There was tension lingering in the air and it was distracting him greatly. When he dropped her off in the little apartment she'd stopped at the TARDIS door as if she wanted to say something more than goodbye, but her dark eyes merely held his gaze for a moment before walking out the door. It isn't as hard to look her in the eye as it should have been, he's always been a good liar, always been able to put up a front. As he watched her leave he scolded himself for wondering how accurate his fantasizing of her body had been.

He stowed himself away in the library and told the TARDIS to just drift, it was dark and quiet there and he could lose himself in books until she wasn't all that was on his mind. Time Lords were better than this, he was better than this. Humans could spend their time tangled together in a mess of hormones and fear of facing the dark alone, he didn't have that luxury. Anything or anyone he let himself hold close was sure to burn right up.

She was clumsy in the classroom, she dropped every marker she picked up and three rolled beneath the cabinet, never to be seen again. The students were uncharacteristically kind about her dazed and distant behaviour. After Mr. Pink died they couldn't bring themselves to be quite so disruptive in Ms. Oswald's class.

So consumed was Clara with thoughts of the Doctor, every time she went to jot another line of "A Midsummers Nights Dream" down on the board she'd get a flash of what she'd seen. Clara had almost told him, when he dropped her off at home that morning, that she'd invaded his privacy, but when she looked into his eyes she couldn't gage what his reaction would be. People got defensive when they were embarrassed, but the Doctor didn't get embarrassed often and he certainly didn't handle his emotions like anyone she'd ever met.

Clara couldn't deny that the time she'd spent with herself after catching him in the act was less shameful and more electrified. She'd buried her flushed face in her pillow when she came, and her thoughts had been only of him. Now she felt guilty, and it was blending with her desire for him and making her nauseous. Her last class of the day filed out the door, and she slipped her earbuds in and began marking the previous nights homework with her nearly-dead red pen.

Clara needed to break the ice, some how, with her nearest and dearest friend. It was a whole other level of intimacy, she wasn't sure they'd ever so much as mentioned sex to one another outside of sarcastic innuendo, and even then he blushed. She'd need to be subtle, ease him into some sort of saucy conversation. If she could get him talking, start the ball rolling, perhaps he'd quell her burning curiosity and tell her what he was thinking of when he said her name in that way that made her shiver to remember. She was less than half way through the grading when the whirring began to fill the room, and the papers lifted and scattered from her desk as if caught in a mini-hurricane. She stood as the time machine materialized in front of her desk, pulling her headphones out.

"Clara!" The Doctor cried, throwing the doors open and reaching his hand out to her. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight of him, and she was eager to leave the mundane behind her. She turned to grab her purse and coat from her chair, skipped around the desk, and allowed him to pull her through the TARDIS doors.

"You do realize we only saw one another this morning, for me, right?"

"Right, right, only been a day for me, I thought you might like to go do something fun." His speech is rushed and breathless, he's avoiding talking about why he's back so soon and she's sure he's not going to give it up easily. Usually he waited at least a couple of days before he turned up again, though once or twice he'd been wearing the exact same thing, and his hair had the same locks out of place; she wasn't completely convinced that he hadn't simply skipped a few days ahead and left five minutes between their meetings from his point of view.

He'd managed a single night alone on his TARDIS before rushing back to her side. Well, seven hours of squeezing his eyes shut, laying in the darkness, trying not to give in to anything she could make him feel. He didn't even need to enter the coordinates, the TARDIS was ready to return to her with the touch of a button and the spin of a dial as soon as he walked back into the console room.

"You look.. You've had a wash." He nodded at her, as the doors swung shut, and she frowned at him.

"You okay?"

"Fine, fine. How would you like to go visit one of the five temple planets of the Silver Void Plains?" He was scolding himself for speaking, for attempting his gruff version of a compliment. He couldn't cross that line, she deserved someone who could woo her, and make promises that could be kept. And he needed someone who wouldn't turn to dust under his hands.

"Doctor." Her coat and purse had been draped over the railing, she had a hand on her hip, her tone made it a command. He sighed, lowering his gaze from the monitor, leaning on the console and squeezing his eyes shut.

"I missed you." He turned to lock icy eyes onto hers.

"Oh." A shiver crept over her skin, she could see his shame in his gaze in admitting what she was sure he saw as a weakness. The Doctors eyes pierced into hers until she was sure he could see right into her mind, was watching her memory of the night before, in all it's lust-tinted glory. A blush rose in her face, and she broke their eye contact, darting them down to study the floor.

Like it never happened he was skipping around the console once again, so she plastered a grin on her face and tried to ignore the way her cheeks were burning.

"So.. These temple planets?"

"Oh, they're gorgeous! not really planets so much as asteroids with temples on them which were supposedly planets once. Actually, they were all on one planet once. I always meant to go see what happened... But, for now, les go see the view." He tapped the coordinates out on the keypad, trying desperately not to glance to his right, where he'd imagined her bent over the night before.

The TARDIS phased into the vortex, spinning through time. It was a particularly bumpy ride, and the teacher tottered on her high heels before falling into the Doctor, and the two of them toppled over, landing sprawled out on the mental floor. The TARDIS flashed the console lights innocently as the Doctor glared up at the ceiling and untangled his legs from Clara's.

"Sorry, sorry!" She was blushing, having landed on top of him, and the two tried their best not to catch one another's eye even as he pulled himself up, and offered his hand to her.

"Come and see!" He half sprinted his way over to the TARDIS door, knowing what was behind it would be more than enough to distract from the tension in the air. She followed eagerly, grinning with excitement. This was the best bit, after all, the sense of discovery, the wonderment, the knowledge that she was beyond lucky to be standing in the threshold of his magnificent vessel, with all of time and space laid out before her. When he swung the doors open her grin slipped away, her jaw dropped open and the sight of the temples before her took the chance to snatch her breath away. He watched her face glow with joy and remembered his own youth, before he knew too much.