understand all sides

A/N: Another one I forgot to post. This one was written in January, so already this year, at least! Though this year certainly seems to be longer than any of the previous ones… and it's barely July.

So, yes. After eons, we have Clara. Clara Oswin Oswald, the Impossible Girl.

She's… not my favourite, honestly. I like her storyline, really, but I never quite managed to like her. Though, admittedly, I like her more than I liked Rose (and I even cried with Clara's death, which I never did for Rose; either in Doomsday or in Journey's End). So, there's that!

But, yeah, I think this one ended up more romance-y than River's, somehow? Despite the fact that River and the Doctor are ACTUALLY married, and Clara is… not. Hahaha. Well. I did start this whole series as an excuse to say "the Doctor actually loved every single one of their companions, just didn't really think it'd be prudent to stay with any of them", so, yay!

Warnings and additional tags: character study, relationship study, Major Character Death (though I managed to avoid it in this story, somehow), some serious problems with how the Doctor sees themselves, canon compliant, angst.

Disclaimer: As always, I do not own Doctor Who. Or the song "Nine" (which is, as always, by Sleeping At Last).

It looks like empathy

To understand all sides

But I'm just trying to find myself through

Someone else's eyes

— "Nine", Sleeping At Last

The girl in the Dalek, the girl who survived through turning into a Dalek… the girl who gave her life to save him and his family, gave her life for an impossibility and an emotion she shouldn't feel anymore.

The girl in the snow, the girl who was a barmaid and a governor and impossible. The girl who shared a face he'd seen die before, the girl who knew the one word to make him move and live again. The girl who helped him… and died.

Again.

(another sacrifice in a war that wasn't even there anymore, was it? no, another sacrifice to keep him alive. another life lost when there was no reason to.

another grave in his name.

when did it all end?)

Yet…

The girl who appeared to him. Just as he'd met her before. Oswin Oswald. Clara. Clara Oswald. The genius, amazing, brave and ridiculously impossible girl. Non-alive, dead, alive, dead, and alive yet again. The same face, the same name, the same parting words, again and again.

Yet, somehow, a human.

Just a human. Just an impossible human.

She asked him to remember her, but how could he ever forget her?

She was amazing, impossible, the perfect puzzle. The perfect distraction from his latest bout of grief. The perfect problem for him to solve.

A girl who died and died yet never died at all. The girl who should be more than a Fixed Point, by now, but that somehow managed to escape it. Escape it all.

A girl who should, at most, be another friend, accompanying him into space and adventures and show him how utterly amazing it all was… yet, somehow, ended up more. So… so much more.

A girl. Just a human, fragile girl.

(an impossibility, something that couldn't happen; a human who wouldn't die)

A girl who could be anything but fragile.

She was perfect.

(she was perfect for him. she was perfect… too perfect)

He should have learned to be wary of perfectness by now.

.

(Trenzalore was something he'd rather forget. Trenzalore with its graves and its pain. Trenzalore with just another grave in his name, with something impossible, with the hurt that made him bleed and the impossibility he at last had to acknowledge.

Trenzalore, where goodbyes were given and answers were reached.

Trenzalore and the explanation of this impossibility.

He wondered whether he'd prefer her to keep being just impossible or if this made it all the more amazing.)

.

Again and again, she proved herself. Her perfectness. Everything he could ever need or want. The funny, brave woman who'd stand by him when he needed warmth the most. The gentle soul who'd offer him a hand when he found himself the most lost. The well of emotions when he felt so empty inside.

The voice of reason when he stood before a button and thought it would be worth it.

Clara Oswald. The girl who died and died again. The girl woven in his timeline. The girl he was fated to meet.

The girl who gave him the power to correct his biggest mistake.

.

(A human. A Time Lord. Two warring races, standing together in the ruins of Gallifrey.

Except, they hadn't broken it, had they? No… they'd fixed it. They stood on those ruins, those same ruins of the Prophecy, and they had brought it back. Back to life. Back to existence.

Two warring races. And the entirely wrong Prophecy.

He'd like to shove that in The Matrix face. If it had a face. If he ever went back to Gallifrey.

He, who once destroyed Gallifrey, responsible for saving them. Hah.

Yes. This girl… his Impossible Girl… she was perfect for him, was she not? Even if it was by design of others. Still, he'd once married the woman designed to kill him. What was the problem in befriending the one designed to meet him?)

.

After everything she'd done for him, he thought this was it. This was the time. The one woman, the one human, he could have, the one human who'd stand by him and survive, the last friend he'd have before his death.

… except he couldn't force himself to watch her die, not really. Not even when he knew his own time crept closer. Not even when he knew he'd die there, before the crack that haunted him for so long, now, keeping secret the last secret he would ever need to keep.

He sent her home, goodbye heavy in his hearts, and knew this was the last time he'd see her. The last he'd have of her.

He supposed he could die happily. Never watching her die. Saying his goodbyes when she was still alive (for once, after every time she had died for him), when she was still happy and funny and brave and perfect.

(he would one day look upon these thoughts and despair at ever thinking them)

She came back.

(he didn't know whether to laugh or cry — oh, his Impossible Girl, defying him even when he would only let her down for it)

.

(he once faced death twice for one human woman

he supposed it was only fair he allowed this one, who'd died so much for him, the opportunity to stand by him when his own time came)

.

he survived

(she saved him. again)

.

He didn't think she deserved this much rage and pain, but after everything… after every one of his wrongs and every one of his painful corrections and every single moment of truth, tossed in his face without a buffer, he couldn't quite fix himself.

Besides, she was everything he could ever want or need, was she not?

(he knew, distantly, he was being cruel. Knew he was breaking his own rules.

He couldn't find it in himself to care.

So he asked her to do so for him.)

He was bereft of every single reason as to keep smiling, keep pretending, and she paid the price for it, but he couldn't…. couldn't fake it, not anymore. Not when she'd seen him at his worst and best and everything in between, not when she'd been such a huge part of his life, not when she had sacrificed so much of herself for him.

He could allow her this much, at least, couldn't he?

(except, maybe, she didn't want it.

He was too much a coward as to ask her.)

.

Perfection was overestimated.

(he learned that long ago. Somehow, he kept making the same mistakes, again and again. Like a broken, forgotten grave. Like a red button. Like another sacrifice in his name.

Like yet another Child of Time, weaponized for his sake.)

So, he broke it.

He broke her.

(he regretted every single moment of it, even when he couldn't find it in himself to actually do so)

.

When she started calling herself The Doctor

(shouldn't, shouldn't ever try that, should remain herself, should remain human, should remain bravefunnylovelyamazingimpossible, should stop trying to become so lostoldlonelydistortedwrong)

he should have realized.

He doesn't travel with others of himself. There's a reason why he should never try that.

There's also a reason why he should never, ever try to imagine a forever.

(she once commented on it, heartbroken but still so far away from the pain of it:

they were all ghosts, to him.)

The reason was clear. Simple. Easy to remember.

So, so easy to try and forget, too.

claranonononononONONOCLARA

.

Maybe the Prophecy was right, after all. Maybe he was right, after all.

Maybe he was the Hybrid. The one who'd stand over the ruins of Gallifrey and know he did it.

… or maybe Me was right, and he could never be the Hybrid alone. He'd thought it, once. Two warring races, standing together in the ruins of Gallifrey. What if the Hybrid wasn't one being, but two?

It was only him, though. He, alone, once broke Gallifrey. He, alone, almost broke the whole universe. He, alone, almost stood over the ruins of everything…

But he only did it to bring her back. Only did it so she would stand with him.

So maybe Me was right.

(and she was. At least about one thing, she was.

Even at the end, Clara had always been one thing:

brave

And it had been beautiful.)

And maybe he was right, too. Maybe he shouldn't stay with her. Maybe it would be better for them… for both of them… all of them, all of the universe… if he and Clara, his Impossible Girl, his human, his carer… were to part. At last.

There was always a problem in allowing something designed for him to become part of his life. He should have known that.

Still. It didn't mean he'd like it, parting ways. It didn't mean he'd do it lightly.

It didn't mean it didn't feel a bit like dying, all over again… with no new regenerations bestowed upon him, this time.

(like losing perfection and love and a chance on forever, all over again)

But, of course.

It only felt like that for a while. A single moment.

And then it felt like nothing. He knew, objectively speaking — because he was old and he was smart and he knew his mind, even if he sometimes wanted not to —, that he was missing something. Missing her. This Clara of his. This Clara he wrote about. And he knew, from the empty parts of his memories, that he had loved her. That he hadn't wanted to let her go.

But she was gone, now, and he couldn't even remember her enough to seek her.

How could he do this?, he thought for one despairing moment… but he knew. He remembered that, yet.

It was either this or risking the universe.

In the moments where he wondered about her, about the woman he clearly cherished enough to return home for, he wondered if he'd done the right choice.)

.

he supposed he could forget her, after all

.

This one ended up with a different style from the others, and I don't even know how that happened but, ah, I guess I liked it? Hope you did, too!