AN: Yes, Ravenwood DID die in 2015, but this is set in 2013 because the discrepancy between some of the characters being in 2015 by the end of 3D9C and most still being in late 2013 is too frustrating to account for. So just assume that, when they took her to live in parallel-universe Hollowmire, they also took her back in time 2 years. This is set the day after 4D12C chapter 837, "Another Girl Another Planet VIII".

THE MOURNING

Hollowmire, England, 2013

Clara had cried herself to sleep. That hadn't happened since the weeks immediately following Danny's death, when she'd woken up over and over again wanting nothing else but to hear his voice, and had called his voicemail more than once just to listen.

It was different that night, though. She wasn't grieving Danny Pink, she was grieving herself.

She didn't remember falling asleep but eventually calmed down enough by listening to Jenny's rhythmic breathing and double heartbeat. She didn't have a heartbeat of her own to focus on anymore. But Jenny was there, firm and stable, and Clara was curled around her, clinging on as if she was the only thing in the universe.

Jenny was still there in the morning, fast asleep but half sitting up and holding Clara against her. It was only then Clara realised how frightened she'd been that she'd wake up and Jenny would be gone. She hugged her again, tightly as she could manage. She decided at that moment never to let go.

A short while later, Clara unable to go back to sleep, Jenny shifted. She sniffed, then coughed, then sighed.

"You don't know your own strength," she said hoarsely, eyes shut. Maybe as tightly as Clara could manage was too tight now. She relaxed. "Thank you," Jenny kissed the top of her head. "Have you been up for long?"

"Not really."

"I was trying not to sleep so that you wouldn't be alone if you woke up."

"You don't have to do that."

"No, no. If you're up, I'm up," she squeezed Clara. "How are you doing?"

"Honestly? I was scared you'd be gone. Really scared."

"I promised I wouldn't leave."

"I know, but… What time is it?" Jenny picked up her phone from the mattress next to her, where it had fallen.

"Ten in the morning," she said, "I had no idea we'd slept that long. You fell asleep around three, me a bit later. Do you mind if I stretch for a minute?"

"No, of course not." Clara let her go and she climbed out of bed, aching from being in a funny position all night, so that she could stretch her arms and legs properly.

"Are you just gonna stare at me?" asked Jenny wryly, catching Clara doing just that.

"Am I not allowed?"

"You can stare all you like," said Jenny, turning away from Clara and then reaching down to touch her toes. She held this position for a few seconds. "Are you any good at massages? My back's killing."

"Well, I'll – I'll give it a go," said Clara, surprised. "You could have moved in the night."

"I didn't want to disturb you, you need the rest." When she'd done stretching she sat on the edge of the bed, Clara cross-legged behind her, gently kneading the muscles between her shoulders. "That's great, actually. Thank you."

"I have massaged a handful of women in my time," said Clara.

"I'll do you next, if you like?"

Clara smiled slightly, "You're okay. I was very comfortable in your arms all night. They're always surprisingly big and strong."

"I do a lot of push-ups. And pull-ups. Sometimes weightlifting, but I don't quite have the right physique for it."

"I find it hard to believe that you don't have the right physique for something."

"I'm a gymnast, it's a very different discipline."

"What do you mean when you say that, that you're a gymnast?" asked Clara, "You compete in gymnastics tournaments or something?"

"I used to be a professional acrobat, in a circus," she explained, "Very long time ago." Clara stopped her massage. When Jenny looked around, she was being gawked at. "What?"

"Professional acrobat?" Jenny only shrugged. "You might be the sexiest person I've ever met."

"Lots of people do acrobatics."

"I don't do acrobatics, and I've never actually slept with an acrobat before."

"You have, you've slept with me about a hundred times," said Jenny, "Or does the sex not count from before we were officially in a relationship?" Clara couldn't help but smile.

"Say that again."

Jenny said quietly, "Officially in a relationship."

"What other things haven't you told me?" she asked after a moment.

"About myself? I doubt you know anything about me, really," she said, "Other than whatever the Doctor might have said. I'm over two hundred and most of the time we've spent together has just been us having sex, you telling me about your day, or me complaining about my husband. Ex-husband," she added hastily.

"You can't give me the highlights, then? Things I need to know about you?"

"I…" she began. "There are things. But they're not…" She paused, thinking about how to word it. "I'm not trying to keep stuff from you, but there are parts of my life that are hard to talk about."

"Okay…"

"Do you trust me?"

"Trust you? You've been cheating with me for months, that doesn't give the most trustworthy impression," said Clara. Jenny couldn't tell how much of that was a joke. "But, sure, I appreciate that what's technically day one of an untested relationship isn't really the right time to share our deepest and darkest secrets."

"Untested? I wouldn't say we're untested."

"Wouldn't you?" Clara stopped the massage and sat next to her instead.

"You dying and turning into a vampire is a big test, isn't it?"

"We're still dealing with that. It's just a beginning."

"…Come on, let's go upstairs, get some food," she stood, "You've barely eaten for days."

"I don't feel like eating."

"I'll cook. Adam Mitchell went shopping yesterday, you're all stocked up here," said Jenny.

"I know, I was drinking that cheap wine he brought last night."

"Really?" Jenny put her hands on her hips. Clara didn't get up. "How much wine, exactly, had you had when you confessed your feelings for me on the windy moors out there?"

"One needs rather a lot of wine to confess their feelings about anything on those moors," said Clara, "But, no, I wasn't too drunk to be lying about being in love with you."

"But you were drunk? A little?"

"I only had two glasses, maybe," said Clara, "In my defence, you'd run off, and I didn't think I'd be seeing you again."

"What? Not ever?"

"Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. You know."

"I'm the best, then? The best thing that could have happened?"

"Maybe if you'd happened before all this."

"Come on," Jenny entreated again, holding out her hand, "I'll cook, and if it doesn't smell good, you don't have to have any of it. I'll do bacon sandwiches." Clara took her hand and got to her feet.

"But what if I don't really like normal food anymore? What if I only want to eat raw meat all the time?" she asked, letting Jenny lead her out of the room and up the narrow staircase to the cottage's only other floor.

"Then I'll make you some sushi, or steak tartare. Whatever works, we'll find it." Clara was a little overwhelmed. Weeks she'd spent pining over Jenny, weeks, and now she had materialised as the perfect woman. It was such a shame everything else in Clara's life had collapsed, as if it was incompatible.

Jenny carried the candelabra from the living room through to the modest kitchen, setting it down on the table and slowly relighting all the candles. Clara sat, feeling unstable.

"What do you want me to call you?" she asked a few minutes later when Jenny was placing bacon rashers into a frying pan and the room was glowing with candlelight.

"Um, well… my name is Jenny?"

"No, no, I mean, like… do you want me to call you my girlfriend, or something else?"

"Like what?"

"Some people prefer 'partner'. I've known loads of people who'd rather say 'partner' than boyfriend or girlfriend."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know. I suppose it sounds more adult, maybe?" she suggested.

"I'll be your girlfriend. Very gladly."

"That's not weird to you?"

"Not really. Why would it be? You're…" she paused, cleared her throat, shuffled the bacon around in the pan. Then she looked at Clara over her shoulder, "It's like I said. I love you."

"I…" Clara stuttered. "How – how are you gonna tell the Doctor about this?"

"Oh, him."

"Yes, him. He's your father."

"Are you trying to spoil my breakfast?"

"Jenny."

"I don't know, why is it his business?"

"Why is it his business? That's your line?"

"Well, I don't think it is his business." The bacon hissed and spat. Jenny turned the rashers over. "You just look like each other, that's all."

"That's not all, though, we're the same woman – literally, the same person."

"That's not true," said Jenny, "You have a diversion, and you don't share your conscious experiences. It's not like you're an echo, connected to her, like Oswin."

"Oswin or those other echoes you tried to sleep with, before me. All to prove a point."

"We can run away together and never tell him about us, if you want," said Jenny, ignoring her comment about the echoes, "Just disappear."

"I've already disappeared, I can't disappear on top of a disappearance."

"I don't know what you want me to say. You're sitting there feeding me reasons why you don't think this will work with us, why you don't want to try – but I told you, last night, I can wait if you need time on your own to adjust to things, if it's all too much. It's your decision."

Clara didn't say anything else while Jenny finished cooking. She left the bacon sizzling, buttered the bread, then made up the two sandwiches to bring and set down on the tiny kitchen table.

"Do you want a drink?" Jenny asked, "Water? Or, um… there's blood, I could probably warm it up a bit? I'm sure it'll microwave on a low setting…" She'd never had to warm up blood before.

"I don't want to drink it in front of you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's horrific – it's repugnant. Human blood. Human blood gotten from my parallel universe self – what is that? Incest?"

"It's nothing like that," said Jenny, "And it's only a stopgap while Oswin sets up a cell cloning system. Besides, I'm not a human. Seeing you drink human blood isn't too much weirder than seeing you eat a bacon sandwich."

"Humans are like pigs, you mean." Jenny ignored that, too.

"If you have some blood, you might feel better."

"I'll wait for you to go."

"Earlier you were saying you don't want me to go, ever," Jenny reminded her. Clara didn't speak. As a last resort, Jenny very gently kissed her cheek. "Try and eat something, for me." She was convincing enough. Clara gingerly picked up the bacon sandwich and bit into it, only a small bite, and then breathed out deeply while she chewed.

"This is good bacon." Jenny smiled and went about demolishing her own sandwich; she was famished. Clara ate slowly by her side.

"I mean it about you being different," said Jenny when she was nearly done, "You and her. And it's not like she's raised me, she's not my stepmother."

"But I remind you of her, and of him."

"Honestly? You don't."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't," Jenny insisted, "We've spent more time together, you and I, than I have with them. You're your own person to me, absolutely."

"How will you tell him?" Clara asked again.

"I won't, not right away," said Jenny, "But when I do, I'll just…" But she didn't know what she'd do. "Suppose I'll just say that you and I are in love and I don't care what he thinks about it."

"You and I are in love?"

"You're being difficult on purpose."

"Now I'm difficult…" said Clara, "We're in love, but I'm difficult."

"Clara," Jenny said seriously, "I'm not going to dump you, no matter how much you try to convince me to. You don't want to try this, fine, but I think you're self-sabotaging." Clara said nothing. "Do you do that a lot?"

"I might do."

"Why?"

"Because. You're too good for me, aren't you?"

"Why would you think that?" asked Jenny softly. Clara didn't have an answer, though. She made a few noises that didn't quite form words.

"It – because – I – you just are. You're too good for anyone."

"If that were true, I'd be doomed to be alone forever, wouldn't I? Is that what you want?"

"No, but… I can't be a person who leaves everything to travel through time and space with you. Not anymore, not after everything."

"I'm not asking you to. I don't want to travel through time and space at all at the moment, I'd rather be here with you. Do you know why I kept coming back to you?"

"Because we have great sex."

"No," said Jenny, then paused, "Well, partly, but – no. Because you're nice."

"Nice?"

"Yes. You're the nicest person I've ever met. You make me feel so… so safe. And warm. And… like nothing can touch us, like nothing else matters when we're together."

"Very cheesy."

"Yeah, well… I haven't felt a connection like this with anyone for a very long time. Don't you feel it?"

"You really think I'm the nicest person you've ever met?"

"I really do. And the collarbones don't hurt, either."

"Of all the body parts…"

"Collarbones are just very sexy, yours in particular. I don't make the rules. And you know I'm right, anyway – I've seen you looking at mine."

"Yeah, it's not your bones I'm looking at when you catch me staring at your chest, Jenny. Hate to break it to you." Jenny laughed at that. Clara took another bite from the bacon sandwich and then, slowly, polished it off. Jenny had already finished.

"I told you you'd feel better," said Jenny.

"Maybe…"

"You need to drink some blood, though."

"No, I-"

"Clara. I don't want you to take offence to this, but, you're being a baby. I really don't mind seeing you drink blood, and I don't want you to feel like you have to hide it from me."

"What do you know about babies? You were born an adult." Jenny didn't respond. She crossed her arms and leant on the table, thinking about whether she should tell Clara about one of the most private parts of her life. "…I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"You don't want to drink blood in front of me because you feel vulnerable. And I don't think you like that. All that time with the Doctor, trying to be strong, hm?"

"Now you're psychoanalysing me?"

"No, I'm… it's true, what we were talking about earlier. You don't really know anything about me, do you?"

"I know you're the Doctor's daughter, and I know you were born in a machine through a genetic transfer, and you're two hundred years old, and you had a whirlwind, toxic relationship with Captain Jack Harkness until quite recently. And you're an acrobat."

"Mm, well, two hundred years is a long time. You hit a nerve with the baby thing. I have this, uh… daughter. Kind of."

"What?"

"…A long time ago, when I was in my eighties, I lived in East Berlin. There was a girl, Astrid, she was a prostitute. I was smuggling over the Wall. We met, by chance, because I saved her brother's life. Fell in love. She got pregnant, from a client… the child isn't mine, biologically, but…" Jenny trailed off. She cleared her throat. "We had to leave Berlin, go to the West. I had this vortex manipulator. She and her brother had papers, I was supposed to teleport over and join them, but it took me way off course, to the future, this planet."

"Jenny, you don't have to tell me things that are-"

"I want you to know. To know me, properly – because then you'll understand. You'll understand lots of things. Okay?" Clara nodded. Jenny went on, though her voice shook a little; she hated talking about this. "I won't bore you with the details, but… I was away, not by choice, for fourteen years. Everything was taken from me. When I got back to Astrid, the baby had been born. A girl. She called her Jennie – with an 'I-E' – after me."

"And you… stayed?"

"No. I was too different, after all that time. But I visit, every few years, so that they… I don't want to outlive them." She stopped talking. Clara stared at her. Jenny didn't know what she was thinking or feeling. "Should I not have told you?"

"I don't know."

"Well… that's everything you need to know about me, for now." She wouldn't go into detail about the assassins, or about her time being raised by the Irish mob. Not that morning, with so much going on. Clara didn't say anything. "I'll get you some blood, shall I?"

Clara didn't stop her as she opened the small medical fridge, on the floor next to the normal fridge, and took out a blood bag. She didn't try to warm it up, just emptied it into a tall glass and carefully brought it over. Clara was ravenous, though, and chugged it. Jenny watched, amazed.

"…Do you want another one?" she asked when Clara put the glass back down.

"No, it's okay."

"Better?"

"A bit." Jenny took the glass and rinsed it in the sink, then sat back down.

"My point is, that I'm not perfect, or better than anyone, or too good for you. You're nice to me, you talk to me, and you… see me. Properly." She took Clara's hand. "Sometimes, that's all you need, isn't it? Someone who sees you."

"I might see you a bit differently now. Is this why you're…"

"Why I'm what?"

"I don't know. Sometimes, I look at you, and it's like you're not quite there. Or there's something underneath, and you're so far away."

"Probably. Is it too complicated for you?"

"More complicated than it was already, with you being from a parallel universe in which your dad is my husband? No, it's not too complicated. But, Jenny," Clara began, "I want us to start this on the right footing – and part of that is you telling your dad so that we don't have to hide from everybody."

Jenny sighed, "I will tell him," if only to gloat, "But can this just be ours, please? For a while? He doesn't have the right to know my good news so quickly."

"Yeah. Okay. Just us for a while."

"Perfect," Jenny smiled again, "What do you want to do for the rest of the day, then? We could go see the village? It's November, it'll be dark early."

"Maybe later. I'm still getting used to the house, and having you around without the pretext of sex."

"We can still have sex," said Jenny.

"Well, yeah, I'd hope so, but I'm not up to it yet. We can just stay in. Watch TV, watch a film. Or do you not do those things? Are you too alien?"

"I'll do anything with you, Clara. Whatever you want, for as long as you want me."

I want you to do everything with me, forever, Clara Ravenwood thought.