Chapter Text
Clara tugged down the sleeve of her cardigan before straightening the papers on her desk. She had a fifteen minute break and then two more parent meetings before she could pack it in and head home to her empty flat.
She blew out a steady breath to calm herself, ruffling her fringe in the process. Just over an hour until she could escape.
She double checked the time before grabbing her keys and slipping out of her classroom. Still ten minutes to go before her next meeting and she needed some fresh air. During the day, when the building was filled to the brim with kids and other teachers, it was a lot easier to ignore the ghost haunting the corridors.
Nights like these, when things were quieter and there was less to distract her from her own thoughts, were hard.
Clara gripped her left wrist, covering the fading black letters etched there and hidden by her long sleeves. The words that were there had been said in this very building. When they still shone gold, she would have been using this break to sneak into Danny’s classroom for a chat and maybe a quick snog before getting back to dealing with parents.
But Danny was gone and even the words he’d used to introduce himself, the ones that had bloomed into glowing existence on the inside of her wrist, were disappearing.
Clara bit down on her bottom lip, ruthlessly fighting back tears as she pushed open the side door of the school. She propped it open with a bit of broken concrete and headed towards the swings.
Danny was gone, she told herself again. Her soulmate was dead and gone and not coming back, and tonight was not the night to dwell on any of it, not when she still had parent meetings to contend with.
She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t notice there was someone on the swings moving in gentle pendulums until she was about ten yards away. Clara watched for a moment as the blonde woman swung back and forth, eyes closed and a familiar sad expression painted on her face.
(It was one she saw when she passed a mirror unexpectedly these days.)
“Are you lonely?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them, before she could think about them, really.
The blonde opened her eyes as she dragged her feet to stop her motion. “Why would I be lonely?”
Clara looked away, trying to shake the feeling that the woman’s clear brown eyes could see straight into her soul after just a moment of acquaintance. She shrugged, sat down on the second swing. “You look sad.”
Clara scuffed the toe of her boot in the woodchips before looking back at the blonde woman. She seemed to be at a loss for words but emotions were running over her face and Clara thought she might have hit a little too close to home with her comments.
“Might be,” she said finally with a shrug of her own. “I’m fine though, really. Here to meet with my little brother’s teacher since our mum couldn’t make it and I just got a little…” she trailed off with a vague hand gesture.
“Lost in your head?”
“Yeah, exactly,” she said.
“Happens to me a lot,” Clara said, a small, self-deprecating smile on her face.
The blonde smiled at her, bright and warm -- a welcome change from the nip of the air and the slightly gloomy conversation. “Are you here for a meeting too?”
“Yeah, I’m just taking a little break. Just, you know… getting some fresh air. I should really be getting back inside though.” Clara checked her watch. Five minutes until her next meeting. The Tyler family. She really shouldn’t be late for that one, especially with how influential they were.
“Me too. My thing’s in about five minutes.”
“Well then, neither of us should be late if we get going now,” Clara said, standing up. She brushed off her skirt and waited for the other woman to stand. “I left the side door open if you want to sneak in that way with me.”
“Sounds brilliant!”
They were halfway to the door when the woman spoke again.
“So, you must teach here, yeah?”
“Yeah. Been here for about five years now. Bounced around a couple different levels and expect to do that a bit more but I’m teaching the first year kids right now.” Clara didn’t know what it was about this woman but it was remarkably easy to talk to her. She barely shut her mouth before revealing that she was teaching the younger kids because they were sure to have not met Danny, and were less likely to ask questions about her dying soulmark.
“Oh, my brother’s in first year. You wouldn’t happen to be Miss Oswald, would you?”
“Yup, that’s me!”
“Brilliant. At least neither of us will be late,” she said bumping Clara’s shoulder with her own as they approached the door.
“Got started early, even,” Clara agreed. She pulled the door open and gestured for the blonde, Tony Tyler’s older sister apparently, to go inside. She kicked the piece of concrete away from the door and let it swing closed behind her.
Once inside, they headed to room 204, Clara’s classroom, in silence. They sat down at the desk and then the blonde hit her forehead with her hand. “Oh, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Rose. Rose Tyler.”
She extended her hand and Clara shook it, smiling. “Clara Oswald. I really should have noticed the family resemblance right away, really. He draws your family a lot.”
Rose laughed. “Yeah, I’ve seen some of those when I go over for family dinner. They’ve got them hanging on the fridge.” She leaned forward, a conspiratorial look on her face. “I don’t blame you for not recognizing me, he’s not destined to be an artist I don’t think.”
The way she scrunched up her face as she said it made Clara giggle. “I think you’re right.”
Rose grinned. “And I’m gonna be honest with you, I have no clue what I’m supposed to be doing here. My mum called me two hours ago and said she needed me to come instead of her. So, I can pass along messages but I’m not…”
“As involved as a parent?” Clara finished when Rose trailed off.
“Yeah. Is that like, a special teacher superpower, finishing people’s thoughts?”
“If I told you I might have to kill you,” Clara said, suppressing a smile. “Trade secrets and all that.”
“I totally understand.”
They stared each other down, both struggling to keep a straight face. Rose broke first and Clara followed her into a fit of giggles.
“I can set up a call with yours and Tony’s mum if you don’t feel like you’re the best person for this meeting,” Clara said, once they’d regained their composure.
“I can do you one better. If you don’t have plans Saturday, my parents are hosting a party. You should come by. Mum would definitely make time to talk to you about Tony.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Alright, I’ll see you Saturday, then!” Rose said, rising from her chair.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Clara said with a smile, surprised to find that she really meant it. Tonight had definitely taken an unexpected turn for the better when she’d met Rose Tyler.
“Me too,” Rose replied. She slipped out the door of the classroom and Clara stared after her for a moment before turning back to her papers, still smiling slightly.
She missed Rose flying back into the room. “I’m so sorry, I completely forgot. You’ll need this to get in.”
She thrust a slightly-crumpled invitation into Clara’s hands, grinned once more and then disappeared back out the door.
Clara barely had time to read over the fancy invite and tuck it away in her bag before the last parent of the evening stepped into her classroom.
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-
Rose couldn’t stop smiling as she drove back to her flat. She’d complained about going to Tony’s parent-teacher conference but she had not anticipated one Clara Oswald. Tony’s teacher was gorgeous and kind and had a beautiful smile.
She was honestly just a bit smitten.
She’d spotted the dark grey ink on Clara’s wrist and her heart hurt for the woman who had found her soulmate and lost them. Based on the color of the words that she hadn’t quite been able to read, it had been a couple of years since the loss.
Rose hadn’t ever gotten the whole soulmate thing. She’d dated quite a bit but most of her partners ended up leaving her when they found their destined other half or decided that they didn’t want to make a go of it if they weren’t soulmates.
Complete rubbish in her opinion. Rose wasn’t waiting with baited breath for golden words to magically appear on her wrist.
She idly wondered how Clara felt about soulmates in the wake of losing hers. Maybe she could gauge her interest at the party on Saturday.
She smiled even wider at that thought and turned the key in the lock to enter her flat. Once inside, she dropped her bag on the floor by the door and toed off her shoes. She lost most of her clothes on the way to her room, ready to be out of her work things and get into something more comfortable.
Rose walked into her dark bedroom with just her knickers on and was about to flip the light when she realized something was glowing in the darkness. She looked down, brow furrowed in confusion and saw the words etched across her hip in a neat, cursive script.
“Are you lonely?”
“Shit.”
Rose gripped the doorway so she didn’t fall over as it sunk in. Clara, the woman who already had a soulmate and had lost them, was apparently her soulmate.
Wasn’t it just her luck to finally get a vaunted soulmate only to have it be someone who couldn’t have words that matched?
I didn’t want this , Rose thought desperately, fingers tracing over the words. I wasn’t looking for a soulmate. I especially wasn’t looking for one who already had someone.
Clara had smiled and laughed but Rose had seen the sadness lingering behind her eyes, the loneliness that she knew all too well. The woman was obviously still in love with her lost soulmate. Rose had thought she could maybe be a distraction for a bit, have a good time with the pretty primary school teacher who had caught her attention, maybe become friends with her.
This changed everything though.
Clara Oswald was her soulmate, and Rose had no idea what to do about it.
Shit .