A/N:

The Final Chapter! I actually can't believe this thing made it to 20 chapters! So much for my 4 chapter prediction, right?

I thought about waiting until after the Christmas special to decide how to end this story, but then I thought: "Nuts to that! If the Christmas special is happy, then Yay, and if it's sad, then I'm just going to make this happy ending my head canon." Because if any two characters ever deserved a happy ending, it's these two!

Also, there's a special "easter egg" in this last chapter for the lovely D Veleniet who gave me a pick-me-up right when I needed it during the writing of this story. Those who have read her amazing fic "What Lies Beneath" will spot it.

Lastly, for all of you who stuck with this story from fluffy start to angsty middle to fluffy end, may I just say one gigantic, with custard on top, THANK YOU. Your reviews, favorites, and follows made writing this story more fun than Space Florida. :-)

Dessert-at-Home, part 4

He's still kissing her when, at just that moment, a beam of light slices through the window, illuminating the room, and the Doctor's head snaps up, alert for any sign of danger from above.

"What is it?" Clara asks, and he frowns.

"Wait here, I'll go check from the Tower," he says, his eyes moving to the stairs. They wouldn't have started to attack already, would they…?

"Oh, you're kidding me," Clara says, her voice huffing.

He sighs and turns, knowing she'd argue about wanting to go with him. "Just wait. It's safer down he…."

"What?" she says, frowning, then rolling her eyes. "I wasn't talking about that. Of course I'm going with you, you can argue all you want," she says, waving him away, completely ignoring his scowl. She looks towards the back of the large room and says, "I was referring to the fact that, with the light in the room, we missed what was over in that corner."

He frowns at her and follows her pointing finger, seeing, in what was a previously too-dark corner, a bed and a stack of blankets, covered with a fine sheen of dust. The Doctor turns back to her, seeing the mischievous smile on her face.

"I'm just saying, that won't give me splinters," she comments.

He has a hard time concealing his grin. Instead, he sighs heavily. "Well, it's a good thing you told me," he nods sagely. "Because I was going to suggest the chair next, and what I had in mind…. might have broken it."

Clara's shocked, wide eyes make him chuckle finally, and even though he can already feel his arousal stirring once more, he grabs her hand, thinking again how impossible she is, loving her exactly because of it. He quickly picks up two of the blankets, then wraps them around their bodies, pulling her towards the stairs.

When they get to the top, it's then that the Doctor realizes it wasn't a beam of light from a ship at all, it was….

"Oh! Doctor, it's the sun!" he hears Clara exclaim.

He feels a small sigh of relief escape him, particularly grateful that he wasn't about to have to fight a battle when he was stark naked, and this time, without any holographic clothing. Of course, being able to see the landscape in the light is definitely a plus, because, from a strategic viewpoint, he's going to need to know these mountains and valleys and forests like the back of his…..

He hears a small gasp and then whirls to see Clara's hand fly to her mouth, sudden tears in her eyes. Instantly, his fingers wrap around her shoulders.

"Clara?" he asks, her eyes still glued to some spot off in the distance. Finally, they turn in his direction, and he sees the tears aren't ones of horror, but of joy. Her whole face is lit up, as if the sun is coming from inside of her.

"I'm sorry," she laughs. "It's just…. look." She points in the direction that had recently held her gaze, and he follows her finger to see, right between two mountains, in perfect view from the Tower…. a lake.

And slowly, his own smile starts to spread, as he exhales, wrapping an arm around her shoulder as she sniffles and laughs simultaneously into his chest.

"I wonder where we can get some scones," he says idly, and Clara laughs harder, holding on to him, reaching up to kiss his chin.

He holds her tighter. He had never really been one to believe in happy endings. They were for fairy-tales. And, he also knows, with a chilling sobriety, that Clara's being here is tempting fate, more than even she knows.

But something about Clara Oswald makes him believe. Just as she'd made him believe and hope and want to live, the moment she'd pointed at a man-eating snowman and demanded that he get the hell off his high cloud and help her. It was easy to believe in fairy-tales when her power over him was nearly magical.

He sighs, squeezing her shoulders once more.

He shouldn't be glad she's back. She'll be in danger every second that she's here. And if anything were to happen to her, he's not sure he'd survive it.

But then, he's probably not supposed to survive on Trenzalore. And, he remembers again with an awful clarity, neither is she.

She'll die again beside his grave. A grave that was destined to be exactly where they were currently stranded. He shakes his head, not wanting to feel anything but happy at this moment, but Clara, perceptive as ever, is already looking at him curiously.

"What's wrong?"

The truth field washes over him, and he fights to control what he says. "I was just thinking."

"Yes, gathered that bit."

He pauses a second more, but feels the words come rushing out. "I don't want you to die here."

Clara's eyes widen just a bit, but then she scoffs. "No one but you knows where they're going to die," she says, then pauses because he says nothing in return. "What makes you think I will?" But she says it off-handedly, as though the idea of dying on Trenzalore doesn't really surprise her.

The Doctor exhales, cursing Time Lord truth field technology. "Something I heard once, a sort of prediction about you."

She smiles. "Really? My mum used to like reading my horoscope. What was it?"

He winces. "That you'd die beside my grave."

Her face falls. "Oh."

"Yes."

"Your grave as in Trenzalore."

"Yes."

"I see," she says slowly. "And who told you that?"

He sighs. "The Whispermen." She frowns in confusion and he raises his eyebrows. "The things that tried to take your heart out of your chest?"

Clara's eyes widen with dawning recognition. "Oh, right. Big creepy guys, hanging around Mr. Look-at-me-I'm-Really-Smart?"

He manages a smile. "Are you talking about me or The Great Intelligence?"

"That's the one," she says, pointing, and the Doctor rolls his eyes because she simply doesn't seem to take this seriously. She can't even fathom how losing her would wrack him with pain, but losing her, knowing he could have prevented it? That just might destroy him.

"My grave," she muses softly, "and yours, too." She's silent for another moment, and then shrugs, holding him tighter. "Doesn't seem so scary if you're facing it with me."

He warms at that, at how brave she always is, just when he needs her to be. But even so, he can't help but think that as soon as the TARDIS comes back, he can at least get Clara to stay on the ship, where it's safer. It's already begun to trouble him, wondering why the TARDIS hasn't actually re-appeared yet. He knows that the ship that brought this Clara back was his TARDIS from the future, so the one he sent off with her younger self inside is the one for which he must wait to return.

He wonders idly if his ship is actually sulking, punishing him because he'd sent Clara away. Because despite their rocky start, once Clara had sacrificed her own life to save him, the TARDIS had become so fond of her that she'd even allowed Clara the privilege of opening the ship's doors with a finger snap, something she'd only ever allowed for the Doctor himself.

His mind whirs because he knows it's also not because of Tasha's shield. He'd already broken through, so that wouldn't hold his ship back.

No, there's something else. Something…. not good. But then he looks down at Clara's questioning face, trusting him implicitly, and that is something very, very good, indeed.

The Doctor sighs resignedly, looking into Clara's large dark eyes. Even when TARDIS returns, it's not like he can go anywhere, not with the siege of Trenzalore about to begin. For the time being, perhaps for a very long time being, this is going to be where he lives.

He lifts a hand to her cheek, then follows her gaze out towards the lake beside the disused Tower and amends: No, not just where he lives.

This is going to be home.

He looks out over the mountains and valleys and lake that surround the village of Christmas, a human colony on a faraway planet that's just about as different from Gallifrey as can be- Gallifrey, with her red fields and sun-filled skies, and people who lived to learn rather than just because life was to be enjoyed and savored, the way humans did. It's so very different, really, but it doesn't matter.

Clara is here. He's needed here. And for once, he actually knows that staying put isn't just something he has to do. It's something he's suddenly glad to do. He, the miserable old man who ran away in a blue box to chase dazzling-bright adventure is stranded on a dark planet on the brink of war with one dazzling-bright human woman at his side.

That, he thinks, is actually worth fighting for.

They watch as the sun sinks quickly into the horizon, and Clara murmurs against his chest.

"You'd think it was in a rush to get somewhere," she says, smiling, and the Doctor leans down, kissing the top of her head.

"I told you this place was going to have very short days," he says.

"You weren't joking, then," she says, then glances up at him, eyes dancing. "Of course, short days also means…." she trails off, leaving a heavy pause that causes his head to turn.

"What?" he asks, brows furrowed.

Clara sighs, smiling. "Long nights."

He frowns, releasing her. "Well, of course it does, the quantity of minutes in each day doesn't increase just because…. oh. Oh," he finishes, a smile spreading on his mouth.

She reaches up and kisses him, soft and sweet, her fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of his neck, stirring his blood once more.

When she pulls back, the Doctor's breath is coming slightly faster.

"Clara Oswald, have I told you yet that I love the way your mind works?"

"Have I told you I think I'm going to love it here?" she says coyly, raising her eyebrows.

He waggles his head at her. "Have I told you there's a bed downstairs?"

She laughs. "I told you that."

"Clara," he says smoothly, "Do you really want to argue about semantics when there are so many other things we could be doing?"

She laughs again and then throws her arms around his neck, causing the thick wool blanket to fall clean off of her, and making the Doctor forget all efforts of being smooth, and how to get her downstairs as quickly as possible.

Hours later, when they both lay panting, the Doctor finally speaks. "I come from a planet full of idiots."

Clara grins. "Why do you say that?"

"Because that's a far better way to communicate than telepathy."

She laughs. "For a bunch of puny earthlings, we do have a leg up on your species in certain areas."

The Doctor rolls over and pulls her into his arms again. "Oh, especially in certain areas," he agrees, pulling her leg over his hip and pressing her close.

She giggles into his shoulder. Up in the sky, she knows, a stand-off of cataclysmic proportions is about to begin. But it's sort of impossible to care when she has the Doctor, all soft mouth and eager limbs, in bed with her. There's a distinct possibility that they might never leave this room again, so what does it matter, she thinks with a grin, just as the Doctor leans down to kiss her once more.

Clara watches the Doctor shuffle to his feet, pulling on his trousers, hunting around for his shirt.

"It's under the bed," she says, smiling, and watches as his eyebrows raise, then as he drops his whole body to the floor, digging under the bed-frame.

He pops back up, sliding the shirt on, buttoning quickly and reaching for his waistcoat, grinning at her all the while.

"What's your hurry?" she asks, hugging the pillow, missing the feel of his long body next to hers already.

"Hurry?" he says incredulously. "We've been in this tower doing...things...," he whispers, blushing madly, "...for over thirty hours!"

Clara giggles even as her eyes widen in surprise. "Really?"

Of course, that would explain why her body was slightly achy in a few, choice places. "Are you sure you got the time right?" she asks and his arms fall at his sides, as he sighs loudly and points to his own chest.

"I'm sorry? What am I again?" he asks, with an air of great patience.

She laughs and throws a pillow at him. "Fine, I believe you."

He smiles and swaggers back over to her, and she wants to giggle because oh, dear lord, how she loves it when he swaggers.

"Anyway, I thought I might try to find some food," he says, pulling on his shoes. "If we're about to start a stand-off with the Time Lords and everything else in the universe, we might as well do it on a full stomach."

Clara stretches, the dusty sheet falling off her naked torso, and she nearly hugs herself as the Doctor takes three tries to get his foot in his shoe, since he's looking nowhere near his own feet.

"Doubt there's any food in here," she says, her eyes swiveling around the abandoned Tower, and, taking mercy on him, pulling the sheet back up to her neck.

The Doctor's eyes clear from their haze and he stands up cheerfully. "No, but maybe the neighbors will lend us some tea and milk."

She laughs because it sounds so sweetly domestic, as if they really were what he'd once claimed would be their alibis when they'd arrived- a simple couple from the next town over. And now they'd moved into the dusty old Tower, settling in, eager to meet their new neighbors.

"We've got to find some way to eat until the TARDIS comes back, after all," he says, turning as he finishes his bow-tie.

Her smile dims because she knows she can't tell him. And worse, she knows that very, very soon, that magnificent brain of his will figure it out, that the TARDIS isn't coming right back, and that it must have been from a very distant future indeed that Tasha stole his ship to fetch Clara.

She frowns now, thinking of the day that she'd run, tears in her eyes, on to the TARDIS, believing he'd come back for her, and had seen Tasha at the helm. At the time, it had never occurred to her ask why Tasha, believing that the great Doctor's long life was finally coming to a close, would have chosen to go back in time to fetch Clara, out of all his companions, as the person he most needed to see before he died. There were so many people he loved and that loved him, people she could have fetched from any point in time, who would have leapt into the TARDIS without a second thought to be there for the Doctor at the end, even if it was with a face that they didn't recognize. They all loved him, as she did, so why had Tasha chosen her?

"...special," she hears him say, and shakes her head.

"What?"

"I said I'll try to get us something special," he says, smiling broadly.

She tilts her head, grinning at him. "Are we celebrating?"

He waggles his eyebrows at her. "Lots to celebrate," he affirms.

"It wasn't technically our first night together," she says, and he leans down and kisses her.

"No, but it was the first of many more to come," he tells her, and she melts into the rickety, dusty bed, which is now the most glorious spot in the whole universe.

She glances over at the glowing crack in the wall, and suddenly gasps. "Oh, my goodness," she says breathlessly. "You don't think they… they heard us?"

The Doctor frowns, following her eyes to the crack. Then throws back his head and laughs.

"You worry too much," he says, running a hand through her hair. "First, the people in the Restaurant and now the Time Lords." He laughs again, shaking his head, slipping on his coat.

Just then, a knock on their door rings through the silence.

"Doctor!" call some children from outside, and Clara can hear them giggling from the other side of the door.

The Doctor's head swivels back to her, brightening. "See? We've already got friendly neighbors. Not a bad start."

She glances down at her still-naked body and smiles. "Think I'll wait here."

"Ha! Think that's a good idea," he agrees, then clasps his hands together, rubbing them as he ambles to the door, pulling it wide and exclaiming to the group of children, "Hello, hello, what have we here?" She hears his voice trail off as he closes the door to protect her modesty.

She shakes her head in wonder at him, but can't help but glance back at the crack in the wall, turning a deep shade of crimson at the thought, no, the knowledge, that they just might have heard her because, after all, they heard…..her…..before.

And then her hand slowly lifts to her mouth, as something staggering begins to fill her brain.

Because, a thousand years from now, a younger version of herself will stand in front of this very crack, and the Time Lords will not only hear her, they'll obey, and she had never, ever understood why because she'd been too grateful to know that they had.

Why would they have trusted the voice of some human woman they didn't even know? And how was it possible, for that matter, that the Master, in the form of Missy, would have known to single Clara out, from all the billions and billions of souls in the universe who had ever existed in time, as the "perfect woman" for him, the one person for whom the Doctor would do anything, even go to Hell. How could any of them have known what they were to one another?

She shakes her head because even when the questions had formed in her brain, she'd tried not to understand them, because everything that had happened had also brought her here….

Slowly her head turns to stare at the crack in the wall, glowing, listening. And she knows, as if the knowledge had always been in her brain and was finally coming out to preen in front of her.

They'd known because she was always meant to come back.

Because, just as the Doctor had always told her, even paradoxes have a way of working themselves out, getting things to fall where they were supposed to fall in the domino line of time.

She gasps out loud at the implication, her hand dropping to her side once more. Was this was why he'd sent her away from Christmas that second time, when she'd thought he'd been so utterly heartless, but now understood that, in his timey-wimey brain, he'd been compelled to do it, perhaps not even knowing why. All because she had to leave in order to come back to him later in her own timeline?

When he'd talked about not wanting to have to bury her, unable to meet her eyes, was it because his nightmares were actually flashes of a coming reality where he actually had buried her? It means, she realizes with a start, that her grave was destined to be here on Trenzalore, beside the Doctor's own, just as the Whispermen had always predicted.

She hadn't been rewriting history, she'd been fulfilling it. The thought, rather than frightening her, fills her with an odd sense of peace.

The TARDIS won't return for 300 years, and yet she doesn't feel trapped at all. It had never been a trap for her. It was a choice, and she would willingly choose the Doctor, over and over again, no matter how many times her timeline was written.

Her life with the Doctor, in their house by a lake, and what probably were a dozen children crawling all over him outside. Every dream she'd had…. nothing what she'd expected. Everything she'd asked for. It was all right here, and perhaps it had always been meant to be theirs.

She laughs out loud, hugging her knees on the bed.

Perhaps this, too, was why he had changed so much into the next incarnation he'd become, telling her almost immediately that he wasn't her boyfriend, why he'd worked so hard to push her away (yet simultaneously pull her away from Danny), somehow knowing her future was in his past.

She glances at the crack in the wall and lets out a long, slow breath.

This was why those mysteries had happened, why the Doctor had changed, why the Master had known how to single her out, and why, most of all, the Time Lords had placed their faith in her when she'd asked them for a miracle.

They had heard her, heard her life with him, her love for him. So that when, a thousand years from now, her younger self would ask them to save the Doctor, they would obey because they knew exactly who she was. And because she was about to spend the rest of her life earning their trust.

Sometimes miracles have to be earned.

She closes her eyes as she realizes the consequences of what she must do, or perhaps what she's already done. The Time Lords hear her. So will the Master, who will one day use the information to hurt and to kill and to pull the body of Danny Pink into the cold steel of a Cyberman's armor. But who will also use it to give Clara a phone number to the best help-line in the universe, and who will have pushed her into the path of the Doctor in the first place.

There are some things that always must happen, she'd once heard the Doctor say.

Perhaps this was why he'd trained her to think like him, to understand time and choices that weren't easy, but which were the right choices in the end. And why he'd let her go to fulfill her destiny, and give them what they both needed, just as he'd promised. Tears come to her eyes as she realizes that every choice she had made, every choice he had made, had never been part of a straight path. They, like she and the Doctor themselves, were a circle, unbroken, their paths always leading back to one another.

And she has one more miracle to earn, one where the Time Lords won't let the Doctor die, to give him not just one more life, but the chance to live for more thousands of years. And that, she knows, is worth any price to her.

She stares at the crack, and listens for the Doctor outside the door. She can hear him talking to the children outside on the steps, and wonders if this is how his job as the fix-it man gets started. She can imagine so easily that he might spot a broken toy and immediately offer to repair it, make toy trucks fly and dolls that can recite quantum physics.

Clara laughs, thinking of him, his shirt-sleeves already rolled up, ready to help, his wide, eager grin as he makes the children ooh and ahh. Oh yes, he's worth any price at all.

Just then, the door opens once more and the Doctor comes bounding in, holding a giant bowl covered with a tartan cloth.

"Clara, look what the neighborhood children brought us," he says eagerly. "Christmas candy!" he announces happily, whipping off the cloth to reveal a giant pile of multi-coloured marshmallows. "Do you know I've never had them in different colours before," he says, his grin making him look like a young boy. He points his fingers around the top of the pile, swirling as if trying to decide. "Which one do you think tastes the best?"

Clara smiles. "I think you'll like the pink ones."

He beams and reaches in, digging out a pink one, and plopping it into his mouth. His eyes widen with sheer delight. "Oooh, brilliant choice! We should have these for dessert every day," he says appreciatively, then puts the bowl in her lap. "Here, you have some. I told the children I'd be right back," he explains. "Can you believe they don't have quadricycles here?"

"Bet they'll have one soon, though," she comments knowingly, and he blushes, wobbling his head.

"Well, maybe just the one," he says happily.

He's so animated and whirly, as though he feels it, too: the knowledge that if they were going to get stuck somewhere, landing in the human colony of Christmas, with its laughing children and pink marshmallows, wasn't really the worst thing that could have happened. So she takes his hand in hers and holds tight, tilting her head at him.

"Think you'll be alright then, being stuck here for awhile with a bunch of humans?"

His eyes hold hers a long moment, and his free hand raises to touch her face. "Oh, yes," he whispers, "love a human."

And warmth spreads from the pit of her stomach, out through her limbs, down to her fingertips. "Love a Time Lord," she counters, smiling right along with him.

"Back in a jiff," he says, holding her head with both hands, kissing her quickly on the lips, then taking another pink marshmallow and rushing out the door to the children.

She watches him run, saving the day, as usual. He saves the universe. She saves the Doctor.

Silently, Clara picks up the bowl, then moves to the rocking chair near the crack in the wall, and sits down, grabbing a nearby blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders. She plucks one of the marshmallows into her mouth and lets the airy sugar coat her tongue. The Doctor had said he was taking her for dessert, after all, and now, after so many years of swallowing bitter pain and loss, she sighs at the rush of something so wonderfully sweet. Like her own Doctor, with his fluffy hair and his sugary smell and everything that was him that made her brain go giddy.

Her life is more than sweet, she realizes. It's complete, a cosmic mish-mash of good things and bad things, extraordinary adventures, ordinary moments, and the timey-wimey twists of fate that had brought her back to him at long, long, beautiful last.

Clara Oswald gazes once more at the crack in the wall, ready to earn the trust of Gallifrey, and the people who will save the Doctor, in a far off future she's already seen. She takes a deep breath, and begins to rock, her toes just reaching the floor.

"You don't know me yet, but I'm going to tell you a story," she whispers to the glowing crack. "I'll tell you every day that I live so you'll never forget. About a man called the Doctor who gave up his life to protect not one, but two worlds… one belonging to my people, and one belonging to yours…"

She rocks slowly in the chair as she talks, looking at the wall and feeling her happiness waft through the crack as if it were that golden life-energy of the Time Lords. She wraps her arms around her knees and smiles once more, telling them the tale of the man she loves, knowing she's home at last.

Epilogue:

The Doctor sits alone in his chair beside the crack in the wall, his head bent over a broken toy.

Making the train fly wasn't the problem, but installing a squash court in the third car was proving tricky. His tongue is sticking out slightly as he fiddles with the sonic for a third time, just as a knock on the door breaks his concentration.

They never wait for him to answer. In moments, a dozen children come spilling through the doorway, coming to clamber all over the humble sitting room.

"Story-time!" they chant together, and the Doctor feigns a heavy sigh.

"What's it going to be today? The Bee-Keeper's Wife again?" he asks, his eyes twinkling.

One little girl juts her chin out at him, rocking back and forth. "We already know who that is, Doctor," she informs him.

He gasps in mock surprise. "Do you?"

"Yes," says the little girl with hair the colour of Clara's. "She already told us the stories of how she was born behind the face of some clock called Big Ben."

"Which is why she's so good at time," supplies one of the boys.

"And how she invented fish, because she doesn't like swimming alone," says the girl.

"She doesn't like swimming with gills, either," adds the Doctor, sighing.

The little girl frowns, and he can see she's sure he's teasing her, which of course, he is. "Well," she says triumphantly, "We know those are all about Clara!"

"Someone call me?" he hears Clara's voice, just as her head pops through the archway of the open door, followed by the rest of her.

Her hair is covered by a light dusting of snow, which makes it hard to see the slight flecks of gray that have started to appear at her temples. But to the Doctor, each silver hair, each line on her face is something infinitely precious, a victory of every year that he's gotten to keep her, even while they've fought off the invasion attempts of the hundreds of ships in the sky.

"Clara!" the children cry happily, abandoning the Doctor and running up to her. He doesn't really mind, or even blame them. It's very few souls indeed that could resist the pull of the magnificent woman that is his friend, his companion, the wife of his hearts and the saviour of his soul.

"What are you making today?" the little girl asks her, while the boy beside her wrinkles his nose.

"It's not another burned souffle, is it?" he asks, and the girl beside him grimaces in agreement.

Clara's face falls. "I don't burn them…." she says stubbornly, carefully covering the basket of eggs in her arm with a tartan cloth. "...all the time."

"You do right enough," says the little boy matter-of-factly.

"My dad says they should be used as chemical warfare," the little girl supplies, scratching her nose.

"Told you," the Doctor says sardonically, idly going back to working on the toy, smiling.

She smirks at him. "Maybe if someone hadn't tinkered with our oven to try and turn it into a dry-cleaner."

The Doctor fights down a grin, thinking of ways to use Clara's failed souffles as a new form of weaponry. That's certainly one thing the Daleks would never see coming. He finds himself grinning, anyway, but then, he's had much to smile about during his many years on Christmas, even in the midst of a war.

Fate had been exceedingly kind to him, for reasons even his over-sized brain can't understand.

It's true that the TARDIS still hasn't returned. And he knows now that whenever it was that Tasha had taken his ship to fetch Clara, it was either from a future so far off in the distance that he's destined to grow very old indeed, or else it happened after he actually dies.

But that thought doesn't scare him now. Though he's comforted by the idea that one day he might see his beloved blue ship again, he's just as glad to be able to see Clara every day. And love her every night.

He honestly doesn't know how he would have survived this without her. To spend years, maybe centuries alone, staring out into the bleakness of war and snow and dark alone, loving her from the other side of the universe, never knowing what happened to her- it would have been pure, abject torture. But he's stopped worrying about what might have been, how cruel his fate could have been if he'd endured it all alone.

Once, and only once, he'd confessed to her his fear of what he'd do when her life finally came to a close, probably long before his own would. Clara had been lying in his arms, the way she did every night, her head pressed against his chest, with his hand idly stroking her shoulder. She'd said something that had both comforted and puzzled him.

"Don't worry about that," she'd whispered, pressing a kiss to the bottom of his throat. "You'll see me again."

His stroking of her skin had ceased, and he'd looked down at her, frowning. "What do you mean?"

And she'd lifted a hand to his face, touching his chin, smiling. "Just believe me when I tell you. You'll see me on the other side."

He'd thought of her words for many years afterwards, like a vague sub-routine running through the computer of his mind, because he knew that Clara wasn't particularly religious. He'd also gleaned from experience that she had the ability to tell him only what she wanted to reveal, an unwelcome skill she'd learned during her time away from him.

But, more than both of those things, he knew that Clara wasn't lying and believed what she was saying. She somehow knew that her death wouldn't be their last time together, and that meant that there was a past Clara who had yet to cross paths with his future, perhaps even a future where she'd been forced to witness his death, planting that dull grief in her eyes that he'd seen when she first came back to Trenzalore.

His hearts always beat guiltily when he imagines what new traumas she might have endured on his behalf, the ones of which she's never spoken, and will never speak. And if she's right….. if he is destined to one day see her past self, perhaps long after he's buried the woman now standing a few feet away from him, warm and alive…..

His eyes squeeze shut. He can't imagine what it will be like, seeing that past Clara, who won't know of their life together, their love, and everything she means to him. He wonders how he'll ever be able to keep from yanking her into his arms one last time, confessing everything.

And most of all, he wonders how he'll ever have the strength to send her away a second time, as he knows he must.

He looks over and sees his Clara, surrounded by the children, bringing the basket over to the table, cheerfully telling them a story about the Emperor of the Universe, who was called Porridge and once proposed to marry her, which makes them peal with disbelieving laughter.

"That's worse than the time you said you were a Dalek who listened to opera!" the girl chortles.

Clara glances over at the Doctor, and shakes her head, spreading her arms helplessly, and he smiles and shrugs, laughing. As if pulled by gravity, he then stands up, crossing to her and leaning close.

"Never would have happened anyway. I wasn't about to lose you to the universe, much less its Emperor," he whispers into her ear, loving the way the heat of his breath on her sensitive skin makes her tremble, even after all these years.

She looks at him slyly, and instantly the air leaves him, because she is, to him, still so stunningly beautiful. "Looks like you won, then," she whispers back.

The Doctor's hearts speed up in his chest, and his hands move automatically to her hip, squeezing lightly, as if he wasn't even in control of his own limbs. He's suddenly, inexplicably reminded of the inhibition-lowering cocktails they'd had once, so many years ago, when he literally hadn't been able to keep his hands off of her.

"So tonight you can claim your prize," Clara finishes, and heat pools low in his stomach.

"That," he says, his voice low and soft, "is exactly what I had in mind." He takes her small hand in his, raises it to his lips and then listens to the sound of her gentle laughter washing over him, smoothing his fears, soothing his hearts against the lonely future he knows must one day come.

But for now, this moment, he knows that fate hasn't been just kind to him. It's made him the luckiest man in the whole, wide universe.

The children are now bouncing eagerly around the table, and he resolves to tell one of the shortest stories he knows, hoping that the manic, eager smile he's wearing doesn't completely give him away.

It wouldn't matter if it did. He is the Doctor, the saviour of worlds, protector of Christmas, the story-teller to children, the Time Lord who loves the human woman beside him and always will.

And at long, long last, he is finally something else. He is happy.

THE END

A/N:

Wheee! We made it! Once again, my sincerest thanks to all of you who shared this journey with me. I loved reading every single review and hoped that you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

Thank you again so much for making this such a great experience. As much as these characters can make me feel, you always made me grin even more, and believe me, that's really saying something! Cheers to you all, and Happy Christmas 2014!

- laurelnola