It was the morning of Paul's first day back to school since their holiday. Only a few weeks, and he'd be off again for Christmas. The Doctor put the frozen blueberry waffles into the toaster as he heard Paul's feet stomping towards the kitchen. As much as Paul enjoyed spending a whole week with his dad (the Doctor may or may not have used the time machine to go back and request the week off), he was excited to get back to school and see Miss Clara.

His father helped him come to an understanding of sorts. He explained that "mummy" would need some time and space to sort things out. Of course, the Doctor knew full well that time and space were infinite, so he wasn't lying if Clara never actually did "sort things out." Regardless, Paul was satisfied with the notion and like before, just knowing that Clara loved him was enough.

But when Paul came home from school that day, he was unusually…grumpy.

"Everything alright?" asked the Doctor as he sat a small plate of macaroni in front of Paul.

"No," he growled. He then pushed his dish out of the way so fast that it flew off the table and shattered on the floor.

"Paul? What was that for? What's wrong?"

The Doctor wondered what could possibly have set his son off. He then noticed his tiny lip quivering and quickly brought him in for a hug as the boy began to sob.

"Hey, hey. Shhh. It's okay. Shhh."

The Doctor now knew that whatever was the cause of the boy's pain most likely involved a petite brunette with his mum's face.

Paul finally calmed to a sniffle.

"Paul?" The Doctor looked into his son's face. "What happened?"

"Miss Clara." He sobbed. "She… she's not my teacher anymore." He continued to cry as the Doctor brought him into another hug

.

"What do you mean?"

"She wasn't at school today. The headteacher had to do lessons with us today. And he's so boring!" wailed the little boy.

The Doctor smiled a bit. "Well, Paul, she must have just been feeling ill from…." He didn't want to give Paul another reason to be upset, so he decided not to mention the baby. "She must just have a cold or something. I'm sure she'll be back as soon as she's better." Paul calmed down at the words of his father.

It had been two weeks since Paul's breakdown, and Clara apparently still had not returned to the classroom. Paul was handling it well, still thinking Miss Oswald had a cold. He didn't really have any concept of how long someone would typically be away from work due to some sniffles. Plus, being 6 years old, the days and weeks sort of blended together. He was a bit grumpy, but simply because he missed her. The Doctor, on the other hand, was worrying.

He'd gotten an email from the school two days after the children returned from holiday saying that Miss Oswald had been in an automobile accident and would be out of the classroom until further notice. The problem was that the Doctor was only just now reading it, nearly four weeks after the incident. He knew he needed to check the school email more often, but it was always information that he didn't think was all that important. So, he'd stopped checking it. And then he just simply forgot about it.

It wasn't until the fourth week with no Clara that he decided maybe the school sent out an email about what was going on. Sure enough, the inbox was full. He opened the following email with another update on her condition, but it was extremely vague because of medical confidentiality.

It basically stated that she had come home from the hospital but would not be returning to her teaching position for the remainder of the year and that the school was doing their best to find a replacement.

The Doctor read the email over and over. As if the more he read the words, the more knowledge he could gain as to what had actually happened to her. He couldn't help feeling guilty, realising that the car accident occurred the same day as when he and his son had both had a bit of a "meltdown" at the grocers.

Of course, he knew the incident was not the cause of the accident yet, the feeling remained. He then wondered what the extent of Clara's injuries were. Bad enough to have been in the hospital for over two weeks. And what about the baby? He didn't even want to think about Clara having to suffer the loss of a child. As much as it pained him, he knew that his Clara would die over and over and over again if it meant Paul would be the one to live.

And once again, Clara was gone. Technically, she was in the same city but still. She wouldn't be in his life anymore. Or Paul's life, he thought sadly. It wasn't like they were even friends. She was just his son's teacher. He couldn't exactly look up her files and find out what hospital she stayed in and track down her address and show up at her door. Well, he could do that. But he didn't think he should.

But, what if he could help her?

"Gahh! Stop!" he slapped his face. "I can't get involved. She's not the same woman! But she is! NO! She's not!" The Doctor was now pacing around the TARDIS console. Paul was fast asleep in bed, so the Doctor took the opportunity to do some "soul searching". It just may have been a different soul than his own. A soul that happened to inhabit three different women. Maybe even more.

The Doctor rubbed his face in exhaustion. It had already been a long day at the hospital. A woman had been induced because the amniotic fluid was dangerously low. The baby was just a few days shy of its due date anyway. The problem was she hadn't been progressing even with the Pitocin. After a gruelling 24 hours of labour and no progress, the Doctor had to spend another hour convincing the woman to have a c-section.

The issue was that the woman was headstrong about having a natural birth. She hadn't even wanted to be induced in the first place. It wasn't until the baby started showing signs of distress that the woman readily agreed to the procedure. And less than an hour later, she was holding her beautiful and healthy daughter.

Between shifts and while Paul slept, the Doctor had been spending every hour in the TARDIS trying to divine the meaning of Oswin, who saved his life then died, and Clara, the woman who loved him and gave him a son, then died. And now, Miss Oswald. The woman who…what? Was his son's teacher and almost died? He still had no idea how life-threatening the car accident was. For all he knew, she'd just shattered her leg or something.

...

Paul only had a week left until the end of term, which meant only a few days until he was off school for Christmas holiday. And Christmas always meant babies. Lots of babies. Babies born at the most inconvenient times during the worst possible weather. He'd learned to pack extra clothes and a toothbrush because he'd be sleeping in his office during an inevitable snowstorm.

Of course, the Doctor could always take the TARDIS to work, but it would be suspicious how he could get to and from work so easily while no one else could. Paul knew that Christmas holiday meant spending a lot of time with Alfie and Emily. The problem was that Paul was now privy to the information that Clara would NOT be coming back to teach. He had a tantrum at school that was so bad they asked the Doctor to actually come to pick him up.

After lots of screaming and tears, Paul finally fell asleep from exhaustion. He was mad at his father for "lying" to him about it just being a cold. The Doctor argued that he just assumed it was a cold and therefore wasn't lying. This further led to Paul spiralling, not grasping the concept of what an assumption was.

After thirty minutes of arguing and Paul accusing the Doctor of being a "terrible explainer", the Doctor just walked away from the boy. He went into the kitchen, pulled out all the ice cream from the icebox, turned on Paul's favourite programme and then shut himself in his own bedroom until he could tell his bribes worked.

When the Doctor emerged from his room, he found Paul asleep on the sofa with ice cream melted everywhere. He wiped the boy's sticky hands and face then laid him in bed.

"One of these nights, I'll actually get you to sleep in pyjamas," said the Doctor softly. He kissed the boys head then retreated to the TARDIS. The Doctor felt distraught over Clara. And if he was feeling distraught about it all, no wonder Paul wasn't coping well. He was just a little boy.

The Doctor felt the 'on-call' mobile buzzing in the pocket of his trousers.

"So it begins."

Each obstetrician took a week out of the month to be "on-call" for overnight emergencies if there was a complication that the nurse practitioner/midwife or the doctor on shift could not attend to.

The Doctor answered the phone. "Dr Smith", he said, waiting to hear what was going on. Typically, it wasn't ever anything too serious. But, occasionally, it would be serious enough to require an emergency c-section.

"Hey, John. It's Nate. Uh, I've got a lady here that says she needs to see you."

"Is she alright? What's the patient's name? What's going on?"

"Um, well, I'm… I'm not really sure. She says she isn't a patient here. But, Doc, she… she's pretty upset."

"What's her name?" The Doctor had already left the TARDIS as soon as the mobile had wrung. He also already sent a text for either Sophie or Craig to come and sleep on the sofa since Paul was already in bed. They understood that when he was on-call, they were "on-call" too. Craig had already arrived and made himself comfortable while the Doctor spoke to Dr Andrews over the phone. By the time the Doctor had asked for the woman's name, he was already driving to the hospital. He could hear the other man talking to the woman.

"Ma'am, what's your name?" He then spoke into the phone. "She says her name is Clara. Clara Oswald."

The Doctor was now running through the hospital to get to the birthing unit. He ran up to the front desk, where Dr Andrews was speaking with a nurse.

"Where is she?" he asked, out of breath.

"She's waiting in your office." Both Dr Andrews and the nurse gave him a strange look, but he just walked past them and entered the familiar room.

The first thing he saw was the back of her head. She was already sitting down. The Doctor walked over to his desk to face her and realised she was sitting in a wheelchair. Her hands were neatly folded in her lap, and her head was down.

"Clara?" he questioned softly.

She looked up at him with a bit of confusion, and he realised that he probably should have said 'Miss Oswald' because they'd not been on the level of addressing each other in such an informal way.

"I'm sorry…Miss Oswald, um, what…what can I do for you?"

He could see her eyes were red, indicating that she'd been crying. Clara took a deep breath and then spoke.

"I lost the baby."

The Doctor had already suspected that may be the case seeing as she would have at least had a slight bump by now. That and the fact she was in a wheelchair. Clara was wearing a skirt allowing him to see her calf muscles were already in atrophy from non-use. She looked gaunt. He cleared his throat and tried to not show too much emotion, but his eyes were already shining from tears, and his voice broke as he spoke.

"I'm… I'm so sorry to hear that. I heard you had been in an accident, but the details were vague. I…I had no idea."

It was one thing to see Clara after she'd been dead for nearly three hours, having bled out. The image still haunted him. But seeing her looking...worse? Not only worse, but she was alive, so she felt as bad as she looked, having lost her child and her ability to walk. Seeing her in a living hell was unbearable. And he didn't even have the type of relationship with her where he could comfort her.

"It's alright. I wouldn't expect you to know what happened." She then looked like she wanted to say something but was unsure how.

"Well, I don't suppose you've dropped in to just say hello," he said with a sympathetic smile. "What can I do for you?"

"They said I may not be able to have children anymore," she blurted out. But, once she said the initial statement, she felt safe to continue. "And I was wondering if you could…make sure. See if I can still have children. I'm… I'm paralysed now. Spinal cord injury."

He nodded in understanding.

"Well, the good news is that spinal cord injury doesn't automatically mean you can't safely conceive and carry to term a healthy baby. But there are risks. Just like with any pregnancy." He added softly. It took every ounce of will to sound as detached and professional as possible. "If you'd like me to um, examine you, I certainly can. We can set up an appointment during the clinic hours and…."

"Now." She cut him off.

"What?"

"I…I need you to do it now…because….I…I don't have a car, and it took me forever to get here on my own, and I don't know when I can get out again with the weather and…." She started to break down.

The Doctor's immediate reaction was to jump over the desk and bring her into a hug, but he settled for coming around said desk like a normal person would and simply put his hand on her shoulder. However, he didn't know if even that was appropriate. Now thinking about it, if this was just another patient, he wouldn't have left his seat. But this wasn't just another patient. This was Clara.

She put her hand on his suggesting she was grateful for the comfort. He knelt down next to her chair so he was at eye level.

"Clara? What about your boyfriend? Or…or family? Isn't there anyone who can help you?"

He could see fresh tears rolling over her cheeks, but she managed to control her breath and spoke with only a slight shake in the timbre.

"He left me," she said in an artificially unbothered tone. Trying to mask her hurt.

"What? Why?" He hadn't meant to ask her such a personal question, but it just came out. He quickly estimated that she'd been in the hospital since the first of November and returned home on the fourteenth. And given it was mid-December… it's been all of six weeks since losing her baby, becoming paralysed and now dumped, apparently.

Clara didn't seem to take offence to the question. In fact, she seemed relieved. Like she hadn't anyone to talk to. So much so that she'd be able to share such personal information with essentially a stranger.

"He said it was too painful to be with me. Whenever he looked at me, it reminded him of the loss and made him feel guilty. He…he said he left because he loved me." She sniffled while a few more tears escaped. "He kept apologising, and I said that there was nothing to even be forgiven. It was an accident. And then…he…he said he wanted me to hate him. Said that's what he deserved."

The Doctor knew she could see the silent tears he tried to wipe away, but again, she didn't seem put off. He felt like everything Clara had said about Danny was what he had felt towards her when he'd first seen her on parents' day. Her face was a reminder of the pain and guilt he carried. He'd even tried to get her to hate him too! Well, not hate per se. But he attempted to push her away to the point of almost bringing her to tears.

He initially wanted to throttle Danny for being selfish and abandoning her, but he couldn't because he probably would have done the same thing. And he hated himself for it.

He cleared his throat and spoke, "What about your dad?" He knew her mum had passed because he heard her say it when comforting Paul. He hoped that asking about her father wasn't a mistake.

"Actually, I'm living with him, but he didn't know about the pregnancy. I didn't want him to know I was coming here, which is why I waited until so late. I had to move in with him because it was Danny's flat and I…I can't…" she broke down again. "I can't take care of myself and need a lot of help to do things. And it's humiliating because my dad has to be the one to help me wash." She huffed a humourless laugh, "I mean, he's married to Linda, but I'd rather my own father help me into the shower than her!"

The Doctor couldn't take it anymore. He abruptly stood up and began pacing the room, a million thoughts swirling in his head. He could do it. But the real question was not could he? It was, should he?

"I'm sorry. I've upset you. I shouldn't have come," she said, beginning to move the wheelchair.

"Clara, wait!"

The Doctor then knelt in front of her and put his hands on her knees.

He spoke softly. "Clara, do you trust me?"

She looked into his eyes, and for merely a second, he saw it again. That glimmer of recognition. It was then he knew in his hearts the answer to his question. Yes. Yes, he should.

"Yes," she whispered. Clara didn't understand why she trusted this peculiar man with an even more peculiar fashion sense. Not to mention the emotional baggage, but she did. And not really knowing why she closed her eyes and waited.

The Doctor had a moment of hesitation. He can't do this to a patient!

'But… she's not actually a patient,' he thought.

She never went through intake or signed any forms or anything. So there wouldn't be any records of her visit. And as far as the results, well, they could figure something out.

"Clara, what is the extent of your paralysis?" He wished they were in the TARDIS. There he could do a quick scan to assess the damage. But, given what he could see with his own ancient eyes, he could also easily guess what kind of spinal cord injury she sustained.

"I have no feeling or mobility from the waist down."

"Okay, thought that might be."

He hadn't moved his hands from her knees. Nervous about what he was going to have to do. Clara still had her eyes pinched shut.

"I'm going to have you get out of the chair and have you lay on your stomach. Is that okay?"

She just nodded her head. The Doctor gently took hold of her waist as she put her arms around him. He almost fell back but caught himself as he pushed the wheelchair out of the way to create more space on the floor. He then helped her get into position.

'Dammit," he thought.

Clara wasn't wearing a skirt like he thought. It was a dress. The Doctor assumed he'd just have to lift her shirt up a bit to access her skin. For Clara, he was simply a doctor who saw women's bodies all the time, so it hopefully wasn't too awkward. But for him, this wasn't just like doing an exam on a woman who was simply a patient. He'd made love to Clara countless times before Paul was born. Right up until her water broke. Actually, they were doing it when her water broke. Clara initiated it because she read it could start labour. The Doctor had happily obliged.

But this wasn't the same Clara. He just had to focus on the task at hand and not think about how he would have to lift up her dress so he could touch her lower back.

"Clara, I need to be able to touch your…um, skin, where the injury is located, so…I…."

"It's okay," she responded, voice muffled into the floor.

He slowly lifted her dress and discovered the slower he went, the more sensual it felt, so he just lifted her dress up quickly. His hearts broke when he could see just how thin she actually was. He could clearly see her ribs and spine. She was also wearing an adult nappy. This shouldn't have been a surprise as she was paralysed, but it further proved her hurt and humiliation as her father had to assist her. He placed his hands on her spine and focused on the injuries. The golden light began to form around his hands and onto the exact places of her injured spine.

He'd healed River's wrist fracture without issue. But an entire lumber spinal cord energy was another animal. He could feel himself getting lightheaded while his own muscles began to feel like jelly. Soon, the golden light began to fade, indicating that he was done. But before he could let Clara know he'd finished, the Doctor passed out right on top of her.