Doctor took a very sharp stop after around ten minutes of driving.

He hit himself on the forehead and started berating himself, yelling on how he was slow – so very slow. Clara was already clutching her seatbelt before his outburst and she only held on tighter as she tried to make sense of what possibly could have happened for him to react like he did.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" she asked. She was gentle when she spoke in that same calm demeanour her mother took when she was a child. She even put a hand on his arm, his remarkably tense arm. Did he change his mind? Was something else more important for the day that he would have to just drop her off at university and he'd see her later that afternoon?

To say she wouldn't mind would be a lie – she'd been dreaming of Paris for her birthday for all of thirteen minutes, since he'd picked her up from her front porch. Anyone given hope and then have it taken away would make anyone dangerous. God knew what it would do to her.

"I think I may have made a bit of a tactical boo-boo," he confessed, looking bashful as he turned his head to look at her. And that look on his face worried her. Sure, it probably wasn't his fault to lead her on and let her down on fantasies of running away to Paris for a day. Still – hope was a terrible thing to lose, especially after just so briefly getting a taste of it. "More of a semantics mix-up, really."

"What boo-boo?" she asked, holding her breath before he answered what could possibly make her never want to go back to that café ever again.

"I'm about to get our schedules very, very wrong." She gulped at that, and tilted her head, urging him to go on. "We're going to have to go back to your house and oh, blimey, that's going take out at least half an hour from the day and-"

"Doctor?" she said, pulling on the sleeve of his shirt. "What's happening? What's wrong?"

"I forgot to get you your passport. We're going to have to go back-"

Before he even turned the wheel to make a U-turn, Clara giggled once. She tried to stop herself from giggling again but it broke free again. All until she could not contain herself and she kept laughing and laughing until it looked like it hurt. Even he, with all his concern, started to smile. "Ey?"

Clara dug into her satchel and pulled out her passport from inside. "Dad's always been a nutter about the government, always convinced there's going to be a coup one of these days against the Queen and we'd have to fly as fast as we can to the Canary Islands or something," she said – all while giggling in between her words. She reached into her satchel and showed him her passport. "Never leave home without it."

Doctor pointed a finger and smiled a big gappy smile at her. "Well then, Clara Oswald," he said as he snapped both his fingers then clutched the steering wheel. The spark in his eyes was back and it was contagious – she could feel the heat from them run through her fingertips, rushing through her like millions and billions of supernovas happening all at once. It was a feeling that could only be described in one word – in a word that was so quaint, so brilliant, and so very, very him.

"Geronimo."

X X X

It took them a little more than two hours to get to Dover.

That baffled her, as it would usually have taken her dad at least four hours to get to Dover, maybe five if the traffic was bad and he'd need a bit of a break to go the loo. But with the Doctor, he'd known every stop sign and every roadblock – he got to traffic lights just a second before the light turned red.

It was around ten in the morning when they got to the Eurostar and it should only take them around half an hour to get to Calais.

She hadn't even noticed when they reached the station. They were too busy bickering and laughing over the radio and what song should be playing. He had teased her on how she should be embarrassed about her "really bad taste in music". She had hid her face with her hands then, laughing and hitting at his arm while he drove like a maniac. But the TARDIS drove like a dream and she barely felt it stop. She even chastised him for that for wasn't the TARDIS supposed to be rocking about and shaking; and to that he straightened his bowtie with one had and said: "The stabilisers are on."

And she would have gone on to tease him some more about his car when Bohemian Rhapsody started playing and he started singing along with it – screaming "Galileo!" and all, leaving the both of them to a fit of laughter when the song ended.

The whole ride had felt so normal – just a normal drive by with one of her mates to the city or something. She was half expecting that they were going to stop somewhere for fish and chips and then get back to class.

He had had everything cleared out – even the train cart that would take the TARDIS on the train and on to France. She had never stayed quiet with him for such an extended period that he had to notice at one point or another. It was when they were already under the channel, buzzing by while the electric lights looked like a million shooting stars coming down all at once while she felt as though a million and one dreams were coming true as every second passed.

"Look at you, ey?" he said, breaking her from her trance as she watched the lights go by. "Look as if you've never been under the channel before."

"I haven't," she confessed. Even in the dim light of that train car, she could see that he was surprised. Why shouldn't he? People cross the channel all the time – it wasn't that big of a deal. And for a girl who talked about traveling and adventures all the time, it would be surprising that she'd never been anywhere outside the United Kingdom.

"Why not?"

"Never got around to it," she started. "Mum always went on about backpacking through Europe after I finished my GCSEs. We planned it. I would take a year off school and we'd just go mad and travel for a bit. But then my mum, she… When my mum got sick- I was thirteen and we barely left Lancashire. We used all the money we had on her medicine until she- until I was sixteen. Closest I've ever been to a proper holiday was when I worked for my granddad's stall at the Blackpool promenade. I'd be one of those people who'd just get snubbed – trying to get you to play his daft old game of tossing rings on glass bottles. Dad promised we'd go on a proper holiday after my A-levels but we never did that either."

It was something she could always have done but never did. There was always something to do, someone else to stay for. There would be a paper that would need a bit of extra research. Artie would need someone to watch him in the afternoon since Angie would be having a day off. Her mates had tried getting her on a weekend off to Venice but she'd said no because Angie needed help with a bake sale. Even her dad didn't understand why she had said no all those times. Truth be told, neither did she.

It just felt too much like a promise was getting broken – like she'd finally left her mum behind if she was to go to places she'd never been to before, without her mum holding her hand. And if she would ever get lost – who would ever look for her again?

"Always talked about it. Always dreamt of it but-"

She stopped talking when she felt his hand take hers. She looked at his hand in hers and she intertwined their fingers together. Her gaze travelled slowly to his face, to see that his green eyes were shining. He had a tight smile on his face and she returned it with a grin of her own.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You're very welcome."

X X X

In half an hour, they made it to Calais. After a little more than two hours, they were in Paris.

It was already one in the afternoon when they made it there and Clara had fallen asleep somewhere along the first hour of the journey. But she'd fallen asleep still holding his hand while in that tunnel, as they never let go from that first time. He'd had to let go to actually drive.

She fell asleep on him – literally on his arm – and it was the first thing he woke up to, seeing her there next to him. She had her new camera at hand and he thought that maybe she took another photo of him while he had been sleeping. If he had been sleeping – he didn't even realise he had fallen asleep. But in a tunnel with barely any light – he didn't know how that photo was going to end up. Still, the photo of her sleeping next to him was a painting no light could ever dissolve back into a negative.

When they arrived in Paris at one in the afternoon, he barely found the strength to wake her. But they only had so much daylight to waste and so much of this city for her to see.

"Hey," he whispered, tugging on her arm, trying to wake her. "Hey, stranger." He held her hand, intertwined his fingers with hers. "We're here."

Her eyes were drowsy, fluttering open. The afternoon sunlight made her brown eyes look like amber – if Heaven were real then her eyes were the colour of early sunrise on God's own paradise. It took her a moment to remember where she was – where he had taken her and why she had woken up next to him in the first place. And he would have her sleep next to him everyday for the rest of his natural life if it meant waking up to those sunrise coloured eyes.

X X X

The postcards didn't lie.

She had seen postcards from London and how everything looked when the photos were post-processed to perfection. Unless you actually lived there, almost nothing looked like the photos. It was just a country and everything was grey – sometimes, even the complexion of the people matched the concrete.

But everything about Paris and waking up in Paris was beyond any novel could write about, any tourist could describe, and any photo could capture. Clara laughed in small gasps as she looked outside. She didn't even notice that he had let go of her hand and gotten out of the car to open her side of the door. He offered her his hand and she took it with one, her other hand holding on to her new camera for dear life.

One step out the TARDIS and it was a different ground on her feet, different wind on her face. French ground, French wind. And she couldn't stop grinning, couldn't stop smiling.

Doctor closed the door and locked it with a click of his key. He grabbed her hand and they ran across the streets of Paris. She attached Paris to the end of every sentence. The tourists in Paris, the people living in Paris, the laundry they did in Paris, the traffic and parking in Paris, the people talking in Paris – it was all so very… Paris.

The cobblestone streets were dusky and dirty but it was dusky and dirty in Paris. The buildings and shops were worn and brown and felt warm. It was different kind of busy there than it was in London or anywhere that she had ever been. Colours abounded everywhere – it was a conglomeration of emotions. And for once in her life, she wasn't afraid of getting lost. She wanted to get lost in this city – lose herself completely to risk, to adventure, to the kind of life she's always dreamed of. And Clara Oswald was terrified but more eager than she thought she would be.

It was not was she dreamed of when she first woke up that morning but now that she was here, she did not know how she could have dreamt of anything else.

Clara ended up pulling his hand along the way and eventually, she let go and just stood on the spot. She spun, her head high, looking atop the highest ceilings, and never imagining how anyone could live here and get used to it. Doctor just looked at her from a distance, his hands in his pockets, grinning.

"Take it you like the place?" he asked. She stopped and her lips quirked to a smirk. She then ran up to him and hugged him. "Ey!" he had said before he knew what was happening. But when she embraced him, he held her right back. "Oh, okay! So we're doing hugging, I get that now!"

Clara couldn't stop laughing and even kissed him on the cheek when she finally let go of him. He jumped back in surprise after that – his expression mixing in between astonishment and utter bliss. And she smiled at him like he'd given her the world and all she had to do was smile at him like that and ask and he would give it to her.

"So," she started breathlessly. "What do we do first?"

"Eat!" he said, rubbing his hands together. "I don't know about you but I'm famished. And besides," he took her hand and led her. "I think it's about time you'd had a proper soufflé. And where's a better place than Paris? Ey?"

Clara could only nod and go along with him. Doctor took them to a café with an apartment on top. He had sworn they had the best soufflés in all of Paris – and, by extension – all the world. Well… at least all parts of the world he's ever seen and been in. They ordered tea and a proper soufflé in that café, Clara always looking at every customer that went in through the doors and watching the way they walked and moved and breathed and sat.

Clara could barely sit down on her seat, feeling as if she were ten again and all the pent up excitement of dreaming had led her to his café in this country she never really thought she could just simply go to. Doctor barely said a word and he just watched her practically bounce on her seat. He'd never seen her so bright and she was practically glowing. She was absolutely refulgent.

The soufflé came and after her first bite of it, she wanted to cry. The warmth that filled her reminded her of those Wednesdays she'd had with him and this Wednesday that he gave her. The flavour showed her memories of her mum – Ellie's hair all tied up and trying to teach her how to cook and how Clara would always try and lick the batter or the dough when she hadn't been looking. It took her to a time she knew before and a time she didn't even know she could have.

Clara could barely believe that the day hadn't ended yet and he just sat there, barely touching anything. He was just there, smiling at her with glistering green eyes – the kind of green the grass on the other side could only dream of being.

"What?" she asked, still savouring the Parisian soufflé she has having. "Why're you looking at me like that?"

"Looking at you like what?" They paused for a minute, just looking at each other, challenging the other to flinch first. Clara gave in and just took in another bite. "Nothing," she said, to which he replied with a smug smile of his own.

"So…" he started, after they finished the rather large soufflé. "Where do you want to go, ey? What do you want to see?"

Her pupils dilated again and he didn't think he could ever get used to that. If he had a choice, he never wanted to get used to it. She smiled and her mouth opened to answer but she could not get the words out, her thoughts were in disarray with the infinity of possibilities he was offering. "I dunno," she replied. Doctor made a face at that. "D'you know when somebody asks you what's your favourite book and straightaway you forget every book you've ever read?"

"No, totally not."

"Well it's a thing… that… happens."

"And? Back to the question," he prodded.

"Okay," she replied, drawing deep breaths, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to think and assemble the chaos in her head. "So… so… So! So… I'd like to see, I would like to see, what I would like to see is…" she murmured as she thought. Then her eyebrows raised and her grin returned. She looked him straightaway and her excitement was contagious. He held his breathe as he awaited her answer.

"Something awesome," she answered.

He snapped his fingers and pointed upwards. He left a few bills underneath the plate, gestured to the maître d' about his payment, and took Clara's hand. "Righty-o, then!" he said. "As a good man once said…"

"Allons-y!"

X X X

It was a day made of photographs.

It was a frame after frame after frame and Clara had felt dizzy by the end of it. She'd taken so many photos, wanting to capture and remember every little detail of what this was for her. It was all a blur, in retrospect, but she was walking in slow motion and she could remember every single bit of it. But she couldn't capture emotion on film – not really and she'd wanted to store these feelings in a bottle or keep this sunshine in her pocket and save it for a rainy day.

They had rented out white bicycles and rode along the streets. Doctor kept showing off tricks and stunts and it served him right to have fallen off once or twice or five times. But he always got back up with a smile on his face, claiming he had meant to do that for her entertainment.

There were the children at the base of the Eiffel Tower and they had been blowing bubbles and Doctor just had to dance around with them, arms raised up and waving left to right and he looked like some bizarre drunk giraffe. And of course, she joined in with him and played with those children.

At one point, the both of them got a little bit lost within the avenues and buildings that all started to look suspiciously familiar – or was it? There was too much life in Paris, too much of it to absorb that their senses started to mix up the difference between seeing, remembering, and dreaming. And the both of them were doing all those things, all at the same time. She didn't want to go inside, for the most part. She wanted to run around the streets and see everything there was to see – even the things that weren't normally noticed. She wanted to notice everything – she wanted to get to know every brick, every granule of concrete in this new city in this part of the world she'd never known before.

And Clara had never run so much in her entire life – never had she had so much air to breathe.

At the very end of the day – after all the food, the clothes, and all the running, he took her to the very top of the Eiffel Tower. The view was not what she was expecting for she'd been on heights before and a skyline was a skyline. But this was a city that was not her own and as she looked down from that height, all she could think about was that she had been there. She was on that street and she had stood there. And she had run.

She looked to her side then and saw that he was still looking at her. He was always doing that – no matter where they went, he wouldn't be looking anywhere else but at her. It would have been the best place – right there, on top of that tower, to kiss him. It would have been so easy – it would have been so good. She's wanted to all day. She's wanted to after the first month of knowing him.

But she didn't. And neither did he.

Instead, she looked up at him with bright shining eyes that threatened tears. She could not speak. She could not bring herself to move anything else but just look up into those eyes of his and she didn't know how to tell him she was grateful. When she looked up at him atop that tower, he remained speechless, waiting for her to say something but she never did. When a tear fell, he touched her face and brushed at her cheek with his thumb. She clutched that hand with hers and she wept.

She jumped up at him and held onto him so tightly that she feared she might no longer know how to let go. If she ever let go of him, she felt as if she might fall from grace and gravity. But she was already falling – a different kind of falling all the same. And they were falling together. Perhaps they had already fallen – but to say that they fell would be to say they were not willing. And they were more than willing - they jumped off that cliff together, holding hands all the way.

"We should probably go," he whispered to her. "Your dad's still waiting for that phone call, you know."

Clara jumped back and laughed. She wiped the tears on her face and nodded. He held her free hand as she called her dad, and she was still crying with a smile that could not leave her lips. When the phone call ended, she tugged at his hand and made him look down at her.

"I don't want to go," she told him. "Can we stay? Just for the night?" Doctor smiled and nodded once. He kissed the top of her head and led the way.

It took a while for them to get back to his car and he drove to the flat he owned in Paris. Of course he would have a flat in Paris – but it was barely furnished. He told her that he travelled a lot – so much and so often that his parents had gotten him units and flats in nearly every major city in every country in the world so he'd always know where to go home, wherever he was.

There was only one bed in the bedroom – a large circular bed that had TARDIS blue sheets with golden print pattern in Circular Gallifreyan. He offered to sleep in the sofa, fumbled and blushed as he said it. Clara smirked, raised an eyebrow, and coyly suggested that it was certainly big enough for two and she wouldn't take up too much room. Doctor swallowed at that, stuttered as he said his approval – or was it consent? – to sleep in the same bed as her. And he was decided on that – just sleep in the same bed as her and wake up next to the double sunrise that was her eyes.

When he dressed for bed – he was in a large shirt and a pair of shorts. He raised the blinds that allowed for his tinted glass windows to show the picturesque view that was Paris, France. He lay down on the bed and looked out that same window. But that view was nothing compared to the view of Clara Oswald in one of his shirts that was much too big for her with nothing but her pants underneath.

She used his arm as a pillow, unapologetically curling up next to him. He was fidgeting when she did but she only laughed and booped his nose with a finger. He calmed down some and used the same arm she was resting on to hold her closer. They were facing each other, neither of them talking for the longest time after the day they've had together.

"Did you have fun today?" he asked in a low whisper. Their faces were close to each other, him still looking down and her up at him, their noses almost touching.

"Really, Doctor?" she replied. "You really have to ask?"

Doctor chuckled at that and grinned when he saw the dimple on her cheek that he loved to see when she smiled.

"Why'd you run so much?" she asked, her hand grazing his chest slowly as she pulled herself closer to him. "You have everything. Why would you run?"

"I don't need everything, Clara," he answered, her name rolling off his tongue and his voice still low. "I've never needed everything. But from the moment I was born, I've been left behind. My mum and dad have always been on business or working and the only time I would have with them is when the show was on. Then there was Amy and Rory and River. And then I only had the show and even that left me."

"I'm running until I can't run anymore because I don't know where to stop," he added. "I've always been lost. No one could find me."

"Well call me the girl who can," she replied.

"Yes you can, you beauty. I'm impossible to find but you did it. You found me because it's impossible and you're my impossible girl. And now I don't think I have to run anymore."

She closed the space between them with a kiss – their first kiss – and it was slow and worth waiting for. All the while, the lullaby of Paris sung them to sleep.

X X X

A/N: I have never been out of the Philippines so I beg for your forgiveness for every inaccuracy on this chapter. Everything I wrote about up there is from what I think Paris is like based on dreams, books, films, telly, photos, et cetera. I think I managed to calculate the times right but either way, time – from a non-linear, non-subjective view point is more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Forgive me?

I've already got the epilogue written up as I wrote that first before this and I'm going to apologise for it right now. I wrote it before I heard of Matt's impending departure and now I hate myself for the epilogue of this fic. Yes, I am completely devastated with Matt's goodbye as it feels like I lost a best friend but I'm excited for his future projects all the same and I'm excited to know a new Doctor, all while grieving for My Doctor. Eleven was my Doctor and so I'm just really, really, really, really, agonizingly sad.

Anyway, I really hope this chapter wasn't too bad. I'm really bad with date fics because I've never been on a date so… I don't know these things. I live through fiction. Sigh. I know, I know. I hope you're all still enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it! I love this AU and I'm sad to almost see it go but I've got to get as much Eleven/Clara out there as possible.

I'd like to thank thefandomobsessedgirl, sousouffle, spacegandalfr, candiceaccohla, dreamsofawordsmith, emptycoffins (hi esme!), runyoucleverboyandfreesyria, and nessy3599 for their help with this fic! Especially Esme and spacegandalfr who helped me in such detail that I can't thank them enough.

Reviews would be much appreciated and long ones that have a lot of feelings/constructive criticism are my favourites and encourage me to write more. Wow, my author's notes are getting progressively longer. Sheesh, Jonnah. Thank you for reading! Epilogue's coming right up next – maybe in a day or two.

xx, Jonnah.