A/N: This takes place some vague time after chapter sixteen, The Common Anniversary, making Johan 69 and Clara 50.

Chapter Thirty-Two: Guilty Dreams

Slipping into a hidden corridor, Johan followed a billowing trail of bright red hair as he allowed himself to be dragged along by torchlight. Yes, he was only Johan then, an earl in his own right, though not yet risen to the seat of his forefathers. Both he and his companion were giggling, whispering, and saying things long-forgotten as they navigated the winding staircase. Finally, they came to a landing—once used as a lookout point during the Dalek Wars, they had supposed—and he let go of the hand leading him. The young woman before him put the torch in a sconce and turned around; everything around them seemed to melt away in an instant. Eyes of green and amber, freckles across ivory skin, a small and flirty smile, the short lashes and straight nose that both bothered her so yet he found adorable in their own way … she approached him as a vision of perfection.

He held her hand within his own—both were young and smooth—and brought it up to his lips. Words in the ceremonial tongue escaped him as he kissed her fingertips, palm, wrist, moving slowly as he recited poetry now silent with age. Her hand escaped his and gently guided his face down into a kiss. Timid at first, it grew bolder and more intense as hands began to grasp and he stumbled until his back slammed against the wall.

Waking with a start, the Marquis sat up in bed with a cold sweat beading across his brow. He took a few deep breaths before looking down at the other side of the bed. Although he and his wife had started the night alone, a short storm had barreled through and now the Marchioness lay with Seren nestled in her arms. The boy was growing too old for such things, he had argued, but when a mother makes a decision, it stayed decided. After gently arranging her hair so that it stayed off her face, the Marquis quietly slid out of bed and put on his robe.

"Mmm… Johan…?"

"I can't sleep, dearest," he lied. He walked around to her side of the bed and bent down to leave a kiss upon her brow. "Going for a walk; should be back before dawn."

"Feel better," the Marchioness said groggily. She went back to sleep and her husband silently left the room.

There was no way he could stay at her side after what he had just dreamt.

Feeling guilty, he wandered the moon-lit castle corridors until he stumbled upon the portrait hall. There hung the visual records of the previous marquises, and in most cases their wives, all staring back at him with the power and might they had once commanded, along with a special quality none of the others possessed. His great-grandfather stood alone, a war-weary widow with a reluctance towards fighting; his grandfather and grandmother sat side-by-side, each sporting their own look of casual boredom, if his memory of them was anything to go on; his parents eschewed the formal feel, with her sitting to read a book and he leaning down to look with a hand on her shoulder; they were all marquises and marchionesses of times past and were now all memory.

The final two portraits in the hall were the ones he had come to see, however. At the very end was the one of the Two Doctors, painted nearly ten years ago at this point. It was shortly after Maglina had her first birthday, he remembered, and the Baroness Coal-on-the-Hill had helped them out by keeping her with Oriana during the days they were posing with scepters and held hands. They were due for another, he thought, and tried imagining the painting that would be placed to its left: his daughter with a sword in one hand and scepter in the other, triumph and fury in her eyes.

To its right sat the image that was the most out of place if ever there was one. He had originally protested to placing it in the hall with all the others, yet the Marchioness had insisted out of respect to her predecessor. There the Marquis saw his reflection, all of eighteen-and-a-half years with his bride on his arm. Older than they were in his dream by a year, they were oblivious to what was to come within the few short years that followed. Melody never had the chance to sit in the Companion's chair as Marchioness, the young Johan succeeded his father Troy while still grieving, and the amount of state funerals in one year was the highest it had been in a time not ravaged by war or plague. The Marquis sat down on a bench and stared, the pain reaching down to where he had always imagined his second heart sat, before he realized its name was Clara.

After having accepted the past for so long, why was he now allowing days long gone to haunt him?

The Marquis sat for a long while, losing track of time as he studied the portrait. It helped him fill in the gaps from memories not thought of in years, decades. He was about to leave when a voice cut through the silence, rattling him severely.

"Johan? What are you doing?

Turning his head, the Marquis saw his wife standing not far away, having left their quarters still in her night things. He looked out the window—the sun was beginning to rise in the violet-tinged sky; he was caught.

"Just remembering," he said. The Marchioness sat down next to him, silently offering her ear. "I doubt you want to hear about things that happened long before you arrived in the marquisate."

"What is this about? You don't sulk about the castle for no apparent reason."

"I'm not sulking."

"Then what is the matter?" She took his hand in hers and leaned to look him in the eyes. "We are both the Doctor; I should know what is troubling you."

"It's nothing for you to worry about…"

"Not only am I your Doctor, but I am your wife and the mother of your children; what is the matter? I deserve to know."

"Clara…"

"Johan."

"I…" He finally directly met her eyes and broke, knowing he wouldn't last long against her now. "I apologize; my dreams since our trip have been leading me back to time spent with Melody. Please forgive me."

"I was the one who started it… what is there to forgive?" She pulled him closer and kissed his cheek before resting her head on his shoulder. The portrait before them nearly seemed to smile down at her, giving the Marchioness confidence beyond measure. "Was the dream at least a happy one? From a good memory? The older dreams are, the more bittersweet they feel, but I'd rather you remember the better times. A person only has one Melody, after all."

"That is not fair on you."

"It is the truth: a Melody, a Daniel, a Doctor... sometimes they are one person, sometimes they are many, and sometimes someone is unfortunate enough to never truly meet any." The Marchioness felt relieved as her husband's arm wrapped around her waist. "Where were you? How old were you? What were you doing?"

"We were in the hidden paths, back when we were seventeen," he explained quietly. "The fact that out of our older daughters, only Tara has kept a paramour for physical desires still shocks me… and makes me glad she has the room to make my mistakes."

"If anything, it is good to know that the hidden paths have never truly gone unused," she gently teased. When his only reply was a strained laugh, she decided on asking for something new. "Can you bring me there?"

"I'm sorry…?"

"Are you able to bring me to that place you were dreaming of, so I might see it?"

"Why do you want to go there?" the Marquis wondered. "It was a place for me to be intimate with a woman who wasn't you; isn't it an odd request?"

"It is odd, I agree, but it's obvious it still hurts, and I want to help you," she said. "Lady Melody does not deserve to be forgotten, but she does deserve to rest in the earth knowing that her beloved was not destroyed by her death." The Marchioness gestured towards the portrait of the young couple, making sure to draw attention towards it. "Maybe if you go there, you might come to better terms with things. She can't stay locked away in your memory forever, keeping parts of you from those of us still living; I doubt she'd stand for it."

"You're correct: she wouldn't," he admitted. He stood, offering her his hand. "I'd rather you dress a bit warmer, but I'll show you, if you wish."

After stopping back at their chambers quick enough to grab a shawl, the pair quickly wandered throughout the castle until they found a particular statue of the Second Doctor and Marquis. There was a hidden panel behind it that the Marquis struggled to pop out of the wall, but once they were in, there were no obstacles. He lit the torch sitting in the sconce and marveled at the brightness of the flame.

"For all I know, this has been sitting here unused for fifty years."

"Let's go; you were right about the chill," the Marchioness said, clutching the shawl around her tighter.

With one hand holding the wrap in place and the other in her husband's hand, she allowed him to lead her along. The cool air did not seem to deter him as they went through the narrow corridors, barely even pausing to recall which path to take. Eventually they did arrive at the place in the Marquis's dream, with him freezing when he realized they had made it. The Marchioness took the torch from his hand and found an empty sconce, depositing it there before going back to the Marquis's side.

"A fortification?" she asked, gently pulling him further into the small room.

"During the Dalek Wars, we assumed," he replied. They went to one of the slits in the wall acting as a window and gazed down upon the city, seeing the buildings bathed in violet and crimson as the incoming day approached. "We had genuine magic then—none of this hidden-in-the-open rubbish—and a Gallifreyan archmage could snipe Dalek soldiers approaching the city walls rather well from such a position. The way to this spot, and others, was officially closed off in the Mourning, when we were honoring those who were lost, but there has always been access to them since, even if they are secret. I've made sure our older girls know them well, beyond the escape passages they were taught as children, in preparation for when we retire and no longer have command over anything."

"You told the girls, but not me?" she chuckled. The Marchioness sat down on a wooden bed platform and watched as the Marquis kept staring out the embrasure. It still felt sturdy enough to sit on, and was completely bare save for a moldy-looking blanket on the far end. "What else do the girls know that I do not?"

"Very little," he said. "I have explained to them something about the memory of Lady Melody when it comes to my love for you though, because it is very important that they realize it."

"…and what's that?"

"You're not competing with a ghost," he stated, finally walking away from the wall. He sat down next to his wife and held her hand. "I've never wished for you to feel that way, which is why I've kept things inside. There's no one else I'd rather have with me at this moment, truly." He exhaled heavily, remembering unpleasant things. "I knew from the start I would outlive Melody since her parents had not a drop of Ancient Gallifrey in their veins, and there is a chance that I will outlive you for that same reason, but if anything, anyone, tries to take you from me before your time, I will make them pay."

"I would hate to be on the wrong end of that," she said. "Then again, I would do the same if the world attempts to take you away before you are ready—the children didn't inherit all their ferocity from you. Just because I wasn't able to know your father and grandfather does not mean I will sit idly when it comes to knowing your children and grandchildren as they grow."

"Stars, Papa and the children," the Marquis half-groaned. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Had he survived the heartbreak, he would have made it his life's mission to dote upon the children while driving us mad."

"He at least sounds like a proper father-in-law," she smirked, though it melted away into thought. "I can see Lena banning us from the front when we retire and she takes over the marquisate, so that neither of us meet your lord grandfather's fate."

"Grandpapa was reckless after he buried Grandmamma Donata, and the battle wounds that killed him had been easily avoidable," he said. "It's an odd thing; Grandpapa succeeded where I did not, and not only is the marquisate better off for it, but I am as well."

"No more talk of sad things," the Marchioness demanded. "Now tell me: how did you think to use this place above all the others?"

As they talked and eased the memories from his lips, the scarlet dawn came, light slipping in through the embrasures, warning them of their impending duties. They slowly made their way back through the passageways, the Marquis found the point of entry and doused the torch, only to have his hand smacked away from the door handle. The Marchioness pulled him down and silently thanked him the best she could: by making him gasp her name, whispering in tiny whimpers while questioning what could happen if a wandering servant found them out.

No one found them, however, and both Marquis and Marchioness reported to breakfast with their children as they normally would. It seemed a miracle that none of the children picked up on their father's bout of extra-attentiveness when it came to their mother. His adoration for her seemed unfettered and endless, making it so the eyes he was giving her were not anything new to the teens and their younger siblings. It was not until the Earlessa was forced to preside over court alone did anyone connect the dots concerning talk over the castle's hidden paths, and she really wished she hadn't remembered any of it in the slightest… for that was where she knew her parents had run off towards.