Author's Note: Well, here 'tis, the last chapter! Again, a huge thank you to those who've left feedback, rec'd this fic on other sites, and who've favorited or followed. It's been a rollercoaster with this fic, and I hope you enjoyed the ride! :)

The deep and lovely dark.

She could feel him practically vibrating with tension as she sat him down on her bed, as she removed his jacket, as she undid his trousers and slipped her knickers off. When she straddled his lap, the rapid thudding of his hearts reverberated within her own chest.

"If you don't want this, stop me now," she breathlessly commanded him. "You did it before - I know you can do it again."

His breathing was erratic, but he didn't move. "You said you didn't want it."

"And you sounded like you were glad of that, so yeah…time to find out."

"Find out what?"

"If we can be honest with each other."

He trembled beneath her, but it was impossible to know what that meant. Apprehension, fear, arousal, discomfort…?

"Doctor," she encouraged him softly.

It felt like an eternity before he provided an answer: his fingertips coming to rest on her hips again. And then it seemed he took another eternity before deciding what to do then, tightening them to either push her off – or pull her down.

When she felt the unmistakable pull, she let gravity take over, sinking down onto him at last, letting out a loud groan, which he echoed.

As she started to rock with him, face buried in his shoulder, fingers grasping at his shirt, her confessions spilled out with gleeful abandon.

"I want this oh god I've wanted this for so long I've needed this I needed you I want you I need you I lied I need you I lied I lied I lied…"

"Tell me," she gasped, catching his head and searching for the glint of his steely eyes in the dark. "Tell me, Doctor."

It took a few seconds for his breathing to even out enough to speak. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me the truth," she managed. "For once. Tell me the truth."

There was a pause – and then, his hands were in her hair, palms smoothing down the sides like he was fixing it for her. Then they cupped her cheeks, fingers still tangled in it. "You want the truth?" he asked, voice raw.

She nodded, waiting.

There were several hitches in his breath like he was about to speak, and then - he swooped in on her mouth with a crushing kiss.

Clara responded with something between a sigh and a whimper, arms winding around his neck, his shoulders, nearly breathless from the bruising force of it. If she thought she had all the answer she needed, she was wrong: he wasn't done yet. Pulling her towards him, he scooted back on the bed so that she collapsed on top of him, breaking their contact. If the Doctor noticed, he didn't let on – perhaps because he was too busy squeezing Clara to his chest until oxygen almost became an issue. Then he flipped them over so she was on her back. His mouth started moving over hers as he pressed into her, chest to chest, as he started teasing at her lips, taking little sips of her, the kiss slowly progressing into something wider and deeper and more intimate. Normally, Clara would've felt smothered by such an intensity of a response, by the way he'd let almost all his body weight fall onto her. But instead, she met him with equal force, arching her chest into his, letting her hands sweep over his shoulders, his back, his arse, erasing all the gaps between them as she joined them again.

He must've known she wouldn't let him have control for long, as he flipped her onto her side, then her back, changing the angle each time, eliciting yet more groans and cries from her, finding new places to touch, to reach, to stoke her on, before she wrestled him off of her so she could pounce on him again, pushing him to a half-seated position against her headboard. Efforts to remove his shirt were unequivocally refused, so she removed hers instead, shaking her hair out as she rode him, forehead against his, taking one last searing kiss before she threw her head back, her crying turning to keening as the wave crested over and she exploded into a million points of light, the pieces of her scattering and peppering the sky with a shine that rivaled the stars themselves.

True to form, the Doctor answered her with his own shout, convulsing beneath her as she drifted back down to Earth, settling into her skin again.

She collapsed against him, face tucked underneath his collarbone, panting into his shirt. But she couldn't maintain the position for long and lifted herself off, crumbling into a boneless heap next to him, utterly sated and satisfied. Drawing a hand across her sweaty brow, she blinked lazily at the ceiling as her breathing calmed.

For the first time that evening, everything was completely brilliant. Everything was perfect.

"Holy bloody…" she managed in between breaths. "I'd say that was Earth-shattering, but…" she trailed off as she heard him collect a few tissues from the box on her nightstand, some of which he wordlessly offered to her. Still pondering, she plucked a few from him and cleaned herself off. "What's the biggest planet we've visited? No. What's the biggest planet you can think of?"

The bed shifted as he struggled to fasten his trousers, his hips tilting awkwardly. "Why, do you fancy a visit right now?"

"No. Just – tell me the name of a really huge planet."

"Um…Raxacoricofallaptorius is pretty sizable as planets go," he mused.

"Raxacori…what?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"Wait, wait, wait…" A giggle trilled out of her. "One more time. Raxacorifalliplorius?"

The Doctor clearly wasn't amused by this. "I'm really, really not having this particular conversation right now."

"Conversation?" She rolled onto her side, head propped on her elbow. "I just want to know the name of a big planet."

"Fine. How about – Serenatum. It had a population of 3 trillion by the year 500 Billion."

"Serenatum." She tested it on her tongue. "Works for me. Then that was Serenatum-shattering."

"What was?"

She lifted an incredulous eyebrow she knew he couldn't see. "That. You and me. Just now." Staying up on her elbow was taking too much energy, and she flopped onto her back again. "I'm serious – I might never move again."

"Well, you'd certainly miss out on a lot if that were the case."

"Or maybe just not for 500 billion years," she continued dreamily, letting out a loud yawn.

The bed shifted again – more signs of his growing restlessness. "Maybe, I should, uh, just leave you to rest, to…recuperate. Get your mobility back." It was enough to wake her up, though it wasn't until he'd swung his legs off the bed that she was finally propelled to action.

"Doctor." She shot out a hand, stopping him. Even after all they'd just done, it was surprising how intimate a hand on his shoulder felt.

The Doctor must have felt it, too, immediately stiffening under the light pressure of her touch.

"We need to talk about this." She coaxed her muscles to cooperate, dragging herself next to him.

The ensuing silence was deafening, until he finally let out a halting, "Okay."

"I know that if I let you leave this room, we'll never talk about it. And I'm not gonna do the whole 'this didn't mean anything' dance like the last time, so if you were thinking of leading with that, it's not gonna work."

"I wasn't."

"Good."

"And…it didn't."

"You mean…it meant something?"

"Of course it did."

Clara considered this, suddenly aware of how carefully he was perched on the edge of her bed. "And what about the other thing you said? Do you still think we…we can't be together? Do you still think we'd only destroy each other?"

She could almost hear his eyebrows traveling high on his forehead. "You think that this evening proves that we're actually good for each other?"

"I think this evening proves that we're at our worst when we're terrified of admitting something. Especially to each other."

The Doctor had gone very, very still. "Admitting something," he echoed.

"Yeah."

His breathing was the only sound for a while. "Admitting what?"

Eternally grateful that she'd decided against turning the lights on, the deep and lovely dark afforded her more courage, making her bold. "That…that we have feelings for each other."

There was no longer any sound of his breathing.

She rushed on. "At the very least – you want me. You can't exactly deny that after what we just did."

"Neither can you."

"No," she laughed. "No, I definitely can't." It was possible that her heartbeat was yet again the loudest thing in the room. "But there's more," she said softly.

The Doctor must have taken advantage of his Time Lord respiratory bypass system because it didn't sound like he had taken a single breath in the last few minutes. "More?"

"Yeah." She focused on the faint outline of her hands clenched tight in her lap. "The real reason we can't be together. It's not 'cause we'd destroy each other." It took everything in her to force the words out of her mouth. "We can't be together 'cause…'cause I couldn't lie." She let out a nervous chuckle. "Or I could only lie for so long, but eventually…" She sighed. "We can't be together 'cause I couldn't pretend that I didn't love you."

He was silent for another few seconds. "You lost me."

"You and me both." She turned to look at him, to examine the contours of his profile in the dark. He sensed it, and they finally locked eyes. "What I'm trying to say is…I could lie to you, and act like I didn't love you at the beginning. But eventually, I wouldn't be able to keep that up. Eventually, I wouldn't be able to pretend anymore."

The lines of his face changed, but there were too many shadows for her to read what it had changed into. "And why would you need to pretend in the first place?" he asked quietly.

She fought the urge to turn on the light, afraid of what she would see. "Same reason we spent the evening lashing out at each other: protection."

His eyebrows were defined enough that she could see them draw down low. "Protection from what?"

"Getting hurt."

He stilled again at this, breaking their eye contact. "You really think I'm that heartless?" he finally retorted.

"No. I know you're not that heartless. But you spend a lot of time acting that way for your own protection – I wouldn't expect you could turn it off just for me."

"You're basing a lot on assumptions."

"Enlighten me, then."

He scoffed, like her suggestion was ridiculous.

"What? If I'm so off-track, then set me straight. I don't think you're the datable type – am I wrong?" A flicker of hope crackled in her chest.

His silence felt stubborn this time. Every so often, his arm or leg would twitch like it was taking all his will power not to bolt from the room. "You're asking the wrong questions."

Now her hand twitched, eager to slap her forehead in dismay. Or his shoulder in exasperation. "Then what are…" She huffed. "Okay. Okay. Then how about this question?" Turning to him again, she scraped together every ounce of courage she could find on such short notice. "Do you love me?"

The sound that came from him was barely audible, but it was almost like he'd been punched in the stomach with a tiny, gloved fist. When he replied, his words were slow and measured, his tone hollow like he was wrenching them out of some bottomless abyss. "I am not answering that question."

She swallowed her disappointment. "Why not?"

"It's not a simple question."

"Actually, it is – usually you can answer with 'yes' or 'no.'"

"And what if I did, hm? It doesn't matter how I'd answer because if I did then everything would change."

Despite the darkness, Clara had to cast her eyes down, her cheeks flaming. "It wouldn't have to," she mumbled.

"Let's say I answer 'yes' – everything changes. But what if I answered 'no' – everything would still change. That's why I don't answer that question – why I will never answer that question." His restlessness grew by the minute, until he shot off the bed, gesturing widely. "I don't use those words, and I never will. They're such human words. Such human sentiment."

With a shaking hand, Clara reached for the light, squinting and blinking several times as it flooded the room. The Doctor's shoulders were tensed, his brows set low, and mouth drawn in a taut line. She studied his face, noting his irritation, his impatience – even borderline fury. But there was something else there, too: she'd wounded something in him, touched on something private - sacred even. Something she wasn't supposed to be able to reach.

It made her even more pensive. "Maybe it would've been different before," she began, her voice hushed as another confession tumbled out of her. "But before you looked so young, and I felt so young – I thought we had all the time in the world. We should've had all the time in the universe. You had a time machine after all – why not?" She smiled softly, lost in the memory of a purple tweed frock coat and the familiarity of its feel against her cheek. How easy everything had seemed then, their dynamic entirely uncomplicated.

Something to the left of her dangling feet had suddenly become extremely interesting to the Doctor, his eyes boring a hole through it.

"But then you got 800 years without me in one afternoon, and - I think I've been trying to catch up with you since then. Makes sense, I guess. When you've loved someone for several of their centuries, but you're not even 30 yourself." She let out a long sigh, finally standing up. "But it doesn't matter now. 'Cause I might not have asked the right questions, but you still answered them." She ran her hands down his arms, rubbing them lightly. "So – thank you for being honest with me." She raised herself on her tiptoes and planted a light kiss on his cheek.

His face was awash in emotion as he leveled her with his gaze. "You're wrong."

"Of course I am," she breathed out, all the fight gone out of her. "About what?"

"I didn't answer your question – at least, not the way you wanted me to answer it. But I will answer it, someday."

She cocked her head at him. "You will?"

"It'll be when you don't even realise you're asking – just not with those words. And I promise you that then, then I will answer it."

She blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Um…and when's 'then?'"

"When you need it the most."

It was all the answer she'd ever need. Her gaze softened. "And you said you're not datable."

"No, you said that. But I don't…" His face screwed up in an entirely endearing way. "I'm not sure I even know what that word means."

She chuckled. "It's okay. It's a pretty human word, too." Biting her lip, she let all her emotion rise up, shining at him through her eyes. "I really do love you, you know."

Though the rest of his face radiated discomfort, the way his eyes reflected back at her spoke far more than words ever could.

"But don't worry," she continued. "'Cause that is the last time I will ever say those words to you."

An unmistakable film of sadness settled over his features, but he nodded.

Stretching up on her tiptoes again, she cradled his face and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. Then, she tucked her arms between them, burying her face in his shirt.

He surprised her, bringing a tentative hand up to the small of her back. It was the closest to a proper hug they'd ever gotten.

Well…that was a sort of progress, wasn't it?

Finally, he spoke again. "So did you want to go anywhere?"

For the first time that night, she tried to lie and found she couldn't. She shook her head, feeling the fabric of his shirt against her cheek. "No. Is it okay if we stay here?"

"All right." His hand worked its way up between her shoulder blades, his touch gentle. "Yes," he murmured.

For the first time that night, Clara knew unequivocally that he'd spoken the truth, too.

*Fin*