A/N: This was my favourite chapter to write so I hope you'll enjoy it too!

.

.

.

Clara wasn't even sure of how she felt as she barged into the TARDIS and shoved a pregnancy test in the Doctor's hand.

"Explain," she said simply, mouth dry.

"Is this-"

"Yes."

"For-"

"Yes. It's positive." She stood in front of him with her arms crossed, staring up at him, his face frowned, turning the test in his hands. "Explain."

"Well, I think you should be the one doing the explaining."

"I should explain? You said we weren't compatible!"

He blinked repeatedly in confusion.

"I'm sorry, how does that have to do with anything?"

"Doctor, I'm pregnant."

"And how is that my fault?"

"Because it's yours!" she exclaimed.

"Don't be absurd, Clara. It can't be mine."

He moved a few steps towards the console, facing away from her.

Clara would never have expected that reaction from the Doctor. It was far worse than any of those she had thought of. She took a step towards him.

"Who else's?"

"I don't know. Danny's?" he asked, returning his eyes to hers as he ran one hand through his hair, nervous.

"What are you talking about?" she shouted."Danny died over six months ago!"

"Oh. Right. …really? That long?"

Clara glared at him in reply. She couldn't believe how fleeting most things appeared to him, how even the passing of time wasn't something he took notice of, if it didn't affect her or him very, very directly.

"It's yours, Doctor," she repeated after taking a deep breath, trying to calm herself down.

"Clara, it can't be mine," he replied, still remaining exceptionally, inexplicably calm. "It's okay, I understand. Danny was dead, you were alone. I get it, really-"

"I haven't been with anyone else since Danny! There's only you, Doctor!"

"Maybe you've forgotten about it. I mean, compared to me-"

"Don't brag! Seriously? Right now? Does it look like it's a good moment to do that?"

"Well-"

"No, stop. Shut up. Don't answer." She sighed in exasperation. How utterly idiotic could he be, to think she might have wanted someone else after Danny? After him? After she had explicitly told him that he was the one she wanted. She had been a mess after both the Doctor and Danny had gone away from her, she had felt empty and even questioned who she really was without the Doctor in her life, but she had never wanted to replace either of them. She had only wished she could have them back. "I haven't forgotten anything. This baby. It's yours, Doctor. Ours."

The Doctor sighed in turn and closed the distance between them to touch her shoulder gently, sympathy in his eyes. Clara hated that expression the second she saw it.

"Clara… I know you want this to be real… but it's impossible. Our genetic structure is only superficially similar, I have more chromosomes than you have and the ones you do have only partially match mine. I guess the test was just wrong. They're really imprecise little thingies-"

"I took five," she interrupted him sharply.

The Doctor's mouth opened, then closed.

"I'll just run a scan, so you'll be convinced, okay?"

"Run the scan, Doctor," she half-challenged. He could be insufferable when he played the all-knowing, patronizing Lord of Time.

He moved to the control panel.

"Still sure you're pregnant?"

"Yep."

"You still think it's mine, don't you."

"Yep."

They locked eyes for a long moment. Then, he nodded slowly, a grave expression on his face, and pushed a couple of buttons on the control panel. The monitor emitted a short beeping noise and information appeared on the screen, next to a silhouette of her body.

Subject: Oswald, Clara

Species: Homo Sapiens

Status: no relevant infections detected

Clara sucked in a breath as the monitor beeped again and new lines of text appeared below:

Subject: embryo, unnamed

Species: Gallifreyan

Status: no relevant infections detected

Clara stared in silence at the little word next to "species" in her baby's information: Gallifreyan. Her baby. And the Doctor's. Unmistakably the Doctor's.

When she turned her attention to the Doctor to watch his reaction, she found he was gaping at the screen, completely immobile.

"Clara," he said, not looking at her.

"Doctor?"

"You're… You're pregnant," he murmured, as if he were hearing about anything of the sort for the first time in his life, as if she hadn't been talking about it for the past minutes.

"Told you so," she said with an annoyed eye-roll.

"Clara. I'm… I'm the father."

He looked at her with utter bewilderment in his eyes, shaking his head slightly.

"Yep."

"Clara," he repeated, voice shaking, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "We're going to be parents."

"Is that… okay for you?" she asked hesitantly, asking the only question that really mattered to her, the one she would have asked sooner if the Doctor hadn't been busy being a massive idiot.

"Okay?" He scoffed. "Of course it's not okay, Clara! It's more than okay. It's-" He stopped, raising his arms halfway only to let them fall to his sides.

"You're happy, then? That I- that we…" She made a vague gesture with her hands.

"Of course I'm happy, Clara. Why wouldn't I be happy?"

He looked distressed rather than anything else, voice thick with emotion, but Clara decided she'd take his word on that one. She shook her head, feeling a little overwhelmed, and rapidly crossed the distance between them to throw her arms around his neck. The Doctor went rigid at the contact, keeping his arms strictly to his sides.

"Hug me, old man."

"Yes, ma'am."

Reassured of what she wanted him to do, he wrapped his arms around her, caressing her back delicately, pulling her into him, in the warmth of his heavy clothes and in the reassuring scent of him.

"I don't know," she said eventually. "I was scared. You look scared." She looked up at him. He was smiling warmly now, promisingly. "But it's good, isn't it? A baby. It's a good thing. Someone like you- what's wrong?" she asked, seeing his smile fade all of a sudden.

"You said it. Someone like me. The scan, it says 'Gallifreyan'. That's not possible."

"I'm sensing an inevitable 'but' in there somewhere."

The Doctor looked away and gradually loosened his embrace, his arm lingering as it slid around her back. He moved back in front of the control panel, pushing a series of buttons she did not recognise, the text on the screen turning into Gallifreyan, only for him to read. He studied the results in silence, frowning, eyes of the lightest blue, his lips pursed in a thin line.

"Doctor. Talk to me."

Clara moved to press her body against his back, caressing his shoulders and upper arms, his muscles tense under her touch.

His eyes remained fixed on the screen.

"Someone did this to you. It wasn't supposed to happen."

"I'm sorry, what?"

He sighed heavily.

"Someone made sure you and I could conceive a child." He turned to look at her, and Clara felt almost transfixed by that gaze. She knew that look. Forward, plain in his pupils was the concern for her, but deeper, glowering, she saw raw anger. "I need to know how this happened, Clara. I need you to remember. Did anything happen, anything at all? Anything strange, anything out of the ordinary? Did you accept anything to drink or, or to eat from a stranger? Anything? Could anyone, on any occasion, be able to inject you something without you noticing? Any blanks in your memory, times you woke up and didn't remember going to sleep? Anything at all?" he urged her on, turning fully in her loose embrace, breaking it.

"No, no, no. Nothing I can think of…" His pressing questions made it difficult to focus on remembering. "But- wait. Why? What does that have to do with…" She gestured vaguely at herself. For some reason, she found it so difficult to just say it. It always seemed to be that way with the important things of her life.

"Someone did this to you. Someone manipulated your genetic material with chirurgical precision to match mine."

"You mean-"

However welcome the result might be, the idea of someone meddling with her body disgusted her, and she felt a flash of anger at the thought.

The Doctor started to pace around the console, walking in fast, long strides.

"I mean that you came in contact, possibly ingested, I don't know, came in contact with nanobots or something similar, designed for the sole purpose of meddling with the chromosomes of the egg cell that was maturing inside you at the moment to match the ones of a Gallifreyan male, adding the missing ones and adapting the others."

She shook her head. "That's absurd, why would anyone do that? And how? How would they know that we… that we're together?"

"I don't know! I hate not knowing. Oh, and of course they know: you're being spied."

"What? How do you know?"

"It's the only logical explanation."

"Why not the TARDIS?"

"The TARDIS is unspyable. I would notice if someone were spying on me."

"And you think I wouldn't? And that's not a word, by the way. Unspyable."

"It is. I just made it up." He paused, marching nervously back and forth, ruffling his own hair with both hands. "Whoever did this has a technology so advanced that they could be walking right behind you and you wouldn't notice."

He stopped his pacing and stood right behind her for a moment, and Clara turned to glance apprehensively at him, suddenly uncomfortable with that idea.

"Then what do we do?"

The Doctor climbed up the stairs to the second level of the console room.

"Nothing. We can't do anything, because we don't know anything." Clara watched him stare for a long moment into the mirror between two of the bookshelves, studying his reflection. Then he turned around to lean on the railing, looking down at her. "Why do I feel like I'm missing the obvious?"

He quickly retraced his steps and returned to her side, clearly awaiting an answer.

"I don't know. 'Cause you are missing it?" She met his eyes, and their expression was sad, almost defeated. He started to torment the tip of his thumb with his teeth. She pressed her hand on his cheek and he stopped, leaning into her touch. "Hey."

"Clara."

"I'm right here."

"Do you want this baby?"

"Why are you asking?" she asked, sensing a second motive.

"Because whoever did this to you didn't have good intentions. They didn't do it to do us a favour, or in our best interest. If you decide you want this baby, I think it's going to be dangerous. You will be in danger, our baby will be in danger, and I-"

"And you won't let anyone hurt me," she interrupted, "or… or our baby. Not anyone. Not ever."

He didn't reply, but he blinked slowly and she saw adamant determination in his eyes as he reopened them, and she knew she was right.

She had barely given it thought until now, too caught up with being anxious about telling the Doctor, but Clara discovered she wanted this baby.

She had always wanted children -God, she loved kids- even though she hadn't truly pictured having one in a long time. She remembered fantasizing about marrying and adopting kids with Nina back in the day, back when she was little more than a teenager, back before Nina revealed herself for the horrible person she was. There had been a long series of unimportant stories after that, and of one-night stands. Before the Doctor came along. Before Danny. She'd never talked about having kids with Danny, somehow had never imagined it either. There had been so many things in her life at the time between the Doctor, Danny and her job that she had been… busy. Happy. She hadn't felt the need to have kids. Besides, she was still quite young anyway. Plenty of time to think about kids later.

Now, though, everything was different. This baby was a reality -as difficult as wrapping her head around it was- and it seemed… right. It was there, growing invisibly inside her, and she saw no reason why she should object to that. The Doctor and Clara, raising a child together. Yes, she could see that happen. And if there was someone out there who wanted to hurt them, then all the more reason to let this baby come into the world, and grow, and age. Let it be a raised middle finger to those who wanted to try and hurt them. Because their baby would be protected, Clara knew that much. The Doctor would never let anyone hurt the people he loved and, frankly, neither would Clara.

"I want this baby, Doctor."

He nodded solemnly.

"As I feared."

"What are you afraid of?"

He exhaled a shuddering breath, eyes closed, and leaned forward to touch his forehead to hers. She did not feel the gentle touch of his mind on hers that she had grown familiar with, but this didn't surprise her: she had soon learned that he was reluctant to share his thoughts when he deemed them too tumultuous and overwhelming for her, and she suspected this was the case. She could see it in his eyes, in his body language.

"I'm scared of what could happen to our baby. Of what I'd do if… if…"

He gave up and she gradually felt his thoughts stream into hers. He was scared of what he would do if something were to happen to their baby, to her, if someone were to threaten them… the things he'd do to protect them, to save them, to avenge them… He was afraid of losing himself, of forgetting what being the Doctor meant in the effort to protect what he cherished most.

"That's not gonna happen," she reassured him firmly. "I'd die before-"

"Even worse," he interrupted. "I can't lose you, Clara."

She couldn't see his eyes, but she knew, through him, that they were bright, and his throat felt dry.

"Doctor. Do you want this baby?"

"I do, I do, but-"

His voice broke and he shook his head slightly, yet not breaking contact with her.

"No buts. I want this baby, Doctor, but I… I need you. I need you to stay. If we're doing this, then there's no leaving. You do not leave me. You do not leave us, okay?"

"I won't, I'd never… I'd never leave my child, I… I've never wanted to leave…"

That instant, when he used the past tense, she knew he was thinking of another time, another place, something she had only seen glimpses of. She cupped his face with her palms and forced him to look at her.

'Doctor. What happened to your children?'

There was infinite sadness in his eyes as he let Clara look, let her read him like an open book.

And Clara saw. She saw him love his children dearly, fiercely, even though they were so different from him, so far from his ideals, even though he saw them so rarely after he had left Gallifrey the first time, and Clara saw him lose them. She saw him lose them when he was so accustomed to violence, so hardened by war, a soldier in his body and his soul, that he had no tears to mourn them. She saw fire and heard screams, saw a golden city burn down in flames and a man she had met once clutching a lifeless body in his arms.

Clara abruptly let go of the Doctor, and the images faded. The imprint of the light of the fire on her eyelids remained, though, the screams kept ringing in her ears, the stabbing, emptying pain at her chest lingered on, taking her breath away.

"There's a reason why I don't show you," the Doctor murmured.

"I can take it. It wasn't so bad," she lied, her voice still shaking with the raw emotion of what she had experienced.

"Oh, Clara. That was only a fraction."

He smiled bitterly, and wiped away tears on her face she hadn't realized were there.

"Are you sure you-"

After what had happened to his children, it was only fair if he didn't want to…

"Yes. I want to raise this baby with you. If you want it. If you want me."

"You know I do," she said almost angrily, looking at his face that seemed so determined now, it seemed unbelievable for a man who had to feel, to see all that his every waking hour.

He cupped her face with his right hand and stroked her cheek lightly with his thumb.

"What you saw was over one thousand years ago," he said, sensing her concern.

"I know, but it felt so-"

"So real, I know. It does."

"…Do you ever… miss them?" she asked after a while.

"Not at all. They're in here," he affirmed, tapping two fingers against his temple, "for me to remember whenever I want. Only when I want. That's the trick."

"It's not the same thing."

"It's not. But it's…"

"It's something," she completed for him, understanding suddenly.

She too kept the memories of the people she had loved locked away for when she was ready to think about them. Her mum, Danny… and those memories could be comforting, at the right time. In that moment, Clara thought her mother would have been happy to see her daughter have a child. The idea made Clara smile.

The Doctor rested his chin on top of her head, returning the embrace, enjoying the contact and returning his mind to hers soothing her with new, warmer thoughts of affection.

"Will it be different? From a human pregnancy? A human baby?"

She looked up at him. He appeared pensive for a time before answering.

"Not radically different, no. I'll have to give you something to prevent your body from rejecting the baby, though I guess if it hasn't happened until now it's because our mysterious friend has already taken care of that. It's supposed to be longer too, about forty-eight weeks. I won't feel safe until you are at least forty weeks in, otherwise…"

"Okay, stop right there. Not gonna think about that, okay?" She paused, considering. "Look, I know you're afraid. Of what could happen to this baby. I am, too. But… don't you dare detach yourself from it, Doctor. Don't- don't do that to me. To yourself. We only do this if- if… if you let yourself love this baby. You owe it that much. Promise me, Doctor."

He looked gravely into her eyes for a few seconds before answering.

"I promise," he swore, his voice barely a whisper, but Clara saw the resolution in his eyes, the truth of his determination.

He distanced himself from her gradually, slowly breaking their embrace. Then he fell to his knees and brought his face on level with her belly, his large hands settling on her hips. He looked up at her.

"I'm going to do anything that's in my power to protect you. And anything that's not in it."

She smiled, even though he was serious. "I know."

"Good." He turned his gaze to her stomach. His thumbs stroked the waistband of her jeans, just barely touching her skin in the process. Clara shivered at the sensation, then winced slightly when it came accompanied with a fit of nausea. "How are you doing?"

"It's alright, I guess. Minus the sickness. I feel sick all the time."

"I noticed. I just didn't connect the dots."

"Not just in the morning. Is that normal?"

"That's a myth, I'm afraid. It's completely normal, Clara."

He pressed his forehead against her stomach and breathed in her scent as he brushed his forehead against her skin to look up.

"Do you feel different?"

His eyes were impossibly blue. Clara knew that look, the scientist in action. The explorer in front of uncharted territory. The artist contemplating a wonder. It had yet to cease taking her breath away that he would reserve that look for her.

"I feel like I'm supposed to, but I really don't."

"You smell different. I didn't notice."

His hands moved to the hem of her shirt. He gave her a questioning look, asking for permission.

She nodded, and he lifted her shirt carefully, revealing her skin bit by bit. She got hold of the fabric when it reached below her breasts, keeping it lifted for him.

He glanced up at her again for just an instant before his hands started a gentle exploration, caressing her belly, slipping past the waistband of her jeans, as though he was trying to see if her skin felt different to the touch, if there was a bump growing there he hadn't seen.

"It's not showing," he declared eventually, and Clara detected a note of disappointment in his voice.

"It's not supposed to." Clara had already checked, obviously. Had stared very intently at the mirror in search of a difference, and had found none. "Not until much later, according to Google."

He gave a small intent noise in response.

"Your skin doesn't feel different either."

Clara knew he wasn't talking to anyone in particular, he simply liked to speak aloud when he was theorizing, deducing or studying.

"Yeah, not there at least. My tits hurt."

The Doctor snorted loudly against her skin.

"Your… huh."

His ears turned positively red as he snickered into her belly, avoiding her gaze.

"Don't laugh! There's nothing funny about it." He kept giggling and she smacked the back of his head. "I'm serious, Doctor!"

"Ow. Yeah, well. We'll see what we can do about that."

He cleared his throat to mask more giggles and she glared at him, but he was smiling up at her, eyes laughing, and her expression softened.

"Our baby. Will it…" God, she hated saying 'it'. "How long will they live? Will they be able to regenerate?"

"I think so. They're 100% Gallifreyan after all, just 50% of a very Clara-looking Gallifreyan."

He smiled a bit weakly, and she wondered if she had made a mistake reminding him that this baby was part of someone's scheme, but she had questions, and they couldn't avoid them forever.

"What about growing? How long until they're adult?"

"Hard to say. Physically, at least thirty. Mentally, well."

"That's going to be a problem."

"Why?" he asked, frowning.

"If we're going to raise them on Earth, that's going to be a problem. If they're always going to look younger than their mates, I mean. And what about school? If they're half as smart as you are, they'll be giving their GCSEs at four or something," she mused anxiously.

"I think they'll be smart enough to play dumb," he stated, getting up from the floor to wink knowingly at her.

"I don't like the sound of that." She bit her lip. "Are we going to raise them lying all the time like we do?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Lying is a vital survival skill."

"You know what I mean."

"Clara, I think they're going to be fine. I think we'll do our best to raise them perfectly, and we'll fail miserably, like it's supposed to be." He took both her hands in his and held them close to his chest. "I'm sorry, Clara, but I think that's going to be the last problem a child of ours will have."

Clara knew that was true. They lived a dangerous life, and something told her that they wouldn't stop because they were going to have a baby. Maybe they'd be more careful, but they wouldn't settle down and it was usually trouble that found them anyway.

"I'm worrying too much, aren't I?"

"Yes, you'll make a perfect mum."

"No, I won't! I'm going to be the parent that always worries about everything, that sets curfews and rules and makes them eat their veggies, and you're gonna be the cool parent that lets them do whatever they want and shows them things and brings them places. They're going to only love you."

"That's impossible," he laughed softly, cupping her face with his hands.

"How do you know?" she whispered.

The Doctor pressed a feather-light kiss to her lips.

"My Clara, they're 50% me." He smiled knowingly, eyes locked with hers. "They'll think you're perfect 50% of the time."