A/N: Here we are, folks! The end of the story. Can you imagine how massive this would have been had it stayed a one-shot? Yeah. Thank you all for your faves, follows, reviews, and readership!

3.

Hosting a ball was an incredible amount of work, she decided, and she would much rather do without the chore. Her wants were not always what was important, though, and she had everything planned down to the letter. Their guests were southern lords and ladies, from the actual south and not the false sense of south her husband seemed to have, which essentially included the entire kingdom outside of Kasterborous's boundaries. She was determined to not seem like they were barely surviving in the wild, which was how she was sure they saw Gallifrey, and she took to being hostess like she took all her other duties as Head of House and Marchioness—like a knife took to butter.

A week worth's of whirlwind activities keeping her on her feet did not prepare her for the vast amount of sitting she was doing while the court was being presented. She was jittery and fidgeted, wanting to check on the wine and the nibbles and make sure the footmen were all dressed properly. The perfectly crafted mask of serenity she had put on that day was already beginning to crack, and the sun had yet to set.

Once the presentations were complete she felt the Marquis's hand rest upon hers, feather-light and tender as he picked her hand up from the armrest. She glanced over at him and almost lost her breath at the sight of his grey-blue eyes.

"It's about time we open the ball, my dear," he said. They both rose from their governance chairs, holding hands as they walked down to the ballroom floor. She curtsied with a flourish. He bowed at the waist, bring her hand to his lips and kissing the knuckles.

Her mask cracked, crumbled, and fell all at once, her lips parting slightly and her eyebrows twitching in surprise. Once the dance started she quickly rebuilt and replaced the mask, wearing the new one for the remainder of the night without another falter. The remainder of the ball went well, with everyone congratulating their hostess on a job well-done.

Afterwards, however, she stood in the doorway between her bedchamber and her husband's, staring at him as he undressed.

"You haven't kissed me since our wedding," she said, holding on to the doorjamb.

He paused and folded up his breeches before placing them on a chair. "I know; I'm a bit overdue."

"…but why? Why kiss me in front of everyone? You could have given me warning."

"I wanted to see your reaction," he replied. Now in his nightdress, he crossed the room and met his wife by the door. He took her right hand in both of his and kissed the back of it, locking gazes. "I apologize for putting you on the spot like that, but I had to know your genuine response."

"Did I react satisfactorily?" she asked quietly. They said nothing as he seemed to study her features with faraway eyes, only bringing the moment to a close when he released her hand, brushing his thumb against her cheek. He then, without a word, went to bed.

Retreating back to her chambers, she closed the door and began to prepare for bed herself. Her heart pounded in her constricting chest, causing her to breathe heavily as her mind raced.

'He wants an heir, not a wife to bear his children,' she thought as she removed her dress, her corset, her metal cuff. 'That's what it has been from the beginning: I am going to inherit his lands and rule with my paramour and my children will be part of the new dynasty in Castle Gallifrey. He did not marry me for love. I did not marry him for love.'

Then, the impossible crossed her mind as she pulled on her nightdress: 'We were not in love when we wed, but… are we now?' She shuddered and went over to her bedside table, snuffing out the lamp flame. She stared at the bouquet next to her on the tabletop—honeysuckle and red and yellow tulips—in the pale moonlight and exhaled heavily.

Quietly, she made the trip beyond the door and to her husband's side. Instead of climbing in the bed she sat down, waiting for him to stir and face her.

"Johan?"

"Clara?" His voice was hazy and distant, nearly trapped within sleep.

"You meant it, right?"

He shifted in bed, rolling over and looking up at his wife. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Good," she replied. She leaned forward and kissed his lips tentatively, placing one hand on his chest for support. Eventually, he reached his hands up and held her face as he kissed back, a mess of nerves and, strangely enough, relief.

"You reacted fine," he murmured as his wife parted for a breath. "You always react perfectly, no matter what. That's why I chose you."

"…to be your heir?"

"No… to be my wife."

Choking on a laugh, she took her husband's hands from her face and laid down within his grasp. He kissed her again, letting his hands trail along her back as he poured all the emotion he could into his embrace. She rolled onto her back as they nestled in for sleep, allowing him to use her shoulder for a pillow. They did not lay as husband and wife, but that night they were closer than all other nights before, and for that, they were ecstatic.

He hovered over her, his elbows digging into the mattress on either side of his wife as he hesitated. They had done this before, and they were still in their nightdresses, so there shouldn't have been a problem, but…

"So, you like when I leave you flowers?" he asked suddenly. His wife sighed and nodded.

"Yes—I didn't think you knew schoolgirls' code," she said. "I thought that maybe it had been the gardener, or his assistant, but not you."

"Flowers have spoken since long before you or I." He paused, furrowing his brow in thought. "Is there anything I should work on? Oh… should I keep the whiskers? Do you prefer a full beard?"

"Try not to be so nervous, keep the whiskers if you want, and grow a full beard if you want. Johan… you're a wreck."

He slowly lowered himself down, placing his ear just below her collarbone so as to listen to her heart. "I don't want to ruin it."

"It's a kiss; how can you ruin a kiss?"

"Very easily, my dear."

When the Marquis came back from his yearly survey of the march, his hearts ached. His lands had kept him away for longer than he now liked. When he tried to seek her out, he found the Marchioness governing from her Companion's seat as she listened to grievances of the common folk. He watched her from afar, admiring her grace and the concern with which she listened to her subjects. They loved her, he could tell, which made his chest swell and join in on the aching.

He quickly left the hall and returned to his quarters. A wash, fresh clothes unstained from travel, and some carefully-trimmed whiskers later, he sat down on his bed and waited for movement on the other side of the wall. Minutes, hours, days, years, they all felt the same as time passed. Finally, he heard her door open and shut—she was back.

With as much as his heart wanted to burst from his chest, he opened their shared door almost sheepishly. He saw her before she saw him, as she had sat down in a chair with a book in Old Gallifreyan, her back to him. Crossing the room to kneel down before her on bended knee, he took her hand in his and kissed it.

"Johan," she gasped, looking from her husband, to the open door between their chambers, and back. "I thought you were still tending to things around the city."

"I missed you," he replied simply. She took her hand from his and caressed his cheek, causing him to breathe deeply in a shudder and her to smile warmly.

"…and I missed you."

He then reached up with both hands, cradling her face as he brought her down and kissed her. Long and sure, it cemented their courtship and infused in it passion, desire, and adoration. It was an odd feeling, love, coming from a source four years in the making.

"Tell us, Clara, how are things in Kasterborous, according to the outsider's perspective?"

"Just fine, Father," she replied sweetly. They were being hosted by the Earl of Braxos, in a rather small party of northern lords and ladies. The Marchioness sipped her soup and slipped behind her mask as she felt her stepmother turn towards her from down the table.

"So no little miracles we need be aware of?" Stepmother asked, a cold bite to her words. She glanced at her stepdaughter's wrist and frowned. "Where did you get that cuff? It looks southern in make."

"It was my military advisor's—I keep it as a reminder of what could happen to my lord husband every time he goes off to defend the border," the Marchioness replied. That was at least partly true; she had originally worn it as a token of her former paramour, but with each passing day it became a sobering reminder of the dangers the Marquis faced regularly. "We were of an age, and he was good with jokes and explaining strategy. His loss put reality to the forefront."

"I'm sorry to hear that, truly," the Earl said. He himself was at least a kind man and Clara knew those words to be heartfelt. If it had been the Lady Braxos, who was as vapid and acidic as Stepmother, then, well, that would have been a different story. "Has it been long, if you do not mind my asking?"

"Two years," the Marquis replied through his wine. He set down his glass and leaned back into his seat. "He was a good lad, one I would have kept around once his service to the king was fulfilled. He had an innate talent for stratagem and his work with numbers was brilliant."

"…as long as that was the only things he had innate talents for," Stepmother quipped. The Marchioness's eyebrows shot up in barely-contained outrage.

"Pardon?"

"I'm just saying that a year and a half ago we invited you for a visit, yet for some reason you were dreadfully busy… too busy to come." By now the rest of the party was quiet, wondering what sort of familial spat they would soon be privy to. "What could possibly keep you from your girlhood home other than being shut off from the world in seclusion? Maternal seclusion, perhaps?"

"Linda, stop it," Father ordered. "That is uncalled for."

"It's a perfectly legitimate question—isn't that the emblem of her lover's lands on her wrist? The very one that caused you to marry her off to begin with?" she replied. "I'd heard rumor that her baseborn suitor had found her again, and that proves it to be true. There's no way she could pass one of his whelps for a highborn child… seclusion only makes sense."

"The only man my lady wife has shared a bed with is me," the Marquis growled. He leaned forward, as much as his sitting position would allow, and furrowed his eyebrows angrily. "She was a maiden on our wedding night and has been faithful to my wishes ever since. So far we are childless, but that does not mean that it leaves questions about her character open to critique from the likes of you or anyone. If it would not destroy a perfectly good man I would cut you down until there was nothing left but sniveling fodder for gossip behind courtly fans and greasy ale mugs. If visiting her girlhood home means being within a proximity to you, then I can only imagine why she'd tell you she was busy."

The room fell quiet, a prolonged spell of silence blanketing them. Finally, the Marchioness placed her napkin on the table and pushed her chair away.

"I'll be in my chambers, if you are in need of my company," she announced, her voice cracking. "I apologize, milord—you have been most kind." She left without looking at anyone, for there were tears welling up in her eyes as she walked out.

"Hmm. It appears the heavy food has affected us both," Stepmother said sourly. She made to stand, with the Marquis raising a hand to halt her.

"You're not going anywhere, Viscountess," he snapped. "I don't care if you vomit on the table; you're staying here until dinner is done."

"You can't order me around—you're not my husband, nor my host."

"No, but I do outrank both of them. Now eat and be grateful I'm not sending you on a carriage back to whatever hole you came slithering out of this very moment." The rest of the dinner party stayed silent until their host changed topics.

Later, the Marquis joined his wife in their room, where she was recovering from a fit of tears and hysteria. He held her gently in his lap and arms, listening to her as she explained her family through sobs. Her father was in a political marriage as well—her stepmother's family was incredibly rich for being baronets and their wealth secured that her father's lands would not risk ruin anytime soon. She did not love him, nor did he love her, and their example was what the Marchioness had feared upon her own wedding day.

Her husband stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks and lips and nose cautiously. The stepmother was a woman too bold for her position, he reminded her. She was upstart and power-hungry from the moment she came into the world; the Marchioness, however, was born to wield power. He had no doubts that his wife was going to be one of the greatest rulers Kasterborous and Gallifrey had ever seen, gossipy wives of fathers be damned. She kissed him in thanks, which soon turned to hunger as she yearned for nothing more than the man before her. Running her hands across his body, she imagined the two of them as the love ballad to be sung by courtiers for generations.

"Tonight, please, I beg of you."

"No," he breathed, stroking her cheek, "not while we are under someone else's roof. You are my moon and my stars, my sky of blood and blue, and I will not act like some wild animal marking his territory." He kissed her brow gently. "After we've gone home, I promise."

"I will hold you to that, Doctor."

Red carnations, primroses, and forget-me-nots littered her bedchamber, lit only by the moonlight and the stars hanging in the blood-red sky. The remnants of their private dinner sat on the low table by the chairs to be collected in the morning. They were not to be bothered, save for an emergency, and that was an order given with the gravest severity. Months of surprise trips to the border and immovable moon-cycles and unannounced guests had kept them apart. Now, they were determined to make the night theirs.

They had undressed one another and tumbled into the bed, a tangle of limbs and exchanged kisses across lips and necks and collarbones. He was hard and she was wet and they were both more willing than they ever had been, until he inhaled sharply, drawing breath from her lungs.

"Sorry," he murmured before vanishing from his spot above her. She gulped down air, her chest heaving, as she was left to lay in bed splayed out and staring up at her canopy. When he did not return, she rolled out of bed, put on her robe, and quietly made her way to their door. Sure enough, he was curled up on his bed with his back to her.

"Johan," she sighed as she crossed the bedchamber and sat beside him. "What is the matter?"

"It's not right," he replied faintly. "Something about this is not right. We are doing something wrong."

"You want this, yes?"

"More than I can say."

"Then there should be no problem. You want this, and I want this, so what has gone wrong?"

Sitting up, he bowed his head and took her hand in his, holding it close to his brow. "To have and hold; to strengthen our bonds and those of the kingdom; to protect and serve until one of us breathes their last…"

Their vows.

"…to aid the kingdom, Kasterborous, and Gallifrey with our counsel; to give to another what we want in return; to nurture, foster, and ensure our issue; to continue on, even when we are no more than names on the breath of elders," she finished. Unhooking her hand from his, she shrugged out of her robe and pushed it onto the floor. "You may kiss your bride."

With a sigh of relief he pulled her further into the bed and did as he was told, pressing her shoulders and hips down into the mattress. She was all gasps and hisses as he took her, though she urged him on as she whispered and moaned his name. Her nails dug into his back as he came, completing their marriage ceremony nearly five years late. They laid with one another, holding as per their twice-said vows, only disrupting their peace when she rolled him onto his back and it was her turn to do the taking.

Their second wedding bed had nowhere near the amount of blood as the first—a few drops the chambermaids blamed on a reopened scab gained on the road—but what it did have was more devotion than either had ever thought possible back when they met. They may have been an odd match, but sometimes even odd matches had the potential to be perfect ones.

Spring went and Summer passed and the servants, who were paid rather well to not notice, saw that the Marquis had more or less taken up residence in his wife's chambers. They hoped it was not something of a terrible omen, that he was not secretly ill, or that he would ride out to the borders one day and end up joining his childhood-betrothed in the castle courtyard. Prayers went out to the stars and gods, wishing for their fears to be unfounded. It was a change in behavior worth noting, and noticeable changes late in life were not always the best.

"Johan…?" she asked, keeping her eyes on the canopy. The autumn wind outside howled, rattling the windowpanes. "Johan, have you noticed anything odd lately?"

"No," he replied. Another burst of wind attacked the window and he drew his arm around her waist tighter, digging his fingertips into her bare flesh. He pressed a kiss into her shoulder. "Why? Should something seem odd?"

"I…" She hesitated, craning her neck to see that her husband's eyes were still closed. "I think I might be with child."

His eyes snapped open and within seconds he was above her, halfway to tears borne of horror. "Are you sure? Are you able to tell so soon? It's not even been an hour, yet…"

"No, Johan, my moon-cycle never came last month, and it should be here now," she said. "If it is a child, then I will no longer be the Fourteenth Marchioness of Kasterborous and Gallifrey… we will have an heir."

"You can't be… no, no, no…" he panicked, pulling her in close as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. "I'm—I'm old enough for my seed to be too weak to take hold. Men don't become fathers at my age."

"They do if their wives are young," she groaned, rolling her eyes. "Honestly… only women become infertile with age, not men. You're not even that old, Johan."

He held her tighter, not liking her answer. "I can't do it… I refuse…"

"You refuse to father a child?" she asked with mild amusement.

"I refuse to bury another wife because of my child," he croaked. "I'm too old—I can't do it again. My hearts can't take it."

"I'm going to have a baby, not die in your arms," she assured, stroking his hair soothingly. "We will hold our firstborn together, you'll see."

"I thought that before, Clara. I can't have it happen again."

She calmly took one of his hands in hers and placed it on her stomach. "Don't you think that this child could possibly be the stars in our sky? It's coming, and you can't stop that."

"I know, but…" He trailed off in thought before finishing, his voice more resolute. "You are going to be looked after by the finest doctors, I swear it."

"…but you're the Doctor," she chuckled.

"Yes, the useless sort with two hearts and the will of his people behind him. I can't protect you with an imaginary organ and willpower alone. That is a fact."

"It is also a fact that most women are made to bear multiple children. Not all are, and not all do, but many can, no matter how worried their husbands get."

He lay silent for a moment, his head on her shoulder and his stare on their hands. "When do we announce to the march you're wi… with child?"

"When the court doctor clears it," she said. "Before you know it, I will have a suckling babe at my breast and you will be a proud father bouncing his child on his knee."

"…but I don't know the first thing about being a father."

"You will. I mean, we do have an entire castle to help us."

"I guess we do, don't we?" he laughed weakly. He stroked his wife's stomach and closed his eyes. After a pause, he murmured "I have an idea."

"…and what may that be?"

"I'm getting older and, well, even though I can still father a child, it will soon become increasingly difficult to govern the march if my bones get achy and my eyesight weakens further. My duties turned me grey and mourning took my youth, so what man at fifty risks becoming a new father while he could have creaking joints and shaky hands develop any day?" He gently pressed down on his wife's stomach, as if to reach the new life inside. "How about… when we announce that you're with child… we also announce your creation as Doctor."

"You mean… give up your position?" she asked.

"No, share my position," he said, blinking his eyes open. "We are two equals as one, there is no doubt about that. Let our child be the Fourteenth Marquis, the thirteenth Doctor, but you're just as much the Twelfth Doctor now as I am. If we share the position, you will be my literal second heart. That way, if my age does catch up to me, I can still govern from home with my heir playing at my feet and my second heart being my link to the common folk and soldiers."

The Marchioness scratched her husband's scalp as she shook her head and sighed. "What if I end up with child again? Who will ride to the common folk and the soldiers then?"

"The chieftainesses of old rode their horses until they were large with child, some until the day before they gave birth." He lifted his hand and moved it around, showing her the dome shape their child would soon create in her figure. "You'd have to take a physician along with you, just to be safe, but I can see it clear as day: the Doctor riding to greet her soldiers, the perfect image of motherly grace and military prowess." He leaned up and kissed her neck. "I promised you all my power and might, and it is only fair that I let you wield it properly."

"Then I accept your offer of all of Kasterborous as ours to rule," she said. Rolling over onto her husband's chest, she looked down at him so that her hair fell around their faces and hid their kisses from the fallen leaves beating against their window. They fell asleep entwined, lulled by one another's beating hearts and the smell of heliotrope from the nightstand. Morning would bring more kisses and close whispers and caresses of husband and wife and firstborn alike.

When the Marquis next rode out to the Daleki border, his fellow riders noticed he was much more distracted than he normally was. By the time they reached the military encampment he seemed anxious to return home… unusual behavior even when he was avoiding going to command the troops. When they did make it back to the halls of Castle Gallifrey, he vanished to the Marchioness's quarters, if the servants were to be believed. All he did was spend time at her side, which wasn't so much a new development as it was a curious one to sustain for their marriage being one that was supposed to be a balm for an heirless state. At least…that had been the Marquis's original intent.

A week passed and an announcement was made that had the entire march buzzing with excitement. Not only was the Marchioness to be made the Doctor, a role nearly all who met her would agree was her calling, but she was also with child. Toasts were raised all across Kasterborous, and even outside its borders. The marquisate's future was secure; the succession crisis would soon be finally, truly, over.

The surprise came after he had been dealing with hostiles along the Cyberan border for nearly a month.

"Your Ladyship," gasped a servant, gulping down air from her run through the halls. "The Marquis has returned, and wishes to see you at once."

"I'm on my way," the Marchioness replied, quickly standing and walking out the door to her chambers. After making sure the servant was fine, she gathered her skirts and ran towards the study. What demanded her attention so quickly? Was the Marquis okay? Was he injured? Stars in the sky forbid, she did not want to be the Doctor of Gallifrey just yet. She burst into the study, quickly closing the door behind her.

The sight that greeted her made her heart shatter: her husband was there, perfectly well, standing next to a man whose face was drawn and sad, aged worse than she ever thought imaginable. Tears welled in her eyes as she stepped backwards into the door.

"D-Daniel…?"

"Clara," he choked. She ran to him and planted kisses along his face, now soft as old leather and studded with metal in the Cyberan fashion. Other studs formed hard lumps underneath his uniform and poked her body mockingly. "I'm so glad to see you again."

"As am I," she sniffled. "I thought you were dead."

"I thought so too; not many prisoners of war make it out of Cybera, and those that do are usually brainwashed into becoming moles." He took a deep breath, looking directly into her eyes. "I resisted, because I wanted to see you again as me and not some enemy spy."

"…but Daniel… you're dead," she choked out. "You've been dead for over three years."

"I was as good as, but now I'm not." He watched as she sank onto the settee, her face distraught and conflicted instead of the joyful and happy he had been hopelessly pining for. "…I still am, aren't I?"

"You were buried to me," she said, touching the metal cuff she wore on her wrist. "I mourned and grieved and put you to history. Daniel, I love you, but…"

"No… I understand," he said. He sat down next to her and kissed her forehead. "I had a feeling this would happen, since it's been so long. I… I just wish it wasn't like this." He chuckled softly, reaching out and letting his fingers run through her hair.

"I've offered Daniel a position in my advisory board," the Marquis cut in. He had sat down at the table and begun to pen a letter. "He has good practical knowledge of the inner workings of Cybera, and is resistant to their brainwashing techniques. Kasterborous and the entire kingdom could benefit from him…"

"…but only if it's okay with you," the found man finished. "Can you handle receiving my counsel and eventually courting another?"

The tears finally escaping down her face, the Marchioness nodded in agreement. She reached up and touched one of the metal knobs on her former paramour's face and shuddered. "Do they hurt?"

"They did, but not anymore. Cyberans drilled them in as a form of torture, I think, though most of the adults I saw there had these. It's… odd."

"What will you do when you're not advising?" she asked. The man sitting next to her shrugged in jest.

"I hear you may be in need of a child's tutor soon, and you know for a fact there's more to me than soldiering." He hugged her as she flung her arms around him and cried into his chest. "You're happy, Clara, and that's what I wanted to see upon my return home, whether that happiness was with me or someone else." Tugging at her shoulders, he held her at arm's length. "You don't look very much like you're with child."

"I almost need to start wearing looser dresses and abandon my corset for the time being," she laughed, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her face grew melancholy as she was flung back into a memory, one tender and private and that only her former suitor shared. "You know, I may not have been very good at staying by your side, but I always have loved you."

"Then I say we should keep on loving one another," he suggested cautiously, "just a bit differently for the sake of your lord husband. We don't want him getting jealous now." He could see the Marquis glance up from the letter out of the corner of his eye, only to look back and keep on writing.

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," she agreed. She took the metal cuff off her wrist and gently placed it on his, leaning up afterwards to leave a kiss upon his brow. "I'm glad you've returned."

"Yeah. I am too."

The ceremony in which the Marchioness was created Doctor was a grand affair indeed, one that was recorded as a landmark in history. She was given an emerald-tipped scepter to match her husband's—alabaster, onyx, silver, and gold—as she recited the vows to protect and serve the people of Kasterborous and Gallifrey in the stead of the deposed chiefs and abolished kings as he had decades earlier. Those in attendance would later recount how she seemed to stand taller and more powerful than she had ever been before, shoulders back and head held high and showing child. There were no longer two chairs for governance, but a singular wide one made to accommodate both Doctors at once. Gifts were brought by the guests to show their acceptance and respect for the Marchioness's new position, one that was unprecedented and a feat rarely achieved in the generations that followed.

Later that night, in the privacy of their quarters, the Marquis bent down on-knee and presented his own gift, Doctor to Doctor. It was a bouquet of flowers—purple tulips and pink carnations surrounded in delicate white baby's breath—that he had hand-selected from the castle glasshouse. While she was able to find the humor in his choice, the Doctor found her husband to be much more of a romantic than most other men she knew put together. She took him in a giggled frenzy, as they were each other's moon and stars, their sky of blood and blue, and now the march and the entire kingdom knew it.

Spring arrived and the Marchioness gave birth to a daughter, near six years to the day her parents wed. It seemed only fitting, the people thought, that she became the eldest of six, four girls and two boys, each child becoming the pride of the March of Kasterborous and the City of Gallifrey. As they grew they became fixtures around their parents, their tutor, and their grandfather on his visits. Whilst the eldest was groomed and trained to become the Thirteenth Doctor, her siblings became scholars, commanders, and her youngest brother even succeeded their grandfather as Viscount of Blackpoole. They took the surname Smith to blend in with the people and soon the Smiths of Gallifrey and Blackpoole were well-regarded throughout the kingdom as, though kind and gentle, fearless and bold and forces to reckon with.

Their parents, however, remained mainly in Kasterborous until they faded much like the flowers that decorated the Marchioness's chambers. Their love indeed became legend and example for their children, grandchildren, and all those who came after. To have a Doctor's Love, it soon became known, was to be swept up in romance, both parties hopelessly and enduringly loyal to the other despite even the oddest match unlikely from the start. On the breath of elders and youth alike they endured, remaining as long as one found love within the kingdom forevermore.