"You've never had to look at me like that" she blurted, unable to keep the feeling from passing her lips.
"What?" he uttered, turning from the console to face her, one stark eyebrow cocked in surprise.
"You, and me." He was daft, he was the smartest person in the room but he was so, so daft.
"Yes," he said, in that way he had of sounding both patient and exasperated at the same time. Scottish.
"Sometimes, when we're in the middle of things, when we're doing the things that we do...you look at me like..." she trailed off for a second.
"Like?" he prompted, eyebrows stretching to his mop of silver hair. Daring her to say it, like he didn't know. Maybe he didn't. He was daft.
"Like I'm the most important thing in the universe."
Her lungs paused. Her fingers did not tremble. He remained motionless. Time seemed to bend to the will of the moment's tension. This was it, the breakdown in the system, the decay in the assumed way of things. Call it stars or fate, she had just questioned the one loose thread holding her world together.
He inhaled suddenly, snapping reality back into motion.
"Yeah."
"Yeah?"
He tilted his head, looking almost a bit annoyed.
"Clara, you know I'm not good with this whole..'feelings' thing," he gestured, almost pleadingly. She simply blinked. With a sigh, his hands raked through his already unruly curls. He looked at her sharply.
"Do you know what's universal? What you will find in any intelligent species, in any civilization, in any time?"
She cocked her head. "Language?" she offered.
He gave a small smile. "Love. You'll always find love. Whatever time you choose, wherever you find yourself, there are always families, and friends, and couples and crushes and pets and strangers and neighbors. All of them so unaware just how very steeped they are in the most precious thing in the universe, whilst they fiddle and obsess about the state of their politics and money. Not even realizing the perfect miracle, the blessing they have in other people."
She thought of her Gran, of her students, of Danny. Sometimes they seemed so small compared to her life with him. Sometimes it all seemed too cumbersome for her to love anyone properly anymore. After all, she too was just a tiny human, incapable of so much.
He continued, as if reading her mind.
"That anxiety over your own mortality, that fear that it's all pointless, that the universe is somehow supposed to give a damn and doesn't. That's imagining your life without love. That's picturing yourself without a place where you matter, where you find purpose. That's your soul without a home. And that love you have in others, that's your home. You can never be lost, you can never be lonely, because you're always carrying that home inside you."
She smiled slowly, understanding. She should have known. It was a vital truth, one only he could know so intimately. He returned her smile before turning away.
"That home is the most important thing in the Universe," he threw over his shoulder as he strode toward the stairs.
Then he paused, slowly turning to meet her eyes.
"And you're mine."
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