DAY 140

Memory Lane

Eleven

Yes, he was ill, and yesterday had been very tiresome for him. He was the oldest of all the Time Lords presently aboard the TARDIS (or not aboard, as in Jenny's case), and had gone the longest without ever getting ill. He had gotten ill as a child, of course, nobody could never eliminate diseases because they kept mutating and new ones kept spawning, but that had been more than a thousand years ago and he could scarcely remember.

It was late when he woke up. Far later than it usually was, even on those rare nights in which he managed to wrangle a few hours of sleep. It was funny that he felt more well-rested after being ill than he did most of the time, especially when taking into account that he didn't even have his wife by his side when he woke up. And he quite liked his wife and her company. But she wasn't far, it was revealed, when he began to stir that morning. She just wasn't in bed. Clara was sitting in a chair next to him with her feet up on the end of the mattress. Initially, he thought she was reading a book; it took him a moment to realise she was on her phone, and whatever she was looking at, she didn't seem very pleased.

"Morning," he said hoarsely, not realising how hardly able to talk he was until he actually tried to do it. She looked up from her phone right away and put it down on the chair next to her. Her displeasure was replaced by a soft smile once she saw he was awake.

"Morning," she said right back, moving her feet off the bed and leaning towards him in the chair. It was the same chair Oswin had been sitting in a week ago while Clara deliberated keeping or getting rid of that lightning scar. And she still had it. Her arm was still all bandaged up. He didn't know Martha's latest estimate for how long it would be until they healed enough to remove the dressing.

"How are you?" he croaked.

"How am I? Shouldn't I be asking you that? You're a mess, Chin, you look like you have sex hair minus the sex right now."

"So I look like I have hair?"

"Messy hair," she said, then he laughed slightly and it soon turned into a heavy cough. She passed him his handkerchief from the bedside table, the same handkerchief he had spent the better part of yesterday sneezing into (it was now in dire need of a wash, but he was too ill to care.) "See, I said I should be the one asking you how you are."

"I just remembered something-" he coughed again, "-that's all." Even though he was coughing, when he finally got some respite from his diseased lungs he found himself smiling at her.

"What? What did you remember? Something good?"

"Yes, very good, I daresay."

"What? Come on, spill."

"I remembered the morning after our first kiss. Kisses. There were a fair few of them, if I recall correctly," he said, still smiling at the memory. It was a good memory. They should create more good memories together; he longed for the day when his head would be full of them, full to the brim with nostalgic depictions of Clara Oswald and himself, together and happy. But they were together and happy right then, were they not? Even if he was sick. Clara was frowning, though. "Do you remember?"

"Uh…" she was in deep thought, and then she met his eyes and bit her lip.

"Clara…"

"Don't hate me."

"Did you forget our first kiss?"

"Maybe?" she said meekly, and his jaw dropped. He didn't know whether to be offended. "I don't even remember how we actually started going out…" Clara sat in vacant thought for a while, desperately trying to recall these key moments in their relationship she must have forgotten. Then she shook her head. "Seriously, I'm ashamed of myself. I'm totally blank. Remind me?"

"Why should I?"

"Because you love me?"

"Drat. You're right. How inconvenient." He pushed himself up in the bed and Clara leant over to help him sort out his pillows. "You smell nice this morning," he said.

"Thanks. It's called 'shampoo.'"

"I've never heard of it, sounds marvellous." She kissed his cheek before she sat back down and dragged the chair even closer. "Anyway, I suppose it was only on the third day of this whole fiasco, when we had to all stay at the Maitlands'."

"Back when there were just twelve of us, as opposed to…"

He waited a while as he saw her struggling to count everybody in her head before answering for her, "Sixteen."

"Yeah. Sixteen."

"Don't you remember? I slept on your floor."

"Oh yeah," a smile broke on her face, "I remember how flustered you got when you asked that."

"And how you kept toying with me."

"I can't do that anymore. You know me too well."

"Good, it was very exhaustive thinking I had to tip toe around you because you might up and leave me. And now I have the confidence that you won't ever do that – that's the only good thing that abominable future-woman ever did," he talked disapprovingly of Thirteen, "You were upset and asked me how I cope with losing everybody I get close to, and you were talking about Echoes, or something. I probably just kissed you to make you be quiet."

"Great."

"I'm joking, though, of course, my adoration for you could not be controlled any longer. It can never really be controlled."

"That's why nobody likes us," she told him, "Which I think is all your fault. I have an abundance of self-control."

"You have an abundance of self-deception if you believe that, Clara." She shifted guiltily and spared a glance for her phone which, though it was on silent, kept lighting up with notifications she didn't appear all that keen on checking.

"And then, after that," she resumed their conversation, "it still took me another entire week to get you to shag me. In which we were sleeping together without, you know, sleeping together. Seriously, sweetheart, you do give off this prudish impression that sex is totally off the menu. I was willing to swear off it for you, that's why I didn't actually try anything. Until I was drunk."

"They were very awkward nights, weren't they?" he mused, thinking about what that had been like. He didn't know, all those months ago, where the boundaries laid with them, whether there was any real permanence. He hardly even knew a lot about Clara as a person, she was an impossible and unattainable girl he had found himself smitten with who was, all of a sudden, fast asleep in bed, next to him. With him. It wasn't something he had ever had with River. It wasn't something he had even known he wanted before Clara came along. He hadn't known if it was alright for him to touch her or hold her or stroke her hair.

"They're not anymore, though," she smiled, "And you say I have no control when I hardly even touched you for a week. Until I figured out if you were okay with it. And even after that I had no idea if that was, like, some one-off." He laughed and coughed again. Seriously, she said, "I should really stop being so funny while you're ill – I'm not sure you can handle it."

"Imagine that, regeneration by my wife's sense of humour. That would certainly be deathly amusing." Clara then spared yet another glance for her phone which, he could see, had been lighting up fervently for the last few minutes. "What's going on?" he asked.

"Hmm?"

"Your phone."

"Oh. I'm having a fight, it's not important," she said, waving him away.

"A fight?"

"Not a proper fight. A Facebook fight. Honestly, it doesn't matter, I'll turn my phone off, you're far more important."

"What have you gotten into a fight over?"

"My dad told my bloody aunt that I'm refusing to go to this stupid garden party – you know, the one he told me about weeks ago? When we went for dinner*?" she said, turning her phone off. He did enjoy that she was willing to switch it off for his benefit – he knew how attached to those things people were in the Twenty-First Century. Well, he thought, just wait until the Twenty-Second Century when the radiation in them starts making peoples' heads balloon incredibly. What a sight that would be. Maybe he would take her to an ER in 2140 and show her.

"Yes, I remember."

"Well she started posting all this stuff that was obviously about me – you know, things like, 'When will someone tell supposed "bisexuals" that being a slut isn't an identity.' Because who else could that be about, really? I'm not exaggerating when I say she's horrible – she's bitch supreme, Chin," Clara explained. It did sound like she might really be 'bitch supreme' if she was saying things like that. "Then she started actually having a go at me herself for being 'spoilt' and 'marrying poorly.'"

"I'm beginning to think that maybe we should go to this blasted garden party," he grumbled, "At least then I can defend your honour."

"I can defend my own honour, Doctor."

"Two heads are better than one," he said knowingly, "Besides, wouldn't it bother her a wonderful amount to see how happily married you are? You could show me off. We could do a piano duet. Or… I could yodel."

"Don't do that. God. She already thinks you're a heart surgeon."

"Maybe we should go?"

"Because there's nothing I love more than canapés and casual racists."

"Not until I'm better. At least think about it? I do enjoy exposing awful people for what they really are. And there'll be free food. Speaking of food-"

"Adam will make you breakfast when he wakes up. It's that or you eat Rose's tube slime she's been feeding Ten since yesterday. He's probably going to die of malnutrition. Forget about food, you've been awake for at least ten whole minutes and you haven't asked once about your ailing daughter."

"Jenny?" he exclaimed, "She's sick as well?"

"I told you yesterday she's sick."

"I barely remember anything from yesterday. I have to go see her," he declared, trying to get out of bed, but Clara put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"No you don't, she's fine, you're both ill and you both need to rest. She texted yesterday morning saying Ravenwood says thank you for that mirror," she told him. If she had told him that yesterday, he had forgotten it too. "You can ring her in a bit, when my aunt gets the message and stops harassing me."

"No, I should go right now, or she'll think I don't care."

"She won't, sweetheart, she's not a dick," Clara said, "Promise."

"She was drunk the other night. Ravenwood, not Jenny. She was saying some dire things, but unfortunately I can't tell you what any of them were, because she gave me an excellent idea of what to get you for your birthday. And you'll guess if I mention anything. Can't have that, it's a surprise."

"I'll be a whole quarter of a century old. Does that make you feel like a nonce?"

"Yes. Now can we move on? Won't you go wake Adam up?"

"No. Have some patience. It's still early."

"But-"

"But nothing, Chin. You're staying in bed all day. Martha says so. You don't want to cross Martha, do you?"

"I suppose not. She frightens me more than you do. Then again, you don't frighten me particularly. Can I have a drink at least?"

"You can have tea," she said, standing up and going through the room towards the kettle on the little table of its own, in between the piano and one of the bookshelves. And soon she would have a new book for her shelves (none of his books were on them, he had a whole library of his own), and it gave him great pleasure to imagine them slowly but surely filling up over the years. It also gave him great pleasure to watch her wander around, an entity all of her own. "Or do you want hot chocolate?"

"Definitely the chocolate, please, if you'd be so kind."

"I'm always kind," she said, doing something with the mugs.

"Are you wearing proper pyjama trousers for once?"

"Well, I slept on the sofa, didn't I?"

"Did you?" he asked, shocked.

"Yeah, and I got cold. Hence the clothes. But you kept sweating and you have a fever still and you were thrashing around – it was easier to sleep over there," Clara told him.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"It's fine, sweetheart."

"Perhaps that's why I'm sick. Withdrawal from you. These are all symptoms."

"Well, lucky for you I'm not going anywhere, you can have me all to yourself," she smiled, "Especially since I had the excellent idea to spend this time while you've regained lucidity to talk about our wedding – which I nearly forgot was happening, to be honest." Oh, no, he thought. What were the protocols for divorce in drunken, inter-species marriages? "Now. Do you think we should have the ceremony in the morning or the afternoon? Because it's a thing about lunch – would we provide one? And then you have to think about…" And to be honest, he thought, listening to her spiel when he was unable to get away, he wished the illness would take him.

*chapter 877