"Everything you are about to say, I already know. Don't do it now. We've already had enough bad timing."
Clara hugged the Doctor tightly, feeling his two hearts beat against her own chest, sensing his misery by the desperate way his head slumped against her shoulder. Her Gran had always told her to never get a tattoo. She should have listened. She could almost feel it, burning through her neck, counting down the minutes until she had to face The Raven. Of all the ways to go. Killed by a bloody bird.
Yeah, they'd had bad timing, all right. Understatement of the year, really. So many opportunities where they'd come so close to talking. Properly talking, about what they were really thinking.
The Doctor pressed his cheek against Clara's hair, tamping down the rage and sorrow within him. The metal teleport bracelet cut painfully into his arm. He wished he could rip it off – the bracelet, not his arm – and wrap it around Mayor Me's neck.
She knew what he'd been about to say. Good. One saving grace. But he should have said it before. Let her hear the words. Now she was being torn from him, forever, and the chance would never come again. Stupid, stupid, Doctor.
The Raven cawed, and in the split second before they jumped apart, both of them thought of the times when they had nearly said what they felt…
