The Doctor's head was throbbing and he had a strong feeling of nausea. He tried to open his eyes but it didn't matter even if they stayed closed, it was all blank. There was someone's hand on his right cheek, scratching his light stubble, and the rest of his head touched something soft and hard at the same time, he guessed it was a knee. He rolled on his back but felt as if the world was spinning around.

"Hey, take it easy." Clara's whispered voice. After all this time, he was finally in right hands to be.

"How did you do that?" The Doctor asked her, not without an amusement in his voice.

"Did what?"

"The male voice. Back in prison."

She chuckled lightly, and he felt her stomach clench in her laugh. Oh, how he thrived to hear her just like that some years and years ago. But what was so funny about his question?

Clara watched his facial expression turn into a question mode and she couldn't stop feeling a warmth spreading inside her stomach.

They were forced into, as the Doctor made it clear some time ago, one of the dangerous places, and he was asking her this.

"Skills." She smirked as the memory flooded her mind: Ashildr shouting in a brute voice at her that there's nothing hard about it, and her, doing the same thing some several difficult hours ago. The Doctor chuckled as he probably caught her thought somehow. "Ashildr taught me it out of boredom. It was one of the longest roads to another galaxy, we didn't have much to do. Played Monopoly. Had a breath hold competition…" The Doctor unpleasantly twitched at that. "What were you doing though? Ramming through guards, was that the best thing you could think of?"

"Um…"

"Yes?"

"I just thought that somehow it would help us."

"It didn't, Doctor. They knocked you out and you hurt yourself."

"That was stupid, wasn't it?" He sighed heavily.

"Yes, it was. Please, don't get yourself in more trouble. Not only you look like an old man, bumped your head, you're also blind. What if they know?"

The Doctor opened his eyes, and, if he could see, he would have stared at her chin.

"We fool them. They will never know."

Clara watched him from her position. He looked past her, his eyes were a normal color, a bit greyish blue. Perhaps, they would manage to trick their new guards, if they don't get close much. But, anyway, he would never trick her.

"Even now you look at me and you miss almost two inches from where my eyes should be," said Clara.

"Do I?" He smiled sheepishly and tried to correct his mistake. "And now?"

"Not much."

She caught his hand halfway to her face and gently rested it on her cheek. It ghosted her ear, thumb brushing lightly her lips, tickling her sensitive skin, and Clara inched closer to it, closing her eyes when his pinky almost hit her eye. But before she could snitch away from him, she only thought that he was going to scan her face with his hand and make himself look straight into her eyes to prove that they can actually get over with his blindness, she didn't expect him to close the space between them, aiming straight to her lips with his.

His touch, or to be more accurately, their kiss felt so wrong and right at the same time. Wrong because it was obviously the Doctor not admitting that she was dead and gone forever were their happy days. Right because apart from the Doctor himself she missed it, missed the way he nipped at her bottom lip, so lightly, like he was actually scared she was just a ghost, a fantasy of his, and was eager for more when he grew more reliant, she missed the way he used to deepen the kiss as the time passed, it was never enough for him when he had stopped being all shy and nervous – and she missed that, too, almost crying when he traced the line of her throat with his middle finger.

"Stop." Clara almost begged him, because quite frankly it was difficult for her to do so with his hands placed on her cheeks and literally restraining any movements of her.

And the Doctor did, lingering for some time and hesitating, breathing in unison with her, but he stopped.

"That felt quite lively for me." He chuckled.

"You shouldn't have done that."

"You haven't complained." A smug smile crawled on his face.

"I'm serious. We can't do this anymore."

"Give me at least one reason why not."

"Doctor, I'm dead." She almost whispered it, like it was something only for his ears and he had missed it some previous time ago and she didn't want to embarrass him in front of everyone.

"You're not."

She took his hand and put it on the back of her neck. To prove her point. To remind him. To ground him.

"I know that you can't see it, Doctor, but I know you can feel it."

Clara didn't need to watch his face become all gloomy and dark. He dropped his hand too sharply, touching the tattoo only for a second as if it burnt him.

"Clara, it doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, really? It's just a fancy tattoo, that's what you're saying?"

"I'll fix it. Just give me time."

"You can't." Her voice came out cold and firm, but she could see that it didn't put the end on their argument.

"Of course, I can. I know I can." His hand returned back to her cheek and traced the line where he expected the tears. There were none, not even a drop. "I had so many years, Clara. Do you think that I forgot you that I stopped caring about you? There's a way to fix it. There's always a way to fix it."

"You can't fix it, Doctor. Everything has to end. And I wouldn't like to die anything different. I tried to save one person, technically I did, but I made a mistake. I have to face that, my own mistake."

"You're dying because I was stupid to let you on your own."

"Remember what we discussed in the Cloisters?"

"That they'll all be looking at you?"

"You gave me hope, Doctor, that time is a soft material, basically like a gum you said, we just needed to do some adjustments. I knew little about time then, so I agreed. But now I know that time is far complex than a gum and you can't fix death. It might lead to Reapers, that's the best-case scenario. The worst – a paradox so big it can consume a third of the universe. And my life, Doctor, doesn't worth a third of the universe."

The Doctor became silent for a while, thinking over what she'd just told him. "You're right, you worth more…"

She didn't answer him that, rushing up from her place, the lack of her body made his head bump on the floor.

Clara pinned him to the console room, giving him a fair warning that this would happen the moment they enter the TARDIS for god knows how many times on their way back to her. Clara made absolutely sure he was fine with it, asking him if he was fine with this and that, giving some racy descriptions of what she'd like to do to him. He didn't complain or shied away. Nor made an inappropriate comment that would get them off the mood.

Just exactly what she wanted.

"Clara," he managed to say between their shallow breaths.

She gave a last quick kiss on his mouth and moved down to his neck, sucking there lightly, adding teeth.

"Okay?" she asked him for a check if she got his long moan which he embarrassingly muffled all wrong.

"Yeah. Just…" he gained some air before he could speak again. "Can we swap positions?"

She chuckled and playfully pushed his wrists into the console panel. "Not today. I like you where you are."

She didn't miss his throat contracting in a gulp and bite him there just so on his soft skin.

The Doctor knew what exactly made his Clara angry and leave him in absolute ignorance of the space around.

Because that kiss reminded her of too few happy days.

Because she was right and he was obsessed with her.

Because they can't argue forever.

Because they were pushing their limits, again.

Because he was selfish to let her go.

But he also knew that he would never agree with her on that matter, for them and for her own sake.

Clara was here, he could hear her breathing, still unstable from their little fight. Not real breathing, of course, a fake, just a habit, but it was real enough for him. She could talk and walk, she could argue with him. She wasn't dead, she was right here and right now, and he could feel a warm ghost of her lips on his.

Weren't there suspiciously too many second chances for both of them?

Perhaps, but even when she's dead, as she liked to remind him all the day, the universe, which would crack just like that if Clara didn't return to the Trap Street, still was giving them chances after chances.

Wasn't it the time he should let Clara Oswald go, to terminate this obsession of impossible girl from Earth and just… let her be?

Well, he hadn't been looking for his Clara. Technically, it was his holiday at the university.

Once he believed that, if he ever met her again before her last destination, it would be enough to give a proper goodbye, to give a proper hug, to give a proper kiss, to see her smiling one last time because he had never got tired of that, to have one last adventure. But those were times when he could hardly remember important parts when he barely remembered all the adventures they had together and could recall only about a dozen of them. Now was a different time. Now he could remember all of her.

The spaceship they were in was getting ready for the landing, the floor under his ear began to vibrate, and he heard Clara getting up and moving to him.

"Open your eyes." She told him as she helped him on his feet.

She was still here, still Clara Oswald. The woman who would never give him up, who would always trust and always forgive him no matter what, because he was the closest person to her, as she was the closest person to him. He couldn't just give up on her. She hadn't given up on him when he had been nearly dead when the Great Intelligence had entered his lifestream and tried to kill him all at once.

Even now, she was angry at him but helping.

"Clara..."

How could he let her die?

"I'll tell them that you have a bad eyesight." She touched the back of his head and tilted his neck just a little. "Stay your head like this and try looking at the floor. It'll look like you're in a deep thought."

"We'll get through this together, won't we?" The Doctor smiled sheepishly.

"It's not like there's an alternative. But yeah. Just stay close to me." She was still angry at him, he could hear it.

Then he felt her hand in his, gripping it strongly at first but loosing it a bit later. His hand didn't fit in hers, a miniature compared to his, so it moved down to his fingers and enveloped them instead.

"What's the planet like?" The Doctor asked her.

"Why do you care?"

"I've told you, I've never been on Alendrona. I'm curious."

"Small, roundish and dull. I hope they'll send us to something more interesting colony to mine and rot."

They took a tentative step when it was like everything inside him woke up at once only to concentrate on his left ankle, the Doctor tumbled with a moan.

"It's your bruises, right?" Clara was back to his side, he could feel her breathing close to his face.

"I'm okay, alright. It's just, my ankle. I think… no, don't touch it!" He tried to flinch away but…

Too late.

"It takes a longer time to heal." She had lifted the edge of his trousers enough to see a purple mark with a trace of teeth on the rim. "Let me see your forearm."

"My forearm?" He asked with alarm.

"When you were unconscious back in the prison I might have looked at all the bruises you had. It's not like they're invisible, Doctor. So don't pretend it doesn't hurt, too."

"Um. Well, it doesn't." The Doctor tilted his head in embarrass. He didn't think about his look, actually. He didn't know what shirt he was wearing today, let alone his state.

Clara tentatively helped him off the coat and was busy with rolling up his sleeve. How did she look like? He guessed she might have her tip of the tongue sticking out of those warm lips. Brows knitted together just a little in the concentration. She used to look like that, he thought.

"It looks better. Almost pink." He felt his coat handed back to him. "I've never asked what happened to you?"

"I might have very nearly become a lunch for some brutes back on the bazaar." He shrugged.

When he used to say things like that, things that happened to him, not very good things, her eyes would become inflated and caring. Were they like this right now? Or was she still angry at him because of the kiss? She wasn't easy to forgive as far as he could remember, so maybe she was.

"Sorry. I didn't mean that. I meant what happened to your eyes?"

Ah. She meant that.

The Doctor was looking for the proper word. "Umm, well. I did what I had to." He shrugged. "I saved a friend of mine. But this all had been kind of my fault in the first place." He chuckled bitterly and shook his head. And continued. "I was selfish. I had a promise to keep but, umm… I broke it because I was tired and reckless. Because I've never thought of the consequences. Because… because I just didn't want to think of the consequences."

"What promise did you give?"

"I had to look after someone very dangerous," he chose the words carefully as to not to mention Missy in Clara's presence – that woman had played with her enough to break the poor thing. "That someone was put in the vault for crimes and I had to guard it for a thousand years. But I grew tired after a hundred. You see, I was grounded in your place and I ought not to leave it. But then, it's an addiction after all. One that's not easy to give up."

They heard a monotonous sound of the ship gliding with grace through the atmosphere of the planet. They were almost close.

"Listen to me, Clara. It's important." He reached out his hands for her, wiggling his fingers just a bit to get her put her hands into his. She did, for his surprise, and he clenched them tightly. Soft miniature fingers. He traced the rim of her nails with forefingers. Short and neat. The shell so gentle. He was memorizing it all while he still got a chance. "Clara… Whatever it takes, whatever they do to us, I promise I will get you out."

"What do you mean?" She tried to snitch away her hands as if she couldn't bare another intimacy from him, the man who had used to say he wasn't a hugger, but he didn't let her.

"There's a big probability that we won't see each other much. They might separate us into different colonies. Or they might… Just wait for me and look around more often than you usually do, okay?"

"You're saying a goodbye."

"It's temporal. I think. I'll make sure it's temporal."

"No, we won't let them separate us, right? We'll get through this. Together. You're blind, you need me to guide you."

Of one thing he was certain now – she wasn't angry at him anymore.

"Can you promise me something, Clara?"

She didn't say anything, just tighten on his thumb.

"When Ashildr finds you, don't leave me on my own."

Bad. Bad. Bad.

What was?

Almost everything.

She couldn't find gold. She couldn't fix stabilizers.

She lost Clara.

And Clara was with the Doctor.

En route to Alendrona.

En route to Rubiri or Yuthyria or Noater or Ihines.

And there wasn't much she could do.

She tried to find some different way to fix stabilizers.

There were none.

She tried to take off without them.

She couldn't.

She tried to find gold somewhere on the TARDIS.

But then she found that they had one more problem with this type – it wasn't very helpful.

And now she was back on the bazaar, desperately looking for gold again.

Ashildr stumbled on it again, the big blue box on the crossing. It was almost midnight, long ago were gone shoppers and vendors. A Viking and a time machine, that's all that was left after the day.

She looked at it tiredly. "I guess you can't help me, girl, right?"

At that, the TARDIS opened her doors.

"Or, actually, you can..."