Work Text:
“Was Professor Song, River, like me?”
“I’m sorry?”
The TARDIS console hummed softly in the silence as Clara tried to think of a way to frame her question. Three weeks had passed since Tranzalore. One week spent recovering in the sickbay of the TARDIS (which looked remarkably like a lakeside cabin in Switzerland her mum had taken her to once), and two weeks at home with the kids. Then, the following Wednesday, he picked her up for an evening of dinner and dancing with Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, or “Fitz,” as the Doctor seemed bent on calling him. Unable to shake the feeling that the past few hours had felt like a double date, Clara was curious about the strange wife of the Doctor, who he seemed so determined to forget.
“Did River travel with you? Well -of course she did- you travel and she’s your wife but what I mean is...” Clara hesitated, unsure of the answer she was hoping for to her unasked question. “I’m not the first person to live in the TARDIS. In all those other lives, you were never alone. You always had friends who travelled with you, like I do. Was River one of them? Did she start out like me? Did you travel with her and then...fall in love with her?” The last question came out in a slightly unsteady voice. She carefully watched his face for a reaction. His mouth remained in its fixed, closed position, but something like pain passed through his eyes for the briefest of moments. He seemed to recover himself before answering.
“Not...really,” the Doctor said. “She was a free spirit. She traveled, and I traveled, and we traveled together. But she never really lived in the TARDIS.”
“Okay,” Clara said. She wanted to ask more, but didn’t want to see the pain that she had seen before. She turned on her heel, thinking that she’d take a shower before either the Doctor chose another place to take her or brought her back home.
“Her mother did.”
Clara froze. She swung back around to find the Doctor gazing intently at part one of the TARDIS’ staircases, as if he could see a ghost standing there.
“Her mother?” Clara asked. “Her mother traveled with you?”
“Yes,” the Doctor said, turning to face her. “And her father.” He sank into the chair next to the console. Clara wanted to make a comment about how he travelled all of time and space with his in-laws, but thought better of it at the look on his face. “I told you that there was a dark time, just before I met you, and that Vastra and Jenny helped me through it. It was because of them, it was because I’d just lost my two closest friends. They were taken from me.”
“Oh,” Clara said. She took a few steps towards the Doctor. Taking a deep breath, she asked, “What were they like? Mr. and Mrs. Song?”
“Well, they weren’t called that,” the Doctor said. “Her name was Amelia Pond. Or Amy. Amy Pond and Rory Williams. And they traveled in the TARDIS for a very long time.”
After a long pause, he added, “You remind me a bit of her. Not like a copy or anything, nothing like that. Very different recipe, but some of the same ingredients.”
“How?” Clara asked. The Doctor returned the smile that was starting to grow on her face.
“Same instincts. Never afraid to give me a push when I needed one. Always looking for something bigger and better and madder. But she didn’t have the same sense that you do. No, if it made sense, Amy wanted nothing to do with it.”
“Sounds more like you that it does like me,” said Clara with a smirk. The Doctor laughed, then sobered.
“Rory had sense, though. He was reasonable, and he kept us in check. Good for us, I think,” the Doctor said. “Except when it came to Amy. He would do the most stupid, the most human things for her.”
“Some men do that,” said Clara, remembering her parents.
“They were truly...remarkable. So much passion on Amy’s part. And such devotion, such utter adoration on Rory’s. Mr. and Ms. Pond. Incredible,” he said, looking past Clara and towards what she assumed was the same staircase. He walked over where Clara was, leaning against the console with her.
“I’ll tell you what, though, they were terribly ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful? How so?”
“I gave them a brilliant wedding present and they had the nerve to tell me they didn’t like it!”
“What?”
“Yes! I had the TARDIS make them a new bedroom, one with a bunk bed and they didn’t like it!” Clara burst out laughing.
“Seriously? You gave them a bunk bed as a wedding present?!” She exclaimed, still giggling. The Doctor looked affronted.
“Not you, too!” he said. “Bunk beds are cool! Am I the only who sees that?”
“I’m sure you’re not, I just don’t think bunk beds were really their thing,” Clara tried to reassure him, still unable to stop smiling. In her best attempt to remain serious, she asked, “And what kinds of places did you take them?” The Doctor’s smile returned.
“And the times we had! Oh, the times we had. Vampires in Venice, pirate ships, dinosaurs on a spaceship, and Seaworld: The Planet! America in the 1960‘s, that was brilliant. And then Amy became the real fourth wife of Henry VIII and we went to the Wild West and Niagara falls from the other side. Once we went to a tea garden in ancient Japan, that was Rory’s idea, it was impossibly boring but they seemed to like it.” Clara smiled at the Doctor’s confusion. Then something shifted in his face. He glanced at Clara, then looked down at the TARDIS floor and cleared his throat. “And then there was a bad day. Bad...stuff happened. And I try to forget about it; I want to forget every last bit of it. But I can’t.”
“But why would you want to?” Clara asked. “For two people who brought you so much happiness, why would you ever want to forget them?”
“Why do any of us want to forget anything?” the Doctor replied. “Sometimes I’m more human than I seem.”
“Sometimes thinking can help,” Clara said. “Remembering my mum hurt for ages. But my dad and I talked about her. It helped. Telling stories about her made it seem like she was still there. It didn’t hurt so much. You can always talk to me, you know. I can listen.”
“Yes, well,” the Doctor said. “Maybe. But for now...thank you.” Clara beamed at him.
“You’re welcome.”
“So what’s next?” He asked her, hands on the leavers of the console.
“Well first, a shower,” Clara said. “But then, it’s your decision. Although-” she hesitated.
“Yes?”
“I would like you to pick something totally new, or something that was a favorite of the Ponds” she said slowly. The Doctor considered this for a moment.
“Very well.”
“Brilliant,” said Clara, setting off for the aquatic wing of the TARDIS with a slight smirk on her face.