Disclaimer: All rights to the BBC and Steven Moffat. I own nothing.

People like me and you – we should say things to each other. And I'm going to say them now…

There was no question that time had ravaged the Doctor, even if the man kneeling before Clara hadn't actually lived those four and a half billion years. His face still bore the marks of forced containment, psychological torture and endless solitude. They were in the sunken hollows of his cheeks; they blazed through those slate-blue eyes.

And all for her…

"I lied to you," she started.

"I forgive you," he responded quickly.

"You don't even know what it is."

"It doesn't matter –"

"Yes – yes, it does, Doctor. I need to say these things."

He didn't quite give a sigh, but his usual restlessness seemed even more pronounced now. How long did he say he'd had to rest, eat, sleep or work? Eighty-two minutes? Eighty-two minute-intervals replaying over and over and over, an endless cycle over a number she could never even begin to comprehend.

"I don't know if you remember 'cause I know it was a long, long time ago for you, but you kept trying to get me to find a hobby, to find another relationship. And I told you that I was fine, that I didn't need to. But….I never told you the reason why. And I need to tell you now." She knew it was purely out of habit, but she took a deep breath anyway. "To be in a relationship, your heart has to be free. And – mine wasn't. I had already given it to someone else."

"To Danny." It wasn't even a question to him.

She shook her head, her voice small. "No."

"Oh. To who then?"

Could she just let her eyes do the talking? She let every repressed, discounted, minimized and denied emotion she had ever felt for him rise to the surface, shining at him like a beacon. "Who do you think?" she asked softly, giving him that smile that was for him alone.

But it was what had brought them to this point: kneeling together on an ancient, dirt-caked circuit board, so close and yet – separated by the one thing that had always kept them apart. The one thing that might have made everything different if only they had the courage to talk to each other…

In the same way that she would never have guessed that the Doctor would subject himself to half the life-span of the Universe in a torture chamber to bargain for her life, he could not understand who could possibly have won her heart other than Danny.

"To you."

She hurried on, giving him no time to react. "And that doesn't mean that I ever expected anything from you or even wanted anything to change – and I know that I'm probably just one in a very long line of people who thought they could flirt with a mountain range and ended up falling instead, but…" Her rush of words petered out, hanging in the dank silence peppered only by the eerie cry of the cloister wraiths. "I lied to you when I told you you were my hobby. You were never my hobby, Doctor." Her voice had dwindled to no more than a hushed whisper, augmenting the intimacy of her confession. "You were – you are…everything to me."

The Doctor's face melted into a grimace, like it physically pained him to hear her say that. Her courage faltered for a moment as the words he had so often repeated rang in her head: I have a duty of care.

"And I know," she continued again before he could say anything, "that this might be a really stupid question when you spent four and a half billion years punching through a wall of something harder than diamond just for the chance to save me, but I have to know something. You say it was 'cause you had a duty of care, but that's something I say about my students. People I'm obligated to - who can be responsible, but only to a point – who need someone else older and more experienced than them to step in and take over if they find themselves out of their depth. So I need to know – was that what you were doing? Were you trying to correct my what? - my error of judgment? Did you do all that because you felt obligated to me?"

"I never blamed you, if that's what you're asking," he replied fiercely. "I only ever blamed the Time Lords. We would never have been there in the first place if it hadn't been for them."

She shook her head. "Was I an obligation, Doctor?"

He had that familiar I'm-out-of-my-depth look, like he desperately needed to find his cards. "You're my friend," he offered helplessly.

She couldn't help her sigh.

But at least the Doctor was starting to notice that he was missing something. "Duty, obligation – do you not like those words?" He blew air through his teeth. "How about promise?"

"Promise?"

"Yes, promise. A promise to take care of you."

And she was right back to exasperated. "But I never asked you for that!"

He grew pensive. And he was trying, she could tell that. "It's been a very long time, so I don't quite recall. But there's something that people say to each other on Earth, something about when you're sick and when you're well."

"When you're sick and when you're well?"

"Yes. But they don't say promise, they use a different word. Something about…" His eyes screwed up in thought. "Sickness. Sickness and health. No, it's…in sickness. In sickness and in health."

She had to remind herself that her unbeating heart couldn't all of a sudden leap into her throat. "In sickness and in health?"

"Yes. And something about when times are good and when they're not."

Her mouth had gone dry. "In good times and in bad?"

"There – see? You know it. What is that word they use?" He snapped his fingers as he hunted for the word. "Vow! A vow."

Her breathing was just a habit. And that was good because she wasn't sure she had taken a breath in the last minute. "Vow."

"Duty, obligation, vow – they're all basically the same, aren't they? A promise to care for someone."

She had to look away from him, her throat too full to speak, gaze falling on his hands. How many times had he bruised, battered and broken them for her? All of a sudden his words from another time came back to her: love is a promise.

She needed cards of her own for this one.

"That's what duty of care means to you?"

"I don't see how it could mean anything else."

Of course. Because in Doctor-speak having an obligation to make sure younger people didn't do anything stupid to hurt themselves or each other would be on the same plane as marital vows for him. Any quibbling over language was probably just semantics. "The thing is…you got it wrong, Doctor."

He frowned.

"When people say those things – it's to each other. It doesn't really work if one person decides that's how it's going to be. So…" She reached for those hands, clasping them firmly, her thumbs lightly caressing the skin. "This is the vow I'm going to make to you."

That pained expression had returned. "Clara…"

"No, listen. I vow that I will take care of you. That for as long as I'm around – that I will look after you. Especially when you can't look after yourself. I can't promise that you will always like the decisions I make or that you'll even agree with them; I can't promise that I won't drive you mad with some of the things that I do. But I vow that I will do everything I can to make sure you're as happy as you can be. And most importantly…I vow to do everything to help you be a Doctor."

His features had all but crumpled, like every one of her words had weighted him further and further until his head was almost bowed.

Which was why her last message was possibly the bravest thing she had ever said. "If nothing else, just know this: for all this time…for as long as I've known you, and for every version I've ever known of you, you have been very, very loved. By me. And you always will be."

She placed both hands on his face then, tugging it up so she could look into his eyes. "Till death do us part," she whispered, smiling ruefully, then leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips.

At first it was like kissing a statue, his lips cold and unmoving as stone. But after a few seconds, she felt the tiniest pucker in them, responding to the kiss the only way he could. And when she pulled away, he was trembling and there was a watery film over his eyes.

"Okay. So where were we?" She scooted back, giving them both space. "Let's see if we can get out of here, yeah?"

"Yes," he began hoarsely, then cleared his throat self-consciously. "Yes, it's nearly sorted. There's just one problem."

"Isn't there always?" she asked, smiling warmly.

His features noticeably softened at that, and she could see his old self peeking through. "But I don't expect it will be a problem for very long. Not with Clara Oswald at my side."

His bald adoration washed over her, warming her cheeks. "What is it?"

"How do we get out without them noticing?"

"Oh, silly Doctor," she teased. "Don't you worry. They'll all be looking at me."

He'd resumed his work on the ground, so she barely caught it. But just before she stood up to distract them, she heard his reply: so fond, so tender, and so full of meaning that she wondered why she had ever questioned him.

"How could they not?"

*Fin*