CHAPTER EIGHT

Time passed on Earth. Clara drifted, it was impossible to return to her old life, despite the fact that he'd actually returned her in decent time-frame, she was just not the same person; four years spent in space with an adventuring husband had hardly equipped her to deal with the sudden return to normalcy. Her teaching job was of course gone. She had known that when she married him, had given it up to travel with him. And she was older, difficult to explain she imagined even if it was subtle after all she'd left a 25 year old; in two weeks time she'd be turning 30 tricky given as only a year had passed on Earth from their perspective. But that didn't make her life any easier, she needed to work to live; she just didn't know what to do because in the back of her mind she was still waiting... trapped in this awful limbo. Waiting for her husband to die and his replacement to come for her.

So it actually wasn't all that much of a surprise when Kate Stewart turned up on her doorstep. Clara smiled tightly welcoming her inside her flat and handing her a cup of tea as they settled around her small dining table.

"How are you Clara?" Kate asked her gently, clearly trying to broach the subject that had clearly been on UNIT's radar since she returned, Doctor-less.

"He's gone." Clara replied quietly, taking a sip of her tea. "If he comes back, he won't be the man you knew. He'll be different... very different." She paused considering how much she should say, how much they had a right to know? "He may not be the man the Earth needs." She settled on seeing Kate's eyebrows rise into her hairline with that uneasy news.

Kate was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry." She replied finally, knowing it was utterly inadequate it seemed as she downed her own tea quickly. "But he will come back." Clara looked up to see her eyeing her sharply, the woman always was too smart. "You're here." Kate added certain of it. Clara frowned. "Oh don't give me that look, I was at your wedding remember," she smiled fondly at her, reaching out to grasp her hand. "The man has lived millennia and that was the best day of his life."

Clara smiled sadly, burying her face in her tea. "Yes well, stepping out of that TARDIS without him was probably the worst day of mine."

Kate gripped her hand tighter. "Which is why I'm here." Kate replied and Clara looked at her over the cup, assessing the way life with the Doctor had taught her too.

"Are you here to offer me a job Kate?" Clara asked her primly, the feel of her sonic in her back pocket comforting, it was always on her now.

"Of course." She smiled retreating to her side of the table and straightening her suit jacket, back to the Government woman role rather than the consoling friend. "You have spent more time with the Doctor than anyone else. Married the man. And to add to that, I'm quite aware of your 'unique' history."

"Oh?" Clara feigned ignorance as Kate quirked an eyebrow at her, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a camera phone to show her images of... well her.

"I'll admit it took some digging to determine which were the images of you 'you' in the past with the Doctor as a result of time travel, and those that were 'alternate' versions of you." She flicked through some of her clearly from the 60s and 70s, waiting for Clara to comment, when she didn't she continued. "The odd thing was all of these women had completely unique birth and death certificates; lives of their own, the majority of which seemed to be tragically cut short at around the age of 25 years I might add. Normally in conjunction with the Doctor's visits to Earth."

"Alternate versions?" Clara wasn't assisting in this, curious to discover what they had made of it.

"It's what we call them. We had some debate about it over the past year, lots of theories, the best our scientists have come up with is that you must have at some point become splintered in time. How or why you survived such an event, is not for us to say though is it?" Kate smiled at her tapping her nose as if it was a secret they shared.

"And you think I'll be of use to UNIT?" Clara asked not quite sure what she made of the suggestion.

"Don't you?" Kate asked coyly and Clara couldn't help but smile.

[4 weeks later]

She'd turned thirty and accepted Kate's job offer. Clara straightened her suit and clipped on her ID badge, smiling politely at the young man who led her to her new office. Unlike the Doctor she actually did have an office. A fairly big one. Granted it was in the Tower of London, which having seen it back when it was used as a prison had lost some of its appeal, but she was not going to complain about the view out over London she had.

Clara reached for her desk plaque, her name embossed on it beside her new role. 'Head of Public Relations.' Inside of UNIT they added the word 'Extraterrestrial' in front of the 'Public' bit. Either way the role came with a lot of responsibility and files... endless classified files for her to plough through. Half of them were about the Doctor, the rest were the times when he was clearly otherwise engaged. Apparently he was right Earth got itself into enough trouble with or without him. But at least she was doing something, anything to keep her mind engaged. And it was rewarding work most of the time, nothing quite like with the Doctor and she was kept distinctly away from any life threatening events wherever possible she noticed. When she'd pressed Kate on the issue after one of the Torchwood units actively intervened to protect her rather than apprehend the alien smugglers trading in some rather unusual herbs; she'd muttered something about 'not going to be the one responsible for getting the Doctor's wife killed'. It would have been irritating if Kate hadn't seemed so genuinely concerned about the notion. After all the Doctor was many things, forgiving was not always one of them and he ominous warnings about what state he might be in when he came back for her probably hadn't helped the issue, for which she only had herself to blame.

Life she supposed moved on a whole month passed without her realising it. But the ache in her chest never abated and the echo of his hearts beating there and sounding through her mind was a painful reminder that out there somewhere he was still fighting and dying. So she smiled less she supposed, but then that suited her new life and career.

It was after one particularly stressful day in which she'd revealed the existence of her sonic to far too many members of UNIT, that she'd collapsed into bed, her mind still reverberating with the shock of the sonic unbuffered by the TARDIS's telepathic fields. It would take time she knew for her human brain to accommodate it without the Box's assistance. But apparently as she drifted off into a sleep, it appeared the sonic had other uses she hadn't been aware of.

"Clara." His voice echoed through her and she tossed in her sleep, clutching at her sheets as the unmistakeable touch of her husband ran across her body and through her mind. The shock of it had awoken her with a start, cutting off whatever the experience had been and she fell back, the phantom feel of his lips against her skin lingering, wondering if she'd been simply dreaming.

She hadn't been, tentatively the next night, she lay down in bed and gripped the sonic tightly in her hand, pressing the button and thinking with everything in her 'Doctor'. Nothing happened and she sighed wearily wondering if she'd ever get through this, as she shoved the sonic beneath her pillow and placed her head down closing her eyes and trying not to think of anything in the hope of sleeping.

Her dreams shifted and her body turned in the sheets responding to the unmistakeable brush of her husband's mind.

"Clara." His voice rasped throughout her thoughts into her dreams as she felt him between her legs her body arching up into him. Gallifreyan spilled from him echoing through her as she reached back for him, her hands capturing his face and seeing his image materialise in her head with each touch of her skin against his.

"Doctor." She whispered aloud, smiling in her sleep as he smiled back at her, his face the young one she remembered, the one she had married.

"I miss you." he admitted as his body enveloped hers and she gave into the sensations of him.

"What did you do to the sonic... how is this possible?" she knew better than to ask, and he drove the question from her mind with sensation.

"You are my wife, we are bound, anything is possible." His lips pressed against hers and she sighed into him, she had missed this, missed him, missed the feel of his mind inside of hers, of his body inside of her.

"How long has it been?" she implored him as he made her gasp afresh, the bed sheets twisting around her as she turned into the sensations he was evoking.

"Too long." He insists, driving words from them both, she wants to ask more, but he doesn't allow it, distracting and redirecting her thoughts as they occur until she is screaming out his name and shooting awake, drenched in sweat her limbs a tangled mass in the sheets. Her hand flies to her chest, the unmistakable sound of his hearts beating inside of her body and mind comforting her more than she knew it could and leaving her hollow in his absence.

Nights like that one only grew in intensity over the next few months until she was all but hurrying into her bed, desperate for the phantom touch of the man she longed for, half a Universe and eons away. Her work suffered, at least she imagined it did. More from distraction than anything else, he came to her so often, that even when he didn't she dreamt of him all the same.

"You seem distracted." Kate sat down in her office one day, her hands neatly poised on her crossed legs.

Clara arched an eyebrow at her. Despite her initial concerns and distractions she'd been working hard lately to ensure her work had remained of high standard, testing many of her colleagues beliefs that she was in fact human at all. "Oh?" she feigned ignorance.

"Tired even." Kate pointed out and Clara felt her eyes narrow a fraction on the woman in front of her. Without a word Clara reached into her breast pocket and pulled out the sonic, sealing the doors and with new purpose sweeping it over her office for tell tale signs of alien technology, something had clearly been telling tales on her. Kate looked mildly concerned by the sudden move, the guilt flashing in her eyes like a bulletin board.

"I haven't reported it." She insisted quietly.

"Reported what?" Clara smiled thinly back at her slipping the sonic back inside her jacket pocket, her mind buzzing from the disabled devices. "That I dream about my husband... hardly noteworthy."

Kate gave her a look that seemed to strip the walls between them. "That those dreams seem to create a temporal vortex detectable to certain instruments." Kate replied succinctly and Clara bit down on the inside of her lip. "Almost like something was reaching out to you through all of time and space... there was a signal that came with it. Would you like to hear it?"

Clara sighed quietly, pulling out her sonic again and holding it up, tuning it automatically to the signal that radiated through all of time and space... attuned to her as she was to it. The electronic sound permeated the office and Kate winced.

"Yes, that's the one." Kate replied looking grim and not at all surprised at her. "It's seems to be everywhere, everywhen, now that we know what we are looking for."

Clara nodded, "Yes it would be."

"Although no one has ever been able to translate it, every person who hears it seems to experience the same reaction to it."

Clara met her stare head on, challengingly. "Fear." She acknowledged, "Unmistakeable dread."

Kate swallowed thickly. "Yes and it seems this Universal mystery is following you... to Earth." Clearly Kate wanted an answer, she was worried about the planet she had sworn to protect, rightly so, after all they had no idea what the signal was, what it meant, only that she and the Doctor seemed to be letting it loose on Earth. Clara cocked her head observing the woman that had become her boss, wondering. The Doctor had trusted her, considered her a friend; she supposed it was a hell of a character reference.

Her decision made she responded honestly. "No reason they should be able to translate it, it's an encryption in a language long dead to the stars." Kate frowned as Clara pressed the button on her sonic once more. "Fortunately I was there the first time it was decrypted." The sound of the signal changed, into the unmistakeable haunting voice that had boomed from the crack in the Universe, as it echoed throughout her office.

"Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who?"

Clara shut it off at Kate's clear distress, her eyes wide, mouth parting as she looked at her with something close to dread. "What is it?" she asked clearly not sure she wanted the answer.

"No threat to you." Clara replied succinctly. "But it means my husband left me here for my own protection whilst he went off to stand between every enemy he's ever known and a crack in the reality of the Universe, to prevent a never ending war that will end us all."

"I thought you said it was no threat to us?" Kate was always quick to recover Clara noted, her mind already strategising on how they could protect Earth from this.

"You misunderstood." Clara replied, "I meant it is not a threat you can do anything about."

"We must, we can't stand by and simply do nothing." Kate argued getting to her feet whilst Clara sat back in her chair.

"Doing nothing is exactly the point Kate, do you believe in fate, in prophecy?" Kate looked like she wasn't sure what she believed so Clara answered for her. "That signal has called him to his death, it always has." Drawing an aghast look from Kate. "On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature may speak falsely or fail to give answer, a question will be asked, the oldest question in the Universe hidden in plain sight. Silence must fall when the question is asked." Clara finished reciting the phrase that echoed through her head almost every day, mocking her. Kate was as silent as the prophecy demanded and Clara blinked back tears she had no intention of shedding as she thought about the Doctor out there, fighting to keep his own name a secret, protecting them all.

"I'm sorry..." Kate managed weakly, seemingly finding nothing else to say.

Clara nodded. "I knew. I married him knowing where he was going, that Trenzalore waited. I just thought I'd be there with him." She shrugged casting aside the depth of the pain those few words cost her.

"Will he win?" Kate was clutching her hands together revealing her nervousness at the thought of a Universe void of the Doctor.

"He's the Doctor." Clara replied smiling wide and trying to instil in the woman the confidence she needed to feel, but clearly the heartbroken wife left behind seeped through because Kate's expression fell. The need to see hope even in the face of those in front of her even if she couldn't feel it herself was pervasive and she called Kate back as she turned to leave, clearly deciding this conversation was over. "He will survive this." Clara called after her. "But he may not be the man you knew, the man I married. But that's what the Doctor is," Clara admitted hating the truth of it even as she uttered it, "change."

After that conversation with Kate they hadn't spoken again so candidly, Clara suspected the woman felt she had crossed some sort of unspoken boundary between them. But when Clara swept her home for the telltale technologies she was certain had been there she found them suspiciously absent. Apparently UNIT was satisfied with her loyalties, and that she and the Doctor weren't trying to rip a hole in the fabric of space-time whilst she slept. Although she wasn't entirely certain that wasn't exactly what they were doing herself.

It happened organically in the end, her transfer after only six months in the London office, although she rather suspected Kate had a hand in it somewhere, pushing it through. Clara had expressed more than a passing interest in the Torchwood teams who seemed to be down on the ground, closer to the action, making a difference day in day out. Particularly when she had discovered that Torchwood 3 in Cardiff had been rebuilt and was currently home to more than a few of the Doctor's previous companions; she had read about the Hubs exploits avidly, surprised to put a face to the name Captain Jack, the man who's temporal vortex manipulator she had 'borrowed'.

"What happened to keeping me out of harm's way?" Clara asked Kate as she came to inform her of the transfer to Torchwood 3, in a purely supervisory capacity of course.

Kate smiled and grasped her hand warmly, "You seem to have a knack for it wherever I place you. At least there you'll be surrounded by other's who seem to find themselves inexplicably in the same predicament; with an equally inexplicable knack for survival." Clara hadn't felt the need to argue that.

So she had moved to Cardiff. Her family had been less fond of this move, her father particularly so had grumbled about the Government's control of her life until she had quite glibly pointed out she 'was' the Government now; it hadn't helped matters, but it had silenced the impending argument. Particularly because it did give her distance from Linda and her ever present nagging about where her husband was... and how it wasn't right for Newlyweds (again only a year and half from their perspective) should be apart for work so long. She hadn't even bothered to try touching that particular can of worms.

As it was she found she rather preferred Cardiff to the sometimes suppressive 'muchness' of London, or the way UNIT had seemed to shadow her there. She'd quite enjoyed the anonymity as she walked the streets, avoiding her 'government' issue apartment. The idea of trying to add colour and life to it simply hadn't appealed, she was far more interested in getting to the Hub and meeting the ever untameable Jack Harkness who would no doubt be the one reporting on her, and is new team made up of those few that had seemingly done the impossible and walked away from the Doctor; Martha Jones and her husband Mickey Smith. Apparently she would be their 'tech support' to replace Gwen Cooper who had retired from UNIT to focus on her family life; not easy shoes to fill Clara noted when she'd given her file one last look through the night before over a glass of wine. Of course some of what she knew of this particular Torchwood team wasn't in any file, but she had chosen not to mention that, but then surely Kate had realised it on approving the transfer, or she wouldn't be here.

The retinal scan was efficient as she slipped her hand into the panel for the DNA check and waited patiently as the inner mechanism of the door let her inside the compound the entrance for which was clearly taking its cues from the Doctor about hiding in plain sight, looking like an information booth. The floor opened and the elevator took her down into the true compound, Clara straightened her suit as she went, imagining what the Doctor would think if he could see her outfits these days, he'd always much preferred her skirts of course. Not that he couldn't see them when he looked into her mind on those trips into her dreams he was still taking, but somehow it never did seem to come up; they were always a little too preoccupied to deal with such things as their day to day lives... his of course he wasn't willing to share anyway.

The lift stopped and Clara stepped off it, blinking as the lights of the full body scan hit her as she traversed the corridor. Security at least she noted was tighter than ever given the last Hub had been so spectacularly destroyed. The heavy metal doors opened with a hiss and she stepped inside the control not surprised to find the team already waiting for her, despite the fact that she was an hour early. Clearly they didn't want her surprising them. She wondered just how much Kate had told them about their new team member?

Eyes turned on her and she saw assessing looks that made her think Kate had told them too much as she stepped up onto the platform, her hand extended to Martha Jones as she stood. "Dr Jones," she addressed the woman, "Pleasure to meet you." Martha grasped her hand shaking it warmly but there was a definite hesitance in her smile

"Call me Martha, please." She insisted.

Mickey came forward and introduced himself taking her hand in his. "Mr Smith." She accepted noting he didn't smile at all, or offer to let her call him Mickey, but then if she had that unfortunate name she might not either. Her eyes turned on Jack who didn't even extend his hand just remained leaning against the pillar arms folded his eyes raking over her with more than simple curiosity.

"Now I knew the Doctor abandoned his friends... but his wife?" his expression was coy and assessing as he waited to see if she took the bait, she sorely wanted to as her hands fell to her hips.

"Jack Harkness. What a pleasure." She muttered, turning away from him and not dignifying him with anything more as she took in their equipment. "Looks like you have a nice setup here, all the latest modcons." She took in the screens, the hardware and ran her finger over some of the less than 'human' gadgets that had been integrated.

"You're really his wife?" Martha asked quietly, a hint of disbelief in her voice that Clara chose not to take personally; they still hadn't moved.

Clara sighed, realising that of course they wouldn't simply let this drop. "Yes." She turned back to them. "Will that be a problem?"

Jack seemed to blink at that, as if sensing that her stance had become defensive, she had after all thought she was walking into a haven of sorts. "I see my dear husband has left an impression on you all. I'd thought he considered you friends, was I mistaken?" there was a hint of a threat in her tone that she hadn't been aware she was going to make.

Mickey smiled grimly. "Some friend, he vanished without a trace few years back, never bothered to see any of us again, or offer to help out when we could of done with him on more than one occasion. Then apparently he popped up at UNIT, new face, new man and we're all yesterday's news." There was definite bitterness there she'd have trouble breaking through; she recalled from reading her husband's journals and their conversations that Mickey had once been with Rose. Apparently that wound was old.

Clara eyed them warily, even Jack. They were like children she supposed, pouting at having been replaced. She knew it would sting. "I met your Doctor. He was... heroic." She settled for recalling the one with the pinstriped suit and sandshoes. "But he is always the same man, more or less." She added, "Unfortunately he has two hearts, I like to think it means he feels emotional pain more acutely; like the loss of friends or the life he once had. He chooses to move on rather than to dwell on it, always moving forward." She wasn't sure what that would mean for them then if she took her own logic to heart.

Jack shook his head ruefully. "And how far exactly has he moved on, how many years did it taken him to decide humans were for marrying?" his question stung, "He was always so against getting into a real relationship, always too afraid of losing something." Jack bit out as bitter as Mickey by the sounds of it.

Clara felt her irritation prickle just a little at the insinuation. "Long enough for stars to fade and worlds to be born." Clara replied with bite. "Don't pout Jack, it doesn't suit you and I'm bored of this conversation. The Doctor in his wisdom thinks I am safer on Earth whilst he wages a war without me, forgive me if I don't want to discuss it, or sit around like the dutiful house wife waiting for him to return and whisk me off to a life of adventure. I'm perfectly capable of having my own." Okay so that was mostly catty she admitted.

"Safer for who?" Martha muttered, but Clara caught it.

"Him I imagine. Both I suppose." She added, "He worries what my death would unleash in him." That seemed to silence them as they considered the implications, it was perhaps more than she should have revealed but she needed to end this matter and the threat of a Dark Doctor tended to do that. Changing the subject and placing a rather more friendly smile on her face she addressed them all. "But I'm not here to discuss the Doctor, he's not coming. I'm here and I intend to be useful, you'll find I can hold my own I'm sure; so how about you show me your systems and we get to work? I was promised Hub 3 wouldn't be dull."

It wasn't dull, as advertised.

It took months but the team did start to grudgingly accept her amongst them, her abilities weren't in question, but her allegiances and temperament perhaps. Apparently it took a certain type of person that needed their very own psyche evaluation system to agree to marry the Doctor; or to get him to ask for that matter (she'd seen it; it was an actual chart UNIT created just for her).

And so she'd accepted running with them, instead of him and it was different, the terror and the exhilaration because it was just them, their wits against it all, no Doctor there to protect them, to save them. But it also made her only miss him all the more as they laughed and cried together, bonding over vodka shots and bad tequila until the Hub began to feel like a place she might be happy in, one day. The first time Jack had taken a death meant for her she realised she was truly one of them, as she waited with baited breath beside Martha as the bullets were pushed from his body and he woke gasping for breath his eyes flying to hers and pulling her into a hug in relief that she was safe. But no matter how close they became, how many times they saved the planet... or a family, it wasn't the same and she'd eagerly close her eyes at night.

The Doctor had been particularly amused and pleased to find her thoughts occupied by his old companions, worried for her and a little jealous perhaps too she detected in their dreamscape, but mostly because she was having adventures without him. "You get me like this though." she pointed out wrapping her legs around his hips, "There will be more adventures between us, you promised, remember?" She insisted banishing his melancholy and reminding him of why these stolen moments were only supposed to be about even she couldn't help but notice the changes in her Doctor's mental landscape, the yawning chasm of time that seemed to span from him now. How long had it been she wondered... how long did he go without giving in as he saw it and reaching out to her? Sometimes she wished they could talk, actually have something like a conversation in those dreams, but either he was reluctant to, or it was limited to sensations and maybe a few words; but then she wondered what it was they could say that wouldn't leave them both incredibly depressed.

No one knew of course that she had her own time with the Doctor still, or that the way he was seemingly slipping away from her played out over her mind constantly. Martha and Mickey were very much wrapped up in their own marriage to care too long about hers, they were happy, content even she realised watching their easy exchange one day from her seat behind the monitor as they laughed quietly, Mickey ribbing her about her little habit with the surgical instruments, something about OCD that had her smiling. It was the type of familiarity, that comfort with another person that she missed, her Doctor had been surprisingly domestic when he'd wanted to be. Food had always been his particular passion and surprising her with breakfast in bed had become an art form of his. Or simply sitting together reading a book, talking and gently teasing each other about his atrocious dress sense, or inability to follow perfectly reasonable instructions like 'keep out'. Or her inability to give up on the damn soufflés, or back down from an argument or admit that she mostly liked the bow tie.

Jack caught her attention and she considered the man who'd become a near constant in her life, given as the other two team mates were paired off. He had a devil may care attitude that masked the deep way he felt things and he seemed to find trouble with an even more alarming frequency than the Doctor. Granted being immortal did help him in that respect but every time he spluttered miraculously back to life she couldn't imagine the kind of toll that futility he was faced with every day took, knowing that it was unending, pointless even. Much like the Doctor any connections he made would ultimately be temporary, because he would go on, unlike the Doctor however he was cursed to be unchanging in his onward march. Trapped. But simply by the nature of partnerships she found herself drifting towards Jack as Martha and Mickey were such a unit, even at work. And she and Jack worked well together, loathe as she was to admit it. Although there were facets of his personality she would have happily lopped off; along with his hands... he seemed to assume that eventually she'd give in to his insistent flirtations. The man didn't seem capable of being around someone for any extended period of time without needing to have a physical relationship of some kind with them, it didn't much matter their gender either she noted.

Which made it particularly unfortunate that one of the nights she'd crawled wearily into one of the bunk rooms in the Hub fresh from a shower not able to drag her weary self home after the last few days, that the Doctor had picked it as the night for one of his increasingly infrequent visits.

She awoke gasping his name, the sheets twisted around her heaving chest as she blinked blindly into the feint glowing light of the Hubs dormitory his name falling from her lips.

"I take it that was some dream." His voice drifted over to her and she closed her eyes, pulling the sheet a little higher, despite the tank top and pants she knew she was wearing, with Jack there was no such thing as too decent. Nor was there a concept of boundaries, like a closed bedroom door apparently.

"Jack. Please tell me you haven't been sat there watching me sleep." She questioned wearily pinning him with a look that said she wasn't averse to murdering him herself.

"If that's what you call sleeping I'd love to see what you call sex." Straight to the point as usual, his grin was wide but his eyes were sharp and she knew better than to try and evade him, he never did anything idly, despite appearances; he'd probably been drawn into the room by her cries thinking she was in trouble.

"I miss him." She told him quietly, almost accusingly, daring him to deny her this, but she could see by the way he was staring intently at her that he wasn't buying it.

"I thought we trusted one another Clara?" he cocked his head, looking truly disappointed with her and she held his gaze unblinkingly she honesty wasn't sure if he was serious. "Kate warned me on your arrival that I should ignore any 'temporal disturbances' that occurred whilst you slept. She even suggested I disarm the sensors inside the Hub that would activate at such a threat."

Clara sighed. "Of course she did." She muttered, swinging her legs out of the bed and shoving the sheet away as she stood, noticing his eyes trace her bare legs with interest.

"How often does he do this?" he asked, his voice sharp, demanding an answer.

"That is none of your business." Clara muttered, trying to stalk from the room and the conversation, he was out of the seat before she made it half way, his hand gripping her arm firmly.

"I thought he'd let you go, like he did the rest of us... but he hasn't has he?" Jack hissed and she looked up at him, realising that it was concern that was darkening his expression, concern for her. "And to think, turns out letting us go is him being kind." She shrugged out of his grip not liking his tone and reaching the door in her haste to put distance between them. "This isn't healthy Clara, how can you move on, have a life, if he won't let you?"

Clara stopped and looked back at him. "That's your mistake," she muttered, seeing his confused expression "No one but you three ever said he wasn't coming back for me." She saw him take a sharp intake of breath at the utter conviction he could hear in her voice, but she also saw sadness and no small amount of pity in his expression, he thought she was holding onto false hope. He had no idea that the thought of the Doctor coming back and not being her Doctor was not a cause for hope... it was the thing she dreaded most.