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labyrinth-archive · 4 years

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An Eternity of Unspoken Things Fandom: Doctor Who Pairing: Whouffaldi Length: 2,500 words Rating: G Also on Ao3

Summary:

“Everything you’re about to say I already know,” Clara tells him on trap street. “Don’t say it now.”

So the Doctor doesn’t, and the words he never says get buried like a seed deep down in his chest, and they blossom there, blooming against his ribcage like roses, their thorns piercing his skin, and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts.

Which is why, in all those billions of years he’s trapped in his confession dial, sometimes, (when the stars change or when her painted portrait weathers yet again with age or he finds himself drowning with grief and rage), he’ll try to say those unsaid words to the Clara in the TARDIS in his mind.

He loves Clara.

This is a fact the Doctor knows, like how he knows that daylight lasts on Filea IV for exactly fifty-three minutes, or that the rain on New Saturn sounds like a song.

It’s just a simple thing. An obvious, everyday notion. The TARDIS travels in time and space, his two hearts beat, and he loves Clara Oswald.

But he doesn’t say it.

# “Everything you’re about to say I already know,” Clara tells him on trap street. “Don’t say it now.” Outside, the raven is waiting, but here, she pulls him into a hug and he stands there in her embrace, feeling the weight of her arms around him, like she is his anchor, holding him steady in a world that’s nothing but a stormy sea.

But then all too soon, her arms unwind from around his neck and his anchor leaves him.

His anchor dies.

And all he can think is:

He didn’t get to say it.

# He is in his confession dial, and every day he slams his fist into the wall and every day he burns himself up and leaves blood on the stairs while grief eats away at his bones because Clara’s in his mind but she’s not in the world. And then there are those words, the words he never got to say. They got buried like a seed deep down in his chest, and now they blossom there, blooming against his ribcage like roses, their thorns piercing his skin, and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts.

Which is why, when he’s at his weakest, when the stars change or when her painted portrait weathers yet again with age or he finds himself drowning with grief and rage, he thinks about saying those words to the Clara in the TARDIS in his mind.

It never quite works out.

# Once upon a time (so, so, so very long ago now) he stood in an arena, with a guitar in his hands and sunglasses slipping down his nose, and stared at the (wonderful, beautiful, impossible) girl standing in front of him and said: “When do I not see you?”

And he meant it then and he still means it now because it’s true. It’s true, it’s true, it’s true.

“I see you,” he says again, and it’s slightly different than the three little words his two hearts beat out, but it still has the same meaning.

He’s spent at least a thousand years inside his confession dial and yet Clara’s still as clear as day to him. There was once a time - when he had a different, boyish face - when he couldn’t see her. He had thought she was a trick or a trap, a ghost or a riddle. And he had been wrong, she was just a girl, an ordinary girl with an extraordinary heart and he had been blind. So when that old body died in golden flames and this new body was born, he’d made sure it was born with the promise that he would always, always, always see her.

He’s never broken that promise.

He thinks maybe he should say this to the Clara mirage in his mind. That he should tell her what he never told the real Clara on trap street, confess what he’s kept locked up tightly. The words wait there, beneath his breastbone, wanting and waiting to be said.

But he’s not that sort of man, not really. He’ll have to let her know how he feels the long way around.

So what he says out loud is:

“There is an emperor, and he asks the shepard’s boy, ‘How many seconds in eternity?’”

# “I figured out it was you, you know,” he tells his imaginary Clara in his imaginary TARDIS. (He’s not entirely sure how many centuries it’s been since he’s started this conversation with her. It’s hard to keep track.)

“You were the voice in my dreams, when I was a child in that barn on Gallifrey. You were the one whispering those words in my mind. Did you think I’d never put two and two together?” Clara raises an eyebrow. She has just as much sass as the original, this mental copy of Clara, always ready to cut him down to size.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

(Stars, he misses her.)

“Well,“ she says, “it did take you this long.”

He exhales a laugh and closes his eyes. He still remembers her soft whisper in the night; her voice curling out from the darkness like music, speaking words that’d get woven into his dreams and sewn into the idea behind the name he calls himself.

He’s always loved her, he thinks. Right from his very first face.

But he doesn’t say it.

“’Fear is a superpower,’” he says instead, repeating her exact words from that night. “‘Fear can bring us together, fear can bring you home.’ And that’s exactly what I’m going to do, Clara. I’m going to bring you home. I swear it.”

(He dies with that promise on his lips, and he comes back to life with it written into his bones.)

# “Look at you, with your eyes and your never giving up and your anger and your kindness,” he’d told her one time, when she was by his side and breathing, when they were somewhere back in history. “One day, the memory of that will hurt so much that I won’t be able to breathe, and I’ll do what I always do. I’ll get in my box and I’ll run and I’ll run.”

And he’d been right back then, but he’d also been wrong. Because it’s true that the pain of his grief is gut-wrenching, true that it’s blinding and leaves him breathless. But instead of running, he’s staying. He’s staying here in this nightmare, for Clara. Because tasting death every day for billions upon billions of years all in the hope of seeing her again is nowhere near as frightening as the idea of running and dealing with the fact that she is gone and he cannot get her back. He wonders if Clara ever knew how far he’d go for her, and even more than that, he wonders if he should just say it all now, out loud, so the words can be out there in the world.

But it’s like he’s on the edge of a cliff, tips of his shoes right over the precipice, and he just can’t jump. So he doesn’t say those things. Instead, he continues to tell her the story he never finished from before.

“And the shepard’s boy says, ‘There is a mountain of pure diamond…’”

# “Have I ever told you the story of the shepard’s boy?” he asks her. Clara looks at him sadly.

“Yes,” she whispers, “you have.”

(Of course he has. He has every day for thousands and thousands years.) “I’ll tell you another story then,” he decides.

“Doctor,” she says gently, “you’re dying.”

He ignores her.

“There is a story,” he continues, “about how the sun loved the moon so much, he died every night just to let her breathe.”

He sighs, shuts his eyes, feels the pain pulsing through his mind.

“I suppose, Clara, what I’m trying to say is…” he’s only got seconds left, ticking away. “What I’m trying to say is…”

The seconds slip away, he closes his eyes, and as he dies, he thinks:

I understand the sun.

# He’s dying. Again.

He thinks it might be for the five-hundred-thousandth time. And he’s not sure he can go through everything again. All the pain, all the dying, and the way his mind screams and his skin bleeds. He is so, so tired. How easy it would be, he thinks, to just stop. To just sleep.

But he can’t sleep, not peacefully, not yet, not until he tells Clara what he never did.

Which is why he finds himself back in his mental storm room, staring at her. Her back is to him, and there is white chalk in her hand and a blackboard in front of her bearing the sentence, “How are you going to win?” and for once, he ignores it. He is too tired to strategize, too weak to spend the rest of his life here in his mental TARDIS storm room, trying to think his way out of this impossible maze. He just wants her to listen.

“Clara,” he says quietly, as he feels his breath getting shallower, the space between his two heartbeats getting longer, “I’ve got to tell you something before I die again, before it’s too late.” But Clara isn’t interested, she just taps those familiar words on the board again. How are you going to win?

“This is important, Clara.”

She shakes her head, a motion that sends her dark hair flying around her shoulders, making it look like raven feathers, and he inhales sharply at the sight, his hearts twisting painfully in his chest.

“No, Doctor,” Clara says, and she still won’t turn to face him, won’t let him say what he needs to so he can go in peace. “What’s important is this: How are you going to win?”

“You don’t understand, Clara,” he says, and he hears the frustration in his voice, hears an almost feral sort of desperation there too. “Maybe this is how I win. Maybe it’s by finally, finally telling you what I should’ve told you before. Now, before I fade away.”

He loves her, loves her like she is the sun and the moon and then stars. Loves her so much that it hurts, hurts so badly he cannot breathe. And perhaps this is what victory is, what winning feels like: getting to say these words to at least one Clara, even if it’s not the one that counts.

“Look, Clara - “

She still won’t face him, so he reaches for her then, trying to take her shoulders, spin her around to face him, to listen just for once, but the Clara in his mind slips through his fingers like smoke, and he’s left holding a handful of air as he realizes once again that she is not there, not really, not in the way she should be.

He shuts his eyes, sinks down to the floor, puts his head in his hands, and thinks:

She’s right. She’s always, always right. What’s important is that he win. And then he’ll tell her everything after.

# It’s been four billion years, he thinks as he stares at the sky. Maybe, maybe almost four-and-a-half billion. So the stars have changed, the constellations been broken and reformed, and every star is unrecognizable. Every star except for her.

You’re my North Star, Clara Oswald, he thinks silently as he looks at her. You’re always going to be guiding me home.

And out loud he says, “Not much longer now.” # This is it. He knows it. He can feel it in his bones and in the beat of his hearts and in the steady way he breathes. All the wall needs is one more punch. Just one more. He can see the daylight coming through it already, all golden and bright and promising that tomorrow will come and tomorrow will be better.

The Clara in the TARDIS in his mind takes his hand in hers for the very last time. “‘And when the entire mountain is chiseled away, the first second of eternity will have passed,’” she says, finishing the story he started oh so very long ago. “Today’s the day. First second of eternity. Got anything to say to that, Doctor?”

He glances over at her. There are so many things he aches to tell her, so many things he wants her to understand. But they’re close to the finish line now. So, so close.

So he simply says:

“See you on the other side, Clara Oswald.” And for the first time in what feels like an eternity, he smiles.

# Clara, Clara, Clara. For all those years, her name was like a never-ending melody, always winding its way through the back of his mind, and now she is here, with him. They are kneeling together, side by side, in the cloisters on Gallifrey, darkness wrapped around them like the night.

And the universe, well, the universe is burning. Time is fractured and stars are dying and the universe is burning, and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all, because he’s got her back. Clara - his Clara - is there beside him, and that is all that matters.

He’d do anything for her.

(No, the back of his mind corrects him, he’d do everything.)

”What is it?” Clara asks (and oh, how good it feels to hear her voice out loud and outside his mind). “What were you bargaining for in that confession dial?” He nearly laughs at that. He’s died every day for a sliver of eternity; broken each of his precious, pithy rules; killed a man (and perhaps, he thinks idly, time itself); and the notion that he’d do all that for anything less than her is incomprehensible.

He looks up, and he expects Clara to be teasing him or testing him, but he’s surprised to see that she is not. She is serious, her eyes studying him, waiting for an answer. He falters for a second, feeling lost as his light blue eyes search her questioning dark brown ones.

“What do you think?” he asks.

She shakes her head, and he frowns, because Clara is clever. So, so very clever. But she can’t see it. Why can’t she see it? “You,” he tells her, like the answer is as simple to him as breathing, as obvious as the moon in the sky. He can’t imagine a universe where he wouldn’t die every day for her. “I had to find a way to save you.”

He can’t fathom his words being a total surprise to anyone. (It’s obvious, isn’t it? he thinks. Obvious he’d go this far - farther, even - for her.) But Clara sits there, speechless and stunned by his words. Then she blinks, inhales sharply (she needn’t, her lungs no longer need air, but muscle memory is there), and says, “l have something I need to say.”

So does he. He’s filled with sentences he never said, with words he’s held inside for longer than stars have been alive.

But he can’t say them, not now, not when they’re so close to escaping, “We don’t have time.” “No, my time is up, Doctor, between one heartbeat and the last is all the time I have,” Clara says. Her fingers curl around his wrist, and he is struck once again with the sensation that she is his anchor, holding him steady in the eye of the storm. And slowly, under her touch, he stills, letting his anchor stabilize him.

“People like me and you, we should say things to one other,” she tells him. “And I’m going to say them now.”

And, finally, after four-and-a-half billion years…

So does he.

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thescholarlystrumpet · 6 years

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A Whouffaldi and Thirteen/Clara Christmas ficlet <3

I'd Know You Anywhere Rated General

Now and then, every once in a very long while... The Doctor comes to call.

On AO3 HERE

Clara Oswald had no heartbeat.

She had no need for food or air or sleep. Although, sleep she still did - even all these centuries later. Maybe it was habit. Or maybe her racing mind just needed the rest, if only to dwell in dreams for a time.

Her waking mind could only hold so many memories at a time, struggling along as the years slipped through her grasp. She kept handwritten diaries with Ashildr, storing them in the Tardis’s accommodatingly expanding library. The present was always just a little bit hazy with the patina of the new and uncertain. But her unconscious mind could recall the past in crystal clarity when she dreamed.

Her dreams were colorful and varied, mostly things she'd seen and done when she was still alive though sometimes the stories twisted and turned, exploring paths untaken. No matter where she went, or when, her dreaming mind always found its way back to him.

His long fingers tucked into hers as they ran, breathless and giddy. His piercing gaze under that heavy brow, making the heartbeat she'd once had stutter from its rhythm. The strong burr of his voice, breath tickling her ear as he murmured instructions or other, more significant, words.

Clara wished that she'd known then to catalogue every moment and store them away like the photos on her mobile. Then perhaps she could close her eyes and choose a particular moment to live over and over again. But it was at the whim of her unconscious and, much like its owner, her mind could be capricious.

So it was that Clara went eagerly to bed between adventures - much to Ashildr’s amusement. The other immortal girl didn't understand. She'd lived too long for idle sentiment. She'd loved many times, long and well, and buried them all in the past.

But there had only ever been two such loves for Clara.

Danny, she thought of one time each day, keeping a promise once made in her dying mind.

The Doctor, she couldn't have forgotten if she tried.

It had taken some adjusting at first but Clara no longer thought about the other functions she no longer needed. Sometimes she would go months before remembering she hadn't eaten in a while.

Ashildr didn't really need food either but she liked to remind herself of different flavors every few decades. So, Clara would join her in the diner, a ‘Closed for Business’ sign slung on the door in the language of whatever planet they'd landed on. The two of them would rifle through old diaries, digging up references to favorite meals, and put together a menu lavish enough to put the Louis XIV of Naturoun 8 to shame. They'd cook and cook and cook until the air was saturated with smells from all over the galaxy.

It was in one such frenzy of culinary exploration that there came a knock at the door.

The women ignored it at first but it came again. They exchanged looks. Ashildr shrugged.

“We're closed. Come back tomorrow,” Clara shouted over one shoulder, knowing full well they'd be long gone by then.

“Sorry to bother but, ehm, I seem to be stuck here for a bit and it's really quite cold outside. Would you mind if I came in and just warmed up a bit?” A woman's voice carried over the bubbling pots and sizzling pans.

Ashildr raised an eyebrow. “Told you we should have changed the outside appearance.”

“Well when you figure out how to unstick a Chameleon circuit, we’ll get right on that.” Clara replied goodnaturedly, flipping a Vrendesian hot cake with a wide plastic spatula.

Ashildr shrugged again and moved a rattling pot off the burner.

The woman at the door knocked once more. “You know, those Vrendesian hot cakes smell a bit burnt but I would be happy to whip up some Fflusetin sweet sauce that would perfectly compliment the char."

Clara's mouth pursed. She slapped the spatula down on the counter and turned toward the door. “Insulting my cooking doesn't really seem like a wise way to gain entry…”

“Consider it constructive criticism?” The woman called back.

Ashildr gave a snort of amusement. “Oh just let her in.” She reached past Clara to turn off the burner under the hot cakes.

Clara sighed. “I was going to. My hands were just full with burning dinner apparently” she flounced across to the door and flung it open.

A slender woman with blonde hair cut to her shoulders stood outside. She was wrapped in a trench coat that was clearly too thin to keep out the chill wind. Her bright eyes met Clara’s and she inhaled sharply, something unreadable flickering over her face before it settled into a cheery smile. “Thanks ever so much. A… a friend of mine has borrowed my…. ride. I'm sure she'll be back any moment but in the meantime… anyway, thanks.”

Clara’s hand flexed on the door handle as she tentatively returned the other woman's easy smile. “We aren't open but you're welcome to wait here and have a bite. So long as you serve yourself.” That last bit was only partly a joke. Clara could be friendly enough but she really wasn't cut out for food service. A fact she'd discovered quite quickly, traveling in a pretend diner. She ought to have known how much she'd hate taking orders of any kind.

The blonde stepped over the threshold with a nod. “I meant it about that sweet sauce. I'm quite handy with a spoon.”

Clara swallowed involuntarily, suddenly overwhelmed with a powerful deja vu. To cover, she gave the woman a perfunctory tour of the kitchen area, all the while feeling like her movements were redundant.

The woman nodded sharply, taking in the whole smoky mess, the jumble of cooking implements, with an amused and intelligent eye.

Clara moved as though she was in a dream, her mouth running away with unnecessary descriptions of their culinary endeavors. She could feel the woman at her back, listening attentively. Each time she turned, she could swear the blonde had stepped just a little closer, testing the boundaries of Clara’s personal space. Clara couldn't bring herself to mind.

Ashildr watched them both as she stirred and added final seasonings, the corner of her mouth quirked upward.

Once acquainted with the kitchen, the woman set to work, dashing together a delicious smelling sauce as Clara and Ashildr dished up. The three women sat down to the table and dug in with relish.

Companionable silence gave way to pleasant small talk. The blonde woman artfully evaded personal questions but happily supplied amusing anecdotes about her missing friends (there turned out to be more than one of them). She didn't seem particularly concerned about their whereabouts or exactly when they intended to bring back her aforementioned transport. Clara and Ashildr simply took it in stride, having met more than their share of fellow travelers over the years.

Despite her easy, carefree demeanor, Clara felt a thread of something urgent - almost desperate - in the way the woman's eyes kept seeking out Clara’s, and then darting away. For just a moment, something would pass between them, the blonde’s lips parting around an unspoken word, her gaze intense and consuming. Then her expression would shift, wiping itself clean and fading back into that blandly polite smile. She'd ask one of them to pass the buttered Parsileran potatoes (which were not actually potatoes but no one could call them by their native name without a second epiglottis) and Clara would think she'd imagined it.

“By the time the Queen regent had pieced together the real story, of course, we were long gone. But there's yet another garden I suppose I'll never get to see again…” the woman laughed, a clear and lovely sound, and Ashildr joined her merriment.

Clara smiled broadly, still feeling dreamy and slow - though whether it was due to the massive food consumption or the company, she couldn't tell. “Tell me, have you been back to Earth lately?”

The blonde woman tilted her head, a gesture that immediately brought both owls and bushy eyebrows to Clara's mind. “Mm, not recently. Though we had thought to head back soon. I believe they are due to celebrate Christmas.”

“Christmas…. that's the one with the trees and the imaginary bogeyman who rides a… was it an elk?” Ashildr mused.

“Santa’s not a bogeyman. He brings children the presents they most longed for through the year,” Clara explained. “Providing they've been good, that is.”

“Well who is he to judge the behavior of children? And how does he know?” Ashildr queried with a teasing grin.

“He sees you while you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good…” Clara sang, giggling a little at the end.

“That's quite creepy. Spying on children.” Ashildr grabbed several empty dishes as she stood up.

“I have to say, it doesn't exactly disprove your bogeyman theory, does it?” The other woman addressed this to Ashildr, running one hand through her short hair. “But from all accounts he's really quite nice. Jolly, they say. Perhaps a bit snarky but a good sort.”

Ashildr shrugged, already losing interest in a very human event to which she no longer felt any connection. “Suppose they aren't mutually exclusive, jolly and creepy. I'm gonna let these soak. Less clean up later.”

Clara paid no mind as Ashildr disappeared around the kitchen partition. The tickle in her mind had grown too vast to ignore, the familiarity and slippery wrongness and utter rightness of the evening culminating here and now. She narrowed her eyes at the blonde, a whole world of questions pressing at her lips. What came out was this: “So, in all your travels, you've never, ah, met Santa? Jolly St. Nick?”

The blonde licked her lips, suddenly looking anywhere but Clara. “Oh, do you think he's really real? Not just a story? I mean, gifts to every child in the world in one night? I…” here she took a long breath, “I always figured that would be… impossible.”

It was like waking up and falling into the deepest sleep all at the same time. Like fireworks exploding in Clara's mind and liquid happiness fizzing beneath her skin. If she'd had breath to steal, it would have been stolen away. Her hands gripped the edge of the table, an anchor to keep her from floating out of reality completely.

She knew. With absolute certainty, with impeccable clarity, she knew .

It took some effort but Clara finally caught and pinned the blonde woman's galloping gaze. “I've always believed in the impossible,” she said gently.

Silence stretched between them, thick and stifling. Neither able to look away.

Then the other woman's lips trembled slightly before curving up at both corners. Her eyes went silvery with tacit relief and a million other things she'd likely never admit to feeling. Her voice, when she spoke at last, was barely a whisper.

“Yes. I could see that about you. You've a face that has seen wonders, Clara Oswald.”

Everything in Clara screamed to reach out, to fold the woman in her arms and never let go. Her knuckles were white as she continued to cling to her Formica lifeline. So close and yet so far. Always so far from where they'd once been.

They both knew it was ground that could not be retread. The centuries between them were a heavy reminder.

Together, they were simply too dangerous, a supernova burning bright and combusting so fast it would leave only the most deadly of black holes. This world they both loved so dearly, that they explored and learned from and kept trying to change for the better, could only exist without the Hybrid.

There was a whooshing noise outside and the woman broke away from Clara's gaze to look toward it. She swallowed hard and slid from the booth, announcing “Well, that's my ride. Thank you for a lovely evening.” She looked directly at Clara again as she added, “I won't forget it.”

Clara stood up and grasped the woman's hands, impulsively. Her lips parted but no words would come. She'd been waiting for this moment for so very long, dreamt it a million different ways. But now it was happening, nothing seemed to fit. At last she tilted up on her toes (of course she was still the shorter one, even now) and gently pressed her lips to the other woman's. She tasted galaxies in a span of seconds, eons of hope and loss, joy and regret. And just a hint of salt tears that could have belonged to either of them.

As Clara pulled back, the woman was smiling again, but not in her polite way. She smiled in the way that one only does when sharing a beautiful, painful secret.

“Happy Christmas, Clara.”

“Happy Christmas.” Clara hesitated a moment before adding, a little smugly, “I told you I'd know you anywhere.”

At this the woman laughed, squeezing Clara's hand and keeping it in hers as they head to the entrance. Their joined hands fell apart as the woman opened the door.

“Good night and thank you again for your hospitality,” she called toward the kitchen.

Ashildr poked her head around the partition wall. “Oh! Good night and thank you for the new recipe, Doctor!”

Clara's mouth fell open but The Doctor only winked back. Hesitating a moment longer, she tucked a lock of hair behind Clara's ear. “There's never really goodbye for us, is there?”

Without waiting for a reply, she was gone.

Clara let the door close before she could even catch a glimpse of that old blue box. Her unmoving heart already hurt too much.

Instead, she grabbed some more dishes and head to the kitchen. Setting them down, she planted her hands in her hips and cleared her throat. “So, you knew the whole time?”

Ashildr gave a brief snort of amusement. “I think you forget how long I was around before we started traveling together.”

Clara held out both hands, shaking her head. “You didn't say anything.”

“I figured if she wanted you to know, she'd have introduced herself. Besides, you figured it out once I gave you a moment together. Why do you think I stepped in here? For the ambiance?” She waved a casual hand at the stacks of dirty dishes.

Clara's face felt hot though she no longer blushed. It was the sense memory of a blush, of the ability to be embarrassed when she was not the top of the class. “Oh. Oh right.” She cleared her throat again, looking down at her feet. “Thank you for that.”

Ashildr slung an arm around her shoulders. “Happy Christmas, love. And if you really want to thank me, you can get a head start on the pots and pans. Life's still too short for pruney fingers.”

Clara laughed and hugged her companion back tightly. “I'll get right on them tomorrow. All that food made me want to take a nap.”

“You and your naps,” Ashildr grumbled gamely. “Alright. Tomorrow, dishes. Tonight… Sweet dreams.” She left the room with a meaningful backwards glance.

Clara settled into her bed a little while later and waited for her dream mind to take her away.

Clara still didn't need to sleep, but sleep she did that night and many others after it.

Sometimes she dreamt she ran from danger with a tall, owlish man whose eyebrows did the talking. Sometimes she was with a young, clumsy fellow who had nearly no eyebrows at all.

But sometimes the hand in hers was that of a slight blonde woman with a lovely smile and just a hint of sorrow in her bright, wise eyes.

#whouffaldi #whouffaldi fic #twelveclara #thirteen x clara #clara x doctor #thirteenth doctor fic #twelve x clara #whoffaldi #whouffle #whoffle #my fic #doctor who fic #thirteenclara #clara x the doctor #clara and ashildr

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leaiorganas · 6 years

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Someone Like That 2/3

Clara and the Doctor, co-workers, holiday party, secret crushes. What could possibly go wrong?

LOL, does anyone even remember this fic? It’s been ages! If you remember, yay, if not, have a whouffaldi secret crush holiday party au!

On AO3 here

The Doctor stood with his hand braced against the car door, watching Clara as she ran towards the building. He called her name but she ignored him as she shut the door with a resounding snap. He stood there for a few minutes, debating whether or not to go after her but decided it would only make matters worse. Sighing, he got back in the car and decided to drive home. The night was over for him, he had held high hopes for this evening but nothing seemed to go right.

Clara Oswald.

Rubbing his hand through his hair, the Doctor tried to figure out why this evening had turned out so wrong.

She had been kind to him on his first day, volunteering to show him around the office. He admired her friendly personality but could see that many of her peers had not taken her seriously. He noted her sharp wit and keen intelligence and made it a point to include her in discussions during staff meetings.

That she was also very young and beautiful never occurred to him.

At least, it shouldn’t have.

She would often try to include him in team lunches or group outings but he always declined. He had no interest getting to know his colleagues, save one. Clara was well liked by everyone, she seemed to know everyone’s name and never failed to ask after their children or spouses. It seemed that there may be one or two colleagues that liked her a bit more than others and he usually eyed them disdainfully as not worth her time.

He caught her once, attending a lecture of his at the University he taught at from time to time. She had ducked her head but he knew she was there and he could not explain the feeling in his chest. It had pleased him, that Clara took the time to attend his lecture. She had left before he could greet her, his disappointment hitting him harder than he had expected it to. He didn’t understand how she had managed to become so important to him but he found himself seeking her out in the office, carefully watching her when he was sure she wouldn’t notice. Her laugh was readily given and he loved to hear it, oftentimes finding that he wanted to smile simply as a result of her laughter. He was envious of the men that floated around her, the ease with which they could converse with her, flirt with her. It annoyed him that he couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to her so he retreated into himself, throwing on the persona of the standoffish Doctor. He would love to ask Clara about her children’s books, what she was working on, did she love a particular story. But someone like that was hard for a quiet, old man like him to know.

So all he had left was the company holiday party and that ended up being an abject disaster.

He watched her walk in, dress hidden by her coat but he thinks she is beautiful. His tie seems tighter and he wants to tear the blasted thing off and throw it in a bin. It’s when she hands her coat to the check and he sees her black dress that he knows he is outclassed and there is no way she will want to spend any time with him this evening.

He has to try.

He moves closer to her and is waiting when she turns away from the coat check. Her smile could light up a room. “Hello. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

“I usually don’t like these things but I thought it would do to make a quick showing, new guy and all. I won’t stay very long, make the rounds and say hello.” The lies roll off his tongue as he plays at a detachment he doesn’t feel.

He thinks she looks relieved when she comments that he will miss the dancing and he swears there is a lightheartedness about her. He is sure the disappointment on her face is a trick of the light. Before he can respond, Craig and Danny, two of Clara’s work paramours slide up next to her and he watches quietly as Craig places an arm around her waist. “Clara, save a dance for me, yeah?”

His eyes drift over to where Craig’s hand lies casually against Clara’s waist and he feels as if he could reach over and tear the younger man’s arm right off. He sighs inwardly and reminds himself that this is why he shouldn’t be here; this is the reason that she is out of his reach. It wouldn’t occur to him to invade her space so casually and perhaps she welcomed the younger man’s attention. He closes his eyes for a brief second, calling himself two thousand fools and realizes that, perhaps, the night is over him.

He should not have come tonight.

He watches Clara as she smiles at Danny who has taken it upon himself to drag Craig to the bar and when she looks back at him, he has made his mind up. So he is taken aback when she asks him to dine with him. He was not expecting the invitation and though it was the point of the whole evening, the point of why he was even here, he chose to decline her invitation.

Why ruin her evening as well?

He decides its best to leave it as is and go so he nods and chooses this moment to leave her, why drag out this awkwardness any longer?

He finds it more difficult to leave then he had originally planned. His boss has cornered him, forcing him into introductions with people he has no interest in nor have any inclination to talk to. After being roped into escorting his boss’s sister into dinner, his heart sinks as he realizes the impression this would give Clara, that he simply didn’t want her company.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth.

He does his best to watch Clara through the evening, watches as she converses with various co-workers and entertains their spouses. She has a knack for including everyone and it hits him harder that he had purposely chose to exclude himself from her circle. He watches as she dances and drinks her way through several hours and wishes he could bring himself to join her.

During dinner, he quietly listens to his dinner partner Susan, as she encourages him into conversation. She is a publisher who had befriended his boss’s wife, her conversation quiet and calming, a stark contrast to the lively conversations that Clara held. But his eyes continued to betray his distraction, sliding over to catch a glimpse of Clara whenever possible.

“She’s beautiful.”

Startled, he turns to face Susan and flushes. She’s watching him watch Clara and suddenly he wishes he had never come. He starts to make his apologies but she waves it away with a smile.

“Doctor, I get the feeling this is the last place you want to be tonight,” she nods her head in Clara’s general direction, “but maybe there is someone you wouldn’t mind talking to.”

“We’re co-workers, not even really in the same division.” His response is abrupt, he knows, but wants this line of conversation to end.

“Mmmmmhmmm.” Susan presses her lips together. “Tell you what, I am going to introduce myself to that gentleman over there and see if he is interested in buying me a drink.”

She stands, leaning close to the Doctor, “Maybe you could catch her while she is in-between dancing partners. Better hurry.”

She pats him on the back and moves across the room leaving the Doctor at the table. He sighs and rubs his hand across his eyes and decides it’s time to go. Making his way slowly towards the exit, he chances one last look at Clara and sees that Craig has claimed her for one more dance. His lips curl in annoyance but before he has a chance to slip out, he is pulled aside to meet one more person. It’s a few minutes before he can extract himself and a last glance tells him that Clara is nowhere to be found.

Sighing, he redeems his coat ticket and decides to slip out the side entrance. He can hear conversation as he makes his way around the side of the building and he is sure he can hear Clara’s voice. He can feel the annoyance creep back over him, this whole evening had been a waste. He could have spent it reading, he is completely sure that would have been entirely more enjoyable.

But then he would have missed Clara in that black dress.

He shook his head ruefully and was almost around the corner when he heard Clara yell. He walked in on Clara lying on the pavement, dress torn with Craig hunched over her.

“What the hell…?” He watches as Craig loosens his grip on Clara, rage settling over him at the sight of Clara on the ground. He puts his hands under her arms to lift her up, offering a steading arm for her to hold. She turns to face her rescuer and he watches as her face flushes.

This was just perfect.

“Are you all right?” He watches her as she looks at her bleeding elbow and feels the contempt for Craig wash through him.

“Yes. No. Damn!” She hasn’t looked up at him yet.

Craig was getting to his feet, “Clara’s fine with this so just mind your own business, Doc.”

“That’s enough! Get out of here.” His concern for Clara outweighed his desire to kill Craig.

Craig doesn’t take the hint, his voice growing petulant, “Clara, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought we were cool.”

“The why didn’t you stop,” she said, furiously, “when I asked you to?”

“One little kiss,” Craig whined. “Why can’t you be a sport, Clara? Didn’t think you would mind, you’re always smiling and flirting.”

Clara gasped in outrage but before she could say anything, the Doctor decides to break in, his voice betraying how angry he was, “Apparently, she does. Get out of here,” he added, “you pudding brain fool.”

Craig seemed about to argue but he turned and left them in courtyard, mumbling under his breath.

The Doctor couldn’t decide what part of this scenario he was angrier about. The way Craig had treated Clara or that Clara had put herself in a situation where someone like Craig could treat her so. He avoids her eyes while he wraps a handkerchief around her elbow and he if he tightens the knot a tad too tightly on her arm, no one mentions it in the silence that falls between them.

But he can’t help himself, his jealousy creeps into his voice and he is slightly ashamed.

“And he’s not the only fool. If you didn’t want his attentions, why bring him out here?” He regrets the words the minute they are out of his mouth but her response that she has known him for years takes him by surprise.

“You can’t be that naïve.” He feels the anger push the shame aside and keeps going, “Especially in view of the signals you were giving him.” And he really, really does not understand why he is still having this conversation.

She stills next to him and he finally turns to look at her properly. Her beautiful dress is torn and he can see that she has scrapped her knee where her tights tore. She looks a bit lost and suddenly he’s tired. So tired.

“I suppose it’s a party and all, and that’s what people do at a party.” It’s time to go home and call this disaster of an evening over. He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, he knew he should have stayed home. He just knew it.

“You should just be more careful…in the future. You’re friendly and beaut-” he hesitated. Not saying that. “You’re very friendly and kind and people may get the wrong message.”

She’s angry and trying to calm herself, “Do you go around dispensing free advice to everyone or am I just special?”

Whoa. Who said anything about special? Does she think that he thinks that she’s special? No, no, no, no. No. She can’t think that. Does she? Is she okay with that? Maybe?

“No one thinks you’re special. I don’t think you’re special. Who says you’re special? It’s just sound advice.” That’s it, this was over. He was going to offer her a ride home and then crawl into a hole somewhere and lay down for a decade.

Before he could get the words out, she was turning and walking away. He called out to her asking her to wait but she insisted that she was fine, there were plenty of cabs. He closed his eyes for one second, why was she so stubborn, can’t she see that he just wants to help. He runs his hand over his face, the sooner they can leave the better.

“Why don’t you just accept my offer?”

“How do I know I’m not getting myself into something else?” she demanded. “Going home with a strange man?”

And it hurt.

That someone like her, someone he liked very much, could insinuate that he can do to her what Craig had earlier in the evening. He felt a wave of nausea and stared at her in dismay, “Do you really think you’re in any danger?”

He was done. “Come on, my car is parked on the other side of the building. We can go this way.”

He really had nothing more to say, disappointment curling through him mixed with hurt. He really was an old fool and this evening just proved it. Someone like Clara was too bright, too young, too smart to even be attracted to him, why try? He stayed silent on the drive home, listening to her directions but not engaging her in conversation.

What was there left to say?

Finally, finally, she indicated her flat and he pulled up. “Sure you’ll be okay?”

She nodded and was surprised when she told him that she would wash the handkerchief and return it. He had forgotten about it and it didn’t matter really, he just wanted her to be well. “You needn’t bother, just take care of yourself.”

Right. So…. he should let her out, it’s what gentleman do, yeah? He turns to open his door and starts at the gentle touch of her hand on his arm. He stares at the hand for a moment before staring at her. What now?

“Look, things didn’t quite turn out the way I thought it would tonight. I thought…I guess…I wanted to talk to you. I don’t know what I thought, to be honest. I like you and I just wanted to get to know you but you made it clear that you are not interested so I am just sorry. Sorry that you had to drive me home, sorry about taking up so much of your time.”

Wait.

Did she just say she wanted to get to know him? That she liked him?

Wait.

That he wasn’t interested in her?

He finds that he is at a loss for words and is struggling to process what she says. He watches as she pulls back, hand over her mouth to stop the runaway of words. He wants to grab her hand, keep her anchored right where she is so he can talk to her but his brain won’t co-operate. Won’t send the signals to grab her before it’s too late.

It's too late.

By the time he reaches for her, he is holding onto air as she has spun around and let herself out.

He scrambles to follow her, “Clara. Clara, wait. Please. Just wait.”

Clara Oswald. What to do now?

#whouffaldi #fanfic #twelve x clara #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #doctor who #co-worker au #angst #i swore to never leave a wip behind #i won't but it might take me a minute

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