'I'm sorry about Clara,' Emma says after the first time he wakes up in the dungeon.

"I have a theory," he replies while taking in Emma's appearance as she leans over him. Her green eyes are framed by a long curtain of blonde curls, as if she had let her hair keep growing since he had last seen her, and she's wearing a TARDIS blue summer dress. Emma bites her lip likes she's trying to diminish her smirk and his heart clenches.

'I wouldn't expect anything less. But the real question is, do you have a plan?'

"Plans are so last century," he states flippantly as he stands up, and Emma laughs which succeeds in shattering any part of the Doctor's heart that wasn't already broken. Her expression changes to one of understanding sympathy and she walks up to him and reaches up to cup his face.

'Oh, look at you. You got old.'

"One of us had to," he says, and Emma gives him a sad smile.

'I suppose so.' She smooths her thumbs over his cheek. 'You look tired."

"Comes with the territory of being old."

"You've run yourself ragged on this go around.' She shakes her head teasingly. 'I thought I told Clara to keep an eye on you.'

"She did her best."

XXXXX

She's always there every time he wakes, every time he journeys through the labyrinth, every time he meets his end at the diamond wall. The Doctor knows that Emma isn't real, is only a figment of his imagination brought to life to keep him sane and keep him on the right path, but it feels so good that she's here.

Some small part of him whispers that maybe she is here, that she's come back from whatever afterlife there is to help him, and that thought feels so good and so painful all at the same time.

'Tell me about the companions after me,' she prompts so he does. He tells her every single adventure he ever had with Amy, Rory, River and Clara.

'Those blonde ones just keep giving you trouble huh? I'd almost say you have a type.' She teases with sparkling eyes and an overdramatic hair flip when he tells her about his wedding.

He tells her how he almost gave up traveling after Amy and Rory, because they had been the ones who had helped him put himself back together after her death.

'You would have been completely miserable.' Emma states. 'You were probably already bored.'

"What's your point?" He deflects and she shakes her head with a knowing smile on her face.

'I just keep thinking you'd know yourself better by now.'

XXXXXX

"I wanted to save you." He admits when it looks like he's about to break through the wall. Emma blinks up at him in confusion. "Go back with the TARDIS and make sure you never died. Be the Time Lord Victorious again. But I knew that if I picked you over the universe that you would never ever forgive me."

'You're right. I would have been absolutely furious," she concedes as he gives the final punch and the wall shatters.

He looks at Emma with wide eyes as the realization descends that he is going to lose her again. Emma smiles at him sadly, because she knows, she always knows, and rests her hands over his hearts.

'I'm right here. Right where I've always been and I'm never going anywhere.' She taps both of her index fingers in time with his heart beats before she gives a little finger wave over his shoulder. 'Now go be a Time Lord.'

XXXXX

"Doctor I was dead. I died so long ago," Clara says with a hand pressed over her unbeating heart after they have escaped, and they have a moment to breathe. The Doctor looks away because looking at her will give too much away. Clara is too good at reading this face now.

"Why me?" She continues. "The Time Lords would never have known the difference between all your companions. Doctor that was your chance. You could have saved Emma." Clara had been there when the two worlds melded together, so she knows how he looked at her, knows how much he loves her still.

Emma has been dead for thousands of years longer than Clara had, but time hasn't dulled any of his memories of her. The teasing laugh that echoes in his ears is still as bright as it had been when she was alive. The sparkle of her eyes that accompanied her laughter. The happiness he'd felt every time she had smiled at him.

"No. It had to be you," the Doctor protests weakly, a few seconds too late, and understanding fills Clara's eyes.

"You picked me because I'm selfish," Clara whispered.

"Emma was too long ago," he lies. Clara shakes her head.

"You knew that you'd just lose her again and that you wouldn't be able to bear it." She was right. He hadn't needed his hallucination of Emma to confirm it for him. He had always known that the instant Emma realized what her prolonged life was costing the universe she would have cupped his face in her hands and kissed his forehead before marching right back to her death. Maybe she would have spared a moment to study his older eyes before telling him that he needed to slow down on the regenerations with a slight twist of her lips.

Losing her for a third time would have killed him. He knows that much about himself.

"Are you saying you would like to go back to your death?" He snaps, being deliberately harsh to provoke Clara.

"I'm just guessing you have a plan." His heart lurches again because it's almost the exact same thing that Emma had said to him earlier.

"Plans are so last century," He grates out finally and it almost hurts more that Clara doesn't laugh.