A/n: I have lost complete control all thanks to Doctor Who. Oh well! I hope you enjoy, your thoughts are always appreciated :)
When Clara awoke, she initially thought she was dying.
It was an easy mistake to make. She sometimes felt she had more memories of dying than living. And so when she jerked out of sleep, simultaneously freezing and burning up all at once with a headache painful enough to surpass any she'd had in any other life, her first thought was: so soon? The thought was quiet and sad, exhausted and torn. It occurred to her that dying could feel almost as long as the life that came before it.
However, noise from Angie's room cleared her thoughts rather successfully. Clara rolled over painfully onto her side, lifting her hand to press the back of it to her forehead. Her skin was practically searing with heat. It took her a few painful moments, but she was able to prop herself up on her side long enough to peer at the fluorescent alarm clock beside her bed. Three in the morning. Even in her sickened haze, she felt a lick of irritation with Angie, who was supposed to have gone to bed ages ago. If she would have had the energy, she would have scolded her.
All things considered, she didn't have the energy. In fact, she didn't even have enough to find the will to get out of the bed. Years of watching over children had taught her all about fevers. She knew what to do and how to handle them, but when faced with her own, she couldn't follow the advice she always gave her kids. She pulled her blankets up over her body and curled up into the smallest ball possible, shivering even though she knew she had to have been burning up. She had a glass of water on the nightstand, but even the thought of extending her hand to get it made her wince.
She would have liked then to have had someone to tell her to do what she needed to do, like most sick people needed. Someone to give her an aspirin and some water, to brush her hair back from her sweaty forehead, to take her temperature and ramble on about their day to distract her. But the fact was that Clara did not have a person. Everyone had their person that they called for during times like this, except her. Angie and Artie called for her, whether or not they liked to admit it. Clara's friends from university called for spouses or sisters or mothers. And Clara? Clara called for no one, because the person she called for was long gone. She had been taking care of herself for years, along with the added additions of other people's children, too. That was something that stayed constant throughout her many scattered lives and botched memories.
She didn't want to admit it to herself, but the one person she wanted was the same person she usually yearned for whenever anything happened. Anything even slightly good, or anything even slightly bad. He was who she wanted to share it with. But she could never subject him to this blatant expression of human fragility, so one of the first things she found the strength to do was reach for her phone on the nightstand and give Angie a ring.
She didn't pick up the first two times, probably assuming she was in trouble. Clara heard her turn the TV down in her room quickly. But on the third ring, Angie finally picked up.
"I was doing homework, I swear!" She fibbed. Her voice was a quick whisper, like she was afraid of waking someone up. Too late for that, Clara thought.
"Angie, I need a favor." Clara started with. Best to not beat around the bush, that was a rule she lived by.
Angie was suspicious.
"What's in it for me?" She asked.
Clara had to lower the phone from her ear for a moment then, because even the sound of Angie's soft voice was making her head throb even worse. She took a few shallow breaths through her mouth, fighting against a sudden wave of nausea, and then brought the phone back up to her ear.
"I won't tell your dad you stayed up until 3 AM against my instructions, that's what's in it for you!" She hissed. She hadn't wanted to sound cross, but she felt worse and worse as time passed. She kicked her blankets off her quickly, suddenly burning up, only to lie on the sweaty sheets shaking immediately after.
Angie was quiet for a moment.
"Are you all right, Clara?" She asked, her voice uncharacteristically concerned.
"Perhaps. Or I might be dying, not quite sure yet." Clara replied. She had died a death that felt a lot like this. She was a young instructor in an orphanage in 14th century Britain. She remembered the sight of their blotched, fever-ridden little bodies to be much more painful than her own death, although she remembered that fever. "There are no overtly-friendly communicable diseases spreading about right now, are there?" Clara laughed weakly at her own joke, even though she was only half-kidding, but that made her head ache worse.
"Should I go get Dad?" She asked.
It almost slipped out. "No, get the Doctor."
Clara caught her tongue before it did.
"No, no, I just need you to do me a huge favor by waiting outside tomorrow and telling the Doctor that I'm sick." She responded. "It's Wednesday and he'll be here."
She dropped the receiver to the pillow because the heat from the phone was making her face hotter. She heard Angie going on about something, but by the time she picked up the phone, she only caught the end of it.
"—he is a doctor, right?" Angie finished.
Clara caught onto the gist. She was about to explain to Angie that he wasn't really a medical doctor, but what did she know? He probably had a degree or two in something related to that.
"Maybe, maybe not, either way I'd prefer you tell him I'm sick and can't go adventuring. I really need to go now, thanks, Angie."
"Okay." Angie said quietly. "Well, you know, if you need anything I'm down the hall and I could always help. Sorry for staying up so late."
The apology was offered begrudgingly. Clara couldn't help but smile a bit.
"Thank you." She told her. But she knew there was no way she was letting the children watch after her. That was her job.
Once she let her phone fall down on the mattress beside her, she curled back up into herself, fighting against the nausea that was back with a vengeance. She tried not to think what she was thinking (and that was that she wanted her mother).
Her sleep was fitful. She woke up two hours later, her head and body screaming, and had to hobble her way to the bathroom. She leaned shakily against the sink, her muscles quivering, and splashed cold water onto her face until she couldn't take it any longer. She pulled her pajama pants, now damp with sweat, off her legs and switched her t-shirt for a tanktop that was hanging on the back of the door. But once she was back in bed, she was freezing once more.
She drifted in and out for the rest of the day. Artie and Angie came in nearly every thirty minutes, asking her for permission to do this or that, requesting money to use in town, asking where their bags and Artie's shoes and Angie's signed school forms were. Clara struggled out answers each time, wishing for one of the first times that she had never taken up this job. It was challenging on the best days and almost intolerably exhausting on the worst.
She woke once more when she heard the sound of the TARDIS materializing. She heard Angie's voice, and then the muffled sound of the Doctor's, and she fell back asleep with a momentary smile on her face. In her sleep, she ran after him, each face morphing over and over again until she was finally chasing after her Doctor. He would take her hand when she caught up to him and spin her in a slow circle, smiling warmly, only to suddenly be fifteen feet away by the time she blinked.
She was disoriented when she regained consciousness, and obviously still half asleep. She cracked open her eyes and stared at the man sitting beside her bed for a few long moments. She had an almost gut reaction to say the words—run, you clever boy…--but her lips were severely chapped and her head was exploding again.
"Clara," the Doctor whispered. His voice sounded like it came from inside a tunnel somewhere far from her, and that just made her sad. He wasn't supposed to be far from her anymore, because she finally caught up to him. He had finally stopped running. Clara stared at him, passively aware that his hand was spiraling around and around and then splitting into two extras. All three hands landed on the top of her head, his skin impossibly warm, and she eyed his rotating face. They were spinning but she didn't know where to.
"Where are we going, Doctor?" She asked him, her own voice coming to her from far above. She almost laughed at the sight of that chin going around and around and around, like a planet orbiting his nose. "Are we running?"
The Doctor smiled at her. His hand felt so real on her scalp.
"No more running. Not for me and not for you." He promised.
She didn't even know what it meant, or why they were spinning, but it made her so happy she had to smile. And then they were fishing in a magenta lake together, on a planet far, far away. Every now and then they'd shift, and he'd be sitting beside her on the bed, the god-awful sound of his sonic screwdriver reverberating around her throbbing head. The room was filled with cascading clouds of glitter and she watched as it landed in his hair, on his broad shoulders, in his bowtie. It's like little stars, she had told him, and he had laughed quietly, his palm resting on her forehead. You're so hot, Clara, he told her with a frown, and even though the world was still tilting precariously to the left and to the right, she found it in herself to wink at him. Her hands slid across the sheets until her fingertips grazed his thighs, and then she wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a weak tug. Look at the stars with me, she pleaded. He lied down beside her, a little hesitantly, and pulled her into his arms. He smelled so wonderful, like time and raspberry jelly and fresh tea and leaves and home, home, home. They were on their way home, spinning together. And then they were back at the lake, and that's where they stayed.
She became aware of the little things, first. Like the scent of roses and fresh tea in the air and the cool washcloth on her forehead. She was covered with a lighter blanket than before, but somehow she'd gotten a pair of warm socks on her feet. When she opened her eyes, she jumped a bit in surprise, because a certain Time Lord's face was hovering right above hers, a pleased smile on his face.
"You're just in time for tea!" He told her, and then he kissed her forehead, keeping his lips there for a little longer than usual. He sniffed at her hairline after that, almost thoughtfully, and then stood all the way up. Clara stared at him in confusion and slight amusement as she slowly pulled herself up into a sitting position.
The Doctor handed her a mug of tea.
"Your fever's down a bit! Still higher than I like to see, but better considering how bad it was when I got here. Angie's at Nina's, Artie's at Tom's, Mr. Maitland thinks I'm an actual medical doctor and had me look at a rather peculiar rash on his foot, and also: what were you thinking?"
The Doctor's rant ended on an almost hysterical note. He set his hands on his hips and peered down at her with his eyebrows raised.
"Hmm?" He demanded, like an irritated housewife, and Clara immediately regretted taking a small, tentative sip of her tea, because she was choking on it almost immediately.
The Doctor hurriedly sat on the edge of the bed and patted her back. She gasped until her lungs stopped burning, and then peered up at him.
"What're you going on about?" She demanded. She took another sip of the tea, ignoring the Doctor's protests perched on the edge of his tongue. She successfully swallowed this sip and then lowered the mug, peering suspiciously up at the Doctor. "What are you doing here? When did you get here? I told Angie to tell you I was sick."
She waited for the Doctor's answers, but all he did was dispense pills into her palm. She tossed them back into her mouth and swallowed them with a mouthful of tea almost impatiently. It was astounding how much better she felt compared to last night, but her head still hurt a bit and she still had the chills.
He sat back on the chair beside the bed, brought in from Artie's room, and folded his hands in his lap. She suddenly missed his presence and wanted very much to pull him back beside her on the edge of the bed.
"Angie did tell me. That's why I'm here." He responded. "And I was going on about the fact that you were lying up here all night with a fever of 103. You could have had a seizure, Clara."
He was serious, and that fact startled her. His mouth was drawn into a tight line and his hands were still folded so calmly in his lap that it was beginning to get eerie.
"I had it under control." She finally responded. But she averted her gaze as she took another sip of tea, because they both knew that was a lie.
His next question was much more vulnerable.
"Why didn't you call me?"
Clara stared at him, her heart thumping, and gave him her honest answer.
"I didn't know I had a person to call. I haven't since my mom died." She looked back down at her mug. "Just used to dealing with it on my own, I guess."
The Doctor was quiet for a minute or two, and when she peeked up at him, she saw that he was frowning. She looked back down and listened as the chair creaked. He rose slowly and then sat on the edge of the bed, his hand searching the sheets for hers. She placed it in his willingly, her throat aching almost as much as her head now.
"You have a person to call." He told her. He smiled, his eyes almost searching hers for something. "Best helpline in the universe, remember?"
She smiled back at him, suddenly feeling less weighed down.
"I remember." She replied softly. They stared at each other for a few more moments, and Clara couldn't help but glance down at his lips without even meaning to. She caught his eyes doing a similar dance.
Clara went back to her tea and watched the Doctor from the corner of her eye as he took out his sonic and began scanning her. It snagged on a memory from a few hours ago, a memory that she had thought was a dream.
"Have you been taking care of me since you first got here?" She asked him, an odd sense of déjà vu overwhelming her.
The Doctor didn't look away from the readings on his sonic. He nodded. Clara smiled as she took another sip of tea.
"Do Time Lords get sick?" She asked him.
This question made him close his sonic and stick it back into his pocket. Clara couldn't remember enough about her brief life as a Time Lady to know the answer to her own question, so she waited patiently. He leaned back against the headboard beside her, his legs still dangling off the bed.
"Sure we do, sometimes. Why?" He questioned.
She reached up and held his ridiculous chin, her heart warming.
"Because I want to be your person, too."
He grinned.
"The job's yours."
She rather liked the sound of that.
For the next four hours, Clara alternated between dozing against the Doctor, listening to him ramble on, and consuming small amounts of water and toast.
"You were in the room, weren't you? I thought I was dreaming, but I must have been hallucinating. I remember you." She said to him, once he finished his rant about Shakespearean tropes. She knew it had to be true, because she heard the sound of the TARDIS before she started dreaming, and he said he was there the entire time.
"You're funny when you're hallucinating." The Doctor responded. "And quite cuddly."
"Lucky you." She said. He grinned. She wiggled her feet from underneath the sheets.
"These aren't my socks." She stated.
He blushed. "Well, the TARDIS heard you were sick and wanted you to have them."
"The TARDIS has very large feet." She shot back.
He held her closer, laughter ringing in the air.
They spoke of fragmented lives and brief shared experiences for a while, but it wasn't long before Clara began to feel terrible again. She curled up closer to the Doctor's side, the pain in her stomach and head seemingly multiplying at the same time. The Doctor's hand caressed her face worriedly. He pushed her hair back and pressed a kiss to her forehead, her cheeks, her nose.
"You're burning up again. The human flu is insolent." He said. "I might need to go back to the TARDIS SickBay and get more medicine. Or bring you there with me."
She figured earlier in the day that the strange, orange and pink striped pills weren't something the Maitlands had over the counter. She knew they had helped her a lot before, but she didn't want him to leave, nor did she want to leave the bed.
"I just need more fever reducer." She said. She reached across him halfheartedly, trying to reach the bottle on the nightstand. She slumped against his chest and let her eyes shut, listening as he shook out two. His fingertips grazed her lips softly a moment later, and she let them dance across for a few moments before slightly parting her lips. He dropped the pills in and carefully placed the glass at her lips, tipping it back until she had just enough to swallow the pills. Once she had taken the medicine, she gave the Doctor's arm a weak tug.
"Come under the covers with me."
Her request was met with a few flails.
"I can't! You're…not decent. You've got no trousers on." He argued.
She groaned into his arm.
"It's just like a nightgown." She replied.
His voice was laced with disbelief.
"No, no it's not! With a nightgown your underwear is covered!"
"Doctor."
"There's too much bare leg! Absolutely not! Wouldn't be right." He said, but she could hear that he couldn't even convince himself.
Five seconds later, he was standing up and pulling the blankets back long enough to slide underneath them with her.
"On second thought, that's very Victorian of me." He whispered. Even though he was just as close to her as before, she felt he was even nearer this way. She molded herself against his side, throwing an arm across his stomach and holding onto his waist. She pressed her face against his arm and felt warm for the first time since this awful sickness started. She especially loved the way his tweed felt against her bare skin. "This is much better." He said, and she had to agree.
He ran his fingers through her hair, almost reverently, and was uncharacteristically quiet.
"Clara?" He asked her, sometime later when she was already drifting into a doze.
"Mmm?" She asked sleepily.
"Let me feel your head one more time." He whispered.
She complied, lifting her face from where it was pressed against his arm and scooting over so she had her head lying on his chest. She listened to the beating of his hearts as he set his palm over her forehead.
"It's getting a lot better." He told her, relief laced through his words. "I guess your medicine works okay after all."
She hummed gratefully, pleased that maybe this was almost behind her. She held the Doctor closer, suddenly overwhelmed with affection for him that came out of seemingly nowhere. In her exhausted haze, she could only find herself grateful almost to the point of tears for all he had done for her. But she didn't cry.
"When I woke up sick, before you were here, I thought I was dying again." She confessed quietly. She turned her head and kissed his shoulder. "I'm glad I'm not."
She listened to his heart and his breathing, waiting to see what he'd say to that. She was about to let herself drift off to sleep when she felt his fingers on her chin. They slid up her face slowly, as if memorizing it, and then cupped her cheeks. She found herself sitting up slowly, without even knowing why, and the Doctor did as well. With his eyes trained on hers, he stroked her cheek with his thumb, and then he leaned in, his eyes slowly closing, and pressed his lips to hers with a practiced tenderness that Clara knew she'd never forget. She forgot about being sick and forgot about most everything as she reached up and held his face in return, kissing him back, meeting him halfway just as he always did for her. She felt like those fever stars were somehow inside of her now.
She had known she loved him for a long time. It was the moment right before she jumped into his time stream that she really, honestly knew it. She hadn't told him so much in those words yet, but she knew he knew. And when they pulled back slowly and looked at each other, she could see it reflected in his eyes as well.
She wanted to thank him then, wanted to thank him for taking care of her. But she couldn't figure out how to say it to show how much it really meant to her, and so she settled with leaning in and kissing him one more time. It felt like a kiss she'd waited thousands of years to give. He responded in kind, kissing her a bit more enthusiastically now, and she gripped him tighter.
"I'm starting to feel much better now," she whispered once they pulled apart, awake enough now to deliver the words mischievously. She could feel his slight blush beneath her palms that were still holding his face.
"That's what I like to hear." He replied, and then he pressed his lips back to hers. He kissed her for what felt like no time and an eternity all at once. She held him close and concentrated on memorizing the taste of his mouth, the sensation of his tongue against hers. She didn't even have to worry about what this meant for their relationship. She knew him well and she knew that this was him giving in, in the last way left.
He pulled her back down against his chest afterwards, and it made her smile to find that his hearts were still racing. Hers were as well. She never thought kissing anyone could mean so much, but it had. Because it said every word she'd ever wanted to hear him say and more.
"Having a boyfriend who's a doctor really comes in handy sometimes," she teased. They were so used to him being referred to as her boyfriend by the Maitlands that it was almost second nature now.
He whispered something to her, his hand resuming stroking her hair, but it was lost to her as she finally gave into sleep.
"AH!"
The startled cry tore Clara from her dreams. She opened her eyes and became aware of the Doctor's chest beneath her head. She sat up slowly and rubbed her eyes, peering around her room. The white, early morning sunlight was bleeding in and falling across the Doctor's still-sleeping face. And, standing in the doorway with a startled look, was Angie.
"Angie!" Clara cried, more out of surprise than anything. Angie was staring at the bed with her eyebrows raised in shock.
Clara's cry stirred the Doctor. He let out a sound as he stretched and then opened his eyes slowly. When he saw Angie standing in the doorway, he grinned.
"Oh, Angie, wonderful! How are you? How was your slumber party? Did your friends like the arctic planet ice bubbles I gave you to take over?"
The Doctor grew confused as Angie just stared at him. Clara nudged him with her elbow and leaned in to whisper in his ear.
"We're in bed together." She reminded him.
The Doctor blushed almost immediately and followed his gut reaction, which happened to be to shove the blankets off the bed.
"I'm clothed! I swear!" He said. He gestured down at his typical tweed. "See?" He then turned to look at Clara and faltered, his eyes taking in what he had so obviously forgotten. "Oh, and Clara's…well…dressed enough." He smiled at her. "I like your knickers. Soufflés! Haha!" He clapped his hands in delight.
Angie began turning around slowly.
"Right. Well, I'm going to pretend this never happened. I won't tell Dad you were in the bed with your alien boyfriend if you promise not to tell him that the Doctor's bubbles might have possibly killed the headmaster's rose garden." Angie said. She shrugged innocently. "How was I to know that floating ice bubbles would freeze the poor thing?"
"Angie!" Clara cried. She stared at her in shock, and before she knew it, she was climbing over the Doctor. He grabbed her around her waist.
"No, you're sick! No nannying!" The Doctor protested. Clara pushed his arms off her and glared. She stood up from the bed and followed after Angie as she fled the room.
"What do you mean you killed his garden?!" She demanded, but Angie pointed at her and her room, clearly signifying the Doctor, and began to make kissing noises.
"We…we were not even doing that!" Clara demanded, but finally she stopped.
"Fine. But no more taking revenge on administration by using my alien boyfriend's misguided and dangerous exotic gifts."
Angie rolled her eyes. "Deal."
When Clara slipped back into her bedroom, the Doctor was staring at her with an amused expression.
"What?" She asked.
He smiled and walked over to her, wrapping a sheet around her shoulders.
"You shouldn't go out dressed like that, you'll catch a cold." He told her.
"I'm inside the house." She reminded him, raising an eyebrow. "Where else do you recommend I go?"
He shrugged, overly innocent. "Oh…I don't know. The TARDIS maybe?"
Clara smirked. "Saucy alien boyfriend." She muttered underneath her breath, but then she was flinging herself into his arms and hugging him tightly. "Thank you, Doctor."
"And thank the TARDIS for the socks." She added sarcastically.
He waved his hand. "They were too small for her anyway."
They stared at each other for a moment before both bursting into laughter. As Clara sat back on the edge of the bed, and the Doctor made like he was getting ready to leave, he admitted something.
"You know, I think yesterday might be one of the most terrifying adventures I've had yet."
"Really?" Clara asked lightly.
"You weren't the only one remembering the past." He confessed. She remembered her last few moments of being Victorian Clara and wondered how much it reminded him of that, even if the circumstances were technically different.
She took his hand.
"New rule. Every time you remember something sad from the past, I'm going to kiss you."
The Doctor flushed and nervously adjusted his suit jacket, a cocky grin on his face.
"Well don't encourage me!" He said.
But that's exactly what they both needed. A little more encouragement, a little more love, and little more time spent in each other's arms. And Clara felt like they were on the road to reaching it.