„Alright-" said the Doctor, already quite distracted in fiddling with his screwdriver as he strode out of the TARDIS doors, back onto the secret floor of the national gallery.
He steps over the threshold, from one moment to another, as one would step into a different room – he probably isn't watching where he's going, ostensibly distracted by fiddling with his tool.
They were only just here, but a moment ago, but as she follows him outside, Clara found herself noticing how she was seeing the room from a slightly different angle than when she'd last entered, a subtle proof that the TARDIS had dematerialized and left before its return, landing a few centimeters left of its last location.
Checking for the obvious thing first, Clara's eyes scanned the room for the other two iterations of the blue box or any signs of their occupants, but for now there was no trace.
Clara hurried onward to stand next to the Doctor.
„Okay, what's next?"
He paused his fiddling to look at her, hands still held aloft in the air.
„We wait. That was the last of them. Sandshoes and Mr. Gravelly should be fetching their immediate predescessors just about now, and once they're done, it's time to carry out the plan – assuming they didn't get sidetracked-"
„Are you sure they'll be fine, thought? I mean, facing the one who came right before them…"
Clara's words stalled out slightly, thinking back to the apprehension she'd felt during their dealings with the supposed haunted house and the heavy trepidation she'd experienced at the prospect of getting a preview of her death.
She knew the Doctor well enough to spot the omission implied in his way of trailing off:
„I handled sandshoes just fine, now didn't I? Besides…"
„Besides what?" she demanded, assertively, refusing to let him get away with the deflection.
He took a deep inhale and answered in that lower, weightier tone of voice:
„The Big Ears me is probably gonna be with someone that he's gonna want a moment with. It seems right to leave that to him, it's all a lot more recent for him, he needs it more than me…"
Predictably, Clara caught on very quick: „A very special friend, I take it?"
„...that- that doesn't bother you, does it?" he asked, awkwardly flailing his arms a bit.
„Not at all." she stated with that knowing smile of hers, stepping close to him, taking his hand that had found it's way downward but was still curled around the screwdriver, clasping his fingers with all of hers.
„I know you've had a long, long history and met many, many people. All the ones that came before me… I bet they've had a part in making you who you are. So, if she's part of the reason you are how you are, she's alright with me. As is Professor Song, or Elizabeth, or whoever is with-"
„Rose. Rose was her name."
„I see!" she answered playfully, as one relishing in being told a secret.
Then, her thoughts continued, and her big eyes creased in thought:
„So, if the Sandshoes you knows this Rose person, too, then you were with her when you changed."
„Yeah."
„Was the pretty face meant to impress her?"
„A- absolutely not! What are you thinking-"
„I like when you get all flustered." she said, perfectly calm in her element, and after that, the Doctor no longer bothered much with disputing the notion.
„...the thing is, though, it makes sense now."
„What?"
„That time – with Rose, just before that happened – There was a situation that was a whole lot like today, like war, in the distant future. I had a chance to take out all the Daleks but only at the cost of cooking the brains of everybody on earth. But I just couldn't do it. I just… I just couldn't.
Of course I couldn't. That was never-
I would've been toast if it wasn't for Rose, she, she kind of did a thing-
And the Daleks!" he exclaimed, gesturing emphatically as a new wave of realization came over him.
„The Daleks?"
„So many of them survived. I was so furious about that. Even after the war, they kept popping up all over the place – when I thought that I'd sacrificed everything in vain, I'd- It wasn't a great thought to dwell on.
But it makes all the sense now. Using the Moment should have wiped them out like they never existed, but if they just blew each other up in a regular old explosion, it's no wonder there were stragglers…"
Clara watched him through each wave of belated realization, heavy burdens melting off his shoulders – not completely, not wholly, not when he had still experienced centuries of war and the desperation of very nearly being driven to that point, but, she began to appreciate even more just how much weight he had been bent with in all the time that they knew each other.
She couldn't help but smile.
„Speaking of which-" he stated, finally remembering his screwdriver, „Let's see how the calculations have been -"
He froze in his tracks, wide green irises exposed to their fullest, mouth stuck in mid-word.
All the lightness and relief was drained out of him like that kind of scene in a movie where the background music suddenly stops.
Clara didn't have to wait for him to speak to understand.
„Isn't it done?"
„Maybe it can't be. Maybe it's stuck in an endless loop. Maybe there isn't enough time left in the universe for it to ever finish-"
She couldn't imagine, what it must feel like, to have one's chain yanked in such a way after the dangling of hope, after one had long regretted, repressed, scrambled to move on, tried to accept-
She could see the restlessness overtaking his limbs, the aimless motions of his fingers, his weight shifting from the balls to the toes of his feet.
She could guess where his thoughts must have been going, to his younger selves just about due to arrive, and to the urge to run that must be taken hold of every inch of his being.
There was little she could possibly do, but she understood what she must:
„Hey. Hey. Hey."
The warmth of her hands around him wasn't much, but for whatever it's worth she would provide it. She liked to think of what he would do, were she or anybody else in his shoes, were he not too personally involved to rely on his best, sharp thinking.
„We'll think of something- We'll figure something out."
He stood hard and frozen in place, so, she pressed her palms heavier against the front of his jacket so he would feel that she was there.
At last, he again moved. He detached himself from her, her small hands in his long fingers.
„Maybe… maybe it just needs more time… Just a little – or not a little, but, some finite, sensible amount- "
Clara made an effort to stay firm, not because she had reason to, but because it was probably what he needed.
„We've gone beyond what we thought was possible already, there must be one more thing you haven't thought of yet. One more trick."
In all honesty, Clara couldn't say that she understood more than the broadest strokes of the math or the space-time physics, or any of those particulars that you would have to know to tell if what she was saying was plausible or abject nonsense, but he did, and she needed to keep him in the right mindset – she got that at last.
She needed to keep him thinking, not despairing – it's what he'd do if this concerned anyone else's planets.
„Maybe if- if we just wait-" she suggested, not really knowing if it made any sense. Maybe it was just an attempt to keep things under control.
„Yeah sure, it's not like it's been going for hundreds of years, I bet 5 more minutes will do it!"
Clara did her best not to be offended at the Doctor's biting sarcasm – after all, abrasive was better than crumbling.
„-well, maybe not, but-"
„There isn't enough time. We picked off the earliest me soon after he left Gallifrey, any further back, and we can't get to him. It's time-locked. We made him start in the past, but, there isn't any more past to go back to."
The past, he said…
„What about the future?"
Clara was, honestly, just looking to throw something at the wall to see if it sticks at that point, just to keep him thinking.
„We sent the calculations back to your past, so, why don't we get the solutions from the future? I mean, if the calculations are still running, why don't you just… decide to come back here, when they are done?"
„Because the future and the past are very different in certain respects – I know the past, more or less. I know it was there, at least – me being here in the present is proof that it happened. But the future lies in darkness. There's no guarantee of anything when it comes to the future.
I live a dangerous life, Clara, I don't know that I even have a fu-"
He was cut off in mid-sentence by the most unlikely sound of Beethoven blazing on an electric guitar.
Wearing the instrument on a strap around his shoulders, a tall thin man had come waltzing into the room, brazen in his confident stride.
Though she'd never seen his face before (or had she?), Clara recognized him in an instant. Even without jumping into his timestream, she would have:
It was chiefly the clothes, the eyes and the audacity in his cocky mad grin.
He was wearing something like a black velvet stagecoat over a ragged black jumper with purely aesthetic holes, paired with a narrow pale face framed with wild, white hair, and of course, most unmistakably: Those big sad eyes.
But that sight was one thing, after all the other faces that she'd seen him wear today – what really sparked her bafflement was the smaller figure standing at the tall man's back, grinning back at her in a short green dress and a leather jacket, unmistakably akin to the sight that greeted her in the mirror in the morning, even with the shorter hair.
The pair stood back to back as long-experienced partners in crime, clearly taking relish in stunning their younger selves into silence.
„So this is what that feels like. I've been wondering all day..."
„Nah," judged short-hair Clara, „I don't think you quite got the full experience until you'd seen it from my end."
The younger Doctor was, if anything, even more baffled than his corresponding Clara, if not slightly disturbed:
„How- You can't be-"
The tall man with the guitar answered in a deep, distinctly accented voice:
„I'm afraid so."
Looking his future self up and down, the younger Doctor couldn't even think of hiding his dismay: „Oh no!"
„Yeah, I know. Don't worry, that's a perfectly normal reaction."
„But- but how- That's not possible!"
It was future Clara that answered first, deepening her smirk: „Impossible is what we do. Besides," she added with an actual tinge of hard dominance, „You're not allowed to kick the bucket on my watch. Bosses' orders."
The younger, dark-haired Doctor attempted to stammer something in acute consternation, but his future self cut him straight off:
„There's no point in explaining when You won't be able to retain it anyway. You can cross that bridge when you get there. Focus on dealing with this-" he began, reaching into his pocket to retrieve some kind of crystaline data rod with the circular patterns of Gallifreyan writing etched into one of its sides.
„Bowtie, catch!"
It is not for nothing that the younger Doctor was sufficiently stunned by the present situation that he only barely scrambled to take hold of the data rod, his long-honed fire-proven reflexes notwithstanding.
„Then, this is-"
„Yeah. It finished calculating halfway through our time on Trenzalore."
„But isn't Trenzalore where we-"
„Maybe. But not on your next visit. "
Little by little, the realization of what just happened seemed to trickle in, such that his consternation melted into a pure, genuine smile.
„...the solutions for freezing Gallifrey… Clara, we did it! We really, actually did it-"
His voice sped up, as he took turns looking toward his own contemporary version and the future Clara, almost as if he wasn't sure which of them he should rush down in a bear hug to make light of the tension.
Still he couldn't fail to observe how the latter smiled with fondness tinged with sorrow, as you do when you're reminded of some fond time in your life that can never come back. He supposed that he must have worn that expression lots of times in his lives, usually when discussing his friends and allies of days past.
His future self seemed to have taken note, too, or maybe he just remembered.
„So, before we go, would you like a moment alone with this dashing young time traveller over there?"
Future Clara answered the guitar-wielding Doctor with a playful shove of sorts. „Don't mess with me! ...but I appreciate it."
„Go on, don't hold back. How did you once tell me? He's part of the reason you are how you are. For both of us." he intoned, speaking partially also to his younger counterpart: „I will always remember when the Doctor was him. So go on. I can't wait to remember whatever you're about to get up to."
For some reasons wholly unknown to the younger pair, the short-haired Clara hesitated a bit her, exchanging some probing glances with the older Doctor first – but when he just gestured again at his counterpart, she finally turned forward, walked up to the younger him and took hold of his fingers to lead his bashful figure to the next room.
He didn't seem too sure of what was happening to him, but certainly not displeased.
Which left the older Doctor alone with the younger Clara.
She'd been studying him for quite a bit, as one maps a marvellous phenomenon.
„I don't suppose I will remember this, since the older me is also here."
„Correctamundo. Very good, Miss Oswald."
„So it shouldn't break the universe if I ask what happened? I'm still with you, and I don't look that much older, so-"
„I don't suppose you will believe me if I say it was mostly kidney failure due to advanced old age, will you?"
She prompty creased her brows in exasperation.
„You're a reckless idiot."
„Careful, careful! There's a bunch of flying stones thrown by women in glass houses."
Realizing that she probably wasn't going to get an answer, she resigned herself to a deep sigh. „I don't suppose there's any point in telling you to be careful from now on. It's not who you are… Still", she concluded, shifting her weight from leg to the other as she again affected a smile, „I can't say I'm pleased that you're apparently due for a near-death experience in the near future, but I gotta say, it doesn't sound too bad to get my very own tailor-made version of you."
She stepped closer now, to look at him, without any particular hesitation.
„I see you're doing the big curly hair again! Always liked that on you, every single time. And the grey eyes! Haven't seen those since the boisterous you with the colorful coat – though you've got a style going on that's totally your own, it's sort of like punk rock meets art deco – I love it! Don't tell past you, but that face you have is totally my type? That deep, rough voice- were you trying to impress me?"
„Not particularly."
„Is that so?" She raised a faintly amused eyebrow. „Then thank you, very much, for trusting that you don't need to put up any pretense for me, or try to dazzle me with cheap tricks – even if they would have involved nice suits."
„...so you say."
She would have gone on with her teasing if she had not noted that slightest downcast glint in those new-yet-familiar eyes – though she had to make a guess about the reason:
„Don't worry, I like the present you, too. He'll always have a special place in my heart. - Still. I'm almost a little offended that I won't remember this. It's some silver lining to look forward, to whatever difficult stuff is gonna happen in the future- "
The Doctor with the guitar smiled thinly, in a somber expression that wasn't quite joy nor regret, and he might have said something else if it was not this very moment that the older version of Clara emerged from around the corner, leading a rather bashful-looking, bowtie-wearing Time Lord behind her, his pale face tinged with a marked blush.
„Here! He's all yours." she exclaimed, motioning to her younger self. „Better make sure to enjoy him while he lasts."
„I will! Just keep a tight hold of his future!"
„Don't worry! I remember."
For a moment she lingered, sharing a thoughtful look with her younger self, whom she figured must now be wondering after her intentions – but she wasn't lingered to dwell there for long, not when her own Doctor turned to leave, making his way to their TARDIS, which had been left in the next room – true to form, he couldn't be dissuaded from the dramatic entrance, which she honestly couldn't begrudge him.
They left their past behind the closed doors, the sound of their departure mingling with the arrivals of what must be the other two versions of him.
„Alright then. Let's get to work."
Both of their hands on the TARDIS console were needed to maneuver in the low atmosphere beneath a veritable storms of Daleks, even if it was only for a moment – but it helped that both of them had already done this at least once before.
It wasn't long before he let himself sink into the armchair he kept in the console room, deeply exhaling, perhaps feeling some bone-deep relief at the knowledge that this chapter of his life was now finally dealt with once and for all.
Clara was by all means willing to let him have the moment, watching him fondly as she quietly drew near.
Her own lips were curved in fond remembrance of that day – it couldn't have been more than a couple of years go at most, but looking back, it felt like so, so long ago, though not nearly so distant as it must feel for him.
„You know, I really didn't appreciate it back then – what it's like to meet yourself, I mean. It's one thing to see your future, but your past… it's already set in stone, sort of. When I saw past me there, I kept thinking, there's so much that I wanna tell her, but I can't. So many mistakes she's about to make, and I couldn't stop her.
Not even 'cause she won't remember, but because I don't think telling me would have made any difference at this point – telling her wouldn't be the same as living through it."
„Certainly not." he agreed, tired yet a little fond. „You're not the sort to listen, and for better or worse, neither am I. We're an incorrigible, bullheaded lot, aren't we?"
Clara signed. „It's like I'm letting her walk off a cliff. Or worse than a cliff, cause at least that would only affect me. But she is – I was – she's right about to get in a fight with you, and mess everything up with Danny, and make his last months miserable for no good reason – and then, I'm about to threaten the one person who put up with me through it all. And lie to your face so we'd ditch each other when we need each other most-
And the old me back then in the gallery – she hasn't done that yet. She doesn't have that guilt weighing on her, chasing her wherever she goes. But she's going to."
The Doctor sighed. „If you're hoping for some helpful advice, you're barking up the wrong tree. The one thing I can tell you is that you don't recommend dealing with it by never ever stopping at a breakneck pace."
„Nonono, you don't get to blame yourself for me messing up. That is mine. That was me. Stick to your own guilt, you daft old man."
He chose not to comment on that.
„By the way, have your memories of the gallery kicked in yet? Cause I find it very curious what the past you said."
„That would be another regret."
„Oh, is it?"
„Not like that!" she stated, emphatically, placing herself right in front of him to look him straight in the eye, making a point of clarifying that what she was going to say next was going to be important.
It felt really important that she do this properly. She took a deep breath as if to prepare herself. „I think the best way to say this is like this…
Do you remember when I jumped in your timestream?"
„That would be hard to forget."
„No I mean – one of the echos. It stands out to me, a little bit, I think because Vashtra, Jenny and Strax were there. And for another reason. You know how when we first met, you were all suspicious of me at the start? But that time, in Victorian London, you weren't. You handed me that stupid key almost immediately – and the other me didn't even understand why she was crying. But I understand now, because, in a way, it was like seeing what things would have been like if if I'd met you differently. Under better, or different circumstances – if you never had any reason to mistrust me.
Do you understand what I'm saying?"
„So you were cross with me."
Of course, that would be what he'd say. That bastard.
„You left me!" she exclaimed, letting fall old sediments of feelings that had once been held back out of prudence. „Not when you changed your face, before that. When you sent me off from Trenzalore, knowing you were in mortal danger. Twice. In a row."
„Well, it wasn't ‚in a row' for me, if that makes you feel any better."
„I know you were trying to save me. But you don't get to decide for me. Did you ever consider that there might be more important things to me than being safe?"
„Oh course I considered. That's why I didn't ask."
„Are you trying to aggravate me?!"
He put up his hands, waving them a little. „Nah, I'm good. I get it now. You don't like being dropped in situation. I learned that lesson on the moon, there's no reason to actually slap me."
„This is not about me!" She paused here, deliberately, to vent the exasperation from her system with a hearty noise. „I knew it wasn't your fault that you changed your face – I'm really glad you did, since the alternative is dying. It's not like I hadn't seen you with a different face before, or looking more mature – It was just too much at once after you left me and you ditched me and decided for me again- "
„You don't like losing control. I know. I told you already that I wouldn't want you any other way. I believe it was long ago in that restaurant."
„You bastard! I don't know why I'm even apologizing to you!"
Yet none of her bouts of angry exclamations had managed to wipe that thin grin off of his self-satisfied face.
Though maybe, the reason for it went deeper than mere smugness.
„You know," noted Clara, „It was really the same bloody thing as that time we parted ways after the thing with the cybermen. You thought I didn't want to be with you anymore, and then I pretended that I thought the same, because I didn't want to be the one who got it wrong, or had some silly illusions. I told you that I never thought we were together for the same reason that I started telling people that I was just going through a phase when things didn't work out with Nina back in college. Because I didn't like the idea of having a detour in the story of my life. Because I didn't want to get hurt, and most of all, cause I wanted to at least keep our friendship even if we can't... – and the worst is, you actually believed me.
You were actually more honest than me, back then. You thought you could finally be completely honest with me, and I-"
„You're only human."
„That's no excuse! That's not good enough! That's a low damn bar to hold myself to, and I damn well expect better of myself!"
„Well, I know better than to talk you out of this one. On your better days, it's part of what I admire about you. So I'm just gonna tell you this: I don't regret being honest with you, even if it lead us to have our clashes. If I hadn't, we would never have had this conversation, and I would never know what I do now. I would probably just have assumed -
And what you said, about that time I met you in Victorian London - that's quite right too. You're by far not the only one who has ever fallen short of their aims."
There was a whole lot of emotion going on in her face after that. The Doctor noted with some fascination that she was doing the inflating eyes again.
Eventually, she mastered herself into some semblance of coherence: „Thank you."
„Besides, I can't blame you too much, you were clearly stunned that brand new ‚deep, rough voice' of mine" – he quipped, casually aping the more than just excited tone of voice she had used years ago now, from her perspective.
„You're insufferable!" but she said it with fondness, leaning down to place one hand on the armrest of his armchair, reaching out the other hand to cup the side of his face much like she used to do all those years before at the national gallery.
„...by the way, now that we've mentioned the other me in Victorian London… you know what else that memory reminds me of?"
She doesn't even wait for an answer, and he is not surprised for long when she leans forward, just a half-acknowledged ‚oh right' when it becomes clear to him what she's alluding to, out of multiple possible options that may have popped up in his mind.
She called back to old times, but she isn't forceful this time, and he doesn't flail.
She handles him almost like something precious and tender, for all his more durable alien skin layers, in the cupping of his cheek in her hand, and in the brushing of her lips against his, and the point at which they connect with this lightest little smacking noise seems like a natural progression of their motion, as celestial bodies move in their orbits, as gravity draws them to circle, and spiral, and be flung off into the endless void -
And so they remained, frozen in a moment, until the forces that be drew them to their next destination.