Clara Oswald is going the long way round (alwaysbeenthere) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-12-20 22:31:00 |
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”Remind me again why I’m the one digging for...whatever it is I’m digging for?” The question was asked as Clara precariously was balancing on a chair and rooting around through a top shelf for… honestly she didn’t know. One, Troy knew what it was he wanted better than she did, and two? He was taller, he wouldn’t have to be doing a balancing act on a chair like Clara had to. He had nearly a foot on her after all.
It had been an eventful month so far, between snow and random sightings of Rudolph and the arrival of the carnivorous snowmen and Ice Governess. That situation had been resolved at the school and then eventually they all seemed to have vanished. Only in Orange County, right? Plus her dreams hadn’t been too upsetting. There had been a few days of confusion but it was also easily managed, so that was good.
For now though? Trying to keep from falling off a chair while searching for something in the back of the top shelf.
Troy was quickly reading through one of his books and then shook his head, “Because you always want to help and be involved, so here you are; helping and being involved, it’s just a thing… nothing special, but very complicated and extremely useful for what we want. It’s imperative, and important.”
He thought a moment, tapping his chin some then tossed the book down to look up at Clara and smiled watching her struggle, “Oh, come now Clara; what’s the point of being a sidekick if you can’t commit to a simple task. It’s white and silver, it sparkles, sort of looks like a star. Really, you can’t miss it and it’s a brilliant item. We need it.”
Moving to stand behind her, he let his arms drop to his sides as he rocked back and forth on his feet. “I mean really, I may have all the time in the Universe, but you really don’t and so I think perhaps you should pick it up don’t you?”
“Excuse you, I am nobody’s sidekick.” Huffing in annoyance, Clara shot a glare over her shoulder. And back to searching. Silver and sparkly and useful. Of course it was. And of course she wouldn’t miss it. “You’re just being lazy and finding excuses to make me do this. In fact, I think you’re doing this to make fun of me.”
It was the most logical explanation. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been put up to things like this as a means to mess with her as she was the shortest of them. She was rather used to it and while she didn’t mind it, she would make comment when she knew that was exactly what the aim was.
Then he was making comments on how she should pick it up because she didn’t have all the time in the universe like he did and she gasped in mock anger (though really, who said that?) as she turned her attention back to Troy. “And now you’re just being rude--”
Before she could say anything else though, the precarious balancing act she’d been doing failed and suddenly Clara fell onto of Troy, eyes wide.
“My ship, my adventures, I think that makes you the sidekick. Just the rules, I don’t make them up Clara, you really just have to accept it. Lots of great people were Sidekicks. Robin, Falcon, Dum Dum Dugan, Han Solo and Princess Leia. Both were sidekicks in Luke’s story, see? Hermione and Ron to Harry. See? Brilliant sidekicks.”
Troy grinned wide, obviously joking and poking fun at her, and then he raised both brows, “I am not being--” Then she was falling on top of him. His hands shot up to catch her but both went tumbling back and he hit the ground with a solid thud. Staring up at her with both brows still raised in surprise. Watching her.
“You fell on me! I think you did it on purpose!”
There really wasn’t much time to retort that really, Star Wars could be seen as Leia’s story as well given she was the first one of the trio they saw, she was the leader of the rebellion, she too had the Force. And she was short and Clara appreciated that because it didn’t diminish what she could do. But between the playful bickering and then the falling, really no time to argue counter points.
“I did not fall on you on purpose, that’s what happens when you decide I need to search for something that requires balancing on a chair.”
About to push herself up, Clara blinked as she suddenly felt a very strange compulsion overtake her. So instead of pushing herself up, she ended up kissing Troy as mistletoe had suddenly shown up to make the two do just that.
Troy was pushing up on his elbows and about to push up to his feet when she was about to move off of him, but then she kissed him. It caught him off guard obviously, and his legs immediately began to shift, and became fidgety; his fingers flexed open and shut, as if he was trying to decide everything that was going on in that immediate moment.
The Doctor, no Troy, no The Doctor’s mind was running rampant. He didn’t know where he was, or what he was doing, he was lost and confused and downright surprised; yet, there was something that seemed to encourage everything into motion. To tell him that he liked this. Surprised by it, Troy found himself kissing Clara back.
His hands stopped fidgeting, and it seemed the Time Lord settled into the kiss, before he slowly pulled back. Rather taken aback by the whole thing, before clearing his throat, “You… you… you kissed me, Clara.”
And as the mistletoe seemed content that it’s work (or damage) was done, it floated off.
As for Clara, she hadn’t expected Troy to kiss her back. Not that she had planned on kissing him in the first place and it took a second for the mistletoe to leave and her to return to her senses at which point she pulled away as well. She didn’t move yet if only because what the hell just happened? She was trying to place where that sudden urge came from.
“You blushed.”
Perfectly normal reaction. Not to mention the fact that he had also kissed her back. But right now it was more shock and trying to make sense of what was going on than worrying about semantics.
“Well of cour--I mean, no I di-- I don’t blush Clara, I’m the Doctor; I’ve kissed many popular people, I was even sort of, kind of engaged to Marilyn Monroe, so really I have no reason to be blushing when kissed by a pretty girl,” Troy offered, though it really didn’t change the fact that he did, “And still, don’t you go changing facts. You snogged me.”
He eyed her, and couldn’t help but notice neither of them seemed eager to move, “Did you mean to do that? Did you trick me into letting you up on the ladder so you could fall off of it, tackle me, and kiss me? It seems so implausible, ridiculous, impossibly complex… which only serves to make it that much more true.”
“And you kissed back!” Because that was the super mature response. Honestly she wasn’t even going to comment on his comment on kissing plenty of popular people. She’d kissed Jane Austen, she wasn’t throwing that in his face. Because there were more pressing things at hand.
Then he was trying to turn it into some sort of complicated scheme she had come up with and Clara wasn’t sure whether to laugh or smack him.
“Really, Troy?” Looking at him incredulously worked as well. “There was absolutely no plotting or planning, you’re deflecting.” And still there was no moving from their current position. Bickering about who was behind it seemed to be the much more pressing issue at hand apparently.
“There is no deflecting on my part! I assure you, I thought I should double check that there was no plotting. If there was not then, then why did you kiss me? Because you did--wait, you’re deflecting! Nice try, can’t sneak one by me, I’m the Doctor.” Troy offered with a confident smirk. Though that slipped away quickly when he realized he actually kind of had enjoyed it. Immediately he squinted his eyes, trying to decide if he did, and if he did what that meant.
He then looked back up at her, “Yes, I may have, maybe I didn’t though.”
“Right, of course that’s it. And I’m not deflecting.” Maybe she was a little because she had been dealing with annoying complicated feelings for Troy for months now and it had been fine. They remained as they always had been. Which maybe was the problem because it all was so normal for them. “Believe me, if I wanted to sneak one by you, I could.” Doctor or not.
But then he seemed to be thinking about something and she just quirked a brow at the may have but maybe he didn’t comment.
“You definitely kissed me back.”
What that meant, who knew. Clara certainly didn’t. But he wasn’t getting out of it that easy if he was going to be accusing her of setting it up as some sort of plot.
“And you definitely kissed me first, far more incriminating,” Troy offered in retort, before then looking away, and looking back at her, and then frowned, “You could not sneak one by me. I’m brilliant, and a millennia old, so much going on in this brain, seen a lot, can’t pull one over on me.”
Other than a kiss that surprised him, but nevermind that. Watching her a moment, he then tilted his head to the side, “Are you finding it a bit weird that you kissed me, and I kissed back, and we’re blaming one another. But we uh, well I uh…”
He furrowed his brows and sat up on his elbows looking at her, “We’re not freaking out about the part that should probably matter…”
It seemed once Troy actually moved, Clara seemed to remember how they were positioned and pushed herself to the side, sitting up and using the wall to rest her back. Because yeah. This was all really confusing and he was right. They weren’t freaking out about the part that they should be freaking out about.
Well. Clara had already figured out her feelings and while she had hoped with time they would vanish because that meant they were more tied to the dreams, they hadn’t. But she had still compartmentalised and pushed them aside. Now…
Especially as the thing they were freaking out about (who kissed who and who started it) really could be answered simply. It was Orange County. There was no need to actually try to figure out who was to blame.
“No. We’re not.”
Troy knew there were feelings there, there had been for some while, but he’d also chosen to ignore them. He was The Doctor, he’d had those feelings before, and they always met with pain and loss. It wasn’t something he was capable of facing again once more. Or at least he didn’t think he should, but as more and more of those dreams came to him, the more and more he saw Clara in a light different than their real-world selves.
Cousins in one world, companions, friends, more in another… it was hard to deal with such thoughts and he’d chosen to do what the Doctor always did in those situations: ignore them. Now, now they were being forced to face it. He was being forced to face it.
Looking over at her, he moved to sit against the wall with her, then looked towards her, “When you see me do you see Troy, or do you remember the TARDIS and the adventures first?”
Troy wasn’t the only one who was being forced to face them. Clara had gotten very good at ignoring them. She had already acknowledged them and once you knew something, you couldn’t unknow it. But she had locked it away and focused on anything but what her feelings were. She’d had her freak out session with Anatoly because he was a psychiatrist and could let her know if she was losing it and that was that.
So she had thought.
So that was the question. Who did she see when she looked at Troy? So she just rolled her head to the side to look at him before sighing.
“I see you. I see the person who’s always been closest to me and who I always feel safe with and who I trust.” Which okay she did feel safe with her dad and John, but it had always been different with Troy, she just never had put thought in it until the dreams had started and started shifting things just so.
All three were the Doctor but all three were individual and she always saw them, always knew who each was no matter if they were more Doctor or Duncan or John or Troy that day.
Shrugging, Clara sighed and went back to staring ahead of herself.
“Which doesn’t really answer the question. But that’s how I see it. I see you, all of it. Troy, my best friend who I’ve always been impossibly close to, the Doctor and the adventures that we had.”
Troy nodded and stared ahead, instead of moving a million miles an hour. Did that mean it was reflective Doctor mode? Or was it Troy showing through? There was no doubt that as the memories took over, The Doctor took over. Just as when he’d been in Ten’s face, and he’d used the fob watch and he’d been different, that person was always in him. He had all those memories, he was that person, but the Doctor had such a stronger personality, a larger presence. And he now had two hearts, he remembered everything, he felt that resolve… he wanted to be The Doctor, because the world needed the Doctor.
He hated it too, because he knew in some sense that wasn’t what Troy would have wanted, and wasn’t what Clara necessarily wanted either, but he felt he had to. It wasn’t the destiny thing, not like Anakin thought, but it was having all of this knowledge, and memories, and knowing that if you can make a difference then you should.
“Troy and the Doctor are the same person. In some sense. He still lives in me obviously, just as the Doctor lives in me as well. I’m both. I know you don’t like to think the dreams have to rule us, and they don’t, I could make the decision to ignore everything. Go teach, come home, read, write, and just live my life… but then I won’t die. I’ll be doing that for hundreds of years, and when I think about that? I realize, I’m not Troy. Not completely. I can’t just do that.”
He reached a hand out to take hers, and he smirked, “I still remember us growing up together, and you are my best friend the closest thing I’ve ever had to a true, true friend. You, at one point, were always family…”
He then looked at her again, “Now I don’t feel you as family, I see you as my Impossible Girl, as my best friend, as everything to me, and so much more than family.”
It was never about ignoring the dreams, Clara had always been clear on that if only because ignoring them meant that they would come back worse, the reactions and bleed over. It was for her about knowing that there were choices and acknowledging those. Troy seemed to get that part of it. That he could always do the teacher thing, or he could be the Doctor. It wasn’t a matter of well this is who I am in the dream, I have this power, clearly I need to do the same thing. Thinking about destiny was rubbish. It always had been.
“I know that they’re both there and are the same but not.” It was hard to explain. The parts of Troy that she always recognised, she’d recognised them in the Doctor as well before he had regenerated. Oh he was more exaggerated as the Doctor, more frantic at times and jumping from thought to thought, but at the core, he had been the same. Then again, Clara always had been able to see that just by the eyes. Just how she knew when he’d dreamt of the Time War, just as she had known the War Doctor was from before, it was all in his eyes. How, when she really let herself look after the fear and uncertainty of regeneration, that the Doctor was still the Doctor, even if his personality and mannerisms had changed.
As Troy took her hand, Clara just looked at them, listening. It was all very complicated. Though it also answered the question she hadn’t gotten to ask yet. Which Clara did he see. The one from when she’d been brought into the family. The Victorian Governess. The Clara who jumped into his Time Stream...
“Well I mean, technically we were both just adopted into the same family.”
Which had always been what they used as a way to explain why they’d always been so close. An understanding and maybe it was that. But after the dreams and the fact the feelings didn’t seem to fade away as she kept dreaming, even with the emotional turmoil and bleed over of Danny. It also was her way of acknowledging she’d been trying to make sense of feelings and complications for a while now.
“Things just got really complicated, haven’t they?” As if they hadn’t been complicated before, but things were now out in the open and thus, much more complicated.
“It’s just another adventure, isn’t it? Another strange, crazy adventure in the life of Clara and the Doctor? It’s not… it’s not a different life; we lived them, yes, but you’re still you, and I’m still me, and you’ve been a different you before while always being… you. Same with me, I’m famous for it by this point…”
He frowned and looked towards her and just stared at her, “We were always ‘destined’, I hate that word, but we’re meant to be close to each other. Because of your jumping into my time stream, because of my hunting you down, our timelines have become entangled somewhat, it’s why I believe you found your way into my life, and I yours. Frankly, what are the odds that we’d be adopted into the same exact family, become so close, and have this sort of connection in the dreams?”
He thought a moment, “Actually quite staggeringly bad, those odds. Just awful. So, no, it can’t just be complete coincidence. It’s why I believe that, in some sense, we were always both Clara in the Doctor if that makes sense? OF course it does, I always make sense.”
Smiling, he took her hand up and patted it before looking back towards her, “They have, yea, though I don’t think they need to be, do they?”
“That is definitely one way of putting it.” Then again, wasn’t life an adventure in and of itself? Just like growing up if one were to look at Peter Pan. And it was Clara so there were always literary references in the back of her mind. Still, even if the idea of destiny was rubbish, Troy was right. The odds of being adopted into the same family and becoming so close, only to end up with the same dreams and what those meant were nearly impossible. There was no way it was all coincidence. Yes, Orange County had a way of bringing people together, where people you knew before suddenly were a part of your life and dreams… but this was something else.
And the Time Stream theory, the jumping in, undoubtedly had a deeper impact on the two. It had been the only choice really even if Troy had gotten mad at her about it initially. But they were always going to be part of one another’s lives.
She also had made a promise to herself. To live life without regrets. Sometimes it made her more reckless because she was making sure to live her life fully, but it was there. Five minutes a day to miss Samuel. Five minutes a day for Danny, even though she didn’t know if he even existed here.
But this? It was definitely complicated. She knew her feelings, it seemed it wasn’t just her who had them. And if they hadn’t been adopted into the same family, it wouldn’t be complicated. Still, she did quirk a brow at Troy as he side it didn’t have to be complicated even though it was.
“Oh really?”
“Well… yes, really,” Troy offered before frowning as he looked over to her, eyeing her for a moment before shrugging and smiling before kissing her hand and rubbing the back of it with his thumb. Staring at it a long moment, he looked towards her and shrugged, “I mean, we only make it complicated because we decide that it has to be, right? We make all these rules and regulations, sort out guidelines we must follow. Yet, well, I’ve never been one to follow rules and if we just go with what we want…”
He shrugged, not really sure what he was saying. The Doctor wasn’t good at these sorts of things, and quite frankly? Neither was Troy. He let her hand go, and rested his forearms over his legs then smiled quickly, “Right, so uh… maybe we should uncomplicate things with the best remedy--tea!”
His answer to all ailments of the mind, body, and heart.
It wasn’t like Clara was really good at these things either. And it wasn’t as if they hadn’t been mistaken as a couple before either given how close they’d always been. There were reasons for rules and regulations in some cases but the complication in this instance was on a technicality based on circumstances and not….
Her head was hurting and she figured they’d just figure it out as they went along. So instead she nodded.
“Tea sounds brilliant.”
Tea didn’t judge. Tea just accepted and understood. And really, it was the best way to handle anything of this nature.