She was pretty sure that the last thing she remembered was not dozing off in one of the booths. For starters she had perfectly comfortable beds on her TARDIS, but more important she knew fine well she just didn't doze off. Ever. At least not accidently. For the last one hundred years Clara Oswald hadn't needed to sleep.

Sure she could sleep if she wanted to, she could eat and drink too, but it was no longer essential. So what was she doing waking up form a nap, curled on her side in her 'Diner?' And where did that blanket come from, a hideous yellow plaid she was certain she didn't own.

Clara sat up slowly, pushing her body up with a little difficulty from the red shiny seat. Was she injured? She could still get injured but the effects were only temporary and almost as quickly as the cuts and brises appeared they would vanish the same day. It had been pretty freaky to begin with but she was used to it now, casually glancing down her arm to where the skin was already knitted together.

She shrugged. Yeah, she'd been injured, maybe knocked out. She could still do knocked out but like the bruises it didn't last, her body was frozen in time and would revert back to the moment before her death in Trap Street within minutes. So what was going on? Clara frowned, a tiny line forming between her brows for a moment. One that would never become deeper or win any companions. Just like the single grey hair she had found that would never multiply. She could have plucked it out but somehow didn't have the heart. She had lived and breathed and aged once, it did her good to remember that.

Curiosity getting the better of her as usual she craned her neck to look out of the window. The last planet she had visited was a fairly desolate moon base but one which had been under attack from a strange breed of aquatic creatures the colonists had found when drilling below the surface to find oil. It had been a grey and colourless world and she hadn't been particularly enjoying the adventure alone.

Clara had been looking forward to picking Ashildr up from ancient Greece at some point in the next few days, she got pretty lonely when her immortal friend decided to take one of her trips, but they always lasted too long for Clara, whose attention span encouraged her to skip between destinations in days or weeks rather than years at a time. Ashildr preferred to immerse herself in a culture for a decade or two, or until people became suspicious of her eternal youth, and would then be forced to move on, write up her journals and pick a new destination. Sometimes she hung around and travelled with Clara for a while, sometimes she didn't. She was several billion years old, her needs were a little different from her friend's.

This was no moon base however, Clara saw. If something bad had happened on that moon her TARDIS had somehow managed to get her out of there and settle somewhere much more peaceful. How exactly it had done that didn't make sense, but the scene outside the window was one of vague familiarity. Cut green grass and the smell of the same came to her as she opened the door a fraction. She could hear birds. Ahead of her there was a large pond populated with ducks and several old cherry trees around its edge keeping them in shade. It was a glorious spring day by the look of it and she squinted up into the sky to see a single sun. Very familiar indeed. Too familiar and something was wrong.

Clara cast her eyes across the grass and beyond to streets and houses on the other side of the park. Although there were animals, the birds, ducks and even a squirrel she saw dashing up a tree, there were no other living creatures. No people, or aliens, nothing obviously humanoid at least. There was no sound of children playing or chatter and it immediately put her on her guard. Places like this she had seen before and most turned out to be populated with some kind of deadly cannibalistic robot, zombies or an uber virus which had wiped out the dominant species. Great, her TARDIS had got her off the scary moonbase and dumped her into a strange Stepford wives situation, in moments she was sure they would all come marching round the corner with prams.

'Mistress,' the voice came from behind her and Clara spun round in terror only to find no source. She glanced quickly around her diner, everything in its place. 'Mistress,' the voice repeated with a slight robotic hint. Robots. She knew it. 'Mistress has woken,' and a trundling noise alerted her to the fact that whatever was speaking to her was now approaching her from behind the bar. Clara's nervous gaze dropped and she peered around the end of the unit. 'May I be of any assistance?' it said and a red light emerged followed by a silver body.

'What the…?'

'May I be of assistance?' it repeated.

'K-9?'

'Affirmative.'

'What are you doing in my TARDIS?'

'Assisting.'

'Right…' Clara looked at the dog shaped robot and then back out the window towards the pond. K-9 had never been the most helpful of robots really, his abilities were limited and from what she could work out the Doctor had only ever kept him around for company. The Doctor. There was as far as she knew only one K-9 and he belonged with his Master, the Doctor, which meant he must be nearby.

He must be nearby. Clara's unbeating heart leapt in her chest. He must be out there somewhere, blue box parked up in the trees or at the corner of a street. He'd probably pulled her off of that moon base and deposited her there for safety, vanished again like he always did, no reason to stay.

She was just a girl, an unnamed unknown girl he'd rescued. She felt a tightness in her throat. He must have carried her back to her TARDIS, wrapped her in that horrible blanket, left her curled up somewhere safe…

No, wait, she was a girl in a TARDIS he's pulled off a moonbase. That didn't happen every day. He wouldn't just dump her, he'd be too curious. Who was she? Why did she have a TARDIS to begin with? And now there was K-9. Clara watched the robot tootle around the diner, his ridiculous little stuck on tail wagging. He must still be around close by, he wouldn't leave his pet behind.

Something didn't add up in her head.

'K-9?'

'Yes Mistress,' he stopped in his tracks to answer her.

'Where is your Master?'

'Nearby.'

'Did he make you wait here with me?'

'Affirmative.'

Clara gazed out the window, still no one in sight. He'd been so close he'd carried her back home. So close she'd been in his arms. If she closed her eyes she could imagine so easily what that felt like, she could catch the scent of him in her memory. He'd been right here.

'Should K-9 take Mistress to see Master?'

Oh there was a question. Clara was aware of the robot coming to a halt by her feet, of him looking out the window with her, of the endless wag of its tail.

'I don't know,' she said. 'It's complicated, about as complicated as it gets actually.'

Neural block or no neural block he probably suspected something. The universe wasn't exactly coming down with girls driving stolen TARDISes. Of women with sonic sunglasses dangling out of their top pockets. And that raised just so many questions, for him, for her, all the questions whose answers had forced them apart in the first place but with the added bonus of him not being able to remember most of it. Any of it? She didn't know exactly how the block had worked. So many unknowns…Seeing him seemed like a torturous option right now.

'K-9 requires an answer,' he prodded. Apparently 'complicated' wasn't clear enough for him either.

'I should probably just go,' Clara said. She felt uncharacteristically panicky. All the things she'd dealt with in a century and seeing her best friend made her feel ill. 'You should thank your master and tell him… tell him…'

'What should I convey to Master?' K-9 asked.

Suddenly the thought of K-9s robotic voice delivering any kind of emotionally laden message to the Doctor pained her. She wanted to do it herself. She had wanted to do it herself since they had gone their separate ways. She missed him, she owed him. She always missed him so much and they had both given up everything for the sake of the universe and now here he was yards away from her and the same universe seemed complicit in throwing them together.

'I just want to see him,' she whispered, arguing with herself.

There was a whirl at her feet and K-9 headed for the door purposefully.

'No… wait… I…' the door pushed open and the little robot tootled off in the direction of the pond.

'Follow K-9, mistress.'

Clara ran one hand through her hair, chewed her lip, this was not what was supposed to be happening. She should turn around, get to the control room and take off. She shouldn't see him, the last hundred years had been stable enough, enjoyable enough, she had met great people and seen great things, she had become her very own Doctor. She should let this go, just let it go. They had agreed that was what was needed.

But she was already following the robot, his lights flashing like little beacons to direct her. For him it was a simple command and he was to follow it, execute it to the best of his ability as he trundled across the grass ahead. He was picking up sped and Clara broke into a trot to catch him.

'K-9!' she called, 'K-9 wait!'

At the top of a hummock of grass he came to a halt and Clara paused to collect herself at his side.

'It's not simple K-9. We're not supposed to see each other, not ever, we're… we're a bad combination.'

'K-9 does not understand.'

'Don't worry, sometimes I don't either. Sometimes I don't think I ever will. How can something so beautiful be wrong? After everything we said to each other that day, everything we realised…. It's not fair….'

'Mistress?'

Clara wiped her eyes on her sleeve. 'Sorry. God why am I saying sorry to a robot dog?'

'Mistress…'

Clara looked down at him and frowned. His odd little head was stuck out straight ahead of him and his tail was at right angles to his body. He was pointing down the hill, his red eye-lights flashing, at a figure seated under a cherry tree.

At first Clara felt her chest tighten horribly in memory of the heart that once beat there. Then she felt a tremble in her legs, a weakness pass through her. She watched the figure, long slim limbs stretched out in front of him, a sketch book on his lap. Every now and then soft petals fell from above him, landing on his shoulders, in his hair, silent and delicate.

'Doctor…' she breathed.

He was about twenty yards away, his eyes focused on the pond and the landscape around him as he worked on his sketch. His clothes were dark save for the ancient t-shirt below his hoodie, his jacket was cast to one side. Clara noted the slightly unruly length of his steel grey hair, the way his eyes crinkled as he squinted against the sun a little to appraise his subject. He was the same old Doctor but for one difference she could see straight away, a beard, full and soft. It did not age him, rather it added to him an air of relaxation, a sense of being comfortable in his own skin that he had often lacked before. Clara tilted her head and drank him in, her eyes burning and arms aching to wrap around him. So close, so familiar, so undeniably hers.

She didn't know what to do. Whether to run down the little hill towards him or leg it back to her TARDIS. She bit down on her lip harder. She had to realise, he had no memory of her, if she flung herself down the hill he'd consider her a madwoman. She didn't know if she could bear to speak with him again as she had so long ago in the diner, him unaware of who she was and what they had been to each other. She had had to do that then but it had broken her heart. She would surely give herself away this time only to have it broken again when he looked at her with no recognition. Clara took a step backwards intending to leave.

'Don't go,' he said suddenly, his voice just loud enough to carry in the utter silence of the park around them. He lifted his gaze from the sketchpad and looked straight at her; it was all it took to draw her back. Clara froze.

'Doctor… I…' words failed her for a moment. She'd pictured coming across him somewhere in space and time before now, wished and prayed for it, but in her mind it always felt easier than what lay in front of her now. She watched as he rose to his feet and set aside his art. She remembered his height and his slender frame, the way he slouched as he approached her and the mobility in his features. But most of all she remembered those eyes, the succession of colours in them, the greys blues and greens and the way they darkened when he looked at her. As he looked at her now.

He was in front of her, looking down into her face, one hand tentatively reaching for hers.

'You look terrified,' he said quietly.

'I'm fine, really,' Clara replied trying to muster some strength to her tone, 'Thank you for. Saving me I presume?'

'A small bit of saving yes, I happened to be passing through the area.'

'Just passing through?'

'Yes…' he looked over the top of her head at nothing in particular and then back down at her, 'Ok no not just passing through, I'd heard the moon base had a spot of bother.'

'The distress call…'

'Yes we both answered it, it was bound to happen eventually.'

'What was?' she asked.

'We'd both try to rescue the same people,' he said with a shrug, 'We're too similar you and I, we were bound to go for the same adventure at least once.'

Clara frowned. 'I er… well I suppose so.'

'That and your sunglasses have a homing signal embedded,' he confessed.

'What?!'

'You know in case I lost them….you… them….originally it was in case I lost them…. Which I sort of did… in the diner…'he ran a hand through his hair and looked about again a bit guiltily.

'You're stalking me!' Clara said outraged.

'Not deliberately no. It's not stalking I just happened to remember they had that function and I could look you up, make sure you didn't need rescuing and then curiosity got the better of me.'

'Always does with you doesn't it, that why you're always in so much bother. Curiosity killed the cat Doctor, you should leave it well alone and anyway who says I needed rescuing I had the situation under control.'

'Yes it looked like it as you floated about unconscious in that underground lake about to be eaten by the fishman chief.'

'I would have been fine!'

'I suppose you had a plan,' he scoffed.

'I did! Anyway if you had to insist on rescuing me why did you dump me in a diner booth? It was a bloody rock pool last time after that train fiasco, and neither are the most comfortable to wake up wondering what the hell's happened and anyway that blanket was… offensively coloured and itchy!'

'Well obviously I would have put you somewhere more comfortable but your control freak TARDIS refused me access beyond the diner. What kind of disguise is that by the way a diner? Not exactly subtle!'

'Like your ancient blue box fits into so many situations perfectly.'

'She is not ancient! And anyway at least I can park her!'

'It's not my fault the chameleon loop is busted!'

'All mark 40s have broken loops you should have remembered that when you picked the first design.'

'Sorry if I was too busy worrying about you at the time to go with a better option!'

Suddenly the Doctor grinned, a face splitting dazzling smile that stopped Clara in her tracks.

'You haven't changed at all,' he said holding back a laugh.

For a moment Clara couldn't follow what he was saying. 'I haven't… what?'

His smile became less face splitting and more kind, a softness in his eyes forming which she'd missed now for decades. A look they'd shared a thousand times but which she never thought she'd see again.

'Oh my God…' she said.

'Hello,' the Doctor said through his smile.

'You… wait… you can't….What's my name?' Clara asked quietly.

'Your name is Clara Oswald,' he replied holding her gaze. 'Who else could you possibly be?'

'But you've just figured that out, right?' she challenged, ' You know with the circumstances and the TARDIS and the… clues…'

His gentle expression and the tilt of his head told her no. His eyes shone.

'You… you remember me?' she asked.

When he replied she was sure she heard the slightest tremor in his voice.

'Oh Clara, Clara, Clara, I'm sorry…. But I never forgot.'

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