Thank you for the reviews! Are you ready for John to return 'home'?

Chapter 14

John felt more and more nervous the closer they got to the house, which happened at an incredibly slow pace. He was still slow and clumsy on his crutches and his leg hurt the longer he was on his feet. John couldn't wait to sit down again, but first he would have to have a look at the house. His house.

As soon as he had stepped out of the car, John had realized that it was lovely. An ideal home in an ideal, quiet neighbourhood for someone like him. Yet whoever he was, that person was foreign to John. He didn't remember buying a home or marrying the woman who was currently walking next to him. A big part of him wanted nothing more than to go home, back to his old flat, his old life and pretend that nothing had changed in the past five years. But it had. Oh, it had. And maybe even for the better? He was sure he would find out soon enough.

Clara unlocked the door in front of him and opened it wide to allow him to step, or rather hobble, inside and John glanced around the strange place. Nice corridor, elegant, homely. And yet utterly unfamiliar.

"Come on," Clara said to him in a tone that was probably supposed to sound cheerful, but she failed to hide her confusion entirely. John could scarcely imagine what the situation must be like for her. "I'm sure you want to sit down."

"You read my mind," he mumbled while he followed her into the living room. Even though he didn't really know Clara at all, he had seen enough of her to tell that she was kind and sweet, but there was something about her that told him she could probably be very bossy as well. He could imagine all too well why he must have fallen in love with her because he liked her even now without knowing anything about her. His memories would come back eventually. Probably. Hopefully.

The living room he soon entered wasn't exactly what he would have called his style, so John assumed that Clara had done most of the decorating, which was very fortunate in this case. He liked it. A large sofa facing a telly, coffee table, two chairs and walls framed almost entirely by book cases. Clara seemed to be an avid reader and a couple of Jane Austen novels took the prime spot at the centre.

"I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library," John said, nodding towards the books and then turning to face Clara with a smile.

However he found a strange expression on her face, something between sadness and hope. He watched as she opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"Did I say something wrong?" he asked.

"No," Clara replied instantly, her eyes growing wider. She really had beautiful, large eyes. "No, not at all. It's just-"

"Just what?"

She hesitated for a moment, her face growing sadder by the second. "When we first talked you quoted Jane to me, too. That's how I knew I wanted to meet you," she explained, a light but sad smile on her lips.

"Apparently you did," John said, smiling back at her.

Right now John wished that he could remember. It seemed so strange that he was supposed to have found someone and married her, someone so young and beautiful and intelligent. He wanted to remember how that had happened because he couldn't imagine it at all.

"I'm gonna make a cup of tea. Do you want one?" she asked him.

"Yes," he nodded, "Tea would be lovely."

John turned around and took another long look around the place, admiring how clean it was and assuming that Clara had left to go to the kitchen when suddenly he heard her voice again.

"Do you like it?" she asked, "The house?"

He turned back towards her, for a moment not knowing what to say. "It's. . . uhm. . . it's nice. We. . . we chose it well, I suppose."

"We did," Clara confirmed and John could feel that there was more coming, that she hesitated to say it. "You'll remember, won't you?"

John swallowed hard. He was a doctor, so he knew that it was likely he would remember most of what had happened in time. But as a patient he just couldn't imagine it right now. He couldn't imagine that five whole years were gone from his head as if they had never happened.

"Yes," he lied. He hoped.

When Clara had left the living room to prepare their tea John sank down on the sofa just as the door bell rang. He groaned when he realized he was going to have to get back up again when Clara shouted from inside the kitchen.

"Stay put, I'll get it!"

With a sigh John sank back into the sofa cushions and listened to Clara's footsteps on the corridor before the door opened and he could hear voices. John couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he didn't actually have to as they both stepped into the living room a few moments later – Clara and a rather chubby, bald man who looked a bit simple.

"Hi," the man said and raised his hand to wave awkwardly at John, "Just wanted to see how you were."

"Uhm," John hesitated, not quite sure what to reply or even who that man was. Luckily Clara jumped in immediately.

"This is Nardole, your receptionist," she explained kindly, "And a good friend."

"Hello," John said sheepishly, not knowing what else to say. He didn't remember Nardole, but he remembered Missy asking him to fire his receptionist for being an imbecile.

Then he watched Clara turn towards the chubby man. "We only just got home. Maybe you should come back tomorrow or in a few days when John has settled in."

"Of course," Nardole smiled broadly, "I just wanted to let you know that everything's taken care of in your practice. No need to worry."

He looked at John. "Good thing about memory loss is that I can make a second first impression, hopefully a better one, huh?" he asked, still smiling.

Maybe Missy was right and he really was an idiot.

"Alright, I better get going," he said with another waving gesture, "See you around."

Clara left the room with him to show him out and John let out a sigh once he was alone once more. As much as he had hated being confined to the hospital bed, this didn't seem much better at the moment. He wasn't comfortable here in a strange house with a strange woman, no matter how nice she was to him. He felt like a guest, nothing more. According to everyone else he had been so in love with her that they had annoyed everyone else with their flirting and now he couldn't even find a spark of that emotion inside of him. It always took him a very long time to let someone close and now he was here, forced to be around Clara, forced to be in this house that didn't feel like his own at all. How long would it take until his memory came back? Would it come back at all?

"I prepared the downstairs bedroom for you."

John looked up when he heard Clara's voice and found her standing in the door frame, holding two steaming mugs. She was so small and she seemed even smaller now that he realized how sad she was. Sad and pretty.

"I thought you might not be able to handle the stairs with the crutches," she added, "Or want to share a room with me."

"I haven't even considered that, but you're right," he said, lifting up one of the crutches and avoiding to answer the second part of her assumption. He didn't need to cause her any more pain. "Might be a bit difficult with the stairs."

Clara gave a short nod and suddenly John felt overcome by the urge to do something for her in return. She was so nice and considerate towards him, which to her was probably a natural thing, but John still wanted to repay her for her kindness. And maybe if he acted like her husband, or at least like a friend, he would start to feel a little more at home here.

"So, what did we do? Before the accident? As a couple on a day off?" he asked carefully.

Her face lit up just a little. "Well, the weather is nice, so we probably would have gone out to do something, but seeing as your leg is in a cast we probably would have opted for sofa and telly," Clara told him with a sheepish smile.

John returned her smile while he scooted over and patted the empty space next to him. "Well, I guess this is my chance to relive seeing some movies for the first time."

"That's not funny," Clara argued, but her eyes betrayed that she was secretly amused. Nevertheless she stepped forward and eventually took a seat next to him before she set the mugs down on the coffee table in front of them.

"It is a bit."