Anomalous Beauty
Written for the who_contest
Theme: Beauty
Rating: PG
Genre: Cannon Scene Extender, First Person POV: Eleventh Doctor
Word Count: 497
Summary: After saving her from his time stream, the Doctor is baffled, and enthralled maybe even, by the impossible girl, his Clara.
***
My Clara. She is still in my arms now, a portrait of exhaustion and hurt. Her cheeks, the top of her head, have flecks of dirt and dust. The black tights that cover her legs are stained with the earth. And yet there is the sweet blessing of her whispers of breath upon my hand that grips her shoulder.
Just moments ago I faced my biggest secret, but it is Clara who shocks me most. The cold hard fact is she should be dead.
Maybe it’s I, the Doctor, who brought her back.
But no. That’s silly.
It’s more, always has been.
I know now that all those ghosts of Clara, those echoes, I understand now why they were there. I get that Clara in some ways has always been there with me, just because of what she did here at Trenzalore. She saved me. She saved every version of me.
How more impossible can you get than that?
Maybe you have to understand time, get the internalizations of the Timelords to truly comprehend how much of an anomaly this is. Neither one of us should have survived. My time stream, I entered it. She did too, a human being and she lived. Past days she flew the TARDIS, oh crazily, but she did it.
River was right. Jumping into my time stream would split her into millions of pieces, fragments of the life she once lived. In all understanding of what is credible, by all facts of time travel, Clara should not have survived. It should have ripped her apart.
And yet-
Oh, what’s that?
Salt?
Tears?
Why has this girl taken my pair of hearts and twisted them tightly together? Why do I always have to touch Clara, reach out to her face, tweak her nose?
When did she become my conviction?
After River opened up the TARDIS I knew I couldn’t retreat anymore. My grave was parted for all to enter. I had to go in, lead them through. I couldn’t do it though.
Not yet.
I turned around and I looked to a face. I could see her trickles of fear for me. I could feel her dread. But most of all, I saw her statue of sentiment. She knew it had to happen. She knew there was no going back and so she just told me with her eyes, those big brown Clara Oswald eyes, It’s okay. I’m here. Let’s do this. Dare you.
“Mmmm…”
She murmurs and I realize enough delaying. Need to get her back to the TARDIS.
Still-
My hand shivers in its touch around her cheek, traversing up to her brow. My lips find her forehead softly, gently.
And then-
Clara is impossible. Shouldn’t be. But she is. Always has been this beautiful anomaly even before she walked within my stream of time.
My lips wander. They find hers. They kiss.
“Doctor…”
A whisper. A smile.
My deviation.
“Clara.”
Such anomalous beauty.
***
Thank you for reading. <3
Theme: Beauty
Rating: PG
Genre: Cannon Scene Extender, First Person POV: Eleventh Doctor
Word Count: 497
Summary: After saving her from his time stream, the Doctor is baffled, and enthralled maybe even, by the impossible girl, his Clara.
***
My Clara. She is still in my arms now, a portrait of exhaustion and hurt. Her cheeks, the top of her head, have flecks of dirt and dust. The black tights that cover her legs are stained with the earth. And yet there is the sweet blessing of her whispers of breath upon my hand that grips her shoulder.
Just moments ago I faced my biggest secret, but it is Clara who shocks me most. The cold hard fact is she should be dead.
Maybe it’s I, the Doctor, who brought her back.
But no. That’s silly.
It’s more, always has been.
I know now that all those ghosts of Clara, those echoes, I understand now why they were there. I get that Clara in some ways has always been there with me, just because of what she did here at Trenzalore. She saved me. She saved every version of me.
How more impossible can you get than that?
Maybe you have to understand time, get the internalizations of the Timelords to truly comprehend how much of an anomaly this is. Neither one of us should have survived. My time stream, I entered it. She did too, a human being and she lived. Past days she flew the TARDIS, oh crazily, but she did it.
River was right. Jumping into my time stream would split her into millions of pieces, fragments of the life she once lived. In all understanding of what is credible, by all facts of time travel, Clara should not have survived. It should have ripped her apart.
And yet-
Oh, what’s that?
Salt?
Tears?
Why has this girl taken my pair of hearts and twisted them tightly together? Why do I always have to touch Clara, reach out to her face, tweak her nose?
When did she become my conviction?
After River opened up the TARDIS I knew I couldn’t retreat anymore. My grave was parted for all to enter. I had to go in, lead them through. I couldn’t do it though.
Not yet.
I turned around and I looked to a face. I could see her trickles of fear for me. I could feel her dread. But most of all, I saw her statue of sentiment. She knew it had to happen. She knew there was no going back and so she just told me with her eyes, those big brown Clara Oswald eyes, It’s okay. I’m here. Let’s do this. Dare you.
“Mmmm…”
She murmurs and I realize enough delaying. Need to get her back to the TARDIS.
Still-
My hand shivers in its touch around her cheek, traversing up to her brow. My lips find her forehead softly, gently.
And then-
Clara is impossible. Shouldn’t be. But she is. Always has been this beautiful anomaly even before she walked within my stream of time.
My lips wander. They find hers. They kiss.
“Doctor…”
A whisper. A smile.
My deviation.
“Clara.”
Such anomalous beauty.
***
Thank you for reading. <3