"You're very quiet."
He is propped against a rock, leafing through her diary. She lies a few feet away, on her bedroll in the circle of flickering firelight.
"I'm thinking."
"Oh. Well it had to happen sometime. Ow!" A well-aimed pebble bounces harmlessly off his arm.
"Shut up." She props herself up on her elbows. "Something doesn't make sense."
He comes to sit at her side again, obedient. "What doesn't make sense?"
"You ran. All this way, to the edge of the Universe; hiding out here amongst fractured planets and dying stars. Trying to make the worlds you touch a better place, but hiding; what you are now, what you can do."
"Yes."
"But you left a trail." He is silent as she continues. "All those circles like breadcrumbs. Laid out for me. Why?"
He looks irritated now. "Does it matter?"
"Yes, yes it matters! You put all your other allies, your friends, out of reach. Everyone but me, the one companion you must never see. Why?"
"What do you want me to say?" He finds his feet, stalks away towards the sea.
"The truth!" she snaps, following. She pulls him around to face her, annoyed that even on tip-toes she's still several inches from eye-to-eye. "What is it you're not telling me?" she demands.
"I don't know. I don't know why I did it—"
"Liar!" she roars. "One more chance. Tell me the truth, Doctor, or I swear I'll—"
"I missed you."
"—I'll… what?"
"I missed you," he repeats, softer this time; ashamed. "Your insight, your advice. Ha, even your orders. Right now… I don't know how to be the Doctor. But you do."
"You made me walk for two hundred years to come here and be your conscience?"
"I didn't make you. You had a choice. All of those worlds and you never questioned? You never stopped?"
"Of course I didn't stop!"
"Why?"
A little bit of humour escapes through gritted teeth. "It's not as clever as you think, that trick of turning a question around." He merely raises an eyebrow in response and she sighs. "I didn't stop because… because…" She is suddenly unable to bear his gaze. "I missed you too," she finally manages, in a small voice.
It isn't quite enough, but nothing ever will be. She'll walk across worlds to find him; he'll punch his way through eternity. What's an I love you compared to that? After an interminable eternity of red-hot embarrassment, she risks a glance up at him.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"Me too."
"And thank you."
"For what?"
"For coming."
"Oh. You're welcome." She leans up, intending to plant a kiss on his cheek. He turns his head slightly, in that owlish way he has when she confuses him, and she misses her mark. Her lips catch the corner of his mouth instead.
The Universe holds its breath. She thinks of the grains of sand on the beach, of savouring every tiny moment of sensation. Tries to fix in her mind the strange crawling electricity of this moment; the surprising softness of his face against her cheek; the smell of his skin. I will not pull back, she thinks, sick of minding the boundaries of their painfully controlled affection.
But neither does he. Instead, with exquisite gentleness he raises a hand; thumb tracing her ear, fingers tangling in her hair. "Clara," he says desperately, against her mouth.
"Yes," she replies, answer to the question unasked.
Eyes flutter closed, his breathing suddenly shallow and uneven. A kiss, two; tiny. The merest brush of his lips across hers. She kisses him back, insistent, until he breaks in a hungry rush. She can taste him, feel him shaking with need as he pulls her body against his. His chest hitches as she escapes his mouth, blindly kissing his cheeks, his neck; nipping his earlobe before he reclaims her. It's un-choreographed and clumsy, noses bumping and desperate hands unable to settle, and God does it make her go weak at the knees.
He tugs at her shirt; swiftly deposited on the sand while he shrugs awkwardly out of his ragged equivalent. The warmth of his bare skin makes her gasp reflexively as they embrace again. His hands, his mouth are in worship of her body now. Look, look, look, she thinks; as he calls to her attention all that he finds as wondrous as the beauty of the forest; as she reciprocates in kind. Fumble fingered, she unbuttons him by inches.
He moans softly at her touch. "Clara," he manages.
"Shut up," she growls, and pulls him down to the bedroll.