The Doctor sat on the steps of the control room, holding Clara's red shawl. He was wondering, and not for the first time, just exactly how she'd managed to worm her way into his life, so quickly and so completely. He'd traveled so very far, and met so very many people, none of them just quite like Clara. 'Do get hold of yourself,' he scolded himself silently, 'no two beings are ever alike.' Still…beauty, wit, intelligence, bravery, charm, and…compassion? Yes. And no. Not quite the word. But what was the word?

What was the word to describe someone who, knowing he couldn't save her, reached out with her final thoughts and saved him? And Christmas Eve, after that horrid fall, she must have known that the end was near, and what did she do? Beg him to save her world. Not her, but her planet, and all the people on it. What was the word to describe her?

He looked down at the wad of soft woolen cloth in his hands, absently rubbing his fingers across the bumpy weave, and a small smile quirked his lips. "Clara," he said finally.

At that moment, a scanner on the console began to beep.

The Doctor sat at a table at a quaint little sidewalk café, eagerly scanning the faces of passing pedestrians over the top edge of his newspaper. He hadn't seen her yet, but the TARDIS's sensors had clearly indicated Clara's proximity. He wondered what he'd say when he finally did find her. Would she remember him? Well, no, probably not, she hadn't the last time…

And then he spotted her. To be sure, she was sporting a contemporary outfit, with a bright red laptop case slung across her back, but it was her - adorable, lovely, and achingly familiar - his Clara. She was strolling down the sidewalk, perusing the back of a fairly thick book. Grinning broadly, the Doctor shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. He paused a moment to check his reflection in the café window, and straighten his bowtie - the same moment, as it happened, that the avidly reading Clara plowed right into him.

Clara gasped in shock and dropped her precious book as she collided with the Doctor's tweed-jacketed chest. He caught her easily in his arms.

"I beg your -"

"I'm so sorry-," they spoke simultaneously, then laughed.

"It was entirely my -"

"I should have been looking -," they tried again.

The Doctor stood smiling down at Clara, his eyes alight with hope. "Are you all right?" he finally managed. He stopped just short of calling her by name. He knew that he should probably let go of her, and step back, but he couldn't quite manage that, not just yet. Perhaps, if he'd had hold of her on Christmas Eve…no…best not to think that way…

For her part, Clara knew that she really should step away from this man, whom she'd never met before…or had she? There was something tantalizingly familiar about the warmth of his smile, and the sparkle in his eyes. "I'm fine, thank you. And I'm so very sorry."

"Not at all," the Doctor replied.

And that's when Clara noticed something really odd. She'd stumbled against this stranger in the street with both hands flat upon his chest. For a moment, it seemed to her that there was a heartbeat underneath each palm. 'Nerves,' she chided herself silently. Finally regaining her senses, Clara stepped back, breaking the contact. "At least you weren't carrying a coffee," she joked, a little self consciously.

"No," the Doctor agreed. "But you were carrying a book. Please, allow me," he added, spotting it near their feet on the pavement. He stooped and picked up the book, dusting the cover with his sleeve. "Stephen Hawking? Remarkable fellow. Amazing theories…totally ahead of his contemporaries," he said, handing it to Clara.

"What I admire the most about him is how he's used the power of his mind to escape the prison of his physical condition," Clara said enthusiastically.

A shadow of pain and sorrow darkened the Doctor's features at her choice of words.

Clara wondered what caused that flicker of emotion, then realized that she was still staring. "I'm sorry…have we met? You seem so familiar."

"That, my dear Clara, is a far more interesting question than you may realize."

"How'd you know my name?" she exclaimed.

"The aforementioned interesting question," the Doctor replied playfully. "Perhaps we might discuss it over tea?"

Clara hesitated. After all, a strange man, whom she'd literally just bumped into on the street…but there was something about him, and it was broad daylight, and a sidewalk café on a fairly busy lane. "All right," she agreed, finally. "The chocolate soufflés here are to die for."

Clara stared across the table at her newfound companion, her tea long since cooled and her soufflé mostly untouched. "Part of me wants to say that that is the craziest thing I've ever heard. But I don't think you're crazy."

"I'm not. And I can prove it."

"How?"

"Do you want to see all the things that men like Hawking and Einstein could only dream of?"

"Yes!"

The Doctor stood and held out his hand to her. "Then come away with me."

Clara reached out and took his hand. Smiling delightedly, the Doctor pulled her to her feet and started off down the street. He stopped in front of what appeared to be an ordinary, if antiquated, blue Police box. "Do you trust me?" he demanded, with a mischievous glint in his eye.

Clara cocked her head to one side. "Yes," she said finally. "I don't quite know why, but yes, I do."

Grinning like a little boy on Christmas morning, he flung open the doors and ushered her inside.

Clara stepped inside the TARDIS. She turned slowly in the impossibly large space, her mind a whirl of theories. Optical illusion? Refracted light? Hologram?

The Doctor's grin seemed to grow even wider. "Go on. Say it. Most people do."

"I have the strangest feeling that I've been here before."

"You have."

Clara's gaze darted around the control room, all gleaming metal and sparkling lights, with one incongruous touch. There, draped over the railing, was a woman's shawl, of a deep, claret red. Her hands trembled slightly as she reached out and picked it up.

"You dropped it the first time you came calling," the Doctor informed her, still wearing that silly grin. "Outside, on my cloud," he added helpfully.

Clara stared at the soft woolen cloth in her hands. It didn't seem like something manufactured. Something about it suggested handwork, the sort of thing seen over a century before, yet at the same time, it was strangely familiar.

"All my life, I've dreamed of this," she whispered. A machine that defied the laws of physics. A man who spoke with utter sincerity of traveling through time and space, who claimed to have met her twice before, on different worlds, and in different centuries. It was crazy, and impossible…and real.

Clara's eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she flung her arms around the Doctor's neck. "Where can we go first?"

"Anywhere you like!" he replied, lifting her off her feet and spinning her around.

Clara watched, entranced, as the TARDIS showed her image after image on the viewer. So many worlds, so many stars, an amazing swirl of colors and light. "And we can go anywhere? See any of these places?"

"All of them, if you wish," the Doctor replied, delighted at her reaction.

"What about that one?" Clara asked, pointing to an image of a stunning cluster of blue stars.

The Doctor winced. "No. That's entirely too close to Dalek space."

Clara turned to face him "What's a Dalek?" she asked curiously.

The Doctor slammed his fist on the console in frustration. "Don't you understand what I am telling you?"

"Yes," Clara replied calmly. "I fought the Daleks, for a year. I hacked into their systems -"

He grasped her arms tightly, wishing more than anything that he could just make her understand how he'd felt when he realized that there was no way he could save her. "And you died!"

Clara shook free of his grasp, her eyes flashing. "On my own terms. As a human. And saved your life to boot, don't forget that part! Don't you dare forget that!"

The Doctor let his hands drop slowly to his sides. "I lost you twice," he said softly. "I don't think I…"

"The second time, it happened in the blink of an eye, yes? So, you see, you can't protect me from everything." She reached up and cupped his cheek with her hand, taking the sting out of her words. "But I think I do a pretty fair job of protecting myself. What say we make a deal, you and I? We look out for each other."

"I'm not going to win this one, am I?"

She shook her head, 'no.'

"Just promise me that you won't-"

"It doesn't work that way, Chin Boy." She stroked his cheekbone softly with her thumb. "I won't live my life locked up safe inside a vault. That's not living at all. I want to have adventures, out here in the stars. And I want to have them with you. What I will promise you is that I won't dash off headlong into danger, unless the danger happens to be between you and me. In which case, the danger had best look out."

The Doctor's face relaxed into a small smile, knowing that concession was the best he was going to get. He covered Clara's hand gently with his own, and turning his head slightly, kissed the palm of her hand. "You're impossible, you know that? Absolutely impossible."

"So you keep saying."