I received the first prompt for this story many moons ago. Someone asked for a 'twist' on the regularly used 'The Doctor and Clara find a baby' and as I had recently read, or started to read, one where the baby magically turned out to be their own my 'twist' became that she was not. She was simply a baby they stumbled upon in a Cyberman factory and rescued.
Soon enough, I had a growing list of prompts for 'Baby Ella' in my Tumblr inbox and have been fulfilling them when time allows. Of course, the prompts were not in order, so I questioned how to best post them on and and honestly, there is no 'best way' to do this.
It's timey-wimey.
A bit wibbly-wobbly.
Like a scrapbook that's come loose in the hands of a curious toddler, Ella's time with the Doctor and Clara – a baby girl's story that quickly became a family's story – is coming back together out of order. It's being written out of order. And I offer monstrous apologies for any holes in the narrative as I'm doing my best to keep track of it, but I know I won't always succeed.
Each chapter contains Ella's age, or closest estimation of it, and the title. Feel free to try to read it in order, but know more chapters are coming. At some point the prompts will taper off, or I'll choose to end the story, but until then: happy reading.