The Doctor laid her in her bed gently as she murmured up at him and he tugged her sheets up to her chin while she turned onto her side and then found her way to her stomach with a soft satisfied sigh. He smiled, reaching out to brush hair away from her face before bending to kiss the top of her head. It occurred to him, as it had on so many other occasions, to simply delve into her mind to retrieve the memories, but he was afraid of the damage it would do. He couldn't be sure what damage had caused the amnesia and his prodding could hinder her progress more than aid it.
The last thing he wanted was for Clara to lose, or suffer, any more than she had.
"What did she remember, Doctor?" Dave asked quietly from the doorway. Her father hadn't spoken on the entire car ride home, occasionally glancing at the man who sat in his back seat with Clara propped up in his lap, head resting on his shoulder. Sleeping soundly.
Straightening and turning, he looked her father over, taking Clara's prosthetic leg to settle against the nightstand beside her before gestured towards the hallway. He followed the other man out, closing Clara's door behind him as he whispered, "It's not that she remembered, it's that she knows."
"Now sure I understand," Dave laughed, rubbing at his brow and clasping his hands to his waist.
"The mind, it's like a computer in a sense. You store memories away and for the most part, they're accessible to you – some a little more difficult to retrieve than others – but when your brain is damaged. Well, it's like a virus wreaking havoc on an operating system. Worst case scenario, you lose the computer; which would mean death for a human, or a vegetable state, which thankfully we're not dealing with." He offered a light smile before continuing, "Generally you have to return to factory defaults and that, Dave, that would be full amnesia, but sometimes you can recover from a backup disk…"
"Yeah," Dave nodded while shrugging, "I get the concept of amnesia, Doctor – not quite as thick as you two seem to think – but what's it that she knows? What's she remembered?"
"Clara's got a backup disk and she's slowly rebooting," he laughed. "She asked for fish finger and custard," he told him with a confident nod before grinning at the perplexed look on the man's face, "Seems strange, yes, but it's something we've had – her and I – something from our past… something that means something."
With a nod, Dave allowed, "Ok, gotcha."
"And she said we could get home in the Tardis," he watched Dave's eyes rise, "She was asleep when she spoke, so I'm not sure she'll understand when she wakes, or even remember, but it's there Dave. The concept of the Tardis and that we can travel in it, it's there in her mind, trying to break to the surface." He smiled, "She also said she was nineteen."
Dave's hands dropped as he smiled, "So she's gained another year."
The Doctor nodded and gestured back, "I think it might be best if we moved back home."
"No," Dave stated automatically.
Watching the man, the Doctor considered him before asking quickly, "Why are you resisting this?"
He lifted a hand and dropped it, shaking his head to tell him, "I'm not resisting, Doctor – I want her to go home, I just want her to be ready when she gets there."
"You don't want her to remember," he stated calmly.
"It's not that," Dave hissed, taking a few steps down the hall towards the stairs before turning and gesturing at Clara's room, "She needs to build up strength, physically, and we agreed that's better done here. Nurse has been coming; your friend Martha's been by – everything she needs is here."
"This isn't her home, Dave. It hasn't been for a very long time." Then he nodded, "We've got the spare bedroom – you could stay with us for a time."
Dave laughed and shook his head, "No offense, Doctor, but I'm not keen on waking in the middle of the night and stumbling upon anything I ought not be seeing or hearing."
"Is that what this is about?" He asked quickly before seeing the way Dave rolled his eyes and he took a long slow breath before offering, "You don't trust me with her."
"That's absolutely not it," Dave assured with a point of his finger, "I know you risked your life to save hers – know you'd done it time and time again. And it isn't the accident," he lowered his head, "I know there was nothing, aside from refusing to let Clara leave home, you could have done to prevent that."
The Doctor watched Dave as he reached out to grip the edge of the rails of the stairs and he took a step forward, asking firmly, "Is that it, then? You think keeping her home will keep her from danger?"
"No," Dave shouted before turning away, hand coming up to his forehead as he half turned on the spot and looked back at the Doctor with a scowl of frustration, "Look, you can't just pin a reason on an action. It's all more complicated than that, ok? I just think it's best for her, for the moment, to be here." He sighed and took a step away as the Doctor watched him, "We can disagree about this another time, right now I need to get some sleep. Unlike you, I can't function on a few hours a week."
Despite the questions still lingering in his mind, and the certainty he had about Dave not wanting Clara out and about, and especially not in his company, the Doctor allowed the man to stomp his way into his room, door shutting roughly behind him. He half turned to look back at Clara's door before making his way towards it, hoping they hadn't woken her, but he found her still asleep. He trudged down the steps and out into the yard and then into a back alley where the Tardis was currently parked and he pushed in with a long exhale.
"Humans," he told the Tardis knowingly, "Always one thing or another they don't want to expose."
The Tardis beeped back at him angrily and he pinched his lips together tightly to glare.
"Oh," he coughed, "I know," he whined, "Don't give me that tone – I know I keep my own secrets, but they're for good reasons!" He walked around the console, finger swiping at buttons before he landed against the metal with both palms, "She's remembering," he sighed, "Remembering, and he doesn't want it." The Doctor glanced up at the glowing center, watching its greenish blue hues glimmer a golden orange for a moment and he smiled, "Yes, I'm talking about Clara," he admitted, "And Dave – her father."
He strolled around it again, plucking his Sonic to twirl in the air before pointing, "The thing about humans and their parents is, well, it's quite a complicated relationship. You birth the child and are then expected to raise it, to nurture it, to take responsibility for it, and when it – he or she or them – reaches a certain age, you're supposed to release it upon the world and hope for the best knowing whatever they return will somehow reflect back upon you, and Clara is absolutely brilliant. Her father," he laughed, "He has more to do with it than he realizes, but now?" The Doctor shook his head, "Now he wants to protect her. Shield her. Hold her back from the outside world and I know…" he trailed with a point of the Sonic up at the console, "I know that's what it is and I understand why he wants to do it."
Pushing the Sonic back into his pocket, he slowed his movements to a stop and hung his head slightly with a sniffle as he thought about Clara, about how she should be on the other side of the console telling him he needed to give her father space. Telling him he needed to give her father the opportunity to work things out his own way.
"He's stubborn sometimes, Doctor."
"Yes, I know exactly how that can be."
"Yes, I know exactly how that can be as well."
With a small smile, he sighed and explained, "What he doesn't comprehend is I want the very thing he does – Clara safe and sound. Clara never in danger. Except – and he, more than most, should also understand this – it's impossible to predict the day to day, to anticipate the actions of others and how that will impact everything around them in a ripple effect of decisions and consequences." Pushing off the console, he began to undo the buttons of his waistcoat, ready for a long warm shower before he went back into the house and he turned back when the Tardis rang her bell, "Oh, of course I'm going to defy his wishes. She's his daughter and I respect that, but Clara is also my wife and I'll do what's best for her, regardless of what he wants."
Because the best thing for Clara, the Doctor knew, was to get out of the house Dave intended to cocoon her inside of. The best thing for her before had been him taking her out into the universe and showing her how grand she could be and he had every intention of showing her again. He washed, lingering underneath the torrent of hot water until his fingers wrinkled, and then he changed into long pants and a shirt, throwing an oversized blue robe over himself as he exited the Tardis and made his way back to the house, his suit for the following day draped over his arm.
The Doctor locked the back door and he went up the steps, checking first on Dave, now snoring in a deep sleep, and then Clara, who was breathing softly, calmly dreaming, and he nodded as he went into the spare room, dropping his outfit on the back of a chair before settling down into the bed. Those few hours, he knew, he would need them that night and as he relaxed against the overly fluffy pillow beneath his head, he thought about where he might take her.
Her favorite places were museums and restaurants, but he wasn't sure if the nineteen year old version of her would appreciate those trips as much. He chuckled, imagining she would roll her eyes and give him a look of confusion… except he knew there would be an interest she wouldn't be able to deny. Of course, he also wanted to take her out to the countryside. To let her lay atop his long coat as they reminisced and he imagined the stories she had to tell now, her teenage years so firmly in her memories, would be just as interesting as the ones she told of students in her class and the shenanigans they got themselves into.
He drifted to sleep so soundly he didn't hear Clara quietly making her way into the room, crutch settled under her right arm as she winced over the sound of the door closing behind her. She watched him a moment, bottom left side of her lip held firmly between her teeth as she considered what she was about to do and how it would anger the man across the hall, but the afternoon was still occupying her mind and somehow the Doctor's proximity had made so much of the agony of the past month slip away for a few beautiful moments.
Clara stepped carefully to the side of the bed and pulled back the sheets, sitting and taking a long breath imagining she should feel some sort of anxious pang of fear, but instead she felt the same constant pull she had always felt towards this man. This ridiculous man, she thought to herself with a quiet chuckle as she leaned in towards him and brushed the bangs off his forehead in a move so familiar and automatic it made her heart leap.
"Doctor?" She whispered.
"Hmmmm," he replied as he continued sleeping.
"Is it alright if I stay here with you tonight?" Clara asked, holding her crutch as she watched his face crumple in confusion a moment before he smiled lightly and she wondered if he'd heard, or if there was some random thought fluttering through his mind she could ask him about in the morning. Laying the crutch quietly against the ground and giving it a small push underneath the bed, Clara brought her legs up underneath the covers and she settled herself into him.
She let out a small noise of shock when he turned on his side towards her and curled an arm around her, bringing her closer to him with a long sigh into the top of her head. Clara tucked her left foot between his calves and she slid a palm over his chest, feeling for his heartbeat and frowning at what she found. She slipped her fingers underneath the fabric of his shirt as he let out a soft moan and she laid her hand flat against his skin, frowning up at him because she knew there were too many beats – too quick in succession for one heart – and she wanted to be afraid.
But somehow she wasn't.
Because she knew, somehow she just accepted, that it was absolutely normal.