Clara stood at the console, her left hand hovering over a bar. "This one?" she asked, directing her voice upwards and behind herself.

The Doctor was standing on the steps behind Clara, watching her handiwork. His eyes drifted to his companion's movements, making sure she didn't make a mistake and send the TARDIS into a black hole. "You've got it," he told her unenthusiastically.

They'd been at this for an hour, and frankly the Doctor was quite bored with it by now. Teaching a human how to fly a TARDIS was impossible! Though important, as Clara pointed out one day. The Doctor recalled the events of the week before when Clara had suggested the idea.

"You know, you really should teach me how to fly this thing," Clara had mentioned during a calm flight around the Karabas Galaxies. The TARDIS didn't like being referred to as a "thing," giving a whirring sound, as if to say, "I heard that."

The Doctor had stared up at the time column. She's only human, he comforted his ship, but something about her didn't seem to accept the excuse. The Doctor finally responded to Clara after the moment with his ship. "And why would I do that?" he asked sharply. "So you can go around the universe and banter with all the Robin Hoods?" The universe was full of them.

Clara shifted, annoyed by the Doctor's difficult intolerance. "Doctor," she began, heading down the steps and stopping at the Doctor's side beside the console. She tried to make her chocolate brown doe eyes meet his, but it wasn't working. "It could be very useful one day."

"Is that an insult?" he turned to finally look down at Clara, meeting her eyes.

Placing her hand on her hip and crossing one leg over the other to give herself control, Clara pointed out, "It's being realistic."

"Oh, don't act like my driving is so bad. I always get you where you need to be and at the right time," the Doctor pointed out, matching Clara's argument with gestures to define his point. "Remember all those dates with Danny? Name one -"

"That's exactly the point!" Clara shouted, which caught the Doctor by surprise, his eyebrows twisting in an unusual way. Clara stared to the side for a second to cool herself down, as the mention of Danny Pink's own name half brought her to tears which forced her into an outburst. Once she was calm, she began again. "Look, Doctor. There may come a day when I'm in danger and it will be important for me to get to safety. Because I have seen it. It always happens." Clara hated herself for what she was saying, as she knew how the Doctor struggled with the losses of all his companions, but this was how to prevent any further grief. "You always lose them and you always wish you had done something to change what happened to them. This is how you can change it before it happens again."

The Doctor's hearts felt heavy with the reawakened memories, but Clara was right. It was best if she learned how to man the TARDIS in case she ever found herself in danger and needed to escape. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if he just let something awful happen to her if shw could have gotten away.

Clara wasn't finished. "Or, of course, if you need help getting out of a trap or something," she teased, looking off to the side in good humor.

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, joking along dryly. "You may have to do that one day."

Both of them chuckled on it, and before the Doctor knew it, it was one week later and Clara srill hadn't learned all the basics yet. She knew some of the basics already, like how to stop the TARDIS or complete the last step in setting it in flight, and she'd flown the time machine with her mind a couple of times. However, it was time for the harder basics now, so technically not very basic, but you had to start somewhere.

"And this button before, yeah?" Clara asked curiously, pointing and staring over her shoulder. "The blue one?"

The Doctor picked up a book at his side and began thumbing through it. "Yes." This was really boring.

"Okay." Clara took a step back from the console, readying herself. "So, it's lever," she pulled down on a lever, "crank," she wheeled the crank, which Clara found rather fun, "blue button," she pressed it, quickly drawing her hand back as if it would burn her if she stayed on it to long, "and finally...the handbreaker!" Clara pulled down on the bar, and the lights of the TARDIS spun over her head, making Clara give a little squeal of delight. "Oh! I did it!"

The Doctor closed his book and dropped it on the stack at his feet, sighing. That was the longest hour of his life. "Great." he headed down the steps, standing at the console where he belonged, possessive of his place in the TARDIS. He pulled on the attached screen, checking their coordinates. Yes, they were heading back to Clara's apartment, a simple journey for Clara's first day.

The Doctor knew he should be less bitter about this. He wanted to be encouraging and excited for his companion. It seemed like he would be, at least with Clara. But something wasn't right, something beyond petty possession of his precious TARDIS or nervousness that Clara was going to be flying the TARDIS one day (slowly). Something didn't feel right, like the Doctor was slowly slipping away from who he was by letting Clara fly his ship. Little did he know that that feeling should have been felt long before then.