Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. The rights to the show and its characters remain to BBC, Steven Moffat and the other writers. No profit whatsoever is being made through this work of fiction.

Just Give Me A Reason

A Whoufflé Fanfiction

By: CyberParchment

The console room glowed with golden light, the tendrils swirling and curving here and there like solar flares dancing on the surface of the sun. The brightness of each wisp was so intense, it seemed like a new star was being born in that very room, but the occupants knew the whole truth. In a way, yes, something, someone was going to be born soon; but they knew it wouldn't happen until the man standing hunched over the console died first. And as this happened, there was a question lingering in the air, a question that ricocheted off of the companion's skull, a question that reverberated throughout her whole body and seeped out of her in the form of tears as she stretched out her hand to touch him.

How?

How can she be happy for the birth of a stranger if someone dear to her had to die for it first?

She was being unfair, that was clear as day. Deep in the crevices of her mind, there was this tiny voice scolding her. 'Why are you crying?' it kept asking. 'What are those tears for? He's not dying. You know he's not. He's just changing, regenerating into a new face. This is what you wanted, isn't it; for him to regenerate instead of dying? Then why are you grieving, you fool?' But no matter how loud that voice in her mind scolded her, yelled at her, she couldn't find it in herself to listen. Her mind was screaming at her, but the bubble of pain that kept her heart prisoner was far too thick to be penetrated by any other sounds. Her stubbornness was winning, and so, as she stood there, the desperation to convince him to hold on wiped away any consciousness to keep calm, to be that rock he could lean on as he regenerated. She kept trying to reach him, to hold on to him for her own selfish reasons, pleading, "No," again and again and again.

She was doing it wrong, she knew for sure. In the back of her eyelids, there was a playing memory from an old life, a life that one of her echoes lived; that very first one from Gallifrey. This memory gave her all the knowledge about regeneration that she would need. Even in death, even though that echo was long gone, it was still alive in her memories, alive enough, real enough, to help her save the Doctor once again. And that echo was telling her that she was doing it wrong. What she should be doing right now wasn't anchoring him to this dying incarnation. She should be paving the way for the new one. She should be relieving him of his despair and fear so that the new one wouldn't be weighed down by heavy baggage on his shoulders as soon as he landed. She should have been looking him in the eyes and assuring him that it would be alright, that there was nothing to be scared of. He wasn't really leaving. He wasn't really leaving her, not for the third time, and so he wouldn't be alone. He had nothing to be scared of. All for the sake of giving him a swift transition from this form to the next. Because that was how regeneration worked. Whatever the previous form was feeling prior to the change, it would be carried on to the next one. The identity, the personality that the next one would take would be affected by how he bridged those two incarnations. If the former died with love, then the next would be born out of love and would be generous in blessing people with it. If the former died with yearning and longing, then the next one would immediately latch on to the first face it saw after changing and would be craving that companionship. And now, if the she kept doing this, kept stopping him because of her own fear of letting him go, he might start fearing that she wouldn't accept the next one. And as she shortened the space between them, her hand still outstretched while her tears fell from her eyes, she looked at him straight into those big, sad eyes of his and saw that she was right. She saw pure and unadulterated fear in them. He was scared, scared of her not accepting him if he changed, of her not forgiving him if he did.

'Get your act together,' the voice whispered in her mind once more, scolding her with a more intense vigour. But instead, the bitterness in her, the sadness and the selfishness, pushed her to say, "Don't change. Please, don't change." Her voice was barely audible, cracking at the end, but the pleading tone was clear. She was begging him. No, please, not yet. Not now. Not this early. Three years, Doctor. We've only been travelling three years. Three years aren't enough. She looked at him straight, unblinking, her brows turning down lower over her glassy orbs, her lips twisting in agony. With just that look, she chose to be selfish and begged him to hold on. Hold on tight, please.

The Doctor's hand reached out, mirroring Clara's action, just near enough to feel the seemingly magnetic attraction of his skin with hers, the attraction that had always been present like an itch he couldn't forget about. Their skins didn't touch because they shouldn't. It was dangerous for a human like her to be touched by regeneration energy, it could burn her up. But with that simple gesture of him reaching out too, showing the desire to bridge the gap between them even if he couldn't, the message was sent. He wanted to hold on to her as well. He wanted to hold on to her tight and not leave. So, when the glow struck brighter than ever, that burst of golden flare, swift, fast and sudden, swallowing every inch of his skin and exploding out of the parts of his body that was uncovered by clothes, he was shoved backwards by its force, away from Clara, his head thrown back, hiding his new face.

But when he bent back to face her again, the golden light dwindling and dying slowly...nothing had changed.

There he stood with tears flowing down his cheeks out of the eyes that he still kept tightly closed. The corners of his lips were still pulled down, twisted, as if there was still some remnants of pain left in his system, still prickling him like millions of needles. But it was still the same face, the same delicate eyebrows, the same nose, the same lips, and the same big chin. And when he opened his eyes, his orbs immediately seeking hers, they were still the same big, sad, green eyes.

"What? How?" Clara asked even before the feeling of relief could settle in, the confusion obvious in her eyes and voice. "You didn't..."

"You told me not to change. Not yet. And so I didn't," he replied, suggesting he knew exactly what had happened—that he hadn't changed his face—even without Clara coherently saying so. A teary smile slowly stretched his lips, hiding the pain that was still secretly grating him on the inside, strip by strip. He had broken a promise to her the last time he saw her all those years ago—which was only a few hours in the past for her—and he knew his words meant nothing anymore now, but he wanted to show her that if it were his choice, if she wouldn't be harmed because of it, he would do anything to fulfil a promise to her.

The relief came then like a huge wave arriving on the shore, washing away the sand castles, the traces of what was, washing away all the fear and the panic that the moment of his regeneration had brought a while ago. It washed over Clara, starting from the top of her head, clearing her mind and infecting it with temporary numbness, and then it flowed down to her shoulders, easing the muscles there that had been taught and tight the moment she stepped back into the TARDIS. It crawled down to her arms, her torso and her thighs, wrapping her limbs in buoyancy. Her arms fell with lightness at her sides, her back slumped weightlessly as sigh after sigh escaped from her lips. And then it crept to her knees, turning them into jelly. Suddenly, she felt so weak inside that bubble of relief that she felt her kneecaps tremble.

Just like always, the Doctor noticed the change in her stance ripple through her. In no time at all, his hands were on her elbows, supporting her. She didn't shy away from the touch and succumbed to his direction instead as he led her to the stairs she'd always found him sitting on. With gentle ministrations, he sat her down and plopped down beside her, leaving enough space between them to suggest that he wasn't invading her personal space nor pushing her to react to what had just happened. He left enough space to tell her that she could take her time in absorbing it all in. As he sat there, he thought to himself that he would give her all the time she needed, all the time in the world, even though he himself only had a short time left with this chance, even though every stretch of a second that they took waiting for the other to speak first caused his internal winces to get worse and more painful. He owed her that after all the chances and the time that he had robbed from her went he sent her away.

"Take your time, my Clara. We have all the time in the world," he spoke out loud. Even though he knew there was no need to, he still did so in the hopes that it would at least stir a conversation. At this point, the Doctor didn't know if talking was a good idea, what with the stress of everything still shredding them—physically for him and emotionally for her. But the thing was, it had been centuries since him and Clara had actually talked. It had been centuries since they both just sat down and said what they wanted to say without anything else taking the front seat in their minds. Well, centuries to him, at least. To Clara, he could bet it had only been a few hours, which, he would now admit, was unfair. He had cheated her of hundreds of years. The longing, the yearning, he had centuries' time to get used to was all crammed in the span of a few hours for her. He couldn't even fathom how painful that must have been.

"Do we?" Clara's soft voice asked, slightly shaking as if she was still dazed. "Honestly, do we really? In the past few hours, Doctor, I just saw you shed centuries' worth of your age. One moment I was looking at your young face, and then the next I'm seeing lines and grey hair that hundreds of years brought you. You've crammed your whole lifetime in the span of three hours for me, Doctor." She still refused to look at him. Her eyes were trained to the floor as she wiped at her cheeks and sniffed, that cute little nose of hers wiggling. She kept fiddling with the rings on her fingers and the Doctor fought so hard to resist the urge to take her hand in his. "You just basically erased the meaning of time for me."

Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling of the TARDIS, an unconscious gesture to try and keep the newly sparkling tears in her eyes from spilling out of her lids and streaming down her cheeks again, trailing the same line that her past tears had already worn out. "Three years of travelling with you and I've never felt this scared," she began again, her chin trembling just as her voice did. "We've travelled space and time, seen the future, stayed in the past, went on a picnic on an inhabited planet somewhere out there, but never once have I ever felt as scared as I am now. Remember that time we visited Merry Gejelh again, years into her future, and we saw her as a slightly elder woman? That was the first time I've ever seen the world in different eyes. First time I've ever realised that the world changes and moves forward when we're not there. And it made me think back to my father in that moment, while we were in the future. My dad would have been dead by then, him and everyone else I held dear. They wouldn't exist anymore. But I wasn't scared then, Doctor. I never felt even a tiny bit scared. You know why?" It was a rhetorical question, but the Doctor hummed in reply to show her that he was still listening to her. "Because you weren't like them. You were never going to be gone. You were going to stay a long time, you were going to live in every single time that exists out there with the help of your snogbox. And even though I won't, and someday I'd die and be beaten by my humanity, it doesn't matter. Because while you exist, there will always be a version, an echo, of me that would be there for you, I'll get memories of those times, of your other remaining selves sooner or later. We weren't going to be gone from each other's lives, not in the real sense of it, Doctor. We were always going to be together. And that fact has always comforted me that out there, no matter what time, no matter where in the universe or in the next, there would always be a Doctor that would exist, that would live, and there would always be a Clara with him, running after him, helping him. And it's only now that I realised I was wrong in believing that blindly."

It was painful, that admittance. Speaking it out loud after feeling that realisation ripping her apart wasn't easy. It was like she was giving it permission to wreck her again for a second time, but she knew it had to be said. So many words had been left unspoken between the two of them in his mad dash to save Christmas, and in her run to keep the Doctor from getting stuck saving Christmas. They owed each other the freedom to speak these words. After all this time, they owed each other that.

"No, Clara, that's not..." he started, the pain in his chest no longer just brought by the adjustment his body was still undergoing. It wasn't the usual prickling kind of pain anymore, not the kind that made his hearts jump over a couple of beats because it was restarting with a new pair. It was a different kind of pain. It was like an invisible hand was squeezing his chest, preventing him to breathe. "Clara, that's not how the universe works. I understand it hurts to think about it, it hurts to think about being alone, I know your pain, I do, but—"

She scoffed as a reply, her anger tethering the edge. "You think you understand? You think you know my pain? No, Doctor, you don't." Her hands were enclosing in fists, her fingers crumpling the hem of her skirt, her knuckles white, but she still didn't look at him. At this point, the Doctor was starting to realise that it wasn't just the tears pushing her to avoid his gaze. It was something else entirely. "I don't think so. You might have an inkling because you know what it feels like to be abandoned, to be left alone, but that's not the point." She swallowed thickly for a moment, but it did nothing to steel her voice. It was still as thick as ever, so thick with emotions and the anger to the point that the Doctor was afraid she might choke on her own tears.

"That wasn't the point because I wasn't afraid of you abandoning me. I wasn't afraid of being left alone. I was afraid of you not existing anymore. And so for the first time you lied to me, the first time you tricked me and left me alone back on Earth, I swallowed the pain of your betrayal. I didn't let it get to me. I shoved that pain down and ignored it even though it was caused by the fact that you've just tricked me and sent me away. I forgot about that pain the moment I saw you again. Even though there were a lot of things I should have been angry at you about, I stomped on all of them and I came back to you because I was just glad to see you still alive. I was just so glad that you were still standing there, still breathing, still existing. And then, in that tower, you told me that you were dying, and that it was inevitable."

"But you already knew that, Clara. You saw my grave, you were in my grave, you jumped into my time stream. You literally jumped into my corpse. That should have been proof enough."

"Yes, but I didn't know it would be that early!" she blurted out, her voice ringing loudly around the console room. Her jaw was locked tight like she was so close to punching him. The Doctor was convinced for a moment that she actually would. He thought that maybe she would finally look at him and then slap him or punch him. But instead, she just banged her own fist on the step she was sitting on just as a new wave of tears fell from her eyes.

"It wasn't early. Not at all. I lived nine hundred more years since that time we first landed on Christmas. That's not exactly what I'd call an early death. It was actually long overdue if you think about it." If the situation wasn't as dire and heavy as it was, that would have come out with a chuckle. It would have been an effective way to diffuse tension, but his tone fell flat. All he wanted to do then was to take Clara into his arms and hug her, hug her tight to chase away the pain and the fear she was feeling.

"I did say it was you who proved me wrong, didn't I?" Her voice shook as she said the words. She took deep breaths to calm herself, but they didn't work. "That day at the tower, when you told me you were dying, I realised I'd been foolish to consider you a constant. You were going to be gone one day, just like the rest of us. When you told me you'd already used your last regeneration and that we were at Trenzalore, it all suddenly became real. Suddenly, all I wanted to do was steal you away, hatch some kind of plan with your TARDIS to take you away from Christmas, take you somewhere safe, somewhere you could just live out the rest of your years in peace. I just wanted to steal you away so I could be with you more, so that I could be there in the last years of your life to make up for the first three hundred years that I wasn't. But I knew you wouldn't want that because you wouldn't ever choose to have a good life in exchange for the suffering and the death of others. So I said to myself, it's okay. It was okay. I was just going to stay with you in that town. I would help you when the Daleks and the Cybermen came. I would be a proper companion to you. But then you sent me away again. You sent me away after you looked me in the eyes and promised me you never will again." As she spoke, the Doctor's eyes started filling up with tears again and his arms itched once more just clutch her to him, but he knew she wasn't done. So instead, he did the same thing she was doing. He averted his eyes and just listened to the rest of what she was saying. But then, a few seconds after, he heard a batch of sobs rip through her throat.

The way she said the last words, the way she spoke of the Doctor sending her away, made her voice crack finally and Clara couldn't continue anymore. She couldn't continue without breaking out in sobs. And so she did. Her pain rippled through her body in waves, making her shoulders and her whole body shake as the tears poured anew. Her head fell on her fists atop her knees and she hunched over them, hiding her face in her hands as she cried. All she could think about then was those two hours she spent back in her home. The moment she stepped back into the dining room, they flung questions at her but she neither had the energy nor the answers to reply to them with. All they knew because of the fact that she was crying and that she came back alone was that the Doctor had left her. But that wasn't it at all. The Doctor hadn't left her. It was her who left the Doctor. The Doctor made her leave him; and out of everything that had ever happened to her in her entire life, nothing had hurt worse than the fact that the person she trusted the most had robbed her of her control over her own life.

"You have no idea how painful that was, Doctor," she said through her tears. "When all I wanted was to be with you, to be able to help you, I could do nothing but sit at a stupid table and be useless. You could have been dying that very moment and I wasn't there to help you." She continued to hide her face in her hands but it was obvious in the way her shoulders shook that she was breaking far worse than she'd ever broken before.

Never before had the Doctor seen Clara this wrecked, this hurt, and for a moment, when the urge to pull her and hug her came again, he thought he would finally succumb to it. He thought he wouldn't be able to resist anymore, but then the bitterness bit at him as well. The bitterness that Clara held was the same as the one now creeping up on him. In an instant, his own fists were balled tightly on his knees. He didn't know if it was an effect of his regeneration, it might have been. This new incarnation might be more easily irritated, more easily angered and held on to hostility and annoyance tighter, but he didn't care anymore. The next thing he knew, he was saying, "And you think it was easy for me? You think I wasn't hurt by what I did?" He shook his head, a scoff of his own slipping from his downturned mouth.

At that, Clara looked up. She looked startled for a moment, surprised that he would dare turn this one on her, surprised that he would flip this pain and use it against her when he was the one who had betrayed her, the one who had lied to her. All of a sudden, her tears stopped, her eyes flashing as she embraced the challenge the Doctor had just presented her with.

He chuckled darkly at Clara's expression. "That's the thing with you pudding-brained people. You think that just because someone turned you away, that they don't care anymore. You think that just because someone kicked you out, they already hate you and want nothing to do with you anymore. You're not that different, are you, Clara?" he asked as he stood up from the stairs and limped over back to the console. "Because I was the one who sent you away, you think it means you were the only one who was hurt. You think I wasn't even affected by it. Well, sorry to tell you, Miss Oswald, but you're wrong!" The end of his sentence came out louder. The last time he talked to her with this tone was when the TARDIS was destroyed and they had to get to the heart of it to fix it. It was that time he accused her of being a trick, a trap. He was fed up then, angry at how much she kept pushing him around and around in circles trying to figure her out. This was the same. He was suddenly tired of her just assuming he wasn't hurt every time he sent her away. He was tired of her assuming it had been easy for him to lie to her face when all he wanted to do when she looked at him with those large, doe eyes and kissed his cheek before she took that damn turkey was to say hell to the world and just keep her with him. "You think it was as easy as one, two, three for me to push you away? You think I didn't suffer because of that decision? Well, you weren't the one who lived nine hundred years without a companion, Clara. You have no idea how much it hurt me to live that long without even seeing your face. You have no idea how much it hurt to wake up every morning and realise I was starting to forget what you even looked like! You have no idea what kind of suffering I went through for hundreds of years without you, Clara Oswald, so how dare you talk to me about how hard it was for you to spend three hours on your own without knowing what's been happening to me?!"

If there was something you had to know about Clara Oswald, it was the fact that even though she was already hurting, even though all she wanted to do when she was in pain was to curl up and succumb to it, she wouldn't do so when the only person that could comfort her was attacking her this way. There was no way in hell Clara would just back down and let him hammer her down like this. If he was going for this approach, which was, on its own, already surprising because never before had he been this aggressive to her, she wouldn't go down without a fight. "How dare I?" she asked angrily as she stood up as well and followed him to the console. Her five-foot stance might just be tiny, but when she was wrecked and angry, she was a force to be reckoned with. "How dare I?! How dare you!" She pointed an accusing finger at him. "You were the one who sent me away! If you suffered because of it, you have nobody else to blame but yourself. And don't you dare shoot me with that bollocks that you suffered while I was gone. If you really did and you wanted me with you then you would have allowed me to be there. If you really wanted me to be there, then you wouldn't have sent me away!"

The Doctor locked his jaw tightly as rope of agony and anger coiled over each other on the pit of his stomach. He felt another jolt of pain hit his chest but he pushed away the grimace that threatened to take over his features. Instead, he stepped closer to Clara, using his height to his advantage, and towered over her. "I thought you were supposed to be smart? You should already know the answer to that seeing as I already told you at the basement of the tower."

"Maybe I remember your answer, but I refuse to accept it because it's nothing but utter bullshit."

The former flailing Doctor that recoiled at words and curses such as that was clearly gone because instead of looking indignant and just scrunching his nose and crossing his arms like a five-year old—something he had always done during these times before—he merely ground his teeth together and said, "You had the nerve to make me feel guilty about shooting down your selfless desire to be with me and help me even if it would mean you'd have to die there in that town, but here you are, passing my own selfless choice as bullshit," he deadpanned, the hurt showing in his eyes. Why couldn't she understand that what he had done, he'd done selflessly? Why couldn't she understand that he had given her up just to save her? "How many times have I seen you die, Clara? In the Dalek Asylum, in Victorian London, in Gallifrey, in a deserted island, in 1960's New York, in a parallel universe and so many other places; a hundred times, a thousand times; too many times than I can count. Be angry at me, hate me, but don't ever blame me for choosing to save you once after watching you die thousands of times." By the end of his statement, his eyes were overflowing with tears once more. He couldn't help it. Despite the bitterness that was poisoning him, he couldn't keep the tears at bay anymore. How could he when inside his mind, he now saw in replay the faces of all the Clara's that had died because of him. All those pairs of beautiful brown eyes all lifeless because of him, all those women who looked like the woman he held the most dear looking at him with pain evident in every inch of her face. He could only see a handful of them dying before it they'd break him. He wasn't as strong as Clara gave him credit for. And as proof, he turned his back on her again, choosing to let his eyes stay on the console. He couldn't look at her when his traitorous mind kept replaying images of her echoes dying. He had grown scared of those images six hundred years ago. He wasn't as strong as Clara gave him credit for.

"But I wasn't them, Doctor," he heard Clara's voice. He couldn't tell for sure because his back was turned to her, but with the way her voice had started shaking again, they both had lost the anger and the fervour with which they were arguing just a moment ago. It's a rollercoaster, this conversation, he thought to himself, reminiscent of that day on Christmas when Clara invited him to meet her family for the first time. That seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago.

"You keep telling me of all those times you've watched me die. You keep bringing up all those times I sacrificed myself for you, but what you fail to understand, Doctor, was that none of them were me," Clara said, her voice tinged with disappointment and hurt. The Doctor had no idea how much it pained her every time he mentioned that. It wasn't physical pain brought by the memories of dying that she now had. That kind of pain was easier to bear than the one that the Doctor brought her because those memories fade with every day that passed, they grow more and more numb after she'd gotten used to them. It was the pain caused by her disappointment with herself that affected her worse. "River was right," she stated, not even looking up to check what effect the name had on him now, after all these years. "I was torn into a million pieces, a million echoes and a million versions of myself, but none of them were me, Doctor. They're just echoes, like versions from a parallel universe. They have the same name, the same face, sometimes even a similar personality, but they have lived separate lives. They were different people. They weren't me. And that's the painful part. You keep speaking of all these brave sacrifices you've seen people with my face do, but what have I done for you, huh? Apart from staying in bed for a month, remembering memories of dying and clinging to you every time I wake up in the middle of the night, nothing. I didn't even feel any kind of physical pain, not really. That time you needed the most, that time I could have helped you more than any of those echoes ever had, I wasn't able to. That time I could have given myself a chance to prove that I was more than just my echoes, I was on Earth, crying at a dinner table. You don't understand, Doctor, that every time you speak of my brave echoes, your eyes sparkle like you've never been more proud of anything else in your entire life, and that's the thing. That sparkle in your eyes has always made me remember how I'm never gonna be as good for you as my echoes have been."

There was a tone of defeat in her voice by the time she finished. Suddenly, she felt weaker again, like a door had been flung open and every single insecurity she'd ever had was flung at her simultaneously. Clara felt like she was drowning in a sea of painful honesty. Nothing but the truth had spilled out of her mouth, and it hurt because once again, it reminded her of how she could never be as good as those clones that had been born because of her. She had always been drowning in this sea, but the difference now was that unlike before, she couldn't even find it in herself to kick off her pathetic legs and keep herself afloat. In that moment, she felt like just letting herself drift to the bottom of the ocean and drown there.

Clara took a deep breath and released it slowly just as she turned her back on the Doctor. She leaned on the railing, feeling the coldness of the metal seeping into her flesh. With shaking hands, she wiped the remaining traces of tears on her cheek. There was no point in crying now. This conversation, no matter how needed it was, had just done nothing but wreck the both of them. For a short moment, she started wondering if it had been better if she had just kept her mouth shut, just like what she had done all this time. If she had just kept everything a secret from him, performed her trick again, her trick of pretence, maybe she could have saved the two of them this unnecessary heartbreak. She was seriously pondering on just telling him to forget she'd ever said anything when all of a sudden, she felt his warm breath hitting the nape of her neck.

"You're really impossible, aren't you?" The softness of his voice was startling. It was so different than the hardness he was treating her with a while ago, and it surprised her yet again. Really, with the rate the two of them had been going with regards to their moods, she wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow diagnosed with bipolarity. One moment they were sympathising with each other, the next they were attacking each other, and then the next he was standing behind her, his voice dripping with longing and adoration just as a wave of an urge to hug him crashed down on her.

"My impossible girl, I have forgotten just how impossible you really are," he repeated like he was tasting the words in a new tongue. "Turn around, Clara. Turn around and look at me."

"Why?"

"Just because."

"What if I don't want to? You've been yelling at me and insulting my brain and its capacity. What makes you think I even want to see your big chin right now?"

"Because I know you," he said simply, and just like that, Clara felt a pair of warm hands enclose around her elbows and gently turn her around, but even when she was already facing him, one of those arms remained around her side, the hand settling at the small of her back. "And oi, don't mock the chin. But if it will make you feel better, I can cup my hand over it so you won't have to look at it." Then he was lifting up his free hand and covering his chin with it, earning a tiny quirk of the corner of her lips from Clara. At the sight of that little smile, the Doctor smiled as well, but it didn't last. The next thing Clara knew, his hand was falling from his chin as he leaned closer to her, his head ducking a little so they'd be at a slightly similar level to allow her to be able to peer directly into his eyes. "I never really thought I'd get a chance to say all this because I never expected to be able to fly away from Trenzalore. But...you deserve to at least know." He swallowed the lump on his throat before he continued, "I told you before that every life I save is one victory for me. You know what's been roaming my mind for hundreds of years in that town? It's this... Clara, I didn't know those people before I arrived in that town, but I fought hard to keep them alive. Every day I keep saying, if I were able to sacrifice that for people who used to be strangers to me, then what more for you? I should be able to sacrifice more than that for a person that's been present in my life for thousands of years. I stayed for those people, Clara. I fought Daleks, Cybermen, Sontaran, Slitheen and Angels for them. I fought monsters for them, to save their lives. But you know what? That wouldn't ever compare to what I had to fight to save your life. Every night, when every single person in that town had gone to sleep apart from me; when all the fights for the day had been won, the last battle I always have is a battle against myself. I fought monsters for other people, but I fought myself for you. That is, admittedly, the hardest thing I've ever done in my whole life. I told you before I'd been having the same argument with myself for three hundred years. But what I failed to tell you was that the reason with which I was arguing against myself was you."

Clara opened her mouth to argue, but the Doctor lifted his forefinger to gently cover her lips shortly and stop her from speaking. He wasn't done yet. He had been keeping all this to himself for almost a millennium. It was a good thing this truth was stronger than any expiration date. But he wouldn't let another day pass without letting it out, especially when he now knew just how insecure Clara had been feeling all this time. "Now what was my argument with myself, you ask? On one hand, I wanted you beside me. I keep saying, after all these years of saving the universe, all these lives I've lived, dying, regenerating, taking a new face, all for the sake of the universe, I deserve even just one lifetime with someone I care about. I kept arguing that this was my last face, I deserved to spend the last days of this incarnation with someone I held dear, and that argument had always made me want to take you back. But then on the other hand, I wanted to save you from getting stuck with me. Because the thing is, Clara, you've already sacrificed so many lives for me, I don't want your real one to be wasted on me as well. And I know, you've just said that those echoes weren't you. But, Clara, for me, it wasn't like that. They were you because they had your face, they had your bravery, they had your personality. They might have lived a different life, they might have been different people, but they were hardwired, compelled, to make the same decisions that you would have, and when it came down to it, when it was time for me to watch them sacrifice themselves, it was still your face I saw. It was still you I watched dying. It didn't matter that those were different people. All that mattered to me was that I was watching you die. It's the same thing with having a nightmare, Clara. The nightmare isn't real, but that doesn't stop you from being afraid of it. It might not be real in the true essence of it, but the visual of it feels so real. I still see your face grow pale, your eyes go blank and lifeless, and I can't take it. And so whenever I argue with myself and start siding with the part of me that wanted you back, I start to remember that if I mess up this time, it's not an echo, not just a version of you that will die for me. It will be the real you, and I remind myself that that, more than anything, more than all the deaths of your echoes combined, will hurt and destroy me. Because when that happens, then my nightmare would have become reality already. So, can you really blame me for choosing to just suffer alone than take you back? It's like what you said, I take comfort in the knowledge that somewhere out there in the universe, you still existed, even without me. I held on to the hope that you were still out there, living your life the way I couldn't live mine. I trusted you to live for both of us. And about the part about your echoes being better than you, that is a funny joke; you should jot that down for when we land in a comedy bar in space. They would appreciate that joke. Your echoes were born to save me because you saved me. They were compelled by the universe to sacrifice their lives for me. There is this 'coded command' in their brains pushing them to die for me. But you, Clara, you chose to jump into my time stream. You chose to risk your life for me. Clara, you chose me. You chose me not because of the universe, not because of a coded command in your brain, but because you cared about me. You once said about your Victorian and Dalek echoes that you weren't going to compete with their ghosts. If you ask me, there isn't even a competition. You'll win every single time."

The silence that reigned in the room after that was so thick, someone could have dropped a strand of hair and they would have heard it. Normally, that would have made the Doctor even more nervous but with the way Clara was looking at him, there was no space to be nervous. Even without words, the Doctor could see in those big doe eyes that she understood everything completely now. Or at least he hoped that was what that look in her eyes meant. He hadn't quite seen it on her before, that teary, sparkly look she was giving him. It was like her eyes were clouded with something and it was veiling the way she looked at him. He was just about to tell her that if she still wanted to punch him about the former comment he gave about the pudding brain, she could, because even he couldn't believe he'd said that. Must have been the—but he wasn't able to finish that thought because the next thing he knew, she was asking him a question.

"Why?"

That was it, the question. No other explanations or clues that could hint on what she was talking about. Just that question, but for Clara, that one word meant the world. It was the question they'd always been asking each other through their looks and touches, but had never really answered. It was the question that had been buried by hundreds of years on his part now, and with the things he'd just spoken to her, she really couldn't help but speak the question at last. She had to know, even if it didn't ring true anymore at the moment, she had to know if it all meant something to him at a certain point in his life. She would at least appreciate it to know if it existed.

"I'm not sure I under—" he said, a bit uncertain of what she was asking. There was a voice in the back of his mind telling him what the question was, but he still felt the need to ask.

"You know what I mean. Why?"

"I...I mean...I just..." he started, and then the old flailing Doctor was back. As he stood there, his hand suddenly falling away from around Clara, he stepped back once and his mouth started opening and closing as if he was trying to tell her something but couldn't quite form coherent words. "You know...kind of...yeah." His hands were waving in the air, gesturing here and there to something only he could understand.

"Take all the time you need, Doctor. We're in no rush. Like you said, we have all the time in the world now," she said, slightly smirking.

And it might have been the way she smirked at him, it might have been because he wanted desperately to wipe that smug look off her face, he would never really know because the next thing they were both aware of was that Clara's back was being pushed against the cold metal railing behind her, the coldness having no effect because in that very moment, with the Doctor's lips firmly planted on hers while both his hands cupped her cheeks, she was drowning in warmth. This time, it was the good kind of drowning.

No time was wasted at all, even though they've both admitted now that they've got more time together, because Clara responded to the movements of the Doctor's lips as soon as she felt them, like it was something she'd been expecting all along. Her hands fisted on the material of his coat at his hips and pulled him closer to her before letting her hands crawl up his chest and clutch at the lapels of his coat. Their bodies pushed flush against each other and Clara half expected the Doctor to start flailing his arms around, but instead, his hands just trailed down to her body, his thumbs caressing the dips of her waist over her clothes. And in those movements, in the way the Doctor was clutching tightly at Clara's waist, pulling her close like he'd missed her so much, like he couldn't let go of her, like he couldn't stand being apart from her, she knew. With the way the Doctor was nibbling at her bottom lip, the tip of his tongue swiping every now and again, as if he was telling her something wordlessly, she understood. With the way the Doctor sighed at her lips and inhaled the sighs she was breathing out against his, like he wanted them to breathe the same air, she got the message. There was no need to say any more words. The language of his movements had told her more than what any other language ever could. With these words she now knew, somehow, all the troubles and the pain they'd been in a while ago seemed and felt so dull, so weak, like it couldn't affect them now.

It was over sooner than they'd both prefer, but they both needed more air, so they didn't really have any choice. As soon as they pulled back, Clara's arms now around his neck while his were around her waist, his fingers stroking her lower back, Clara, smirked at the Doctor. "I didn't know you could also speak kiss."

He smirked right back at her without batting an eyelash like it came naturally to him. "Maybe it's one of the new languages this regeneration has gained."

"So this new face of yours that's still yet to really land, he's going to be sassy, then, is he?"

He didn't even realise he had unknowingly hinted on it until she had cottoned on and had pertained to it. He had even started forgetting, but then the warmth that started crawling all over his skin once more begged to be remembered. Time was almost up.

"How did you know?"

"I always know," she said with that smirk of hers that always drove him crazy, sometimes literally. "And the temper was a teeny tiny give away. You can actually intimidate humans now, Doctor, even those who don't know who you are yet." She looked at his face, watching the golden glow slowly come back, but this time, it was faint. "You held it off, didn't you? You held off the final touches of your regeneration just so we could have this talk." Because we both know it would be harder to have this talk after you get a new identity.

"Wasn't easy. I felt like my insides were being turned into apple jam—I hate apple jam—but it was worth it. Very much worth it."

And she appreciated that, more than anything because even though it was agony for him, he opted to set it aside so he could settle and chase away her fears. But this time, it was her turn to do that for him. "Please don't tell me I have to move away now so I won't burn up. I kinda like where I am." And as if to prove her point, she pressed herself even closer to his embrace, her hold on him tightening even more.

"No, you don't have to because I'm almost done. The glow you're seeing isn't crawling atop my skin, It's flowing under it now. It won't harm you anymore because it's all happening inside me. So you don't need to move. I kinda like where you are now, too. You should stay like this longer and more often."

He smiled at her with the same teasing lilt she had, but then a particularly nasty surge of regeneration energy pumped through his left heart and for a split second, he winced. It wasn't that bad because he was almost finished, but it was so sudden, it took him by surprise, thus, he wasn't able to hide the wince. Naturally, Clara's teasing smile turned into worry.

"Are you in pain?" Her right hand lifted to brush his floppy fringe away from his eyes. It made her wonder what kind of hair he was going to get this time. "What can I do?"

"It's okay, it's not too painful. I was just taken by surprise, don't worry," he replied instantly with a smile to calm her worry.

"Are you scared, though?"

That question was able to wipe his smile off.

"Honestly, yes. The regeneration started when I was uncertain with myself. I really didn't have a plan in me when I climbed up that tower, and I was expecting to die right then and there. So naturally, I was contemplating the life I'd lived, trying to figure out if I've done all that I could have, if I've done good in my whole run. And...err...the mistakes I've made also re-surfaced, I wasn't able to resist. And that's the thing with regeneration. What I feel as it starts is going to affect who I become. I can feel him getting scared, too, Clara. He's so scared of the darkness in him, of the mistakes I've made. And you saw the effects of that already. He's got a temper and sourness in him. He's going to be closed off, that would be his defence mechanism now." The Doctor paused for a moment as he stepped backwards, Clara following his steps, and leaned back against the console again. He looked at her and said, "And as I was initially afraid that you'd reject the new me, he has inherited that insecurity as well. Although, I do have a feeling this is going to be a whopper, I kind of think I had a bit of a bad start in this regeneration, hadn't I?" He peered at her bashfully, his orbs looking at her through his eyelashes.

"It's alright," Clara assured the Doctor, her fingers playing with the short hairs at the nape of his neck. "There's no need to be scared, I'm here. I'll help, I won't leave. It'll be alright, I promise. That's why you wanted me here as you regenerate, isn't it? First face you'll see?" It was the knowledge of her Gallifreyan echo that fed her the information once more. For someone who she didn't deem as herself, these echoes and their memories had really helped her a lot. She had the decency to feel guilty for getting envious of them in that moment, realising her mistake in that. She hoped they didn't mind, wherever they were, whether they were still alive or not.

The Doctor beamed proudly at her intuition, a warm feeling of appreciation filling him. "Yes. I had hoped you wouldn't mind me being extra attached to you this time around—"

"Wait, you mean you previously weren't? Could have fooled me."

They both chuckled at that because they both knew it was true, and then they laughed louder when they locked eyes because they knew now that it wasn't just one-sided. That feeling had been mutual since the first trip. Once the laughter had died, and the amusement had trailed and parked in their eyes instead, the Doctor looked at Clara with a new serious expression.

"You were afraid, too, weren't you? Of me changing. That's why you requested I don't change yet. May I ask why?"

"You may, but that doesn't guarantee that you'll get an answer from me." Opting to try and get out of topic through joking, Clara cocked a teasing eyebrow.

"Claraaaaa..." the Doctor whined, quite childishly.

"Doctooooor?" she shot back with the same tone of whine. But then the Doctor just looked at her with those scolding eyes that she really had to get used to now. Clearly, they were eyes owned by his new face that was slowly settling in. She could already see the visible changes on his face. For one, his eyebrows were starting to thicken while head of hair was starting to grow shorter. She already knew then that whatever eyes this new incarnation would have, she still wouldn't be able to resist. "Fine. I was."

"Why?"

"Because I wasn't ready yet."

"Do I get an explanation or would I have to force it out of you?"

"You really should tone down the broody look, Doctor. That look with those eyebrows and those slightly gangster words are going to make a scary package."

"Clara, I was planning to give you raise, but now I've thought better of it."

"A raise? You don't even pay me."

"I don't? I should. Do you want me to?"

"You can't afford me."

"Touché. Okay, then, spill."

"Oooh, authoritative. Commanding. I like it."

"Clara, stop avoiding the question."

"Grumpy. Are you sure you're not just reverting to your Time War incarnation?" the Doctor only gave her a look, and so she sighed, knowing that she couldn't avoid the question any longer. At least not without irritating him, which was a bad thing to have happen considering he was still regenerating. Wouldn't be good to have his new face irritated with her as early as now. "I was just scared. I wasn't ready yet because...I told you I'm not my echoes, right? Yeah, but I still have their memories, and it was kind of traumatising saving all your other selves without so much as look from them. For a long time, Doctor, my echoes have been running after you, saving you, guiding you. I have memories of those times. And after doing so, you just leave because you didn't even know what they'd done for you. My echoes have sacrificed so much, but got so little appreciation in return. Not that I'm blaming you. I'm not, because you didn't know. Out of all your faces, this one, this one with the big chin and the ridiculous bowtie, was the only one who paid attention. You were the only one who stopped for a moment and thanked me for what I did. I just...I got scared, I guess. I got scared that maybe with this new face that you're about to get, you're going to start ignoring me again. It's a senseless fear, like a phobia, I know that now. And I'm going to work on it, I promise. You don't have to worry."

She expected the Doctor to look at her with disappointment then, because really, even she knew it was kind of pointless, especially after what had happened just now. She now knew for sure that he wouldn't ever ignore her again. But then she watched with admiration as the Doctor cupped her cheek with his hand and leaned his still warm forehead against hers, causing her to close her eyes, and said to her, "You won't be working on that fear alone, Clara. Fear, no matter how illogical it may seem, always has a cause, and I'm sorry that I've caused that. So, I'm going to help you get over it. I'll prove to you that I won't ever ignore you again, and I know I will succeed because I can feel it as early as now. The new guy will adore you and love you so much. You might even be the one who grows tired of him because of it, not the other way around."

And then it finally happened, it finally ended. With those last seconds, the golden glow of his regeneration finished its round all over his body and Clara watched as his face and his body, his stature, morphed into those of a new man. His hair grew fainter, from brown to dark gray; it shortened and curled slightly, giving it volume, a bit of a thickness. His skin developed more lines and his body grew a little bit thinner, older, but all Clara could focus on was his face. His eyebrows thickened even more and the colour of his eyes changed, but no matter the colour, the soul that lived behind them remained the same. Those orbs looked back at Clara with the same recognition, adoration and love.

"Oh, I doubt it," she said with a sure smirk, pertaining to her getting irritated of this new face. That was impossible because just looking at those eyebrows and that lopsided, boyish smirk of his, she knew. He would have a hold on her as strong, if not stronger, than the one the previous face had. "Those eyebrows and that lopsided smile. Hard to resist."

"Is it done, then?"

"Guess so?"

"Kidneys."

"Huh?"

"I don't like the colour."

"Of your kidneys?"

"No, of the coat, don't be ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous, what are these clothes? Who dressed me up, I look absurd. I need new clothes. I like the colour of yours. We should match. Wait, why are we hugging? I don't hug people."

"To answer your questions, you dressed yourself. Got nothing to blame but yourself about that, Doctor. And thank you, I do like the colour of mine, too. Match? What are we, teenagers? And no, you don't get a vote on the hugging." And at the end of her statement, she really did pull him into a hug, just because he made it. He successfully made it, he was born. And that, she realised now, would always be a good reason for celebration.

"Err...okay. Whatever you say."

The Doctor's voice seemed a bit uncertain, but even though that was the case, Clara still felt him bury his face at the crook of her neck for a long stretch of a second. And it was in that moment that she got convinced. No this wasn't going to be easy; it was going to take a lot of getting used to, but he was going to be a whopper. Just like his past self, he was going to be magnificent, and Clara would still love him for it no matter what.

A/N: Well, that certainly turned out longer than I expected, but hey, that just proves how much Eleven and Clara should have talked about but weren't able to. If you successfully made it to this part without dying, I already salute you, my friend. Thank you. Would you be kind as to give me even just a sentence's worth of a review? I'd appreciate that a lot. Thank you!