Chapter 8: Rekindled

Clara startled and shot her eyes open, breaking her shared mental contact with the statue. She studied the Angel before her. It couldn't be him. This was impossible. This must be some cruel trick by the Master or the Dream Crabs. She backed away and examined the stone face closely, finally unhidden to her view.

All at once, she was back to the first day he had regenerated into his current form; when she couldn't see him. The new man before her on that day was so strikingly different from Bow-Tie, that she told herself there was no way this was the same man. It took a day's worth of subtle pleading and a call from Bow-Tie for Clara to finally believe it was him. He was still the Doctor. He was still her Doctor.

But now she was faced with the same uncertainty all over again. She reached out and touched his stone face, holding back tears. Everything was perfect in its every facet. Even the eyebrows were carved out to the utmost detail.

The wrinkles, the light curls of his hair, the unintentional scowl on his face, everything was uncannily accurate. The only things that had been changed were the new robes he wore, and the wings, of course. It was a simple robe, as far as she could tell from the stone, tied off at the waist with a rope and draping down to cover his feet.

'The wings...' Clara thought with realization. She walked over to the other side of him.

The Doctor's wings had been partially extended when she opened her eyes. They were long and slender like a hawk's. The colors didn't match the rest of the stone, but they were still astoundingly beautiful. An iridescent black coated the top feathers, like a raven's, gleaming brightly with a silky sheen in the dim light of her living room.

Flashes of red highlighted the black, giving it a suave look. She studied the underside and nearly gasped at the stunning colors. The red underneath was a deep Crimson, the color of blood. With the sleek trails of the feathers, paired with the lighting in the room, the colors and shadows appeared to be moving, dripping slowly like molasses, but never falling.

She stepped back again. This had to be a trick.

The yellow tendrils that had been dormant in her mind for a year continued to swirl and caress her conscience. They were familiar. She could practically feel the Doctor there in her mind. Whispering to her. Encouraging her.

She had seen all of the Doctor's previous incarnations. She had loved them all. She was one of the only few in all the cosmos who knew his name. She was the closest person to him in the whole universe. She had just gotten to know him for the first time in her long and splintered life, and Clara was not about to let him go.

This was most definitely him. She knew him, she knew his soul. There was no mistaking the yellow tendrils. It was him. The emotions were raw and unfiltered, but it was truly the Doctor. Her Doctor.

Clara squealed and laughed. Unbridled happiness bubbled up in her spirit. Her heart burst in her chest and she didn't care about the risks anymore. She carried his soul, what could harm her now with the living Doctor inside her and in front of her?

Clara leapt into the Doctor's arms with her eyes shut tight. He instantly re-animated and the rigid stone melted away. He was warm and soft, his hearts thudding vibrantly beneath his robes. She squeezed him tightly, never wanting to let him go ever again.

"Oh Doctor, my Guardian Angel," tears of joy slipped down her face, "I've missed you so much. It was all my fault, you didn't deserve this." She crushed his body to hers tighter, afraid that he would recoil as he always did. He hated hugging.

But not today.

He caught her in a fierce embrace, lifting her from her feet. He buried his face in her hair and nuzzled her neck. "Clara." he whispered, muffled by her shoulder, "Clara. My Clara."

He gazed upon her face, up close for the first time in what has felt like centuries. He brushed a lock of hair from her face. A single tear escaped from his ancient eyes. God, she was so stunningly beautiful, even with all the weight she had lost from stress and the bags under her eyes from crying at night, she would never look any different to him.

All he saw was Clara, and that's all that mattered. He just wanted to tell her. Tell her how deeply he loved her, how he would do absolutely anything for her. The usually bashful grumpy side of him balked at this, of course.

Logic screamed at him that their previous companionship would never work again. He was technically dead. In the sight of every living being he literally died and became his own gravestone. He could never gaze upon her wide eyes ever again. She could never see him alive again. Every time she would open her eyes, she would only ever be met with his statue.

He was dead to her eyes, alive only in her mind and in the blinding darkness. He was nothing more than a phantom to her now. A presence, always there by her side, but never truly alive to her sight.

One night several months ago, while he wandered alone on the cold streets after dark, he even contemplated never revealing himself to her. Perhaps, she was better off without him. He had done quite enough to mess up her life. She would hurt for a while, but she would heal without him and carry on in her life. It would be better that way. The last thing he wanted to do was endanger her life again; to have to stand over her broken body for a second time, knowing it was all his fault.

But he couldn't let her go. No matter how hard he tried. He hated himself for it, feeling selfish. The lonely guilt in his hearts dragged him lower every day. The weight of being an outcast, a murderer, without a friend left in the universe was almost too much to bear. He had to let her live her life. She didn't deserve him. Nobody deserved him.

But he needed her. He loved her. He could never stay far from her for long. He eventually resolved to hiding, watching her from a distance, only interfering when she appeared to be in any sort of danger.

The amount of times he wished to walk up to her and touch her, to tap her on the shoulder and reveal himself were too many to count. He had almost done it several times, but could never follow through, always covering his face just before she could ever get a good look at him.

No more lying. No more hiding. A second chance was given to him on a Christmas Day like today, so long ago. He would be a fool to waste it. He reburied his face into her neck, wishing he could stay there forever. He tightened his arms around her and pressed her petite form into him snugly. They fit perfectly, and he began to feel the beginnings of more tears welling up in his eyes.

"Oh how I have missed you so. There were so many times I wished to call your name, to hold your hand again, hell, to even be slapped by you again." he mumbled into the crook of her neck, having to bend over at an almost uncomfortable angle to match her height.

Clara shifted slightly. Judging by her body language, he could tell that she was about to give him a lecture. He knew exactly what she was going to fuss about. He drew in a deep breath and waited for it.

"Why did you never show me? It's been a year, Doctor. A year!" she begged for an answer. "One look, that's all I would have needed. One quiet thought in the corner of my mind, just to know you were alive. I've gone a whole year thinking that my best friend in the world was dead, do you know what that does to people?" she cried, punching his chest lightly.

He'd guessed correctly.

He brought his wings around, shielding them both in a warm curtain of feathers, "Yes. Yes, I do know what it does to people. I'm sorry, Clara, I truly am. It was too early to reveal myself to you. I was sure you'd run from me."

"I'd never run away from you, Doctor." Clara breathed.

"Well..." he started. He could physically feel her bristle at that. She broke the hug, and he immediately balked at the loss of contact.

"Shut up." she rose up on her tip toes suddenly and blindly found his face, "Just shut up, you stupid old man."

Clara tugged him down by the collar and crushed his lips to hers. Fireworks exploded in her mind. Time came to a halt. She tangled her fingers in his hair, deepening the kiss.

When he didn't respond after a moment, a pang of worry shot through her. She nearly broke the kiss, an apology already formulating in her mind.

A bolt of sadness shook her to the core. She remembered how he had squirmed when she first kissed his overly affectionate incarnation so many centuries ago. Maybe he still felt the same now as back then where he saw everything between them as borderline platonic. Maybe he didn't love her in the way she had been suspecting.

And then he kissed back, and all was right in the world. He was gentle, obviously nervous. He opened his mind to her, and the steady stream of pent-up emotion caught Clara off guard. She gasped into the kiss and drank him in, body and soul. Stars burst in her eyes and she couldn't resist a moan.

The whole situation was surreal. Clara had lost count long ago of all the dreams and daydreams she'd had of kissing the Doctor. She believed that she had already thought up every scenario possible. Clearly, she had skipped one. Their situation was impossible, but so fitting. The Impossible Girl and the Impossible Man.

They both broke the kiss shyly. A deep blush colored the Doctor's cheeks nearly the color of his wings and he was just glad that Clara couldn't see it. His pudding brain might throw around insults about being 'as red as a tomato,' or something equally horrifying.

"Clara..." he breathed, suddenly unable to produce any other coherent words. He leaned his forehead against hers, unbeknownst to her, a sign of deep affection on Gallifrey normally reserved only for lovers and newly-weds.

Clara took several deep breaths to calm herself down. While the kiss had been unhurried and gentle, what it lacked in roughness, it made up for in intensity and passion. Nobody had ever kissed her like that before. The kiss felt like a true joining of minds, quite literally in their case.

After a period of stillness and soft panting breaths, Clara turned from the Doctor, careful to not set eyes on him. She walked to the kitchen table, pulling out a chair for herself and her welcome guest.

He followed quietly behind, content just to see her going about her business, just like the old days. She looked as if a two-ton weight had been lifted off her shoulders. There was a definite spring in her step, and he couldn't help but feel a rare untethered happiness settle in his hearts.

He could feel his guilt, his sadness, and his anxiety melting away. When he gave his life to her, their minds became bonded forever. She tended to broadcast her emotions loudly, and he picked them up easily. Clara's soft mind danced around his refreshingly. She dulled the ache for his people and the guilt that festered there. She curled around him, embracing him, seeing him. For the first time in his life, he truly felt whole.

He had been too busy sorting out all of Clara's human emotions to notice that she had set a tea kettle on the table and had already poured him a cup. A large bowl of sugar cubes sat nearby. She knew him well. She then tied a short scarf around her eyes. She looked absolutely ridiculous like that, but of course he wouldn't tell her.

"I heard that." She giggled, "Yes, I know it's ridiculous, but it's my favorite scarf, so you'll just have to deal with it," she laughed.

She fumbled around for her teacup, succeeding in dunking a corner of her sleeve in the hot liquid. "Oh." she frowned on realization, "This is where it gets tricky."

The Doctor watched her struggle with amusement written all over his face. Usually, he wouldn't let a look like that slip, but since she couldn't see him, he felt slightly more comfortable expressing his emotions. His wings didn't quite fold to allow his back to rest against the chair, so he had them unfurled awkwardly, resting them on the floor.

"Let me help you." he rose up and covered her tiny hand with his. He guided her hand to the handle and made sure that she took a sip successfully without spilling it and burning herself.

"Well this is just peachy." She sipped and flashed him a grin. He only wished that he could see the smile on her eyes too.

He proceeded to pluck sugar cubes from the bowl and drop them into his cup. Each cube made a dull clink against the porcelain. By the thoughtful look on her face, he could tell that she was counting how many he was putting in there.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" he asked innocently.

"That." she pointed, missing his direction by a few feet, "Why do you take so much sugar? You know that amount of tea can't dissolve that amount of sugar. It's as sweet as it's ever going to get, and you're just going to have lumps of sugar at the bottom of your cup. It's a supersaturated solution, Doctor. Don't you know your chemistry?" she chuckled with mirth.

His ego was slightly ruffled at that. "Of course I know my chemistry. I practically discovered half the stuff, by accident really, but it counts. The tea is simply unacceptable without this standard amount of sugar, Clara. I don't see why everyone is making such a big deal about it." he waved his arms around, helplessly trying to defend his position.

A comfortable silence settled over the kitchen. They had finished their tea, and now the Doctor was sucking on the remaining sugar cubes in the bowl, taking care to be as quiet as possible lest she find out what he was up to.

"Thank you for saving me all those times." Clara said quietly.

"You know," he said around lump of sugar, "besides myself, you're the most accident-prone person I've ever known, and that's saying a lot. I don't know how you even managed half of that." He rumbled out in his Scottish lilt with a hint of laughter in his voice.

"Still." she shrugged, not denying the facts, "Thanks anyway. Where did you send the mugger who tried to kill me last year?"

"Ah." he growled out, scowling at the memory of anyone ever trying to hurt such an innocent girl as his Clara. "I have a bit more control over how I use my Time Energy, having traveled in the Tardis for so long. I can send people forwards and backwards in time, and can send them away to specific locations, even other planets."

"I sent him to the penal colony of Abeaxos. He still had his gun drawn, and was arrested immediately. You don't have to worry about him ever again, Clara. He's a million light-years away."

A pregnant silence filled the air.

"So what happened, Doctor?" she finally asked, "How did you become an Angel?"

He drew in a deep breath and began to recount what had happened over the past year. He told her everything, leaving out no details. By the time he was finished, her face had considerably paled, and her normally-wiggly self had stayed rooted to her chair for over half an hour now.

She swallowed a lump in her throat, attempting to regain her composure. Everything must have been unbelievably hard for him. Seeing his family, but frozen in stone, in death, knowing that he had damned them all to this stone hell.

And he endured all this just to save her. He gave his life for her, and received pain and abandonment from his own people. It must have killed him to be shunned by his own family and friends. They even marked him to purposefully tear down the name he gave himself, his own identity. Doctor, the word for a wise man and a healer, was crumpled in the dust. "Murderer," they labelled him.

She eventually recovered enough to ask questions. "So every Weeping Angel we've ever seen is actually a dead Time Lord?"

"Basically, yes." he answered uncomfortably.

"Have you ever recognized any?" she asked, chewing her lip thoughtfully.

"No, that would have been a real reality check. Gallifrey was a big planet with billions of people. I can't expect to know them all, Clara. Also, it appears to always be the same group of Angels hunting us."

"So, even the baby Angels? What about the Angels at Winter Quay with their 'battery farm?' Why do they need to displace people?"

He sighed deeply and continued, "Yes, even the babies. They must be babies that were killed at some point in the Time War. The Angels do not feed off the Time Energy like I previously thought. They somehow collect it all and store it. Apparently, they believe that if they can find enough energy, it could restore some of them. By 'restore,' I don't know if they mean that they can get back to their original bodies, or if it frees them from the prison of immortality to finally die. I'm surprised they haven't gone after you, Clara. They're always looking for time travelers and the Tardis as sources of energy."

"Oh, I don't know." she smiled, "There was one in particular that kept showing up. He was rather shy." she hummed to herself.

A sudden realization dawned on Clara. Her smile disappeared and her expression darkened.

"What about the Tardis?" Clara asked quietly. "Have you seen her at all? She's suffering, Doctor."

The Doctor ran his hands over his well-worn face. It felt like he was missing an essential piece in his hearts. The mind of the Tardis had been ripped from his when he became the Angel and never came back. He couldn't even feel her soft whispers anymore. She was completely absent in his mind, leaving him feeling cold and naked without his trusty old ship, now the only truly living Gallifreyan left in existence.

"I couldn't." he confessed. "It was my own stupid mistake. Centuries ago, in my tenth incarnation, I discovered the Weeping Angels for the first time. They sent me back to 1969 without the Tardis. For decades after that, they sent back innocent people while trying to get into the Tardis for her time energy."

"The Tardis doesn't technically have eyes, so apparently her telepathic sight of the Angels didn't count as the sight of a living thing to turn them to stone. They were able to crowd around her while she sat there helplessly."

"After I found my way out of that mess, I programmed the Tardis to be Angel-proof by allowing her to broadcast her telepathic soul more brightly. That's partially why she became so interactive from my eleventh incarnation on, if you've ever wondered." he trailed off.

"So she doesn't know." Clara concluded.

"No. She doesn't." he sighed sadly. I can never come close to her. If I can see her, she can see me. I'll turn to stone every time, and since she won't move from her spot or ever look away, I'd be frozen in stone forever."

"So why didn't you freeze when you saved me from that mugger a year ago? That was in the alley. The Tardis was only about twenty feet from me." Clara asked quizzically.

"She was distracted. She was looking at you." The Doctor smiled, "It looks like there's more than one Gallifreyan looking out for you, Clara."

"Well, come on then," Clara laughed, "you can't hide from her forever." Clara blindly grabbed his hands, instinctively knowing they would be somewhere around the sugar bowl.

"Clara-" he started.

She brought his hands up to her temples. "She's in my head. We've been keeping each other company for the past year. After you saved me, my telepathic abilities have increased. I can now actually speak to her."

"But that's a Time Lord consciousness, Clara." he sputtered out, baffled. "How can you even pick that up? Your tiny human brain should explode."

"Thanks," she grumbled. He hadn't changed that much.

"Speak to her, Doctor. She needs you." Clara urged him. Even with the scarf covering her eyes, he could tell that they would be doing the wide-eyed pleading thing if they were free.

He sighed and pressed his fingers gently into her temples. He entered her mind easily and searched. Many blockades that had been raised before were missing now. Raw emotions flurried everywhere in her thoughts, but he put those to the side, promising to examine them later, with her permission, of course.

Then he saw her. The Tardis, living in Clara. Both the Doctor and the Tardis been telepathically living in the same mind for over a year, but never once knew the other was there. He could find the definite yellow glow of his ship's consciousness from a mile away. He ran towards it, picking up the emotions leaking from it.

Oh.

She was crying. The Tardis had curled into a dull ball of light in the back of Clara's mind, sobbing silently. He reached out to her, nudging her experimentally.

The Tardis immediately recoiled at the touch, curling up tighter.

'Sexy? It's me.' he gently prodded, pouring love and joy into her.

'Thief?' the Tardis asked meekly before bristling, 'Go away, spirit. My thief is dead. I let him die. I let him save her. Leave me alone.'

'Please, Sexy. It is me. The Doctor. Your thief.' he entwined his soul with hers, feeling her familiar embrace.

'Doctor?' The Tardis reached back warily.

'It's me.' he nuzzled. 'I've been turned into a Weeping Angel, but it's still me. I'm here, I see you.' he encouraged gently.

The ancient ship caught him in a fierce embrace, weaving through his soul, filling the empty spots in his hearts. Unbridled happiness flowed from the Old Girl, nearly as if she were laughing and crying in joy at the same time.

'You came back to me. You came back.'

The last two Gallifreyans in embraced in mind and soul.

Clara smiled uncontrollably. Tears ran freely down both hers and the Doctor's faces. She could hear him laughing, a rare sound that was so infectious, that soon they were both a blubbering, laughing mess.

Their joyous laughter echoed down the halls of the complex. A figure stood at the base of the building, gazing up. The figure smiled wickedly and applied more lipstick liberally.

"Well, Doctor." Missy cooed, capping the lipstick and smacking her lips together. "Looks like I've found you, my dear."

"I think I'll just pop in for a visit."

Missy grinned malevolently and stepped up the stairs.