Chapter 5

The Doctor entered the manor hopeful to meet Clara there, but she was nowhere to be found. He took off his shoes and sank heavily onto the blue cotton couch in the living room. He turned on the TV in hopes to distract himself from a sudden onrush of emotions.

He was angry with himself for being a chump and not realizing in time that taking Clara to Wetania was probably the worst idea he could've possibly come up with. It was his only chance to get to know her better, and thanks to his abstractness, he turned her off as soon as the first tricky questions arose.

Now, he could only wait for Ashildr to find out about everything that happened that evening. Giving that woman reasons to accuse him of letting either her or Clara down was the last thing he wanted. But, unsurprisingly, he ended up providing her with more evidence to prove her right.

There was officially nothing on television at midnight, he soon realised. Out of the hundreds of TV channels the supplier provided them with, nothing was able to interest or entertain him for even a moment. Dozens of stupid cartoons, cooking programmes and telesales were all that were on.

He turned off the machine and laid down on the sofa, still a bit disenchanted with his performance that evening. He hadn't planned to fall asleep, but his eyes immediately closed under the weight of everything that happened that day, and soon his mind started to drift away.

It was dawn when the wailing of a seagull disturbed his napping. The Doctor lifted himself up to a seated position and looked around the room, now sinking in the grey afterglow of a brand new day, but he couldn't see any signs of Clara.

Good job, Doc! He told himself sarcastically as he got up from the sofa and approached the glass doors leading to the patio, although there wasn't much to see. The sea behind the house was barely visible because of the thick fog. The only attraction was a young gull sitting on the wrought white table. Its golden eyes were fixed on him as she inspected his movements with interest.

And then he heard the metallic sound of a key pivoting the mechanism of the door lock. He heard Clara's footsteps first in the kitchen and then in the hall. He followed her silently, hoping to catch her before she disappeared on the stairs. She was sitting on the bench by the stairs when finally reached her.

"Hi" He greeted her shyly. "Can we talk?"

"I've had enough for today, Doctor." She gave him a short shrift as she took off her bag and jacket.

"Please." He whispered imploringly. "Only few minutes." His miserable plea and tired face made her back down.

"Okay, but we have to be quiet." She whispered under her breath.

He followed her to the living room in total silence, still not sure what to tell her or how to speak to her in the first place. Communication with human beings was his biggest blind spot ever since his last regeneration. If she was a total stranger, he wouldn't care what she thought about him and he would've kindly advised her to get lost or accept him. But this was Clara he was talking about.

She sat stiffly on the huge sofa and gestured for him to do the same.

"What did you want to talk about?" She asked him coldly, not meeting his gaze.

"I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"I heard that much already, Doctor."

The Doctor leaned back on the couch and rubbed his eyes with his hands. Why does it always have to be so hard? He heard a tiny voice in his head saying.

"But you're still mad at me." He moaned.

She turned around and looked at him.

"I'm not mad at you." She explained to him reassuringly. "I know you better than that and I know it's not your fault. But what happened today hurt me, and it's gonna take a while before I can compose myself. Pushing me to pretend it didn't happen won't help." She warned.

"You didn't even give me a chance to explain myself." He said sadly. "I might've seemed to enjoy it but it's not the truth. I was only happy cause I realised I was wrong."

"How so?" She asked, leaning towards him a bit.

"I was afraid that they released all nine spirits. The size of Wetania and the damage they caused had suggested so. But I scanned the ashes from the planet, and they all have signatures of only four different individuals. They burned the entire planet to ashes simply, because they had plenty of time. I checked the other places as well. Always the same four signatures."

"That's interesting." She acknowledged him and seemed to be listening to his statements.

It was quite amazing how little it takes to make somebody sad and how much effort one must put into rebuilding the happiness they destroyed. He didn't even lift a finger and it was still enough to make her properly angry, while his clever conclusion and hours of fieldwork were described with an average and meaningless interesting.

"It's very important Clara. Potentially vital for our survival." He pointed out.

"You should've told me that straight away." She defended.

"I tried, but you ran away." The Doctor argued.

"Fair point." Clara followed his actions and rested her head on a backrest of the sofa as well. She moved slightly, so she could face him and gave him a friendly smile.

"So what were you doing when I locked myself in my room?" She asked.

"I might've been in a few places. Collecting data, analyzing it."

"In the same way as on Wetania?" He turned around a little bit and looked her straight in the eye. This time, he wasn't met with a disappointment and aversion. Instead, he saw a genuine warmness and admiration in her eyes. She kept biting her lower lip and nervously shook her head, surprised and flurried with the unexpected closeness between them.

"Pretty much." He said casually, pretending he didn't yearn for her acknowledgement.

"So you needed to scan plenty of grains." She whispered with an appreciation in her voice.

"Not the most compelling activity if you think about it." Before he could say anything more her hands were around his neck and she clung to him.

"Thank you." She breathed into his chest. "Thank you for being here." He wasn't sure how to respond to her affection at first. Frankly, he couldn't even recall the last time when somebody had touched, let alone held him. However, his hands appeared to still remember the right moves. His arms slowly folded around her waist, softly rubbing her back.

She immediately took his invitation and rested her forehead on his collarbone. Her hot breath was tickling his chest as he cradled her, but he didn't mind at all. Suddenly his aversion for physical contact was gone. All he wanted to do now was to breathe in the sweet scent of the body he held in his arms, so close to his own. A combination of almonds and gingerbread filled his lungs, and for now it seemed to be the most beautiful smell in the world.

A/N: Thank you for reading my story. I would like to also thank Talk With Your Hands and DreamingCompanion for their help.