WHO: Noh-Varr (616), Clara Oswald WHEN: Backdated to April 27 WHERE: Their housing! WHAT: Noh decides he wants to leave. Clara won't let him. WARNINGS: Talk of character death.
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The last thing Noh had expected was for Kate to move on so quickly. He knew - logically, at least - that for her, several months had passed since they'd broken up (how could she move on even after several months, when he still loved her?), and he had only ever wanted her to be happy.
He wanted her to be happy with him. Not with Tommy, or with some guy she just met and couldn't even know well enough to know if he was worth being around at all. For all she knew, that Sam person could be evil.
Seeing her kiss Tommy - seeing Tommy kiss her, Noh had reminded himself - hurt, but the wound was still so fresh that Noh was able to convince himself that she was only doing it to hurt him back. She knew just how to get under his skin and make him hurt the way he'd hurt her. That was all it had been. That was the only way Noh had been able to talk himself into staying with the team, because it meant he might be able to find a way to get her back, to prove his worth again, to show her how much she really meant and how sorry he was. When he'd heard she'd left for California instead of staying with the Young Avengers, it'd given him hope that maybe there was still a chance. She wasn't with Tommy, after all.
But there was no hope. Kate was moving on. He deserved that.
If they'd been back in her universe, Noh-Varr could have taken his ship and left. He could have asked America to drop him in a brand new universe and leave him there, never looking back. He could have made a fresh start somewhere new, somewhere far away from Kate and all of her friends. He could have left it behind him, where it wouldn't make his heart ache. He couldn't do that here. He was trapped here, without his ship. He was trapped with an ex-girlfriend who didn't care about him, her friends, the man she was moving on with. Did he really deserve this? Had what he done been so terrible that he deserved to have a constant reminder of his mistakes, right in front of his face? Had it been so terrible he deserved to watch the girl he loved forget about him, like he was nothing?
Noh figured - yes, he deserved that.
He'd fled the mountain after talking to Kate, needing fresh air and to put some distance between them. He'd stood on a hill overlooking a wooded valley and he'd thought about leaving. No one would miss him. No one would even notice he was gone. He knew this world had dangers of its own, but Noh was confident that he could handle it. He'd survived so much so far, and much of it completely on his own. He could handle this world, and whatever it threw at him. Except for Kate. That he couldn't handle.
The only problem was that in his haste to get out of the mountain, he'd left his few belongings behind, and he knew he'd need those. Maybe he could leave his music with… no. Better not leave her anything. The trip back to the mountain was short, and by the time Noh stepped through the door to his room, he was already pulling off his donated t-shirt. He wouldn't need that where he was going.
Clara was stretched out on one of the couches, one leg crossed over the other. It bobbed in the air over her. In her hands, she had one of the books she'd stuffed into her messenger bag, the one she always used whenever she was going on an overnight TARDIS trip. You never knew when you'd need another dress or a pair of tights or underwear. And books. Sometimes the Doctor would talk to the TARDIS as if she was talking back to him. Maybe at some point, she had been able to, but Clara never heard a single word. She'd tuck into a chair in the corner, cross her legs over the arm of it, and read a book.
It was handy then that she happened to have this on or near her when she arrived. Seemed they were short-handed when it came to a lot of things, and Agatha Christie murder mysteries were a dime a dozen in her world. And the TARDIS library for some reason. They were also very quick reads, so she was going to have to find something else soon.
The door to the housing swung open, white hair caught her attention, and Clara looked around her book. "Oy, where are you going in such a hurr -- oh hello." He was cute normally, but shirtless. He could sell calendars. Lots of them. She sat up straight, fully at attention and said, "New rule. You. You can never wear shirts in this flat."
Noh had forgotten that he shared a room with other people. At the sound of Clara's voice, he stopped in his tracks and blinked, staring at her, clutching his shirt in one hand. He was so lost in his own mind and his own heart that he'd forgotten - even though he'd just met them, even though Clara had been kind enough to offer tea and talk to him the first night he was awake here - that anyone else would be around.
Now he looked at her and wondered what he was supposed to say. Any other day, he would have grinned and played along. Any other day, however, wouldn't necessarily be the day that his ex-girlfriend told him she'd moved on. He didn't really have the heart for it now, but that wasn't Clara's fault.
"No shirts?” He smiled at her as he shrugged his shoulders. "I can make that work. I prefer not wearing a shirt, actually. I only do because it isn't always welcome.”
"Shirts -- on you in particular -- are no good for me, and I will not stand it." Clara closed her book with a solid thump and then set it down on the table between the sofas. She popped up, hands holding down the front of her dress in case of any mishaps, and headed toward him.
There was something off about him. Clara was very well versed at reading people more inscrutable than this not-of-Earth boy. Man. She reached out her hand for the shirt, and when he passed it over, she tossed it aimlessly over her shoulder. It landed wherever it landed. For effect. (She'd pick it up later.) "So what's on your mind then? You look like you've got something on it."
His eyes darted between her and the door to his room and back. He felt wound up, like he'd been running for hours, or like he'd been fighting a foe far stronger than he was. In a way, he supposed he was. He was fighting time, and destiny, and hope.
Usually he tried to be better at hiding his emotions. It didn't often work. Noh wore his heart on his sleeve, and it got him into trouble. People tended to know what he was feeling even when he didn't want them to. Annie had known he probably wouldn't be coming back, even though he didn't say it. He wasn't trying to hide it now. What was the point? He couldn't stay.
But maybe he could explain, at the very least. Clara had been nice to him. It wouldn't be right to leave without even a thank you. "Do you remember when you called me alien boy?” He paused. He knew she remembered, so he pressed on. "She's here. The person it reminded me of. She doesn't… I did something stupid. I hurt her. And now…” Noh's gaze flicked away again as he tried to steady himself. "I was never good enough for her. I see that now. She does too. She already has someone… I am sure he is better than I could ever be.” Or maybe she would have given me another chance, he thought.
Clara turned a sympathetic expression as soon as he told her that she was there, and if he'd done something stupid, well, that could mean a few things. In the end, it meant that there was a break up, and that breakup was -- at least for now -- painful all around. She couldn't say what he'd done, and pressing in this situation likely wasn't helpful. So instead, Clara reached out and took his arm, gently steering him toward the couch. She had a packet of jobi nuts and a cup of water she'd been neglecting for the entire hour she was reading. She set them down in front of the spot she'd chosen for him and then sat down next to it.
"Painful reminder -- of what you did, of what she meant. It's… it's hard when someone's moved on without you." She thought of Danny Pink, and how she'd lost him one summery day to a careless driver. Then again when he saved the whole stupid world in a shiny metal suit. Then she'd lost him again when he sent through the child he'd accidentally killed during a tour of duty. While she was so incredibly proud of him, she was also so, so angry with him for it. And herself for all the lies she'd told. "You think that you can't bear the pain of it, but I promise you… You can. It will slice you open again and again, but you will survive. You will come out all the stronger, because you have no choice."
Quietly and without resistance, Noh let himself be guided over to the couch, even though he still wanted to leave. He'd never been good at facing his mistakes or anything difficult. He had a tendency to run from his problems instead of facing them, although he thought that habit was getting better the more time he spent with Kate. He hadn't wanted to run, not until hearing she'd found someone else. He'd wanted to stay - with her. Now that he didn't have that, he wasn't sure what he'd do.
He couldn't imagine coming out on the other side stronger, or that he would be able to bear it, and still stay in the mountain. Being here would only remind him of it over and over. Every time he saw her name, every time he saw her, he'd remember what he'd done. How could he move on that way?
He shook his head sadly. "I don't think… I can't imagine life without her. She was everything to me. She was what I had always been looking for. And I'm --” He set his jaw, tense with emotion. "I am nothing.”
"No one ever wants to imagine a life without the one they love." Clara spent what felt like ages in that dream, a world in which Danny Pink had never died. They were in love. They were happily ever after. It was everything that it could have been. It was the most perfect of days, and it didn't ever have to end.
(Except, of course, that it did. Because deep down, she knew that it wasn't right.)
She reached out and gave him a nudge with his hand. It wasn't hard, just enough that she could feel he was solid beneath her hand. "That didn't feel like nothing. That felt like a something. Someone."
Noh had lost all of the people he'd loved, and his mind drifted to the others now, to his parents, the girlfriend he'd lost before arriving on Earth. He thought he'd loved between her and Kate, but he'd been wrong. That mistake had now cost him more than he ever imagined. It was bigger than just his relationship with Kate. He knew he was going to lose her friendship, and Billy's. Probably the rest of the team's, in time. That was probably the hardest thing for him to stomach. His mistakes meant he was going to be alone again.
He smiled faintly at Clara. It was sweet of her to try. "No one important,” he corrected with a dry laugh. "Maybe I am someone, but I'm not someone good. I've tried to be, but nothing ever gets better no matter what I do. I don't know why… I've always tried to right my wrongs as soon as I realize what I've done.” He leaned his head against the wall behind him and closed his eyes. "I don't know why it's never enough.”
"Ah, but see. That's the one thing I've learned -- without a doubt -- from travelling with the Doctor," Clara said, suddenly appearing as if she's been struck with an epiphany. It was the one thing she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt. The Doctor himself had even said it so many times that she knew he felt the same way. "Nobody is unimportant. Everyone is someone."
He opened his eyes to look at her skeptically, not quite believing what she was saying. He could believe that about nearly anyone else - even people like Norman Osborn were someone. They just weren't anyone good.
But about himself? Noh-Varr wasn't sure. He didn't feel very important right then. If he was someone, why had it all ended so abruptly, so quickly?
"If what you're saying is true,” he conceded, folding his arms across his chest, "that everyone is someone, then perhaps I don't know who I am. I thought I was someone special. I thought I knew. But perhaps I have yet to find out why I am important to the universe.”
"That's the fun part," Clara said with a wider grin than she felt. That had been the trick, hadn't it? Since losing Danny (and then the Doctor), she'd been going through the motions. Nothing was fun, everything was a chore to get through. One moment to the next. Breathe. "Getting to figure out where your place is. It's a lot of trial and error, but that's the best part if you ask me."
She reached forward, plucked a nut from the pile and held it out for him. "Now that you're here, in this dimension, in this time, what is it -- not a person, mind you -- that you'd like to do?" Clara was going to get to the bottom of who Noh-Varr was. Or at the least, to the bottom of what he'd let her see at this moment in time. Maybe more would come later, but right now, this was all they had, and if she could help him in any way, then she should. "Do you want to help people? Do you want to educate yourself more? Do you want to collect as many stamps as you can? I have heard of weirder things."
Noh's eyes flicked from her hand to her face and back again before he plucked the nut from her hand, curiosity getting the better of him. He didn't do anything with it besides inspect it as he thought about the answers to her questions. Figuring out what his place was in the world didn't sound fun to him. It hadn't been fun before, at least not until he'd met Kate. He couldn't see how it would be fun now.
"More error if you're me,” he muttered dryly as he popped the nut into his mouth. "I don't know what I want to do here. On Earth, before, I was committed to helping people. To protecting Earth. When we weren't doing that, I was learning about Earth's culture.” He smiled faintly. "Music. I love music.” He was tempted to delete the songs that reminded him of Kate, but that would have been nearly his entire catalogue at this point, and in a world such as this one, that would mean deleting something's existence from the world. He didn't want to do that. "I wanted to be someone who deserved her, someone she would look at and be proud of. I don't know now.”
"The good news is…." Clara paused for effect, framing her hands near his face, with her wrists facing one another as if she were displaying something on the QVC. The movement was dramatic, but then again, everything Clara did was. "You can still be someone she'd be proud of. That is still very much on the table, if you want it to be. That doesn't mean she'll want you again, but it means that you wanted to be that person before, and even without her, you can be."
She dropped her hands to her lap, her expression turning a shade serious. "I lied to the only man I'll ever love, and now he's gone. Forever. And there's nothing I can do to get him back. I wish every single day that I would have been good at loving him, but I wasn't. The only way I know how to move forward is to be the kind of person he deserved, even if he's not here to see it. So I know you can do it too, even without the reward at the end of the rainbow."
Noh still didn't see how it was even possible for him to be that person again - at all. He had wanted that before he met her; Kate alone hadn't been the motivation. But what happened with her - what he'd done, the fact that she'd cast him aside so quickly, the fact that she clearly didn't see any hope here - to him it meant that he wasn't the sort of person who was worthy of her, and would never be. If it wasn't possible, why should he try? Get his heart broken again when he inevitably hurt someone else and they could no longer see him as someone worth anything? What was the point?
He didn't say any of that, however. In light of Clara's confession, it felt very melodramatic and stupid of him to be so upset when Kate wasn't really gone forever. She was still there. That was more than Clara had.
"I'm sorry you lost him," he murmured after a moment, looking at her with sympathy. He knew what it was like to lose someone he loved for good. He'd lost everyone he loved in one way or another. "When I lost my parents and my girlfriend, I swore I'd get justice, and I have tried to be someone they would be proud of, but... I was so angry, all of the time. I'm not very good at doing the right thing."
Clara knew what that was like. The seething anger that meant you were alive, but you were irrevocably broken, and there was no way to fix it. Clara would have taken Danny's anger at her for lying and then silence than to know that he was dead. Gone forever. She reached over and patted Noh's hand.
"I betrayed my very best friend. I took all the keys to his beloved spaceship and threatened to throw them all into lava, one of the very few things that could destroy them. I threw them one by one every time he said no, he could not go back in time to save him." Clara felt just a tiny little bit lost in the remembrance. It wasn't her best moment. "So please, Noh. Don't do what I did..."
He took her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze to comfort her. "I declared war on all of Earth once,” he told her, his tone matter-of-fact and a little bit sheepish. "I think it's too late to ask me to not do something stupid and rash in anger.” Noh didn't feel angry now, at least not at anyone beside himself. He felt sad, and he felt worthless and broken, but he was angry at himself. He knew that this time, he had caused his own pain.
"You were grieving,” he added after a moment. "I'm sure your friend understood that. We all do things in grief that we shouldn't. It is an emotion, and emotions are not rational. It does not mean you are a bad person.”
Clara gave a sad smile in return. The Doctor had understood. More than that, he'd forgiven her, even when she had betrayed him so completely. He'd taken her to the afterlife just for a chance to save Danny Pink. It had turned into a much bigger mess in the end, but he still tried. For her. She ended up lying to him and going their separate ways, leaving Clara empty and alone, but she knew that she couldn't stand in the way of him finding his people. Or she thought. Turned out the Doctor had lied too, because he didn't want her to feel like she had to chose once more.
"He is my very best friend," she answered with a simple shrug. Her eyes were overbright with unshed tears. She gave another smile and drew in a deep breath. "And he is very, very late. I'm going to be very cross with him when he finally does arrive."
Despite the subject matter and how sad it made Clara, Noh-Varr couldn't help but grin at her. It was easier to talk about the man Clara had loved and about her best friend than it was to talk about his own life. He knew it was selfish for wanting to hear more about that instead, but he couldn't help it. Noh wasn't ready to face a goodbye and to let the past go, and talking about what happened only served to hurt him more, at least right now. Maybe one day, he'd feel differently.
In the meantime, he liked hearing about Clara's life - tragic as it was. Her friend sounded like an interesting person - more so than some of the people he'd met - and it wasn't every day that Noh met people who transversed universes like he had. Especially not in this world, where it seemed like, for many, this was a first.
"I hope I get to meet him. But only after you get a chance to be cross. I won't get in the way of that.” He gave her hand another squeeze before letting it go. "Something tells me he's waiting to make an entrance.”
"Oooh, I do not doubt that," she said, leaping to her feet and indicating that he do the same. She took a few moments to straighten up her skirt (and tights) and brushed a hand through the ends of her hair. There. She was ready to face the world, even if the world wasn't the way she left it. She linked her arm through his and began to walk them both toward the door.
"Let's get some fresh air. Always does me some good." Clara gave him a side-eye, wondering if she should say something about having to put a shirt back on. Nahhhh, this view was much better. "And by the way, you have to stay to adhere to the no shirt rule, and I will not be disobeyed." She said it in jest, but her look told him that she knew he'd been planning on leaving. She'd felt that same way before.
Noh hesitated before he stood up. He didn't really want to - well, no, that wasn't true. He did want to, but he was still thinking about his earlier plan to leave. This was where he could make an excuse and start his escape. It'd have to wait until after Clara was gone, though, or she'd probably try to stop him.
Well, maybe he could just play along for a little while, and he could take off after everyone was asleep. What harm would getting some fresh air do?
He lifted his eyebrows as he looked down at her. He had a feeling Clara wasn't someone that anyone said no to easily, and Noh didn't like the way he felt when he thought about disappointing her too. How had she guessed? After a moment, his shoulders relaxed a little in defeat. "I'll stay. But only because of you.”
Clara smiled as she got to her feet. It was somehow easier to have him here in this housing area. He might be from another planet, but she got the feeling they had a lot more in common than anyone would initially think. It surprised her.
"I'll take it, and maybe one day, you'll stick around because you want to." It wasn't safe to go out into the wilderness alone. Not with the animals and Grounders about. She hooked her arm through Noh's. "Now, let's get going before it gets too dark. Nothing like losing your footing when you can't see a thing."