Chapter Fifteen: Out Of The Woods

First was the light. Pale and faint, it hit his eyelids and appeared to him like a flashlight at the end of a tunnel.

Second was the smell. It he had to put a name to it, it would be old wood with a tinge of mildew. Not exactly a Yankee candle, is it? he thought to himself.

And finally, he was sinking. Not into a pool or an ocean—or any body of water for that matter—but a mattress. In fact, as The Doctor came to, he reached the conclusion that this was the softest bed he'd ever slept in.

This trip was full of superlatives. 'Most Memorable Car' went to the TARDIS. 'Worst Possible Near-Death Experience' was a tie between Reno and their crash on the interstate, though The Doctor's memory was too foggy to choose a winner. He'd have to ask Clara's opinion on it later.

The young writer herself deserved the highest form of superlative, though he hadn't quite figured that out yet. It needed to embody everything he adored about her—from her inability to allow anything out of a hair's reach from her control, to the taste of her lips when she kissed him earlier that morning. Summarizing that into a worthy statement would prove itself difficult, to say the least. She was the most unexpected thing about this trip and the quickest person to have ever gained access to his heart.

Which is why, when he woke up alone in the dead of night, the silence was enough to unnerve him.

It wasn't that he was immune to fear. He'd just never cared for anything—or anyone—so deeply up until then. Before he climbed into the TARDIS with Clara two days ago, he had nothing to lose. His parents only existed in memories and the way his heart hurt when he thought about them for too long. The Ponds, while still an integral part of himself, had lived over three thousand miles away for the past four years. And his wealth was but a possession tainted in loss. It was easy to be reckless when so little mattered to him. Often times, it felt like his only choice.

The room was bathed in warm, orange light, the candle on the dresser making shadows flicker and dance on the wood-paneled walls. He appeared to be swaddled in a quilt beneath layers of bedding and an old-fashioned comforter. A glass of water sat on the bedside table; he didn't realize how badly he needed it until he tried using his voice.

"Clara—?" The Doctor managed, the back of his throat burning. He sat up, realizing his mistake as soon as the pain rippled through the left side of his body. Breaking free of the quilt, he caught sight of the bandages peeking out from underneath an unusually large Penn State tee. Not a moment passed before he was ripping those off, too. Pink and damaged flesh stared back at him, his once-healthy skin now searing from injury. He winced as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Where was he?

Casting a distrustful glance around the room, he slowly pushed himself up and walked into the corridor, where faint voices traveled up the staircase ahead. He walked towards them, leaving the door ajar and taking the steps one at a time. His complete lack of understanding outweighed his need to be discreet as he pushed through the kitchen door at the foot of the stairs, where a couple stood doing dishes at the sink. They immediately startled upon his entrance, their eyes widening at the mere sight of him. It was as if they'd just seen a ghost.

"You're awake," the woman breathed, dropping her tea towel to attend to him. "This all must be very disorienting for you."

"...very," The Doctor replied, looking behind him uncertainly. Doing so didn't provide him with the context he needed. "Do forgive me, but am I breaking and entering?"

"Not to my knowledge," the man offered. The Doctor nodded.

"Good, good. I hoped I wasn't," he said, confusion and slight discomfort passing over his face. This all vaguely reminded him of that one bedtime story. The one with the three bears. "Where am I, then?"

"Smethport, Pennsylvania."

"I'm sorry—where?"

The aging man merely adjusted his spectacles with a chuckle. "Exactly."

"We've been worried sick," the woman shook her head, traces of worry etched in her grey eyes. She seemed to be debating between scolding her partner for his facetious behavior and making their injured guest a cup of tea. "It's good to see you're feeling better. I wish I could say the same for your friend."

"Clara," The Doctor clarified. His stomach plunged. "Where is she? Is she okay—?"

"She's fine," the man interrupted. "Poor thing hasn't slept a wink since she's arrived. She's convinced herself that you've become a vegetable."

"Alan!"

The Doctor would've found the man's words lighthearted if not for the guilt beginning to boil within him. He hadn't meant to scare Clara. He hadn't meant to put her through any of this to begin with. The moment he chose to bank right was the moment he knew he had made a terrible mistake. He should have come up with something better, something more clever, something that would result in anything but this—

Someone cleared their throat behind him. He froze.

"You're alive. I was almost beginning to doubt it."

Hearing her voice after hours of hearing nothing at all was almost too good to be true. Turning around to see her standing there, leaning on the door-frame of the kitchen, was even more improbable. It was the sheer wit in her eyes, shrouded by layer upon layer of exhaustion, that sobered him. The bandages weaved between her delicate fingers. The way her jaw twitched each time she put weight on her right leg.

"You've removed your bandages already," Clara said behind a wince, eyeing the bruises and scrapes adorning his arms. "You need to have those replaced immediately."

He couldn't help it. His face split into a wide grin.

"Not a moment too soon and you're already giving me instructions," he teased, shaking his head. "Blimey, I've missed you."

"Yeah?" she asked, a smile filling her face. He nodded.

"Yeah."

A few seconds passed in complete silence, the two travelers exchanging tentative glances with one another. Clara was unable to believe that despite everything that had happened, from the moments of unbearable panic and dread, there was still room for gratitude in her heart. In fact, as she beheld this man before her, with his extra large Penn State tee and bed-tousled hair, she began to laugh. He was okay. Actually, properly okay. Battered and bruised in a few areas, but strong enough to envelop her in a crushing embrace as she ran towards him.

Just a few hours ago, she felt the ground disappear beneath her feet. Now, she never felt more steady.

Pulling away, she craned her neck to meet his eye, and said, "I've missed you, too."

"A pulled ligament in the wrist, two bruised ribs, and a gnarly case of road rash, which sounds a lot more unpleasant than it looks." David exhaled through his nose, pocketed his penlight, and sank into a nearby armchair. They had reconvened in the parlor, the serenity of the moonlit garden providing much needed solace to the guests from outside the tall windows. "Thankfully, your visual reflexes are still in check, and there's no signs of severe head trauma."

"So a concussion is out of the question?" Clara asked behind her fourth cup of tea. The corner of David's mouth tilted into a small smile.

"I do know how to ask myself, you know," The Doctor joked from beside her. Despite his objections, the young writer had been fretting for the past hour: constantly asking if he was lightheaded, refilling his water after he'd taken a single sip. He had to enjoin her to sit next to him as David performed the perfunctory measures of a physical exam. She'd stopped pacing to shoot him a look of utter incredulity, as if relaxing wasn't one of her God-given functions.

"Are you sure you're not dizzy?" she insisted instead, harassing a thumbnail. The Doctor wanted to stand up just so he could pry it from between her teeth.

"No, but I will be if you don't stop pacing."

She had long since sat by his side in disquiet, her lack of verbal directives made up for in worried stares. The Doctor laid a hand atop of hers, the warmth of his palm extinguishing whatever anxious flame she'd ignited within herself. He was appreciative for her concern, really. But he was beginning to feel concern for her because of it.

"I wouldn't say we're out of the woods just yet, but we're getting there," David promised them, propping an ankle on his knee. "We'll monitor you throughout the night, see if any symptoms recur. The usual protocol. Until then, allow me to put you both on bed-rest." The young physician looked quizzically at the two of them. "Emma here tells me you two have been on the road for two days straight. Might I ask what attracted you to such an atrocity?"

The Doctor looked to the other couple in the room—the Palmer's, he'd recently learned—and then to Clara. She merely shrugged, as if to ask, What else was I supposed to do while you were out? Combust?

"It's been an unanticipated few days, that's for sure. But that's certainly not a bad thing," he reassured David, his hold on Clara's hand suddenly conspicuous. She didn't need to meet his eye to know what he meant by that. She would've blushed, even, if not for what he said next. "And I'm afraid bed-rest isn't exactly ideal at the moment."

Her reaction was just as, if not more, surprised than David's. And his eyebrows flew into his hairline.

"Oh?" David asked, a playful challenge in his tone. "I can understand a doctor's objections to a prescription not written by his own hand. But to turn down a good night's sleep? That's unheard of."

"A rarity, I know," The Doctor chuckled. "Trust me, if it were any other day, I'd oblige."

"Doctor..." Clara started, a warning tone in her voice. She leaned in to whisper in his ear. "You're not seriously considering we keep going, are you?"

"No," he breathed in disbelief, matching her volume. "I'm firmly encouraging we keep going. There's a difference."

"I don't know if you've realized, but we don't exactly have the means to do so," she quipped, her voice dripping with sarcasm. He spoke as if this entire debacle had been as inconvenient as a popped tire, or a traffic cone in the middle of the road. "We don't have the bike anymore, much less the TARDIS."

"Since when has that ever stopped us?" he attested. She grew quiet. "I know what this opportunity can mean for you, and it's—"

"Not worth it," she finished. The Doctor blinked back in surprise.

"Do you really think so?"

It didn't matter that there were three other people bearing witness to their hushed argument. It didn't matter that she was only a state away from what once seemed an attainable, tangible dream. She'd grown tired of hitting hurdle after hurdle. What if the universe had been telling her all this time that this wasn't what she was meant to be doing? Had she failed to read between the lines?

"No. Maybe?" she said bleakly, leaning her chin on his shoulder. "I want to believe that we can just pick ourselves up from this, but it's cost us more than two people should ever have to pay. It's a miracle enough that we made it."

"I know," he murmured, lowering his head. He appeared frustrated. "I know."

She laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Can we please just go to bed and not think about tomorrow?"

It was a simple request. And although he nodded, there was no hiding the denial in his eyes, the way his jaw hardened with irresolution. Somehow, it spoke wonders more than anything he could have actually said.

"Bed-rest it is, then," he announced with a forced sort of smile, resting his hands on his knees and pushing himself up. His gaze eventually softened as he scanned the faces of those in the room. "Good night everyone, and thank you. I've never felt more...cared for. Lucky, even."

David watched him with a raised eyebrow as he exited the parlor, while Clara suppressed a long sigh. It was no doubt that their audience had detected the tension between The Doctor and her, the defeat in their tired, weary voices. At least they were polite enough to act as if they hadn't heard a thing. Emma and Alan soon excused themselves to finish up the dishes, leaving David and Clara to their own devices, soaking in silence.

"How do you do it?" she asked after a while, staring into her empty tea mug.

"Do what?"

"This," she said, gesturing to the bandages and bottles of pain medication discarded on the coffee table. "Friend calls in the middle of the night with an emergency, and you're here. Suited-up. Quite literally."

He let out a low chuckle, tapping on the armrests of the chair in deliberation. "Well, I was already wearing this from my twelve-hour shift, so I can't say I'm deserving of such credit." He peered down to inspect a stain on his wrinkled tie. "In fact, I'm more than certain that this is baby barf."

Clara couldn't help but laugh. "Your child, I'm guessing?"

He nodded, his eyes gleaming in endearment. "Her name is Genevieve. Jenny for short."

She smiled. The way pure joy and adoration overtook the exhaustion on his face spoke volumes. "You must love being a father. Especially if you're wearing her spit-up on your tie."

"It's my badge of honor," he defended amusedly, tossing the tie over a shoulder. "And to answer your question—I do what I do because I've been given so much. And it's good. Stressful and slightly malodorous at times, but good. How could I not extend the opportunity for others to experience something similar?" His pulled his lips into a deep frown. "People say that it's a doctor's job to treat disease, or prescribe medication, but I think it's much simpler than that. I think it's a doctor's job to give people the chance at being happy."

He stood and bid her goodnight soon after that, promising to drop by first thing in the morning for a follow-up. And while she agreed and made ample conversation as she walked him to the door, her thoughts kept retreating to his words, now swimming in the forefront of her mind. Did The Doctor uphold a similar belief to the role—the name—he'd chosen for himself all those years ago? Is that why he was so determined to finish out the trip, even as every invention of fate went against it? Clara assumed it was innate of him to turn a blind eye on risk and move forwards. But perhaps he was fully aware of the risks he'd been taking this entire time. Perhaps he still saw them—still saw her—as worth it.

Those thoughts carried her up the staircase and to the door of the guest bedroom, where she drew in a shallow breath before knocking twice. A second passed. Two.

"It's open!"

The Doctor was sitting with the blankets strewn about him, running a thumb over the blood-caked screen of his shattered cell phone. Clara stopped a few feet away from the edge of the bed and folded her arms across her chest.

"Thanks for letting me use your portable charger." He jutted his chin out towards the piece of plastic sitting on the bedside table. It took her a great deal of effort not to look amused.

"I'm surprised your phone hasn't given out yet," she admitted, rocking back and forth on her heels. "Have you called Amy and Rory yet?"

He shook his head. "I wouldn't want to impose. The last thing they need is for their friend to pronounce himself nearly dead."

She glanced towards the clock on the nearby desk. 2:14 in the morning. Tuesday had turned into Wednesday already, and she hadn't even noticed. It felt strange to think that the day she'd been waiting for all these weeks just slipped in without her even knowing. It was dreadfully anti-climactic.

"I'm sorry we're not there to greet Amy on her birthday," she said, suddenly realizing the date. The Doctor smiled grimly in her direction.

"It's not as if she's unaccustomed to my absence," he conceded, letting out a small laugh. She bit her lower lip in apprehension, which he spotted faster than she'd anticipated. "You have that look on your face again."

"What look?"

"The one you wear when you're beating yourself up over something. I promise, I'm okay." He tried to beam at her despite the weariness on his face, even waving his hands in the air, as if to say, See? Still in one piece!

"But that's the thing. You shouldn't be just okay. You should be in New York right now with your friends, painting the town red, listening to...I dunno, pigeon lectures."

"Pigeon lectures?"

"I saw it in a travel magazine." Highlighted it, too. "Instead, you're stuck here in a house with road rash and four people you didn't even know existed until this week, one of whom you're probably thinking has gone off the deep end."

"Clara. You know that's not true," he said. "I would never participate in a pigeon lecture."

It caught her so off-guard that she laughed.

"And if anyone here has gone off the deep end, it's not you." The humor in his eyes suddenly disappeared, revealing the sadness there that Clara had once detected thousands of miles ago in San Francisco. Back when they were but strangers to each other. "I never should have said yes to the motorbike. It was a stupid idea, and yet I went with it, knowing you weren't fully recovered yet. And I'm sorry."

"Don't peg this all on yourself. I agreed to it too, you know," she pointed out, perching herself on the edge of the mattress. Her gaze immediately gravitated towards the fresh bandages on his arms. The injuries beneath them. "Encouraged it, even. And god knows where we'd be if you hadn't made the decision to veer from the car. Six feet under, perhaps."

"I put you in danger."

"You saved our lives," she corrected him. "Don't you recognize that?"

"No. No, maybe I don't." He ran a hand over his tired face. "For the longest time, I never paid heed to my actions. I thought the world had waived it's right to hurt me, after everything it had already taken. And then I meet this writer—this brilliant, funny, beautiful person—and I don't realize I've pulled her into direct fire of my decisions until it's too late. Which is why I can't let go of this, Clara. If I can help you get to New York, help you get the career you've been dreaming of and deserve, then...maybe this trip wouldn't have been for nothing."

It's a doctor's job to give people the chance at being happy.

"That's not true," she said, shifting towards him so she could meet his eye. "This trip has been anything but easy, but no matter what happens tomorrow, it wouldn't have been for nothing."

She wanted to tell him just how much these past few days had influenced her. How grateful she was that he'd been with her every step of the way. She never would have done half of the things on this road trip had he not been there to encourage her. To convince her that life wasn't meant to be navigated like a minefield. It was meant to be lived.

Instead, Clara drew herself closer to him until their breath mingled, the precision of her gaze absorbing his every feature. Slowly, she leaned forwards, grazing her lips against his. His warmth was magnetic as they fell together, her movements careful, deliberate. It conveyed a million things she wanted to say but couldn't find the words to.

The Doctor suppressed a low moan as he reached up to run an affectionate thumb down her cheek. His preceding thoughts always seemed to dissolve into white noise when he kissed her, the caress of her lips becoming his new center of focus. As she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in closer, he couldn't recall a time in which he'd felt more enamored by anyone before. It was as if a certain piece of his heart had always belonged to her.

He tasted tentatively with his tongue, Clara parting her lips to allow herself to revel in the taste of him. They were both fully aware of their racing heartbeats in the little space between them. It was easily the most vulnerable she'd ever allowed herself to be and the safest she'd ever felt in a long time.

He slid his hands beneath her thighs, a groan of pleasure escaping the back of her throat as he hoisted her onto his lap. She arched her back beneath his touch, unable to locate a single thought as she lost herself entirely in him. Every square inch of her body was burning; but it was anything but painful. In fact, the longer he traced the curves of her body, the more she forgot about the injuries she'd so carefully concealed just hours before.

It wasn't until the warmth of his fingers slid beneath the material of her shirt that he suddenly pulled away. Clara breathed heavily, confusion dancing across her features, until she realized why he'd hesitated. There was a piece of thick gauze pressed against the lower half of her ribs. It was as if he could see the torn flesh searing beneath it. Tilting her chin, she gently lifted the hem of her shirt to inspect it fully.

"Does it...does it hurt?" he asked, swallowing hard. "Are you in pain?"

"Not really," she admitted, lowering her shirt and carefully climbing off of his lap. "Not anymore."

They sat in silence for a minute or two, the heat between them dissipating into calmness that could only be gained from a quiet town like this. The sound of crickets filled their ears, and for a brief moment, Clara was at peace. Yes, there were still several issues hanging in the air—where to proceed from here being the first of them—but for now, the young writer wanted nothing but to lie down next to The Doctor and close her eyes.

"We should get some sleep," she told him in a whisper. He nodded, moving over on the bed and pulling back the covers. She climbed in beside him, letting out a relieved sigh as she settled into the cascade of warm blankets and pillows. She hadn't the faintest idea as to what tomorrow held. There were no plans, no expectations. Funnily enough, that was okay with her. She would fret about it in the morning.

The Doctor laid on his uninjured side, facing Clara with a glassy look in his eyes. Reaching across the mattress to cup his face, she slowly leaned over to press her lips onto his. The kiss was soft, tender, and over before he knew it, but there was no mistaking the doting look in her eyes as she pulled away and smiled at him sleepily.

"Good night, Doctor Smith," she said. The Doctor smiled fondly at the memory as he drifted off into a deep sleep.

"Good night to you too, Mrs. Oswald-Smith."

A/N: Finally! A chance to update! I've been applying to universities this past month and attempting to stay sane throughout the entire process. I've written so many essays about my personal life and goals for the future—I feel like I'm swimming in words. I wish the best of luck to anyone who may be applying to school this semester!

Next chapter, we get to know a little more about David, the Palmers, and the town of Smethport itself. It's quite a lighthearted piece and I can't wait for you to read it once it's finished. I thank everyone for reviewing and being patient with this story. It truly warms my heart to know that people are out there supporting my work. Have a lovely week!