Clara looked down at the grave before her.
Her eyes were heavy on her, although she didn't know whether due to the exhaustion or the weight of the tears she so desperately tried to hold in. Perhaps a mixture of both.
It was dark. Too dark as the sun shined its last spits of light in the horizon, obfuscated by the clouds that announced the soon arrival of rain. There wasn't any other living soul in the cemetery; that place already held too many stories and tales about the paranormal for people to visit it at night. She didn't care about ghosts, they didn't frighten her.
Clara just needed to be as close as she could to the remainings of her mother.
After her father had stormed out of her flat, she locked herself in her room, unwilling to come out for hours. She was mad — mad at herself, mad at the world —, not even the sign of affection from the pet brought her comfort. She cleaned up the mess Niima and the Doctor had made during her absence only to lose control over herself right after.
She let the rage take over her. She allowed her feelings to come through the barriers that hid them underneath, she threw pillows against the wall, she broke a little gift one of her students had given her by slamming it to the floor and crushing it with her foot several times, she even kicked the wood of the TARDIS a couple of times, getting her to grunt at her in return.
Until she leaned against the wall and fell to the floor, hiding her wet smooth cheeks between the crown of her knees. Niima was hesitant to approach her, at first, but once Clara opened her arms, the pet offered its tiny body to be cried upon. Clara cried all the tears she had to cry.
And, not for one moment, the shadow of the Doctor left from beneath the door.
Passed over one hour of having him hovering, Clara had had enough, opening the door with her eyebrows flat in a frown. She said, "If you want to get to your TARDIS, you're more than welcome to get to it and leave."
She felt him studying her features. How her eyes had been swallowed by a salty redness, how her apple cheeks had become puffier than usual, how her lips still had to steady themselves. "I don't want the TARDIS, Clara. I just want to help you."
"I think you've already done enough, Doctor," she spilled harshly as she hit the door close in his face again. She didn't blame him for being the first piece of the domino to fall, but he was there and she desperately needed someone to be angry at.
Clara sighed, kneeling down so her fingertips could feel the humid ground. She hated herself for pushing away the people who cared for her. She hated herself for bringing down anybody who ever tried to help her — both her family and the Doctor. And she was starting to believe she wouldn't be able to mend her life back together. Not in the way it used to be.
"Oh mum," she cried, in the hope anyone was listening just as a thunder echoed through the air, "I wish you were somehow here again. I wish you could fix this mess."
Because Ellie Oswald was the only one who had ever torn hers and her father's fights — they would happen far too often during her teenage years. "I know I have no right to ask you to stop your resting in peace just to help me, but can you help me, mum? I don't know how to make it right again. I've screwed up really badly this time."
She traced the letters imprinted to the stone with the tip of her fingers as the first droplets of rain started falling onto her. Soon enough, it was pouring and she was drenched; she made no effort to move. "So much has happened ever since you left, mum, and sometimes I wonder whether it would be easier were you still here. Perhaps it wouldn't be this hard."
Clara steadied herself back up on shaky legs, using the rain as an excuse to allow the tears to escape the corner of her eyes — no one would tell them apart from the tears of the sky, not even her. She just wasn't expecting for the rain to suddenly stop falling above her.
She looked up and found the Doctor standing right next to her, holding an umbrella almost twice her size, and yet he didn't dare to step under it. A shy grin shaped the corner of her lips, "Did you steal that umbrella?"
His eyes were fixed somewhere right past her, "You're the only sane person to come to a graveyard at night, who else would I have stolen it from if not from you?" he prompted, softly, "No. I ran to the TARDIS and grabbed it."
She blinked monotonously a couple of time. "I'm not afraid of ghosts, Doctor. If I were, I'd be terrified of the one living inside of me."
He nodded, accidentally touching her shoulder with his wrists and apologizing right after. He knew better than to try to cross her when she was already crossed. The Doctor didn't know if the guilt was coming from her heart or his or theirs. "Clara," there was a long pause after her name, "I'm sorry."
"Why?!" she snapped, soft and yet harshly, "It's not your sins to apologize for, Doctor. You're not supposed to try to ease me from them."
"I'm sorry, still," he uttered, watching as his words faded right into the thin air, "Your father will come around sooner or later, Clara."
Clara forced a laugh, ironically, "I doubt that. He's a very stubborn man."
"Two birds of a feather," he spoke in clichés, not at all surprised when she shot him a glare. He straightened up, "He's still your father, he can't cut you out of his life forever."
Clara took a step closer to him, just so the umbrella he was still holding would protect both of them, rather than just her. "He gave me an ultimatum, Doctor. How can I crawl back into his life if he forced me to choose between what's essential to me? How can he expect me to respect him when he disrespects me at every chance he gets?"
He seemed to think for a while, considering the vocables carefully that were still to be formed. "You can't, not if you're still holding a grudge, not if you close your eyes not to see his attempts to do what he thinks is best for you, even if you know it's not."
Clara felt her eyeballs watering up again, chills running through her body when the Doctor dared to place the tip of his finger on the sculptured vertebras of her spine. "Forgiving is easier said than done. How can I forgive the man who walked out on me despite of all our blood ties? I feel let down by the one person who should never betray me, by my own father…!"
He nodded, understanding; empathetically. "If you have no intention of forgiving him, then what are we doing here?" he queried, watching as she shivered from his breath at the back of her neck, "Perhaps, unconsciously, you've already forgiven him."
Clara swallowed hard, "That's debatable."
The Doctor exhaled silently, feeling her slightly trembling underneath his touch. "Come on, Clara, let's get back inside before you get a cold."
She shook her head, unwilling to move. "I'm fine."
"I know you are," he objected, "And I'd like to refrain you from not being fine if you stay here all wet and cold any longer."
She sniffed, but its sound was hidden by the pouring rain. "You, too, are standing next to me, cold and wet, and yet you don't seem to mind the possibility of catching a cold yourself," she argued, "And don't you start on your Time Lord body superiority."
"The chances of me getting a flu are equivalent to yours," he agreed, "Although I haven't just gotten a new heart, neither am I taking meds to lower my immune system so my body will stop attacking the new piece of muscle inside of me that just happen to be keeping me alive. You know what, forget what I just said. You have infinitely more chances of going down with the flu rather than me."
He watched a tired puff of air escaping the gap between the corners of her lips, accompanied by her refusal to even flinch. Therefore, he added, "Did I also mention I'm really scared of ghosts? Because, for the record, I am."
Clara ran her tongue against her teeth. "You go ahead, I'll meet you in a few," she pleaded, requiring another moment alone with her mother. "And leave the umbrella, if you mind."
He grunted, placing the cane in the palm of her hands. "Don't take too long or the TARDIS will grow impatient. She doesn't like graveyards, either."
She smoothly smiled as she was left alone. She could swear she heard in the wind the voices of the dead people planting seeds on her mind, "The Doctor is right," she repeated out loud the words printed into her brain before frowning, "Right about what?"
Clara whistled, taking two steps back. Everything, they would say; he was right about everything.