The Hands That Held The Gun

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"There's something else I need to tell you," said Clara, curled up on the sofa in the crook of Danny's arm. "Something … embarrassing."

"Don't tell me," he joked. "You're an alien after all. With tentacles and everything." She felt him tense up in preparation for the news.

"Nope. Still from Blackpool."

"You slept with the Doctor?"

"God, no."

"You had a sex change?"

She whacked him on the chest with the flat of her hand. "No! Danny, I'm serious."

"Fire away."

Fire. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again, a tried-and-true tactic to avoid seeing the Skovox Blitzer's fireballs destroying her school. Nothing here; nothing but the television, playing a football match on low volume that neither was paying attention to, the cream-colored walls and bookshelves of her living-room, the potted fern. Everything normal. She nestled closer to Danny, whom she could have lost that day. Only the more reason to tell him the truth as he has asked.

She took a deep breath and eased herself away, sitting up straight so she could make her confession eye-to-eye.

"So … you know when I said the Doctor travels in time?"

"Yeah?"

If she had an about-to-cancel frown, Clara thought ruefully, Danny had a definite get-the-bad-news-over-with frown between his handsome dark eyes. It didn't make this easier.

"When you were little … around eight or so … can you… do you remember two people who came to your group home in Gloucester? The night when we … when someone hid under your blanket? When we gave you the toy soldier?"

She blushed painfully and looked down at her knotted hands. Danny's sharp intake of breath told her he'd understood.

"That … you mean that was … "

"Me and the Doctor, yeah. I mean, the Doctor and I."

Danny laughed softly. "English teacher."

"Occupational hazard." She giggled too, a little too loud and shrill. Was this his way of accepting her behavior, or was it that cool, quiet anger of his beginning to build? She dared to glance up. Danny was staring at her with fixed intensity, as if he'd never set eyes on her before.

"Were you doing a background check?" he asked tonelessly. "Did you … did you think I was a threat? Just because I'm a soldier, did you - "

"No! Danny, no! I wouldn't put it past the Doctor, honestly. He did it to me when we first met – the secret background check, I mean. But I promise, getting into your childhood was an accident. I was hooked up to the TARDIS' telepathic circuits, and I … got distracted."

"By what?"

"By you, of course! It was after that terrible first date, and I couldn't stop thinking about you and how sorry I was for all the stupid things I said, and then this little boy looked out the window and waved to me in the exact same way as you … "

Shut up and breathe, Clara, she imagined the Doctor saying. She shut up, thinking of Danny in his pink shirt, his awkward wave and delighted smile. How furious with herself she'd been after their arguments that night, and how bitterly disappointed, out of all proportion to the time they'd known each other. She'd believed even then that they had something beautiful. Twice they'd walked out on each other, and both times they'd come back. After surviving that, couldn't their love survive this too?

He tilted his head one way, then the other – then broke out into a wide, astonished grin.

"Of course!" He took both her hands in his and squeezed them tightly. "I knew you reminded me of someone! You were the lady in black – the one who set the guards round my bed! And the Doctor was that old fella who told me fear was like 'rrrocket fuel'!" He imitated the Doctor's accent so badly they both had to laugh again.

"You both taught me how to be brave," he said, more seriously. "I never forgot you. I always … " He ducked his head and made an embarrassed little sound.

"Always what?"

"Always imagined I'd fall in love with a woman like her – like you – when I was older. You were my … my ideal, I guess. Why'd you think I was such a nervous wreck when we first met?"

The glow in his face made her dizzy with gratitude – and with shame, for lying to him for so long. She stroked his cheek, running her fingers over the roughness of his beard, as she turned his face towards hers.

"Danny, I'm no one's ideal." It was vital that he understand this. "I already have to be a conscience for the Doctor, a role model for the kids and a good daughter to my dad. I need at least one person in my life who doesn't see me as anything but me."

"I know," he said wryly. "You're controlling, you've got a mouth on you, and you travel with a madman in a box. Of course you're not perfect, nobody is. But that doesn't mean you can't be perfect for me."

He took her hand away from his face, only to kiss her knuckles like an old-fashioned gentleman. She tried to picture him in his dress uniform and her heart pounded; let the Doctor say what he liked about soldiers, the way they loved was powerful. Perhaps because they knew better than most how fleeting life could be.

"Let me tell you something, Clara," he said, still holding her hand. "Do you remember that comment you made when we first met? 'Shoot people and then cry about it'?"

"Oh, God, Danny, I'm sorry. That was so wrong - "

"No. It was right."

She raised her eyebrows in confusion.

"You, Clara Oswald, are the most intelligent human being I've ever met," said Danny, warm love and cool respect blending in his face. "You had me pegged in one conversation. I love that about you, even when it terrifies me."

"What do you mean?"

But she knew what he meant, and his words only confirmed it.

"I have shot people. And cried about it. There was this boy once, couldn't have been older than my Coal Hill Cadets, but he had a gun. Terrorists don't hold back from using children. I tried talking, but he didn't speak English, and I barely knew enough of his language to ask for a drink of water … I was thirsty, dead tired, can't remember which of us shot first. I ducked behind a rock, and when the dust cleared … "

He broke off, his face working passionately to hold back the tears that had exposed him to his students' contempt. He could have been little Rupert Pink again, afraid of the darkness under his bed, curled up alone on the floor of his room at the West Country Children's home – but his pain was a grown man's, and so was his strength.

Clara threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shoulder. He jumped, not unlike the Doctor, but then relaxed in her arms and drew her close with a sigh.

"One time," she whispered, "The Doctor and I got attacked by a swarm of Cybermen – robots that assimilate everyone they meet, like the Borg in Star Trek. Only real. And even more horrible." It was a measure of the power of the moment that Danny, a lifelong Trekkie himself, took this without a word. "They … they were people once, but we couldn't save them. If the locals hadn't lent me a gun ... and one time, I saw him give someone a suicide pill. The man was about to die anyway, there was nothing we could do, but still … Oh, I know it's not the same, but - "

"But it is," he said, holding her face between his hands like something precious, the way he might have held his canteen when he was thirsty in some faraway desert. "You know what it's like," he said simply. "Better than anyone I've ever known."

"I hope so."

Her own hands, the same hands that had carried the gun, rested on his shoulders. It felt like a miracle to her that they could touch each other like this after what they'd seen and done, but perhaps that was the very reason why they could.

"So that's why you quit," she murmured, half to herself and half to him. "Why you became a teacher and started the Cadets. To help children, instead of … "

"Killing them. You can say it."

"So you teach them discipline, teamwork, self-defense … everything good you took out of the army, and none of the bad."

"I try to, yeah."

"Soldiers without guns. The bravest kind."

His smile melted her like chocolate in the sun. "A very clever lady taught me that."

"You, Sergeant Pink," she whispered against his mouth, "Are the best surprise I've had in years. And that includes meeting Georges Bizet."

"Happy to be of service, ma'am."