attackbrows | {ximilia}

[It's sometime after finishing explaining things to Newt that she seeks him out. She doesn't mean to contact him with a voice message, but with her focus being all over the place her control over the earpiece has her thinking of him and sending something on accident.

That something is:

All of time and space at our disposal, and we all wind up stuck in a station that's just as small on the inside as it is on the outside.

Which doesn't sound like a complaint as much as it is fond musing, the humor evident in her tone as it plays across his earpiece for him.

She seeks him out in the lab first, and finds evidence of what she thinks is his workspace. But he's gone by the time she gets there, obviously distracted. So she makes her way to the sunlight room next, and finds him pretty quickly. She slips right on up behind him and wraps her arms around his chest in a hug.]

Do you know what the best part about having limited space is, Doctor? It's not all that difficult to find you.

Hey, uh... Doc. You think you could help a guy out for a sec?

You don't have to actually physically do anything but listen over the earpiece. Pinky swear.

I won't even call you a barn owl.

[Hey, wow, does he sound a little sheepish????]

[ It's ridiculously late. Or ridiculously early. Depending on your point of view. But she knows he'll be awake. She isn't sure any of them sleep anymore.

She's an expert at hiding what she's really thinking, what she's feeling, but she's also well aware how easily telepathic forms of communication can betray. And text, she thinks, won't allow the Doctor to read into tone or expression, if he's feeling so inclined. He does occasionally surprise her. ]

You aren't busy are you, Sweetie? I think we have a conversation to finish.

[ Now that they're (relatively) unobserved and there's no mission to distract them. ]

[Clara sneaks into the labs on Christmas Eve and leaves his gift for him at his workstation. She knows he'll be by before the party, and wants him to have some privacy to open his present.

Inside the wrapped box is a handmade guitar pick painted in a shade of Tardis blue. It's a little larger and more crude than ones you can buy, because she's gone and tried carving something on it for him to remember her by. Etched on the pick is her attempt at a little Gallifreyan, copied from memory from the Tardis console unit. The Tardis had pointed out to her that her name was up there with all the other companions, and she had committed her own to memory as best she could. It's not a perfect etching, but she tried her best to get it just right.

Also inside the box is one of her rings that she wears all the time. He'll likely recognize it as one she's worn off and on ever since they met a long time ago. It's one with her birthstone, citrine that's as clear and bright as the stars she loves so much. There's a note in the box, resting beneath the ring.

Doctor,
Sometimes I wish that I could tell you everything. Tell you what happens in our future, and tell you exactly what you mean to me. After all, certain things shouldn't ever be left unsaid. But I think you know exactly how I feel, and you're just not ready to hear it spoken just yet. One day you will be though. And until that day comes, I want you to have this part of me. Keep it close to you if you like, or store it someplace you can come back to look at it later. But always know that I'm the luckiest person in the entire universe because I was given you to see the most amazing things. The things we've done, Doctor. They've changed who I am. I will never be the same, and I have you to thank. You said once before that you're exactly what I deserve. And I know you meant it to be a terrible, scolding thing. But do you know what, Doctor? We're exactly what the other deserves, two parts of a whole. And I've accepted that it doesn't have to be good or bad. It just is what it is.

Happy Christmas, Doctor.

Love,
Clara

There's a second wrapped package right by the first. It's an index card sized, handbound collection of handwritten cue cards. There's about 50 total, 25 cards written front and back. There's a various assortment of (mostly silly and funny) cues and situations for him to use if he's ever in a pinch. There's also some punny jokes intermingled on the cards, and a few sketches of aliens they've encountered on their adventures together. On the very back is a drawing she tried to make of herself, paired with the words "run you clever boy, and remember". He'll likely remember her saying that a few times, a long time ago. Back when she was still a mystery and he was in another lifetime. These words hold a deeper meaning to her now, and she hopes that just maybe the cards will go back with him in his pocket once he leaves this place. And once they reach the end of their story he'll be able to keep a piece of her that lets him remember her and their time together.]

i hear you have a strange fascination with meat.
apparently. i don't know. kovacs told me to burn any weird books i found on meat in the christmas bookstore.
why's that?

[ yes, this is a perfect sensible conversation with someone you know well and yet hardly know at all, in this incarnation of himself. ]

[ a few days after christmas, the doctor will find a small rolled up piece of paper, tied by simple string. it isn't signed with a name, but there's the lingering scent of cigarette smoke, along with the careful scribble of a poem: ]

Jagged lines like
cracks in stone
the man wields his age
like a war torn Mirror
But he beams
with new teeth
and strings of a Song
giving water to desolate dirt
and seeing the flowers stem up
in a dance
named Hope

[ New Year's Eve, much too late for it to be called a Christmas gift, the Doctor will find a drawing of a house in his makeshift lab. Most of the surrounding touches are in black and white, but the house itself is shaded a familiar TARDIS blue. It looks like it's been carefully torn from a journal, the outer edges curled and just starting to brown with age. If he turns it over, the back will only read, 'spoilers.'

But it's accompanied by a note. ]

Sweetie, I know I told you we were done with diaries. But you'll see me again. The sunrise on Darillium is beautiful.

I know I've been angry, Doctor, but you made me happy.

[In the days after Christmas, Clara's withdrawn. She spends a great deal of time in the simulation room having one reckless adventure after another. She doesn't sleep, because any time she lays in bed she just cries and cries until she passes out. She starts to look like a hot mess, with dark circles under her eyes, unkempt hair, clothes that are worn day in and day out, and that light that usually shines so bright within her nearly burnt out completely.

But eventually, about a week or so after Christmas, she finally starts to feel like maybe she needs to have some alone time in her room to have a good cry. Processing grief isn't something she really has the space to do here, but she can always have a good lonely cry.

Only when she makes her way back to her room at about three or four in the morning, she's surprised to walk in and see the Doctors laying in bed. The room is dark except for a light that's shining from beneath the blanket that's currently strewn over their bodies. Like two children staying up late they're laughing and being ridiculous, and Clara stares in total disbelief for a moment.

She's not going to waste this opportunity though. No matter how sad and sorry for herself she's feeling. She kicks off her boots and creeps toward the bed in a tiptoe, slipping up under the blanket at the foot of the bed to peek in at them.]

You two aren't waiting here for me, are you?

[They don't usually sleep, and she's never really found them in here before. A part of her wonders if they're here because they know she's hurting, because they always seem to just know when she needs them the most.

Or maybe they're just here to have a weird slumber party and she's interrupting. She never can be sure when these two get together.]

[There's a gift left on your bed, Doctor!

It's not wrapped, but it does have a nice red bow on top, and a little handwritten note in an envelope with a goofy, poorly skeleton wielding a guitar drawn on top. It says as follows:

From one unlovable to another. Proof I think you're OK! - N

Behold, a tiny piano, just big enough to play a melody on; no more, no less.]

have you managed to invent some sort of horseless anti gravity stagecoach yet?

[ It's quite late at night, when a text comes through the Doctor's earpiece. ]

I'm looking for the Doctor. Not the gangly one who is pretending to be married to Clara, but the other one, who plays the guitar. Do I have the right Doctor?

[ The last mission had strained emotions and temperaments, and many had allowed both to get the better of them in the middle of the fight, not that it seems it had made much difference in the end. Some friendships might be stressed for a while, she expects.

It isn't even an argument she and the Doctor haven't had before. He knows very well by now who she is and how she thinks. He should know, too, she makes no apologies for it. Maybe it's her own fault, all that time she spent trying to hide that side of herself.

They haven't talked since the mission. His younger self's absence had been a convenient distraction, but now there's no avoiding it. ]

Are you still upset with me?

[ one evening in sedorum, after a little too much time alone with her own thoughts, marta reaches out to the doctor— ]

Doctor. Are you busy?

Doctor? Think my mouth has finally gotten me in proper trouble.

Forget being my lawyer. We may need an escape plan at this point.

〈 here's a username that has been missing for several weeks— 〉

.. ...
... - .- .-. -- .- -.
.-- .- .. - .. -. --.
.. -.
- .... .
... -.- -.--

I'm feeling very old at the moment. Are you older than me right now? Call me a young'un.

[ Right.

So not only did word get around regarding his older self mixing up in the labour camp battles alongside actual, seasoned and trained soldiers (not to fight, thankfully, but being there at all seemed really rather silly of the daft old man), but the Doctor (this one) had seen it for himself when the dust had settled and they were called to the aftermath of purifying the waters. Hemming and hawing and wincing when he moved, it was quite a relief when they'd finally made it back to the station and sent the injured into the Infirmary for a quick, proper bandaging.

Which is where the Doctor will find himself lying in a bed, his eyes closed, those cross brows of his furrowed as though he's an old owl dreaming of some lecture he's got to teach, except all of his students have failed to turn in their essays and he's about ready to send them all packing. ]

Oy, me! Wakey-wakey, I made a broth!

[ And indeed, when the Doctor (the owl one) opens his eyes he'll find himself (bowtie and all) with a tray in his hands, a silver spoon and a bowl of hot, delicious-smelling soup sitting atop it.

There may also be some Jammy Dodgers (as requested from the supply drop!) on a plate beside it, but whether that's for the older Doctor or for him remains to be seen. ]

[ She doesn't hover as he recovers in the same way she might (and has) over his younger self. It's more subtle than that, the way she simply seems to be there more often than she isn't. To tell the truth, she isn't even sure the Doctor's noticed the gradual shift from her avoiding him to existing just outside (and sometimes inside) his personal space. She almost doesn't notice it herself until a conversation during Newt's movie night makes her realize...she isn't angry anymore.

It's well into the night some few days after when she settles next to him on the bed with a book she isn't even interested in, a bottle of wine, and a single glass. She offers him the glass in silence. But her silence doesn't last long. It rarely does unless she's angry. Or deeply hurt. ]

I know I'm not supposed to talk about it; you haven't been there yet. I see it every time I look at you.

[ She doesn't bother to mask her feelings, not this time. She's earned her disappointment, her heartache. ]

But we had a good marriage, you know.

[ Suddenly she laughs. It sounds ridiculous when she puts it like that. But summing up their time on Darillium any other way when they can't share in the memories seems...wrong, somehow. ]

[ one morning on the station, on each orber's door, the following hand-written note (in fancy calligraphy) will be taped:

the orber can choose to attend or simply listen in to the meeting when it occurs, or they may ignore it altogether. ]

	You've reached Dr. Funkenstein. Expert on all things funkadelic. Please, by all means, save us both the hassle and don't leave a message.
	TEXT \| AUDIO \| VIDEO

audio --> action

voice.

un: song | text

special delivery

text / un: starkov

christmas delivery;

no subject

sandwich action

Christmas Delivery!

text; about 5 minutes after group 3 makes it into town

un: navigator

action;

voice | un: m.cabrera

just casually sending a text during her interrogation

text. un: 10-54

text; un: captainjack