Work Text:
“I’m not scared.” Clara said quietly, looking up from the book that she’d been reading for past few hours. The Doctor froze at his chalkboard, where he been scribbling away frantically while Clara read.
“Of course not.” He replied, frowning. “Why would you be scared?” He asked a few seconds later.
“I’ve been thinking about that dream.” She answered, putting her book down on the arm of the chair. “Those dreams.” She corrected hastily.
“Yes. Nasty things, but over now. Hopefully.” The frown was still there as he tried to figure out what she was getting at. He'd found himself reaching out for her at an alarmingly frequent rate in recent days. Whether it was because he was afraid of letting her go again, or reassurance that if this was a dream then at least he wasn't alone...well, he was too scared to be that introspective for long enough to figure it out. That would be dangerously close to admitting how much he still cared, and caring was the first stop along the road to getting hurt.
“You cut your finger yesterday. When’s the last time you remember bleeding in a dream?” Clara pointed out. The Doctor nodded, conceding. The pain in their temples had gone, although headaches had become a slightly more terrifying experience than the mere annoyance they had once been.
“What’s on your mind?” He queried. She still hadn't told him why she wasn't scared or what it was she wasn't scared of. Clara rose, crossing over the TARDIS and the Doctor hurried to step in front of his chalkboard to meet her.
“When I woke up, when I really woke up...I know it might have seemed shallow to be so preoccupied with my age but it wasn’t being old that scared me.” Something big was coming. The Doctor could see it in the way Clara’s eyes had widened and her voice kept catching ever so slightly. This was important. Not in a ‘someone might die’ or ‘the universe might end’ kind of way. He was good at those kind of important things, he could quite literally do them in his sleep. This was the kind of important that was gut wrenchingly difficult and very easy to simply run away from. The sort that the Doctor usually did run away from. Emotional sorts of things involving attachment and feelings.
“When I thought…” She started, trailing off as she struggled to find the words. “I honestly believed that I might have done the stupidest thing ever.” He knew immediately what she meant. Sending him away with lies about her happiness, trying to push him back to a happiness of his own that was nothing but lies as well.
“Not as stupid as me.” The Doctor said quietly. What he really wanted to say was more along the lines of you’ve always been there, since the beginning and I still managed to convince myself to let you go. Although stupid covered that pretty well, on second thoughts.
“You’re right. We were both going to do it. Aren’t we a pair of idiots?” That was an understatement.
“I couldn’t...I would never…” He trailed off.
“Don’t lie. We’ve done enough of that to last a lifetime.” The sad smile on her face was like a knife to one of his hearts.
“I would have come back.” He insisted but even as they passed over his lips he realised how hollow the words were. Would he? His track record was not promising.
“No. You would have stayed away. Not to hurt me. I know you honestly believed you were doing the right thing. So did I. I wanted you to go home and be happy. No, that’s not quite true. I wanted you to be happy. I thought sending you home without having to worry about me would be achieving that. So I lied. You lied. We both lied and it was so stupid. We’ve always been stupid, you and me. Too alike, that’s the trouble. Alike in all the wrong ways.” She said, smiling up at him as though he was her whole world. It was almost enough to make a grown timelord cry.
“You’re nothing like me. You’re much better.” He told her, meaning every word. They might be alike in all the the wrong ways but they were different in all the right ones.
“No. I’m not having that. No more of that self pity.” The Doctor opened his mouth to interrupt her but she cut him off sharply. “Shut up. I’m talking.” He hastened to oblige.
“Do you really not see what I see, when you look in the mirror?” She was gazing up at him so earnestly it was almost too much to bear. It was a figure of speech, of course. They both knew that he didn’t look at his own reflection at all if he could avoid it.
“I used to read books as a child full of heroes dashing about and saving the world, and I loved them. I still love them, those brave, smart, curious people out there defending those in need of help and taking down everything bad. But then I grew up and I didn’t think they could really exist. Not like they do in writing. How could they be real? How could such wonderful, selfless courageous people possibly exist? And then...and then I met you and I started to believe again.” Her eyes were shining now, meeting his gaze with such determined purpose that he couldn’t look away.
“I’m not selfless.” It wasn’t him trying to be humble. Almost everything he did was for himself. He travelled because he wanted to. He invited people to travel with him because he wanted the company. He rarely looked back because it reminded him of just how selfish he was.
“You’re utterly impossible, you know that?” There it was, one of those confusing smiles that was sad and happy all at once.
“Well you would know all about being impossible.” It was supposed to come out as a joke but it didn’t feel funny. It was all getting very deep and emotional and he was quite sure that very soon someone would start crying but he wasn’t altogether certain that it wouldn’t be him.
“The thing is, after you changed into you...I wasn’t sure. You were so different, so alien. I never knew how you were going to react in any given situation. But even then, even through all that, I never stopped believing. You might not have always been there when I wanted you to be. But you were always, always there when I needed you to be.” She was crying now, tears rolling down her cheeks. He brought a hand up to her face, ready to brush away the tears with his thumb, but he hesitated a few centimetres away from her skin, suddenly unsure.
He always felt uncertain around her. It reminded him of those days long ago at school on Gallifrey, wanting so badly to just be liked and wanted. Except it was different. Somewhere deep down, beneath layer after layer of his own insecurities, he knew (not thought, knew) that she loved him. It was not knowing exactly how she loved him that caused him to doubt himself. Reaching up Clara caught his hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek. Her skin was warm and soft and when had he started kissing her? He moved to pull away but she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down, trapping him close.
“Oh no you don’t. I’m never letting you go again.” She murmured.
“I hope you don’t mean that literally. We’re not going to get anything done if I’ve always got you hanging off my neck.” He joked feebly.
“I don’t know, I think you can show me whatever it is you’ve been scribbling away at on your chalkboard for the last few hours without any trouble.” She replied. The Doctor shuffled backwards, Clara still clutching her arms around his neck and doing absolutely nothing to move herself.
“It’s not finished yet.” The Doctor told her awkwardly, as she gazed over at the portrait of herself that he’d been drawing. He ought to redo the hair, the texture was all wrong. Then there was the nose, that just didn’t look right. And of course the shading of the contours of her face was all messed up so he needed to fix that too. The whole project was an absolute wreck.
“You did that with chalk?” She let him go, walking over to the board and tracing the line of her jaw without actually touching the portrait.
“You’re right, it’s rubbish. I’ll just erase it then.” The Doctor said hurriedly, reaching for the duster.
“No.” Clara replied firmly, swatting his hand away. “I like it. It almost looks...alive.”
“Thank you.” The Doctor said, slowly, unsure.
“Yes, it’s a compliment, you daft old man.” She smiled at him like he’d just told her a joke. He turned his head slightly, eyes fixed on her intently.
“Oh don’t look at me like that. Come on. Let’s go to bed.” She grabbed his hand and started forward, pulling him along with surprising force.
“I beg your pardon?” The Doctor spluttered out.
“Not like that.” Her voice was light with amusement. “I’m tired which means it’s naptime.”
“I don’t nap.” The Doctor replied quickly.
“I don’t care.” Clara fired back without missing a beat as she took a sharp right off the corridor and into her room. Her bedroom was small and simple. How much of that was the choice of the TARDIS and how much was Clara’s tastes, he wasn’t sure. He’d been sort of but not really avoiding going in there. It felt terribly...intimate.
“You come up to my knee, why do you have such a large bed?” The Doctor asked, as she climbed onto the enormous bed.
“Dunno. It makes me feel safe, I guess.” Clara replied casually as she lay down, shifting about until she was comfortable. “Get on.” She added. There was no force in her tone but there was a steely look in his eyes that told the Doctor that he would be unwise to refuse her. He sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress sinking so deeply that he almost fell off.
“It’s a bloody marshmallow. I’ve stood on clouds with more substance than this.” The Doctor exclaimed, as he pushed himself further back.
“Don’t be rude to my marshmallow bed.” Clara retorted. “Are you going to continue to sit there like a horrid great gargoyle or are you going to lie down with me?”
“Grotesque.” The Doctor said as he allowed himself to fall backwards.
“Sorry?”
“Water doesn’t come out of my mouth, so I’d be a Grotesque. Not a Gargoyle.” He explained. Clara sighed. “Only you would bother to correct me on that.”
They lay side by side for a few minutes, silent but for the sounds of breathing and the faint hum of the TARDIS.
“No. This isn’t right. I need you to move.” Clara burst out suddenly.
“How much room do you need? You’re smaller than my foot.” The Doctor said gruffly.
“I don’t mean move away.”
“Well, please enlighten me as to what you do mean.” It supposed to be sarcastic. He hopes it sounds that way.
“I’ll show you. Let me move you.”
“Okay?”
He allowed himself to be manoeuvred until his head was lying on her chest, her arm draped protectively (possessively) over his shoulder.
“Much better.” She said once she was satisfied.
“Is it?” It was much closer as far as he was concerned. Should he be concerned? He had kissed her after all. No, closer wasn't really such a problem now that he thought about it.
“Yes. It’s good to be home again.” Clara murmured. She wouldn’t say ‘I love you’. She couldn’t. Of course, neither could he. The words were so loaded, so heavy with history for the pair of them.
“It’s good to have you back.” He replied (he wasn’t listening to her strange single heartbeat, or the steady rhythm of her breathing). Neither of them had to say I love you. Not when they were already saying the same thing.