He is quite sure that those words never left his lips. But of course, he'd rather lie and save her feelings than the alternative.

Then again, Clara has no reason to lie, especially that way. Perhaps he did say it once, when in a flash of a moment one of his last remaining memories had bubbled to the surface.

He has been training himself. Not just to behave as he thinks she wants him to behave, but to feel what she wants him to be feeling, too.

Guilt does that. If she knew what his thoughts truly were, corrupted with uncertainty and foggy memories that he'd tricked her into believing were clear, he would never see her again.

He doesn't want that. Her presence does things to him which he hadn't previously known he was capable of experiencing. He cares for her deeply, and truly believes he loves her in his own way despite the fact that he has to keep revising from her diary and re-learning the features of her face when time like poison eats away at yet more memories.

He isn't sure more than any other time than when she looks at him; he never was. Those eyes had always caused such uncertainty; he believed, still believes, he will never have eyes that burn with sheer adoration like that.

Still, it's hardly as if he gives her nothing. He makes sure he treats her right, because he knows what her whole life has been and he knows that it is something she never had. More, he knows that it was because of him. And it is in his nature, remaining despite the really rather drastic changes that regeneration has brought about, to correct his mistakes. Whether it is out of love for her or to ease his own guilt, he doesn't know and doesn't dare ask himself.

And the nights, oh, the nights. He never wants them to end.

She'd been right, on all the times she had tried to coax him into it when he was younger; it was underrated. Not just the seeing-stars exhilaration but the comfort, the healing, the ability to forget all other matter in the entirety of the Cosmos for a few heady minutes.

But it is more than that. She'd always considered him as a bit of a prude, but at the end of the day he's a very old man in a comparatively young body, and though he rarely shows it he knows exactly how to please; so he proves her considerations wrong and then some.

He shows her because he feels he has to. Because he owes it, because he has a thousand years of letting himself forget her to make up for, because it is the closest to her he can get and when they are sharing skin and hot laboured breath he does not feel like she is slipping irretrievably through his fingers.

She does nothing to instigate that feeling, so it is not her fault. He would assure her of that, had he not ensured that she was blissfully unaware of the feeling in the first place. In fact, there is not really anything short of perfection in the time they stay still, so in due course it occurs to him that perhaps he is simply paranoid. He has every right to be, damn it, after all that has happened in his curse of a life.

There was a time, an eternity ago for him now when he would not have even considered touching her, particularly with this frame of mind which abandoned honourable intentions and ignored doubts. But now he is so far past being concerned about being a good man after so long questioning it that he doesn't care, and has a feeling that she doesn't either because neither of them ever speak.

It is strange how alike her he has realised he is. It comforts him, in a way, because it means that somewhere within himself he still remembers her, or at least that she was still with him when he changed.

He's aware, fully, of how contradictory he is. Sometimes he is so utterly in love with her that it physically hurts him. Sometimes, he can sit and watch her for hours on end, whisper to her and laugh at her jokes and it is like the old days only better. But there is always, always that sensation rattling around in his head, the niggling reminder that he did let himself forget her and all the love in the Cosmos will not change that, and perhaps it is telling him something. Perhaps he is wasting his time because likelihood is she will be taken from him just as he has re-carved her onto his mind. He stops thinking at this point before he snaps, drops her off somewhere and never goes back.

He keeps on going, days and nights and normality, telling himself that it is just that and it is not pretence.

He amazes himself with how skilled he has become at lying. He is no longer even honest with himself.

One year earlier

Back saving the world, only a matter of hours into regeneration. No rest for the wicked, as they say. He thinks they say that. Truth be told, he's spent so long in isolation that there is no longer a boundary between memory and fantasy.

At least he has people around him… people he knows, apparently, though they're only faintly recognisable to him like he saw them in a film as a child. They keep telling him he has amnesia- whatever that is, he's adamant that he does not have it, he is absolutely fine- and they're trying to look after him and he does not like it. He doesn't need looking after. He needs to run around and save things and see the Universe, in all its glittering glory. That's what he does. Isn't it?

The green scaly lady is saying something. He's just been telling her off for going to rescue her girl- Jenny, they call her. She could have died saving her. What a waste that would have been.

She seems shocked when he says that. What does she expect him to do, waste time caring about people when there are worlds to save? "Doctor, there was no alternative," she declares. He rolls his eyes at her sentimentality. "Surely you of all people must know the lengths one will go to in order to protect their spouse?"

"Why?" he snaps. "How would I possibly know about that?"

"Well, you were married in your previous incarnation," Vastra states, the words sending him into a spin.

He shakes his head impatiently, eyes blazing because why aren't they listening to him? Why are they treating him as if he's missing something? He is over two thousand years old. He does not miss things. "I don't what you're talking about. I was never married in my last body."

He sees something flash in the people surrounding him, as if a little light has just burned out, and wonders briefly what is wrong before deciding that he doesn't care.

Vastra's voice is serene, as if she's some sort of therapist. He doesn't understand; if anything they're the ridiculous ones, making up silly stories just to mess with his new head. "I'm afraid I beg to differ."

He sighs loudly. "I think I would remember being married, Vastra!"

They all stare at him as if he's gone utterly insane, as they have been for the majority of this day.

Clara is the one to step forwards, eyes wide and sad for a reason he doesn't yet know.

"Doctor…" she starts slowly. He watches her swallow a lump in her throat; she's almost crying and he frowns at her perplexedly until she utters a single word. "River."

Something pops inside him. He thinks it might be his soul detaching from the rest of him because it's given up, and his hand covers his mouth to stop it escaping. Clara's still looking at him; he assumes he isn't the only one severely judging himself at this moment in time.

He feels tears fill his eyes and blinks them away. There isn't time for this. "Ok… you may have been right about the amnesia."

He finds himself praying, praying, before he can stop himself, that it is merely a temporary side-effect of regeneration. That or he will not be able to live with himself.

"River… was that the one with the colossal head?"

"Shut up, Strax."

The Doctor's hand drops from his mouth to clasp with the other imploringly. "Please don't tell her about that. She'll kill me if she finds out."

Clara's eyes press themselves shut. Jenny is the one to speak; she sounds ridiculously gentle, and he wants to shout at her. He isn't a child. "Doctor… she died over a thousand years ago."

"Oh." He pauses for a moment, drawing his bottom lip between his new teeth and clamping down on it. "I knew that."

And he wishes his new body was born eradicated of feelings because he's feeling the unbearable pain for the first time all over again and it hurts more than anything he's ever known.

When he picks his new outfit he makes sure there is a ring put onto his finger because he needs to remember that married is something that he used to be.

He'll never tell a soul.