Her father had left just after midnight and the Doctor had seen him out after a set of hugs that left Clara breathless and claustrophobic and when her husband returned, stepping into the room cautiously, she'd smiled weakly at him and sighed. She knew she was on the verge of new tears; knew that's how her days would be for a while in a way they hadn't been in the past few months since she'd worked the secret out for herself. Clara had gone from understanding a tragedy through second-hand tales, to having the residual memory of a human being moving within her that affected the way she ate and dressed and slept and even thought.
Hands shifting slightly over her lower abdomen, she glanced down at herself and croaked, "I don't know why I keep expecting it to be different – you'd think, with all of the time I've spent now without her, that it would just drift away, that idea that she'd still be there."
The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed beside her and he reached out for her hands, massaging at them when she laid them in his palms. "I suppose you never stop longing for a loved one who's been taken prematurely; it's always there in the furthest recesses of your mind."
"Years from now, I'll still be thinking of her?" Clara questioned before shaking her head, "Does it change then? From this pain to something… less torturous?"
He gave a timid nod of his head and looked to her fingers, his thumb rubbing over her wedding band as he told her truthfully, "Yes, and sometimes you'll hate yourself for that." The Doctor raised his eyes to meet hers and he watched new tears roll easily over her pale skin as he elaborated, "It'll become dull; it'll become something less than a memory – but something equally grand." He smiled, "She'll become a story, a ghost of a story because you'll seldom tell the tale, but she'll always be there in some way, just at the edge of consciousness and in that way, I suppose, she'll never truly leave us and somehow… somehow that makes it easier, Clara – eventually."
Clara smiled and nodded with him, agreeing, "She never truly has left us, has she."
"Nah," he breathed with a tilt of his head, "We've put her photos back where they belong, her best scan framed and settled just beside our wedding photo on the mantle. And she'll always be alive in our dreams, and in other children we bring into the world."
"If the universe allows," Clara replied softly, swallowing against the lump in her throat.
Shaking his head, the Doctor whispered, "You're not replacing her."
Her face crumpled as she told him, "I thought maybe if I'd done so – maybe if I'd gotten pregnant again before I remembered… that somehow it could be easier; that I wouldn't feel this empty inside."
Moving closer to her, he enveloped her in a hug as she cried against him and he smoothed his fingers over her hair and shushed her gently, telling her, "Clara, I promise you it will get better; that emptiness will fill back in with all of the love you have for her."
He could feel her nodding slowly and she quieted after a moment, pushing up and stating, "I never saw her room." Clara's eyes drifted down to her lap as she said, "Aboard the Tardis, I never saw her room – could we go there now?"
"Clara…" he began, because he didn't know if it was a good idea now. Now, just after she'd retrieved all of her memories fully, and he uttered, "Maybe in a day or two."
But she shook her head and raised it to look at him to demand, "Doctor, I want to see it now – you said you kept it to help me cope and I want to cope," her eyes closed momentarily and then they opened slowly, dropping heavy tears that fell straight off her cheeks onto her shorts, and she gave him a pitiful smile, offering, "Let's go see Ava's room."
He could see the desperation in her eyes and he looked down with a pained laugh before lifting his head to nod and repeat, "Let's go see Ava's room."
They moved carefully off the bed and she tucked herself at his side, hand gripping to the back of his shirt as they went together into the room across the hall where the Tardis brightened momentarily, slinging open her doors and when they stepped inside, Clara laughed. Looking over the console room, at the yellow glow that glimmered out onto the walls from a time rotor that sparkled, the Doctor understood – the Tardis was mentally linked with Clara, had been for so long he'd forgotten, and the old girl could feel her pain and she could sense Clara's memories and her memory of Ava's room had been that yellow bedroom back at their flat.
She nodded, sniffling loudly as they made their way into the corridors and towards the room that had been locked to her the last time she'd approached it. And it'd been the last time she approached it because Clara imagined it would be too painful before she was ready to accept it. Now she wanted to look at what the Doctor had created because she'd never been aware he'd been making a room for her. Looking to the doors, Clara held her breath as they slowly swung open and when they did, she tilted her head into the Doctor's chest, lips trembling at the padded flooring that came in circles of white, lilac, against the same soft shade her bedroom had been painted.
The walls were a light cream with swirling floral patterns in faded pink and mint tones and just underneath a fake window through which Clara could see the twin suns setting on a familiar planet, sat a crib and changing station made of maple wood. The cubicle set she'd picked out sat between a wicker laundry basket and a rocking chair, a lilac and white knit blanket hanging over its back at their left. To their right stood a matching dresser and she approached it slowly, pulling open the first drawer carefully to find the few bits of clothes she'd purchased were tucked away neatly.
Clara lifted a small onesie and closed the drawer, leaning against the dresser to look at the rounded mirror hung on the wall in front of her. She found her reflection, dim and reddened by the sunset to her left, but she could see the puffiness around her eyes and the frown set on her lips. Clara tried to smile to herself and watched the droplets that rolled freely from each of her eyes as she sighed.
"It's perfect," she cried softly, bowing her head before smiling and turning to the Doctor, who held his hands tightly together at his chest, his jaw working from side to side.
"I used the colors off your boxed cubey organizer thinger," he gestured to the cubicles, "Does it match alright?"
Nodding and turning to lean into the dresser, Clara held the onesie in her hands, laughing and feeling her tears fall again as she looked up to say, "Yes, Doctor, it's beautiful."
He moved towards the crib, hands coming out to land against the railing as Clara watched him and she could see his shoulders tensing as he looked to the window, telling her, "The scenery changes every day. Every day something new through this window." He offered her a tight lipped grin, "Our daughter would always have had the universe at her fingertips – always soothing her to sleep; always running through her dreams. Now she always will, I suppose."
She sighed, moving towards him slowly and she wrapped her arms around him, ducking under his right arm when it came up to drop over her shoulder, pulling her tightly to him. Resting her head against his chest, she nodded and they watched those suns set slowly, silently, and when the room went dark with only the twinkle of starlight through that fake window to illuminate their surroundings, Clara whispered, "She's sleeping out amongst those stars, isn't she?"
"Yes," he responded simply.
Clara released a sorrowful laugh and then raised her head, "Could we visit her then?"
The Doctor kissed her forehead and told her, "Yes, Clara, of course."
They turned away from the room and Clara felt her heart drop as they stepped back over the threshold and the doors closed behind them. She concentrated on the sounds of their footsteps, falling in tandem over the metal flooring of the Tardis and when they reached the console again, she reached out to touch the controls, glancing up at the time rotor as it melted back into its blue hues and she understood the unspoken apology from the machine.
Looking up at the Doctor, Clara bit her lip and when she shifted her gaze back to the controls, it was to lift her left hand to a lever just as the Doctor entered a set of coordinates and when she swung it down, she exhaled raggedly. The one place a time traveler should never visit, he'd once told her, was their own grave… and Clara thought she had understood the dread he'd felt, but she hadn't – not until that moment. She was about to float through her daughter's grave and as they slowed into orbit around the planet, she closed her eyes and turned to land her forehead into the Doctor's chest, doing her best to control the inevitable sobs she was feeling.
Wordlessly, he lead her to the doors and he waited there, feeling her hot breaths against the spot just between his hearts – the spot that felt hollow in that moment, taking Clara to what was left of their child. He hated that his biology necessitated cremation and secrecy about her 'burial' and he whispered that regret to Clara as she summoned the courage to open those doors, because the Doctor wouldn't force her to look on it, not knowing what she knew now.
She pushed off of him lightly, still holding to his shirt with one hand, the onesie held tightly in the other when she finally turned slowly and reached for the door, watching the small bit of fabric as it hung from her clenched hand, the words 'mum' and 'cup' visible before it folded. Unlatching the door, she pulled it back with her forefinger and thumb and the Doctor cried when he saw her shoulders drop slightly as she looked out to Faraswara and brought the onesie back to her chest.
Her fingers curled into his shirt and he covered her hand with his, pulling it free to hold and she smiled halfheartedly up at him, new tears falling freely over her cheeks. Clara looked to the onesie as the Doctor came to her side again, enveloping her in his arms and listening to the small sad notes that escaped her as she cried. They looked out on the planet and after a while he began to ask her quietly, "Did you ever wonder…"
"If she would love it like we did?" Clara finished for him on a whisper, shifting her head against his chest to look up at him with an easy grin as she told him, "Yeah, I imagined how much she would have loved the music." Clara lowered her gaze back out to the stars to admit, "First time I knew I felt her, you'd brought out that old phonograph from the Tardis to try and help me relax on the couch after a really long day…"
He laughed, "Ah yes, student testing. You'd had enough of that nonsense."
Clara chuckled and gave him a squeeze, "I'd felt these twitches for a few days and I thought it was just muscles doing their muscle thing, but when you played the 'Three Flute Quartets'… I knew it was her." Her hand shifted to her abdomen, "I don't even know if she could hear yet, but I could feel her moving and I thought about how much she would love to listen to the wind in those fields and the music of the waterfalls." Clara looked up at the Doctor and she moped, "I thought maybe she would take her first steps there – I was sure she would."
Wrapping his arms around her as she fell into a mess of half-hearted cries, he leaned his chin atop her head and told her softly, "She's walking through these stars, Clara – looking down on those fields every single day and every so often a bit of her will descend to hear that music and float in those fields and swim in those oceans."
The woman he held laughed pathetically and offered, "Doctor, she'd disintegrate in the atmosphere."
Frowning, he scoffed playfully, "Shut up, our daughter can do whatever she'd like. I give permission," he added with a nod and a smile, waiting as she nodded back, face crumpling under the weight of new tears and he sighed as she gripped his shirt, now quietly crying, calling softly, "Clara?"
Shoulders giving a quick shake, she leaned back to look up at him, mouth trembling as she waited for him to speak and he lifted his palms to her cheeks as she told him quietly, "I know we can't stay here forever," because she knew it was what he was thinking – they had to go home at some point; they had to move on – and it stung at her heart because he was almost imperceptibly nodding at her unspoken thoughts as his eyes reddened.
"I don't want to go any more than you do," he supplied on a whisper, "But Clara, we do nothing for her by watching her grave. We love her and we honor her by walking back into our lives and making it better. We live, Clara," he ended boldly, kissing her forehead as she began to cry, "We live for her, for all of the days she should have had, for all of the possibilities there were." He pulled her close and looked out at the stars, feeling her head turn to do the same as they watched a wave of dust glittering in the sunlight and he repeated solemnly as a promise, "We live, Clara, for Ava."