Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who nor do I own this episode. This is just what I thought should have happened once I found out Clara had lived and died to save the Doctor many times. Most of this is from the transcript which I found online. I am just trying to write what I thought would happen, not trying to steal anything.
Clara walks along the path leading from town to the pub, where she knows she'll find a tiny bit of relief in a drop of alcohol. Small parts of her dream are still floating around in her head and the thought of the nightmarish Vortex makes her shudder every time she thinks about it. She is walking through a field when she is blinded by a green light that appears to be searching the ground. Then it disappears.
Clara blinks in surprise before her heart begins to beat out a fast rhythm against her chest as she speeds away from where the light appeared from. She finds herself standing in front of the pub and Martha's reaching for her hand. "Matron, are you all right?" the dark skinned woman asks, her eyes wide and bright from the light from inside.
"Did you see that?" Clara's breathing so hard she can barely get the words out. Inside her head, she's curing her small stature while outside she looks panicked. "There was something in the woods." She points toward the forest. "This... light."
Martha opens her mouth to respond when, from the corner of her eye, Clara catches sight of John. She spins around to face him as he comes to stand next to her. He's walking in a relaxed manor, as if he hadn't seen the green light in the forest. The brunette's body is still shaking from the experiences and John sees. He frowns and takes of his suit jacket and wraps it around her shoulder. She clutches at the lapels and smiles at him, burying her face in the heady scent of earth and something so familiarly John that her heart flutters.
"Anything wrong, ladies?" he questions them as he slips his hands into the pockets of his suit pants. He rocks back and forth on his heels. "Far too cold to be standing around in the dark, don't you." He glances at Clara, who seems to be drowning in his jacket and he smiles at her again.
"There, there," Clara points to something in the distant sky. "Look in the sky." A green light crosses the sky.
"Oh, that's beautiful," Jenny, Martha's friend commented with bright eyes as the light flew past them.
"All gone," John reassured Clara, resting an arm comfortably around her shoulder and the woman gets a flash of the man in her dreams doing the same thing... telling her about a love story. She shakes her head and the memory, or vision, is gone. John, however, is still running his mouth like a scholar. "Commonly known as a meteorite. It's just rocks falling to the ground, that's all." He rubs her shoulder reassuringly.
"It came down in the woods," Clara contradicts him, folding her arms across her chest and giving him her best pout.
"No, no, no," the man shakes his head with a smile. "No, they always look close, when actually they're miles off." He makes a tiny gap between his thumb and pointer finger as if to signify something infinitesimally small. "Nothing left but a cinder." He holds out his arm and Clara tucks her hand into the crook of it. "Now, I should escort you back to the school." He turns to Martha and Jenny. "Ladies?"
Martha shakes her head, giving the man a small smile. "No, we're fine, thanks." Jenny nods her head in agreement.
"Then I shall bid you goodnight," John tips his invisible hat to Martha and Jenny, who laugh at him. Clara just rolls her eyes and smacks his arm with her other hand. He beams down at her as he begins to lead her away from the tavern, his coat warm on her body and his scent in her nostrils. She falls asleep in his arms before they even make it out of the forest.
The next day, Clara finds herself walking the grounds of the school. She'd not had the nightmare last night, but that might have been due to John putting her back in her bed. She had woken up briefly to tell him what a beautiful man he was because, even in sleep she was finding herself falling for him.
She leans against the wall and watches as John tries to show the boys in his class to shoot the guns in their hands. He looks extremely uncomfortable with the firearm in his hand and they almost look as if they're shaking. She closes her eyes for a moment until a shadow hangs over her.
She opens them again to find herself looking up at John Smith, his brown eyes as bright as chocolate. "Ah, Nurse Oswald," he smiles at her. It reminds her of the smiles her husband used to give her when he was feeling well. He had been a nice man for someone so much older than her and, on occasion, he even reminded her of the man in her dreams. Her husband did have an affinity for bow ties.
"Er," Clara fiddles with her apron, shaking her head of her dreary thoughts. "I'll give you back your journal when next I see you."
"No, no, no," he shakes his head, his eyes still bright. "You don't have to."
"If you'll excuse me, Mister Smith," Clara wipes at her eye, making John look worried. "I was just thinking about the day my husband was shot." His eyes go wide and he scurries away, but not before promising to take her out for lunch later.
In the village on Farringham, Clara and John walk side by side. Their hands are swinging between them, brushing every once in a while but the crisp chill hides the blush on both of their cheeks. Clara notices two workmen hoisting an upright piano up to the first floor window of the Ironmongers.
"His name was Oliver," Clara explains as they walk. John nods in understanding. "He died in the battle of Spion Cop. He was much older than I but I loved him as a friend. But you see," Clara shakes her head, "I was angry with the army for such a long time." She squeezes her hand into a fist.
"You still are," John notes, motioning with his head down to her hands.
She flushes and unclenches her fist. "I find myself as part of that school watching boys learn how to kill."
"Don't you think discipline is good for them?" John asks.
"Does it have to be such military discipline?" Clara shakes her head, small tresses flying out of her bun. "I mean, if there's another war," she chuckles, "those boys won't find it so amusing. "
"Well, Great Britain is at peace, long may it reign."
"In your journal, in one of your stories," Clara recounts, "you wrote about next year. Nineteen fourteen."
"That was just a dream," John retorts, confused as to why Clara's taking his journal seriously.
"All those images of mud and wire. You told of a shadow. A shadow falling across the entire world." The brunette shudders, running a hand through her hair.
"Well then, we can be thankful it's not true," John ruffles her hair, making her giggles. "And I'll admit mankind doesn't need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself." He looks around and takes in a large breath of fresh air. "Everyday life can provide honor and valor, and let's hope that from now on this, this country can find its heroes in smaller places. "
Clara looks around at the town with curious eyes. A woman rings her bicycle bell as she peddles along. The men with the piano struggle as it dangles from a fraying rope. Then a woman pushing a pram comes around the corner.
"In the most ..." John pauses, his eyes almost calculating in a way. He sees a boy standing next to him, with a cricket ball in his hand. Clara notices out of the corner of her eye that some more of the rope frays and the piano drops a bit. "Ordinary of, of deeds."
Clara watches with wide eyes as John grabs the cricket ball, throws it at the scaffolding outside the Ironmongers, which falls and hits a plank that sends a brick flying through the air to knock down a milk churn in front of the pram, stopping it just before the rope finally gives up and drops the piano to the ground mere feet in front. The piano falls to pieces and the baby starts crying. Clara looks from John to the scene before her and back to the peculiar man standing next to her.
"Are you all right?" one of the workmen asks in surprise. "How's the little one?" He looks down into the pram to notice the baby is still crying.
"Lucky," John smiles.
"That was luck?" Clara asks breathlessly in surprise.
"Nurse Oswald," John spins around to face Clara, taking one of her hands in his, "might I invite you to the village dance this evening, as my guest?"
"You extraordinary man," Clara breathes out as she reaches up to hug the man.
Clara and John are walking back to the school via a field. Clara stamps her heels into the taller lines carved by a cart. Nearby, she can see a scarecrow that seems to be looking right at the two of them. John walks alongside her, watching with a smile as she stomps like a little kid.
"Oh, it's all becoming clear now," Clara laughs and John finds himself assaulted by her humany-wumany scent. "The Doctor is the man you'd like to be, doing impossible things with cricket balls."
"Well, I discovered a talent, that's certainly true," John nods with a chuckle.
"But the Doctor has an eye for the ladies," Clara comments, remembering the beautiful blond in the man's journal.
"The devil," John smirks back at her, his mouth tilted up almost as if he is trying, and failing, to be seductive.
"A girl at every fireplace," Clara comments absently, as if she is remembering a flash of orange and a smile coming from the other side of her bedroom fireplace.
"Ah," John flushes, glaring at the woman for a moment, "now, there I have to protest, Clara. That is hardly me."
"Says the man dancing with me tonight," Clara rolls her eyes and knocks her shorter sholder against John's.
"That scarecrow's all skewed," the man in the suit points to the scarecrow that seems to be watching them wander about. Clara follows him as they walk up to it, and John ties its arm back onto the cross-member.
"Ever the artist," Clara teases. "Where did you learn to draw?"
"Gallifrey," John answers immediately, before his brows furrow and he looks confused.
"Is that in Ireland?" Clara asks, although she has a feeling it's not. For, the moment it was mentioned, she gets a flash of burnt orange grass, beautiful silver trees, and a couple making love in a clearing. The two people, a man and a woman, seem to be surrounded by a hazy glow of stars.
Shaking her head of the thought, she turns back to John as he answers, "yes, it must be, yes."
"But you're not Irish?" It is Clara's turn to get confused.
"Not at all, no," John shakes his head. "My father Sidney was a watchmaker from Nottingham, and my mother Verity was, er." He flushes. "Well, she was a nurse, actually."
"Oh," Clara smiles in a teasing manor as she curls her hand around his arm. "We make such good wives."
"Really?" John shakes his head and continues to fiddle with the scarecrow in front of them. "Right. Yes. Well, my work is done. What do you think?"
"Masterpiece," Clara giggles.
"All sorts of skills today!" John's voice is light and happy and he smiles down at Clara with such a tender look in his eye that she can't look away. As they walk away, Clara has a nagging feeling in the back of her head that the scarecrow is actually watching them.
Back inside the school, Clara sits with her chin held high as she watches John make a sketch of her. His hand moves back and forth quickly on the paper and she wonders if he's actually drawing her or one of his crazy memories. When he seems to be finished and his hand moves no more, Clara smiles and relaxes her body. "Can I see?" she asks. The brown eyed man sits next to her on the Chesterfield. "Oh, goodness," Clara puts her hand to her heart at the beatiful drawing. "Do I look like that?" John nods and brushes a strand of hair out of her eyes. "Are you sure that's not me?" She is obviously joking, but she turns back to the previous page to point to a baby-faced green alien with pudgy features and big souless eyes (Slitheen)
"Most definitely this page," the man brushes her hand away and turns back to the picture of her that he'd just done. "Do you like it?" His words are hushed, as if he is afraid of her answer.
J"You've made me far too beautiful," Clara argues, pulling her hands back to her side, even as she reaches for him with her eyes.
"Well, that's how I see you," John shrugs and Clara flushes to the very tips of her hair.
"Widows aren't supposed to be beautiful," Clara sighs. "I think the world would rather we stopped. Is that fair? That we stop?"
John shakes his head and cups her face in his hands. Clara can remember that this is remarkably similar to what the man in her dreams does. But it is John now, not the green eyed man that makes her heart flutter so. "That's not fair at all," he breaths against her face. Tangling one hand in her hair and the other still cupping her cheek, he brings her face closer to his. And then there are sparks and stars and fireworks and everything else Clara can imagine bursting between them.
"I've never, er," the man before her looks a lot less confident than he was before, but she just shakes her head and pulls his lips back to hers. And the stars behind her eyelids sparkle even more than they did before.
John pulls his lips away from her's for a moment to chastise his maid before pulling her back into his arms with a smile on his lips as they kiss again.
Little bit of fluff and Clara still has dreams about Eleven, but she doesn't know him at all. He is still the man in her dreams. Sorry for taking so long to update. New poll for next story. Some will be longer than others depending on how much of the character Clara's replacing is in the story. Please vote and review! One more part of Human Nature before we move on to Family of Blood.