Sing to me.”
“Have you gone mad?”
“No.”
“No.”
They manage quiet for an entire five seconds.
“Sing to me.”
His eyebrows go properly concave, and her lips suppress a smile. Was annoying him always this fun?
“Have you got a concussion?” he asks.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Stop thinking then.”
“You don’t think I’ve tried?”
The Doctor sighs. He’s having trouble as well. The two of them are incorrigible. “Of all the things—”
“Something sad.”
He sighs again, long-suffering and heavy, and turns to face her. “Do you like Tom Waits?”
“Sure.”
He points at her: abandon all hope, ye who enter. “Not after this.”
They return to contemplating the ceiling. No cracks up there. Not just yet. He clears his throat, mutters under his breath, and prepares to do her bidding.
She smiles. “I doubt that.”
They’re in a Benedictine abbey in 14th century Italy. The old monk they’re speaking to recognizes Clara. She’s never met him in her life. He might have met one of her echoes, but she hopes he’s from her own future. It would help confidently entertaining the thought of one.
The Doctor thinks the monk can help him find his TARDIS, maybe solve some of his other problems. “He’s only part human,” he explained. “But don’t mention that to his face.”
“The answer is simpler than you’re allowing it to be.” The monk speaks in Italian, blithely putting a morsel of cheeseburger into his mouth. Smuggling it into the abbey was something of a tradition. He grins at them when they leave, his front teeth missing like a raggedy old toddler, the opposite of the Doctor’s great exasperation.
She stands with him in the cloisters and can imagine the future gift shop, the donation boxes, and air of sterility. The huddled masses in this time are desperately poor, seeking sanctuary in the mountains after being displaced by a war between noble families. She and the Doctor blend in without difficulty.
“Sorry,” Clara tells him.
He shrugs with a self-deprecating grimace. “How’s that pulse?”
She places two fingers on her wrist. “Nothing.”
He doesn’t look at her, won’t let slip even a hint of despair. “No, it’s fine. It’ll be fine.”
She holds his hand and chooses to believe him. They’ve come too far. “Yeah.”
“Your hands are cold,” he says.
“I think it’s a side effect.”
He bring her hands to his mouth and breathes warmth onto her skin. She remains in his grasp. “How’s that?”
He is riveting, the earnestness in this simplest, most human of gestures. She stands close enough to smell the scent of his skin, study the long fine bones of his fingers.
She leans into him, like whispering a secret, and kisses his lips softly. They sink into each other as a tidal wave of air leaves their lungs. Their chests deflate, and the muscles of their shoulders come loose.