He misses the next Wednesday and sends her into a slight panic because he never misses a Wednesday. Of course, she never misses anything either and she has. Clara puts the last of her belongings in a box and she carries it down the stairs and out to Mr. Maitland's car. They share a sadness and an understanding. It's time for her to move on, time for time to continue. And, as usual, it all happens too fast.
Her apartment is small, but not far away, and she's still expected at the Maitland's on occasion for dinner, for a Saturday out with the children, for a talk late at night on the phone with Angie over boys, or a text session with Artie over strategies on his games. Clara's heart aches as she hugs them in what has been a day of hugs, and she climbs into the vehicle next to the man she's worked for – and with – over the past few years.
"Feels like they were just babies when I first met them," she laments, "Look at them, almost grown."
"They're still babies," Mr. Maitland tells her with a laugh. "At least to me."
She smiles up at him, knowing exactly what he means, and he pulls out onto the street. Clara watches the buildings go by and she delights in the flickers of sunlight on her face. The apartment wasn't permanent; at least she didn't consider it to be. He would come next Wednesday. He'd better. And the Maitland's could tell him where she was and he could pick her up. They'd drift through the stars, popping back for those visits. For Christmas, and Easter Mass, and when Angie finally finds someone who can be her equal.
"Your boyfriend," Mr. Maitland starts slowly, "Does he know… does he know you're moving?"
She shakes out of her daze and glances over, telling him softly, "No, but when he arrives…"
"I'll let him know," the man finishes. Then he glances sideways at her. "You sure he's a safe bloke?"
"You sound like my dad," Clara laughs, dropping her hands in her lap. "Always concerned."
"Well, your dad was a school chum… and I've known you since you were a baby yourself, Clara – you'll forgive me if I sometimes feel a bit paternal towards you. I just want to know you're safe. Seems like this is all so sudden." Then he adds, "You're not quite yourself lately."
Good, she thinks to herself. I've grown up. "I'll check in," she tells him, hand coming to rest on his, "I promise, I'll check in."
She knows it shouldn't frighten her to say those words, but it does because the Doctor promised her forever and he's not around. And it's Wednesday. And she has to tell him something important. Something very forever.
He pulls the car up into a parking lot in front of a building that's terribly tall and Clara sighs when she looks up at it, feeling a pang of anxiety strike her because it's all suddenly real. All suddenly too real. He might never return, she realizes. This place might be her life now – the job she's applied for might be her life and she'd have to go it alone. The Doctor could have been thrown into a volcano, or been killed by a rogue Dalek, or any number of insane things because he constantly gets himself into trouble and if he got himself into trouble and she wasn't there… if no version of herself were there… maybe he'd meet the inevitable end by himself.
Clara stumbles as she steps out of the car, head dizzy and stomach turning, and she feels a set of light knuckles stroke her cheek. She smiles, expecting to open her eyes and find Mr. Maitland there waiting on front of her, but when she looks, it's him and she lets out an unexpected squeak and lunges at him to punch him in the arm, receiving a look of surprise in return and a set of raised arms.
"What have I done!?" The Doctor shouts.
"You're late!" She responds with a shout before she calms herself and looks to Mr. Maitland who's standing nearby with her box, giving the duo a strange look.
The man takes a few steps towards the Doctor, who's looking properly frightened, and he sets the box down at his chest, giving him a stare and a grumbled, "I'll never understand a man who doesn't help his woman move."
Without waiting for an answer, Mr. Maitland turns to give Clara a quick hug and then he gets into his car and drives off. Clara waits until he's down the street to turn and scowl at the Doctor, checking her watch and pointing at him, "Wednesday, eleven in the morning – that's what we agreed to."
He gestures back at the Tardis, tucked in a corner, "I was here! One 'til, waiting for you."
She shakes her head and manages a smile before moving towards the building. Adjusting the box in his arms, he follows her, quietly riding the lift up to the third floor and walking after her down the hall to the door she jams a key into. Clara pushes open the door and sighs at the sparsely furnished apartment, allowing him entrance before shutting the door and watching him settle the box on a couch. The only thing she'd been able to purchase.
"Kind of empty," he offers, lips pressing together, unimpressed.
With a laugh, she responds, "It's all new to me, you know. Moving on my own."
"I told you to move in with me," he nods to the window, out of which the Tardis is clearly visible. "You don't need this place," he scoffs.
She licks her lips slowly and nods, arms crossing over her chest.
"Clara, you don't need this place," he repeats, a twinge of fear stuck in his vocal chords.
"Doctor, we've hit a bit of a hiccup."
He glances around. "I don't understand. I thought you wanted to commit, I thought you wanted commitment and I thought I made it clear I was jumping in. Both feet. With a smile. I thought I was making it clear regularly, actually."
There's a devilish look on his face that turns her cheeks red and she laughs. Then she nods. Then she tells him bluntly, "I'm pregnant."
"What?" He stammers.
"Pregnant," she repeats, hands falling away and then cupping her stomach. "Which I thought would be impossible, and I would ask if it should be impossible, but you're turning green, so obviously it's possible." She glances skyward, "Well, obviously it's possible because I am."
He sits on the couch next to her box and he leans his elbows on his knees. Clara moves towards him slowly, hands hanging loosely at her sides and she comes to a stop just in front of him. She watches the way his shoulders rise and fall steadily, but they're rigid beneath the vest and shirt and his head hangs down. She imagines his eyes are closed because he wouldn't ignore her standing there, and the thought of what might be going through his mind frightens her.
"Doctor?"
"A father, at this age," he whispers to the ground with a smile before lifting his eyes to her body in front of him. Clara feels frozen to the spot, frozen to the moment, as he lifts his palms to her hip bones and lays his forehead against her stomach. "A child," he says, pressing a kiss just under her navel. "I'm going to be a father?"
His eyes come up to search hers and she's lost her breath with the hope she finds in them. The right corner of her mouth perks up and she manages a nod through the tears now blinding her. "I'm going to be a mother."
He laughs and his hands pull at her body, wanting to bring her down atop him on the couch. She tugs at her skirt to straddle him and she lands on him gently, closing her eyes to kiss him lightly as his hands round her back and settle themselves just above her backside. Her forehead drops against his and she feels him laugh against her mouth as his head shifts away and she's looking at him again, at the way he's staring at her.
Like she's the most beautiful thing in the universe.
"I'm going to be the mother of a Time Lord," Clara realizes, breath caught in her throat, and she watches as he shakes his head, as though it were nothing to fear. "But Doctor, will it be… alright? Normal? Ten fingers; ten toes… how many hearts?"
She hadn't thought about it. She'd only really had two weeks to think about it and she'd been more preoccupied with getting her own place, explaining to Mr. Maitland that his children were old enough to go without a nanny, looking for a possible job. Worrying about the Doctor's reaction.
Feeling his hands covering hers atop his shoulders, she allows him to bring them down to sit at her belly. "Clara, we're not all that dissimilar. I suppose that's how this is entirely possible and I'm sorry I wasn't more cognoscente of it before – but it will be a normal child. Two arms, two legs, two eyes, two loving parents. That's what will matter."
"But if he gets sick, if anything happens to him and I have to get proper care, I can't just pop into a hospital…" she trails. Why hadn't she thought on it before? She'd been lost for days in a dreamland of possibilities. Of small imagined faces and optimistic family picnics, of silly girlish fantasies that ignored all of the reality currently crashing down on her. "How am I going to give birth? Where am I…"
He sets a finger on her lips and she stares down at the amusement on his face. "Clara, Earth is not the only planet; this year is not the only year. He will be fine." Then he lowers his head slightly and drops his own hand to hers, "He."
"It's just a pronoun," Clara says with a shake of her head and he smiles.
Shifting forward, he helps her back into a standing position and he gets a wild look on his face, "Let's go, let's travel – first family outing."
The notion makes her laugh and she's rushing out the door behind him, barely able to grab hold of her purse on the way out. They ride the lift sharing an expression of pure glee at the thought of seeing the stars, and they rush to the Tardis where the Doctor bursts through the doors, but Clara trails behind, looking the box over with hesitation.
His head pops out of the doorway and he waves an arm, then clasps it against the sturdy blue wood. "Clara, what is it?"
"Is that safe?" She points. "Is the time vortex and all that space jam safe?"
He steps out of the box and nods, reaching out a hand that she takes easily. Clara climbs aboard the Tardis, suddenly wary of it. It didn't like her at the start, what if it rejects her now? What if it rejects her child and opens the Tardis doors to let him walk out into space the first time he's unattended.
"Tell her," she urges, gesturing at the glowing sea green tubes that churn at the center.
"Tell her?" The Doctor repeats, watching Clara place a protective hand on her stomach. "Clara, she isn't going to hurt you! You're pregnant, not turned into a Dalek."
The Cloister bell sounds loudly and the colors shift suddenly, going stark white and Clara finds herself hiding behind the man who's looking out over his machine with a questioning stare. And then there's a tickle at her back that circles her body and she shouts out when she glances down to see the glowing tendrils of sparkles surrounding her.
Clara tries to rush forward, to escape its grasp, but it follows her, enveloping her, and she grabs hold of the console, feeling as though she might be lifted into the air. But it doesn't hurt her. Oppositely, the nausea she'd been experiencing dissipates and the dizziness is gone. There's an odd swimming sensation in her stomach and she looks to the Doctor, standing at the entrance to the console with a look of confusion on his face.
"She's studying you," he explains. "She's trying to make sense of the fetus in your womb against your anatomy."
"She's scaring me!" Clara cries out.
"I've never seen her do this," the Doctor admits, stepping closer. "Taking the initiative, scanning a subject herself; quite frankly, she's scaring me as well."
Giving him a frustrated growl, she commands, "Tell her to stop!"
The light slips back through the crevices on the console, and the room slips into a magnificently light shade of blue and there's a sound she finds familiar and alien all the same. It's a whooshing sloshing sound interspersed with a steady pounding and Clara looks around at the interior of the Tardis, glowing so bright she laughs.
"She's analyzed the baby," the Doctor tells her in a whisper.
"He's a boy," Clara surmises. "A boy," she repeats with a laugh and a hand to her stomach.
"And we're listening to his heartbeats." He looks to her wondrously as she glances around, listening to the sound that's faded slightly, but still pulsating around them, "You were already psychically linked to her, so she's used that to form a bond with him. To keep tabs on him. To keep him safe."
With a nod, Clara looks up at the Doctor, his face shining in the light, a wide grin spreading over his lips. As though everything were ok now that the Tardis approved. It's a foolish thought, but she'd brought it up before – the notion that he couldn't have her along as companion without the approval of his mother. She pats the console lightly and then gives it a small stroke of her fingers, trying to apologize through the gesture and the blue begins to slip away, replaced with the regular greener hue and the sound goes silent. They stand together at the console just as they'd always stood – sharing a giddy giggle, ready for the adventure that waited.
