A/N: I've placed a pretty noticeable jump in time here, and that is intentionally done. From here on out, this should be, theoretically, all new content. But, still, I tried to keep it as canonical as possible.

When Ashildr had informed Clara that she intended to take a few weeks to travel on her own—to take some time to settle some affairs and to gather her thoughts—Clara hadn't complained. They had spent the last year—was it a year, she stopped herself to wonder? She had lost all sense of time; she, in all honesty, didn't have the slightest idea how long she had traveled with the Doctor's Twelfth regeneration, let alone with Ashildr—traveling together, all locked within the moment before Clara's final heartbeat, and while Clara had enjoyed it immensely, there was no denying that she, too, much like Ashildr, could use the time to gather her thoughts privately.

It would be her first time truly traveling alone, in her own TARDIS, since parting ways with the Doctor. She had taken steps to grieve the loss of his Twelfth regeneration—or, at the very least, his memory of her—over the last year, but the process still felt incomplete. This—unstructured time in solitary—would undoubtedly help her find the closure that she knew she, consciously and subconsciously, needed.

Without her even acknowledging it, she knew a plan was forming in the back of her mind. She knew just where to go: back to, arguably, where it had all begun.

She landed in the marketplace of Akhaten, and it was just as chaotic and thriving as it had remained in her memory of the place. She fell into the pace of the place, just as she always had when she had traveled with the Doctor. She weaved through the crowd, but as she spotted a blue fruit that had been a particular favorite of a particular man, she found tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. And when she spotted the mopeds, she found herself wondering if she had not made a complete and utter mistake coming here after all.

Was this closure? This urge to cry? Or was this a method of torturing herself? Of reminding herself of all they did and, more importantly, didn't get to do?

She turned from the moped, unable to take in the sight of it for too long. She settled in, her back to the moped and her eyes blankly roaming the crowd, tears still blurring her vision as she tried to regain her composure.

She blinked. She blinked again. She swatted viciously at her eyes, forcing them to shed their tears, forcing them to focus.

He was here. She didn't know how, but he was here. She spotted him across the way, haggling over—of course—none other than the infamous blue fruit.

She recognized him instantly. The broad shoulders. The posh puff of brown hair. The long nose. The longer chin. The long purple overcoat. The boots.

It was him. It was her Doctor.

She hissed, instantly internally mad at herself for labeling him as such: her Doctor. She had grown to love the man the Doctor had become when this one had regenerated, but… It had not been the same. He had known it. She had known it.

His back was to her; he had not spotted her yet. Should she run to him? Should she surprise him? A million plans flashed before her eyes in an instant; a million projected reactions from him answered the call. But her actual physical movements were arrested; she was stuck, as if glued to her very spot.

She took too long. He turned. He spotted her. A smile—that smile, his smile—found her.

Her feet were no longer stuck. She was running. She hadn't even registered starting to run until she was already halfway to him. He, for his own part, met her in the middle; they crashed into each other in the heartiest of hugs Clara had ever experienced in her life.

She was crying. Much like the running, she was uncertain as to precisely when that had started, but before she knew it, there were tears soaking through his overcoat. For what it was worth, he didn't seem to care in the slightest; if Clara wasn't mistaken, he seemed to pull her in closer.

"Oh my," he chortled, and his hand was suddenly in her hair, cradling her head as he had always done when she was clearly distraught. With another sob, she realized this was the first time she had heard him—her Doctor—speak in…years. Five years? 10 years? She couldn't know—not with certainty. "Well, that's quite a reaction. I feel flummoxed. Watch it, now. You'll make me blush."

She laughed, releasing another sob as she did so. She could think of nothing to say; she merely clutched at him harder.

Her hands ran down his back, feeling the familiar tweed and wool prickling at her fingers. He was real. He was here.

Clara had often contemplated fate within the span of her life. When she lost her mother. When she found her Doctor. When she lost her Doctor. When he saved her. When fate brought Ashildr into her life.

And now, here: when she found her Doctor again.

Opportunities like this…they rarely come around once, let alone twice. She resolved herself to something there, sobbing into his achingly familiarly broad shoulders, with his achingly familiar bow tie tickling her cheeks: she was not going to waste one second of this opportunity.

"Clara…" he trailed off, and she heard it—felt it. He had realized something was going on. He had finally figured out that, from his perspective—from his timeline—she shouldn't be here alone, and she wouldn't typically be crying quite like this. She felt him pull back, and begrudgingly, she let him go, but her hands lingered, remaining squarely on those broad shoulders she had missed so much. "How are you here? On your own?" he asked, with a small chortle once more.

She took a breath, only to release it. She hadn't the slightest idea where to start with this tale. For starters, she was a time traveler now; she knew there were rules she shouldn't break here: things she shouldn't tell him.

But she took one look at that ridiculous face: the cool green eyes, the pointed nose, the long chin, the dreamy swoop of hair falling into his eyes. She, much like him, was not much of a rule follower, and she made another resolution, right then and right there: she was going to tell him anything and everything.

They were due a very long and intimate talk, and, to Clara, it was about time they had it.

"We should find somewhere to sit."

"Oh, a cafe!" he exclaimed, with a familiar flail of his arms. It was so familiar—so endearing—that another sob cracked from her throat at the sight of it.

He quirked an eyebrow at her; the reaction was stronger than expected, and it seemingly pushed the Doctor towards understanding the severity of what they needed to discuss.

He grabbed her hand and took off running. She choked back another sob and felt her hold on his hand tightening before she had even realized she had wanted to do such a thing. In a flash, they were settled at a table with tea at hand.

Clara's eyes had not left him once: through taking a table, stumbling into a seat, placing an order; she allowed him to do all of it, and settled, instead, into studying every inch of his face and demeanor while he did so.

"Come on now," he urged, once the waitress had left; Clara hadn't even heard one word the person had said. But his tone caught her attention; he was clearly impatient to hear what she had to say. "Don't keep me waiting."

"First things first," she started. "Where are you in your timeline?"

"My—my timeline," he laughed, clearly impressed. "Well, I'm due to see you this Wednesday—every Wednesday, in fact," he confirmed, with a flick at his bow tie. "And usually, I just puddle jump from Wednesday to Wednesday, of course, but I don't know…" he trailed off, taking a look around the still humming market that surrounded them. Alternatively, Clara's eyes were glued to him; she didn't hear one peep from the crowd around them. "Just felt like a detour this week."

"Where are you planning to go this Wednesday?" she asked, and she found herself waiting on bated breath.

He quirked an eyebrow and furrowed his brow. "Not sure yet. I have an inkling that I'd like to return to Victorian England—well, that is…" he trailed off, his eyes coming to meet hers. "Do you know that it would be your second trip to Victorian England?"

She sensed the test, and she was nodding before he had even finished the question. "I do, although your version of Clara does not, of course."

He nodded, and an understanding passed between them. But true to form, he hesitated, his demeanor shifting once more. "Victorian England…have to love a good trip to Victorian England. They're so nitpicky and infuriating," he paused, with a laugh. "Just can't help myself. Like to go back there and," he paused, making a stirring motion with his hands, something akin to what Clara had always pictured to be characteristic of the witches from Macbeth. "Stir the pot."

She laughed, unable to resist considering the irony of the statement. He would, in fact, stir the pot on this trip to Victorian England: a pot of red Crimson Horror. But, alas, that wasn't one of the particularly important bits of information he needed at the present moment.

"And…" he trailed off, with another pointed quirk of his eyebrow. "You? Where are you on your timeline?"

She sighed, once again feeling the immense pressure of where to begin. But just as quick as that anxiety had come, it had gone; a rough outline of events had formed in her mind, and she knew, almost immediately, where to start.

"I'm probably not supposed to tell you any of this—"

"Probably not," he confirmed, quick on his toes. She smiled—hesitated; she had forgotten how quick he was, and just how quick she had to be, in turn, to keep up with him. Her heart couldn't beat, but she knew that, if it could, its rate would be speeding up in that instant; she felt a thrill of butterflies go through her stomach.

She had missed this. She had always known it, of course, but to have it—him—sitting here, in front of her… She realized, with an ache, just how much she had missed this.

"It's probably horrifically against the conventions of time travel."

"Almost certainly."

"Could get in trouble—will get in trouble."

"Most definitely."

"Timelines will implode."

"Of course."

"End-of-the-world type disasters will ensue."

"Naturally."

They both paused, their mischievous smiles meeting and matching.

She leaned forward, nearly bumping into her tea as she did so; that was just how locked in she was in that moment: her tea had been completely disregarded for several minutes. She spared a glance for it but did nothing else to acknowledge its existence: this matter was too pressing.

"You and I…" she started. "We don't have much time left together on your timeline, I'm afraid—"

"Will you tell me—"

"No," she interrupted, with a very serious shake of her head. "I won't." She hesitated, but only for a moment. "I don't want to risk ruining anything. But I will tell you the details of what happened after that.

"You regenerated," she continued with a sigh, a shake of her head, and a shedding of a tear. "I was prepared, of course: I knew what to expect. Or, at least, that was what I had told myself. I was wrong," she scoffed, with a roll of her eyes at her own naïveté.

"He was…" she trailed off, her eyes avoiding his; she feared his reaction so entirely, especially having known how his Twelfth face had reacted to her hesitancy. "He is…different," she settled on, with a shrug.

She forced her eyes to meet his, and she knew there were unshed tears there, bubbling at the corners of her eyes. She did her best to blink them away, but they could not be confined; they ran down her cheeks. "It was an…adjustment," she stated, after some thought on the matter.

"Was?" he asked, with a shake of his head. "You didn't stay with him?"

She shook her head, wanting to dispel that theory immediately. "I did." She paused, a smile and a sad laugh escaping her. "Until the very end—until my end."

His brows furrowed, and if she wasn't mistaken, she could've sworn she saw tears forming in his eyes. He shook his head in disbelief, stuttering. "Then—what—how…" he trailed off before taking a moment to find his focus. "How are you here?"

"I don't want to give too many details," she warned, with another sigh. "But I will say this: I died and he circled back on the timeline. He told someone it was under the pretense of seeking my advice in my last moments, but…" she trailed off, a small, cheeky smile forming. "He saved me instead. He broke all the rules…" she trailed off, tears falling freely down her cheeks now. "And he saved me."

"Then why aren't you with him now?" the Doctor asked, running his hand through his hair in his shock.

"Something happened…" she trailed off, with another shake of his head. "He can't remember me. He has no memory of me. It was…" she trailed off, yet again. "It was…unavoidable and not our choice," she said, wanting to make it clear that she would never choose to leave him, even given the fact that she had acknowledged their rocky start.

He sat back, sitting in silence for several moments.

"Cat got your tongue?" she couldn't help asking, taking a cheeky sip of her tea as she did so.

He scoffed at her.

"What?" she asked. "This may very well be the first time I've ever rendered you speechless. I'm allowed to revel in my victory, am I not?"

He scoffed again, but with a nod, he conceded.

"He went back for you?" he asked, clearly seeking confirmation.

"He wielded a gun for me," she confirmed, as if they were merely spilling the tea.

He looked shocked, but only for a second. "Rightly so," he said, at last, and with that, the matter was settled. "But how are you here?" he asked, leaning forward once more.

"Stole a TARDIS from Gallifrey, of course," she answered, with another cheeky sip of her tea.

He shook his head, his smile bursting to overtake his entire face. "And we both just happen to be here at the same time."

"Fate," she suggested, with a shrug.

"Fate," he confirmed.

They fell silent. Their eyes remained locked on each other. For at least the third time in this conversation, the tea was discarded. Everything seemed to fade. There were no sounds of a bustling marketplace. There was no sound of a beating heart—she didn't have one. There was no wheezing of the mopeds as they flew by. There was no waitress, inquiring as to how they were doing.

It was just Clara and her Doctor.

She looked at him, and she felt the weight of everything she had left unsaid between them in their time together. It had haunted her: what she had left unsaid between them.

And here, now: fate had dropped a present at her feet. She could tell him anything—everything. And she didn't intend to squander a second of it.

"Doctor—"

"Clara—"

They both stopped, their smiles suddenly bashful. This was new, she couldn't help thinking: they were usually so confident—arguably too confident, she had thought on many occasions. She had often wondered if that was not their problem: they carried themselves with such bravado that their true natures tended to get hidden under all the pretense.

But not here, not now; his smile was just as bashful as hers, she noted, and it fueled her—pushed her forward.

"You start," she said.

He was already shaking her head before she had finished. "You apparently literally die for my Twelfth face. I think I can at least do you the honor of starting."

"Technically, you also die," she argued, with a squinting of her eyes.

He scoffed and, with another flick, straightened a non-existent quirk in his bow tie.

"And you die first," she reminded him.

With that, and with his responding expression, she knew she had won this argument.

"Clara…" he started again, with a drawl. "Going through regeneration with him…" he trailed off. "If it was so difficult, why did you stay?"

She knew the answer to this question instantly. "Oh, you called me, of course," she answered casually, with an equally casual sip of her tea.

"I did what?"

"Yes, you," she confirmed, nodding specifically to the face sitting in front of her. "You called me while you were still actively regenerating and told me that you had a feeling this was going to be a rough regeneration, and you asked me to please stay by his side. You said…" she trailed off, her casual demeanor falling once more. "You said he needed me."

"And did he?" he asked. There were no scoffs this time.

She nodded. "He did."

"Well," he sat back, another smile coming to him. "I'll make sure that call happens, then."

"Please do."

"Is that why you stayed with him…until the end, then?"

She hesitated, with another sigh. "Yes and no. I always had your voice in the back of my head," she conceded. "But I did grow to…love him," she drawled, knowing she had to push herself to introduce that word into this conversation eventually.

Instantly, she saw the hurt on his face; he thought she had loved his Twelfth face, but not his Eleventh. Instantly, she knew how to rectify this misconception. "It was never the same as my love for you, of course—it was never going to be," she stated, her eyes locked on his; she wanted no chances for misunderstandings here. "But it was certainly a form of love."

"You—you're—" he stuttered, flailing in his seat. She held her resolve—smiled even—and refused to take her eyes from his. She was done hiding. "You're willing to say that?" he finally got out.

Now this question threw her; instantly, she felt her brow furrowing, but in the same moment, she felt a smile and a laugh escaping her. There was no denying that he could always keep her on her toes.

"I am. Did you think I wouldn't be?" she asked.

"It's just…" he hesitated. She kept her eyes locked on his, trying to find any and every way to encourage him to be as honest as possible.

"Say it, Doctor," she finally interrupted. "I think we've both established that neither one of us has the time to be anything less than completely honest at this point."

He smiled, but it was a small, dedicated smile: different from the bravado his smiles typically exhibited. She knew it then; they had finally hit the point where they both knew they had nothing to lose here.

"You—my Clara, my current Clara—wouldn't say that. I don't think, anyway."

She nodded. "She probably wouldn't say it, but she's thinking it. There are nights where she lies awake in her bed for hours, thinking of nothing else, as a matter of fact."

"Really?!" he exclaimed, sitting forward in his chair.

She nodded. "It terrifies her."

He hesitated. "Really?" he repeated, this time phrased much more as a question.

She laughed; she had missed him—and how much and how quickly he could turn on a dime—so much. "Do you remember what you said to me when you brought me back home after defeating the Great Intelligence at the Shard?"

He hesitated; she knew she would need to prompt him. "You said I reminded—"

"Me of someone," he finished for her, with a nod of his head.

"That terrified me. Just hours before that, I learned that you were an alien that was at least 1,000 years old. Shortly after that, I learned that you had traveled with a granddaughter, implying, of course, that you had at least been in love with someone before. And later I would learn that you have a wife that I had never even heard of, and worse yet, she knows your name when no one else in the world—not even Rose—does."

He clicked his tongue. "I'd wager Rose knows it. Her form of my Tenth face…" he trailed off, with a shake of his head. "Didn't like the look of him. Bet he can't keep a secret to save his life."

"But that's my point!" she exclaimed, with a disbelieving laugh. "If they're still together—and I'm willing to bet they are—he should be telling her. That's what you do in relationships."

"You're one to talk," he argued, sitting forward again in his chair. "You—the current Clara…" he trailed off, with a roll of his eyes at the complexities of this situation. "You're keeping me at arm's length."

"Can you blame me?" she scoffed. "You're quite old, and understandably, with that comes a lot of secrets. I understand that you're not going to be able to tell me everything but tell me something!"

"I did tell you something!" he argued. They were both sitting forward in their chairs now, and had they been able to pay attention to anything other than their conversation, they would've noticed that they were garnering attention. "Do you want to know how long it's been since I've told someone about my granddaughter?"

She hesitated, but she said nothing. He, too, hesitated, before scoffing. "Oh, hell, I don't even know! That's how long it's been!"

She nodded, and while she appreciated this, she knew it didn't resolve everything. "And then I took a trip through your timestream—"

"You what?!" he sputtered, spitting out some tea as he did so.

"You know I can't tell you the details," she insisted, with a roll of her eyes.

"Fine. But is this how there's been so many versions of you—"

"No details!" she barked.

"Fine!" he crossed his arms and whined like a petulant child.

"And I saw all the women you've traveled with—just how many of them you've loved and lost…" she trailed off, tears in her eyes as her anger settled and her sadness resumed. "Can't blame a girl for being hesitant," she said, with what she hoped was an endearing shrug.

He started nodding, and Clara was shocked at how relieved she felt at seeing it. "Yes," he conceded. "Yes, I can understand that."

He paused, and she could tell that he was thinking through how to respond. She had gotten her chance to talk; now, it was the right thing to give him his time. She waited him out, her eyes locked on his face, doing their best to discern any meaning it had for her.

"The man behind my Tenth face will always love Rose Tyler," he started, and Clara just barely managed to check a laugh; while he probably thought this was a surprising turn of events within this conversation, it wasn't to her: this was the same way he had started their conversation on each Doctor's 'type' years ago.

Still, she couldn't help the appearance of a small, cheeky smile upon her face. She had thought at the time of that conversation that her Doctor had sounded uncommonly organized in expressing his thoughts. Now, she understood why; it had been his second time delivering the speech. This—here and now—was the first run: the unfiltered truth.

She could admit she was intrigued. What would be different in this delivery? Would there be more information? Less information? Either answer would be, in and of itself, telling, and she found herself feeling curious enough to check the impulse to call him on his future repetition.

So, she settled in, and she listened.

"His best friend will always be Donna Noble," he continued, and Clara found herself reveling in just how consistent he was, despite how much he tried to act unpredictable. "He will also always favor a grungy and, admittedly, slightly dirty TARDIS," he continued, with a self-deprecating laugh.

"For me, my best friend will always be Amy Pond, and you, Clara Oswald," he paused, that warm smile he had always seemed to save for her—and only her—coming to his face. Again, she knew that, if her heart could beat, it would be pounding. "Will always be the love of my life."

This was different—this had never been part of the conversation they had shared so many years ago in her bedroom aboard the TARDIS, and hearing it sent a chill down her spine.

"We are different men—we're the same man, but we are different men. It's confusing," he conceded, interrupting himself. "His life is separate from mine; the things he likes are different from what I like." Clara smiled, albeit somewhat privately; this was, intrinsically, no different from his beloved Type Theory. "I can't imagine him eating fish fingers and custard," he said, with a laugh. "And I'd eat it for every meal if I could.

"I can't imagine sharing a TARDIS console with Rose Tyler," he continued, with a look of pure disgust erupting upon his face; it seemed, to Clara, that he could imagine it, and it did not produce a pretty picture. "But I can't imagine a TARDIS without Clara Oswald. If you aren't there…" he trailed off, with a shake of his head at just how ridiculous the image was to him. "Then I must be somewhere else, too.

"When I first found you again—when you needed help with the Wi-Fi," he specified, with a laugh at her lack of knowledge. She rolled her eyes but said nothing to contradict the ridiculousness of it. "That was hard for me," he conceded.

Clara sat forward; this was news to her and most certainly hadn't been included in their conversation from years ago. "To me, that was already our third date," he laughed at how ridiculous his own wording sounded. "But to you…" he shook his head. "You didn't even know me. To me, you had already saved me at least twice, and I had already failed to save you at least twice. To me, we had already kissed!" he jumped in, as if suddenly remembering.

"Wait—what?" she paused him, with a shake of her head. "When did we kiss?"

"I thought you said you remembered!" he accused, sitting forward in his chair yet again. "Our first foray in Victorian England? With the snowmen?"

She hesitated, her eyes squinting as she tried to recall the details. She could remember that this particular memory had played a role in the first time they had had this conversation, too, all those years ago. But so much time had passed for her since her trip through his timestream…. It was no wonder she was liable to struggle to remember.

"Memories from the time I spent inside your timestream are…" she hesitated, trying her best to find the perfect word to describe what it felt like to revisit those memories. "Slippery. I try to step into them—to relive them—and I feel like I'm going to fall right through them. I remember snowmen, and a bar, and some children—that's why you weren't surprised I was a nanny," she interrupted herself.

He nodded, confirming her suspicions. "And we were under attack. I put everyone in one room, told them all to wait—"

"And I followed you out. There was an—an—an ice woman?" she settled on, with a scoff. "Imprisoned on the stairs. And I said I wasn't just going to stay behind and—" She gasped, interrupting herself once more. Her hand came to her mouth in shock. "I kissed you," she stated.

"Glad to see it was such a memorable affair for you," he scoffed, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms. He was trying to play it off as a joke, but she knew him—she really knew him—and she saw right through him in an instant.

"No, don't do that," she started, shaking her head. "Haven't we already established that lying to ourselves and each other isn't doing either one of us any good?"

"I'm not—"

"Yes, you are," she interrupted—contradicted. She sat forward in her chair, and even she could feel that her eyes were piercing through his. "We're going to die, Doctor. Very soon, we will—technically—see each other for the very last time. We have this time, here and now. We could come back here tomorrow and see each other again," she conceded, with a nod. "We could keep that up for weeks, but, eventually, you are going to have to face the natural progression of your timestream, just like—"

"My Tenth face did," he agreed, finally matching her stance and fully sitting forward in his chair.

She nodded, glad to see that he was finally meeting her in the middle, literally and metaphorically. "It isn't that it wasn't memorable," she cautioned. "It was that I literally could not remember it.

"You remember how it was, when I first stepped foot on the TARDIS," she continued. "She hated me. What happened to me—what I chose to do: it's unnatural. My brain does everything in its power to repress it. I took on a thousand years' worth of history in there," she continued, her eyes tearing up. "All to save you, and it was more than worth it, but you'll have to forgive my brain if it can't retain all of it. Unlike you," she continued, her cheeky smile returning. "I'm only human."

He hesitated. It shocked her. She was now fairly confident that she had never seen him hesitate as much as he had in this conversation. She knew the reasoning, of course; they had long-since entered very unfamiliar territory for the two of them: this raw sense of honesty. Regardless, it intrigued her—fascinated her—and she found herself waiting on bated breath—again—to see what he would come up with next.

"But you remember it now?"

The question, as was now quite clearly the pattern, shocked her. In all truth, she was shocked at her ability to still be shocked by this conversation, but alas, it had happened, so it must, therefore, still be possible.

Diatribe aside, she moved on to internally prepare her response to his question. She closed her eyes, finding doing so made it far easier to envision the memory of what had passed between them. Several tactile tellings flashed before her eyes: the soft, green fabric of her dress, the rigid framework of her corset, the whisper of the wisps of hair escaping from her up-do to tickle her ears.

She redirected her thoughts, and more tactile reminders came her way. The tweed of his jacket under her fingertips—it had not felt so different a mere hour ago when she had felt that fabric for the first time in years—the snap that sounded as her hand wrapped around his neck, the fidgeting of his form against her own as he panicked, the sensation of his lips as they started to move against her own, the feel of his fingertips as his hands grasped hers once the kiss came to an end.

Yes, it was safe to say she remembered it, especially now that she knew enough to force her mind to remember it. And her memory of it told her two very important facts: he had enjoyed it, and it was abundantly clear, here and now, that that was why it was so important to him that she remember it as well.

"Well, you're smiling," he started. Was she? Her eyes opened, and she realized she had, in fact, had the brightest and most ridiculous smile upon her face. "Not sure what that indicates, but I suppose it means something good?" he asked.

She met his eyes. She had expected to find him cocky—arrogant—at the sight of a smile upon her face. But on the contrary: he looked nearly anxious, as if he were nervously awaiting her assessment.

"Yes, very good," she answered, her smile reappearing as she regained her composure.

"And?" he started, with a pointed quirk of an eyebrow. It was only then that she realized just how far he was leaning in: his elbows were fully placed upon the table; their tea had long-since been disregarded—again. "What did you remember?" he prompted again, when he seemed to fancy that she had taken too long to respond.

"A very lovely memory." Suddenly, she realized she was sitting closer to him than she had remembered to be the case. At some point, she, too, had met his stance, leaning in across the table.

"Was it?" he asked. His voice was full of bravado, but his eyes—they dropped, and she instantly knew that he was more anxious than she had ever seen him be. "You know, it had been quite a long time since I had been kissed. River was always trying," he continued, with a distracted but hearty look of disgust. "And there was a time when Amy tried—"

"What?!" she gasped, utterly shocked. "And here I thought she was your best friend."

"Oh, she was," he reassured her, his smile returning at the familiarity of the banter. "She just didn't always seem to realize that."

She laughed, unable to help herself.

"She loved Rory," he answered, his tone returning to nothing but severity. "They married eventually, but Amy…she sometimes worried, and commitment wasn't always an easy task for her. I was…safe," he settled on. "Comfortable."

Clara found herself nodding, as she, too, found she felt nothing but safe in his presence. The irony of it was not lost on her, as traveling with him was, by and large, one of the most dangerous activities a person could engage in. But, somehow, with him by her side, she knew she would always find a way out of every situation.

"What I'm saying is, I wasn't exactly fresh on my practice at the time." His joking tone was back, and his eyes once again evaded her own. "So I can only imagine how the situation played out—"

Clara, suddenly feeling compelled to take a cue from her past self, reached her hand out, clasped it around his neck, and brought him in for a kiss. The move was nearly identical to the one from their time in Victorian England, and unsurprisingly, it prompted a nearly identical reaction from her companion: arms went flailing and legs started kicking before the lips pushed back to resume control; they moved against hers, in a passionate—yet, perhaps, charmingly unstudied—embrace.

It was different, admittedly, from the first time they had been an item—the first time, chronologically, for Clara, anyway: in the time after she had escaped his timestream. He had been somehow confident, cooler, in those months spent together—spent together, it should be noted, but sans a label, she thought, with a blast of bitter contempt at her past-self—before he regenerated.

With a start, she realized it was because of this: right here, right now. For her, in her newly created room aboard the TARDIS, that had been their second kiss, and the first kiss had taken place with a different version of Clara in Victorian England. For him, though, it would appear to have been…well, whatever number they were up to by the time this interlude on Akhaten came to a close.

She knew she should be mad; this meant he had managed to keep this secret—this entire aspect of their relationship—from her. But, in the moment—with his lips pressed against hers, with the world doing nothing but evolving around them—she couldn't find it in herself to be angry with him. If keeping this secret secured this fate—their fate—it was worth every bit of the lie.

With a pop, they pulled apart; it forced her to, once again, find her focus. His hands—just as they had in Victorian England so very, very long ago—ran down her arms.

This, however, was where they diverged from the foyer in Victorian England. His eyes remained closed. They both leaned forward, only coming to a stop when their foreheads met.

There was no running away, no flustered adjusting of the bow tie, no flushed faces. They were at peace. They were together.

"Now you don't have to imagine it," she stated.

He laughed. What else was there to do? She was right.