Change

I

Its body kept floating toward the night skies until it was out of their eyes' reach. Some on Earth would say it was a dragon's body, or something close to it, but its wings were larger and its limbs, thinner. A dragon would never reach that grace while its last flight, the Doctor was explaining, so "any comparison is pointless in this case".

But these biological matters were not of Clara's concern at that moment. Her eyes, inflated, could barely blink as they followed the creature in its farewell. The Doctor noticed her silence and stopped talking.

Suddenly, not just their eyes, but their faces and clothes and everything surrounding them received the explosions of brightness from the creature's remaining parts. Some sparks were carried away by the night breeze; others fell but faded before touching the ground.

Clara stretched her hand to catch the sparks and found out that they would disappear sooner when in contact with living skin.

- They didn't properly disappear.

- What?

The Doctor smiled as he held her hand in his.

- They're still here. But now as a part of you.

He examined her skin with the sonic screwdriver and analyzed the results.

- You see? Still here.

- I don't understand.

He turned to the sky, in which there were still some bright matter floating.

- Remember in your Science lessons, when they told you that you are stardust? Well, it's true for all of us, but truer for some of us. Some like him. For his species, there is no such thing as the end. No, they see it as just a return. Return to their original place. They believe that if they linger here, the stars will lack of essential matter, and their lives will be shorter than necessary and so the whole Universe will collapse. They understand it is their task to avoid the collapse, as long as they can, even if it means to give up to the biological estate of living.

- They're not giving up, then – Clara crossed her arms, looking at the sky – They're giving in.

- Yes. They could say that.

- Tell me, Doctor. Does it resemble your own case?

He looked at her twice before showing he heard what was said.

- My case? What do you mean?

She stared at him. If she was sad or curious, he was not able to tell.

- When you... change. What does it feel like? Is it painful? Scary? Or liberating?

The Time Lord took a long time contemplating Clara's face.

- I suppose I must say everything at once, cause this is the easiest way to explain it in a way you can understand. It's like death, and also, it's like a rebirth. My body changes, my face, my traits, everything, and the previous person ceases to exist. But I'm still here, living, and remembering them as a different being. And little by little I learn to love this new body, this new life. So I don't spent too much time being sad.

- I wish I could change this way.

The Doctor turned his eyes to the sky, which turned dark again, but by the corner of his left eye, something was captured. Something about the past, and the future. Something about a timeline. Whose timeline, he couldn't tell.

Suddenly his voice raised in what Clara thought as compliment, a Doctor's compliment.

- But you change! You all change all the time! I don't understand how you manage to change so much in such a miserable amount of time! It's something beyond c...

Clara lowered her voice, unsure about wanting him to hear her words or not.

- It's not the same kind of change.

But he heard her. And softened his own speech in conformity.

- Still it's a wonderful one.

The remaining sparks finally disappeared. The night returned to its dark conditions. The creature's farewell reached its end. They walked back to the TARDIS' door, the Doctor snapped his fingers and the woody bluish portal was opened. He entered the ship, but Clara spent a little moment looking over her shoulder.

She knew she could never make him understand that the final transition that waits for humanity was not bright like that of the creature or the Doctor's own. Maybe she was being too hard on her own kind, missing the good traits of her own existence or preferring to ignore them just to win an argument, but what pleasure she could take from it? Maybe seeing things through the Doctor's eyes would feel better. A bit sad by the awareness of the dark traits, but comforting.

Could she become wiser, or happier, by looking at life through immortal lens? For that she had no answer. But the Doctor seemed to keep moving, and all he wanted from the people he met is that they would be capable of doing the same.

Well, that was better, indeed. She could do that for him.