Regenderation: Part Four

Clara

"I thought we were going to a jeweller? About the ring? And shopping?" the Doctor queried as she followed Clara up the large stone steps to a large library.

"It's very early in the morning," Clara said, "Barely nine o'clock. This library is an associate of one of the universities, it's open twenty-four hours. Lucky for us, I didn't want to hang around in The Lost Cosmonaut. It's depressing in there."

"Why do you want to go to a library?"

"I thought you might like it," Clara said, slipping through the gap to get through the revolving door. The Doctor was too slow and got stuck in the compartment behind, and because she looked quite sad about that, Clara phased back through the sheet of glass to join her in the other one. This gesture made the Doctor smile, though Clara thought little of it, and hadn't minded them being separated that much.

"There's a pretty big library on the TARDIS, isn't there?" she said as they stepped out of the doors and into the library itself, lowering her voice. It was quite empty, though. She could only see two people sitting on one of the large tables looking through books, and one of them was wearing headphones; along with them was one lone librarian wheeling a trolley of books around and looking in dire need of a cup of coffee.

"Yeah," said Clara, "But I like libraries. They make me feel calm."

"Are you not calm right now?"

"I'm just… you know," said Clara, going off to the right to peruse the shelves, not even bothering to look at a map of which section was which. She wanted to explore, pick something up at random – she might learn something new.

"No, not really," said the Doctor under her breath, "And not just because I've forgotten things. I'm not stupid, and I'm remembering – I remember how I feel about you. And it's making me sad that you're being so distant. It's like you're just putting up with me being here and you can hardly even look at me. Do you resent me for not being him?" Clara didn't know what to say, because the new Doctor was clearly much more intuitive than the last one had been, and for all the things she had forgotten about Clara she could still manage to read her like an open book. Ironic, given their surroundings. "Clara…" the Doctor tried to touch her arm, but Clara pulled it away as soon as she tried.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do," she admitted pitifully, but also very quietly, stealing away into an aisle of books on economics she had no chance of understanding. At least they seemed to be largely alone. The Doctor crossed her arms and leant on the bookshelf while Clara stood in the middle, feeling useless. "Because you're confused and you're adjusting and I have to be here for you, but it's hard because… I'm still hurting a lot inside. And I'm still angry with him. You. Both of you."

"Why?"

"For being stupid and jumping into the sea!" Clara hissed, "I'm so mad I can barely even contain it. But what good is shouting at you for it going to do? I should have done something. Shouldn't have let you. I'm telekinetic, for god's sake, I could have stopped this."

"Everything has its time, Coo," she said softly, "Everything ends."

"That doesn't make it any easier."

"I don't want you to think you have to bottle up all your grief just because I'm here."

"That's all everyone keeps telling me, is that you're here so I should be fine."

"Well, they're wrong," said the Doctor, stepping towards her, "You need to let yourself be sad, it's not a crime to mourn somebody, especially since he's… gone. In that form. I'll get his memories soon, but… come on, my whole species regenerate, you think I don't know what it's like to go through what you're going through? I'm starting to remember a lot of things about Gallifrey and Time Lords." Clara took a deep breath and looked at the floor for a while, one of her fists clenched with the effort of trying not to cry.

"You're gonna make me cry and we're in public," she said hoarsely.

"It's a library at eight in the morning, I don't think it's that public."

"Other Me was right."

"'Bout what?"

"She said you were the best person to talk to about all this."

"Oh, well, I'm trying my hardest," the Doctor smiled, "Can't resist trying to make a pretty girl feel better." Clara was taken aback, but laughed, though she did still have tears in her eyes. "Unless the economics section of a library is doing a better job, then I can always leave."

"Don't leave. I'm rubbish at maths, anyway. Don't know why I'm in this part."

"Yeah, I remember, don't you…?" she paused, thinking, squinting at Clara, "Something about you to do with books…"

"I just like books," Clara told her, "I've got my English degree."

"Aren't you a teacher?"

"Erm, kind of. I'm qualified, but I've never actually taught anybody. Other Me has. I guess I'll have to be teaching you all kinds of things now, though," she said, beginning to walk again to get out of the dull economics text books, the Doctor following her automatically. It was a bit like having a pet dog. She felt like giving the Doctor a grand tour of the entire building though, to see if anything more specific piqued her interest. Try and pick out the differences between the two iterations via the filter of academia.

"Things like what?"

"Girl-things," Clara said slyly, smiling at her.

"That sounds totally suggestive – and potentially misleadingly suggestive."

"Only potentially."

"You've cheered up a weird amount in the last minute." The Doctor swung her arms by her side as she walked and sometimes slid books out at random, just to read the spines and then shove them away again, uninterested.

"I told you, libraries calm me down," Clara said after a pause, because it was not so much the library as the girl, but she didn't want to tell the Doctor that for some reason. "Smell of the books, or something."

"Well, the signs say that literature is this way," the Doctor touched her elbow for just the smallest second as she passed by to lead the way, "Let's see if I can remember your favourite books. Or my own favourite books. Or any books, really, my mind is totally empty in terms of books at the moment."

"Imagine if you never remembered any books and then you got to read them all again. I'd love to do that."

"It's sort of like you."

"What do you mean?"

"Like this whole… remembering things about you. It's like when couples think they're gonna get divorced but then they have marriage counselling and it, like, totally works, and they're all 'I've remembered all the reasons why I fell in love with them.' It's like that. I'm remembering all the reasons why I'm in love with you, but sort of also for the first time. It's weird, to be honest," she said idly, Clara watching her. She stopped walking, but Clara was slightly zoned out and ended up walking straight into the Doctor when she was turning around to talk to her again.

"Oh, sorry," Clara said, and then she looked up and she was looking right into the new Doctor's brown eyes, seeing for the first time all the glittering streaks of gold within them, like she was wearing her history on her sleeve.

"That's okay," she said, smiling. Clara felt herself blushing. "Do you think it's weird?"

"What's weird?"

"Like… hmm. How to phrase it without sounding, like, presumptuous… I just mean do you feel like you have to fall in love with me again?" Clara stared at her, and then laughed unusually shrilly, and knew she was still blushing. Then she punched the Doctor's arm in a friendly way.

"Oh… you," she said.

"Huh?"

"Never mind, just… funny."

"What's funny?" Clara was enchanted by the new Doctor's face. Even her teeth were pretty.

"…Yes."

"Excuse me?"

"I said… I said we should go this way," Clara cut and ran. Well, she didn't run, but she did duck away and begin to walk again.

"Have you hit your head?"

"No. Come on, what's my favourite book, can you guess?"

"I have no idea – is it an early work of queer fiction all about this sort of cute, nerd girl who loves to hang out in libraries and stuff getting super awkward when she meets an amazing, young American out in the unforgiving, concrete jungle of London?" the Doctor asked, and Clara turned on her, looked at her for a while, then scoffed indignantly and put her hands on her hips.

"I'm so insulted I don't even know what to say."

The Doctor laughed, "What are you insulted by?"

"By you accusing me of being awkward, through a pathetic allegory. I'm not awkward. I will have you know I used to come to libraries all the time to pick girls up."

"You must be out of practice then, because I'm not seeing much of the old talent."

"Pfft, no. I get with girls all the time, actually, because – you don't know this, but I'm actually a giant cheater. I'm completely unfaithful."

"Okay, okay," the Doctor was smirking, crossing her arms and leaning on the edge of a bookshelf again. God, Clara thought, why did she have to keep leaning against things like that? Didn't she know people were all ten times hotter if they were leaning on things? Clara had even had untoward thoughts about Adam Mitchell when she had seen him leaning on door frames giving his classic expression of philanthropic, guiltless disapproval. "You'd rather I believe that you're a cheater than think I make you nervous?"

"Why would I be nervous around you? We've been married for ten years."

"I guess it just means there's still a spark in our relationship."

"Well clearly there's no spark because I'm not nervous at all, I don't know why you'd think that I-" the Doctor hadn't even been moving, yet Clara had attempted to back away and ended up walking into a bookshelf and knocking off a decrepit-looking collection of Arthurian legends which included the original French. The Doctor raised her eyebrows. Thirteen raised her eyebrows. Because now Clara was beginning to see them as one and the same, the girl in her present and the girl from her past (who was also the girl from her future.) She was finally finding her personality.

"You okay?"

"I'm completely fine."

"I don't remember you getting like this before."

"I'm not getting like anything! Can you just stop?"

"Stop what?"

"You're being…" Clara began, meeting the Doctor's patient, expectant eyes as she tried to think of something to say, "You're being. Just being. It's offending me."

"I'll stop 'being' then, shall I? What exact part of the fact I exist is making you so tense?" She was clearly very bloody impressed with herself.

"I keep telling you. I'm fine. And I don't get awkward around random girls in libraries. I told you. I'm the queen of hooking up with people in libraries."

"Why don't you prove it?"

Clara stared at her, then exclaimed, "Well don't do that!"

"Do what!?"

"Flirt with me!" Eleven couldn't flirt. Eleven wouldn't know where to being to flirt, or seduce someone, he was an idiot. But this? This woman? Who was doing nothing at all and yet managing to do absolutely everything correctly? Clara could barely collect herself to fathom it; the sheer idea of a Doctor who knew exactly what they were doing in pursuit of women was impossible to comprehend. "I'm a grieving widow, actually, so I don't really need this right now."

"Seems like you might need it a lot."

"Stop flirting," she hissed, "Everything you say – oh my god – it's like you're oozing it, like you're regenerated into Jack. Just standing there being all bloody calm and magnetic."

"Ooh, magnetic – so you feel a pull between us?" Clara clenched her jaw and the Doctor smiled.

"I'll tell you who I feel a pull between."

"Go on, I dare you."

"Me and the ladies' bathroom."

"Sounds risky, I like it."

"I don't – I don't mean that! I need a shit," she said very bluntly, "And, um, it'll be a bad one, so you just stay out here. Right here. Don't go anywhere else in case you get lost."

"I'm sure if I did get lost I'd find my way back to you."

Clara made a vomiting noise at her and finally managed to escape the intoxicating situation with that godforsaken woman. She didn't even need the toilet, she had lied. Why had she made her lie so disgusting? To try and gross out Thirteen? Well it clearly hadn't worked, she didn't seem to care. At least it meant Clara had an excuse to spend even longer in the bathroom trying to decide what she was doing. She stole away into the apparently empty ladies' room and started looking for windows she could potentially climb out of, not remembering in that moment that she had the ability to simply walk through walls. But she didn't know where she would go if she climbed out of a window. Maybe to an early-opening strip club where she could schmooze her way in and start day-drinking.

Thinking about this, among other things, Clara slid into one of the cubicles and put the lid on the toilet down, sitting on top of it and putting her head in her hands to contemplate and try not to cry. It was really quite overwhelming, and it was not for some more vanilla and acceptable reason like Clara was just seeing traces of Eleven in the behaviour of the new Doctor, or she had made a similar gesture. It was all because Clara was vividly remembering the effect Thirteen had had on her when she had come back to the past so many years ago and, just as Adam Mitchell had told her that morning, she really struggled to control herself around that woman. Because, yes, Thirteen was her favourite daydream made real, and it was quite unnerving to suddenly be married to someone she had imagined for herself whenever she had been bored. Along with that, she also knew that Eleven had always disliked Thirteen, so she even more felt like even thinking about the new Doctor was doing something gravely wrong.

She heard the doors go into the toilets and paused for a second to work out if it was the Doctor coming to investigate her absence; if she was barely coping being around her in a public library she didn't know how she would manage with them alone together in a deserted toilet. It had all the makings of the filthy, illicit encounter Clara and her low-standards were very used to*. It wasn't the Doctor, though, because it was multiple people. Probably a study group taking a break all together; maybe there were exams on somewhere.

"Clara Oswald? We saw you come in here." She froze. "We can kick down every one of these doors in order, if you like." Normally, she would just phase through the wall onto street level and run, but she couldn't. Firstly, because the Doctor was still out in the library waiting for her, and secondly because she recognised the voice speaking her very distinctly as belonging to ex-Brigadier Kate Stewart. When she heard someone very aggressively kick down the door to the first cubicle, she quickly stood up and flushed the toilet, feigning that she had actually been using it. Then she phased through the door with the eyes of Kate and two men on her, men who were clearly trained soldiers or some policemen she had drafted, but they were not in uniform. Of course, if they had been in uniform, Clara may have spotted them crawling about the building, or tailing them through the streets.

"Come on, Katie. Can't a girl empty her bowels in peace?" Clara asked, going over to the sink to wash her hands.

"What have you heard? The rumours?"

"Rumours about what? You being a stone-cold lesbian who likes to corner young and defenceless girls in library bathrooms with some gigolos you've hired?" Clara asked innocently, "Do they have guns in their pants or are they just pleased to see me?" she winked at one of them.

"They're guns," said Kate, and then she gave them a hand motion and they both drew their guns. "And don't call me Katie."

"Sexy," said Clara, "I really get off when people shoot me in the face."

"We're not here to watch you do your best impression of your sister."

"Hey – she's doing the impression of me. I made her. And I'm not doing an impression, if I was doing an impression I'd balance on one leg and talk about how I wish I was dead. Is there something important you want or can I leave? I'm only here to look at books on a day trip."

"On your own?"

"Yes."

"No Doctor?"

"I don't need a chaperone, Katie. Can I leave?"

"I need your help."

"So you followed me?"

"You followed me. We were already in the library trying to contain the situation when we spotted you wandering around here badly trying to pick up that American girl."

"I was not trying to pick her up."

"Not very hard, that's for sure," Kate said dismissively. Clara clenched her jaw and fists but didn't say anything that might give away that the girl was actually the Doctor. But she needed to get out of that place before the Doctor came looking for her. They always tried their hardest to avoid Kate Stewart, ever since she had mishandled the Manifest Crisis so severely. And because every time they saw her she asked them for help.

"Who's the squad, then? Were you reinstated into UNIT after the HCC got shut down?"

"The HCC hasn't been shut down, it's just changed into being what UNIT used to be but more public and aggressive," Kate explained, "I work for a small group of what's left of UNIT who deal with… phenomenon."

"Is the small group all that's left of UNIT?" Kate didn't answer. "Didn't all of UNIT used to deal with 'phenomenon'?" Still nothing. "I get it. It's like The X-Files, isn't it? You're all hidden away, a puppet organisation of the HCC? And now you need the help of the Phantom."

"Stop calling yourself the Phantom, Clara, nobody is going to start calling you that."

"Pfft. That's what you think."

"Fine. Maybe it is a bit like The X-Files-"

"Do you know I've met them?"

"Shut up."

"Tetchy."

"Where's the Doctor?"

"No idea. We're divorced. He cheated on me."

"Cheated on you? With who?"

"The worst person. Himself. Or, his hand, more specifically. I may same like a progressive, happy-go-lucky, binge-drinking whore, but I actually have some very debatably old-fashioned views on what level of adultery masturbation is," Clara said. Kate glared at her.

"Do you really think I would suffer through having to talk to you if it wasn't important? You're very annoying."

"Thank you," Clara smiled and did a curtsey. Kate shook her head.

"There's a monster living in the basement of the library."

"There's a monster in the basement of my pants all ready for you."

"Don't get clever, we need you to sort it out."

"Do your boys not have guns big enough?"

"We don't know what it is, some sort of creature and it's been killing and eating pets from all around London. We traced it back here."

"Pets? What is it, urban sasquatch? One of those werewolves you accidentally let out years ago?"

"I just told you, we don't know what it is."

"You want me to go into the basement and… hold on, am I pest control now? You can't just corner me in a toilet and tell me to go down to a random basement and kill an alleged monster. It might not even be a monster."

"And who better to find out than the Doctor's compassionate wife?"

"I told you, he wanked so I dumped him. I can't abide by wanking."

"You're still wearing your wedding ring."

"Well, what can I say? Semen is a very potent adhesive. It's tragic that even I wasn't enough for him. I guess I'll be taking down your beast solo."

"So you'll help?"

"I'm not sure I have a choice with you sandwiched there between your burly boys. Pet-eating creature in the basement, then? And I'll just handily ignore how ridiculous that sounds because I'm a gullible pawn and you're scared of the dark, or something?"

"Sorry for taking the opportunity to send a telekinetic girl who can't die down to deal with it instead of my men," Kate said.

"Whatever, Katie. Can I leave? I have to see if that American girl has a special moist place I can put this finger to maybe slide off the wedding ring. Unless you want to do it? I'm totally single now," Clara said, saluting her.

"Get out my sight. We'll be watching the perimeter to make sure you deal with the problem."

"Oh, I'm sure you can't wait to talk to me again," Clara said on her way out, blowing Kate a kiss as she went past. See, she wanted to tell the Doctor, I totally still know how to flirt with girls. But finally, she was out of their sight and she could vanish into the bookshelves before they followed her. This she was very good at doing; they didn't call her 'the Phantom' for nothing (and people definitely called her that.) Very lucky the Doctor had done exactly what she promised and stayed on the same aisle; Clara found her skimming through Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, coming through the shelves behind her and then nudging her in the back to get her attention. The Doctor jumped.

"What are you-"

"Shh," Clara said.

"Oh, I get it. Is this some kind of sexy roleplaying thing?"

"Kate Stewart is in here looking for us, she cornered me in the bathroom."

"I see."

"She told me we have to go into the basement of the library because there's a giant monster down there killing pets."

"Uh-huh. And what are you gonna do to me when we're in the basement alone together?" she said sultrily, smirking. Clara stared at her, then hit her on the arm. "Ow!"

"I'm serious! Pick you jaw up off the floor. Do you remember Kate Stewart?"

"Works for UNIT. Don't I know her dad?"

"Yes, they're here investigating the basement monster."

"Okay, I'm not gonna lie to you, but this sounds really unlikely and stupid."

"And I thought my husband jumping into the sea to chase a bunch of shark aliens and then drowning was unlikely and stupid, but you proved me wrong that time, didn't you?"

Thirteen paused for a moment, "…Point taken."

"And what about the time we went back to Blackpool in the middle of the night because I was sad and a UFO carrying a flesh-eating lizard monster coincidentally crashed into the sea and you killed it with a roller coaster?"

"Oh, I definitely remember that one. Well, did you get any more information out of Kate? Aside from ambiguous pet-eating creature in a library?"

"No. She was annoying me, I wanted to leave. Look, come on, we've got to sort this out, and she can't find out who you are, I told her we got divorced because I got angry at you for masturbating," Clara said, pushing the Doctor in the opposite direction to the one she had just come from, the Doctor sliding the book back onto the shelf.

"Why did you tell her that!?"

"It seemed like a good idea at the time! Now be quiet, I want to deal with this before lunch. I'm getting hungry already."