"I'm sorry."

Clara kept her back turned to the Time Lord, leaning against the opposite side of the TARDIS console, slightly raising her eyebrows in surprise that he'd registered something being wrong.

"For what, exactly?" she asked. She could almost feel his exasperated shrug.

"Well, for whatever it is I've done to upset you. How should I know?" Clara rolled her eyes and turned to face him.

"Take a wild guess, Doctor." She stared at him unrelentingly. He furrowed his (admittedly impressive) eyebrows in frustrated thought.

"Oh, you aren't still sulking because I left you on that planet are you? It's a very easy mistake to make," he said, almost reasonably. Clara pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows further.

"You. Forgot. Me."

"I didn't forget you," said the Doctor, resuming fiddling with the TARDIS controls. "It was...an oversight."

"You forgot me! Didn't it cross your mind to say "hey, Clara, I'm leaving now if you wanna hop on board,"?" The Doctor cringed at her weak imitation of his accent.

"Well, I just..." He raised his hands in exasperation.

"You just forgot me. You left me on that planet for a week. I had to stay in an inn, and since I don't generally carry round alien currency, I had to pay my board by washing dishes. Do you know what they eat, Doctor? Because I was eating it, and cleaning it up, for seven days and I still don't."

"If I'm right, I believe it's a mix of puréed animal intestines and-"

"You can stop there, I don't really want to know. What I do want to know is how you could forget me." She looked up at him reproachfully. He swallowed.

"Well...I thought you might already be in the TARDIS?" He offered.

"Right," she said. "So how long did it take you to realise I wasn't?"

He flapped his hand non-committally.

"Time in the TARDIS is difficult," he said. She frowned.

"Which means longer than it really should have." She paused for a second. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"Do you...do you actually want me here?" she asked tentatively. He looked down at her, surprised.

"Well, of course I do. Do you think you'd be here if I didn't?" She shrugged.

"Well, I just thought...you forgot me." She looked down.

"But I came back for you," he said.

She looked back up at him, a small smile on her face.

"Yeah," she said. "I suppose you did."