Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been updating this as often as I'd like. School has been very stressful this semester. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter (longer than usual!) Please comment if you liked any bits (if you did), it's REALLY encouraging; you have no idea. Anyhow, please enjoy!

Chapter 8

Ghosts of Christmas Past

The days leading up to Friday trickled by slower than molasses. Wintry winds gusted Clara around as she walked to and from the Smith's flat; work on Christmas displays brought shaky ladders and smelly carpenters walking to and fro every day; and Bill, bless her heart, was fighting an illness mild enough for her guardians not to worry, but bad enough for Clara to feel herself getting ill by osmosis. Friday evening did come, however, and without any cold or flu in sight.

Clara had the day off, and so had all of ten hours to fret about her outfit, and the people that she'd meet, and the things she'd say to John. By the time she was dressed and waiting for John's carriage, she'd worked herself into such a state that she almost didn't want to go. It would've been so much less stressful to just stay at home, read a book perhaps, and sleep early. Or, even, to go watch over Bill while John went to the show on his own, or with someone else.

A knock came to the door, sending a flurry of anxiety as well as excitement through Clara's nerves. She looked down at herself one last time, adjusting the sleeve of her dress, and then answered the door.

"Hello, John."

"Miss Oswald." He tilted his top hat with a shiny black glove, then looked her outfit over with a bright smile. "You look…amazing."

She turned away, beet red, clutching her purse in a white-knuckle grip.

"I suppose it is a little more formal than my uniform."

He merely smiled in reply, holding out his hand. She took it, trying to will her fingers to stop shaking. It didn't work, but he didn't comment on it either, except to ask, "Are you warm enough?"

She nodded, a bit of disappointment hinting at her lips as he let go of her hand to rub his gloves together.

"It's probably going to be a blustery one tonight," he said, teeth chattering.

"Yes, probably."

He held the carriage door for her, but when they'd arrived inside it, he suddenly withdrew into himself. Two blocks away from her flat, he still hadn't said another word, simply staring out the window. Clara noticed the way he held onto the door handle, like it was the only thing keeping him from falling off of a very high cliff.

"John," she said, just testing whether he'd hear her.

He hardly did, his head merely turning slightly in her direction. She cleared her throat and then repeated his name, which finally seemed to do the trick.

"Yes, Clara?" He asked, whipping his head around to her.

"Have you ever read Mr. Dickens' work?"

"Oh yes. A Christmas Carol is my favorite."

"Mine is Oliver Twist."

"Ah," he said with a smile and a nod. "Yes, that's a good one as well."

John slowly turned back toward the window, staring outside like it was his duty. They didn't speak for the rest of the five minute journey, but Clara did notice that he held the door handle with less rigidity. She marked that as a small victory.

The show was, in a word, wonderful. Perfect, even, for Clara. Everyone laughed at the right bits, cried out in the wrong bits, and looked at Mr. Dickens like a light at the end of a dark tunnel. It was as if the audience had really seen proper spirits that night, wandering through the air, and that this man had conjured them himself.

She and John walked out of the theatre to find the air almost as nippy as John had hypothesized, but neither of them seemed to notice. For Clara's part, she was much too focused on John's wonderfully theatrical retellings of Mr. Dickens words. He made them sound so different, as if she hadn't heard the story a dozen times already.

"God bless us, every one!" He cried into the night air, partially making fun of and partially admiring Mr. Dickens emotional reading of the text.

Clara laughed heartily, wrapping her shawl closer to herself. John suddenly stopped his theatrics looked at her seriously.

"Would you like me to call a carriage?"

Clara shook her head.

"I'd like to walk, if you don't mind. It's a beautiful evening."

John agreed, and so they continued down the cobblestones, looking at the horses and theatre-goers surrounding themselves. Some of the shops already had their Christmas decorations on display, candles in the windows lighting up trees and wrapped boxes.

As they walked, side by side, their arms swung closer and closer together. At one point, their fingers just brushed each other, sending shivers up Clara's spine. She suddenly became aware that neither of them were wearing gloves.

She was about to comment on this when a rough shoulder bumped into her, travelling in the opposite direction. She stumbled from the impact, and then tripped over the uneven stones. In a blur, she found herself on the ground, knees and hands scraped, and a sharp pain in her ankle.

John was by her side in an instant, his head turned up to the man who'd collided with her. His eyebrows did all of the reprimanding necessary.

"Clara, are you alright?" He asked with a gentility that contrasted sharply with the look on his face.

Her face was flushed and she was practically lying in the gutter. Worst of all, though was her ankle. She tried moving it and gasped, loud enough to turn John's stoic, angry eyes soft and nervous.

"My ankle," she explained.

One of his pale hands ghosted over her leg, hardly brushing the fabric.

"Can you stand, if I help you?"

They took each other's hands and tried to get her to her feet in a single effort. But, as soon as she put pressure on her ankle, her leg buckled and she almost landed on the ground again. Luckily, John's arm was there this time to catch her.

He let go as soon as she was in a stable, seated position on the cold cobblestones.

"Er, right," he said, the wheels visibly turning in his head. "My flat is just a few streets away. Unless you'd like a taxi to the hospital?"

She shook her head.

"I don't think the hospital is necessary."

He knelt down beside her, awkwardly figuring out what to do. Every now and then, his arms shifted toward her, testing different positions but never actually touching her. Clara finally couldn't help watching his fumbling movements any longer.

"John…?"

"I, er...if I may…? Can I, er...I can carry you to my flat. But, only if it's alright. Only...you shouldn't lie on this cold ground waiting for a carriage to stop."

Clara blushed, again, but gave him a smile.

"You may. Thank you, John. I can't say that enough."

He shifted one arm beneath her back, scooping up her legs with that gentle firmness that she'd come to recognize in him.

"I should be thanking you-for putting up with me. I am truly sorry about all of this."

He rose steadily to his feet, holding her so close to his chest that her cheek brushed against the blue fabric of his waistcoat. She could hear his heart thumping rather quickly beside her ear.

John carried her silently down the pavement, avoiding the sideways glances thrown from passersby. His breath quickened as they went, the exertion and the cold biting into his arms and weary legs. But he didn't hesitate, even for a second. He didn't even pause for breath until they were at his door.

"Er, Clara? There's a key in my left breast pocket."

They shifted around until she could reach into his pocket, an act which made both of their hearts flutter yet faster, cheeks turning dark red. Eventually, they made it into the flat, the key back in John's pocket, and Clara on the sofa with her ankle raised.

"May I check your ankle?" He asked, with so much politeness that Clara had to suppress a smile.

"Yes," she replied simply.

He knelt by her feet and carefully worked her boots off, cringing as she did.

"Sorry."

"It's fine," she said with a flash of a smile.

With even more care, he pulled her sock off and rolled up her dress, just enough so that her ankle was exposed.

Turning unto his 'doctor' personality, John examined her injury and wrapped it in a bandage pulled from his medical bag. Then he propped the foot on a pillow and stood back to survey his work.

"You have a bit of a sprain. Nothing serious, but I suggest you stay off of it as much as you can for the coming week."

Clara nodded in understanding, and then they met each other's eyes.

"I should get home. I don't want to keep you up," Clara said, making no move to leave.

John anxiously closed and opened one of his hands.

"I think, maybe, it would be best if you sleep here tonight?" His eyes grew wide as his words reached his brain. "If you are alright with that, of course. I can sleep on the sofa tonight, and you would take my bedroom."

"I couldn't-"

"Please." He smiled, as if it would make for the pleading in his tone. "I insist. It's the least I can do."

She agreed, if only to make the guilty look in his eyes go away.

John instantly busied himself making his temporary flatmate as comfortable as he could. He pulled a woman's nightgown somewhere out of a closet, brewed her a nice cup of tea, and, to top it all off, let her finish the rest of a bottle of wine he'd stashed out of Bill's reach.

He only let up on his caretaking after helping her to his bedroom. Her ankle was much better by now, allowing her to use him only as a support as she stumbled along.

"Goodnight, Clara," he said, seeing that she was sitting on the bed eyeing up the books that sat on his bedside table. "Treat yourself to any of those. Though, the history book is a bit dry for my taste. I only bought it so I could help Bill with her studies. She wants to be a 'world traveller', in her words."

Clara chuckled.

"She told me she wanted to be a doctor, like you."

He smiled to himself, and then perked his head up.

"I should let you get some rest."

He started to close the door, but Clara sat up straighter.

"John?" She called.

"Yes?"

She smiled softly.

"I had a wonderful time this evening."

He smiled bashfully.

"Goodnight, Clara," he repeated.

"Goodnight, John."

. . . . . .

Even with her foot aching slightly when she changed positions, Clara had the best sleep of her life that night. That is, until close to two in the morning when she awoke absolutely parched.

It was rather inconvenient to be so thirsty on the one night that she was less mobile than usual. It was as if her body wanted to punish her for injuring herself on the cobblestones. But, alas, she was very thirsty and John was very much asleep, so she'd have to get it herself.

As she stumbled into a standing position, her half-asleep mind mulled over her predicament. It was probably the wine. Scratch that; it was definitely the wine. In his kindness, John had unwittingly condemned her to this painful little jaunt to the kitchen.

She smiled at the irony of it, hilarious with the three hours of sleep she'd gotten so far. But as soon as she was out of John's room, she woke up abruptly.

Sounds were coming from the front room, where the sofa was. Sounds that, as a governess, she'd grown only too accustomed to hearing.

It was the murmurings of someone having a bad dream.

Clara instantly remembered Bill's words to her earlier that week, about John having terrible nightmares. Her heart ached for him even before she saw him.

When she did, her heart ached even worse.

He was holding the blankets as tightly as it seemed humanly possible, wrapping them so closely to his face Clara almost worried he'd suffocate himself. Underneath the covers, he mumbled incoherent, pain-filled words. Above, his eyelids fluttered rapidly.

Clara stumbled over to him, almost forgetting about her ankle.

"John?" She called into the darkness. She set down the candle from her room, far enough away to be out of danger, and knelt beside him. Her ankle shot with pain at the motion, but that didn't matter at the moment.

John was starting to cry in his sleep.

"John, it's alright." She cupped his cheek, and his grasp on the blankets started to wane. She pulled them away from his face just in time to catch the name 'Idris'. Her eyebrows furrowed, brain working hard.

Had he ever mentioned an 'Idris' before? Was this her business anyway? Should she go back to bed and pretend she hadn't seen or heard anything?

Her answer to that was a firm 'no'. She was Clara Oswald, and someone needed her. She wasn't about to go anywhere.

"John, wake up."

She stroked his sweaty hair, just as she had with the children she'd watched for so many years. A tear tracked down his face.

"Shh, shh." She wiped the tear away with the pad of her thumb. "John," she said more firmly.

He woke suddenly, eyes darting open and breath quickening. Clara leaned back to give him space to get his bearings. The candlelight flickered over his features, making him look even more frightened.

Clara's heart ached again.

"John?"

He seemed to see her for the first time, wiping his face quickly.

"Clara." His voice was a little broken, but he fixed it with a respectable cough. "Sorry, er, did I wake you? You shouldn't be on that ankle."

Clara rested a hand on his shoulder, ignoring the attempt her made to flinch away from her touch.

"I was already up. You were having a nightmare." She wasn't about to let him distract her from the subject.

"Yes," he said simply.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He shook his head. Then, he reconsidered.

"In my line of work...it's difficult sometimes." He sighed, seeming to regret saying anything.

As he hid his face in his hands again, Clara patted his knee.

"I'm going to make a cup of tea. Do you want any?"

His brows drew together.

"It's the middle of the night."

"I'm not getting back to sleep any time soon. And neither are you. So we might as well."

He smiled at that.

"You are a very good governess."

Her smile lit up her face.

"I better be."

. . . .

Fifteen minutes later, they were sitting on the sofa beside each other, each with a cup of tea in hand. They had lit more candles, and so the room was almost completely bright now, as if it weren't well past both of their usual bedtimes.

"John?" Clara asked, when they'd consumed enough regenerating tea to feel alright again. "Can I ask...you said a woman's name. Idris?"

He turned to the floor, and Clara instantly felt a weight drop in her stomach.

"I'm sorry," she said, setting her cup on the table. "It's not my place."

"No, no," he assured. "It's fine. I, er...I don't get to talk about her much anymore."

She waited patiently, as he took one last swig of tea and then set his mug beside hers.

"Idris was my wife. She was...she wasn't like anyone I'd ever met before. She was rebellious, but in a peaceful way. And she could tease like you wouldn't believe." He smiled at that. "We went everywhere together. But we'd always come back home. She was home, I suppose, in a way. I never felt like I was really home unless she was there."

His face fell. He cleared his throat before continuing.

"It was a very stormy morning when...we were in a cab, just outside of our flat in Glasgow when…there was an accident. The road...and a rogue driver...and our carriage tipped over."

His hand curled into a fist on his bouncing leg.

"I tried my best, but...she was so injured…"

His voice trailed off. Clara wanted to throw her arms around him, she felt his pain so deeply. She satisfied herself by putting a hand on his. He took it gladly, squeezing her palm.

"I'm sorry, John."

He met her eyes, and his lips flashed a little smile.

"A similar event happened with Bill's mother. I was called to the scene, but it was too late. I felt...it was my duty. So I took Bill in."

Clara squeezed his hand tighter.

"You're a good man." She wiped her own tears in her dressing gown. "I haven't...I haven't met many of them before."

"I went travelling, after Idris. I think...I didn't want to be attached to anyone again. Except Bill, of course. And…"

He caught himself at the last moment, but the way he looked into Clara's eyes told her all she needed to know.

"I'm afraid I'm rather attached to you already, John." She let her words ring through the air for a moment.

Then, she added, for propriety's sake, "And Bill, of course."

They shared one final smile before heading back to their respective beds for whatever sleep they could find in the last few hours of the night.