Seven years earlier
The first Wednesday he hadn't arrived, Clara told herself that maybe the ship knew what had happened. It didn't like her, why wouldn't it try to sabotage her relationship with the Doctor. The thought seemed ridiculous, except to her it didn't. She'd deliberately taken him out of the Tardis for the day – and not to some other planet, or some future world, but into her home. Well, she considered, the Maitland's home.
They were on vacation, late summer jaunt to Italy she'd encouraged, before the children returned to school. Clara knew they needed the time together, they needed the time away. Angie was getting older, more interested in friends than family, and Artie wouldn't be following his father around soon – he'd be looking at girls and concentrating on how cool he'd have to be for them. She'd cooked him dinner and they'd spent most of it talking about the seven moons of Hodar and how he'd have to take her… for the cheese.
"Cheese. Seven moons and you're on about cheese."
"You don't understand; the cheese is magnificent."
They'd just seen Venus. She'd just floated above the planet and gotten lost in the swirls of the gas at its outermost atmosphere. It had been beautiful, but it had also been a confirmation of sorts – or at least she'd thought – when she'd turned to ask him a question and found him gazing down at her with more wonder and admiration than she'd ever seen him give a planet or alien race. Or cheese. She'd offered to make him dinner, a real human dinner and several hours later, they were lying in her bed, him stroking her bare back while she nuzzled his chest with her cheek, arm draped over his midsection.
Entirely unexpected, and yet, Clara had felt more comfortable in that one act with him than she'd felt about anything else in her life. And when he'd looked down at her and smiled, all of the clumsiness and irrationality and general eccentricity he exhibited had been replaced with a man. Just a man who held his whole world in his arms.
And now it was next Wednesday and she sat on the stairs with her purse in her lap and an odd feeling in her stomach as she waited. Angie bounded down the steps, passing her and pausing at the door, turning and giving her a look before asking, "He not here yet?"
Clara shook her head, "No, running a bit late," she laughed, "Time machine and all."
Opening the door, the girl tilted her head and told her, "Being a time machine, shouldn't it be pin-point accurate about what time it arrives?"
With a roll of her eyes, Clara barked, "Off to Nina's?" Angie nodded, and she finished, "Be home before sundown – it's a school night."
"And it's your day off – can't nanny me," Angie replied with a smirk as she went through the door, leaving Clara on the steps waiting.
So he missed a week, she allowed. He couldn't be on her schedule all of the time. And his time machine didn't particularly like her anyways; maybe it made him miss the appointment on purpose. Clara convinced herself of this as she took herself back up the stairs, four hours later, and fell into bed, exhausted for no reason.
The second Wednesday she grew angry. He'd left with so much hope in his eyes; had left her with so much hope in her heart. She'd no longer be the companion; she'd be, maybe, his girlfriend. Maybe, she knew, for just a while. He was a Time Lord – not aging the way she did – and she knew it wouldn't be forever. She'd prepared herself for that, but she'd thought maybe for a time. Maybe they'd work around it. And this time Angie skipped going to her friend's house and she sat on the stairs, distracting Clara from her thoughts as the hours passed by.
The third Wednesday she worried. She worried so badly she ended the night over a toilet until the contents of her stomach were flushed away and she was simply hugging the porcelain as Artie sat on the edge of the tub and Angie knelt at her side. Mr. Maitland entered, concerned as he helped her up and guided her to her room, laying her down and sitting with her until she'd fell asleep with the certainty in her mind about what was happening inside of her body stinging her eyes with tears.
The fourth Wednesday she decided he'd left her. He'd probably done it with all of the others, she convinced herself. He tricked them into falling in love and once he'd had his way with them, he left. Floating off into the night sky to find himself another catch, and she bedded her childhood friend out of revenge. Maybe he would find out, she considered, and maybe when he saw her he would regret what he'd done. Clara pulled herself out of Sam's bed feeling stupid and disgusted with herself. She dressed as he continued sleeping and she left, walking home in the cold night air with her jacket wrapped tightly around herself.
She knew what people thought when she flirted openly at the market, or went out with the man she'd just met in the pub, and she chanced a quick night with a man whose finger held a gold band because these things made her adrenaline pump and her heart pound the way it had when the Doctor arrived at her doorstep. And secretly, she hoped she would miscarry. It was a dark thought, hidden away in the back of her mind every time she emerged from the shower and studied the skin under her navel.
By the eighth Wednesday, she could see it. No one else could, but Clara could see the small curve there and she touched it with reddened eyes. She didn't need to confirm it and she was terrified of going to her gynecologist to talk about it because it was part alien and Clara didn't know what it would mean and she certainly didn't know who she could talk to. Her mind ran over the names of his former companions, but the only one she could find was the red headed woman who, she knew, didn't remember.
At the twenty third Wednesday she could no longer avoid the nagging from her father. He'd chosen to ignore his anger at her insistence not to tell him the name of the man who'd given him an unexpected grandchild, but she could see in his eyes every time he looked at her that he knew what everyone in town was discussing. The indiscretions that made her the topic of whispers. Clara knew they asked him and he was in the unfortunate position of having to defend her when she knew she didn't deserve to be.
"Clara," he'd told her, "You have to have yourself and the baby checked out. I don't understand any of this – it isn't like you!"
He'd given her a lecture on all of the things that could be wrong and she'd teased him about reading the books and searching online. And he'd retorted that someone had to, leaving Clara sitting at his dining room table on a Wednesday in tears because she knew he was right.
The gel on her stomach was cold and she hissed slightly as the man working the knob over her skin apologized with a small laugh, as though he were used to it. He rolled to her left and then to her right and narrowed his eyes at the screen.
"Is something wrong?" Clara asked, voice breaking.
It had occurred to her that something could be wrong, but it never occurred to her that something could be wrong in a human-y way. She watched as he turned and smiled politely, "Just a bit hard to see."
"Does that mean there's something wrong with the baby?" She pressed.
He moved the knob closer to her waistline and shifted back slightly, making a noise of accomplishment before pointing at something on the screen that Clara stared at. "Happens sometimes, hard to get a look in," he explained, "Stubborn babies," he elaborated for a laugh, but Clara was still looking at the grayish masses shifting about on the screen and then she let out a quick laugh because she could make out a foot. Clearly.
Her baby's foot. She pointed, as if he hadn't seen, and laughed, "Oh, my stars," she breathed.
"That's definitely her foot," he told her, clicking at the screen and measuring randomness in the noise there as Clara held a hand to her chest.
"Her foot," she repeated.
"Definitely a girl," the man told her with another point of his finger that, she supposed, meant he was looking at genitalia before another click. "We could," he started, flicking a switch and turning a dial up so she could hear an odd assortment of sounds, "Listen to her."
Clara leaned back slightly, listening to the thumps and woops and then she felt the knob shifting again and he straightened in his seat. Something was wrong. She could see it in the way he concentrated on the screen before looking back at her belly. "What?" She questioned. "What is it?"
"Got two heartbeats in there," he allowed, "Sounds like twins, I just have to…"
She smacked his hand away, watching the way he stared at her as she panicked. Clara slipped off the bedding and used the smock she'd been given to wipe the gel off her stomach before throwing her blouse over her as he protested. She wasn't finished, they needed a few more images, needed to check the heart. Clara was out in the street and on her way onto the tube and she sat, flushed, in a seat staring out the window.
Her vision was a blur as her hands cupped underneath her blouse at the warmth of her stomach, thumbs rubbing delicately at the flesh where she felt the soft tapping of her daughter's foot. She cried quietly, tears rolling over her cheeks with fear. She had two hearts, she told herself. Her daughter had two hearts. Leaning her head against the glass, she glanced down at her stomach, trying to brainstorm a way to get in touch with the Doctor because how could a child with two hearts survive on Earth? How would they let her not be some anomaly?
Clara lied to her father when he'd asked how it went and she felt foolish for not at least taking one of the grainy snapshots that showed off Olive's rounded head and tiny fists. She knew she'd see her soon enough, she'd hold her and she'd take her away from this place. Somewhere safe.
And before she knew it, she was lying in a hospital bed, late Tuesday night, face beet red as she grasped her father's hand and pushed on command, feeling the burn of that small head crowning before she spiraled out into the doctor's waiting arms. Clara held her breath as she collapsed backwards, looking at the pink limbs that struggled with their newfound freedom and she listened to the wail, ignoring the pain – her body's message that she wasn't done – as she waited to hold her.
"Where are you taking her?" Clara shouted as the child was handed off to a set of nurses.
Her doctor turned and rubbed at his head with his fore arm before smiling at her, "Clara, I'm going to need you to relax."
"I can't relax, I need to hold her. Give me my Olive," she demanded.
Her father hugged her tightly from where he stood just beside her and he glanced at the doctor, telling him plainly, "She should be able to hold her own daughter."
The man raised a hand and nodded before bending to check Clara and telling her, "In due time, Clara. Right now I'm going to need you to push on the next contraction."
"I want to hold her," she cried.
"Clara, you've got another baby coming," the man informed her, watching as she dropped back against her father and shook her head, "On the next contraction, you're going to have to push."
"Another baby?" She asked, voice barely audible. "Another baby."
She glanced up at her father and saw he was torn between whether he should be feeling joy or terror as he watched her eyes go wide in confusion, repeating the words a third time. "Twins, Clara," he finally told her, "They didn't…" he trailed.
"Two heartbeats," she whispered, "Two heartbeats; two babies."
She shouted out, grabbing hold of the bedding on one side and the man at the other and she pushed. Clara listened to the man instructing her to remain calm, to relax, to wait for the right moment and she leaned forward, feeling her own heart pounding as she pushed again. And then again. And then she clenched her jaw as she felt the second small body slip from her and she remained frozen to the bed, seeing the baby the man held.
"Is it alright?" Clara managed to utter, feeling herself on the verge of fainting, her head pounding between her ears and her legs trembling.
The man cleaned the child's nose and mouth and it complained and then slowly began to join the other infant in the room in a set of gurgled wails. He lifted the baby to show her and she laughed as he declared, "Boy."
Clara watched them bring Olive to her and laid the quieting swaddled girl in her right arm before the naked boy was placed in her left and she looked from one child to the next as his umbilical cord was cut and she sighed at him happily, "Whatever will I do with you?"
Dave kissed the top of Clara's head and he reached out to nudge Olive's cheek with his knuckle before watching them take the boy away. "Twins, Clara," he laughed. "All this time preparing for Olive, and now we've…" he straightened, "Oh dear, Clara, we're gonna need…"
She touched his arm and smiled lazily, "We'll be fine, dad."
The boy was brought back, bundled up like his sister and put back in Clara's arm and she cried openly over them, knowing they'd be taken away soon to clean her up and let her rest. Her father began to list the things they would need to buy – namely, another crib – but she just looked down at the two faces staring back up at her. Normal, healthy, human. Her perfect little babies.
"Miss, should we put Baby Boy Oswald for now?" A woman at her left asked. "Give you some time…"
"No," Clara sighed. She looked to the boy, the unexpected surprise, so much like his father had been, and she shook her head and said softly, "Henry Eleve… Evan," she repeated slower, "Henry Evan Oswald."
Born on a Wednesday.