makemeasong | Open post/meme overflow 💫

[ She smiles softly and laces her fingers together. ]

It wasn't just the bowties, you know. I like sunglasses and hoodies and watching you play guitar. Just as much as I liked your floppy hair and big chin.

[ Clara can only laugh softly now because he's here with her. ]

My only regret is not kissing that chin when I had the chance.

[That gets a bit of a gruff laugh out of him.]

He would have loved that. And if that's the only regret you right now I'd say we're doing well, aren't we?

I like to think so.

[ She's going to get up but as she looks around, something catches her eye and she gets up instead after squeezing his hand, walking back to the bookshelf. But her eyes look up and she reaches up on her tiptoes, picking up a postcard. Running her fingers over it, she feels something tug in her chest that hasn't in so long. ]

I've been here. But...I can't remember. Have we been here?

[ She fips the postcard so he can see it, watching him. ]

[His first instinct is to bound up from his spot on the couch to follow her but is instead rooted to his spot on the couch by what she finds. It appears that the moment has come before he can instigate it himself.]

We might have. I had a similar feeling when I walked through the door.

Like deja vu?

[ Clara steps closer, holding the postcard of Gallifrey before its fall and handing it to him as she sits back down. ]

I didn't say anything, I just thought I'd been so many places things were starting to blur together.

Like a memory. An echo.

[He takes the postcard from him, turning it over in his hands similar to how he had with the silver leaf.]

That tends to happen when you've been through all the when's and where's of time and space.

[He stares at the postcard, recalling for a moment Gallifrey in its glory.] Is there anything specifically about this place [He motions around them.] that you remember? That book we read? The kitchen? The feel of the sweet grass on your legs?

[ Clara slowly looks around at the cabin, walking through it and trying to think. ]

Is this yours? Your cabin, I mean.

[ She's made her way into a bedroom and the quilt draped over the foot of the bed looks so familiar that she sits and lets her fingers trace the pattern. It's there, on the tip of her tongue, and she blurts out words before they go away. ]

You bought this for me in a Caprican market. I liked the colors, you hated it.

[It's only when she starts to move that he gets up the couch to follow. He buries his hands in his pocket out of habit and in order to not fidget.]

It's ours. [There's no point in hiding it when he remembers it now himself.] It's been a while since I've been here though. Or no time at all. Depends how you look at it.

[His eyes crinkle slightly at that.]

To be honest I think a lot of the decor was decided that way. The only thing we both liked was the cabin.

[ Clara's eyes flick back up to his. ]

Ours? I don't understand.

[ At the edges of her mind, she feels the beginning of a storm, the crackling at the edges of her memory. She sees him, but not him. Another face, a younger one, and eyes that are happy. Eyes that dance when they look at her. Memories begin to cleaver their way through a life that was manufactured, made to keep her safe, to hide her. Moments are snatched away and replaced.

It hurts and she brings both hands to her head, leaning over with her head between her knees. ]

Doctor, what's happening to me?

[ Her voice is muffled when she speaks, memories of red grass swaying in the breeze, holding hands and having picnics under the trees, their silver leaves sparkling in the twin sun's light. When Clara looks up again, the recognition in her eyes is completely different. She sees him for who he is now. When she says his name, it's in a way she hasn't in so long. It's the way she remembers saying it in a dim room while sitting on his lap, his face cradled in her hands, breathing it out into the air. ]

Doctor.

Edited 2022-08-13 18:41 (UTC)

[Panic grips him when she doubles over and he immediately reaches to steady her.]

Clara, Clara, it's okay this is just a [He can't be fully sure but he suspects.] jog in your memory.

[He's trying to keep a steady timber to his voice but his eyes betray him. He's worried. He's cursing himself inwardly because maybe they shouldn't have come here. He should have turned around the minute they passed the door and left good enough alone. Started new.

But when she utters his name there's a difference to it. The panic stills - but isn't entirely gone. He needs to be sure first.]

Clara?

[ This life that she hasn't remembered comes crashing back and now she keeps seeing a life playing out that was hers and theirs. When he says her name, she stands and then, the truth of everything is laid bare in front of her. Her next whisper is his true name, before he was the Doctor, before she shared him with so many so often, he was only hers. Stepping toward him, she says his true name again, tearfully, standing right in front of him. ]

We used to lay in the sweet grass dreaming up a future.

[ Clara's voice cracks as she looks up at him. ]

My husband. I remember.

[ She's shaking and reaches up to ghost her fingers over his cheek. ] It's really you.

[Hearing his true name has always sent a shockwave through him. There are some days when he's convicted he's forgotten it himself, but hearing it from Clara's mouth is like hearing a song he hadn't heard in a very long time.

This isn't Gallifrey, but seeing the look in her eyes and the love behind his name feels like coming home. He leans into her touch, eyes fluttering closed as his hand goes to cover her hand.]

My wife. [He smiles, eyes opening.] It's been a while hasn't it?

Edited (fml) 2022-08-13 22:50 (UTC)

[ Clara's forehead presses to his and she feels a tear slip down her cheek. Everything they've been through together only to wind up here. She's speechless and all she can do is nod, her other hand curling around the edge of his shirt. But then she realizes something and steps away just enough to be able to meet his gaze. ]

I couldn't before, because I didn't remember, but Doctor. [ She hesitates but then swallows her fear because there's always a chance she's wrong. ]

If I die, now, I should be able to regenerate.

[The realization hits him like a truck. Up until now, up until she says it, he had forgotten too. It's as if he feels the last barrier fall away, unlocking the rest of their time that they had together.

Being linked intrinsically, on a molecular level, he knows what she's thinking. And he senses the fear. But there's something in his gut telling him that she's speaking the truth.

He grasps her hands pulling them to his lips.]

Clara you're brilliant. You might be right. It could work.

Edited 2022-08-13 23:17 (UTC)

[ She closes her eyes at the feel of his lips on her skin, over the ring he gave her long ago. They'd gotten married in a haste and now, as it turns out, it was only the universe attempting to correct a mistake. ]

I don't want to go all the way to Gallifrey. I don't want The General or...anyone else there.

[ Clara wants to make the attempt at regenerating here, in their home. If she dies, it will be here. But it means she needs to die somehow, and her eyes meet his. ]

And you think I would? [The very thought is enough to make him roll his eyes. He wants to go home but not to them. Time hasn't made his opinion of them change.

His wide eyed gaze turns into a furrowed one, quickly realizing what she is too.]

We'll find a way to kick start your regeneration without going to Gallifrey. [His gaze flits immediately to out the bedroom door, the wheels in his mind already running a million miles a minute.] There has to be something in the books. Possibly something we overlooked.

[ Clara's quiet, biting at the inside of her cheek. Dying is the only way she's ever known, but maybe he's right, and she takes his hand, kissing his wrist. ]

We'll find something. Together, we'll find something.

[ It would be their fucking luck if he had to actually kill her, but she knows it's a possibility. Her mind is already wondering what the gentlest way would be because she doesn't...she couldn't ask him. She never would. ]

But later. We have time now. I want to look at you.

[ She's looking at him through a new lens, her husband, his 13th face, and she lightly ghosts her fingers over his skin. Her face is is different now too, with hints of the same features. ]

I knew I recognized those eyes. Always, your eyes were so...I dunno I just always saw you.

[He would have run right off to their books to pour over a way around their problem had she not stilled him. He had always been at his best when there was a problem to solve particularly a new problem that he had never encountered before. Add in this new motivation and he would have been off to the races.

Suddenly he can't help but feel both microscopic and seen under her gaze. It's like she were able to see into his very soul.

But he remembers her old face too, coming to mind clear as day. The same smart, intelligent features are still there but just taking on a new interpretation. Clara's face is no less stunning than it was the days they spent in Gallifrey so many millenia ago. He can't help but chuckle.]

Let me guess - less wrinkles, same stubborn gaze?

[ She laughs, the sound lighter than it was even in the TARDIS. It's nearly too much, the memories she has that weren't her life at all, and the life that was, the life that was theirs. ]

More stubborn, even. It's the eyebrows.

[ She feels free to touch now, her thumbs moving over said brows. ]

I told you it wasn't just your face, you idiot.

More stubborn? [He tries to act offended but there's no denying the twinkle in his eye. If anything he secretly takes pride in it.] The eyebrows are furious though aren't they? The accent is my personal favourite.

[He's like a cat leaning into her touch but just short of nuzzling her.] I get the feeling I'm never going to hear the end of it now am I? I shouldn't have said anything in the first place. It was your bewitching ways.

[ She laughs again, close enough that she has no qualms with letting the tip of her nose graze his before capturing his lips with her own. With their minds linked, he'll see everything floating through her mind. Sneaking her out of her parent's home one night so they could see a rare meteor shower pass over Gallifrey. The first time they kissed, standing outside in their scholarly robes and ignoring the fact that they were both supposed to be in class.

The first glances that carried more, the first kisses with heat, and then fingers gliding along her back, tangled with him. When she pulls away, she looks at him with so much tenderness. ]

Four and a half billion years, Doctor.

[ And now, his drive, his anger and rage, his willingness to destroy the very fabric of the universe itself - she was his wife. It all makes sense now, more than it ever did before. ]

Edited 2022-08-14 01:24 (UTC)

[It's odd watching these memories that feel almost like they're not his own. He doesn't know how long it's been since he revisited them or since he last thought about those stolen years. How could he have forgotten the night that they had stolen a ship and taken it almost past its limit just so they could collect stardust from a dying nebula to craft their wedding rings? Or making faces at one another from across a crowded room at a dry, hoity toity dinner that they were simply attending at the behest of their parents?

Thinking about it now, however they had lost each other had probably been too painful and that's when he had started to run - run away from the things that he had loved instead of facing them head on. Choosing to actively forget in order to not keel over from the grief?

He wants to stay there in that kiss for the rest of time. He wants to be overtaken by her very essence; if that was how he was to die it be heavenly. When he finally break from the kiss, he doesn't stop kissing her, instead moving to press softer ones to her forehead, her nose, her cheeks.]

Like we said. Lots to make up for.

[ Clara feels like she could melt into him, meld with him and never part. Her eyes are closed as he kisses her and she smiles. ]

You should talk Scottish to me. Roll your 'r's in my general direction.

[ She's teasing but is she? He'll have to find out. ]

[Thank god her eyes are closed because it's very obvious when he blushes.]

Clara - [But then stops realizing that her damn name has an 'r'.] Good to know that a sudden influx of memories didn't fry your quips too.

[ She got him and she knows it, laughing as she opens her eyes. ]

We have time now. Because we're going to find a way to make me regenerate.

[ Taking his hand in hers, she finally leads him back to the living room, looking over the books. ]

I want to keep this face. Unless...do you like it alright? I could go back. I was taller. Leggier. You liked my legs. [ She says that part with just a small frown. She isn't vain, but now she knows she's entirely different from who he fell in love with. ]

Edited 2022-08-14 02:23 (UTC)

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