clashildr one shots

When Is It Night In Space, Anyway?

Clara didn't need to sleep, not really. Not unlike her breathing, it was more habit than anything else; despite the fact she had been functionally dead (yum) for a heck of a lot longer than she was ever alive, she still felt the need to collapse and become an unconscious lump for eight hours.
Fuzzy, on the far reaches of her memory, an adventure from long ago appeared, accompanied by a word: Morpheus. Humans need to sleep. So does every conscious being in the universe, apparently. Makes sense - one tends to become at odds with oneself when one is forced to spend a never-ending amount of time in one's company.
But that night was one of the many when Clara simply could not sleep. She lay awake, flat on her back, Ashildr completely draped across her, staring at the ceiling and thinking.
About anything and everything.
It wasn't until she stirred that Clara realised she'd been running her fingers through Ashildr's hair. She shifted, pulling Clara closer still (a surprising action, as she was already laid across Clara's front with her full weight).
"Morning, you." Clara cleared her throat.
Ashildr groaned. "When is it night in space, anyway?"
"I didn't wake you, did I?"
Ashildr reached around and scratched her shoulder, shaking her head.
Oh, that's something, at least.
"When did, you, y'know. Realise you liked girls?" Ashildr asked, rather out of nowhere.
The question knocked Clara off her feet somewhat. She thought for a moment before answering. "Oh, you know," she eventually said, carefully, "I just sort of always did. I had crushes on girls, crushes on boys, and that's just how it was. I could forget about the whole liking girls thing, though, because I had boyfriends. But then the term bi came across my radar and that sorta explained everything nicely. I always knew in and of myself, I suppose, but I first became aware of it all properly in high school. My parents were really good about it."
"My parents were dead, so I was off the hook." Ashildr chuckled darkly.
"What about you?"
Despite the darkness that enveloped the room, Clara knew Ashildr was smiling. She could feel it.
"I was a girl surrounded by Viking men. When a beautiful woman with all the knowledge of the stars fell to Earth with a smile that could upturn a longboat, how was I supposed to react? Of course, that was a different time, and I didn't really know what I was feeling until much later. I certainly knew when you turned up in Tra- well." She swallowed. "The next time I saw you."
"I was under your personal protection. That much was absolute."
Ashildr groaned again and buried her head in Clara's chest. "I was flirting! That was me badly flirting!" Her words came flying out of her mouth in a tumble.
Clara chuckled and kissed the top of her wife's head; she had been a mite preoccupied that day. "You don't need to feel guilty about that, Ash. In the end, that day brought us here."
"I've seen you die, Clara. It's inescapable. One day, you're going to go back to that street and I'm going to lose you all over again."
"You needn't worry about that, babe. I'm surprisingly difficult to get rid of. Pancakes?"
"Pancakes."