A/N: Some time ago, I read this article on doctorwhotv that prompted the possibility of the Ninth Doctor being responsible for Ellie's death, as it was showed in The Rings Of Akhaten that Ellie died on the same day that Rose Tyler was last seen, the day where the events of the episode Rose took place. Ever since reading it, I've been itching to write this.

The relationship between Clara and Ellie has always intrigued me, since Clara built her life from whatever was left of her after her mother dared to die on her. I hope this brings justice to the character we never got to properly meet.

A special thanks to Solène, for taking the time to beta this fanfic and adding her insight to everything I failed to see clearly.

Time doesn't exist.

It is merely a construct by the mankind, crafted from sensations and periodic changes. It's nothing further than a concept to dictate the passing of age.

Time does not exist.

And yet, people rely on it for their existence. They build their lives from time, they are the fruit of time. They are the result of events that happen in the path of their timelines, not all necessary good.

And the anniversary of those events tend to bring people down to their knees and make them beg for mercy.

The calendar marked March 5th, 2015. The early days of spring were hazy, prolonging the sadness and sorrow that the greys of winter still spreaded across its winds.

That particular day, Clara's only focus was to survive. Breathe in, breathe out, the air somehow suffocating her lungs and making it is so hard to stay alive.

That day, Clara Oswald was no more than a shadow of all the people that she once had been, obfuscated by the shadows of all the people that she once had loved.

Her father had called - several times, as a matter of fact. She ignored them all, her heart twitching at the idea of talking to him, of hearing the ache of his words in the memory of what that day meant for the both of them. Until his calls grew shorter between one another and she knew the worry to have crashed his soul.

Hence why she finally picked up, uttered softly, "I'm not dead," and hang up on him.

That day, she just wanted to disappear.

Clara stared up to the ceiling, seeing black holes rather than stars. Her body rested against the mattress of her bed, her head buried her hair in the malleable pillow. The drapes of her room were closed, shutting out the ongoing and unstoppable life happening outside.

Still, a few rays of sunshine dared to escape the blockage of the fabric, bringing the light in. A promise that the day wouldn't last forever. Even if each second was as long as an eternity.

When the Doctor landed in her flat and found her in complete oblivion to her surroundings — including to his presence there —, he daren't disturb her. Carefully, he lied in a spot next to her in bed, so lightly the mattress didn't even shift underneath them. In a gesture that wasn't his, he brushed his knuckles against hers, silently promising her that he was there.

For he knew how much that day weightened on her, and he wasn't allowed to words; not until she lowered down her defenses and invited him to her story, a story that wasn't entitled to anyone else, not even to him. A story she had long buried inside of herself, in attempts of shielding herself from the excruciating pain; the excruciating truth.

Until she was ready — if she ever were —, the Doctor would simply stay by her side, building constellations in the ceiling and imagining how it would feel to show them all to her.

Her voice was softer than the fluttering of wings in the air, a confession that wasn't meant for anyone to hear — not ever her, not even him. It was the fall of all her armor that brought her down to her knees in the battle field. "I arrived home from uni that day and found my father shaking in the couch. The telly was on in some stupid explosion downtown, but neither of us could hear past the mumbles of the reporters' voices. Far far away from us.

"She wasn't home."

The Doctor was uncertain whether to touch her or to give her space; whether to glance towards her or keep his head up; whether to encourage her to tell her testimony or to allow her to find that courage herself. He focused on the sound of her breathing, her chest rising and falling in the corner of his eyes.

"She wasn't home, Doctor," her tone was growing harder and it was difficult to hear past the sorrow it carried. "I asked my father what was going on, where was mum, but he was so lost within himself he could only shake his head, doing his best to hold it together, even when there was no one to hold him up."

He just wished she would recognize that he was right there, more than ready to be the one to hold her up.

"I sat by his side and put my hands on his shoulders, trying to calm him down; he wouldn't stop shaking. I didn't know what to do. My eyes were attracted to the screen of the telly and I finally understood: it was the building she worked at in flames, burning through the skies and destroying particles of oxygens so necessary to the continuum of life. The headline said, 'a body has been found in the wrecks of the fire'."

The fire was starting to grow inside her own eyes. A fire ignited by rage and anger and fury at the universe for taking her mother away from her before her time was done. "We tend to think the odds are unable to get to us," she carried on, her entire being hollow, "We never think we might be that one in one million. We never think the one person to perish in a fire will be one close to us. We think we're unreachable, unbreakable, and we're brought to ours knees in realization the universe doesn't spare anybody. Any body."

"Not even your mother," the Doctor concluded, quietly, sadly, scared he was penetrating a storytelling he hadn't been invited to; the tension eased off his bones when she repeated his words.

"Not even my mother."

Clara abruptly raised her torso, desperately inhaling longs breaths of oxygen — the lying position was crucially suffocating her. She pressed the back of her hands to both her cheeks, unaware of how wet they were until then.

Stubborn tears that dared to escape the corner of her eyes like shooting stars dared to paint the nightly sky.

Shooting stars disguising the souls of loved ones that faded away from earth and entranced a life across the specks of the cosmos.

"We never got to see her body," she disclosed, soon after chucking at her own self, "How could we, anyway? She was no more than ashes. No other than the dust we come from."

Mimicking every single one of her movements, the Doctor also sat up, handing one of his hands a few millimeters away from her spine, afraid to initiate the contact, until Clara leaned almost unnoticeably back and a link between their body energies was created.

"We didn't get to say our goodbyes," the tears began to pile up like frosts above her pupils and she could no longer see clearly — everything was blurry, from the frivolous of her sight to the depths of her soul and sanity. "We parted our ways in the morning and that was it. The last we ever saw of her. We were trapped in our routine lives and she was then stolen of her routine life.

"I didn't get to say goodbye to her."

He slowly approached her, until her shoulder pad was brushing against his upper arm — their height difference was more remarkable than ever. "Clara," he sang her name, sculpting the bones of her vertebras with the tip of his fingers. "You can say goodbye now. If you think that's the missing piece to help your heart move on, I can take you back to the past. You can have your goodbye, you can have your one last moment."

For the first time, Clara turned her head to glance at him; her eyes were glowing with sparks of hope and specks of mourning sorrow. Her lower lip trembled like a blown leaf on an autumn's day. "Would you do that? Break all your rules? For me?"

"If it helps you come to terms with your own inner demons," he elaborated, resting his hand at the origins of her spine, "I will do everything for you. Clara."

The Doctor helped Clara find her way to his TARDIS, even though he knew she could manage on her own — she just looked so vulnerable under the weight that day brought upon her. He sat her by his big comfy armchair and stumbled towards the console, expecting her to dictate the exact location of the tragedy that changed the whole path of her life.

And when she did, the Doctor froze within the barriers of his own physique.

Even lost inside the rush of thoughts going through her mind, Clara noticed his instantaneous change in behavior. She frowned, studying how rigid and tense the muscles of his back were, close to suffocating the spine they held in between. Not daring to walk up to him, she asked from the distance, "Doctor? What is it?"

He was completely out of sync with the exterior world, taking eternal seconds for her voice to allure him into back to the same phase as her. He bent his neck halfway, just enough to stole her a glance from the corner of her eyes. "Hm? It's nothing. London, 2005, you were saying—"

Unexpectedly, Clara rose on her feet — she somehow resembled much more taller than her actual stature. "No. You know something. Tell me, Doctor."

"I know lots of things that you can't possibly know, Clara," he fussed with buttons and key commands, and the time machine's engines roared quietly underneath their feet.

"You know something about my mother's death," she bluntly accused, arms crossed against her chest, the vein in her forehead throbbing stronger than ever. "It's my mother, I'm entitled to the truth."

When he adventured himself into the trail of her eyes, they certainly burned with emotions he couldn't possibly understand. His own were incapable of sustaining contact for much longer. "Clara."

"Don't Clara me!" her tone increasingly highered, leaving her throat sore. "Don't you think that after everything we've been through, together, I'm owned better than your lying and you patronizing me and you condescending me?!"

He sighed loudly, the TARDIS landing where they were originally headed but neither of them intending to leave the ship. "It's more complicated than that, Clara."

"I don't care, Doctor, I don't give a damn about how bloody complicated it is," her pupils were dilated due to the lack of light in there. Her voice suddenly became hoarse and low, "Life is already complicated enough as it is."

With a heart beating faster than the other, the Doctor gesticulated she should sit back down — which she reluctantly did. He dropped to his knees in front of her, in the humblest and truest form of submission he had for her only. "Clara."

Her heartbeat was stuck in her throat, making it so hard for her to breathe. Faintly, she confessed, regardless of how mad she was at him — he was still her best friend and the only person she knew she could trust. "I'm scared."

Afraidly, he rested his chin between the gap of her knees and wrapped his long thick fingers around her legs and caressed her bare skin with his thumbs. Somehow, his acts of comfort were enough to ease her in the slightest — but not for long. Not after she heard what he had to say.

And he was terrified of her gaze as he began to speak, but there wasn't any other place his eyes were ought to be rather than crossing path with hers. He was just as scared of saying the words as she was of hearing them. "There had been an alien invasion, Clara. I had to stop it, I just… I had to stop them."

Her lower lip fell open and her entire body launched in trembling, regardless of how he tried to keep her steady with his hands. "No. Don't say it. That didn't happen. Please, Doctor, don't—"

"I'm so sorry, Clara," he cried, the hurt and the pain and the self disdain heardable in his lament. "Nobody was supposed to be there. I was so certain nobody else was there. The store had already closed and… and… and…"

Clara was shaking her head so violently her brains were crashing against her skull hardly. Her hands hid her mouth in whatever attempts of keeping herself together. "No. You're lying. You didn't, you…"

Although denial equaled one of the five stages of grief, her reactions were farther more than there — she was in disbelief. Although he dodged the sentence 'I'm responsible for your mother's death' as the dodge of a bullet, he had already made her worst nightmare come true. "I'm so sorry, Clara."

She unexpectedly jumped on her feet, throwing him away in the process, distancing herself the further away from him she could. She cruely alleged, her back to him, her words delaying from one another, "You killed my mum."

He had killed a lot of people in his impossibly gigantic life, and they all haunted his thoughts — but no death had suddenly weighed so much on him as Ellie Oswald's. His eyes were red and puffy, lodging their vision on the back of her neck. "Would you rather have her killed by the Autons? Because that's what would have happened. Her death had been signed the moment she entered that building, Clara."

"No, you can't say that for sure. Maybe she would have lived," she speculated, her feet edgy to stay put, her lungs sore from the desiring of screaming and yelling and crying. "She burned to death. All anybody can wish for this life is a good death, and that's the worst kind of death there is. She felt her flesh burning and her lungs suffocating and the flames consuming her body and…"

And she was on the cliff of breaking down — breaking apart. She leaned on her hands on the console and the cold of its metal sent shivers down her spine. Her eyes were leaking and she had no control over the mighty river that salted her cheeks.

The Doctor got up in ragged movements, struggling to find his own balance. He circled around the console until their separation grew shorter, but still existed. "Can you blame me, Clara? How many times have you already seen me sacrifice one for the greater cause? How many times have we, together, saved a whole species even if that meant killing one of them in the process?"

"Yeah, well, that was different," she grunted, the anger written all over her face lines, and she wasn't eager on hiding it. She wanted him to know how much hurting he had brought her that day so many years before.

"How is it any different, Clara?"

"Because I didn't know them!" she hit her fist so harshly against the platform she cussed underneath her breath right after — yet the physical pain didn't even begin to compare to her emotional one. "This is my mother we're talking about. My mother. Killed by my best friend. How can you expect me to be okay with it?"

Carefully, he approached her and touched her wounded hand with his, only to have it abruptly yanked from his hold. She didn't walk away, however. "Every person we've ever cut lives shorter, Clara, were somebody's child, somebody's mother, somebody's father. Every loss is somebody's loss. You're not the first one to lose someone for whom you cared deeply."

"No, you don't get to lecture me!" she nearly howled, pointing her index finger until it was close to touching between his hearts. "You don't get to blame me for being mad at you. You murdered her, Doctor…! She was my best friend, she was my rock, she was the only person I knew I could always count on. And then, she wasn't. She died on me. She blew away in the smoke."

The loss of her mother wasn't, however, what ached Clara the most. It was the betrayal of the Doctor — her best friend, her rock, the only person she knew she could always count on. But not anymore. He had killed the only two people she ever trusted with her life. Her heartbreak shattered her soul.

Clara's glare fell, a halo of sadness hanging around her; around them. "I don't even know how can I stand to look at you anymore."

The Doctor felt his own ducts trying to break free the tears. His betrayal was destroying him, corrupting every single of fiber of his being. He had long hated his reflection, but it'd reached a point he doubted he would ever be able to look at himself in the mirror again — and he couldn't possibly blame her for feeling the same way. What hurt the most, however, was breaking her heart. "I'm so sorry, Clara."

"Stop bloody apologizing," she demanded, the rage consuming her like it had never before. "Apologizing won't bring her back. Apologizing won't change what you did."

He nodded, although she couldn't see it. "Do you want me to leave you?" the idea of never seeing her again made it nearly impossible for his hearts to carry on beating, but he would never go against whatever she desired. "You won't have to see me. Ever again. If that's what you wanted."

Her brains screamed at her for not saying yes, because her heart was saying no. Too many emotions she didn't know how to control; emotions on charge of her. "I…"

Suddenly — and startling him as she went — Clara rushed on her feet towards the TARDIS door, struggling to open it with her shaking fingers, but managing at last. She was instantaneously met by the cold breeze of air conditioner from inside the department store she once had been so familiar with; she did, after all, grow up running through the many ailes of clothing, hiding beneath the fabric of long dresses as she and her mother would play hide and seek in there. She took a long breath, cleaned her faces from the damp trace of tears and stepped out of the big blue box.

She never noticed the Doctor following right after her, even in his uncertainty whether he should or not.

Clara desperately searched within familiar faces of the staff, not bothering herself that any of them could recognize her — they wouldn't, she was no more than a teenager back then. She rubbed her hands together anxiously, too unsure of what she was doing there, too unsure of what she would do once she found her there.

"Can I help you?"

The echoing of the voice she hadn't heard in so long made her dead on her track. Her heart was pounding so many times faster she assumed it could easily jump out of her chest. In her inability to move, the saleswoman circled around the customer until they were face to face.

And then, Ellie Oswald froze too.

Time seemed to have stopped on them as they looked at one another for a few seconds only.

The mother was the first one to leave her daze, opening a shy smile. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to stare. It's just… You look exactly like my daughter."

Clara, however, was unable to stop glaring at her. Feeding her soul with every little detail, every little face expression and every little smell she had long forgotten. She never wanted to forget again. Her lips opened and closed several times, but no sound ever escaped them.

"What's she like? Your daughter?"

The deep and hollow voice that came from behind Clara made her weak to her knees. She refused to think that her mother was standing just a few feet away from the person who would cause her death and smiling at them. She closed her eyes momentarily, forcing the tears back inside where they came from.

Had Ellie noticed how edgy the other woman resembled, she concluded best not to ask about it — instead, talk about the child she so much admired. "Clara, my daughter, is my greatest treasure in life. I never thought I'd be so lucky to have a child such as her. She's kind, and loyal, and funny. She's the love of my life. She never fails to put a smile on my face, no matter how dark the days are. I know this might be cringe of me, but she really is the best daughter in the world."

Clara needed to keep her eyes shut for the entire duration of the love confession — she wouldn't be able to hold it together for much longer. A soft touch landed on her shoulder pad, and her desire to cry only increased. She was standing between the two people she loved the most in the entire universe and yet she was so mad at them.

She was mad at her mother for not leaving that building before the explosion struck in.

She was mad at the Doctor for not giving her mother the time to leave that building before the explosion struck in.

Understanding that was her goodbye, Clara opened her eyelids and brought the warmest smile upon her face. It was the Doctor, though, who spoke for her, still sustaining the link they built, "She sounds like a lovely person."

"She really is," Ellie agreed. Her face screamed how proud she was of her daughter. She turned her eyes to Clara, "I can't wait to go home and tell her I've seen how exactly she'll look like a few years from now. My, she'll be thrilled to know how beautiful she's going to be."

Clara understood her words to be attempts of cheering her broken self esteem — she had no doubt that the swollenness and redness of her face sold out all the emotions she wished to hide. "Thank you. Your daughter is very lucky to have you as her mother."

"I'm the lucky one," Ellie offered her a wink and a smirk, before gesticulating wide with her hands, "Are you guys looking for something?"

"Oh no, I…" she chose her upcoming words carefully, for they would be the last ones her mother ever heard from her — even without her knowledge. "I've already found everything I was looking for."

Clara was sitting in her couch, a cup of tea warming her hands, her legs somehow tangled underneath her own self. Her eyes focused on a random spot in the whiteness of her walls and yet they saw nothing at all. In the corner of the living room was a vase filled with the most beautiful flowers — flowers she had no idea how or where they had flourished from.

Yet she knew they had been brought by the Doctor, not in attempts of getting her to forgive him — he didn't think himself worthy of her forgiveness —, but desiring to honor the memory of the woman that so vividly pathed through her mind.

Perhaps, just perhaps, he was also honoring the death of their friendship, the death of everything they had ever stood for.

Flowers for their grave.

The Doctor quietly remained by her side, giving her the space she so obviously needed but that he so desperately desired to end. His eyes rested upon her so well defined jawline, making lines of the encounters of her mouth and chin and nose. Memorizing every single detail she was made of before it was too late.

"I… I don't know how to forgive you," she whispered, so softly she doubted she had even allowed the vocables out of her lips.

He heard her anyway — he'd always hear and see her. "You don't have to, Clara."

She mimicked a ironic laugh, not entirely sure she had succeeded it. "I can't hate you. Not forever."

"Why not?" he pondered, innocently, because hating him was so easy. No one hated himself more than he did.

"Because," although her heart had all sorts of explanations, her brain struggled to form a single one. Seeing her mother again had changed everything. She doubted Ellie would approve of her holding a grudge on him, the man who had just given her the best gift she would never ask for. Seeing her mother again after all those years, when all the laws of time couldn't allow it — but he could. He did, for her.

She didn't know how to stay mad at the person who had potentially broken the fabric of space time continuum just to give her some closure.

"Okay," he nodded his head, emotionless, tapping his palms against his thighs in fright and anxiety and nervousness.

Her tongue traveled the borders of the flash of her mouth, watering the words she was ought to say. "You're my best friend. How could I not forgive you? How could I just shut you out when I trust you with my entire life? How could I forget all the things you've ever done for me, never wanting anything in return, just out of love and compassion? How could I disregard that you did all those things not because you felt guilty for killing her, but because your heart is good, and all you've ever done was to make me feel like the most special person in the universe? How could I disconsider you, breaking all of your rules, just so I could have one last moment with my mother?"

Palpitations were sent to his hearts — how could she still see past all the wrong he'd done? "I'm not deserving of your forgiveness, Clara."

For the first time, Clara dared to look at him. He was just as broken as she. After the events and discoveries they both endured that day, she understood her entire relationship would be shaped differently from then on — she just hoped it could be modified for the best. With fresh tears piling up in the corner of her eyes, she cupped his apple cheek with the palm of her hand, "Doctor. I forgive you."

"I don't deserve you, Clara," he cried, unconsciously wrapping his own fingers around hers.

Clara's lip formed the first genuine smile she smiled that day. Diving into his glance, she was certain she could the holy ghost hidden in the reflection of his eyes. "Yes, you do."

Breaking the just formed connection, she stood up. With steady steps, Clara reached for the flowers in the corner, yanked them away from their water vase and discarded them by the trash can in the kitchen. The Doctor could only stare at her funnily, waiting for the explanation she soon provided, "No more grief, Doctor. Only by freeing ourselves of our own sorrow, we'll learn what joy means."

He consented, going after her. At last, the distance between them ceased to exist. He placed his lips tenderly on the skin of her temples, right after pressing their foreheads together and they both were drowning in each other's eyes.

The deserted flowers were the only sign of forgiveness they could ever ask for.

A/N: Any feedback here or on twitter (dutiesofcare) is much appreciated :)