storybrooke; oswin oswald. WHO: Oswin/Clara Oswald, John Smith/ The Doctor WHEN: Before the spell broke WHERE: The docks WHAT: Oswin can't keep doing this so she tells John.
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Something in the air told him the day wasn’t going to bode well. He’d say to Clare cheekily that he felt a disturbance in the Force, but that wasn’t quite the case; this didn’t feel like a laughing matter. There in the tone of the promise to meet resided a sense of impending resolution. While he didn’t altogether know the basis of this meeting, he knew something was off. They never met outside of Granny’s, not like this.
Despite his concerns, he’d made an easy excuse to get out of the house for a bit to see her. Long coat on, a dusty old family heirloom he loved to wear, he stood at the end of the gangway that had led to the pirate ship. What a story she’d concocted over that.
Waiting for her there, he lifted his head to look at the stars in the sky. He swore somehow it looked like they were fading.
Oswin knew it was long past time to stop this. She was a known flirt, but this — she hadn't been doing that here. She had a flirtatious nature, yes, but this was connecting with someone that she absolutely should not be connecting with. They were friends, or she thought they were just friends. He was married. He had a daughter. He had a family that was at stake here. None of them deserved her idiocy. She was not going to do anything to jeopardize that, not for him. And to be honest, she deserved better too. She deserved someone who could spend time with her, someone she could show affection for her.
She knew that she'd been complicit in this. When she'd realized her feelings, she should have put a stop to it. A few months of harboring feelings for a married man should have been more than enough time for Oswin to get over this infatuation. That's how it always worked. She got a crush, she acted on it and got bored, or didn't act on it and got bored. It was never supposed to keep filling up her chest with butterflies. She didn't want to have her own smile be so tied to his. She was Pavlov's bloody dog every time she heard the bell above the door at Granny's, hoping that it would be him.
There was a split second, an instant when she saw his silhouette, where she thought to turn around and run. Run to the town line, run past it out in the direction of Bangor or Boston or any other city in this god-forsaken country. Running was in her blood. She ran around Storybrooke, jogging the neighborhoods until her feet were swollen and her hair dripped with sweat. She ran back home too, but then it was away. Run to college. Run to London. Run to the States. Keep running.
But she knew that would do nothing but harm to all involved. It would make her guilty by running, and she wanted to make things absolutely clear. Her heels clacked as she made her way, with purpose and determination, to the end of the pier where he stood. She remained just behind him, getting a glance of his brow and hawkish nose just over his shoulder.
"Thank you for meeting me, John." Her voice felt as small as she was. She cleared her throat and forced her voice a little louder, so she could be heard above the fishing boats. "I have something I wanted to say, but — it seemed too impersonal over the network. Or in a text."
It was immediate, the urge to smile that flourished when he heard her voice. Immediate and wrong, he shouldn’t have been entertaining anything at all toward Oswin, yet there he stood unable to cope with the notion of doing anything less. It was mental. He was happy in his life, loved his family, loved his wife, but there was something intrinsically tying them together. Every time they spoke, it surged and crackled like it could give him life if he were down on his luck.
The tone of her voice told him to snuff that smile right away, that he was about to be just that way and she wouldn’t be around for a push to the contrary.
Unwilling to look at her just yet, as though holding on to the moment would suspend any confessions in time itself (if only he the ability), he pinched the bridge of his nose and let silence fall. When he finally turned to face her properly, John found himself shaking his head as though it had a mind of its own--what a ludicrous notion.
“Have you got to say it?” He asked, clearly nervous, unwanting.
It was Oswin's turn to falter. Seeing his face made it all real. Her brow knitted together. This was happening. She was going to break off this wonderful friendship because she knew that it was wrong. Because she knew that she'd want more. Because she knew that, even though neither of them would do anything about it, it would still be there, lingering underneath it all. She knew he felt it. It wasn't one-sided, which is why she felt compelled to do this.
If only she was reading too much into this.
It wasn't fair.
Oh, she knew that the world wasn't fair. You only got so much time on this rock, and that was it. Your time was up. You owed it to yourself and the people you cared for to be truthful, to say the things you mean and not do the things that would hurt people. Unfortunately, in this instance, she needed to say the thing that would hurt them most.
"We've spent so much time telling each other what we mean through books and stories. I think it's well past time we got it out in the open. If it's out there, it's real. We can't live in denial, and we can move on." She felt her lip quiver at the last two words, but forced herself to continue. "Because it's the right thing to do, John."
His mind split into a myriad of different directions. As a rule, John spoke quickly because he had to keep up with his brain. This time, he was out of words that aligned with morality, and there were dozens of roadblocks shooting up all over the place to prevent him from wanting to care about them. He’d been married to Donna for ages, wonderful ages, John didn’t regret a moment of that. Of course he felt guilty for this unspoken something that sprouted between him and Oswin, this wonderful twisting sense of wonder she brought him every time they spoke--John didn’t want to lose it.
“No, no, no, no…” He shook his head again, this time faster as a swift denial took root. It mattered what he felt, what they silently shared, and he knew it had to matter just a sliver less than his family. It was a sense he could live with, couldn’t he? Couldn’t they?
“Everything is fine, isn’t it? We’re alright,” it didn’t have to change.
Oswin felt her resolve crumble for just a moment. Her eyes closed and her head tilted just enough to the side that she could pretend he wasn't there when she opened them. That damn lilt in his voice when he was upset. No matter what angle she looked at this, this was wrong. There was no outcome to this that someone didn't get hurt, and she'd much, much rather it be her than his whole damn family. Oswin Oswald was just not that selfish.
"It will be fine. We'll be alright." She was glad she picked a place public, some place where everyone looked. They might see them in an emotional conversation, but she would absolutely not take his hands like she wanted to now. She would not give in to the urge to have one kiss. She could be strong. "Just not like we were. Are."
She hoped that he would accept that. That he wouldn't argue more. That he'd come to understand what she had. Just because you cared for someone didn't mean you had to be together. There were lots of ways you could… love someone.
Just not like they were. Unconsciously, John moved closer to her as though the ground itself had begun crumbling in his direction. Any inexplicable impulses he had to reach out and touch her somehow had to be stilled, he quickly noticed his hands suspended in the air then dropped them back at his sides. Anyone could see them, no doubt people already talked.
It was why she was here. He knew it and understood it, still he wanted nothing to do with the moment. He wanted to go back to yesterday, desperately wished he had a time machine for that express purpose, then he would never have to be breathing in this moment and seeing the valley between them widening.
“You’re…” He cut himself off, eyes turning upward as the words flew away, scattering to the clouds. “I’d rather be alright with you around, Oswin. Is it--is it that wrong… for you?” Because, at the end of his denial, what she felt mattered more even if he wished desperately for the contrary.
Her eyes suddenly filled with tears and it took a few moments before she could reply. She smiled, glancing out over the water while she struggled with the words. "I — I love you… John." She'd said it; she couldn't take it back, and the emotions were threatening to drag her down into the dark water on either side of the dock. "And I would never want to do anything to hurt you. Or your family. Your absolutely lovely family. But I can't — I want to be able to touch you. To hold your hand. To kiss you."
She took a step back, because she realized as she was saying these things that she was torn between wanting him to do these things, family and morality be damned, and not wanting a single moment to be misconstrued. "It's torture, quite frankly, and that's not fair to me. So yeah," she nodded, making a pass at her face with the back of her hand. "Yeah, it's wrong for me."
As soon as he saw her tears, his resolve nearly crumbled, though he couldn’t decide in what way precisely. The hammer slammed the nail of confession soundly into his skull, nearly made him lose his balance from the sheer velocity the statement possessed. She was right, as much as it killed him inside, she was absolutely right. No good could come of this for anyone, best to let themselves silently suffer separated.
When she backed away, he didn’t pursue her this time. Instead he turned to face the water, too, gleaning what he could from her company next to him for the last time. Somehow it felt like the world was slipping into the icy water rocking gently against the pier.
“If I had that pirate ship,” he started, squinting at where it had been spotted. “I bet it would be able to travel in time, Oswin. I’d find you here at this very spot, grab you by the hand, and take you on a brilliant adventure. Just one. Change our names and start running. No one’d know we’re gone, of course, time travel is a marvelous thing. We’d come back eventually, we’d have to. Can’t run forever, not even if we want to. That’s when I’d say it back, I think. Just there at the bow of the ship, before before going back to our lives, pretending none of it happened.”
Shaking his head, hands buried in his pockets to grasp at something, anything at all, John’s feeble attempt at a smile crashed and burned.
“It’s not fair,” he agreed. “I don’t know that I could pretend, suppose I’ll just have to try. For you. I’ve got to, because you’re right, Oswin. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I can’t say it back. It’d only make this worse, but I know that I want to.”
He couldn't say it, but it was actually enough that he wanted to. It meant that she wasn't crazy or wishing so hard for it. She hadn't imagined it. It was going to take a while for the tears to stop, but she was glad that he hadn't. If he had, she didn't know if she'd have the strength not to beg him to run away with her.
"You won't have to pretend. I'm finishing out the semester, and then I'm headed back to London." It was better this way. It might have been an overly dramatic way of dealing with the problem, but Storybrooke was too small a town for them not to run into one another. "My old school has a position opening up soon, and my dad keeps telling me to come back home, you know. I figure it's about time. Makes things easier all around, too."
Oswin took another few steps backward, intending this to be her last. "Just promise me that you'll get out on those adventures you always talk about. Don't let your life pass you by. Get out there. And every now and again, I hope you think of me fondly."
This was her home. That just made things worse. She was giving up the life she’d built here because of what they had--what he’d entertained and quietly wanted more of? As he processed that in tandem with her words, John didn’t realize she’d started to leave. Hanging on the words, “I l--” he clamped his mouth shut and solemnly watched her walk away.
Perhaps in another life, another time, they’d have their chance. Despite that, John didn’t want to let things end this way. There had to be some other way to make things work, there was always a choice. In the bit of reasonable time he had left to be away, John took a seat at the edge of the pier to watch the waves a little bit longer.
Maybe that pirate ship would decide he was right and they could get away. Someday.