"Mish!" John hollered up the stairwell to his son's room. "Mish, get up, it's time for school!" When there was no reply, he walked halfway up the stairs and yelled, "You can't just expect Uncle Mycroft's car to take you every time you miss the bus! Show some initiative!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes over his morning cup of tea and scanned the newspaper for interesting leads. "Triple homicide in Sussex, John. Expect a call from Lestrade in an hour."

John sighed. "We should probably get around to retiring at some point."

"Are you serious?"

"Not in the least. Tea?" asked John suspiciously when Sherlock handed him a cup. "I always make tea in the mornings."

"I expected you'd need it," Sherlock said. "I'm no professional consulting detective—oh, wait, I am—but I'd deduced that in about seven seconds you're going to blow your top off."

"And why would I do that?"

"Six…five…four…"

"Oh, bugger off," harrumphed John. "One of these days, I'm going to move to a hobbit hole with Hamish, and you'll never annoy me again."

"Three…two…"

"Hamish. Where's Hamish?" John scanned the room and noticed for the first time that morning that the TARDIS that had previously been parked in their flat the night before had gone missing.

"One…"

"HAMISH!" John shouted, running back through the living room and up the stairs and Sherlock chuckled to himself. He threw the bedroom door open to find the sheets upturned, some posters missing from the walls, and absolutely no Hamish Watson-Holmes to be found. "Sherlock, call Lestrade!"

"Oh, sit down and drink your tea, will you? You've been married to a detective for two decades—figure out where he went!" Sherlock called after him. "What kidnapper would take Hamish's posters with him?"

"You don't mean to say," John thundered, charging back down the stairs, "that our son went gallivanting all over the universe with Clara WITHOUT OUR PERMISSION?!"

"I'm afraid that's exactly what I mean to say, darling. Don't get your pants in a twist, John, she'll keep him safe. She's not exactly the hooligan her father was," Sherlock added under his breath, idly turning a newspaper page.

"That's besides the point! She's inexperienced, they're off on a dangerous mission, and he could be anywhere in the universe right now and he didn't even tell us where he was going and forgive me for thinking that we raised our son better than to leave clues behind!"

"Stop worrying so much—you know Hamish. He'll be back, humbled and contrite, by the end of the night in that damned blue box, all in one piece. Besides, we've found ourselves in a unique situation that we haven't been in since before Hamish came home for the first time," Sherlock said with a smirk.

John looked at him blankly. "What?"

"Well, with a negligible possibility that our son will walk in on us…"

"Sherlock!" John snapped. "Our son is missing. Let's focus."

Sherlock frowned. "Not good?"

"Bit not good, Sherlock. Shags are for fathers who actually care about their son's whereabouts."

"Oh, I know where he is. He sent me a text before he left. Sorry, should I have mentioned that earlier?"

"What?! Yes, you definitely should have mentioned that earlier! Why didn't you?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Bored."

John snatched the phone and looked at the text. " 'Gone with Clara, going to Russia in 2015. Tell Dad not to lose his pants. HWH. ' " He dropped the phone on the table and sat next to Sherlock. "I'm going to kill him."

"He's nearly 18, dear. Isn't it time he went on an adventure? You enlisted at his age."

"That is completely different."

"If anything, what you did was more dangerous."

"You're just saying that because you're the Fun Father who lets him blow up the bathroom and go with pretty girls into time machines. Why do I have to be Grumbly Dad who makes him do his homework and eat his vegetables?"

Sherlock shrugged. "If you had a problem with our parenting styles, you could have told me 18 years ago."

Before John could protest, a familiar vworp vworp vworp signaled the landing of the TARDIS back in its original spot, and he sprang out of his chair to pound on the door. "Hamish Watson-Holmes, if you don't come out of this time machine RIGHT NOW, I'm telling Clara that you wet the bed until you were 12—and—and—and you're grounded!"

The door opened to reveal a grinning Clara. "Oh, Junior, the things I have learned about you," she giggled. "Hi, John. I thought for sure I'd get us back to the night we left, but I got the hours wrong. You can blame me for that."

"Oh, I'm going to, little lady. What were you thinking, taking Hamish in the middle of the night? You didn't even ask us!" John whined.

"You would have said no."

"And you would have had to respect our wishes. Hamish is our son, Clara, and you can't just take him who knows where!"

"Well," Hamish said sheepishly, stepping out of the TARDIS with River behind him, "I'm actually a legal adult now, so I can go wherever I want. Hi, Dads!"

John's mouth opened and closed a few times, relieved to see his son safe and surprised to see Irene in his living room. Eventually he just closed his mouth and ran forward to enclose Hamish in a back-breaking hug. "You had me so worried, Mish!" he whispered. "Don't ever do that again. And we missed your birthday? How long were you gone?"

"Just two days. Amazing adventure, Dad—Russia, the Library, spacesuits, alien tech. It was brilliant. I missed you, though."

John leaned up on his toes to kiss Hamish on the head, meriting a blush from him. "I'm just glad you're back. And what are you going to say to your father?"

Hamish bit his lip. "Hi, Father. Sorry about that."

"As you well should be. I woke up this morning and had no one to confer over this crossword puzzle with," Sherlock said. He pushed a mug of tea over the table and beckoned him over. "Six-letter word for an Asian weapon. I was thinking 'katana,' but it doesn't work with the other words…"

"Did you try 'nodachi'?" Hamish grabbed Clara by the hand and took her to the table, and she immediately tried to protest.

"Maybe we should leave. Your dads probably want some time alone with you to celebrate your birthday."

"Nonsense!" John said. "I'll run to Tesco and pick up a birthday cake now, and we'll have it with breakfast." He nodded to Irene. "Wonderful to see you, Miss Adler. Though, if I do remember correctly, you were dispatched somewhere in the Middle East…"

River flashed him a winning smile. "Well, hello, sweetie. You certainly aged well, didn't you?"

"River?" John said after a double-take. "River, how can that be—what in the—Clara, you switched her into Irene Adler's body?"

"Can't say I don't appreciate it," Sherlock added.

"Sherlock, you fox." River sauntered over and slid into a chair next to Clara. "Do we have a story for you, old boy. Come on, then, it's the first time in forever that I've had real limbs—let's all run to Tesco and dear Mish can pick out his cake, and then we can eat. I'm absolutely starved, you know."

Sherlock got up and grabbed his coat and scarf and everyone followed him out of 221B. As the time traveling trio laughed and talked behind them, Sherlock slid his hand into John's and squeezed it. "He's home, darling. Loosen up. We're about to go on another adventure for the first time in ten years."

John squeezed back and smiled a little. "Yeah, all right. Looks like Clara and Mish are well tied up, doesn't it?"

"Of course they aren't. She's walking a yard ahead of him with River, clearly using her as an excuse to stay away from him, and her left hand has stayed in her coat pocket for the last two minutes—the same hand he grabbed in the kitchen. Either trying to forget that he held her hand or dissuade him from trying again, probably the former because when she looks at him she looks down at his lips for a millisecond before meeting his eyes again."

"Brilliant. What does that mean?"

"Oh, he kissed her, definitely. She's trying to stop his advances."

John looked a bit defensive. "And why? Hamish is an excellent bloke. Any girl or boy would be lucky to go out with him."

"Don't be absurd, John. They'll be a couple by the end of the day. Or maybe in five years. I'm working on several leads right now…"

"Moriarty," the Doctor said. "After the ashes, on the starship—you came here."

"Elementary, my dear Doctor. Sorry you didn't do a thorough job of killing me last time. Seems like you never do a bang-up job of that." Jim tossed some imaginary hair over his shoulder and fingered the obsidian on his crown. "Stylish, no?"

"You said you'd been expecting me."

"Of course. After that little time travel mishap you had, I knew there'd be a copy of you here."

"What are you talking about, a copy?" the Doctor asked. When Jim looked up and refused to respond, he tried to talk the way he used to, when there were monsters who needed extra convincing. "Come on, Jimmy. We're both as dead as you can get. There's no point in keeping things from me, and even if you try, I'll just search through the minds here until I figure it out."

"Oh, yeah, the mind thing. Annoying trifle," Jim complained. "This is Netherspace, the place where things go when they don't exist anymore. Example time: all those times you went back in time and changed your timeline, the version of you from the original ceased to exist, making a copy here. These copies wander all over Netherspace as the lovely shadows you see all over town. Once their owner dies, they gain consciousness here. So, in essence, love…" He slowly began to smile wickedly. "Welcome to hell."

"Does that make you the Devil?"

"Oh, you don't really believe in pesky human things like religion, do you?"

"As a matter of fact," the Doctor said, "I'm smart enough to believe in them. I've seen the Devil himself, actually, and I'd never confuse you two. The way I see it, with its dimensional constructs, this isn't an afterlife—it's a pocket universe."

Moriarty mock-clapped. "Do go on."

"Oh, I think I will. See, I'm actually really clever, Jim, so I'll explain it to you. Matter can't be created or destroyed, as you know, so the energy from those timelines manifested here, where I'm still alive and so are you. We can't properly die until this energy is destroyed, so this is a holding pen for our souls, for all the souls here."

"Oh, joy. I'll have to go out and die AGAIN. And I hated the last two times."

"That isn't likely, Jimbo. Mind if I call you Jimbo? I remember wanting to, back when I was all alive and things, but I hated you too much for what you'd done to give you a nickname then."

Jim rolled his eyes. "The point, Doctor."

"If this is a pocket universe for all the missing souls, it shouldn't look like hell, but it does. I also know that this world builds itself on the power of thoughts and perceptions. And guess what, Jimbo? I think it's safe to assume that this world isn't actually evil. In fact, it could be absolutely brilliant, a really wonderful place full of light and knowledge, and you could make anything in the universe appear simply by thinking it. You could access all the knowledge of the universe and explore dimensions unknown. So, the question is, why can't it be that way?" The Doctor stared squarely at Moriarty. "I think we both know why."

He faked a yawn. "Does it need explaining? Oh, fiiine. All these little minds were so boring, and mine is still so very, very big, so I've made Netherspace my dark little playground. It's not much, but it's home, and all that."

"All these people, all this potential, and you make them bow down to you and call you their Master," the Doctor said in disgust. "How do you do it, if they can read your mind and know you're just a man? How can your thoughts control the entire dimension?"

"The power of the mind, especially a brilliant one, is a magnificent thing," Moriarty snapped. "Enough talk. I'm tired and my brain hurts from how annoying you are. What happens now, dear?"

The Doctor was about to respond with a biting retort, but the words died in his throat. "I don't know," he said quietly. "I suppose I use my even cooler mind to fight yours and make this world better. It's what I usually do."

"Oh, that's adorable," Jim said. "Aren't you forgetting something, Doctor? I haven't, you know. I've been searching all the thoughts you have."

He blinked, trying to keep a good poker face. All of his memories…Moriarty had seen them all, now. Everyone could see them, from here. He suddenly felt very, very vulnerable, and very scared. "Lots of carnage, I suppose."

"And the secrets, Doctor. They're positively delicious. I had no idea you were capable of such evil, dear. I wish I'd gotten the chance to team up with you, love—but no, that's not what I was looking for. Actually, I was looking at the last few memories of yours. According to what I'm looking at, you went to Sherlock and Johnny-boy's wedding before popping off to Trenzalore…"

"What of it?"

"Something your precious, naughty River said to you. Something promising. Something I definitely wouldn't put past her." Jim tossed his scepter up in the air and caught it in the same fist. "Doctor, how would you like to make a deal?"

River groaned and put her hands on her belly. "I feel like I ate that entire cake. John, exactly how much did you let me eat?"

John glanced at the remaining crumbs and tried to remember. "I think about half. You've been sort of…dead. I figured you could do with some real food. Besides, it's not like Sherlock was going to eat it."

"I could have!" Sherlock protested.

"You didn't, darling, that's the point. Anyway, Mish, happy birthday," John repeated for the millionth time. "I don't suppose any gift we could get you would match getting your first real girlfriend for your birthday this year."

Clara blushed furiously. "You're really very kind, John, but I've said a million times—Junior and I are just friends."

Hamish gloomily looked at his empty plate and didn't respond.

"Of course," John amended. He cleared his throat and got up from the table. "We do have a present for you, of course. Your father argued against the car—"

"What?"

"Owning a car in London is illogical, Hamish. The cost of parking and gas alone exceeds cab fares and Tube rides, so you might as well just do as you always do," Sherlock said.

"I can't believe this," Hamish moaned into his hands. "My own father!"

"Stop your whining, ungrateful git!" Clara said playfully. "Come on, then, what'd you get him?"

"Well, if he'd just be patient," John replied, "he'd hear that Uncle Mycroft already bought him a bullet-proof sports car, though I don't know how or why that man did it, and he sends his love. We can expect it by Christmas."

Hamish turned to Clara and gave her a pleading look. "Clara, I'm begging you—TARDIS. Now. Christmas. Let's go."

"Don't even think about it," John warned him. "Your father and I wanted to get you some things you'd really use, so first of all, open this one." He handed Hamish a small parcel wrapped in bright blue paper. "Your Aunt Molly wrapped it for us, since we're so hopeless."

Hamish smiled and opened it tentatively, revealing an old velvet box. After a few moments of trouble with the latch, he opened the box and stared at the beautiful silver watch inside. "Dad…Father…this is brilliant. It's all old-fashioned and stuff!"

Sherlock sniffed at the less-than-erudite description but was pleased that Hamish seemed to genuinely like it. With Clara's help, Hamish put it on while Sherlock explained, "It was my grandfather's, and my father's, and Mycroft even had it for about five years before I nicked it. I wore it around when you were just a tyke, but your dad and I decided we wanted to pass it down to you when you went off to uni, so I put it in safe-keeping before you could recognize it. By the way, the safe now holds your inheritance money, which we've bee scrapping together for the last decade. Try not to spend it all in one place on the off-chance that your old dad and I decide to pop off one day."

Hamish admired the handsome watch on his right wrist. "It's perfect. I absolutely love it, thank you!"

"It'll be helpful on any time-travel missions you find yourself on," John said slyly. "That way, you'll know what time it is back home, with us."
"Does that mean…you're letting me go with Clara? I mean, if she wants me to go with her?"

"It's not like there's any way we can stop you."

He grinned widely and threw his arms around John and then Sherlock. "You're the best parents in the world, you know that? All right, Clara, what do you say? Can I travel with you?"

Clara laughed and nodded her head. "I couldn't ask for a better first mate, Junior. Welcome aboard."

Hamish pumped his fist into the air in triumph while Sherlock reached into his pocket and got out a thick, official-looking envelope. "Present part two, dear—and we had to pull quite a few strings to get this so early."

He took it confusedly and his eyes widened in terror when he saw the sender's address. "Oxford. Is this…?"

"Your decision letter. They usually don't release them until spring, but they owed us a favor, so here's your early decision. Go on," Sherlock said with a smile, "open it."

Hamish noticed that his hands were shaking. "Father, I don't think I can. This is Oxford we're talking about. I—I just applied on a whim, really. There's no way I could ever get in."

Clara stood up and took his hand. "You can do it, Mish. Open it up, let's see."

He really wasn't sure he could do it, with an entire new future in his hands, but Clara took the envelope from him and started ripping a corner. "Oi! Together, all right?" They each took one end and carefully pulled the letter out of the envelope. " 'Dear Mr. Watson-Holmes,' " he read, " 'We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to University of Oxford's Fall Semester, 2032'—I think I'm going to faint."

"He got in! He got in, he got in, he got in!" Clara sang, jumping up and down. "I knew it!"
"I didn't!" Hamish looked with sunken eyes at Sherlock. "What if the letter had said no? This would have been a really bad birthday."

"I had a hunch. Trust me, I'm a detective."

"I'm not even the top of my class," Hamish argued.

"True," Sherlock said, "but you're also a brilliant chemist who's won several national competitions, and your entrance essay was spectacular. Don't be so hard on yourself, Mish, just celebrate."

A slow smile crept onto Hamish's face. " I got in," he breathed. "I can't believe it. I got in! But what about traveling with Clara?"

"You'll have all summer for that," John said encouragingly. "As long as she drops you off in time."

"Brilliant," Hamish replied. "All right, Dad, Father, Clara, and River—I have a birthday request, if I may."

"The answer's no," River sighed. "Sorry, love, but I'm too old for you. Lyra isn't, though."

"MUM!"

"No, thank you, River," Hamish said. "For my birthday, I would really like…to save the Doctor today. If that's all right with you."

John and Sherlock froze, with Sherlock looking a bit more intrigued than his better half. River and Clara looked hopeful but bit their lips, trying not to encourage anything.

"Clara really needs your help, Dads, and what's more, from what I've heard and what I remember, the Doctor really needs your help, too. Clara's told me the basic gist of the plan, and since you have versions of yourselves in Netherspace, you can go there with her and retrieve him. She already has the machinery, River has the directions and can drive the TARDIS while you go, and I can stay with you until you come back from Netherspace. I'll be your techie," he said proudly. "The whole operation won't take long. What do you say? One more rescue mission, old gents?"

John looked like he was about to say no, but when he caught view of Sherlock's face, he sighed in defeat. "Of course we'll go."

Sherlock looked up at him in confusion. "What, just like that? No 'You'll die in there' or 'Hamish won't be safe' or something equally absurd?"

"Nope. You should have seen your face, Sherlock. You want this too much, and I'd never let you go anywhere alone. I'm always going to follow you, love," John said.

Sherlock looked so surprised and happy that he grabbed John by the shoulders and kissed him soundly, eliciting an annoyed groan from Hamish and a purr from River. "Oh, I could watch this all day. Forget the telly, this is where it's at," she said.

The Doctor stared straight into Moriarty's eyes, which seemed as dark and dead as ever. "Something River said to me?"

"Oh, don't fake being oblivious. It's never been a good color on you. The night of that blasted wedding, you met with a future version of River, it's written all over your brain," Moriarty drawled. He trailed a finger over the peaks of the crown.

The Doctor caught on, getting a few of the tail ends of Moriarty's train of thought. "She said she was trying to save me."

"And if there's one thing I can bank on, it's that damned woman's tenacity when it comes to you. River Song will try and save you from this place, and she'll make sure she has dear Sherlock's help, and—oh, I see, that is interesting! Little Clara was your daughter? Brilliant, oooh, very fun. You think they'll be here with River to come and take you home. Well, I'm afraid I'm going to be rather cross if that happens."

"What are you going to do?" asked the Doctor with a sarcastic edge. "Kill me? Kill them?"

"No, no, don't be obvious," Moriarty said, and he broadcast his next thought as a scream in his head that made the Doctor wince. I'm not letting you leave unless you take me with you.

"That's impossible. I don't even know how. I don't even know if they're actually coming!"

They are. Like they'd ever leave their precious Doctor to waste away under my rule.

"It's not like you can control me," the Doctor seethed. "The best you can do is make fake prisons, and I can easily break them with my own mind. There's no point."

I'm not threatening you, Moriarty thought back intensely.

The Doctor decided then and there that no matter what happened, no matter how long he was stuck in Netherspace, he would never use his own mind to project his thoughts instead of words. Let Moriarty pick apart all the thoughts that clung to him—he was going to communicate through words, as he always had. "Then what's the point? How can you possibly threaten me?"

Moriarty let a slow smile curl onto the edges of his mouth, hanging there like rotten fruit. If you leave me here, I'm stuck in this world forever, and this becomes my eternal playground. No one here will ever see a single drop of sunlight or joy again, just like I'm the Wicked Witch of Munchkinland. So, what's it going to be, my pretty?

"It's great to be back, I won't lie," John breathed when he stepped back onto the TARDIS for the first time in years. "Didn't I tell you, Sherlock, how much I'd missed this daft old machine?"

The TARDIS beeped and chirped happily to see John again.

"Only every other day," Sherlock replied, walking straight to the console and re-memorizing the board. He'd long deleted it from his mind palace when it became clear that the Doctor wasn't coming back. "All right, then, let's get the plan underway. The Doctor shouldn't have to wait any longer. You have the machinery, Clara?"

"Er, yes. Shall we get to the kitchen? I'll make Crème à la Junior and we'll discuss the plan."

"Crème à la Junior?" Sherlock asked.

Hamish rolled his eyes. "What Dad made for me when I was scared—it's just milk and marshmallows. I made some for Clara the first night we were in the TARDIS."

River raised an eyebrow. "Oh, is that all you did?"

"Mum, stop!" Clara whined. "File in, everyone!"

The group took their places inside the spacious, mod-style kitchen, and Clara got to work at the stainless steel stovetop. Pouring milk into a pot, she got it to a boil and added mini-marshmallows by the dozen.

"Oi!" Hamish said. "You're supposed to microwave it, not use an official-looking stovetop!"

"I have perfected the recipe," she argued.

John snorted. "You're an old married couple already."

"We're going to stop with the jokes now," Clara said. "All right, this is warming up. Sherlock, John—you have shadows in Netherspace. Would you be so kind as to accompany me to another dimension to rescue my father?"

"We already said yes, Clara, please do us a favor and move on to the fun part. I'd love to hear about the tech involved," Sherlock said.

"I can show it to you later—the important thing is that we understand the plan," Clara said. "Basically, River will take the TARDIS into the Untempered Schism, where all of time and space is churning in a swirling vortex. She'll be able to locate the entrance to Netherspace there and park as close as we can, which will help us get there faster. The TARDIS will put us under, as close as we can possibly be without being brain-dead, and because we'll be so close to Netherspace, we should be able to get in without being dead."

"What's my job?" asked Hamish indignantly, mixing the milk on the stovetop.

"You're on corpse-watch, of course," Clara said. "Problem?"

"Er, not really." He shrugged. "I guess I get to watch you, then."

"That's vaguely stalker-ish, don't you think?"

"Well, given the choice of a stalker, wouldn't you pick me, Clara?"

"All right, children," River interrupted. "I'm going to show Sherlock and John the sleep system. Sherlock's a sucker for machinery."

"Oh, that's all ri—"

"No, Clara, don't worry about it," John agreed, ushering Sherlock out of the kitchen and filling two mugs to take with them. "River, do you want some?"

"After all that cake? No, thank you."

The adults left the kitchen chatting among themselves, leaving the young ones behind over the simmering pan of milk. Clara purposefully turned away from Hamish and tried not to look at him.

"Clara."

She didn't reply.

"Clara, I want to talk about something before we…before I'm on corpse-watch and you're in an alternate universe or whatever."

She bit her lip. "It's another dimension, actually."

"You know what I mean," Hamish said, and when Clara turned to face him she found him a little too close. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable—in fact, seeing him up close, she could actually tell that his eyes were a light green, the color of celery or new leaves.

"Mish…" she began. "I don't…I don't think that's a good idea."

"Why? You could die in there."

"Nah, that's not really possible," she said. "All right, then, spit it out."

Hamish shook his head. Apparently, whatever it was, he didn't want to just 'spit it out.' He picked up a mug for her and scooped milk into it. "Come on, let's go see how Sexy's doing."

Clara followed him, a little flabbergasted, but felt more at ease when the pair made their way back to the console room and circled around it. She drank from the mug Hamish gave her and did a few manual checks.

"Clara," Hamish said after some silent minutes, "I think I want you to know, before we do this, that I happen to be madly in love with you."

She snorted; she couldn't help it. "You're not."

"Shouldn't I be the judge of that?"

"Don't be silly, Junior. You're not in love with me. You're just excited by this adventure and everything, and you think it's love."

Hamish shook his head and made his way around the console until he was close to Clara again. "You have a problem with it because I'm younger than you. That's it."

Clara sighed and jumped onto the edge of the console, kicking her feet back and forth, over and over. "I don't think you get it, Mish."

"What is there to get?"

"That's it's a lie," she said. "It's all a lie. The whole epic love story thing, where the boy and the girl keep saving each other from dying and clasp each other in a passionate embrace and—people don't do things like that, not when they're in love, and I don't know what you expect from me."

He considered that for a long moment, looking around the ceiling of the TARDIS. For once, everything was quiet. There weren't people running about, screaming for help or calling for directions. There were only the thudding heartbeats of two young people on the brink of something very scary. "I don't think you're right," he finally conceded. "Your mum and dad have an epic love story."

"And look how it turned out for them."

"They're fighting for each other," he said. "Isn't that the point?"

Clara didn't answer; she only shook her head. Hamish took the opportunity to reach for her tiny hand and fold it between his own. "You know, whether or not epic love stories are real, that's not what I want, not for us."

"And what do you want?" she asked quietly. Gently she squeezed his hand to egg him on. "For us, Hamish Watson-Holmes, what do you want?"

"Well, Clara Oswald, I think that all I want from you is a completely ordinary love story."

The corner of her mouth twitched up in a wry smile. "Explain, Junior."

"I want the kind of ordinary love story," he said, "where I wake up and find your hair in the sink and your toothbrush next to mine, where you make peanut butter cookies when you forget I'm allergic to peanut butter, and where you complain that I snore. Where I buy the stamps and the milk and you buy the socks. Where you ask me if you look fat in those jeans and I debate on whether or not I have to lie to you, and you tell me I should lay off the cupcakes. Where I stay up until 3 working with my chemistry set and I have to clean up your messes before I go to bed or I'll trip on them in the morning and where I write you notes on the inside covers of your favorite books so every day, when you open them to read them for the thousandth time, you are reminded that I love you in a completely ordinary, everyday kind of way."

Clara didn't say anything for a long time. She only put her head experimentally on Hamish's shoulder and let out a deep, relaxed sigh. "Oh, don't be silly, Mish," she said. "I'd never forget that you're allergic to peanut butter."

"Ah, of course." He put his arm around her and released the tension in his back when she didn't push it off. "Would you be amenable to that, Miss Oswald?"

"I want to say yes. I do," she insisted. "It's just that…erm, I don't know how to get past the whole six-year-age-difference thing."

"Right. It's not like your mum isn't decades younger than your dad."

"They're Time People. It's different. You're actually 18," she sighed. "And I don't know how to make this work."

Hamish felt his entire body whining in protest, his cells actually screaming at Clara to figure something out. "Can't we—"

"OI!" River's voice called from the back corridor. "Time to switch positions, kiddies! Oooh, I do love this voice, it's got serious potential. I hope my sweetie will like it…"

Clara chuckled and shook her head. "That's my cue, Junior." When she got off the console edge to leave and noticed Hamish's crestfallen face, she leaned up and kissed him gently on the cheek. "To be continued?"

He nodded. "Let's go."