"Ava," she uttered softly as she glanced down at the old purple bowtie still in her palm as she gripped it to her abdomen and he knew what had triggered it. The first night after they knew, he'd insisted she rest after her fainting spell, but she'd been keen on other activities – celebrating her pregnancy with an unexpected romp in the same bedroom they'd just left before they'd gone home. Clara had lain next to him afterwards and she'd taken that very bowtie to drape over her naked stomach as they both caressed at it lovingly and she'd teased him.

"If it's a boy, he'll be more stylish than you," Clara had quipped lightly.

"Bowties…" the Doctor had begun.

"Are cool, I know," she'd laughed.

Now she held it rigidly, with none of the delicate strokes of its fabric from that night almost a year before and he waited, breath held as she stared down at it. And finally she inhaled sharply and said simply, "Oh God, I lost Ava." Clara looked up at him, eyes widening as they reddened and flooded with realization and she laughed, once, pitifully, telling him, "Doctor, her name, I was going to tell you – it was Ava," before Clara dropped with a choked sob that stabbed his hearts and bent his body in pain towards her.

He watched her, shoulders hunched and shaking, one hand laid flat on the ground, the other held against her midsection and he understood – every detail about that little girl she'd been looking forward to was now splashing across her memory in vivid color. Her hand shifted slowly, rubbing at the clothing that sat loose against her skin and he knew she was longing for a bump that was long gone, a life that suddenly felt so real to Clara and could only remain a memory.

Clara could sense him coming closer to her and he called her name as he fell just beside her. His arms were around her instantly and she dissolved into them, burying her head in his shoulder to howl in anguish because it was no longer a story, no longer a set of facts rattled off, or a line read from the back of a photograph. Her daughter was real and she understood why the Doctor and her father had been hesitant to tell her – there hadn't been a point in telling her to avoid the pain. Telling her wouldn't have softened the blow, the emotional punch to the gut as her memories shuffled into place in an assault of heart wrenching thoughts and tactile events.

"But that… that's not… are you sure?"

"The results are indisputable, Mrs. Smith, you're pregnant."

It had been an alien who told her. A tall slender being with greenish brown wrinkled skin who handed her a printout she looked over as tears rolled onto her cheeks and her hand came up to her mouth before dropping to the flat skin of her stomach. "And it's fine, nothing wrong."

"Both you and baby are just fine – your husband is waiting outside."

Clara could remember the apprehension she'd approached him with, the way he'd stared at her with worry as she'd taken him to sit to tell him, because Clara had felt as though she were in a daze – how could she have been pregnant; they hadn't properly started trying. And she'd laughed, just before he asked her what was wrong because nothing had been wrong. Everything in that moment had been perfectly right and she had paperwork to prove it. Paperwork that told her she'd begun gestating three weeks earlier; paperwork that explained she had to stop her birth control and had to start a vitamin regiment; paperwork she wouldn't be able to read without the Tardis translation matrix.

"Nothing's wrong, really… I'm pregnant."

He'd turned his eyes to the ground and she smiled because she'd known what had been going through his mind; Clara knew he had thought the worse – she was sick or dying, and so the prospect of her returning to him with that particular news had confused him. And then she'd worried. What if it were a bad thing; what if the Doctor had turned away because he hadn't wanted it to happen, or he was afraid that it had… and then he'd lifted her out of her chair into a tight hug.

"A baby," he'd sighed.

The word from his lips, so happily spoken, had roused a laugh out of her before she'd replied softly while looking over the instant glow in his features, "A baby."

And from that moment they'd lived in a bubble of excited anticipation. Clara grabbed hold of the Doctor's shirt because she could recall how they'd returned to their flat, rushing up the steps in a jumble of conversation about how they could stay there for a while and then maybe get a home. Some place for a swing set and a pool come summer and snowmen in winter. He'd wondered whether they should travel as much, but Clara had insisted her child would see those stars; her child would travel like she'd always dreamed and her child would know it's father's world.

Clara felt the Doctor lifting her off the console floor as she remembered how they'd gone into their guest bedroom and she'd declared, "This is the baby's room. Doctor," and she'd smiled back at him as he'd hugged her from behind, detailing how she would put a crib just underneath the window and how she would paint the walls from their drab off-white to something brighter.

"Yellow," she'd proclaimed with a nod as he'd settled his chin to her shoulder.

"Yellow?" the Doctor had repeated on a huff, "You seriously want to blind the poor child?"

Clara had given him a playful whack before explaining, "Not like sunshine, but muted, with a mural – dunno, flowers for a girl; maybe jungle animals for a boy? Have to work on that…"

"What about blue," he'd pondered.

Wrinkling her nose, Clara had replied, "Blue will sour their mood – yellow, it's a happy color for children; I know I've read it somewhere," and the Doctor had laughed, nuzzling her gently.

"Yellow it is," he'd agreed.

She felt herself being laid in a bed and he tried to shift away, but she clung to him and he whispered quietly, "It's alright, Clara, I won't leave you," as he shifted behind her, leaning into the headboard as she laid against him, holding him tightly because her body was trembling. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her and he cried with her, kissing the top of her head and letting her moan into his chest, breaking his hearts.

"Isn't he an alien?" Her father had asked and they'd both laughed into one another, turning to see the sour look on her father's face before he muttered, "Suppose he's got all the right bits then."

"Dad," she'd whined, "Please be happy… for me."

She could recall the smirk that grew on her father's frustrated face and the way he'd shaken his head to step forward and hug her tightly, pointing at the Doctor over her shoulder to growl lightheartedly, "You'd better take care of them."

And the Doctor had smiled and quietly responded with a laugh, "Had planned on it, Dave."

Now she pressed her forehead into his chest as he rubbed at her shoulders and she understood the guilt he felt – why he'd felt responsible – and how that guilt had been eating at him. He'd promised her father time and time again that he would keep her safe and in his mind, he'd failed. Every moment of her recovery had been a reminder of that and, she knew, the worst of his guilt came at that very moment, holding her through her memories.

Clara shook her head against him as she remembered all the mornings she'd woken with horrible nausea and how he'd continually had the Tardis scan her to make sure she was alright. His greatest fear had been losing her before, but it had become losing them. Her and the baby she carried past morning sickness and spotting scares into a twelfth week that brought a sudden need for a slightly larger bra and a discomfort within her own clothes. She'd stared at herself in the mirror on a morning she zipped up a skirt that sat just a bit higher than it should have, holding her hand to the smallish outward rounding of her stomach and she'd cried, calling out to him.

"Clara, Clara are you alright?" The Doctor had been panicked, rushing up beside her with his Sonic held out and his other hand on her shoulder and she'd merely gestured at her reflection with a laugh.

She waited for him to glance up to tell him happily, "It's barely noticeable, but there it is."

With a laugh, the Doctor had asked, "Should we call it something, perhaps to stop calling it 'it'?"

Moved behind her, he'd nestling his chin to her shoulder to pocket his Sonic and round his hands over her lower abdomen, chuckling lightly into her ear as she whispered, "Dunno, like a code name? Or a nick name?"

"Podseed," he'd offered.

Clara had laughed heartily, replying, "I'm not calling my baby Podseed."

In her mind, even then, she'd decided if it were a boy, she'd name him Milo and if it were a girl, she'd name her Ava and she'd smiled into her reflection as the Doctor continued to rattle off ridiculous nicknames until she finally whispered, "My sweetpea," and the Doctor had repeated the word, thumbs stroking over her belly. Her hand drifted there now and she felt his follow, heard him sobbing with her as she remembered the way her skin had begun to curve outward, just as her father had detailed – just enough to be barely noticeable behind the loosened blouses she let hang over her skirts, just enough for her to smile at randomly throughout the day.

She'd just begun to feel her moving, small flutters and twitches that brightened her face and brought her hands to her swollen belly as she stood on the console floor next to the Doctor, or in their flat as she prepared her notes for class lectures, or during classes, interrupting her thoughts. She'd just told her students and she smiled as she remembered how they'd giggled and squirmed at the news. And she could recall sitting in a bath, hair pulled up into a sloppy bun at the top of her head as she laid her palms over their daughter, nestled safely inside of her as she considered how marvelous her life would be.

"She could be anything," the Doctor had told her, kneeling next to the tub and rolling up his sleeve to submerge his hand to meet hers, hand spreading over her. Clara had cried tears of joy at the wonder in his eyes then as his fingers moved in slow swipes atop her stomach because she had no doubt the Doctor would be an amazing father to their little girl and as he met her eye, a smile growing on his face, she'd shifted to kiss him.

"I love you."

Hand still caressing her belly, he'd whispered back, "Ah, my girls – how I love you both."

Clara's eyes pressed shut because she could hear the blaring honking of cars and she could remember the way she'd smiled and revved her engine, taking the bike down the lane confidently, feeling the small odd roll of movement in her abdomen. She'd just seen a car, a small blue SUV, and she knew it would be perfect for them, knew she had to write down its name as soon as she got to the school so they could start making phone calls about pricing because Clara knew she shouldn't still be riding the bike.

And the car shifted just as she passed it, saw it out of her peripheral and before she could make a single noise of protest, or turn the bike away, she was falling. Her fingers curled around the Doctor's shirt as she relived the shock of hitting the pavement with a loud grunt, of feeling her arm twisting just beside her, even as she tried to pull it back, because Clara tried to shield her daughter. The pain in her leg was how she imagined being set ablaze felt and she tried to scream, but it remained choked in her throat, escaping as a gargled cry, and then the blur of motion stopped in an instant with a snap like lightning to her head.

"No," Clara moaned into the Doctor as he turned her, cradling her against him as she shook her head and fell into another set of sobs and then she released an anguished scream, muted by his chest, before going silent, crying quietly, mind rolling over and over those last moments before she lost consciousness – before she slipped into the coma and had woken to a world that made no sense.

"Ava, please," she'd managed to whisper as she heard a woman approaching, screaming in terror and Clara knew what she must have looked like. A mangled mess of shredded clothing and skin. "Ava, please," she'd pleaded before her voice was lost as hands landed on her shoulder and the weight of the motorbike was lifted away. Clara begged her daughter to be stronger than her fragile body could be and just before her eyes fluttered shut, she felt the last small movements within her and with that small bit of hope, the world had gone completely black.