It was still dark outside when the Doctor went down the stairs to the kitchen on the ground floor. With the lights still turned off, he sat on a wooden stool by the decorated windowsill. On the sill sat colourful pots filled with fragrant shrubs of thyme and rosemary, and he looked passed them into the front yard with great care. It was almost 6six in the morning and the car that was supposed to take him to Paris for the meeting with local the UNIT director was about to arrive any minute now.
He wasn't particularly happy about having to travel eight hours each way just to meet some pen pushers who didn't even take the trouble to organise the appointment themselves, but his recent fight with Clara made him see things in a brand new light.
It had been an entire three days since she told him about her plans and they hadn't had one conversation that didn't go badly ever since. Hopefully, the trip to Paris would give Clara some time to think everything through and come to understand his stance. Her concerns were simply unjustified, he thought. There was of course a risk something similar may happen in the future, but was it a good reason to drop everything just now? Certainly not. The only problem was Clara's naivety and idealism didn't allow her to realise it as quickly as he could.
He was pouring himself a glass of water from a kettle when he noticed a noise coming from the staircase nearby. It wasn't anything extraordinary, particularly when one had a dog with a very-small-for-its-size bladder. Surely it was only Gulliver who likely thought it was the right time to try and convince his owner to take him for a walk;- the Doctor didn't even move from his seat. When the creature making the noise approached the kitchen a bit closer, he noticed it must have been using only one pair of limbs for walking.
"Can we please talk for a moment?" He heard Clara's voice saying quietly as she entered the kitchen. Of course it must have been her- he murmured under his breath. They spent three days at each other's throats and now she'd come back to start round number four.
"Did you change your mind?" He hissed from behind a layer of green herbs, still focused on monitoring of the yard in front of the manor.
"No." She sighed in resignation. "I didn't."
"We have nothing to talk about then." He took a huge sip of cold water from his glass cup.
Clara grabbed one of the chairs by the kitchen island and moved it closer to where the Doctor was sitting.
"I won't see you until Saturday. We shouldn't leave things unexplained." She reasoned with him kindly.
"What do you want me to say? That I agree and it's one heck of idea?" He snorted.
Clara lifted her hand and rested it on his knee squeezing it gently.
"I would love to hear that but we both know it's not going to happen. Although, I can ask you to consider it, can't I?"
The Doctor brushed off her hand of his leg and breathed in heavily.
"I will never agree to that because it's stupid. You cannot let the first bumpkin that shows up on your way tell you what to do."
"It's not stupid to me at all," she told him. "You're saying that because you can't bare that I may leave you, aren't you?"
"Because it's stupid?"
Clara cracked up and leant in on the chair so that her head was almost touching his.
"Do you even hear yourself? You want me to risk everything just for a few extra years. What happened to the man who was willing to spend his entire life in one tiny town just to save it? That man would agree with me," she hissed under her breath.
"He met a girl who showed him how wrong he was. She made him realise he's responsible for not only himself. What happened to that girl he fell in love with, is better question. Because frankly he can't see her in you at all." He blew a raspberry.
"Oh, he must love her very much then." Clara pointed out and rose from her seat. "Can you please stop using words which meanings you don't understand? Besides, if you think you can mousetrap me with your sudden love for me, you're wrong. Although, I'm surprised you've sunk so low, " she added and left the room.
Her words made him even angrier than he already was if that was possible at all. He just couldn't bear the thought that he had to prove his feelings for her were true. That said, he dared to say them because he wished they would help to keep her by his side, but it wasn't the only reason. In the dark corridors of the Cloisters and then when he kneeled in front of her like the biggest moron on Earth he truly meant it. Every word. He loved her so much it frightened him to death. Unfortunately, for her it was all just a trick to manipulate her into changing her mind.
The Doctor was just finishing his glass when the headlights of a car illuminated the driveway. He hurriedly picked up his luggage from the kitchen floor and went out the main door, leaving the manor and Clara behind for a while.
The day was about to end as the Doctor finally arrived in Paris. Since it was a bit too late for social meetings, all appointments were planned for tomorrow. Not having anything better to do, he went down to the bar of the hotel in which he was staying and took a seat at a tall bar table.
He was the only customer sitting at it. The room was almost empty or at least felt as such. Places like that one had one trait in common, people came there to drink, not talk. There were different reasons for each guest's thirst for alcohol: some of them suffered from homesickness while others tried to come to terms with smaller or bigger failures in their career. And there was a small group of stray dogs like he himself that night. Trying the best they can to lull themselves to sleep.
The Doctor sat at the table for a long while. He didn't order anything –just watched people around him moving in time with an effete melody coming from the jazz band that was squeezed onto the corner of the room. The song was called Don't Stop Me Now, he believed. He would recognise its damn notes anywhere. It all seemed a bit ironic, the first time he heard that song Clara and he were about to part. And here it was again, when he was a step from losing Clara again. This time for good, he was afraid.
"One double whiskey."
A tall dark-haired man who had taken a seat on a stool next to him demanded. He knew that man, or at least he had seen him before. The man's name was Bastian if he remembered correctly. He was a junior scientist at the University of Paris VI and an officer of UNIT. To be exact, a member of the crew the Brig sent to help them. Not very useful in the field operations, but definitely better to get along with than halfwits carrying guns.
"Fancy anything, Doctor-," the man asked him as he repeated to the barman his room's number.
The Doctor shook his head slightly and looked down at the bowl with peanuts in front of him. He took few seeds from it and put them into his mouth and to his surprise they weren't salted at all.
"Looks like the guy needs to be introduced to the biggest secret of manhood, don't you think?" He directed his statement to the barman and gestured for him to pour the Doctor a drink.
"Woman or you're luckier than most of us?" The barman asked as he passed him a glass of whiskey. The man's sympathetic eyes fixed on his and somehow made him feel better. Maybe the company of human males could help him? After all, Clara was one of their species so they should know more than anyone else.
"Women are the worst aren't they?" The Doctor sighed as he took a sip of cold drink.
"No need to tell me," the barman told him and showed him a wedding ring on his finger. "Ten years of so-called family bliss."
"But you're still together, I don't get your point?" The Doctor noticed.
"I guess he just wanted to prove his experience in the field,-" Bastian explained to him. "I have twelve myself. Well thirty if one counts everything. Nicole and I were friends as children. Then she was seeing her first boyfriend. Guy was a ratbag and left her to her own devices with a ten month old baby. Unluckily for him – now we have twelve years of an amazing marriage, two wonderful boys, fifteen and eight, and third one in the way."
"Congratulations buddy." The barman spoke with genuine respect in his voice. "Your little one is in the age of my Audrey. She's gonna be eight in July."
Bastian seemed to be happy as he spoke about his family, but the Doctor knew there was one very important fact he was hiding from them. He remembered quite clearly the story he heard in a bakery some time ago. His eight year old son moved to the town from Paris and almost drown in the public swimming pool one April day. The boy spent three weeks in coma, never regaining his strength after the accident. Women in the shop cried over the fact how cheerful child changed into one that spent all days staring into empty space and couldn't even hold a spoon while being fed. Since the place was the woods chances there were other scientists with son in that age were rather low.
"So what did or didn't you do?" The barman continued his gentle interrogation.
"Clara wants to do one thing. I find it stupid and dangerous, but she can't be convinced otherwise. The worst is each time we start to discuss her choice it only gets worse. It's like we can't talk with each other anymore." The Doctor mumbled and took another hungry sip of the drink.
"Oh I get it,-" the men said in unison.
"I don't think you understand. She has an old habit. It almost killed her once." The Doctor continued.
"Like extreme sports?" Bastian added with fear etched in his voice. Did he fear he would tell man the truth? That was simply ridiculous.
"Yes like extreme sports. It almost cost her life that time but we cracked it. She promised, she would take better care of herself, she's however planning to do it again. I reminded her about what she swore last time, but she's using it against me. " The Doctor explained using Bastian's analogy.
"Your Clara is one hell of repeater then." The barman said with serious expression on his face.
"It looks like it. I just wish she would at least consider what I have to say."
The barman nodded his head slightly and poured the Doctor another glass of whiskey.
"If I can advise you one thing: don't get involved in her life any more if she does it herself. She already turned you grey, didn't she?"
"I beg your pardon?" The Doctor choked up. What the man just suggested appeared to be completely abstract.
"What you just said." The barman pointed out. "You may be against that, but as long as you're there for her, even a little bit, it's as if you supported it. She knows you don't approve of it, but she also knows you won't do anything to stop her 'cause you're afraid she'll leave. She has absolute control over you. The fact you spend your evening out drinking and talking to strangers is the best proof of that. "
"What do you think?" The Doctor was looking for consolation in Bastian. "You started that crazy conversation after all."
"I think he may be a little bit right-," Bastian answered sheepishly. "But we don't know details."
The Doctor couldn't believe in what he just heard. The words were flowing and ringing in his ears, but he couldn't understand their meaning. How was he supposed to simply pack his stuff and leave Clara after all they have been through together? Did he spend billions of years fighting for her just to let it go? He came here to find a way how to solve their problems, not let them defeat them.
The Doctor grabbed his drink, drank it to the bottom in one long gulp and rose from the seat.
"Sorry, but I don't think you know anything." He snorted and left the room.
It was almost ten in the morning when the Doctor was doing the last corrections on his look before going for a set appointment at the local UNIT headquarters.
If only Clara was here- he thought to himself as he watched his own reflection. Everything seemed pretty good, except for his shirt. Its fabric was horribly wrinkled due to the long journey from Brittany and didn't want to look any better even after few attempts to iron it. The battle between he and Clara revealed to have more and more severe consequences. If things were fine, she would likely be here with him advising him what to say and how to smile to the bosses he was meeting. And the most important of all, she would definitely not allow him to look like a vagabond when he was about to meet important officials.
He was just leaving the bathroom when he heard a quiet knock on the doors. He approached them and cracked it open slightly. It was Bastian, with whom he was drinking last night in the bar. The man stood nervously in the corridor all dressed up with two cups of coffee in his hands.
"Ready to go-," he asked. "Sergeant Fortier is meeting us in an hour. She's a total bitch so I advise you not to be late. By the way, please don't repeat that last part to her "
"I won't, don't worry,-" the Doctor answered as he closed the doors to the room. "How did it happen that a Chemist and Geneticist ended up in UNIT?" He was trying to start conversation.
"Well, we were still students back then. She was recruited first and recommended me about year later. And here we are. Twenty years in the family." The man explained as they walked down the narrow corridor and straight to the closest lift.
"Was it a nice journey?" The Doctor asked when they were already by the machine. "I'm just curious."
"I'd say so. Plenty of opportunities to travel. They paid for my PhD in the United States, so I don't regret anything if you need to know,-" Bastian continued. Suddenly the look on the man's face changed. "I know I'm just some guy you met in a bar, but I have an offer for you. It's related to yesterday's conversation."
"Is it?" The Doctor questioned him as they entered the lift.
"Yes, it is. My wife and I plan to sell my dead father's house. It was too small for our family so we needed to rent another property when he was ill, but now the house is empty. We still didn't start doing anything to sell it and won't till next year. I just wanted to say that if things between you and the miss become too hard to bear, feel free to use it. It's not as nice as the manor you occupy right now;- but just in case you really need it, there is a place to hide."
The Doctor didn't even know what to say. He had just met the guy and yet he was kind enough to take him under his roof and seemed to truly listen and care about his problems. He didn't know much about him, but he felt the two of them could become a decent friends.
