Staring at the rain splashing across the window in the dimly lit room, Clara sighed lightly and reached out for the controls to her bed, smiling when she felt the Doctor's cool fingers curl around hers to take the device from her hand as his gentle voice urged, "What do you need, Clara?"
"When did you get here?" She asked, shifting and looking up at him.
He shrugged, "You'd fallen asleep." Then he nodded, "I sent your father home – he has work early tomorrow and I thought it might be best if he got a little sleep himself." They shared a light laugh and then it tapered off in the darkness. Her father could only take the month and it was over. Her only consolation was that she would be going home in a few short days – her stay extended by an extra week, she knew, at the insistence of the two men who seemed intent on guarding over her and making certain she received the best care for as long as possible.
"You really don't sleep, do you," she teased.
With a shrug and a sheepish smile, he asked again, "What do you need?"
Clara pushed herself up and adjusted herself to sit in the bed, careful about her stump despite the fact that it'd stopped hurting some time ago. She'd almost gotten used to it, but there was always that small pang of shock when she glanced down at the shape of her legs underneath the sheets, one incomplete, just after her knee. Grabbing the sheets, she whipped them aside and sighed. And then she glanced up at him, "I know I'm supposed to walk, but could you just carry me to the toilet."
He touched the crutches beside the bed and raised an eyebrow at her.
"I know," she pleaded, "I know!" She watched him, waiting, but he continued to direct her attention to the crutches and she understood – she wasn't supposed to rely on others because others wouldn't be around all of the time. Clara had to learn how to get herself around and the man giving her the sympathetic look of encouragement was intent on helping her with the frustrating task.
She moved her legs to the edge of the bed, her right knee hanging oddly as she squirmed and reached down to pull up the sleeve covering the scarred tissue before she took the crutches he was handing her and she exhaled, grunting as she hopped off, "Would help if the beds weren't ten feet off the ground."
The Doctor laughed, stepping aside to watch her work her way into the bathroom where she settled the crutches against the wall and remained standing on her left leg, clinging to the sink, as he offered, "Do you need help sitting down?"
"No, not now," she barked back angrily. Now he'd made her start the task and now she'd finish and she knew that's why he had done it. Her father coddled her, but the Doctor knew she had to get herself back on her own two feet, so to speak, and he remained with his back turned, knowing she hadn't closed the door and knowing she still didn't have the memories that should make her comfortable with any sort of nakedness. With a sigh, she reached out to half close the door and then she grabbed hold of her hospital gown, pulling it up until she could reach the waistband of her knickers, tugging at them and sighing as they fell to the ground before giving a few light hops towards the toilet so she could grab hold of the metal railing at either side of it.
This will all get normal soon, Clara.
They were the words everyone had given her, from the prosthetist from UNIT who came to measure her with some fancy device the Doctor assured would give her the most comfortable fit, to the doctors and nurses who checked on her, to her father, to the children who'd come to visit her, inadvertently sending her into a shock of tears, seeing how much they'd aged. Reminding she'd aged as well.
She continually forgot how old she was. Her mind had recovered her eighteenth birthday, a night out with friends that ended with her stumbling in through her front door to her father's sigh and a hot mug of tea at nearly four in the morning and the simple quietly asked question, "Did you have fun?"
But she hadn't reached the Doctor.
Clara sat atop the toilet with her hands at her temples mulling over the new memories. The ones that had her finishing out primary school and taking too many trips to the mall, and deciding Nina's kiss wasn't something she quite felt comfortable returning. The thoughts that included her father's frustration over bills and her increased need to be away from him and the arguments they had over government issues and generational gaps and the job she took at a shop. The ones that also brought her apologies between them and quiet discussions in her room and the knowledge that he tried so hard to be understanding.
She also thought a lot about her mum. She could remember it all – the nights she cried silently because she wished she were there to talk with her about the grand, about which university she should choose and whether a certain boy would be worth her virginity, to the mundane, about what skirt matched best with what top; what shoes would be best for a date; how should she wear her hair for summer? Things her father grimaced at and waved hands at and shrugged at because he had no clue.
With a smile, she cleaned herself before standing awkwardly to bring her knickers back up, and shifted towards the mirror on the wall, looking into the tired eyes that stared back at her. She was old enough to be a mum, she thought with a sad smile, and she huffed a laugh, thankful the man outside wasn't accompanied by a small child who needed her to be a mum – to have the memories of a mum – because Clara didn't think she could handle that. Of course, she smiled, she was also eighteen in her head, despite what she was trying to portray.
And she was struck with a sudden thought; a cold terror.
"Everything alright in there?" The Doctor asked with a set of knocks.
Clara reached for the door and pulled it open, giving him a sheepish grin as he peered in on her. And she asked in a hushed voice, "Do I have children, Doctor? Do we…" she trailed, looking up into the sad eyes that stared back at her.
His hesitation frightened her, but then he dropped his eyes to the ground and uttered, simply, "No."
Exhaling a light laugh, Clara took her crutches to settle them underneath her arms, "You," she began with a nod in his direction, watching his head come up, "And my father," she added, shaking her head slightly before sighing, "More my father, really – I can't quite judge you yet," she smiled as he did because he knew what she meant: she hadn't the memories to gauge his behavior, "Sometimes it feels like there's something very important you're not telling me and for a moment I thought – it was a silly thought – that I had a child." Tilting her head she surmised, "But you wouldn't hide that from me; that would be ridiculous and cruel…" she tapered off, eyes drifting to the side to whisper, "That poor child, kept from their mother."
Clara moved forward and the Doctor shifted aside and she watched his hands wrap around each other several times before he clasped them together anxiously and she knew – he wanted nothing more than to hold her, but he was respecting her memories. Respecting her lack of memories and she stopped, just outside of the door to turn and look at him and she inched forward, watching the sorrow that soaked his features as he turned away from her.
"We're married," she allowed, raising one hand to display the ring on her finger and she saw the momentary uptick of the corners of his lips, the quick flash of adoration he gave her because she'd chosen to wear the ring despite not knowing everything it meant. Clara waited, listening to the gentle rain against the window, until his eyes met hers.
With a small nod, he agreed "Yes, Clara, we're married."
"How long have we been married?" She questioned.
Another nod and he offered in amusement, "Three years."
She accepted it with a curious look because her father had said two, and then asked quickly, "How long have I known you?"
He smiled then, some memory she didn't have capturing his hearts as he told her, "A bit of forever, I suppose."
"That makes no sense," Clara laughed. Shifting forward again, she reached for him, looking down to his hands as hers sat in the air just in front of them, not quite making it to them – making him unravel his fists to take her hand. "I want to know when my memories will include you because I feel like they're the best memories I have, but they feel so far away."
Releasing a light laugh, he gripped her hand and told her honestly, "You were twenty four."
Clara sighed with a smile at the knowledge; closing her eyes and shifting her grip on his hand, feeling his fingers relax into her hold automatically – as though they'd done it a thousand times and, Clara imagined, they probably had. She looked up into his eyes in the darkness of the room and she could see the glimmer of tears and she lifted her other hand to swipe at the droplets she watched roll over his cheeks on a blink and she stumbled forward as the crutches fell away suddenly, but his body lurched to accommodate hers.
"I gotcha," he whispered, free arm having swung around her to hold her to him and she let him release her hand so he could lift her up into his arms as the crutches clattered to the ground.
He held her there securely, breathing calmly and Clara declared, "You've always got me, don't you."
Laughing through tears, he thought to tell her, "I will always catch you," except he could still see the flash of his first glimpse of her being wheeled out of the emergency room and into a spot in the intensive care unit, unconscious and pale. Bandaged and broken. He watched her shake her head and he knew she understood what he was thinking because didn't she always know?
Clara palmed his cheek and she uttered, "Please don't blame yourself."
"I'm your husband," he managed, "And I couldn't keep you safe." He adjusted her in his arms, dropping his forehead to hers and sighing when her thumb stroked over his cheekbone, "It was my duty, a duty I swore to you, and I couldn't keep you safe."
"Kiss me, Doctor," Clara told him quietly, unexpectedly.
He raised his head and watched the way her eyes came up from a spot on his chest and she was crying, crying because even without her memories of him, she knew how much it pained him to think he could have prevented what happened to her when she absolutely knew he couldn't have. "What?" He breathed.
She smiled and nodded and she told him plainly, "Kiss me and swear to me again."
"Clara," he began, but she lifted herself, delicately pressing her lips to his.
His brow came together as he released a soft moan against her, hesitating for a moment before deepening the kiss as her arms came up around his neck. Somehow, he expected it to be different, like little things had been over the past month. The Doctor thought her kiss would have been less passionate, less knowing, but she shifted instinctively with him, chest heaving against his, fingers of her right hand curled around his neck, nails scratching lightly, and the Doctor could imagine, for a moment, that nothing in the past month had happened.
Dropping back, he released a shuddered breath as her teeth held onto his lower lip gently a moment before she let it slip away with a pained gasp, burying her face in his shoulder as her body shook with tears. Moving towards her bed, he set her against the sheets, terrified that she somehow felt violated by the kiss, by the way his hands had gripped her to him desperately as his tongue searched hers out in a familiar dance, but when he tried to release her, she held on tightly.
"Doctor, don't let go," she moped, words muted against the fabric of his waistcoat.
"Clara, please, I don't understand," he argued, hands coming up to her shoulders in an attempt to pry her off him, but she shook her head and he sat at the edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her temple, telling her softly, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Clara."
After a long sob, she admitted, "I don't know how to feel this."
He laughed lightly, hearts breaking as he told her, "It's alright if you don't feel it just yet," then he added sadly, "Or ever again. Clara, I just want you…"
"No," she interrupted, pushing off of him and clutching at her chest with her right hand, "I feel so much when I'm with you and I don't know why – I don't remember why – and it's so much, and I don't understand how I can feel so much about you."
Offering a small nod, knuckle coming up to wipe at her tears, he replied quietly, "We'll get there, Clara, I promise you – we'll get there in the end. Together, I promise, Clara."
She smiled then, hopefully. Honestly hopeful for the first time in weeks. There wasn't a steely resolve or a forced grin or a stubborn determination behind the rise of her lips; there existed merely the trust she had in a man she had no reason to trust and the Doctor smiled with her as she sighed and reached for his hand, chuckling as she turned his hand and ran a finger over the gold band there.
"Together," she agreed with a small nod.