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She was so gentle with him. She managed, by some miracle, to pick him up with Orson after they fell into the TARDIS again. Whatever was out there, whatever he saw, whether it was nothing or something, was certainly a thing she didn’t want to think about at the moment.
His safety, his life — to her, right then — was far more important.
They sat him in a chair attached to the outer control panel in the Console Room, right where he’d fallen, and she took a moment to check out his head injury. He would heal soon, she knew, but she was worried over him, nonetheless. Her finger stroked along his temple sweetly and she wished, if only for a moment, that she could be this way with him more often.
There was such tenderness in her heart — all for him — and yet he didn’t want it. Then, sometimes, he would look at her a certain way. There was something in eyes. Something more. As if he wanted more. More than friendship. Yet, he was terrified of her touch, always pulling away and keeping her at arm’s length, at bay.
He wanted more, she thought, but he didn’t trust himself. Perhaps that was it.
Right now, however, all she cared about was his well-being. Various, terrifying thoughts ran rampant through her mind. Was he alright? Would he be okay? What should she do? Would he heal as quickly as he normally did?
His ego, however, would be burnt a tad. He would hurt over that for a while. She couldn’t care less. He would know that. But it was the principle of it all. She should be mad, honestly, but she wasn’t. She had learned, a long time ago, to get over things that happened with this new him. She had to. Live and forget. Move on. Keep going. The next adventure was coming. And the next. And the next.
He told her to do as she was told. Now, perhaps, she had the strangest feeling she would have to do the same with him. And they needed to leave. Right now.
She would have to pilot the old girl herself. What a terrifying thought.
Somehow she understood it the moment she slipped her fingers into the empathic circuits aboard the TARDIS. She understood. She knew. The TARDIS was taking her where she needed to be, maybe not where she wanted to go. But she knew why.
The old girl knew best, as always. She was taking them where she needed to visit. Where she needed to be. It certainly didn’t feel like Earth. After years of traveling the vast expanse of wide, wonderful Universe, Clara began to understand those gut feelings. Intuition told her where they might just be.
There was something the Doctor needed to hear.
And, for a moment, she prayed that she was wrong and that her heart would not be as broken as she knew it could be. She understand where they were.
And the moment she stepped off the TARDIS, into that tiny barn, she was floored. Still. She was utterly, wholly shocked and bewildered. They were on his planet. She remembered something he’d said earlier, and so many times before — it would, and could, be catastrophic if he met his younger self.
That was him in that bed. That was the Doctor. The younger Doctor. Before he was the Doctor. Before everything. Before it all began, really. She felt it in her heart, that she was the one to offer him these words — that fear makes companions of us all.
That’s where he’d heard those words. From her. And she’d heard them from him. Interesting thing, really, the Bootstrap theory. One day she might just be able to wrap her mind around that thought as well. One day. Maybe.