"The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this trouble heart teach me much more. I have returned to my beginning."

- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

"And you're sure? Actually, properly sure?"

Clara, on her knees, held Merry by the arms.

At this height, they were level with each other and Clara's new blue-green-hazel eyes held the same expression of a firm mother's warmth in them. It took some convincing – what with her disguise – that it was her in the first place.

Clara Oswald, after all, did not have gold ringlets circling her unusually less circular face. Her skin was usually sunkissed and bronzed with the barest hint of still youthful, amaranthine smile lines by her eyes—not this sweet, soft fairness with roses on her cheeks in place of where dimples should've been. Even her voice was modulated differently, a higher pitch than what she was used to – a trick she'd learnt with Me's assistance – to complete it.

Though why the disguise was necessary in the first place, she had yet to know, for no one else seemed to be in disguise at this cosmic royal ball other than herself. Merry, for instance, couldn't have looked more than three years older than when Clara had last seen her so very, very long ago—back when things weren't so complicated. To look at the pair of them, one might imagine that Clara was the girl's mother. The red of her regal robes lined and decorated with swirling gold patterns reminded her of other things, of other memories that she would rather forget but could not help but always, always remember.

A haunting shadow, grief made gravity that was the only weight in these hollow bones—these were what these buried memories were now in the graveyard of her veins.

Her gaze remained focused towards the girl's – soft but stern – and the little queen scrunched her brows in contemplation for a moment and nodded in answer.

"Of course."

Clara sighed. "Didn't Me tell you anything?"

"I'm sorry?" Merry raised a brow.

"Me."

"You?"

"No, no. Lady Me," Clara said. "That's her name. Surely you—" the penny dropped "—oh my stars, you haven't met Lady Me yet."

"Who's Lady Me?"

"A friend of mine. You gave her permission to set up an estate in an empty asteroid around Akhet's belt," she explained. Merry's expression remained unchanged from 'puzzled' though her hands were balled into fists at her sides and wiped her palms at the sides of her robes. Clara didn't notice and she merely shrugged. "Well, you will now, apparently. Now it makes sense as to how she got that rock so damn quickly."

"I'm not sure I follow—" Merry started. "Do you think there's going to be trouble?"

"I don't know. Probably, if someone went through all of that trouble to get me here in the first place," Clara mused as she let her eyes drift far beyond the scene.

Hundreds of people lingered in the spacious, cosmic ballroom—all of them in a state of frivolously decadent fancy dress. Her with her simple dark blue dress with holographic fabric that displayed a multitude of constantly shifting, and even some shooting, stars—one of Clara's favourite dresses from her personal stock? She felt remarkably underdressed, compared to the other guests at this ball.

Though despite the display of luxury that was to the point of ludicrous, there was something about the air of it all that felt wrong—she knew what traps felt like.

I've got a bad feeling about this, she thought.

Not that she could tell Merry this, of course; her faraway gaze was that of one that marked her as distracted, the surface of her cool never reflecting the whirlpools of worry beneath. Clara smiled at Merry and tucked the girl's hair behind her ears.

"Don't you worry, though. I've got this," she said. She raised a brow. "Do you trust me?"

"Absolutely," Merry replied, grinning. Clara did the same.

"Good girl."

"But where's the Doctor?"

If there were anything that could break through that ice thin façade of hers, it was that.

It was that name.

It was him.

Clara's smile faltered almost instantly — the mirth from these faux eyes, not quite as wide, slipping away like smoke from a snuffed out candle – and sobered. Merry noticed and a troubled look graced the girl's features and Clara brought back her smile, though tighter than the one before. More forced, more melancholy. A malfunctioning smile, he'd told her once—she was sad but she was smiling. She did a lot of that these days.

"I'm on my own now. Mostly," she answered.

"Is he okay?" Merry asked quietly.

"Yeah, he is. He's good, he's happy," she replied. Her eyes shone and though she smiled, she could hardly convince anyone. Swiftly did she then rub Merry's arms before she rose to her feet. "Now don't blow my cover, alright? I'm technically crashing this ball now, even if I did have an invite."

"I won't," the girl replied just as quick. Tactful girl, this one. "I could ask around, maybe? See if there's anything… sneaky—" bless her from whispering, as if she were an accomplice in Clara's plan (that had yet to be properly formulated, really) "—going on?"

"Good idea," Clara replied. She straightened her back and brushed her hands on her skirts.

"Okay," said the little queen. Clara winked at her.

Just as they were about to part, however, was she then surprised by the littler arms that were suddenly wrapped around her waist, at the warmth that was suddenly pressed against her middle. For a second, Clara froze at the touch; her hands still from when she'd lifted them at either side of her. Merry hugged her and after that second of surprise, Clara hugged her back.

"It's good to see you, Clara," the girl whispered.

"You too, Merry."

Surveillance.

That was the job and it was something with which Clara had found herself increasingly familiar with in her years and years of often solitary traveling. It had become a hobby, almost—watching people and watching them live their lives. From the fallen ice cream of a young child who then begged and cried for another, to the secret rendezvous of forbidden lovers from one world to the next—the stories were always one and the same, usually. She liked watching them. She liked seeing their stories unfold – these little trivialities with each day marking a significant page in their lives though they did not themselves see it.

Though where Me had grown apathetic and near cold to mortality, Clara found herself thinking fondly of it, of this life that she too once had, once upon a time. There was something precious in the finite that only a rare few really understood and even rarer actually appreciated.

Where her still heart should have hardened, it only became raw. A thousand fresh cuts every single day, with more and more feeling. If the universe was cold and distant and uncaring—it was the curse of the likes of her to care where it didn't. To care so deeply and so profoundly that even these many, many years have never made her cruel or cowardly. Never again. It only made her kind – these everlasting but so very, very finite lives serving as a constant reminder of the debt she had to pay, and the duty to which she'd bound herself.

For them.

For him.

Clara walked amongst them unseen and unbothered. In attendance were two-headed creatures with headpieces that had more stilled starlight gems than some constellations had. There were skeletal soldiers dressed in purple garb, armed with colourful sabers made of laser lights that would have delighted a teenage Clara Oswald to no end.

There were the towering Nangavs standing to their full height of 14 fet, and cotton tailed Neehaks with their forked tongues, and Askonkulgathroths, majestic in their banrystianoc armor, and many others. Some of the species, Clara could remember from sight alone from her past travels. Most of them, she'd helped in some form or another.

It made her smile to see a lot of them but there, too, lingered some creatures with which she was more familiar. Humanoid, like her—like the man just by the refreshment tables who looked to be doing much of the same thing she was. There were few who kept to themselves the way she was but there were even rare who were keeping such close eyes on everyone else in attendance.

Until she saw him, she thought it had just been her.

She stood there and looked until he looked her way and they locked eyes. Tall and dark, his skin warm and rich, and a short but scruffy full beard decorated near half his face. Automatically, he reminded her of someone she knew once before.

He did not look like him, no, but it was enough of a resemblance to make her still where she stood. Her lips parted. In his hand was a glass of something he'd been handed and when he looked at her the way she did him, he did not notice the swift shadow that moved next to him, dropped something in his drink, and disappeared just as fast.

He held her gaze was just about the lift the glass to his lips. She broke into a swift run and reached him just as his full lips were about to touch the rim of the glass.

"Don't drink that," she told him in a rushed, breathless whisper.

"I'm sorry?" he asked. His accent rough, throaty, and indistinguishable.

"Someone—" she started and looked around. Her head turned every which way as she looked for the shadow that she knew put a small pill into his drink. Yet there was no one to be found. "What the—? I swear, someone just put something in your drink."

He looked at her, wary. His were bushy eyebrows that raised in trepidation of her accusation. She swallowed. Though she felt no heartbeat and had no need for heaving breaths, she knew the feeling of her throat closing up and her cheeks warming up with a flush—and her body remembered.

The stranger then dipped his single finger to the drink. He barely sucked on his finger before he spit it out and started coughing. Swift and instinctive, she had a hand tapping against his back while her other hand took the cup in his hands before he could drop it and she set it atop the buffet table. He reached for the desserts as soon as his coughing fits calmed down some and he stuffed chocolate bonbon after bonbon – wrapper and all – into his mouth and chewing without any modicum of grace.

Clara waited.

"Easy on those, they'll go straight to your hips," she joked when she found that his breathing had steadied and his grip on the tablecloth wasn't as tight anymore. "You okay?"

"Mrare mhriger," he grumbled, still chewing.

"I'm sorry?" she asked. He swallowed and cleared his throat.

"Pear cider," he replied after a cough. Clara inspected the cup and saw a pill still in the process of dissolving in the liquid. If she had to guess, it was nothing but a simple aspirin. "I'm terribly allergic."

"Pears have rarely done any good for me either," she told him, swirling the glass' contents around in the glass. "You sure you're okay?"

"I thought it was apple juice," he said, not answering again.

"They're fairly similar in scent. Try not to feel too betrayed."

"You said someone put something in my drink?"

"I swear on it, yes."

"But why—" he started but he was cut off by the shriek of a young girl with bright, curly, blonde hair bouncing behind her as she ran towards them.

"Cl— Miss Allison, Miss Allison!" she yelled.

"Your Majesty," Clara said with a bow of her head, her hand pressed against her heart. "Is it really proper for a young Queen to prance about all willy-nilly and yell at the top of her lungs while at a ball?"

"No, Miss Allison," Merry replied. "But Lady Salámangdoro's just arrived—the Regnant of Riñabu." Clara – Miss Allison – raised a brow in reply. Merry then continued, voice more urgent than before. "That's now every ruling monarch and regent protector in five galactic quadrants!"

Clara looked up from Merry, looking towards the newcomer in question. Salámangdoro was, indeed, among them. She remembered a little political matter she'd settled some generations before with an ancestor of this current monarch. She skimmed the crowd again and saw that her young ward was right. Of her inner musings, none of her concern was reflected upon her features.

"I'm sure it's nothing, Your Grace," she said after a moment's pondering. "Go sit with the Vigil if you're that anxious. They'll keep you safe."

Merry, for a moment, could not be convinced. Yet she looked up at Clara and the strange man with whom she'd just been acquainted – a back and forth and a back and forth – before she nodded and ran towards her guards.

"Kids and their imaginations, am I right?" she said to him, a smile on her lips and spoken as if it jest.

"You can lie to children but you can't lie to me," he said. Clara turned her head to look at him. "Children don't need to be lied to."

"Children don't need to be scared when they don't have to be," she retorted, hands crossed against her chest. "It's not their job to worry. It's ours."

"Is that Queen Merry Gelejh, then? Queen of Years of Akhet and the Seven Systems?" he asked.

"That she is."

"And you're the—?"

"Help," she answered, a knowing smile on her lips.

"A nanny?"

"I prefer governess," she replied, her smile turning into a smirk. "It makes me sound more important."

"Have you always been a governess?" he asked her.

"Have you always been this nosy?" she asked him.

"You don't seem like a governess," he said. It wasn't a question. Clara cocked her head and pressed the tip of her tongue to the wall of her cheek.

"Oh?" she asked. "And what do I seem like, then?"

"Lonely," he said, unfazed by her charm and transfixed to her own stare while his dark eyes were piercing. Her smile fell.

"That's presumptuous of you," she said.

"I'm right, though."

"Aren't we all?" she said, shrugging as she started to turn back.

The feeling was back—the thick air around them that smelled like a trap. She had a feeling at the back of her neck (the quantum shade's tattoo covered by her faux golden curls and the overall hardlight hologram disguise that she wore) that felt like goosebumps. There was something off. And someone had just tried to put something in his drink and he'd reacted to it so strongly—there was something going on and she needed to find out what.

But before she could move away, he spoke again and she could not help but turn around to face him once more.

"You're lonely. You're hiding. And you're scared; you won't admit it but you're not running away. You saw someone put something in my drink and you didn't call attention to it, you want to stay low key; you don't want your ward yelling and dancing about, you want her to stay put, unnoticed, and protected because you expect trouble."

"You're very full of yourself," she told him.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

"Who are you?" she whispered, mostly to herself, but lines formed between her brows and she leaned up to him. Clara hasn't paid attention to her breathing in so long but right then, she was hyperaware that she was holding it.

"Someone who knows that you know something I don't," he answered.

There was something in his eyes that was familiar—a depth, a knowing, a mystery—and he could hold his own to the shadow of melancholy that followed her around. He wiped his chocolate crumb-covered face and the severity of his gaze was an unspoken challenge, she gathered. They were two people of a similar agenda in this ball, as it seemed.

"Alright, here's a puzzle for you, then," she said. "You have just about every single monarch and regent protector of five galactic quadrants in one giant ballroom. And not a single one of them knows why they're here, not really, but the summons was powerful to convince them to be here and to not say a word to anyone else. Merry got hers because she was told of a pending invasion of separatists to revive the sun god of Akhet. I got mine because I was told Merry might be in danger. If you hold even just one guest here for ransom, you could make a fortune in credits, if money's all you're after. Kill just one and frame another? You could start an intergalactic war or—"

"Question," he said, cutting her off. "Why invite you?"

"Me?" she asked, losing the modulation of her voice—for a spell, she sounded exactly like herself. She coughed. He stared at her for a while, knit his brows together, and then went on.

"You said just about every single monarch and regent protector of five galactic quadrants was invited here for reasons they can't explain or won't say. You were invited separately from Merry Gelejh."

"Your point?"

"You're not her governess," he said. "She was chosen as Queen from infancy, became of age at ten. She doesn't need a governess, not by their standards. So who are you?"

"I'm an old friend," she answered, matching him blow for verbal blow. She stood up straighter then and seemed taller. Though he towered over her, and this was something she was used to, she stared him down. Clara continued, "And I have a duty of care."

"But why you?" he persisted.

"You are asking a lot of questions."

"And you're not giving me any answers," he said, taking a step closer to her.

"Why should I?" she asked, taking a step closer to him.

"I—" And, for the first time, she did not have to cut him off. No other words left passed his open mouth and though he stared her down, she did not flinch. He froze and her lips twitched to a smirk when his eyes fell away from hers. "People usually just tell me what I want to know when I do the eye thing," he muttered, massaging the skin between his brows.

"Not going to be that easy, mate," she said, smiling. Clara shrugged and spared to look at the crown once more where nothing much had changed. They were still mingling and dancing and eating—not a care in the worlds for which they held power. "I don't know why I'm here either, aside from Merry. But if I had to guess—everyone here holds a position of power. Power doesn't just come from titles or whatever. Some things are more valuable than money—stories that should never be spoken, secrets that must never be told."

He frowned at her.

Her words rang in his mind more than they should have—a truth that shone through like a North Star lighthouse in the middle of a storm, like something guiding him back home— and his senses were muddled and heightened. A crack, a scratch, a chip— a wall in his mind was starting to crumble. There was an oncoming storm about to break everything free.

Clara – Miss Allison – remained unaware of his predicament, however, and simply let her words linger in the air for the mystery that they were… that she was.

"What about you?" she added. "Why are you here?"

"Same as you," he answered, frowning still. She turned her head back to look at him. "I don't know either."

A fraction of a moment later, he started to stumble.

Hand to the side of his head, he leaned on the table for balance. Clara was at his side instantaneously, these faux features of her lined with worry and though her eyes held not the same brown warmth, the concern in them was genuine.

There was a rush inside him, something he had long since forgotten about and had purposely ignored for… a long, long while now. He didn't know how long—he actively tried not think of how long it has actually been. And yet, the breaking was long since overdue.

The thing about running away from your problems is that they never disappear—they only worsen or they evolve or they hurt someone else. Sometimes, they catch up to you in ways that you had never thought they could. Sometimes, it's the same problem over and over and over again and the worst part of it is that the mistake you'd called a solution was the only thing you knew how to do.

His insides felt terrible as his system recovered. He swallowed and only then did he realise the calming presence of the woman by his side. He needed to sit down.

"You okay?" she asked. "Is your pear allergy that bad?"

"I guess so," he replied, fingers scratching at his head—expecting curls but finding only the short near-shaved hair atop his head.

"Headache," he explained. "I don't get those often."

"Let's go outside," she suggested. "Some fresh air should do you some good."

Leaning his full weight on her, though not by any design of his own, she practically dragged him out to the nearest balcony, which was, graciously, not as crowded as it was inside. The low light of it all made the appeal of the balcony difficult, she gathered, but she found a spot far enough away from any fuss, where they might sit down and he could calm himself.

There they sat and she observed him with a watchful eye. What could have been in that cider that it might affect him like this?

His breaths were slow, drawn out, and forced and his eyes were squeezed shut. His shoulders were rigid and he palmed his thighs through his trousers, bunching up what fabric he could grasp into his fists as the pain in his head affected him so.

"Tell me something," he blurted out.

"Tell you what?" she asked.

"Anything," he said. "Need a distraction from this headache."

"Okay, sure," she started. "What do you want me to say?"

"Who are you? What do you do?"

"Me? Uh— I travel? From time to time, at least," she answered, a small smile upon her lips at the jest that only she would understand.

"Must be nice."

"It is, yeah."

"Alone?"

"Mhm."

"How long?"

"Don't know. It's… hard to keep track," she said. Clara sighed. Her hands were atop her lap and her fingers started fumbling. She looked down as she spoke and licked her lips. "I make friends along the way sometimes but… people just leave or… it's hard to be with anyone when all you seem to do is lose them," she admitted.

Clara pressed her lips into a tight line. Too much, she admonished herself. You've said too much.

Yet that was always the thing with her wasn't it? She was always very good at talking too much—especially when she was nervous. He looked at her, the struggle of his personal pain still in his eyes, but there rest a profound understanding in his irises as well.

He knew.

"You've lost someone," he said.

"Yeah."

"I—" he started. Cards, he seemed to remember for some reason. He licked his lips. "I'm sorry for your loss, I—"

"Oh God, no!" she blurted out, laughing. She brushed at her crying eyes that she hadn't realised had begun to tear up right until that moment. "No! No, he's not dead!"

"But you—"

"People you care about don't have to die for you to lose them," she told him, a sad knowing look on her face with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "Death isn't always the worst thing that can happen to you."

You could be forgotten, she thought.

"What happened?"

"It's a long story," she said. "But he's okay. He's happy, I know he is."

"You love him," he said. It wasn't a question.

"More than everything," she said. She looked up at the stars and, slowly, her smile grew as she spoke of him. Yet so did the melancholy in her eyes—her profound, deep grief. "And enough to just—want him to be happy. Even if that means it's without me."

"Did he—" he was about to ask but she knew what he was going to say so she cut him off.

"Yeah. Yeah, he did."

"Then I'm sure he couldn't be that happy without you."

Clara chuckled and shook her head. She wiped just beneath her eye before she could start crying and said, "I saw it. With my own two eyes, I saw it."

"Saw what?"

"Him. Happy," she said. She closed her eyes as she pictured the scene she was describing. "Smiling like I've never seen him smile before. Tears in his eyes and all the rest of it. He was just so calm and at peace and so… so… I don't know, content? I'd never seen him look that happy before."

"What do you mean?"

"When we went our separate ways, I—I checked up on him sometimes. He didn't know but he was always really good at missing things. He never saw me, I made sure of it. Part of me just wanted to make sure he was okay. That everything I've done to make sure that he was, wasn't for nothing."

He was looking at her intently now but she didn't see.

The story had begun to pour out of her and once it had, it was very difficult to rein it back in. Her voice was full of emotion, spoken softly as if in confession, and the heartbreak was evident in her whisper. Yet there was a struggle with the way she carried herself—a rigidity, a forced strength. For if one were truly gutted, one would fall and crumble; and yet her? She kept herself together when it was only too clear that all she wanted was to let it out—to breathe again for the words had been choked up inside her for too long.

"He got married, not long after we parted ways," she admitted.

Clara could see it so clearly, ever still even after all of the years that had passed.

Dawn finally breaking after a night that lasted twenty-four years.

A woman in bright crimson, curls reflected (gold on gold) and she glowed in the overdue sunrise, with her hands wrapped around a cloth of what looked like beams of sunlight woven into fabric—joined with his.

Him in black tie, a bespoke suit—his silver hair shining like morning dew kissed by the morning sun.

Smiling like she'd never seen him smile before.

Completely and totally at peace—calm and filled with joy.

He leaned towards her and whispered something in her ear.

And around them, the towers sang to their union as she witnessed from behind the pair of them, watching their light in the darkness—unknown and unseen.

'I don't know why you do this to yourself, Clara,' Me had said.

'No, I know,' she'd answered while she was then unable to make herself look away. 'I just wanted to be sure.'

When she turned away, she never looked back.

It was the last time she ever saw him.

"And he just… looked so happy. He looked so happy and I—" she said, the memory of that night coming up so clearly in her mind's eye that a tear fell from each closed eye. "I want him to be. More than anyone I've ever known, he deserves it. He deserves to be happy so much and it's silly that I'm crying, I know. I'm sorry."

Clara wiped at her eyes furiously but once the tears came, she found that she couldn't stop. She smiled as she told the story though he knew, he could tell that there were simply some things that one couldn't be altogether happy about. Not wholly, not really, not truly—no matter how much you tried, no matter how much you wanted to be.

"It's just—I want him to be happy and I… I just…" she trailed on. "I wish… I wish, somehow, maybe… I wish he could've been that happy with me."

"I'm sure he was—"

"No," she said quickly, firm and resolute but full of emotion. "He wasn't. I wasn't good for him. I wasn't good to him either, I think. Not as good as I probably should've been. And this is—this is the only way I know how to keep him happy."

"You deserve to be happy too, you know," he said.

His shoulders had relaxed and he looked at her with big, sad eyes that she couldn't help but smile at. It was such a familiar expression—something that she'd missed so dearly without knowing it: someone who understood the pangs of loneliness, someone who could just look at you and they'd know.

There rested no pity in those eyes of his, no self-congratulatory stares of 'at least I'm not you'—just a genuine understanding, a fervent hope that he held for her. That, she could suppose, was something that had been hardened out of her.

"Ha," she laughed. "Nobody deserves anything. I learnt that the hard way a long time ago."

"But he deserves to be happy?" he asked.

"Got me there," she conceded. "But yeah, I think so. Or, okay—say he doesn't. Say he does. Whatever. But I can do this and keep away so he can live his life and be happy. I can do this for him."

"What about you?"

Clara looked down and smiled to herself. Another sad smile. And then she said, "I've already had my turn."

It doesn't matter now whether I'm happy or not—I'm already dead.

They pair of them were quiet for a moment—a quiet that was practically eerie for they were supposed to be surrounded by people and yet, for the moment, the pair of them did not quite notice.

"I'm sorry," was all he could say.

"Oh God, no. No, don't be sorry. Please don't be sorry for me," she told him. She held herself and rubbed her arms. "Sorry. I'm sorry. Ha. God." Clara laughed—awkward and forced. "My mouth just runs off on me sometimes, y'know? Bloody well told you my life story and I don't even your name."

"Oswald," he said.

It was the first name that he could think of, for reasons that he could not then at that moment explain. Clara bit back a grin by biting her lip yet a smile still peeked through.

"Is that a first or a last name?" she asked him.

"Last," the disguised Doctor answered. "Basil Oswald."

"Allison Smith," she returned. She extended a hand for him to shake, which he took. "It's good to meet you."