Clara had never thought of being pregnant as easy, but she hadn't imagined it would be so difficult either. It wasn't like she had thought it would be a walk in the park, but she had at the very least hoped that nine months -or more, in this case- without periods would have been, well, more fun.

Fun wasn't the word she would use to describe what she was going through, not by a long shot.

Mostly, it was the tiredness. The fatigue. She constantly felt as though she wasn't getting enough sleep, despite napping literally all the time. She hated that. She even fell asleep at school in between classes if she wasn't careful. And if she was careful, too. She had tried to fight it, at first, but had found that she had no control whatsoever over it all. She would nod off almost automatically every time she sat down and relaxed just for a minute, and she would sleep a lot. For hours. It completely messed up her schedule, the work she had to do for school, everything. Clara didn't like not being in control of her own body and time. It made her nervous and irritable and she woke up every time with a start, terrified of having slept for an exasperating number of hours.

The sickness wasn't getting much better either, no matter what she ate and what she did. The Doctor had been categorical that she couldn't take anything for it either, and had proceeded to empty her meds cabinet of everything except Band-Aids. Clara admitted he was trying to be helpful in other ways, though. He had changed shampoo, for one, which had seemed a very silly thing to him but had been a huge deal for her. That way it was much easier to be around him, and be close to him, which was extremely important because his chest made a very good pillow and pillows had suddenly become a fundamental element in her life.

The Doctor still left her in the morning before school and returned when the lessons were over, spending time on his own in the meantime, but he had started accompanying her with the TARDIS rather than let her ride her motorbike to work like she usually did. He had been pretty clear on the no bike too and, while usually she would have simply ignored him, she found that sometimes she was so tired she didn't trust herself to ride, or just didn't have the strength to, and relying on him was just easier.

The Doctor was reacting to the coming baby exactly in the way Clara should have expected: he read. He read in Gallifreyan about the ways their baby was growing inside her, which foods she should avoid and which she should eat more often, the values of hormones and substances in her blood that were fine and those that weren't. He read in English and other modern Earth languages, sometimes from the future, everything about human biology that could be useful for him to know, confronting the ways her body and the one of a Gallifreyan worked, learning everything that could help their baby stay alive. Finally, he read in several alien languages about interspecies breeding, their baby being still part human, even if that human part had been altered.

Clara could tell that the Doctor was still very concerned about who was responsible for the existence of the baby in the first place, though his top priority seemed for now making sure she carried the pregnancy to term. He had inspected her house, however, making sure it wasn't bugged and putting perception filters around the windows and doors, claiming that if someone really was spying on her, at least they'd have to try harder than simply looking through her open windows.

Clara could see how restless he was, how frantic in the way he worried for this mysterious person who had put them in this situation. He tried to hide it from her, of course, trying to spend his time with her relaxed and calm -albeit busying himself with something such as a book or his guitar- and pretending his brain wasn't constantly working on the problem in some shape or form even when he was lying casually with her on her sofa, soothing her nausea with positive thoughts and gentle caresses of his hand in her hair.

Clara woke up. Which was when she realized she had fallen asleep. Again.

"Hello, sleepy-head," the Doctor said, a note of amusement in his voice that Clara detested. He seemed to think it really funny that she couldn't relax for a second without falling asleep in the blink of an eye.

"I hate you," she murmured. "I hate this."

She looked up at him. She remembered cuddling with him on the sofa, lying on her side, right on top of him, her legs between his as he lay on his back and trailed his fingers through her hair.

She gathered she must have slept for a while since he had changed their positions, accommodating himself better on her small sofa by resting his head on the armrest and letting his legs dangling off the edge of the sofa from the knees down, leaving more space for her to curl up in a ball on his side and place her head over his stomach rather than his chest, where his dry muscles had just a hint of softness.

"How's the nausea? Better?"

Clara gave a vague noise. Yes. Maybe. For the moment.

The Doctor peered down at her from behind a notebook, which Clara realized was hers. A pile of red-covered papers lying on his chest suggested he was grading essays for her, something he had taken up doing since she'd gotten pregnant. He prepared lessons for her, corrected homework, and graded papers. And while she had hated it at first and he was perhaps a bit too knowledgeable and meticulous for high-schoolers, she had soon realized that it was really a huge help when he kept doing it despite her protests, since she kept spending too much time sleeping and he never woke her.

"I hate this. The napping. Adults do not nap. Children nap."

"Pregnant adults nap, Clara. It's completely natural. Your body is spending a lot of energy to build a new life and-"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," she interrupted, irritated. Why did she feel so angry so suddenly? That was another thing she hated, the mood swings. "Still hate it. I'm a grown woman, not a five-year-old. I'm twenty-bloody-eight!"

The Doctor frowned, putting down her notebook and putting on his concerned-and-confused eyebrows.

"You're twenty-seven, Clara."

She propped herself up and sitting -slowly, she tended to feel light-headed these days if she moved too fast-.

"Nope, twenty-eight. What are you talking about?"

"Your birthday. It's the 23rd of November."

He dropped papers and notebook a bit carelessly on the floor, and sat next to her.

She smiled warmly at him, caressing his hand. "It is. I didn't think you'd remember."

"Of course I know when your birthday is, Clara!" He sounded almost outraged at the accusation that he might not. "We celebrated it last year. It was your twenty-seventh."

"We didn't celebrate it last year, you were- oh."

Finally, she understood the reason of the confusion. She had celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday with him, yes, the other him, but her twenty-eighth birthday had been only a few months before, and he had been gone.

"What? I was what?"

"You were gone. It's February, Doctor. You came back on Christmas. You weren't on Earth when I celebrated it. At least, I don't think so."

Clara saw the realisation dawn on his face, and his expression saddened.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. I mean- half your fault. Both of us' fault, for lying to each other." She felt deeply sad at the memory of how much harm they had caused to each other because of their lies, and even felt tears start to form at the corner of her eyes. Bloody hormones.

"Yeah." He paused. "Who… were you alone? On your birthday?"

She smiled at the memory.

"No."

"Your family?"

"God, no. After Danny… I just- could barely bear them." She loved her gran and her dad too, she did, really. But they just kept looking at her with those sad eyes, she felt like they were pitying her. That was probably not their intention, but it was how she perceived their looks. "I spent it with Ade."

"Ade?"

"Adrian. Teacher. Bowtie, blue eyes, you met him."

"Oooh, the who looked like old me-"

"Yeah, you keep saying that. You look nothing alike."

The Doctor made a face. Then his expression changed, turning into that hurt kind of jealous Clara had learned to recognise.

"So, you two…" he trailed off.

"Nope," she said firmly, grabbing his hand more tightly and bringing it to her lips to kiss his knuckles. They locked eyes and she nodded at him. When she felt the now familiar touch of his mind, she let the memories flow to him.

Adrian had been so kind. He had been a good friend to her, and to Danny. He was polite and shy, reserved, a little insecure. It was easy to like him and almost feel protective of him. He'd been so supportive with her when Danny had died, not pitying her but grieving with her, crying with her, letting her vent to him. It seemed like a strange thing to say, but Danny's death had strengthened her friendship with Adrian. They spent a lot of time together at school and sometimes even went out, growing out of the loss of Danny together -though Ade had managed much better than she had-.

When Adrian had discovered that she had decided to spend her birthday without her family, he had insisted she should spend it at least with her friends.

She hadn't been dedicating much time to her friends then, both when she had been spending a lot of her time with the Doctor and after Danny's death, and Adrian had somehow become her closest friend, be it because they worked together or by mere chance. Ade had then insisted she should go out with him for dinner, celebrate properly.

"Look, Ade, I get it, you're sweet, but I want us to remain just friends, okay?"

"Clara, you think I'd- I'd- ask you out? After Danny? It's not like that, I swear. Just, you know, we could- have dinner. Have fun. Yeah?"

"I really don't think that's a good idea-"

"Clara, I swear I'm not- you know- huh, hitting on you or something. I'd never hit on you."

"Oh, well, thank you very much!" she had half-joked. "Look, I'm not saying you're lying but I know how this things go…"

"Clara. What I'm trying to say is- is- I'm- I'm gay. I'm really not asking you out."

Clara had felt like the biggest idiot on the planet, plus a bit offended that Ade hadn't come out to her sooner. Then again, he was a very reserved sort of person and after all she had never told him she was bisexual either.

They had gone to dinner together and Clara had felt better than she had in months. They had talked about Ade's boyfriend, Ade blushing every two sentences. Clara had come out to him, too, and Adrian had been surprised. She had opened up to him about Nina, and it had felt good to tell him. Only the Doctor and her Gran had known until then. Her dad knew only bits -partly because he didn't want to know-. Then they had moved the conversation to other, more pleasant things, Clara had laughed for what felt like the first time in months, and overall had had a great time.

"He's been good to you," the Doctor summarized, filing away the information somewhere in his brain as really meaningful. Clara could feel he was angry with himself, however, for not being the one who had been there when she had needed someone.

"You're here now, that's what matters," she reassured him. She leaned into him and let her head casually rest on his shoulder, feeling him stiffen only slightly at the contact. She sighed. "We'll need to tell Dad. And Gran."

"Tell them what?" he asked, evidently paying little attention to her thoughts, still focused on Adrian and her birthday.

"Baby," she said simply.

It had crossed her mind in the previous days, when her dad had called her or she had called her gran, but she hadn't had the heart to say it. God, saying things seemed to always be the most difficult thing in her life. Besides, she hated the idea of telling it on the phone. Okay, she had developed a bad relationship with phone calls, too.

The Doctor wrapped a protective arm around her, pulling her closer and resting his head against hers.

"Can't be that hard, they know you're with me already, it's only logical- what?"

He stopped as she stiffened in his arms and he could sense her alarm in her mind. She sucked in a breath.

"Yes, about that…"

"You haven't told them," he perceived easily as the thought surfaced in her mind.

"Nope." She bit her lower lip and clutched nervously the sleeve of his coat, one of his hands still in hers.

"Oh."

He was hurt, Clara knew. She hadn't meant him harm, tough, she merely had wanted to keep their relationship to herself for a while and not have the bother of all the questions from her dad and, and, well, yes, she had sort of forgot to tell anyone at all. It just hadn't come up in the conversation. And she didn't want to tell them on the phone, either. Or maybe she hadn't told anyone because she was afraid of losing the good things life gave her as soon as she started building something around them… or something like that. The therapist she had talked to after her mum had died had said that. Talked about it being a defence mechanism, to not get too attached and suffer less. Telling people things made them more real, and real things have consequences.

Right. Not a good train of thought. She shook those thoughts away.

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he shrugged. "I think your gran already knows. About you and me, I mean. She called me your boyfriend on the phone the other day."

She looked up at him. "That was weeks ago. And were you eavesdropping?"

"Time Lord," he answered, as though that explained everything.

"I still have to tell Dad." She got up, slipping out of the Doctor's embrace, standing in front of him. "God, what do I tell him?"

"That we're having a baby?" he asked, sitting still, looking up at her.

"Yes, but what do I tell him? Hey Dad, remember the Doctor? Who showed up naked last year looking thirty years younger? No? He's a 2000-year-old alien being whom I've been travelling through time and space with for the past four years and now I'm pregnant?"

Clara made an exasperated gesture and abruptly sat back down next to the Doctor. She groaned into the thick fabric of his coat. She felt like crying again for some reason. Just hiding her face into the Doctor's shoulder forever and avoiding confronting her family seemed like a really good option all of a sudden.

"Well, when you say it like that…"

"Why, is there a good way to say it?"

She wrapped her arms around his thin frame and pressed her face harder into him where his neck met his shoulder. He patted her back awkwardly and tried to soothe her with his thoughts.

"I don't understand, what's so bad about it?"

"That I've been lying to him for the past years?"

She bumped her head hard against his neck, tears rolling down her cheeks. He grimaced, more out of concern for her than out of pain.

"Well, that's not exactly optimal, but I guess he ought to be happy to become a grandfather? I liked being a grandfather."

"That's not the point! The point is you're an alien, and the baby's an alien and-"

"Clara." The Doctor moved to face her and cupped her cheeks with his palms, locking eyes with her. "It's not the end of the world." He wiped away her tears with his thumbs. "You've seen the end of the world. Multiple times. It's not even that bad."

Clara laughed briefly, in the midst of a sob. Of course he was right, but everything seemed so difficult…

She felt a steady flow of reassuring, positive thoughts from him. That helped.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked.

She nodded, then proceeded to hug him again and bury her face in his warm jumper, intending to stay there for a while, too. He wrapped his arms around her and held her gently, rocking her slightly. She could feel a thought bugging him, clearly distinguishable from the calmer ones he was selecting to make her feel better.

"Ask."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded, but didn't remove her face from where it was and didn't open her eyes, concentrating on the clean smell of his black jumper, the TARDIS laundry soap one of the few scents that still seemed pleasant to her.

"Let's do all the crying now, it's more practical."

"It's not-" He hesitated. "I don't want to make you cry."

"It's not your fault. Hormones and all that. I don't want to cry either."

The Doctor took a deep breath, as though preparing himself for a difficult task.

"You need to see a doctor." Clara went a bit rigid in his arms, and her hands clutched his jumper, but she let him continue. "Not necessarily right now, but in a few weeks. I'm thinking fifteenth week, tops."

She snuggled closer against him.

"Why can't it be you?"

She didn't like the idea of seeing a doctor. She didn't like the idea of someone she didn't know, someone she wasn't comfortable with, taking tests and exams on her and her baby.

"I don't-" He sighed. It cost him to admit it, but… "I don't have the knowledge, nor the experience to handle this. Interspecies pregnancy. Tricky thing. There might be… complications."

He whispered the last word, as though he hoped it wouldn't be true if he said it low enough. Clara swallowed thickly.

"For me or-"

"Both," he interrupted. "I want- I need you to get the best care possible. I… I want the best expert to work on this and I… I'm not. I'm not that person."

And he hated that he wasn't. Clara felt it burn raw and deep beneath his skin through their linked minds.

"Okay."

If it was for their baby, she would do anything. A bit of being prodded and poked at by doctors never killed anyone.

"We can make it as easy as possible for you. You'll only have to go at all costs three times, for the ultrasounds, and that can be it. Before the fifteenth, at about the twenty-fourth and between the thirty-seventh and thirty-ninth. There's a whole lot of blood tests you'll have to do as well, but we can do all those in the three times we'll be going to the doctor. I can be the one to draw the blood if you prefer, even a pudding-brain could manage that. Then there's the urine test for infections and other things, and we need to start doing that monthly, but I can take care of that in the TARDIS."

"You've been giving this thought."

She looked up at him, surprised and even a bit proud of how much he already cared about this baby.

"Yeah, I… I spoke to a doctor. And she said she would do it. On our terms."

"She?" Clara cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Best expert on interspecies breeding I could find considering we needed someone knowledgeable both on Gallifreyans and Humans, and operating not too far into the future since your species will evolve and interbreed and change considerably in the next one hundred thousand of years, and the difference between you and them could make what's medicine for them a poison to you."

"What do you mean with 'our terms'?" she asked, even though she could easily understand what the Doctor meant without even diving deeper in his mind.

"No one has to know about this baby, Clara. No one, in all of time and space. No one that doesn't already know. Not on Earth, that doesn't really matter, the perception filters I've set will be enough to fool UNIT and they're the only ones we should worry about. We can tell your family, and your school will know at some point, but at least your family I'll have to protect with a filter too. I'll think of something. But for the rest of the universe… our baby must remain a secret. This baby needs protection, Clara. It wouldn't- it wouldn't be the first time my enemies use an infant to get to me."

His voice was thick with emotion, and Clara felt again the tumultuous flood of his anger at the memories of the Silence using Amy and River to get to him, River who had been nothing but a new-born at the time.

She caressed his cheek, then the side of his head, trailing up, caressing his long hair, trying to reassure him with her mind like he so often did.

"Nothing is going to happen to our baby, Doctor. You'll keep them safe. Always. I don't doubt that, not even for a moment."

"I couldn't protect them!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking. Clara knew he meant Amy and River. "What if I fail again, what if- what if-" The rest of the words died on his lips.

"No ifs, Doctor. Do what you always do. Assume you're going to win. Don't think you're going to fail, ever."

"How long can I keep doing that, Clara? How long before that trick stops working?"

Clara could sense his fear, the dread that filled him to the brim of losing their baby, or her. It was overwhelming, and deafening if she just stopped to listen. She tried to put a barrier between herself and that crashing waterfall of emotions, dampening its intensity so she could focus on comforting the Doctor. She placed both her hands on his cheeks, forcing him to look at her. His eyes were bright.

"It won't. Not on my watch." She kissed him softly on the lips. "I know you're scared, but I know you, Doctor. You can do anything you set your mind to."

He smiled a little, and she felt his hearts warm.

"When you say it, I can believe it."

She smiled in response.

"You do that."

He pressed their foreheads together, then nuzzled his temple against hers, something she was starting to believe was a display of affection typical of his species. She replicated the motion, then, and added a light kiss to the shell of his ear. She felt his reaction, surprised and pleased, and he looked relieved when their eyes met. She smiled at him.

"We can tell my family after we've been to the doctor, then," she started, also in an attempt to distract him from his concerns. "When we know the baby's alright, yeah?"

He nodded wordlessly, and Clara laughed softly when he voluntarily initiated a new hug, pulling her into him.