Title: The Calendar
Word Count: 1,050
Characters: 12th Doctor, Clara Oswald
Summary: The Doctor comes up with a way to stop missing Clara while she's not traveling with him through time and space
Rating: T
Song Lyrics: "The Calendar", by Panic! At the Disco
You said if you don't let it out
You're gonna let it eat you away
I'd rather be a cannibal, baby
Animals like me don't talk anyway
Feel like an ambulance
Chase her away
Pray I could replace her
Forget the way her tears taste
Oh, the way her tears taste
He's never realizes how lonely he actually is until she's not there. It's just him and his TARDIS, the boy and his ship that's so infinity big that he can practically hear the silence. It's just so quiet without her bright, vibrant happy voice and it bothers him in ways loneliness has never bothered him before.
He's starting to get very concerned for himself.
He cares for her and he misses her; she's good company – smart, spunky, witty, and adorable. He'll never tell her that. If she knew that he found her adorable, she'd have his head on a stake in no time flat.
It's very strange, he's spent so long trying to figure out what and who see is that he's never asked her – she's just Clara. Clara, with emotional trauma to last until the first Intergalactic War, has done so much for him. She's sacrificed everything for him, her life, her mental stability, and her friends. And he's so grateful, and he's so awestruck by her utter humanity that he wishes that everyone could just be like Clara.
And then he gets lonely again because she's not here on the TARDIS with him planning to go off running through the stars and into all sorts of mischief. He misses her, and it's as simple as that. She's his best friend and he wishes that he could see her all the time instead of just once a week.
But she has a job, and a normal human life (with friends that aren't him and good friends that don't believe in aliens.) How she can even stand to associate with the pudding brains on a daily basis never ceases to amaze him.
He gets a thought – what if he got a normal human job at the same place she teaches at. He then remembers that he was the caretaker at that school for a small period of time and that plan worked, but defiantly had flaws. So it was back to the drawing board for the old Time Lord.
He decided that watching her was too much middle aged stalker. GPS tracking her cellphone was a little bit too much CIA for him and he had no interest in acting like an American. Writing her letters was one of his better ideas, but he didn't want her to get the notion that he was a romantic sap and a softie. (He's Scottish now for god's sake)
And then, something ingenious hit him like a stack of bricks.
He could call her, on the telephone and have an actual honest to goodness conversation with her without the awkwardness of letters and the Americanness of tracking her cellphone or the creepiness of following her where ever she goes.
When he needs to talk to her about something urgent, he can just call her! When he needs to ridicule the latest fashions from Pluto, he can call her! When he feels like complaining about something so preposterously stupid that she's bound to hang up – he can call her.
Maybe the most important deciding factor is that he can call her when he feels lonely and needs a friend. And through hell or high water, Clara has always been here for him.
So he lands on earth and go buys himself a cellphone, which was a lot more difficult than he was expecting; the salesman at the store wouldn't shut up if the world depended on it and a bunch of elderly women were looking at him like he was fresh meet, which flattered him at first but after a while her felt like a lion in a zoo and was very frankly pissed at them.
But, he managed to get the phone, a simple basic one at that, but a phone none the less and he dials up her number (which he has unapologetically memorized by heart). He doesn't really care that it's the middle of Friday afternoon and that she's probably still teaching Courtney and the awful little prats at Coal Hill; he just wants to talk to Clara.
The phone rings, and he isn't hopeful that she's going to pick up, but Clara doesn't let him down just yet. The annoying ringing noise stops and is replaced by her angered tired beautiful voice.
"Who's this?"
"Clara?"
"Doctor?" she pauses, "Doctor, it's the middle of the school day can you call me back later I'm a little busy right now.
"Yes, sure thing! Now that I've got a mobile phone, you can call me whenever."
"Take it easy old man," she laughs, "talk to later."
"Bye, Clara."
She hangs up and he walks back to his other mobile phone with a ghost of a smile plastered to his face. Gosh, this phone idea was genius. (No wonder he came up with it.)
He's floating through some uncharted stars when his new phone rings. He scurries over to the other side of the console, not wanting to miss Clara's call. He can't wait to talk to her about these beautiful stars and how they remind him of the one time they accidently almost ended up in a nebula.
"Hello, Clara!" he says, enthusiastically.
"What made the old man decide to get a mobile phone? Getting with the times now aren't we?"
He can practically hear the smirk on her face and he's never been happier about hearing her relentless old man jokes. She'll never let him hear the end of it if he tells her that he missed her and wanted to keep in touch – he practically sounds like an old man (and a sap).
"Just wanted to be able to check in with you. You know, in case you get abducted by the internet, again."
"That was one time, Doctor! One time!" she laughs.
"Yeah, okay." He says gruffly, "remember the one time the TARDIS plopped us in the middle of a nebula…."
And they chat for hours about the stars and high heeled shoes and school and each other and he's no longer lonely.
Maybe pudding brains aren't too bad after all; they were smart enough to make mobile phones. Plus, Clara happens to be a member of the human race, so they can't be nearly as bad as he though or he wouldn't have saved the earth so many goddamned times.
Put another 'x' on the calendar
Summer's on its deathbed
There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends
And I meant everything I said that night
I will come back to life
But only for you
Only for you
Hey guys. It's been a while. I hope this chapter is up to snuff with those of you still interested in reading these. There's probably going to be about two or three more (I want to at least hit twenty chapters so)
Reviews, favorites, and follows are greatly appreciated!
Also please feel free to check out some of my other fics (like my new Doctor who/ Supernatural Crossover!)
Thanks so much guys! I look forward to hearing from y'all!
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