Dedicated to dhyterm and AkosiPaulaM. Using prompts from the LJ community 500themes

Bereavement

Prompt 9: Sensation of loss

He had held Clara Oswald many times in his arms before but this was different.

When the Great Intelligence infiltrated his timeline and smudged the tracks of its tears with blood and defeat, it had been Clara who offered herself to neutralize the wounds within. She leaped into that grand abyss without a second thought, and forever shredded herself a million times just so she could save him in every corner of his personal history. It should have ended there. Her sacrifice should have been left as it is. But even for a creature bound to change and rebirth, the Doctor couldn't just let her go like that.

Crossing the threshold of his own timeline was reckless but he did it anyway. And when he saw Clara running towards him, searching him through the mist and confusion, he forgot for a moment why everything else even mattered. He plucked her from the darkness then and pulled her close to his chest where his two hearts dwell, as if she had belonged to him all along and he was only feeling the overwhelming strength of that truth for the first time. "Clara!" he whispered desperately as he clutched her in place, "My Clara…" he kissed her temple and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to preserve everything including her. Just this once. Just for the hell of it. Let me have her.

He had held Clara Oswald many times in his arms before but this was different.

When she pulled away from the embrace so she could gaze at him as if to confirm that he's indeed real, the Doctor felt something inside him breaking and he leaned in close—very dangerously so—as he was reeled in by those deep brown eyes that spoke of nostalgia and loss he had recognized like nothing before. He could feel her breath against his lips as he tried to seal the final distance between them.

But in that split second, the Doctor managed to pull his head back and let out a nervous chuckle instead, poking her nose and then squeezing both her cheeks playfully as he had once before. And then they saw the version of him he tried to bury away standing only a few short yards away from them, and nothing was ever the same again.

Clara lost consciousness soon after so the Doctor had to carry her off from the abyss and back into reality where Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax were all waiting. They hurried back to the TARDIS and the Doctor never once looked back at his decrepit grave across the ominous if not prophetic horizon that soon disappeared behind them as they left. He glanced at Clara whose head rested on Jenny's lap and got anxious as he thought about the urge to kiss her before. Back when he was vain and full of himself, he had kissed a string of women without really thinking about its implications and effect. It was only when he saw the woman he loved kissed his doppelganger in the shores where he left her once that the Doctor understood how that pain had echoed to this day. Looking at Clara in repose as she lay there had only brought back the ache he thought had dulled a long time ago. A pain he once associated with a woman's name. A name of a bright, red flower with delicate petals he almost crushed when he tried to hold it too close.

He had held Clara Oswald many times before but in that moment of weakness when he tried to kiss her, a different surge of loss and longing had stopped him. He felt powerless all over again, stuck between a girl and an ending that will come too soon.

He felt wrong in several places but that's always to be expected when you're a new person. He's still testing the gears, figuring out what goes where and what doesn't, but half the time he's pretending he's got it all under control. The truth for the matter is that he's still cooking, and there are layers inside him that are yet to ripen.

The slow process is beginning to put a strain on the way he talks to Clara, however—this doe-eyed bossy little thing who treats him as if he's now a different person altogether even if he did retain the same memories and remembers who she is perfectly. He didn't have the luxury of time to explain that to her so he came off dismissive, even impatient, of her bafflement and estrangement. He didn't want to concern himself with how she feels because that means he needs to deal with how he feels and there's not enough room for that immediate kind of reflection. But as much as the entirety of the regeneration had rewritten some aspects of him, he was still the same man nevertheless with a face and personality she has to get used to if she wishes to stay by his side.

But it suddenly occurred to him that perhaps she doesn't want to anymore.

He stepped out of the TARDIS to approach Clara who was standing in a corner listening to a phone call he knew was a message left by the old him from the past. She looked blissful to hear that voice again, and her smile was unmistakable. As he watched on, he couldn't understand why this angered him deeply as if she betrayed him somehow. He called out to her then. "That's not the Doctor you're talking to, you know."

What he meant to say was that she had hurt him but he was far too self-possessed to admit it. He took a few more steps towards her this time, frowning like a father whose child had disappointed him. "You didn't want me to change, did you?" The question was left hanging in the air between them and they both knew the answer far too well. He shook his head in disbelief and turned his back away for a moment, ready to walk back inside the TARDIS and leave her for good. But he stopped on his tracks to face her once more and declare: "I'm standing right in front of you, Clara. I am the Doctor."

It felt so good to claim that name again because it is and will always be rightfully his. A millennium and fourteen rebirths later and he is still the same man, and yet he also needed her to accept it but he's growing more frightened that she probably couldn't.

Clara remained where she is for a moment as she put the cell phone down to the side. And then she approached him with caution, narrowing her eyes at him and looking across his face as he stood still and waited for an answer he dreaded will be the wrong one. She looked puzzled for a moment before she broke into a smile filled with so much warmth, like the very first glimpse of the sun coming out of the skies.

"Yes, you are," she whispered, her eyes watering for a brief moment as she looked into his. "It is you." She jumped at him a bit so she could wrap her arms around his neck and shoulders. He bent down and wasn't sure what to do with his own arms though the desire to scoop her in them and hugged back very tightly occurred to him. Instead, he chose to cross his arms together while she was between them, still holding onto him.

He had held Clara Oswald many times in his arms before but this was different because he couldn't hold her just yet. When she pulled away, he decided to try touching her tentatively at first. He traced a finger on the dimple on her left cheek while his other hand brushed the stray strands of brown hair from face. He wondered what she's seeing now while she looked at him like this and if it's the same thing she saw when he held her this close back in Trenzalore. He almost forgot the strange feelings that overcame him back then but now they overflowed through him with a whiplash that rendered him speechless. It constricted his two hearts with a pressure that needed a release. Uninhibited by the restraint his predecessor would have had, this new Doctor leaned in and pressed his lips against Clara's. She didn't yield at first due to shock, but after a while she placed her hands on his cheeks and kissed back.

He remembered more clearly like nothing before that he loves her; the same way he had once loved that blonde girl with eyes the same shade of brown like his Clara's.

My Clara. He pulled back and tested the phrase in his mouth by saying it aloud and in front of her. The Doctor smiled all the while she obviously couldn't hide the crimson hue rising in her cheeks. She had no words to say and he didn't need to hear any.

"My Clara," he repeated each syllable with every amount of affection that was freeing if not eternal. "All the name you'll ever need…" he trailed off as he leaned in for a kiss for the second time. But not the last.