He read her a chapter of a book every morning. It was always very early, when the sun had just begun to peek over the mountains to wake them up. She was never fully awake, she never was these days, but as he opened the book, he could practically see her eyes focus on his face in always loved to hear him read.

He did all the voices, making the tone high or low to affect, and she would laugh, that beautiful sound. She would tell him not to disturb the woman visiting her husband next door, but he would simply shake his head, telling her off for disturbing the story. When the chapter was finished, he'd close the book with a smile, and the old woman would give him a sad smile.

Then there was silence. As soon as the cover flapped shut, it all faded to colors of grey and dull green. Her laugh floated away on the wind, along with the happiness in his heart. He would stand up off the grass, worn in the spot where he sat day after day, and he would turn to go/

The sign above where she sleeps is misleading he tells himself, just as he does everyday. It doesn't mean anything, because she'll be back with him any minute now, any minute she'll wake back up. She has to.

He traces the letters on the sign, and takes a deep breath.

Clara Oswald

Born: April 12, 1989

Died: April 12, 2014

She flies among the stars, even now.

The Doctor turns to go, his shoulders heavy. "I will fix this." He tells her, under her green blanket. "I promise."

One month earlier.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

She was drowning in memories. She was drowning in the water that clung to her skin, to Elijah's coat. She was drowning in blood, Amy's blood, as she tried to stop the other girl's bleeding.

"HELP ME!" she screamed, "SOMEONE PLEASE!" her voice cracked, and she began to violently sob, Amy had to wake up. She couldn't leave her alone in this. Amy was still alive, moaning, and Clara kept screaming.

"Oh my Lord, ROGER!"

She was breaking. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt, shutting her eyes hurt. She couldn't decide what was worse, Amy's death, or the Doctor's ignorance to his own memories. She could hear Rory's sobs from where she was frozen in the hospital waiting room, but no one was comforting him. Everyone was scared. Scared to face his grief, as they carried his dead fiancée to the morgue. He didn't seem to even know why he was crying. He didn't know why Amy wasn't at his side.

And now Clara knew she was going to die as well. It only made sense. She was disposable, and dangerous.

Rory's grief stricken voice rose above everything else, and John seemed to shrink in front of his gaze. "Where is she?" he kept repeating, "Amy loves to play jokes on me you see," he would tell anyone he passed, "she wouldn't kill herself. This is all a joke."

"Clara?" it was Rose. Her friend stood uncertainly above her, tearstains on her cheeks. "I think it's time to take you home." Clara looked down at her hands, and realized she was still clutching Amy's red scarf, the end soaked with blood, which dripped onto the floor and created a gruesome puddle at her feet.

"Where is she?" she repeated Rory, even though her mind was telling her the truth, "This has to be a joke." Her life couldn't be falling apart like this.

"AMY?!" Rory yelled, "COME ON. ENOUGH'S ENOUGH. I KNOW YOU'RE THERE." He let out a shaky laugh, walking up to Clara. His face was streaked with tears, which he kept reaching up to wipe off, like if he couldn't see the tears then everything was okay. "Those girls, eh Clara? Always playing games." He said to her, and then noticed Amy's scarf in her grip. "That's Amy's." he said, taking it from her grasp. He gasped when her blood seeped into his fingers. "Amy." He whispered, and Clara knew his illusion was over.

She dashed out of the hospital, and threw up.

"Clara?!" Elijah's hand was on her back, and she looked up at him, her eyes clouding with tears. He wasn't him. He wasn't the Doctor. He saw her scared eyes, her shaking hands, and he knelt down, using the gentlest voice she had ever heard. "Let's get you home," he said softly, "and clean you up." And in that moment, she knew he wasn't the Doctor at all, because the Doctor would have hid from her tears, hid himself from her emotions. That knowledge brought another sob rising to her throat, and his arm went tightly around her shoulders.

The way home was a blur. That night was a blur. Or was it night? She stared at her hands, at the way the blood swirled down the drain like a red whirlpool, part of her wondering who was going to do this for Elijah when she died. He was behind her, scrubbing her hands clean, because she couldn't find the effort to do that herself. She couldn't find the effort to do anything.

"Clara," he said slowly, "You need to take a hot shower, and I don't think you want me to assist you in that." She looked up at him, eyes wide.

"No shower." She said firmly, "No more water." She looked down at her hands, and shrieked when she saw that they were dripping wet. She stood up, and avidly tried to dry them, trying not to cry. Rain reminded her of Amy, and Amy reminded her of death, and death reminded her of herself.

Elijah was tired, she could see that, as he gently dried her hands with a cloth, and pressed a kiss to her forehead. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend she could feel the slight vibrations of the TARDIS floor, and she was Clara. Just Clara. And he was the Doctor. Just the Doctor. It was as it always should be.

But then he moved his lips down, and pressed a quick kiss against hers, and the image popped like a bubble. She turned her head quickly to the side, hoping that he couldn't see the tears starting to surface in her eyes.

"I'm sorry." He said, but he wasn't apologizing for the kiss, she knew that. He was apologizing for Amy's death, even though it should affect him more than her. He pulled her in for a hug, and she was suddenly aware of the fact that he was wearing a stripy long sleeved shirt, not tweed. He didn't even have a bow tie on, she realized, and somehow that simple fact made her whole body shake with sobs.

He took this as her grief showing, and he stroked her hair with careful fingers, pressing reassuring kisses into her hair. She wanted him back. She realized in that moment, that she loved him.

She loved the Doctor.

And that notion kept her sobbing, because she knew now that she would never get to see his face light up again as he showed her a planet, she would never see his old sad eyes.

"Let's get you to bed." He told her softly, and sniffling slightly she nodded, and let him guide her to his bedroom, and she realized that for the last week she had been sleeping in there. She sank uncomfortably down on to the sheets, giving him a watery smile as he said he would be right back with something to eat.

Moving quickly and quietly so Elijah wouldn't return, she pulled out a paper from his desk. She began to write him a letter, a letter telling him what to do. She took her Mother's ring off her finger, and slipped it into the envelope, it was up to him now.

She could hear his footsteps on the stairs, and she slipped back under the covers and closed her eyes. She heard his fond exhalation of breath at the sight of her 'sleeping'. She felt his lips as they pressed against his forehead.

He leaves while she's sleeping. It was the only reason he wasn't at Rory's side after all, and travels quickly to the Ponds house, a strange brotherly feeling erupting in his gut. While he hadn't conversed much with the other man, he couldn't imagine Clara dying, and could only think of what Rory was going through.

Whoever left Rory on his own should be sent to prison, he thought as he opened the door. He expected someone to be with the man, he had just lost his fiancée after all.

Rory was sitting on the floor, a bottle clutched in his grip, and that was the first sign to Elijah that something was terribly wrong. For whatever reason, he felt a despair clogging up inside, even though he had hardly knew Amy, and all their interactions involved Rose or Clara. It was almost as if he knew her in another life, like she was his best friend. And now she's gone.

He locked the door behind him, not because he was going to do anything bad. But because Rory hadn't locked it himself, as if every ounce of life had gone out of him.

"Hi." Rory slurred up at him, and Elijah bent down and pried the bottle from his grip. Rory didn't drink more than a glass, and certainly never got drunk. "I'm a bachelor now." He informed Elijah, "I can drink as much as I want." Elijah dumped out the contents of the bottle in the sink, and sighed a worn out sigh.

"Rory." He said, "Would Amy want you to be like this?"

"She didn't want me anymore," Rory said in defeat, "The doctors say she shot herself. I wasn't enough." His voice cracked, and he looked despratly around himself. "Where's my drink?"

"Down the sink." He informed him, and knelt down next to the other man, pulling him up, slinging his arm across his shoulder. He helped him up, and got him off the floor and began to make his way to where he and Amy used to sleep.

"No." Rory said firmly, "Couch." He seemed to let Elijah help him, and not pushing it, he set him down on the couch. "Bed still smells like her." Rory mumbled into the cushions. Elijah sighed, sitting down in the arm chair. He took out his cell phone, and frowned. 5 missed calls from Rose.

"Elijah!" Rose sounded relieved when he called her back. "Where are you?"

"Rory's." he answered.

"Is Clara with you?" she demanded.

"No…" he trailed off, "She was at the house-"

"No!" Rose cried, "No…. She's not. I'm there."

"What do you mean she isn't at the house?"

"I don't know… but Elijah, someone left a note." Something in her voice tells him that this note can't be good.

"What did it say?"

"It said, 'She's gone now, gone for good.'"

"One of you come here and look after Rory." He said, and when Rose protested, "NOW." He was out the door before he knew it, and everything went as soon as he stepped out the door.

He wasn't alone when he woke. He was on a plane, bound to one of the first class seats. He was staring at Clara, who was by the emergency door, held by an old woman with what looked like claws.

"Clara." He choked out, wondering why he was here, why she was here. She just gave him a sad look, tears trailing down her face.

"Don't question anything." Said a cold, dead voice. Walter Simeon walked into his line of view. "This has to happen Elijah."

"What has to happen?" he demanded of all three of them, but the old woman just let out a cackling laugh, and Simeon stayed silent.

"I have to die." Clara said shakily, and he was immediately fighting against his bonds.

"Who the hell told you that?" he said forcefully, and something in her eyes makes him believes that she does believe it. That she honestly believes that she should die.

"Nobody had to." She said, "and I don't believe it, but I have to."

"That makes no sense."

"If I don't die, they'll kill you." She said simply.

"THEN LET ME DIE. I'M NOT WORTH IT CLARA." He yelled with fury at her, and she flinched back. "LET. ME. DIE."

"Look," she told Simeon, "You want this done? Let's do it now." She stared unflinchingly into his gaze. "It was always going to end like this." Simeon nodded, and the plane door flew open.

"NO! CLARA…." He trailed off, as the old woman began to drag her. "Please." He begged her, and she turned to face him. "Don't do this."

"I can't even control my body anymore." She sobbed, turning to face him, "I can't control my legs."

"Don't leave me alone Clara." He begged, "Let me die." As if it took great effort, she turned her head.

"Run."

He was a runner. He always had been, since he was a young man and had ran away from the time lords. He had a passion for running, and he liked to do with someone else's hand in his. They always clutched as his hand like it was a lifeline, and he clutched at them with his desperate fingers, determined not to let them trail away like water. Their laughter filled the halls of his lonely ship for such a short time, their beautiful songs echoing around the infinite vastness. They always left though-

"You."

His name echoed through the stars, painted among them, but hidden within the universes code, a secret that only three people knew anymore. Clara, River and himself. Clara always knew. She knew it from the moment she set her eyes upon it in that book, and she never really had forgotten it.

"Clever."

He had always called himself clever, it was a title he hid behind often, to mask what he was really feeling. He sometimes occasionally couldn't find the right words and made stuff up, mostly to impress those lovely humans he adored so much.

"Boy."

He certainly was a boy, and felt it every time he kissed River, kissed Rose, hell even Amy. But most definitely the one time he kissed Clara, or a version of Clara, and her lips felt so soft under his, and she was a delicate flower, he realized, a china doll, and that he had to take care of her.

"And."

There was an ending to everything, and he remembered often wondering whether there was an afterlife for him after all he did, after everyone he hurt. There certainly couldn't be an after for him could there? He'd lived most of his life in solitude, but his stupid mind still reached out for his friends, those precious people who meant so much to him.

"Remember."

He knew who he was. It was to late.

The old woman, with a final tug, yanked herself and Clara off the plane, and a pained scream worked its way out of his mouth, as he literally ripped the ropes from his body and sprinted towards the door. Simeon grasped his arms and he couldn't reach her. He couldn't save her.

She seemed to be falling in slow motion, or maybe it was just this world. When she saw him looking at her, at her demise, she carefully turned her head to the side and closed her eyes, like seeing his pain hurt her.

He woke up in a alley, with his face pressed against the urine scented wall, and his arms and legs jammed behind him. For a moment he stayed there, wondering what the hell he was doing in an alley way, before he remembered. With a new desperation, he shoved his way to his feet, and stumbled out into the town square.

He heard the sobs and shrieks of pain before he saw her. They wouldn't have left her in a place where she wouldn't be noticed for days, they had to leave her in a place where everyone would see her.

He fights his way to the front of the crowd of people surrounding her, and shoves John aside, not even pausing to wonder why his tenth incarnation is here.

There's no way she could have survived that fall, and he knows that in his heart, but he supposes that it's damn simulation that makes her eyes flutter slightly when he kneels next to her. He crouch's over her protectively, blocking out all the eyes of the people around them. They don't deserve to be here. To see her last moments.

"Doctor." She whispers slightly, her eyes peering open slightly, and he knows it must be the simulation, because he can't actually see the life draining from her eyes can he?

"Hey there." He whispers, and smiles down at her, trying to mask the pain about to burst out him in a vast storm of emotion. They didn't call him the oncoming storm for no reason.

"It hurts." She says softly, and her voice is so quiet for a moment he thinks she's gone. "But I flew." she adds, and he can hear the imaginative little girl who lost her Mother peeking out from in-between the gasps of pain she released.

"I know, Impossible Girl." He says just as quietly, "But…" he takes a deep breath, "It will feel better in a minute, I promise. You saved me Clara. Again. I'm here. It's the Doctor." He said it so quietly no one could hear him. She smiles then, and it seems to pain her, to move those muscles in her face.

"I did it." She says, "I love you."

"I love you too." He chokes out, and it's the last thing he says to her. She sighs a contented sigh, and the light drains from her eyes like water down a faucet.

People lie, he thought, as he pressed his face into her neck and sobbed, when they say dead bodies look like they're sleeping. They lie, because she doesn't look like that. She's gone. Her limbs are broken, and a thin pool of blood is pooling on the pavement and soaking into his shirt but he doesn't care.

He's crying because he lost her again, and that her eyes are staring glassily up at the sky she always loved to see with try to pull him back with their words, She's gone. They whisper, She's not coming back.

Forever and Always.

Please don't hate me.