Angie Maitland swung the front door open to a tall man, wearing a swooshing, purple coat and ridiculous patterned bow tie.

"Hello, Angie! How're you doing?" He smiled, looking surreptitiously over her shoulder in the hope he'd see Clara walking down the stairs to find him. Not that Angie noticed him looking, as she wasn't even paying him any attention anyway, favouring to text her friend.

"Yeah. Whatever. Listen, Clara isn't here." She told him, looking up from her phone.

The Doctor sagged in disappointment.

"Oh. Well where is-" He was stopped by Angie thrusting a small piece of paper into his hand and closing the front door.

"Bye then!" The Doctor called cheerily, blissfully oblivious of Angie's distaste for him (And rightfully so, Angie always thought, him being the guy stealing Clara away from her. And Artie, of course. Not that she cared.). The Doctor turned, before reading the yellow post-it note in his hands, that had Clara's surprisingly messy handwriting scrawled on it.

'Angie/Artie, Gone to visit Mum. Make sure you unload the dishwasher and take the recycling out! Love, Clara.' She had signed in red felt tip.
The Doctor ran his thumb across the letters fondly, before catching himself and pocketing the note with a small cough. As he strode back into the TARDIS, that was parked just around the corner from the Maitland's, he stopped to think.

'Gone to visit Mum.' His friend had written. But her Mum was... "Oh. My poor Clara." He murmured into the empty console room. He then started to flick switches, setting course for South Lancashire.

"Hiya Mum. It seems like ages since we had a chat." Clara Oswald said, as she ran her hand across her mothers gravestone slowly. Silence filled the air, as tears filled Clara's eyes. She sniffed before carrying on.

"So, what's new? Well, I'm finally travelling Mum. With this bloke." She could almost see her Mum's reaction in her mind.

"No, not like that. He's called the Doctor. He's an alien, who's over 1000 years old, with two hearts and 27 brains!" She laughed, remembering the first day they'd met, trailing off when she realised that nobody could laugh with her.

"It's wonderful, Mum. Oh, I wish you could see..." Clara smiled sadly at the grey stone, never moving and yet so alive.

"The other day, he took us to this planet where all the people had two left feet- literally! Yeah, the dancing was... Interesting to say the least. The Doctor's not big on dancing either. He's too uncoordinated with his gangly limbs and awful 'drunk giraffe' move, as he called it. God love him, he wasn't blessed, that's all I will say!" Clara smiled, her mind wandering to thoughts of her best friend. She wished that he was here. She needed his hugs (which were pretty amazing, not that she'd admit that) and his smile to brighten her day, especially on this day.
Clara traced the letters, Ellie Oswald, with trembling fingers as tears began to well up again, blurring her vision at the edges. She took a sharp intake of air before forcing out her next words.

"I miss you, Mum. I really do." She choked, now gripping onto the corner of the gravestone, knuckles turning white at the intensity.

"I want you to come with us, travel the stars, see... Everything." Clara told the stone wistfully, a solitary tear spilling over her eyelid and running down her cheek.

"I just love you so much... Mum, I love you." Clara began to sob freely now, leaning her head on the cold stone and letting her tears fall onto the soil beneath.

It couldn't have been more than a minute, until Clara felt a pair of hands on her shoulders, making her look up from her crying.

She looked up into the face of an understanding Doctor, whose eyes were alight with emotions that mirrored hers at that moment- love and loss. His arms rested atop her shoulders as he hugged her from behind, placing his head on her right shoulder.

"So, this must be Ellie then?" The Doctor murmured into Clara's ear, his warm breath tickling her against the cold March air. She nodded, whilst wiping her tears away.

"Yeah, this is my Mum. Mum, this is the Doctor." She introduced them, stumbling over the words ever so slightly with tears still caught in her throat. The Doctor pressed a kiss to her shoulder, telling her that her stutters didn't matter, nor did he even care. There was a companionable silence for a few minutes, where both the Doctor and Clara tried to think of something to say.

Then, the Doctor coughed and stood abruptly upright, removing his arms from around Clara back down to his sides.

"Righty ho then. Ooh, that's rubbish. Note to self, never say that again." He rambled, making Clara laugh slightly. She stopped and furrowed brow, however, when he removed his jacket from off his back and laid it in front of the stone he had just been introduced to.

"We've got to tell your Mum everything. And that's a lot of stories." He smiled, holding out a hand as invitation, which she took gratefully- making him squeeze her hand comfortingly. They settled on the jacket, sat side by side, still holding hands as they began to tell Ellie Oswald 'everything': evil wi-fi, old Gods, Ice Warriors, ghosts, prehistoric red leeches and Cybermen amongst some.

For hours they just sat and talked to Clara's Mum, laughing and joking about their adventures- their hands still firmly clasped together. The stone just looked on, listening but never replying.

Hours later, around three quarters of the way through a story about them meeting Al Capone, where Clara was resting her head on the Doctor's shoulder and his head atop hers, presumably the park keeper interrupted them (giving them a strange look due to them talking about Al Capone as if he was an old mate).

"Sorry to barge in, but I'm locking up love." The kindly old man told Clara, recognising her from previous visits. His statement made the pair look up and realise that it was, in fact, now getting dark.

"Oh, OK, thank you." Clara smiled, lifting her head from her friends shoulder. After the old man had left, the Doctor had already stood and was brushing down his trousers. He offered his hands to Clara to help her up, one of which she took and hauled herself to standing. As the Doctor slipped his jacket back on, Clara turned back to her Mum's stone and touched the now freezing marble.

"Right then. I'm off then Mum. I'll see you soon though, so it doesn't matter. And don't worry, I won't get lost." Clara pressed a kiss to the marble before turning to the Doctor, who was standing waiting.

He slung his arm over Clara's shoulder as they walked off, back toward the TARDIS, talking to her about Angie and her dislike for him. When they reached the gates, where the old man stood ready with the keys, the Doctor made a show of patting his pockets and checking his coat.

"What? What is it?" Clara asked.

"My sonic, it must have fallen out. I'll have to... Er, go and fetch it. Yeah, that." He clicked his fingers.

"Wait here." He told both Clara and the park keeper, who looked equally as dumbfounded.

The Doctor ran all the way back to Ellie's grave and when he reached it again, he fumbled in his pocket, past the sonic and pulled out a small bunch of, now rather squashed, flowers. He placed them gently on the grave, then stood and placed a hand on the stone.

"It was a pleasure, Mrs Oswald. And don't worry, I'll take good care of Clara. Not in the way that I'll marry her and live in a nice little house, because I can never really give her that. But I can promise you, that I'll hold her hand and keep her safe, because... Because, I love her. We both do. We both love Clara- differently, but all the same." The Doctor finished, grinning. He leant forward and pressed a kiss to the same spot Clara had, not minutes before.

"Goodbye Ellie. Have a good evening." He smiled, before turning and walking into the darkening scenery back up to find Clara- leaving a small bunch of crimson flowers behind that sat next to the gravestone of 'Ellie Oswald, beloved wife and mother.'