Summary: If someone’s gone, do pictures really help?
I’ve been looking so long at these pictures of you/that I almost believe that they’re real — The Cure
I always liked it slow — Leonard Cohen
~~ Chapter One
The Doctor swore to himself that all he was going to do was take a few pictures, that he was simply repaying a kindness to a young woman who couldn’t bear the thought of him alone on Christmas Eve. He would nip back to 1990, spend a couple of days taking pictures, maybe catch a Bowie concert.
And there was that other thing that needed doing, now that he thought of it, that was probably best sorted in the past, where there were fewer…complications.
xxxXXXxxx
~St. Luke’s University, Spring Term, 2016
After seventy years, the sea of faces in the vast lecture hall had become an ocean of faces, all laughably young and all starting to look alike. It wasn’t that the Doctor had not noticed a specific face now and again. It was a vexing feature of this body, that a pretty face could so easily turn his head. He had ignored this feature for the most part, so it startled him when, mid-lecture, his gaze suddenly focused on one face. The girl zoomed into his field of view as if he’d adjusted a telescope, the rest of the world receding.
His voice had stuttered to a stop. She stared expectantly at him, smiling, her face seeming to shimmer briefly with golden light.
The Doctor coughed into his fist, cleared his throat and went on with his lecture, his eyes flickering to her repeatedly as he rhapsodized about the ridiculousness of string theory, showing off, just a little, for her.
She was very pretty.
“Ever fancied someone you knew you shouldn’t?” whispered the voice of Amy Pond.
He dismissed the thought. This was not that.
He glanced again at the pretty face, with its expressive brows and large eyes that sparkled with intelligence and curiosity. He watched her as she filed out with the rest of the students. While the others had laptops and tablets, she held a battered spiral notebook clutched to her narrow chest. There was something familiar about her: the gangly limbs, the mass of hair with a mind of its own, an aura of aloneness. He recognized her — from where, he did not know.
The Doctor turned and frowned at the group of whispering graduate assistants assigned to him. Why were there so many? The university kept assigning them; the Doctor kept ignoring them. Perhaps now they could prove themselves useful. He pointed to one and waved him over.
“Useless Minion, find the young woman sitting in seat 23 G.”
Useless Minion grinned. “The pretty one with the —.”
“Stop. Talking. Now.” said the Doctor, dusting chalk from his fingers with a rag, his voice low and conversational. “Find her and give her this.” He handed Useless Minion a slip of paper. The Doctor bent forward a bit, looking down at the boy. “And if you say anything to her beyond this is from the Doctor, I will know and I will not be happy,” he said, then smiled with a brief flash of teeth.
Useless Minion took a stumbling, wide-eyed step back, turned and fled. The Doctor gazed at the rest of the graduate assistants without blinking until they departed dejectedly, walking out in a line, like sad ducklings.
The Doctor hopped off the stage and climbed the stairs to row G. He sidestepped down the row until he got to seat 23 and sat down. It was still faintly warm from her body. He was a rubbish telepath, but a person’s thoughts were simply electrical impulses and chemical reactions. For such an hilariously tiny-brained species, humans leaked massive clouds of chemicals and charged particles, both of which left a temporary signature. He could sometimes “read” these signatures in a recently vacated space.
The Doctor planted his elbows on the armrests of seat G 23, closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips to his forehead. He emptied his mind and braced himself for what he knew he was going to pick up from his other students: crude speculation about the bulge in his trousers, did he sleep nude or did he prefer women or men or both and —.
Fucking hell, were they even listening to his lectures?
He breathed slowly, concentrating, sifting, filtering out the interference. He could sense the girl, but she was just out of reach. He sighed and opened his eyes. He drummed his fingers on the armrests.
“Okay, Fate. We have a thing, you and I,” he murmured. “What have you brought me, this time?”
~~Chapter 2
The Doctor entered the Tardis that evening and leaned back against the doors. He inhaled deeply, letting his mind quiet. There was slightly more nitrogen inside the Tardis than outside, making the oxygen exchange in his blood slightly more efficient. His lungs expanded and his muscles settled more comfortably against his bones. He pushed off from the doors, rolling his neck, stretching the kinks out of his shoulders.
The Tardis greeted him with a gentle wheeze.
“Hello, darling,” said the Doctor.
He took off his coat and laid it neatly on the stair rail. He walked to the console, thought for a moment then typed briefly at a keyboard. He pulled the monitor down to read the results of his query.
The Tardis grumbled faintly.
“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor. “Just answer the question, please.”
There was a series of whirrs and beeps as the Tardis shuffled through the facial recognition program. With a soft ping, the image of a university employee key card embossed with a photo of the girl in seat 23 G appeared on the screen, a short paragraph of text alongside.
“Hello, Bill Potts,” said the Doctor. “Who are you?” he said, reading the text quickly. “Height, weight, hair and eye color, blah blah blah. Twenty-five years old, tiny bank balance. Maxed-out library card. Well done on those A-levels. Impressive MAT. Those Oxbridge pudding brains should’ve all been fighting over you. So why are you here at St. Luke’s, not a student, working in the canteen?”
The Tardis shrugged with a flicker of the lights.
“Is there anything else? Social media? NHS records?”
The Tardis complied with a pouty thump that the Doctor ignored.
Bill’s social media presence was a sparse Facebook page and a few comments on a Spotify account.
“Show me everything else,” said the Doctor.
The monitor screen went blank.
The Doctor frowned. “What is it?”
There was a long pause then another faint grumble.
“Do as you are told,” he said, quietly.
An image winked on the monitor. It was Bill’s birth certificate.
She’d been born prematurely and discharged from hospital nearly a month after her birth. Her mother’s name was Johanna Potts. The space for the father’s name was empty.
“Tell me about the mother.”
A death certificate replaced the birth certificate on the monitor. Johanna Potts had been removed from life support two days after Bill’s birth. The cause of death was subarachnoid hemorrhage. She’d had a stroke during childbirth due to sudden onset pre-eclampsia. Address in East London. Occupation was entered as “Art Therapist”. Her parents were listed as deceased. “Billie Holiday Potts, daughter” was entered as next of kin. Johanna’s school records showed a student near the top of her class throughout, both at Coal Hill and St. Luke’s. MSc in clinical psychology and MA in art history at St. Luke’s.
“Huh,” said the Doctor. Coal Hill and St. Luke’s. “Coincidence is just Fate telling you to pay attention.”
There was a faint gong from deep within the Tardis, as if someone or something had brushed lightly against a Cloister Bell in warning.
“I hear you,” murmured the Doctor. “Show me the rest.”
A two-line death notice from a local paper winked on the screen: “Johanna ‘Joh’ Potts, aged 26, died on 31 July, 1991. She is survived by her baby daughter.” There was no photo.
The Doctor pushed the monitor to the side. He shoved his hands into his pockets and paced a slow lap around the console. It’d been a while since he’d taken special interest in a student. Though, Miss Potts wasn’t a student, was she? Truth be told, it’d been a while since he’d taken an interest in anybody, once he had Missy locked in the vault.
I’m tired of losing people
He knew that his memory had been wiped. And he knew that it was from a neural block device that could only be manufactured on Gallifrey. The Tardis was able to tell him that much. But the Tardis couldn’t — or wouldn’t — tell him why.
He believed that one could recreate a thing that is missing by examining the hole that it left, but the memory loss was profound and effected his entire timeline. He tried everything he knew to retrieve the memories but all that was there were whispered thoughts, little eye blinks of fragmented images and that vast, empty space. He only knew that the empty space had something to do with a woman named Clara. They had traveled together, he knew. They’d been on Gallifrey. She’d barked an order at Ohila of Karn and a Time Lord General. They had both obeyed with bowed heads. Only another Time Lord as powerful as he would elicit that kind of reaction. But Clara wasn’t a Time Lord. That, he was sure of.
There were a few detailed memory lanes that led to abrupt dead ends — things he was meant to remember but had got caught in the neural block anyway. It was as if someone had grasped a plant with a deep taproot and yanked it from the ground, pulling some peripheral roots along with it and leaving others detached and broken in the dirt. He’d spent a short time racing through time, chasing after those memories in a fruitless attempt to fill in some of that blank space. He even tried going back to Kantrofarr, the planet of the Dream Crabs, but the Tardis refused to take him there. UNIT had started the countdown to fry their entire mainframe when he’d asked them about Clara. Torchwood sent him an email that said, in effect, that he could go fuck himself. All of this apparently was per the Doctor’s orders.
After he’d been called to execute Missy, he asked her about Clara, for at least a story. Anything. She had gazed at him for a long moment.
“You told me to run, once,” she said, finally. “I had done...a very, very bad thing. The worst, I think.” Missy reached up and brushed a thick curl off his forehead then stroked her fingertips lightly across his brow. “And you let me go, even though you and I both know that there is nowhere in the universe that I could hide where you couldn’t find me. If you wanted to find me, that is.” She tried to smile but it was tremulous. Her eyes filled but no tears spilled over. She pressed her palm to his cheek. “You were the angriest I’d ever seen you. Ever. And still, you let me go.”
He moved to take her hand, but she snatched it away and took a step back, her eyes wide. The Doctor stared at her in confusion.
“You — you’re afraid of me,” he said. “When did you start to fear me? I just saved you, Missy.”
“You only saved me because you don’t know what I’ve done,” she whispered. “If you knew, you would kill me.”
“Never.”
“Yes, my beloved, you would. You were always more dangerous than I ever was. And in the two seconds before you did kill me, you’d hate me. To —.” Her voice hitched. “To endure those two seconds would be a fate far worse than death.” She tried to smile again. “So. You put me in that vault, now. You guard my body, darling.” She winked saucily but it only caused a tear to roll down her cheek. “After we have lived every minute of a thousand years, I will tell you. If you still want to know.”
One thing he did know about Clara was that he’d waited too long. Left things unsaid, and things undone. It’d been his modus operandi for over two thousand years. He’d not make that mistake again. There’d be no more running. He’d placed the hair tie he found in a drawer into a small wooden box, carefully tucked in the one strand of straight brown hair caught in the elastic, locked the box and hid the key.
And so he had lived, every minute of the past seventy years in a one-thousand-year purgatory of his own making, without time travel, without adventure, without mystery.
Then one day, Billie Holiday Potts sat down in seat 23 G and smiled.
He stopped in front of the monitor and re-read Joh Potts’ death certificate. A feeling of familiarity suddenly swept over him again. The Gallifreyan word for that feeling was centerinian-kai. It roughly translated into “future history” or “remembering in the wrong order”. Something that hadn’t happened yet but had happened before. Something waiting to become a memory. He’d been experiencing centerinian-kai a lot of late, but chalked it up to side effects of the neural block: a head resting on his chest, an arm around his waist, a hand in his, Johnny Hartman singing softly in the background
The unreal from the real thing ... is hard to know
“Hmm,” said the Doctor.
The Tardis had no comment.
xxxXXXxxx
He paced the console room again, tired but restless. He’d finished marking his students’ uninspiring papers and had checked the vault in the basement. Missy wasn’t talking to him for some reason but he didn’t have the energy to try to engage her. He wanted to get in some hours of guitar practice but his hearts weren’t in it that night. He couldn’t tell if he was hungry or bored. He yawned. He’d been surviving on catnaps for over a month for no other reason than that he didn’t really want to sleep. Sleep meant dreaming and even in his dreams, the memory block persisted, manifesting sometimes as a terrifying black hole.
He thought about going for a run inside the Tardis. The Tardis would create hostile terrain, burning cities and the corridors of alien ships for him. He did this not just for the exercise but because the running and jumping and climbing recalled feelings, if not actual memories. The Tardis even created monsters that chased him and caught him and that he had to fight, some with real claws and teeth. The fighting burned through the grief and the rage he’d felt in place of his missing memories. He would emerge from these fights slashed and battered, wild-eyed and roaring with bloodlust, his cock hard as azbantium.
You were always more dangerous than I ever was
He’d stride down the Tardis corridors after these runs, dripping blood, punching walls and shedding clothes on his way to the bath. He’d stand under a freezing, high-pressure shower, chest heaving and teeth clenched until his anger left him and his erection subsided. He’d turn the water to hot and collapse to the floor, his mind empty at last. He could sleep without dreaming then, because worse than the black hole, were the times he’d awaken in the dark, his pillow wet with his tears, an unbearable ache in his hearts that snatched the breath from his lungs.
So, he ran and he raged and he fought all the monsters the Tardis could throw at him until the pain in his hearts felt less like the grinding ends of a broken bone and more like the tenderness of a healing bruise. He could stand at the edge of the black hole in his dreams and gaze into its growling nothingness with something like scientific detachment. He’d initially resisted this tempering of his pain. It was the one link he had left to whatever was in those memories.
Deep within him he knew that those memories were best left lost to oblivion, but he never ceased his endless calculations on blackboards, scraps of paper, any flat surface that he could mark with chalk or pencil or even a stick in the sand, searching for the thing that was forever not there. He told himself that it was just habit, idle doodling, the fidget of his hyperactive mind that would either find him the coordinates of Gallifrey or
Clara
He taught his classes. He watched over Missy. He tinkered with the Tardis and Nardole’s cybernetics. He played his guitar. He painted and read books and mostly kept his promises, and himself to himself. The world began to fill in with color again. Life was…better.
He moved on.
There was, however, the on-going issue of his untended cock and his subsequent aching balls.
~~Chapter 3
The Doctor had mostly ignored his sexual needs for the past seventy years. It was the longest he’d ever been voluntarily celibate. There was never a lack of willing partners, especially after he’d started playing music at local clubs. It wasn’t that he couldn’t he just...didn’t. He could not even remember the last time he masturbated. He did remember that it left him feeling unsatisfied and lonely and a little faithless. Even the rare sticky dream he had left him with the feeling that he’d betrayed someone, as if he’d been unfaithful to a ghost. He thought about teaching himself to wake before ejaculating but then thought he might do himself some sort of damage if he didn’t at least have the release of the occasional nocturnal emission.
“My poor bollocks,” he mumbled.
He climbed the stairs to the catwalk and poured two fingers of bourbon from the decanter he kept in a rondel cubby. He hid the good stuff up here, where River never found it. He didn’t get intoxicated in the traditional sense. Ethanol both relaxed him and heightened his senses. Plus, he liked the taste. A wood fire in a glass. Whiskey was one thing Americans did well — besides dentistry and blowing things up. He downed it in one gulp, enjoying the burn. He poured another.
He stood in front of a bookshelf, trying to focus on the book titles, refusing to admit to himself that he needed a wank, then comforted himself with the thought that if he actually succumbed to the temptation, he could blame it on the bourbon. He could already feel warmth pooling in his genitals.
“What is a Johanna Joh Potts,” asked Nardole.
The Doctor jumped, sloshing whiskey out of his glass, soaking his shirt cuff and splashing a pant leg.
“Ah! Fuck me, Nardole,” he yelled. “Will you stop doing that.”
“Language,” replied Nardole.
“Shit,” hissed the Doctor, shaking his wet hand. “You’re like a ghost in a Japanese horror movie. Are you here to punish me for something? Will there be a redemption arc?”
“A ghost. I like that,” huffed Nardole, rolling his eyes. He pointed to the monitor. “You didn’t answer my question. What — whois Johanna Joh Potts?”
“None of your concern,” said the Doctor, setting down his now empty glass. He unbuttoned his cuffs as he came down the stairs. He undid the top two buttons of his shirt then impatiently pulled it over his head, throwing it to the floor in frustration.
“I’ve seen your browser history.”
“Get out.” The Doctor glared down at Nardole. “I don’t need your judgements tonight.”
“What you need is a girlfriend. Or a mutually beneficial friendship, as the kids are calling it these days. A proper seeing-to, that’s what you need, Doctor.” said Nardole. He gestured at the Doctor’s bare torso. “All that running, jumping, climbing, fighting holographic monsters has got you in more than fair form for an old man.”
“So you know that a punch to the face is not off the table.”
“Dye your roots and... well, you could probably pull —.”
“To clarify, that would be me punching you.”
“I’m just making a suggestion — a suggestion that I think you’re protesting too much, by the way. Might make you less grumpy,” Nardole said, raising his non-existent brows.
The Doctor rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms and ran the fingers of both hands through his hair. He sighed heavily.
“Do fuck off, Nardole,” he said. “Please.”
“Humph. Since you said please I’ll leave you to whatever it is you’re doing in here. Be nice to get a thank you once in a while, too.” Nardole bent down and retrieved the Doctor’s soiled shirt. He walked up the steps to the door, grumbling and clucking. “I didn’t ask to be reassembled, did I? You better have a wash as well, unless you want to walk around smelling like a distillery,” he said over his shoulder, before slamming the door behind him.
The Tardis dimmed the lights.
“Seriously,” said the Doctor, exasperated. “You, too?”
The air warmed slightly.
“For fuck’s sake.”
XXXxxxXXX
The Doctor stood in the shower with his head down, letting the water pound his back and shoulders from three different directions. He tilted his head back and groaned aloud, his eyelids fluttering with pleasure as the spray massaged his scalp. Why had he denied himself at least this pleasure? He’d been living like an ascetic. Worse, like a man doing penance. Penance for what? He tensed, then forced himself to relax. No need to think about that now.
After his shower, the Doctor looked himself over in his full-length mirror. He hadn’t realized how much he had avoided really looking at his own reflection these long years. Even when shaving, he focused on the task, checking only for missed spots. Now was as good a time as any to take inventory.
He examined his face. Square jaw, Roman nose, everything mostly symmetrical. The lightness of his eyes startled him. He’d had dark eyes for so many centuries, he’d almost forgotten what he had now. The jury was still out as to their exact color — blue, grey, green. Perhaps all three? Someone he could not remember had called him the boy with kaleidoscope eyes.
The thickness of his brows was likely an over-compensation for the previous ones. As were the long eyelashes, for that matter.
His hair had always been his one slight concession to vanity. Even when it was cropped short, there was usually a lot of it. He told himself that he couldn’t be arsed to go to the barber regularly, but now he thought he remembered that someone, perhaps that same someone who liked his eyes, also liked his hair grown long enough for it to go a little wild. He imagined he could feel a small hand running fingers through it, blunt nails raking deliciously along his scalp.
He stepped back and looked at his body, turning this way and that. Nardole was right. The running and jumping and climbing kept him well. He was lean but still substantial. His abdomen was flat. His bum was nice. His arms and legs and shoulders curved faintly with muscle that one could only really see when he moved — which he didn’t mind. He was happy to be stronger than he looked. He was dusted lightly on his chest and belly with silver hair that thickened and darkened in a line beneath his navel.
He glanced at his cock. It had, historically, always gotten rave reviews. And all of him, face to feet, pale as milk.
“Okay,” he said. “Not terrible.”
The Tardis hooted quietly in agreement.
He left the bath wearing a thick robe that was made for a body three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than the one he had now. It was one of his favorite articles of clothing. He liked to leave it untied so that it swept the floor in a heavy train behind him. It made him feel like Richard the Lionheart — who, incidentally, had fancied him.
The Doctor walked into his bedroom and dropped into a chair by the fireplace. He let the robe fall open so that he could feel the heat of the flames on his bare skin. On a side table next to his chair was a plate of chocolate biscuits, a decanter of bourbon and a glass.
“Cheers, Nardole,” he said softly.
He lifted the decanter to pour himself a drink and saw that there was also a tube of slick resting atop a neatly folded flannel. He stared at it for a moment, blinking. He poured bourbon into his glass, carefully placed the decanter back on the tray then slumped back into his chair. He took a sip and eyed the tube over the rim of his glass. The Doctor chuckled, shaking his head. He put down his glass and picked up the tube, twisting off the tiny cap and puncturing the seal. A clear, gelatinous sphere oozed out of the opening. He squinted one eye and peered through the sphere, watching flames dance in a miniaturized fireplace. He pondered the properties of the surface tension of viscous fluids. He touched a fingertip to the sphere, dislodging it from the tube’s opening. It landed in a soft plop at the base of his penis, immediately warming to his body temperature. He squeezed more of the lubricant onto the flat of his fingers, rubbing his thumb across them. He sniffed his fingers, noting that the faint floral sent did not quite mask the plasticky odor of its silicone base. But it was pleasant enough.
“Time Lords,” the Doctor murmured. “Masters of trans-dimensional technology but, in 6 billion years of chafing, we never thought to invent lube.”
He squeezed more of the slick into his palm then set the tube aside. He ran his palm under and over his shaft, relaxing back into his chair with a deep sigh through his nose.
He ...
...remembered tumbling through the Tardis doors and down the stairs with Clara, landing on the console room deck, the two of them covered in stinking mud. Clara rolled off him, flung herself back up the stairs, and pulled the doors closed. She leaped back over him and ran around the console, slamming controls into place.
“Vortex,” he rasped.
“I know,” shouted Clara.
There was a massive gash in his upper thigh, deep and wide enough that he could see tendons and muscle flexing against the bone. He wished he hadn’t looked because it didn’t hurt until he did. As he watched, the pin hole in his femoral artery widened and blood geysered in time with the beat of his hearts. A single peal of the Cloister bell shuddered sadly through the Tardis, the signal that he was injured beyond what she could do for him.
He cried out in pain and frustration. He felt small hands frantically searching in his coat pockets and patting down his waistcoat. His vision began to narrow and glow around the edges with golden light.
“Where is it?” screamed Clara.
He flailed at her feebly. “No.” He tried to roll away from her.
“Doctor!”
“No...last one...for you...I can...regenerate...”
“You are not leaving me.”
“I...I...will...regenerate...”
“No! You, this you.” She found what she was looking for in his coat pocket. She gripped it tightly in her hands. “You. Are. Not —.”
“Clara...please...”
“ —Leaving. Me.”
She twisted her hands and pulled. The metal vial she held opened with a quiet hiss. Chula nanogenes flowed from the vial, pulsed briefly with white light then streamed toward his wound. He fell back with a groan with the almost instant relief from most of the pain. Clara looked frantically from his wound to his face and back again. The hole in his artery closed like a film running backwards. Blood bubbled from the wound as the nanogenes began reconnecting tissue and sealing it from the bone up, through muscle, fat and skin. She looked at his face and saw the regeneration energy dissipate. He was watching her with half-closed eyes. Nanogenes haloed her head, stitching closed a gash at her hairline. There was a scrape on her chin but the nanogenes seemed content to leave it be. They were already starting to self-destruct in the air between them in tiny explosions of fairy dust.
“You’re alive,” Clara whispered.
He reached down and felt the place where his leg had been sliced open. There was only a inflamed red scar, barely a millimeter wide. He winced as a fractured rib knitted back into place. He was starting to feel the other effects of the nanogenes in his blood — dopamine, oxytocin, endorphins — painkillers naturally manufactured by his body, their production increased by the nanogenes.
“That was my last vial of nanogenes,” he croaked.
“Good thing you had one left or you’d be dead.”
“I was saving it for an... emergency.”
“And here we are.”
“My death is not an emergency, Clara.”
“It is to me,” Clara shouted. “I don’t care who comes next. You’re the one I need. The one --.” She swallowed a sob. “The one I want.”
He gazed into her eyes. He reached up and tucked a strand of muddy hair behind her ear.
“Ok, boss,” he said, quietly.
At that, Clara seemed to deflate, and she collapsed onto him. He stifled a grunt of pain from his still-sore ribs and lightly enfolded her in his arms. Clara was right. He could’ve died. She could’ve died. And she would’ve died never knowing how he felt because he was a coward.
Not telling her was not only cowardly, it was also cruel.
She gripped the lapels of his coat, burying her face in his chest. He felt one of her thighs settle between his. He shifted minutely and felt a tremor run through her. Beneath the odor of mud and shit and blood, he could smell her uniquely Clara smell: lilac hand cream and ... woman. He patted her back and held out a hand.
“Help an old man to his feet,” he said.
“You’re not old.”
She stood and hauled him up, turning to support with her arm around his waist.
“Can you walk?” she asked.
“Give me a moment,” he said. He leaned heavily against her, panting.
She gagged, coughing. “Dear God. I’m giving you a good scrub.”
“I think I can manage that on my own.”
“I’m not escaping from a planet of evil, sentient tumbleweeds just to have you pass out in the shower and crack your idiot head open,” said Clara.
“I swear that they were stationary shrubs, last time I was there. Shrubs as far as you could see. There was no tumbling. No claws and fangs. No shit and mud. A lovely place for a picnic.”
“A lovely place for a picnic. Famous last words. We have the worst luck with gardens.”
She took his hand and draped his arm across her shoulder. Clara steered him gently from the console room, down a corridor to his bedroom and into the attached bath. She leaned him carefully against the wall and knelt to unlace his boots. She rose and tugged his coat off his shoulders.
“Seriously, Clara. I don’t need any help.”
“We have seen each other naked before. In church, no less.
“That was different. I was different. I was...young.”
“Yes. Yes, you were. You were also bow-legged and hairless and couldn’t punch your way out of a paper bag. Now...”. She flung his filthy coat away with a grimace. “Well, now you’re —.”
“Old.”
She pulled his ragged jumper over his head, taking his two t-shirts with it. She leaned back and looked him over. “Older, yeah. But mostly...different,” she said. She pulled her jumper over her head and peeled off her skirt and tights, kicking them away. She unhooked her bra and let it fall off her shoulders. She looked down at his trousers with raised brows.
“I can do it,” he grumbled. He turned his back and removed the rest of his clothing. He faced her, cupping his hands over his privates.
“I’ve seen your penis before,” she said.
“Not this one.”
Clara rolled her eyes and pointed to the shower. “Warm, very warm or hot?”
“Hot,” he said.
She tapped a pad on the wall and water instantly came from every direction. “Thank God. Danny liked lukewarm and I hated it.”
“Can we just get on with it,” he snapped. He pushed her into the tornado of steaming water and stepped in behind her.
They both sighed with pleasure as water beat against them from every direction, the mud and blood dissolving from their skin. Clara grabbed a rough sponge from a shelf and squirted soap on it.
“Turn around,” she said. “I’ll get your back.” She glanced down at him. “Or your front, because,” she blew air from pursed lips. “Well done.”
“Shut up,” he said, turning his back.
Clara gasped. “You have a massive bruise covering half your back,” she exclaimed.
“That’s what happens when you get body-slammed by a vicious tumbleweed.”
Clara was silent for so long that he turned to look at her. She stood there with the dripping sponge in her hand, hair plastered to her head, chin trembling, her dark eyes spilling tears. He froze for a moment, blinking.
“Clara?”
Despite the heat of the shower, her face was pale and her lips were tinged blue. She was shivering. This was his fault. Clara was strong but she wasn’t unbreakable.
“Let me be brave,” he thought, then gathered her in his arms. She sagged against him. He didn’t have the strength yet to hold them both upright, so he sank to the floor and cradled her. She turned her face into his neck and cried silently, her tiny body shaking.
“Okay. Okay. It just the adrenaline crash. Shh. I know,” he whispered, rocking her a bit.
He let her cry until her body hitched with only the occasional sob. He wanted to kiss away every tear, every bruise, but he thought that this was not the time, so soon after near-death. He gave her soft pat on her back.
“I’d scoop you up and carry you to bed but I’ll probably slip, fall over and break both our idiot heads,” he said. “Let’s finish up here before we turn into prunes. We both need fluids and rest,” he said. He stood wearily and held out his hand to her.
“I’m supposed to be helping you,” Clara said.
“You are helping me, Clara.”
He took the soapy sponge she still held and began to wash the rest of the grime from her skin. He worked his way carefully down her body, working the sponge in a gentle but firm circular motion across her skin. He knelt to wash her legs, his eyes lingering briefly on her hairless sex. He turned her with his fingertips on her hip, working his way back up her body. He handed her the sponge then presented his back to her. He sighed and bowed his head as she bathed him, tensing briefly when she reached around his waist and the sponge stroked across his lower belly. He let his erection happen, too tired and too sore to care.
They reluctantly exited the shower and put on the heavy bathrobes that the Tardis thoughtfully warmed for them. They made a detour to the infirmary where the Doctor made Clara drink a small glass of a thick blue liquid. He poured himself a large glass of a thick pink liquid.
“What’s this,” Clara asked.
“Glucose, electrolytes, an antiviral to protect against evil shrub space rabies,” said the Doctor. He held up his own glass. “Same for me, plus blood expander. And a bit of painkiller.” He drank it down in three gulps, shuddering slightly.
Clara sipped from her glass. “Ugh. Tastes like cough syrup.”
“Hold your breath and knock it back like a shot of vodka,” he said.
Clara did as she was told, grimacing and blinking watering eyes.
“See? That wasn’t so bad.”
Clara poked a blue tongue out at him.
They walked listlessly down the corridor towards their bedrooms. He stopped in his bedroom doorway.
“I’m not ready to be alone,” she said, pushing past him. “I’m sleeping with you tonight. Not taking no for an answer.” She looked back at him. “Key word being sleep.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, darling,” he chuckled. “I’m dead tired.”
She grinned and sat on the edge of the bed. “Not all of you,” she said.
He looked down at himself. His erect cock tented his robe. “Side effect from the blood expander,” he said.
“Ouch. My ego,” said Clara. She flopped back on the bed with her arms flung wide. She rubbed her palms on the lush duvet. “Do all Time Lords sleep in beds the size of a football pitch?”
He grunted and walked over to a small table by the fireplace. He poured himself a whiskey from the tray set there. He held up the decanter. “Want one?”
She heaved herself upright. “I’ll have a sip of yours just to wash the taste of that blue stuff from my mouth.”
He handed her the glass. She took a sip and made a face. “Now my mouth tastes like whiskey and blue stuff.”
She stood and removed her robe, dropping it to the floor. She pulled back the duvet and slipped underneath with a tired sigh. She closed her eyes then opened them, looking at the Doctor. He drained his glass and set it on the bedside table. The air cooled and the lights dimmed. He snapped his fingers and a fire sprang to life in the fireplace. He frowned at her robe on the floor then let his fall on top of it with a shrug.
“My poor Doctor. So many bruises,” whispered Clara. “If I could, I’d kiss them all away.”
“The saliva of the people from the planet Sixtus has both psychotropic and healing properties,” said the Doctor. “A good, long snog could extend your life expectancy by 50 years. But you’d probably be off your face the entire time.” His eyes grew contemplative. “I wonder if they’ve visited your planet before. Is that where you humans get the “kiss it and make it better” thing? Or the goodnight kiss for pleasant dreams.”
“Doctor.”
He looked at her, his eyes still far away.
“Get in the damn bed.”
He climbed in and pulled the duvet up to their shoulders. They faced each other, their drawn-up knees between them.
“Will you give me a goodnight kiss?” asked Clara.
“I suppose I could do that.”
He held her face between his hands and kissed the space between her brows, the tip of her nose and the corners of her mouth. He turned her so she faced away from him then pulled her against the length of his body. She snuggled into him, gripping his fingers and bringing his hand up to hold between her breasts. His erection rested warm and heavy at her lower back. He held her until her breathing slowed and evened out. He tried to shift away from her but she whimpered softly. He pulled her in closer and she made a small, kitten sound. He smiled and kissed her hair.
Despite the painkiller, the whiskey, and his utter exhaustion, it took nearly an hour for his thoughts to let him sleep. He thought about the tiny women he held in his arms. He thought about his wife with a small wince of guilt. River had yet to meet this him. Monogamy was not a requirement for Time Lords. They had two hearts. He’d told himself that one of his was reserved for River.
Then he met Clara Oswald and she took them both.
He winced again.
…I’m not your boyfriend…
He’d abandoned her in Glasgow and stayed gone long enough that she’d decided he probably wasn’t coming back. She’d stopped listening for the Tardis, started settling into her routine, and met Danny Pink.
But when he did return, it took her less than a minute to drop everything and fly off in the Tardis with him. All he’d had to say was, “I need you.”
Their relationship was volatile -- the push-me-pull-you of his outrageous rebellion and reckless adventures and her digging in her heels, fooling herself into believing she wanted a normal life with predictable, lukewarm PE. Each of them jockeying for control, the lies, the mind games, their… addiction. Always running away, toward each other. And they were here, now. Clara Oswald and the Doctor, in the Tardis. Danny was dead and River was yet to come. Maybe it was a good time to stop running.
Never be cruel. Never be cowardly.
“Let me be brave,” he thought.
XXXxxxXXX
He woke some hours later. Clara was snoring softly, an arm flung across his chest and a leg across his hips, her breath tickling the hair on his chest.
His erection was back.
He contemplated his options for a moment, enjoying Clara’s warm skin and her weight against his body. He was fairly certain that she was willing if he was.
But he was thirsty and could feel the beginnings of a dehydration headache behind his eyes. He shifted carefully until he could swing his legs over the side of the bed. He looked back at Clara. She didn’t stir. He decided to forgo his robe and padded naked to the galley. He chugged a bottle of water then went to the console room. He did a cursory check of the navigation controls and was pleased to see that Clara had tucked them safely in the Vortex. He opened the Tardis doors. The Tardis inhaled softly. Tendrils of artron radiation swirled around him, ruffling his hair, and whispering in his ears before flowing into the Tardis’ engines. He closed his eyes and breathed some in.
“Close the door lest the neighbors see your pride and joy,” said Clara.
“Oh, the symbolism,” chuckled the Doctor.
Clara walked up the stairs and hugged him from behind. “I was dreaming that I lost you in a evil hedge maze. I woke up and you were gone.” She was wearing his bathrobe but had left it open. Her breasts were soft and hot against his back.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Sorry for what?”
He closed the Tardis doors and turned carefully in her arms. He cupped her face in his hands.
“Everything,” he said.
“Don’t apologize. We didn’t die.”
“Clara…”
Clara shook her head. “I need to say this, Doctor. One of these days, our luck will run out. That maybe next time, it will me, and nothing, not nanogenes or the vortex or anything will save me. Or, much worse, it’ll be you and you’ll regenerate into someone I don’t …want”
He started to speak but she pressed her small hand to his mouth.
“Please let me finish,” she pleaded, her eyes desperate. “I thought I could travel with you and come back to my nice, normal life with Danny. I even thought I could…have you both. Then he asked me if I loved you. I almost told him the truth but he interrupted me. And I honestly didn’t know, not for sure, not until right then. But you were… impossible. In all this.” She closed her eyes briefly. “In all this agony, the only thing I knew for sure was that I was so, so tired of being alone and it was Danny Pink who wanted me. On the day he died, I heard myself telling Danny that I loved him. Meanwhile, the shelves behind me were covered with all the lies I told him, written on sticky notes. I thought that if I could convince him that I loved him, the other lies wouldn’t matter.” She let out a shaky breath. “I even wrote it on a sticky to force myself to just say it. And I think he knew. Right then, right before he stepped off that curb into traffic. I close my eyes and I can almost see the expression on his face. The last thing he heard were words from me that were meant for you. Everything I did after… wasn’t love. It was guilt. If we could’ve brought him back, I would’ve given him the life he wanted because of it. But Doctor, when that boy came through the portal and not Danny, to my eternal shame, I was relieved.” She closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against his chest. “My punishment was one more lie so you’d go be happy on Gallifrey. Without me,” she said. She looked up at him. “I did love Danny. I loved bowtie you. I’ve known your entire timeline and I loved all the other Doctors. But not like this. Not the way I love you.”
He lifted her hand from his mouth. “Can I talk now,” he asked, then put her hand back over his mouth.
Clara dropped her hand and looked away. “I don’t need you to do anything. That was just… information.” She stepped back and tied the bathrobe closed.
“Clara Oswald. When have I ever said no to you?”
She frowned. “You say no to me all the time. You --.”
“Have I,” he asked, gently. “Have I, really?” The Doctor chuffed out a laugh. “The one time I said no, you chucked me and the Tardis into an active volcano.”
Clara closed her eyes and she ducked her head. “Sorry,” she said.
“Open your eyes, Clara,” said the Doctor. He lifted her chin with a knuckle. “A kiss is not the time to hide your face.”
The Doctor leaned forward and kissed her, thrusting his tongue strongly into her mouth. After the briefest moment of surprise, Clara met his tongue with her own. This was how she liked to be kissed. None of the too soft, too wet and somehow cold kisses from Danny Pink, his moist breath blowing up her nose, forcing her to break away so she could breathe. The Doctor’s mouth was sweet, his breath warm and dry and synchronized with hers, inhaling and exhaling at the same time, the fingers of both of his hands entwined in the hair at the back of her head. She kept her eyes open, as he did. It was intensely, shockingly intimate.
He took her hand and led her through the console room, down the corridor and into his bedroom. The light in the room brightened to a soft glow.
“Hmm,” Clara said, amused. “Lights on?”
“And eyes open,” said the Doctor.
Clara sobered quickly and stared at him, eyes wide.
He pulled his robe off her shoulders, let it fall to the floor then sat her on the edge of the bed.
“Lie back, Clara,” he said.
Clara shivered and did as she was told.
He knelt, hooked his hands behind her knees and pushed them up to her chest. He gently spread her legs until the muscles in her thighs were stretched and tense, all of her open to him. He gazed down at what he had exposed and waited. The pink flesh darkened and swelled and her clit throbbed once, then again as he watched.
Clara rolled her hips and made a small sound. She was wet and ready for him and he’d hadn’t yet done a thing. He looked at her face.
“I don’t have any condoms, Clara,” he said. “I think I’ll be able to stop if you ask, but I’m not sure.”
“I won’t,” she whispered. “I won’t ask you to stop.”
He dipped his head and licked her pussy with a long swipe of his tongue, flicking her clit and sucking it into his mouth. Clara cried out and gripped his hair in both hands. She was close to coming and he could feel it. He placed a hand lightly on her belly and it was enough to keep her as still as if she were bound by a spell.
“Doctor,” she gasped.
He backed off, nuzzling her with his nose and lips. “I’ll let you come”, he said. “But I want to be inside you when you do.”
“Oh, God. Doctor.” Clara was almost sobbing. “Please don’t stop.”
He resumed licking and sucking and fucking her with his tongue. He reached up and cupped her breast, massaging it roughly and scissoring her nipple between his fingers. He stands abruptly, lifts her with his hands around her waist and practically throws her to the middle of the bed. He stretches out on top of her, spreading her legs with a knee. He licks his palm and rubs it over the head of his cock.
He drove his cock inside her in one hard thrust then stops.
“Oh,” he groaned.“You feel. So good,” he said, his voice jerking in his chest.
Clara wrapped her legs around his waist. He held himself above her, muscles straining with the effort to remain unmoving, as she slowly pumped her hips beneath him. He looks down between their bodies and watches his cock slide in and out of her pussy.
“Mmm,” he breathes.
He had wanted to make love to her slowly, carefully and for hours, but his control left him. He rested his full weight on top of her and fucked her in long, hard strokes, his hands in her hair and his face buried in her neck. His hips snapped against hers, harder and faster. Clara tried to keep up but she couldn’t. She crossed her ankles at his lower back, groaned and dug her fingers into his lean shoulders.
He wanted to feel and remember everything about her: the taut muscles of her thighs, smell of her arousal, her lips and teeth on his skin that were sure to leave marks, the sound of her voice chanting, “I love you, Doctor. I love you. I love you.”
He pressed his lips to her ear. “Now, Clara,” he said.
Her orgasm was loud. She panted and swore, her body first going still then shuddering, back arched. His own orgasm was uncharacteristically silent, his cock pulsing strongly inside her. He pressed his pubic bone against her clit, his chest heaving, watching her face intently as she came again, bucking beneath him.
He held himself inside her, both of them gasping softly at each residual throb or contraction.
He lifted his head and dropped small kisses on her face. He broke his own rule and closed his eyes because she’s crying and he cannot bear it.
“My Clara,” he murmured.
xxxXXXxxx
The Tardis gently blew air over him, cooling his body and slowing the pounding his hearts. He wiped the come from his chest and belly with the flannel that the ever-thoughtful Nardole had left for him. He dragged himself out of the chair and collapsed naked on top of his duvet. He didn’t waste time wondering if it was his fantasy or an actual memory. In the end, it didn’t matter. She was gone.
He slept finally, deeply, and blessedly free from dreams.
xxxXXXxxx
