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sabineelectricheart · 3 years

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The Only Absolute Truth About Love

Summary: Sylvain felt blessed when he came to find out the only absolute truth about love. It was a heavenly punishment, rather than a gift.

Rating: K+ - Suitable for more mature childen, 9 years and older, with minor action violence without serious injury. May contain mild coarse language. Should not contain any adult themes.

Words: 2100

Notes: I really wonder what my dearest readers think about the choices made on this fic. Do leave a comment, I’m a little slow (in time and in rational thought), but I really do appreciate it.

In all of his too many years of existence, forged through pain, war and loneliness, Sylvain, the heir to the great Gautier name, felt blessed when he came to find out the only absolute truth about love.

It was a heavenly punishment, rather than a gift.

The feeling of love immediately and inescapably equates to regret. All lovers eventually come to regret their folly, and it is a catch-28, as one often regrets not only in loving a person, but also in not being able or brave enough to actually express it.

It was a silly feeling, really, a feeling Sylvain would never admit to having even if had left him unable to sleep at night. Not the real kind of love, the one every man and woman he ever came across said he had never felt, instead of the courtly love he professed for every slightly striking beauty in the continent.

The redhead has no time for it, he tried to convince himself repeatedly, as life was much too short to care for monogamy, as people were inherently flawed and prone to hurt one another, as no one would ever care for him other than the blood that runs through his veins. However, the painful and suffocating clench he felt in his heart at the sight of his beloved in another man’s arms often gave pause to those thoughts.

He, then, wonders if he should have shed those fatalist convictions aside, if he should have taken a chance on them. He should have said something, anything, but whenever he opened his mouth, nothing good ever escaped. Only jokes, flirts and unfair comparisons.

The young lord swears on the Blue Sea Star that he wanted to become better, to pull himself together. He vowed it on the Goddess Tower, after all, and those promises are not to be forsaken. He thought he had time, he thought she would wait, but it turns out he was wrong.

He never meant for it to go this far, for him to catch feelings for his professor after Moons of shameless flirting. As far as he had noticed, the young woman was quite contented in the relationship they had, with the constant naughty whispers exchanged in public just to make the other feel flustered, to calling each other ‘dear’ just to tease.

Sylvain never knew she wanted more. If he had, he would have provided for whatever she could need. If he had only asked, he would have been hers. He should have asked either way, because anything was better than this, being forced to haunt empty rooms and hallways, hoping to sneak a glance or a moment of her time.

This was a particularly pleasant night, the Great Tree Moon shone full above the monastery, as Byleth walked through the hollowed passages between the academy and her new apartments amongst the faculty.

A soft smile was playing on her lips at the delight she felt after returning to the classroom, after so much tragedy of war. Pedagogy was the first and only thing she really found herself in, and she was glad for the sentiment of normalcy settling over Garreg Mach, as a new batch of students came along from all three corners of Fódlan.

Alas, regardless of her personal feelings about her chosen profession, it was still hard work, and the former mercenary wanted nothing more than a spot of relaxing tea and the close, warm embrace of her soft bed.

She turned into another hallway, a tapping sound echoing in the emptiness with each step she took on her leather boots, when a hand suddenly gripped her forearm, tugging her into an empty classroom. She tried to steady herself, scowling as she heard the door slam behind her. Instinctively, her hand snatched her dagger from her robes, pointing it towards the perpetrator before she could even see them.

To the woman’s great surprise, he who stood in front of her was Sylvain Gautier, a solemn expression on his moonlit face as he watched her. She felt her lips fall into a frown, unimpressed that the person she considered one of her closest friends before he forcefully distanced himself had decided to pull this kind of stunt now.

“I swear to you that if this is some kind of sick joke, Gautier…” She snapped impatiently, crossing her arms over her chest and leaving the threat hanging between them. They both knew who was stronger between them.

“It’s not!” He rushed out, approaching her, only for her to step back again. “I just...”

“I do not have all night, you know.” Her eyes burned into his, annoyance bubbling into her stomach the longer it took for him to say something. “Sylvain, I…”

“Leave him.” He blurted out before she could even utter another word.

Byleth scoffed. “Excuse me?”

“Aegir.” Sylvain amended his statement, becoming clear about whom and what he wanted to converse, his amber eyes looking back at the woman almost pleadingly. “Leave him.”

The professor released a cold laugh, disbelief running through her system at how stupid his request was. She was tired, to say the least, not enough energy running through her system to engage in an argument, so she turned to leave.

His strong, calloused hand grasped her arm again, keeping her in place, only for her to pull it back as if his touch had stung her.

“Please, Byleth.” He uncharacteristically pleaded with her. “I just want to talk to you.”

“There was a time I wanted to talk to you, too, Sylvain. Six Moons ago, to be more precise.” She sneered at him, eyes still glaring. “However, you were so adamant on ignoring my letters and visits, so I decided to let it go. I ought to you the same curtesy.”

“I never wanted any of this to happen!”

“When you say ‘this’, do you mean giving me in the healthy, committed relationship you could never bother to provide?” Her deceivingly soft hands made their way to her slender hips, to punctuate her dissatisfaction. “Let us be completely candid, Sylvain. Should you have not seen me with Ferdinand, should you have not heard of our engagement, you would not have bothered with me and whomever I choose to spend my time with.”

“Certainly not, I…!” He tried to interject.

“I find it so very convenient for you to admit that when I am in a loving relationship, no?” Byleth bit back sarcastically, cutting him off. “Are you unable, in some capacity, to stomach the fact that you cannot have everything you want? You cannot have me and all other womankind, and I would bet you merely want me to return to the position of your lover, if not just so anyone else cannot play what was once yours.”

It was absolutely jarring for them both to witness the usually stoic, soft-spoken Byleth to be so bitterly emotional, but the woman has held onto these frustrations and pains for much too long and it was time to let it out.

“Stop it, Byleth! You very well know it is not like that!” He growled, his features hardening as he tried to hold himself back.

“Then tell me what you want, Sylvain Gautier!” She exclaimed in anger.

“I want you!” He shouts, and then repeats with a softer voice. “I want you. I want to be with you and you alone.”

The professor turned silent once again at his confession, her harsh and judgemental glare softening at the words she would have liked to hear from him many Moons ago. Alas, things are different now. Now, she is in a relationship with Ferdinand von Aegir. Now, all the feelings she had for Sylvain were gone, replaced by anger and betrayal over the fact that he had led her on, only to force himself into her life when he realized she had gotten over him.

“You are so selfish.” Was all she thought to say. “I am tired, Sylvain. I am tired of loss and loneliness and fighting, and I was only more alone whenever I was in your company. You made me feel like I was worth nothing to you, and now you come forcing yourself back into my life as if you are completely blameless in the whole situation? I wasted so much time on you, Sylvain…”

“And I understand I am not worth it.”

“No, you were not.” She breathed out. “But it was freely given. Not anymore, though.”

Their eyes met again, his still pleading ones meeting the exhausted ones of hers. She has been wanting to talk about this for months, approaching him every opportunity she managed to weasel, but he brushed her off, always making excuses about being busy or away, when she would see him flirting and sneaking around with village girls as soon as she turns her head.

“I know you are at your best now. I can tell.” He mumbled after a few minutes, too soft that she almost did not hear. “And… And yes, I know how selfish I am being. I know how selfish it is to say that I hate it. I hate seeing you with him, flirting with him the way you used to do to me. I hate seeing you look at him as if he held the world in his hands. I hate… I hate the fact that you replaced me with him!”

“I did not replace you! Ferdinand is not some kind of substitute to you. He is his own man, and I am perfectly aware of the differences and similarities.” She took a deep breath in, calming herself. “Ferdinand... Unlike you, he has been a blessing on my life. He never made me doubt my relationship with him because he made sure to spend every second of the day assuring me that I am the only one for him, that I am not just some girl he would fuck around with for fun then leave eventually the same way you did.”

She grew self-conscious underneath his studying gaze, but she continued. “He made me realize that love is not supposed to hurt. That love could be both grand gestures and courtly affections and the small, everyday grind of life. I love his sunny disposition, his positive outlook on things, his delicacy and mannerisms. I even love his flaws. I love what he does for me and I love who I am when I love him back.”

“Anything Aegir does, I can do, too, Byleth.” The redhead petulantly pointed out.

“No, Sylvain” The woman sighed as she approached him, placing her hands on his shoulders so she could look him directly in the eye. “Love is not a matter of being able to serve and do things for the other person, it is not about the uncertainty of being servile enough that you feel entitled to it. I hope you will come to realize it when she find the same kind of love that I did.”

She pulled away, turning to leave, when she heard his all-to-familiar nickname for her leave his mouth. “Dear?”

Goddess above, did she hate the fact that her muscle memory had reacted, turning to him immediately at the name she had reserved only for each other over the years. The frown on her face told him she did not appreciate it when he called her that anymore, but he continued anyway.

“Please do not use this name on him.” There was a sad smile on his face, all traces of hopefulness gone. He has given up. “I can stand seeing both of you together, seeing you kiss as if you thought no one was looking, but I do not think I could stand hearing your voice call him the way you used to call me.”

There was silence in the air again, because how does one go about responding to a request such as that?

“I will make sure to keep that in mind until you are ready to let go, Sylvain.” She offered her own smile.

Leaning up, she leaves a lingering kiss on his cheek, his eyes fluttering close knowing it was a bid farewell.

Not waiting for an answer, Byleth left, eyes shutting as guilt filled her stomach the moment when she heard his pained sob echo through the lonely room as she shut the door behind her.

As the morning came, the Gautier heir had left the monastery and returned to his territory to the north. He would be wed before the season went out, hoping to find out what “getting over” love even means.

*_*_*_*_*

Fire Emblem Masterlist

Three Houses Masterlist

#fire emblem #Sylvain Gautier #ferdinand von aegir

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sheliesshattered · 4 years

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First Row On The Moon

Clara/Twelve Kill The Moon AU. Part 2 of For As Long As We Get, following after The Impossible Soldier. 5500 words, developing relationship, happy ending. Available on AO3 under the same title and username.

First Row On The Moon

“I think that it's unique,” the Doctor said, his tone awed. “I think that's the only one of its kind in the universe. I think that it is... utterly beautiful.”

Clara stared at the hologram the Doctor had produced, at what appeared to be a kind of dragon, curled into a tight ball inside the moon. Beautiful was right, though she shuddered to think of how big it would be once it hatched. Or what would happen to the moon when it did.

“How do we kill it?” Lundvik demanded.

Startled, Clara looked from the astronaut to the Doctor and back again, a chill working its way down her spine. She’d seen the nuclear bombs they’d brought, rows and rows of them. How wasn’t the question they should be asking, the how was obvious. But rather, should they? Should they snuff out this life for the sake of everyone on the planet below? Or was there a way to save both the hatchling and humanity?

The Doctor had gone ominously silent, his expression stony.

She crossed her arms and turned back to Lundvik. “Why do you want to kill it?”

“It’s a little baby!” Courtney objected over the video link from the TARDIS. Her ‘disruptive influence’ reputation aside, when you got right down to it, she really was something special, Clara thought. A fifteen year old with that kind of empathy, who had fearlessly walked onto an alien spaceship and accepted the offer of a trip to the moon like it was any other Wednesday.

But Lundvik was clearly unmoved. “Doctor, how do we kill it?” she said again.

“Kill the moon?” he asked, his voice a dangerous sort of quiet.

Lundvik nodded, and the Doctor used the sonic to turn off the hologram. Clara could practically feel the muffled anger radiating off of him. Anyone who could look at the image of an unborn creature, something he had declared beautiful and unique, and immediately think of nothing but murdering it, didn’t deserve to see that image anymore.

“Kill the moon,” he repeated, louder. “Well, you have about a hundred of the best man-made nuclear weapons, if they still work. If that's what you want to do.”

No, no, they were not going to validate Lundvik’s murderous instincts without even looking for another solution. “Doctor, wait—” Clara started, but the astronaut cut her off.

“Will that do it?”

“A hundred nuclear bombs?” the Doctor demanded. “Set off right where we are? Right on top of a living, vulnerable creature?” His anger was starting to boil to the surface now, voice sharp and words harsh. “It'll never feel the sun on its back!”

“And then what?” Lundvik pressed. “Will the moon still break up? You said, you said we had an hour and a half?”

“Well, there'll be nothing to make it break up,” he shot back. “There will be nothing trying to force its way out. The gravity of the little dead baby will pull all the pieces back together again. Of course, it won't be very pretty. You'd have an enormous corpse floating in the sky. You might have some very difficult conversations to have with your kids.”

“I don't have any kids,” Lundvik muttered, as though that absolved her of this choice.

“Stop,” Clara said before she could get any further down the path of destroying the alien lifeform beneath their feet. “Right, listen. This is a— this is a life. I mean, this must be the biggest life in the universe.”

“It's not even been born!” Courtney put in.

“It is killing people,” Lundvik snapped. “It is destroying the Earth.”

“You cannot blame a baby for kicking!” Clara countered, growing more frustrated the more insistent the other woman became. They weren’t even taking the time to consider other options, to try to find a plan that could save everyone.

“Let me tell you something,” Lundvik said seriously. “You want to know what I took back from being in space? Look at the edge of the Earth. The atmosphere, that is paper-thin. That is the only thing that saves us all from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness — that's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know.”

She stared at her in disbelief, stunned by her shortsightedness. Clara had been out there, with the stars and the blackness, seen the wide variety of forms that life had created throughout the universe. She’d met sentient stars and visited civilisations orbiting suns whose light had not yet reached Earth. It was all so dazzling, and wondrous, and alive. She couldn’t fault Lundvik for not sharing that point of view, but the creature about to be born out of the moon was proof that Earth wasn’t the only spot of life in the cosmos, proof that there was so much yet for humanity to discover. And all Lundvik could think of was killing it.

Courtney echoed her thoughts, bless her, but still Lundvik refused to consider any alternatives. As the Doctor talked Courtney through bringing the TARDIS to them, Clara grasped for a solution to the problem. There had to be some way to both protect the Earth and save the life of the hatchling, something they could do.

She looked to the Doctor, who seemed to have folded in on himself, resigned to the inevitability of Lundvik’s bombs. She’d seen this from him before, this passivity, usually right before he came up with a clever plan to save the day.

Across the room, Lundvik was beginning to set the detonators for the nuclear bombs.

“No, stop, we need to discuss this!” Clara said, taking a step towards her.

“We haven’t got time!” Lundvik insisted, continuing her task.

“We are not just going to kill it without even talking about it! If we let it live, if it hatches, what happens? Doctor?”

He glanced up at her and away again, refusing to engage.

Well, fine. Clara forged ahead on her own, unwilling to give up. “The moon, the moon would be gone, but the Earth could survive that, right? No more tides, they’d have to relaunch satellites, but Earth would recover.”

“It's not going to just stop being there,” Lundvik replied angrily, “because inside the moon, Miss, is a gigantic creature forcing its way out. And when it does, which is going to be pretty damn soon, there are going to be huge chunks of the moon heading right for Earth, like whatever killed the dinosaurs, only ten thousand times bigger!”

“But the moon isn't made of rock and stone, is it?” Clara said. “It's made of eggshell.”

“Oh, God,” Lundvik groaned. “Okay, okay, fine. If, by some miracle, the shell isn't too thick, or if it disperses, or if it goes into orbit, whatever, there's still going to be a massive thing there, isn't there, that just popped out. And what the hell do you imagine that is? What the hell do you imagine it wants? You can’t blame a baby for kicking? I suppose you can’t blame a newborn for demanding a meal, either!”

“You don’t know that it will harm the Earth!”

“And you don’t know that it won’t! Are you really willing to risk the lives of everyone on the planet just to save some alien creature?”

Clara shook her head. “I’m going to need something a little more certain if I’m going to stand by and let you kill a baby!”

“Oh, you want to talk about babies?” Lundvik shot back. “You've probably got babies down there now, your children, maybe grandchildren. Think of them.”

She stared at her, banishing the image of Orson Pink from her mind. She didn’t have children on Earth right now, she would never have— That was the path she had turned away from, the life she had given up to be with the Doctor.

She turned to him, standing so quietly at the edge of the room, staring at his hands. “How do we solve this, Doctor? What do we do?”

He looked up at her, his face a mask of calm. “Nothing.”

“What?”

“We don't do anything. I'm sorry, Clara. I can't help you.”

“Of course you can help!”

“The Earth isn't my home. The moon's not my moon,” he shrugged. “Sorry.”

“No, come on. You’ve seen Earth’s future, you can tell us what happens.”

“That’s not how this works, and you know it!” he replied. “History is in flux, Clara, it always is. You always get the choice about your future, but I can’t make it for you!”

“Yeah, well, I can’t make it, either,” she said.

“Luckily there’s three of you. A teenager, an astronaut, and a schoolteacher, who better to make this decision? It's time to take the stabilisers off your bike. You don't need a Time Lord. Kill it. Or let it live. It's your moon, womankind. It's your choice. I can't do this for you.”

“So you’re just going to stand there?” she demanded.

“Absolutely not,” the Doctor said, over the sound of the TARDIS arriving. The door squeaked, and Courtney emerged.

“I am asking for your help!” Clara said to him, her anger rising.

“Hang on a minute,” Lundvik said. “We can get in there, can't we? You can sort it out with that thing.”

“No,” the Doctor said, with a horrible sort of finality. “Some decisions are too important not to make on your own.”

Clara watched in disbelief as he turned towards the TARDIS. “Doctor?” she called. When he didn’t acknowledge her, she nearly shouted after him, but stopped herself. To hell with that, she wasn’t going to be the sort of woman to stand there and yell at the retreating form of her— her boyfriend? That she didn’t even know the right word to apply to the Doctor now only made her angrier, and she followed him with long, quick strides, pushing through the TARDIS doors before he could do something absolutely idiotic like dematerialise and leave her there with the moon going to pieces beneath her feet.

“No, you do not do that,” she snapped as she slammed the doors shut behind her. “You do not walk away and leave me alone in that kind of situation! That is not how this works.”

He looked up at her from the far side of the console as though surprised that she had followed him. “I told you, can’t make this decision, Clara.”

“But you expect me to make it?”

“I have faith that you’ll make the right choice,” he said, voice open and sincere.

Clara stared at him in disbelief. “Honestly, do you have music playing in your head when you say rubbish like that? And what was it you said a minute ago — time to take the stabilisers off my bike? I’ve had just about enough of the patronising today!”

“I’m not patronising you, Clara. It’s not my Earth, it’s not my moon, I can’t make this decision for you. This is me respecting you, letting you make your own choice about your future, without putting my thumb on the scale.”

“My future?” she demanded.

The Doctor shot her a confused look. “It’s only 2049. Somewhere down there—”

“There is no older version of me on Earth right now,” she interrupted him. “No children, no grandchildren. My future is not down there, Doctor, it’s here, with you. That’s what we decided, all of six days ago! So this is just as much your moon as it is mine, and you can damn well help when it’s asked of you,” she snapped, anger forcing tears into her voice. “I cannot believe you left me out there!”

He blinked at her, taken aback. “Right. Okay.”

“‘We don’t walk away,’ that was the first thing you taught me,” she spat out. “Well, new rule: we don’t walk away from each other, either. We do not leave the other to make the impossible choice. We do it the same way we do everything: together. We’re partners in this, and when people need our help, we help them. We. Don’t. Walk. Away. What would we do, if this was any other moon, any other civilisation? Leave them to figure it out on their own? Or try to offer the best guidance we can, help them come to the kindest solution that will save the most people? There has to be something we can do, some way we can help—”

“Ah ha, gotcha!” the Doctor exclaimed, and Clara’s tirade stuttered to a halt. She looked over to where he was still stood on the other side of the console, his gaze fixed on one of the monitors, eyes moving rapidly as he read.

“Are you— are you even listening to me?” she asked, her anger surging again.

“Hm?” he said, gaze darting to her and immediately back to the monitor. “Yes, of course,” he said absently. “And you might have noticed, I agreed with you a few minutes back. But you were on a roll, so I thought it best to let you speak your mind while I got on with the research.”

“You were—” she bit down on more language she really shouldn’t use, especially with one of her students so close by, “—‘researching,’ while I was talking to you?”

“Yes. I was researching and listening, Clara. I can multitask, I am quite clever,” he added with another quick glance at her. “And we’re a bit short on time.”

She sighed and folded her arms. If not for the urgency and the life-or-death nature of the situation just outside the TARDIS doors she might have pressed the whole listening when she talked issue, but she couldn’t deny that he had a point. “What, exactly, are you researching?”

“The solution to the problem, of course.”

“And? Five minutes ago you were convinced you couldn’t help. What have you got now?”

“Well, I figured anything that hatches from an egg is likely the offspring of something else that hatched from an egg. Even if it has a hundred million year gestation time, even if it’s exceptionally rare, it can’t be the only one to ever exist...” He trailed off, still reading. “Ah, there we go, that explains the gravity.” He looked back up at her, expectant and excited. “Come and see,” he said, waving her over.

Her anger was ebbing away to a heavy annoyance, and she managed to cross towards him without stomping her feet.

“Meet the Nebula Eater,” the Doctor said, shifting the monitor so she could see it.

An article from the galactic hub greeted her, depicting a huge dragon-type creature, the sheer scale of its wingspan difficult for Clara to wrap her mind around. “That’s what’s inside the moon?” she gasped. “Is it a danger to Earth?” The damage a creature of that size could do, even accidentally, was terrifying to think of.

“No, no,” he assured her quickly. “It feeds exclusively on space gas, hence the name. It’s been using the Earth’s gravity, the warmth of the sun, and the protection of the nearby gas-giants as a nesting ground. But once it hatches, it’ll be outside Earth’s heliosphere within a week, I imagine. Probably head out towards Helix or Orion, at a guess.”

“But the... eggshells, whatever’s left of the moon— will that pose a risk to the Earth? Crash through the atmosphere, or screw up the tides even more?”

“That’s where this gets interesting,” the Doctor said, nearly grinning with the excitement of a new discovery. “Look,” he said, scrolling the article down to a subsection titled Reproductive Cycle.

Clara read quickly, absorbing as much as she could in fragmented segments: ...asexual reproduction in the final stage before hatching... significant but temporary increases in local gravity... nesting elements reform around the offspring once the hatchling breaks free... local gravity quickly renormalises...

“Oh my god,” she breathed, taking in the information in front of her. “And if Lundvik kills it?”

“She’ll be murdering two babies, not one, and the gravity of Earth’s moon will never recover.”

“We have to tell her,” she said, looking up at the Doctor.

“Yep, before she does something incredibly stupid. Come on.”

He started for the door, and Clara swiftly caught up with him, halting him with a hand on his arm. “We will finish the rest of this conversation later,” she told him, pinning him with her gaze.

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed seriously, and held the door open for her.

—

It was one thing to read about the hatching of a giant nebula-eating space dragon and quite another to watch it happen from two hundred and fifty thousand miles away. Even at that distance, the Nebula Eater was clearly visible, its newborn wings unfurling to dwarf the remnants of the shattered moon, and the new egg sheltered inside.

Clara stood next to the Doctor, gazing in awe at the life they had helped save, and silently slipped her hand into his, grateful that she hadn’t had to face that decision alone.

—

Later, they sat curled together on Clara’s sofa, gazing up at the full moon through the windows of her sitting room. It would be years yet before the hatching cycle began, before the Nebula Eater’s gravity began to shift and affect Earth. But she knew it was there, now, growing and readying itself for the day it would break through its fragile shell and set off into the universe. They’d almost gotten it wrong today, almost killed a beautiful, innocent creature, out of fear of what the future might bring.

“Are you still angry with me?” the Doctor asked into the silence, his voice a low rumble beneath her ear.

“No,” she said softly, not taking her eyes off the moon or shifting out of his embrace.

They were quiet for several long minutes, then the Doctor muttered, “See, this is why I dislike hugs. They’re just a way to hide your face.”

Clara sighed and sat up, turning to look at him more fully, her bent knees resting against his thigh. “I’m not angry,” she said. “I’m...”

“Don’t say ‘disappointed’, that’s just a fancy way of saying ‘I’m angry but I don’t want to admit to it.’”

She smiled a little at that and shook her head. “Really, I’m not angry, not anymore. But I do think we ought to talk about it.”

“Talking seems to be a big thing with you lately,” the Doctor said in a low voice, glancing at her and away again.

“Yeah, well, get used to it,” she replied, nudging him. “Best way to get past a row, my mum always said. You have to talk it through, make sure there’s nothing left unsaid that can fester.”

“We did the right thing today, Clara,” the Doctor pointed out. “We saved the Nebula Eater, saved the Earth, got Courtney home safe and on-time. So it took us a little shouting to get there, what’s that matter?”

“We have to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” she said reasonably.

“Well, if we run into another Nebula Eater, now we know the signs, and we can make sure the locals don’t try to blow it up.”

“Not that bit, Doctor,” she said, shaking her head and unable to keep from smiling a little. “The shouting at each other bit.”

He watched her for a moment. “Which is, I take it, a serious problem?”

“It was just a row, it happens. Our first row. And it was on the moon, because of course it was.”

He frowned in confusion. “We’ve had plenty of rows before.”

“Well, sure, but it’s different now.”

He only looked more confused. “How?”

“This was our first row since— I don’t even really know what the right term is. This, us,” she said, waving a hand to indicate the two of them. “This new phase we’ve been in since last week, whatever we want to call it.”

“And that’s fundamentally different than before?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I don’t want to reignite the ‘not your boyfriend’ argument, but yes, I’d say so.”

“Why?”

He sounded so genuinely uncertain that Clara took pity on him and answered honestly rather than tease him about it. “Well, there’s the kissing, for one thing.”

“Right. That is new.”

“And finally talking about how we feel,” she added. “Me breaking up with Danny, making that leap. Deciding that it’s going to be you and me, for however long we get. This, whatever it is. There’s lots of terms for this kind of relationship, but none of them feel quite right for us.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor agreed, sounding thoughtful.

“Well, whatever we want to call it, people in this sort of relationship argue sometimes, it’s completely normal. So long as we talk it out, don’t let hurt feelings linger, it’s fine. You know this, Doctor, you’ve done this before.”

“Not like this,” he said, meeting her gaze. “Not with you.”

Clara smiled at him. “We’ll figure it out. A few bumps in the road are nothing to worry about.” She leaned in and kissed him, steadying herself with a hand against his chest. He returned it hesitantly at first, but quickly found his bearings, reaching up to cup her face with one hand.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you today,” she said when they parted, pressing her forehead to his. “It scared me, when I thought you were going to leave me alone there to make that decision. I made you promise once that you’d never send me away again, and I think I’m still afraid that someday you will.”

He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “I promise I won’t send you away,” he said in a low tone. “And I won’t leave you alone in that kind of situation again.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, fighting back tears. She hugged him closer, listening to the steady beat of his hearts.

“I really did think I was doing the right thing, leaving the choice to you,” he said after a moment. “Especially after last week. When it comes to your future, it doesn’t feel right for me to be the one making the decisions. It ought to be up to you.”

“But that’s the thing, it’s not just my future anymore. It’s ours. Which means we make decisions together.”

“Another new rule?”

She smiled against him. “If you like. No dying. We don’t walk away from each other. We make decisions together. We talk things out after a row.” She ticked them off on her fingers.

“Yes, ma’am,” the Doctor replied.

“No, none of that— rule three. What do you think of the proposed rules?”

He shrugged. “I think they’re a good idea. And that perhaps we ought to have one about kissing after a row, too.”

Clara laughed and craned her neck up to accept a quick kiss. “Agreed. And we seem to have silently come to the same conclusion on another rule about kissing: not in front of my students.”

“If you hadn’t noticed, there aren’t any students here now,” he pointed out in a low tone.

“How very observant of you,” Clara said lightly, and for a long while they didn’t talk.

The moon had passed out of the view of her windows, continuing the climb to its zenith, when Clara got up to turn on another lamp in her sitting room. She should go to sleep soon, she knew — she would have work tomorrow, assuming they didn’t sneak in another trip in the TARDIS before then — but she couldn’t bring herself to break the spell of a quiet evening at home with the Doctor.

“You’re not the first with the kissing, you know,” he said when she joined him again on the sofa.

She gave him a bemused smile. “You’ve been married four times before, had children and grandchildren. I didn’t think I was the first.”

“No, I mean— your echoes.”

“Ah.”

“Handsy lot in general, those women with your face. A few of them decided to take it a step further.”

“Well, you can hardly blame us,” Clara said airily. “A dashing mad man falls out of the sky with a snogbox, what are we meant to think?”

“It’s not a snogbox!” the Doctor said, scowling, and she had to laugh, remembering how his last face had insisted on the same.

“Kinda is, now,” she grinned at him.

He flapped his hands at her, struggling to find the words. “The rules are different, for you, for this,” he finally said. “That doesn’t excuse your echoes taking liberties.”

She kissed him again, still laughing, for no other reason than because she could. “I suppose I was already in love with you when I went into your timestream,” she said when she pulled back and settled beside him again. “I suspect that’s part of why I did it in the first place. Which means they all sprang into life with that as part of their fundamental makeup, like being short or having brown hair.”

“Or eyes the size of saucers.”

“Or the ability to put up with you,” she countered lightly.

“Ha ha ha,” he returned dryly, but she could tell that his thoughts had moved on to something else, his gaze distant.

She let him brood for a few minutes then said, “Alright, something’s on your mind, so: out with it. Don’t let anything fester.”

He hesitated before asking, voice low and serious, “What is this for you?”

“What do you mean?” she frowned at him in confusion.

“I made some assumptions today and that got me into trouble,” the Doctor said slowly, gaze darting up to find hers. “And I’d like to avoid doing that again. I’m trying to understand what this ‘new phase’ is, or whatever you called it.”

“Don’t you know?” she asked, looking at him curiously.

“I really don’t. You gave up Danny for this, gave up that whole future. When you said there was no version of you down there on Earth, no children or grandchildren, you sounded so sure. You said you were in love with that old soldier version of me, but you talk about the future like you’re utterly certain of it, of this choice you’ve made. I’m just— I’m trying to understand.”

Clara smiled at him fondly and shook her head. “Daft old man. I’m in love with you. With this version of you, the one sitting right beside me. And every version of you that came before. Every face, every good day, every bad day. Every bit of you, for always. What is this for me? This is the defining relationship of my life, Doctor. Me and you, for as long as we get. I can’t promise you forever, but I can promise you all of my tomorrows. So yes, I am utterly certain about my future, about the only thing I need to know about it: that you will be in it.”

He was silent for a long while, mulling that over, then without warning blurted out, “I think we should get married.”

She blinked up at him, shocked into silence for a moment. “I— um. Wow. Where did that come from?”

“You said you didn’t know what to call it, what we are to each other. It would simplify things.” He shrugged awkwardly. “I think we should get married.” He seemed completely sincere about it, which only made the whole thing stranger.

“Doctor, I don’t need a piece of paper or some legality to make this official,” she said, shifting around to see him better. “I told you, I’m in this for the long-haul. And I know you’ve been married before, I wouldn’t ask you to—”

“You’re not asking. I’m asking,” he said, flicking his gaze to hers and away again.

“But... why? Doesn’t seem like you’d be much interested in the legalities, either.”

He sighed and scrubbed one hand through his hair. “It’s not about the legal paperwork. It’s more... cultural, I suppose you could say.”

She turned that over in her mind. “Time Lord thing, then, yeah?”

He nodded slowly. “On... on Gallifrey, everyone’s a touch-telepath,” he explained, meeting her eyes again and smiling slightly, though it was pained, and Clara realised how incredibly difficult this must be for him to talk about. “Most people live in giant, densely populated cities, have done for thousands of generations. In that kind of situation, there must be rules about who you let into your mind, and how deeply. That’s what marriage is to Time Lords. There are parts of myself that I can’t share with you, unless we’re married. Parts of me that will always stay locked away. This is the defining relationship of your life? Well, it is for me, too. And I don’t want to go about it with half-measures.”

That explanation wasn’t at all what she had expected. “That... makes sense,” she finally managed.

“So,” he said when she didn’t say anything else. “What do you think?”

“What do I think?” she repeated, still trying to wrap her mind around everything he’d just said, and the sudden realisation of where they were headed. “I think...” She took a deep breath and looked up at him. “I think you should ask me properly.”

He darted his gaze around in confusion. “Did I not just—”

“Doctor, this is the only time I am ever going to do this,” she said. “You are it for me, for life. So if I’m only ever going to get the one marriage proposal, I want it to be a proper one, is all.”

He shot her a narrowed-eye look. “Now would probably be a bad time to bring up the whole ‘egomaniacal control freak’ thing, wouldn’t it?”

Clara wrinkled up her nose at him, mostly to keep from laughing. “Very bad time, yes.”

“Do I have to get down on my knees?” he whinged. “Only, that crevasse I jumped into today was actually quite deep, and I didn’t want to mention it but I am rather sore, and your sofa is surprisingly comfortable.”

From the twinkle in his eyes she knew he was teasing her, and she pursed her lips around the laugh that was still trying to escape. “No, you don’t have to get down on your knees, daft old man. Just, ask me properly!”

“Oh, alright, fine. Properly, properly,” he muttered, shaking out his hands as though he needed to be warmed up and limber for this, and she smothered a giggle.

He drew in a deep breath and took both her hands in his, catching and holding her gaze with an intensity that made her breathing go shallow.

Time and space seemed to crystalise around her, and Clara was starkly conscious of being in her body, in this instant, in this place, sitting beside this man. Beyond the current moment, the past and the future seemed to be tangible things. There was everything that had come before, the years of her own life and all the lives of her echoes, every time she had met the Doctor, stretching out behind her. And there was everything yet to come, the universe expanding, planets forming, stars blinking into existence and out again, all the years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds she would spend with this man, on this path they had chosen.

She was abruptly aware of a door in her mind, the line of demarcation between the inner world and the outer world, between the things that were Clara Oswald and the things that were not. There was a sense of equilibrium between them, the inner and the outer, her personal universe compressed to fit into her five-foot-one frame, but not smaller, not lesser. Everything she was, in balance with everything that was.

And on that door, there came a tapping.

“Clara Oswald,” the Doctor said seriously, and the knocking at the edge of her mind intensified. “Will you marry me?”

She could feel her body, her current place in time and space, the heat of the room, the softness of her sofa, the light of the moon outside. She could feel the Doctor, his hands just slightly cool on her own, the physicality of him in that outer world, as stable as always. But she could feel him just on the other side of that mental door as well, asking for entry, closer than he had ever been.

Her answer would change everything, solidify the trajectory of her future. It would open that door, pair it with the matching one in the Doctor’s mind. The equilibrium would hold, she knew. The borders of her internal universe would remain in place, but they would gain another dimension, transcend and unfurl in ways she could hardly conceptualise with the door still closed.

Is this what you want? she had asked the Doctor, and the question echoed back to her in the confines of her mind. To build a life with me? Just you and me, for however long we get?

“Yes,” she breathed, utterly certain.

The Doctor grinned at her, and the door at the borders of her mind flew open, near to bursting with joy.

#Twelve/Clara #Whouffaldi #Whoffaldi #Clara and the Doctor #First Row On The Moon #For As Long As We Get #please comment and reblog!#available on AO3 under the same title and username #Clara Oswald #Twelfth Doctor #Kill The Moon AU #Doctor Who fanfic #Doctor Who #my writing #there will be more to come in this series!#I've got a whole collection of shippy s8 AU stories planned out #let me know what you think!

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