*Hey troops, standard warning applies, I've literally just finished this, so apologies for any spelling and grammar. At least I don't have to apologise for tardiness today, which gives me a great shot at finishing December before I head out tomorrow. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter, I needed to mop up the events of the previous chapter and then really explore the Whouffle relationship a bit and see where they're at. Knowing what's coming in tomorrow's final chapter, I just wanted to make sure that their relationship felt like the steps taken in tomorrow's chapter felt natural and to me they do. Anyway, I hope you guys like this chapter, thank you so much to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed and favourited and please please let me know what you made of it. Tomorrow: the end. TPD*

Clara woke to a bright, harsh light coming in from the window. Her head was threatening to split open, it was pounding that much. She was lying in her own bed, which was both a surprise and a relief. She was covered in mud, her clothes and face filthy and there was a badly torn Mad Hatter hat on the floor nearby. She groaned and rolled over, her bed sheets stained with mud and blood. Oh great, she'd forgotten to put in a fresh tampon before bed as well. Brilliant. Every part of her body hurt as she tried to sit up and she moaned in fresh agony. The Doctor wasn't beside her. She looked up, her eyes stinging when she opened them, begging her to close them again. He was stood by the door, arms crossed, looking at her with sympathy in his eyes, but also a flicker of annoyance dancing across his face.

"Are you okay?" was his first question and Clara shook her head, then instantly regretted it as it throbbed and she let out a rasping noise. "I'm not surprised."

"What happened?" she gasped, the noise ringing in her ears and the effort of speaking burning her throat. She felt completely and utterly wretched and to say that her memory was patchy was an understatement. All she remembered was vomit and shots.

"Let's see," his voice was teasing but she could tell that he wasn't happy. "You threw up all over me, all over Nina and her hot friend she was making out with, plus a poor couple trying to have sex. You ran around for about an hour trying to run away from me, taking shots along the way, you kicked me or punched me in the balls at least twice, and when I tried to take you home you almost caused a car crash killing both of us then attacked me and tried to run away into the streets of London, ended up in a grassy courtyard and then you fell face first into the mud. At which point I found you again and you passed out in the car on the way home." His voice had gotten progressively more irritated as the story went on, and though there was a polite smile still on his face, she could feel his anger having wafted across the room.

"Oh!" Clara managed, and then she crashed back into the bed, making a small, pained noise. "Oh God! I am so sorry!" Even those few words were an effort and she needed to vomit. At least he'd given her a handily placed bucket for her to retch into, moaned sobs leaving her.

"Hey," he said softly as she cried and threw up. She was muddy, bloody, covered in her own vomit and feeling utterly, utterly abysmal. His anger with her was fading; she could see it on his face. "It's okay. These things happen. I understand."

"You're…not…upset?" she wheezed in between heaves.

"Not really," he shrugged. "I mean don't get me wrong, I was really pissed off at the time, but I was also really scared for you. I was mainly just frustrated. And now, seeing what you've done to yourself seeing how it's affected you…how can I be angry at someone who is in so much pain, when I care about them so much? Nina however, might not share my pity."

"Oh no!" Clara muttered and then she was hurling again, crying out both in pain and frustration as her throat burned, her stomach twisted and her head thundered. She felt like her insides were falling apart and she let out a pained whimper as the Doctor put his arm around her and nuzzled her gently. "Is Nina angry?" was all she could manage.

"She was screaming blue murder when I managed to get you out," the Doctor admitted. "I can't imagine she's too pleased that you ruined her party or her clothes or her floor or her spare bedding. I've not spoken to her this morning, but I imagine she's not a terrific state either, she drank quite a bit herself."

"Any idea what happened to Nina with her hot friend?" Clara managed to string together, as it seemed her entire stomach contents were back up and she was reduced to dry retching. The Doctor pulled a stray strand of limp, sick-covered hair off Clara's face and she choked slightly. He patted her back gently as she mumbled something that was incoherent even to her. Clara didn't know what was worse, how she felt physically or the knowledge that she had ruined her friend and boyfriend's nights.

"She stormed off home before I got you out," the Doctor said quietly. Damn, he wasn't pulling any punches or sugar coating it for her, was he? "Nina was…I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Clara's voice was cracked and she could see the wince on his face. "It was my fucking fault." She was in a swirling pit of agony and self-loathing and she didn't know if the Doctor's comforting arm around her made her feel better or worse. She had at least stopped retching and her stomach had settled slightly, but the hangover headache, compared with her period pain was a lethal combination, not to mention all the bumps and scrapes she'd picked up along the way. Her right shoulder was burning and she yelped when he touched it.

"Oh shit, of course!" he muttered. "You dislocated your shoulder when you fell. I popped it back into place while you were unconscious but I imagine it still hurts like a son of a bitch." She nodded, her head spinning at the action. "You just need some painkillers, a cup of tea and a long hot bath." The fact that he hadn't already run her a bath or made her a cuppa said everything. He said he wasn't upset, but he wasn't exactly leaping to help her either. And that stung, almost as much as her entire body tearing itself apart at the seams. "I'll get right on that!"

He patted her once on the head and left her to wallow. She heard him as he dived into the en-suite and ran the hot water and then she heard the kettle go on. She sighed in pain and delved into her bedside table for some pills to pop and a tampon. She swallowed a couple of paracetamol and groaned as a couple of minutes later, the Doctor with her tea, a forced smile on his face.

"Here you go sweetheart," he said gently, at least that sounded genuine. "Your bath will be ready any minute, can I get you anything else?" There it was again, cordial, caring but lacking his usual telepathy. Either he didn't care enough to work out what she needed or was making a point by asking her. Either way, she got the message.

"No thanks," she mumbled, feeling locked to the spot. She'd not felt this humiliated, this unworthy, this shit, this…small, in such a long time. He bit on his lip, as if he wanted to say something else, but he ultimately decided against it. And Clara was kind of glad he didn't try, because she already felt bad enough without his poor attempts to make her feel better, which only served as a reminder that she'd let him down. Let herself down.

She clambered into the bath, slowly and painfully. The hot water felt like heaven against her cold, aching skin and it managed to soothe the burning sensation rocketing through her body. The only negative side effect was that now her emotional distress had overtaken her physical distress. She tried to focus all of her attention into scrubbing the mud and blood from her face, arms, hair and worst of all, her legs. All that she could think about was how badly she had fucked up.

Then she hit the next period of the hangover. The stage where she reminded herself that she'd not cost herself any money, she'd not caused any irreparable damage to herself or anyone else. The stage where she came to the realisation that the Doctor would be back to his normal self in a couple of days and Nina would forgive her, of course she would. How many times had Nina fucked shit up when she was drunk? How many times had Clara bailed her best friend out of a whole after a crazy night of drinking? It was part of growing up. It was just that Clara was getting too old to be pulling these kinds of stunts.

Then that passive relief divulged back into embarrassment as snippets of the previous night crashed back down upon her and Clara had to fight back the urge to vomit all over again. She hated trying to get mud out of her hair; her hair was already a dark brown so when flakes of mud got caught in it, it was a nightmare trying to extract all of them.

"Here," the Doctor muttered gently. "Let me help."

She hadn't even heard him come in. She'd not locked the bathroom door out of habit; they didn't exactly hide anything from each other after all. He dipped his rough hands into the bath to wet them and then he scooped shampoo onto them, smoothing grinding his hands together before running the hands threw her hair. She was reminded of when she was a child and her hair was down to her butt and her mum was washing it for her. She caught his eyes and they had their warm twinkle back. She didn't know why, but she was grateful.

"Thank you," she whispered, removing a hand from the steaming water to touch his arm lightly. "I'm really sorry." She knew she'd already said it, but it needed to be reiterated.

"I know," he replied softly. He leaned forwards and kissed her forehead. The simple action made her feel infinitely better. "I'm here for you Clara. This is what I signed on for. I'm just returning the favour."

The fact that after almost ten months, he still found new ways to make her feel well and truly loved was what got her. It made her tear up slightly and he frowned, his eyes full of concern. And that was enough to set Clara off. She didn't like crying, as a general rule, it accomplished nothing. But she wanted to cry. Because she didn't know what she had done to deserve a man like the Doctor. A man who was kind. And caring. And twice the person that she could ever be. She smiled at him through her tears and he smiled back. And just for a moment, all of her anguish and searing pain just melted away.

As Clara might well have suspected, it was days before she could get Nina to come around and even talk to her. She called her several times, but it was almost a week before Nina picked up and even then, all she got was a mumbled: 'fuck off!' before her friend hung up the phone. Clara tried going over there to apologise but Nina had shut the door in her face. She knew how this would go down. Nina would sulk for a while; probably a couple of weeks and then everything would be okay. That didn't mean it hurt any less.

The Doctor was playing Mr Supportive, as ever, but it felt hollow, knowing that he was the only person who had a right to be as angry as Nina was. It wasn't even anger; Clara knew that, just frustration and disappointment. Nina was royally pissed off, but she didn't want to directly confront Clara because she knew her friend would be suffering enough and that there was nothing that Nina could say that Clara didn't already know. So, as a result, she just stayed away from Clara, didn't allow herself to erupt on her friend who was already beating herself up and Nina would continue in that vein until she was no longer pissed off. That was the way that it worked. And Clara was glad if she was honest with herself. She'd rather have two weeks of a non-communicative Nina than have her best friend scream at her. After all, if she didn't know that Nina was pissed off at her, nothing would be overly unusual about them going two weeks or so without seeing each other, it would hardly be the end of the world.

Nina called Clara a few days before her birthday. Clara had been wondering if she would, because she knew that there was every chance that Nina would be cool by then, but also that if Nina had wanted to, she would stretch the silent treatment beyond that period, and Clara wouldn't have heard a peep from her friend until after her birthday. Nina's call was warm and chatty, but Clara was fairly sure that she still wasn't 100% forgiven and she'd need to jump through a few hoops yet. Nevertheless, Nina had posted Clara her birthday present and it would hopefully arrive before the big day.

Clara had been hoping to see Nina on her birthday, but it turned out that her best friend had been conspiring with her boyfriend to arrange a weekend trip away. Clara was torn between excitement and apprehension as she finished work late Friday afternoon and he picked her up, driving her straight to the airport with everything that she would need.

"Where are we going?" Clara asked for what seemed like the millionth time.

"I'll tell you when we get to the airport!" he replied for what seemed like the millionth time.

"We're like a ten minute drive away from the airport!" she whined.

"Then surely you have the patience to wait another ten minutes," he shot back, rolling his eyes with a smug grin on his face. Clara hated it when he got patronising on her but sat back in the passenger seat anyway, grumbling under her breath, his smile only widening as she did so.

The drive to the airport was a short one, but Clara was on edge the entire time and she couldn't help but ask him all the way there exactly where they were going. He didn't budge an inch, not even giving her the tiniest hints as she tried different subtle tactics, all of them failing to slip past his iron-tight defences. They parked up in the car park and the Doctor lugged the suitcases out of the back of the car and handed Clara hers as they strolled towards the gates.

"So where are we going?"

"We're not in the airport yet Clara."

"We're in the airport car park! Surely that counts!"

"Nope."

"I hate you."

"So you keep saying," he chuckled. "But you won't be saying it when you see where we're headed Oswald. In fact, you'll be ecstatic." She wanted to press him for details, but they were finally stepping into the airport and walking up to the check-in desk. "Rome," he whispered finally and she squealed, throwing her arms around him. "We're going to Rome."

Clara could barely contain her excitement as they checked in. They wouldn't have time to eat when they got to Italy, as it would be nearing midnight by the time that they had landed, got out the airport and checked into their hotel, so they had food at a Burger King in the airport, which to Clara, was every bit as perfect as dinner in some fancy Italian hotel. They had plenty of time for that over the next couple of days. She ordered a double whopper and devoured it as the Doctor ate his chicken burger. Then, no sooner had they finished, than their flight was being called and they were boarding.

The flight itself was slightly longer than the one to Berlin, which meant that Clara just about had enough time to finish the Avengers film, which she watched as the Doctor slept on her arm. He always slept on planes apparently, he didn't know why. But before she knew it, they were touching down and he grunted as she shook him awake, kissing him softly before they were standing and departing, entering the cold Italian night.

Their hotel was slightly more upmarket than in Berlin, but Clara wasn't surprised. They were both earning more money and this was, in his mind anyway, a much bigger event. Clara had to admit, she was starting to feel a bit old; she would be 28 in just over 24 hours. The hotel bed was bigger and fluffier and the furnishings were more luxurious. The TV was bigger, as she pointed out to the Doctor, who had chuckled as he examined the mini-bar. Clara hated mini-bars. They tempted you with treats that were so ridiculously overpriced, especially when you compared them to the prices of the same treats in the shop literally across the road. She didn't go so far as to ban him from utilising it, but she did shoot him a dark look when he offered her a drink.

She slept soundly, curled up to the Doctor, never feeling more comfortable than when she was in his arms. He knew exactly how to hold her, which places to slot his various body parts to maximise her comfort, without her having to say anything. Their sleeping position wasn't static either. It was fluid, with both their bodies constantly subconsciously shifting, finding the best position without words needing to be said. It was just one of the little things that had Clara convinced that they were made for each other, although that was another thought she didn't vocalise.

She woke up moulded into him like they were two parts of a jigsaw. It felt good, so good that she didn't want to move. They ordered room service and ate breakfast in bed, sipping tea as they ate. They ended up sleeping together before they headed out into the city that morning and then they showered together as well, the heat of his body detracting slightly from the boiling water bucketing over her head, but Clara didn't care one jot.

Rome itself was a little more idyllic than Berlin, but by no means less interesting. Just as Berlin had all its little nooks and crannies, its hidey-holes and the little things that made it simply ooze history, Rome was no different. Clara found interesting little titbits wherever they went and she was disappointed that Saturday was the only day that they really had to explore the city. They were flying home Sunday evening and she knew that they would inevitably lie in and that they were going out for a big lunch for her birthday.

Saturday raced by at an alarming rate, as they spent most of the day exploring the city. The Doctor had obviously never been to Rome before, as he was not the fountain of knowledge that he had been in Berlin and he also reverted back to his pathetic attempts to speak Italian, which were frankly embarrassing for all concerned, but nevertheless Clara found amusing, even as waiters and tour guides gave him evil eyes. There was so much to see, so much to do and it was almost 8pm before they eventually gave up trying and went to dinner. Clara was exhausted by this point, as it felt like they'd walked around the entire city, although she knew that that wasn't the case. She slumped into her chair and prepared herself for what would inevitably be another evening of the Doctor trying and failing to order in Italian. So it was a huge shock to Clara when he ordered their food in fluent Italian.

"You bastard!" she squeaked. "I knew you were pretending all this time!"

He shrugged. "It was funny once, so I just thought I'd keep doing it, especially as you found it so bloody endearing!" They were both trying and failing miserably to keep a straight face, and ended up slipping into fits of giggles.

The food was every bit as delicious as Clara had expected and it made her feel full and bloated as she managed to scrape every last bite of dessert out of her bowl. She fell back in her chair, groaning in pain at her belly which was crying out in pain at her for punishing it so, but her taste buds agreed that it was worth it.

After dinner, they went back to the hotel and curled up, Clara completely and utterly at ease and at home in his arms. When he kissed her, it felt like she was breaking apart, as she was putty in his hands, her emotions jacked up to a thousand as his hands trailed down her side and her back. Every piece of contact between them heightened her senses, made her shudder and gasp and groan. When he slipped a finger in, she felt her whole world shatter, as if she couldn't possibly feel more alive than she did in that moment. And then they made love and she discovered the true definition of pleasure.

As she lay in his arms, frantically panting, trying to wrestle some control back over her own body, she could feel him smiling into the top of her head as she nuzzled his bare chest. This was it; this was what she had waited her entire life for. She fell asleep like that, knowing that if she didn't wake up in the morning, it wouldn't matter, because nothing could top that night. She of course, was wrong.

She woke up still in his arms. He hadn't moved a muscle; he was just staring lovingly down at her, like she was the most precious thing in the entire world. He kissed the top of her head and she gave him a small smile, to which he squeezed her slightly, lovingly.

"Happy birthday Clara," he murmured.

"Thanks," she whispered. "What did you have planned?"

"Well," he smiled playfully. "I was thinking we could start right here…"

Half an hour of snuggling later, they had a nice long, hot bath in the bathroom and then as Clara towelled herself dry, he produced a small box and handed it to her. She bit her lip playfully as she accepted it and opened the box, his eyes never leaving her face. Her eyes widened. It was the most gorgeous pair of diamond earrings she'd ever seen, with a small ruby dangling from each one. She opened her mouth but no words came out, she didn't know what to say. Then, he had another box in his hands and she shook her head.

"Not more!" she breathed as she took the box from him. This one was longer and thinner and she knew it was a necklace before she opened it, but that didn't stop her breath from hitching in her throat and her eyes from tearing up. The necklace matched the earrings, white gold with small rubies dotted in amongst it.

"More," he replied in an undertone and she threw her arms around him, pulling him into a long, passionate kiss. She let out a soft moan into him and he smiled as they kissed. "Because I love you Clara Oswald. And I needed to show you how much you mean to me."

She didn't know how to respond, either with her words or her actions, so she just stood there, holding him, hoping that the sheer fact that she was holding him would be enough for her to translate her raw emotion into some kind of coherent thoughts. Words like: 'I love you' wouldn't be sufficient to explain how she felt in that moment. But she could sense that he felt it too. They just stood there for a while, holding each other, swaying slightly, occasionally kissing softly. Clara didn't know how long they were like that, but before she knew it, the Doctor was letting her go and smiling.

"We have lunch reservations," he murmured.

"Fuck the lunch reservations," Clara shot back playfully but he merely rolled his eyes. She knew that she was being silly and the growl of her stomach told her that she wanted lunch, but she wanted more just to stand in his arms. She nuzzled his shoulder but he put a hand to hold her off.

"If we start cuddling again, we'll never stop," he laughed and she smiled at that. "You need to get dressed." Clara pouted and let her towel slip to the floor, trying to weaken his defences. To his credit, he kept his eyes firmly on her face, his smile holding as he leaned in and kissed her once, on the mouth and then whispered in her ear: "Put some clothes on."

Clara obliged eventually, throwing on a lovely long, white dress with a matching cardigan and tights. It was still the middle of November, Italy or not, so she made sure she was warm enough as she tried on her new earrings and necklace, squealing loudly as she caught her reflection with them on.

"Holy fuckballs they're gorgeous!" she said in a very high pitched voice. She could almost see the smug look on the Doctor's face, even though he was in the main room and her the bathroom. "Not a word."

Thankfully, he behaved, and they went to lunch. The rest of the day seemed to be a blur for Clara, but it was one of the best days of her life. Lunch in Rome was a magical experience, as she had expected it to be, even better than the previous night's dinner and she ate so much, she doubted that she would still fit into her dress. The Doctor reverted to his faux-shocking Italian ordering and she punched his arm a few times, apologising to the waiter. After lunch, they went back to the hotel and had time for a quickie before they needed to head to the airport. What made their relationship so special was that even something so simple as a quickie, which didn't need to have as much of a feeling to it, simply oozing chemistry and made Clara feel every bit as special as any other activity with the Doctor.

So it was fair to say that she was feeling both pretty special and pretty downhearted as they flew back home. She had wanted the weekend to last forever, but in the end, she knew that she didn't need it to. She had the Doctor and that, in truth, was all that she needed.