Chapter 7

The Tardis had been in peaceful flight for several hours, and the Doctor looked weary as he stood at the console.

"You didn't set a destination, did you?" she guessed, and he glanced at Clara and shook his head.

"I just put us on a peaceful flight path. We could drift for weeks if we wanted to, longer if we felt like it... My bloody head hurts!"

He put his hand to his temple, closing his eyes as pain throbbed and then he swore, this time under his breath, as he waited for the pain to fade out.

"I'm exhausted," he said and as he looked at Clara, he seemed so tired he looked as if he might collapse.

She put her arm around him and turned him from the console.

"Come on," she said softly, "You're tired. Bedtime."

As she led him towards the Tardis corridor he gave a groan.

"I'm not a kid, don't start treating me like you know best...sure sign of a control freak, you push me too far and I'll -"

"Fall over, probably," Clara told him, "You look like you need a nice long sleep."

And for once, the Doctor said nothing more in protest as she led him towards the bedroom, because he felt far too weary to complain.

A short while later, after helping him to take off his clothes, the Doctor was complaining again.

"I could have undressed myself, I may have a slowly healing hole inside my head but I'm not sodding helpless!"

Clara paused before replying, the Doctor was lying on his bed, the covers were folded back and he was naked, the look on his face said he wanted nothing more now he was resting than to pick another fight – presumably after she had tucked him in...

"What are you staring at?" he demanded, and then he blinked tired eyes as he lay on his back, his aching head cushioned by a soft pillow as he fixed his gaze on her, "Comparing me to Danny Pink, are you? Wishing you had soldier boy and his buff young body in front of you instead of this old Timelord?"

She knew he was doing it again, trying to rouse her temper – but as she looked at him, her gaze softened. Anger had caused far too much hurt and she had vowed never to fight with him again.

"No," she said softly as she stepped closer to the bed, "I never think about him, not any more, because I chose you – the man I love."

She paused for a moment, and as her gaze ran over his lean but toned body, he wished his headache would vanish because his flesh ached for her touch even though he felt far too bad tempered to mention it at that moment.

Then Clara turned away, placed his shoes beside the wardrobe and folded his trousers and jacket over a chair next to the dressing table, then she glanced in the mirror that stood on the table and saw him reflected naked as he lay on the bed and she smiled.

"I love to look at you, every single inch of you," she told him, and then as she turned back to him, she saw the anger had faded from his eyes, replaced by a different kind of intensity.

"And now," she said as she went over to his bedside and leaned over him, "You need to rest, you bad tempered, sexy old Timelord!"

And she kissed his cheek and grabbed the covers and folded them into place, covering him up to his chest.

His eyes were drowsy as he looked up at her.

"This old Timelord wouldn't mind a bit of attention...can't you just go down there and -"

"No, you're far too weak! Now go to sleep," she told him kindly, and then Clara left the room, pausing to dim the lights on the way out.

As the Doctor lay alone in his wide double bed in his darkly decorated, Victorian style bedroom, he gave a heavy sigh.

"Go to sleep?" he murmured, "You control freak, turning me on and then sodding off... I'm not that bloody tired, you come back in here and I'll have you screaming my name... all night...long..."

And then as he closed his eyes he gave an exhausted sigh, and slipped into a deep and much needed sleep.

Clara had left the Doctor to sleep and gone back to the console room, where she stood by the monitor and played back the recording captured by the transmitter.

As she heard the Doctor speaking as she remembered him and talking of his longing to be the father of her child, she blinked away tears.

She cast her mind back to happier times, recalling arriving home and finding the Tardis in her bedroom and the Doctor looking at her with that shy expression as he smiled and then glanced downwards, then met her gaze once more:

"I want you to do that thing for me," he had said softly as his face had flushed, and then as he had stepped closer, he had caught his breath as she had knelt down in front of him and run her hands down his hips and then unbuckled his belt.

"Turn out the light," he had whispered...

As he was now, she didn't doubt he wouldn't care if the lights were on or off, and he wouldn't ever give her that shy and endearing look again, because the damage to his mind seemed to have banished all sense of inhibition...

Clara placed her fingertips on the screen as she wished she could slip inside that recording just once to speak again with the shy and gentle man who longed to be the father of her children.

"I miss you," she whispered softly.

Back on earth in the year 2060, as her husband closed the door and walked into the apartment, Nina glared at him.

"What do you mean, you spoke to Clara? I told you to keep away!"

He looked at her apologetically.

"This was the one time I had to be there! The Doctor was having life saving surgery – surgery that will change his life for a long time to come! Clara has so much to deal with, of course I wanted to be there, just to tell her everything would be okay!"

She stepped closer to him as anger still smouldered in her eyes.

"Well you had better hope everything is okay, because the Doctor and Clara have left! The Tardis took off unexpectedly! I'm really worried about him - and her - I don't think she can cope with his problems on her own and she's too proud to ask for help!"

"She's trying to protect him," he replied, "She's always been protective of him. Ever since he had the operation, even when he was getting better – I remember, I was there!"

"You was a child at the time!"

"In their time line, I'm not even around yet!" he snapped, "Don't you know how honoured I feel to be able to move through time and witness these moments, don't you understand, why be so angry about it?"

She folded her arms as she looked at him.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't be angry with you for speaking to Clara," she said, "Go on Raymond, give me your excuse for putting the time line in potential danger!"

And her husband, known as Raymond Lethbridge-Stewart, a man whose life had, thanks to more than one form of time travel, spanned several centuries, looked apologetically at his wife once more.

"My reason is simple, and it ought to be obvious to you," he said to her, "I had to be there for the Doctor and Clara because I'm their son!"

As the Tardis drifted easily through space, the Doctor slept deeply as the wound to his temple began to heal.

After grabbing a few hours sleep in her old room, Clara showered and put on a bathrobe and then went back to the Doctor's room, she opened the door quietly, turned up the lights a fraction, and paused in the doorway for a moment, watching him as he slept:

He was on his side, she guessed he had rolled over on to his painful scar and then rolled back again, now he was facing the door with the undamaged side of his head against the pillow. He had kicked the covers off and he was sleeping soundly, his breathing was slow and even and as she walked over to the bed she looked down at him and noticed the bruising was already starting to fade from beneath his eye, it was still present over the scar to his temple, but the swelling had gone down and the bruising seemed less deep.

She slipped off the bathrobe and climbed on to the bed and lay beside him, then she ran her hand over his greying hair and looked at him intently, noticing how his face had lost its pallor and the lines on his face seemed less deep now, it was nothing to do with the softness of the lighting in this room – the Doctor had rested, now he was healing, at least physically, and by the way he slept soundly she knew he was no longer in terrible pain.

"I don't really know you any more," she whispered, "But you're still the Doctor, and I love you more than ever."

He gave a sigh and opened his eyes, and all trace of his former anger was gone on seeing her beside him.

"I needed that sleep."

His eyes seemed brighter. She hoped it was a sign that he was healing, and not just the fact that he had rested and most of the post operative meds were out of his system now.

"I'm sorry I hit you," she said softly.

He met her gaze as his arm slid around her waist.

"So am I. I've never raised a hand to you. I realise I might be a rude, obnoxious pain in the arse right now, but you'll have to excuse that, I feel like half my mind is missing. And I will say this, so take it in, Clara – if you ever hit me again, you're out of here. I don't care if I'm a helpless wreck and a risk to myself when left alone – I'd rather be alone even like this, than have you knocking the shit out of me again, have you got that?"

His words wounded her far more than she showed as she nodded. His rudeness and bad tempered ways were a symptom of his injury, she got that now – she just wished she had let that fact sink in before she had lashed out at him...

He had forgiven her, but she found it far harder to forgive herself...

The Doctor studied her face, then he pulled her closer until they were side by side sharing his pillow.

"I'm not angry now."

"I'm still angry with myself," she said quietly as she swept her hand over his hair again.

"But I'll get angry if you don't stop stroking me like a dog! My head hurts, leave it alone."

"Sorry."

As she lay in the Doctors arms and he fell silent she began to think about the future. Soon, when he was a little better, she would bring up the subject of his dearest wish – to raise a family with her...

Then as she thought more on the subject, she began to wonder about possible complications to her plan:

He had changed vastly since the surgery, and it would take him a long while to become anything close to the man she knew as the Doctor again...

As he was now, he would definitely not take kindly to knowing she had played the transmission recording and heard him speaking of his deepest desires for the future – it was bad enough the Cybermen had raided his hopes and dreams, but to find out she had spied on such a personal moment?

As he was now, if he found out what she had done, he would fly into a rage. He would turn the air blue and then most likely take her home and fly off in the Tardis alone...

So she wouldn't tell him.

She would just stop taking her contraceptive pill.

Clara had never thought she could ever be the sort of person to pull such a stunt on someone she loved, that kind of behaviour just wasn't something that belonged in her world – but her world had changed, been shaken up and altered so much it seemed that maybe nothing would ever be the same again.

And if the Doctor had wanted a child so badly before, he would still welcome one now.

Perhaps he would be angry at first, but that anger would soon fade.

His personality had changed, but not his deepest desires, because she was still here and he still loved her...

As they lay together she spoke softly, cautiously skirting around a subject that she knew she had to handle with care.

"Do you have any children?"

The Doctor let go of her and turned on his back, looking up at the ceiling as he laughed softly.

"I'm a Timelord, I've been around for centuries – of course I've fathered children! But all in different places and times, me in different lifetimes... I've had wives and kids before. And a few on the side from some more careless encounters. Why?"

"I just wondered."

"Well don't. I can barely recall most of my other lifetimes, I put it down to my latest regeneration. It's faded out so many memories from the past."

She recalled something Nina had said over the transmission when the Doctor had been trapped.

"Do you remember when Nina hacked in to explain where you were, she said something about a guy shooting monuments in a graveyard?"

He frowned.

"Vaguely. But I don't know what that was about."

"I asked her about it - she said she couldn't reveal top secret information. She also said she was trying to prompt a far distant memory about something that only you would understand."

"Well she was wrong about that. I'm too old to recall early lifetimes now."

"That's what she said, she thought you might not remember, but she said it could ring a few bells."

He gave a sigh.

"I don't give a toss about her or bells or anything else from that place – she wanted to have me locked up. I'm surprised you didn't agree with her."

She met his gaze with a look of surprise.

"I don't care how awful you are sometimes, I know its not your fault. And I'll never walk away from you."

A brief smile flicked about his lips.

"Good thing I didn't get you locked up for hitting me, then."

And he leaned closer and kissed her before she could reply.

Then he rolled on top of her as impatience blazed in his eyes.

"Slow down -"

"I can't, my head hurts...come here.."

He kissed her again, taking her sharply, clinging to her as he made love with rough impatience.

A short while later the Doctor was on his side with his back to her, snoring softly, and Clara wondered why she felt so alone.

He had taken her quickly, impatiently, no foreplay involved, just a brief act to satisfy his own needs, and then he had given a sharp cry of pleasure, thrust hard against her one more time, kissed her, rolled off her, and slipped into another exhausted sleep.

He had not been gentle and patient, shy with the lights off, making love slowly, giving a soft cry of pleasure that he muffled by pressing his face against her shoulder at the crucial moment...

That man was gone.

As she wondered if the Doctor would ever become the man she used to know she felt tearful, until she slid her hand down to her belly and wondered how long it would be before she conceived his child. That thought brought her comfort, and then as she lay beside him, as he snored softly against the pillow, she began to make plans for the future...

The days passed.

The Tardis continued to drift on easily in space, and comforted by his home surroundings, the Doctor's mood, although still short tempered, began to mellow a little and Clara started to hope he was beginning to turn a corner, even though she had been told it would be several years before he made a complete recovery.

And as she took care of him as the days passed by, Clara was learning as she went along:

He complained about anything and everything, and the subject of her former boyfriend was definitely a no-go area.

It was easy to look after the Doctor when he was having a good day, but when he had a bad one he would rant and swear and go on and on about the fucking Cybermen and what they had done to his once perfect mind.

He also suffered headaches and he slept a lot, too.

Sometimes he slept for so long he got up looking disheveled and she had to remind him to shave and shower, other times she had to remind him to eat.

On good days she was thankful to simply know he was still alive and by her side, and on bad days she felt shattered and exhausted and often thought back to Nina's offer of help and decided that while she had done the only thing she felt was right and fair for the Doctor, for her, as his carer, life was often exhausting.

Sometimes she had no sleep because he was restless with head aches, or had lost his temper and had a very long rant about some old battle with a long dead enemy that he had suddenly remembered from another lifetime.

Other nights he wanted to make love, always roughly and impatiently, and then he would slip into a deep sleep that she didn't dare to rouse him from, because being woken before he was ready was yet another trigger for the Doctor's temper.

But through all of it, Clara lived in hope that each time she spotted a small glimpse of his former personality, even if the moment was fleeting, in a look or a smile or a softly spoken word, she hoped he was beginning to recover.

She supposed she was living in hope because she loved him.

Not only that, but after a few short weeks of sharing his bed and making love with him at every opportunity, she had also realised she was pregnant...

Then she started to think about tying up loose ends:

She would have to go back to the school and hand in her resignation.

Then she and the Doctor would have to think about where they would go to raise their child.

But first, there was something else Clara had to do, and given the circumstances, it would be the hardest task of all:

Before she made her plans for the future, she first had to tell the Doctor she was pregnant...