The drumming at the door startled Clara and she hissed when her slow stroke wiggled off into an erratic zigzag off the penciled wing she'd been trying to paint over in purple. With a long sigh as the knocks began anew, Clara settled the cup and brush she'd been using down on the tarp and she made her way out into the living room where she could hear him calling her name.

"Clara, Clara, it's me, the Doctor – I seem to have forgotten my house key and Mrs. Rudemeyer is giving me a strange look, which isn't quite fair because this time I've got pants… and trousers on. Clara!"

Despite the frustration of the paint she'd have to work off the wall, and the continual notion that he was keeping secrets from her, she smiled readily at the sound of his voice and she imagined him standing just outside that door, doing a small dance. He'd be wrapping his hands and grinning like a fool, just waiting for her to open that door because, Clara knew, he'd been thinking about getting to her forever… and as she reached the door, footsteps quickening as her smile brightened, she had a flash of a different doorway, a different time.

"Clara. Clara Oswald," he'd asked excitedly.

"Hello," she could remember being perplexed at the man grinning down at her. So excited, as though he'd stumbled upon treasure and not the Maitland's front step.

"Clara Oswin Oswald," he'd asked again in exasperation

She could recall easily how the name had confused her and how much she was ready to slam the door in his face except… he intrigued her in a way she couldn't explain as she replied, "Just Clara Oswald. What was that middle one?"

"Do you remember me?"

Grabbing hold of the door and yanking it open, Clara could feel her eyes going wide as saucers as she stared up at him, watching him straighten as she took several quick breaths, lips rising quickly to shout, "I remember you," Clara looked him over, brow furrowing as she continued, "Dressed up like a monk, looked like a complete idiot, and you called me Oswin, which was strange, but funny – you were strange and funny – and then you saved me."

She turned away from him, moving through the hall and into her living room as he followed, understanding beginning to register as she laughed and shifted back awkwardly. He could see the joy in her features as her eyes glazed over, remembering some moment, and then her lips dropped and he asked quietly, "What's wrong?"

"She died," her eyes came up, "I was there when she passed." Clara's lip trembled slightly as she shook her head and choked, "And Angie was so defiant, she yelled at her to wake up and George could barely keep upright – but he had to because Angie just… and Artie," she hugged herself and her eyes closed as she muttered, "My poor boy, he just buried himself in my side and held me. Didn't cry because his mum had told him not to – had told him if she moved on, she wouldn't be in pain anymore and she wouldn't want his tears."

The Doctor crossed the space between them and he pulled her against him, angry that her elation at their first meeting was marred with memories of death, but he understood that she was moving from twenty one to twenty four right before him and everything in between would be shuffling in bits and pieces back into her memories. Finding their proper spots and flooding her with emotions. Her shoulders shook with sobs she silenced into his coat and he rocked with her gently, feeling his hearts thudding heavily into her cheek because she was that much closer to her own sorrow and he debated whether he should warn her.

Knowing they'd been wrong in not telling her.

Glancing around the room, he sighed and he pulled her back, admitting quietly, "Clara, there's something I should tell you," he waited for her reddened eyes to meet his, "Before you remember."

She released a small pained laugh and shook her head, replying quietly, "Don't."

"What?" He questioned with a knotting of his brow, bending slightly to catch her eyes as they fluttered away from him, blinking at tears.

With a quick nod and a long breath, she raised her arms to the room and admitted, "I know there's something and I've been thinking about it all day and it doesn't matter."

"Clara, it matters," he urged.

"No," she shook her head, "I mean, yes, it matters, but telling me doesn't stop me from feeling it and I know you're trying to save me from pain. I don't remember the accident, but I know that the memories of that happening aren't going to be any less shocking if you handed me a recording to see for myself beforehand, so don't tell me – whatever you think you need to tell me now, don't."

He clenched his jaw and he shook his head, reaching out for her arms and stating, "No, this is something you should know – something we should have told you months ago because I know the secrets that pass between your father and I don't go unnoticed and…"

"You keep secrets from me to protect me," Clara interrupted, "You've done it before, with the Tardis, and maybe I don't need to know everything." His grip on her arms had tightened and she could see his bottom lip trembling. "Doctor, it's alright."

But he was shaking his head, fingers dropping off her skin delicately as he moved away from her, through the hallway and towards the room she'd been painting in and Clara followed behind, giving him space. He slumped against the doorframe and cried quietly and Clara inched up behind him, an unexplainable sorrow freezing her insides as she wrapped her arms around him from behind, kissing his back and then leaning her cheek into it.

He twisted in her grasp, lips dropping to the top of her head and he laughed, "Sorry, you've just lost Angie and Artie's mother all over again and here I am…"

"You're sad – that doesn't lessen because I am," Clara murmured into his side.

"Clara, it's not that I want to save you from pain, you should know you…"

She gave him a squeeze and shook her head, repeating, "Don't."

Inching up, she pressed her lips to his, prying them apart slowly, tilting her head and inhaling deep when he bent down into her, arms rounding her back to hold her to him. Clara tugged on his coat, pulling him away from the wall and she lead him into the room, falling with a laugh onto the bed now settled at the center, and she smirked down at him, hands coming up to brush stray strands off his forehead to kiss him there lightly.

She watched him sigh as the last of his tears fell over his temples to drift off into his hair and she followed his eyes as they studied her face, a quiet smile of satisfaction resting on his lips. The hands at her sides slipped over her back and he breathed, "I almost lost you."

Clara placed her hands at his cheeks, thumbs stroking over them lovingly as she smiled. In a way, she had lost him after the accident. She'd lost all of him and yet, he'd refused to be lost, carefully edging his way back into her life; gauging her comfort level around him and now… Clara met his lips with her own again, this time with an unexpected urgency that made him moan lightly as she dropped her knees to his sides to straddle him. She could remember the way she'd teased him at the café and the way he'd excitedly asked her to travel with him.

"Come back tomorrow. Ask me again." If he'd been able to feel her heart in that moment, he would have found it pounding erratically at the notion that she wasn't quite admitting she wanted to travel with him – she would never have given him that power then – but she wanted desperately to go.

"Why?" Clara smiled at the memory of the look on his face, the disappointment that she wasn't outright agreeing to go and the knowledge that she'd succeeded in stumping this insane alien she should have been grateful to for saving her life. He'd saved her life and she'd responded by being playfully about his snog box and how she'd be the one laying down the rules.

"Because tomorrow, I might say yes." She smiled into his lips and then shouted when he sat up abruptly, hands slipping down to cradle her backside in his lap.

Clara clung to him, laughing into his ear, arms draping themselves over his shoulders to hold him tightly to her, suddenly very aware of how close he might have actually come to losing her. Recognizing that fear he was feeling in his hearts that it wouldn't be her uploaded into an internet cloud, but splayed out on the pavement of a street. She understood the irony that she'd almost died in a very human way after spending years travelling around the universe with an alien and she found herself crying as she gripped him tighter, fingers working his coat into bunches as she bent her legs to round him and looked down at the prosthetic that lay limply against the pillow.

"Hey," he breathed softly, trying to slip her back to wipe at her tears, "Hey, it's alright."

She shook her head slowly and admitted, "I never really thought about how I almost died – I could have died and I was worried about remembering things. And you, you've just been thinking… all of this time… about how you could have lost me. Not just some memory of me, but me."

"But I didn't lose you," he laughed, "Clara."

With a smile, she allowed, "You're mad."

"Absolutely," he nodded.

Clara looked him over, the bright smile on his red face and she imagined she looked a right mess in that moment, but as she sat against him, cradled in his arms, she managed to chuckle with him. She kissed lightly at his cheeks, and then his forehead, and then each of his eyelids as he quietly accepted her affection, waiting for her lips to round his face a second and third time before she parted his lips and edged into him.

Pushing the coat off his shoulders and tossing it to the ground at her right, Clara urged him back into the bed before lifting up to undo his waist coat and tug his shirt out of his trousers. She slowly unbuttoned his shirt and slid her hands over his pale chest, smirking while his hands kneaded her thighs, working circles to push her dress up until he could drive his thumbs down from her waist and over her knickers so she bent into him reflexively as he chuckled into the lips now hovering over his.

"Aren't we supposed to be having lunch?" He questioned lightly.

Inching up, Clara smiled down at him before she reached to remove her leg and the sleeve with her pin, carefully setting them down before she spread herself atop him again, teasing his neck with her lips as his fingers worked at either side of her waist to strip of her of her underwear before she straightened and undid the buckle of his belt. Wordlessly, she palmed him, enjoying the way his eyes closed as he allowed her to free him from his pants before she moved over him, dropping slowly onto him with a light exhale.

Bending to slide her fingers underneath his open shirt to hold tight to his shoulders, Clara breathed hotly against his ear, "Aren't we?"

The Doctor laughed as she shifted her weight against him, slowly massaging at him until he took her by her sides and tasted her neck, beginning a steady bucking of his hips up into her as she released a strangled gasp. He slowed his movements, turning his head, nudging at her temple with his until she kissed at him, mouth making its way to his. He let his grip on her slacken and she curved her body into his, pelvis angling into him in rhythm with him until he hissed her name, feeling her tighten and then release a wave of tremors around him.

His fingers gripped Clara's flesh as she sighed his name between heaving breaths and she reveled in the feel of his release and for a fleeting moment she froze, a small thought forming in the back of her mind as she tightened her hold on his sides with her knees and began pumping her body over his as he continually mumbled her name. Clara turned her head to look up at the sketched mural on the wall, outlines of butterflies and flowers half painted, and she thought about how the room suddenly seemed just right for a nursery.