Some tea and breakfast later - Clara had pointedly refused to share her cake - the Doctor felt himself beginning to doze again. He didn't normally need much sleep, but then he didn't normally die a few hundred times in one day, so he figured he was entitled.
"Doctor?" Clara asked, in a tone that warned the Doctor that he'd be postponing his nap.
"Yes, Clara?"
"That other man that we saw in your time stream…"
The Doctor sighed heavily. "Clara, that man is a part of my life that's dead and gone. Can we just leave it at that?"
She pushed away from him and sat up straight. "After today, do you really think you can still have secrets from me?"
"Some secrets keep us safe."
"This is what Emma warned me about, isn't it?"
"Clara, I truly have no idea what you're talking about."
"You," Clara said, tears beginning to trickle from her eyes. "She said…she said it was good that we weren't…together. She said I shouldn't trust you…that there was a sliver of ice in your heart. That other man, the one you said was you, but wasn't the Doctor - that's what she meant, isn't it? Isn't it?"
The Doctor reached out and gently laid his hand on her back. Clara flinched violently away from his touch. He let his hand drop back to his side.
"Clara…I don't think there are any two people in the universe who are more 'together' than we are right now. And if you didn't trust me, I wouldn't have been able to save you today."
"Then why don't you trust me?"
"That man that you saw is the reason why I don't have a home or a family anymore. And he is me! Can you even begin to comprehend what it feels like to carry that around inside you?"
"No," Clara whispered. "But I risked everything for you, more times than I can count. Why can't you meet me halfway?"
"Clara…he is the part of me that thought that wiping two races from the face of the universe to end a war was…acceptable."
Clara shivered, and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to reconcile the idea of a man who could do such a thing with the madcap, overgrown boy who'd asked her to travel with him. The man who'd faced down a god to save a little girl. "Was there another way?"
"I don't know. It didn't seem like it at the time. I was so alone…so lost…and I couldn't see any other way out…" His voice choked off into harsh sobs, and the sound broke her heart.
She moved back to him, cradling his face in her hands. "Doctor, you're not alone anymore. And if you get lost again, I'll find you. I'll always find you." Impulsively, she leaned in and brushed her lips against his. She pulled away slightly, and looked up at him expectantly.
"Clara Oswald," he said fondly, "My Clara. I think we'd find each other. We seem to be making rather a habit of that lately."
"And by 'lately' you mean over a thousand years."
"Miss Oswald, you are remarkably well preserved for a thousand year old human," the Doctor teased.
Clara smacked him lightly on the arm. "Hey! How'd you stay alive for so long without learning that you do not tease a woman about her age?"
He chuckled softly, and pulled her in close to him. "I'll have to try and remember that."
"See that you do, mister."
"So…when you've had a bit more rest, and that ankle of your has had a chance to heal, where would you like to go?"
Clara's voice was slurred as she slipped back towards sleep, a combination of pain, and emotion, and sheer exhaustion. "Part of me just wants to go home and hug Angie and Artie for about a week."
"I understand," the Doctor said carefully.
"But another part of me is scared to death to let you out of my sight. Just…just take me someplace wonderful."
"Right. Someplace wonderful. I think I can manage that."
It wasn't what he wanted to say. He wanted to say 'Stay with me always,' but he didn't, not yet, maybe never, because her always would never be as long as his, and even though there were more Claras out there, more echoes, they weren't this Clara, his Clara. The incredible, impossible woman who'd saved him all those times was curled into his side drowsing, and for one of the very few moments in his life, he was content not to run, just to simply…be.