There was a melody playing not far from where she lay, soft and gentle, repeated as though someone were practicing the notes to memorize them, or maybe they were working out the next part. In her half asleep state, Clara merely smiled and sighed, and then the confusion settled in because she knew she hadn't left a television on, nor did she work a radio before she fell into bed the night before, and there weren't any music boxes left over from her childhood to tinker away a tune by some left over wind of its metal key. There wasn't a reason for the song she was hearing and she was hesitant to pry open a single eye to work out its origin, calming when she saw who it was.
Sitting at her bedside, in a chair on which hung dresses and knickers and bras and a dark wine colored throw, the Doctor was hunched over an old wooden guitar, fingers slowly strumming along the strings going over those notes again and again. Part of her thought it sounded familiar, like a tune played out in something her mother had tried to make her watch when she was younger, but it wasn't. It was some old love story, smooth and flowing, up the scale and then back down, rising to a beautiful high before slowly dwindling down to its end.
And then it starts again.
"I've been trying to work out the notes, find the perfect ones. It's quite difficult when the story isn't entirely complete, pieces and bits still missing from the ballad," the Doctor breathes the words not knowing she's awake and she watches him as he sits, eyes shut, plucking at a string and then another a moment, testing them for the right sound before continuing, "Perhaps it never ends, rolling around like a leaf on the wind, never quite landing, like her." He huffs a laugh.
Clara listens to him as he plays it again, sees the edges of his eyelids wet themselves with tears that eventually drop over his cheeks and she frowns. "Doctor," she calls softly, throat dry from sleep, and she watches the way he opens his eyes to her, studying her before offering a sad smile.
"Sorry," he laments, "Did I wake you?"
She shrugs and lifts herself up to sit, not bothering to cover the skin exposed by the top she wears, knowing to him it matters little, her state of undress. He's not that sort of bloke, she's explained to too many people, when they question her about him. He's the sort of bloke who wakes you in the dead of night to a song and a warm sigh at the thought of disturbing you.
"I've been tinkering," he tells her, brow lifting as he looks back down at the instrument he hugs, "Working out a tale in my head so I remember it years from now, after it's done."
"Ah," she replies simply, "In my bedroom, at four in the morning." She chuckles when he looks to her apologetically, and she raises a hand, shaking her head to add, "If there's a better way to wake at four in the morning, no one has discovered it."
The Doctor laughs softly and strums his fingers delicately over the strings, letting that single chord vibrate through the quiet night as he settles himself again calmly, watching her shift to let her legs dangle over the side of the bed. Hands reaching up, she brushes them through her thick hair as he begins to play again and she takes a long breath, listening to him humming along, working it out. For a moment she merely watches him as he looks to his fingers, willing them to find – as he'd said – the perfect notes, and he nods to himself, finding something that adds to what he's working through.
The corners of his mouth, set in their customary frown, lift, and he looks up to her, slouched there on the edge of the bed, being serenaded by him. "Question," he offers, "Right there, rolling around in your mind. Go on, get it out."
Chuckling to herself, Clara nods and then she explains, "I've always been fascinated by people who can play instruments; it's not something I've ever been able to do really. Tried a few things on occasion, a flute in school and a piano hidden under my bed at home that somehow made its way out a window," she looks to his confusion and grunts, "Don't ask." Gesturing at him, she offers, "There's an elegance most don't appreciate in the body's ability to translate a set of sounds in one's mind, read off a sheet or simply made up in real time, to the actions of one's hands." Shrugging, Clara sighs, "I'm envious of those who are capable, I suppose."
The Doctor stands abruptly and he hands her the guitar as she laughs and shakes her head, and she stills as he climbs onto the bed, swiftly slinging one leg around her to straddle her backside, guiding the instrument into her palms as she weakly protests.
"Come on, Clara," he argues in amusement.
"Doctor, no," she laughs, "I really can't work it out. My hands and my head don't function together..."
He presses her left hand around the neck of the guitar, fingertips sliding along hers to ease them onto specific places before he curls his hand over hers, pressing lightly as he takes her right hand in his, chin leaning over her shoulder to watch as he strums her fingers along the strings, letting out the first five touches of the same note of whatever song he'd been playing. She smiles, a small excited huff escaping as he shifts her left hand up slightly, strumming again, and he continues until the next five hums of a singular sound, stopping to glance sideways at her.
She breaths softly, not looking to the expression on his face, concentrating on the feel of the lines nestled into the pads of her fingers or resting against her nails, the heat of the wood just underneath her arm from the length of time he'd been playing as she slept. Her bare shoulder is warmed by his breaths and she tries to stop her heart from pounding heavily as she slips her hands away, dropping them out of his grasp and into her lap as he accepts the instrument from her and shifts against her.
"I've always been fascinated by the passing of songs through history," he utters, playing lightly. "The little nursery rhymes everyone seems to know, especially the ones that have no origin – and there are plenty – and I have a theory."
Nodding shortly, Clara asks on a breath, "What's your theory?"
"Well," he begins, his arms tightening around her as he continues to play. "We're all stories in the end, eh, Clara, every day we live a new page, every word written down, every action notated and remembered, and that's not changed in all of time and space, just the way we pass them along."
"Sometimes stories become songs," Clara surmises.
He looks to her again, his playing stopping as he repeats, "Sometimes stories become songs."
"This song is magical," she tells him with a smile, before frowning, "But a bit sad."
Laughing lightly, the Doctor supplies, "Aren't the best of us that way?"
Nodding, Clara looks back down to the guitar settled against her, lifting her hands back to round it, nudging his away and not commenting when they land in the grove between their thighs comfortably as she strums a random note, sighing while she states, "I wish I could write your song." Clara laughs easily, "Might take a few years, and sound a bit mad."
"I imagine it would sound quite chaotic, actually," he replies lightly.
Brow creasing as she plucks another note, Clara asks, "Whose song are you writing, Doctor?"
There's a pause in which his answer sits and she nods to acknowledge it, inching forward to set the guitar down against the small bedside table before leaning back into him, surprised when his arms wrap around her as his chin finally finds a spot to occupy atop her shoulder. Laying her arms on his, fingers playing at the fabric of his coat, she sighs and imagines she could fall asleep right then and there if he remained still long enough. Clara could sleep away the rest of the night in his arms if he allowed.
She wonders, for just a moment, if he would when he offers, "I shouldn't have woken you, I'm sorry, you should rest," but he doesn't move, merely strokes at her sides lightly with his thumbs, as though she were his instrument now.
Taking a breath, Clara turns her head slowly and he lifts his, brushing his nose against hers and she whispers lightly, "Doctor?"
The tender meeting of their lips, an action she used to imagine would send them both into a frantic state of apologies and avoidance has an unexpected calming effect on her heart and she can feel a buzz that's been emanating from his body – one she hadn't realized had been his own rapid trembling – cease. Body shifting, she raises her hands to burrow her fingers into his hair, reveling in the thickness of those curls against her skin as her head tilts to open up for his exploration. A slow and searching swirl of his tongue over hers that makes her head swim, and she can feel his fingers now gripping into her flesh, slipped just underneath her top, pinkies settled into the waistband of her trousers.
He laughs softly when they separate, breath mingling with hers as she smiles and then bites her bottom lip, letting it slide back out slowly as she looks to him, measuring his response. And she understands the questions and the doubts about their feelings towards one another that had plagued her had plagued him as well. Clara nudges his nose again and they take a long breath together, reveling in the comfort of their mutual affection before he nods to the pillow. She knows it's not an invitation to anything more than the rest he knows he'd interrupted, and she smiles at the thought as she untangles herself from his grasp to drop back underneath the sheets, watching him as he finds his seat at her bedside and lifts the guitar into his lap, resuming his thoughtful playing.
Clara's tempted to call him to bed, but she knows he'll politely refuse, and she listens instead to the way the simple plucking of one string at a time becomes the harmony of five, filling in the song in a way he hadn't before. Her eyes drift shut as she hears him confidently moving beyond the point he'd continually stopped at, a new burst of notes wondrously adding to the magic she knows is her song and she smiles because she understands it's not simply her song. Clara knows it's the symphony of her life, one that now includes the Doctor where he hadn't thought to include himself before.
"Ah," the Doctor breathes as Clara drifts to sleep, "That's what was missing all along."