Hahaha this chapter isn't of the highest quality, but here it is anyway. A little angst, a little fluff. It's all good.

The BBC owns Doctor Who.

Also I apologize for being a whiny crybaby in the notes in the previous chapter.

Anyway, enjoy!


Clara had been in the library for hours, chronicling the memories of all who were near and dear to her. Surprisingly, exhaustion was consuming her, and with a heavy mind and body, she trudged toward her room. Yawning, she crawled under the covers, and the bed was oddly… Warm. As she drifted into sleep for the first time in days, she decided that whatever had finally given her warmth was nice.

"Uhm… Clara?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure if you noticed, but you're in my bed."

Clara snapped awake. "Oh god… I am so sorry, I'm just beyond tired. I'll go find my own room." She laughed a tiny bit, obviously out of embarrassment. "Erm… Bye!"

As the other girl left the room, Ashildr sighed. "I was about to say that I didn't mind."

Clara quietly laughed to herself as she wandered the corridors of the TARDIS once more. She finally found a room to call her own and fell asleep immediately.

She was cold.


The next day the pair was exploring the TARDIS, their incident from the previous night long forgotten.

"Where do you want to go today?"

"You said you had a friend's funeral to go to… Is it alright if I ask who?"

"Jane Austen." Clara smiled fondly. "We were best friends, we pranked each other all the time. Oh, she was the worst…"

"You were friends with Jane Austen?"

"Yep. She was a brilliant writer, a wonderful person, and between us, an amazing kisser."

"Ooh, you must've been very good friends." Ashildr teased.

"Shut up!" Clara laughed. "I was an English teacher, I had a time machine, so I figured why not meet my favorite author? I meant to stay for a few hours, one week later and I still hadn't left."

"We don't have to go straight to her funeral, we could stop by earlier…"

"You're right! Except…" Her face fell. "I'd be willing to bet that the Doctor's spread the word to everyone that I'm dead. He's probably told Jane, and that means I can't see her again… I wish I would've gotten a proper goodbye…"

"Write to her. We can go to a few days before her death and I'll hand deliver your note."


Ashildr approached the house which she recognized to be the one where Jane Austen spent her final days, or rather she was currently spending them.

"Who are you?" Cassandra Austen asked, blocking Ashildr from entering.

"My name isn't important, I'm a close friend of Clara's, that's all that should matter. I've come to deliver a message to Jane."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but my sister isn't well. She's been ill for quite some time, I think she's ill to the point of insanity, the poor dear."

"I just have a message, that's all I'm here for."

"Alright. Right this way."

Cassandra led Ashildr down a corridor and into a dimly lit room. "Do hurry. My sister is tired. You mustn't stay more than a few minutes."

"Cassandra? Is that you?" A voice murmured weakly.

"You have a visitor. She says she's a friend of Clara's."

"Clara… Oh I've missed her. A week or so ago, an old man showed up in a blue box, told me she had died, then disappeared without a trace."

Ashildr approached the bedside, where the frail woman lay. "Before Clara died, she wrote a letter to you. I was there when she died, and she wanted me to make sure you knew that she cared for you so deeply, that she missed you beyond comprehension, and that she loved you." She handed her the note.

"Here, take this." Jane handed her a piece of parchment sealed with wax. " I'm afraid I haven't got much time left, and I was intending on giving this to Clara after I died. I was certain she would outlive me. I suppose you're the closest thing I have to Clara now… Take it."

The door opened. "Your time is up. Jane needs her rest."

"Farewell, Miss Austen."

"And you… I'm sorry, I never got your name."

"It's not important. What is important is that you rest, so you can recover and return to your life. I believe that you will pull through. I'm sure Clara would have believed in you too."

"Thank you."


Ashildr returned to the TARDIS, where Clara met her, curious as to what had happened.

"Did Jane know I was dead?" She asked.

"She's only known for a week. The Doctor told her."

"What date did we land?"

"The Twelfth of July, 1817."

"Less than a week before…"

"Yeah." She handed Clara the envelope. "She gave this to me. She'd written it before she knew you died. She gave it to me."

Clara carefully opened the envelope. In elegant writing, it read:

Dearest Clara,

I haven't seen you for many years. I've fallen ill, and I'm afraid my time left here is growing short. I wish nothing more than to see your beautiful face again, even for just a moment.

I clearly recall the first day we met. You showed up on my doorstep, seemingly excited to see me, almost as if you'd known me before we'd even met. You admired me for some reason, as if you loved the stories that were only ideas in my head at the time.

I also remember the days we went up to the hill and told stories and pranked each other and you kissed me under the summer sky.

Oh, I hope I'll be able to see you again. And if I'm not lucky enough to see you before I pass, please don't waste time mourning my death. You may not have me anymore, but you'll always have one thing: my love. Even after I'm gone, my feelings for you will live on.

Wherever you are, I hope you're well, and I hope you're the same as you were when we first met: brilliant and brave, more than I could ever hope to be.

Truly Yours,

Jane Austen

"Oh my God…" Clara whispered to herself, one lone tear staining her face. "Jane…"

"I'll give you some time to yourself…"

"No. Stay here." Clara turned to face her friend, tears rolling down her face. "Please…"

Ashildr hugged Clara, a comforting gesture that spoke a thousand words. "Losing someone you love is hard, I know. But Jane would've wanted you to stay strong."

"You're right." Clara broke free of the embrace and wiped the tears from her eyes. "I'm not going to let this shatter me. I'm going to be brave."

"I want you to know that I gave Jane hope. I told her that I believed she would recover and that you would've thought the same."

"Do you think that helped at all?"

"We might never know. I like to think that it did, although there's no way of actually telling if it worked. If I were you, I'd keep that note in your journals."

"That reminds me, there's something in the library I want to show you. Follow me!"


The two girls walked through the endless corridors, hand in hand. "I found something you might like in the library last night." Clara said, leading her companion towards the room.

The doors opened to reveal hundreds, if not thousands of bookcases already lined with books. Ashildr pulled one off the shelf and flipped through it, old torn pages with ink handwriting and a few stains left by tears. "My diaries… How are they here? They all burned up years ago!"

"The TARDIS must've found them somehow."

"You didn't do this? They were just… Here?"

"Mhm."

"You… You didn't read any, did you?"

"Nope. I opened the book, realized it was yours, then put it back."

"Thank you."

"What should we do now? Explore the TARDIS?"

"Nah, I'm not up for that."

Between the bookshelves, the girls caught a glimpse of the distinct glow of a fire. They walked over to it, seeing a couch with a thick blanket placed in front of a roaring fireplace, with a steaming mug of hot chocolate on each table on either side of the couch. Small stacks of books stood in the area, beckoning to be read.

The two sat on opposite ends of the couch facing each other, their feet touching underneath the blanket that was draped over them.

Clara, being a former English teacher, loved nothing more than reading a good book.

Ashildr, on the other hand, just loved the fact that she wasn't alone anymore.

In what seemed like no time at all, the pair had already read Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, Little Women, and Of Mice and Men.

"How old are you, Ashildr?"

"Why?"

"Just curious is all. If you'd rather not-"

"I've lost count, though I'd have to guess I'm at least 100 billion years old. Maybe older. Could be a trillion, even. It's all a blur to me. However many years it's been, I've been alone for the majority of them. I tried to avoid befriending mortals if I could help it. Knew that their lifespan would be nothing more than the blink of an eye in my own. Sometimes… I met people who I so desperately wished could be immortal alongside me."

"Weren't you given another Mire medical kit?"

"Yeah. I used it to save the world. I essentially brought a man back to life. The kit brought him back to life, but that basically drained it. He could recover from minor injuries, but death was inevitable for him. After that, I realized there were people I wished could stay with me forever… Namely you."

Clara set down the book she was half-reading and looked up at Ashildr in disbelief. "Me?"

"Why do you sound so surprised? I like you, Clara. I do."

Clara laughed. "I like you too, Ash."

"Ash?"

"Yeah." She smiled. "Ash. Short for Ashildr."

"Don't you even go there, Clara Oswald." Ashildr laughed. "You're lucky I'm letting you call me Ashildr."

"I know, I know." She picked up her book and began reading once more.


Hours later, the two girls lay asleep, their feet entwined underneath the blanket. Clara wasn't actually asleep; she didn't need it. Instead she was thinking about how lucky she was. She was supposed to be dead. But instead of being dead, she was lying on a couch with a (kind of cute) girl lying opposite of her, surrounded by books. One more thing, she was in a TARDIS. Her very own time and space machine.

Drifting into something similar to sleep, Clara decided that nothing could make her new life any better.


Aaaaaaaa I just love Space Girlfriends! (Also if you wanna check it out, my Ao3 account is show-me-the-universe. There's not much there,only this story but still it's pretty rad.)

Thank you for reading!