What's Wrong With Dangerous? (A Whouffle Fanfiction) [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter One (set after 'The Cold War' episode)

There’s something the Doctor isn’t telling me. Although he has taken me into his trust about a lot of things, I know that he’s concealing something from me and I don’t like it. It isn’t that I think he shouldn’t be allowed to keep secrets from me- obviously I have secrets from him. It’s just that I think this one concerns me.

A little while ago he told me that I reminded him of someone in his past, but he didn’t elaborate. I told him that I didn’t want to be someone’s replacement and that I couldn’t be them for him, and the conversation ended there, but I just keep coming back to it in my head. I know that he has things that he wants to forget, and I know that in the past he’s lost people and doesn’t want to talk about it, and I understand that completely. But I think what he’s hiding is something I need to know.

I’m sitting in the Tardis reading a book while the Doctor fiddles with the controls. After the submarine relocation disaster I forced him to change the settings and he agreed to, but I had no idea that it was going to be so hard to do so.

“Um… is there an instruction manual?” I ask, amused. He pops his head up from underneath the console, looking like a demented owl with his hair sticking up and his glasses precipitously close to falling off his nose.

“An instruction manual?” he says incredulously. “Really? No… not an instruction manual!” He disappears from view again. I shrug and turn back to my book. He suddenly appears again.

“Wait,  did you just say an instruction manual?”

I sigh at him,  laughing. “Yep. You got one?”

He scrunches up his nose. “Every time!”

“What d’you mean?” I ask.

“Nothing… it’s just River was always on at me about instruction manuals too…”

“Who was River?” I ask him. “How many people have you travelled with? I get the feeling I’m not that first.”

“No,  I’ve travelled with lots of people, Clara. Some die,  some leave me,  some I leave. It’s the sad truth. I’m bad at looking after people.”

“No you’re not!” I tell him. “You must have saved the world a thousand times. I bet you fought to save them, didn’t you?”

He gives an almost imperceptible nod.

“Well then,” I say. “You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

“Who says I do blame myself?” he mutters.

“Your face,” I tell him softly. He sighs.

“So who was River,? I ask, trying to change the subject. Unfortunately, from the look on his easily readable face, this one’s a sore subject too. “It’s fine, you don’t have tell me,” I say.

He nods and disappears from view. Well, that went well.