I'll be the judge of time.
A projection of clouds of violet and blue hung above them. When Clara squinted hard enough, she could see faint white dots that one could easily draw connections to. There were twelve of them to connect
"It's the Esox constellation," he told her. "The people on their planet believed that it was an image of their goddess."
"Their goddess is a stargazer lily?" she asked.
"Yes, but it's not called that in their language."
"Oh," said Clara. She wasn't sure what else to say. After he'd left her alone in the console room, she'd been lost for words. They always seemed to be at a loss for what to say to one another after near-death situations. That was their thing, she supposed.
She had found him laying down in their bed, the projection of a constellations above him. She had joined him, resting her head on his chest. She pushed herself up from it to look at him. He didn't avoid her eyes as he did in the console room. He let her see just how much pain it brought him for them to be apart, to hear that she was dead. She could swear that his eyes were glassy, but it was hard to tell under such dim lights.
Tears threatened to emerge from her own eyes. She could remember wanting nothing more but to go to him the moment she spotted him in the Black Archive. The air restricted from her lungs as the Zygons held her back. Absentmindedly, she traced her finger up and down his chest.
"What you did today was brave," she said.
"Brave? I was just doing my job," he said, furrowing his eyebrows.
"Baring your soul like that isn't your job," she said.
She was right, like always.
"I can't promise you that I will be here forever," she said. "But I promise that you will never hear any more screams as long as I'm alive."
"What I would give to spend forever with you," he said. "Clara Oswald." He gently pushed back a strand of hair from her face that had fallen.
"I blew into this world and I'll blow out of it," she said.
"Just like smoke," he whispered.
"We'll just have to see, won't we?" she said.
He picked up his sonic sunglasses from the bedside table and put them on. The clouds faded away and the stars moved as it buzzed. They burned brighter than the previous ones, though they were smaller. She took notice that they started to form a face. It wasn't until the buzzing stopped that a gasp left her lips. It wasn't just any face. It was her face.
"Doc-"
"I couldn't wait until our anniversary to show you," he said.
She couldn't put into words what it meant to have her face imprinted into the sky. To fathom the fact that she was in the sky. The wonder of others staring up at it filled her mind. The stars that formed out of the constellation had to have been ancient. More ancient than the Doctor himself. She let her gaze fall back into his eyes.
"Where is it?" she asked.
"Near Kasterborous."
"But how?"
He let out a soft chuckle and pulled her closer to him to whisper in her ear.
"That, my dear," he said. "Is a secret."
She lightly punched his chest, then snuggled deeper into it.
Gotcha.
