It's a good thing my family already thinks I'm crazy, since I was listening to super sad instrumental music while typing this on my typewriter and drinking a margarita. wow... my life...
~Little Girl Lost~
Time stretches on for an eternity. Sitting on the freezing tile floor, Clara cannot feel anything. John is gone and Clara is numb to everything around her. She breathes in and out slowly waiting for him to smile and tell her the last two days were nothing more than a bad dream. And Clara knows he won't. John is a dead, a lifeless weight in her arms.
The world around her moves quickly as if it is trying to make up the difference. The King comes to life. The shock of seeing Lavender lying on the ground and the woman he believed was his daughter trapped in a silent world of grief breaks Viola's power over him. He cries for the guards to seize her. The Queen is too surprised to react in time to stop the men from grabbing her. The King orders them to bind her arms and gag her mouth to prevent her from using her powers.
"I do not even know you. I do not even know you." He keeps muttering, his expression slack-jawed and bewildered.
No one seems to know what to do or what to think as the Royal Family crumbles before their eyes. They stand watching as though it were a film happening in slow motion, impossible to ignore and yet completely detached from their lives.
Clara notices none of this until she realizes someone is speaking to her. Amy is kneeling beside her with silent tears dripping down her cheeks. At some point her friends had arrived and were surrounding Clara. Ten, Rory, and Donna are trying to move John's body but Clara will not let go. She can't. If she lets go then it is over, then he is really gone.
"You have to let him go, Clara." Vastra says, gently uncurling her fingers from John's tunic. "Please, Sweetheart."
Letting out a soft, anguished sob Clara lets them lift John from her arms. She collapses into Amy's waiting embrace and buries her face in her friends shoulder.
Can you really die of a broken heart? Poets talk about soulmates but what if you lose that soulmate? How does your soul survive when it is only half whole? How do you survive the drowning pain in your chest, the empty hole of the future you have been denied?
Maybe you can't. Maybe from that moment on you are just a ghost. A shade flitting from day to day until you find them again.
It is too much for Clara to bear so she lets the waiting numbness take hold of her. Yet no matter how much she wants to, she can't stop feeling. Even as her limbs begin to shake with the effects of shock, the physical pain in her breast is all consuming. It is like she is lost in a forest in her own mind. It is simply too much to feel at once.
Her friends help Clara to her feet and guide her from the room. She follows blindly. All she can see is John's battered face as they carried him away from her. He looked peaceful. She can feel his touch, his lips on her body. Clara can still hear his carefree laugh.
The funeral is two days later. It is a surprisingly grand affair with the Kingdom in such a state of upheaval. The Queen has been dethroned and imprisoned. The King cannot remember much of what happened in the last 25 years. One princess is in a medically unexplainable coma and the other is assumed dead at her sister's hands. It is chaos.
Sir John Smith is exhumously pardoned of all charges and deemed a hero. While Prince Harold Saxon's body is unceremoniously returned to his Kingdom in disgrace. The story is out now and everyone knows what really happened or at least most of it. Rumor fills in the gaps as the news spreads throughout both Kingdoms. No one seems to know who told however.
None of this matters to Clara when it is reported to her each night where she sits in Rose's chambers. Going back to Oswin's room was never an option so Rose graciously let her stay, giving her the soft sofa in the corner. There Clara sits and watches the fire in the hearth. She doesn't know what else to do. She can't sleep, she can't eat. And her friends leave her be, knowing Clara needs to grieve.
Someday she might be able to smile again, but not today.
Clara is dressed in glittering black when she stands at the front of the mourning party. She is being given the honor of John's widow, wither it is true or not. It feels true.
The service is held in the beautiful black wisteria grove behind the castle. It is strange to be outside after so long. The winter sun makes Clara deathly pale as she gazes over Violet City below them. Finally Clara gets the courage to look at the coffin in the center of the grove.
It is fashioned of fine dark wood carved with symbols to preserve the body inside and prevent decay. The lid is a dome of clear crystal displaying John just as he was in life. Clara smiles through her tears. The same minster who said her wedding vows gives the eulogy. It is a strange sort of irony. John would have laughed.
The words are beautiful, about honor and sacrifice, but they do not say anything important. They don't talk about his crooked smile or the silly way he waved his hands when he spoke. They don't talk about his kindness or how much he loved her. They don't talk about how much Clara loved him, how much she misses him. The words are not enough.
When he finishes Clara stands on trembling legs and walks forward to the edge of the coffin.
Please just wake up. Please, for me?
She places a single rose of the glass and leans down to kiss the cool surface.
"Thank you."
The lilac sun is setting below the distant hills. Golden streaks of light cross the clear, cold, twilight sky. Clara stands by herself watching it all. It seems as if the sun itself has also come to pay respects to the Gray Knight that day. A crunching of leafs alerts Clara that she is no longer alone, but she doesn't turn until the person speaks.
"What a lovely sunset." Says the King without looking at her.
Clara doesn't respond, waiting for him to say what he wants.
The man understands. "You could stay." He says softly. "The people love you, and I do not know the last time they loved anyone at all. You could stay." He repeats it like a plea.
Clara watches the sun disappear behind the hills.
Umm... review?