Eight

                                    

                                          
Alessia spent the rest of the night awake, and she found Clara insistent that she stay in Alessia's room to make sure she was alright. To be fair, she was still crying.
                          
Clara first helped Alessia into some pyjamas, retrieving her bear from her bedside table and combing out the knots in her hair while she reiterated the dream for Clara.
                          
Alessia knew she needed to get out of the bed and the sheets that had surrounded her dream. She stood up, padded over to her desk, where she retrieved a box of crayons and pencils and a lineless notebook, and then beckoned for Clara to join her on the floor, spread out on the red rug. 
                          
She began to draw the inhabitants of the dream. Starting with the woman and the man, with her long overalls and bun and his books and casual button-up.
                          
"That looks like an outfit you'd wear," Clara pointed out, placing a finger next to the woman's crayon overalls. 
                          
Alessia shrugged. "Lots of people wear overalls," she said.
                          
Next, she drew the two children; the girl with the brown hair identical to the woman's and the boy with the blond hair of the man's. After that, the two women with the baby boy, the couple with the clingy toddler, the line of animals, and, finally, the bench. 
                          
She drew the Doctor first, using a red coloured pencil to scribble out the shape of a bow-tie to show that it was him. 
                          
"That's the Doctor," she said, as if it wasn't obvious. "I mean, Dad. That's Dad."
                          
Clara smirked at her. "Dad?" She repeated. 
                          
Alessia nodded fervently. "Dad, yeah."
                          
Clara kept the smirk on her face, her eyes saying 'just tell me the truth and get over it'. 
                          
"Okay, fine," Alessia sighed. "He's not my dad. When my mum died she told me to stay with him. It's a really long story, but it turned out I was special like he was. If you feel, I have two hearts."
                          
Clara's eyes widened, enticing Alessia to continue. 
                          
"I think it's pretty cool, being special," she said. "Cause I can see my ghost friends."
                          
"Was your mother nice?" Clara asked. 
                          
"Very!" Alessia smiled. "She had two jobs, and she let me explore during the day, except things weren't nearly as exciting in the 1890s. I had an alien friend, so that was cool. Have, not had, I suppose. If he still wants to be my friend. And she used to bring me dinner from the pub she worked at, and it was always delicious and warm. And she had the prettiest singing voice. She sang me lullabies when I cried." Her voice faltered at the end, but she blinked back the tears that were threatening reentrance and sniffed, moving onto crayon Clara.
                          
"Who's that?" Clara asked, sensing the sensitive subject. She watched intently as Alessia went into excruciating detail on the pattern of the lilac dress, avoiding drawing the face and hair. 
                          
"I don't remember."
                          
Clara raised her eyebrows. "Don't you?"
                          
Alessia felt like her thoughts were being excavated. How did Clara know everything? 
                          
"Okay. Fine. It might have been you. And you were all... tangled. You and him."
                          
"In what way?"
                          
"I don't know. Just tangled. Hands together and head on his shoulder and all that." Alessia scrunched up her nose. "Blech. Gross. Disgusting."
                          
"We're still in that phase, are we?" Clara muttered, bringing herself up to a seated position and watching as Oliver attempted to scratch away at the metal poles of Alessia's bed.