Tales from the TARDIS • Doctor Who

TWO

ONESHOT TWO
❝Water Balloons❞

[Ten & Clara]

— • —

"I don't know where I am. It's like I'm breaking into a million pieces and there's only one thing I remember: I have to save the Doctor. He always looks different but I always know it's him. Sometimes I think I'm everywhere at once, running every second just to find him. Just to save him. But he never hears me. Almost never. I blew into this world on a leaf and I'm still blowing. I don't think I'll ever land. I'm Clara Oswald. I'm the impossible girl; I was born to save the Doctor."

It was an utterly normal day for Clara. Some would call it borderline boring but for Clara, normalcy kept the young brunette content. The London sky was a dull grey, no rain threatened to dampen the ground. It was just a dreary sunless day. The day was a Wednesday, May 17th of the year 2000. Clara was spending the first May 17th of the new millennia sitting in a quaint park watching children play. In Clara's mind; today was fantastic.

 As she sat on a wooden park bench, a light breeze blowing her straight brown hair around her face, Clara smiled to herself. Everything was at peace; everything had always been at peace. Her life was a simple one, running a small day-care out of her London house. She always had a special connection with children. Their innocent eyes and wide smiles drew Clara to them like bees to a flower. On this plain day she was taking care of the Terrance and Fisher's children. The five of them, next door neighbours, ran around the simple playground, in their hands were multi-coloured balloons each filled with more than enough water. Water balloons; simple yet effective way of creating fun on a cloudy yet surprisingly balmy day. As the five children - three with blonde hair, one with ginger and one with brunette - ran around the playground aiming the colourful water filled rubber at each other, Clara let her eyes wander off the children. She watched as here and there a car would drive by and a smattering of locals walked inside the park and the surrounding town. A family of swallows sung their lovely song from a nearby tree and everything was how it should be.

Well, at least almost everything.

Clara watched as a man wearing a brown suit and white converse exited the local bakery right across from the park. His brown hair was spiked and she watched as his eyes searched the surroundings with frantic urgency.  To any other person the man in the brown pinstripe suit would just be another passer-by but to Clara, he was something different all together. Watching him, stumble around as if he was lost, made something within Clara come alive. It was something that broke the rules or normalcy completely.

I have to save the Doctor.

That one thought that was buried within the deepest corners of Clara's mind. It never made sense to her, never having any meaning until that moment. Seeing the lost man made Clara realise that she had to save the Doctor. Even if she did not know how or who this Doctor even was.

"Kids! I'll be back soon, okay?" Clara got up off the wooden bench, leaving her bag on the seat but keeping the ready to use water balloons she had been holding in her hands.

The oldest child, Holly Fisher - the ten year old flaming red head - acknowledged Clara's remark. "We'll be fine Miss Os," The girl answered Clara, smiling quickly up at her before chucking a pink balloon right into her brother, Hunter's face.

"Behave," Clara mockingly warner her before taking off towards the mystery man. She must have looked like a fool, hurrying towards the bakery with three water balloons in her grasp. In the distance, the pinstripe man left his spot outside the bakery and headed around the street corner, heading into the backstreets. In his hand was a silver rod, it emitted a blue light when he swished it from side to side.

I have to save the Doctor. Were the only words that ran through Clara's mind as she closed the gap between her and the stranger.

She was within thirty feet of the man when he halted at the start of an alley way. The alley ran along the backs of the Bakery and adjacent Newsagents and a local coffee house. The alley was empty but by the way the man stood, she knew that what she saw and what there was were two different things.

Clara slid against the brick wall of the Bakery building, hiding herself from the man who stood in the middle of the alley way. He had his silver rod again. This time a noise, vreeeeee, came from it as well as a series of chirps. The man's eyebrows furrowed as he brang the rod up to his ear, as if listening closer to it would solve the answer to the universe.

Clara couldn't help but think that the strange man was very peculiar and definetly out of place in her slice of the world.

The man's metal rod stopped making noises and his furrowed frown turned into a smile as he took a step into the alley.

I have to save the Doctor. Clara kept telling herself those words but how she would execute them was a whole different though process. One that she hadn't gotten around to just yet.

Edging her way closer to the man, just the tiniest bit, she looked around to study the alley. It was shadow filled and deadly silent. The man held his silver rod infront of him, a blue light shone from it, shining into the darkness for a final time until the man made his first audible sound.

"Oh you clever things. Clever clever clever things you are, Vashta Nerada," the man smiled with twisted delight and Clara strained to hear him speak. "No telling how many of you there are lurking about. Could be a small swarm or an infestation like it was back at the library. Only one way to tell..."

The man took a step forward, towards the shadows of the alley. As he did, Clara's head throbbed, the words I have to save the Doctor screamed in her head. Without thinking of a better plan, Clara aimed one of her water balloons straight for the man's head. Right on target, the bright green balloon hit him in the side of his head, soaking his brunette hair and stopping him from taking another step.

I have to save the Doctor. The words never left Clara's mind. As the man looked over to the source of the balloon, Clara saw something in the man's eyes that she had never witnessed before. At least never in her plain life she lived in. His eyes were filled with more years than she could count; wisdom, heartbreak, joy and worry all mixed together in sad brown eyes. "Nice shot," the man tried to smile but it was half hearted. He turned back to the alley and took another step forward. The hairs on the back of Clara's neck stood up.

I have to save the Doctor. Dropping her remaining two water balloons, Clara raced towards the man. She had finally realised what that meant. To save the Doctor she would have to sacrifice herself. Because the strange man with the silver rod had to live another day. He was the Doctor after all. Today was not the day for him to play Russian roulette with the Vashta Nerada. Today was the day for Clara Oswald to save the Doctor. As she ran out in front of the pinstripe man, heading straight for the shadows, something else emerged from the depths of Clara's mind.

I'm the impossible girl; I was born to save the Doctor.

Those were Clara Oswald's last thoughts before she felt herself get broken into a million pieces.