The Doctor Of War ³

Listen

The Doctor and I are sitting on top of the TARDIS above the Earth.

"Listen!" the Doctor whispers, a while later their back inside the TARDIS "question. Why do we talk out loud when we know we're... alone? Conjecture. Because we know we're not."

"Evolution perfects survival skills. There are perfect hunters" I say.

"There is perfect defence."

"Question. Why is there no such thing as perfect hiding? Answer. How would you know? Logically, if evolution were to perfect a creature whose primary skill were to hide from view, how could you know it existed?"

"It could be with us every second and we would never know. How would you detect it, even sense it, except in those moments when for no clear reason you choose to speak aloud?"

"What would such a creature want? What would it do? Well? What would you do?" the last word echoes around the TARDIS. The chalk the Doctor had put down is no longer where he left it. It rolls on the floor to my feet and I pick it up, then see that what the Doctor wrote on the blackboard has been replaced by one word. Listen.

*Time skip*

Clara walks in her door and recalls the evening she sighs.

*Flashback*

Clara enters the restaurant and goes to the table where Danny Pink is sitting, wearing a pink shirt. He raises his right arm in a sort of open hand semi-salute.

"Hey."

"Hey" she goes to shake his hand.

"Sorry" they exchange kisses on the cheeks "so the famous drink at last."

"Yeah. Took a bit of time, family stuff, but here we are."

"Dinner, in fact."

"Yeah, straight to dinner."

"Though, do you take Courtney for anything?" a little later they are still laughing.

"Are you serious?"

"She said she couldn't concentrate on her work, because my face was too wide."

"Wide?"

"I could kill that girl some days."

"Me too."

"And from you, that means something."

"Sorry?" the jovial atmosphere dissipates instantly.

*Present*

Clara puts her high heels by the kettle a solemn look on her face

*Flashback*

"I dug twenty-three wells."

"I'm sorry?"

"Twenty-three wells. When I was a soldier. Twenty-three."

"Ok. Good. Good wells."

"Yeah, they were good, actually."

"I'm not doubting the quality of your wells."

"Whole villages saved. Actual towns full of people. People I didn't shoot. People I kept safe."

"Ok. Point taken. Seriously."

"So why doesn't that ever get mentioned?"

"I'm sorry I didn't mention your twenty-three wells."

"Excuse me?" the waiter asks.

"Sorry," Clara says.

"I like a man who moves fast."

"Yeah? I might go straight for extras. After. Dessert."