Doc accompanied Clara to Tucson, where Mama and the bodies of Daddy and Thomas were loaded onto the railcar, bound for home. A solemn event, to be sure, in which no words or expression could be said on his part, though he listened with a gentle ear to his sweetheart. It struck him odd, her behavior, as Clara didn't cry as much as look longingly into the distance as the steam engine trucked away, saying it was a peculiar thing, watching her family leave her for a place she couldn't follow.
On Clara's end, melancholy settled into her soul. It was a definite ending to a chapter of her life, so forlornly in its finale that the young woman wasn't entirely sure where to go on from that point. What purpose did she have now that everything she had known was a whisper on the wind?
The tall, lean frame of Doc beside her was Clara's only support. She glanced up at him, her eyes drowning with uncertainty. He met her gaze, saying nothing and everything all at once.
.
.
Both decided to hire a room for the evening, to rest before the journey home. For the sake of social graces, Doc penned in the hotel registry a key had been assigned to Mr. and Mrs. John Henry Holliday. Clara stared at their names mingled amongst the others, feeling inexplicably taken by it. Then, the reason they were there in the first place came back to the forefront, and she felt grief-stricken. Doc gave her the bed, and he collapsed into a chair.
That night, Clara dreamt...
She woke to find herself in a graveyard, bitterly cold and alone. Ravens were perched in a dead tree that overlooked the markers as a guardian of the sleeping dead. Sitting up from the frozen earth, Clara's chest pounded. It constricted, her heart throbbing with immense pain, shooting through her arms and protruding out her back. She curled herself up against the coolness of a gravestone and shut her eyes tightly, willing dread to leave her. It did not.
"Clara..." A spectral voice carried itself on the fog.
She lifted her head, terrified of what she might be met by. Through the density of the fog, the figure of a young soldier boy trudged forward. Clara strained her eyes to see. Regret sank in at the moment realization fell upon her.
"William?" Her voice was younger.
Clara looked down at her hands, noticing they were the hands of a child. She was a child.
"Clara, what are you doing here? Did you get yourself lost again?" Her eldest brother knelt beside her, placing his rifle at their feet.
"I-I don't know. William, where are we?" Little Clara began to cry, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm so cold and scared. I want my daddy!"
William cocked his head, a visage of pity displayed for his terrified sister. "Daddy's dead, Clara. Remember?"
"He is not!"
"Is too. Daddy, Thomas... me. We are all dead."
Clara looked up at her brother to find he had disappeared. Frantically, the small child called out for him, searching desperately. She stood up, shaking in her shoes, trying to peer through the fog. Turning around to face the tree, she screamed.
William hung, a noose cutting deep into his flesh. A wooden sign dangled around his neck, 'Rebel Traitor.' He was as the day he died, slowly rotting and swinging in the breeze.
Little Clara screamed for her Mama, for Daddy, for anybody. She ran, her legs pumping as fast as they could. She closed her eyes, begging the image of her brother to leave her be.
"Go AWAY! Go Away-."
Another shout escaped her adolescent lungs as she tripped and fell into a dark hole. Hands flew to her face as she sobbed uncontrollably. When she pulled them away, Clara noticed she was older again. She also became aware of a new horrifying situation. Underneath her lying in that grave pit, were Daddy and Thomas. She panicked as their cold bodies began to creak and move, grabbing her arms and legs.
"Let go of me!" Clara pleaded.
"What have you done, Clara?" Their voices moaned, fingernails digging into her flesh. She began to bleed.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry, please! Let me go! Let me go!" She shrieked. "Someone, anyone! Help me!"
In her nightmare, a hand pulled her up from the muddy earth. A moment of relief filled her body before being replaced with a dread so great Clara nearly jumped back into the pit. She had been delivered into hell.
She shook her head slowly, her face contorting into a painfully ugly grimace. "No..." She whispered, inching back on her bottom, kicking at the hands that tried to pull her closer. "Don't touch me... No... God, please no..."
"Where are you going, Clara? C'mon now, don't be shy." Johnny Ringo had her cornered, even in her dreams. He grabbed her arm, turning her on her stomach, lifting her skirts...
Doc was jolted awake by a scream so heart-wrenching, at first thought perhaps he imagined it. The first howl was followed by a second, and remembering where he was, Holliday pulled himself from his chair and rushed to Clara's bedside. She was thrashing in her sleep.
"Clara, darlin', wake up." Doc nudged her.
Her arms thrashed about, clawing at a demon John Henry could not see. He called out to her again, louder and more commanding this time. When Clara woke, she was unhinged. Drenched in a cold sweat, she wept until her limbs went limp, tucked in close to Doc's body.
"It was so real," She was hyperventilating. "They were all d-de-dead. I could feel his hands all over me."
"It was only a night terror."
He looked around the room at the shadows that gleamed in the moonlight, cradling Clara in his arms. Doc began to hum, running a hand down the back of her hair. As her breathing eased, fading into even inhales and exhalations, Doc could feel her heartbeat against his own. Lord have mercy.
"It's alright. I'm here now."
Neither one of them slept much that night.
.
.
Back in Tombstone, Clara had taken up a new residence in town with Doc, refusing to return to the Grady home. More preparations were made for the removal of the family goods from the mansion; Clara opted to let the new owners (whomever they might be) keep the furniture. Finally, with everything in place, she had hoped for the ability to rebuild. Her hopes proved futile. In the weeks that followed, her stagnant patterns sent her down a road of deeper melancholy than before, dwelling far too much on all that had happened and all she had lost. Clara became irritable, turning her pain inward.
To make matters worse, the biddies began to talk, spreading ill-favored rumors regarding Clara's reputation. Talk abroad as she had planned the whole thing; her father and brother's deaths, sending her Mama off, all to accumulate the family's wealth for herself and her lover. There were even whispers of a love child, aided by Clara's lack of appearances in public. When confronted with this, she hardly cared.
Let them talk, she would say. Let them talk all they want! No one ever asked her.
At his wit's end, Doc finally cornered Clara into a trip to the bookstore, practically ordering her to venture from the prison she created for herself. A brief argument ensued between them, Clara accusing Doc of having a fragile conscience concerning the rumors, to which his rebuttal was to show his famous anger.
They had been inside their room, Clara sitting on the end of the bed while Doc stood nearby the window, his hands on his hips. The afternoon sun was shining.
"I coughed that up with my lungs, a very long time ago." His features were icy, teetering on the verge of malcontent. "You've done nothing to aid yourself in your misery, and for all the affection I harbor for you, your self-pity is becoming insufferable."
Clara sat there, taking in his words with a sharp attitude. There was little she could say to convey what she felt. Somewhere deep inside herself, it was a fear of running into Ringo, out there, on the streets. "I'm afraid no one would understand, even if I attempted to explain it all."
John Henry threw a hand out, giving up all to even try to navigate through her insanity. He lit a cigarette, taking a pull before speaking again. "Congratulations then, madam. You've completely and utterly surrendered."
"I never said-."
"Please, leave my sight. Go anywhere your heart desires, Clara... but, for now, I can't carry on this pointless conversation with you."
Clara glared at him without a counterargument and marched out the door. Doc sighed heavily, surprised by the lack of an anticipated cough. He grimaced, taking a deep drag on his cigarette as she slammed the door behind her. Tossing the finished smoke out the window with a flick, Doc shook his head.
.
.
Uneventful was the short journey to the booksellers, for which Miss Grady considered herself lucky. There were, of course, the disgruntled stares from some of the townsfolk, but what was that small weight upon Clara's shoulders when she was already carrying the world? She opened the wooden door, signaling the bell tied to the top, stepping inside. The comforting smell of the bound books wafted into her lungs, giving her a comfort she had not anticipated, allowing her to focus on something other than Doc's displeasure with her.
She offered a 'good afternoon' to the clerk, who watched her strangely. After a minute or so, Clara turned to him and offered a friendly if not sad smile, waiting for a greeting in return. The store owner grumbled, slightly embarrassed, she assumed, recovering his countenance by inquiring if the young woman might need help to locate anything in particular. Clara likened him to a pigeon.
"I can't say I'm searching for anything in particular," she mused, running her fingertips over the spines of a collection she didn't bother to read the titles of. "I find a... certain comfort in books. That is silly, of course, but all the same. Do you have recommendations?"
As she spoke, Clara began to realize that Doc was right, as per usual. She had felt a little better simply by leaving the confines of that boarding room. Perhaps she was insufferable. Inwardly she groaned.
The clerk stepped from behind his ledger. "I suppose that would depend on your tastes."
Clara turned to a pile of books on the countertop, casually scanning the titles. One, in particular, stood out to her. "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There... Now, that is one I haven't read in ages. I remember it fondly from my childhood."
It was the truth. In what felt like a different time, Daddy sent a copy of the book home for Thomas and Clara when they were younger.
"Ah, yes, well..." The plump little man reached out, tapping the collection with a fat, flat hand. "These have been paid for by the schoolmistress-ordered specially for the children. Come to think of it, they should have been picked up hours ago."
Trying her best to hide her disappointment at the book's unavailability, an idea came to Clara in the spur of the moment. "I could deliver them. My plans are few today."
A look of skepticism sprawled out over the clerk's pudgy features.
"It wouldn't be any trouble at all!" Clara tried to convince him.
The universe on her side, the little bookstore became crowded in an afternoon rush. Orders of volumes had recently arrived in the shipment a few days prior, and the owner had his hands full with processing the goods. Clara's offer went from disregarded to a God-sent. The clerk was a tad apprehensive, however, heeding Clara not to dawdle and deliver the books with a hastily penned letter explaining the overwhelming circumstances at the bookstore and Clara's part in the delivery.
Bothered as she was, being instructed in such a childlike manner, Miss Grady adhered to the instructions, finding herself thinking less about the misery and more about the little adventure she was about to embark on.
The Tombstone schoolhouse was little more than a rickety building that looked as though it would collapse under a gust of wind. It was fascinating to Clara, who had never attended such a place growing up, having been schooled by her mother in their home. She often wondered what it would have been like to sit at the desks sharing hand-me-down textbooks with other children. The only other person she had shared anything with was Thomas, and even as a youngster, her older brother had always been a pain. A memory of Thomas dipping the ends of her curls in ink as Mama taught them the Lord's Prayer crept into her head as Clara climbed the few steps to the door.
Tucking a load of books under her arm, she used the back of her hand to gently knock upon the frame. Little faces that had been so intent on listening to their lesson turned right around at the interruption. Apologizing for the disturbance, Clara brought the books from under her arm to her waist, stepping forward at the behest of the teacher, who was by all accounts a spinster. Reaching the front of the class, Clara handed over the note, waving at a group of young girls who smiled cheerfully at her. A pair of young boys whispered to one another, nodding in agreement in Clara's direction.
"These are the books, then?" The schoolmistress's stern voice pulled Clara from her examination of the schoolchildren.
"Hm? Oh-yes, Ma'am." She outstretched her full hands, relinquishing the titles.
Eyeing her suspiciously, the older woman took hold of the order and placed the books on her desk. "Yes, well thank you, Miss-."
"Grady. Clara Grady, Ms-?"
"Santee. And I know who you are, Miss Grady. I believe the whole town does."
Awkwardly, Clara's eyes went downcast.
There it was. That judgment she couldn't escape. An intruding thought of making that trip to the schoolhouse a mistake entered her mind. Ms. Santee, on the other hand, found a sort of pity in seeing the young woman in the flesh and sighed before extending a worthwhile invitation.
"Have you any formal education, Clara?"
A bit surprised by the question, the young woman raised her eyes to meet the school teacher. "I was taught basic arithmetic, history, English literature, and French, Ma'am."
"Geography?"
Clara nodded.
"Basic manners-conversation and etiquette?" A stern glare at the end of her sentence was directed at the rowdy group of boys, that had been staring at Clara when she first arrived.
"Yes, Ma'am."
Ms. Santee's gaze shifted from her students to Clara, lips pursed and eyeing her up and down. "I'm short a teaching aid, which may come as no surprise to you. If you're not otherwise preoccupied, I would extend the position to you, Clara. We can discuss the formalities tomorrow morning if that suits you. Of course, with permission granted by your... forgive me, I'm not entirely sure what the situation would render him-acquaintance?"
"Benefactor, Ma'am."
Clara's response caused a light smirk to splay across Ms. Santee's face. The school teacher nodded then, dismissing Miss Grady to talk over the offer with Doc, leaving Clara in a new light, a grand opportunity before her.
.
.
Since coming back to Tombstone, knowing full well the talk around town, Doc Holliday, for all purposes, was striving to be on his best behavior. With Clara at the forefront of his concerns and thoughts, John Henry had avoided his habitual desires for gambling, with only a minimal indulgence in his fondness for drink. It had been a testament to his love, which had gone seemingly unnoticed by her but not to those he considered his friends. Wyatt and Doc had become closer over those weeks that led into September, each a confidant to the other, speaking on their ups and downs in such a way that brothers might.
The pair had been sitting outside of Wyatt's home on the wicker furniture, Wyatt having just emptied his conflicted feelings for Mattie. Reluctant to admit that the actress in town, Josephine, currently on Behan's arm, was his sinful infatuation, one he was having trouble letting go of. He hadn't particularly asked for any advice concerning his predicament, and Doc was happy enough to listen to his friend share his woes.
"What about you, Doc? You've been awfully quiet."
"How very perceptive of you, Wyatt." The air of sarcasm was thick on his tongue.
A haggard sigh left Doc's body as he toyed with something in his pocket. Wyatt eyed him carefully, slowly starting to rock in his chair. There was no reason to pry. It was Doc's style to say something when he had a mind to. Wyatt just had to wait.
"Clara's night terrors have become a regular occurrence," Holliday started, slowly. "It tortures me, hearing her call out his name like some wicked devil. I made her leave today, to take in some air."
Earp's shoulders went rigid, his eyes flittering about, unsure of what to focus on. "It was him, wasn't it?"
Doc curtly nodded, unable to do much else.
Wyatt, feeling the tension build as he watched his friend take a nip from his flask, teetered carefully on shifting the subject slightly, to avoid any confrontation that night. "She's a good girl, Clara. You've done fine by her. More than most men could, I'd reckon."
Fiddling in his pocket, John Henry's eyes scanned the landscape surrounding them, nodding in silent agreement.
"You love her, don't you, Doc?"
Gripping the small item in his fist, Doc pulled out his hand, pressing it to his mouth. "She is all I've ever wanted." He mused.
"Well, that's just fine! That's really good."
Pulling away his hand from his lips, Holliday revealed what he had been concealing in his pocket throughout their conversation. A pretty ring rested delicately on his pointer finger, held out so Wyatt might see it. Simple yet dazzling, a golden band held specks of opal, garnet, and pearl.
"It was my mother's," Doc explained. "I acquired it shortly before my father remarried."
Completely bewildered by his friend's seriousness and obvious contemplating, Wyatt was thrilled but speechless for what felt like an eternity. Eventually, he spoke. "I think it would be a mighty fine thing, Doc. I truly do."
"A satirical venture at best, I'd wager."
The friend's conversation was coming to an end, as both caught sight of Clara coming from the direction of the schoolhouse. One of her hands was above her head, shielding her eyes from the sun. Doc placed the ring back in his pocket, standing up from his chair, waiting patiently for her to reach them.
He swallowed hard, imagining all the things that could have been, if not for his cursed consumption. He could never ask for her hand. That would be all too cruel. Still, he couldn't help but want to dream of a day when a little hand might be grasping hers. A child with sandy curls, bounding up and down with a grin like his mother's.
A pang entered Doc's heart then, as he recited her favorite poet.
"For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling-my darling-my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea-
In her tomb by the sounding sea..."
Wyatt stood up then, as Clara drew closer. He leaned against the porch, his arms holding the rest of him up. "Why don't you both stay for dinner?"
Doc nodded, his features were pained. "Much obliged, Wyatt. Thank you."
A/N: I was stuck in such a rut with this chapter. A minor case of writer's block, I don't tend to write when it occurs. I really hate forcing anything. The worst thing is knowing exactly what's supposed to happen, but can't articulate it. BAH. (Though the ending of the chapter just sort of sprung itself on me. Dear Doc, you must explain yourself further. Next chapter perhaps? Oops.)
Anywho, the next chapter is going to jump right back into canon, obviously mixed and mingled among the other plot of this story. Biggest shoutouts to the new readers and fellow writers of the fandom, and of course all my love to all of you who continue to read and enjoy.
There isn't much for me to say this time around, I'm still in a bit of a blah mood, which is probably due to the season change here in Australia. Autumn is lovely but I always seem to come down with a case of the Autumnal blues.
Love to all of you, darlings. Stay blessed! Xx