Fic: Break A Few Eggs (Doctor Who, Nine/Clara)
Title: Break A Few Eggs
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ninth Doctor/Clara Oswald
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: For Ninth Doctor, this happens before 'Rose'. For Clara, this happens between 'The Day of the Doctor' and 'Time of the Doctor'.
Summary: The Ninth Doctor is all rage and guilt, but then he meets a girl who knows him, who keeps showing up to keep him company. It does them both good.
He ran, from the fire burning in his head, from the screams of Gallifrey's children, from the memory of Romana's smile, from everything. He turned up at the Boston Tea Party - give me work, any work - he unearthed bones on planets circling dead suns, he camped out in London, in New York, in so many cities. He listened to people's stories and held their wounds shut. He blew up weapons factories, he took tea with the great and the good and the downright unmentionable. He ran.
He couldn't sleep. He couldn't close his eyes, not for one moment. He only slept when forced to, the TARDIS locking him in the medbay until he hopped up onto a narrow bed and actually closed his eyes for a few hours. On one memorable occasion, after too many blurry-eyed days without sleep, the TARDIS had drugged him via her kitchen's coffee and he'd woken up after a chemically-induced sleep with a crick in his neck and a burning desire to threaten the TARDIS console with a mallet.
He bled, he bruised, he gained scars and stitches. What did it matter? He'd heal, he'd survive. That was what he did, unforgivably. He always survived.
That was what he was currently trying to do, while a group of very angry worshippers of the Undying God were doing their best to make him pay for stealing their ancient relic - actually a component from a downed spaceship which needed to be given to a stranded community a couple of lightyears away. Needs of the many and all that.
So he was surviving, as usual doing what nobody else was willing to do. His hand pause in its flight towards a door handle, because the complaints he usually made went unheard now, didn’t they? There was nobody to hear them, nobody...No.
He was running, remember? The mob was getting a little too close for comfort and once he'd pushed past the door, all he could see were suspicious crowds and heads bowed in silent prayer. Nobody was going to help him. Why would they? Why...
“Oy!”
An anachronistic motorbike roared out of a nearby ally and screeched to a halt. The driver - petite, female - flipped up her helmet’s visor to reveal bright expressive eyes. She beckoned him urgently.
“Come on, Doctor, what are you waiting for?”
Frozen in place for a dangerous moment by the very unexpected use of his name, the Doctor forced himself to run, throwing himself onto the back of the bike. A second later, they were roaring down another street until they reached the very outskirts of the city. The driver parked the bike in what looked like a small crowded garage and quickly dismounted, peeling her helmet off as she headed through a door, clearly expecting him to follow. The Doctor glanced around and then did exactly that. He had questions he wanted answered after all.
His saviour had left her leather jacket and helmet piled up on a chair and was now pottering with purpose around a small kitchen.
“The bad news is, there's not much here. But the good news is I have everything I need to make a soufflé.”
She pulled a pint of milk out of a tiny fridge along with a carton of eggs. The Doctor watched her, he was certain he'd never met her before, and if she was from his future, then she had to know better than to cross his timeline early. So why had she done it? And how?
“When do I meet you?”
The girl's movements slowed as she poured milk into a bowl, a happy sort of wistful smile on her face. “A few years yet.”
It was good that she thought that way about him - happy and wistful - but God, travelling back risked her future encounters with him... “So why come here? Why put all that at risk? Break a thread and everything tumbles down. I've seen it happen.”
The girl cracked an egg. “I know.”
The Doctor stayed silent, his questions still hanging in the air as the girl settled the bowl into a bain-marie on the stovetop. She knew. How much did she know? There was something about her that itched at him; something was out of joint, out of time? No, it wasn't just that.
The girl was focused entirely on her soufflé. The Doctor kept his distance, his sonic screwdriver taking a very thorough reading of his anonymous companion. She didn't seem bothered by his obvious tension and anger. Did she know what he'd done? How could she? She definitely wouldn't be travelling with him if she knew. And just how had she gotten him to agree to let her travel with him in the first place? He'd made a promise to himself not long ago - no more lives ruined.
A soufflé that had almost risen properly, and was a little darker than recipe books liked, was placed on the counter in front of him. The girl held out a spoon. The Doctor hesitated, but took the utensil. The girl smiled, a small triumphant smile which rankled under his skin along with all his unanswered questions. The girl dug into the soufflé with a spoon of her own and looked happy with the taste. The Doctor watched until a couple of spoonloads later, the girl decisively put her spoon down and gathered up her jacket and helmet. Hang on a minute.
“Oy, don’t think you can just waltz in, make a soufflé, and leave me with dirty dishes and no answers!”
The girl's smile was amused now. “It's really no fun when the shoe's on the other foot, is it?”
The Doctor looked affronted and the girl laughed. It was almost a pleasant sound. “I've got a TARDIS to meet in eight minutes and you need to stay out of sight. Pearl won't mind you staying here a little longer, just clean everything up and be out by second nightfall, okay?”
She tugged her jacket on over a blood-red dress, her helmet under her arm. She looked completely unaffected by the Doctor's fury and frustration, though there was a flash of something, a glimpse of haunted memories and thoughts in her expression, but by the next second, it was gone. Who the hell was she?
She slipped into the garage before he could ask and then there was the roar of a motorbike engine again. The Doctor glared and viciously dug into the soufflé while checking his sonic screwdriver for readings - human, twenty-first century, definitely out of her time. That was it. Oh, very helpful.
All he was left with was the spaceship component to take to that stranded community, and a really delicious soufflé. It almost made him want to close his eyes, almost.
*
When he fed the readings back into the TARDIS, she refused to tell him more. The Doctor pounded a frustrated fist on the console. What was going on?
“C'mon, you can do better than that!” he warned the TARDIS. “Who was she?”
But the TARDIS stayed silent, a distinct feeling of dislike emanating neurally. That wasn't reassuring at all. The Doctor frowned. For the next week, he kept tasting soufflé on the back of his tongue.
*
There she was again, covered in blue powder and part of the second Venus Light Celebrations. She looked so happy, laughing and chatting to the people around her. The Doctor studied her, wanting to glean all he could from the planes of her expression. He wanted to know what the TARDIS wouldn’t tell him.
She moved easily through the crowd and caught his eye. She didn’t look surprised - had she come looking for him? Then there were warm blue fingers in his, staining his skin and pulling him through the throngs to a little tea stand. The girl smiled and handed over a couple of tokens, the bronze kind with two holes punched through the middle.
“The green copra tastes like Earl Grey, if you squint a bit.” Her eyebrows drew down for a moment. “You do still like Earl Grey?”
The Doctor would have preferred a coffee - black and sweet - but he nodded and drank the weak green liquid. It reminded him too much of constricting military labs and a neutered TARDIS. That in turn reminded him that…
“My TARDIS doesn’t like you.”
The girl looked unimpressed, turning slightly. “The feeling’s mutual there.”
The Doctor grasped her arm, like she might run off there and then, off into the crowd, off to a motorbike or TARDIS, away and never to return. The girl looked at him pointedly, like a teacher to a pupil, but he didn’t drop her arm, not yet.
“The TARDIS has opinions, but she never openly dislikes, never. So what are you? What did you do to make her so angry?”
The girl stayed silent but there was look in her eyes again, like grief, sympathy, and pain. It stayed longer this time and the Doctor swore that at least one of his hearts slowed down a little in response, until the girl’s eyes cleared and she answered quiet and warning.
“I saved you.”
The Doctor dropped her arm like a hot coal. The girl held his gaze and drank more of her copra. She looked tense now, unnerved and weary. He’d done that. He drank too much copra and almost coughed it up again.
“It’s not a coincidence, us meeting, this time or the last,” he managed to get out, a statement in place of a question.
The girl nodded, once, slow and sad. Did she know? The Doctor clenched his teeth. “I don’t need…”
“You do,” she sounded strong again, sure and not to be dissuaded.
She dropped her empty cup into a nearby sack and walked to the edge of the crowd. She held out her hand to him in a wordless question. He could have turned the tables and left it unanswered. But she was starting to give him answers at last and…and he never could let a good mystery go.
So he grasped her hand, blending into the crowd with her until she disappeared again. The next day, there was blue powder still crusted in the lines of his skin.
*
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
The girl looked up from her pile of pretty ancient travel guides. There was hardly anyone else in the library and the whole place was aglow with antique oil lamps. She smiled, warm and quick, and turned a page.
“Oswin.”
She hadn't hesitated over it. Was that her real name? The TARDIS refused to confirm or deny anything.
Oswin.
*
The configuration of stars was shining brighter than anything else in the sky. Oswin was looking up at them in wonder. As usual, she wasn't surprised to see the Doctor. He stared at her until their gazes met. There was a tear trickling down her cheek. Neither of them wiped it away.
Her eyes were full again, full of whatever haunted her dreams. She didn't seem overwhelmed by what she saw in his expression, her gaze stayed steady.
“It hurts to remember,” she said quietly.
The Doctor stayed silent, but his fingers brushed hers. The stars continued to shine.
*
Oswin was wearing a beret, it matched her red skirt. She was smiling at something on her phone, which she tucked away when she spied him walking towards her.
“From the kids I used to look after,” she said by way of explanation.
She didn't presume to touch him; she stayed close but didn't invade his personal space. She watched him like she was interested, like she was learning. She didn't seem to want anything, except his company. He didn’t want hers; only he kept walking towards her, and taking her hand. He still rarely slept. He wondered what memories pained her.
They watched birds wheel in an apricot sky and ate balls of ice cream dripping with bright blue syrup. Oswin leaned towards him, just a little, for a few long moments. She straightened out again soon after though, a secret smile tucked into the corner of her mouth.
She threw crumbs to the birds and sighed.
*
He hunted with tribes and families; he watched as languages developed and his image appeared carved in stone and painted on walls. He saw images of his previous lives, striding out to make their own mistakes. He turned away.
He imagined that he saw Oswin once with a younger guy in tweed and a bow-tie and was that a fez? Jesus. But he could have been mistaken; he had just finished a bowl of very pungent soup that had made everything waver gloriously. Still, that swoop of dark hair and flash of bright eyes had really seemed familiar.
He asked her, when they were walking through Rio during carnival. She was checking her watch worriedly.
“I lose track,” was her harried reply. “Everything goes very…wonky when I think about it.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, because that, he understood. He’d learned the hard way how to keep a good grasp of time and timelines. Sometimes there was just burning now.
When he opened his eyes - when had he closed them? - Oswin was already gone, running towards whatever her watch demanded. He wondered if her destination wore a fez.
*
It was a little while later that he got a glimpse of why she sought out his company. He bumped into her on the dustscapes of Kormer III; she was sat on a green deckchair, a can of petrol at her feet. She pushed up her star-shaped sunglasses and smiled at him and when he unfolded his own deckchair, he saw a brief look skate across her face - it was a look of relaxation, of being soothed, maybe even relieved. Where had that come from? Was that because of him?
She had pain in her eyes so often, she didn’t talk about it but it was there and she let him see it. Maybe she couldn’t reveal it to whichever future version of him she was travelling with. If she was still travelling with him. She had to be, didn’t she?
Oswin smiled softly and let him see it all. The Doctor sat and watched the dust roll and collect in strange little whirlwinds. It was almost as compelling as Oswin’s face.
*
He dreamt in strange snatches, at least it felt like a dream. He was back on the dustscapes - had he ever left them? - and there was someone beneath him, a mouth meeting his, a gasp ripe for his ears, and hands that dug into his back, urging him on.
A voice whispered, warm and proud. “You did it.”
There were fingers that knew where to touch and where to avoid. He pressed his face against her clavicle and breathed her in, her singular heartbeat. How mundane, only not at all.
The dust covered them for hours and when she finally moved again, he was aware only of the way she kissed his mouth, how the feeling lingered as she pulled on her boots and walked away, her bracelet shining in the twilight.
But it had been only a dream, the feeling of it rich in his bones, the dust caked under his fingernails.
*
He ate soufflés all over the universe - in five-star restaurants and highly-recommended culinary academies, in little cafes with grease on the countertops and at the home of a renowned chef. He ate chocolate soufflés and cheese soufflés. But none of them stayed on his palate like Oswin’s did.
*
“This is the last time.”
There was sadness in the lift of Oswin’s expression. She was wearing her leather jacket again and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The Doctor looked at her uncomprehendingly, how could it be the last time? He felt cold all over as well as the urge to grab her arm again, but he didn’t. She smiled slightly, like she knew what he was thinking. Maybe she did, it’d explain a lot.
He didn’t know what to say, he wanted to say stay, come with me, but he didn’t because she had her own travelling to do, with him apparently at some point in the future, and while part of him wanted to rage and hack at the rules that kept him from her, he didn’t. If he spent too much time with her, she’d burn too.
Her gift to him had been to keep him company, to soak up the silence, to give him something else to obsess about. A gift indeed. Had she done it on purpose?
His expression was likely very ragged but Oswin just smiled and leaned upwards to kiss the corner of his mouth. What a dream. Her eyes were full again and so were his.
*
Back on the TARDIS he didn’t ask for any more information on Oswin. He sat by the console until he could feel the firm nudge to sleep now. It had been a few days. He didn’t have anywhere else to be, the thought tasted like bitter chocolate. He stretched out on a broken-down chair, his jacket pillowed under his head; his thoughts telescoping until his eyes finally closed and he didn’t find burning behind them.
Oswin, and her impossible soufflés. Her full eyes and her complicated smile.
When the Doctor woke up, it was with a ribbon of vague fondness, almost nostalgia, and he couldn’t remember why. He also felt a strange little edge of emptiness. When was the last time he’d eaten? He had a sudden craving for pancakes, with blueberries and blue syrup. He frowned, blue syrup? God, what had he been dreaming about? He pointed at the TARDIS console.
“Stay out of my head. Or I might start tinkering again on the tenth level.”
The console column glowed for a brief moment. The Doctor started pressing at the buttons and levers. He wanted pancakes; he wanted to go to a nice little café he knew in London before his thoughts caught up with him again. He wanted ice cream and why was he thinking about soufflés? He wanted to run.
*
In a very different console room, Clara chanced patting the TARDIS’s wall. She didn’t get an electric shock, which was a nice change, so she smiled at the console.
“Thank you.”
It was a whisper and the Doctor didn’t hear her - he’d gone to the kitchen to fry some eggs and find out what had happened to the last yellow tomato. That was fine, she could sit in the console room and think about the man that the Doctor didn’t like thinking about - he never talked about his other selves, or who he’d travelled with before. The TARDIS remembered, and helped the Doctor forget.
There was dust between Clara’s toes. A couple of tears ran down her face. They fell unheeded.
-the end
Author Note: Clara calls herself Oswin here, but she is actually Clara, not the Oswin that we meet in 'Asylum of the Daleks'. Clara was being tricky, not telling the Doctor her real name, just in case he remembered her afterwards before he actually met her for the first time in his eleventh body lol. She was trying not to cause any kind of paradox.
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Ninth Doctor/Clara Oswald
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: For Ninth Doctor, this happens before 'Rose'. For Clara, this happens between 'The Day of the Doctor' and 'Time of the Doctor'.
Summary: The Ninth Doctor is all rage and guilt, but then he meets a girl who knows him, who keeps showing up to keep him company. It does them both good.
He ran, from the fire burning in his head, from the screams of Gallifrey's children, from the memory of Romana's smile, from everything. He turned up at the Boston Tea Party - give me work, any work - he unearthed bones on planets circling dead suns, he camped out in London, in New York, in so many cities. He listened to people's stories and held their wounds shut. He blew up weapons factories, he took tea with the great and the good and the downright unmentionable. He ran.
He couldn't sleep. He couldn't close his eyes, not for one moment. He only slept when forced to, the TARDIS locking him in the medbay until he hopped up onto a narrow bed and actually closed his eyes for a few hours. On one memorable occasion, after too many blurry-eyed days without sleep, the TARDIS had drugged him via her kitchen's coffee and he'd woken up after a chemically-induced sleep with a crick in his neck and a burning desire to threaten the TARDIS console with a mallet.
He bled, he bruised, he gained scars and stitches. What did it matter? He'd heal, he'd survive. That was what he did, unforgivably. He always survived.
That was what he was currently trying to do, while a group of very angry worshippers of the Undying God were doing their best to make him pay for stealing their ancient relic - actually a component from a downed spaceship which needed to be given to a stranded community a couple of lightyears away. Needs of the many and all that.
So he was surviving, as usual doing what nobody else was willing to do. His hand pause in its flight towards a door handle, because the complaints he usually made went unheard now, didn’t they? There was nobody to hear them, nobody...No.
He was running, remember? The mob was getting a little too close for comfort and once he'd pushed past the door, all he could see were suspicious crowds and heads bowed in silent prayer. Nobody was going to help him. Why would they? Why...
“Oy!”
An anachronistic motorbike roared out of a nearby ally and screeched to a halt. The driver - petite, female - flipped up her helmet’s visor to reveal bright expressive eyes. She beckoned him urgently.
“Come on, Doctor, what are you waiting for?”
Frozen in place for a dangerous moment by the very unexpected use of his name, the Doctor forced himself to run, throwing himself onto the back of the bike. A second later, they were roaring down another street until they reached the very outskirts of the city. The driver parked the bike in what looked like a small crowded garage and quickly dismounted, peeling her helmet off as she headed through a door, clearly expecting him to follow. The Doctor glanced around and then did exactly that. He had questions he wanted answered after all.
His saviour had left her leather jacket and helmet piled up on a chair and was now pottering with purpose around a small kitchen.
“The bad news is, there's not much here. But the good news is I have everything I need to make a soufflé.”
She pulled a pint of milk out of a tiny fridge along with a carton of eggs. The Doctor watched her, he was certain he'd never met her before, and if she was from his future, then she had to know better than to cross his timeline early. So why had she done it? And how?
“When do I meet you?”
The girl's movements slowed as she poured milk into a bowl, a happy sort of wistful smile on her face. “A few years yet.”
It was good that she thought that way about him - happy and wistful - but God, travelling back risked her future encounters with him... “So why come here? Why put all that at risk? Break a thread and everything tumbles down. I've seen it happen.”
The girl cracked an egg. “I know.”
The Doctor stayed silent, his questions still hanging in the air as the girl settled the bowl into a bain-marie on the stovetop. She knew. How much did she know? There was something about her that itched at him; something was out of joint, out of time? No, it wasn't just that.
The girl was focused entirely on her soufflé. The Doctor kept his distance, his sonic screwdriver taking a very thorough reading of his anonymous companion. She didn't seem bothered by his obvious tension and anger. Did she know what he'd done? How could she? She definitely wouldn't be travelling with him if she knew. And just how had she gotten him to agree to let her travel with him in the first place? He'd made a promise to himself not long ago - no more lives ruined.
A soufflé that had almost risen properly, and was a little darker than recipe books liked, was placed on the counter in front of him. The girl held out a spoon. The Doctor hesitated, but took the utensil. The girl smiled, a small triumphant smile which rankled under his skin along with all his unanswered questions. The girl dug into the soufflé with a spoon of her own and looked happy with the taste. The Doctor watched until a couple of spoonloads later, the girl decisively put her spoon down and gathered up her jacket and helmet. Hang on a minute.
“Oy, don’t think you can just waltz in, make a soufflé, and leave me with dirty dishes and no answers!”
The girl's smile was amused now. “It's really no fun when the shoe's on the other foot, is it?”
The Doctor looked affronted and the girl laughed. It was almost a pleasant sound. “I've got a TARDIS to meet in eight minutes and you need to stay out of sight. Pearl won't mind you staying here a little longer, just clean everything up and be out by second nightfall, okay?”
She tugged her jacket on over a blood-red dress, her helmet under her arm. She looked completely unaffected by the Doctor's fury and frustration, though there was a flash of something, a glimpse of haunted memories and thoughts in her expression, but by the next second, it was gone. Who the hell was she?
She slipped into the garage before he could ask and then there was the roar of a motorbike engine again. The Doctor glared and viciously dug into the soufflé while checking his sonic screwdriver for readings - human, twenty-first century, definitely out of her time. That was it. Oh, very helpful.
All he was left with was the spaceship component to take to that stranded community, and a really delicious soufflé. It almost made him want to close his eyes, almost.
*
When he fed the readings back into the TARDIS, she refused to tell him more. The Doctor pounded a frustrated fist on the console. What was going on?
“C'mon, you can do better than that!” he warned the TARDIS. “Who was she?”
But the TARDIS stayed silent, a distinct feeling of dislike emanating neurally. That wasn't reassuring at all. The Doctor frowned. For the next week, he kept tasting soufflé on the back of his tongue.
*
There she was again, covered in blue powder and part of the second Venus Light Celebrations. She looked so happy, laughing and chatting to the people around her. The Doctor studied her, wanting to glean all he could from the planes of her expression. He wanted to know what the TARDIS wouldn’t tell him.
She moved easily through the crowd and caught his eye. She didn’t look surprised - had she come looking for him? Then there were warm blue fingers in his, staining his skin and pulling him through the throngs to a little tea stand. The girl smiled and handed over a couple of tokens, the bronze kind with two holes punched through the middle.
“The green copra tastes like Earl Grey, if you squint a bit.” Her eyebrows drew down for a moment. “You do still like Earl Grey?”
The Doctor would have preferred a coffee - black and sweet - but he nodded and drank the weak green liquid. It reminded him too much of constricting military labs and a neutered TARDIS. That in turn reminded him that…
“My TARDIS doesn’t like you.”
The girl looked unimpressed, turning slightly. “The feeling’s mutual there.”
The Doctor grasped her arm, like she might run off there and then, off into the crowd, off to a motorbike or TARDIS, away and never to return. The girl looked at him pointedly, like a teacher to a pupil, but he didn’t drop her arm, not yet.
“The TARDIS has opinions, but she never openly dislikes, never. So what are you? What did you do to make her so angry?”
The girl stayed silent but there was look in her eyes again, like grief, sympathy, and pain. It stayed longer this time and the Doctor swore that at least one of his hearts slowed down a little in response, until the girl’s eyes cleared and she answered quiet and warning.
“I saved you.”
The Doctor dropped her arm like a hot coal. The girl held his gaze and drank more of her copra. She looked tense now, unnerved and weary. He’d done that. He drank too much copra and almost coughed it up again.
“It’s not a coincidence, us meeting, this time or the last,” he managed to get out, a statement in place of a question.
The girl nodded, once, slow and sad. Did she know? The Doctor clenched his teeth. “I don’t need…”
“You do,” she sounded strong again, sure and not to be dissuaded.
She dropped her empty cup into a nearby sack and walked to the edge of the crowd. She held out her hand to him in a wordless question. He could have turned the tables and left it unanswered. But she was starting to give him answers at last and…and he never could let a good mystery go.
So he grasped her hand, blending into the crowd with her until she disappeared again. The next day, there was blue powder still crusted in the lines of his skin.
*
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
The girl looked up from her pile of pretty ancient travel guides. There was hardly anyone else in the library and the whole place was aglow with antique oil lamps. She smiled, warm and quick, and turned a page.
“Oswin.”
She hadn't hesitated over it. Was that her real name? The TARDIS refused to confirm or deny anything.
Oswin.
*
The configuration of stars was shining brighter than anything else in the sky. Oswin was looking up at them in wonder. As usual, she wasn't surprised to see the Doctor. He stared at her until their gazes met. There was a tear trickling down her cheek. Neither of them wiped it away.
Her eyes were full again, full of whatever haunted her dreams. She didn't seem overwhelmed by what she saw in his expression, her gaze stayed steady.
“It hurts to remember,” she said quietly.
The Doctor stayed silent, but his fingers brushed hers. The stars continued to shine.
*
Oswin was wearing a beret, it matched her red skirt. She was smiling at something on her phone, which she tucked away when she spied him walking towards her.
“From the kids I used to look after,” she said by way of explanation.
She didn't presume to touch him; she stayed close but didn't invade his personal space. She watched him like she was interested, like she was learning. She didn't seem to want anything, except his company. He didn’t want hers; only he kept walking towards her, and taking her hand. He still rarely slept. He wondered what memories pained her.
They watched birds wheel in an apricot sky and ate balls of ice cream dripping with bright blue syrup. Oswin leaned towards him, just a little, for a few long moments. She straightened out again soon after though, a secret smile tucked into the corner of her mouth.
She threw crumbs to the birds and sighed.
*
He hunted with tribes and families; he watched as languages developed and his image appeared carved in stone and painted on walls. He saw images of his previous lives, striding out to make their own mistakes. He turned away.
He imagined that he saw Oswin once with a younger guy in tweed and a bow-tie and was that a fez? Jesus. But he could have been mistaken; he had just finished a bowl of very pungent soup that had made everything waver gloriously. Still, that swoop of dark hair and flash of bright eyes had really seemed familiar.
He asked her, when they were walking through Rio during carnival. She was checking her watch worriedly.
“I lose track,” was her harried reply. “Everything goes very…wonky when I think about it.”
The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up, because that, he understood. He’d learned the hard way how to keep a good grasp of time and timelines. Sometimes there was just burning now.
When he opened his eyes - when had he closed them? - Oswin was already gone, running towards whatever her watch demanded. He wondered if her destination wore a fez.
*
It was a little while later that he got a glimpse of why she sought out his company. He bumped into her on the dustscapes of Kormer III; she was sat on a green deckchair, a can of petrol at her feet. She pushed up her star-shaped sunglasses and smiled at him and when he unfolded his own deckchair, he saw a brief look skate across her face - it was a look of relaxation, of being soothed, maybe even relieved. Where had that come from? Was that because of him?
She had pain in her eyes so often, she didn’t talk about it but it was there and she let him see it. Maybe she couldn’t reveal it to whichever future version of him she was travelling with. If she was still travelling with him. She had to be, didn’t she?
Oswin smiled softly and let him see it all. The Doctor sat and watched the dust roll and collect in strange little whirlwinds. It was almost as compelling as Oswin’s face.
*
He dreamt in strange snatches, at least it felt like a dream. He was back on the dustscapes - had he ever left them? - and there was someone beneath him, a mouth meeting his, a gasp ripe for his ears, and hands that dug into his back, urging him on.
A voice whispered, warm and proud. “You did it.”
There were fingers that knew where to touch and where to avoid. He pressed his face against her clavicle and breathed her in, her singular heartbeat. How mundane, only not at all.
The dust covered them for hours and when she finally moved again, he was aware only of the way she kissed his mouth, how the feeling lingered as she pulled on her boots and walked away, her bracelet shining in the twilight.
But it had been only a dream, the feeling of it rich in his bones, the dust caked under his fingernails.
*
He ate soufflés all over the universe - in five-star restaurants and highly-recommended culinary academies, in little cafes with grease on the countertops and at the home of a renowned chef. He ate chocolate soufflés and cheese soufflés. But none of them stayed on his palate like Oswin’s did.
*
“This is the last time.”
There was sadness in the lift of Oswin’s expression. She was wearing her leather jacket again and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The Doctor looked at her uncomprehendingly, how could it be the last time? He felt cold all over as well as the urge to grab her arm again, but he didn’t. She smiled slightly, like she knew what he was thinking. Maybe she did, it’d explain a lot.
He didn’t know what to say, he wanted to say stay, come with me, but he didn’t because she had her own travelling to do, with him apparently at some point in the future, and while part of him wanted to rage and hack at the rules that kept him from her, he didn’t. If he spent too much time with her, she’d burn too.
Her gift to him had been to keep him company, to soak up the silence, to give him something else to obsess about. A gift indeed. Had she done it on purpose?
His expression was likely very ragged but Oswin just smiled and leaned upwards to kiss the corner of his mouth. What a dream. Her eyes were full again and so were his.
*
Back on the TARDIS he didn’t ask for any more information on Oswin. He sat by the console until he could feel the firm nudge to sleep now. It had been a few days. He didn’t have anywhere else to be, the thought tasted like bitter chocolate. He stretched out on a broken-down chair, his jacket pillowed under his head; his thoughts telescoping until his eyes finally closed and he didn’t find burning behind them.
Oswin, and her impossible soufflés. Her full eyes and her complicated smile.
When the Doctor woke up, it was with a ribbon of vague fondness, almost nostalgia, and he couldn’t remember why. He also felt a strange little edge of emptiness. When was the last time he’d eaten? He had a sudden craving for pancakes, with blueberries and blue syrup. He frowned, blue syrup? God, what had he been dreaming about? He pointed at the TARDIS console.
“Stay out of my head. Or I might start tinkering again on the tenth level.”
The console column glowed for a brief moment. The Doctor started pressing at the buttons and levers. He wanted pancakes; he wanted to go to a nice little café he knew in London before his thoughts caught up with him again. He wanted ice cream and why was he thinking about soufflés? He wanted to run.
*
In a very different console room, Clara chanced patting the TARDIS’s wall. She didn’t get an electric shock, which was a nice change, so she smiled at the console.
“Thank you.”
It was a whisper and the Doctor didn’t hear her - he’d gone to the kitchen to fry some eggs and find out what had happened to the last yellow tomato. That was fine, she could sit in the console room and think about the man that the Doctor didn’t like thinking about - he never talked about his other selves, or who he’d travelled with before. The TARDIS remembered, and helped the Doctor forget.
There was dust between Clara’s toes. A couple of tears ran down her face. They fell unheeded.
-the end
Author Note: Clara calls herself Oswin here, but she is actually Clara, not the Oswin that we meet in 'Asylum of the Daleks'. Clara was being tricky, not telling the Doctor her real name, just in case he remembered her afterwards before he actually met her for the first time in his eleventh body lol. She was trying not to cause any kind of paradox.