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fireandpride · 9 years

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Short fic #1

So, it’s been awhile since I’ve published something, but I found this short (723 words) fic and decided to publish it. You can tell that I wrote it some time ago just by the sheer fact that Eleven and Clara are being domestic.

Anyway, here it is:

He’s getting too comfortable.

Ever since Trenzalore he’s had a bad habit he needs to get rid of. But unlike his usual habits, he was very aware of this one, and he liked it. It all started thanks to Vastra—damn her—she was better piloting the TARDIS than anyone else in the Paternoster Gang (which meant that she was the one who actually knew which buttons to press to get back to her home), and since he had passed out from the effort of having his life rewritten and carrying Clara out of his timeline Vastra was the one in charge. She had decided that the best thing was to keep them together, since she couldn’t find either of the rooms that belonged to them in the ship, she had done what he’d said and gone straight back to her own time period, where she decided that having them in the same room was easier.

Seriously, what’s wrong with that lizard?

When The Doctor woke up he realised his long legs were tangled with Clara’s, her head was resting against his chest, a hand over his right heart. It took all the will in the world not to move but he managed it, she woke up later, with a confused expression and a blush creeping on her cheeks.

‘Oi, down boy,’ she said with a little yawn.

Afterwards he took her to the Maitlands’ house, they kept their routine of only meeting on Wednesdays, but sometimes she would call to the TARDIS and talk to him, though most of the times it would have only been a few seconds since he’d dropped her off.

They went on with their business, the kids got a new nanny, like their father had planned ever since the Doctor had first found Clara, and she got a new job at Coal Hill School (he didn’t help, and though she could not remember, he had the vague suspicion that she was attracted to the school because of his timeline), he even helped her move out.

‘So,’ he sighed, placing the last box on the counter. ‘New place. New start. New bed to jump on!’

Before she could react, he had already dashed to her bedroom and started jumping on the bed.

‘Doctor, stop that! I swear you’re even worse than Artie when he’s on a sugar high.’

‘Come on, Clara, you cannot be so grumpy.’

‘I cannot stand you jumping on my bed!’

He jumped off, only to grab her hands and oblige her to get on the bed with him. She did jump in the end.

It had been almost two months since Trenzalore for him, he had travelled straight to their meetings, feeling empty whenever Clara was not by his side, so it had been longer for her. She had a rule of no TARDIS in her already too small flat and climbing flight of stars had tired him. It was night, they were cuddled together on the couch, watching a movie in the small telly Clara had bought when she was in college.

‘I could always replace it with a newer model,’ he said with a yawn.

‘No, leave it as it is.’

They were both yawning. The activities of the day had killed whatever remaining energy he had. The Doctor might not need as much sleep as his human companions, but that did not mean that he didn’t need it at all, he only slept 8 hours in about a month or two, and his time was due.

She had some bottoms of a previous boyfriend stocked in one of the boxes, she hadn’t thrown it away because there might be some day that they were gonna be useful, so he used those as a pyjama, and one of her oversized hoodies as a top. They had no qualms when it came to sleeping next to each other.

The Doctor laid on his side, drawing small circles (Gallifreyan) in Clara’s shoulder, where her cami didn’t cover.

‘Stop that,’ she muttered. Her speech was slurred, he liked that.

He just hugged her closer.

‘You know, if you were some other bloke I wouldn’t be doing this…’ she said. He was just too comfortable and he knew it.

Clara was not so calm and collected about it all. She was falling for him, and fast.

#Doctor Who #eleven #eleventh doctor #eleven x clara #clara oswald #whouffle #whouffiction #souffez

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fireandpride · 10 years

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how to return home (¼)

for: jingledykes

by: dielittlehero

pairing: whouffle (souffez)

words: 1000

prompt: something fluffy or angsty

This is set somewhere in between DOTD and TOTD, in which the Doctor and Clara go to visit her father and meet his new girlfriend.

I'm so, so sorry for posting this late and in parts, but the holidays and family coming over have eaten all of my time. English is not my first language and this is unbeta-ed, so all errors are mine.

Wednesday

Eventually everything became alive. Her life was a constant mess afterwards, but she knew that the only way to put it all together was to get out. Clara loved the Doctor and she had a mild affection for the TARDIS, but she knew that this was not heaven, and that the only way to regain herself was putting some distance between them. She knew better than anyone that the time for goodbye between the two of them was coming, and not even his time machine could give them all the time in the world.

So, she got out. He continued to visit her every Wednesday, and even tried going to the Maitlands’ house other days of the week, but she made a point by going out with friends she had lost touch with, and even a date or two. She had to get back, and not the the Clara he had known, but the one before that, the one that could be selfish and knew when to say no and understood that she couldn’t help everyone. After that, she quit her job as a nanny as soon as she got a teaching job, and moved into her own flat. Angie had her mobile and if the Maitlands were in need she would always try to help them, but they were too old, and they had to grow up with the loss of their mother, and there was nothing else she could do for them.

The Doctor came constantly to her flat, and more than once she had found the TARDIS parked in what would have been her parking space, and the Doctor making himself comfortable in her couch. He also constantly complained about her getting home late, and she blamed the tube, to which he surprised her one day by giving her the anti-grav bike. She was grateful.

But even when she had regained her life, and she wasn’t the one chasing the Doctor, she had lost small and big details to her life: the Maitlands for all the trouble they were, always gave her something to smile about, and the inconveniences of having a job away from home and living the social life she had deprived herself for more than a year, plus running away with the Doctor usually meant that she barely talked to her father, and when she did their chats were short and she would barely pay attention.

‘You should take some sick days, you know,’ the Doctor said, sitting beside her on the counter, since she had learnt the bad way that the TARDIS was still not so amicable with her. ‘We could voyage in the waterfalls of Ixen and have some rest days.’

‘I’m not sick, just working, and you never want to just have some rest days.’

‘If I took you away no-one would notice,’ he argued. ‘I thought the concept of time machine was clear enough to you.’

‘A time machine you cannot even pilot properly.’ She said, stopping momentarily to look at him and think about how domestic their interactions were. The Doctor surely knew how to pilot the TARDIS, but after Trenzalore there was some synchrony between them, and the TARDIS, though it behaved well when she was around him, even to the point of obeying her, constantly hid her things, or locked her in some random room, and more than once had send her to back to earth without sleeping because the Old Girl decided to move Clara’s room.

‘I can pilot her perfectly!’

‘Uh-huh,’ Clara hummed distractedly.

‘I could take you anywhere in space and time and you spend our Wednesdays grading papers!’

‘Well, I have a job, and it’s a kind of job I can’t just go and run away with you.’

‘Chesterton will understand.’

‘Mr. Chesterton would understand if you hadn’t materialised in the middle of the playground.’

The Doctor ended up on the same place he had for the past few Wednesdays: the couch. Each time he had to convince her of going out with him, or sometimes even after some adventure he would sit on the couch, mainly looking at her, but sometimes he would go and reorganise her DVD collection, going by how many aliens went undetected in the cast of each movie.

‘Doctor, maybe we should reschedule our meetings,’ Clara muttered.

‘But Wednesday is our day!’

‘But if you came for me on Friday then we would have from Friday to Sunday without any problem.’

‘But I have a time machine—‘

‘That doesn’t like me.’

He looked at her. His eyes were full of love, and she had seen the variation of that look thousands of times, so she knew that people fell for his eyes, and that most of them got torn apart because of their love for him. Yet he was innocent, those looks and little things were completely innocent on his part, and most of the people misinterpreted his intentions.

‘Do you mind if I stay?’ He asked.

She sighed. ‘I’ve still got five more papers to grade, but you can make some tea and try not to burn the popcorn this time.’

He played Fantasia, which had never been one of her favourites, but she still kept it because her mother loved it, suddenly it seemed completely different. She told herself that it was actually the exhaustion and not the way the Doctor looked at the screen as if it was the first time he’s seen it, nor the way he hugged her when he realised that she was shuddering from her other end of the couch.

She fell asleep in the middle of the movie.

The next morning she found him there. Her sleep had not been restful but the fact that he had stayed made her feel a little better.

‘A bit keen, aren’t you?’ She teased.

He looked at her with those sad eyes, he seemed wary, but said nothing about it. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were alright.’

#dw secret santa #jingledykes #whouffiction #whouffle #souffez #clara oswald #Eleven #eleven x clara

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fireandpride · 10 years

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the start of all fears (50th au)

The Dalek was the beginning of it all. As soon as she saw it she could feel panic raising all around her body like a tide and pulling her down, drowning her and rending her incomplete. She no longer felt panic for the Doctor(s), it was for herself. Particularly that one time, in one of her other lives, during the Great Time War, when a single Dalek realised that she was using herself as a living shield to protect the Doctor and gave her hell as soon as it could. She was being played with. When her last regeneration’s moments were fading away from her, when her appearance was too different and there was no hope left for her, she saw how the Dalek shot her Doctor, and how his long locks and youthful appearance changed into that of and old, withered man. It suits the time, she had thought.

But now everything was different, she had to convince herself that the person who died at the Time War and the person who was turned into a Dalek were not her. She could remember everything about them, but they were not her.

‘Clara!’ she could hear Eleven, as she had turned to call him mentally, before her. He always noticed her, even when Ten and the Dark Doctor didn’t. Oh, the irony.

She didn’t know when she hit the floor, but Rose’s hands trying to get her up and the Doctors along with UNIT running towards her—retreating—didn’t go unnoticed. Nor did Rose’s pained expression when Eleven took her in her arms and ran towards Ten’s TARDIS, UNIT and Kate already on the move to alert everyone.

Eleven carried her to the seat, while Ten and the other one tinkered with the controls.

‘You’re okay,’ he whispered. ‘You are here. I’m with you and they can’t hurt you.’

She sobbed silently into his neck. It was the worst type of crying, not being able to breathe correctly, with tears streaming down her cheeks, not a single word making it out of her throat, only incoherent noises. She felt like everything was burning around her, but she was drowning. The tide, the emotions, the fear—everything she felt when she jumped into his time stream was returning. If there was something worse than death it certainly was dying and returning to life while keeping the sensation of death choking you. Time Lords were used to it, and she was one of them once, but it was a long time ago.

‘Who is she?’ Rose asked Eleven.

She couldn’t see his look, but Clara knew the story that he and Rose shared, so the hurt expression must have been etched instantly onto his features.

‘You know I cannot tell you.’

‘We’re safe now, so before this gets more dangerous, you better tell us,’ Ten said.

Clara could hear Ten’s distrust in his voice, one he had used barely months ago with her, but for him it will be in his future. His eyes, were following her intensely, trying to figure out where he’d seen that face before, but to no avail. The Dark one, on the other hand, kept trying to look away from her—from everyone, in fact, as if not looking at his own future’s happiness will make him forget what he had done. He was so focused on the task at hand, on the hate he felt that he needed to deny his future joy to do it. But the way he gazed at Clara made them both sick, because both knew that she had died for him on the Time War.

Eleven looked at Rose with tears in his eyes. ‘You helped me so much, you made me realise so many things, and I lost you in the most possible cruel way: by my own hand. But it was for the better, for you grew, you took things into your own hands and got your happy ending, or as far as I’m concerned. I love you so much, but I was broken when I died.’—He looked at Ten pointedly—‘I had to move on, to find other dreams that didn’t mean Rose, other friendships, knowing fully that I could possibly ruin their lives…’

She tried to hold to his soliloquy, but the panic was raising once more—the Vashta Nerada in the library, the Time War, the Asylum, many many memories played behind her eyelids every time one of the Doctors spoke.

‘Stop!’ her voice finally came out. ‘Please, just stop it!’

She opened her eyes to look at the three Doctors just arguing with each other, Rose pretty much torn between hugging Ten or Eleven, and the Other One fidgeting with the console.

‘He is right. Please,’ she said, looking at Eleven right in the eyes. ‘For this time, more than any other time, listen to me, because this battle is as much yours as it is mine’s. You forget that you are not the only one who lost many things in the Time War, and how I got turned into a Dalek. I have been as hurt by them as you have, and yet you ignore me.’

Pain shot up at every nerve for a second though, it made her feel weak, but strong as if that was exactly what she needed to go on.Pain was something that had propelled her already to do so many things, simple things, like staying with Angie and Artie, after being reminded every day of the death of her own mother by their sad faces. It just felt normal in her life.

She opened her eyes, big brown orbs expressing everything she knew she would have to talk about with the Doctor later, but only hate and love guided her towards this war inside herself.

‘Land the machine,’ she commanded (and the TARDIS gave a noise, which she supposed it was a half angry response to being called machine, and a half thanked one to finally helping her thief right his wrongs.) ‘We’ve got a fight ahead.’

___________________________________________________________________The battle raged all around, her ears were numb and Clara felt extremely tired, but her life—this life—was meant to be preserved. She ended up crouching beneath a car, the Time War Doctor in front of her, his eyes following every movement of hers even when he tried to look away.

‘I’m sorry, but you must understand why I did it,’ his voice was barely a gasp. ‘You died, you were tortured, you know. I hope I realise it in the future.’

‘You do. And that wasn’t me.’

The look in his face was evermore stoic, as if he felt that the moment he showed some other emotion he might break away. But his eyes couldn’t lie to her, not even in his youth. In a way she could see how years and years of joy and solitude will turn him into Eleven, who always tried to show so many emotions at once to forget or hide his real ones.

Sometimes she even wondered if the looks he gave her were also a product of his chameleon way to hide himself.

___________________________________________________________________

This one wasn’t the first Dalek she encountered, but it was the second time she was so physically close to them, and it scared her much more than she could ever imagine. The girl who had dealt with her mother’s death, trying to take care of two equally broken children, who ran away (and made him come back so he could pick her up a week later) with a madman, was scared. But her fear wasn’t for her life or Rose’s who was trying to open the door; her fear was for the Dalek’s own life.

Everything they had done to Oswin, all those days trapped, the knowledge, all that came back to her in a flash.

Hate.

She could only see the Dalek destroying all things in its way, looking for them, but she couldn’t feel a single thing. Rose’s anxious whispers were lost in the buzz that was overpowering her senses and she briefly wondered if she had gone deaf when Clara realised that the buzz was actually silence. The same silence that had come before that wave of emotions had dragged her down a few hours ago. That same stillness came over her, but unlike before everything was happening around her, instead of being frozen for minutes the flashes came and went in some seconds.

Then the wave came to weigh her down, but she wasn’t drowning any more. The feeling of panic was the exact same one, but she embraced it.

Death. The word she was looking to describe it was death, but for the fist time in what felt as a very long time, it wasn’t hers.

She picked up the gun that the fallen soldier (Abby, she had to remember her, she had to make sure that the soldier was not forgotten—at least that she remembered her) had thrown at Rose once she had accepted her doom. This newfound strength went unnoticed.

Clara had always thought of how selfless was the Doctor (even when she knew that was a complete idealisation of him), the dreams that made his nights endless were about his friends, how they died, how he couldn’t see many of them any more, all that people in Gallifrey—they weren’t his friends but he was responsible for their death. Clara, on the other hand, dreamed time and again of her endless lives, but people only flew behind her eyes and she could only focus on those last moments.

The Dalek’s gun shot went scarily close to Clara and Rose, but it only made Clara feel as if she was invincible.

She moved quietly, she knew that the Dalek had a great chance to kill her with a beam. She only had one shot… if she was lucky.

If she had only been Clara Oswald, the normal girl whose mother had died alongside other people on a strange attack, if she had only been the family’s friend who had given up her dreams to help during the process of mourning and ended up staying for a year, the thing that she did wouldn’t have worked, but ever since she started travelling with the Doctor she was becoming fiercer and many of her echoes had fought teeth and nail to keep him safe, the shot went straight into the Dalek’s eye, effectively killing him.

She felt dirty. She felt powerful. She felt different. Why had she done that? Why did it felt so real? Who was she?

___________________________________________________________________

‘Who are you?’ Ten asked.

‘You will find out in a couple of millennia.’

His eyes were younger, but they still held that way of inspecting people, but his short time with her was not enough for him to fully scrutinise her. She gave him the most powerful and hardest lie ever when she smiled, and he the thought of her lying was only another smile, and she thought of the irony of it. He looks at her, but he doesn’t see her.

___________________________________________________________________The TARDIS materialised in front of the Maitland’s home, earlier than usual, which freaked Clara out and she made Eleven check many times the date because Rose had told her about that one time Nine was a year late.

‘You know it’s your birthday, right?’ Eleven said, standing close to the rails looking at her. ‘She’s just being nice.’

Clara was about to go out when their eyes caught each other. Pain, loss, death, and hope were written all over his, and she was sure that hers were no different. She had been there every day making her way to him, and now they were right there, in front of each other and they couldn’t move. How were they supposed to let go now? She knew that there will be a day in which he is going to be the death of her, not some other echo who only lived for him—her, the person, the recipe. She had already given too much for him, all the splinters always running to him—she couldn’t turn into one of them. Her autonomy was important, she had to get away from him, live her life.

She wasn’t his moon, she was a star, far far away, burning with such intensity that he and the TARDIS could only stare in admiration. But like all other human-stars, she was meant to die early, brightness unmatchable to the life of a Time Lord, but his time span would always make the difference. He had to move on.

One of them had to give the other one away.

And yet she walked to him. She had thought that his lips would be cold, with all the death and tears and age on them, but instead his lips were alive, drenched in blood, and warm like the last breeze of heat in autumn before the dead winter kicks in. Kissing him was so different from what Clara had imagined, equally hard, but the challenge was another one.

Every part of her was running, but never to him, not truly, she had already done that too much and she was tired. Still, she wasn’t running away, either; that would be counterproductive: if she ran from the demigod she had escaped with, she would be running from the truth. They had seen the same wars, and their pain was unbearable, but it wasn’t the same one. They were independent, but they existed completely because of the other. None of it belittled what they had done, and they knew that they were the only people to fully understand their actions.

She realized that they were running together, hand in hand like he had told her once, the moment her father kept giving him several stern looks and kept trying to get some information about him, info which he would probably never know, but it was deep sealed within Clara and the Doctor and it would never go away.

#I've been meaning to post this for ages #whouffle #whouffiction #souffez #i wrote this a lifetime ago and i never posted it #it could be a 50th au somehow #later i'm gonna write a proper 50th fic #clara oswald #eleventh doctor #eleven x clara #this is a slighly different version from the one i published a month or so ago

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