The Doctor moved up the stairs slowly, hand sliding along the metal railing with a frown because he enjoyed parking the Tardis down on the field below just to watch Clara flutter down those stairs through the window at his side to greet him. Now, he imagined, she'd take the elevator. At least for a while. He smiled at the thought that she'd soon give him an amused pout as she raced him down those steps. Just as soon as she got used to the prosthetic she was going to require.
And he had no doubts she would win with little effort.
He walked down the hall with a nod to a neighbor who asked how Clara was. "She's doing better every day, Mrs. Murphy," he told the old woman with another little nod before fishing the key to their door out of his pocket and going to the flat at the end of the hall to slip the key in with a small inhale.
Pushing the door open, he stepped inside, and then leaned on the door behind him, hesitant for a moment to enter further because he knew what he would find. She'd just received a package the day before the accident, something she'd ordered special as soon as they'd gotten home from the scans holding the tiny slips of paper on which they could clearly see the outline of their baby's head and chest, arms and legs curled together in the space in front of her.
"She's a dancer," she'd told him as they watched her move about. He could still hear the laugh she'd released, so filled with adoration it burned at him now, opening his eyes to walk towards their bedroom where the diaper bag still sat at the edge of the bed.
"Clara, she's beautiful."
He reached for it, lifting the lilac and cream bag into his hands and smiling down at it – at the pastel pink and yellow flowers sewn onto it – and then he glanced around before finding the discarded box to press it inside. The Doctor took a long breath, searching out the pack of onesies that had 'mummy's cupcake' and 'daddy's girl' embroidered on the fronts and he placed it in the box. He spent the better part of two hours finding every knick knack he could that she'd already had stashed.
A pack of tiny socks, a set of bibs, brochures from the baby stores so she could decide on her registry for a baby shower. He pulled off his coat and dropped it onto the bed and he clenched his jaw, preparing himself for the small bedroom across the hall. They'd painted it a pale yellow and against the left wall she'd begun a mural of flowers and butterflies and he scratched at the back of his head, glancing around before finding the plastic rolled up in the closet and shifting it over to that wall.
Unsealing the bucket of yellow paint, he found a roller and began to paint over the petals and wings and when he finished he moved to open a window to let the scent of fresh paint out. He knew he had to go through their room again, he had to search through the living room and through the kitchen for anything out of the ordinary, but the Doctor remained glued to the window, palms pressed painfully into the ledge there as the wind blew in at him, tussling his hair about.
"You aren't mad I want to stay on Earth, are you, Doctor?"
"No, Clara, I understand – we'll still travel, but the baby is safer here."
He laughed darkly at the irony, turning to look the room over. There was a box in a corner, first piece of furniture, Clara had proudly proclaimed when they'd placed it there and now he had to figure out how to return the cubicle set and the pastel colored cloth boxes she'd picked up that were leaning against it. He had to figure out what to do with all of it and he dropped his head between his shoulders, pushing off the edge of the window while still clinging to it several times before he felt the rage building inside of him burst in a scream he turned to direct at the room.
He could still remember the look on her face when she'd told him. The apprehension she'd felt because he'd told her it wasn't impossible for their biology's to mix, but it was highly improbably. She'd continued to use her birth control anyways and so pregnancy had been the last thing on her mind when they'd arrived on a planet keen on health and fitness. They'd changed into matching purple jogging suits and had taken off in a race against one another around an orange track and she'd fainted.
When she stepped out from behind the curtained off area in the emergency room, an area he wasn't allowed to enter, she wore a worried smile on her face as she held a hand to her stomach and lead him towards a set of chairs and for a moment, he was terrified it was something serious. Some physical ailment she'd yet to be diagnosed with on Earth because of the limited technology, so her words had come as a shock. She'd taken his hands in hers just as they sat and she'd released a small laugh at the ground, raising her large eyes to find his worried ones.
"Clara, what's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, really… I'm pregnant."
He was sure he'd misheard her. He had to have, he'd convinced himself at the time, turning to look at the ground before shaking his head and looking back up at her to see the way she'd swallowed roughly, jaw clenching. Worried it wasn't something he wanted. And he'd easily stood, swooping her up into his arms to twirl her around and he'd settle her back down with a long kiss as he felt the tickle of excitement in his abdomen as her body pressed itself flush against his.
"A baby," he'd sighed.
And she'd nodded, laughing through happy tears, repeating, "A baby."
Now he let his back hit the wall just beside the window and he slid down slowly until he was seated, turning only when he saw Dave step into the room with a frown. The man looked over the freshly painted wall and he nodded slowly, telling the Doctor, "She's resting; thought I'd come help."
"She shouldn't be alone, Dave," the Doctor murmured, throat constricting against his sadness.
With a slow nod, Dave gestured at him and allowed, "Neither should you."
The Doctor chuckled, letting his head fall back against the wall behind him and he watched as Dave stood at the center of the room, eyes roaming over everything he'd seen and he could see the new sheen to the other man's eyes as they came back to meet his. "She was so excited," he laughed, walking slowly to the wall at the other side of the window to turn and sit just two feet from the Doctor. "Clara's always wanted children. I suppose I always imagined she'd have her own army of them."
Laughing, the Doctor shifted to look at him and he nodded, "Did she tell you her name?"
Dave shook his head, bringing his knees up to plant his elbows against, "No, no, I didn't know she'd chosen one, she'd just – you'd both just found out it was a girl, I suppose. She hadn't told me yet."
The Doctor reached into a pocket in the inner lining of his waistcoat and he plucked a scan out, handing it to Dave, who laughed through tears at the black and white image. "That's her," he sighed, instantly hearing Clara's excited chatter in his mind as they'd walked back into the Tardis they'd parked in UNIT. "Look at her, Doctor," she'd finally sighed, falling into silence on the console.
Dave's finger traced over the head and tapped at the baby girl's chest, "Was she…" he began before chuckling, "One heart? Or two?"
The Doctor's lips crushed together as he admitted, "Two," and then laughed. With a smile, the Doctor bowed his head, continuing, "Clara was supposed to tell me her name, the day of the crash." Raising his hand slightly and then dropping it back, he breathed, "Is it wrong that I don't want her to remember?" He looked to Dave to elaborate, "She's got so much fire in her, so much life, and this is draining her – I can see it, even as much as she's trying to hide it, I can see how much she's hurting. Not remembering her mum, not remembering her life, the physical pain… if she remembers… I'm afraid it'll all be too much." Frowning at his legs, he finished, "Is it wrong, Dave, that I don't want her to remember her own daughter?"
The man considered him, watching the new tears roll out from his eyes, bright green against all of the red surrounding them, and he shook his head, "No, Doctor, it's not wrong to want to keep Clara from feeling the pain of that loss because we both know it'll kill her inside to know."
He breathed in roughly, bringing his head up to stare across the room with a nod.
"How are you?" Dave asked quietly, looking over the room again as the Doctor turned to look at him, "All this time I've been thinking about Clara and what Clara's been through – I hadn't stopped to think really. I mean," he gestured at him, "I knew, but I hadn't let myself…" he met his gaze and explained, "She was your daughter; Clara is your wife – you almost lost them both."
"How were you?" The Doctor questioned, "After Ellie. How did you carry on for Clara?"
He laughed, "Ah, Clara carried on for me."
"Ah," the Doctor laughed lightly, "Isn't that what she does."
Dave shrugged and then sighed and he allowed, "We kept on laughing." He smiled when the Doctor met his eyes, chuckling before telling him, "She always hated to see a frown, even when she was a child – she was afraid of frowning people, said sadness was a monster. So she made sure I was smiling." He shrugged again and admitted, "A part of me always thought she's saving me from becoming a monster. Seems a strange thought, right? Except that's what she was doing – she was keeping us from becoming the monsters she feared as a child; the frowning people who frightened her." Dave sighed as he turned his attention to the box in the corner. "Took her a few days to come around to the idea though. It was like she needed to be angry at the world for taking her mum and then she realized, when I forced myself into her cocoon, that we'd been frowning for days."
"And she made you smile," the Doctor surmised.
He grinned, "I told her we should get outside, go for a walk and she put that book of hers away and she took my hand and she said, 'No, dad,'" Dave sniffled, "Clara said, 'No, dad, let's go on an adventure,' because that's what Ellie would have said."
"Where did you go?"
"Ice cream," Dave told him on a laugh. "We walked down to a corner shop and bought ourselves ice cream bars and then we walked down to the park and we watched the children play and then we watched the sky turn black and we watched the stars." With a nod, he turned to the Doctor and asked, "What do you say? Would you like to have some ice cream, Doctor? My treat."
Pushing himself up to stand, he held a hand out for Dave and lifted him off the ground and they picked up the boxes in the corner and took them down into the Tardis, dropping them just inside before they quietly walked, neither saying a word, until the stars twinkled above them and it was then that the Doctor stopped and the man beside him watched him. He could see the smile growing on the Doctor's face and he asked, lightly, "What is it?"
"The stars," he replied softly. "I hope she remembers the stars."
"She wants to remember you," Dave told him.
With a nod, he said, "It won't matter."
"How does that not matter, Doctor?" Dave questioned.
"Whether or not she remembers, that doesn't matter – she'll know." He sighed and watched a meteorite shoot across the sky and he smiled, "She'll know me now."