Clara tilted her head as she watched Dave and the Doctor carrying their couch in through the door and she winced because she thought maybe they were going to break one item or the other. She adjusted the small box she held in her arms, feeling her heart skip a beat as she considered that she was ready to confront them both for the truth, just as soon as they got through the move. She supposed that gave her a certain measure of control, deciding to let them get through the hassle of getting their stuff across town and settled into the house. It also allowed her to delay the inevitable terror she had at seeing the truth etched into their faces.
The emptiness she would feel when her instincts were validated.
Dave gave a shout and the Doctor grunted in response and then they turned, at just the last second, and made it through as she sighed, chin dropping to her chest before turning back to the moving van parked in the driveway. She could hear them arguing just inside as she smiled to Martha, emerging with a box, passing instructions to her own husband, who nodded and readjusted a larger box in his arms.
"Tell the truth," Mickey whispered at Clara, "I'd rather be fighting an alien invasion than helping them place the couch – too much testosterone between 'em to handle."
They shared a laugh and she reached out to give his arm a squeeze before he slipped into the house and rushed towards a set of stairs to avoid being called by either man. Clara took a careful step on the lawn and she went to Martha's side as the other woman bent to lift a box with her books and groaned against the weight, and Clara admitted, "I probably should have packed these lighter."
Martha chuckled, "Just remember to take something before bed or you'll wake with a sore back."
"Probably be sore anyways," she smirked, passing a shy look to Martha, who gasped, and then laughed with her as they began to walk into the house, passing the Doctor as he nodded appreciatively at the spot they'd managed to settle the couch.
Clara began her ascent up the stairs, reaching for the railing at her side and she smiled in surprise when the box suddenly left her arms, plucked up by the man who turned, calling, "Bedroom?"
"Yeah," Clara shot, "Thanks." She concentrated on her steps and when they stood on the second floor landing, she paused to press her prosthetic into the ground several times with a look back at Martha as she admitted, "It's got a lot more flexibility than the last one – take some getting used to."
Martha settled the box atop the mattress of the bed as Mickey smiled to the duo and departed, and then she looked to Clara, asking her gently, "How are you, Clara?"
Shrugging, Clara offered, "Alright, I guess – bit exhausted by all of this, trying to get used to the new leg and boxing up all of our belongings, something he was pretty adamant he mostly take care of... so, fine, I suppose."
Waiting until she raised her head to look at her, Martha sighed and elaborated, "I don't mean physically, with the prosthetic, or the move. How are you?"
She gave her a grin and turned her eyes away, "Back to teaching. Different school – there weren't any openings at Coal Hill – but it's good; kids are a bit much these days, don't remember being this distracted when I was thirteen…"
"Clara," Martha interrupted. "I don't mean the job either – you've been quiet. Really quiet and normally you're a chatter box once I get you worked up and I thought this… this should have you rambling on about where you want your stuff and how you're going to decorate a room or what colors you'd like to re-paint the wall." She paused, taking in Clara's anxious swallow and the way she wouldn't meet her eye as she asked, "What's wrong?"
Clara raised her hands to grip them in front of her stomach, pinky picking at the box in front of her and then she moved to close the door, turning swiftly and planting her back end against it. She watched Martha as she waited and then asked quietly, "Was I pregnant, when I crashed… was I pregnant?"
When Martha's eyes drifted immediately to the door, Clara exhaled and bowed her head and Martha stepped forward, eyebrows rising to ask, "Have you talked to him about it?"
She moved around Martha and dropped onto the bed with a simple, "No," then she raised her eyes with a sad smile and lamented, "I guess I was then."
Going to sit next to her, Martha looked to her hands, twisting together in her lap, and she asked, "Are you ok?"
Tilting her head up, Clara narrowed her eyes and admitted, "I dunno," then she explained, "It's sort of like when your best friend's grandmother dies and you feel terrible because you know it's a horrible thing – a horribly sad thing – but it's not your grandmother, so maybe you have a cry for your friend, but you can sort of go on with life without much of a pause."
"You don't remember it yet," Martha sighed, glancing to the door.
"Suppose that's why he hasn't told me," Clara whimpered. "I really want children, Martha. He knows that and…" she trailed off with a timid laugh, raising one hand and looking to the wall across from her. "We agreed to wait a few months to start trying, but I tossed my meds because he's an alien – an alien – and I imagine it'll take a lucky shot." Clara looked to Martha, "What if that was our lucky shot?"
"Clara…" she began.
"But maybe it wasn't," Clara interrupted. "Then why wouldn't he tell me? Him and my dad, they walk off into another room and they pass secrets between each other instead of just telling me the truth and the more I think about it, the more upset it makes me because it's not keeping me safe, it's just lying to me. Why would they lie to me?"
"To keep you from pain," Martha stated, looking to the ground, "Said it yourself, you really want children, Clara," she looked up, "And they both know that and they're scared of what that memory will to do you."
She nodded slowly and told her, "They're scared of a memory; what of their lies?"
"Clara, I know this isn't what you want to hear from me, and trust me, I don't agree with how they've handled this, but… they're only trying to protect you," Martha pleaded, gesturing at the door, "If you ask him, if you go out there and confront him, he'll tell you the truth."
With a frown, she sighed, "I think he already has tried and I told him I didn't want to know."
"And do you realize how conflicted he feels about that?" Martha urged.
She nodded, feeling Martha's hand at her shoulder, pulling her into her for a half-hug she accepted as she sighed, "What will it do to him to know that I know? All of those times he looked sadly into that second bedroom and I thought, in the back of my mind, that it wasn't just a guest room – it couldn't be, because it made his eyes vacant and his shoulders rigid. It was going to be the baby's room." She took a long breath and glanced to Martha to tell her sadly, "He's been in mourning and I don't feel it yet; that must kill him inside."
"Tell him," Martha prompted. "You can tell him the truth and he can tell you. Things like this, Clara; they aren't good for a marriage."
Nodding, she replied, "I know, but," she laughed, "But we'd just come up with this plan – this timeline of events for us…"
"One you're already ignoring, tossing your birth control and letting the universe decide..."
Clara shook her head and stood up, turning to look at Martha with a curious stare before she admitted, "That's what he told me, before – let the universe decide. The only reason he's been hesitant is this memory I don't have that he's afraid of."
"All I'm saying," Martha began as she reached for the box at her side and sighed, "Is that you should talk to him; he'll listen to you – always has, whether you remember it or not."
The other woman stood and glanced to the bookshelf against the wall and she undid the flaps atop the box to begin ordering the books there, and Clara bit her lip, considering that she was absolutely right. She touched her stomach and then lifted her hands to scratch at her temples, forefinger of her right hand sliding over the long scar that drifted up into her thick hair, and she dropped them, going towards the books. She began grabbing at them in chunks, taking them towards the shelf and her and Martha fell into random chatter about travelling.
They smiled to Mickey as he brought them more boxes with a simple, "Has anyone ever told you that you've got enough books to start a library," and they decided on ordering in for dinner and when Martha and Mickey drove away as the sun set in the evening sky, and her father headed off as the stars began to twinkle, Clara was left standing in the living room with her hands at her waist, looking around with a tilt of her head in each direction as she studied the room.
She glanced up when the front door closed and she sighed as the Doctor smiled back at her before telling her, "I've parked the Tardis around the side; was thinking – for safe keeping – we could use one of the spare rooms to house her."
"Her own room in my home after she spent so many nights moving my room around yours," Clara teased, laughing at the space beside her before she turned back sharply and pointed, "Zygons and Queen Elizabeth the first and your home. My stars, Doctor, your home is still locked away somewhere…"
He rushed to her side, watching her eyes go wide as her breathing quickened and he took her arms, nodding slowly and assuring, "And they're safe, Clara, it's ok. Take a deep breath."
Shaking her head against the unexpected assault of memories, Clara felt herself dropping, her mind suddenly ablaze with thoughts and places and she cried out as she listened to him calling her name. But she remembered jumping into his time stream and with that jump came an onslaught. Clara could recall trampling through the dirty streets of Victorian London as a child just as easily as she could remember climbing aboard the Starship Alaska in a distant future with a clipboard in her hand and a rose tucked behind her ear.
She saw an assortment of parents and friends and significant others. They were wonderful and horrible and uplifting and frightening. Clara closed her eyes as her head began to pound and she could hear the Doctor mumbling, "No, no, not again, no," and she felt him lift her off the ground, stomping up the stairs and lying her in bed before she heard the faucet in the bathroom turn on and soon there was a damp cool towel on her forehead, his hand clasping at hers.
"Doctor," she whimpered, voice wavering as she remembered being encased in wires and metal, knives cutting away at her body so that only her head remained, trapped and warped inside of a Dalek.
She could see his face clearly through an imagined screen and how sad he had been and then it snapped and she was rushing through the Tardis, calling after him, and then it jumped and she was standing on a frozen cliff, looking down on him to devise a way to get him up, and then she was in a field, watching him whiz by as one incarnation and then another. Clara felt as though she were in a hundred places, all at the same time, and each of those memories were battling it out in her head for dominance.
Each of her lives.
The Doctor shouted her name as he watched her writhing and he finally leapt onto the bed, straddling her because it was just as it had been before, her mind a warzone of memories. This was different from recovering her natural memories – the small smile, or the sad cry of recalling an event – this was the assault of a millions memories across time and space from an innumerable amount of different minds, all crashing against hers and just as last time, it had all been too much.
He reached for her temples and he bent slowly to touch his head to hers. If he could reach her as he had done before, he could slow them down. He could ease them in and help her compartmentalize them back where they belonged. "Come on, Clara," he whispered, watching the flashes of moments and feeling the sting of them just behind his eyes, but he also felt her body go still underneath him; could feel her breathing had slowed as the temperature of her skin rose.
"Have to save you," she muttered quietly, tears rolling over her temples.
The Doctor laughed and he kissed her lips delicately, replying, "No, Clara, it's my turn to save you."
He could see her childhood self on Gallifrey rushing through a field of red flowers, silver leaves from trees fluttering around her as she laughed and it flowed into an engine room where she turned away from a red-cheeked sailor and it dipped through her studying on a wooden desk, hair in long pigtails. The Doctor relived her memories with her until he fell to her side with a raging headache he ignored because when he looked back at her, she was resting calmly.
"You're almost there, love," he sighed, lifting himself up against the pain in his mind to remove her prosthetic for her, rolling off her sleeve and sock and caressing the scars on her skin. The Doctor set the items down on the nightstand and he reached into a box on the ground for a throw, draping it over her body and settling another kiss to her forehead before lying at her side to watch her sleep. With a long sigh as he took the hand that rested atop her stomach, he told her, "Almost out of the dark."