The moment they stepped into the hotel room on Ustara, he found she was all over him. In every way imaginable. Maybe it was the top hat, the bowtie, the coat and tails. Either way, she was rather enjoying the view and her hands were all over the Doctor.
He plopped their things down by the large, queen-size mattress, an iridescent grin on his face. He wandered towards the balcony, gently opening the doors to have a look outside. The view was dazzling.
Clara, more amused than anything, closed and locked the door. She even added the "do not disturb" sign for good measure. Then she slowly followed after him. Her husband. The man she'd married not six hours ago.
"Beautiful view," he said quietly, fingers pulling the hat from his curly hair, eyes focused on the luminescent, glowing city below. It was almost ethereal. Everything was… aglow. So bright, so radiant. But her eyes weren't on the city beneath them. They were on him. "Yeah, it certainly is," she simply said.
When he turned, he found her gaze and smiled. Tossing his hat aside on the chair by the bed, he drew her closer and cupped her jaw gently. That perfect face that he adored oh so much. Those eyes that lit up at his touch. Those lips that parted, begging for his kiss. He'd never been so in love before.
"Kiss me, Husband," she murmured playfully, eyes slowly blinking. She leant up on her tiptoes for a kiss, waiting for him to close the distance between them. And he did. He laid his lips on hers for a long, slow kiss.
She melted into it so easily, her hands resting gently on his chest, comforted by the dual heartbeats and how they thrummed away beneath her touch.
As they drew back to gasp for breaths, she murmured to him. "I never thought we'd have this," she told him, her hands helping him out of the dashing coat he'd worn this evening for her. "Never thought I'd… be yours. Not after you took me out of my time stream. But… I am. I'm here. I'm yours. Going to the Faction Paradox was dangerous but I knew you had my best intentions in your hearts."
They were a clan, really. Some of their aspects were a bit voodoo-ish. They were a rebellious little group that revolved about their own schemes with Time and Space itself. In other words, at times, they could be described as a "ritualistic time-travelling guerrilla organisation". They were out for themselves at all times, neither bad nor good, neither evil nor right. Somewhere in the middle. The Grandfather Paradox still allowed them to come to them for help, after all. Was it out of respect for the Doctor? Fear? Curiosity? He wasn't sure.
But with the right amount of prodding, and no small amount of money and favors, and many a warning from Ashildr, they were persuaded to help.
His Eighth Incarnation dealt with the Faction Paradox quite a bit during the "War in Heaven". Dark times, indeed. He knew what he'd gotten himself into.
But in this instance, they were invaluable. And she was alive. There was a pulse beneath his hands, breath in her lungs, and he'd rewritten history. To Hell with the rules. He deserved happiness.
Her fingers ran through his wind-swept curls, drawing him down to her. Her lips found his throat, nose lingering against his neck to get a whiff of his aftershave. He smelled so… inhumanly amazing. And the irony didn't slip past Clara.
Before she realized what was happening, she felt his fingers slipping around her frame to begin untying her dress. She was still in her dress, but not for long. They'd flown right here from Earth, where they'd had the wedding. They didn't even have the chance to change into something more comfortable. But it didn't matter now.
Within moments, her dress was falling to the floor. He heard her breath catch, felt her tremble at his touch. It sent a thrill through him, his neck arching for her lips. She nibbled, kissed, mumbled to him about how much she loved him.
He was struck, for a moment, with a need to confess something he never had before.
Lithe hands drew her close, their bodies brushing and pressing together. What she felt there, his evident desire, was enough to have her moaning.
His voice was soft, unsure. "Clara—"
She was making short work of unbuttoning his waistcoat, the crisp shirt beneath. She tugged his belt from its loops. Her determination and the look of concentration left him laughing softly. He couldn't help himself. "I have to tell you something," he mumbled softly.
She cupped the bulge in his dress trousers as a reward to herself for finally, finally managing to work his belt open. With parted lips, she cast a look his way and arched and a brow. "And what's that?"
He halted her movements for a moment, cupping her face in his hands. "I want a baby with you." The words left his lips on an exhale, on a rush of breath. His cheeks grew warm and pink.
She smiled to herself. It was a knowing smile. If anything, it took him by surprise. His eyebrows furrowed and his head tilted. "What's that look for?"
She chuckled, pushing the lapels of his trousers aside to find what was inside. "You mumble a lot in your sleep," she whispered breathlessly. "You aren't telling me anything that I didn't already know." Her eyes rose to meet his, something so seductive lying there, muted, in her expression. He was lost.
"I suppose," she began, "that it's a good thing I'm not taking my birth control anymore…"
Her fingers came into contact with his bare skin, soft and warm and exploring. He immediately moaned, his knees very nearly going weak at the touch.
The next thing he knew they were tumbling into bed together, ruffling a duvet and sheets and rushing to completely undress one another. Cotton and lace and silk fell to the carpeted floor. He crawled lower, face buried between her thighs. She held nothing back that night. Not one keening moan, not one whimper. Not even one dangerous, desperate whisper of his name.
When he could bear it no longer, he was burying himself inside of her. It was intoxicating, the way her inner muscles hugged his cock. He was lying there on top of her, leant up on an elbow and kissing her — long and slow. She was writhing beneath him, her hips begging his to move.
What was usually so frenzied and passionate was tender and loving that night. They needed the slow, lazy lovemaking. The slow-building climax that would leave them both panting and calling out one another's name.
His hips deliberately crashed into hers, his hands touching everything they could possibly reach. His lips were everywhere. She was in heaven. This is what it felt like to be made love to.
She could feel everything now. The first time they'd done this together, the first time they'd had one another, it was muted, somehow. It was different. Unusual. There was no heart beating in her chest, no caught breaths and soft moans. She felt everything, but in a different way. It hadn't stopped them. But now — and every time since she had gotten her life with him back — it felt the way it should, the way they deserved.
She was crying out with anticipation, clinging to him and running her hands along his shoulders and warm back. He was unhurried, lazy. He knew what it was doing to her and that only made him love it all the more. She was falling to pieces in his arms.
There was a certain kind of vulnerability that accompanied intimate nights like these.
His lips trailed lower, from her neck down to her clavicle. They dared to slip lower, along the curve of her breast before teasing the soft, rosy nipple he found there. His lips encircled it, tongue laving and teasing.
The pleasure that shot through her was unbearable. It was then, in the middle of a long kiss that he was pressing to her skin, that she spiraled out of control. Her back arched, painfully bowing out for him. Their bellies brushed. The moan that trembled and fell from her lips was positively sinful.
He watched it all happen from where he was, hips rolling and thrusting in time with hers. She shattered beneath him, brown eyes squeezing shut and her jaw falling slack. She grappled for his shoulders, needing something to ground her. Something to hold onto.
He kept going, kept moving, reaching for his own onrushing climax. "Don't hold back," she whispered breathlessly, drawing him back up to her in a need for a kiss. Her tongue darted out, trailing along his lower lip before demanding entry. She kissed him so thoroughly, moaning at her own taste upon his lips. It left them both reeling.
It happened slowly. The way his body tensed, the way she felt his shoulder muscles grow taut beneath her hands. His arms struggled to keep his own weight up. His thrusts grew needy, hips falling and crashing into hers over and over again.
"That's it, baby," she whispered to him. "Come for me. Let go."
She was so caught up in him that she didn't even notice her own orgasm crashing down on her. It was even more breath-taking than the first. And when he let go, they let go together.
She held him close, cradled him with her thighs as they rode out the storm together. They were gasping, fighting to catch their breath. His hearts were pounding. She could feel it as their bellies and chests brushed.
In the midst of the chaos, she began to stroke his curly hair. Gently, lovingly. They lingered there together, lost in one another's arms, wondering where one ended and the other began.
"I love you, Clara," she heard him whisper after a few deep breaths.
His face was lost in the crook of her neck, forehead resting upon her shoulder. She even felt him nuzzle gently, which gave her a soft laugh. "I love you too, you daft man," she mumbled in reply, although the words were more of an affectionate murmur than anything.
He drew away with a tenderness that left her heart aching — in the best way — and then collapsed at her side. He beckoned her over with a smile. Unable to resist, she curled into his side and slung an arm around him to hug him close to her. Her thigh brushed his before their legs tangled together.
A pair of warm brown eyes fell to the golden band on her ring finger, a soft, sleepy smile touching her lips. It even made its way to her eyes. He watched, in awe, as she lost herself to thoughts of their future together. Their past, their future, the in-between.
Somewhere along the way, he found himself almost drifting off to sleep. But he was brought back to the present by the lull of her voice.
"I want a baby with you, too," she eventually whispered into the comfortable silence that had befallen them. Her lips found the skin above one of his hearts, pressing a soft, affectionate kiss there. Her nose brushed through the light dusting of hair there, tickling her face, a gentle grin playing at her lips. She sighed in contentment for him.
"And who knows," she added. "Maybe we just made one together."
What a lovely thought. On their wedding night of all nights.
"You know," he whispered softly, voice low and husky from their lovemaking. "If you carried my baby, you might…" How does one put this? "Babies bond with their mothers. Not just mentally. Have you heard of fetal chimerism? Cells from a baby pass through the placenta and establish cell lineages within the mother. And if you… carried my baby, and he or she was half-Time Lord, it might give you some of that biology. It would unknowingly pass it on to you."
He sighed softly, a thought occurring to him. Perhaps, in that way, she might become The Hybrid. A terrifying thought, indeed. But he was well beyond caring about old folklore with his people. Love was far more important. He'd learned that in the years they'd spent apart. The years he'd spent looking for her after he'd lost his River.
He sighed softly, almost in relief, adding, "You'd live longer." And she would. Maybe even have a few more lifetimes to share with him. Being half-Time Lord, in even a precious few ways, had to have its perks. But he wanted a family with her. A baby, a tiny boy or girl with her eyes and his curls and her nose and smile.
The possibilities were endless.
Carl Sagan once said, 'The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.' And when he looked at her, he saw far more. She was bright. Bright all on her own, filled with endless intricacies, interstellar clouds of dust, Dark and Light, and boundless supernovas.
The cosmos within us is a reflection of the outer cosmos. Every part, however tiny, is a fractal of the whole of creation. And everything is part of everything else. He was entwined with her, no matter what he tried. And they were a part of each other. She'd saved him so many times that he'd lost count over the years. And here they were now...
After four and a half billion years of Hell, marriage felt like Heaven. And she was his own Universe to get lost in now. To find the peace he so terribly craved and longed for.
They had something, in that moment, that they'd been searching for all along — hope. Because it was a precious thing, and sometimes it took ages to come. But it always came at the right moment. Hope, faith in companionship, and a little bit of joy. They went a long way.