Chapter Text
“You used to smile more.”
“What?” The Doctor called up from below the consol. She could hear his feet clanking on the metal steps up to the main stairway. He emerged, rubbing his hands hesitantly through his gray hair “What did you say? Sorry, new ears you know.”
“Oh” Clara sighed and put on her best fake smile “nothing.”
He didn’t seem to hear her, maybe his new ears really weren’t working. Instead he turned around and flicked a few switches on the TARDIS like she wasn’t even there. He straightened himself, pulling on the lapels of his coat.
He did that a lot now. She never remembered him doing that before. The pulling on the lapels… and the ignoring her. He hadn’t spoken more than three full sentences since they had managed to get back to the TARDIS. He would just stare at her with an unreadable expression. It was like when he looked right past her to the wall behind. When she looked into his face she desperately tried to find something of the young, old, silly, dark, laughing Time Lord that had once been there. But she couldn’t see it.
Something in her chest tightened.
The last time she had seen that side of the Doctor was when they had stumbled into the TARDIS from the fields of Trenzalor. His purple coat clung to his limp shoulders. His skin was the color of chalk. Clara held up his weight, practically dragging him into the TARDIS before she finally set him down clumsily on the floor.
“Sorry.” She murmured softly, turning him over so that he wasn’t lying directly on his injured shoulder. It looked like it was bleeding now based on the dark stain of his coat. Lovely. With her luck he wouldn’t know how to get it out of the wool either.
And there was no way that she was doing the washing.
The Doctor let out a low moan. His eyes were distant and glazed over like clouds over the moon. A trickle of scarlet snaked out of the corner of his mouth and when he smiled at her it turned his teeth a gruesome pink. Somehow he managed to struggle up onto his elbows. “I’m sure that I look rather dashing right now. This new red color just brings out my eyes. Don’t you think?”
“Doctor, are you okay? Maybe pressure will stop the bleeding-” Clara tried to force him to lie down and put pressure on the chest wound but instead he was struggling to his feet. He was out of breath by the time he staggered upright.
“Of course I’m okay. I’m the king of okay.”
“That’s a rubbish title.”
The Doctor gave her a good glare “I know it is. I’ll think up a better one later. Or do you have some creative ideas.”
“I don’t think this is really the time.”
“Good point.” He bent over and made a noise that sounded to Clara like a person gargling marbles. He hugged his sides which heaved jaggedly whenever he breathed. She peeled his hand away from his torso for only a second only to find it covered it more blood. His insides were slowly leaking out of him.
She didn’t even know someone could hold that much blood.
“Don’t worry Clara” The Doctor moaned. His eyes were sad and warm like the ocean just before the sun is about to set. “Everything is going to be okay.”
And then he started to howl.
It started low and dry before breaking into something that was beyond human. Clara clamped her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut when thick tears started to run down her cheeks. She could still hear him though. The clang of his feet against the metal floor. It sounded like he ran into the console at one point and then onto the floor. His hands reaching roughly for things that she couldn’t see. Something shattered on the floor. An unnatural warmth bathed her and she could see a bright light standing in front of her. Burning through her eyelids so that everything was a fleshy red.
The screaming stopped before the light died down.
She didn’t dare open her eyes before then.
“Are you alive?” She called out. Her voice sounded like a whisper in her ringing ears. She slowly spread her fingers to peak interior of the TARDIS. The pale blue light did little to mask the scorch marks scarring the ground.
“I—I think so.” His unfamiliar voice called out. She heard him walk over. It didn’t sound like his steps. They were a bit slower. Large fingers wrapped around her hands, gently pulling them away from her face. “So, how do I look?”
She glanced up at his face before her eyes darted down again. “Different”
“No shit.”
She smiled at him.
He didn’t smile back. “You look different too.”
“No I’m pretty sure that’s just you Doctor. I didn’t go and regenerate or anything. Just same old me.”
He paused, tilting his head to the side, sizing her up like she was something completely new. She tried to hide the fact that she was shaking when he reached out and touched her arm. His hands still felt unnaturally warm on her cold skin.
“I guess it is you. My impossible girl.” He murmured so that she could barely hear him. Then he turned abruptly and disappeared down below the TARDIS consol. Untying his bow tie as he walked without so much as looking back at her.
Now he stood in front of her again pressing buttons on his TARDIS and she couldn’t even speak. It was him she tried to remind herself. He shouldn’t be this hard to talk to. He usually just talked to himself while she raced behind him trying to keep up.
Hesitantly she walked up behind him. He was taller than before and she had to stand on her toes to see what he was doing at the consol.
“Why are you programming coordinates back to London 2013?” Her voice cracked in the silence.
He didn’t look up, instead he fidgeted with a switch that had jammed until he became frustrated and gave up. Only then did he meet her gaze. “I’m taking you home.”
Clara straightened up abruptly, her eyebrows bunching together “That’s not fair. I didn’t do anything? Or did I do something?”
“I didn’t ask if it was fair—“ He leaned over to a large lever and pulled. The TARDIS jolted to life. He yelled over the groan while they slid on the metal floor “—It’s about keeping you safe.”
Clara steadied herself on his arm, glaring at him “Seriously. I need keeping safe. I wasn’t the one that just got myself killed. Or do I need to remind you?”
The Doctor grimaced and gave her a wounded look.
Of course he had to look like his old self when he gave her the disappointed face. Lovely.
The TARDIS jolted to an abrupt halt, that seemed to be the only type of halt that it had, throwing them against the control panel. The Doctor didn’t take his eyes off of her, but he didn’t say anything.
Please stop looking at me like that.
“Sorry, that was low.” Clara murmured as she pushed herself of the control panel. The Doctor was already walking towards the door with slow confident steps. She charged forward and easily caught his arm. She could have sworn he flinched. “You’ve been ignoring me.”
“I have?”
“You have.”
“Prove it.”
“You want me to prove that you’ve been ignoring me?”
“Yes, of course.” He turned around fast on his heals so that the tails of his coat spun just like they used to and snapped “You humans require so much attention it’s like you’re little dogs or something. No you’re definitely worse than dogs. I had a dog once, well it was a robot dog, but it was still a dog. You can teach a dog tricks. All humans get you is questions that go nowhere.”
She didn’t mean to slap him quite as hard as she did.
“What is wrong with you? Is part of regeneration being an ass?” She jeered at him, ducking under his arm and throwing open the TARDIS door.
She wasn’t sure which made her happier, the warm fresh air of Earth or the Doctor’s slightly agape mouth.