The Time of Change

The Time After Her

I see Clara way before she sees me. She's sitting at a table in the café, twiddling her thumbs, looking a little anxious, if I'm being honest. I see her through the window. She wears some sort of cream-colored sweater and dark jeans. As usual, she looks like she should be on the cover of some magazine and not waiting on an old man. As usual, she does not show the heaviness she must feel from our most recent adventure's outcome -- the near end of the world, Missy the Master's explosive return onto the scene, and the death of a man she loved very dearly. Poor Clara.

She sits all by herself; it seems she's already taken the liberty of buying two coffees for us. There's a big, clunky device strapped to her wrist. When I recognize it, which only takes a millisecond, it almost makes me smile.

    I walk in the glass front door, and a bell connected to it tinkles to announce my entrance. Clara doesn't look up. "Hey," I greet offhandedly as I stride over quickly and seat myself opposite her. My coattails fit weirdly between the openings in the back of the chair. She smiles. "Hey."

    "I got your message," I tell her after a beat. "Two weeks late," she replies with an amused tilt of her head. I nod a couple of times. "Not bad." She chuckles at me, twin dimples deepening at the corners of her mouth. "Improving," she concedes. A strand of sleek brown hair flops into her eyes as she looks down at her hands, which are clasped on top of the table, clutching her coffee. There is a sadness to her that I do not enjoy seeing. I hate seeing Clara sad. Especially when I know it's because of me.

    I try to lighten her mood by pointing out something that will make her happy. "I see you have news for me," I comment, nodding toward the thing on her wrist. She glances at it, and now at me. "News?" she repeats. She doesn't look like she understands what I mean.

"He figured it out, then?" I attempt to specify. "P.E. figured out there was a way home."

Clara breathes very, very slowly. "Yeah... Yeah he did. "

I crack a smile. "Oh, good old P.E. He'll make a maths teacher yet." I would have thought that my nickname for her boyfriend would bring a smile to her face, but it does not. Actually there's a bit of a worse sad streak in those pretty eyes of hers than there was before. I don't worry about it, though, because she's wearing the now-defunct transport bracelet. Which could only have come from Danny Pink. Maybe she's sad for another reason, since Danny is clearly in the picture again. Maybe she's sad because this really is the end of an era. I try not to let that thought depress me.

"Listen, Doctor," Clara says suddenly, leaning forward. "Th-there's something that I have to tell you and... uh, it's not good news so just -- just listen, okay? D -- "

"I know," I interrupt her carefully. She freezes, her eyes wide. "Sorry?" I shake my head, and I know I probably have that look she hates. The know-it-all look. She calls me on it every time I do it, though I really never can tell. It just feels like my regular face, to me. In the gentlest tone I can muster, I say, "I know exactly what you've got to tell me."

Clara hesitates for a moment. "... You do?"

I just smile understandingly at her. Or, at least, I hope I do. "You and Danny are together now," I state, feeling rather redundant. "That's great. That's how it should be. But the old man in the blue box? That's never going to fit in. So no more flying around. No more lying."

Everything Clara and I did together took a large toll on her and Danny's relationship. She would lie to him and say she had not been with me when in fact she had. She would pretend we hadn't been anywhere near each other in weeks. It was all lies upon lies, which normally I would not be opposed to, because ordinary humans can't really handle the knowledge. But Clara loved Danny. Still loves him. I cannot be the reason why they can't be together. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. Clara Oswald deserves to be happy more than anyone else. I want her to be happy.