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Clara stepped out of the TARDIS, her shoes making a slight crunch as they landed on the softly dusted rock. Her eyes widened in awe. Wherever they were, it was high. The air was crisp, clean, and snowy white, with mountains of billowy clouds towering above her and rolling into the distance. Six feet beyond where she stood the ground fell away.
“Doctor, where are we?” she asked, turning around to see him exit a now invisible TARDIS and stand beside her.
“Biantia,” he said, and clicked the door closed behind him as it vanished completely. Twirling slowly she took in their surroundings. The rock they were on was small, floating in a great expanse of the heavens, nothing but a thin breeze between them and what looked like eternity. She took a small handful of his sleeve to ground herself as she looked up, feeling slightly dizzy.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed.
“I know.”
Uncurling her fingers from his coat he pulled her hand through the crook of his arm and placed his warm hand over hers. He led her forward a couple of feet and invited her to sit with him. She settled beside him, keeping her hand around his arm.
He was being strangely quiet, for the Doctor. Clara turned her head and looked up at him. “What are we doing here?”
“Waiting.”
“What for?”
“Just wait.”
He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. It wouldn’t work properly unless he could empty his thoughts, put up a barrier. And oh how he wanted this to work.
The ground was cold, but not uncomfortable. Clara shivered beside him in the quietness, as soft peaks slowly rose and dipped and swept around them. The Doctor took her hand off of his arm, giving it a reassuring squeeze before letting go, and took off his coat, placing it around her shoulders.
She was enveloped in his warmth, and she breathed in his scent, warm, earthy yet not. Sandalwood and stardust. He was now in just his hoodie and a t-shirt, the one from the Bowie concert they went to last month. Late 70s Bowie was the Doctor’s favorite and she was glad she’d insisted on buying him the shirt. He practically lived in it now. She uncrossed her legs and tucked them to her side, scooting closer, offering him her warmth in return. She curled both of her arms around his and laid her head on his shoulder, waiting in the stillness.
The Doctor quietly went about trying to clear his mind again, but it was hard to do with Clara nestled up next to him, so soft and warm.
No matter where she was, the deep pulling of his hearts toward her dragged him almost helplessly to her side. Wherever she was, was where he wanted to be. Wherever she went he couldn’t help but follow. Usually it was the other way round with people, but not with Clara.
Clara. His Clara.
He’d felt so much for so long. Too much. It was overpowering and about to overflow. He wanted to bring her here, to show her what she meant to him. Or at least to try. Words rarely failed him, unless they were too deep, too true to say, too dangerous to escape the confines of his hearts. These were. And so he said nothing. He could tell her the only way he knew how: with this.
He took one last cleansing breath, and willed his swirling thoughts away. At last. The wall was up. It was going to work.
The Doctor opened his eyes, and there, far in the distance, as if on cue, what they were waiting for had finally arrived.
“Look, Clara,” he said pointing ahead, “do you see?”
“Where?” She looked down his arm, straight down the end of his finger, and squinted hard.
“Don’t you see it?” he said, unable to hide his excitement.
She sat up straight and stared ahead, anticipation growing as the Doctor’s enthusiasm lit a similar spark in her. “All I see are clouds, Doctor. Just clouds.”
Then, in the midst of one of the most distant peaks there was a small flash of faint colors.
“I see it! What is it?”
“The Nuvolem,” he said as the pinpoint of colors grew stronger and larger.
She shot him a quizzical look.
“They’re birds, Clara. Beautiful birds, and they’re alone, the only intelligent life on this planet. They form psychic links with each other, and with any other sentient being who happens to stop by.”
“What, you mean like us?”
“No, Clara, I mean like you. I’ve blocked them out from me.”
“Why?”
“Wait and see.”
The Nuvolem now looked like a glimmering cloud in the distance, except it was moving fast. Very fast.
“Do they know we’re here?” she said, excitement and nerves permeating her voice.
“Of course they do. They sensed us the moment we arrived. It’s just taken them awhile to get here. If someone only visited your house once a century, wouldn’t you run to the door too?”
She laughed and he rubbed his free hand through his curls.
They sat expectantly, as the flock drew closer. The birds spread across the sky in enormous numbers of opalescent color. Clara couldn’t tell how many. They were an organic mass, like an ocean, undulating and spiraling, growing and shrinking.
The Doctor tapped his hand on the one she kept around his arm.
“Do you see them, Clara?”
“I see them. They’re amazing. How close are they going to get?”
“No, not the birds. Look at the clouds.”
The Nuvolem were still far away, but as they neared, Clara saw it. The clouds were covered in small rectangular rainbows, swirling and dancing as the little white birds flew by.
“How are they doing that?”
He shot her a smiling glance. Explaining the little miracles of the cosmos was always the best bit.
“Effortlessly. The birds are mostly white, with iridescent feathers, except for the ones on tips of their wings.” He spoke with expressive hands. “Those are clear as glass, and they bend in a perfect angle so that when the sun is shining just right, they cast prisms onto the clouds.”
“Doctor, that’s incred –“ she cut herself short. Something was happening to her, in her mind.
He knew. It was starting.
“It’s okay, Clara. Just relax and let it happen.”
She took a deep breath and concentrated. The sounds started low, deep and resonating. Then they began to blossom, slowly opening into sweet tones as the Nuvolem approached. A tender melody bloomed within her. The multitude pitched one direction and then another, swirling, seeming to collide, only to unfold, stretch, and cascade again. She realized the music in her mind was changing with their movements, sweeping in harmony, washing over her like waves.
“Doctor, what’s happening?” she whispered, frozen in wonder.
“Psychic link, remember?”
“Only with me?” She looked up at him.
“The song changes with every person. No two minds are alike, so no two songs are either. I’ve blocked them out from me, Clara,” he said looking at them instead of her. “This song is for you. Only you.” He rested his hand gently back on top of hers, still staring ahead. “Enjoy it, they only make a link with each outsider once.”
“Only once?” she looked from the Doctor back to the birds.
“Shh…Listen.”
And she did. The theme was louder now, mounting in intensity inside her head, strumming a beat with forward momentum behind her sternum. It rose and fell, with sparkling high notes, and pulsing undertones. She was reverberating inside herself and it was unlike anything she’d ever heard or felt before.
The birds seemed to react to her as well, to say hello, eager to share this intimate connection. As her pulse quickened they flew closer, swirling around the little island. Prisms flickered over the ground in front of her, covering her and the Doctor. She held out a hand and several small rainbows blinked and danced over her skin. She laughed and so did the Doctor. He held out a hand too, a single prism trembling in his palm before flittering away.
She reached out to them with her mind.
“Show me something amazing,” she thought.
Smaller groups fell away, free falling, and swooping back in as the flock rolled together into a hurricane of color. The ends of the mass stretched thin like pulled taffy and came together again in a swell until they were all together in a colossal hoard. A small section towards the middle dipped low, and like a waterfall, the rest twirled downward, spinning and sinking far beneath their view. The rushing of wings died down slightly, and the music inside her melted into a low hum. She leaned forward, hoping to catch a glimpse of them. Were they going? The Doctor held a steadfast hand on her arm as she leaned farther out.
A soft boom suddenly punched the air. Clara looked but saw nothing. Then, with a blast of wind and brilliant color, throngs of Nuvolem burst before her, surrounding them in the eye of a great whirlwind. She jumped in startled delight and clutched the Doctor’s arm hard, and he held on tight. The song rose in her again. She turned to him laughing, prisms dancing in her eyes and across her skin, to find he was already looking at her.
Warmth beamed from him, and he seemed to be almost oblivious to the miracle enveloping them. Innumerous rainbows fluttered across their bodies as they savored the moment. They were incandescent, bright and shining. Clara’s hair whipped around her face and she turned to look up through the never-ending tunnel of glittering birds. The song in her mind soared.
It filled her to her core, thrumming in deep bellowing waves, and gliding to exquisite heights inside her. She couldn’t bear to miss a moment of the spectacle spinning around her, but she squeezed her eyes shut. She was falling and soaring inside of herself. Sensing her reeling, the Doctor loosened his arm from her grip and put it around her, pulling her in close. Keeping her eyes shut she eased into his torso, reached both her arms around him, and settled her head into his shoulder as he put his other arm around her. He kept her steady, kept her safe as the music crested inside her and the birds whirled in a frenzy around them.
She opened her eyes as the rush of wind and wings around them became a softer flurry. The song was slowing, fading. The flock was rising higher and most of them were already far above. The last of the birds, with their delicate crystalline wings, fluttered by them on their way up to the heavens, sprinkling their prisms on the clouds as they went. The song in Clara’s mind ended as faintly as it began, and they were alone again in the stillness.
Neither of them wanted to break the spell by speaking, and so they sat, arms entwined, slow breaths rising and falling together. After long moments in the cool air, Clara lifted her face to look at the Doctor. He had a faraway look, but Clara’s movement had brought him back to himself. He looked down at her.
“Doctor. Thank you,” she whispered.
“Oh, it was nothing,” he said, with soft smiling eyes.
She always knew when he was lying.
“Do they really only sing for you once?” She said, feeling the absence of the melody within her.
“They do.”
“That’s a bit sad, don’t you think?” She searched his eyes. “To only have one chance to hear their song.”
“Well that depends.” He paused. “Would rather not have heard it at all?”
“No.”
“Then it’s a bit happy too.”
His eyes floated over her soft features, revealing more to her than he knew, as their breath warmed the air between them.
“Don’t worry, Clara,” he said, taking one arm from around her and tucking a stray windblown hair behind her ear, “there are plenty of songs out there for you that you haven’t heard yet. I’ll let you hear them all.”
With that, before she had a chance to think about what she was doing, she closed the small space between them with a soft kiss to his lips. He inhaled deeply in surprise, his mental barriers crumbling, then let it out as his eyes closed. His fingertips grazed her jawline as his hand fell from behind her ear. It lasted only a moment, but the seconds slowed and it lingered sweetly.
Before their lips parted Clara felt the whisper of another song enter her mind, soft and cherishing. And then it slipped away.