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“This planet’s sky is beautiful,” Clara comments, looking around as the Doctor runs around looking for something or someone interesting, as is his way.
She’s sure he’ll find it, as he always does.
A young woman pops up in front of Clara, her bright pink skin almost luminescent under her clothing. Her eyes look old and sad, much the same as the Doctor's do, which is why when the woman speaks to her, Clara is less standoffish than she could be.
“Do you have a wish?” the woman asks.
“A wish?” Clara asks, tilting her head to the side. “What sort of wish?”
“A wish from your soul—“ the woman explains, reaching toward her, “May I?” she motions her hand toward Clara, as if she wants to touch her hand.
“Go ahead,” Clara says, holding it out.
She feels a bit of a spark when their hands connect, and then she feels a bit glowy, even after the woman lets go.
“Ah, you do,” the woman sounds pleased. “I’m only interested in interesting wishes. Your wish is very powerful. Very painful.”
Finally, the Doctor becomes interested in the conversation. “What sort of charlatan are you?”
The pink-skinned woman simply narrows her eyes. “You have a wish too. I can see it, it’s so—“ She reaches out like she wants to touch him, but then pulls back. “I don’t care to be called a charlatan,” she says sweetly, and turns back to Clara. “You, on the other hand. I like you.”
“Oh, thank you,” Clara replies, because she’s not entirely sure what the proper response to that is? “You seem rather—uh, nice yourself.”
“I’m Callistos,” the woman tells her, clasping her hands together and smiling. “And I am going to grant your heart’s true desire.”
“I’ve got a lot of those—“ Clara starts to say, but then Callistos grabs her arm and pulls her into a nearby building, and she gets the wind knocked right out of her sails.
“I don’t believe in psychics,” the Doctor says as he follows along, and Callistos glares at him.
“Annoying Time Lord, always thinks he knows everything,” Callistos spits out. She turns to Clara. “I’m not a psychic.”
Clara’s mind spins, and she feels a brief moment of panic. Should she—isn’t she trying to move on, trying to get her life together?
But she wants more, she thinks, and if she could have it, maybe she should reach out with both hands and grab the destiny she’s always wanted.
If there’s a chance, then—“What do you need me to do?”
~~
“No,” the Doctor says about fifty different times, in as many ways as he can manage. “Nope, definitely not, this will not happen.”
Clara ignores him. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Callistos shrugs. “Just the one condition, really.”
Clara hesitates. “Why would you do this for me?” This is the make or break it question, the one that decides everything.
Can she trust what this woman is offering her?
Callistos holds out her hands, and nods at Clara to grasp them.
Clara holds back. “Are we doing it now?”
“No, I’m just going to show you something,” Callistos says. “Or, well, let you feel it.”
The Doctor is still ranting, so Clara reaches out and takes Callistos’s hands into her own.
“That’s how I feel, “ Callistos tells her. “It’s very rewarding. But also the way I sustain myself—off the joy and wish fulfillment of others. That’s why the wish has to be important, and why it can’t be twisted or dark. It has to be pure, though not necessarily unselfish.”
Clara feels dazed.
She’d felt a rush of—a rush of happiness, of contentment, of love and joy, and she’s never been quite so overwhelmed.
Clara closes her eyes, and holds onto that feeling. “Will other people notice?”
“We can avoid any unnecessary trouble,” Callistos answers, pulling her hands out of Clara’s.
Clara wants the warmth back, because now she feels a bit lonely and sad without it.
“Is this one of those situations where when you wish for something, a bunch of terrible things happen, and you end up wishing that you hadn’t wished for it to begin with?” Clara’s still a bit wary, but oh she wants this.
She can picture him in her mind, can picture the life they were supposed to have together.
There's no doubt in her mind what her wish has to be.
“You’re not doing this,” the Doctor insists. “We don’t know what will happen.”
Clara looks Callistos right in the eye. “Will it be real?”
Callistos shrugs. “How real is anything? It’s not a dream reality, I can promise you that.”
Clara remembers a Danny she’d dreamed, and she wonders if she’d be able to tell the difference anymore, if she’d even know next time.
She can’t live like that, she knows. She has to move on.
But what if—what if this is a real chance? What if she can do this?
“I’ll do it,” Clara says. She turns her head to the Doctor and cuts him off before he manages to tell her not to. “If I can, I have to. If it doesn’t work, then it won’t much matter, will it? I—I want this.”
He looks sad, like he thinks this won't work out, and it'll only break her heart all over again.
She has to believe it won't.
“Hands,” Callistos says, and Clara takes them once more. “Close your eyes.”
“Don’t do it, Clara,” the Doctor whispers, and she knows he’s just worried about her, that he’s trying to protect her.
“What next?” Clara asks.
Callistos squeezes her hands. “I was born with this gift—a dangerous gift indeed. Most members of my species are dead, forced to fulfill nightmarish wishes for their captors, and are poisoned to death with those destructive desires. That, or they refuse, and are tortured and killed. I require one thing of you, and the wish requires another.”
“Okay,” Clara says impatiently. “What do you want?”
“You cannot tell anyone of my gift. Either of you.” It seems . . . fair enough.
“I promise,” Clara agrees without hesitation. “Doctor?” there’s yearning and hope in that, and she hopes he’ll hear it, and understand.
The Doctor hesitates. “Fine.” He doesn't sound particularly happy about it, but she knows he would never break this particular kind of promise.
“What about Danny?” Clara asks suddenly. “Can I tell him?”
“You may not tell him where to find me, who I am, or how my gift works. You may only express that I have done it,” Callistos says.
Clara shrugs and makes a face. “I’ll make it work. Okay, so what’s the other condition?”
Callistos squeezes her hands tightly, so tightly that they hurt. “Once each moon cycle, for the rest of your lives, until one or both of you die, you must both be trapped together for a day.”
Clara snorts and her eyes fly open. “What?” She smiles slightly to hide the pain in her heart. “I should have known this was just some sort of joke, I—“
Callistos isn’t laughing. “What do you have to lose, even if it is?”
Clara frowns, then decides to just go with it. “What day?”
Callistos shakes her head. “You may choose. But you must choose, or the wish will choose for you.”
“Oh,” Clara replies. “That sounds very—not good, not good at all. Okay. Uh, where will we be trapped, exactly?” This one condition seems a bit complicated, a bit strange, and she’s not quite sure if there’s some tiny writing at the bottom she can’t see. She wonders if she can get this in writing.
“Your home will do well enough,” Callistos says, and Clara laughs.
“Oh, that’s not so bad. I thought it was going to be a tiny, small space, like maybe a closet. I wasn’t looking forward to that.”
Clara could work with that. “Are there any other requirements? Do we have to do anything in particular?” It’s like having a lazy Sunday, and that sounds really nice, actually.
“No one else is allowed within your space within that time except your children, but besides that, no,” Callistos says, and Clara thinks it actually sounds like a pretty great deal.
She feels almost panicky, almost afraid that this is all some elaborate sham, and she’s so overwhelmed with hope, she feels like she might burst.
“I want to go back,” Clara says. “So that no one is confused when Danny shows up alive.”
“It won’t negate the things he did afterward though, will it?” the Doctor asks, and that’s . . . a good question.
“No,” Callistos says. “You will have vague memories of the last several months, nothing too specific. Nothing that’ll get you into trouble with anyone. You can’t go back, but you can make it so that it seems like he never left at all.”
Clara’s not quite clear on all of that, but okay, sure, fine. “Let’s do this.”
Callistos closes her eyes, so Clara closes hers again.
She’s surprised the Doctor is staying so quiet now, but he must have just decided it's nonsense, and now he’s just letting it run its course.
There’s a part of her that fears that too, but she wants to believe, and so for a few more minutes? Yeah, she’s going to believe.
“Think of the wish.”
Clara just pictures Danny, and lets her heart do the rest.
She feels dizzy then, like the world is spinning out of control.
She loses consciousness then, still thinking of Danny.
~~
She wakes up, and someone's gently shaking her arm.
She opens her eyes, and there’s Danny—there he is, here, really and truly?
She flings herself at him and kisses him hard on the mouth.
When she pulls away, she’s still a bit dazed. Is this her home? She doesn’t remember—oh, she and Danny moved in together and found this new place. She knows that that information is different, which is nice, but it also feels real.
“Why am I alive?” Danny asks. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful, but I don’t—I don’t understand.”
“I found a way,” Clara says evasively. “I’m not allowed to say more, but I promise that if this is real, then it’s a good thing.”
Danny still looks confused, and so Clara wraps her arms around his neck and smiles at him before kissing him once again.
She hears the TARDIS appear, and oh, wow, she and Danny are going to have that conversation. She reaches for Danny's hand, holding it firmly in her own.
“Stop doing the thing with your faces, eugh,” the Doctor says, sounding appropriately disgusted. “It’s like you’ve forgotten you need to breathe.”
Clara pulls away from Danny reluctantly and makes a face at the Doctor.
She’s crying, she realizes, and she rubs away her tears. “Is it real?”
The Doctor pulls out his sonic screwdriver and starts taking measurements, hmm-ing and hawing.
Danny isn’t amused, but he’s holding Clara’s hand still, which is promising.
“Well,” the Doctor says. “I need a vacation.”
“What?” Clara frowns. “What’s going on?”
“It’s real,” the Doctor says. “At least, as far as I can tell. I woke up unconscious on the TARDIS, and I swore I’d had some sort of nightmare, but no—it’s real.”
The Doctor frowns. “I’ve dealt with many different kinds of dream worlds before, and if this is one, I’ll figure it out,” he says, shaking his hand around, like someone’s watching them.
Clara smiles at Danny. “Doctor—I’d very much like to get back to our space adventures, but I think I need some time.”
The Doctor makes a disgruntled noise, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Next week, at the very earliest,” Clara says.
The Doctor sighs, and agrees, and then he’s gone, and it’s just Clara and Danny, Danny and Clara.
“He won’t be back for at least a month, knowing him,” Clara says. “He’s not very good with the time thing sometimes, which is strange since, you know, Time Lord.”
Danny tilts his head to the side, and Clara sighs. “You know, I’ve been meaning to say this for a while now,” Clara says. “I want us to move past it, and so—“
So much has happened, but at the end of the day, they still need to communicate, still need to work through their issues.
“I know,” Danny says, squeezing her hand. “But let’s maybe take it one thing at a time.”
“Okay,” Clara agrees. “Where would you like to start?”
Danny smiles, and oh good, this is a great place to start. He leans forward and touches his forehead to hers, holding her close. “I love you,” he says gruffly, and Clara thinks he might be crying.
Good, because she’s crying too, and she’s not sure when she’ll figure out how to stop.
~~
Okay, so being stuck in the house wouldn’t be so bad, not really.
At least, it wouldn’t be if they had groceries.
“We should have gone yesterday,” Clara sighs.
It’s only the third month they’ve been doing this, and they’d been so busy they’d just left it till the very end, and now here they are, stuck and hungry.
“That’s what we’d planned to do,” Danny points out, and Clara winces, because technically she’d been the one who had thought some new café’s opening had been more important.
They’d had excellent coffee though, so Clara stands by it.
The brownies were to die for too, Clara remembers, salivating. Wonderful, now she’s even more hungry.
“We could make pancakes,” Danny suggests, and Clara frowns.
“We’re supposed to be responsible adults, how could this happen?”
“We won’t let it happen again,” Danny promises, swooping in for a kiss to her cheek. “Now, let’s order some food and have it delivered."
Clara snaps her fingers. “An excellent idea. I knew there was a reason I kept you around.”
And it would end here, it really would, except when the pizza comes, the boy stands awkward at the door, and the weird sort of magical spell stops them from crossing the threshold.
“You just sort of have to hold it out,” Clara explains. “So that I can grab it,” she explains patiently. “Please.”
She’s so hungry, and everything smells so good.
“I need the money?” the guy says, very uncertain.
Clara holds it up. “And you’ll get it, just—“ she tries to hold out the money, but the paper bends a bit, so fantastic.
Clara just sort of tosses it into the delivery man’s hands at that point, and he shoves the pizza and the extras that they got right at her, and she grabs it all. “Thank you!”
She nudges the door shut with her foot and smiles.
She means to say something, but then she has a slice of pizza in her mouth, and it’s like her mind released all the happy feelings at once. “This is amazing,” she says between bites.
“I feel like I’ve regressed about ten years,” Danny says, but he picks up a piece of boneless chicken, and then just plops it on top of his slice and takes a bite.
“I have never loved you more,” Clara says, completely serious.
This, she thinks, this is what she’d missed most.
She’d missed awkward moments and silly conversations.
She’d missed everything about him, really.
Danny smiles at her slightly, and then pulls something out of his back pocket. “I’m glad to hear it.”
Clara doesn’t know if he says anything after that, because she hears a buzzing in her head, and she barely manages to swallow her current bite of pizza. “Is that a ring?”
“Yeah,” he says, smiling brightly. “I had a whole speech,” he promises. “I’ll say it now.”
“Oh, you’ll say it at least half a dozen times,” Clara warns him, dropping her food back in the box and plopping herself down on the couch Danny’s sitting on. “Now, ask me properly.”
Danny smiles, and acquiesces, and Clara doesn’t even mind that her pizza is getting cold.
~~
Several months later, Clara’s staring at the guest list, and trying to tune out her husband-to-be.
“I didn’t say you had to do it,” Danny says. “All I said was consider it.”
“I said I would,” Clara mutters. “I’m just not sure it’s the best idea.”
“It’s our wedding,” Danny points out. “And he’s your—“ Danny hesitates. “He’s your friend, and he matters to you, so invite him to the damn wedding.”
Clara shrugs. “I don’t think the Doctor would want to come.”
“I’m sure he loves weddings,” Danny says.
“The last one, maybe. This one can be sweet, but he’s very crotchety sometimes. Crotchety people don’t like weddings.”
Danny shrugs. “He could be your man of honor.”
Clara rolls her eyes and smiles slightly. “I have other friends, you know.”
“I know you do,” Danny says in that voice of his.
“I do,” Clara repeats. “I have other friends.”
“Of course,” Danny says. “And you’ll invite them all to the wedding.”
“I thought you wanted it to be small,” Clara says.
Danny leans over and kisses her cheek. He grabs the remote, turning on the news.
“You said you wanted big,” Danny points out, and Clara frowns.
“It’s annoying that you actually take my concerns into account,” Clara teases. “Fine, I’ll invite him. But if he shows up with some outlandish gift or outfit, or makes a strange toast at the reception, I want you to remember this moment.”
“I’m sure you won’t let me forget it,” Danny says, and Clara smiles.
“You know I won’t,” she says, and she adds him to the list. “How’s the search for caterers coming?”
“We’ve got testings all next week,” Danny tells her. “After school each day. I'm very excited about the cake tasting.”
Clara nods. “Good, good.”
Danny turns and smiles at her, and Clara just smiles back, and for a moment she’s lost in that perfect speck of happiness, and it feels like time stops.
Then time keeps going, and Clara’s life? Still pretty perfect, she’d say.
~~
Their flight to their honeymoon vacation is tomorrow, and so today(the only day this month that could have worked as one of their ‘trapped’ days), is a lazy newlywed day.
Clara wakes up first, curled and facing Danny.
Their bodies aren’t even touching, but she’s never felt closer to anyone in her entire life.
This, she thinks, was her destiny.
Her soulmate, right here.
She thinks of Callistos often, of the wonderful woman who gave her this gift, and she wonders if she’ll wake up from it all, with it all having been some elaborate plot or dream.
But every day feels like a day, and minus her occasional adventures with the Doctor, everything always feels real.
This is real, she thinks.
Her breath is retched, and one of her feet seems to have fallen asleep, which isn’t going to be fun to deal with in a few minutes. Her heart feels so full, and her chest feels tight with love.
She almost feels deliriously happy, a feeling she hadn’t quite believed had existed before this.
She reaches out a hand and caresses Danny’s cheek gently, so as not to wake him up.
She fails though, and his eyes flutter open. “Oops,” she whispers, trying not the shatter the quiet moment, or the spell she feels must have been cast on her. “Hello, husband.”
He smiles slightly, his eyes warm and bright. “Hello, wife.”
He reaches out a hand, gently clasping the one that she isn’t using to prop up her pillow.
“I love you,” Clara says. She wants to say more—but he’s already heard those words many times before, including the day before, when they’d finally gotten married—but she doesn’t need to, not now.
“I love you,” he says back, and Clara smiles even more brightly than she was before when he kisses her knuckles.
“So what would you like to do today?” Clara asks. “We’ve got a lot of presents to open. Some cake—well, I don’t really care about anything other than the cake right now.”
“We’ll run it all off after we get back from our honeymoon,” Danny promises, but Clara doesn’t point out that they won’t exactly need to do that.
After their actual honeymoon ends, she and Danny are supposed to see some sights around the universe with the Doctor.
Knowing the way that goes, they’ll get quite a work out. Most likely from running for their lives, of course, but that’s how that goes.
~~
She vomits once, and then again.
And then again.
“You look a bit green, sweetheart,” Danny says, holding her hair in case she needs to keep going.
“Really?” Clara hisses. “Do you think?”
Danny gently caresses her hair. “We’ll go to a doctor,” he suggests.
“Not today we won’t,” Clara says, easing her way away from him and onto a nearby stool. She can still lunge at the trash bin if necessary.
“Clara—“ Danny says, but she glares at him, and he shuts up.
Clara rubs her belly, and something about the motion triggers something in her brain. “Uh, Danny?”
“Yes?”
“Can you grab me a bit of ginger ale? And while you’re at it, do you think you can grab my calendar from the bedroom?”
“Of course,” Danny says, reaching out and patting her shoulder gently. “Maybe it was the chicken from last night. I thought it tasted a bit—“
“It was fine, Danny,” Clara says for the fifteen time. “And if it were the chicken, you’d probably be sick now too.”
“Iron stomach,” Danny says automatically, and that’s certainly not true.
“Sure, Danny,” Clara says, waving him off as he gets the calendar and the ginger ale.
She tries not to think about it too hard, but she can’t help herself.
When was her last period? She racks her brain, and comes up empty. She’s been so busy these days.
Danny comes back with the calendar, and Clara taps her fingers furiously against the countertop while he grabs her drink.
“Thank you, Danny,” she says, opening up the bottle and taking a sip and calmly but surely reaching for the calendar and perusing it casually, like it wasn’t a strange request.
“Are you—“ Danny asks, but she holds up a hand.
“Oh my,” Clara says. “I very well might be.”
“We need a test,” Danny says, and yes, they do, but since today they can’t leave the house—well, they’ll just have to wait.
“I’m calling Karen,” Clara says. “She’ll bring me over a test.”
“Ooh, but Karen will tell Phil, and you know how he gossips, and then half the school will know, because his sister is the new history teacher.” Danny sighs. "Plus they'll wonder why I didn't just go and get it."
Clara frowns. “Amy then—“ Clara sighs. “No, she won’t do either. We need—“ Clara’s eyes widen. “Oh no.”
“No,” Danny says. “I don’t think—“
“We do,” Clara nods her head. “We’ll have to call him.”
Clara dials the number, and tries not to feel too awkward about it.
Five minutes later, they hear a knock at the door.
“I don’t care for this at all,” the Doctor tells them.
“You don’t like children?” Clara asks. “Strange, I’d always imagined you’d like them.”
“Oh, I like children,” the Doctor says. “I speak baby.”
“You speak—“ Danny starts to ask, then stops. “Never mind.”
“So will you do it or not?” Clara demands, feeling a bit impatient.
“Of course not,” the Doctor says. “I’m just going to leave you both here, dwelling on your inappropriate choices.”
“Excuse you,” Clara says. “Anyway, you owe me.”
“For what?” the Doctor asks.
“I don’t know, friendship,” Clara mumbles out. “Please?”
“Fine,” the Doctor says. “But I won’t be happy about it.”
“Of course not,” Clara smiles. “But you’ll do it.”
And an hour and a half later, and three pregnancy tests(and various drinks in order to produce that much pee) later, it’s decided.
“We’re having a baby,” Clara says, sniffling slightly.
“We are,” Danny says, and oh yes, he’s crying too.
It’s a big old crying party.
The Doctor’s standing at the window, because he can’t come inside. “You’re going to be gigantic.”
Clara smiles. “I am. I’m going to be huge.”
She’s happy about that.
This is—this is a beautiful life, she thinks.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Clara says softly. “We appreciate your help.”
Danny looks up at the Doctor. “We really do,” he says, and the Doctor nods.
“Well, I’ll be back for the birth,” the Doctor says. “I find that that part is particularly entertaining.”
Clara snorts, and imagines that he’ll probably show up at the hospital.
Clara laughs.
“What?” Danny asks.
“I’m just happy,” Clara tells him. “Just, very happy.”
~~
They’re very old now.
They’ve had a lifetime of moments—all the moments they’d almost lost out on, and had taken full advantage of when they’d had the chance.
They’ve had birthdays, and smiles, and love and laughter, and adventures.
But the greatest adventure, Clara thinks, was this.
She reaches out slowly for her husband’s hand, simply placing hers over his.
This life, she thinks, is far greater than any she could have imagined, or wished for.
Danny turns to look at her, smiling at her in that way he does, that way that never lets her forget how much he loves her.
“Yes,” she says. “Me too.”
Her heart is full.