The door opened silently, save for the clicks of her key as she removed it, gripping it within her palm so tight she was sure it would leave bruises. She closed the door behind her and remained there, holding the knob as she listened to the car in the driveway pull away and when she turned, she expected him to be there, but the entranceway was dark, quiet, and empty.
Clara could feel her heart thumping roughly in her chest and her ears were starting to burn with a fear she hadn't realized she'd been harboring – what if it all became too much for him and he simply stepped into his spaceship and flew away? She smiled uneasily as she slowly made her way into the living room, glancing around before turning and going into the kitchen, finding the dishes cleaned and put away. She looked down the hall towards the den before glancing up the stairs to the dim white light there.
Holding the railing, Clara made her way up slowly and her mind worked over just what she would say, because she was determined to push aside her anger and try to understand. Try to help him, as her father asked, with the hopes that it would help her. She could ask him if she could feel her yet because she knew it would have been too early for him. She could ask him what their plans had been, if they'd talked about travelling with their daughter or whether the Doctor would spend even more time Earth-bound.
She could ask him why she'd chosen yellow – had they chosen it together – and whether the mural she'd been determined to paint on the wall, not understanding her desire to at the time, had been for their daughter. Her cheeks were wet warmly before she stepped into the room just across from theirs to find him standing amongst an assortment of items completely unfamiliar to her, but items that none-the-less stopped her heart.
In a corner, the Tardis cloister bell rang sadly through her open doors and Clara looked towards it to find her top light had dimmed considerably, but was still enough to light up the room. As though the machine itself were aware of the sorrow in the room at that moment. And thought she couldn't see his face, Clara could see the defeat in the Doctor's stance and it melted away the final bits of her defenses because she could remember how her father had been after her mother passed. She'd done her best to keep him happy, but there were moments when the sadness seeped in. The loss and the brokenness that hid inside that wasn't so easily covered over with a few jokes, or a few trips out for ice cream. They were feelings that had to be coaxed back into the darkness; feelings that never quite went away, Clara understood, because she'd fought the same battle.
The Doctor's sniffle shifted her focus back to him and she asked quietly, "Were these hers?"
He laughed and her hand came up to her chest, the pained sound having punched the air out of her lungs. He'd been crying, she knew, but he stood with his back to the light, a silhouette holding something tightly within his palms and then he uttered pitifully, "Yes."
Nodding slowly, Clara looked at the cubicle set and she reached out to touch the pastel colored cloth boxes, still in their wrappers. She smiled because she could see, immediately, how she would have arranged them in their flat and she knew where she'd put them in this room – in her room. Leaning lightly against the furniture she stared at the opposite wall, listening to his small fractured breaths and then she felt him step closer and she turned away. Clara dropped her head slightly, eyes closed, and she heard him sigh her name and she frowned because she could still hear her father's plea and she'd done it, she'd physically turned her back on the Doctor.
"Please, Clara," he managed as she steeled herself, afraid to look into his eyes and see how much this was hurting him.
"Where was this?" Clara asked, making a slow careful circle back towards him, keeping her eyes trained on the waistcoat unbuttoned at his chest, "Where did you have all of this?"
He gestured back, "Special room in the Tardis," then he chuckled in ragged coughs, "Her room in the Tardis; I knew you would want to see it all again, when you remembered. I had hoped it would help you cope."
Clara glanced at the box just beside her foot and she smiled, reaching for the diaper bag inside to lift it up and laugh, finally finding the Doctor's eyes to admit, "I looked at this just the other day, on some website."
His lips quivered as he told her, "You ordered it as soon as we knew it was a girl; arrived the day before the crash. You were going to make her whole room match – flowers and butterflies, frilly girly things, I'd teased you." His voice left him and Clara watched him slump slightly, looking into the other box that sat on the ground.
She could see the clothes inside and when she reached for a pack of socks, Clara heard him muffle a sob with his palm and she chanced to look up at him as she raised them to examine the pale pink, yellow, and lavender pairs that sat neatly inside. "Doctor?"
Hand falling away, he nodded shortly and then stretched his hand to her and she could see it was a white envelope he'd been holding. Clara's head shifted sideways as she tentatively took it. "You asked about the photos before, about why they ended. We kept travelling," he finished simply as she flipped open the fold and found a small stack of photos, "We stayed in times and places that were less dangerous because we knew you carrying my child came with unknowable risks to begin with..." he quieted and waited and Clara had to look away from his tears.
Instead she dropped her gaze to the first image of them in purple jogging suits, a photo that looked to be self-taken via her mobile, herself holding a paper on which was printed gibberish. She presumed the Tardis had translated it for her on that planet and she smiled because she knew she was looking at them the day they'd found out. Clara had been holding the results of an exam in her hand that told her she was pregnant and the both of them were beaming.
"You were so happy," the Doctor supplied, "Because I'd told you not to get your hopes up; not to be saddened if it didn't happen straight away, or ever, and when we least expected it, we were expecting."
She bit her lip as she flipped through the photos, seeing the places they'd travelled to, as well as photos of them at home. Clara held a photo of the Doctor painting the walls of that room on which she'd written 'Daddy's handling the heavy duty painting so mummy doesn't inhale too many fumes' on the back. The photos, she knew, he'd hidden because of her notes, little reminders of what had happened that day. Little messages for their daughter to find as she grew older so she knew how very much her parents had looked forward to her.
'You made mummy very sick today, but daddy took us to Faraswara to make it better.'
'I found your first hat on Pefin, daddy was upset it wasn't a fez.'
'Grandad came with us to meet Galileo, after a bit of fighting they're now best mates.'
'The clerics of Sorfura blessed you and mummy and gave daddy a crown.'
'Your old mum and dad in Space Disney; we'll be taking you soon.'
Clara felt her bottom lip begin to shake when she saw the photo of herself sitting calmly on the couch at what looked like dusk, her blouse pulled up and the elastic of her maternity jeans pulled away to reveal the bump of her belly. Her lips were curled into a calm smile and her eyes were closed and she could see the fingers of her left hand resting just underneath her stomach. The Doctor turned away just as she flipped it over and read aloud, "I think I felt you for the first time today. I can't wait to hold you," and her own voice faded away on tears.
"I'm sorry I hadn't told you, Clara," the Doctor managed, inhaling roughly as Clara hesitantly swung the photo to the back of the pile to find herself looking down at the first of several scans.
"This is her," she gasped, brow knotting as her eyes widened, bringing the photo closer as her finger traced over the shape of their baby's head and stomach, "Oh my stars, this is her."
Clara closed her eyes tightly, feeling warm streams carve paths over her cheeks before dropping off her chin and for a moment she held her breath. She wanted to remember so desperately, but her memories ended on a cold February night after that horrible Christmas when she'd laid in the Doctor's arms in her bedroom, both finally succumbing to their feelings for one another. Clara could remember how she'd asked him question after question about whether them consummating their relationship would affect her, or whether it could affect him. Alien germs or human germs, or diseases, and whether she should worry he was more potent than a human and whether they needed alien protection.
About what would happen if she accidentally got pregnant.
She smiled when she recalled his light laugh as he'd shaken his head and replied calmly with a soft kiss. Opening her eyes, she looked up into his tear stained face and she reached out to set the photos down atop the wooden cubicles before stepping towards him. Clara nodded slowly and when she spoke, it came at the only volume she could achieve – a wavering whisper
"You made a mistake with good intentions."
She smiled fleetingly when he exhaled, knowing he expected her to lash out at him. The Doctor understood it was well within her right to be angry with him, to hate him, and he felt the hollowness of the past few months beginning to fill with a small flicker of hope that maybe she wouldn't. Not entirely.
With a slow nod, he gestured to the items and croaked, "You deserved the truth and I wanted you to be strong enough to accept it, but I should have told you in your flat. Before we bought this home. Maybe, if you'd had the truth then…"
"I wouldn't have wanted to stay with you?" Clara asked quietly. "Doctor, I'm upset that I didn't know – that you and my dad kept this from me, but that doesn't mean I love either of you any less. We all do horrible things sometimes – even Time Lords aren't infallible."
He laughed between small sobs, his hands coming up to the sides of his neck momentarily before dropping away and he bent slightly to tell her, "I am so sorry, Clara."
Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she reached out for his hands, taking them firmly within hers, and she shook her head, whimpering, "I'm sorry, Doctor," he shook his head, but she continued, "I'm sorry because this is your loss as well – as much yours as mine. She was our daughter," Clara stopped because she choked on the word, and she smiled up at him to finish, "And all of this time you've bottled up this pain to lift my spirits. To help me get well enough to tell me. You sacrificed your right to mourn her death, prolonging your own torment, to try and ready me for mine."
The thought made her chuckle as she looked down at his hands as they curled around hers and she could hear his breathing shift, could hear the oncoming storm of tears and Clara thought about how oddly right it seemed that she could be his anchor now and later on, when those memories did surface, he would be hers. She leaned her head into his chest and released his hands so he could wrap them around her and she listened to his labored breath as he unleashed months of pain as she worked to concentrate on his heartbeats and how they pounded against her ear. Clara lifted her hands and wound them around him as he shook, gripping her to his body firmly, and she cried quietly because she'd woken from that coma feeling like something had been missing from her life and she'd known then – even before they'd told her – that it hadn't been the memories.
She understood now that it had been her daughter, it was still her daughter, and she wondered, momentarily, if her memories had been erased by the trauma to her head, or by the shock of knowing she'd lost her baby girl. Clara wondered if she'd reverted back to before the hurting, before the accident and before the baby and before Christmas and before the time stream. Before the Maitlands and before her mother's death. She'd gone back to the last time everything felt normal and easy and she closed her eyes as the Doctor settled his cheek atop her head, swaying lightly with her in his arms.
Clara led him towards their bedroom and she cradled his head against her breast as he slowly drifted to sleep while she sat leaned up into the headboard. She stroked her fingers through his hair and smiled because somehow she imagined their little girl would have had a mane of his unruly locks and she'd have had that twinkle in her eye first thing every morning that wouldn't have dwindled until she slept. Clara never thought she'd see the day when the light in the Doctor's eyes went dark, but she'd seen it in that room and she took a long breath before shifting out from his grasp and going back into it.
Smiling at the objects there, she moved past them and stepped into the Tardis with a sad grin as the machine slowly turned her lights up for her. "Hello," Clara said plainly.
The Tardis rang her cloister bell in response.
"I know," Clara replied, "He's sleeping; thought it best he rest right now and I thought maybe I could go to her room," she lowered her head to add, "Now, before it becomes painful to."
Around her the lights went dark, slowly, until just one stood illuminated, just beyond the console, in the corridor. Clara glanced up at the center and then she moved to that light, gasping as it went out and another further down the hall flickered on. She followed them until she came to a door and once she reached it, she nodded to it and she asked quietly, "Could I please see her room?"
The door remained shut and Clara bit her lip while giving a half turn as her eyes welled up because she understood without asking – he'd ordered the machine to lock the door to save her the pain of seeing it. And Clara let her back slam into the wall at her side and she brought her hands to her face to weep openly without the Doctor there to see her. She dropped her hands and shouted out, listening to her voice echo slightly in the silence of the stilled Tardis and then she slumped to the ground, grimacing when her right leg bent painfully, the prosthetic pulling awkwardly at her stump and she fell to her side, reaching out in anger to detach the limb and toss it against the door with another pathetic yelp.
"Please," she mumbled, "Please let me see her room."
Clara watched the door warily, but it refused to open.