He'd messed up. He'd picked the wrong place for the date. He'd stirred up emotions and memories and now Clara was in her room crying on the bed. How had the day gone from their earlier encounter in the med bay to this? Humans. He would never really understand them. The Doctor paced the corridor like an expectant parent and listened for every sound while his ship point blank refused to open the door.

Clara had disappeared almost wordlessly to her room when they had got back to the TARDIS several hours ago. She had a look of barely restrained tearfulness, but wracking his brain he could remember seeing her like that before and it didn't usually last very long before she would emerge and say she was just 'being silly,' or some such excuse. Not so now. The Doctor tried to remember more about those incidents years ago when she had been his companion. Sometimes it was down to something he'd said or done, or not done, and she'd come out and give him a dressing down, but she always came out of there reasonably quickly.

What was this? She'd been doing pretty well adapting back to being alive. Well, apart from the vomiting and the problems with temperature, and sunburn. Ok she hadn't been doing that well but she'd remained upbeat for the majority of the time. He took her to a Christmas market in 1895 and everything suddenly fell apart.

Children. Family. That's what she had been talking about as they'd watched the skaters on the pond. Something he now took for granted that he had lost forever to time, and something she had accepted as a possibility when her body froze, but now… He stopped his pacing. Now everything had reverted back to how it had been before. Technically she was still just twenty nine, a woman in her prime, one whose future lifespan had alerted from seeming immortality to one of a normal human being. He chewed his thumb. Humans. Humans with their short lives, always pressured to produce the next generation, to continue the species. Her biology had kicked back in, her clock was ticking both in terms of children… and her life.

The Doctor felt a sudden stab of panic. They had both been thrilled at her heartbeat returning and occupied with exploring what that meant. But both of them, deliberately perhaps, had avoided the subject of lifespan. They were still behaving as though it were endless and she immortal. Hadn't this got them into trouble before? He chewed harder and yelped as the skin around his nailbed tore. He sucked away the blood. Perhaps all these thoughts had hit her too? Perhaps she was not only thinking about children but her now truncated future.

Sixty years at best, maybe more with futuristic health intervention. She'd lived four hundred, he'd lived well over two thousand. Sixty would go by in a blink. His adrenal glands emptied suddenly into his bloodstream. Only sixty years. Sixty years and he would be going through her loss again. But then wasn't that what she had tried to teach him? Loss is the story of everyone.

He paced back to the door and listened. She'd fallen quiet. Should he leave her to it? Was she sleeping? As he hesitated he heard the lock click back, the TARDIS's way of indicating to him to go in.

The room was dim but he could see Clara perched on the bed, her back to him. She was blowing her nose, and next to her a small pile of tissues indicated the level of her distress of the last few hours.

'Hi,' she croaked as he stepped in. He could see her wiping her eyes and trying to pull herself back together. He quickly crossed the floor in an awkward half run, his arms held out to envelop her and she didn't protest as he did just that, squeezing down next to her on the bed and holding her close.

'Clara, I'm sorry,' he started, 'I'll make it up to you, take you somewhere, less… less…' he paused, stumped at how to explain it.

'Less filled with human beings? Less Christmassy, less joyful? It was the perfect place Doctor, beautiful and filled with people and music and love. Everyone was enjoying themselves.'

'So what went wrong?' he asked pulling back to see her tearstained face.

She gave him a lopsided smile. 'I'm just being silly that's all. All those families… all together, it stirred up… stuff.'

So he had been right on that score. 'I'm sorry, I should have thought.'

Clara laughed next to him. 'How were you supposed to predict that?' she asked rubbing his arm soothingly, 'I didn't know I'd see a bunch of kids running about and get all confused and emotional!' They sat in silence for a moment, Clara running her hands over his chest, smoothing his shirt and fiddling with buttons. Her hands were warm through the material.

'I got used to losing my family hundreds of years ago,' Clara said, 'I accept that they are gone but this is different. This is a family I never had, one I thought I could never have, and now…'

'Now?'

'Now, now its…' she bit down on her lip for a moment, 'now it's a physical possibility, a carrot dangled in front of me and its strangely harder to deal with the possibility of that Virtual Family than losing the one I had. It feels cruel, I can have babies again but I'm four hundred years old and a time Traveller who is getting chased by Time Lords and Reapers and really it's not a good time, but at the same time I don't have a lot of time anymore… do you see?'

'Time,' he said, 'Causes a lot of problems.' The Doctor watched her until she looked up at him a little guiltily.

'I hope you don't think I'm requesting children, or marriage or settling down on some far away planet,' she said. 'I know that isn't you, that's not what you're about. I'm just trying to explain how it feels now I'm alive again. I'm alive but I'm limited, I don't get to choose when to go back to Trap Street, it's out of my control.' He saw her struggle with the concept, same old Clara, the control freak, and now her life could end at any point, sooner rather than later, and that hadn't been part of the deal before.

He paused before his next question, 'Do you wish you were back to the way you were? That you had endless time but none of these dilemmas or problems?'

Clara's expression was a tie between stricken and confused. 'Honestly? I don't know. There are a lot of advantage to being Extracted; super fast healing, constant temperature regulation, never getting sick… but it's kind of boring too. Being alive… well there's so much to properly experience isn't there?'

'You make a better mayfly than a mountain,' the Doctor said softly.

'What?' she laughed.

'Mayflies,' he said, 'are here only a short time but they appreciate the life they have, the beauty of it more than the mountain can. The mountain stands alone and detached while all of life goes on below him. You were always a mayfly, Clara.'

She smiled at his metaphor, 'Well I'm a mayfly again now, no going back.'

He watched her closely, 'Would you want to?' he asked again, 'Because Extraction isn't the only way to gain near immortality.'

Clara stared at him slightly open mouthed. 'What? Well I know about Time Lords, and Ashildr obviously…'

'There are others, the universe is full of immortals if you know where to look. They just aren't always called that. I'm just saying, people owe me a few favours, so if it ever became too hard, if you ever wanted to go back to how it was for you… there are ways. '

Something about being told about regaining immortality made Clara's vision clearer. 'No!' she said suddenly, 'No! it's.. its… not what I want… at least I don't think so. The last few days have been difficult at times, yes, and there are things I still need to work out, but its early, I'll get there… I'm not just going to give up and go back to being the way I was. I was existing, thinking I was having fun but at the end, when I returned to Trap Street I realised there's so much more.'

'Such as?'

'Like eating until I feel bloated. Like sitting up all night in the library talking to you and falling asleep on the couch. Like passing out from too much champagne. Like burning on the beach and having you apply sun lotion…' she smiled her first happy smile since he had entered the room. 'All of those things make up memories, make up truly being alive. I've missed that, just like I missed you, because you made me feel alive.'

Without warning Clara wrapped her arms around the Doctor's neck and hugged him close. 'Thank you,' she said into his ear.

'What for?'

'Caring. And coming to talk to me. And letting me find my own way,' she kissed his neck once, a slow soft pressure.

'You're very welcome,' he replied quietly, not breaking the embrace.

'Doctor?'

'Yes, Clara.'

'There's something else that being properly alive helps with, something you need a heartbeat and a working body to really appreciate.'

'Oh?' he said distractedly. When Clara didn't reply he looked up into her eyes, saw that coquettish tilt of her head again. 'Oh…' he said in realisation. She nodded. 'Are you sure? I mean… you're not too…'

'Too what?'

'Upset?'

'Trust me, this will cheer me up,' Clara laughed.

The Doctor felt a flood of anxiety wash over him and she must have caught it in his expression.

'Hey, relax, we'll be fine. So what we're both a bit out of practice…' gently she began opening the buttons of his shirt and inched closer to him on the bed until her thigh was pressed against his. She tipped her head back slightly to encourage him to her level and parted her lips just slightly.

They weren't in the med bay, the TARDIS hadn't set them up. Instead they had finally reached a place where they could take the next step. The Doctor leaned forward and began to press slow kisses to her jaw and neck, using the tip of his tongue to draw moist patterns and his lips to kiss them dry again. Clara moaned and adjusted the angle of her body. She wanted him flush against her, not at an awkward side by side tilt, but the Doctor resisted, using the gap between them to allow his hand to wander down from her shoulder to the swell of her breast. She was soft and unblemished and beneath his fingers her nipple grew harder quickly.

He was kissing her, deep and long when, impatient she suddenly removed her top and allowed him free access to her naked skin. Clara threaded her hands through his hair and he felt himself be pushed down to where both breasts were now bare. The smell of her was intoxicating, her perfume and scent, and the way her skin seemed to shimmer in the dim light captivated him. He felt her wriggle on the bed, pull herself deeper onto the mattress and he took it as a sign to follow, at last laying above her, his hips between her legs, separated only by clothing.

Clara quickly began to work on that and he was suddenly filled with an odd kind of confidence that he rarely experienced in these kind of situations. But Clara had waited centuries for this night, and he if he really thought about it had lived through the paradox of four and a half billion years. There was no question of either of them rejecting the other or having second thoughts, this was a frank and shared goal.

The Doctor felt the cooler air at his back as his shirt came away, and then her small efficient fingers were unclasping his belt and trousers. He glanced down at her and she gave him a small apologetic look for the speed with which she was working though in truth the moment she removed him of the last of his clothing he had dived onto hers. At last they were together skin on skin and he felt the ambient temperature rise courtesy of the TARDIS.

The sensation of Clara beneath him was overwhelming and he struggled to control not only his body but his telepathy which threatened to kick in unbidden when their contact was so great. Clara being Clara of course could see him wrestling with something and prodded for an explanation. She looked at him curiously when he explained he was holding back.

'Don't,' she said.

'Clara, if I let these walls down I'll end up deep in your head, you're not telepathic, it might be frightening or heaven forbid painful.'

'It won't be,' she said with unfounded confidence. 'I've done a little basic telepathy, I can stop things from getting too invasive or loud.'

'What? How?'

'The Oods taught me.'

'When?!' he asked.

'I'll tell you later. Just trust me and relax a bit. I don't want you to be with me like this and be spending half your energy trying to stop your brain leaking. Just…do your psychic thing. I promise it'll be fine.'

He had to admit to a deep sense of relief as he let his walls wall and Clara was there to catch him. She seemed comfortable enough as his mind sent rivulets through hers, linking and exploring. It was beautiful and it was peaceful and he immediately discovered the place she had kept aside for him all this time. He could feel the moisture on his cheeks as she kissed him and was grateful for her welcome.

Under the weight of his body Clara was moving more purposefully now, requesting with her mind and flesh that they join together. He swept his palms over her soft skin and buried his face in her hair and neck as he aligned with her. She felt hot to the touch, wet and tense with need and as he pushed into her his breath left him. By his ear he could hear her pant, against his chest he felt her heartbeat, and wherever he touched her, her skin was flushed and hot. Her body was working hard to give her what she was craving, something she had been completely unable to feel for decades.

Clara's breathing coming faster, the Doctor felt his own conclusion rushing to him, the different sensations from each part of her and from her mind becoming quickly overwhelming. Like her he had been alone a long time, but he had been spared grieving for her loss. Now with his memories regained and Clara in his arms he realised the depth of his feeling, even deeper that he had felt it in the preceding days. Their kind of love was indeed dangerous, her loss had sent him over the edge and now her presence was doing something similar. He swam in her consciousness, a tightness building in his abdomen, a heat spreading outward, and around him her muscles contracting, grasping, taking everything from him she had long waited for.

Clara rose up suddenly in his arms with a cry and he felt his tenuous control snap, a powerful heave of raw pleasure surging through his body until his voice fell to quiet tears and his limbs lay weak.

There was a silence broken only by the sound of slowing breath and the rustle of bedclothes as the Doctor eventually shifted far enough to wrap them in sheets. He was worried about the telepathy but Clara appeared to be fine, leaning against him, playing with the small hint of a stomach he carried.

'That went well,' she surmised.

'I need some practice.'

Clara looked up at him mock serious, 'Yes… practice, lots of it...'

A beat.

'Are you ok?' the Doctor asked.

'Take a look and see,' Clara said and then gestured to her head.

'No, no,' he said, 'I'm not poking about in your mind, Clara.' She rolled her eyes at his caution.

'Ok well,' she said, 'Take my word for it I'm ok. All that stuff I was saying, about family and being alive and what it was like to be Extracted. That all still stands. But this…' she pointed to him and then to herself, 'and being together at last, and being able to experience the universe and all it offers rather than be frozen in time… I pick this over everything.'

'Clara you've only been 'alive' a few days, you may change your mind yet.'

'I know, I'll probably discover other stuff that's a pain in the backside, but you and me, most especially you, you make up for it.'

'How? The Doctor asked, curious.

Clara looked at him like he was an idiot. 'The last week I've experience fatigue, hunger, cold, heat, sickness; all physiological reactions I hadn't felt in years. Some nice, some not. But there's one that makes everything worthwhile and that's the feeling I get inside when I am with you. The skipping heartbeat, the butterflies, the tingles. I would never want that tamed, or frozen or dulled.'

The Doctor blinked owlishly at her, seemingly lost.

'Love,' she said simply, 'I'm talking about love.'