Writer's Notes: I won't say much but this is a pretty personal piece of writing. I honestly don't know if it's any good or not but it's what I've been working on for the last few days and it means quite a lot to me for personal reasons I won't go into but I'm sure you can guess. I hope you get something from it too.
This story is an entry in the every day heroics category of the Quarantine Writing Challenge. To vote for this story and find out more about the contest, please go to u/13340821/Quarantine-Writing-Challenge during the voting period from May 4-11. Thank you!
Clara shrieked as she fell off the bike for the ninth time. She heard her dad laugh good-naturedly and scowled. He offered her his hand and the little girl reluctantly took it, getting to her feet and brushing herself down. "I'm never going to get this!" She complained. "Sure you are," her dad smiled warmly. "It just takes time..."
It was a sunny day. Clara had expected rain, or at least drizzle. Bright, hot sun just didn't seem like the right fit for a funeral. She watched her dad get up and stand at the front. He looked so much paler than she'd ever seen him. He started to speak then immediately stopped. He looked down. Clara's heart broke a little more. His eyes met hers and he cleared his throat.
"Words can never do justice to what an amazing woman Ellie Oswald was. She was a daughter I know her parents were so proud of. She was a friend to so many. She was a woman I felt privileged to be able to call my wife. And she was the best mother our little girl ever could have had. She wouldn't want us to mourn. She'd want us to smile, and celebrate all the happy memories she gave us. And we'll try. For her. But I think we all know that the world is a darker place without her in it. And she leaves a hole of all of our hearts that nothing will ever fill."
Clara knew her dad tried his best. Clara tried to look strong - she really did. She tried to smile for him when he couldn't. Sometimes she tried to encourage him to put the glass down and go to bed. "I need it," he'd told her once as she tried to prise it out of his hand. She'd never been able to look at him the same way.
Linda had been their neighbour for years. Clara never warmed to the overly-controlling woman. But it was Linda who did what Clara couldn't. "Dave, you're killing yourself," she told him as she dragged the glass out of his hand. Clara could never have done that to her own dad. They never married but her dad and Linda were together soon after. Despite how much she resented her, Clara had to be grateful for Linda in one way though: she was the reason Clara felt she could finally leave.
She packed her bags and waved goodbye to her home, her childhood, her dad. One stop at her friends then she'd be out in the world. She'd finally find out how to be herself again...
The TARDIS hummed comfortingly in the background as Clara sat on the steps in the console room, smiling to herself. The Doctor was somewhere under the console, tinkering with something he claimed was very important. Her smile faded as one of the first things he'd ever said to her flew into her mind: "you don't run out on the people you care about." Nobody except the person she cared about the most, she thought to herself with a sigh. If only the Doctor knew...
She wasn't going to give this up though. She wasn't going back. She finally felt alive with her silly, ridiculous, kind Doctor. She couldn't face going back to being David Oswald's daughter. The emotions about her father weren't always there, she was numb to it by now most of the time. But every now and then it hit her like a wave.
"Doctor," she said quietly, half-hoping he didn't hear her. "Eh?" The man's head popped out from under the stairs, thick goggles over his eyes. Clara hesitated. "Thank you," she smiled. "For what?" He called up to her, his attention clearly already drifting back to the wires he was pulling out down there. "Taking me with you. When I'm you I feel... like I'm finally where I'm supposed to be, being who I'm supposed to be."
The Doctor answered her with silence and Clara assumed he hadn't heard her. Then suddenly he appeared, pulling the goggles down to around his neck. He stood, looking at her like he'd never seen her before and for a moment, she thought he was going to get out his sonic screwdriver and start scanning her. Then finally he smiled and sat down next to her, putting his arm around her shoulders. "That's because you are," he told her gently but firmly.
Then, just as quickly as he'd sat down, he was back on his feet leaping around the console, pulling levers and clapping his hands together as he laughed manically. Clara smiled, getting to her feet to join him. "Where we going then?" She asked. "Here, there," he shrugged, "everywhere." She laughed slightly. He always cheered her up when nobody else could. "Geronimo," he winked as he pulled down the final lever and the TARDIS roared into life.
Clara dragged herself to her feet, switching off the tv she was only half-watching anyway and abandoning the dreadful ready meal she'd been trying to cook as she heard a knock on her door. She didn't know who would want her attention on a Monday evening at 8pm but she felt she should probably at least check. Her eyes widened with surprise when she found her dad waiting there with a pizza box in his hand.
"Dad..." she stared at him. "Can I come in?" He asked with a slight smile, that made Clara flashback to the way he used to smile when she was little. "Of course," she said on instinct, stepping back to let him in. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about your boyfriend," he put his arm around her protectively, "I could tell he meant a lot to you. Even if he was... Swedish."
She remembered that last look she got of her Doctor's youthful grinning face before it was consumed with that burning orange light. Before he was replaced with the grey-haired skeletal Doctor who'd gone to get her coffee in Glasgow and never come back. She was sure he'd show up again before too long but it had been hell trying to get back home.
"I brought pizza," her dad said hopefully, "thought you might want some company? We could stick on that film you like..." he paused, swallowing, "or I could just leave it with you if you'd rather be alone, that's okay too..." She took his hand and smiled: "I'd love some company right now."
Clara couldn't remember the last time she'd been on the sofa, snuggled up to her dad, drifting off, as Robin Hood played on the tv. But she was never going to forget this time.
Clara heard her phone ding in her pocket as a stray laser bolt struck the wall behind her. She had to focus all her attention right now on escaping the Sontarons currently chasing her down corridors. The Doctor had promised he'd meet her by the TARDIS and right now she was thinking he had better be there waiting for her or there'd be trouble.
Luckily the TARDIS was still in the hangar where she expected it to be. She darted through the blue doors. "There you are Clara!" A familiar Scottish accent sounded from by the console, "was beginning to think you'd got lost."
"TAKE OFF!" Clara shouted at him, expecting Sontaron soldiers to burst through the doors at any moment. The Doctor raised an impressive eyebrow but did as he was told. Clara breathed a sigh of relief as the TARDIS started to rattle and shake like it always did. "Thank you," she said, much calmer. The Doctor grumbled something in response she ignored.
She dug her phone out of her pocket at last. She expected to see an email from her dad or something of the like. If it was another picture of a cat in a tree saying hang in there then Clara might have to block him. It wasn't an email though. It was a missed call.
Clara hit the button to call back. A female voice answered. "Miss Oswald, I'm so sorry. We've been trying to reach you for a while. It's about your father..."
At least for this funeral it had the decency to rain. The Doctor hovered at the back uncomfortably. Clara stood at the front, just like her dad had years ago for her mother. Clara tried to focus on his face for strength but found that just made her want to cry more. He was trying to hide it, but concern was written all over the old man's face. Clara adjusted her gaze and cleared her throat.
"I loved my dad so much and I didn't tell him that enough. He taught me everything that ever mattered. He listened when nobody else wanted to. And no matter how much I let him down, he always loved me. I was never very good at being his daughter. I wasn't there when he needed me. I wasn't grateful when I should have been. And I never thought about how much I'd miss him once he was gone."
"He was the sweetest, kindest man I ever knew. And if life was in any way fair then he would have got everything he ever wanted. He deserved so much better. And if I could drag him back here then I would..."
She risked glancing at the Doctor now. He wouldn't meet her eye but he was hanging onto every word. "But I know from experience that's not how it works," Clara risked a slight smile as she said that.
"Even during what I can only describe as the worst of times, I could look into his eyes and there was always a part of him there holding on, no matter what life threw at him. When I needed him the most, the man who taught me to ride a bike, and emailed me pages of instructions on how to cook a turkey every Christmas after I moved out, and told me the rules of golf so often they're engraved in my memory forever even though I begged him not to, and who watched Robin Hood with me at least a hundred times, and who on the day my mum died was the man who hugged me tight and told me everything was going to be alright... That man was always there when I needed him the most. And a part of him will still be here, because I'm not just Clara. I'm Clara Oswald. And everything I am came from two people who met because of a leaf and decided to make the world a little brighter for each other: Dave and Ellie Oswald."
Clara's voice was cracking by the time she finished but she made it to the end without breaking down. She didn't sit back down again though. She walked straight to the back and flung her arms around the Doctor. She waited for him to tell her he wasn't a hugger but he didn't. Instead she felt his arms wrap around her and hug her back even tighter. She smiled, feeling tears rush down her cheeks.
Her dad was gone and he was never coming back. Time was never going to fix that. Clara didn't have many heroes but she was going to make sure she never forgot any of them. No matter how much it hurt, she would keep the memory of her dad with her for the rest of her days. And one day, somehow, she would make him proud.