Disclaimer: All hail the mighty BBC and Steven Moffat for letting me play around with these characters. No infringement intended.

Author's Note: This was inspired by the Ten/Rose story I stumbled across called "Thermoregulation" (which is fantastic) - but hopefully doesn't bare too much resemblance to it other than the basic concepts of it. Also, it was meant to be a standalone, but my beta disagrees so tell me what y'all think if you feel strongly one way or the other (I'm honestly fine with either.) Speaking of, many, many thanks to my fantastic beta, Friendship-Bravery-Souffles, without whom this would be far less flow-y. You are amazing, V and still unapologetically rock! :-D

"How much longer?"

"Umm…about an hour, same as the last time you asked."

"What? But that was a while ago, wasn't it?"

"Actually it was about seven minutes ago."

Clara groaned, stamping her feet a bit as they trudged on. "Why can't the TARDIS decide that she needs to defend herself or repair herself or whatever she's doing when we're someplace warm? Like Adexia or the Caribbean or I dunno – even Scotland in the summer would probably be warmer."

Somewhere off to her left on the frigid, windswept moor, a sheep baaed loudly.

"See? He agrees with me."

"Actually, she was just saying that the grass tastes better on this side of the hill than it does round the other side. I doubt she knows too much about the climate – or notices, for that matter." The Doctor was fiddling with the sonic, aiming it out in an arc around them. "Still not getting any technology readings. Either she dropped us in some year that is decidedly not 1989, or we really are in the middle of nowhere."

"I could've told you that." Clara clapped her hands together, rubbing them back and forth before blowing into them. "Of all the times I decide to leave my gloves in the TARDIS…"

"The cold is invigorating, though!" His cheery tone prompted a glare from her, making him shrink back as though she might shoot laser beams out of her eyes. Lasers might actually have been quite handy at the moment, if only for starting a fire. "Don't you think it's invigorating?"

"Not the word I was thinking of, no," she intoned, trying to warm her hands under her armpits instead. "Can't you sonic us some heat or something? It does practically everything else."

The Doctor wobbled his head back and forth, which Clara could just make out from how his pale skin cast a faint glow in the moonlight. "It's got the antifreeze setting, but I don't think that would be particularly useful."

"Antifreeze? So…what? It could prevent us from getting frozen?"

"No, it only melts things that are already frozen. Though perhaps that's a useful setting to think about for the future…"

She huffed, stamping her feet again, then came to an abrupt halt. There was the outline of a light-coloured rectangular fixture just ahead. "Doctor – what's that?"

"Eh?" He followed her finger, and then aimed his sonic towards where she was pointing. "It's not anything advanced." He remarked, sounding slightly disappointed.

But Clara had already made a break for it, running towards the faint object, hoping that it would turn out to be some heat-making machine or generator or even be a tiny hut where they could find shelter from the howling wind. Yet as she came closer, she saw it was much smaller than it had looked from far away and was merely a stone wall, set in the hillside.

"What is it?" The Doctor caught up to her, slapping the sonic against the palm of his hand, which she noted wryly also seemed to be protesting the cold.

"It's a wall. Just a wall." And that was it for Clara. "Y'know what? I'm done walking. It's been two hours, we haven't found any signs of civilisation, we don't even know what year we're in–"

"Somewhere between 1200 and 2000," the Doctor declared as he licked his finger.

She shot him a look. "Right. We know that the TARDIS isn't coming back for another hour, I'm tired, I'm hungry and I keep losing feeling in my toes. And my ears. And my nose. And – well… everything else, actually because it's so bloody cold out here!" She crossed her arms as she finished, daring him to protest.

"You're hungry?" He asked, sounding concerned.

"Yes, Doctor – you said we were going to have dinner so I didn't eat before you picked me up. Remember?" She couldn't keep the exasperation out of her tone.

"Right. Yes – sorry." He rubbed his hands together which then changed to wringing. "Umm…so I can't do anything about the TARDIS for the next hour –"

"Which I still don't understand – you repair her all the time! Why would she need to bugger off on her own into the time vortex to perform her own repairs? And why would she leave us stranded in the middle of Nowhereshire, Scotland?"

He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like equivocating. "Ah. Well. Yes – when I said she was doing repairs, well, that may have been a slight exaggeration."

Clara narrowed her eyes at him. "An exaggeration of what?"

He scratched at his face. "Well – you're right – I did perform repairs on her, it's just that it was to her helmic regulator. Which she's rather…touchy… about. So she needs the three hours to essentially – undo the repairs I made. Which she might not view as repairs so much as changes."

Clara fought to keep her scream in her throat. "She's punishing you."

He made a noise of reluctant agreement. "Middle of nowhere, Scotland, possibly the Middle Ages, more than likely the dead of winter…"

"She's basically sent you to your room, hasn't she?"

The Doctor scoffed at that. "I don't have a room."

"Exactly," she replied drolly. "This is just the equivalent. Aaaand considering our history, she was probably only too happy to send me off as well." She heaved a sigh. "Right. So that means she's definitely not coming back for an hour, and –"

"Ooh! You could lie down!"

Out of all the non-sequiturs he'd spouted, that one took the cake. "Sorry?"

"Lie down! You said you were tired – you could lie down on the wall. Or on the hill, which might actually be more comfortable…"

Clara leaned against the wall. "I am not lying down on the hill with so many sheep around." She wrinkled her nose in distaste. "If it smells this much of sheep, then I can only imagine what we've been stepping through the last couple hours. "

"Ah! Well, actually, the reason that sheep manure smells so strong is –"

"Nope – not in the mood for a detailed history of sheep manure and its composition, thanks."

"How about the wall, then?"

Clara had to close her eyes and count to five. "Doctor, as much as I normally don't mind hearing about the history of every little thing around us –"

"No, not the history – although this is an especially interesting geological composition – but I was thinking you could lie down on the wall. Since you said you were tired."

Clara felt a momentary pang of regret for snapping at him when he had clearly been trying to help. She sighed, working her hands as far as they would go inside her sleeves and bracing them against the wall so she could jump up onto it. It was only a few feet off the ground, and it didn't really seem to serve a purpose other than to be a wall in the hillside. But maybe anything that couldn't warm her up seemed useless right now. "I can sit –" No sooner had she said that that she let out a squeak, hastily jumping down.

"What?"

She resisted the urge to rub at her bum where the thin material of her dress and tights had made the brief, albeit unfortunate contact with the cold-as-ice stone.

"Cold! Too cold," she managed, jiggling her legs in an effort to get more blood to her arse.

"Oh, right. Didn't think about that, sorry – the stone has possibly absorbed more of the cold than the ambient temperature."

"My bum is now quite well-acquainted with that, thanks, Doctor."

There was what sounded like an awkward swallow. "So – no lying down, then. Ah, but you said you were hungry – I might have just the thing for you!"

She approached him warily as he dug in his jacket pocket, murmuring all the while. "Doctor…when was the last time you stashed food in your jacket?"

He continued to rummage. "Oh, I don't know…I lose track. It might have been a while ago. Or possibly last week – I don't remember – aha!" He pulled out a dark, rectangular-shaped object triumphantly. "Here!"

"What's that?"

"It's a protein bar." He placed it in her hand.

She held it up to her nose, hoping that it wasn't so numb she could still smell. She needn't have worried. "Eugh! Doctor – it smells like fish!"

"Exactly!" He sounded genuinely excited. "Fish is protein – it's a fish bar."

She held it cautiously between thumb and forefinger. "What sort of fish can be okay after being in your pocket for some undetermined amount of time?"

"The dried kind – well – first it's ground into a sort of powder…actually, no, first they freeze it. Then they grind it into powder, and then they form the bars and freeze-dry those and –"

"I'd rather join the sheep, I think." She pushed it back into his chest. "Didn't the sheep say the grass tasted better on the other side of the hill?"

The Doctor sounded genuinely puzzled as he placed the fish bar back in his pocket. "Um…well, yes, but –"

"I'm joking," she sighed halfheartedly, rubbing her hands together again and sticking them under her arms. "I'll be fine – I'm not gonna starve or anything – though thanks for trying. Plus, I honestly care a lot less about the other things 'cause I'd really just love to be less cold." She stamped her feet again to emphasise her point.

The Doctor reached for her hands, pulling them towards his chest. "Here," he offered, rubbing them vigorously between his palms and blowing hot air on them. "Is that better?"

Clara nodded. "Yeah. I wish I could stick them inside my jacket and then zip it up again, just so they could stay out of this wind."

The Doctor looked at her a moment, then started unbuttoning his own jacket.

"What are you doing?"

He answered her by grasping her hands and snaking them around his midsection, so that her hands were at his back. "I can't close it again, but at least they're out of the wind."

Clara hummed contentedly, feeling her extremities start to regain feeling. Or at least feel slightly lessicy. She rubbed her palms up and down his back a few times, letting her cheek fall to his chest. "Thanks."

He was also rubbing her back, clearly intent on warming her further. Then, she felt him shiver and her head shot up. "Doctor! You're cold, too!"

"No, I'm not," he protested, his teeth clacking together a bit in the process. He gave her a somewhat sheepish smile. "Okay, maybe a tiny bit."

Clara withdrew one of her hands and unzipped her jacket, then curled the other one around his wrists and brought them behind her back. "Here – might as well if we're standing like this, right?"

The Doctor hummed his agreement, and she felt him relax into her, the point of his chin resting atop her head, his shivering gradually subsiding, body stilling against hers. They both continued to move their hands up and down each other's backs, and it was unclear whether they were warming themselves or trying to warm the other. Regardless, it seemed to serve a double purpose.

Then Clara sniffled.

"Oh! You said your nose was cold!" He peered down at her earnestly. "Is your nose still cold?"

She couldn't help her smile at how genuinely concerned he appeared, even in the dim light. "Yeah, but – it's okay. This is nice." Perhaps she didn't want to break their…whatever they were doing. Hugging? Snuggling? "Don't worry about it, Doctor, really."

"No, but –" He broke off, dipping his head and letting out what sounded like a long sigh, fanning warm air onto her nose. "Is that better?"

She bit back a giggle at the way it tickled – also at the fact that the Doctor was blowing on her face. "Yeah, actually, that's pretty nice."

"Is it?" He seemed to take this as encouragement, dipping his head lower so that his mouth was just a few inches from her nose. This time he blew more slowly, expelling a long breath of hot air.

This time Clara couldn't stifle her giggle. "That's lovely." She smiled at him once he was finished, noting that he looked immensely pleased with himself. "Thanks."

He kissed the top of her head, resettling his chin there. "Well, we can't have you losing your nose! It would be a tragedy – to lose one as funny as yours…"

"Oi!" She exclaimed into his shirt, fighting a smile he couldn't see. "Says the man whose chin is currently digging into my head 'cause it's so pointy."

He made some noise of protest, muttering something about how his chin wasn't that pointy, but she felt his head lift, making her wish she'd kept her mouth shut. But then his head came down on hers again, cheek first. She readjusted her hold on his back, letting her fingers find the edge of his waistcoat and slipping underneath to put two layers between them and the howling wind. She was so focused on ensuring that she wasn't crossing any – well – lines – that it took her a bit to notice how his head kept moving back and forth on top of hers. Then it took another moment to recognise that he had turned his head enough so that it was not his cheek, but his ear pressed into her hair.

"I'd tell you that you can't read my thoughts like that, but I already know that's not how you do it, so… what are you doing?"

"Hmm? Nothing."

"Yes, you are – are you…stroking my hair with your ear?"

He scoffed at that. "No! I'm…trying to see if your hair is thick enough to act as an insulator."

"What?"

"Well…hair can act like an insulator if it's thick enough and there's enough of it."

"But why would that…" She trailed off as she caught up to his Doctor-logic, tugging her head back to study his face. "You're trying to warm your ears in my hair?"

"Well, I would rub them myself, but then my hands would get cold again, and…" He lifted his arms slightly to indicate their current position. As if he didn't want to do anything to break it, either.

Clara let out a sigh. It was times like these when she didn't exactly feel like she'd escaped being a nanny. "Why didn't you just say so?" She cocked her head. "C'mere."

"What?"

"I'm gonna warm your ears."

He looked skeptical. "How?"

"Same way you warmed my nose – by blowing on them. C'mere."

He didn't budge.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No…that's definitely a something face."

He didn't look skeptical so much anymore as something closer to apprehensive. "Well…it's just…"

She frowned at him. "What? I'm not gonna bite!"

His eyebrows shot up.

Her eyes went wide at the implication. "I didn't mean…" She stammered. "I didn't mean that – I just meant I'm not…dangerous or anything."

A corner of his mouth lifted the tiniest bit. "Well…you did mention being hungry earlier."

"Afraid I'm going to nibble on your ears, Doctor?" She asked before she could stop herself, feeling her cheeks heat up.

"One can never be too careful, Clara. And my ears are quite nibblable."

"You made that word up."

"I make lots of words up. Where do you think Will Shakespeare got 'loneliness' from?"

Clara might've rolled her eyes at his boasting or hugged him for the sadness underlying such a statement– if her heart hadn't sped up quite so much. "I promise I won't nibble on your ears without your permission. Deal?"

He was definitely smirking now. "Deal." He slowly turned his head, offering his ear down to her.

She raised herself a bit, careful not to upset their embrace and blew onto his ear, mindful of keeping her distance so her lips, teeth and tongue were far enough away that it wouldn't make him uncomfortable.

It apparently wasn't enough because he let out a strangled yelp anyway, whole body jerking away from her.

"What?"

"C-cold! You have to move closer – otherwise it changes to cold air by the time it reaches the skin."

"Oh! Sorry!" He was still squirming, and she had to pat his back a few times to get him to stop. "If you keep doing that, you'll be a moving target and get cold air all over your face."

He emitted a shuddering noise like he could expel the extra cold by shaking it out of his body. "Right. Okay." He stopped his fidgeting, bending his head much lower this time.

Clara didn't have to raise herself so high this time, but ensured there were only a few inches between them and let out a long sigh onto his ear.

He went completely still, making Clara smile triumphantly. "Better?"

He was quiet for a bit before he replied. "Yes." His voice sounded funny - lower and a bit strangled. He seemed to notice it and cleared his throat. "Yes, that's…better."

Clara shot him an uncertain look – though his face was turned so she just ended up looking questioningly at his ear. "Um…so…"

"You can do it again."

Was that reluctance? Was that why his voice still sounded shaky?

Her teeth worried her bottom lip. "You're sure?"

"Yes." His reply was immediate, confusing her further. Not reluctance, then…

"Um…okay." She took a breath and raised her head again, blowing a long breath onto his ear, trying to keep it gentle and warm.

This time she felt a shiver go through him.

"It's not working, Doctor – you're –"

"No, it's…working. It works – believe me." His voice still sounded strangely muffled.

Her eyebrows drew low over her eyes. "No, it isn't. Clearly you're still cold."

"I'm not cold, Clara."

She eyed his ear incredulously. "You were just shivering – of course you're –"

"I'm not…cold."

She froze, gaping as the realisation dawned on her. "Oh. Oh. Right." She suddenly became keenly aware of every single spot their bodies were touching, including how his fingers had curled just the slightest bit against her back. Yet it was impossible to tell what that meant. Was he bracing himself for it or…?

"It's very…effective."

Well, that wasn't useful. She tried prodding a bit. "Effective?"

"Yes. Effective…antifreeze."

"You mean it's um, it's good at warming your ears?"

"Yes." His tone was still pitched low but betrayed nothing. She resisted the urge to extricate herself from him, completely lost as to whether he felt she'd crossed one of those unspoken lines between them, not wanting to make the situation any more awkward.

If it was, indeed, awkward. Was it awkward?

What he did next offered nothing to confirm her worry one way or another.

"You need to get the other one." He turned his face the other way, inclining his head towards her again. "Don't want to be off-balance."

"Right." She set aside all of her internal flailing and focused on her task, trying to be clinically detached about whatever was happening at the moment. "Hold still."

This time she felt the fisting of his fingers in the fabric of her dress, the gradual tensing of his arms around her and his own shaky exhale.

"And that was okay, too?"

"Yes." Was his breathing more audible now or was that her imagination?

"Okay. Last one." She took a deep breath in, filling up her lungs as much as she could and blew as much concentrated warm air as possible on his ear. His fingers clutched her dress so tightly they ran out of fabric and ended up digging into her back, his head bowing lower towards her and he now let out what was definitely an audible gasp. She couldn't help returning the pressure on his back at this, regardless of whether this was his way of soldiering through or not.

There was the distinct sound of him trying to get his breathing under control once again. After a few breaths that sounded far too forcibly even, he lifted his head again to look at her.

"Okay…your turn."

Now it was Clara's eyebrows who shot into her hair. "What?"

"You said earlier that your ears were cold, didn't you?" There was an innocence to his tone that made Clara suspicious.

"Yeah," she confirmed carefully.

"Well, we can't have your ears getting frostbite!" He extricated a hand from behind her back, bringing it up to her face as if he was going to rub them with his fingers.

She didn't know whether she should quell her disappointment or feel a flood of relief at the return of her normal Doctor. "Nope, can't have that." She gave him a half smile.

But his fingers moved past her ear, brushing her hair back from her face, before anchoring at the back of her head so that it turned to the side. "No, we can't." And then he let out a long exhale, sending a stream of hot air onto her ear, his lips only an inch or so away.

She hadn't expected to react that much, but whether from his angle or from the sheer surprise of the sensation tingling across her skin, she let out a gasp, fingers curling into his back, arms tensing to pull herself into him more.

There was a noise akin to a deep chuckle above her ear, and before she could collect herself, there was another breath, more forceful than the last. She couldn't restrain the noise of shock – or of appreciation, she wasn't sure which – as she pushed herself further into him. She felt him shift, letting her leg scissor between his, allowing her to push where she quite suddenly needed too, as did he apparently, judging from how he answered her movements with his own motion against her.

"See? Very…effective." He murmured in her ear.

She nodded, trying to find her voice. "Uh-huh," was all she could manage.

He didn't ask, and she didn't offer: she just let him turn her head to the opposite side, let him sweep her hair back from her face and waited.

He surprised her yet again, though, as his lips brushed up against her ear, taking his time to breathe onto it, several small puffs of air instead of two long ones.

He started at the top of her ear, his lip just grazing her skin each time his warm breath fluttered out, until he got to the bottom of her lobe. There he extended his lip even more, letting the very tip of her ear drag along the inside of his lip for a few seconds, making her writhe against him, her hands grabbing at his back as she let out a string of shuddering gasps. She felt his head move back, and she had to take a few seconds until she could open her eyes again, until she could find her voice again.

When she was finally able to glance at him, she saw he was looking at her in that way he used to – like he was watching her intently. She met his gaze and tried to keep her voice neutral. "You're right. Very…effective antifreeze technique."

He didn't even smirk, he was staring at her so hard.

She swallowed, dropping her eyes. "So…how's your neck, Doctor?"

"Hm?"

"Your neck looks like it might be cold…is it?" She flicked her eyes back up at him again, trying to gauge if this was headed where she thought it was. Where she hoped it was? Even if she couldn't really articulate where 'it' even really was.

He didn't even blink now. "My neck is…freezing, Clara."

Now she didn't ask, or wait for an invitation, she just used the back of his shirt to anchor herself as she raised her head to his neck, lips opening automatically and latching onto his skin. She kept up this ruse they had going, keeping her tongue firmly in check, though she let an occasional tooth nick the soft flesh there, eliciting strangled noises from him that made her lips curl every so often. His motions had turned jerkier, and she finally had the dizzying sensation of the Doctor's hard length pressing into her stomach.

She had to rewind that sentence and play it back in her head, scarcely believing the hard length of the Doctor pressing into her was actually a sentence that fit into her life in anything other than a fantasy capacity.

She'd reached the other side of his neck and had just lowered herself back down when he attacked hers. Now she didn't try to muffle or hide her noises, giving them voice as his lips worked ferociously over her skin, maintaining their charade of heating it, somehow managing to keep his tongue out of the equation, but also taking opportunities here and there to suck as well. This caused Clara's head to fall back as she let out a throaty gasp, her fingers seeking more contact and working at his shirt to untuck it from his trousers. Once it was finally free, she let her fingernails rake up his back, oblivious to anything else –

-until he let out a yelp, nearly jumping out of his skin and startling her eyes open.

"What?" She asked breathlessly, crashing back to Earth.

"Cold!" He protested, clearly only capable of one-word answers at the moment, arching his back noticeably away from her offending digits.

"Sorry!" She hastily withdrew her hands, letting them just rest on his back again.

As she feared, the interruption was enough to break the…whatever it was they'd had going as they faced each other, both breathing hard. Would he retreat now, spouting some babble about sheep manure or medieval Scottish history or rock composition…pretend that nothing had happened?

And…what had happened?

The only indication anything had transpired at all was that she could still feel him pressing into her stomach.

She was suddenly overcome by the dizzying sensation of teetering at the edge of a precipice with a fifty-foot drop into a dark bay, one that could easily conceal jagged rocks beneath the surface. Either it would be the most thrilling plunge of her life or a most untimely death.

Well…it wouldn't be the first time she'd taken a leap of faith for him.

"So," she began, when it became clear he wasn't going to resume his neck-warming procedures. "You know as far as antifreeze techniques go, we missed a pretty important spot on the face."

"Did we?" He didn't sound surprised. "Hmmm…" He leaned into her, placing his lips just below her hairline. "The forehead?" He blew a gentle stream of warm air across it.

Despite how her body was screaming for a different touch, her mouth tugged upward at the sweetness of the gesture. "Not what I was thinking, no…"

The Doctor hummed and moved his mouth lower on her face. He sighed onto one of her cheeks. "How about here?" He asked. "Or here?" He inquired, moving to the other side of her face.

Clara stopped herself from saying "not those cheeks," though the thought was enough to warm the ones under his lips anyway. "Actually…"

"Ah!" He pulled his mouth away from her face. "Are your eyes cold?"

This earned him a proper eye roll, which was difficult as he was currently kissing her eyelids. When he pulled back, she seized on her opportunity and slid herself up to just shy of the edge of his face, opening her mouth and letting her lips fall onto his chin. As she let out a long sigh onto it, she drew back just enough so she was sure he'd feel it on his lips, too. She set herself back down, grinning at him mischievously.

"The chin."

He stared at her, unblinking, something building behind his eyes.

Her grin faltered. "Right?" It was supposed to come out cheeky, but it sounded far more uncertain than she'd intended.

There was a tiny shift as he brought more of his weight onto the balls of his feet, like a cat preparing to pounce.

Her mouth went dry, grin disappearing.

He lowered his head painfully slowly, bringing his mouth tantalizingly close to hers before dropping an inch below, breathing onto her chin. But she could hear the tremor as he did so, feel the tremble in his limbs as he gripped her back. She waited.

He wound up mere millimetres from her lips. "The chin?" He murmured, echoing her words.

It took every ounce of will power not to lean forward. She made some sort of noise of acknowledgement.

"I think…" He began, the breath from his words brushing across her lips. "That you meant something else…"

She couldn't even manage a noise of acknowledgement now, her reply mostly consisting of m's. Then, like molasses in Scottish winter, his lips finally touched hers, breathing a sigh into her mouth. She returned it, and they continued this, back and forth, their sighs getting shakier each time, until Clara couldn't stand it and partially closed her lips into a proper kiss, shooting her tongue forward.

As soon as it met his, they both let out shuddering gasps into the other's mouth, sending warmth flooding through her stomach, making her hands slide lower on his back, hugging the curve of his arse. He jerked at that, though this time it was into her and not away – his hips thrusting into her stomach, his hands stealing up her back and around her side, brushing across the sides of her breasts.

She let out a cry into his mouth as his hands cupped them, breathlessly offering her consent when a broken request tumbled out of him. She had to tear her mouth from his to let her head fall back as he circled his thumb around her nipple, squeezing it between his fingers. He'd latched onto her neck again and was weaving a trail up to her ear, leaving no patch of skin untouched, employing his lips, tongue and teeth in equal measure. She grabbed at his arse, craving more contact, more friction, cursing the height differential between them. He'd unbuttoned the top two buttons of her dress and slipped his hand inside, clearly craving more contact, too.

She let out a squeal. "Cold!" She protested, and he mumbled an apology into her mouth, replacing his hand on top of her dress again and hastily buttoned her. Then she felt him push her more forcefully, seeking movement instead of friction, his hands dropping to her waist like he was guiding her. She broke off from their kiss, frowning at him. "What?"

He indicated something behind her. "There," he managed, and she turned, seeing the faint outline of the long forgotten wall.

She might've remarked that she liked the way he thought if she could form coherent sentences. Or even complete ones. As it was, single words seemed to be all she could manage.

"Yes," she agreed, letting him walk them back to the wall, bracing herself for the numbingly cold bum she was going to have. At least there was the promise of other heat sources in her future.

But he stopped them before she could hoist herself up, removing his jacket and laying it on top.

"Doctor!" She protested. "But you're –"

"Antifreeze, remember?" He lifted her up, moving between her legs and cutting off the rest of her protests.

She gave a loud gasp as she finally felt his hardness pressing into her, giving her that friction she'd so desperately been seeking. Spreading her legs wider, she hooked her heels around his back, hands pulling him into her like that would somehow eradicate every layer of clothing between them. His hands stole from her waist, finding her arse and clutching at it, pulling her against him, their mutual gasps quickly becoming moans as he ground into her hips. She found his ear again, lending credence to his earlier theory as her teeth worried the edges of his lobe.

"Hungry?"

"Starving." She let her tongue slide along his lobe. "But not for food…"

His chuckle rumbled deep in his throat. "For what, then?"

She smiled against his ear, trailing back down to his neck. "Thought that…was obvious," she murmured in between breaths.

"Tell me," he choked out, hands going back up to her breasts again. "Tell me," he repeated, an unexpected urgency to his question.

She paused at her spot on his neck, burying her head into his shoulders as she thrust her hips into his. "You," she whispered into his shirt, feeling a jolt of pleasure at the groan he made.

"What? How do you want me? What do you want?" The urgency bordered on desperation now, as if everything depended on her voicing this answer.

She brought her lips close to his ear. "You. I want you, Doctor…"

"Yes?" he moaned. "How?"

He was moving faster against her now, and she had a hard time forming the words. They came out shaky and high-pitched. "You. I want to feel you…"

"Yes…"

"I want to feel you…inside me," she cried out breathlessly.

"Yes," he growled as he clutched her legs, thumbs hooking into the space at the tops of her thighs.

Saying it seemed to free of her the last of her inhibitions. "God, I'm…I'm so…"

"Yes?" His mouth closed around her ear.

"So…"

"Yes?" He suckled on it, his pace getting faster.

"Close, but…" She let out a strangled groan of frustration. "Too many layers."

"Yes," he agreed, thumbs moving inward, readjusting to allow them room.

She tried opening her legs wider, but the top of her thick tights was stretched tight and stubbornly impermeable, no matter how he hard he pressed. He grumbled something about ripping them, which Clara might've considered, but then he made an exclamatory noise like he'd just had an idea. She didn't have time to ask before he'd dropped to his knees between her legs, his mouth coming down on her tights.

Apparently he was nothing if not determined.

She was about to tell him that if his thumbs couldn't get through, his tongue certainly couldn't when she felt a sensation of hot air down there.

She whimpered, head falling back as her mouth fell open. "That's –"

"Antifreeze," he mumbled, eyes flicking up to hers. He kept his gaze locked on her as he blew another stream of hot air.

She rocked back, heels clicking against the wall. "Doctor…that's…that's lovely, but –"

He gave another sigh. "But?"

She shook her head. "It's not…and you're not…"

This time his noise was of frustration as he hitched his pants up, clamped his hands down on her thighs and stood up again. "Well, we must be in the Middle Ages, because this is a chastity belt!"

She managed an apologetic laugh. "Didn't really…think about easy access…when I got dressed this morning."

"No." He was studying her thighs like they might provide the answer they needed. Or maybe he was just looking down – she couldn't tell.

Like he was thinking.

Or maybe…

"Doctor?"

He raised his head along with his finger, smile playing over his lips.

And then she heard it.

The wheezing, groaning sounds of the TARDIS materialising echoed across the frigid landscape behind her, scaring the sheep and whipping up a gust of wind that blew her hair around her face.

She turned back to him, grinning. "Looks like someone has good timing." She stood up, grabbing his jacket and handing it to him, eyebrow cocked coquettishly.

He vaulted across the wall easily, taking his jacket from her with a hrmph and scrambling to the top of the hill, pushing into the TARDIS.

Clara hurried behind him, but stopped as soon as she stepped inside, savouring the warmth on her skin. "Ohhh," she sighed, letting the air seep into her pores and defrost her. She spread her arms wide, moving to the console where the Doctor was already busying himself, and leaned down to the column of rotors and kissed it. "I don't think I've ever been happier to see you."

The Doctor smirked, flipping a few switches. "I need to make sure that she didn't undo anything else other than my repairs –"

A brief whirring sounded from the ceiling, lights flashing as if threatening him to say anything further.

He winced. " -changes – to the helmic regulator. So I'm sending us into the time vortex. That'll give me ample time to make sure that nothing else needs redoing."

"You mean you're gonna check? Right now?" She huffed in disbelief.

"No telling what you were up to by yourself, you bad, old girl." He unbuttoned his sleeves, unrolling them like he was settling in for a long session of repairs.

"But not…right now right now? I mean you're not…"

He flipped a few switches silently.

Clara just looked at him. "Doctor?"

But he avoided her eye, his movements becoming slightly frenzied as he spun a few levers. "I need to do this, Clara."

She gaped at him. "Right. So…all that back there was just – what? Antifreeze techniques?" She made the question sound as ridiculous as she knew it was.

"It worked, didn't it?" He sounded impatient as he moved past her, pulling the main lever down and sending them off into the vortex.

She maintained her hold on the side of the console after the ship lurched, finding herself in sudden need of something to grip.

Hard.

Like the water was coming at her fast after her fifty-foot plunge, and she could see that the dark surface had concealed not just rocks but sharks. "You really mean that?" She hadn't meant her voice to shake so much, but her throat must have been raw from exposure to the wind.

Or from all their –

"Clara…" The remorse in his voice threatened to undo her completely, send her straight into one of those open maws.

She shook her head, her knuckles turning white. "All that was just…a survival tactic?"

He flipped a switch with a flourish. And then his hands fell to the console as he let out a long sigh. "No."

"What?"

"No." He spun to face her. "No, I don't have to do the checks right now." He walked towards her. "And no…" He was close enough to touch her now. "They weren't just survival tactics."

Her grip loosened, hand falling by her side as her heart thudded in her chest in a different way. "So –"

He swooped down, picking her up and cutting her off, making her let out a little noise of surprise. "I didn't want her drifting, so I had to put her in a kind of neutral mode to give us enough time."

She smiled, arms tightening behind his neck. "Enough time for what?"

He gave her a toe-curlingly devilish grin. "To warm up."

Clara hummed her approval, fingers teasing at the nape of his neck. "I still feel cold to you, then?"

His lips caught hers in a searing kiss.

"Freezing."