyfreyan inscription she couldn't yet read, despite all the lessons the Doctor tried to give her, and with some kind of glow that absolutely contrasted with the darkness of the room.
She realized what it was as soon as she opened it and it wasn't what she was expecting.
It was a family album.
She flicked quickly through the pages to make sure. The pictures inside were bright and heavy against the thin, white pages. There was something about those photographs which was, to Clara, both strange and familiar. She lifted up the album so it was at her eye level and tilted her head to one side.
"3-D," she whispered, without noticing the smile which had grown on her face.
Just like the painting, she thought, remembering Gallifray Falls No More as if it were yesterday.
She focused her attention on what the pictures were portraying. She had the time to see people of all ages, all of them looking somewhat solemn and powerful, but at the same time happy - it was obvious by their genuine smiles - before she heard footsteps coming towards her.
The noise startled her and the book she was holding slipped from her grasp and fell with a thud to the floor.
"Clara," she heard the Doctor's voice calling her. "Is that you?"
She hurriedly leaned down to collect the album and threw it on the desk, her heart pumping furiously in her chest. She had the clear feeling she had been doing something wrong, that she wasn't supposed to be there, but the ever approaching sound of footsteps told her she wouldn't be able to flee the room in time.
In fact, the door suddenly swung open and a second later she was facing the Doctor.
"Clara," he asked, startled. "What are you doing here?"
She slid carefully in front of the album, in a desperate attempt to hide it from him.
"Doctor," she smiled, trying to sound as calm and normal as she could possibly master. "Sorry, I came here by mistake. The TARDIS hid my bedroom again and so I-"
"Have you been looking through my photographs?" He demanded pointing in the general direction of the photo album. Clara realized he knew exactly what she had been trying to hide behind her back.
"Yes, I -" she started, searching for the right words. " - I saw it. I was curious to see what it was so I opened it."
She shifted from her spot, exposing the book to the Doctor. She hoped to make it so it wouldn't look like a big deal, but it was a weak hope, because the dismay in his voice told her it was.
"I didn't know what it was," she added. "I didn't even know they were your photographs."
"Just get out," he told her, through gritted teeth and looking at her menacingly.
"Oh come on Doctor," she tried to smile. "I'm sorry, really, but I didn't-"
"Get out," he growled, without letting her finish.
Clara opened her mouth to retort and then closed it again. She normally would have protested, argued right back at him, but this rage felt new to her. She bowed her head and fixed her eyes to her shoes, before passing quietly next to him and exiting the room.
She gradually quickened her pace as she walked down each new corridor she stumbled upon, without paying attention to where she was going. Her entire attention was focused on her feet, on the way they chased each other, step after step, until she suddenly found herself in the console room.
She wondered whether it was the TARDIS who was trying to make amends to her for the nasty trick she had played earlier.
Not knowing what to do, Clara made her way down the stairs and around the perimeter of the room, distractedly caressing the banisters along her way, and then she sat down on the steps that led to the area under the console. She rapped her arms around her knees and rested her head upon them.
She waited in that position, not knowing what she was waiting for exactly, maybe just for anything to happen.
The seconds passed slowly as they turned into minutes, and maybe hours as far as Clara was aware, before she heard once again the sound of footsteps coming towards her. She didn't look up when she heard them echo on the metal floor, nor did she look up when the Doctor sat next to her.
"I'm..." He started, tentatively.
She looked up at him, expectantly, but without interrupting him. He suddenly seemed very interested in his own hands.
"...sorry," he managed to finish.
He finally looked back at her and gave her an apologetic look.
She hesitated. "I'm sorry, too," she eventually told him. "I shouldn't have gone through your private stuff. I should have known better than that."
He shook his head. "Nah, you weren't doing anything wrong," he said. "I was just -"
But he didn't finish, apparently in loss of the proper words to explain, even to himself, what he was feeling.
Clara remained quiet and patiently waited for him to find them. Her mind flashed back to that moment, so long ago, when he had asked her whether she thought he was a good man. That memory made her smile internally.
"Those kind of memories are particularly painful, that's why I lashed out like that. Not because - I wasn't really angry at you."
"You could well have been," she argued, bewildered. "It's intimate. I didn't have any right -"
"I never told you there were places on the TARDIS where you couldn't go, things you couldn't do. That's because..." he paused, sighed and then smiled at her.
"That's because I've given up thinking that secrets keep us safe. When it comes to you, anyway. I just didn't want to hide anything from you, anymore," he continued, before looking down at his feet and adding: "even though I haven't told you everything, yet, I suppose."
Clara made an effort to hold back a smile, despite the feeling of butterflies in her chest. She had only then realized that their relationship might be special not only to her but also to him. She had never felt the need to compete with his previous companions, but she had always given for granted that he treated her the same as them. Yet, his words, in that moment, implied that all that sharing was new to him, and this made her heart melt in her chest.
"Are you talking about the people in the photo album?" She asked. "Was that your family on Gallifray?"
He nodded, then leaned back and she saw him grab something. She slightly turned her head in that direction to see what it was. She hadn't realized he had brought the album with him, when he had joined her in the console room. Silenced by the surprise, she observed him as he lifted it with one hand and brought it in front of him.
Clara had followed the entire movement with her big eyes opened wide, so, when he opened the album, she was once again face to face with those amazing, yet disturbing to the untrained eye, photographs.
She blinked at the sight and then gave him a questioning look.
"So," he started, seemingly confused as she was. "What do you want to know?"
Immediately, many questions, many unfulfilled curiosities, popped into her head, but she mentally pushed them aside, at least for the moment.
"You don't have to, you know. I don't need to know anything more than I already know. It's OK to have secrets - a private life. We don't have to share everything," she said, gently smiling at him.
His smiled back at her. "I want to do this."
She bit her bottom lip to stop her smile turning into an embarrassing grin. "OK," she said, slowly. "Who are these people then?"
The Doctor had a second of hesitation, but then he saw the deep trust she had reflected in her eyes, so he begin to talk about his parents, about how he had left them at a very young age to join the academy and become a Time Lord. He wondered reminiscently at the time spent with his siblings and showed her the friends he had when he lived in Gallifrey, some of whom he had stayed in touch with for a long time, until the Time War that is, and some others he had lost along the way much earlier.
"You were so cute as a Time Lord teenager," Clara teased him.
He frowned at her and she winked at him, so they both started laughing. "And who's this?" She asked pointing at a picture which showed a grinning boy with his arm rapped around a Doctor with stunningly young eyes.
A shadow crossed the Doctor's face. "Oh," he said, as though he wasn't expecting that question. "That's - that's the Master."
"Oh," she mimicked, involuntarily. She observed the young faces of the two young Time Lords. "He's so different. Gender aside, of course. I mean, his eyes-"
She left the phrase hang in midair, like an unwanted, heavy presence. The Doctor didn't say anything, and they both remained quiet for a while, until Clara broke the silence: "What happened with you two? I never really asked."
She could see the questioned troubled the Doctor, but when he finally replied he didn't sound angry. "It's a long story, one for another time," he said. "Lets just say we took different paths. We wanted different things. The same that always happens, really."
"Yeah, but not every person who takes different paths from us becomes a super villain," she laughed, but she knew better than to insist, so she changed the subject. "What about your first wife? Which one is she?"
The Doctor flicked a few pages, coming towards the end of the photo album. "There she is," he said, pointing at one of the pictures.
Clara leaned in to take a better look. She almost gasp. "Wow, she's beautiful," she admitted, truthfully.
"Yes, she was," he sighed.
Clara looked at him, curiously. "What happened to her?" She asked.
He paused to think for a moment, before giving her an answer. "Don't know for sure. Stuck in the last great Time War, I supposed. I hadn't heard from her for a very long time even before that, anyway," he confessed, with a point of guilt implied in his voice.
She automatically reached for his shoulder with her hand. She realized what she had done when it was too late, so she didn't retracted it, and instead gave him a sympathetic smile.
They staid in silence for while and then he said: "You remind me of her, you know."
This took Clara by surprise, so she just stared at him for a few seconds, before she spoke: "How?"
"Well," he started and Clara saw him blush. "She was bossy and stubborn, and a bit of a control freak, just like you -ouch!" He bellowed when she hit him on the arm.
She glared at him. He rubbed the sore spot on his arm and continued: "But she was also very intelligent and resourceful and kind."
"Oh," she said, again, feeling her cheek becoming hot and giving him a small, embarrassed, smile. "Then why - why did you..."
She suddenly realized she didn't have the words to formulate that sort of question, not if she wanted to be tactful, at least. Luckily, that clever man immediately picked up on what she was trying to say.
"You know," he shrugged. "We wanted different things. I couldn't stay still for her and she had...different priorities than me."
Clara nodded thoughtfully, and then moved closer to him. She rapped her arm under his own and rested her head upon his shoulder. As always, she felt his body stiffen in response, but he eventually relaxed against her.
He started telling her about about his life with her, and she wondered what it would be liked to be married to the Doctor and whether she would like it, whether it could ever work.
She listened to the Doctor as he told her about his children and his granddaughter Susan, up to the day he stole his TARDIS, helped by woman he had never seen before and had never seen since, even though she was weirdly familiar, now that he stopped to think about it...
Clara swallowed every word he shared eagerly, almost greedily, like fresh water on a very hot day. Every once in a while he paused and he looked at her and she smiled so widely her cheeks hurt, but she didn't care.
When the Doctor finished speaking, they both stared at the floor in silence, as if to take in everything that had been said and done that night. Then Clara rubbed his arm and said: "Thank you for telling me all of that."
"Honestly, it was my pleasure."
Clara chuckled. She freed her arm from under his and jump on her feet.
"Then it will be my pleasure to offer you some dinner," she gave him a cheeky look and offered him her hand to lift him.
He frowned at it and lifted himself up. "Well that's awfully nice of you," he replied, ironically, but with a joyful glee in his eyes. "What's the occasion?"
"You told me all about your past lives, now it's my turn," she said. "I have to tell you all about my past marriages and children and grandchildren..."
For a moment the Doctor seemed shocked. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. "But you never told me-"
Clara burst into laughter, and grabbed his hand. She squeezed it and this made him visibly relax. "You know, it should be morning for you now. I kept you up all night with my reminiscing, you should get some rest."
She shook her head. "You know what? I'm not tired anymore," she told him. "But we could compromise and have breakfast instead of dinner."
The Doctor grinned at her, before squeezing her hand in return. "Breakfast sounds just fine."