That Doctor lay motionlessly on the bed. His face was turned in the direction of wall and glanced at the reflections of the stained glass on it while he explained to Clara what happened the night before. She was lying close to him, but not quite touching him, afraid to creep into his personal space. Her brooding eyes were carefully investigating his facial expression, which was changing every now and then in response to the memories flooding his brain.

"So we forced the neural block by doing it?" She asked him with a trembling voice.

"I think so. Or at least I don't think I remembered it all yesterday." He groaned with dejection etched on his face. He felt cold drops of fresh tears forming in his eyes, ready to flow down and rinse his cheeks any minute as he spoke.

"That would explain why they use that method in psychotherapy." Clara stated seriously. "Do you feel like you remember? No offence, but how can you be even sure they're new?"

He looked at her with his glazed eyes and pursed his lips as if there was a physical pain hurting him. "I don't know. I feel I didn't know some of it."

"Do you want me to ask you some questions and test it?" She kept questioning him.

"I remember the Cloisters, is that enough?" He gave her an icy stare and snorted.

The Doctor spotted a combination of compassion and pitifulness in Clara's eyes at the sound of his words and something inside him broke again. He turned around and buried his face deeply in soft pillows beneath him, sobbing in despair.

Clara didn't continue her subtle interrogation, instead she moved closer to him and gently placed her upper body on his back.

"It's gonna be fine." She whispered into the fabric of his t-shirt, wet from sweat, as her fingers tenderly pulled him closer to her. "You're just overwhelmed, but it will pass."

The word overwhelmed wasn't even close to explaining what he felt at the moment, he was scared to death. Awareness that there was something hidden under a thin layer of oblivion was always with him. Sometimes it leaked into his life in a form of an unexplainable feeling or premonition. Always, it was something he couldn't describe or properly inspect in that brief moment before it passed him. But now everything was different, the cage holding that monster was opened and he could see it all its glory. Terrifying and comfortless.

"Speak to me." She begged.

He spun around and looked at her. His eyes stung from crying and made the vision blurry, but he didn't care much about it. All his attention was focused on the wave of emotions flooding his mind.

It felt like a bath full of ice to him. Added to the water cube by cube, ice doesn't make much difference, but is unbearable when one must dive into an already prepared bath. And right now he was obliged to do so.

Clara didn't say anything more, but pulled him closer to her and squeezed him in a warm embrace. The Doctor didn't try to escape her touch, but huddled up to her as a small child looking for consolation. He buried his face in the blouse and breathed in the familiar smell of her body. Well-known combination of spicy and sweet notes.

They laid like that for a long moment, resembling a silhouette from one of those Art Nouveau paintings. A mess of limbs intertwined together like a thin branches of a tree. Holding on to her warm arms was slowly assuaging his pain and the terrifying thoughts started to drift off in blissfulness.

"I can't lose you again. I don't know what I would do." He gasped after a while into her hair while she was still holding him as close to her body as she could.

"You're not going to lose me. Not this time." Clara was assuring him. She moved away a little so she could look at him properly and smiled at him. "We have an eternity now. There's only one Raven for me after all." She told him. Something in the way she peered at him made him believe her.

A gleam appeared in the Doctor's eye as he considered her proposition. Finally, he shyly returned the smile. It was the first occasion he showed any signs of happiness since he regained his memories earlier that morning. Seeing him slowly coming to the terms with what just happened made the grin on Clara's face widened. She slowly moved her hand to his face and begun to stroke the skin of his cheek exactly where some tears still were.

"You properly scared me today. But you're fine now, right?" She asked calmly as her delicate palm was caressing his tensed features which were beginning to relax slowly under her touch.

He nodded silently.

"Good, seeing you like that breaks my heart." Clara told him. "When something bad happens to me I know I can handle it, but when it's you-" She broke midsentence and looked down. Her eyebrows frowned as she continued. "The feeling I can't do anything to help you is much worse."

"You're not the only one." The Doctor answered with his voice still hoarse from sobbing.

Clara rose her head a little and looked at him once again. Her wide open eyes almost burnt him as she stared at him. After a moment, she moved her hand from his face to the fabric covering his neck. Her fingers pulled him closer to her by the lapel of his shirt and before he could react, she brought their lips together.

The kiss was gentle and ended quickly as it started. Once their lips parted, Clara pulled away and moved a little to look at him again. He could tell that she was relaxed and maybe a bit surprised, but it was more curiosity than fear. Her mischievous stare met his and they stayed like that for a second or two. Discussing without words what has just happened.

It wasn't the last surprise in the store for him that morning as after a brief moment, she used her hand to close the distance between them and brushed her lips to his again.

This time she was more confident than before and didn't break the kiss fast enough to prevent him from responding to it. They used every second they were given and tasted each other slowly and with a great care.

Years earlier, he was jealous of Danny who was granted this pleasure, a privilege that the other man likely never truly appreciated since he never needed to do anything to gain it, and now it was finally his own turn to sample. He couldn't describe how amazing being kissed by her felt. Especially, if one thought it would never happen to him.

The sluggish pace Clara set for them was nice at first, but before long the Doctor couldn't help but want more. He tried without a positive result to compose himself and enjoy the situation, but her phlegmatic movements were irritating rather than appeasing the emotions simmering in his twin hearts. All he could think about was the irresistible longing for her. The very same one he first felt in the confessional dial when the plan how to save her was concocted. Heat and the sweet scent of her body so close to his own- made him want much more than she was offering at the moment. The only problem was that his mind didn't know how to phrase what it needed at all.

The Doctor kneeled over Clara and touched her lower lip with the tip of his tongue, hopeful to get permission to explore further, which she eagerly granted. There was no great design in his actions after that. His every move then was a desperate attempt to find anything that even slightly resembled fulfilment. Before either of them could process what was happening, she was lying underneath him as he was leaving a trail of soft kisses on her neck, all the way to the line where the shirt covered her fragile skin.

Her fingers tangled in his curls sent a wave of arousal through him. Overwhelming sensation he first felt out of the blue seemed bearable, and as he figured it out he didn't intend to stop. He moved his hand to her shirt and was about to undo first of the buttons when she grabbed it and shifted under him.

"Sorry, I should go." She whispered under her breath as she rose hurryingly from the bed, almost blowing him down in the process. Before he could say or do anything Clara was already by the door. She turned the doorknob and left the room without even once looking at him.

The Doctor sunk on the pillows lying behind him on the bed and moaned heavily. Everything this morning was as clear as a mud and he hated it.