It wasn't often that the Doctor was confused. Sure, everytime he cam across a planet that required saving, a mystery needed to be solved here or there, but he was always quick to solve them.
This mystery, the mystery of Clara Oswald, puzzled him greatly. The bubble, charismatic, young girl that accompanied him on his travels, yet insisted upon being allowed to leave daily, so she could return home. It was a new concept to him.
Amy couldn't wait to leave home, in fact she did so with a wedding the next day. Donna, Martha and Rose, all came along happily and without looking behind them, completely satisfied with the life he had to offer them on the TARDIS.
Clara, however, was different to all of them in the respect that she requested that she returned home to her job of nannying, which, although was a respectable enough job, and he admired her greatly for her children skills, was uncommon for a girl her age, and especially of her extreme intelligence.
It was true: Clara was the smartest girl he had aboard his ship for a long time. The mysteries he solved on planets often weren't without her help, and she was instrumental in helping him out in dire situations.
She flirted with him every day. She was incredibly at the whole innuendo, teasing, thing, which he was not. Every little thing he said or did was combated with her ability to twist it into something extremely inappropriate. In that way, he supposed she was sort of like River, with her quick wit and adventurous sense of humour, but that was where the similarities ended.
Clara was reliable, where River was not. While both Clara and River had the ability to make it out of tricky situations themselves, the Doctor's instinct to protect Clara was much stronger than it ever was for River. Clara was a constant in the Doctor's life, where River was not.
It was a mystery to the Doctor how Clara could be so soft yet so sharp-edged at the same time. Through the day, her short-temper and violent tendencies arose regularly and without warning, but at night, in their bed, she was soft and inviting.
The most confusing thing about Clara Oswald was, however, the way she could make the Doctor feel. He could not remember feeling this way about anybody in this body, although he supposed that this was how he felt about Rose in his previous body.
A deeply embedded affection, and need to keep her with him. Not quite possession, but something more sweet than that.
"Doctor?" Clara asked, her voice soft, and quieter than he'd ever heard it.
He glanced up at her quickly to show her that he was listening but then returned to fixing the controls under the console of the TARDIS.
"What's this?"
The Doctor ceased what he was doing to look up at the photograph in her hand. It was Clara. Not Clara Clara, but Victorian Clara. The one that had died at the Doctor's fault. That Clara.
"Oh that's... that's you, isn't it?" the Doctor said, in a horrible attempt at remaining nonchalant.
"No," she said, her voice breaking. "No it is not me, and you know it. Don't lie to me, Doctor, I thought we were past that."
The Doctor studied Clara's face. She was on the verge of tears, which was a position he had never seen her before. She was always the strong one, the one with the fire burning in her wide, doe-eyes, but now she looked like all her strength had been stripped away. Like a knight stripped of all armour.
"It's, well, I wasn't lying, Clara," the Doctor said, slowly. "I met you before. At least, I think that it was you. I'm still trying to work that bit out."
He looked up at her to see if that would appease her (which he knew it would not), and she just jutted her hip out and crossed her arms, showing him that she was waiting for him to tell her the full story.
"It was Christmas, 1842, in London. I ran into this girl – woman – and she helped me save London from man-eating Snowmen. But then she died, and it was all my fault. All my fault. And her name was Clara. Clara, just like you. And I thought she was amazing. And she was. She was gonna come away with me. But when she died, I went to her grave. Her name was Clara Oswin Oswald. I'd met Clara before, only I didn't quite recall it until I'd seen her name. You see, the last time I'd seen Clara she had called herself Oswin, and she was a conscious inside a Dalek at the Dalek Asylum. She died too though, and it was all my fault. She died to save me and Amy and Rory and she was Clara. And then you called me with your WiFi problems and your name was Clara and you look the same and sound the same and you're just..."
The Doctor had stopped his rambling when he caught sight of the glistening of tears down her cheeks. Immediately, he moved forward to wipe her cheeks free of the streaming tears and pulled her into a hug.
But the hug, instead of comforting her, only seemed to break Clara. She started sobbing, quietly, mind you, but sobbing none-the-less. She trembled slightly in his arms and buried her face into his chest. The Doctor rubbed his hand in circles on her back, desperately trying to get her to smile and laugh and be his Clara again.
It took her awhile to regain her breath and stop the sobbing, but the tears continued to cascade down her face.
"So the only reason I'm here... the only reason you want me here... is because you want to replace the other Clara girls? The ones with the same name as me?" Clara's lip trembled as she spoke, the waterworks barely at bay.
"What?! No! No, Clara, of course not! I want you here because you're my Clara. My amazing, wonderful Clara Oswald."
"No. This woman, the one that looks like me, she was your first choice, and that's fine, but why couldn't you just tell me?" And with that, Clara pushed herself out of his arms and towards her room.
The Doctor, who was fairly unsure of what had just happened, just continued to stare at the photograph of the Victorian Clara that had been dropped on the ground.
That was probably what confused the Doctor about Clara most of all. That there was three Claras.
It took the Doctor a while to work up the courage to follow Clara to her room, where she was most likely crying.
He pushed the TARDIS blue door open, and stood in the doorway and stared at the sight that befell him.
Clara was zipping up a suitcase and her handbag was hanging over her shoulder. She looked up at him, her make-up reapplied, her hair completely neat, and no sign of any tears on her face at all.
"I'd like to go home, please Doctor," Clara said, quietly and, the Doctor thought, rather curtly. The finality in her voice cut his two hearts deeply, and he just gaped at her.
"Home?!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, home," she replied, again quietly, and, again, curt. "I really am not interested in being the rebound, thanks."
"The rebound? Clara where is this coming from?"
"That girl, the Clara girl, you wanted her to come with you. I was just the idiot who had the same name as her, we look the same, so you took me instead. I was the replacement, thanks Doctor. And I'd like to be the day after we were last home."
"Clara, please," the Doctor pleaded.
"You don't want me, Doctor. And you never did," said Clara, the tears beginning to pool in her eyes again.
"You-" the Doctor spluttered, and walked towards her, cupping her cheeks with his large two hands. "Clara Oswald. You must be completely and utterly insane if you think I don't actually want you here. You, fiery, hot-tempered, outrageous, frustratingly beautiful, Clara Oswald. I want you here because you and you, and nobody else. I love you and nobody else, do you understand?"
And then they both froze. Both in shock. Her large, hopeful eyes met his, and he could have melted. He watched her carefully as she dropped the handbag around her arm, as it fell to ground with a thud.
The ball was in her court, and she knew that. She slowly moved her hands to cover his hands, that were resting on her cheeks.
"You... love me?" she whispered.
Terrified, the Doctor nodded, almost imperceptibly. But Clara saw. And it was all the clarification she needed.
She slowly tilted her face towards his, their lips brushing quickly, before pulling away. She pulled his hands off her cheeks, instead lacing their fingers together and resting them on his hips before letting go completely and moving away slightly.
Not letting her go anywhere, the Doctor pulled her back towards him, his lips bruising hers, his arms wrapping around her, crushing her to him. She was slow to respond, but quick to warm up, and soon they were both kissing fiercely, and without abandon.
Thoughts of leaving the Doctor had left Clara's mind completely, and soon she was gripping the lapels of his jacket, pulling him towards the bed, where she fell backwards, pulling him on top of her.
As the Doctor pulled away to allow her to breathe (he didn't really need to, as his two hearts made breathing much less of a priority), he saw her small, dimpled smile. She really was adorable, he thought to himself, pressing his lips to her forehead, and keeping them there.
"I love you too," she whispered after a few minutes.
It was quiet. So quiet that the Doctor wasn't sure if he had imagined it. But she said it.
And that was it, wasn't it? It didn't even matter how many Claras there were. There was no mystery. It was just this. Just his Clara, whom he loved, and loved him in return. Sure, the case of the three Claras may confuse him, but what did it even matter?
The real mystery was how Clara had wormed his way into his hearts.
AN/ okay, so I haven't really proofread this (which is terrible, I know), but I'm tired and whatever. I hope you like it!
~I don't own Doctor Who okay~