Clara shivered in the Doctor's arms. Her skin was pale and icy to the touch, and her soaked shirt ripped at the shoulder, first from the thickets, and then where he tried to grab her before she fell.
She looked up at him with trusting eyes. "Hello," she said, in a voice that was barley a whisper. Her eyes flickered rapidly and then she plummeted towards the floor.
He scooped her up before she could fall and dashed to the med-bay. His hearts raced in his chest with every step. What the hell had he done?
As they entered the med-bay, her eyes flicked open again. "I'm falling," she said, between shallow, rapid breaths, "Catch me."
"I've got you," he said -to reassure himself as much as her- as he put her down on the edge of a medical bed. He felt for the pulse in her neck, it was racing but weak. "Are you okay to sit up there?"
She nodded. She was soaked to the skin.
So was he, but that barely registered.
He grabbed a thermal wrap from the bed and tucked it around her shoulders. It wouldn't do much good with her clothes soaked like this. "Clara, we have to get you warm. Can you get out of these wet things?"
She nodded, and fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. Her shaking fingers couldn't grasp the buttons.
"I can't . . . they didn't seem so small when I did them up this morning," she said, faintly. Her face was white, and the ends of her fingers tinged blue.
"Shall I help?" he said, tentatively, not wanting to cross the line. But she had to get warm as soon as possible.
She nodded, still trembling, teeth chattering.
He stood in front of her, between her legs, as she gripped the edge of the bed. He unfastened a button, then two, as she watched his fingers work.
She said through chattering teeth, "When I imagine you unbuttoning my shirt, this is not how I picture it."
"Uh, me either," he said.
His fingers froze.
Their eyes locked. Energy crackled between them, elemental and raw, and desire, unspoken for so long found form in those simple words. She had imagined this, and so had he. There was no running from it any more.
A groan escaped his lips. "Clara—"
"Keep going," she murmured. With his own fingers trembling now he dealt with the buttons and opened her shirt. He paused again, wondered, for a long moment, what it would be like to run his thumb over her collarbone, and then kiss her throat. He could lose himself in the nape of her neck with the scent of her hair all around him.
He took a sharp breath. Then peeled the soaked shirt, first one arm, then the other, from her and threw it to the floor and tugged the thermal wrap around her. He patted her shoulder awkwardly. There, no harm, no foul.
Gods, who was he kidding?
"Can you stand up so we can get these wet trousers off?" he said, tone as business-like as he could muster. She nodded, still shaking, but gamely stood up and promptly wobbled into his arms. He steadied her, his breath quickening, heat rushing to his face. He groaned again. Was this some special form of torture?
He fumbled with her trousers, found the button and the zip, hoped the trousers would fall to the floor, but they clung to her legs, and stayed stubbornly around her hips. He swallowed, felt like the worst kind of cad because this really shouldn't be turning him on, but he ached for her.
He peeled the clinging fabric over her hips, past her thighs, over her raw and still bleeding knees. She lifted a foot to help and wiggled out of the wet trousers. He pulled the thermal wrap all around her, flicked the activation tab, and helped her back onto the bed.
"Let me clean up those knees," he said. She flinched as he sprayed the wounds with steri-flux. The nano-tech in the fluid delivered a local anaesthetic, and set to work destroying pathogens and then accelerating the healing process. By the time he had finished, she'd stopped shivering.
He stepped back. Space, that's what he needed, and bit of time to clear his head. A rush of conflicting emotions churned in his hearts. His own neediness appalled him. He was a Time Lord, he'd lived more than two thousand years and seen civilizations rise and fall. He would probably be the last man standing in the universe, and here he was helplessly lost in Clara's Oswald's eyes.
"Don't go," she said, bundled inside the silver cocoon. Her colour was slowly returning.
He sighed. He could deny her nothing. He wrapped his arms around her and the thermal material crinkled at his touch. "I've got you," he said softly, and kissed her forehead.
Was this the time? Was this the moment to tell her she mattered to him more than anything? That he'd die a billion times for her? That without her he was half a man? If he was brave enough, he could tell her right now that he'd fallen for her, beyond all reason and hope of redemption.
Instead, he murmured, "I won't let you go," and thought himself the biggest coward in the universe.
Clara tried to slow her breathing down. The thermal wrap warmed her and the Doctor's embrace soothed her, and after a moment she stopped shivering.
He kissed her forehead. "I won't let you go," he said.
After a minute or two, she wiggled her arms free of the wrap and reached around him. His clothes were wet too, the back of his jacket torn.
"What happened to you?"
"Nothing. It's fine."
"Doctor, you've got a hole in your jacket. That's not fine."
"I know. This is my favourite jacket," casually, making a joke of it.
"I'm more concerned about what's under it. Take it off."
He mumbled, "Yes, boss," and struggled out of the jacket, held it aloft, and put his fist through the hole and waved.
"It's not a joke. Turn around."
"Bloody hell!" His white shirt was singed right through, and what she could see of his back was a mass of black. It looked awful. "Pass me that," she said, pointing to a bathrobe hung on a hook on the wall. He handed it to her. She hesitated a moment, then let the wrap fall to the floor and slipped the robe on. He quickly looked away and busied himself straightening the crisp white sheet on the medical bed, and then he picked up the wrap from the floor. She got the distinct feeling doing anything but look at her. And making light of his injuries.
Well, he wasn't going to get away with that. He needed looking after too. "Does it hurt?"
"Not much."
"Not much? It does hurt then."
"Um.
"How about we stop playing around and you just let me bloody well look at you?"
"Well, you're feeling better," he grumbled. He threw up his hands. "Okay. It's nothing, though. Just a bruise." He turned around and let her untuck his tattered shirt from his trouser waistband and lift it up to look at his back.
"Bloody hell," she said. His lower back was a blackened charred mass, covered in bits of singed shirt and what looked very much like dried blood. "Take your shirt off and lay down. Don't even argue."
He complied, and Clara brought a bowl of water and a washcloth over to the bed. She rested her palm flat between his shoulder blades, letting him feel the contact. He didn't flinch from her touch a she feared he might. That was a start. She wet the cloth.
"I'm going to clean this up, so I can see what's damage and what's just debris. You must have caught a full blast." She wiped the washcloth gently across his back, carefully clearing away the dirt. Beneath, to her great relief, the skin seemed unbroken, although she was pretty sure she was cleaning off dried blood. Whatever had happened was healing already. She worked away with the washcloth, slowly cleaning him up. It was comforting, somehow, to take care of him.
He lay with his head rested on his folded arms. His skin was paler than hers, his shoulders spare and lean. As she washed his skin the blackened grime came away, leaving a patchwork of mottled black and blue beneath. She shuddered a little. While she was falling, he'd taken the full impact of the blast in his back and kept running,
She said, "I think you're right, it is just a bruise. It must have hurt though."
He shrugged his shoulders very slightly, but didn't move.
She grabbed a towel and dried his back lightly, and then squeezed his shoulder. His muscles were coiled tight.
"You're really tense."
"I can't think why," he said drily.
She pressed her thumbs gently but firmly into the base of his neck, and worked her fingers along his collarbone. He groaned, very quietly, as if stifling the sound.
"Sorry, did that hurt?" she asked, but it didn't sound like a groan of pain. He hadn't heard her, or at least he didn't answer. Was this crossing a line? But he'd as good as admitted he'd imagined unbuttoning her shirt, hadn't he? She didn't have to be a quantum mechanic to work that one out. She wanted to touch him and feel close to him. His skin was deliciously smooth, so she probed his tense muscles, massaged his shoulders in small circles. He sighed deeply this time. It was doing him some good. He didn't hate it at least, so she carried on, working the tension out of his knotted shoulders. His eyes were closed, his breaths calm and even, and he seemed relaxed. After a while, she thought perhaps he had drifted off to sleep, and let her palm rest on his back. She let herself imagine his hands on her skin.
She bent over him and brushed her lips to the nape of his neck. He didn't move or speak. Clara sighed and looked down at him and took comfort in the fact that the bruise on his back seemed less livid than before. That was probably enough boundary pushing for now. She squeezed his shoulder softly, pulled a cover over him, and headed for the shower.
On the medical bed the Doctor's eyes flicked open and he watched Clara pad silently, wrapped in the white bathrobe, across the medical bay and out of the door. The ghost of her lips on his shoulder still tingled, and her hands on his back lit a flame in his hearts. He sighed very deeply. He was an idiot, but not a fool. He could see where this was going and there were a hundred and one ways for it to end badly, with his hearts broken and torn. But what could he do, when he was falling and helpless, except blindly hope she would catch him and break his fall?
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Final chapter will be up next Tuesday.