Four Years Later
Clara could feel her heart pounding in her chest as she gripped the pregnancy test and dropped the toilet lid to sit on it, staring down at the oval space that would tell her whether or not her entire world were going to change again. Her eyes drifted towards the box, skimming the instructions for a fourth time and when she looked back down at the stick she held, she heard the Doctor approaching, footsteps light against the carpeting in the room. He grabbed hold of the doorway to peer in and tease her, but stopped, locking eyes with her as small grins flicked their lips upward.
"Clara," he breathed and he moved t the hand she held out, grabbing hold of her and climbing onto the toilet lid behind her as she shifted forward.
"Two minutes," she responded lightly. "Minute and thirty really."
He kissed at her neck as she leaned back into his embrace and Clara could feel his heartbeats now, drumming against her as they waited and he finally cut the silence by telling her, "I think little Dave's waking up."
"Don't call him that, you know my dad hates it," Clara hissed, turning to give him an amused grimace.
With a shrug, the Doctor allowed, "You think he'd be pleased with the nickname."
Clara snorted, "That you're calling him that as a veiled insult."
"It's an insult that comes from a place of deep admiration," the Doctor reminded.
"Shush," she replied, mentally counting down the time and knowing any second now the words would begin to filter in. She could feel his palms sliding over her sides, resting at her belly and she smiled at the flutter the motion caused in her heart and then the lettering began to appear and for a moment they both stared at it, waiting until there was no room for doubt, breathing quietly with one another until Clara finally said softly, "I'm pregnant."
The Doctor laughed as she turned to look at him, mouth half open in an excited smile and he clamped his lips onto hers, feeling her shift to kiss him comfortably, right leg drifting over his until her prosthetic struck lightly against the edge of the bathtub beside them and then they parted with a chuckle, foreheads resting against one another. "A baby, Clara," the Doctor breathed.
"A baby," Clara repeated before laughing.
And they both turned at the sound of Osmond's heavy panting that was accompanied by a thump just outside of the bathroom door. Clara smiled down at the little boy there, pushing himself back up to stare at the dog in frustration through his mop of unruly brown hair before he reached for the doorframe and uttered after a yawn, "Mummy, the Tardis is going dong – is that bad?"
The Doctor whispered in her ear, "Little Dave – just like your father, it's uncanny the level of concern and accusation he can…"
"Shush," Clara spat at the Doctor before settling the pregnancy test atop the vanity and raising her arms to the boy already stepping inside, "Come here, Milo, everything is just fine."
Lifting him up onto her lap, she smiled down at him and watched him grin shyly back, dark eyes searching hers before laughing at some face the Doctor was making behind her. Milo tilted into Clara, head resting at her collar and he asked lightly, "Why are we on the toilet?"
"Mummy," Clara began, "Had to take an important test."
"For school?" The boy asked.
"Nope," Clara responded with a shake of her head. "Milo?" She called, waiting for him to shift to sit up in her lap and stare up at her, "How would you like to be a big brother?"
The boy's eyes widened and he looked down at Clara's arms, wrapped around him, and then he glanced back up at his parents, swallowing roughly to ask them both, "Are we getting another puppy?"
Osmond barked, lying down just outside of the bathroom as the Doctor laughed and shook his head, telling Milo softly, "No, you're getting a baby brother or sister."
Clara laughed because she could see the Doctor's curiosity in the way Milo was now looking at her and she watched it dissolve into the boy's father's adoring smile as he began to nod feverishly, body giving a small bounce atop her legs before he leapt off and began hopping in a circle excitedly. "Could we take them to Faraswara?!"
The Doctor pointed and gave a laugh before gripping Clara's shoulders and responding happily, "Yes, Milo, we could take them there to dance in the tall flowers and lay about lazily to listen to the waterfalls."
"I love the waterfalls," Milo sang, eyes closed and smiling.
"In fact," the Doctor shot, "We should go there now – mummy's not been feeling well and they have the perfect remedy for that, don't they, Milo?"
The boy nodded, hair flopping about as he pointed back and called, "Sandwiches!"
He rushed out of the bathroom and Clara laughed as Osmond leapt up after him, stomping into the room across from theirs, she knew, to dig through a drawer for one of his clip on bowties. The Doctor's hands drifted down to her stomach again and she felt his lips peck at her neck softly, heard his chuckles as she slipped from his grasp and moved into the hallway to look in on the room in which her son was eagerly turning circles trying to get his right arm into a long brown coat, his tongue tucked between his lips, his brow knotted in concentration and she laughed, stopping him to help him before sighing at the room.
They hadn't fixed it for their son straight away. Clara had left it exactly as it had been after she'd made it her library: blue walls accented with newly painted clouds, wooden bookshelves, a soft light couch settled at the center in front of a scraggly white rug her and Martha enjoyed reading to the other woman's newborn daughter on back then. And she could easily recall the day, twenty weeks into a pregnancy that jutted out unquestionably at her midsection, when she'd stood at that room with the scan in her hands and her eyes flooding with tears.
"I can't make it his room, Doctor, what if…" she'd begun as he'd drawn her into a tight hug.
"We'll leave it until you're ready, Clara," the Doctor had told her soothingly.
She'd pulled back and looked down at her stomach, telling him softly as she cried, "Milo, your name is Milo, please baby…" but the request for her boy to live never emerged, lost in a sadness – in a terror – they both knew would come with that scan. Seeing his rounded head and chest, identical to his sister's; being told, definitively, that they were having a son and watching him shift about in black and white as they listened to his strong heartbeats.
Clara smiled as Milo darted off for his shoes, landing on his backside in front of her as she kneeled and offering his feet, one at a time, into her hands so she could laugh at his wiggling toes and watch the way his eyes disappeared in a wide smile he got from his father. He smiled from the moment he was born, emerging quivering from her womb in the middle of the afternoon at thirty eight weeks and three days with a tiny cough before they settled him atop her chest. His tiny lips had parted to reveal his gums and the tip of his tongue as he reached up for her, searching with the unfocused dark grey eyes of an infant.
Milo hopped up and held out his hands to help her stand and he questioned lightly, "Mummy, where is the baby?"
Hands touching her stomach, she exhaled when he lunged forward to hug her, his face barely at her abdomen and he lifted his head, resting his chin there to smirk up at her. She ran her fingers through his thick hair, pushing long bangs off his forehead so they swung over just like his father's and she tilted down to lift him up into her arms, rubbing at his back when he laid his head on her shoulder and hugged her tightly.
They'd brought him home from the hospital and she'd breathed a small sigh of relief as she laid him in his crib for the first time, looking over the small monsters that hung on a mobile over him. She'd decided his room should be colorful, bright and boisterous, just like she knew he'd be. Every kick in her stomach and every roll of his body as she carefully counted down the days to his birth brought a surge to her heart and she'd dreamed of his laugh before she heard it, coming gleefully from his mouth as he'd watched Osmond rolling about on the ground in front of him at three months old.
"Look at them," the Doctor had gestured, "Don't they make quite the pair."
Her father had shaken his head and called to Clara, "He's a funny little man, Clara."
Now he twirled her long hair and whispered in her ear, "Mummy, when is the baby coming?"
"Well," she started as she moved into the Doctor's room, where the Tardis doors stood open and she could see the man already working at the controls, a disassembled tent just behind him, Osmond waiting patiently at his right, "If I'm right, about seven months from now."
Milo moaned, "That sounds like a long time."
With a laugh, Clara turned and nudged the boy's nose with her own and she whispered, "Sorry, sweetie, sometimes things take a long time."
The Doctor grinned at her words and his arm came up without looking, ready to wrap it around his wife and son as the time rotor brightened and Clara laughed when its color began to change. She did that for Clara, whenever she was thinking about Ava, and now it brought her to tears because Milo's laughter slowed as his eyes fell from the center of the Tardis console – glowing a brilliant yellow – to Clara's and he offered a small knowing smile before dropping his head back to her shoulder.
"I had a dream about Ava," he whispered as they landed.
"What did you dream, Milo?" The Doctor asked curiously as they began to walk towards the front doors, stepping through and standing in the gentle breeze blowing a light tune through the air.
Their son often dreamed of his older sister, and her name was the fourth word to grace his lips, behind mumma, dadda, and 'tadee' – the final word screamed each time they neared anything blue and box shaped. He would tug at Clara's hair, or bop his head to hers and he would whisper quietly, "Ava," and they knew it meant in his dreams, she looked like Clara. The girl looked like Clara in all of their dreams – and all three had dreamed of the little girl, aging alongside their brother into a five year old who had a thick crop of dark bangs and chestnut hair that hugged her shoulders, Clara's eyes, and round cheeks always tinged red with a slight bit of embarrassment at their adoration of her. Her mother's dimple settled comfortably into the left.
"Sometimes ghosts linger in different ways," the Doctor had told Clara when she'd woken from a dream in which the then toddler had snuggled up to her pregnant stomach to babble at her then unborn younger brother. "I suppose she'll always be a memory that lived on in our minds in a way memories generally don't – responding and growing and loving. Still fighting to hold onto us, Clara, because we've never let her go."
Clara was calmed by the notion, just as she was calmed by the steady kicks and movements within her and by each breath her son had taken as he'd watched her in the delivery room. "Hello, Milo," she'd whispered, and he'd inhaled deeply, closing his eyes with a smile, as though comforted by her welcome.
Taking a long breath now, the boy shifted to sit up on Clara's hip with a look around them to say, "We were talking… here."
Plucking the boy from Clara's arms to twirl him through the air as he screamed happily, the Doctor moved further into the field, glancing at Osmond, who remained at Clara's side, giving her a gentle nudge of his nose to her hand. He settled Milo against his stomach and Clara sighed because as insane as both of her boys were, they stilled around one another in the most beautiful way and she thought to the countless nights she'd woken to find the man pacing just beside the bed with their son, telling him softly of a planet he'd love to take him, or some funny tale from his past, or simply how much he loved him.
"Your mother's eyes, Milo – they're their own universes, peering out from a wondrous mind, a loving heart, and I will always cherish the infinity I see in them and the fact that she's passed those same eyes onto you… I long to see everything through you…"
Now they stared into each other, fascinated by what they found in each other and Milo told him gently, bowing his head, "She said I had to be good because Matthew is coming."
Clara's hand atop Osmond's head froze as she watched Milo give a small nod and she listened as the boy questioned his father, who shrugged before turning slightly to watch Clara lift her free hand to her stomach and huff a small laugh. Shifting Milo to the ground, the Doctor pulled Clara tightly to him, dropping down to kiss her as their son giggled and she nodded, because as soon as she'd begun to feel the nausea and the exhaustion; as soon as she'd counted the days and began to wonder if she could be pregnant, she began to think about names.
Milo wedged himself between them to ask, "Who's Matthew?"
Looking down at his wide eyes as they waited, Clara laughed and explained, "Milo, Matthew is your baby brother." Her eyes came up to meet the Doctor's as she laughed, feeling Milo pressing a kiss underneath her belly button just before the boy began to whisper inaudibly.
She slipped her arms around the Doctor and smiled into another quick kiss as Osmond barked happily, rushing into the field after the ghost of a girl who, with her father's permission and her mother's spirit, skipped through the tall flowers, humming in tune with the wind. Clara chuckled at the thought as she slipped back from the Doctor and held to him while watching the dog come back for the boy who shouted out and chased him awkwardly, thick hair the only thing visible as they ran in circles around one another.
"What's on your mind?" The Doctor asked her quietly, pecking his lips to her head.
"Darkness," Clara replied before smiling, "For a while I thought I might succumb to it, but Ava is our North Star, our guidance, and she will always be there to light the way however she can, won't she?"
He turned her gently and they laughed together when they saw Milo's head pop up before he waved to them and the Doctor whispered, "I suppose if you're my light and I am yours, it's only natural that our children shine like starlight, eternally."
Clara reached up for the arms that circled her collar and she pulled them apart, slipping her hands into his to bring them down onto her stomach, holding them there as he kissed the scar at her temple. Milo came rushing towards them, Osmond at his heel, and he stopped short, holding two long stalks with several stiff flowers on each and Clara smiled as the boy whispered, "Matthew, listen to this," and began to twirl in front of them, the petals cutting the wind in a odd chorus of whistles as the Doctor's thumbs stroked gently at her stomach.
Laughing, Clara watched Milo fall over and squeal as Osmond pounced on him to lick at his face excitedly. The Doctor's hold on her tightened and he sighed into her ear before he began to chuckle with her and Clara swore she could hear, floating over the music of the waterfalls and the melody of the fields, their little girl's laughter, mingling with theirs, defiantly refusing to become a memory, but to remain – as she should be – a part of their family. And Clara took a long satisfied breath as she gazed out over the first twinkling stars in the early evening sky, knowing she always would be.
~End.