Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or it's characters, I'm just playing to feed my muse. Please R&R that also feeds my muse :)
Warnings: Spoilers for Season 7 Finale 'Time of the Doctor' and sexual content.
ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS
PROLOGUE
The claxon reverberated through the TARDIS and the Doctor grasped the console, staring at the warning, he felt a smile creep onto his face as he bolted to the doors and tore them open his hand outstretched in a moment of déjà vu as he caught the Time Lord distress beacon.
He turned around about to explain it to Clara, his eyes scanning the console room and expecting to find her, only to remember with a small flash of disappointment that she wasn't here, it wasn't Wednesday. And his Clara had only ever given him Wednesday's. He dropped his head for a moment, feeling the smile slide off his face, he missed her.
With trepidation he opened the stasis cube, he hadn't had the best of luck with these. He closed his eyes as the mental influx and felt the 'oh so familiar' mind that reached out. The message was simple. It was an invitation. The 'who' of it was of course more complicated.
The Doctor stepped out onto the barren wasteland of the ice planet he'd been called to, his eyes drifting to the impossible blue box that stood directly ahead of him, a match to his own. He stood hands in his pocket, one wrapped around his screwdriver as the other TARDIS opened and the figure stepped out. The Doctor held his position, letting the 'other' him be the one to put distance between his TARDIS, after all this was his party. The face was a surprise, not in the least because it shouldn't be possible, he had no more regenerations left, so either this was yet another face he tried to forget or he was not quite as spent as he believed himself to be. This new him looked... severe. Dashing probably in that flash coat of his with his silver hair, but there was a calculated look to him now that the Doctor didn't care for or the assessing sharp gaze of his ice blue eyes.
"Well, I'm here. I assume you have a very good reason for bringing me? Temporal knot like this could get real ugly real fast."
The other him smiled, it wasn't a pleasant thing. "This place is a still point. We will be perfectly fine to talk." His Scottish lilt took the Doctor's breath for a moment as he was all at once reminded of little Amelia. Apparently he'd taken something of her with him after all, which he supposed answered the question as to the 'when' this he was from.
"So I don't die on Trenzalore."
The Other Doctor's smile fell. "Trenzalore is fixed, it is your final destination."
The Doctor frowned taking a step closer to his future self and gripping his sonic tighter in his pocket. "Then what are you?"
The Other Doctor sighed and his eyes danced around the surroundings. "Not my choice. But you know me, never could deny our Impossible Girl anything could we?"
The Doctor swallowed hard as he tried to puzzle the ramifications of that, but the only thought that reverberated was the idea of Clara, his Clara with this version of him. It didn't sit well. "Is she safe?" he pressed.
"She's inside." The Other Doctor flicked his head to the doors behind him, but there was a pain he was too slow or too unwilling to mask as he turned his head back to him. "Safe is relative." He admitted, slipping his own hands into his pocket and flaring out his jacket to reveal the flash of red lining beneath that held the Doctor's attention for a moment as it stirred a memory of another him.
The Doctor stepped forward quickly until he was right up in his personal space. "What have you done?" he hissed, feeling the old familiar sweep of self loathing.
The Other Doctor was not cowed, he met his quiet fury with his own raging gaze, if he was ice than this new him was fire, explosive. "Difficult regeneration. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly meant to be." The Other Doctor winced slightly in remembrance. "But it is not what I have done, this is about you." He leant in close. "The feelings you attempted to bury for your Impossible Girl, she was your obsession for so many years, all that energy never spent. She will be the last face you see... the last thought."
The Doctor stared into the blue stone eyes of his counterpart horrific understanding spreading through him. "And she will be the first face this face sees." He concluded for him and the Other Doctor nodded and he felt the ripple of pain from the man he would become.
"Did you hurt her?" The Doctor pressed his voice clipped with barely restrained anger.
The Other Doctor winced. "Of course I did." He snarled, forcing the Doctor to spin away for him for fear of tearing his own head off, tugging at his own hair instead as he let out a cry of rage, hitting his own thigh in an attempt to stop himself. "I was supposed to be something else... turn into something else, someone else entirely." The Other Doctor added quietly, "The Valeyard."
The Doctor's head snapped back to his counterpart. "But you're not." He felt something leaden inside of him, certainty that the creature before him wasn't that not yet, understanding and the inklings of the why surfaced. "Because of her. She grounded you, kept you enough like me."
"Love is such a trite word." The Other Doctor smiled through the pain. "But it would be apt to say my love for her kept the Beast at bay; more or less. Time was re-written."
The Doctor stood nose to nose with him again. "Then what do you want of me?"
The Other Doctor's expression fell. "It's not enough, the idea of love, the memory of it." The he lamented. "Not now she has rejected me utterly." He met his eyes, "I am losing myself to...him."
"Let me see her." The Doctor demanded, hearing the shake to his own voice and hating it, not wanting to consider the ramifications of her rejection on this decidedly darker version of himself. The Other Doctor seemed to consider it.
"It will only fuel your self-loathing. And I still need you to do something for me." There was a nervousness there, an unwillingness to reveal her and so himself.
The Doctor grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket. "Then ask whatever the hell you want; but you will take me to her." The Other Doctor nodded once and the Doctor dropped his hands, letting him straighten himself out.
"When you return to your timeline I need you to act on your feelings." The Other Doctor told him quickly. "And I don't mean consider giving the girl a longer hug or a chaste peck on the lips, I want you to act on what you have been restraining since the moment her Victorian self pressed her lips to yours."
The Doctor frowned. "No."
The Other Doctor laughed it was a dark mirthless sound. "Even to save her? To save yourself? She wants you, you know."
He clearly knew what he was asking and still he asked it. Perhaps he really was the Valeyard. "Clara is..."
"Precious." The Other Doctor completed his train of thought for him, disturbing given the clear disconnect between them.
"Yes." The Doctor snapped. "She is. I will not sully her with... me." he indicated himself, "I, we, are a blood soaked ancient thing, I will not taint her with that, she deserves so much better."
"But you will... sully her." The Other Doctor told him darkly the implication heavy between them and the Doctor reacted, swinging his fist and hissing as it connected with a bone jarring thud on his counterparts face, who stumbled away touching his lip clearly surprised to see blood. "I am cut from a darker shade." The Other Doctor admitted. "All that nobility, that morality, I feel it seeping out through the soles of my feet with every step I take. And she is right there in my path, placing herself between me and the Universe, just as she has always done."
The Doctor felt his hands shaking. Killing his future self would be utterly impossible, the foreknowledge alone would drive him to madness, making the act itself futile. But he couldn't stand by and let him back inside that ship, not if Clara was in there.
"My plan will work." The Other Doctor clearly sensed the descent of this conversation.
"What plan is that?" The Doctor snarled, "Have me seduce the girl? How will that help anything?"
The Other Doctor smiled. "She loves you, but it is not a physical thing yet, it has not branded itself into her soul. How can it when she does not know that it is reciprocated."
The Doctor let out a snort of derision seeing the plan take shape in his own mind. "So you want me to consummate our feelings. Let them bloom in her so that when I die... her love will transfer to you."
The Other Doctor nodded. "For love to transcend death, it must go both ways."
"Why would I do that... inflict you upon her?" 'why not simply send her away instead' he considered in the quiet of his own mind.
The Other Doctor rung his hands nervously, the first gesture of unease he had presented. "Because I am inflicted on her whether she wants it or not, whether you want it or not. She is the first face I see, your last thought. You know what that type of obsession can unleash in a Time Lord."
"And you think this will save your soul." The Doctor sighed, feeling defeated and disgusted at this creature he would become, that a part of him already was.
"I think it will stem the wound, cauterise the infection and prevent the spread of what I may yet become." The Other Doctor reasoned.
"A temporary measure then." The Doctor replied equally reasoned.
"Perhaps. But it will be temporary enough to save her. And who knows Doctor, perhaps even her memory would be enough to stay my hand in the future." The Other Doctor countered.
The Doctor let the ramifications soak through him, the arguments, reaching the same conclusion as his counterpart. To stop the Valeyard from becoming, to protect Clara, it was worth it, worth the inevitable heartbreak it would cause them both, because one thing seemed certain, he was coming and soon.
"Then show me her. Now!"
The Doctor followed his counterpart into his TARDIS, his eyes scanning the new interface and seeing the fiercer elements of his personality emblazoned upon it. His hands smoothed along the railings. "Hello Old Girl." He whispered. "A darker shade indeed." He muttered to himself as the Other Doctor led him onwards deep into the bowls of the ship and further. He didn't comment on their descent, fearing the answer until he came to a stop outside a reinforced metal door that was deliberately disconnected from the TARDIS's own telepathic circuitry. 'Off plan' as they say.
The Doctor lifted his hands to the security measures surrounding the door, all keyed to his own biometrics.
"The Old Girl kept trying to free her." The Other Doctor admitted quietly. "I couldn't allow that. But she is persistent and has grown rather resentful of my continual resistance. Despite their rather unfriendly start, it would appear she has grown rather fond of Clara."
The Doctor pursed his lips, "You keep her locked away?" his voice was a low rumble of barely suppressed rage.
The Other Doctor didn't answer instead he pressed his hand to the scanner, before opening his eye and letting it scan and then gave the mental command to release the telepathic lock. The mechanical door hissed unsealing as it slid aside. "Yes I keep her locked away. Clara is far too dangerous to let loose on the Universe in her current state. She knows too much of us, our deepest secrets. Hate is a powerful thing Doctor." He cocked an eyebrow at him as if surprised at his foolishness, as if the Dalek's had clearly taught him nothing of the power of hate. "And she does hate us." He admitted quietly with clear regret as he stepped inside and ushered him in.
The Doctor hesitated.
The Other Doctor waited. "You insisted on seeing this Doctor." He reminded. "I personally think it would be the best that we un-write this entire time-line without even the memory of it left to corrupt us. But this is your show." That Scottish lilt made it sound more threatening and the Doctor resisted the urge to turn around. Instead the Doctor steeled himself, he was a coward by nature. It had always been his way, running when things got too tough. Never even saying goodbye because he couldn't bare it. But as he stepped into the cell he would make for the companion he claimed to love, he felt every inch the monster he knew he could be.
There were no chains; he half imagined there would be. There were books strewn everywhere, most of them torn apart, the room in disarray. A simple bed with no bedding he noticed, just a mattress, nothing for her to harm herself with either he noted. But there were tell tale signs that the TARDIS was manipulating things inside this room, even if she couldn't effect it's door, clearly she was trying to look after his Impossible Girl.
The Doctor stepped deeper into the circular room, there was a transparent viewing window that looked out into the vastness of space, lending its shadows an eerie quality across the entire room. His eyes traced the outline of one such shadow, it was huddled in the corner, head buried in its knees; utterly naked beneath the holographic clothes that he had long been able to see through. Apparently she couldn't be trusted with actual clothing either and he wondered just how his Other self had come to that stark realisation... just like with the bedding.
"Clara." His voice caught and her head shot up, those huge brown doe like eyes of hers piercing him, red rimmed and so wild. He watched her fist clench as she stared not at him but at the man behind him. But there was a tremor to her body and he watched as she flinched as they moved forward. "Leave." The Doctor turned to his counterpart, practically spitting the instruction at the monstrosity of a man that dared to take his name. The Other Doctor sighed his eyes lingering on the girl who was watching his every move with careful, damaged eyes, right up until the moment he retreated sealing the door behind him.
The Doctor turned his attention back to the broken girl before him. "Clara." He whispered, hesitantly as he approached her slowly, those wounded eyes were tracking him now. "It's me." He dropped to his knees in front of her with quiet grace his lanky form wasn't usually capable of. "It's Chin Boy." He reminded her as he saw her eyes lift to examine his face.
There was a flicker of recognition that grew brighter as he stared back at her, "You left me." she whispered, her voice scratchy, he wondered if she'd damaged it screaming with futility into the walls of her prison cell.
"I'm sorry." He managed, blinking away tears, "I never meant to."
Her eyes were hard when they levelled on him now and he almost flinched back at the promised hatred he saw there. He longed to reach out and hold her, take her in his arms and fix all of this. "You left me to him." She accused.
"Clara he is..." he tried and she cut him off.
"He's you." She snarled. "Always you!"
The Doctor hung his head in shame. "Yes... he's me. A darker part of me has risen to the surface, the part of me I have spent a lifetime fighting." He lifted his head, wanting to see some flicker of the Clara he knew in the girl before him, but she had been carved into something new, something harsher and infinitely more fragile.
"He hurts me." She throws the words like the knives they are and he flinches as they hit. Her hands have clasped her knees tighter but her gaze is unforgiving on him; she lets that sink into his wretched features, absorbing with some satisfaction he notes at the bomb her words seem to detonate in his chest, "He forces his way into my mind." She elaborates and he tastes bile. "He's trying to re-write me. But there's too much of me, too many memories too many lives. It always unravels and I remember what he's done, what he is." The venom in her voice is real and painful.
It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to speak, to calm his tone. "Clara I will fix this... I promise you. That's why I'm here, why he's brought me here. To undo this."
Clara let out a dark chuckle. "Will you fix it all Doctor, all the people he's hurt, the planets, the species he's left in ruin?" his eyes widen but she doesn't stop, her hand reaches out lightening quick and grasps his with surprising strength. "He doesn't kill them you know... not this Doctor, he likes to see their suffering long after his work is done. Just like with me." The Doctor squeezed her hand tightly, but she pulled it away as if burned by his touch. "He sits over there." She indicates an armchair with her eyes, "he doesn't speak, just watches me and admires the mess he's made."
"Clara." He tries and fails utterly to find something to say, something to excuse it, to give her hope. How can he ask her to have faith in him, when he is the cause of her suffering?
"He used to say he loves me." She doesn't quite meet his eyes now, staring at his bowtie instead. "He said it was your fault. That you were too afraid, too weak to act on it. He blames you for him." He waits for a question he is sure is coming. "Is it your fault?" The Doctor hesitated, sensing he wouldn't be able to lie to this version of Clara as he sometimes had to his own. "Did you drive him mad?"
"Yes, I believe so." It broke him to admit it, to acknowledge that his repressed feelings for this impossible girl may very well have been both their undoing.
There was a moment of silence before she launched herself at him with a shriek that was all nails and he grasped her wrists tightly, trying to deflect her blows, her clear instability giving her strength. But he didn't want to hurt her; it was almost a joke to say that, looking at the mess he'd wrought upon her. So he dropped her into his lap, pinning her back to his chest and wrapping his arms around her, holding her to his own body and willing sanity back into her.
"I'm sorry." He breathed, pressing a kiss to her hair as she sobbed quietly against him.
"Please just kill me." She pleaded, "Doctor please." She turned her head up to his, her eyes wide and desperate set in her still breathtakingly beautiful face, the feint trace of age reaching her features but nothing like he suspected he should be seeing there, her eyes held a lifetime of torment at his hands, a lifetime he had clearly taken steps to extend. The Doctor kept her arms pinned with one of his own, lifting his other hand to cradle her face, but her pleas hadn't stopped. "I can't bare this, please. The things he does, what he shows me inside my mind. He's going to destroy everything, I don't want to see it. I made him... I made them make him. It's my fault." She was sobbing wildly now, whispering secrets about things he'd yet to experience. "I'm sorry, so sorry." She begged, "Please just kill me."
The Doctor held her until she cried herself into exhaustion, the words 'my fault' a litany that had clearly been the source of her insanity, as her body drifted into blessed unconsciousness.
The Other Doctor stalked into the room then, his impassive cool eyes lingering on the sight of the two of them together, too slow to hide the flash of jealousy that fast became anger as he reached for her. The Doctor let him, after all the damage was done. The Other Doctor lifted her sleeping form so carefully into his arms the expression of clear adoration he wore as he carried her to the bed enough to make the Doctor want to punch him again. He laid her carefully upon the bare mattress, his hands feather-light across her face, brushing her hair aside until it was framing her features.
"My Clara." He whispered it like a promise as he kissed her forehead.
The Doctor had seen enough; he stalked from the cell, from the nightmare within and didn't stop until he was stepping out onto the chilly ground of the ice covered planet. Striding with purpose back to his own TARDIS, to his own future.
"I am inevitable." The Other Doctor called behind him and the Doctor spun, pointing his sonic at him threateningly until the Other stopped. "You can't prevent me from coming into being, if that's what you're planning."
The Doctor felt his lip curl. "No I imagine not. It would seem even Clara herself, addled as she has become, knows she is to blame for that particular twist of fate."
"A hand we force her to make." The Doctor shrugs. "Trenzalore is a fixed point Doctor. You die there. Something new is born, I am giving you the opportunity to help shape it."
"How can you ask me to help you, after what I've seen you do to her. I intend to take her far, far away from you and me. Block the coordinates out my mind. I will never inflict you on her. Not again!" The Doctor swore, stalking back to his ship with righteous anger fuelling new purpose.
"Without her there will be nothing to stop the Valeyard. He will be born in the fires of Trenzalore and the Universe will burn." The Doctor paused. "I am not him yet." His future self warned and he glanced back.
"But it's a close thing." The Doctor declared and the Other nodded his silver head in acknowledgement.
"Imagine it, the love for a single human girl standing between you and the Beast." The Other reminded him, the irony not lost on either of them.
"He will come." The Doctor reminded. "He always has."
The Other Doctor shrugged. "Time can be re-written."
"Not all of it."
"This can be." He promised. "I am proof of that. A half thing, neither Beast nor Doctor."
"And more monstrous because of it." The Doctor bit back, closing his eyes in an attempt to shut out the madness.
"Love her Doctor. Let her love you, truly. Or your inaction will give rise to me, and she will suffer. It is too late to undo your feelings for her after all."
"She will still be left to you." The Doctor couldn't accept that.
"And I will be able to fight what I am for her." He was so adamant, his desperation a living breathing thing that seeped into the Doctor, it seemed even in his darkness, despite his protestations at forgetting what it meant, he loved her still.
"For the love of a good woman." The Doctor shook his head, wondering if it could really be so simple, could Clara truly returning her love for him really change this?
"It is not so simple a thing to love a monster." The Other Doctor reminded him darkly, seemingly reading his mind and he acknowledged it with a firm nod turning his back on the man he would become if he did not alter the future.
"Spend Christmas with her Doctor." His future self called after him, "The Signal will wait."
The Doctor let the TARDIS doors slam shut behind him, sealing off that future as he approached the console, bowing his head and letting silent tears fall.
"Take me away from here." He instructed the ship, not caring where he went, so long as it wasn't here.
CHAPTER ONE
How to solve a problem like the Valeyard...? It seemed the question had been filtered down to another he'd asked before, 'how to solve a problem like Clara?' It was a question he'd started some time ago and it seemed hadn't quite finished with.
But Clara was a unique problem, particularly given as the woman in question had only ever given him Wednesday's a fact which made him lament her absence once more. She never let herself get swept up into the madness that was his life permanently; had never given all of herself to him as his other Companions had. Instead she'd kept one foot firmly in her other life on Earth; not willing to trust him with it. Rightly so of course, he left them all in the end, she was merely being prudent. More so now that she knew every facet of him. He almost admired her forethought, if it didn't complicate matters for him, or make his loneliness more pronounced given as she... or at least her echo had seen fit to drag him from his peaceful solitude in the first place.
She liked him, certainly she fancied him, but did she feel anything deeper? Could she love him as other Companions had? He considered the notion, did she feel for him what he didn't want to admit to himself he felt for her? But there was no point denying it now, his future self had been crippled by his decisions to deny his baser instincts, or the effect of the young woman who had upended his life quite so completely since entering it. But it was a disturbing notion, to put himself in a position to risk it all with no real indication if it would be reciprocated. Her reaction to his future self, whilst understandable, was hardly encouraging. But he took comfort in the notion that Clara had clearly seen something in him worth sacrificing herself for not just once, but a thousand times over. Surely there was something there, something deeper. Because he was not entirely certain that he could convince Clara to love him, not in the way his future self would need, not with the limited time he had left, not unless there was already something more there.
Because he had of course detected the signal his future self spoke of, tracked it to its source and noted the assembled fleets around the small planet, its designation should have been a mystery. Perhaps it was to the rest, but the Doctor newly forewarned and fearing his end compared the constellations to those he'd been to so recently and retreated quietly without interfering, without becoming part of the time-line just yet. It seemed Trenzalore was waiting for him; the board was set, all but two pieces in place.
There was no doubt Clara would be there on Trenzalore, on the war ravaged planet he had seen with her to devastating effect. She had to be there it would seem if he was to survive it. Of course there was that option, to not survive it. If that even was an option, who was to say what would happen if she wasn't there? His future self had said his death and so his birth was fixed. But what he became... that could be shaped.
His phone rang. He would need to re-patch it through to the centre console at some point he noted with irritation as he yanked open the door and grasped the receiver. "Hello the TARDIS?"
Clara's voice was immediately recognisable if somewhat distressed. "Emergency! You're my boyfriend."
The Doctor froze, speechless. "I am?" he asked hesitantly wondering if the God's were smiling on him just this once.
"No, no you're not really my boyfriend." She explained but clearly her attention was elsewhere, there seemed to be a lot of clanking going on in the background.
"Then why did you...?" he started to ask.
"Because I need a boyfriend really quickly. For Christmas dinner, with me cooking, for my whole family." her words seemed to trip together the faster she spoke and he had to concentrate to take it in.
"I don't follow." He really didn't.
"I may have accidentally invented a boyfriend." She at least sounded contrite about it.
He smiled despite himself, it was soothing to his rattled nerves just to hear her sounding like herself again. He considered making a joke about accidentally inventing a boyfriend himself before, an android of course, but he reconsidered. 'Spend Christmas with her'. That's what his future self had said.
"So I was the best boyfriend you could come up with?" he teased.
He heard her exasperated huff. "I just need you to come for Christmas dinner. Just do that for me. Come to Christmas dinner and be my Christmas date?" Her desperation was palpable, he wondered what he'd been doing previously that he hadn't taken the plea seriously enough to spend it with her, most likely something to do with ominous signal calling him to his doom.
"Ok."
"Ok as in you're coming?" she asked her breathless tone suggesting she was clearly dashing about and had obviously been expecting more resistance from him on the matter.
"Ok, as in I'm outside your flat. I'll be right up." He parked the Old Girl neatly on the grass.
"Thank you, thank you Doctor; you're saving my life right now." He winced at her choice of wording. "Oh and I don't suppose you know anything about cooking turkey's?"
She opened the door to him and he couldn't help but pull her into a tight hug that lifted her feet off the floor, delighting in the little laugh she gave him. "I missed you Clara Oswald." He breathed the words into her hair, pressing a kiss there.
"Missed you too." She hugged him tightly back for a moment before he dropped her back to her feet and she beamed up at him. "Come and meet my family."
He followed, her hand grasped tightly in hers as she led him into the living room, which she had converted into a dining room for the occasion complete with a trifecta of family he hadn't before been aware of.
"Hello, so here he is." She introduced standing them at the end of the table, "This is the Doctor, my boyfriend." She said the last with a little too much determination, waiting for them to comment.
The Doctor smiled, aware of his inherent alienness in this moment and attempting to curb it for her sake. "Hello the Oswalds!" he smiled broadly when they didn't immediately respond. "Hello, Merry Christmas." He started shaking hands, pumping what he assumed to be her father's with enthusiasm, and pressing a kiss to the back of what he determined was likely the 'wicked stepmother' Linda who Clara had once mentioned in passing. "Hello, Hello." Gran stood to meet him and he kissed her cheeks delightedly.
"Oh my aren't you a tall handsome fella." Her Gran's sharp eyes lingered over him and he filed away the sight of her empty glass in hand for later.
"Doctor?" her father stood eyeing him warily, the Doctor almost wanted to wait for him to ask the inevitable 'who' question but he didn't seem to be indulging him on that and Clara' was shifting nervously.
"Smith." He added helpfully seeing Clara's rather panicked wide-eyed expression softening some. "We met once, on the phone, I said I was taking care of Clara when she'd fallen ill back when she was working for the Maitlands." Her father's expression brightened a little.
"Oh yes, George has mentioned you a couple of times, seems you and Clara have a regular Wednesday date night." Her father admitted a little begrudgingly and the Doctor smiled, dropping his arm around Clara's shoulder and pulling her just a little closer into him detecting just a hint of fatherly protectiveness.
"Incidentally a Doctor of what?" Linda questioned sipping her wine glass and eyeing the two of them, mostly him, suspiciously.
"Everything." He replied firmly, daring her to contradict him.
"He works for a scientific err... unit," Clara settled on, "of the Government. Pension, dental. All that." Clara smiled through her teeth, bending the truth just a tad he supposed, after all he did work technically for U.N.I.T on occasion. He dipped his hand into his pocket and flashed the psychic paper at Linda.
Her expression went from sour to something like a smile. "Oh I see. Head of the Scientific Division for Interstellar Exploration at the Ministry of Defence. Well isn't that lovely dear." She nudged Clara's father who looked like he'd swallowed something unpleasant and the Doctor recalled his rant about the Government, wishing he'd flashed the paper at him first instead.
"So, Doctor Smith... do you have a first name?" Her father asked not letting go of the point.
"Oh come on now Dad, it's Christmas, let's not grill the man, everyone just calls him Doctor."
The Doctor placed a calming hand palm down against Clara's back. "John."
"John Smith." Her father repeated disbelievingly.
"You asked." he smiled thinly back and he saw her father make a calculated deduction that probably wasn't in his favour.
"Would you excuse us just a moment I need to check on dinner, Doc... John, why don't you come give me a hand." Clara tugged him sharply by the hand into the kitchen closing the door firmly behind her and dropping her head into her hands for a moment whilst he approached the oven.
"Thank you, for that." She indicated apparently genuine in her thanks, back to her family behind the door, "You know how it can get with family at Christmas; sometimes it's all a little... overwhelming." She needlessly apologised.
The Doctor glanced back at her, "Not really no, my people don't celebrate it; although it is something I have become familiar with through my association with humans. But until very recently I've never had the inclination to participate in the day myself anything other than peripherally." He recalled one of the better ones he'd spent with the Ponds fondly.
Her mouth opened and closed for a moment and she crossed her arms over herself a little self-consciously. "Well, thank you for coming. It means a lot to me."
He nodded, turning back to the anaemic looking chicken in the oven. "Oh that's never going to work is it?"
"What's wrong? Do you think it's not done yet? She asked biting the index finger she'd rested against her bottom lip the way she did when she was nervous.
"I think a decent vet would give it an even chance." The Doctor muttered, smirking slightly at her apparent ineptitude to cook, well anything. It didn't seem to be limited to just her butchery of soufflés.
"Okay. Well, use an app." She gesticulated at him.
"An app?" he quirked an eyebrow at her.
"On your screwdriver. App it." She instructed looking at him like it wasn't a ridiculous suggestion.
"It's a screwdriver, it doesn't do turkey." He sighed, reaching into his pocket for the item he'd retrieved when she'd mentioned bird trouble on the phone. He pulled out the three fairly innocuous looking metal balls and held them in the palm of his hand. "Fortunately these babies can cook anything to its optimum edible temperature in about 10 minutes or less." He popped open the oven and dropped them in, watching them take off and go whizzing about inside with satisfaction.
"Brilliant." Clara beamed clapping her hands together delightedly, she turned to him her expression turning calculating. "How are you with gravy?"
Dinner went surprisingly well after that the Doctor noted to himself, as he polished off his third helping of turkey with gusto ignoring the looks he was getting for his trouble. Or maybe that was just the hats, he'd managed to win two in the cracker and had decided it was only polite to wear them both. So far he'd also only had to deflect one or two awkward questions about how he and Clara had met. 'Tech support' had been his glib response. 'I happened to be in the neighbourhood on my own business when I came across a young lady in distress, couldn't find her wifi... seemed ungentle-manly not to assist.'
He'd even had a glass of wine, disgusting stuff but he felt it best to keep up an appearance. As far as he could tell Christmas seemed to be a time when family got together to needle at one another for all the little things that had wound them up throughout the year after copious amounts of alcohol. Linda for example reminded him distinctly of Donna's mother... a far too critical and generally unpleasant woman. But then Clara hadn't so far as he had seen, treated the woman with an iota of motherly affection, so he imagined she was unlikely to receive any in return. Which given what he knew of Clara's affectionate nature made him more openly suspicious of this woman that had stepped into 'care' for his Companion.
As the meal finished the Christmas pudding came out, which he delighted in tipping yet more alcohol over and lighting with a flourish, before excusing himself from the pudding of course and just accepted the custard. He gave Clara a hopeful look and she inclined her head to the kitchen, muttering 'I defrosted them earlier for you' beneath her breath and plastering a smile on her face for her family, trying to pretend that he wasn't a mad man. He had the sense at least to stay in the kitchen whilst he dunked his still piping hot fish fingers into his big bowl of custard, not surprised in the least when Clara entered closing the door firmly but offering him a smile that seemed to declare him fondly ridiculous.
"Still hungry after all that turkey?" she crossed to him sniffing his bowl, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
"Not really, but you can't have custard without fish fingers... that would just be weird." He replied with a smile for her as he offered her a freshly dunked finger. She hesitated for a fraction of a second before taking a bite; in her favour she did try it at least offering him a polite smile and then just as politely spitting it out into the nearest napkin.
"That is disgusting" she admitted grabbing a glass of water and attempting to cleanse her pallet. He shrugged unbothered by her aversion.
"So what happens next at a family Christmas?" he pressed genuinely curious and she gave him a look he wasn't quite sure how to decipher, she seemed to be expecting him to mock her. When his expression didn't alter from open and patient she visibly softened.
"Oh, well we usually sit around and watch the telly, play a board game maybe, drink a little too much, eat more chocolate. Then they leave and I clean up and collapse into bed." She smiled at his expression which was at best tolerable he imagined. "You don't have to stay." She offered gently, reaching out to touch his arm, "You've already gone above and beyond for a friend in need." She admitted and he ducked his head, nodding firmly and placing the now empty bowl on the counter top.
"I'd like to." He replied. "Stay that is." He placed his hand over hers, brushing the back of the delicate skin there, he lifted his eyes to hers. "If that's ok with you?"
She seemed to startle for a moment and he kept the full intensity of his gaze on her. "Yes." She stammered slightly over the simple word. "Of course it is." Her smile turned megawatt which only deepened her dimples, he felt a moment of guilt for manipulating this situation, for taking this step for the both of them, it seemed somehow... un-gentlemanly not to have given her fair warning that he was changing the parameters of their relationship. But the memory of her, huddled in the corner of a cell in his TARDIS, her eyes pools of madness pressed and the shadow of the smile on the lips of the monster that had put her there. It gave him resolve.
"Good." He took her hand leaning forward and pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth that lingered just a fraction too long to be idle, he pulled back seeing her eyes widen in mild but not unpleasant surprise he noted; after all it was the type of kiss she had given him before. "Best get back to them then, before they start to think I've taken you into the kitchen to ravage you." With his grip on her skin he could detect the flutter in her pulse and the slight blush that crept up to her cheek, matched with her sudden inability to meet his eyes. He congratulated himself inwardly, apparently even in this body he could still have an effect and evidently she wasn't as indifferent to him as he'd feared.
The Doctor sank back into the sofa, due to the sheer lack of space with the other family members on it, it had been perfectly natural to tug Clara as close into his body as possible, so that she was now tucked gently into his arm. A manoeuvre she hadn't commented on, or attempted to move from, not even when he'd dropped a hand onto her leg and which was now, quite apart from his conscious thoughts, stroking idle patterns as she laughed lightly at the comedy show on TV that her family had unanimously decided needed to go on. Something about a transvestite Irish lady with more sons than sense, but he supposed it was amusing enough. He'd of course demolished them all at the board games earlier, Cludo had taken him about ten minutes to deduce the killer, although he rather failed to see how bankrupting your family members in a game of Monopoly was supposed to increase harmony.
I fact it wasn't long at all before he was heartily shaking her father's hand, accepting a bony hug from her Gran, a brief air kiss with Linda and wishing them a safe trip as the taxi pulled up to take them home. He wondered if Clara half expected him to take his leave too, she seemed to be waiting for him to dismiss himself, instead he grasped her hand gently and led her back up the stairs to the apartment. He often played the fool, but he was more than adept and noticing and understanding people's emotional states, however well they were hiding them and he couldn't help but notice she was suddenly and inexplicably nervous as she closed the door behind him and he moved to start collecting up the crockery from dinner. So much so that she stood watching him from the doorway.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" she asked gently.
He glanced back offering her a smile. "Clearing up, wasn't that what you said was next on the agenda. Hardly seems fair that you have to do that by yourself. It is still Christmas after all." He continued piling up all the plates, swooping into the kitchen and started filling the sink with warm water.
They worked quietly together, him washing her drying, then her attempting to stop him alphabetising her kitchen cabinets as he lamented her lack of order. The Doctor stood arms crossed soaking in the contented feeling that had been growing inside of him all day as he leant against the kitchen counter watching her as she safely put away the last glass and turned to face him. That nervous energy was back he noted. He checked his watch. "9 o'clock, seems a little early for bed." He reminded her of her aforementioned schedule and she fiddled with the rings on her fingers.
"Shouldn't you be getting back to the TARDIS Doctor, won't she get jealous if you don't at least spend some of Christmas with her?" She teased and he smiled back at her.
"She's a big girl, I'm sure she'll manage just fine." He pushed off the counter and approached her. Perhaps it was the strange situation, him being in her home, Christmas time, them not being in some life and death situation; but he could feel the tension radiating off her, which didn't usually happen with this level of intensity when they were alone... ok well sometimes it did but more from him, not her. Or perhaps she was just responding to him, picking up on the signals he was no doubt giving out as he tested his self imposed boundaries with her.
"You seem nervous Clara. If I'm making you uncomfortable I can leave." He offered reaching out and touching her hand, drawing it up to his stomach, where he refused to relinquish it.
She shook her head as if dismissing the ridiculous notion. "No, no, of course you're not I'm fine. I guess I just, well I didn't expect you to play the boyfriend role quite so well." She admitted and he smirked, wondering how her family had interpreted what had become perfectly normal if somewhat frequent touches they gave each other, or the way he felt the need to kiss her forehead, her temple, her hands. He'd noticed her becoming hyper aware of it, jumping slightly when his hand had slid around her waist as he'd tucked her into his side as they watched TV together resting his head on hers.
"I wasn't aware I'd treated you any differently?" He could hear the playfulness in his own voice and let his eyes linger on her lips, wondering if she would really let him kiss her if he tried. He'd managed to trap her against the work surface he realised, crowding her personal space.
"Doctor?" Her voice was soft, hesitant as she looked up at him through her lashes, most likely completely unaware of the effect such a look could have on a man... on him. "Is everything ok, you've been a little different today?" she pressed clearly looking for an honest answer.
"Different how?" he didn't take his eyes off her, waiting, wondering how intuitive she really was.
"A little... intense." Her voice had dropped to an almost whisper as she seemed to take in the situation afresh, of his position and hers.
He considered being evasive, but he sensed that would shut her down. Perhaps now was the time for honesty, his future self had urged him to be truthful with her, to let it out, to risk himself. "I have." He acknowledged. "I suppose you could say I had a wakeup call." He admitted, his hand dropping to her waist, resting their lightly with her hand still entrapped in his own held against his hearts which had begun to beat rather more quickly.
"I'm sorry." She murmured, "Do you want to talk about it?"
He almost chuckled, hearing her hesitance, always so careful, so guarded with him. "It's you." He admitted and she took in a small breath.
"Oh." She managed, dropping his gaze.
"I've been unfair to you." He continued and she looked up, her lower lip trembling slightly. "For a long time I treated you like a puzzle to solve, an enigma, I let the obsession I had with finding out what you were prevent me from seeing who you were."
"It's ok Doctor." She shrugged, pulling her hand from his and turning leaving her back to him whilst her head dropped slightly and he sighed. "I get it Doctor, now you've solved me there's no reason to keep me around. It's ok, I knew it would happen sooner or later. You have to keep moving it's who you are." Her avoiding expression as she gave him the back of her head masked the clear hurt at what she assumed was his rejection, whether she'd clearly been expecting it or not.
The Doctor felt irritation stab at him, for his own inadequacies, for her damn ability to see through him every other time, except right now when it mattered. He closed the distance between them, pressing his chest into her back and sliding his arms around her waist, holding her firm and letting her feel just what she did to him, however hard he fought it, even with his superior grasp on his peripheral blood flow. Her shocked breath as she stood bolt upright suggested she got the message.
"Doctor... what?" she asked and he dropped his lips to her ear silencing her question and drawing an altogether different sound of surprise from her throat.
"I don't want you to leave me, far from it. But this dance we've been doing, it needs to change. I blame myself of course for letting it go on this long." He sighed, dropping his head onto hers and pulling her as close as he could manage into his chest, his arms enveloping her. "I've hidden behind the idea that I couldn't trust the Impossible Girl that had landed in my life... you were perfect you see?" It was a risk he knew letting her so far into his thoughts but he needed her to understand the depth of his deception. "Perfect in every way for me," he clarified, "smart, funny, brave, kind, so beautiful." He felt her go unnaturally still against him, her breath held. "Too perfect." He rasped and he felt her stillness give way to a tremble as he let his hands begin to trace along her stomach and up her ribcage. "Given all that can you blame me for being so certain you were a trap?" He admitted pressing a kiss to her temple. "Did I ever tell you how long I spent in that monastery in the 12th Century, pondering you?"
"No, you didn't." Her voice had a strange pitch to it and he smiled against her cheek realising he was rocking them slightly, his hands still stroking lightly down her arms, that wouldn't change he realised with a small start of disquiet, his need to touch her... his future face had clearly felt that desire as keenly as he ever had.
"Almost a decade." He whispered and she remained silent, clearly not wanting to risk him clamming up on her, "Not long perhaps by Time Lord standards, but long enough I assure you to fuel an obsession. Certainly longer than I have ever spent considering a single individual, human or otherwise." He lifted his hands taking the opportunity to cradle her face with them as she finally turned to look up at him. "And then you sacrificed yourself for me and I knew; knew I had been a foolish old man because you were never a trap," he dropped a gentle kiss to her forehead "You were always my salvation."
She was staring up at him without a word, but he could practically hear the questions buzzing through her skull, those inquisitive, expressive eyes of hers scanning his face for a hint of deception, or perhaps just trying to understand why he'd chosen now to confess. But there was definite conflict there, she was clearly torn between giving in to him and running from him. "I want you." He told her boldly, "But you know that," He brushed her cheeks with his thumbs, leaning in close enough that they were sharing one breath, "But do you know that it is so much more than a physical infatuation?" he brushed his lips across her cheek, feeling a feint trembling from her. "Deeper even than need." He confessed on dangerous territory now, not surprised when she didn't comment, clearly waiting for him to make the final move.
"Clara," he rasped, "Tell me that you feel nothing for me and we can forget all about this, go back to just being Companions sharing a grand adventure." As she hesitated he felt his stomach churn and his hearts pound dangerously, he hadn't realised until this moment just quite what her rejection might do to him, hadn't considered she truly might, not now he had finally realised how badly he wanted her like this, wanted her to want him.
Finally a small hesitant smile crept across her face, "Wasn't I the one that asked you to be my boyfriend?" she whispered back, then she lifted herself up carefully onto her tiptoes and with her eyes on his brushed her lips feather light over his, before pulling back to see his reaction.
He smirked, eyes sparking with mischief, "You asked me to pretend to be your boyfriend." He lowered his lips to her throat pressing an almost kiss just beneath her ear and inhaling the scent of her that he found perfectly tantalising.
Her hand caught his cheek, drawing his face back up until their noses touched. "So make me believe it."
Perhaps he smiled, he didn't remember, all he recalled was pressing his mouth against hers and hearing her gasp of surprise as he wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up onto the countertop. There was no flailing, no nervous gestures as he stepped between her legs, wrapping them around his hips firmly and sliding his tongue into her welcoming mouth. He knew he was moving quickly given that this was technically the first kiss they'd shared. Frantic even as his hands pulled her closer still, their lips duelling furiously but he wasn't willing to allow an inch of air between them for fear she'd reconsider as a year of pent up emotions on her part and near a decade on his spilled out.
She pulled back and he felt the loss of her warmth against him keenly, even as he admired the way her lips had swollen just a fraction with his efforts. "Don't you think this is a little fast?" Her hands were splayed lightly on his chest. It was exactly the argument he had feared, because he wasn't sure he could slow down, his blood was roaring through his ears and rapidly heading south. Time Lords never were good at impulse control, or restraining their urges, which was probably why his civilisation had doomed itself into extinction... and why he'd pushed the big red doomsday button on them, or hadn't as the case may have turned out.
"Well." He pressed, kissing her cheeks and her lips gently. "I have been your boyfriend for going on a year now if you believe what Angie and Artie have been saying. I'd say I've been the picture of patience."
Clara clearly had no argument for that, or didn't want to one and he took advantage of her distraction capturing her throat with his mouth, absorbing the feel and the timbre of the chuckle that reverberated through her throat.
"Like you have ever been patient." She hissed as his teeth worried her skin and her hand rose to his cheek, drawing his mouth back to hers. His superior senses let him feel every inch of her skin that brushed his, every strand of her hair as it ran through his fingers; every brush of her tongue against his. Perhaps she was right he never had been the most patient, because he couldn't help but push himself against her centre his own groan as wanton as hers as she pressed back, her legs tightening reflexively around him as she clutched the back of his head holding him to her.
His hands rose to her covered breasts grasping them firmly and she arched her back into his touch, her lips falling to his jaw in distraction. But her hands were beneath his jacket tugging it down his arms and tossing it aside as she pushed down the braces, eager now it seemed to move this a step forward. His shirt went next and he felt goose bumps rise along his back as he was exposed to the slightly cooler air. They paused, her eyes lingering over the flesh she had revealed and darkened from the usual honey tone to a midnight black as her pupils dilated. If he had been in any doubt that she wanted him, that she reciprocated then she erased it now as she reached down and moved to lift her cardigan over her head. He stilled her hands, tracing over the bow tie shapes knitted into it that he couldn't help but notice the moment he'd seen her.
"For me?" he asked quietly, raising a hand to her cheek and seeing the slight blush which given the circumstance was frankly endearing, as she nodded. He smirked and undid each button carefully, his hands lingering as he placed the item gently on the counter behind her, he intended for her to wear that particular article again. The simple white shirt he took as much care with as it slid down her arms, exposing the creamy expanse of her skin and the lace white bra beneath. But it was the skirt he admired most, he ran his hand along her covered thighs, sliding them beneath the red tartan number and listening to every hitch in her breath as he touched her everywhere but where she wanted. "You and your skirts." He admitted, kissing her hard as he swept his fingers between her legs and she cried out lightly into his mouth. She'd always tormented him with her little skirts and those dresses; he figured she was in for a little tormenting of her own.
His hands slid higher and he found the waistband of her tights, he grasped her around the middle lifting her nearly non-existent weight against him as he slid them over the perfect curve of her ass, taking his time to fondle those same firm curves as he went. Every inch of skin he exposed was like a new chapter in the most exquisite book and he chased the skin with his touch, until he had divested her of them and her underwear entirely. He took a moment as he slid to his knees to stare up at her, perched atop the counter in her own kitchen, her legs apart, her hair tousled, her lips bee-stung and her breathing thready as she looked at him through her dark hooded gaze, clad only in her bra and skirt. "Perfect." He whispered before he dropped his head between her legs and found something else as equally perfect.
The sounds she made as he stroked and licked her to orgasm he made sure were filed away in his memory for safe keeping as she trembled against him, the small flutters of her against his lips telling him if her cries hadn't, that he had tormented her long enough. He rose to his feet, his own hands deftly making short work of his trousers, he never had seen the need for underwear himself as he stood between her legs, letting his erection slide along her thigh. She kissed him, drawing his mouth down to hers and his hands around her, until he'd freed her from the lace bra. The skirt he so admired stayed on he noted as her legs tugged him closer, her hips arching towards him. He dropped one hand to her back using it to guide her as the tip of him brushed her centre, his other hand caught her face running his thumb along her bottom lip. "My Clara." He told her fiercely in his own form of endearment, as he thrust hard into her tight heat drawing a cry of surprise from her.
She clutched him tightly and he stilled, giving her a moment to accommodate him as he found her neck again, unable to resist sucking the flesh there hard enough to leave a mark he would be able to claim as his own.
"You won't break me you know." She teased when he still hadn't moved, her hand tangling in his over long hair with just a hint of a tug. He took that as permission and dropped his hands to her hips, pulling out far enough that he could thrust back in using one long powerful movement that had her gasping in wide eyed surprise. Perhaps she hadn't expected him to have any skill at all at this, given as he'd made no indication prior to this that he was anything other than a prudish man-child he supposed he could forgive her that. But he didn't ease up, thrusting as hard and as deep as he dared into her as she made ever more incoherent sounds against him, which he dutifully caught with his mouth; he wanted to freeze the moment his name 'Doctor' tumbled from her lips again and again as she clung to him. He pistoned his hips feverishly into her as he cried out his own release, collapsing against her and burying his head in her neck whilst he simply listened to their laboured breathing and the sound of her heart beating rapidly against his pair.
There was no going back of course. For better or worse he had changed their relationship, let her in to that corner of his heart he'd long ago walled off for fear of what it would bring. Or who as it turned out. Thoughts of what he'd let happen to her, what he had done, turned his thoughts dark and he captured her mouth firmly letting every emotion good and bad, bleed into her. It seemed improbable that he could find his need for her building again so soon, but it was undeniable as he stiffened inside of her. She pulled back giving him an incredulous look that he ignored, the kitchen counter would never do... not again. He pulled out of her with regret and seeing the slight look of disappointment on her face he swept her into his arms. "Bedroom?" he queried and she smirked, pointing the way.
"So eager." She nibbled on his ear lobe.
He closed his eyes, the feel of her teeth sending a shiver down his spine. "Oh you have no idea." He murmured finding her bedroom and quite deliberately enjoying the symbolism as he carried her over the threshold. Perhaps there was reason yet behind the madness of his future self, because he couldn't conceive of reducing the girl in his arms to a broken shell. He would lay down in front of a Dalek fleet in fact to stop it. But then he supposed that was rather the point his future self had been making when he sent him back here to change this particular day.