With Fragile Promises (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

Chapter Four: Thank You

  Lost in their hug, the Doctor closed his eyes and pressed his face into Clara’s small shoulder. As soon as he thought she was getting a little better, he screwed it up. It was a bad idea coming here – he should’ve known that anywhere he’d been previously which had consisted of a near death experience might mean Clara had been there with him. Now he had invaded her privacy once again by psychically linking their minds. He only witnessed snippets of what was replaying itself in Clara’s mind; his own long scarf during his fourth regeneration, the flashing light as the cyberman made Clara its target and the young man cradling Clara in his arms.

  Perhaps the Doctor hadn’t fully realised it before, but Clara had indeed lived a thousand lives in a thousand places, loved, made mistakes, had hopes, flying dreams and then, all for him, died in some way.

  And all of that was in her mind, screaming to get out. No wonder she had nightmares, she was lucky it didn’t drive her insane.

  The Doctor waited until Clara pulled out of the hug. She met his gaze, as if she was embarrassed, with her eyes flicking downwards. “Thanks,” she muttered. She sounded drained, like she had just run a marathon without a moment rest.

  “I know you told me not to do that again,” the Doctor put in, hurriedly trying to explain himself, “but I couldn’t stand seeing you – I had to do something, Clara.”

  Clara frowned. “What did you do? My head – it feels… Clear. Quiet. Normal.”

  There was a long pause between each of the words as Clara came to terms with her new freedom. The Doctor smiled, searching for her approval. “I placed a psychic resistance inside your mind! It’s basically a barrier, a shield, which doesn’t allow any memory that didn’t originate in your own mind to break through and disrupt your consciousness.”

  “So it… suppresses the memories of my echoes? From your timestream?”

  The Doctor gave an encouraging nod.

  Clara emitted a breath of relief, to the Doctor’s own delight. “Why didn’t you do that before?!”

  He shuffled, his hand brushing away the suggestion. “The last time I did something similar you told me not to do it again.”

  Grinning, Clara leaned across the distance between them and pressed a gentle kiss to the Doctor’s cheek. He mercilessly blushed, his limbs losing focus of what they were doing as he tried to push himself up from the ground. With a shaky hand he helped Clara up too since her balance was still a little uncoordinated. For the first time since arriving, Clara could see the fairies. Her eyes lit up with excitement as she followed the trails of pink glitter flying through air at lightening speed around their heads. Some of the more curious fairies hovered at eye-level, their wings fluttering and beating out a rhythm reminiscent of tiny sleigh bells. Clara let out an overjoyed laugh and instinctively reached for the Doctor’s hand. Slowly he pulled her back towards the TARDIS doors, his previous excitement for exploring the planet ruined, and wanting nothing more than to get Clara back to safety. Clara didn’t protest, the exhaustion of the recent memory showing itself as dark shadows underneath her eyes. He held open the door for her and watched as she walked inside. When he turned back to have one more look at the planet, he was surprised to see the fairy who had talked to him previously flying beside his head.

  “A temporary fix,” the fairy said in a passive manner. “She will continue to get worse.”

  “Not under my watch,” the Doctor replied, a little too forceful for it to be entirely friendly. The fairy didn’t seem to take offence. Instead, he gave the Doctor a miniature salute, his little all-seeing eyes telling him he was already sorry for what was to happen next. The Doctor secretly hated his assured intelligence but instead of arguing that he would do anything to make Clara better, he simply nodded in the fairy’s direction and stepped back inside the TARDIS.