A/N OK so I intended to sit down and write one shot fluffy smut but then the angst got me and I accidently ended up doing another Chapter of 'Forever.' Thank you for the reviews and the really supportive PMs people sent me after Chapter 9. I've never posted as I've written before so it makes me a little nervous not having it all ready and finished for you and I worry you'll all get bored and wander off! I had a wobble…. But my wobble is over now LOL

10.

'Please stop doing that Clara you're making my head spin,' the Doctor grumbled from his spot on the floor beside the bed. Clara stopped her pacing and stood instead fully in the archway looking out across the Anushri city. Eck had been gone some time and night stretched out darkly ahead of them, the minutes ticking by towards an unmarked time of execution.

'Where is he?' she asked, 'I told you we shouldn't have sent him for the sonic, he's probably been caught trying to get to it, something bad could have happened.' She turned and glared down at the Doctor, 'If it has it's your fault, we just needed the nectar, nectar won't be guarded, not like the sonic will be. It's a weapon, they'll have it surrounded by soldiers trying to figure out how to use it.'

'Clara the nectar alone won't get us out of this situation,' he replied tiredly, 'For starters I don't know if it's going to do the job…'

'It fixed me…'

'It had an antidote to their sting in it and human physiology is at best simplistic compared with that of Time Lords. Clara, I've lost the best part of the left side of my chest, there's a limit!' his tone became suddenly irritated and laced with desperation. He quickly tried to pull it back but she had noticed. 'There's a limit…' he went on more calmly but with the strain in every syllable, 'To how much can be healed I suspect and even if it gets me back on my feet I'm not going to be one hundred percent.'

'You're drinking it this time and that's that.'

'Yes I'm not arguing about that.'

'Well why are you arguing at all?' she exclaimed.

'Because,' he flinched and sucked in breath, 'because I need you to understand.'

'Understand what?'

'That this isn't a run of the mill jaunt to an alternate dimension. We're not going to save the world and pop back to the TARDIS in time for tea. It's gone very, very wrong and…' he struggled for a second to level his breathing as though he had spoken to much too quickly and drained his lungs. Clara watched as he braced himself on his arms, his accessory muscles working hard to help him draw in air and felt her snappishness dwindle back into fear. 'I want you to understand,' he went on finally, 'that I might not be able to fix this one.'

Clara bit her lip. 'You will,' she whispered, afraid that if she spoke louder her voice would break. 'That's what you do, you save the day.' He looked up at her then through the shadow of the little room and she watched as the dim lamplight shone in his eyes. He was the one thing she could always rely on, the one thing that would never let her down. 'It's what you always do,' she said, 'you're my hero.'

He looked so sad in that moment as though he had failed her utterly that she had to look away from his gaze. It reminded her too much of the frightened little boy he had once been.

'I'm not a hero, not this time, Clara, maybe this time you'll have to get yourself out. And that's why you'll need the sonic.'

Clara wrapped her arms around herself and turned to the window and back again restlessly. She chewed at her lip and blinked back moisture in her eyes, her brow knitting. She could feel him watching her and also the faint caress of his mind against hers trying desperately to make her see. This was the lull before battle, when and if the sun chose to rise in this malformed alternate world the inhabitants would try to have them killed and the odds were stacked. No matter how plucky she might try to be in the face of another danger she had to admit the odds had never been stacked quite like this before. She dashed away a tear rapidly with the back of one hand and folded her arms again.

'Clara,' he said softly. 'Clara, come here.'

Reluctantly she turned to him and then saw him gesture to her to join him. The simple motion made her almost fall to her knees with the need to hold him and be held. She came to his uninjured side and did her best to cuddle against him without aggravating his pain, finding his arm around her and his chin resting on top of her head.

'What's going to happen?' she whispered.

'I don't know,' he admitted just as quietly. 'We hope Eck makes it back with something that takes the edge off this wound and something we can use as a weapon. We hope the Anushri prisoners have the strength to rise up and fight against the rebels and we all stand some kind of chance.'

'And then?'

'And then we hope I come up with a brilliant idea at the last minute to save us from what the bad guys have planned.'

'Which is?'

'Not sure, could be any one of a number of things, Eck might find something out while he's gone,' he fell silent and Clara leaned her head against the uninjured side of his chest, listening to the slow single thud of his remaining heart. She softly rubbed the material of his shirt under her fingertips and felt him twitch in pain.

'Sorry,' she said quietly.

'Wasn't you… it….' He grimaced, 'It's just getting a bit… wearing.' Clara glanced up at him and saw clearly for the first time the darkness around his eyes and sharpness of his cheekbones. He couldn't keep going, he looked as though he had nothing left.

'The pain?' she said. He nodded shortly, closing his eyes against it momentarily.

'Clara… if for any reason the nectar doesn't work, or he doesn't bring it…'

'Shh…'

'Listen to me.'

'He'll bring it and you'll be fine. You'll be like a new man. A new Time Lord. Except without any regenerating,' she babbled on in a vain attempt to throw him off course.

'Clara, listen to me,' his voice dropped to a tone she could never argue with, an earnestness that made her heart ache, 'If it doesn't work you have to let me get you out of here, distract them, trick them, assault them in some way but give you enough time to run.'

'Doctor…'

'Promise me Clara. If we're taken to the execution and the nectar has been a bust I'll be half dead by then anyway. Let me buy you time. Let that be the last thing I do for you.' He reached up with effort and softly traced the contours of her face. 'As your hero. Please.'

She wanted to argue with him, scream at him, boss him into doing what he was told and not giving up, tell him that he was just as, no, more important than her, that they should save each other, that he should stop talking the way he was, but his eyes stopped her. His eyes and the feelings coming now from his mind, the sense that she was everything, everything to him and that she would hurt him more somehow by refusing this last act. He had one thing left to give her and it spoke to her from the depths of his pupils, fragile, compelling, a last gift to the only person that mattered.

She nodded and felt her lower lip begin to bleed between her teeth as she strained to keep the emotion under control, but she couldn't say the words.

I promise.

Because it felt like betrayal. It just didn't work when he tried to die for her, it was always supposed to be the other way around.

She felt him shift and leaned back to allow him room, watching as he brought both of his elegant hands to his lap. He stretched out his fingers before curling them into light fists and then grasped his left with his right. When they separated Clara saw that the ring he always wore now lay between his thumb and forefinger, its gem catching the lamplight and the gold shining brightly. Carefully he twisted it and the two bands that made up its body came apart taking with them a slice of gem each which when paired made up the full stone. He looked at her briefly, unspeakable sadness in that glance and then took her hand.

'This wasn't quite how I planned it,' he admitted softly as one ring touch her fingertip, 'But I think this is possibly as close to a wedding as I might manage,' she heard his voice crack slightly and he pushed the ring into place, its band magically tightening to fit her when it touched the warmth of her skin. He placed its partner in her palm and waited, a heaviness in his posture that betrayed the effort it took him to control his pain. Clara opened her mouth to say something, anything to express the cloud of emotion around her heart but all that escaped was a painful sob and the first of her tears so she picked up the ring and holding his freezing hand replaced it on his wedding finger.

The Doctor cupped her face and pulled her gently to him until her mouth brushed against his softly and she felt the trace of his tongue lap against her bruised lip. He sucked lightly, soothing it and pushed his hand through her hair, holding her to him while all the time the pastel colours of his consciousness spoke to her of love, timeless and unending.

Remember me.

It felt like goodbye.

XXXXXXXXXX

A noise came from the window. Clara was curled against the Doctor's side, their left hands entwined in his lap, matching rings touching. Long hours had passed as they had waited for Eck to return and with each passing minute Clara had felt a little hope drain from her and a little life drain from the Doctor. His breathing was steady enough beneath her cheek but his body was growing colder, closer she knew to the ice-state the healing coma demanded from him, his only other option in the face of regeneration. She let him drift, conscious that he was struggling to heal and that any progress he could manage was desperately needed, but at the same time his silence and his soft mumbles of pain frightened her. The Doctor was always talking, usually at speed, to witness him so quiet seemed against the laws of the universe.

Outside the wind was picking up and in between bouts of silence would whistle and blast around their tower. Clara could see clouds rolling across reddened skies and the flit of bat like creatures in the darkness. If possible the prison was even less welcoming than it had been before, the fuel in the little lamp burning low and threatening them with darkness.

Clara rubbed her thumb over the back of the Doctor's cold hand and looked down at their rings. Not how he had planned, their makeshift wedding, this binding of their souls. Not as he had imagined it would be. Not how she had imagined it either. Had she imagined it at all? Had she even believed she would be with him as she was now? It was all too brief and she had wasted so much time. Her mind fell into the misery that had drowned it when he had been torn through the rift, it was all going to happen again, he would be taken from her, and this time he would go where she could not follow.

The noise again, louder now, closer. Clara snapped into the present and pulled herself up, causing the Doctor to moan slightly and open his eyes. Suddenly they were tense and alert, the time for rumination finished and that of action close. The pair separated, praying for Eck, bracing themselves for soldiers, and neither came.

At first Clara couldn't quite focus on the sound to define it, so faint was it against the breeze that blew around the tower. Then it came again louder but still unrecognisable. She slid to her knees and craned her neck towards the archway to try and catch a first glimpse of whatever it was before grabbing the lamp Eck had left behind and moving forward cautiously at a crawl.

'For an inaccessible tower we get a lot of visitors,' she mumbled glancing back at the Doctor who was squinting past the lamplight into the gloom. His hearing was a good deal sharper than hers she knew but even he seemed to be having trouble identifying the new guest. Clara shuffled forward a little way further and then the sound came again, more distinctive this time in its pitch and tone, a strange gurgle, a little growl of effort.

'What the…?' the Doctor from behind her, motioning her to move aside so that he could watch the thing arrive. He had a look of absolute disbelief on his face as well as something she could only describe as wonderment. Well at least it wasn't fear or concern and it did something to remove the haunted look his face had been wearing. It was so out of context to see that curious bewilderment that she forgot for a moment the seriousness of their situation and allowed herself to smile at the boyish twinkle in his eyes. Clara sat back and looked between him and the window.

'What is it?' she asked curious.

Indeed the incoming visitor was of such interest to the Doctor that he was trying to lift himself just a fraction higher to get a better view. Clara waved him back into a seated position before he hurt himself, whatever it was would arrive sooner or later she could hear it puffing with exertion, brief little gasps and snuffles and then some scratching noises as it appeared to make contact with the outer walls and scrabble against them.

'Whatever it is has claws,' Clara said, 'That doesn't reassure me much,' again she glanced at the Doctor who had stretched out one arm along the side of the bed and braced himself so he could lean forward. But it was his expression again that filled her with a sudden feeling of hope as a new light glimmered in his eyes.

'Oh Clara…' he said with barely contained excitement, 'You didn't mention… why didn't you say?'

'What? She looked quickly back at the window in time to see a stumpy black leg hook over the edge of the archway. It was quickly followed by another three, each ending in a paw. Clara's eyes widened.

'Fido?' she gasped and raced for the window.

'Fido? You actually called him Fido?' the Doctor protested in a tone of disgust, but Clara was leaning down and grabbing the little creature too concerned it might fall to bother with the Doctor's disappointment in her choice of name. She pulled the little Maltheus into the room and set it down in the centre of the floor.

She noticed two things at once. The first was that the Maltheus seemed to have dragged her missing bag all the way up to the top of the tower. The second was that he seemed to have grown wings.

Fido wasn't bothered by his wings, he span in a circle at her feet and jumped on his multiple rear legs in joy. He had of course bonded to her and was beside himself with delight to see her again.

'Um… Clara…' the Doctor said, a trace of humour in his voice. 'Would you care to explain?'

Clara looked at him with a slightly guilty expression.

'The Anushri made him for you as a gift but he got out of his basket and bonded to me… and then sort of followed me through the rift. When I got attacked I assumed he'd been injured or worse…. But he seems to have followed me.'

'Yes, well he would wouldn't he?' the Doctor laughed shortly and then clutched at his side, 'he's a Maltheus, don't you remember me saying how loyal they are? Through hell and high water that thing will go for you now, a little rift in time is nothing,' he chuckled and then said more seriously, 'You are his world, Clara, the first face he saw.' She glanced up to read his expression and saw a softness around his eyes that spoke volumes, the lines there creased easily into kindness and she thought she had never seen him look more beautiful.

He smiled, 'I still don't like the name,' he added.

'But how did he get up here?' Clara said.

'They're pretty agile things despite all those legs making them look like deranged spiders but it's a long way for a pup like that to climb…' the Doctor sat forward as best he could, 'Dangle that light over him a moment I can see something a bit…. Oh…'

'Oh..?' Clara asked from where she held the lamp suspended over Fido, she saw the Doctor point and tried to focus her eyes in the gloom where he directed. Fido's back was oddly lumpy as though…

'He has wings, Clara,' the Doctor said in a slightly exasperated tone.

'Wings? Do Maltheus have wings?' she thought back to the images the Doctor had sent her of his boyhood pet. She couldn't remember any wings. Maybe they were concealed, like a beetle?

'Not the original ones no,' he growled, 'But ones genetically engineered by giant wasps seem to get a set for free when they come into existence,' he passed one hand over his face, 'this is what happens if you meddle with the forces of nature…'

'Doctor…'

'… gods know what other 'improvements' he has as well…'

Fido suddenly ruffled his wings loudly, shooting them out from his fur where they glimmered iridescent purple in the dim light. The Doctor groaned.

'Unnecessary modifications only end in disaster…'

'Doctor…?'

'They might not have meant for him to have wings but you could say it's a good thing,' Clara suggested.

'How is that a good thing?' he pointed at the pup. 'He's a freak of nature! Not even a freak of nature a freak of Anushri Terra and Fauna-formation Genetics!'

'Doctor that's cruel! We should be praising him. He got up here didn't he?' Clara said, 'And he brought my bag.'

'No offense Clara but a hand held mirror and some lipstick isn't going to be of much use to us here.'

Clara's glare threatened to set him on fire. 'You honestly think that's what I bring when I'm diving through rifts in dimensions to save my boyfriend? Make-up? How long have I been travelling with you now?' Clara stooped and opened the bag bringing it and herself to his side again before tipping out the contents. A dozen medical looking supplies fell in the space between them including various dressings and potions but it was the technology she had taken with her on her journey that drew the Doctor's attention, a small device that looked to Clara like a USB with a glowing diode stuck to the end and a larger egg shaped metal object which the Doctor picked up rather gingerly between two wary fingers.

'Clara please tell me you weren't running around with this strapped to your back?' he said.

'TARDIS said it would be fine.' He glanced at her sideways and then carefully laid the thing down, looking between it and the USB.

'Interesting,' he commented. 'Interesting choice of gear.'

'Helpful interesting?' Clara asked picking up on a change in mood. Fido wandered up to her and she absently placed a hand on his head.

'Potentially, yes, If I can…' the Doctor flinched suddenly and grasped the area over his wound pacing his breathing for a moment before he went on. 'I can use this stuff but I'll need the sonic to make a few alterations and we need Eck for that. It'll all be much more useful when we know what we're up against and he might be able to help there too if he's been canny and learned anything tonight.'

'And if Eck can't get the sonic?'

'You were the one who was so sure he could.'

'I'm exploring options,' Clara said.

'Then I can use this stuff to get you out, as we discussed… but not me, it won't save both of us without some tinkering. It would work in an emergency but it means you escape, the captive Anushri and me, well we hold the line while you do….'

She dropped her gaze and chewed at the inside of her cheek, 'Not going to happen,' she muttered, irritated and sad simultaneously.

'Right, not going to be an issue, Eck will bring the sonic,' he agreed gently and squeezed her hand.

'He will,' she said.

'Clara?'

'Yes?'

'I'm going to need a bit of patching up before I can do anything,' he said.

'Mmmhmm we need nectar, Eck's on it.'

Come on Eck where are you? Hell of a lot riding on you.

'No I mean actual patching…' he nodded towards the bandages that had fallen from the bag, 'Could you?'

'I know what you're doing.'

'Asking for my wound to be dressed?'

'You're trying to stop me from thinking.'

'Will it work?'

Clara smiled sadly, 'Maybe for a while,' she conceded, 'And you do need some dressings. The TARDIS informed me some of these have superficial healing abilities but I'm guessing that's more for a cut or graze than for a great big hole ripped through you by an alternate dimension's angry rift.'

'Probably,' he smiled and it was the first smile she'd seen in that dimension that gave her any hope, 'Give it a go anyway.'

Clara knelt in front on him and slowly began to undo the remnants of his shirt, watching his face carefully for signs of pain as she tugged and peeled the sodden material from the gaping wound where it had adhered in clotted blood and damaged blistered skin. In the poor light it was hard to tell the extent of the damage and she was suddenly grateful for that afraid that if she saw the depth of the cavity or breadth of the burns on his skin she would break down completely. What was clear however was the considerable amount of pain he had to be in as he bit down on his lip when even her most gentle movements aggravated him. Once or twice he reached a hand to her wrist and stopped her briefly needing a moment to regain control, she noticed that each time he did he looked away from her in shame for his inability to hide what he was feeling. Once as she was undoing a fresh dressing ready to apply she thought she felt a tear land on the back of her hand.

His shirt removed completely and wound cleaned as best as Clara could manage she began to apply dressings and bandages liberally to the area, keeping him distracted with a litany of nonsense including tales from her brief spell in the brownies where she earned a first aid badge and the time she wrapped her cousin in so many bandages he fell over and needed a real bandage applied to his head. It was a sign of not only his weakened state but his need to keep her calm and level that he allowed her to chatter on, his usual sarcasm dulled. He watched her with dark eyes as she worked, memorising her features in the lamplight and occasionally touching the back of his hand to her cheek or hair.

She barely noticed the change in the sky until she heard the wings outside the window and turned with a now familiar knot of fear in her gut to await the latest visitor to the tower. The red moon was fading and the sky had turned from blackened crimson to a paler shade of pink that poured in through the archway and fell across the Doctors facing casting grey shadows on his already grey skin. Clara grasped his hand and watched from the corner of her eye as he adjusted the blood encrusted edges of his shirt in readiness to whatever was approaching, it was an odd little moment of vanity that felt bittersweet in her throat.

The wing beats quickened and the figure of a wasp appeared over the threshold of the window. With the rising sun behind it, it was hard to see at first just who or what it was and what it carried but as it landed on the sill its body blocked the first rays of morning and its damaged face broke into a smile.

Eck held a little basket aloft in triumph.

'I have the nectar,' he said and Clara grinned. 'The strongest that can be brewed.' He stepped down into the room and knelt before the Doctor, 'And of course I have your weapon.' Eck opened the basket and withdrew the sonic screwdriver. 'That took a little longer…'

'I knew you could do it, Eck,' Clara flung her arms around his skinny frame.

'Listen to me,' he said, 'They will be here soon, we haven't much time,' he watched as the Doctor took the devices from Clara's bag and began to work on them with the sonic while Clara uncorked the bottle of healing nectar and replaced the screwdriver in his hand with it temporarily, urging him to drink first sonic later. He grumbled and knocked it back before crooking his fingers at her impatiently for his weapon.

Eck resumed his urgent message. 'There are things you must know, things that will help, ' he said, 'I think we can win this.'

The sudden confidence in the little wasp's voice made them both look up in surprise.