Being an English teacher made it almost impossible for Clara to not look at poems and immediately relate the delicate word choice of those poets to the events of her life. "I admire people who choose to shine even after all the storms they've been through." She had tried to live by this quote every day since the fifth of March 2005, the day her mother passed away, She cried of course but she always wore a smile and it helped to carry her through; when she met the doctor it seemed as if all those clouds had finally stopped storming and rolled away into the distance, but that didn't last for long.
She never saw herself to be depressed, she wasn't even sure that was what she felt. All she knew is she felt something. Whatever this was had come back with a bite, it crept up on her one day and slapped her in the face; stomped on her heart.
Regeneration was difficult for her. All of a sudden she had all those feelings of loss, betrayal and loneliness to deal with again and she wasn't sure how to after such an amazing few months. A buzz crash, she thought that was what people called it anyway, trying to convince herself it was all ok. It got ok again soon. Not amazing but ok. The Doctor was somehow more intriguing than ever before, it was strange to her though because this was still that same man she d fallen for yet he was so different. Excitingly different.
She'd met Danny soon after the Doctor had regenerated. At this time she was still trying to squash all those horrible new feelings into the back of her head and suddenly having a boy to focus on really helped. He helped her a lot, in ways he probably never even knew. It was so nice to be held by someone she knew cared. She loved the doctor of course but Danny was different. He was something normal for her to focus on, the travelling was extraordinary but she had worried about losing touch with normality for so long, having him around made her feel like she had a healthy balance, and she felt ok again.
But then he died. Gone just like that. Everything she saw for her future had changed. She had nothing now except the Doctor.
She thought about Danny a lot, what he would be doing at this very moment, if he was happy, did he ever think about her? What he would do if he could see her now. He would make some comment about being right, Clara knew that for sure. He had warned her after all.
She tried she really did try. After Danny, she wanted to be normal again. Suppress those bad feelings once more. She broke things off with the Doctor, for his sake as well as hers. She tried to get on with life and ignore that horrible sinking feeling in her chest but it wouldn't go away. She felt more lost lying in her bed at night than she ever had flying through time and space. Nothing helped, smiling and putting on her brave face didn't help, though she did it never-the-less. She made broken look beautiful, and strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings. Then, when all seemed lost, he came back again, The Doctor came back.
This was when she gave up on her idea of normality, life was never going to be the same, if she didn't have the Doctor, she had nothing. There was a special place for him in her heart, a man who would be with her at her lowest and still loved her when she wasn't very loveable. In her head, her only option at happiness was to forget everything and run away, so she did. She ran and ran and held on to the doctor with all her might. She was so brave, too brave, a hero to everybody her life touched. She saved a countless number of people but she could not be saved, she could not be fixed this time no matter how much she wanted to be. It all came crashing down around her and once again it was her own stupid fault. She was so consumed with guilt at the suffering the doctor had gone through for her she felt she had no option but to leave him once again. She'd lost everything she ever had and now she's lost the doctor too.
She cared more about strangers than herself, everything she did was for others, even in the moments she would not know to be her last, she was a tragic hero, she never asked for anything in return. More often than not she wished the doctor would've let her be hit square in the chest by that raven, she could've died right there and she wouldn't be feeling all this hurt right now. She deserved better. The saviour of worlds, of normal lives and a lonely timelord. All she wanted was to see wonders, travel the stars. She wanted to be like the Doctor until she couldn't anymore. She only ever put good into this world and got nothing back but pain and she selfishly just wanted it to be about her for once. But whenever it was about her people got hurt, that's why now, at 30 years old she was sat in a cafe. Alone.
"He was different once. A long time ago. Kind, yes. A hero even. A saver of worlds. But he suffered losses which hurt him. Now he prefers isolation to the possibility of pain's return." Clara found these words written in Ashildr's diary. It was about the Doctor. She somehow felt that she'd heard them before, and decided that this was because she related to them so much. She could never understand why the doctor chose to travel alone but now she found herself in the same situation, she definitely could.
"It's all your fault you re alone, everybody abandoned you because you re so stupid and annoying and selfish. Nobody cares and it's your own fault!" she told herself. She was so angry.
The Doctor, the one person who truly cared, now only knew of her name all because of her, she was constantly filled with this anger, everything was fine before she mucked it all up in trap street. Or was it fine? She had become so reckless and at the time she thought it was confidence, now she saw that it definitely was not.
Her biggest fear was getting lost and she got more lost than she could ever imagine was possible. All her fears came true at the end.
"The songs of Clara, those memories, captured in the single strum of a guitar. Locked in the hearts of the man with thirteen faces, forgotten but remembered for an eternity, a long and lonely eternity. It seems so wrong, that the woman thrice dead, the impossible girl with the biggest heart in this universe, should not even carry a pulse, a simple sign to say "i am here." Somewhere, out there, she is living, and laughing, and the universe is a better place because Clara Oswald is laughing somewhere in it, She blew into this world on a leaf and then blew away like smoke, and her story is done. Her story is done. But her spirit, bravery, compassion, adventures, good deeds and legacy lives on. She is the legend, the fairy tales, those stories she always kept close to her heart, the stories her mother used to tell. We're all stories in the end, and hers was a good one"
- A note the doctor had written played on her mind every day. Ashildr found it last time she bumped into him. It hurt her. He couldn't even remember her yet he wrote this. This wasn't the truth. She wasn't laughing, she had no legacy, she had been forgotten, her story wasn't a good one, and she had no story because nobody was left to remember it. Forgotten, she d blown away like smoke and nothing was bringing her back this time. No matter how hard she wanted something or someone to.