CHARLOTTE ::: DW¹

xlix. the gone and the appeared

POST-THE SNOWMEN

edited as of july 23rd, 2021

After checking the room for the first time, the Doctor found it abandoned by Charlotte. He turns, sitting on the edge of the table she laid on. The Doctor lowers his head, looking to his right side to see a patch of charred wood leftover from her regeneration.

Of course, he wanted to be there while it occurred. However, he was aware that she had to do it alone. And, for Aino, it would be an easier transition from human to Time Lady by herself.

Clara enters the room with her arms hugging herself. "Is she in the box?"

Not wanting to explain her situation, the Doctor simply nods. "Yeah, she'll be fine."

"That's a relief," Clara says, mindlessly sitting on a burned piece of the table. "What will you do now?"

"I thought you wanted to come with me?"

Clara nods but lowers her head. "After today, I need time to think it over. I'll give you an answer three weeks' time, no doubt."

The Doctor understood why she said so, even if he was disappointed. He stands up from the table, nearing the TARDIS as Clara stands up as well. "Where are you going to go?"

"It's been a while," he tells her. "I'll just have to run her in and be back three weeks from now."

Clara nods, watching as he enters the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. She backs up as she watches it disappear, unknowing that it reappeared moments later on the bright side of the moon.

The interior of the TARDIS was just as quiet as it was over a month ago before Charlotte arrived. He understood that there was nothing he could do to stop her death, however, he wished he would've noticed her mannerisms: looking at the monitor- obviously checking the medical scanner, the differing ways she acted, and how she always seemed like she was far away in deep thought.

Despite wanting to return, the Doctor stayed on the moon and, thus, removed from any cloud tops to call his own. He stayed there two days wandering until he came to the realization that Charlotte felt as if she couldn't tell him of her situation because of his mourning for the Ponds. To him, that was a ridiculous notion at that moment until admitting to himself it would've been devastating for him to know.

While he wasn't living above a cloud, he was still hiding away on the moon because of his guilt for not knowing. After the second day, though, the Doctor forced himself to remember how Charlotte wanted him to come down from the cloud, and now he had to go back to Earth.

When he returned in mid-January, he left Latimer's study only to see Madame Vastra standing outside of the door dressed in all black and looking down at her watch. "She was right, three weeks on the dot."

"Of course I'm on time..." his eyebrows furrow. "What is it?"

Vastra says nothing more before leading the Doctor to the back of the home, where Snowmen previously terrorized them. In front of him, he sees a grave with flowers placed to the side and with snowflakes laying on its top and around it. The gravesite was labeled with the name 'Clara Oswin Oswald.'

Vastra frowns. When he asks how she replies, "No one saw it coming. A sudden bought of tuberculosis." The Doctor looks at her name, recognizing it vaguely. Seeing him staring at the stone, Vastra takes out a letter from her pocket.

"She wanted me to give you this." After handing him the letter, she leaves him alone.

Opening the letter, the paper only contained a short message.

Run, you clever boy. And remember.

The Doctor slides the letter into his inside pocket. He looks back to the gravestone, and even with the amount of knowledge- both his and Charlotte's- he had, the Doctor didn't know how it's possible Oswin Oswald and Clara were the same.

---

One hundred and thirteen years later, on Christmas Eve, Jackie Tyler wakes up in her bed. Rubbing her eyes, she groans as she steps out of bed. Jackie leaves her room, entering the living room, she sees a friend sleeping on the couch in an odd (and, to Jackie's standards, ugly) white nightgown.

She nears the blonde woman. Her hair has always been staticy, even now despite it being the first hour since the woman got her hair. The blonde, a tall woman, had her feet rested on the couch's arm.

While Jackie did try to wake her up, all attempts failed. Someone else may have given up and called an ambulance a minute ago, but Jackie waited for a sign she wasn't dead in her living room and when a line of drool fell out of her mouth she silently cheered before getting her a light blue blanket for the cold weather.

Once draping the blanket over her, Jackie goes to the phone to call Mickey, who picks up immediately in hopes there was news from Rose or the Doctor.

"Hello? Jackie?"

"Mickey, er..." Jackie looks back at the woman as she starts quietly snoring. "I woke up today and Charlotte was here, fast asleep on the sofa."

_______

GIF FROM tessacarstrs ON TUMBLR

honestly, thank you guys so much for supporting this story through voting, commenting, and adding this to your reading lists <3 i know it means the world to me and other writers when you do so... so please, please, please keep at it

I may not have been the most active at writing and publishing chapters, but I always loved seeing reactions to everything and I swear you will be blessed in the next story for waiting through the disaster that is Charlotte and the Doctor's relationship.

I don't want to write a whole essay, but I wanted to say I started publishing chapters on May 28th, 2019 and it's fair to say I've grown a lot as both a writer and as a person since... for reference, I started writing and planning in 7th grade and now I'm going into 10th next month.

the next book won't be out soon, as I want to write a few chapters before I start publishing, but I stg you will love it. it'll be a little shorter than this one I think. 

if you're worried about a story centered around aino... don't be. i hate spoiling, but she'll get her memories back soon enough and from there the story will progress into the direction ya'll have wanted since chp 1

have a good day, ily <3