"Hold me or I'll kill him," The Doctor heard Ashildr who sat next to him in the backseat of the car saying. Her threat was directed to nobody else but Pierre- a young gentleman sent a few hours earlier by the UNIT to help them. He couldn't understand how someone as nice and funny as Pierre could evoke such negative response, especially from a female of his own species. However the progression of his relationship with Clara earlier that day was the best proof that he knew very little about the romantic life of inhabitants of Earth.

He still hadn't managed to talk with her about what happened that morning in his bedroom. He tried to do so few times, but each time she gave him a clever roundabout. He never sympathised with Danny Pink, on some occasions he even found the way Clara treated him hilarious, but now when it was him with whom conversations she was avoiding at any cost, he started to think the man's patience was boundless.

"Here we are. Dinan." Pierre said with his funny French accent as the car halted in the parking lot adjacent to a huge sandstone archway.

"Not much to do since it's Sunday, but a few restaurants should be open."

The Doctor opened the door from his side and slowly left the car. He stopped for a moment and looked up at the ruins in front of him. He couldn't see much from his current perspective, but the sandstone wall and few high towers he spotted seemed to make the trip promising in regards to sightseeing.

He then walked over to the car boot to release Gully. The dog eagerly jumped off the boot onto the cobblestone and started to circle around him in excitement. The Doctor stood motionlessly and observed Clara approaching them and kneeling over the dog.

"Looks like someone's in mood for a long walk,-" she said breezily to the pet as she stroked its golden fur. "Can I take it?"

She gestured at the white leash with printed playing card suits the Doctor held in his fist. Without hesitation, he passed her the thick lead and watched as she and Gulliver wandered off towards the gate leading to the town. The dog walked by her side without slowing down even for a second to sniff the surroundings- something he had failed to learn to do yet.

"Okay folks, the Museum is opened,-" Ashildr said merrily as she joined the Doctor and Clara eating ice creams on one of the wooden benches at the Promenade de la Duchesse-Anne. Pierre was shyly stepping after her, careful not to fall in her disfavour any further. "But since some morons dug their heels in taking the dog with us, someone must stay here and watch it,-" she continued.

Clara rose her head up from under her ice cream and looked up at her friend. Her eyes involuntary squinted in response to the intensive sunlight that was now glaring straight at her face.

"I'm happy to stay here. Not in the mood for sightseeing anyways,-" she said bluntly, and bit off another part of sweet cone.

"I'll stay with them." The Doctor promised fervently and closed his arms around the dog's chest in an embrace so tight it made the size of animals eyes double. A plan to use the opportunity as a chance to finally speak to Clara without witnesses was simply too precious to lose for a few average sculptures and paintings.

"Fine then. I'll go and tell that nitwit we're going on our own." Ashildr mumbled and disappeared in the crowd.

The Doctor's lips curled up into a vast grin when he noticed his plan working. Not to let Clara know his intentions, he reached his hand in the direction of Gully and started to feed the dog the remaining part of his cherry-vanilla ice cream. The dog licked its little treat with almost veneration, with its eyes closed and each lick followed by a long satisfied moan. Seeing his furry friend so happy, made his own hearts beat a little bit faster.

In fact, everything that day made him feel more alive than ever. He was with Clara. They were both relatively safe and sound. Or at least far away from Time Lords and the damn Raven. The way they spent that afternoon wasn't that bad either. Sitting in a park and marvelling at the beauty of the landscape wasn't as compelling as most of the things they usually did together, but it was definitely pleasant. The only flaw he could come up with was the unaddressed situation earlier that morning.

"It's nice, isn't it,-" he sighed to Clara. One of his hands still held the ice cream cone and the other gestured on the space around them.

Clara looked at him and smiled.

"It's France. Everything is nice here,-" she corrected him. "Although, I'm seriously consider kicking Ashildr and Pierre out."

"They're unbearable. I get they don't like each other, but why do they need to fight over everything." The Doctor nodded.

"Because they like each other."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows and remained silent for a moment.

"They do?" He finally choked up with a note of disbelief in his voice.

Hearing his puzzlement made her giggle.

"Yes,-" she reassured him. "They like each other a lot." She stressed on the last words.

The Doctor smiled at her and shook his head. He had to admit the love life of humans was much more complicated than he ever assumed it would be.

"But they don't do anything else except for fighting! That doesn't make sense."

"Human's emotions are very complicated,-" Clara explained to him. The subject must have been very important to her since her movements started to be more quickened. "There are many levels. There is a subtext as well,-" she continued.

"Is there subtext if someone escapes during making out?" He finally broke.

Saying the words made him realise something very simple that he still managed to overlook, and was now making him feel like the biggest fool that ever stepped on that planet, if not in the entire galaxy.

"You don't need to say anything. I figured it out already. Your life functions have been time-looped. I get you-"

"That isn't the reason why." She interrupted him in mid-sentence. Her eyes left his and fixed on the pavement with so much strength, he thought they could dig a hole in the ground. "See, there are things I should tell you about; I have a feeling you may not like them."

Seeing her troubled didn't elicit a similar response in him straight away. He knew that woman way too well to tear his hair out without knowing the context of the situation first. Likely, she once again created herself a problem which grew in her eyes to enormous size while in fact there was nothing to worry about in the first place. There was a name for people acting like that. They called them control freaks. He didn't like it – the word freak. It was offending and sounded as if she was a loony or some other form of madman. His Clara was the sanest person he's ever met.

The Doctor moved closer to Clara and leant his back leisurely on the hard backseat of the bench. He rested his hand right behind her back so he could reach her and ghosted the fabric of her jean jacket with his fingertips.

"After the thing with chronolock I won't be surprised by anything. Go ahead." He chuckled.

He glanced at Clara for clues but it turned out to be in vain. All he could see was a veil of her brown hair hiding her face from him.

"Well, this has something to do with the Raven." She choked up as her fingers played nervously with a golden ring on her index finger. "But you need to promise, you'll think about it first. No impulsive actions, alright,-" she said and turned around to look at him. A serious expression in her eyes made him feel that the problem might have not been as simple as he thought it would. "I haven't made up my mind yet. It's just a consideration,-" she continued.

"Shoot!"

Clara cleared throat and took few deep breaths before he heard her speak again.

"I'm thinking about going back to Gallifrey."

"I know, you have to." He answered without a hint of disconcertment in his voice. Apparently the problem wasn't as bad as it seemed just seconds earlier.

She nodded slightly and pursed her lips. Her chocolate eyes once again chickened out and hid themselves from him.

"No, Doctor. I'm going back after this is done."

"Oh, -"The Doctor managed to force himself to say. He felt his stomach churn as he heard her say those words. Everything he'd done recently was done to prevent similar conversations from happening ever again, but yet they still found themselves in exactly the same position as that day when the Raven demanded her soul or when he saw the Daleks shoot her. The only problem was, each time it happened he felt there was less and less he could do to fix it.

"Yeah, oh. I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I don't think I should risk the safety of the Universe any longer. I can't change what happened to Wetania, but I'm not going to let it happen again. I promised myself I won't,-" She explained. The tone of her calm and calculated voice made his hearts tear into pieces.

"To me it looks like you made up your mind already,-" he rasped.

Clara turned around and took his hand in hers, fondling it gently.

"What do you think about it?" She asked him smiling sheepishly.

The Doctor released his hand from hers and leant back on the bench as far away from her body as he could.

"Well, you were right. Second edition is even better than the first,-" he mumbled.

"I know, it sounds awful. But it's reasonable." Clara continued reasoning with him. She felt perfectly collected, while he was doing his best trying not to let it show that all he wanted to do now was to scream at the top of his lungs about how she could do that to him.

"You're right, it's very reasonable." He whined when he was finally ready to tell her anything. "It's the very definition of the word reasonability. You forgot there are people who'll suffer because of it. But beside this tiny bugbear everything is perfect."

Clara moved closer to him and put her hand on his lap.

"What I said in the Cloisters. Nothing changed. Doctor, I know how it sounds but it's the best we can do, don't you think? We can wait a century or two. Pretend it doesn't exist. But what about when my time is up? Will it be easier to say goodbye then, after so many years together?"

"Can you please give me a moment for myself, Clara?"

"Shouldn't we discuss it,-" she asked.

"Not just now, okay-"

Clara took her hand from his leg and got herself up from the bench.

"I want you to know that it isn't easy for me either,-" she told him before she wandered off in direction of the street.