who clara & john what he’s had a most fortuitous dream where the sherlock holmes hotel because he’s ridiculous and wanted to stay on baker street k when 7/1 warnings time war things status complete on posting
Dreams of explosions plagued him for the better part of a night. Ghastly reminders of sins committed reverberated the dreamscape, each one punctuated by a quivering voice demanding extermination. He remembered marrying a queen, lost Time Lord art, and then--the lost Time Lords themselves. Side by side with his next face, a forgotten one, and Clara, they’d pressed through time and space to undo the dangerous work of a big red button.
The actual face of the Moment would rise and fall in his dream, the most important face of all to him, no less. It was her doing that they could all meet and save Gallifrey, but it was teary-eyed Clara that inspired them to even try. Every face traveled to that instance once locked in time for the safety of the universe, then gave it a brand new ending that he would go on to forget the second he set foot in the TARDIS.
Except, that never happened. A kiss to the hand of the girl bearing his cousin’s face was made, less than auspicious desires voiced, and then he woke with a loud and triumphant laugh. Gallifrey wasn’t fallen, it was lost. Sheet thrown off his body, John practically leaped off the bed and bounded to the adjoining door of their suites. He banged on it relentlessly, excitement sending him up and down on the balls of his feet, and he willed his cousin awake.
“Clara! Open up, oh…” Where had he put the sonic. Ceasing in the pounding, he looked over his shoulder at the suit his regeneration favored wearing. His striped pyjamas really needed pocket modifying. If she didn’t wake up, then he was going to sonic his way in!
It wasn’t the first time that Clara had been wakened up by a cousin. It seemed to be more of a thing as of late. Not that she exactly minded, especially that night. She had managed to sneak off and visit Samuel’s grave and the pit in her stomach was back, the one she was able to ignore in Orange County because there was always so much going on, things that distracted her, things that piled onto to this one part of her soul that she needed to not think about. So of course the dream was one where Samuel was alive. Even if her Orange County dreams were on hold, they would replay in cycle with the dreams of Samuel.
The question was, why was John pounding at her door like a bat in hell? Blinking in confusion, the petite brunette turned on the lamp and made her way to the door. Part of her was afraid that something had happened back in California and he’d been told. Something to her dad or Troy. The worry and fear of loss was always going to be part of her she imagined. Always with the worse case scenarios in situations she couldn’t control.
“What, what what is it?”
The question was asked as she opened the door, looking at her cousin in confusion. Only, he seemed to be in a good mood. Well, that certainly quelled the fears about death or injury back in California. Now she was just confused.
The moment the door was opened, John had enveloped his cousin in the most enthusiastic of all the hugs he’d ever given. Laughing like a crazy person, he lifted her up and spun her about the room, never once stopping to answer her question until he’d gotten the excitement out of his system. He couldn’t help it, there wasn’t a TARDIS around for him to high five. Hugs were an absolute necessity.
When he finally set her back down on the ground, his smile had been practically seared onto his face. Stretched from ear to ear, pearly whites visible in the dull light of the room, he regarded Clara with the utmost fond appreciation. Her dream counterpart had pleaded to save them, and they’d gone along with it when the feasibility of doing so became strikingly clear--and possible.
“They’re alive, Clara!” He practically gushed, a giggle in his throat. “‘Cause of you, me, other mes--they’re alive!” It made absolutely no sense, but John was so caught up in his dream’s elation that he couldn’t help himself.
At least making sense had never been his forte outside of the classroom.
“Thanks to you,” he added, pointing at her ever. “Do you remember? Because, I remember you.”
She was trying to follow along, and for the most part she was. Not to mention his elation was catching. She had no idea why she was smiling and on the verge of laughing, but there it was. She always was used to being picked up in a hug and spun around so at least there was that. Admittedly, not from John, but the action in and of itself was not something new to her.
Though the fact he seemed to remember her? That was news. She had seen him in her dreams, of course. The echo her who had gone after him to try and get his attention in the library to save him, but was never noticed. His form walking past her in the time stream while she felt herself lost, alone, terrified. It was enough that she didn’t even think about what she was saying (She tried so hard to keep those experiences quiet unless there was a purpose for opening up even slightly about them), she just asked the question.
“Wait, you remember me? Because when I was trying to get your…” Shaking her head, her mind pieced together that it wasn’t just John who had done it. He said the other hims had been there as well, “I haven’t dreamt of multiple versions of the Doctor together… Not yet at any rate, I haven’t dreamt since the whole…” Losing her mind bit. Yeah. That was fun. It was in the words though. She had seen multiple versions of the Doctor. And she had seen him yet he had never seen her.
“But that’s brilliant!” She knew how much the Time War always haunted the Doctor. Her Doctor. How he would tell her about how he’d change it if he could.
“‘Course I remember you--clear as day, in fact!” He practically beamed. “Got to thank you, we wouldn’t have been able to change a thing if you’d not been there. History would have been repeated in a terrible cliche, and I’d still be…” Well, bearing survivor’s guilt to the upteenth degree. The waver in his smile suggested as much.
So hyped up on his dream, he’d let her slip slide for the moment. As a Time Lord, it would have been easier to recall it, but he was still a boring old human (or so he’d say now, a huge turnaround from where John had been months prior). Recalling things as fast as his Time Lord self hadn’t quite happened yet, not swimmingly.
“Isn’t it just? I could spin you around again if you like! Think it’s worth a bit of a… What time is it anyway?” He didn’t wear a watch, of course. The fob watch he’d received had been hidden away in his trouser pockets, unbidden and still silently unwanted. John had been attempting to get better at sensing time seamlessly, but having just woken from such a fortuitous dream--he hadn’t gotten his head on straight yet. Time didn’t matter, the lives saved did.
Clara hadn’t even realised she’d slipped and so there was no relief she wasn’t called on it given she had just spoken out in shock that she was remembered. Still, it was hard to know exactly what had happened or how it was she had managed to get the Doctor, (Doctors really), to find a way to change history. Whatever it was, she knew it was beyond the Time Stream. Because that was just saving him from being killed throughout time and space. Nothing with multiple Doctors.
Laughing some in amusement and general getting caught up in the moment, the brunette blinked and looked around for the time.
“I.. have no idea what time it is.”
That wasn’t something that was ingrained in her and well, she’d been asleep. So all Clara knew was that it was sometime in the middle of the night or the early morning hours. So instead she just did a hug-glomp because it was Clara and that was what she did.
“Me either!” He said with a laugh in his throat. “Which really is odd, because, well…” He glanced up as if gesturing with his eyes the makeup of his brain. Time Lord. Except he wasn’t, John had to remind himself. He certainly didn’t have two hearts. By the looks of things, he didn’t altogether anticipate ever gaining the second one either. A very large, very lingeringly human part of him, hoped it never happened either.
Back in his arms again, laughing all the way, he gave his beloved little cousin one more spin for good measure. As soon as she was comfortably back on her feet, he dusted his hands off and promptly rifled them through his very mussed up hair. Sleep wasn’t terribly kind to his brilliant ‘do.
“Now, you trailed off on me before,” he pointed out, enthusiasm not dying down, but contentedly settling. “About getting to things, but not actually getting to things as you clipped your words, and leaving many more questions. What’s gone on in your dreams, hmm? Just wait ‘til you get a load of this one though. Brilliant!”
Well, it wasn’t like Troy was much better with the whole time thing, so that wasn’t too shocking. Instead, she was just spun around again and smiling before being back on her feet. To her, sleep was pretty okay. Well, for the most part, depended on what she dreamt. This though? This was much more important and she was more awake now.
With John asking about her dreams, Clara sighed, her own enthusiasm dying down some. Well, she couldn’t do much about that. Not to mention Troy might end up saying something as he’d had the dreams dealing with it himself. So she just went back to her bed to sit, motioning for John to join her if he wanted.
“I look forward to this one.” But that was brushing off the rest of the question and she knew him well enough that he wouldn’t let go so she just figured she’d answer the question. “It’s complicated, but that’s on par with the dreams, yeah? I jumped into the Doctor’s time stream because someone known as the Great Intelligence did so and was killing him all throughout time and space. So I had a lot of dreams where I wasn’t.. me. Or I was, but just echos, shards. Always trying to get the Doctor’s attention, to warn him. Such as in the library. Haven’t really dreamt since the Doctor, my Doctor, went in and saved me from that, though.”
Just this once, just for the hell of it, let me save you. It had saved her in the dreams and here as well, because she no longer felt as if she were torn apart, as if she was faded and not quite there. But in typical fashion, Clara just shrugged, as if it hadn’t been traumatising when it clearly was.
“That was back in the beginning of April when I stopped dreaming, though I’ve always felt that it wasn’t over. Just a break.”
The library? Scratching at his stubble upon having sat beside her, John tried to recall a library in particular. He hadn’t dreamed of River or Donna yet, so that particular adventure remained tucked in his memories yet untapped. There was no significance to it, so he let it go in favor of focusing on the larger picture: she’d jumped into the Doctor’s time stream--his time stream and lived to tell the tale. Well, not technically, he reasoned.
“Sounds brutal,” he frowned as he glanced her way. His enthusiasm certainly waned over the notion, too, but John didn’t mind. “And absurd, shouldn’t be able to jump into my own timeline… ‘course, would give it a shot for the right person, no doubt.”
He recalled her fear over the Daleks months back as he associated her behavior during April. No doubt she’d kept quite a lot to her chest, though John hoped she would have opened up to Troy about much of what she’d been dreaming at the very least. The feeling of dreams tarrying on rang true for him, too. He nodded faintly in agreement.
“A reprieve, one might say. Quite right. They may not be over, but there’s always a chance they can get better,” though John didn’t say it with nearly as much conviction as he would have liked.
“It was, but it was the only way to save him, you…” True Troy was her Doctor, but John was the Doctor as well and so she had saved him, too. Because he’d been dying repeatedly, over and over. It was enough to save him, even if she herself was lost in the process. “Gave him some words about that, actually.”
Because of course she would, it was Clara. Yelled at him to get out but he found a way to bring her back and here she was. Properly Clara again, not faded or feeling like she was being split into millions of pieces, never truly herself. Troy now knew what she’d done, but actually talking about it really hadn’t been a thing. Just a promise not to die in front of him again if she could help it. Miracle he hadn’t berated John to keep her alive in the two weeks they’d be gone, really.
“It was in order. And yeah, there’s always that chance. What you spoke of, saving Gallifrey, definitely sounds better.”
Clara tried to not think about what she might dream, if only because she knew that it could get worse. But she was going to be optimistic and the reason John had come into her room all excited like seemed to prove that things could look up.
Hearing the justification inwardly unsettled John. He hadn’t fully dreamed of his own escapades, let alone of all those faces who had preceded him, but he’d seen enough to know that too many people gave their lives in some fashion for the Doctor. It was a sense of being given more than he deserved that not only saddened him, but kept John clinging to what made him John. People lost too much because of that wily Time Lord, and he’d never see himself as entitled to as much.
Then again, neither would the Doctor, he supposed.
Whatever ups and downs they experienced in their dreams, he was certain of one thing. Bumping her shoulder gently, John offered her a reassuring smile. “One thing is certain, our dreams are brilliantly mental, and…” He wavered a moment in a bid for sincerity. “Not always bad. There’s a chance they can get worse, it’s true, but… There’s always another odd that they can get better.”
No matter what, he wanted to cling to the latter more than anything else in the world.