Retrograde

3

Clara didn't say much the whole time they were at the Cosmonaut. Ravenwood had still been asleep, so she lingered and spoke to Nios about this or that, nothing in particular, while the Doctor refamiliarized herself with Jenny's cooking. She learned a lot about how Dr Cohen was getting on at work (well, according to Nios), and not much else. It was good to be out of the TARDIS, though. She spent the time when she wasn't speaking to Nios sending out messages to update all the people in their lives: the Doctor was back and she was doing alright so far. She didn't get many responses or acknowledgements.

She liked the new TARDIS, though. She liked the brighter whites and smooth, opalescent surfaces, and the indigo central column was refreshing. Already, this new Doctor was becoming the person Clara had been so utterly enamoured with ten years ago – not that she knew the details of all that. When she had tried to tell Eleven, he had gotten so upset she Retconned him, and was glad the regeneration hadn't restored those memories. They were thankfully lost, until this Doctor lived through them herself sometime in the future.

The day dragged on. Clara started to get tired as the Doctor only got more buoyant and excited about the novelty of everything. A new screwdriver, new TARDIS, new body, it was all thrilling to her. Clara still had her grief to grapple with. When they left the Cosmonaut for the TARDIS, she spent a long time in the wardrobe.

"You know, you don't have to spend forever getting dressed just because you're a woman now," said Clara, who was suddenly relating to the troupes of straight men that were forced to wait for their wives and girlfriends outside the fitting rooms of chain stores, the way she was expected to comment on every item the Doctor pulled from endless storeys of wardrobe.

"It's always like this. I need to find my look." Her 'look', when she settled on it, involved a lot of knitwear. She gathered an assortment of crewneck sweaters, more pairs of jeans, a leather jacket with a sewn-in hood that she got especially attached to as soon as she saw it. "Maybe I should get a bag, too." Clara remembered her carrying a transdimensional bag around in the future.

"Maybe," she agreed, looking at her phone when Martha texted to ask how she was getting on with it all. She'd found a stool in there somewhere to sit down on.

"Do you not like the sweaters?"

"I like them very much. Would you hear yourself, though?"

"Excuse me?"

"Sweaters," Clara repeated, "Picking up the Americanisms already."

"This is a silly accent, and a silly voice," she complained. "You know who I remind myself of?"

"Who?"

"Esther. Do you think I look like Esther?"

"You're blonde and not very tall. Aside from that, not particularly. And besides, Esther's not a natural blonde."

"She's not?"

"No, she bleaches it, they both do." She and Sally Sparrow. "So does Rose."

"She does?"

"Yes. I don't think you're much like Esther, though. Not that it'd be bad if you were, but…"

"I think it's very inexplicable," she stared at herself in the mirror. "Why American? What if I pretend to be Canadian, can I get away with that?"

"You probably could," said Clara.

"Why do you think it is?"

"What?"

"Blonde, female, American. What's it all about?"

"Are you being serious? Is this a trick question?" asked Clara, because she really didn't know. Going by the Doctor's reaction, though, she was being serious.

"I'd like your insight. It seems like you've got something to say on the matter."

"I, uh…" Clara immediately grew flustered and couldn't think of what to say. "It's just that – I think it's like – you know, I…" She paused. "…I have a type. When it comes to women. And men, I suppose."

"And here I thought you weren't fussy. I didn't know you had a type for men."

"Fops," she said, "That's it. You were a fop before and to be honest, you're still acting like that now."

"And what about women?"

"Well, you know."

"I don't."

"Just… when they're blonde. And American. And not so tall they tower over me. Not that I have a problem with tall women, I've slept with loads of them, but – I don't know. I suppose it's a very minor preference."

"So, I'm your ideal woman now, that's what you're saying?" She looked at Clara, who shrugged. She shook her head. "Great. How does that come about if I didn't even know that about you?"

"You probably knew it subconsciously," said Clara, "You've already met yourself from the future, after all, and you knew we were still married. Plus, how many times have I asked you to take me to meet Grace Kelly, and you refuse? You look more like her than you do Esther. A shorter Grace Kelly. With less style."

"I'm still working on my style!" she protested, "You'll see. And I'm not taking you to meet Grace Kelly; all her looks are too sad." She wasted some more time trying to choose outfits, the core set she would have in rotation. The TARDIS had also seen fit to conjure up some bras in the correct size, though Clara had a sneaking feeling she was going to keep losing undergarments to the Doctor from that moment on even if they didn't quite fit.

"What's up?" asked Clara when she didn't say anything for a while, but also didn't pick out anything new.

"It's just… you've still got my ring." She did still have it, on her thumb.

"Oh."

"I think I'd… I'd like it back."

"Right."

"I still want to be married to you."

"I know that, it's just… I don't know, it's his. It won't fit you."

"It doesn't fit you. And I feel a little – a little naked without it, is all." She waited a while for Clara to reply, but she didn't say anything. She just twisted Eleven's ring around her thumb, where it had already fallen off a few times.

"Are you done here?" she asked eventually, not meeting the Doctor's eyes.

"Mostly."

"I want to show you something," she stood up from the stool, "Come with me, please." The Doctor followed her, leaving her stacks of carefully chosen clothes behind. The TARDIS would sort them into a new wardrobe for her; it always did.

They went all the way back through the ship and Clara didn't say a word. Through the corridors, past the pool, the gardens, the ominous door that led to the archived rooms from the Dimension Crash, and back to their bedroom. Their actual bedroom, not the guest room. Clara began hunting around for something, finally finding a wooden box buried at the bottom of the end table by the sofa.

"Is that your jewellery box?"

"Mm," she said, sitting down on the sofa. "I just, erm – why are you standing there?"

"I didn't know if you wanted me to sit down or not," she said awkwardly. Clara frowned. She sat, keeping a foot of space between them.

"I'm sorry, I just can't give you his ring back yet," said Clara quietly, "Please, it's… two weeks is… I know I'm not a real widow, but-"

"Coo, it's alright, I didn't mean to upset you."

"I've got some things here that will fit you. You can pick something, if you like."

"Out of all your jewellery? I don't know what is and isn't important here."

"Well, I have a lot of tat, to be honest," she said, "And some heirlooms. Mum's engagement ring I have. I have my engagement ring, from you, on Squam." She picked it up.

"Which you never wear," the Doctor pointed out. "Although, I don't mind. Engagement rings are a scam thought up by diamond companies to sell diamonds."

"I'm pretty sure this is a lab-grown sapphire in here," she said, holding the ring up to the light.

"Why don't you wear it?"

"I don't want to lose it," she admitted, "That's why I keep it here, where it's safe, with mum's." Which she used to wear herself, but stopped after moving onto the TARDIS. "Anyway. How about this?" She pulled out an old, golden wedding band.

"That's…"

"It's my solot ring, remember?" said Clara, "From when we eloped. Cheap shit from a casino gift shop, if I recall correctly."

"And it burned when we tried to take them off."

"Until they got fixed. And then we swapped them for actual rings, after yours got all… whatever it was you did to your hand that made it almost fall off. But it won't burn you now. What do you think?"

"This ring is what you wanted to show me?"

"Yeah."

"…Will you let me have his eventually?" She was growing increasingly resentful of the separation between herself and Eleven that Clara insisted on perceiving.

"You were wearing his when you came back from the future, I think," said Clara, "So, yeah. Eventually, I'm sure." Clara held the solot up. The Doctor stared at it. "…Do you not want it?"

"No, I – I thought you were going to put it on for me."

"Sorry?"

"Like during a wedding ceremony. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter," she shook her head, blushing a little, reaching out to take the ring. Clara pulled it back. "Clara, not – not this ring too, I-"

"No. Come here." Clara took her left hand and, as the Doctor had initially assumed, slid the golden band onto her finger. It fit very snugly.

"We don't match now," said the Doctor, "Yours is silver."

"You could paint it? I have silver nail varnish around here somewhere?" she suggested.

"That's alright," she smiled a little, "Thank you."

"If I give you his ring, that's like me saying goodbye. I didn't get to say goodbye, and I'm not ready to just yet. You see?" She closed the jewellery box and set it down on the coffee table.

"I understand."

"But you're still annoyed."

"We're the same person, Clara. I have all of his memories, I – I remember swallowing the ring, the last thing I did. I remember both my hearts breaking when I realised I'd never see you through those eyes again, I…" She paused, then went on. "Today, it's a little like you can't even look at me." Clara leant back on the sofa and sighed. She made a point of meeting the Doctor's eyes when she next spoke, though.

"You don't want me to look at you."

"I don't?"

"No. You want me to do lots of other things to you. You've changed, but you haven't changed quite enough to be candid." Now it was the Doctor who couldn't hold Clara's gaze, turning away. "See, I know how to read women. And how to read you."

"I'm not that obvious."

"What, making me sit there and watch you get changed over and over again?"

"Well – I – what if you're not attracted to me anymore?"

"Why would you think that?"

"I'm just worried about it!" she protested. "And I feel as if I can't ask you anything, because you're-"

"Yes, I'm attracted to you, you idiot," said Clara. She was smiling, chiding the Doctor fondly exactly as she used to. "That's why it's difficult to be around you. I told you last night, it feels as if I'm doing something wrong."

"Clara, did something happen when I came back from the future? Or when I come back?"

"No," Clara lied. Or did she? They had kissed twice. It wasn't much, on balance, though she thought about it often. And she was thinking about it now. "I did fancy you."

"But nothing happened?"

"No, nothing happened. You just appeared, a very beautiful woman, and kept talking about how you were my wife. Obviously, I fancied you. And then I avoided you – or, will avoid you – for six weeks."

"You never told me you had a crush on her. On me."

"Christ," she closed her eyes and leant back even further, sliding a little down the sofa, "One minute you want me to acknowledge there's just one of you, the next you're separating yourselves in your own head."

"I-"

"Can we go somewhere else?"

"Where?"

"Just a walk, I think. Around the ship, we don't have to leave. And I need my vape."

"Clara," she said, disappointed, "I haven't seen you use it once in all this time. And you haven't smelled of cigarettes."

"I haven't had a single one since we pulled you out of the water," she said. "Just the mints."

"And you're going to break that streak now? Two weeks is – you could quit," said the Doctor. Clara didn't really care, standing up to look for her vape pen.

"I told you. I've been having the mints. I'm not off the nicotine. This is a pointless argument."

"Clara-"

"And anyway," she went on, "When you were asking me about Susan, you also kept asking where I've put your pipe. What's that about, pipe?"

"I, unlike you, was able to stop using tobacco," she said, "And that all happened eight-hundred years ago." Clara found the vape pen and went about swapping the cartridge.

"What do you think about strawberry? I've got strawberry or menthol."

"Strawberry."

"Menthol it is. And I thought we were walking? You're still sat there." At that she got up. "Battery's almost gone in this thing."

"Throw it out."

"Now, where would we be if I just did everything you wanted all the time?" They left the old bedroom. "River used to try to kill you constantly. Isn't this better than that?"

"Well, River trying to kill me did add a certain spark to the proceedings. What spark does you being addicted to nicotine add?"

"Do you mean apart from the literal spark of my Zippos?"

"You're hilarious." Clara blew out a thin cloud of mentholated vapour. "It's still gross. You know you smoke, you drink, you swear constantly, you're definitely a nympho, you have a huge ego, you don't know how to cook anything, you never clean – I don't know what I see in you."

"And what about what I see in you?" Clara challenged.

"Don't be ridiculous, I'm the Doctor."

"You say I'm the one with the 'huge ego'. And I clean more than you. Plus, you were just as drunk as I was when we eloped, you used to smoke, and if I'm a nympho then so are you."

"Men can't be nymphos."

"You're not a man anymore. And that's some very nice misogyny, well done. I love being slut-shamed by the only person I've slept with for ten years. Why are you listing all my flaws, anyway?"

"I'm proving that I've remembered them all. It does make me wonder why we're still together."

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't know any of those things about you at the beginning. Then it all emerges, and I'm still here, with you. Years later."

"That's how relationships are. Nobody knows everything about a person when they start going out. But – come on, then."

"What?"

"Cast your mind back," said Clara, "You were just there yesterday. Me and You, Victorian Yorkshire. What did you think of me?"

"I believe my exact words were, 'soufflé-girl, live-in-nanny, tea-making, book-reading Clara'."

"That's just… descriptions, that doesn't tell me anything."

"What do you want me to say?" The Doctor stopped walking. They were in the TARDIS's enormous, jungle-like garden. A greenhouse full of alien foliage. "Do you want me to say that you're the most beautiful person I've ever seen, and you always were? You want me to say I've never met anyone else so compassionate, so patient, with a boundless capacity for kindness? I like that you were a live-in-nanny who drank tea and read a lot of books. And everything else about you. But right now, you're changing one moment to the next, I can't keep track."

"I don't know what I want, to be honest," she confessed with a sigh. She stared around the garden. "I've barely gone in here all these years."

"I tend it at night sometimes, when you're sleeping."

"What do you keep in here? Just plants?"

"No, there are insects around. Lots of aphids, isopods – I think some are even from Earth. They've probably evolved beyond recognition since I set this room up, though."

"When was that?"

"After the Time War. I needed more living things around me. I spent a lot time here after the Ponds, too."

"It's very pretty. I should come here more."

"You can go anywhere you like on the TARDIS, Coo."

"And, um, yes, those were all very nice things to say. Thank you."

"You know I was kidding about your flaws."

"I do."

"And I'm… I am still in love with you. Completely. I can't think about anything else."

"The thing is," Clara began, talking slowly, "I do want to sleep with you. And I don't want to dance around the issue and talk in circles, because it does no good. But at the same time, it feels like a betrayal, of him."

"But I'm him. I'm telling you, I'm not betrayed."

"And the other bit is that I don't know how much of these feelings are real."

"How do you mean?"

She took a deep breath, "When mum died, I went really out of control. The cigarettes, the drinking, the sex. Anything to numb it. I don't know if this, now, is that same thing again, only with him – you – instead. What if I don't want to be with you because I want to be with you, but just because I don't want to be on my own? And I've never been able to tell those things apart."

"Hm… that is a conundrum. Is that why you've been distracted? You're making a pros and cons list about this in your own head?"

"I was texting Oswin about it. And Martha, because Oswin turned out to be useless."

"What did she say?"

"She said it didn't matter and I should do whatever I want."

"I'm inclined to agree with her. But what about Martha?"

"She, uh, kind of stopped replying. Of course, she's a full-time emergency doctor with a ten-year-old toddler, so she probably isn't interested in my sex life."

"Well I am very interested in it."

"I can tell."

"Why not ask for my advice?"

"You're biased."

"You can always ignore me." Clara didn't speak. The Doctor knocked into her playfully, "C'mon, what's the harm? The way I see it, you've got your two scenarios. In one of them, you're into me, plain and simple. In the other one, you're using me to deal with the pain of losing me."

"It was a very self-destructive path I was on before."

"And what stopped it?"

"…Meeting you," she admitted.

"And I'm still here."

"I just don't want it to be that way, to be toxic."

"What're you gonna do, Coo?" she stopped walking and took Clara's hand. "You're gonna spend the night and then take off, never call me back?"

"What if I did?"

"I've been running after you without knowing it for my whole life. How far away do you think you'd be able to get with me chasing you now?"

Clara lowered her voice, "That's a very creepy thing to say."

"I'm a very creepy person," she put her arms around Clara's neck. "I once stalked you obsessively and painted a portrait of you from memory."

"I still haven't made up my mind."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure about not being sure."

"I don't think you'll self-destruct, or run away."

"You would say that."

"You stay by my side for two weeks while I have no idea who you are, but you think if you spend the night you'll, what? Get cold feet?"

"I could. I'm very rakish. I've been called a womaniser."

"You're a womaniser, I'm a woman, sounds like a perfect match." Clara laughed a little. The Doctor stepped even closer, invading her space more thoroughly.

"It's actually a sin."

"A sin?"

"Mm, I'm very religious, you know. What would Jesus say about homosexuality?"

"I've met him, I don't think he'd mind." As the Doctor very overtly tried to kiss her, Clara turned intangible and stepped backwards through her arms. She put the vape pen to her lips instead. The Doctor put her hands on her hips. "Really?"

"I'm still mulling things over." She walked off again.

"You're a tease."

"Am I?" she asked, growing more distant. The Doctor followed after her quickly. "I'm not actually doing anything." She blew out more vapour. The Doctor walked around to her other side to avoid the cloud. "Maybe we should turn over a new leaf."

"What leaf would that be?"

"One where we have a relationship that isn't built on sex."

"Then what would it be built on?"

"Are you for real?"

"What?"

"There are plenty of other things we could do."

"Oh, like take a romantic stroll through the greenhouse, watch period dramas, try on clothes together?" she suggested.

"We could travel through time and space?"

"Okay. How about the time is right now, and the space is the nearest available bed?"

"Bloody hell. 'Desperate' is not a good look on you, sweetheart."

"I'm not desperate."

"You're gagging for it, seriously. That's not how you seduce someone."

"Why don't you show me how it's done?"

Clara laughed, "Again, desperate. Maybe I should carry on this walk on my own, and you should go have a cold shower?"

"If you were drowning your sorrows in nymphomaniacal exercises again-"

"Don't say things like that."

"-I don't think you'd be doing this bizarre, cost-benefits analysis, would you? You woulda got right down to it," she snapped her fingers.

"It's been less than twenty-four hours since you remembered who I was."

"And to me it feels like I was in Belfast, and then I had to relive eight-hundred years. And you weren't there for most of them. That's eight-hundred years of missing you I've got built up. Just imagine how I'm feeling."

"I don't need to imagine, you're telling me over and over again. You probably should have a cold shower." They left the greenhouse, back in slate-metal hallways that all looked the same.

"You're just enjoying stringing me along."

"If I really wanted to enjoy myself, I'd indulge you, wouldn't I?"

"Hmph."

"You're not respecting my widowhood."

"Your widowhood…"

"You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to leave. I'm going to find God. Become a nun. I think it's time."

"I can see you as a nun."

"Really?"

"Oh, all those repressed women? In their habits? Never known the touch of a man? That sounds like a dream for you."

"I've always had a lot of respect for the devout lifestyle, actually. The church."

"You'll burn up if you go inside a church."

"You're confusing me for someone else."

"I was a monk when we met. If you want me to be a nun this time, I'm sure I have an outfit somewhere."

"Do you have a vow of celibacy to go with it?"

"Of course," the Doctor stepped in front of her, walking backwards, "But if the right person came along, I think I might not be able to keep from breaking it. Like I did the last time." Clara blew menthol vapour in her face and she grimaced, falling out of step again.

She decided to enter a door at random, wondering what the Doctor was keeping stashed in the distant corridors Clara had never bothered to visit. She was utterly taken aback though by a dusty room filled with musical instruments.

"Oh, wow," said the Doctor, grinning, "I haven't been in here in a long time. Get a load of this!" With that, the Doctor's attention – previously so completely absorbed with Clara – was diverted to something else. She picked up an ancient bass guitar that Clara could have sworn she'd seen somewhere. "This takes me back. I stole this from Paul McCartney, you know."

"That's what-? You stole his bass?"

"Sure I did. He deserved it at the time, believe me." She plucked a string and winced. "Needs cleaning and restringing. She set it back down, then realised the dust had gotten all over her new sweater. "Darn it…"

"It's fine, you just need a lint roller," said Clara, "There's one in our room."

"I haven't been here since – well, not since I brought that piano out of storage for you. Have I never let you in here?"

"If you haven't been here yourself in ten years, maybe you just never thought to."

"Come and look at this, you'll like this," she took Clara's hand again, leading her through the gloomy room. There was a vast object beneath a white sheet, which the Doctor tore off when she was near enough. It was a grand piano.

"This is a Bösendorfer," said Clara. She could see the branding.

"Absolutely."

"You have one of these and you never told me?"

"I'm telling you now. Guess where I got it."

"Did you steal it?" asked Clara dryly, knowing that obviously the answer was 'yes'.

"No doy. But where from?"

"I have no idea."

"Plucked it right out of the lodge at Balmoral while she was sleeping."

"She-who?"

"Queen Victoria. In, uh, 1859, I want to say," she frowned, trying to remember. "She didn't see me, obviously."

"Why is that obvious?"

"She never would've given me and Rose those knighthoods if she knew I was the one who took her Bösendorfer. She loved the piano."

"You're gonna tell me you shagged her now, aren't you? Queen Victoria?"

"Me? Of course not. I don't think Queen Victoria knew you're allowed to sleep with people you're not related to first." She sat down on the bench.

Clara snorted, "What did she do to deserve that?"

"Married her cousin? And I don't much like hereditary wealth, besides."

"Is that so." The Doctor played a key, the middle C, and let it ring out.

"What do you think?"

"Of your playing? Wonderful. Have you considered a second note?"

"I mean, is it in tune?"

"Just about. It's a little flat, but nothing severe." She began trying to play something, starting with a C major chord, but flubbed it right away. Clara sat beside her.

"These hands," she said, "Small hands. How do you play piano with these things?"

"Me personally? Exceptionally well." Clara played the chord two octaves up very easily. "What's next?"

"G," she played it easily, "And then…" she stopped to think, "C…. seven. God. How do you reach that?"

"Practice," Clara demonstrated the chord for her, "Are you going to have to learn again?"

"Maybe. Sometimes you lose muscle memory, sometimes you keep it. I don't know the rules." Clara couldn't work out what song she was trying to conjure with her simple chord shapes. "Hm. I think I have the gist now."

As if she hadn't just spent a few minutes barely making her way through the easiest chords the piano was capable of, she rattled off a complex melody in D Major, over F. Clara recognised it immediately, even before she started to sing.

"When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now… will you still be sending me a Valentine? Birthday greetings, bottle of wine… If I'd been out till quarter to three, would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" She went back to see, ended jauntily as if she had played the entire song and not just the beginning. "Of course, it should really be you singing to me, since I'm the one who'll be feeding you into your old age." Clara said nothing. "And how about that – I can sing now. I'm not sure if I could sing before. I know I didn't sing. Maybe I'll sing all the time now."

"You have a very nice voice."

The Doctor looked over at her. Clara was staring at her quite intently.

"What's wrong?"

"It's really ripping me apart."

"What is?" she asked softly.

"You're making me forget him, and then in an instant, there he is again, and I shouldn't be here with you. What if… what if I just stop thinking about him one day? What if weeks go by, and, and-" She was getting upset. The Doctor touched her cheek and wiped away the lonely tear that had appeared.

"If you think about me, you think about him. If you talk to me, you talk to him. That's how this works. There are only two of us in this, you and me." Clara kissed the palm of her hand. "I know it's hard and that human brains aren't set up to reconcile it easily."

"Who else have you been with when you regenerated?"

"With in what way? Just travelling with, or sleeping with? Because the latter, only you."

"What about Rose?"

"Oh, we hadn't…" she dropped her hand, "That wasn't until after. But in the former, plenty. Sarah Jane met four different Doctors, and the Brigadier – half of my lives at least. Nyssa and Tegan – Peri, of course. She hated my next regeneration and ditched me; very reasonable, in hindsight. And Mel, god, that was – well." She paused for a moment, trying to work out where to start this story. "There I was, in a new body, with a ridiculous coat, not remembering who I was – although, that was because she drugged me."

"Who? Your companion?"

"No, of course not Mel, she wouldn't do something like that. The Rani. You haven't met her, we were at school together."

"With the Master?"

"Yeah, well, we were cool. Ushas wasn't. But she disguised herself as Mel and tried to get me to fix some machine she had. She'd kidnapped Einstein. That really puts this whole thing into perspective, actually."

"This 'whole thing' being?"

"Our will-they-won't-they. Time was, the Doctor regenerates, all the chancers come out of the woodwork trying to kill me while I'm in my weakened state. At least nobody's trying to kill me right now."

"Maybe I'm trying to kill you."

"You? No, you don't even kill spiders," she smiled a little. "It's never taken people that long to adjust to me in the past. Except Peri. But I did deserve that for being awful to her. I'm not being awful to you."

"Except for when you called me a nympho?"

"I'm stating a fact. But people, they come around quickly. Soon as they realise I'm the same old Doctor underneath it all."

"And yet, you sing now," Clara pointed out again.

"For you, I do." She played another melody on the piano. This one was messy; she was making it up as she went along, sliding through keys. She hummed a little. Clara sat next to her quietly, listening.

"You need to do scales," she said after a while.

"Scales are for losers."

"Scales are for people who forget they have a pinky finger when they play an instrument," said Clara. "You keep missing notes."

"I'm only noodling."

"If you make mistakes when you're noodling, you're going to make the same mistakes when you stop. Here." Gently, Clara placed her right hand over the Doctor's. She pushed her fingers down one-by-one to get half of the C major scale, then back again. "Now just do that a hundred times."

"Well, I've learnt never to practice the piano in front of you again."

"My mother would never have stood for sloppy little fingers."

"You know, I could make a very filthy joke about that sentence."

"Don't. I take this very seriously. Tomorrow we'll do D minor. Once you've got that down, arpeggios."

"So, when you said we could build our relationship on something other than sex, you meant on patronising my musical ability?"

"Yes."

"Then that settles it," she stood up and stepped over the bench, "I'll play the guitar instead. That way you can't tell me off."

"Wait a second," Clara took hand and pulled her back onto the bench. Before she could complain about how she could have very nearly fallen over, Clara was kissing her. That she would not complain about.

For Clara, it was revelatory. The two previous times she had kissed this Doctor, once a mistake and the second a goodbye, had been markedly chaste. She did not now feel the senses of guilt, betrayal, shame, which had coloured this Twelfth Doctor's sojourn to the past. And she didn't feel like the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors were such separate entities. All her walls began to collapse.

And then the Doctor collapsed.

She had been leaning in such a way that she fell off the bench.

"Shit, are you okay?" Clara scrambled to help her.

"Did you push me?"

"No, of course not."

"Are you sure?"

"Why would I push you?" She took a step away from Clara and dusted herself off.

"If you suddenly had a change of heart."

"What if I didn't have a change of heart?" Clara stood up as well.

"Hm…"

"It was an accident, I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "Come back over here." Tentatively, she did, still suspecting that Clara had pushed her on purpose. Clara took the Doctor's face in her hands and kissed her again. That erased all of her doubts.

Arms around each other, they staggered back and knocked into one of the many guitars. It crashed into another one and then three were on the ground, making a cacophonous sound.

"Oh my god," said Clara when the Doctor went to assess the damage, "Maybe we're cursed."

"You don't move now," the Doctor ordered. Clara stood completely still. The Doctor carefully picked the guitars up, one by one. "They're all fine. Maybe that's why I never come in here, too many breakables…"

"And it's very dark."

"Do you want me to turn the lights on?"

"No, I like the atmosphere."

She put her hands on Clara's hips, "Do you want to go somewhere else? If you haven't changed your mind, that is."

"I don't know. What kind of girl would I be if I put out so soon?"

"The kind of girl I always knew you were."

"You shouldn't insult me if you want me to sleep with you," she whispered, leaning in very close.

"I've been insulting you all day, and you haven't minded one bit."

"We'll go wherever you want to go. Other than this room and its many hazards."

"Why is it my decision?"

"Because, you're… I don't mean to be crass, but you've presumably regained some semblance of 'virginity', as it were?" she said. The Doctor frowned.

"What are you saying?"

"Well, if… if it's your 'first time', again, you should be somewhere comfortable. So that it's… nice."

"Where were you for yours?"

"The bedroom of a clingy, teenage boy. Quite hideous."

"I hate to break this to you," she wrapped her arms completely around Clara's waist, "But I've slept with people before."

"It'll be different now."

"It can't be that different."

"You'd be surprised at the, uh, intensity, shall we say. Presuming that everything downstairs works roughly the same in you as a human girl."

"The intensity of what?"

Clara leant in as if she was going to kiss her, but then whispered in her ear instead, "The female orgasm."

The Doctor scoffed and said very dryly, "I'm sure I'll cope."

"You say that now. But I suppose it's your decision. You really should pick a place, though, before I actually do change my mind. Again."

"You'd better follow me, then," she released Clara from the embrace and walked off. "And, by the way, you're the one who hasn't been with a woman for a decade. Maybe you'll have the 'sloppy little fingers', for a change."

"Here I thought you listened when I told you not to make a horrible joke about that," Clara pursued her, "You could be right, though. I am out of practice. But the difference is…" She stopped talking when the Doctor led her out of the music room and immediately into the opposite door. On the other side was the hotel-like guest room she had made for them earlier. "That's… disorienting."

"The TARDIS anticipates my needs," she said, "Shuffles things around. What were you saying?"

"I was saying that I, unlike you, am perfectly willing to assess my mistakes and work on my scales, chords, arpeggios, trills, until they are all. Absolutely. Perfect." Clara pushed the Doctor onto the bed and kissed her deeply, already drunk on her own desire and the knowledge that now, there were no more time travel hijinks and opaque rules about the future to come between them.

Just a few seconds later, there weren't even any clothes.